Opinion
By Jeff Childers
10/11/24
Good morning, C&C, it’s Friday! And we have a totally packed roundup today: Well-prepared Florida weathers turbo hurricane Milton; Tesla pushes consumer tech boundaries with announcements of upcoming products; nuclear power makes a comeback and environmentalists are eerily quiet; BioLab investigator dies suddenly after testimony; Harris campaign picks up telling new supporter group with an eye-popping ad campaign; ISIS implant, illegal immigrant, and violent Election-day terrorist used to work for a particular US agency of great interest; DOJ pressures Google and Facebook with suggestively timed antitrust investigations with weird Epstein connection; Congressman hints at government involvement in Epstein murder; North Korean relationship with Russia births totally predictable but unexpected developments; and pollsters begin to panic as signs of stress appear in the Harris campaign.
🗞💬 WORLD NEWS AND COMMENTARY 💬🗞
🌪️ Yesterday, the Washington Examiner ran a story offering much relief to Floridians headlined, “DeSantis says FEMA not leading hurricane relief.” Thank Heavens.
CLIP: DeSantis says FEMA can’t stop people from returning to their homes in Florida (1:37).
Later yesterday, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis was asked in a Fox interview about FEMA conspiracy theories. Here’s how he answered:
“Now, people have asked me: ‘Is FEMA going to do this?’ Let me be clear in Florida. We run the show. FEMA is not running the show. We will utilize them to support some of the things we’re doing, but you are not going to see FEMA running amok in Florida. I know that’s been out there on the internet. That is not going to happen. I’m the sheriff that’s in charge here. And we will make sure to protect you. Don’t worry about it.”
In trying to find the best headline to succinctly capture Florida’s post-hurricane status following the much-hyped Hurricane Milton, I decided on this one. Forbes, yesterday:
So there you go. This is not meant to minimize the suffering of some people who were injured or whose property was damaged during the storm, especially by the pre-storm tornadoes. Such as an unfortunate fisherman swept off his boat and out to sea, later rescued by the Coast Guard. But it appears that, for the most part, well-prepared Florida weathered the storm like a boss.
🔥🔥 You have to wonder: When does the man sleep? CNBC ran an electrifying story yesterday headlined, “Tesla CEO Elon Musk on Optimus robot: This will be the biggest product ever of any kind.” At an investor event in California yesterday, the Tesla Corporation unveiled three pending products in the pipeline. First, Elon dramatically arrived at the event in a CyberTaxi, a driverless ride-hailing vehicle with no steering wheeland a projected $30,000 price point. Second, Tesla unveiled the Robovan, a shuttlebus-like vehicle that drove straight out of a Jetson’s cartoon.
Third, consumer robots have arrived. During the event, a group of Tesla personal robot assistants walked out and started serving drinks to attendees and handing out gift bags. Musk said the helpful household automatons, called “Optimus,” will retail between $20K-$30K.
Musk told the audience that Optimus can water plants, walk dogs, and mow lawns. But can it answer telemarketing calls?
Here’s a link to CNBC’s series of videos from the event.
One important detail was noticeably missing from the excited announcements: release dates. While all three new products were promised ‘soon,’ even starting next year for Optimus and CyberTaxi, Musk stopped short of committing to any firm deadlines, giving Tesla-haters plenty of mocking material.
But one thing is getting very clear: between battery-operated cars and robots, and the vast electrical demands of AI, our aging power grid will soon need a lot more juice, and solar farms and oversized windmills aren’t getting anywhere close.
Oh, wait:
🔥🔥 Wednesday, Reuters quietly ran a totally anti-environmental story headlined, “US looks to resurrect more nuclear reactors, White House adviser says.” After its long nuclear winter in environmentalists’ gulag, nuclear power is about to become safe and effective again.
On Monday, White House ‘climate adviser’ Ali Zaidi (definitely not his real name), said the Biden administration plans to reactivate decommissioned nuclear power reactors to help meet soaring demand for “emissions-free electricity.” Wheee! Clean energy!
The article reported that two reactivations are already underway, including Michigan’s cold-stored Palisades power plant and the deep-frozen Three Mile Island reactor, which was the one that started the whole nuclear panic in the first place.
Not mentioned in the article is the fact that Microsoft signed a contract to buy bulk electrons from Three Mile Island — to power its new AI data center. Other nuke plants, long retired, are also scheduled for new leases on life, and the Administration is fast-tracking approvals for brand new mini-reactors called SMRs.
On Monday, the Navy requested permission to install SMRs on half a dozen of its bases. Does the Navy need more power for missile-defense lasers? A.I.-driven “hellscape” drone swarms? Who knows. But the nukes are back.
Later in the story, Reuters almost regretfully reported that offshore wind farms are slowly sinking into the sea, with flatlining demand for new mills, and oceans of technical problems swarming existing installations. It was a shock. Who could have possibly predicted that giant metal mechanical devices running day and night in salt water would result in vast amounts of expensive wear and tear? Not experts, that’s for sure.
Is the long climate graft reaching its desultory terminal destination, finally forced out by practical demands? Where’s Greta?
🔥🔥 On Wednesday, the New York Post ran a heavily ironic story headlined, “Georgia environmental official collapses and dies near state Capitol after testifying about toxic BioLab fire.”
You remember last week’s story, when just outside Atlanta, the BioLab pool chemical plant mysteriously caught fire and the entire town of Conyers, Georgia was evacuated.
Well, Kenny Johnson, 62, Rockdale County’s Soil and Water Conservation supervisor and a staunch environmentalist, testified Tuesday about the BioLab chemical fire at the state capital. Right after testifying, he “complained of shortness of breath and subsequently collapsed in the hallway.” He didn’t make it.
In other words, he died suddenly. Was it the chlorine? Or something else that comes in a needle? Nowadays, you never know.
The good news was Johnson, who held an “unwavering commitment to environmental justice,” never lived to see nuclear power come back.
🔥🔥 The New York Times ran an obscene story yesterday headlined, “Porn Industry Jumps Into the Presidential Campaign, Targeting Project 2025.” Smut-peddlers for Harris! What else do you need to know?
On Monday, seventeen pornographic film actors announced that they had launched a $100,000 ad campaign on their websites called “Hands Off My Porn.” They’re terrified at the Heritage Foundation’s excellent Project 2025 plan, which calls for age verification and is very critical of the so-called “adult” industry. Thus, vote for Kamala, who will make sure kids can see online smut.
Apparently, young men are big Trump supporters, and this totally organic plan aims to convince them otherwise. But it may have misfired, since the sales pitch vote Harris to save porn isn’t resonating with wider audiences.
🔥🔥 CBS ran a story yesterday headlined, “Afghan national charged with planning Election Day attack previously worked for CIA in Afghanistan.” Of course he did.
CLIP: DHS Secretary Mayorkas dodges questions about admitting terrorist into US (2:12).
Nasir Ahmad Tawhedi was arrested on Monday in Oklahoma City for planning a massive Election-day terror attack. He is an Afghani national enjoying benefits in the United States under a DHS parole program. The complaint erroneously said he held a special immigrant visa, which the State Department quickly denied.
In other words, the Department of Homeland Security pulled some strings to get Ahmad into the country.
It then turned out ISIS terrorist Ahmad used to work for the CIA in Afghanistan. According to the DOJ complaint, Ahmad “conspired and attempted to provide material support to ISIS and obtained firearms and ammunition to conduct a violent attack on U.S. soil in the name of ISIS.” On Election Day.
ISIS is allegedly an enemy terrorist organization. It was in the news recently for its Crokus City Hall massacre in Moscow. The Russians claim ISIS is a CIA front group that the agency uses for its murderous, illegal black operations. The CIA calls that “misinformation.”
Tuesday’s unsealed complaint alleged that Ahmad had recently sold his home (he bought a home??) and all his stuff, to buy weapons and ammo and a ticket back to Afghanistan. After his arrest, Ahmad admitted to cops that he and his brother bought weapons for the Election Day attack. They planned to target large gatherings of people and “expected to be martyred.”
At Thursday’s White House press briefing, triply-diverse White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre refused to answer questions about Ahmad’s case, citing an ongoing investigation, but insisted that “every Afghan national who entered the U.S. was screened and vetted by intelligence, law enforcement, counterterrorism professionals.”
As Roman poet Juvenal satirically asked, quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
🔥🔥 On Wednesday, the Wall Street Journal ran a provocative story headlined, “Breaking Up Is Hard to Do: Antitrust Officials Weigh Splitting Google, Others.” And right before the election, too. How about that?
Both Google and Meta are in the Justice Department’s antitrust division crosshairs, each subject to multiple investigations. It’s odd timing, since it has been over 40 years since the DOJ successfully prosecuted a major antitrust case. In 2000, the Justice Department sued to break up Microsoft, but failed after an appellate court found it unconstitutional.
In the same year as the DOJ lawsuit, 2000, then-Microsoft CEO Bill Gates first funded his ‘philanthropic’ Foundation, which began his slow transition out of the software business and into climate change, vaccines, third-world development, and vacations on Jeffrey Epstein’s private island.
Just a few months later in 2001, right after Gates funded his multibillion-dollar slush fund, the court of appeals made the Microsoft antitrust case go away. (The third guy in the picture above is Boris Nikolic, the Gates Foundation’s Croation ‘science advisor’ with a vaccine background. Nikolic was good ‘friends’ with Epstein, even listed as a backup executor in Epstein’s personal will. Some think it was Nikolic who first connected Gates with the deep state’s pet pedophile. Nikolic is now an independent venture capitalist, kind of like Epstein. And the wheel keeps on spinning.)
Don’t get me wrong. I’m only noticing the very curious timing between the DOJ’s Microsoft antitrust suit, Gates’ transition out of consumer electronics into world politics, and the happy resolution of the litigation, all in short succession.
This is purely coincidental, for entertainment purposes only, but note ChatGPT’s concession about the curious interplay between Gates’ philanthropies and U.S. national security interests:
Who knows? This election season, one wonders whether, if Google and Meta help the government quash election-related misinformation, and maybe help fund some third-world conflict on the side, whether all these pesky DOJ investigations might just go away all on their own.
It’s a profitable platform you have there, it would be a shame if anything happened to it.
We have a serious government problem in this country.
🔥🔥 Speaking of Epstein, this week Congressman Matt Gaetz (R-Fl.) told conservative podcast host Benny Johnson that he believes Epstein’s murder was a foreign-state operation assisted by the highest levels in the U.S. government:
CLIP: Congressman Gaetz’s Jeffrey Epstein conspiracy theory (2:05).
So.
🚀🚀 Unpexpectedly! The Hill ran a story yesterday headlined, “North Korea wades into Ukraine.” Wades was a strange choice of verb. I could see wading into North Carolina or Tampa Bay, but Ukraine? Are they using boats? Whatever. I digress.
The story was as silly as the headline. The only helpful takeaway was that North Korea, driven into Putin’s arms by the Proxy War, has been allegedly selling vast numbers of artillery shells to Russia. This is a development that our DEI-fueled generals somehow never saw coming. Bless their hearts, they always thought Russia would run out of artillery before NATO did.
It was a critical mistake verging on military malpractice.
But look! The Proxy War bore more even unexpected fruit this week. On Wednesday, the Associated Press ran an ominous story headlined, “North Korea vows to block border with South Korea and build front-line defense structures.” In short, the Norks have closed the border and are building anti-tank defenses all along the line — defenses that remarkably resemble the Surovikin Line that the Russians built in Ukraine in 2022, demolishing Zelensky’s catastrophic Glorious Spring Offensive.
Finally, on Tuesday, the UK Independent ran a story with the outraged headline, “Kim Jong-un makes outlandish claim in birthday message to Putin.” The “news” was North Korean president Kim Jong-un, the little rocket man, sent President Putin a nice card on his birthday. In the note, Kim referred to Putin as his “closest comrade,” a microaggressive moniker that badly triggered corporate media.
Hilariously, when referring to Putin, the Independent reflexively regurgitated the exhausted phrase “increasingly isolated” to describe the Russian president:
Increasingly isolated? What on Earth was the Independent prattling about? Behold yesterday’s Globe and Mail headline, which succinctly described just how not-isolated Russia is:
Vladimir Putin is increasingly isolated in the same way Taylor Swift is increasingly isolated. Russia is being “increasingly isolated” only in the estrogen-soaked cells of the Pentagon’s brain.
Our generals need to retire.
🔥🔥 Uh-oh. It’s almost like they don’t believe the corporate media polls, which show Kamala slightly up across the board. Terror, hysteria, and general consternation is nevertheless setting into the Democrat camp. Here’s the story in three headlines, all within the last two days. First, panic at the Hill:
Panic at the New Yorker! Question asked:
Panic at the UK Independent:
With the corporate media polls neck-and-neck, what on earth could be panicking all these Democrats? Maybe the betting market forecasts? Polymarket, where people vote with their wallets, shows Trump up by an astounding +12%:
Behold the betting for control of the Senate:
Don’t get complacent. But there’s reason to be optimistic.
Have an optimistic Friday! And wander back here tomorrow morning for your educational and entertaining Weekend Edition roundup.
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The views expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida
