Opinion
By Jeff Childers
12/09/24
Good morning, C&C, it’s Monday! Time for a brand new week as the air chills and the holiday spirit overtakes the country. This morning’s roundup includes: on the very first weekday following the dramatic fall of Syria, the United States flies into the gap; I take a deep flight over the unidentified flying drone controversy which, if anything, has soared above U.S. military bases and are now invading entire states; local officials freaking out while feds are slow walking any response; deliciously ironic story of San Fran anti-cop activist’s plaintive request for help after thieves literally stole everything; and more evidence the MAHA revolution has already begun.
🌍 WORLD NEWS AND COMMENTARY 🌍
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The New York Times ran a story yesterday headlined, “U.S. hopes for peaceful transition of power in Syria after Assad’s ouster.” Joe Biden described the shocking, warp-speed collapse of Syria’s government a “moment of historic opportunity,” and pledged to rush U.S. aid to the failed state. Western North Carolina, not so much, but there’s not so much “opportunity” there either.
CLIP: Joe Biden celebrates Russian losses in Syria (6:11).
Slurring and stumbling through his short, six-minute speech, and repeatedly clearing his throat, Biden claimed credit for Syria’s collapse. “Our approach has shifted the balance of power in the Middle East,” President Cabbage bragged, adding “We now see new opportunities.” I’ll bet they do.
Then, Biden confirmed the Proxy War link I’ve been suggesting, in his patented circumloqutious style: “This is a direct result of the blows that Ukraine, Israel delivered upon their own self defense with unflagging support of the United States.”
Biden said U.S. forces started airstrikes in Syria yesterday —an exciting new conflict!— hitting any holdout enemies opposing the loosely named, ill-defined, and mysteriously provenanced “rebel groups,” many of whom currently occupy slots on U.S. terror group lists. Corporate media has not explained or even expressed any curiosity about how the U.S. could so quickly tell the good guys from the bad guys with sufficient clarity to start dropping bombs on people.
Biden then launched the big announcement: the United States —not the U.N., the World Bank, or for Hades’ sake, not the BRICS— would help “the Syrian people” create an independent —Joe started coughing uncontrollably right when he said “independent,” presumably to cover his laughter— an independent new government and a spanking new democratic constitution that would be just “for them,” the people. And it will be so progressive; just wait and see.
Now, when Biden promised that the United States would “help the Syrian people” create a new government for them, the people, he meant just the Syrians we’re not bombing into the stone age, of course. The good ones, in other words. Those other ones are dead men.
On Saturday, as Syria fell and Bassad fled, Trump tweeted, “THIS IS NOT OUR FIGHT!” and urged the U.S. to stay out of the conflict. Amusingly, the article quoted Jake Sullivan saying the U.S. would not get involved — one day before Biden announced U.S. airstrikes there and our intent to “help” build a brave new Syrian government for the right people.
Underscoring the significance of Syria’s sudden collapse within the larger Proxy War, the WaPo reported that deposed Syrian President Bashar Al’Assad was not, in fact, killed in a plane crash as was rumored over the weekend, but rather landed in Moscow, evidenced by videos circulating on Russian war blogs. The Times article stressed that Russia is losing regional influence, because the coup will probably sink Russia’s large naval base in Syria, and the future of Russia’s trans-Syrian national gas pipeline to Europe seems shaky. Conversely, the U.S.-backed, trans-Syrian pipeline now has a future so bright it needs to wear shades. Iran also loses, because everyone seems to expect the new Syrian government to be much more friendly to Israel.
So the Fall of Syria appears to be a major victory for the neocons, a last-minue win snatched from the jaws of defeat in the darkening twilight of Biden’s lame-duck term. The most suggestive remaining unexplained questions surround the inexplicable reason why the Syrian army simply melted away, allowing the “rebels” to snatch up the entire country in about ten days with almost no opposition, and why Russia and Iran more or less stayed out of the fight and let just it happen.
I can’t shake a wild theory I came across on social media this weekend: Russia traded Syria for Ukraine. There’s zero direct evidence, but it offers lovely explanatory power. We don’t know, and we will never know. So, we shall wait and see what happens next on the Ukraine front in the Proxy War. But I sense this is bad news for Zelensky.
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Yesterday, NorthJersey.com ran one of many bizarre unidentified flying drone stories this weekend headlined, “North Jersey mayors demand action from NJ, feds on flurry of drone sightings.” Last Tuesday, the FBI issued a joint statement with the New Jersey State Police and the State Office of Homeland Security setting up a tipline for information from the public related to “the recent sightings of possible drones flying in several areas along the Raritan River.”
CLIP: Four grainy videos of unidentified flying objects over Brooklyn, New York (2:00).
Last fall, giant mystery drones allegedly plagued East Coast military bases, leaving the government claiming bafflement. Now, a year later, the unidentified flying drones are back, blanketing New Jersey’s sensitive sites, waking people up, spreading to New York, arrogantly swanking around wherever they want, and generally making nuisances of themselves.
“U.S. officials don’t know who is behind the drones,” one WSJ article reported, “or how to stop them.” But … do they want to stop them?
Described as ‘car-sized,’ the lighted, buzzing drones have been reported all over New Jersey, in at least a dozen counties, and are zipping over sensitive sites like a military weapons design center, Trump’s golf course, and an active reservoir. The FBI seems helplessly confounded, and the FAA keeps creating temporary “no fly” zones trying to protect commercial air assets.
The drones are lit up. They seem to be trying to avoid collisions. And they obviously aren’t trying to hide.
👽 I researched drones that could fit the profile, information invisible in most of the media reports. Two categories of drones are at least as big as a small car. First, prototypes of “flying cars” — drones that, if the FAA ever allows it, could be used for personal air transportation. You can’t buy one, so you could say they are priceless. You definitely can’t fly them without special FAA permission, not without breaking a zillion laws. It’s unclear why flying car developers would risk huge penalties to test their prototypes like this instead of doing it legally and in the clear.
The second possible category are the cargo drones. These are autonomous flyers, like hobby drones, except bigger. They’re operated by remote control, but unlike hobby drones, they carry a substantial payload. Amazon, for example, has been testing delivery drones in this category. But more common are military drones used to drop bombs. These drones cost from hundreds of thousands up to millions of dollars, if you can buy them, that is.
Whatever scofflaw is flying these drones is committing felonies right and left, some serious. Commercially available drones above the $100 range are equipped with GPS, and they are all programmed not to fly near sensitive sites. So, between the size, cost, and apparent lack of software limits, they strongly suggest a military origin, not least because who else would be so unconcerned about all the potential criminal liability, should one of the drones malfunction, land, and be captured?
Could it be China or Russia? One suspects the U.S. military would be much more concerned and proactive if that were true. On the other hand, see the sordid story of China’s spy balloon. If the U.S. military is testing these drones, they are working outside of official channels. One possibility is the agency testing the drones doesn’t want the FAA leaking operational details, like when the tests will occur.
Finally, if you are a hardcore UFO buff, and prefer an out-of-this-world theory, some speculate these “drones” could be something else, merely camouflaged as drones. Nobody’s caught one. Nobody has seen one take off or land. A fascinating theory, but why would aliens undertake all this fake droning? Maybe, since they’re aliens, it doesn’t have to make sense?
👽 This weekend, nineteen local New Jersey officials requested help from law enforcement agencies, the FAA, the Department of Homeland Security, and the New Jersey State Police. Their joint letter complained that those agencies took “a reactive instead of proactive approach” to the problem.
New Jersey residents “pay a fortune for government,” the testy officials wrote, and “right now either our government is keeping us in the dark or they are failing to act on taxpayers’ concerns over these unidentified drones.” One could not help but detect a note of deep frustration.
Last Thursday, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy attended a drone briefing with Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, senior officials from the Department of Homeland Security, the New Jersey Office of Homeland Security and Preparedness, and New Jersey State Police, to discuss the sightings.
In an NBC video report headlined, “Growing mystery over drone sightings in New York & New Jersey, the reporter interviewed a couple independent citizens who were launching their own hobby drones, trying to find and approach the mystery drones and capture some better video. That common-sense solution prompted the question why none of the FBI, FAA, Homeland Security, New York and New Jersey police are trying to do the same obvious thing.
Other citizens reported shooting laser pointers at the drones, which seemed to quickly respond:
CLIP: Citizen video of lasering drones (1:34).
Again, if this drone invasion were a wide-scale, classified military test of new drone technology, we might expect to see a feeble official response, pretending not to know what’s going on and just going through the motions. Let the citizens try, if the useless federal government can’t or won’t. Deputize us!
Here’s a Fox report speculating whether the drones are in fact a secret U.S. military test, but then contrasted that question with a Pentagon statement suggesting the Department of Defense really doesn’t know where the drones are coming from:
CLIP: Fox asks, is it or isn’t it a military test? (1:05)
Whatever the explanation, this story is getting a lot of attention. It seems likely we will soon either find out or they’ll stop. What do you think is going on?
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The New York Post ran a very satisfying and ironic story this weekend headlined, “‘Defund the police’ activist goes viral after begging for help when everything she owned was stolen in San Francisco: ‘The cops didn’t do s—!’”
San Fransisco resident and ever-masker Danice Bell, 60?, did not report to police the theft of her rented and fully loaded 26-foot Uhaul moving van, although she complained cops “didn’t do s—t.” Danice hates the police. She believes police, including black officers, are all raging racists, and it is her personal mission to extinguish hatred wherever it appears by being even more hateful than the haters. Or something like that.
The feisty keyboard warrioress battles on X as ‘Jerque Cousteau’ (@neo_antiquarian).
In the wake of her “stolen Uhaul” post going viral for its delicious irony, Danice, a single white female, doubled down and posted even more pro-BLM, anti-cop comments. That will teach us! She also lashed out at Christians. For some reason, she blames Christians for being mocked online and for people being so unsympathetic about her stolen trailer, which she claimed without evidence contained her kids’ Christmas presents. Uh-huh.
It’s not clear what Danice thinks should happen, since the criminals —let us not speculate on their racial characteristics— took off with everything she owned. She complained about lack of police assistance, wrong responses to her posts for help, and about Uhaul’s failure to attach GPS to its trucks. What she thinks she would have done if she could find her truck was unclear. Maybe dispatch some government-paid mental health counselors to that location.
Anyway, as a Christian, I pray Danice will ultimately learn to see this setback as a positive experience, and that she will nevertheless enjoy a merry Christmas despite her material sufferings. Assuming, that is, she does celebrate Christmas.
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Has MAHA already begun? Last week, the LA Times ran a conspiratorial story headlined, “How the FDA allows companies to add secret ingredients to our food.” The article ultimately explains the problem this time is not so much the FDA, since a law passed by Congress established a sneaky category of processed-food ingredients acronymed GRAS — “generally recognized as safe.”
Without diving into that particular problem, which lets companies self-regulate potentially harmful novel ingredients, there does seem to be a quiet revolution underway. Last week, top FDA officials testified at a Senate committee hearing and made a number of remarkable concessions.
For example, the New York Post ran a story after the hearing headlined, “FDA may outlaw food dyes ‘within weeks’: Bombshell move would affect candy, soda and cakes, revolutionize American diets.” At that Senate hearing, the FDA’s deputy director said the agency was reviewing a citizen petition to remove Red Dye #3, a common chemical and food additive made from petroleum and linked to cancer in several studies.
Both articles mentioned, without making any direct connection, the appointment of Robert Kennedy, Jr., as the next Director of Health and Human Services. I’ve noted before the rising of what appears to be the “MAHA Effect.” If nothing else happens, we are already witnessing a huge improvement, just from all the new attention sketchy processed-food ingredients are receiving.
They say politics is downstream from culture. Maybe the politicians just realized where the health culture is headed. Progress!
Have a magnificent Monday! Coffee & Covid shall return tomorrow, with another fully caffeinated, nutritious, and delicious 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
