Opinion
By Jeff Childers
04-17-24
Good morning, C&C, it’s Wednesday! If you can believe it, we’re halfway through April. Today’s roundup includes: Trump trial second day rounds up seven “unbiased” jurors and Trump takes a nap; Soros airdrops cash on the DNC and buys radio stations; another scary new pandemic variant threatens to drive you crazy with public health nonsense; Florida’s baffling fish diseases rampages onto the pages of the New York Times; coral reefs show more evidence of heating sea water; and it looks like Russia has already beaten Biden’s Fifth Generation world war.
🗞💬 WORLD NEWS AND COMMENTARY 💬🗞
🔥 The Wall Street Journal ran its update on the Trump “Mischaracterization” trial yesterday headlined, “Jury for Donald Trump’s Hush-Money Trial Takes Shape: An Oncology Nurse, a Software Engineer, a Teacher.” The short version is: things moved faster in the courtroom yesterday than was expected, (it happens), and the first seven jurors were selected. At this point, the first witness could be called as early as Monday in what might be the most important — and simultaneously the stupidest — criminal case in American history.
Things jurors reportedly said during voire dire suggested New Yorkers may be trying to sneak onto the Trump jury for reasons other than civic responsibility. Much of what they said was literally unbelievable.
One prospective juror, a social-media marketer, assured the lawyers she wasn’t into politics. “Obviously, I know about President Trump. I’m a female,” the woman ambiguously stated. When asked what she meant, she explained “I know that there have been opinions on how he doesn’t treat females correctly. Stuff like that.” She added, “I honestly don’t know the story. So I don’t have a view on it.”
Totally unbiased.
Another potential juror, a Transportation Authority retiree, insisted to lawyers that she had no idea what the case was even about, since she’d been staying at a lake without internet for the last couple months. When pressed for an opinion, she conceded she was no Trump fan: “There is very little we probably agree on policy-wise.”
She knows all Trump’s policy views, but never heard of the trial. Uh huh.
A third juror, the married IT consultant who was one of the seven selected, waxed eloquent, saying he personally found Trump “fascinating and mysterious.” When asked what he meant, the juror explained he marveled how polarizing Trump was: “He walks into a room and he sets people off one way or another,” the juror said. “Really, this one guy can do all of this.”
I may be judging too harshly, but to my trained ear, none of the three sounded genuine about their lack of bias. The effort to cover up their bias suggests dishonesty. Tellingly, none referred to Trump using his formal title, “president.” The IT consultant — obviously trying hard to seem neutral — gave away his real feelings by referring to Trump as “this guy,” which clearly telegraphed a kind of bottled-up disrespect.
Only twelve percent of Manhattan residents voted for Trump in 2020. The voter list is basically the same as the potential juror list. So.
To be honest, it’s difficult to imagine anyone could get on that jury by telling the truth. Everyone who votes has already formed an opinion about President Trump and has almost certainly expressed that opinion at the ballot box, if you believe the turnout numbers.
As I said yesterday, the jury system is a great fit for 99.9% of cases. But not for presidents.
Liberal media ran headlines yesterday blaring about Trump “dozing off” at one point during the long day. I suppose it was fair game, given how much entertainment is provided throughout the rest of the year by Biden’s bumbles and gaffes. But in this case, it meant nothing. For the participants, trial can at times be painfully dull. For example, lawyers often object and then go up to the front for whispered private talks with the judge. That happens over and over and over. Or sometimes the judge calls a recess and nothing happens for a while. Or the lawyers argue some tedious procedural motion.
It’s never dull for the lawyers. The lawyers are always doing something at trial. Trial time flies. It’s maximum adrenaline. Me, I never eat on trial days, since I don’t want to spare the energy for digestion. Trial is never boring for me, but that’s only because we lawyers are included in everything, like all those private conferences at the bench, where I’m scrambling to win or keep the other side from winning.
Meanwhile the client often has to sit around at the table doodling uncomplimentary sketches of the judge on their legal pad. So Trump rested his eyes, that’s all. I don’t blame him. Ho hum.
🔥 I guess the polling wasn’t looking very good, because this happened:
And that right there is how oligarchs gain control over political parties. The lump sum gift was bad news, but maybe not quite as bad as it sounded. Soros reportedly gave $125 million to democrats during 2022’s election cycle. But more concerning was the news Soros bought up 220 radio stations around the country for four hundred million dollars. Worse, that massive purchase was described as only “the start of a larger audio-buying spree.”
Get ready.
In other words, 220 radio stations just joined the mockingbird corporate media. Remember those bizarre videos showing all the scripted local news anchors robotically repeating the same slogans, Orwellian catchphrases like “the sharing of false news is dangerous to our democracy.” That’s about to happen to talk radio, so get ready.
Democrats ruin everything good by occupying it, making it political and obnoxious, and then nobody wants anything to do with it anymore. Still, I’m not too worried about Soros-FM. The talented radio personalities, the ones who haven’t already migrated, will eventually all migrate over to podcast land.
Buying up media is, by definition, a psy-op.
💉 Is this kind of thing happening because we just got out of a pandemic? Is it because it’s an election year? Whatever the reason, corporate media is downright obsessed with spreading fake pandemic news, which apparently is not a threat to our democracy when they do it. Yesterday’s big story ran in the UK Daily Mail under this terrifying headline, if anyone is still listening to them at this point, that is:
I assume when they say public health officials are calling for “urgent measures,” they specifically mean more multi-million-dollar no-bid contracts for buying ineffective snake oil remedies and useless PPE equipment. As it happens, I’ve designed a sort of lower-body masking apparatus to prevent the kind of intimate contact that can spread monkeypox. Since this is a family blog, I will leave my simple but effective invention’s details to your imagination, but the details should be obvious.
A new monkeypox pandemic story is all well and good for public health officials, who were feeling lonelier than the Ukrainians, having had their emergency powers toys taken away and having been jammed back into their historical category of nagging hypochondriacs. But what about European leather festival organizers? Did anybody think about them? How are they supposed to sell tickets now? This kind of thing can really depress festival attendance.
Honestly, I have no idea why media thinks monkeypox is so terrifying. Who are they trying to scare? They already ran the monkeypox pandemic scenario two years ago, and a few people who were doing stuff they shouldn’t wound up enduring a couple weeks of painful sores, and then they were fine.
Plus, most of us aren’t doing the wrong things that spread monkeypox, and there’s a vaccine for it now, and anyways poxxers won’t die but will recover at home while experiencing some discomfort, as the doctors love to say.
Anyway, the “news” was that a dozen sex workers and customers caught monkeypox in the Congo’s bacterial soup — in a remote gold mining town that wouldn’t have spread anything anywhere under normal conditions except now its packed with public health officials and reporters. And if we’ve learned one thing about public health officials, it is they don’t usually have good personal hygiene or health habits. Don’t make me show you the pictures again. And as for corporate media reporters, well, you know. So.
And guess what? You’ll never believe this but according to the Mail it’s a new strain of monkeypox that is even more infectious than the previous strain. Where have we heard that one before. What’s that? Did you ask, how much more infectious exactly? The answer is Science! Shut up!
Oh, I almost forgot. It’s also the same severity as the existing variant (“just as deadly”). No news yet on whether they’ve assigned the latest brand of monkeypox a monstrous new name, like the Mecha-Godzilla or Titanosaurus variant or something.
According to the Mail, “it is not yet clear whether the genesis of the outbreak in the DRC was driven by sexual contact.” Uh huh. It’s not clear. Not clear to whom? Public health officials, that’s who. It’s pretty clear to the rest of us.
So, you know. Be safe out there, people!
🔥 Florida’s weird fish disease swam into the New York Times on Monday, appearing in an article headlined, “What’s Killing Endangered Sawfish in Florida?”
Last time I reported on this breaking story from local Florida sources, alert C&C commenters quickly diagnosed the Sunshine State’s baffling fish epidemic as whirling fish disease, a long-known parasitic infection that has been around for a long time and has very similar symptoms. But I don’t think that’s what this is, unless all the experts quoted in the articles have just missed it somehow.
Here’s what the Times’ article said about causes:
Scientists have not yet figured out what is going on. They have ruled out a few potential causes, including red tide, the toxic algal bloom that has led to past massive fish kills. In their best lead to date, they have learned that microalgae that naturally present near the sea bottom have produced an elevated level of toxins that acutely affect the neurological systems of fish when they swim into those areas.
Spinning fish seem to recover when pulled up from the sea bottom (where toxin concentrations are higher) toward the water surface (where concentrations are lower). Sawfish are sea-bottom dwellers.
But that explanation is far from proven at this point since they’ve been working to prove the microalgae toxin theory from the start, back when all this began late last year. The truth is they don’t know. But in looking at the algae, they noticed another interesting development:
Some wonder if last summer’s record-breaking sea temperatures, which bleached coral throughout the Keys, may have altered the ecosystem and triggered unusual microalgal growth.
The water is heating up. That reminded me of two things. First, it reminded me of the historic Hunga Tonga underwater volcano, the least-known worldwide disaster in history, thanks to useless corporate media. But it also reminded me of a related article on Yahoo News this weekend, headlined “Scientists create new warning system after ‘unimaginable’ coral mortality event: ‘We are entering a new world.’”
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has always categorized coral reefs at five levels of concern — from “No Stress” to the most-threatened “Alert Level Two.” But after recent record-setting sea temperatures, NOAA was forced to add three more higher warning levels to the system.
That’s how hot things are getting down there. And it’s still heating up.
“We are entering a new world in terms of heat stress where the impacts are becoming so pervasive that we had to rethink how we were doing things,” said Coral Reef Watch director Dr. Derek Manzello. “When you exceed a DHW value of twenty it is analogous to a Category 5 cyclone, with unbelievably severe, drastic damage. It’s the worst-case scenario.”
Prior rankings maxed out at a DHW of eight. But now, several places in the Northern Hemisphere have reported DHW’s over twenty. DHW stands for “degree heat week,” referring to a sustained week above normal temperature ranges. A DHW of eight refers to a consecutive eight-week period above the normal range. Professor Tracy Ainsworth of the International Coral Reef Society said severe heat events were rare even just a decade ago — that is, prior to the Hunga Tonga eruption.
The article also quoted Richard Leck from the World Wildlife Foundation, who accurately told the Guardian, “What this new system shows is that ocean temperatures and the risks to coral reefs are literally off the charts … global heating is impacting our oceans in ways unimaginable only a decade ago.”
Something is heating up the oceans, a lot, causing mysterious fish diseases and killing coral. It cannot possibly be carbon dioxide. If it’s not the Hunga Tonga eruption, then what’s doing it?
🔥 Speaking of things heating up, the BBC ran an article yesterday that surprised no one except the entire Biden Administration. It bore the unfortunate headline, “Russia to grow faster than all advanced economies, says IMF.” The sub-headline added, “An influential global body has forecast Russia’s economy will grow faster this year than all of the world’s advanced economies, including the US.”
The headline should have read, “Joe Biden loses World War III.”
That wasn’t all yesterday. Bloomberg ran a similar story, this one headlined, “Russian Crude Shipments Surge to the Highest in Almost a Year.” It is now undeniable that the Biden Administration’s highly-publicized sanctions war against Russia has catastrophically failed. The U.S.’s faltering economy was well described yesterday in a Barrons article headlined, “Inflation Could Stick Around Much Longer. What to Do About It.”
A financial analyst quoted for the Barron’s story explained, “The backdrop of continued geopolitical stress is contributing to more persistent inflation and more caution.”
Who caused all this geopolitical stress? It did not exist four years ago.
As a core plank of its neocon foreign policy, Team Biden deliberately provoked Russia into invading Ukraine, and then set out to leverage the Proxy War to remove Putin, destroy Russia’s economy, and eradicate Russia as a potentially competitive superpower. Even if you somehow disbelieve NATO provoked Russia, the rest is undeniable. Without Congressional authorization, Biden undertook a Fifth Generation world war against Russia, a war via proxy, a war via economics, a war via propaganda and destabilization, and a war via thinly-disguised infrastructure sabotage, like blowing up Russia’s Nordstream pipeline.
It sort of snuck up on us, but it is evident Biden’s gamble failed. Sure, the clock is still running, the players are still going through the motions, but the crowd can see it’s over. There are six minutes left in the fourth quarter and the home team is down by three touchdowns. Might as well head for the parking lot.
From the current state of the world, it looks more and more like Biden’s disastrous defeat has been carefully scripted from Day One by the meritocratic Russian team, which outplayed our cross-dressing, diverse, inclusive neocon nitwits. Let us count the ways:
- Biden has lost the economic war (see above). Instead of harming Russia’s economy, sanctions have only improved it, boomeranging on the U.S., which is paying an incalculable price.
- Most informed commenters think the Proxy War in Ukraine is now just a matter of time before a politically-catastrophic surrender becomes necessary. Options for NATO to directly intervene in Ukraine evaporated when Iran launched its drone swarm against Israel, because the U.S. is now pinned. We can no longer commit to a major effort to save Ukraine, because we must now keep our military free for deployment to the Middle East in case a broader war breaks out. The rest of NATO must enter Ukraine without the United States. They won’t.
- Russia has quietly forged alliances with all the U.S.’s most mortal enemies, and has armed them with paradigm-busting, air-defense-defeating hypersonic technology. Specifically, the Russia-Iran-China-North Korea axis now shares the ability to sink U.S. aircraft carriers, which is how the United States projects force around the world. By arming Iran and North Korea, the Russians have created other problems of regional instability for which the U.S. must now plan and must feebly attempt to contain, further distracting from our faltering Proxy War in Ukraine.
- Russia’s lead in hypersonic weapons technology removes the option of nuclear war from the table, even if Biden’s deranged neocons ever thought it was an option.
- Intellectual, anticommunist, and conservative commenter James Lindsay persuasively argues that DEI, which like sewer water has now seeped into every nook and crevice of our public and private institutions, is actually a long-term socio-political military strategy by our enemies, principally China, to destabilize the United States. DEI is rendering impotent our military, our government, our universities, and even our strategically-critical corporations staffed by graduates of those undermined universities (think Boeing). If James is right, and I think he is, China’s destruction-by-DEI plan is working perfectly.
- The world is noticing. Yesterday, BRICS announced this on its website: “Russian Federation Council: 40 countries want to join BRICS.” Russia’s fast-growing BRICS alliance has inflicted a potentially mortal blow to American hegemony. Economists will correctly argue the dollar cannot be easily displaced. But that’s beside the point. The real threat is that Russia has given hope, a home, and a place to rally to countries long-frustrated with America’s constant post-Cold War bullying. Apparently there are a lot of frustrated countries, thanks largely to Joe Biden.
The worst thing about all this is every single one of those developments was completely predictable. Joe Biden is a human wrecking ball. His advisors are over-promoted, under-qualified DEI hires who have no idea what they are doing and are completely unprepared to compete with the Russians, who are cleaning our clock.
Biden must go. And here are seven more suggestions for what we could do to get our country safe and back on track.
- We must admit we’re in a hole and stop digging.
- We have to acknowledge we’ve lost, abandon the Ukraine project, and close our borders up tight. Send illegals back where they came from, or anywhere but here. Let France have them.
- Support historic allies like the British (and Israel) and also stop mucking about the rest of the world. We must focus on rebuilding our own country. Rebuild our economy. Rebuild our military.
- Limit the government to only a hundred classified documents a year, and require secret classifications to expire in five years.
- Restore merit as the lodestar of all organized effort in America, public and private, just as it used to be. Delete victim status and grievance politics.
- Restore patriotism, morality, honor, and family as central values in American life.
- Enforce it by shaming and driving out of public life (lovingly and compassionately) people who advocate for bat-guano crazy ideas like the implausible notion that men can transform into women with enough surgery and medicine.
What do you think needs to go on that list? Let me know in the comments.
Ukraine might have passed beyond saving, but America hasn’t. Not yet. We can still save our country, and with God’s grace, we will. Stay optimistic!
Have a wonderful Wednesday! In spite of appearances, there’s plenty of good news we didn’t get to today. Catch me back here tomorrow morning and we’ll dig into all that and more in Thursday’s terrific 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
