Opinion
By Jeff Childers
01-24-2024
Greetings and warm salutations, Coffee & Covid fans, it’s Wednesday! Today’s surprise-filled roundup includes: Trump clinches New Hampshire in much more definitive win than the numbers suggest; Google bizarrely lifts search engine embargo on covid jab deaths; bad luck, or karma, strikes the racists at the LA Times; what San Diego’s surprising flash floods say about changing weather patterns; the latest pandemic worry warts — fifty-thousand year old viruses; heroic midwife and revised CDC shot schedule; another ‘bad luck’ jab cluster story; and a Canadian judge unexpectedly ruled Trudeau’s Emergency Act declaration was illegal.
🗞💬 WORLD NEWS AND COMMENTARY 💬🗞
🔥 Last night, the New York Times published a remarkable op-ed — a “guest essay” — scribbled by its own Frank Bruni, a 25-year veteran of the Times’ ultra-liberal editorial staff. Bruni’s headline dramatically cried, “Nikki Haley Was an Illusion. It Just Shattered.”
As the polls closed yesterday, New Hampshire — the state where Haley had focused all her efforts and where non-Republicans can vote in primaries — plopped right into Trump’s column by a ten-point margin (44% to 54%). Historically, every Republican presidential candidate winning both Iowa and New Hampshire also won the nomination.
In a wide-ranging, hand-wringing eulogy for the Haley campaign, a frustrated Bruni dismissed democrat hopes for a Haley upset as having been a “wishful narrative” and a “lovely illusion” in which democrats “sought consolation.” He really just confirmed what everybody’s thinking at this point: There never was a real contest for nominee, not really.
Democrats were hardest hit. Bruni’s throwing in the towel:
We told ourselves that Robert Mueller’s investigation or Trump’s first impeachment or his second impeachment would stop him. We told ourselves that the methodical work of the congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6 storming of the U.S. Capitol would seal his political doom. We told ourselves that he couldn’t survive four indictments encompassing 91 felony counts. We told ourselves that his outbursts were finally growing too vicious, his temper too volcanic, his lies too outrageous and ornate.
Haley flourished in the context of those calming tales. She was a vessel for our hopes. As a result, we upgraded her debate performances from decent to dazzling. We sometimes put as much emphasis on her rise in the polls as on how fatally far behind Trump she remained. The difficulty of accepting Trump’s continued hold on Republican voters became a readiness to accept that voters secretly hankered for the likes of her.
She can be sharp. We didn’t tell ourselves a fable about that. But in our yearning for her to pose a real threat to Trump and to turn the Republican primary contest into a real fight, we often overestimated her skill and underplayed her flaws, glossing over the gobbledygook that tumbled from her lips, disregarding how disingenuous she seemed to many voters, who had watched her bend this way and that over the years, her ambition constant but her principles up for grabs.
At the risk of upsetting our small but loyal group of Haley supporters, it is tempting to cling to the 10-point spread as evidence that Haley somehow remains “in the fight.” The theory is, depending on how the race goes, Haley could conceivably close the gap, come from behind, and overtake Trump in the end.
Setting aside the argument over Haley’s qualifications, after last night, a “come from behind” scenario is as fantastic as the yarn the Democrats spun about Haley’s chances.
As Governor DeSantis went all-in on Iowa, Governor Haley went all-in on New Hampshire. As DeSantis needed to win Iowa, Haley needed to win the Granite State. Even Frank Bruni, who had hoped against hope for a Haley victory, conceded that her best chances came and went yesterday, proven by the loosey-goosey Granite State primary rules allowing Trump-hating democrats their best chance to create mischief:
New Hampshire is probably her last stand, a state whose particular Republican primary rules — which allowed an influx of non-Republican voters, who overwhelmingly chose her — gave her a better chance there than perhaps anywhere else.
For obvious reasons, these figures are hard to come by, but it appears that Haley’s 44% was not nearly as impressive as it first appears. In terms of true Republican votes, Haley probably didn’t get anywhere near 44%, an unpleasant truth that will quickly become manifest in the next primary in South Carolina on February 24th.
For what it’s worth, Grok (Twitter’s A.I.) cheerfully estimated that seventy percent (70%) of Haley voters were not Republicans.
I know you were worried about the scary scenario where Biden somehow forgot to register for the New Hampshire democrat primary, but you’ll be pleased to know Team Biden pulled off their sneaky, behind-the-scenes, unofficial write-in campaign. It was helpful that votes for “Robert L. Peters,” “Robin Ware,” and “Mr. Potato Head” were all counted for Biden.
When you think about it, the Democrats jiggered both primaries. In the Republican primary, Democrats snuck their voters in to falsely tap the pixels for Nikki Haley — who they would never ever vote for in the regular election and don’t want as president. Meanwhile in their own primary, publicly they falsely denied running a campaign to write-in Robin Ware, or whatever his name is these days, while actually running a write-in campaign. Liars.
After all, why have an honest election? If it weren’t for sneaky tactics, then democrats … well, you know the rest.
💉 Here is a fascinating development. Starting some time yesterday, Google apparently lifted the information embargo on vaccine injury news. Enter “covid vaccine death” and see what comes up in first place: Dr. Peter McCullough’s published vaccine injury paper.
In my imagination, I clearly see Google’s censorship conductor, alertly pushing and pulling the censorship levers in fast motion as searches come through. Then, after a long while, the diligent censor’s eyes begin to droop, he leans heavily against the desk, his head starts nodding tiredly, then … bloop! Out like a light!
The censor starts snoring and the searches start sending sensible results.
Talk about a surprising development. Is this some kind of limited hangout? Did the tipping point finally tip? Is something new coming that we can’t yet see? Is Google infested by a saboteur? I have no idea what it means, but it sure gooses the brain juices.
It’s difficult to credit this as an accident. Google doesn’t make these kinds of mistakes. What do you think is going on?
💉 A story in four headlines. How it ended!
How it started (February 2022):
How it’s even more ironic than it looks:
As you consider that headline, you might also want to know the LA Times is owned by a person who is a minority, Patrick Soon-Shiong, an American of Asian descent, who also happens to be a billionaire.
Still, Soon-Shiong probably still the victim of systemic racism, as the headline suggests. He should be even more of a billionaire, or something.
Anyway, the irony runs even deeper than those three headlines suggest. Soon-Shiong made his billions in vaccines, and now the stock in his company ImmunityBio (IBRX) is tanking, which probably explains why the liberal billionaire hesitates to dump more millions into the vanity-project-slash-dumpster fire called the ‘LA Times.’ Headline from yesterday’s Investor Business Daily:
IBD pointed out that back on March 10th, 2021, Soon-Shiong’s personal stake in ImmunityBio was valued at a whopping $11.3 billion. But that healthy valuation has dwindled down to a meagre $1 billion. In other words, he’s about to fall out of the billionaire club. Which might be why Soon-Shiong’s tightening his money belt.
You know, sometimes I wonder whether all our country’s problems are nothing that a little recession can’t fix.
🔥 In a story sure to delight our chemtrail-spotting readers, on Monday sleepy San Diego residents were surprised by unprecedented flash floods. To give you an idea how historic, almost nobody there has flood insurance. Fortunately nobody got hurt, but it was a mess. The New York Times ran the story with the dramatic headline, “‘Out of an Apocalyptic Movie’: San Diego Residents Describe Flood Escape.”
By all accounts, San Diegoans had a pretty rough time. Wild videos rounded social media this week. It was a legit flash flood. In normal times, this would be much bigger news, but there’s a lot going on in the world just now, so you could be forgiven for not even knowing at all about this little flash-flood disaster.
The City of San Diego is starting to hear what will soon become a cacophonous tirade of criticism, beginning with its poorly-maintained storm drain system. I bet San Diego has a robust DEI department though. But I digress! As I was reading the Times’ article, this next paragraph grabbed my tie and yanked me toward the screen. In the City’s own words:
Changing rain patterns causing flash floods in no-flood zones. I bet I know what you geo-engineering folks are thinking about that quote. You’re welcome.
And haha, another dense bureaucrat calling for a need for plans to handle the unexpected.
🔥 I just can’t even. Here you go, from Sunday’s UK Guardian, take it away in the comments:
Don’t forget to discuss this paragraph, which negated the headline, and raised questions as to whether the story was even “news” at all:
In 2014, Claverie led a team of scientists who isolated live viruses in Siberia and showed they could still infect single-cell organisms – even though they had been buried in permafrost for thousands of years. One virus sample was 48,500 years old. “The viruses we isolated were only able to infect amoebae and posed no risk to humans,” said Claverie. “However, that does not mean that other viruses – currently frozen in the permafrost – might not be able to trigger illnesses in humans.
I guess they’re worried about amoeba pandemics now. Breaking news from 2014. I mean, breaking news from 46,000 BC. Science!
🔥 Not all heroes wear capes. From Ars Technica last week:
If somebody finds a legitimate GoFundMe for the midwife, let me know.
In related news, the CDC just updated its 2024 recommended vaccine schedule, which has now engorged itself to 15 oversized pages printed in 8-point type. The schedule now requires 90 shots of 17 different vaccines for kids, 4 doses of 4 different vaccines specifically for pregnant women, and 130 doses of 4 different vaccines for all adults (including flu).
No wonder they’re trying to combine shots now.
My question is, how did the human race manage to survive long enough to build the CDC so that bloated agency could in turn build us such a magnificent vaccine schedule to save us all from dying so that we can create more CDCs?
💉 In more “cluster of bad luck” news, Coffee & Covid is today featuring the GoFundMe for Jennifer and Rob Novak who live in Garden City, Michigan..
Jennifer is a pharmacist (who probably gave folks the jabs) and was likely coerced into the shots in order to keep her job. The Novaks were right on schedule and got their first covid boosters in December 2021:
Despite the side effects, the couple followed the science and kept on boosting, all the way through last month (December ’23):
Then, two weeks ago, Jennifer created her first GoFundMe, which described the painful story of how the couple’s lives have now been completely transformed. First, Rob had a sudden and unexpected stroke and was rushed to the hospital. The next day Jennifer came back to the hospital for a visit but then had a massive heart attack on her way to Rob’s room.
The good news was she was in the hospital. The bad news was her sudden and unexpected heart attack was atypical and she had to be revived three times and paddled twenty times. The fact she survived at all shocked her doctors, who had almost given up hope.
Here’s what came next, in Jennifer’s own words (lightly edited for clarity):
An emergency stent was put into my heart through my leg area. From that stent insertion, my veins were damaged when pulling the stent out, causing blockage in my leg. Emergency vascular surgery was done on my leg, but was unsuccessful, and my leg started to die, which ended up in two amputations of my leg. The first one was below my knee and then a second one above my knee.
Rob was there every day and night at my side after just having a stroke. You never know what life will throw at you but we are trying our best to stay strong.
In other words, Jennifer had a blockage (clot?) in her heart, then got blood clots in the leg they used to insert the stent, and ended up losing her leg in a horrific double-amputation. A combo stroke and a heart attack, same couple, within 24 hours of each other. What are those odds? Now they’ve involuntarily become a poster-couple for fully-vaccinated bad luck.
We’re praying for the couple’s complete recovery and have chipped in.
🔥 Finally, in some terrific news for our Canadian brethren, the Wall Street Journal ran a story yesterday headlined, “Canada’s Use of Emergency Powers to End Trucker Protests Was Unconstitutional, Judge Rules.”
In a stunning rebuke to the Prime Minister, Canadian justice Richard Mosley ruled illegal and unreasonable Trudeau’s February 2022 use of the “Emergencies Act” against the Canadian Truckers. Canadian officials vowed to appeal the ruling. (We’ll see.)
The Canadian Civil Liberties Association, one of the plaintiffs who challenged the Prime Minister’s use of emergency powers, argued the government unnecessarily shredded people’s constitutional rights for what was essentially a one-city policing issue in Ottawa, including bulldozing long-protected rights like, for example, freezing protestors’ bank accounts and seizing their other assets.
In his decision, Justice Mosley wrote that the Trudeau’s government use of the federal Emergencies Act “does not bear the hallmarks of reasonableness—justification, transparency and intelligibility—and was not justified in relation to the relevant factual and legal constraints that were required to be taken into consideration.” The justice also concluded Trudeau’s use of emergency powers infringed on several constitutional provisions.
It seems everybody wants to come to the “emergency powers” party, but nobody wants to stay after and help clean up.
May God bless the Canadian Truckers, whose dramatic protest arguably turned the worldwide tide against mandates and against lockdowns through their heroic efforts and selfless sacrifices. This decision, although two years late, vindicated them and added fuel to a growing anti-Trudeau movement in Canada that is solidly reflected in polls. A post-Trudeau Canada might be hard to imagine, and almost impossible to handicap, but it now lies in view.
Keep on trucking!
Have a wonderful Wednesday! And truck on back here tomorrow morning for another revolutionary Coffee & Covid roundup.
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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