Tag: north carolina

Hospitals ration IV fluids as shortage extends into 2025

The US healthcare system continues to grapple with a critical IV fluid shortage caused by Hurricane Helene, which brought catastrophic flooding to North Carolina and heavily damaged Baxter’s North Cove manufacturing facility. Responsible for 60% of the nation’s IV fluid supply, the facility has been steadily working to restore operations, but full recovery is anticipated during the first quarter of 2025.

Baxter has restarted 85% of its manufacturing capacity, according to a December 19 update. Eight of the facility’s 10 manufacturing lines are back online, with some operating near pre-hurricane levels. The company anticipates reaching full pre-hurricane production levels early this year, which would allow distribution channels to normalize shortly after.

Previously, in a December 5 update, Baxter announced the resumption of its 3-liter irrigation manufacturing lines and peritoneal dialysis solutions manufacturing lines. The company also detailed that its IV solutions manufacturing lines had restarted, producing much of the site’s pre-hurricane capacity of 1-liter IV solutions—the size most commonly used in hospitals and clinics.

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North Carolina Goes Drug War on Prostitution

North Carolina has made it a felony crime to patronize a sex worker. Under a law that took effect December 1, “any person who solicits another for the purpose of prostitution is guilty of a Class I felony for a first offense”—a crime that comes with a minimum of four months in prison, up to two years. Second and subsequent offenses are now Class H felonies, punishable by up to 39 months in prison.

“In the past, many first offenses under either classification have received house arrest or probation in lieu of prison time. Prior to this revision, the maximum penalty for purchasing sex from a consenting adult was a misdemeanor,” according to Yes Weekly.

Soliciting sex—like selling sex—has typically been categorized by states across the country as a misdemeanor. But in recent years, we’ve seen a disturbing trend of states starting to classify attempts to pay for sexual activity as a felony.

It’s a trend that’s bad for not only sex buyers but also, and perhaps especially, for sex workers. And it mirrors the misguided and detrimental path we saw people take with the war on drugs.

Three States Now Make Paying for Sex a Felony

Three states now make it a felony crime to pay for sex or attempt to pay for sex, even on a first offense and in situations where the person being paid is a consenting adult or a cop posting as a consenting adult. (Many states make it a felony to pay or attempt to pay a minor for sex, but that is not what we’re talking about today.)

Felony crimes not only tend to come with more harsh prison sentence but other conditions, such as loss of voting rights for some period of time, restrictions on the kinds of jobs one can hold, and restrictions on one’s right to own firearms.

“In 2021, Texas became the first state to make buying sex a felony, when Governor Greg Abbott signed a law increasing the maximum penalty to two years in prison for a first offense,” notes Yes Weekly. “State Representative Senfronia Thompson (D–Houston), the author of the bill, said ‘We know the demand is the driving force behind human sex trafficking. If we can curb or stamp out the demand end of it, then we can save the lives of numerous persons.'”

Last May, Oklahoma made “engaging in prostitution or soliciting, inducing, enticing, or procuring another to commit an act of prostitution” felony crimes.

The National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE)—the conservative group formerly known as Morality in Media that has spent the past decade trying to rebrand itself as a feminist organization—is a major driver of these laws and, more generally, the idea that we can “end demand” for prostitution.

NCOSE tends to focus on salacious stories of people violently forced into prostitution and portray all sex buyers as people complicit in committing “atrocities.” The group and its allies make it very hard for politicians or anyone to speak out against harsher penalties for sex buyers, even though the vast majority of sex buying situations look nothing like the horror stories they blast out in support of them.

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Shocking Ring Video Shows Helene Victim Being Denied Disaster Aid Over Trump Sign

Doorbell camera footage released over the internet on Tuesday captured an infuriating moment when a liberal North Carolina resident providing donations to hurricane victims reprimanded a family for having the audacity to place a Trump sign in her yard and threatened to withhold future aid.

The Ring doorbell camera shows an elderly woman walking up to the front porch of a home in North Carolina where she was greeted by the homeowner. The End Wokeness account on X, which obtained the footage, drew viewers to negative remarks made by the woman shortly after she delivered a children’s mattress to the resident.

“This is the last of ’em,” the volunteer explains in the video. When the homeowner asks if they’ll be receiving more help, the volunteer replies, “I’m really conflicted — I have a lot more stuff to give, but I am not a fan of Donald Trump, so these signs are a problem for me.” She pointed at a red and blue Trump yard sign before walking off, leaving the resident standing nonplussed at the doorstep.

A timestamp accompanying the video appears to indicate it was recorded on Tuesday, evidencing that relief work is still in progress across parts of the Tar Heel state since being hit by Hurricane Helene in late September. Much of the effort was undertaken by FEMA but spiraled out of control amid speculation that the federal relief agency was withholding aid to Trump supporters, a claim furthered by then-candidate Donald Trump. Mainstream media outlets declared the accusation a “lie” and “baseless,” but shortly after the election the Biden-Harris administration was forced to fire a FEMA worker who admitted to directing her employees to skip over houses that had pro-Trump yard signs.

Other North Carolina survivors have detailed how FEMA hasn’t lived up to President Joe Biden’s promise of a maximum of $750 in relief payments. Other viral videos have shown military choppers causing mayhem over staging grounds where supplies were stored. The Blaze’s Glenn Beck has reported speaking with personnel on the ground who appear more interested in intercepting amateur helicopter pilots conducting rescue missions than rushing to save residents stranded in washed-away mountain towns. The video from Tuesday is another sign that the politicization of Helene has not abated with the election.

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Veteran-Led Group Saved Lives in North Carolina amid Slow Federal Hurricane Helene Response

Rolling off of Exit 59 on Interstate 40, one could tell something big was happening at the Harley Davidson dealership in Swannanoa.

About a half dozen helicopters lined up in a grassy field behind the dealership, dust clouds swirling as one prepared for lift off.

Dozens of men in sunglasses, various shades of camouflage, and cargo pants moved about the parking lot with urgency.

Some were loading up ATVs with supplies to deliver to residents stuck in their homes. Some with K-9s were going out to look for the missing. Some had chainsaws to clear downed trees. Some directed air traffic for volunteer pilots airlifting supplies to towns like Chimney Rock that were unreachable by ground.

Some were former special operations veterans, like Aaron Switzer. Some were former firemen like Travis Patton. Some were civilians like Crystal Barker.

A garage that normally hosted live shows was transformed into what looked like a tactical operations center in the middle of a war zone.

Covered in a light-layer of dust, the garage was a beehive of activity, divided up into several sections with a long table at the center of each section.

There was an operations section — where volunteers took in requests for help and directed operations, a logistics section where requests for supplies were coordinated, an intelligence section where volunteers searched online for anyone needing assistance.

There were also local police, National Guard and active duty military personnel embedded at the site, and even a few volunteers from Tesla and SpaceX, working to get solar panels and Starlink satellites out to those in need.

The mission was to save lives and on that Saturday, October 12, the team had a list of over 1,000 names of people missing.

“Roughly 1,270-something people — souls — are still missing,” Switzer said.

The man who started the operation was a former U.S. Army Green Beret Adam Smith, who called on his former military buddies to help.

Smith was in Texas when Hurricane Helene hit western North Carolina — where his three-year-old daughter and her mother lived. After they were cut off from communication, Smith decided to take action and fly in to rescue them rather than wait for a government response.

“It was a selfish desire to save my daughter and her mom,” he told Breitbart News in an interview. “After the storm hit, they were completely cut off, and we had no contact with them for, it was like 40 hours, 42 hours, somewhere in there… . And so this really started with me asking for help so I could get them out.”

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North Carolina Appeals Court Rejects GOP Challenge – Will Allow Voters Who Never Lived in the US to Vote in the State, Rejects Request to Set Aside UOCAVA Votes

A three-member appeals court rejected the GOP challenge to not process certain UOCAVA or overseas votes that come into the state this year.

Republicans argued that the current laws enable voters to forum shop where they want their vote to be counted despite never living in the state or even in the US.

This is the latest ruling that breaks down the integrity of the US election. Democrats will cheer this news.

The Hill reported:

North Carolina appeals court on Tuesday rebuffed the Republican National Committee’s (RNC) request to not process certain overseas ballots in the upcoming election unless the voter shows they were previously a resident of the key battleground state.

Republicans have filed challenges to overseas ballots in several key swing states as the voting bloc is no longer seen as reliably red, but the lawsuits have so far been rejected.

A three-judge panel of the North Carolina Court of Appeals on Tuesday unanimously rejected the RNC’s appeal after a trial judge refused the party’s request for an intervention ahead of the upcoming presidential election…

…North Carolina’s rules enable citizens who have never lived in the United States to vote in the state, as long as they haven’t registered elsewhere and their parent or legal guardian was previously an eligible North Carolina voter.

As The Gateway Pundit reported earlier – Democrats have devised a brilliant plan to steal our election in 2024—and it’s really quite simple—and now, thanks to reporting by The Gateway Pundit and others, Republicans are waking up to this threat! 

One month ago, Former U.S. Ambassador to Canada Bruce Heyman joined MSNBC’s Morning Joe and said overseas voters could be the deciding factor in battleground states in 2024.

Heyman appeared on Morning Joe to discuss the Democratic Party’s efforts to mobilize millions of American voters living abroad, highlighting the pivotal influence these overseas voters could have in battleground states, where close margins may decide the election’s outcome.

By telegraphing to the American people that they believe the key to winning our elections is getting 9 million individuals to vote for Kamala Harris from a pool of 2.4 million eligible overseas voters in total (according to the U.S. government FVAP website), Democrats essentially remove the shock value when it’s announced they only achieved a percentage of their goal when it’s revealed they received millions of new overseas votes.

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Trump-Appointed Judge Sides Against RNC in Voter Roll Cleanup, Keeps 225,000 Potentially Ineligible Voters on North Carolina Rolls Amid Alleged Election Law Violations

A federal judge has partially dismissed the Republican National Committee’s (RNC) attempt to challenge the eligibility of 225,000 North Carolina voters.

The lawsuit, spearheaded by the RNC and North Carolina Republican Party, accused the North Carolina State Board of Elections (NCSBE) of failing to comply with the Help America Vote Act (HAVA).

The suit centers on claims that the NCSBE allowed over 225,000 people to register but failed to collect legally required identification information from applicants, such as driver’s license numbers or Social Security digits, on registration forms before processing.

According to the plaintiffs, this oversight could lead to ineligible individuals, including non-citizens, appearing on the voter rolls, potentially diluting lawful votes and undermining public trust.

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The Panic Over an Imaginary Militia ‘Hunting FEMA’ Did More Damage Than the Actual Threat

It was a bone-chilling report. As North Carolinians reeled from the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) suddenly ordered emergency workers “to stand down and evacuate” Rutherford County due to reports of “trucks of armed militias saying they were out hunting FEMA,” The Washington Post reported on October 13, based on an email obtained from the U.S. Forest Service.

The threat turned out to be something less serious. On October 14, the Rutherford County Sheriff’s Office announced the arrest of one man, William Jacob Parsons, for making a “comment about possibly harming FEMA employees” while armed with an assault rifle. Law enforcement concluded that “Parsons acted alone and there was no truck loads of militia,” according to a statement quoted in The Washington Post.

Parsons told the BBC that he was not a member of any militia, he had not threatened any federal officials, and he was there to help distribute supplies to hurricane victims.

Every time America suffers a natural disaster, it seems, there’s serious anxiety about social collapse and mass violence. And the media often runs with the most fantastical version, as journalists did with reports of violence at the Superdome refugee center in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

These rumors by themselves can do serious damage. Louisiana National Guard Maj. Ed Bush told Reason in 2005 that “perhaps FEMA would have been quicker in if we hadn’t heard all these urban myths about shootings and rapes and deaths and killing and bodies everywhere.” Last week, relief efforts in Rutherford County and nearby Ashe County were paused due to the alleged militia threat.

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FEMA Says It Won’t Help in North Carolina Because It Feels Threatened By Locals.

The Biden-Harris Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) says it has temporarily suspended certain Hurricane Helene relief operations in several North Carolina communities due to perceived threats against federal aid workers. According to FEMA, federal disaster relief operations were halted in Rutherford County after the agency received reports from the National Guard that an “armed militia” was allegedly threatening relief workers.

“For the safety of our dedicated staff and the disaster survivors we are helping, FEMA has made some operational adjustments,” an agency spokesman said in a statement on Monday. They added: “Disaster Recovery Centers will continue to be open as scheduled, survivors continue to register for assistance, and we continue to help the people of North Carolina with their recovery.”

In addition to suspending operations in Rutherford County, several other localities near the North Carolina, Virginia, and Tennessee border claim they had to halt relief work due to threats from locals. According to Ashe County Sheriff Phil Howell, several relief centers where victims of Hurricane Helene could apply in person for assistance were closed “due to threats occurring in some counties.” No specific details regarding the type or seriousness of the “threats” were provided. Sheriff Howell stressed that residents impacted by the storm should “stay calm and steady during our recovery, help folks, and please don’t stir the pot.”

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Private helicopters deliver more than 500,000 pounds of aid, supplies to western North Carolina

A volunteer group called Savage Operations Center just delivered over 500,000 pounds of supplies to the devastated areas of western North Carolina via a fleet of private helicopters.

Organized by Adam Smith, the Savage Operations Center is utilizing dozens of private helicopters to deliver much-needed aid to the thousands of people who are still trapped in the Appalachian Mountains following Hurricane Helene.

“The people of Swannanoa, Bat Cave, and Chimney Rock are going to be here, and they’ll still be rebuilding their lives and trying to rebuild their homes and trying to figure out what’s next,” Smith commented.

“There’s homes that are washed out; people have lost their lives. There’s a lot of people left with nothing. There’s a lot of displaced people. The big challenge now, moving forward: It’s not so much the rescue but it’s how do we find a place for the displaced families?”

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Man accused of threatening FEMA workers in western North Carolina speaks out

Recovery efforts in western North Carolina are being disrupted by safety concerns following threats against federal responders, including FEMA workers. While local officials confirm that no threats originated in some counties, FEMA has made operational changes across the region out of caution.

FEMA teams continue to help residents register for disaster assistance, but some personnel have been moved to secure locations rather than conducting door-to-door outreach. This change follows the recent arrest of William Jacob Parsons, 44, of Bostic, who was charged with making threats against FEMA employees in the Lake Lure and Chimney Rock areas. Deputies found Parsons armed with a handgun and a rifle.

The threats came after Parsons posted a message on Facebook calling for people to “overtake” the FEMA site in Lake Lure based on what he says were social media reports that FEMA was withholding supplies from hurricane survivors.

“We the people are sick and tired of the BS. We the people are seeking volunteers to join us and overtake the FEMA site in Lake Lure and send the products up the mountains this Saturday. We the people are done playing games. It’s time to show who we are and what we believe. They want to screw our citizens. Now, we return the favor,” Parsons said.

When asked about his post, Parsons explained that he believed FEMA was failing to help residents in need.

“I viewed it as if our people are sitting here on American soil, and they’re refusing to aid our people,” he said. “So we were going to go up there and forcefully remove that fence.”

Upon arriving at Lake Lure, however, Parsons said he realized the situation was different than he had imagined.

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