Opinion
By Jeff Childers
01-10-24
Good morning, C&C family, it’s Wednesday! Your roundup today includes: Pentagon dribbles a little more information about AWOL Lloyd Austin and I will give you one guess whether it sounds even more like a jab injury or whether it ruled out jab involvement; former Babylon Bee writer’s atypical medical misadventure; another A-list actor SADS turbo cancer; Ukraine takes the next logical step and orders fashionable female combat wear; non-insurrectionist Ray Epps sentenced with a slap on the wrist; and a safe and effective genetic cancer therapy surprisingly shows long-term cancer-causing effects.
🗞💬 WORLD NEWS AND COMMENTARY
💉 The Pentagon tossed reporters another tasty scrap of information about the missing Secretary of Defense yesterday. CNN ran its version of the widespread story headlined, “Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin treated for prostate cancer.”
Well what do you know? Austin only has the most common jab-related turbo cancer that the CDC ever denied existed. But what can we conclude from yesterday’s scraps? Is it fair to suspect a jab injury? Or did they rule it out somehow?
Here’s the latest timeline. On December 22nd, Austin went in for “elective” prostate surgery — whatever that is. Then on New Year’s he had a “complication” and was hospitalized — nine days ago — four days in the ICU — and yesterday we learned the “complication” was a post-operative urinary tract infection:
Austin was taken by ambulance on Jan. 1 to Walter Reed after suffering complications from his Dec. 22 prostate cancer treatment, including nausea with severe abdominal, hip, and leg pain. After he was diagnosed with a urinary tract infection, Austin was moved on Jan. 2 to an intensive care unit.
Then, more complications arose from his first complication. Walter Reed explained, “Further evaluation revealed abdominal fluid collections impairing the function of his small intestines. This resulted in the back up of his intestinal contents which was treated by placing a tube through his nose to drain his stomach.”
Sounds like post-operative sepsis! Another sign of potential jab involvement .
Next, based on the reactions to the news, Austin’s prostate cancer seems to have come on very suddenly. He apparently didn’t even have time to tell anybody about his diagnosis before he went in for his “elective” surgery. You might say Austin’s prostate cancer came on in a “turbo” fashion. Even Joe Biden, Austin’s boss, knew nothing about his diagnosis:
Apparently nobody knew. And Biden (allegedly) spoke with Austin on Saturday while the Defense Secretary was recovering from his stint in the ICU:
“Nobody at the White House knew that Secretary Austin had prostate cancer until this morning, and the president was informed immediately after.”
Austin and Biden spoke on Saturday and it was unclear why Biden did not learn until Tuesday about Austin’s prostate cancer.
I’m guessing Biden and Austin did not speak on Saturday. It strains credulity that the reason for his hospitalization didn’t come up in the mens’ conversation. What are we supposed to believe? That Austin said something like, “I’d rather not talk about it?” Or, that Biden never asked?
(Well. Maybe. Given Biden’s mental condition.)
CNN — doing some actual reporting this time — quickly scraped up a historical example offering unflattering comparisons. In 2003, Secretary of State Colin Powell also had prostate cancer surgery (but neither turbo nor septic). The morning of his procedure, the State Department publicly advised that Powell was in surgery at Walter Reed, would be there for several days, and would have a reduced schedule while he recovered. After that, the State Department diligently updated Powell’s condition in its daily briefing.
In other words, the opposite of what happened here. What’s changed since 2003? Are they now worried about what we might conclude about Austin’s condition? And whether it might make us even more vaccine hesitant?
CBS ran a separate, highly-suggestive story yesterday headlined, “Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Eric Smith recovering from open-heart surgery.” Commandant Smith — currently on medical leave — had open-heart surgery on Monday to fix a ‘bicuspid aortic valve,’ which doctors believe ambushed his heart in October while he was doing some PT.
In General Smith’s case, the Marine Corps promptly notified all the appropriate parties about General Smith’s surgery — on the same day as his surgery. See? The military does know how to do it. Maybe when Secretary Austin is conducting his promised “review of Pentagon procedures,” he could check how the Marine Corps does things. Just saying.
So … two of our top military leaders are currently down and unable to work with sudden and unexpected medical issues that look like jab injuries. That’s a pretty small club.
💉 Frank Fleming is a former Babylon Bee writer and a very funny guy. So you know I relate to him. Frank is 44, healthy, active, has four kids, and currently writes scripts for cartoons and other kids’ shows for the Daily Wire’s conservative media initiative. And yesterday, he posted a series of well-written tweets and a heartfelt Substack about his recent, grueling medical misadventure.
Here’s how it started. Frank got the injections in April, 2021, even though it appears the rest of his family did not:
Here’s how it’s going. Last summer, Frank got two different types of cancer at the same time, which is pretty unusual. He had them both surgically removed last month. Both cancers were atypical cancers. They still don’t know what’s going on with him:
Frank, a professional writer, somehow crafted an engaging, lighthearted Substack about his frightful double-cancer experience. His cancer — or, cancers — as I noted, were both atypical. He referred to this fact several times. Here’s the condensed version, in his own words (edited for brevity):
It’s like half a year later, and I had surgery in December to remove two tumors, and I still don’t really know what’s going on. The week before the trip, I went to the doctor.
He told me it looked like I had two different tumors, one in my pelvis and one on my liver in the gallbladder fossa (the groove in my liver where the gallbladder used to be). So, the suspicion is I have some sort of metastatic cancer. The weird thing, though, is that the liver and pelvis are kind of far apart, and there was no indication of tumors anywhere in between.
The Mayo Clinic finally got back on the pathology, and they were completely stumped, calling the (liver) tumor an “unknown epithelioid tumor.” At this point, my oncologist tells me I’m his toughest case in several years.
My urologist tells me that the tumor on my seminal vesicles is extremely rare (he’s only dealt with two in his twenty years), but, whatever, they’ll cut it out. It ends up the tumor in my pelvis was not connected to my seminal vesicles. In fact, it was not connected to anything. It was just floating loose in the fatty tissue. The surgeon says he had never seen anything like that before (fun!).
It seems frustrating that Frank’s doctors are unable to see the potential single cause of Frank’s mysterious illnesses, the shots. But on the other hand, what would they do with that information? They aren’t equipped to suggest internet remedies like ivermectin and fenbenzadole.
The good news is there’s no sign either cancer metastasized. In the meantime, Frank would seem to be the unfortunate poster-boy for the current wave of jab injuries: atypical turbo cancers. Hopefully, now that both of his unrelated, rare cancers — cancers that both suddenly and unexpectedly appeared at the same time — now they’ve been removed, hopefully Frank will make a full recovery. We’re praying for him.
💉 Top Hollywood actor Adan Canto, 42, died this week after a short battle with an ultra-rare, atypical appendiceal cancer.
Adan played in a lot of shows and movies. Most recently, the actor spent two seasons starring as the male lead in Fox’s dramatic series The Cleaning Lady. He also played the Vice-President for three seasons in Kiefer Sutherland’s Designated Survivor, was a regular character in Narcos, and ironically is probably best known for playing mutated superhero Sunspot in X-Men: Days of Future Past.
In real life, mutations didn’t really pan out as well as they did in the comic books. Mutations don’t so much create super powers after all; they’re more likely to create super tumors.
During the pandemic, actors were mandated to be jabbed to go on any set, without exception. At the time, I counseled several working actors.
Adan leaves behind his wife Stephanie Ann, and their two young children, Roman, 3½, and Eve, 1½. Prayers for the family.
💉 Yesterday, the coroner issued its final report on the legendary Irish hit singer and mega-celebrity Sinead O’Connor’s death: natural causes. Sinead died suddenly and unexpectedly last July, amidst a swarm of media and “friends and family” hinting that the singer was depressed and had killed herself. The theory seemed credible and well-accepted, so I didn’t cover Sinead’s death as a SADS case.
But it turns out that the suicide claims were just horrible, unforgivable lies.
What kind of person would invent a suicide rumor about their own friend or relative to protect a shot made by a bunch of amoral, rich, pharma oligarchs they don’t even know? Also deserving heaps of criticism are all the usual online wokescolds who did not come out in force condemning the rampant speculation about Sinead’s falsely-alleged suicide. Where were all the virtue-signalers then?
“This is to confirm that Ms O’Connor died of natural causes,” a spokesman for Southwark Coroners Court told the UK Daily Mail. “The coroner has therefore ceased their involvement in her death.”
That’s it; that’s all we get. “Natural causes.” It’s just a mystery. These things happen. They happens every single day. These days.
🚀 Get ready, ladies! It’s time to hit the shooting range. The Hindustan Times ran a story yesterday headlined, “Ukraine Army Orders 50,000 Women Uniforms Amid Anti-Mobilisation Sentiment | Russia’s War.” Do not worry, girls; the order specified that the uniforms’ design be flattering.
Ukraine has made no formal announcement of conscripting women for combat. But uniforms aren’t needed for non-combatants. And it’s the next logical step. This is what happens when you run out of men. But I was still a little surprised; when they said, “to the last Ukrainian,” I sort of thought they just meant military-age males.
My bad!
I checked and the Kiev Post has nothing about the story, either way, neither confirming nor denying. So.
🔥 Politico ran a story yesterday headlined, “Ray Epps, pro-Trump rioter smeared by conspiracy theories, gets probation for role in Capitol riot.” James Ray Epps, Sr., the only January 6th protestor to actually encourage people to go into the Capitol, including saying “we’re here to storm the Capitol,” and who texted his nephew claiming to have “orchestrated” the Capitol riot, was harshly sentenced in DC court yesterday, as he deserved. Epps’s hard sentence was: a year probation, a $500 fine, and a 100 hours of community service, which he may perform, at his option, at other conservative rallies or at the FBI’s regional field office. Haha, I made up that last part. But sadly, not the rest.
The Chief Judge of the U.S. District Court in Washington, DC, James Boasberg, wrestled with the difficult decision, for at least as long as it took him to say “This is not an easy sentencing.” Then he tossed the felony charges and gave Epps misdemeanor probation, because, and I am not making this up, he felt Epps had suffered enough from deranged Trump supporters who kept throwing Epps’s own words and actions in his face.
In the Chief Judge’s view, just like an Old Testament prophet, or maybe more like peace-loving, non-violent martyr Mahatma Ghandi, James Ray Epps similarly suffered for “what (he) didn’t do.”
In other words, Ray has already been punished.
There have been so many J6 cases it’s impossible to keep up with them all. But I think this might be the lightest sentence given to any January 6th defendant, including people sentenced who weren’t even in DC on January 6. Julie Kelly, who closely watches the cases, said in the rare cases where defendants have received probation only, it is usually for 2-3 years and usually includes paternalistic conditions, such as staying off social media.
The Court also granted Epps’ motion to attend his sentencing hearing by phone. He didn’t even have to go down there. I probably don’t need to tell you that is highly irregular. (From what I can tell, for some reason, Epps thought he might be served with one or more subpoenas if he attended in person.)
Oh — in case you’re not entirely furious yet: the Chief Judge gave Epps a lighter sentence than the US Attorney requested, which was six months in jail. Lest you feel too much angst, that request was just a beard; this charade was never intended to end with Epps in a cell, not even for a quiet afternoon.
My speculation is this sideshow was meant to resolve Epps’ criminal liability, in case a new administration takes over in January with a different prosecutorial appetite. Now that he’s been sentenced for his “crimes,” Ray cannot be re-tried on the same grounds. In other words, it might have been trivially-easy for a new DOJ to send Epps to jail for 25 years for inciting the insurrection; a sentence that would have been completely consistent with all the previous ones.
But Ray does not benefit from double-jeopardy for anything other crimes. And the shadowy, so-far unnamed people who gave Ray his orders, those people aren’t protected by this little circus. Theoretically, and I recognize this is a long shot, but Ray’s bosses could also be prosecuted for run-of-the-mill J6 offenses on a conspiracy theory. Think of a trespassing charge for every person who entered the Capitol on January 6th, with sentences to run sequentially.
Ironically, President Trump — who was not granted permission to attend by phone — was attending a separate hearing in one of his cases in the same courthouse at the time of Epps’ sentencing.
Whew! I’m sure you are as glad as I am to see justice for Ray Epps.
💉 Yesterday, Fierce Pharma ran a shocking story headlined, “Cell therapy bigwigs endorse CAR-T in Nature Medicine article amid FDA safety probe.” Wait, what? Safety probe? It’s true; a whole category of cancer-fighting, “individualized” genetic treatments that the FDA previously found safe and effective are now suspected of causing cancer. Can you believe that?
At the end of November, the FDA “surprised” the “CAR-T community” (whatever that is) by announcing that it was investigating reports of new blood cancer cases linked to the CAR-T cancer therapy. So, according to the article, the CAR-T Bigwigs (whoever they are) are flooding the trade press with pro-CAR-T material in a marketing effort to save the therapy.
Chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy, or “CAR-T,” is a personalized treatment that genetically engineers a cancer patient’s own immune cells, re-programming them with a new gene (the chimeric antigen receptor) designed to target and destroy their malignant cancer cells. The patient’s own T-cells are extracted, genetically modified in the lab, and then re-injected back into the patient to go off and fight with cancer. Another words, T-cells are deliberately mutated into CAR-T cells.
The mutant CAR-T cells are like immune superheroes or X-men or something.
But then the FDA began receiving reports of new blood cancers in patients who’d received the CAR-T treatment, oncological side-effects that the article generically referred to as “post-treatment secondary malignancies.” But a rapidly-procured, pro-pharma study published yesterday in Nature Medicine concluded that, notwithstanding the risk of new cancer, “the benefits of CAR-T therapies continue to outweigh the potential risks in the vast majority of cases.”
Risk/benefit analysis is tricky; it is highly subjective. It’s impossible to make a risk/benefit decision for someone else. At least, the world would be a much different place if you could. Bank: we decided to invest all your money in digital John Fetterman artwork. You can thank us later.
The bottom line is an entire generation of promising “individualized” genetically-based cancer treatments have been found to cause other cancers, and the genetic treatment is now at risk. Pharma is fighting back, and who knows how it will shake out. The point is: unexpected long-term injuries from any new drugs exist, and that is probably even more true with new, high-tech genetic therapies.
Anyway, it’s a good thing the genetically-based mRNA covid shots don’t have any of these kinds of problems. Whew!
Oops. I’m already out of time and I haven’t even gotten to what’s been leaking out of the top-secret Fauci interviews. We’ll have to get to that tomorrow.
See you then! Have a wonderful Wednesday and come on back here in the morning for a highly-caffeinated free refill of Coffee & Covid.
We can’t do it without you. Consider joining with 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: ☕ 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
© 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 Florid
