Stories & Opinions Worth Knowing but Maybe Not Quite Threadworthy 8/17

[SVPete]

TikTok singer brings flash mob to Target, claims racism (but no one is buying it)

https://hotair.com/john-s-2/2023/08/16/tiktok-singer-brings-flash-mob-to-target-claims-racism-but-no-one-is-buying-it-n571592

It was a mostly harmless stunt, at least until the person behind it started accusing people of racism. That person is a would-be pop star who calls herself Baby Storme. Recently she showed up at an LA-area Target store with about 20 back up dancers and a camera crew and tried to film a music video. Store security responded by politely asking them to leave and then warning they would have to call police if the dancers didn’t go on their own.

Baby Storme responded by posting a video on YouTube and X. The caption on X read, “This racist target employee called the police on us for dancing in Target… So we danced anyway.” There’s a longer description on YouTube which reads:

    

She was clearly hoping for a lot of “Slayyy queen!” responses but that’s not what she got for the most part as the NY Post pointed out:

“Girl I like your music but as someone who also works in retail: if you’re showing up during the final minutes of closing time, we have to quickly get people out the store so we can get everything in order within those final minutes,” wrote a commenter on YouTube.

“Also, idk (I don’t know) much about flash mobs but I did take a minor course in audio&film and you do need permission forms to be able to film because you’re on their property,” the commenter added.

Good retail workers (and good restaurant servers, ...) speak a special dialect of English in which replies to complaints and craziness always begin with, "I'm sorry that you feel ...," and"I apologize that you feel ...," when the reply in normal English would be, "Get your sorry ass out of MY store!!!"

As one comment responding to this T-word's antics said, it's stupidly false Racism-Crying like this that makes it difficult for people who have experienced real racist actions to get the problem dealt with.

Note to DU-onlurkers: I wouldn't care about the skin color of the "dancers" any more if they were Swedish albinos attempting to do a folk dance video in a hip-hop clothing store in Hunters Point.

[Old n Grumpy]

Some people don’t understand private property and feel they can do what they want wherever they want 

[SVPete]

SO—CLIMATE CHANGE *DID* CAUSE THE MAUI FIRE AFTER ALL

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2023/08/so-climate-change-did-cause-the-maui-fire-after-all.php

But maybe the climatistas are right—just not in the way they know. In fact, it’s their fault. It is thought that the Maui fires were likely started by sparks from electric utility lines owned by Hawaiian Electric, just as the fires that killed nearly a 100 people in Paradise, California, a few years back were ignited by poorly maintained PG&E power lines. The Wall Street Journal reports this morning that Hawaiian Electric has been aware for years of the vulnerability and hazards of its electricity lines, but has done virtually nothing about it.

Why? The Journal’s subhed provides the answer: “It made little progress, focusing on a shift to clean energy.”

Between 2019 and 2022, it invested less than $245,000 on wildfire-specific projects on the island, regulatory filings show. . .  Former regulators and energy company officials said the utility was focused at that time on procuring renewable energy. . .

“You have to look at the scope and scale of the transformation within [Hawaiian Electric] that was occurring throughout the system,” said Mina Morita, who chaired the state utilities commission from 2011 to 2015. “While there was concern for wildfire risk, politically the focus was on electricity generation.”

The drive to reach the renewable goals also preoccupied private energy companies working with Hawaiian Electric and state energy officials, said Doug McLeod, a consultant who served for several years as the Maui county energy commissioner.

...
Worth noting that the Hawaii Public Utilities Commission did not grant rate increases Hawaiian Electric requested to pay for safety upgrades to the grid.

My emphasis. I suspect that, as was the case with PG&E (the article does not mention this, but I've lived >90% of my life in PG&E servoce territory), Hawaian Electric may have been forced by courts, Envirocrats, or both to NOT trim trees and brush clear of power lines with the clearance the utility knew was necessary. I'm not absolving PG&E or Hawaian Electric, just pointing out another potential contribution by Enviros and Envirocrats to the wild fires on Maui and in Paradise, CA.

[SVPete]

Comer to NARA: Turn over all your Biden comms -- as "Robert L. Peters"

https://hotair.com/ed-morrissey/2023/08/17/comer-to-nara-turn-over-all-your-biden-comms-as-robert-l-peters-n571813

Call this the Pierre Delecto Twist in the Case of the Influence-Peddling Bidens. Where Mitt Romney adopted a nom de plume for social-media sock puppetry, Joe Biden apparently put his pseudonym to a more, ah, commercial use. Or so says House Oversight chair James Comer, who alleges that Biden used the name “Robert L. Peters” as a way to hide his involvement in Hunter Biden’s Ukraine affairs.

This morning, Comer told the National Archives to dig deep to produce all such communications under that name and to remove the redactions (via Twitchy):

Is "trilemma" a word? Consider. Having played a partisan bad-faith game with Trump:

* If NARA turns over records, it could severely damage LIEden;

* If NARA stonewalls, it becomes a very public, "What are you hiding," urination match;

* If NARA says, "We have nothing," it becomes a HUGE problem for the Trump documents case, since this would be a large or huge number of "documents" LIEden withheld from NARA.

[enslaved1]

SO—CLIMATE CHANGE *DID* CAUSE THE MAUI FIRE AFTER ALL

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2023/08/so-climate-change-did-cause-the-maui-fire-after-all.php
...
Worth noting that the Hawaii Public Utilities Commission did not grant rate increases Hawaiian Electric requested to pay for safety upgrades to the grid.

My emphasis. I suspect that, as was the case with PG&E (the article does not mention this, but I've lived >90% of my life in PG&E servoce territory), Hawaian Electric may have been forced by courts, Envirocrats, or both to NOT trim trees and brush clear of power lines with the clearance the utility knew was necessary. I'm not absolving PG&E or Hawaian Electric, just pointing out another potential contribution by Enviros and Envirocrats to the wild fires on Maui and in Paradise, CA.

My wife has been getting some conspiracy minded information that claims warning sirens didn't go off, buildings burned first, there were large families in many of the houses that aren't getting counted in the death toll, and that hotel/resort companies are already or have been trying to push native people out of the area to build more tourist spots.  We live in an age where it wouldn't surprise me a bit.

[SVPete]

During the pandemic LA moved homeless people into hotels and it went about as well as you'd expect

https://hotair.com/john-s-2/2023/08/17/during-the-pandemic-la-moved-homeless-people-into-hotels-and-it-went-about-as-well-as-youd-expect-n571827

The Mayfair Hotel in Los Angeles was built in 1926. It underwent a four-year-long renovation and reopened in 2018. And then the pandemic hit about 16 months later. That was when LA announced a new program called Project Roomkey designed to stop the spread of COVID among the homeless by moving them off the streets and into hotel rooms the city would pay for. The Mayfair became one of the hotels used for this purpose.

How would you expect the idea of moving drug addicts living on Skid Row into a recently refurbished hotel to go? If you guessed not very smoothly, you’re correct. The LA Times got hold of email from some of the security people who worked the site:

“Participant in 1516 Threatened staff, Security, destroyed property. Screamed. Yelled cursed. Everything went wrong with her. Inside and outside the building,” wrote a worker with Helpline Youth Counseling Inc., a service provider assigned to the hotel, in early 2022…

“Around 10 am a male in 1526 assaulted another resident in Room 726,” a security guard wrote in March 2022. “The situation was quickly broken up and 1526 was escorted out by police.”

In Room 406, hotel managers found two broken windows, a broken television and a broken granite countertop. In Room 504, they found that a resident had spray-painted the shower curtain, written on a bathroom mirror and stained the carpet with spray paint. In Room 801, someone smeared feces around a doorway.

Semi-feral dopers and mentally ill people destroyed fancy hotel rooms? Who could NOT foresee that?!

[SVPete]

My wife has been getting some conspiracy minded information that claims warning sirens didn't go off, ...

Maui Official Says He Does Not Regret Not Activating Emergency Alert System

https://dailycaller.com/2023/08/17/maui-official-wildfires-emergency-sirens/

A Maui government official said he does not regret his decision to not activate the emergency alert system as wildfires spread across the island.

Herman Andaya, who heads the Maui Emergency Management Agency, said he did not regret his decision to refrain from sounding the emergency sirens at a press conference Wednesday. Andaya argued that the sirens are generally intended for other purposes, according to CBS News.

Another official, appearing to be irritated, stepped in to argue with the reporter who asked Andaya if he regretted the decision.

[SVPete]

Exclusive: Georgia State Senator Takes First Step to Impeach Trump’s Fulton County Prosecutor

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2023/08/17/exclusive-georgia-state-senator-takes-first-step-impeach-trumps-fulton-county-prosecutor/

Georgia state Sen. Colton Moore (R) took the first step on Thursday towards impeaching Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis for her actions against former President Donald Trump, a memo exclusively obtained by Breitbart News shows.

In a letter to Gov. Brian Kemp (R), Moore announced an initiative to begin an emergency session to conduct a thorough investigation into the actions undertaken by Willis. ...

The lawmaker’s investigation could lead to defunding Willis’s investigation of Trump and/or ultimately impeaching the district attorney.

“We must strip all funding and, if appropriate, impeach Fani Willis,” Moore said in a statement.

“As a Georgia State Senator, I am officially calling for an emergency session to review the actions of Fani Willis,” he said. ...

This could grow into something significant, or it could fizzle.

[dutch508]

Kemp is a rabid anti Trumper.

He'll fight it.

[ADsOutburst]

Comer to NARA: Turn over all your Biden comms -- as "Robert L. Peters"

https://hotair.com/ed-morrissey/2023/08/17/comer-to-nara-turn-over-all-your-biden-comms-as-robert-l-peters-n571813

Is "trilemma" a word? Consider. Having played a partisan bad-faith game with Trump:

* If NARA turns over records, it could severely damage LIEden;

* If NARA stonewalls, it becomes a very public, "What are you hiding," urination match;

* If NARA says, "We have nothing," it becomes a HUGE problem for the Trump documents case, since this would be a large or huge number of "documents" LIEden withheld from NARA.

With Biden - if that is his real name - using aliases, the new nickname possibilities are endless.

[SVPete]

With Biden - if that is his real name - using aliases, the new nickname possibilities are endless.

  & !

[Old n Grumpy]

I think the best alias was Carlos danger anthony weiners handle 

[Ralph Wiggum]

I think the best alias was Carlos danger anthony weiners handle 

Don't forget "Pierre Delecto", which was Mittens Romney's alter ego of a Twitter account.