Opinion
By Jeff Childers
05-20-23
Good morning, C&C, it’s the Weekend Edition! Sorry about the delay. There was just too much news to summarize today. It’s better late than never, plus you can handle one more cup of coffee, it’s not too late for that.
It’s been a terrific week for people who love freedom. Between the House Weaponization Committee’s whistleblowers, a helpful FISA court decision finding the FBI misused national security spy data, and Justice Gorsuch’s pro-freedom statement yesterday, it feels like there’s something in the air, perhaps even the initial stirrings of some kind of “great awakening.” The roundup also includes a short essay on the importance of the other branches, not just the presidency; exposure of more Epstein connections and a real consequence; the most bizarre new trend of the year might actually be a good thing; Britney Griner sings a new anthem; and some heartening comments from a real, not simulated, woman athlete.
🗞💬 *WORLD NEWS AND COMMENTARY* 💬🗞
🔥 I’ve often complained about what I call the “Superman fallacy,” which is the false but alluring notion that if we could just somehow elect the PERFECT person to the presidency, he would fix all our problems with one stroke of his mighty Montblanc fountain pen: he’d pull the plug on the WEF, abolish the UN and the FED, turn out the lights at the Department of Education and the EPA, shear the CDC, NIH, and the IRS, leash the intelligence agencies, broker world peace, stop China, return the USA to the gold standard, make communism illegal again, and forever end the detestable practice of adding fruit to perfectly-good pizza.
As we speak, some conservatives are battling it out in a bloody presidential primary Super Bowl, which I fear represents just another Lucy-and-the-Football style psyop, tricking us — again! — into pinning all our hopes on one single person, and distracting us from fixing the real problem, so that once again we will wind up flat on our backs staring up into Pigpen’s sad, muddy face.
The Superman fallacy is designed to distract us from the real solutions. Let me give you a recent example. From the Washington Post this week:
In North Carolina, Republicans have (finally) taken supermajority control of their State House and Senate, making the state’s feckless, inconstant governor Roy Cooper unnecessary. The legislature is now primed to pass laws that will bind the executive branch regardless of what the Governor does.
The solution bypassing the executive by electing a legislative seems harder, but is it still vastly superior to a flurry of executive orders signed by Superman, which even if they were legal (doubtful), are always promptly cancelled or overridden by the very next executive who sits down at the desk.
Even if they have no idea what they are signing or what day it is.
Think about how Joe Biden cancelled so many of President Trump’s executive orders. Those Trumpian executive orders felt very satisfying at the time they were signed, and many of us were extremely grateful for them, and Trump deserves tons of credit, but how did it feel when they were all wiped away on the very first day of the new Administration?
🔥 All the long-term positive change we’ve seen in the last two years has mainly come not from executives but from the federal and state legislative branches and the judiciary. Part of the reason for this is, obviously, because Biden is currently infesting the White House.
But if you think about it, the same thing is also true even about the four years before Biden.
Real, lasting change comes from Congress, the courts, and from state and local government. Not usually from the presidency, except to the extent that a president can encourage Congress to pass laws, or can help at the margins, like moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem or pruning regulatory burdens, as Trump did.
But on the other hand, look what happened to the dearly-departed fracking industry, which in two years had made the U.S. energy-independent, gave the U.S. the upper hand in nearly every aspect of foreign policy, and supercharged the economy. Fracking is a distant memory now, since all Joe Biden had to do to wreck everything was sign an executive order canceling Trump’s executive order. Boom.
(Despite the fact candidate Biden promised to NOT end fracking. But who cares, right?)
🔥 Here’s another example of how the Legislature can be just as important to our republic as a strong executive. This week, the House Committee on Weaponization of the Federal Government blew a hole the size of a Volkswagen bus in the side of the S.S. Narrative, even though corporate media did its best to ignore the story of courageous FBI whistleblowers exposing how politically-captured that law enforcement agency has become.
We might need to multiply those brave whistleblowers, whose lives the FBI is diligently attempting to destroy — and apparently is getting away with it. Let me know what you think. A multiplier for them might encourage other whistleblowers, show them we have their backs.
🔥 Similarly, more House Republicans were quoted in a Wall Street Journal article yesterday headlined, “FBI Searched Jan. 6 Rioters and George Floyd Demonstrators in Spy Database.”
Meaning, “FBI *illegally* Searched” the spy database.
A just-declassified FISA court decision (entered April 2022) found the FBI has been abusing the national security “foreign intelligence” communications database, to illegally search the domestic communications information of Americans living in the U.S., without probable cause and without a warrant. The database is supposed to be limited to searching foreign nationals outside the U.S.
In other words, the FBI has been systematically violating the Fourth Amendment.
Most recently the FBI ran roughshod over the rules in its so-called investigation of the January 6th rally at the Capitol. Among other examples, the FISA court found between 2016 and 2020, the FBI routinely searched identifying terms of Americans appearing in police homicide reports, “including victims, next-of-kin, witnesses and suspects.”
Biden Administration officials called the law “one of the government’s most vital national security tools.” Uh huh. And the FBI says it has “retrained” employees to avoid future abuses, so don’t worry your pretty little head about all this. But Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, Republican chairman of the House Judiciary Committee — which controls whether FISA will be renewed this year — said “Director Wray told us we can sleep well at night because of the FBI’s so-called FISA reforms. But it was worse than we thought.”
Even some democrats are cheesed off. Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), said the newly disclosed opinion revealed “shocking abuses of FISA Section 702, in particular the FBI’s warrantless searches through FISA data for information on Americans.” Representative Jim Himes (D-Conn.), top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said the opinion shows the need for additional changes beyond the DOJ’s own reforms, “to ensure that the FBI and other agencies are faithful stewards of this powerful and irreplaceable national security tool.”
Indeed. The House will control renewal of the Section 702 FISA powers. Renewal seems like a more difficult prospect, given what we all just went through after the Capitol rally on January 6th.
Maybe some more progress is inbound.
🔥 Checking in with the judicial branch, which is equally important and not just at the Supreme Court, but yesterday, we did look at Justice Gorsuch’s statement, which reminded us that the independent courts were the very first branch of government to begin pushing back on what Joe Biden was doing during the pandemic. Even though corporate media is trying harder to ignore the story than a teenager trying to ignore a list of chores from mom taped to his bedroom door, the Associated Press actually covered the story yesterday:
Revoltingly, the Wall Street Journal didn’t report Justice’s Gorsuch statement at all, that I could find, and the New York Times only mentioned the Justice’s remarkable comments late in a story about Title 42:
Much of the Supreme Court’s defense of civil liberties during the pandemic can be found right in the footnotes to Gorsuch’s statement, but I’m also recalling lots lower courts like Texas’ Fifth Circuit, or even my own First District Court of Appeal in Florida, which granted my mask appeal and immediately made mandatory masking in much of Florida unconstitutional.
I cannot emphasize this enough: the state and federal appellate courts are the practical capstones of our justice system, arguably holding more sway than any other courts in the nation including the Supreme Court. A staggering 99% of appealed disputes will be ultimately resolved at the appellate level, since the Supreme Court can hear only a microscopic fraction of cases. Every year there are tens of thousands of federal appellate cases, and only a couple hundred of those are accepted by the Supreme Court.
Appellate judges can save your life or ruin your life. They can save businesses or wreck businesses. They can control bureaucrats and government executives or empower executive overreach.
The two political parties well understand the importance of appellate judges, especially at the federal level. But state appellate judges are also important. The judicial branch gets overlooked in all the presidential drama, with people seeming to think that, if Superman gets elected, then he’ll appoint the right judges and we won’t have to worry about it.
But the court system is under threat, since most law schools are now turning out hyper-woke, anti-constitutionalist lawyers — lawyers who will eventually become judges, and who will slavishly defer to any liberal executive.
These examples show how important the legislative and judicial branches are. They are at least as important as the executive branch (if not more so), and that remains true even though the federal executive branch is currently unconstitutionally overpowered.
The law school problem is a great example of a local issue being overlooked while everyone’s busy arguing about who the next Superman will be. Even if we elect Superman in 2024, he’s not going to do anything about local law schools churning out woke lawyers.
🔥 In spite of all odds, the story about deepstate pedophile puppet Jeffrey Epstein continues to slowly progress toward justice.
On Thursday, the Wall Street Journal ran a story headlined, “Deutsche Bank to Pay $75 Million to Settle Jeffrey Epstein Accusers’ Suit.” The subheadline explained, “A civil complaint alleged the financial institution facilitated the disgraced financier’s sex-trafficking ring.”
On behalf of a class of similarly-situated victims, a Jane Doe plaintiff sued Deutsche Bank, alleging the financial giant did business with Epstein for five years despite knowing he was using money in his bank accounts to further his disgusting sex-trafficking activities.
The Doe plaintiff alleged she was sexually abused by Epstein himself, as well as trafficked to his friends for fifteen years between 2003 and 2018, and occasionally paid for sex acts. The lawsuit alleged that Deutsche Bank ignored many red flags, including payments to many young women. The settlement is expected to compensate dozens of victims.
The plaintiffs’ lawyers, from the law firms Boies Schiller Flexner and Edwards Pottinger, said on Wednesday they believed the $75 million was the largest sex-trafficking settlement involving a banking institution in history. “This groundbreaking settlement is the culmination of two law firms conducting more than a decade-long investigation to hold one of Epstein’s financial banking partners responsible for the role it played in facilitating his trafficking organization,” the lawyers said in a joint statement.
The civil suit in the Virgin Islands — not the one filed by the district attorney — is being handled by the same two law firms. They just got a huge amount of financial fuel for the war chest.
🔥 Florida Governor Ron DeSantis was in New Hampshire this week, and has obviously coined a whole new term for overreaching and incompetent government: “Fauci-ism.”
Specifically, DeSantis said:
They want to institutionalize lockdowns. They act like ‘this worked,’ when it did incredible damage throughout our country…it destroyed parts of the economy, and it didn’t stop the spread…so the idea we would even be entertaining that going forward is absolutely crazy. I think we need to make sure we say: Fauci-ism was wrong. Fauci-ism was destructive. We will never let Fauci-ism take root in this country ever again.
I can’t think of any better way to honor the late head of the NIAID, except perhaps a firing squad (after a fair trial, of course). Making the doctor’s name a hissing and a byword might be the next best thing.
These things can stick. Americans don’t name their babies “Benedict” very often anymore. “Adolph” seems to have lost its sheen. And nobody, I mean nobody, ever names their kid “Nimrod.”
🔥 DeSantis, perhaps occupied with a crypto-candidacy, also appeared on Dinesh D’Souza’s podcast, and said bluntly: “If you’re taking off the private parts of some 15-year-old kid, you should go to jail.”
Indeed. But there was more:
If a medical doctor did this, they lose their medical license in Florida… We felt you had to do more… One of the things we did in that bill is we’re giving the victims the ability to sue the physician. So if you’ve gone through this as a 16 year old or a 15 year old, and now you’re 24/25, and you have all this irreversible damage, you bring suit against them, because they violated the Hippocratic oath, they put their ideology ahead of evidence-based medicine, and we just think that’s fundamentally wrong in the state of Florida.
Hopefully this will become another issue where Florida can lead the Nation.
🔥 There’s a fascinating new trend emerging, called “Lockdown Nostalgia”:
The first article above, from the UK Times, is less crazy than the headline makes it sound. Although the author worryingly admits to now “feeling anxious” in social situations — although an extrovert before the pandemic — she explained more persuasively that the “planlessless” of the pandemic was positive in some ways. She described her hectic pre-pandemic schedule of kids’ activities and social commitments, and I kind of agree.
The locked-down 2020 holiday season was much less stressful and more easygoing, for example. I’m not saying that justifies anything. It just makes you think a little.
The other articles were more troubling. The Daily Mail article quoted people saying things like, “Crazy how looking back at it, 2020 was one of the best years of most of our lives,” and “The way we took quarantine for granted makes me want to cry. There’s literally nothing I miss more than beginning of 2020.”
I’m not sure what to think about this surprising trend. On the one hand, it’s crazier than a soup sandwich. What about 2020’s constant death counters? What about the obsessive germaphobia? The (fake) images of stacked bodybags and bloody gurneys clogging hospital hallways?
I gave this quite a bit of thought.
On the other hand, I started wondering if Lockdown Nostalgia is actually a positive coping mechanism for some people, a kind of self-healing, in the form of a mental scar or brain bandage, covering up the bad memories and lightening up the internal pandemic histories. This kind of thing happens for abused children, who can sometimes substitute magical thinking for the memories of horrific suffering.
Despite appearances, and not that I would ever pine for the lockdowns, but Lockdown Nostalgia might actually be a good sign. Especially for young folks.
What do you think?
🔥 According to OutKick, cross-dressing women’s basketball star, drug smuggler, serial spouse abuser, and Biden favorite Britney Griner says now when he starts playing in this year’s league, he WILL stand for the National Anthem, this time, after spending several months in a Russian prison.
Outkick’s article, published yesterday, was headlined “Britney Griner Plans to Stand for National Anthem After Months in Russian Cage.” According to Outkick, Griner — previously an advocate of “speaking out, standing up, sitting in, and taking a knee” — has had a complete change of heart, said the player’s agent in a recent New York Times op-ed.
The article says Griner now sees the National Anthem differently, ever since Joe Biden exchanged a Russian arms dealer named Viktor Bout to obtain his return to the United States. “Hearing the National Anthem, it definitely hit different,” admitted Griner.
Meanwhile, marine Paul Whelan, who was NOT traded for Viktor Bout, but was left behind to rot in a Russian cell, could not be reached for comment to find out how HE feels about Britney’s patriotic re-awakening.
All in all, it’s progress, I suppose. Very expensive progress.
🔥 From last month, enjoy top female swimmer Riley Gaines gracefully and intelligently saying all the things you’re not supposed to say, namely that Lia (Will) Thomas had no place winning any female swimming tournaments:
And have a wonderful weekend! I’ll see you guys back here on Monday morning to launch a new week of delicious C&C.
Consider joining C&C to help move the nation’s needle and change minds. I could use your help getting the truth out and spreading optimism and hope, if you can: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/-learn-how-to-get-involved-
Twitter: jchilders98.
Truth Social: jchilders98.
MeWe: mewe.com/i/coffee_and_covid.
Telegram: t.me/coffeecovidnews
C&C Swag! www.shopcoffeeandcovid.com
Emailed Daily Newsletter: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com
© 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.
