When one thinks about the major causes of death for industrialized countries, a familiar number of ailments come to mind — cancer and heart disease, for instance. In the past few years, COVID has also ranked high in some countries’ mortality tables. But Canada has a new leading cause of death that is both shocking and surprising: death by doctor. While courts and lawmakers created the assisted suicide regime … individual citizens must stand up for the rights of individuals to live with dignity. That’s one of the major conclusions from a recent study that examined our neighbor to the north’s medical aid in dying laws and their grisly consequences. According to the study, assisted suicide now ranks alongside cardiovascular disease as Canada’s fifth leading cause of death. The number of assisted suicides rose thirteenfold from 2016 to 2022, to over 13,000 — this in a country with a population roughly one-tenth the size of the United States. And because some provinces do not report assisted suicide as the cause of death, the data actually under-estimates the impact of assisted suicide on Canadian mortality. (READ MORE: Assisted Suicide Surges in California) These results flow from decisions taken by policymakers to promote assisted suicide. Legislative expansions of a “right” first created by courts — i.e., the right to take one’s own life — have allowed for same-day suicide, and made conditions like vision and hearing loss eligible for aid in dying. The report illustrates how an outcome once alleged to be rare has become shockingly routine. While a 2020 journal article predicted 2,000 assisted suicides that year, the actual outcome exceeded that prediction by nearly threefold, a number that nearly doubled again from 2020 to 2022. Even the head of the commission that monitors assisted suicide in Quebec had to admit that in the province, “we’re now no longer dealing with an exceptional treatment, but a treatment that is very frequent.” Why Is Assisted Suicide Growing? Why has Canada’s regime grown at the fastest rate of all the assisted suicide programs in the Western world? Along with the frequent eligibility expansions, one has to point to the country’s single-payer system of socialized medicine. Persistent under-funding means that over 1.2 million Canadians are waiting for various treatments — some for more than a year. With obtaining appropriate medical treatment difficult due to government rationing, some Canadian patients may lose hope and turn to assisted suicide in the absence of an alternative. In some cases, physicians may try to promote this outcome by persuading patients of the futility of their cause. Talk about a macabre — not to mention immoral — way to lower health care costs. The way that Canada has devalued life is horrifying and disgusting. The fact that some states like California and Washington state have also gone down the road of assisted suicide makes me fear that our culture does not stand up for the least among us. In promoting assisted suicide, we are sending a very clear message to those with disabilities or in pain that their lives have little meaning and are not “worth it.” (READ MORE: Trans Individuals Seek Euthanasia After ‘Gender-Affirming Care’) While courts and lawmakers created the assisted suicide regime in Canada, and in some states here, individual citizens must stand up for the rights of individuals to live with dignity, without feeling bullied or influenced into taking one’s own life. Let us work to build a culture that values all human life, from conception to natural death, to promote the inherent worth of all Americans. Mary Vought is a Senior Fellow at the Independent Women’s Forum. You can follow her on X @MaryVought.     The post The Horrific Assisted Suicide Boom in Canada appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

Volkswagen made headlines recently as its leaders expressed concern about the company’s prospects, suggesting that they may have to close their operations in Germany, the birthplace of the company and its home for almost 90 years. And they should be a warning sign for us. VW is suffering from bad economic, environmental, and industrial policies in Germany — policies that are dangerously being embraced by both sides of the political aisle in the United States.  While the turmoil at VW is worrying for Germany … it should also unsettle Americans. German Labor Problems Volkswagen’s top problem involves its German workforce. Since 1972 and the passage of the Works Constitution Act, German law has required all medium and large German companies to have significant labor representation on their boards as well as favorable rules regarding labor unions.  These rules have made it nearly impossible for VW to trim or restructure its labor force to cut costs and remain competitive. As a result, they may have to shut down some of their German operations entirely — which would clearly be a much worse outcome for German workers than a restructuring. The Supply Chain Act that went into effect in 2023 exports these onerous German labor rules to German-owned factories around the world. Democrats have been friendly toward organized labor throughout the 20th century. Labor unions, especially large public sector unions, give far more heavily to Democrats than Republicans. But despite extensive evidence that labor unions and labor restrictions make companies less effective and less profitable, an increasing number of Republican senators from Marco Rubio to Josh Hawley to JD Vance have said they want to revitalize labor unions.(READ MORE: Why We Shouldn’t Expect a Return to the Trump Economy)   In fact, Teamsters President Sean O’Brien spoke at the Republican national convention this year — the first time a labor union leader has done so. German Energy Problems VW also suffers from skyrocketing energy costs in Germany. Although the Russia-Ukraine war and the destruction of the Nord Stream pipeline has exacerbated the problem, energy prices in Germany have been increasing for decades as the political elite became enamored of “net-zero” policy while simultaneously shuttering German nuclear power plants. The result has been a strained energy grid and increasingly expensive electricity. Other environmental restrictions on emissions and the use of fossil fuels have made matters worse. This policy of forced energy starvation has long been championed by the left, now with increasing urgency. Vice President Harris’ historical opposition to fracking, the Biden administration’s ban on the development of new liquid natural gas (LNG) export facilities, the EPA’s increasingly strict requirements for coal power plants and for combustion engine vehicles, and Biden’s revoking of the permit for the Keystone pipeline project all illustrate the left’s hostility toward reliable, cheap, abundant energy. German Resource Problems VW faces a third problem with the high cost of its inputs: steel, semiconductors, rare earth metals, etc. Unfortunately, both political parties in the U. S. have proposed policies that will make this problem worse in America. Democrats champion extremely costly environmental regulations that make it nearly impossible to create or expand mining operations in the U. S. While Republicans want to ease many of those environmental regulations, they advocate tariffs that will vitiate the benefits of these changes. Tariffs on steel raise the domestic price of the commodity thereby increasing the cost of building cars, farm equipment, and many other products. Tariffs on semiconductors and imported raw materials similarly raise the domestic price of these resources, eating into the profitability and competitiveness of U. S. manufacturers. Heavily subsidizing struggling companies, as some in Germany have suggested doing for Volkswagen, is not a good road to follow. The electric vehicle craze was fueled by government subsidies and tax credits in the first place. Now that governments are pulling back, companies in the EV space like Volvo and Northvolt are left scrambling and backpedaling. Similarly, although Chinese car companies seem to benefit from significant government subsidies, appearances can be deceiving.  Many Chinese EV manufacturers have seen their vehicles pile up in inventory. Their long-run profitability is questionable and Chinese taxpayers are on the hook to lose billions that the government poured into over-building EV production. Industrial policies like subsidies, tax breaks, and protection from international competition merely transfer the problems of struggling companies onto the general public. (READ MORE: The Real Relationship Between Trump-Style Tariffs and Economic Growth) While the turmoil at VW is worrying for Germany, especially for German VW employees, it should also unsettle Americans. Both Democrats and Republicans seem ready and eager to replicate the labor, environmental, energy, and resource problems in Germany — and in the EU more broadly — reducing their competitiveness. Whether or not you like GTIs or Jettas, we would be better off importing German cars than importing bad German policies. The post Import Germany’s Cars, Not Its Policies appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

I have been marooned without electricity for almost a week (thank you – not! – Helene) and yet somehow the word reached me that Pete Rose, professional baseball’s all-time hits leader, passed away on September 30 at age 83. Rose’s passing triggered a ton of memories from this longtime baseball fan. Never during his playing career was Rose’s intense competitive nature more pronounced than in the 1970 All-Star game. I recall finding his rookie baseball card in a package of bubblegum in 1963. Pete won the National League Rookie of the Year Award that year, so there was already a buzz around him. Alas, the shoebox stuffed full with my baseball card collection was thrown out while I was away at college. I saw Rose play dozens of times on television — All-star games, playoffs, World Series — and finally saw him play in person in 1979 when I was teaching in St. Louis and Pete was playing with the Phillies. He was mesmerizing to watch. If there was one definitive characteristic to the way Pete Rose played baseball, it was his intensity. If he drew a walk, he ran, not trotted, to first base. Baseball fans dubbed him “Charlie Hustle.” Every time he went to the plate, his enthusiasm and concentration were palpable. You could tell that he relished the one-on-one battle between pitcher and batter, and he was going to do his utmost to win that competition: 4,256 times, Pete won that competition by getting a base hit. The immortal Ty Cobb was the only other major league baseball player to exceed 4,000 hits. Cobb has 4,191 hits, which he was able to accumulate while batting 2,787 times fewer than Rose. Cobb, of course, holds the record for highest career batting average — .367. That is a truly incredible feat, for there have been only 117 individual single season records of .367 or higher (14 of them by Cobb himself) in the last 124 seasons, and yet Cobb averaged .367 over a span of 24 seasons. The highest batting average Pete ever had in a single season was .348, and his career average was .303. That was excellent for the era in which he played, and he won three batting titles during his career. He also had a 44-consecutive game hitting streak in 1978 — a streak so unusual that it was getting headlines in newspapers in Mexico City, where I happened to be at the time. Pete Rose’s 4,256 hits is a staggering achievement when you put it in perspective. Getting at least 200 hits in a season is considered a great achievement. Babe Ruth did it three times, Willie Mays once, and the great Ted Williams never. Cobb did it nine times, and Pete Rose and Ichiro Suzuki share the record of ten such seasons.  Ringing up 4,256 hits is the equivalent of hitting at least 200 hits in a season 21 times. That’s mind-boggling. It surely was made possible only by Rose’s tenacity and intensity. He simply loved baseball and loved to compete, and he excelled at it for more than two decades. Rose the Competitor Never during his playing career was Rose’s intense competitive nature more pronounced than in the 1970 All-Star game. Pete scored the winning run for the National League in extra innings by barreling into catcher Ray Fosse so hard that Fosse never hit for power again and ended up retiring young a couple of years later. On the one hand, it seemed like such a waste — after all, an All-Star game is an exhibition game — but to Pete Rose, a game is a game, and the only way to play it is to go all-out to win. Rose, by the way, was elected to be a starter in the All-Star game at five different positions — first, second, and third bases, and left and right fields. And it wasn’t because Rose was a weak fielder and his manager had to find a place to put him in the field so that he could get Pete’s bat into the lineup. Rose won a couple of Gold Gloves for fielding excellence during his career. No other major leaguer has shown such masterful versatility to be named an All-Star at five positions. Rose’s competitive nature had a darker aspect. There may be a variety of opinions about the psychology of a compulsive gambler, but my theory is that Pete was so obsessed with competition that he gambled on baseball games to find another way to beat the person on the other side. It was his gambling habit, of course, that got Pete banned from baseball for life, and that explains why major league baseball’s all-time hits leader is not in the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY. Now it is time to bid farewell to an American sports legend. Pete Rose will forever occupy a special spot in this history of baseball as a tragic hero — a man whose competitive nature both propelled him to the top and then brought him down. RIP, Pete. READ MORE from Mark W. Hendrickson: Shohei Ohtani: Major League Baseball’s Supernova How Trump Can Win (Or Lose) The post Pete Rose: A Baseball Icon With Feet of Clay appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

from Stew Peters Network: TRUTH LIVES on at https://sgtreport.tv/

by Martin Armstrong, Armstrong Economics: I have often been asked why the media never runs a story on our computer, the ONLY Artificial Intelligence computer with a real track record of over 40 years that has called every major shift in the world economy and correctly forecasted wars to the point of even targeting Ukraine years in […]

Everything Harris has said is a LIE!!! This is a local lady heading up the volunteers in North Carolina talking about what they've had to go through with FEMA.?? It was so bad that their Sheriff, Bill Beam, ended up kicking FEMA out of his county and taking it over himself. In… pic.twitter.com/eJx6IH3SJS — SaltyGoat […]

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Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas claims that FEMA is running out of money, after it blew though $1.4 billion on illegal aliens. DANIEL GREENFIELD While there’s not enough money for hurricane victims in America, Vice President Kamala Harris announced that after Israel took out Hezbollah Islamic terrorist leaders, “The people of Lebanon are facing an […]