Opinion
By Jeff Childers
10-12-23
Good morning, C&C family, itβs Thursday! Tons of uplifting news in the roundup today along with the usual briefings. Your roundup includes: fired Canadian detective who was suspended for investigating jab deaths might be back to work soon; possible path to peace emerges in Israel war; Israel forms united government; Biden sends aircraft carriers to Israel for some reason; other war updates; former Hamas leader sets off social media hot takes after calling for jihad; Rand Paul reveals new evidence against Fauci; SADS mystery βallergyβ death of celebrity chef; SADS Springsteen painful peptic ulcers; Ethical Skeptic finally off the CDCβs chain; new version of Governor Newsom takes up the social wars banner β for conservatism; voters lean into border walls; and an uplifting video for your Thursday viewing pleasure.
ππ¬ WORLD NEWS AND COMMENTARY π¬π
π The Ottawa Citizen ran a hopeful story this morning headlined, βSuspended detective accused of seeking links between child deaths and COVID-19 vaccines set to return to work, lawyer says; OPS says no timeline set.β
There appears to be some disagreement between the lawyer and the police department, but the Ottawa police detective accused of seeking links between childrenβs deaths and covid jabs may have her suspension rescinded soon, her lawyer said Tuesday.
Back in February, the investigator became the investigated when Ottawa police detective Helen Grus was accused of βconducting an unauthorized investigation.β Helen, assigned to the SIDS unit, investigated infant sudden death cases. On a hunch in 2022, Helen started asking the bereaved mothers if theyβd recently gotten the covid jab or a booster. She started finding a connection, and began looking into other investigatorsβ cases trying to find a common denominator in the jabs. When her department found out what Helen was up to, they charged her with “discreditable conductβ and commenced a human resources trial to get her fired or demoted (apparently thatβs how it works in Canada public service).
Helen has been suspended since February.
The Ottawa Citizen reported in August that Helen was accused of investigating nine SIDS cases she wasnβt assigned to (she was trying to figure out the motherβs vaccination status). Her bosses were especially triggered that, in one case where the mother couldnβt be reached, Helen called the father asking for details. Imagine that.
In March one of the mothers β βKarenβ β was notified by Helenβs department that Helen has accessed Karenβs babyβs death records, and that Helen was not the assigned investigating officer. So Karen told the Ottawa Citizen she felt her privacy had been violated and expressed outrage at all the terrific support Helen has received from people opposed to mandatory jabbing.
The details are a little murky, but from what I can tell, Helenβs trial is set to continue the first week of December, but she has an upcoming meeting with the department where her return to work will be βdiscussed,β including βpotential restrictions and conditionsβ on her if she is allowed to return from suspension. A department spokesman confirmed that Helen remains suspended for now, and thereβs been no decision yet about her coming back to work.
This story should have gotten more visibility earlier this year. Helenβs friends setup a GiveSendGo to help with her legal expenses, and it has not done as well as it should. Iβm not calling for a multiplier, but I did chip in. Hereβs the link if you also want to give detective Helen a little C&C love this morning. (Note itβs in Canadian dollars, and watch out for the automatic βtipβ.)
π As air strikes continued in Gaza yesterday, a scrap of hope emerged from the acrid smoke of the new Israel war. To frame it, look all the way back to ancient history in Tuesday, when Reuters ran a story headlined, βHamas official says group is open to discussions over truce with Israel.β At that time, everyone laughed like braying donkeys at the ridiculous notion that Israel would ever discuss a stand down, at least anytime soon.
Now consider CNBCβs report this morning, headlined, βIsrael says Gaza siege wonβt end until hostages released; Blinken arrives in Tel Aviv.β Specifically, Israelβs Minister of Energy and Infrastructure Israel Katz said late yesterday that the siege βwill not be lifted until the countryβs hostages, taken by Hamas, are returned home.β It was stated in the negative, but in diplomatic-speak, that may be an offer to stop the siege if the hostages are promptly returned. We pray they havenβt been mistreated too badly.
So, todayβs good news is that, between the two stories, thereβs a possible path to a cease fire. If Hamas returns the hostages, then Israel might stand down. Any decent negotiator could combine the willingness of Hamas to discuss a truce and the βofferβ from Israel to lift the siege. The problem is they donβt have any decent negotiator. They have Anthony Blinken, who is kind of the reverse opposite of a decent negotiator. Look how much he helped Ukraine.
Blinken is like a hostage-negotiating Typhoid Mary. Keep him far away from the discussions.
Any way you slice it, Hamas should immediately return the civilian hostages; it is a moral imperative. The vast majority of those taken seem to be women, young girls, and young boys. They must be returned promptly. If the hostages are returned, Israel may have a way to politically escape its own moral imperative to punish Hamas enough to restore deterrence. It would not resolve the conflict, not even close, but it could move the conflict out of the theatre to the negotiating table.
So thereβs one thing to pray for today. It might be unlikely, but itβs a start.
π Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu formed an emergency government yesterday. That is kind of like different political parties coming together and agreeing to all pull in the same direction. Together, the leaders from the different parties issued a blunt joint statement saying, βEvery member of Hamas is a dead man. Hamas will cease to exist.β
π Joe Biden ordered the Gerald R. Ford, an aircraft carrier located conveniently nearby, to sail to station off northern Israel (near Gaza), where it arrived yesterday. That way, if the Hamas militants launch their own aircraft carrier, or launch jet fighter squadrons, then we will be ready. Otherwise it is not yet perfectly clear what the Gerald R. Ford is going to do.
There are rumors Team Biden is considering sending a second aircraft carrier and an entire battle group, possibly anticipating that Hamas will somehow assemble a massive navy that it has been hiding in a storm drain somewhere. (More seriously, all the U.S. hardware is probably intended to deter other Middle Eastern countries like Iran from piling on.)
Israel has not started its ground offensive into Gaza yet. The IDF announced that 300,000 reservists have been called up and stationed outside Gaza. The IDFβs daily update suggested Israel is more interested in the vast network of terrorist tunnels dug underneath Gaza than in anything located above ground. According to its official statement, air strikes are meant to target either underground Hamas resources or buildings suspected of hiding Hamas leaders. Israel will not say when it plans to start the ground offensive. It will start when theyβre ready.
Rumors of attacks by other enemies in Northern Israel have been unfounded. It appears that Israelβs enemies to the North are just creating mischief and perhaps testing its defenses, but not attacking. Unfortunate Israelis in the North are nervous as cats β and who can blame them? β and keep jumping into their bomb shelters.
π CBS Austin ran a somewhat alarming story yesterday headlined βFormer Hamas leader calls for ‘jihad’ against Israel: ‘This is a moment of truthβ.β
Iβm not sure why this story got so much attention, but the hot takes exploded on social media yesterday. What happened was a former β not current β Hamas leader, Khaled Meshaal, issued a statement from his offices in Qatar encouraging citizens and governments in Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and Egypt to join Hamasβs war against Israel.
This story was widely misconstrued on social media as some kind of worldwide Hamas call for jihad this weekend and everyone is slightly over-reacting. I say βslightlyβ because we should be on heightened alert, lest what just happened to Israel happen to us. Imagine 1,000 armed terrorists launching a nighttime surprise attack on a small rural town somewhere in the U.S. and think about how all that might play out.
There are probably hundreds of thousands of armed terrorists here in the U.S. whoβve arrived ever since President Robert L. Peters threw open the borders. At least we have them in one place.
Anyway, Meshaalβs call for regional jihad may not produce much fruit, since it takes weeks or months to plan a successful military action, and thoughtful, unprepared people arenβt eager to jump right into unplanned conflicts with no plans. It would take a LOT of emotion to overcome normal rational restraint. We might get there, but it doesnβt feel to me like we are quite at that point. Not yet.
π₯ Newsweek ran a story yesterday headlined, βRand Paul Promises ‘Bombshell Revelation’ That Will Take Down Fauci.β
On a Fox Business interview yesterday, Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) first said that newly-obtained emails show Fauci immediately knew covid came from the Wuhan lab and then covered it up. “We now have emails that show saying that he knows it was gain-of-function, that the virus looked manipulated, and that he was worried that this came from the Wuhan lab,” Paul explained.
Senator Paul also said new, difficult-to-get evidence proves Anthony Fauci personally shepherded the Wuhan gain-of-function research around a safety committee set up to prevent high-risk research. Paul said, βWe also know that there was a safety committee that should have reviewed this and we know that Anthony Fauci went around the safety committee.”
Rand Paul said he thinks this evidence βwill bring down Anthony Fauci.β
We can hope! Like cockroaches, which can survive a nuclear attack, Fauci β a human cockroach who would even terrify Franz Kafkaβ has proven hard to squash, as he scurries between various bureaucratic assignments and speaking engagements. I pray I live long enough to see Fauci in an orange jumpsuit.
π CBS News ran a story yesterday with the provocative headline, βCelebrity chef Michael Chiarello dead at age 61 after mystery allergic reaction.β Another baffling medical mystery!
Celebrity chef and Food Network host Michael Chiarello died this week. His doctors and the media described the cause of his death as an βacute allergic reaction that triggered anaphylactic shock.β But intriguingly, CBS calls it a βmystery.β
Thatβs accurate. It is a mystery, for two huge reasons.
First, Chef Michael had no known allergies. There is extensive video evidence of him eating just about everything you can think of. Nothing has ever troubled him so far β and as anyone knows, he didnβt eat anything unusual before he died.
The second and bigger problem is that Chef Michael was in the hospital for five days. Thatβs a pretty weird fact for a death from anaphylactic shock. Remember back in the day? We were all constantly lectured about the one kid who would immediately die if a single glob of peanut butter fell out of a sandwich onto the lunchroom table and a soft breeze blew a tiny microscopic peanut atom onto a book that was later touched by a kid sitting next to the kid with the peanut allergy.
We also all have friends with things like shellfish and bee-sting allergies. The danger is that their throat will swell up and they canβt breath. Apart from that, they might get hives or something but itβs not fatal. The trick is to keep them breathing. If itβs bad, you give them an Epi-pen to get them breathing. Otherwise get them some Benadryl or some other antihistamine and theyβre fine.
The kind of immediate fatal anaphylaxis happens after you get a shot of something. Thatβs why they want you to stick around for 15 minutes after you get the covid jab.
But Chef Michael was in the hospital for five days. They arenβt saying anything about the progression of his illness, but it sounds nothing like anaphylaxis. What allergic reaction kills you slowly over a week β despite treatment? If they want us to believe that, theyβre going to have to cough up a lot more info, which they seem determined not to do.
So. Iβm betting Chef Michael did die from an allergic reaction. An allergic reaction to an experimental mRNA shot.
π The Boss is not back. And he may have been born to run, but heβs not running very fast these days.
Bruce Springsteen was a jab nazi in 2021 and 2022, having one of the strictest requirements for fans to attend his concerts:
Who knows how many people made their ultimate decision to get the shot so they could go to a Springsteen concert?
Anyway, earlier this year, Bruce was still singing up a storm. But yesterday, Fox News ran a story headlined, βBruce Springsteen shares enormity of pain he’s in since postponing tour.β The sub headline added, βSpringsteen’s remaining 2023 tour dates were postponed due to his peptic ulcer.β
Fox reported that last month, Springsteen began treatment for peptic ulcer disease. The Mayo Clinic defines peptic ulcers as “open sores that develop on the inside lining of your stomach and the upper portion of your small intestine.” It sounds painful. It also sounds like something that mRNA-transfected cells lining someoneβs stomach might do.
Coincidentally, it seems to be going around. Headline from a December study:
Springsteen and his bandmates are not strangers to political controversy:
All that said, Iβll pray for Bruceβs complete recovery from his super-painful peptic ulcers and that he receives a humbling heart change in the process.
π The CDC unintentionally unleashed heterodox covid data analyst Ethical Skeptic when the health agency clamped down hard on its health data last week. Now, Ethical canβt get his mortality and morbidity data that he used to create all his eye-popping excess deaths charts. So heβs turning his giant brain toward other data points, and I think this could be the best thing that could possibly have happened.
His first post-CDC submission was Google searches for cancer topics. Guess which direction the graph goes?
I canβt wait to see what Ethical finds next.
π₯ And, Oh My Gosh! I just love this new, stealth-presidential-candidate version of Governor Newsom! Where have you Californians been hiding this guy? Iβm not saying heβs a DeSantis or anything, but he sure is looking pretty terrific. California legislators keep coming up with brainless woke schemes and Newsom just keeps swatting them down.
Check out these encouraging headlines, all from this week.
Condoms for kids β vetoed:
Pot cafΓ©s β vetoed:
Homeless jurors β vetoed:
Legal βshroom sales β vetoed:
Cash for old illegal aliens β vetoed:
Iβm barely getting started. This week Gavin Newsom vetoed ONE HUNDRED woke bills:
And out of everyone, CNN was hardest hit:
If, at this point, you still need some evidence that we are winning the culture warβs counter-revolution, enjoy these paragraphs from CNNβs disgruntled op-ed:
While a lot of these bills may not fly in the deep South, theyβre unremarkable in progressive California, and were on Newsomβs desk in the first place because the state legislature put them there β ostensibly carrying out the will of California voters.
Itβs hard to know what exactly Newsom is playing at. But one thing seems clear: Heβs a man who puts his own political future ahead of the will of the people. And right now, he seems to think itβs politically beneficial to maintain the status quo, regardless of what many Californians actually want.
Itβs tough to explain the veto spree, unless Newsom is thinking as much about voters outside of California as within it.
Newsom is thinking about what the majority of voters want, and heβs tacking toward that. Like the rest of us, Newsom knows that the culture war is shifting toward sanity, otherwise he would not have vetoed one hundred California bills. I suspect that might even be a historic record.
π₯ One good thing emerging from the Israel war is a newfound appreciation by US citizens for borders. Fox reported this week that support for building a border wall surged past 50% this month and isnβt looking back. Itβs now reached 57% favorability with registered voters, an all-time high, and opposition to a border wall β by certifiably crazy people β is tied for lowest at only 40%.
Progress! Hard-earned, but weβll take it.
π₯ Finally, enjoy this heartwarming video to remind you that despite all the doom and gloom, there are still lots of good regular folks doing nice, selfless things for perfect strangers:
CLIP: Young men help elderly stranger (1:04).
See? All is not lost. Be encouraged.
Have a terrific Thursday! Iβll see you guys back here tomorrow for another hot, fresh serving of Coffee & Covid.
We canβt do it without you. Consider joining with C&C to help move the nationβs needle and change minds. I could use your help getting the truth out and spreading optimism and hope, if you can: β Learn How to Get Involved π¦
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Β© 2022, Jeff Childers, all rights reserved
The views expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.