Opinion
By Jeff Childers, 11-27-24
What a great week! And it’s only Wednesday. Trump’s triumphant nomination; Middle East peace deal; Trump tweets solving border problems in real time; a Cal. high-rise signals doom for Democrats; more.
Good morning, C&C, it’s Wednesday! Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, Turkey Day, the quintessentially American holiday of giving thanks for our blessings. And we have been blessed, in heaping measure, far beyond anything we deserved and farther beyond what we’d even allowed ourselves to hope for. Today’s pre-holiday roundup includes: Trump makes his best, most deliciously ironic nomination yet; Biden tries to snake more billions to help Ukraine defends its borders; Trump Effect snaps Mexico into line within hours from Trump tweet; Canada, hit hardest, promises to help secure northern border; and one California skyscraper signals doom for the Democrat resistance.
Note: C&C will be officially closed tomorrow and Friday for the holiday. But you never know.
🌍 WORLD NEWS AND COMMENTARY 🌍
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Yesterday, a deeply gratifying and wonderfully ironic story ran above the New York Times’ fold headlined, “Trump Picks Stanford Doctor Who Opposed Lockdowns to Head N.I.H.” The sub-headline gloriously added, “As the director of the National Institutes of Health, Dr. Jay Bhattacharya would oversee the world’s premier medical research agency, with a $48 billion budget and 27 separate institutes and centers.”
It’s an out-of-the-park home run. I consider Jay to be a friend, even though we’ve never been in the same room together. Call it battlefield camaraderie. I first spoke with Jay in the summer of 2021 while assembling my first vaccine case. I needed unimpeachable experts to help me squash the notion the jabs were covid cure-alls, so the government could not meet the high standard for violating Florida’s constitutional right to privacy.
Remember the insanity of the summer of 2021, as the jab mandates began to take shape, and as mask mania continued slowly climbing toward its grotesque summit. Somebody in the resistance sent me Jay’s cell number, and explained he was a senior professor of health economics and epidemiology at Stanford, one of the most prestigious universities in the world.
I don’t have to tell you that, as a small-firm lawyer from Gainesville, Florida, I thought the chances of getting help from someone of Jay’s prominence was a long shot, but I texted him anyway. I made my best pitch for why my case — the first case seeking a broad injunction against a vaccine mandate in the country — was a good candidate for his help.
To his everlasting credit, Jay immediately agreed to help. Not only that, he refused to take any payment for his time. After we spoke, I discovered he was also helping other lawyers, all across the country, at great professional risk and despite it making him a pariah among his colleagues.
Not only that, Jay kept showing up to help lawyers like me even though he faced scorn and derision from hostile judges. For instance, the Times’s story noted that, in 2021, Judge Waverly D. Crenshaw Jr. of the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee bashed Jay in a final order, officiously opining, “His demeanor and tone while testifying suggest that he is advancing a personal agenda,” and piling on that the court was “simply unwilling to trust Dr. Bhattacharya.”
In other words, Judge Waverly D. Crenshaw called Jay a liar. In writing. On the official record.
Those kinds of judicial digs can pile up, and they become part of a professional’s permanent record. But still Jay soldiered on. In October 2020, with two other sane scientists, Jay authored the Great Barrington Declaration, an open letter (now signed by almost 1 million scientists and influencers) reasonably arguing for a focused protection strategy for vulnerable communities, instead of broad mandates and lockdowns.
Human coral snake and then-head of the National Institutes of Health Frances Collins* (*girl’s name) publicly labeled Jay and his co-signers as “fringe epidemiologists.” FOIA records show behind the scenes, cowardly Frances Collins and his top toady, the revolting human cockroach Fauci, together coordinated a secret “takedown” media campaign to smear Jay and destroy his reputation.
Amidst all that, Jay helped then-controversial Florida Governor DeSantis (“Death-Santis”) roll back ineffective and massively destructive covid policies, by appearing on Governor DeSantis’s “science panels,” which allowed the Governor to publicly consult scientists, in a brilliant political maneuver that defeated stupid claims the Governor was not “following the science.”
All of his pro-freedom and pro-science activism dearly cost Jay, whose reputation was slowly bleeding out through thousands of tiny invisible paper cuts, as corporate media whipped everything it could against the professor, trying to discredit and marginalize him. Last year, undaunted and unbeaten, Jay signed on for more, serving as a plaintiff in the “Twitter files” lawsuit against the federal government for pandemic censorship, enduring even more slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.
Through the peaks and valleys of pandemic successes and setbacks, Jay and I have enjoyed several meaningful, man-to-man, and frank conversations. Jay is a humble, honest, incredibly giving person, always exuding calm, respectful courage and immediately capturing a room’s attention as the evident voice of reason. Jay is an all-in Christian who once sent me a Powerpoint on covid he prepared for his home church.
Four years ago, Frances Collins — as useless a bureaucrat as ever stepped — slandered accomplished Dr. Jay Bhattacharya as a “fringe epidemiologist” and tried to ruin his livelihood. Now, Frances Collins is unemployed, and is touring the podcast circuit with his guitar. And in a historic turnaround story for the ages resembling Biblical Joseph becoming Pharoah’s right-hand-man, Jay is taking Frances’ job.
“Experts agree,” the Times glumly admitted, that “a shake-up is coming to the nation’s public health and biomedical establishment.” And I, for one, cannot wait.
What a wonderful day!
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In more good news late yesterday afternoon, Politico ran a breaking story headlined, “Biden announces Lebanon-Hezbollah cease-fire deal.” It was especially welcome news to the civilian residents of Northern Israel and Southern Lebanon, who are slowly and tentatively returning to their hastily abandoned homes in what two days ago was a war zone. The NYT’s version of the story included this handy infographic showing how the permanent cease-fire works:
This peace deal is just between Israel and Hezbollah; Hamas declined to join, and so the war in Gaza continues for now.
You might think that social media would be churning over Israel’s controversially strong response to the barbaric attacks by Gaza’s authoritarian government, Hamas, and the war’s distressing effect on displaced Gazan civilians. But instead, the weight of social media discussion revolved around which president should get the credit for the cease-fire: the shadow who is Joe Biden —who rushed to take credit— or the shadow cast by incoming President-Elect Trump?
The timing suggests it was Trump. After all, Biden and his CIA-led team of non-diplomats have been haplessly negotiating to end the conflict for over a year now, without any success. This particular moment for peace appears to be lame-duck Biden’s weakest moment, and thus the moment least likely for him to lead to a hard-to-get deal.
Not only that, but two weeks ago, a very suggestive headline appeared in the Washington Post on November 13th, which kind of gave the whole thing away:
In other words, President-Elect Trump has already ended one war and he’s still two months away from taking office. Just wait, it gets better.
🚀 While stealing credit for Trump’s peace deal in the Middle East, Biden and his neocons are also busily trying to make the Proxy War even harder to end. The New York Post ran a story yesterday headlined, “Biden makes last-ditch ask of Congress for $24 billion to help Ukraine.” Senator Mike Lee immediately tweeted that Biden’s new package, which the Times argued would actually fund the U.S. military-industrial complex, should actually be dead on arrival:
It was an especially tone-deaf move, unlikely to pass, and probably intended more to give Democrats a way to blame Republicans for Ukraine’s loss.
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Things are happening so fast, you occasionally need to stop and look around, or you might miss something. I had barely reported Trump’s social media tariff threats against Canada and Mexico yesterday when a pair of headlines landed like returning SpaceX rockets. First, Newsweek rushed out a story headlined, “Migrant Caravans Not Reaching Border, Claudia Sheinbaum Says After Trump Threats.”
‘Sheinbaum’ is very strange for a Mexican surname, so frankly, I doubt it. It sounds more like a Brooklyn haberdasher. In any case, Ms. Sheinbaum is Mexico’s tightly-coiffed lady president. She did not even wait hours after Trump tweeted he planned a +25% border tariff on Mexican imports for facilitating our border invasion by escorting migrants from its southern border to our border in caravan loads.
But “Caravans of migrants no longer reach the border,” Sheinbaum declared yesterday, while waving around a letter she plans to send to Trump soon. She also insisted Mexico was cracking down on fentanyl. Sheinbaum said she’ll be speaking with President-Elect Trump soon. So.
🔥 Meanwhile, just as fast yesterday, the BBC ran a story headlined, “Trudeau says he will work with Trump amid tariff threats.” The news was Canadian Prime Minister and Fidel Castro lookalike Justin Trudeau said he called Trump within hours after Trump’s tariff announcement, and plans to meet with provincial leaders today to discuss a response.
CLIP: Justin Trudeau’s “good call” with President Trump (1:01).
Trudeau told reporters he and Trump discussed trade (tariffs) and border security. Trudeau complained that the number of migrants crossing the Canadian border was much smaller compared with the US-Mexico border. Maybe, but still. Trudeau said Canada is ready to work with the US in “constructive ways.” He told reporters, “This is a relationship that we know takes a certain amount of working on, and that’s what we’ll do.”
The conservative Premier of Ontario (kind of like a governor), Doug Ford, obviously a racist, felt insulted that Trump lumped Canada in with Mexico. The Beeb reported Ford said, “To compare us to Mexico is the most insulting thing I’ve ever heard.” No bueno! Qué lástima! Completely not panicking, Ford tweeted within 30 minutes after Trump’s threat, calling for an urgent meeting with all Premiers:
Meanwhile, Alberta’s anti-mandate Premier Danielle Smith tweeted that Trump has “valid concerns related to illegal activities at our shared border.”
Trump’s singular social media post was literally all the Canadian Broadcast Company could talk about this morning. Behold:
In an address yesterday to Canada’s House of Commons, the Canadian president begged lawmakers not to “panic” and tried to reassure them saying, “the idea of going to war with the United States isn’t what anyone wants.” There was a good reason Canadian ministers were panicky as women on the verge of a nervous breakdown.
Canada’s dollar is, for some reason, called the Loonie. I am not making that up. It’s something to do with birds or lunatic asylums, we don’t know yet. Anyway, the Loonie (don’t laugh, this is serious) immediately plunged in value after Trump threatened to impose tariffs on Canadian imports come January:
In any case, it does not look like Canada has any appetite for a trade war. It will probably get its border secured. Honestly, the idea of a porous Canadian border is ridiculous. It should be one of the easiest to secure borders in the world, and we’ve never had this problem before this year.
Consider this: Trump promptly got both Mexico and Canada scrambling to cooperate with two tweets, and he’s only the President-Elect. He’s making it look easy. Yes, it’s gratifying and yes, it confirms the trust we placed in him. But there’s an even bigger picture: Trump isn’t waiting. Meaning, he’s already started solving the nation’s biggest problems, even though he lacks the power to issue a single executive order yet.
Behold, Donald Trump Version Two, the grizzled veteran of a frustrating first term and the scarred survivor of eight years of Marxist lawfare. This version of Trump knows what buttons to press, he knows where the bodies are buried, he’s absorbed their worst and now he is about to throw it right back at them.
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California’s controlled demolition continues, signaling why the fledgling Democrat Resistance is already doomed. Local KTLA ran a story yesterday headlined, “Downtown Los Angeles skyscraper loses 2/3 of value.” Last appraised ten years ago at $605 million, the Bank of America Plaza in downtown LA just appraised at only $188 million — having lost 66% of its value in ten years. It has defaulted on its loans. The building’s occupancy is terrible. What could have caused this? Hint:
This type of depressing headline is common for the Big Blue Cities. Still, Democrats will deny, they’ll try to wave away the Blue commercial market meltdown, blaming it on pandemic fatigue and worker’s changing preferences for spending their days working in pajamas instead of coming into the office.
But that is a lie. To prove it, I rounded up two more headlines to make a trifecta.
First, compare the real estate market in Los Angeles, California with the market in Miami, Florida. In July, the Financial Times ran a story headlined, “Cost of Miami office space hits record high. In the very first paragraph, FT provided readers with what I like to call a “clue:”
Apparently, for some reason, unlike Los Angeles, Miami’s commercial market has not been hollowed out by work-from-home policies. It is not suffering from pandemic fatigue. It is booming. And it is stealing LA’s blue-chip companies.
But, Democrats will wail, that’s just because it’s Florida, and Florida is an outlier. But pardonne-moi, mon ami. Not so fast. Let’s consider the next best red market or, tipping the cowboy hat as deserved, arguably the best.
Early this month, just a few weeks ago, Dallas Magazine ran a story headlined, “Dallas Named Country’s No. 1 Commercial Real Estate Market for 2025. Here’s Why.” Not only did this delightful story prove that a second Big Red City is also not suffering pandemic fatigue or having any pajama problems, but it helpfully provided the current list of the top ten commercial real estate markets. Ready? See if you can spot any common characteristics:
You see it. Except for Boston, all the top-performing real estate markets are all Red State Big Cities.
The commercial market metric is only one of many, although it is one of the clearest metrics and one of the most shocking. But when we look at other figures, we find similar trends. For example, consider this PEW Charitable Trust chart of states and their net migration changes:
See? The Red States win. Each new Red State citizen is a new taxpayer and a new contributor to the economy. And each one who’s moved means one fewer taxpayer and economic contributor from the Blue states of origin. The list of net loser states is a Blue wall of shame.
🔥 Still with me? Here’s where Democrat dreams dry up. Politico ran a triumphal story a week ago headlined, “Meet the pillars of the next Trump resistance.” Specifically, the pillars named in the article were Democrat luminaries like California Governor Gavin Newsom, Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker, and Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison.
The “pillars of the next Trump resistance,” the party’s last, best hope, are the democrat governors and mayors, along with their state attorneys general and various blue interest groups.
But they face a Los Angeles skyscraper-sized problem. Back in 2016, when Trump’s first term began, Democrats were coming off eight years of flourishing under the tender mercies of the Obama Administration. The Blue States were flush with federal cash, politically well plugged in, and were slavering for a fight.
But these last four years under Biden have been completely different. Blue states grew dependent on pandemic relief and federal immigration subsidies, while massively increasing their financial burdens and commitments —to non-citizens!— and simultaneously hollowing out their tax base by undermining their cities’ quality of life metrics with homeless encampments, non-prosecution and no-bail policies, and sanctuary largesse.
They can plan their resistance all they like. But the federal subsidy spigot is about to be cut off, at which point they’ll be forced to balance budgets from their own tax revenues. It could be a disaster. Blue State citizens already suffer from tax burdens much higher than competitive Red States. If they raise taxes, more citizens and companies will leave and the Doom Spiral will accelerate.
In other words, this time, Democrat states lack the resources to mount a 2016-style resistance. They need to rebuild, not go on offense. They are so dependent on federal money that, sooner or later, they’ll consider agreeing to anything.
I might be mixing metaphors, but the Democrat states are bobbing around in the same pickle jar as Ukraine. Like Ukraine, Democrat states and cities are financially dependent on the federal government. Like Ukraine, they act like they don’t yet realize how dependent they really are.
Over the last four years, we wryly noted, again and again, that Democrats were governing like they thought Republicans would never retake control of the apparatus of federal government. But now it has happened, and they aren’t ready.
There won’t be —can’t be— any meaningful Blue Resistance from the governors and mayors and their lawyers. Blue donors just urgently flushed a billion and a half dollars down the Kamala Harris toilet, so the blue activist groups will be running on fumes for a while. And, if the Trump Administration can figure out which agency is controlling the corporate media, then media’s relentless, coordinated psy-operations will be shattered into a thousand pieces.
The #Resistance is broken. Nobody’s realized it yet, but it will become obvious soon.
Have a wonderful Wednesday! And please enjoy a joyful and rewarding Thanksgiving with your friends and family. We have a LOT to be thankful for. C&C will be officially closed Thursday and Friday, but keep your eyes on your email in case of a bonus post.
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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
