“Emmitsburg Mayor Frank Davis voted for Donald Trump in hopes he would cut federal spending. Now Davis hopes those cuts don’t include the permanent cancellation of classes at the National Fire Academy, which is part of the town’s identity and helps drive its economy. Davis is also a chief at Emmitsburg’s firehouse, known as the Vigilant Hose Company.”
Trump killed the Fema training academy. It’s not coming back.
Davis says the administration is reviewing the academy’s operations, and he is hopeful it will restore classes. If not, he says, he’ll see the administration somewhat differently.
“It will change my outlook to say that they’re not being fair,”
Hahahahahahaha
“They were supposed to cut the things that I didn’t think were important, even though other people thought they were important. They were not supposed to cut the things that I thought were important, even though other people didn’t think they were important.” Lmao!
Reminds me of visiting the Libertarian subreddit around the time of the LA fires and the big brains thinking about how to make the fire departments private for profits. That midset is rather universal among republicans (even if not the fire departments, but they will have something that they think would be better as a corporation rather than government agency). Reporter should ask him how long he estimates that the market will signal to investors to pick up the slack.
I was shooting heroin and reading “The Fountainhead” in the front seat of my privately owned police cruiser when a call came in. I put a quarter in the radio to activate it. It was the chief.
“Bad news, detective. We got a situation.”
“What? Is the mayor trying to ban trans fats again?”
“Worse. Somebody just stole four hundred and forty-seven million dollars’ worth of bitcoins.”
The heroin needle practically fell out of my arm. “What kind of monster would do something like that? Bitcoins are the ultimate currency: virtual, anonymous, stateless. They represent true economic freedom, not subject to arbitrary manipulation by any government. Do we have any leads?”
“Not yet. But mark my words: we’re going to figure out who did this and we’re going to take them down … provided someone pays us a fair market rate to do so.”
“Easy, chief,” I said. “Any rate the market offers is, by definition, fair.”
He laughed. “That’s why you’re the best I got, Lisowski. Now you get out there and find those bitcoins.”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’m on it.”
I put a quarter in the siren. Ten minutes later, I was on the scene. It was a normal office building, strangled on all sides by public sidewalks. I hopped over them and went inside.
“Home Depot™ Presents the Police!®” I said, flashing my badge and my gun and a small picture of Ron Paul. “Nobody move unless you want to!” They didn’t.
“Now, which one of you punks is going to pay me to investigate this crime?” No one spoke up.
“Come on,” I said. “Don’t you all understand that the protection of private property is the foundation of all personal liberty?”
It didn’t seem like they did.
“Seriously, guys. Without a strong economic motivator, I’m just going to stand here and not solve this case. Cash is fine, but I prefer being paid in gold bullion or autographed Joe Rogan posters.”
Nothing. These people were stonewalling me. It almost seemed like they didn’t care that a fortune in computer money invented to buy drugs was missing.
I figured I could wait them out. I lit several cigarettes indoors. A pregnant lady coughed, and I told her that secondhand smoke is a myth. Just then, a man in glasses made a break for it.
“Subway™ Eat Fresh and Freeze, Scumbag!®” I yelled.
Too late. He was already out the front door. I went after him.
“Stop right there!” I yelled as I ran. He was faster than me because I always try to avoid stepping on public sidewalks. Our country needs a private-sidewalk voucher system, but, thanks to the incestuous interplay between our corrupt federal government and the public-sidewalk lobby, it will never happen.
I was losing him. “Listen, I’ll pay you to stop!” I yelled. “What would you consider an appropriate price point for stopping? I’ll offer you a thirteenth of an ounce of gold and a gently worn ‘Bob Barr ‘08’ extra-large long-sleeved men’s T-shirt!”
He turned. In his hand was a revolver that the Constitution said he had every right to own. He fired at me and missed. I pulled my own gun, put a quarter in it, and fired back. The bullet lodged in a U.S.P.S. mailbox less than a foot from his head. I shot the mailbox again, on purpose.
“All right, all right!” the man yelled, throwing down his weapon. “I give up, cop! I confess: I took the bitcoins.”
“Why’d you do it?” I asked, as I slapped a pair of Oikos™ Greek Yogurt Presents Handcuffs® on the guy.
“Because I was afraid.”
“Afraid?”
“Afraid of an economic future free from the pernicious meddling of central bankers,” he said. “I’m a central banker.”
I wanted to coldcock the guy. Years ago, a central banker killed my partner. Instead, I shook my head.
“Let this be a message to all your central-banker friends out on the street,” I said. “No matter how many bitcoins you steal, you’ll never take away the dream of an open society based on the principles of personal and economic freedom.”
He nodded, because he knew I was right. Then he swiped his credit card to pay me.
People need to start asking them what the point of the profits are when the money isn’t going back into the respective region (municipal/whatever the states version of provincial is/federal).
Like great, yeah, the fire department is now private. But there are no profits because nobody can afford the services anymore. Insurance goes through the roof, neighborhoods burn down… Real great plan there.
People need to start asking them what the point of the profits are when the money isn’t going back into the respective region
At the end of the day these things are politically motivated. The “economics” are just academic smoke screen for it all.
Looking at their circles we can see them doing a W with the mission accomplished at news coming out of Argentina. Anyone that is motivated by truth seeking would just say its too soon to tell.
They voted to cut the FD in a neighboring town. Then they found out the fire response would jump from 8 minutes to 20+ nearly triple and everyone in that area would have huge increases in home owners insurance rates.
They recalled the vote and upped the budget within a month. Fucking morons.
Edit: I was off on the response times but it was moving the main department at least 6 miles farther from the closest houses to the department they wanted to close.
They voted to cut the FD in a neighboring town. Then they found out the fire response would jump from 8 minutes to 20+ and everyone in that area would have huge increases in home owners insurance rates.
It is like these morons are constantly surprised each time they discover that public services cost money.
They are even more surprised that public services are one of those things that actually saves money for a community. Like, spending on fire protection lowers insurance rates more than enough to offset the cost of the fire department…
I’m like, great, now do a basic social safety net and the costs of crime.
They’ve been raised on the idea that taxes are bad, and never put more thought into it than that. They view things like the fire department as good, so they can’t really be funded by those bad taxes, right? …Right?
discover that public services cost money.
discover that public services costS THEM money.
it’s ok when it costs someone else money.
At the end of the day they’re just selfish.
My favorite example is the “Free Town Project”, where a bunch of libertarians from all over the country tried to take over a town in New Hampshire. After they managed to force through cuts to everything from firefighting to street lights, they had a single police officer left. And he couldn’t respond to any calls, because his cruiser was broken and they refused to pay for repairs so crime rose and sex offenders started moving there.
Then came the bears.
They didn’t pay for any sort of forest ranger and the cop couldn’t respond. So bears started getting close and some people spent years feeding them, while their neighbors walked around armed at all times and would shoot at bears on-sight. Which led to the first black bear on human attack in the state for over a century, where a woman was attacked inside her own home. And shortly after two other attacks happened in nearby towns. So the people went into the forest one night and allegedly shot and killed a dozen bears, which didn’t help. Some people suggested the city put bear protection on the trash cans, but it was not passed and was called “government overreach” by others.
So the freedom loving libertarians who moved to a town without zoning laws to live in improvised housing and roam free without laws, ended up having to put up big fences and walls around their homes to keep the bears out.
Those snowflakes, don’t they know they have garden hoses…they should pull up their bootstraps and put out their own fires.
also insurance will likely stop insuring those areas too, the cost is too high. as with the idiots building in wildfire prone areas of california.
They want less building though. It’s a small wealthy New England town.
They think they’re immune to wildfires too, even though it’s all woods and the rate of drought has increased here too. Look at even New Jersey burning now.
I mean, I can’t blame people for being exhausted with taxes and everything. Wages have been mostly stagnant for fifty years, while everything is getting relentlessly monetized and the cost of living keeps spiraling out of control. I get why people could feel less than excited about ratcheting up the cost of living more. I just wish people thought a little bit past that first step of “it’ll cost me more money right now?! No way!”
I had a house fire.
I see your point, but I have to tell you: in a wood structure the difference between 8 and 20 minutes won’t mean a lot for the structure. After a very small period of time, fire will have tasted most of the structure and it’s a gut-job.
And, from experience, it’s better as a gut. We languished in fleabag motels for 10 months with very little, and by the time they were done they could have rebuilt (1990) faster.
Edit: i am always surprised by downvotes when I’m being honest. It was horribad to lose all our basic needs in 7.5 minutes, guys. The fleabag motel had mushrooms growing out of the ceiling corners. I still maintain a gut-job would have lost us no more contents and would have been a quicker rebuild with wiring and pipes not compromised by heat. But, tell your house fire story and we’ll compare notes.
It really depends on what is inside the house more than what the house is made of. A kitchen fire will typically take much longer to spread than a bedroom fire for example, because one is fairly sparsely furnished, and requires the original ignition source provide enough energy to start pyrolising the structure itself, whereas the other just has to produce enough energy to start your bed/clothing/curtains on fire, starting a chain-reaction.
Instead of worrying about what your house is made from, which is far outside the scope of what most people can control anyway, invest in fire-retardent furnishings.
maybe people should stop building homes with wood. We invented bricks quite a while ago
Wooden structures are easier and cheaper, if you build out of brick, housing prices in the US will go up even more. Also, wood has some other advantages over bricks, such as being more resilient against earthquakes.
Many homes are made of brick. It doesn’t stop fires because the stuff inside isn’t all brick. For example if you ever heard of a fire in a city, those are all brick/stone.
Decades of listening to hate radio and Fox News has taught them “government bad” despite the fact that they depend on it.
Teaching people to bite the hand that feeds them is a cool trick.
Schadenfreude is a shit consolation prize.
I mean, I’ll take it, but it’s still shit.
In every single one of these stories, the reporters need to be asking whether it was the racism or the fascism that appealed more to these voters. Inquiring minds want to know and we shouldn’t let them off the hook or worse, to cry for our sympathy.
I’m sure they’ll just give the old “Keeping immigrants out, jobs for Americans” crap line. No one ever believes they’re the bad guy.
My solution to that was to make them spell out DEI, dont let them hide behind an accronyem. Make them say every part of it, and see which part they wrinkle their noses at. Makes it much easier to tell which flavor of intolerant they are.
One of the worst things about being a firefighter is how many of my colleagues are republicans.
It makes no sense. You do a job providing services to people for the government and you vote for the folks who tell us that government is unable to do good…
Well, if you ask firefighters if firefighting should be privatized, you’ll usually get a “lmao NO!” And also a “but that’s different!” And that’s the escape hatch of every conservative ever. They think that everything they believe applies to everything else but themselves. Every other government service except the fire service is corrupt, wasteful, and backwards. They don’t believe that the fascists could ever possibly be talking about them, because they know that what they’re doing is actually important.
You’re so right… Firefighting is my volunteer gig. I’m a data processing engineer for astronomy missions for my day job. My boss (comet scientist, astronomy PhD) is one of those guys who’s a libertarian that always votes for Republicans. He thinks that funding science should be done by the government, because private industry won’t do that, but everything else should be privatized
Man-o-sphere tells you that buff dudes fighting fires is based, which feeds the egos of a lot of these guys. And then it tells you that you’re doing something the Woke DEI Left can’t possibly accomplish, so you can recognize them as The Enemies.
Also, a lot of these guys are ex-military, which is an absolute rat’s nest of Christian nationalism and reactionary politics.
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