Notes from the edge of civilization: Sep. 17, 2023

Missouri v. Biden headed to Supreme Court. Unvaxxed NYC teachers get jobs back. Orwellian California medical misinformation law could be repealed. Electric vehicles not all they’re cracked up to be.

The whole purpose of starting this blog is to help others see how the world is changing in profound ways. We don’t mean to instill fear or despair, but simply to ensure people have all the facts they need to make better decisions in the face of an onslaught of orthodox narratives. While things may seem grim at times, we are optimists at heart. The only caveat is that optimism requires an honest assessment; this, ultimately, is our aim. Hope burns brightly in our hearts and minds.

Even the notoriously depressed Vincent van Gogh had hope. He once said: “... it is true that in winter it is sometimes so bitingly cold that one is tempted to say, ‘What do I care if there is a summer; its warmth is no help to me now.’ Yes, evil often seems to surpass good. But then, in spite of us, and without our permission, there comes at last an end to the bitter frosts. One morning the wind turns, and there is a thaw….”

It’s not always easy to walk the fine line between reality and hope, but it helps when the victory of light over darkness begins to reveal itself. That’s why we choose this week to shine a light on some optimistic developments that suggest truth, reason, and the United States Constitution may still have a fighting chance:

• Last week we told you about a move by the New Mexico governor to restrict the constitutional rights of law-abiding citizens from carrying guns, supposedly in the name of public health. This week, U.S. District Judge David Urias granted a temporary restraining order to block the move until another hearing is held in early October. 

• Missouri v. Biden, arguably one of the most important free speech cases in American history, will almost certainly be going to the Supreme Court. That will mean the highest court can decide on the lawfulness of the federal government’s overreaching censorship efforts. The case centers around the federal government’s efforts to combat certain material it deemed “misinformation” by flagging the information to social media platforms and urging or coercing them to remove it, even when it was known to be truthful. 

• In New York, the state Supreme Court ordered a handful of New York City teachers who were fired for refusing to take the COVID-19 vaccine to be reinstated with back pay. While the lawsuit was limited to just 10 teachers whose religious exemptions were denied, this is a victory nonetheless. But Michael Kane, who lost his teaching job because he refused the vaccine, called the ruling bittersweet, saying it “doesn’t even scratch the surface of the injustice suffered by NYC workers as a result of this illegal mandate.” 

• Legislators in California quietly added a provision to Senate Bill 815 that would repeal a ludicrous and censorious COVID-19 medical misinformation law signed by Governor Newsom last September. The law threatened the licenses of doctors who dared to deviate from "scientific consensus." Lawyers challenging the bill suspect lawmakers may have been concerned about the law’s constitutionality.

• A doctor in Canada has been cleared of disciplinary action after a nearly three-year ordeal stemming from statements she made on social media. According to the organization that helped defend her, Dr. Kulvinder Kaur Gill “was the target of a malicious online campaign, encouraging the public to file complaints to the Ontario College of Physicians and Surgeons about her tweets.” Those tweets included stating: “There is absolutely no medical or scientific reason for this prolonged, harmful and illogical lockdown. #FactsNotFear”.

In London, pushback against Sadiq Khan’s war on drivers seems to have the Mayor on his back foot. During Question Time on Thursday, Khan apparently called a Conservative Assembly member “thick” (British for ‘dumbass’) and was then brought to task by the Assembly Chair, who reminded the Mayor that such personal abuse is “not helpful and it makes us look a bit… seedy to be honest.” (How very British.)

The Spectator reports that: “Khan has since had to beat a hasty retreat, apologising for calling Fortune ‘thick’. ‘I am very sorry for saying that. I have reflected on that and I should not have said that. It was not appropriate for me to have said that and I am very sorry, genuinely.’”

Khan is on the defensive because many Londoners, including the Assembly member, are questioning his policies and fighting back against his new Ultra-Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) program, which aims to restrict the use of private vehicles in the city under the guise of tackling climate change.

In a perfect example of how to become ungovernable, a group calling itself Blade Runners has so far crippled many of the cameras Khan installed to police the new ‘no-drive’ zones. A crowd-sourced map shows the real-time picture of the creeping move to disable cameras (shown in black).

Last month, news media reported that at least 450 of the 1,762 newly installed cameras are believed to be damaged or missing. While The Telegraph calls Blade Runners ‘vandals’, a recent poll shows they have the support of one in three Londoners.

Here in the United States, President Biden’s Energy Secretary, Jennifer Granholm, on Thursday addressed her now-infamous electric vehicle clown show, also known as her June 2023 four-day whistlestop tour to promote EVs.

She stopped short of apologizing for the fiasco, in which a gas-powered car was used to block a public EV charging port in advance of her entourage arriving at the crowded station. Instead, she blamed the incident on the “poor judgment” of her young staffers, whom she imagined only wanted to “keep moving”. Talk about throwing someone under the proverbial electric bus!

One can only imagine the family who called the police to complain that the station’s only available charger was being hoarded for the arrival of a high-ranking government official also, “just wanted to keep moving”. Alas, the wretched peasants simply had to wait.  

This incident is indicative of the extreme sense of entitlement, contempt, and lack of compassion D.C. apparatchiks have for the common man. Not only that, it also sheds a harsh light on the chaotic state of the Biden administration’s green energy transition. Despite pouring billions of dollars into climate-focused initiatives, “Electric vehicle drivers often struggle to find public charging stations, and those who do locate a station often encounter broken and crowded chargers,” according to The Washington Free Beacon. 

We all know manufacturing electric vehicles, with their mining-intensive lithium-ion batteries, has a huge environmental footprint. Most of the batteries being produced today will need to be retired by 2030 and will end up in landfills, where Earth.org reports:

… leaks of environmental contaminants are quite frequent. Often, these leaks lead to underground fires, which consequently release more pollutants into the atmosphere. When particles of hazardous metals contained in batteries – like arsenic, cadmium, chromium, cobalt, and copper – enter the human respiratory system, they can cause a variety of health problems. Similarly, these toxic metals can contaminate water sources, threatening not only humans but also animal biodiversity.

And that’s just part of the story. So, let’s stop pretending that electric vehicles have anything at all to do with the environment. It’s all part of the play for more control and less freedom, as we recently wrote about here.