Opinion
By Jeff Childers
03-24-23
Good morning C&C! It’s Friday, and I have a terrific roundup for you to cap off the work week: DA Bragg cancels Trump Grand Jury AGAIN; O’Keefe hints at a Trump indictment story; full Fifth Circuit solidifies ban on Biden fed worker mandate; pro football turbo cancer; older Hollywood types drop like sprayed hornets this week; rock star spontaneously dies; US worries opposing China’s peace plan will make us seem warlike; DeSantis points out flaws in Biden’s Ukraine strategy; a culture-war win in Orlando shows Florida cracking down on misogyny; and Biden counters the Xi-Putin axis with our own terrifying alliance.
🗞 *THE C&C ARMY POST* 🗞
🪖 Michelle and I are back on the road today, so I can deliver tomorrow morning’s keynote at the Covid Litigation Conference in Atlanta and then moderate a panel on protecting doctors’ medical licenses. In case you made the connection, my panel’s topic was selected weeks ago, long-before the events of this week. Auspicious, don’t you think?
I can’t wait to hang out with all our heroic covid doctors and lawyers, and hopefully prepare a few new ones for battle.
🗞💬 *WORLD NEWS AND COMMENTARY* 💬🗞
🔥 Something seemed to have gone awry yesterday with DA Alvin Bragg’s fabulous Trump indictment plan. First he canceled Wednesday’s Grand Jury meeting, creating chaotic media speculation, then the DA quickly bragged he would re-convene the jurors yesterday:
And just as suddenly, Politico ran this headline around 11:14am, Eastern Standard Time, that Thursdays Trump indictment jury was also cancelled till next week:
Oh. Anti-climactic!
Now, far be it from me to tell Alvin Bragg how to do his job. But after three years of being told to shut up because I am “only a lawyer,” I feel like this might be one time when the carpers in the back give me the nod, since we’re talking about LAWYER STUFF. In that vein, I would like to give DA Bragg some advice.
Dear Alvin, people don’t enjoy all this switching back-and-forth. Your public wants you to pick a lane, and stay there, at least for a complete news cycle. None of the major papers even reported the story about Thursday’s postponement — and not because they’re trying to help you. How many consecutive “it got rescheduled” stories can a big paper be expected to headline before its readers heave a weary sigh and click back over to Instagram for some hilarious skiing-accident videos?
I jest, sort of. Of course DA Bragg’s clock is not set by by news cycles, but by having a case to bring. However, thanks to all the media coverage, his case is looking completely disorganized and unprepared, and I bet it is because he is getting a lot of friendly feedback these days along the lines of, “Look Alvin, you’d better not [mess] this up. If you try for Trump and lose, you’re finished.” Alvin’s nervous about pulling the trigger, and who can blame him.
No pressure! But they’re correct Alvin. You’d better get this one right.
🔥 Meanwhile, yesterday James O’Keefe stirred the pot by hinting that he has whistleblower evidence from inside the Alvin Bragg story.
For clarification, prosecutors aren’t required to present exculpatory evidence to Grand Juries, which is one reason people say they can indict a sliced-pork sandwich. So if James does have something, it’s probably not that. But one imagines all sorts of possibilities, like a lawyer from the Manhattan DA’s office admitting Bragg wears black dresses and rides on a broomstick while hunting the President or something.
💉 Great News! Fox ran a story yesterday headlined, “Biden’s Vaccine Mandate for Federal Workers Blocked by Appeals Court.” I know, I know, unless you are a fed you probably thought that it all already over and done with last year, but not quite, so let me fill you in.
Biden originally mandated jabs for 3.5 million federal workers in September 2021. In January 2022, U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Brown issued an injunction blocking the mandate, but three months later, a three-judge panel on the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated the mandate.
So Feds for Medical Freedom’s lawyers appealed “en banc,” which means they asked the entire Fifth Circuit to review the 3-judge panel’s ruling. The full 16-member Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals’ ruling issued Thursday.
They ruled there is no constitutional basis for requiring federal employees to be vaccinated. Boom.
Not only that, but despite the fact that TWELVE other district courts around the country have rejected challenges to Biden’s Jab Order, the Fifth Circuit controversially extended the injunction to the entire country. Explaining its reasoning, the Court found that vaccines are “private” and “irreversible” medical decisions “made outside the workplace”:
The fact that the President ordered employees to make medical decisions outside of the workplace – and to live with those irrevocable decisions even after they leave the federal workforce – bolsters plaintiffs’ argument that the mandate is not a “working condition.”
Because Biden’s awful Executive Order didn’t specifically SAY federal workers would be fired if they didn’t comply, Biden’s lawyers argued that hey, there’s no actual HARM yet, because we don’t know FOR SURE what the consequences to employees will be. But the Court disagreed, referring to Biden’s order as “ominous:”
Plaintiffs do not have to identify exactly how the Government will enforce the mandate; it’s enough that plaintiffs face the ominous order, “get vaccinated or else.”
So. This is terrific news for federal employees specifically, and for medical freedom in general. The case builds on the principle that employers shouldn’t be able to mandate medical procedures that aren’t specifically related to the job. (Examples of job-required mandates might include things like vaccinations for a diplomat who has to travel to a foreign country requiring those inoculations.)
Coincidentally, I argued the same logic in my September 2021 vaccine injunction case, where I persuaded the judge that vaccination affects employees OUTSIDE of work — forever — so a general vaccine mandate cannot “just” be considered an “on the job” safety requirement like wearing helmets on construction sites.
As Obama liked to say, the arc of history bends toward Justice.
💉 Tight end Foster Moreau, 25, announced this week he will have to “step away” from pro football, after receiving a sudden and unexpected Hodgkin’s Lymphoma diagnosis — during a routine physical with the New Orleans Saints.
We wish Foster the best and hope for his quick recovery.
💉 This week, veteran Hollywood film producer Martin Wiley, 65, suddenly and unexpectedly died. No cause of death has been released. It’s been a tough week for older Hollywood veterans. Wiley joins several other long-standing Hollywood screenwriters, producers, and directors whose deaths were all announced this week:
- Screenwriter and producer Norman Steinberg, 83, died at home
- TV Director Peter Werner, 76, “torn aorta”
- Producer Steven Ungerleider, 73, pancreatic cancer
- Screenwriter Gordon T. Dawson, 84, “pulmonary disease”
- Director Francesco Maselli, 92
- Screenwriter Ann de Toth, 82, cancer
And in the runner-up category, iconic Hollywood director Aaron Sorkin, perhaps best known for his hit show The West Wing, disclosed this week that he’d recovered from a sudden and unexpected stroke in November.
On the bright side, there are lots of opportunities opening up in heavily-jabbed Hollywood these days.
💉 Guitarist and last remaining original member of Memphis rock band Saliva, Wayne Swinny, 59 , died ON TOUR this week from a “spontaneous brain hemorrhage.”
“Spontaneous” is a euphemistic way of saying “sudden and unexpected.”
🚀 Bloomberg ran a story yesterday headlined, “US Fears a War-Weary World May Embrace China’s Ukraine Peace Bid.” The sub-headline explained, “US left on sidelines as China-Russia ‘bro-fest’ cements ties; Some uncomfortable realities of Xi’s visit to Putin in Moscow.”
According to an anonymous official, the Biden Administration is worried that if it opposes China’s 12-point peace plan, folks might conclude that America is only interested in war. For some reason.
How could they possible get THAT idea? Especially with the U.S. having done everything it could possibly do to inflame the conflict, right down to assassinating Russia’s hyper-expensive undersea gas pipeline? Isn’t the world grateful?
Bloomberg noticed, as I have, that the momentum seems to be shifting away from the pro-war Western coalition towards a new Russia-China axis:
China has shrugged off US sanctions over its companies’ partnership with Russia, bought oil from Iran’s regime in defiance of western demands and helped orchestrate a diplomatic detente between Saudi Arabia and Iran. Major global economies such as India and Brazil are refusing to choose between China and the West, arguing they don’t want a new Cold War.
And a week ago, Honduras began the process of giving up its diplomatic ties with Taiwan in favor of economic links with China.
But don’t worry. Joe Biden is playing five-dimensional chess! Once every other country in the world has finally allied with Russia and China, then WE will switch to the Russia-China side too, and be back on top. Or something like that.
You’ll see. It’s going to be great.
🚀 On NewsMax yesterday, potential presidential candidate and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis offered some spicy opinions about the Proxy War:
“You want to weaken Putin? Why don’t you permit more gas pipelines here in the United States? Why aren’t we drilling for more oil here? … I think that would do more to weaken him than anything these folks are cooking up.”
DeSantis War Room 🐊 @DeSantisWarRoom
What a terrific question. I would be 100% in favor of weakening Putin (and China) by opening up gas drilling here in the US. Anyone who disagrees is not serious about “winning” the Proxy War.
Next DeSantis explained that China is the biggest threat to American interests, not Russia:
“Our number one threat by far is China, and the CCP. They’re strong militarily, they’re strong economically, they’ve got the largest industrial base in human history, and they have ambitions. And those interests conflict with ours. So I think some of those folks [at the State Department] are not really supporting a stronger America, they’re weakening us at home, and they’re making it more difficult for us to do things like check the influence of China abroad.”
A bizarre take! Where does he get this stuff?
🔥 Yesterday, WFTV-9 Orlando ran a hopeful story headlined, “Central Florida High School Cancels After-School ‘Drag & Donuts’ Event.”
What donuts could possibly have to do with drag, besides both things starting with a ‘d’, escapes my imagination. I don’t even WANT to try to imagine it. Please leave donuts out of it.
And as always, the “show” was to feature an unattractive man simulating a grotesque, over-the-top caricature of a woman so that everyone can laugh manically at how ridiculous women are:
The implicit message of a modern drag show is that men are better women than women are. Florida’s outstanding Department of Education can be credited with the win. In announcing the event’s cancellation, the school published a statement that explained:
After receiving a call from the Florida Department of Education today, we have cancelled the event. The department questioned whether the event was age and developmentally appropriate and indicated any administrator, teacher, or staff member in attendance may be investigated and jeopardize their professional license.
Indeed. Get drag out of the schools and shove it back into the back alleys where it belongs.
🚀 Not to be outdone, after China’s President Xi met with Russian President Putin this week, Joe Biden raced to meet with a terrifying Western leader, showing that America is just as well-allianced as the Russia-China axis is:
So there.
Have a fabulous Friday! C&C will return tomorrow morning for more delicious Coffee & Covid.
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© 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.
