The city's first neighborhood improvement program set aside $2.56 million for Stop 6 Cavill Place, an east side neighborhood that had a 40% poverty rate. After taking a bus tour and hosting six community meetings, council members and staff learned which projects residents wanted most. Beginning in 2017, the city added more than 300 new street lights to make the neighborhood safer at night. City cameras installed at key locations helped reduce crime by providing police with evidence and leads. Vacant houses like this one had attracted vagrants or worse. In all, 20 dilapidated buildings were demolished, eliminating barriers for redevelopment. It is a godsend. The city is beautiful because we are seeing the development that has not been in ages. We have not had this kind of development for our community and for the people who live in our community. The city also cleaned up dozens of abandoned buildings and put them back on the market. The city added 278 tons of brush and trash from right of ways, trimmed or removed 373 dead and hazardous trees, and cleared more than 180 tons of litter and illegal dump sites. The city also installed 7,500 linear feet of new sidewalks, making it safer for children to walk to school. And dozens of new curb ramps allow residents of all ages and abilities to get around better. City center and park improvements included fresh paint, additional lighting, new playground equipment, benches and walking trails at neighborhood parks. The results? A 32% decrease in the area crime rate and a 126% increase in building permit values. That's more than $4.8 million of private investment. In many cases, stop six property owners returned to the neighborhood to build on lots that had been in their families for years. The closing and demolition of the 1950s era Cavill Place public housing project was a key factor in choosing stop six for improvements. Thanks to a $35 million federal grant, Cavill will be replaced with new mixed income apartments and retail spaces. Leveraging such outside resources for maximum impact has become a hallmark of the city's neighborhood improvement program. For 2018, the city identified the near south side neighborhood of Ash Crescent as needing help. Half of residents here lived at or below poverty level and unemployment was twice the Fort Worth average. The city allocated $2.7 million to help revitalize. Here there was no established neighborhood association, so crews went door to door inviting residents to a community meeting at a neighborhood church. Residents talked one on one with city staff, learning what was possible and asking questions. Then residents filled out written surveys and placed sticky dots to indicate what they needed and wanted most. Residents were also mailed to each home. Their top priorities, better lighting to prevent vandalism and other crime, and help cleaning up the neighborhood.  Well, I've seen more polices driving by and I've seen a lot of trash being picked up by the city. Before overgrown trees and brush made this street nearly impassable. Before and after city crews cleaned up illegal dump sites. Before and after demolishing substandard buildings to make way for new homes. Neighborhood services also helped 22 families apply for funds to repair their homes. More than $250,000 in federal money helped replace dangerous gas heaters, install air conditioning and treat lead based paint. But improvements were more than just physical. The city helped neighbors build community too. Neighbors met their mayor and council person at a walking town hall meeting followed by a community carnival where children played on an obstacle course built by volunteers, got fitted for new bike helmets, or just relaxed with free donated books. The city has done their part, but it's up to us to keep it up, you know, we can't expect the city to do everything. That can-do spirit led to creation of a new neighborhood association. With city help, neighbors organized and held their first litter cleanup and membership continues to grow. They're coming because they're interested. Once they hear about it, they see it's legit. I think it's becoming infectious, so it's growing. The results? An 18% drop in crime in Ash Crescent and a 300% increase in dollars invested in the neighborhood, including both new construction and remodeling of existing single family homes. In 2019, the city brought its neighborhood improvement program to the north side, setting aside more than $3 million for improvements to a one and a half square mile area. The Spanish language outreach was the key in this mostly Hispanic community. In addition to working closely with an established neighborhood association, the city used dual language flyers, videos, and Facebook posts to help draw more than 150 neighbors to a community meeting. Residents told leaders what they wanted most. I'm hoping they put more sidewalks up, more community parts.  My husband is a soccer, he volunteers as a soccer team coach here. We could definitely use some lights for them to practice at night. Residents completed a written survey and voted with stickers for their top concerns. The results helped the city prioritize its work. Help with home repairs was one of the biggest needs. Most homes in the neighborhood are 50 to 100 years old. They were houses that were need painting, they were, you know, down to the bare wood. The city connected residents of 30 homes with grants for emergency repairs, protection from lead-based paint, and projects that made older houses more energy efficient. Other priorities included cleanup and safety. City crews trimmed trees and brush along more than 300 lane miles of neighborhood streets and contracted with an agency that pays homeless people to pick up litter. Code officers focused on education rather than tickets. Once residents knew the rules and understood the health hazards, most cleaned up their property on their own with no citations issued. City crews repaired damaged streets and sidewalks and replaced dead trees and right-of-ways. Electrical contractors repaired street lamps up and down a popular double boulevard that defines and spans the neighborhood. Residents also wanted information. Perhaps because of a language barrier or fear of engaging with government officials, many northside residents were unaware of city programs designed to help them. The city coordinated a series of well-attended workshops in both English and Spanish on topics such as crime prevention, property taxes, code compliance and more. Such workshops are now standard offerings when the Neighborhood Improvement Program moves to a new area. The results? The northside crime rate is down 23 percent while building permit values increased 67 percent. In 2020, the city chose Rosemont and designated $3.1 million for neighborhood improvements. More than 30 percent of Rosemont residents live below the poverty line and median income is about $36,000. Just a year earlier, residents formed a neighborhood association inviting English and Spanish-speaking neighbors to a Cinco de Mayo celebration. The event sign-in sheet revealed most residents used Facebook, so the association launched its own Facebook page and has enjoyed a high level of engagement, even during the pandemic. Las Familias de Rosemont, or Families of Rosemont, shares city info and surveys with members and even hosts city public meetings live on Facebook. I also want to thank the Las Familias de Rosemont Neighborhood Association for allowing us to be able to use our platform through Facebook Live to be able to reach as many neighbors as we can. That's how the city learned that substandard buildings were a big concern in Rosemont. The city identified eight hazardous and 34 substandard buildings and ordered demolition of those that could not be made safe. Illegal dumping was also a major concern. The city removed 158 tons from illegal dump sites and littered right-of-ways. The city also upgraded more than 250 neighborhood streetlights, adding midblock poles where needed for safety. Facebook is still underway, but results already show a 19 percent drop in crime. Building permit values are down 23 percent, probably because of the pandemic shutdowns. Rosemont was also the first neighborhood to benefit from an innovative program that extends the city's free public Wi-Fi signal into areas with little internet access. An installed on existing utility poles uses radio signals to relay Wi-Fi from community centers and other city buildings into the neighborhood. All five neighborhood improvement areas are now receiving the service, giving residents access to online classes, job applications and city services. Internet access is now one of several criteria for choosing new improvement areas each year.


Ads heard during the podcast that are not in my voice are placed by third-party agencies outside of my control and should not imply an endorsement by Weird Darkness or myself. Stories and content in Weird Darkness can be disturbing for some listeners and is intended for mature audiences only. Parental discretion is strongly advised. The small community of Golly Bridge, West Virginia looks like a picture postcard of small-town America. An old rusty railroad bridge stretches out over the water where the new river burges with the golly. Houses dot the steep hills and line the banks of the river. A few stores can be found along the town's main street. A renovated old train station serves as the town hall. The speed limit is just 25 miles an hour through town. Children ride bicycles and play in the yards. People smile and say hello to one another as they pass on the sidewalks. A farmer's market in the middle of town sells fresh vegetables in the summer and pumpkins and bails of straw in the fall. But on May 20, 1931, a local newspaper attempted to tell the secret that lies under the sunny surface of this little town. But publication of the story was stopped by a local judge. It's a dark secret that has become a terrible memory of death, an almost forgotten horror of one of the worst industrial disasters in American history. I'm Darren Marlar and this is Weird Darkness. Welcome, Weirdos. I'm Darren Marlar and this is Weird Darkness. Here you'll find stories of the paranormal, supernatural, legends, lore, the strange and bizarre, crime, conspiracy, mysterious, macabre, unsolved and unexplained. Coming up in this episode, a teenager shares his story of being abducted by aliens. You may dismiss it as a nightmare or sleep paralysis, but then how do you explain the injection marks on his body? A Weirdo family member tells us why we should be cautious when we hear dogs howling. Most stories about the men in black are of an aggressive nature, with victims being questioned by them, even threatened into remaining silent. But one man had a strange encounter where the MIB saved his life. It's always a bit scary sleeping in a new house that very first night. But sometimes, as one Weird Darkness family member discovered, there is a reason to be frightened. They found the first body stuffed inside the church's library closet, then a second body turned up. I'll share the creepy case of Theo Durant, San Francisco's Jack the Ripper. Outside of Washington, D.C., lies an abandoned institution with a thoroughly disturbing past. But first, it was a tale that most considered simply gossip, or the town's urban legend. The rich and powerful made sure it stayed a secret, but all secrets eventually come to light, especially those covered in racism, tragedy and hundreds of deaths. It's the truth behind the hawk's nest tunnel tragedy. We begin there. If you're new here, welcome to the show. While you're listening, be sure to check out WeirdDarkness.com for merchandise, to visit sponsors you hear about during the show, sign up for my newsletter, and our contests. Connect with me on social media. Listen to my other podcasts like Retro Radio, Old Time Radio in the Dark, Church of the Undead, and a classic 1950s sci-fi style podcast called Auditory Anthology. Listen to free audiobooks I've narrated. Plus, you can visit the Hope in the Darkness page if you're struggling with depression, dark thoughts, or addiction. You can find all of that and more at WeirdDarkness.com.  The hawk's nest tunnel tragedy disaster occurred during the years of the Great Depression when times were hard and a man would do just about anything to feed his family. Taking advantage of this fact, powerful and wealthy men started a dangerous project that would claim the lives of an unknown number of men and cause the community of Golly Bridge to become known as the Town of the Living Dead. The hawk's nest disaster resulted from the construction of a tunnel through the mountain near Golly Bridge. The three-mile-long passage was designated to divert water to an electrical power station by Union Carbide, the sponsor of the plan. However, the subcontractors on the job failed to allow standard safety precautions during the drilling operations, which ended with at least 764 dead workers. None of the companies involved were charged with criminal negligence. Union Carbide, the company that would later be involved in the chemical explosion in Bhopal, India in 1984, was formed in West Virginia by the merger of several companies in 1917. By the late 1920s, the company created the new Kanawa Power Company in order to produce power that would be used in the production of ferro metals like aluminum at a site below Golly Bridge. The proposal required the damming of the new river just below Hawke's Nest, a spectacular overlook on the river, and the construction of a three-mile tunnel through Golly Mountain. This tunnel would carry the rushing water to electric generators downstream. New Kanawa Power contracted with Reinhart and Dennis Company of Charlottesville, Virginia to build the tunnel and the dam. Tunneling began on March 31, 1930, and progressed at breakneck speed until it was completed in December, 1931. No one knows for sure why the tunnel had to be completed at such a fast pace, but it was believed that uncertainty about the Federal Power Commission's control over the new river was one of the reasons. If the project could be hurried through, the government would have little say over what could or could not be done during the project. Management drove the workers hard to make sure the tunnel was completed on time. Finding workers in Depression-era Appalachia, where numerous coal mines had closed, was an easy task. Word spread through the region and through the rural south that jobs were available at Golly Bridge. Men walked, drove, and hopped freight trains to be first in line for the promised work. Reinhart and Dennis hired mostly black workers from outside West Virginia for the project. Reportedly, 75% of the 1,494 men who worked inside the tunnel as drillers and mockers who removed rock debris and their assistance were African-American. There were another 1,488 workers, also mostly black, who held jobs that involved tasks inside and outside the tunnel. The reasoning behind this is grim in hindsight. In the early 1930s, black workers were seen as expendable. Workers labored on the tunnel project for 10 hours a day, always under the watchful eyes of bosses who used guns and clubs to force ill or unwilling men to start each day's work. Black workers were paid in company's script instead of cash, always at lower rates than white workers. When they were dropped from the payroll, they were evicted from company housing, which consisted of overcrowded, segregated boxcars and run out of town by the Fayette County Sheriff. Neither Reinhart and Dennis nor the Union Carbide engineers overseeing the projects followed even minimal safety precautions during the drilling operations. Workers tunneled from 250 to 300 feet per week through 99% silica. Experts knew that miners who inhaled silica dust stood a good chance of contracting silicosis, a deadly lung ailment. But the company ordered that the workers use a dry drilling technique that would create more dust because this method was faster and cheaper. The high-velocity drills that bored cavities in the rock for the insertion of dynamite charges did not spray water on the stone, which was a standard technique to reduce dust. Air ventilation was inadequate. No measurement was taken of dust levels in the tunnel. Ventilators and masks were not issued to tunnel workers, but they were supplied to company executives during inspection tours of the project. Not surprisingly, few workers stayed on the job for long. 60% of the African-American migrant workers worked less than two months on the project. However, this was long enough to pay a deadly price for signing on at Hawks Nest. The men emerged from the hole in the mountain each day, with their dark skin covered by clouds of white dust. They looked like phantoms as they came out of the cloud-filled tunnel, blinking and coughing from the dust that filled their eyes and lungs. They began dying two months after they first entered the tunnel. Their deaths were painful. As the silica they inhaled created fibrous nodules in their lungs, their lungs grew stiff and the men found it harder and harder to breathe. Eventually, they strangled to death, writhing and choking until they drew their last punishing gasp. It was reported that a man named Cecil Jones struggled so hard for breath that he kicked the wooden slats out of the baseboard of his bed before he died. Silicosis could not be cured, but doctors knew what it was. Rather than diagnose it, a company physician told tunnel workers that they had a new disease called tonalitis and gave them worthless pills. On May 20, 1931, the local newspaper The Fayette Tribune tried to break the story of the sick and dying tunnel workers and their unsafe working conditions, but a gag order issued by a local judge stopped publication. But even without the story, local residents knew something was wrong. Golly Bridge was being dubbed with a nickname Town of the Living Dead. A congressional report from February 4, 1936 described the scene. The men got down so they had no flesh left on them at all. As they express it down there, the men got so they were all hide, bone and leaders, which means he's just skin and tendons and looks like a living skeleton. A problem arose as the black workers died. There was no colored burial grounds in the area. Hanley White, local funeral parlor owner in Somersville, located a field on his mother's farm and was given a contract to open a burial ground on the Martha White farm in Somersville. Hanley was paid $50 per body with the promise of plenty of business. Libre Culp, a local resident and friend of White's son, later recalled the days of the burials. White contacted him and asked if he wanted to make some extra money with his flatbed truck. Culp, anxious to make any extra money he could, quickly agreed. The dead workers were stacked in rows and strapped on the back of the flatbed truck, he remembered. More of the dead workers were arranged in an upright sitting position, as if they were alive for their ride to their final resting place. For years, rumors spread about workers buried in mass graves on the Martha White farm, but White family members deny this accusation. Between July and December 1932, local attorneys filed dozens of lawsuits on behalf of workers who had suffered acute silicosis. The disease had wreaked havoc on the workers, ravaging their lungs and making them susceptible to secondary infections such as tuberculosis. Silicosis had been recognized as an industrial disease in America since the early 1900s. The United States Bureau of Mines had published warnings in the 1920s about the dangers from it while using high-speed drills. Acute silicosis, from which death could occur within months of exposure however, was not a recognized disease in 1930. West Virginia did not classify silicosis as an industrial disease at all and the state rejected workers' compensation claims from men who claimed that they had contracted it at Hawks Nest. When faced with more than 250 suits that sought more than $4 million in damages by the middle of 1933, Reinhart and Dennis settled out of court, agreeing to pay $130,000, half of which went to attorneys' fees. In accepting these settlements, the plaintiff's attorneys agreed not to file any further suits and to surrender all case records to the defendants. The contractor brokered two additional settlements based on subsequent suits and paid out $200,000 in awards and attorney fees. The average plaintiff received $400 while the defendant took possession of the damning evidence, including x-rays and medical records. Reports circulated that Reinhart and Dennis and Union Carbide bribed witnesses and tampered with juries during the trials prior to the settlements. Few records of the sick workers remain today, most were apparently destroyed, purposely. How many workers actually died in the Hawks Nest tunnel? The real number will never be known. This is partly because Union Carbide wiped out the historical record and partly because most of the tunnel workers were dismissed at the end of 1931 and scattered throughout the South. Many of the men did not become sick until much later, so their deaths never became a part of the official numbers. It was also discovered at trial that the field at the Martha White Farm was not the only burial ground for black workers. Apparently, Reinhart and Dennis had hired another local undertaker to dispose of the bodies of unclaimed workers and he'd buried them in a field near Golly Bridge. The location of this burial ground remained a mystery until 1972 when the West Virginia Highway Department stumbled upon 45 of these graves. Martin Schoenjak, a medical doctor with a master's degree in public health, attempted to reconstruct the epidemiology of the Hawks Nest tragedy. After painstaking historical research, his conservative estimate was that 746 men who worked in the tunnel had died of acute silicosis, which translated into a mortality rate of 63%. African American workers made up 76% of the deaths. The tragedy forced recognition of acute silicosis as an industrial hazard and a brief and ineffective congressional hearing in 1936 helped focus national attention on the condition. By 1937, all states had adopted laws recognizing the disease in some form, although West Virginia's statute was worthless since it was written solely in the interest of corporations. The Hawks Nest tragedy remains a haunting incident in American history today, dismissed as a product of mountain gossip in the 1930s. It has come to be recognized as one of the nation's worst industrial disasters and a chilling reminder of the fact that no man is ever expendable. Coming up, a Weirdo family member tells us why we should be cautious when we hear dogs howling and they found the first body stuffed inside the church library's closet, then a second body turned up. I'll share the creepy case of Theo Durant, San Francisco's Jack the Ripper. Plus, a teenager shares his story of being abducted by aliens, which you might dismiss as a nightmare or sleep paralysis, but then how do you explain the injection marks on his body? Also coming up, it's always a bit scary sleeping in a new house that very first night, but sometimes, as one Weirdo family member discovered, there is reason to be frightened. But first, most stories about the men in black are of an aggressive nature, with victims being questioned by them, even threatened into remaining silent. But one man had a strange encounter where the MIB saved his life. That story is up next when Weird Darkness returns. What makes someone kill? Not only innocent people, but sometimes the very people who loved and trusted them. What imagined wrongs could drive a deluded individual to seek revenge by taking another person's life? What lengths will people go to to get what they want? Murderous Binds, Volume 2, stories of real-life murderers that escaped the headlines, is the latest offering in a series that takes you inside the life of killers who committed cold-blooded murder for a glimpse at events that drove them to kill. Each tale is sorted, twisted and worthy of newspaper headlines. By weaving a tale in which dark fantasies turned reality, this book invites you to see life from a perspective few ever witness, that of the killer. Paired with an in-depth account of each case, it will be a nightmarish journey to the darkest reaches of the mind of these real-life murderers. Murderous Minds, Volume 2, written by Ryan Becker, narrated by Weird Darkness host Darren Marlar. Here are free sample on the audiobooks page at WeirdDarkness.com. In 1980, on a late spring day, I was driving up to Oregon when I somehow got off on a logging road, which was winding along a steep mountain. After a while, I noticed that the road was narrowing and I was afraid to follow it any further. I decided to try and turn my car around and drive back to Cave Junction, Oregon, which was about 30 minutes away. As I was backing up the car, it went off the road and the rear end of the car was off the road and the car was tottering over the cliff. I slowly got out and was trying to figure out how to get my dogs out, which were in their kennel in the back of my car. If I tried to reach them, the car would tumble down the cliff. While I was trying to decide what to do, a big car pulled up and four tall oriental men with a strange orange skin tone got out of the car. In spite of the 100-plus degree heat of the day, they were all wearing black trench coats. I said hello and they did not reply.  I did not think that even twice that number of humans could have lifted my car from the front end only and placed it on the road. I don't remember how I got past their car or they passed mine as they were headed up the firebreak road as I was originally as well. The afterthought of the encounter left me really scared and as soon as I was back in town, I rented a hotel room and slept for a couple of days. Those weird men on the mountain saved our lives, but they terrified the heck out of me. Do you believe that when dogs howl, it's a sign of bad luck? I believe in it. When I was young, my mother had warned me about it. I just tried to ignore it that it was just coincidental, like the time a tsunami hit our small island in 2009 after the dogs howled for a long time. You got to experience it to believe it. One time in the summer of 2010, I was leaving my house to go over to my ex-boyfriend's place whom I was dating during that time so that we could go to the movies together. He lives on the other side of the island so I had to walk to the bus stop. During my walk, I could hear the dogs howling in the distance and I thought maybe it was because they heard the sirens of the ambulance. They'd been howling quite a while and I knew maybe I should just go back home. But I'm going on a date and it had been such a long time since we went on one. So I ignored it and hopped on the available bus that came. I regretted going that day. Two dogs that were owned by my ex-boyfriend's aunt attacked me. One at the front and the other at my back. One almost tore my upper lip and tear duct off while the other sunk his teeth on my side. The wound on my face healed so you can barely see the scar under my eye. However, there is a lump of scar tissue on my side that has shrunk a little bit. I don't notice it much, but I'm sort of afraid of dogs now. I still find them adorable, but whenever I see one, my heart beats faster than usual. And whenever I hear dogs howling for no apparent reason, I choose to stay home, to stay safe. Although William Henry Theodore Durant was called Theo by friends, the handsome and well-liked Sunday school superintendent soon earned a more sinister nickname, The Demon of the Belfry. Theo Durant worked for the Immanuel Baptist Church in San Francisco. On April 13, 1895, members of the church were preparing for that Sunday's Easter service when someone opened a closet in the church library and discovered the mutilated body of a young woman. She had been strangled to death and stabbed. Her wrists cut so deeply that her hands had practically been severed from her body. Cloth from her undergarments had been stuffed down her throat with a stick and later examinations revealed that she had probably been raped. Initially, investigators expected the body to belong to 20-year-old Blanche Lamont, who had gone missing 10 days before and who had last been seen entering Immanuel Baptist Church in the company of Theo Durant. However, the body proved to be that of 21-year-old Minnie Williams, also a member of the church's congregation and a former romantic partner of Theo Durant. The night before she had been seen in a heated discussion with Theo, passerby would later attest that Durant's manner was not becoming to a gentleman. After the discovery of Minnie Williams' body, a thorough search of the church was conducted and the body of Blanche Lamont was found in the Belfry. While Williams' body had been mutilated and mostly clothed, this one was completely naked and almost serene, posed with the hands folded across the chest. Like Minnie Williams, Blanche Lamont had been strangled and likely raped. Theo Durant had courted both of these girls in the past for a period, even at the same time. He and Minnie had been seeing each other for some time when he made an overtly sexual advance that worried Minnie. He met Blanche in 1894 and broke it off with Minnie for the new girl. Theo proposed to Blanche only a few months later. She thought he was joking and later found out he had been engaged to another woman the entire time, cementing her decision to say no. Thanks to his history, Theo immediately became the prime suspect in both murders and police picked him up in short order. Around the same time, Blanche Lamont's aunt, with whom she lived, received a package in a mail containing Blanche's rings. The package bore the name George King, the church's choir director. But when police showed the rings around local pawn shops, one of the pawnbrokers recognized them and said that a man matching Durant's description had been in trying to sell them a few days before. Throughout his trial and up to his death by hanging, Theo Durant maintained his innocence in connection to both murders. However, the many eyewitnesses who saw him with each girl shortly before their deaths and Durant's easy access to the areas where he left the bodies made it easy for a verdict to be reached. Indeed, Durant's case did not look good. According to SF Gate, the accused was compared to Jack the Ripper, the Marquis de Sade, and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde throughout the trial. The jury found him guilty within five minutes of deliberations. Though by some accounts they worried that the speed of their decision might appear to be too rapid, so they finished their cigars before returning to the courtroom and delivering the verdict. Throughout the trial, people flocked to the courtroom, many of whom came to catch a glimpse of the handsome killer. One woman was dubbed the sweet pea girl by the press, as every day she brought Durant a bouquet of those same flowers. He is said to have sometimes worn one on his lapel. During the trial and in its aftermath, a number of salacious stories surfaced relating to Durant's dark side, though whether they are true or not remains unknown.  Such acts certainly sound like the work of a demon of the Belfry. Whether they are true or simply lurid exaggerations in the face of real-life brutality may never be known. It was the summer of 1995 when I was 19 years old living in Culpeper, Virginia. I really didn't see an alien spacecraft, but I was abducted. It all started when I was sleeping in my bedroom. I was sleeping on my bed when I rolled over onto my left side. I opened my eyes and saw this alien looking down on me.  It was tall and slender. When I looked into the eyes of the alien, I immediately froze. I was defenseless. I had no control over my body. I couldn't even move or speak. I tried to open my mouth and scream, but I couldn't. The alien took over my neurological system which made it difficult for me to move. The only thing that I could do was watch in horror. The alien then lifted their hand and I suddenly saw a bright flash of light that lasted for about a second. I was then on what appeared to be the craft. The room inside the craft was really bright. I saw three other aliens. They had me on a hard bed which was made of some type of smooth stone. I then watched them inject a needle that had three smaller needles around it inside my right bicep. I didn't feel any pain, but I was able to feel the coldness of the needle. After the injection, an alien came over to me, lifted his hand up, and a bright flash of light filled my eyes. I was then back in my house, laying on my bed. I got out of bed and went into the kitchen and turned on the light. There, I observed my right arm, and I saw markings. Three red dots where they had injected me with their needles. About eight years ago, my young son and I moved into a new house in a great neighborhood, a two-story by-level with three bedrooms and three baths, our first home. We couldn't be happier. Despite my joy, I'm always nervous the first night sleeping in a new place. The master bedroom had its own full bathroom. I'd left that door open before going to bed. I normally sleep on my back, but there is no window in the bathroom, so it looks like a gaping hole of blackness which was mildly creeping me out. I watch a lot of horror movies and have quite the imagination, so I rolled over so I couldn't see it. As I'm lying there, settling in, eyes closed, preparing for sleep. I suddenly hear a woman whisper in my ear. My eyes fly open and I'm looking around the room terrified. My heart is pounding so loud I can hear it in my ears. I'm too afraid to move. I lie there, clutching the covers up to my chin, trying to figure out what I just heard. I want to check on my son in the next room, but I literally can't move. Is someone in the house? I'm petrified with fear. I know I wasn't dreaming. And what exactly did she say? I'm unsure and now I'm too afraid to sleep. After what seems like hours, I'm too exhausted to remain awake and on guard. I finally start to relax when all of a sudden she whispers in my ear a second time. The panic starts all over again, no sleep for me that night. I never saw anything and to this day I still don't know what she said. For the remaining time we lived in the house, I never heard anything else. I don't know if it was related, but after that night I closed the bathroom door before going to bed. Up next on Weird Darkness, outside of Washington DC lies an abandoned institution with a thoroughly disturbing past. Do you keep a journal or diary? If not, maybe you should consider it. It's been shown that journaling can help you reduce stress, help relieve depression, build self-confidence. It boosts your emotional intelligence, helps with achieving goals, inspires creativity, and more. In fact, my friend S. N. Lenees has created a weird darkness-themed journal just for you. Full of blank pages for you to use as a diary, make notes for class or office meetings, jot down ideas for that novel you want to write. Use it for keeping a mileage log if you travel for business, whatever you want. In fact, she has numerous styles of journals to choose from. Along with the Weird Darkness journal, there's one for dealing with grief, or teacher's notes, for medical residencies, keeping track of your meds or health routine, and several others. Journals make a great gift for others, but it's also a great gift for yourself and your own mental health. No matter what you might want a journal for, my friend Anne has it. And you can see all of our journals, including the one for Weird Darkness, on the sponsors and friends page at WeirdDarkness.com. When Forest Haven Asylum opened in 1925, it was exactly that. A haven and refuge for those in need, surrounded by a lush forest. The asylum was open for mentally impaired individuals of any age, as part of an effort to ease the burden of supporting a disabled person. It was believed that if families surrendered their in-need relatives, they would flourish in an environment that was made to complement their specific and often intensive personal needs. The asylum was built in Laurel, Maryland, approximately 20 miles outside of Washington, D.C., meant to minimize inmate exposure to the rush of city life. Construction on an administration building began in 1938. Two years later, then First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt attended the dedication ceremony on March 8, 1940. The 30,000-square-foot building boasted 38 hospital beds, two fracture beds, 18 cribs, an operating room, lab space, an x-ray room, a dentist's office, and a psychiatrist's laboratory. The initial concept for Forest Haven included the cultivation of optimism. Mentally ill patients would not suffer the stigma of being viewed as irreparable, broken people, but would instead reside peacefully among friends and dedicated caregivers. 22 buildings and 200 acres of woods guaranteed that Forest Haven would be more than an idea, it would be a vision of the future. Each building was known as a cottage and given a pleasant name such as Magnolia, Pine, Oak, and Hawthorne. In addition, forward thinking catapulted the asylum into a class of its own. Patients would not simply stare into space between treatments, they would become part of a farming community. Eventually Forest Haven's residents milked cows and tended crops. They also received adequate exercise and time outside in nature. And for a while, everything worked. But soon the facility would become more of a madhouse. By the 1950s, many of the asylum's state-of-the-art amenities were outdated. Financial problems prevented the kind of advancement needed to keep up with newer medical practices. Most of the extracurricular programs and recreational comforts were discontinued. A decade later, Forest Haven was no longer a utopian society, but a place of disposal for the troubled, unwanted, and the misdiagnosed. A surge in population forced staff to focus on maintaining order instead of rehabilitation. The problem continued to snowball to such an extent that many people who were not mentally challenged but suffering other ailments, blindness, deafness, epilepsy, etc., were thrown into the asylum and classified as slow or underdeveloped. And as Forest Haven became more and more understaffed, abuse began rippling through the system. Benefits that had once been standard were significantly reduced. Unqualified personnel filled the staffing void. This left many patients to wander the rooms and halls aimlessly and usually unattended. Some of the doctors were even declared incompetent by the state of Maryland. By the 1970s, claims of abuse were rampant. It was determined that many of Forest Haven's patients did not belong there or were not impaired enough to warrant institutionalization. Staff frustration mounted, causing some workers to lash out and beat the residents. Abuse claims eventually became deaths. An untold number of patients died at Forest Haven. Figures are often spoken about in the hundreds. Often the bodies of the deceased were whisked to a morgue in the basement before receiving a nameless burial on the grounds. On February 23, 1976, a class action lawsuit was filed by the victim's families. In the case, Evans v. Washington, plaintiff Betty Evans swore before Judge Pratt that her daughter, Joy Evans, had been subjected to inhumane treatment. Some of the treatment had resulted in scratches, chipped teeth, cuts, bruises all over her body and on one occasion a raw, painful back which stemmed from being restrained on urine-soaked bedsheets. Joy Evans died at Forest Haven in July 1976, at the age of 18. Two years later, on June 14, 1978, the case between the plaintiffs and the city was settled. As part of the settlement, Forest Haven would be permanently closed and its residents would be moved to community group homes. But in the meantime, they would receive proper medical, dental and health-related services. Soon word came that many of Forest Haven's deaths were likely being caused by aspiration pneumonia. The condition resulted from patients being fed while lying down, causing their epiglottis to malfunction and allowing food to drop into their lungs instead of their stomach, essentially choking them to death. Eight years after the settlement, Forest Haven was still open, although its population had been greatly decreased to under 300 residents. In July 1986, the District of Columbia Association of Retarded Citizens entered a proposal to train Forest Haven's staff on proper feeding procedures. The proposal was rejected due to a lack of funds. A mixture of indifference and ignorance spread among the workers and the problems continued in spite of the 1976 decree. In the early morning hours of August 8, 1989, police were summoned to Forest Haven to investigate the presence of a dead body. When they arrived, they found 22-year-old Arthur Arkey Harris lying on his right side in a fetal position. He was wearing only a hospital gown and white socks with red stripes. There was dried blood on his mouth. The investigation concluded that Harris had died from complications of aspiration pneumonia. Between May 1989 and March 1991, the Justice Department had finally begun to track the deaths at Forest Haven while the institution was in the process of closing. During that two-year period before the asylum finally shut down, at least 10 residents, including Harris, had died from aspiration pneumonia. On October 14, 1991, Forest Haven's doors were finally closed for good. The total death count will never be known, due in part to the quick practice of hauling bodies to the morgue and then burying them en masse outside. Before the asylum closed, the families of several former residents purchased a large granite headstone to memorialize those who died there. It sits in a field known as the Garden of Eternal Rest. Today, only the remnants of Forest Haven are left. It is patrolled by a team of security guards to keep photographers and curiosity seekers from entering. It stands as a haunting reminder of its troubled history. True crime, monsters, or unsolved mysteries like you do? You can email me anytime with your questions or comments at darren at WeirdDarkness.com. WeirdDarkness.com is also where you can find information on any of the sponsors you heard about during the show. Find all of my social media, listen to free audiobooks I've narrated, sign up for the email newsletter, find other podcasts that I host including Retro Radio, Old Time Radio in the Dark, Church of the Undead, and a classic 1950s sci-fi style podcast called Auditory Anthology. Also on the site, you can visit the store for Weird Darkness t-shirts, mugs, and other merchandise. Plus, it's where you can find the Hope in the Darkness page if you or someone you know is struggling with depression, addiction, or thoughts of harming yourself or others. And if you have a paranormal or creepy tale to tell of your own, you can click on Tell Your Story. You can find all of that and more at WeirdDarkness.com. All stories on Weird Darkness are purported to be true unless stated otherwise, and you can find links to the stories or the authors in the show notes. Town of the Living Dead was written by Troy Taylor. Demon of the Belfry is by Orin Gray from the lineup. Tall Black Shiny Aliens is by R.R. at phantomsandmonsters.com. The Misery of Forest Haven Asylum is by Gary Sweeney from the lineup. When the Dog's Howl is by K.J., submitted directly to Weird Darkness. Whispers in the Night is by Zenovia Caldwell, submitted also directly to Weird Darkness. Helped by Four Men in Black was posted at phantomsandmonsters.com. Weird Darkness is a registered trademark. Copyright, Weird Darkness. And now that we're coming out of the dark, I'll leave you with a little light. Colossians 3 verses 1 and 2. Since then, you have been raised with Christ. Set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. And a final thought. You can forgive people without welcoming them back into your life. Accept their apology, but deny their access to you. I'm Darren Marlar. Thanks for joining me. In the Weird Darkness. Hey Weirdos, if you're a fan of my retro radio episodes, or if you just love classic radio shows in general, you can binge listen even more of it with my new podcast Retro Radio Old Time Radio in the Dark. These episodes have become so popular that I needed to create a separate podcast in order to offer more of it. Now I can post old time radio shows seven days a week, including single episodes of dark and mysterious shows, as well as marathon episodes that are several hours in length for binge listening to a creepy and macabre program. I'll still post one episode each Sunday in my Weird Darkness podcast, but if you want more old time radio content, visit WeirdDarkness.com slash Retro Radio. That's WeirdDarkness.com slash Retro Radio. 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It's Wednesday. It's July the sixth. It's 11 o'clock. That can mean only one thing. Time for American Issues, Take One. I'm Tim Apachele, your host. And today's title is SCOTUS blocks the EPA to control carbon. With me today is my esteemed guests and co-host Jay Fidel, Winston Welch, and Cynthia Lee Sinclair. Good morning, everyone. I can't wait to talk about the Supreme Court and their decisions on this show and probably for the rest of our lives, because that's how big they are and how they impact our society. Jay, the SCOTUS decision that's basically blocking the EPA's ability to regulate carbon emissions, specifically from power plants in the South. And this was West Virginia versus the EPA. That was the court case name. What does this do, the EPA, and how their ability to enforce the Clean Air Act? You know, here at Think Tech, we've been following the quality of the country. We connected the dots on Donald Trump and felt that during his administration, the executive branch was broken. And then we looked over at Mitch McConnell and realized that since the Senate was stopping everything, with his friend Joe Manchin, that the Senate was broke. And therefore the Congress is broke and still is broke. And what we thought that somehow the country could trundle along even though these two elements were broken. Now we find, I mean, maybe we should have realized it earlier, that the Supreme Court is broke. And that makes three branches of a three branch government are broke. Now, what they did is return to something, oh, gee, in the 19th century, libertarianism kind of thing, a new federalism emulating the old federalism. Those states right. And for that matter, the Congress has to rule on everything the president cannot take executive action directly or through his departments. And therefore, can't get anything done. Because the Congress isn't going to do anything. So this EPA decision goes beyond carbon in some states in the south. It goes to all action by all agencies of the federal government. It says, you know, you can't do these things. You can't make rules. You can't regulate without specific authority from Congress. And as I mentioned, Congress is broke. So what we have now is a complete stoppage of whatever is left of the federal government. President really can't do anything directly or through his agencies. And it will get worse because it reflects an ideology. So this case goes beyond carbon. For that matter, it goes beyond environment. You know, it pulls a tease out of the EPA pulls the EPA apart. It no longer can do what it was structured to do. And I think that's pretty serious, given the fact that we are living in the midst of an existential crisis that is climate change, which is the top priority of everything. We list everything we talk about, you know, environmental issues like climate change are really at the top. And this stops the federal government from doing anything worse. What's slightly worse than that is where the city on the hill, we're the leader of the free rules based liberal order in the world. That's the Marshall plan.  Now it's the engine is stopping all together. And people in Europe and Asia, they used to think we cared about the environment, Reddit, Thunberg used to think we cared about the environment. The United Nations and all that. Now it's hard to say we care about the environment. And therefore they will follow us, they will emulate us into nothingness. And if you thought they weren't going to put a lot of money into it, well, I think this confirms that. So bottom line is that at the very top of the priority list, this is a mortal blow. You know, Justice Kagan stated that Congress had already given the EPA more than enough authority to enforce the Clean Air Act. And so Congress knew full well that that's the authority that the EPA had been granted. If you're going to tell me that the court, the decision is not well reasoned, I think we can operate on the assumption sort of a continuing assumption that nothing this court does with its hypermajority is well reasoned. It's all flawed. It's all based on bad facts, bad law, bad outcome. So it's not a surprise to find from Kagan that arguably Congress has already given authority. But this court doesn't care about that. They're into destruction. So are you telling me basically we have a number of justices, maybe three or four, that are making their decisions not based on law, but religious or political bias? Is that what you're trying to imply? Yeah. How can I say it better? You can't. I just said it for you. Yes, you did. Well, that's not good. That's not good. All right. Winston, Jason, throw me a curveball here because he agreed with me. Scares me when he does that. Winston, what is your take on the ability of the EPA to basically enforce the Clean Air Act? And does Justice Kagan have a point that Congress has already decided that that's the authority they have? We're going to talk a little bit later about overreach from some of these government agencies in the last couple years. But right now, it doesn't seem like the EPA does have overreach in this. So your thoughts on this? Well, we've been looking, seeing this trend, it's quite a shocker for this. But if you extend it logically, it goes really into the almost the entire federal structure of executive administration as we understand it. Look at that. He agrees with me, too. We have so far we're doing really well on this show. Agreement doesn't mean that it's a big thing. But I'm looking at, look at the rulings we've had this year. We've had the CDC said, yeah, you can't enforce the moratorium eviction due to COVID. You've had OSHA. It says you can't enforce a vaccine mandate in workplaces. You've had EPA saying you can't carry out some of its mission. The conservatives have been gunning for a lot of these agencies, the Department of Education, right? Or is it Health Education and Welfare? Is it just Department of Education? It was HEW, wasn't it? But now it's just Department of Education. Yeah, because Betsy DeBoss is in the event. I mean, that effectively gutted it as much as they tried there. But here's the courts. This is a different thing. This is not the executive putting in someone like Betsy DeBoss in charge of that. But when we're seeing this theory that's been given the non-delegation doctrine is the outer bounds of this campaign. We're seeing these new legal terms that we really haven't been exposed to before, but we're talking a wholesale change in the way our nation operates. So are they going to then prevent California from establishing its own rules like it has been allowed to do? And it just squeaked by in a ruling last year, or this year when I remember when it came up in the courts. So maybe if there's a, I don't even want to call it a silver lining, but the states, if we're going back to that idea of states' rights, there was a really interesting article in The Times in England called Why America's in Such a Mess, and it talks about how we're devolving a little bit, if I think faster than this fellow, Adam Smith, was proposing, but essentially that the blue states may then turn the states' rights things on their head and say, okay, if you're not going to do it at the federal level, we are going to take it based on your logic, and we're going to enforce these stronger things. But how does that work? Pollution from one state drifts over into the other. So this is a can of worms that's opened up. Where do you even draw the line? There's been so many just really extreme decisions in the last week that it's shaking our understanding of what our federal system is all about. And I think there's just a lot there too much to tackle. Winston, can you help me with something? You mentioned that the Supreme Court is turning it over through the states, and indeed, on Roe v. Wade, that's what they did. At the same time in this EPA case, they turned it over to Congress, which is broke. And so which is it? Is it Congress or is it the states or is it anywhere where nothing will get done? Is it anywhere which somehow feeds the ideology of this court? It's both. It's neither. It's whatever advances their agenda. And in this case, right, the Congress and under that jurisdiction that the Congress cannot delegate to an executive branch to any power. This is ludicrous. I mean, Congress relies on and we have relied on an administrative army to take care of these rules and writing these things. But when you say, suddenly, that's not going to happen in Congress is supposed to somehow do this, when they can barely pass a budget. I don't even want to call it a gridlock. It's a polarization. The other thing that's more scary, I think that is maybe we want to bring up in this show, but maybe it's topic for another time is this idea of the independent state legislature theory, which is another thing I'd never heard of before really. I mean, I added passing in sort of just some rarefied Trumpian arguments. But this is the idea that legislatures have the ability to call elections as they see fit. And this is a really absolutely game changer. If this goes through, and there was an article in. The Supreme Court already decided that judges are not going to render their decisions that would affect that. That was the decision last week. Yes, but there's an article on July 5th, which yesterday by Lawrence Tribe and Dennis Aftergut in the LA Times yesterday, an opinion on this. And it sort of lays it out of what we're really talking about called the Supreme Court is poised to cut the heart out of majority rule. My hope is that and as the fellow and Adam Smith in the Times says that maybe we've reached, I think after this weekend, I don't know, but he likens it to prohibition that the extreme right has overplayed its hand. And we're going to people are going to be really shocked and say, I don't I don't recognize this nation, whether it's right left or center anymore, and they that there will be some desire to get back to that. That said, when you have seven or nine justices that are deciding things, it really doesn't matter maybe what Monpochettle thinks so much because they may just go along with it as the frog in the pot gets warmer and warmer and warmer. Okay. Good points, Winston. Cynthia, this some of the points Winston made leads me to this question for you. You know, this decision by the Supreme Court not only affects the EPA and their ability to implement the Clean Air Act, but reference to was made to the CDC on how it was going to mandate to halt evictions. Isn't that government overreach that wasn't really part of their bailing with that wasn't part of their wheelhouse to halt evictions for the CDC to halt evictions? Wasn't that overreach? And the question is, if it's not overreach, then why did the Supreme Court say the CDC doesn't have the authority to halt evictions? Well, we just discussed why the Supreme Court thinks it's okay to halt whatever it feels like, right? If it doesn't happen to fall within what they like, they can get rid of it. You know, as far as the Supreme Court coming in on legislatures, having power over elections, six states already have that. And there's like eight states that are in process of trying to get it passed in their state Senate. So, you know, granted, we don't want it to be a federal thing like the Supreme Court has already said it's going to do in the next session. But we've already got it happening. We've got to realize this isn't something that might happen in the future. This is something that's already happening. We need to do something about it now. And I have seen, since I got up this morning in the last three hours, I have seen five commercials for that American Edge project. They're talking about how the government's trying to get rid of tech jobs and is cutting American jobs. And it's just a, if you look up the American, you know, Edge project, it's just a far right conservative misinformation type of an ad. So, why are they showing it five times in three hours on MSNBC and CNN? So, these kinds of things are happening regardless of what the Supreme Court does. There's a couple things I think that are important in regards to the Supreme Court that we're talking about here. And maybe some people aren't quite aware of what's going on, right? The Supreme Court said there was no congressional authority for the EPA to make up its own rules. So, in 2015, it came up with two rules that were going to curb the coal fire plants, specifically, established ones were the 111D and the new plants were going to be 111B. And all of these rules are coming out of that section. That is the section that Congress, that's where Congress gave power to the EPA to do these things, right? And they're saying no, they can't. So, they're saying that the Supreme Court was saying the question before the court, right, is whether this broader conception of EPA's authority is within the power granted to it by the Clean Air Act, where it absolutely was section 111. So, these two new rules are specifically trying to address carbon dioxide pollution from these power plants. Now, this is what the Supreme Court comes back with. They said that carbon dioxide is not subject to those same rules because it has not been listed as a toxic pollutant. Carbon dioxide is not- Oh, this is on the same path as privacy was not listed in the 14th Amendment. Thank you. That's right where I was going with that. Yeah. So, every premise that the Supreme Court is standing on is completely false. So, where is America's way to come back at that? How do we answer those kinds of gross misrepresentation of the Supreme Court's power? So, yeah, maybe the government and the CDC overreached a little bit with that whole thing. The whole COVID thing makes that a little bit sketchy to try to define. But this one, there's no doubt. This is beyond perverting the powers of the Supreme Court. And I don't know where our comeback is for that. And that scares me. I think you raised a great point. There's a lot of things that progressed in the United States for 240 years that are not specifically addressed in the Constitution or the Bill of Rights. 240 years of progress may not be written down in black and white. And if you have a Supreme Court or at least a few justices, that's what they're looking for to enforce their rulings. This is childish. It's beyond childish. Hey, Jay, thank you, Cynthia. JTU, on the world stage, was this due to Joe Biden's promise to reduce carbon emissions by 50% by 2050? How does this... Well, obviously, it doesn't help his credibility. But how does he deal with that on the world stage? I wanted to address one thing before I get to that, Tim. And that's the Adam Smith's suggestion that this is something like prohibition for Winston's thought. Prohibition lasted for 10 years, roughly. And the country realized that it was damaging and silly and wasteful. And it generated the mobs is what it did. It had all kinds of bad effect. And I guess people got the idea there was a change in the political direction of the country. We were in a depression already by the time it was repealed. And so there were factors that played in causing the repeal. But I don't see an easy comparison between prohibition and the solution to this problem. I may sound negative and pessimistic about it, but I think all three branches of government are broken. If we're looking today at the Supreme Court, it's going to be broken for a while. There's a supermajority that's a super right wing. And they don't mind making decisions that are not based on the facts or the law to win all the factual mistakes they made in the Seattle Football Coach case. It's been the subject of great criticism over the past few days. I mean, I think they're hopeless. They're gone. And forget about them coming back like prohibition. They're not going to come back. So we have to look, I'm sorry to say all you guys, we have to look at the worst side of things because the country is in a major decline. And really the question on that is where are we going from here? It is not a good place. And to answer your question about the global effect of this, I mentioned earlier that I think many things that have happened in this country, the three branches of government now clearly broken are a huge message to the world that we have lost it. And of course, if the conservatives get in next time, next November and again in 2024, that will confirm the message. And it will make it clear that we're not going to support them in Europe. We're not going to be able to do anything because we can't get the government together. And even if we have a moment of clarity, it changes. It's an indictment of democracy. And Xi Jinping can say, look, look at those guys, they're a bunch of clowns. They can't get it together on any level, including the military level, I'm sorry. And so the answer is people have followed us many countries, United Nations, good part of those 190 countries have followed us about a climate change. Why should they now? We can't do it. And this is an indication of temperature, if you will, in the middle of a hot summer with heat waves and forest fires and floods and all kind of indicia that we are suffering more every day from climate change, the Supreme Court cuts off climate change at the ankles. So how can another country say, oh, the United States is the leader in dealing with climate change? We are not. And we're not going to be for a while, maybe longer than prohibition. Okay, to that point, Jay, Donald Trump took us away from climate change on the world stage. And the rest of the world said, fine. They're vacant. They're not here. They're not participating. We'll go it alone. Now that the EPA doesn't have the ability to reduce carbon emissions from coal plants, which is a major source of our emissions, does the world continue to say, well, it's like Donald Trump is back at the helm. So let's keep going it alone without the United States. Is that what's going to happen? Or do they say, let's work with President Biden and see if he can do a workaround, do some kind of trick of the administration or executive order? Which way do you think Europe and the rest of the world will go with this? They're going to give up on us. With Trump, he did everything he could to undermine efforts of climate change. And he had the Senate under McConnell and Joe Manchin to help him. And so two branches of government were pulling the rug out on efforts of climate change. So then Joe Biden gets to be president. He tries really hard. He tries to bring Europe together, to bring the United Nations together to get it going again. And to some extent he succeeds. But the undermining feature is that every one of the world knows our government turns over or should turn over every couple of years, every four years anyway. So now the Supreme Court has dealt the executive, EPA is part of the executive, right? Then the executive immoral blow because now the Congress isn't going to do anything. A Republican president won't do anything.  Not only EPA, but so many other things. They've telegraphed exactly what they're going to do. They don't care about it. They don't believe in it. There are a lot of people in this country don't believe in climate change right now today. So what I'm telling you is that if I'm in Europe or for that matter, I'm in Asia, I say the United States is finished on this leadership in climate change. Why should we do anything? They won't. They won't fund it and we're all cooked. Okay. What was your comment, Winston? Something about the steam and the pot and the frog? We're cooked. Cooking. Well, yeah, but I don't honestly, just between us girls, I don't think we can come back. I think we're over the Rubicon. Okay. Winston, we have a few minutes left, actually less than that. And so the question is, industry is doing things without regular regulatory incentives or action. I'm thinking of the auto industry right now where they've always been resistant to CAFTA standards and mileage to the gallon of gas. And they've fought that tooth and nail, but now they want to continue it. They want to actually have higher numbers of miles to gasoline than never before. So they didn't want to gut the CAFTA standards. So goes the production of electric vehicles. They don't want to go back. That's a new wave now. Will we see other industries do the same where, regardless of what the Supreme Court says or the Congress, that they're going to take the lead and actually serve the population on the advances of non-producing industries? Is that a possibility? Absolutely. And it's going to be driven by economics at the end of the day, that as these alternative energy sources become cheaper and more reliable, you're already looking at essentially Hawaii is going to become carbon neutral in just a few years. Now, how we're going to do that, we're still trying to figure out. But essentially, these technologies involving waves every year, they're just getting more and more efficient. So it's going to be, at some point, more expensive to burn things, but we're not there yet. And I don't think anybody cares about what Greta has to say, except Greta's age, but they're mad at us, and rightly so. But that's not the driving force. It's not the moral force is, oh, how about climate change? They're not really worried about that. You might feel it like it's super hot this summer or we had 59 inches of rain in Sydney in a day, those sorts of things. And people know that there's climate change, but they just don't want to look at it. It's just like when you figure out there's not a Santa Claus. Your world is kind of destroyed for a while. But I'm more concerned with where our nation is heading, not exactly in the EPA, but as a whole of how, and I saw this in opinion after opinion about celebrating July 4th.  And Jay thinks we're over the Rubicon. I'm not sure that we are yet, but we're definitely in a place where we're seeing a lot of very different vistas. We don't know how that's going to look, but if I could predict something for the next while, I don't see this changing, but maybe we'll pull back from the precipice as we pursue some sort of more extreme federalism in maybe along the line of the baby bells and how they were broken up as Western bell and mountain bell and that sort of thing. That would be my guess, but we're really going to have to have a lot of aloha for our fellow Americans as we traverse this. That's the route that we're going to go in. We may not have a choice in how we go with this because the levers of power are that way right now, but that prohibition example I think is illustrated as as big tech comes in and says, okay, you can't leave Texas as a pregnant woman. And that's that sort of law comes up in the future as it very well may in some state or maybe Alabama or Tennessee or whatever. And people are like, wait a minute, I want to see my daughter. She can't leave the state now because she's pregnant and they're worried about, you know, she's those sorts of things are going to come. And there's a good article as lead with this is a Washington Post had an opinion by fetishizing the founding fathers. And it was, oh, he was Clinton's secretary of, I want to say Ruben, but he talks about that they weren't perfect people. This is not a gospel truth that the document that they gave us was the best one that we could have. And now we we're mending over time. And you know, women weren't mentioned in it and voting rights and black property and all of that. So it's it's a more perfect union that we're going towards. But our more perfect union may not look like the union that we imagined a week ago or two weeks ago. And we're kind of going to have to just fasten our seat belts. I think we're in for a little bit of a bumpy ride here. All right, Cynthia, we're out of time, but I want to get your last thoughts. And I'm going to shift a little bit here. What's the next Supreme Court decision? What's it going to be? And what do they want to gut? Is it gay marriage? What is it? They've already told us the next one they're going to take up is the voting thing. They're going to give the election powers to the legislatures on a federal level, instead of just the individual states coming forward with it. So I want to still talk a little bit more about this whole EPA thing, because I want everyone to realize who brought this suit? West Virginia. We all know who that is, right? This is important. Since he's the one who brought it. This senator that has been the stopping block for every single thing that the Democrats want to get done that will help Americans in profound ways. And it doesn't hurt them in any way. Nobody talks about the fact. Well, wait a minute. Wait a minute, Cynthia. If they ban carbon emissions from coal, everyone in West Virginia, a lot of people are going to be affected by that. That's why Hillary Clinton did not win West Virginia. But they weren't. They weren't banning them. Under rule 111, there was two different sections. There was one for the ones that were new plants being constructed. Those have higher levels of regulation. And it's a stepping process. They didn't expect them to just suddenly stop and then put all these people out of work. Just the opposite. Within the rule, it's written that it's a step process. And as they reduce their level of carbon dioxide exhaust, they have to replace that same amount of energy with some sort of renewable energy. It be wind or solar or whatever. That's what they want. It wasn't just like a slash. You're gone. But that's what the hard time reading through the whole court's decision, because some of it's a little over my head. And I know some of the things that they cite as precedent don't make sense to me with no time to look them all up. But they're saying that that's one of the main reasons that they've decided to gut the EPA is because it's going to immediately make a bunch of people out of work in West Virginia. Well, that's not exactly true. So there you go. Another falsehood in this decision that's been made. And I think the fact that it was West Virginia and Joe Manchin that brought this whole thing about, but it started in 2019, actually, under count. We're not going to be able to probably have time to go through that history, Cynthia. I'm sorry. We are out of time. Hey, Jay, your last thoughts and word, please. We've been talking about making a perfect, more perfect union. And I would say in our lifetimes, all of us, the union has gotten less perfect and not more perfect. And furthermore, there are people who want to make it less perfect. And as I said, we're on a decline. The only hope I would hold though, and this goes back again, to the comparison with prohibition, is we're shooting ourselves in the foot. The people in West Virginia are going to find there is no social safety net. At the end of the day, there are no jobs. There's no welfare. There's nobody to protect them or provide healthcare. And all of these things are going to be withdrawn. In addition to our civil rights, watch out for that. You ask what's coming down the pike. I think what's coming down the pike of the conservatives have their way is freedom of the press. Enjoy that risk. That is very scary. But the one hope I would have is that if people look down and find out that their feet are bleeding, they're going to realize that they've been shooting themselves in the foot. And hopefully that word will become clear. And maybe we'll have a reversal like we did in prohibition, but it has to happen soon. And there is a possibility logically that it will happen. The problem is that right now we are in chaos. So it's hard for people to make a clear choice. Thank you, Jay. Yeah, it took 10 years for us to realize that prohibition was really a bad, bad idea. So good points. Winston, your last thought. Okay, health education and welfare was 1953. Eisenhower was president. That's when it started. Department of Education gets spun off in 79. And then the other half got health and human services. So we were dating ourselves a little bit there. EPA, who starts the EPA? Richard Nixon, Republican, right? Dwight Eisenhower, Republican. We're talking these were universally acclaimed Republican, Democratic, American initiatives. I'm going to differ a little bit with Jay on this. I think that the last 50, 60 years has seen enormous advances in a more perfect union for many, many groups of people. What we're looking at now, though, is the reversal of that. And that's where people are realizing, whoa, that never even understood a different time when things were different. And they are different and they were different. And they're going to be different if we don't step up and say, nope, we're not backsliding in those ways. And some of these things might go by the wayside, like the EPA and it goes down to the states. But hopefully, our civil rights, our freedom of the presses, our basic rights, these will be universal, universally acclaimed and upheld. But we're just in for a lot of great time to be a lawyer. You're not going to be out of work. Not so great if you're in the right time. Got to be enough time on the court docket to take all these cases because they're coming. Thank you, Winston. Cynthia, did you find what you needed to find? I did find what I needed to find. And I've got to say, I used to think that Mitch McConnell was the most dangerous man in America. But I've decided after reading all of this and looking into some of this, that it's really Joe Manchin. He is absolutely as, I don't even know what to call him, as dorky as he is. And I need a better word. He is the most dangerous man in America right now. And it's just terrifying to me. Okay, so what I want to close with is what Justice Kagan wrote in her dissent. Section 111, this is what I was talking about earlier, in trust's important matters to EPA in the expectation that the agency will use that authority to combat pollution, and that courts will not interfere. Thank you. That's it for our show. I'd like to thank Jay Fiedel, Winston Welch, Cynthia Lees and Claire. Join us next Wednesday, 11 o'clock for American Issues Take One. And also join us tomorrow for American Issues Take Two, Thursday at 11 o'clock. I'm Tim Appichell, your host. We hope to see you then. Aloha. Thank you so much for watching Think Tech Hawaii. If you like what we do, please like us and click the subscribe button on YouTube and the follow button on Vimeo. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn, and donate to us at ThinkTechHawaii.com. Mahalo.