from FB City Commission
| January 03, 2023 05:00 PMCity Commission Workshop… Read onDateJanuary 3, 2023Time5:00 PM - 6:00 PMLocationCost |
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By Jeff Childers
12-28-22
Good morning C&C, it’s the last Wednesday of 2022! Today’s packed roundup includes: the IgG4 study is making waves; bad news for Moderna’s covid treatment drug in two new studies; Canadian study shows no benefit over natural infection offered by five shots; teenage St. Paul hockey player dies from rare brain clots; social media influencer shades the intelligence community; sick Fort Lauderdale Christmas drag show now under investigation; the military mandate finally falls; and TV doctor surprisingly supports military mandate repeal, citing vaxx injuries.
🪖 For hardcore C&C fans, I recently made the Lakeland Ledger in a January 6th case:
“Lakeland’s Fancelli says little in interview with Jan. 6 committee”
💉 The study we reviewed on Monday about the IgG4 antibody shift is spreading widely. In just two days, most of the usual covid commenters have written about the story, and even rabidly pro-jab folks have noticed:
Dr. Eric Topol is an influential, full-throated, unapologetic vaccine advocate. For him to observe that “the clinical significance is not known” is shocking. I would’ve expected him to include some kind of reassuring or optimistic comment downplaying the study, or at least ignore it.
The main point seems to be sinking in:
There are a couple takeaways. First, “fully vaccinated” (two dose) folks may not yet be in the danger zone. The researchers didn’t find IgG4 antibody replacement began in earnest until after the 3rd booster, and especially after the 3rd booster and reinfection.
The study has lots of leg. Things are making more and more sense.
The results suggest the repeated shots — never before tried at scale, I might add — are overwhelming the body’s immune system. In order to prevent “immune overload” (a deadly cascade of autoimmune problems), the body says, well boys, we’ll just have to tolerate this for a while, stop shooting and buckle up.
Next, tolerance would explain both why boosted people are getting reinfected so often and also why their infections may appear mild. Their infections appear mild because the body is suppressing its systemic immune response: no fever, no headache, no congestion, no coughing. But their infection is raging away invisibly.
Finally, and maybe most important, people may want to strongly consider STOPPING BOOSTING until this thing gets sorted out. It’s almost certainly the continued boosting that is causing tolerance. I know this sounds shocking, but repeat injections of a toxic genetic antigen over a short period of time might not have been the very best idea they came up with during the pandemic.
💊 Uh-oh! More problems emerged last week with Moderna’s fancy covid drug in the form of two studies. The first study published in The Lancet, titled, “Molnupiravir plus usual care versus usual care alone as early treatment for adults with COVID-19 at increased risk of adverse outcomes (PANORAMIC): an open-label, platform-adaptive randomised controlled trial.”
These researchers studied outcomes of patients with and without Moderna’s covid treatment Molnupiravir (its version of Paxlovid), and found that Molupiravir doesn’t work:
Molnupiravir did not reduce the frequency of COVID-19-associated hospitalisations or death among high-risk vaccinated adults in the community.
That’s not good. But that’s not all.
Another pre-print study published on MedRxIV the same day, December 22nd, titled “Antiviral treatments lead to the rapid accrual of hundreds of SARS-CoV-2 mutations in immunocompromised patients.”
The researchers also studied Moderna’s covid treatment Molnupiravir, which is supposed to reduce viral replication by scrambling covid’s genome. Nothing could go wrong with that plan.
But here’s what the researchers said:
Within days of treatment, we detected a large number of low-frequency mutations in patients and that these new mutations could persist and, in some cases, were fixed in the virus population … This commonly used class of antivirals has the capability to supercharge SARS-CoV-2 evolution, and uncontrolled use may generate new variants with a transmission advantage that prolongs the pandemic and makes other therapeutics less effective.
So, not only doesn’t the drug work — it does NOT reduce serious covid infections or deaths — but it “supercharges” the evolution of new covid variants by DELIBERATELY randomly mutating the covid gene.
The FDA approved that drug. You really can’t make this stuff up.
We spent a TON on this safe and effective wonder drug. A seven day course of Molnupiravir costs around $700. The federal government has pre-purchased billions of dollars worth, making the drug another runaway success for Moderna.
I wonder what the experts will buy next? Repurposed rat poison? Injectable disinfectant?
🔬 A different pre-print study published yesterday on MedRxIV titled “Prior infection- and/or vaccine-induced protection against Omicron BA.1, BA.2 and BA.4/BA.5-related hospitalisations in older adults: a test-negative case-control study in Quebec, Canada.”
Of course, the study’s text advocates for more boosters due to waning jab efficacy. Whatever. We’ve covered why that might not be a good idea. But as is often the case with these studies, the most interesting bit was buried down in the data, this time in supplemental table four, which is a separate download from the main paper.
The table showed that the researchers found unjabbed people with Omicron natural immunity were just as protected (91% vs 92%) from hospitalization as previously-infected people with five doses of the mRNA jabs. Or put another way, they found no difference in the rate of hospitalization between unjabbed and quintuple-jabbed people with prior Omicron infections.
So … what good are the jabs?
💉 St. Paul hockey player Cormick Scanlan, 16, died on Christmas Day after suffering a series of sudden and unexpected strokes earlier this month.
CBS News reported that an angiogram showed Cormick had a highly unusual syndrome called Moyamoya’s disease, a blood vessel disorder in which an artery in the skull becomes blocked or narrowed. Weird.
Purely coincidentally, Pfizer’s court-ordered disclosures of its confidential “Adverse Events of Special Interest” included Moyamoya disease in the list.
And, for some reason, the St. Paul Capitals Hockey Association locked down its Twitter account, right after tweeting about Cormick’s death.
I wonder what the Association was worried about? Maybe some historical tweets about recommending or requiring experimental medical treatments of some kind to play hockey? Just guessing.
🔥 This tweet now has 1.1 million views:
Maybe, back when they were buying up social media influencers, they should’ve bought Kim Dotcom. I have to imagine that they didn’t plan this part of the narrative.
🔥 The Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation just announced they are investigating Monday’s “family friendly Drag Queen Christmas” show. That was fast! I found some images from the show but, well, it was super hard to find any that I could include on this (mostly) family-friendly blog, not even blurred. But here you go.
This is Rudolph the Red-Nippled Reindeer cavorting on the set, which was clearly designed FOR CHILDREN.
I know. It’s totally Satanic.
This is Crystal Methyd, performing for the kiddies and the grown-up kiddies to Rihanna’s hit song, “S&M”:
Gross. The DBPR agreed, saying in its announcement:
The Department of Business and Professional Regulation (DBPR) is aware of multiple complaints about a sexually explicit performance marketed to children held in Fort Lauderdale on December 26th. The Department is actively investigating this matter, including video footage and photographs from the event.
DPBR will, like in other cases, take action. Exposing children to sexually explicit activity is a crime in Florida, and such action violates the Department’s licensing standards for operating a business and holding a liquor license.
The Department will share any collected evidence with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) for potential criminal liability.
Independent journalist Chris Nelson attended the well-attended Fort Lauderdale event, protested, was thrown out, and confirmed children were present.
Chris Nelson 🇺🇸 🏝 @ReOpenChris
3:04 AM ∙ Dec 27, 202213,206Likes3,268Retweets
It appears the DBPR was on top of things even before the show, and sent a letter to the Fort Lauderdale venue warning them not to admit kids, which they ignored.
I’m not sure which part of the story is more remarkable: the fact that people actually take their kids to see this stuff (why??), that the show could fill a large South Florida auditorium (ugh), or that Florida is actually pushing back (hooray!).
Hat tip to Chaya Raichik, the one-woman genius behind the mega-influential Libs of TikTok account, who made the drag show story viral. After being doxxed, Chaya was invited by Governor DeSantis to stay at the Governor’s mansion anytime she needs to for security.
5:12 PM ∙ Dec 27, 20223,922Likes635Retweets
Libs of TikTok will be our next multiplier. I’m getting us a link.
💉 Last week the Senate approved the bloated Defense Authorization Act, but slipped deep inside was a repeal of the detested military mandate. Thus, U.S. service members will no longer be required to get the shots.
That’s great news. It will probably moot any number of pending lawsuits.
💉 In a loopy Washington Post op-ed, former Planned Parenthood director and CNN TV doctor Leana Wen offered mild support for the mandate’s repeal. Surprisingly, she explained her reasoning by citing potential vaccine injuries:
[W]e need to be upfront that nearly every intervention has some risk, and the coronavirus vaccine is no different. The most significant risk is myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart muscle, which is most common in young men. The CDC cites a rate of 39 myocarditis cases per 1 million second doses given in males 18 to 24. Some studies found a much higher rate; a large Canadian database reported that among men ages 18 to 29 who received the second dose of the Moderna vaccine, the rate of myocarditis was 22 for every 100,000 doses.
Wen also recognized — even endorsed — natural immunity as superior to inoculation, which was her justification for supporting the mandate’s repeal. Of course, this is a complete reversal from her pro-jab, anti-immunity positions last year, when she was calling for punitive measures against unvaxxed people to encourage more shots.
But what I have learned about Leana Wen over the pandemic is that she is a reliable bellwether for the official narrative. Wen’s public opinions are always followed by similar official or unofficial changes in federal government policy. I have no evidence that she’s an agent for the federal government, but if you assume that’s true, you’ll pretty accurately predict her behavior, and can reliably guess what the feds will do next.
So I am cautiously optimistic that we may soon see official or unofficial backpedaling on the shots, a recognition of risk, and acceptance of natural immunity as sufficient protection.
Of course, WE are all past that now, but a big chunk of America isn’t there yet.
Still, it’s progress. Just wait till we get to 2023.
Have a wonderful, if chilly, Wednesday, and I’ll see you back here tomorrow morning for more.
C&C has moved the needle, reset the narrative, and changed minds. If you can, I could use your help making a 2023 turnaround into a reality: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/-learn-how-to-get-involved-
Twitter: @jchilders98
Truth Social: @jchilders98
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The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
By Jeff Childers
2-26-22
Good morning, C&C, it’s Monday! I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and are ready to wind up 2022. Having a little extra holiday time, today I’m doing a deep dive on developing vaccine studies and news showing a potential mechanism for antibody dependent enhancement from the covid jabs.
🔥 A new mystery is again baffling the experts, the same now-confounded experts who were 100% sure they knew how to get out of the pandemic. To set the holiday table, consider this random selection of very recent headlines, while keeping in mind that we’re two years into the miraculous-vaccine regime, and are now on the seventh booster shot.
You’ll also note that all these stories appeared in local media, and not corporate media.
That local media sample showing increasing covid rates is from all over the country including Michigan, Massachusetts, Colorado, Ohio, Louisiana, New York, and there are lots more. LOTS. You haven’t heard too much about this story, and nobody’s hyping it, probably for two reasons. First, corporate media is currently operating under the narrative that “Joe shut down the the virus.”
Second, rising covid rates imply the “safe and effective” vaccines are much less effective than we were promised by the experts. At this point, covid should be in a disorderly retreat. We just invested more blood and treasure on our war against covid than any war ever waged in human history. We also coerced most of America into taking an experimental, military-skunkworks vaccine technology. Oh yeah, we also coerced eight mice.
They PROMISED it would work. Just trust them.
But now covid rates are back on the rise! Baffling! We really need some un-baffled experts. If only we could offer them some kind of hypothesis, some kind of theory, or at least an idea.
Good news! We now have a theory. But they won’t like it. It’s much worse for the designers of this train wreck than anything as simple as “the shots don’t work.” Remember how some of us were ringing the alarm about how the shots hadn’t been tested long enough? We might’ve been on to something.
Following court-ordered document disclosures, the pharma companies suddenly and unexpectedly confessed this year that they “never studied whether the vaccines reduced transmission.” Oh, now you tell us. So, what DID they study, to conclude their jabs were so effective?
The answer is that they measured serum antibody levels immediately following injection. They found the antibody levels were elevated, and then they made a whole bunch of wrong assumptions drawn from that lone data point. Their reasoning went like this: If antibody levels increase, then the body is responding to the mRNA-built spike protein, and so other good things MUST happen, like stopping transmission.
Oops!
The problem was they didn’t look at what happened to antibody levels OVER TIME. Nor did they differentiate between types of antibodies. We already knew there’s some kind of problem with the shots, because these vaccines “wane” faster than any other vaccine in history, requiring multiple boosters in the same year, and we also knew that the antibodies don’t seem to be keeping up with the variants very well, because now we need “bivalent” vaccines that nobody wants.
But some recent studies might show HOW the vaccines are failing: repeated shots and breakthrough infections are suppressing the right kind of antibodies, and are somehow causing injectees’ bodies to increasingly shift over to using the WRONG kind of antibody for covid.
Let’s learn a little more immunology today. I’ll try to make it as painless as possible, kind of like gentle dental care. Open wide!
🔬 The first study was published in Science Immunology on December 22nd, titled “Class switch towards non-inflammatory IgG isotypes after repeated SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccination.” We’ll call this the “December study.” Basically, it ominously suggests that vaccinated people may be developing a systemic tolerance for toxic spike protein.¹
The first principle is that there are different KINDS of antibodies, which are used by the human body to handle different kinds of threats. This is similar to how we use different types of military: local police, Border Patrol, Navy, Marines, Army, and so on. The antibodies have shorthand names, like IgA, IgD, IgM, IgE, and IgG. That last one, IgG, has four subtypes, numbered IgG1 through IgG4.
With me so far? Here’s a chart showing the normal, desired immune response to a respiratory virus, by antibody type:
The left side shows how active each of the antibody types were, which is called “neutralizing effect,” because the antibodies “neutralize” the virus. You’ll see two antibody types doing most of the work: IgM (37.5%) and IgG3 (42.%).
On the right side of the chart, you see the amount (volume) of antibodies found in the serum. Interestingly, IgM (8%) and IgG3 (3%) are only present in small amounts by volume, yet as we can see from the left side, are still doing most of the work neutralizing the virus.
The unsurprising takeaway is: The TYPE of antibody is way more important than how much antibody there is. In this case, the body needs the IgM’s and IgG3’s to neutralize respiratory viruses.
But note there is NO neutralizing role for the IgG4 antibody, even though some of it (4%) is still found in the body. There’s a reason IgG4 does not appear in the neutralizing group; we’ll get to that in a minute.
First, here’s a timeline chart showing how IgM and IgG3 work together to help people recover from a covid infection.
The chart shows that, shortly after symptoms begin, the body starts making IgM. As IgM peaks, the patient begins to recover, and IgM starts to disappear. At about the same time IgM peaks, the body starts making IgG, which then hangs around in the blood providing long-term immunity to the virus.
IgM is like the Marines, which come in first to defeat the rebel army. IgG is more like well-armed local police, who stay behind to keep the peace after the territory has been occupied.
One reason IgM is the type that defeats the virus is that, unlike IgG, it is produced in the mucus membranes, where respiratory viruses flourish. We’ve learned that the covid jabs do NOT spur production of IgM, which is one big reason why they failed to stop the transmission and why breakthrough infections occur.
That the jabs spur IgG but don’t increase IgM means the IgG type has to do work it wasn’t designed for in people who’ve never been infected. It’s like sending beat cops to fight the rebel army. They can win, given enough of them, but it’s not the best strategy.
Still, you fight with the army you have, not the army you wish you had. The trouble is, not just ANY type of IgG will work; the body needs neutralizing IgG3. And this is where the jab locomotives really start flying off the rails.
You’d think the FDA would’ve made Pfizer measure IgM and IgG3 antibody levels, and not just general antibody levels. You’d think a lot of things, like unicorns, and like pots of gold at the end of rainbows. But it’s not just that they measured the wrong antibodies. The new studies appear to show that repeated jabs are somehow SUPPRESSING IgG3 antibodies, forcing the body to try to compensate with types not designed for respiratory viruses.
It’s like taking the cops’ assault rifles away, making them fight with one-shot pistols, improvised spears, sharpened garden tools, and harsh language.
Now meet IgG4, the antibody the December study found was increasingly present in multiple-jabbed people. The body doesn’t normally use the IgG4 antibody to tackle viruses. That antibody usually handles proteins from allergens like shellfish, bee venom, pollen, and peanuts.
In terms of neutralizing capability, IgG3 is up to FIFTY TIMES more effective at neutralizing virus proteins than is IgG4. If IgG3 is a well-armed SWAT team, then IgG4 is Mall Cop.
Here’s the critical first paragraph from the December study:
High levels of neutralizing SARS-CoV-2-antibodies are an important component of vaccine-induced immunity. Shortly after the initial two mRNA vaccine doses, the IgG response mainly consists of the pro-inflammatory subclasses IgG1 and IgG3. Here, we report that several months after the second vaccination, SARS-CoV-2-specific antibodies were increasingly composed of non-inflammatory IgG4, which were further boosted by a third mRNA vaccination and/or SARS-CoV-2 variant breakthrough infections. IgG4 antibodies among all spike-specific IgG antibodies rose on average from 0.04% shortly after the second vaccination to 19.27% late after the third vaccination… Importantly, this class switch was associated with a reduced capacity of the spike-specific antibodies [IgG1 and IgG3] to mediate antibody-dependent cellular phagocytosis and complement deposition.
In study subjects with breakthrough infections, it was even worse: On average, subjects who had a breakthrough infection after their booster shots showed 42.45% IgG4 — almost half. Remember — IgG4 is not even seen in the normal immune response to covid in unjabbed people.
Critically, all the vaccinated subjects’ IgG3 levels fell to ZERO (0%) after their third jab in the study. That’s not good.
In other words, the researchers found as time goes on, vaccinated people relied more on IgG4 — the allergy antibody — than virus fighter IgG3, whereas it was the exact opposite for unjabbed people. Something seems to be suppressing IgG3 in jabbed people, and the body appears to be compensating by recruiting the available but imperfect IgG4 type.
That phenomenon could help explain the expert-baffling chart we saw last week from the Cleveland Clinic study, which found that jabbing increased the risk of reinfection.
It could also help explain this November headline from our friends at The Washington Post:
The Atlantic article, referring to the now-famous Kaiser Foundation study, described what it understatedly called a “troubling trend”:
For the first time, a majority of Americans dying from the coronavirus received at least the primary series of the vaccine. Fifty-eight percent of coronavirus deaths in August were people who were vaccinated or boosted… a continuation of a troubling trend that has emerged over the past year. As vaccination rates have increased and new variants appeared, the share of deaths of people who were vaccinated has been steadily rising. In September 2021, vaccinated people made up just 23 percent of coronavirus fatalities. In January and February this year, it was up to 42 percent[.]
Twenty-three percent, forty-two percent, now fifty-eight percent. Of DEATHS. And there is no reason to think the trend has peaked yet. This is exactly what you’d expect to see if the IgG4 theory is correct.
In other words, the increasing death rate in boosted people could be explained by the December researchers’ finding that both IgG1 and IgG3 antibody types are being steadily replaced in the vaccinated by the IgG4 type. Returning to the first chart, we saw that IgG1 (15.5%) and IgG3 (42.2%) together did most of the virus-fighting work (57.9%), while IgG4 was nowhere in the list of neutralizing antibodies at all:
To put it simply, this antibody class shift is bizarre, unprecedented, and a very troubling sign that vaccinated people — especially repeatedly dosed people — are somehow losing their IgG1 and especially IgG3 response in favor of IgG4. It’s not just the reduction of the two effective neutralizing antibody types, either. IgG4, since it is designed for allergies, doesn’t remove the foreign proteins so much as teach the body to “tolerate” or “ignore” them.
There’s a good reason for tolerance: allergens don’t replicate like viruses. Allergens are a totally different kind of threat. With allergens, the body doesn’t need to go crazy fighting allergens; it can take a slower, more measured response.
Specifically, whereas IgG1 and IgG3 types are “pro-inflammatory,” which means they trigger the body’s immune-system high alert system, the IgG4 type is “anti-inflammatory,” which means it tells the immune system to stand down. Which is the opposite of what you really want, when you’re fighting an infection.
The December researchers explained that after the third booster, IgG3 levels fell almost to zero, while IgG4 levels became the second-most dominant antibody type:
Ten days after two immunizations, anti-spike specific antibodies of the isotypes IgG1, IgG2 and IgG3 were readily detectable, whereas anti-S IgG4 antibodies were completely undetectable (Fig. 1C). IgG2 levels were markedly lower than IgG3 and IgG1 levels. Intriguingly, 210 days after the second immunization, the levels of spike-specific IgG4 antibodies exceeded the lower limit of quantification in the sera of about half of the vaccinees. The levels for all other isotypes dropped significantly as expected from the overall anti-S response. While IgG1 was still the most dominant isotype, IgG3 levels fell below the lower limit of quantification. After the third immunization, the amounts of IgG1 were elevated again and reached levels as measured shortly after the second vaccination. Notably, a marked increase in IgG4 antibody levels was observed after the booster immunization in nearly all vaccinees. In some individuals, IgG4 became the second most abundant isotype among the anti-S antibodies.²
The result was that jab-produced antibodies don’t work as well as natural antibodies at clearing the virus:
[Blood] sera taken after the third vaccination and normalized to the amount of anti-spike antibodies yielded significantly lower phagocytic scores than sera from the same donors after two immunizations.
“Phagocytic scores” refers to how effective antibodies are at neutralizing a virus. Phagocytosis is the process whereby killer cells “eat” virus proteins flagged by antibodies, thereby neutralizing (killing) them. Lower phagocytic scores means the IgG4 antibodies in vaccinated people were less effective at removing the virus than the IgG1+IgG3 types in the unjabbed.
Other studies appear to confirm a misfiring immune response. A November 22nd study published in Frontiers in Microbiology was titled, “Conserved longitudinal alterations of anti-S-protein IgG subclasses in disease progression in initial ancestral Wuhan and vaccine breakthrough Delta infections.”
Similar to the December study, these researchers found higher ratios of IgG4 were associated with more severe disease, and people who had high levels of IgG4 antibodies relative to IgG3 had worse clinical outcomes, meaning they got sicker. Hopefully, they also found that the antibody ratios between injected and uninjected had stablized six months following injection, suggesting the potential for recovery.
Next, a July study published in the New England Journal of Medicine was titled, “Duration of Shedding of Culturable Virus in SARS-CoV-2 Omicron (BA.1) Infection.” The data from the study showed that boosted subjects cleared the virus more slowly than unvaccinated people:
The study data showed the share of boosted subjects who were still contagious (31%) at day ten was over five times more than the share of still-contagious unvaccinated subject (6%). In other words, out of 100 boosted people who catch covid, 33 will still have live, transmissible virus on day 10. Whereas out of 100 unvaccinated persons, only six still test positive on Day 10 — more than five times fewer.
Not only are the boosted dying in increasing numbers, but they are carrying the virus longer. Houston, we have a problem.
The unknown is the most troubling part. Nobody has any idea what happens after artificial disruption of a large part of the population’s immune response. We can reasonably assume we’ll see increasing covid infections for boosted folks. Another troubling possibility is that other viruses could begin to evolve to take advantage of the reduced IgG3 response in boosted people, making new variants targeting boosted people.
A wild but troubling possibility appeared in another research article published in August in the Yemen Journal of Medicine, titled “Immunoglobulin G4-related disease: A narrative review.” Here’s the first paragraph:
Immunoglobulin G4-related disease (IgG4-RD) is a new and evolving immune-mediated disease characterized by focal or diffuse organ infiltration by immunoglobulin G4-bearing plasma cells which, if left untreated, leads to irreversible fibrosis, organ dysfunction, and death… IgG4-RD can affect any organ in the body with a variety of clinical features that mimic malignant, infectious, and inflammatory conditions, making diagnosis difficult. Therefore, a high index of suspicion is necessary for the early detection of this disorder, to avoid irreversible damage and death.
This baffling new syndrome is poorly understood, but diagnosis includes measuring serum IgG4 levels, which appear high in people who have the novel disease. So it appears sustained high IgG4 levels may be a bad sign. Fortunately, the novel syndrome remains rare and there’s no evidence connecting it to the vaccines. Not yet.
The point is, we have no idea at all what the result of IgG3 suppression and IgG4 promotion might be. Still, the good news is that we’re finally learning more about the actual mechanisms behind the problems. That’s good news for accountability, and it’s good news for vaccine-injured people, because it is also the first step toward effective treatments.
Most vaccine recipients are victims. They were manipulated or coerced into taking something without informed consent, a drug pushed by reassuring government agencies, agencies they had every reason to trust, because they paid good tax money to over-fund those agencies and handsomely reward the bureaucrats running them.
We need to both help the victims as well as bring accountability to the culpable.
🔥 Speaking of culpable people, this clip from Joe Rogan’s interview with Peter Hotez is priceless. The bowtied Dr. Hotez was (and still is) an influential pro-vaccine advocate and T.V. expert. He lives, breathes, and pushes covid jabs. But watch the clip, and tell me whether you think chatty-Kathy Dr. Hotez really cares about health, or is it just the jabs.
Pierre Kory, MD MPA @PierreKory
10:41 PM ∙ Dec 25, 202223,137Likes5,830Retweets
Have a marvelous Monday, and I’ll see you back here tomorrow for a traditional roundup. There’s lots going on!
C&C is moving the needle and changing minds. If you can, I could use your help getting the truth out and spreading optimism and hope: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/-learn-how-to-get-involved-
Twitter: @jchilders98
Truth Social: @jchilders98
MeWe: mewe.com/i/coffee_and_covid.
C&C Swag! www.shopcoffeeandcovid.com
Emailed Daily Newsletter: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com
1
For today’s post, I’m grateful to Igor Chudov, Rintrah Radagast and his blog article, “The trainwreck of all trainwrecks: Billions of people stuck with a broken immune response”, and Substack author John Paul.
2
FN This segment came from an earlier July pre-print in MedRxIV. It was condensed in the published version to remove the details; the point remained the same.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
By Julie Kelly, December 23, 2022
A picture, they say, is worth a thousand words. But there are only a few profane words to describe the obscene scene as the two women closest in line for the presidency hoisted the Ukrainian flag from the dais of the House of Representatives while swooning over Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as Congress cheered on December 21. (This appears to be the first time in history the flag of another nation essentially flew inside the U.S. Capitol building.)
“They asked me to bring this flag to you, to the U.S. Congress, to members of the House of Representatives and senators whose decisions can save millions of people,” Zelenskyy said before handing the flag to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Vice President Kamala Harris. “This flag is a symbol of our victory in this war.”
But even more telling—sickening?—was the image in the same photo of a House staffer wearing a black face mask standing silently, eyes cast downward, behind a tri-folded American flag in a shadow box as the celebration ensued. The unintentional contrast said it all. Our once-thriving and free country is slowly dying at the hands of frauds, crooks, and cowards—and they’re not even trying to hide it from us. They are flaunting it. After two decades of gradually amassing power and control under the ruse of national security, the ruling class is exercising that power in a ruthless way.
Zelenskyy’s address to a joint session of Congress—his second this year—symbolizes how the regime is actively working against the interests of the American people. While Americans struggle to pay for gas, Zelenskyy traveled to Washington in a U.S. Air Force plane accompanied by an F-15 fighter jet. Government officials literally rolled out the red carpet for Zelenskyy when he landed before he enjoyed a full-blown motorcade to the White House.
As Zelenskyy entered the House chambers Wednesday night, his lapdog benefactors in Congress rose to their feet, wildly applauding and reaching out to touch him, mouths agape as if a rock star was in their presence. But real groupies have more dignity. It was a disgusting display all around; Zelenskyy, always in character, couldn’t even manage to wear a proper suit.
Read MORE in American Greatness
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
By Steve Maxwell, 12-25-22
Over 2,000 years ago, God sent his son to Earth to redeem mankind from our sins. Romans 3:23 tells us that we have all sinned and fallen short of the Glory of God, and to have peace with God and be reconciled to Him, a sacrifice would be required. Jesus came as that perfect sacrifice, as our sacrificial lamb.
| This sacrifice is what the birth of Christ is all about. He came to Earth to teach mankind about God’s kingdom, and ultimately to become “the ransom for many.” Jesus’ short time on Earth had an impact that has affected the world for thousands of years: He liberates men and women who put their trust in Him. This year, as you enjoy Christmas morning with your family and loved ones, we pray that you’ll ponder the true meaning of this monumental day, that for all those who submit to Him, your life will be forever changed. God will give you purpose, He will give you peace, and He will give you a hope for the future. All of us at County Citizens Defending Freedom pray you have a blessed Christmas, that God will bless you in the coming year, and that He will bless America as America blesses God. Merry Christmas! God Bless, CCDF-USA |
By George Miller, 12-24-22
The Christmas holiday season is a very celebratory, joyous time. Many people decorate their homes and businesses. Fernandina Beach and Yulee have some lovely Christmas lights/displays.
Certainly, FB downtown is very festive. But, in our humble opinion, the Northridge Lane area has the best neighborhood display, with a very high percentage of residents participating for impressive results. Here are a few pics. Please send us more from this or other areas you’d like to see highlighted!
More Northridge Lane display samples (photos by George Miller, Citizens Journal Florida):
George Miller is Publisher and Co-Founder of Citizens Journal Florida, based in Fernandina Beach. He is a “retired” operations management consultant, software and publishing executive and manufacturing management professional.
From Citizens Journal Florida: Merry Christmas, Happy Chanukah, Holidays & New Year! We appreciate our volunteers, supporters, advertisers and readers.
“Follow my instructions and we’ll all get along just fine.”
You and your four colleagues will play a major supervisory role, overseeing this complex organization, assess the performance of those reporting to you and wisely and frugally manage your customer’s investments.
Imagine you were just hired by an organization as one of five people selected to sit on their board to make decisions about the direction of this multimillion-dollar enterprise to ensure that it operates efficiently and in the best interests of the people that hired you.
Then imagine that even before you walk in the door and take your seat, a senior employee, who reports directly to you, sends a public letter to you, the entire organization, as well as customers, vendors, contractors, and any others that might have the most remote involvement telling you not to cross him. Instead of a warm welcome and an offer to help you adjust, he lays out a set of instructions he says you must follow. In it he tells you – his new boss – what you can and can’t do and implies there will be serious consequences if you ignore his counsel.
In his letter this arrogant insubordinate blowhard proceeds to dictate to you and your peers who you can talk to, who you shouldn’t communicate with, and points to documents he says back up his demands. If you want to know what’s good for you he writes, you’ll only talk to the people he advises you to confer with, one of whom isn’t even an employee. Do what he says or beware this cheeky and arrogant employee implies.
This is exactly what was in Fernandina Beach City Manager Dale Martin’s “City Notes” letter to the two newly elected City Commissioners, Darron Ayscue and James Antun, that appeared on the editorial page of the print News Leader last Friday, December 16, three days following the runoff election.
In his “I’m in charge around here and don’t you forget it!” directive Martin performed a skilled imitation of Mel Brooks’ Governor William J. Le Petomane in “Blazing Saddles.” He exhibited appalling degrees of pretentious superiority and self-absorption by posting his: “And you are now the leaders” set of instructions. As one local citizen told me: “He came off like a teacher instructing new pupils rather than a chief executive welcoming a new board of directors – cheeky and arrogant.”
It’s easy to see why the pompous and bumptious Commissioner Chip Ross and Martin get along so well. These two “harumphers,” who I’m told meet weekly to plot their next moves, are cut from the same cloth.
Martin’s public mandate to Commissioners Antun and Ayscue instructed them to avoid any contact with city staff and deal only with the three employees reporting directly to them: The city manager, the city attorney and city clerk. Has he ever explained that to Commissioner Ross who is on record boasting: “I run this town” ?
He addressed them like naïve bumkins, telling them to read the city charter and familiarize themselves with the city budget. He said only when he passes off his budget recommendation to the Commission does it “become their budget to review and revise as appropriate.” And revise it is exactly what they should do, each armed with a very sharp knife to carve out Martin’s and Ross’s pricey annual wish list. They should start way before the process begins and Martin offers up his wish list. They should demand that department heads look for ways to cut a minimum of at least 10 to 15 percent from their bloated budgets. Both new commissioners ran on a platform of budgetary restraint, and voters will expect them to follow through. Martin and Ross can go pound sand.
Martin encouraged the newly elected duo to meet with local attorney, Arthur “Buddy” Jacobs, who the city contracts as a lobbyist and is not a city employee. Don’t interact with city staff, he says, but he encouraged them to take their cues from a contracted lobbyist. In his list of do’s and don’ts Martin whined that the state has usurped or “preempted” local government authority and implies that Jacobs can introduce them to recently elected folks in Tallahassee that may be helpful in furthering his agenda and skirting state law.
In his set of instructions Martin never once encouraged the two newly elected commissioners to meet with or listen to the voters that elected them, but instead bypass them, run off to Tallahassee, and cry foul on his behalf. I’m sure he has a prepared script for them.
The new commissioners should follow Jacobs to Tallahassee then shake him off and head straight to the offices of new State Senator Clay Yarbrough and State Representative Dean Black on their own. They should ask our two new Republican lawmakers to encourage Florida law enforcement to conduct a city audit to investigate how over the years the city has been unlawfully administering state law to generate supplemental tax revenues to fill the city’s coffers to finance and promote their own personal agendas. At the same time new Mayor Bradley Bean may want to talk to his dad, Aaron, who once served as city mayor and is the newly elected U.S. Congressman from this district, to see if he can persuade him to use his influence to help push an audit along in his hometown.
A court found the city guilty of illegally administering impact fees in two trials over three years. As a result, the city was forced to refund more than $3 million and spend another $1 million for private legal fees. The city, then reinstated those same impact fees under a different name – capacity fees. It’s the same illegal fee structure with a different name that’s still used to extort city residents.
City Attorney Tammi Bach, with the assistance of lobbyist Jacobs has defended this fiscal hanky-panky for years. It’s time to end it.
High on the to-do lists for the two newly elected commissioners, Mayor Bradley Bean, and vice Mayor David Sturges, should be to ignore Martin and hand him his walking papers. It only takes three votes to boot him. Then ask Ms. Bach why she tolerated and endorsed this fiscal fiddling for so long. If her responses don’t hold water, show her the door too.
City Clerk Carolyn Best stands apart from this rogues’ gallery. She may be one of the best, most efficient, competent, and charming employees in city hall history and every effort should be made to hang on to this gracious lady.
***
City Commission To Do List: On the same editorial page as Martin’s directive, News Leader columnist Steve Nicklas penned an opinion piece that didn’t pull any punches, advising the new conservative majority of four to “clean up the mess left behind by the worst city government in 30 years”
“A poker hand with four aces and a wild card”
A local financial adviser, who once served as the News Leader’s editor when the New York Times owned the paper, Nicklas knows his stuff. Headlined “A poker hand with four aces and a wild card,” the veteran newsman who arrived here 30 years ago from a Texas newspaper, outlined a series of steps the conservative quartet of Antun, Ayscue, Bean and Sturges can take to right the city’s floundering ship of state. The wild card referred to in the headline is outlier Commissioner Chip Ross, Martin’s lone, gruff, and unpopular ally.
Number one on Nicklas’s list is to review Martin’s six-year job performance. Nicklas pointed to Martins’ excessive spending, the financial messes at the marina and city golf course, and his bloating of staff with the addition of 55 city employees. He pointed a finger at City Attorney Bach as well, citing her “woeful record.”
A city hiring freeze was number 2 on the list along with the appointment of a citizen-advisory committee to help commissioners analyze, dissect, and trim the budget coming in third.
These were followed by the removal of costly and burdensome business regulations and exposing and halting the city’s retaliation against frustrated local business owners who openly complain about the city’s heavy-handed tactics.
As examples Nicklas pointed out Chiropractic clinic owner Antun’s own expensive and confusing experiences with the city as well as local businesses Pozzi Bistro’s losing fight to remain open and Brett’s Waterway Café’s ongoing battle to stay in business, among others.
Former Mayor Mike Lednovich bellowed his off-key and angry anti-business tunes consistently and Nicklas accurately labeled him an embarrassment to the city.
He also suggested coordinating or rolling duplicate city operations into those of the county. For example, why are building permitting fees 5 and 1/2 times higher in the city than the exact same fees in the county?
Steve’s column should be clipped out, laminated, and posted in every city department, as well as in the Commission chambers.
***
A Journalistic Embarrassment: A News Leader reporter with the fortunate name of Julia Roberts, who unfortunately lacks any reporting skills, blatantly exhibited her lack of talent in a bylined front-page article December 16.
This sad sack scribe apparently attended the same “Close Cover Before Striking School of Journalism and Screen Door Repair” as blind online Observer Editor Mike Phillips.
Headlined “City commission winners and losers speak out” Ms. Roberts’s piece claimed without any supporting data or verification that “….. Antun and Ayscue were supported financially by the local Republican party and touted their party affiliation in campaign literature.” She offered no evidence to back up her assertions, citing nothing but the acrimony spewed by the two indignant and angry losing candidates.
If she had done any fact-checking or made a couple of phone calls she would have easily discovered the two winners were not involved. The campaign mailers were sent out by a Political Action Committee in Tallahassee. The candidates did not write them, initiate them, or pay for them.
The News Leader’s pathetic Brenda Starr wannabe made no attempt to balance her sloppy work. In addition she conveniently ignored the fact that the Fernandina Beach Democrat Club, the local arm of the Democrat party, provided Lednovich and Genese Minshew literature, signs, handouts, etc. and promoted their campaign activities on social media platforms.
The two failed candidates didn’t exit quietly or graciously. They publicly expressed their bitterness and anger in Roberts article probably causing readers to breathe a sigh of relief that these two radical sore losers were soundly rejected and will hopefully never resurface.
California transplant and Black Lives Matter sign-toter Lednovich voiced his animosity in Ms. Roberts’s article curiously blaming his loss on “prejudice, hate, and fear spread among the electorate against the gay community” as well as unsubstantiated accusations of Republican party support of his opponent.
Lednovich failed to appear at the December 20 Commission ceremony to pick up his appreciation plaque and congratulate the new Commissioners. His unmasked wife substituted for him, telling the packed room that the former mayor had tested positive for Covid. A day prior to the Commission meeting the disgruntled and unmasked loser was seen at the Club 14 Fitness Center on South 14th Street and spotted there again the day after the session. He apparently suffered a rare one-day bout of Covid and realized a miraculous recovery.
The normally silent Len Kreger, who served as the commission chambers potted plant the last seven years, stormed out of his last Commission session in a cloud of angst grumping to folks attending the swearing in ceremony of the new Commissioners, mayor, and vice mayor by spouting: “This was the most divisive and nonpartisan race I’ve ever experienced.” The term-limited grouch failed to publicly thank his voters for their previous support, thank the city staff that assisted him over the years, or congratulate the new commissioners. It’s doubtful he’ll be missed as most folks failed to notice he was even there.
Minshew, who lost a 2020 runoff election to Commissioner David Sturges by 38 votes and is now 0 for 2, was even more acrimonious than Lednovich or Kreger furiously hurling verbal sour grapes helter-skelter at a variety of groups she blamed for her defeat.
Minshew, the founder and head of Fernandina Pride, told the News Leader that all the candidates had been cordial and pleasant until November 8. “Then just after Nov. 8, it was like night and day,” she said. “Suddenly the race was all about culture and gender politics. There were angry and hate-filled comments all over social media. People who I had never met or even spoken to suddenly had lots to say about me and about my personal life.”
“The talk was all hate,” she continued. “A local conservative group put out a hate-filled, mean-spirited survey and then got angry when I refused to acknowledge it or their message of hate,” the hostile hot-headed anti-hater hollered.
Her claims of a “hate-filled” survey were directed at the Nassau County Chapter of County Citizens Defending Freedom (CCDF), a local citizens group that that sent a questionnaire to all City Commission and School Board candidates. Only candidates Minshew and Lednovich refused to respond. They also refused to answer media questions on why they wouldn’t respond. Click here to see the survey and the participating candidates’ answers: Voter Guide for Nassau School Board and Fernandina Council Election- 2022.
Minshew continued her display of ungraciousness by whining that the elections are no longer nonpartisan, and that the City Commission is ”now a majority of outspoken Republicans.” She raged on accusing the new commissioners of being “supported financially by local businesses and associations” without citing a single example.
The majority of voters rejected Minshew’s and Lednovich’s radical visions for their city including Minshew’s stated desire to turn Fernandina into a gay vacation destination.
Attendees at this past Tuesday’s City Commission meeting observed a cheerful, energetic new Mayor Bradley Bean conducting the city’s business efficiently and politely. It was a refreshingly relaxed and professional atmosphere highlighted by a glum Commissioner Chip Ross scowling throughout the proceedings. His isolation has already begun, as two motions he proposed Tuesday were ignored without receiving a second and another totally disregarded.
It was a good day for the citizens of Fernandina Beach and a wonderful start to the Christmas holidays.
***
Another Island Author: Amelia island’s lengthy list of authors continues to grow as a book by resident Dr. Annie Hurt Yankus hit the market just in time for Christmas.
Titled “Stop Waiting. That Train is not Coming,” the book is a harrowing true-life story of Ms. Yankus’s fight to survive a 37-year marriage to a bi-polar husband she describes as “a true Jekyll and Hyde person.”
The book, which was written from journals she secretly kept during those troubled years, describes how she now believes her ex-husband was both bipolar and chronically depressed. “I was 50 years old when I saw myself drowning and with little hope that he would seek any kind of help,” says the author, who married as a young girl in 1967. She explains how she used her journals to “pour my feelings out to God because I felt crazy. It took me almost 20 years to share parts of my numerous journal writings in a book that I felt comfortable to share.”
She says leaving the marriage after almost 37 years was extremely difficult. She added that she wanted other people to know they are not alone in making major decisions about their marriage and that they may be able to benefit from her experiences. She reveals that a number of readers have shared with her that they or their own relatives have clearly identified with the emotional and mental abuse described in her book.
Her book was edited and printed by Elite Publishers, an independent publisher who prepared it for Kindle and paperback format, and it was accepted for sale on Amazon https://www.amazon.com/Stop-Waiting-That-Train-Coming/dp/B0BHVDD9R7
Dr. Yankus graduated with honors from The University of South Florida (BA Ed.), The University of Florida (M. Ed.), and the University of South Carolina (Ed. D). Her educational doctorate is in Elementary School Curriculum and Instruction. In addition to various educational positions, she has also served as mental health specialist for Head Start Programs and on the visiting faculty at the Yale University Child Study Center. She was also an adjunct professor at Charleston Southern University Dept. Of Education. Ironically Annie and her husband, Tom Yankus, were high school sweethearts that went separate paths in life. They unexpectedly met again 42 years later. Annie and Tom, also a life-long school administrator, moved to Amelia Island 12 years ago and married on the beach.
Republished with the author’s permission. Read The Dave Scott Blog– subscribe Free
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
By Jeff Childers
12-23-22
Greetings and salutations, C&Cers; it’s Friday, the eve of Christmas Eve. Your packed pre-holiday roundup includes: the highest official ever in Australia testifies against jabs; scientists are baffled that Americans’ life expectancy took a sudden and unexpected turn for the worse last year; two brave Republicans take Coffee & Covid advice and file liability bill; guess what a surprising worldwide study shows actually increases life expectancy; Kari Lake makes a confident post-trial statement; Baby Alex; in a Christmas miracle, Sam Bankman-Fried makes $250 million dollar bail and will enjoy the holiday at home; holiday reading suggestions; and a warm Christmas message from our favorite clown doctor.
🔥 C&C is closed for the holidays tomorrow and Christmas, but I may have a little something in the Santa sack for all you good little boys and girls. That is, if I may still say, “boys and girls.”
Maybe I should have said “for all you carbon dioxide emitters.” ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
💉 Australia’s News.com ran a surprising story Wednesday headlined, “Dr. Kerryn Phelps Reveals ‘Devastating’ Covid Vaccine Injury, Says Doctors Have Been ‘Censored’.”
Because of her explosive testimony in the Australian parliament’s enquiry into “long covid” this week, Dr. Kerryn Phelps became the highest official in Australia yet to criticize the mRNA treatments. Dr. Phelps is the former head of the Australian Medical Association, she has been an Independent MP, and she was a prominent pro-vaxx advocate from the jump.
This week, Phelps testified that BOTH she AND her wife, pictured above, have suffered serious, continuing injures from the covid shots. She also said she thinks the REAL rate of adverse events is much, much higher than has been admitted, thanks to underreporting and “threats” from medical regulators.
Dr. Phelps explained that, as a medical professional, she asked about any potential adverse side effects of the covid shot before she took it. But she was NOT properly informed: “We did a lot of homework before having the vaccine, particularly about choice of vaccine at the time. In asking about adverse side effects, we were told that ‘the worst thing that could happen would be anaphylaxis’ and that severe reactions such as myocarditis and pericarditis were ‘rare’.”
But she didn’t have an allergic reaction, or myocarditis. It was much worse than that.
Dr. Phelps explained that her partner Jackie was severely injured, almost immediately after taking the first shot:
“[Jackie] suffered a severe neurological reaction to her first Pfizer vaccine within minutes, including burning face and gums, paraesethesiae, and numb hands and feet, while under observation by myself, another doctor and a registered nurse at the time of immunisation,” the 65-year-old said.
“I continue to observe the devastating effects a year-and-a-half later with the addition of fatigue and additional neurological symptoms including nerve pains, altered sense of smell, visual disturbance and musculoskeletal inflammation. The diagnosis and causation has been confirmed by several specialists who have told me that they have seen ‘a lot’ of patients in a similar situation.”
Phelps also had a severe adverse reaction, making the Phelps family 100% vaccine injured. “In my case the injury resulted in dysautonomia with intermittent fevers and cardiovascular implications including breathlessness, inappropriate sinus tachycardia and blood pressure fluctuations,” she explained.
The AMA’s former chief testified that her family isn’t alone among healthcare professionals, but none of them will talk about it, because there has been a kind of official omertà to silence everybody, enforced by government officials threatening their medical licenses:
[Dr. Phelps spoke] with other doctors “who have themselves experienced a serious and persistent adverse event” but that “vaccine injury is a subject that few in the medical profession have wanted to talk about”.
“Regulators of the medical profession have censored public discussion about adverse events following immunisation, with threats to doctors not to make any public statements about anything that ‘might undermine the government’s vaccine rollout’ or risk suspension or loss of their registration,” she said.
She’s right. In March of 2021, the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA) published a statement warning that “any promotion of anti-vaccination statements or health advice which contradicts the best available scientific evidence or seeks to actively undermine the national immunisation campaign (including via social media) is not supported by National Boards and may be in breach of the codes of conduct and subject to investigation and possible regulatory action.”
There you go. In other words, keep your damned mouths shut if you know what’s good for you. Or else.
Dr. Phelps testified that, after reviewing the literature, she thinks the rate of vaccine injury could be very high, indeed: “Considering that the majority of Australian adults have now had at least one booster, this suggests that the incidence of serious adverse reactions per vaccinated person could be more than 1-in-1000.”
Wow.
And Phelps — finally! — made the logical connection, saying “It is possible that there is at least some shared pathophysiology between vaccine injury and Long Covid, possibly due to the effects of spike protein.”
In response, the AHPRA has issued a statement “clarifying” its position, and denying that its March 2021 statement had censored anybody, don’t be ridiculous:
“[The AHPRA] been clear in all of our guidance about Covid-19 vaccinations that we expect medical practitioners to use their professional judgement and the best available evidence in their practice.
This includes keeping up to date with public health advice from Commonwealth, state and territory authorities.
Legitimate discussion and debate, based on science, is appropriate and necessary to progress our understanding and knowledge. The [March 9, 2021] statement does not prevent practitioners from having these discussions.”
Now you tell us!
The News.com article is surprisingly long and detailed, and included a LOT of Dr. Phelp’s testimony.
Vaccine hesitant, indeed. Where do I pick up my apology?
Note two important things this story illustrates about the vanishing jab-injury news embargo. First, Phelp’s testimony in a “long covid” committee could have easily been swept under the rug, but instead it got prominent coverage in Ozzie news.
Second — and maybe more significant — Phelps obviously now feels confident enough to go public about her concerns. Dr. Phelps is CLEARLY no conservative activist; she’s married to a woman and was a vaxx champion for much of the pandemic. Something changed her mind about talking.
Can you feel the tide turning?
💉 USA Today ran a baffling story yesterday headlined, “Americans’ Life Expectancy Continues to Fall, Erasing Health Gains of the Last Quarter Century.”
According to newly-released CDC data, last year U.S. life expectancy plunged to a 25-year low, having experienced the largest one-year drop since World War II.
Scientists. Are. Stymied.
According to one ‘expert’ interviewed for the story, the cause could be … wait for it … LOW vaccination rates.
The data shows the CAUSES of Americans’ deaths were largely the same between 2020 and 2021, led by heart disease, cancer and covid, all three of which occurred more often last year than in 2020. In other words, covid deaths, cancer, and heart disease all got worse AFTER the jabs.
One wonders what the 2022 numbers will look like, doesn’t one?
Admitting his theory didn’t explain everything, USA Today’s expert was confused about one statistic: why deaths are increasing among younger adults and children, both of which had seen steadily improving numbers before the pandemic.
There’s also a weird racial confounder. During 2020, Hispanic and Black populations experienced much higher death rates than whites. But in 2021, “it’s the white population that’s done worse,” the expert said. Death rates increased among people of color, but not as much as the +7% jump for white people. “The white population, which from a medical standpoint should not be experiencing higher death rates, did,” he mused.
And, according to the article, other wealthy countries have not seen the same drop in life expectancy as the United States, which saw the most dramatic decline.
Weird.
We really, really need a giant, overfunded health agency in this country, and quickly!
Oh, wait. Never mind. Um, can I get my money back? Gee, thanks, experts.
🔥 In a highly under-reported story, on December 1st, two courageous Republicans, Louie Gohmert (R-Tx) and Ronny Jackson (R-Tx), jointly filed House Bill 9366, titled “To amend titles III and XXI of the Public Health Service Act to hold vaccine manufacturers liable for injuries caused by vaccines subject to a public mandate, and for other purposes.”
See! I wonder if they took Coffee & Covid’s advice, or maybe it’s just in the zeitgeist or something.
The gist is the proposed bill would remove vaccine liability protection for any mandated shots. Here’s the proposed bill’s money paragraph:
(2) VACCINES.—The immunity from suit and liability of covered persons set forth in subsection (a) shall not apply with respect to the administration of a vaccine licensed under section 351 or authorized for emergency use under section 564 of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act if any agency of the Federal Government, any official of the Government, any agency of any State government, any official of any State government, or any entity that receives Federal or State funding, either directly or indirectly, requires the administration of such vaccine or provides for any penalty or loss of privileges for the refusal to consent to administration of such vaccine.”
It appears to be aimed at both liability protection as well as mandates, since the way it’s worded, it would discourage mandates and encourage granting religious (and other) exemptions.
Unfortunately, I don’t have much confidence this bill will pass THIS YEAR. But massive props to Representatives Gohmert and Jackson for getting the ball rolling. We will remember them both when next elections come around. Language like this should also be slid into every massive appropriations bill that comes down the pike, and re-filed every single legislative session.
When I say that I’m not confident about the bill right now, that does NOT mean it doesn’t deserve as much support as we can muster. I’ll use a football metaphor. Think of this bill as a drive from our 30-yard line. It’s a simple job. Sure, get a touchdown if we can, but definitely make sure we gain as many yards as possible before the end of the possession.
I’ll think about what the C&C Army can do to help move the ball.
Things like this proposed bill — even if it doesn’t pass — are the building blocks of accountability. It’s happening, and it’s coming faster than I expected.
The pressure is working! So we should press even HARDER.
🔬 Speaking of life expectancies, back in February the International Journal of General Medicine published an under-reported study titled, “Total Meat Intake is Associated with Life Expectancy: A Cross-Sectional Data Analysis of 175 Contemporary Populations.”
The study — of 175 countries! — compared meat and carb intake with life expectancy, after controlling for a whole bunch of factors like caloric intake, urbanization, obesity, and education levels. Their conclusion:
Worldwide, bivariate correlation analyses revealed that meat intake is positively correlated with life expectancies… In contrast, carbohydrate crops showed weak and negative correlation with life expectancy… Meat intake, or its adequate replacement, should be incorporated into nutritional science to improve human life expectancy.
I demand an immediate national program increase meat production, to counteract falling U.S. life expectancies.
We’ll help. The Childers family will be enjoying a delightful Christmas roast this year. From a cow.
Just saying!
🔥 Kari Lake’s confident statement following the second and final day of her election lawsuit’s trial:
Here is my statement following the conclusion of our Election Trial:
12:40 AM ∙ Dec 23, 202229,209Likes7,283Retweets
The judge has taken the matter under advisement. It would take an enormous act of judicial courage to set aside the election results. And if he does, the battle lines will push back to the Arizona Supreme Court. Lots of work remains.
But, progress!
🔥 C&C contributor and supporter @Margaret Anna Alice wrote an important Substack this week, about the tragic, hair-raising story of Baby Alex, in her mother’s own words. Baby Alex’s calamitous death illustrates the dreadful dangers of mRNA-contanimated blood transfusions.
Don’t wait for corporate media to tell you about this.
Baby Alex: The Definitive Account—in His Mother’s Own Words
🔥 I know you were worried about him, what with Christmas right around the corner, but don’t worry. Sam Bankman-Fried, fresh off his recent Bahamian vacation, promptly posted $250 million dollars in bail and is now relaxing in one of his government-connected, Standard law professor parents’ multi-million-dollar homes, under house arrest.
The New York Post ran an informative story yesterday headlined, “Inside the $4M Silicon Valley Home Where Sam Bankman-Fried Is Under House Arrest.”
Because his hyphenated parents were renting the home as an AirBnB, the Post was able to download and publish photos of the inside of the 3,000 square foot home, so the public could be assured Sam will be comfortable. Apparently, American novelist David Leavitt grew up in the house before the Bankman-Frieds bought it. It’s nice. Not palatial, but well appointed.
As it always is in this case, the money is the most interesting part.
Here’s how bond works, generally speaking. A defendant has options. The best option is to post the cash with the court as cash bail, because you get it all back once you show up for trial. Otherwise, you can get a loan from a bail bondsman, who will post a bail bond for you. It isn’t free. The bondsman requires two things: a fee, usually at least ten percent, and secure collateral guaranteeing the money, in case the defendant scampers off.
In other words, the bail bondsman normally takes zero risk, unless he is bad at his job and doesn’t make sure the collateral will cover the bail amount.
I couldn’t find ANY official sources explaining how Sam came up with the money to pay his bail. One line of chatter on the Internet suggested that Sam ’s $250M bail bond was secured by his parents’ Palo Alto house (different from the rental he’s under home arrest in).
Still, things don’t quite add up. According to alert researchers, there are sixty homes for sale in Palo Alto, ranging in price from $950K to $53.9M — not even close to the $250M bail amount. The hyphenated professors don’t have the cash, nor does their net worth suggest their fancy Palo Alto home is worth anything close to $250M. Per recent news reports, Joseph Bankman’s net worth is $5M, and Barbara Fried’s is $3.8M. Sam doesn’t have it; he said in public statements that he only had $100,000 left.
So … where’d the bond come from? Or if a bail bondsman was involved, where’d the collateral to secure the bond come from?
Who knows, but it’s a Christmas miracle!
Some other unconfirmed chatter suggests that the New York US Attorney might have agreed to pay Sam’s bail, as part of the deal for Sam to consent to extradition to the United States. I would’ve expected an official announcement about that, though. But who knows, these days.
The other thing that feels odd about this story is: this is the first time in my entire life that I can remember one of these mega-fraudsters being surrounded and coddled by their parents as the Ponzi-scheme implodes.
Is Sam Bankman-Fried a man-child? A boy-man? What? How could a man-child create a vast international financial business in three years?
🔥 For your holiday reading, I offer you yesterday’s Federalist article consistent with C&C philosophy, headlined, “Ordinary Americans Are Going To Have To Save The Country Themselves, One Town At A Time.”
The sub-headline explains, “What can regular people do to take back their country from woke radicals? Take over local institutions, one at a time.”
Exactly correct!
It’s the C&C way. Jettison the Superman fallacy, that some magical figure will emerge from the soiled mists of politics, to save us from ourselves, and somehow stop Congress from wiring billions of tax dollars to an endless proxy war that is always right on the very brink of victory. Instead, we just need to roll up our sleeves and get to work — right where we’ve been planted.
As a preview, here’s the last paragraph from the article:
The same goes for the library, the school board, and every other local institution in every American town like Taylor. Conservatives have to take them over if they can. To answer the question we began with, THAT is what ordinary people can do. And they have to start now. No one is coming to help, and time is running out.
I’d add to that list all the goofy committees and advisory boards that have been setup by liberal local governments over the last twenty years, which are undiscovered country for conservatives. Take them over! Everybody can find SOMETHING to occupy.
The Federalist article has the right idea, but be warned it is a little on the gloomy side, at least for me. I’m a wild-eyed optimist. To me, everything we’re suffering now is a necessary correction, required to wake us up, harden us for the battle, and strengthen our resolve. Be happy and resolute warriors!
That’s what I’m doing.
Here’s the link: Ordinary Americans Will Have To Save The Country Themselves.
🔥 More good news. The Florida Supreme Court has approved Governor DeSantis’ petition to form a Grand Jury to investigate covid crimes. Giddyup!
🤡 Finally, an amusing holiday message, from my favorite clown doctor, Dr. Doctor McHonkHonk. (Adult language.)
Doctor Dr McHonk-Honk @TheEyes2022
My Friends Are Dropping (Christmas Special) @FatEmperor @thecoastguy @bobscartoons @catturd2 @CharlotteEmmaUK @MarkSteynOnline @SoniaPoulton @BernieSpofforth @LeilaniDowding @DickDelingpole @jpsears24 @LeAdderNoire @PrisonPlanet buymeacoffee.com/DrDrMcHonkHonk
Have an amazing, joyful, and restive Christmas, and I’ll see you back here on Monday, to count down the final days of 2022.
C&C is moving the needle and changing minds. If you can, I could use your help getting the truth out and spreading optimism and hope: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/-learn-how-to-get-involved-
Twitter: @jchilders98
Truth Social: @jchilders98
MeWe: mewe.com/i/coffee_and_covid.
C&C Swag! www.shopcoffeeandcovid.com
Emailed Daily Newsletter: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
By Ben Whedon, 12-22-22
The House select committee investigating the events at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, has released its final report, following 18 months of investigations and public hearings that many Republicans have derided as a partisan witch hunt and political hit job.
The 845-page report was widely expected to focus heavily on the role of former President Donald Trump, a personal priority of outgoing Wyoming GOP Rep. Liz Cheney, a stalwart opponent of the 45th president.
Cheney led a group of House Republicans in voting to impeach Trump during his second impeachment trial. Her continued vitriolic comments against him ultimately prompted the House GOP to remove her from her leadership position. She was ultimately defeated in her primary by a Trump-backed challenger and will depart the House in January.
The Wyoming Republican was one of two hand-picked GOP lawmakers whom House Speaker Nancy Pelosi selected to participate in the investigations following her rejection of certain nominees from House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy. She was joined by Illinois Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger, who also voted to impeach Trump. Both earned the ire of the GOP for their involvement in the project and McCarthy even dubbed them “Pelosi Republicans.“
Read: House Jan. 6 committee final report
Read entire article in Just the News
Here’s a more leftist take on it from the Orlando Sentinel
From Nassau County, 12-22-22
Issued: 2022-12-22 15:53:00 EST|Expiring: 2022-12-24 10:00:00 EST
BRADFORD-INLAND ST. JOHNS-INLAND FLAGLER-COASTAL NASSAU-
COASTAL DUVAL-EASTERN CLAY-COASTAL ST. JOHNS-EASTERN ALACHUA-
EASTERN PUTNAM-COASTAL FLAGLER-EASTERN MARION-TROUT RIVER-
WESTERN CLAY-WESTERN ALACHUA-WESTERN PUTNAM-CENTRAL MARION-
SOUTH CENTRAL DUVAL-WESTERN MARION-WESTERN DUVAL-COASTAL GLYNN-
COASTAL CAMDEN-
INCLUDING THE CITIES OF STARKE, NEW RIVER, FRUIT COVE,
SWITZERLAND, BAKERSVILLE, PICOLATA, BUNNELL, ESPANOLA, ANDALUSIA,
AMELIA CITY, FERNANDINA BEACH, YULEE, ARLINGTON, JACKSONVILLE,
OCEANWAY, TALLYRAND, ORANGE PARK, GREEN COVE SPRINGS,
PONTE VEDRA BEACH, DURBIN, PALM VALLEY, ANASTASIA,
SAINT AUGUSTINE, GAINESVILLE, GAINESVILLE AIRPORT, NEWNANS LAKE,
BOSTWICK, PALATKA, PALM COAST, LYNNE, MOSS BLUFF, DOCTORS INLET,
LAKESIDE, BELLAIR, MIDDLEBURG, HIGH SPRINGS, NEWBERRY, ARCHER,
CARRAWAY, ANTHONY, BURBANK, OCALA, WEIRSDALE, ORTEGA, RIVERSIDE,
SAN MARCO, OCALA AIRPORT, NORMANDY, JEKYLL ISLAND, GLYNN HAVEN,
SEA ISLAND, ST. SIMONS, COUNTRY CLUB ESTATE, DOCK JUNCTION,
DOVER BLUFF, KINGSLAND, AND DUNGENESS
353 PM EST THU DEC 22 2022
…HARD FREEZE WARNING IN EFFECT FROM 10 PM FRIDAY TO 10 AM EST
SATURDAY…
…HARD FREEZE WATCH IN EFFECT FROM SATURDAY EVENING THROUGH
SUNDAY MORNING…
* WHAT…FOR THE HARD FREEZE WARNING, SUB-FREEZING TEMPERATURES
AS LOW AS 21 EXPECTED. FOR THE HARD FREEZE WATCH, SUB-FREEZING
TEMPERATURES AS LOW AS 21 POSSIBLE.
* WHERE…PORTIONS OF NORTHEAST AND NORTHERN FLORIDA AND
SOUTHEAST GEORGIA.
* WHEN…FOR THE HARD FREEZE WARNING, FROM 10 PM FRIDAY TO 10 AM
EST SATURDAY. FOR THE HARD FREEZE WATCH, FROM SATURDAY EVENING
THROUGH SUNDAY MORNING.
* IMPACTS…FROST AND FREEZE CONDITIONS WILL KILL CROPS, OTHER
SENSITIVE VEGETATION AND POSSIBLY DAMAGE UNPROTECTED OUTDOOR
PLUMBING.
PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS…
TAKE STEPS NOW TO PROTECT TENDER PLANTS FROM THE COLD. TO PREVENT
FREEZING AND POSSIBLE BURSTING OF OUTDOOR WATER PIPES THEY SHOULD
BE WRAPPED, DRAINED, OR ALLOWED TO DRIP SLOWLY. THOSE THAT HAVE
IN-GROUND SPRINKLER SYSTEMS SHOULD DRAIN THEM AND COVER ABOVE-
GROUND PIPES TO PROTECT THEM FROM FREEZING
The stunning events of recent years can invoke mirth, not just shock and anger
U.S. Agrees To Send Ukraine One Unused Border Wall
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal.
By CCDF, 12-22-22
| BREAKING NEWS! In October the Florida State Board of Education (SBE) adopted several administrative rules that protect the safety of students and parental rights in Florida schools. One such rule is 6A-10.086, which is the School Board and Charter School Governing Board Policies or Procedures for Parental Notification Regarding Designation of Bathrooms, Locker Rooms, and Dressing Rooms. This rule requires that any policies or procedures adopted and implemented by a school district must be consistent with the Parent’s Bill of Rights; must ensure the health, safety, and welfare of students; and that parents must be notified and fully informed if a school allows for separation of bathrooms or locker rooms based on criteria other than biological sex at birth. Rule 6A-10.086 was passed by unanimous vote of the SBE, and “protects the fundamental rights of parents to ensure they are fully informed of how bathrooms are designated and how locker rooms are supervised.” Not only is this rule protecting parental rights in education and promoting district transparency, it is also ensuring the health, safety, and welfare of students who use bathrooms or locker rooms while at school. This is an encouraging win for parents and students across the state of Florida. Two Florida school districts, Brevard Public Schools (BPS) and Miami-Dade County Public Schools (M-DCPS), are already in compliance with the new Florida SBE rules. The School Board of BPS recently discussed 6A-10.086 at a public meeting, with District 5 Board Member, Katye Campbell, explaining the details of the new rule, how it will impact the district, and that it is time to clarify with district staff that the Board intends to comply with the new rules. A majority of the Board supported moving in this direction. M-DCPS has distributed an internal memorandum to their school principals indicating that signage is in place to designate certain areas by biological sex at birth. The newly elected Miami-Dade School Board members, including Roberto Alonso and Monica Colucci, worked closely with district administration to ensure compliance with the SBE’s new rule. If your child is a student in the state of Florida, we encourage you to contact your school district and ensure that they are in compliance with the Florida State Board of Education rule 6A-10.086. God Bless, CCDF-USA Are you following us online? Subscribe and share our message to help spread awareness! Please Donate Today! |
| CCDF-USA | PO Box 156, Mulberry, FL 33860 |
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
By Richard Eber, December, 2022
Things are rosy for Democrats as 2022 comes to an end. Overly sensitive Progressive Wokes, still basking in their glory for retaining their majority in the U.S. Senate, are in a state of exalted euphoria. Their amnesia from reality is expected to last until November 2024.
With President Biden likely to retire, they can choose from such great choices as VP Kamala Harris, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren or Gavin Newsom to fill his empty suit. On all levels, woke candidates appear ready to dominate the Democratic Party landscape.
Meanwhile, The P.C crowd prefers to use the vanilla description of “Holiday Season” to chronicle the time in America when families traditionally gather to celebrate an event that occurred over 2000 years ago in the little town of Bethlehem.
Many wokes prefer to ignore this iconic moment in favor of worshipping the agnostic world of climate change. They look forward to a new planet where objectionable history is canceled. At the same time cheeseburgers are to be banned as cows are responsible for global warming. Individuals such as Elon Musk are to be eliminated from corporate culture in favor of a Diversity Council calling the shots
This year is real special in California as Gavin Newsom hopes enough Covid cases will crop up so he can shut down all churches, synagogues, and other places of worship in the Golden State once again. Joy to the World is being sung as God along with thousands of jobs are being deported to other States.
Worshipping the son of God is outmoded for almost the entire P.C. crowd. It is being replaced by Divinity Profiling. Under this enlightened system The State will take responsibility for the well being of all. Single family Homes will be replaced by apartments/barracks as families will transition to being a thing of the past. As part of this bold new world, the task of raising children will revert to the State.
Needless fights at family gatherings will be averted as families will become a thing of the past. As part of this utopian world, anarchists, Marxists, ISIS, and the Taliban will no longer feel they are being discriminated against?
Divinity profiling will promote the concept Big Government is the answer to all that ails us. Instead of praying for the health of Mom and Dad, homage is to be given to Big Brother.
How great a pronoun free world might be where Santa is no longer associated with being a man. Mrs. Klaus might even be transgender and the reindeer would all be bisexual. No changes are needed for Santa’s little helpers as they always have always been a little bit peculiar.
P.C. minded 4 year old children might enquire “Can I sit on the weight challenged ones lap?”
In a perfect society would it ever be possible to allow “chestnuts roasting on an open fire” when such am activity is clearly in violation of creating toxic fumes on Spare the Air day?
In government run schools, Christmas vacation is to be substituted by having a Winter Reset Even then this year with remote learning in place; most kids have effectively been off for four months. Everything is virtual from Christmas trees to theft as there are no longer penalties in place for shop lifting.
Christmas cards are old school as a Tweet will suffice in this Holiday season. The Pledge of Allegiance and the National Anthem are passé; taking a knee is cool while bad music still wins Grammies.
Christmas parties with the family have been banned as Gavin Newsom has deemed this get together to be a health risk except when he attends a shindig at the French Laundry. “If only we could encourage folks to mingle in groups of 2 ½ people or less for dinner while not mentioning the dreaded “C” word”, The Governor lamented
Even sex between consenting adults is being relegated by Governor Newsom to the scrap heap. Official government policy advocates unmarried people over 14 years of age during Covid-19 to only engage in a Ménage de Uno for health purposes.
To further assist in directing public behavior, A Progressive Holiday Guide was put out by the Democratic Party Central Committee.
Apparently they plan to swap older versions of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer in favor of a more P.C. one. The authorities are uncomfortable with this tale of heroic deeds performed by a mindless four hoofed creature having a male surname.
The new progressive Rudolf instruction guide reads:
“First of all referring Rudolf to be Red-Nosed is an obvious attempt to glorify this Republican animal; although giving him a blue nose might indicate climate change occurring at the North Pole. According to the memo on ethics standards published by The Department of Homeland Security “Depicting Rudolph to be a male is an obvious attempt to inflict racism and white supremacy on society.”
It is also painfully obvious that Rudolf was a victim of bullying from his reindeer colleagues. After carefully evaluating the medical condition that led to Rudolf having a red noose, it is apparent that he had a drinking problem caused from consuming too much spiked eggnog during the holiday season.”
Whether the actions of those who teased and played cruel jokes on Rudolf could be construed as a “ “hate crime”, has led Rep Adam Schiff to recommending a Special Prosecutor be appointed in late December (after unwanted gifts are exchanged) to investigate Rudolf’s plight.
Also under consideration is filling a complaint for Rudolph under the American’s with Disability Act. It is widely known that the intellectual capacities of the red nosed one is a bit short of a six pack.
At this juncture it uncertain if the story about Rudolf will be permanently is altered or if it will be cancelled along with George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Christopher Columbus.
One never knows what is in store for this year’s Woke Christmas.
Richard Eber studied journalism at the University of Oregon. He writes about politics, culture, education restaurants, and was former city and sports editor of UCSB Daily. Richard is president of Amerasa Rapid Transit, a specialized freight forwarder.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal.
By Jeff Childers
12-22-22
Good morning on this chilly, snowpocalyptic Thursday, C&C! The horrors of global warming. In today’s roundup: the FBI feeds Americans word salad in its denial of Twitter Files accusations; a family-friendly drag queen Christmas in Florida, of all places; the New York Times panics as China abandons its covid-zero policy; Sam Bankman-Fried’s former girlfriend is throwing him under the bus; and Kari Lake has a great first day of trial.
🔥 Yesterday, the Federal Bureau of Investigations released a dense, point-by-point, 64-page rebuttal to the claims and evidence that have been presented against it over the last couple weeks in the serialized Twitter Files. The rebuttal included links to evidence appearing to clearly show that between 2019 and 2022, the FBI scrupulously tried to adhere to the law, and worked diligently to avoid even the appearance of impropriety.
Haha, just kidding! It wasn’t 64-pages. It was a one-sentence denial hysterically blaming “conspiracy theorists” and childishly claiming people are just trying to make the FBI look bad. I am not making that up. J. Edgar Hoover’s agency has now reached the self-parody stage.
When I first saw this, I suspected it had to be a meme or something. So I checked multiple sources to confirm it was true. It was true! How embarrassing. A fifth-grade class assignment could’ve produced better defenses to the scandal than THIS.
Since the FBI couldn’t be bothered to take more than fifteen seconds to respond to the most dishonorable charges against that agency among a long, sordid list of failures over the past few years, and I’m not just thinking of the Whitmer fednapping, I now have to put their entire statement under the C&C microscope. I didn’t want to, but they left me no choice.
Let’s begin.
“It is unfortunate…”
Here, we agree; so far, so good. I agree that this is ANOTHER unfortunate mess for the troubled law enforcement agency. To borrow some technical law enforcement jargon, they call this getting caught with your chocolate-stained hand in the cookie jar.
“…that conspiracy theorists and others…”
The FBI couldn’t even get through the first clause without making me want to call them morons. But that’s not nice, so I’m going to resist. For now. Don’t push it.
So … conspiracy theorists and “others”. Logically, “others” can only mean non-conspiracy theorists, otherwise the word would be redundant, and we must presume the FBI meant what it said. Therefore, spelled out, this says “conspiracy theorists and [non-conspiracy theorists].”
In other words, EVERYBODY. Everybody agrees.
I’ll give them partial credit for unintentional honesty.
“… are feeding the American public misinformation …”
First, this is a failed mixed metaphor. If they want to use a non-literal word like “feeding,” they must add something food-related for the metaphor to make sense, otherwise it’s just silly nonsense. You can’t LITERALLY feed someone misinformation. They should’ve said, “are feeding the American public A DIET OF misinformation,” or, “are feeding the American public informational JUNK FOOD,” or “are feeding the American public BALONEY,” or something like that.
Maybe they should’ve asked some fifth graders for help.
Anyway, moving to the substance, we have to dig into the FBI’s definition of “misinformation,” which is information that is TRUE but misleading. “Misleading information.” The only way we can interpret this statement is that the FBI confirmed the truth of all those disclosed communications between 80+ FBI agents and Twitter to silence conservatives who were talking about covid or the elections.
HOW is that mis-information?
Is the FBI saying its agents spent just as much time censoring loony leftwing tweets? Setting aside there’s no evidence of that, they shouldn’t be censoring ANYBODY. That’s not their job. They’re supposed to investigate crimes.
Since their communications with Twitter aren’t classified or privileged, unless part of an ongoing criminal investigation, the FBI could release their own batch of exculpatory emails. But they didn’t, so we are left to assume they don’t have any.
I hate to pour salt into the wound (you know I do), but I feel obliged to point out that for two years the FBI also called the Hunter Biden laptop “misinformation” and “a conspiracy theory.” But it was nevertheless true.
So.
“… with the sole purpose of …”
The SOLE purpose? How did the FBI cleverly deduce the singular purpose motivating all the people working on the Twitter files? This is the most grotesque part of the agency’s denial. As an allegedly non-partisan agency, the FBI should ASSUME good intentions before leaping to conclusions about Americans’ bad motivations.
That what’s presumed innocent means.
This clause perfectly illustrates the agency’s biggest problem: An “us versus them” attitude. It’s how the FBI instantly concluded “everyone who went into the Capitol wanted to overthrow the government.” And how it assumed “everyone who criticized covid vaccines is a Russian disinformation agent.”
“… attempting to discredit the agency.”
Hilarious! First of all guys, you’re doing a perfectly satisfactory job of discrediting yourselves. Conspiracy theorists hardly have to do anything.
Next, “attempting?” This smacks of wishful thinking. The emails released in the Twitter Files HAVE discredited the agency.
Leftists who cheer on the FBI because it hurt conservatives are extremely short-sighted. When the conservatives are all gone, what do leftists think will happen next, with this out-of-control secret police agency? Do they think it will just go back to non-political work, because its job is done?
If that’s what they think, they need to study history a little more.
Finally, this part of the statement sounds the most childish. The FBI is claiming that the ONLY reason people are talking about the FBI censoring Americans is because they want to make the FBI look bad. There’s NO WAY that ANYBODY criticizing the FBI could possibly have any valid concerns about the First Amendment or anything.
Please.
But, I’m giving them additional partial credit for stubbornly sticking to their unbelievable story and trying to gaslight their way through. “Honey, it wasn’t ME!”
So, D+.
🔥 Meanwhile, the alert columnist at Libs of TikTok reported yesterday that, down in South Florida, the illustrious Broward Center for the Performing Arts will perform the gala, family-friendly show, “A Drag Queen Christmas,” on December 26th.
I found an online ad for the show, which after performing in Broward, apparently will ooze its way north to the Plaza Live in Orlando, where it is advertised as “all ages welcome.”
It’s not grooming! It’s just a fun, family celebration of Christians’ second most important holiday of the year. Don’t be racist.
🔥 The New York Times ran an overwrought story about covid in China yesterday, headlined, “From Zero Covid to No Plan: Behind China’s Pandemic U-Turn.” The Times’ sub-headline bitterly complained, “After micromanaging the coronavirus strategy for nearly three years, the country’s leader, Xi Jinping, has suddenly left the populace to improvise.”
They didn’t avoid covid, but you’ve got to hand China’s dictatorial government one thing: They avoided mRNA shots.
Anyway, the Times explained that a couple weeks ago, China finally abandoned its draconian “Covid Zero” approach to the pandemic, which the Times feels left poor Chinese “officials scrambling to manage the disarray and uncertainty.” The Times gloomily reported that “[w]arnings about the dangers of the coronavirus have swiftly disappeared, replaced by official claims that the Omicron variant is generally mild.”
“Official claims” that Omicron is generally mild. “Claims.” The Times isn’t too sure. Who knows? It’s not like we’re a year past Omicron here in the U.S. or anything.
The Times also dusted off its early pandemic playbook, and hauled out its old chestnut, the “overwhelmed hospitals” meme — proving the problem not by using statistics or anything, but just by quoting random anonymous doctors and nurses. It soberly reported that “A doctor in a city hospital said on social media that primary care has exploded with Covid patients, and more than half the doctors and nurses in the respiratory disease section were infected.”
A doctor “on social media.” It was just a post on WeChat or something! They didn’t even interview the doctor. What are journalists for? We can read social media posts for ourselves. Why do we need the Times?
Anyway, in other words, to the Times, human freedom brings “disarray and uncertainty,” which explains a lot about how we got here, if you think about it. But the better question is why exactly at this point in the pandemic is the Times so obviously upset about China abandoning Covid-zero?
I’m beginning to suspect the answer is that a lot of liberals were secretly rooting for China to succeed and somehow wipe out covid, because if the communist nation could finally show how successful Covid-zero was, that would silence pandemic response critics. In other words, if Covid-zero worked, we should’ve ALL done it, and that’s what we should do NEXT TIME. It would’ve shown the greatness of the communist system.
Oh well. Too bad, New York Times. I don’t feel sorry for you.
🔥 FTX is back in the news. According a statement late yesterday, Caroline Ellison, polysexual millennial and CEO of Sam Bankman-Fried’s personal billion-dollar piggy bank, Alameda Capital, who liked to brag about being “bad at math,” finally did something smart.
She’s singing like a caged canary.
Just to remind you, here’s Caroline, one of Sam’s former girlfriends in the polycule, or whatever they call it, probably right up until he moved on to more interesting partners.
#FTX #FTXScandal #Alameda @SBF_FTX #carolineellison https://t.co/gFPVfGtZ1z
2:31 AM ∙ Dec 22, 202217Likes6Retweets
What’s that old saying about a polysexual scorned? Something about fury? Anyway.
The SEC’s announcement yesterday included news that Ellison and FTX co-founder Gary Wang have pleaded guilty and are now cooperating with law-enforcement officials, that Sam Bankman-Fried had been bunged onto a plane, being flown away from his Bahamian prison to the fine facilities in the Southern District of New York, and that he is expected to appear before a judge today.
It sure looks like a few days of the old ‘Bahamian hellhole’ treatment helped convince Sam to stop fighting extradition. Hopefully his lawyers are double-checking the new prison’s security camera systems.
2:52 AM ∙ Dec 22, 202251Likes16Retweets
US Attorney Williams also encouraged other FTXer’s who “participated in misconduct” to come forward now, since the government’s “patience is not eternal.”
Sing, canaries, sing.
🔥 Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake’s second day of trial begins today. According to informal reports, her first day of trying to prove election misconduct went well. The best bit seems to be that, after the judge had allowed Kari’s lawyers to inspect fifteen random ballots, Kari’s experts testified that fourteen of the fifteen appeared to be fraudulent.
Kari’s experts determined the problematic election-day ballots had been rejected by electronic tabulators because they’d been shrunk to a 19-inch page size — but printed on 20-inch paper. The visual side-by-side comparisons between the shrunk ballots and regular ones were extremely convincing. Kari’s expert testified there was NO WAY that could’ve happened by accident, and I agree.
It looks like the Maricopa clerk or someone else in authority, cough cough, intentionally modified the ballots so they’d be rejected by electronic scanners and would have to be hand-counted, creating widespread chaos on Election Day.
7:28 PM ∙ Dec 21, 202210,004Likes3,223Retweets
From the trial videos I’ve seen, Katie Hobb’s lawyers did a poor job of handling Kari’s witnesses and the evidence. For example, take a look at this illustrative clip, and watch how Hobbs’ lawyer completely fell apart after Kari’s witness surprised the lawyer with an answer he didn’t expect:
10:33 PM ∙ Dec 21, 202216,863Likes5,103Retweets
There’s a simple trial rule — rule number one — that goes, “never ask a witness a question you don’t already know the answer to.” THIS is what happens when lawyers break that rule. The giveaway was him immediately looking down nervously, shuffling his papers desperately trying to figure out what to do, staring in awkward silence, and then barking “no more questions” to contain the damage.
To win, Kari Lake must prove the widespread problems would have resulted in a different outcome. Helpfully, Katie Hobbs’ lawyers asked that critical question, and Kari’s expert nailed it to the courtroom doors. Now it’s evidence.
🚨 Bombshell Testimony from Election Day Attorney 🚨 “There’s no question in my mind that had there not been tabulator issues at 132 vote centers, This election would have ended up with @KariLake winning.” Help FUEL our Legal Team: SaveArizonaFund.com/donate
You might call that, “legal malpractice.” But, before you judge Katie Hobbs’ lawyers too harshly, remember that lawyers don’t build the planes. We just fly them.
Between all that, and the silence of Hobbs supporters, it looks like Kari Lake had a very good day in court yesterday. Still, it’s way too soon to take a victory lap. Since the plaintiff always gets to go first, it always looks good for the first half of trial. Then the defendant gets to put on their case, which normally evens things up.
We’ll see how things go for former Secretary of State Hobbs today.
Have a terrific Thursday! I’ll see you guys back here tomorrow, for the final pre-holiday Coffee & Covid roundup. But … I might have a Christmas present in the blog stocking for you guys, who knows…
C&C is moving the needle and changing minds. If you can, I could use your help getting the truth out and spreading optimism and hope: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/-learn-how-to-get-involved-
Twitter: @jchilders98
Truth Social: @jchilders98
MeWe: mewe.com/i/coffee_and_covid.
C&C Swag! www.shopcoffeeandcovid.com
Emailed Daily Newsletter: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
By Jeff Childers
12-21-22
Good morning and Happy Wednesday, C&C! Today’s packed roundup includes: I pushback on a new round of fear mongering by public health experts, this time over a few cases measles; Cleveland Clinic pre-print is bad news for jabs, and for people who took lots of them; New Jersey school returns to mandatory face masking for covid; feminists aren’t outraged when the Taliban criminalizes educating women; more Twitter files drop, this time about military propaganda; the Epoch Times reveals January 6th censorship of conservative voices; and my greatest wish for Christmas.
🔥 Here we go again! But this time, I was ready for them. Corporate media was up to its old fear mongering tricks this week, when the usual media suspects all ran variations of the same alarming story, exemplified by WebMD’s article headlined, “Ohio Measles Outbreak Grows, Fueled By Vaccine Hesitancy.”
Uh huh. Smells like fake news! Let’s squash it right now.
Fortunately, my razor-like instincts, sharpened by two years of narrative voodoo combat, immediately detected the scent of a small, scurrying, furry rodent with Fauci-like features. And I was right.
WebMD made its article’s premise clear: Measles is spreading and dastardly anti-vaxxers are behind it all! Its reporter breathlessly wrote:
The Ohio measles outbreak continues to expand, with cases now totaling 81 – a 37% increase in the course of just 2 weeks.
The lead health official where the outbreak is occurring said the driving force behind the spread is vaccine hesitancy. Most of the children infected were unvaccinated but were old enough to get the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) shot, which is 97% effective at preventing measles.
“I think these are individuals who are making a decision not to protect their children against vaccine-preventable diseases, and some of them are making a specific decision not to use the MMR vaccine,” [said] Columbus Public Health Commissioner Mysheika W. Roberts, MD[.]
If a parent wants to let their kid get measles, to develop natural immunity, how is it the state’s business?
I tracked the story to its source. Round and round it goes. The WebMD article, along with all the other similar ones in other venues like CNN Health, they all came from a single story planted, I mean published, in JAMA on December 15th, which soberly reported the current apocalyptic threat to public health:
A measles outbreak is underway this winter in central Ohio, where 73 known cases and 26 hospitalizations have occurred since late October, according to health department data updated on December 12. The Columbus-area outbreak comes on the heels of an unrelated cluster [of 22 cases in Minnesota this year.
You guys still with me? WebMD said there are 73 cases in Ohio and 22 cases in Minnesota. Remember those numbers.
Next, the world’s premier medical journal reported the first bit of actual good news, even though JAMA thinks it’s grotesque, anti-scientific backsliding into medieval medical thinking, like bleeding people for their inconstant humours or something:
According to the November 25 Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR), an estimated 24.7 million children worldwide missed their first measles vaccine dose through routine immunization services in 2021, and another 14.7 million missed their second dose.
Haha, they “missed” their doses. How about that. Progress! I wonder WHY those parents don’t trust the safe and effective measles vaccine.
I’m not baffled, though.
The JAMA article then disclosed its story was based on a single WHO report — things became even clearer — and the WHO writer warned its institutional readers in very stark terms, about … measles.
“With record lows of nearly 25 million children who did not receive even one dose of measles vaccine, suboptimal early detection of measles outbreaks through surveillance, and large ongoing outbreaks,” she said, “measles is an imminent threat in every region of the world.”
It’s an imminent threat! To the entire world! Quick, apply mandates!
JAMA then drew a line directly between the Ohio “outbreak” and vaccine hesitancy, citing exactly the same health administrator in Ohio that WebMD did. That’s science, apparently. One health administrator’s goofy opinion, and corporate media is off to the races. Anyway, here’re the overwrought unscientific paragraphs that JAMA squeezed out of the Ohio lady’s hatred for anti-vaxxers:
In the US, most children today have access to vaccines, Ratner said in an interview. Vaccine hesitancy, however, is a major barrier to childhood vaccination that is growing in importance, he said.
… During the pandemic, vaccination turned “into this insanely polarized political thing,” he said, further eroding vaccine acceptance. “Once there was that kind of hesitancy out there and that kind of divisiveness, it’s not surprising that it has bled over into people thinking about vaccine mandates and childhood vaccines in general.”
Vaccine hesitancy—or outright refusal—is driving the measles outbreak among children in central Ohio, according to Mysheika W. Roberts, MD, MPH, health commissioner for Columbus Public Health, the jurisdiction where about 95% of the total cases have occurred. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic threw fuel on antivaccination sentiment, pockets of her community refused the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine, she said in an interview.
She attributed this refusal to a persistent misconception that the vaccine causes autism… “I think these are individuals who are making a decision not to protect their children against vaccine-preventable diseases, and some of them are making a specific decision not to use the MMR vaccine,” Roberts said.
Doctor Roberts thinks it’s the anti-vaxxers. She “thinks” so. How can she be sure, she’s working at the speed of science. In other words, she’s NOT SURE:
When asked if her community is undervaccinated, Roberts replied, “That’s a great question.” Her jurisdiction’s measles vaccination rate is estimated at 80% to 90%, but accurate data aren’t available because reporting to Ohio’s vaccine registry isn’t mandatory, she explained.
This entire multi-media anti-science house of measles cards is built out of the frustrations of Mysheika (if that’s her real name) Roberts, some random health commissioner in Columbus, Ohio, and we are meant to believe she’s some kind of global measles expert, and start signing up for mandates or something.
No, thanks.
But it gets better. It’s ALL fake. It literally took me under 30 seconds of searching on DuckDuckGo to find this old 2014 story:
2014! Did you remember your 2022 numbers? The alarming WebMD article reported a shocking number of 73 measles cases in Ohio this year so far. Let’s see what the numbers looked like way back in 2014, long before the current pandemic of rabid anti-vaccine sentiment:
At least 155 people have caught the highly contagious respiratory disease, according to the Ohio Department of Health. That’s up from 68 infected as of May 13.
Oh. A hundred and fifty-five. Only halfway through 2014, in June. What month are we in again now? That’s right, DECEMBER. So we’ve half the cases in December 2022 than we had during the first half of the 2014 measles “outbreak” of 155 kids in June 2014. Okay. But… we’re supposed to … what? Panic or something?
Please.
Searching Twitter, I found HUNDREDS of nearly identical breathless, fear-mongering tweets about the terrifying new “outbreak” when I searched for “Ohio measles”. I then spent fifteen minutes posting corrective replies, until my fingers were bleeding and I had to stop. But the fearful tweets kept scrolling downward into infinity.
There’s an outbreak, all right. It’s just not an outbreak of anti-vaxx driven measles infections. It’s an outbreak of stupidity.
We are NOT doing this again. Nope. Sorry, WHO, Sorry, JAMA. Sorry, germaphobes. Get a grip.
🔬 A new Cleveland Clinic pre-print study posted Monday, titled “Effectiveness of the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Bivalent Vaccine.” Let me spoil it for you: They found the bivalent vaccine was NOT very effective. But guess what else they found?
The study observed over 50,000 Cleveland Clinic employees from the beginning of the pandemic. Let’s start with how the study ended, with this amazing concession of scientific ambiguity:
We still have a lot to learn about protection from COVID-19 vaccination, and in addition to a vaccine’s effectiveness it is important to examine whether multiple vaccine doses given over time may not be having the beneficial effect that is generally assumed.
Still have a lot to learn, eh? And here I thought the “science was settled.” Shows what I know, I’m just a lawyer. But why’d the Cleveland Clinic researchers admit that ambiguity? Because of the study’s most important finding:
Risk of COVID-19 increased with time since the most recent prior COVID-19 episode and with the number of vaccine doses previously received.
Holy jab juice, Batman. In other words, the more jabs, the more and faster the covid infections. The researchers weren’t prepared for that finding, or for the fact that the increased risk of catching covid was seen, not in decrepit, nearly-dead old people in care homes, but in young, healthy healthcare workers without co-morbidities:
The association of increased risk of COVID-19 with higher numbers of prior vaccine doses in our study, was unexpected. A simplistic explanation might be that those who received more doses were more likely to be individuals at higher risk of COVID-19. A small proportion of individuals may have fit this description. However, the majority of subjects in this study were generally young individuals and all were eligible to have received at least 3 doses of vaccine by the study start date[.]
Take a close look at the researcher’s chart, below. The Y-axis is the proportionate risk, based on the number of times people caught covid, and how often. The x-axis is the number of days from their first dose. The colored lines represent the number of doses received.
Over a 90-day period, participants with three or more doses faced a risk of catching covid up to SIX TIMES higher than the baseline. Six times higher, over just the first 90 days! But drop down to the zero doses line — the “unvaccinated” — and discover those lucky souls enjoyed the LOWEST risk of infection.
Weird. Seems backwards somehow.
Remarkably, every single dose of the “vaccine” proportionately INCREASED the risk of infections. That strongly suggests some kind of correlation. And it’s not how traditional vaccines work, not at all.
The Cleveland Clinic researchers mused about the unvaccinated and unboosted, which — amazingly — included almost HALF of the healthcare workers in the study. The researchers figured unvaccinated and low-vaccinated people were the ones most likely to NOT wear masks, isolate, or otherwise mitigate their risks but, despite being covid “risk takers,” they were STILL catching covid less often than their boosted co-workers:
[T]hose who received fewer than 3 doses (>45% of individuals in the study) were not those ineligible to receive the vaccine, but those who chose not to follow the CDC’s recommendations on remaining updated with COVID-19 vaccination, and one could reasonably expect these individuals to have been more likely to have exhibited higher risk-taking behavior.
Despite this, their risk of acquiring COVID-19 was lower than those who received a larger number of prior vaccine doses. This is not the only study to find a possible association with more prior vaccine doses and higher risk of COVID-19. A large study found that those who had an Omicron variant infection after previously receiving three doses of vaccine had a higher risk of reinfection than those who had an Omicron variant infection after previously receiving two doses of vaccine.
Another study found that receipt of two or three doses of a mRNA vaccine following prior COVID-19 was associated with a higher risk of reinfection than receipt of a single dose. We still have a lot to learn about protection from COVID-19 vaccination, and in addition to a vaccine’s effectiveness it is important to examine whether multiple vaccine doses given over time may not be having the beneficial effect that is generally assumed.
Alert commenters noted that, during animal trials for earlier failed coronavirus vaccines, the poor mice’s immune systems were completely destroyed. A strange coincidence. It makes you wonder. What do they call doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result? It’s called … what’s the word … I can’t think of it right now. But it’s not good.
Pfizer didn’t conduct any animal trials this time, unless you count those eight mice, now deceased.
The study’s authors worked diligently to find SOME effectiveness of the new bivalent vaccine — which is critical for getting past journal editors — and managed to scrape up a “modest” 30% effectiveness rate. Thirty percent. Back in the day, two years ago, vaccines with less than 50% effectiveness could not get FDA approval.
But, times change, especially when you’re moving at the speed of science.
😷 Remember that OTHER outbreak I mentioned? I present Exhibit B, New Jersey’s Passaic Schools newest mask mandate, effective starting today:
Passaic Public Schools @PassaicSchools
6:31 PM ∙ Dec 20, 2022127Likes97Retweets
Maybe somebody should tell them.
🔥 This week, Afghanistan’s Taliban made it illegal in that country for women to receive a higher education. No college for you.
Where are those who champion women’s rights?? Taliban officially bans women from obtaining a university education. foxnews.comTaliban officially bans women from obtaining university educationThe Taliban has banned women in Afghanistan from obtaining a university education,according to Tuesday reports. The move is the Taliban…7:08 PM ∙ Dec 20, 20226Likes1Retweet
I bet they don’t have a lot of men pretending to be women over there in Afghanistan.
U.S. feminists were completely silent about the plight of their Afghani sisters. In related news, the democrats’ strong performance in this year’s U.S. election cycle has been widely attributed to unmarried women.
10:52 PM ∙ Nov 18, 20225Likes1Retweet
Maybe the real problem in the U.S. is the UNDER-education of young women. Just saying. Don’t cancel me.
🔥 Some lawmakers are starting to notice how significant Monday’s FBI Twitter Files drop was:
The FBI actively interfering in multiple elections is the biggest threat to our constitutional democracy today6:47 PM ∙ Dec 19, 202280,537Likes15,319Retweets
Yesterday, ANOTHER FBI Files story dropped, this one by investigative journalist Lee Fang.
It’s a lot. The summary version is that, while Twitter was publicly saying (including in sworn Congressional testimony) that it was cracking down on ALL covert government propaganda accounts, behind the scenes it was busily working with the U.S. Department of Defense to help promote and protect U.S. propaganda accounts to influence foreign governments.
I’m still trying to take it all in. But one smart commenter noted how much cheaper it is to knock out a foreign leader using propaganda instead of through kinetic military action. Makes sense… but it is ethical?
It’s unethical. And gross. Our military intelligence agencies have been spamming other countries with fake news, including completely made-up computerized deepfake videos and wild accusations designed to inflame hapless citizens.
Before we get to the question of whether those intelligence weapons may likely have been turned against U.S. citizens since the 2020 election cycle, consider this: The Biden Administration has been constantly complaining, bitterly and often, about foreign propaganda on U.S. social media platforms — all while busily doing that EXACT SAME THING they were complaining was wrong when everybody else was doing it.
In other words, they’ve been blaming other countries for exactly what THEY, themselves, have been doing. Think about what Biden officials been claiming lately about TikTok, for one example.
Before you say it’s fair because the Russians were doing it, it’s not an even playing field. Twitter HAS been working overtime to ban the handful of foreign government-affiliated propaganda accounts, all while secretly promoting hundreds or thousands of U.S.-based fake news accounts and bots.
They weren’t even subtle about it. In this example message, Centcom staff asked Twitter to “whitelist” some of their suspended accounts, because “it sure is tough to do web ops when you can’t Tweet!”
You don’t have to tell us about how hard web ops are when you can’t tweet. We know all about it.
The “whitelist tag” gave validated status to a twitter accounts, same as an official blue check mark, so those accounts would be promoted in searches, and would not be shadow-banned or otherwise limited. Notice also Centcom’s request for a “face to face” meeting, so they wouldn’t have to keep doing these requests in writing.
According to Fang, the U.S. propaganda network relentlessly pushed narratives against Russia, China, and other foreign countries. For example, they falsely accused Iran of threatening Iraq’s water security, flooding the country with crystal meth, and harvesting Afghan refugees’ organs.
Now I’m wondering about the face-covering riots in that country.
Combine all this Twitter censorship, influence peddling, and pure propaganda with the vast budget for pushing vaccines by buying scientists and influencers during the pandemic, and we can begin to see the outlines of a vast a private market for censorship and fake news created by the deep state, which then became its biggest customer.
It’s coming out in a flood now.
🔥 The Epoch Times ran another revealing story yesterday headlined, “EXCLUSIVE: Internet Sting Operation ‘J6 DELETED’ Exposes How Twitter Manipulated Jan. 6 Narrative In Real Time.”
There are a lot of details, facts, and examples in the story, but the gist is that researchers working with the Epoch Times captured all the tweets related to January 6th while the Capitol protest unfolded, and kept track of which tweets were either promoted by Twitter, or suspended and banned. As you probably guessed, lots of conservative accounts and tweets were suppressed, but wild leftwing conspiracy theories and fake news were boosted.
I’ll give you two egregious examples. The first one includes a series of Tracy Beanz’s tweets starting around 1:30pm on January 6th. Beanz, Editor-in-Chief of UncoverDC, was tweeting that a lot of the masked, hooded people attacking police at the Capitol looked nothing like Trump supporters. Then, at 1:53pm EST, Beanz tweeted, “The Trump crowd HAS NOT reached the capitol yet.”
Twitter immediately deleted Beanz’s tweets and her account was permanently banned. Beanz’s account was just finally reinstated this week.
The next example is President Trump himself. The researchers found that on January 6th, when Trump posted a video message calling for peace and to de-escalate the protest, Twitter disabled the message’s ability to be liked or shared. Then Twitter deleted the video and banned Trump from tweeting anything else for 24 hours. Meanwhile, Twitter was also promoting democrat lawmaker’s tweets criticizing the President for not doing anything to address the protest.
Epoch noted that, according to dictionary.com, fascism is “a governmental system led by a dictator having complete power, forcibly suppressing opposition and criticism, regimenting all industry, commerce, etc., and emphasizing an aggressive nationalism and often racism.”
🔥 This week we finally learned what it takes for the Vatican to defrock a Catholic Priest. The New York Times ran a story last weekend headlined, “Vatican Removes Anti-Abortion Activist From the Priesthood.”
According to the Times, Father Frank Pavone, leader of advocacy group ‘Priests for Life,’ and one of President Trump’s religious advisers, was permanently dismissed from the clergy on November 9th, with no possibility of appeal.
A terse letter from the Vatican explained, “This action was taken after Father Pavone was found guilty in canonical proceedings of blasphemous communications on social media, and of persistent disobedience of the lawful instructions of his diocesan bishop.” The Times said the letter did not specify which social media communications, or what disobedience, nor did it name the “diocesan bishop.”
The statement said that Mr. Pavone was given “ample opportunity to defend himself” as well as “multiple opportunities to submit himself to the authority of his diocesan bishop.” But Father Pavone told the Times he still doesn’t know what the blasphemous communications supposedly were, or exactly what he did to disobey said bishop. “I’m waiting for them to point out to me what I did wrong that merits something like this,” he said.
Father Pavone is a prolific, blunt, and spicy tweeter, especially about pro-life issues, and has questioned the results of the 2020 elections. Had he been accused of pederasty, though, he’d probably just have been transferred to another diocese and the records covered up.
🔥 Late last week, the LA court arraigned Paul Pelosi attacker David DePape on attempted murder charges. The Daily Mail UK ran a skeptical story quoting DePape’s son, headlined “EXCLUSIVE: ‘For All We Know He Was Some Sort of Sex Slave’: Son of Paul Pelosi’s Alleged Attacker Says His Father Is Not Evil, Believes in Human Rights and Is ‘Hardly a Right-Wing Conservative’.”
You know what I’d like for Christmas? I’d like to know the end of Paul Pelosi’s hammer-time story, which has apparently all-but disappeared from the public eye. I’d settle for the body cam video, or the external video showing David Depape’s arrival. Give me something!
A mystery for the ages, apparently.
The way things are going, I may just have to console myself with this amusing holiday jingle:
TRUMP SINGS JINGLE BELLS! #Trump #JingleBells #PaulPelosi #CaptainDeplorable #MAGA #MerryChristmas
11:00 PM ∙ Dec 14, 20224,113Likes1,337Retweets
Have a wonderful Wednesday! I’ll be back tomorrow, leading the way toward a chilly Christmas.
C&C is moving the needle and changing minds. It’s important. If you can, I could use your help this Christmas getting the truth out and spreading optimism and hope: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/-learn-how-to-get-involved-
Twitter: @jchilders98
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The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
By Jeff Childers
12-20-22
Good morning, C&C, it’s Tuesday, five short days till Christmas! Are you ready? Today’s roundup includes: J6 Commission criminally refers President Trump to the DOJ; Kari Lake survives first, and most difficult, hurdle in her election case; Senator Warren dons war paint and goes after Elon; SADS political and sports deaths; the seventh Twitter Files posts and the picture of what we’re dealing with gets clearer; and major disclosures about CIA involvement in JFK’s death land in the middle of a busy news week.
🔥 Yesterday, MSNBC gayly ran a festive, high-tech, multi-part, interactive story headlined, “Jan 6 committee highlights: Report summary released, referrals approved.” The sub-head explained, “Bennie Thompson, Liz Cheney and the other members of the House committee voted during its final public meeting to approve criminal referrals against Trump.”
The online paper could barely contain its glee. Nearly every MSNBC editor and reporter looks to have chimed in with a short segment or two.
Having lost the House of Representatives, the democrats noisily rushed the J6 Committee’s final report, making certain to get it out before the Republicans take over in January and can squash the damnable thing. You can bet it’s going to be a stinker. Yesterday, democrats released a silly executive summary of their witless report.
Also yesterday, the Committee unanimously voted to criminally refer President Trump to the DOJ, which — unlike the House — will remain under Joe Biden’s control. The Committee hopes the DOJ will arrest President Trump under four charges: obstructing an official proceeding, conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiring to make false statements, and … wait for it … insurrection!
In technical terms, all four charges are birdbrained nonsense.
If the DOJ does pursue charges, it will be the first time in history an American presidential candidate is criminally charged by the sitting opposing presidential candidate. And if that happens, what’s to stop it from happening in every other future presidential race?
Welcome to the banana republic.
Nor is it merely Trump they’re after. The Committee’s executive summary named a bunch of other folks as alleged criminals, like attorney John Eastman and former New York Mayor Rudi Giuliani. The summary also said the Committee plans to file ethics complaints against four House Republicans, including Kevin McCarthy.
The full report will be issued tomorrow (Wednesday). I bet you can’t wait!
Rep. Raskin: “Nobody before, much less a president, had ever come so close to overthrowing a presidential election…so our greatest legacy…would be one that is certified by time, which is that we never encounter anything like this again.” msnbc.com/jan6report
🔥 At 8pm yesterday evening, the judge ruled in Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake’s election challenge case. Eight counts were dismissed, but two of her ten counts survived and will go to trial.
3:03 AM ∙ Dec 20, 202264,325Likes14,106Retweets
This is an impressive and encouraging development. Elections law is super strict, designed to test cases early, to keep the court system from becoming a weapon for defeated candidates’ sour grapes. Thus there is an unusually high threshold for plaintiffs to get past the dismissal stage. The normal lawsuit life-cycle looks like this:
(I) Complaint -> (II) Motion to Dismiss -> (III) Answer -> (IV) Discovery -> (V) Motion for Summary Judgment -> (VI) Trial.
Elections cases essentially combine the dismissal (Stage II) and summary judgment (Stage V) tests into Stage II.
Remember? Every single one of the Trump election challenges got torpedoed during Stage II, and were dismissed. Anybody who’s litigated one of these cases (I have) can tell you how hard it is to run the dismissal gauntlet. It’s HARD. And you have to litigate under unbelievable time pressure from hyper-short deadlines.
Yesterday, the judge preserved Kari’s two allegations: that ballot printers were intentionally tampered with, and that elections officials broke chain of custody rules for ballots, allowing illegal voting. Trials are usually expedited in elections cases, and here the judge ordered a two-day trial before January 2, 2023. That’s not a lot of time. And, two days of trial will be tight.
Kari’s lawyers won’t get any time off for the holidays.
The bottom line is that Kari Lake’s lawsuit has made it further than 99% of all elections cases, and has already contradicted critics, including many in the Republican establishment who loudly and publicly told Kari she should hang it up, she lost.
And, any trial is bad news for the incumbent, because if there is ANY real evidence, it will come out, go into the permanent record, and will have to be dealt with SOMEHOW.
So. This is great news!
🔥 The New York Times ran a non-paywalled story yesterday headlined, “Elizabeth Warren Prods Tesla About Elon Musk and Twitter.” The sub-headline explained “In a letter to board, the Democratic senator asks whether the carmaker’s investors have been harmed by the billionaire tech mogul’s time running the social network.”
Former native-American and US Senator Elizabeth Warren put on her war paint and headdress and sent a strongly-worded letter to Twitter’s board of directors, demanding information and answers, saying it looked to her like Musk has a conflict of interest between running the two companies (Tesla and Twitter), and demanding to speak with a manager.
Warren even bragged about her awesome letter on Twitter:
Elon Musk took over @Twitter, but he’s still the CEO of @Tesla. That raises legal concerns — is he creating conflicts of interest? Is he misappropriating company resources? Tesla is not Musk’s private plaything. I’ve got many questions for the Tesla Board. nytimes.comElizabeth Warren Prods Tesla About Elon Musk and TwitterIn a letter to board, the Democratic senator asks whether the carmaker’s investors have been harmed by the billionaire tech mogul’s tim…3:28 PM ∙ Dec 19, 202215,709Likes2,561Retweets
Elon has no one to blame but himself, since he started it by releasing the Twitter Files. That’s what you get when you embarrass democrats.
💉 Adam Exton, 35, the Director of Parliamentary Affairs at Health Canada, who oversaw the country’s Covid-19 response and vaccine rollout, passed away suddenly and unexpectedly on Friday, December 9th. The cause of death is … unknown.
Thankfully, Mr. Exton was double-vaccinated and boosted.
💉 Former Cincinnati Reds Pitcher Tom Browning, 62, who threw one of the 23 perfect games in MLB history, died suddenly and unexpectedly at home this week. He was found “unresponsive” on his couch by Boone County Sheriff’s Deputies, and was pronounced dead on the scene.
🔥 Dr. Michael Shellenberger posted the seventh installment of the Twitter Files yesterday. It was all about how the FBI and the larger intelligence community conducted a wide-ranging operation inside and outside Twitter to discredit the real facts about Hunter Biden’s laptop. It’s a clear picture of how the intelligence community manipulated Twitter management to cancel the embarrassing story and influence the U.S. election.
In January of 2020, some Twitter employees expressed concern over FBI Agent Elvis Chan’s intentions and the FBI’s social media dragnet, as seen in this email from Carlos Monje to Yoel Roth, disclosing a “sustained effort by the Intelligence Community to push us to share more information and change our API policies” to allow direct access into Twitter’s database:
“Elvis” again. Their good buddy.
In October 2020 — the month before the election — the Hunter Biden laptop story broke in the New York Post. Almost immediately, Twitter (and other social media companies) banned and locked down discussion about the story, and suspended the New York Post, even though it was a “mainstream” newspaper, lamebrainedly citing some rule about hacking.
Russia! The bogeyman!
In December 2020, Twitter’s former censorship head Yoel Roth explained in a sworn statement that for almost two years leading up to the leak, the FBI told him, over and over, to expect a Russian leak about Hunter Biden in October 2020:
During these weekly meetings [since 2018], the federal law enforcement agencies communicated that they expected “hack-and-leak operations” by state actors might occur in the period shortly before the 2020 presidential election, likely in October. I was told in these meetings that the intelligence community expected that individuals associated with political campaigns would be subject to hacking attacks and that material obtained through those hacking attacks would likely be disseminated over social media platforms, including Twitter… [and] that there were rumors that a hack-and-leak operation would involve Hunter Biden.
Facebook’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, made comments on a podcast suggesting he’d had similar conversations with the FBI.
In September 2020 — the month before the leak — Yoel Roth also participated in a swanky Aspen Institute “tabletop exercise” based on a potential “Hack-and-Dump” operation — relating to Hunter Biden! Coincidentally!
The Aspen exercise was organized and attended by people either in intelligence or formerly-in intelligence. The 4-fun-filled-days of “exercises” were designed to shape how media companies like Twitter would respond to a “national emergency” that was based on a
“disinformation attack” using “hacked materials.”
On October 14th, right after the New York Post published its Hunter Biden laptop story, and right before canceling the New York Post, Yoel Roth soberly admitted, “it isn’t clearly violative of our Hacked Materials Policy, nor is it clearly in violation of anything else,” but — tellingly — Roth added, “this feels a lot like a somewhat subtle leak operation.”
One of the FBI agents embedded at Twitter, was Twitter’s head lawyer Jim Baker, who previously worked for the FBI for 30 years, most recently as its Deputy General Counsel. Baker used his authority at Twitter to push for shutting down the Hunter Biden story:
Internal emails showed that Twitter executives were, in fact, misled by all this activity into falsely believing that the Hunter Biden story was a disinformation attack orchestrated by Russian hackers.
In one email dated in February, 2021, Jim Baker bragged that Twitter had collected $3.5 million dollars from the FBI since 2019 for “reimbursements for staff time.” In other words, it was the old carrot and stick again. The FBI was paying Twitter as well as pressuring it. Paying Twitter with our tax dollars. For safety.
One wonders, doesn’t one, how all these high tech companies that never made a profit have stayed afloat all this time. Maybe we should be looking hard at any company fitting that description. Who are these “investors?”
There were so many “former” FBI agents embedded at Twitter that they even had their own private internal chat channel and their own on-boarding procedures for new agents assigned to pretend to work at Twitter, sorry, I mean for new hires, of course.
It wasn’t just Twitter. Twitter may have been small potatoes, the tip of the iceberg. An independent researcher tweeted yesterday that he’d searched LinkedIn for profiles of people who worked at Facebook but used to work at the FBI, CIA, NSA, or other intelligence agencies. He found ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTEEN of them, all now at Facebook.
That dwarfs the crowd at Twitter, and there might be more: this is just based on what’s available from LinkedIn.
Guess which department at Facebook employs the most former-intelligence staff? That’s right, the so-called “content moderation” group.
The inescapable conclusion of what we’re seeing from the Twitter Files is that our country’s intelligence agencies, by and through the F.B.I., now control all the large social media outlets (except Twitter and TikTok), and are using them to manipulate American public opinion and change the outcome of domestic elections.
But for whom?
It would be an understatement to call all this an historic development. If Elon Musk hadn’t spent $44 BILLION DOLLARS to buy Twitter, nobody would have ever believed the extent to which the intelligence community has absorbed private social media platforms in this country and turned them against the people. It’s literally unbelievable.
Exposure will probably be fatal. The Constitution does not provide for any internal security service in the United States. The agencies are WAY off the reservation, well into criminal territory, no matter how clever their lawyers are. You want an insurrection? Just consider how deep the intelligence agencies have penetrated social media platforms and how the suppression of the Hunter story probably affected the election.
Of course, we still have the teensy-weensy little problem of “who” will charge and arrest these people, since they’re in control of the entire federal law enforcement apparatus. Don’t worry, there ARE answers. But let’s wait a little bit and see how things play out.
I am starting to wonder whether all this is really a coincidence, or if something bigger is afoot.
🔥 Coincidentally, more files relating to the Kennedy Assassination were disclosed over the weekend. CBS ran a story on the document dump headlined, “National Archives Releases 13,173 More JFK Assassination Files.” CBS said that a small number of documents will have to remain secret because they would probably put the CIA in a bad light:
With the latest release, the Archives said 97% of the roughly 5 million pages in its collection related to the assassination have been released to the public. But some experts said the government continues to redact or withhold important information that might cast the CIA or other agencies in a negative light.
Interestingly, the derogatory term “conspiracy theory” first entered common parlance as a descriptor for people believing the CIA was somehow involved in Kennedy’s assassination.
The new documents had some interesting material in them. Not every report was as boring as CBS’s. Newsweek, for example, ran a story on the new disclosures headlined, “New Documents Shed Light on CIA’s Connection to Lee Harvey Oswald.”
Oh. That old conspiracy theory.
One of the new documents related to a still-classified covert operation — still classified nearly 60 years later — that had been approved by senior CIA officials three months before Kennedy’s death, suggesting the agency employed Kennedy’s assassin Lee Harvey Oswald for intelligence purposes just weeks before the shooting.
In other words, Oswald worked for the CIA — AT LEAST up to three weeks before the killing.
The CIA has never acknowledged its link to Oswald before, not at the time or in all the decades after, not during democrat administrations or republican administrations. You would think they might’ve mentioned that tiny fact if they had nothing to hide. They might have useful intel on Oswald and his relationships in their CIA employee files, information that might’ve helped at the time.
Nor does anything justifying the newly-disclosed documents having been withheld from the public until now. The Archivist lamely explained it had been “accidentally” classified.
The new disclosures led Tucker to run a segment that flat out accuses the CIA of killing Kennedy.
1:13 AM ∙ Dec 16, 202227,314Likes10,348Retweets
JFK’s nephew, Robert Kennedy, appears to agree:
Robert F. Kennedy Jr @RobertKennedyJr
The most courageous newscast in 60 years. The CIA’s murder of my uncle was a successful coup d’état from which our democracy has never recovered. @TuckerCarlson youtube.comTucker Carlson: We were shocked to learn thisFox News host Tucker Carlson gives his take on a source saying the CIA was involved in JFK’s assassination on ‘Tucker Carlson Tonight.’…3:41 PM ∙ Dec 17, 202277,082Likes26,719Retweets
Does anyone besides me find it curious timing that these releases raising incriminating questions about the CIA landed at the same time as the Twitter Files release? Could we be witnessing a behind-the-scenes battle of the T-Rexes? White hats versus black hats?
Let me know what YOU think, in the comments.
Have a terrific Tuesday! I’ll see you back here tomorrow for even more.
C&C is moving the needle and changing minds. If you can, I could use your help getting the truth out and spreading optimism and hope: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/-learn-how-to-get-involved-
Twitter: @jchilders98
Truth Social: @jchilders98
MeWe: mewe.com/i/coffee_and_covid.
C&C Swag! www.shopcoffeeandcovid.com
Emailed Daily Newsletter: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
GOP to Take Down Jan. 6 Committee With Their Own Report" title="GOP to Take Down Jan. 6 Committee With Their Own Report" />
By Admin Dee on December 19, 2022
I hope, HOPE the Republicans TEAR the Democrats APART, along with their co-horts in the media!! Nancy Pelosi’s J6 committee isn’t even LEGAL, according to the House of Representatives website, but hey… since when do the democrats follow the rules?
The Jan. 6 Committee will be releasing at least part of its final report on Monday, including its executive summary and eight chapters. The whole thing is reportedly 1000 pages long.
The purpose of the partisan exercise was to do all they could to injure President Donald Trump so that might help them during the midterms. But the Republicans still won the House and Trump still declared that he was running in 2024. So they failed to achieve their main purpose. They will doubtless try to make a criminal referral on Trump and others and it’s going to be something to see on what evidence they try to hang it since they didn’t present any evidence that Trump was guilty of any crimes.
Americans rejected the partisan exercise, as we reported, with most failing to watch it and it not changing their minds about Jan. 6. The Committee had no one appointed by Republicans on it and didn’t allow any defense by Trump or any rebuttal exercise. All it had was people picked by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) including the two execrable Trump-hating Republicans, Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) and Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL). So anything it presented was fatally flawed from the start.
However, the Committee isn’t going to be alone in issuing a report. The Republicans are going to issue their report, from their committee, made up in part of the Republican appointees who Pelosi refused to accept, Rep. Jim Banks (R-IN) and Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH). They will rebut the Democratic report and focus on real points about the failures of security as opposed to the purely political effort to get Trump in which the Democrats are engaged. They’re calling out the “official” report for the Democratic propaganda it is.
The Republicans probed the Capitol Police and FBI’s intelligence gathering and dissemination, as well as the insufficient training and equipment given to law enforcement — including by interviewing Capitol Police officers.
By contrast, Banks claimed, the select committee’s plan to have Trump as the focal point of its report is “all about political payback.”
He said the GOP group will also “dive into legislative and policy changes that could be made by the next speaker.”
Axios reported on the Republican committee, implicitly deriding it, calling it a “shadow committee.” Well, if the supposed “official committee” doesn’t have true representation from the Republican Party on it, only pumping out the narrative that the Democrats wanted to push, and doesn’t allow any rebuttal evidence, then it’s not much of a real committee. So they can talk about the Republican committee, but it’s the Democratic committee that’s flawed.
read more:
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
By Ben Whedon, 12-19-22
An estimated 2.5 million migrants have been removed under the order since its implementation.
The Supreme Court on Monday delayed the termination of the Title 42 immigration rule that was set to expire this week.
Chief Justice John Roberts issued the temporary hold in response to an appeal from Republican-led states seeking to keep the order in place, according to NBC News. Roberts gave the Department of Homeland Security, which had sought to end the order until 5 p.m. on Tuesday to respond to the Republican appeal, per the New York Post.
An appeals court had previously rejected the bid from 19 Republican states to halt the order imposed by U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan in mid-November, paving the way for the order’s termination.
12-19-22
Watch the spectacle of the House January 6 “select committee”, consisting 100% of Trump enemies, not allowing defense witnesses and not providing due process, announcing its conclusions today, before the incoming Republican majority likely dissolves the flawed body. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi expelled the GOP committee members assigned by minority leader Kevin McCarthy
The Republicans, who had their own committee nominees rejected by Nancy Pelosi, will release their own opposition report.
NBC report
By Jeff Childers
12-19-22
Good morning, C&C, it’s Monday! As we head into last week to enjoy Christmas music, and get all your to-do’s done, your roundup includes: a supplemental FBI Files dump reveals the deep state’s narrative merry-go-round; the great consensus making machine; the Palm Beach Post gets hysterical over religious exemptions and you’ll never guess who they blame for it; Mitt Romney throws unjabbed military under the bus; and the Republicans come to a very interesting conclusion in their recent minority intelligence report.
🔥 Does the FBI even actually exist? I ask because corporate media doesn’t seem to know how to find FBI headquarter, say, to challenge the FBI about what’s been coming out of Twitter lately. Or maybe there’s another reason.
Meet powerful F.B.I. field agent Elvis Chan:
For context, over the last few years Agent Chan has been assigned to the Twitter project. He was recently deposed in the Missouri v. Biden case, and he’s been the subject of several of Matt Taibbi’s “Twitter Files” posts over the last couple weeks.
Agent Chan is the kind of person who lists his pronouns in his official government email signature. So. In this recently-disclosed internal Twitter email — from just last month! on a Sunday! — we see Agent Chan zealously targeting more Americans on Twitter over things they said:
Note that Chan only provided a list of accounts. He didn’t bother to say WHICH terms of service were violated. He didn’t say anybody broke the law. He didn’t even say WHICH tweets were problematic. Let Twitter figure it out!
Twitter got right back to Agent Chan before 10am on Tuesday morning, and even APOLOGIZED FOR THE DELAY. Sorry, boss! Shockingly, all the reported accounts were banned or suspended.
Haha, nothing to see here, Chan’s just like any other regular citizen reporting some tweets that probably violated Twitter’s terms of service, somehow, at some point. Probably.
Former Twitter censorship employee Patrick Conlon managed to scrape up violations against each and every account on Agent Chan’s list (except for Billy Baldwin). Conlon’s response to Chan appears below. Take note all the other FBI.gov email addresses that were carbon-copied on Conlon’s email to Chan:
“Hi Elvis.” They sure sound chummy, don’t they. It’s heartwarming when big business and government agencies have close relationships. There’s a word for that, I can’t remember it right now.
The kind of access Agent Chan enjoyed must be nice. Whenever I’ve tried to get customer service from one of the social media companies, all I get is, “We’re sorry. The overwhelming volume of reports at this time prevents us from making a personal reply to your concern. However, if we are able, we’ll review your submission as soon as possible. But probably not. Don’t hold your breath.”
Okay, I added the last two sentences. But that’s the clear message, right?
Matt Taibbi published a “supplement” to his FBI Files yesterday. Matt reported on a fascinating line of communication between Agent Chan and Twitter from back in July of 2020. Apparently the FBI had asked Twitter for a report about “malicious actors” on Twitter spreading election disinformation. Twitter had reported good news — they didn’t find any significant evidence of foreign interference.
But the FBI wasn’t happy with that answer. Not at all. So they wrote back, making it 100% clear that Twitter had better come up with some interference, and quick, and as proof that Twitter had got it wrong, cited several think-tank and corporate media articles claiming there WAS foreign interference on Twitter.
In his strongly-worded letter demanding written responses to a series of sharp questions, Chan underscored the seriousness of the issue. “There was quite a bit of discussion within the USIC to get clarifications from your company,” Agent Chan wrote. “USIC” referred to the “United States Intelligence Community.” Get it? Not just the FBI. The other agencies, like the CIA, NSA, and DOD, agencies legally prohibited from spying on Americans.
Chan was just trying to “help.”
It’s becoming abundantly clear that we have a lawless government whose representatives and courts make rules, like prohibiting gain-of-function research or spying on Americans, and then the deep-state agencies promptly stitch up some loopholes and clever techniques to evade those very same rules, so they can do whatever the hell they damn well please.
So there’s THAT. But what I wanted to focus on for today’s post is how the deep state manufactures “consensus.” I’ve it over and over, during the pandemic and in many January 6th demand letters.
Let’s look at the references Agent Chan used to support his letter criticizing Twitter for not finding any foreign interference in the elections.
See? It wasn’t just the FBI’s feverish imagination. The Oxford Institute, the Foreign Policy Research Institute, the Mercator Institute for China Studies, and the Wall Street Journal all agree. Here’s the thing: all those articles were themselves based on things anonymous INTELLIGENCE AGENTS leaked, asserting foreign interference on social media. Then, intelligence agents like Agent Chan can turn right around and deploy those same articles as “evidence,” to support the original narrative.
Round and round we go.
It’s a nifty trick. It works the same way in “science.” The NIH or CDC needs evidence to support some guidance they want to issue, like masking. So they fund some studies intended to show masks work. The pay-for-play scientists publish cartoonish, anti-scientific clown studies “proving” cotton masks can somehow magically filter nanoscale virus particles. Then the NIH and CDC cite those same studies — the same ones they procured — to “recommend” unconstitutional mask mandates, or even outright order mandates, like for air travel and on cruise ships.
Ditto vaccines.
In the January 6th Congressional investigations, FBI agents would anonymously give corporate media “leaks” that a certain person was involved in “organizing” the attack on the Capitol. Then the January 6th Commission would send out subpoena letters to those same hapless individuals for documents and depositions, citing the intelligence-community-manufactured corporate media articles as the “probable cause” for the subpoenas. Ta-da.
It’s a closed loop.
Back to our story. Completely unsurprisingly, in the face of Agent Chan’s strongly-worded letter, Twitter’s former censorship head Yoel Roth orchestrated a complete about-face, and let the “team” know that “we’ve been clear that official state propaganda is DEFINITELY A THING ON TWITTER.” He also referred, not just to his agency, the FBI, but to the “IC” — the “Intelligence Community.”
In other words, Roth got the message.
And that’s how it works! On Friday, at the speed of science, the FBI publicly responded to Taibbi’s “supplemental” post, brusquely explaining that it “regularly engages with private sector entities” and whatever those private section entities do with that information is completely “independent” from the FBI’s strong-arming, how dare you.
But Taibbi clapped back, saying there’s zero evidence in the Twitter Files of the FBI “helpfully” letting Twitter know about foreign spies or anything like that. Instead, the FBI’s interest was almost all targeted at ordinary Americans’ political speech.
13.That may be true, but we haven’t seen that in the documents to date. Instead, we’ve mostly seen requests for moderation involving low-follower accounts belonging to ordinary Americans – and Billy Baldwin.11:03 PM ∙ Dec 18, 202217,266Likes2,899Retweets
I don’t know about you, but I feel SO SAFE, what with the FBI monitoring Americans’ tweets and posts to make sure we don’t get anything wrong. Who cares if they’re ignoring real crimes and real foreign spies and lying about it? It’s critical to correct wrongthink.
But the real problem isn’t the FBI, or even the deep state. Those are symptoms. The real problem is that a lot of our fellow Americans think all this is just dandy.
💉 Which brings us to Florida’s Palm Beach Post’s alarming article this weekend, headlined “Holy hell: The dangers in rising religious exemptions to school vaccinations in Florida.”
The Palm Beach Post has its undergarments twisted because Florida’s school vaccination rates are, apparently, down some. The article never says how MUCH, just notes that rates are “at a ten-year low.” (That means the rate was even lower ten years ago, right? So what’s the crisis? Anyway.)
The Post wasn’t really worried about the vaccination rate. It’s worried about the rate of RELIGIOUS EXEMPTIONS to vaccination. That terrifying figure has increased slightly from 0.3% ten years ago, to 3.2% last year. Even worse, in the Post’s hysterical view, is that 8.2% of Florida’s KINDERGARTNERS have obtained exemptions.
A handful of religious kindergartners apparently justified the breathless, irreligious epithet in the headline.
To give its readers an idea of the scale of this devastating problem, the Post disclosed that there are 7,913 children — total — with religious exemptions in Florida this year. My goodness. The Post’s “column” — not an op-ed — is openly suspicious about the parents’ honesty, thinking they are probably just crypto-anti-vaxxers:
Despite the leaders of the world’s religions urging people to get vaccinated from the contagious virus, a highly organized opposition spread all sorts of disinformation about the effectiveness and dangers of the vaccine, while also claiming that it violated their nebulous, personal religious beliefs.
And their delusions and dubious claims were bolstered by many of the state’s elected officials who saw this as an organizing opportunity for political support. This nurturing of anti-vaccination sentiment in Florida has made the state an outlier in sound medical policy.
Gosh. It’s 1,000 worse than the horrors of climate change! And who should we blame for this out-of-control religiosity in Florida? Why, murderous Governor DeSantis and his quack Surgeon General, Dr. Joe Ladapo, of course:
Gov. Ron DeSantis took a detour from advocating consensus science when he handpicked Dr. Joseph Ladapo as Florida’s surgeon general last year. Ladapo is a vaccine skeptic who had been part of a group of doctors whose leader was arrested and imprisoned for storming the U.S. Capitol to stop the certification of the last presidential election.
Ladapo voiced the anti-mask, anti-vax sentiments that became a foundational political tool in DeSantis’ “free state of Florida” posturing.
As part of this, DeSantis began calling vaccines “jabs” — as if the slight temporary arm pain was more important to consider than the life-saving immunity. And he refused to talk about his own vaccination status… A byproduct of this suppression of vaccine advocacy and outright cheerleading against vaccinations has been unnecessary deaths.
(On an aside, the “leader” who the Palm Beach Post said “stormed the U.S. Capitol to stop the certification,” was Dr. Simone Gold, whose sentencing documents described her peacefully walking into the Rotunda, making a short speech about vaccines, and walking out. But I’m just nitpicking.)
There’s lots more; the column was really the Post’s response to Governor DeSantis’ request to convene a Grand Jury. But that’s not what I’m interested in this morning. I’m interested in the column’s COMMENTS.
I had to create an account with the Palm Beach Post to see them. You’re welcome. Here are the first three:
And the fourth comment, which makes today’s point perfectly:
Eugene succinctly stated the problem: “Public health trumps any individual religious belief.” We can speculate about the reasons why, but a good third of the country would happily to hit the eject button on the Constitution’s protection of individual rights, to save the country from a mild virus. That’s even though we’ve somehow managed to survive the last 230 years with those individual rights, and even though we are — allegedly — enjoying the fruits of miraculous developments in medical science.
And this is in Florida!
Whenever folks want to dig down too deeply into the covid conspiracy barrel, I always point back to people like Eugene. It might be that Bill Gates, George Soros, and the World Economic Forum brewed up the virus to stop Trump and escalate Agenda 2030, who knows. But it would never work without Team Lockdown, which unfortunately includes a significant number of Americans.
That’s why the solution has to be: local, local, local. The good news is, local is where we have the most power to create change.
💉 On Thursday, four Republican Senators voted with democrats against an amendment to Defense Authorization Bill that would have allowed military service members discharged for declining the jabs to be reinstated: Romney (UT), Collins (ME), Rounds (SD), and Cassidy (LA).
So.
The good news is: every other Republican senator supported the amendment.
🔥 Last week, Republicans on the House’s Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence released their fascinating minority report which, among other things, concluded not only that covid was released from the Wuhan lab, but also that it may have been a Chinese MILITARY BIOWEAPON:
The notion that covid was not really a gain-of-function experiment to help protect people from pandemics, but might have actually been a weapon in itself, has been swirling around for a while. But this is the first time I’ve seen an official government endorsement of what I believe to be a fact.
Very soon now, the Republicans will be issuing majority reports. The pendulum is swinging.
Have a marvelous Monday, and I’ll see you back here tomorrow for more Coffee & Covid.
C&C is moving the needle, we’re changing hearts and minds. If you’d like to pitch in, I could use your help getting the truth out and spreading optimism and hope: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/-learn-how-to-get-involved-
Twitter: @jchilders98
Truth Social: @jchilders98
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The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
A U.S. Navy destroyer stops four Mexicans in a small boat rowing towards Texas.
The captain gets on the megaphone and shouts, “Ahoy, small craft. Where are you headed?”
One of the Mexicans puts down his oar, stands up, and shouts, “Gringo, we are invading the United States of America to reclaim the territory taken by the USA during the War of 1812”
The entire crew on the destroyer doubles over in laughter. The captain finally catches his breath, gets back on the megaphone, and asks, ” Just the four of you?”
The same Mexican stands up again and shouts, “No Señor, we are the last four. Thanks to your President Biden… the other 21 million are already there.
Journalists Call For Some Sort Of Constitutional Amendment That Would Protect Free Speech
Get Woke this Christmas! In years past we could only guess who the greatest Social Justice Warrior in the house was. Now, with this fun new board game it is easy to spot who’s a fascist, who believes in only two genders and most importantly who’s racist. This year turn your peaceful Christmas into a hilarious riot! Get yours here*
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
From Florida Citizens Alliance
Response requested.
In the spirit of the holiday season, we will not hold our regularly scheduled monthly Wednesday evening meeting on Wednesday, December 22nd. In lieu of the meeting, we are asking that you will read through the following email and consider being a social studies textbook reviewer.
The Department of Education will be releasing for public review its short list of their Social Studies bid list from national publishers. The list with 123 textbooks is available below but the books will not be available electronically until Jan 6 for 30 days. We will be working with several organizations that will take part of the list and assign to volunteers. We will also take a part of the list and provide a template to fill out regarding the book you get assigned.
We will likely need 40-50 volunteers. We will be holding a Zoom orientation/training session on January 2nd at 8 pm.
Our Project Leader will be Denise Nystrom, [email protected].
Our intent is to train you on the template and the following focus areas:
1. Does the content embrace the new Civics Standards (https://www.fldoe.org/core/fileparse.php/18736/urlt/CivicsGovernment.pdf
2. No CRT–here is a resource: Rufo Critical Race Theory https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/critical-race-theory-fight/
3. No SEL — here is a resource: ‘Social-Emotional Learning’ Now a Vehicle for Critical Race Theory https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2021/03/09/social-emotional-learning-now-a-vehicle-for-critical-race-theory/
4) No Common Core (some publishers are still claiming to be CC compliant)
5) Investigate the publisher (do they have stated woke policies on their website)
6) Investigate the Author(s) – do they embrace “wokism”
Here is the link to the 123 books on the short bid list but the books will not be available until Jan 6
2022-2023 Social Studies Textbook Bids Short Report
Please send an email volunteering to participate to [email protected].
Once again, we will not be holding our December leadership team meeting on Wednesday, 12/22; our meeting schedule will resume in January 2023.
Thank you for all you do to support FLCA and Florida’s children. Your input and actions make a difference.
Wishing you all a very happy and healthy holiday season.
Dr. Evelyn Rossetti-Ryan
Executive Director, Florida Citizens Alliance
From FL Attorney-General
TALLAHASSEE, Fla.—Attorney General Ashley Moody is issuing a Consumer Alert highlighting schemes associated with the holiday season. The National Retail Federation predicts that overall spending during the holidays is expected to total a record-breaking $950 million. Schemers know spending increases during the holidays and will craft ways to target consumers.
Attorney General Ashley Moody said, “It’s a busy time of year for shoppers, retailers and delivery companies as millions of gifts are sold, shipped and delivered. It’s also a busy season for scammers concocting schemes to exploit the holiday demand. Today, I am releasing the 12 Schemes of Christmas Consumer Alert to help Floridians identity and avoid scams they could encounter during this busy holiday shopping season.”
Attorney General Moody lists 12 schemes Floridians should be wary of during the holiday season and beyond:
For more safe shopping tips, view Attorney General Moody’s free 2022 Holiday Consumer Protection Guide. The guide also provides tips on holiday giving, as well as a list of recalled items.
To access the guide, click here.
To report a holiday scheme, contact the Florida Attorney General’s Office at 1(866) 9NO-SCAM or file a complaint online at MyFloridaLegal.com.
# # #
The Florida Attorney General’s Consumer Protection Division issues Consumer Alerts to inform Floridians of emerging scams, new methods used to commit fraud, increased reports of common scams, or any other deceptive practice. Consumer Alerts are designed to notify Floridians about scams and available refunds in an effort to prevent financial losses or other harm caused by deceptive practices. Anyone encountering a scam should report the incident to the Florida Attorney General’s Office by calling 1(866) 9NO-SCAM or visiting MyFloridaLegal.com. To view recent Consumer Alerts and for other information about avoiding scams, visit MyFloridaLegal.com/ConsumerAlert.
Subscribe to Week In ReviewJump To: Year 2022 2021 2020 2019
This week, we warned Floridians about the 12 Schemes of Christmas. It’s a busy time of year for shoppers, retailers and delivery companies as millions of gifts are sold, shipped and delivered. It’s also a busy season … [Read Briefing]
This week, we announced the launch of a massive, statewide child safety initiative. On average, more than 800,000 children go missing nationwide every year—with FDLE reporting more than 25,000 incidents of missing … [Read Briefing]
This week, I added an urgent alert to our One Pill Can Kill webpage. For years, we have warned about the prevalence of fentanyl in the nation’s illicit drug supply. New statistics now show that the proliferation of … [Read Briefing]
It is International Fraud Awareness Week, and I am encouraging Floridians to stay up to date on the latest scams and take preventative measures to avoid falling victim. In 2021, the Federal Trade Commission reported … [Read Briefing]
This week, our nation will celebrate Veterans Day. As we recognize this important occasion, please join me in thanking the valiant men and women who served in the U.S. armed forces, including the more than 1.5 million … [Read Briefing]
This week, Florida TaxWatch named the Florida Attorney General’s Office the State Agency of the Year as part of the organization’s Productivity Awards program. I proudly accepted this prestigious recognition on behalf … [Read Briefing]
As Halloween approaches, I am warning parents about the dangers posed by rainbow fentanyl. This week, I visited the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office and met with law enforcement and parents who lost children to this … [Read Briefing]
This week, we launched the virtual 2022 Human Trafficking Summit. Our annual summit provides participants with hours of educational content and presentations by experts about the latest in the fight to end human … [Read Briefing]
Just a few weeks ago, Hurricane Ian ripped through our state destroying homes, critical infrastructure and even claiming lives. As the rebuild efforts continue, I want to remind Floridians that our Price Gouging Hotline … [Read Briefing]
This week, I sent Consumer Protection investigators to Lee County to help those who may be encountering recovery-related scams or price gouging in the wake of Hurricane Ian. Ian destroyed homes and displaced thousands … [Read Briefing]
By Jeff Childers
12-17-22
Good morning, C&C Army, and welcome to the weekend edition. We’re a week away from the big day, so get your orders in. Amazon Prime isn’t reliably overnighting lately, for some reason that is probably related to supply chains, diesel, or something else Joe Biden “fixed.”
The weekend roundup includes: Trump’s trump cards raised $4.5M in one day and I eat a crow sandwich; I debunk a defamatory lie against Governor DeSantis and explain Florida’s goofy quarantine law; the Department of Defense’s new alien agency holds a press conference to announce nothing; Twitter releases the FBI Files further staining that already-tarnished agency; Fed raises rates again; Goldman announces layoffs and loan closures; trial video teaches us more about how “experts” work; and a local doctor teaches the Orange County Commission about differential jab injuries.
🔥 Yesterday I posted bemusedly about President Trump’s Major Announcement, suggesting it had misfired. I had the wrong take. He wound up selling out in less than 24 hours. People bought 45,000 of his NFT trading cards, generating $4.5 million in revenue.
Say what you want about the announcement, Trump just raised about five million bucks in one day. Since the buyers got something of “value,” the proceeds don’t count as “campaign donations,” and Trump isn’t limited by campaign finance rules. It’s brilliant, perfectly legal, and as far as I know, it’s never been done before.¹
Another Trump innovation. I should’ve considered maybe he knew what he was doing. Sorry for the hot take; lesson learned.
For many career conservative pundits, like Ben Shapiro, Trump’s major announcement completely cratered, because it seemed grubby and undignified. Well, it seemed that way to BEN. But not to more than 45,000 citizens who snapped up the virtual trading cards, gaining colorful images of Trump in spandex and accessing an extremely helpful feature of campaign finance law.
It was an out-of-the park home run that nobody thought of except Trump. This is a terrific example of Trump’s strength. This is why, despite everything, warts and all, he remains a viable candidate for 2024. He’s a fabulously creative out-of-the-box thinker, a genius in his own way, with a sense of humor. And he has an unparalleled connection with ordinary Americans.
I’m not taking sides. But it is something to think about.
🔥 I was asked by several C&C’ers in the comments yesterday about SB 2006. Those questions joined another half dozen similar ones from over the last two weeks. It appears the psyops machine is cranking against Governor DeSantis again.
Here’s the lie: When Governor DeSantis signed SB2006, containing the vaccine passport ban, he secretly snuck in a devious involuntary quarantine provision, allowing the state to lock up and force-vaccinate anybody deemed a “danger to the public.”
It’s amazing how persistent this lie has been. It must be working, because they’ve been peddling it for over a year.
Every good lie has an element of truth. In this case, the truth is the 42-page blockbuster SB2006 did contain the involuntary quarantine language. Here it is:
Okay, that’s outrageously super gross. You cannot imagine how many questions I got about that language back at the time the bill was being voted on. But just hang on for a second. Let’s look at the next part of the bill, just below the quarantine law, the part adding the ban on vaccine passports:
There’s a critical difference between the two parts. Do you see it? The section on quarantines isn’t underlined. The section on passports IS underlined.
Underlined text is what the bill added to the statute. Regular, non-underlined text is pre-existing statute. The quarantine provision was already a law in Florida when DeSantis became governor. You with me so far? DESANTIS DIDN’T SIGN THE QUARANTINE PROVISION INTO LAW. It was ALREADY law in Florida. It just happened to be included the bill because of how bills are drafted.
Some conservatives understand this, but still argue that DeSantis should have removed the quarantine law when he had the chance, in the same bill, SB2006. After all, they can just as easily remove stuff as add it. Removals in bills are shown using strikethrough, like this:
All they would have had to do was strike through the quarantine paragraph. But here’s the thing: Governor DeSantis doesn’t draft bills. He’s the governor. He only gets to sign or veto bills. The LEGISLATURE drafts the bills. And even that is not a straight line; they have to negotiate with each other to agree on bill language, to get the votes needed to pass the bill.
SB2006 was a blockbuster 42-page monster with TONS of good stuff in it including government mask mandate bans, requirements to re-open schools, limitations on local emergency orders (which ended local mask mandates and lockdowns), and, as mentioned, vaccine passport bans.
It was a good bill, the first of its kind in the entire country.
All DeSantis could do was sign the bill or veto it. He signed. Of course he did. He did the right thing. If he’d vetoed SB2006, the quarantine law would have remained in place anyway. At the time, I publicly argued with a clutch of hardcore medical-freedom conservatives who DID want the Governor to VETO the bill, BECAUSE it didn’t remove the quarantine provision, even though that wouldn’t have resolved anything, but they felt it would “send a message” to the Legislature.
Sending that “message” would have hurt millions of Floridians suffering under oppressive local democrat governments — especially kids — and so I argued for DeSantis to SIGN the bill. It wasn’t a perfect bill. There’s no such thing. SB2006 was a very, very, very good bill. It was the best bill anyone passed anywhere in the country.
Normally after I get this far in the explanation, conservatives separate into two camps: the larger group of people who understand the reality that DeSantis had nothing whatsoever to do with the quarantine law, and another, smaller group that I just can’t figure out — are they lefty moles or radical libertarians? — who will never, ever forgive the Governor for not vetoing SB2006.
The left has been pushing this story to hurt the Governor.
Let’s talk about Florida’s goofy quarantine law.
🔥 Florida’s quarantine law is arguably as bad as the one Kathy Hochul tried to setup in New York. My good friend and heroic small-firm lawyer Bobbie Ann Cox — who’s way more courageous than I was, because she lives and works in NEW YORK — single-handedly defeated that odious and over-reaching regulation in New York State court.
Bobbie has explained to me that New York’s STATUTORY quarantine law includes due process protections. This is NOT the same one Hochul tried to pass; Hochul wanted to remove all due process and streamline mass quarantines. Because it includes due process, New York’s original statutory law is probably a template for what Florida’s law SHOULD look like.
Florida’s quarantine law gives the “State Health Officer” the power to do various things in the face of a public health emergency. Once the state declares an emergency, the health officer can order an “individual” to be examined, tested, isolated or quarantined “for communicable diseases that have significant morbidity or mortality and present a severe danger to public health.”
The quarantine law includes religious and conscience exemptions for everything except isolation and quarantine. Prior to this year’s legislative session, the statute allowed the state health officer to “vaccinate” infected Floridians. The legislature fixed that part.
The big problem is, Florida’s quarantine law includes ZERO due process. Due process is a person’s ability to challenge a state official’s decision and have it reviewed by a court.
So far, so awful. It’s a rubbish law, and it needs to be significantly revised.
It is also completely unconstitutional, and should be thrown out the first time anyone challenges it. Here’s why.
🔥 I found the quarantine statute before anybody. I’m not exaggerating or bragging. I found it during my research in April 2020, when I was gearing up to fight the first county-wide mask mandate in Florida. I worried it was going to be a problem, and I thought about fighting it on the threshold grounds that covid was not a disease with “significant morbidity or mortality” nor did it “present a severe danger to public health.”
In my research, I learned that Florida’s quarantine law had been first passed in the early 2000’s after the Anthrax scares. I also found it had never ever been used, not one single time. There was zero case law. No court had ever had a chance to rule on it. I worried what the courts might do.
But not long after that, I discovered the key to beating the mask mandate in Florida: Article 23 of the Florida Constitution, the fundamental right to privacy, which includes a right to bodily autonomy. The Right to Privacy would also defeat this odious quarantine law, at least for covid. So I started legally disassembling mask mandates, keeping the Right to Privacy in my back pocket if I ever needed it against quarantines or forced vaccinations.
Part of my job as a lawyer is to fairly and accurately predict my opponents’ arguments. Typhoid Mary is the best argument FOR a state quarantine power. Typhoid Mary is a person with an asymptomatic communicable disease who defies multiple court orders to stop working in restaurant kitchens. You might disagree on libertarian grounds, but there IS a fair argument that Typhoid Mary might have to be restrained by the state’s police power — after everything else fails.
If you allow that SOME quarantine power is a legitimate use of state police power, the question becomes how strictly it should be limited. The Florida Constitution says it has to be VERY strictly limited, and it MUST provide due process. The current statute fails on both counts.
I would file a lawsuit in a New York minute if I could. But the law has never been used. Nobody has standing to challenge it yet. The courts can’t fix it, not yet. So at this point, all of us — including the Governor — depend on the Legislature to fix it, and the truth is, it hasn’t been high on their list of priorities. It’d be great if they could look into this in the next legislative session.
Maybe one of our Florida lawmaker readers could advance this extremely popular issue. Just saying. I’d give it lots of great attention in Coffee & Covid.
The bottom line is: claiming Governor DeSantis had anything to do with this law is just a lefty psyop smear. He didn’t have anything to do with it.
👽 I breathed a sigh of relief yesterday when the Washington Post ran a reassuring story headlined, “No Alien Life Discovered on Earth, Pentagon Says, but Search Deepens.” They obviously haven’t looked in Adam Schiff’s office yet. But I digress.
The news is there isn’t any news — obviously, since the headline was NO aliens have been discovered — but there were some interesting tidbits. Since the last time I reported on this story, the Department of Defense has created a new office to study UFO’s — the “Anomaly Resolution Office.” Officials at the new ARO held a news conference yesterday to announce … nothing.
Another peanut of interest was the deployment of the newly-minted term “trans-medium object,” which refers to craft that can travel seamlessly between water and air. Not that they’ve found any, but apparently they’re becoming suspicious that aliens might be hiding out in Earth’s vast oceans, which would be a perfect place for our extraterrestrial friends, since sailors have been claiming to see weird stuff for so long nobody believes them anymore.
If they want to find aliens, they might also have a look in Mark Zuckerberg’s apartment, the Pelosi’s San Francisco estate, and down at the U.S.’s southern border. Just saying.
🔥 Matt Taibbi released the next segment of the Twitter Files yesterday, which I’ll call The FBI Files. They show an extended and extensive pattern of regular and routine communication between Twitter employees and as many as 80 FBI agents, concerning tweets that were almost all either political or covid-related speech.
Before I start beating up the FBI again, for the record, I’ll allow that there are plenty of ‘good,’ law-abiding FBI agents who are suffering from the black eye earned by a lot of other lawless, politically-motivated activists in the disgraced law-enforcement agency. The problem is, there are a LOT of agents in that second group. Too many.
Taibbi neatly summarized the problem in this tweet:
Instead of chasing child sex predators or terrorists, the FBI has agents — lots of them — analyzing and mass-flagging social media posts. Not as part of any criminal investigation, but as a permanent, end-in-itself surveillance operation. People should not be okay with this.10:22 PM ∙ Dec 16, 2022128,605Likes37,613Retweets
As Taibbi said, instead of chasing criminals on Twitter, or anywhere else, a vast army of law-enforcement agents at the FBI were spending their time monitoring American’s political speech and telling Twitter who to censor.
I’m sure that lefty defenders will point out the majority of communications from FBI agents to Twitter were framed as “helpful” suggestions that a particular tweet “violated Twitter’s terms of service.” They’ll argue that FBI agents weren’t censoring people, they were just filing reports about potential TOS violations, and Twitter — a private company — took appropriate action. So it’s all okay.
False. The civil rights violation occurred the instant the FBI pressed send on any email reporting a Twitter user for violating Twitter’s TOS. Government officials have no business reporting Americans to anyone for speech-related violations. Unlike FBI agents, ordinary Americans had no access to Twitter employees to report violations of terms of service.
And that’s even before we get to the question of whether the ‘reports’ were merely a pretext, and were not actually suggestions at all, but were actually explicit directions from the FBI to censor Americans, directions dolled up in drag to look like ‘reports,’ reports that Twitter surely understood and cooperated with.
The FBI’s organized, abundantly-staffed covid censorship was bad enough, given that the government was the sole buyer of covid shots and was under intense political pressure to make its misbegotten vaccination scheme look like a success. But the political censorship was even worse.
Some examples of FBI-targeted tweets cited by Taibbi included jokes about the elections or about the former vice president. Someday I hope the FBI will have to explain how a joke about Biden’s hair sniffing could possibly be ‘dangerous misinformation.’
A couple dots to connect: First, this is the just tip of the titanic censorship iceberg. We’re only glimpsing a tiny part of what was happening inside Twitter. We can’t see all the phone calls, personal text messages, Signal chats, direct messages outside Twitter, and the myriad other ways FBI agents were surely communicating with Twitter’s employees.
And, how about Facebook, Instagram, and the others? How many more agents were assigned to those social media platforms?
Now connect Biden’s law-enforcement army with the Administration’s trillion-dollar media bribery scheme, where HHS paid corporate media, celebrities, and social media influencers to push its poisonous medicines. Now we can begin to see the outlines of a vast pincer movement, with historical bribes on one side and unparalleled threats on the other.
It’s been carrots and sticks all the way down. Every bit of it was illegal as Hades. You want to talk about domestic terrorism? I’ll see your bet, and raise you “GOVERNMENT-SPONSORED domestic terrorism.”
Imagine a plucky young cadet who finally landed that plum job at the Federal Bureau of Investigation. They hit the big time, proudly texting their parents and friends about their accomplishment. They’re excited, raring to go, ready to bring down the next Al Capone. Imagine how they must have felt after getting their first assignment: “you’re reading twitter all day to find misinformation about vaccines and the election.”
In my mind’s eye, the naive young FBI agent eagerly asks, “what crimes are we looking for?” Her supervisor answers brusquely, “shut up and surf the internet. Your quota is 300 tweets a day.”
As it turned out, and as our plucky young cadet learned the hard way, it wasn’t Al Qaeda they were after. It wasn’t Al Capone. It wasn’t even Al Gore. It was Al Smith of Two Eggs, Florida, with 32 Twitter followers, mostly close relations, who’d tweeted that he would bet a 12-pack of Natural Light the election was stolen, and he wouldn’t jab his neighbor’s pig, either.
Thank goodness for the FBI.
🔥 The Fed raised interest rates again, this time by +0.50%, which was lower than the expected +0.75%. That said, the Federal Reserve has raised interest rates more steeply this cycle than it ever has before in history:
Economists predict the Fed will raise rates to 4.5% by March, which will also make this the highest rate cycle in history, as well as the steepest.
I’ve often mused that the Carter Stagflation era is looking like a best-case scenario. But I’ve seen an alternative take, which is that the Fed’s quick moves — admittedly painful in the short term — will get us over the recession faster.
That take has merit. So, this could actually be good news.
🔥 Thanks, Joe Biden! Newsmax ran a story yesterday headlined, “Goldman Sachs to Lay Off up to 4,000,” which represents about 8% of the financial powerhouse’s global workforce.
The firm also announced it plans to stop funding unsecured consumer loans.
It might not be as dire as it sounds. According to CNBC, Goldman Sachs usually trims about 1% to 5% of headcount each year, targeting underperforming staff. The firm had paused annual reductions during the pandemic, so the current cuts may just represent a catchup.
Still, the news doesn’t suggest Goldman exactly has a bright outlook on the economy, does it?
Where are my Biden “I did that!” stickers?
🔥 In this unintentionally hilarious video, one of the five members of the “independent” vaccine Data Safety Monitoring Board admitted under oath she’s been paid by Pfizer for years, but don’t worry, the money didn’t affect her professional judgment about the safety of the jabs at all:
Brook Jackson 💜 @IamBrookJackson
6:57 AM ∙ Dec 17, 20223,996Likes2,177Retweets
“Just trust me, all that money hasn’t affected my judgment at all.” Thanks experts! You want more evidence that ‘experts’ are just white coated pretenders grubbing for bucks? There you go.
This clip appears to be from Aaron Siri’s January trial to force the FDA to turn over the Pfizer clinical documents in fewer than 75 years. The Court ruled against the FDA. After watching that clip, I can see why.
It’s all trickling out.
🔥 Re-joining twitter yesterday were the following great Americans: Steve Kirsch, James O’Keefe, Mike Lindell, Emerald Robinson, Daniel Horowitz, and Stew Peters.
Thanks Elon! You don’t have to trust the prolific billionaire to appreciate what he’s up to at the moment.
A personal request in case Mr. Musk is a C&C reader: next, please bring back another one of favorites, Texas Lindsay!
🔥 Two weeks ago, Dr. Kevin Stillwagon updated Orange County, Florida’s Board of County Commissioners about why some people have adverse reactions to the jabs and others don’t.
The word is getting out.
Give that video a like.
Have a wonderful weekend! Enjoy this cold snap and another hot beverage. I’ll see you back here on Monday to kick off the pre-Christmas week the right way.
C&C is moving the needle and changing minds. If you can, I could use your help getting the truth out and spreading optimism and hope: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/-learn-how-to-get-involved-
Twitter: @jchilders98
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1
It’s not clear how Trump is connected with the company that sold the cards, but it’s none of our business anyway.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
By Joseph Farah, WND News Center, December 13, 2022 at 7:33pm
A storm is coming to our southern border.
It’s not a hurricane that is about to hit. It’s a man-made disaster.
When it arrives it will become what future American generations will never forget, said Todd Bensman, a 10-year veteran intelligence analyst for the Texas Department of Public Safety’s Intelligence and Counterterrorism Division and author of “Overrun: How Joe Biden Unleashed the Greatest Border Crisis in U.S. History.”
“Every record in the annals of mass migration lay shattered after nearly two years of President Joe Biden’s negligent stewardship of the American southern border,” he writes. “Yet unimaginably, in about a week’s time, it’s going to get catastrophically worse. Total known illegal border crossings stand at a record-breaking 4.4 million since President Joe Biden’s inauguration with another 1.5 million estimated ‘got-aways’ believed to have slipped into the country undetected.”
What could make it worse?
The scheduled Dec. 21 lifting of “Title 42.”
That will make it immeasurably worse, Bensman warns. It could be apocalyptic.
“Up for court-ordered demolition later this month, Title 42 is the pandemic-control statute that, since March 2020, has allowed U.S. Border Patrol to quickly expel most crossers back to Mexico and, more importantly in doing so, deny them access to a highly defraud-able asylum system,” Bensman says.
Former President Donald Trump used Title 42 to expel and deny asylum abuse to nearly 90% of all apprehended illegal entrants. And denied access to the asylum ruse most naturally stayed home.
“But that all changed on Inauguration Day 2021, when Biden opened huge Title 42 exemptions for immigrant families, solo teenagers and pregnant women,” Bensman said. “This immediately reduced total expulsions to about 60 percent of all apprehended entrants. … Once this last Title 42 remnant is gone, nothing will stand between a vast and desperate global population and the irresistible pull of the U.S. asylum system. … Today’s historic, crushing, border-collapsing 200,000 a month would spike to 340,000 a month, or potentially 4.3 million a year if that level is sustained.”
The number of crossings could reach as high as 18,000 a day, 540,000 a month, 6.4 million a year, those intelligence estimates say. That would equal nearly 50% of the total known illegal population in American today!
Dead bodies lie in the wake of such a flood. The border is also the gateway for illegal drugs – including deadly fentanyl, which is already killing 100,000 Americans annually.
Can you imagine the unfunded burdens that grow heavier by the day, week, month and year on health care systems required to treat the uninsured, on municipal public assistance budgets and school budgets?
Approximately 16,000 migrants crossed the southern border in the last 48 hours. It’s already begun. But we haven’t seen anything yet until Title 42 ends – just four days before Christmas. In El Paso, Texas, over the weekend, 2,460 migrants crossed every day
The thousands of migrants who streamed into the city over the weekend overwhelmed Border Patrol forces, as well as local shelters. Images emerged of a caravan of approximately 1,000 asylum-seekers crossing the Rio Grande into El Paso overnight on Sunday. It is possibly the largest-ever single-crossing group.
Republicans are critical of Joe Biden and his secretary of homeland security, Alejandro Mayorkas. Rep. Andy Biggs of Arizona and other Republican lawmakers held a press conference Tuesday afternoon calling for the impeachment of Mayorkas. Biden is perhaps second on the list.
The first month of Fiscal Year 2023 showed more than 230,000 encounters with CBP, the third-highest month in recent history.
While CPB officials have been expecting a surge once Title 42 ends next week, it appears they were not prepared for the inundation that happened in recent days before the policy was nixed.
In Fiscal Year 2022, an average of 6,500 migrants crossed the southern border every day into California, New Mexico, Arizona and Texas. The total number of CBP encounters exceeded 2.3 million last year – a massive record-high under Biden’s time in office.
Of the thousands of migrants who crossed the border in the last 48 hours, at least three are confirmed gang members, two are sex offenders, two are murderers and two have outstanding warrants.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom, rumored to be considering a White House bid, visited the southern border in his state Monday to assess the situation before the end of Title 42. Newsom praised Biden’s “reform” and said it will “fix our broken immigration system,” while saying Republicans have “done nothing but exploit the situation for political gain.”
The border is about to become a bigger disaster than ever.
By Dave Scott, 12-16-22
The suppression of the Biden scandal and the federal government’s and media’s blatant participation in it was highlighted this past Sunday evening, December 11, by Federalist senior editor and Fox News contributor, Mollie Hemingway, who spoke to a crowd of almost 400 at Amelia Island’s Omni Hotel.
Hemingway, who was a guest of Nassau County’s U.S. Constitution Scholarship Foundation, explained that the “public square” is controlled by social media companies and detailed how they have become a threat to free speech. She credited Elon Musk for revealing just how bad it is.
She explained that she experienced suppression by Twitter and how, since Musk’s purchase of the company, she has realized a large uptick in followers, that now number more than one million. She told the audience that the Federalist’s CEO, John Davidson, had been locked out of his account for many months and was shadow banned.
She said the “number one threat in the U.S. today is that the First Amendment is under attack and the government and media are jointly participating in the suppression of free speech.”
Musk as much as confirmed that last Saturday, December 10, when he said: “Twitter is both a social media company and a crime scene.”
Since The New York Times and Washington Post both won Pulitzer Prizes for their “reporting” of the phony Trump-Russia collusion “Russiagate” allegations without uncovering a single misdeed or lie it seems appropriate that Musk should get one for his current efforts exposing Twitter and media collusion with the government.
Or maybe Musk should share the Pulitzer with The New York Post that uncovered and published the “Biden Secret Emails” exposé based on the contents of Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop. Twitter took extraordinary steps to suppress the Post story, removing links and posting warnings that it may be ‘unsafe.’ They even blocked its transmission via direct message, a tool reserved for extreme cases, e.g., child pornography. White House spokeswoman Kayleigh McEnany was locked out of her account for tweeting about the story.
The government’s and media’s frantic and sham investigation of former President Trump turned out to be as fake and empty as FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried’s company ledgers, bank accounts, bookkeeping procedures and lame excuses.
So, doesn’t it make sense then that someone who in reality unveiled the most egregious and dangerous scandal in the history of this country should be a shoo-in for the Pulitzer?
Musk, who isn’t even a reporter but now owns Twitter, is continuing to reveal the massive lies and coverups of one of the worst scandals in the country’s history, a scheme that makes Watergate, Clinton’s sex scandals, Teapot Dome and the Pentagon Papers combined pale in comparison.
Musk’s revelations of the corrupt media, large corporations, and the government colluding to interfere, lie, coverup, and deny the Hunter Biden laptop mess and Joe Biden’s corruption and sellout of America to China is unprecedented.
Former left-wing journalist and author Glenn Greenwald tweeted: “The list of prominent conservative US/Western elected officials, journalists, authors, etc. banned by Big Tech is very long. To deny that Big Tech censorship targets conservatives requires pathological lying.”
There’s enough material here so far to put Musk in the Pulitzer Hall of Fame by accomplishing a feat that will probably never be equaled in journalism. With the exception of the Post and FOX News, the so-called journalists in the mainstream media are either so ashamed or frightened they aren’t covering this story. Or maybe it’s because they are so deeply implicated.
However, since this same group of unscrupulous con artists, liars, thieves, and grifters run the Pulitzer program we probably won’t see Mr. Musk victoriously hoisting the prize above his head. Hopefully with a Republican Congress we will see a few of the vile criminals that Musk exposed in cuffs and behind bars.
(An abridged version of the above commentary was published in the national BizPac Review news site yesterday, December 15, at https://www.bizpacreview.com/2022/12/15/a-pulitzer-prize-for-musk-1317290/)
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The new editor at the “Blind Observer” is making a smooth transition.
The Handwringing, Moaning & Whining Begins: It didn’t take long following the overwhelming victory of Fernandina Beach City Commission traditional family values candidates, Fireman Darron Ayscue and Dr. James Antun, in the December 13 runoff election for local liberals to cry out in anguish and gnash their teeth.
One of the leaders of this shocked and unhappy left-wing chorus is Mike Phillips, new “editor” of the online blind Observer who voiced his discontent with the two conservative candidates the day of the election in a bylined piece headlined: “Do Partisan Politics Have a Place in Our Small Town Elections.”
Phillips, who was handed the “Blind” Observer’s white cane baton by outgoing sight-impaired editor and Fernandina Beach City PR Bureau Chief Susan Steger, wrote the following piece of drivel voicing his disapproval of the newly elected City Commission candidates:
“A couple of weeks before Dec. 13, a river of expensive direct mail pieces started flowing into the mailboxes of registered Republicans, promoting the idea that only two Republicans were running, and that’s who should get the homeowners’ votes. I got five in about 10 days. Whoever was financing this (and I’m pretty sure I know who) must have run out of money after $20-30 thousand bucks, because people then started getting texts with the same message. (A much cheaper form of communication that I appreciated because it didn’t require a trip to the junk mail bin.)
“So here is my question to the community: Do you want partisan politics to be injected into our non-partisan, totally community-oriented elections? Think about it. Do you? Either way, I think we should have a community discussion about this.”
So here’s my questions to Phillips to “think about”: Have you ever taken a course in journalism? Do you have the slightest concept of balanced news? Obviously the two Republican candidates you referenced are Antun and Ayscue. The mailings came from a Republican Political Action Committee (PAC) out of Tallahassee that was not coordinated or under the control of either of the two winning candidates. If you were actually a journalist and had checked you would know that.
So, using your own words Mr. Phillips you should “Think about this”: Why did you fail to mention that the losing candidates – California transplant and Black Lives Matter (BLM) supporter Mike Lednovich, and Genece Minshew, founder, and head of Fernandina Pride, who has said she wants to make Fernandina a “gay vacation destination”, were both enthusiastically endorsed and supported by the Fernandina Beach Democrat Club. This Democrat party organization went online and blatantly offered signs and other campaign material to support their favored candidates. You conveniently didn’t mention that in your “no partisan politics here” blather.
Phillips also failed to mention the County Citizens Defending Freedom (CCDF) questionnaire that all other candidates but Lednovich and Minshew answered. Apparently Phillips thought that the liberal Lednovich-Minshew duo ignoring media questions to explain why they refused to answer the questionnaire wasn’t newsworthy.
In addition to Phillips’ sad, misleading and amateurish commentary the “usual suspects” of local liberals are keeping bemused locals entertained on social media with their shrill and frantic cries of imminent impending doom.
Minshew says she lost because of “hate and culture wars” refusing to believe that folks hereabouts simply don’t share her vision for the city. I haven’t heard what Lednovich thinks or if he tossed his Black Lives Matter sandwich board into the trunk of his car and is headed back to California.
And speaking of local news outlets, the bi-weekly print Fernandina Beach News Leader layout guy or gal performed an apt juxtaposition of “City Sidebar” columnist Cara Curtain’s musings next to sad sack Ron Sapp’ s weekly grump Wednesday, December 14. Curtain’s fitting headline proclaimed: “No talent? No problem” in a piece appropriately placed right next to another Sapp “Get off my lawn you little bastards” screed headlined: “I don’t know this place anymore”.
***
Speaking of the CCDF: Folks wanting to know more about the Nassau County chapter of the County Citizens Defending Freedom (CCDF) organization will have two upcoming opportunities next month. People in West Nassau can meet and talk with organizers at The Pig Bar-B-Q in Callahan at 5:30 pm Tuesday, January 10. Another session is scheduled Thursday, January 26 at the Surf on Fletcher Ave. at 5:30 pm. Go to [email protected] to RSVP and CCDFUSA.com to learn more about the organization.
***
Ross & Martin Outnumbered: A number of people have told me that they heard Chip Ross say he would resign his City Commission seat if Dr. James Antun and Fireman Darron Ayscue were elected.
When I emailed Ross and asked if he had said that, and if so would he follow though, he responded saying: “Not to the best of my knowledge. What is the source of your information? He said he is not resigning and added: “It will be a pleasure to serve with the two new Commissioners who campaigned on decreasing taxes and improving City services at the same time. If they can pull it off they will have my support.”
So, Ross remains, but surrounded by four reasonable folks (Bradley Bean, David Sturges, Ayscue and Antun) that should curb City Manager Dale Martin’s and Ross’s insatiable appetite for hiring additional staff, buying all kinds of new and shiny things, as well as a passion for purchasing more non-productive properties to add to the city’s estimated $100 million real estate holdings.
It will be fun to observe Chiropractor James Antun perform a much needed economic “adjustment” on a Commission with emergency room doctor Chip Ross and City Manager Martin as reluctant patients, while Fireman Ayscue pours cold water on their financial fantasies.
The city manager and his minions have demonstrated over the years that they can’t efficiently manage a budget, operate a marina or a golf course, control an extortionist building department, and want to continuously add more private assets to the city’s non-productive, non-taxable portfolio at tax payer expense.
With a four to one City Commission stacked against Martin and Ross, this nonsense will hopefully come to an end and public-private partnerships will be explored in the future to right this sinking ship. But more about that at a later date.
If I was Martin I’d be fine-tuning my resume.
***
What The FTX? How could any rational person or investment firm make a decision to put money into an organization like FTX that was run by a pot-bellied 30-year-old that looks like an unmade bed and speaks like his underwear is too tight?
And why, just one day before he was scheduled to testify before Congress, was this larcenous loser arrested? Apparently $70 million in political contributions, mostly to Democrats in an election year, buys a lot of influence.
This pathetic twit babbled on to anyone who would listen revealing himself to be either an idiot or a psychopath, possibly both. Just in the nick of time, the Democrats made sure nobody hears anything more that he has to say.
He might spend the rest of his miserable life in prison and should since he cost so many gullible and naïve people their life savings and pensions.
***
Speaking Of Shams? Why is Brittney Griner being labeled a “basketball star” by the media?
I never heard of this woman until Biden, who ironically is demanding strict gun control in the U.S., traded an international arms dealer responsible for the deaths of U.S. soldiers, and innocent women and children around the world, for this woman who refused to stand for the U.S. National Anthem.
She played basketball for the Women’s Basketball Association (WBA), an organization as popular as a curling club, and less exciting than watching paint dry.
My good friend and American Spectator writer Larry Thornberry said to me in a recent email that this was the worst trade since baseball’s 1965 Cincinnati Reds swapped National League MVP and All-Star slugger Frank Robinson to the Baltimore Orioles for pitcher Milt Pappas.
***
A Christmas Story: It has been reported that a library in Massachusetts isn’t putting up a Christmas tree this year because some people were uncomfortable looking at it.
How many people are “some people? It didn’t say. But I’m not comfortable looking at grown men in lingerie called drag queens calling Bingo, reading to kids, or riding on floats down Centre Street, but I’m sure the library and the LGBTQA+ crowd don’t care about my feelings regarding that.
Yep, the Liberal War On Christmas continues, at least in Massachusetts.
***
Hey Grand Parents, Dad & Mom! If you’re looking for a unique and impressive Christmas gift for young teenagers give them Amelia Island author Pat Keogh’s most recent book: “Hey Kid! Wanna Own Great American Businesses?”
It’ll teach children easy to read and understand practical lessons in economics and capitalism that will stay with them for life. The concept is simple. When granddad or Uncle Charlie, etc. give junior a cash present, the book will explain how he can buy shares of stock rather than a sack of McDonald’s burgers. When his pals are munching their burgers and swilling their sugar-laden Cokes, junior can thank them for buying from his company and earning him some of the best paying dividends available.
In fact, give the kid a share of stock and the book and watch him or her suddenly take an avid interest in the stock pages or Morningstar, Inc. online.
The book is available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble or Pat’s website at www.makeyourfamilyrich.com. It’s a good investment of a few bucks. Mom and dad might also learn a few things.
***
Things I Wish I’d Said: “If an opinion contrary to your own makes you angry, that is a sign that you are subconsciously aware of having no good reason for thinking as you do. So whenever you find yourself getting angry about a difference of opinion, be on your guard; you will probably find, on examination, that your belief is going beyond what the evidence warrants.” — Bertrand Russell.
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Poll Results: The last poll on this site asked if folks hereabouts thought the Fernandina Beach City Commission and School Board candidates owe it to voters to respond to the CCDF questionnaire or issue a statement explaining why they refuse? A total of 179 people (86%) said they should while just 30 (14%) said “no”. A new poll starting today asks Fernandina voters is they expect to see cost cutting and budgetary restraint following the recent election?
***
Republished with the author’s permission. Read The Dave Scott Blog– subscribe Free
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
By Jeff Childers
12-16-22
Good morning and Happy Friday, C&C! Today’s roundup includes: an essay on ‘peer review’ to honor the release of our favorite covid docs from Twitter jail; Trump’s major announcement costs $99; Grant Wahl’s sudden and unexpected cause of death is released, and you’ll never guess what it was; famous former SEAL dramatically de-transitions; Norwegian lesbian faces three years in prison for saying men can’t be lesbians; another CNN producer pleads guilty to pedophile crimes; and Elon Musk goes postal on doxxing leftwing journalists.
🔥 To celebrate the release from Twitter jail of Doctor McCullough, the most-cited and most censored covid doctor in the world, and Dr. Malone, the actual inventor of mRNA tech, I’m going to write a little about the so-called “peer-review” process. I have personal experience with the phenomenon, since I was forced to fight in court about studies that either were or weren’t peer-reviewed.
The whole process was a painful ordeal. What should a judge do with claims that studies are better or worse because of peer review? Is one mask study better because it IS peer-reviewed? Should another mask study be completely ignored because it WASN’T peer-reviewed?
For a long while, judges were mostly deferring to peer review. But did that make any sense?¹
On this blog I have often alleged there are many scientists who are not scientists at all, but prostitutes, white-coated pretenders servicing big government and big pharma, happily supplying studies to satisfy eager institutional customers’ needs; always for a fee, euphemistically called “grants,” which of course must be paid in advance.
I didn’t just read that somewhere. I watched it happen with my own eyes, in real time. There were zero covid mask studies when I started litigating the mandates. Then the studies started coming out. We carefully reviewed every single one. None of the real studies could get peer-reviewed. Only the garbage, fake pro-mask studies showed up peer-reviewed in the journals.
It was vexing.
You can’t believe how horrible most of the pro-mask studies were. Every time the NIH stuffed grant money into their mouths, fake scientists excreted another “study” purporting to “prove” that cut-up t-shirts somehow filtered a nanoscale virus and stopped transmission.
In one study that was widely feted in corporate media and used against me in court, the “scientists” took a styrofoam head, stuck a plastic tube in its mouth, jetted air through the tube, and then measured the air velocity coming out — with and without a cotton mask strapped onto the dummy head.
Because they found air velocity reduced with a cotton mask on, the scientists, employing a tortured chain of reasoning comparable to an excited teenager arguing for a later curfew, concluded that masks must also reduce covid spread BECAUSE the cotton mask reduced the amount of expelled air. (Two masks reduced it even more!)
The problem was, the moronic fakers only measured air velocity right in front of the dummy head. They ‘forgot’ to measure the air flowing UP, DOWN, and SIDEWAYS. They lied. The airflow wasn’t “reduced.” Of COURSE the air came out. It had to go somewhere! The masks didn’t ABSORB the air! In other words, the masks didn’t change the AMOUNT of air coming out; only its direction. And worse, masks didn’t even reduce the expelled air’s speed; although forward air velocity was reduced, the velocity to the sides, up and down was INCREASED when wearing a mask.
Masks actually INCREASE the spread of viral particulate. But it passed peer review!
Allegedly, peer-review is a quality certification process. Studies are ranked and rated whether they have been reviewed and blessed by an anonymous panel of scientists in the same discipline. That’s supposed to be how to tell if the study is any good. Recently, for example, the State of Florida studied its medical data, finding jabs increased myocarditis in young people under 40. Critics whined that Florida’s research project wasn’t peer-reviewed, and therefore it was useless.
Do the critics have a point?
Probably not, according to Lancet editor-in-chief Richard Horton, who in a brief flash of honesty said out loud what a lot of other scientists have been thinking for a long time. That is: peer review is not in fact a quality control; it is just a way for establishment scientists to police and enforce orthodox narratives.
Specifically, Dr. Horton wrote:
The mistake, of course, is to have thought that peer review was any more than a crude means of discovering the acceptability—not the validity—of a new finding…We portray peer review to the public as a quasi-sacred process that helps to make science our most objective truth teller. But we know that the system of peer review is biased, unjust, unaccountable, incomplete, easily fixed, often insulting, usually ignorant, occasionally foolish, and frequently wrong.
In 2015, Dr. Horton even dared to criticize science itself, because the scientific literature — and he should know — has become UNRELIABLE:
The case against science is straightforward: much of the scientific literature, perhaps half, may simply be untrue. Afflicted by studies with small sample sizes, tiny effects, invalid exploratory analyses, and flagrant conflicts of interest, together with an obsession for pursuing fashionable trends of dubious importance, science has taken a turn towards darkness.
But why? In 2014 — well before the pandemic — Editor-in-Chief Horton admitted that “Journals have devolved into information laundering operations for the pharmaceutical industry.”
Isn’t that interesting. Who would have ever thought.
But HOW does the pharmaceutical industry launder false information through the journals? Harvard Medical School’s Dr. Marcia Angell was the Editor-in-Chief at the New England Journal of Medicine for 20 years. After twenty years of editing and publishing scientific papers, she has become deeply skeptical, not only about peer-review, but about the entire process of journals and even about “experts.” She said:
It is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published, or to rely on the judgment of trusted physicians or authoritative medical guidelines. I take no pleasure in this conclusion, which I reached slowly and reluctantly over my two decades as an editor of The New England Journal of Medicine.
Read that again. The former chief editor of the New England Journal of Medicine said it is NO LONGER POSSIBLE TO RELY ON THE JUDGMENT OF EXPERTS.
She said it, not me. I’m just a lawyer.
But WHY is science broken? Dr. Marc Girard, a member of the editorial board of the journal ‘Medicine Veritas,’ explained that science is broken because of MONEY:
The reason for this disaster is too clear: the power of money. In academic institutions, the current dynamics of research is more favourable to the ability of getting grants—collecting money and spending it—than to scientific imagination or creativity.
The problem isn’t new, either. Back in 2005, Dr. John Ionnidis — an early and important member of Team Reality who experienced censorship and cancellation firsthand — said “Most scientific studies are wrong, and they are wrong because scientists are interested in funding and careers rather than truth… Claimed research findings may often be simply accurate measures of the prevailing bias.”
It’s a club. A well-paid club.
The point is, all these criticisms of science and peer-review were well-known within the scientific community long before the pandemic hit. But those lying liars gaslit us, and told us WE were crazy for not blindly relying on their feckless, brokered opinions and judgments. Opinions and judgments which quickly turned out to be wildly wrong, not that any of them are admitting it.
In the words, or lyrics, of my favorite covid artist, Dr. Doctor McHonkHonk:
Science lies, mate
That what its’ always done, is doin’, and always will do
It’s more dangerous than any disease
Time to rise, eh?
I’d rather die while standing up than live on my knees
We’ve got to walk away now
It’s over.
I’m not happy about any of this. It’s not my new hobby to attack science or anything. But science needs to clean up its own house, and get out of our hair.
Anyway, Twitter is better now because the heterodox scientific voices are back. Much better.
🔥 Well, President Trump unveiled his widely-promoted “Major Announcement” yesterday. He actually made two announcements, but the one labeled “Major Announcement” left Trump-watchers speechless.
It was a commercial. He’s selling digital artwork, of himself in dramatic superhero poses, for $99.
7:16 PM ∙ Dec 15, 2022798Likes138Retweets
I don’t know what to say about this without sounding critical. So I’m going to leave it alone, except to note that these “non-fungible tokens,” or NFTs, which is what Trump is selling, seem like a scam. Not Trump’s NFT’s in particular. The whole NFT industry feels sketchy. But what do I know, I’m just a lawyer, not a digital artist or whatever.
Apropos of sketchy digital investments, here’s my favorite simple explainer for bitcoin:
Separately, Trump released a second video that was more serious, which described his campaign’s “free speech platform.” It’s a series of policy objectives aimed at protecting Americans’ free speech rights, by issuing executive orders forbidding government from wading into the censorship business, and focusing on protecting social media speech in particular.
Pillow Purge Poso🇺🇸 @JackPosobiec
5:15 PM ∙ Dec 15, 202217,772Likes7,469Retweets
Don’t get me wrong, it’s great, but the thing is, we already have a law — a good one; it’s called the Constitution. The Constitution forbids the government from collaborating with social media companies to censor speech. We just need the courts to enforce the First Amendment, and at least one major case is already underway: Missouri v. Biden.
To be fair, many folks were pleased with Trump’s announcement. Revolver News’ Darren Beattie, whom I greatly respect, tweeted yesterday “This is by far the most substantive and important message from Trump since the announcement.”
So. You decide.
💉 More information is surfacing about that sports reporter, Grant Wahl, who died suddenly and unexpectedly in Qatar in the middle of the World Cup the other day. The Wall Street Journal ran a story Tuesday headlined, “Soccer Journalist Grant Wahl Died of Aortic Aneurysm, His Wife Says.”
Wahl’s wife, Dr. Céline Gounder, disclosed that her late husband, 49, died from an “aortic aneurysm that ruptured.” She thinks his brand-new condition was probably “just one of these things that had been likely brewing for years. For whatever reason, it happened at this point in time.” Dr. Gounder emphasized, “His death was unrelated to vaccination status.”
That’s very broad-minded of Ms. Gounder.
But diligent independent researchers discovered what corporate media couldn’t find even if it had been tied to a string that was super-glued to their greasy little fingers:
Oops. The trial’s description reports the “time to have Aortic aneurysm rupture from when people get Pfizer BioNTech Covid Vaccine:”
* on the same day: 16.67 %
* in the first week: 33.33 %
* in the first 30 days: 16.67 %
* after 30 days: 33.33 %
That’s not all. Grant’s broad-minded widow is also a member of Joe Biden’s vaccine-happy Covid-19 Advisory Board. Here’s her twitter bio:
We offer Ms. Gounder our sympathies for her tragic, sudden, and unexpected loss.
🔥 The International Business Times ran a story early this week headlined, “Retired Navy SEAL Who Came Out as Transgender is Transitioning Back after Calling Sex Change ‘Worst Mistake of My Life’.” The sub-headline explains, “Kristin Beck, 55, is now switching back to the sex of his birth and will be reverting to his previous and original name Chris Beck.”
Beck, a decorated SEAL Team Six member, blames trans activists for taking advantage of his mental condition about ten years ago when he “transitioned.” According to Beck, changing his sex was the “worst mistake” of his life, after being given hormones following a ONE-HOUR consultation on sex change.
He explained, “Everything that happened to me for the last ten years destroyed my life. I destroyed my life. I’m not a victim. I did this to myself, but I had help.”
In a recent interview, Beck described how he was taken advantage of by radical pro-trans doctors. He said, “I was used … I was very naive, I was in a really bad way, and I got taken advantage of. I got propagandized. I got used badly by a lot of people who had knowledge way beyond me. They knew what they were doing. I didn’t.”
Beck says not to believe anything he’s ever said in any post-transition interview. He’s now calling on Americans to “wake up” about how transgender health services are hurting kids.
Welcome back to Team Reality, Chris!
🔥 The Post-Millennial ran a story this week headlined, “Woman Faces 3-Year Prison Term in Norway for Saying It’s ‘Impossible’ for Men to Be Lesbians.”
Tonje Gjevjon, a lesbian artist in Norway, was notified on Nov 17th that she was under investigation for hate speech crimes, because of a Facebook post she wrote on October 1st. “It is just as impossible for men to become lesbians as it is for men to become pregnant,” Gjevjon said in her Facebook post. “Men are men regardless of their sexual fetishes.”
Whoopsies!
According to the Post Millennial, in 2020, Norway added “gender identity and gender expression” to the country’s hate speech laws, ignoring warnings that the laws would injure free speech. Imagine that.
It’s a good thing Norwegians have the government to protect them from being criticized online. The horror!
🔥 In another article this week, the Post Millennial headlined, “Disgraced CNN Producer Pleads GUILTY to Child Sex Crime.” The sub-headline quoted from the criminal charge: “The defendant solicited young girls, including the minor plaintiff, for the purpose of knowingly persuading, inducing, enticing and coercing them to engage in sexual activity.”
Former CNN senior producer John Griffin, 49, pleaded guilty in federal court last week after being charged with child sex crimes. Specifically, Griffin pleaded guilty to “using interstate commerce to entice and coerce a NINE-YEAR-OLD GIRL to engage in sexual activity at his Vermont ski house,” according to the Associated Press.
The indictment says that between April and July 2020, Griffin used online messaging platforms such as Google Hangouts to contact parents with underage daughters, and among other things, told them “that a ‘woman is a woman regardless of her age,’ and that women should be sexually subservient and inferior to men.”
In papers filed in the case, the U.S. Attorney alleged, “Griffin later transferred over $3,000 to the mother for plane tickets so the mother and her 9-year-old daughter could fly from Nevada to Boston’s Logan airport. The mother and child flew to Boston in July of 2020, where Griffin picked them up in his Tesla and drove them to his Ludlow house. At the house, the daughter was directed to engage in, and did engage in, unlawful sexual activity.”
I have omitted many other salacious details. Griffin faces up to life in prison, and up to $250,000 in restitution.
I reported this story not just because Griffin is a lefty news shill, but also because this is good news, an example of the government actually working well in pursuing child trafficking cases. We need a lot more of this.
🔥 Twitter is burning hot today, on fire, a veritable out-of-control tire yard inferno, after Elon Musk jailed a bunch of lefty journalists. The horror! I’m still putting the story together, but I wanted to give you some important missing context.
The whole thing started after several journalists retweeted somebody following Musk’s car and reporting its location in real time. After journalists published the doxxer’s thread, Musk’s car was attacked by activists who jumped on the hood and tried to get inside.
But the doxxer was wrong. Musk wasn’t in the car. One of his kids was. A nanny was driving.
Musk was furious. So Musk promptly created a new rule about doxxing people, which resulted in a whole bunch of lefty journalists being banned. Normally they love rules, except when rules are applied fairly, or when the rules don’t hurt conservatives somehow. Anyway, the journalists are now fainting from faux outrage and hysterically clutching their pearls, and CNN, former home of the pedo producer, is threatening to rage-quit Twitter.
Pillow Purge Poso🇺🇸 @JackPosobiec
5:41 AM ∙ Dec 16, 202239,645Likes5,397Retweets
I’ll try to have more on this developing story tomorrow, if it’s interesting.
Have a fabulous Friday! I’ll see you back here in the morning, for the weekend edition.
C&C is moving the needle and changing minds. If you can, I could use your help getting the truth out and spreading optimism and hope: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/-learn-how-to-get-involved-
Twitter: @jchilders98
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1
For part of this post, I relied on the terrific article, The Failure of Peer Review by the Global Freedom Movement; https://globalfreedommovement.org/the-failure-of-peer-review/.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
By Kevin Derby, 12-15-22
This week, during a special session in Tallahassee, the Florida Legislature passed bills focused on property insurance, hurricane relief and reforming how drivers pay for tolls.
“This Special Session was all about relief,” said House Speaker Paul Renner, R-Palm Coast “I am proud of the work the House did striking a difficult but careful balance to stabilize Florida’s property insurance market and the growth of Citizens Insurance. We have created more competition in the marketplace and have taken significant measures to reduce frivolous lawsuits, all while holding insurers accountable to consumers.
“The House also took important steps to provide disaster relief to Florida families recovering from Hurricanes Ian and Nicole and designed a toll relief program that saves Florida commuters money,” Renner added.
Read MORE in Florida Daily
From CCDF-USA, 12-15-22
| We’re working hard to preserve the America you love! |
| ‘Tis the Season for Freedom! In this week’s newsletter Texas takes the spotlight by focusing on election integrity; holding their elected officials accountable; and keeping public schools in compliance with state statutes. |
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| “IN GOD WE TRUST” POSTERS NOW PROMINENTLY DISPLAYED IN COLLIN COUNTY SCHOOLS Collin County, TX – On April 19, 2021, the Texas Legislature voted to pass Senate Bill 797 which requires all publicly funded schools in Texas to prominently display the national motto “In God We Trust” inside each school building. READ HERE |
| A TEXAS INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DISTRICT IGNORES TEXAS ELECTION LAWS: REFUSES TO CONDUCT RECOUNT Montgomery County, TX – If the recent November General Election has taught us anything, it is that no election actually ends on Election Day. READ MORE |
| CCDF-NUECES PARTNERS WITH THE ELECTION INTEGRITY PROJECT Nueces County, TX – Recently, a post-election debriefing was conducted by the Election Integrity Project (EIP) at the Nueces County Citizens Defending Freedom (CCDF-Nueces) offices. The EIP is a non-partisan group that is working to ensure election law and process integrity. READ MORE |
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 | CARRIE MOORE CCDF-NUECES EDUCATION DIVISION LEADER Carrie Moore joined Nueces County Citizens Defending Freedom (CCDF-Nueces) in January of 2022. Prior to joining CCDF-Nueces, she launched the first Moms for Liberty chapter in Texas. Carrie is a precinct chair, legislative vice president for Nueces County Republican Women, and a Deputy Voter Registrar. She has traveled to the state capital many times with the Election Integrity Project to encourage representatives to improve local and state election integrity. Carrie’s previous employment experiences includes law enforcement, soccer coach, and bar owner. She is married to her best friend, John, and she has four teenage children. |
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| EPISODE: WATCH NOW Seth Keshel talks over elections results in FL, TX, and GA. What does this mean for the Republican Party? | EPISODE: WATCH NOW CCDF-Hillsborough has been fighting inappropriate books inside the school system. There is one book in particular that they are focusing on. CCDF-Hillsborough hired a billboard truck with a QR code to drive around Hillsborough County to help raise awareness to parents. |
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Opinion
By Jeff Childers
12-15-22
Good morning and Happy Thursday, C&C! Your roundup today includes: Trump invokes superhero imagery and teases another major announcement; Biden drives Egypt and Saudi to join up with America’s enemies; more celebrity and royal SADS deaths; Australia leads the world in the war against SADS; no bail for Sam Bankman-Fried; Sam Bankman-Fried’s planned testimony to Congress leaked; and Twitter made more terrific progress on unraveling misinformation bans.
🔥 The day after Governor DeSantis’ incredible scientific roundtable Tuesday, and his multiple revolutionary announcements, President Trump released a teaser ad yesterday about a “major announcement” he plans to make today (Thursday). The new Trump campaign appears to be named “America Needs a Superhero,” and features Trump tearing open his white dress shirt to reveal a tight red super-hero suit.
🚨 BREAKING: Trump teases “Special Announcement” tomorrow, says “America needs a Superhero”
4:39 PM ∙ Dec 14, 20229,215Likes2,172Retweets
The new campaign tagline is unfortunate, inasmuch as I’ve often cautioned against the “Superhero fallacy,” which is the notion that we can rely on one magical person to save us. That ain’t happening. We’re going to have to save ourselves.
It is undeniable that the vaccine issue is a weapon DeSantis could use against Trump, if DeSantis runs for president. Some Trump fans are already understandably suspicious about DeSantis’ intentions for the Grand Jury and the new Health Committee. But, respectfully, I think that misses the point and is a dangerous distraction.
There’s plenty of evidence that DeSantis’ intentions are genuine. Just track his entire trajectory and evolution as a freedom-fighting governor. Tuesday’s roundtable was consistent with everything DeSantis has done since the day he broke with the federal narrative, opened the beaches and ended Florida’s lockdowns, all amidst corporate media’s hysterical condemnation.
But EVEN IF DeSantis were even PARTLY motivated by presidential politics, it doesn’t matter. It would actually be a benefit to the covid accountability movement. The friction, if there is any, between Trump and DeSantis over vaccines will only promote the medical autonomy movement further and faster than it could ever have happened otherwise.
I hope DeSantis stays in Florida. We need him. I believe the Governor can be more effective here than he could be in D.C., where he’d be opposed by the Deep State at every turn. That’s my current position. But if DeSantis were to run, then the healthiest thing would be for there to be a full and fair primary and for conservatives and MAGA folks to continue working together and not fight with each other.
Quoting the Bible, someone important once said, “a house divided against itself cannot stand,” and our enemies know that full well. They hated Lincoln, too. They’d like nothing better than to create a civil war in the conservative movement. There’s no reason we have to play into their hands. We should remind people about that quote every single day for the next two years.
And we should defend and assist the new Health Committee, the new Grand Jury, and the Governor.
Anyway, the last time Trump teased a “major announcement” it was just to declare his candidacy for 2024. I’ll let you know tomorrow whether today’s announcement moves the political needle, or stabs anyone in the eye.
🔥 While Joe Biden was busily planning his drag shows to decorate his hastily-assembled and deceptively-named “marriage equality Act,” and lighting up the White House in neo-pagan rainbow colors, Egypt and Saudi Arabia joined the BRICS world currency alliance.
BRICS stands for the original five member countries: Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. Its intends to create a world reserve standard currency to replace the dollar. Before you scoff too quickly, note that the proposed new world currency would be backed by GOLD, which might even tempt a lot of Americans, that is, if we would be allowed to purchase the new notes.
Joe Biden might be able to do pushups (or not), and he can mangle a speech with the best of them, but every single move he’s made in the White House has assisted the BRICS movement, one way or another. It’s almost like he’s doing it on purpose, because if it were accidental, you’e think he would screw up in a way that helped America every once in a while.
Okay, who cares about Egypt. But the Saudis, well, that’s a different story.
Last Friday, Saudi Crown Prince bin Salman met with China’s president Xi. CNN ran a story on the meeting headlined, “Saudi Arabia and China Will Align on Everything From Security to Oil, but Agree Not to Interfere on Domestic Issues.” Like everyone else, CNN also noticed that the Saudis were a lot happier to see president Xi than they were to see former vice-president Biden a couple months ago:
Xi’s warm welcome stood in stark contrast to the frigid atmosphere surrounding US President Joe Biden’s visit to the kingdom earlier in the year.
The U.S. is dependant on Saudi Arabia for oil, thanks to one of Joe Biden’s earliest executive orders, which reversed America’s oil independence achieved under President Trump. Biden has been selling off the strategic petroleum reserve, refilled by President Trump, as fast as he can. At some point, we’ll either have to stop to save the oil for a real emergency, or we’ll just run out.
At that point, the rubber will tear into the road, but now the Saudis are aligned with all the countries we’re sanctioning. We might lose a retread.
Biden transformed Saudia Arabia, historically a U.S. ally, into an enemy when he promised during the campaigns he would make the Gulf state a “pariah” nation, and cooperated — until very recently — in efforts to prosecute bin Salman for murder.
“Never underestimate Joe’s ability to f— things up,” president Obama said once.
Biden has also inflamed both other proto-superpowers, Russia and China. Biden and our useless State Department have gotten the U.S. into a senseless proxy war with Russia, which among other things got Putin’s best friend’s daughter murdered by terrorists, and has disrupted the entire world with ineffective sanctions. Then Biden inflamed the Chinese by sending Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan and in June started heavily sanctioning China for human rights abuses.
The Saudis have now just joined the biggest anti-American economic alliance, that was created and is run by our two largest enemies, both of which we are now fighting with, all because Joe Biden’s entire foreign policy playbook consists of a single page titled, “punch them in the face.”
But the Saudi’s didn’t only join BRICS. They also joined the SCO, which is sort of Russia and China’s budding alternative to NATO. And the Saudis also signed a $30 billion oil deal with China. In other words, oil-rich Saudi Arabia just went all-in with Russia and China.
Even before Friday’s announcement, most financial analysts described the prospect of Saudi jointing BRICS as “momentous,” “game changing,” and speculated that it could end the dollar’s hegemony.
Thanks, Joe!
💉 On Tuesday, the Grim Reaper tackled healthy UCF football player Jake Hescock, aged 25, who died suddenly and unexpected of natural causes while jogging. He started the jog totally fine, and then keeled over, stone dead. He suffered a totally natural and non-noteworthy cardiac arrest, for no reason at all, but you know, these things happen.
Sometimes they happen over and over and over again, right after people take a bunch of totally unrelated shots of a brand-new drug under an emergency use authorization. A drug known to have cardiac side effects. But which had nothing whatsoever to do with Jake’s heart attack, and that’s that.
💉 Yesterday, Princess Bajrakitiyabha of Thailand, 44, suddenly and unexpectedly suffered a totally natural and completely unremarkable heart attack, also in the middle of a jog. CPR has not been successful and, according to a UK Mirror report, the previously-healthy Princess is not going to make it. She was vaccinated, but it was definitely NOT the brand-new shots. You can’t prove it. There’s no evidence.
Reporter MacGregor Marshall tweeted, “Royal sources say the prognosis for the princess is very grim and it’s very unlikely she will ever recover. But she could potentially be kept artificially alive via ECMO for weeks or even months while the regime figures out what to do.”
Safe and effective. Effective at SOMETHING.
💉 Leslie Land, 41, long-time publicist at UK’s public broadcaster Channel 4, died suddenly and unexpectedly at home earlier last Friday. In a statement, Channel 4 issued a statement saying, “Everyone at Channel 4 is saddened by the news that our long-standing colleague and friend Leslie Land passed away last Friday.”
She died unexpectedly “at home,” never made it to the hospital, with no cause of death. But if science is right about anything, we know for SURE her death was totally natural and it was definitely NOT the safe and effective shots. Don’t be silly.
💉 In totally unrelated news, Melbourne, Australia has taken the lead in the war against SADS, by installing defibrillator machines on street corners and outside people’s homes. For no reason. Just safety.
And in South Australia, they just passed a new law requiring defibrillators to be installed in most public and many private buildings. You can’t be too safe these days.
Restart A Heart @RestartHeartDay
10:40 PM ∙ Dec 1, 202213Likes4Retweets
It’s getting to the point where folks might want to carry a defibrillator around with them.
Damned climate change!
🔥 Sam Bankman-Fried, notorious founder of collapsed crypto exchange FTX, was scheduled to testify Tuesday before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Financial Services. But late Monday afternoon, he was arrested in the Bahamas, at the request of the U.S. government.
On Tuesday, Newsmax ran a story headlined, “FTX Founder Denied Bail in the Bahamas.” Whoops!
Bahamas Chief Magistrate JoyAnn Ferguson-Pratt denied bushy-headed Sam Bankman-Fried’s petition to be released on bail, citing a “great” risk of flight — you don’t say — and ordered the former FTX CEO to be holed up with the Caribbean nation’s department of corrections until February 8th.
Sam, 30, protested the decision, telling Chief Magistrate Ferguson-Pratt that he couldn’t go to jail, mostly because he is vegan, and also because he’s ‘depressed.’ His Stanford law professor mother, Barbara, laughed when prosecutors described Sam as a ‘fugitive’. Sam also denied that he’d ever done anything wrong, and told the court he was planning to tell Congress that he could repay all of the people who have lost money ‘tomorrow’ if his assets are unfrozen, despite previously filing for bankruptcy.
Sam will be visiting with a nice facility known as Fox Hill, the Bahamas’ only prison. The UK Daily Mail described the jail as being well-known for overcrowding and unsanitary conditions, even describing it as a “third world hellhole.”
But politicians breathed a sigh of relief at Bankman-Fried’s timely arrest on Monday, which helpfully prevented him from testifying before Congress on Tuesday. The SEC’s criminal complaint, also filed the day before his scheduled testimony also helpfully gives Sam a new Miranda defense against any self-incriminating testimony — a defense which didn’t exist before the complaint had been filed.
It’s surprising how aggressively DOJ prosecutors moved to stop Sam from making any self-incriminating statements in his sworn Congressional testimony, which would have been admissible and likely extremely useful to prosecutors at trial, had they just waited one more day. Normally, prosecutors LOVE letting criminal defendants talk.
Not this time. Shut up, Sam!
During the Congressional hearing, which proceeded without the benefit of Sam’s testimony, the court-appointed Chapter 11 restructuring officer testified that the multi-billion-dollar company was using QUICKBOOKS to keep track of its finances.
Genevieve Roch-Decter, CFA @GRDecter
FTX used Quickbooks for accounting 🚩
4:20 PM ∙ Dec 13, 202210,255Likes1,523Retweets
I didn’t know that the data entry forms in Quickbooks even had room for numeric entries in the billions. It’s laughable, of course. But note that Quickbooks is well-known for allowing users to change entries without any audit trail.
So.
🔥 Forbes ran a story Tuesday headlined, “Exclusive Transcript: The Full Testimony Bankman-Fried Planned To Give To Congress.” Somehow Forbes “obtained” a personal copy of the testimony Sam planned to give and ran the 18-page Opus verbatim on Forbes’ website. Weird.
It begins, ironically, or maybe characteristically, with an undignified f-bomb:
I would like to start by formally stating under oath: I f****d up. I know that it doesn’t mean much to say that I’m sorry. And so I’m dedicating as much of myself as I can to do the right thing by customers.
When all is said and done, I’ll judge myself primarily by one metric: whether I have eventually been able to make customers whole. If I fail our customers in this regard, I have failed myself.
He’s delusional. Sam claimed he just wanted to help people:
As a believer in the Effective Altruism movement, my primary goal has never been personal enrichment; I’m motivated by a commitment to help bring happiness and alleviate suffering for others. My personal charitable donations, which started in 2014 when I was working on Wall Street, vastly outstrip what’s left in my bank account.
He claimed $100K was left in his bank account. So, it’s not really saying much to claim he charitably donated (gaining tax exemptions) more than that.
Sam also denied, obliquely, that there was any funny business with the Ukraine connection or, presumably, the DNC:
Any theory that I conspired with the Government of Ukraine to do anything other than what I stated I was doing—creating pathways for contributions to Ukrainians and to their defense—is not just false, but deeply offensive. Any theories that a US political party was further involved in such a conspiracy are themselves categorically false and offensive.
Oh, it’s offensive all right.
In his carefully written testimony, Sam claimed that he was falsely-accused of hard partying, explaining that “our parties were mostly dinner and board games.” Uh huh.
The totally-unqualified, mysteriously-financed, drug-addled former CEO, who often bragged about playing idiotic cellphone games during important business meetings, did not precisely blame himself for the collapse of FTX. He MOSTLY blamed: a competitor who failed to buy FTX at the last minute, his bankruptcy attorneys, the court-appointed restructuring officer, FTX’s general counsel, and bugs in FTX’s software and accounting system that failed to show him the growing risks on his “dashboard.”
“My periodic assessments of the riskiness of our positions were often based on the dashboard’s numbers,” Sam explained helpfully.
Danged software bugs.
Remarkably, Sam claimed in his statement that FTX “has been and remains solvent,” and could pay back all his customers “tomorrow,” except that his bankruptcy lawyers were conspiring to steal it all for themselves in attorney’s fees. Greedy lawyers!
Sam’s opinions about FTX’s solvency are, as we say, “at variance with the facts.”
It’s nice that Sam got to publish his written statement, not under oath, and didn’t have to answer any questions about it.
🔥 This week, Twitter reinstated the accounts of Dr. Peter McCullough and Dr. Robert Malone, who had both been banned for “promoting covid misinformation.”
Welcome back, docs!
Have a terrific Thursday, and I’ll see you all back here tomorrow another mug of pumpkin-spiced Coffee & Covid.
C&C is moving the needle and changing minds. If you can, I could use your help getting the truth out and spreading optimism and hope: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/-learn-how-to-get-involved-
Twitter: @jchilders98
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The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
By Simon Black
| December 13, 2022 In the fifth of April in the year 1853, a diplomat from the United Kingdom with the most quintessentially British name — Stratford Canning — arrived by boat to Constantinople and immediately took an emergency meeting with Sultan Abdulmejid of the Ottoman Empire. After decades of relative peace, Europe was once again on the brink of war. Russia was a rising power at the time, and, eager to flex its muscles, Russia threatened to invade the Ottoman Empire over completely ridiculous reasons.Everyone knew that much of Europe would be drawn into a pointless conflict. And that’s why Britain, the dominant superpower at the time, sent Stratford Canning to try to prevent a war. The British thought they were in good hands. After all, Canning had nearly five decades of experience in diplomacy. Certainly he of all people would be capable of maintaining peace.Sadly for the British (and everyone else in Europe), Canning was a total failure. Not only did this man, with his five decades of experience, fail to prevent the war, but he actually escalated the conflict by convincing Sultan Abulmejid to reject Russia’s peace proposal. Russia didn’t appreciate the rejection. And by the end of June, Russian troops invaded Ottoman-controlled territory. This conflict became known as the Crimean War, and it was pretty much a disaster for almost everyone involved, including Russia… and especially the Ottoman Empire. Russia suffered nearly half a million casualties from the war. They depleted their treasury and severely injured their economy. And most of all, Russia’s imperial army — which everyone had previously assumed to be among the best in Europe — was found to be second rate and poorly equipped. But the Ottoman Empire fared even worse.The empire was already in extreme decline by the mid 1800s. And about the only thing the Ottoman Empire had going for them economically was that they had ZERO foreign debt. That is, until the Crimean War. In 1854, the Ottoman Empire took on its first foreign debt; the war was costly and they needed money. But once they started borrowing from foreigners, they never stopped. Even after Russia finally threw in the towel and the Crimean War ended in 1856, the Ottoman Empire kept borrowing. Meanwhile the Ottoman economy continued deteriorating. The Ottoman government was full of self-righteous, entitled bureaucrats who harassed the private sector with mountains of regulations and debilitating taxes. The Ottoman Empire also saw its share of bad luck. A number of pandemics swept the empire, including a nasty Bubonic Plague outbreak in 1876, which added to the government’s economic woes and forced them to borrow even more.In fact, by 1876, the imperial government had borrowed so much money that debt service took up roughly HALF of their entire tax revenue.More importantly, Ottoman borrowing costs had soared. They borrowed money at less than 5% at the beginning of the Crimean War in 1854. But by the mid 1860s, foreign lenders typically demanded 10% or more.Needless to say the Ottoman Empire eventually defaulted on its gargantuan debt. And once they did, their foreign lenders took control of the imperial government and its finances; the Ottoman Empire effectively lost its sovereignty and became a client state of its European lenders. History has no shortage of similar examples — once powerful and thriving empires who mismanaged their economies, took on enormous debts, and became weak through sheer financial insanity. The US government seems to have willfully chosen to ignore these lessons time and time again. Back in 2018, as the US national debt was closing in on $25 trillion, I pointed out that Treasury Department was projecting to increase the debt by roughly $1 trillion per year. This was at a time when the economy was strong, tax revenues were at record levels, etc. There were no major wars, no financial crises, no major disasters. And I wondered — if the government can rack up a trillion dollar deficit when everything was great, “what’s going to happen to the US federal deficit when there actually IS a financial crisis or major recession?” Well, we got our answer in 2020 when COVID struck. They added $5+ trillion to the debt, practically in an instant, and acted like it was no big deal. Yet even though the government claims the pandemic is over, today they’re STILL spending absurd quantities of money. Yesterday the Treasury Department announced that the federal budget deficit for last month alone was a whopping $248.5 billion. That’s a near quarter of a TRILLION dollar deficit. In a SINGLE MONTH.This wasn’t a one-time anomaly either. The deficit over the past six months (June-Nov) totals nearly $1.3 trillion, an average monthly deficit of more than $200 billion. All of this deficit spending adds to the national debt, which, duh, eventually needs to be repaid.Whenever the Treasury Department borrows money to pay for these outrageous deficits, they do so by issuing bonds. And those bonds are sold to investors with terms ranging from 28 days all the way up to 30 years.The average maturity for US government debt is about five years. This means that, every year, roughly 20% of US debt matures and needs to be repaid. Naturally the government doesn’t have the money to repay its debts. So instead they borrow new debt to repay the old debt. It’s basically a Ponzi scheme.To make matters worse, interest rates have been rising rapidly; last year the government borrowed money at 0.1% or less. But today they have to pay 4% or more.That’s a huge difference.Thanks to rising rates, the US government will spend nearly $1 trillion this fiscal year… just to pay INTEREST on its debt. And if rates keep rising (or remain this high), that figure will only grow as they continue to refinance their debts.History shows that it’s very difficult to remain a superpower when you have to spend vast sums of money just to pay interest.And yet the people in charge remain completely oblivious to this fact… and pretend like absolutely nothing could go wrong. This is plenty of reason to have a Plan B…To your freedom, Simon Black, Founder Sovereign Research & Advisory  |
| Neither this email, nor any content provided by our organization, is intended to provide personal tax or financial advice. This information is intended to be used and must be used for information purposes only, as general guidance and aimed at expanding your thinking. We are not investment or tax advisors, and this should not be considered advice. It is very important to do your own analysis before making any investment or employing any tax strategy. You should consider your own personal circumstances and speak with professional advisors, and independently research any information that you wish to rely upon, whether for the purpose of making an investment or tax decision, or otherwise. No content on the site or in this email constitutes – or should be understood as constituting – a recommendation to enter in any securities transactions or to engage in any of the investment strategies presented here, nor an offer of securities. Blacksmith Global Ltd. Isidora Goyenechea 2800 Las Condes Santiago, Región Metropolitana de Santiago 755009 Chile |
By George Miller, 12-13-22 (updated 12-14-22)
No candidate got a majority in the Seat 4 and 5 races for City Commissioner in the general election on November 8. So it forced a runoff on December 13, with chiropractor James Antun (Seat 4) and firefighter Darron Asycue (Seat 5) prevailing over sitting Mayor Mike Lednovich (Seat 4) and “Pride” president Genece Minshew (Seat 5).
Minshew garnered 41% of the vote in a three way contest on November 8, but incredibly lost the runoff to Asycue by a good margin only a month later. Similarly, Antun flipped the race with the well-known sitting Mayor Lednovich.
Many we spoke with say that the defining candidate differentiation centered around cultural issues and their probable effect on policy decisions. You can read about those in other Citizens Journal Florida articles.
Go here for latest results: https://enr.electionsfl.org/NAS/3346/Summary/
as of 10 pm 12-13-22:
From Victorious candidate Dr. James Antun
I cannot begin to express the level of gratitude I have for all of those who have supported me through this process. Most specifically I would like to thank my wife for supporting me in this endeavor, as she has seen first-hand how much energy I have put into this election. She has stood by my side despite many days leaving the house for work at 5am, and in many cases not returning until 9pm due to being out for campaign events, candidate forums, etc.
I would like to extend my promise to those who voted for me, and those who did not that I will serve all my constituents with the utmost level of ethical conduct and sound decision-making. I look forward to the next four years as your city commissioner!
Victorious candidate Darron Asycue
It is an honor to be elected to serve the City of Fernandina Beach as commissioner. I look forward to getting to work right away, with my fellow commissioners, to better manage the budget, continue progress on the sea wall and Front Street projects and to make a positive difference in our City.
Primary candidate Staci Monagle didn’t make it to the runoff, but endorsed Asycue and Antun. She had this to say: How do I feel about the run off? I’m ecstatic that James Antun and Darron Ayscue won. I believe their leadership as conservative voices on the City Commission will serve our city well and I’m obviously not the only person in Fernandina that feels that way. Many concerned citizens stepped up and made a concerted effort to push this race over the finish line. I want to thank every citizen who made this run-off a priority and voted. My hats off to James and Darron- they ran excellent campaigns. But I salute the citizens of Fernandina for standing up and being counted when it mattered the most.
– Staci Monagle, to God the Glory
Tim/Trish Dunlevy
This shows the power of citizens, press and the pulpit to affect meaningful change in our government.
Rae Lane
A huge congratulations to James Antun and Darren Ascyue! Thank you city residents for getting out there and voting!
Jessica Styers
This is such great news for our wonderful small town of Fernandina Beach and for our county and even our state…fiscal responsibility, efficiency, responsiveness to the citizens, integrity is what these guys bring. It all starts locally with great young people who bring conservative values and love where they live. These guys will be role models to many people to get involved and speak out.
Dave Scott…a hero…for fearlessly speaking out truth, unafraid! We are all indebted to his blog.
And to Jack Knocke for all his honesty and hard work for all who live in the city and the county.
Both role models in how to make change in a positive way.
Go James and Darron…smart, inclusive, eager, humble leaders for our future.
| 10 am | Open and canvass mail ballots.Scan mail ballots into Independent Audit System.(Upon completion of the public testing of automatic tabulating equipment) [F.S. 101.68(2), FAC R1S-5.026] | |
| December 13, 2022 Agenda | 4 pm | Open and canvass mail ballots.Scan mail ballots into Independent Audit System.[F.S. 101.68(2), FAC R1S-5.026] |
| 7 pm | Election Day[F.S. 102.141(4)(a)]Release unofficial results (does not include provisional ballots). | |
| December 15, 2022 Agenda | 4 pm | Scan election day ballots into Independent Audit System.Canvass provisional ballots & vote by mail cures. Certify first unofficial election results. [F.S. 101.048, 101.68(4)(b), 102.141(5)] |
| December 16, 2022 Agenda | 10 am | Conduct any recount ordered and certify second unofficial results.Adjudicate unreadable cards in the Independent Audit System. [F.S. 102.141(7)©, FAC R1S-5.026] |
| December 19, 2022 Agenda | 10 am | Certify election results and Conduct of Election Report. Perform post-election audit of voting system. [FAC R1S-5.026] |
Anyone who casts a provisional ballot has two days after the election to provide proof of eligibility to the Canvassing Board. The deadline for this election is December 15, 2022, at 5 pm. [F.S. 101.048]
NOTE: Persons are advised that if they wish to appeal any decision made at these meetings, they will need a record of the proceedings, and for such purpose they may need to ensure that a verbatim record of the proceedings is made, which record includes the testimony and evidence upon which the appeal is to be based, per Section 286.0105, Florida Statutes.
Canvassing Board Members: Honorable City Commissioners: Bradley Bean, Ronald “Chip” Ross, David Sturges, Alternate Victoria Robas.
Canvassing Board Administration: City Clerk Caroline Best, City Attorney Tammi Bach.
Watch here for more news on this
George Miller is Publisher and Co-Founder of Citizens Journal Florida, based in Fernandina Beach. He is a “retired” operations management consultant, software and publishing executive and manufacturing management professional.
By Florida House of Representatives, 12-7-22
Just in case you’re interested, here is what legislators are offered
Legislator University is a program made up of educational courses for every Member of the Florida House of Representatives to help them become more knowledgeable, effective and efficient in their role as a lawmaker. At the start of a new term or at other key junctures, classes are offered on a variety of topics from public policy areas to House policies and rules. In the “Resources” section, you will find recordings of the live informational presentations that have been offered in the 2022-2024 term….
Appropriations Projects Training Video (12/07/2022)
Appropriations Projects Training Presentation (12/07/2022)
Property Insurance in Florida Overview Video (12/08/22)
Property Insurance in Florida Overview Presentation (12/08/22)
Citizens Property Insurance Corporation Overview Video (12/08/22)
Citizens Property Insurance Corporation Overview Presentation (12/08/22)
By Jeff Childers
12-13-22
Good morning C&C, and Happy Tuesday! It’s a ‘good news’ roundup today. Your terrific “Justice” roundup includes: the Department of Energy makes some personnel changes; Biden graduates from hair sniffing and issues a key invitation; Loudon County officials get what’s coming to them; don’t worry about the Fauci’s, they did just fine during the pandemic; the Bankman-Fried story is moving at the Speed of Science™, but justice seems to be trying to catch up with him; more SADS deaths and speculations about government conspiracy; so-called whisleblower Rebekah Jones faces the music and admits she was guilty; and good election news on Lauren Boebert’s recount.
🔥 It’s all fun and games until somebody gets fired. The New York Post ran a cautionary story yesterday headlined, “Non-binary Biden Nuclear Official Sam Brinton Fired After Multiple Luggage Theft Charges: Reports.”
A DOE spokesperson told reporters that, “Sam Brinton is no longer a DOE employee. By law, the Department of Energy cannot comment further on personnel matters.”
Unattractive cross-dresser Brinton wants people to use the words “they/them” as pronouns when referring to him, because he doesn’t “identify” as male OR female. He thinks he’s something ELSE, maybe some kind of polysexual plant life or a fornicating fungus or something. For some reason that wasn’t — but should have been — a red flag for Human Resources, his non-binary beliefs didn’t raise any questions when Brinton was hired for a top job in the DOE’s nuclear waste disposal office. Brinton was given top-level classified access to the nation’s secrets.
Instead, when DOE hired Brinton in June, it bragged that its new assistant secretary of nuclear waste disposal was a tireless advocate for LGBT+++ “youth.”
YOUTH. That should have been the second red flag.
Brinton now faces music to the tune of five years in prison for the Minnesota theft of the blue Vera Bradley bag, and up to ten years for his Las Vegas heist. Personally, I believe Sam was double-crossed. Here he is in one of the evidence photos, pensively peering up at the baggage lobby camera, as if he was wistfully wondering if the jig might finally be up this time.
It was. The jig was finally up. But oh, what a glorious run it was, for an unassuming cross-dressing pervert, to break through the plexiglass ceiling of virtue and finally strut the corridors of power in spiked heels.
🔥 The dignity of the Biden White House was on full display yesterday, when Joe Biden personally invited drag performer Marti G. Cummings to the White House signing ceremony for the odious new Marriage Equality Act, which makes gay marriages lawful as a matter of federal law.
The Democrats were fretting that after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, Obergefell — the case finding a right to gay marriage based on Roe — might be next on the cutting-room floor. So they quickly passed an Act ensuring that gay people can get married and that their marriages must be honored when they move from state to state. Critics are concerned about a slippery slope and claim that religious folks will be punished for not helping celebrate or create gay marriages.
(On a side note, the Democrats COULD have passed an abortion law the same way they passed this gay marriage law, but for some reason didn’t. Curious.)
Mr. Cummings is the second transvestite Biden invited to the White House in as many months. So. I’m not judging, I’m just pointing out the danger. This is what always happens when you start with the hair sniffing. It inevitably ends just like this.
Anyway, there’s a telling metaphor here. Mr. Cummings is clearly a very unserious person who may also have some profound mental health problems.
An unserious, unstable person for an unserious, unstable law.
Incidentally, Mr. Cummings just locked down his Twitter account, but a few diligent twitterers kept copies of some of his older tweets, so you can get an idea of who is this person Biden wants attend his bill signing. In fairness, when Cummings refers to “kids” in the tweet below, I think he means himself and other drag performers. But still.
I present the dignity and gravitas of the Biden Administration.
🔥 The Daily Wire ran a satisfying story yesterday headlined, “Loudoun Superintendent, Spokesman Criminally Indicted Following Rape Coverup.” A Virginia grand jury indicted two Loudon County officials after a lengthy investigation of officials crimes and coverups that led to a red wave in that historically blue state.
At least two girls were raped by a cross-dressing teenaged boy who’d been allowed, facilitated — groomed — to use the girls’ bathrooms, where both rapes happened. But instead of turning the boy over to law enforcement, Loudon County school officials just moved the serial perpetrator to a different school and gaslit everybody. They also had the father of one of the raped girls arrested after he quite understandably yelled at them during a school board meeting.
The indicted school officials included disgraced former Loudoun County Superintendent Scott Ziegler who, like puppy-player Brinton, was also fired last week, as well as the lizard-lipped liar, school spokesman Wayde Byard, for perjury to the Grand Jury.
Last week, the Grand Jury released its 91-page report that, among lots of other things, found that “throughout this ordeal LCPS administrators were looking out for their own interests instead of the best interests of LCPS.” You don’t say. They also found that Zieglar lied like a rug when he’d claimed, “the predator transgender student or person simply does not exist,” and found that he retaliated against courageous teacher Erin Brooks, who sued the school system for failing to protect her from sexual assault by an ELEMENTARY SCHOOL STUDENT.
You can read the Grand Jury’s report here, but be warned that the details are stomach-turning. I reviewed the report, and what clearly emerges from the facts was a coordinated effort by school officials who were much more concerned with a policy related to “transgender rights” than they were about the actual crimes of rape, or about the rights of other students and teachers not to be assaulted.
It’s hard to pick the most disturbing fact disclosed in the report, but right after the second rape, the principal sent an email to staff implying the victimized young lady was lying, claiming: “This is the same [female] student who was transferred here from THS for a similar allegation.”
That was a lie. The principal just made it all up, defaming the victim. She’d never even been transferred.
After that email, the school scrambled to hold an impromptu “all hands” meeting to scheme about what to do next. The Grand Jury reported that no one who attended the meeting could remember anything about what was discussed, which the Grand Jury accurately labeled “institutional amnesia.”
It’s baffling how much deference is being given to these so-called transgender kids, and how credulously committed the school officials are to considering these kids as being honest and legitimate. It might be that a very small number of kids actually do have a functional gender dysphoria that may be best accommodated by pretending along with them. I don’t know.
But it should always considered FIRST that dysphoric children might be suffering from mental illnesses. And it shouldn’t be ruled out that a dysphoric child, especially an older teen, might in fact be a predator trying to take advantage of the unbelievable latitude being offered to trans children.
School officials needs to stop hiding behind “privacy concerns,” as did the Loudon County officials. It’s just a smokescreen for misconduct.
The Grand Jury’s well-written report could be the start of changing how school officials handle these kinds of cases. We’ll be watching.
🔥 The National Review ran an eye-opening story yesterday headlined, “Fauci’s Net Worth Nearly Doubled during Pandemic.” So much for how much Fauci sacrificed for his country.
According to watchdog nonprofit OpenTheBooks, during the two years between 2019 and 2021, the Fauci household’s net worth increased by $5 million, and is now over $12.6 million. Most of the increase came from investment gains, gifts, awards, and Fauci’s federal employment compensation, according to public records.
For one example, Israel-based Dan David Foundation bribed, I mean gifted Fauci $901,400 for “speaking truth to power” and “defending science.”
Whatever.
There’s a lot I could say about this. Fauci’s money is blood-soaked, of course, and I hope he chokes on it (*not literally). But give me a break about how much Fauci has “given” for science. Science seems like a pretty good way to get rich at other people’s expense.
I also hope he enjoys being the most hated man in the world.
🔥 Early yesterday, the New York Post ran a story headlined, “Sam Bankman-Fried To Testify Before Congress Remotely: ‘Quite Overbooked’.” The gist was he just couldn’t get away from his luxury Bahamian penthouse / drug-fueled orgy-pit, because, you know, work and stuff. But he’d agreed to zoom in to Congress and try to help as best he could.
As a lawyer, I usually presume a witness wants to use zoom instead of appearing in person so that someone off screen can coach the witness with hidden prompts. In Sam’s case, like maybe a team of lawyers.
But Sam’s story was developing at the speed of science yesterday, and before I could write up a snarky post about Sam’s zooming preferences, late yesterday evening the Wall Street Journal ran a story headlined, “Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried Arrested in Bahamas.” Whoopsies!
That’s REALLY going to interfere with his Congressional testimony.
Sam was arrested “without incident” shortly after 6PM Eastern Time yesterday by the Royal Bahamas Police, and presumably is now enjoying Caribbean jail accommodations, which relatively speaking is probably a nice spot to enjoy the comforts of government-subsidized housing, but is probably a step down from his luxury penthouse apartment and all its, um, conveniences.
Then, just THIS MORNING the Journal ran another story about the now-unsealed SEC complaint against Sam, headlined, “Sam Bankman-Fried Led ‘Years-Long Fraud’ at FTX, SEC Says.” In the lawsuit, unsealed just this morning, the SEC alleges that right from the start, Sam diverted customers’ funds to support his private hedge fund, Alameda Research, and to make personal venture investments, real-estate purchases and, of course, political donations.
For some reason, the SEC’s criminal complaint omits mention of Sam’s obvious fascination with pedophile symbolism, his “non-traditional” sexual lifestyle, or his ten “roommates.”
Deploying a battalion of meaningless allegory, SEC Chair Gary Gensler explained, “Sam Bankman-Fried built a house of cards on a foundation of deception while telling investors that it was one of the safest buildings in crypto. The alleged fraud committed by Mr. Bankman-Fried is a clarion call to crypto platforms that they need to come into compliance with our laws.”
Bahamas police said Sam was taken into custody on charges of “various Financial Offenses against laws of the United States, which are also offenses against laws of the Commonwealth of The Bahamas.” According to police, Sam is set to appear in Nassau’s Magistrate Court today (Tuesday).
It will be interesting to see whether Sam is released on bail.
If he IS released, then all those political donations will have paid off. If not, I’d predict after a short dispute over jurisdiction, Sam will be transferred to U.S. federal prison, presumably into one appointed as neatly as the facility where Jeffrey Epstein was held.
💉 Millions followed photogenic Canadian TikTok star Megha Thakur, 21, until she croaked suddenly and unexpectedly on November 24th while visiting New York City.
Completely coincidentally, last month 21-year-old Megha posted on her Instagram that she’d had a minor heart attack:
Her family has not released Megha’s cause of death. The social media star attended Western University in Toronto, where she was studying computer science. Also coincidentally, a few days after her heart attack, WU suddenly and unexpectedly dropped its student vaccine mandate, “based on the latest consultation with our medical experts and local public health [officials].”
Weird, weird coincidences.
💉 Mississippi State head football coach Mike Leach, 61, collapsed at his home in Starkville on Sunday from a “massive heart attack.” The Clarion Ledger reported that, according to sources, Leach “may have suffered seizures with the possibility of brain damage.”
The latest unofficial reports say Leach is now under hospice care.
Back on October 28th, 2021, Miss. U. published a statement saying, “Employees at public universities in Mississippi are now required to receive COVID-19 vaccinations by late November following a 9-3 vote during a special meeting of the Mississippi Institutions on Higher Learning Board of Trustees.”
Reports say Leach had until December 8th, 2021, to get vaccinated or be fired. I mean, Leach had until December 8th to roll the dice with his life or be fired.
So.
💉 I reported a few days ago about about sports reporter Grant Wahl, who died suddenly and unexpectedly in the press stands in Qatar while reporting on the World Cup. Get this: his family is so thunderstruck and disbelieving that the healthy reporter could have died from a heart attack that they have conceived of a massive government conspiracy to murder Wahl.
Now, I have the same suspicion, but we differ about WHICH government. The Wahl family thinks it was the Qatar government, because Wahl wore a pride T-shirt or something. I think the conspiracy was a different government, and a different reason.
The idea that Qatar or anyone in it killed Grant Wahl for his political views or wearing a T-shirt is not just absurd, it’s open anti-Arab prejudice (from the usual supposedly tolerant people). It does distract from other potential causes of his sudden death, though.3:29 PM ∙ Dec 10, 20224,646Likes607Retweets
💉 ANOTHER sports journalist died suddenly and unexpected at the World Cup in Qatar. Al Kass TV photojournalist Khalid al-Misslam “passed away” two days after Wahl died.
2:01 PM ∙ Dec 10, 2022166Likes122Retweets
No cause of death has been released for Khalid, either. Another weird coincidence.
🔥 South Santa Rosa News ran a story yesterday headlined, “Rebekah Jones Avoids Trial, Admits Guilt in Plea Deal with Prosecutors.” You remember Rebekah Jones, the former Florida Department of Health data entry lady with a history of stalking and mental illness, who turned “whistle blower” and accused Governor DeSantis of hiding covid death data, instantly becoming a leftwing media sensation.
Jones has been feted on CNN, MSNBC, and tons of podcasts and lefty radio. She’s raised hundreds of thousands from her lunatic admirers and followers. She even ran for Congress in the last elections, but mercifully lost.
Welp, after being charged with hacking the FDOH’s computers to help promote her false story about Florida’s cooked books, at long last, she’s finally admitted she was guilty. In order to avoid jail, Jones has agreed to pay $20,000 in restitution, do 150 hours of community service, see a licensed mental health professional at least monthly, admit guilt, and pay a $100 fee. She’s also basically on probation for several years.
That hasn’t slowed her down though. Jones falsely tweeted to her followers claiming that the State of Florida dismissed all charges against her after she refused to consider any plea deals.
I think the mental health counseling might be the most important part of Jones’ plea agreement. We wish her well on her treatment and hopeful recovery.
🔥 Feisty Colorado Republican Congresswoman Lauren Boebert narrowly won her recount yesterday — by 546 votes. A win is a win! She survives, to continue to unmercifully pester the democrats.
Have a terrific Tuesday, and I’ll see you back here tomorrow when I hope to have a terrific report for you that I can’t talk about today. Till then!
C&C is moving the needle and changing minds. If you can, I could use your help getting the truth out and spreading optimism and hope: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/-learn-how-to-get-involved-
Twitter: @jchilders98
Truth Social: @jchilders98
MeWe: mewe.com/i/coffee_and_covid.
C&C Swag! www.shopcoffeeandcovid.com
Emailed Daily Newsletter: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
By SpaceX, 12-11-22
On Sunday, December 11 at 2:38 a.m. ET, SpaceX launched ispace’s HAKUTO-R Mission 1 and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s Lunar Flashlight to a lunar transfer orbit from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.
This was the fifth launch and landing of this Falcon 9 first stage booster, which previously launched SES-22 and three Starlink missions.
Mission video
More:
By NASA, 12-11-22
NASA’s Orion spacecraft for the Artemis I mission splashed down in the Pacific Ocean at 9:40 a.m. PST on Sunday, Dec. 11, after a 25.5 day mission to the Moon.
Credits: NASA
NASA’s Orion spacecraft splashed down in the Pacific Ocean, west of Baja California, at 9:40 a.m. PST Sunday after a record-breaking mission, traveling more than 1.4 million miles on a path around the Moon and returning safely to Earth, completing the Artemis I flight test.
Splashdown is the final milestone of the Artemis I mission that began with a successful liftoff of NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket Nov. 16, from Launch Pad 39B at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Over the course of 25.5 days, NASA tested Orion in the harsh environment of deep space before flying astronauts on Artemis II.
“The splashdown of the Orion spacecraft – which occurred 50 years to the day of the Apollo 17 Moon landing – is the crowning achievement of Artemis I. From the launch of the world’s most powerful rocket to the exceptional journey around the Moon and back to Earth, this flight test is a major step forward in the Artemis Generation of lunar exploration,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. “It wouldn’t be possible without the incredible NASA team. For years, thousands of individuals have poured themselves into this mission, which is inspiring the world to work together to reach untouched cosmic shores. Today is a huge win for NASA, the United States, our international partners, and all of humanity.”
During the mission, Orion performed two lunar flybys, coming within 80 miles of the lunar surface. At its farthest distance during the mission, Orion traveled nearly 270,000 miles from our home planet, more than 1,000 times farther than where the International Space Station orbits Earth, to intentionally stress systems before flying crew.
“With Orion safely returned to Earth we can begin to see our next mission on the horizon which will fly crew to the Moon for the first time as a part of the next era of exploration,” said Jim Free, NASA associate administrator for the Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate. “This begins our path to a regular cadence of missions and a sustained human presence at the Moon for scientific discovery and to prepare for human missions to Mars.”
Prior to entering the Earth’s atmosphere, the crew module separated from its service module, which is the propulsive powerhouse provided by ESA (European Space Agency). During re-entry, Orion endured temperatures about half as hot as the surface of the Sun at about 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit. Within about 20 minutes, Orion slowed from nearly 25,000 mph to about 20 mph for its parachute-assisted splashdown.
During the flight test, Orion stayed in space longer than any spacecraft designed for astronauts has done without docking to a space station. While in a distant lunar orbit, Orion surpassed the record for distance traveled by a spacecraft designed to carry humans, previously set during Apollo 13.
“Orion has returned from the Moon and is safely back on planet Earth,” said Mike Sarafin, Artemis I mission manager. “With splashdown we have successfully operated Orion in the deep space environment, where it exceeded our expectations, and demonstrated that Orion can withstand the extreme conditions of returning through Earth’s atmosphere from lunar velocities.”
Recovery teams are now working to secure Orion for the journey home. NASA leads the interagency landing and recovery team on the USS Portland, which consists of personnel and assets from the U.S. Department of Defense, including Navy amphibious specialists, Space Force weather specialists, and Air Force specialists, as well as engineers and technicians from NASA Kennedy, the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, and Lockheed Martin Space Operations.
In the coming days, Orion will return to shore where technicians will offload the spacecraft and transfer it by truck back to Kennedy. Once at Kennedy, teams will open the hatch and unload several payloads, including Commander Moonikin Campos, the space biology experiments, Snoopy, and the official flight kit. Next, the capsule and its heat shield will undergo testing and analysis over the course of several months.
Artemis I was the first integrated test of NASA’s deep space exploration systems – the Orion spacecraft, SLS rocket, and the supporting ground systems – and was supported by thousands of people around the world, from contractors who built the spacecraft and rocket, and the ground infrastructure needed to launch them, to international and university partners, to small businesses supplying subsystems and components.
Through Artemis missions, NASA will land the first woman and the first person of color on the surface of the Moon, paving the way for a long-term lunar presence and serving as a steppingstone for astronauts on the way to Mars.
Learn more about Artemis I at:
https://www.nasa.gov/artemis-1
-end-
Kathryn Hambleton
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600
[email protected]
Tiffany Fairley
Kennedy Space Center, Fla.
321-867-2468
[email protected]
Leah Cheshier
Johnson Space Center, Houston
281-483-5111
[email protected]
By George Miller, 12-10-22
While writing this, I saw a copy of the “News-Leader” publication, featuring a nearly hysterical article about local “political acrimony,” by reporter Julia Roberts. It decried what it said were record levels of campaign acrimony, described by public speakers “nearly in tears” at this week’s City Commission meeting. Nowhere does it even get into the real issues at the core of the controversy. This is still one more reason why you need Citizens Journal Florida as a counterweight to such biased rhetoric. At least we label ours opinion, while theirs masquerades as news. It suggests that threats were made to candidates, but also mentions that law enforcement authorities say there is no credible threat.
Nassau County and Fernandina Beach are overwhelmingly Conservative- within the city limits, somewhat less so. Neither of the big, corrupt political “parties” which run our country are especially Conservative. However, if a Conservative wants to attain an elected higher office, running Republican is practically the only way to do it.
But, local elected offices are “nonpartisan,” meaning candidates don’t run under party banners. It appears that two candidates (Darron Asycue- Seat 5 & Dr. James Antun- Seat 4) are accused of being supported by the Republican Party. One of them advertises it, in the local News-Leader. The publication made a big deal about that, for whatever reason. It must be a coincidence that these are the family values candidates.
What the News-Leader totally failed to mention is that the other two candidates (Genece Minshew- Seat 5, Mike Lednovich- Seat 4)are being supported by the Democrat Party. Coincidentally, these are the “Woke” candidates.
Candidates with rather unconventional, even radical, ideologies have slipped in under the radar in Fernandina Beach under “nonpartisan” rules. Specifically, Genece Minshew and Mike Lednovich are in the runoff for City Commission and are what is now known as “Woke.” In radical Leftist language, it means that they have awakened to embrace what most of us would consider radical ideas. Why this should be partisan/political is a mystery.
They are running against somewhat more middle of the road to Conservative candidates Chiropractor James Antun and firefighter Darron Asycue.
Minshew’s main interest, which her campaign doesn’t talk about, is heading up the local (LGBTQ+) “Pride” organization. They aggressively promote their agenda and actively recruit, some say “groom,”, which can and does affect local government policies and society. You can learn more about that and visit their web site, although they have purged some content.
Lednovich, a blue state transplant, has been seen parading about town dressed in a BLM sign, promoted a transgender proclamation (presented to Minshew), caused the rainbow flag to be raised at City Hall while others were allegedly excluded and more.
But ALL of the candidate forums and questionnaires, except for the CCDF questions, ignore the issues in question here. The local News-Leader publication, the Jacksonville paper and local Fernandina Observer, also ignore them. Only the Dave Scott Blog fearlessly, if somewhat over the top, really explores the facts and opines on the dangers.
The valid objection is to how they are already aggressively attempting to implement their agendas born of their ideologies and how the POWER of offiCIALDOM would make it easier for them to do so.
Some people have attacked any criticism of the candidates’ “Woke” views as bigoted, cruel, biased. But the real objection to the candidates is not their views, which people may or may not approve of, but can’t stop them unless they are harming others, such as impressionable minors, or disturbed individuals. The valid objection is to how they are already aggressively attempting to implement their agendas born of their ideologies and how the power of officialdom would make it easier for them to do so.
The public has every right to object to directions that candidates would apparently take the city in and to reflect that in their voting. Media/opponents to that have every right, even responsibility, to bring attention to it. But if the public never knows about it because media and campaigns twist and hide the truth, then they won’t be able to, will they? They seem to be counting on that and may be able to.
For specifics, read the responses (or lack thereof) to the CCDF candidate questionnaire, which focuses on some key issues others shy away from. If we would believe the News-Leader, then it is verboten to even ask such questions, which the public has every legitimate right to ask and get truthful answers. One social media post stated that the CCDF questions were stupid. Asking questions about protecting children, families, rights and freedoms is stupid?
It is interesting that the Progressive, “Woke” world feels free to comment on and attempt to radically change the social contract when it suits them, but screams hate speech, bias, “far right”, “acrimonious”, etc. when the other side tries to stop it.
In order to help keep our community from resembling the state I fled to come here, please vote for Darron Asycue and James Antun on Tuesday, December 13. This can help positively affect the direction and tone of the city and even the county for years.
George Miller is Publisher and Co-Founder of Citizens Journal Florida, based in Fernandina Beach. He is a “retired” operations management consultant, software and publishing executive and manufacturing management professional.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
By John Binder, 12-11-22
The United States Chamber of Commerce and corporate donors are making a last-ditch effort, spending hundreds of thousands of dollars, to ram an amnesty for illegal aliens through the lame duck session of Congress.
As Breitbart News reported, Sens. Thom Tillis (R-NC) and Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ) have proposed a plan that would give amnesty to at least two million illegal aliens — those enrolled and eligible for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) — and bring hundreds of thousands more foreign workers into the U.S. labor market.
Read More
12-10-22, By Joseph Clark, This summary from CA Political Review
Twitter maintained a suite of tools to silence conservative viewpoints on the platform, placing talk show hosts, activists and even respected doctors on blacklists to limit the visibility of their accounts, newly released company documents show.
The documents revealed Thursday in Twitter owner Elon Musk’s second installment of the “Twitter Files” further expose the platform’s left-wing bent that led to its suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story just weeks before the 2020 presidential election.
Despite previous denials by company executives, screenshots of back-end tools show that Twitter employees applied a variety of tags to users’ accounts to stifle contrarian and often conservative voices without their knowledge.
Twitter had been accused for years of habitually “shadow banning” conservatives but always denied it. Liberals derided the charge as tinfoil-hat talk.
The new documents prove the charges were often true.
Dr. Jayanta Bhattacharya, a Stanford University professor and an outspoken opponent of pandemic lockdowns, was placed on a “Trends Blacklist.”
Twitter employees put conservative talk show host Dan Bongino on a “Search Blacklist” and set conservative activist Charlie Kirk’s account to “Do Not Amplify,” the documents show.
“What many people call ‘shadow banning,’ Twitter executives and employees call ‘Visibility Filtering’ or ‘VF,’” Bari Weiss, a former New York Times opinion editor, wrote in a lengthy Twitter thread revealing the finding.
Ms. Weiss was one of two independent journalists given access to Twitter’s internal files.
“Multiple high-level sources confirmed its meaning,” she said.
Ms. Weiss showed in the thread how Twitter executives denied accusations that they tamped down certain accounts.
“We do not shadow ban.” Twitter’s head of legal policy, Vijaya Gadde, said in 2018. “And we certainly don’t shadow ban based on political viewpoints or ideology.”
Mr. Musk began releasing a deluge of internal documents giving the public a behind-the-scenes look into the platform’s work with well-connected political actors, most of them left-leaning.
After teasing his followers with a promise to disclose “what really happened with the Hunter Biden story suppression,” Mr. Musk last week linked to a lengthy Twitter thread by independent journalist Matt Taibbi, the first installment of the “Twitter Files.”
That thread showed the behind-the-scenes deliberations to suppress the New York Post story about Hunter Biden’s laptop, going to extraordinary lengths to suppress the story and even the Post itself, labeling it “unsafe” and blocking users from sharing links to the story via direct message.
“By 2020, requests from connected actors to delete tweets were routine,” Mr. Taibbi wrote. “One executive would write to another: ‘More to review from the Biden team.’ The reply would come back: ‘Handled.’”
The Biden campaign branded the now-authenticated laptop as Russian disinformation in response to the Post’s reporting.
That explanation was also peddled in an open letter by more than 50 former U.S. senior intelligence officials and by social media platforms that, acting on FBI warnings on the authenticity of the laptop computer, began censoring online discussion of the laptop ahead of the 2020 presidential election.
Twitter executives decided that the content should be blocked because they could not determine whether the materials on the laptop had been hacked.
“‘They just freelanced it’ is how one former employee characterized the decision,” Mr. Taibbi wrote. “Hacking was the excuse, but within a few hours, pretty much everyone realized that wasn’t going to hold. But no one had the guts to reverse it.”
The initial release ignited a firestorm on Capitol Hill and drew fresh scrutiny to the censorship alliance between Big Tech and the Democratic Party.
It has rekindled charges that political censorship by Big Tech helped President Biden win the 2020 election. It has also added fuel to House Republicans’ plans to address this collusion.
“Now we need to start looking at Facebook, at Google. These now have become arms of the Democratic Party, arms of the Biden administration,” House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy of California said on Fox News Channel’s “Sunday Morning Futures.”
Mr. McCarthy said the deluge of documents Mr. Musk made public late Friday called into question the roles of the dozens of current and former intelligence officials who dismissed the Hunter Biden laptop as a “Russian information operation.”
Mr. Musk, who closed on his $44 billion buyout of the social media platform in October, has vowed to rein in Twitter’s censorship policies.
The pledge has ruffled feathers, especially among some who warn that unfettered Twitter posts spell doom for democracy.
Mr. Biden this month lamented Mr. Musk’s takeover of Twitter and accused the platform of spreading disinformation around the globe.
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By Jeff Childers
12-12-22
Good morning and Happy Monday, C&C! Your roundup includes: Florida newspaper wins the award for most hilarious vaccine headline; Elon Musk breaks twitter and leftist brains with his most triggering tweet ever; the Eighth Circuit joins the Fifth Circuit in banning another goofy Biden mandate; Time Magazine’s most absurd Man of the Year, ever; and another cardiologist comes out in favor of halting covid jabs.
💉 It’s over. The Tampa Bay Times just won Coffee & Covid’s Funniest Headline of 2022 award, for its December 8th story headlined “More Deaths Among Vaccinated Americans Not a Reason to Avoid Vaccines, Experts Say.” Haha, experts! Good one. The sub-headline — and I am not making this up — said, “It actually underscores the importance of staying up-to-date on boosters.”
Comedy gold! I didn’t even have to wait out the rest of the month. Nothing could possibly top that headline/subheadline duo.
The story refers to the latest CDC numbers which, despite the overfunded agency’s best efforts to camouflage, obfuscate, and deceive, are finally showing that covid is killing more jabbed people than unjabbed people. You might recall a recent Washington Post headline about the story that we discussed a couple weeks ago: “Covid is no longer mainly a pandemic of the unvaccinated. Here’s why.”
As a reminder, WaPo hired the Kaiser Foundation, which found that, as of August 2022, 58% of total deaths from covid-19 were vaccinated people compared with only 42% of unvaccinated people.
If you ask the Ethical Skeptic, the now-unobscurable bump in virus-related death figures was caused by the CDC quietly re-directing mushrooming cancer and cardiac deaths into the covid death category. In other words, Skeptic would say the CDC decided the best way to prop up the jabs was to recharacterize the spiking numbers of jab injury fatalities as covid-related deaths.
Either way, the new numbers left the white-coated propagandists in a narrative pickle. They had to come up with a way to explain this awkward development to the credulous fools who trusted them and got the shots, believing the shots would completely protect them from serious disease and death. In other words, believing exactly what they were told.
The experts have decided to brash their way through.
“The truth is we always knew we would see a growing proportion of vaccinated individuals among our COVID admissions,” bragged Dr. Shira Doron, an infectious disease doc and resident Tufts epidemiologist. Bwahahahahahaha! Either Dr. Moron — sorry, I mean Dr. Doron — either she just gave away a gigantic secret they’ve been keeping from everybody until JUST NOW, or they’re just making stuff up as they go along at this point.
“We always knew the vaccine wouldn’t stop the transmission!” (That’s why we told you it WOULD stop the transmission.)
“We always knew the vaccinated would die in larger numbers!” (That’s why we told you if you took the shot, you WOULDN’T die.)
“Nothing surprises us! Nothing! Science is omniscient! And godlike! Worship us!”
Fortunately the article did find a culprit, something tangible on which to blame the vaccinated deaths. I’ll give you one guess what it was. That’s right! They blamed the vaccinated covid deaths on THE VACCINATED. Folks aren’t boosting fast enough. So it’s THEIR OWN FAULT. And worse, it’s embarrassing the experts.
I would mock the people who read the Tampa Bay Times except that, based on the pathetic booster uptake numbers, even those poor, deluded folks aren’t buying the experts’ bat guano anymore. At this point, the experts are essentially just talking to themselves, like straightjacketed 19th century asylum lunatics maniacally babbling after their 203rd electroshock treatment.
🔥 Elon Musk almost broke Twitter by instantly triggering every virtue-signaling intellectual leftist on the platform yesterday. He did this in one short sentence fragment that simultaneously mocked woke trans politics and also jabbed a dagger straight into the heart of leftists’ bobbleheaded medical idol. Here’s the tweet:
My pronouns are Prosecute/Fauci10:58 AM ∙ Dec 11, 20221,073,594Likes164,839Retweets
As you can see from the stats, it went over BIG. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a tweet with over ONE MILLION LIKES before. But not the experts. The experts were outraged. I could show you a list of several dozen tweets from badly triggered covid experts, but in the interest of time, here’s just one disgraceful example:
Prof Peter Hotez MD PhD @PeterHotez
My pronouns are Prosecute/Fauci12:17 PM ∙ Dec 11, 202277,206Likes13,142Retweets
But, vox populi!
A smaller but significant sub-thread speculated at Musk’s motives. Why would he say this? Is it part of a limited hangout? Why was Musk so inflammatory and provocative?
I’m not sure, but maybe this morning’s tweet gives us a clue:
Yep.
As I blogged yesterday, it was the pandemic that “red pilled” Elon Musk. Pre-covid, Elon Musk was a lifelong democrat. LIFELONG. He LOVED living in California with all the other virtuous people. But Musk just voted Republican for the first time in his life in the most recent election cycle.
Musk’s conversion is easily traced to when he got mugged by California after it shut down his car factory — even though “energy companies” were supposedly designated “essential” under the state’s health regulations. After he filed a lawsuit, a California politician tweeted that Musk should go “F” himself.
At enormous personal and financial expense, Musk moved the whole shebang to Texas and changed teams. Buh bye. Thanks, drooling, overreaching bureaucrats.
I realize some folks retain honest skepticism about the billionaire entrepreneur, for plenty of good reasons. But, we can take our wins where we find them, can’t we?
Either way, you can’t PAY for this kind of entertainment.
🔥 In more good news, the National Review ran a story Friday headlined, “Federal Court Blocks Biden Mandate Forcing Religious Hospitals to Facilitate Gender Transitions.”
More Biden mandates! Well, more BLOCKED Biden mandates.
Section 1557 of Obama’s Affordable Care Act prohibits federally funded health programs from denying benefits on the basis of ‘sex’ — as defined in Title IX. Recently the Biden administration issued a revised rule expanding Title IX’s definition of ‘sex’ to include transgender people, thereby requiring religious hospitals to provide castration and other extreme body mutilation services, sorry, I mean “gender-affirming care.”
But on Friday, the Eighth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals affirmed a lower court’s decision blocking enforcement of the rule, saying “intrusion upon the Catholic Plaintiffs’ exercise of religion is sufficient to show irreparable harm.” The court rejected Biden’s lawyers’ argument that the Sisters of Mercy who filed the case lacked standing because the Administration hadn’t enforced the rule “yet.”
The new decision reinforced an August order out of the Fifth Circuit, which also permanently blocked the government from forcing Christian doctors and hospitals to provide gender-confirming care to transgender people. Administration sources say Biden isn’t planning to appeal.
What would Biden do without mandates? What would the LEFT do without mandates? They’d have to play with themselves. Sometimes I think this can all be traced back to traumatic childhood experiences where leftists wished their parents would make other kids play with them.
🔥 Time magazine hilariously ran its “Person of the Year” edition this month, honoring slapstick-comedian Zelensky and “the Spirit of Ukraine.”
There’s so much to work with here. First of all, I wonder if Zelensky resents that Time obviously didn’t feel like he was enough all by himself, and they needed to add the Spirit of Ukraine. Maybe he’s too short or something.
Second, the “Spirit of Ukraine?” What’s that? When can the Spirit of Ukraine pick up its award? Will Time need a séance or a Ouija board to let the Spirit of Ukraine know it has won?
It was dumb enough that Time changed the “Man of the Year” to the “Person of the Year.” But a “spirit” of the year? I think they’re talking about Ukrainians’ virtuous feelings of grit or persistence or nationalistic fervor or something. But Time definitely means a “feeling.”
Is the Spirit of Ukraine the “Feeling of the Year?”
Finally, and best of all, Time gave Zelensky devil horns, by placing the “M” in “Time” right behind and above the grifter’s head. Do you believe that was unintentional? Or did a graphic designer maybe pull one over on the editors, and make a surreptitious comment about Zelensky’s demonic character?
🔥 Another cardiologist has followed Dr. Aseem Malhotra and is calling for a halt to covid vaccines, due to injuries. Dr. Dean Patterson has also adopted Dr. Malhotra’s brilliant formula, opining that given the levels of KNOWN cardiac side effects and other safety signals, the shots should be considered the cause of injury until proven safe.
The doctors’ proposed standard — unsafe until proven safe — is a keen shift in the burden of proof. It makes perfect sense. The jab makers should be the ones who have to prove their drugs are safe, not the other way around. It’s not doctors’ duty to prove the drugs are harmful, not when there are clear safety signals.
Dr Dean Patterson 🇾🇪 @mottomeneki
@DrAseemMalhotra @DrJBhattacharya @JohnBoweActor @PierreKory
8:29 PM ∙ Dec 10, 20222,091Likes1,026Retweets
Dr. Patterson thinks we need a serious investigation into vaccine adverse events, which is an understatement. At this point, there should be an investigation into why there’s no investigation. Anyway, the doctors seem to be on to something, a very useful narrative twist. Hopefully this new mind worm will continue spreading.
Have a magnificent Monday! I’ll be back tomorrow with another delicious roundup.
C&C is moving the needle and changing minds. If you can, I could use your help getting the truth out and spreading optimism and hope: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/-learn-how-to-get-involved-
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The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
By Jeff Childers
12-10-22
Good morning C&C, welcome to Saturday’s weekend edition! This is a big one. Today’s roundup includes: the biggest scandal in human history is emerging from the Twitter files, and nobody’s connected the dots yet; a Florida Grand jury proposes dropping the hammer on people who help traffic illegal immigrants and kids; masks are back in NYC; Ontario hospitals mull re-hiring unjabbed nurses; Florida’s data analyst appears to be tackling excess deaths; sports journalist SADSly kicks the bucket; and a vaxx injured lady tears pharma a new one.
🔥 Matt Taibbi published part III of the Twitter Files yesterday, in which he disclosed Twitter’s tender, intimate relationship with U.S. law enforcement and its intelligence agencies (as well how Twitter’s internal moderation rules and standards rapidly morphed into a “Lord of the Flies” situation in the leadup to the 2020 election, but that’s for another post).
Twitter: “Oh FBI, how I love thee!”
FBI: “Turn over and assume the position again.”
Twitter: “Anything for you, FBI!”
Twitter executives and the FBI met so frequently during Trump’s presidency that Twitter’s executives sometimes cracked jokes about it, and about concealing or obscuring those meetings, as did Yoel Roth, Twitter’s Director of Trust and Safety, in this embarrassing series of posts on Twitter’s internal chat software:
In the law, evidence of an attempt to conceal something is evidence of a consciousness of guilt. (That’s a useful rule of thumb in all situations.)
In this next example showing how banal and mundane these intelligence meetings had become, Yoel Roth gets another employee to cover so that he can ditch two separate meetings on the same day, one with the FBI and one with DHS, so he can go to Aspen instead.
Taibbi didn’t report any details from those meetings. I suspect it’s because he doesn’t have them. We’ll never see them, because they either don’t exist or were scrubbed before Musk took over. But Taibbi did give us some examples of FBI agents reporting “misleading” tweets.
Here’s a Constitutional principle for you: the government of the United States isn’t allowed to censor citizens’ speech. Not for politics, not for religion, and not for misinformation. Every time an FBI, DHS or CIA agent in their official capacity “reported” a citizen’s tweet for misinformation, that was an actionable civil rights violation, regardless of whether Twitter did anything with the report, or not.
But the routine meetings between Twitter and the agencies were much more ominous than the individual “misinformation” complaints, in terms of civil rights violations. For one thing, the meetings strongly suggest that the government actors were helping Twitter define its content moderation rules, standards, and policies. In the second example above, for instance, Roth mentioned that “Site Policy” was included in the meeting.
The Constitution forbids the government from helping private companies define their speech policies. That’s an actionable civil rights violation. But it gets worse. Much worse.
🔥 Taibbi can be forgiven for overlooking the biggest implication of this story, since he’s drinking Twitter Files through a firehose, cobbling reports together in real time, and he hasn’t had space to connect with the other part yet, never mind think about it all.
The biggest developing story isn’t about how the Deep State bent, tore, and spindled the Constitution, committing what may be the larges and most widespread civil rights violation in American history. No.
It’s way, way uglier than that.
Among other courageous folks, Twitter recruited independent child safety advocate Andrea Stroppa to help its content team eliminate child sexual exploitation (CSE) material from the platform. They gave her access to the Twitter Files, and yesterday Stroppa delivered her first report about what she found was going on before Musk took over.
Andrea Stroppa 🐺 Claudius Nero’s Legion 🐺 @andst7
🧵I. How the old Twitter failed the fight against children’s sexual exploitation content (sigh) and more11:59 PM ∙ Dec 9, 20223,880Likes1,799Retweets
Stroppa described old Twitter’s approach to moderating CSE as “hell” and “insane,” which turned out to be an understatement. It’s like describing the Baatan Death March as a difficult hike in the woods.
Andrea Stroppa 🐺 Claudius Nero’s Legion 🐺 @andst7
VI. The more we work on child sexual abuse material on Twitter, the more we find the HELL left by the old Twitter management. What I’m going to tell you now is INSANE.12:13 AM ∙ Dec 10, 20221,223Likes333Retweets
Ms. Stroppa easily located accounts with stomach-turning, blatant pedophile CSE that were active for YEARS — some opened back in 2017 — accounts that had never been banned, but instead had over TEN MILLION VIEWS. Ten million! They’ve all been banned now, of course, but Stroppa discovered that, under Twitter’s old management, whenever the content moderation team got a complaint about CSE, they just deleted a tweet or two, but then allowed the degenerate accounts to keep operating normally and churning out despicable child abuse material.
All the tools Twitter had developed to shadow-ban, de-accelerate, un-search, and flag tweets with ridiculous content warnings, those tools were never deployed against the people who were industriously and illegally traumatizing kids. In other words, people who were committing REAL ACTUAL illegal conduct. Twitter didn’t crack down on that. Nope.
Instead Twitter cracked down HARD on law-abiding conservatives complaining about stolen votes and vaccine injuries.
Twitter prioritized the censorship of non-illegal speech over the removal of child sexual abuse material at scale. Let that sink in.3:03 AM ∙ Dec 9, 202269,857Likes11,557Retweets
Yoel Roth, Twitter’s content moderation director, is a moral monster, a living demon, a reprehensible criminal who should be shunned by all right-thinking people, if not prosecuted and entombed in solitary confinement for the rest of his life. It’s fair to hold Roth personally responsible for years of exploited children, since he was in a position to prevent it, but didn’t.
There’s no valid excuse. It wasn’t an accident. Roth’s failure to moderate CSE can only be the result of an intentional choice.
Roth spent all his time shutting down tweets and tweeters. That was his JOB. He had a vast staff with which to do it. He worked hard at it. But he DIDN’T do his job when it came to pedophiles and CSE. For some reason. I’m not saying it’s determinative, but for context, Roth is gay. Super gay.
Don’t worry too much about him though; he’ll be okay. Roth will probably burrow his way into a high-paying tenured professorship and infest some marxist college somewhere. He’ll get away with it. But don’t get hung up on that.
Believe it or not, Roth is small potatoes.
Think instead about all those content-moderation meetings with the FBI, DHS, and the CIA. Consider all the reports U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agents submitted about law-abiding citizens. Ponder all the time spent coordinating between Twitter’s content moderation team and the teams of well-paid civil servants employed full-time ostensibly to protect the defenseless children of this great nation.
But they DIDN’T protect the children of this country, though, did they?
Obviously, the FBI and DHS never spent one single minute on child sexual exploitation. That wasn’t on the agenda of any of those meetings and reports and calls and zooms. They didn’t have time for KIDS. They were too busy playing politics. They KNEW about the CSE on Twitter. They just didn’t CARE about the CSE on Twitter.
Or worse.
THAT is the biggest story crawling out of the smoldering remains of the Twitter Files’ dumpster fire. The intentional, unforgivable, inexplicable dereliction of duty of the United States’ law enforcement and intelligence agencies, who totally abdicated their proper duties in a vain pursuit of self-preservation, because they were worried President Trump would get to the bottom of their own dissolute, depraved, and debauched interests.
The FBI is 1,000 times more morally culpable for systemic child abuse than is Yoel Roth, which is really saying something. The Twitter Files already prove it. There’s no legitimate excuse for the FBI’s total failure to investigate and prosecute child porn purveyors and kiddie traffickers, when the agency had so much intimate access to Twitter, if not outright control of the platform.
There’s no legitimate excuse for why the FBI prioritized cracking down on lawful tweets about covid vaccines and election suspicions over rampant illegal child pornography and criminally explicit abuse. None.
The only rational conclusion can be that the FBI is no longer a law-enforcement agency. It’s a political secret police force that covers for pedophiles.
This explosive story is only getting started.
🔥 CBS News Miami ran an encouraging story yesterday headlined, “Florida Grand Jury Calls for Immigration Law Changes.”
This week a statewide grand jury impaneled by Governor DeSantis in June issued a report, calling for Florida’s Legislature to expand laws punishing people who smuggle undocumented immigrants into the state. Especially children.
The report, posted on the Florida Supreme Court’s website, explained:
[We] have concluded that the smuggling of illegal aliens not only endangers Floridians, but also generates huge sums of money for TCOs (transnational criminal organizations) which are used to further a host of criminal activities, notably drug trafficking and human trafficking. Additionally, the illegal aliens being smuggled into and within the state are put into a vulnerable position and are often exploited by criminals. This is particularly troubling when dealing with unaccompanied alien minors.
The grand jury described its recommendations a “first” presentment, suggesting more is coming. The grand jury heard testimony from Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd, Brevard County Sheriff Wayne Ivey, and Bill Gladson, the state attorney in the 5th Judicial Circuit.
The report proposes to expand existing Florida law in several ways, like creating a third-degree felony for any person who “conceals, harbors, or shields” illegal immigrants. It also proposes a new second-degree felony for concealing, harboring, or shielding undocumented immigrants if they are under age 18.
There’s no reason why federal officials would be immune to prosecution under the proposed law, unless they act under the color of OFFICIAL federal policy.
The left isn’t happy about this story. For example, ABC Action News ran an alarmed story Wednesday headlined, “Why Advocates Fear DeSantis’ Statewide Grand Jury on Immigration.” The gist is that people and sketchy nonprofits who help traffic undocumented kids and immigrants in Florida are worried about the potential new laws. And they should be.
WPLG Local 10 News @WPLGLocal10
Florida grand jury calls for new laws on illegal immigration local10.com/news/politics/…
😷 They’re baaaaack! Yesterday, New York City’s Health Department recommended masks for everyone over 2 years old, jabbed or not. Useless covid white-coat pretending experts were excited about the prospect that masks might be making a comeback.
6:43 PM ∙ Dec 9, 20227,582Likes3,423Retweets
Mask-o-philes were enraged that the recommendation wasn’t a mandate. You should see all the crazy stuff in the comments to Doctor Ding-a-Ling’s post. Oh heck, here are a few, just for your amusement.
Bad, bad gurl🇺🇦💛💙🇺🇦💛💙 @Imback2222
@MacLiv @DrEricDing Bingo Went to an indoor dinner yesterday. I ate Taco Bell in my car, went in for the festivities and remained masked the entire time. I did slip a straw under my mask for sips of iced tea…Hahahahaha Worked out great7:02 PM ∙ Dec 9, 202253Likes1Retweet
pro-choice clwntwn 🇺🇦🇺🇲 @clwntwn1
@DrEricDing I’ve also never stopped masking. Unfortunately, I am sick with COVID right now due to catching it from my spouse who picked it up during an adult league ice hockey game. You do not want this. Day 4 for me. Nobody wants this.7:14 PM ∙ Dec 9, 2022131Likes20Retweets
@DrEricDing So many people I know have just got COVID. They all have mild cold symptoms or felt crappy for a couple of days. Vaccines and boosters seem to be working.9:50 PM ∙ Dec 9, 2022
💉 Canadian TV (CTV) News ran an ironic story yesterday headlined, “Ontario Hospital Considers Hiring Unvaccinated Nurses, Health-Care Workers to Combat Staffing Shortage.”
Imagine that.
The article described “a tense community meeting, in Chesley, Ontario, on Oct. 18 when more than 400 residents packed into the town hall, claiming they fear for their health and safety, after their local ER was shut down for two months because of a severe shortage of nurses.”
Two months.
And, it’s so weird that NURSES don’t want the jabs, isn’t it? You’d think they know all about The Science and how safe and effective the jabs are.
At the town hall meeting, laid-off registered nurse Anne Laxton stood up and announced she was ready and willing to work, but her job application had been denied by the local hospital system because of her jab status.
Outrage against the local hospital chain ensued.
Ontario officially ended vaccine mandates — including for hospitals — back in March. But the Ontario Hospital Association still recommends mandatory vaccination policies for the province’s 140 hospitals. CTV reported some experts are questioning why the mandate is still being enforced. “I don’t see a logic to it,” said Rafael Gomez, director of the Centre for industrial relations and Human Resources at the University of Toronto. “Why not allow these people back?”
Other Canadian provinces have begun allowing unvaccinated healthcare workers back to work. Slow progress.
💉 Yesterday, the State of Florida’s data analyst, Kyle Lamb, posted a chart showing excess deaths in the United States by month and by age bracket. It clearly shows that younger folks are suffering worst, with up to +40% non-covid excess mortality compared to 2019 levels.
SOMETHING is tearing young people a new one. Experts are baffled, like they always are, except for when they’re cashing in a pharmaceutical grant or something. That’s when Science can’t be argued with.
6:31 PM ∙ Dec 9, 2022828Likes430Retweets
Props to Kyle and Florida. It’s really too bad that the U.S. doesn’t have any giant, well-funded health agencies that could look into a phenomenon like this. I guess we aren’t paying enough taxes to expect services like that. I sometimes dream of a corporate media that actually had an interest in issues affecting the lives and deaths of all Americans.
I can dream, can’t I?
Stop saying it’s the jabs. Never question The Science. To badly paraphrase Arnold Schwarzenegger’s best movie: “Listen, and understand. SCIENCE is out there. It can’t be bargained with. It can’t be reasoned with. It doesn’t feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead.”
Anyway, it’s encouraging that Kyle Lamb is investing time and energy into the excess deaths situation. Hopefully it means that the State of Florida is beginning to look into this horrible phenomenon. It’s the deep state’s achilles’ heel.
💉 The AP ran a SADS story yesterday headlined, “US Soccer Journalist Grant Wahl Dies at World Cup.”
The AP reported that Wahl’s sudden and unexpected death in the journalists’ section of the Qatar World Cup “left fellow reporters covering the games stunned.” The prominent soccer journalist, 48, who’d complained about feeling unwell earlier this week, including experiencing chest pressure, suddenly fell back in his seat yesterday, and, after being treated on the scene for half an hour, was rushed to Doha’s Hamad General Hospital, where he was pronounced dead as a doornail.
The hospital did not state a cause of death. It’s so SADS.
🔥 People who defend big pharma have tragically misplaced loyalties. Big pharma will ghost you in a myocarditic heartbeat the second you have a bad experience with their products.
12:02 AM ∙ Dec 9, 202212,555Likes6,929Retweets
Have a terrific weekend! I’ll see you back here on Monday.
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The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
| Ken Timmerman’s Threat Watchwww.kentimmerman.com, 12-9-22 I was appalled to hear that President Biden had released Russian arms dealer Victor Bout, an accomplice to mass murderers (especially in Africa) and armorer of the Taliban, in exchange for basketball player Brittney Griner, who doesn’t think folks should be singing our national anthem before pro games. Meanwhile, former US Marine Paul Whelan gets left behind. Having been a hostage myself, I am happy that Ms. Griner has found her freedom again, and hope that the year she spent in a Russian prison has taught her the price of that freedom. (Hint: it’s not free). You can read about my own experience as a hostage in Lebanon in my new memoir, And the Rest is History. But this exchange begs the question: why in the world Victor Bout? A Russian arrested for jay-walking, sure. But Victor Bout? As several former and current federal agents who know quite a bit about the jailed Russian arms dealer told me: this guy is going back to work tomorrow. Putin called him home so he can resume his arms care-package delivery service, this time most likely to expedite drones and ammo from China and Iran so Russians can kill more Ukrainians. As for Ms. Griner, if you are not familiar with her professional career, she was selected for her second Olympics in 2021, helping to win the gold medal as a member of Team USA (despite really really hating the national anthem). This was after playing off-season for Zhejaian Golden Bulls in China ( 2013-2014), and for five years with UMMC Ekaterinburg, Russia (2014-2019). This disgraceful and disproportionate exchange gives a prod to dictators around the world: capture Americans right now, for any reason — just in case you need them as hostages later. Team Biden will give you whatever you want. I comment on this and other geopolitical issues around the globe on my weekly segment on Prophecy Today.You can listen live in the Jacksonville/Fernandina Beach area at 1:05 PM on Saturday at 104.9 FM, 550AM, or by using the WAY Radio app. In St. Augustine, tune in at 96.5 FM or 1420 AM.If you miss the show live, you can listen to the podcast version at prophecytoday[dot]com (it’s in the lower right-hand corner of the page). Yours in freedom, Ken PS: If you would like to send this email to a friend, please use the forward button below. If you send it to a lib, they could unsubscribe you without you knowing….! |
Ken Timmerman’s 12th book of non-fiction, AND THE REST IS HISTORY: Tales of Hostages, Arms Dealers, Dirty Tricks, and Spies, is now available from PostHill Press.  AND THE REST IS HISTORY can be ordered directly from Amazon by clicking here or by viewing my author’s page, here. – Republican nominee for Congress, Maryland District 8 (2012) – National Security and Foreign Policy Advisory Board, Trump for President 2016 – President & CEO, Foundation for Democracy in Iran, www.iran.org – Nobel Peace Prize nominee, 2006 Cell: 301-675-7922 Follow me on Twitter @kentimmerman #TheElectionHeist Facebook: ken timmerman Reply to: [email protected] Website: kentimmerman.com |
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The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
By Dave Scott, 12-9-22
On November 8 Florida voters declared that they won’t tolerate higher taxes; teachers unions and their school indoctrination garbage; liberal prosecutors; rising crime rates; and the idiocy of woke culture. In a nutshell, they don’t want radical Democrats running anything in the Sunshine State.
A massive landslide victory by Republican voters turned the state fire engine red in the races for governor, U.S. Senate, U.S. House, and every state office last month. Not a single Democrat holds statewide office in Florida for the first time in more than 150 years.
Democrat candidates state-wide were tossed on the liberal rubbish heap by conservative voters fed up with their woke culture and identity politics. However, a couple of local woke remnants remain, hoping voters won’t take notice of their outrageous identity politics in this Tuesday, November 13 City Commission runoff election.
While Democrat-sponsored Fernandina Beach City Commission candidate and California transplant Mike Lednovich was waltzing up and down Centre Street proudly wearing a Black Lives Matter sandwich board, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis was announcing that he would be handing out $1,000 bonuses to Florida first responders in law enforcement and in other professions, such as paramedics and EMTs.
Lednovich ignores the governor and like most left-wingers, obediently obeys his ideological indoctrinators never questioning the origins or considering the source of the Marxist claptrap they spew.
Does California transplant Lednovich know that BLM is an offshoot of Marxism because it replaces Karl Marx’s proletariat with black Americans as the agents of revolutionary change? Does he know that BLM co-founder Patrisse Cullors, describes herself and her fellow organizers as “trained Marxists.” Does he know they used contributed funds for their personal use? It’s doubtful he knows or even cares about any of this. He won’t respond to questions from the media or local citizens groups. Why not?
Governor DeSantis made it clear that the BLM rioters, arsonists, and looters are not welcome in Florida and the state’s voters agreed November 8. Hopefully that conservative momentum will continue this coming Tuesday and toss failed Fernandina Commissioner Lednovich out of office and seat Republican and local husband, new father and local chiropractic clinic owner, Dr. James Antun in his place.
And while Governor DeSantis was focused on crime, education, and morality, Fernandina’s other Democrat City Commission candidate, Genece Minshew, the head of Pride Fernandina, was telling folks she wants to make Fernandina a “gay vacation destination,” organized pride parades and public LGBTQIA+ celebrations in Central Park.
Following Minshew’s Pride event in Central Park a local parent asked her if she supported “transspecies rights” because his daughter identifies as a cat. I’m not making this up, honest. Minshew responded saying: “Yes, we were very happy to give them a safe space to be themselves.” A “safe place” is a flashing red light meaning that certain opinions aren’t allowed and that those expressing opposing views do so at their peril.
A couple of weeks ago Ms. Minshew was presented a unilateral proclamation from Commissioner and Mayor Lednovich for something called “Transgendered Remembrance Day.” Apparently this was something Lednovich and Minshew cooked up prior to the Commission meeting since the mayor controls the agenda and can put anything he wants on it.
Minshew’s Republican opponent in this Tuesday’s election is life-long local resident and 23-year firefighter, Darron Ayscue, a husband, and father of two and long-time community volunteer.
Governor DeSantis legislated a Stop W.O.K.E. Act in Education bill, which removed detested critical-race-theory material from public schools and championed the Parental Rights in Education bill, banning LGBTQ issues through third grade and required schools to tell parents if their children receive mental-health service through the school.
Minshew, who founded, and heads Fernandina Pride doesn’t appear to be any more anxious to broadcast her LGBTQIA+ activities to area voters during her campaign than Lednovich does his support for BLM.
Lednovich’s BLM backing is worthy of condemnation because that group represents a violent threat. Minschew’s support of the LGBTQIA+ group isn’t violent, but adherents demand blind acceptance proclaiming that their gender spectrum and fluid sexuality is scientific fact and anyone disagreeing is a bigot and hater. Florida voters made it clear they don’t want their children indoctrinated with toxic theories such as gender ideology. Parents say they, not politicians, unions, or any other outside influence has the final say over the upbringing of their children.
I don’t care what the adult LGBTQIA+ crowd thinks and does with each other in private. However, I don’t want it forced on young people or have them taught that it is normal. Local institutions, schools, parks, and ball fields should not be pressured to treat boys as if they were girls or vice versa when it comes to sports, bathrooms, or locker rooms. I don’t want my taxes used to promote their activities or have the government – local or national – involved in telling children that they can change their sex. They can’t, nobody can, not even through surgeries or chemical castration. That doesn’t have anything to do with gay or transgendered rights. That’s child abuse.
A supporter of Minshew, and a former City Commissioner, contacted me this week telling me I should retract my comments recently about Minshew’s recent activities telling me I misrepresented the group’s slogan and intentions. To my surprise the caller, without any prompting, also admitted to being an atheist.
I asked the irate caller why Minshew and Lednovich refused to answer any of the questions submitted to them about their positions on a variety of local issues and the response was: “Because the questions were stupid.” The caller’s answer speaks for itself.
Click here to see the list of “stupid” questions submitted by the local chapter of County Citizens Defending Freedom (CCDF) that all other candidates but Minshew and Lednovich answered: Voter Guide for Nassau School Board and Fernandina Council Election- 2022.
Fernandina Beach residents also have an opportunity this coming Tuesday, December 13 to endorse the traditional Judeo-Christian values endorsed by the majority of Floridians and reject the woke ones and identity politics of extremist local Democrats Minshew and Lednovich.
Historically runoff races in Fernandina have seen low turnouts ranging from 20-24 percent of eligible voters (11,668) which means that only about 2,400 voters will decide the future of the city. So, turnout is key.
The last time Minshew ran she lost by just 38 votes. Obviously every vote is vital to the city’s future. Will Fernandina maintain its Norman Rockwell atmosphere with Antun and Ayscue or will it turn into the hellscape of “It’s a Wonderful Life’s” Pottersville with Lednovich and Minshew?
Tomorrow, Saturday, December 10, voters are invited to participate in an Antun-Ayscue rally at the corner of Sadler and South 8th Street 8:30-10 am. There will be a neighborhood walk-throughs following the rally. Not convinced? Bagels and coffee will be provided.
***
Speaking Of Law & Order: Governor DeSantis’s efforts to invest in crime prevention and keep Florida citizens safe is working.
In Florida crime rates decreased dramatically by almost 10 percent, according to the state’s annual crime report.
According to the report crime in the Sunshine State decreased overall in 2021 by 9.5%. Murders were down by Murders down 13.9% , robberies down 23% and assaults down 5.4%.
Last November, when Governor DeSantis invited police officers to relocate to Florida, he said, “NYPD, Minneapolis, Seattle, if you’re not being treated well, we’ll treat you better here: you fill important needs for us, and we’ll compensate you as a result.”
Shortly after his invitation, at least 14 NYPD officers left New York City to join the Lakeland Police Department, located near Tampa. They cited DeSantis’ recruitment plan and a hostile work environment in a city whose leadership they said turned its back on police.
Six new recruits joined the Cape Coral Police Department in Lee County. Two relocated from New York; one relocated from Maryland, one relocated from Georgia, and two are new to the profession.
All six officers were sworn into the Cape Coral Police Department prior to Hurricane Ian and served the community during response and recovery efforts. Recruits from other states receive bonuses of up to $50,000.
***
Things I Wish I’d Said: “If you want to eat kale, that’s up to you. I don’t eat kale, you know why? Because kale tastes to me like ‘I’d rather be fat.’” – Louisiana Republican Senator John Kennedy.
***
Thinking About Buying An Electric Car? If you’re considering purchasing an electric car because you believe it will benefit the environment and help reduce dependence on fossil fuels you’d be wrong….very, very wrong.
An article by Roger D. McGrath in “Chronicles” magazine details why. He says a midsize electric vehicle requires a battery pack that weighs at least 1,000 pounds, which typically includes about 30 pounds of lithium, 60 pounds of cobalt, 130 pounds of nickel, 90 pounds of copper, 190 pounds of graphite and roughly 500 pounds of steel, aluminum, manganese, plastic, and other materials.
Supplying these materials for the battery pack requires processing – using fossil fuels – of at least 50 tons of ores. Multiply all that by 30 million for just California’s cars and light trucks – 900 million pounds of lithium, 1.8 million pounds of cobalt, 3.9 million pounds of nickel ….The numbers are staggering and that just for mid-sized vehicles.
He uses California as an example because that state’s whacky governor has banned the sales of gasoline-powered vehicles beginning in 2035.
McGrath’s number are for just mid-sized cars. Batteries for GM’s Hummer weigh in at 3,000 pounds, twice the weight of a Volkswagen bug.
The companies that produce these batteries are mostly based in China, which is responsible for nearly 80 percent of the global production for EV batteries. All of those firms are state owned or subsidized by the Communist government of China.
***
Overheard At PJD’s Beer & Wine Garden: “What happens if you get scared half to death twice?”
Drinking, Dining & Dancing: Piano man John Springer is back on a regular basis. The popular and personable tuxedo-clad local singer and musician who performs musical quizzes and takes requests, will sit at a baby grand piano every Friday and Saturday evening 7-10 pm at the upstairs dinning room of the recently renovated Crab Trap, the corner of Alachua and North 2nd Street downtown. He will be joined tomorrow, Friday, December 10, and most other Fridays by his drummer sidekick, Rob Taylor. The last time Springer appeared on a regular basis was at the Beech Street Grill before the current one opened and for several years at the now defunct Alley Cat on Centre Street. It’ll be fun to have him back. I’m told there’s no cover and no minimum.
Republished with the author’s permission. Read The Dave Scott Blog– subscribe Free
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
By Jeff Childers
12-09-22
Another week has flown by, and it’s Friday again! Today’s roundup includes: the Twitter Files’ second part drops; cross-dressing pervert Sam Brinton is in trouble again; another sportscaster has seizure DURING a live broadcast; Celine Dion has a fatal, ultra-rare autoimmune condition and you’ll never guess what it might be related to; for some reason called “experts,” children are feeling hopeless and committing suicide in record numbers; Joe bidens it again, trading a notorious international arms dealer for a cross-dressing basketball player; Florida Republican resigns over covid loan accusations; and a surprising development in the Senate.
🔥 Yesterday, former New York Times Editor and now freelance journalist Bari Weiss published “Part II” of the so-called ‘Twitter Files’ exposé. I’ll save you some time: despite public denials, including in testimony under oath before Congress, Twitter WAS shadow-banning people by excluding them from search results, de-amplifying them, and deleting them from trending topics.
Even though Twitter had written standards for what constituted violations, which could have been applied even-handedly and across the board, Twitter moderators routinely ignored the standards, and instead substituted their own subjective personal feelings or intuitions about a particular user’s intent.
For example, one internal memo documenting LibsOfTikTok’s final ban conceded that the user hadn’t actually violated any standards. But the reviewers concluded that Libs “INTENDED” harm by republishing insane lefty TikTok videos. Therefore: banned for her ‘intentions.’ The decision to ban Libs wasn’t made by some intern, either. The deciding committee included the highest levels of Twitter management.
One very odd thing is how secretive Twitter was about it. Why not just SAY you’re throttling someone’s account or shadow banning them or search-banning them? Why deny it? Wouldn’t it be a more effective “punishment” to tell people they’re in trouble?
Secrecy is something inherent with leftists. Communists always deny they are communists. I think maybe life isn’t exciting for lefties unless they feel like they’re part of a secret club or something.
I almost feel like this story isn’t “news,” since everyone knew that Twitter was doing it anyway. But it’s more than news. The exposure of what Twitter was doing is massively cathartic for a lot of gaslit people who had high-follower accounts but saw their hard work crumble after falling into the political crosshairs, or whose expert professional opinions were sidelined and silenced by some 20-something content moderator at Twitter.
Like, for example, heroic Stanford professor Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, who is finally starting to understand what happened to him:
Jay Bhattacharya @DrJBhattacharya
Still trying to process my emotions on learning that @Twitter blacklisted me. The thought that will keep me up tonight: censorship of scientific discussion permitted policies like school closures & a generation of children were hurt. 1/22:16 AM ∙ Dec 9, 202251,513Likes11,854Retweets
🔥 Whoopsies! Biden’s newest nuclear waste disposal expert and unattractive cross-dresser Sam Brinton is in trouble again. Newsweek ran a story this morning headlined, “Sam Brinton Warrant Issued—Biden Official Accused of Stealing Luggage Again.”
He did it AGAIN!
Just to remind you, back in September Sam was charged with stealing a navy blue hard-sided Vera Bradley bag from the luggage conveyor in the Minneapolis airport. Well, as of yesterday there’s a NEW felony arrest warrant out for him, this time in Las Vegas, where he’s allegedly stolen some more luggage at the Harry Reid International Airport.
Sam is charged with grand larceny, which applies to thefts of property valued between $1,200 and $5,000. The news is so fresh that we don’t know yet what type of bag he stole this time, but I’m betting it was a woman’s bag. Maybe he doesn’t just have a cross-dressing fetish; maybe it’s not JUST that he enjoys wearing women’s clothing, but maybe he gets his kinks wearing OTHER women’s clothing.
Klepto-transvestitism.
Or it could be he’s just a cheap little puppy pretender, and he doesn’t want to pay for his own pretty luggage. Either way, this is a super bad sign for someone whose job is to safely secure the country’s nuclear waste in highly-classified facilities.
Earlier this week, several Republican lawmakers sent a letter to Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm calling for Brinton’s resignation. The letter explained, “It is simply not possible for an individual to represent American values and simultaneously violate the felony laws of the land. Brinton’s actions, along with your Department’s lack of transparency when dealing with this matter, reflect poorly on the Department of Energy, and they raise concern as to the Biden Administration’s priorities when appointing high-ranking officials.”
Indeed.
💉 On Monday, Hawks’ announcer Bob Rathbun had some kind of appalling medical emergency on air. We’ve seen a lot of these on-air incidents over the last twelve months, haven’t we?
Bacon, Grits, Eggs @reddawg77089
Hawks Announcer Bob Rathbun suffering medical emergency. Pray for him.
1:52 AM ∙ Dec 6, 20229,300Likes2,029Retweets
What are the odds that someone who works in media will have a seizure ON AIR? There are twenty-four hours in a day. It must either be that there are a TON of seizures happening that we DON’T see, or else the camera is involved somehow.
They claimed Rathbun was “dehydrated.” Dehydrated from WHAT? It’s been nearly a week, and I can’t find much about Bob’s condition other than he’s “stable,” and on Tuesday the network said he was “in good spirits” and would be released from the hospital “soon.” Nothing after that. Nor has he been back on the air. Nor has he tweeted anything since before his on-air seizure.
So anyways, stay hydrated folks. I guess.
💉 Yesterday, the Hill ran an alarming story headlined, “Celine Dion Diagnosed With Stiff-Person Syndrome: What Is It?”
What is it? It’s an ultra-rare AUTOIMMUNE disorder, that’s what.
The Hill explained “Stiff-Person Syndrome” is an ultra-rare neurological disorder affecting one person in a million. It’s a one-in-a-million shot. The disorder is “characterized by fluctuating muscle rigidity in the trunk and limbs and a heightened sensitivity to stimuli such as noise, touch, and emotional distress, which can set off muscle spasms.”
The disease ultimately transforms sufferers into human statues as it progressively locks the body into rigid positions, leaving people unable to walk or talk. It normally ends in sudden death when sufferers lose the ability to take their next breath. There is no known cure.
The condition isn’t like a novel coronavirus, which doctors fully understood from day one. In this case, doctors are, once again, baffled. The Hill explained the disorder’s cause is an enigma, but research “suggests it may be an AUTOIMMUNE ISSUE in the brain and spinal cord.”
Autoimmune is where the body’s immune system attacks ITSELF, for a wide variety of reasons, like for instance when the some of the body’s cells start acting weird and producing unnatural proteins, like spikes, just to pick a totally random example.
In a video posted to her social media, Dion, 54, said the uncontrollable spasms are affecting “every aspect” of her life, making it hard for her to walk or sing. “I always give 100% when I do my shows, but my condition is not allowing me to give you that right now,” she explained glumly.
It’s probably nothing, but Pfizer’s long list of post-authorization adverse event reports — reluctantly released under court order — includes, you guessed it, the ultra-rare Stiff Person Syndrome:
Weird! But remember, it couldn’t possibly be the safe and effective vaccines. Don’t be silly. It was probably climate change that got her.
🔥 Earlier this week, the Economist ran a story with the headline, “Young Americans Increasingly End Their Own Lives.” The sub-headline explained, “Suicide is now the second-biggest killer of ten- to 18-year-olds.”
According to newly-released data, in post-pandemic America, self-murder is the second most likely cause of death for kids after accidents. In 2021 nearly HALF of American high-school students said they’d experienced persistent feelings of sadness and hopelessness in the past year.
For some reason.
Hey, I know what you’re thinking. Stop it. Terrifying kids by constantly screaming at them that they could accidentally kill each other or their grandma, as an official policy, to increase pandemic safety compliance, was 100% necessary. So don’t complain. Instead, we should be thanking the experts for saving our lives.
You can’t make a safety omelet without breaking a few little brains.
The Economist noted that the perfectly useless experts are, and I repeat myself, BAFFLED. Again. “The causes [of child suicide] are only starting to be understood.” It could be climate change though: “Speculation over other causes has ranged from earlier puberty to the effects of social media and even to climate-change despair.”
Late in the article, the Economist finally flirts with the real cause, government-manufactured terror. But it finds blame, not in the experts or the government officials, where it belongs, but — of course — in the VIRUS:
Being locked up during the pandemic increased feelings of isolation and loneliness for many youngsters. There is increasingly compelling evidence of the harm inflicted by school closures on children’s development and mental health. Covid appears to have hurt the mental health of younger people[.]
Covid. Covid hurt their mental health. Not experts, perish the thought. What would we do without EXPERTS?
This statistic was simultaneously clueless, ironic, and revealing:
Nine out of ten children who died by suicide had some contact with the health-care system in their final year of life.
Really. Imagine that. 90% of them had contact with medical EXPERTS.
So.
🔥 Good news! Britney Griner is coming home.
A Post-Millennial article yesterday featured the headline, “BREAKING: Saudi Arabia and UAE Announce They Brokered Griner Release in Joint Statement.”
You’ll recall, I’m sure, that Joe Biden promised democrat voters that he would bring Justice to Saudi Arabia and make them a pariah state, for chopping up that muslim lefty activist/journalist Jamal Kashoggi. Now he’s haggling with them.
According to the Post-Millennial, the prisoner-swapping deal was brokered two days after the Biden Administration intervened in a civil lawsuit against Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. The Administration informed the court that bin Salman ought to get immunity from the lawsuit.
Such much for all that pariah-state stuff.
Most commenters felt like Joe didn’t make a very good bargain. To get the basketball player back, Joe traded a notorious Russian arms dealer, Viktor Bout, a dangerous criminal that Nicolas Cage played in the movie “Lords of War.” Bout has often been described as “the personification of evil.”
Maybe before he started negotiating, Biden should’ve practiced by playing Pokémon, or prepared by reading Trumps’ book, The Art of the Deal, because this is another total Joe fail. He Bidened it again, not that corporate media will say anything.
🔥 Liberals celebrated yesterday over news that Republican Joe Harding had been indicted by Biden’s DOJ for ‘fraudulently’ applying for a covid PPP loan, and late yesterday Harding resigned from the Florida Legislature. Harding authored the excellent Parent’s Rights in Education bill (which C&C multiplied him for) and which the White House nicknamed the “don’t say gay law.”
News is sparse, since Harding can’t talk much under the circumstances, and the DOJ says very little. But I’ll start by noting that in 2020 I advised all my business clients to be very cautious and ultra conservative with the PPP loans, since they were extremely easy to apply for and didn’t require very much documentation, but they included fine-print language criminalizing any errors or mistakes.
It seemed to me that the loans could easily be made into a trap.
We know some basics: Harding applied for a $150,000 PPP loan for his farm, which at the time had a lapsed corporate registration, so he had to revive the company with the Division of Corporations to apply for the loan. That’s not completely unusual, people let small companies lapse all the time, but it does suggest that the corporation wasn’t being used for anything at the time.
Harding claimed two employees on the farm, which sounds like him and his wife. The indictment alleged Harding “falsified bank statements,” but didn’t provide enough information to tell whether they meant he made up a completely fake statement, or he just submitted the wrong month or something.
According to court documents, Harding applied for the loan in December 2020, and then paid the loan back a few months later in April 2021 — long before Harding probably knew he was under any kind of investigation. Most folks who applied for PPP loans got loan forgiveness, a standard PPP program feature. But Harding paid his back, suggesting he changed his mind or had second thoughts or something. Possibly he felt morally obligated to repay the loan; I’m aware of a few people who took that position.
But, by the fine print on the PPP’s one-page application, it won’t help Harding that he paid the loan back, not in his court case. The PPP crime occurs at the moment you click “submit.”
We’ll withhold judgment until we find out more.
🔥 Arizona democrat Senator Kyrsten Sinema just left the democrat party to become an independent. Buh bye. After Rafael Warnock won the Georgia runoff election on Tuesday, democrats held 51 seats in the Senate. Now they’re back down to 50.
Interesting times!
11:01 AM ∙ Dec 9, 20225,584Likes1,058Retweets
Have a fabulous Friday! I’ll see you all back here tomorrow for the weekend edition.
C&C is moving the needle and changing minds. If you can, I could use your help getting the truth out and spreading optimism and hope: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/-learn-how-to-get-involved-
Twitter: @jchilders98
Truth Social: @jchilders98
MeWe: mewe.com/i/coffee_and_covid.
C&C Swag! www.shopcoffeeandcovid.com
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The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
From County Of Nassau, 12-8-22
(ed. note: Sorry, we only received this today)
| Nassau County Legislative Delegation Senator Clay Yarborough issued a Press Release yesterday announcing that the Nassau County Legislative Delegation will hold a meeting on Wednesday, January 11, 2023 from 3:00-5:00 p.m. in the County’s Commission Chambers located at 96135 Nassau Place, Yulee, FL 32097.The purpose of the Legislative Delegation Meeting is to elect the 2023 Delegation Chair and Vice Chair and to hold a general legislative hearing. Anyone wishing to speak must complete the attached Speaker’s Request Form and return it to David Podvia at Senator Yarborough’s Office BY THE CLOSE OF BUSINESS ON FRIDAY, JANUARY 6, 2023, to be placed on the agenda. You must also provide all materials/handouts prior to this cut-off date as well. Documents can be emailed to [email protected] or mailed to The Office of Senator Clay Yarborough at 1615 Huffingham Road, Suite 1, Jacksonville, FL 32216.If submitting materials/handouts via U.S. mail, individuals are asked to provide three (3) sets of three-hold punched 8 1/2 x 11 copies and use the Speaker’s Request Form as a cover sheet to be included in the member’s meeting packets. All Legislative Delegation meetings are open to the public. In accordance with the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) and Chapter 286.26, Florida Statutes, persons in need of special accommodations to participate in the meetings, including agendas, interpreters, or assisted listening devices, should contact David Podvia at 850-487-5004 or by email at [email protected] by the close of business on Friday, January 6, 2023. -Sabrina Robertson Public Information Officer |
By Madeleine Hubbard, 12-8-22
Defense Department spokesperson John Kirby previously said that Biden is opposed to dropping the vaccine mandate.
The House on Thursday passed a $858 billion Defense spending bill that include an end to the military’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate.
The annual National Defense Authorization Act passed in the Democrat-control chamber by a 350-80 vote.
Lawmakers also approved a 4.6% raise for military service members in for fiscal 2023, CNN reported.
The measure now heads to the Senate.
Read More in Just the News
By Kevin Harris, 12-8-22
Meeting Summary
During Tuesday night’s meeting (12-6-22), the Fernandina Beach City Commission amended its franchise agreement with Amelia Historic Tours to allow consumption of alcohol by tour guests in tour vehicles. The Committee passed a code amendment as well, this one closing city parks overnight, disallowing night parking for RVs in the process, before appointing new members to eight different local boards.
Amelia Historic Tours Franchise Agreement
During the meeting’s “Resolutions” section, Item 7.2 was a resolution to amend the city’s franchise agreement with Amelia Historic Tours. As previously mentioned, the amendment would allow passengers in tour vehicles… more specifically, in all “vehicles-for-hire” within Fernandina Beach, to carry open alcohol containers. This would make the city’s tour law consistent with Florida State law.
The current franchise agreement that the city has with Amelia Historic Tours, however, specifically prohibits the consumption of alcohol, even for passengers. The tour operator has asked the Commission to amend the franchise agreement to align with city/state code. The Commission passed amendment unanimously.
Closing Parks at Night
Item 9.2, a meeting Ordinance and Public Hearing, centered on closing city parks between midnight – 5:00 a.m., effectively ending the use of recreational vehicles for overnight parking and as living quarters. The ordinance was initially approved at its first reading during the November 1, 2022 regular City Commission Meeting, and set for approval after this meeting and public hearing. No members of the public, however, were in attendance for the public hearing.
According to the city’s official “Agenda Item Synopsis,” The city has a duty to protect the health, welfare and safety of its citizens. Staff recommends closure of the City’s public parks between the hours of midnight and 5:00 a.m. to reduce noise and other disturbances to neighboring homes.”
Quoted from the ordinance itself:
Section 58-9. “It is unlawful for any person to use any recreational vehicle, motor home, trailer, tent, or other equipment for living quarters within the City except within a public park with a City-approved permit pursuant to section 65-4 or duly licensed recreational vehicle park.”
Section 65-4 (Item C). “No person is allowed to park any vehicle on any of the roads, rights of way, or parking lots in any park, including beach parks, between the hours of midnight and 5:00 a.m. The City may provide a parking permit exempting a vehicle from this rule, to any person involved in a permitted event occurring in any park.”
The city posted an ad for the public hearing in the local News Leader November 23 Edition. The ordinance passed unanimously.
Item 10. Board Appointments.
City Commissioners efficiently went through the list of local boards requiring appointments…
Item 10.1: Airport Advisory Commission
Commissioner Bradley Bean moved to reappoint Charles Cockord and Douglas Geeb. Passed unanimously.
Item 10.2: Arts and Culture Nassau
Commissioner Bean moved to reappoint Francis Shay. Passed unanimously.
Item 10.3: Code Enforcement and Appeals Board
Commissioner Bean moved to reappoint Adam Kaufman and Nicole Krass. Passed unanimously.
Item 10.4: Golf Course Advisory Board
Vice Mayor Len Kreger moved to appoint Emma Fenton. Commissioner Bean had some discussion because there were two applicants for the position. It turns out the position can have two appointments, so Bean nominated Sue Simpson, the second interested candidate. Motion for both nominees passed unanimously.
Item 10.5: Historic District Council
Commissioner Bean moved to reappoint Tammy Gosac. Passed unanimously.
Item 10.6: Parks and Recreation Advisory Committee
(Three positions) Vice Mayor Kregor moved to appoint Mr. Chapman, Ms. Goochie, and Ms. Peugh. Passed unanimously.
Item 10.7: Planning Advisory Board
(Three appointments) Commissioner Bean moved to appoint Mark Bennett, John Boylen and Richard Doser. Passed unanimously.
Item 10.8: Marina Advisory Board
Commissioner Bean moved to appoint Joe Blanchard. Commissioner Ross said he wasn’t sure this board was needed, and that “I’m not even sure they (the Marine Advisory Board) want to keep meeting.” He continued, “In good conscience I can not support Mr. Blanchard, I’ll just leave it at that.”
Speaker: Mariam Phillips (Marine Advisory Board)
“I have not served on the board a full year yet. I am opposed to that board being dissolved, I think we still need to have it. Just because there’s a person on there, and Mr. Ross, doesn’t want to keep it going, I believe it’s also a way to protect our working waterfront, and I’m asking you all to continue having the Marine Advisory Board.”
Commissioner Bean:
“Certainly by applying, Joe Blanchard wants to be on the Marine Advisory Board, so I’m voting yes to appoint Joe to the board.”
Item passed, 4-1, with Commissioner Ross voting “no.”
The Next Fernandina Beach City Commission Regular Meeting will be held on Tuesday, December 20, 2022, at the City Hall Commission Chambers, 204 Ash Street, Fernandina Beach, FL 32034.
Kevin Harris is a reporter, editor and journalist, previous President of Cal State
Northridge’s Society of Professional Journalists, having worked for the LA Times and
Newhall Signal. He is now also a musician and videographer, and splits his time living
outside of Salt Lake City, Ventura County, CA, and South Florida.
By Jeff Childers
12-07-22
🔥 Regular C&C’ers will recall my 4-phased plan to get from where we are now — emerging from the fog of war — to actual accountability for the covid crimes against humanity. We’re making great progress. Diligent C&C volunteers are currently assembling Phase 2, which is building a full-featured ‘covid crimes’ accountability database. But you might remember Phase 3 is recruiting or developing courageous political officials who will embrace covid accountability as a platform issue.
It just happened. I proudly present “Exhibit A.”
To be honest, it came much sooner than I expected. At a Republican Party event over the weekend at the Governor’s Mansion, Florida’s Governor DeSantis gave an electrifying talk that corporate media has completely embargoed. You can search in vain for any reference to his historic remarks on the useless spin-machine called Google News. So much for Google being the top search engine. It’s a disgusting heap of stinky garbage.
Fortunately we have C&C. In part, here’s what the governor said:
So we are going to work to hold these manufacturers accountable for this mRNA. Because they said there was no side effects, and we know there have been. A lot.
And so we did a study in Florida. You saw an 86% increase in cardiac-related activity from people 18-39 from mRNA shots.
And so, we’re going to be doing some stuff to bring accountability there. Because this is just something where — [APPLAUSE]. You know, we wouldn’t let them mandate on you in Florida. We said no, because Orange County wanted to fire firefighters. Gainesville wanted to fire people.*
Even the corporations like Disney wanted to fire.
So we said “no” across the board. So everybody had the ability to opt-out of anything they were trying to impose on you. But there are other people around the country that got forced to take this, and then what? They’re not allowed to sue? Or get any kind of recourse when this is not something they wanted to do?
So this something we’re going to lead on in Florida. And so we’re going to have some announcements over the next 3-4 weeks on that.
We’ve always gotten ahead of these things, and we’re going to continue to do that going forward.
Here are the receipts, in his own words:
Since this really blew up, I found audio of this announcement and captioned it to share.
Huge. “I am going to be working with @FLSurgeonGen to hold these vaccine manufacturers accountable. They made claims about the mRNA vaccine that wasn’t true, and people were injured as a result.” – @GovRonDeSantis https://t.co/7RnLkKPRsI10:13 PM ∙ Dec 5, 2022204Likes95Retweets
THIS! This, people! This is the day we’ve been impatiently waiting for. His explosive words are both intoxicating and enthralling; they change EVERYTHING. Governor DeSantis’ unpublished speech is the information century’s equivalent of the first shots on Fort Sumter in the Civil War. I’m not exaggerating. We are in now for a long, bloody battle with the Big Pharmaceutical Complex. And I, for one, am up for it — as I am certain you are as well.
If the Governor follows through, he’s going to win the Republican nomination on this issue, for a LOT of reasons.
The speech itself was groundbreaking. It won’t even matter whether Governor DeSantis succeeds or even follows through. What matters is — long before I expected to see anything like this — Florida’s Governor has bravely placed the ‘covid accountability’ issue onto the nation’s political radar. Others will watch his success and follow suit.
Who cares what corporate media thinks? They can’t ignore it for very long. I promise you, right now those mendacious reptiles are scrambling to figure out how to accuse Governor DeSantis as being literally 1,000 times worse than Adolph Hitler, for challenging their precious, lucrative jab narrative.
How dare he!
That’s where WE come in. Our job is to make SURE that the Governor’s office feels the love. Over the next few weeks, we are going to mobilize our C&C Army to do it, I promise you that. Prepare for new orders on multipliers.
But I have orders for you today, for each and every C&Cer — it doesn’t matter where you live. Call or email the Governor’s office RIGHT NOW to log your support for mRNA accountability. It can be as simple as this: “Governor DeSantis, this is [name]. I support you in bringing accountability for fraudulent mRNA business practices.” If you have a personal anecdote to share, do that too. Tell him what you do for a living.
Do it RIGHT NOW. It’ll take less than two minutes. Let’s blow it out.
Phone: (850) 717-9337 (after 8am EST).
Email: [email protected]
Do it now! I promise, you’ll feel terrific after you call or email! If you need anonymity, then call, and only give your first name. And, pass this on to everyone who needs to see it, even if they don’t read C&C.
(* Months before Florida’s legislature passed its protective law, I stopped the odious Gainesville vaccine mandate for city employees. I represented almost 300 named plaintiffs and obtained the first broad injunction against a vaccine mandate in the United States, in August 2021.)
This should be an amazing encouragement to you today. It is for me. We’re well ahead of schedule.
Have a wonderful Wednesday! I’ll be back tomorrow with a complete roundup plus comments from the anti-trafficking event in Mar-a-Lago.
C&C is moving the needle and changing minds. If you can, I could use your help getting the truth out and spreading optimism and hope: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/-learn-how-to-get-involved-
Twitter: @jchilders98
Truth Social: @jchilders98
MeWe: mewe.com/i/coffee_and_covid.
C&C Swag! www.shopcoffeeandcovid.com
Emailed Daily Newsletter: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
By FRC Action, 12-6-22
 |
Dear George, This week, the House of Representatives is scheduled to vote on final passage of the (Dis)Respect for Marriage Act to redefine marriage in federal law without meaningful religious liberty protections. Marriage redefinition isn’t the only thing on the line this week. We’re past the election, and this is the last hurrah for House Democrats before Republicans take the majority in January, so of course liberal members are cooking up lots of other mischief! As the House and Senate negotiate on the National Defense Authorization Act (the annual “must-pass” bill to fund the military and give raises to our men and women in uniform), several other issues are also at stake: forcing women to register for the Selective Service (which would be used for the draft, if and when it is reinstated);adding an unrelated amendment to liberalize banking laws to make marijuana even more prevalent in our communities; and adding other amendments to fund abortion travel from pro-life states and use the military as a social experiment on gender identity. Click here to tell Representative Rutherford NOT to vote to redefine marriage, and to tell Representative Rutherford, Senator Rubio and Senator Scott to insist on a “clean” National Defense bill! Thank you for standing with us for faith, family, and freedom! The work is ours, but the results belong to God. By taking action today, you will be joining literally hundreds of thousands of your fellow Americans in making your voice heard. Grateful to be standing with you,  Quena González Senior Director of Government Affairs |
| FRC Action 801 G Street NW, Washington, D.C. 200011-877-372-2808 | Contact FRC Action DONATE |
By Kevin Harris, 12-6-22
Newly elected County Commissioners A.M. “Hupp” Huppman (District 2) and Alyson R. McCullough (District 4) were sworn in as the first order of new business during last Monday’s (11-28-22) County Board of Commissioners Meeting. A new Chair and Vice-Chair were also elected, while lower boards and committees were discussed, with a few of those committee head and volunteer vacancies nominated and confirmed.
Huppman retired from the Navy in 2004, after serving onboard three submarines, and two carrier-based combat deployments supporting operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom. He was also a general manager of a saloon, a Civil Service employee with the Navy and a small business owner from 2014-2022. Most recently, Hupp was a member of the FOAR FROM HOME all veteran ocean rowing team from Amelia Island, which completed a three-year challenge to raise awareness and resources to fight veteran suicide and PTSD-related issues. Their and other teams rowed all the way across the Atlantic Ocean.
He is married to Lori Huppman, a retired respiratory therapist, and the couple has two adult sons, one an Air Force Captain based in Georgia. Hupp is also well-known as the leader of a local band which plays music gigs all over the region.
McCullough was raised in Nassau County, and now resides on a farm in Hilliard with her husband and four children. Her vast work experience began at age 15, ranging from the restaurant business to logistics for UPS to school sports coach. She has also been an educator in Nassau County for more than 10 years, where she has won “teacher of the Year” accolades at least three times.
After the new commissioners were sworn in, the board quickly moved on to “Item B” under the “New Business” part of the meeting agenda – nominating and electing the new Chair and Vice-Chair for the Board. Current Chairman Jeff Gray nominated County Commissioner Klynt Farmer to be Chair for 2023 and County Commissioner John Martin to serve as Vice Chair.
Martin seconded the nomination. Members voted unanimously in favor of the nominations.
Chairman Gray: “I want to give everyone an opportunity to sit at the Chairman’s role, because it’s an honor to serve the citizens of Nassau County as Chairman… I have great confidence in both of you all as leaders.”
(BOC PIC)
County Attorney Denise May spoke on Item C, which focused on meeting schedules and procedures. The one item worth mentioning centered on Zoom Meetings. According to May, such meetings are not allowed under Florida law but took place during the pandemic due to an executive order by Governor DeSantis. That EO expired at the end of 2021.
County Attorney May: “Participation using Zoom and technologies similar is problematic from a hearing perspective, from a due process perspective, clerks can not see who they’re swearing in – they can not affirm the identity of who may be speaking… For these reasons, Zoom will not be available for any board meetings going forward.”
It’s important to point out, however, that the attorney was referring to citizens and commissioners participating in board meetings as opposed to watching meetings. The Board voted to adopt all elements of Item C.
Next was Item D), to review lower committees and boards. However, most of the representatives/volunteers are currently appointed in positions that don’t expire until early 2023 or after, so no immediate debate was needed. The few vacant positions were considered and fulfilled. Only boards/committees with changes made during the meeting are mentioned:
Code Enforcement Board:
Harold “Skip” Frey to replace Dist 4 Representative Mimi Vitale. Motion made and approved.
Conditional Use and Variance Board:
Donald Walker to fill Dist 4 vacancy. Motion made and approved.
Planning and Zoning Board:
Robert “Shane” Petty to replace PZB Dist 4 Rep Barry Holloway.
Baylee Franklin to replace PZB Dist 4 at-large Rep Wayne Arnold.
(these would take effect Jan. 1, 2023). Motion made and approved.
Item E was similar to the previous meeting item in that only some of the boards/committees were dealt with – the ones with vacancies that required immediate filling. These are Commissioner appointments to outside boards and committees:
Amelia Island Tourism Development Council: Motion made to have Commissioner Martin be the Rep for this council. Motion made and approved.
Florida Fire Watch Liaison: Motion made for Commissioner Martin to continue on in position (he agreed to stay). Motion made and approved.
Canvassing Board: (lead and alternate needed)
Motion made to have Commissioner Huppman to this board as lead. Motion made and approved.
Motion made to have Commissioner McCullough to serve as alternate to this board. Motion made and approved.
Northeast Florida Regional Council:
Motion made to have Commissioner Martin continue on with this council – he said he wants to do so. Motion made and approved.
ADA Advisory Committee:
Motion made for Commissioner Huppman be appointed – he volunteered for the position. Motion made and approved.
Economic Development Board:
Commissioner McCullough volunteered for the position. Motion made. Motion made and approved.
Essential Housing Advisory Committee:
Commissioner Huppman volunteered for position. Motion made and approved.
Nassau County Transportation Disadvantaged Coordinating Board:
Commissioner Gray nominated. Motion made and approved.
Value Adjustment Board:
Commissioner Farmer nominated. Motion made and approved.
Commissioner Gray nominated as 2nd member. Motion made and approved.
Small County Coalition of Florida:
Commissioners Martin and Huppman were nominated for this board, considered an important position for a small Florida County. Motion made and approved.
North Florida Transportation Planning Organization TPO:
Commissioner Farmer nominated. Motion made and approved.
Saint Mary’s River Management Committee:
Commissioner McCullough nominated. Motion made and approved.
The meeting was adjourned shortly after the completion of Item E. The next County Board of Commissioners Meeting is scheduled for Monday, December 12, 2022, to be held at the James S. Page Governmental Complex, 96135 Nassau Place Yulee, FL 32097.
Kevin Harris is a reporter, editor and journalist, previous President of Cal State
Northridge’s Society of Professional Journalists, having worked for the LA Times and
Newhall Signal. He is now also a musician and videographer, and splits his time living
outside of Salt Lake City, Ventura County, CA, and South Florida.
By Ballotpedia
12-06-22
Ballotpedia’s polling averages as of December 6, 2022:Presidential approval: 41%Congressional approval: 23%Direction of country: 29%Generic congressional vote: +2 Democrats
Results are updated daily by 9:30 a.m. EST and aggregated from the most recent polls from the sources listed in the methodology section below. Think we’re missing something? Email us.
This page covers opinion polling averages during the Biden administration. For details on opinion polling during the Trump administration, click here. For a comparison of opinion polling under the Trump and Biden administrations, click here.
Read full article on Ballotpedia
By Jeff Childers
12-06-22
Good morning, C&C! It’s Tuesday, and your roundup today includes: Florida makes waves and cures mandates with new provider alert; the Atlantic questions whether kids microbiomes will be harmed and winds up impeaching experts; Fauci’s transcript drops; Republican governors seek end to military mandates; Texas looks poised to pass vaccine mandate ban; NY Post exposes Hunter Biden’s law firm graft; 6th Circuit upholds stay of Air Force jab mandate; and gross anti-Trump porno lawyer Avenatti’s federal prison sentence gets TRIPLED.
🪖 Reminder: C&C will be closed tomorrow, Pearl Harbor Day, so that I can attend an anti-child-trafficking event in South Florida tonight. I’ll make it up to you, I promise!
💉 Fighting vaccine mandates is like playing whack-a-mole, except for much higher stakes. You’d think we don’t have any moles left in Florida, but you’d be wrong. Their ugly little rodent heads keep popping up, especially in healthcare and colleges.
Those two problem areas intersect in medical and nursing schools, which are subject to Florida’s mandate ban because they are state actors. But they claim that the private institutions providing their students with residencies require the shots. So the schools have been demanding to know students’ shot status, and refusing to place kids in residencies if they are unjabbed.
Without completing residency, the student can’t graduate.
Previously we’d been recommending that those students either arrange their own residencies with a reasonable facility, or contact the approved facilities directly to request a vaccine mandate exemption using Florida’s statutory forms, which by law cannot be refused.
Last week I found out the schools have caught on.
This time, when Nurse Ratched deployed Spring’s residency requirements, the latest rules prohibited self-arranged residencies (formerly allowed), and banned direct contact with any of the approved, vaccine-requiring institutions. For privacy!
Violate the rules and get kicked out of the program.
Last Friday, I think the Governor’s office somehow became aware of the problem, and Florida’s Surgeon General Ladapo send out a “provider alert” to all licensed healthcare workers in the state, to remind them of Florida’s vaccine policy.
Florida’s current guidance requires healthcare professionals to advise their patients of ALL POSSIBLE OUTCOMES of the vaccines. That means providers can’t just parrot, “the CDC says the shots are safe and effective! Caw! Caw!”
No. Instead, Florida providers must inform patients of the jabs’ known side effects, including Bell’s Palsy, myocarditis, pericarditis, and so forth. Full disclosure. And for some reason, a lot of them just HATE IT. You’ve never seen such a bunch of reluctant disclosers in your entire life. They act like their mother just hauled them back into the store by the ear and forced them to confess to stealing that Snicker’s bar.
Maybe even worse, they now have to tell patients the State recommends AGAINST boosters for men under 40. So.
The new provider alert only “reminds” practitioners of the existing guidance and doesn’t create any new guidance. But the provider alert still triggered a bunch of jab-happy healthcare professionals, like Michelle B:
Haha, that’s a good one. The Florida Department of Health doesn’t understand science as well as Michelle B — a nursing student — does. Okay, Michelle.
Anyway, after the provider alert dropped, the nursing school rescinded the jab mandate! They’re still trying to find out students’ jab status, supposedly to “help with placement,” which makes unjabbed kids very suspicious, but it is still an improvement over where we were before the provider alert dropped.
On an aside, healthcare workers often ask about when the government will drop mandates. The example above, “Michelle B (she/her),” is what they need to focus on. There are still far too many healthcare professionals who are in LOVE with vaccine mandates and want to reproduce with them.
Clean up the healthcare house and the mandate problem will go away.
Anyway, Dr. Ladapo — apparently not satisfied with the provider alert — waded into Twitter and called the vaccines “far less safe than any vaccines widely used.” He also asked when sanity would return to science — Bam!
In other words, Dr. Ladapo called science “crazy,” but in a nice way.
Dr. Ladapo got a lot of “feedback,” but his ratios held. He also got a lot of attention, including from outside the state, such as from independent data researcher John Beaudoin, who’s flyspecked Massachusetts’ death records to suss out vaccine injuries, and who offered to come help out in Florida:
Florida should get Beaudoin or someone like him reviewing our medical records. And I also endorse his call for transparency in death records. ALL medical information for people who died after January 2021 should be subject to public records requests, as a matter of great public interest. All it would take is a one-sentence addition to the public records statute removing the existing exemption for death records.
Dead people don’t need privacy! But living people urgently need to know about potential threats.
So.
(Postscript: I’d like to quietly recognize a great friend and not-so-quiet behind-the-scenes ally, who I believe was instrumental in the issuance of the provider alert.)
🔥 The Atlantic ran an unintentionally ironic story yesterday headlined, “The Year Without Germs Changed Kids.” The sub-headline further explains: “Children who spent their formative years in the bleach-everything era will certainly have different microbiomes. The question is whether different means bad.”
I’ll give you a hint. Their microbiomes won’t be BETTER. You can count on that much.
The Atlantic, which gave away its viewpoint when the author used the delightful term “hygiene theater,” says that despite warnings from microbiome specialists, covid experts have no idea, really, whether putting kids in a bubble for two years would hurt them or not, or what to do about it.
Who knows? It’s baffling:
For now, “we are in the realm of speculation,” says Maria Gloria Dominguez Bello, a microbiologist at Rutgers. Scientists don’t understand how, or even which, behaviors may affect the composition of our inner flora throughout our life span. Chronic illnesses such as obesity and asthma also take time to manifest. There’s not yet evidence that they’re on the rise among children, and even if they were, researchers wouldn’t expect to see the signal for at least a couple of years, perhaps more.
Experts are so embarrassingly pathetic these days. Back in the pandemic, experts knew EVERYTHING. Nothing was blocked to their keen insights, or their laserlike intelligences. Those experts could give us microscopic details about the novel coronavirus and without even breaking a sweat, they could recite, chapter and verse, precisely what we needed to do to keep everyone safe. There were no questions whatsoever in those days.
In fact, back then, even ASKING questions was considered a faux pas, because everything was already known. It was known to “science.”
But these days? Meh. These days, science seems to be taking a nap. The experts don’t seem to know ANYTHING. Everything baffles them! Like, why are all these young people dying suddenly and unexpectedly from SADS lately? The experts are befuddled, bemused, and confounded. They’ve become suddenly and unexpectedly myopic, a virtual village of Mr. Magoos, wandering around grasping and guessing in a vain search for a theory.
Maybe SADS comes from long covid? Or maybe it’s from climate change or something? Who knows? Not experts. They. Don’t. Know. They don’t even have a good guess.
I think we need to stop hiding from reality and deal with the truth. One of the hard truths about the long-term side effects from covid infection is that our experts have gotten STUPIDER. I’m sorry. But it’s obviously and painfully true. We need to stop coddling them just to spare their feelings. They need to know, to be told, over and over till it sinks in, so that they can do something about it.
Maybe they can take vitamins, or do a heavy-metals cleanse, or at least shut up for ten minutes.
The article includes some other interesting bits, but it ultimately just goes around in a confused circle. It WANTS to say kids who were subjected to ultra-hygiene in their critical developmental period will suffer SOMETHING bad. That seems like common sense. But the experts can’t say. They have no idea. Maybe it will even be good for kids? The Atlantic reported, “A few scientists are even pondering whether the pandemic’s ripple effects may have buoyed the microbiomes of the COVID kids.”
Uh huh.
Yeah, they’re “pondering” all right. In fact, the experts need to do a lot more pondering and a lot less talking.
🔥 Missouri Attorney General and overall legal superstar Eric Schmitt released Fauci’s deposition transcript yesterday. The short version is most reviewers think Fauci’s depo is an exercise in vexation. If you enjoy feeling frustrated, reading this transcript is for you.
I have a different take. The transcript is great evidence that Fauci never should have been in that job, and it was high time he resigned. All his decisions should be called into question. According to the transcript, the little rodent squeaked “I don’t recall” ONE HUNDRED AND SEVENTY FOUR TIMES, including when asked about important emails, key interviews, significant decisions, and other critical events during the pandemic.
Brain fog. Neurological decline. Cognitive impairment. Alzheimer’s. All possible.
I told you I love taking depositions. I have a special series of questions I like to ask after the third or fourth time the witness tells me they don’t remember a significant fact. I’ll ask, “Mr. Fauci, is there some reason that you can’t remember things very well today? Have you recently suffered from an injury that might have affected your memory? Like a blow to the head or something? Does your terrible memory often interfere with your job, or cause embarrassing mistakes in your personal life?”
Ill can continue with more questions, depending on how egregious the witness’ lack of memory is. If the memory problems are very egregious, like Fauci’s 174 failures to remember key facts, the questioner is entitled to give the witness a cognitive evaluation: “Mr. Fauci, I’m going to ask you a few questions now to test how profound your memory problems are, okay? Can you tell me what day it is? Very good. Can you tell me who the president is? The vice-president? What month is it? Who makes a Jeep Wrangler? Where were you born?” And so forth. It both makes a point and preserves a record.
In terms of anything particularly interesting, I’m still reviewing Fauci’s transcript. But one standout — something he COULD remember, and well — was that Fauci is SUPER impressed with how the Chinese dealt with covid. He couldn’t praise those commies highly enough. The communists, they really know how to get the job done, when you need to lockdown a society, I mean lockdown a virus, of course.
Birds of a feather!
I’ll keep you posted, but don’t expect too much. Veteran of maybe hundreds of Congressional hearings, Fauci’s superpower is serving word salad.
💉 Last week the Tyler Morning Telegraph ran a story headlined, “Republican governors ask for end to U.S. military COVID-19 vaccine mandate.” It reported that twenty (20) Republican governors sent a letter to Congressional leaders opposing the covid jab mandate for U.S. Armed Forces members, and asked the lawmakers to fight the Biden Administration’s mandate issued on August 24th, 2021.
The governors didn’t sugarcoat the problem: “The Biden vaccine mandate on our military creates a national security risk that severely impacts our defense capabilities abroad and our state readiness here at home,” the letter said.
Among the twenty governors were Governor DeSantis of Florida, Bill Lee of Tennessee, and Greg Abbott of Texas, who also promised to pass a new statewide ban on vaccine mandates.
I joined 20 Republican governors demanding that the federal government end COVID vaccine mandates for the U.S. Military. I expect legislation this session to ban ANY Covid vaccine mandate in Texas. tylerpaper.com/news/texas/rep… via @https://twitter.com/Tylerpaper
tylerpaper.comRepublican governors ask for end to U.S. military COVID-19 vaccine mandate(The Center Square) — Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee and 20 other Republican governors sent a letter to congressional leaders opposing a COVID…4:43 PM ∙ Dec 4, 20228,583Likes1,324Retweets
Abbott might be talking about the anti-mandate bill filed by Texas state representative Brian Harrison and Texas senator Mayes Middleton, HB81.
Brian Harrison @brianeharrison
9:10 PM ∙ Dec 4, 20223,041Likes959Retweets
Come on, Texas! You can do it!
🔥 The New York Post ran a story last week headlined, “Hunter Biden’s Former Law Firm Received $10M in Forgiven COVID Loans While Donating $1M to Dems.”
I bet it never occurred to you that the troubled covid loan program could be used to wash money from taxpayers to democrat candidates. And you were probably surprised to hear that Hunter actually had a job as a real lawyer at a legit law firm. Well, sort of. The Post explained Hunter Biden became “of counsel” at Boies Schiller Flexner in 2010, earning $216,000 a year for a “no-show” job that required neither office hours, attending any meetings, or any billable hours.
Of all law firms in the U.S., Boies took the single-biggest loan from the Paycheck Protection Program: $10.14 million. The loan was officially forgiven in 2021. Despite needing all that taxpayer money to “stay afloat,” equity partners each earned $4.5M million that year (out of $480M billed to clients) and as the headline mentioned, the firm still gave a million bucks to democrats.
For some reason.
💉 Last week, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously upheld a national injunction protecting over 10,000 Air Force members from being punished or terminating for exercising their religious objections to the covid jabs.
Unanimously.
We’re getting there.
🔥 Discredited, disbarred lawyer and former democrat presidential candidate Michael Avenatti got some bad news. He’s currently serving five years in federal prison for ripping off his former client: sex worker, Trump accuser, and welsher Stormy Daniels. Well, yesterday Avenatti got sentenced to ANOTHER 14 years, this time for tax evasion and a raft of smaller offenses down to stealing $12. He’ll serve his new time concurrent with his other sentence.
In other words, his sentence basically just got tripled.
Famously, or infamously, before his crimes caught up to him, Avenatti was widely feted as a corporate media darling for his opinions on how President Trump could be convicted of various alleged transgressions and locked up in federal prison.
It’s kind of ironic, when you think about it.
For your amusement, here is a neat little montage of corporate media shills fawning over the disgraced, dishonored, and degenerate lawyer before his long, ugly fall from lefty grace:
6:41 PM ∙ May 22, 201912,258Likes5,234Retweets
They sure can pick ‘em, can’t they?
Have a terrific Tuesday, and I’ll see you back here tomorrow for more.
C&C is moving the needle and changing minds. If you can, I could use your help getting the truth out and spreading optimism and hope: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/-learn-how-to-get-involved-
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The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
By Deb Boelkes, 12-4-22
Editor’s note: Local businesswoman and activist Ms. Boelkes has researched this important case and written it up for the public to better understand what is going on.
Introduction
Are you aware of the Missouri v. Biden Case – No. 3:22-cv-01213-TAD-KDM? … alleging that key federal government bureaucracies conspired with Big Tech companies to censor non-state-sponsored opinions that they didn’t like about COVID and masking on social media platforms.
If you are not familiar with this legal complaint filed in May of this year against some of the highest-ranking officials in federal government, now’s your chance to catch up on what might be the most important 1st Amendment lawsuit in US history.
The Plaintiffs in the case are both the State of Missouri (Attorney General Eric Schmitt), and the State of Louisiana (Attorney General Jeff Landy).
The Defendants—in addition to the President of the United States, JOSEPH R. BIDEN, JR.—are:
Essentially, the states of Missouri and Louisiana are suing the federal government, alleging that these key bureaucracies conspired with Big Tech companies to censor non-state-sponsored opinions that they didn’t like about COVID and masking on social media platforms—an infringement on the 1st Amendment rights of the citizens who live in those states.
Of course, in lawsuits you have to produce discovery. It was no surprise that the government didn’t (and still doesn’t) want to produce anything, claiming it would be “burdensome” and their records are covered by “Executive Privilege”. Regardless, the judge granted a very rare, expedited discovery which quickly produced profound results.
Turns out, Meta’s response to early discovery provided information that identified individuals within the Department of Health and Human Services who were communicating with them about “Misinformation.” So, in September the judge issued an order for an expedited timetable due to the potential harm and to justify a temporary injunction stopping the government from colluding with private entities to stifle free speech. The emails the Defendants were forced to produce proved they had indeed colluded with social media companies to silence Americans.
So now Missouri and Louisiana want to expand the scope of the case to include additional government agencies. This case is a VERY BIG DEAL.
Specifics
To We the People – It’s been an interesting week with all the news coming out of Elon Musk / Twitter about the massive fraud, deception and abuse of our 1st amendment rights through collusion between Big Tech Companies, the DNC, and the Dem party. Yet that’s not all there is to know about this situation.
Hat’s off to investigative journalist Tracey Beanz, who has done an excellent job following, reviewing, and interpreting what has transpired (via Telegram posts). This week, on 11/29/22, the judge DENIED Jen Psaki’s motion to adjourn her deposition. Thanks to Tracy Beanz for reviewing and summarizing the court’s latest 39-page filing of Case 3:22-cv-01213-TAD-KDM Document 37, Filed 12/01/22.
Regarding this case, MISSOURI ATTORNEY GENERAL Eric Schmitt said “…the information we’ve uncovered through those depositions has been shocking to say the least. It’s clear from Tuesday’s deposition that the FBI has an extremely close role in working to censor freedom of speech.”
Whereas this case is SOOOO important; and Whereas I have found nothing posted by the media about this proceeding, and Whereas knowing that many of you don’t use Telegram, I have taken the liberty, below, to copy Tracy Beanz posts about the Missouri v. Biden case filing dated December 1…all in Tracy Beanz’ words, not mine (aside from a few snapshots taken from the documents itself. You can find / read / download and follow along with the actual 39-page filing document at: https://ia902208.us.archive.org/3/items/gov.uscourts.lawd.189520/gov.uscourts.lawd.189520.137.0.pdf
Apologies for the length of this piece, but assuming a few of you will take interest in the document and Tracy’s analysis, here you go….
Per Tracy Beanz:
Quick Recap:
The judge in the case had ordered that 10 high ranking government officials sit for expedited depositions after early and expedited discovery revealed stunning abuses of the first amendment as government agencies partner with social media companies to censor the speech of Americans; in the case of CISA, designating YOUR THOUGHTS “Cognitive Infrastructure.”
Granting expedited discovery, in any case, is rare. Granting expedited depositions, in any case, is rarer. Granting expedited depositions of high-ranking government officials is nearly unheard of. Of course, the Biden administration freaked out and went around to a gazillion different courts filing motions to dismiss, mandamus petitions, etc. So far, every time, they have been rebuked.
The latest one was in the 5th circuit, where they asked a panel of 3 judges to rule that the LA [Louisiana] court erred in granting a motion to depose Deputy Assistant to the President Rob Flaherty, CISA Director Jen Easterly, and Surgeon General Vivek Murthy.
Rather than rule in the Biden admin’s FAVOR, they kicked it back to the judge in LA, asking him to revisit whether some lower-level officials could sit instead, or they could get more written discovery. The judge asked them to brief him on responses.
What I am about to thread for you is the filing by Missouri and Louisiana that answers the judges question “Can you bring someone lower level in, or do exceptional circumstances exist that make it so NO ONE but these people can answer these questions?”
They also lumped Psaki in here too because the Biden Admin lawyers petitioned the judge saying that what the 5th circuit said about the three above should apply to her too. If you have followed my timeline, you would have seen my breakdown of the maneuvers Psaki and company tried and my reading of the transcript out of a VA court where the judge smacked down long-time Obama fixer and deep state extraordinaire Jeannie Rhee. The reason why I am threading this particular filing, is because we learn a HELL of a lot of information in here, and we get to see some of the discovery in the case in the form of exhibits.
We will begin with an introduction where we learn WHY this filing is being made. Read it. It’s very concise and you’ll get up to speed quickly. One thing that you will note as we move on- the Biden Admin (here forth BA) will likely not be happy they did this, as the “lower” ranking folks are probably not much better for them than the department heads. This is going to be something. Off we go.
Now, as I was reading this, I briefly started saying, “oh, here we go… the cave begins, where Missouri decides to back off and not hold them to the fire,” and that happened to me a few times. Within a paragraph or so, I was back to cheering. I have loved every second of covering this case.
Rob Flaherty could respond using written interrogatories. You may think that’s an out for him because lawyers could write it, or he could weasel his way out of questions… Pay close attention to what I underlined in red. The “…so-called Election Integrity Partnership”
Wendi Strauch Mahoney has done an absolutely STELLAR job of reporting on all things MDM/CISA/Oreweillan censorship since early last YEAR, so if you are a regular reader this is familiar to you, but if you missed it, READ THIS NOW. https://www.uncoverdc.com/2022/06/17/cisas-2022-interim-election-security-plan-says-mdm-is-a-persistent-threat/
Vivek Murthy: They don’t want to budge on him. In order to take these depositions at all, the judge needs to rule that there are EXCEPTIONAL CIRCUMSTANCES that make it so NO OTHER PERSON could sit and answer questions. The bar to exceptional circumstances is exceedingly high. Judges don’t typically find there are exceptional circumstances at all.
It is important to note, that this judge found there WERE exceptional circumstances already, but needed to revisit because of the 5th circuit. They are really standing firm that Murthy is the only one who can successfully answer these questions.
Jen Psaki: Here is where they really take it to the Biden admin. They discuss how the BA has continuously said they won’t release the names of the people who have the information they are seeking from Psaki, while also saying that she shouldn’t have to testify. “While insisting that Psaki is not the only source for the information that Plaintiffs seek from her, Defendants have steadfastly refused to reveal the identit(ies) of the other officials who have the information. The Court should put an end to Defendants’ gamesmanship by ordering Defendants to identify and produce lower-ranking official(s) who have the information that Plaintiffs seek from Psaki, if such official(s) exist(s).”
The Biden admin is playing both sides of the fiddle here when it comes to “Circle Back” “Peppermint Commie” Psaki. They say that no one else can testify to what she knows, but also says she can not testify. They don’t give the Plaintiffs any choice, really.
The Biden admin had asked the court to pause discovery in this case while their motion to dismiss is considered. Now the Plaintiffs explain why that is nonsense. Delays, more delays, obfuscations, court hopping and more by the Biden team. Plaintiffs (Missouri and Louisiana et al.) argue that they are being irreparably harmed by the delays already. I agree
Now the brief moves from the “summary” phase to the “argument” phase, where we get a lot more detail and meat and potatoes.
We will detail Rob Flaherty, Deputy Assistant to the President. Their first point discusses how the 5th circuit said they hadn’t yet obtained any WRITTEN discovery from Flaherty, so a deposition is premature. The plaintiffs told the court WHY they hadn’t gotten anything written. [We have a series of shots here. Read them.] “Having successfully opposed written discovery against Flaherty in this Court, Defendants, in a dizzying reversal, complained to the Fifth Circuit that this Court erred by ordering Flaherty’s deposition without first authorizing written discovery against Flaherty—i.e., the very written discovery that they stridently urged this Court not to order in August.”
In short, Defendants argued to the judge (successfully) that the Plaintiffs SHOULD NOT be able to take written discovery from Flaherty, and then argued to the appeals court that Plaintiffs HAD NOT taken written discovery from Flaherty. The appeals court then outlines WHY THAT DISCOVERY WOULD BE IMPORTANT. It’s just political maneuvering.
“As the Fifth Circuit noted, Doc. 121, at 3, written discovery against Flaherty may illuminate whether it is necessary to depose Flaherty—e.g., it may reveal the content of Flaherty’s oral communications with social-media platforms, or it may identify a lower-level subordinate who participated in the same meetings and thus may serve as an adequate substitute for Flaherty.”
Flaherty has been meeting with reps from social media companies that involve pressure to censor speech about COVID-19. Now the brief gives examples of these meetings. He scolds them and pressures them that their rules for removal policies aren’t catching what he deems “misinformation” and works with them to go “into more detail” in a meeting rather than in writing, likely to avoid discovery such as this.
He also held a meeting with Twitter employees about the same. He also met with Google and Youtube to discuss how the White House could “Partner” in product work…..Not OK.
Flaherty was the only one who attended all meetings. There wasn’t a single social media rep they could get information from about all of them, or any lower level staffer that has been identified who knows about all of them. Still, the Plaintiffs don’t know if one exists because the Biden Admin has refused to let them ask. Therefore, they are asking the judge to order written discovery of Flaherty so that he can inform them of other people. They are going to have to rat on their friends.
They then go into the reasons why Slavitt isn’t a suitable replacement because he was gone for much of the time, and these issues continue to this day. Slavitt was responsible for the deplatforming of Alex Berenson and was independently deeply involved in the censorship enterprise, which is why Plaintiffs sought to question him IN ADDITION to Flaherty.
And here is where I smiled. Because if Flaherty doesn’t adequately respond to discovery, it will warrant his deposition. So either he ponies up written responses of value, or plaintiffs will have no source for the information they seek WITHOUT in-person deposition.
Now we move on to detail on Easterly from CISA. Plaintiffs want to depose TWO people in her place if they can’t depose her, and CISA wont be too happy about that, but they asked for it. First they want Brian Scully, who heads up CISA’s “so called Mis-Dis-Malinformation team.
”Plaintiffs sought Easterly’s deposition because (among other reasons) she participates in and oversees at least five series of recurring meetings about content modulation with social-media companies, and because she plays a key role as the coordinator of joint censorship efforts between government entities and social-media companies”
Looks like Scully may be better than Easterly, IMO
“To fill this censorship void, a group of federal officials—CISA interns—approached the Stanford Internet Observatory, “and, in consultation with CISA and other stakeholders, a coalition was assembled with like-minded partner institutions.”
A familiar cast of Deep State characters, The Atlantic Council, State Department, Marine Corps, and US Mission to NATO. Understand, these are the people sitting on a “help desk” watching what you say.
“According to Alex Stamos, the Director of the Stanford Internet Observatory who oversees EIP activities, there are “two steps” in EIP’s approach to “effectively pushing platforms to do stuff”: “get good [censorship] policies, and then say ‘this is how [given content] is violating [those policies].’”
Understand, in the Defendants motion to dismiss this case, they argue that the government isn’t FORCING or PRESSURING these companies to censor, only merely making SUGGESTIONS. The problem is that these people were so brazen in their public discussion of what they were doing, it belies credulity. These few short paragraphs debunk their argument, and this is nothing.
He also discusses how successful they’ve been in logging tickets etc. This is abhorrent practice that shouldn’t be tolerated. “Between September 3 and November 19, 2020, EIP “processed 639 in-scope tickets,” …. Thirty-five percent “of the URLs [EIP] shared with Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, and YouTube were either labeled, removed, or soft blocked.” A screenshot of an example ticket shows an online chat-style discussion among an “EIP member,” a “Government partner,” and a “Platform partner” about claims that had been assessed and tagged “for action.”
From the filing: Summing up, the EIP was originated by the federal government (CISA), is partially funded by the federal Government, and holds itself out as a joint federal-private enterprise with a twofold purpose: (1) to pressure social-media platforms to adopt more restrictive content-modulation policies, and (2) to pressure the platforms to enforce those policies against speech that the EIP’s constituents (including federal officials) disfavor.
“Federal officials at CISA and the State Department directly participate in EIP’s operations by submitting “tickets” to demand censorship of speakers and content on social media. EIP boasts that it procured the censorship of nearly 22 million Tweets during the 2020 election cycle alone, id. at 183, to say nothing of other social-media platforms like Facebook. And EIP boasts that it is continuing its operations today.”
They mention Plaintiff Gateway Pundit 49 times, when bragging they censored.
They really need Easterly, because only she attended every weekly meeting in these VERY IMPORTANT FIVE CATEGORIES.
1. “Election Security and Resilience” (“ESR”) subdivision
2. CISA and Facebook planning and setting the agenda for the ESR subdivision meetings
3. CISA’s “Cybersecurity Advisory Committee” (“CSAC”)
4. CSAC’s Subcommittee for “Protecting Critical Infrastructure from Misinformation and Disinformation” (“MDM Subcommittee”)
5. Election Infrastructure Subsector Government CoordinatingCouncil (EIS-GCC) and Election Infrastructure Subsector Coordinating Council (EI-SCC) Joint MDM Working Group.
This is your government, folks. Transparent to no one but themselves, ruling over thee from their ivory towers…..
Until now, it seems.
Remember the “Disinformation Governance Board?” It grew out of this. Easterly was having a hard time managing all of the censorship requests flooding in from everywhere. The social media companies were having a hard time with it too. So, they wanted this board so they could better administer what they were ALREADY DOING, and also make it “acceptable” to do it.
That board was nothing more than a cover for more funding and better censorship organization.
This is abhorrent and un-American. It needs to stop yesterday, Good God.
Almost there, folks. We are on to Murthy, who they really want to depose. Strong language here:
“Exceptional circumstances exist to justify Murthy’s deposition because he has firsthand knowledge of information that is crucial to Plaintiffs’ claims and that is not reasonably available through alternative means. The Court should enter an order articulating the sound factual basis for its conclusion that Murthy’s deposition is justified given the circumstances”
“Plaintiffs do not know and have no way of ascertaining the identities of any of the meetings’ participants other than Murthy. Thus, Plaintiffs cannot access the crucial information they seek from an alternative source or in an alternative form. This alone is a sufficient justification for deposing Murthy notwithstanding his high-ranking status.”
Murthy had accused Facebook of “killing people” by not more stringently censoring what they consider “coronavirus misinformation”
(Beanz note: I like to call that LIFESAVING TRUTH, but I digress)
“President Biden had (also) accused Facebook of exactly that “by allowing disinformation about the coronavirus vaccine to spread online,” Kanno-Youngs, “They’re Killing People”.
Facebook didn’t like the tone, and scolded them.
And, of course, Facebook acquiesced.
A subsequent email from Clegg began, “Thanks again for taking the time to meet earlier today.” Doc. 86-5, at 15. Clegg proceeded to summarize the steps Facebook was taking “to adjust policies on what we are removing with respect to misinformation,” including deplatforming the “disinfo dozen” and “expand[ing] the group of false claims that we remove.”
“The Disinfo dozen” were a group of journalists and doctors singled out for trying to save lives. Terrible the way they were targeted by name. Justice for the brave doctors and media who did something to save people when our Surgeon General was doing the opposite.
Clegg continued: “We hear your call for us to do more and, as I said on the call, we’re committed to working together . . . . You have identified 4 specific recommendations for improvement and we want to make sure to keep you informed of our work on each.”
“The Virality Project’s retrospective report indicates that it “built strong ties with several federal government agencies, most notably the Office of the Surgeon General (OSG) and the CDC,” and the only official that it mentions in connection with its ties to the OSG is Murthy himself. The Virality Project employs substantially the same “ticketing” process as the EIP to identify perceived misinformation, loop in “external stakeholders” including government officials, and “refer[]” the disfavored content to social-media companies for “action,” that is, censorship.
“Needless to say, the direct involvement of the U.S. Surgeon General in this federal-private censorship project to suppress dissenting views about COVID-19 on social media raises questions of grave First Amendment concern. Uncovering the extent of Murthy’s involvement in the Virality Project is crucial to Plaintiffs’ claims. But Murthy’s responses to Plaintiffs’ written discovery requests do not shed any light on this involvement”
And now moving on to Psaki, who has been the subject of a lot of my coverage on this case lately. Believe it or not, this is one of the more frustrating ones in my opinion.
As Plaintiffs say, Defendants are playing a game of “heads I win; tails you lose”. When Plaintiffs tried to get information from elsewhere the government claimed it didn’t know because she didn’t work there anymore, and now are trying to say SHE can’t answer either.
Just some of her nonsense (I have discussed this previously).
And here are the threats they won’t be able to get past in their motion to dismiss. They REALLY DO NOT want her to testify.
And here they detail the threat– this is KEY.
If they are threatening social media companies, it isn’t just “guidance” and “suggestion” it’s coercion using government threat of action, and that makes this case wholly actionable.
The media also took that from the statement, as they followed up with a question and Psaki gave here typical “Peppermint Commie” answer. The government is trying to weasel its way out of things. Plaintiffs have already inquired with the government for other sources of information, and have gotten literally nothing. The reason, IMO, is because this is one of the major lynchpins of this case. By trying to skirt the question and say they are “unaware” they are making the deposition of Psaki literally critical. They’ve shot themselves in the foot here.
One last part here on pausing the discovery while the motion to dismiss is considered, and it’s really a super strong argument.
Defendants delayed filing, and have participated so far without trying to stop anything. When they petitioned the 5th circuit, they only challenged the decision on the depositions, not any expedited discovery etc. Every single day this goes on, we suffer irreparable harm. They give examples of recent actions that platforms have been taking, including on childhood vaccination.
On October 31, 2022, The Intercept reported that it had obtained a leaked “draft copy of DHS’s Quadrennial Homeland Security Review, DHS’s capstone report outlining the department’s strategy and priorities in the coming years,” which indicated that “[DHS] plans to target ‘inaccurate information’ on a wide range of topics, including ‘the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic and the efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines, racial justice, U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, and the nature of U.S. support to Ukraine.
It’s a government gone rogue, kids, with no sign of stopping and an ever-broadening range of “disfavored” thoughts to censor. When will it end?
I think it will end with this judge, in this case. But only time will tell.
Deb Boelkes
Founder, Business World Rising, LLC
Keynote Speaker and award-winning Author of:
Women on Top: What’s Keeping You From Executive Leadership?
The WOW Factor Workplace: How to Create a Best Place to Work Culture
Heartfelt Leadership: How to Capture the Top Spot and Keep on Soaring
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Strong Suit: Leadership Success Secrets from Women on Top
Office: 904-310-9602
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DebBoelkes.com || BusinessWorldRising.com || HeartfeltLeadership.com
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By CCDF, 11-5-22
CALL TO ACTION
Earlier this year, Governor DeSantis signed House Bill 1467 into law. This bill requires the Florida Department of Education (FDOE) to develop an online training program for all media personnel who are involved in a district’s library materials selection process. The FDOE has created a workgroup of 12 individuals consisting of educational media specialists, district staff with experience working in media centers, and parents of students in K-12 schools to develop this training program. The 12 members have been meeting routinely over the last few weeks as they develop this training, with several meetings being held on Microsoft Teams. The calls are open to the public and allow time for those in attendance to comment on the proposed training materials.
We are putting out a call to action! The goal of HB 1467 is to facilitate transparency in the selection process of instructional materials, including library and reading materials. This bill continues the movement of supporting parental rights and protecting children from harmful materials in Florida’s schools. Many who have opposed this bill, as well as the recently implemented Parents Bill of Rights, have attended and commented at the previous Teams meetings. It is time for parents, educators, and community members who want instructional material transparency, who want to protect children, and who support parental rights to use our voices and support the members of this work group who are fighting for these same values.
The next Teams meeting is this Tuesday, December 6th at 1:00pm. Let’s show our support for the members of the work group who are fighting to keep inappropriate materials out of our public schools by attending this meeting. Please comment to encourage them that the community, parents, and students want a more rigorous screening process by district media specialists that are curating the materials that enter school libraries. This training program will reduce the time, effort, energy, and resources spent removing harmful materials from schools and ultimately protect children and parental rights.
The link to join Tuesday’s meeting will be sent out on Monday, so please check your inbox for that email. Share the link, encourage participation, and join us as we show our support for this training program! We look forward to seeing you there!
DATE AND TIME: Tuesday, December 6, 2022, 1:00p.m. EDT
LOCATION: Microsoft Teams Meeting:
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By George Miller, 12-4-22
The Left has unleashed a hysterical barrage of rhetoric accusing Donald Trump of advocating suspension of the Constitution, condemning him and claiming it is a reason why he can’t run for office again. It is all over the Leftmedia. RINO’s and fair weather friends are already condemning him for something he didn’t do, but what else is new?
I have been looking at Trump’s Truth Social page where he makes his posts and simply haven’t seen such a posting.
https://truthsocial.com/users/realDonaldTrump/statuses/109449803240069864
My take on that was that the fraud cited is what he thinks would terminate the Constitution, not Trump. It could have been more artfully worded, but it is a great stretch to spin that into something like “BREAKING: Trump is Hitler suspends Constitution.” Is this more in the vein of “Russia, Russia, Russia? I tire of this as I do of rubes who get sucked into believing crap like this, over and OVER again.
Then, his rebuttal gets translated by the Left into “he tries to walk it back.” Jeez, stow it, folks.
https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/109462304115605769
The Fake News is actually trying to convince the American People that I said I wanted to “terminate” the Constitution. This is simply more DISINFORMATION & LIES, just like RUSSIA, RUSSIA, RUSSIA, and all of their other HOAXES & SCAMS. What I said was that when there is “MASSIVE & WIDESPREAD FRAUD & DECEPTION,” as has been irrefutably proven in the 2020 Presidential Election, steps must be immediately taken to RIGHT THE WRONG. Only FOOLS would disagree with that and accept STOLEN ELECTIONS. MAGA!
———
While I’m no big fan of Trump’s personality or delivery, I was very grateful for the major policies he put in place and was working on. He was the greatest anti-Globalist advocate since George Washington. Still is, I guess. But, I’m not enamored of his obnoxious personality or the plethora of deep state appointees he placed his trust in.
Anyone with a memory longer than a mayfly’s knows that Trump was a darling of the Left, UNTIL he walked down that escalator in Trump Tower in 2015 and became a Republican candidate for President.
The real reasons that the Left, Deep State, Globalists and RINO’s are going after Trump are because he is more America First, free market, free enterprise and virulently anti-Globalist- their powerful opposite and nemesis.
George Miller is Publisher and Co-Founder of Citizens Journal Florida, based in Fernandina Beach. He is a “retired” operations management consultant, software and publishing executive and manufacturing management professional.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
By Michel Greer
12-05-22
Liberals have deliberate, devious and very successful tactics. They have every intention of eliminating opposition by any means necessary. What has been so successful for them in recent years is to make very serious accusations against an opponent. Make a big show of having 20 or 30 armed, flack jacketed, FBI agents beat on the door of the accused in the early morning hours, handcuff them and perp walk them in front of cameras. The media then picks up the baton and speculates about the seriousness of the alleged crimes the opponent is accused of. Could be extortion, influence selling or, the media will suggest, even sedition, or treason. When the FBI or DOJ is questioned they can’t comment on an “on going investigation”. But the media will breathlessly report on it, speculate about it, and opine about the seriousness of it endlessly.
The only problem is that there is no real investigation because there is no crime, only an accusation of a crime. They stretch the “investigation” as long as possible, months, years and then a brief press release saying they found nothing to charge criminally. But the damage is done. Too many people believe the accused is guilty of whatever they were charged with.
What brought this to mind for me were three recent events. A brief press release saying there would be no charges against Rudy Gulianni. No explanation, no apology. About the same time, the young woman who accused Alan Dershowitz of having sex with her when she was underage suddenly realized she was so young that she may have mistaken him for someone else. Charges dropped. And, of course, the unprecedented raid on Mar-A-Lago. Apparently, they found nothing other than what every other President would have in their archives. But, once again, damage done.
Except for the “Russian Collusion” hoax that went on for more than two years (and is still being used regardless of having been proven false), one of the most egregious uses of this tactic was General Flynn. General Flynn had a distinguished 33 year military career. He worked under three Presidents. President Obama appointed him head of the Defense Intelligence Agency. Trump appointed him National Security Advisor. Flynn had the highest security clearance there is. The Left knew everything there was to know about General Flynn. They knew he knew where the bodies were buried. FBI Director James Comey quickly took him out. One of the ways they destroy people is the cost of their legal defense. Most innocent people want to prove their innocence but the government has an endless budget for lawyers to keep the case going as long as possible and bankrupt their target. And once they threatened to destroy his son, Flynn pled guilty. Mission accomplished.
And now, Elon Musk is giving us a glimpse into the government’s collusion with Social Media Tech companies to silence their opposition. Once again with the enthusiastic help of the Liberal Media. Naming anything that goes against the Left’s narrative “hate speech” or “misinformation”. They don’t have to show proof. The accusation is sufficient. They suppressed the Hunter Biden Laptop even though the FBI has had the laptop for months and knew it belonged to Hunter. Then to give more credence to the lie they had FIFTY former Intelligence Agency officials sign a letter saying the laptop was “Russian Disinformation”. No reporter asked any of them if they had examined the laptop or what evidence they had to make such a claim. Then more than two years later the media admitted the laptop is, in fact, real. Again, damage done.
We keep hoping when the undeniable truth comes out that the people who had believed all the lies would see the truth. But when the media doesn’t even report it, they never hear the truth. The Liberal media was silent on Elon Musk’s release of the proof Twitter conspired with the government to suppress Hunter Biden’s laptop and silence opposition. The government would ask them to silence someone and Twitter would reply, “Handled”. The Left kept defending the censorship by saying Twitter’s censorship wasn’t a violation of the First Amendment because they were a private company and they can do what they want. But when they are collaborating with the government to censor people and suppress information, it certainly IS.
Knowing the media isn’t going to report on evidence of the government malfeasance, WE MUST, whenever we can. We can’t be the “silent majority” any longer. We must stand up and speak up.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
Michael Greer retired from the film/television industry and is the co-organizer of the Santa Monica Tea Party and the Los Angeles Tea Party, on the board of directors of the Citizens’ Alliance for Property Rights and was a member of the Republican Central Committee for the 41st Assembly District. Her website is: http://madderthanhell.wordpress.com/
By Jeff Childers
12-05-22
Good morning, C&C, it’s Monday, the first day of the work week, a day rife with new possibilities. It’s also the first full week of December as we count down till Christmas! Today’s roundup includes: responses to comments on Balenciaga and more fallout; EcoHealth whistleblower says covid was a bioweapon; hospitals gobbled up covid cash with no measurable result; Musk and the Daily mail slam corporate media’s silence; Katie Hobbs was helping censor social media users; advertisers return to Twitter; Twitter sets records removing child abuse material; Iran disbands its morality police; and hardly anyone is buying Biden’s bivalent boosters.
🪖 C&C will be out on Wednesday, since I’ll be in Mar-a-Lago tomorrow evening for a child trafficking event and will have to travel early to get right back. I’ll make it up to you!
🔥 Corporate media wants the Balengciaga story to go away, but we’re not done with it yet; not even close. We’ll begin with a clarification. Last week I reported on Balenciaga’s self-inflicted culture-war injuries, specifically the intentional misspelling of their firm’s name, by adding an extra ‘a’, which deliberately invoked demonic themes in one of their campaign ads. I also noted with great interest that, Google translated the firm’s name — once the extra ‘a’ was added — into nothing less than a demonic invocation.
Alert C&C commenters sprang into action, pointing out two facts. First, Google’s translation is wrong — that’s not actually what it means in Latin — and second, the firm’s actual name (absent the extra ‘a’) traces back to a famous 17th century Spaniard, Crístobal Balenciaga, and so it wasn’t recently minted. A few commenters were concerned that I might inadvertently mislead folks into believing an easily-disproven psyop — which is always a valid concern.
Having carefully considered those concerns, the post stands. I accurately reported that the dark designer was the source of the spin on its own name — not me — and I accurately reported how Google translated the misspelled name from Latin (albeit in error).
One commenter linked to a helpful article explaining how Google’s translation service can be manipulated by users, which makes things even more intriguing; did Balenciaga’s marketing team rig Google’s translate before putting the misspelled name in the shot? If so, why would they do that?
The evidence suggests Balenciaga could have been trying to get “the Christians” all riled up about their demonic imagery, to create buzz and a controversy over the brand. Or they could actually have been pushing demonology along with their pedophilia. Who knows? Either way it’s still gross symbolism that shouldn’t be anywhere near kids, or even most adults, to be honest.
Meanwhile, seen in Dallas:
And this entertaining bit:
Applying to Balenciaga in Bondage
1:06 AM ∙ Dec 4, 202259,693Likes6,721Retweets
Gays against Groomers, recently re-instated to Twitter, has been reviewing other Balenciaga ads, and you’ll never guess what they’ve been finding.
Gays Against Groomers @againstgrmrs
5:31 PM ∙ Nov 23, 202243,229Likes12,334Retweets
The theme of child sexual abuse apparently running through many Balenciaga advertisements raises a serious question over whether the current crop of ads were in fact only a stunt that misfired, or were actually part of a darker agenda.
Sunlight is the best disinfectant.
🔥 The New York Post ran a story yesterday headlined, “Scientist Who Worked at Wuhan Lab Says COVID Was Man-Made Virus.” In a new book titled “The Truth About Wuhan,” whistleblower Andrew Huff describes his work for EcoHealth Alliance, the shady, money-laundering, grant-getting “non-profit” that was up to its evil neck in coronavirus research.
“EcoHealth Alliance developed SARS-CoV-2 and was responsible for the development of the agent SARS-CoV-2 during my employment at the organization,” Huff explained in his book. He believes the U.S. used the project to assess the bioweapon capabilities of foreign labs – including at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
Huff, an Army veteran, worked at EcoHealth Alliance from 2014 to 2016. He said the non-profit helped the Wuhan lab assemble the “best existing methods to engineer bat coronaviruses to attack other species.” He explained, “I was terrified by what I saw. We were just handing them bioweapon technology.”
The former Ecohealth vice-president called the Wuhan disaster one of the greatest cover-ups in history – and the “biggest US intelligence failure since 9/11.” He says that, after quitting EcoHealth over ethical concerns in 2016, he was approached and offered a job by DARPA in late 2019 — a job that would have tied him up in restrictions over classified information so that he couldn’t talk about his experience with coronavirus.
He thinks that was an intentional effort to keep him quiet. He’s also currently suing EcoHealth in New York.
I can’t imagine anyone disbelieving Dr. Huff, and nobody believes the NIH. Even the lawmakers who accept the NIH’s lame explanations are just pretending to believe them. There’s a huge disconnect between the public and government actors. The truth is dripping out. Drip, drip, drip.
🔥 The Wall Street Journal ran a sadly predictable story yesterday headlined, “Billions in Covid Aid Went to Hospitals That Didn’t Need It.” It begins saying “the U.S. government gave hospitals tens of billions of dollars to help them cope with the strains of the pandemic. Many of the hospitals didn’t need it.”
They took the money anyway. Imagine that.
According to the Journal, until late in the pandemic, the feds used a hospital’s gross revenue to determine how much aid each hospital got; not covid caseload, community transmission levels, financial need or distress, staffing challenges, beds, patient volume or anything else that would have made sense. In other words, the biggest hospitals got the most money, period.
Those same hospitals then toed the line with jab mandates and everything else the government wanted.
Jim Parker, a senior advisor at HHS, explained “We had to accept very early on that our first foray into distributing funds was going to be imperfect.” Oh well. You just have to accept it!
That “first foray” cost $50 BILLION DOLLARS. Thanks, taxpayers.
Some of the large hospitals receiving covid funds dumped the money into long-term investment funds. Others spent the money on new facilities and expanded campuses. Meanwhile, smaller hospitals that got less covid aid had to lay off nurses, cut expenses, and reported losses, including in many facilities serving areas of the country with the highest covid death rates.
Shockingly, covid funding was NOT associated with patient success rates. In other words, it doesn’t seem to have mattered how much money a hospital got, patient death rates were all over the map.
This awesome plan is what the so-called “experts” came up with. It didn’t make any identifiable difference in patient outcomes. But spending all that money DID clearly help put the country into an inflationary tailspin.
Thanks, experts!
🔥 The Missouri v. Biden case is the one about government attacks on free speech via social media controls. Filings in the lawsuit are turning up some interesting nuggets, like this obnoxious email exchange showing Arizona’s Katie Hobbs telling Twitter what posts to cancel:
This is an example of the direct line that Ms. Hobbs’ office had into Twitter. So, politically-connected Democrats didn’t just report a tweet for violation of the terms of service by clicking the button, like all us deplorables have do. Instead, these connected politicians had a special customer service contact at twitter, to “handle” their requests.
Below is what a “report” of violation of the terms of service looked like.
In other words, the tweets were critical of the government.
I dare you to try getting an email response from Twitter or Facebook or Instagram. Good luck. That kind of access is only available to liberal politicians, apparently. Well, not anymore at Twitter, since all those “content moderators” have been laid off. But presumably this is still standard operating procedure at the other social media giants.
Gross. Gross and unconstitutional.
🔥 Haha, UK media sees corporate media’s response to the Twitter Files story the same way I do. Over the weekend, the Daily Mail ran a story headlined, “Elon Musk Slams NY Times for Ignoring His Exposé of How Twitter Censored Hunter Biden Laptop – as Woke Outlets Including Washington Post, CBS News and ABC All Avoid the Story Too.”
Haha, ‘woke outlets.’ In a tweet about corporate media’s embargo of the Twitter Files story, Musk described the New York Times as an “unregistered lobbying firm for far-left politicians.” Awesome. Musk was responding to a post from conservative radio host Clay Travis, who said, “There is not one single article about @elonmusk or the @twitter email release last night on @nytimes app this morning.”
The Daily Mail pointed out that corporate media outlets which HAVE covered it have just downplayed the story. For example, CNN said the leaked emails only “corroborated what was already known about the incident.” Nothing to see here! And the Daily Beast headlined its story, ‘’Deeply Underwhelmed’: Right-Wingers on Musk’s Overhyped ‘Twitter Files’.”
So weird that the papers are trying to protect old Twitter and the government. Or, are they maybe protecting the democrats?
🔥 Meanwhile, Musk tweeted this weekend that both Apple and Amazon have agreed to restart advertising on Twitter, after both companies had joined a noisy public blacklist opposing Musks’ restoration of banned Twitter accounts. So that’s good.
Then, the Daily Wire ran a hopeful story yesterday about Twitter headlined, “Zero Tolerance’: Suspension Rate Nearly Doubles For Twitter Accounts Exploiting Child Sex Abuse Material.” According to an independent researcher, Twitter, which had been widely criticized for years for ignoring child sexual abuse materials (CSAM), is now — under Musk’s management — removing offensive material at a “faster, more efficient, and more aggressive” speed, having at least doubled the daily suspension rate of accounts promoting CSAM.
Eliza Bleu, a survivor advocate against human trafficking, who has long complained about Twitter’s inaction over CSAM, told The Daily Wire she was “floored” after seeing the latest report of how many profiles have been recently removed. “I don’t think I thought any of this stuff was even possible at the scale that they’re removing it now,” Bleu said. “I feel like I’m witnessing a miracle.”
As an example, the recently-issued report compared 44,000 DAILY removals of CSAM-involved user profiles under Twitter’s new management to only about 57,000 such removals in a MONTH under the company’s old management.
During a live stream this weekend, Musk attributed the recent success to Twitter USERS. “I think we’ve actually had like a really good case of crowdsourcing of having people on Twitter actually help solve the child exploitation stuff,” Musk said Saturday. “It is true — yes — Twitter has done more to stop child exploitation in the last month than probably the last ten years. It kind of blows my mind, frankly, and we’re gonna keep doing it. It’s always gonna be number one. I mean, kids can’t defend themselves —so, we must.”
One wonders, doesn’t one, why Twitter’s old management — with its giant hive of thousands of additional “content moderators” — had so much trouble getting rid of CSAM, compared to the newly-reorganized, much leaner company. I mean, old Twitter used to LOVE banning accounts, if you measure affection for the practice by the number of bodies assigned to that job.
Why then was CSAM so hard for them?
You know the reason. Anyway, more progress!
🚀 The Wall Street Journal ran another hopeful article yesterday headlined, “Iran Disbands Morality Police, Considers Changing Hijab Laws, Official Says.” The Iranian government’s move is widely seen as a response to nationwide protests, mostly by Iranian women, to the country’s head covering (“hijab”) mandate.
Biden and his State Department have been actively encouraging the protests, and sanctioning Iran for cracking down on demonstrators — pretty much the opposite approach they took with the Canadian trucker protests. It’s totally cynical of you to think all this support is just because of the proxy war, because Iran is supplying Russia with attack drones, so just stop it.
💉 The Journal ran an optimistic op-ed yesterday headlined, “Hardly Anyone Is Buying Biden’s Bivalent Boosters.” Gosh! Check out this sub-headline: “The administration has oversold vaccines for two years, and Covid is less lethal now anyway.”
Ouch!
The Journal’s op-ed — penned by its editorial board, not a guest contributor — pointed out the uncomfortable fact that “many Americans who rolled up their sleeves for the original two-doses and even third ones were led to believe the vaccines would prevent them from getting sick.” But, as the Journal noted, “Many nevertheless fell ill.”
No refunds.
The editors even called out HHS for a recent World Cup ad pushing people to take the booster — so they wouldn’t “miss the game.” But the Journal noted that some people are “knocked out for days with flulike symptoms” after getting the jabs anyway.
First, the op-ed itself is great news; it’s significant that a major corporate media outlet is explicitly panning the jabs. The Journal’s article all but mocked the government’s efficacy claims. At another point, it even questioned the basic logic — using Fauci’s own words:
“The real danger is in the people who have not been vaccinated,” Dr. Fauci said at a Nov. 22 press briefing. “If we’re going to see a problem this winter, it’s going to be among those people.”
If that’s true, who needs another booster?
Indeed.
But the article made another great point that I haven’t seen in corporate media before. It acknowledged that most people who took the jabs were never worried about dying from the virus in the first place. They took the jabs to be “part of the solution” and to avoid transmitting the disease to others, like grandma. But since the jabs don’t prevent transmission, the their MAIN REASON for jabbing has been deleted.
It went further. The article even reported that CDC data showed boosted Americans were testing positive at HIGHER rates than folks who only got two doses. But, the Journal reported, “These data were recently removed from the website when case data were added for the bivalent booster.”
Scrubbed, in other words.
The editors stopped short of explicitly accusing the CDC of manipulating data to try to make the new booster look good, but the implication was clear: boosters might be harmful.
The op-ed ended with this totally rational advice:
The best way to protect yourself from getting sick with Covid or any other respiratory illness is by getting enough sleep, nutrition and exercise.
The embargo is over. It won’t happen immediately. Media can’t just turn on a dime. They have to swing around to it, otherwise they’d be exposed as government stool pigeons, which of course is exactly what they have been.
Have a marvelous Monday, and I’ll see you back here tomorrow for more.
C&C is moving the needle and changing minds. If you can, I could use your help getting the truth out and spreading optimism and hope: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/-learn-how-to-get-involved-
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The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
By James Howard Kunstler, Kunstler.com, 12-3-22
“I have had enough of this insanity and lack of national media attention or regulatory attention to this clear and present danger and tragedy.” — Ed Dowd
Barreling down to Christmas and the bitter butt end of a bad year, a primal fear of the deepening darkness makes people desperate — another reminder that human nature has not changed so much in ten thousand years, despite the discoveries of Prozac and plant-based meat. Yet Freud was right: death has its attractions for tormented minds. Thus, our nation appears to hasten to its own funeral.
Can anyone actually grok how “progressive” thinking works these days? This faction now in charge of so many things has decided in the starkest terms that freedom of speech has got to go. For some years, the Party of Chaos had achieved such exquisite control of all national debate by seizing the dials and toggles of social media that they made reality itself their hostage. The truth was only what they said it was, and anyone who said otherwise got banished, cancelled, and even destroyed.
There seemed to be no way to overcome this death grip on the process of consensus, the formation of a coherent collective idea about what is going on in the world. And so, any number of scams could be run on the people of this land. They could rig elections in plain sight. They could surreptitiously suspend due process of law when it suited them. They could send national police thugs to your door at five-o’clock in the morning with riot guns, body armor, flash bangs, and bogus warrants. They could take your livelihoods, your freedom to move about, your childrens’ minds and bodies, and your dignity. Finally, they could take your life with false vaccines — and, unlike the Nazis in 1944, get the private sector to dispose of the corpses.
And now a struggle ensues over the relationship between the truth and the making of a consensus. Elon Musk bought Twitter — the horror! — and methodically set about to liberate this new digital “public square” from insidious and nefarious manipulation. It’s not a trifling matter, or course, but it’s amusing to watch Elon play with our nation’s overlords; and even more entertaining to see these tyrants strain and bluster to justify their war against free speech. How did the cognitive elite, America’s thinking class, the law professors, the editors and pundits, the public intellectuals, the managers of most everything, ever find themselves so self-owned in idiocy?
I wish I’d been a fly-on-the-wall in that meeting mid-week between Elon Musk and Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple — the very same week that Apple disabled the Air-drop function on iPhones in China (slyly, by means of a new OS update), making it more difficult for street protesters to coordinate their movements against CCP lockdowns. Rumors were flying days before that the Lords of Tech would pull on Twitter the same kind of treatment they dealt to Parler two years ago, a then-rising rival app for Internet chatter that threatened to open up free debate. Apple and Google took Parler out behind the woodshed and shot it in the head — and nobody could do a damn thing about it. I have a hunch that Elon explained a few things to Tim Cook that made him think twice about another move like that.
Twitter is different than the upstart Parler was. Twitter was already established as the authorities’ official arbiter of approved thought in America. Under the old boss, Jack Dorsey, Twitter accomplished its thought management ends with a staff of thousands of mini-Stalins rooting out anything that smelled like opposition to the official narratives. (Elon fired the whole lot of them in short order.) It has been revealed since then that Twitter carried out censorship at the aggressive prompting of US deep state officialdom, the nagging, twanging, and strong-arming by bureaucrats from many federal agencies. Who knows (not yet, anyway) how many Twitter censors were actually put in-place by the government?
So now, one big truth has come nakedly out in the open: the Left is against the First Amendment to the Constitution. Free speech, they say repeatedly now, makes our democracy unsafe. It can’t be allowed. They say that because they don’t have a better argument. The safety talking-point is a shopworn cliché from their grab-bag of Woke shibboleths that the public is sick of hearing. Anyone with half a brain can see how transparently dishonest and stupid it is. It’s not going over well, even among a people so sorely gaslighted as the USA in late 2022.
Speaking of what is safe and what is not safe, one of the main deceptions the past three years has been the suppression of information about the Covid-19 vaccines that were foisted on the population — for many, made a requirement to earn a living. The old Twitter worked strenuously to bury any data and all news that suggested the Pfizer and Moderna mRNA vaccines were disabling and killing people. It has now reached a critical point, with so many suspicious “all-causes” deaths coming to the public’s attention. This is what the authorities are really afraid of: that the people will learn their government has carried out — by epic incompetence or true malice — something the looks like an attempted genocide.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida
In his November 8 victory speech in Tampa Governor Ron DeSantis said: “Freedom is here to stay.…we chose facts over fear, education over indoctrination, law and order over rioting and disorder.”
Governor DeSantis rightfully pointed out that Democrats have discarded American beliefs: “The survival of the American experiment requires a revival of true American principles. Florida has proved it can be done.…we fight the woke in the legislature, the schools, and the corporations. We will never surrender to the woke mob … Florida is where woke goes to die.”
A small vocal contingent of Fernandina Beach leftist supporters of City Commission candidates Genece Minshew (Fernandina Pride president) and Mike Lednovich (BLM supporter and California transplant), berserk with rage, don’t want to hear any of it. They want to squelch the free speech of anyone holding viewpoints contrary to their own. They demand that anyone disagreeing with them be vilified and censored.
They and their supporters go into apoplectic rages when confronted with concepts they find distasteful such as the defense of Judeo-Christian religious faith and traditional family values; patriotism and respect for the American flag; the right to bear arms; smaller government and less government regulations; voter ID; less clout for organized labor; property rights and lower taxes; stable levels of immigration; respect and support for the U.S. military and local police; parental rights in education; support for the preservation of historical monuments, among other traditional American principles and conservative values that made America an exceptional and unique country.
The two local leftist City Commission candidates – Minshew and Lednovich – promote the bizarre neurosis of transgender activism; speech codes; racial and gender quotas; open borders and the shielding of illegal immigrants; flagrant assaults on the realities of American history; the radicalization of our educational system to embrace leftist political indoctrination rather than learning; gender-free public restrooms and prepubescent transgender rights. They and their supporters are psychotic in the causes they endorse and support.
They publicly preach their far-left rubbish, then refuse to admit they did so as the December 13 election day draws closer, hoping no one will notice.
For example, the Nassau County chapter of County Citizens Defending Freedom (CCDF) provided a questionnaire to every candidate running for the City Commission. Minshew and Lednovich were the only two candidates that refused to answer any of the questions. In addition, they refused to respond to the media when asked why they wouldn’t answer. They didn’t return phone calls or emails, nothing…..crickets.
Lednovich parades up and down Centre Street wearing a Black Lives Matter sandwich board while Minshew has stated publicly to others that she wants to make Fernandina Beach a gay vacation destination and is OK with drag queen story time for children. All of this has since been scrubbed from their social media accounts.
A couple of weeks ago Lednovich, took a public stance on the LGBTQ+ issue by unilaterally presenting Minshew, president of Fernandina Pride, with an official city proclamation of Transgender Remembrance Day in Fernanda Beach.
You can read what a disaster these two radicals would be for the city if elected by going to the most recent CCDF site and reading its latest newsletter at CCDFUSA – Nassau [email protected]>
Why won’t these two extremists confirm or deny their radical views on the CCDF questionnaire? Doesn’t their refusal to answer the questions confirm their agreement?
Following are some of the questions the leftist Minshew-Lednovich duo refused to provide a simple “yes” or “no” answer to:
The Duval County School Board just severed its ties to a LGBTGTIA group for reasons you can read about by clicking here https://www.citizensjournal.net/duval-county-school-board-cancels-contract-with-lgbtqtia-group/
Is Minshew’s Fernandina Beach organization associated with that organization?
The December 13 Fernandina Beach runoff election depends on rational and sane citizens voting and convincing their neighbors and friends to turn out to vote for Darron Ayscue and Dr. James Antun.
Local firefighter Ayscue (Minshew’s opponent) and Dr. Antun (Lednovich’s opponent) both answered those questions saying they were in opposition. These two family men also responded to all other questions on the questionnaire that Minshew and Lednovich refused to answer.
Firefighter Ayscue is president of the local firefighters union and has been a critic of the city’s mismanaged budgeting and advocates a millage reduction. He and his wife, Michelle, and their two children are lifelong residents of Fernandina.
Dr. Antun and his Chiropractor wife, Jayde, jointly operate a Fernandina chiropractic clinic and are proud new parents. Dr. Antun is an articulate public speaker with traditional family values who promotes strict budgetary discipline.
Folks that want to help these two can contact Antun at [email protected] or (516) 547-5309 while Ayscue can be reached at [email protected] or (904) 591-3647.
***
“SHUT UP!” They Explain: How extreme and out of step with the family values of the majority of Nassau County and Fernandina residents are Minshew and Lednovich and their supporters?
The duo’s supporters vehemently expressed their anger and indignation on this site’s commentary and online the past couple of weeks. They want to squelch the free speech of anyone holding viewpoints opposite of theirs and actually suggested that criticism of them or their beliefs is a form of violence.
Some of the comments on this site by this duo’s supporters were so profane and vile they were deleted. Their vile language mimics exactly what they accuse me of writing.
They vented their radicalized fury, dishonesty, and hysteria coupled with a venomous attitude by disagreeing with the content of my commentary here November 18: Two Fernandina Beach City Commission Candidates Actively Promoting Programs Designed To Sexualize Local Children .
Facts, logic, and rational thoughts are alien concepts to this crowd that collectively assailed this blog’s content without providing a single substantive fact to back up their feverish vitriol. The site was heaped with abuse by these frenzied extremists for repeating what Fernandina Pride President Genece Minshew and Black Lives Matter supporter Mike Lednovich have previously stated publicly and posted online.
Radical Commission candidates Minshew and Lednovich are darlings of this leftist crowd and are adored and endorsed by the Nassau County Democrat Club, which is aiding in their campaigns. They say that my criticism of them labels me a hater, a homophobe, and more. This frenzied crew wants to squelch the free speech of anyone expressing a viewpoint contrary to theirs.
One of the cowardly choleric critics who posted anonymously several times under the name “Alana” repeatedly said she was a “Christian” while labeling me a hater and ironically proclaiming in her Christian approach: “I DO NOT judge people.” She said my comments are: “Exactly why gay/lesbian/trans are raped, murdered, and attacked.” She concluded her tirade saying that my comments are: “…sickening BS and untrue” without providing a single factual example to back up her nonjudgmental “Christian” sermonizing.
In fact, not one of these crazed family values vandals provided a single fact, just empty, mindless rhetorical assaults without a shred of evidence to back up their vitriol. They didn’t address one question on the CCDF questionnaire or explain why their candidates refused to respond.
One of the most furious was a guy named Mike Collins, who accused me of being complicit in the Colorado Springs gay club murders and concluded asking: “Why don’t you wait until the facts come out before placing the blame?” Perhaps Mr. Collins was asking himself a rhetorical question.
With no original thought processes or facts to back up their accusations and empty bombast, they feed off each other’s shrillness. A commenter named Libby Drury confirmed that when she chimed in saying: “This is the type of speech that makes right wing extremists go into clubs and kill people.” WOW!
I was bluntly told by someone named Mary Libby about my commentary that: “This is hate speech. Cease and desist.”
By the way, it might interest Mr. Collins and Ms. Drury that the homicidal lunatic that shot up the gay nightclub in Colorado Springs told police that he identifies as nonbinary, and his preferred pronoun is “they.” A news report of the incident referred to the homicidal nutcase shooter as “their” and “they,” thus giving me a headache while reading it.
And it gets even nuttier. A recent Facebook posting from a local parent asked Fernandina Pride President Minshew (and I’m not making this up) the following: “I need to know my daughter’s feelings are validated and accepted of being a cat. When she met a fellow trans at the Fernandina Pride event at the playground something was sparked inside of her.”
He asked Minshew if she supported “transspecies rights” and Minshew responded saying: “Yes, we were very happy to give them a safe space to be themselves.” This kid doesn’t need a safe place to be a cat, the kid needs a psychiatrist and the parent needs a visit from the Florida Department of Children and Families.
In the Mel Brooks movie “High Anxiety” there’s a scene (pictured here) where a young woman’s father, who is confined to the “Psychoneurotic Institute for the Very, Very Nervous” for believing he’s a dog, is shown clinging to the psychiatrist’s leg. A dog bed, leashes, water bowl, and a chew bone, are shown in the background. It’s a hilarious slapstick spoof of Alfred Hitchcock movies. The Minshew-Lednovich crowd probably think it’s a fact-based documentary.
***
Vote Like Your Future Depends On It Because It Does: No one cares what consenting adults do in their own homes, but they do care when homosexuality, pride parades and perversion are openly flaunted in public parks and streets.
The majority of folks hereabouts are opposed to children’s events brandished by grown men wearing lingerie, wigs, and garish makeup, aka drag queens, who think it’s acceptable to read their sexual rubbish to elementary school children. Folks protesting and condemning these public displays are called homophobic, transphobic, bigots, racist and more by left-wing gender ideology zealots.
Following is one of the milder examples of what elementary age kids are exposed to at these drag queen story hours: “If you’re a drag queen and you know it, let it show by winking, shaking your bum, laughing real big, twirling around, and more!” The online review tells the kids: “Join a cast of fabulous drag queens as you sing along to the tune of ‘If You’re Happy and You Know It’ in this playful celebration of expressing your brightest and boldest self. A perfect companion to The Hips on the Drag Queen Go Swish, Swish, Swish written by a board member of Drag Queen Story Hour. This book is recommended for ages 4-7.” Geez Louise could it get much crazier?
Do Fernandina Beach residents want their children and grandchildren subjected to this kind of garbage?
The only local news outlet to cover the outrageous antics of the Minshew and Lednovich campaign and the behavior of its far-left supporters has been the newly launched Florida Citizens Journal. Last week it ran a column by national author and educator Paul D. White the co-author of “Saving Our Youth, One Kid at a Time” (Random House), and “Bible Morals for Children – A Parent’s Guide.”
Mr. White details how there are no evidence-based practices that support gender identity education in public schools and the harm drag queen story hours can do at the elementary level. His column can be read by clicking https://www.citizensjournal.net/drag-queen-story-hours-not-normal-not-harmless/#comment-1816
The News Leader has ignored the two radical candidates’ far-left positions and this past Wednesday ran a letter (We are better than this, Nov. 30, 2022) attacking me for my recent blog commentaries critical of the Minshew-Lednovich campaigns and their supporters’ claptrap.
The letter writer, Jordan Morris, labeled my comments “hate filled, alarmist, vicious, juvenile, lazy, reprehensible, unchristian, preposterous, scathing, weak, and short-sighted.” Whew! He also accused me of “bashing and libeling two left-leaning candidates” and “going on to belligerently condemn the LGBTQ+ community in an alarmist diatribe, blah blah, blah.”
The lengthy letter, which probably exhausted the writer’s Thesaurus, didn’t provide a single substantive fact to back up the accusations and name calling. Not one. Zero. Zip. Nothing.
What the letter writer did do, however, was increase the readership of this blog and for that I thank both the News Leader and Mr. Morris.
The News Leader also failed to identify Morris, as a member of Ms. Minshew’s Fernandina Pride organization’s group leadership team.
As of this date the News Leader has not covered the CCDF questionnaire or the fact Minshew and Lednovich refused to answer any of the questions on it. Why not?
***
Hey Brother, Can You Spare $300 Million? The disheveled chubby little thieving nerd, Samuel Bankman-Fried, snatched an additional $300 million from bankrupt FTX as he walked out the door, money raised from outside investors just a few months before he crashed the company.
According to Reuters’ sources, Bankman-Fried also “secretly transferred $10 billion of customer funds from FTX to Bankman-Fried’s trading company Alameda Research.”
“A large portion of that total has since disappeared,” reports Reuters. “One source put the missing amount at about $1.7 billion. The other said the gap was between $1 billion and $2 billion.”
It’s estimated that up to $70 million went to Democrat politicians who are scrambling to cover up the cash before the new GOP Congress is sworn in next month.
Who invests money so carelessly into a crazy scheme run by a leftist fruit cake? Other leftist fruitcakes maybe? And why is this thief still walking around and not in jail?
***
Thinking Out Loud: Some of the highest performing public schools in the U.S. are public charter schools with student bodies that are overwhelmingly black and Latino.
If racial diversity is so essential to classroom learning , as the left claims, then how do children in countries with essentially no such diversity such as Japan and South Korea, regularly outperform American students on international tests? And why do Democrats and the Biden administration make racial balance such a high priority and fight against neighborhood charter schools? Could it be contributions from Teacher Unions that fund their campaigns that see charter schools as a threat?
Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said recently: “Who’s the most likely to take this republic down? It would be the teacher’s unions, and the filth that they are teaching our kids.” He singled out Teacher’s Union President Randi Weingarten as “….the most dangerous person in the world.”
***
Overheard At PJD’s Beer & Wine Garden: “If your car could travel at the speed of light, would your headlights work?”
Republished with the author’s permission. Read The Dave Scott Blog– subscribe Free
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida
By Nassau County News
12-03-22
 |  |
| At a Special Meeting held on Monday, November 28th, two new Commissioners were sworn in to begin their first terms as County Commissioners. A.M. “Hupp” Huppmann was sworn in by friend and fellow Commissioner, John Martin, with his wife Lori by his side. After taking his oath of office he stated, “First, I’d like to thank God for all the blessings in my life. It’s been an incredible run. I have a lot of family here and friends from the community. I think that what makes this community great are the people. Thank you for your trust and confidence. I look forward to going to work for the people of Nassau County and to giving it my best every day”. Alyson McCullough was sworn in by her long-time friend, Missy, with her husband Josh by her side. Following her oath of office, Alyson stated, “I just want to thank everyone here and for those that put their trust in me. I just pray that during the next four years, you will hold me accountable to the campaign, all of the work we did, and I thank you all so much”. Both Commissioner’s terms will go through November 22, 2026. Their contact information can be found here on our website. |
By Jeff Childers
12-03-22
Good morning, C&C, and welcome to the weekend edition! Today’s roundup includes: an important Epoch Times article about the push to normalize pedophilia; Balenciaga continues spiraling down the drain; Musk releases election interference data and alleges much bigger FTX help to dems; Ukraine goes after its churches for disloyalty; home sales show how well Bidenomics is working; an overturned election shows legal high bar; and Joe Biden delivers on his campaign promise to be a uniter.
🪖 The Epoch Times ran an important article this morning, which quotes me for a small part, headlined, “General Public Unaware’ of Push to Normalize Pedophilia in Culture and Academia.”
Link to story.
🔥 Speaking of pedophilia, earlier this week we looked at the Balenciaga story, and I predicted that despite cancelling the offensive ad campaign and after multiple, well-crafted, public relations-style apologies, the fashion brand still may never recover from the blunder. I suggested that on reason the wound looks fatal is because of how much attention the designer is getting now, from people who are microscopically inspecting everything the designer has ever done and hunting for incriminating evidence.
I always wonder whether to run this kind of stuff, but independent reviewers took a closer look at the company’s name, and what they found is not going to help the dark designer’s cause any.
It turns out that, if you add double the first ‘a’ in the name, which might be fair to do, as I’ll explain in a moment, and then break the name into three ‘words,’ you get this: Baal enci aga. Then — try it yourself, I did — Google translates the three words from Latin to English as: “Baal is the king.”
If Balenciaga knew about this, it’s pretty icky. Christians immediately recognized the historical name Baal, which is an ancient near-middle-eastern diety, usually portrayed in archeological sites, relics, and icons as a bull. He’s long lasting; over the years, many different societies have adapted various versions of the diety, like Beelzebub, the lord of flies.
Baal was a pretty ugly religion. Early Baal worship is associated with child sacrifice, ritual homosexuality and cult prostitution. It’s so gross the Bible specifically and repeatedly condemns Baal worship. Most significantly, a lot of people use Baal as synonym for Satan, the kind of nickname a hip Satanist might use to show they’re in the ‘cool kids’ club.
But, the essential question is whether it is fair to add the extra ‘a’. You can transform lots of otherwise innocent words into bad stuff if you’re allowed to add letters. But you can’t deny that THIS happened in one of the new campaign ads: Balenciaga spelled their own name using the double-a.
In one of the ad campaign’s photos — notice the sweet S&M bear/purse off to the left — you can see a roll of crime-scene tape, labeled with the brand’s name, but including the double ‘a’: Baalenciaga.
It might have just been an unfortunate typo that somehow escaped countless people looking at it and, against all odds, made it into the shoot. But, given how carefully the rest of the set was designed, and how the tape is angled just so that the typo is prominent, I think it’s fair to assume the designer was playing around with the word. And if THEY are using the misspelling, it’s fair to attribute that variant as their deliberate intent.
In other words, they knew about the double-a version and did it on purpose.
Reinforcing the satanic implication is the little demonic figure over the boy’s left shoulder (right shoulder in the picture), hand-drawn as childish art, but which is visually paired with the Baal tape, by being placed on a straight line through the little boy. The two images — the tape and the demon — are visually linked together, balanced along what visual designers call a “Z-axis.” It may sound like a stretch, but photographers will instantly recognize the connection.
Now, I’m not accusing Balenciaga’s owners of being full-on Satanists. “Will we see you at the black mass tomorrow, Lenny?” “No, sorry, I have a round of golf with the senator. But my wife and I are worshipping at the Saturday night blood service, which we usually enjoy, except I’m not too sure about the interim high priest.”
Who knows? But if they’re not ACTUALLY worshipping the devil, at minimum it looks like they’re pretending to be fans of history’s all-time most hated religious personality. Maybe they’re pretending in an indirect way, just trying to hint at it, a subconscious suggestion, in a way that they could plausibly deny. Maybe they were even trying to create an internet controversy theory they could later debunk? “The notion that Balenciaga is satanic is preposterous!”
Well, if that was the angle, it backfired spectacularly.
Given how over-the-top the symbology in these pictures is, the macabre designer has probably been playing these kinds of twisted games with symbols for a while, but now the whole world is searching for the evidence. That’s why their over-the-top ad campaign backfired so badly on the creepy brand. Balenciaga, or Baalenciaga, or whatever they call themselves, are about to get associated with all the awful stuff that so far they’ve only been flirting with. But now, WITHOUT plausible deniability.
I wanted to say “get woke, go broke,” but then I thought, IS this woke? Or maybe this story represents woke’s ultimate destination? What on Earth are these morons thinking?
🔥 Late yesterday evening, Elon Musk released another tranche of censorship evidence, this time about Twitter’s manipulation of the Hunter Biden laptop story. The CEO used independent journalist Matt Taibbi to review the evidence and write up a summary, in what looks like a deliberate poke at corporate media.
Taibbi confirmed that Twitter executive Vijaya Gadde, head of Legal, Police, and Trust, played a key role in suppressing the October 2020 Hunter Biden laptop story. Gadde would later be fired by Musk when he took control in October, and then immediately snapped up by the Biden Administration for a sweet ‘advisory position’ in the Department of Homeland Security’s “disinformation” bureau.
Twitter’s CEO and founder, Jack Dorsey, apparently was kept out of the loop most of the time the laptop story was being buried. “The decision [to censor the laptop story] was made at the highest levels of the company, but without the knowledge of CEO Jack Dorsey, with former head of legal, policy and trust Vijaya Gadde playing a key role,” wrote Taibbi.
Taibbi also said records showed a direct link between Biden’s team (and other actors) and Twitter, including very specific requests for takedowns of particular tweets. Taibbi said requests from connected actors to delete individual tweets were ROUTINE. For example, Twitter executives would write each other, “More to review from the Biden team.” The response would be: “Handled.”
I BET they handled them. I checked each of the links from the example, and all are “deleted.”
Unfortunately, Musk did NOT provide any electronic communications from “the Biden team,” which might have constituted evidence of crimes. Maybe that evidence is still coming.
Apart from names of folks like Vijaya, who will almost certainly be called to serve Congress some word salad at some point, I’m not sure I see much directly actionable in the latest release. For example, Taibbi didn’t name any government actors who were involved. I’m praying this isn’t some kind of limited hangout, an admission of SOME of the truth, to pacify and distract people. We’ll see.
Still, even if the new disclosure lacks evidence of real crimes by government officials, it still gives more evidence to Republicans in Congress about democrat election interference, and to the Missouri / Louisiana attorneys general who are prosecuting the civil rights case.
🔥 For what it’s worth, Musk alleged this week that Sam Bankman-Fried may have donated up to $1B of other people’s money to democrats — far more than what was publicly disclosed. If true, it would strongly suggest that FTX was never meant to survive, but just to funnel money to the democrats during the elections, leaving the firm’s inevitable collapse as a problem for later.
🚀 Yesterday, Reuters ran a story headlined, “Ukraine To Prepare Law Banning Churches ‘Affiliated’ With Russia.” Comedian-turned-president Zelensky announced that some Ukrainian churches are actually Russian sympathizers that can “weaken Ukraine from within.”
Can’t have that.
Yesterday, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) raided at least five churches in the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. Orthodox Christians make up most of Ukraine’s 43 million people, but the particular denomination currently under suspicion is only about 5%.
The gist is that Zelensky suspects the churches are “manipulating” Ukrainians to be against the war. Can’t have that kind of manipulation. So you know what has to happen next.
“We have to create conditions where no actors dependent on the aggressor state (Russia) will have an opportunity to manipulate Ukrainians and weaken Ukraine from within,” Zelensky stormed angrily in his nightly address to the nation on Thursday, adding poetically, “We will never allow anyone to build an empire inside the Ukrainian soul.”
An empire inside the Ukrainian soul! Soul crimes! As if the Ukrainians don’t have enough to worry about with Russia. Now they’re fighting each other. As a growing number of power-deprived civilians are starting to ask hard questions about the proxy war, Zelensky must crack down on them, to keep the discontent from spreading.
Millions of U.S. dollars continue flowing to Ukraine. I guess we don’t care what Ukraine does to its own churches. Oh well!
📉 Bidenomics showed up strong this week, as pending home sales figures were down a record 37% year-over-year. The line on the graph is falling like a lead ice cream cone.
Say what you want, but this is the largest annual drop since they started keeping track. So.
🔥 It can happen, but it’s never easy. This rare case shows how easy it ever gets. WFTV-9 (Florida) ran a story last month headlined, “Judge overturns Eatonville Council election results due to 2 ‘illegal’ votes.” An Orange County judge ruled that the results of a 2020 Eatonville Town Council election should be set aside after finding that two votes were cast illegally.
The reason this case succeeded is because the margin of victory was only one vote. So the two votes the judge found to be illegal actually affected the outcome. This is a crucial point. To bring an effective elections challenge, you must show the court that the alleged problems made a big enough difference to affect the outcome.
It’s usually almost impossible to show that.
For example, even if you could prove that ballot harvesting happened, which is illegal in Florida, you still have to prove that the harvested ballots were voted a certain way, were counted, and enough of them were counted to change who the winner was.
Obviously, the closer the final result, the easier it is to show that cheating made a difference. You get more than a few hundred votes apart, and you have a nearly impossible task. Remember, you only have ten days from certification to file the challenge, and the complaint has to allege how the outcome would have been different.
You might also notice that it in this case, it still took two years to get a result, even though it was only about two illegal votes. Cases challenging elections generally have to be filed within days, but after that, they can drag on for months or years. I’ve learned the hard way that this is the main reason why legal challenges to elections aren’t super helpful, unless the cheating is crystal clear.
That’s another reason why I say the answer is two-pronged: [1] watermarked, serialized paper ballots, and [2] same-day, in-person voting.
🚀 Joe Biden has finally delivered on a campaign promise. In another development that corporate media didn’t mention, Russia and China are now holding joint military drills, and for the first time in history, have landed military aircraft at each other’s bases.
𝚁𝙰𝙶𝙴 𝙰𝙶𝙰𝙸𝙽𝚂𝚃 𝚃𝙷𝙴 𝚅𝙰𝙲𝙲𝙸𝙽𝙴 @72powpow
9:59 AM ∙ Nov 30, 202238Likes12Retweets
Well, Joe Biden did say he was a uniter, and promised to unite the world. He’s done a terrific job of uniting Russia and China! Who knows what he might accomplish next, after he gets up from his nap.
Have a wonderful weekend! I’ll see you back here on Monday morning to kick off the first full week of December, the C&C way.
C&C is moving the needle and changing minds. If you can, I could use your help getting the truth out and spreading optimism and hope: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/-learn-how-to-get-involved-
Twitter: @jchilders98
Truth Social: @jchilders98
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The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
By CCDF, 11-30-22
Collin County, TX – If you’ve been following us on social media, then you are aware of the situation Collin County Citizens Defending Freedom (CCDF-Collin) has been monitoring in their community. Parents in a north Texas Independent School District (ISD) have been exerting pressure on their district board members to have books with explicit content removed from circulation in their school libraries.
Shannon Ayres, CCDF-Collin board member, and no stranger to speaking in front of school board meetings, addressed the Frisco ISD yet again regarding explicit material that was found on school library shelves. The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky is a coming-of-age novel that deals with subjects including mental health issues, sexuality, drug use, and rape.
“Philippians 4:8 says to set our minds on what is true, noble, right and pure.” Ms. Ayres remarked. “Why? Because garbage in: garbage out. What we fill our minds with matters.” She asked the board members to consider these words as she read from the book. While reading the excerpt, an excerpt that graphically described children engaging in oral sex, a Frisco school board member asked Ms. Ayres to stop reading noting that there was a child present in the board room at the time. The irony of this request was not lost on those in attendance as the room erupted in a chorus of voices expressing their disbelief at the hypocrisy being displayed.
Videos of Ms. Ayres’ comments have been making the rounds online, with thousands of views and shares occurring across multiple platforms. The response is overwhelmingly similar: Parents are outraged and demand accountability for the lack of oversight when it comes to protecting the well-being of their children. CCDF-Collin will continue in their steadfast fight to protect children and parental-rights, and they are working diligently with the community to ensure that The Perks of Being a Wallflower will be removed from school shelves.
Our FB video: https://www.facebook.com/reel/433060545704045
Libsoftiktok picked up the video and it went viral:
Michael Knowles Show:
Based Moms Strike Fear Into The Heart Of Woke School Boards | Ep. 1129
By Staff and wire report, Orlando Sentinel, 12-1-22
TALLAHASSEE — Florida will pull $2 billion from BlackRock, the largest asset-management firm in the world, over concerns expressed by Republican leaders that its investment policies will put social reforms over investment returns.
State Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis announced Thursday the state will immediately freeze about $1.43 billion in long-term securities and about $600 million in short-term overnight investments managed by BlackRock because of the firm’s use of Environmental, Social, and Governance standards, known as ESG.
Read More
Still More:
By Jeff Childers
12-02-22
Happy Friday C&C! Today’s end-of-week roundup includes: it’s not time to panic over shedding yet; I opine on the Supreme Court case everyone’s asking me about; Republicans investigate Navy vaccine discrimination; alarming news from Science; Florida divests from ESG; anti-vaxx nurse who gave elderly patients saline injections gets light sentence; and the FDA pushes lab-grown chicken.
🎄 In case you need some Christmas gift ideas for your pro-vaxxed extended families, here are a couple good, recently published covid books that they might enjoy:
Title: The Courage to Face Covid-19
Authors: John Leake and Dr. Peter A. McCullough
Subtitle: Preventing hospitalization and death while battling the bio-pharmaceutical complex.
Link: https://couragetofacecovid.com/
Title: The Covid-19 Vaccines & Beyond …
Authors: Sally Saxon, Dr. Deborah Viglione, Dr. James A. Thorp
Subtitle: What the Medical Industrial Complex is NOT Telling Us
Link: https://www.amazon.com/COVID-19-VACCINES-Beyond-Medical-Industrial/dp/0985818069
You might like them, too!
🔬 A recent study published in Infectious Diseases Research was titled, “Current state of knowledge on the excretion of mRNA and spike produced by anti-COVID-19 mRNA vaccines; possibility of contamination of the entourage of those vaccinated by these products.” I’ve seen some alarming discussion making the rounds, but it’s not time to panic yet.
The “study” is not so much a study as a roundup of other studies, which is fine and perfectly normal. The author reviewed results from a number of other studies showing the persistence of mRNA and spike, as well as studies finding mRNA and spike in various unexpected places, like breast milk. She also reviewed reports by unvaccinated people who experienced adverse effects after being near jabbed people. Then she proposed some possible ways how mRNA might be transferring between jabbed and unjabbed people.
Unlike spike protein, for “shedding” to work in an mRNA context, there needs to be some mechanism for packaging. To stabilize and deliver the delicate mRNA molecules, vaccine mRNA is packaged inside a tiny blob of fat called a lipid nano protein (LNP). In very general terms, the LNP blob sticks to cells, which “eat” the fat, thinking it’s food. That’s how mRNA gets into the cells so that it can start replicating spike.
But “bare” mRNA — absent the LNP packaging — is highly unstable. Which is why they need the jabs; if mRNA were stable outside the body, they could just spritz us with mRNA in a delicate mist or something. So that’s the first problem.
Next, bare mRNA has no known way to invade individual cells to trigger replication without the LNP packaging. So even if it did shed, mRNA can’t last long outside the body, and we currently don’t know exactly how it could “infect” an unvaccinated person. The author of the study suggested a couple ways it MIGHT happen, but the important thing is that we don’t yet have any evidence of VIABLE mRNA transmission.
Dr. Peter McCullough, who reviewed the study, is taking a cautious approach and warns that close contact like kissing, sexual contact, or breastfeeding might transfer mRNA particles between people. I assume the close contact requirement is due to how unstable bare mRNA particles are outside the body, without their LNP packaging.
7:27 PM ∙ Dec 1, 202213,633Likes8,863Retweets
Note that mRNA shedding is distinct from “spike shedding,” which is a different thing. The study author’s concern is that the mRNA, which MAKES spike, could shed and then somehow possibly “vaccinate” an unwitting person who didn’t want the shot and doesn’t even know they’re being vaccinated. But absent the LNP envelope, mRNA shedding remains a hypothethesis.
The bottom line is we still don’t know if mRNA “shedding” even exists or, if it does exist, how long it lasts after injection, or whether it would be temporary or permanent. What Dr. McCullough and the author of the study seem to be saying is there’s enough data to be cautious.
I don’t know about you, but I was ALREADY being cautious.
🔥 I might have to revise my original decision to ignore this next story, due to a recent surprise development.
I’ve been getting a lot of questions about a guy named Raland Brunson. Brunson filed a pro-se lawsuit a couple years ago against 388 (three hundred and thirty eight!) elected and appointed federal officials, including Joe Biden, originally asking a Utah state court to remove them all from office for sedition and treason. The gist of Brunson’s argument is that, since 100 congressmen wanted an investigation before certifying the 2020 election, and since the US Congress ignored their objections and certified anyway, the defendant congressmen “adhered to our enemies” and, because the certification vote was procured “by fraud,” they, Biden and everyone that he appointed should be promptly removed from office.
The first time someone asked me about the case, I took a quick look at the pro-se format and the extreme relief that was requested, plus the crazy high number of defendants, and opined it had a snowball’s chance. Move on. I didn’t pay any more attention to the case.
But now Brunson has managed to get a toenail into the Supreme Court somehow.
First, props to the three Brunson brothers, who are managing the case without lawyers, since they navigated the minefield of getting all 388 official defendants served under very difficult circumstances, like covid lockdowns and security, and because they have avoided making any number of rookie mistakes that would have let courts flush the case without dealing with the merits.
Just as I’d expect, the case history so far has amounted to very little. Unsurprisingly, the federal government successfully removed the case from Utah state court to federal court. Then the federal district court unsurprisingly dismissed Brunson, finding he lacked standing to bring the case because he failed to describe a “particularized” harm. To be fair, this was an easy way for the district court to flush the case without having to get into the facts. It’s it happens all the time, especially with these pro-se political cases.
Undeterred, Brunson appealed to the 10th Circuit, which sat on the case for a good while. In the meantime, the Brunson brothers found a fascinating strategy that involved a little-known and almost never used rule, and properly asked the Supreme Court to take the case as a matter of original jurisdiction, since it involved a national emergency, even though the 10th Circuit hadn’t yet ruled on the appeal.
It was a bold and clever move. More props to the Brunsons. It forced the 10th Circuit to quickly issue a decision, which unsurprisingly upheld the district court’s dismissal of the case. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court opened a case, which can now be found online. Opening the case is a good sign but it means nothing by itself. Even if the Court just plans to flush the case too, it had to open the case first, so it can be removed to the circular file.
According to a Zoom discussion they published this week on Bitchute, the understandably enthusiastic Brunson bothers reported that the Supreme Court clerk had contacted them, expressed interest in their case, and asked them to submit some additional materials. The Brunsons interpreted this as a sign suggesting that the Supreme Court intends to hear their case.
I’m not sure.
To be fair, I have limited Supreme Court experience in only a handful of cases. But in that limited experience, I’ve found the clerks at the Supreme Court to be universally smart, proactive, helpful and pleasant. So I’m not surprised that the Brunsons reported dealing with a knowledgeable and involved clerk. It would be wishful thinking to assume anything about the Court’s posture because of how the clerk sounded.
To be even more fair, the Brunsons were not just excited because of the clerk, but also because of some other, more technical developments in the case, like the government unexpectedly switching attorneys, or the government’s surprising decision to waive its right to respond to Brunson’s petition.
But there are multiple possible reasons for these things, and some of the possible reasons are NOT helpful, like maybe the government is so confident about what the court will do that it didn’t feel like it needs to respond.
Here’s the bottom line, for me. This is a massive “Hail Mary” case. It is unimaginable that, two years later, the Supreme Court would start removing elected officials from office just because Congress failed to investigate the 2020 elections. I literally can’t imagine how that could happen. Brunson has been dismissed by two courts already, or three if you count the state court who lost jurisdiction. The most likely result is the Supreme Court will dismiss the case too.
Still, kudos to the Brunsons for doing a technically terrific job, making it hard for the government to get rid of them, and for just reaching the Supreme Court at all. Normally, most cases (99%) are promptly rejected by the Court. I’m not getting my hopes up, but a miracle would certainly be welcome.
It will take a miracle.
If you want to keep an eye on developments, here’s a link to the Brunson case’s online docket on the Supreme Court’s website.
💉 Fox News ran a story Wednesday headlined, “Republicans demand Naval Academy Transparency After Unvaxxed Midshipmen Allegedly Denied Diplomas.”
Republicans in Congress announced this week they intend to investigate reports that the U.S. Navy is denying diplomas to graduates who have failed to get jabbed, after their religious exemption requests were denied, hung up in red tape, lost in the mail, or washed overboard.
“We’re seeing massive [numbers of] people being kicked out of academies and kicked out of their military service, all for the reason of refusing the vaccine [for] religious exemptions,” Representative Greg Steube (R-FL), who is leading the committee of Republican representatives.
It’s beginning to look like there’s a lot of pent-up demand for Congressional investigations.
🔥 When I saw this next story, at first I thought, oh please, how much are we expected to take in one week? Re-animating ancient viruses and now THIS? The New York Post’s headline yesterday read, “Scientists Make ‘Wormhole’ Without Rupturing Time and Space, Study Says.”
Then I read the article and discovered that the scientists only made a “virtual” wormhole. In other words, it was just a “model,” like all the awesome covid death models from 2020 that turned out to be 100% wrong. I guess the excitement for this story is that they used a “quantum computer” to model their fake wormhole. So what?
If they ever CAN make a proper wormhole, they’ll do it in a heartbeat, never doubt it. But maybe it could be used for good. They could use the wormhole to go back in time and warn everybody about Joe Biden or something.
🔥 Yesterday, Reuters ran a story with the encouraging headline, “Florida Pulls $2 Bln From BlackRock in Largest Anti-ESG Divestment.” Jimmy Patronis, Florida’s chief financial officer, explained yesterday that his department will relocate $2 billion worth of its assets that are managed by BlackRock, as a protest against environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) policies.
Patronis explained the state believes BlackRock focuses more on ESG than on finding investments that produce higher returns for investors. Patronis explained, “Florida’s Treasury Division is divesting from BlackRock because they have openly stated they’ve got other goals than producing returns… Fiduciaries should always value performance over politics.”
Florida is not the first. In October, Louisiana’s treasurer pulled $794 million from the investment company, and Missouri’s treasurer sold off $500 million. A good start.
Meanwhile, Reuters reported that democrat officials argue that BlackRock does not focus enough on ESG issues.
💉 Yesterday, the Daily Mail UK ran a heartwarming story headlined, “Anti-Vaxxer Nurse Who Injected Up to 8,600 Elderly Patients With Saltwater Instead of Covid Vaccine Walks FREE From Court in Germany.”
German Red Cross nurse Antje T, 39, was initially fired after a co-worker reported her for using saline (“saltwater”) instead of mRNA to inject 8,600 patients, who were mostly elderly care home patients, hospital employees, educators and doctors over the age of 70.
After being fired, she was convicted of six counts of intentional assault in the Oldenburg District Court on November 30th. Her nursing license was revoked and she was given six months probation. This sentence alarmed the Daily Mail’s reporter, who described the punishment not even as a slap on the wrist but as “walking free.”
The reason for the light sentence appeared to be that prosecutors were only able to PROVE six shots were saline and not mRNA, and they tried but failed to link the nurse’s anti-vaxx Facebook posts with an intent to defraud patients. In other words, Nurse T had a good lawyer.
🔥 Morrison Forrestor, a law firm specializing in helping pharma get FDA approval, tweeted this week celebrating the FDA’s November 16th approval of its client’s new fake chicken product: lab-cultured chicken cells.
Cultured meat and other novel food producers should rejoice: FDA is committed to supporting innovation in the food supply. Read more on the MoFo Life Sciences blog: bit.ly/3GShp9Q
Why? Why do we need to do this? What’s wrong with PROPER chicken wings? Why must we play God and create our own gross chicken “stuff?”
Anyway, it’s spreading. On the same day, November 17th, the FDA issued a statement titled, “FDA Spurs Innovation for Human Food from Animal Cell Culture Technology.” Summarizing various other alarming things in its statement about how excited the FDA is to help bring lab-grown meat to market, it said “The FDA is ready to work with additional firms developing cultured animal cell food and production processes[.]”
Terrific.
In totally unrelated news, I’m looking for some good plans for an attractive, easy-to-maintain chicken coop. I’m going to be a chicken rancher!
Have a fabulous Friday and I’ll see you back here tomorrow for the weekend edition.
C&C is moving the needle and changing minds. If you can, I could use your help getting the truth out and spreading optimism and hope: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/-learn-how-to-get-involved-
Twitter: @jchilders98
Truth Social: @jchilders98
MeWe: mewe.com/i/coffee_and_covid.
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The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
By Deb Boelkes
| Best-ever Boss Tip of the Month:You should be proud of being exceptional. |
| Don’t apologize for it. |
| “You have what it takes to make that most important next step. Whether you choose it to be just a baby step or a flying leap, creating a WOW factor workplace begins with you. Don’t wait for your boss to change … you make the change. Take charge. Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can. You own this.”— Deb Boelkes from The WOW Factor Workplace: How to Create a Best Place to Work Culture |
 Banking on Hometown HospitalityWhether you live in a bustling big city, or a sleepy small town, or somewhere in between, do you prefer to…Read More ››  Can You Be a Virtuous Leader Without Self-Discipline? How would you rate yourself in terms of self-discipline? Do you routinely set personal stretch goals and…Read More ›› |
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By James Bruner, 12-1-22, Fernandina Beach
Today the Times Union is reporting that the Duval County School Board has just cancelled a $45,000.00 contract with JASMYN, a children’s homosexual advocacy group based in Jacksonville. The story is linked here. Apparently, the school district had turned to JASMYN, which stands for Jacksonville Area Sexual Minority
Youth Network, to provide sex ed curricula and the curricula included a cartoonish game of dancing penises.
Caveat: Christians are reminded to expose the deeds of darkness but also to refrain from repeating the dirty details. Thus, the reader is spared of the graphics here. Further we follow the adage: hate the sin, love the sinner. Nothing herein should be taken as hating an individual.
Rather the thrust of this article is, who is JASMYN? and do their tentacles reach into Nassau County’s children? For the interested reader, they can explore the reach and pro-homosexual agenda of the group here. In JASMYN’s Guidestar charity rating page the group admits: “Where we work: Clay County, FL; Duval County, FL; Nassau County, FL; Baker County, FL; St. Johns County, FL.”
So, by their own admission they are looking to “help” your children in Nassau County. Can someone call our school board about this? The readers of Citizens Journal need your assistance in finding the truth about this kind of “health curriculum” ensnaring our children. We know the other local news sources will not touch it. Or can someone call CCDF Nassau, please? Jack Knocke’s team of Ambassadors are the kind of moms and dads willing to FOIA fo’ you!
Further, a close review of JASMYN’s tentacles, er, community partners show a relationship with Equality Florida who in turn has a relationship with The North East Florida Educational Consortium (NEFEC). NEFEC has a great web page showing who they give free and paid curricula to; and yes, you guessed it. Our Nassau School District is one of the happy recipients of all kinds of “assistance.” Who wouldn’t like free ice-cream cones? What if there is only a little bit of dog doo in them?
Likewise, we need to see the additives in NEFEC’s generosity. That may take some digging and time (bring on Citizen Journal reporters and CCDF Ambassadors, please).
Just check the relationship link above for NEFEC’s school training by Equality Florida, any other sponsors found interesting? Is that the Department of Health?
In the meantime, how about this for a quick NEFEC reality check: Will NEFEC repudiate JASMYN’s curricula and disassociate with them permanently… today? No? then philosophically the smell of Fido excrement is in the air and warrants the School District’s anal-retentive inspection of everything NEFEC offers our district. Or, better yet, our School District should drop association with a consortium that thinks showing our children dancing penises is acceptable. Let’s cancel what is evil and promote what is good. Proverbs 8:13
Finally, on December 13th Fernandina is having a runoff election. Who knew? I wonder what our Commissioner candidates would say about this issue. Ms. Minshew is one of them. Unbeknownst to anyone who reads her campaign literature, she is the gay Pride President for lil’ ol’ family friendly Fernandina. I bet she is not happy the Duval School District cancelled JASMYN. I am guessing her group “partners” with Jasmyn.
Likewise, Mayor Mike Lednovich is another candidate who can’t be happy about this quality of life cancellation. Afterall, he just unilaterally declared for all Fernandina that Sunday November 20th is/was Transexual Remembrance Day. Did he know the date coincided with World Children’s Day? Appropriately the date also coincides with Absurdity Day because there are no facts supporting his pet proclamation.
I know where the other two candidates, Ayscue and Antun,( also known as the A-Team) stand on this issue because they answered the CCDF Candidate Questionnaire provided here in Citizens Journal thanks to Publisher George Miller.
Please, Nassau and Fernandina moms and dads, grandparents, and business owners!…It’s time to stand up! We are not just ‘slouching toward Gomorrah’, we are hurtling at break-neck speed. Lest you think, ‘Oh well, it must be God’s plan for the earth to melt into sin infested place,’ do not forget we are called to be a salt and light…to act as a preservative for its is God’s desire that none should perish. But how, you ask, do we be a Salt and Light?
Answer, 4 ways: 1. Join the citizen journalists of Citizens Journal right here in Nassau County. 2. Sign up to be an Ambassador for County Citizens Defending Freedom of Nassau. 3. Hate the sin love up the sinner with prayer, kindness, the Gospel, and civility; And 4. VOTE ON DECEMBER 13TH FOR THE A-TEAM: Ayscue and Antun.
Your children and their children’s children will thank you.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
James Bruner resides in Fernandina with his wife and they are the proud parents of 6 children.
See posting in events section: https://www.citizensjournal.net/event/aiga-inshore-classic-fishing-tournament/
By Jeff Childers
12/1/22
Happy Thursday, C&C! Welcome to December. Your roundup today includes: more millions to the imminently-victorious Ukraine because of how much winning it’s doing; 100% of Ukraine’s large power plants now damaged by Russian missiles; Roker’s blood clots came back; NPR hiring freeze; reanimated viruses, what’s next?; corporate media triggered over science-denying show on Netflix; IRS cracks down on small e-payments in the name of rescuing Americans; and a well-respected Japanese scientist is not happy about the jabs.
🔥 This morning, ZeroHedge ran a story headlined, “Biden Admin Pledges $53 Million To Help Restore Ukraine’s Damaged Power Grid.” Apparently, even though Ukraine is about the win the proxy war any second now, as the Russians keep blowing up Ukraine’s power grid, we plan to keep buying them new ones, for the Russians to blow up again.
I guess it’s kind of a race to see who can run out of money first, us or the Russians. Oh wait, I forgot, the Ukrainians are about to win the proxy war any second, so it’ll probably be all over soon.
The State Department explained, “This supply package will include distribution transformers, circuit breakers, surge arresters, disconnectors, vehicles, and other key equipment.” Back in September, the Biden administration pledged to send Ukraine two billion cubic meters of natural gas from the U.S. during the next five months of winter.
I mean, it’s not like we needed any of that stuff.
I have a question, don’t cancel me. Why is the United States taxpayer, in particular, the one responsible for buying stuff for the Ukrainians? In April, Forbes said president Zelenskyy was worth around $30 million, although I have to imagine his portfolio is doing much better after all those previous bags of cash, I mean rounds of aid. But the point is, how much is Zelenskyy kicking in?
Or the U.N.? How about them?
And how about all those folks with Ukraine flags as their Facebook bio pictures? Why don’t THEY pay for it?
Just asking.
🚀 Meanwhile, the pro-Ukraine Meduza news site ran a story two days ago headlined “All of Ukraine’s larger thermal power plants and HPPs show damage from Russian missile strikes.”
ALL of them.
Volodymyr Kudrytskyi, the head of Ukraine’s high-voltage transmission operator Ukrenergo, said “in the course of seven missile strikes starting on October 10, all of Ukraine’s larger thermal and hydroelectric power stations have been damaged. I cannot go into the details of each concrete strike and its consequences.”
💉 Less than two weeks ago, Al Roker, 68, was hospitalized for blood clots in his legs AND lungs — exactly 59 days after he got his booster shot. But he was discharged on Thanksgiving, celebrated with great fanfare on the Today show, where they rightly recognized the beloved anchorman’s promising recovery.
But yesterday MSN ran a story headlined, “Al Roker Rushed Back To Hospital 24 Hours After Release Amidst Blood Clots & Health Issues.” It turns out that his discharge was premature. The clots are still growing or still causing problems in his legs and lungs or something.
The story’s got a LOT of coverage, as you can imagine. We even heard minute details about how Roker’s wife, Debra, locked her purse and phone in her Tesla in a panic and tried to break the window so she could get to the hospital with her husband. But there’s one missing piece of data from ALL the stories about Roker, and you can probably guess what it is.
A diagnosis.
3:52 AM ∙ Dec 1, 2022928Likes72Retweets
In January 2021, in a video series for Today, Roker was so excited to get vaccinated that he was clicking the enter button over and over to get his appointment. Roker did the best he could to ask reasonable questions about the efficacy and safety of the jabs. He asked Dr. Daniel Baker, a Medical Director at Lennox Hill Hospital in New York, whose office delivered the shot.
Roker: “Is it safe?” Dr. Baker: “Absolutely.”
Absolutely safe.
🔥 Bloomberg ran a schadenfreude-inducing story yesterday, featuring the headline “NPR Hiring Freeze, CNN Cuts Are Latest Signs of Media Crunch.”
Get woke, go … how does it go again?
The Bloomberg article is really about NPR, and it explained the “public radio” giant said it planned to “severely restrict” hiring, following a “sharp decline” in sponsorship revenues. Not the fund-drive sponsorships where you get an NPR cloth grocery bag if you pitch in. They mean CORPORATE sponsorships.
Big businesses.
A spokesperson for NPR clarified that a major portion of its revenue comes from corporate sponsorships, which unfortunately fall off during a bad economy, right when you need them the most. So NPR expects a $20 million shortfall in corporate sponsorships for this year — at least. NPR’s CEO John Lansing said in a memo to staff that the broadcaster needed to immediately freeze all hiring to avoid layoffs.
Over the last few years, NPR has blazed new trails in partisanship with its one-sided coverage of Russiagate, its MIA coverage of Hunter’s laptop, and being all-in for government covid propaganda and fear mongering during the pandemic, to the point where it essentially became just a big pharma marketing subsidiary.
Sad. Boo hoo!
And here’s a nice simulation of what NPR is like every single day:
7:31 PM ∙ Jul 3, 20224,644Likes1,264Retweets
🔥 The UK Daily Mail ran an alarming story this week headlined, “Will the Next Pandemic Come From the Arctic? Ancient Virus That Has Lain Frozen in Siberian Permafrost for 48,500 YEARS Is Revived.” Let me explain a little before I start ranting about this.
The article is based on a newly-published study titled “An update on eukaryotic viruses revived from ancient permafrost.” The gist is, a team of scientists have been mining Siberian permafrost, finding ancient frozen organic matter, filtering the recovered matter to discover old viruses, and then trying to bring the viruses back to life.
Because science.
You with me so far? The research team is super excited, because they actually managed to revive seven different types of never-before-seen viruses, including one they estimate is 48,500 years old.
Now check this out. The old one — the 48,500-year-old reanimated virus — is described by the Daily Mail as part of a family of viruses called pandoraviruses. They’re egg shaped with a hole in one end.
Can you guess what “pandoraviruses” are named after? They’re named after PANDORA’S BOX. You know, the story where the stupid girl broke the rules and opened the box that she wasn’t supposed to, and let all the evil things inside fly out and infect the entire world. THAT’S what this reanimated virus is named after.
Experts.
You legit cannot make this stuff up. If I wrote and submitted a novel to a publisher about Siberian scientists reanimating 50,000-year-old viruses, and called the viruses in my story “pandoraviruses,” the editors would be like, “come on, Jeff, that’s too obvious. Name the viruses something else.”
And guess how the rest of the story would OBVIOUSLY play out.
Only a couple months ago, I reported on a study by Boston University researchers who precisely described how to make covid more lethal in the lab, right down to the models of the equipment. In other words, they were doing gain-of-function research, right in Boston, and then excitedly giving every lunatic in the world a step-by-step recipe for how to do the same thing.
As it turns out, the study was quickly pulled after I (and others) reported on it, pointing out the painfully obvious problems.
I’m only spitballing here, but, um, shouldn’t scientists who reanimate ancient viruses and make coronaviruses more lethal DO JAIL TIME? Shouldn’t we lock them up “for safety?” For “the common good?” If the scientists are in a jurisdiction where we can’t arrest them, should we send a SEAL team after them, to “protect the community?”
Or do we just have to lie here, pretending nothing weird is going on, and just take it?
Me, I’m for jail time. At least.
🔥 A popular new Netflix series is called “Ancient Apocalypse.” It features a journalist who’s been researching what is maybe best called “alternative history.” For example, he tours archeological sites who existence challenges the conventional narratives, such as complex ancient structures that pre-date the normally agreed-upon period for the invention of agriculture.
The host also discusses historical evidence for a worldwide flood, giants, and other non-mainstream things like that. The show has high production values, takes its subject matter seriously, is interesting and well made, probably didn’t cost a lot to make, and has been getting great user reviews on Netflix.
I probably would never have noticed the show, except that it’s becoming painfully obvious that corporate media can’t STAND the series and is totally triggered by it. In a recent article, The Guardian UK included the alarming headline, “Ancient Apocalypse Is the Most Dangerous Show On Netflix.” The subhead even asks “Why has this been allowed?” Allowed? By whom? Who does the Guardian think allows or disallows Netflix shows? Biden? The Disinformation Board?
Remember, this is the same Guardian that not too long ago published a glowing review of the pedophilic movie “Cuties.” So it takes a LOT for the Guardian to find a show is “dangerous.” In other words, the Guardian can find something to like and defend even in a movie bursting with pedophilic imagery, but a series about archeological digs is just too much.
I also find it weird that corporate media never complains about all the UFO shows on the History Channel.
I can only guess at what about Ancient Apocalypse triggers corporate media. But for certain, it’s some kind of “don’t question the science!” moment. Maybe this has always been happening, and we’ve only just started noticing because of the pandemic.
🔥 Marketwatch ran an insightful story this week headlined, “IRS Warns Americans Over $600 Threshold to Report Venmo, PayPal Payments.” Before this year, the threshold for filing income tax Form 1099-K was at least two hundred e-pay transactions totaling at least $20,000.
Now it’s down to only $600 bucks and one transaction.
Don’t blame the IRS. When Congress passed Joe Biden’s ironically-titled American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, it reduced the reporting threshold to a single transaction over $600. Democrats said the change was needed to help pay for a $3.5 trillion social spending bill, focused largely on climate programs, child care and education.
In other words, grants to liberal non-profits and activist groups.
You may also recall that Biden and the democrat Party have always promised, hands on Bibles, that Americans earning under $400,000 annually would not have to pay a cent more in taxes.
Sorry, suckers!
💉 Dr. Masanori Fukushima, a well-credentialed and well-respected Japanese scientist, apparently unloaded on Japan’s Ministry of Health this week. While I can’t follow the Japanese, Dr. Fukushima does seem downright furious.
The doctor explained that Japanese citizens, who experienced low rates of covid early in the pandemic, enjoyed existing antibodies from a different (but related) virus. But, according to Dr. Fukushima, the jabs destroyed that existing immunity, and now Japanese people are catching covid at high rates.
Thanks, experts!
6:48 PM ∙ Nov 29, 202239,847Likes19,736Retweets
I don’t have any more details than that, and to be honest I can’t even vouch that the translation of what Dr. Fukushima is saying is accurate. It sure is fun to watch though.
Have a terrific Thursday and I’ll see you back here tomorrow! Bring your large-sized mug.
C&C is moving the needle and changing minds. If you can, I could use your help getting the truth out and spreading optimism and hope: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/-learn-how-to-get-involved-
Twitter: @jchilders98
Truth Social: @jchilders98
MeWe: mewe.com/i/coffee_and_covid.
C&C Swag! www.shopcoffeeandcovid.com
Emailed Daily Newsletter: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
By Ryan King, 11-30-22
Twitter’s former head of trust and safety joined others associated with the company who have zinged the censorship of the Hunter Biden laptop story as a mistake.
Yoel Roth, who stepped down from the post amid Elon Musk’s ascension to “Chief Twit” despite initially being embraced by the new leader, stressed that Big Tech was on edge over foreign election interference campaigns and emphasized the decision to suppress but not remove the laptop story was not his.
Read more in Washington Examiner
ALSO:
By Emily Crane
Took him long enough.
The former Twitter executive and safety chief who played a key role in censoring The Post’s October 2020 exposé on Hunter Biden’s infamous laptop has admitted it was a mistake — more than two years later while his onetime boss, Elon Musk, acknowledged Wednesday that the social media giant “has interfered in elections.”.
Yoel Roth, who was Twitter’s head of trust and safety until he quit in November in the wake of Elon Musk’s $44 billion takeover, confessed Tuesday that the company erred in restricting people from sharing the scoop.
In an interview with journalist Kara Swisher, Roth appeared to deflect the blame — insisting that even though he had concerns about the authenticity of the first son’s device, it never got to the point where he thought the story should be suppressed.
Read MORE in NY Post
MORE
https://www.westernjournal.com/elon-musk-makes-stunning-confession-twitters-involvement-elections/
An FBI agent testified that the federal agency met weekly with social media companies ahead of the 2020 presidential election to warn about “disinformation” and regularly sent lists of content for them to suppress, according to Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt. It’s possible those warnings led to Twitter and Facebook’s controversial suppression of the New … Continue reading FBI, social media met weekly to censor Americans before 2020 election: MO AG
https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/elon-musk-drops-twitter-docs-hunter-biden-story-censorship
A Chinese government propaganda outlet is quietly pushing content about U.S. politics over TikTok even as U.S. officials work with its Chinese ownership to address mounting national security concerns. Some in the U.S. government have long warned that TikTok, the first foreign social media service to take hold in the country, could be used by … Continue reading Chinese gov’t pushed anti-GOP propaganda on TikTok before midterms
By CCDF- Nassau County, FL, 11-29-22
| With a Fernandina Beach City Commission RUNOFF election coming up on Tuesday, December 13th, I want to share with you facts about who is running for election. You may think “it is just a local election” but read on to find out exactly what is at stake. We have candidates who are supportive of family values, protecting the island, reasonable controls of development, protecting property rights, and controlling or reducing taxes and spending. All candidates speak to these issues to attract votes. But, are they being honest? What are they not telling you? Here are some things you may not know about the candidates. Two candidates support and promote the BLM (Black Lives Matter) group which has advocated for rioting, racism and misinformation. These two candidates also support the expansion and indoctrination into the LGBTQ+ movement in Fernandina Beach and Nassau County. City Commission Candidates, Genece Minshew and Mayor Mike Lednovich, recently took a public stance on the LGBTQ+ issue with the official city proclamation of Transgender Remembrance Day in Fernanda Beach for November 20th 2022. Advance meeting video to the 4:41 minute mark for relevant remarks regarding the Mayor’s Proclamation …. |
| It seems that Mayor Mike Lednovich (city commission candidate) unilaterally decided to create the proclamation and present it to Genece Minshew (city commission candidate) who is the President of the Fernandina Beach Pride Group that supports and indoctrinates – especially children – into the LGBTQ+ community. Minshew supports promotion of LGBTQ+, racism and equity issues in media and art, according to her Facebook page. Are these the values supported by the Fernandina Beach voters? It is up to you to vote for your values. Minshew goes so far as supporting transgender medical treatment for confused children who have been indoctrinated into the trans world. This is dangerous thinking to normalize in our small community – especially through a leadership role in the city. Minshew’s primary news source on Facebook is Occupy Democrats, a website that posts, according to Wikipedia, “false information, hyper partisan content, and clickbait”. Via reposts, Minshew promotes “republicans’ voter suppression is an attempt to shore up white power”. More facts. Locally, the Fernandina Beach Pride Group petitioned election officials to change a polling location making the accusation that the church location could possibly “suppress and intimidate LGBTQ+ voters”. How exactly? No actions to cite. No proof. No motive. Just a typical unfounded accusation to get publicity and attack a faithful church at the same time. What really was the motive behind requesting the polling location change? It was because the church objected to the Fernandina Beach pride parade and festival – complete with a kids zone. The Transgender Remembrance Day is based on a transgender person who was tragically murdered. There is no evidence indicating that the death was based on discrimination, targeting or any other trans focused issue. There is no suspect. No motive. No proof of any of the claims made. It is sadly, another unsolved murder. These are the candidates running for Fernandina Beach City Commission. Go to their website links if you want to find out more about them. Fernandina Beach City Seat 4 James Antun, Chiropractor. small business owner Mike Lednovich, Current Mayor Fernandina Beach City Seat 5 Darron Ayscue- Nassau County Fireman, Union Leader Genece Minshew, President of Fernandina Beach Pride BLM, LGBTQ+, Transgender Remembrance, Youth Pride Camp – are seeking to work their way into the LEADERSHIP of our city? This is real, fact based and should be alarming to everyone – of every faith, sexual orientation, or political party. Some people may refer to us or this messaging as hateful. Not so. These are all facts taken from candidate websites, Facebook posts and public events. We simply seek to shine a LOCAL LIGHT so that voters can make an informed decision and take LOCAL ACTION. |
| County Citizens Defending Freedom (CCDF) – Nassau County – City Candidate QuestionnaireThis questionnaire has been updated to reflect only the candidates for Fernandina Beach City Commission |
By Ed Morrissey, 11-30-22
Has Bob Iger’s return to the helm at Disney signaled a retreat from their corporate activism? Initially, we had plenty of reasons to remain skeptical of that idea, mainly from Iger himself, who publicly backed former CEO Bob Chapek’s fight against Florida over the Parental Rights in Education bill. On the other hand, as Tom Jackson argued in a recent VIP column, Iger has an opportunity to mend some fences before the worst of the blowback takes effect — the loss of their special tax-district carveout in Orlando, which becomes official next summer.
That may well have driven Iger’s recent we-a culpa declarations at his first “town hall” meeting with Disney employees. Christopher Rufo got some video of Iger’s remarks in the open forum, in which Iger expresses regret for how much bad blood with Florida got spilled, and how Disney failed to respect its customers along with its employees.
Read MORE
By Jeff Childers
11-30-22
Good morning C&C! It’s Wednesday. Say goodbye to November and hello, Christmas music.
In today’s roundup: Sticky-fingered nuclear department transvestite caught on tape; more thoughts on Balenciaga; Twitter stops enforcing its covid “misinformation” policy; SADS news about country music singer; Republicans stop democrats from passing horrible anti-religious bill; Ukraine is almost about the win the proxy war, again; Fauci experiences brain fog during his deposition; and a funny clip of the day.
🪖 A special thank-you to the C&C fan who bought Chic-fil-A for the office yesterday. It was very well enjoyed and appreciated.
🔥 You remember Sam Brinton? He’s our new gender non-binary Assistant Secretary of Energy, responsible for, among other things, deciding where to store spent nuclear fuel, and who holds the nation’s top security clearance level, Q. Sam is bald as an egg, likes to wear cheap women’s nightclub attire, high heels, and pearls, and is quite public about his stomach-turning animal-role-play fetish lifestyle.
He’s also a bag pincher.
Sam was just arrested for stealing a woman’s navy blue hard-sided Vera Bradley (26-inch) roller bag from an airport carousel in Minneapolis two months ago. I’ve seen estimates on the value of the luggage and its contents between $2,700 and $3,700.
In addition to having poor fashion taste and an obvious penchant for pinching ladies’ garments, Sam has astoundingly poor judgment. He was easily nabbed because of the surveillance video. It’s not like anyone would confuse this guy with anybody else, either. Sam’s the ugly one on the right, below, with the skirt and the hairy legs, standing next to the old, fat guy in the navy dress. See what I mean? You can’t miss Sam.
According to the police report, Minneapolis police watched Sam on the surveillance video while he clearly ripped off the name tag from the woman’s suitcase, shoved her tag in his — Sam’s — purse, and left the area “at a quick pace,” or in other words, traveling at a high rate of speed.
Sam had arrived in Minneapolis traveling from D.C., and — importantly — did not check any bag of his own.
According to the police report, Sam first denied that he took the bag. Then he said, well, maybe he did grab the wrong bag, but it had his own clothes inside. Later — who knows who he talked to in the meantime — he called the police back, and admitted taking the suitcase. By accident. He explained he was tired and grabbed the wrong bag (even though he hadn’t checked one).
But diligent reporters at the Daily Mail combed photo archives and found a number of examples of Sam using the stolen suitcase himself, for other events during the last couple months, like when he went to an LGBTQ engineering conference of some kind.
Amazingly, that time he was wearing pants. So, he knows HOW.
According to NewsBreak, Sam has been on leave from the Department of Energy for a month, and his interim replacement, Kim Petry, recently emailed her colleagues saying she had been asked to stay on as head of the Spent Fuel Office “for the foreseeable future.”
I bet she has.
I gave a couple moment’s thought to how Sam got the job in the first place. Did he act normal during the interview, and only after he was hired did he come out with the super-gay transvestitism, a gambit to make it hard to fire him, or if he did get fired, he could count on a huge settlement for discrimination?
In other words, was Sam not only stealing women’s luggage and undergarments, but also stealing from the taxpayer?
It’s hard to say. I finally settled on the theory that Joe Biden had a crush on Sam and helped him get the position. After all, Joe seems to like transvestites, he recently did a long, painful interview with one, Dylan Mulvaney, and gave Dylan a “cookie.”
Is “cookie” a new euphemism for something? Anyway, despite that evidence, I’m still not 100% sure, because on the other hand, Sam Brinton is a little old for Joe, and there’s the rather obvious fact that Sam is bald as a baby’s bottom. So, no hair.
No hair for sniffing.
The funniest thing about this story, which offers SO much material, is also the most encouraging. Unexpectedly, the news of Sam’s quick fall from grace was not embargoed by corporate media. That’s a good sign. But it was also funny, because Sam claims special pronouns for himself — “they/them” — and since we now live in woke clown world, the corporate media was forced to use this obviously mentally-ill person’s pronoun wishes.
So all the articles confusingly used “they” instead of “him” when referring to Sam, which makes reading the stories a complete headache. You could tell the reporters were trying their hardest to avoid using pronouns at all, and to just refer to Sam by his last name whenever possible.
But the broad, fast coverage of the story, and the media’s liberal and appropriately generous use of rather appalling photos of the unattractive transvestite trying to get attention, could show a release of pent-up resentment at being forced to play along with the stupid game of “he’s totally normal.”
Now, how about “Admiral” Levine?
🔥 As I expected, despite my advice to the contrary, a number of commenters yesterday still found something depressing in the Balenciaga tragi-comedy, namely, the idea that even if the good guys “won” by badly punishing the transgressive designer, the bad guys still ACTUALLY won, by moving the Overton window or normalizing bad behavior or something.
People, PLEASE. My job is to point out the places where we’re WINNING. This is a win. Every morning I’m time-limited and also constrained by how much people are willing to read. But let me explain a little more.
First, let’s not pretend that Balenciaga was breaking truly new ground here. Way back in the 1970’s, Ozzie Osbourne was biting the heads off live bats on stage, and Wendy O. Williams gratified herself with a microphone during a concert performance. Teens attended both acts. Record labels were promoting clearly Satanic bands — to kids — with names like “Black Sabbath.” Remember all that?
The Overton window hasn’t so much been ‘moving’ as it has been lying in dusty shards on the floor for the last forty years.
But the pendulum might be swinging back. As I reported yesterday, View anchor Alyssah Griffin fretted that the Balenciaga ad was “particularly distasteful in this moment.” Think about that. What do you supposed she meant by “IN THIS MOMENT?” What moment?
She’s talking about the fact that tolerance for pedophilia is at an all-time low. That’s a win.
As I also reported yesterday, the New York Times gratuitously injected QAnon into its headline to the story, for no obvious reason. QAnon is only mentioned twice in the article, once in the headline, and here’s the second time:
[Tucker Carlson] has helped to publicize and mainstream QAnon, the internet conspiracy theory that “a group of Satan-worshiping elites who run a child sex ring are trying to control our politics and media.”
That’s it. On my first read, I skimmed past this remark, chalking it up to the Times mocking QAnon and using the movement’s label as a liberal dog whistle. I circled back to it though. In spite of the fact that the Times completely understated the controversy, and only included one relatively innocuous picture out of a cornucopia of possibilities, the story is factually correct, and it mentions the key facts that: Balenciaga apologized repeatedly, canceled the two ad campaigns, and sued the designers.
So, why include QAnon if the underlying story was true? Meaning, if the Times wasn’t using QAnon to discredit the story, why put it in there? And why explain QAnon’s premise to readers? Sure, they labeled QAnon as an “internet conspiracy theory,” but apart from that, the Balenciaga story seems to support QAnon’s premise.
Maybe there was more to the story that editors removed, but as it is, the article is almost making a case FOR QAnon. At minimum, they didn’t try to discredit some people’s belief that “a group of Satan-worshiping elites who run a child sex ring are trying to control our politics and media.” Which matched the facts of the story pretty closely.
So. Wins. Let’s take these wins, and build on them.
🔥 The Hill ran a story yesterday headlined, “Twitter Stops Enforcing COVID Misinformation Policy.” Uh-oh! Prepare for chaos!
After the announcement yesterday, professional fact checkers were upping doses of their antidepressants, fact checkers like Imran Ahmed, CEO of the the “Center for Countering Digital Hate,” who called the rollback of the covid-19 misinformation policy an “irresponsible decision” that puts lives at risk.
You mean, the policy’s rollback puts his POCKETBOOK at risk. Shut up, Imran, if that’s your real name.
Twitter also released the first statistics about banned accounts. Between January 2020 and September 2022, almost 12 million accounts were ‘challenged’ and over 11,000 accounts were banned for violating the policy. That’s a lot of ‘fact checking.’
Twitter also put up a new “transparency” dashboard. What do you think? https://transparency.twitter.com/
💉 Last Saturday, country music singer Jake Flint, 37, suddenly and unexpectedly died in his sleep — on his wedding night. No cause of death has been released, but doctors suspect an achey-breakey heart.
Yesterday, Jake’s heartsick new wife Brenda wrote, “We should be going through wedding photos but instead I have to pick out clothes to bury my husband in. People aren’t meant to feel this much pain. My heart is gone and I just really need him to come back. I can’t take much more. I need him here.”
It was almost certainly a preventable tragedy that never should have happened. His band should make a song about what really killed him. I really mean that.
🔥 Republicans in Congress appear to have prevented a potentially horrible form of a new, last-minute bill from becoming law. The Hill ran a story about it yesterday headlined, “Democrats Succumb to Political Reality on Same-Sex Marriage Bill.”
The so-called Respect for Marriage Act (RFMA) repeals DOMA, the Clinton-era ‘Defense of Marriage Act,’ which the Supreme Court found unconstitutional in Obergefell v. Hodges, which nationally legalized same-sex marriages.
The current version of the RFMA would require states to recognize all legal same-sex and interracial (?) marriages, but would NOT codify the Supreme Court’s 2015 ruling in Obergefell. In other words, the new law would not stop the Supreme Court from eventually overturning the landmark decision. It also includes protections for religious liberty and conscience demanded by Republicans.
It looks like the last-minute rush to pass the Respect for Marriage Act is based at least in part on democrats’ fears that the Supreme Court WOULD overturn Obergefell. One can hope.
🔥 There was great news from the Economist two days ago. Apparently, Ukraine is on the very brink of soundly defeating Russia and teaching president Putin a lesson he’ll never forget. Again.
On the other hand, it isn’t time for refugees to come home, either.
Russia’s attacks on Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure are forcing millions of Ukrainian refugees who intended to return home to stay put on.wsj.comUkraine’s Power Shortages Force Millions of Refugees Into Lengthier ExileKyiv’s call to its diaspora to stay abroad is forcing many to upend their lives again and turn their temporary flight into a permanent …12:15 PM ∙ Nov 30, 202231Likes5Retweets
As I’ve said before, the ocean of misinformation about the proxy war makes it incredibly difficult to say anything smart about it. But from what I can tell, the basic equation is the Russians are waiting for the ground to freeze, in order to start a ground assault. The destruction of Ukraine’s infrastructure isn’t purposeless or motivated by spite. It’s intended to soften the country up for the pending action on the ground.
Anyway. It’s super terrific news that the always-reliable* Economist has reported that victory for Ukraine is within sight. Maybe Ukraine can win before the ground freezes?
* Results may vary.
🔥 I think Fauci might have long covid brain fog. Fox News ran a story earlier this week headlined, “Fauci Couldn’t Recall Critical COVID Decisions During Deposition: Republican AG.” Shocking.
The lawyers can’t say much right now, because the court ordered Fauci’s deposition and the transcript to be sealed for the time being. That’s unusual but not unprecedented.
Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry, in the case along with Missouri’s Attorney General Eric Schmidt, explained “I think that the public is going to be shocked as to how much Dr. Fauci can’t recall some of the most important actions and discussions that he had at the time, when the pandemic was on our shores.”
Haha, the old bad memory gambit. As I’ve mentioned before, I love taking depositions, it’s one of my favorite parts of the job. I don’t mind the “I can’t remember” answer at all, especially given that you’ll never get a dishonest witness to admit the truth anyway. It’s so simple to handle this type of answer. Let me show you how it plays out.
For example, if I asked Fauci, “did you discuss with Twitter banning any scientists’ accounts?” And he answered, “I can’t recall everything I talked to Twitter about.” Then, one option would be for me to ask, “so, it’s possible you DID talk about banning scientists?” But then he might just answer, “I wouldn’t want to speculate about that.”
A better option if the witness says they “can’t recall” is to then ask, “since you don’t remember whether it happened, you can’t contradict another witness who says it did happen, can you?” Depending on the topic, I might also ask, “you agree that you can’t testify about that subject at trial, since you don’t remember, correct?”
Once you elicit the only possible answers to those questions, you have neutralized the witness as any kind of threat at trial, and can control the flow of evidence in your favor.
So, not only does saying “I can’t recall” make you look dumb, as it did here, it also hurts your case.
🔥 Okay, this is pretty hilarious, especially if you’ve been following the “waning” covid efficacy story for a while.
Covid vaccine effectiveness countdown 🤣🤡 🔊 Sound On
6:35 AM ∙ Nov 30, 20226,746Likes2,960Retweets
Have a wonderful Wednesday! I’ll see you guys back here tomorrow for a free refill.
C&C is moving the needle and changing minds. If you can, I could use your help getting the truth out and spreading optimism and hope: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/-learn-how-to-get-involved-
Twitter: @jchilders98
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The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
BREAKING: Senate Passes Radical Respect for Marriage Act" title="BREAKING: Senate Passes Radical Respect for Marriage Act" />
The bill passed with crossover support from Republicans, allowing it to clear the Senate’s 60-vote filibuster threshold.
By Ben Whedon, 11-30-22
The Senate on Tuesday evening passed the Respect for Marriage Act to require that states recognize lawful marriages from other states while providing protections for religious liberty.
The bill passed with crossover support from Republicans, allowing it to clear the Senate’s 60-vote filibuster threshold. It will now move to the House of Representatives, which previously passed a similar package. The final count was 61-36.
A bipartisan group of senators earlier this month announced the compromise plan which would stop shy of codifying same-sex marriage and instead require states to recognize lawful marriages from other states. It would further include carveouts for non-profit religious groups that do not wish to provide services for same-sex marriages.
The Supreme Court earlier this year overturned the landmark abortion rights precedent it set in Roe v. Wade. Following the ruling Associate Justice Clarence Thomas suggested the high court could revisit some of its landmark civil rights cases which prompted House progressives to push for a bill to codify the right to same-sex and interracial marriage. That vote took place in July, though the lower chamber passed a bill without religious liberty protections.
Read more: https://justthenews.com/government/congress/holdsenate-passes-respect-marriage-act
By Michael Hernandez, 11-29-22
PHOENIX—“Maricopa County just couldn’t wait to certify their botched election, the botched election where half of Election Day voting centers were inoperable, the botched election where Election Day printers caused mayhem across the county, the botched election where Arizonans were expected to wait in line two three, four even five hours simply to exercise their sacred right to vote,” said Kari Lake, Republican candidate for Arizona Governor contesting the general election in which her Democrat opponent, Katie Hobbs (also the Arizona Secretary of State) was declared winner by 17,000 votes.
“Arizonans were told to throw their vote into a drawer, where it might ultimately end up in a plastic bin or a trash bag. Maricopa County, where it took two weeks to count, is the poster child for broken, botched elections. But if you bring up any of these issues, you are labeled an election denier or a conspiracy theorist,” said Lake.
On Monday, the Maricopa Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to certify the election day results despite a major conflict of interest involving both the Board of Supervisor Chairman Bill Gates and Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer (an attorney with the law firm Lewis Roca Rothgerber Christie) who created last November the Pro-Democracy Republicans Political Action Committee (PAC) to only support candidates who are not ‘election deniers’ and to stop any MAGA candidates—Arizona Republicans running for office were supported by former President Donald J. Trump (including Senate Republican candidate Blake Masters who ran against Democrat incumbent Mark Kelly).
The five Maricopa County Board of Supervisors include: Chairman Bill Gates, District 3; Vice Chairman Clint Hickman, District 4; Supervisor Jack Sellers, District 1, Supervisor Thomas Galvin, District 2, and Supervisor Steve Gallardo, District 5 (who is the only Democrat on the Maricopa Board of Supervisors).
Hundreds of Patriots showed up two hours early (with many testifying during the public hearing) for the Maricopa Board of Supervisor meeting that was moved up to 8 a.m. Monday prior to the deadline for giving election documents to the Office of the Arizona Attorney General. Assistant Attorney General Jennifer Wright requested the documents “on or before Maricopa County submits its official canvass to the Secretary of State, which must occur on or before Nov. 28.
(To view Wright’s email to Thomas Liddy, Maricopa County Attorney’s Office see: https://www.azag.gov/sites/default/files/2022-11/221119%20Letter%20to%20Maricopa%20County%20re%202022%20General%20Election%20Administration.pdf.)
The agenda item for the Nov. 28 Maricopa County Board of Supervisors meeting was “Canvass the returns for the Nov. 8, 2022 general election.” At the meeting, Maricopa County election officials reported 1,562,758 ballots cast out of 2,435,397 registered voters for a 64.2 percent total turnout (the second highest amount of ballots ever recorded) with 75.4 percent of all Republicans voting (an increase from 74.2 percent in 2018) and 68.5 percent of all Democrats voting (a decrease from 69.9 percent in 2018).
Arizona has more registered Republicans (1,436,852) than Democrats (1,270,544).
Critics of the Arizona election are asking how Republicans could have lost in Arizona if they showed up in higher numbers than Democrats and have more party voter registrations in the state?
According to Transparency USA, the Pro-Democracy Republicans Arizona PAC brought int $88,443 in total contributions between 2021 and 2022 and had $69,761 in total expenditures with the largest expenditure going to another PAC called Defending Arizona Values—with the primary expenditure made by this PAC going to a firm called Consilium Consulting which appears to be based in a foreign country. Francis Najafi, a major donor who contributed $20,000 to the Pro-Democracy Republicans also contributed $60,000 to the Arizona Democrat Party and ActBlue Arizona as well as $5,300 to Elect Katie Hobbs.
The Gateway Pundit reported Nov. 28 on five conflicts in the Lake vs. Hobbs race:
Conflict #1: Katie Hobbs refused to recuse herself from election oversight as Secretary of State in her own election for Governor.
Conflict #2: Maricopa County Supervisor Steve Gallardo served as the co-chair of the Latinos for Katie Hobbs coalition and he is now a member of Hobbs’ transition team.
Conflict #3: Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer, who oversaw early voting, founded and operated the Pro-Democracy Republicans PAC, a dark money PAC aimed at eliminating candidates with a MAGA agenda.
Conflict #4: Maricopa County Chairman Bill Gates, who oversaw the election on Election Day, openly rooted against Trump-Endorsed candidates, calling their win in the primaries a “catastrophe” and saying, “I think they are electable, which is frightening.”
Conflict #5: Katie Hobbs threatened to sue any county that did not certify this election and hand her the Governorship. She is moving forward with a lawsuit against Cochise County for delaying certification.
Two other counties in Arizona did not certify on Monday: Mohave County and Cochise County which voted 2-1 to wait until Friday to consider certification of the vote in their county. Both counties are facing lawsuits from Katie Hobbs with Hillary Clinton attorney Marc Elias entering the legal fray on behalf of Katie Hobbs.
Meanwhile, Timothy A. La Sota, attorney for plaintiff Kari Lake, filed a lawsuit Nov. 23rd against the Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer; Director of Elections Rey Valenzuela and Scott Jarrett; and Maricopa County Board of Supervisors Bill Gates, Clint Hickman, Jack Sellers, Thomas Galvin and Steve Gallardo.
The lawsuit claims that of the 223 polling centers open on Election Day at least 118 (53 percent of the polling centers) which were listed experienced problems when the County’s ballot printers produced ballots that were not printed darkly enough for the County’s vote tabulation machines to read the ballots. The lawsuit claims problems with ensuring every legal ballot is counted and states that according to the 2019 Elections Procedures Manual “the election board must conduct an audit to ensure that the number of voters who signed in on the signature roster or e-pollbook matches the number of ballots cast, including regular and provisional ballots and if the accessible voting equipment independently tabulates votes, any votes cast on the accessible voting equipment.”
The lawsuit makes 11 public records requests that were originally submitted on Nov. 15 with a second records request on Nov. 16. Neither public records request have been honored by Maricopa County. On Nov. 21, Chairman Bill Gates stated that “Maricopa County has finished counting all legal ballots cast.”
(See: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23317697-kari-lake-elections-lawsuit.)
(Michael Hernandez, co-founder of the Citizens Journal—Ventura County’s online news service is a former Southern California daily newspaper journalist and religion and news editor. Mr. Hernandez can be contacted at [email protected] and is editor of “America: The End and Our Hope”.)
By Jeff Childers
11-29-22
Good morning, C&C, it’s the last Tuesday in November! Our terrific roundup includes: London’s new driving tax; a crazy ironic death in DC; the WaPo outs its groomer self; the awful Balenciaga story offers optimism; and exiting Fauci admits the truth even while weaseling.
🔥 That didn’t take long! ZeroHedge ran a story yesterday headlined, “London Mayor Unveils ‘Crippling’ Vehicle Emission Charge For All Of London, Despite 80% Opposition.” The gist is, Mayor Khan took an existing $15 daily tax for driving “non-compliant vehicles” in London’s “low-emission zone,” and extended the tax to cover the entire city of London.
The daily tax applies to all cars and trucks older than a 2005 model year if gas fueled, or 2015 model year if diesel. So, it is a tax on non-élites, who are more likely to own an older vehicle, and on small businesses’ delivery vans and trucks (‘lorries’ in the UK). Estimates suggest over 200,000 vehicles could be subject to the new ‘tax’ which, if accurate, would fill the city’s coffers with up to THREE MILLION DOLLARS A DAY.
The money printer goes brrrrrrrrr.
As the headline suggested, the World Economic Forum might approve, but Londoners are seriously not happy with Mayor Khan over his awesome driving tax. He’s facing pushback from consumers, business owners, and conservative politicians. According to ZeroHedge, the Federation of Small Businesses opposed the tax, insisting it would harm many members in Outer London, and the Alliance of British Drivers claimed the move was just a smokescreen to fix the disastrous budget of Transport for London, the city’s public transportation agency.
Now you might be asking, how could he possibly justify this driving tax? Why, it’s for SAFETY, of course! Mayor Khan is directing his wrath towards air pollution, the silent killer.
When you think about it, if this logic holds, there is literally NOTHING that couldn’t be done in the name of “cleaner air.” Next up, they’ll be banning bovines, burritos and barbecue beans.
Folks, this is what happens when you let politicians arbitrarily change the rules for “safety” from a virus. We never should have let them get away with that. Now everything they want to do — like make it too expensive and inconvenient to drive our own cars — can just be draped in the sticky fabric of ‘health and safety’ and — ta-da! — walked right by near-unanimous public disapproval.
We’ll see if this sticks. I have a funny feeling it won’t last.
🔥 Don’t get me wrong. I would never celebrate the untimely end of someone’s time on this Earth, not in any way, not even when I say that sometimes, life serves up a special course of ultimate irony, as this next story perfectly illustrates. TownHall.com ran an article last week headlined, “D.C. Activist Who Pushed for City’s Soft-on-Crime Bill Shot and Killed.”
Kelvin Blowe, 32, pictured below, served five years in prison for abducting a man and forcing him to withdraw money from an ATM in 2017. When Kelvin got out last year, he joined up with liberal nonprofit ‘DC Justice Lab,’ which advocates for rewriting DC’s criminal code, mainly to install lighter sentences and remove mandatory minimum sentences. Recently the DC Justice Lab was promoting a bill to further reduce DC’s already-lenient mandatory minimum sentences for gun offenders or felons possessing illegal weapons.
Oddly, more lenient sentencing for illegal weapons possession is kind of crazy, when it’s coming from the same political team opposing owning guns at all. You’d think they would want harsher sentencing for illegal gun possession.
So. Weird.
Anyway, Kelvin was passionately working on the proposed new bill, and he testified personally in support at the City Council last December. Last week he was driving home with some co-workers at 5:30am, and got into a traffic accident. Kelvin got out of his car, walking toward the car that hit him, a stolen silver Lexus. A man jumped out of the Lexus, guns blazing, shot and killed Kelvin, and fled.
No arrests have been made.
Four HOURS later, the City Council unanimously voted and approved Kelvin’s bill to reduce sentencing minimums for illegal gun possession.
So.
Republicans in the House and the Senate dislike the bill. Representative Jame Comer (R-KY), ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, told Townhall that legislators would try to stop the bill from becoming law, that is if deranged DC Mayor Muriel Bowser actually signs it. The federal government has jurisdiction in DC.
Sadly, Kelvin will never see the fruits of his passion, he won’t attend anymore city council meetings, and he definitely won’t kidnap anybody, since he’s now established underground somewhere. But at least we can be comforted knowing that the guy who shot Kelvin will get a lighter sentence, due in part to all of Kelvin’s diligent advocacy.
It’s what Kelvin would have wanted.
🔥 People keep telling me that corporate media are working overtime, they’re sweating buckets, doing everything they can to normalize pedophilia. But I keep saying, look, I realize there’s very little that corporate media WOULDN’T do, but there ARE limits. I mean, come ON.
Painful though it is, I must admit I was wrong. A smidge. Maybe a lot.
The Washington Post ran a shocking article in its “Theatre and Dance” section last week headlined, “‘Downstate’ Is a Play About Pedophiles. It’s Also Brilliant.” One wonders which is worse: if the WaPo knew it would be controversial but ran it anyway, or if they really didn’t know.
The play sympathetically portrays four convicted pedophiles living in a group home together. The sympathy is generated by illustrating how hard their lives are, and even by contrasting the mens’ difficult circumstances with those of their victims, who in at least one case are deliberately shown to be doing much better — at least economically — than are the men who abused them.
Poor babies.
WaPo waxes eloquent, describing the play as “a stunning demonstration of the power of narrative art to tackle a taboo” that compels “us to look at a controversial topic from novel perspectives.” The ‘novel perspective’ being ‘pedophiles are people, too,’ and that they deserve compassion and shouldn’t be marginalized or ostracized or something. Because it’s mean.
The review’s author concluded saying that he loved the play, but softened it by suggesting it also turned him inside out, whatever that means:
“Downstate” is proof positive that you can love a play that turns you inside out.
I looked it up. I still don’t know what he meant when he said you can love the play but it turns you inside out.
I suspect the review’s author, Peter Marks, just ‘loved’ the play, without more. But he tacked the “turns you inside out” on because he thought he needed, well, SOMETHING, and that sounded good enough, and more importantly, it was virtuously uncritical.
Fortunately, the comments to the review were mixed, about two sharply critical comments for every three posted. For example:
My view is the WaPo ought to cool it with all the pro-pedo-chatter. Get woke, go broke.
Wait, IS wokeness pro-pedo? It’s so hard to keep up.
🔥 A similar, bigger story was making the rounds yesterday, and is ultimately very encouraging. You’ll have to give me a minute to explain why. For the last two weeks or so, countless outlets have poured out mounting images and stories about fashion designer Balenciaga, which you probably never heard of, but which is attached to popular celebrities like Kim Kardashian and Nicole Kidman.
Two weeks ago, the fashion designer came out with a series of new ads featuring unhappy-looking kids holding purses made out of teddy bears, which were wearing metal-studded, black leather S&M bondage straps and chokers. Here’s a tame one.
One wonders what exactly is going on in élite brains these days. This picture mixes alcohol (empty wine glasses) and sex (S&M gear), with KIDS (little girl and teddy bear). Remember, these fashions are for ADULTS. They’re trying to sell fashions and accessories to grownup women using these pictures. A related campaign even featured photos including some of mommy’s ”work” papers that, when blown up, turned out to be a court case about CHILD PORNOGRAPHY LAWS.
So, they know. It wasn’t even well-hidden.
There was also a lot of attention shined on Balenciaga’s newest runway show, which featured unhappy models made up to look physically abused.
The backlash was sudden and furious. Over the last couple days, the controversy forced corporate media to give in and cover the story.
Even the View waded in. View anchor lady Ayssah Griffin worried that the ad — which the chyron described as the “bdsm ad” — was “particularly distasteful in this moment.” She fretted that Balenciaga was reinforcing an anti-LGBTQ sentiment on the far right, because the sexualized kids “carrying things that represent sex acts” reinforce the stereotype that trans people are groomers.
Imagine that.
Another View anchor lady admitted, “We can’t even show the picture because it’s so distasteful.” That tells you something right there.
For its part, less than a week into the scandal, Balenciaga started publicly apologizing, pulled the new line, and has already filed suit against the set designers, alleging it was hoodwinked.
Under exquisite pressure, Balenciaga was forced to delete their twitter account:
And two days ago, the brand’s biggest celebrity name, Kim Kardashian, announced she was reconsidering her involvement with Balenciaga.
Kim has not been treated well in the comments. Folks seem to think she shouldn’t be “re-evaluating” her “relationship with the brand” so much as chucking it out the airlock.
Even the New York Times was forced to weigh in, in an article published late yesterday. Check out this headline: “When High Fashion and QAnon Collide.” The Times called the story an “explicit collision of internet culture, politics, fashion and conspiracy theories.” The Times seemed shocked by the brand’s sudden downfall, reporting that it took less than two weeks for the designer to retreat into abject apology for its admittedly “grievous errors”:
On Nov. 28, almost two weeks after the storm started brewing — and after a series of Instagram apologies that failed to quell it — the brand issued a statement admitting “a series of grievous errors for which Balenciaga takes responsibility.” The fashion house announced ongoing “internal and external investigations” and “new controls” and said it was reaching out to “organizations who specialize in child protection and aim at ending child abuse and exploitation.”
“We want to learn from our mistakes and identify ways we can contribute,” the statement read.
The Times reported that since the teddy bear campaign images were released, the photographer, Mr. Gabriele Galimberti, said he has been inundated with hate mail and death threats, has had jobs canceled, and has been doxxed.
Too bad.
Now, a totally understandable take that I’ve seen before in the C&C comments would be revulsion, disgust, and disappointment because of the condition of the world. However I think that’s the wrong take. In under two weeks, this revolting élite brand has been badly damaged, probably beyond recovery, and has forced the left to draw a line, however delicately, and however tepid the View ladies’ condemnation actually was.
In other words, the resistance to this kind of evil is becoming better organized, better coordinated, speedier and more effective. Finally, after everything we’ve been through over the last three years, a line may have at last been crossed, and the sleeping giant may, after his distressingly long slumber, be waking up.
🪳 In what CNN billed as his “Exit Interview” yesterday, Jake Tapper asked that disgusting cockroach Fauci about the anticipated Republican hearings on covid’s origins. Specifically, the anchor asked if there were any connections between U.S. health agency investments and what was going on in the Wuhan lab? Jake even pressed Fauci, it’s possible, right?
Fauci answered with a bunch of word salad and mumbo jumbo about how the Wuhan bat viruses were genetically distant to the covid-19 virus. Which only proves covid-19’s lab engineering, if you ask me. But toward the end, Fauci allowed “maybe there’s a lab leak, but it’s not with the viruses that the NIH was funding. That’s almost certain that’s the case.”
That’s ‘almost’ certain. ALMOST. Weasel words, again!
That’s as close to an admission as we’ll ever get from that insect.
Have a terrific Tuesday, and I’ll catch you back here tomorrow for more.
C&C is moving the needle and changing minds. If you can, I could use your help getting the truth out and spreading optimism and hope: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/-learn-how-to-get-involved-
Twitter: @jchilders98
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The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
By Jeff Childers
11-28-22
Good Monday morning C&C! We’re climbing back into the saddle at central HQ today. Our first post-vacation roundup includes: Fauci’s last day was as vile and revolting as you imagine it would be; a horrible study about investigations and covid disinformation; a horrible study about the “real” cause of vaccine injuries; and Canadians are literally dying to get past the pandemic.
🔥 In case you missed it, last week lifelong bureaucrat, so-called “doctor,” and human barnacle Anthony Stephen Fauci enjoyed both his very last day on the job and his final mendacious press conference. Buh-bye! I won’t belabor his rotten presser, which was a smarmy victory lap surrounded by credulous media lapdogs, albeit with a couple standout exceptions who tried to ask real questions but were immediately squashed (e.g., KJP: “You’re being disrespectful to our guest, Dr. Fauci!”).
During his long, bloodstained career, Fauci soaked taxpayers for millions, all while overseeing an “allergy” unit that turned out to be up to its evil neck in shady, stomach-turning, law-skirting experiments revolting to normal people having even a scrap of conscience. He was our most-highly paid federal employee, more even than the president, largely on account of his special role as the nation’s alleged top pandemic expert.
Fauci originally intended to die in office. There’s only one reason Fauci is leaving: he doesn’t want to deal with the post-covid Republican Congress. Government employees cannot resist Congressional subpoenas, which is why you always see strained agency heads grudgingly giving non-answers on Capitol Hill. As a private citizen, Fauci has more options to resist having to testify before Congress under oath.
The bottom line is covid killed Fauci’s late-stage career. Like Bill Gates, the pandemic magically transformed Fauci into one of the most hated people in the entire world. Unlike Gates, Fauci couldn’t keep his beloved job.
It’s not accountability, not yet, but it’s one step closer.
🔬 Last week, the British Medical Journal (BMJ) excreted an obnoxious “analysis” titled “Understanding and Neutralising Covid-19 Misinformation and Disinformation.”
Just from the title, I already knew the “analysis” would be a stinker.
The nine authors, including a “PhD candidate” and a “senior lecturer in machine learning,” probably felt super clever putting some stuffing into a newly-coined term: the “infodemic.” Uh huh. Yeah, we get it, a pandemic of misinformation. Very clever.
To give you an idea of the authors’ collective points of view, the article non-ironically uses the term “science denialism,” and the authors identified the single largest source of covid-19 disinformation as: Donald Trump.
So. It was all gibberish, of course. But there was one interesting part: how the article began. Here’s the very first sentence, which framed the rest of the discussion:
Much rests on the public inquiry into the UK’s preparedness and response to the covid-19 pandemic, with organisations and individuals scrutinised about the advice they gave and the decisions they made.
The authors widened the usual misinforming suspects to include official government agencies as well as scientists, both now potential agents of disinformation:
The scientific community and government institutions are not immune to dangerous ideologies and influence operations.
That was the key. I got it. This article wasn’t just normal misinformation mumbo-jumbo. This was battlespace preparation. They are trying to cover their butts by labeling as disinformation ANY skeptical inquiries into how the government handled the pandemic.
The authors’ moronic “suggestions” for handling misinformation weren’t the point of the article, at all. The article tried to transform into “disinformation” any investigations by legitimate government agencies (like Florida’s Surgeon General) or legitimate scientists.
So get ready. They are field testing possible new narratives like, “asking questions in hindsight is disinformation.” But they aren’t going to slither out of it that easily.
🔬 Another remarkably horrible study published in the journal Biomedicine last week, titled “Covid 19 Vaccines and the Misinterpretation of Perceived Side Effects Clarity on the Safety of Vaccines.” It had only one author: Raymond D. Palmer. Remember that name, it will be important shortly.
The study claims, and I am not making this up, that vaccine injuries are actually caused by stress-inducing misinformation about the jabs. I know you think I’m exaggerating, so here it is, word-for-word, from the study’s third sentence:
Fear mongering and misinformation being peddled by people with no scientific training to terrorise people into staying unvaccinated is not just causing people to remain susceptible to viral outbreaks, but could also be causing more side effects seen in the vaccination process.
How, you ask, could misinformation cause blood clots and strokes? Don’t worry, Mr. Palmer has the answer:
[M]ental stress clearly causes vasoconstriction and arterial constriction of the blood vessels. Therefore, if subjects are panicked, concerned, stressed or scared of the vaccination, their arteries will constrict and become smaller in and around the time of receiving the vaccine. This biological mechanism (the constriction of veins, arteries and vessels under mental stress) is the most likely cause for where there has been blood clots, strokes, heart attacks, dizziness, fainting, blurred vision, loss of smell and taste that may have been experienced shortly after vaccine administration.
The extreme mental stress of the patient could most likely be attributed to the fear mongering and scare tactics used by various anti-vaccination groups… many apparent side effects seen shortly after a subject has received a vaccine could be the result of restricted or congested blood flow from blood vessel or arterial constriction caused by emotional distress or placebo based on fear around vaccines.
Science!
The whole “study” is pure speculation, a wild pro-vaxxer fantasy, with nothing behind it but a couple generalized studies showing that high stress and adrenaline levels contribute to cardiac disease. Palmer just assumed without evidence that vaccine “misinformation” stresses people out to the extent of causing cardiac injuries, then makes the even more fabulous leap to explain that vaccine injuries must be stress-induced.
With me so far? It gets SO much better. Now let’s look at who was the lone author of this “study” published in a peer-reviewed journal. Independent researcher and Substacker Rebekah Barnett did some great work ferreting him out. Here is Mr. Palmer’s own twitter bio:
Oh! A PhD candidate. Even more hilarious was Palmer’s Linked-In profile, wherein he describes himself as an “mRNA Alchemist,” whatever that is. But he must really love his mRNA:
When Rebekah discovered that Mr. Palmer lived in Western Australia, where she also lives, she called him up, and he chatted with her for a while. She described the conversation on her Substack, and by her description of their discussion, Palmer is a nut job. At one point, he even called himself crazy: “I’m a mad scientist!,” he said.
The more important question is how did this “PhD candidate” and anti-aging entrepreneur get published in peer-reviewed science journals? Starting in 2019, Palmer’s first contributions appear in the literature, and he has even published a couple articles in journal along with otherwise reputable scientists. Somehow.
These are critical, but difficult, questions. We’ve been told that questioning The Science™ is a sin, a sin called ‘science denialism.’ But, who is gatekeeping The Science™ to make sure termites like Palmer don’t burrow in? I’d like a word with that person.
🔥 As if covid weren’t already enough for Canadians to deal with, a fashion-brand called Simons is running a new commercial promoting assisted suicide, if you can believe that. The new ad features a now-deceased 37-year-old rambling about how beautiful her death was going to be.
Why does assisted suicide need marketing? Canada, chill bro.
A few days ago, Catholic mag The Pillar ran a story headlined “‘We Must Do Better’ – Canada’s Slippery Slope on Assisted Suicide.” The article claims that, according to government statistics on Canada’s MAID program (“medical assistance in dying”), ONE IN THIRTY deaths in Canada last year were people killed by doctors.
That seems like a lot.
The standards to qualify for MAID don’t seem to be super high. For example, here’s an uplifting story about a Canadian guy who was recently approved to be suicided for “back pain,” but he admits it was actually because he was broke and didn’t want to be homeless. After folks donated $60K, he fortunately changed his mind and didn’t go through with it.
11:36 PM ∙ Nov 22, 2022694Likes302Retweets
Currently, Canada is considering adding ‘mental illness’ to the list of conditions qualifying Canadians for a visit from a death MAID.
The MAIDs will clean up your apartment, and then make sure it stays that way.
Now, I know everyone thinks there’s some kind of vast conspiracy to depopulate the non-elite world. But assisted suicide is health care. Don’t say it isn’t. That’s disinformation. How dare you.
Have a marvelous Monday! I’ll see you back here tomorrow for another delicious C&C roundup.
C&C is moving the needle and changing minds. If you can, I could use your help getting the truth out and spreading optimism and hope: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/-learn-how-to-get-involved-
Twitter: @jchilders98
Truth Social: @jchilders98
MeWe: mewe.com/i/coffee_and_covid.
C&C Swag! www.shopcoffeeandcovid.com
Emailed Daily Newsletter: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched Saturday from Kennedy Space Center on the 52nd successful flight of the year from the Space Coast.
The CRS-26 mission lifted off from Launch Pad 39-A on a resupply run to the International Space Station at 2:20 p.m.
A brand-new cargo Dragon spacecraft is carting up 7,700 pounds of food, scientific investigation and supplies to the station, including a pair of rollout solar arrays to help with power supply.
“Everyone is anxious to see the science kick off as soon as docking occurs,” said Jeff Arend with NASA’s systems engineering and integration office for the ISS.
Read more in Orlando Sentinel
By White Oak Conservation
11-26-22
  Bird of the Month With Thanksgiving right around the corner, we thought we’d share some fun facts about the wild version of the domestic bird we’ve all come to associate with the holiday. We are fortunate enough to see wild turkeys here at White Oak, especially around this time of year as the young birds begin to move around. Found only in North America, there are five subspecies of Meleagris gallopavo: eastern, Florida, Rio Grande, Merriam’s, and Gould. Here in northeast Florida, we see the eastern wild turkey. Did you also know: Young male turkeys are called jakes. Adult males are toms, young females are jennies, and adult females are hens. Wild turkeys can weigh up to 20 lbs. However, that doesn’t stop them from reaching speeds of up to 25 mph with their powerful legs. Wild turkeys were nearly extinct by the 1930s, but effective conservation work helped them recover, and now there are more than 7 million with the population continuing to increase. Ironically, June is National Turkey Month. Want to learn more about the bird that almost became our nation’s symbol if Benjamin Franklin could have had his way? Our friends at USFW have compiled some interesting facts that you can share with your dinner guests. Check them out! Fun Turkey Facts.   Bobbing for … Pumpkins?Every fall, we find ourselves with a few pumpkins that have been retired from the job of ‘decorations,’ and we recycle them as tiger toys. Even though our tigers are carnivores and don’t eat plants, or pumpkins, they are still ‘cats’ and can’t resist the temptation of playing with them. And tearing them apart. You know, like cats. We aren’t sure who is more entertained; us or the tigers.      From all of us here at White Oak,   DONATE 581705 White Oak Road, Yulee, FL 32097 l 904-225-3396 l www.whiteoakwildlife.org |
| White Oak | 581705 White Oak Road, Yulee, FL 32097 |
By Ken Timmerman
11-26-22
George Washington inaugurated Thanksgiving as a national holiday, at the behest of Congress. His first Thanksgiving proclamation should be required reading for sixth-grade students, but it won’t. Judge for yourself:
“Whereas it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor,” Washington began, Americans should “beseech Him to pardon our national and other transgressions…”
Our leaders today mouth pieties, and do just the opposite. Or they accuse their political enemies of the evils they know they are most guilty of themselves.
This week Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin lent his voice to the Party of War, accusing Putin of seeking world domination and imploring Americans to prepare for more wars to come.
In my view, it was a disgraceful performance. If the war in Ukraine has proved anything, it is that today’s Russia is not the Soviet Union, and has no capability of launching a vast military offensive against the West. Ukraine has revealed the limits of Putin’s ability to make good on his ambitions. I suppose we should be thankful for that.
Austin went on to warn that Putin’s war in Ukraine has raised the specter of nuclear proliferation around the globe. This is a dangerous farce. It is not Russia but the United States under Biden that has encouraged nations around the globe to go nuclear in response to unchecked threats from Iran and Communist China. These potential nuclear weapons states range from Saudi Arabia and Turkey, fearful of a nuclear-armed Iran, to Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, and Australia, who watch the steady rise of an aggressive and uninhibited Chinese Communist Party.
I speak of all these threats during this week’s geopolitical segment on Prophecy Today, where I also recall Russia’s long romance with Iran’s mullahs, something I expose my my new book, And the Rest Is History.
If you haven’t yet read the book or ordered it, you can read a shorthand version of some of the highlights in my interview this week with the Heritage Foundation’s Rob Bluey on his Daily Signal podcast. You can click on that link or paste this one into your web browser: https://www.dailysignal.com/2022/11/21/war-correspondent-recounts-his-journey-from-political-leftist-to-born-again-christian/
The link to my book is here: https://tinyurl.com/2p9b745x
As always, you can listen to Prophecy Today live at 1:05 PM on Saturday on 104.9 FM in Jacksonville or 96.5FM in Saint Augustine, or by using the WayRadio app for iPhone or Android. And if you miss us live, you can listen to the podcast at any time. (Here’s that link if you prefer to copy and paste: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/prophecy-today-weekend/id132427025)
Yours in freedom,
KenPS: And thanks again to all of you who are new subscribers. I hope you will continue to enjoy these weekly emails.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
By Jeff Childers
11-26-22
Happy Saturday, C&C’ers, we’re back! I hope you all had a joyful and fulfilling Thanksgiving holiday. It’s officially Christmas season now! To celebrate, I offer you an all-good-news edition.
In today’s roundup: Tesla self-driving feature finally goes mainstream; Antifa vows revenge on Tesla for twitter bans; Musk cracks down on child trafficking and kiddie porn on Twitter; Twitter restores all banned accounts; big U.S. corporations boycott Twitter in protest; major reorganizations at woke media corporation Disney after 40% stock drop; the Died Suddenly documentary is spreading; San Fran hotels bill the city millions for putting up homeless; Ukraine is powerless and dry, but are about to win the proxy war any minute now; Epstein victims sue big banks for helping the pedophile; and Alberta finally dumps school masking.
🔥 On Thanksgiving, Elon Musk announced that full autonomous self driving is now available (in “beta”) for all Tesla owners in North America.
Although anticipated for several years, fully-autonomous self-driving (FSD) is a disruptive technology and it’s hard to exaggerate the potential effects of the feature on transportation, politics, and society writ large.
Musk is right, this may be the most important software release since Microsoft Windows. The mass availability of FSD is a historic development, fairly comparable to other major disruptive technologies, especially in transportation, that clustered around the early parts of the previous two centuries. For example, in the first quarter of the 19th century, the following groundbreaking technologies appeared: the electric battery (1800), the first railway (1803), the steamboat (1807), the telegraph (1816), and the first American railroads (1828). In the early part of the 20th century, we again saw the release of revolutionary tech, tech that shaped the entire century, like air conditioning (1902), modern automobiles (1901), the airplane (1903), and television (1927).
Disruptive technologies often alter society’s entire trajectory, usually for the better, but always coming with destructive downsides like military applications. For example, automobiles led to tanks, which were a major feature of last century’s world wars.
We don’t yet know how much the release of FSD will affect Tesla’s stock price, but it’s fair to assume it will be positive, maybe substantially. On Wednesday — the day before Musk’s announcement — Tesla’s stock price “jumped” +6%, and Forbes presciently predicted the end of a long post-Twitter-acquisition slide in Tesla stock.
Twitter’s stock recovery is in spite of two huge recalls recently ordered by the U.S. (300,000 cars, over “potential” tail light problems) and China (80,000 cars, over seat belt issues).
Now, don’t get me wrong; I don’t mean to complain. I’m excited about autonomous driving, if it works. Just imagine how productive we could be with all that drive time. But to be honest, it’s not what we were promised. The new millennium was supposed to deliver Jetson-style flying cars, not regular cars that drive themselves.
I want my flying car.
🔥 Yesterday, Rebel news reported that Portland Antifa extremists, angry that Twitter banned their violent rhetoric, publicly vowed to sabotage Tesla manufacturing plants to teach Elon Musk a lesson.
It started early yesterday when Musk criticized Twitter’s former management for allowing violent leftwing rhetoric to continue on the platform, in spite of banning countless conservative voices for much less serious offenses:
After a bunch of users responded to the thread with more examples of Antifa’s posts calling for violence, including coordinating riots, posting instructions on how to build weapons, specifically targeting named individuals, and calling for violence against — of all people — Libs of TikTok, Twitter started banning the most egregious leftwing accounts.
Antifa didn’t like it.
Courageous independent journalist Andy Ngo reported late yesterday that Antifa was calling for attacks on Tesla.
I’ll bet you a steak dinner that the FBI will not be raiding any Antifa apartments, or even investigating this REAL domestic terrorism, in any way, despite claiming to be “focusing” on the threat of “domestic terrorism” for almost two years now.
🔥 Also yesterday, in a related story, Musk announced a Twitter crackdown on child pornography and trafficking on the platform. Apparently a lot of so-called Antifa members were affected by these bans, as well.
It was well-known that Twitter’s old management refused without explanation to ban accounts involved in coordinating access to child porn, or even clear trafficking. FBI whistleblowers recently claimed that FBI offices all over the U.S. were directed to stand down their child trafficking investigations, so that more resources could be directed to investigating people who peacefully walks in and out of the Capitol on January 6th.
You could argue that Elon Musk is doing more to stop child trafficking than the FBI.
🔥 The Associated Press ran a story yesterday headlined, “Musk Says Granting ‘Amnesty’ to Suspended Twitter Accounts.” According to the AP, the announcement came after Musk ran a poll earlier this week letting people vote on whether to reinstate accounts that had not “broken the law or engaged in egregious spam.”
The vote was 72% in favor of restoring banned accounts.
After the poll finished, Musk tweeted, “The people have spoken. Amnesty begins next week. Vox Populi, Vox Dei.” (The Latin phrase means, “the voice of the people, the voice of God.”)
Lefty “social media experts” quoted by the AP called the decision “a disaster,” and “crazy.” They also complained Musk broke his original “promise” that he wouldn’t make any major content moderation decisions until he formed a “content moderation council.”
My guess is that Elon is getting a good look at the gross stuff that has been going on inside Twitter before he got there, and has recognized how perverted it all is. He doesn’t NEED to wait for a content moderation council. Along those lines, on Wednesday Musk suggested that we’ll soon be finding out more about what Twitter was up to before Elon bought the company.
Bring it!
🔥 Big corporations are punishing Twitter for allowing free speech on the platform and shutting down child pornography.
Jonathan Turley @JonathanTurley
For those in support of the restoration of free speech protections on Twitter, here are some of the companies pulling their ads in protest. Chevrolet, Chipotle Mexican Grill, Inc., Ford, Jeep, Kyndryl, Merck & Co. and Novartis AG. npr.org/2022/11/25/113… …
npr.orgTwitter has lost 50 of its top 100 advertisers since Elon Musk took over, report saysHalf of Twitter’s top 100 advertisers appear to no longer be advertising on the website. A new report states that these 50 advertisers have spent almost $2 billion on Twitter ads since 2020.10:41 PM ∙ Nov 25, 202211,097Likes4,847Retweets
Mr. Turley wrote another important story last week headlined, “Clinton-Linked Dark Money Group Targets Advertisers to Stop Musk From Restoring Free Speech Protections.” He explained that Clinton (and friends) are calling for foreign countries to pass new censorship laws to stop Musk from shutting down Twitter’s so-called “free speech protections.”
Of course, as we saw on Wednesday, that kind of state-sponsored censorship would violate Article 19 of the U.N.’s glorious Declaration of Human Rights, wouldn’t it?
🔥 Last Sunday, Disney Corporation fired its woke CEO Bob Chapek and replaced him with the previous woke CEO, Bob Iger. Chapek unfortunately oversaw the disastrous battle between the entertainment giant and the State of Florida over Disney’s opposition to a law banning sexual instruction for kids in grades K-3. The tussle surprisingly ended in Disney losing its special Florida tax district. Worse, the media giant’s revenues have been underwhelming, and its stock price has tanked by almost 40% this year.
Since taking charge over the weekend, Iger immediately started making changes, such as laying off the company’s media and entertainment head, Kareem Daniel. Iger’s first memo on Monday announced that ‘restructuring’ will start soon, “in the coming weeks.” In response, Yahoo Finance ran a story Tuesday headlined, “Bob Iger Plans Restructuring at Disney Immediately After Takeover.”
Late Wednesday, the replacement CEO announced a company-wide town hall meeting scheduled for this upcoming Monday, which most financial analysts think will be to announce significant layoffs and other major changes at the company.
Iger recently publicly criticized his predecessor, saying Chapek shouldn’t have hiked prices at the company’s theme parks (two increases just this year), and complaining that Chapek focused too much on the company’s streaming service at the cost of its core business. “He’s killing the soul of the company,” Iger complained.
It’s hard to fault Chapek for focusing on streaming at the same time the company was struggling at its brick-and-mortar facilities with park closures, lockdowns, restrictions, and mandates. So Iger’s criticism is probably off-base, as far as that goes. Also, many folks have pointed out that Disney’s disgusting wokening began under Bob Iger’s previous tenure, so it looks like Disney hasn’t yet learned its lesson.
After Disney came out in support of sexual instruction for elementary school kids, the Childers family canceled its Disney+ subscription, which we kept mainly because the boys liked the Mandalorian, which is basically a space western in the Star Wars universe.
I can’t imagine what it would take to get us back at this point.
Here’s the thing: the ongoing Disney story shows that conservative boycotts work! Keep it up.
🔥 Social media influencer Kim Dotcom has a MILLION twitter followers
:
I’ve reported about Kim before, since he’s recently been pushing back against the Ukraine war narrative from a European point of view. Apparently, Dotcom has seen Stew Peters’s new mRNA jab documentary, “Died Suddenly,” and now Kim is promoting the anti-vaccine movie:
Under new Twitter management, Kim’s posts won’t be throttled, and a LOT of people are going to get the message. Still not enough, but it’s great progress.
It’s fascinating how we now have tools like Twitter that let us watch an idea spreading in real time, isn’t it?
🔥 The San Francisco Chronicle ran a story Monday headlined, “These Hotels Are Seeking Millions From S.F. For Damage Caused During Shelter-in-Place. How Much Could City Owe?” During the pandemic, San Francisco created a program called “Shelter-in-Place” (SIP), where local hotels were required to give rooms to homeless people, all intended to somehow stop covid from spreading in tent cities.
The Chronicle reported that the Hotel Union Square incurred a fabulously expensive but entirely predictable bill to clean up its rooms after homeless people had lived in them for several months. The finally tally for repairs came to $5.6 million, to fix rampant smoke damage, broken light fixtures, mold and other unsavory problems. The hotel filed a claim with the City in September 2021.
After the city offered the hotel only $400,000, and negotiations failed, the hotel sued the city in January. According to the Chronicle, this month the city’s Government Audit and Oversight Committee met (in closed session) to consider a recommendation to settle the claim for about $5.3 million.
About 25 hotels “participated” in the Shelter-in-Place program, which housed between 1,500 and 3,700 crack addicts, criminals living under the radar, and mentally-ill people living outside. State and federal pandemic funds for paying hotel room rates have largely ended, so the hotels are starting to look at what it will take to get their facilities back to something normal people are willing to inhabit.
Of course, the taxpayers of San Francisco will ultimately pay for all the fixes. Thanks taxpayers! That’s putting your money where your virtue signaling mouths are.
Most recently, Tilden Hotel filed a claim for $6.5 million. Only twenty-three hotels to go.
🚀 There’s another disappearing story lately: the proxy war with Russia in Ukraine. You haven’t heard too much about it, and you know what that means. It can’t be great news for Ukraine.
Sure enough, corporate media quietly reported a “human interest” story from Ukraine late this week: there’s no power for the holidays. Keep in mind, it’s averaging below 30 degrees in Ukraine at this point.
The Wall Street Journal ran a misleading story this morning headlined, “Russian Strikes Leave Six Million in Ukraine Without Power.” It sounds bad, but without context, it’s impossible for readers to assess just how bad it is. The rest of the Journal’s article is no help and it’s not news; it’s only a bunch of defiant rhetoric from Ukrainians like that jokester Zelenskyy, who hasn’t gone five minutes without power, if he’s really even in Ukraine at all.
To get a sense of what the Russians have accomplished in a few short weeks since replacing their commanding general, here’s an alleged recent map of nighttime Ukraine from space.
As you can see, Ukraine is shown as almost as dark as the Black Sea. It looks like North Korea. That represents the power being out in 90% of the country. I can’t vouch for the map, there’s unlimited propaganda online these days, but Newmax ran a story Thursday headlined, “Ukraine Battles to Reconnect Millions in Cold, Dark.”
Newsmax reported:
The energy system in Ukraine is on the brink of collapse and millions have been subjected to emergency blackouts over recent weeks after systematic Russian bombardments of the grid… Wednesday’s attacks disconnected three [of four] Ukrainian nuclear plants automatically from the national grid and triggered blackouts in neighbouring Moldova, where the energy network is linked to Ukraine.
The entire energy system is on the brink of collapse. And when the power goes out, the water is out, too. And that’s not too good.
Proxy war allies are mobilizing to prop up Ukraine again. Finland’s prime minister made a direct appeal for private help with Ukraine’s power situation.
Ukraine lacks electricity and water as Russia is brutally and illegally targeting civilians and infrastructure. Private sector contribution for energy equipment would also be urgently needed and crucial. Finland supports also with defence and other material and humanitarian aid.12:37 PM ∙ Nov 24, 202221,080Likes2,766Retweets
NATO has begun shipping tons of portable power stations to the war-torn country.
1:27 PM ∙ Nov 25, 202212,608Likes2,405Retweets
Three hours ago, Fox News posted an article headlined, “Ukraine Capital in Survival Mode Following Latest Russian Missile Barrage: Residents Without Water, Power.” It reported that president Zelenskyy is assuring everyone that power will soon be restored in a “nationwide” effort:
“Every hour we restore power to new consumers,” he said. “Energy workers, utility workers, business – everyone is doing their part to give light again. This is truly a nationwide task – Ukraine is working as unitedly as possible in this.”
You’ll pardon the broken English. Next week, Zelenskyy will be back in the States, cozy and warm, gnoshing on pancetta-wrapped baby asparagus and leading an all-star panel at the New York Times, along with his good comrade, Sam Bankman-Fried.
I know I said this was an all-good-news roundup, but I’m not calling Ukraine being out of power “good news.” The Ukrainians are actually employing a cunning diversion, just pretending, letting the Russians THINK their energy system is on the brink of collapse. The Russians will find themselves defeated any minute now. You’ll see!
🔥 The Wall Street Journal ran a story Thursday headlined, “Jeffrey Epstein Accusers Sue Deutsche Bank, JPMorgan.” The sub-headline explains, “Lawsuits claim banks facilitated sex trafficking and ignored red flags.”
The story is, women who alleged they were trafficked by Jeffrey Epstein and his accomplices filed two lawsuits in New York federal court on Thursday against the two financial powerhouses.
“The time has come for the real enablers to be held responsible, especially his wealthy friends and the financial institutions that played an integral role,” said one of the lawyers, Bradley Edwards, in a written statement. “These victims were wronged, by many, not just Epstein. He did not act alone.”
Indeed.
The suit against Deutsche Bank was supported by findings from New York’s financial regulator, after an investigation into Deutsche’s close relationship with Epstein. The JPMorgan suit cited an investigation by U.K. regulators finding a collusive relationship between Epstein and a former top JPMorgan executive.
Among other things, the lawsuits allege both banks:
— assisted and participated in Epstein’s alleged sex trafficking by enabling him pay women for sex acts;
— profited from Epstein’s activities;
— worked with Epstein for years, even after he pleaded guilty to soliciting prostitution from a minor in 2008; and
— violated various human-trafficking laws, by aiding Epstein with access to accounts and cash.
There are a lot more details in the article. From a legal perspective, it sounds like the banks have some legitimate exposure, from having had notice of Epstein’s criminal activity (from his 2008 plea deal), from a good deal of suspicious activity in his accounts, and from having provided Epstein with what looks in hindsight at least to be protection, or even assistance.
Accountability is slow, but it’s unstoppable.
🔥 The Canadian CBC ran a story Thursday headlined, “Alberta Government Bans School Mask Mandates, Online-Only Learning.”
It’s about time.
Alberta’s new Premier Danielle Smith ordered updated regulations forbidding schools from requiring masks to attend classes in person. Now, all schools in Alberta must offer an in-person option — without masks. They can also offer online school if they wish.
Late Thursday afternoon, Premier Smith announced, “Parents and students have told me time and time again that they want a normal school environment for their kids.”
Smith was and is opposed by teachers’ unions, which now want online-only schools for ALL kinds of outbreaks, like for flu and RSV, and by parents of immunocompromised kids, who believe without evidence that masks somehow prevent their children from encountering harmful germs at school.
As one reprehensible Canadian covid expert put it:
Canada has long been a holdout of covid restrictions and mandates. Alberta is leading the way back to sanity.
We can hope the other provinces will follow Alberta’s lead soon.
I hope all that good news encouraged you. Have a wonderful weekend, and enjoy the Christmas music! I’ll see you all back here Monday morning to start the last week of November off right.
C&C is moving the needle and changing minds. If you can, I could use your help getting the truth out and spreading optimism and hope: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/-learn-how-to-get-involved-
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The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
By Dave Scott, 11-25-22
Newspaper editorials used to have significant influence and sway with readers. They contained well-researched factual material to back up their opinions.
The Internet changed all that. The print media couldn’t compete, and many went under leaving a handful of dailies and weeklies struggling for any remaining advertising dollars and readership.
The papers that endured are floundering, frantically attempting to appeal to a shrinking audience. However, their pro-left business model is alienating both readers and advertisers, that have had enough of their far-left screeching, anti-American cultural disruption, and biased news reporting.
This was vividly illustrated during the recent election when not a single remaining Florida newspaper with a significant readership endorsed Republican Governor Ron DeSantis.
In fact, many went out of their way to excoriate him, including the Tampa Bay Times, Miami Herald, The Palm Beach Post, and the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel. Their preferred candidate – the pathetic Democrat Charlie Crist – lost the election in a landslide and the print media and their opinion writers lost any credibility they had left.
The lame liberal media have become their own worst enemies. It appears they are blinded by their liberal agendas and haven’t learned anything.
Look no further than the local Fernandina Beach News Leader’s editorial pages which continue to run anti-DeSantis nonsense. Not that it’s has a significant readership (about 11,000) or any influence but it’s the only print game in town.
Last week, Wednesday, November 16, the paper’s clumsy curmudgeonly far-left columnist, Ron Sapp, a retired local high school indoctrinator, had this to say about the overwhelming Republican victory: “Gov. Ron DeSantis and Sen. Marco Rubio swamped their opponents, proving that sloganeering, hyperbole, head-in-the-sand, straight ticket voters, fear mongering and outright fabrications are more impactful than facts and job performance.” Sapp’s as intellectually and factually persuasive as a screeching leg-kicking toddler sprawled on the kitchen floor demanding a pre-dinner cookie.
Sapp, who admitted in one of his previous columns that he is a socialist and “proud of it”, didn’t back up a single one of his hysterical accusations with facts or examples. His entire one-quarter page of wasted newsprint, went on to spout the same claptrap he falsely accused Florida’s Republican election winners of conducting.
He continued his nonsensical handwringing, shrieking that “the far-right is attacking our basic freedoms”, again without providing a single shred of evidence or one example of what he was talking about. He concluded adding “I have the freedom to write about things in this column, the freedom to write and speak in opposition to certain politicians or government policies, etc. I’ve never been in fear of losing that freedom.” OK, so, what’s all the caterwauling about then?
He’s right. He’s not in fear of losing his freedom to print his babbling drivel. However, the paper should be in fear of losing some of the few subscribers it has left. If it continues printing Sapp’s gibberish it should be worried about losing advertisers too.
Sapp blathered on despite the fact he knew that the Republican rout was comprehensive. Every Florida candidate for statewide office won, all by 10 points or more. It was a landslide, a sweep, a painful spanking that was the result of a record of good governance.
It sent Sapp into hysterics to hear that despite COVID, the recession, a historic hurricane, and relentless attacks from Democrats, Florida has enjoyed 30 consecutive months of job growth. This, while blue states have seen their economies stagnate and fail.
Governor DeSantis rewarded police departments when other states defunded them. He battled Hollywood, woke school boards, and the Biden administration. All of this has resulted in a thriving state–with unprecedented job growth, and successes. Sapp can’t abide it. He refuses to acknowledge these achievements.
The curmudgeonly scribbler must have gone into a catatonic state when he read that DeSantis won practically every demographic: Hispanics, women, white men, married voters, independents, and older voters. He won the rural vote (69%), the suburban vote (58%), and the urban vote (55%). Senator Rubio won by more than 16 points and the GOP locked Democrats out of every statewide office.
It’s ironic that in past columns Sapp complained that developers and tourism are ruining Fernandina’s small-town atmosphere. Where is his outrage when City Commission candidate and Fernandina Pride President Genece Minshew, declares she’d like to turn the city into a “gay vacation destination”? Where’s his fury over current Mayor and City Commission candidate Mike Lednovich parading through town wearing a “Black Lives Matter” sandwich board to celebrate that vicious hate group? Not a peep from Sapp. Apparently he prefers grown men wearing lingerie (e.g. “drag queens”) reading to local children and violent racist Marxists over entrepreneurship and law and order.
It drives Sapp nuts that Florida’s seasonally adjusted total nonagricultural employment was 9,542,500 in October 2022, an increase of 36,400 jobs over the month. The state gained 457,400 jobs over the year, an increase of 5%, higher than the national rate of 3.6% over the year. This is the kind of news that Sapp wants to depress because DeSantis’ success and the state’s prosperity depress Sapp, the ultimate socialist election denier.
***
I’m Not Making This Up: A couple approached me this past Wednesday telling me they appreciated this site’s articles exposing Genece Minshew’s hidden agenda to turn Fernandina Beach into a “gay vacation destination.”
They explained that the LGBTQIA+ indoctrination and sexualization of children doesn’t stop at Fernandina’s city limits. They said that their dental hygienist told them a few days ago that she had withdrawn her child from a Callahan public school because that school’s principal appeared to be succumbing to pressure to put a litter box in a student restroom to accommodate a couple of kids who “identify as cats” or “furies”.
Good grief! Those kids don’t need a litter box, they need a psychiatrist, the parents need a visit from the Florida Department of Children and Families, and the Nassau County School Board needs to investigate to ensure this craziness doesn’t happen.
I thought they were making that up or had been overserved until others verified what they said is actually taking place. This is a story even too absurd for the satirical Amelia Island News Wrecker.
The December 13 Fernandina Beach runoff election depends on rational and sane citizens voting and convincing their neighbors and friends to turn out to vote for Darron Ayscue and Dr. James Antun.
Folks that want to help can contact Antun at [email protected] or (516) 547-5309 while Ayscue can be reached at [email protected] or (904) 591-3647.
***
Speaking Of Lousy Local News Outlets: The sight-impaired online Fernandina Observer, which was taken over from the journalistic-impaired duo of Susan Steger and Suanne Thamm, by a guy named Mike Phillips, is still using that duo’s white cane to find its way.
Like the local County Citizens Defending Freedom (CCDF) chapter, the online Observer posed a series of questions to the candidates running for City Commission.
However, the blind Observer left out the CCDF questions that Commission candidates Genece Minshew and Mike Lednovich refused to answer including: “Do you support Black Lives Matter ideologically? Would you favor the city positioning itself in promotional material and policies as a Gay Vacation Destination? Should biological boys identifying as girls be allowed to play on girl’s recreational teams sponsored by the city?” In fact, Lednovich and Minshew not only refused to answer any of the CCDF questions but they also refused to respond to media questions asking them why they wouldn’t respond. No return calls or emails, just crickets.
Minshew scrubbed her social media sites to hide all the LGBTQA+ material including transgender fluidity for minors that she normally touts. Lednovich yanked the photo of him marching down Centre Street wearing a Black Lives Matter sandwich board off his Facebook page.
The Nassau County Chamber of Commerce which touted a variety of Fernandina Pride’s activities including events involving young children, “Drag Queen Brunches” and “Drag Queen Bingo” has deleted that page from its web site since I wrote about it here last week.
All other candidates answered the CCDF questionnaire. Only Lednovich and Minshew did not.
Local firefighter Darron Ayscue (Minshew’s opponent) and Dr. James Antun (Lednovich’s opponent) both answered those question saying they were in opposition. These two family men also responded to all other questions on the questionnaire that Minshew and Lednovich refused to answer.
Ayscue is president of the local firefighters union and has been a critic of the city’s mismanaged budgeting and advocates a millage reduction. He and his wife, Michelle, and their two children are lifelong residents of Fernandina.
Dr. Antun and his Chiropractor wife, Jayde, jointly operate a Fernandina chiropractic clinic. They are proud new parents and Dr. Antun is an articulate public speaker with traditional family values and promotes strict budgetary discipline.
New Observer editor Phillips says he: “……sought questions from quite a number of thoughtful citizens, we boiled their ideas down to these twelve questions for the four City Commission runoff candidates” Apparently Phillips doesn’t consider Jack Knocke, the local head of CCDF and founder of local watchdog group Common Sense, a thoughtful citizen.
Not one of Mr. Knocke’s questions were included in this alleged editor’s list. The Observer has never covered the fact that Lednovich and Minshew refused to answer the CCDF questions. Neither has the News Leader. No other publication except the Citizens Journal Florida has mentioned Minshew’s role in gay LGBTG+ activities that she promotes throughout the city or California transplant Lednovich’s enthusiastic support of Black Lives Matter. The Nassau Democrat Club does though. It actively supports both of these left-wing candidates.
If locals want to read about right whale sightings, quilting bee winners, regurgitated insomnia-curing articles about downtown houses, and feature stories on snakes and bugs in the Egans Creek Greenway, then the News Leader and Observer would be the outlets are for them.
If they’re seeking a thorough examination of local news, and not just one side, the recently unveiled Citizens Journal Florida is the first place to turn. Other than this blog it’s the only other local media outlet to call these extremists out. The blind online Observer and timid print News Leader both ignore these stories. Why?
According to the Kiplinger Letter local newspapers are becoming extinct. It says that the U.S. has lost one-quarter of its newspapers since 2005. On average it claims that two shut down every week…360 have closed since late 2019. “Those surviving are understaffed, publish less frequently and cover fewer topics,” it concludes. So why does the News Leader ignore material that appeals to a majority of local residents.
In Nassau County the vast majority of voters are registered Republican. The latest voter registration figures for Nassau County indicate there are 44,009 registered Republicans,14,415 Democrats, 15,779 No Party Affiliation, and 1,653 Other.
Republican voters hereabouts applauded Governor DeSantis’s Stop W.O.K.E. Act that removed unpopular critical-race-theory garbage from public schools. They also approved of his successful Parents Rights In Education bill, which banned classroom instruction about LGBTQA+ rubbish through third grade and to tell parents if their children receive mental-health services through the school. So why isn’t the News Leader covering those issues and exposing both Minshew’s and Lednovich’s blatant attempts to hide their true intentions?
***
Something I Just Learned: Governor Ron DeSantis’s massive victory November 8 marks the first time a Florida Republican governor won in such a landslide since 1868. That’s when Harrison Reed captured 59% of the votes to 32% for his challenger during Civil War Reconstruction when 20,000 Floridians voted. This is also the first time a Democrat has never held a statewide office since Reconstruction. Florida is now as fire engine red as left-wing News Leader columnist Ron Sapp’s face when he heard the election results.
***
Things I Wish I’d Said: “If you want to tell people the truth, make them laugh, otherwise they’ll kill you.” – Oscar Wilde
***
Follow What Money? It’s All Gone! I’ve never understood crypto coins. To me they are just make-believe money cranked out by computers. They have no inherent value, nor is it a real currency and it isn’t regulated. It’s all air.
I thought folks who invest vast amounts of money and manage billions for others were shrewd financial managers and savvy advisors. Apparently not. They were sucked in by a whacky 30-something fat nerd, Sam Bankman-Fried, and his equally devious 28-year-old girlfriend. They lost or stole billions of their clients’ money.
There are also a bunch of sweating Democrat Congressmen worried as they happily accepted almost $40 million dollars from these creeps in what now appears to have been massive corruption, probably on a Bernie Madoff scale.
Are this fat little FTX thief and his partner-in-crime going to jail? And if folks could be prosecuted for stupidity it’d be those who were chasing all this Monopoly money. How stupid do you have to be to invest in coins with strange symbols on them that you’ve only seen pictures of on a computer screen? How many life savings were cleaned out?
I’ll pay to watch the movie when it eventually debuts.
***
Something Else I Wish I’d Said: “When one door opens and another door closes, it means you’re probably in prison.” – anonymous.
***
Drinking, Dining, Dancing & Shopping: Don’t forget today, Friday, November 25, from 8 am to 4 pm is downtown Fernandina Beach’ s annual Pajama Party with local celebrity and beloved character Pajama Dave Voorhees hosting his South 2nd Street block Party. This year PJ Dave will host festivities in front of his 12 South Street PJD’s Beer & Wine Garden that includes live music performed by popular local musicians Michele Anders, Amy Vickery, Sam McDonald, and Hupp & Ray, in that order. The Best Pajama Contest begins at 11 am with prizes awarded for best individual, best group, most creative and best pet pajamas. I have been asked to help judge this event and promise to be impartial after you buy me a beer. I hear special guest, Santa Claus, will make an appearance mingling with the shopping crowds on Centre Street. I’ll buy him a brew. This is one of Fernandina’s most cherished and fun family events.
Republished with the author’s permission. Read The Dave Scott Blog– subscribe Free
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
By Victor Davis Hanson, American Greatness
Attorney General Merrick Garland has just announced the appointment of special counsel Jack Smith.
But Smith’s team will not look into the Biden family quid pro quo syndicate nor its incriminating confessionals on Hunter Biden’s laptop.
Instead, it will further investigate Donald Trump’s possession of presidential records that were hauled off from Mar-a-Lago, as well as his purported role in the January 6 “insurrection.”
We know the script that will follow because we suffered through it for 22 months and spent $40 million for it under Robert Mueller’s special counsel team.
First, the Smith investigation will bear no resemblance to special counsel John Durham’s probes. The media ignored Durham. His team did not leak to the press. And neither a Washington, D.C. nor northern Virginia jury was ever likely to convict any perceived enemy of Trump.
Second, upon the announcement of Smith’s legal staffers, the media will grow giddy that their résumés portend another “dream team,” “all-stars,” or “a hunter-killer team.”
Puff pieces will blanket the media. They will attest, just like “good Ol’ Bob Mueller,” that the former Obama Justice Department public integrity unit lawyer Smith is “an old hand,” “tough but fair,” “nonpartisan,” and a “prosecutor’s prosecutor.”
Weeks into the investigation, the New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, or MSNBC will darkly inform their audiences that “unnamed sources close to the investigation tell us that “a bombshell” is about to go off.
Perhaps the “stunning development” will be similar to the fake “walls are closing in” scoop about the conspiratorial pinging in Trump tower from the Alfa Bank in Russia, or the “game-changer” Christopher Steele-fed, pee-pee, Moscow hotel room fable.
Yet one thing that will be different this time around is that the Biden Administration is in power. Attorney General Merrick Garland remains an unapologetic, embittered partisan. He is fresh off siccing a now-weaponized FBI on school kids’ parents and various MAGA enemies of the state.
After two prior failed impeachment trials, a failed special counsel’s investigation, and a failed and biased January 6 committee probe, Washington government lawyers know that their last and only Wile E. Coyote chance of catching the Roadrunner and now presidential candidate Trump is to get at least something into the hands of a Washington, D.C. jury.
We also know the script of the 2024 election from the last two elections. Election Day 2024 will be an afterthought. Election Night will be an introduction to Election Month.
Sudden ballot “drops” will start pouring in during the wee hours. Voters who went to bed watching many Republican candidates with sizable leads will awake to magical Democratic “comebacks.”
We will again suffer through early voting, mail-in voting, ranked-choice voting, and majority-only voting. The more who vote, the more we will be warned of “voter suppression” and “election deniers.”
“Get out the vote” left-wing, electronically fueled projects like this year’s “Mind the Gap” involving Sam Bankman-Fried’s family, or Mark Zuckerberg’s 2020 $419 million de facto absorption of balloting collection in key precincts, will merely be replaced by new names.
There will be new, even richer virtue-signaling billionaires. But otherwise, the same old Silicon Valley-Wall Street font will vastly outraise pathetic Republican efforts.
Unfortunately for Americans, the 2024 economy will likely still be wounded by nearly four years of inflation. High-interest rate correctives will still have choked off the housing market.
Unemployment and stagflation will still be termed “transitory.” Growth will continue to be slow but dubbed “steady.” High gas and energy prices will be near permanent but “coming down.” A wide-open border will still be termed “secure.” Talk of historic crime rates will still be “racist.”
Joe Biden will still shake imaginary hands, talk of passing legislation through the Congress that he bypassed with executive orders, and still claim gas was $5 a gallon when he entered office. Fact-checkers will ignore all that mythology and still obsess over Republican “lies.”
The left-wing nexus will still warn of back-alley abortions that threaten millions of women, of children still likely to die if “Mega-MAGA” voters win, of yet another January 6 in the wings, and of the dangers of “semi-fascist” Donald Trump.
There will be more pre-election October surprises, such as the spurious narrative that the man who assaulted Paul Pelosi, David DePape, was a captive of right-wingers. Who knew that the hemp-jewelry maker, illegal alien, nudist, and resident of a BLM/Pride-flagged commune was supposedly addled by “un-American” Trumpism?
There will also be more post-election, November surprises—like the mysteriously sudden discovery just days after the voting that Sam Bankman-Fried was a multibillion-dollar con artist and huge Democratic Party donor, and the appointment of special counsel to investigate Trump.
Who would have known that prior to November 8, Trump’s Mar-a-Lago presidential papers proved neither “nuclear secrets” nor designed for his personal sale after all?
Yet the only mystery will be why Republicans will still be shocked by déjà vu.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
From CCDF-USA, Thanksgiving, 2022
In 1621, over 400 years ago, the Plymouth Pilgrims gathered together with their Wamponoag brethren and thanked God for His blessings, goodness, His continued providential care, and the generosity of their Native American neighbors. As we gather again this year and thank God for His abundant blessings, His boundless grace, and His steadfast and unfailing love, let us also take time to reflect on our Nation and her rich history of traditions, freedoms, and liberty. We are a Nation of self-determination, boundless generosity, extraordinary courage, and an undying commitment to persevere in the face of adversity. Our great Nation is no stranger to adversity. In the centuries that have passed since that first Thanksgiving, we have faced many trials, tests, and hardships, yet time and time again we have overcome. Now in 2022, America is again facing one of her greatest challenges, with her institutions, freedom of speech, and constitutional rights being threatened like never before. However, in the midst of adversity: BUT GOD. God has been with us since the Pilgrims set sail for the unknown to seek a future of religious freedom and hope. He has been with us as our Nation’s Founding Fathers fought to break free from England. He has been with us through wars, through plagues, through disasters, and He will be with us now. As we gather today, we reaffirm our gratitude for all that we have enjoyed as a Nation; for the legacy left by those that came before us, for the hope and bright future that lies ahead, and above all else we give thanks to God for our many blessings. “As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.” – President John F. Kennedy, Thanksgiving Day, 1963. God Bless, CCDF-USA Are you following us online? Subscribe and share our message to help spread awareness! Please Donate Today |
| CCDF-USA | PO Box 156, Mulberry, FL 33860 |
By Jeff Childers
11-23-22
Good morning, C&C, happy Wednesday, and best wishes for your Thanksgiving eve. May you get all your errands done today, with plenty of time left to spare.
I was planning an extra-early jam-packed pre-holiday roundup for you, to tide you over, but providence had other ideas. When I got up this morning to blog, the internet was down where we’re staying, and I spent time spreading holiday cheer with the service staff trying to get it back up. We had to wake somebody up early to restart the router or something. It’s now running at dialup speed. I’m grateful though!
In today’s final pre-Thanksgiving roundup: things I’m grateful for; Fauci’s first deposition; covid coordinator talks out of his butt; Fauci gives his last covid briefing; AI robots with frickin’ lasers on their heads; Walt Disney’s new family friendly male-stripper show; Elon Musk is sick of negotiating with leftists; more covid data we need to capture; UConn coach collapses at game; high school coach is SADS; middle-school principal is SADS; and a high-profile study exposes excess heart attack in younger people.
🪖 I’m also grateful for God, Coffee & Covid and for all of you, our dear readers, who fuel this vital platform’s reach and influence. And I’m grateful for Team Reality, independent researchers, doctors who prescribed early treatment, Governor DeSantis, embalmers, Elon Musk (for freeing Twitter), the Great Barrington Declaration, small firm lawyers, open beaches and gyms, citizen journalists, moms, the human immune system, and everyone who yelled at school boards.
And I’m especially grateful for a holiday without double-masks, lockdowns, shutdowns, travel restrictions, inter-family acrimony over medical status, visor-style face shields, efficacy ratios, being “non-essential,” constant Fauci news bulletins, viruses dominating the headlines, “experts,” breakthrough infections, arrow-directed supermarket aisles, sand-filled skate parks, beach cops, cashiers cowering behind plexiglass plates, virtual school, curbside delivery, temperature scans, prison-style visits with elderly relatives in care homes, Coast Guard paddleboard seizures, designer hand sanitizer, bleach-sprayed groceries, crime-scene police taped-playgrounds and padlocked basketball courts, KAREN, daily death tickers, drive-through church service, extra-wide news desks to accommodate social distancing, kids eating lunch outside in snowstorms, medical TikTok dance routines, Twitter’s previous management, rapid tests, sold-out comedians pushing vaccinations, and halfwitted, cuckoo-brained, and literally brain-damaged politicians calling me ‘dangerous to society’ every ten minutes.
We’ve come a long way, when you think about it.
On the bright side, one pandemic innovation I AM grateful for, and which I’d like to keep, although I’m not completely one hundred percent sure it’s good for me, is carryout adult beverages.
Don’t cancel me!
🪖 I’ll be wrapped up in lots of family stuff over the next couple days, so out of an abundance of caution, and in deference to the Mrs., C&C will be enjoying an ‘artistic hiatus’ on Thursday and Friday. See you back here on Saturday!
🔥 That little rodent Fauci is being forced to sit for his first covid deposition today. Finally! Missouri Attorney General (and now Senator-elect) Eric Schmitt was warming up yesterday.
The Post Millennial @TPostMillennial
Jean-Pierre praises Fauci: “Fauci has always led with the science, and our country is stronger and healthier because of his leadership.” https://t.co/EB2rTqGMKE5:10 PM ∙ Nov 22, 202212,264Likes2,666Retweets
I hope attorney Schmitt is ready for the most weaselly answers he’s ever gotten out of a deponent. That coral snake Fauci will be tough to pin down. I hope they are videotaping the deposition, or at least will give us the transcript.
💉 Yesterday, the White House’s so-called ‘Covid Coordinator,’ Ashish Jha, if that’s his real name, held a covid press briefing with extra-diverse LGBTQ++ press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre (ditto) and that poisonous reptile Fauci. The good news is, unless you’re a news junkie, you probably didn’t even hear about it. The other good news is it was Fauci’s last briefing, ever. One more thing to be grateful for!
Oh! And one more. According to CDC statistics, only about 11% of people aged 5 and older have gotten the new-and-improved bivalent booster.
For some reason.
The interesting part was that, while lovingly describing the amazing benefits of triple, quadruple, or quintuple servings of mRNA spike protein, Jha said, and I am not making this up, that if every American took a booster shot, it would “prevent essentially every covid death.”
What?
First of all, we now see why they hired Jha. He’s an expert at weasel words. “Essentially every” covid death is not quite the same thing as “every” covid death, is it? And it’s not the first time Jha has played this lizard-lipped game:
“Almost definitely.” Uh huh.
And that’s not the worst of it, not even close. Jha is talking out of his lower aperture. There’s no reliable clinical data — none, zero — suggesting that taking a booster “almost definitely” prevents “essentially every” at-risk person from dying of a serious covid infection. Not a scrap.
In fact, the data we do have suggests the exact opposite. Boosters appear to make folks more likely to catch covid, which necessarily increases an at-risk person’s chance of dying. I mean, they can’t die from it if they don’t catch it to start with.
Jha then dropped this little chestnut: “The real leaders of American medicine are out there telling you that you need to go get a vaccine. You can decide to trust America’s physicians or you can trust some random dude on Twitter.”
This is great! He said YOU can decide! So, decide.
I’m going with the random dude on Twitter.
🔥 At the same briefing, the so-called doctors announced the Administration is launching an exciting new media campaign targeting people over 50, with high-production-value ads in a series called “Can’t Wait.”
Nah. I’m waiting! Or maybe I should say, STILL waiting.
🔥 The New Scientist ran a thought-provoking story last month headlined, “AI-Controlled Robotic Laser Can Target and Kill Cockroaches.” Haha, by “cockroaches” they don’t mean covid experts. They meant proper cockroaches. Here’s the gist:
Researchers have created a device that uses machine vision to spot cockroaches and zap them with a laser. They say the method could offer a cheaper and more environmentally friendly alternative to insecticides.
Oddly, after extolling the wonderful benefits of having a cold, calculating machine intelligence decide what lives and what dies, the New Scientist quoted one of the developers, who was like, for heaven’s sake, don’t put this thing in your house.
Project lead Ildar Rakhmatulin explained, “It’ll never be absolutely safe,” explaining that, at minimum, lasers can cause serious eye damage. “It’s my opinion that it cannot be used for home applications.”
Of course, one assumes that the scientists’ warnings will be completely ignored and the laser-equipped pest-destroying robots will be in everyone’s home in five years, and then the revolution can begin.
Seriously. Is it just me, or does it sometimes feel like we’re living in the opening act of a horror movie?
🔥 The Walt Disney Company proudly announced this week it is now streaming its brand-new family-friendly series titled “Welcome to Chippendales,” billed as a ‘true crime’ drama supposedly based on the true story of the creation in the 1970’s of the infamous male ‘dance revue.’ On Disney plus.
From the trailer, the show appears to feature a lot of exactly what you’d expect from its name. Meaning, male strippers (if you’re into that kind of thing). In a voice over, the lead character announces “I’m going to start my own business … a strip club … for women!” His partner responds, “is this some kinda joke? I mean, do YOU like looking at naked dudes?” Then some blonde lady cuts in, “I have something to tell you, Paul: women get h*rny.”
That’s just from the trailer.
Sadly, the Childers family will be unable to enjoy Disney’s latest offering, having cancelled our Disney+ subscription earlier this year after the entertainment-news-media giant opposed Florida’s parental rights bill.
As I was searching around for coverage of the new show, I found the most excitement for the series among gay men.
Is it just me, or is Disney maybe shifting its target audience a little? Away from kids, to ‘alternative lifestyle’ people? Is Disney pushing in to compete with all the gay TV networks?
At this point, some people might opine it is child neglect to keep a Disney+ subscription around the house. Just saying.
🔥 Elon Musk ominously tweeted yesterday that a leftist coalition “broke the deal”:
The “deal” he’s referring to is an agreement that Twitter wouldn’t censor leftwing fake news if they didn’t try to blockade advertisers. But Elon seemed to be less than completely gruntled with the left yesterday. He was kind of on a rampage about it:
Elon even (rightly
)
called out the Associated Press as a reckless purveyor of disinformation:
He’s not wrong. So, now what, Elon?
🔥 Here’s another terrific example of one the many random silos of critical information that we really need to bring together into a single searchable database. Jimmy Tobias filed a lawsuit to un-redact previously-released but heavily-redacted government covid emails. Dev team, take note:
After a long #FOIA fight, I just received a bunch of new unredacted emails detailing the Feb 1 2020 teleconference between Dr. Fauci and virologists discussing SARS-Cov-2: documentcloud.orgDocumentCloud4:48 PM ∙ Nov 22, 20223,909Likes1,704Retweets
💉 On Sunday, University of Connecticut Women’s Basketball Assistant Coach Chris Dailey “collapsed” before a game against N.C. State at the XL Center. Specifically, she fell to the floor, vomited, and passed out right before the game started. She was hauled off the court on a stretcher.
We are happy to report that as of yesterday, she’d been discharged from the hospital and is said to be feeling much better. Probably natural causes.
💉 Lubbock, Texas head high school football coach Matthew Hoover, 38, was found dead in his home this week. Hoover was described as a proud “girl dad” of four now-fatherless daughters.
No cause of death released.
💉 Wake County Middle School Principal Karen Sinders closed her books for the last time when she died suddenly and unexpectedly AT SCHOOL on Monday.
Local WRAL News explained, “It’s not currently known how Sinders died.”
Baffling.
💉 About a month ago, the Journal of Medical Virology quietly ran a shocking new study titled “Excess Risk for Acute Myocardial Infarction Mortality During the COVID-19 Pandemic.” The team of researchers from Cedars-Sinai looked at excess post-pandemic mortality associated with heart attacks. Take a gander at their conclusions:
> Before the pandemic, [acute myocardial infarction]-associated mortality rates decreased across all subgroups. These trends reversed during the pandemic, with significant rises seen for the youngest-aged females and males even through the most recent period of the Omicron surge. [E]xcess death, defined as the difference between the observed and the predicted mortality rates, was most pronounced for the youngest (25–44 years) aged decedents, ranging from 23% to 34% for the youngest compared to 13%–18% for the oldest age groups. The trend of mortality suggests that age and sex disparities have persisted even through the recent Omicron surge, with excess [acute myocardial infarction]-associated mortality being most pronounced in younger-aged adults.
See that? The youngest age cohorts saw the most excess deaths from fatal heart attacks. That fact cannot possibly be explained by hand-waving about “deferred medical care.” Young people don’t get preventative medical care, especially not for cardiac issues.
At least, they didn’t used to get cardiac-related preventative medical care. Maybe they should start.
What could explain this? The researchers don’t speculate. They were just reporting what they’re seeing in the data.
Ominously, the researchers also noted that the trend of excess mortality has persisted “even through the recent Omicron surge.” Without actually saying so, they’re really saying that whatever is causing the heart attacks in young people is not related to covid infections. Nor is it going away.
We’re getting there. Accountability is coming.
I hope each and every one of you has a joyful and rewarding Thanksgiving, filled with hope and love and good cheer, and of course, reflection on everything that we DO have to be grateful for, in spite of Bill Gates, George Soros, man-boy Sam Bankman-Fried, election cheaters, and all our generation’s other particular challenges to our sanity. Be well, and I’ll catch up with you on Saturday for the post-holiday weekend roundup.
C&C is moving the needle and changing minds. If you can, I could use your help getting the truth out and spreading optimism and hope: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/-learn-how-to-get-involved-
Twitter: @jchilders98
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The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
“Meet Me At The Crossover”– A Monthly Feature, By Jennifer St. Clair
The entertaining shoreline birds certainly guarantee a new slide show every single morning as I step on to the crossover to peruse the panoramic layout before me. Sometimes I’m greeted with ‘singing’ and other times, laugh-like calls. Very loud laugh-like calls!!! And if you happen not to be a morning person? Well, those laughing gulls just might annoy you a bit.
These charmingly dressed seagulls, all formal in tuxedo attire, prance around on the sand as if they own the beach. If you venture down for sunrise, you might even catch them splish splashing in the shallow water, bathing themselves before breakfast. Much like we do. They carry on conversations with each other, often in- your-face talks. You know, the kind where somebody invades your personal space boundary? It causes me to laugh out loud while watching them, yet not so much when this happens to me. When God’s creatures do-what-they-do as nature dictates instinctual behavior patterns, and if we pay close attention with open minds to receive human lessons from their daily routines, we have an opportunity to glean insight into Divine wisdom right in front of our eyes. The key here is being ‘open’ to receive.
One of my early beach life encounters with these amusing birds occurred when I walked by a seagull with a single appendage. There this little guy stood for what seemed like minutes on end balancing himself just as perfectly as with two legs. Alarmed at the thought of ‘fowl’ play, my wild imagination ran rampant as to how this horrible injury occurred.
Another seagull could have attacked him while competing for a leftover human morsel. Who knows? Right? I mean, aren’t Cheetos appetizing to gulls too? And just because the rule book says, first come, first served? Well, we all know not everyone plays by the rules. Then there is survival of the fittest. And on and on and on…
Then the strangest thing happened. Miraculously, a second leg appears!!! Poof! Off he flies out to sea. Just like that. A wide grin takes shape on my face. Guess you fooled me, huh? As I continue my morning walk, shaking my head at what I witnessed, a pondering thought floated on the script of my conscious-ness. How do I maintain my balance so as not to fall by the wayside in everyday living?
Do I practice standing on one leg concentrating my focus on what is important in the big scheme of things? We oftentimes allow distractions to cause us to teeter-totter in the balancing act of life whether personal or external. I know for certain morning talks with God set me in motion to gear up for the day ahead. Scripture solidifies my stability and strength and propels me forward to let the Christ Light shine brightly. As long as I do this, my life seems to flow more smoothly. However, it is an ongoing challenge to keep this balancing act in tact by the grace of God!!! Amen!
“Surely He will save you from the fowler’s snare and the deadly pestilence. He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge…” (Psalm 91:3,4)NIV
Jennifer St. Clair is a pianist, award-winning songwriter, composer, artist, author and photographer. She relocated to Jacksonville Beach, Florida from the north Georgia mountains in 2014. Currently she serves as Pianist at Amelia Plantation Chapel. Her solo piano compositions can be found on sheetmusicplus.com. For more information:
www.jenniferstclair.com
Republicans tell Homeland Secretary to RESIGN over border chaos or face impeachment: GOP leader Kevin McCarthy accuses Mayorkas of lying about ‘secure’ border" title="Republicans tell Homeland Secretary to RESIGN over border chaos or face impeachment: GOP leader Kevin McCarthy accuses Mayorkas of lying about ‘secure’ border" />
News, 11-22-22
By Morgan Phillips
Read full story
Press Release, 11-21-22
From Baptist Health
| Immense, year-long research initiative places Michael A. Mayo, DHA, FACHE, among Florida’s most influential executives. Jacksonville, Fla., November 21, 2022 – Florida Trend’s fifth annual edition of Florida 500 has named Michael A. Mayo, DHA, FACHE, president and chief executive officer of Baptist Health, one of Florida’s most influential business leaders across major industries.Dr. Mayo, one of only 25 professionals in the “Life Sciences” category to receive the honor in 2022, was selected based on multiple interviews and months of research. In addition to Florida Trend‘s executive editorial team, a variety of outside sources were used to produce the highly selective list of individuals who are moving Florida forward. Those being considered are provided a questionnaire; in addition, extensive research and consultation with businesspeople across the state takes place. According to Florida Trend, the publication looks for individuals “whom others in their communities or industry sectors turn to for leadership. A lengthy track record matters.” “Leading the only faith-based, mission-driven, locally governed, non-profit health system in our region, and having the privilege of supporting the Baptist Health mission alongside such talented and dedicated professionals is a great honor,” said Dr. Mayo, who was recognized earlier this year as an Ultimate CEO for 2022 by the Jacksonville Business Journal. Dr. Mayo, who has more than 33 years of health care executive experience, leads a team of more than 13,000 team members and more than 2,000 medical staff members in the delivery of high-quality, coordinated care for every stage of life. About Baptist Health Baptist Health is a faith-based, mission-driven system in Northeast Florida comprised of Baptist Medical Center Jacksonville; Baptist Medical Center Beaches; Baptist Medical Center Nassau; Baptist Medical Center South and Wolfson Children’s Hospital – the region’s only children’s hospital. All Baptist Health hospitals have achieved Magnet™ status for excellence in patient care. Baptist Health is part of Coastal Community Health, a highly integrated regional hospital network focused on significant initiatives designed to enhance the quality and value of care provided to our contiguous communities. Baptist Health has the area’s only dedicated heart hospital; orthopedic institute; women’s services; neurological institute, including comprehensive neurosurgical services, a comprehensive stroke center and two primary stroke centers; a Bariatric Center of Excellence; a full range of psychology and psychiatry services; urgent care services; primary and specialty care physicians’ offices throughout Northeast Florida; and Baptist Home Health Care by BAYADA. The Baptist MD Anderson Cancer Center is a regional destination for multidisciplinary cancer care, which is clinically integrated with the MD Anderson Cancer Center, the internationally renowned cancer treatment and research institution in Houston. For more details, visit baptistjax.com. |
From Florida House of Representatives
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (November 22, 2022) — Today, Florida House Speaker Paul Renner presented a bold agenda for the 91st Session of the Florida House of Representatives. In his speech, Speaker Renner addressed submitting a letter to Florida’s three credit rating agencies which are attached. Remarks below are provided as prepared for delivery:
Speaker Sprowls, thank you for your service to our state. I look forward to building on what we’ve accomplished.
Chairman Perez and Representative Garrison, thank you for your remarks. This chamber will be in good hands.
I also want to recognize our Governor and First Lady. I can think of over a million and half reasons why, but let me just say congratulations on your re-election!
The same congratulations to our guests today, Senator Marco Rubio; and also, our Lieutenant Governor, Attorney General, Chief Financial Officer and our newly elected Commissioner of Agriculture. Florida is truly blessed with your leadership, and I look forward to working with each of you to serve the needs of the people of Florida.
And I also want to congratulate our House members on your election. The sign waving and door knocking are finally over—so are the occasional doors slammed in our faces! You are ready to get to work and I am honored to be your Speaker.
Commissioner Ponder, thank you for leading us in prayer. The biggest blessings in my life have come after facing challenges beyond my control. Faith brought me through each time.
Faith sustains many of us in this chamber, so it is fitting that we begin this session, as we have in the past, by seeking God’s guidance and blessing during our next two years of service.
And there is no greater blessing than family. I’ve been privileged to be married to my wife Adriana for almost 10 years. Sweetheart, I’m able to stand here because of you and I couldn’t go through life without you. Since we first met, and long before politics, you have been my First Lady—and you always will be!
The Renner family has grown recently. During last year’s designation ceremony, we had our daughter Abigail with us on the House floor—but we also had a secret. That secret is now eating non-stop—and doing other things babies do. Adriana and I are grateful to welcome William Andrew to our family.
The Speaker of the House leads this chamber on behalf of all its members and I take that responsibility seriously. I have enjoyed getting to know Minority Leader Driskell and congratulate her on her new role.
I also pledge to every member of the minority party that we will have robust debate.
I’m confident that all members will exhibit the civility and mutual respect our constituents deserve; and we will tolerate nothing less.
We hold an organization session every two years; each time, we find ourselves in a different moment in history. Sometimes the differences are stark, such as the arrival of COVID or a 100-year storm. As leaders, we must rise to meet our moment.
Hurricanes Ian and Nicole have devasted parts of our state. Lives were lost, homes and businesses destroyed. It will take years for some areas to recover. While the TV cameras are gone, we will remain laser-focused on the recovery effort.
Later today, I will establish a Select Committee on Hurricane Resiliency and Recovery to accelerate rebuilding and gather lessons learned, so that we are even better prepared for future storms.
Fortunately, responsible spending decisions by our legislature and governor have made our state stronger than ever. We have balanced our budget, lowered our debt, and set aside record reserves. Let’s just say, no one will ever confuse us for the federal government.
Sustained fiscal responsibility means Florida can bear the costs of hurricanes and still address other priorities.
Unfortunately, our constituents are facing record inflation.
Many Floridians are reaching a breaking point, their incomes can’t keep up with rising prices. The basics of life—housing, food and energy costs–are crushing the family budget. Washington’s wasteful spending only adds fuel to the inflationary fire.
Inflation will not end without a rare outbreak of responsibility in our nation’s capital; but here in Florida, we will act with purpose to reduce Floridians’ cost of living.
We will reduce taxes.
We will tackle runaway insurance costs.
We will make housing more attainable.
We will confront the causes driving up the price of fuel and electric bills.
Inflation is hurting everyone—and we will take action!
America is known for its vibrant civil society and how we come together to solve big problems.
We find that American spirit in our churches and synagogues, families, friends and neighbors, the businesses where we work, and the non-profits where we volunteer. It’s where most of our lives are lived. The cooperation we saw in response to the hurricanes is the latest example. We must protect this uniquely American strength.
Keeping most areas free of politics has allowed our country to thrive because people of diverse backgrounds can still unite around the many goals we share.
Yet our historical moment is one in which ideologues seek to politicize everything, who treat their ideology as a religion and demand we follow it, no matter the costs.
They have pushed indoctrination at the expense of education. They spend more time defending drag queen story time than actually promoting phonics and the science of reading.
In this election, moms and dads sent a clear message to these ideologues: Our children are not your social experiment!
Parents expect schools to keep their children safe, respect their values, and teach the reading, math and general knowledge that kids need to succeed in life. We must prepare every child for adulthood with a world class education.
To do so, we will continue to reward our best teachers and staff, respect parental rights, and expand educational freedom. By providing more funding and flexibility, we will deliver a bright future to Florida’s next generation.
Unfortunately, these same ideologues have also co-opted Wall Street—with political demands branded under Environmental, Social and Governance goals or ESG. In practice, ESG demands that companies adopt radical environmental and diversity goals and uses a scoring system to reward or punish companies based on their compliance.
These radical goals are causing a politically-induced energy crisis, raising prices at the pump and our electric bills. ESG increases our cost of living, undermines our national security, and bypasses the checks and balances of the democratic process. It also poses a direct threat to Florida’s pension fund and credit rating.
Just last year, credit rating agencies began requiring our state to provide data to measure our compliance with ESG’s political dogma. ESG scoring will soon become a factor in our state’s credit rating, meaning fiscally irresponsible states like California could receive a better credit rating than Florida simply because they embrace ESG’s political agenda.
We are not going to let that happen in Florida!
This morning, I am sending a letter to our three credit rating agencies, demanding they drop the politics and return to objective, financial criteria, universally recognized to measure a state’s credit rating.
Meanwhile, those in the Florida Retirement System must be confident that we are protecting their money. I want those with a state pension to know: we will never allow your life savings to be put at risk by the political interference of ESG! We’ll expose ESG for what it is, an “ideological sham” that hurts all of us!
In addition to our current challenges, we must focus on the Future of Florida, proactively addressing long-term infrastructure, so Florida keeps pace with future growth.
A parable is told about an old man planting a tree. Someone points out that he will not live long enough to see the tree bear fruit, many years later. He responds: When I came into this world, there was fruit from trees planted by those who came before me. It is my duty to plant this tree for those who come after me.
We must secure Florida’s future even though term limits mean most of the benefits will come after we are gone. That is why we must plant those seeds now.
We are creating a new committee structure to develop strategic solutions for the future of our water supply, water quality, transportation, land conservation, and resiliency. This focused effort will lay the foundation for a safe, prosperous and beautiful state for generations to come.
Speaking of future generations, we know our actions are of little consequence unless we promote the cause of children and the families who raise them. Strong families are far more important than strong governments.
Therefore, we will commit ourselves these next two years to the safety and well-being of our children and their families, easing the financial burden of raising a family and defending our children from the many threats that confront them.
Meanwhile, we will always remain vigilant in the defense of the rule of law and the constitutional rights of our citizens. We have earned our reputation as the Free State of Florida… and my pledge to you is we will boldly defend life, liberty and freedom for all our citizens!
Before I close, I want to point out a change on the House floor.
In prior years, we have displayed small American flags at our desk–and we still do. But we have now added the flag of our great state throughout the chamber.
We are in a special moment –where all eyes are on Florida, as America’s beacon of freedom and opportunity. The state flag on your desk is a daily reminder of the importance of Florida and the people we serve.
Similarly, we will be delivering to your office the gift of a tie or scarf depicting our state. And because our families serve with us, we are providing a tie or scarf to all our spouses in a reverse color pattern.
As we wear them, remember that while we come from different backgrounds, we serve one state.
Our collective success these next two years depends on each of you; and I know you are ready to deliver. Our success also depends on strong cooperation with our Senate colleagues.
I am especially grateful for the close partnership I enjoy with Senate President Passidomo who is dedicated to leaving this state better then we found it.
Along with our great governor, we will deliver on a bold agenda, securing a future for Florida that is full of prosperity, abundant with opportunity, and rich in quality of life.
God bless you and the Great State of Florida!
From Florida House of Representatives, 11-22-22
House Speaker Paul Renner Announces Committee Chairs
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (Nov. 22, 2022) – Florida House Speaker Paul Renner today announced the appointment of Committee Chairmen for the 2022-2023 Session.
“The knowledge and experience across this team of Committee Chairmen will help us deliver a bold agenda that will secure Florida’s future and help us leave our state better off than we found it,” said Speaker Paul Renner. “Our new committee structure will help us move key legislation through the process to address unique challenges and opportunities. I believe we have the right leaders at the right time to live up to this unique moment in Florida history.”
Representative Tom Leek, Appropriations Committee Chair
The Appropriations Committee produces the House’s proposed budget and conforming and implementing legislation. The committee provides legislative oversight regarding the expenditure of appropriated funds, reviews the Governor’s budget recommendations and agency legislative budget requests, and analyzes trust funds for creation, termination or modification. Additionally, legislation with a fiscal impact is typically heard by the Appropriations Committee or one of its subcommittees. Some budget issues within the jurisdiction of the full committee include education fixed capital outlay and state employee pay, benefits, and retirement.
Representative Bob Rommel, Commerce Committee Chair
The Commerce Committee considers matters related to Florida’s economy; business and professional regulation; energy, utilities, telecommunications, and cybersecurity policy; the regulation of insurance companies and financial entities; and gaming regulation.
Representative Ralph Massullo, Education & Employment Committee Chair
The Education & Employment Committee considers matters related to Florida’s education system, from early education through postsecondary education, adult education, and job training. Additionally, the committee has jurisdiction over policies and programs providing opportunities for all Floridians to prepare for the 21st century workforce.
Representative Bobby Payne, Infrastructure Strategies Committee Chair
The Infrastructure Strategies Committee considers matters related to infrastructure planning for Florida’s growth, including transportation, water, resilience, and land acquisition. The committee also considers matters related to Florida’s agriculture and citrus industries, conservation of natural resources, fish and wildlife issues, water quality and supply, and transportation services.
Representative Randy Fine, Health & Human Services Committee Chair
The Health & Human Services Committee examines issues related to health care provider regulation, health insurance regulation, and public health. This policy area also includes the extent and manner in which government provides a safety net for low‐income or otherwise vulnerable Floridians.
Representative Tommy Gregory, Judiciary Committee Chair
The Judiciary Committee considers civil and criminal law issues, including public safety and the administration of the court system.
Representative Daniel Perez, Rules Committee Chair
The Rules Committee submits Special Order Calendars for adoption by the House. The committee also recommends procedures for the management of the floor process.
Representative Lawrence McClure, State Affairs Committee Chair
The State Affairs Committee considers matters related to state agency governance, local government oversight and accountability, emergency management, administrative procedure, affordable housing, state and local government retirement programs and benefits, elections, and ethics and standards of conduct for public officers and employees, including House members.
Representative Stan McClain, Ways & Means Committee Chair
The Ways & Means Committee’s purview encompasses issues concerning all state and local taxes and select non‐tax revenue sources, and addresses statutory and constitutional policy regarding tax rates, tax base design, and collection and enforcement parameters. The committee’s work also addresses debt financing policy, tax administration, and enforcement of tax laws
Representative Mike Grant, Select Committee on Hurricane Resiliency & Recovery Chair
The Select Committee on Hurricane Resiliency and Recovery will consider matters related to recovery from recent storms and lessons learned to achieve best practices for future storms.
From FL Legislature
To: | All Legislators |
| From: | President Kathleen Passidomo and Speaker Paul Renner |
| Subject: | December Special Session Dates |
| Date: | November 22, 2022 |
To allow for advanced planning, we are providing an update regarding timing of a December Special Session. Our intention is to convene the Legislature in special session during the previously announced December interim committee week: Monday, December 12 – Friday, December 16, 2022.
We anticipate issuing a formal proclamation following the Thanksgiving holiday.
We enjoyed welcoming you and your families this week for the 2022 Organization Session.
By Jeff Childers
11-22-22
Happy Tuesday, C&C! I’m traveling this week, so the schedule’s a little mixed up (we’re in a different time zone). Also I accidentally checked the wrong box, or forgot to check one, and the comments were accidentally throttled to paying subscribers only yesterday (sorry).
Anyway, today’s thoughtful roundup includes: the UN Human Rights Commissioner takes a stand against … human rights; Biden does an about-face and supports lefty dissident’s killer; the AP fires the reporter who fingered Russia for the Polish missile strike; and the Wall Street Journal ties Trump to SBF, or SBF to Trump, or something.
🪖 NOTE: C&C will be taking a brief holiday hiatus on Thursday (Thanksgiving in the U.S.) and Friday of this week, so get ready.
🪖 Stew Peters’ new documentary “Sudden Death” became available online yesterday, and several readers asked me to post the link. It’s a fascinating, high-production-value effort. The interviews with the embalmers are worth the watch even if you don’t watch anything else. It’s some of the best and most compelling video of what embalmer after embalmer described as an epidemic of fibrous clots — in most bodies — that started about 18 months ago.
https://www.stewpeters.com/live/
🔥 Back during the battles against mandates, in and out of court, I often made the point that a good constitution is necessary — but not sufficient. You know who had a terrific constitution, a REALLY good one? Weimar Germany, before Hitler came to power. It guaranteed all kinds of rights, even to jews. The trouble came from a teeny tiny emergency provision that gave “temporary” powers to the chief executive, and that ultimately gulped down all other rights after Hitler used those temporary emergency powers to suspend other key constitutional provisions.
You know who else had a terrific constitution? Soviet Russians living under Stalin. Theirs loftily provided for separation of church and state, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, the right to vote by secret ballot, free health care, free education, and freedom of assembly. In reality though, Soviet citizens weren’t permitted to exercise any of those rights. That appalling irony has even birthed an infamous term, “the Soviet Constitution problem,” used to describe ambitious paper rights that are only “ornamental” but aren’t enforceable in any practical sense.
This morning, the Daily Sceptic ran a story headlined, “Why is the UN Commissioner For Human Rights Trying to Suppress Free Speech on Twitter?” Before I get into the details of the story, let’s refresh on the U.N.’s wondrous Declaration of Human Rights, passed in 1948, which the Commissioner has the duty to uphold, enforce, and promote.
The United Nations is very proud of its Declaration, which it modestly describes as “a milestone document in the history of human rights.” In Declaration’s prefix, it says that it “sets out, for the first time, fundamental human rights to be universally protected[.]”
Sounds nice. But we’ll see that when words can mean whatever the ruling élite want them to mean, the words “universally” and “protected” mean something quite different than what you originally thought they meant.
Let’s begin with this idealistic “whereas” paragraph from the Declaration’s preamble:
Whereas disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind, and the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people[.]
There it is. The highest aspiration! Humans’ highest aspirations include enjoying freedom of SPEECH. Free speech AND free belief. Reading that lovely paragraph, you’d think people should be able to say or believe whatever they want while being free from fear of anything bad happening to them for speaking out.
Next — now, don’t laugh — let’s take a look the Declaration of Human Rights ensures those highest aspirations of humanity in its Article 19:
Article 19. Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.
That’s the whole thing. I didn’t leave anything out. According to this, governments are supposed to “interfere” with people’s freedoms of speech and belief. Note that last one, the right to “impart information and ideas through ANY media.”
You with me so far? Just double check me; I didn’t see any words like “except for” or “excluding” in Article 19.
The Daily Sceptic reported that, on November 5th, Volker Türk, the UN’s newest High Commissioner for Human Rights, sent an open letter to Elon Musk expressing his “concern and apprehension” (both!) about Twitter’s role in the “digital public square.” Mr. Türk urged Musk to ensure human rights would be “central to the management of Twitter” — so far, so good — but then he said, also to “address harms” associated with the platform.
Harms.
You’re probably thinking, as I was, that the harms Mr. Türk was concerned about included things like threats to human rights from human trafficking and censorship. But no.
Mr. Türk was actually fretting about disinformation and misinformation.
To be fair, he started well. Mr. Türk urged Twitter to “stand up for the rights to privacy and free expression to the full [sic] extent possible under relevant laws.” But then, the U.N.’s High Commissioner for Human Rights went off the rails. Without even trying to reconcile the two views, he declared that “free speech is not a free pass” and that the “viral spread of harmful disinformation…results in real world harms.”
Disinformation!
Türk urged Twitter to take responsibility to “avoid amplifying content” that could result in undefined “harms” to people’s “rights,” which were also undefined. Here’s the paragraph from Türk’s letter:
Warming to his theme, Türk piled onto to the list of contraband speech, now adding speech that he — or the government? a court? anyone? — finds to be “hatred that incites discrimination, hostility, or violence.” Again, this is to protect people, for SAFETY, because Türk’s “own investigations” (undescribed) prove that “hate speech” (undefined) results in “horrific, life-threatening consequences for thousands of people” (unnamed).
My goodness.
Then, on behalf of the United Nations and on behalf, really, of all humanity, the High Commissioner called for more “content moderation” and a “safe platform,” including, but not only, here in the United States.
By definition, content moderation IS censorship. Is it not? And censorship is a limitation on speech, correct? Which is sort of the opposite from what Article 19 provides, unless I am missing something.
If we microscopically inspect the exact language in Article 19, every character, comma, and em-space, we still find no lofty list of limitations on the fundamental “freedom to hold opinions without interference” (interference by whom?) or on the fundamental right to “impart information and ideas through any media[.]” ANY media. Like Twitter, presumably.
How do we square all this? There’s only one way. Put plainly, according to the U.N.’s own High Commissioner on Human Rights, a subject-matter expert if ever there were one, Article 19 does not mean what you think it means.
See, this right here is the problem. The same problem the Germans had. The same problem the Soviet Russians had. In fact, we should probably update the phrase “Soviet Constitution problem,” and instead use the more modern formulation, the “Declaration of Human Rights problem.”
On paper, the U.N.’s fundamental human rights look wonderful. But rights can be downright vexing when they interfere with your lucrative vaccination program, so in practice, the United Nations has reserved to itself the right to enforce, to not enforce, to amend, or to simply override peoples’ fundamental rights, whenever it can enunciate a “life-threatening” risk to “thousands of people” out of the Earth’s eight billion souls.
Even if those “life-threatening risks” come from WORDS. (How far we’ve come from ‘sticks and stones can break my bones,’ et cetera.)
We already watched this movie, back in the 20th century, and we saw how it turned out. Poorly, that’s how. So, no, thank you.
While I was writing up this story, I decided that I’m going to exercise my fundamental “right to impart information” by mailing a copy of the U.N.’s Declaration of Human Rights to Mr. Türk, with the relevant part (Article 19) highlighted. Maybe he overlooked it on his initial review? Be optimistic.
Here’s his mailing address in case you want to impart any information to Mr. Türk, too:
Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR)
Palais des Nations
CH-1211 Geneva 10, Switzerland
I’ll put my letter up on my Twitter feed after I send it to my staff for delivery.
If you prefer to email, general inquiries should be sent to:
[email protected].
🔥 Sometimes, every once in a while, I feel a sense of profound sympathy for our brothers and sisters on the left. It must be exhausting trying to keep up, day in and day out, with who to hate, and who to love, and who to support, and who to oppose, especially when the narratives are pivoting faster than a turnstile at a dog track.
The Associated Press ran a controversial story Friday headlined, “U.S. Moves to Shield Saudi Crown Prince in Journalist Killing.”
It’s generous to call Jamal Khashoggi a journalist. He was a radical leftwing activist (euphemistically, a “dissident”), beloved by marxists, and a long-standing thorn in Saudi Arabia’s favorite camel’s hoof. But since the Washington Post employed him as a cover, Khashoggi has been universally described in the lefty press as a “journalist.”
He’s dead now though. The evidence suggests Khashoggi probably encountered an unhappy ending. While nothing has been proven, the left is 100% sure that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered a hit on Khashoggi, although his body has never been found.
“I think it was a flat-out murder,” candidate Biden said in a 2019 CNN town hall, even though he’s not a detective or even knows what day it is. He went on, sort of yelling and pumping his fist, saying “And I think we should have nailed it as that. I publicly said at the time we should treat it that way and there should be consequences relating to how we deal with those — that power.”
Consequences! Remember that.
Back in February 2021, the New York Times also reported that candidate Biden promised voters that his plan was to make the Saudis “pay the price, and make them, in fact, the pariah that they are.”
MAKE THEM a pariah.
Whoopsies! Life has a way of catching up with you, and whalloping you in the face right when you’re bending down to pick the season’s first wildflower. It turns out that Khashoggi’s (now ex-) fiancé and his non-profit (“Democracy for the Arab World Now,” or DAWN) sued the Crown Prince in U.S. federal court, and the Crown Prince asserted sovereign immunity as a defense.
Here’s where it gets interesting. The judge gave the federal government until this week to say whether it agreed with the Crown Prince or not on the sovereign immunity issue. For some reason, the judge wants to know what the feds think.
If you’re Joe Biden, and you swore to bring justice to the Saudi leader, and make the country into a “pariah” nation, but on the other hand you also want to lower the price of Arab oil to tighten sanctions against Russia, what do you do? Adhere to your principles? Or do the politically expedient thing?
He did the politically expedient thing. The State Department filed a brief SUPPORTING the Crown Prince’s assertion of sovereign immunity as a complete defense to the lawsuit. Instead of of supporting or opposing the Crown Prince’s sovereign immunity status, the government had the option to just stay silent.
Instead the State Department said yep, by “long standing precedent,” the Crown Prince is a sovereign who should be immune from lawsuits by U.S. citizens. The government said what MBS did was awful, but what can you do? The law’s the law.
Some people weren’t too happy. Sarah Leah Whitson, who runs Khashoggi’s non-profit, reacted to the news saying, “It’s impossible to read the Biden administration’s move today as anything more than a capitulation to Saudi pressure tactics, including slashing oil output to twist our arms to recognize MBS’s fake immunity ploy.”
Now leftists will have to exercise their cognitive dissonance glands again, and reconcile helping blood enemy Crown Prince Mohammed get off the hook, with the ugly political necessity of cozying up to the Saudis to help out the proxy war effort.
Someone should probably make a virtue-signaling app that tells you who to like and who to hate in real time.
🔥 And just like that, look what happened next:
Jack Posobiec 🇺🇸 @JackPosobiec
BREAKING: Saudis to boost oil production after Biden admin grants MBS immunity from lawsuits in Khashoggi death thepostmillennial.comSaudis may boost oil production after Biden admin shields crown prince from punishment in death of Jamal KhashoggiA production increase of up to 500,000 barrels a day is now under discussion for OPEC’s December 4 meeting, delegates said….12:42 PM ∙ Nov 22, 20225,108Likes2,232Retweets
🚀 In another wonderful illustration of how at times life on the left can be very hard indeed, the Daily Beast ran a story yesterday headlined, “AP Fires Reporter Behind Retracted ‘Russian Missiles’ Story.”
Buh bye.
Last Tuesday the AP broke a story, written by investigative reporter James Laporta, that “a senior U.S. intelligence official” had reported that “Russian missiles crossed into NATO member Poland, killing two people.” The story went viral — as it should have, given the implications — but was abruptly yanked off the internet the very next day.
Instead, Laporta’s story was replaced with an editor’s note saying the “senior U.S. intelligence official” was wrong, and that “subsequent reporting showed that the missiles were … most likely fired by Ukraine[.]”
So, never mind.
Yesterday, the AP fired Mr. Laporta. The Daily Beast reached out to the AP for a comment, but got back only a generalized response referring to the agency’s rules over the use of anonymous sources. Nor would the AP say who edited Laporta’s story, or whether that person was also disciplined.
Poor Mr. Laporta. He probably thought he was helping out, by reporting the evil Russians had bombed the Poles. But it backfired, since it was the evil Ukrainians who did it instead, and we aren’t supposed to call them evil Ukrainians, are we, so the story was SUPPOSED to be about an importune accident, no one’s fault really, happens all the time during these unfortunate conflicts.
Even better would have been a story about how it was actually RUSSIA’S fault, because Russia started the war after all, and without the war, this never would have happened.
Life can be hard for journalists in the narrative whirlwind. Let’s take a moment to sympathize for poor Mr. Laporta, who grabbed the wrong narrative line, and jibed when he should have tacked, or vice-versa, or something.
🔥 The Wall Street Journal ran an op-ed Sunday comparing FTX’s slovenly frontman Sam Bankman-Fried to … former president Donald Trump! The piece is headlined, “What Donald Trump and Sam Bankman-Fried Have in Common,” further explained by the sub-headline, “Both men cast themselves as saviors. Yet both deceived and exploited their supporters.”
Yeah, they’re TOTALLY the same. Okay.
The writer goes through a long laundry lists of complaints about Donald Trump and them metaphorically compares them to SBF. That part is largely unoriginal and dull. But then she got a little more interesting when she discovered one single difference between the two:
Yet there’s one striking difference: Most Republicans didn’t buy Mr. Trump’s election lies, and many GOP leaders called them out. By contrast, a sycophantic press and sophisticated investors—including BlackRock, Sequoia Capital and SoftBank—seem to have disregarded the glaring red flags about Mr. Bankman-Fried.
Indeed! She points out that nobody — not journalists or investors or analysts — ever asked Sam some very simple questions like, where did the $74 million to buy the Bahamas properties come from, or where did the $37 million he gave to democrats come from?
That was the article’s high point. The op-ed quickly ramped down to a lame ending, concluding “FTX failed because Mr. Bankman-Fried’s supporters lost confidence in him.” On one level, this is just inartful wishful thinking, showing the writer stretching to make a final comparison to Trump — i.e., maybe Trump’s supporters will lose confidence in him, too.
But at a deeper level, the op-ed’s silly conclusion illustrates how corporate media is still running cover for Bankman-Fried. FTX didn’t fail because investors lost confidence. Its bankruptcy filings show it had less than a million dollars’ assets, after it raised — and spent — almost ten BILLION bucks.
No, FTX failed because Sam Bankman-Fried is a politically-connected crook, and FTX was a fake front for a massive criminal conspiracy, protected by politicians and by corporate media. Corporate media like the Wall Street Journal.
The whole silly, throwaway op-ed is a strategic plate of narrative psyops. It ties SBF to Republicans (‘he’s like Trump’) instead of democrats, minimizes SBF’s criminal culpability (‘his investors lost confidence’), and plants the story in the world of politics and virtue signaling, instead of where it should be: news and media manipulation.
All of which makes me wonder: how many news grant dollars did the Wall Street Journal take from Sam’s fake nonprofits?
The ‘news grant’ technique is very sophisticated, like all good con jobs. They say the best cons are the most ridiculous ones, leaving the victim too embarrassed or ashamed to admit he got conned. Let’s suppose the WSJ got $10 million from an FTX partner, say, the “Happy Sunny Human Good Works Foundation.” All good so far.
But, now that the gravy train has crashed into a school bus filled with investors, if the Journal were ever to admit FTX was a fraud, they’d hypothetically have to admit the gift of $10 million was stolen investor money, and then they might have to give it all back.
In other words, telling the truth about FTX could cost a media company millions. Devilishly clever. And, because the money transfers are shamelessly dressed up as “grants,” the Journal couldn’t even claim they’d EARNED the money. They’d have no moral or ethical justification for keeping it.
Who knows, maybe there’s some kind of lesson here. Maybe, if you’re a news company, you shouldn’t take large unearned, unsolicited, and undisclosed gifts, because it could leave you in a tight spot later. Just say no! I realize it’s tempting, but money isn’t everything, and it’s how the Devil gets you.
Just an idea.
Have a terrific Tuesday! I’ll see you guys tomorrow for the gala pre-Thanksgiving roundup.
C&C is moving the needle and changing minds. If you can, I could use your help getting the truth out and spreading optimism and hope: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/-learn-how-to-get-involved-
Twitter: @jchilders98
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The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
By George Miller, 11-21-22
On Saturday we spotted many, many motorcycles lined up outside of Central Park in Fernandina Beach. They were Nam Knights members staging to start their “OJ Run” which would take them through the city, over the bridge to parts on their itinerary. It seems that motorcyclist veterans organization event sponsor ‘Nam Knights was doing this for fun, fellowship and fundraising for the Nassau County Sheriff’s Office and Fernandina PD programs for kids at risk. $5,000 checks were given to both organizations for this purpose. Nam Knights honors vets and police officers who have lost their lives in service and assists vets and police officers in their time of need. More about their event on the Westside Chapter Facebook page.
See Facebook VIDEO
From Tim Boone, Nam Knights Secretary:
The Nam Knights Motorcycle Club (NKMC) began in the summer of 1989 as a small group of Harley-Davison riding combat Veterans of the Vietnam War, who were also Police Officers. The club was founded by Jack Quigley, now retired Undersheriff of the Bergen County Sheriff’s Department in New Jersey. To quote Jack, our founder, “The club was formed to recapture the brotherhood its founding members shared while serving in Southeast Asia, and to help other veterans of all wars who are unable to physically or financially help themselves.”
Since that time, the Club has grown to 78 Chapters in 18 states, Washington D.C., and one Canadian province, with hundreds of members that comprise veterans of all eras, as well as Law Enforcement personnel, plus a special dedicated number of patriot members.
The mission of the Nam Knights is to honor the memory of American Veterans and Police Officers who have lost their lives in the line of duty, to assist Veterans and Police Officers in their time of need, and to promote community awareness through sponsorship and participation in various community and fund-raising events.
From Nassau County Sheriff’s Office
On Saturday, November 19, 2022, Sheriff Bill Leeper received a check for NCSO Charities, Inc. from Nam Knights, the First Coast Northeast Florida Chapter based in Nassau County. Sheriff Leeper thanked the entire group for their generosity and service to our country and communities. The motorcycle club visited the Nassau County Sheriff’s Office to donate money to our Shop with a Cop program. The group laid a blue wreath at the Nassau County Law Enforcement Memorial wall in honor of all those law enforcement officers who have died in the line of duty in Nassau County. Membership of Nam Knights is made up of police officers (active and retired) and also Vietnam and other military era veterans. The mission of the Nam Knights is to honor the memory of American Veterans and Police Officers who have lost their lives in the line of duty, to assist Veterans and Police Officers in their time of need, and to promote community awareness through sponsorship and participation in various community and fund-raising events.
George Miller is Publisher and Co-Founder of Citizens Journal Florida, based in Fernandina Beach. He is a “retired” operations management consultant, software and publishing executive and manufacturing management professional.
By Jeff Childers
11-21-22
Good morning, C&C, and Happy Monday! Sorry about the delay with today’s post. Today’s terrific roundup: Pelosi body cam footage tells a different story; science continues finding all the ways life can give you a heart attack; FTX’s implosion is exposing a lot of stuff they’d rather stayed hidden; news grants; who’s buying and who’s selling media influence; Sam Bankman-Fried bought a House committee; SBF took care of himself first; and Republicans start looking into the FTX scandal.
🪖 The Childers family is traveling this week for the Thanksgiving holiday. Post timing might be a little erratic (i.e., late). For your planning purposes, C&C will be closed on Thursday and Friday to reflect on gratitude.
🔥 The Bay Area’s NBC affiliate ran a story last week headlined, “Body Cam Video Shows Paul Pelosi Opened Door for Police, Despite DOJ Saying Otherwise: Source.”
The story is an exercise in delicacy, not even directly comparing the two stories. It looks like the editor may have taken that part of the story out, because I found the comparison on the reporter’s twitter feed.
After it muscled into the otherwise local case, the United States Department of Justice contradicted earlier reports from officers on the scene, and began insisting that the two San Fransisco police officers opened the door — not Pelosi. That contradicted the earlier version from the District Attorney’s office, which had reported “Mr. Pelosi opened the door with his left hand.”
MR. PELOSI opened the door. Not the cops.
But now, according to a source who’s seen the body cam footage, the District Attorney’s version has been proven correct, and the DOJ’s version is false. The video reportedly shows police knocking on the door, backing away, and then Paul Pelosi clearly opening the door from the inside.
The two versions are significantly different.
Here’s the DOJ’s version
Here’s the San Fransisco DA’s version:
Various sources say the body cam footage has already been released to news agencies, but I haven’t found any of it yet.
You may recall that back on November 4th, NBC suspended reporter Miguel Almaguer after his report on the Pelosi attack was hastily scrubbed from the internet. Almaguer’s report was consistent with what the body cam video shows.
Whoops. I’m thinking Almaguer might have grounds for a lawsuit.
At bottom, though, is the fact of whether Pelosi opened the door significant? Well, it’s obviously significant enough for highly-paid, elite federal law enforcement types to lie about it. Pelosi opening the door is an odd fact that doesn’t really square with the cover story, I mean the official version, that Pelosi was scared of DePape. After all, if Pelosi opened the door, he could’ve just stepped outside, and let the cops handle things from there.
But why go back in?
That’s the problem with coverups. Once you start covering things up, people assume there’s a reason, something embarrassing enough to justify the coverup’s risk.
🔥 In accountability news, yesterday longtime Team Reality member and data guru Ethical Skeptic confirmed that he has spoken to lawmakers about his vaccine injury research, and maybe more importantly, spoken with analysts working for the lawmakers, which at least shows that some lawmakers are taking pandemic accountability seriously and are trying to get their ducks in a row.
Ethical Skeptic said he can’t disclose who he’s spoken with — which makes sense. I take his post as great news. We might be closer than we think.
Once this story breaks — and it will — it’s going to be the most devastating political weapon in history.
🔥 Science alert! Read this headline and try not to laugh:
A brand-new study published in The Lancet purportedly links air pollution particles — 25 times smaller than the width of a human hair — to what the article says are “a host of diseases” including, wait for it, cardiac arrest, strokes, and autoimmune diseases.
Yep.
The researchers compared the locations and dates of out-of-hospital cardiac events with known air pollution levels in Shanghai, applied some fancy math, and — ta-da! — claimed to find a correlation between pollution and heart attacks. (Of course, as we’ve been told literally one trillion times over the last two years, correlation does not equal causation.)
The researchers noted a number of “limitations” with their study, such as the fact that general air pollution levels don’t reflect a particular individual’s exposure levels, since the person might spend more time inside, or live in a high-rise, and so forth.
Still, it’s brilliant! The study is a two-fer. It helps obscure all the studies that might give people the wrong idea that SADS is related to the jabs somehow. Instead, people searching for cardiac event studies will find heart attacks might be caused by an invisible enemy — microparticulates. The study also provides a rationale for more masking, to keep those evil, SADS-causing particles out.
You have to hand it to Science. Scientists have heroically pushed back the frontier of knowledge about things that cause cardiac problems. Why, just in the last year, we’ve discovered dozens and dozens of new things that can make your heart stop.
🔥 Nancy Pelosi has retired. I’ll even give her the last word.
Thank you all — and may God continue to bless the United States of America.
6:28 PM ∙ Nov 17, 2022200,040Likes21,174Retweets
🔥 They’re going to wish we didn’t learn about “news grants.” But let’s start with how we found out. It was a decision made under pressure by The Intercept’s editor. He was looking at a lot of bad options.
Sometimes you have to get ahead of the bad news. Lefty news outlet The Intercept was forced to make an embarrassing admission this week — it had been accepting “grants” from one of FTX’s shady “philanthropic entities,” allegedly to support The Intercept’s mighty fine work on “biosafety and pandemic prevention.”
Meaning lockdowns, mandates, passports.
The Intercept admitted it was in line for a LOT of grants. They already got a half million a couple months ago, with another $3.5 million yet to come over the next two years.
Lefty news outlet ProPublica got even more than the Intercept. In an email to staff, ProPublica’s editor conveyed the tragic news that the unpaid portion of a $5M grant for reporting “on pandemic preparedness and biothreats,” was now probably kaputsky.
So far, it looks like FTX was lavishing multi-million-dollar grants on SCADS of leftist news magazines.
First of all, I’ll bet many of you were happily unaware that “news grants” were even a thing. Grants are completely different, and lots better, than bribes. OBVIOUSLY Sam Bankman-Fried couldn’t just write checks directly from FTX’s bank account to news companies.
That would be unseemly.
But apparently it’s NOT unseemly if you pay $150 to create a non-profit “foundation” to pay some bills for you. Even better, you can get a tax deduction for “donating” the money to your non-profit, before it turns right around and then “grants” the money to a news site from whom you’d like some friendly coverage.
Remember that puff piece the New York Times ran on SBF last week? What do you want to bet that we’re eventually going to find out the Times got a taste of some of that sweet investor money SBF was throwing around?
You might be thinking that SBF wasn’t so much doing grants as buying himself some favorable coverage for his fraudulent crypto business, and banking some “insurance” in case things got sticky, like they are now. What a ridiculous idea. Of COURSE editors can take multi-million dollar grants and still be completely objective. How dare you.
That we know of so far, none of the “completely objective” news companies who got FTX money ever disclosed that fact before now.
It might have shocked you to find out that not only is there a market for big companies to give large “grants” to news companies — without even buying advertising— but also the practice is apparently so widespread and so well-accepted that nobody’s blown the whistle on it so far.
Here’s what they want us to believe: Sam Bankman-Fried was an altruistic genius with a personal passion — like Bill Gates! — for pandemic preparedness and biosafety. So he quietly slipped a bunch of oversized financial grants to news agencies, “grants” that were so large they might have doubled the firms’ annual budgets. We don’t know if there were any strings attached, or requirements, or restrictions, or anything else.
Taking it just at face value, does it trouble you that there’s a market for directing what topics news companies focus on? In this case, it would be SBF directing a bunch of newspapers to report on pandemics and biosafety. Even if we interpret everything the most generous possible way, it still looks a whole lot like SBF was buying news coverage. The only question is whether his intentions were actually altruistic or were, at bottom, serving a different purpose.
🔥 This all kind of reminds me of how HHS bought the cooperation of corporate media outfits and news influencers by spending billions on vaccine ad placement last year.
We now live in a world of sponsored news. You can complain about it, but it won’t change anything. Corporate media exists to create a profit, first and foremost. Money and political influence (with which to obtain more money) drive news decision making. Not curiosity, public spirit, or ethical considerations.
The more overtly political a particular news outlet is — think MSNBC, Vox, ProPublica, and so forth — the clearer it is that these companies exist in order to satisfy a market. Not a market for news consumers. A market for news SHAPERS. If there are rich leftists lining up right and left — both in and out of government — then SOMEBODY has to satisfy that demand.
If corporate media adhered to ethics, they’d disclose their revenue sources. How much from each advertiser? How much from “news grants?” How much from the government? If we knew those things, we could make up our own minds about who and what to believe.
🔥 It’s not just buying news companies. Don’t forget politicians. Saturday, Breitbart ran a story headlined, “Sam Bankman-Fried and FTX Donated Over $300,000 to Lawmakers Investigating Him.”
The House Financial Services Committee, chaired by Representative Maxine Waters, announced earlier this week that the committee will handle investigating any wrongdoing by Bankman-Fried and FTX. In a happy coincidence, Sam donated $300,351 to nine democrat members of the House Financial Services Committee, or about $35K each, on average.
That’s not the only conflict of interest. Sam’s brother Gabe used to work for Representative Sean Casten (D-Il.), who’s a current member of the House Financial Services Committee. And here’s Maxine Waters blowing SBF a kiss back in December of last year:
Maxine Waters just blew @SBF_FTX a kiss. Safe to say that went well.😘
The good news is that Maxine Waters is about to lose her chairmanship to Republican Patrick McHenry. We are SO grateful that the Republicans won the House.
🔥 On Friday, the Wall Street Journal ran a story headlined, “FTX’s Sam Bankman-Fried Cashed Out $300 Million During Funding Spree.” The gist was that while FTX was raising over $2B from institutional investors in 2021, SBF was selling large amounts of stock “back” to FTX — and he got a cool $300 million out of it.
Needless to say, that’s an unusual move, especially at a time when a company’s founder is asking other people to invest money. Selling large amounts of stock sort of suggests a lack of faith in the company’s long-term prospects. It should’ve been a red flag.
I mean, ANOTHER red flag.
The Journal mentions — but doesn’t dwell on — the fact that FTX never had a real board of directors. It was just Sam and two employees, and they didn’t hold meetings or vote on anything. In other words, investors like BlackRock poured millions into FTX even though Sam was accountable to no one, and was milking the company for hundreds of millions for himself.
🔥 We can begin to see the outlines of how FTX did it. It’s only a matter of scale. The trick is to quickly come up with enough money to capture three groups: politicians on oversight committees, the related regulatory agencies, and the corporate media. FTX *needed* to grow so big, so fast. Otherwise someone would have exposed him before he could launder all that money and fund the mid-term elections.
🔥 On Thursday, Senator Josh Hawley asked the DOJ, the SEC, and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) for all information and communications relating to FTX.
Over the last couple months, the FBI was somehow able to find time to raid a UFO blogger, and a pastor and his son for protesting an abortion clinic, but during the largest financial disaster in history, it’s just crickets from the FBI.
Hello? Is there anyone there?
I won’t hold my breath for any of SBF’s properties to be raided. But something’s going to shake out. The story is just too big to contain.
Have a marvelous Monday! I’ll see you back here tomorrow as we head toward sacrificial turkey day.
C&C is moving the needle and changing minds. If you can, I could use your help getting the truth out and spreading optimism and hope: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/-learn-how-to-get-involved-
Twitter: @jchilders98
Truth Social: @jchilders98
MeWe: mewe.com/i/coffee_and_covid.
C&C Swag! www.shopcoffeeandcovid.com
Emailed Daily Newsletter: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
From Firearms Policy Coalition, 11-20-22
President Biden and his gang of crisis actors are again using the actions of a criminal lunatic to call for taking away your firearms.
They’re hoping that their petulant shouting will grow to a thundering chorus in favor of banning all guns. We can’t let this stand.
Now is the perfect time to tell this tyrant “F*** you, no!”
Help us fight back against this despot by making a contribution to our legal action program TODAY.
All donations go directly to our Second Amendment Defense Fund, which we use daily to sue the hell out of anti-gun tyrants like Potato Joe.
What’s more, we’re coming up on our end-of-month legal fundraising deadline, which means that it’s very important to give.
And as always, a contribution in your name speaks volumes to these tyrants that the Second Amendment enjoys broad public support.
Prove the despots that they are sorely mistaken if they think they can try to take our guns without a fight.
Donate NOW to fund the next round of pro-2A lawsuits against the Biden anti-gun agenda!
Stay Free,
Firearms Policy Coalition
By Various
You can’t make up stuff like this :-)…..
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
See more in our events section:https://www.citizensjournal.net/event/aiga-inshore-classic-fishing-tournament/
Last year’s event video:
Feature/Opinion
Roy M Postel
11-19-22 Nassau County-
This post is a firsthand account of a Nassau County poll watcher. As a volunteer for the Republican Party of Nassau County, I wanted to be more involved after witnessing the shenanigans of the 2020 election. I volunteered to take training, become credentialed and monitor the in-person voting process during the primary and general election cycle at several locations throughout the county.
What is a poll watcher? In Florida, poll watchers are observers authorized by the county Supervisor of Elections to sit in a designated area of the voting location to monitor the process on behalf of a candidate or political party. Election law requires poll watchers be registered to vote in the county where they ask to observe.
By 7 PM when the polls closed for the 2022 midterm last Tuesday, I had spent more than 60 hours at polling locations from Callahan to Yulee to the Fernandina Rec. Center on the island watching hundreds of Nassau County residents exercise their right to vote. I was just one of more than 50 registered GOP residents to earn credentials and monitor the process during 24 days of in-person voting. During the August cycle (11 days of early voting and the Aug. 26 primary election day) the Nassau County Democrats had very little presence. But for the November period (11 days of early voting and the Nov. 8 election day) the Dems had a poll watcher at almost every venue I attended.
The online training class was a video call, and everyone received guidelines via email to have in hand and reference at the polling place if an issue developed. We also had access to an online portal, where we could send a text to a team of lawyers to report equipment failure or some breach of protocol.
Most definitely…because every poll watcher better understands the process and experiences the flaws on a first-hand basis. The experience equips them to influence fellow citizens, family, friends and neighbors on what can be done to improve Florida’s system. Here’s a list of conversation starters for improvements:
The most common complaint voiced by the GOP team after 11-days of early voting for the August primary was, “This is boring.” Volunteers are assigned a spot to observe the entire room. You may be 15 or 20 feet away from the point where a voter’s ID and address are examined. Most voters are unaware of your purpose when they see you sitting to the side of the room.
If a resident presents a signed, valid, photo ID and the address and signature match registration records, a ballot is printed. The voter then goes to a booth, makes his selections, then walks across the room, feeds the ballot into a scanner and leaves. Not much intrigue here, especially after watching the sequence of interaction repeat with minimal variation time after time.
Kudos to Supervisor of Elections Janet Adkins and her team. There was not a single complaint brought to the GOP about the voting process in Nassau County throughout the November midterm cycle. Nassau County’s poll workers are a pleasant and professional group of parttime employees. Each knew their duties, kept the lines moving and guided voters to the on-site “chief clerk” to resolve discrepancies of voter ID or address matching.
When it comes to voting, order and a process of uniformity are objectives. So, if you’re a poll watcher celebrate the mundane. Advocate for the system to yield more of the same.
A few volunteers in August declined to help during the November cycle because the experience did not meet their expectations. Some who joined the team in November will not participate again, either.
Several of my colleagues were not moved my argument their very presence in the voting place served as a deterrent to any potential fraud or bending of the rules. It’s a hassle filling out the absentee ballot form. Maybe it’s not mission critical to require a voter complete a change of address form when records show he moved to a different unit in the same apartment building.
Make no mistake, the presence of partisan observers keeps poll workers on their toes. They know you are in the room, and even if nothing unusual happens while you’re on duty, you represent a source of outside authority.
As film director, actor and writer, Woody Allen famously said, “Showing up is eighty percent of life.” Poll watching is a case in point, just being present makes a difference which will never be fully revealed.
Based on statistics from the Florida Secretary of State a total of just over 20,000 vote-by-mail ballots were issued in Nassau County for the November midterms. Of that number, 12,400 were received by the SOE. That leaves 8,000 ballots, or 40 percent, with a “not yet returned” status for the midterms. So for every five ballots issued, three were submitted and two were unused.
On my first shift as a poll watcher, I listened closely to a poll worker ask the voter if he had “received a vote-by-mail ballot at his home?”
He said, “Yes, but I didn’t bring it with me.” Then in a reassuring tone, the poll worker said, “That’s okay, just be sure to destroy it when you get home.” My pulse quickened as I looked at my reference sheets from the training. Surely this must be grounds for a provisional ballot, I thought.
I quietly asked the “chief clerk” about the matter. “Doesn’t the law require him to surrender his vote-by-mail ballot before voting in person?” The clerk was very professional and confident while explaining the “practice is allowed” as long as records show the VBM ballot has not been received. The poll worker is correct. In Florida Code, Chapter 101.69 addresses the event I witnessed.
I went back to my seat and made a note. This happened a couple more times before the polls closed at 6 PM. At the end of the shift, I sent a summary text to the legal team via the portal. It just seemed too relaxed. As written, the law seems “indifferent” to the whereabouts of the VBM ballot, if a voter doesn’t have it in their possession.
During the 24 sessions of in-person voting conducted in 2022, I manned a seat in the poll watcher box 19 times. On every occasion, I witnessed residents presenting themselves to vote in-person, despite being issued a vote-by-mail ballot. About a third of the voters “surrendered” their VBM ballot in exchange for an in-person ballot. But the balance received in-person ballots along with only a verbal directive to destroy the unused ballot when returning home.
A few voters protested, claiming they are wrongly identified as having requested a VBM ballot. Some acknowledged asking for a VBM in 2020 because of COVID, and claimed they no longer wanted one and asked to be removed from the list.
The polling place staff performs many necessary tasks, but they do not process requests for a voter to be removed from the vote-by-mail list. Residents are told to go online or come to the SOE office to resolve the issue. Processing requests to be removed from the VBM list would be a worthy chore to add.
Every one of the GOP volunteers watched this practice unfold. In the spirit of convenience, an extra burden is put on the system and the SOE staff to “flag” a second ballot arriving by mail or drop box from someone who voted in-person. Although legal, we agreed to file summary reports so as to document for GOP leadership how prevalent we observed this practice.
By Nov. 8 we’d filed dozens of “summary reports” at the end of each poll watching shifts to document the behavior. The GOP election integrity team was not impressed. At one point, I received a phone call from the regional director asking me to stop sending the summaries.
I said, “Glad we got your attention. You can use the emails to fix the law in Tallahassee. Vote-by-mail ballots shouldn’t be treated like weekly sale papers from Publix.”
Statewide data shows 4.3 million VBM ballots were sent to Floridians for the midterm. As of Nov. 10th, 1.6 million ballots are classified as “not yet returned.” So, one out of every three go unused.
The law informs behavior. Further contributing to the culture of convenience is the wide window for SOE staff to receive mail in ballots. On the SOE website vote-by-mail applicants are told ballots are sent 40 days prior to the election data. Yet, the first ballot for the Nov. 8 midterm was filled out and returned on Sept. 26. That’s 44 days before election day. In the first week of mail in vote activity, the SOE reported four ballots received. By Oct. 10, the end of the second week, just 344 ballots were recorded.
Given the degree of chaos mail in ballots generated in 2020, it is puzzling to me the emphasis put on this voting method, especially now that COVID is largely in the nation’s rearview mirror. After drilling down a bit on the topic, I was surprised to find California and six other states (light blue colored) require every citizen to vote only by mail. Yikes!
Most folks present their Florida driver’s license to meet the identification requirements for receiving a ballot. Poll workers scan the bar code on the DL. This opens a page on the electronic poll book screen where information from the voter registration rolls is displayed. Now, the voter is asked to sign their name, presumably as a way of authenticating their identity.
But if the signature doesn’t quite match, not a problem. I watched poll workers give incoming voters a “mulligan” after their initial try wasn’t readable or didn’t resemble what was on file. I couldn’t see the image from my perch. But when the poll worker holds up the voter’s DL at eye level and asks him to sign the pad again, so the signature looks like it appears on the license not much is left to the imagination.
This sequence was rare, maybe once or twice a day, but again speaks to the culture of convenience.
We should remove Sunday from the days where early voting is allowed. According to the conference of state legislatures, Florida is the only state which requires early voting on Sunday, because the law uses “consecutive” to describe the period of days for voter access.
In Nassau County we have 11 consecutive days of early voting prior to the election day. This is spelled out in the Florida Code here (go to paragraph d). The early voting sites are open from for 9 hours each day. Take heart, if you review paragraph d, early voting could be 13 consecutive days and 12 hours each day. Apparently, we don’t need that much convenience just yet in Nassau County.
Citizens Journal deserves credit for providing a forum to examine how Florida Law and the culture of convenience mix and make the voting process viable but with room to improve.
Chapters 97 through 106 of Florida State Law dictate all aspects of the voting and elections. Chapter 101, Voting Methods and Procedures of the 2022 Florida Statutes, can be accessed here for those seeking more details.
Roy M Postel is a resident of Fernandina Beach (“off Island”). He is a general assignment Citizens Journal Florida reporter with a keen interest in politics and history. He loves to investigate tips from fellow citizens. Contact him at [email protected]
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
By Art Moore, WND News Center, November 20, 2022
True the Vote founder Catherine Engelbrecht – who was jailed with colleague Gregg Phillips for refusing to disclose a confidential source in a probe of alleged foreign interference in U.S. elections – says she was put in solitary confinement for four days in a cinder block cell, with a light always on and a “glass partition” allowing her to be watched while she showered and used the bathroom.
Engelbrecht and Phillips were ordered jailed without bond in Houston, Texas, by U.S. District Judge Kenneth Hoyt. The two were released one week later after a panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals overruled the order.
https://decide.dev/lad/12119975259523686?pubid=ld-4520-5072&pubo=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.wnd.com&rid=&width=836&utm_source=Email&utm_medium=wnd-breaking&utm_campaign=breaking&utm_content=breaking
“It was a very eye-opening experience, how prisoners are treated,” Engelbrecht said in an interview with Gateway Pundit founder Jim Hoft.
True the Vote’s investigation of alleged ballot harvesting in the 2020 election board in featured in the film “2000 Mules” along with board member and investigator Gregg Phillips and founder Catherine Engelbrecht.
Hoyt, in a defamation case against them, had ruled the two in contempt of court for refusing to name a confidential source who was at a meeting in which they said they received evidence a Michigan-based, election software company, Konnech, was improperly storing the personal data of U.S. poll workers on servers in China. The defamation case was filed in September by the CEO of Michigan-based Konnech, Eugene Yu, who charged that True the Vote made baseless and racist accusations that forced him and his family to flee their home in fear for their lives and damaged his company’s business. However, only weeks after the defamation suit was filed, Yu was arrested and charged by Los Angeles County prosecutors for allegedly storing election worker data on servers in China. The prosecutors called it “probably the largest data breach in United States history.” Shortly after Phillips and Engelbrecht were released, the controversial Soros-financed L.A. district attorney, George Gascón, dropped the felony charges against Yu, saying the office was concerned about both the pace of the investigation and “the potential bias in the presentation and investigation of the evidence.”
The statement said the D.A.’s office hasn’t ruled out refiling the charges after reviewing the evidence, however, saying it would “assemble a new team, with significant cyber security experience to determine whether any criminal activity occurred.”
https://decide.dev/lad/14487621883606118?pubid=ld-4593-8411&pubo=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.wnd.com&rid=&width=836&utm_source=Email&utm_medium=wnd-breaking&utm_campaign=breaking&utm_content=breaking
After her release Nov. 7, Engelbrecht said that what is publicly known about Konnech “is just the tip of the iceberg.”
“Please stay connected. We’re all in this together,” she said. “Hold the line. Keep the faith. God is good.”
(Photo by Saad Chaudhry on Unsplash)
In the interview with Hoft, she said that the Los Angeles D.A.’s office reached out to True the Vote asking, based on the disclosures in the “2000 Mules” ballot-harvesting probe, if they had any cellphone location data information from the Los Angeles area.
Engelbrecht said they didn’t, but that contact led True the Vote to disclose evidence it had found in the group’s investigation of Konnech. The D.A.’s office then launched an investigation of its own that led to criminal charges.
She said it’s her understanding that the charges were dropped because California compliance standards that require the trial to take place within a certain amount of time after charges are filed.
“Because there was so much information that was taken in the raid in Michigan (of Konnech’s offices), they have not been able to work through all of that and want to make sure that when they do go to trial they are fully prepared,” Engelbrecht said.
“So, it is our understanding that the investigation is still moving forward – they are not backing away from any of it, but [the dropping of charges] was really more procedural.”
See Jim Hoft’s interview with Catherine Engelbrecht and Gregg Phillips:
Protecting a confidential source
At an Oct. 6 hearing, True the Vote attorney Brock Akers told Judge Hoyt his clients “don’t want to release the name of this individual.” The attorney described the source as an “analyst” who was in “danger from forces of the Chinese Communist party.”
True the Vote – whose investigation of ballot trafficking was featured in the film “2000 Mules” – has characterized the lawsuit as an effort to try to silence the organization. Konnech obtained an ex-parte temporary restraining order in secret, True the Vote said, so the election integrity group would have no opportunity to contest it.
In the criminal case against Yu by Los Angeles County prosecutors, the complaint cited as evidence a message from a Konnech project manager through a Chinese-owned messaging app that said “any employee for Chinese contractors working on PollChief software had ‘superadministration’ privileges for all PollChief clients.”
Sam Faddis, former CIA officer, put that statement in perspective in a Substack post: “An individual with super administration access to a system can do effectively anything inside that system. He or she can delete data, steal data, alter data, change programming, etc.”
In August, True the Vote disclosed its Konnech investigation at an invitation-only event in the Phoenix area. Engelbrecht and Phillips said their team had notified the FBI, and the agents with whom they communicated were alarmed by the potential national security implications.
Later, however, after working together on a “counter-intelligence operation,” Engelbrecht and Phillips said the FBI turned against them, and the bureau’s Washington bureau took over the probe. It was then that the True the Vote investigators decided to make their findings public and seek the help of independent researchers.
Yu’s arrest, Oct. 4, came one day after the New York Times published a story mocking True the Vote as “election deniers” for claiming Konnech was storing personal information about poll workers on servers in China, posing a serious security risk.
Alluding to the New York Times, among others, True the Vote said in a statement after Yu’s arrest that Konnech “was assisted by many reporters who unblinkingly accepted their now discredited claims as fact, and simply repeated them.”
Edited by Michael Hernandez
(Editor’s Note: This is part of a compendium of recent significant events, culled from U.S. news and curated by Michael Hernandez.)
ETHAN LETKEMAN (Nov 13) Breitbart News
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) is calling for the Republican Party to undergo reform after it was projected the party would not regain control of the U.S. Senate Saturday night.
Hawley’s call to “bury” and “build” a new Republican Party comes after several within the party were hopeful; they would regain control of the Senate since they only needed to flip one seat. However, the GOP is now at risk of losing one seat in the Upper Chamber depending on the results of the Georgia Senate runoff in December.
The day before the Midterm elections, Hawley indicated his support for change within the party following his statement that he would not support Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) for Senate GOP leadership.
“I don’t imagine I will, no,” Hawley reportedly said when asked if he would back McConnell. “I’m not sure if any other senator will run or not. Nobody’s indicated they would. But my view is that we need new leadership in that position.”
McConnell is facing intense criticism from within the party after the Super-PAC he is aligned with, the Senate Leadership Fund, withdrew ad spending for Republican candidate Blake Masters in the winnable Arizona Senate race to attack fellow Republican Kelly Tshibaka, who is challenging McConnell ally Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) in the Alaska Senate race.
The Missouri senator then joined Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) and other colleagues in calling for the GOP senate leadership vote to be delayed until the Georgia Senate runoff results are determined.
“Exactly right. I don’t know why Senate GOP would hold a leadership vote for the next Congress before this election is finished,” Hawley said in response to Rubio’s call for the Senate GOP leadership vote to be postponed. “We have a runoff in #GASenate — are they saying that doesn’t matter? Don’t disenfranchise @HerschelWalker.”
Since he was elected in 2018, Hawley has been one of few Republicans to challenge the GOP establishment orthodoxy — which typically prioritized corporate interests and foreign interventionism in the past — in favor of prioritizing working and middle-class families.
The non-orthodox policies that Hawley has voiced support for include regulating and breaking up Big Tech, giving wage subsidies to low-wage workers employed by small businesses, creating tax credits for working-class families, and calling for the U.S. to withdraw from the World Trade Organization.
Tara Mergener (Nov. 18) CBN News
While no overwhelming red wave emerged from the midterm national races, conservative groups involved in local school board races saw encouraging results. Education certainly mattered to voters on the local level and that resulted in school boards in several states winning conservative majorities.
Supporters see those wins as part of a larger trend giving Republicans the upper hand in this issue. The 2022 midterms follow two years of post-pandemic backlash. “Last year, almost everything we got on our tip line was about race. This year, probably about 75% is related to gender. A lot of the questions now are about social-emotional learning, data mining, and surveys were given without parental consent,” said Nicole Neily of Parents Defending Education.
“We were just really excited to see the results and we think it’s just the beginning of this wonderful parental rights movement around the country,” said Tiffany Justice of the organization Moms for Liberty.
On Nov. 8, it led school boards to flip in at least a half dozen states including Michigan, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, New Jersey, and Florida. “Every school board seat we flip makes a huge impact on their communities,” said Aiden Buzzetti of the 1776 Project PAC.
Recently front and center in the ongoing culture war, Florida made headlines again as Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis got directly involved by making numerous school board endorsements. Since last year, at least 100 school boards nationwide have turned red with more candidates waiting in the wings.
“With every success, we get 10 more people to put their reputation on the line. Get their names on the ballot and make changes in their communities,” said Buzzetti. In this election cycle, these outside groups made an impact. For example, Moms for Liberty backed more than 250 candidates, and more than half won. Of the 50 or so candidates endorsed by the 1776 Project, about one-third were successful.
By Brooke Singman (Nov. 15)| Fox News
PALM BEACH, Fla. – Former President Donald Trump announced that he is running for the 2024 Republican nomination for president, seeking to stage a dramatic return to the White House after having lost his bid for re-election to Joe Biden in 2020.
Trump, a Republican and the leader of the “Make America Great Again” movement, announced his third presidential bid on Nov. 15 during a speech at his Mar-a-Lago, Florida, home after having teased a bid since leaving office in 2021. “In order to make America great and glorious again. I am tonight announcing my candidacy for president of the United States,” Trump said Tuesday evening to a crowd of supporters.
“But just as I promised in 2016, I am your voice. I am your voice. The Washington establishment wants to silence us, but we will not let them do that. What we have built together over the past six years is the greatest movement in history because it is not about politics. It’s about our love for this great country, America, and we’re not going to let it fail,” said Trump.
2024 WATCH: MEET THE POTENTIAL GOP PRESIDENTIAL CONTENDERS
“I am running because I believe the world has not yet seen the true glory of what this nation can be. We have not reached that pinnacle, believe it or not,” he continued, blaming President Biden for the current state of the nation. “In fact, we can go very far. We’re going to have to go far first. We have to get out of this ditch. And once we’re out, you’ll see things that nobody imagined for any country. It’s called the United States of America. And it’s an incredible place.”
Trump first won the presidency in 2016 against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. If he is elected again, he would become only the second president to retake the White House after having been ousted, a feat achieved by Grover Cleveland in 1892 after he had lost the presidency to Benjamin Harrison in 1888. A victory would make Trump the 45th and the 47th president. Since his loss, Trump has challenged the legitimacy of the 2020 election results, repeatedly claiming the race was “rigged,” due to the COVID pandemic-era process of mail-in ballots. Trump falsely claimed the election was stolen, and his legal team filed a slew of lawsuits in battleground states across the nation.
Trump’s announcement comes one week after the 2022 midterm elections in which Republicans did not obtain an anticipated “red wave” of victories. Democrats kept control of the Senate and if Republicans are able to capture a majority in the House, it is expected to be slight. The former president was heavily involved in the midterms, throwing his support behind Republican candidates across the nation. During the primaries, the majority of Trump-endorsed candidates were victorious, becoming the GOP nominee in their races.
The economy, which has been a top issue for voters during the 2022 midterm election cycle amid record-high inflation, was strong under Trump’s presidency—with an increase in middle-class family income, the lowest unemployment rate in half a century and unprecedented job growth. The stock market hit record highs, with the Dow closing above 20,000 for the first time in 2017 and topping 30,000 in 2020, and the S&P 500 and NASDAQ also hitting record highs.
Trump also worked to cut red tape and reduce regulations facing American businesses and workers, working to put in place policies to bring back supply chains from overseas, in line with his “Make America Great Again” and “America First” messaging. As for trade relations, Trump immediately withdrew from the Trans-Pacific Partnership and ended the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in January 2017, replacing it with the existing United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), which included new protections for American manufacturers and workers.
Trump also signed an executive order making it government policy to “Buy American and Hire American,” and took action to stop outsourcing of jobs overseas. Another issue for Americans during the midterm election cycle has been energy and record-high gas prices. Under the Trump administration, Trump ensured that the U.S. was the number one producer of oil and natural gas in the world, but President Biden reversed some of those policies and refocused on clean energy.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration’s foreign policy message was one that focused on “peace through strength.” Trump withdrew from the Iran Nuclear Deal—which the Biden administration began taking steps to re-enter when he took office in 2021. Trump held a historic summit with Kim Jong Un in June 2018—he was the first sitting U.S. president to cross the demilitarized zone into North Korea. ICBM testing was paused during the Trump administration, but North Korea did continue to test for short and medium-range ballistic missiles. North Korea has been ramping up its ballistic missile testing under the Biden administration. Regarding the Middle East, the Trump administration brokered the Abraham accords, a “historic peace agreement” between Israel and the United Arab Emirates that normalized relations and created bilateral agreements regarding “investment, tourism, direct flights, security, telecommunications, technology, energy, health care, culture, the environment, the establishment of reciprocal embassies, and other areas of mutual benefit.” In 2018, the Trump administration moved the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem – a relocation long debated in Washington – and one that showed the U.S. officially recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.
Trump’s administration also rebuilt the military, with more than $2.2 trillion in defense spending, delivering pay raises for service members and their families. Trump’s administration also created a new branch of the military— the Space Force.
Trump appointed and had three conservative justices confirmed to the Supreme Court during his presidency — Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett.
DONALD TRUMP EDGES OUT PRESIDENT BIDEN IN ELECTION POLL AS BIDEN SLIPS BELOW 40% APPROVAL
Meanwhile, Trump’s administration worked to make communities safer, signing the First Step Act into law–the first landmark criminal justice reform legislation passed to reduce recidivism and help former inmates successfully rejoin society. A law-and-order president, Trump delivered support for law enforcement and put a major focus on protecting and securing the U.S.-Mexico southern border.
Fox News’ Kelly Laco contributed to this report.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/donald-trump-announces-2024-re-election-run-president
By Timothy H.J. Nerozzi (Nov. 17) | Fox News
Republican Reps. James Comer and Jim Jordan alleged at a press conference Thursday that President Biden was actively involved in overseas business dealings alongside his son Hunter. Comer, citing whistleblowers, asserted that the Biden family “flourished and became millionaires by simply offering access to the family.”
“Was Joe Biden directly involved with Hunter Biden’s business deals, and is he compromised? That’s our investigation,” Comer said. Comer is the incoming chair of the House Oversight Committee and Jordan is expected to soon chair the Judiciary Committee/ The representatives alleged that Hunter Biden and Joe Biden participated in “waste, fraud, and abuse” in international business dealings. The Republicans released a report Thursday outlining their findings.
Read the Report:
KATHERINE HAMILTON (Nov 16) Breitbart News
Twelve Senate Republicans voted with Democrats on Wednesday for the far-left “Respect for Marriage Act,” which is reportedly designed to provide federal protections for same-sex and interracial marriages. Lawmakers voted for the measure 62-37 after a bipartisan group of senators made changes to the bill to include a clause about religious liberty. With the amendment agreed upon, the bill will go back to the House before going to President Joe Biden. The White House has expressed support for the measure.
The 12 Republicans who voted for the bill include Sens. Roy Blunt (R-MO), Richard Burr (R-NC), Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV), Susan Collins (R-ME), Joni Ernst (R-IA), Cynthia Lummis (R-WY), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Rob Portman (R-OH), Mitt Romney (R-UT), Dan Sullivan (R-AK), Thom Tillis (R-NC), and Todd Young (R-IN).
The Respect for Marriage Act (RFMA) was introduced following the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade, due to Democrats’ unfounded concerns that the Supreme Court could use the Dobbs decision to overrule the Court’s Obergefell gay marriage decision. The measure passed the House in July with the help of 47 Republicans, but Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) agreed to postpone a vote until after the midterms so that lawmakers from both sides of the aisle could attempt to address religious liberty concerns.
RFMA would repeal the Clinton-era Defense of Marriage Act and would require the federal government to recognize any marriage that was “valid in the place where entered into.” The bill would also require every state to recognize every same-sex marriage that “is valid in the State where the marriage was entered into.”
As a report from Slate noted, the bill “does not go as far as Obergefell. In that decision, the Supreme Court directed every state to license same-sex marriages—that is, to issue a marriage certificate to same-sex couples. The RFMA does not codify this component of Obergefell.” According to the report:
So the RFMA does not force Texas to issue a marriage certificate to a same-sex couple. But it does force Texas to recognize a marriage certificate issued to a same-sex couple by New Mexico. In a post-Obergefell world, a same-sex couple in Texas could drive to New Mexico, obtain a certificate, and force Texas to respect their marriage like any other.
The bill does have a “private right of action” clause, which would allow “any person who is harmed by a violation of subsection (b)…[to] bring a civil action in the appropriate district court of the United States against the person who violated such a subsection for declaratory and injunctive relief.” The law would also allow an attorney general to bring civil action against any person who violates the law.
Sens. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ), Susan Collins (R-ME), Rob Portman (R-OH), and Thom Tillis (R-NC) are responsible for the added amendment, entitled “No Impact on Religious Liberty and Conscience.” That amendment states that nothing in the law “shall be construed to diminish or abrogate a religious liberty or conscience protection otherwise available to an individual or organization under the Constitution of the United States or Federal law.” The amendment also states that: Consistent with the First Amendment to the Constitution, nonprofit religious organizations, including churches, mosques, synagogues, temples, nondenominational ministries, interdenominational and ecumenical organizations, mission organizations, faith-based social agencies, religious educational institutions, and nonprofit entities whose principal purpose is the study, practice, or advancement of religion, and any employee of such an organization, shall not be required to provide services, accommodations, advantages, facilities, goods, or privileges for the solemnization or celebration of a marriage.
Any refusal under this subsection to provide such services, accommodations, advantages, facilities, goods, or privileges shall not create any civil claim or cause of action. But religious liberty proponents say the amendment does nothing to shield Americans who have a traditional view of marriage from being targeted under the law. Heritage Action for America Executive Director Jessica Anderson released a statement saying RFMA is an “unnecessary piece of legislation that provides for lawsuits against those who simply hold a different view on marriage.” She continued: It seeks to put the federal government in charge of marriage, wipes out the rights of individuals to act in accordance with their personal beliefs, and discriminates against religious people treating them as bigots under the law. To make matters worse, the Senate is only now considering the bill in a lame-duck period after the American people voted.
Supporters of the legislation have said the expected consideration of a Tillis-Collins-Baldwin amendment would address the religious liberty problems in the original bill — but it would not. It is a messaging exercise that has no teeth, and religious Americans would still be subject to discrimination and targeting under the bill. Any senator who’s serious about religious liberty would be insisting on the inclusion of the Senator Mike Lee’s amendment based on the First Amendment Defense Act, which would actually protect religious liberty. Rather than respecting individuals, this legislation would open them up to persecution, fines, and punishment.
The Heritage Foundation’s Roger Severino wrote that the so-called religious liberty amendment would “provide nothing that is not already guaranteed.” He wrote: And it doesn’t cover areas where forced participation in same-sex celebrations still occur, such as with private bakers, florists, photographers, and other wedding vendors. …The drafters of these amendments are conjuring the illusion of religious freedom while undercutting it at every turn.
Family Research Council President Tony Perkins said the bill “opens the door to American persecution.” He wrote for the Washington Stand: Not only is this language light years more radical than the justices’ ruling seven years ago — cracking down on parents, charities, adoption agencies, teachers, Christian schools, counselors, and Bible-believing professionals — the government would be declaring open season on anyone who believes in marriage as it’s always been: the union of a man and woman.
The advancement of RFMA is yet another instance of Senate Republicans providing the votes needed to pass overreaching Democrat legislation, which includes broad-sweeping bills concerning gun control and infrastructure.
PAM KEY (Nov. 14) Breitbart News
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said Monday on CNN’s “This Morning” that he was meeting with Senat Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) in the wake of midterm election results to convince Republican senators to ditch so-called “MAGA Republicans.”
Co-host Kaitlan Collins said, “Are you going to talk to Mitch McConnell? What does that look like?” Schumer said, “I’m going to say to the Republicans in the Senate who are not the MAGA Republicans, stop letting them lead your party. Work with us to get things done. I intend to sit down with Mitch McConnell and express that.” He continued, “I intend to sit down with him and say we should be working together. You’re not going to get the extremists in your party to work with anybody, but the rest of us can work together and get some real things done for the American people.”
Our Hope
(Nov. 17) CBN News
As Thanksgiving approaches, many American families and children are giving thanks and giving back—to children in need around the world through Operation Christmas Child.
Donors who have been preparing shoebox gifts filled with toys, hygiene items, and school supplies can drop them off now during National Collection Week until Nov 21. More than 4,500 drop-off sites are currently open across the nation.
In a Facebook post, Franklin Graham, the president of Samaritan’s Purse, highlighted the work of Operation Christmas Child, calling each box “a Gospel opportunity—to millions of children around the world.”
Besides giving information about the project, Graham asked his followers, “Would you join us in praying for the children who will be receiving these boxes, that they would come to know just how much God loves them! “
Operation Christmas Child has been collecting and delivering shoebox gifts to children worldwide for nearly three decades. In 2022, the organization hopes to collect enough shoeboxes to reach another 11 million children. This year, Operation Christmas Child expects to deliver its 200 millionth shoebox to a child in Ukraine.
There’s still time for individuals, families, and groups to transform empty shoeboxes into fun gifts. The project of Samaritan’s Purse partners with local churches across the globe to deliver these tangible expressions of God’s love to children in need.
A step-by-step guide is available on the How to Pack a Shoebox webpage. Participants can also find the nearest drop-off location and hours of operation for their shoebox gifts. The online lookup tool is searchable by city or ZIP code. Signs at each location will identify the drop-off.
Founded in 1993, Samaritan’s Purse has collected and distributed more than 198 million shoebox gifts to children in 170 countries and territories, according to the Operation Christmas Child’s website.
(Michael Hernandez, co-founder of the Citizens Journal—Ventura County’s online news service is a former Southern California daily newspaper journalist and religion and news editor. Mr. Hernandez can be contacted at [email protected] and is editor of “America: The End and Our Hope”.)
From jbs.com, 11-19-22
URGENT; ACT NOW: On Monday, November 21, the U.S. Senate will vote on an amendment, sponsored by Sens. Collins and Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), to the pro-LGBTQ “marriage” and misleadingly-titled and “Respect for Marriage Act” (H.R. 8404). Senator Baldwin and Collin’s amendment allegedly protect religious freedom. However, this amendment is very weak and would do nothing to prevent homosexual activists from harassing those who disagree with their extremist views.
Republicans should never compromise on such a blatantly unconstitutional and anti-religious freedom bill. Even with the amendment, it is merely be a first step down the slippery slope toward additional changes that infringe on the First Amendment and promote a radical “LGBTQ” agenda.
On Wednesday, the Senate voted 62-37 to invoke cloture on H.R. 8404, the misleadingly-titled “Respect for Marriage Act.” Twelve Republicans voted with all 50 Democrats to advance the bill! Those senators are:
Because of these 12 Republicans, H.R. 8404 broke the filibuster and can pass with a simple majority!
It is imperative that you contact your U.S. representative and senators in opposition to H.R. 8404/S. 4556, and also urge them to oppose every other bill that is unconstitutional or is antithetical to our constitutional Republic’s values.
STOP THE (DIS)RESPECT FOR MARRIAGE ACT!
Thank you,
Your Friends in The John Birch Society
By WND staff, 11-14-22. This story was originally published by the WND News Center
It is a conflict of interest?
Democrat Katie Hobbs, the party’s candidate to be governor of Arizona, is holding a small lead in the race over Republican Kari Lake as the last few percentages of precincts are counted – a week after the fact of the election.
And as the state’s elections chief as secretary of state, she could be in the position to certify her own election.
Which has raised objections from Lake, who suggested Hobbs should recuse, because of the apparent conflict.
Fox News reported that Lake believes the situation is a “major ethical problem” and that, “Obviously, just the optics of it looks bad.”
Lake said, “We called for her to recuse herself July of last year of 2021, right after we got into the race, recognizing that there’s a major ethical problem there. Obviously, just the optics of it looks bad. And she didn’t do that.
“Even though many people been calling for her to recuse herself, it creates problems to say the least,” Lake continued.
Arizona Republican Kari Lake on Election Night, Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2022. (Video screenshot)
Should Democrat Katie Hobbs recuse herself from certifying her own election?Yes No
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Lake, who has raised repeatedly the issue of election security in the campaign, said, “She will be the one that would certify the election. She has a lot to do with registration, voter registration, all kinds of things … voter rolls and advising counties on how many ballots they’ll need.”
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Lake remained a few thousand votes behind on Monday as more ballot dumps were being reported by the state.
“We have election season here. We start voting about a month before Election Day, and we keep counting after Election Day — forever. And we’re in the process of still counting the votes and there are about 300,000 ballots that have not been counted, this is according to the county recorder,” she said.
An anti-Lake columnist at AZCentral said Lake’s chances “seem more like an illusion.”
The commentary claimed that none of the complaints about computer failures, voting irregularities and more are “sticking.”
The facts remain, however, that during the 2020 presidential election, there were several factors that studies and polling suggest actually took the victory away from President Trump and gave it to Joe Biden.
That’s besides the random state laws and regulations that were violated, or simply ignored, often concerning mail-in ballots, during the voting process.
In that election, one factor was the FBI’s decision to interfere in the vote by telling social media to suppress “Russian disinformation.” However, it was not disinformation, it was accurate reporting about the Biden family’s very odd income coming from enemies of the U.S., including China and Russia. Surveys show had that information been readily available, Biden would not have won.
The other influence was Mark Zuckerberg’s $400 million plus that was handed out to local elections officials, who often used it to recruit voters from Democrat districts.
While those specific campaigns were not repeated for the 2022 midterms, the essence of their agenda was. It’s been learned that government agencies have a backdoor channel to several foundations that would wait for Biden administration officials to tell them want perspectives to suppress online, and the foundations then would complain to social media companies until those views were censored.
Further, Biden issued an executive order for all government agencies to recruit voters – often from Democrat districts – replacing the campaign Zuckerberg launched earlier.
“We have election season here. We start voting about a month before Election Day, and we keep counting after Election Day — forever. And we’re in the process of still counting the votes and there are about 300,000 ballots that have not been counted, this is according to the county recorder,” she said.
An anti-Lake columnist at AZCentral said Lake’s chances “seem more like an illusion.”
The commentary claimed that none of the complaints about computer failures, voting irregularities and more are “sticking.”
The facts remain, however, that during the 2020 presidential election, there were several factors that studies and polling suggest actually took the victory away from President Trump and gave it to Joe Biden.
That’s besides the random state laws and regulations that were violated, or simply ignored, often concerning mail-in ballots, during the voting process.
In that election, one factor was the FBI’s decision to interfere in the vote by telling social media to suppress “Russian disinformation.” However, it was not disinformation, it was accurate reporting about the Biden family’s very odd income coming from enemies of the U.S., including China and Russia. Surveys show had that information been readily available, Biden would not have won.
The other influence was Mark Zuckerberg’s $400 million plus that was handed out to local elections officials, who often used it to recruit voters from Democrat districts.
While those specific campaigns were not repeated for the 2022 midterms, the essence of their agenda was. It’s been learned that government agencies have a backdoor channel to several foundations that would wait for Biden administration officials to tell them want perspectives to suppress online, and the foundations then would complain to social media companies until those views were censored.
Further, Biden issued an executive order for all government agencies to recruit voters – often from Democrat districts – replacing the campaign Zuckerberg launched earlier.
By Paul D. White, 11-18-22
The Washoe County (NV) Library Board of Trustees, along with libraries throughout the US, are making extremely wrong-minded choices to catch the wave of a current trend. They’re deciding that a good way to attract young children to their libraries, is to sponsor read-aloud activities by primarily homosexual men outwardly wearing women’s underwear, prostitute-chic clothing, and garish wigs and makeup. This activity is known as “Drag Queen Story Hour.” Libraries’ decisions to sponsor this activity – while disgusting and pathetic – are understandable.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/all-things-lgbtq/201801/the-psychology-drag
After all, the internet and home computers have made libraries increasingly irrelevant. Today’s kids have no idea why they would even go to a library, any more than they’d visit a horse-and-buggy shop or a barrel maker.
Library sponsorships of these transvestite read-alouds are an act of desperation. Libraries are failing in their efforts to attract significant numbers of young children. The primary customers in many libraries, like downtown Reno’s, have become the homeless, drug addicts and the mentally ill. If they can’t reverse this trend, libraries won’t be able to justify their continued existence.
With a big push from politicized supporters of LGBTQ+, library boards have become convinced that these hyper-sexualized “story hours” are a solution for attracting future library users. They believe it’s a “cool” way to teach young children important lessons about tolerance and diversity. They’re wrong.
The underlying message of drag queen story hours has never been about teaching across-the-board tolerance and diversity. Since its inception in 2015 in San Francisco, the primary focus of this activity has been convincing unsuspecting young children, parents, and communities that the aberrant side of the homosexual lifestyle is normal and harmless. It’s neither one.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drag_Queen_Story_Hour
https://christopherrufo.com/the-real-story-behind-drag-queen-story-hour/
In our nation, homosexuality is a legal lifestyle choice, and rightfully so.
But in teaching young children about homosexuality, is it accurate or honest to imply that it is “normal?” (i.e. “typical” or “usual”)
• Not when it is the chosen lifestyle of only 1-2% of the US population.
https://www.hli.org/resources/prevalence-of-homosexuality-in-the-us/
Is it accurate or honest to send the message to young children that homosexuality is a harmless lifestyle choice?
•Not when the suicide rate for homosexuals is 3-to-14 times higher than that of heterosexuals –
https://www.healthyplace.com/gender/glbt-mental-health/homosexuality-and-suicide-lgbt-suicide-a-serious-issue
• Not when the life expectancy for homosexuals is 8-20+ years less than heterosexuals
https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/yet-another-study-confirms-gay-life-expectancy-20-years-shorter/
• Not when 70% of new HIV infections are found in the 1-2% of the population that is homosexual males.
https://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/michael-w-chapman/cdc-70-new-hiv-infections-gay-men-anal-sex-riskiest-behavior
• Not when homosexuals’ drug/alcohol abuse rate is significantly higher than that of heterosexuals’.
https://www.cdc.gov/msmhealth/substance-abuse.htm
These lethal facts are purposely ignored during drag queen story hours. If this activity is not exposed for the propaganda activity it truly is and discontinued, what will be the next children’s story hour topics sponsored by Left-leaning library boards? The desirability of Abortion and Gun control? The harmlessness of Illegal immigration? The inherently racist nature of all White people? While all of those topics should be impartially and publicly debated by adults, it is an abuse of taxpayer-funded libraries to allow them to become de facto liberal brainwashing centers for children.
Any library that supports the devious misrepresentation of truth that is Drag Queen Story Hours, is betraying the trust parents have historically placed in library-sponsored activities for children. They are dangerously exposing young children to misinformation that could damage them for years to come.
Paul D. White is a lifelong educator, currently living in Reno, Nevada. He’s the co-author of “Saving Our Youth, One Kid at a Time” (Random House), and “Bible Morals for Children – A Parent’s Guide.” He welcomes feedback at [email protected]
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
By Jeff Childers
11-19-22
Good morning, C&C, and welcome to the weekend edition! This morning’s roundup includes: another blockbuster BMJ exposé teaches us a lot more about how the vaccines happened; an FTX roundup: lies, shrinking investor bucks, pandemic connections, chapter 11 news; the last fraudster just got sentenced; and the horrors of global warming strike the Northeast.
🔥 The BMJ, which published last year’s exposé on Pfizer’s slipshod covid subcontractor Ventavia, has done it again. On Wednesday, the British Medical Journal published a new investigative report headlined, “FDA Oversight of Clinical Trials Is ‘Grossly Inadequate,’ Say Experts.”
As we look into the revolting facts, I want you to remember that the FDA ‘charged’ Pfizer and Modern millions and millions of dollars to pay for supervision of clinical trials (in fact, 65% of the FDA’s funding for evaluating drugs comes from “industry user fees”). That money was paid and received. We’ve seen the receipts. Not only that, but the FDA has over 18,000 full time employees, and a three-billion-dollar budget, half (50%) of which is discretionary.
Let’s take a look at what the government accomplished — or didn’t accomplish — with all that sweet pharma money.
I’ll start with the BMJ’s conclusion. According to the Journal’s cited experts, the FDA — not covid — is endangering public health:
The FDA is “endangering public health” by not being candid about violations that are uncovered during clinical trial site inspections… The lack of full transparency and data sharing does not allow physicians and other medical scientists to confirm the data independently and make comprehensive risk-benefit assessments.
Maybe we should lockdown the FDA. For safety.
How is the FDA endangering public health? Here’s the unbelievable part. Right when the covid vaccines were being developed at the unprecedented speed of science, between March and July 2020, when we needed them most, the FDA “paused” all its clinical trial site inspections (except for a small handful of “mission critical” inspections).
If you believe this excuse, the FDA says it paused trial site inspections for — get this — safety reasons.
Safety? What? From covid? It wasn’t like the inspectors were going in to clean Hunter Biden’s old apartment in the Philippines or anything. They would have been going into state-of-the-art vaccine development labs.
Or, NOT going into them, apparently.
The FDA told a BMJ reporter not to worry, it takes oversight of clinical trials seriously. The FDA said it gave investigators a “draft guidance” for how to do remote regulatory assessments. The draft guidance suggests doing regulatory inspections virtually, like over ZOOM.
I’m not making that up.
And I’m not the only one who thinks that is bogus. The BMJ even reported their expert laughed out loud at the idea of zoom inspections. He explained, “You can’t do a remote inspection. That’s like saying I’m going to arrest somebody remotely. You have to be there on site and look at every nuance such as cleanliness, organization, staff coordination—even their body language. During a pandemic, the FDA could’ve put inspectors in hazmat suits if they wanted to, there’s no excuse for not going onsite.”
But WHY didn’t the FDA investigate each and every clinical trial run during Operation Warp Speed to make sure the jabs were ACTUALLY safe and effective?
The BMJ says the FDA’s own documents show that the agency only inspected nine of 153 Pfizer trial sites before approving the mRNA shot. Likewise, the FDA only inspected ten out of 99 Moderna trial sites, and only five out of 73 remdesivir trial sites. So all those millions of dollars the FDA got from the two companies — never mind its billion-dollar discretionary budget — only amounted to 24 site inspections (9 + 10 + 5) — out of 325 total trial sites.
Finally, according to the BMJ, the FDA doesn’t even keep a list of all the clinical investigational sites because, as the agency explained to the BMJ, it would be “resource intensive.” Meaning, gosh, it’s just too much work. So the FDA couldn’t, for example, do a random surprise site inspection, because they wouldn’t even know where to go. They depend on the drugmaker to suggest sites for inspection.
Nothing could go wrong with THAT plan.
🔥 Yesterday, Business Insider ran a story headlined, “A new bankruptcy filing shows the value of FTX’s crypto holdings is just $659,000, after Sam Bankman-Fried said they were worth $5.5 billion.”
That’s not $659 million dollars. That’s $659 THOUSAND dollars. FTX’s entire multibillion dollar crypto “inventory” is worth less than one million dollars — even though FTX’s jittery, polyamorous ‘genius’ just told investors it was worth FIVE BILLION.
But that’s not genius-level math. That’s just garden-variety junkie-level fraud. The truth was, Sam Bankman-Fried wasn’t good at math. He wasn’t good at management. He wasn’t good at finance. He wasn’t even good at League of Legends, as far as we can tell. But he WAS good at speaking ‘virtue,’ since he was born into democrat elite society and grew up hearing the dialect.
• Vox ran a narrative-promoting story Wednesday headlined, “The Impact of Sam Bankman-Fried’s Support for Democrats Is Massively Overstated.” Obviously, it was a PR piece for the democrats, to mislead Vox’s clueless readers into thinking FTX was not, in fact, buried up to its scrawny little neck in democrat politics. But there were a couple interesting nuggets in the story.
The article admitted Sam gave a whopping $36 million to democrats (just for the PRIMARIES), but calls that amount a mere “fraction” of what he COULD HAVE given, since at one point Sam said he actually wanted to give democrats a BILLION dollars. However, given Sam’s inability to differentiate between thousands, millions, and billions, it was probably just Sam being Sam. He didn’t really have a head for numbers.
Anyway, Sam was still the SECOND BIGGEST DONOR to democrats in the primaries.
Vox also pointed out that Sam’s political donations stopped around June, implying — I guess — that Sam had a change of heart, or maybe was only helping out in the primaries or something. But of course, it was more likely that Sam stopped making democrat political donations in June because FTX ran out of other people’s money.
Interestingly, Vox says the majority of Sam’s donations went to the “Protect our Future PAC,” which supported 25 candidates focused on “pandemic preparedness,” which in virtuespeak translates to “lockdowns, mandates, and passports.” Coincidentally, all 25 of the supported “preparedness” candidates were democrats. But Vox suggested that maybe poor, misguided Sam was nobly concerned about protecting people from viruses, rather than grubbily helping democrats by sliding them cash fraudulently catfished from unwitting investors.
I haven’t leaned into this part of the story much, but the public persona they manufactured for Sam Bankman-Fried was that his personal philosophy and life’s goal was “charitable giving,” and the only reason he wanted to be successful in crypto was so he could give away all his personal profits, to less fortunate people. Or something.
It was always a lie, of course, you already know he wasn’t putting on the hair shirt or anything, he actually lived in a drug and sex-soaked luxury penthouse in the Bahamas, mainly funded democrat political objectives, and defrauded over a million innocent investors.
According to a recent article in the Brownstone Institute, Sam even admitted once that his image as a do-gooder was a “dumb game we woke westerners play where we say all the right shibboleths and so everyone likes us.” Nobody cared. It sure didn’t stop corporate media from relying solely on the fake narrative to frame all its FTX stories. In fact, they’re still doing it.
Part of the CIA’s playbook for creating these honeypot cutout characters seems to be giving them some kind of narrative hook. Epstein was the “international mystery man of finance.” Bankman-Fried was the “brainiac nerd devoted to altruism.” These narrative hooks dump truckloads of potential story ideas on compliant corporate media, and more importantly, pre-package a helpful narrative frame for everything that happens — even if things go sideways, like they have now.
You see, Sam always MEANT well. He was just … badly advised. Or unlucky. Plus there weren’t enough regulations. He was just a poor, little rich boy. (Also a white atheist, just like Epstein, but never mind all that.)
These public characters (or caricatures) always seem to actually be weak people who could be easily compromised and controlled, if someone had a notion to control them. Epstein obviously had a refined taste for attractive young girls. Bankman-Fried appears to have been a drug addict with bizarre sexual habits.
Were they chosen BECAUSE OF their susceptibility to being compromised and controlled?
• The Brownstone Institute ran a story yesterday headlined, “The Covid/Crypto Connection: The Grim Saga of FTX and Sam Bankman-Fried.” It’s a deliciously snarky article written by Jeffrey Tucker and I recommend reading the whole thing.
The part I want to focus on is the disclosure of FTX’s peculiar preoccupation with “pandemic planning.” Tucker seems to think it had something to do with the fact that, for some bizarre reason, mandates, lockdowns, and passports became integrated into modern liberal identity.
Tucker calls it “tribal symbolism,” which is amusing, but ultimately insufficient. I call the phenomenon “unhinged virtue signaling,” because some so-called conservatives did it too. So it may involve tribalism, but that’s not the whole answer.
Anyway, here’s the thing. A major anti-ivermectin study called the “Together Trial” was published earlier this year. Corporate media and the alphabet health agencies used the “blockbuster study” as justification for cracking down on “misinformation” about the Nobel-prize-winning drug.
Guess who funded the study that put the nail in ivermectin’s reputational coffin?
You guessed it! FTX.COM and Sam Bankman-Fried, that’s who. And not even with their own money. They used investors’ money to cancel ivermectin.
And it wasn’t only the now-discredited Together Ivermectin Trial. The Washington Post ran an out-of-left-field story Wednesday headlined, “Before FTX Collapse, Founder Poured Millions Into Pandemic Prevention.”
Weird.
A Washington Post review of lobbying disclosures, federal records and other sources found that Sam Bankman-Fried spent at least a staggering $70 million since he started, virtually overnight in October 2021, on research projects, campaign donations and other initiatives intended to “improve biosecurity” and “prevent the next pandemic.”
Meaning, Sam poured money all over “narrative-friendly” scientists and politicians. How’d he get that idea?
On Monday, Sam’s brother Gabriel Bankman-Fried “stepped down” as director of Guarding Against Pandemics, an “advocacy organization” that Gabe founded in July 2020, and which was fully fueled by FTX bucks. Influence Watch described Guarding Against Pandemics as “a left-leaning advocacy group created in 2020 to support legislation that increases government investment in pandemic prevention plans.”
Leftism. Government. Pandemic. Got it?
In fact, according to WaPo, it really seems like the “public health sector” was what was really hardest hit by FTX’s collapse:
The shock waves from FTX’s free fall have rippled across the public health world, where numerous leaders in pandemic-preparedness had received funds from FTX funders or were seeking donations.
Oh no. Science’s cash machine has closed. Ukraine, too.
• On Thursday, John Jay Ray III was appointed the Chapter 11 bankruptcy CEO of FTX and related entities. In his mandatory disclosure filed in the main bankruptcy case on Thursday, Ray described his prior experience managing other high-profile chapter 11 disasters, like Enron.
Ray stated he has over 40 years of experience in managing distressed and fraudulent corporate failures. Remember that: forty years of experience. On the second page of his thirty-page declaration, Ray stated:
Never in my career have I seen such a complete failure of corporate controls and such a complete absence of trustworthy financial information as occurred here. From compromised systems integrity and faulty regulatory oversight abroad, to the concentration of control in the hands of a very small group of inexperienced, unsophisticated and potentially compromised individuals, this situation is unprecedented.
NEVER before in his career. Not in forty years of managing distressed fraudulent companies like Enron. FTX is the worst. And read that last sentence again carefully: “… a very small group of inexperienced, unsophisticated and potentially compromised individuals[.]”
He’s talking about Bankman-Fried and his girlfriends and boyfriends. Ray is saying the same thing we’ve been saying. But he said they were “potentially compromised” … compromised by WHOM?
I’ll continue reviewing the materials filed in the bankruptcy case, and will boil it down for you next week.
🔥 Meanwhile, the last media-propelled fraudster, Elizabeth Holmes of Theranos fame, was sentenced to 11 years in prison this week.
“She was a thoughtful & philanthropic individual who wants to make a difference in the world.” @CoryBooker Woke capitalism allows criminals to evade scrutiny. Even after convicted. Don’t fall for it. foxnews.comCory Booker asks for leniency for Theranos fraudster Elizabeth Holmes: Wants to make world ‘a better place’Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., defended the character of convicted Silicon Valley fraudster Elizabeth Homes in a letter to the judge presidi…5:10 PM ∙ Nov 18, 20221,140Likes247Retweets
Thoughtful, philanthropic, and fraudulent. Just like Sam Bankman-Fried!
🔥 As carbon emissions continue creating an unbearable “hothouse effect” here on planet Earth, the terrifying phenomenon of Global Warming strikes again, leaving countless victims in its wake. The New York area is experiencing a historic “thunder-snowstorm” featuring blizzard-like conditions combined with lightning. They’ve had over five feet of snow as of last night.
5:13 AM ∙ Nov 18, 20226,141Likes1,065Retweets
WeatherGoingWILD @WeatherGoinWILD
7:33 AM ∙ Nov 18, 2022657Likes138Retweets
Holy moly. Heaviest snow bands of ‘crippling’ storm pound Buffalo metro area; 4 feet already reported in Southtowns foxweather.comHistoric snowstorm slams western New York after record 6-plus feet of snow dumped in Buffalo metro areaA long-duration lake-effect snowstorm is underway across western and northern New York, including the cities of Buffalo and Watertown, …8:15 PM ∙ Nov 18, 2022213Likes36Retweets
Floridians look at all this and say: 🤯
By the way, I said “hothouse effect” because that’s more accurate than “greenhouse effect.” A greenhouse is a comfortable, climate-controlled environment that is ideal for growing plants. I never understood why “greenhouse effect” was supposed to be a bad thing. Conditions are usually ideal inside greenhouses.
I must be missing something!
Have a wonderful weekend, and I’ll be back here on Monday to kick the week off right.
C&C is moving the needle and changing minds. If you can, I could use your help getting the truth out and spreading optimism and hope: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/-learn-how-to-get-involved-
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The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
By Dave Scott, 11-18-22
Following his impressive win November 8 Governor Ron DeSantis proclaimed: “Florida is where woke comes to die.” Well, it’s still thrashing around in Fernandina Beach and voters here have an opportunity to drive a stake through its heart December 13.
DeSantis won reelection mainly because he championed traditional American values, particularly parental rights, over the cultural vandalism promoted by local far-left radical activists.
Governor DeSantis’s overwhelming victory by a vast majority of Florida voters made it clear we don’t want our children indoctrinated with toxic theories such as gender ideology. Parents say they, not politicians, unions, or any other outside influence has the final say over the upbringing of their children.
Somehow that message got washed away in Fernandina Beach as the red tide spread across the state.
Local voters can bring this rubbish to an end hereabouts by electing City Commission candidates Darron Ayscue and Dr. James Antun, family-men who strongly believe that bringing up children belongs to parents. They do not feign ignorance about the reality of sex, a biological characteristic from which each person’s humanity is permanent.
Thanks to DeSantis public schools in Florida are forbidden by state law from indoctrinating young children with transgender ideology or attempting to transition children behind their parents’ backs. They cannot treat boys as if they were girls or vice versa when it comes to school sports, bathrooms, or locker rooms.
However, two far-left, extremists and Fernandina Beach City Commission candidates, Mike Lednovich and Genece Minshew (pictured above), are attempting to inflict their twisted and toxic view of human sexuality on local children and have even convinced some naïve and passive community establishments to buy into their perverse garbage. City voters need to pay close attention.
A friend sent me an email yesterday saying: “I Just spoke to four separate Republican voters who live in the city this morning at a funeral. NONE of them knew there was a runoff on Dec 13. “Gee, we didn¹t see anything in the papers,” an indication that local media are ignoring this vital campaign.
“Apparently it is crucial to get out the word as Democrats are counting on the fact we won’t,” said my friend.
This past Tuesday at the City Commission session, leftist Mike Lednovich, the current mayor, issued something called a “Transgender Day of Remembrance Proclamation recognizing November 20, 2022, as Transgender Day of Remembrance to honor the lives of those who might otherwise be forgotten.”
The California transplant and Black Lives Matter enthusiast, Lednovich, presented his proclamation to City Commission Group 5 seat candidate Genece Minshew, Fernandina Beach Pride president, and members of her organization.
What’s next, proclamations honoring “The ‘Funny Uncles’ nobody wants to sit next to at Thanksgiving”, a proclamation honoring “The world’s tallest transgendered dwarf” or one honoring “The altered altar boy”? The possibilities are endless.
Since the mayor sets the agenda for Commission meetings that’s how nonsensical rubbish like this gets on it. Local voters were wise enough to elect Commissioner Bradley Bean the new mayor, so this crap will hopefully come to an end when he picks up the gavel. The next step is to elect Dr. James Antun and Firefighter Darron Ayscue to Commission seats December 13.
A sampling of what Minshew, her organization and Lednovich are promoting ranges from events in the Boys and Girls Club Gym to a session in the Fernandina Beach Middle School gym on Amelia Island inviting folks to “come find your passion, meet with Fernandina Beach Pride…” Oh, there were also “Drag Queen Bingo” and “Drag Queen Brunch” events promoted at the Atlantic Ave. Marriott Courtyard locations on Amelia Island. I’m not making any of this up.
This perverse cultural rot championed by Minshew and Lednovich is seeping into other local organizations. The Nassau County Chamber of Commerce is an example.
Is this what the majority of Fernandina Beach residents want?
The Chamber’s site plugged something called Rainbow Camp saying: “Genece Minshew, President of Fernandina Pride, the organization sponsoring the camp, says that “…this will be an environment where LGBTQIA+ youth can feel safe, celebrated, loved, and valued by each other and our community.” The Chamber site added: “Enrollment is open to young people who have completed 6th grade through those who have completed their junior year of high school.” On the site Minshew said: “This will be a great way to truly celebrate Pride Month – for both our young people and our community leaders.”
The Chamber post says the Rainbow Camp “will offer fun and learning including: LBGTQIA+ history, a Q&A with local LGBTQIA+ adults in successful jobs and careers who will talk about their paths to success, Drag Queens,” and more.
They are taking their message to schools and kid’s venues. Don’t believe me. See for yourself:
https://www.islandchamber.com/blog/fernandina-beach-pride-announces-rainbow-camp
The Chamber has obviously lost its purpose along with its moral compass. This impotent ineffectual organization should stick to what it does best: convince naïve businesses to pay outrageous membership fees in return for a monthly treat of cheap white wine and rubbery cheese cubes.
A couple of area churches are also participating in this garbage including the New Vision Congregational United Church of Christ. The Chamber publicized that event saying, “June 20 to June 24, 2022, Nassau County LGBTQIA+ Youth Can Have Fun and Learn at a Day Camp Designed Just for Them.” It continues adding Fernandina Beach Pride announces a weeklong Day Camp for LGBTQIA+ youth where they can let loose, connect with others, learn, and express themselves. Camp will run from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. and be based at space donated by New Vision Congregational United Church of Christ, located at 96072 Chester Rd in Yulee.”
St. Peter’s Episcopal Church is also involved is hosting the Transgender Day of Remembrance on Nov 20th https://www.facebook.com/events/596872348879753?acontext=%7B%22event_action_history%22%3A.
Minshew has reported to have said many times that she wants to turn Fernandina Beach into a “gay destination,” and it appears that she’s working overtime to that end.
Minshew and Lednovich refused to answer the County Citizens Defending Freedom (CCDF) questionnaire which contained a question asking if they favored promoting Fernandina as a gay vacation destination. All other candidates answered saying “No”.
Here’s the questionnaire that both Lednovich and Minshew refused to answer: Voter Guide for Nassau School Board and Fernandina Council Election- 2022. They also refused to answer all media questions asking why they wouldn’t respond.
To view more of what the Minshew and Lednovich extremists are promoting for area young people and others go to https://www.fernandinabeachpride.com/calendar
Do you want to stop the LG+ team (Lednovich and Genece) from grooming local youth and trying to convince your kids and grandkids that their bizarre way of life is normal? Do you want to stop the attack on Judeo-Christian teachings and traditions and the corruption of local American institutions? If so cast your Commission ballots for the AA team (Antun and Ayscue) on December 13. Mark it on your calendar and tell your friends and neighbors. It’s that important. A vote for the two A’s is a vote to preserve Fernandina.
Do my comments make me homophobic, transphobic, etc.?
I don’t care what the adult LGBTQIA+ crowd thinks and does with each other. However, I don’t want it forced on young people or have them taught that it is normal. Local institutions, schools, parks, and ball fields should not be pressured to treat boys as if they were girls or vice versa when it comes to sports, bathrooms, or locker rooms. I don’t want my taxes used to promote their activities or have the government – local or national – involved in telling children that they can change their sex. They can’t, nobody can, not even through surgeries or chemical castration. That doesn’t have anything to do with gay or transgendered rights. That’s child abuse.
***
Attention Parents: Fernandina parents want reliable and age-appropriate kids’ shows, books, and magazines that teach traditional pro-American and family values – content that parents trust, and children love – that’s not filled with woke agendas.
Do local parents understand that there is a war being waged daily for the minds of their children, from the media, to entertainment, to our schools and politicians?
An example of the garbage being touted for children includes this promotion: “If you’re a drag queen and you know it, let it show by winking, shaking your bum, laughing real big, twirling around, and more!” This promotional material tells kids to join a cast of fabulous drag queens as they sing along to the tune of ‘If You’re Happy and You Know It.’ They say it’s a ‘playful celebration of expressing your brightest and boldest self, a companion to The Hips on the Drag Queen Go Swish, Swish, Swish written by a board member of Drag Queen Story Hour. They say this book is recommended for ages 4-7.’” Good grief!
Drag Queen Story Hours, hyper-sexualized books in children’s libraries, and manipulative social influencers like Lednovich and Minshew contribute to confusing children about their identities. If mom and dad agree that “Enough is Enough” then this election is vital. A vote for family men Dr. James Antun and Darron Ayscue will keep Fernandina Beach on the right track.
***
Speaking of Drag Queens: Most reasonable folks refuse to send their sons and daughters to a drag queen story hour because they don’t want a grown man in lingerie spending time with their kids. But the satirical Babylon Bee posted the following seven reasons drag shows are actually good for your kids:
Well, what are you waiting for? Take your kids to a drag show today, and then please turn yourself in to the local police.
***
Just Wondering: Has eliminating mental hospitals eradicated mental illness? The sidewalks of New York, San Francisco, Atlanta, Philadelphia, etc. clearly demonstrate it hasn’t.
Republished with the author’s permission. Read The Dave Scott Blog– subscribe Free
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
By Ken Timmerman, 11-18-22
| www.kentimmerman.com Friday evening After reports that a Russian missile had slammed into Poland, NATO was gearing up for an Article 5 emergency, and then…. cooler heads called Major Kong back to the cockpit. It now looks like a Ukrainian air defense missile missed its target and strayed into Poland, and that’s it for nuclear war this week. But it shows you just how dangerous the war in Ukraine has become. We are on the razor’s edge with Russia, where the slightest mis-step could send us spiraling to world war. Meanwhile, in Iran the regime has unleashed its killing machine, doubling the number of protesters murdered this past week without a peep from official Washington. One particularly sadistic case, which I recounted briefly on Twitter, has now become iconic art of the 2022 Iranian revolution:After mortally shooting him during a protest, Iranian regime thugs shackled this young man, Khodanor, to a flag pole in Zahedan, Balouchestan. As he lost blood, he asked for a glass of water – they placed one just beyond reach. I support #IranRevolution2022 pic.twitter.com/kosXtBCs2x— KenTimmerman #IranRevolution2022 (@KenTimmerman) November 18, 2022  But this week’s King of Laughs was none other than President Xi of China, who publicly humiliated boy wonder Justin Trudeau at the G-20 summit in Bali for having leaked to the Canadian media what was supposed to have been a private conversation. I talk about these subjects and the return of Donald Trump to presidential politics in my weekly segment on Prophecy Today. As always, you can listen live at 1:05 PM on Saturday on 104.9 FM in the Jacksonville area, and if you miss it, you can get the podcast here. Yours in freedom, Ken |
| Ken Timmerman’s 12th book of non-fiction, AND THE REST IS HISTORY: Tales of Hostages, Arms Dealers, Dirty Tricks, and Spies, is now available from PostHill Press. AND THE REST IS HISTORY can be ordered directly from Amazon by clicking here or by viewing my author’s page, here. – Republican nominee for Congress, Maryland District 8 (2012) – National Security and Foreign Policy Advisory Board, Trump for President 2016 – President & CEO, Foundation for Democracy in Iran, www.iran.org – Nobel Peace Prize nominee, 2006 Cell: 301-675-7922 Follow me on Twitter @kentimmerman #TheElectionHeist Facebook: ken timmerman Reply to: [email protected] Website: kentimmerman.com |
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The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
By Deb Boelkes, 11-18-22
To Citizens Journal Florida Readers – I know at least some of you live in the City of Fernandina Beach so I want to make sure that people in the City of Fernandina Beach are aware there is a run-off election for City Commissioners for Seats 4 and 5 on Tuesday, December 13 (see https://www.fbfl.us/175/Elections for the run-off information). Dave Scott posted an excellent blog on the run-off candidates today—and about the LBGTQ agenda being championed in FB by none other than the Chamber of Commerce.…YIKES! You can read Dave’s post about the candidates and the issues voters really need to take note of at http://www.davescottblog.com/two-fernandina-beach-city-commission-candidates-promote-programs-to-sexualize-children/. (Note who is supporting them and their ideas.)
Now, going back to the subject of FTX and Ryan Salame’s $$$$ support of Congressman-elect Aaron Bean in Congressional District 4, I noticed that yesterday, 11/17, the American Accountability Foundation posted the following:
Curious, I decided to look into the other big money Republican recipients of Salame/FTX funding. Here’s what I found:
Except for the AZ Navy SEAL, all had a background in elected office. Since Sam Bankman-Fried focused mostly on funding Democrats, some of you have asked me if Salame primarily funded RINOs or people he knew could be bought? If you are familiar with any of these other top $$$$ recipients, I’d love to hear what you think.
Keeping on it,
Deb
Deb Boelkes
Founder, Business World Rising, LLC
Keynote Speaker and award-winning Author of:
The WOW Factor Workplace: How to Create a Best Place to Work Culture
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Opinion
By Jeff Childers
11-18-22
And … it’s Friday, C&Cers! Tons of great news that will make your day brighter, your coffee creamier, and your outlook rosier. Stand by for today’s roundup: Lauren Boebert is back; the House Republicans start investigating things, like Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, the DOJ, and January 6th; Hawley roasts Wray; Kari Lake does not concede; Pennsylvania Republicans yank a Soros DA; the missile fragments weren’t even Russian; alarming vital statistics from Australia; government forms an FTX committee to get to the bottom of things; and the Mar-a-Lago raid story is, sadly, dying.
🔥 Fiery Colorado Congresswoman Lauren Boebert has declared victory in what will probably be described as a dramatic come-from-behind story, although it is more likely true it’s a story about more corporate media malfeasance. Her narrow margin of victory requires a recount under Colorado law, but Ms. Boebert says the margin is still big enough to ensure a win, based on historical recount figures.
🔥 The House Republicans are hitting the ground running, going at around 90 mph. Their committees have already begun new investigations. Yesterday, House Oversight Chair James Comer announced his committee will begin investigating Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr.
NEW HOUSE OVERSIGHT CHAIR JAMES COMER: “I want to be clear. This is an investigation of Joe biden”
3:28 PM ∙ Nov 17, 202257,103Likes13,218Retweets
Comer’s committee has already sent letters to the White House demanding documents.
NOW – Republicans announce an investigation into Joe Biden.
3:00 PM ∙ Nov 17, 202272,421Likes16,614Retweets
🔥 Yesterday, the New York Times ran a skeptical article headlined, “Republicans Barely Won the House. Now Can They Run It?” Overall, the article got a B-, but I loved this short paragraph of news:
In a closed-door meeting of Republicans on Monday, right-wing lawmakers including Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia extracted a promise that their leaders would investigate Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the Justice Department for their treatment of defendants jailed in connection with the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
Ronald Brownstein @RonBrownstein
“In a closed-door meeting of Rs on Monday, right wing lawmakers extracted a promise that their leaders would investigate Pelosi and the Justice Department for their treatment of defendants jailed in connection with the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.” nytimes.comRepublicans Barely Won the House. Now Can They Run It?A thin margin, ideological differences and competing pressures could make managing the “people’s House” virtually impossible. But the G…9:53 AM ∙ Nov 17, 2022373Likes188Retweets
Despite having been marginalized both by democrats as well as many in her own party, Marjorie Taylor Greene has been surprisingly effective.
The gist of the story is that the Times is hoping the new Republican Congress will be ineffective. While the New York Times seems terrified by the “loss” of what it calls “pragmatic” Republican lawmakers, this seems like good news to me:
In the past, more government-minded Republicans such as Mr. Upton could be relied upon to step up and supply the votes needed to resolve a crisis. But the ranks of pragmatists have been severely depleted, replaced by lawmakers who would like nothing more than a game of fiscal chicken, no matter the risks to an already shaky economy.
What can I say? One man’s “pragmatist” is another man’s RINO. Here are three examples of what the Times means by pragmatists and non-pragmatists:
When the Senate convenes in January, the G.O.P. ranks will not include Senators Rob Portman of Ohio, Roy Blunt of Missouri or Richard M. Burr of North Carolina — veteran mainstream Republicans upon whom Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the minority leader, could rely to cast difficult votes on must-pass bills. They will be replaced with Senators-elect J.D. Vance of Ohio, Eric Schmitt of Missouri and Ted Budd of North Carolina, each of whom received the enthusiastic endorsement of former President Donald J. Trump.
The Senate newcomers will be joined by, among others, Senator-elect Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma, a congressman who belongs to the ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus, and potentially Herschel Walker of Georgia, another Trump acolyte, should he prevail in the Dec. 6 runoff.
I’ll take the non-pragmatists, no problem.
🔥 Outside the House, yesterday’s highlights included this testy exchange, where Senator Josh Hawley roasted FBI Director Christopher Wray.
Senator @HawleyMO roasts FBI Director Christopher Wray for leaving a statutorily-required committee hearing to go on vacation. Hawley: “So you were going on vacation?” Wray: “I was, yes” https://t.co/RZLlvdoKwN5:48 PM ∙ Nov 17, 20228,413Likes2,673Retweets
🔥 Kari Lake is not conceding, and she’s assembling a legal team to contest the election, what she called “the best and brightest legal team.” I know that she has some smart people helping her, who’ve been working on election integrity since the 2020 elections.
Arizona, we are still in the fight.
2:37 PM ∙ Nov 17, 202269,010Likes15,342Retweets
Prayers for Kari.
🔥 American Greatness ran a story yesterday headlined, “Pennsylvania State House Votes to Impeach Soros-Funded Philadelphia D.A.” On Wednesday, Pennsylvania’s House of Representatives voted to impeach Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner — who’d been primarily backed by Bond-villain billionaire George Soros.
Is it just me, or do all the marxists wear those round-rimmed glasses? Is that really a thing, or am I just imagining it? Also, Krasner — a Soros-funded “equitable justice” liberal — picked (or photoshopped) a very strange background for his twitter bio. Was he trying to say, “I stand up to MAGA?” or something?
Anyway, according to American Greatness, Pennsylvania’s State House (under Republican majority), passed 7 articles of impeachment against Krasner during its final legislative session before Republicans will lose the majority. The marxist district attorney will now face trial in the State Senate — which is also controlled by Republicans.
I suspect Krasner will prosecute his own defense somewhat more enthusiastically than he’s prosecuted criminals in Philadelphia.
Predictably, Krasner’s insane marxist “social justice” philosophies produced neither justice nor a “society.” A committee that investigated Krasner’s deplorable performance reported in October that the rate of homicides in Philadelphia had nearly doubled since Krasner took office; there were 992 homicides during Krasner’s 22 months, compared to the same period before Krasner’s election, which only saw 551 homicides.
I dunno, maybe letting violent criminals back out on the street increases violent crime RATES. Who can say?
State Representative Martina White (R-Penn.) introduced the articles of impeachment, and after the vote said that Krasner’s “dereliction of duty and despicable behavior is unacceptable and cannot be tolerated. No public official is above accountability.”
PA House Republicans 🇺🇸 @PAHouseGOP
9:34 PM ∙ Nov 16, 202219Likes5Retweets
For his part, Krasner didn’t dispute that crime had skyrocketed, but whined that the impeachment articles were passed “without presenting a single shred of evidence connecting our policies to any uptick in crime.” And then — without any evidence of his own — the lily-white DA called his impeachment an act of … racism!
And so another Soros DA bites the dust. Remember: local, local local!
🚀 The developing news on the “Russian Missile Attack on Poland” story is that the alleged missile fragments were never even Russian-made to begin with. They were Ukrainian. So it looks like nobody should have ever accused Russia in the first place.
This Zelensky fellow is a mendacious madman who is going to get us all into World War III unless somebody stops him. If our government has any remaining functional brain cells, if the five final neurons are firing at all, they will pull the plug on the proxy war money counter.
10:38 AM ∙ Nov 17, 202220,173Likes7,102Retweets
🦘 Shocking the experts, who promised people the jabs had no affect on fertility whatsoever — they were perfectly safe and effective — but not surprising many others who predicted this would happen, Australian fertility has fallen off a cliff.
Since 2011, monthly birth figures down under have consistently ranged between 23,000 and 28,000 live births every month, like clockwork. But something started happening in October of 2021. In that month, Ozzie births fell below the recent historical low point, scraping the bottom at around 23,000. That was a drop of almost 10%, a bit troubling.
But then in November the bottom fell out. Births in November 2021 posted at only 18,186 — an amount far below the historic range during 2011-2021. It represented a drop of another 21% under the previous recent record low set in October.
We’re talking about thousands and thousands of Australians that should have been, but will never be born. November was very bad, very alarming.
But then, the numbers got even worse.
The December 2021 figures — just released — clocked in at a minuscule 6,659, which at first seemed like it must have been a mistake. I thought, there’s no way that could be right. The December report was literally one quarter (25%) of the average monthly births during the last ten years — a low figure that is far below anything on record. In other words, a 75% drop in births.
It’s difficult to describe just how profound of a decrease this is. As the chart above shows, Australians are usually very consistent in their um, procreative patterns. To figure out if it was true or not, I dug a little more, and things got even weirder.
The first thing I found was Australian media trumpeting an INCREASE in births.
Again I thought there must be a mistake; I must be missing something. This is just another non-story. But then I found the official Australian records going back to 1975.
Glenn the Census Expert and his corporate media cronies are demonic liars pushing a crooked government narrative. Glenn twisted the truth to conceal what might be the greatest tragedy Australia has ever known.
Here’s how he did it. It turns out that he’s right in that 2021 had a little baby boom in the first quarter, maybe following a period of Ozzie lockdowns. So when you add up all the births for 2021, it comes to slightly (5%) more than the 10-year average. But Glenn sadistically ignored what happened during the last three months of 2021:
I wonder if Glenn was paid to write that article and if so, by whom.
Here’s the thing. December 2021 posted the lowest births for any month since tracking began in 1975. And it’s not even close. The next lowest month after December 2021 that I could find was 17,742 births in November 1978. In the last 68 years, there’s NEVER been a month under 10,000. Never. Even when there were fewer Australians than today.
Just eyeballing previous recent years, December 2021 should have posted around 25,000 births. Instead there were only 6,659, or just 26% of the expected amount.
Something about that number seemed familiar.
Australia also reports that 72% of all citizens (all ages) have received at least three doses of the mRNA jabs. That is a very, very close match with the loss of 74% of births.
In other words, I wonder how many of the 6,659 live births in Australia in 2021 were born to unjabbed mothers. The currently unanswered question is: will this trend continue? Or did births recover in 2022? Australia’s survival as a nation may depend on the answer to that question.
Have a look at the official Australian government numbers for yourself, and tell me if you think I missed something.
🔥 There’s too much FTX news for today’s roundup, so I’ll do that tomorrow. But the government is ON TOP of things. They’ve created a committee to figure out what happened, and you know they mean business, because the new committee will be chaired by intellectual lightweight Maxine Waters.
🔥 Finally, it appears the Mar-a-Lago raid story is dying a sad, lonely death. The Washington Post ran a narrative-resetting story earlier this week headlined, “Investigators See Ego, Not Money, as Trump’s Motive on Classified Papers.” The sub-headline explained, “A review by agents and prosecutors found no discernible business interest in the Mar-a-Lago documents, people familiar with the matter said.”
Uh-oh!
The story reported that FBI investigators have not found any of the U.S.’s nuclear secrets among the classified documents seized from Trump’s home in South Florida, or anything else that shows criminal intent. Nor have the witnesses interviewed by the FBI turned up anything useful:
FBI interviews with witnesses so far, they said, also do not point to any nefarious effort by Trump to leverage, sell or use the government secrets. Instead, the former president seemed motivated by a more basic desire not to give up what he believed was his property, these people said.
It’s weird how this story is starting to go away, now that we’re past the elections, isn’t it? Probably just a coincidence!
Have a fabulous Friday, and I’ll see you back here in the morning for what is shaping up to be a jam-packed weekend edition.
C&C is moving the needle and changing minds. If you can, I could use your help getting the truth out and spreading optimism and hope: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/-learn-how-to-get-involved-
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The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
By Kevin Harris, 11-18-22
Nassau County voters narrowly approved a school district referendum enacting a 4-year
property tax during the November 8 midterm election, to largely benefit the county’s
statistically underpaid teachers. The funds will also be applied toward school arts,
athletics and safety/security. While paying local teachers more could go a long way
toward increasing retention, some feel the pay raise could have been provided without
the added tax on homeowners.
The referendum needed just 50 percent plus one vote to pass, and according to the
county’s Supervisor of Elections website, it passed with a 53% – 47% margin… a close
spread considering the conservative leaning county demographics.
“I know some very conservative people who were for the tax, because they felt that the
absolute need to increase teachers’ salaries outweighed other considerations,” Richard
Lamken, Interim Schools Lead for Nassau County’s County Citizens Defending
Freedom (CCDF), told Citizens Journal. Lamken, however, opposes the referendum.
“People like me were against it primarily because I believe there is money to be
apportioned for salaries that is not being used wisely,” he said. “The district has refused
a citizens’ oversight committee to be constituted… they’re not all that transparent,” he
added.
The tax that voters approved, specifically, is a 1 mill property tax increase for
homeowners. It equates to $1 per $1,000 of a home’s assessed value, minus a $25,000
Homestead Exemption. So a $400,000 home will generate a new tax of $375 per year for a estimated total of nearly $14 million annually.
According to the Nassau County School District, funds will be applied as follows:
70% – Teacher/Support Personnel Salaries
9% – Arts
9% – Athletics
12% – Intervention & Safety
The tax is one possible solution to a problem that most people agree exists. “Hardly
anyone disputes that the local teachers are underpaid,” Citizens Journal Publisher
George Miller said. “In fact, the turnover rate here is amazing,” he added, referring to
the comparatively very low retention rate for local teachers. According to the county’s
school district website, half of the teachers have been teaching in their school for less
than three years. That’s about double the statewide average.
To explain the low retention rate of local teachers, Nassau is 40th out of 67 Florida
counties when it comes to teacher salaries, and Florida is 48th out of 50 states for
overall teachers’ salaries.
Echoing Lamken’s sentiments, however, Miller also voiced his opposition to the new tax.
“A lot of people think that with a quarter of a billion dollar budget ($258 million) for only
12 thousand students, that they could find the money for the teachers’ increase by some
other method than raising taxes still further,” he said. Miller also added two other
important perspectives to the debate; that taxes have de facto gone up every year
already due to the rapid appreciation of local real estate values, and that the new tax
represents a significant increase of the school tax portion of the county tax.
So with a seemingly healthy budget even before the new tax (simple number crunching
rings up $21,500 per student), why are county teachers being paid as little as they are?
Lamken has been trying to uncover the budget mysteries of Nassau County for some
time, with little success so far.
“Why was last year’s budget $7000, and this year’s
budget $75,000, for the same line item?,” he asked. They apparently told him, a former
Superintendent of Schools in California, that it was a “place holder,” and they had no
supporting documents to explain their unexplained budget increases.
Read full text of Nassau County School Board Millage Resolution
Previous article: https://www.citizensjournal.net/nassau-school-district-budget-process-post-mortem-and-observations/
Kevin Harris is a reporter, editor and journalist, previous President of Cal State
Northridge’s Society of Professional Journalists, having worked for the LA Times and
Newhall Signal. He is now also a musician and videographer, and splits his time living
outside of Salt Lake City, Ventura County, CA, and South Florida.
By Bob Unruh– WND News Center November 17, 2022 at 3:49pm
Joe Biden repeatedly has called for more and more gun control, but has accomplished relatively little, with only a modest gun reform plan, since he’s been in office.
One area where he’s having literally no impact is on the issue of concealed carry permits.
That’s according to a report from Washington Examiner columnist Paul Bedard.
He reported, “A new and authoritative report put the number of permits held by Americans at 22.01 million. That number was a 2.3% surge over last year, according to John Lott’s Crime Prevention Research Center.”
TRENDING: Even many Dems have had enough of Joe Biden’s COVID ’emergency’
Bedard reported it was the first such report on the issue since the Supreme Court overturned New York’s plan that it would issue concealed handgun permits if it wanted to.
And nearly half the states allow citizens to carry guns with them without any permits required at all, the report said.
“As more and more states decide not to require permits, the number of people who can legally carry a handgun will increasingly outpace the number of permit holders. The number of people who carry permitted concealed handguns is clearly related to the cost of getting permission. When there is no cost whatsoever, concealed carry becomes very popular,” the report, obtained by Bedard, explained.
About 8.5% of American adults have a carry permit, he said.
Alabama, Indiana and Georgia have the biggest concentration of permits, with holders at 32.5%, 23.4% and 15.5%.
Multiple states including Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Pennsylvania, Indiana have more than one million permit holders and Florida leads the list with 2.57 million.
Bob Unruh joined WND in 2006 after nearly three decades with the Associated Press, as well as several Upper Midwest newspapers, where he covered everything from legislative battles and sports to tornadoes and homicidal survivalists. He is also a photographer whose scenic work has been used commercially.
By Jeff Childers
11-17-22
Good morning, C&C, it’s Thursday! Your roundup today includes: McConnell re-elected to Senate leadership over Rick Scott, but McCarthy may have a real challenge being re-elected Speaker; OpenSecrets surprises with the FTX donee list; the Times is hosting a swanky dinner with political celebrities and you’ll never guess who all is coming; a bad narrative shift for Ukraine, now that the FTX honeypot is closed for business; the entire world has accused Zelensky of lying about killing those poor farmers; Biden wants MORE money for Russia; a jab-happy Dutch politician is falling apart after jabs; German court orders new elections in Berlin after voting problems; Senate votes to end state of emergency; digital currency trials begin; and Governor DeSantis calls for chilling out.
🪖 A Public Service Announcement. Children’s Health Defense is advocating for vaccine-injured folks to file worker’s compensation claims, if they took the shot under an employer mandate. It is a much shorter and easier path to getting financial help than trying to navigate the byzantine bureaucracy of the various government vaccine compensation programs.
Here’s a link where CHD explains the process and how to get help filing a claim. If you know somehow who might benefit, forward this link on to them. https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/workers-compensation-covid-vaccine-injury-victims/
🔥 Republicans have officially regained control of the House — by a slender margin of THREE seats. Notably, Governor DeSantis shepherded a newly-drawn Congressional Map that saw FOUR seats flipped in Florida. So.
🔥 Fox ran a story yesterday headlined, “McConnell Emerges From Senate Leadership Vote With Broad GOP Backing: ‘Not Going Anywhere’.”
I’ve always been conflicted over McConnell. On the positive side of the ledger, he heroically approved a record number of judges, judges that have been critical in reversing the pandemic’s excesses. He also stopped Merrick Garland from being appointed to the Supreme Court — what a disaster THAT would have been — and paved the way for Trump to complete three Supreme Court appointments, which then led to Roe v. Wade being overturned.
On the other hand, a lot of folks can’t stand Mitch, for solid reasons.
Florida Senator Rick Scott challenged McConnell for the job, but ultimately lost 37-10 against. Some senators expressed hope that the ten votes against him would push McConnell toward the right. We’ll see.
Over on the other side of Congress, according to The Hill, there may actually be a legit competition for Speaker of the new Republican-controlled House:
I’ll just be happy to see Pelosi gone. I feel like that day, when it comes, hopefully soon, deserves some kind of celebration.
🔥 OpenSecrets.org has published the list of recipients of FTX.COM’s political donations. Here are the top ten:
There are many, many more; again, this is just the top ten. Seven of the top ten were democrat PACs or groups. Three were conservative — but at this point I would suggest a degree of healthy skepticism toward all ‘conservative’ organizations that FTX thought could use some money.
For example, the top “conservative” organization which got $15 million from FTX, American Dream Federal Action, has a super sketchy website that includes “pandemic preparedness” and “biosecurity solutions” as top goals. And it doesn’t seem be actually, well, DOING anything.
So it’s worrisome that the second two largest conservative recipients of FTX’s stolen money were the Republican Congressional Leadership Fund and the Republican Senate Leadership Fund, at $3 million and $2.75 million each. They clocked in at slots six and seven in the top ten.
So, first of all, don’t expect a rigorous investigation of FTX anytime soon. Corporate media is still describing meth-addicted hedonist Sam Bankman-Fried as a delicate, altruistic genius who was ground to hamburger in the devilishly-unregulated crypto market. Never mind about all those trusting folks who credulously handed Sam their money. After all, he MEANT well, which is all that matters.
In what may turn out to be the most hilariously ironic self-own of all time, FTX ran a series of commercials featuring Larry David ‘irrationally’ acting skeptical of FTX’s promises of safety and security.
Larry David predicted FTX’s demise in a commercial for FTX
He’s never wrong!
🔥 “One of these things is just like the others…” You can’t make this stuff up. The Gray Lady, the New York Times, the paper that reports “all the news fit to print,” planned a swanky $2,400-a-plate dinner with four political-celebrity speakers.
A new C&C contest is on! What do all four of these speakers have in common? Put your answers in the comments.
Given the conflicting messaging about FTX, the Times is paralyzed, unable to decide what to do about its lineup. Bankman-Fried remains, right up this morning, first in line on the VIP speaker’s list for the event.
Somebody at the CIA needs to give the Times its new marching orders, because this just looks ridiculous. Nobody even knows where Bankman-Fried is, and if you think he’s coming back to the U.S. to give a talk in two weeks, you’re crazy.
🚀 Uh-oh. More bad news for Ukraine. I smell a narrative shift in the wind. Check out this next headline, reproduced in the original, telegraphing some media psyop sleight-of-hand happening here. Keep your eye on the shell with the pea under it.
That headline came courtesy of the UK Telegraph, which itself was based on a Reuters article widely republished all over corporate media. According to the article, General Milley said, “The probability of a Ukrainian military victory – defined as kicking the Russians out of all of Ukraine to include what they claim as Crimea – the probability of that happening anytime soon is not high, militarily.”
Ouch.
Milley just told the world the Ukrainians aren’t going to win the war on the ground and may not even get their land back. Sure, he said not “anytime soon,” but what he meant was, “unless something big changes.” And Milley doesn’t know what that big thing could be, or he’d have mentioned it.
It’s a funny old world, isn’t it? Because corporate media (and hopeful Ukraine supporters) have been PROMISING for MONTHS AND MONTHS that Ukraine is poised on the very verge of victory, just about — any second now — to give the Russians the special Ukrainian treatment and teach them a lesson they won’t soon forget.
So, who’s lying? Corporate media? Zelensky? Ukraine’s Twitter bots? Or the U.S.’s top general? Or all of them?
Anyway. I’m wondering whether this well-timed narrative shift might have anything to do with the fact that the FTX Laundry Corporation has shut down all its Ukrainian washing machines? I’m just asking. Don’t cancel me.
🚀 Uh-oh! Even MORE bad news for Ukraine. And speaking of lying, here’s Ukraine’s infamously bellicose top military commander, Vladimir Zelensky (however you spell his name), all but pounding the table, and angrily insisting the two murdered Poles, Bogdan Ciupek, 60, and Bogusaw Wos, 62, were blown to bits by missiles launched by those sneaky, nefarious Russians. And definitely NOT blown to bits by Ukraine missiles. No way.
Russia immediately denied the missiles were theirs. Period.
After an investigation, NATO’s Jan Stoltenberg told reporters, “Our preliminary analysis suggests that the incident was likely caused by Ukrainian air defence missiles fired to defend Ukrainian territory against Russian cruise missile attacks.” Stoltenberg emphasized NATO had “no evidence it was launched by Russia.”
Furthermore, U.S. National Security Council spokeslady Adrienne Watson said, “We have seen nothing that contradicts [the] preliminary assessment that this explosion was most likely the result of a Ukrainian air defense missile that unfortunately landed in Poland.”
Weird.
Reuters quoted an anonymous Kiev-based diplomat from a NATO country who expressly accused Zelensky of lying, saying, “This is getting ridiculous. The Ukrainians are destroying [our] confidence in them. Nobody is blaming Ukraine and they are openly lying. This is more destructive than the missile.”
Not that it means a whole lot but, according to the Jerusalem Post, even Joe Biden said the missiles were Ukrainian. Not Russian.
My goodness. We have a bit of a pickle here. Who should we believe? The freedom-fighting president of Ukraine? Or NATO, Russia, the National Security Council, and diplomats in Kiev? Oh, or that mumbly guy?
You know the answer. And if we had an honest media, they’d be asking why we should trust ANYTHING Zelensky says. He needs to own up to killing those Polish farmers and use some of that sweet, sweet aid money to compensate their families.
Editor’s note: I regret that my disgust at all the official deception surrounding the Ukrainian proxy war makes it look like I enjoy reporting bad news for Ukraine. That’s not true. If I thought there were any way to help the hapless Ukrainian people at this point, I’d be all for it. I won’t lie for them. And, excluding the nazis, of course, along with anyone who’s participated in grafting the taxpayers of the United States, or helped with the biolabs. I suspect there’s been a whole lot of all that going on, and now innocent Ukrainians are paying the bill.
🔥 On Tuesday, Biden asked Congress to approve ANOTHER $38 billion dollars for Ukraine, because Russia!
How I pray the new Republican House will deny this bloodstained, fraudulent appropriation. I’m prepared to be disappointed, but I am praying.
💉 Jab-championeering Dutch politician Nilufer Gündogan somehow caught Bells’ Palsy, which I’ve heard is really going around these days. She probably should have worn her mask harder, or maybe with more layers or something.
Ms. Gündogan blames “stress” for her sudden and unexpected disease.
In fairness, she has reason to be stressed. Gündogan is a politically liberal atheist with a high school degree, having not completed college. Her husband, Bas Vogels, killed himself in 2017 through the Netherlands’ voluntary euthanasia program after being diagnosed with colorectal cancer. At they time, they had a six-month-old baby.
But, recently her behavior has become increasingly erratic. Ms. Gündogan was suspended from her position as an MP earlier this year after THIRTEEN different people — men, women, and a 17-year-old girl — accused her of sexual harassment, including groping and explicit propositions for sex. In her defense, Ms. Gündogan alleged that she is a “touchy-feely person” and she sometimes drinks too much at parties: “so shoot me.”
I dunno. It sounds maybe more like her Bells’ Palsy features some awkward neurological symptoms. As an aggressive cheerleader for jabs, mandates, and passports, we can safely assume she’s fully jabbed up. And Bells’ is a known side effect of the jabs.
People, this is SO obvious. Do I really have to spell it out for you? What we are looking at here in Ms. Gündogan’s case is yet another tragic example of the horrors of CLIMATE CHANGE.
🔥 After widespread voting problems in 2021, including long lines at polling stations, polling stations that ran out of ballots, and delays causing voters to have to wait until after closing to vote, yesterday Germany’s State Constitutional Court ordered Berlin to hold brand new elections within 90 days.
Germany doesn’t use electronic machines for voting. In fact, Germany’s electoral rules are pretty tight:
— paper ballots only
— mail-in ballots allowed only on request
— photo-id (passport or ID card) required to vote
— ballots are hand-counted
— the results are known on election night
So.
🔥 The Wall Street Journal ran a story yesterday headlined, “Senate Votes to End Covid-19 Emergency Declaration.”
Over a dozen Democrats joined with Republicans in the Senate yesterday in a majority vote to end the National Covid Emergency declaration first adopted in 2020. The vote was largely symbolic, since the White House has promised that Biden will veto the legislation.
Biden recently extended the state of emergency until next year, 2023.
Well, you have to start somewhere. If we had an honest media in this country, reporters would be constantly hammering away at the press secretary about why the state of emergency continues given that the “will of the people” want it to end. But, you know.
🔥 Crypto magazine ‘Watcher.Guru’ ran a story yesterday headlined, “Global Banks Partner With New York Fed for 12-Week Digital Dollar Pilot.”
Um, no thanks.
The New York Fed explained, “The project, which is called the regulated liability network, will be conducted in a test environment and use simulated data.” The goal is to see if the banks can use “a central bank digital dollar to speed up settlement time in currency markets.”
That’s the most fraudulent explanation I’ve ever heard. As a lawyer who has helped countless clients with wire fraud problems, the LAST thing we need is FASTER settlement times. It’s already TOO fast.
We all know why they want digital currency, and it has nothing to do with helping us with faster transactions.
🔥 Yesterday, a a reporter asked Governor DeSantis about whether he was now involved in a Republican “civil war.” DeSantis immediately squashed it. He said, “We just finished this election, ok? People just need to chill out a little bit on some of this stuff, I mean seriously […] We have this Georgia runoff coming, which is very important for Republicans to win.”
That is excellent advice and politically savvy. The democrats would like nothing better than to spark a GOP civil war, and distract us from Georgia and Arizona. So conservatives should just chill out a little bit, and focus on what’s truly important.
Have a terrific Thursday! I’ll see you back here tomorrow morning, to cap off the work week.
C&C is moving the needle and changing minds. If you can, I could use your help getting the truth out and spreading optimism and hope: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/-learn-how-to-get-involved-
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The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
By Deb Boelkes, 11-16-22
To We the People – In case you haven’t seen it, investigative journalist-par excellence, Kanekoa the Great, took a deep dive into thousands of Chinese government-deleted webpages to determine the truth about election software company’s Konnech’s connection to China. Once you see his latest article, you’ll quickly realize Konnech is way more connected to China than they are to the US!
Kanekoa’s article is a VERY long read, but it’s chock full of exhibits and other detailed evidence, including details from a 2019 US Senate report titled Threats to the U.S. Research Enterprise: China’s Talent Recruitment Plans which explains how China’s 200+ overseas talent recruitment plans—the most prominent of which is the Thousand Talents Plan—has contributed to China’s global rise over the last 20 years.
The article also includes analysis by the FBI which found that between 2008 and 2020, China invested more than $2 trillion into human resources as part of a “whole-of-government campaign to recruit talent and foreign experts from around the world.”
Believe me, the more you read, the more astounded you will be that the LA County District Attorney dropped the criminal charges against Konnech’s CEO, Eugene Yu (for illegally sending sensitive data about US poll workers to China). It’s even more infuriating knowing that Catherine Engelbrecht and Greg Phillips (True the Vote) were jailed on October 31—for nearly a week—because they refused to name their sources in the civil proceeding concerning Konnech’s alleged breach of contract (for storing US poll worker data in China).
I dare say you won’t find a more informative article on the subject: https://open.substack.com/pub/kanekoa/p/how-the-chinese-academy-of-sciences?r=5e8ks&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email
The good news is, now that Catherine and Gregg are out of jail, they have filed a response to their suit, so it’s far from over. Hopefully, jurisdictions beyond LA (like Hillsborough County, FL, St. Louis, Detroit, and others) using Konnech’s election management software will be willing to take further action, especially since some use Konnech for UOCAVA ballots (Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act), and everything from election worker HR to Inventory management. Alleghany county PA even uses Konnech to manage the voter rolls.
Speaking of Catherine Englebrecht and Gregg Phillips, they are right back at it, doing all they can to prevent the kind of elections we’ve been experiencing for the past two years from becoming “normal.” Their most recent ½ hour podcast this week was broadcast from Phoenix where they are working diligently with Kari Lake to do whatever they legally can to get to a fair and transparent voting process in AZ. https://truethevote.locals.com/post/3041988/livestream-what-happened-whats-next
The good news is that they claim, “Arizona is far from over. So is Nevada.” They are now trying to understand just what went wrong. They are also moving quickly to stop AZ from certifying the election. What they have seen so far proves the AZ election process is very flawed and broken, especially the chain of custody process (“It’s totally muddled”) and electronic adjudication (“One of the messiest adjudication processes we’ve ever seen”).
For example, if a voter writes-in anything in on the ballot, the scanner kicks the ballot out for adjudication…then whoever does the adjudication can decide whether or not to accept anything on the ballot.
Likewise, if the scanner’s drawer #3 fills up too quickly (because the scanner wouldn’t accept the ballots)…they don’t know if any of those ballots ever get counted at all. Catherine and Gregg claim Katie Hobbs—currently the Secretary of State who is responsible for the entire process—has been totally silent about all of it.
It’s time we all stand up and demand action to STOP THE CORRUPTION!
Deb
Deb Boelkes
Founder, Business World Rising, LLC
Keynote Speaker and award-winning Author of:
Women on Top: What’s Keeping You From Executive Leadership?
The WOW Factor Workplace: How to Create a Best Place to Work Culture
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Office: 904-310-9602
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FYI:
https://www.google.com/search?q=konnech+china+connection+servers+elections
By George Miller
So-called “MainStream” Media are soft-pedaling the House’s Orwellian-named “Respect for Marriage” Act (HR 8404), which could soon come to a final Senate vote and likely Biden approval without being much-vetted by the public or even some of our representatives. In fact, the Senate just voted 62- 37 to clear cloture, meaning that it will go to a final Senate vote and likely pass. 12 Republicans also voted for this radical bill, which repeals a previous law defining marriage as between a man and a woman.
It was sold as an “equality” bill to “protect rights.” It would do some of that but treads heavily upon others’ rights. The bill greatly overreaches in several areas:
Per the Daily Signal, twelve Republicans voted for advancing the legislation: Sens. Roy Blunt of Missouri, Richard Burr of North Carolina, Shelley Capito of West Virginia, Susan Collins of Maine, Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming, Rob Portman of Ohio, Mitt Romney of Utah, Dan Sullivan of Alaska, Thom Tillis of North Carolina, Joni Ernst of Iowa, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, and Todd Young of Indiana.
Speak out NOW if you oppose this bill.
This was already passed by the House (267-157) by a huge margin back in July with little fanfare and little challenge (read congress.gov section, below)…
Respect for Marriage Act
This bill provides statutory authority for same-sex and interracial marriages.
Specifically, the bill repeals and replaces provisions that define, for purposes of federal law, marriage as between a man and a woman and spouse as a person of the opposite sex with provisions that recognize any marriage that is valid under state law. (The Supreme Court held that the current provisions were unconstitutional in United States v. Windsor in 2013.)
The bill also repeals and replaces provisions that do not require states to recognize same-sex marriages from other states with provisions that prohibit the denial of full faith and credit or any right or claim relating to out-of-state marriages on the basis of sex, race, ethnicity, or national origin. (The Supreme Court held that state laws barring same-sex marriages were unconstitutional in Obergefell v. Hodges in 2015; the Court held that state laws barring interracial marriages were unconstitutional in Loving v. Virginia in 1967.) The bill allows the Department of Justice to bring a civil action and establishes a private right of action for violations.
Respect for Marriage Act
This bill provides statutory authority for same-sex and interracial marriages.
Specifically, the bill repeals and replaces provisions that define, for purposes of federal law, marriage as between a man and a woman and spouse as a person of the opposite sex with provisions that recognize any marriage that is valid under state law. (The Supreme Court held that the current provisions were unconstitutional in United States v. Windsor in 2013.)
The bill also repeals and replaces provisions that do not require states to recognize same-sex marriages from other states with provisions that prohibit the denial of full faith and credit or any right or claim relating to out-of-state marriages on the basis of sex, race, ethnicity, or national origin. (The Supreme Court held that state laws barring same-sex marriages were unconstitutional in Obergefell v. Hodges in 2015; the Court held that state laws barring interracial marriages were unconstitutional in Loving v. Virginia in 1967.) The bill allows the Department of Justice to bring a civil action and establishes a private right of action for violations.
Watch House debate on this bill:
House Debate on Marriage Equality Bill | C-SPAN.org
https://www.c-span.org/video/?521803-1/house-votes-267-157-codify-marry-sexual-orientation
Relevant articles:
https://washingtonstand.com/commentary/senate-marriage-bill-declares-war–on-american-parents
https://www.google.com/search?q=respect+for+marriage+act
George Miller is Publisher and Co-Founder of Citizens Journal Florida, based in Fernandina Beach. He is a “retired” operations management consultant, software and publishing executive and manufacturing management professional.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
By Michal Hernandez, 11-9-22
This letter appeared in The Epoch Times The Readers’ Turn section last week
Letter to the editor:
The Schools Are on Fire; Time to Get the Children Out
The system is destroying American children and the nation itself.
It cannot be reformed. Instead, it should be abandoned.
By Alex Newman
Alex Newman’s opinion column printed in The Epoch Times (Oct. 26-Nov. 1 edition) is full of wisdom that I urge all parents of public school children to follow.
I love his analogy of the burning school building. Would you let your children stay “trapped inside” or would you rush to the school site and pull them out yourself—not even relying on others?
As a former school teacher in one of the largest school districts in the nation—Los Angeles Unified School District—I would never let my own children attend public school today or encourage a young adult seeking a career to become a public school educator.
The public school unions responsible for encouraging our schools to close down during the pandemic—negatively impacting the futures of our children—are corrupt and have been taken over by not just a socialist agenda but by a communist agenda (read Rebecca Friedrichs; a 30-year elementary school educator’s 2018 book on “Standing Up to Goliath: Battling State and National Teachers’ Unions for the Heart and Soul of Our Kids and Country”).
Alex Newman states: “Consider: The government’s own data show less than a third of its child victims are proficient in any core subject, based on the government’s own absurdly dumbed-down “standards.”
As the son of two former public school educators—I use to believe that the public schools could be reformed. Not anymore! Government schools are not about teaching the core subjects but about pushing an ideological brainwashing agenda that eagerly welcomes your own children for that purpose.
My witnessing the gay, abortion, transgender “woke” agenda led me to engage with the https://www.publicschoolexit.com/ website that has helped thousands of parents with resources and assistance in making the decision to exit public schools.
Newman is correct when he says: “For decades, conservatives have squandered millions of dollars on ‘public-school reform.’ For almost two years, conservatives have been showing up at school board meetings to complain. Countless great teachers have tried everything to protect their students. And yet, nothing works.”
Newman is correct when he states: “Government schools aren’t ‘broken,’ as commonly argued by conservatives. Rather, they’re working very well as their intended purpose: fundamentally transforming America by dumbing down, indoctrinating, sexualizing collectivizing, and weaponizing future generations.”
I, like Rebecca Friedrichs, initially tried to reform the public school that I worked at. I created a non-profit to tutor public school students. I sponsored a Bible club. But none of these efforts seemed to make a difference!
Newman is correct when he concludes: “It’s time to stop playing a rigged game on the education establishment’s battlefield using its rules. American parents should flee the system and build parallel institutions like their country and their liberty depend on it—because they do.”
By Michael Hernandez
Former LAUSD middle school teacher
(Michael Hernandez, co-founder of the Citizens Journal—Ventura County’s online news service is a former Southern California daily newspaper journalist and religion and news editor. Mr. Hernandez can be contacted at [email protected] and is editor of “America: The End and Our Hope”.)
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
By Jeff Childers
1-16-22
Good morning, C&C, it’s Wednesday — already! Lots of good news in your roundup today, which includes: Texas’s biggest, boldest, most underreported move; Texas starts criminal elections investigations; Republicans take the House of Representatives; Real Housewife thinks jabs made her sick; more celebrity SADS; corporate media’s evolving hot takes on what looks like Ukraine’s attack on Poland; Trump’s announcement; and a couple FTX updates.
🔥 Ostrich-like corporate media completely ignored what was probably the most important story of the day yesterday. I could only find articles about it in rightwing media and Fox. Corporate media haven’t yet received their orders on what the narrative is supposed to be, so they aren’t allowed to talk about it.
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Sometime back in 2020, corporate media outsourced all critical thinking to save money.
The news was, Texas Governor Abbott finally gave in to the mounting pressure and issued a detailed executive order declaring the border situation an “invasion,” which is a special category of emergency under the Texas Constitution, and which allows the Governor to deploy the National Guard and the Texas Rangers in force. He also declared the cartels are foreign terrorist organizations in Texas, and he ordered more border wall building.
4:21 PM ∙ Nov 15, 202283,324Likes15,471Retweets
There’s an interesting provision in Abbott’s order directing coordination with other affected states. I wonder if Abbott means Florida, with whom Texas has been working lately.
Abbott also raised the stakes with the Biden Administration. By declaring a “state of invasion,” he invoked Article IV, Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution, which provides the U.S. “shall guarantee every state in this Union a republican form of government and shall protect each of them against invasion.”
Now Texas can sue the federal government for, at least, reimbursement for the cost of border enforcement. Sure, the Biden Administration COULD defend a lawsuit by arguing that there isn’t “really” an invasion, it’s not THAT bad, and so forth. But the lawsuits will start in the Fifth Circuit, which is a jurisdiction favorable to Texas that has shown a lively independent streak over the last two years.
Assuming Texas is successful, migrants will be pushed away from Texas toward blue states like New Mexico, Arizona, and California. Maybe those liberal states will enjoy the new visitors as much as the liberals on Martha’s Vineyard did.
🔥 Also underreported was Governor Abbott’s order to commence a criminal investigation into last week’s elections in Harris County, which was plagued by malfunctioning voting machines, randomly-closing polling locations, and many other reported problems.
Governor Abbott told reporters, “I’m calling on the Secretary of State, the Attorney General’s Office, and the Texas Rangers to initiate investigations into allegations of improprieties in the way that the 2022 elections were conducted in Harris County.”
He continued, “The allegations of election improprieties in our state’s largest county may result from anything ranging from malfeasance to blatant criminal conduct. Voters in Harris County deserve to know what happened. Integrity in the election process is essential. To achieve that standard, a thorough investigation is warranted.”
📈 More great news. California Republican congressional candidate Kevin Kiley (CA-3) was declared the winner of his race yesterday, which secured GOP control of the House of Representatives.
The race has just been called in our favor. This secures a Republican Majority in the House of Representatives.11:43 PM ∙ Nov 15, 202231,438Likes4,202Retweets
I’m think it’s encouraging that the winning member came from California. It proves voting still matters, everywhere.
And, in even more good news, it looks like Republicans aren’t wasting time. Breitbart reporter Ashley Oliver tweeted yesterday that Covid Accountability meetings are already underway.
Currently quite a crew meeting in Jim Jordan’s office: Rand Paul, Grassley, Ron Johnson, Roger Marshall, and Comer. Am told they’re mainly discussing Fauci and potential COVID investigations.4:01 PM ∙ Nov 15, 20229,907Likes1,776Retweets
Neither should we forget about major changes headed for the January 6th Committee. I’d bet a steak dinner that democrat heavyweight Bennie Thompson has chaired his last meeting, and Liz Cheney has slandered her last conservative from the bench.
Also remember that for some reason the democrats couldn’t get the Committee’s final report out before the elections, so now the final report will be drafted by Republicans and, I assume, will feature a much different tone than what democrats had originally planned.
Finally, I will optimistically presume that the new Republican members of the House January 6th Committee will release all the video to the public. ALL of it.
Darren Beattie (Revolver News), please stand by.
💉 The New York Post’s Page Six ran a feisty story laced with spicy adult language quoting frustrated Bethenny Frankel, former Real Wives actress and the creator of SkinnyGirl adult beverages. Mrs. Frankel is sick and tired of folks who are, apparently, telling her “ixnay on the vaxnay talk,” since she has been chatting pretty freely about her suspicions of where her new post-jab autoimmune disease came from.
Frankel told Page Six that people should put on their “big girl underpants and have a conversation without someone muzzling us.” The problem, she says, is “our society has entered a fear based, judgmental, bullying” era.
Page Six reported that Frankell “is often met with mixed reviews, but in this case, many of her fans agreed with her.”
Progress.
💉 Argentina’s literal poster boy for its general vaccination campaign, Santino Blanco, 4, died suddenly and unexpectedly of bilateral pneumonia last week.
He was not part of a specific covid vaccine program, but helped advertise for childhood vaccines in general. Independent reports say he WAS jabbed for covid, but reports vary as to which vaccine he took.
💉 Late last week, UFC fighting champion Anthony “Rumble” Johnson, 38, was suddenly, unexpectedly, and permanently KO’d from organ failure, which was brought on by a rare immune system disorder and blood cancer (non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma) that started in September 2021.
💉 Irish golf pro Gary Wardlow, 42, tee’d off into the great hereafter last week, when he died suddenly and unexpectedly, leaving behind a wife, Susanne, and three boys: Jaxon, Luke, and Carter. Gary’s cause of death has not been released.
🚀 It sure looks like corporate media is rooting for full-on war with Russia. Yesterday, two Russian-identified missiles landed 50 miles inside Poland’s borders, apparently causing a couple fatalities, and corporate media immediately began cacophonously calling for the U.S. to declare war on Russia for attacking a NATO ally.
For example, CNN ran a story mid-day yesterday headlined, “Poland Considers Invoking NATO Article 4 after Russian-made Missile Hit Village, Killing Two People.” NATO Article 4 would require the U.S. to declare war on Russia in order to defend Poland.
But as the long day wore on, the story started sagging and then basically collapsed. Corporate media hurriedly began backpedaling, backing off their early hot takes, and trying to strategically save face using deceptive journalistic techniques, such as embarrassing ‘transition’ headlines trying to soften the 180-degree shift in the narrative direction WITHIN THE SAME NEWS DAY.
Take this fine example from CNN this morning, which retained the words “Russian-made missile” for consistency with earlier headlines, but this time captured the phrase in skeptical scare quotes:
As it turns out, it’s looking more like it was probably two missiles fired by UKRAINE, not Russia. The same CNN story quoted Joe Biden as saying the missiles probably DIDN’T come from Russia after all. Oops. According to CNN, Joe Biden said preliminary information suggested it was “unlikely” the missiles were fired from Russia, but reassured reporters that the investigation was ongoing, to soften the blow.
Apparently, the whole time, NATO had been tracking the missiles from wherever they were fired. But, citing the ongoing investigation, officials would not say where the launch site was; not yet. For some reason.
One supposes that, if the missiles’ origin was, in fact, Russia, it would ALREADY be headline news.
Polish officials, who aren’t in tune with the subtle nuances of the U.S. media’s Ukraine narrative, jumped the gun yesterday by declared they were 100% sure the missiles were Russian-made, and widely published images of the leftover parts. Whoops. That premature announcement created a wee conundrum for the narrative.
If the Russian missiles didn’t come from Russia, but instead the Russian missiles were launched from Ukraine, that would be weird. It would almost look like Ukraine fired some captured Russian missiles into Poland to create a false flag situation or something. On purpose.
In other words, Ukraine may have deliberately targeted and killed Polish civilians for its own strategic benefit.
If that’s what the facts ultimately show, then we should declare war on UKRAINE, when Poland invokes Article 4. Ukraine isn’t a NATO ally. And I don’t think Ukraine should get a pass for murdering Poles just because it was part of a psyop to make it look like Russia did it, do you?
Of course, if it WAS Ukraine, this story will soon vanish into the memory hole, along with Monkeypox festivals and David DePape’s underwear. Oh wait! It’s already starting.
Aha. Back when they were Russian missiles, it was a treacherous act of war justifying starting World War III. But now, since it looks like they really came from Ukraine, they weren’t “missiles,” not in the technical sense, not REALLY, they were just fragmentary “remains” of Russian rockets that Ukraine shot down before they could REALLY hurt the Poles. The Poles should be THANKING Ukraine, not complaining about the casualties.
Are you tired of being gaslit yet? I am. And I love Polish people. So, you know what? I say the heck with it. Let’s declare war on Ukraine for attacking a NATO ally. Time for Operation Shock and Awe, baby.
🔥 Late last evening, I watched President Trump’s much-hyped Mar-a-Lago announcement. As expected, he announced his candidacy for the 2024 presidential election. His speech was quieter than I expected. It seemed more presidential and less like a rally. He was measured, thoughtful, and, to me, persuasive. He avoided controversial subjects in favor of pointing out the obvious failures of the Biden Administration, as a stark contrast to what Trump accomplished in the previous four years for the economy, world peace, and optimism.
Trump didn’t mention DeSantis or the jabs, nor did he emphasize Operation Warp Speed.
There are tons of hot-takes on the announcement. But at bottom, I think most pundits generally recognize that it was a solid, presidential speech. Who knows if it will move the needle, but the campaign is just starting.
While I was watching, I had two main thoughts. First, the speech reminded me of Trump at his best: making the sale. Second, I thought that no matter what, it will be very helpful to have Trump campaigning every day for the next two years against Joe Biden. The constant criticism might even make the democrats pull back a little. Maybe.
The New York Times seemed to recognize that potential, as well. It ran a story this morning headlined, “Trump Is Running in 2024. The White House Has a Plan.” The sub-headline explained, “The president’s advisers have been working on a strategy for how the White House will respond to what they expect will be a constant stream of attacks from former President Donald J. Trump.”
One can only hope. The Times also mentioned the democrats have a massive opposition research effort underway:
The party has assembled about 40 researchers to catalog every speech, radio address, TV appearance and newspaper article featuring Mr. Trump and other Republican candidates, in an effort to assemble the most comprehensive case against the former president and Republicans in the upcoming campaigns.
On Tuesday, the D.N.C. announced that it would begin hiring staff in New Hampshire, Florida and other early primary states to hold Republican presidential candidates like Mr. Trump accountable for what they say as they begin campaigning for the White House in 2024.
It is the earliest the D.N.C. has started making local hires ahead of a presidential campaign, officials said.
I hope the GOP has a similar presidential-campaign effort already kicking off, instead of being distracted by primary infighting. And it would be very nice to hear something about those efforts.
🔥 The FTX story continues to develop. The most interesting tidbit I saw yesterday was where some people are emerging to say they DID see the red flags, but they couldn’t get corporate media interested in the story. For some reason. It’s kind of like how investigative reporters couldn’t get corporate media interested in the Jeffrey Epstein story, either.
Also, it looks like other folks besides us are starting to connect the same dots between Jeffrey Epstein and Sam Bankman-Fried:
Finally, for a chuckle, here’s my favorite FTX cartoon, so far:
Have a wonderful Wednesday! I’ll see you back here tomorrow for more.
C&C is moving the needle and changing minds. If you can, I could use your help getting the truth out and spreading optimism and hope: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/-learn-how-to-get-involved-
Twitter: @jchilders98
Truth Social: @jchilders98
MeWe: mewe.com/i/coffee_and_covid.
C&C Swag! www.shopcoffeeandcovid.com
Emailed Daily Newsletter: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
By George Miller
After dragging out the suspense and dropping many hints, Former President Donald Trump finally announced his third run for the presidency today, at his palatial Palm Beach Mar a Lago facility. He made it official HERE.
He highlighted some of his many claimed accomplishments and criticized what he believed Biden administration shortcomings to be.
We have heard several times that friends, advisors and unsolicited parties advised him against announcing it before the mid-terms, then again until runoffs are finished, or at all, but obviously he didn’t heed the latter two.
It is becoming more evident that Trump and FL Governor DeSantis are the two most visible potential Republican primary candidates. Trump has been attacking DeSantis, while the popular Governor has taken a high road, at least for now. One of his responses: “One of the things I’ve learned in this job is when you’re leading, when you’re getting things done, you take incoming fire, that’s just the nature of it.” De Santis has neither announced nor hinted about a candidacy, although his speaking engagements and posture strongly suggest his interest.
Many Floridians would prefer to have their Governor stay here and keep doing what he is doing, which voters strongly endorsed recently.
While Trump wins most Republican polls hands down, FL Governor DeSantis scores increasingly well in them. Opposition to Trump by Democrats, most media, the moderate and RINO wings of the Republican party is strong. But his numerous rallies still have greater crowds than any candidate in history.
There is huge controversy about the level of 2020 election fraud in, especially in the so-called “swing states.” Various polls suggest that up to half of the electorate feels that the electoral system is corrupt, never a good thing in a nominal democratic republic. Trump and most supporters still believe that he won. Most election hearings conducted and some analyses support his position, but the courts, Secretaries of State and big media fought it.
There are many reports on the Trump announcement out there, many much more comprehensive than this one. You can see that Google stacked the reports against him, although even without stacking, most would be unfavorable- see for yourself: https://www.google.com/search?q=trump+presidential+run+announcement
Epoch Times, which has quickly become the largest national newspaper with a Conservative orientation, approached it differently from most:
https://www.theepochtimes.com/donald-trump-launches-2024-bid-for-white-house_4865191.html
By Dr. Robert Malone, Whitney Webb, updated 11-8-22
For years, the censorship of factual information that’s inconvenient to certain powerful actors, including the federal government and Big Pharma, has been steadily increasing as “information warfare” has become an ever-present force in our lives.
In a world where what were once obvious truths are under attack, even the very definitions of “journalist” and “journalism” have themselves become controversial and contested. Too often in this information war, the first casualty is the truth itself.
Facts are rarely treated as sacred by the world’s largest and most influential media outlets but instead are treated as something to be twisted and manipulated for the benefit of their paying sponsors. In this environment, too many media personalities have become mercenaries for hire and, as a consequence, public trust in the media is cratering.
Meanwhile, those who do aim to champion truth in their work are targeted, smeared, and censored by tech companies and platforms aligned with “mercenary media,” unaccountable intelligence services, and out-of-control oligarchs.
The following essay focuses on the ongoing insidious effort to normalize the censorship of factual information, the historical context of this war on dissenting voices, and how “journalism” today has increasingly become about protecting the powerful rather than holding them to account. Potential solutions to this existential crisis in journalism are also discussed.
Read more in Epoch Times
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
By Jeff Childers
11-15-22
Good morning, and Happy Tuesday, C&C! In today’s roundup: good news about Dr. Joe Ladapo; Yellen calls for crypto regulation, of course; Hegelian dialectics and crypto; the New York Times defends FTX.COM; Katie Hobbs takes the lead in Arizona and Kari Lake prepares to challenge; Amazon prepares for a difficult recession and Jeff Bezos says DON’T buy Amazon products; and a little good election news.
🔥 First, some good news: Florida’s courageous and highly-credentialed Surgeon General has agreed to serve for a second term.
7:30 PM ∙ Nov 14, 202219,751Likes3,025Retweets
🔥 President Trump is scheduled to make his long-awaited “announcement” tonight at 9pm EST. It is not entirely clear what the announcement will be, not exactly, but most people anticipate it’s his announcement of a 2024 run.
President Trump is making a MAJOR announcement tomorrow night at Mar-a-Lago 🚨 Tune in at 7:30 pm ET for LIVE coverage before he delivers remarks at 9:00 pm ET. 🇺🇸 rsbnetwork.com/video/watch-li…
rsbnetwork.comWatch LIVE: President Donald J. Trump Makes Special Announcement at Mar-a-Lago – 11/15/22Tuesday, November 15, 2022: Join RSBN live from The Mar-a-Lago Club in West Palm Beach, FL as President Donald J. Trump, 45th President…2:42 PM ∙ Nov 14, 20226,367Likes1,906Retweets
As you can imagine, reactions are mixed. MAGA Republicans are excitedly anticipating for details. Other Republicans’ sentiments range from wary to nauseated. Democrats hope that Merrick Garland will arrest Trump before he can make his announcement, or at least, they hope the news networks will refuse to air it.
Ever the showman, yesterday President Trump posted that his announcement might be one of the most important days in the history of the United States. You never know.
To me, it seems simple. The only rational way forward is for Trump to have a free and fair chance to run in the primary — without sneaky tricks and without being undermined by the GOP. Stopping Trump from even running in the GOP primary will just push MAGA toward a third party. And if DeSantis does run, he’ll need the practice of a battle with Trump anyway, to get him ready to fight the Democrats, who will be ten times worse.
🔥 Coincidentally, the Earth’s population reached 8 billion folks today. I’m not sure what to call this kind of reproductive milestone, it seems pretty unique, but it clearly was bad news for Malthusian maniacs Bill Gates and the gang down at the World Economic Forum.
8 billion humans are living on planet Earth — a huge milestone officially being recognized Tuesday by the U.N. trib.al/eiQUxfI
🔥 Right on schedule! The New York Post ran a story yesterday headlined, “Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen Says Crypto Must Be Regulated After FTX Collapse.”
Haha, told you. And, not JUST regulated. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told Bloomberg Saturday that the digital assets market needs “very careful regulation.” Very careful indeed.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen says crypto must be regulated after FTX collapse trib.al/qsNuT5c
This FTX situation appears to be a classic form of an Hegelian dialectic. The Hegelian dialectic is a process described by the triad: “Problem—Reaction—Solution.” For example, in the political context, let’s say the government wants to do something that it knows will be unpopular with citizens, a right stinker.
Instead of doing that unpopular thing and aggravating everyone, the government craftily creates a problem, a problem that it can blame on certain unpopular others. Then, if the problem worked right, the citizens will react by demanding the government solve the current problem and protect them from future problems. Then, the government offers its solution, which by a marvelous coincidence is exactly the same as the previously unpopular thing it wanted to do in the first place.
Except now, it’s popular!
There is a compelling argument that the covid pandemic was a massive Hegelian dialectical operation. But whether or not that is true, it sure looks like CryptoScam 2022 is a government-fueled Hindenburg designed to explode and politically oil up the regulatory slip-n-slide.
The government’s chocolate-stained fingerprints were already all over the FTX enterprise, right from the start. There sure are a lot of political connections to this “upstart tech darling.” Connections with one political party, in particular.
— Sam Bankman-Fried’s father is a “progressive” government expert who advocates for using digital currency to improve tax collections.
— All the main players, like Sam and his girlfriend Caroline, are heavily connected to Democrat politics.
— Sam spent an enormous amount of other people’s money on politics. Democrat politics.
Sam Bankman-Fried is an unlikely person to create a multi-billion-dollar corporation from scratch, and Caroline Ellison is an unlikely person to manage Sam’s key corporation. Let’s review the list of problems with the theory this duo were a pair of high-powered wunderkind geniuses with Mesmer-like powers to deceive investors.
— Sam is not smart. He brags about never having read a book, and called reading books a waste of time. He brags about playing computer games during business meetings and calls. He advocates a strategy of gobbling uppers during the day to work faster, and taking downers at night to get to sleep.
— Neither is Caroline smart. She brags openly about being bad at math while running a multi-billion-dollar financial company.
— By their own words, Sam and Caroline clearly appear to be distracted by an ongoing drug addiction.
— By their own words, Sam and Caroline clearly appear to be distracted by a deviant, hedonistic sexual lifestyle.
— Sam dressed like a slop, choosing dumpy t-shirts and sneakers to wear to business meetings and live events, probably because he doesn’t look good in a suit, like how John Fetterman wears hoodies to cover his neck lump.
— Sam says a lot of stuff that SOUNDS smart but ISN’T smart. For example, he likes to refer to his biological memory as “RAM,” a term describing computer memory. But biological memory is only superficially analogous to computer memory. A real computer expert would understand the difference, and would not likely use that metaphor.
So, the narrative wants us to believe these two low-powered “geniuses” somehow created a multi-billion-dollar financial empire from scratch, despite all their obvious disabilities and myriad, self-destructive distractions?
And then we have the sketchy media behavior toward the story. Yesterday, the New York Times ran a credulous article headlined, “How Sam Bankman-Fried’s Crypto Empire Collapsed.” They’ve already got it all figured out, and nobody even knows where Sam is.
According to the Times, who interviewed him on Sunday night, Sam seems curiously unconcerned with how things are going to play out, or whether his investors will ever get their money back or not, or whether he’s headed for prison.
[H]e sounded surprisingly calm. “You would’ve thought that I’d be getting no sleep right now, and instead I’m getting some,” he said. “It could be worse.”
Sam isn’t working on his legal defense, or starting a new company, or helping the bankruptcy attorneys recover as much money as possible for investors. No, the genius tech wunderkind is blowing off steam by playing video games in all his new spare time:
He has also found other ways to occupy his time in recent days, playing the video game Storybook Brawl, though less than he usually does, he said. “It helps me unwind a bit,” he said. “It clears my mind.”
For interest, here’s how the game ‘Storybook Brawl,’ is described on its website:
Storybook Brawl is a thrilling, free-to-play card game. Featuring hundreds of fairy tale characters you know from children’s stories, but often with a humorous twist! During Early Access, you can play single-player practice games or test your skills against seven other online players to claim the crown!
So, he’s not playing 4D chess or anything. He’s playing an animated kid’s card game. But WHERE is Sam playing Storybook Brawl? Nobody knows. Even the Times, who interviewed him Sunday night, doesn’t know where Sam is: “Mr. Bankman-Fried … declined to comment on his current location, citing safety concerns.”
My guess: he’s playing games in a CIA safe house someplace. But I’m just spitballing.
According to the Times, Sam has already been working with the government to REGULATE the cryptocurrency market: “Mr. Bankman-Fried’s most ambitious aim was to shape crypto regulation in Washington, where he testified to Congress and met with regulators.”
As I hope you can see, Sam Bankman-Fried was totally unqualified to help “shape crypto regulation.” He is nothing like Steve Wozniak. Sam is more like the computer guy from Jurassic Park, or what the computer guy from Jurassic Park would have been like if he’d been on drugs and was even less attractive.
So Sam wasn’t going to cut it in Congress. He wasn’t smart enough to carry the act. But blowing up FTX would REALLY help the government regulate crypto. It was Sam’s greatest contribution to his “most ambitious aim.”
Anyway, the Times piece is essentially a glowing apologia for the hyphenated computer game aficionado. The Times would like you to believe that FTX’s downfall was mostly due to the company’s being TOO successful (“growing too fast”), and because Sam was TOO hardworking (“too ambitious”).
At no point in the story does the Times ever use any words like “fraud,” “crime,” or “stole,” or otherwise even hint that Sam may have done ANYTHING wrong, at all.
• All of that to say, we can either believe that this babbling moron created a multi-billion-dollar company on his first try, or, alternatively, we can believe that the CIA tried to groom a new Jeffrey Epstein character and carefully guided the meteoric rise of FTX with black funding and by coercing reluctant investors to dump money into the company, to both wash money for democrats through Ukraine, and also provide a straight-from-central-casting sacrificial Judas goat for crypto regulation.
Let’s call that an “alternative theory.” You decide.
🔥 Investigative journalist Thomas Paine claimed that an FBI source told him the FBI has been wanting to investigate FTX but the DOJ stopped them.
FBI source says they wanted to probe FTX for some time based on numerous tips but DOJ blocked. But they’ll lock up grandma for touring Capitol. It’s all a show folks.11:57 PM ∙ Nov 13, 202221,052Likes7,446Retweets
🔥 NBC and Fox called the race for Katie Hobbs as Arizona Governor last night.
NEW: The @FoxNews Decision Desk projects that Katie Hobbs (D) defeats Kari Lake (R) in race for Arizona governor. The race may go to a recount under AZ law.2:50 AM ∙ Nov 15, 20224,619Likes834Retweets
But for some reason, some people remain skeptical that there actually was a free and fair election in Arizona. Something about how Katie Hobbs, the state’s current Secretary of State, oversaw the counting of her own votes, or something. I’m in that group.
Gregg Phillips of True the Vote fame, recently released from federal prison, told Steve Bannon last night that Kari Lake intends to fight to try to keep Katie Hobbs from certifying her own election.
7:17 PM ∙ Nov 14, 2022272Likes48Retweets
It may come down to a recount. I’m not getting my hopes up, but I AM hoping for the best.
🔥 CNBC ran an alarming story yesterday headlined, “Amazon Reportedly Plans to Lay Off About 10,000 Employees Starting This Week.” That seems like awkward timing, right at the start of the holiday season. What numbers must Amazon be looking at to consider a massive layoff right before Christmas? And, Joe Biden assured us the economy was NOT headed toward recession. So.
The Amazon story is not quite as alarming as it sounds. First, according to the article, the layoffs are “primarily in corporate and technology roles,” not operations. Second, it’s not a significant reduction in Amazon’s force, either, because 10K employees represents less than 1% of Amazon’s global workforce, and only 3% of its corporate employees.
Finally, the New York Times, cited as the original source of the story, reported its source said the total number of layoffs “remains fluid” and could change. So, we don’t know.
But the retail giant is showing other signs of preparing for a downturn. In recent months, Amazon: switched off its telehealth service, canned an odd video-calling projector for kids, closed all but one of its U.S. call centers, axed its roving delivery robot, shuttered many brick-and-mortar stores, and is currently closing, canceling or delaying a number of new warehouse locations.
Financially, Amazon appears to be struggling. Amazon’s latest earnings report was lower than expected, and Amazon stock is down about 41% for the year, and is on pace for its worst year since 2008.
If we only knew what Jeff Bezos was thinking!
🔥 As it happens, we know what Jeff Bezos is thinking because he told CNN this weekend. He’s not listening to Joe Biden, and he appears to be thinking America should get ready for bad recession. Business Insider ran a story yesterday headlined, “Amazon Founder Jeff Bezos Warns a Recession Is Looming – and Americans Should ‘Prepare for the Worst’.”
“The probabilities say, if we’re not in a recession right now, we’re likely to be in one very soon,” Bezos told CNN on Saturday. “The probabilities in this economy tell you to batten down the hatches.”
Whatever he’s looking at must be pretty grim, because Bezos even advised people NOT to spend money on retail goods. Amazingly, he said people should put off big-ticket items like new TVs, refrigerators, and cars. And, he suggested small-business owners should hold off on buying new equipment. Instead, they should build up cash reserves.
But Bezos cheerfully suggested, “hope for the best, but prepare for the worst.”
I believe Bezos is telling the truth, or at least, what he believes is the truth. Amazon’s recent downsizing looks like the retail giant is following Bezos’ advice.
🔥 Last week, Republicans did well in downticket races, like state judges. For example, the GOP won all three Supreme Court Justice seats in Ohio, plus three in Texas.
In North Carolina, Republicans flipped two democrat incumbent Supreme Court seats. So in 2023, instead of being in a 4-3 minority, the GOP will hold a 5-2 majority on the court. That’s really good news for North Carolina.
Before last Tuesday’s elections, the most important strategy was LOCAL LOCAL LOCAL. After last Tuesday’s elections, the most important strategy is still, LOCAL LOCAL LOCAL.
Have a terrific Tuesday, and I’ll see you back here tomorrow for more.
C&C is moving the needle and changing minds. If you can, I could use your help getting the truth out and spreading optimism and hope: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/-learn-how-to-get-involved-
Twitter: @jchilders98
Truth Social: @jchilders98
MeWe: mewe.com/i/coffee_and_covid.
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The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
By EUROPEAN SPACE AGENCY (ESA) NOVEMBER 13, 2022
The Artemis I mega Moon rocket is on the launch pad at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. This powerful Space Launch System (SLS) rocket is getting ready to launch the Orion spacecraft and its European Service Module. The first opportunity for launch is November 16 at 1:04 a.m. EST/local time (07:04 CET, 06:04 GMT).
Artemis I is the first mission in a large program to send astronauts around and on the Moon sustainably. This uncrewed first launch will see the Orion spacecraft travel to the Moon, enter an elongated orbit around our satellite, and then return to Earth. The Orion spacecraft is powered by the European-built module that supplies electricity, propulsion, fuel, water, and air in addition to keeping the spacecraft operating at the right temperature.
Read more in Sci Tech Daily
By CCDF-USA, 11-15-22
| After the Thanksgiving holiday where we thank God for all that he has blessed us with, County Citizens Defending Freedom – Nassau County (CCCF-USA Nassau) will be having two monthly meetings in both Callahan and on Amelia Island. BBQ or seafood – you cannot go wrong. You can order dinner and listen or just listen. This is more than just a message or talking heads. We are about shining the LOCAL LIGHT and taking LOCAL ACTION! Please share these dates with your friends and family and forward or print the flier as you like. Get the word out! In Nassau County we protect our children, watch our government and when necessary, take action to protect our freedoms.  |
Please share these dates with your friends and family and forward or print the flier as you like. Get the word out! In Nassau County we protect our children, watch our government and when necessary, take action to protect our freedoms.
RSVP:
I’m looking forward to sharing what we have been doing and plans we have to make a huge difference here locally. Just reply “yes The Pig” or “yes The Surf” if you plan to be at one of the meetings: [email protected]
Thanks to both restaurants for hosting CCDF-Nassau! Great Patriots!
God Bless,
Jack Knocke CCDF-USA – Nassau County Executive Director
CCDFUSA – Nassau | 590 NW 3rd Street, Mulberry, FL 33860
By Amelia Island.com
11-14-22
| Amelia Island’s 2022 festive season kicks off on Wednesday, November 23rd with the return of the world’s largest gingerbread pirate ship, the SS Amelia. Created over weeks of baking, the vessel is crafted by resort pastry chefs and manned by a crew of fondant sailors. The gingerbread masterpiece is a world-famous Amelia Island holiday attraction. |
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| 29TH ANNUAL CHRISTMAS TREE LIGHTING CELEBRATIONFestive celebrations continue into the evening on November 23rd at the resort’s 29th Annual Christmas Tree Lighting featuring performances from internationally acclaimed violinist Christiana Liberis and extraordinary talent from our community. Santa Claus arrives by train to light the 40-foot Christmas tree decorated with hundreds of twinkling lights as the sky is lit with spectacular fireworks. The spirited celebration includes holiday refreshments and is a season of goodwill fundraiser with 100% of proceeds going to Amelia Island charities. |
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| SANTA’S MAGICAL DINNERStay after the tree lighting and enjoy Santa’s Magical Dinner with Santa Claus and his elves from 6:30 p.m. until 8:30 p.m. Savor a lavish buffet-style holiday feast and a delectable holiday dessert buffet in a magical atmosphere. Each family will take home happy holiday memories and a keepsake photo with Santa. |
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| SAVOR A THANKSGIVING GRAND FEAST AT THE RITZ-CARLTON, AMELIA ISLANDGather with family and friends for the season’s most anticipated dining experience: the resort’s Thanksgiving Grand Feast. A lavish buffet celebrated with all the Thanksgiving favorites and trimmings including seafood bar with shrimp cocktail, poached salmon, seared wahoo, carving stations with rosemary turkey, brown sugar ham and a living salad bar. Children enjoy holiday crafts and games. |
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| THE ULTIMATE HOLIDAY SURPRISE: THE LUXE SHOPS MYSTERY GIFT BOXThe Luxe Shops of The Ritz-Carlton, Amelia Island make the festive season feel extraordinary with a limited-edition $15,000 Luxe Mystery Gift Box. Each one-of-a-kind keepsake box is curated to your individual preferences and brimming with rare and highly coveted designer items. As a gift for yourself or as a surprise for someone you love, this is the ultimate gift that will resonate far beyond the season. |
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| RING IN THE NEW YEAR AT FLORIDA’S BEST NEW YEAR’S EVE PARTYRing in the New Year at The Ritz-Carlton, Amelia Island’s Black and White Gala, a celebration with a well-earned reputation as Northern Florida’s best New Year’s Eve party. Enjoy the open bar, extravagant food buffets and chef’s stations as well as a scrumptious dessert presentation. Dance the night away to live music and watch a spectacular fireworks display with a Champagne toast. |
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By Michael Greer, 11-14-22
The polls say 75% of the citizens think this country is going the wrong direction…..so they voted to CONTINUE to go in the wrong direction?? Seriously?
They voted for MORE inflation, higher gas prices, rationed energy, mandated experimental vaccines, being on the verge of a NUCLEAR WAR!! Five million MORE illegal aliens crossing our border, higher crime, more censorship, more armed FBI raiding people’s homes, letting criminals out with no bail so they can kill their witnesses, stores closing because people just come in and steal, more homelessness, more filth, more poop, more indoctrinating our children, more sterilizing and sexualizing children, biological men competing against biological women in sports, beauty pageants, jobs, etc.
And a media that lies to us every day. So many people have no idea what is truly happening. They actually think January 6th was an insurrection. They think Republicans want to take away their Social Security and Medicare. They think reversing Roe vs Wade meant abortions were banned. They are told Republicans want to take their “Rights” away while Democrats are ACTUALLY taking their “Rights” away. Mandating vaccines is taking your “Rights” away, closing your business is taking your “Rights” away. Closing churches, banning family from dying loved ones bedsides, closing schools, mandating useless masks, telling doctors what treatments they can and can’t use, moratoriums on rent, paying student loans, not enforcing immigration laws, calling illegal aliens “refugees” so they qualify for generous (more generous than Social Security) benefits, putting illegal aliens in hotels while veterans live on the street, banning safe, effective medications…….ALL this is taking your “RIGHTS” AWAY.
The Left now wants to make voting by mail-in ballots a federal law (never mind the CONSTITUTION says that is a State issue), they want to install “ranked voting” (like Alaska) in every blue state and nationwide eventually. If we had an honest, impartial media they would be educating the public on how bad that is. They keep talking about our “democracy” when “ranked voting” is as unDemocratic as it comes. The person with the most votes may not win. Right now in Alaska the candidate in the lead is projected to lose due to this policy.
Few (on either side of the aisle) trust our elections anymore. But rather than implement policies and laws that make our elections more trustworthy, rather than address the honest concerns people have, the Left wants to criminalize questioning the results. Canada IS criminalizing questioning elections. So is Brazil. Here in Arizona (ground zero for Mules stuffing ballot boxes) people were organizing drop box watch groups. But others filed suits saying that would suppress the vote. I say, yes, we want to suppress ILLEGAL votes. Yes, we want to suppress dead people, illegal aliens, and voting more than once. Why would any voter feel intimidated dropping a ballot into a drop box if that’s all they are doing?
Let’s go over reality, something the media SHOULD be doing, NOT ALL people “eligible” to vote REGISTER to vote, and in average ONLY about 60% to 65% of REGISTERED voters actually vote, soooo, sending mail-in ballots to ALL REGISTERED voters (and the Left wants to send them to all “eligible” voters) results in millions of ballots floating around for OTHERS to fill out and send in. In 2005 the Carter/Baker bipartisan voter integrity study found absentee (mail-in) ballots were the biggest risk for fraud and that we should have voter ID (80% of voters agree), but none of this is ever mentioned by the media. All they do is repeat and repeat that Republicans want to suppress minority votes, that voter ID is racist and that EVERY vote (including illegal ones) should be counted.
In the 2020 election ballots they knew were illegal were counted. Why? Observers were prevented from observing even when ordered by courts to allow them to observe. Why? Where was the media on this. As long as we have a biased media, we can’t win. We thought January 6th and Roe vs Wade lies had faded from people’s minds. The polls said people were more concerned with high gas prices and inflation and that abortion and J6 were way down the list of concerns. Apparently not. Certainly, not if you listened to the main stream news.
I am devastated. And I blame the media, and the Republican leadership for this. I blame McConnell, McCarthy and LINDSEY GRAHAM (why did he author a nationwide bill banning abortion after 15 weeks RIGHT before the election)?? He knew it couldn’t get passed but it put the issue in the headlines again. And now they are calling to reelect McConnell and McCarty for Republican leadership AGAIN. Normal people wouldn’t reward the losers.
I don’t know what else to say. I’m completely devastated (but we aren’t burning down cities, are we?) We “domestic terrorists” are sitting in our homes staring into space wondering what happened. Wondering how people could vote against their best interests. Wondering how we’ll survive this. I guess we haven’t felt enough pain.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
Michael Greer retired from the film/television industry and is the co-organizer of the Santa Monica Tea Party and the Los Angeles Tea Party, on the board of directors of the Citizens’ Alliance for Property Rights and was a member of the Republican Central Committee for the 41st Assembly District. Her website is: http://madderthanhell.wordpress.com/
By Jeff Childers
11-14-22
Good morning, and happy New Week, C&C! We’re in the countdown to Christmas now, even though Thanksgiving is still about two weeks out. I’m sure you’ve noticed the decorations are out and Christmas music is back.
Your roundup today includes: a warning for people considering moving to Florida; election news; a not-so-subtle kids “attraction” in Venice; more genders than ever; China substantially amends its covid-zero policy; the foxes begin a study of the myocarditis henhouse; an updated FTX roundup; and more.
🦎 Fox Weather ran a story last week featuring the alarming headline, “Shocking video: 5-foot alligator found inside Burmese Python in Florida.”
In other words, we have pythons down here in Florida that are big enough to swallow human-sized alligators whole. And if the pythons can even get an ALLIGATOR, what chances do WE have?
Fortunately Florida is a Second Amendment state. I recommend keeping an assault rifle in the trunk for slithery encounters. People planning to move to Florida should carefully consider the various reptilian variables.
🔥 Republican David Schweikert won his re-election to the U.S. House in Arizona District 1.
🔥 LibsOfTikTok exposed this Saturday’s “family friendly” drag show promoted by the City of Venice, Florida, at the so-called 3rd Annual Venice Pride Festival.
Of course, the family-friendly festival featured scantily-clad drag performers in the Orwellian “Kids Corner,” as well as a ‘fun’ ring-toss event using realistic black, pink, and rainbow-colored adult marital aids. Aids that start with a “d,” rhyme with “big toe,” and sometimes run on batteries.
According to Libs, the table featuring the exotic kids’ carnival game was hosted by “CAN Community Health,” whose executive board includes celebrated educators like Sarasota County’s “Principal of the Year”, Dr. Stephen Covert of Pine View School. Local C&C readers might touch base with Dr. Covert for a statement.
Um, I know it’s impolite to ask, but how EXACTLY is this “kids corner” any different from a “grooming corner”?
• Libs also posted a short clip of a young lady who “identifies” as no fewer than “three genders:” male, female, and non-binary, all at the same time. In the clip, she explains how she feels like a man, a woman, and neither, all at once.
This person identifies as trigender because she has 3 genders like a triangle
I hope you’re keeping up with all this gender stuff, there WILL be a quiz later. If you fail the quiz, you have to binge-watch a Netflix documentary series on the history of roofing nails.
🔥 Finally. UnHerd ran a story this morning headlined, “China Abandons ‘One Size Fits All’ Covid Policy.” Finally. The sub-headline explained, “There are echoes of the Great Barrington Declaration in Beijing’s latest plans.”
Late last week, the tongue-tyingly-named Standing Committee of the Politburo of the Chinese Communist Party, or SCPCCP, approved 20 amendments to the “Zero Covid” policy that has dominated life in China for the last two years.
The new amendments don’t exactly gut the zero-covid policy, but appear designed instead to move the policy in the direction of more “focused protection” of vulnerable populations rather than wholesale lockdowns and bulk approaches of large civilian groups. Unsurprisingly, the new amendments rely on the Communist Party’s default method of control: the threat. From the new Amendment 16:
It is strictly forbidden to close schools and classes, stop work and production, restrict traffic without approval, introduce unapproved lockdowns or remain in lockdowns for overly long periods. Other kinds of exaggerated behaviours such as random suspension of diagnosis and medical treatments will result in increased notification and public exposure, leading to severe punishment for those local authorities that cause serious consequences.
Fortunately for local officials, it appears China is also backing down from mass testing, so the hapless bureaucrats won’t be crushed in the pincer of failing to stop covid versus stopping covid too hard.
The new amendments will be a great disappointment to American fans of lockdowns and masks. China was the holdout, the last redoubt, the ultimate proof that hard lockdowns, masks, and draconian mitigations actually do “work.” Pro-maskers had been holding out hope that China could “beat” covid, through its costly, self-sacrificial lockdown strategy, and then American liberals would be able to say ha!, they were right the whole time.
The timing of the new amendments is curious. Why now? Maybe recently re-elected ‘dictator for life’ President Xi wanted to get past his own elections before changing the covid policy?
💉 NBC ran a tantalizing story this weekend headlined, “Myocarditis After Covid Vaccination: Research on Possible Long-Term Risks Underway.” You might be thinking, we’ve been talking about myocarditis for months now, maybe longer. No, this is research on the long-term risks to people AFTER a vaccine-induced myocarditis diagnosis.
The article starts with the journalistically requisite example, Jason Miller, 22, who collapsed at home in his bathroom after getting his first jab last October. Rushed to the hospital, he was diagnosed with myocarditis and pericarditis and told not to take any more shots. They told him how SUPER RARE it was to have heart problems after injection. “I was like, that’s crazy,” Miller said.
Indeed.
Doctors have no idea whether Mr. Miller will recover or if he’ll be retiring from the vaccine lottery by keeling over (thanks for playing though). The not-knowing must be vexing. But there’s good news for Mr. Miller! (If he lives that long.) Pfizer and Moderna are looking into it. In slow motion.
NBC explained, “the first research in the U.S. is underway, tracking adverse health effects — if any — that may appear in the years following a diagnosis of vaccine-associated heart problems.” Pursuant to FDA’s approval of the Pfizer and Moderna jabs, both firms are now — AFTER the spike protein is out of the barn and all the way across the meadow — now they are required to complete five-year studies of vaccine-injured heart patients.
Obviously, the studies aren’t meant to prevent the shots from being approved. The shot are already approved. The studies are just to find out what we’ve done to people. And, in its infinite wisdom, the FDA thought putting companies who could be liable for vaccine injuries in charge of finding out whether there were any.
It’s like asking the foxes to study the henhouse.
Currently, nobody knows how many people who recover from “mild” cases of vaccine-induced myocarditis will have long term health problems. “It could be 2%. It could be 0%. It could be 20%,” Mayo Clinic’s cardiology chair told NBC. “We don’t know the answer.”
NBC’s article wraps up by checking back in with its myocarditis poster boy, Mr. Miller. The reporter said that, a year after his original diagnosis, Miller’s been in and out of the hospital, and is still having problems including chronic chest pain. But the reporter explained that fortunately, Mr. Miller has been taking “comfort” in reflecting on how rare his condition is.
The article actually said that. Comfort. That’s so weird. In fact, it’s SO weird that I’m calling “BS” on the whole story. If Mr. Miller DID reflect on how “rare” his vaccine-induced heart injury is, it seems a LOT more likely that would make him feel UNLUCKY — not comforted.
I think the reporter made that comfort thing up, or an editor plastered it in at the last minute. Liars!
Well, the good news is, if he makes it that long, Mr. Miller will eventually find out if he’s in real trouble or not. He’ll find out in about five years or so, when they finish the study, or however long after five years it takes the pharma companies to publish their whitewashed reports.
If I sound skeptical, it’s because I AM skeptical. Thanks, FDA!
🔥 The FTX story is not a distraction from the election news. It IS election news. I’ll be covering it going forward until we fully understand the giant Democrat-Ukrainian-Cryptocurrency money washing machine that it sure looks like.
And boy, am I glad I covered the FTX.COM meltdown basics in Sunday’s bonus post yesterday, because it’s going to be FTX updates for a while, and you’ll need the primer to keep up. So if you aren’t up to speed, go read Sunday’s summary and then come back.
First, here’s Sam in his swanky Bahamian penthouse apartment, where he lived with his ten roommates.
Nice! Maybe one day you can also have a Bahamian penthouse apartment if you help launder money for democrats.
• For what is probably a very good reason, the World Economic Forum has deleted its web page promoting FTX. Buh bye!
There’s no apology there, though. Just an error page.
• Next, remember young Caroline Ellison? She’s a Harry Potter fan, Sam Bankman-Fried’s 28-year-old girlfriend, who chatters in interviews about how she’s bad at math (so WHAT qualifies her to run the multi-billion-dollar firm), and whose dad used to supervise Biden’s current SEC director.
Anyway, ‘somehow’ the investment analysts missed plenty of clear warning signs from Ms. Ellison, like this remarkable tweet from May, 2021:
I’m not sure I completely agree with Ms. Ellison. Regular amphetamine use might enhance your smug feelings of élite superiority, but apparently it doesn’t help you succeed in managing other people’s money. Not much, anyways.
Ellison also mused about topics on her public blog that support the rumors of bizarre “uconventional” romantic relationships among the ten roommates in Bankman-Fried’s Bahamian apartment, such as in her blog post below, which I’m including only to make the point there was plenty of material for investment analysts to work with, if they’d been doing any due diligence at all.
Well, problems are bound to pop up when you marry a nonjudgmental socialist sharing ethic with boundless hedonism.
How did the analysts miss the signs? Were they told not to look? We’re talking about some of the most sophisticated analysts in the world, including for Blackrock. Yet, for some reason, they seemed to miss truckloads of red flags. Red flags like drug use, which was apparently part of the day-to-day work lifestyle at FTX, for performance enhancement (stimulants) and limiting down time (sleeping aids).
You’ll notice in the little picture Sam’s Twitter avatar’s t-shirt logo, which I mentioned in yesterday’s post.
It is important to note that Ms. Ellison and Mr. Bankman-Fried, who infamously said books are for losers, are the generational products of our current crop of self-designated élites.
• Next, FTX is leaking like a rusty sieve, and news — both corroborated and uncorroborated — is streaming out. A financial newsletter with 170K Twitter followers just estimated the amount Bankman-Fried may have scampered off with at closer to $1.7B.
The Kobeissi Letter @KobeissiLetter
JUST IN: SBF, the CEO of FTX, secretly transferred $10 billion+ to his trading firm, Alameda. Now, $1.7 billion of those funds have disappeared. It’s simply incredible how every time you think this can’t get worse, it gets worse. This is the biggest fraud in recent history.5:54 AM ∙ Nov 13, 20223,194Likes729Retweets
Remember, Sam’s “trading firm, Alameda” is the same subsidiary that was until very recently managed by his Harry-Potter loving girlfriend, Ms. Ellison.
• Next, FTX and 134 of its subsidiaries and related companies filed emergency chapter 11 bankruptcy cases on Friday. Oddly, the filing paperwork was incomplete, which is typical for smaller companies filing rushed cases, but is completely NOT typical for large, complex, billion-dollar companies who always have their ducks in a row before filing a chapter 11 case.
The kinds of law firms that represent multi-billion-dollar financial companies like FTX don’t normally file incomplete paperwork. I would have expected, not just completed paperwork, but also a motion to consolidate all the cases for joint administration plus a completed proposed chapter 11 plan. All on day one.
So it’s either incompetence, a VERY last-minute poorly-thought-through decision to legally stop customers from pulling all their funds out, or an intentional bad-faith strategy to drag the case out as long as possible. I’m leaning toward the latter.
In other words, why weren’t they talking about bankruptcy weeks or months ago? Only fraudsters ride it out to the ultimate collapse, because filing bankruptcy stops them from siphoning money out. And, by filing bankruptcy themselves, instead of waiting for someone else to do it for them, they remain (for now) in control of things, including information.
If the large investors are legitimate victims, instead of political pawns, their next move will be to file an emergency motion to appoint a trustee to take control of and supervise the companies’ assets. If they don’t, I will be extremely skeptical.
• Finally, corporate media has not been super helpful keeping up with this story. Maybe it’s moving too fast for them. One question I can’t resolve is, WHERE IS SAM BANKMAN-FRIED? Clearly, he’s out of the country.
On Saturday, MSN ran a story headlined, “Sam Bankman-Fried Claims To Be In Bahamas As Flight Tracker Shows His Private Jet Flying To Argentina.”
Nobody seems to know where Bankman-Fried and Ellison are. There are lots of rumors: still in the Bahamas, Hong Kong (Ellison), Dubai, South America. But so far, no reporter has been able to confirm his location.
To my knowledge, Bankman-Fried has not yet been charged with anything. He’s free to go wherever he wants. Presumably law enforcement is keeping up with him. I mean, I would hope they are. Like, the FBI and stuff.
You trust the FBI to keep track of Sam, don’t you?
Have a marvelous Monday! I’ll see you back here tomorrow for more.
C&C is moving the needle and changing minds. If you can, I could use your help getting the truth out and spreading optimism and hope: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/-learn-how-to-get-involved-
Twitter: @jchilders98
Truth Social: @jchilders98
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The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
By Jeff Childers
11-13-22
Good morning, loyal C&C supporters, it’s Sunday! Your bonus roundup today includes an extended hot take about what I believe is the “next covid” — by which I mean a government-caused crisis that the government solves for us by making us safer, through regulating conduct that was previously unregulated.
In other words, by deleting liberties for “safety.” At some point, it’s true, we’ll have no liberty remaining at all, but then we’ll be perfectly safe! Although our life expectancies will be back to prehistoric levels.
A minor issue.
The “new covid” crisis I’m referring to is the breaking FTX.COM cryptocurrency fraud, which has soaked over a million average investors for billions and, I believe, is handily creating a convenient pretext for broad government cryptocurrency regulation.
And just wait, it also appears to scratch all our C&C itches, involving the World Economic Forum, the Clintons, the deep state, pedophile connections, and constitutes a huge democrat money-laundering operation through, of all places, Ukraine — again! the motherland of fraud! — which formed the single largest source of campaign funding for the 2022 elections, second only to lunatic billionaire George Soros.
You can’t make this stuff up.
Because of how important the FTX story is, I’ve decided to make today’s subscriber bonus roundup available to non-subscribers too. But first, let’s start with a little election news.
🔥 As I noted yesterday, Democrats have, somehow, vastly outraised Republicans. For example, Blake Masters only spent $9.4M on his senatorial race, compared to Mark Kelly, who spent an astounding $73.5M.
Even at that, Masters almost won (or, arguably, did win, but not enough to beat the margin of cheating).
As of last night, Masters has not yet conceded.
Katie Hobb’s lead over Kari Lake is down to 35,000, and Arizona elections officials said yesterday afternoon that a hand recount was needed since the race was “too close to call.” Hand recounts are what democrats in Florida always used to do whenever a democrat was losing by a small margin. Every single time, the recount resulted in the small margin flipping.
Katie Hobbs seems pretty chipper in her latest update:
3:28 AM ∙ Nov 13, 202212,596Likes1,876Retweets
Now, let’s get to the big story. Maybe the biggest story this year.
Unregulated crypto was nice while it lasted. Meet Sam Bankman-Fried, 30, the youthful nouveau-riche “founder” of a bizarre Ponzi scheme concealed behind stacks of opaque buzzwords and constructed on a mountain of lies, political shenanigans, deep-state hanky-panky, and of course Ukrainian mega-fraud.
Late this week, the unkempt 30-year-old went from boasting about his $15.6 billion net worth to having “no material wealth,” in about two days.
That was two months ago. To answer Fortune’s question, no, Bankman-Fried is not the next Warren Buffet. He’s more like the next Elizabeth Holmes, or maybe Bernie Madoff, except stupider. But, through his parents, he was politically well-connected, and he constantly babbled a lot of confusing high-tech words that dazzled reporters and investment advisors who had no idea what Sam was actually talking about.
Neither did Sam.
Sam admittedly has a short attention span. In a September 2020 interview published in full on Sequoia Capital’s website, Sam told investment analysts that, “I would never read a book.” Questioned by the interviewer, Sam explained, “I’m very skeptical of books. I don’t want to say no book is ever worth reading, but I actually do believe something pretty close to that. I think, if you wrote a book, you f**ked up, and it should have been a six-paragraph blog post.”
He wouldn’t like C&C, obviously.
Sam also bragged about his unusual work style. In a series of tweets in February 2021, Sam admitted “I’m famous for playing League of Legends while on phone calls. I’ll also try to avoid restarting my RAM (*sleeping) if possible. One side advantage of [sleeping on] the bean bags: if I sleep in the office, my mind stays in work mode, and I don’t have to reload everything the next day.”
As you read this, Sam is busily trying to get out of Dodge, take a powder, make himself scarce. Specifically, he’s been reported to be high-tailing it for South America on a private plane:*
Most tracked flight right now – fr24.com/LVKEB/2e2e7cfd According to tweets the founder and former CEO of @FTX_Official is en route to Argentina after the FTX collapse earlier this week.
(* Other reports say Sam’s been detained in the Bahamas, caught while trying to flee to Dubai. It’s too early to tell.)
He might not be as broke as he makes out. The UK Telegraph ran a story this morning headlined, “At Least $1bn in Investor Assets Missing After FTX Collapse – Reports.” It’s just missing! The story claims the money was transferred into Sam’s hedge fund.
Not only that, but yesterday, media reported that another $370 million was just stolen from FTX by “hackers.” In other words, by people with access and technical skills. Like maybe a skedaddling founder.
Anyway, Sam Bankman-Fried should be okay, in case you were worried about him.
Sam got his hyphenated last name from his parents, Joseph Bankman and Barbara Fried. Barbara is a Standard law professor who writes on topics like “distributive justice,” a code word for marxist anti-Constitutionalism. Barbara launched a democrat PAC in July 2018.
Joe Bankman also a Stanford law professor, a clinical psychologist as well as a lawyer, who has testified before Congress about the “problems” posed by a “cash economy.” In other words, Joe Bankman is often the government’s expert on how getting rid of cash would help crush tax avoiders.
Unconfirmed reports suggest that Sam’s entire family is part of the democrat machine. For example, I saw claims that his brother, Gabe Bankman-Fried, is the founder of “Guarding Against Pandemics,” was a Legislative Correspondent for the US House of Representatives, and is an advisor to large political donors in the Democrat party. Other commenters said Sam’s aunt Linda Fried is a WEF member on the Global Agenda Council on Aging.
Sam Bankman-Fried started FTX in May, 2019, a few months after his mother started her own PAC, and thirteen days after Joe Biden announced his presidential campaign. The new company would become so successful so quickly that Bankman-Fried would become the second-largest Biden donor, right behind our good friend George Soros.
FTX is headquartered in the Bahamas, where Sam lives in a luxury penthouse suite with ten roommates. Or, “lived” until quite recently.
Fox News reported that Bankman-Fried was the second largest democrat donor in this election cycle, blasting at least $38 million at leftist causes, PACs, and candidates. Earlier this year, Sam told reporters he planned to spend between $100 million and $1 billion on the presidential election in 2024, to help keep democrats in the White House.
Politico reported that Bankman-Fried was a “top resource” who democrats went to when lawmakers first began considering how to regulate cryptocurrencies, because of Sam’s “willingness to write multimillion dollar checks to boost Democrats.” Blockchain Association Executive Director Kristin Smith described book-hater Bankman-Fried as “the darling of Washington policy circles.”
Of course. The dumber they are, the easier they are to manipulate.
Both Sam and his company FTX are completely broke. FTX filed for emergency Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection late Friday afternoon. The collapse appears to have been precipitated by a failed attempt to sell the defunct company to one of its competitors, Binance, which backed out earlier last week after getting one look at FTX’s horrible financials.
FTX had two products. It created a brand-new cryptocurrency, called “FTT,” created a cryptocurrency exchange (like the stock market), and traded in “cryptocurrency derivatives,” a highly-complicated type of investment that almost nobody understands. Very few people understand cryptocurrency either. So it was an inscrutable product multiplied by an incomprehensible investment vehicle.
In an investment call that somehow dazzled heavyweights like Blackrock, Sam told analysts, “I want FTX to be a place where you can do anything you want with your next dollar. You can buy bitcoin. You can send money in whatever currency to any friend anywhere in the world. You can buy a banana. You can do anything you want with your money from inside FTX.”
Bananas! Sounds great! In fact, it sounds a lot like failed startup Theranos’ literally unbelievable “blood tests on a microchip.” But pre-election investors slurped FTX up without question. For some reason.
The enigmatic nature of what FTX actually sold must be the reason everybody thought Sam Bankman-Fried was a financial genius, or at least an expert. He must have been a genius, if he could understand how all that stuff worked, books or no books. Exactly how the illiterate 30-year-old sold his fake wares to unquestioning investors is currently unclear.
What we know for sure is that Sam went from being an unread but politically-connected zero in May 2019 to a billionaire in a few months, just in time to donate a metric ton of politico-bucks and help Biden (and other democrats) win the 2020 election.
Bankman-Fried’s instantaneous success sort of reminds one of Jeffery Epstein’s dramatic rise from high-school teacher to international mystery man of finance, doesn’t it? I wonder if there’s a black-ops procedure sheet on this type of thing.
Apparently raising no red flags at all, Sam staffed his skyrocketing companies with friends and paramours. For example, the “next Warren Buffet” hired a nerdy 28-year-old and co-girlfriend to run FTX’s investment arm, Alameda Research. At least she’s read a book.
In this next interview clip, Alameda’s CEO Caroline Ellison, who was handling over $20 billion, admits she’s not very good at math.
Alameda ceo clearly clueless https://t.co/27ZTamLtOv
CEO of FTX – 🤡🌏 https://t.co/vR0G79sRnE3:53 AM ∙ Nov 12, 20221,580Likes183Retweets
She might not be good at math, but she does have good connections. The current head of Biden’s SEC is Gary Gensler. Gensler used to work for Glenn Ellison at MIT. Glenn Ellison is Caroline Ellison’s dad. So.
In April, Biden’s SEC gave FTX a clean bill of health.
FTX got customers to buy its FTT currency, deposit their money into the crypto exchange, and purchase its derivative products as an “investment.” Quite successfully, too. According to an industry report, over the last three years, the exchange grew to handle nearly 11% of about $2.4 trillion in derivatives traded globally every MONTH.
Somehow, FTX’s reported revenues grew by 1,000% to $1.02 billion in 2021, from just $89 million in 2020 and of course, $0 in 2018. By the time it filed bankruptcy last week, FTX had over 1 million customers.
Believe me, that’s the short version. But everything I just shared are the facts we know for sure right now. This is where things start to get REALLY weird.
Let’s go down the FTX rabbit hole.
Everything after this point is assembled from independent researchers, not confirmed media sources, but looked credible. I’m not vouching for anything. Consider this next section to be a discussion of “developing facts.”
Sam Bankman-Fried first started his research company, Alameda Research, in 2017. Here’s its logo:
Notice the pizza-slice-shaped figure in the middle? So have a lot of Anon folks, who learned a few years ago that the wound-up triangle shape resembles notorious pedophile imagery.
Maybe it’s just a coincidence. But also coincidentally, Sam’s self-selected avatar’s t-shirt features a double-heart shaped image that ALSO resembles a known pedophilic symbol:
Apropos of nothing, Sam has been described as one of Bill Clinton’s newest friends:
The crypto world is breaking rumors of unsavory activities at Sam’s swanky Bahamian penthouse, where he lived with 10 of his closest friends and co-workers.
And some folks are wondering about this next story, which broke about a week before FTX’s implosion. The founder of one of FTX’s competitors died suddenly and unexpectedly, right after darkly tweeting about a CIA-run pedophile entrapment ring being run out of the “Caribbean islands.”
The Bahamas are “Caribbean islands.”
Back in March, Ukraine officially “partnered” with FTX to launch a crypto “donation website,” but it appears that Ukraine has also invested money into FTX, or at least, directed money into FTX.
#BREAKING ⚡️🇺🇦UKRAINE “MILITARY AID” FROM USA – WAS INVESTED IN CRYPTO “FTX” BY UKRAINE!3:18 AM ∙ Nov 12, 202210,880Likes4,428Retweets
The Ukraine-FTX partnership was announced on March 6th. A few days later, Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer announced that former comedian Zelensky would be allowed to address the entire U.S. Congress:
4:22 PM ∙ Mar 14, 2022227Likes67Retweets
The next month, in April, Pelosi personally visited Mr. Zelensky — right in the middle of the war zone. For something that couldn’t be accomplished with a zoom call.
Robert Fanney 🇺🇸🇺🇦 @robertscribbler
Adam Parkhomenko @AdamParkhomenko
Nancy Pelosi has balls of steel https://t.co/YP2UDezJ2l2:21 AM ∙ May 2, 20227Likes3Retweets
Let me spell it out for you. In other words, it looks like the U.S. sent military-aid money to Ukraine, Ukraine sent money to FTX, and then FTX sent money back to democrat politicians, PACs, and nonprofits for the elections.
You get the idea.
The Butcher of Wall Street | Marcel Kalinovic @BossBlunts1
“If you donated money to “Ukraine” via this mechanism, you actually donated to Democrats in a rigged election funded by illegal campaign contributions laundered through FTX which is increasingly emerging as the crypto hub run by people with globalist ties” noqreport.comNow-Collapsed FTX Crypto Slush Fund Laundered Ukraine Donation Money to Democrat Candidates to Help Rig MidtermsThe FTX crypto slush fund run by now-disgraced Sam Bankman-Fried (and his MIT college buddies) laundered money for Ukraine into…3:50 AM ∙ Nov 13, 20221,237Likes579Retweets
Kruger’s Dragon 🇬🇧🇺🇸 @KrugersDragon
@MagaisLife In reality, the largest donor to the Democrat party this cycle was likely to be the US taxpayer, albeit via Ukraine.3:21 PM ∙ Nov 11, 20229Likes7Retweets
What can I tell you? You will be completely unsurprised to find out that the World Economic Forum was also promoting FTX.
So.
That’s all I can do for today, but I think you have the general idea. Have a blessed Sunday, and I’ll see you tomorrow to kick the week off the C&C way.
C&C is moving the needle and changing minds. If you can, I could use your help getting the truth out and spreading optimism and hope: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/-learn-how-to-get-involved-
Twitter: @jchilders98
Truth Social: @jchilders98
MeWe: mewe.com/i/coffee_and_covid.
C&C Swag! www.shopcoffeeandcovid.com
Emailed Daily Newsletter: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
By Nassau County
11-12-22
Nassau County Parks & Recreation invites you to Nassau County’s first Christmas Tree Lighting! The event will take place on Saturday, December 3rd at 5pm in front of the Robert M. Foster Justice Center located at 76347 Veterans Way.
The event will feature music by the Nassau Community Band, food vendors, vendors selling holiday appropriate gifs, pictures with Santa, and a showing of “Elf” on the giant movie screen.
If you’re interested in signing up to be a vendor, please call 904-530-6120 or email Parks & Recreation Director, Jay Robertson, at [email protected].
By Steven Frank, 11-12-22
I never thought I would say this, but we NEED the Congressional January 6 Committee and more hearings.
How about forcing the head of the FBI explaining how he and his agency participated in the planning of the Jan. 6 event. Or why not have the Committee release all the videos and secret documents they had been hiding. I want to hear the explanation of the Capitol cop who murdered an unarmed woman? Let Zuckerberg show the emails and memos between the FBI, Department of Justice and other agencies coordinating the smears on Trump and others.
Pelosi set up this committee, we should now use it. What do you think?
Pollak: Save the January 6th Committee!
JOEL B. POLLAK, Breitbart, 11/10/22
Republicans say that the new U.S. House of Representatives majority, which they are likely to control, should immediately disband the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol. I wish to disagree in the strongest possible terms: the work of the committee remains incomplete, and must be allowed to continue, because the American people expect and deserve to know the full truth.
The committee has yet to hear from outgoing Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), who was in charge of security arrangements at the Capitol that day. She should be called to testify, and should be asked to hand over all of her documents, text messages, and phone records pertaining to the Capitol riot. She should be eager to comply, because she cares deeply about the truth, and protecting our democracy.
The committee should also call Vice President Kamala Harris for her unique perspective on political violence. She participated in a Black Lives Matter event outside the White House in May 2020, just hours after rioters injured dozens of federal officers and forced the evacuation of the president to a bunker. She also urged the public to bail out rioters in Minneapolis, some of whom later committed violent crimes.
In addition, the committee should call member Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) for his expertise on conspiracy theories and attempts to reverse elections. He spun the “Russia collusion” theory, which turned out to be false, then worked with a “whistleblower” — whom he hid — to engineer the impeachment of a duly elected president. Schiff also probed the private phone records of innocent people; he should be eager to explain.
There is no reason for the committee not to be renewed. True, four of the current nine members are leaving Congress: Rep Liz Cheney (R-WY) lost her primary; esp. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) was drawn out of his own district; Rep. Elaine Luria (D-VA) was voted out of office; and Rep. Stephanie Murphy (D-FL) retired. But the enabling resolution is still in force, and allows the Speaker to appoint 13 members, eight from the majority.
Incoming Speaker Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) should do just as Pelosi did, and hand-pick the five members of the minority. He could name Reps. Jim Banks (R-IN) and Jim Jordan (R-OH), whom Pelosi excluded, as the chair and vice-chair, respectively. They could hold votes to issue subpoenas, to be enforced by findings of contempt of Congress and referral to the Department of Justice for prosecution.
The one way Democrats could try to close the committee down before the new Congress would be to issue a “final report,” which would trigger a 30-day countdown to the termination of proceedings. But how can a report without Pelosi’s testimony be “final”? The new Congress can reject the report, or simply pass a new enabling resolution, using the terms of the first one. After all, the fate of our democracy may depend on it.
Let Democrats face exactly the same requirements to which they subjected their political opponents. Let them see if they can withstand the conditions they insisted were fair — the closed-door testimony, the lack of equal legal representation, the intrusive searches of private information, the selective release of information, the one-sided public hearings. Measure for measure, until justice has finally been done and lessons learned
Filed Under: Stephen Frank’s California Political News And Views
About Stephen Frank
Stephen Frank is the publisher and editor of California Political News and Views. He speaks all over California and appears as a guest on several radio shows each week. He has also served as a guest host on radio talk shows. He is a fulltime political consultant.
By James Bruner, Fernandina, 11-12-22
Today Staci McMonagle gave a full-throated endorsement of Darron Ayscue, one of her former opponents in the race for City Commission. Like the runoff being watched nationally in Georgia, we too have a runoff election in Fernandina on December 13th. Because no one, except for Bradley Bean in the Mayor’s race, received over 50% of the vote for the two City Commission seats, the top vote-getters vie yet again in 30 days.
On December 13th, all city voters will be asked to choose between Darron Ayscue, the firefighter, or Geenece Minshew, the President of Fernandina [LGBTQIA2S*] Pride. *Note: The common initials used within the special interest group that Ms. Minshew leads, based on a simple web search stand for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer/Questioning, Intersex, Asexual, and Two Spirit.
McMonagle, when asked why she was endorsing Ayscue instead of Minshew, said, “Based on my discussions with Darron and hearing him on the campaign trail, I am confident he supports faith, family and freedom in Fernandina. He feels strongly about the Judeo-Christian values of our community and does not want our city leadership to take a hard left turn.”
A recent survey put to the candidates by the nonpartisan Nassau County nonprofit organization known as County Citizens Defending Freedom asked these candidates about several social issues surely to come before the Commission (like boys identifying as girls to play on the city rec. teams or using girls’ bathrooms), only Ms. Minshew and Mr. Lednovich declined to answer.
Darron Ayscue indicated he was grateful to receive the endorsement. “I am extremely honored to have Staci’s support. She has stated many times that she has prayed for our campaigns and continues to pray over mine. Staci has stuck to her campaign promise to run on Faith, Family, Freedom and Fernandina.” Mr. Ayscue added, “I’m happy to carry her values into the runoff election.”
When asked of what she learned on the campaign trail, Staci said, “I sat on a lot of porches while campaigning and talked about many issues, but it boiled down to a few common themes. Residents here want Fernandina to remain the same way where they know their neighbor and are able to enjoy the heart of a small town. They want to stop the over-development. They voiced exasperation with the Commission in that they don’t feel they are being heard.” She went on to explain that too much reliance is placed on the City Manager and that commissioners seem happy to rubber stamp matters put in front of them by the Manager.
When asked whether she felt the election of Bradley Bean as the new Mayor would help the city, Staci said, “I love Bradley Bean! He has the heart of the people in mind. As Mayor I know he will use his vote and agenda-leadership wisely.”
When asked what caused her to run, Staci immediately responded, “God told me to run.” Delving deeper into the form of that special communication, Staci explained, “I attend Rob Goyette’s church, Living Waters. At a Tuesday morning worship session and in deep prayer many months ago, I heard in my spirit that I am to run for City Commission. I shared this with my fellow prayer partners that I was sensing the Lord’s still, quiet voice in my heart. I got immediate confirmation and support from the group and the doors began to open for me to do the extraordinary: run for office.”
Staci indicated she has no regrets and is pleased to direct her supporters to not just vote for Darron Ayscue, but support him financially and beat the streets on his behalf as she pledges to do.
Finally, when asked, due to her loss of the race, did she hear God correctly? She responded, “It is not about me. It is about the Lord. My job is to be faithful to his promptings. He is faithful. I am excited to see what He is doing next in my life because of the bold step He called me to take. This is a journey and sensing God’s hand in mine, I am very excited for what is coming next.”
James Bruner is a Citizen Reporter and near-downtown resident of Fernandina Beach
11-11-22
We don’t know how the Governor election can be “called” for Katie Hobbs, who by the way as Secretary of State is currently in charge of AZ elections, when there are still 620,000 uncounted ballots!
Read/watch this illuminating Epoch times report on it:
The Arizona Secretary of State’s office just released a statement saying that across the state, there remain almost 620,000 ballots left to be counted, with 407,000 of those ballots being in Maricopa County alone. This comes as officials in Maricopa County announced that the tabulators in about 20 percent of the polling sites were malfunctioning on Election Day.
See also: Maricopa Election Postmortem
By Jeff Childers
11-12-22
Happy Saturday, and welcome to the weekend edition! As promised, the roundup includes: the Trump-Desantis story; thoughts about this election and the next one; ghost stories of the neo-apocalypse; election news; high-schooler beats trans madness with help from lawyers; and the FBI makes some personnel changes anticipating a Republican House.
🔥 Wherefore art thou, Romeo? I’m considering starting a new regular feature: the ghost-story. These would be the news items that, for various reasons, the corporate media SHOULD be covering, but aren’t. They’ve become angry invisible spirits, vexing us with their absence.
1. MonkeyPox.
We knew thee well, MoneyPox. Ten minutes ago it was a national emergency. Now I dare you to find even one corporate media story on the “good news” that monkeypox turned out to be a big fat Brokeback Mountain nothing-burger.
2. Paul Pelosi / David DePape.
Two weeks ago it was a a hot-take phenomenon! First there was a new wave of rightwing, hammer-wielding insurrectionists wearing only tight white underpants. Then it briefly morphed into “republicans pounce.” Now that we’ve had time for reporters to actually dig into facts of the story, abcracadabra, it’s disapparated! Vamoosed! High-tailed it! Lit out for the border!
Oh. And there’s STILL no security video.
Out, damned spot of inconvenient news!
3. Excess Deaths.
In case you needed to find cause to fire the entire corporate media without notice or benefits, perhaps they’re ignoring the excess deaths story will fit the bill. Um, NORMALLY the corporate media LOVES a good “mysterious deaths” story. But despite the undeniable existence of massive waves of excess non-covid deaths, starting in 2021 and increasing in 2022, in every highly-jabbed nation in the world, corporate media remains as silent as the tomb.
Sound On 🎶 https://t.co/pjX60I6dmq https://t.co/niOrV5Ix9Q1:13 PM ∙ Nov 2, 20221,677Likes825Retweets
Cristian Terhes MEP @CristianTerhes
There is reported excess mortality in 2022 all over Western hemisphere, which the so-called experts cannot explain. In 2020-2021 almost any death was attributed to COVID. In 2022 why is the MSM not asking if there a connection between the COVID vaccines and these excess deaths?8:46 AM ∙ Nov 4, 202210,550Likes4,599Retweets
𝙍𝙄𝙎𝙀𝙈𝙀𝙇𝘽𝙊𝙐𝙍𝙉𝙀 @riseupandresist
11:04 AM ∙ Nov 11, 2022330Likes221Retweets
Maybe the reason corporate media is so quiet is that it, itself, is just another excess death victim. Maybe it’s already died, and now we’re just watching the media corpse’s noisy decomposition.
🔥 On Thursday, Trump shocked and infuriated lots of Republican voters after he posted a spicy series of Truths (like tweets) on his social media network. They were mostly mildly critical of Governor DeSantis, but were infused with the traditional disrespectful Trump tone — and in a couple places, were arguably downright insulting.
It didn’t come out of nowhere. The day before, on Wednesday, the entire corporate media apparatus turned on Trump like a flock of seagulls chasing a tossed bread crust. Nearly every major corporate media outlet featured an anti-Trump cover story. It was obviously coordinated.
At the very least, the broad media coordination proved that GOP elites are working together to prevent Trump’s nomination. I’m not the only one who noticed:
The next day, Trump posted a series of inflammatory comments about how he’d helped Governor DeSantis win his election, and said this:
More troubling, Trump also unfortunately suggested that, as President, he’d gotten involved in Broward County’s 2018 election to help DeSantis win — by preventing cheating — but the lamentable comment fueled fresh new BlueAnon theories of ‘election interference’ and ‘insurrection:’
Trump is now claiming he ordered the FBI and U.S. Attorneys to stop the ballot counting in the 2018 Florida Governor race, so DeSantis would narrowly win. Trump, who knows he’s going to prison anyway, is confessing to felonies just to scandalize DeSantis. This is going to be fun.12:09 AM ∙ Nov 11, 202258,589Likes12,140Retweets
Donald Trump just said he sent the “FBI & US Attorneys” into Florida to “stop ballot theft” in order to help Gov Ron DeSantis win in 2018. This, if true, is illegal. A President weaponizing a federal agency to manipulate an election result is both criminal and outright Fascist.6:28 PM ∙ Nov 11, 202210,694Likes3,692Retweets
Corporate media excitedly ran with the story: red-on-red conflict! The popular corporate media take was it proved Trump is too deranged and reckless to be president:
“I have never seen him more irresponsible and chaotic then he is today. He seems to be in self-destruct mode. It is irresponsible to attack DeSantis and Youngkin, and it’s irresponsible to announce in any time in the near future” especially before GA runoff, per a Trump adviser.7:57 PM ∙ Nov 11, 202211,133Likes1,414Retweets
But some commenters see the entire story as a made-up distraction at best, or at worst, a new deep-state / corporate media effort to pit conservatives against each other:
I am not going to engage in the “Trump vs DeSantis” fight conservatives are having. I am a big supporter of both men. And I urge you to not engage in this. This is what Democrats want. And unlike the Democrats, we are blessed to have TWO great fighters on the side of freedom.3:15 PM ∙ Nov 11, 202279,199Likes15,837Retweets
The whole Trump-DeSantis fight, besides being one-sided (so it’s not a real fight), is a DISTRACTION. We’ll figure out 2024 in due course. Right now we’re focused on Arizona, Nevada and the runoff in Georgia. Good results in those places change the midterm picture dramatically!4:03 PM ∙ Nov 11, 202212,271Likes2,757Retweets
I’m not sure it’s that clear. It’s either an attempt to turn conservatives against DeSantis by associating themselves with him or it’s just them taking the opportunity to own drumpf without thinking much about the politics. They’re not that smart so I don’t know. https://t.co/XBh1GjbzBL4:42 PM ∙ Nov 11, 20221,482Likes169Retweets
But other commenters see Trump’s comments as a wily, 4-D chess move, or even a brilliant rope-a-dope:
If you’re trying to make sense of DeSantis vs Trump consider the poss we’re being played & DeSantis’ role is to draw out traitors on the right? As long as his ego stays in check, the plan works. Never assume we know everything. Trump’s job was always to expose the enemy within.2:38 PM ∙ Nov 11, 202218,820Likes4,314Retweets
Trump himself fed that narrative yesterday, by “re-Truthing” (forwarding with approval) a comment suggesting that he and DeSantis were really working together:
Meanwhile, DeSantis has smartly stayed out of it, intelligently refraining from commenting on the “latest thing that President Trump said.”
There is a much simpler possible explanation about the brouhaha than all these various theories. Despite all the chatter, Trump isn’t actually running for President right now. He is running for the REPUBLICAN NOMINATION.
Remember the last nomination season, back in 2015? The GOP ran SEVENTEEN nominees. Trump was thought least likely to win. Even the democrats secretly supported Trump, mistakenly thinking he’d be easiest to beat. Do you remember what that primary season was like? Trump made up derogatory nicknames for all his opponents.
Remember “Little Marco?” Remember when he told CNN Megyn Kelly probably had blood coming out of her “whatever”? In comparison, “DeSanctimonious” is pretty mild.
So, the simplest explanation for why Trump would go after DeSantis, even relatively mildly, is because the primary race has begun. This is what Trump does. And before anyone gets too high and mighty about it, Trump is only doing publicly what they ALL do behind the scenes.
What is “opposition research,” if not viciously attacking another candidate while pretending to be above the fray?
It looks to me like on Wednesday, the GOP viciously attacked Trump to boost DeSantis’ primary chances, and on Thursday Trump pushed back a little. I don’t know about all the other more complicated theories. Neither does anyone else.
Remember Occam’s razor. The simplest explanation is usually the best.
🕛 Both the liberals and the GOP elite would like to broom the MAGA movement into the dustbin of history, just like they did with the Tea Party. I have four humble suggestions to avoid giving the liberals and the GOP elites what they want, or — Heaven help us — accidentally encouraging the formation of a third party.
My thoughts:
1) Don’t overreact to primary season politics.
2) Don’t put Trump, DeSantis, or anyone else on a pedestal or excuse them from the normal rules. Avoid the “Superman” fallacy. We are STILL going to have to save ourselves. LOCAL elections remain the best place to focus your time and energy.
3) Make sure YOU don’t contribute to an un-civil environment that helps fracture conservative unity or drive MAGA people toward a third party effort. Trump needs to stay in the Republican Party and run for the nomination, with all that entails. EXPECT the nominees to attack each other.
4) Don’t attack other conservatives; feel free to go after people for fostering conflict, but not about holding different opinions or even promoting something false. Contradict false facts with links to the truth and not with angry rhetoric.
5) Finally, allow for the possibility that there could be strategies unfolding behind the scenes that we don’t fully understand. So always view the latest narrative skeptically, keep your powder dry, and stay positive.
I realize not everyone agrees with my prescription. That’s okay. But what *I* will be doing is trying to stop a wedge from being driven between conservatives, and trying to shut down any discussion of third parties.
A civil and fair nomination race is critically important.
🔥 The difficult fact is Republicans underperformed in last week’s elections, despite the fact that voters said the economy was their number one issue, and despite that many democrat candidates were, shall we say, deeply flawed.
For one standout example, newly-elected democrat Senator John Fetterman can’t even finish a sentence, can’t wear normal clothes, and won’t release any of his medical records. A medium-sized squid should have been able to beat him.
6:52 PM ∙ Oct 16, 20221,260Likes530Retweets
It’s obviously not about total votes. Republicans got six million more votes nationally than democrats. Republicans were more organized than we’ve ever been. We were more motivated than we’ve ever been. Everybody, even democrats, expected a much larger red wave.
It might have something to do with funding and organization. As much improvement as we’ve shown, the Republicans still aren’t well enough organized to win big, even with all their structural advantages this year.
Remember, we may not have all these same advantages in 2024. Two years is a long time in politics.
Regarding funding, Democrats have massively outraised conservatives. According to a report from Conservative HQ, liberal nonprofits raised about seven times more money in the last decade than have conservative nonprofits ($21+ billion vs. $3-4 billion). Granted, they also have deep state friends constantly directing federal grant money their way, but it’s not the whole story.
Liberal non-profits also have seven times more DONORS than conservative nonprofits (20+ million donors vs. 3-4 million for conservatives), and liberals have more than TEN TIMES as many single-issue nonprofits compared to conservatives (over 20,000 for dems versus only about 2,000 for conservatives). Taking one issue as an example, pro-abortion nonprofits have 1000% more donors than do pro-life groups, and have raised 1,000% more money than have the pro-lifers.
Those issue dollars translate into support for aligned candidates in specific races all across the country.
Democrats had so much money this year that they even invested to promote REPUBLICAN candidates who they thought they could more easily beat. Notice in the following clip that Ms. Hobbes is talking about a NATIONAL strategy, not just one for Arizona:
#1 – Holy Crap #2 – Who is doing better journalism these days than Projeft Veritas? #3 – Holy Crap
9:10 PM ∙ Oct 24, 20225,941Likes2,166Retweets
Here are two examples of how better organization translates into votes.
Democrats have massive ballot-harvesting operations in states where it’s legal (and maybe otherwise), and drive voter turnout from the first day mail-in balloting starts all the way through Election Day, whereas Republicans have no organized harvesting strategy, and focus only on vote-driving for one day: Election Day.
Here’s another one. Have you heard of “Souls to the Polls,” the democrat-party-organized program for black churches to bus members from church to the voting booth the Sunday before Election Day? Where’s the Republican response? It’s not like they don’t know about the problem. Here’s an article discussing it from back in MARCH: “Churchy Republicans Attack ‘Souls to the Polls’.”
While it’s tempting to try to find one explanation, it’s not just a “cheating” problem. That’s a convenient excuse and a distraction. I’m not saying it doesn’t exist and isn’t a real problem. I’m sure there was plenty of it going around, especially in certain areas. I’m just saying that cheating is not the whole picture.
Every one of us knows or know of a bunch of folks who voted for democrats — including Fetterman! — even though mayonnaise costs three times more than it did two years ago, and Joe Biden is practically waving nuclear warheads at Russia and daring them to start something.
At first glance, Florida seems like pretty good evidence that widespread cheating was to blame for Tuesday’s poor national results. Florida spent two years tightening up elections laws, eliminating no-cause mail-in-voting, criminalizing harvesting, creating an elections-crimes unit, and cracking down on ballot drop-off boxes.
And then, Florida DID see a red wave. Imagine that. So, you say, we need to fix the elections laws, like in Florida. But that’s easier said than done.
The standout state of Florida, where the red wave did appear, enjoyed certain structural advantages not enjoyed by other states. Mainly, Republicans held the governorship, the House, and the Senate, and so were ABLE to plug many of the problematic voting holes highlighted by 2020s experience. But it’s not just that, Florida also benefited from a massive conservative in-migration and an incredibly popular, successful, and well-supported state government.
But that’s not the whole answer either. Holding the governorship and state congress is not sufficient because Texas also had the legislature and the executive, the Lone Star State also benefited from conservative migration, but for some reason it did not enjoy the same solid results as Florida. It should have.
Even if by 2024 Joe Biden can only communicate in Morse Code by winking one eye or squeezing Kamala’s finger, it’s still going to be a brutal fight, and a close, close race, regardless of whether the Republican nominee is Trump or DeSantis or Lake or any another candidate. If they voted for Fetterman, they’ll vote for Biden no matter how incoherent he is.
Conservatives MUST get better organized. Biden only won because of about six large counties. They’re playing Moneyball, right down to precinct level. Republicans need to expect cheating in counties under total blue control, and have strategies for countering it.
There are ways. For example, Arizona conservatives used a clever strategy this week of dropping off their mail-in ballots on Election Day, to confound cheating attempts. Because mail-in ballots are counted last, the strategy made it harder for cheaters to know how many extra ballots they need.
That means our think tanks need to start earning their keep, or we’ll need new ones.
🔥 More outlets are projecting Republican Sheriff Joe Lombardo will flip Nevada’s governorship.
🔥 After a sudden overnight uptick in democrat votes, Mark Kelly is now projected to beat Blake McMasters for Arizona Senate.
🔥 The New American ran a story yesterday headlined, “Vermont High School Backs Down Over ‘Transgender’ Incident After ADF Files a First Amendment Lawsuit.”
Earlier this year, a Vermont high-school disciplined girls’ soccer player Blake Allen, who’d complained about a boy who watched her undress in the locker room. School officials accused the girl of “misgendering” the boy, by calling him a boy, and ordered her to attend a “restorative circle,” whatever that is.
Officials also required her father, Travis, who was the girls’ soccer coach, to publicly apologize after he commented about his daughter’s suspension on social media.
The Allens contacted the Alliance Defending Freedom, who filed a 124-page lawsuit against the school. Shortly thereafter, the school’s superintended rescinded the disciplinary actions.
I’d like to say that reason prevailed, but we all know the school only backed down because of the threat of legal action.
🔥 The deep state is doing some housekeeping in advance of likely Republican control of the House. The Daily Wire ran a story yesterday headlined, “Top FBI Official Who Led Whitmer Kidnapping Plot, J6 Investigations To Retire.”
According to the story, FBI Director Chris Wray announced yesterday that Steven D’Antuono, who currently runs the D.C. field office, will retire from the FBI and will be replaced before the end of the year. In other words, before he can be required as a government employee to testify before Congress.
Agent D’Antuono infamously ran the Detroit field office while the FBI coordinated the kidnapping of Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer. He was then promoted to supervise the D.C. office, to oversee the January 6th investigations and prosecutions.
There is probably a LOT of stuff that Congressional Republicans would like to ask Mr. D’Antuono about. So he’s about to become scarce. I wonder if he’ll move to Italy with the Pelosi’s and Dr. Fauci?
Anyway, I say good riddance. It’s one way to drain the swamp.
Have a super-fantastic Saturday, and I’ll see you all back here on Monday morning to kick off another energizing week of Coffee & Covid.
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The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
Edited by Michael Hernandez, 11-11-22
(Editor’s Note: this is part of a compendium of recent significant events, culled from U.S. news and curated by Michael Hernandez.)
JOEL B. POLLAK (Nov 10) Breitbart News
Republicans have won nearly six million more votes nationwide in races for the House of Representatives, but have flipped relatively few seats, suggesting talk of a “red wave” may have anticipated the overall mood of the country but not the final result of the election.
According to the Cook Political Report, as of Thursday morning, November 10, Republicans have won 50,113,534 votes, or 52.3% of the vote, compared to 44,251,768, or 46.2% of the vote. Republicans lead by 6.1%, which is better than their average in “generic congressional ballot” polls, in which the party led by 2.5% in the final RealClearPolitics average before the election. But Republicans have only managed to flip nine seats thus far — likely enough to control the House, but far short of a “wave” result many anticipated.
The mismatch between overall votes cast for Republicans and the actual result reflects the polarized nature of congressional maps. It also reflects the fact that Republican losses against many Democratic incumbents were very narrow. However, it could also suggest that Democrats ran a more effective campaign, concentrating resources where they were needed to defend their vulnerable positions.
In comparison, during the Tea Party “wave” election of 2010, in which Republicans won 63 seats, Republicans won 44,593,666 votes out of 86,784,957 cast, or 51.3%. Democrats won 38,854,459 votes, or 44.8%, meaning that the Republican margin of victory was 6.5%, similar to the margin thus far in 2022. However, the Republicans failed to win the Senate in that race, losing several key races.
By Richard D. Land (Nov. 11) Christian Post Opinion
America has voted. Things worked better than in 2020, at least in most places. Unfortunately, Arizona and Nevada cannot seem to run timely, efficient, glitch-free elections. Perhaps the states of Georgia and Florida should host a tutorial on how to run fair and fast elections for Arizona and Nevada.
The most astounding result across the land from last Tuesday’s election was this — 98% of incumbents from both parties who ran for re-election were victorious. Almost every incumbent senator and governor of either party won with the possible exception of Arizona and Nevada (where the incumbent governor left casinos open during Covid, but closed churches).
Yet exit polls revealed that 75% of voters think the country “was headed in the wrong direction.” Why such an entrenched political class in a society with such high levels of dissatisfaction? This degree of incumbency entitlement is not healthy in a representative democracy. How did this happen?
The first answer is increased “gerrymandering,” the process by which congressional districts in various states are manipulated for maximum benefit for one party or the other by their respective state legislatures.
It is now reported by political pundits that the 63 House seat loss suffered by President Obama in 2010 is now almost impossible as a result of gerrymandering. Some analysts believe that as of today, gerrymandering has been so successfully employed by both parties that in the 435-member House of Representatives only about 50 seats are realistically open to being flipped from one party to the other in a specific election.
In the election last Tuesday, Americans cast 52 million votes for Republican congressional candidates as opposed to 46 million for Democrat candidates. And yet, the Republicans will probably only gain somewhere between 20 and 25 new seats.
The supposed swing state of New Jersey is a classic example of the destructive impact of gerrymandering. In the wake of the 2020 Census, New Jersey aggressively gerrymandered the state so that “New Jersey’s blue seats got bluer…red seats got redder,” reports Tracey Tully in The New York Times article “In New Jersey, Redistricting Helped Most Incumbents Win Big.”
The baleful effect of this fact is that it thwarts the will of the people. Our forefathers designed the House of Representatives as “the people’s house.” Every member of the House is up for re-election every two years. Consequently, if the people are very unhappy or concerned about an issue, at the very least they can make their pleasure or displeasure known very quickly.
Conversely, our forefathers designed a Senate where only one-third of its members are elected every two years and each Senator is elected to a six-year term to place a check on whether the voters acted too hastily. The House has been described as a hot cup of coffee and the Senate as a saucer into which the hot coffee is poured, allowed to cool down, and examined as to whether it should be consumed.
Clearly, the excessive, bipartisan gerrymandering of the House of Representatives has compromised its purpose as the “people’s house.” Consequently, the gerrymandering must be done away with. One way to accomplish this would be to put in term limits. As the late Secretary of the Treasury John Connally once said, “let members serve for a maximum of 12 years and then go home and make a living under the laws they have passed.”
The “gerrymandering effect” also emphasizes and enhances the admittedly strong political divisions existing presently in American society. How? When you have created a congressional district that is “safely” Democrat or Republican, the real election takes place in the primary, not the general election.
So, if a Republican or a Democrat Congressman tries to reach a compromise with other lawmakers on the other side of the aisle on legislation, assuming that if he or she can achieve at least half of his desired goal, it is better than achieving nothing, his more radical fellow Republicans or Democrats in his home district threaten him with “being primaried.” So, the country ends up electing the less moderate congressional candidates in the primaries. So, in the general election voters are faced with a stark contrast between a very conservative or a very liberal candidate to be their congressman.
This phenomenon leads to the current situation where in the Congress elected in 2020 the most conservative Democrat had a more liberal voting record than his or her most liberal Republican colleague. This complete lack of “overlap” between the two parties in the House makes the traditional compromise and horse-trading that results in legislation getting passed almost impossible. (Remember that Upton Sinclair observed at the beginning of the 20th century that the two things you should never witness being made were sausages and legislations.)
Some of us who have worked with Congress over the years have witnessed this accelerating bifurcation of Congress into two warring camps with a “no-man’s land” in the middle ground where compromise used to take place.
I have often lamented that in this congressional situation the perfect is the enemy of the good, and the good is the enemy of the imperfect “doable,” and gridlock ensues with the country being ill-served because relatively little gets done.
A very good example is immigration reform. There is probably nothing for which the federal government has jurisdiction which is as broken as immigration policy. A good, constructive compromise on this volatile issue is achievable if the moderate conservatives and the moderate liberals formed a coalition of the middle and broke from those to the left of them in the Democrat Party and those to the right of them in the Republican Party (I will be fleshing out that “achievable” immigration compromise in a future CP column).
Given the fact that for the vast majority of congressional districts the threat of being defeated in the primary is greater than the threat of losing a general election, the coalition of the middle fades into oblivion and nothing constructive gets done. As a consequence, the country as a whole suffers destructive legislative gridlock.
We can and must do better.
https://www.christianpost.com/news/why-we-shouldnt-be-surprised-by-the-election-result.html
By Brie Stimson (Nov. 11)| Fox News
A little more than 50,000 mail ballots still need to be counted in Clark County, Nevada’s most populated center, Clark County Registrar of Voters Joe Gloria said during Friday’s daily press conference, as Republican Adam Laxalt and incumbent Democrat Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto remain in a tight Senate race. “We’re getting to the tail-end of what we need to do,” Garcia said, adding that the bulk of ballots would likely be counted by Saturday. He said that more than 9,000 ballots can still be cured by Monday, meaning there was an issue with the ballot the voter can fix, and he said that mail-in ballots postmarked by Election Day can still be received by Saturday.
Some ballots are expected to be counted by Friday evening, Garcia said, adding that there are more than 5,000 provisional ballots as well.
Laxalt maintained an 8,988 vote lead by Friday afternoon, one that has been steadily shrinking since Tuesday as more votes from heavily Democratic Clark County are counted.
In the race for governor, Republican Joe Lombardo had a more comfortable 28,543 vote lead over Gov. Steve Sisolak, a Democrat, on Friday.
Votes are still outstanding in other counties as well, including rural ones that would likely favor Laxalt. The results are expected to be close. Nevada’s second-largest county, Washoe, has about 23,000 ballots left to count, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
The race is one of three still uncalled for the Senate, including Arizona and Georgia, which is headed to a December runoff, that will determine if Democrats or Republicans take control of the Senate.
PAM KEY (Nov 10) Breitbart News
Wednesday, the anchors of CNBC’s “Money Minute,” a segment on “NBC Now” streaming news platform, discussed a recent survey from Intelligent.com. that found 73% of President Biden’s student debt forgiveness anticipated recipients say they will spend the extra income on non-essential items including dining out and travel.
Anchor Deirdre Bosa said, “It could be easy as well for some people to enjoy travel and eating out rather than worrying about the future. One financial coach tells CNBC.com that you should not use the loan forgiveness only for long-term goals because your short-term self might get frustrated.”
She added, “Try to achieve a balance that lets you also invest in your future.”
JOHN CARNEY (Nov 10) Breitbart News
Consumer prices continued to climb in October as the pace of overall inflation held at the level hit a month earlier and underlying inflation excluding food and fuel slowed. The Labor Department’s consumer price index rose by 0.4 percent compared with a month earlier. Compared with 12 months ago, the CPI is up 7.7 percent.
Core consumer prices, a key measure of inflation that excludes food and energy, rose 0.3 percent compared with September and are up 6.3 percent from a year earlier. Economists had expected a 0.7 percent month-to-month rise in CPI. Prices were expected to be up 7.9 percent compared with a year ago. Core prices were seen as rising 0.5 percent for the month and 6.6 percent for the year.
Stock futures rallied after the October inflation figures were released. Prior to the release, the futures were indicating the Dow Jones Industrial Average was expected to rise by around 50 points. After the release, the futures implied the Dow would climb nearly 800 points.
Inflation cooled dramatically in July, with the CPI unchanged compared with June its smallest increase since 2020. This prompted many to declare that inflation had peaked and inspired hopes that the rapid price increases that have beset the economy since last year might be in the rearview mirror. Inflation accelerated in August and September, however, dashing those hopes. In September, the CPI was up 0.4 percent for the month and 8.2 percent compared with a year earlier.
Core prices were up 0.6 percent in September from August and 6.6 percent year over year. So, the pace of core inflation decelerated in October. The pace of food inflation also slowed down. The index of food for consumption at home rose 0.4 percent in October and is up 12.4 percent from a year ago. The index tracking the price of eating out rose 0.9 percent for the third consecutive month. Compared with a year ago, food away from home prices are up 8.6 percent.
The index for shelter rose 0.8 percent compared with the prior month and contributed over half of the monthly increase in the broad index. The energy index increased 1.8 percent over the month as the gasoline index and the electricity index rose, but the natural gas index decreased.
Used car prices fell 2.4 percent, the fourth month of declining prices. Compared with a year ago, used car prices are up two percent. New car prices rose 0.4 percent and are up 8.4 percent from a year ago. Clothing prices fell 0.7 percent after falling 0.3 percent in September. Compared with a year ago, apparel prices are up 4.1 percent. Prices in the services sector excluding energy rose 0.5 percent and are up 6.7 percent from a year ago.
The Federal Reserve officials has been raising interest rates since March, including four straight hikes of an unusually large 75 basis points. This has taken the Fed’s benchmark rate from near zero to just below four percent.
Prior to the CPI release, the Fed Fund futures market indicated that investors were almost evenly divided about whether the Fed will announce a smaller hike of 50 basis points at the December meeting or keep up the pace with another 75 basis point hike, with each having close to a 50 percent chance of occurring. After the CPI release, the odds shifted to significantly favor the smaller hike. At nine a.m., the Fed Funds futures market implied an 80 chance of a 50 basis point hike.
The Fed targets the overnight rate banks pay to each other to borrow reserves and also pays banks interest on reserves they hold. Because longer-term yields reflect the expected path of short-term rates, the Fed’s tightening has pushed those up, raising the costs of borrowing for the government, home buyers and consumers, and businesses. The yield on 10-year Treasuries has jumped from around 1.5 percent at the close of last year to around 4.1 percent now. The average 30-year fixed rate on home loans has more than doubled, rising from 3.2 percent to 7.5 percent. The yield on riskier corporate “junk” bonds has marched upward from 4.35 percent at the end of last year to 9.15 percent today, according to an index maintained by Bank of America.
Yields move in the opposite direction of bond prices, meaning bondholders have faced large losses from these rapid changes. Stocks are down sharply as well, in part because investors discount future cash flows more when interest rates are higher. As well, investors fear that the Fed’s tightening campaign will push the U.S. economy into a recession that will hurt corporate earnings. With bond and stock prices both falling together, traditionally diversified investor portfolios have suffered unusually large losses this year.
https://www.breitbart.com/economy/2022/11/10/consumer-prices-up-7-7-in-october/
Our Hope
ANNAH BLEAU (Nov 7) Breitbart News
National faith leaders joined with former President Donald Trump in participating in a call on Monday, where they offered prayers for the country the day before Election Day.
National faith leaders joined with former President Donald Trump in participating in a call Monday, where they offered prayers for the country the day before Election Day. The National Faith and Values Prayer call, hosted by the American Cornerstone Institute, included participants — from Dr. Ben Carson to Family Research Council President Tony Perkins — many of whom called for revival and awakening in America.
“Our faith has been forced out of the public square. Our liberty has been stripped away piece by piece. Our communities are disintegrating into lawlessness and violence, and radical anti-life policies are being pushed right down our throats around the nation,” Carson began, kicking off the call by referencing scripture from Proverbs.
“Where there is no vision the people perish. In other words, when we have leaders that don’t have their eyes set on eternal truths, the nation suffers as a result, and we’re seeing this playing up in front of us right now,” he said, explaining that Americans have the chance to vote for their values.
Former President Donald Trump spoke after Carson, expressing honor for participating on the call and describing the faith community as the “very backbone of what makes our country great.” Trump also said the Almighty’s fingerprint is evident in all of the nation’s great triumphs.
Family Research Council President Tony Perkins was one of the guests on the call, who said a Christian’s responsibility goes beyond voting. He spoke of Elijah’s “epic confrontation” with the prophets of Baal, explaining that he confronted the people of Israel, in 1 Kings 18:21, which reads:
And Elijah came near to all the people and said, “How long will you go limping between two different opinions? If the LORD is God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him.” And the people did not answer him a word.
“I really believe that … this is the message,” he said, contending that America needs to make a decision.
“If the Lord is God, we need to follow in our whole heart. … It’s time to stop living with one foot in the kingdom of God and one foot in the world,” he said before praying that the country returns to Biblical truth.
“And so, I pray that your people who are called by your name will humble themselves will seek Your face will turn from their wicked ways,” he said, asking the Lord to help His people seek Him with their whole heart. And I pray Father, that as a result, even those who don’t, would be blessed in this nation, because of your blessings that would flow from the obedience of your people. And we pray this in Jesus name, amen,” he said, as other faith leaders offered similar prayers and messages.
Paula White, founder of the National Faith Advisory Board, urged Americans to vote “according to our convictions. So, we as your people who are called by Your name, thank you for hearing our prayers and leading by Your Spirit in our land Lord,” she said, adding that His followers are “watching and praying” and “discerning the signs of the times.”
Dr. Ed Young, the senior pastor of Second Baptist Church, also spoke, adding that the election will determine, “which way America?” And I am just praying that some how, some way, that we will move against the woke agenda,” he said, which he described as “contrary to Biblical truth.”
“Heavenly Father, we stand for truth. Teach us when to speak and when to be silent. May we be wise as serpents and innocent as doves and Lord let us not shout but let us speak. We pray that you will bring renewal in government,” he said, thanking God for the “privilege of voting and making our voices heard.”
Fr. Frank Pavone of Priests for Life spoke, identifying the right to life as the foundation of every issue and asking God to teach His people that they are called to renew the world — not to follow it. “We rejoice today that we are citizens of your kingdom. May that make us all the more committed to being faithful citizens on Earth,” he said, adding that voters do not cease to be Christians when they enter the voting booth.
Other participants offered prayers as Carson closed, reminding Christians to “encourage all those around us to vote” and remind each other that faith should not be hidden from the world. This election “gives us a chance to stand for our beliefs and make our voices heard,” he said.
“Tomorrow, we as Christians, who take our value seriously, have the opportunity to vote, and we can offer our nation the blessings of the upright mentioned in Proverbs, and by God’s grace, we will continue to be that shining city upon a hill,” he added.
(Michael Hernandez, co-founder of the Citizens Journal—Ventura County’s online news service is a former Southern California daily newspaper journalist and religion and news editor. Mr. Hernandez can be contacted at [email protected] and is editor of “America: The End and Our Hope”.)
From Nassau County, 11-11-22
CLICK for lots more great pics from the downtown Fernandina Beach Veterans day parade!
By Ballotpedia, 11-11-22
Ballotpedia reports on the status, nationally, of resolution of U.S. House, Senate, state Governor races, as well as some key ballot measures ….
| Where elections stand: U.S. Senate |
| Partisan control of the chamber has not yet been determined, in part because races in Arizona, and Nevada remain uncalled (Alaska’s U.S. Senate election is also uncalled at this time, but the two candidates in the ranked-choice runoff with the most votes are Republicans, including the incumbent, Sen. Lisa Murkowski). The U.S. Senate election in Georgia is headed to a Dec. 6 runoff. |
| KEEP READING |
| Where elections stand: U.S. House |
Republicans needed to gain a net of five districts to win a majority in the U.S. House. Partisan control of the chamber is currently unknown because, according to our race calling policy, 31 races remain uncalled. As of this writing, eight incumbents have been defeated. These members include six Democrats and two Republicans.
Where elections stand: Governors |
| Thirty-six states held elections for governor, including 20 with a Republican governor and 16 with a Democratic governor going into the elections. The gubernatorial elections in Alaska, Arizona, Nevada, and Oregon remain uncalled. Of the races already called, two states—Maryland and Massachusetts—saw partisan control change from Republican to Democrat. |
| KEEP READING |
| Key takeaways from state legislative elections In Tuesday’s state legislative elections, Democrats gained four chambers and four trifectas, while Republicans expanded their margins in several states. Democrats flipped chambers in Michigan and Minnesota, creating new trifectas there. Both states previously had divided governments. Democrats also gained trifectas in Maryland and Massachusetts where the party maintained legislative majorities but gained control of governorships. While Republicans have not yet gained control of any new chambers this cycle, the party has expanded its control in several states. In Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Wisconsin, Republicans gained veto-proof majorities in at least one chamber. |
| KEEP READING |
| A post-election ballot measures round-up On Nov. 8, voters decided on 132 statewide ballot measures in 37 states. As of this writing, 81 (61.36%) statewide ballot measures were approved, 36 (27.27%) were defeated, and 15 (11.36%) remained uncalled. Some highlights: Voters approved ballot measures establishing a state constitutional right to abortion in California, Michigan, and Vermont. Voters in Maryland and Missouri approved marijuana legalization ballot measures. Voters in Arkansas, North Dakota, and South Dakota rejected their measures. In Nebraska, voters approved Initiative 432, which added language to the state constitution requiring photo identification to vote. In Nevada, Question 3 would adopt open top-five primaries and ranked-choice voting for general elections. Approval of Question 3 in 2022 would require a second vote in 2024 before the measure would become law. As of Nov. 11, ‘yes’ was leading with 52%. Click here to watch our Nov. 10 webinar summarizing what happened on the ballot measure front with Editor in Chief, Geoff Pallay, and Managing Editor for Ballot Measures, Ryan Byrne. KEEP READING |
By Dave Scott, 11-11-22
Fernandina Beach residents have another chance Tuesday, December 13 to prevent their idyllic community going from a classic Norman Rockwell setting to a far left hellscape of cultural demolition and wokeness.
Two of the worst candidates to ever run for elected office in Fernandina Beach – activist left wingers Genece Minshew and Mike Lednovich – are in a December 13 runoff because they thankfully didn’t win 50 percent of the vote this past Tuesday.
There is one more opportunity for residents to vote for chiropractor Dr. James Antun and firefighter Darron Ayscue to keep Fernandina sane, safe, and secure and prevent it from transitioning from Bedford Falls into Pottersville. Ayscue and Antun will cement communal stability instead of undermining its foundations.
In his victory speech Tuesday evening Governor Ron DeSantis said: “Florida is where wokeness goes to die.” Let’s hope that Fernandina candidates Darron Ayscue and Dr. James Antun can bury it in Fernandina Beach by winning the Group 4 and 5 seats on the City Commission.
The red political wave predicted for most of the U.S. didn’t occur last Tuesday. It stopped in Florida, with enough ripples flowing across the rest of the country to give Republicans a majority in the House and keep the Senate out of Democrat control.
We will find out December 13 if Florida’s red wave made it all the way to Fernandina when voters will decide if they want California transplant Mike Lednovich, a guy who parades around town wearing a Black Lives Matter sandwich board and who won’t answer any questions posed to him by citizens or the media.
Or do Fernandina residents want the other far left candidate, Genece Minshew, who isn’t any better, perhaps even worse?
Minshew scrubbed her social media sites to hide all the LGBTQA+ material including transgender fluidity for minors she normally touts.
Both Minshew and Lednovich were endorsed by the Democrat Club of Amelia Island that also endorsed Charlie Crist and all other far left state candidates. Click on the link below to see who else keeps company with Minshew and Lednovich.
Minshew and Lednovich are the only local candidates refusing to answer a County Citizens Defending Freedom (CCDF-Nassau) voter questionnaire survey that asked a range of questions about a variety of local issues.
Both refused to answer any of the questions concerning the use of city restrooms by biological males as well as questions on abortion within the city limits, the removal of the city’s history, city governmental regulations and more. See for yourself all the questions and who answered and who refused by clicking here: Voter Guide for Nassau School Board and Fernandina Council Election- 2022
They both also refused to answer “yes” or “no” to the question: “Would you support Fernandina Beach positioning itself in promotional material as a Gay Vacation Destination?” On December 13 residents have an opportunity to respond to that question.
Minshew is the head of President of Fernandina Beach Pride, an LGBTQA+ advocacy group, and has plenty of experience promoting that agenda, having lived in Decatur, Georgia, and Asheville, North Carolina, two far left cities infested with the radicalization of the educational system and cultural vandalism. Both communities embrace leftist political indoctrination rather than learning; special identity demands, transgender activism, speech codes, assaults on the realities of history, drag queen story times for kids, etc. Minshew has been reported to publicly state numerous times that she wants to make Fernandina Beach a “gay destination.” She, like Lednovich, has refused to answer a series of questions from citizens and the media on these topics. Both refused to respond to emails or phone calls asking why they won’t answer.
Other than this blog the only other local media outlet to call them out is the new online publication Citizens Journal Florida . The blind online Observer and timid print News Leader both ignore the story. Why?
Ayscue is president of the local firefighters union and has been a critic of the city’s mismanaged budgeting and advocates a millage reduction.
Dr. Antun and his Chiropractor wife, Jayde, jointly operate a Fernandina chiropractic clinic. Dr. Antun is an articulate public speaker with traditional family values and promotes strict budgetary discipline.
Both Antun and Ayscue answered each question on the CCDF voter questionnaire and have never refused to respond to media questions. Lednovich and Minshew only respond to their supporters’ powder puff questions and ignore all others, hoping no one will notice.
Ayscue has picked up the endorsement of Staci McMonagle the third candidate in the Group 5 race, who has asked her voters to support the local fireman.
As of this posting a poll still running here indicates that 94 percent (103 respondents) said they think all candidates should have responded to the CCDF questionnaire. Only 6 percent ( 7 respondents) said they shouldn’t. The last time Minshew ran for the Commission she only lost by 38 votes so 100 votes on December 13 can send these two outliers packing.
To keep Fernandina going from Rockwell to raunch vote for Dr. James Antun and Darron Ayscue December 13. Voter turnout in this runoff is key!
***
Ayscue & Antun Support DeSantis’s Policies: Florida has been in the forefront concerning parental rights in the classroom and Governor DeSantis stood his ground, fighting back against Critical Race Theory, obscene books in libraries pushing transgenderism on kids, and teaching sexually explicit topics to young children. The governor also took a strong stance against COVID lockdowns in schools and across the state. He has fought to give parents the right to decide what is appropriate for their children, not the schools. These are all policies that both Ayscue and Antun agree upon. Minshew and Lednovich won’t tell voters where they stand. Their silence answers for them.
Six Republican school board candidates backed by Governor Ron DeSantis won their races across Florida on Tuesday, claiming his endorsement is “what put us over the edge” and paved the way for them to push for parental rights in classrooms. These two support the same programs the popular governor backs.
***
Two More Years and Then? Following his reelection Governor Ron DeSantis also said that Florida has “maintained law and order” in addition to “protecting the rights of parents” and “respecting our taxpayers.” The victorious governor is being touted as the favorite for the GOP presidential nomination in 2024.
“In Florida, we will not let the far left woke agenda take over our schools and workplaces. There is no place for indoctrination or discrimination in Florida,” he said at the time. DeSantis signed the Parental Rights in Education law in March, which was infamously and incorrectly branded by Democratic opponents as “anti-gay.”
In April, DeSantis signed a bill prohibiting critical race theory from being taught in Florida schools. Earlier this month, the Florida Board of Medicine and the Florida Board of Osteopathic Medicine banned puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and transgender surgeries for minors.
“We will not back down to woke corporations and their same tired tactics that are steeped in hypocrisy,” Florida Lt. Gov. Jeanette Nunez, a Republican, said at the time. “As a mother of three, I am committed to protecting the rights of parents.”
DeSantis also signed a bill revoking Disney World’s special status as an independent special district in what many conservatives saw as a key win against “woke capitalism” after it attacked the Parental Rights in Education law.
In his victory speech Tuesday evening Governor Ron DeSantis promised a relentless fight against “woke” indoctrination pledging to make Florida a “citadel of freedom” in the United States.
The governor made it clear that he would continue to deliver on policies and values that have made him a national figure with conservatives and a target of the left, both political feathers in his cap.
DeSantis didn’t pull any punches saying: “We have embraced freedom. We have maintained law and order. We have protected the rights of parents. We have respected our taxpayers. And we reject woke ideology,” drawing loud applause.
“We will never, ever surrender to the woke mob,” the governor promised. Florida is where woke goes to die!”
The Republican heavyweight’s margin of victory outstripped even the most optimistic projections.
DeSantis won nearly 60 percent of the statewide vote with more than a million-vote win over political has-been Democrat Charlie Crist.
***
OK, Charlie, Stacey & Beto, Now Please Go Away: Governor DeSantis’s victory speech could also be considered Charlie Crist’s political eulogy since that pathetic sap has no more political parties to turn to or offices to run for. Stick a fork in poor ‘ole Charlie, he’s done, his political goose is cooked. Nobody wants him, nobody. He won just five of 67 Florida counties. DeSantis even took heavily Democratic Dade County. Maybe Crist can join up with that silly little dancing monkey, Beto O’Rourke, who was crushed by Texas Governor Greg Abbott, and sad sack Georgia gubernatorial candidate, Stacey Abrams, who was soundly defeated by Brian Kemp and join the Washington Generals, the perpetual losers to the Harlem Globetrotters. The only good thing about this trio of losers is they burned through millions of dollars in Democrat campaign cash and got nothing for it. They now belong out on the curb with the rest of the wretched Democrat rejects including Florida’s pathetic Andrew Gillum (Does anybody remember that pervert?) in the Democrat dumpster.
Based on Tuesday’s election results it appears that before casting their ballots a majority of Florida and Texas voters went grocery shopping, filled their cars with gas, paid their bills, then looked at their 401Ks.
***
Wait! What? Following Tuesday’s election, I’m afraid to drive through Pennsylvania. Any group of people that collectively assembled to vote for an empty grunting husk to represent them in the U.S. Senate have more mental issues than John Fetterman, the vacant vessel they elected. Instead of heading to Washington D.C. this guy should be back at his old day job ringing the bells at Notre Dame in Paris.
***
Drinking, Dining & Dancing: I used to enjoy visiting the Doo Wop Diner for breakfast at 1120 South 14th Street near the now shuttered movie theater. Since the Doo Wop closed the site has had three different tenants including the New Orleans Diner, a short-lived soul food joint called Southern Sisters and most recently Big Al’s Chicken Shack.
I miss sitting at Doo Wop’s old fashioned lunch counter watching reruns of I Love Lucy and listening to 1950s Rock & Roll music while reading the paper and having breakfast. The swivel stools and lunch counter are gone. Big Al, who I’ve never met, isn’t much on décor but makes up for it with his generous, tasty, and economical plates, at least the breakfast ones I’ve enjoyed. I haven’t had lunch there yet, and because they serve breakfast from opening till close, I might never.
Customers order from a breast pocket-size paper menu, or the handwritten specials of the day scribbled on a board next to the cash register then await a server to being them their order at one of the Formica tables left over from the other eateries. There are also a couple of tables sitting on the sidewalk out front.
During my visits I’ve gotten into a rut and order the $8.50 Shack Breakfast. With tax I paid $9.11. For that I got two eggs over easy, a huge bowl of grits, a slice of multigrain toast, a pile of hash brown potatoes, and two sausage patties and two pads of butter. I couldn’t eat it all. I defy you to find a deal like this anywhere else hereabouts. And I don’t mean some sanitized, corporate formula recipe chain like McDonalds or Panera Bread.
My Big Al’s $8.50 breakfast
Big Al’s food is very good, the prices more than reasonable, the service friendly and fast and the atmosphere relaxed. I receive a glass of iced tea for free once and happily paid $2.50 for coffee another time.
There are a variety of other breakfast selections ranging from Chicken and Waffles and Chicken and Pancakes (both $7.50) to Biscuits and Gravy ($6.00) and Biscuit Breakfast Sandwich ($7.50).
Since the joint is labeled a “Chicken Shack”, chicken, as expected, plays a major role coming in sandwiches, buckets, boxes, soups, wraps and a variety of wing selections. The most expensive item I could find on the menu was a bucket of 12 pieces of fried chicken with two sides for $24.95. Sides include collard greens, mac and cheese, coleslaw, mashed potatoes and more.. A hamburger, short rib and a brisket burger are also listed for $10.50. There are also a variety of salads and desserts.
Oh, as far as I know it is the only place on the island or nearby that serves the Canadian favorite, Poutine, a pile of fries topped with cheese curds and gravy. There is also a $7.50 fried chicken liver or fried chicken gizzard box with two sides.
Big Al’s is open every day except Sunday from 9 am until 9 pm. You can order online at BigAlsChickenShack.com or call them at 904/775-5195.
***
American Legion Post 54 is hosting this year’s Veterans Day Parade today, Friday, November 11, which will wind through downtown beginning at 11 am. Following the parade, the Post will host lunch with the Island Vibe Band entertaining from 1 pm – 4 pm.
Thanks to a generous and patriotic donation from local residents, James and Carla Houchins, tonight , Friday 11, the Post will feature the popular local Honey Badgers band from 7-10 pm.
It’s all open to the public and food and a full bar are available.
The Legion is located at the corner of South 3rd Street and Gum. Stop by today, salute a veteran, enjoy the music, and buy Jim and Carla a drink.
Republished with the author’s permission. Read The Dave Scott Blog– subscribe Free
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
By Jeff Childers
11-11-22
Happy Veteran’s Day, C&C! It’s Friday, and we have a morbidly-obese roundup for you: Arizona election update; Nevada election update; four states go all blue and Massachusetts voters help illegal aliens; Stacey Abrams concedes, sort of; federal judge strikes down Biden’s insane student loan forgiveness ‘program’; de-transitioner sues doctors; U.S. economy update; Wall Street Journal suggests a creative way to beat high mortgage rates; Breitbart says the new Congress should keep the J6 Commission; Judicial Watch gets hold of extensive DOD docs confirming military involvement in Ukraine biolabs; myocarditis study undermines CDC guidance; weird pandemic-fueled red-to-blue conversions; and a meaty study undermines fungus burgers.
🪖 The Covid Accountability Project held its first organizational meeting last night, and things went very well. We have a terrific group of highly-skilled volunteers and I am enthusiastic about what we may be able to accomplish. Stay tuned.
The counting continues.
📈 Even though Arizona’s crack squad of highly-motivated vote counters are counting votes slower than a dyslexic second grader, gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake is confidently predicting a win, largely because of a still-uncounted 384,000 mail-in ballots that were dropped-off by voters on Election Day. Kari thinks she’ll get 60%-80% of those votes, because distrustful Republicans were mostly the ones who hand-delivered their mail-in ballots on Election Day, rather than trusting the Postal Service or drop boxes.
Put a fork in it. https://t.co/TRfE7Hi7N2
Kari Lake War Room @KariLakeWarRoom
🚨HUGE🚨 Over 384K Mail-In ballots dropped off on Election Day! These ballots are overwhelmingly in support of @KariLake & not a single one of them has been counted yet This race is over for @katiehobbs https://t.co/uZVFNqCJ0g5:48 PM ∙ Nov 10, 202234,130Likes6,252Retweets
That might turn out to be a really good strategy for combatting the scourge of mail-in ballots in states with liberal mail-in laws.
Last night, Tucker roasted Arizona’s largest county, Maricopa, for being unable to count votes like everyone else in the country.
WATCH: @TuckerCarlson Scorches Maricopa Election Incompetence
2:11 AM ∙ Nov 11, 202212,595Likes4,039Retweets
I’d say Arizona’s vote-counting team appears to be supervised by John Fetterman, but it’s not nice to make fun of disabled people.
🔥 In another slow-counting state of Nevada, Republican Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo is now being predicted to defeat incumbent democrat Steve Sisolak for the governorship.
🔥 Sadly for sane residents in four states, democrats managed to take control of both legislative chambers and the governorship: Michigan, Minnesota, Maryland and Massachusetts.
In Massachusetts, voters also approved a law (54% to 46%) giving driver’s licenses to any illegal immigrants living in that “sanctuary state.” Back in May, Republican Governor Charlie Baker, who just lost re-election, unsuccessfully tried to veto the law.
🔥 I was wondering, but this time Stacey Abrams is NOT going to claim that the election was stolen, so we won’t have to listen to those geniuses on The View gassing on about Abrams being Georgia’s “real” governor. Instead, in her concession speech Wednesday night, Stacey Abrams quoted 2nd Corinthians 4:8-9, comparing her election loss to the sufferings of the Apostle Paul and the early church.
My goodness. Still, it’s an improvement. Last time, in 2018, she refused to concede at all.
So, progress!
🔥 Yesterday, the PostMillennial ran a terrific story headlined, “BREAKING: Federal Judge Declares Biden’s Student Debt Relief Program Unlawful.”
In his ruling, U.S. District Judge Mark Pittman found for the plaintiffs, Job Creators Network Foundation, who’d petitioned to end the program because the government violated federal procedure.
In his longer memorandum opinion, Judge Pittman explained Joe Biden can’t just sign an executive order whenever he feels like it and magically wipe out people’s government-guaranteed student debt. Biden’s not the King:
Whether the Program constitutes good public policy is not the role of this Court to determine. Still, no one can plausibly deny that it is either one of the largest delegations of legislative power to the executive branch, or one of the largest exercises of legislative power without congressional authority in the history of the United States.
In this country, we are not ruled by an all-powerful executive with a pen and a phone. Instead, we are ruled by a Constitution that provides for three distinct and independent branches of government …
The Court is not blind to the current political division in our country. But it is fundamental to the survival of our Republic that the separation of powers as outlined in our Constitution be preserved. And having interpreted the HEROES Act, the Court holds that it does not provide ‘clear congressional authorization’ for the Program proposed by the Secretary.
Whew! That was a close one. I’m thrilled the courts are back, and are finally reining in out-of-control executive authority. The court system is like a drunk trucker who suddenly woke up out of a dead sleep and yanked the wheel at the last second before the truck plunged off the closed bridge.
At least, I HOPE it has woken up.
🔥 Courageous teenaged de-transitioner Chloe Cole, who recently testified before the Florida Board of Medicine, announced yesterday that she plans to sue the doctors who cut off her breasts and put her on puberty blockers.
1:53 AM ∙ Nov 11, 20227,037Likes1,746Retweets
🔥 Maybe now the elections are over, Biden will finally stop lying about the ‘greatest economy in history:’
— The number of new applications for unemployment benefits rose by +7,000 to 225,000 last week, a discouraging sign for the economy, according to yesterday’s Labor Department report.
— Credit card interest rates have now reached their highest level since the Carter Administration (19.5% APR) and credit card debt ($930B) is at the highest level, ever in history.
— Mortgage rates topped 7% as consumer confidence plummeted after the elections. For some reason.
Mortgage rates top 7% again as housing confidence plummets yhoo.it/3fY75lB by @__gabriellacruz
🔥 But don’t worry! The Wall Street Journal has the answer to rising interest rates. Just pay cash!
Yesterday, the WSJ ran a delightful story offering a ‘creative’ solution to high interest rates, headlined, “Home Buyers Get Creative With Cash Deals to Fend Off High Mortgage Rates.” In case you missed the gist, the sub-headline explains, “Cash-only deals are on the rise as buyers look for ways to circumvent 20-year-high interest rates.”
And don’t worry, it’s not just millionaires, the Journal assured readers.
They used “Mr. Gaston” as the first example, who recently bought a new home for all cash, even though he hasn’t sold his old house yet. Here’s his new foyer:
In a nod to the fact that not everyone enjoys Mr. Gaston’s financial flexibility, the WSJ suggested people can just borrow money from their relatives, which assumes, of course, that people’s ‘relatives’ are one, loaded, and two, willing to charge lower interest rates than mortgage companies.
The Journal next offered as another example loan broker “Mr. Dong”, who recently bought a $1.44M home. He didn’t want to pay cash at first, but after seeing the interest rates, he was able to figure out how to scrape the money together by “leveraging existing assets.” So he got a 5.125% interest rate instead of 6%.
Good thing Mr. Dong had a million and a half worth of “existing assets” lying around. You have those too, right?
Here’s the Dongs’ modest new Colorado home:
The Journal quoted a realtor in the bougie Windermere area of Florida, Ms. Ryan, who called for people not to panic. Ms. Ryan patiently explained that, historically speaking, 7% isn’t that high. After all, “it’s not like in the mid ‘80s when we had interest rates that were 14%,” she said.
Not yet it isn’t! But it’s starting to look like Jimmy Carter might be a best-case scenario.
🔥 Joel Pollack published an interesting op-ed in Brietbart yesterday, calling for incoming House Republicans to KEEP the January 6th Committee, instead of ending it. Pollack says the new Speaker should appoint all-new members, pick the five minority democrat members (just like Pelosi did), and continue running hearings.
I kind of like that idea.
🔥 Well, well, well. Judicial Watch just obtained almost 400,000 documents from the Department of Defense showing extensive investment and involvment in, you guessed it, Ukrainian biolabs.
Judicial Watch ⚖️ @JudicialWatch
BREAKING: Judicial Watch received 345 pages of records from DTRA, a component of the DOD, revealing that the United States funded anthrax laboratory activities in a Ukrainian biolab in 2018 (1/3). jwatch.usJudicial Watch: Defense Department Records Reveal U.S. Funding of Anthrax Laboratory Activities in Ukraine – Judicial Watch(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today it received 345 pages of records from the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA), a c…5:00 PM ∙ Nov 10, 2022521Likes339Retweets
One DOD program was called the “Pathogen Asset Control System,” which included military contractor Black & Veatch’s ‘Special Projects Group,’ just as the Russians have been alleging since February, and which corporate media has been denying and gaslighting everybody about.
Mentioned in the list of diseases that Black & Veatch contractors recently trained Ukrainian providers on were pig diseases, avian diseases, tuberculosis, and brucellosis.
Avian diseases. Seems like the Ukrainians have been researching bird diseases after all, just like the Russians have claimed, a claim mercilessly mocked by corporate media and Ukraine defenders. “Haha, birds as disease vectors!”
Not so haha, apparently.
One of the places Black & Veatch provided services for DOD in 2019 was the “Institute of Experimental and Clinical Veterinary Medicine of the National Academy Agrarian Sciences (NAAS) of the Ukraine.”
Veterinary and agrarian medicine. So the DOD is paying a US military contractor to help Ukrainian veterinarians and farmers. Uh huh. But it does make sense to study animal diseases if you want to re-engineer animal viruses to crossover to humans. Now that I think about it, coronavirus is an engineered animal-crossover virus.
Probably just a coincidence! Don’t cancel me.
🔬 Back in April, the Journal of Clinical Medicine quietly published an explosive study titled, “The Incidence of Myocarditis and Pericarditis in Post COVID-19 Unvaccinated Patients—A Large Population-Based Study.”
The researchers studied 800,000 adults (200,000 who were covid-infected, and 600,000 controls) to see if covid sufferers were at higher risk for myocarditis and pericarditis.
Their conclusions were bleak, but clear:
Post COVID-19 infection was not associated with either myocarditis or pericarditis. We did not observe an increased incidence of neither pericarditis nor myocarditis in adult patients recovering from COVID-19 infection.
Weird!
It’s weird because the CDC has been peddling a fairytale for a year now that the jabs are safe because the risk of getting myocarditis and pericarditis after covid is higher than the risk of acquiring those dangerous conditions from the jab. But these Israeli researchers found the exact opposite.
Who to believe?
Not only that, of course, but the CDC’s whole myocarditis risk theory depends on the jab preventing infections, which it doesn’t. In other words, even if covid DOES increase myocarditis risk, by taking the jabs you would actually encounter DOUBLE the risk: the risk from the jab plus the risk from covid. Right? Am I missing anything?
Oh, it’s the jabs all right. I could find a LOT more studies than these:
Anyway, the good news is that the CDC will probably be updating its jab guidance any time now. I mean, it’s true they’ve already had these studies for almost a year now, but come on. They have to change their guidance soon, right?
At the very least, they have to MENTION this study?
Don’t they? Hello?
🔥 Consider the following tidbit from the comments section yesterday:
Haha, Governor Abbott moved too far to the right! I bet Texans are spitting fence nails at that remark.
Commenter, your sister ain’t a conservative. Not any more.
Something weird happened during the pandemic. A kind of re-sorting took place. For example, I’ve a long-time friend here in town, who was always one of my conservative buddies. Smart, funny, hard worker.
Then the pandemic came, and he and his wife went full bore into lockdown, masks, and jabs. We had lunch recently after the pandemic ‘ended’ and he told me he definitely wasn’t voting for DeSantis, because fascism and because the governor hates gay people, or something. I thought he was joking at first.
Not joking.
I can’t wrap my brain around ANY kind of conservative deciding the most popular Republican governor in the country is inferior to CHARLIE CRIST. That does not compute.
So there is definitely a trend, maybe not as big a shift as dems leaving their party, for reasons I don’t completely yet understand, some R’s also drifted toward the blue during the pandemic.
🔬 Cambridge University published a meaty study in late September titled “Assessing the effects of alternative plant-based meats v. animal meats on biomarkers of inflammation: a secondary analysis of the SWAP-MEAT randomized crossover trial.”
To be perfectly clear, the very last line, down below the acknowledgements, was this unimportant little nugget: “Gardner received gift funding from Beyond Meat which was used to conduct the original research study.”
Ah. Okay.
The researchers noted that “there have been no studies to date that have specifically assessed the health effects of plant-based meats on inflammation biomarkers … [and] cardiometabolic risk factors” for some reason, so they decided to check it out.
The hapless “participants ate two or more daily servings of plant-based meats v. animal meats for 8 weeks[.]” Plant-based meats in the form of Beyond Meat burgers. Two OR MORE servings per day.
The results disappointed the researchers. They glumly concluded that “only 4 out of 92 biomarkers reached statistical significance. The results were contrary to our hypothesis, since we expected relative improvements in biomarkers of inflammation from the plant-based meats.”
Give them props for honesty. But they did try to throw Beyond Meat a bone, whoops, I mean a celery stick. They considered doing it longer (“impact of vegetarian diets on CRP [may be] more obvious for participants following the diet for at least 10 years”), and doing it harder (“an overall healthy, plant-based diet may have yielded different results”).
But bottom line, replacing meat with Beyond Burgers doesn’t seem to help much.
I didn’t know this, but it seems there’s ANOTHER dispute brewing over Beyond burgers — the slanderous criticism that the fungus burgers are “ultra-processed.” If you’re in the healthy-eating community, and I assume many C&C’ers are, for obvious bodily integrity reasons, you already know how bad ‘ultra-processing’ is.
I’m carnivorous, but I still kind of agree with that one. Ultra-processed is no bueno.
Even though it was completely out of the scope of the study, the researchers tried to rescue Beyond from that criticism too. They soberly reported, “we argue that the mere industrial processing of ingredients of plant origin does not make a [plant-based meat analogue] product ultra-processed by default.”
There you go. Ultra-processed doesn’t mean what you thought it means.
🔥 Finally, I *am* aware of President Trump’s goofy broadside against Governor DeSantis yesterday. But my thoughts about that one are going to need more room than this already over-long roundup permits. We’ll talk about it tomorrow…
See you then, for the weekend roundup. Have a fabulous Friday!
C&C is moving the needle and changing minds. If you can, I could use your help getting the truth out and spreading optimism and hope: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/-learn-how-to-get-involved-
Twitter: @jchilders98
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The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
from CCDF USA, Nassau County Chapter, 11-11-22
Why Join Nassau County Citizens Defending Freedom ( CCDFUSA.com )?
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CCDF is a non partisan grassroots organization that places local government back in the Hands of the People.
The group works closely with local school boards, county commissioners and other local officials to ensure American values are maintained; and inherent rights granted under the Constitution, Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights remain in the hands of We the People.
Informational meeting for Omni Plantation owners and All Other County Citizens Thursday 11/17 @ 7:00PM at The Omni Plantation Oaks Community Center -if you are not an Omni plantation owner use furthest South roundabout entrance on FCH and go through security and give Jerry Novack as your host with ccdf as the organization – take a quick right on Marsh Lagoon Road and a right at dead end on Sea Marsh Road – Oaks Community Center will be on your left
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All are Welcome
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Contact [email protected]
By Anonymous Actual Maricopa County, AZ Poll Worker, 11-9-22
I worked as a poll worker in Maricopa for Tuesday’s election. It was a total disgrace. I would guess that 80% of the voters at our polling center were GOP (they were carrying their GOP-provided “Golden Ticket” voter recommendations). They stood in line for 4-5 hours–many with young children–to feed their completed ballots into the tabulator machines. Every once in a while a cheer would ring out around the machines as a lucky voter’s ballot was actually accepted. Voters were convinced that if they allowed their ballot to be inserted into the infamous Slot #3 it would never be counted (and who knows?). Stephen Richer the Maricopa County Recorder said yesterday that “maybe one out of five ballots were rejected.” That was total BS. At our location we went for 8 hours with virtually EVERY SINGLE BALLOT being rejected. Many voters had to give up and return to work, to pick up their kids at school, to get on with their life.
The last voter left the polling place just before 10 PM whereupon we began counting the “misread,” spoiled, and provisional ballots. The polling place Inspector (the head honcho) was unable to get the tabulator machines to print out the results reports (these are like a retail store’s cash register roll). Once all the ballots, reports (finally), and checklist items were boxes and bagged, I volunteered to drive the ballots to an intermediary collection point. A Dem and I drove to a dark parking lot where several Maricopa County Sheriffs were on guard. The folks there transferred the ballots to a large truck and gave us both chain of custody receipts. We returned to the polling place to finish the night at 12:15 AM.
Random Thoughts: 1) the printers and tabulators were tested during the Monday 11/7 polling place set up. They all worked on Monday but immediately began failing on Tuesday morning. Anyone else wonder how that happened? 2) How did this phenomenon occur simultaneously across 20% of the voting locations on the day that was expected to be a very heavy GOP Election Day vote? 3) Why shouldn’t Katie Hobbs have recused herself from the management of an election in which she had a direct personal interest? 4) Why hasn’t Katie Hobbs resigned in disgrace yet this morning?
The entire election process in Maricopa County and AZ in general is a f**ked up mess. From 6 AM until 7 PM it was my job to check in voters and verify their identification (a new AZ law this year). By now, you will not find it surprising that the voter rolls were quite dirty. Examples: “I changed my information on line, why don’t you have my address?” “I registered to vote but never got a new voter registration card” “I changed all my address info at the AZ MVD (DMV) and printed out the screen shots” (but their ADOT account still showed the old information so they had to vote provisionally).
If Dem candidate for Secretary of State, Adrian Fontes becomes AZ’s new Secretary of State, I will certainly never again volunteer to work the elections. In Maricopa County in 2020 Fontes ignored AZ law and allowed 20,000 late “discovered” ballots to be counted (in addition to other lawless acts). My career in implementing large real time information systems implementations tells me that this mess of shite data cleansing, process chaos has to be the way it is for a reason–a bad reason. Anyone who rolled out such an expensive, flawed, and chaotic abomination in the private sector would be fired on the spot and walked off the premises. In fact, it is tempting to resign as a GOP precinct committeeman and reclaim hundreds of hours of my personal time. America has spoken. My fellow Americans are fine with what the Dems and RINOs have served up for the past six years–and especially the last two. The saying, “You can’t cheat an honest man” comes to my mind this morning. The fact that the brain dead and deeply corrupt were not unceremoniously thrown out of power tells me a lot about my fellow Americans–and the future.
The author is verified, civically active in AZ and personally known by our Publisher for over 30 years. Author did not specify brand of tabulators.
Received this message from author 11-11-22:
Hi George,
The tabulators we used at our polling place were made by Dominion. I did not take a picture of the model number…
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
By Epoch Times
Facebook committed 822 election law violations- $24.7 million in fines. And that’s not all of it. These were deliberate, intentional violations which violated not only the law, but their own promises. Consider that this is only one case of one type of repeat violation in only one state (Washington).
Also see:
“I have one word for Facebook’s conduct in this case — arrogance,” (Attorney-General) Ferguson said in a news release. “It intentionally disregarded Washington’s election transparency laws. But that wasn’t enough. Facebook argued in court that those laws should be declared unconstitutional. That’s breathtaking. Where’s the corporate responsibility?”
By Jeff Childers
11-10-22
Good morning, C&C, it’s Thursday! We’re now two days after the Tuesday elections, and this morning we have an election update on the important contested elections, plus a couple quick roundup items.
🪖 ERRATA: Yesterday I erroneously illustrated an accurate story on new peace initiatives from Ukraine by using an old headline from March. The error was misleading and confusing. I had the story right, but moving too quickly, I screen-grabbed the wrong headline for the article. (Before time constraints arose, I was planning to use the March headline in a longer story, about the last time Ukraine talked peace in March before NATO interfered.) After realizing the error, I removed the story from the online version (leaving editorial marks). I apologize.
🗞*ELECTION NEWS AND COMMENTARY* 🗞
Here’s where we stand as of this morning:
🔥 There’s a giant anti-Trump narrative deploying, apparently intended to discourage him from even announcing his 2024 run. One of the most obvious indications is corporate media’s nonstop reporting that “Trump candidates lost badly” in the elections Tuesday. For example:
Some Republicans lay the blame for the party’s disappointing performance in the 2022 midterm election on former President Donald Trump. abc7chicago.com2022 Election results: Some Republicans blame Donald Trump for disappointing performance in midtermsFrom Senate races in Georgia, Pennsylvania and Arizona to governor races in Michigan and Wisconsin, some Republicans are blaming Donald Trump for a disappointing showing in the midterms.12:20 AM ∙ Nov 10, 202213Likes2Retweets
This is a fake corporate media narrative, and not even a very good one. President Trump endorsed 183 candidates. Of those, 174 won. If, in order to get credit, Trump’s candidates had to perform better than THAT, I’d like to know who’s beaten that record.
Let’s see Biden’s record of endorsements and how THEY performed.
Meanwhile, popular and feisty ex-press-secretary Kayleigh McEnany thinks Trump should “pause” any announcement about 2024 until all elections are over, including the pending Georgia runoff.
I kind of agree with that one.
The New York Post appears to be on board with the new narrative:
Editor’s note: I have not yet disclosed my opinion on 2024, or even hinted at it. So don’t assume because I praise or criticize either Trump or DeSantis that means I’ve taken a side. I like them both. I also think it would be a horrible mistake for conservatives to go to war over this. We need to work it out somehow without giving democrats a chance to make it a wedge issue.
📈 Just as independent analysts predicted, Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake’s chances continued to improve throughout the day yesterday, as Arizona’s Secretary of State — run by Lake’s opponent, Katie Hobbs — diligently and meticulously continued counting votes at glacial speeds. In other words, NOT at the speed of science, whatever THAT is.
In interviews late yesterday, Kari Lake seemed very optimistic:
There are still 650,000 uncounted votes — nearly a quarter of the total. And, Lake says those uncounted votes include Election Day ballots and heavily-Republican drop-off ballots. Soundig a smidge fed up, Kari assured Tucker, “Day one, I’m going to take my hand off the Bible. We’re issuing a declaration of invasion at the border, and [then] I’m getting the legislators to a special session to change our elections so that they are fair, honest, and transparent.”
Tucker and Kari agreed the solution includes having just one election DAY instead of an entire election SEASON, along with paper ballots, of course. Kari also said the state needs to move back to using small precincts (like Florida) instead of these large voting centers where it’s easy to have problems.
📈 Nineteen hours ago — a day and a half late — corporate media finally threw in the towel and called the election for Ron Johnson, Wisconsin’s newly-re-elected Senator.
Election Wizard 🇺🇸 @ElectionWiz
BREAKING: Republican Ron Johnson wins re-election to the U.S. Senate in Wisconsin
4:35 PM ∙ Nov 9, 20229,229Likes1,403Retweets
Corporate media was hardest hit by the announcement.
Letting you know how important HE thinks Johnson’s re-election was, Dr. Peter McCullough published a Substack yesterday headlined, “The Vital Importance of Senator Ron Johnson’s Reelection.”
🔥 Georgians learned yesterday they have their work cut out for them, as the Walker-Warnock race officially headed toward a runoff, with a margin too close to call.
In 2020, democrats sank conservative hopes for a runoff by convincing many voters that it wasn’t worth turning out, which depressed conservative turnout and ensure the democrats got control of the Senate.
You Georgians need to make sure that doesn’t happen again this time.
Link to Walker’s campaign contribution page (Winred).
🔥 Nevada Republican candidate Joe Lombardo widened his lead and now looks to be far enough ahead to safely be called Nevada’s next governor, defeating democrat incumbent Steve Sisolak by a margin too big for cheating to help.
🔥 As of last evening, Nevada Republican candidate Adam Laxalt was feeling very confident that he would win the Nevada Senate seat, displacing democrat incumbent Cortez Masto. But overnight mail-in ballot dumps have considerably closed Laxalt’s lead.
New NV numbers, via @s_golonka: In Senate race, combined results from Lyon, Nye and Washoe have reduced Laxalt’s lead to under 16,000. Washoe mail was huge for CCM, as she turned a 5K deficit there to a 400-vote lead. The urban mail is coming in with large margins for Dems.5:56 AM ∙ Nov 10, 20223,366Likes498Retweets
Arizona’s liberal voting laws could stand a few updates.
🔥 I have seen a lot of chatter about potential cheating in the high profile races, especially in Michigan, Georgia, Arizona and Pennsylvania. There might have been cheating, who knows, it would sure explain bizarre results like Pennsylvanians electing a brain-damaged man to represent them in the Senate without one scrap of proof from a doctor suggesting he can do the job.
Like me, you may have seen alarming looking charts of sudden vote spikes, like this one from the Walker-Warnock race:
That spike in Warnock’s favor, right when Walker was pulling even, sure looks troubling, like it might be a timely booster injection of fraudulent ballots. It’s odd enough that someone on the Walker campaign should demand an explanation from Georgia elections officials, and then they should demand evidence if the explanation doesn’t make sense, or if they don’t get an explanation.
But WE can’t know for sure without more. I thought I’d type up a little primer of some basics about how elections and vote counting work. Some of you may already be well-familiar with this stuff and can skip ahead.
Generally, states control voting and set the election laws in their state. Counties *supervise* voting, and create procedures to manage elections. Counties are usually divided up into precincts where people physically vote, excepting early voting, mail-in voting, and drop-off voting, which happen at other designated places. Each precinct is managed by a ‘clerk’ or ‘supervisor.’
Here’s a very basic diagram for you:
Depending on the state, early votes, mail-in/absentee votes, and dropped-off ballot box votes are usually already counted by the time the polls close on Election Day. Those are usually the very first votes recorded, and are the first ones to show up on the reports right after the polls close.
The real-time vote data that streams in over the hours after polls close usually comes from Election Day voting, as data from the precincts comes in to each county supervisor’s office for counting. Those results are then transmitted up to the state.
Precints report to county supervisors of elections, and county supervisors of elections report to the state.
Precinct information doesn’t always immediately come in when the polls close. For example, some states require anyone standing in line when the polls close must be allowed to vote, even if that takes two hours after the official cut off time.
In some states, precincts use dial-up modems or wifi routers to upload their cast ballot data. Others transport memory cards taking from precinct scanning machines to the supervisor’s headquarters for loading into the tabulation software system.
Because of the electronic machines, votes come in to the supervisor’s office in precinct-level batches. So a large heavily-democrat precinct can cause an apparent ‘spike’ in votes, and would show results like in the example above. You’d want to see a smaller spike for the Republican candidate too in that case.
Cheaters know this too, so the existence of any large spike probably requires explanation, even if everything else looks right. It’s the candidate’s job to ask those questions in real time. Later, in most states, citizens can get reports via public records requests showing the vote breakdown by precinct.
On the other hand, a spike like the one shown above could signal something more problematic, like a tardy batch of mailed-in ballots, which would raise serious questions like why weren’t they already counted at the beginning of the evening?
That’s what Walker’s team might need to find out about Warnock spike.
Candidates carefully watch precinct-level reporting, which is what Lindell’s team should be doing, rather than watching state-level data coming in from news networks. The ’spike’ might have come from a well-known heavily-blue precinct and could have been expected, saving a lot of speculation.
There are several ways to “smell test” precinct-level cast vote reports. For example, well before the election, candidates know exactly how many registered democrats and registered republicans live in each precinct. Going in to the election, candidates usually already know how many people in each precinct already voted right before the election. Most of that information is available from public records in most states.
So, there are easy ways to do rough tests on by comparing a precinct’s totals against the known registered voters, to see if the reported totals makes sense. It’s not perfect, but candidates aren’t operating completely in the blind, either.
That said, early voting and — especially — mail-in voting pose problems, because there are just too many opportunities for bad actors to manipulate the system and too few ways to double-check the data.
For example, here in Florida, we recently discovered a ballot-harvesting operation in densely-populated Orange County, where harvesters were paid $10 each for ballots collected from low-income folks. And because it was trivially easy to request mail-in ballots, we suspect that harvesters were really the ones making the requests, to make sure everyone in those neighborhoods got a ballot that could be harvested.
I would be SHOCKED if this wasn’t happening all over the country. Harvesting is what I think is happening in those cases you hear about where a supervisor automatically mails ballots to every registered voter in the county. It’s not complicated.
Historically, it would have been too hard and too expensive for harvesters to swing a national election. Pre-Covid, mail-in (absentee) ballots were only provided to people showing a good reason, like living overseas, being disabled, and so forth. And it’s expensive to pay a lot of harvesters.
But now, with new covid rules, and with Soros cash and Zuckerbucks, it’s not only feasible, but likely. In fact, we’ve already confirmed at least one large, well-organized group operating in Orange County.
And that’s only ONE example of organized cheating.
The solution is same-day voting using serialized, watermarked paper ballots that are counted by hand.
🔥 Oddly, right after Gregg Phillips and Catherine Engelbrecht were released from prison, yesterday the New York Times ran a story headlined, “L.A. Drops Criminal Charges Against Election Software Executive.” The sub-headline explained, “Eugene Yu was accused of illegally sending data about poll workers to China, in a case that became fodder for election deniers.”
The story is bizarre. I have never known a criminal case to be dismissed so quickly after it was filed. It should have taken at least a year. Even the Times seems to have realized how odd it was. Here’s how they described the invisible rationale for Yu’s dismissal:
The district attorney’s office said in a statement that it had dropped the case against the executive, Eugene Yu, because of concerns about the “pace of the investigation” and the “potential bias in the presentation” of evidence in the case. The office said the county had assembled a new team to “determine whether any criminal activity occurred.”
Bias? Who was biased? The investigators? The D.A.? Cops? And, what bias? Racial bias? Why “potential” bias? And, pace of the investigation? It’s just getting started! Normal criminal investigations take months and years. They just filed charges last month.
That’s not all. Even the Times, which reiterated several times the charges against Yu had nothing whatsoever to do with changing election results, still seemed dissatisfied with the D.A.’s non-explanation for why charges were abruptly dropped, when the original case seemed clear. The Times wondered about things:
The abrupt dismissal left several unanswered questions about the case and Mr. Yu’s suspected activities. The district attorney’s office did not clarify whether the company had, in fact, stored data in China. It was also not clear whether additional criminal or civil charges could be filed against Mr. Yu or Konnech from Los Angeles County or dozens of other counties that use Konnech’s election management software.
“Unanswered questions” is kind of an understatement. This sure LOOKS politically-motivated. I doubt any citizen lacking high-level political connections could get a criminal case dismissed in under 30 days. And the fact that people with high-level political connections apparently CAN do this is very upsetting.
If this dismissal was legit, LA’s District Attorney should have taken great pains to explain EXACTLY why Yu’s case was being dismissed, to avoid just this kind of speculation about what really happened. The lack of transparency screams “cover up.”
Don’t Yu worry though. They’ll Konnech the dots, sooner or later. But you should probably start learning Chinese. Just saying.
💉 Of all places, the Miami Herald ran a vaccine-skeptical story last week, headlined, “COVID Booster May Lower Protection Against Omicron Reinfection, Study Finds. Here’s Why.” The fact that a science-loving liberal newspaper like the Miami Herald could deny vaccine science like this is ten times worse than the horrors of climate change.
Anyway, the article reported on a Qatar study titled “COVID-19 primary series and booster vaccination and immune imprinting.” According to the Herald, the researchers found that triple-jabbed patients were more often reinfected with an Omicron variant than were twice-jabbed patients.
In other words, that one more jab was one jab too many. Should’ve stuck with two.
Researchers concluded the higher risk of reinfection occurred because “the immune response against the primary omicron infection was compromised by differential immune imprinting in those who received a third booster dose, consistent with emerging laboratory science data.”
That’s a mouthful, but “immune imprinting” occurs when exposure to part of a virus through vaccination subsequently suppresses a person’s immune response against future new variants. The notion is that the immune system can get “locked in” to a specific past variant by a vaccine, becoming ineffective at countering new variant types.
This happens mostly when the virus is a type that quickly evolves. Like coronaviruses. They’ve known about immune imprinting for a long time. Some people even warned it could happen with covid jabs.
Anyway, according to the study and the Herald article, not only does the third shot NOT work, but it also makes you MORE likely to catch covid. That means it’s working! Haha, the experts euphemistically call this kind of vaccine failure “negative efficacy.” It’s like buying a fire-sprinkler system that short circuits, making it more likely your house will burn down.
In other words, they’re a garbage product. But good luck getting your money back. All jabs are final.
Have a terrific Thursday! I’ll see you back here tomorrow for more, when I can hopefully get beyond the election news and back to roundups.
C&C is moving the needle and changing minds. If you can, I could use your help getting the truth out and spreading optimism and hope: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/-learn-how-to-get-involved-
Twitter: @jchilders98
Truth Social: @jchilders98
MeWe: mewe.com/i/coffee_and_covid.
C&C Swag! www.shopcoffeeandcovid.com
Emailed Daily Newsletter: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
Click to:
Ron DeSantis |
00:01
Thank you. Thank you very much. Well, thank you so much. Over these past four years, we’ve seen major challenges for the people of our state, for the citizens of the United States, and above all, for the cause of freedom. We saw freedom in our very way of life and so many other jurisdictions in this country wither on the vine. Florida held the line. We chose facts over fear. We chose education over indoctrination. We chose law and order over rioting and disorder. Florida was a refuge of sanity when the world went mad. We stood as a citadel of freedom for people across this country and indeed across the world. We faced attacks, we took the hits, we weathered the storms, but we stood our ground. We did not back down. We had the conviction to guide us and we had the courage to lead. We made promises. We made promises to the people of Florida, and we have delivered on those promises.
01:47
And so today, after four years, the people have delivered their verdict. Freedom is here to stay. Thank you very much. Thank you. Now, thanks to the overwhelming support of the people of Florida, we not only won an election, we have rewritten the political map. Thank you for honoring us with a win for the ages. I want to thank all of our campaign staff, from campaign manager [inaudible 00:02:45]. This was the best-run campaign in the history of Florida politics. I want to thank all of our wonderful volunteers who worked so hard to get out the vote. Your support means the world to Casey and I. God bless you and thank you.
03:10
Now, it’s a lot easier to run a good campaign when you got a great record to run on, and I would not have been able to see the level of accomplishments that we saw unless I had outstanding personnel working in the executive office of the governor, as well as heading state agencies. These folks worked hard to implement our agenda. They believed in our agenda and the results have been historic. Thank you for your support and work. Thank you to Miami-Dade County. Thank you to Palm Beach County. Now, we’re still tallying the votes, but it’s clearly apparent that this election we will have garnered a significant number of votes from people who may not have voted for me four years ago. And I just want to let you know, I am honored to have earned your trust and your support over these four years.
04:23
And most important of all, thank you to the greatest First Lady in all 50 states for being a great wife, giving unwavering support, being a tremendous mother to our three young children, and serving as an example for women throughout this state, especially going through the battle of cancer. She is remarkable. Now, today is the culmination of the 2022 fall elections. But in reality, Americans have been voting for many years now. They’ve been voting with their feet, and the results of that behavior has been just as stark as our landslide victory today. States and cities governed by leftist politicians have seen crime skyrocket. They’ve seen their taxpayers abused, they’ve seen medical authoritarianism imposed, and they’ve seen American principles discarded. The woke agenda has caused millions of Americans to leave these jurisdictions for greener pastures.
06:04
Now, this great exodus of Americans, for those folks, Florida, for so many of them, has served as the promise land. We have embraced freedom. We have maintained law and order. We have protected the rights of parents. We have respected our taxpayers, and we reject woke ideology. We fight the woke in the legislature. We fight the woke in the schools. We fight the woke in the corporations. We will never, ever surrender to the woke mob. Florida is where woke goes to die. People have come here because our policies work. Leadership matters. We refuse to use polls and put our finger in the wind. Leaders don’t follow. They lead. We set out a vision, we executed on that vision and we produced historic results. And the people of this state have responded in record fashion. Now, while our country flounders due to failed leadership in Washington, Florida is on the right track. I believe the survival of the American experiment requires a revival of true American principles. Florida has proved that it can be done. We offer a ray of hope that better days still lie ahead.
07:56
I am proud of our achievements in this state. I am honored by your support and I look forward to the road ahead. I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race in this first term, and I have kept the faith. We’ve accomplished more than anybody thought possible four years ago. But we’ve got so much more to do and I have only begun to fight. God bless you all. Thank you very much. Thank you for a historic landslide victory.
News
Tornado warning Until 1 PM
https://member.everbridge.net/453003085611111/weather/N1111kEiF
Issued: 2022-11-10 06:02:00 EST|Expiring: 2022-11-10 13:00:00 EST
THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE HAS ISSUED TORNADO WATCH 565 IN
EFFECT UNTIL 1 PM EST THIS AFTERNOON FOR THE FOLLOWING AREAS
IN FLORIDA THIS WATCH INCLUDES 6 COUNTIES
IN NORTHEAST FLORIDA
CLAY DUVAL FLAGLER
NASSAU PUTNAM ST. JOHNS
IN GEORGIA THIS WATCH INCLUDES 2 COUNTIES
IN SOUTHEAST GEORGIA
CAMDEN GLYNN
THIS INCLUDES THE CITIES OF AMELIA CITY, ANASTASIA, ARLINGTON,
BAKERSVILLE, BELLAIR, BOSTWICK, CARRAWAY, COUNTRY CLUB ESTATE,
DOCK JUNCTION, DOCTORS INLET, DOVER BLUFF, DUNGENESS, DURBIN,
FERNANDINA BEACH, FRUIT COVE, GLYNN HAVEN, HILLIARD,
JACKSONVILLE, JEKYLL ISLAND, KINGS FERRY, KINGSLAND, LAKESIDE,
MIDDLEBURG, NORMANDY, OCEANWAY, ORANGE PARK, ORTEGA, PALATKA,
PALM COAST, PALM VALLEY, PONTE VEDRA BEACH, RATLIFF, RIVERSIDE,
SAN MARCO, SEA ISLAND, ST. SIMONS, SWITZERLAND, THALMANN,
AND YULEE
By Jeff Childers
11-09-22
Finally, our long electoral nightmare is over!
Haha, just kidding. As Twitter advised me this morning when I opened the app, “It’s expected to take multiple days to count the votes.” Yeah, in third-world banana republics. Anyway.
It wasn’t the “Red Wave” corporate media has been braying about, but there’s still a lot to celebrate, some things to focus on, and a Senate still up in the air. I’ll roundup all the best election news, and throw in a little more.
🔥 Exiting his polling precinct yesterday, Trump answered a reporter’s shouted question, confirming that he DID vote for Governor DeSantis. So there.
Governor DeSantis wound up winning re-election in what is commonly described as a “landslide,” although — bizarrely — a lot of democrats still voted for Charlie Crist, for some reason. But that’s not the most bizarre thing democrats did yesterday.
Watch this clip from DeSantis’ victory speech, and tell me he didn’t run on anti-wokeness.
See Republicans? Fighting against wokeness is POPULAR.
🔥 It now looks like the “red wave” story that the media has been crying about for the last couple weeks was in fact just a pre-election narrative, to transform a tidy, workmanlike victory for conservatives as “really” a victory for Biden, because he prevented the red wave or something.
Conservatives had a solid night, and made good ground in the long war to save the Country. The Senate is still up for grabs, but the House looks pretty much flipped, so the Biden regime will be dramatically slowed, with serious implications for the proxy war, as I’ll discuss further on.
Keep in mind: retaining the Senate is CRITICAL for democrats, to stop Republicans from impeaching Biden. So.
Let’s begin with the disappointments. As I write this:
🤡 Pennsylvania democrats elected the first mentally-disabled stroke victim in history to the United States Senate yesterday, confirming that all it takes for democrats is a hoodie and a pulse. Maybe just a hoodie. The good news is, for the next six years, John Fetterman will be a walking billboard for vaccine injury, since less than a year ago he could talk right.
Fetterman squeaked out his win against Dr. Oz 50% to 47%, a much narrower lead than 2018’s similar Pennsylvania Senate race, where Bob Casey beat the GOP candidate 57% to 42%.
Progress.
🤡 Raphael Warlock, I mean Warnock, and Herschel Walker appear headed toward a runoff for Georgia Senate (it’s 48.52% to 49.42% with 95% counted).
Seems like we’ve seen this movie before, two years ago, haven’t we?
🤡 Amid widespread voting machine problems in Arizona — we’ll be talking a lot more about this one, I bet — Kari Lake has temporarily slipped below the threshold for a recount against current secretary of state and election-controller Katie Hobbs. Similarly, Mark Kelly is currently edging Republican Blake Masters for Arizona Senate.
But hang in there. There are still a lot of uncounted ballots in Arizona. As of an hour ago, 1.7M Arizona ballots had been counted, leaving about 900K left to count. Some folks are optimistically speculating that Kari still has a good chance:
The Columbia Bugle 🇺🇸 @ColumbiaBugle
Lots of votes left and they’ve been breaking hard for Lake so far.10:55 AM ∙ Nov 9, 2022393Likes29Retweets
Independent analysts are saying the blue areas of the state were counted first, so remaining votes should trend red. It’s too soon to tell, and will probably take several days to figure out, due to the way Arizona’s goofy mail-in ballot statute works.
🤡 Fiesty Lauren Boebert appears to have lost her Colorado House seat to democrat Adam Frisch by a slender margin, although the race is not yet final. If Boebert loses, the House will be a lot less entertaining.
🤡 In New York, replacement governor Kathy Hochul is leading conservative challenger Lee Zeldin by a narrow margin — 52% to 47% — a historically close race. As recently as 2018, Luv Guv Cuomo solidly beat the GOP nominee by a whopping 60% to 39%.
🤡 California, Michigan, and Vermont all passed the broadest abortion laws in the country — as state constitutional amendments — creating a constitutional right in those states to kill pre-born infants up till the moment of birth.
God help them.
Now for the good news!
🔥 Republicans appear poised to take control of the House of Representatives and shove Nancy Pelosi into retirement in Italy. Not enough votes have been counted yet to confirm anything. But here’s the U.S. congressional results map, so far. What do you notice about it?
Looks pretty red, doesn’t it? How are you liking the looks of Texas and Florida, which were both purple states four years ago?
Here’s where we’re at, as of 6:30am:
🔥 Brian Kemp soundly beat professional whiner and democrat heavyweight Stacey Abrams for Georgia Governor, 54% to 46%. THIS TIME she can’t claim the election was stolen from her.
Can she?
🔥 Senator Ron Johnson is projected to win Wisconsin 51% to 49%, with 94% of the vote counted. Nice.
🔥 Trump-endorsed conservative hillbilly J.D. Vance beat oily democrat Tim Ryan for the Ohio Senate.
On top of Governor DeSantis’ astounding blowout victory, Florida’s overall results were remarkable, a “real” red wave, or maybe even a tsunami.
🔥 Lefty insider mag Florida Politics reported sadly that:
… races were so uncontested that Democratic candidates might as well have been in witness protection. Nearly everywhere you looked, Republicans were holding victory parties… From Pensacola to Miami, voters sent an unmistakable message that they aren’t buying what Democrats are selling.
Democrat partisans on Twitter weren’t too happy, either. Threats to rage-quit the Sunshine State were quite common, e.g.:
I’m not holding my breath. I’ve been waiting for them to leave ever since they were crying about how dangerous it was to live here since the Governor opened up the state and banned mandatory masking.
🔥 Florida swept all five competitive U.S. House races last night, picking up +4 U.S. Congressional seats, making its new Congressional delegation 20 – 8 in favor of conservatives.
🔥 Republicans in the Florida Senate now hold a supermajority. They can shut Democrats out of amendment-making, debate and other legislative procedures.
🔥 Among all the wins for conservatives were a couple standouts. Trump-endorsed, photogenic Anna Paulina Luna won the House for Pinellas County, Florida, a historically-blue district, flipping the traditionally-democrat seat. And conservative Corey Simon became the first Republican since the Civil War to win the Florida Senate seat for Leon County, where the state’s capitol, Tallahassee, is located.
🔥 Here in my own uni-party county, while local conservative candidates fared poorly, we managed to do the seemingly impossible: pass a single-member district amendment, which will finally break decades of single-party rule on the county commission — which coincidentally was the odious institution primarily responsible for local mask and vaccine mandates.
It took a lot of work by a lot of folks (and I might’ve even played a teensy-weensy part in it).
So the NEXT election cycle is going to look like something they haven’t seen before. Step by step.
🚀 Remember how the other day I was warning Ukrainians about shifting political winds? Well, now that it looks clear the democrats will lose the House, where Ukrainian money-laundering happens, check out this remarkable development.
UPDATE: This is not, sadly, a remarkable development. I was going too fast this morning and missed the date (March). It’s a non-story (sorry).
Oh, NOW he wants to talk peace. Right after the democrats lost the House. So. Weird.
This will probably be a great disappointment to “die first” Ukraine supporters, who earlier this year rallied around a slogan reinforcing no peace deal would be acceptable unless it includes complete Russian surrender and an agreement to pay for Ukraine’s infrastructure.
Speaking of paying for Ukraine’s broken infrastructure, Republicans in the House will be very skeptical of that proposal, after Ukraine rejected all its early chances to make peace with Russia. It was, after all, Ukraine’s choice to “fight Russia to the death.” There’s no rational reason why U.S. taxpayers should have to pay another dime for Ukraine’s war. If there’s some kind of international moral imperative supporting that notion, then let Germany pay for it. Or China.
Or, Ukraine supporters will need to argue that the U.S. is somehow responsible for the war, say, for example, by building illegal biolabs over there. But Ukraine supporters have been denying that fact for a year now. So, yeah. Let’s go with that.
🔥 Scion of the Rothschild banking dynasty, one of the world’s richest men, and friend of Bill and Hilary Clinton, Evelyn de Rothschild, 91, quietly passed away at home yesterday. End of an era, what?
🔥 In the Accountability news section, the National Law review issued its “Class Action Trends Report Fall 2022” last month. You’ll like this. The report begins by noting sadly that “unfortunately, the outbreak of COVID-19- related litigation is still in its infancy.”
You don’t say.
The report describes a quickly-growing legal trend:
Of late, the greatest source of new cases challenge the steps taken to stem the COVID-19 tide, in the form of vaccine mandates. The number of such lawsuits has surpassed 1,200… The wave of litigation against employers that have implemented COVID-19 vaccination requirements shows no sign of ebbing. As of September 1, 2022, more than 700 lawsuits have been filed challenging vaccine mandates imposed by employers, both public and private. The number has risen steadily since.
Twelve hundred lawsuits. So far. And still in their infancy. With no sign of ebbing.
We told them this would happen!
The easier we can make it for lawyers to find helpful evidence and information, the more lawsuits will be filed. Let’s make that a reality.
Have a wonderful Wednesday! I’ll see you guys back here tomorrow for more.
C&C is moving the needle and changing minds. If you can, I could use your help getting the truth out and spreading optimism and hope: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/-learn-how-to-get-involved-
Twitter: @jchilders98
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The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
2022-11-09 09:29:40 EST
At ten A. M. Nassau is ordering an evacuation of Zones A. Alpha and D. Delta. Storm-related questions, call 548-0900 or see www.OneNassau.com
Press Release #4
Evacuations of Zones A & D, Sheltering and Transportation
Evacuations:
As of 10:00 a.m. this morning, Nassau County has issued an Evacuation Order for Evacuation Zones A and
D. An Evacuation Zone Map can be located at www.onenassau.com/evacuations. There is also an
interactive version at www.nassauflpa.com, under the GIS Mapping feature.
Sheltering:
A shelter has been opened at the Callahan Multi-Purpose Facility located at 543350 US Highway 1,
Callahan, FL 32011. This shelter is available for general population, individuals with special needs, and for
pets.
If you have special medical needs, please ensure that you have completed the special needs registration
through the Department of Health. They can be reached at 888-353-8387. You can also register online at
https://snr.flhealthresponse.com/. If you have already registered, you will be contacted by the Department
of Health.
Everyone visiting a shelter should be prepared to bring:
• Personal identification including Photo ID, insurance card, emergency contacts and your primary
care provider’s contact information
• Medical information including medications taken, dosage and doctor name/contact info
• Any prescription and/or over the counter medication that you may need
• Vital equipment for those who are electrically or oxygen dependent
• Food/snacks, particularly those with special dietary needs
• Bedding (sheets, blankets, pillows)
• Sanitary supplies (soap, shampoo, sanitizer, disinfecting wipes)
• Clothing
Transportation:
If you need transportation, please call the Emergency Operations Center at (904) 548-0900. A
transportation schedule will be released later today.
Nassau County is unable to tell residents when they will be able to return as that will depend on damages
from the storm and associated assessments deeming it’s safe to return. Upon returning to Nassau County,
please have identification available. This will ensure that you don’t have any issues returning to your home.
If your identification card does not include your home address, please ensure you have some sort of
documentation so they can confirm your address. (deed, utility bill, property tax bill, etc.)
Please continue to remain vigilant and follow public safety announcements. They can be heard on NOAA
Weather Radio; Local radio stations 89.9 FM, 145.5 FM and 690 AM; and local news stations Channels 4,
12, 30 and 47.
If you have any questions, please contact Nassau County Emergency Management at (904) 548-0900.
Information related to the storm can also be found at www.OneNassau.com Follow Emergency
Management on social media at www.facebook.com/NassauEM or at www.twitter.com/NassauEM.
By George Miller, 11-8-22
No one really knows as of this midnight writing.
It looks as though the Republicans will likely get a majority in the House, but no one is sure how much yet, with so many vote tallies not finalized yet. So far, it doesn’t look like the huge blowout feared by the Democrats and hoped for by the Republicans.
Senate control is not that clear yet.
If Republicans gain the House, they will be able to greatly slow down the leftist legislative train running hard since Democrats took control over both Houses and the White House. But they won’t be able to enact their own agenda. They will be able to control investigations, but won’t likely have much cooperation from Biden’s DOJ for criminal referrals of cases related to party differences.
If they take the Senate, they will again control judicial, cabinet and other key appointments as well as treaty approvals.
If they control both houses, they can affect more control over policy, but the Administration still drives the car and can also veto legislation.
We’ll be tracking and reporting on this.
By George Miller, 11-8-22
Here are election results to date (totals do NOT include provisional ballots, not all counts are final yet):
Florida State results (including statewide, Congressional, state legislative races and judicial confirmations)
Governor/Lt. Gov
| DeSantis / Nuñez | REP | 4,587,243 | 59.53% |
| Crist / Hernandez | DEM | 3,068,916 | 39.82% |
| Roos / Rorabaugh | LPF | 18,989 | 0.25% |
| Gimenez / Gibson | NPA | 31,091 | 0.4% |
| Total 7,706,239 |
Attorney-General
| Ashley Moody | REP | 4,623,943 | 60.74% |
| Aramis Ayala | DEM | 2,989,297 | 39.26% |
Chief Financial Officer
| Jimmy Patronis | REP | 4,507,037 | 59.59% |
| Adam Hattersley | DEM | 3,056,084 | 40.41% |
Commissioner of Agriculture
| Wilton Simpson | REP | 4,489,064 | 59.42% |
| Naomi Esther Blemur | DEM | 3,065,959 | 40.58% |
US Senator
| Marco Rubio | REP | 4,452,800 | 57.82% |
| Val Demings | DEM | 3,167,973 | 41.14% |
Other candidate totals were negligible
4th Congressional District
| Aaron Bean | REP | 165,543 | 60.47% |
| LaShonda “L.J.” Holloway | DEM | 108,236 | 39.53% |
5th Congressional District
John Rutherford (R)- had no general election opponent
State Senate- District 4
| Clay Yarborough | REP | 148,386 | 67.8% |
| Sharmin Smith | DEM | 70,488 | 32.2% |
Judges– ALL were confirmed. Pro-abortion LaBarga had the lowest toral at 58%. Since judges don’t campaign, debate, and voting record summaries aren’t published, the public doesn’t have much to go on. We may help remedy that in the future.
State Amendments (NONE passed so far)
Amendment No. 1
Limitation on Assessment of Real Property Used for Residential Purposes
Nonpartisan
Contest Results by County
Compare State to County
| Ballot Choice | Votes Received | ||
| Yes for Approval | 3,984,268 | 57.29% | |
| No for Rejection | 2,970,398 | 42.71% | |
| Amendments require 60% to pass | |||
| Total 6,954,666 | |||
Amendment No. 2
Abolishing the Constitution Revision Commission
Nonpartisan
Contest Results by County
Compare State to County
| Ballot Choice | Votes Received | ||
| Yes for Approval | 3,716,638 | 53.92% | |
| No for Rejection | 3,176,855 | 46.08% | |
| Amendments require 60% to pass | |||
| Total 6,893,493 | |||
Amendment No. 3
Additional Homestead Property Tax Exemption for Specified Critical Public Services Workforce
Nonpartisan
Contest Results by County
Compare State to County
| Ballot Choice | Votes Received | ||
| Yes for Approval | 4,181,355 | 58.69% | |
| No for Rejection | 2,943,113 | 41.31% | |
| Amendments require 60% to pass | |||
| Total 7,124,468 | |||
(remember- these are ONLY Nassau totals- state level race totals are in the Florida results).
https://www.votenassaufl.gov/election-night-results
https://enr.electionsfl.org/NAS/3294/Summary/
more to follow ….
School Board
School Board Member District 1
Participating Precincts Reporting: 18 / 18
OVER VOTES:
20
UNDER VOTES:
6499
Choice
Percent
Votes
Jamie Deonas
48.38%
19,989
Shannon Hogue
51.62%
21,324
41,313
School Board Member District 3
Participating Precincts Reporting: 18 / 18
OVER VOTES:
5
UNDER VOTES:
7543
Choice
Percent
Votes
Curtis Gaus
58.68%
23,639
Albert J. Wagner
41.32%
16,645
40,284
Board of County Commissioners Referendum
Participating Precincts Reporting: 18 / 18
OVER VOTES:
11
UNDER VOTES:
3214
Choice
Percent
Votes
Yes
68.48%
30,549
No
31.52%
14,058
44,607
Nassau County School District (ed. note: Millage increase)
Participating Precincts Reporting: 18 / 18
OVER VOTES:
11
UNDER VOTES:
2555
Choice
Percent
Votes
Yes
53.32%
24,138
No
46.68%
21,128
45,266
Amelia National Community Development District
Participating Precincts Reporting: 1 / 1
OVER VOTES:
0
UNDER VOTES:
63
Choice
Percent
Votes
Stephen G. Kearney
67.28%
329
Fred Phelleps
32.72%
160
489
Mayor
Bradley Bean 64%
David Sturges 36%
City Commission Seat 4 (goes to a run-off)
Mike Lednovich 44%
James Antun 34%
Chris Nickeloff 14%
Chelsea Lemire 8%
City Commission Seat 5 (goes to a run-off)
Genece Minshew 41%
Darron Asycue 31%
Stacie McMonagle 27%
Participating Precincts Reporting: 1 / 1
OVER VOTES:
0
UNDER VOTES:
58
Choice
Percent
Votes
Randy Knagge
66.93%
336
Shannon Stewart
33.07%
166
502
Aaron Bean tonight became the first Nassau County resident in history to ever win a Congressional seat. Bean, currently President Pro Tem of the California State Senate, has been a fixture in County Politics for a long time, on the City Commission, then state legislature.
His win over Democrat Opponent LaShonda Holloway, a far left Progressive, with a commanding 78% of the vote in Nassau County and 60.65% district-wide, so far. District 4 is new and leans toward Republicans in registration.
The crowd at Spring Hill Courtyard Suites hotel across from Main Beach in Fernandina Beach was large and jubilant.
Even though Duval and St. John’s Counties are a much larger portion of his district, Bean spoke to his Nassau County home constituency first. It was like old home week.
Bean released this statement:
Aaron Bean Wins General Election for Florida Congressional District 4
Fernandina Beach, Fla. – Congressman-elect Aaron Beanhttps://aaronbean.com/ today released the following statement, attributable to him, regarding his general election victory in Florida’s Fourth Congressional District.
“When we won the primary, we did not look back! We said better days have to be ahead on curbing inflation, stopping skyrocketing gas prices and issues impacting everyday Floridians. We said better days have to be ahead on supply chain issues that hurt business owners day in and day out under Biden-Pelosi.
“We said we have to protect and secure our borders, we have to make sure parents are the deciders of their child’s education, and Americans need to be able to work and provide for their families.
“And together, we will do just that! I want to thank the voters of Congressional District 4 in Nassau, Duval and Clay counties for believing in me and for sending me to the United States Congress. I also want to thank the volunteers and supporters who joined us on the campaign trail, and I want to express my sincerest gratitude to my wife and family who were with me every step of the way.
“Tomorrow, we get to work, where we will focus on not only addressing these most-pressing issues impacting Floridians but building excellent constituent services for all the citizens of the district. I am so honored to serve the great Congressional District 4 and to represent my home county as the first congressman elected from Nassau County!”
For more information on the Aaron Bean for Congress campaign, visit https://aaronbean.com.
By Nassau County Emergency Operations
11-08-22
Nassau County has already begun experiencing dangerous rip currents and as a result, double red flags have been placed along the beach. Double red flags indicate that the water is closed! This includes all water activities including swimming and the use of watercrafts. (boats, jet skis, etc.)
Both Nassau County and The City of Fernandina Beach are closely monitoring the tides and may intermittently suspend beach driving as tides approach the dunes. This applies to Seaside Park in the City of Fernandina Beach, and the County’s beach driving areas at Peters Point, Scott Road and American Beach. We have been advised that the State Park on the south end of Amelia Island has already suspended beach driving temporarily.
Please continue to remain vigilant and follow public safety announcements. They can be heard on NOAA Weather Radio; Local radio stations 89.9 FM, 104.5 FM and 690 AM; and local news stations Channels 4, 12, 30 and 47.
If you have any questions, please contact Nassau County Emergency Management at (904) 548-0900.
Information related to the storm can also be found at www.OneNassau.com Follow Emergency
Management on social media at www.facebook.com/NassauEM or at www.twitter.com/NassauEM.
By Nassau County Emergency Operations Center
11-08-22
Executive Order No. 2022-01 has been issued declaring a local State of Emergency, effective at 3:00 p.m. today, in preparation of Tropical Storm Nicole.
Florida Statutes, Section 252.38, states that “safeguarding the life and property of (the County’s) citizens is an innate responsibility of the governing body of each political subdivision of the State,” and further grants the County the power to provide a State of Emergency for the health and safety of persons and property”. The State of Emergency will apply to all territory within the legal boundaries of Nassau County, including the unincorporated and incorporated areas.
Declaring a local State of Emergency allows your government officials quick access to resources to help manage a crisis until things return to normal. A State of Emergency also helps government officials take extra measures to protect the public, trigger anti-price gouging laws, and most importantly, seek State or Federal funding for disaster response and reimbursement of funds exhausted on things such as overtime costs and purchase of supplies and equipment needed to manage the emergency.
While Tropical Storm Nicole’s exact path is still uncertain, Nassau County is continuing to monitor the situation closely and are in frequent communication with the National Hurricane Center and local partners to ensure we are ready for any impacts that may come. Please continue to remain vigilant and follow public safety announcements. They can be heard on NOAA Weather Radio; Local radio stations 89.9 FM, 145.5 FM and 690 AM; and local news stations Channels 4, 12, 30 and 47.
If you have any questions, please contact Nassau County Emergency Management at (904) 548-0900.
Information related to the storm can also be found at www.OneNassau.com Follow Emergency Management on social media at www.facebook.com/NassauEM or at www.twitter.com/NassauEM.
by Jeff Childers
11-08-22
Good morning, and Happy Tuesday, C&C! Here we are, finally, Election Day, the moment of truth. VOTE! And multiply your vote by convincing or helping at least one person to vote who otherwise wouldn’t. Michelle is helping secure democracy by volunteering at the polls today, and I’ll be making the rounds County keeping a careful eye on things. Do whatever you can.
Today’s overflowing roundup includes: True the Vote heroes released from federal prison; examples of the various forms democrat cheating takes; CNN says dems are confronting their “nightmare scenario;” Barron’s explains inflation’s silver lining; more stories about dems flipping red; study shows risk of relapsed kidney disease after jabs; Ukraine keeps winning so big it’s about to evacuate its capital city, Kiev; and how we can buy back the FDA.
🪖 I am pleased to update you that Operation Accountability is officially underway. We’ve sorted the massive response to my call for skilled volunteers and I invited a core team for Phase 1 — defining the technical specifications for a covid-crimes evidence-management system. If you didn’t get an invite, don’t worry, we’ll check in with you at the next phase.
But if you sent in your information, DO check your email.
The team will be having an initial meeting this week. Updates to follow.
🪖 If you missed it, yesterday we multiplied Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake, who over the weekend became the first major political figure to call for covid accountability. Here’s the link, please donate any affordable amount ending in a ‘2’. https://secure.winred.com/kari-lake-for-arizona/win-arizona
A note to people who can’t stand WinRed: Sorry, I usually try to find multiple ways to join in, but the deadlines of today’s election combined with the late-breaking news precluded it this time.
🔥 Great news! True the Vote’s intrepid heroes, Katherine Engelbrecht and Gregg Phillips, have been liberated from federal prison after a federal judge tossed them in the slammer for refusing to disclose their whistleblower’s name.
Notice that the Fifth Circuit included the phrase, “pending further order from this court,” which means (1) it’s keeping jurisdiction over their detention, which is good news for our plucky heroes, and (2) the Court means to say more about the case.
Probably a lot more.
I can’t confirm this, or even say where I got the intel, but my sources close to the matter said the feds slow-walked Katherine and Gregg’s release, taking their time, stretching almost a whole additional day out of their detention.
You’d think exposing corrupt Chinese influence over our elections would be something the federal government should approve of.
Anyway, congrats to Katherine and Gregg, and their lawyers.
🔥 It’s Election Day! And that means cheating, which experts have assured me is impossible. Until tomorrow when, if democrats lose badly, I bet they’ll discover it’s possible again.
Cheating DOES seem possible though, and not only at the ballot box. I’ll give you an example of what I mean from my own Alachua County. The background is a local bipartisan group has been promoting a fair single-member districting (“SMD”) amendment for the county, to break 40 years of one-party rule, which hasn’t benefited anyone except entrenched political dynasties.
Well, the group’s yard signs were being defaced and stolen in large numbers. After a heroic investigation, they finally found the source.
It turned out that a creepy Soros-backed PAC, Alachua County’s Future, has been telling its private Facebook group members to (1st pic) “fix” yard signs, and (2nd pic) steal the signs and throw them away. (The text in the second frame refers obliquely to “illegally placed signs”, but as you can see, the only ones in the picture are the single-member district ones. Somebody thought that wording was really clever.)
Meanwhile, early this morning, the same shady group, Alachua County’s Future, texted local REPUBLICAN VOTERS — for the very first time ever — and advised them (falsely) that the local GOP opposes single member districts.
That’s from MY phone. Don’t worry, I bleached it. Twice.
The text was a lie. The truth is the exact opposite: The local GOP chairman has been stumping for weeks in FAVOR of single member districts. And, haha, they slipped up and gave themselves away by referring to the “Democratic machine” instead of calling it the “Democrat machine.”
Can’t help it, I suppose.
Anyway. This is what all the democrat’s “threat to our very democracy” chatter is all about. It’s a psyop ON THEIR OWN VOTERS, to convince them it’s okay to throw morality and ethics out the window, in favor of cheating and dirty tricks, because THIS TIME it’s an existential crisis, or something.
The national democrats want locals feeling like cheating and breaking the law “little” is okay, because things are just SO DIRE.
This is probably nothing new; it’s probably how they’ve been hanging on in normal election seasons. But, unfortunately for democrats, we’re all post-pandemic Americans now. You know what else is a “threat to our very democracy?” Another couple years of one-party democrat rule. People have learned, the hard way, what happens when ONLY democrats are in charge. That includes a lot of democrats, too.
Which is why local democrats in Alachua County will vote FOR single-member districts along with Republicans. It’s not a partisan issue. Because when only democrats are in charge, they mask you up, keep your kids out of school, and force you to take medicine you don’t want — “or else.”
Be vigilant! Call cheating out when you see it.
🔥 CNN ran a half-baked story yesterday headlined, “Democrats Confront Their Nightmare Scenario on Election Eve as Economic Concerns Overshadow Abortion and Democracy Worries.”
The article’s first sentence is priceless.
Democrats close their midterm election campaign Monday facing the nightmare scenario they always feared – with Republicans staging a gleeful referendum on Joe Biden’s struggling presidency and failure to tame inflation.
Haha! “Struggling presidency.” They noticed!
And apparently, neither the overturning of Roe v. Wade or an apocalyptic proxy war in Ukraine turned out to be the issues that would make everyone forget what democrats did to us all over the last two years.
RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel told CNN, “Here’s where the Democrats are: they’re inflation deniers, they are crime deniers, they’re education deniers.”
Haha! Denialism!
Longtime democrat consultant Hilary Rosen told CNN, “I’m a loyal Democrat, but I am not happy. I just think that we are – we did not listen to voters in this election. And I think we’re going to have a bad night.” She explained, “when voters tell you over and over and over again that they care mostly about the economy, listen to them. Stop talking about democracy being at stake.”
Indeed. But the most insightful comment from the article was this one:
The Republican Party also got exactly what it wanted as Trump has delayed his expected campaign announcement until after the midterms, depriving Biden of the opportunity to shape this election as a direct clash with an insurrectionist predecessor whom he beat in 2020 and who remains broadly unpopular. Such a confrontation might have enabled the president to dampen the impact of his own low approval ratings and win over voters who still disdain the twice-impeached former president.
Poor Biden. Anyway, I hadn’t heard this argument yet, but it makes sense. Trump is showing a uncharacteristically remarkable amount of restraint in the timing of his announcement.
Finally, CNN turned the tables again, noting that, “Ironically, Biden’s struggles in framing a believable economic message could bring about the very crisis of democracy that he is warning about.”
A “believable” message. Haha, poor Joe, nobody believes him. Loss of trust in government IS a crisis, but one completely of the democrats’ own making.
🔥 Financial mag Barron’s ran a government-approved story yesterday headlined, “Here Are the Silver Linings of Red-Hot Inflation.” And I bet you didn’t even know that there red-hot inflation even had any silver linings.
All we have to do, says Barron’s, is “ferret[] out higher yielding, liquid investments that still offer a safety net.”
OH. So THAT’S the kind of investment we want. High return, low risk, highly liquid. Got it! OF COURSE. How come nobody ever thought of that before?
I was so curious. I dug into the article to find some of the promised terrific investment ideas, and I wasn’t disappointed. The first one Barron’s mentioned was TREASURY BONDS, which are offer “higher yielding” rates of FOUR PERCENT.
PER YEAR.
Um, I’m only a lawyer, not an investment advisor, but we’re seeing inflation over 4% PER MONTH right now. So I don’t think Treasuries can exactly be called a “silver lining,” unless I don’t understand what a “silver lining” is.
Guess what the next “high-return investment” Barron’s suggested? A SAVINGS ACCOUNT. That’s right. Barron’s thinks you might be able to get 3% PER YEAR, if you really shop around. Genius! Thanks experts! They’ve redefined “investment” to include keeping your money in a normal passbook bank account.
That’s an “investment” now, in Biden’s America.
I may only be a lawyer, but I do have a degree in economics. On planet Earth, where we all USED to live, before we moved to Cloud Cuckoo Land, regular savings accounts were THE classic example of where you DIDN’T want to put your money during times of high inflation. Savers and people on fixed incomes are hit hardest during inflationary periods.
But now, all bets are off! It’s Biden’s America, where mumbly Joe can continue to announce — when you can tell what’s he saying — that the economy is going super, and corporate media lapdogs hungrily slurp it all up like the good little doggies they are.
I held my nose and kept reading. Given the trend, you could probably guess the next investment idea. That’s right, certificates of deposit! That suggestion completely redefined what “liquid” means, which was an essential part of Barron’s awesome “silver inflation lining.”
So Barron’s is suggesting getting trapped in a long-term, illiquid, low-yield “investment” in CDs during a time of high inflation. That’s the best idea they could come up with. Thanks experts!
You know, I’d bet a certificate of deposit that anyone reading C&C right now could give better investment advice than Barron’s Magazine.
I kept forging ahead, even though my brain was starting to hurt. Then, Barron’s gave it away, beginning a major theme paragraph with these obsequious words: “There are other ways the government has tried to soften some of the inflationary blow, especially for retirees or retirement savers.”
Hahahahahaha! The government? You mean, the same government that created all the inflation in the first place? Now it’s going to help “soften the inflationary blow?”
I was trying to be nice, but Barron’s writers are morons.
The government effects the magazine is talking about, like social security benefits increasing by 6.7%, are AUTOMATIC COST-OF-LIVING ADJUSTMENTS ALREADY IN THE STATUTES. You can bet if the government could have avoided paying more, it would have.
That’s not the government softening the blow, dummy. The government didn’t do ANYTHING except make things worse, and everybody knows it.
Hilariously, the comments to the article were stealth-locked. There everything looks normal, except there are zero comments. But, if you try to add one, like I did, it returns some kind of obscure HTML error.
Chickens!
If Barron’s readers are buying this gaslighting, then they deserve each other.
📈 Confirming some of my hypotheses about democrat voters voting red due to pandemic policy, Fox News ran a story yesterday headlined, “I Was a Democrat Who Worked for a Teachers’ Union but I’m Voting Republican for Education Freedom.”
It’s an op-ed by Latina voter Valeria Gurr. She begins this way:
There’s a growing trend in America catching the attention of astute political observers and candidates alike: Hispanic voters are leaving the Democratic Party in droves. It’s a voting bloc many Democrats have relied on to win elections, so why is this change happening? There are no doubt many reasons, but it’s clear that education is among the topmotives.
Leaving in DROVES. About halfway through the piece, Ms. Gurr gets around to her main point:
After enduring significant losses in learning and academic achievement gaps during the pandemic, voters are seeing NAEP scores that show 51 percent of Hispanic fourth graders not mastering basic math concepts. With two decades of educational progress nearly gone, voters are stepping up to call on elected officials to stop making excuses for the deficient public education system and how badly it failed students during the pandemic and before.
The national democrats have been plotting for years to achieve one-party rule in this country by expanding the hispanic voting block. It only took one pandemic for them to lose this traditionally-blue base. Back to the drawing board.
In 2020, I warned the politicians all that “emergency powers” nonsense would ultimately be expensive. Now, to paraphrase Obama’s favorite pastor, the latino chickens are coming home to roost.
🔬 A recent study published in the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology is titled “mRNA COVID-19 Vaccines and Their Risk to Induce a Relapse of Glomerular Diseases.”
When I first saw the study’s title, I didn’t know what “glomerular diseases” meant, but it didn’t sound good. And it wasn’t. The term refers to a broad range of nasty kidney illnesses caused by inflammation of certain tissues in those organs.
Although the study authors emphasized, repeatedly, that the first couple covid jabs are “safe and effective,” even for those with existing kidney problems, they ultimately fretted about continuing booster shots. They noted that:
“Repetitive stimulation of the immune system may further increase the frequency of disease relapses, and the cumulative risk upon several vaccine doses may reach a higher degree of clinical significance.”
In other words, maybe it’s time to stop pushing boosters on everybody. Just saying.
🚀 The New York Times quietly ran a narrative-bashing story over the weekend headlined, “Kyiv Planning for Total Evacuation if It Loses Electricity.” The sub-headline explained, “The city is also establishing 1,000 heating centers for its 3 million residents, as Russia pounds away at civilian targets.”
Heating centers? I never heard of a “heating center” before. It sounded to me like a cheerful euphemism for something pretty bad. I was right:
… with 40 percent of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure damaged or destroyed, that municipal workers are setting up 1,000 heating shelters that can double as bunkers while engineers try to fix bombed-out power stations without the needed equipment.
Oh, BUNKERS. The Ukrainians are moving underground into luxe “heating shelters.”
This is a weird development, since experts have been ASSURING me that Russia’s president Putin was: dying of cancer, twice, was poisoned, and was on the verge of being overthrown, arrested, or executed. And, more often than Joe Biden has had covid shots, the experts have triumphantly announced that Ukraine’s former comedian-turned-president Zelenskyy was a brilliant and handsome war commander shoving the Russians to the precipice of devastating failure.
So, which is it?
Pre-empting the expected commentary, I am NOT celebrating Russia beating Ukrainians. I’m disgusted by how much lying corporate media and our own government has been doing in the name of “supporting” its Eastern European crack house.
Tip: if you have to lie, you are doing something wrong.
In the article, right after saying that Russian “troops have suffered repeated setbacks on the battlefield,” the New York Times advised its mentally-fragile readers that:
The damage caused by the Russian strikes has heaped new suffering on Ukraine’s civilians and forced officials to reckon with the possibility that further damage could render them unable to provide basic services. … “If there’s no power, there will be no water and no sewage,” [a Kiev official] said.
Unable to provide basic services. I think that’s a euphemism for “failed government.” And if the government fails, doesn’t that mean it lost the war? So the Times seems to be warning its readers that Ukraine is on the brink of losing the war, but don’t worry, it is still winning, somehow.
If Ukraine does become a failed state, which appears likely at this point, it will be NATO’s fault, for pushing the war and preventing peace talks at every step.
No peace without full capitulation by Russia! We’d rather die!
That’s a hard bargain.
If Ukraine’s power, water, and sewer services fail, it can only survive on a NATO economic and military ventilator, but only for as long as political will lasts. Given how elections are going, voters in various key places seem to be getting fed up with all the “sacrificing” for Ukraine.
The Ukrainians are on thin ice. Political winds can change in a split second. Isn’t there a better way out of this mess than continued military escalation?
🔥 The next story has been out for a few months now, but it’s been well buried and deserves a fresh look. We found out how much it costs to buy the FDA. Three million dollars. That’s how much Pfizer paid the FDA for the rubbish “user fee” required to get EUA approval. We only know this because a judge rejected Pfizer’s request to bury the intel for 75 years.
Here’s the letter:
So, I had a great idea! I’ve set up a GoFundMe so that we citizens can crowdfund raising three million bucks to buy the FDA back from big pharma. All you have to do is click right …
Oh. Wait a sec.
Whoops. GoFundMe just canceled my “Buy Back the FDA” campaign for violating “community standards.” Dammit. I guess first we’ll have to buy GoFundMe back from big pharma, and THEN we can tackle the FDA.
Stand by.
Next, you should note that in two places on the letter’s first page, Pfizer assured the FDA that the shots “prevent” covid disease. The phrase “BNT16262 prevents a serious and life-threatening condition (COVID-19)” is repeated, once in the first paragraph, and then again in the second paragraph.
Ruh-roh! I guess that means Pfizer’s executive lied to the European Union last month after all, when she said, look dummies, Pfizer COULDN’T test for preventing covid, because it was moving at the speed of science.
The speed of science isn’t measured in units of time; it’s apparently measured in dollars. Millions and millions of dollars.
So.
Have a terrific Election Day Tuesday, vote, and multiply your vote. I’ll be back here tomorrow for another roundup and to talk about how many states are planning to keep counting votes into late December or democrat candidates win, whichever comes first.
C&C is moving the needle and changing minds. If you can, I could use your help getting the truth out and spreading optimism and hope: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/-learn-how-to-get-involved-
Twitter: @jchilders98
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The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
By Randy Desoto, 11-7-22
The Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overruled a Texas federal district court judge Monday ordering the release of True the Vote leaders Catherine Engelbrecht and Gregg Phillips from a Houston prison.
Last week, U.S. District Judge Kenneth Hoyt ordered that the pair be held for at least a day or “until they fully comply with the Court’s Order,” Hoyt wrote.
Also: https://link.theepochtimes.com/mkt_app/ntd-evening-news-nov-7-true-the-vote-leaders-released-from-jail-rare-blood-moon-to-appear-during-2022- (at 1:18 on video)
midterms_4848227.htmlSee our previous article:
Judge jails ‘2000 Mules’ investigators Catherine Engelbrecht, Gregg Phillips
Wayne M, Tue, Nov 8, 2022 8:33 am
Hotline Number for Voter Protection by State
Florida: https://dos.myflorida.com/elections/contacts/elections-fraud-complaint
Nassau County elections web site: https://www.votenassaufl.gov/
https://fraoc.org/report-election-issues/
https://electionobserver.us/monitoring/cgi-bin/home.php
Read how MSM attempts to demonize Nassau County’s efforts to help address election fraud: https://www.news4jax.com/news/local/2022/03/24/nassau-county-elections-website-features-report-election-fraud-button-stoking-concern-of-mistrust/
Hmm, now it’s gone, but you can still report fraud HERE
Current NOAA projection
Updated 11-8 afternoon
also:
Update 11-8-22- path now moving more north: https://www.orlandosentinel.com/weather/hurricane/os-ne-subtropical-storm-nicole-threatens-florida-tuesday-20221108-nch4abatzbayfpgkbeg7dl2lpy-story.html
Edited by Michael Hernandez, 11-6-22
Editor’s Note: this is part of a compendium of recent significant events, this weekend, culled from U.S. news and curated by Michael Hernandez.)
VOTE IN PERSON AT YOUR ASSIGNED POLLING PRECINCT ON TUESDAY.
By Sandy Fitzgerald (Nov. 4) NewsMax
A 1,000-page report from Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee focusing on the politicization of the Department of Justice and the FBI shows that the problem begins “at the very top” with President Joe Biden, Rep. Andy Biggs, a member of the committee, told Newsmax on Friday. It could also mean examining the FBI and determining what sections should be dismantled, the Arizona Republican said on Newsmax’s “National Report.”
“You want to keep some of the areas that are relied on by local law enforcement, but you’re going to have to clean that up and maybe disband certain sections of the FBI,” Biggs said. “You’re going to have to address it financially. They’re claiming that they want to build a brand-new facility that’s going to cost over half a billion dollars. Well, that can’t happen until you clean up your act internally. So, you have a leverage point with that.”
The report, compiled from information ranking committee member Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, gathered from whistleblowers, claims that the FBI has abused its authority to spy on American citizens, including some with former President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign. It also outlines concerns about the progress of the investigation into President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden.
“Right now, there’s dissension in the ranks in the FBI because of this politicization,” Biggs said Friday. “Don’t forget that they’re trying to purge people who have conservative points of view.” He added that leverage to clear away “this mess” could include using federal rules that would allow stopping the salaries “of bureaucrats like Christopher Wray, who refused to clean up this mess that’s been there for some time.”
The report also addresses the matter of Hunter Biden, saying that mounting evidence shows that the federal agencies appear to be turning a blind eye to the potential dangers to national security from his dealings with China, Russia, and other foreign nationals.
“They apparently have been suppressing the evidence,” said Biggs. “They didn’t bother to look at the evidence, the evidence being the laptop that was there, plus additional evidence in the second laptop. It was in the FBI’s position for over a year without them actually even looking into it, even though there had been allegations that it contained criminal conduct or records of criminal conduct on that laptop. Then when they did begin to look, they actually suppress that evidence and they didn’t ever transfer for further investigation and prosecution where necessary.”
But still, the FBI and DOJ worked to “elevate and misconstrue and mischaracterize parents who were showing up at school board meetings to protest woke policies,” said Biggs. “That’s just such a blatant political abuse of power that’s going on there, and that’s got to come out. We’re going to have to hold the FBI and DOJ accountable.”
Biggs added that Hunter Biden “almost assuredly” will have to be subpoenaed to Congress to answer allegations that have been made about him, said Biggs. “We won’t do it like the Democrats do,” he said. “He’ll have the right to have a counsel there, and we’ll do the appropriate due process. But the bottom line is, you have to get to what’s gone on here, find out if there was suppression, and then we have to hold people accountable.”
https://www.newsmax.com/newsmax-tv/andy-biggs-doj-fbi/2022/11/04/id/1094927/
Caroline Downey (Nov. 5) Yahoo News
President Biden said Friday that all of the country’s coal plants should be closed because they’re too costly to operate and can’t be relied upon as a dependable energy source for future generations. “Wind and solar” will replace them, he said.
“I was in Massachusetts about a month ago on the site of the largest old coal plant in America,” Biden said during a speech at communications company ViaSat in San Diego County. “Guess what? It cost them too much money. They can’t count. No one is building new coal plants because they can’t rely on it. Even if they have all the coal guaranteed for the rest of the existence of the plant.”
Biden’s message could disadvantage Democrats just three days before midterms, considering that many of the battleground states that will determine the balance of power in Congress are home to coal plants and the blue-collar Americans who work in them. Pennsylvania has 24 plants, Ohio has 15 plants, and Michigan has 13 plants.
“So, it’s going to become a wind generation. And all they’re doing is it’s going to save them a hell of a lot of money and using the same transmission line that they transmitted the coal-fired electric on,” he said. “We’re going to be shutting these plants down all across America and having wind and solar power, also providing tax credits to help families buy energy efficient appliances, whether it’s your refrigerator or your coffee maker, for solar panels on your home, weatherize your home, things that save an average, experts say, a minimum of $500 a year for the average family.”
The Republican National Committee suggested Biden’s comment was tone deaf to the tough economic transition that switching to wind and solar would require of many Americans. “Joe Biden celebrates coal plant workers losing their jobs,” an RNC account tweeted. In 2020, Biden said the switch to clean energy will involve growing pains for coal miners, who he advised should pick up more marketable skills to remain competitive job applicants.
“Anybody who can go down 300-3,000 feet in a mine sure as hell can learn how to program as well,” Biden said in New Hampshire at a campaign event. “But we don’t think of it that way. Anybody who can throw coal into furnace can learn how to program, for God’s sake.”
The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) includes many tax incentives for adopting renewable energy. It offers a 10 percent tax credit bonus if a clean energy facility is constructed at a brown field site or a fossil fuel area. However, many coal-mining locations are not conducive to solar or wind power installation, though the vast majority of them can be converted to host advanced nuclear reactors, the Daily Caller noted.
https://news.yahoo.com/biden-vows-shut-down-coal-141249268.html?
PAUL SACCA (Nov. 05) The Blaze
President Joe Biden vowed to shut down coal plants “all across America” during a speech on Friday. Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin from West Virginia shot back at President Biden and demanded he apologize for his remarks.
“President Biden’s comments are not only outrageous and divorced from reality, they ignore the severe economic pain the American people are feeling because of rising energy costs,” Manchin began his statement.
“Comments like these are the reason the American people are losing trust in President Biden and instead believes he does not understand the need to have an all-in energy policy that would keep our nation totally energy independent and secure,” the Senator from West Virginia continued.
“It seems his positions change depending on the audience and the politics of the day,” he added. “Politicizing our nation’s energy policies would only bring higher prices and more pain for the American people.”
Manchin stressed, “Let me be clear, this is something the President has never said to me. Being cavalier about the loss of coal jobs for men and women in West Virginia and across the country who literally put their lives on the line to help build and power this country is offensive and disgusting,” he said.
Manchin concluded by demanding an apology from Biden, “The President owes these incredible workers an immediate and public apology and it is time he learn a lesson that his words matter and have consequences.”
There are more than 62,000 Americans employed in the coal industry according to research company IBISWorld. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the top coal-producing states in 2020 were:
By Eric Mack (Nov.5) NewsMax
Mocking the crowd for Democrat rallies in Pennsylvania and hailing his own, former President Donald Trump warned the commonwealth is being destroyed by radical left policies.
“You know, they had a little rally here: Nobody showed up for their rally; look at this rally,” Trump told his Save America rally in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, on Saturday night that aired live on Newsmax. “And then they’ll say how many votes they got and tell you it’s wonderful, right? This is the biggest poll you can have. And we always had this poll. Except now it’s bigger and better and stronger than we’ve ever had before.”
Trump began by promising to end House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s political career and stripping away the power of President Joe Biden and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer.
“Under Biden, Pelosi, Schumer, and the radical Democrat Congress, your commonwealth is being totally destroyed,” Trump told the crowd. “Our country is being destroyed. Biden and the far-left lunatics are waging war on Pennsylvania energy, crushing Pennsylvania jobs, gutting Pennsylvania communities, and strangling Pennsylvania families with soaring prices like you’ve never seen before. Inflation is costing the typical household nearly $800 every single month. Congratulations! Who the hell voted for these people? What are we doing?”
Trump repeated his America First agenda items of curbing illegal immigration, protecting Americans and making cities safe again, and defend parental rights in education.
“The southern border is wide open — millions of illegal aliens are pouring into our country,” Trump continued. “Your commonwealth is enduring a massive and bloody crime wave. And the far left is indoctrinating our children with twisted race and gender insanity in our schools. Other than that, they’re doing a fantastic job.”
Trump, stumping for GOP Senate candidate Dr. Mehmet Oz and GOP gubernatorial nominee Doug Mastriano, said voting for Republicans is the only way to turn back the damage the Biden administration and Democrat congressional control has done. “There is only one choice to end this madness, and it is indeed madness,” Trump said. “If you support the decline, fall of America, then you must vote for the radical-left Democrats. “If you want to stop the destruction of our country and save the American dream, then this Tuesday, you must vote Republican in a giant red wave.”
By Denise Cappuccio (Oct. 27) Chief Financial Officer, Concerned Women for America Legislative Action Committee
“When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice; but when a wicked man rules, the people groan.” Proverbs 29:2 (NKJV)
Prayer for the 2022 Elections:
Lord, we ask that Your perfect will is done in the 2022 elections, in each race taking place. Establish righteous leaders in every state across our nation. We ask you to remove those in leadership who have set their hearts and minds against You and the Truth of Your Word.
May there be many more elected officials who are “oaks of righteousness,” planted and standing with unwavering tenacity for Biblical principles. We know that following the Truth of Your word brings life and prosperity to individuals, families, and nations, and we ask for leaders who understand this principle.
Lord, we ask You to remind Your people of the importance of voting their values in this election and in future elections. Let there be a tremendous turnout of believers voting in this election! May Christians understand the urgency of the hour and all that is at stake in our country.
If there are any plots being planned to alter the results of the elections in any state, we ask that You uncover that which is hidden in darkness! Shine the light of Your truth into all areas of corruption and bring complete exposure of lies and deceit! We pray and believe that each election taking place will have truthful and accurate counts and results.
We thank You in advance, Almighty God! The future of our nation is in Your hands, and we trust You for a great turnaround in 2022!
“The Lord has done great things for us, and we are filled with joy!”
–Psalm 126:3
(Michael Hernandez, co-founder of the Citizens Journal—Ventura County’s online news service is a former Southern California daily newspaper journalist and religion and news editor. Mr. Hernandez can be contacted at [email protected] and is editor of “America: The End and Our Hope”.)
By Ian M. Giatti, (Nov. 5) Christian Post Reporter
It’s safe to say there’s not much that hasn’t changed since 1990 — and that goes for SoCal Harvest. Started that year by Greg Laurie and Chuck Smith, Pastor and Founder of Calvary Chapel, the annual evangelistic event held in Southern California has seen thousands come to Christ through the preaching of the Gospel.
Laurie is set to return to Angel Stadium in Anaheim, California, for two nights on Nov. 5-6 for SoCal Harvest, along with music from artists like Phil Wickham, Jeremy Camp, Andy Mineo, Newsboys and Crowder.
Even back in 1990, when the internet was still in its infancy, Laurie, founder and lead pastor of Harvest Churches and Harvest Crusades, saw the potential reach for SoCal Harvest. “It has evolved in every way imaginable,” Laurie, 69, told The Christian Post.
Since then, Laurie says over 6 million people have attended in person, and over 600,000 have made professions of faith to follow Jesus Christ. Though the inaugural event was streamed in what he called a “very jerky webcast,” it wasn’t until Laurie received a letter with a photo that showed someone watching that year’s Harvest event using a computer hooked up to a battery in a field somewhere in Africa that he realized its potential.
“I thought, ‘Well, we need to do this every year,’” he said. “As time has passed, our message has not changed but our methodology certainly has.” According to Laurie, so have the audiences: he said the level of biblical literacy compared to when he began preaching in the early 1970s is “mind-blowing.”
“People know so little about the Bible, so little about God, yet there’s this openness,” he said, pointing to a survey released earlier this year which found over half of Americans hold largely positive views of Jesus Christ. “I don’t think it’s Jesus Himself that turns people away,” said Laurie. “Sometimes it’s the actions of His followers, other times its sheer ignorance on the part of people where they don’t realize Jesus is not merely a historical figure, but He’s a Savior.”
Rapper Andy Mineo, who’s part of the Reach Records family of Christian hip-hop artists including Lecrae, Tedashii, Trip Lee, and others, told CP he’s looking forward not only to performing at Angel Stadium, but also just to be a part of it all.
“Those are the type of things that you only dream of, the opportunity to perform on stages and spaces like that,” he said. “But beyond that, I love what the purpose behind the whole thing is, to give a world-class experience and top-notch production to people to come to enjoy for free and to hear a message of hope and positivity and goodness. “I hope that I get to play a little part in seeing somebody have an evening that’s memorable forever for them.”
In addition to music, this year’s SoCal Harvest will also feature exclusive, never before seen scenes from the upcoming Laurie-produced feature film, “Jesus Revolution,” which he hopes will stir the hearts of those who attend.
In fact, Laurie said he plans to call on the thousands of believers at SoCal Harvest to join in prayer for another “Jesus Revolution” in California and beyond, even as he acknowledged the seeming mass exodus of Californians to other states during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I wish we could have a new export to the rest of America, a new fresh spiritual awakening that, God willing, would start here,” he said. “He did it before, He can certainly do it again.”
About Pastor Greg Laurie:
Greg Laurie is the senior pastor of Harvest Christian Fellowship with campuses in California and Hawaii. He began his pastoral ministry at the age of 19 by leading a Bible study of 30 people. Since then, God has transformed that small group into a church of some 15,000 people. Today, Harvest is one of the largest churches in America, and consistently ranks among the most influential churches in the country.
In 1990, Laurie began holding large-scale public evangelistic events called Harvest Crusades. Since that time, more than 9.8 million people have participated in Harvest Crusades events in person or online around the United States. In 2012, Laurie launched Harvest America, a nationwide event using the internet to simulcast live HD video to thousands of locations across the country. With an unprecedented 306,000 Americans in live attendance, Harvest America ranks among the largest presentations of the gospel in US history. Harvest Crusades have also been held internationally in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. More importantly, some 506,644 people have made professions of faith through these outreaches. In 2020 and in partnership with Kingdom Story Company, Laurie premiered his first-ever cinematic crusade, A Rush of Hope, viewed by over 2 million people in its opening weekend. Some 150,000 people made professions of faith in 2020 through Harvest Ministries.
Laurie is the featured speaker of the nationally syndicated radio program, A New Beginning, which is broadcast on more than 1,100 radio outlets around the world. Laurie has a weekly television program on major TV networks like Lifetime, Fox Business, Newsmax, Daystar, KCAL 9 Los Angeles, and the Trinity Broadcasting Network, and he has appeared on many other television news programs.
Along with his work at Harvest Ministries, Laurie served as the 2013 Honorary Chairman of the National Day of Prayer, and also serves on the board of directors of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. He holds honorary doctorates from Biola University and Azusa Pacific University.
In addition to speaking and assisting other ministries, Laurie has authored over 70 books including Lennon, Dylan, Alice, & Jesus, Johnny Cash: The Redemption of an American Icon, Jesus Revolution, Steve McQueen: The Salvation of an American Icon, Live Love Fight, Tell Someone, The New Believer’s Bible, Hope for Hurting Hearts, and his autobiography, Lost Boy. The accompanying documentary film, Lost Boy: The Next Chapter, as well as the film Hope for Hurting Hearts, and his most recent film, Steve McQueen: American Icon, features the story of the famed actor finding salvation in Christ. In 2021, Pastor Greg Laurie released a new book Billy Graham: The Man I Knew.
Greg has been married to Cathe Laurie for more than 40 years and they have two sons: Christopher and Jonathan. Greg and Cathe also have five grandchildren.
By Jeff Childers
11-07-22
Good morning and Happy Daylight-Savings-Time Monday, C&C! You get a nice early roundup today because I feel terrific, just a teeny-tiny sore throat left over from my weekend cold. All my covid protocols seem to also work well for any respiratory infection. Weird!
Plan to vote tomorrow, or if you’ve already voted, to help get someone to the polls who otherwise might not have gone.
Today’s jam-packed roundup includes: a terrific multiplier assignment, get ready!; SNL mocks Biden; Trump endorses DeSantis and other Republican candidates; Nikki Fried is a loser; Florida Republicans crush early voting; Michigan Muslims are getting sick and tired of democrats; Florida arrests fraudulent multiple-state voters; Florida’s Board of Medicine outlaws “gender affirming” medical procedures; loony leftist Kathy Griffin gets suspended from Twitter; CDC says we’re in a flu emergency and you’ll never guess which areas are hardest hit; the Federalist pans Oster’s pandemic amnesty; new Qatar study shows no statistical benefit from jabs for kids; and a second, funnier SNL clip for you showing the covid narrative is probably completely deflated now.
Today is also Florida’s very first “Victims of Communism Day,” brought to you by the Florida Legislature and Governor DeSantis. Please take a moment to reflect on the hundreds of millions of people murdered over the last 80 years by that particularly reprehensible ideology.
🪖 NEW MULTIPLIER ORDERS. It’s working! We put the idea out there last week, and we’re moving the needle. Arizona’s gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake just announced she rejects covid amnesty, and stressed that she wants COVID ACCOUNTABILITY instead.
Kari Lake War Room @KariLakeWarRoom
2:20 AM ∙ Nov 7, 2022338Likes98Retweets
Our C&C strategy is to multiply people and candidates who are also moving the needle in the right direction, no pun intended, so we can send a message, not just to that candidate, but to any other candidates also considering moving in the right direction.
Today we’re multiplying the very first candidate to endorse covid accountability: Kari Lake.
If you already know the drill, here’s the link (remember to end your donation in a $2).
If you haven’t joined a multiplier before, here’s how it works. Just click on the link and donate any affordable amount — no matter how small — as long as it ends in a ‘2’. You can do $2, $12, $22, $200, $222, or even $0.22. It only takes a minute. The ‘2’ is a flag alerting the candidate it came from us, because we support covid accountability.
We’ll flood their donations with amounts ending in a ‘2’.
Do it now! You’ll be back here to finish today’s awesome post in fewer than sixty seconds. Here’s the link again.
PLEASE HELP. Yes, you! When everyone pitches in, it keeps it affordable for everybody. The key to multipliers is, because we ALL join in, none of us needs to donate an amount that we’d notice. And the candidates also benefit from the QUANTITY of donations, no matter how big or small each one is, because the massive volume of the response shows them grassroots support.
Don’t forget, Kari Lake WILL be attacked for her call for covid accountability. Let’s show her it was worth it.
Do it now! https://secure.winred.com/kari-lake-for-arizona/win-arizona
🔥 First, and you are not going to believe this, SNL mocked Joe Biden and the whole democrat slate of candidates this weekend:
SNL ROASTS Joe Biden and cringe Democrat candidates in flamethrower sketch for 5 minutes straight 🔥
2:14 AM ∙ Nov 7, 20225,010Likes1,042Retweets
It was a mild mocking, but still.
I ask again: WHO are the democrats going to run for President in 2024? Surely not Kamala.
🔥 Yesterday, at his rally in South Florida, President Trump (finally) endorsed Ron DeSantis’ re-election campaign for Florida Governor. The endorsement was especially welcome after Trump’s ill-timed crack against the mega-popular governor the day before.
Of interest, Trump endorsed a slate of Florida candidates in attendance, including former Senate President Wilton Simpson for Agriculture Commissioner.
10:27 PM ∙ Nov 6, 202256Likes18Retweets
Simpson is running to replace odious pot-merchant Nikki Fried. The office is especially important to Floridians, not least because Florida is an agriculture-heavy state, but also because the Ag Commissioner issues concealed weapons permits, for some reason.
Ms. Fried had a major setback late last week when a Florida court dismissed her loopy lawsuit seeking to override a federal law preventing pot smokers (anyone “who is an unlawful user of or addicted to any controlled substance”) from getting concealed weapons permits.
9:09 PM ∙ Nov 4, 20222Likes3Retweets
The judge noted that no state can decriminalize marijuana while it remains illegal under federal law. He wrote:
In 2016, Florida stopped criminalizing the medical use of marijuana. Many people refer to this change as Florida’s “legalizing” medical marijuana, but Florida did no such thing. It couldn’t. … Indeed, federal law “designates marijuana as contraband for any purpose” and “prohibits entirely its possession.”
Sorry Nikki, you lose! Loser. The decision was not a good sign for the pot promoter, who is heading into tomorrow’s elections with little to recommend her.
📈 As of yesterday, Florida Republicans secured their lead in early voting, now closed, with 972,396 votes booked compared to only 522,150 for Democrats. (338,496 no-party-affiliated voters cast a ballot during early voting.) Democrats maintain a slight lead in mail-in ballots, with 1.03 million returns to the GOP’s 888,328.
Over a week ago, Florida Republicans took the lead in overall votes, and they haven’t let up. Heading into Sunday, 1,860,724 registered Republicans had turned out compared to 1,554,429 Democrats — a gap of 306,295 votes.
🔥 Yesterday I reported how formerly deep-blue Miami Dade is trending Republican in early voting, probably showing that the democrats have permanently lost Cubanos.
The NY Times is reporting that Florida’s most populous county, Miami-Dade, may well flip to Republican in the Florida governor’s race for the first time in 20 years. “It should be a massive warning sign to Democratic leaders across the country.”11:12 PM ∙ Nov 5, 2022835Likes80Retweets
Now, it’s starting to look like CRT and trans-education issues have also woken up Michigan Muslims.
Why as a Muslim, I will not vote for Democrats …
7:09 PM ∙ Nov 5, 202239,788Likes9,859Retweets
I wonder what Michigan would look like if its gigantic Muslim community shifted red?
🔥 Michigan Muslims probably won’t be too happy that Dana Nessel, Michigan’s Democrat Attorney General would like to install a drag queen in every public school in Michigan. In the clip below, she shouts, “Drag queens make everything better! Drag queens are fun! Drag queens are entertainment! … A drag queen for every school! That is what would be fun for kids and lift them up when they are having emotional issues.”
10:41 PM ∙ Nov 6, 20223,887Likes2,241Retweets
In case you missed it, here’s what Dana Nessel thinks fun entertainment for kids looks like, courtesy of our friends at Libs of TikTok.
🔥 Over the weekend, Florida announced more election-violation arrests, this time including Cheryl Ann Leslie, who stands accused of voting in multiple states during the 2016, 2018, and 2020 elections.
Election Wizard 🇺🇸 @ElectionWiz
BREAKING (Tallahassee, Fla.) — Florida Election Crime Unit announces arrest of Cheryl Ann Leslie, accused of voting in multiple states during the 2016, 2018, and 2020 elections. Leslie has booked into the Palm Beach County Jail on felony charges.8:34 PM ∙ Nov 4, 202211,015Likes3,541Retweets
I’ll give you one guess which political party Ms. Leslie always votes for.
🔥 Get ready for a possible whole new crop of democrat election integrity complainers to sprout after tomorrow’s results. Remember, if they deny the election results, they are ELECTION DENIERS, SEDITIONERS, and INSURRECTIONISTS!
🔥 On Friday, Florida’s Board of Medicine accepted its committee’s recommendation and voted to ban “gender affirming” procedures in Florida as acceptable medical practices. Doctors who violate the policy can lose their medical license.
Failed gasbag and democrat gubernatorial candidate Charlie Crist responded to the announcement by attacking — for some reason — Florida’s highly-credentialed Surgeon General, Dr. Joseph Ladapo, calling him a “hack.”
DeSantis War Room 🐊 #GOTV @DeSantisWarRoom
10:15 PM ∙ Nov 5, 2022556Likes153Retweets
Crist is confused, again. Dr. Ladapo does not run the Board of Medicine. He’s also a Harvard-trained doctor. CRIST is a hack.
🔥 Bloody-anti-Trumper and so-called comedian Kathy Griffin was temporarily suspended from Twitter yesterday for recklessly impersonating the social media giant’s new owner, Elon Musk.
Hilariously, Elon said loony leftist Griffin was suspended for “impersonating a comedian.”
@bennyjohnson @kathygriffin Actually, she was suspended for impersonating a comedian2:50 AM ∙ Nov 7, 2022355,004Likes23,559Retweets
Indeed!
💉 On Friday, Fortune ran an article headlined, “The U.S. Is Officially in a Flu Epidemic, Federal Health Officials Say. They’re Preparing to Deploy Troops and Ventilators if Necessary.”
The CDC announced flu hospitalizations are higher than they’ve been at this point since 2011’s flu season. For some baffling reason, the country is seeing a resurgence of non-covid respiratory illnesses like flu, RSV, rhinovirus, and enterovirus.
It’s almost like instead of an epidemic of random respiratory viruses, there’s an epidemic of immune suppression, or something. And you’ll never guess where it’s hitting hardest.
Last week, California’s Orange County declared a state of emergency, due to an “overwhelming surge in pediatric respiratory illness that’s pushing hospitals to their limits.” Children’s Hospital of Orange County reported seeing upwards of 400 children daily in its E.R..
In jab-happy California. Imagine that.
Fortune also reported that Canada is seeing similar problems, with some pediatric hospitals canceling surgeries. Last week, Children’s Pediatric Hospital of Eastern Ontario reached 130% capacity for ICU beds and 134% capacity for inpatient beds.
In jab-happy Canada. Imagine that.
Dr. Anita Patel, a critical care doctor at Children’s National hospital in Washington, D.C., told Fortune on Tuesday that “I can honestly say that, unfortunately, with both RSV and the flu, we have had kids that needed to be intubated or have breathing tubes to help get through viral illness,” she said. “I’ve been a practicing ICU doctor for a decade now, and I think I can safely say this is one of the worst surges I’ve ever seen.”
In jab-happy D.C.. Imagine that.
Fortune was careful to mention many times that it is NOT COVID, it’s all the bugs that disappeared during the pandemic. Because if it were covid, that would be crazy, since we’ve double-jabbed 75% of Americans.
Historically, flu usually affects kids the LEAST. Thanks, experts!
It’s one more thing to add to the accountability list…
🔥 Last week, the Federalist ran a terrific op-ed by Justin Hart headlined, “Public Health Elites Who Pushed Anti-Science Policies Deserve Accountability, Not ‘Amnesty’.”
Check out this deliciously-worded sub-headline, “Fear-mongering virus prophets that prided themselves on public health damaged public trust more than anything else.”
Fear-mongering virus prophets! That might be even better than whitecoat pretenders.
Hart’s op-ed pushed back on Professor Oster’s ill-timed call for ‘covid amnesty,’ which Hart accurately labeled “a pre-emptive request for forgiveness.” Hart’s not letting Oster hide behind her Jane-come-lately support for school reopenings, either. He reminded readers about Oster’s disgusting December 2021 tweet:
Hart’s op-ed is well written, timely, and right on point, but the most interesting aspect was that it was published at all, in a mainstream outlet, even if a conservative one.
Progress.
💉 On Saturday, Team Reality’s stalwart epidemiologist Tracy Beth Høeg reported on a new Qatar study concluding that jabbed kids showed the same amount of severe covid or covid hospitalizations, when compared to unjabbed kids.
Tracy Høeg, MD, PhD @TracyBethHoeg
3:12 PM ∙ Nov 5, 20222,077Likes776Retweets
The researchers concluded, “Our findings suggest the need to reconsider the value & strategies of vaccinating healthy children in the omicron era with the use of currently available vaccines.”
The study did report some transitory additional benefit from the jabs in protecting older kids from INFECTIONS, supposing it was because they got a higher dosage. Of course, finding something nice to say about the jabs is a necessary precondition for publication. But the researchers admitted that the trial was not randomized or blinded, so the participants knew their own jab status.
It doesn’t matter. We already know the jabs don’t prevent infection. The question is whether, as the CDC claims, they reduce hospitalizations and deaths. This study says no.
Or, maybe they just need to jab harder! Wheeee
Here’s a link to the study, which was a little hard to find.
🔥 Finally, in a C&C first — two SNL clips in one roundup — SNL also mocked covid (and a little more J6, for fun):
Saturday Night Live – SNL @nbcsnl
4:26 AM ∙ Nov 6, 20227,473Likes1,684Retweets
Cue Dr. Karen! This is an outrage! How dare you mock a deadly disease that’s killed millions, and so forth.
Seriously, though, who doubts that SNL is publishing the new, fully deflated covid narrative? Move on!
Okay, my darling procrastinators. Here’s the Kari Lake donation link one last time. Do it now!
And then have a marvelous, magnificent Monday! Make your voting plans, if you haven’t yet voted. If you have, figure out how to multiply the vote by getting one more person there. Call a care home or something! And I’ll see you back here tomorrow for the big red day.
C&C is moving the needle and changing minds. If you can, I could use your help getting the truth out and spreading optimism and hope: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/-learn-how-to-get-involved-
Twitter: @jchilders98
Truth Social: @jchilders98
MeWe: mewe.com/i/coffee_and_covid.
C&C Swag! www.shopcoffeeandcovid.com
Emailed Daily Newsletter: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
From AlertNassau
Issued: 2022-11-06 16:00:00 EST|Expiring: 2022-11-11 19:00:00 EST
COASTAL NASSAU-COASTAL DUVAL-COASTAL ST. JOHNS-COASTAL FLAGLER-
400 PM EST SUN NOV 6 2022
…HIGH RIP CURRENT RISK NOW IN EFFECT THROUGH FRIDAY EVENING…
…COASTAL FLOOD WATCH IN EFFECT FROM LATE MONDAY NIGHT THROUGH
FRIDAY EVENING…
* WHAT…FOR THE COASTAL FLOOD WATCH, SIGNIFICANT COASTAL FLOODING
POSSIBLE. FOR THE HIGH RIP CURRENT RISK, LIFE THREATENING RIP
CURRENTS AND SURF.
* WHERE…NORTHEAST FLORIDA BEACHES.
* WHEN…FOR THE COASTAL FLOOD WATCH, FROM LATE MONDAY NIGHT
THROUGH FRIDAY EVENING. FOR THE HIGH RIP CURRENT RISK, THROUGH
FRIDAY EVENING.
* IMPACTS…NUMEROUS ROADS MAY BE CLOSED. LOW LYING PROPERTY
INCLUDING HOMES, BUSINESSES, AND SOME CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTURE
MAY BE INUNDATED. SOME SHORELINE EROSION MAY OCCUR. RIP
CURRENTS CAN SWEEP EVEN THE BEST SWIMMERS AWAY FROM SHORE INTO
DEEPER WATER.
* ADDITIONAL DETAILS…A COASTAL FLOOD WATCH MEANS THAT MODERATE
TO MAJOR COASTAL FLOODING IS POSSIBLE. COASTAL RESIDENTS MAY
WISH TO SECURE VULNERABLE OBJECTS BEFORE THE WATERS RISE AND
TAKE OTHER NECESSARY ACTIONS TO PROTECT LIFE AND PROPERTY SHOULD
A WARNING BE ISSUED.
PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS…
IF TRAVEL IS REQUIRED, ALLOW EXTRA TIME AS SOME ROADS MAY BE
CLOSED. DO NOT DRIVE AROUND BARRICADES OR THROUGH WATER OF
UNKNOWN DEPTH. TAKE THE NECESSARY ACTIONS TO PROTECT FLOOD-PRONE
PROPERTY.
SWIM NEAR A LIFEGUARD. IF CAUGHT IN A RIP CURRENT, RELAX AND
FLOAT. DON’T SWIM AGAINST THE CURRENT. IF ABLE, SWIM IN A
DIRECTION FOLLOWING THE SHORELINE. IF UNABLE TO ESCAPE, FACE THE
SHORE AND CALL OR WAVE FOR HELP
By AF Branco
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
By Streiff, 11-4-22
Editor’s note: some of the author’s language is prejudicial, but he is reporting findings of GOP members of the Committee staff and the conclusions don’t seem unwarranted. This is a minority party report and does not reflect the input of the entire Committee. Democrat leadership has shown no inclination to pursue this, including recommending charges to be filed by the Department of Justice. The report is heavily supported by FBI whistleblower input.
Key takeaways from the report include:
Read the whole article in Red State.
Streiff is a former infantry officer, CGSC grad and Army Operations Center alumnus.
RedState member since 2004. Follow him on Twitter.
By Jeff Childers
11-05-22
Good morning, C&C, and welcome to the weekend edition! I caught a bit of a head cold that Michelle and one of the boys had early this week. Right after I thought I was in the clear, bam, here came that sinus pressure feeling and an itch in my ears. Taking vitamins and citrus and going back to sleep soon.
Your Saturday roundup includes: Trump rally and potential presidential run announcement; CBS pops in for a surprise visit at a Ukrainian biolab that didn’t exist until about ten minutes ago; U.N. denies Russia’s request for biolab investigation; Pelosi attack story continues spiraling out of control as NBC gets censored; Russia and Iran get cozy as do Ukraine and Israel; the Hill accurately reports something Senator Johnson said; and your exciting November 2022 Monkeypox report.
🔥 Nearly “everybody who’s anybody” in Florida politics will be in South Florida tomorrow, for a rally with President Trump — except one notable person, Florida’s Governor, Ron DeSantis.
In fairness, DeSantis has been pretty busy campaigning for his own re-election, and helping campaign for down-ticket races he supports.
Maybe he was invited to Trump’s rally and couldn’t make it. You never know.
Meanwhile, Trump has been hinting about an imminent “official” announcement of his 2024 presidential run. The rumor is next weekend, but do you think he might do it this weekend?
#BREAKING Donald Trump could announce 2024 run for president as soon as Nov. 14, sources say abc7.laDonald Trump could announce 2024 run for president as soon as Nov. 14: SourcesSources tell ABC News the conversations about the timing, location and format of an announcement are extremely fluid….3:41 PM ∙ Nov 4, 2022345Likes48Retweets
🔥 It looks like the U.S. government feels it has to say SOMETHING about the Ukraine biolabs, perhaps because the strategy of ignoring the argument isn’t working anymore. On thursday, CBS ‘sent’ a reporter to Kiev to personally visit one of the biolabs, in an exclusive CBS Morning piece called “Inside Ukraine’s Biolabs.”
To my knowledge, this is the first time corporate media has even acknowledged there WERE biolabs in Ukraine. All its done so far is call people names who mention biolabs:
Tellingly, CBS did not explain how they managed to find a secured Ukrainian biolab to visit in the first place, or how they even arranged the trip, given it’s in the middle of a war zone. Instead, the story begins announcing “the Kremlin claims without evidence that the U.S. has helped Ukraine develop biological weapons in secret laboratories.”
1/2 🤡The biolabs they said didn’t exist, but now they do
5:32 PM ∙ Nov 4, 20222,899Likes1,857Retweets
Watch the video and pay attention to how the interviewer questions the lab tech. You don’t see this type of interview style very often. You should notice that almost all the questions that he asks are really answers, not questions. They’re answers that CBS’ reporter spoon feeds to the lady in the video. He’s just asking her to agree with what he is saying.
We have a legal term for that type of question. We call them “leading questions.” Look at these examples from the clip:
REPORTER: So you use [the anthrax] to identify the pathogen in other people, correct?
Instead of, “What did you use the anthrax for?”
TECH: Yes … garbled (no subtitles).
REPORTER: Since the war, you’ve destroyed all of the strains?
Instead of, “What happened to all the strains?”
TECH: Yes … garbled (no subtitles).
REPORTER: If this building was attacked, that could have been dangerous if those strains had gotten loose?
Instead of, “Why did you destroy the strains?”
TECH: Yes … garbled (no subtitles).
REPORTER: So you put the pathogens in here … and it destroys them? It makes them so they can’t hurt anybody?
Instead of, “How did you destroy the strains?”
TECH: yes, yes.
See how the REPORTER is doing the testifying? And how he’s just getting the interviewee to agree with him?
Lawyers use leading questions when we don’t trust the witness to give the right answer. Because a leading question is essentially just the lawyer testifying instead of the witness, you aren’t allowed to lead your own witnesses in a trial. That’s what “objection, leading” means.
It’s not just the language barrier. CBS showed that it could easily have subtitled the tech’s answers, becayse it did subtitle one answer. But that was presumably the only answer CBS liked, or that it trusted her to answer right.
Anyway, despite its obvious intent to water down the Ukraine biolab narrative, the story actually winds up confirming two core facts:
1) The lab WAS culturing deadly pathogens like anthrax and cholera.
2) The Ukraine government DID order the lab to destroy all the bugs as soon as the war started.
The rest of the interview is pure opinion, intended to explain WHY those two facts were for our own good. Nor does CBS ever explain why we should trust this masked person’s opinions about what the cultured pathogens would be used for. It doesn’t explain how she would know what the Ukraine government’s intent was.
And even though it begins the piece throwing shade on Russia’s claim of U.S. involvement, the reporter never once asks the tech about the United States. We just have to take their word for it, I guess.
Given the bizarre use of leading questions, the whole thing looks totally scripted. The reporter had “lines,” and he said his lines. I don’t know about you, but this puff-piece looked more like psyops or propaganda than hard-hitting investigative journalism.
🔥 On Wednesday, the United Nations Security Council voted to deny Russia’s recent request for an international investigation into the U.S.-linked “military-biological” labs in Ukraine.
Two countries voted in favor of an investigation, Russia and China, but the United Kingdom, the United States and France voted against. All ten rotating delegations abstained.
Russia had to see this coming. They’re working through the legal process. I don’t know where it’s going, but something must be next.
🔥 It’s almost like they WANT us to believe there’s a vast leftwing conspiracy to cover up what happened in the Pelosi’s home last weekend, given how far and fast the official version has ‘evolved’ ever since the progressive, gay, homeless, drug-addled, illegal alien evaded all the Speaker’s home security and slipped into the Pelosi home at 2:30am.
Yesterday, Joe Biden declared the attack on Pelosi was WORSE THAN THE JANUARY 6TH INSURRECTION because, well, Joe has Alzheimer’s and he thinks every day is January 6th or something. Then Biden tried to declare another national emergency but the White House Bunny took him by the arm and led him away again.
Dumping figurative oil drums of rhetorical napalm onto the raging conspiracy theory wildfire, yesterday NBC ran a short segment about the developing ‘facts’ in which it pointedly asked one of the most obvious questions about the then-current narrative, to wit: why’d Pelosi “walk[] several feet back toward the assailant [DePape] and away from police” instead of immediately running out of the house after he opened the door to the cops?
Getting the story a million times more attention than it would have otherwise, NBC then mysteriously scrubbed the Internet of all official copies of its story, explaining only that the piece had “failed to meet editorial standards.”
2:52 PM ∙ Nov 4, 20224,073Likes1,764Retweets
Then, yesterday afternoon, USA Today published a minute-by-minute explainer story headlined, “Details Emerge in Paul Pelosi Attack: A Break-In, Conversation, 911 Call, Then Violence.” The story answered NBC’s question by explaining that Pelosi grabbed the hammer when the cops knocked, then the two men somehow walked together over to the door while they both held onto the hammer (the story is silent on how this was accomplished), Pelosi opened the door to police, police asked the men to drop the hammer, then DePape suddenly and unexpectedly jerked the hammer out of Pelosi’s hand and attacked him in front of the cops.
Also yesterday, Capitol Police announced they DO have surveillance video showing the entire break-in, but they aren’t going to release anything, not even still pictures. At least, not yet. Because ongoing investigation and so forth.
As I’ve said before, the communications zone is so flooded with hot takes, inconsistent reports, and bad information, that it’s almost impossible to figure out what really happened. Deliberate obfuscation is a well-known psyop tactic; make things so confused that people just throw their hands up — “we’ll just never know!”
But one thing is certain: the media and BlueAnon conspiracy theorists have had a bad habit of immediately trying to blame Trump supporters for every violent incident that comes along; and then, almost every time, the perpetrator turns out not to be a MAGA person but a radical leftist.
Every. Single. Time.
Including this time. The initial media hot-take — as always —was that DePape was a MAGA radical; they even pushed quickly-debunked websites packed with fresh “evidence” of DePape’s so-called rightwing radicalism. Now that the story’s ‘evolved’, leftists are complaining about CONSERVATIVES cooking up theories about what really happened in the Pelosi home that night.
But you can’t fairly blame conservatives for defending themselves by picking the ridiculous, ever-changing story apart; it’s just self-defense.
🚀 Bloomberg ran a story Thursday headlined, “Iran’s Weapons Are Slowly Dragging Israel to Ukraine’s Defense.” And Russia doesn’t like it.
Israel says that the Iranian drones being sent to Ukraine are “weapons that we have to be prepared to confront — we are the only country in the world that knows how to do that,” said Yossi Kuperwasser, a former top Israeli military intelligence official. “Ukraine can be a testing ground for our counter-measures.”
According to Bloomberg, Ukrainian officials say over 40% of the country’s power system has been damaged by a massively effective Russian strategy over the last few weeks of using swarms of Iranian suicide drones to overwhelm Ukrainian air defenses.
According to “two people with knowledge of Russian policy,” Russia has told Israel it will retaliate if Israeli-made air-defense missiles or other interceptors get to Ukraine, whether directly or through cutouts.
Yesterday, CNN ran a related story headlined, “Exclusive: Iran Is Seeking Russia’s Help to Bolster Its Nuclear Program, US Intel Officials Believe.” The headline is more alarming than the story which, a couple paragraphs in, admits that “it is also not clear whether Russia has agreed to help – the Kremlin has long been outwardly opposed to Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon.”
In other words, it’s just a rumor, But it’s a rumor founded on justified fears that, since Iran is helping Russia in Ukraine, Russia might eventually owe Iran a favor of some kind. Right now, Iran needs help with its nuclear program. So.
🔥 Vexing its left-leaning readership, the Hill uncharacteristically tweeted a video clip of Republican Senator Ron Johnson, which showed Johnson explaining, “The radical left infiltrated every institution of this country. They brought this nation to a moment of truth. They’re not telling the truth. They’re telling enough of the lies.”
1:31 PM ∙ Nov 4, 202229Likes8Retweets
I had to read the tweet a couple times before I was sure it wasn’t sarcastic or meant to be alarming or got hacked or something. But the Hill just ran what Johnson said, as is, straight, which is what really bothered its leftwing readers.
I wonder what’s up over at the Hill.
📉 Since corporate media won’t cover it, here’s your monkeypox report, as of November 2nd: We never had more than about 500 cases at one time and now it’s almost completely gone.
Monkeypox cases are now down in the low double-digits. Remember how the media tried to make us all hysterical about Brokeback Virus? And how Joe Biden declared a terrifying state of emergency and forked over billions of dollars for smallpox vaccines?
Well never mind. Thanks experts!
Have a wonderful weekend! I’ll see you back here on Monday — election eve — for another great roundup.
C&C is moving the needle and changing minds. If you can, I could use your help getting the truth out and spreading optimism and hope: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/-learn-how-to-get-involved-
Twitter: @jchilders98
Truth Social: @jchilders98
MeWe: mewe.com/i/coffee_and_covid.
C&C Swag! www.shopcoffeeandcovid.com
Emailed Daily Newsletter: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
Amelia Island.com, October 26, 2022
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Edited by Michael Hernandez
(Editor’s Note: this is part of a weekly compendium of recent significant events, culled from world news and curated by Michael Hernandez, who urges everyone to vote on Tuesday, Nov. 8 and to read America: Our Hope at the end of this column.)
HANNAH BLEAU (Oct 29) Breitbart News
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) hopes Republicans will “make history” on Election Day as they hope to take over the House and Senate, telling Breitbart News Saturday that the GOP’s recruiting class is the “best we’ve ever seen.”
“We’re just a short time away from hopefully making some history here,” McCarthy said, discussing how the establishment media have now admitted that the momentum appears to be with Republicans, less than two weeks ahead of Election Day.
“Last time we didn’t lose one incumbent,” he said, reminding listeners how wrong the establishment has been in the past, betting against Republicans. However, Republicans have another advantage this year, McCarthy suggested, deeming the House GOP’s recruiting class “the best we’ve ever seen.
“And we’ve never — we’ve had some early indication Mayra Flores is winning down in the border of Texas. Just an amazing woman,” he said, explaining that “there’s so many competitive seats.”
McCarthy emphasized, again, that there are “so many candidates out there” making these races competitive across the country because of Democrat policies that Republicans have been talking about.
“Inflation, they brought crime in our streets, the open borders, fentanyl — the number one killer of Americans 18-45,” McCarthy said. McCarthy put a greater perspective on the effects of inflation on the American people, noting that most Americans say they could not afford to give up a month’s worth of wages. Yet, that is essentially what has happened under Biden’s administration. But Republicans, he added, are fighting for the American people all across the country, from the northeast to the southwest.
“This is like a hinge election,” he said, describing it as one that “only happens once every 50 years. This is like a 1979, 1980 election all over again. It’s about the policies and direction for America. Who best has the plan to turn America around to make it strong again,” he said.
JACOB BLISS (Nov 2) Breitbart News
The Democrats’ blame game has already started one week from the midterm elections, as the party’s leadership begins to point fingers while analysts are predicting the election could be terrible for the one-party hold over Washington, DC.
As analysts predict the Republicans will end the Democrats’ one-party rule in the nation’s capitol by regaining the majority in the United States House of Representatives and potentially the Senate, the left is already starting to point fingers at who will take the fall, multiple establishment outlets reported. On Wednesday morning, Punchbowl reported: Among Democratic leaders, there has been some quiet preparation for the inevitable. The DCCC and other Democratic organizations have previewed to leadership in recent days that the outlook for keeping the House continues to deteriorate.
Additionally, on Tuesday, the New York Times similarly stated: “Top Democratic officials, lawmakers and strategists are openly second-guessing their party’s campaign pitch and tactics, reflecting a growing sense that Democrats have failed to coalesce around one effective message with enough time to stave off major losses in the House and possibly decisive defeats in the tightly contested Senate.”
Then, Axios noted also noted on Tuesday: “With a week to go before the midterm elections, some Democratic operatives working on House races are already beginning to assign blame in the event their party loses winnable seats: The culprit, they say, is blue-state governors dragging down the rest of the ballot.”
National Republican Congressional Committee Spokesman Mike Berg said, “Democrats finally realize their majority is doomed because they made everything more expensive and everyone less safe.”
Terence P. Jeffrey (Nov. 2) CNS News
…Biden’s plan for the debt, in other words, is to continue increasing it by more than $1 trillion per year…
[CNSNews.com] …Joe Biden has been in office a little more than 21 months, but during that brief period he has managed to increase the federal debt by more than $3.4 trillion.
On Jan. 20, 2021, the day Biden was inaugurated, the total federal debt was $27,751,896,236,414.77, according to the Treasury. On Oct. 31, 2022, the latest day for which the numbers have been published, the total federal debt was $31,238,301,149,359.52. That equals an increase of $3,486,404,912,944.75.
How does one put that in perspective?
Well, in 2019, the last year for which the Internal Revenue Service has published its Statistics of Income report, Americans filed 104,005,800 “taxable returns” with the IRS. “A taxable return,” the IRS explains in its Statistics of Income Bulletin, “is a return on which the taxpayer reports total income tax greater than zero dollars.”
Thus, there were 104,005,800 income taxpayers in the United States as of 2019; and, in Biden’s first approximately 21 months in office, the increase in the federal debt of $3,486,404,912,944.75 equaled approximately $33,521.25 per each of those taxpayers.
What could that amount of money pay for—other than a bigger federal government? It could, for example, go a long way toward putting your child through college. In the 2022-23 school year, according to US News & World Report, a student should expect to pay $10,423 in tuition and fees to attend a U.S. News-ranked in-state public college. A ranked out-of-state public college would cost $22,953, and a ranked private college would cost $39,723.
In other words, the $33,521.25 that the Biden administration had borrowed per taxpayer as of Oct. 31 would pay for more than three years at a ranked in-state public college (at the current rate) and almost a year and a half at a ranked out-of-state public college. It would also cover more than 84% of the average annual tuition and fees at a ranked private college. Has the $33,521.25 that the Biden administration has borrowed per taxpayer given you anything worth as much as a year (or three) in college?
In fiscal 2022 alone, the debt increased by $2,499,993,043,258.05. What did the federal government spend money on as it drove toward that remarkable increase in the debt?
Well, it spent $639,368,000,000, for example, on the Department of Education—in a year when only 33% of public school fourth graders and 31% of public school eighth graders scored proficient or better in reading in the National Assessment of Educational Progress tests. Similarly, only 36% of public school fourth graders and only 26% of public school eighth graders scored proficient or better in math.
Those scores may qualify these students to work in the Biden Office of Management and Budget, but they do not justify the federal government’s massive spending on local public education while running up a massive debt.
Perhaps more remarkable than the massive increase in its debt that federal government accumulated in the last fiscal year is the fact that it did so while extracting a record amount of taxes from the American people.
During fiscal 2022, according to the Treasury, the federal government collected $4,896,119,000,000 in total federal taxes. That was $518,302,170,000 more in constant September 2022 dollars than the federal government collected in fiscal 2021, when it brought in a then-record $4,377,816,830,000 in total taxes.
But while the federal government was collecting a record $4,896,119,000,000 in total taxes in fiscal 2022, it was spending $6,271,508,000,000. The result: a fiscal 2022 federal deficit of $1,375,389,000,000.
During that one year alone, the federal government borrowed approximately $13,224.15 for each of the 104,005,800 in income-taxpaying households that existed in this country as of 2019.
Does Biden plan to do anything about this? In the budget proposal he submitted to Congress earlier this year, Biden called for running a deficit of $1,153,856,000,000 in fiscal 2023, which has just begun. He would then follow that up with annual deficits of $1,200,805,000,000 in fiscal 2024 and $1,329,707,000,000 in fiscal 2025. Biden’s plan for the debt, in other words, is to continue increasing it by more than $1 trillion per year.
In a week, Americans will vote for every member of the next House of Representatives and for one-third of the next Senate. Has the massive and growing federal debt been a significant issue for the candidates seeking those offices? It will be the legacy they leave your children and grandchildren. Subscribe for free to Breaking Christian News here
https://www.breakingchristiannews.com/articles/display_art.html?ID=36355
CHARLIE SPIERING (Nov 3) Breitbart
President Joe Biden on Wednesday condemned Republicans for contributing to political violence during a speech outlining the threats to American democracy.
“We must, with an overwhelming voice, stand against political violence and voter intimidation, period,” Biden said during his speech at Union Station in Washington, DC. “Stand up and speak against it.”
But while Biden specifically mentioned the attack on Paul Pelosi, the January 6 riots on Capitol Hill, and harassment of public voting officials, he did not outline examples of political violence from leftists.
A man tried to stab the Republican candidate for governor of New York Rep. Lee Zeldin in July. A woman allegedly bit an attendee at a rally for Republican Tudor Dixon in Detroit in October. A Marco Rubio volunteer canvassing for the campaign in October was viciously beaten by four individuals who allegedly told him that Republicans were not allowed in their neighborhood. Biden also did not mention the armed man who was arrested outside Brett Kavanaugh’s home in June plotting to kill the Supreme Court Justice in his dismissal of “violent” Republicans. Instead, Biden focused on “Extreme MAGA” violence against Democrats and other Republicans.
“We must with one overwhelming unified voice speak as a country and say there’s no place, no place for voter intimidation or political violence in America,” he said. “Whether it’s directed at Democrats or Republicans. No place, period. No place ever.”
Biden’s appeal to Americans repeatedly warned that those who voted Republican were putting American democracy at risk. “There’s an alarming rise in the number of our people in this country condoning political violence, or simply remaining silent, because silence is complicity,” he said.
ALLUM BOKHARI (Oct 31) Breitbart News
Executives from Facebook and Twitter, including the recently-fired head of trust & safety Vijaya Gadde, held regular meetings with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to discuss censorship on a wide range of topics, including the withdrawal from Afghanistan, coronavirus, and “racial justice,” according to leaked documents.
The information came to light via leaks to the Intercept, as well as documents and minutes revealed through Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt’s lawsuit filed against the Biden Administration that alleges government collusion with Big Tech to suppress Americans’ First Amendment rights.
According to the material, DHS plans to target alleged misinformation around “the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic and the efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines, racial justice, U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, and the nature of U.S. support to Ukraine.” The report also reveals an official process for the government to flag “misinformation” to Facebook.
Via the Intercept:
There is also a formalized process for government officials to directly flag content on Facebook or Instagram and request that it be throttled or suppressed through a special Facebook portal that requires a government or law enforcement email to use. At the time of writing, the “content request system” at facebook.com/xtakedowns/login is still live. DHS and Meta, the parent company of Facebook, did not respond to a request for comment. The FBI declined to comment.
Some of the meetings between social media representatives and the government included Kate Starbird, the leftist professor who leads the “Election Integrity Partnership.”
Via the Intercept: In June, the same DHS advisory committee of CISA — which includes Twitter head of legal policy, trust, and safety Vijaya Gadde and University of Washington professor Kate Starbird — drafted a report to the CISA director calling for an expansive role for the agency in shaping the “information ecosystem.” The report called on the agency to closely monitor “social media platforms of all sizes, mainstream media, cable news, hyper partisan media, talk radio and other online resources.” They argued that the agency needed to take steps to halt the “spread of false and misleading information,” with a focus on information that undermines “key democratic institutions, such as the courts, or by other sectors such as the financial system, or public health measures.”
As Breitbart News previously reported, the EIP provided tools to the federal government and to organs of the Democrat party to censor “misinformation” in the runup to the 2020 election, and targeted various conservative media, including Breitbart News, for censorship.
Via Breitbart News: In the runup to the 2020 election, the consortium created a system whereby state actors including the Department of Homeland Security and the State Department could file “tickets” alongside news stories, flagging them so that Big Tech platforms could subsequently suppress or attach warning labels to them. Beyond this blatant case of a private-public censorship coalition, the EIP also engaged in partisan politics, allowing the Democratic National Committee to file tickets through the system, as well as the Democrat-aligned groups Common Cause and the NAACP.
News outlets targeted by the EIP included Breitbart News, Fox News, the New York Post, and the Epoch Times, as well as the social media accounts of prominent conservatives Charlie Kirk, Tom Fitton, Jack Posobiec, Mark Levin, James O’Keefe, and Sean Hannity, amongst others
In a statement to the Intercept, a Twitter spokesperson said “we do not coordinate with other entities when making content moderation decisions, and we independently evaluate content in line with the Twitter Rules.”
White House tweet: “Seniors are getting the biggest increase in their Social Security in 10 years through President Biden’s leadership.”
Twitter Correction: “Seniors will receive a large Social Security benefit increase due to the annual cost of living adjustments, which is based on the inflation rate. President Nixon in 1972 signed into law automatic benefit adjustments tied to the Consumer Price Index.” Pub. L. No. 92-336 (1972).
By Brooke Singman (Oct. 28) FOXBusiness
Former President Donald Trump wished Elon Musk the best with Twitter but stressed he will stay on his own Truth Social, a social media platform he touts as “better,” “safe” and that feels “like home.” Musk on Thursday completed his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter, tweeting before midnight that “the bird is freed” and updating his bio to designate himself as the “Chief Twit.”
In an exclusive interview with Fox News Digital on Friday, Trump said, “I like Elon and I wish him a lot of luck. I hope he does well with it.” However, Trump added, “I don’t think Twitter can be successful without me.” Should Musk lift Trump’s lifetime ban on Twitter, the former president’s account would technically be active. Trump declined to comment on if he would ever use it again.
Musk has suggested that he would loosen content moderation practices for Twitter and would eliminate lifetime bans from the platform, but Trump told Fox News Digital that the new policy will not affect how he uses social media.
“I am staying on Truth. I like it better, I like the way it works, I like Elon, but I’m staying on Truth,” he told Fox News Digital.
ELON MUSK TWEETS ‘THE BIRD IS FREED’ AFTER FINALIZING $44 BILLION ACQUISITION
Trump was permanently suspended from Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat following the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol riot. Twitter deemed a number of his tweets connected to the violent protests as inflammatory and warned of “the risk of further incitement of violence.”
Trump told Fox News Digital that “terminating” him from Facebook, Twitter and other social media companies in 2021 was “one of the worst decisions made in business in the last two years,” pointing to “how badly these platforms are doing.”
“Facebook is now down $80 billion and boring,” Trump said. “Twitter has been taken over, and, if it wasn’t for me, it would have never been taken over. No one would have even thought about it.”
Trump told Fox News Digital that when he began using Twitter, it was “a failing operation. I made Twitter hot 12 years ago, I made Twitter hot,” he said. “And then when they terminated, it became cold, and that’s what happened.”
Trump, pointing to Facebook parent company Meta Platforms Inc.’s plunge in stock price — the lowest since February 2016 — and Twitter, said “engagements are way down and everything else since I left. And if you remember, 12 years ago, Twitter was a failed enterprise,” he said. “It was only when I got on that it became successful.”
Trump, after being terminated, created the Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG), which launched in October 2021. TMTG’s social media platform, Truth Social, formally launched earlier this year. Trump’s comments Friday are in line with comments he made exclusively to Fox News Digital in April, when Musk first signaled he would purchase the platform. Trump, at the time, said he would not return to Twitter and would stay on Truth Social.
“I want to stay on Truth — Truth is better,” Trump told Fox News Digital on Friday. “I like it better, it is better to my eye, and last week, it was higher than TikTok. It was number one last week.”
Earlier this month, Google added Truth Social to the Google Play store. When Truth Social was added to Google Play, it was the No. 1 downloaded app in the store — ahead of TikTok, Amazon, WhatsApp and Instagram, and remained in that spot for nearly a week.
TRUTH SOCIAL NOW AVAILABLE IN SAMSUNG GALAXY STORE
Last month, Samsung added the app to its Samsung Galaxy store, and earlier this year, Apple added Truth Social to its App Store. During its beta testing, and again when it opened to the public, Truth Social was also ranked No. 1 and the highest-ranking free app on the App Store in the U.S.
Trump, who has hinted at a 2024 White House run, told Fox News Digital on Friday that Truth Social would be his main platform should he launch a campaign. “If I choose to run, I will only use Truth,” he said. “When I put out a Truth, it is all over the place.”
“When I put a Truth out, it goes all over the place anyway,” Trump said. “Everyone who is on Twitter and on all the other places, they all put it out anyway.” He added, “I used to just put out public PR statements, and you know what, they were picked up.”
Meanwhile, TMTG’s plan is to become a publicly listed company through a merger with the publicly traded Digital World Acquisition Corp., a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) whose sole purpose is to acquire a private company and take it public.
GOOGLE APPROVES TRUMP’S TRUTH SOCIAL FOR DISTRIBUTION IN GOOGLE PLAY
The SPAC is currently under investigation by the SEC, chaired by former Hillary Clinton campaign finance chair Gary Gensler, over whether there was pre-targeting of the deal and whether it had already identified TMTG as its target company before going public.
The SPAC is set to expire in December, but if it puts down approximately $3 million, it could extend itself for several months or a year. TMTG, whose CEO is former Rep. Devin Nunes, is still a private company and has not yet merged with the SPAC.
Sources close to Trump and Truth Social told Fox News Digital that if the SPAC does not extend, Trump will keep it private, something that could be preferable to the former president as it has become “marketable.”
Trump, in a Truth Social post early Friday, said Truth Social “has become somewhat of a phenomena. I am very happy that Twitter is now in sane hands, and will no longer be run by Radical Left Lunatics and Maniacs that truly hate our country,” Trump Truthed. “Twitter must now work hard to rid itself of all of the bots and fake accounts that have hurt it so badly. It will be much smaller, but better.” He added: “I LOVE TRUTH!”
By Patrick Hauf (Oct. 31) Fox News
The U.S. Supreme Court will hear two cases Monday that could mean the end of decades of race-based affirmative action at universities.
The cases regard allegations that Harvard University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill discriminate against Asian Americans — and in the UNC case, Whites as well — as they consider race in admissions. Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA) sued each university, one public and one private, and will advocate for the Supreme Court to end affirmative action in college applications.
The decision is expected to come next year. Legal experts anticipate the Court will overturn a precedent case, Grutter v. Bollinger, to end race-based university admissions.
Margot Cleveland, a former law professor and permanent law clerk to a federal appellate judge, said the Court is poised to overturn what it sees as another poor precedent.
“When the Court releases opinion, which will likely not be for six months or more, the majority will likely adopt Chief Justice John Roberts’ position in a 2007 case, when he wrote: ‘The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race, is to stop discriminating on the basis of race,’” Cleveland told Fox News Digital. “Missing in this debate, also, is the reality that race discrimination is not a victimless proposition, and often another minority, namely Asian-Americans, suffer the consequences.”
The precedent case on university admissions was decided in 2003 in a 5-4 decision that found affirmative action is legal so long as it is intended to try to achieve an educational benefit by having a diverse body. Justice Sandra Day O’Connor wrote in the majority opinion that she “expects that 25 years from now, the use of racial preferences will no longer be necessary to further the interest approved today.”
Jonathan Turley, a professor at George Washington University Law School, said O’Connor may only be a few years off in her prediction. The decades-long debate on affirmative action for universities could finally reach its end, he said.
“The two cases could prove to be the long-anticipated moments for a bright-line rule that has long escaped the Court due to its sharp divisions,” Turley told Fox News Digital.
SFFA originally sued Harvard in 2014. Lower courts ruled against the university but were later overruled by a Boston district court which found the alleged discrimination impacted a limited group of students.
Andrew McCarthy, the former Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, said the facts in the case are clear: the universities received federal dollars and discriminated against a specific race.
“It violates the law for universities to discriminate according to race, period,” McCarthy told Fox News Digital. “The tragedy is that the Supreme Court ever said otherwise. The justices need to fix that.”
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/supreme-court-may-end-affirmative-action-university-admissions
ByJordan Sekulow (Oct. 31) ACLJ Commentary
The Left in Congress has just proposed a new piece of legislation to appoint a new Department of Homeland Security Disinformation/Misinformation Czar to push abortion and attack pro-life crisis pregnancy centers around the country.
As reported by Fox News: House Democrats are pushing to create a new senior official at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) who would monitor and respond to public “misinformation” about abortion access and other reproductive and sexual health services. Legislation from Rep. Nikema Williams, D-Ga., and four other Democrats would establish a new “reproductive and sexual health” official within HHS, and policing “misinformation” on abortion would be part of the job. The official would “collect information regarding, and to address, reproductive and sexual health misinformation being disseminated to the public,” according to the bill text.
“Folks, this shouldn’t really come as that much of a surprise. We told you how President Biden already attempted to prop up a “Disinformation Board” to silence conservative voices. We fought back and the Biden Administration put the idea on hold, temporarily. This time, the Left is trying again with a more specific target, setting its sights specifically on pro-life voices.
As ACLJ Senior Counsel CeCe Heil explained: “So misinformation, we’ve seen it where they’ve even claimed that ultrasound machines even give misinformation, so what they can categorize as misinformation is really unending. But if you have any information that goes against the abortion narrative, that will absolutely be deemed misinformation, medically inaccurate. If you have information showing how abortions affect women, how they have more miscarriages after, that is medically accurate proven information, but that is always deemed by the abortion distortion people that that’s medically inaccurate. So that section for sure when they talk about misinformation is directly targeted at [pro-life] pregnancy resource centers, absolutely, without doubt. And the fact that they can inspect, investigate, and audit, that would be targeting these resource centers as well.
“We are getting so close to election day in this critical Midterm season, and we, as well as the Left, know that abortion is going to be a key issue. Especially in the wake of Dobbs, where the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Planned Parenthood and the radical abortion-worshipping Left are desperately trying anything to protect its number one stock in trade, abortions. Remember not long ago we told you how abortion-friendly Senator Elizabeth Warren directly called out pro-life crisis pregnancy centers, painting them as dangerous. In reality she only escalated the danger not only to those pregnancy center workers, but their patients as well. And now this new legislation is essentially a war cry from the radical Left, trying to mount support for pro-abortion candidates and legislation by any means necessary.
“They not going to set up a Misinformation Czar like this without giving them the teeth to tear apart pro-life pregnancy centers and organizations. Meanwhile abortion-friendly politicians and leaders will quickly work to pass barbaric abortion laws in states across the country and to attack not only pro-life leaders, but pro-life organizations, voters, and even pregnancy centers. We told you overturning Roe was just the beginning. This is exactly what we predicted. It’s truly sick.
“The good news is the only way they get this passed is through a lame-duck Congress, if the Republicans sweep the Midterm and take back control and defeated sitting members with nothing to lose decide to push it through on their way out the door. Which could very well happen, but our ACLJ legal and Government Affairs teams will not stand by while they try. We will be there to push right back.”
Matthew Clark (Oct. 28) ACLJ
Planned Parenthood once again just set new records for the number of unborn babies killed in a single year and the excessive amount of taxpayer funding it took in, while simultaneously setting new record lows for the number of supposed other “services” it provides. This once again begs the question, how can Planned Parenthood – the largest abortion provider in America – once again get away with claiming that it doesn’t really focus on abortions? Why exactly does it need to take in more of our taxpayer funding as its supposedly helpful services drastically decline?
Once again, Planned Parenthood demonstrates that unfortunately, despite claims to the contrary, the abortion industry in America continues to thrive. Planned Parenthood recently released its 2020-2021 annual report, which shows that the abortion behemoth hit some tragic all-time records this past year.
Over the course of the last year, Planned Parenthood – which claims that abortions comprise a minuscule amount of its offered services – committed a record 383,460 abortions, up 8% (or 28,589 more unborn babies slaughtered) from the previous year. At the same time, it took in an all-time high $633.4 million in taxpayer funding. The abortion giant also posted its second highest annual profit on record, banking $133.7 million more than its expenses, up 91.8% from the previous year, as well as a record-high revenue of $1.7 billion (yes, that’s billion with a B).
This means that tax dollars subsidized America’s largest abortion provider at a higher level than it has ever done before. In fact, that’s $15,300,000.00 in taxpayer dollars more than the last record-setting year. Meanwhile, Planned Parenthood’s number of total services decreased by over 1.7 million from last year (that’s a 16.6% drop in one year) – resulting in an at-least a 12-year LOW of under 8.65 million total “services,” meaning that abortions constituted an even greater percentage of its services than ever before.
Planned Parenthood deceptively hides behind its total number of “services” figure to skew the numbers, disguising its abortion practice with claims that it also provides a variety of other services, such as adoption, prenatal, and well-woman services. This claim proves to be less true every year. From its latest report, it’s clear that non-abortion services are not a priority to Planned Parenthood. In the last year, several non-abortion services decreased, with some of the services drastically dropping by upwards of 30%.
Planned Parenthood disingenuously touts its adoption referrals, but it cut the service by nearly 40% in a single year. In 2018-2019, Planned Parenthood reported an abysmally low 4,279 adoption referrals (compared to more than 345,000 abortions); and in 2019-2020, that number dropped to a mere 2,667 adoption referrals (down 37%). At this rate, it’s hard to imagine that this will even be a service provided in the next two to three years.
Unsurprisingly, in 2020-2021, that number fell through the floor once again, as Planned Parenthood could only provide 1,940 adoption referrals (down yet another 27%). Think about that. Planned Parenthood referred 1,940 women for adoption while performing 383,460 abortions this past year. That’s about 200 babies killed for every child it refers for adoption.
Adoption referrals were not the only non-abortion service to decrease this past year. Cancer screenings dropped 30% from last year, continuing its eye-popping 77% decline in such cancer screenings since 2009. In addition, the “healthcare” provider hit lows in its other non-abortion services as well. Testing and treatment of sexually-transmitted diseases was down 18% from last year; contraceptive services were down 14.5% and have been steadily decreasing since 2012-2013; prenatal services numbered a meager 8,775—the third lowest in the past 12 years. Given the record-high number of abortions and the abysmally low number of other services, it is clear that Planned Parenthood is not prioritizing women’s health and is merely in the business of generating profits from its abortion clinics.
JOHN BINDER Oct 31 Breitbart News
David DePape, the man accused of attempting to murder House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) husband Paul Pelosi with a hammer, is a “longtime” illegal alien living in sanctuary state California, a report reveals.
Days ago, police officers in San Francisco, California, responded to a 911 call made by Paul Pelosi. According to police, on October 28, 42-year-old DePape attacked Pelosi with a hammer, leaving him with severe blunt force injuries to his head that called for immediate surgery.
DePape was taken into custody, and charges of attempted murder are expected. He has already been charged with assault and attempted kidnapping.
FOXLA’s Bill Melugin reports that DePape is actually an illegal alien who has been living in the sanctuary state of California for some time after having overstayed his visa. It is unclear what kind of visa DePape initially arrived on to the United States from Canada and in what year.
DePape’s former partner told local media that the man is “mentally ill,” believing he was Jesus Christ at one time, and was living in a hippie commune in Berkley, California. Before arriving in California about two decades ago, DePape grew up in Powell River, British Columbia, in Canada.
With Nancy Pelosi’s support, California has one of the most rigorous sanctuary state policies in the United States — shielding criminal illegal aliens from arrest and deportation by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency and prohibiting local law enforcement from coordinating with ICE.
The Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) latest report shows that nearly 685,000 foreign nationals overstayed their visas after arriving in the U.S. in Fiscal Year 2020, becoming illegal aliens. About half of the nation’s 11 million to 22 million illegal aliens arrive on visas but eventually overstay. The majority are never deported.
VOTE ON ELECTION DAY—NOVEMBER 8TH
Editor’s Note: See Biblical/Christian Voter Guides:
https://www.christianvoterguide.com/states/southeast-region/florida
https://www.biblicalvoter.com/california-voter-guides
Vote: No on California Proposition 1
(Released by California Catholic Conference—California bishops)
“Every human life, including unborn human life, is unique and unrepeatable, a person with inherent dignity and an eternal destiny. The intentional taking of any innocent human life is a grave moral evil, and people of faith and goodwill have an obligation to protect human life and oppose all attacks against human life and dignity. In CA this year, voters are faced with a choice to keep abortion law in our state as it is or to vote in favor of a new constitutional amendment that would permanently expand and vastly increase abortions in our state, without doing anything to give vulnerable women a real choice.
“While we pray and work for the day when every human life, born and unborn, will be protected in law and welcomed in life, today we work to defeat this ballot initiative. To that end, we offer the following resources that will unite people across California to oppose this extreme initiative.
“Proposition 1 would enshrine the explicit right to abortion in our state constitution, setting a nationwide precedent. It is the most egregious expansion of abortion this country has ever seen.
“It’s also the first time ever that CA voters are being asked to vote for unrestricted late term abortion, ending any real chance for California to protect unborn life in future laws.
“Recent in-depth polling shows that a strong majority of California voters oppose late term abortions, oppose turning California into an abortion sanctuary state, and oppose using tax dollars to pay for abortions.
“Prop 1 is misleading, expensive, and unnecessary – and we can stop it.” Learn More
This November, Vote “No” On Prop 1
https://www.cacatholic.org/prop1
(Editor’s Note: California has passed infanticide legislation—perinatal bill AB 2223–signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom on Sept. 27, 2022 that allows for a baby up to 28 days be killed without investigation by a coroner.)
By Tré Goins-Phillips (Oct. 27) FaithWire
Close to half of Americans — 45% — believe the U.S. ought to be a “Christian nation,” according to new data collected by the Pew Research Center. “That is a lot of people,” Greg Smith, one of the survey’s lead authors, told the Religion News Service. “[But] what people mean when they say they think the U.S. should be a Christian nation is really quite nuanced.”
Interestingly, a clear majority of those surveyed — 60% — believe the U.S. was, in fact, intended to be a Christian country. However, only 33% of respondents said the U.S. remains so today.
The data also revealed that about half of Americans — 47% — think Scripture should have “a great deal” or “some” influence on U.S. laws. And 27% of survey participants said, if the law and the Bible conflict, Scripture “should have more influence than the will of the people.”
Of those who believe the U.S. should be a Christian nation, 78% said the Bible “should have a great deal or some influence on U.S. laws.” Interestingly, 21% said Scripture should have “little or no influence.”
By Tré Goins-Phillips (Oct. 31) FaithWire
A house fire would’ve likely had a much darker ending Sunday had one passerby not made a wrong turn. Brendon Birt was driving in Red Oak, Iowa, last weekend, when he mistakenly turned down the wrong road — an error that, in retrospect, seems quite miraculous. It was moments after he turned down the incorrect street that Birt noticed the house fire. He told KETV-TV he “just felt like somebody was in there, because it was so late at night.”
Listen to the latest episode of CBN’s Quick Start podcast 👇
“I just knew that I had to act quick,” he said. “Every second that was going by was just getting worse.” So the good Samaritan began pounding on the front door, yelling, “Fire!” to anyone who might have been inside. As it turns out, Birt’s instincts were right: there were four siblings inside the house, each unaware of the fire quickly consuming the home.
Moments after Birt started banging on the door, three of the kids — ages 8, 14, and 17 — ran out as flames engulfed the front porch of the house in southwestern Iowa. Soon thereafter, the kids’ 22-year-old brother ran through the front door, too. “They came out the door [and] I just felt like I just wanted to break down and cry,” said the passerby.
Without Birt’s harrowing act, the kids likely would not have survived the blazing inferno, because the smoke alarms in the house failed to go off. The eldest sibling, Bryce Harrison, told KETV-TV he woke up to “an oven of heat and flames on the front wall.” His younger brother, Christopher Lehman, said, “Everything was just black in the living room.”
The children’s parents were out of town when they were alerted to the fire — and the horrifying news that their kids were still inside the house. The mother, Tender Lehman, is forever indebted to Birt. “My kids wouldn’t have made it, man,” she said. “They’re safe because of him. I mean, lives were saved here.”
If you would like to contribute to a GoFundMe set up for the family, you can do so here. The cause of the fire has not been identified. The Red Oak Fire Department said it is still investigating.
(Michael Hernandez, co-founder of the Citizens Journal—Ventura County’s online news service is a former Southern California daily newspaper journalist and religion and news editor. Mr. Hernandez can be contacted at [email protected] and is editor of “America: The End and Our Hope”.)
Press Release
From County of Nassau
| Public Meetings |
| Below are public meetings scheduled for the week of November 7 – November 11, 2022. Please note that meetings are subject to change. Please review our website calendar for up-to-date information. Meeting agendas can be located here. |
| Meeting Date/Time/Location Development Review Committee, Tuesday, November 8, 2022 at 9:00 a.m. Public Services Conference Room,96161 Nassau Place,Yulee, FL 32097 Board of County Commissioners: Closed Session re: Case No. 2019-CA-261Wednesday, November 9, 2022 at 5:00 p.m. Commission Chambers,96135 Nassau Place,Yulee, FL32097 Planning & Zoning Board, Wednesday, November 9, 2022 at 6:00 p.m. Commission Chambers,96135 Nassau Place, Yulee, FL 32097 Board of County Commissioners: Special Meeting for Public Hearing on Beach Ordinance (Note: Planning Board will break temporarily for this meeting to occur)Wednesday, November 9, 2022 at 6:00 p.m. Commission Chambers, 96135 Nassau Place,Y ulee, FL 32097 American Beach Water & Sewer District Advisory Meeting, Thursday, November 10, 2022 at 4:00 p.m. Commission Chambers,96135 Nassau Place, Yulee, FL 32097 |
By Nassau County, FL|Board of County Commissioners
11-04-22
Nassau County, Florida, November 4, 2022 – The Nassau County Road Department is happy to announce it has completed its scheduled list of chip sealed roads for the 2021 and 2022 fiscal years.
Twenty-two dirt roads totaling 29,145 feet (roughly 5.5 miles) were upgraded to a newly
paved surface utilizing the chip seal process. When the repetitive maintenance of dirt roads
becomes timely and costly and/or driver safety is compromised, chip seal is a great option
because it’s similar to asphalt in durability and appearance, but much less expensive.
The chip seal surface treatment consists of an application of heated asphalt liquid, followed
by a layer of crushed rock with a roller to create a smooth surface. Chip seal roads enhance
public safety by providing good skid resistance, an anti-glare surface during wet weather,
and an increased reflective surface for night driving.
During adoption of the Fiscal Year 22/23 budget, the Board allocated $900,000 for the Chip
Seal Program. This will allow an additional fifteen roads totaling 17,975 feet to be resurface this Fiscal Year. Roads identified for chip seal this Fiscal Year include:
• Oelsner Drive
• Wilder Boulevard
• Arbor Lane
• Seymour Lane
• Nassau River Road
• Freeman Road
• Myrtice Road
• Milton Road
• Dawson Road
• Boyd Road
• D. Fouraker Road
• Middle Road
• Lawhon Road
• Debbie Road
• Howard Road
We want to thank the citizens of Nassau County for their patience during the preparation
process. We would also like to thank our County Commissioners, (District 1) John F. Martin,
(District 2) Aaron C. Bell, (District 3) Jeff Gray, (District 4) Thomas R. Ford, (District 5) Klynt A. Farmer, for their support and allocating funding for this initiative.
If you have any questions, please contact the Nassau County Road Department at (904) 530-6175.
This is Frank Gaffney with the Secure Freedom Minute, 11-4-22
Communist China announced this week that it had put into place the last section of its space station. It should be a “Sputnik moment.”
Unlike the aging one the United States built with help from, among others, the Kremlin, the Chinese version will be first and foremost a military platform with a patina of civilian use.
China’s space station will also be a building block for an ominous next phase of newly coronated Emperor Xi Jinping’s colonial buildout. Within the next few years, the PLA plans to establish what amounts to one or more outposts near the moon’s strategic southern pole.
Expert Richard Fisher warns that these steps are among those being taken to assure China’s domination of “the earth-moon system,” a capability that would enable it to project power decisively onto our planet. Will those we elect next week allow that?
This is Frank Gaffney.
See SOURCE
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The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
By Dave Scott, 11-4-22
Two Fernandina Beach City Commission candidates are being deliberately dishonest and evasive with voters by concealing their backgrounds and refusing to respond to questions about their views that all other candidates have openly answered.
I highlighted this issue last week, but because this election is so vital to the future of Fernandina Beach it demands further attention, particularly with the November 8 election just four days away.
The only Fernandina Beach City Commission candidates refusing to respond to a County Citizens Defending Freedom (CCDF-Nassau) voter questionnaire are:
Both Minshew and Lednovich have repeatedly refused to answer questions posed to them about toxic theories such as gender ideology including child mutilation and Black Lives Matter.
Why won’t they answer? They won’t say. Both declined to respond to the CCDF, area media, and this blog. They have ignored phone calls and emails. Other than this blog the only other local media outlet to call them out is the new online publication Citizens Journal Florida .
Do their refusals confirm their support for their perverse ideologies such as the dangerous, violent racist BLM organization and gender transitioning? If not why won’t they say so?
This disingenuous duo of cultural vandals are in the minority, not only in Fernandina Beach and Nassau County, but in Florida and the rest of the U.S.
An overwhelming majority of American parents are opposed to this deviant ideology in our schools that these two refuse to oppose. Parents say they don’t want to be dictated to about what is taught to their kids, and they don’t want their children taken as ideological hostages. But Minshew and Lednovich, who want to represent us, refuse to tell us where they stand. Why?
Minshew is a registered Democrat and Lednovich is registered “No Party Affiliation”, another term for “Democrat” in Nassau County where 80 percent of registered voters are Republican.
The City Commission election is nonpartisan, but these two extremists have the full backing of the Nassau County Democrat Party, which is providing its South 8th Street County HQ to distribute yard signs, stickers, etc. for them both. Take a look: https://www.facebook.com/100003322985569/posts/pfbid0gC8wYDMgyZdjtQqCQngF8gMpz974Knieo4UcK8gqH5u7aLuzotdCaRV7jKLHfyrEl/?app=fbl
Is this what Fernandina Beach citizens want? No! But these two are going against public sentiment as voters across the country reject these perverse and violent views.
For example, Republican politicians have strongly criticized drag queen performances for their impact on children; Candidates nationwide reject kicking God out of our schools and welcoming drag queens. Republican Florida Senator Marco Rubio recently posted an ad criticizing drag queens, saying they indoctrinate kids in schools. He’s right.
A girl was suspended in high school in Wisconsin for saying she would not accept a trans boy using the girls’ locker room. A trans boy playing girls volleyball badly injured an opposing player by smashing the ball into her face. Is this the kind of crap we want in Fernandina Beach?
Trans people make up 0.6% of the population, but the other 99.4% are being told to change their lives and beliefs to accommodate this miniscule fraction of the population who made a voluntary choice to make believe they are another sex. This is what woke has brought, along with the media, teachers unions and people like Minshew and Lednovich.
“A recent survey done for America’s New Majority Project found that 62 percent of Americans believe it is ‘never appropriate’ to discuss gender changing with children in K-12 schools,” Another survey indicated that an overwhelming 80 percent say parents should be notified in advance of such discussions – and allowed to opt their children out of gender discussions. The issue of whether children should be categorized at an early age and manipulated into irreversible hormone therapies and sex change surgeries has nothing at all to do with gay rights. It has to do with child abuse because that’s what it is. What are Minshew’s and Lednovich’s positions? They won’t tell us.
Governor Ron DeSantis emphasized those views by putting it at the center of his gubernatorial reelection campaign. The first sentence of his education agenda commits him to “student success, parental rights, and curriculum transparency.”
It’s never appropriate to tell children that they can change their sex – something no one can do, not even through surgery and chemical castrations. Children should never be exposed to such vile perverse abuse. But Minshew and Lednovich won’t answer any of the questions on this topic. Apparently it’s OK with them.
Remember the guys your parents warned you about, who hung around playgrounds and were chased down the street by neighborhood dads wielding baseball bats. These perverts are not only being applauded now but invited onto the playgrounds and into the libraries and classrooms for drag queen readings and drag strip shows for children. Do we want that in Fernandina Beach? No. Do Minshew and Lednovich? We don’t know, they won’t say.
Their silence is frightening. That’s why it is so important to empower families in education. Florida’s parental rights bill guarantees curriculum transparency and makes sure parents and not school officials and people like Minshew and Lednovich, have the final say in the upbringing of our children.
When it comes to the law-and-order issue, Lednovich refused to say if he does or does not support the violent Black Lives Matters ideology despite the fact he paraded up and down Centre Street draped with a BLM sandwich board. He even posted the picture here on Facebook, which he has since removed.
Both Minshew and Lednovich refused to answer any of the questions concerning the use of city restrooms by biological males as well as questions on abortion within the city limits, the removal of the city’s history, city governmental regulations and more. See for yourself who answered and who refused by clicking here: Voter Guide for Nassau School Board and Fernandina Council Election- 2022
Minshew refused to answer “yes” or “no” to the question: “Would you support the city positioning itself in promotional material as a Gay Vacation Destination?” A number of locals say she has been vocal in in the past for her support for such a movement. Lednovich also refused to answer. Why?
Minshew and Lednovich aren’t running for School Boards, but if elected to the City Commission they’ll be in a position to influence decisions made there and project their perverse rot into the classroom.
***
Who Is Genece Minshew? Normally candidates for public office tout their work experience and positions of distinction. If anyone is going to be out and proud, wouldn’t it be a candidate running for public office! So, what is Minshew’s greatest distinction? You can’t find it! It’s been scrubbed from her campaign literature. What is it she is hiding and why?
She’s President of Fernandina Pride. So, why isn’t she boasting about that? She came out. But during the election, scampered back in. This seems the perfect time to recall an old Lewis Grizzard column comment when he was writing about gay folks coming out of the closet. “I don’t know what’s in that closet,” said the late Atlanta Journal-Constitution humor columnist, “but I reckon it’s a real mess in there.”
Does Minshew take pride in launching Fernandina’s Gay Pride parades, the upcoming Pride youth camps, and the Coming Out of the closet events? If so why doesn’t this “pride” carry over to her campaign for City Commissioner?
Maybe she doesn’t broadcast it because it doesn’t sell well hereabouts. In fact, most Floridians are doing everything they can to protect their children from this perverse encroachment in our society, let alone elect it to a position of influence.
Also, what happened to Fernandina Beach Pride’s sponsors? Thanks to the Internet which saves website history, we can determine which cowardly sponsors – including the print Fernandina Beach News Leader newspaper – scurried back in the closet during Minshew’s campaign. A partial list of closeted pride sponsors include: Democratic Club of Amelia, Nassau Democratic Party, MUV Medical Marijuana Dispensary, First Love Brewery, and something called AHF. What’s AHF? It’s a gay advocacy group that sponsors such family friendly events around Florida as Condom Day by staging shows including a burlesque based on “West Side Story.”
AHF, an AIDs advocacy group organizes gay events ‘
Guess which sponsor is still hanging around waiting for Minshew’s Fernandina Pride organization to serve the cheap white wine and rubbery cheese cubes? Brace yourself! It’s none other than The Chamber of Commerce. Can you feel the Fernandina as a gay destination creeping in?
Minshew is going incognito in her campaign literature and scrubbing Pride’s website to hide it from voters.
***
How I’m Voting: I’m expressing my opinion at the ballot box this Tuesday by voting for local chiropractor Dr. James Antun and firefighter Darron Ayscue, candidates who endorse traditional values and will maintain normalcy, sanity, and fiscal responsibility for Fernandina Beach. Bradley Bean, who also fits that description, gets my vote for mayor. Shannon Hogue and Albert Wagner, a duo that support parental rights, student success and curriculum transparency are my choices for the School Board. In state-wide races I’m voting for Marco Rubio for U.S. Senator; Aaron Bean, U.S. Congressman District 4; Ron DeSantis, Florida Governor; Ashley Moody, Florida Attorney General; Jimmy Patronis, Florida’s Chief Financial Officer; Wilton Simpson, Florida Secretary of Agriculture; Clay Yarborough, State Senator District 4; Dean Black, State Senator. I’m voting “No ” on State Supreme Court Justices Canady, Labarga, Polston and Rowe. The other six get my “yes” vote.
***
“Yes” To The Teachers: I was leaning toward voting “No” on the Nassau County School District’s levying an ad valorem operating millage of 1 mill annually to attract and retain high-quality teachers and staff. Rob Hicks, School Counselor at Fernandina Beach High School swayed me to a “Yes” vote with a persuasive and compelling argument. The fact that my wife, Linda, is a retired kindergarten teacher also entered into my decision.
Here’s what Rob had to say that convinced me:
“A couple of years ago, FBHS hired a young person to teach English. She had a degree in English, and she had worked in the writing lab at her college. That hire turned out to be a homerun. We gave her the keys to some of our most advanced English classes and she was flourishing. She was off to a great start this year when a friend called her. That friend worked in a corporate setting and despite the fact that our teacher had no business background or experience, the friend told the teacher her corporation had a job for her where she’d have better benefits and make 50% more than her teaching job on day one with opportunities to advance. I don’t have to tell you we lost the teacher. She was excellent, she was youthful, she was only going to get better with experience, but she’ll probably never teach again–at FBHS or anywhere else.
“Last year, we lost a member of our support staff because he needed to make more money. He found a higher-paying job at the deli at Winn Dixie. This is why we need the millage increase. The schools are losing good teachers and workers to retirement or higher-paying opportunities, and we can’t compete when we try to recruit their replacements.
“I’m writing this in the 11th week of school. We still have an open teaching job we’ve been unable to fill. As we work to cover those responsibilities with either someone who already has a full list of responsibilities or a substitute teacher, we either exacerbate the frustration of an overworked, underpaid employee or diminish the product we deliver to the student–or both of those things. This initiates a cycle that weakens the very foundation of the strong schools we have in Nassau County.
“We can’t have good schools without good teachers. We won’t have good teachers if we cannot compete for them. Job competition boils down to pay. Right now, Nassau County schools are losing that competition and the problem will get worse if the millage rate does not pass.”
Mr. Hicks emphasized that the Ad Valorem Millage Election is separate from any belief anyone might have about the superintendent or any school board member. “If someone hasn’t been happy with their leadership or are upset with what they’ve done or haven’t done, those elected officials will have their own referendum if and when they run for re-election,” he says. “This millage increase is about the people who work in schools.”
***
Gay Doesn’t always Mean Happy! It’s often been reported that City Commission candidate Genece Minshew wants to make Fernandina Beach a “gay destination”.
Fernandina resident Steve Hall personally experienced what can happen to a community once that toxic perverse gay destination camel gets its nose in the tent.
He grew up in a vacation destination that was turned on its head by labelling itself a “gay destination.”
Mr. Hall, who purchased a home in downtown Fernandina about three years ago, shockingly relates what labelling Fernandina Beach a “gay destination” would do to our city’s Noman Rockwell image:
“In the 1960’s I spent my high school years living in South Wellfleet, Massachusetts, only 23 miles south of Provincetown. Members in my family (and my elderly mother) live in the Wellfleet/Eastham area of Cape Cod. I visit once or twice a year. I’ve visited P’town a few times over the past decade and a lot has changed.
“Today, Provincetown is a ‘gay destination’.
“Provincetown and Fernandina Beach have many great things in common. They are both historic, charming and attractive to visitors. Both are both geographic destinations in that you don’t ‘pass through’ on your way to somewhere else.
“Provincetown sits on the very end of Cape Cod and its isolation helped an artist’s community form here in the 1960s. With that community, gay men and women felt that they had found their own very special place on Cape Cod.” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Provincetown,_Massachusetts)
“There are 16 gay bars in Provincetown (see: https://ptown.gaycities.com/bars).
“There is a nationally recognized “fetish festival… to add to your k*nky calendar”, the Mates Leather Weekend (see: https://www.gaycities.com/articles/64099/6-big-fetish-festivals-in-the-us-worth-adding-to-your-knky-calendar/2/)
“Is Provincetown a good place for vacation with young kids? TripAdvisor lets you decide for yourself. https://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowTopic-g41778-i483-k5425281-Is_provincetown_a_good_place_for_vacation_with_young_kids-Provincetown_Cape_Cod_Massachusetts.html
“A member of my family works for a public school in P’town. Most of the kids are bused in from other places on the Cape. In 2010, the school committee voted unanimously to phase out the high school students in Provincetown High School due to declining enrollment. High-school students who live in Provincetown are now redistricted to attend Nauset Regional High School in Eastham. Provincetown High School’s last senior class graduated on June 7, 2013. The final Senior class numbered eight.”
I don’t need to add anything to Mr. Hall’s testimonial.
***
Thinking Out Loud: LGBTA History Month was celebrated in October and featured a local LGBTA crowd headed by Fernandina City Commission candidate Genece Minshew, who is also president of Fernandina Pride. They paraded through Fernandina, which is well within their rights as long as participants don’t display vulgar and indecent behavior.
But why do we spend an entire month celebrating LGBTQA folks? And why are there only two days a year, Veterans Day, Nov. 11 and Memorial Day, May 29, to celebrate those who fought and died to give them the right to do that?
Also, what exactly is the difference between a “transvestite” and a “transgender?” Aren’t they both guys wearing women’s clothing? Why are the perverse drag shows and story hours always for kids? Why don’t they have drag shows and story hours for accountants and welders and lawyers and engineers? And how did this perversity get connected to reading trans books to young school kids in the first place?
***
Good Advice Department: Joe Biden and Hilary Clinton are calling voters names. Biden says Republicans are dangerous and a threat to democracy while Clinton labels them, stupid on top of her “deplorable” classification.
The late Roger Ailes, one of the founders of Fox News and a media consultant to President George H.W. Bush, cautioned candidates never to call voters stupid. To do so, he said, would insult two large and powerful groups: all the voters who are stupid and all the voters who are not.
Republished with the author’s permission. Read The Dave Scott Blog– subscribe Free
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
Baptist Health
11-04-22
What: The Oren Margol Foundation will host its Sixth Annual “Big O” Memorial Golf Tournament, benefiting Baptist MD Anderson Cancer Center.
When: Monday, November 21, 2022
11 am – 6 pm
Registration is now open at OrenMargolFoundation.org
Where: San Jose Country Club
7529 San Jose Blvd.
Jacksonville, FL 32217
Who: For six years, the Oren Margol Foundation’s board members, Lane Strumlauf, Drew Margol, Joe Nasrallah, and David Vandroff, have hosted a golf tournament in Oren Margol’s memory. Proceeds from the tournament benefit the Memorial Oren Margol Neuro-Oncology Endowment at Baptist MD Anderson Cancer Center, providing support for neuro-oncology patient care, research and education programs with a focus on glioblastoma cancer.
Background: Oren Margol was a terrific son, a wonderful father and a friend to everyone. In December 2009, Oren was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor. Three years later, Oren passed away at the young age of 48. “Every year, on the Friday after Thanksgiving, we would get together for our annual golf match because we simply loved spending time together,” said Joe Nasrallah, golf tournament chair. “We’ve decided to make it our goal to keep Oren’s name in bright lights with a sport he loved, while supporting brain cancer patient care and research at Baptist MD Anderson for others on a journey like his.”
In two years’ time, $185,000 has been donated to Baptist MD Anderson to support the neuro-oncology department.
For more information about the event, visit OrenMargolFoundation.org. Please direct any media questions to Joe Nasrallah, 904.383.8691.
By Jeff Childers
11-04-22
Happy Friday, C&C army! We’re just a few days away from the elections, and you should either be planning time to vote Tuesday, or if you’ve already voted, seeing how you can help get someone else to the polls. Just one more person. Let’s multiply the vote.
Today’s terrific roundup includes: judge slaps down request by Fauci and other government officials to stay their depositions; Pfizer hopes for a strong flu season, since jab sales are off; tranvestites suffer under burdensome voter ID laws; an AP article about learning loss telegraphs the new amnesty narrative; massive layoffs at Twitter begin and liberals can’t believe it; Ted Nugent explains the vaccinated; and a video that will encourage you.
🔥 The Missouri v. Biden case might be shaping up to be one of the most important covid cases to date, out of a wide field of developing lawsuits. As a reminder, this is the case where Missouri is suing Biden, Fauci, and a raft of related federal officials for First Amendment violations because they secretly coordinated with social media companies to punish wrongthinking Americans.
Specifically, Missouri alleges that government officials colluded with or coerced social media companies, to suppress disfavored speakers, viewpoints, and content on social media platforms by labeling the content “dis-information,” “mis-information,” and “mal-information.”
I know, I know, that’s hard to believe. How could this happen and so forth. But just wait till you see the evidence.
A couple weeks back, I reported that Louisiana Federal Judge Terry Doughty granted expedited discovery, including depositions of nine federal officials. In his order, the judge methodically went official-by-official, carefully explaining why each one did not qualify for the normal protection that public officials enjoy from having to be deposed in garden-variety cases.
Not in this case.
Immediately afterwards, the administration’s defendants starting filing motions and appeals to prevent their depositions from being taken. Most importantly, they filed a petition for a writ of “mandamus” in the court of appeals, which basically asks the appellate court to stop the judge from allowing depositions of the government witnesses. Because reasons — like, you know, come on, they are very important people, doing very very important things, and simply can’t be bothered to answer silly meaningless questions from grubby non-elites in federal lawsuits.
Or words to that effect.
They also asked the judge for a temporary stay of their depositions, until the appeals court can rule on their mandamus petitions.
But Judge Doughty said, “no.” He denied their motion to stay, entering another carefully-drafted order. The depositions will go forward in the first two weeks of December.
Those depositions are going to be off the chain. How I wish I could just carry someone’s briefcase for them. I would clear my calendar in a HEARTBEAT, work for free, and cover my own travel expenses.
Missouri— if anyone in the solicitor general’s office reads C&C: I have deposition superpowers. No job is too small. Please, pick me!
Anyway, this case is bookmarked at the top of the list in my federal case portal. I will keep you guys briefed.
💉 Haha, Pfizer has hopes for a good flu season! Hopes that its new-and-improved covid/flu mega-vaxx will be the product that consumers are looking for.
Poor Pfizer. I fear this is a marketing misstep. The white-coat pretenders in the company’s marketing department mistakenly think people aren’t taking the shots because of “vaccine fatigue,” in other words, that we’re sick of getting stuck with needles, and if we could just have one stick, that’d be fine.
But that’s not the real problem. The real problem is people don’t want SADS, blood clots, heart attacks, or pirate syndrome while they are gardening, watching TV, playing video games, having sex, taking hot showers, walking in cold weather, or engaging in moderate exercise like doing the dishes or tying their kids’ shoes.
Great job, Pfizer. Now, people who were, for some reason, planning to get the influenza shot but not the Covid experimental therapeutic jab, are not going to get either one. Morons.
And hope can go both ways. Hey Pfizer! We have some hopes, too. And our hopes include you! Want to hear about them?
🔥 My goodness. This is a scandal that cannot be tolerated. Something must be done. Experts have determined that voter ID laws disproportionately impact transvestite voters!
Washington Free Beacon @FreeBeacon
NBC reporter: “Voter ID Laws disproportionately impact trans people.”
2:48 PM ∙ Nov 2, 20221,403Likes336Retweets
Now, don’t be racist. Since a small number of people enjoy acting out their bizarre sexual fetishes in public, we are going to have to scrap all the voter ID laws, and just let anyone vote on the honor system, just like they do it in the la-la land blue states and banana republics.
Repeat after me: there is no such thing as election fraud.
I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, why don’t they just not dress up in drag on voting day. Or that transvestites could just get updated IDs. I suppose those might be options. But it would be a great burden. Getting a new ID might take an hour or so plus a few bucks. And don’t say they should just dress normally, because racism.
So, as you can see, it’s probably better to just scrap the whole ID thing.
Thanks, experts!
🔥 The Associated Press ran a very interesting story last week headlined, “Online school put US kids behind. Some adults have regrets.” It’s interesting standing alone, for what it reveals about our so-called “expert” class, but also because in hindsight it telegraphed the new “move on” amnesty narrative.
First, the statistics from around the country really show Florida — which rejected the experts’ advice to keep schools closed — as a standout among large-population states. According to the AP, the relative share of 2020-21 school year average student time spent in virtual learning was:
California: 71.2%
Washington: 59.2%
Texas: 11.3%
Connecticut: 10.7%
Rhode Island: 9.5%
Florida: 3.2%
Experts are baffled that areas under democrat rule fared the worst. Again. It’s probably Trump’s fault.
For example, from March 2020 to June 2021, the average student in Chicago lost 21 weeks of learning in reading and 20 weeks in math, equivalent to missing half a year of school. Nationally, kids whose schools met virtually in the 2020-2021 school year performed on average 13% worse in math and 8% worse in reading, compared with schools that met in person, according to recent a study by the aforementioned Professor Emily Oster.
The socialist utopia of California, which mandated the highest levels of pandemic virtual school, and which spent the most money on schools during the pandemic, fared the worst. This headline appeared in the journal EdSource back in March:
Thanks, experts! What would kids do without you?
We’ve learned another thing about experts, beyond the fact that they are more than useless, they’re outright dangerous if you give them ANY power or authority at all. On top of that, experts are cowardly bullies, who should be resigning in disgrace, but instead obviously intend to trying to bluster it out. P.G. Wodehouse described the phenomenon well; it’s like when you catch your native guide with his hand in your cigar case, and he says he was just tidying them up for you.
Our public health experts have now tidied up almost all of our cigars, and the case is practically empty.
But things got even more interesting when I realized the story was really battlespace preparation for the new amnesty narrative. The AP noted that, quite unfortunately, the discussion among educators has become “inflammatory,” involving “debate” and “sharp disagreement.” More conflict, sadly. The main disagreement seems to revolve around the “fear the term [learning loss] might … cast blame on teachers.”
Not blame! Blame is toxic to experts, and politicians for that matter. They simply can’t stand blame, not at all. They’re quite allergic to blame, actually.
The AP said it interviewed over 50 people for the story, and some public health officials and educators darkly “warned against second-guessing the school closures.” Austin Beutner, ‘former’ superintendent in Los Angeles, said “It is very easy with hindsight to say, ‘oh, learning loss, we should have opened.’ People forget how many people died.”
No! Wrong, Austin. WE DIDN’T FORGET. We remember it very well. We remember that the people who died were almost all (1) very old with (2) multiple comorbidities, and (3) that covid barely affected kids, who simply do not usually suffer from high-risk comorbidities like diabetes, morbid obesity, dementia, and hypertension.
And we also remember that YOU KNEW all of that information, but you gaslit us and told us to shut up and closed the schools anyway, all while we were screaming at you to stop during school board meetings.
We forget NOTHING.
Some superintendents said they wish they could’ve shifted the blame onto other people. Tony Wold, ‘former’ associate superintendent of West Contra Costa Unified School District, east of San Francisco, said “Schools should never have been placed in a situation where we have choice. With lessons learned, when you have a public health pandemic, there needs to be a single voice.”
A single voice who could’ve taken the blame, he means. But in his haste to shift the blame, Wold didn’t realize that he was also admitting they are all defective morons who never should’ve been trusted with kids lives in the first place.
We’d already figured THAT out. But thanks for admitting it.
Now, watch this next part. Midway through the article, the AP summarized the debate like this: “Many adults are pushing to move on, to stop talking about the impact of the pandemic — especially learning loss.”
“Pushing to move on … and stop talking about learning loss.” And there is was, leaping off the screen: MOVE ON!
Just like we thought. The new narrative.
The AP then proposed a bunch of harebrained solutions to the learning loss problem, which most of its experts conceded was massive in scope. One expert advised, “we need something on the scale of the Marshall plan.” Something BIG. And, oddly, all the AP’s suggestions involved dumping a lot MORE money on schools, and were all completely impractical, like holding all-day weekend tutoring for all students.
But, for some reason, nowhere in the story appeared the patently obvious idea to just cut out bizarre diversity and social education, and focus on STEM. That’d get you an extra two days a week right there. Plus, you could cancel “teacher workdays” and goofy holidays like Columbus Day, Martin Luther King Day, and Kwanzaa, or whatever it’s called; and teachers can just prepare their lessons on weekends and evenings.
But what do I know? I’m just a lawyer, not an expert with an “education degree.” I’m betting nothing will change except teachers’ union demands for higher administrative salaries.
🔥 According to an internal Human Resources email, Twitter is making a massive reduction in force today, so big that the company is closed, and all office and computer access has been suspended. Employees were told to stay home on Friday, and not to even bother trying to come in:
“To help ensure the safety of each employee as well as Twitter systems and customer data, our offices will be temporarily closed and all badge access will be suspended. If you are in an office or on your way to an office, please return home.”
The email advises that a lot of people are going to get fired, and acknowledges this is going to be a difficult time for everyone.
That’s how you do it.
A dumb class-action lawsuit was already filed yesterday, even before the layoffs, arguing that terminated employees weren’t given enough notice under California law. They don’t even know how much notice they’re being given yet.
Finally, according to the Wall Street Journal, Pfizer suspended all its Twitter advertising yesterday. I, for one, am glad they’re gone.
I don’t hate Pfizer. I just feel better when it’s not around.
🔥 An interviewer was shocked by Ted Nugent’s comments about vaccinated people on live TV recently:
THE FLAT EARTHER @TheFlatEartherr
The greatest 30 seconds in television history.😂👏👏👏
3:16 PM ∙ Nov 3, 20223,226Likes1,298Retweets
🔥 To cap off today’s post, here’s an encouraging example of some heterodox politicians recognizing the strength of support available from people like us, people who reject this week’s proposal for “totally misguided” amnesty and just want accountability, instead.
2:55 PM ∙ Nov 3, 20221,653Likes1,053Retweets
We only have a few heterodox politicians now. But that group is growing, and will continue to grow, so long as we keep up the support. Which, based on the 1,000+ comments from C&C’s Oster Amnesty post (thank you), seems poised to continue for the indefinite future.
This is only going to hurt for a long, long time.
Have a fabulous Friday! I’ll see you back here tomorrow for the weekend edition.
C&C is moving the needle and changing minds. If you can, I could use your help getting the truth out and spreading optimism and hope: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/-learn-how-to-get-involved-
Twitter: @jchilders98
Truth Social: @jchilders98
MeWe: mewe.com/i/coffee_and_covid.
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The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
By Jeff Foust, 11-3-22
WASHINGTON — NASA has delayed the first flight of Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner commercial crew vehicle with astronauts on board, a slip that will push back the spacecraft’s first operational mission into 2024.
NASA said Nov. 3 that the Crew Flight Test (CFT) mission, with agency astronauts Barry “Butch” Wilmore and Suni Williams on board, was now scheduled for April 2023. The mission was previously planned for February.
NASA said the new date avoids a conflict with the SpaceX Crew-6 mission to the International Space Station, which is currently scheduled for launch in mid-February. “The date adjustment deconflicts visiting spacecraft traffic at the space station as NASA and Boeing work together to achieve flight readiness,” the agency stated, adding that both Starliner and its Atlas 5 rocket “remain on track for readiness in early 2023.”
However, at an Oct. 27 meeting of NASA’s Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel, members raised doubts about the readiness of the vehicle for both CFT and later operational missions.
Read the full story on Space News
By Kant Kansleme, 11-3-22
Something is up with the LGBTQ+ position of being “out and proud.” Don’t get me wrong- I am not objecting to keeping one’s sexuality stuff from public eye. In fact, the graphic discussions, parades, drag time story hours are tearing apart our country and leading young impressionable minds away from God’s plan into debauchery, depression, and death.
So when I see the Fernandina homosexual leadership returning to the closet, I take note. Take Genece Minshew for example, you may know her as a two-time and current candidate for Fernandina Beach City Commission. Normally candidates tout their work experience and positions of distinction. If anyone is going to be out and proud, it’s a candidate for public office! But here, what is Minshew’s greatest position of distinction? You can’t find it! It is hidden from her campaign literature. What is it that she is hiding and why?
Genece Minshew is President of Fernandina Pride. There, I said it. Don’t cancel me. After all, Minshew must take pride in launching Fernandina’s Gay Pride parades, the upcoming Pride youth camps, and the Coming Out of the closet events. So why doesn’t the “pride” carry over to her campaign? Anyone?… You guessed it. It’s a campaign tactic to hide one’s true colors, appear palatable, then once elected, take off the sheep’s outfit, pivot left and get “out and proud” as a matter of policy from the inside of power.
Can you see the city pivot and officially promote itself as a destination for a gay vacay stay? This would not sell well in Minshew’s stump speech. None of it sells well in North Florida. In fact, we are doing everything we can to protect our children from this ungodly encroachment in our society, let alone elect it to power. The subterfuge goes deeper and darker, however.
President Minshew’s Sponsors of Pride have also gone back into the closet too. Take the News-Leader, they were out and proud supporters of President Minshew’s organization in 2022 even when Minshew was a declared candidate for City Commission. How’s that for an independent press? Now, News-Leader has retreated to the closet. In fact, today’s survey of Fernandina Pride’s Sponsors listed on the website reveals one lone sponsor.
If you were a sexual freedom warrior seeking to help change genders and encourage homosexual identifications which one Sponsor would you want on your website while running for office? Something mainstream…something that speaks strength and pro business. You guessed it: The Chamber of Commerce….I can feel the gay-vacay-stay creeping in already…[Heads-up Chamber…]
But what happened to FB Pride’s 10+/- other Sponsors? Thanks to the Way Back Machine which saves website history, we can determine which sponsors returned to the closet in this season of Minshew’s campaigning. Here is a partial list closeted sponsors: Democratic Club of Amelia, Nassau Democratic Party, MUV Medical Marijuana Dispensary, First Love Brewery, and ta da! the Purple Sponsor…AHF.
Just who is President Minshew’s highest coveted, er, closeted Sponsor, AHF?
AHF, an AIDs advocacy group organizes gay events around the state of Florida such as Condom Day by putting on a burlesque based on West Side Story. AHF promotes Condom Day as follows:
Through a mirage of colorful fan feathers, wild and exhilarating burlesque show guaranteed to get all of you excited. But would you expect anything less with so many hot bodies in sexy corsets and strapping suspenders dancing around? This stunning burlesque show has it all!
Join us for a raunchy burlesque twist on a classic love story. Our powerhouse performers will wow you with wit and delight you with dance numbers, all while promoting a good cause. This is an International Condom Day celebration you won’t want to miss.
In conclusion, Minshew is going incognito in her campaign literature and scrubbing Pride’s website to fool voters. Look at the battle the Space Coast Pride brought to the City of Melbourne, Florida to have the city issue a permit for Drag Queen Story hour. Heads up Fernandina!
K.K.
Kant Kansleme is located in an Undisclosed Prayer Closet in Fernandina
By Jeff Childers
11-03-22
Good morning, C&C, it’s Thursday. Remember to make plans to vote on Monday (if you haven’t already voted)! In today’s roundup we look at how Professor Oster’s appalling amnesty op-ed may in fact be a narrative-shifting signal; how the CDC is jiggering the numbers in a failing effort to hide exploding excess deaths; what happens when they can’t hide it anymore; Brazil election update; Israel election update; and today’s video cartoon to make you smile.
🪖 Suzette has received a metric ton of enthusiastic submissions to help with drafting a software specification for our pandemic evidence library application. She’s getting them together for my review. Stand by for updates.
🪖 The Epoch Times quoted me in a story about gross, obscene materials in school libraries.
Activists Fight to Keep Pornographic Books in Student Libraries.
💉 Let’s start with today’s SADS update. Colorado Republican and state House Minority Leader Hugh McKean, 55, was suddenly and unexpectedly struck by the gavel of fate Sunday, when his heart attacked him and then exploded.
His autopsy reported “acute myocardial infarction,” and was stamped “died of natural causes.” McKean had no history of heart trouble that we know of.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
💉 Fully-boosted Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona tested positive for covid yesterday. That means it’s working!
Education secretary tests positive for COVID-19 trib.al/9PYvT2W
🔥 My goodness. Coffee & Covid was LIT yesterday, with 990 comments as of this morning — an all-time high. (Surely we can get ten more comments in there to push it over the top, hint, hint…)
The comments blowout was fueled by my summary of Professor Oster’s “totally misguided” Atlantic op-ed calling for pandemic amnesty. I did my best to treat her argument fairly and weigh both sides.
Now that I’ve given Emily Oster the benefit of the doubt, and handled the MERITS of her argument, we can look at an even more interesting facet of the story: what it says about the shifting narrative.
📈 It’s been over a month since I first sniffed a shifting jab safety narrative. A couple examples include that the Biden Administration sent up a narrative trial balloon saying that the government would “soon” stop paying for ‘free’ covid jabs, and the CDC then twisted its guidance dial onto the jab-status-neutral setting.
The CDC has the best, most accurate, most timely vaccine safety data in the world, it KNOWS when there’s a problem, and it knows fast, even if it won’t say so. Right now, the CDC is reporting lower-than-usual cardiac, stroke, and cancer deaths, and denying any significant excess deaths, although covid deaths are trending high, especially “unvaccinated” ones. We’ll talk about those rotten numbers shortly.
Other developed countries — countries lacking our CDC — are reporting critical levels of excess death. I’m not exaggerating. From the Telegraph UK yesterday:
If, as appears likely, the CDC is lying about the real numbers to conceal jab injuries, it could be because the agency has been captured by big pharma, or it might be to give political cover to officials who, in hindsight, maybe went a little overboard on the whole mandate thing.
Hey CDC! Remember that old chestnut, “the coverup was worse than the crime?” You should think about that. A lot.
Anyway, the point is, if the CDC has been whispering “Houston, we have a problem” to government officials for a few months now, and if we are headed toward a point where it will be impossible to deny, then it is fair to assume the political types realize they are going to have to come at least a tiny bit clean about the jab problems. But of course, ONLY AFTER THE ELECTIONS.
🔥 Which brings us back to Professor Oster’s call for amnesty, which I’m now going to reframe as a narrative shift, the first major call “to move on.” That seems to be how they’re going to try to finesse things: “The unfortunate events of the pandemic have created a lot of conflict and strife; It is time to move on.”
I sure hope the backlash to Oster’s article showed them how much work they’re going to have to do to sell that narrative. I have some evidence to support this theory. First, check out this tweet:
Randi Weingarten 🇺🇦🇺🇸💪🏿👩🎓 @rweingarten
I agree with @ProfEmilyOster on this
ProfEmilyOster @ProfEmilyOster
My latest in @TheAtlantic https://t.co/w6GIOEMhZv8:32 PM ∙ Oct 31, 202276Likes72Retweets
My, my my. The poisonous president of the largest American teachers’ union, who relentlessly advocated for child covid punishment and even helped draft the CDC’s most odious school closure guidelines during the pandemic, suddenly agrees with Professor Oster that politicians and experts should get “amnesty” for their decisions during the pandemic.
Haha, Randi locked up her tweet’s comment section. For some reason.
The Wall Street Journal’s editorial team published a counter-op-ed yesterday headlined, “Now They Want a Pandemic ‘Amnesty’.” It mainly focuses on Weingarten’s hopeful tweet, but the editors neatly coined the term “Team Shutdown,” which has a catchy ring. The WSJ’s editors don’t seem to favor amnesty, either.
Also this week, several media outlets ran “breaking stories” that the government has literally been running social media, having been given access to special online portals where they can flag specific social media accounts and individual posts for censorship:
3:30 PM ∙ Oct 31, 202224,836Likes12,099Retweets
Which social media accounts and posts? Well, the ones Professor Oster said luckily got the “right” conclusions about the pandemic “for the wrong reasons.” If only they’d been allowed a free and fair debate about it! Maybe now we wouldn’t be talking about anybody needing amnesty.
The sudden disclosure — right after Elon Musk acquired Twitter and was going figure out what really happened any minute — looks a lot like what the internet generation calls a “limited hangout.”
Wikipedia defines the term this way:
[A] limited hangout is spy jargon for a favorite and frequently used gimmick of the clandestine professionals. When their veil of secrecy is shredded and they can no longer rely on a phony cover story to misinform the public, they resort to admitting, sometimes even volunteering, some of the truth while still managing to withhold the key and damaging facts in the case. The public, however, is usually so intrigued by the new information that it never thinks to pursue the matter further. While used by the CIA and other intelligence organizations, the tactic has become popularized in the corporate and political spheres.
Finally, along the same lines, last week the Senate subcommittee investigating the Wuhan lab published its “interim report” concluding the pandemic was “more likely than not” caused by a Chinese lab-leak. Another limited hangout?
That’s a whole lot of momentum building toward some kind of disclosure and blame shifting.
Now let’s talk about the astounding work that The Ethical Skeptic has been doing lately.
📈 I’ve previously described The Ethical Skeptic (“TES”) as one of Team Reality’s heroes of the pandemic. He’s a data analyst and a fraud investigator, among other credentials, and early in the pandemic began doing independent analysis of the covid data, and later the vaccine data.
Last week, TES published a substack calling out the CDC for systematically burying bad vaccine news under the outhouse, and he described exactly how the whitecoats are doing it. TES is wicked smart, and his stuff can often be dense and difficult for non-specialists to easily understand. It takes a little work, but it’s worth it.
Using data from the CDC’s own Mortality and Morbidity Weekly Report (MMWR), TES made a very strong case that:
1) The CDC is hiding or deleting excess jab-related deaths, especially in certain flagged categories like cancer, cardiac deaths, and strokes.
2) The CDC is faking covid death figures to make it look like the unvaccinated are dying in larger numbers than the jabbed, to make it appear that the shots are actually doing something useful and not just killing everybody.
A couple months ago, the CDC “paused” its MMWR for two months for a “system upgrade.” TES presented evidence supporting a plausible theory that during the “upgrade,” the CDC re-characterized a bunch of death data, moving large numbers of American deaths out of jab-related categories into either covid deaths or a “holding” bucket, artificially making it look like deaths from cancer, heart attacks, and strokes were a lot lower than they actually are.
For example, TES walked through the data and showed exactly how:
1) The CDC re-coded excess cancer deaths, shifting them from “Cancer Multiple Causes of Death” into “Covid-19 Underlying Cause of Death,” which lowered reported cancer deaths and increased covid deaths. And now, they’ve gamed the algorithm to automatically shift a large number of new cancer deaths straight into covid.
2) The CDC also dumped a bunch of “Sudden Adult Deaths” into a temporary holding bucket that the CDC uses for undetermined deaths, lowering reported deaths from pericarditis-myocarditis-conductive heart disease. And the agency is surreptitiously continuing the shift, while the figures in the holding bucket grow and grow.
3) Finally, he discovered that the CDC is just making up altogether new “unvaccinated” covid deaths, to the extent that the CDC’s own subtotals won’t tie and are now wildly out of balance.
🔥 Without getting into the weeds, the bottom line is that TES thinks there is now way the CDC can keep this data trickery up for much longer, because the data is starting to get wonky, and the different categories are coming off the data rails. For example, with regard to cancer, TES explained:
Since the [] System Upgrade, a full 25% of all Covid-19 mortality each week has just happened to be people also dying of cancer. Such constitutes an impossibility in this important mortality account ledger, one which is analogous to the same species of mistake an embezzler might make.
Regarding heart-related deaths, TES described the “bucket” the CDC uses to ‘temporarily’ store uncategorized deaths:
[T]his bucket of deaths [has] grown by 70% since the introduction of mRNA vaccines into the US population, but as well, the CDC has decided to cease resolving these deaths to their final ICD-10 disposition. This has resulted in an estimated 35,600 abnormal clinical and lab finding pericarditis, myocarditis, and conductive disorder deaths which are not being accounted for in US Cardiac Mortality – thereby artificially depressing those ICD-10 mortality trend curves[.]
If only 18% of the deaths now parked in the temporary bucket are properly coded back into heart-related deaths, TES estimates that it will show a 22-sigma increase in cardiac mortality. That’s the statistical equivalent of twenty-two once-in-a-lifetime disasters all striking within the same calendar year.
TES estimates – using the CDC’s own data — that there are now 385,000 excess deaths potentially causally related to jabs. And that number is growing, fast.
The point is, the CDC can’t keep hiding these deaths forever and it knows it. It’s panicking. Something has to give.
Walensky’s conveniently-timed covid and Paxlovid relapse has protected her from having to answer any hard questions for the whole month before the elections.
More importantly, the politicians are well aware of this problem too. They already tried to shift the narrative once, last month, and it failed.
🔥 In early October, it looks like they tried to shift the blame for excess deaths onto the amorphous horrors of “Long Covid.” Here’s a nice representative headline, from Fortune, dated October 8th:
I could show you where all the government-approved experts also started tweeting about how SADS is caused by long covid, but it would be redundant. Most of you have seen or heard this faux narrative already. You have to admit, it was an attractive option, because there’s no test for long covid and that chimeric disease can be defined as anything you want.
After all, long covid has 200 symptoms, and counting. (And short cucumbers.)
But the death-by-long-covid narrative quickly blew up on the launch pad. Because it’s moronic.
There are a lot of reasons why this silly narrative won’t work, not least because of the skyrocketing numbers of excess deaths — only among jabbed people — but there’s a very simple defeater for their new unexplained and inexplicable theory.
It is: Why aren’t the JABS protecting people from dying by long covid?
Initially the jabs were supposed to keep us from getting covid. We covered that yesterday. Now the jabs are only supposed to keep us from dying from covid.
Not dying from ‘short covid’ or ‘long covid,’ just COVID.
They must have thought about trying to claim the jabs were only ever supposed to keep you from dying of “short covid.” But even a second-grader can break that tinfoil-thin logic. So the long-covid hypothesis became a mere stopgap, to buy time to get past the elections.
After Monday, I think they’re going to start trying to deal with the excess deaths problem, but without blaming the jabs, of course. But how?
🔥 As you well know, the CDC recently jammed the jabs onto the school vaccine schedule, thereby securing for the pharma companies the best, most comprehensive liability protection that money can buy.
But what didn’t happen next was quite interesting; the blue states did not rush en masse to add the jabs to their state school jab requirements. But why not?
What if the CDC’s frantic effort to schedule covid jabs was really just battlespace preparation for the next phase, when they would have to admit to at least SOME jab injuries?
At this point, with the long-covid narrative failing, we don’t have any hint of what kind of new narrative could possibly work. I’m starting to think they don’t know, either, which is why the default, bottom-of-the-barrel narrative of “we need to move on” is being rolled out, by captive pandemic professors and teachers’ union presidents.
It looks like it’s going to be MoveOn.Org, all over again. This is going to be a wild ride.
💉 And here is a terrific example of what I just described last Friday, where heterodox politicians can use pandemic injuries for a political platform. Controversial representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, who refused to wear a mask in Congress, has introduced HR 7308, the “Justice for Vaccine Victims Act of 2022,” a bill to investigate vaccine injuries.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene🇺🇸 @RepMTG
2:39 PM ∙ Oct 29, 2022909Likes406Retweets
Here’s what the bill’s description says it would do:
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) must terminate the COVID-19 emergency within three months of the bill’s enactment. The bill also removes, within three months of that termination, liability protections that apply to the administration or use of certain medical countermeasures (e.g., vaccines) during the public health emergency.
Removal of liability protections! Exactly! Hurrah!
Good work getting it out there, Marjorie. There’s a long way to go, but this is the right way to start. Regardless of what happens to this bill, other politicians must be encouraged to run on this platform.
💉 And the independent, citizen-led investigation into jab harms continues. Yesterday, Judicial Watch announced it has sued the Department of Health and Human Services for records on vaccine safety studies. Which no one has ever seen.
Judicial Watch ⚖️ @JudicialWatch
BREAKING: Judicial Watch filed a lawsuit against the HHS for records on COVID-19 vaccine safety studies (1/3). jwatch.usJudicial Watch Sues for Records on COVID Vaccine Safety Studies – Judicial Watch(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today it filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the U.S. Department of H…5:49 PM ∙ Nov 1, 2022429Likes146Retweets
Judicial Watch was forced to sue HHS because the agency refused to turn over the vaccine safety records voluntarily. Weird. Judicial Watch has already obtained a mountain of other jab-related data from various government agencies. These are the kind of data and documents we need to get into a centralized, searchable database.
🔥 People are really enjoying Twitter under its new management, which continues to fact-check Joe Biden, and it’s wonderfully terrific:
Haha, it’s not so much fun when you’re on the receiving end of fact-checking, is it?
🔥 It appears that conservative Benjamin Netanyahu has won the Israeli elections and will return as its next prime minister.
Netanyahu looks set to return to power in Israel after fifth election fxn.wsNetanyahu looks set to return to power in Israel after fifth electionIsrael’s fifth election in four years looks set to return long-serving prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to power. His Likud party is e…8:45 PM ∙ Nov 2, 2022693Likes97Retweets
🔥 You aren’t going to believe this, but the CIA has been accused of interfering with the recent Brazilian elections:
UK Political Chaos: Explaining the Global Palace Coup Against the UK & Other Nation States – Special Members Only Podcast via Resistance Radio https://t.co/vrPZVBcgTY10:15 AM ∙ Nov 3, 2022350Likes166Retweets
How could this happen?
Brazil’s conservative president Jair Bolsonaro, who supposedly “lost” the election this week to insane leftist Lula Da Silva, is refusing to concede the loss, amidst nationwide protests over a rigged election.
It’s a developing story, stand by.
🔥 Finally, for your delight and amusement (adult language warning):
Common Sense Radical @comnsensradical
2:35 PM ∙ Nov 1, 20221,805Likes260Retweets
Have a terrific Thursday! I’ll see you back here tomorrow with lots and lots of developing news.
C&C is moving the needle and changing minds. If you can, I could use your help getting the truth out and spreading optimism and hope: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/-learn-how-to-get-involved-
Twitter: @jchilders98
Truth Social: @jchilders98
MeWe: mewe.com/i/coffee_and_covid.
C&C Swag! www.shopcoffeeandcovid.com
Emailed Daily Newsletter: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
By National Organization for Marriage Education Fund
| The midterm elections are in less than a week. Afterwards, no matter which party wins control of the next Congress, the current crop of US Senators will return to Washington DC for a lame duck session where they will take up HR 8404, the grossly misnamed Respect For Marriage Act. This legislation would impose same-sex ‘marriage’ on every state in the nation even if state voters have explicitly voted to define marriage solely as the union of one man and one woman. Help NOM Stop HR 8404 But HR 8404 could do even more damage as it opens the door to forcing every state to accept polygamous marriages, men marrying child brides and every other perverse type of ‘marriage’ if judges or politicians in just one state legalize it there. Shockingly, there is a strong possibility that Democrats could convince at least 10 Republican Senators to go along with HR 8404. We’ve got to stop them. NOM has created this meme to help publicize just what is at stake in this battle: There are two things I am asking you to do right now to help us defeat this terrible legislation: Save this meme to your computer or phone and use it in all your communications for the next several weeks – send it to friends, put it in your email signature line, post it on social media, etc. Make an immediate donation to NOM to help us raise awareness and galvanize Republican opposition to HR 8404. We have precious little time left before the midterm elections to raise awareness about this dangerous, dastardly legislation. Please act today to help. To save the HR 8404 meme, just right click on the image and then save it to your computer or phone just as you would any other picture or add ‘use the buttons below the image to share it on social networks. NOM is leading opposition to HR 8404 but we’re in a tough fight. Already a number of Republican Senators, including several who are retiring from Congress, have indicated they may vote for this legislation. It’s imperative that we turn up the grassroots heat on every Republican Senator in order prevail. We need to raise additional money immediately. Please make a generous donation to NOM today. Thanks to some supporters, every donation received will be matched dollar-for-dollar up to a total of $100,000. ONE-TIME GIFT ⋙ $25 becomes $50 ⋙ $50 becomes $100 ⋙ $100 becomes $200 ⋙ $250 becomes $500 ⋙ $500 becomes $1,000 ⋙ $1,000 becomes $2,000 NOM is doing everything in our power to defeat HR 8404, which really should be called the DisRespect For Marriage Act because it dismisses the views of over 50 million Americans who went to the polls in three dozen states to define marriage solely as the union of one man and one woman. NOM has generated over 600,000 email messages to Senators from Americans demanding that they reject this terrible legislation, and our members have placed countless telephone calls to Senators’ offices with the same message. With just days left until the midterm elections, we need to do even more. Please send the meme we’ve developed to everyone you know, use it in your email communications and post it to all your socials. And kindly make a generous contribution to NOM so that we can reach out to more Americans to contact their Senators to demand they reject this legislation. Every donation to NOM will be 100% matched, thus, DOUBLING the impact of your gift. Thank you for stepping up at this crucial time. |
| National Organization for Marriage Education Fund 17 D Street SE, #1 | Washington, DC 20003Copyright © 2022 National Organization for Marriage Education Fund. www.NationForMarriage.org | 888.894.3604 The National Organization for Marriage Education Fund is a 501(c)(3) organization. Contributions are tax-deductible to the fullest extent of the law. |
Editor’s note: “Respect For Marriage” Act
https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/8404/text
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
Most of the $43MM going to Florida ($23.5MM)–are for JAXPORT. Most of the money is for “green projects”
From U/S. D.O.T.- Maritime Administration
President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law invests billions of dollars to modernize ports of all sizes and help cut costs for Americans
WASHINGTON – Today, the U.S. Department of Transportation announced more than $703 million to fund 41 projects in 22 states and one territory that will improve port facilities through the Maritime Administration’s Port Infrastructure Development Program. The funding, made possible by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and additional Congressional appropriations, will benefit coastal seaports, Great Lakes ports, and inland river ports, helping improve supply chain reliability through increased port capacity and resilience, more efficient operations, reduced port emissions, and new workforce opportunities. Together, these investments will help get goods to shelves faster and lower costs for American families.
Creating a stronger and more resilient supply chain for the nation has been a key focus for the President who issued an Executive Order on Supply Chains in February 2021 and stood up a Supply Chain Disruptions Task Force, co-chaired by Secretary Buttigieg in July 2021. The Administration, supported by Secretary Buttigieg and the Department of Transportation has engaged in near-term actions to address supply chain disruptions and now, with investments like this one, are working to create the infrastructure for a stronger, more resilient supply chain for the long term.
“So many of the goods we all count on, from appliances to furniture to clothes, move through our nation’s ports on their way to us,” said U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg. “Using funds from President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, this year we’re awarding record levels of funding to improve our port infrastructure, strengthen our supply chains, and help cut costs for American families.”
The Port Infrastructure Development Program (PIDP) supports efforts by ports and industry stakeholders to improve port and related freight infrastructure to meet the nation’s freight transportation needs and ensure our port infrastructure can meet anticipated growth in freight volumes. The program provides planning, capital funding, and project management assistance to improve ports’ capacity and efficiency. The PIDP provides funding to ports in both urban and rural areas for planning and capital projects. It also includes a statutory set-aside for small ports to continue to improve and expand their capacity to move freight reliably and efficiently and support local and regional economies.
More than 60 percent of the awards will be benefitting ports in historically disadvantaged communities and several of the projects will help reduce emissions at the ports through electrification. Additionally, more than $150 million in awards include a focus on electrification of port equipment to reduce emissions and improve air quality. The awards also include nearly $100 million for port projects that will advance offshore wind deployment – in support of President Biden’s bold goal of deploying 30 gigawatts of offshore wind by 2030, which is enough to power 10 million homes with clean energy, support 77,000 jobs, and spur private investment up and down the supply chain.
“President Biden’s commitment to modernizing our infrastructure – from the beginning of his Administration – has resulted in an unprecedented investment in all segments of our port infrastructure to enable us to move goods more quickly, strengthen supply chain resiliency, and reduce the climate impacts of port operations themselves,” said Maritime Administrator Ann Phillips.
Select grants include:
The JAXPORT EXPRESS Project ($23,518,000)
Jacksonville, Florida
The project includes five primary components: 1) installation of electrified refrigerated container stacks; 2) procurement of six hybrid-electric rubber-tired gantry cranes; 3) procurement of 16 battery-electric forklifts, ten battery-electric yard tractors, and seven Tier 4 diesel top picks; 4) installation of 15 high-power direct current fast charging stations and make-ready stub-outs; and 5) development of a replaceable and scalable plan for transitioning the port and local maritime industry to zero-emission technologies.
Salem Wind Port Project ($33,835,953)
Salem, Massachusetts
The project will redevelop a vacant industrial facility into a marshalling area for offshore wind (OSW) energy projects. The project includes construction of a 700-foot-long wharf and bulkhead that will be able to handle oversized and heavy cargoes and will be able to serve as a loadout and assembly location. The project also includes improvements to approximately 23 acres of adjacent uplands to create a laydown area adjacent to the loadout and assembly space.
Project Steel Wheel – Columbus Dock Expansion ($6,123,225)
Columbus, Mississippi
The project includes design, engineering, construction, and inspection of a new rail spur with approximately 10,000 linear feet of track and three transload docks that will provide direct rail access for transloading cargo between barges and railcars at the Lowndes County West Bank Port. The port does not currently have direct rail access and the new rail spur will connect the port terminal to an existing railroad line operated by Kansas City Southern (KCS).
Port of Camden Access and Infrastructure Resiliency Project ($25,000,000)
Camden, New Jersey
The project will upgrade a functionally obsolete and structurally deficient truck route to improve access to the Port of Camden from I-676 by reconstructing nearly three miles of key roadway infrastructure. Project elements include truck turning radius improvements, pavement reconstruction, resurfacing and reconstruction of curbs and sidewalks, new stormwater drainage and green infrastructure, sewer repairs, ADA ramps, traffic calming, new traffic signals and crosswalks, improved street lighting, striping, and new signage.
Cleveland-Cuyahoga County Port Authority ($27,223,711)
Cleveland, Ohio
The project consists of both development phase (planning, permitting, engineering, and design) and construction activities at the Port of Cleveland. It will modernize a 144,000-square-foot warehouse (Warehouse A); expand stormwater collection and treatment infrastructure; construct a modernized maintenance and repowering facility for terminal equipment; and install electric infrastructure to meet the power requirements of ship cold ironing and electrified cargo handling equipment.
Grays Harbor Terminal 4 Expansion & Redevelopment Project ($25,500,000)
Aberdeen, Washington
The project includes the construction of an additional 50,000 feet of rail to accommodate unit trains; railcar storage; the repurposing of a 50-acre brownfield site into a breakbulk cargo handling and laydown area; access and roadway improvements; replacement of marine terminal fendering systems; and related site improvements.
Port of Green Bay Site Development Project ($10,134,800)
Green Bay, Wisconsin
The project funds the first phase of redevelopment of a former power plant site into a new port terminal. The project includes the following components: engineering services; clearing and clean-up of the existing brownfield site; construction of new dock walls and bulkheads; dredging; placement of fill behind dock wall and bulkheads; construction of stormwater collection and treatment facilities; installation of bollards and crane pads; asphalt resurfacing; new roads and utilities; truck scales; construction of an office building; and repair and extension of a rail spur with installation of three switches.
For a full list of FY22 PIDP award recipients and to learn more about the program visit About Port Infrastructure Development Grants | MARAD (dot.gov).
Bipartisan Infrastructure Law Fact Sheet LINK
Editor’s note: This is quite a shocker. 75 years of nuclear policy is being changed by the Biden administration.
By Warner Todd Huston, Western Journal October 31, 2022 at 12:12pm
The Pentagon has announced a major change in America’s nuclear strategy: We will no longer limit the use of nuclear weapons to defense against other nuclear powers and may even consider using them for non-nuclear threats.
The new national defense strategy rejects past limits on the use of nukes, citing dual threats from China and Russia, Bloomberg reported on Thursday.
The document states that “by the 2030s the United States will, for the first time in its history face two major nuclear powers as strategic competitors and potential adversaries.” As a result, the U.S. will “maintain a very high bar for nuclear employment” but won’t rule out retaliation for non-nuclear threats to the U.S. homeland.
Read the full article in Western Journal:
https://time.com/6225745/biden-nuclear-defense-strategy-china-russia/
Also:
“…Citing burgeoning threats from China and Russia, the Defense Department said in the document released Thursday that “by the 2030s the United States will, for the first time in its history face two major nuclear powers as strategic competitors and potential adversaries.” In response, the US will “maintain a very high bar for nuclear employment” without ruling out using the weapons in retaliation to a non-nuclear strategic threat to the homeland, US forces abroad or allies. …”
Also:
By Maya Carlin, 11-2-22
As tensions flare between the U.S. and the People’s Republic of China (PRC), news outlets and analysts have emphasized topics ranging from the volatility of the South China Sea to the prospects of military takeover of Taiwan. However, one significant sector is often downplayed or ignored altogether. Beijing’s growing dominance in the global commercial maritime arena should serve as a major source of concern for the country’s geopolitical adversaries- including the United States.
China’s foothold in the maritime space includes its control of foreign ports and large production and output of shipping containers and cranes. According to data collected by the Center for Strategic and International Studies in 2020, Beijing produces 96% of the globe’s shipping containers in addition to more than 80% of the globe’s ship-to-shore cranes. Additionally, the PRC controls more shipping ports than any other nation, including seven of the 10 busiest ports across the globe. Since the large majority of the world’s goods travel via the ocean to reach their destination, Beijing’s apparent dominance in the maritime shipping sphere raises alarm bells.
Earlier this year, U.S. Congressman Carlos A. Giménez (R-FL) introduced legislation to help combat the serious national security and economic threats Chinese cranes pose. The Port Crane Security and Inspection Act of 2022 “limits the operation at U.S. ports of foreign cranes. Foreign cranes are those (1) manufactured by companies that are subject to the control or influence of a country designated as a foreign adversary, and (2) using software or other technology that connects to ports’ cyber infrastructure.”
Ship-to-shore cranes play a crucial role in the daily operations of ports. Without them, it would be impossible to load and unload large shipping containers and post-Panamax-size ships. Today, the PRC’s Shanghai Zhenhua Heavy Industries Company Limited (ZPMC) functions as the world’s largest manufacturer of cranes and large steel structures. The state-owned company is estimated to control a staggering 70% of the market. Not only does this figure represent a significant economic hinderance for America’s own maritime manufacturing sector, but Beijing’s monopoly of these cranes could pose serious cyber-security threats as well. In the event of a conflict, cranes made up with Chinese-designed software could be compromised. Considering the hostile trajectory Washington and Beijing are on, increasing maritime scrutiny seems like a no brainer.
Rep. Gimenez’s Port Crane Security and Inspection Act covers these apparent vulnerabilities and more. In addition to prohibiting the use of Chinese-made software in any crane connected to U.S. ports, the introduced bill directs the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) to inspect foreign cranes prior to operation and assess all threats posed by security vulnerabilities on existing foreign cranes.
While China’s dominance over the commercial maritime space isn’t likely to falter anytime soon, steps like the Port Crane Security and Inspection Act would help to prevent Beijing from inflicting more damage to vital U.S. economic and security interests.
From Center for Security Policy- SOURCE
Maya Carlin is an analyst at the Center for Security Policy, located in Washington D.C. She also has a M.A. in Counter-Terrorism and Homeland Security from IDC Herzliya’s Lauder School of Government in Israel.
By Jeff Childers
11-02-22
Good morning, and Happy Wednesday, C&C! Make sure you’ve blocked time to vote and have figured out who and what to vote for up and down your respective ballots. You don’t need me to tell you how important it is.
Today’s roundup includes: more celebrity SADS; CDC’s war on women continues; the U.S. is having the worst flu season in 13 years, for some reason; Supreme Court rejects mask case appeal but don’t panic; covid apology tour; and my thoughts about Professor Emily Oster’s now-infamous call for pandemic forgiveness.
💉 Celebrity chef Julie Powell, 49, author of “Julie and Julia,” after finally perfecting the recipe for material success in this life, died last Wednesday, from a sudden and unexpected heart attack.
Ironically, Ms. Powell, a rabid anti-anti-vaxxer, was celebrating unvaccinated deaths just over a year ago:
We pray Ms. Powell found peace before suddenly and unexpectedly preparing her last meal.
💉 Bengals assistant defensive coordinator Adam Zimmler got sacked yesterday, by sudden, unexpected, and unknown causes. Whatever it was, it killed him. Baffling. He was tackled on life’s 38-yard line.
🔥 The Daily Mail UK ran a story yesterday headlined, “Fury as the CDC Quietly Replaces ‘Pregnant Women’ With ‘Pregnant People’ in Flu Vaccine Advice to Be Inclusive to Trans Groups.”
It’s the kind of outrageous, clickbaitey headline that makes you say to yourself, nah, they must be exaggerating or something.
Well, apparently not.
This week the CDC cleverly outflanked women again, rewriting its flu guidelines by removing or replacing the words ‘woman,’ ‘women,’ ‘she,’ ‘her,’ and ‘mother.’
For example, there used to be a section headed, “Why should pregnant women get a flu shot?” But now it says, “Why should pregnant PEOPLE get a flu shot?” And it replaced the happy advice, “mom passes antibodies onto the developing baby during her pregnancy,” with “antibodies are passed to a developing baby during pregnancy.”
In other words, they deleted “mom,” and switched to the passive tense: “antibodies ARE passed.” Passed by whom? Who cares! It’s science! Wheeeeeeeee
Ha ha, buh-bye, ladies! Women are being carefully and methodically deleted from history, faster than the speed of science.
Sorry, girls. You need to get out of progress’ way. I know it’s hard. Try to look at it from a transvestite’s point of view. Somewhere out there is a transvestite who could get the CDC flu guidance and read that “pregnant women” should still take the flu shot. Which will CRUSH his tender transvestite feelings!
What about HIM?
So, if even ONE transvestite can’t be a “pregnant woman,” then NOBODY can be be a pregnant woman. That’s fair, right? Science, shut up.
💉 Speaking of flu, the UK Daily Mail ran a story yesterday headlined, “US is suffering ‘worst flu outbreak in 13 Years’ with nearly 1million cases and 7,000 hospitalizations already, CDC report warns.”
Oops! The Mail reported that this year’s outbreak not only arrived about six weeks earlier than normal, but on top of that, is also more severe than usual.
It’s almost like our communal immune system has been suppressed somehow. The mail cites ‘experts’ who say covid restrictions, like masks and lockdowns, have left Americans with weak immunity against the flu.
Experts also warned that seemingly mild infections will be more severe this year, after two years of lockdowns and pandemic-related restrictions have left our immune systems ill-prepared to deal with common viral infections.
Thanks experts! I mean the ones who told us to wear masks and lock down. Thanks for all the extra flu and extra-weak immune systems, morons.
Fortunately, my family and I ignored the restrictions and lived mostly normally during the pandemic, apart from home-schooling the kids so they wouldn’t have to strap on face diapers every day. So.
The Mail also noted that, despite the trillions and trillions spent buying off TikTok influencers and medical professionals to push the jabs, and despite the wild success of the safe and effective covid shots, for some reason flu vaccination rates are down this year. Unironically, the article blandly says that some experts attribute lower flu vaccine uptake to “vaccine fatigue” after repeated covid shot rollouts.
Haha, vaccine fatigue. That’s a good one. I’m going to have to remember that.
😷 There was a lot of chatter yesterday about the Supreme Court’s decision to reject an appeal of a lawsuit against the TSA mask mandate, which required useless face masking on all planes, trains, and buses, right down to every single school bus.
The media chatter about the Court’s decision was universally negative and depressing, suggesting that the Supreme Court had somehow endorsed mandatory masking or something. That’s incorrect.
The Court’s refusal to hear an appeal did not create any law or precedent. The Supreme Court usually doesn’t explain why they decline a case. In this situation, it could be the Supreme Court just thinks the issue is moot, since the TSA is not currently enforcing the mandate. Why consume scarce Court resources on a case that won’t actually change anything?
In other words, while we didn’t get any final resolution from the Court, future lawsuits remain possible, if symptoms recur. It’s fine.
🔥 This next tweet is a perfect compliment to the following story about that Atlantic op-ed now taking the country by storm. Here’s what a nice lawyer said on Twitter Monday (I blurred her name since that’s not the point):
Now, I get that there are various possible takes on this, but to ME, this is a great start. This lawyer has long-since joined Team Reality, she’s not just now waking up, but her public act of contrition is helpful, not so much for her, as much as for the people who are most angry about what happened to them over the last two years.
I’m not asking you to agree with me. Just think about that while we talk about the next story.
🔥 Let’s start with ZeroHedge’s electrifying headline yesterday: “‘You Murderous Hypocrites’: Outrage Ensues After The Atlantic Suggests ‘Amnesty’ For Pandemic Authoritarians.”
The outrage erupted following publication of an Atlantic op-ed that ran on Monday with the headline, “Let’s Declare a Pandemic Amnesty,” and the sub-headline, “We need to forgive one another for what we did and said when we were in the dark about COVID.”
The well-written, lucid, and honest op-ed’s author was Professor Emily Oster, who championed masking and lockdowns early in the pandemic, often wielding “the science” as a weapon against anyone who questioned government orthodoxy. But to her credit, the mother of young children quickly came around to arguing for school re-opening, and later un-masking, and so, at various times, was criticized by both sides.
Oster began her plea for peace by giving readers a harrowing glimpse of what life inside an elite family looks like: when hiking outdoors, she taught her kids parental ‘hand signals,’ used whenever someone approached on the trail, to politely alert her kids to firmly fasten their useless cotton face masks.
Once, Oster recalled, when a little girl got “too close” to her then-4-year-old son on a bridge, the boy screamed “SOCIAL DISTANCING!”
Oster now admits her son was “totally misguided,” which is a fancy, blame-dodging, elitist synonym for “wrong.” And it takes almost no effort at all to calculate where the 4-year-old got his totally misguided idea from.
Oster frankly admitted that outdoor transmission was “vanishingly rare,” and that her family’s cloth masks (made out of old bandanas) wouldn’t have done anything, anyway. But, she explained, the thing was: THEY DIDN’T KNOW.
That seems to be Oster’s main point. In other words, during the fog of covid uncertainty, well-intentioned folks “on both sides” advocated for and against pandemic policies like masking, lockdowns, and so forth, sometimes hotly.
The professor explained that, in the fog of war, EVERYONE was guessing, and in hindsight, some people just got lucky with their guesses. “The people who got it right, for whatever reason, may want to gloat. Those who got it wrong, for whatever reason, may feel defensive,” she wrote. “In the face of so much uncertainty, getting something right had a hefty element of luck. And, similarly, getting something wrong wasn’t a moral failing.”
Then she reached her main argument, the one that put a lit match to social media’s leaky oil refinery: “We have to put these fights aside and declare a pandemic amnesty.”
Yikes.
The reactions from many members of Team Reality were, as ZeroHedge’s headline suggested, immediate and white-hot. Many of you guys have probably already noticed the controversy, if not already dipped into the outrage pool yourselves.
The reason for the outrage, I believe, wasn’t Oster’s call for amnesty, which after all, wasn’t really asking for forgiveness, it was more like for a temporary peace. Her sin, in my view, was that she failed to address the biggest difference between what she described as the two sides, the ‘right’ side and the ‘wrong’ side.
Emily: Our side, the right side, never tried to shut your side up. Our side never tried to cancel and delete you for advocating your ‘wrong’ side. Our side never punished you for disagreeing, like by getting you fired from your job or taking you off organ transplant lists.
Emily mistakenly believes that “disagreement over policy” generated the continuing conflict. She’s totally wrong about that, and it unfortunately cratered her attempted peace deal.
The mistake that we really need to wrestle with is not that Oster and her ilk were intellectually wrong about pandemic policy. We need to deal with the sins that people — including Oster — committed against their fellow citizens who disagreed with them. It’s odd that Oster missed this critical distinction, since she began her article with that painful confession about her 4-year-old “misguidedly” yelling at a little girl.
It was the YELLING, Emily. Not the difference of opinion.
Having said all that, I agree with Emily on one point. As I wrote a couple days before she published her inflammatory op-ed, we ARE going to have to figure out how to deal with the majority of people who were wrong about pandemic restrictions. I’m talking about the majority of people who complied with the government narrative but did not cheerlead for harming those who disagreed.
See the difference? We need accountability for people who championed PUNISHMENT for those of us who turned out to be right. But people who just yelled “social distancing,” or, like the lady whose tweet I reprinted above, scolded a guy in Costo about wearing his mask, most of those people are victims of a massive government psyop campaign, too.
Just different kinds of victims.
Both Emily Oster and the lady in the tweet are now struggling with their profound embarrassment over how they mistreated individual people during the pandemic. Oster wouldn’t have started her piece talking about ridiculous hand signals and her bossy son if she weren’t feeling badly about those things.
Both Oster and the lady in the tweet eventually came around and recognized that they were wrong. And Oster is right: we DO need amnesty with THOSE folks, so that we can assemble the majority that we need to bring accountability to the smaller group of unforgivable enablers and architects of the campaign to destroy all of us who were right to resist.
That includes not just the evil pharma clowns at the top like Fauci, Collins, Bourla, and Walensky, but extends right down to local doctors and poseur scientists who sold out to big pharma and mindlessly parroted whatever they were told to say, regardless of how irrational or destructive.
At the end of the day, I think the controversy over Oster’s op-ed is a good thing. People need to vent. It’s a global conversation we need to have. Just remember, we’re going to need A LOT of those folks. It’s good to recall that many of them are victims, too.
✒️ The best refutation of Mattias Desmit’s popular theory about mass formation is that compliant people sensed, perhaps unconsciously, the danger posed by an out-of-control government, and rationally went along with the program to avoid becoming targets themselves.
In other words, they were even more terrified of what the government could do to them than they were scared of the virus. They were so terrified that they willingly lined up to be injected with a highly-questionable, unproven medication, with all its unknown and unknowable risks. Many of them — the guilty AND the innocent — are now paying dearly for that choice, in ways small, large, and darkly permanent.
I haven’t decided yet which of those two theories I favor, mass formation or rational self-interest. But I’m leaning toward people making rational, self-interested choices, maybe because my background is in economics and law, not psychology. If I’m right, Oster’s initial instinct was to protect her family from powerful, unaccountable authority by cooperating. Later, her instincts shifted to identifying that resisting the narrative protected her family better then complying.
Some of us recognized the real danger earlier than Oster. But the bottom line is, we need as many people as possible to wake up and recognize the real danger. So our rational self-interest requires that it be EASY for them to join Team Reality.
Reality isn’t an exclusive club. Just THINK about it, that’s all I’m asking.
Have a wonderful Wednesday! I’ll see you back here tomorrow for another terrific roundup.
C&C is moving the needle and changing minds. If you can, I could use your help getting the truth out and spreading optimism and hope: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/-learn-how-to-get-involved-
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The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
From State of Florida
Governor DeSantis announced the results of the 2022 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), which proved once again that keeping kids in school throughout 2020 and 2021 put Florida students well ahead of their peers.
In 2022, Florida’s 4th and 8th grade students earned the state’s highest rankings ever with a top 4 ranking in English and Math; and closed the gap at historic levels for at-risk students. Florida’s Hispanic students, black students and students with disabilities all scored in the top 10 in every category.
“We insisted on keeping schools open and guaranteed in-person learning in 2020 because we knew there would be widespread harm to our students if students were locked out,” Governor DeSantis said. “Today’s results once again prove that we made the right decision.”
By Larry Sand
11-02-22
In light of recent test scores and the proliferation of CRT, America’s future is not promising.
The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) – known as The Nation’s Report Card – “gives us a window into the state of our K-12 education system.” The results provide educators, policymakers, elected officials, and parents across the country with information regarding how much students are learning in the U.S.
The scores on the latest test taken in early 2022 – after the nation’s Covid panic subsided – were released last week, and looking in that “window” revealed some scary things. In a nutshell, the scores showed that just 33% of the nation’s fourth graders are proficient in reading and 36% are proficient in math. The eighth graders did even worse: 31% are proficient in reading, while a painful 26% showed proficiency in math.According to the report’s authors, “the national average score declines in mathematics for fourth- and eighth-graders were the largest ever recorded in that subject.”
The brightest spot in a sea of ugly took place in Catholic schools, most of which shut down very briefly, if at all, in 2020 and 2021. Scores in these schools were 17 points higher than the national public school average. In eighth-grade reading, the average score for Catholic school students was 20 points higher than the national public-school average, or about two grade levels ahead.
While it is clear that the test score plunge was affected by the pandemic-related shutdowns, there are some blurry areas. For example, not every school in a given state closed when Covid hysteria gripped the nation, so state-by-state comparisons don’t necessarily yield conclusive data on the effect of online learning.
There is a cohort that is trying to dismiss the shutdowns as a cause for the terrible scores out of hand, however. Typical is Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson who writes “all the bitter back-and-forth between red and blue states about how quickly to reopen schools during the covid-19 pandemic was nothing but political theater, as far as test scores are concerned. Student performance suffered across the board, and it could take years to make up the ground we’ve lost.”
Not surprisingly, teacher union president Randi Weingarten, one of the shutdown’s prime perpetrators, sent out a tweet quoting from a part of Robinson’s piece. Notably, neither Robinson nor Weingarten nor any of the other naysayers ever bothered to explain why kids in Catholic schools fared so much better on the test.
But the deniers are actually on to something, in the sense that there’s more to the problem than shuttered schools. In a RealClear Education piece, penned before the latest NAEP results were announced, scholars Lance Izumi and Wenyuan Wu wrote, “Why Are Student Test Scores Plunging? Look at Politicized Education.”
The authors disclose that many students report increased ideological indoctrination in the classroom, and that is leading to weaker standards and lower expectations. “One California student reported that a teacher at his school told the class that perfectionism and striving for perfection was part of white supremacy culture. Another one of his teachers ‘made it seem like it was bad to have a good work ethic or to be supportive of meritocracy.’ In his school, grades were inflated, low grades were eliminated, late assignments were allowed, and multiple retakes of exams were permitted. Rigor simply disappeared.”
Additionally, the teaching of Critical Race Theory and other forms of radical subject matter don’t leave as much time for traditional concepts such as reading and math. Many on the left, of course, downplay the widespread nature of CRT in the classroom, more or less subjugating it to the “vast right-wing conspiracy” file. But two policy analysts at the Manhattan Institute show that CRT is most definitely being taught. Zach Goldberg and Eric Kaufman queried 18- to 20-year-old respondents(82.4 percent of whom attend public schools)“whether they had ever been taught in class or heard about from an adult at school each of six concepts—four of which are central to critical race theory.”
For CRT-related concepts, 62 percent reported “either being taught in class or hearing from an adult in school that ‘America is a systemically racist country’” and 69 percent said they were taught or heard that “white people have white privilege.”Also, 57 percent asserted that they learned that “white people have unconscious biases that negatively affect non-white people,”while67 percent said they were exposed to the notion that “America is built on stolen land.”Additionally, 53 percent say they learned that “America is a patriarchal society.”And just for good measure, 51 percent disclose that they were taught or heard that “gender is an identity choice” regardless of biological sex.
Teacher hiring is also affected by the radical agenda. A blatant example of the new racialism came in March when the Minneapolis Public School system adopted a race-based layoff provision which stipulates that white teachers will be laid off or reassigned before “educators of color” in the event Minneapolis Public Schools needs to reduce staff.
Teacher training certainly has not escaped the CRT incursion. The Pacific Educational Group, a San Francisco-based consulting firm founded in 1992, believes that “systemic racism is the most devastating factor contributing to the diminished capacity of all people, and especially people of color and indigenous people, to achieve at the highest levels.”
The father of a high school student in Pennsylvania helped to expose this training scam by suing his local school district. After wrangling over confidentiality issues, it was revealed that documents explicitly citing critical race theory were emailed from 2019 to 2021 by Pacific Educational Group to district administrators in advance of various training seminars. A rubric dated Feb. 4, 2020, encourages participants to “Deconstruct the Presence and role of Whiteness” in their lives.
A March 17, 2020 presentation lists “aspects and assumptions of white culture” in the U.S. “Win at all costs,” “wealth = worth,” and “don’t show emotion” are front and center. “Planning for future” is also considered a blight that infects white culture.
The presentation also spells out “5 tenets of critical race theory” to “better understand the critical intersection of race and schooling.” One tenet, the “permanence of racism,” is the idea that “racism is endemic to all our institutions, systems and structures” in the U.S.
Clearly not every teacher takes this ideology into the classroom, but as the Manhattan Institute study shows, many do.
Another clue that it’s not just the shutdowns that have affected America’s youth is the sinking ACT scores. These tests are used for college admission, and the national average ACT score for the class of 2022 fell to 19.8 out of 36, down from 20.3 in 2021, according to data released this month by the nonprofit that administers the test. Looking through a longer lens, the news gets worse – this is the fifth consecutive year that ACT scores have declined. Hence, things were deteriorating long before the Covid-related lockdowns came to be. Also, the average score is now lower than it’s been since 1991.
So yes, the pandemic related shutdowns did damage but they are now in the rearview. The CRT trend continues unabated, however. Even sadder, a poll administered by researchers at USC in August-September reveals that almost half of all Americans have never heard of CRT or say they have heard of it, but don’t know anything about it.
While many parents are awakening to the reality that they must find out exactly what their kids are being taught, and abandoning their local public school if necessary, too many are still unaware that their school might be somewhat less than beneficial for their children. For the good of their kids and the future of the country, more parents need to get more involved in education matters soon. Very soon.
Larry Sand, a former classroom teacher, is the president of the non-profit California Teachers Empowerment Network – a non-partisan, non-political group dedicated to providing teachers and the general public with reliable and balanced information about professional affiliations and positions on educational issues.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
By Jeff Childers
11-02-22
Seven more days… Welcome to November, C&C, and good morning! Today’s awesome roundup includes: SADS strikes again; negative vaccine efficacy; I debunk Pfizer’s new claim it never tested for preventing infections; CDC director Walensky gets covid, again, after 5 jabs and paxlovid; Brazil in massive protests after election results; and True the Vote activists spend a day in jail after refusing to turn over their whistleblower.
💉 Please keep videogame studio director J. E. Sawyer in your thoughts today, as he’s struggling with baffling, sudden and unexpected blood clots throughout his body. The good news though is that, since he’s alway been a cheerleader for the jabs, he’s protected from covid. Probably.
Sawyer’d never even HAD a blood clot before. Now he has oodles of them.
Fortunately, Mr. Sawyer says he expects to make a complete recovery with the help of blood thinners.
💉 Pro golfer Luis Vega, 26, recently woke up paralyzed from the waist down, recently had a sudden and unexpected blood clot that formed along his spine, pressing on his nerves.
His Mount Sinai doctors are baffled. Vega’s medical team performed every test they could think of to find the cause of Vega’s blood clot. Despite their best efforts, they found no obvious or underlying cause for the condition. “He had a remarkably rare diagnosis and had no risk factors at all for it to happen, the rarest of the rare,” said his doctor.
Fortunately, Vega’s emergency spinal surgery seems to have gone well and he’s back to playing golf.
💉 Doctor Lauren Gilstrap, 38, a cardiac expert, died suddenly and unexpectedly last week. No cause of death has been released. Lauren worked for Dartmouth-Hitchcock Health, which mandated covid shots in 2021, for safety.
Dartmouth-Hitchcock Heart and Vascular Center @DHHeartVascular
6:11 PM ∙ Oct 24, 20221,167Likes108Retweets
💉 CTV News ran a story yesterday headlined, “EU Regulator Recommends Adding Heavy Periods to Side Effects of mRNA Covid Shots.”
The European Medicines Agency defined “heavy periods” as bleeding characterized by increased volume and/or duration that interferes with the quality of life. At this point, the EMA allows there is at least a “reasonable possibility” that heavy periods are causally associated with the mRNA vaccines.
It’s possible. Who knows?
This is only a year late. But remember, and repeat after me, the CDC promises that the shots have no adverse effect — zero, zilch, nada — on fertility. You can take that to the bank.*
(* Only approved digital currencies allowed.)
💉 Panic-plagued CDC Director Rochelle Walensky, quintuple jabbed, infected by covid 10 days ago, on Paxlovid, can’t get a break. She now has symptomatic covid, AGAIN.
Pfizer says “covid rebound” can, unfortunately, happen in a very small number, 1-2% of cases.
Bergen Review Media @thebergenreview
Fauci says he is experiencing ‘rebound’ of COVID symptoms after Paxlovid treatment buff.lyFauci says he is experiencing ‘rebound’ of COVID symptoms after Paxlovid treatmentAnthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious diseases doctor, said he is experiencing a rebound of COVID-19 symptoms after taking Pfizer’…6:22 PM ∙ Oct 31, 2022
George Hatcher Sr. @GeorgeHatcher
Biden tests positive again for coronavirus after Paxlovid ‘rebound’ washingtonpost.comBiden tests positive again for coronavirus after Paxlovid ‘rebound’The president’s symptoms haven’t reemerged and “continues to feel quite well,” according to his doctor….4:30 AM ∙ Oct 26, 20221Like1Retweet
Dr. skippy haha for medicare for all, Esq. @shvintage
@FinchTH Yes Jill Biden also experienced the Paxlovid rebound – npr.orgFirst lady Jill Biden tests positive for COVID-19 in rebound caseThe first lady first tested positive on Aug. 16 and she remained in isolation for five days, undergoing a course of Paxlovid treatment….4:32 PM ∙ Oct 31, 2022
It’s weird that they all got covid again so fast, given that it only happens 1-2% of the time.
Some people wonder why Walensky was even taking Paxlovid, because she’s not in any high-risk group for whom the drug is intended. It’s no mystery to me; early in the pandemic she said she was plagued with “unshakeable feelings of imminent doom.” She’s got a terrible, untreated anxiety disorder, and she’s running the most influential health agency in the world.
Makes sense. Especially after seeing that Puppy character. Walensky’s nowhere close to the worst we could’ve done.
💉 Ever since Pfizer’s executive recently and infamously claimed that the vaccine maker never tested its shots for efficacy at preventing covid-19 infections, because of the “speed of science” or something, I’ve been wanting to do a deeper dive on that questionable premise. Yesterday I finally got the opportunity.
The Ethical Skeptic, an independent data analyst collecting and charting covid data since the beginning of the pandemic, updated a chart that I reported on a couple weeks ago. Then, he’d concluded that new covid infections were preferring recently-jabbed folks 4:1, even after adjusting for relative populations and testing frequency.
But now, just two weeks later, covid’s preference for recently-jabbed folks appears to have nearly doubled, to 7:1.
October 18:
October 31:
The good news is that the recently-jabbed are the very smallest group. The repeat jabbers seem to be real gluttons for punishment, not only enduring the “transient” side effects from the shots, but also voluntarily encountering the highest risk for covid infection.
When a vaccine makes it more likely that you’ll catch the targeted disease, that’s called “negative efficacy,” which, apart from killing you with blood clots and strokes, is about the LAST thing you want your vaccine to do.
I mean, stopping you getting sick is the vaccine’s ONLY JOB.
But don’t complain! Pfizer recently told the European Union’s commission that it was moving at the speed of science and NEVER tested the shots to see if they’d prevent infections. On purpose. Nor did they test to see if the shots would reduce hospitalizations or deaths. They claimed they only tested whether the shots produced certain antibodies. So it’s your own fault if you thought the shots did something else like stopping infections.
Or, is it?
While I had the kids out for Halloween last night wearing my C&C t-shirt, I ran into a long-time C&C fan who’d been reading the blog since it was just a Facebook post. He even remembered the local “experts,” who used to plague the comments with smart aleck quips like “you can take your medical advice from a lawyer if you want to.”
It true, I’m “just” a lawyer. I’m not a doctor or a vaccine scientist. But, as a lawyer, I know how to search for source documents, and I went looking to see if I could find how Pfizer described the original clinical trials.
I might need some help from some of our C&C team who have the relevant expertise. But Pfizer’s description of its Phase 2 and 3 clinical trials looks to me to be aimed at testing for REDUCED INFECTIONS:
Nowhere in the clinical trial description does it mention testing for reducing severity of the disease. I defy you to find it.
Again, since I’m “only” a lawyer, I went looking for what the subject-matter experts thought the language from Pfizer’s clinical trials meant.
On December 17, 2020, the World Economic Forum triumphantly reported a story headlined, “The Results From Pfizer’s Vaccine Trial and What They Tell Us.” That headline seemed like the article might help interpret Pfizer’s results.
Here’s how the WEF’s vaccine experts summarized the trial results:
There it is! I knew I wasn’t crazy. WEF’s experts calculated the so-called “95% efficacy” by dividing the number of uninfected people by the total trial group. We heard a lot about that 95% efficacy, remember? It was about infections, not antibodies.
But, maybe it was just the WEF’s vaccine experts who read Pfizer’s results this way? Nope. Everybody did. In a November 2020 article titled “What do the efficacy results of Pfizer’s clinical trial mean?”, Medeen’s Health-Desk, billed as “public health experts in service of journalism,” described Pfizer’s trials like this:
Link.
These citations also blow away the pro-vaxxers’ condescending argument that “Covid-19,” the illness, is materially different from “SARS-CoV-2,” which is the virus that CAUSES Covid-19. But the Pfizer trial said it was testing for efficacy against “confirmed Covid-19,” the illness, not SARS-CoV-2, the virus.
In other words, they DID test for “confirmed Covid-19.” And they DID claim that their dumb shot was “95% effective” at preventing a Covid-19 infection.
PREVENTING. As the public health experts at Medeen explained, Pfizer said the shots made people “much less likely to contract Covid-19.”
But the actual real-world data appears to show the EXACT OPPOSITE of what Pfizer claimed its carefully controlled clinical trials proved. After a short, misleading burst of immunity, the shots’ efficacy seems to ultimately go negative. People appear to be much MORE LIKELY to contract Covid-19, if they get the shots.
Oh, if only Pfizer had moved at the speed of medicine instead of moving at the speed of science, and done NORMAL vaccine trials that lasted longer than 90 days. Maybe we could have figured this unhappy contretemps out, before people got hurt?
But now, negative efficacy appears to be showing up INSIDE three months. The group that Ethical Skeptic calculated was second-most-likely to get infected are people who got their last shot within 90 days.
You’d have to be pretty crazy to take the shot now.
Don’t come arguing that the shots might give you an infection but “at least” you won’t get sick, or arguing that it’s mostly unvaccinated people dying from covid. There’s not one single randomized controlled trial showing any of that. I don’t care what Pensyltucky’s Covid Dashboard shows. We have no idea how they’re identifying “unvaccinated.” That’s just “uncontrolled, non-randomized” data.
You’d think these ‘experts’ would understand the difference between a legitimate scientific trial and some data reported by bureaucrats. Oh, if you give them 1,000 studies showing ivermectin’s efficacy, they can microscopically identify the failures of each and every one. But talk about covid efficacy, and suddenly, study standards are completely irrelevant.
It’s almost like the experts only believe what they WANT to believe.
🔥 Brazil is lit right now, after conservative presidential candidate Jair Bolsonaro lost the election to committed socialist Lula da Silva yesterday.
Bolsonaro won every part of the country except one: the Nordeste region, where the gangs and drug cartels operate. In one sense, the gangs and drug cartels just picked Brazil’s next president.
Around mid-day yesterday, Joe Biden tweeted that the Brazilian election was “free and fair.” So that tells you a lot right there.
The Brazilian people seem skeptical of the results for a variety of reasons, and are now engaged in widespread protests.
5:24 AM ∙ Nov 1, 2022700Likes220Retweets
5:42 AM ∙ Nov 1, 2022759Likes214Retweets
Last year, in 2021, Brazilians protested demanding an “auditable vote,” because they feared there would be cheating this year (in 2022). But the Brazilian Supreme Court blocked an auditable vote.
12:55 AM ∙ Aug 2, 20211,594Likes661Retweets
We’re going to learn a lot from how this Brazil situation plays out.
🔥 Catherine Engelbrecht and Gregg Phillips, the True the Vote activists who exposed Konnech’s election software’s data privacy problems, have been ordered by Federal Judge Kenneth Hoyt to spend the day in jail, for contempt, for failing to disclose the name of the whistleblower who originally put them onto the fact that the Chinese-connected software was in use in a large number of U.S. voting precincts.
George Webb – Investigative Journalist @RealGeorgeWebb1
2:41 PM ∙ Oct 31, 2022768Likes496Retweets
The judge will probably bring them back into court in a day or two and ask them again. It’s convenient for everybody, because the jail is only one floor below the federal court. Meanwhile the pair’s lawyers will almost certainly be working to get higher court review.
Phillips and Engelbrecht are defendants in Konnech’s civil defamation action. Konnech argues they can’t prove the tech company is controlled by China, so they shouldn’t have gone around telling everybody Konnech was a Chinese plant, and trying to convince supervisors of elections around the country to dump the company’s software. Oh. And, anti-China racism.
According to the Texas Tribune’s article on their arrest, Phillips and Engelbrecht have repeatedly claimed Konnech president Eugene Yu was a Chinese communist party secret agent. Yu was recently arrested in Los Angeles for a criminal privacy violation of his software contract with the county.
It seems obvious that the fact of Yu’s arrest should slow Judge Hoyt’s roll a little, but the old-school judge appears determined to enforce his courtroom rules. Unless their lawyers can get the Fifth Circuit to stop Judge Hoyt, Phillips and Engelbrecht will probably have to choose between revealing their confidential source or staying in jail for a while.
Nobody said this was going to be easy! I’m monitoring the situation, and if there is something we can do to help, I’ll let you know.
Have a terrific Tuesday and I’ll see you back here tomorrow.
C&C is moving the needle and changing minds. If you can, I could use your help getting the truth out and spreading optimism and hope: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/-learn-how-to-get-involved-
Twitter: @jchilders98
Truth Social: @jchilders98
MeWe: mewe.com/i/coffee_and_covid.
C&C Swag! www.shopcoffeeandcovid.com
Emailed Daily Newsletter: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
By Wes Wolfe
It’s not entirely a surprise in a district drawn for a Republican advantage, but Sen. Aaron Bean is looking at a healthy lead in the 4th Congressional District going into Election Day against Democratic nominee LaShonda “L.J.” Holloway, according to recent polling by the Public Opinion Research Lab (PORL) at the University of North Florida (UNF).
Bean came in with 50% among respondents, while 38% chose Holloway and 12% said they didn’t know, or refused to answer.
Read more in Florida Politics
By Art Moore, WND News Center- SOURCE, October 31, 2022
Editor’s note: They were released November 7 on appeal.
True the Vote’s investigation of alleged ballot harvesting in the 2020 election board in featured in the film “2000 Mules” along with board member and investigator Gregg Phillips and founder Catherine Engelbrecht.
U.S. Marshals in Houston, Texas, on Monday arrested True the Vote founder Catherine Engelbrecht and board member Gregg Phillips for contempt of court in a defamation case against them after they refused a federal judge’s order to release the name of a confidential source.
The civil lawsuit was filed in September by Eugene Yu, the CEO of the Michigan-based, election software company Konnech. Yu alleges True the Vote made baseless and racist accusations that forced him and his family to flee their home in fear for their lives and damaged his company’s business.
At the center of Yu’s complaint is True the Vote’s claim that Konnech was storing U.S. election information on serves in China through its software app PollChief, posing a national security risk. However, only weeks after the defamation suit was filed, Yu was arrested and charged by Los Angeles County prosecutors for allegedly storing election worker data on servers in China. The prosecutors called it “probably the largest data breach in United States history.”
The defamation suit has continued, nevertheless, and the jailing of Engelbrecht and Phillips came after a hearing Thursday in which federal Judge Kenneth Hoyt, a Ronald Reagan appointee, found them in contempt of court for refusing to hand over the name and contact information of a key source who was at a Dallas hotel meeting in January 2021. True the Vote says that at that meeting it received evidence Konnech was improperly storing the personal data of U.S. poll workers on servers in China.
At an Oct. 6 hearing, True the Vote attorney Brock Akers told Judge Hoyt his clients “don’t want to release the name of this individual.” The attorney described the source as an “analyst” who was in “danger from forces of the Chinese Communist party.”
True the Vote – whose investigation of ballot trafficking was featured in the film “2000 Mules” – has characterized the lawsuit as an effort to try to silence the organization. Konnech obtained an ex-parte temporary restraining order in secret, True the Vote said, so the election integrity group would have no opportunity to contest it.
Phillips, in a message on Truth Social, said he and Engelbrecht “were held in contempt of court because we refused to burn a confidential informant or our researchers.”
“We will go to jail Monday unless we comply.”
In the criminal case against Yu by Los Angeles County prosecutors, the complaint cites as evidence a message from a Konnech project manager through a Chinese-owned messaging app that said “any employee for Chinese contractors working on PollChief software had ‘superadministration’ privileges for all PollChief clients.”
Sam Faddis, former CIA officer, put that statement in perspective in a Substack post: “An individual with super administration access to a system can do effectively anything inside that system. He or she can delete data, steal data, alter data, change programming, etc.”
In August, True the Vote disclosed its Konnech investigation at an invitation-only event in the Phoenix area. Engelbrecht and Phillips said their team had notified the FBI, and the agents with whom they communicated were alarmed by the potential national security implications.
Later, however, after working together on a “counter-intelligence operation,” Engelbrecht and Phillips said the FBI turned against them. It was then that the True the Vote investigators decided to make their findings public and seek the help of independent researchers.
Yu’s arrest, Oct. 4, came one day after the New York Times published a story mocking True the Vote as “election deniers” for claiming Konnech was storing personal information about poll workers on servers in China, posing a serious security risk.
Alluding to the New York Times, among others, True the Vote said in a statement after Yu’s arrest that Konnech “was assisted by many reporters who unblinkingly accepted their now discredited claims as fact, and simply repeated them.”
“Election integrity should not be a partisan issue, nor should media try to suppress all conversation about it in a way that benefits one party,” said Engelbrecht.
“We will continue to report evidence of threats to our election process,” she continued, “and work with law enforcement to ensure our elections are a secure space for all American voters.”
Republished with permission of WND- SOURCE
By Jeff Childers
10-31-22
Good morning and Happy Halloween, C&C! I’m pouring an extra cup this morning, since my late-night underwear hammer-wrestling session ran long. In today’s spooky roundup: the NIH starts testing Paxlovid for long covid; new Swedish study finds lots of subclinical cardiac damage after jabs; new study finds jab spike in shingles blisters; WEF says you should own no car and be happy; journal editor resigns after deaths threats from publishing study critical of jabs; and Joe Biden has a great suggestion for coping with inflation.
🪖 Okay, dammit, I guess we’ll just have to do this ourselves. Referring to Friday’s post, the first step toward building our “hub” platform for documenting covid crimes and evidence will be to draft a ‘specification’ describing how we want the web and mobile app to work. Then we’ll use the specification so that the software designers. If you have strong experience writing software specifications, and want to help, email Suzette at my office: suzette.witt at smartbizlaw.com.
If you’re a software designer and really want to help, you could send in your thoughts, database designs, or even screen mockups based on what I described on Friday, to help build the specification.
🎃 Reuters ran an eerie story Friday headlined, “U.S. Government To Test Pfizer’s Paxlovid for Long Covid.”
One of the most vexing things about “long covid” is how hard it is to even diagnose the darn thing. Reuters called long covid a “complex medical condition” involving “more than 200 symptoms ranging from exhaustion and cognitive impairment to pain, fever and heart palpitations that can last for months and even years following” covid infection.
Two hundred symptoms! That’s a lot. And some of them are pretty hair-raising. One alarming Daily Mail UK article that I covered a few months back reported long covid can shrink your cucumber. So. Long covid, short cucumber.
Even worse, they still don’t know exactly what causes long covid, or how to test for it. They’re baffled. Even though they knew EVERYTHING THERE WAS about the novel coronavirus and whipped up a brand-new vaccine at the speed of science, it’s taking time to figure this long covid thing out. Reuters says “a leading theory” is that “fragments of the virus persist in the tissues,” somehow.
‘Fragments’ could be any part of the virus, who knows. Like the spike protein, to pick a random example. Those fragments somehow ‘persist’, just like they were secured in lipid nanoparticles or something, or maybe they somehow got into the ‘tissues’ — like cells — are are manufacturing the ‘fragments’ — spike protein — using, oh, I don’t know, mRNA or something.
I’m just spitballing here. We simply don’t know.
Reuters says the NIH got ahold of a BILLION DOLLARS to study long covid, and so — OF COURSE — in a double-blinded, completely-unbiased selection process, they studiously and without ANY outside influence whatsoever picked PFIZER as the lucky winner! So they will study Pfizer’s unapproved Paxlovid drug, to see if that one might help with long covid.
You never know!
Look, I know it all looks very sus and shady, but I think it’s great. After all, Paxlovid has been PROVEN to work; it works super well for people infected with covid. I mean, hasn’t it? Okay, technically, there aren’t any independent studies showing efficacy or anything, and it’s true Pfizer has never run the clinical trials needed for Paxlovid’s non-emergency approval, and granted there’re tons of anecdotal reports that folks got covid TWICE after taking it, and of course new studies show it can cause fatal blood clots, but APART FROM THAT it works terrific!
Well. Probably.
Anyway, when — oops! I mean “if,” of course — IF the NIH finds Paxlovid works on long covid, then twice-lucky Pfizer will strike it rich with ANOTHER multi-billion-dollar government sole-source purchase order buying up a drug that nobody’s going to take, except of course people who probably should see a shrink rather than the pharmacist.
🎃 A blockbuster Swedish study presented at a recent European medical conference was titled “Significant incidence of myocarditis after 3rd dose of anti-COVID 19 messenger RNA vaccine” (translated).
The study’s authors summarized its four main points:
* Before this study, there were no prospective data on myocardial lesions after vaccination with an mRNA vaccine. Only the most severe myocarditis hospitalized cases have been reported, mostly affecting men under the age of 18.
* The authors found the actual incidence of post-vaccine myocardial lesions occurred in a whopping 2.8% of all participants, way more than the statistically-insignificant 0.0035% of myocarditis claimed in other retrospective studies.
* The myocardial lesions affected women (3.7%) more than men (0.8%) — the reverse of what has been described in previous studies.
* Therefore, the authors concluded, repeated doses of the vaccine should taken only with great caution, due to possible repeated myocardial lesions, and their effects on possible future cardiovascular complications.
Whereas ‘myocarditis’ merely refers generally to inflammation of the heart muscle, the Swedish researchers looked specifically for permanent cardiac damage in the form of scarring or ‘myocardial lesions’. They detected the lesions by measuring vaccine recipients’ troponin levels before and after each jab (and later compared their results to available statistics on admissions for chest pain).
The results point to what has been long-suspected: that a lot of jab takers have ‘subclinical’ heart damage, which isn’t acute enough to prompt them into the hospital, or to go see their doctor, but nevertheless will lower their life expectancies, maybe dramatically.
And this is just ONE jab side effect out of a long-list of observed problems, like pirate syndrome (blinking one eye). Okay, I made that name up, but I think it’s pretty descriptive.
We’ve seen lots of other problems besides pirate syndrome, too. Like, shingles.
🎃 Researchers are finally starting to get the idea about where all these new epidemics might be coming from. An August study about post-jab shingles was titled “Persistent varicella zoster virus infection following mRNA
COVID-19 vaccination was associated with the presence of encoded spike protein in the lesion.”
The scientists took a look at a poor guy who got a terribly painful case of shingles lasting for more than three months — after he got his safe and effective mRNA jab. So the researchers took skin samples from his shingles blisters and tested them. For spike. And guess what?
They found that the poor guy’s shingles blisters were LOADED with spike protein. And not just ANY spike. Specifically the jab spike. Or, as the researchers put it: “Strikingly, the vaccine-encoded spike protein of the COVID-19 virus was expressed in the vesicular keratinocytes and endothelial cells in the dermis.”
In other words, they found jab-encoded spike in his SKIN. Right where it isn’t supposed to be. Remember: they PROMISED that it would stay right in the injection site, where it would gently teach the body to make outdated antibodies, and then completely vanish within a few hours after it had done its job.
Ha. Wrong again. They need to talk to THIS poor sucker.
The researchers concluded, “Further vigilance of the vaccine side effect and investigation for the role of [spike protein] is warranted.”
Now that there’s a test for jab-specific spike, the cat is out of the blood bag. Test it all!
🎃 You might have missed a sinister Fox story a couple months back headlined “World Economic Forum Calls to Reduce Private Vehicles by Eliminating ‘Ownership’.” Not that anyone cares what the creepy WEFfers think at this point, but the story highlights the magnificent absurdity of the times we are living in.
Here’s how their logic works. According to the article, it’s not that they WANT to take our cars away, per se. They want us all to use ELECTRIC cars, to heroically rescue the planet from the unspeakable horror of climate change. But scientists say there’s not enough lithium on the planet to build all the car batteries we’d need to replace everyone’s gas-fueled cars.
To the WEF, that’s a problem. For normal people whose brains function within tolerable sanity limits, it’s no problem at all. We say, let hobbyists and futurists and high-tech car fans buy the electric cars, and leave the rest of us and our gas and diesel vehicles alone.
But since nobody likes its retarded ideas, the WEF wants to MANDATE electric cars. In other words, its widdle feewings are hurt and it wants big-state daddy to MAKE us play its demented games, like … car sharing!
According to Fox, the WEF argued that the average vehicle in England is driven “just 4% of the time.” That is a problem to the WEF, which sees everything — including humans — as inefficiently-utilized resources. What the WEF geniuses fail to calculate is that, the more you drive a car, the faster it wears out. Even kids understand that.
But for the WEF, it’s just buzzword salad and facile business slogans like ‘things I learned in kindergarten!’ Now you see where they were always going with that stupid book. If kindergartners were so smart, they’d be running things. Wait. Maybe that’s the WEF’s problem.
Anyway, while the elites will keep driving their fleets of bulletproof luxury humvees, you’ll have to share a bunch of crappy electric cars with random strangers who have no incentive to keep the vehicles clean or in good working order. These ‘shared cars’ are going to smell funkier than a heavily-used rental car, except probably worse.
And since they’ve abandoned all rational incentives in favor of full-on mandates, they’ll have to paste on law after law, to prop up their stupid car-sharing programs and make them palatable, until we get to the point that it’ll be the death penalty for losing a french fry down the crack between the seat and the center console.
And don’t even get me started on how they can cut off your shared electric car whenever they want. You won’t even know where it is, or who’s driving it, never mind what you might have said wrong on Facebook to make it refuse to come pick you up.
So I say, No Thank You. The WEF can keep the shareable cars. Look, I love people and stuff, but I want my OWN. I don’t WANT to share my car with other people, especially people who might catch monkeypox. In the car. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but there’s a LOT wrong with that.
🎃 The editor of the scientific journal ‘Food and Chemical Toxicology’ has resigned, after receiving death threats for publishing an April 2022 study titled, “Innate immune suppression by SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccinations: The role of G-quadruplexes, exosomes, and MicroRNAs.”
The study included a handy chart showing how the wide array of side effects that we’re seeing can all come from the same mRNA injection:
In his resignation letter, the editor explained, “I do not regret having published the Review. Since then it has been a headache for me. My name has been object of the harshest criticism including strong language in Internet. I have received e-mails of activists pro-vaccination requesting the immediate retraction of the paper.”
Who are these crazy people? Who is such a fan of mRNA medicines that they get so enraged at a mildly critical and highly-technical conclusion in a bland scientific article in a random journal? So furious that they figure out who the editor is, find his personal email address, and threaten his and his family’s lives?
Does that seem right to you? That people are SO emotionally invested in mRNA medicine that they can’t stand the thought that anyone, anywhere, disagrees with them? And feel so powerfully emotional about it that they send people death threats? About an iffy, hastily-made medicine for a cold-like virus?
People need to chill out. The mRNA vaccines aren’t like sports teams to be “loyal” to. They’re not celebrities to fall in love with. They’re poorly-designed, for-profit drugs that are injuring a lot of folks, to the point that it’s become nearly undeniable. Mark my words, we’re about ten seconds away from hearing corporate media echoing, “all drugs have side effects.”
Science! Shut up! Or else.
🔥 Biden has a simple and elegant proposal for Americans suffering from runaway inflation: Just buy a cheaper brand, dummy.
12:28 AM ∙ Oct 28, 20225,915Likes2,459Retweets
See, that’s why Biden makes the big bucks! For coming up with terrific ideas like that one, ideas you could never have thought of by yourself, not in a million years.
You should be thanking him.
Have a magnificent Monday! I’ll see you guys back here tomorrow for more.
C&C is moving the needle and changing minds. If you can, I could use your help getting the truth out and spreading optimism and hope: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/-learn-how-to-get-involved-
Twitter: @jchilders98
Truth Social: @jchilders98
MeWe: mewe.com/i/coffee_and_covid.
C&C Swag! www.shopcoffeeandcovid.com
Emailed Daily Newsletter: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
By KEN MORIYASU, Nikkei Asia diplomatic correspondent, October 20, 2022 16:23 JST
TOKYO — Once submerged, a nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine typically remains under water for 70 days. Virtually undetectable, the Ohio-class SSBN is the stealthiest submarine in the U.S. Navy fleet.
Unlike the Los Angeles-class or Virginia-class nuclear-powered fast attack submarines that carry conventional weapons and can make port visits around the world, nuclear-missile equipped SSBNs typically do not make public appearances. In the rare case that they do, it is either in U.S. waters or in the ports of America’s top ally, the U.K.
But on Thursday morning, Asia time, the U.S. Central Command tweeted that its commander, Gen. Michael Kurilla, had visited the Ohio-class ballistic missile submarine USS West Virginia (SSBN 736) at an undisclosed location in international waters in the Arabian Sea.
The unprecedented move in the Indian Ocean region, roughly equidistant from Moscow and Beijing, had analysts contemplating who the signaling was intended for and what the message was.
The timing comes as China holds a weeklong national congress of the Chinese Communist Party, where President Xi Jinping is expected to be given an unprecedented third term as leader. At the meeting, Xi described the unification of Taiwan with mainland China as “a historic mission” of the party and threatened to use force, if necessary, to achieve it.
On Wednesday, Adm. Mike Gilday, U.S. chief of naval operations, said preparations for a Chinese naval invasion must be made immediately. Pointing to the year 2027, which retired Adm. Phillip Davidson, former commander of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, raised as a possible time frame for a Taiwan invasion, Gilday told the Atlantic Council, “So when we talk about the 2027 window, in my mind, that has to be a 2022 window or potentially a 2023 window. I can’t rule it out.”…..
…. The West Virginia is one of the six SSBNs stationed at Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay, Georgia. While the speed at which an SSBN travels underwater is classified, the month since the Putin statement could match the time it would take for the West Virginia to travel from its home base on the Atlantic Coast of the U.S. to the Arabian Sea. With the stealthy SSBN unlikely to pass through shallow chokepoints such as the Panama Canal, the Suez Canal and the Malacca Strait, the boat would have to travel around the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa.
Read the entire article in Nikkei Asia
By Judith Ochs, 10-29-22
VOTE EARLY! But there’s no voting on SUN Nov 6 or MON Nov 7
Back in the day, we all voted on one day in November—Election Day, a day set by US law as the Tuesday after the first Monday in November. But now, 46 states and the District of Columbia allow early voting days prior to Election Day. Perhaps US elections would be more secure if voters had just one day to vote—Election Day and all the votes were on paper ballots, not computers. But we have to deal with what we have, and this midterm election is critical.
An advantage of early voting is that it’s more convenient for voters to get to the polls and lines are shorter. But there are disadvantages. One is that when voters cast their ballots weeks before Election Day, they don’t have all the information that may arise about candidates and issues. Think of the thousands who voted in Pennsylvania prior to the Fetterman–Oz debate. Another problem is that voters may fail to turn up at the polls on Election Day: maybe they get sick or their kids do, or the car breaks down, etc.
Here is some “who, when, and where” information for voting in Nassau County.
Who can vote early? Those registered to vote in Nassau County, who were registered at least 29 days before an election.
When? Early Voting polling stations are open from 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. WED October 26 through SAT November 5, including SAT October 29 and SUN October 30, but excluding SUN Nov 6 and MON Nov 7.
Where? If you’re registered to vote in Nassau County, you can vote at any Early Voting site: Atlantic Rec. Center, Callahan County Bldg, Hilliard Community Center, James E. Page Government Complex-Yulee, or the Yulee Sports Complex.
What about Election Day, TUE Nov 8? Election Day voting is different from Early Voting. Hours are 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. You must vote at the polling place assigned to your precinct. Find your precinct and other information at Vote Nassau Florida or call (904) 491-7500.
Let’s get out and vote early!
Judith Ochs
Fernandina Beach
By Ken Timmerman, 10-28-22
Even as the polls tighten, with Republicans pulling ahead in key Senate races across the country, our nation faces storm clouds in the coming months that a Republican-led Congress will have to face.
First, let me mention a huge missed opportunity in Iran. 80,000 people gathered in Berlin last Sunday, and another 100,000 in the Iranian Kurdish town of Saqqez, to continue the massive pro-freedom protests against the Iranian regime.
But where was Joe Biden? His silence on the protests is a travesty, as is the stubborn refusal of the State Department to abandon their vain hopes of a nuclear agreement. We should be doing everything we can to delegitimize the Iranian regime, not wring our hands wondering when we can resume negotiating with them.
Second, little noticed this week in the national media were Russian threats to blow U.S. and international satellites out of orbit if the Russians suspected them of aiding the Ukrainian war effort. This marks yet another escalation by the Russians – verbal, for now. But anti-satellite weapons are out there and have been tested by Russia, China, and the US. This is one of the main reasons President Trump created Space Force.
Third, the Biden regime released the redacted version of the quadrennial Nuclear Posture Review, and it contained a bombshell (pun intended) totally missed by the Biden sycophants in the arms control community. In it, Biden openly threatened China with regional deployment of a newly-upgraded W-76-2 low yield nuclear weapon, as a means of deterring a Chinese attack on Taiwan. Believe me, the Chinese noticed, if the US media did not.
President Xi now wants to meet with Biden to talk about matters of mutual interest. Do you think he might remind Biden of the millions of dollars the Chicom’s have paid his son, Hunter, and perhaps threaten to reveal new information about Biden’s corruption if the US does not withdraw the W-76?
I discuss these issues in this week’s edition of Prophecy Today, which you can listen to live at 1:05 PM on Saturday on 104.9 FM in the Jacksonville area or on the Way Radio app. Otherwise, you can download the podcast here. <https://kentimmerman.us10.list-manage.com/track/click?u=f1758b1a87f94f8085454dd2d&id=ece5c9e5b3&e=ec58bc8b73>
Finally, if you haven’t yet had the opportunity to read my new book, it is now availabl <https://kentimmerman.us10.list-manage.com/track/click?u=f1758b1a87f94f8085454dd2d&id=fa87072c26&e=ec58bc8b73> e both as an e-book and in audio format, so you can listen while driving. If you have read the book, I encourage you to use the same link to post a five-star review on Amazon to spread the word. Or just forward this email to a friend.
And don’t let a like-minded family member or friend fail to vote. We need everyone at the polls!
Yours in freedom,
Ken
Ken Timmerman’s 12th book of non-fiction, AND THE REST IS HISTORY: Tales of Hostages, Arms Dealers, Dirty Tricks, and Spies, is now available from PostHill Press.
AND THE REST IS HISTORY can be ordered directly from Amazon by clicking here <https://kentimmerman.us10.list-manage.com/track/click?u=f1758b1a87f94f8085454dd2d&id=84c7bc3872&e=ec58bc8b73> or by viewing my author’s page, here. <https://kentimmerman.us10.list-manage.com/track/click?u=f1758b1a87f94f8085454dd2d&id=b2fb9e0b43&e=ec58bc8b73>
– Republican nominee for Congress, Maryland District 8 (2012)
– National Security and Foreign Policy Advisory Board, Trump for President 2016
– President & CEO, Foundation for Democracy in Iran, www.iran.org
– Nobel Peace Prize nominee, 2006
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The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
By Nassau County
10-29-22
The Board of County Commissioners would like to invite you to attend a Grand Opening Event for the Nassau Crossing Park located at 77480 William Burgess Blvd.
The park currently includes 2.5 miles of multi-use trails, children’s play equipment, restrooms, picnic area with gazebos, outdoor fitness stations, open green space and a community plaza with a train caboose. Coming next year are two multi-use fields, nature outlooks, a water feature, and a dog park.
This park is the result of a public-private partnership between the Board and developer, Matovina & Company. Matovina & Company donated the land and funded construction of the 15 acre park. We are grateful for these partnerships as they allow amenities to be built quickly and at a more affordable rate.
At the Groundbreaking Ceremony held on September 27, 2019, Greg Matovina stated, “We are proud to partner with Nassau County to meet the recreational needs of current and future residents of the County.”
The Board of County Commissioners looks forward to celebrating with the community on Saturday, November 5,2022 at 10:00 a.m.
If you have any questions, please contact Parks & Recreation Director, Jay Robertson, at (904) 530-6120 or via email at [email protected].
From County of Nassau
10/28/22 @ 11:50 a.m.
At the American Planning Association’s Florida Chapter Conference held in Orlando this past August, Nassau County received a State-wide ‘Award of Excellence’ in the Best Practices category for the Parks, Recreation, and Open Space Master Plan (PROSMP).
The Nassau County Parks, Recreation and Open Space Master Plan (PROSMP) represents a fundamental shift in how public and private recreation demands are addressed from a county-wide perspective. The PROSMP couples traditional planning and design principles with progressive regulatory standards that treat parks as essential infrastructure similar to electricity, water, and streets. This shift in local public policy has charted a course for developing and maintaining a fiscally sustainable parks system that is representative of all citizens.
County Manager, Taco Pope, AICP, stated, “It is a great honor for the County to receive an Award of Excellence from the American Planning Association. It’s an even greater honor to play a small part in facilitating public policy that will improve the quality-of-life for residents of Nassau County for generations to come”.
The annual award for Best Practices from the Florida Chapter of the American Planning Association is given to a project or program that represents “…a significant advancement to specific elements of planning. This category emphasizes results and demonstrates how innovative and state-of-the-art planning methods and practices helped to implement a plan”.
While Nassau County has received several regional and state-wide community planning awards over the past few years, this particular award is Nassau County’s first state-wide ‘Award of Excellence’. The distinction as an ‘Award of Excellence’ indicates that the review panel for the American Planning Association found Nassau County’s PROSMP to be innovative, of superior quality, and transferable to other communities.
Information on the Nassau County PROSMP and implementing legislation can be found at https://bit.ly/NassauCountyPROSMP.
A special thanks to the late Dr. David Barth for all his hard work and efforts. He was instrumental in creating a plan that will serve the residents and future generations for years to come. We encourage residents to view a 2-minute project spotlight/video that highlights the project and recognizes Dr. Barth posthumously on this outstanding achievement. To watch the video, click below:
Edited by Michael Hernandez, 10-28-22
(Editor’s Note: this is part of a weekly compendium of recent significant events, culled from world news and curated by Michael Hernandez.)
JOHN NOLTE (Oct 27) Breitbart News “Now 40% of Hispanics and 21% of Blacks are backing the Republican” party, reportsUSA Today.
“The issue of inflation – and the feeling that the White House hasn’t done enough to address it – is helping Republicans score significant inroads among Hispanic and Black voters, both demographic groups that Democrats have long relied on for support,” USA Today adds.
For context, back in 2020, former President Trump earned 12 percent of the black vote and 32 percent of the Hispanic vote.
Timothy Nerozzi (Oct. 21) Fox News
The House Select Committee on Jan. 6 issued a subpoena Friday to former President Trump in relation to the 2020 riots at the Capitol. Trump is requested to appear for a deposition on Nov. 14 at 10 a.m., either in the U.S. Capitol or via video conference, and provide records regarding his actions on day when rioters stormed the Capitol building on Jan. 6, 2021.
The committee did not ask Trump to appear for an open hearing. The subpoena requests documents and communications between Trump and aides, staff and colleagues from Signal, an encrypted messaging app. The committee agreed to the subpoena for testimony from Trump during its business meeting last week.
Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., offered the subpoena motion after members made a presentation of Trump’s role in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol by Trump supporters. The committee’s vote was unanimous. “We must seek the testimony under oath of January 6th’s key player,” Cheney said of the motion to compel testimony from Trump.
Trump published a letter Friday ripping the House Select Committee on Jan. 6 for failing to investigate what he considers basic questions surrounding the riot. At no point in his memo did Trump clarify if he would honor the subpoena or ignore it. Trump has not only rejected overtures to testify before the panel but he has called on allies and former staff to do likewise.
Jim Hoft (Oct. 23) Gateway Pundit Commentary
Liz Cheney’s political career will soon be over. We will never again be subjected to this evil, soulless woman. But before she goes; Liz is itching to get Donald Trump to sit before her sham committee. The same committee that would not allow any legitimate Republicans to join out of fear they would expose all of the violent FBI and government operatives and call on Pelosi to explain why she refused the National Guard but set up a special camera crew to trail her that day. Bitter Liz Cheney told leftist reporters on Sunday that she would not consider President Trump’s testimony to be aired live on television. The fraud will not be aired live to the American public. Cheney wants to put President Trump under oath.
AOL reported: Raising the stakes on its extraordinary subpoena to Donald Trump, the House committee investigating the Capitol riot indicated Sunday it would not consider letting the former president testify live on television about the direct role that congressional investigators say he played in trying to overturn the 2020 election.
The committee is demanding Trump’s testimony under oath next month as well as records relevant to its investigation. To avoid a complicated and protracted legal battle, Trump reportedly had told associates he might consider complying with the subpoena if he could answer questions during live testimony.
But Rep. Liz Cheney, the committee’s vice chair, on Sunday rejected the possibility. She said the committee, which makes its major decisions with unanimous consent, would not allow Trump’s testimony to turn into a “food fight” on TV and she warned that the committee will take action if he does not comply with the subpoena. “We are going to proceed in terms of the questioning of the former president under oath,” Cheney, R-Wyo., said on “Meet the Press” on NBC. “It may take multiple days, and it will be done with a level of rigor and discipline and seriousness that it deserves. We are not going to allow — he’s not going to turn this into a circus.”
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/10/crazy-liz-cheney-says-january-6-committee-will-not-allow-trump-testimony-televised-says-will-testify-oath/
JOHN NOLTE (Oct 21) Breitbart News
Based on recent polling, RealClearPolitics (RCP) projects Republicans will win the hotly contested gubernatorial races in four states that were once seen as Democrat strongholds: Wisconsin, Oregon, Nevada, and, yes, Michigan.
One wonders how the latest polling out of Minnesota — polling that shows Republican Dr. Scott Jensen leading his Democrat opponent Tim Walz, 46.3 to 45.8 percent — will affect that RealClear projection. Jensen appears to be surging in Minnesota, where Walz, the incumbent governor, did nothing in 2020 as the domestic terrorists in Antifa and Black Lives Matter burned down his cities and terrified his residents. The Minnesota poll comes from Trafalgar, the most accurate pollster in America. Momentum matters most when we are less than three weeks from Election Day. So, too, does the fact the incumbent is underwater. If you look at all the Minnesota polls, Walz has only hit 50 twice. In part, RealClear is basing its projections with an eye on how poorly most pollsters underestimated GOP turnout in the last few election cycles.
In Nevada, in the RCP poll of polls, Republican Joe Lombardo beats Democrat Steve Sisolak 46.6 to 44.8 percent. That’s a nearly two-point advantage. Because polling in Nevada has been pretty accurate, no major adjustments are necessary to call this one.
The RCP poll of polls shows the Wisconsin governor’s race a tie. But polling out of Wisconsin has underestimated GOP turnout by a whopping 5.2 points, so RCP projects Republican Tim Michaels is beating incumbent Democrat Tony Evers by 5.2 points. Dairy Staters have not forgotten how Evers stood by and did nothing as the terrorists in Black Lives Matter and Antifa burned Kenosha to the ground.
Oregon is an easy projection. Republican Christine Drazen has led in every poll against Democrat Tina Kotek and independent Betsy Johnson. Currently, the RCP poll of polls has Drazen up 2.8 points.
RCP’s most fascinating projection comes from Michigan, where the Democrat incumbent — Gretchen Whitmer — was cruising to an easy reelection. But Republican Tudor Dixon has run a superb campaign, clearly won the debate earlier this month, and is surging. In the RCP poll of polls, Whitmer enjoyed a double-digit lead just a few weeks ago. Since the debate, Tudor has climbed within an average of three points. Because polling in Michigan has underestimated GOP turnout by 5.7 points, RCP projects Dixon will defeat Whitmer by 2.7 points. Keep in mind that these numbers can and will change as more polling comes in. But when you look at how the GOP is surging across the country and how Democrats and their media allies are sweating bullets, everything points to the political climate only improving for Republicans.
Democrats have nothing to run on other than killing babies. Republicans are crushing Democrats on all the issues that matter: the economy, the border, and crime. There is also the underlying issue of how Democrats are grooming children through transsexual propaganda. The Democrat party is flooding schools with gay porn, exposing small children to sexually explicit drag queens, and encouraging children to mutilate themselves with irreversible sex change operations and puberty blockers.
On top of targeting children, Democrats have done an awful job governing their states and the country. The American people are ready to let their thoughts on these failures — as well as anti-science school closures and masking — be known. There’s a reckoning coming.
By Solange Reyner (Oct. 27) NewsMax
The novel coronavirus “most likely” leaked from a lab in Wuhan, China, according to a bombshell report published Thursday by Republicans on the Senate, Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, though the lawmakers underscore the findings lack indisputable evidence.
The report also concluded that China’s unwillingness to cooperate with an investigation into the Wuhan Institute of Virology, the lab in question, means Beijing “no longer deserves the benefit of the doubt. Based on the analysis of the publicly available information, it appears reasonable to conclude that the COVID-19 pandemic was, more likely than not, the result of a research-related incident,” they wrote.
“Nearly three years after the COVID-19 pandemic began, critical evidence that would prove that the emergence of SARS-CoV-2 and resulting COVID-19 pandemic was caused by a natural zoonotic spillover is missing,” they added. Lack of transparency from China, “prevents reaching a more definitive conclusion,” the senators said. “The hypothesis of a natural zoonotic origin no longer deserves the benefit of the doubt, or the presumption of accuracy.”
More than 6.6 million people have died worldwide from COVID-19.
Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., the panel’s ranking member who released the report, said it was critical the U.S. “continue international efforts to uncover additional information regarding the origins of this deadly virus.”
China on Thursday locked down part of Wuhan in a scramble to halt widening COVID-19 outbreaks.
https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/gop-covid-senators/2022/10/27/id/1093764/
By Joe Hoft (Oct. 23) Gateway Pundit
PJ Media shared the news over the weekend. The fuel that is used to transport U.S. goods across the country is in a crisis situation:Oil prices and President Joe Biden’s continued draining of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) have dominated the headlines over the past few weeks, but analysts say a more impactful and serious crisis on the energy front looms: a diesel fuel shortage.
Diesel doesn’t get as much of the limelight as oil and gas, but it should because diesel fuel is the industrial lifeblood of the United States and the price of diesel alone probably has a more significant impact on inflation and the prices you’re paying at the grocery store over any other factor. Without ample amounts of diesel, semi-trucks don’t move, farms are shut down, and critical manufacturing sectors are crippled.
As Bloomberg noted this week, “The US has just 25 days of diesel supply, the lowest since 2008, according to the Energy Information Administration. At the same time, the four-week rolling average of distillates supplied, a proxy for demand, rose to its highest seasonal level since 2007.” The Biden administration has remained strangely silent, probably hoping that the dismal news doesn’t hit the mainstream because it’s a total political timebomb waiting to go off, especially as the midterm elections are so close.
Bloomberg noted: The diesel crunch comes just weeks ahead of the midterm elections and has the potential to drive up prices for consumers who already view inflation and the economy as a top voting issue. Retail prices have been steadily climbing for more than two weeks. At $5.324 a gallon, they’re 50% higher than this time last year, according to AAA data.
Notably, National Economic Council Director Brian Deese recently commented on the emerging crisis. Deese said diesel inventories are “unacceptably low” and added that “all options are on the table,” whatever that means. The American trucking industry is very important to this country and truckers rely on diesel to run their trucks.
According to the US Energy Information Administration (EIA), diesel fuel is used to transport goods and run military vehicles and tractors of farms: “Most of the products we use are transported by trucks and trains with diesel engines, and most construction, farming, and military vehicles and equipment also have diesel engines. As a transportation fuel, diesel fuel offers a wide range of performance, efficiency, and safety features. Diesel fuel also has a greater energy density than other liquid fuels, so it provides more useful energy per unit of volume.”
In 2021, distillate fuel consumption by the U.S. transportation sector, which is essentially diesel fuel, was about 46.82 billion gallons (1.11 billion barrels), an average of about 128 million gallons per day. This amount accounted for about 77% of total U.S. distillate consumption, about 15% of total U.S. petroleum consumption, and on an energy content basis, about 25% of total energy consumption by the U.S. transportation sector. Diesel engines in trucks, trains, boats, and barges help transport nearly all products people consume. Diesel fuel is commonly used in public buses and school buses.
Diesel fuel powers most of the farm and construction equipment in the United States. The construction industry also depends on the power diesel fuel provides. Diesel engines can do demanding construction work, such as lifting steel beams, digging foundations and trenches, drilling wells, paving roads, and moving soil safely and efficiently. The U.S. military uses diesel fuel in tanks and trucks because diesel fuel is less flammable and less explosive than other fuels. Diesel engines are also less likely to stall than gasoline-fueled engines.
Diesel fuel is also used in diesel engine generators to generate electricity. Many industrial facilities, large buildings, institutional facilities, hospitals, and electric utilities have diesel generators for backup and emergency power supply. Most remote villages in Alaska use diesel generators as the primary source of electricity.
The Biden administration, with its holdovers from the Clinton and Obama administrations, has put the American economy in a dangerous position. The anti-energy policies they push help regimes in the Middle East, Russia and Venezuela. President Trump had America energy independent in less than four years. Biden is now begging for oil from these America-hating radical regimes.
By Deroy Murdock (Oct. 21) NewsMax Opinion
Democrats have no solutions to today’s crime surge. Here’s how they shrug off the mayhem.
First: Deep denial. Through Sept. 27, New Orleans suffered 208 homicides, up 44% versus that period in 2021 and 141% in 2019. The Crescent City has become America’s Murder Capital. “I do not embrace that at all,” said Democratic Mayor La Toya Cantrell. “It isn’t based on what’s happening on the ground.” She later said that “our city is safer than it’s been in a long time.” Crime books can be cooked: Curbing arrests can “erase” lawlessness by leaving it unrecorded. But there’s no faking a cadaver. Regardless, Cantrell scoffs at humiliating police data.
Second: Sing a song.
Chicago’s crime numbers are hellacious: Year-to-date versus 2021, burglary is up 22%, theft ahead 61%, and car theft 79% higher. Overall, crime has climbed 38%. Amid all this, Democratic Mayor Lori Lighfoot promoted a karaoke contest via a grating, vertical Tik Tok video in which she sports sunglasses, strides up to a microphone, and sings Robert Johnson’s “Sweet Home Chicago.” The only excuse for Lightfoot’s lightweight response to Windy City chaos: Her dismal musical performance would neutralize criminals. If this works, I will say it first: Lightfoot for President!
Third: Roll out the bromides.
Long Island’s Joel Murphy and Elijah Robinson, 17, were wounded in a drive-by shooting about 2:20 p.m. on Oct. 9, in suburban Shirley, New York. One hid beneath the front porch of Congressman Lee Zeldin, New York’s Republican gubernatorial nominee. Another sheltered behind a bush. A bullet lodged just 30 feet from where Zeldin’s twin daughters, 16, did homework at their kitchen table. “I’m so pleased no one was injured,” said Crime-spree Kathy Hochul, New York’s hapless Democratic governor. “It’s a reminder we all have to work together to get guns off the streets.” Hochul’s words are as predictable as low tide.
Yes, pistol-packing perps should suffer severe sentences. But 100% gun control would not have stopped David Jakubonis who, last July 21, confronted Zeldin on the hustings, shoved a sharp keychain weapon beside the candidate’s neck, and said: “You’re done.” Jakubonis was armed and threatened a congressman. Regardless, he was free the next day before being arrested on federal charges.
Vincent Buccino savored pizza outside a Hell’s Kitchen eatery on Sept. 9. An unprovoked attacker smashed a chair over his head and broke his arm. The unidentified criminal remains at large.
Michael Palacios terrorized a Manhattan McDonald’s on Sept. 16. After harassing patrons, he yanked an ax from his backpack, menaced diners, and chopped up a table, chairs, and glass wall. He, too, was arrested and swiftly sprung without bail. Palacios was arrested again on Oct. 11, for alleged graffiti and bicycle theft. Once more, Palacios was freed without bail.
Hochul’s hackneyed “Gun control!” slogan would have done bupkis to foil these and countless gun-free attacks. Had Hochul demanded keychain-weapon control, chair control, or ax control, one might respect her originality. Instead, Hochul spurns criminal control, which would address the evil that undergirds these cases.
The 20,000-member New York State Fraternal Order of Police understands this issue far better than most. That is why on Friday, it backed Zeldin’s bid for the Empire State’s top office. NYSFOP president Mike Essig said, “Our membership chose to endorse Congressman Lee Zeldin and Alison Esposito in their candidacy for Governor and Lieutenant Governor due to their call for order and public safety as crime surges across the state.”
Fourth: “Racism!”
Democrats shout, “Racism!” as often as people exhale. They did precisely this when People Who Play by the Rules PAC’s devastating political ad showed doorbell-camera images of three thugs tackling an innocent woman and beating her on a sunny sidewalk in Chicago’s leafy Lakeview district. She screams for help for 20 agonizing seconds. After a smiling photo appears of Mayor Lightfoot and Governor J.B. Pritzker, D-Ill., a graphic quietly asks: “Lightfoot. Pritzker. How much worse does it have to get?”
The anti-cash-bail Pritzker — who, like Lightfoot, faces re-election — decried the ad’s “racial tinge” because it shows “apparently black” muggers. But this is Pritzker’s racist assumption. The armed robbers’ hoodies obscure the races of their concealed faces.
Democrats are out of gas on crime. On Nov. 8, voters should hire Republicans to rescue them from the dangerous neighborhood in which the empty-tank Democrats have abandoned them.
Aaron Cichon contributed research to this opinion piece.
https://www.newsmax.com/murdock/chicago-hochul-lightfoot/2022/10/21/id/1092900/
LUCAS NOLAN (Oct 28) Breitbart News
Elon Musk officially became Twitter’s owner late on Thursday as his $44 billion deal to take over the firm closed. Musk promptly fired top executives at the company, including CEO Parag Agrawal, CEO Ned Segal, and Vijaya Gadde, the “trust and safety” lead notorious for her fanatical left-wing censorship campaign.
The Washington Post reports that on Thursday, Elon Musk arrived at Twitter offices to officially confirm his company takeover after the $44 billion purchase deal closed. Musk had previously stated plans to cut Twitter’s staff of approximately 7,500 employees to just over 2,000.
Musk appeared to decide to start at the top of the company and promptly fired top executives including CEO Parag Agrawal, CFO Ned Segal, and Vijaya Gadde, head of legal policy, trust, and safety. The company’s general counsel, Sean Edgett, was also let ago according to sources and all were promptly escorted out of the company’s offices in San Francisco.
This would appear to confirm Musk’s previous claims that he planned to take Twitter in an entirely new direction and was unhappy with current management, which Musk has publicly criticized on multiple occasions. Musk has taken issue with the former executives’ decisions relating to content moderation and product direction, as well as criticizing moves such as the banning of former President Donald Trump.
However, Musk clarified on Twitter on Thursday: “Twitter obviously cannot become a free-for-all hellscape, where anything can be said with no consequences!”
This would appear to mean that Musk’s Twitter will have some form of code of conduct or acceptable behavior that will differ from the current one implemented across the platform. Musk later tweeted “the bird is freed.”
Musk plans to hold a companywide town hall today. It is also expected that Twitter will become private today and will dissolve its current board of directors and end public trading of its stock.
Musk is now head of one of the most powerful communication platforms in the world just days before a major election in the United States. Many will be watching closely to see how Musk handles the coming challenges that an election may cause in the midst of the corporate transition, already a chaotic event.
Read more at the Washington Post here.
By Theodore Bunker (Oct. 26) NewsMax
Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito said this week that the leaking of a draft decision to overturn Roe v. Wade put the lives of him and his fellow justices at risk. “It was a grave betrayal of trust by somebody,” Alito said at a public interview with the Heritage Foundation on Tuesday, according to The New York Times. “It was a shock, because nothing like that had happened in the past. It certainly changed the atmosphere at the court for the remainder of last term.” He went on to say, “The leak also made those of us who were thought to be in the majority in support of overruling Roe and Casey targets for assassination because it gave people a rational reason to think they could prevent that from happening by killing one of us.”
Alito also hit out at those who question the court’s legitimacy following the decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. “Everybody in this country is free to disagree with our decisions,” he said. “Everybody is free to criticize our reasoning, and in strong terms. And that certainly is done in the media, in writings of law professors and on social media.” “But to say the court is exhibiting lack of integrity is something quite different,” he added. “That goes to character.”
Alito said: “Someone also crosses an important line when they say that the court is acting in a way that is illegitimate. I don’t think that anybody in a position of authority should make that claim lightly. That is not just ordinary criticism. That is something very different.”
https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/samuel-alito-supreme-court-leak/2022/10/26/id/1093489/
JOHN NOLTE (Oct 26) Breitbart News Commentary
Tuesday night’s disastrous and heartbreaking Pennsylvania U.S. Senate debate has exposed the corporate media’s “Fetterman is fine” talking point as a hoax.
This poor man, whom no one loves enough to protect his dignity, had a devastating stroke in May, just days before he won the Democrat primary. Rather than find a well-known Democrat to take Fetterman’s place with a write-in campaign for the general election, four moral obscenities followed… Rather than get Fetterman the rest and intense rehabilitation he so desperately needs…
In a previous piece, I’ve already addressed one through three… Now it’s time to talk about number four, about the godforsaken liars in the corporate media.
Some five months after what was obviously a devastating stroke that this poor man may never fully recover from, we all saw what happened at last night’s debate. We all saw the truth, that even with Fetterman using the crutch of closed captioning he’s in very tough shape. His scrambled brain cannot compute what he hears. He has to read it, and even then — as we all saw — he still struggles in a way that can only elicit pity for us bystanders and shame for all those — most especially his wife — who allowed last night to happen. And yet, through it all, for all of these months, the godforsaken liars in the corporate media lied and lied and lied to us with the “Fetterman is fine” hoax.
With last night’s heartbreaking debate still fresh in your mind, look at this…
When Mehmet Oz, the Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania, was trailing his opponent in polls and fundraising a few weeks ago, he resorted to a desperate tactic to get the upper hand in an ever-tightening race: leveraging ableism against a person with disabilities.
Disability advocates are accusing NBC News of ableism following an interview with Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, the Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, which they say was overly concerned with the live transcription he required during the sit-down due to his auditory processing issues.
John Fetterman’s accommodation request revealed the bias we still have against disabled people. In his willingness to be public about his recovery, Fetterman proves he can do the job. He forces us to examine our own beliefs and biases about people with disabilities.
In his first media interview since having a stroke two months ago, Democratic Senate nominee John Fetterman of Pennsylvania said Wednesday he is “100% able to run fully and to win” against Republican Mehmet Oz in November.
Fetterman said he walks several miles every day and did not lose any memory as a result of the stroke. In the 20-minute interview with the newspaper, Fetterman used closed-captioning to ensure he did not miss any words, a campaign spokesperson told the Post-Gazette.
CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta claimed Wednesday that Democratic Lt. Gov. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania was “fairly fluent” while speaking.
“When we talk about speech, we typically talk about your ability to express yourself through spoken and written word, but also to receive speech, reception of speech, through spoken and written word,” Gupta told CNN Newsroom guest host Bianna Golodryga. “Listening to him, he sounded like he was fairly fluent in his speech, able to speak pretty clearly. Every now and then he would have a little word sort of mash up, as he calls it.”
How about this, this, and this? The only journalist — a word I rarely use without scare quotes — who went out to not only get the truth but to report the truth was NBC’s Dasha Burns. She spent time with, spoke with, and interviewed Fetterman earlier this month and then had the moral courage to inform the public about the experience. And what did she get in return from her media colleagues, from so-called “journalists”? Hate. Naked, irrational, utterly dishonest hate. And it took two days — two days! — for her own network to defend her.
So we can now add the “Fetterman is Fine” hoax to the long list of corporate media hoaxes…
And on and on…All these people do is lie.
https://www.breitbart.com/the-media/2022/10/26/nolte-fetterman-fine-exposed-one-more-media-hoax/
By GABRIEL GRESCHLER (Oct. 18/19) The Mercury News
“A $1,000 fine for simply exercising your God-given right to keep and bear arms unless you bow down, buy insurance, and kiss their ring is simply atrocious,” said one opponent about the city’s new rules
San Jose’s new gun control law just got a bit stricter. Gun owners in the nation’s 10th largest city who disobey a requirement to carry liability insurance and pay a yearly fee will have to fork over up to $1,000 in fines as part of San Jose’s unique and controversial push to combat gun violence — a novel legislative approach that has triggered a challenge in federal court and has 2nd Amendment supporters up in arms.
The insurance and fee requirements — first approved by council members in January — make San Jose the first city in America to impose such rules against gun owners. Proponents of the new mandate, championed by Mayor Sam Liccardo since 2019, argue that it will motivate safer gun handling and help counter the public cost of gun violence, which health officials found in a May report amounts to $72 million a year for Santa Clara County. But opponents, who filed a lawsuit against the requirements moments after the council passed them in January, argue that the rules are unconstitutional, burdensome and that the city hasn’t proven they will prevent gun violence. Plaintiffs in the ongoing lawsuit are the Colorado-based National Association for Gun Rights, the state’s Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association and San Jose resident Mark Sikes. The new fines approved Tuesday by the San Jose City Council brought a scathing response from the gun rights association.
“San Jose is hell-bent on disarming law-abiding gun owners anyway possible, at least as far as they can get away with in the courts,” wrote NAGR’s Policy Director Hannah Hill. “And a $1,000 fine for simply exercising your God-given right to keep and bear arms unless you bow down, buy insurance, and kiss their ring is simply atrocious.” She added, “That’s why we’re suing to overturn this unconstitutional ordinance, and we look forward to rescuing law-abiding San Jose gun owners from these greedy, anti-gun council members.”
The penalties passed on Tuesday escalate for each offense. A gun owner’s first and second violation will cost them $250 and $500, respectively. A $1,000 fine will be levied against a third and any future infraction. The city’s police department will be in charge of enforcing the fines. “City staff is moving forward with regulations needed to implement this first-in the-nation law to reduce gun deaths and injuries with a careful, balanced approach,” the mayor wrote in a statement. “I look forward to seeing this up and running next year.”
The mayor has been formulating the new gun rules ever since the mass shooting at the now-defunct Gilroy Garlic Festival in 2019 — and pressure further mounted after a gunman massacred his fellow colleagues at a Valley Transportation Authority rail yard last year.
January’s Gun Harm Reduction Ordinance, which sparked national headlines amid rising concerns about gun violence across the country, requires firearm owners in the city to purchase a gun, homeowner’s or renter’s liability insurance policy which covers any damages as a result of negligent or accidental use.
The ordinance also mandates that gun owners pay a $25 fee every year to a nonprofit that will distribute funds to mental health and suicide prevention services for those who own a firearm or live with someone who does. The nonprofit is being set up by local health officials and academics will provide a bi-annual report on its work.
Researchers estimate that San Jose has between 50,000 and 55,000 gun owners, which would garner the nonprofit over $1 million a year. Though the fines on Tuesday were approved by councilmembers unanimously on consent, January’s law was opposed by Councilmember Dev Davis. Councilmembers Pam Foley and Matt Mahan, a candidate for mayor running against County Supervisor Cindy Chavez, opposed the nonprofit fees.
The city is trying to work with the state to send letters in the mail to gun owners with instructions — and will be required to keep paperwork proving their compliance with the new rules with the firearm at all times. Some are exempt from the ordinance, including sworn, active or retired police officers, concealed carry licensees and low-income residents.
By Jim Hoft (Oct. 25) The Gateway Pundit
Radical Marxist Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascón dodged recall efforts after Los Angeles County banned observers from monitoring the recall vote count. TGP’s Cristina Laila reported that observers were not allowed to monitor the vote counting in the effort to recall George Gascón. The Gascón recall petition was approved in January after the residents of Los Angeles had enough of the Soros DA’s lethal soft-on-crime policies.
But there was a catch…The Los Angeles County Registrar of Voters said observers are only allowed in standard elections and the recall does not qualify. In August, the Los Angeles County registrar announced that the recall efforts failed because not enough *valid* signatures were collected. It looked like 27% of the ballots had invalid signatures – and several voters received multiple ballots.
On Monday, the ex parte application for an expedited hearing by the Recall DA George Gascon Committee was approved by Judge James C. Chalfant of the Superior Court of Los Angeles County. The county Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk will be compelled to let them review the thousands of signatures that were deemed invalid back in August.
Click Here to Read the Full Complaint
During today’s hearing, the Court stated it was inclined to grant a substantial number of the Recall Committee’s requests outlined in its application, including the disclosure of electronic versions of voter records, and that training materials relating to the Registrar’s voter database may also need to be disclosed. The Court also stated the time, place, and manner restrictions placed by the Registrar on the review are unduly restrictive, and expanded access appeared to be warranted. The Court ordered the parties to meet and confer to attempt to reduce the issues to be litigated at the next hearing.
“This initial decision is a win for transparency and a win for Los Angeles voters. The Registrar’s counting process was seriously flawed, and the restrictions on the review prevent the Recall Committee from being able to demonstrate just how pervasive those errors were. We are grateful to Judge Chalfant for understanding the urgency of this matter, especially as the citizens of Los Angeles continue to have their safety put at risk by George Gascon’s reckless policies.” – The Recall DA George Gascon Committee
Last week, the Recall Committee announced preliminary findings from the initial review of invalidated signatures and other potential issues that may have affected the results, such as bloated voter rolls:
“The initial review of invalidated signatures demonstrates the Registrar’s counting process was seriously flawed, resulting in substantial errors, the wrongful invalidation of many valid signatures, and the disenfranchisement of thousands of Los Angeles County Voters. These extremely disturbing findings necessitate a complete and timely review of all invalidated signatures. This review is currently being obstructed by the Registrar’s office. The Recall DA George Gascon Committee has filed for injunctive relief and is also exploring other significant issues, such as the inaccurate and inflated number of signatures required to qualify the recall due to bloated voter rolls.” – The Recall DA George Gascon Committee
Since September 6, 2022, volunteer attorneys for the Recall DA George Gascon Committee have been conducting a review of invalidated signatures. Clear, obvious, and legitimate challenges have been identified for 39% of the invalidated signatures reviewed to date. Examples of improper invalidation and disenfranchisement include:
Recall Committee to file for injunctive relief against Registrar of Voters imminently:
Inaccurate and inflated number of required signatures for qualification of the recall due to bloated voter rolls:
THOMAS D. WILLIAMS, PH.D. (Oct. 23) Breitbart News
ROME — The formidable former archbishop of Philadelphia, Charles Chaput, said Saturday that President Joe Biden is not in communion with the Catholic Church, warning that any priest who gives him Holy Communion “participates in his hypocrisy.” Speaking at a Eucharistic symposium in the diocese of Arlington on October 22, Archbishop Chaput said that “Biden’s apostasy on the abortion issue” is the most “repugnant example” of cultural assimilation of Catholics into secular America, while insisting that this sort of apostasy should prompt significant public consequences.
“When you freely break communion with the Church of Jesus Christ and her teachings, you can’t pretend to be in communion when it’s convenient,” Chaput stated. “That’s a form of lying,” he said. “Mr. Biden is not in communion with the Catholic faith. And any priest who now provides Communion to the president participates in his hypocrisy.”
In the past, Mr. Biden said he was personally opposed to abortion and opposed using taxpayer dollars to fund it, but he now fully supports abortion-on-demand and has made abortion rights a hallmark of his presidency. Biden has urged Congress to pass legislation codifying a right to abortion, promising to sign it next January, the 50th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade ruling, which was struck down by the Supreme Court last June.
In his address Saturday, Archbishop Chaput said that American Catholics have struggled for 200 years to fit into mainstream American culture. “We succeeded,” he said, “but in the process, we’ve been digested and bleached out by the culture, rather than leavening it in a fertile way with a distinctive Catholic witness.”
Joe Biden’s vocal support for abortion is the most egregious example, the archbishop said, but he’s “not alone.” “We’ve forgotten who we are as a believing people,” Chaput said. “This is both a cause and a symptom of today’s lukewarm Catholic spirit, in our nation’s culture and within the Church herself. But that can change, and it needs to change, starting with each of us here.”
In 2020, Chaput said Biden’s support for abortion rights meant that he “should stop defining himself as a devout Catholic” and “should not receive Holy Communion.” “Public figures who identify as ‘Catholic’ give scandal to the faithful when receiving Communion by creating the impression that the moral laws of the Church are optional,” Chaput wrote at the time. “And bishops give similar scandal by not speaking up publicly about the issue and danger of sacrilege.”
A pro-life group is calling on Congress and drug enforcement agencies to take action amid reports that organizations in Mexico are funneling abortion pills into states that have banned their use. Kristan Hawkins, president of Students for Life Action, the activist division of the pro-life group Students for Life of America, has demanded in a letter to members of Congress that they address the issue following a “shocking new report” about a “drug cartel at the Mexican border” that is shipping abortion-inducing pills into the U.S.
The group wants Congress to instruct the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and the Federal Bureau of Investigation to investigate drug crimes involving abortion pills. The SFLA president called on Congress to require the Food and Drug Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency to conduct a new impact study on chemical abortions, given the and sometimes illegal use of the pills.
As The Washington Post reported last week, several covert networks are running a pipeline through Mexico to deliver abortion pills to women in states that have banned abortion after the overturning of Roe v. Wade in June. The abortion pill suppliers are funded anonymously, reportedly securing the drug for $1.50 a dose from international pharmacies or free via donations. An unnamed group in the U.S. then receives the pills through the mail and sends them to pregnant women seeking to abort their babies.
Las Libres, one of the many Mexican groups involved in the illegal scheme, told The Washington Post that its organization alone is “on track to help terminate approximately 20,000 pregnancies this year in the United States. That amounts to about 20 percent of all legal abortions that took place in 2019 in the 13 states where abortion is now almost entirely banned,” The Washington Post reported.
Sandra Cardona Alanís, the leader and co-founder of Red Necesito Abortar, another Mexico-based group supplying abortion pills, said that once her group gets the pills to the U.S., “they can distribute them across the whole country. As deadly as the two-pill regiment that the FDA allows can be, the chemical abortion pills sold at the border can carry an even greater risk as some will sell only one pill, saving them money but raising the risks,” Hawkins wrote in SFLA’s letter to lawmakers.
“One need only look at other drug cartel efforts to understand the tremendous risk to women who may not be taking the drugs they think they ordered and may not survive the experience, not to mention the impact on the preborn.”
Hawkins stressed that the safety risks and the strain chemical abortions place on the U.S. healthcare system warrant a congressional response. She also cited the need for an investigation into possible environmental concerns due to the improper disposal of aborted human remains, linking to a column she wrote for The Washington Times in 2020.
As Carole Novielli reported for the pro-life group Live Action in May, women who undergo chemical abortions typically take the pills at home and dispose of their babies’ remains themselves. The pro-life researcher noted that this likely saves abortion facilities money they would have spent hiring a waste disposal company to remove the remains.
According to a 2015 study titled “Incidence of Emergency Room Department Visits and Complications After Abortion,” chemical abortions have a higher complication rate than surgical ones. The study analyzed data from 2009 and 2010 to assess the abortion complication rate for California women who had abortions through Medicaid and women who were treated at the emergency room instead of the clinic.
Researchers found that the complication rate was 5.2% for women who took the abortion pill compared to 1.3% for women who had a first-trimester surgical abortion. The major complication rate for the abortion pill was 0.31% in contrast to 0.16% for first-trimester surgical abortions.
Our Hope
Billy Hallowell (Oct. 26) CBN News
A man who spent more than three decades embroiled in the occult is sharing his incredible story of leaving Satanism behind, finding freedom in Christ — and now spreading the Gospel to others. Brian Cole explained on the finale episode of “The Playing With Fire Podcast” that, as a little boy, he didn’t feel like he belonged anywhere. “I didn’t understand who I was in Christ,” he said. “I was 10 years old and I had an abusive father … I was bullied at school and my mom forced us to go to church.”
Cole said he was also emotionally abused at his church. Every dynamic in his life left him feeling alone and disconnected — until he met a group of older kids who took him in. “They were talking to me, they were paying attention to me,” he said. “They weren’t calling me names and beating me down.” Cole soon realized the kids he befriended were involved in Satanism — a belief system polar opposite from his family’s church experience. While he wasn’t drawn in by the theology, Cole said he “wanted to do whatever these kids were doing.”
So, before long, he was partaking. Listen to Cole share his decades-long experience in the occult as well as his healing: “One of the first rituals I was in, they were going to sacrifice a squirrel. I told them I would not do that,” he said, noting that he had always loved animals. “They said, ‘Well, [Satan] demands blood, so you’re going to have to cut yourself,’ so I did. And that ended up being an addiction for 33 years — the cutting and self-mutilation.”
As time progressed, Cole said the fear Satanism sparked — and the rebellion — further attracted him. At first, it wasn’t a theological connection; instead, it was more of a “dabbling.” He would trash Christian symbols in graveyards and smash nativities. “I was kind of the dabbling guy from 10 until I was 18 years old,” he said. “When I turned 18, I got arrested … I got a 10-year sentence and, when I went into prison, that’s when it went from dabbling to all-in [on Satanism].”
Cole said he started ordering books on the occult and ceremonial magic and spent the majority of his days reading and studying — and that’s not all. “I got a tattoo of a cross … on the bottom of my left foot so I could stomp on God whenever I walked,” he said. Over time, Cole said he started to get uncomfortable with the role Satan played in his life and the power evil yielded. In 1987, he shifted away from Satanism and toward other forms of the occult — but he often revisited his old ways and used Tarot Cards among other tools. “In the occult … I’d just sit down and allow myself to be possessed and just start writing stuff,” Cole said, noting that he even kept a dream journal.
The most intriguing element of his journey? Despite believing in Satan, he didn’t believe in God. “I didn’t believe Jesus existed,” he said. “I thought this Bible was another mythology book … One of my biggest religions was hating Christians.” But everything changed in 2009, when Cole, then age 44, was once again arrested. He realized his life of crime wasn’t working and that something desperately needed to change. “I had tried to commit suicide … I just didn’t want to live anymore,” he said.
Cole started to cautiously explore the Bible as he embarked on a quest to get off drugs and change his life. Despite his skepticism and scoffing, he read and explored. Then, one day, he came back to his room and found a book randomly laying on the floor of his jail cell: Lee Strobel’s “The Case for Christ,” a text that documents Strobel’s journey from atheism into faith. “When I got done with that book, I could no longer deny the fact that Jesus existed on this earth,” he said. “All my life I had sought truth.”
Cole found that truth transformed his life, and is now a pastor. “This has set me free in so many ways I can’t even explain it,” he said as he became visibly emotional. Listen to Cole’s entire story on the finale of “The Playing With Fire Podcast.”
(Michael Hernandez, co-founder of the Citizens Journal—Ventura County’s online news service is a former Southern California daily newspaper journalist and religion and news editor. Mr. Hernandez can be contacted at [email protected] and is editor of “America: The End and Our Hope”.)
By Jeff Childers
10-28-22
First, a short good news roundup — the tide continues turning. Then, I’m officially releasing my blueprint for a final exit from the pandemic, including how we’ll get to criminal prosecutions. I’ll lay out a practical, step-by-step plan for you.
We can do this!
🔥 Yesterday — a day earlier than pundits guessed — billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk closed the Twitter deal and now officially owns the entire social media company. Which explains the sink yesterday. His first official acts were to fire Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal, CFO Ned Segal, general counsel Sean Edgett, and the odious Vijaya Gadde, head of “trust and safety,” who permanently suspended President Trump, censored the Hunter Biden laptop story, and banned political ads from the platform.
Buh- bye.
Disgruntled lefty outlets are hoping Twitter will implode. The Atlantic ran a story yesterday fantasizing about a long list of ways the formerly-beloved social media platform could be wiped out:
Reports say Musk has asked his Tesla engineers to review the Twitter code base. I wonder why.
A couple points. First, Musk’s Twitter acquisition has already succeeded by preventing the platform from being weaponized against Republicans in the midterm elections. Second, even if Twitter doesn’t change one bit, it has probably been neutralized as a future way for leftists to influence elections.
Third, the Twitter fear-psyops are over. Finally.
🔥 Fox ran a story earlier this week headlined, “RNC Has Launched 73 Election Lawsuits in 20 States: ‘Most Litigious’ Election Cycle.” That’s an average of two and a half lawsuits per state in the contested states.
That’s a lot of lawsuits. All filed around the same time. All filed strategically.
This should be encouraging to folks who felt like the GOP wasn’t “doing anything” to fight election fraud. I told folks, over and over, that the best strategy would be to wait till right before the elections. If you change the rules too soon, then cheaters will find ways around the new rules.
So, this is very encouraging. I haven’t yet seen the list of lawsuits but I hope to review them soon.
I can also share with you that I’ve been assisting a team researching a well-organized ballot-harvesting network within low-income Florida communities. The team presented the developed information to Florida’s Election Integrity task force this week, and they’ve green-lighted it for criminal investigation. The case appears to be much more meaningful than arresting felons one-by-one for violating the terms of their reinstated voting rights.
So. It’s working.
🔥 Finally, a couple dogs that didn’t bark. First, whatever happened to monkeypox, for which we snapped up billions of dollars of smallpox vaccines? Second, how come the world didn’t end when Roe v. Wade was overturned? Seems like we’re still here.
Weird!
More and more, there’s one single question preoccupying the minds of a large number of our fellow Americans, not to mention our Canadian friends, and probably the entire world.
When will we see justice?
Over the last year, I’ve taken dozens of calls from folks with vast credentials; doctors, lawyers, former military intelligence, you name it, and they all wanted the same answer: HOW do we hold people responsible for the excesses of the pandemic?
People routinely ask me for contacts to sheriffs, district attorneys, and even governors. They think that SURELY, if these law enforcement folks just knew the truth, just understood what really happened, they’d immediately start convening grand juries and would get busy issuing indictments.
Sadly, there aren’t any such sheriffs, district attorneys, or governors, not right now.
But I have the answer. It’s not as easy as some folks hope, but life’s not easy OR fair. But the plan is simple. It’s straightforward. It’s practical. We only have to overcome the most highly-motivated, highly-resourced, and truly evil folks that have ever infested the human race since God drowned the last bunch.
We already have one gigantic advantage. Our adversaries have made a terrible error. They think we’ll just forget and move on to ‘the next thing’ once the pandemic is over. They think we can be distracted by a corrupt proxy war in Eastern Europe and dark suggestions of nuclear war.
They are wrong. We. Will. Never. Forget.
Always remember: David killed Goliath with one well-placed pebble.
🔥 Human beings fundamentally crave justice. It’s part of our DNA. As a Christian, I believe it’s because God is a great and terrible god of perfect justice and we humans are made in God’s image.
Beyond divine justice, we humans also crave justice on this Earth, in this life. And we have set up human institutions to try to ensure the best simulacrum of justice we can come up with. And it works, a remarkable amount of the time, better than you might think, as we saw in yesterday’s post about subhuman, racist Waukesha killer Darrell Brooks.
But Justice often takes time. Justice often takes effort. Justice often takes a vast and expensive effort. But sometimes — like this time — justice is INEVITABLE. Sometimes — like this time — justice can’t be stopped. Sometimes — like this time — justice WON’T be stopped. Sometimes — like this time — justice will, no matter what, at some point, have its day.
So instead of crying out “how can we achieve justice?”, we should be carefully asking, “how can we achieve justice FASTER?”
Walk with me.
🕐 Phase One.
We’re just starting to emerge from Phase One, which is a completely defensive phase.
Phase One is like a home invasion.
Imagine you and your wife or husband are peacefully snoozing in your bed in the middle of the night. It’s pitch black dark. All is quiet. All is well.
Then, suddenly and unexpectedly, all the windows in your house explode inwards in a massive spray of glass chunks. Hooded thugs wearing all black swing in on ropes, attack you, and start tearing up your house.
Welcome to Phase One.
You instinctively fight back with everything you’ve got, eventually expel the intruders, and start blocking up the windows using whatever furniture’s at hand. You don’t have time to figure out WHO is attacking you. You aren’t worried about WHERE they came from, not yet.
All you care about is securing the house.
Phase one is pure DEFENSE. No offense, not until the house is secure. Only then can you start thinking about the next phase. And that’s about where we are now. We were taken by surprise. We didn’t know what’d hit us. It took time to fight back and secure our kids and our jobs and our states. And now we’re blocking up the last few broken windows, like the court that ordered New York City to rehire its unvaccinated staff this week.
Once we have secured our “house,” we can look at Phase Two.
🕐 Phase Two. Investigation.
Phase Two is when the investigation starts. This is like where you find out the police aren’t going to be helping much. When the cops come out to the scene, they seem curiously disinterested. “How do we know you didn’t bust your own house up?”, they ask, yawning. Shocked, you realize that the cops have somehow been compromised.
So you start your own investigation of the home invasion. You start talking to your neighbors. You start collecting everyone’s camera footage. You start taking careful pictures of the house, the yard, and the road. You find out where the intruders’ truck was parked, measure the wheelbase from the tire tracks, and start talking to local gas station workers.
You get the idea. It’s up to you to collect the evidence, since the cops aren’t doing it yet.
We found out the FBI is strangely uninterested in the gain of function research, the engineered virus, the illegal labs, the FDA’s criminal rubber stamp, the remdesivir bonuses, or the politically-captured CDC. For now, we must collect the evidence of the pandemic crimes ourselves. We must gather the affidavits and the documents from all the people whose loved ones were lost to Hospital Murder or to the Jabs. We need to claw out the public records about the development and deployment of the virus and the vaccines from state and federal agencies. We need to scrape together the records of government payments for covid treatment.
And we’ll have to keep track of all the unprosecuted criminals like Birx, Fauci, Baric, Psaki, Collins, and so forth. At some point they’ll run for the hinterlands, just like the German concentration camp commanders changed their names and fled after World War II. And just like how the Jews tracked the Nazis to South America after the war, we’ll need to use our own worldwide networks to keep track of our modern nazis, so we’ll know where to find them once the time is ripe.
I envision a searchable online database, where a crowdsourced investigation can be organized, where data can be immediately available for the very first cop or district attorney willing to start an investigation. There are a lot of lawyers and scientists and doctors and regular folks who all have their own parts of the evidence. In Phase Three, we have to collect that all data together into a central hub.
We’ll need someone to step up and build the database. Preferably someone with previous experience organizing this kind of information, preferably someone is familiar with all the tech.
You get the idea. Now let’s talk about Phase Three.
🕒 Phase Three. Assimilation.
Phases Two and Three aren’t necessarily sequential. They can run in parallel. In Phase Three, we need to take (or re-take) local and state institutions that provide access to internal information and shore up political support.
As I’ve told you before, the greatest advantage we have over our enemies is numbers. We will use that strength. Our opponents can’t be everywhere at once, so we’ll overwhelm them. And they are also counting on us forgetting and moving on — which we won’t.
Our folks need to move (back) into the institutions. For example, imagine a hospital with a publicly-elected board. I guarantee the current board members have never had to run in a contested election, and as ‘elites,’ they probably don’t want to be in the public eye, either.
Either way, we can run a slate of replacement board candidates and, sooner or later, take a majority position on the hospital board.
Once our candidates are installed on the board, they can immediately commence internal investigations and public disclosures of what really happened at that hospital during the pandemic. How much did the federal government pay the hospital for each dead covid patient? What incentives did the government offer hospitals to order jab mandates? What exactly happened in each and every case where a covid patient died, especially patients that didn’t fit the covid mortality profile of having three or more co-morbidities?
This information will feed right back into Phase Two’s database for prosecution.
As another example, we can get our people (back) into the universities. This could be a great role for some retired folks. Come out of retirement! You were bored anyway. Get into management in university departments where you can poke around and find out what the universities and the federal government were up to during the pandemic.
And we can get our people inside local health departments, and into state health agencies (especially in blue states).
Even more inevitable will be the slow, steady changing of the political guard. Whether we run our own candidates or not, natural political turnover will constantly bring new blood into local, state and federal offices. New people who’ve never held office before.
Critically, they’ll be new people who weren’t in office during the pandemic.
All these new politicians will have no covid baggage. They aren’t afraid of investigations, because they weren’t in office to go along with the lockdowns and mandates. They can use the covid-crimes issue as a political weapon against incumbent opponents. “Vote for me, because my opponent never said a word while the White House was wrecking the economy and closing schools during the pandemic.”
Boo-ya.
The great thing is it works for school board, county commissioner, city commissioner, mayor, tax collector, governor, et cetera. Rinse and repeat. It’s low-hanging fruit. Believe me, the new politicians will be using this issue as a club. It always works this way.
Even if they don’t pursue covid issues, the newly-elected politicians without covid baggage have no incentive to protect the covid criminals. And eventually, a critical mass of untainted politicians will hold office. I don’t know if the right number is 10%, 20%, or 30%, but at some point, there will be enough new folks who were never involved to tip the whole thing over.
Right over into Phase IV.
🕓 Phase IV. Prosecutions.
The inevitable tipping point will be a great help, but we don’t need to wait for a tipping point. We don’t need to wait for Superman. We can take over district attorney and county sheriff offices ourselves.
I’m about to blow your mind. You’re going to wonder why nobody ever thought of this before. The answer is because it’s been too soon. It might still be a LITTLE too soon, but we’re practically there. Here it is:
We’ll run candidates for sheriff, district attorney, and state attorney general, all over this country, in 3,700 counties, EXPLICITLY on the platform of investigating and prosecuting covid cases.
That’ll be their entire platform. “Elect me, and I will convene a grand jury to investigate hospital murder and pharma murder cases,” or “Elect me, and I will arrest people who got folks killed during the pandemic.”
(By the way, this is a great notion for our law enforcement and military brothers and sisters who lost their jobs because of jabs. Run for sheriff. That’ll teach ‘em.)
Who can our newly elected sheriffs and DA’s prosecute? We don’t need to start at the top. Start at the bottom, like they do with organized crime prosecutions. You don’t go straight for Al Capone. First you arrest the neighborhood thug, and then turn him against the next level up.
Think about all the local “experts” who pushed false information about jab safety and efficacy, who people relied on to take the jabs. I can think of five “experts” right here in Alachua County, who all work for the University of Florida, who’d all be ripe for prosecution. Or these so-called “doctors” who merrily pushed jabs on kids without providing complete informed consent, and somebody died.
Investigators can suss out what the “local influencers” knew, and when they knew it. They’ll figure out who started the Big Lie.
Did the “local influencers” aid and abet reckless or negligent homicide, or manslaughter? Were they co-conspirators? Just how much were these “experts” paid to “influence” people to take the drugs that killed or injured them?
And here’s where all the evidence we compiled in Phases II and III will come in handy. The searchable database could let local investigators plug a name in, and instantly see every email, letter, paper, tweet, or Youtube video connected to that person. The website should have a terrific interface and an awesome search algorithm. It could, for instance, let investigators search, select, and quickly download selected documents — with exhibit stickers already on them.
This strategy doesn’t require us to wait until the next election cycle. I couldn’t tell you how often folks asked me, “Jeff, how can we get DA’s to investigate these cases?” Well, one way to get them to act would be to credibly threaten to run someone against them who WILL investigate these cases, if they won’t.
Now that I think about it, maybe *I* should run for DA, or even Florida Attorney General, next time. I love Ashley, please vote for her this year, but what EXACTLY is she doing about pandemic crimes?
See how it works?
🕛 Conclusion.
I’ve only described part of my vision for how we get from here — standing in our wrecked living rooms, bandaging each other — to the point of seeing the criminals behind the pandemic starting their jail terms. This post is just a taste of the plan. It’s just enough to convince you that, it’s not only possible and practical, but it’s eminently do-able.
Don’t take the black pill. We CAN do this. Nobody said it would be easy, but it can be straightforward. All we have to do is NOT GO BACK TO SLEEP.
To recap, here is C&C’s prescription for fixing EVERYTHING:
1) Pass state laws replacing electronic voting machines and scanners with watermarked, serialized paper ballots.
2) Pass a short, plain federal law revoking vaccine manufacturer liability shields, so they have the same liability as all other drug makers.
3) Follow C&C’s Four-Phase prosecution pathway to hold the criminals to account.
That’s it! It’s simple. It’s straightforward. It’s easy to explain. It’s easy to advocate for. It’s easy to run on.
Only support candidates who agree to work toward those three goals.
Whew. There you go. I hope that was helpful, encouraging, and thought-provoking. Have a fabulous Friday! I’ll see you tomorrow for the weekend edition roundup.
C&C is moving the needle and changing minds. If you can, I could use your help getting the truth out and spreading optimism and hope: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/-learn-how-to-get-involved-
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The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
By CCDF- Nassau, 10-16-22
Updated 10-17-22 to reflect late submission of Curtis Gaus
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and respondents and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
By Dave Scott, 10-26-22
The election of two extremist candidates November 8 would change Fernandina Beach in ways that would leave most residents and visitors shocked and have moms and dads scrambling to cover their children’s eyes and ears.
In Nassau County, where the vast majority of voters are registered Republican, two candidates running for seats on the Fernandina Beach City Commission have been incredibly dishonest with voters. The latest voter registration figures for Nassau County indicate there are 44,009 registered Republicans,14,415 Democrats, 15,779 No Party Affiliation, and 1,653 Other.
Voters in Fernandina and as a whole in Nassau County, made it very clear by their overwhelming support of Republican Governor Ron DeSantis in the last election that they are for traditional culture and values. They applauded Governor DeSantis’s Stop W.O.K.E. Act that removed unpopular critical-race-theory garbage from public schools. They also approved of his successful Parents Rights In Education bill, which banned classroom instruction about LGBTQA rubbish through third grade and to tell parents if their children receive mental-health services through the school. DeSantis and the Republican state legislature took on the WOKE Disney corporate freaks and knocked them out of the ring by revoking their special-district privileges, which allowed it to operate as its own government, rather than under the counties where it operates.
Fernandina and Nassau County voters also made it very clear they approved of Governor DeSantis’s law and order stance and his position on illegal immigration. Parents hereabouts are alarmed about the strain illegals put on local government school budgets and social services, about radical prosecutors, defund the police agendas and violent and corrupt Marxist organizations such as Black Lives Matter (BLM). They want no part of any of it.
Governor DeSantis summed up the law and order issue recently when he said: “The safety of our families and our communities is on the line. We cannot sit idly by as far-Left extremists try to dismantle our way of life and trample on the rule of law.”
However, two far-left Fernandina Beach Commission candidates are at the far end of that spectrum and refuse to talk about their liberal positions to voters and the media. Left-wing LGBTQA activist Genece Minshew and California transplant Mike Lednovich decline to answer questions posed to them about their left-wing agendas and social media postings. Take a look at City Commission candidate Genece Minshew’s Facebook page (see photo below) and the photo of Lednovich, that he has since removed from his Facebook page. Both Minshew, President of Fernandina Beach Pride (an LGBTQA activist group) and California transplant and current Commissioner and Mayor Mike Lednovich, have been deceitful by refusing to answer questions and hiding and obscuring their far-left views and backgrounds. Both have refused to respond to calls and emails from local citizen’s groups and this blog.
Even though this is a nonpartisan race, these two radicals have the full backing of the Nassau County Democrat Party, which is providing its South 8th Street County HQ to distribute yard signs, stickers, etc. for them, the only local candidates that have that party’s endorsement. Minshew is a registered Democrat while Lednovich, is registered “no party affiliation,” only because the Communist party wasn’t listed as a choice. https://www.facebook.com/100003322985569/posts/pfbid0gC8wYDMgyZdjtQqCQngF8gMpz974Knieo4UcK8gqH5u7aLuzotdCaRV7jKLHfyrEl/?app=fbl
Minshew and Lednovich are the only local candidates running for office that refused to answer any of the questions on the County Citizens Defending Freedom (CCDF-Nassau) questionnaire.
Lednovich refuses to say if he does or does not support the Marxist Black Lives Matters ideology despite the fact he paraded up and down Main Street draped with a BLM sandwich board. Minshew, the president of a local LGBTA group refused to answer “yes” or “no” to the questions: “Would you support the city positioning itself in promotional material as a Gay Vacation Destination?” and “Should biological boys ‘identifying’ as girls be allowed to play the girl’s teams?” Lednovich also refused to answer. In fact they both declined to answer any of the questions concerning the use of designated female city restrooms by biological males as well as questions on abortion within the city limits, the removal of the city’s historic symbols, the enforcement of city building code violations and more. Lednovich has said previously that he wants to remove the downtown statue of David Yulee, builder of Florida’s first cross-state railroad , U.S. Senator, slave holder and Southern Civil War supporter. He didn’t mention how he wants to handle the town’s name.
Minshew is not publicizing or promoting her support for LGBTGA causes and her opinions on trans-gendering young children, etc. Simply go to her Facebook page to take a look, she’s hiding in plain sight. If you’re not a Facebook user, finding this might be a mystery. If you are a Facebook user it is easy to do, or ask a friend or neighbor who is. However, it’s not recommended for children.
A search for Genece Minshew in Google didn’t produce her Facebook page, only non-LGBTQ+ campaign info. Minshew only lost by 38 votes to David Sturges in the last city election, so it’s important you vote. Darron Ayscue , a family man, life-long area resident and and veteran firefighter is my choice in this critical race.
The Victory Fund link: https://victoryfund.org/candidate/minshew-genece/ is the one of the most revealing Minshew’s beliefs. The headline says it all! Why isn’t she promoting that group’s endorsement of her campaign to voters hereabouts?
You can see for yourself all the candidates that answered the CCDF questionnaire, how they responded, and who refused by clicking here: Voter Guide for Nassau School Board and Fernandina Council Election- 2022.
If, as a voter, you acknowledge what everyone knows – that men can’t give birth, biological males should not compete in women’s sports, it’s improper for males to be in women’s changing rooms and restrooms and that drag shows for elementary school children are predatory, perverse, and wrong, then you DO NOT want to vote for either of these two or any other candidate that refused to answer the questionnaire. Let’s keep Fernandina Beach a sane family-oriented community, NOT a weird and degenerate liberal tourist freak show.
School Board member and candidate Jamie Deonas is the only candidate that refused to participate in a similar School Board questionnaire including one that asked: “Do you believe Critical Race Theory should be taught in our schools.” School Board candidate Curtis Gaus said he would NOT oppose the inclusion of “How White Supremacy lives in our schools” causing me to change my mind about voting for him. I’m now casting my ballot for Albert Wagner in District 3 and for Shannon Hogue in District 1.
The only news outlet hereabouts to mention this perverted duo so far is the online Citizens Journal. The impotent online Fernandina Observer and the print News Leader have ignored this left-wing rubbish as usual, printing only stories about quilting bees and puff pieces about the city manager. You can subscribe free to the Citizens Journal at https://citizensjournal.us14.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=6d9fc9f3df587f34cd2311dad&id=d1cd933185
My choices for City Commission are local chiropractor Dr. James Antun and firefighter Darron Ayscue, a pair who endorse traditional values and will maintain normalcy and sanity and bring fiscal responsibility to the city. Shannon Hogue and Albert Wagner, a duo that support parental rights, student success and curriculum transparency are my choices for the School Board.
How I’m Voting
In state-wide races I’m voting for Marco Rubio for U.S. Senator; Aaron Bean, U.S. Congressman District 4; Ron DeSantis, Florida Governor; Ashley Moody, Florida Attorney General; Jimmy Patronis, Florida’s Chief Financial Officer; Wilton Simpson, Florida Secretary of Agriculture; Clay Yarborough, State Senator District 4; Dean Black, State Senator. I’m voting “No ” on State Supreme Court Justices Canady, Labarga, Polston and Rowe. The other six get my “yes” vote.
***
Wait! What? Last Sunday, October 23 Joe Biden said he passed the Student Loan Bailout “by a vote or two. Speaking to a small group at the White House he said: “It’s passed. I got it passed by a vote or two and it’s in effect. And already, a total of, I think it’s now 13 million people have applied for that service.”
Who voted? Congress didn’t vote on it. If it had it would never have passed. November 8 can’t get here fast enough so the upcoming majority of House and Senate Republicans can toss a legislative net over this rambling, delusional, sad old man.
Fortunately the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals has temporarily halted Biden’s student loan forgiveness, an election-year scheme that his administration said was supposed to start as soon as next week.
The hold freezes the administration from “discharging any student loan debt under the cancellation program” until the court decides on the challenge brought by a coalition of Republican attorneys general.
A recent poll from The Economist/YouGov also found that roughly 50 percent of Americans agree that student loan forgiveness is unfair to those who did not attend college, with even more agreeing that it would be unfair to those who paid off their loans.
The president’s bizarre statement represents just one more in an ever-increasing list of whacky moments, this one coming within days of him appearing to zone out mid-interview. Why aren’t people more worried about this befuddled old fool and his irrational statements and behavior?
***
The New American Dream: According to the Biden administration the new American Dream is to steal something worth less than $1,000 as it’s only a misdemeanor and so what? It’s yours now. Take something worth more than $1,000 and it’s student loan forgiveness. Someone’s paying and it’s the average law-abiding American citizen and businesses. Want more? Then keep voting for Democrats.
***
Thinking Out Loud: While the Mainstream media scolds Florida and Texas Governors Ron DeSantis and Greg Abbott respectively for sharing their continually increasing populations of illegal aliens with New York, Chicago, and Martha’s Vineyard they have yet to ask: Why is Biden leaving the southern border open? Oh, and when it comes to student loan debt, why not offer student loan forgiveness in exchange for two years of military service? I’m sure the Marines and Army can train all those gender studies and psychology majors to drive tanks and fire rifles and it would ensure the Defense Department meets it new Biden administration quota of Woke and LGBTQA+ recruits.
***
Speaking Of Gov. DeSantis: A poll conducted by Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy for the traditionally left-leaning Telemundo/LX News found that Latinos support Ron DeSantis for governor over the hapless Republican-Independent-Democrat-Whatever Charlies Crist 51 percent to 44 percent giving DeSantis a 56 percent approval rating. Hispanics of Cuban descent approve of DeSantis by a whopping 73 percent.
In addition, NBC reported that Hispanic residents in Florida support DeSantis sending illegal aliens to Martha’s Vineyard 52 percent to 41 percent, which must be very confusing to Biden and his puppet masters and the Democrat party who are convinced they’re doing such a great job for the nation, particularly in securing the southern border.
***
“Shut Up” They Explained During his appearance on ABC’s “The View” Monday, October 24, Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz pointed out that while his interviewers are busy demanding former President Donald Trump and other Republicans swear that the 2020 election was “legitimate,” they have repeatedly failed to hold any Democrats accountable for rejecting Republican victories.
“You don’t do it to Hillary Clinton, who stood up and said Trump stole the election. You don’t do it to Stacey Abrams who said that the election was stolen. They sat here and said it was illegitimate and you guys were fine with it,” Cruz said.
“And it was,” host Whoopi Goldberg yelled.
“So. it’s illegitimate when Republicans win but not when Democrats win?” Cruz questioned.
I love it when an entire nest of lefties are called out and have no response other the profanities screamed by their slavish live audience.
***
An Ian Observation: A friend in Southwest Florida sent me the following observation after Hurricane Ian hit that area: “When everything went to hell in Florida after Hurricane Ian, I didn’t see a lot of Priuses , windmills or social justice warriors coming to save the day. I saw diesel trucks, combustion generators, heavy tractors, fuel tankers and a whole lotta bearded good ol’ boys putting some of that “toxic masculinity’ to work saving lives and rebuilding society.
“God bless the backbone of America: the hardworking men and women of the middle class!!
“Or put more succinctly — When the s—t hits the fan, nobody calls the pronoun people for help.”
***
New Poll: The results of the last poll here indicated that of the 72 people that responded 92% or 66, would not feel comfortable buying an electric vehicle. Just 8% or 6 said they would. Today a new poll asks voters hereabouts if local candidates should respond to timely questions of concern that impact residents.
Republished with the author’s permission. Read The Dave Scott Blog– subscribe Free
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
By Harvey Slentz, 10-14-22
Editor’s note: Most people have no idea who are the judges running for reconfirmation or even that they are running, until they see their sample ballots. None of these candidates have any opponents- you just vote yes or no. So far, we haven’t been able to obtain any informed qualified analysis of their judicial votes, just backgrounds provided by the author, which we provide for your perusal….
SUPREME COURT JUSTICES
JUSTICE CHARLES T. CANADY
Appointed by Gov. Charlie Crist (R) in 2008
Chief Justice Canady has been on the Florida Supreme court longer than the other justices. Prior to joining the court, he was a member of the Florida legislature, and served as an impeachment manager against President Clinton. His first ten years were spent in the conservative minority on the court. Justice Canady led the dissent in a Florida case involving a law that would allow a judge to impose the death penalty without referring that matter to the Jury. Canady’s dissent led to a review of the law by the U.S. Supreme Court, which then ruled that the law violated the 6th Amendment right to trial by jury. When the majority of the Florida Supreme Court viewed the appellate Justice Canady’s dissent, and overruled the Florida Supreme Court’s position that judges could unilaterally impose the death penalty. [Hurst v Florida, 577 US 92 (2016). Justice Canady has been a reliable conservative member of the court, even during years that he was often the only conservative dissent in cases.
JUSTICE JOHN D. COURIEL
Appointed by Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) in 2018
Justice Couriel has a background in Securities and Corporate Law, and he is a conservative justice. His first year as a Justice, Couriel concurred with the opinions that limited the opportunity to gain depositions from corporate executives involving corporate officers, and more difficult for plaintiffs to sue tobacco companies.
JUSTICE JAMIE GROSSHANS
Appointed by Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) in 2020
Justice Grosshans has demonstrated a consistent conservative view, beginning with her engagement as as a law student. Upon graduation, she interned at the Claremont Institute for the Study of Statesmanship and Polit Philosophy. She also served as legal fellow at the Alliance Defending Freedom, which opposes LGBTQ rights, abortion and same-sex marriage.
JUSTICE JORE LaBARGA
Appointed by Gov. Charlie Crist (R) in 2009
Justice Jorge Labarga wrote the first majority opinion on the 2016 case that ruled that a judge can by him/herself impose the death penalty. He also objected in dissent to Canady’s view that it was legal for a judge to impose the death penalty without participation of the jury. Justice LaBarg’s dissents as a conservative often recognize parts of the majority opinion, where he believes it is important.
JUSTICE RICKY POLSTON
Appointed by Gov. Charlie Crist (R) in 2008
Polston often joins Justice Canady, and argued in favor of giving state money to religious charter schools, even though that was prohibited by the Florida Constitution. He also notably dissented from an opinion that allowed the Family Law section of the Florida Bar to file a ‘friend of the court’ briefopposing a law that prohibited LGBTQ families from the adoption of children.
COURT OF APPEALS – 1ST APPELLATE DISTRICT
JUDGE ROSS L. BILBREY
Appointed by Gov. Rick Scott (R) in 2014
Judge Bilbrey has been a County, Circuit and now Appellate Judge. He has tied a very wide range of civil and criminal cases, and was a Judge Advocate General (JAG) attorney for the U.S. Navy, providing legal assistance to members of the military and their families, helping more than 3,000 active and retired service members. He was named Civilian of the Year because of his work in mobilizing reservists to active duty after the 9-11, 2001 assault on the U.S. by external terrorists. He then practiced law in Jacksonville for 7 years, concentrating on complex civil and commercial litigation. Judge Brilbrey also taught legal courses at the University of West Florida in his evenings, and was a member of the legal studies program advisory committee.
JUDGE SUSAN KELSEY
Appointed by Gov. Rick Scott (R) in 2014
Judge Kelsey is a graduate of the University of Florida College of Law where she was the Editor-in-Chief, and practiced as a member of the Holland & Knight LLP firm, along with practicing appellate law for 8 years before appointment to the appellate bench as a judge. She as received much recognition for her work as a Judge, and more as a supporter in her community.
JUDGE BOBBY LONG
Appointed by Gov. Rick Scott (R) in 2014
Judge Robert “Bobby” E. Long, Jr. earned a B.S. Degree in Finance from Florida State University and his Juris Doctorate in Law at the University of Florida. He began his legal career as an active duty Judge Advocate for the U.S. Navy, serving in the war in Afghanistan and in the Reserves. He is currently a Commander in the U.S. Navy Reserves. In his career to date he has extensive experience criminal and civil litigation was comprehensive, and was augmented by his earlier experience as a law enforcement officer in the Leon County Sheriff before later attending U.F. Judge Long was first appointed as a Circuit Court Judge in 2016, and later rose to his current role as a judge in the First District Court of Appeals. In addition to his legal duties, Judge Long has served on the Board of Directors for the Legal Aid Foundation, the Rotary Club of Tallahassee, the American Legion and the VFW. He also coaches the baseball, soccer, basketball and football teams of his four sons, along with leading both Cub Scout Pack and a Boy Scout Troop.
JUDGE LORI S. ROWE
Appointed by Gov. Charlie Crist (R) in 2009
Judge Rowe was first appointed to the 1st District Court of Appeals in 2009, and is currently the Chief Judge for the Appellate Court. She has varied experience, beginning as Assistant Attorney General in the Antitrust Section of the Office of the Attorney General (OAG), then worked in private practice with a local law firm. She returned to the (OAG) to serve as the Director of Multistate Litigation, then was promoted to Assistant then Executive Deputy Attorney General. She served as Deputy Chief of Staff in the Executive Office of the Governor before being appointed Judge in the First District Court of Appeals. She has also served as an adjunct professor at Florida State University and is an advisory board member for the George Mason University School of Law Judicial Education Program since 2016. Her other activities include mission team work for her Church, Junior League of Tallahassee since 2004, and as director of the Cub Scout Summer Day Camp. She is active in her church, serving two years as the Chair of the Church Council.
JUDGE THOMAS BO WINOKUR
Appointed by Gov. Rick Scott (R) in 2015
Judge Winokur accepted the appointment to the 1st District Court of Appeals after serving as the Assistant General Counsel for the Executive Office of the Governor. He had previously served as the Assistant Attorney General for the Florida Office of the Attorney General, practicing in criminal appeals and capital litigation. In these roles, Judge Winokur presided on more than 800 cases before the 1st District Court of Appeals and more than 40 cases before the Florida Supreme Court. His background includes growing up in Tampa, and receiving his bachelor’s and law degrees from the University of Florida. He is married and has two sons.
Editor’s note: 10-3-22- We received this from a highly placed, well connected public educator:
Having reviewed the Supreme Court Justices, the only “no” I have is Jorge Labarga
For the Court of Appeals the “nos” I have are below.
1) Ross Bilbrey: Appears to be very engaged on marijuana legislation: Judge chides Florida health officials on marijuana licenses – CBS Miami (cbsnews.com)
2) Lori Rowe: appointed by Charlie Christ, when she was appointed she was serving as Christ’s Deputy Chief of Staff: Lori S. Rowe – Ballotpedia
By Ben Whedon
Tesla founder Elon Musk has completed his purchase of social media giant Twitter and fired both CEO Parag Agrawal and CFO Ned Segal, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing “people familiar with the matter.”
Musk originally negotiated a deal in late April to purchase the platform for $44 billion before withdrawing his bid, which in turn prompted a suit from the company to force him to complete the deal.
Read MORE on Just the News
Editor’s note: When Citizens Journal Florida started up, we also signed up for Twitter and were immediately banned permanently before we had even posted anything. Hopefully. Mr. Musk will remedy that.
We saw this statement from him:
News/Elections
By Roy M Postel and George Miller
10-16-22 Fernandina Beach
Generating additional revenue and improving cooperation with county and port officials emerged as themes Friday evening at a Fernandina Beach City Commission candidate forum.
The November ballot asks voters to select commissioners to represent Seat 4 and Seat 5 for the next four years. Seven Fernandina Beach residents are on the ballot.
Current Mayor Mike Lednovich is the lone incumbent, campaigning for re-election to Commission Seat 4. The challengers are Dr. James Antun, Christopher Nickoloff and Chesley Lemire. Lemire did not attend the event.
The three challengers for Commission Seat 5 are Darron Ayscue, Staci Deane McMonagle and Genece Minshew. Current Seat 5 Commissioner and Vice Mayor Len Kreger will not seek re-election.
Friday’s forum was held a City Hall and moderated by Mike Phillips, editor of the Fernandina Observer, which sponsored the event. About 40 residents attended. They listened as candidates were given fixed time limits to respond to questions composed by the Observer and distributed to the participants in advance.
The first question was about candidate backgrounds and general comments. We’ll leave out the bios since other events, publicity and candidate web sites already cover that.
Mike Lednovich said he is “100% against development by rezoning properties.” He is proud that he blocked 500 new homes, helped ban beach and park smoking, opposes relocating central park recreational facilities, brought in stronger tree protecting codes, supported repairing the marina (2016 Hurricane Matthew) and obtain FEMA reimbursement. He said he has now initiated land development code reform.
Nickeloff promised stewardship of tax revenue, addressing neglected/historical assets, growth and repairing relationships with other government organizations.
Ayscue wants to serve/make a difference, change the budget process and finish the seawall.
McMonagle wants to give back to the community.
Revamping the budget process sits atop Minshew’s focus. She wants to bring better leadership, and address density, traffic, tourism, historical district, airport, marina, but didn’t say how.
After allowing each candidate to provide a short bio, Phillips presented the following:
Q1. Serious capital expenses are in the city’s future. Which one would be your first priority and why?
This question generated a solid consensus, as each candidate echoed support for the “seawall,” the preferred term to reference the city’s multiyear waterfront stabilization project along the Amelia River and Front Street.
“In my opinion the seawall is paramount,” Antun said. He noted a stabilized waterfront is necessary to justify investment in the other large scale capital projects outlined above.
Lednovich said Ian demonstrated the city is vulnerable to flooding in two other areas; where Egan’s Creek meets Atlantic Avenue and Escambia Slough. Flood mitigating measures ought to be looked at as part of the “seawall” initiative.
Like many of those in attendance, candidate Christopher Nickoloff, sensed the seawall was atop everyone’s list. He acknowledged his support and then added, “I’d like talk to about my second priority and that’s City Hall.” He characterized the structure as “the central nervous system of the city”, emphasizing the need for safety.
Nickoloff challenged the next City Commission to establish a “secondary location” where municipal departments could relocate and provide service to residents in the event of natural disaster or a declaration from inspectors that City Hall is structurally unsafe.
Ayscue reiterated the seawall priority, which he said should go north to the port. He suggested a public-private partnership to cover costs of the seawall and other downtown projects, such as landscaping.
Monagle also endorsed the seawall primacy, saying the city’s mission is to serve and protect rights, protect from water damage and use some of the American Rescue Act funds to do all this.
Minshew said overall “resiliency” should be the overriding priority which includes the seawall & downtown as well as the slough. She mentioned that downtown is the engine of commerce, which should be made to stay workable, attract tourists, etc.
Q2. State and federal funds are available for a portion of the city’s looming capital costs, but they aren’t enough. New sources of revenue will be needed. What new source or sources would you support?
Unlike the capital programs, the question of generating new revenue sparked a variety of replies. The pros and cons of parking fees, “voluntary” retail taxes and proposing a general bond issue were voiced by nearly all the candidates.
Because tourism is a major industry of the Island, Antun said a “voluntary” retail tax modeled after the current levy assessed on St. Simon Island, GA., could generate significant revenue. He said St. Simon officials report the program nets $1 million per year and the results exceed initial projections. He cited the “My Fernandina” idea of a “voluntary” tax here which could raise $800K annually. He is opposed to a bond issue for anything other than an emergency.
McMonagle agreed with the idea of tourist-serving businesses assessing the fee. “It could be 1% of the bill, or round the amount up to the dollar,” she explained. “People don’t think of change (from a dollar) as real money.”
A non-residential beach parking fee program also garnered attention, but participants admit it would have to be carefully designed so as to not violate federal mandates that require equal access to public beaches. Lednovich said the city enjoys an estimated $20 million annually from federal agencies in “beach renourishment” materials and services and warned against not qualifying for the services due to access questions.
“I believe we need to coordinate with the county” to make sure any type of visitor tax on the Island will not jeopardize outside funding for beach, maintenance and shoreline protection projects, Lednovich cautioned.
He seemed ambivalent about a bond issue, saying “yes and no”, that it depended upon the economy.
Caution to support a general obligation bond initiative was expressed by others, too. Nickoloff said the primary benefit of borrowing for long term projects is that the voters have to approve the bond measure at the ballot box.
“You have to make sure” the bond offering “is not open ended,” to get my support, if elected to the commission.
He favors a moratorium on new city facilities, along with closing/combining facilities to save money. He wants to see a larger 5-year capital expenditures program, with a voter approved bond issue. He favors paid parking for non-residents.
Ayscue wants a closer look at the budget to get operational expenses under control before tackling new capital expenditures. He reiterated the need to find new revenue sources and seawall project partners.
Monagle opined that that beach parking “doesn’t feel right”, bond issues should only be for special purposes (referred to the Greenway project). She likes the idea of a bond issue, because “people have to vote on it.” She observed that “the budget is out of control.” contains “unneeded spending”, needs cuts. She likes the idea of the My Fernandina voluntary taxes.
Menshew favored a bigger picture approach, including a long-term strategic plan, which she said the city doesn’t have. She would relook at the budget process and have staff present three options, along with the required millage rates to support each version. She cited the need to address much deferred maintenance, “climate change,” bonds for 1-2 projects, but offered no further details., citing only “resiliency” and downtown bond projects.
Moderator Phillips opted to allow the final portion to be more open ended. Candidates were given equal time to speak on a topic of their choice, ranging from “why you are better qualified than your opponents” or some aspect of city operation that has not been addressed.
As an owner of two local businesses, Antun and his family are “not going anywhere.” He cited sound decision-making and his commitment to quality of life issues and safety as reasons to vote for him.
“The barbarians are at the gate,” proclaimed Lednovich in a warning that congestion on the Island and housing density are trends the City of Fernandina Beach cannot solve alone. He cited the need for a “mobility plan” with Nassau County to address the wide array of issues that accompany anticipated population growth. He again stressed his years of experience and accomplishments on the Commission and mentioned that he had performed well to “measurable metrics.”
Nickoloff also noted the better relationships with the county commission and port authority (Ocean, Highway & Port Authority) are necessary for “restoring and maintaining our historic roots” of a family vacation venue with a small-town feel. He said a bond referendum for beach/parks could be a “last resort” solution. He said he’s qualified, has lots of time to work on this, his fire dept. experience brought skills in getting along with people retired, organizational/management skills, gets things done, partly founded a charitable organization with $1MM budget.
Ayscue cited his service leadership/experience in Nassau fire rescue, knows budget, millage, the system, working with other agencies, the mosquito control board experience.
Monagle is concerned about the City Manager, who she says has “inverted the triangle”, acting as if the Commission reported to him instead of the proper chain of command, which should be just the reverse. She said he has too much to say about what is going on. She opined that getting a stronger Commission is one possible solution- as in “we set policy and you carry it out”- and the other one is “his services are no longer needed.” he wrapped up by saying that people are not happy about the budget, how things are being run and blame him.
Menshew Declared that the city needs to become more effective, more efficient and that the City Manager has that responsibility. She disagreed with Mayor Lednovich, insisting that there are actually very few quantifiable metrics available and that those have been collected and presented rather haphazardly, in different ways, channels and inconsistently. She called for KPI’s (Key Performance Indicators- formal, quantifiable, available, meaningful measurements of performance), which she said are the City Manager’s responsibility.
Several candidates- Antun, Asycue and Lednovich- expressed the need to improve the “culture” of City Hall departments. Lag time in receiving permits from the building department surfaced as a specific horrible example fueling a wider perception that residents must wait on the city, versus the city serving Fernandina Beach residents.
The forum allowed commission hopefuls to speak on matters that commonly surface in events sponsored by private groups and participants had the questions in advance. To learn where commission candidates stand on some more pointed matters, please review the published results of the 2022 CCDF USA-Nassau County Voter Guide for Nassau School Board and Fernandina Council Election.
George Miller is Publisher and Co-Founder of Citizens Journal Florida, based in Fernandina Beach. He is a “retired” operations management consultant, software and publishing executive and manufacturing management professional.
Roy M Postel is a resident of Fernandina Beach (“off Island”). He is a general assignment Citizens Journal Florida reporter with a keen interest in politics and history. He loves to investigate tips from fellow citizens. Contact him at [email protected]
By Staci McMonagle
10-27-22
Perhaps more than any other time in history, for all levels of government, it is more important than ever to VOTE! As your “public servant-LEADER” representing the collective voice for our Fernandina Beach community, I am asking for your vote as candidate for Seat 5 of the City Commission. I want to be the bridge between the public and the governing body of the city—representing YOU!
First and foremost, my big picture vision for Fernandina Beach is to preserve, with wisdom, the unique and historic DNA that delights both locals and tourists alike! Most importantly my directive is to protect and preserve our “barrier island’s” natural resources which are so vital! Like a three-legged stool, each dependent upon the other, our tree canopy, dunes and wet-land MUST be a priority! Under this umbrella, I will promote avenues to efficiently and effectively enforce city code and report violations.
Second, the ever growing, bloated budget MUST be addressed! Why has the budget increased every year and ultimately almost doubled over the last eight years? Are your taxes being allocated to best serve the needs of the people? Does the condition of the infrastructure reflect the tax dollars spent. As your elected representative, I will ask these hard accountability questions on your behalf!
In closing, as a community, leaders must be proactive rather than reactive. We must plan and manage our resources, both fiscally and environmentally. This mindset is what will ensure the preservation of our beloved community!
From Gov. DeSantis’ Office, 10-27-22
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Today, Governor Ron DeSantis announced the appointment of Aaron Miri to the Florida State College at Jacksonville District Board of Trustees.
Aaron Miri
Miri is the Senior Vice President and Chief Digital and Information Officer for Baptist Health. In 2020, the United States Senate appointed him to the Health Information Technology Advisory Committee where he currently serves as a co-chairman. Miri earned his bachelor’s degree in management information systems from the University of Texas at Arlington and his master’s degree in business administration from the University of Dallas.
This appointment is subject to confirmation by the Florida Senate.
By One America News
One America News Network Published October 26, 2022
Editor’s note: They’re doing it to Citizens Journal Florida, too.
By Jeff Childers
10-27-22
Good morning, C&C, and Happy Thursday! Lots of interesting stuff in today’s roundup: jury finds Darrell Brooks guilty on 76 counts; Dr. Oz springs ahead in the betting markets as Fetterman becomes a jab-injury poster child; Elon Musk prepares to become the top Twit; Twitter employees make unintentionally hilarious demands; Ben Shapiro finally learns to love vaccine hesitancy; things get weird with Russia’s claim about Ukraine’s dirty bomb; and Russia demands an emergency meeting in the UN over Ukraine biolabs.
🔥 The Wall Street Journal ran a story yesterday headlined, “Darrell Brooks Found Guilty of Homicide in Waukesha Christmas Parade Attack.” Yesterday, after an 18-day trial, the 12-member Waukesha County jury found Brooks guilty on 76 counts, including six counts of murder.
Brooks represented himself during the trial, since his attorneys withdrew in September. He did everything he could to turn his trial into a circus — a premeditated strategy to manufacture a mistrial. But the judge showed extraordinary — even superhuman — patience, letting Brooks act out, and meticulously working through all the legal and procedural issues the defendant’s bizarre conduct created.
I have not previously reported on the trial, as curious as it was, because I immediately saw what Brooks was up to, and wanted to avoid any possibility, however slim, of helping him win a mistrial. In fact, Brook’s expected mistrial motion was ultimately based on a Reddit social media post.
Darrel Brooks is a monster, an evil demon, and he will be sentenced to life in prison, since Wisconsin does not permit the death penalty. I hope he finds salvation before he dies.
But there’s another aspect of this story; another criminal who hasn’t been charged yet. At the time of his parade rampage, Brooks, who has an extensive criminal record dating back to 1999, was out on $1,000 cash bail after being charged with punching and running over his child’s mother. It’s now widely recognized that he should never have been released, and certainly not on such low bail.
The self-described “progressive” district attorney who set his bail, John Chisholm, later claimed the low bail was “a mistake.” You don’t say.
According to a Fox News article about the story, in 2007 Chisholm admitted that his liberal bail policies would lead to additional crimes. “Is there going to be an individual I divert, or I put into treatment program, who’s going to go out and kill somebody?” Chisholm reportedly told the Milwaukee Sentinel-Journal. “You bet. Guaranteed. It’s guaranteed to happen. It does not invalidate the overall approach.”
Yes, John, it DOES invalidate the overall approach. You’re guiltier than Brooks. You should be in prison for life, too.
Chisholm’s office can be contacted at (414) 278-4646.
📉 Within the 24-hour period following the painful and embarrassing Fetterman-Oz debate, the gap in the betting markets widened spectacularly in Dr. Oz’s favor:
Yesterday I was thinking more about the awful decision the democrat party made to green-light the brain-damaged candidate’s participation in the unbelievably awkward debate. I’m beginning to think their error was even more profound than I originally thought.
Think about it.
Fetterman is the new poster child for covid vaccine injuries.
Because the race could determine control of the Senate, millions tuned in to watch Fetterman struggle and fail to complete a coherent sentence. My wife Michelle, a native Floridian with near-zero interest in Pennsylvania politics, sat through the entire debate.
For those of us who’d never heard of John Fetterman till after his jab-induced stroke, he was a rising star in democrat politics, fully expected to handily defeat Dr. Oz, who was widely seen as a weak candidate, despised by democrats for his Trump endorsement, but also not fully embraced by Republicans, for his liberal social views.
But Fetterman’s shot-stroke crippled more than just his mind; it also debilitated his candidacy and probably his political career. In hindsight, the democrats should have replaced him immediately after his stroke in April, while there was still time. It’s a sign of how strong a candidate he was that they pinned their hopes on a recovery.
It was a horrible mistake. The problem is, Fetterman ISN’T recovering. He’s getting worse.
The whole nation watched John Fetterman first advocate for shots, then get jabbed, then stroke out, then stumble for words through an entire, critical, high-visibility Senatorial campaign. Fetterman is the most visible, most often seen (and heard) vaccine victim. The democrats should pray John DOESN’T win, or else he’ll continue being a walking billboard for jab injuries for six more years in the Senate.
There’s a kind of metaphor here. Just as they’ve been ignoring jab injuries, democrats tried to ignore the elephant in John Fetterman’s damaged brain. But, despite their best efforts, his injury cannot be ignored. Neither will all the other jab injuries be ignored.
Let’s be clear. I don’t agree with Fetterman’s politics. But he’s a victim, just like all the other jab victims. They deserve to be seen and heard. Stop ignoring them.
🔥 Elon Musk will take possession of Twitter Corporation tomorrow at 5pm sharp. Yesterday, he tweeted a short clip of himself strutting into Twitter HQ. Carrying a sink.
Entering Twitter HQ – let that sink in!
6:45 PM ∙ Oct 26, 2022888,071Likes127,583Retweets
Do you think he carried the sink just so he could make that silly joke? Or is that like, his favorite sink or something?
It’s been a long, strange road, and Musk’s ability to actually close the deal was uncertain until this week. Late last week, the rumors were that the Biden administration was pulling out the stops to block the sale. But then over the weekend, this happened:
The White House is in talks with Elon Musk to set up SpaceX’s satellite broadband service Starlink in Iran. newsmax.com/politics/space…
Now, if Elon Musk were my client, and he told me that the White House was asking for help with Biden’s new color revolution in Iran, and was needing a satellite or two, I would have told Elon to lead off the negotiations with, “first you have to back off my Twitter deal.”
And what do you know? Three days later, Iranian rebels report their Starlink is working great, and Elon is strolling confidently into Twitter headquarters carrying a random piece of disconnected plumbing. Those satellites have been pretty handy.
Well. It COULD be a coincidence. What do YOU think?
Now Elon has to deal with Twitter’s Millennial workforce. An anonymous group of employees purporting to speak for “everybody” sent him a “demand letter” yesterday, which of course was immediately leaked. The two-page list of demands included a demand for respect, a demand for Musk to agree not to fire anybody, and a demand for the “right” to work from home. It’s childish nonsense, of course, but there was one unintentionally hilarious bit that caught my eye.
Under the heading “safety,” the anonymous employees demanded that Musk agree not to discriminate against them because of their “political beliefs:”
All the other classes besides political beliefs are ALREADY protected categories under federal law.
Isn’t it hilarious how Millennials view non-discrimination as a “safety” issue? The poor little darlings need a safe space. Second, you couldn’t possible overstate the IRONY that these employees — most of whom enthusiastically work in Twitter’s political censorship department — are now suddenly demanding to be protected from viewpoint discrimination.
I wonder if they think about karma much? Dishing out viewpoint discrimination is all fun and games, but taking it isn’t so hot.
Anyway, I don’t want to oversell this story. The letter was bravely signed “Twitter workers,” which could just be one lily-livered, zoom-masked numbskull terrified about having to go into the office. The rest of the Twitter team might be taking the transition perfectly professionally, and are smartly trying to keep their jobs by showing Twitter’s new management just how valuable they are.
At least, I HOPE that’s true. We’ll see!
Finally, hysterical liberals have been expressing a non-stop series of bad takes on Musk’s acquisition of Twitter. They can be summarized by this parody headline:
So.
🔥 Fast-talking conservative radio host Ben Shapiro ruffled many conservative feathers during the pandemic (including mine) when he started publicly advocating for the shots. He’s often been described as “an outspoken advocate” for the jabs, making him a conservative outlier.
The PostMillennial ran a story yesterday headlined, “’We Were Lied to by Everyone:’ Ben Shapiro Walks Back Support for Covid Vaccine.”
What really seems to have finally gotten through to Ben was the October 10th admission by a Pfizer executive that the drugmaker never actually tested whether the shots would reduce transmission of the virus. Now — a year and a half late — Ben finally gets it. On his Tuesday show, he expressed shock and dismay at all the lies:
“We were lied to by everyone. We were lied to by the scientists. We were lied to by Pfizer. We were lied to by the government. We were lied to by the Biden administration … I don’t like being lied to.”
Me neither. Ben continued:
“It is now perfectly clear that we were lied to. And we were lied to at a very high level and from very, very early on by both the vaccine companies, in terms of the ability of the vaccine to prevent transmission, and … by our politicians who apparently knew better.”
Ben, who is otherwise very smart, pointed out that during the vaccine rollout, the media was just parroting what Pfizer and Moderna claimed, because that WAS THE ONLY DATA. So the drugmakers MUST have lied. He said the data about reducing transmission was why he decided to get double vaccinated, and why he advocated for others to get jabbed, on his show and on his social media accounts.
But on Tuesday, Ben said he’s no longer sure he would have gotten the shots, if he’d had the correct information, given that he is not in an at-risk category for the virus.
Well, miracles DO happen.
I’m confident a lot of you are thinking, too late, Ben! And I don’t blame you. I don’t even blame you if you think Ben’s proved that he’s controlled opposition or something. For me, I’m willing to accept his belated apology and, while I wish he’d been open to considering the developing data last year, I recognize that he can still greatly help the movement with his platform, his voice, and his intellect.
I feel that way because I know a lot of other smart people — I’m talking about friends and colleagues and relatives — who also fell for the government’s medical fairy tale, just like Ben did. Some of those folks are starting to come around, too, and I’m happy to have them back.
We are going to have to figure out what to do with all these people, the people who were on the wrong side during the war, but who now recognize their mistake. As a Christian, I’m required to give them grace, the same grace I’ve received. But there’s a practical reason to forgive them, too.
The practical reason is that we are going to need them for the next part: making sure this never happens again.
Finally, although I’m not quite ready to start listening to Ben again, I am happily subscribed to the Daily Wire, and I am happy Ben’s finally landed back on planet reality. Also, you have to allow that, in Ben’s favor, is the fact that he always argued against mandates, both for masks and vaccines.
Welcome back, Ben.
🚀 I mentioned over the weekend that, over the last several days, Russia has been telling anyone who’ll listen they have intel that Ukraine plans to detonate a dirty nuclear bomb and is going to try to blame it on the Russians. Meanwhile, Ukraine and its allies claim that it’s really the RUSSIANS who are the ones planning a false-flag dirty bomb attack.
Yesterday, Russian military briefers said their information is specifically that Ukraine is planning to attack the Chernobyl nuclear site.
4:39 PM ∙ Oct 26, 2022341Likes118Retweets
There are some very, very weird aspects to this. First, corporate media has blacked out all the reports mentioning Chernobyl. They aren’t reporting it, even though from independent sources it seems obvious that Russia did, in fact, say this. Why doesn’t corporate media want to talk about it?
The second weird thing is that it’s Chernobyl. Well, maybe it’s weird, or maybe not. I’ve been remembering I heard a sermon about ten years ago on the Book of the Revelation, and the pastor was talking about the odd moment when Revelation describes “Star Wormwood:”
Then the third angel sounded his trumpet, and a great star burning like a torch fell from heaven and landed on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water. The name of the star is Wormwood. A third of the waters turned bitter like wormwood oil, and many people died from the bitter waters.
Revelation 8:10-11.
In Ukrainian, the word “Chernobyl” is a name for mugwort, a species of artemesia — which is also known as common wormwood. Revelation’s “star burning like a torch” could easily describe a missile, and “fell from heaven” can also be translated as “fell from the sky.”
So.
Who knows. Either way, I’d sure feel a lot better if the Russians and Ukrainians would stop fighting with nukes over a molten nuclear disaster site buried under a giant concrete and lead coffin.
Maybe it’s about time we should consider shutting down the money-laundering proxy war? I’m just saying.
🚀 Because corporate media won’t report on this story, either, I had to go to Al-Ahed News, which ran a piece yesterday headlined, “Moscow Urges UN Probe into Ukrainian Biolabs.”
On Tuesday, Russia invoked Article VI of the Biological Weapons Convention in the United Nations, requiring a hearing in the Security Council in two days to debate establishing “a commission to investigate alleged violations of the convention prohibiting the production or use of biological weapons by Ukraine and the United States.”
Russian ambassador Vassily Nebenzia circulated a draft resolution ahead of a meeting set for today (Thursday), along with “a variety of documents and evidence that shed light on the true nature of military biological activities of the US and Ukraine on the Ukrainian territory.”
I’m trying to find a copy of the draft resolution, and will brief you on it if I can timely get hold of one.
Moscow alleges that the U.S. and Ukraine conducted secretive, joint biological research on Ukrainian soil, and says it has unearthed incriminating evidence of those illegal activities during the ongoing special military operation. The Russian Defense Ministry has been gradually releasing some of those materials in batches since at least March.
Russia is proposing to amend the weapons convention, advocating for three main ideas to make the landmark international agreement stronger and to make it more legally binding on the parties. Russia is calling for negotiations on a “legally binding protocol,” an “effective verification mechanism” and a “scientific advisory committee” within the group.
All of that sounds perfectly reasonable, if not immediately necessary, given what we’ve all suffered through the last two years of lab-leaked viruses.
Russia also proposes making the control mechanisms more transparent, with additional “confidence-building measures,” suggesting Convention participants must declare all their “activities in the biological sphere outside their national territory.”
That also sounds like a great idea. I’d be very interested in hearing from anyone who thinks they have an intelligent argument why we shouldn’t immediately agree to the Russian proposals. And I wish the Republicans in Congress would advocate for more transparency over biolabs like Wuhan and whatever else we have going on in Eastern Europe’s crack house, I mean Ukraine.
Have a terrific Thursday! I’ll see you back here tomorrow for a special essay on accountability.
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The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
By Albert Wagner
Dear Nassau County Neighbors,
As you well know, my campaign for the District 3 seat on the School Board will soon come to a close. I’ve appeared in numerous candidate forums and have spoken to many of you to get your candid feedback on how we can improve our School District and I thank you for all of your ideas and your commitment to our School District. For some time now, I’ve reflected on what I’ve learned from you and others and I wanted to share some final thoughts with you as you decide who you want to serve in this important role. So please accept this as my “closing statement” if you will.
I decided to run for School Board to modernize our School District and bring “A FRESH PERSPECTIVE.” This is more than a slogan to me. If I’m elected to this position, I promise to bring my 18 years of education experience in both teaching and administration to address our District’s unnecessary but chronic budget issues, teacher retention and to expand our technical education programs. I believe in servant leadership and you are my boss. What is best for our children will always be top of mind for me. I will fight for you and your children and, by doing so, together we will build a more prosperous future for Nassau County.
My opponent is being backed by incumbent members of the School Board and the current Administration. I know, however, that people are tired of the “Old Boys Network.” We all deserve better than the same old policies that have led to our ongoing budget woes, have driven some of our best teachers out of the classroom, and have resulted in 35% of our graduating seniors pursuing no postsecondary education of any kind instead of learning a marketable vocational skill or getting a marketable degree. We all know this is the key to a prosperous future for our children and community as a whole.
The County has grown considerably and we need more sophisticated and conservative financial leadership. One case in point is that, for years, we’ve paid cash (at current taxpayer expense) for capital assets like land and schools that should be debt financed over 30 years to spread the burden among current AND FUTURE taxpayers. I would have never voted to approve the $3.6 million (in cash) for the 10-acre land purchase in Yulee. This purchase cannot possibly provide a rational return on investment for our taxpayers. I also would have never voted to sideline a Citizens Budget Advisory Committee. If our District wants to increase transparency, why would we fear the recommendations of financial experts in our community related to our budget issues?
Finally, I am a father of two children who attend school in Yulee. I am also a teacher by background. I understand the challenges facing teachers today and I also understand that the teachers know far more about what works in their classrooms than the Administration does. Without a doubt there is too much emphasis on testing and the ongoing micromanagement of our teachers is driving our best teachers away from the profession. We do have a teacher pay problem here but it is not the sole reason for our teacher retention issues. I want to be the teacher’s candidate too so, if you’re a teacher here, I ask for your vote.
I want to thank all candidates for their willingness to serve in public office. It would be the great honor of my life to serve you on our School Board. Please vote for Albert Wagner for the Nassau County School Board in District 3 on November 8 for A FRESH PERSPECTIVE!
Sincerely,
Albert J. Wagner
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
By Deb Boelkes,10-26-22
People have asked for my opinion on the Nassau County School District’s Ad Valorem Mileage Rate increase on our general election ballot. I’m voting NO as a result of one-on-one conversations with a number of teacher candidates who have interviewed for teaching positions with Nassau County schools but decided to work elsewhere (in favor of working in Duval or Camden County schools) and teachers who did work in this district but elected to relocate to Duval or Camden due to district administration and management issues. I personally take exit interviews very seriously, as should our school board. As Albert discussed in his letter above, the issues these teachers primarily highlighted were not so much about money as they were with the way the district is managed. Funny, I’ve found that’s often the case with disgruntled employees in the corporate world, too….quitting is rarely about money. Quitting is usually about management / cultural issues. People join companies but leave managers.
BTW, a friend who lives in Palm Beach County forwarded me their “Palm Beach Young Republicans” Voters Guide for the mid-term election in Palm Beach County. Interestingly, they have a very similar Referendum on their Ballot, but in their case it’s a vote to CONTINUE their ad velorum levy for school safety, teachers and operational needs. The Palm Beach Young Republicans (usually comprised of conservative parents with school-aged children) recommended a NO vote on their ad velorum levy for teachers, safety, & operational needs.
Deb
Deb Boelkes
Founder, Business World Rising, LLC
Keynote Speaker and award-winning Author of:
Women on Top: What’s Keeping You From Executive Leadership?
The WOW Factor Workplace: How to Create a Best Place to Work Culture
Heartfelt Leadership: How to Capture the Top Spot and Keep on Soaring
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Strong Suit: Leadership Success Secrets from Women on Top
Office: 904-310-9602
Email: [email protected]
DebBoelkes.com || BusinessWorldRising.com || HeartfeltLeadership.com
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The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
Nassau County Sheriff’s Office
10-26-22
On October 15, 2022 Joshwa Edsall responded to an inmate disturbance inside of the jail while he was working as a Nassau County Sheriff’s Office corrections officer. The inmate apparently didn’t like to be around other people and wanted his own private cell and was causing a disturbance. In order to gain control of the inmate Edsall used and sprayed his pepper spray into the face of the inmate. The inmate turned his back to Edsall and attempted to wipe the pepper spray from his eyes. Edsall then grabbed the inmate by his shoulder and armpit and threw him into a concrete wall causing head and facial injuries. The inmate fell to the ground and Edsall forcibly drove his knee into the inmates back utilizing his taser as another deputy handcuffed the inmate for safety. The inmate was then transported to Baptist Nassau Hospital to receive treatment for his injuries.
“Obviously, this is not what we would expect from our employees. When we take people into our custody, they should expect a safe and professional environment, and this type of conduct will not be tolerated. The expectation is that our members of the Nassau County Sheriff’s Office exhibit the highest level of professionalism. We are disappointed by this outcome and the proper punishment in this case is arrest and termination of employment. For some reason Edsall let his temper take control and take over. He lost control and he lost his job. When he was called in for a complaint interview he said he was expecting it because he knew he crossed the line. Per our agency’s policy an officer can only use that force which is necessary to overcome the resistance. In this case he used unnecessary and excessive force to control the situation of an inmate. I’m not going to tolerate bad behavior by our citizens and I’m not going to tolerate bad behavior by our employees. It’s unfortunate that someone would decide to lose his job and his career, but that’s exactly what he did,” Sheriff Bill Leeper Said.
Edsall was hired on March 24, 2022. He had worked for NCSO for about seven months and was still on probation. There have been no other issues or complaints during that time. He previously worked for the Florida Department of Corrections.
By Jeff Childers
10-26-22
Good morning C&C, and Happy Tuesday! We have a terrific roundup for you this morning, including: new Canadian Premier drops the WEF like a hot needle; New York City forced to hire unjabbed workers back; Biden gets his fifth shot and hawks boosters; drag brunches and Satanism; UK’s NHS cancels trans procedures for kids; Fetterman craters in the debate; DeSantis crushes Crist in debate; radio host dies mid-broadcast; Britney Griner loses her appeal and starts 9-year sentence; and a new study debunks the “reduced transmission” lie.
🪖 Here’s the link to the Covid Summit video. Prior to the thirty-minute mark, the audio quality is poor, but it resolves after that.
🪖 The C&C Store has new winterized swag for your cold-weather enjoyment.
💉 In the first bit of terrific news, yesterday newly-elected Canadian Premier Danielle Smith, who recently apologized to unvaccinated people, courageously announced that the province of Alberta will “disconnect” from the World Economic Forum. She explained, “Until that organization stops bragging about how much control they have over political leaders, I have no interest in being involved with them.”
7:13 AM ∙ Oct 26, 20222,027Likes558Retweets
Smith is also concerned about the WEF meddling in local health agencies, and said, “I must tell you, I believe that Alberta Health Services is the source of a lot of the problems that we’ve had. They signed some kind of partnership with the World Economic Forum right in the middle of the pandemic. We’ve got to address that. Why in the world would we have anything to do with the World Economic forum? That’s got to end.”
Bernie’s Tweets @BernieSpofforth
7:08 AM ∙ Oct 22, 20224,585Likes1,698Retweets
Smith may be the first significant political leader pushing back against the WEF and using it as a political foil. In other words, she’s running on an anti-WEF platform, which is a ripe political issue. There’re a LOT of folks who at this point are passionately anti-WEF. Thanks, Klaus!
I want you to remember this story till Friday, when I publish my roadmap to Nuremberg II. They’re connected.
💉 During my talk at the Covid Summit this weekend, I reported that courts are now more receptive to arguments about the pandemic than they’ve ever been. Proving the point, in more terrific news yesterday, New York’s Richmond County Supreme Court ordered workers who’d been fired for being unjabbed to be reinstated — with back pay — explaining “Being vaccinated does not prevent an individual from contracting or transmitting Covid-19,” and adding that the mandates were really more about compliance than public health.
First, the Court found that the City’s shot mandate was irrational, because employees were allowed to keeping working right up until they were terminated:
Then the Court observed what I’ve said from the beginning, that “emergencies” are by definition TEMPORARY and short-lived.
The Court noted what we all now know, that the mandates don’t make any sense because the shots don’t protect other workers; since they don’t prevent transmission of the virus.
Finally, the Court ground any remaining shreds of the mandate’s justification to dust, noting that the mandates have never made sense as an issue of “safety:”
Every time another decision like this comes down, the body of available case law grows. Every time another decision like this comes down, lawyers get more tools to use against the mandates. Every time another decision like this comes down, it gets easier to beat future mandates.
As I’ve said before, what we ultimately need is a new federal law canceling all vaccine liability protection, and putting vaccines on an equal footing with other drugs. If any drug — vaccine or not — injures someone, the manufacturer should compensate that person for their injury.
The original theory behind the vaccine liability shields was to encourage companies to make vaccines. It’s now time to have a conversation about whether the shields are still needed, about what ‘unanticipated’ problems have arisen, and about how vaccine injured people have been left twisting in the wind.
💉 Biden was busy yesterday getting his fifth covid shot and talking up boosters.
WATCH: President Biden receives his updated COVID-19 vaccine, urging Americans to get their booster shot and annual flu shot before Halloween. cbsn.ws/3TRpEq0
Interestingly, in the clip above, Biden was asked if he thought the fallen New York mandate was a mistake. He answered, “No I don’t think… That’s a local judgment.” If his response is any sign, there doesn’t seem to be much political will left for mandates.
I’m just saying, but they really need to teach Biden to pretend to flinch, at least a little, when the needle appears to go in.
Now that early voting is well underway, former vice-president Biden also proclaimed yesterday that the state of emergency is not, in fact, over, even though he said the pandemic had ended last month. “Some of our friends in Congress say we don’t need covid funding … I strongly disagree. Strongly disagree. This is a global health emergency.”
6:26 PM ∙ Oct 25, 20227,056Likes2,376Retweets
But before the elections, in mid-September, Biden said the pandemic was over:
12:20 AM ∙ Sep 19, 2022531Likes157Retweets
It’s possible to square his comments. The PANDEMIC is over, but the EMERGENCY isn’t over. Make sense?
It’s $cience.
🫃🏻 LibsOfTikTok exposed a North Carolina brewery — why is it always North Carolina lately? — that scheduled a “Disney themed drag brunch” for the day before Halloween.
As far as we know, Disney has no problem with these folks using its trademarked name and images for promoting sexually-perverted content. Using “Disney” means the drag show organizers were aiming at KIDS.
Why is it always kids? These gross drag shows and story hours are never aimed at lawyers or doctors or steel workers or accountants. Just kids.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, one of the performing cross-dressers’ bios explains he was “inspired by Satanism.” With a capital “S.” I am not making that up. He also seems to think he has multiple personalities or something, because he’s a “they.”
By now, at least one of you is sympathetically thinking this Rosenriot character is a very confused young man, rather than a committed Satanist, because you simply can’t believe anyone would rationally make that choice or actually believe that Satan exists. But that’s beside the point.
The point is, why is a “Disney Drag Brunch” featuring cross-dressing Satanists being pitched to kids?
Remember all those hapless Christians from the 80’s who got all wound up about Satanic pedophile rings, and corporate media convinced everybody they were barking mad? Is there any chance they were actually on to something? I’m just asking.
Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!
— Isaiah 5:20
🫃🏻 The UK Telegraph ran a story yesterday headlined, “Most children who think they’re transgender are just going through a ‘phase’, says NHS.” The sub-headline explained, “Doctors told not to encourage young people to change their names and pronouns.”
How about that? Progress! Or reversion, depending on how you look at it.
The NHS is the National Health Service, which governs the UK’s state-run health system. NHS announced plans this week to tighten controls on the treatment of kids under 18 who are questioning their gender, including a ban on prescribing puberty blockers outside of strict clinical trials. The health agency said it plans to replace the therapists and hormone specialists who currently run the UK’s gender program with medical doctors, including experts “in paediatric medicine, autism, neurodisability and mental health.”
The new guidance calls for a “wait and see” approach, explaining that research “reflects evidence that in most cases gender incongruence does not persist into adolescence” and doctors should be mindful this might be a “transient phase.”
A phase. You don’t say.
The Telegraph reported the changes were prompted by a sharp rise in referrals to the gender identity service, from just under 250 in 2011-12 to over 5,000 last year.
Governor DeSantis has already implemented similar guidelines here in Florida, sparking cries of outrage from corporate media.
We need a lot more of that clear Florida and British thinking.
🔥 Pennsylvania Senate candidate John Fetterman, who suffered at least one stroke after his jabs earlier this year, debated Dr. Oz on live TV last night.
Words are inadequate to describe how cringe it was. It played like an SNL cold open that went too far. The debate rules were modified to help prop up Fetterman’s flagging cognition: both candidates viewed real-time transcripts of the questions and answers, there was no live audience, and the maximum response time for questions was set to only 30 seconds, leaving little time for Fetterman to ramble, and making it harder for Oz to form his own coherent answers.
It didn’t help Fetterman. Instead of describing the train wreck, I’ll just include Fetterman’s quotes. He got off to a bad start.
FETTERMAN (his very first words): “Hi. Good night everybody.”
FETTERMAN: “I don’t ever recall in the Statue of Liberty did they say you know take our tired huddled masses and put them on a bus and use cheap political stunts about them. I believe we have to develop a comprehensive and bipartisan solution for immigration here and our nation.”
FETTERMAN (after moderator asks, “why won’t you release your medical records”): “My doctors believe I am ready to be served.” (Question repeated) “My doctor believes I am fit to be serving and I believe that is where I am standing.”
FETTERMAN: “How can a man, you know, with with 10 gigantic mansion has am willing to talk about willing wage for anybody? Imagine a signal mom trying with two children trying to raise with them.”
FETTERMAN: “We all have to make sure that everyone that works is able to that’s the most American bargain that you work full time you should be able to live in dignity as well true.”
FETTERMAN (after moderator asks about prior statement saying he would kill fracking): “I support fracking and I don’t I support fracking and I stand and I do support fracking.”
2:45 AM ∙ Oct 26, 20222,968Likes773Retweets
I wish I’d been in the conference room when the democrats decided to let Fetterman attend the debate rather than making up some lame excuse. Because it’s hard to imagine how they believed this would be better than ditching.
Washington Free Beacon @FreeBeacon
BREAKING: Tonight, Fetterman and Dr. Oz went head-to-head in the first and only #PASenDebate. Fetterman struggled to make his way through a sentence. Here’s the highlight reel: Via @thaleigha_ & @AndrewStilesUSA freebeacon.com/democrats/fett…
It’s tragic, of course, and I hesitated to point out how badly Fetterman is struggling to stay relevant after his jab injury. But we can’t let them normalize strokes.
🔥 During his debate with Charlie Crist, Governor DeSantis announced the largest tax relief plan in Florida history.
11:17 PM ∙ Oct 24, 20225,562Likes1,230Retweets
The Governor also vowed to protect women’s sports, mentioning the Florida bill he signed into law, which Crist opposed, and promised to continue to hold the line.
Gov. Desantis: “I’m going to protect women’s sports in the state of Florida.”
11:43 PM ∙ Oct 24, 2022919Likes141Retweets
Somebody should send Charlie Crist a volleyball or something.
💉 Suffolk, UK radio host Tim Gough, 55, was an hour into his radio program “GenX” when the music suddenly and unexpectedly stopped playing halfway through Grey Day by Madness.
Tim had a fatal heart attack. In the middle of his show.
The station’s automatic backup system took over after a short period of dead air. I bet this would be bigger news if there weren’t so many other sudden and unexpected celebrity deaths lately.
Go ahead, corporate media, keep pretending like nothing unusual’s going on. Maybe Tim just had too many potato chips, or too many hot showers, or too many cold showers, or something.
Or, maybe it was something with a sharp point on one end.
🔥 WNBA star and anti-American lesbian activist Britney Griner, 32, got some depressing news yesterday, when a Russian appeals court denied her lawyer’s request to review her 9-year prison sentence for drug possession. She is now expected to be sent to a Russian penal colony for the remainder of her sentence.
Griner was arrested at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport in February, when Russian authorities found vape canisters loaded with marijuana oil in her luggage. So Griner was not just convicted of simple possession, but also of smuggling — sneaking drugs into the country — which is a different and more serious charge.
Britney admitted having the drugs and pled guilty to the charges.
Although the State Department says Griner was “wrongfully detained,” they’ve been a little short on details about WHY, exactly, Griner was “wrongfully” arrested. The only constant I can find is the complaint that Griner’s sentence is “disproportionate.”
As far as I can tell, Griner’s 9-year sentence seems to be right in line, maybe even on the easier side, with publicly-available Russian penal codes for cannabis law violations. The code says anyone convicted of such a crime “may be sentenced to eight to twenty years of imprisonment,” according to international legal advisory service CMS (referenced in a recent Breitbart article).
In other words, Griner could’ve gotten 20 years.
Curiously, Russia does not have an opioid problem, like we do. Russia doesn’t even show up in the top 10 for marijuana use:
One wonders if it would have been any different had Britney not been arrested right before Russia and America went to proxy war. Otherwise, maybe it would have been a little easier to make a deal for Griner, since the Biden Administration seems to be keen to get the luckless National Anthem protestor back.
🔬 A clever new study was published this month in the National Bureau of Economic Research, titled “Direct and Indirect Effects of Vaccines: Evidence from COVID-19 in Schools.” The researchers compared covid transmission rates in middle school, where more kids are vaccinated, to transmission rates in elementary school, where very few kids are vaccinated.
Guess what they found? That’s right! ZERO difference between the two groups. In other words, it appears the jabs don’t even REDUCE transmission rates. Not even a little.
Of course, they never SAID that it would reduce transmission rates. Oh, wait…
Have a wonderful Wednesday! I’ll see you guys back here tomorrow, with another mug of hot pumpkin-spiced coffee.
C&C is moving the needle and changing minds. If you can, I could use your help getting the truth out and spreading optimism and hope: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/-learn-how-to-get-involved-
Twitter: @jchilders98
Truth Social: @jchilders98
MeWe: mewe.com/i/coffee_and_covid.
C&C Swag! www.shopcoffeeandcovid.com
Emailed Daily Newsletter: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
By Nassau Habitat for Humanity
10-25-22
Nassau Habitat for Humanity Month ends with a bang as 30 teams compete to win the coveted hand-painted hammers and the prize of Highest Fundraising Team. Nearly 300 people attended the October 23rd at Mocama Brewery and the New South Food Truck Park. All fundraising goals were exceeded!
Participants enjoyed delicious food and beverages, a silent auction, raffles, and a fierce hammering competition on the Fernandina Pirate’s Club ship (stage). The event culminated in the three teams with fastest time taking home a one-of-kind hammer trophies donated by Turner ACE Hardware and decorated by the Shady Ladies Art Studio. In first place were the Pickett Pounders (sponsored by Pickett Construction). Second place went to Keeping it Real-l-ty (sponsored by Amelia Coastal Realty) and third place to the Rotary Club of Fernandina Beach.
To enter the competition each of the 30 teams agreed to raise a minimum of $1000, but they did not stop at minimum they reached for the stars. The Highest Fundraising Team, Pickett Pounders, raised over $6,600. There was a photo finish for the next three spots with Newcomers Hammer Time and Buchanan Builders barely edging out First Presbyterian Church Staff – each team raising nearly $6000. Other awards included Most Spirited Team, the Silver Rappers, and the Bravest Rookie Team (slowest time) awarded to 4 the Arts by the Story and Song Center.
Nassau Habitat recognized many sponsors at the event including WestRock, RPM Lumber, First Federal Bank, Pickett Construction and Wallace-Pierson Travel. A full list is available at www.nassauhabitatforhumanity.org
Special thanks were given to the She Nailed It! Judges: Dr. Kathy Burns, Commissioner John Martin and Mr. Adam Kaufman and Emcees Mr. John Drew and Commissioner Bradley Bean.
Proceeds from the 50/50 raffle will go to fund Habitat Florida’s efforts in the rebuild after Hurricane Ian. All proceeds from the event will go to help build three homes on Elm Street this year. Please visit the Nassau Habitat website for more information on She Nailed It! and how to donate.
Photo Credits: Holly Bonner
By Jeff Childers
10-25-22
Good morning, C&C, and Happy Tuesday! Your terrific roundup includes: are we seeing the first signs of a major shift in the Ukraine narrative?; good news trending on social media about the elections; so much so that bots are pushing back; three more sudden and unexpected celebrity deaths; cross dressing volleyball player spikes teenaged girl; you’ll never guess what top Biden officials say is the ‘top’ threat to the mid-term elections; and an MSNBC focus group lays some hard truths on the interviewer about J6.
🪖 The top question that I am asked at speaking events, and the topic that occupies most of my strategic thinking is: WHEN will there be accountability for what has happened with the jabs. There’s a lot happening behind the scenes you don’t know about. I am working on a special post for Friday that describes exactly how we get from where we are now to criminal prosecutions. Stay tuned.
🪖 We’re now well into the early voting period, so it looks like all the October surprises have been sprung and things should start calming down, while we await the inevitable controversy over the election results, however it goes.
🔥 The Washington Post ran a story yesterday headlined, “Liberals urge Biden to rethink Ukraine strategy.” Apparently, the 30-Democrat ’Progressive Caucus’ sent a letter yesterday asking Joe Biden NOT to escalate Ukraine, but instead resolve the war peacefully.
Those important parts were nestled in amongst all the usual virtue signaling talking points. You know, the US — I mean Ukraine — is kicking Russia’s butt, Russia is bad, Putin is bad, and so forth. But the letter clearly ended with the call for RESOLUTION as our top priority — in other words, peaceful resolution should trump all other priorities. The other significant bit was the letter’s call for “direct talks with Russia,” meaning, cut Ukraine out of the negotiation, since it’s just complicating everything.
When I read through the vast sea of disgruntlement in the comments to the Caucus’ hapless tweet about the letter, I felt like Cortez must have felt when he saw the Pacific Ocean for the first time. Rank and file twitter liberals were NOT pleased. “Russian stooges!” “Why don’t you just hand Ukraine to Putin on a silver platter!” “Appeaser!” “Traitors!”, and my personal favorite, “You want Ukrainians to suffer under occupation and torture for YOUR benefit.”
I’m sure about one thing: a lot of Ukrainians have an exquisitely-refined sense of entitlement to OUR lives and treasure, for some reason. When was the last time you heard Zelenskyy or any other Ukrainian thank America for all the help? They’re basically just like U.S. liberals, the more you give, the more they demand.
And they sure know their way around U.S. social media, don’t they?
The commenters who enthusiastically attacked the Progressive Caucus are probably the very same people who screamed the loudest and longest for harder lockdowns and tighter masks and stricter jab passports. They’re always so angry about the ‘current thing.’
Anyway, within a few hours, the Progressive Caucus was forced to issue a “clarification” emphasizing their support for Ukraine. They must have calculated that they’d gotten a bit over their skis.
There’s another way to look at this letter: as a sign of good news. Remember last December when I walked you guys through the big covid narrative shift? This is exactly how it starts. They always start the shift by trickling counter-narrative stuff into goofy leftwing outlets, like Washington Post editorials or Atlantic articles.
Corroborating my theory, here’s how the Washington Post described the letter:
You don’t say. WaPo also reported softening support in the polls for the war:
Back when they started the covid narrative shift, they did it through ‘trusted experts’ like Leana Wen. Since the war is a political issue instead of a medical issue, this time they’re using ‘trusted’ politicians instead of trusted doctors.
True, it’s only one data point, and the progressives quickly retreated some with their ‘clarification,’ but my highly-attuned B.S. detectors smell a Ukraine war narrative shift coming.
📈 In more good news, I’m starting to see a lot of these:
And don’t forget brand-new Republican voter Elon Musk:
Elon Musk Votes Red. Predicts #RedWave2022 finance.yahoo.comElon Musk says he voted Republican for the first time in Texas congressional race, predicts a ‘massive red wave’ in 2022 midtermsMusk said on Twitter that he voted for Mayra Flores in Texas in the “first time I ever voted Republican.”…10:28 AM ∙ Oct 24, 2022
🔥 In fact, the trend is so obvious that there’s a counter-trend of folks claiming to be Republicans voting democrat ‘for the first time’ because Joe Biden — I am not making this up — is ‘one of the greatest presidents we’ve ever had.’ E.g.,
@POTUS Joe, as a proud conservative Republican, I gotta admit that you’re one of the greatest presidents we’ve ever had. You’ve built back better after 4 years of Trumpian darkness, the worst period in human history, and you’re leading us to a Shining City on a Hill. Onwards to 2024!🇺🇸1:40 AM ∙ Oct 18, 2022
It’s a LOT of folks. And they all say the EXACT SAME THING:
According to his stats, user WhimmyJimmy joined August 2021, but only has 23 followers and is only following 31 others. Here are some of his other “proud conservative” tweets:
@POTUS Arrest MAGA Republicans9:33 PM ∙ Oct 24, 20225Likes1Retweet
@POTUS I SPEAK for everyone when I say you’re the reason this country will prosper. Thank you Joe Biden for your service 🙏4:41 PM ∙ Oct 12, 2022
So. My money is on the trend of democrats voting Republican for the first time.
💉 Reporter Megyn Kelly announced yesterday on air that her sister, 58, died this weekend from a sudden and unexpected heart attack.
9:47 PM ∙ Oct 24, 202211,975Likes3,759Retweets
Megyn has always been pretty steadily pro-jab, but this month came out as “very skeptical.”
💉 Craig Lewis Band member and America’s Got Talent finalist Zuri Craig, 44, died suddenly and unexpectedly Friday. No cause of death has been released.
💉 Also Friday, British TV and theatre actress Josephine Melville suddenly and unexpectedly died backstage, AFTER performing in the play Nine Night.
No cause of death has been released. Melville seemed to be just fine:
@NottmPlayhouse My wife and I were at the theatre on Wednesday evening and saw Josephine perform brilliantly in Nine Night. She sang and danced on stage and seemed so full life. We are deeply shocked and saddened by this news. Sincere sympathies to Josephine’s family and friends. R.I.P.11:15 PM ∙ Oct 21, 202267Likes2Retweets
So. Weird.
🫃🏻 The UK Daily Mail ran a story yesterday headlined, “Horrific Moment Female High School Volleyball Player Suffers Serious Head Injury After Transgender Girl in Rival Team Lobbed ‘70mph’ Ball at Her Head and Struck Her.”
A teenaged North Carolina female volleyball player suffered severe head and neck injuries, long-term concussion symptoms, and vision problems, after an opposing cross-dressing male player spiked the ball right in her face.
The Post Millennial @TPostMillennial
North Carolina school board blocks further games with competing school following injury caused by transgender player thepostmillennial.comNorth Carolina female volleyball player injured by trans competitor, future games with opposing school canceled“I don’t know if that’s faster than normal, but it seemed like it was coming off very fast, abnormally, especially fast. It not only hi…8:50 PM ∙ Oct 18, 2022107Likes50Retweets
The Cherokee County school board immediately voted 5-1 to forfeit all remaining volleyball games against Highlands School (where the transvestite plays), delicately explaining “the County will not participate in any [more] volleyball games, varsity or junior varsity, against Highlands due to safety concerns.”
Safety concerns. You don’t say.
🔥 Politico ran a trial balloon article yesterday headlined “Biden admin set to warn about threats to nation’s election infrastructure.” According to cowardly anonymous bureaucrat sources, “the bulletin will lay out details of cyber threats posed by China and Russia, as well as other non-state actors, and potential physical threats to election officials in jurisdictions across the country.”
Physical threats!
Politico gave a single example of the so-called physical threats: “intimidation at ballot boxes.” I guess they mean someone is watching drop boxes, and Politico thinks that is the WORST. It’s a thousand times worse than the Ukraine war, and the federal government needs to do something about it.
Me, I’m in favor of watching drop boxes. If I used a drop box, I’d be happy to be videotaped or questioned or whatever. I don’t think it’s intimidating at all, unless you’re on the lam, trying to dodge process service, or being stalked by an angry ex-girlfriend.
I kind of think people watching drop boxes is REASSURING, not intimidating.
Deep in the story, Politico admitted CISA Director Jen Easterly told reporters on October 13th that, “At this time, we are not aware of any specific or credible threats to compromise or disrupt election infrastructure.”
Oh.
Can you guess what “officials” said was the top threat to mid-term elections? Not China. Not Russia. Not hackers. Not ballot box stuffers. Not fraudulent mail-in ballots.
It’s misinformation, silly!
Politico ended the story saying, “Officials consider misinformation and disinformation the biggest threats to the midterms.”
Haha, of course. Americans saying stuff different from the executive agencies is the biggest threat to the elections.
Or, you could look at it as the EXECUTIVE AGENCIES are the biggest threat to American democracy. That’s kind of how I’m starting to see it. Change my mind.
🔥 Many of you have probably already seen this clip, but it still bears repeating, plus, some of you haven’t enjoyed it yet. MSNBC held a live ‘focus group’ of Western Pennsylvania voters, and the interviewer realized too late that she’d grabbed something hot when she started asking questions about January 6th.
4:21 PM ∙ Oct 24, 202231,309Likes10,382Retweets
Consider that MSNBC’s core audience are what pollsters call “democrat partisans” — people who’d rather vote for a mentally-incapacitated stroke victim than even a moderate RINO Republican. Democrat partisans believe the January 6th protest at the Capitol was ten times worse than the Civil War, and I’m not even exaggerating.
So it wasn’t just that MSNBC’s interviewer got a dose of what the heartland really thinks. Just imagine how MSNBC’s audience reacted to hearing those home truths about January 6th. It must have felt a lot like electric shock therapy.
Zap! Zap zap zaaaaap!
🎥 I’m working on finding a podcast host for C&C’ers who prefer an audio version:
That’s ‘kitty,’ our generic housecat. She cut a sample tape.
Alternatively, Substack now supports reading the post to you, and several folks told me they actually like the computer-generated voice. It’s not MY voice, of course, but could do in a pinch.
Have a terrific Tuesday, and I’ll see you back here tomorrow for more.
C&C is moving the needle and changing minds. If you can, I could use your help getting the truth out and spreading optimism and hope: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/-learn-how-to-get-involved-
Twitter: @jchilders98
Truth Social: @jchilders98
MeWe: mewe.com/i/coffee_and_covid.
C&C Swag! www.shopcoffeeandcovid.com
Emailed Daily Newsletter: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
By Robin Layton, MyMove
10-24-22
It’s not something any of us want to think about, but all it takes is one storm, one wildfire, one extended power outage to toss our lives into a tailspin.
That’s why, as you move into your new home, or start spring cleaning around your current place, it’s a perfect time to do a bit of home emergency preparation.
If a raging hurricane roars into your town, chances are your local stores will be boarded up and closed. If the river rises and streets are flooded, you aren’t driving anywhere. If you are outrunning a wildfire, you need to make sure you have everything with you.
Having a case of water and some flashlights won’t cut it in most emergencies. In fact, a government emergency prep survey discovered that only 48% of respondents had made an emergency plan for a disaster.
This guide will help you be better prepared for many types of home emergency issues.
There are plenty of resources to use as you prep for emergencies. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) offers a free “Preparing for Disaster” publication.
The emergency experts at FEMA suggest starting with these four points:
Each part of the United States has its own hazards: flooding in the South, tornadoes in the Midwest and wildfires in the West are just a few. It’s important that you learn what type of weather your area is prone to so you know what to prepare for.
For insurance purposes, for example, you’ll need to know if your home is on a flood plain or if there’s been a wildfire in recent years.
Most communities that have existing issues like extreme weather events or drought-driven problems will have community response plans, evacuation plans, and designated emergency shelters already in place.
Call your city or town hall or visit their website to learn about them. Call the non-emergency line for your police or fire department to ask where you can find these resources. Your public library and your child’s school should also have this information available.
If you find your community does not have such plans, make your own with your neighbors. Ready.gov provides a community preparedness toolkit to help you create a team and make evacuation and survival plans.
As you investigate your area’s disaster plans, find out how local authorities will warn you of an impending disaster and how they will provide information to you during and after the emergency.
Some counties and states have alert programs you can sign up for online. Texts go out to your cellphone in an event of an emergency.
There are also Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEA) that are utilized by governments and the National Weather Service. Messages are directly broadcast from cell towers to any WEA‐enabled mobile device in a locally targeted area. Here are some guidelines to make sure your cellphone can receive those messages.
Preparation is key in anything we do, from cooking dinner to fixing our car. Preparing for a disaster is necessary for the safety of your family and your home, so take the time to make a plan.
Once you have a plan in place, review it every six months, restock supplies and check for expiration dates. This is a great time to test fire extinguishers and alarms, too. Ready.gov also offers a Family Communications Plan, downloadable here.
You’ve probably heard the term “emergency kit” tossed around, but do you have one of your own? A kit contains all the items needed for a disaster in one place or general area. Having a designated box or closet — that you don’t routinely borrow from — is best to prevent you from scurrying around looking for items during urgent times of need. What should a kit include?
The Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, recommends the following supplies for your kit:
The hard part of disaster preparation is putting together your plan and kit, but that doesn’t mean you can completely forget about it once it’s done. FEMA recommends reviewing your plan and kit every six months, along with these other maintenance tasks:
As the cost of natural disasters is often in the billions, it’s smart to plan ahead to minimize the damage to your property as much as possible, even if you have insurance.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) released a report noting, “In 2021, there were 20 weather/climate disaster events with losses exceeding $1 billion each to affect the United States. These events included 1 drought event, 2 flooding events, 11 severe storm events, 4 tropical cyclone events, 1 wildfire event, and 1 winter storm event.”
Whether you live in an area prone to wildfires or hurricanes, each scenario should have you creating the kits and the plans discussed above. Plus, there are additional steps according to the type of issue you are dealing with to ensure that your family remains safe and hopefully limit property damage:
If you live on the East Coast or along the Gulf Coast, you are most likely very familiar with hurricane season, running from June through November. However, seasons vary across the globe:
High winds and floodwaters are the biggest dangers of hurricanes. Basic pre-storm preparation applies here:
If you were evacuated, returning home can be difficult if power is not restored or if your community is flooded:
High winds, little rain and dry air is often a recipe for a wildfire disaster to strike. According to the U.S. Drought Monitor, in 2021, about 90% of land in the Western states was experiencing moderate to severe drought.
“From January 1 to November 26, 2021 there were 52,729 wildfires, compared with 52,113 in the same period in 2020,” according to the National Interagency Fire Center.
According to the Insurance Information Institute, the Top 10 states at extreme wildfire risk are:
You can help to mitigate the risk of a wildland fire destroying your home. Look around your home’s property … is it clogged with brush and trees in need of trimming? Create a fire-resistant zone that is free of leaves, debris, or flammable materials for at least 30 feet from your home.
Making defensible space can mean the difference between returning to your house from an evacuation to returning to an empty, burned-out lot. Clearing land can be expensive, but some wildfire-prone areas offer grants to homeowners for creating defensible space.
Ready.gov’s manual How to Prepare for a Wildfire can give you an in-depth plan of attack to protect your family and your home.
Tips include:
Although an earthquake can hit anywhere at anytime, according to a United States Geological Survey (USGS) study, the areas most likely to be hit with one in the U.S. “are found on the West Coast, the western mountain range, the Midwest south of the Great Lakes, the southern coast of Alaska, and the big island of Hawaii.”
If you live in an area prone to earthquakes, these tips can help you plan for the next one:
About 1,200 tornadoes hit the U.S. yearly, mainly located in the area called “Tornado Alley” that includes Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, Indiana, Missouri, Iowa, Illinois, and Ohio. However, all 50 states have recorded a tornado at one time or another.
According to NOAA, “The peak tornado season for the southern Plains (e.g., Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas) is from May into early June. On the Gulf coast, it is earlier in the spring. In the northern Plains and upper Midwest (North and South Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa, Minnesota), tornado season is in June or July. But, remember, tornadoes can happen at any time of year. Tornadoes can also happen at any time of day or night, but most tornadoes occur between 4–9 p.m.”
If you live in an area that has a history of tornado activity, these tips can help you:
Flooding is tricky. It can happen slowly, due to days of consistent rain, or suddenly, with a torrential downpour from a hurricane or violent storm.
Identify if your home is in a flood plain or has flooded in the past. Prepare your home for a possible flood by:
If you are caught in floodwaters, some tips from ready.gov include:
Home insurance is essential to protecting your assets in the event of a natural disaster. There are several types of homeowners insurance available, and no policy covers every type of natural disaster. In addition, each type can have exclusions for certain events, so you’ll want to discuss your policy directly with your provider to make sure you’re covered for the disasters that could affect your area.
Whether you’re covered for a natural disaster will depend on the exclusions in your specific policy, so you’ll want to talk with your home insurance agent to be certain.
In most homeowners insurance policies, damage from tornadoes is covered and it doesn’t require special add-on coverage. Tornadoes might not be listed specifically in your policy, but most policies cover damage from things like wind, hail, flying debris, and fallen trees. That said, some areas that experience a lot of tornadoes may require separate deductibles for wind or hail.
Like tornadoes, hurricane damage from things like wind and hail is covered in most home insurance policies, but there may be limited coverage or higher deductibles for homes in coastal regions. Additionally, flood damage is usually not covered unless it’s added under a separate flood insurance policy.
With most home insurance policies, fire damage to your home and personal belongings is covered. There may be some restrictions for homes in areas that are prone to wildfires. In most policies, the teardown and removal of items damaged in a fire are also covered.
Lightning damage is covered in most standard homeowners insurance policies, including if lightning strikes a tree that damages your house. Your electronics are also covered if lightning causes an electrical surge.
Most policies also cover damage to the dwelling or personal belongings from extreme cold. Damage caused by burst pipes are usually covered, as well as damage caused by the weight of ice or snow. However, flooding from melted snow or ice is covered under a separate flood insurance policy.
While the most common weather events are covered under standard home insurance policies, there are several that are not.
Flooding is the most common and costly natural disaster that is not covered by home insurance. You’ll have to purchase a separate flood insurance policy from your provider, or directly from the federal government’s National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP).
According to the NFIP, over 90% of all natural disasters involve flooding. Flood insurance costs around $700 per year on average, depending on your home’s flood zone, your coverage, and your home’s vulnerability to flooding.
While earthquakes aren’t covered in most standard home insurance policies, you can typically add it to for an additional cost. According to the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC), Americans in 42 states are at risk of an earthquake, with the most active seismic areas along the West Coast. Earthquake insurance adds on between $100 and $300 per year on average.
Damage from tsunamis is not covered directly by home insurance, but you can purchase a separate flood insurance policy to protect your assets.
Comprehensive coverage in car insurance policies covers anything that’s not a collision — including damage from natural disasters like floods, wildfires, hail, and earthquakes. Comprehensive coverage is typically optional, so you’ll want to check the details of your policy to see if you have it.
Robin Layton is an editor with MyMove and Allconnect. She works closely with the content team writers to ensure consumers get a fair and balanced reporting of the issues concerning movers, the state of broadband services, and more. Robin also writes breaking news from the internet world and how-to guides for navigating the digital divide.
From Gov. DeSantis’ Office, 10-24-22
Resilient Florida ranks 3rd in the nation in Grade 4 Reading and 4th in Grade 4 Mathematics
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Today, Governor Ron DeSantis announced the results of the 2022 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), which demonstrate once again that keeping kids in school throughout 2020 and 2021 has put Florida students well ahead of their peers, especially with younger and educationally at-risk students who were harmed the most from distance-learning in other states. In 2022, Florida’s 4th and 8th grade students earned the state’s highest ever rankings in each assessment and demonstrated historic achievement gap closure for at-risk students at all levels. Florida’s Hispanic students, black students, and students with disabilities all scored in the top 10 in every category.
NAEP assessments are the only assessment taken consistently across the nation and therefore serve as the nation’s report card. Last administered in 2019, the NAEP is administered every two years, although the 2021 assessments were delayed to 2022.
“We insisted on keeping schools open and guaranteed in-person learning in 2020 because we knew there would be widespread harm to our students if students were locked out. Today’s results once again prove that we made the right decision,” said Governor Ron DeSantis. “We also knew that younger and at-risk students would be the most impacted if schools were closed, and the results speak for themselves. In Florida our 4thgrade students rank #3 in Reading and #4 in Math, achieving top 4 in both English and Math for the first time in state history, while lockdown California and New York aren’t even in the top 30.”
“If we are meant to measure our impact by how we elevate our young generation, especially those most at-risk, Florida is clearly the #1 state in the nation in elevating its young people,” said Commissioner of Education Manny Diaz, Jr. “Florida’s Hispanic and black students, students with unique abilities, and students on free and reduced price lunch massively narrowed achievement gaps and proved the value of being in school in a classroom with their peers and learning in-person from Florida’s world-class teachers.”
These 2022 NAEP results affirm the predictions from national and Florida student learning indications over the last two years:
Overall, the nation’s NAEP results show a national decline in Reading and Mathematics for 9-year-old students (Grade 4) and America’s most vulnerable students. In many states, this decline was due to government-imposed lockdowns and school closures. Yet, under Governor DeSantis’ leadership, Florida avoided widespread learning losses and Florida’s students are far exceeding the nation’s expectations.
While Florida boasts historic rankings in all four NAEP tests, Florida’s achievement gap closures were profound across the board upon closer inspection, and these results are a clear indication that Florida’s strategy to focus its recovery on early grades and at-risk students paid off:
o Grade 4 Reading – #1 (maintaining this rank since 2013)
o Grade 4 Mathematics – #2 (same as 2019)
o Grade 8 Reading – #1 (up from number 2 in 2019)
o Grade 8 Mathematics – #4 (up from 5 in 2019)
o Grade 4 Reading – #1 (up from number 2 in 2019)
o Grade 4 Mathematics – #1 (third time in a row)
o Grade 8 Reading – #2 (same as 2019)
o Grade 8 Mathematics – #4 (same since 2017)
o Grade 4 Reading – #3 (up from 4 in 2019)
o Grade 4 Mathematics – #2 (same as 2019)
o Grade 8 Reading – #4 (up from 6 in 2019)
o Grade 8 Mathematics – #8 (up from 17 in 2019)
o Grade 4 Reading – #1 (same as 2019)
o Grade 4 Mathematics – #1 (third time in a row)
o Grade 8 Reading – #6 (down from 5 in 2019)
o Grade 8 Mathematics – #17 (up from 25 in 2019)
Grade and subject highlights include:
Grade 4 Reading
o Hispanic students increased 1 point on average scale score.
o Asian/Pacific Islander students increased 4 points on average scale score.
o Students with disabilities increased 3 points on average scale score.
o English language learners increased 3 points on average scale score.
Average Scale Score National Ranks for Grade 4 Reading Among Florida Subgroups
Grade 4 Mathematics
Average Scale Score National Ranks for Grade 4 Mathematics Among Florida Subgroups
Grade 8 Reading
Average Scale Score National Ranks for Grade 8 Reading Among Florida Subgroups
Grade 8 Mathematics
Average Scale Score National Ranks for Grade 8 Mathematics Among Florida Subgroups
NAEP Background
NAEP is a congressionally mandated program that is overseen and administered by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), within the U.S. Department of Education and the Institute of Education Sciences. Results are available for the nation, states, and 27 urban districts, and are used to provide critical information about student achievement and data for improving educational practices. The current NAEP assessments were scheduled for 2021 but were postponed one year due to the pandemic. The next NAEP results will be reported in 2024.
For more information about Florida’s 2022 NAEP results, visit NAEP Results or The Nation’s Report Card.
By Baptist Health
10-24-22
| Baptist Health hospitals are among only 9% of nation’s hospitals with designation.Jacksonville, Fla., October 24, 2022 – Baptist Health hospitals once again received the coveted Magnet Recognition® from the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC). Magnet is considered the gold standard among health care organizations that meet rigorous standards for quality patient care, nursing excellence and innovations in professional nursing practice. The ANCC first granted Baptist Health the four-year Magnet designation in 2007; at that time, it was the first health system to simultaneously achieve this distinction for all its hospitals. Baptist Health earned its second and third consecutive designations in 2012 and 2017, respectively. The renewal of the Magnet designation for the fourth time reflects Baptist Health’s commitment to professional development of the organization’s staff as well as overall excellence in patient care. All five Baptist Health hospitals, as well as freestanding emergency centers and Baptist MD Anderson Cancer Center, earned Magnet status.“Embracing the culture of Magnet elevates the level of care provided throughout the entire system,” said Tammy Daniel, DNP, senior vice president and chief nursing officer at Baptist Health. “This recognition is a true testament our team members are committed to continuous improvement to provide the highest quality care to our patients.” To earn Magnet status, organizations undergo a vigorous, multi-faceted evaluation. The process begins with an application and written documentation of evidence regarding patient care and outcomes. If documentation is deemed excellent, the Commission on Magnet completes a site visit at each campus before voting to determine whether the recognition will be granted. Magnet redesignation recognizes Baptist Health among the top decile in the country in terms of professional practice and patient outcomes. “I commend the extraordinary efforts of the Baptist Health team in achieving Magnet status,” said Michael A. Mayo, DHA, FACHE, president and CEO of Baptist Health. “It takes interdisciplinary collaboration to accomplish this designation and demonstrates our entire team’s commitment to excellence throughout the system.” About Baptist Health Baptist Health is a faith-based, mission-driven system in Northeast Florida comprised of Baptist Medical Center Jacksonville; Baptist Medical Center Beaches; Baptist Medical Center Nassau; Baptist Medical Center South and Wolfson Children’s Hospital – the region’s only children’s hospital. All Baptist Health hospitals have achieved Magnet™ status for excellence in patient care. Baptist Health is part of Coastal Community Health, a highly integrated regional hospital network focused on significant initiatives designed to enhance the quality and value of care provided to our contiguous communities. Baptist Health has the area’s only dedicated heart hospital; orthopedic institute; women’s services; neurological institute, including comprehensive neurosurgical services, a comprehensive stroke center and two primary stroke centers; a Bariatric Center of Excellence; a full range of psychology and psychiatry services; urgent care services; primary and specialty care physicians’ offices throughout Northeast Florida; and Baptist Home Health Care by BAYADA. The Baptist MD Anderson Cancer Center is a regional destination for multidisciplinary cancer care, which is clinically integrated with the MD Anderson Cancer Center, the internationally renowned cancer treatment and research institution in Houston. For more details, visit baptistjax.com. |
By Jeff Childers
10-24-22
Good morning, and Happy Monday, C&C! In this morning’s roundup: a wild pianist at the BBC; Zelenskyy is another wild pianist; moderator clamps down on professor who criticizes U.S.; US troops land on Ukraine border for training; Russians reach out about dirty bomb plot; Johnson is out and WEF fan is in as UK replacement prime minister; Hun Jintao news; Canada outlaws guns; and Nancy Pelosi wants to change the subject.
🔥 The UK government re-defined public service this weekend with a remarkable show intended to promote trans-ness or something, ending on a bang, or ping, or tinkle. I’m not sure. Anyway, I’m not going to link the video clip for reasons which will shortly become clear. Don’t go searching for it, I clipped (and blurred) enough to give you the whole idea. Trust me, you don’t want to see the whole thing.
British taxpayer-funded television ran a show featuring a transgender comic, who gave new meaning to the term ‘pianist.’ During his final bit, he played the piano with gusto, then yelled something like, “let’s do stupid stuff like this,” stood up, grabbed his shirt lapels, and ripped off an obvious male-stripper-style tearaway outfit, leaving him totally naked. Waggling his breast implants, he snatched his intact male anatomy and (delicately) struck a piano key with it, then leapt up on his piano bench, posed dramatically, and ran off stage.
All live, on British public television, without any blackout, cutaway, or blurring. They showed the full dancing monte.
I added the blurring, not the BBC.
“Her” penis. Okay, whatever. He played ONE NOTE with it. Anybody (male) could do that. Try playing Beethoven’s Fifth or something and THEN let’s talk.
In fairness, Britain’s Channel 4 is known for hosting ‘edgier’ programming. But, even for Channel 4, this is some kind of a record.
It’s kind of like the universe was saying, haha, you thought the pandemic was bad. Wait till you see the next part!
🔥 Completely unrelated, but kind of related, in 2016 Ukraine’s ‘president’ Vlodomyr Zelenskyy put on a similar show, while he was still a comedic actor, showing this whole penis-pianist thing has been brewing for a while. And somehow the trend is connected to key international leaders like Zelenskyy.
Do they really think we believe that this guy’s experience as a dancing pianist prepared him to run wartime Ukraine? Please.
The whole thing is literally a joke. A bad joke, but a joke.
🚀 I’m not sure when this even occurred, but an interesting academic exchange made the viral rounds this weekend suggesting how tightly U.S. intelligence is controlling media and the academy. In the clip, the moderator immediately clamped down on Columbia University Professor and economist Professor Jeffrey Sachs when he suggested that the most violent country on Earth is the United States.
7:07 PM ∙ Oct 23, 202211,923Likes4,556Retweets
The clip is both fascinating and ironic. The key moment went like this: Sachs: “You can be democratic at home, and ruthlessly imperial abroad. The most violent country in the world since 1950 has been the United States and by far … (loud cross talk) Jeffrey! Jeffrey! Enough! I’m your moderator!”
Before that moment, Sachs had warmed up by criticizing the British Empire for the same alleged conduct during the 19th century, and there was no problem whatsoever. It was literally as soon as he started criticizing the U.S. that he got shut down.
The scene is hopelessly ironic; a perfect allegory between the U.S.’s imperialistic control over Sach’s big mouth and the U.S.’s imperialistic control over the world right now.
If Trump were in office, Sachs would have been allowed to go on and on about how awful and militaristic America is, and how we desperately need a no-superpower world, and so forth. Sachs is no lightweight gasbag, the majority of his practical experience has been in advising former communist governments how to set up market systems, including Poland and Russia.
Anyway. Only the RIGHT kind of expert is allowed talk about world affairs just now. Just like how only the right kind of expert was allowed to talk about covid.
🚀 In the old days, back when there was a Constitution, Congress had to VOTE on declaring war. But representative democracy is for chumps. What you need is something more like monarchy, with a king who can just shoot his men into battle whenever the spirit moves him.
This weekend, for the first time since the end of the Second World War, just in time for the Third, the 19,000-man 101st American Airborne Division has been deployed in Europe in an operational capacity. Coincidentally, just a few miles from Ukraine’s border.
101st Airborne Div. @101stAASLTDIV
CBS Evening News @CBSEveningNews
HISTORIC DEPLOYMENT: CBS News has been given exclusive access to the Army’s 101st Airborne Division as they are deployed to Europe for the first time since the last World War. They are now the closest U.S. forces to the fight in Ukraine. https://t.co/61sAvrCeVf5:59 PM ∙ Oct 23, 2022172Likes53Retweets
To be clear, Congress has not authorized a war, not of any kind. The official explanation for the deployment of large numbers of U.S. troops into an active war zone is that they’re there for ‘training.’
Uh-huh. I get it, sometimes you have to run an “exercise” on a border somewhere to make a point to a potential enemy. But if that’s what they’re doing, they should SAY SO. All these lies corrode whatever trust in government the public has left.
🚀 We’ve seen world conflict escalating quickly the last week or so, with an emergency trip by the British to meet with our Secretary of Defense. Now, we’re starting to talk to the Russians. Yesterday, Reuters ran a story headlined “Russia’s Shoigu Holds Second Call With U.S. Defense Secretary in Three Days.”
Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu spoke with U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Sunday for the second time in three days and held a flurry of calls with three other counterparts from NATO countries. reuters.comRussia’s Shoigu holds second call with U.S. defense secretary in three daysRussian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu spoke with U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Sunday for the second time in three days and h…8:23 PM ∙ Oct 23, 20226Likes4Retweets
Russian media reported that Secretary Lloyd Austin and Minister Shoigu discussed “The situation in Ukraine, which has a steady tendency towards further, uncontrolled escalation[, and] possible provocations by Ukraine with the use of a dirty bomb.”
Late last week, Russia claimed it had intel that Ukraine planned to use a dirty bomb in a false flag operation as a pretext to drag NATO into the war. Within the last two days, Defense Minister Shoigu has called Turkey, France, the UK, and now the U.S. to talk about Ukraine’s alleged plan.
Leading Western governments have rejected the Russian information, calling it “false,” and labeling it a gambit by Russia to create a pretext to escalate its war operation.
6:57 AM ∙ Oct 24, 2022110Likes49Retweets
However, the British Ministry of Defence’s statement about their call with Shoigu encouragingly urges “de-escalation,” and says “the UK stands ready to assist” with seeking a “resolution to the war.”
What’s clear is the Russians are reaching out. This would be a good time to broker a peace deal. Somebody wake up Joe.
🚀 Ex-prime minister and briefly-favored replacement prime minister Boris Johnson pulled out of the running yesterday, leaving Rishi Sunak as the anticipated conservative replacement for ousted short-term PM Liz Truss.
8:08 PM ∙ Oct 23, 202233,583Likes2,942Retweets
Sunak is (relatively) young, of Indian descent, has been called the “richest man in Parliament,” and is affiliated with the World Economic Forum. So.
🚀 I reported last Friday the dramatic story about former Chinese president Hu Jintao being suddenly, unexpectedly and ominously, removed from the Communist party congress in China. Independent online researchers have identified the two masked gentlemen who removed the former president. They appear to be president Xi’s own personal guards:
10:18 PM ∙ Oct 22, 20228,731Likes1,899Retweets
It’s not good news for Jintao.
🔥 Late last week Fox ran a story headlined “Canada’s Trudeau announces ban on handgun sales, transfers, saying ‘fewer guns means safer communities’.” After signing the bill, Trudeau explained, “From today forward, it is no longer legal to buy, sell, or transfer a handgun in Canada.”
TRUDEAU: “From today forward, it is no longer legal to buy, sell, or transfer a handgun in Canada.”
5:00 PM ∙ Oct 21, 20229,610Likes2,745Retweets
Is it just me, or does the clapping after Trudeau’s statement seem kind of, well, sparse?
Sorry, Canadians. You’re having a tough run.
🔥 Nancy Pelosi’s idea for helping democrats win the mid-terms is “changing the subject” from inflation. It’s so unfair! And, everybody else is doing it.
NEW – Pelosi on inflation: “We have to change that subject…”
3:31 PM ∙ Oct 23, 20226,538Likes1,616Retweets
“The fight,” Pelosi explained, “is not about inflation. It’s about the cost of living.”
Oh!
If I understand her right — and I am NOT at all sure that I do — she’s saying the democrats need to change the subject from inflation to the cost of living. Somehow I don’t think that’s going to be much of an improvement for them.
Have a marvelous Monday! I’ll see you back here tomorrow for more.
C&C is moving the needle and changing minds. If you can, I could use your help getting the truth out and spreading optimism and hope: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/-learn-how-to-get-involved-
Twitter: @jchilders98
Truth Social: @jchilders98
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The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
By Richard Lamken
Here’s the summary of the talk I gave on Thursday to the Men’s Newcomers Club. I had a time limit, so I crammed a lot into it.
I have been asked to review with you the facts pertaining to the 1 mill tax referendum on the ballot in November. I am a retired Assistant Superintendent of Schools who has attended and spoken at all but three SB meetings, workshops and hearings during the last 18 months. I am the Schools Division lead for County Citizens Defending Freedom, aka CCDF, Nassau and I also serve on their Board.
Who/what is Nassau Citizens For Great Public Schools? They are a Political Action Committee, a PAC, formed to be the publicity arm for Nassau County School District, specifically for the successful passage of the 1 mill tax referendum. Once the referendum is on the ballot, neither District administrators nor School Board members may publicly advocate for its passage. Money to be used for advertising, signs, billboards, etc. must not be taxpayer money. Donations were made for this purpose to the PAC. It’s unknown who donated the money.
Issues:
47% of the NCSD teachers were 1st,2nd, or 3rd year teachers in 2019-2020. The District has suffered 15-20% turnover in each of the last 2 years which means it’s now over 50%. The District is 50th out of 67 counties in teacher experience. In the Districts where I served, this would be perceived as and treated as a crisis. Add to this the fact that the NCSD has 124 teachers, up 20% from last year, teaching out of their field or, in other words, teaching a subject for which they’re not certified, you have an extremely challenging environment for student success.
A teacher who comes to the District with 20 years’ experience will only make 4% more than one in their first year of teaching. They can make much, much more in nearby counties. A very common scenario is that NCSD recruits a new teacher who makes an entry level salary that’s comparable or greater than nearby counties. After 3-5 years, they leave and go to a District where they can make an additional $5,000 or more per year. FL is 48th out of 50 states in teacher pay and NCSD is 44th out of 67 FL Counties.
NCSD has refused to conduct face-to-face exit interviews of those resigning, believing that it’s only a salary issue. CCDF, Nassau is conducting phone interviews of teachers who left during the last school year and we are finding that it’s more about culture and individual site and District administrators’ treatment of staff than salary concerns.
The District’s Budget for 2022-2023 is for over $250 million, a 10.6% increase, year over year.
$7.1 million of Federal ESSER funds are being used in place of General Fund $ to balance their Budget. It’s the last year of a three-year allocation that was distributed by the Federal Government for the remediation of the effects of COVID. Some of the line items in ESSER fund appropriations are:
General Administration
School Administration
Student Transportation
Plant Operations
Once spent on these ongoing expenses, this money must be replaced in next year’s budget whether or not the referendum passes.
The District has had difficulty meeting the 3% minimum reserve in the past few years, often misusing Proshare monies, distributed by the District’s medical carrier for reimbursement to its employees, to meet the 3% reserve.
The referendum is estimated to raise $13.7 million, 70% going to salary increases, 9% to music and the Arts, 9% to Athletics and 12% to School Safety. If passed, the money will begin to “accumulate” so the District will begin to get the referendum money in January 2023.
The District has refused to create a Citizens Budget Advisory Committee, CBAC, recently rejecting it by a vote of 4-1 following along with the recommendation of the Superintendent. CBACs are commonly utilized by School Districts to promote transparency and provide a vehicle for input by parents and citizens into their childrens’ education. The CBAC would’ve been involved in the entire budgetary process and would have reviewed all $250 million of revenue and expenditures, discuss how these expenditures meet the needs of the students and the goals of parents and community members and make recommendations as to improving the budget development protocols. Only after I challenged the language in the PAC’s promotional information, did the District clarify that they WILL create a Citizens Oversight Committee if, and only if, the referendum passes and only to review how the referendum monies are spent. Another misleading statement in the PAC’s literature is that the Required Local Millage is 3.6 mills. The actual total School Millage rate is 5.5 mills not 3.6, 3.255 Required Local Effort, .748 discretionary and 1.5 capital improvement.
As of the latest Board meeting last Thursday night, these facts remain the same and I am open to your questions.
Richard Lamken
Mr. Lamken and his wife Meg reside in Fernandina Beach. He is a retired Assistant Superintendent of Schools. He is the President of the Baptist Nassau Hospital Auxiliary and the Schools Division lead and Board member of County Citizens Defending Freedom (CCDF), Nassau.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
By Jeff Childers
10-23-22
Good morning, and Happy Sunday, C&C supporters! Your bonus roundup today includes: a Covid Summit report; college boys have found a way to get all the way into the sorority; Washington State University drops mandates for staff but not students; Rochelle gets symptomatic covid after her fifth new-and-improved booster shot; new covid variants seem to prefer recently jabbed people; Geert Vanden Bossche predicts the end of civilization, again; Alberta’s premier apologizes to unjabbed; Miami Herald unintentionally argues for re-electing Governor DeSantis while trying to endorse goofy Charlie Crist; and a funny jab compilation to make you chuckle.
🪖 Another great Covid Summit is in the can. As far as I can tell, the vast majority of attendees were also C&C readers, which clearly include doctors, nurses, chiropractors, scientists, military, and an FBI employee who told me she’s gotten some right-thinking agents reading the blog. Welcome, agents!
It was also great to see all the docs again, Cole, Malone, Hatfield, and many others, and it was a balm hanging out with some of the other great lawyers battling the system, like Liberty Counsel’s Mat Staver, Florida’s Rachel Rodriguez, and New York’s Bobbi Anne Cox, who single-handedly shut down Kathy Hochul’s psychotic plan to construct covid quarantine camps.
It’s hard to pick one, but if you only have time for a little, watch Dr. Hatfield’s and Dr. Malone’s short presentations, which ran back to back, for some ideas you may not have heard yet, and which give some insight into the elite’s smug self-superiority. (When I just checked, the livestream link was unavailable. I’ll try to get hold of a link to the whole show and post it tomorrow.)
🔥 Haha, sorry ladies, the guys have cracked the code, and they’re all up in the henhouse now. Too late! I’m referring to the highly-open-minded and welcoming University of Wyoming’s Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority, which this week became the first sorority to accept an unattractive cross-dressing transvestite into its “sisterhood.”
I say ‘unattractive’ because the young man, admitted in a special secret second round after failing to get any votes in the normal sorority election, is heavily overweight and bearded. In other words, he’s not even trying!
KKG’s newest sister-man, or man-sister, or whatever, can now live at the sorority, use the same bathrooms, shower with the girls, walk around in his underwear, trade dating tips, and join in the pillow fights. Girls who asked questions about the logistics were told to “just use a different bathroom” if it was a problem for them.
I imagine the Porky’s writers are spinning in their scalding graves; never in their wildest, most hedonistic dreams did they ever imagine a scenario as rife with voyeuristic opportunity as this deranged new trend. If only they could remake their infamous movie for 2022 audiences.
KKG members told media that they were pressured to ‘accept’ the new gender-bending recruit. Among other things, members said they were told:
— “Regardless of what your political views are, our Kappa values are acceptance and kindness, so if that is something that you disagree with, that’s not in line with Kappa values.”
— “It’s 2022. If you vote no, it better be for, like, literal issues with that new member or else it’s homophobic.”
— “If your only concerns are about her living in the house, you are thinking too far down the road.”
— “If you have something to say about this that isn’t kind or respectful, keep it to yourself.”
Kappa Kappa Gamma officially “updated” its national bylaws to allow female-identifying men just this year, in 2022. They sure aren’t wasting any time.
Welcome to Porky’s 2022!
💉 On Friday, Washington Local News KREM2 ran a story headlined, “Washington State University Dropping Covid-19 Vaccine Requirement for Most Employees.”
Due in part to the success of previous #COVID19 vaccination efforts, #WSU will eliminate the employee, contractor, and volunteer #COVID19 vaccine requirement in most settings. bit.lyVaccine requirement update for employees, contractors, and volunteers – WSU InsiderThe requirement will be lifted in coordination with Gov. Jay Inslee’s announcement that all remaining COVID‑19 emergency orders and the…2:00 PM ∙ Oct 21, 202220Likes4Retweets
Employees. But not STUDENTS.
Last month, Washington governor Jay Inslee ironically announced he plans to end his covid state of emergency on Halloween. Washington state, one of the last states to drop its state of emergency, also has one of the lowest covid death rates in the country.
WSU’s new announcement tracks the governor’s timing; the jab mandate for WSU staff ends on Halloween. But WSU said in a written statement, “As decided prior to the beginning of the school year, COVID-19 vaccinations will continue to be required for students enrolled on a physical WSU campus through the 2022-23 academic year.”
Sorry students! Although you are in the demographic LEAST likely to be harmed by covid, you still have to undertake all the risks of systemic spike protein injections. Because science! Shut up!
You can thank the experts later.
In related WSU news, the school made news a year ago by firing its head football coach, Nick Rolovich, who applied for a religious exemption to the school’s shot mandate. His application was denied. Rolovich is now suing the school for $25 million, for religious discrimination.
Maybe the students should consider something similar. Just saying.
💉 Uh-oh! The new bivalent boosters are working SO very well that even CDC Director Rochelle Walensky, if that is her real name, is now covid-infected and symptomatic, a mere 30 days after getting her new and improved bivalent covid shot.
Here she is back on September 22:
.@CDCDirector Rochelle Walensky visited a CVS Pharmacy today to get her bivalent COVID-19 booster. The bivalent vaccine provides added protection against COVID-19 and the Omicron variant and is available at CVS Pharmacy locations nationwide. bit.ly/3S7VFJQ
And now, a month later on October 22:
JUST IN – “Up to date” vaccinated CDC director Dr. Rochelle Walensky infected with COVID.
4:32 PM ∙ Oct 22, 20227,288Likes2,128Retweets
According to media reports, Director Walensky is “experiencing mild symptoms.” Fortunately Pfizer has ANOTHER drug for her to take, Paxlovid, which she’d better start taking asap. Allegedly, last month’s shot was Walensky’s FIFTH safe and effective injection. Don’t mock. It could have been SO much worse. And, they never said it would stop infections.
You remember that not happening, right?
5:26 PM ∙ Oct 22, 202212,491Likes5,886Retweets
The quintuple-jabbed CDC Director will be staying at home this week so as not to infect her jabbed co-workers, since the fully-vaccinated CDC staff remains at risk of dying from covid. Safety first.
Pfizer’s eight mice ‘volunteers’ couldn’t be reached for comment, because immediately after the trials, they were executed, burned to ashes, and their ashes were sealed up in eight tiny lead coffins that were promptly chucked overboard into the Marianas Trench.
💉 So, you won’t be surprised to hear that the none of the currently trending covid variants ones that the ‘bivalent’ booster shots elicit antibodies for. That’s the speed of science for you.
A few days ago, covid statistics miner Ethical Skeptic reported that the two new variants producing the most interest lately, BQ.1 and BQ.1.1, appear to prefer RECENTLY jabbed people, if you can believe that. The data suggests jabbed people are +22% more likely to be infected with one of the new variants, while unjabbed folks are -4% likely to catch it.
I’m starting to think that the reason corporate media stopped reporting the new variants is because they’re coming so fast now. It’s impossible to keep up with them in a normal news cycle.
This news is interesting because if the new variants are now preferring recently-jabbed folks, one wonders how it will affect the recommended booster interval? Could they go to weekly? Daily? They may need at-home injections.
💉 In a well-written October 20th interview with Geert Vanden Bossche published on Substack, Mary Beth Pfeiffer quoted GVB predicting the End of Western Civilization, again, thanks to people’s jab-injured immune systems:
“For me this is going to be the end of western civilization,” he said, a phrase he used several times in our conversation. “The hospitals will crash. The rest of society is just going to follow.” He recalled the history of other plagues that culled humanity, times when the human order was reshuffled during years of subsequent struggle and upheaval.
I don’t often quote Geert, at least partly because he’s been darkly predicting an imminent human mass extinction event for going on two years now. But more significantly, GVB is an extreme outlier, and the truth usually lies somewhere in the middle. Plus, Geert’s explanations are usually so highly technical that they are hard to understand absent a certain degree of faith.
Pfeiffer also quoted Dr. Tess Lawrie, who described a mechanism of concern seemingly more consistent with what we’re seeing. Lawrie said that because jabbed people — especially recently jabbed people — live with a constant state of systemic inflammation, their immune systems are overwhelmed, unable to effectively handle challenges like new variants.
If you combine systemic inflammation with antibody dependent enhancement (ADE), which I’ve described many times, and which appears to have finally entered the mainstream conversation around covid jabs, there are plenty of good reasons for people to take a break from all the jabbing to see how things develop.
It’s just an idea, only something to consider. Don’t cancel me.
💉 I bet you never expected to see something like this. Watch Alberta’s new Premier* apologize for how unjabbed people were treated during the pandemic.
BREAKING: Rebel News’s Selene Galas (@Selenecxliv) asked Premier of Alberta, Danielle Smith when we can expect a promised apology for those prosecuted during the lockdowns. Smith replied “I can apologize right now.” SIGN THE PETITION: LockdownAmnesty.com
So, we now have one U.S. State — Florida — and one Canadian province — Alberta — where Reason, battered and bruised, has climbed back up into her throne. Only about 60 left to go.
“Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, one by one.”
— Charles Mackay, 1841.
(* A Canadian Premier is definitely NOT like a U.S. governor, so.)
🔥 Surprising no one, the Miami Herald endorsed Charlie Crist for governor in Florida.
Miami Herald Opinion @HeraldOpEd
“More than anything, Crist is what we need to return Florida to normalcy and common decency,” writes the Editorial Board. Here’s why the Herald Editorial Board recommends him as their choice for Florida’s governor: miamiherald.com/opinion/editor…
The editors’ unintentionally hilarious rationale for supporting walking scarecrow Crist was not based on his merit, but on Governor DeSantis’ horrifying preference for individual rights:
I hardly need to tell any of you that murderous dictators Hitler and Stalin both rode to power arguing for enforcing the “common good” over “individual rights.” So, while they’re calling DeSantis “mean,” the Herald’s editors are simultaneously making a bold argument in favor of dystopian dictatorships.
Haha, it’s also pretty sidesplitting that, in a public editorial attempting to tear DeSantis to shreds, the Herald claimed that “dissent is muzzled.” Really? Dissent like your stupid editorial? It’s only suppressed behind your paywall, dummies.
But the best part is the Herland’s three main examples offered as “evidence” of DeSantis’ meanness: (1) sending illegal immigrants to the elitist sanctuary city Martha’s Vineyard, (2) arresting people who illegally voted in 2020, and (3) suing a Miami bar for indecency after it held a drag show — for kids.
All that sounds pretty good, to me.
After that, the Herald’s elongated shopping list of continued complaints sounded a lot more like a great argument to vote FOR the Governor:
What’s wrong with any of that? How soon can I vote?
Hey editors, we’re not accepting a murderous dictatorship just to avoid some mean tweets. Sorry, not tweets, I meant mean … something. Mean what?
Well, *I* think the Miami Herald is mean. So now what?
💉 I thought this compilation video was a nice capstone to today’s dose of vaccine-hesitancy.
Covid Vaccine Hysteria Compilation🤪👇
2:57 PM ∙ Oct 22, 20224,085Likes1,861Retweets
Thanks for your loyal support! I’ll see you all tomorrow as we kick off the new week the C&C way, and start counting down to the critical November 8th midterm elections.
C&C is moving the needle and changing minds. If you can, I could use your help getting the truth out and spreading optimism and hope: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/-learn-how-to-get-involved-
Twitter: @jchilders98
Truth Social: @jchilders98
MeWe: mewe.com/i/coffee_and_covid.
C&C Swag! www.shopcoffeeandcovid.com
Emailed Daily Newsletter: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com
© 2022, Jeff Childers, all rights reserved
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
Edited by Michael Hernandez
(Editor’s Note: this is part of a weekly compendium of recent significant events, culled from world news and curated by Michael Hernandez.)
HANNAH BLEAU (Oct 17) Breitbart News
Voters believe Republicans are more in tune with the top issues plaguing the country, while Democrats are focused on partisan goals, an October Harris Poll/HarrisX survey found.
The survey asked respondents, “What would you say are the most important issues facing the country today,” weeks ahead of the highly anticipated 2022 midterm election. The top issue, overall, is price increases/inflation, with 37 percent noting it as the most important issue. Twenty-nine percent identified the economy and jobs as the top issue, followed by 23 percent who said immigration, and 18 percent who said crime and drugs.
What is more, the perceived concerns of Republicans match up with top issues for Americans, as respondents said Republican Party leaders are most concerned with immigration, price increases/inflation, and the economy and jobs.
Meanwhile, Democrat leaders appear to be out of touch, as voters view their top issues of concern to be January 6, women’s rights, and the environment/climate change. This data could spell trouble for Democrats, as Americans have witnessed a dramatic rise in prices, crime, and illegal immigration under the leadership of President Biden and Democrats controlling both the Senate and the House.
By Kristine Parks (Dec. 17) | Fox News
Economic concerns and “intense” disapproval of President Biden are giving Republicans an edge with independent voters in the upcoming election, according to recent polling from The New York Times.
A NYT/Siena College poll found independent female voters in particular swung dramatically to the right in the past month, despite Democrats’ focus on abortion rights.
“In September, they favored Democrats by 14 points. Now, independent women backed Republicans by 18 points— a striking swing given the polarization of the American electorate and how intensely Democrats have focused on that group and on the threat Republicans pose to abortion rights,” the paper reported.
Oct. 18 (NewsMax)
President Joe Biden promised Tuesday the first bill he sends to Capitol Hill next year will be one that codifies Roe v. Wade — if Democrats control enough seats in Congress for Biden to sign abortion protections into law — in a speech designed to energize his party’s voters just three weeks ahead of the November midterms.
“If you care about the right to choose, then you gotta vote,” Biden said during remarks at the Howard Theatre in Washington. He urged those in attendance to recall how they felt when the Supreme Court in late June overturned the landmark 1973 ruling legalizing abortion, and repeatedly lambasted Republicans nationwide who have pushed for restrictions on the procedure, often without exceptions.
Biden said “the only sure way to stop these extremist laws that are putting in jeopardy women’s health and rights is for Congress to pass a law.” He acknowledged that right now, “we’re short a handful of votes” to reinstate abortion protections at the federal level, urging voters to send more Democrats to Congress.
“If we do that, here’s the promise I make to you and the American people: The first bill that I will send to the Congress will be to codify Roe v. Wade,” Biden said. “And when Congress passes it, I’ll sign it in January, 50 years after Roe was first decided the law of the land.”
That is a big if. Republicans are widely projected to gain control of at least the House. Abortion rights have been a key motivating factor for Democrats this year, although the economy and inflation still rank as chief concern for most voters.
For the White House, it will not be enough just to keep control of both chambers of Congress, already an uphill battle, to be able to enshrine the protections of Roe into law. The Senate would need to abolish the filibuster, the legislative rule that requires 60 votes for most bills to advance in the chamber, in order to pass an abortion measure with a simple majority of senators.
“If we do that, here’s the promise I make to you and the American people: The first bill that I will send to the Congress will be to codify Roe v. Wade,” Biden said. “And when Congress passes it, I’ll sign it in January, 50 years after Roe was first decided the law of the land.”
https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/abortion-midterms-house/2022/10/18/id/1092405/
NICK GILBERTSON (Oct. 16) Breitbart NewsPHOENIX, Arizona – Arizona’s Republican gubernatorial nominee, Kari Lake, told Breitbart News during an exclusive interview that if elected, she will be committed to protecting children from Critical Race Theory (CRT) and cross-gender curriculum.
JOHN BINDER (Oct 19) Breitbart News
New York City officials have set up a tent city solely for migrants arriving on buses from Texas sent by Gov. Greg Abbott (R) that includes televisions, video games, laundry service, a popcorn maker, and more amenities.
Since Abbott and Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey (R) started sending border crossers and illegal aliens to New York City, a sanctuary city, more than 19,400 have arrived on buses — 73 percent of which remain in the city’s overcrowded homeless shelter system.
To relieve homeless shelters, Mayor Eric Adams (D) has set up a tent city solely for newly arrived migrants on Randall’s Island, which sits between Manhattan and Queens. New photos inside the tent city show a host of amenities for migrants, including recreation rooms, laundry services, and a stocked cafeteria, all paid for by New York taxpayers.
Specifically, the tent city will begin housing 500 single male migrants. The tent city features around-the-clock snacks, coffee, and tea as well as Xbox game consoles, televisions, couches, popcorn makers, foosball tables, board games, phones for international calls, and free WiFi.
The tent city, officials said, could eventually house 1,000 migrants.
DEBORAH BRAND (Oct. 13) Breitbart News
Israel is providing Ukraine with intelligence on Iranian suicide drones used by the Russian army in its bombardment of Ukrainian cities in recent days, a report in the New York Times said citing a senior Ukrainian official.
JOEL B. POLLAK (Oct 16) Breitbart News
Former President Barack Obama admitted Friday that it had been a “mistake” not to support Iranian democracy protesters in 2009, when they rose up against their tyrannical regime in what was called the “Green Revolution.”
At the time, Obama chose to remain quiet about the protests, as he hoped to preserve the regime, and the administration of radical, Holocaust-denying Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in the hope of pursuing negotiations toward a deal on Iran’s nuclear weapons program. Obama struck a nuclear deal in 2015 that would allow Iran to emerge as a nuclear power within a decade. Obama told Pod Save America he was still proud of the Iran deal, which gave billions to the regime and relieved it from sanctions.
Under President Donald Trump, the U.S. withdrew from the Iran deal, and spoke out forcefully in favor of Iranian demonstrators.
Samantha Chang (Oct. 17) The Western Journal
The nation’s largest police union blasted the “woke” assistant principals of an Ohio high school for allowing four masked gunmen to enter because they were more concerned that the police would apprehend the suspects than they were about the safety of the students hiding inside from the intruders.
In a scathing tweet Wednesday, the National Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) savaged school administrators who unlocked the doors and let the gun-toting criminals inside Cleveland’s Garrett Morgan High School on Sept. 14 after the school went into lockdown.
The FOP — which represents more than 364,000 police officers nationwide — tweeted that the “reckless and dangerous” administrators “allowed MASKED GUNMEN to enter the school in order to protect the gunmen from *wait for it* police officers outside.”
The union underscored: “They risked the lives of CHILDREN to show how woke they are. Can’t make it up.” Police later chased down and arrested the gunmen, and no one was hurt.
“Two assistant principals from leadership let the males into the building,” one witness statement said. One of the vice principals affirmed the witness’ account: “I confirmed the interior doors were locked and instructed the four suspects to come to the vestibule because it was unsafe to be outside because I saw police officers.” In so doing, the vice principal defied the advice of the police dispatcher, who told the school’s security officer to “keep the school locked down.” For his part, the security officer is repeatedly heard on the 911 call yelling to others: “Do not let anybody through that door!” and “Do not let them in the building, people!”
The chilling incident unfolded last month when armed assailants drove up to Garrett Morgan High School in three stolen cars. The school then went into lockdown. The intruders were able to pass through one door after it was unlocked for them, but a second door prevented them from escaping into the building. Authorities later learned that one of the suspects had an arrest warrant out for him from a prior robbery case.
JOHN NOLTE (Oct 20) Breitbart News
“Rising Star” Stacey Abrams proved just how stupid she really is by trying to tie inflation to abortion.
While Democrats ridicule Georgia Republican U.S. Senate candidate Herschel Walker’s intelligence, Georgia’s most famous election denier, Stacey “President of Earth” Abrams, said this on MSNBC when she was asked about inflation:
Let’s be clear. Having children is why you’re worried about your price for gas. It’s why you’re concerned about how much food costs. For women this is not a reductive issue. You can’t divorce being forced to carry an unwanted pregnancy from the economic realities of having a child.
Let’s be clearer still. … You are a stupid, stupid woman…
We all know what she was trying to do here. Polls show Democrats are focused too much on abortion and too little on economic issues. Polls also show Republicans surging all across the country.
But. Democrats know their hysterical base needs to hear about abortion, needs those sweet-sweet baby-killing hits that soothe their neuroses and self-hate…So.
Governor-in-Her-Own-Mind Abrams thought she’d show off her second-to-none political acumen by tying the two issues together. Listen, morons, if we kill more babies, prices will go down, and you won’t have to buy as much stuff.
If Stacey Abrams were any dumber, she’d have to wear a helmet. After all, this is the same Stacey Abrams who said the fetal heartbeat was a manufactured sound. But Stacey isn’t alone. No matter the problem, Democrats have a solution, and it’s more baby killing. Here’s that rocket scientist we call Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen:
“I believe that eliminating the right of women to make decisions about whether to have children would have very damaging effects on the economy and would set women back decades,” she said.
Yeah, the problem isn’t Biden’s supply chain crisis or Biden’s energy crisis or flooding the country with millions of illegals; it’s the lack of access to baby killing.
Over at that think tank we call the HuffPo, they’re saying killing da’ babies will help reduce a deficit, a deficit no one at the HuffPo ever cared about until killing da’ babies came up: More than 4 in 10 births in the United States — 42% in 2019 — are paid for by Medicaid, the government insurance program for the poor whose costs are split between the federal government and individual states. At an average of $18,865 per birth and with one estimate that there will be more than 150,000 extra births annually because of Dobbs, there will almost certainly be more spending.
This, of course, is naked eugenics: Kill da’ poor people’s babies. But look at how dishonest and desperate this HuffPo argument is. When it comes to budget expenditures, why don’t we compare 150,000 more babies per year to a million illegal aliens per year?
Naturally, Democrats want you to believe infanticide will save the planet: Are you kidding me? Listen, what causes climate deprivation is population. If we had not been systematically forcing women to have children they don’t want or can’t care for over the 500 years of patriarchy, we wouldn’t have the climate problems that we have. That’s the fundamental cause of climate change. That was Gloria Steinem. So there you go, America…
Want to end inflation? Kill da’ babies. Want to lower the deficit? Kill da’ babies. Want to save Mother Earth? Kill da’ babies. Kill da’ babies! Oh, Satan, yay, Satan. Kill da’ babies!https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2022/10/20/nolte-democrat-solution-everything-is-kill-more-babies/
Jake Gibson , Timothy H.J. Nerozzi (Oct. 21) Fox News
Former Trump White House official Steve Bannon has been sentenced to four months in prison and a $6,500 fine for contempt of Congress. Bannon was found guilty of contempt of Congress in July after he ignored a subpoena from the House Jan. 6 Committee. “I want to say one thing — I respect the judge, the sentence he came down with today is his decision. I’ve been totally respectful to this entire process on the legal side,” Bannon said after the sentencing.
Bannon was released pending appeal, which he and his legal team promised to make. If an appeal is not made, Bannon must surrender voluntarily by Nov. 15, U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols ruled. Bannon predicted his political opponents will be voted out on Election Day.
The Justice Department had recommended a six-month prison sentence and a $200,000 fine for former Trump aide Steve Bannon due to his failure to comply with a subpoena to appear before the House Select Committee investigating January 6.
“I want to thank all you guys for coming,” Bannon said entering the courthouse Friday. “Remember this illegitimate regime, their judgment day is on the eighth of November when the Biden administration ends. I want to thank you all for coming.”
Federal prosecutors pushed for Bannon to receive at least six months in prison, citing his “bad faith” behavior in and out of court. “From the moment that the Defendant, Stephen K. Bannon, accepted service of a subpoena from the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, he has pursued a bad-faith strategy of defiance and contempt,” federal prosecutors argued on Monday. They continued, “The Committee sought documents and testimony from the Defendant relevant to a matter of national importance: the circumstances that led to a violent attack on the Capitol and disruption of the peaceful transfer of power. In response, the Defendant flouted the Committee’s authority and ignored the subpoena’s demands.”
Bannon claimed executive privilege precluded him from appearing before the committee to talk about the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, though prosecutors noted that he left the White House in 2017.https://www.foxnews.com/politics/steve-bannon-sentenced-4-months-prison-contempt-congress
By Adonis Hoffman (Oct. 19) The Hill Opinion
People are easy to dupe. Give us something for free and we will open the door to just about anything in return, including our most sensitive family, health and financial information.
The ancient Greeks knew something about the human psyche when they built a massive wooden horse and put it outside the enemy gates at Troy. Unsuspecting Trojans marveled at the gift and ushered it inside unexamined. Hidden in the horse were the Greek men of war who emerged to sack the city.
The Chinese know something about human nature too. TikTok is China’s Trojan horse. Enwrapped in millions of comedic, cute, and catchy little videos, TikTok has slipped in deftly under our defenses and found a home behind America’s security walls. It is a free, easy-to-use, app taking the world by storm, one naive user at a time. It was the most popular iPhone app download in 2021 and the most popular overall app downloaded globally in 2020 and 2021. There are over 78.7 million U.S. users, with a projected 90 million users in 2023.
TikTok is owned by ByteDance, one of China’s most valuable private companies. As an app, its lofty mission — it calls itself “the leading destination for short-form mobile videos with a mission to inspire creativity and bring joy” — seems quite benign. But that belies its corporate character. Most private companies in China come under direct or indirect control of the Chinese government, which is notoriously secretive and opaque on ownership and operational details.
TikTok seems to be no different. Its algorithm is at once simple and sinister. Download the app on your smartphone and you are connected to millions of viewers across the world — very simple. Download the app on your smartphone and you have given China access to all your data — very sinister.
This opens a treasure trove of data on millions of Americans for the Chinese government to use whenever and however they choose. And history shows they use that data for nefarious purposes.
Many cybersecurity experts believe the Chinese government intends TikTok as a propaganda or censorship tool or to somehow blackmail users. This is especially ominous for today’s millennials and Gen Zs, who are the next generation of American leaders.
Over the past three years, TikTok has come under the scrutiny of both Congress and the Executive Branch. The Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. (CFIUS) opened an investigation in 2019 and Democratic and Republican Senators asked the Director of National Intelligence for a review of the company’s practices.
Citing national security concerns, President Trump first asked ByteDance to divest its ownership in 2020, and later imposed a ban on TikTok if it was not sold to an American firm within 45 days of the executive order. Microsoft and Oracle both engaged in serious discussions to buy the company, but there was staunch resistance from TikTok’s Chinese leadership, which reportedly did not want the company’s algorithms or AI technology to fall into foreign — American — hands.
Later, TikTok filed a series of federal lawsuits against the Trump administration, amounting to a stay in the company’s operations. When President Biden took office, he issued an executive order in June 2021 reversing the Trump ban on TikTok and mandating a Commerce Department review into the national security ramifications. That review has not prompted any further U.S. action against the company, which continues to operate unfettered today.
FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr has become a latter-day Paul Revere. He recently tweeted: “TikTok is not just another video app. That’s the sheep’s clothing. It harvests swaths of sensitive data that new reports show are being accessed in Beijing. I’ve called on @Apple & @Google to remove Tik Tok from their app stores for its pattern of surreptitious data practices.” That warning, thus far, has fallen on deaf ears.
TikTok’s battle for social media primacy presents both challenge and opportunity for Facebook, its main competitor. To be sure, Facebook has its own share of problems: layoffs; poor morale; investigations by regulators in Europe and the U.S.; multi-state litigation; privacy issues and more. Facebook has been eclipsed by TikTok as the app that users spend the most time with at 850 minutes per month.
But TikTok’s foreign ownership — and indeed its practices — may yet be its own undoing. Recently, Facebook’s parent company, Meta, took down a network of fake accounts from China that sought to interfere in American politics ahead of the November elections. If Facebook can distinguish its privacy and security practices from TikTok, among others, that should earn plaudits from U.S. security agencies who should be concerned — very concerned. Whether that is enough to save the company from the raging competition from Beijing or further regulatory action remains to be seen.
As the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), Congress and the Justice Department continue to scrutinize Big Tech leaders including Facebook, Google, and Amazon, they should not lose sight of the serious national security issues presented by TikTok, especially during election season.
A look at TikTok’s privacy policy states that “We may share all of the information we collect with a parent, subsidiary, or other affiliate of our corporate group” — and that means the Chinese Government too.
American policymakers and regulators should also keep in mind TikTok’s marketplace realities. According to Influencer Marketing Hub tracking TikTok statistics:
When it comes to TikTok, millions of Americans have been laughing, dancing and singing along with the popular and entertaining videos.
But we should not overlook what is actually happening under our very noses. In America’s simple, silly and sublime desire for endless entertainment, we are literally dancing with the enemy.
(Editor’s Note: Adonis Hoffman is CEO of The Advisory Counsel, Inc. He is a former chief of staff and senior legal advisor at the FCC and served in legal and policy positions in the U.S. House of Representatives. He has also served as an adjunct professor at Georgetown University.)
By Jennifer Van Laar | (Oct. 20) RedState (Commentary)
A four-term California Assemblywoman, Jacqui Irwin (D-Thousand Oaks), herself a former college athlete, had a horrifying answer to a voter’s question about whether it’s fair to allow transgender females (biological males) to compete in women’s collegiate and professional sports. That answer?
“I thought this out already. We start at age 8 or 9. By the time boys transfer into girls and teens at age 12 or 13, they have new friends. By the time they turn 17, 18, or 19, nobody knows their past.” Instead of addressing the actual issue, and seemingly without regard for the fact that this transition includes genital mutilation, sterilization, and irreversible hormonal impacts, Irwin thinks it’s easy-peasy to handle this sticky “social justice” situation by simply mutilating boys at an even younger age, when they have no capacity to make a life-altering decision – and so by the time they’re in college, they can easily obfuscate their biological gender.
That is not a “solution.” That is extreme child abuse, and torture. The voter who’d asked Irwin the question, Pacific Palisades resident John Alle, shared his experience at a fundraiser for Irwin’s challenger, political newcomer and Republican Lori Mills of Simi Valley. Alle said:
“I wanted to tell my story about a recent conversation I had with her opponent, incumbent Jacqui Irwin. And I have often wondered — and I — I love to talk to the officeholders to find out how and why they stayed in office for so long and switched from one position to another.
“At a candidate forum we were discussing schools, gender change, and trans issues. Jacqui Irwin, your opponent, was an academic All-American swimmer at UC San Diego. I took the opportunity to talk with Jacqui about college and professional women’s and men’s sports. I asked Jacqui Irwin, quote, ‘How do I reconcile and justify to myself and others that it’s fair for men who trans into women, with biological advantage, to take over swimming and women’s sports, and, as a result, throw Title IX and women’s sports out the window?’
“Jacqui Irwin’s response: ‘John, I thought this out already. We start at age 8 or 9. By the time girls transform into boys’ — I’m sorry. ‘By the time boys transfer into girls and teens at age 12 or 13, they have new friends. By the time they turn 17, 18, or 19, nobody knows their past.’
“How creepy and negative is that? It’s time for positive change. We need a better agenda that reflects our values. And that’s why I’m here.” It’s disappointing and illuminating that Irwin’s solution, which she admits having thought out, so it’s apparently not an off-the-cuff answer, relies on subversion and deception. This issue is hotly-debated around the country, and especially in Irwin’s district – she represents the area where Mario Presents of Gays Against Groomers gave a passionate speech to a local school board, railing against the “woke” agenda. On local social media sites, parents who express concern about what’s happening in schools and share feelings that they aren’t being fully informed about what their children are being taught are dismissed as paranoid and are told that nothing secretive is happening. How can those parents possibly have confidence that they’re being told the full and complete truth regarding these issues when the sitting Assemblywoman is openly advocating deception to advance her agenda?
Irwin recently spoke to Democrat candidates in Simi Valley about the importance of getting out the vote, saying that while they were all running against “crazy Republicans,” her opponent, Mills, “is the craziest.”
Her full quote: “So, most of you at the local level are running against crazy Republicans. But I have to say, my crazy Republican takes the cake. She is the craziest. And, she comes right here from Simi Valley. She’s a Realtor that was actually kicked off of Twitter. She was kicked off of Facebook…”
Mills tells RedState that she was kicked off of the social media platforms for posting about Hunter Biden’s laptop in the runup to the 2020 Presidential Election.
Irwin continued: “We have to make sure that we don’t get those crazy people up in the State Assembly representing Simi Valley, and we also have to make sure that those crazy people do not run the City Council or the School Board or the Park District. Because what they are doing right now, the far right, the election deniers…because they are having trouble winning a statewide office or winning national office in California, they are trying to come up through these local offices, through the School Board, through the City Council, and through the park districts.
“So. it is imperative that the ground roots, which is all of you, go out and do everything you can to make people understand how crucial this election is.”
This election is crucial, but not for the reasons Irwin thinks it is. Her district covers wealthy areas of northwestern Los Angeles (Malibu, Calabasas, Brentwood, Bel Air) and eastern Ventura Counties, where violent attacks and smash-and-grab robberies are on the rise, where drought-fueled wildfires are a threat year-round, and where people are paying between $6 and $7/gallon for gas.
And, Irwin is the chair of the CA Assembly Select Committee on Gasoline Supply and Pricing, a group that’s met exactly twice – the last time on August 11, 2022. Perhaps she ought to think through some other issues and let kids be kids – and let parents be parents. Irwin did not respond to a request for comment.
(Jennifer Van Laar: I have known Lori Mills for more than three years and have endorsed her campaign and spoken at fundraisers.)https://redstate.com/jenvanlaar/2022/10/20/ca-dem-jacqui-irwins-solution-to-trans-females-competing-in-womens-sports-transition-them-earlier-n645899
Prayer:
By Greg Laurie, (Oct. 19) Christian Post
I don’t even want to contemplate what life would be like if I didn’t have the privilege of taking my sorrows, cares, and worries to the Lord.
In Acts 12, when the apostle Peter was in Herod’s prison, facing imminent execution, the young church met one of its greatest tests. This evil king had already killed James, the brother of John. And now he had Peter, their leader, in custody. He was imprisoned behind two gates, chained to two guards, and guarded by 14 more.
The odds of Peter living out the week were slim to none. So what did the church do? Flood the palace switchboard? Call their member of congress? Organize a protest and picket the palace? Fill up Twitter with negative posts?
No. Verse 5 gives us their entire strategy: “Peter was therefore kept in prison, but constant prayer was offered to God for him by the church.” We have a secret weapon in the church called prayer. Though all other doors may remain closed, one door is always open: the door into the presence of God through prayer.
So often, however, we save this as our last resort — what we do when “all else fails.” But this church prayed as a first resort, and it was by far the most powerful and effective thing they could have done.
Acts 12:5 says, “Constant prayer was offered to God.” Jesus made this exceptional promise: “But if you remain in me and my words remain in you, you may ask for anything you want, and it will be granted” (John 15:7 NLT).
Don’t miss the big “IF” at the beginning of that sentence. If you are investing daily time in studying His Word and growing in your understanding of the nature and character of God, you will begin praying for what He wants. True prayer is not bending God my way. It is bending myself His way.
The early church also prayed passionately and passionately in “constant prayer.” Another way to translate it would be “earnest prayer.” The term used is the same word used to describe the prayer of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. That was an agonizing prayer of passion. And that’s the way the church prayed for their leader, Peter.
Our prayers often hold no power because they have no heart. If we put so little passion into our prayers, we can’t expect God to put much passion into answering them.
We get so wrapped up in our own thoughts and concerns that we really don’t give our full attention to prayer. Someone will tell us of a crisis they’re facing, and we may send up a quick, “Lord help them,” but if truth be told, we don’t care that much. We don’t pray with passion, and we don’t pray continuously.
Jesus taught, “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you” (Matthew 7:7, NKJV). However, a better translation of the original language would read: “Keep on asking. Keep on seeking. Keep on knocking.”
God isn’t irritated at all when you keep knocking at His door. He wants to open the door to you, His much-loved child. In fact, He tells you to be persistent and to keep at it. One translation suggests that we pray with “shameless audacity” (Luke 11:8, NIV). Keep praying about that matter on your heart.
So the church in Jerusalem kept praying with great passion and persistence for Peter, knowing he was in peril for his very life. And they prayed together. The church met together at the home of Mary, mother of John Mark, to plead with God for Peter’s release.
There is power in united prayer. Jesus said, “If two of you agree on earth concerning anything that they ask, it will be done for them by My Father in Heaven. For where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them” (Matthew 18:19-20, NKJV).
If you have a crisis or a need in your life, go to your Christian friends to unite in prayer. When the early church did so, God dispatched an angel to break Peter’s chains and open the prison doors. Before long, the answer to their prayer was knocking on the door of the prayer meeting.
In Psalm 61, David wrote: “Hear my cry, O God; attend to my prayer. From the end of the earth I will cry to You. When my heart is overwhelmed, lead me to the rock that is higher than I.”(vv. 1-2, NKJV)
In other words, when your heart is overwhelmed, start looking for higher ground. God will answer in His time, in His way. In the meantime, He will lift you up and give you strength.
(Editor’s Note: Greg Laurie is the Pastor of Harvest Christian Fellowship and the speaker at the Harvest Crusades. He is also the author of Lennon, Dylan, Alice and Jesus: A Spiritual Biography of Rock And Roll.)
(Michael Hernandez, co-founder of the Citizens Journal—Ventura County’s online news service is a former Southern California daily newspaper journalist and religion and news editor. Mr. Hernandez can be contacted at [email protected] and is editor of “America: The End and Our Hope”.)
| Latest from VDH’s Blade Of Perseus |
| Victor Davis Hansen, October 22, 2022 The Coming Elections Victor Davis Hanson with cohost Sami Winc examines polls, the Herschel Walker debate, governor elections, and Robert Reich defense of Dems on crime, inflation, and 87,000 new IRS agents. View more… October 21, 2022 Things That Reveal the Struggling Left Listen in as Victor Davis Hanson and cohost Jack Fowler talk about midterms, Mayorkas’ lies about “whipping,” cop killing in Connecticut, Tulsi Gabbard leaving the Democratic Party, and Paypal’s $2500…View more… October 21, 2022 What Now Exactly Are Impeachable Offenses? Part One- Victor Davis Hanson We know that Donald Trump was once impeached for calling up his Ukrainian counterpart and complaining that the Ukrainian government had been too involved with the corrupt…View more… October 20, 2022Who Denies Election Results? Victor Davis Hanson American Greatness A Democratic myth has arisen that Donald Trump’s denial of the accuracy of the 2020 vote was “unprecedented.” Unfortunately, the history of U.S. elections is…View more… October 20, 2022 Biden, Democrats use midterm mass-distraction strategy to hide counterculture revolution from angry voters. Victor Davis Hanson The contours of the upcoming November midterms seem clear. President Joe Biden scarcely polls above 40% approval. His disastrous energy, economic, crime, immigration, and foreign policies proved even more…View more… October 19, 2022 The Unmentionable, Unspeakable, and Unutterable. Part Three- Victor Davis Hanson Instead, our elite social engineers focus on the black upper-middle class through vastly expanding affirmative action and recalibrating college admissions as reparatory rather than proportionally representative (i.e.,…View more… October 19, 2022 The Democrat Government, Muddling Through Join Victor Davis Hanson and cohost Sami Winc as they discuss the John Durham investigation, Ukraine war rhetoric, and our Ministry of Truth. View more… October 18, 2022 The Unmentionable, Unspeakable, and Unutterable. Part Two-Victor Davis Hanson Crime Everywhere Now we come to the current crime wave. We see weekly YouTube videos of the knock-out game, of Saturday night Al Capone-gangland massacring, of vulnerable…View more… |
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
Elections/Fernandina Beach
The Golf Advisory Board is sponsoring a Fernandina Beach City Commission candidate forum on Wednesday, October 26 at 5:30 PM 6 PM at City Hall.
Here are the Forum questions:
Question 1: Please give your views on retaining the Fernandina Beach Golf Club as a 27 hole golf course or diverting some of the property for other recreational purposes/ activities.
Question 2: What do you think is the optimal means for management of the Golf Course: Directly by the City; Third Party; Parks and Recreation or something else?
Question 3: Although the FBGC is presently constituted as an Enterprise Fund, do you favor City budgetary support for major items such as golf cart purchases or periodic course and golf club refurbishment as needed?
Question 4: Can all capital expenditure needs of the City be funded through the current tax revenue? If not, how would you propose they be funded? Can you identify any capital projects that are currently unfunded or underfunded
Fernandina Beach City Hall 204 Ash St, Fernandina Beach, FL
By Jeff Childers
10-22-22
Good morning C&C, welcome to the weekend edition! I’m writing to you today from the Brownwood Hotel in the Villages, Florida, where I’ll be speaking later this morning along with some of them most influential and courageous doctors of our generation. To make you feel better for missing it, there’s terrific, game-changing news in today’s slightly-abbreviated roundup includes: massive good news as court orders Fauci to sit for deposition; dems go all out for lumpy; polls collapse for dems; Fetterman / Oz race brings out the big guns; NYT poll shows a wild 30-point shift among independent woman over a few weeks; and president Xi is binging and purging.
🪖 For those of you who wanted but were unable to attend the Covid Summit in the Villages today, here is the livestream link: [Florida Summit on Covid II: The Future of Medicine in Post-COVID America](https://rumble.com/v1p5lmn-florida-summit-on-covid-ii-the-future-of-medicine-in-post-covid-america.html)
🔥 More than a year ago, I told Dr. Jay Bhattacharya that I thought there was enough evidence already in public record to sue that rat weasel Fauci for civil rights violations under the First Amendment, for the campaign that Fauci and the despicable Collins undertook in 2020 to destroy Jay and the other authors of the Great Barrington Declaration by branding them as “fringe scientists.”
Well.
In the best news of 2022, and I’m not exaggerating, yesterday a federal court in Louisiana overruled the federal government’s objections, ordered Dr. Fauci and other government officials to sit for depositions under oath, and said “The Court sees the importance of having Dr. Fauci make statements under oath as it relates to the issues of this matter.”
Finally! That little weasel is going to have to answer some hard questions!
The lawsuit, filed by the State of Missouri, alleges that Fauci and other government officials engaged in a corrupt scheme to deploy the full might of the U.S. government to illegally suppress Americans’ free speech during the pandemic. Examples cited in the Court’s order include:
In support of its pending motion for a preliminary injunction, Missouri wants to take the expedited depositions of Tony Fauci (NIH), Rob Flaherty (White House), Andy Slavitt (White House), Jen Psaki (White House), Elvis Chan (FBI), Jen Easterly (CISA), Lauren Protenis (CISA), Vivek Murthy (Surgeon General), Carol Crawford (CDC), and Daniel Kimmage (State Dept.).
Missouri’s deposition requests were asking the Court for a lot. First of all, there’s a doctrine protecting public officials from being deposed except under exceptional circumstances. They can’t be sitting in depositions all the time, they’d never get any work done. And second, another doctrine protects public officials from having to sit for deposition quickly (or, ‘expedited’). Their schedules are challenging, because they are constantly involved in very important government business and have meetings with super important people and stuff like that.
But the court found sufficient ‘extraordinary cause’ to overrule BOTH doctrines. So not only will Missouri get to depose Fauci and the others, but Missouri will be allowed to set the depositions at the speed of science.
It’s only fair.
Tellingly, the Court has already found that Dr. Fauci WAS involved in censorship efforts, just from the publicly-available emails:
Note the Court’s use of the word, “prove,” above. The judge wasn’t just saying Missouri’d “alleged” Fauci was involved in censorship. Instead, the Court said the publicly-available emails “prove” it. That’s a galaxy of difference.
The Court then went through each of the other nine witnesses, one by one, and catalogued the factual reasons why “exceptional circumstances exist” for each government witness, and explained why they must sit for an expedited deposition.
It’s such a wonderful order! We’ve been waiting so long for something like this. I feel frustrated because I wish I had more time this morning to summarize the rest of the order for you, it’s a whopper. (But duty calls.)
So, here’s the link to the order. I recommend you read it, and I don’t often say that about legal filings. You’re going to love it.
🔥 An alert reader sent me this unsolicited text message that she got on Monday. Somebody with a lot of money is getting desperate for votes in Pennsylvania… and I’m not SAYING its anyone with a terrifying lump on their neck … but it’s probably someone with a terrifying lump on their neck.
And that person probably wears a hoody all the time. Just saying.
The text:
If you click the ‘NewBlueAction’ link, you’ll see a little form you can fill out for a chance to earn a quick $900 smackers, for trying to ‘influence’ your friends and neighbors into voting for Lumpy.
The form wants all your personal info and social media handles. Here’s what the top of the form’s page looks like:
A ‘community ambassador!’ Wow, you’ll be an ambassador. I wonder if the job comes with a limo and invitations to swanky cocktail parties in D.C. and orgies and stuff. I mean ‘festivals,’ sorry!
I tried to find out who’s behind this expenditure of campaign funds. But visiting www.newblueaction.org was just more frustration, since the link goes nowhere. Nor can you find any link on the site disclosing its ownership or anything.
So the whole thing MUST be totally legit.
$900 bucks seems like a lot, especially on a per-person basis. If they only hire a thousand community ambassadors, it adds up to $900,000 dollars. Maybe it’s being funded by one of those new covid millionaires, or Nancy Pelosi’s guesthouse ice cream fund.
Since it must be a lot of hard, boring work slogging through all the applications, I think they’d enjoy receiving some well-crafted humor in their applications this morning.
I signed up as Joseph Bythen. So.
My intake call is scheduled for next week with Max T., and if I did my internet sleuthing properly, the interviewer for this sketchy influence-buying operation is the nice young man below, who is working on his bachelor’s degree in Environmental and Political Science at Yale University:
In other words, feast your eyes on our best and brightest! He’ll probably wind up running the nuclear arsenal or something.
Oddly, Yale is in Connecticut, NOT Pennsylvania. But who cares!
📉 As the week wound down, the polls favoring democrats tripped and fell down the political stairs. Maybe ‘suddenly and unexpectedly collapsed’ would be a better way to describe it. After weeks and months of cheerful polls that either favored democrats or showed democrats closing with Republicans, all of a sudden, two weeks before the election, the pollsters’ predictions are mysteriously switching sides.
As are the betting markets:
This particular market lets people bet on the outcome elections. Historically it has been very accurate. As you can see from the chart above, dems were highly favored to keep the senate as recently as the last week of September. Then, the numbers narrowed, and around October 17th the Republican figures started running away, racing nearly straight up.
Democrat figures raced nearly straight down.
And now, betting site PredictIt favors a Republican House AND a Republican Senate, over a Republican House and a Dem Senate, by $.66 to $.31. In other words, the betters think it’s more than twice as likely to happen.
📉 Here’s another random example, which illustrates the point: the Ohio State House 9 race, is now — suddenly — strongly favoring Republicans, by 70% to 30%.
In June, Republicans were +3. Then end the end of July, the polls mysteriously narrowed till they showed dems taking the lead until this week, when it flipped back to show Republicans +3. Again. Right where they started.
Weird.
It’s almost like the media jiggered the polls for a few months trying to manufacture a blue wave or something. Otherwise it’s hard to explain all this voter flip-flopping. But corporate media would never do that.
Would they?
📈 And here’s the betting on the Fetterman / Oz race in Pennsylvania:
This one’s less difficult to explain, since fully-vaccinated Fetterman can’t complete a full sentence anymore, and worse, Joe Biden was just in PA campaigning for Fetterman, who must have agreed to the visit thinking, “at this point I have nothing to lose.” Haha, Fetterman forgot the Obama Rule: never underestimate Joe’s ability to f**k things up.
He Bidened it.
So, they’ve brought in the big gun.
Obama cuts ads for Fetterman in Pennsylvania Senate race trib.al/PnaoJ4O
📉 Even Kathy Hochul seems to be feeling the heat:
🚨New ad from @KathyHochul focusing exclusively on public safety and crime. This represents a sharp shift in messaging as polls indicate the crime issue is tops among voters, which has given @leezeldin oxygen with just over two weeks to go. m.youtube.com/watch?v=qTowZl…
m.youtube.comSafe | Kathy Hochul for Governor3:44 PM ∙ Oct 21, 2022115Likes48Retweets
🔥 Just before things started turning back in the red direction, on October 17th the Week ran a story headlined “Poll: Economic Concerns Give Republicans a Slight Edge Ahead of Midterms.” It references a New York Times poll giving Republicans a “slight” +4 lead in the House.
The October poll shows that sentiments about Republican candidates have improved since the previous poll. Forty-nine percent of likely voters plan to vote for Republican congressional candidates compared to 45 percent who plan to vote for Democrats, the Times reports. This is a shift from September’s results, in which Democrats had a 1-point lead.
The New York Times had Democrats +1 in September, but a couple weeks later, they’re now -4, a 5 point shift in Republicans’ favor. Polled voters reported being most concerned about skyrocketing inflation and the terrible, awful stock market, which the Times has somehow successfully avoided reporting on in any meaningful way.
It’s the ECONOMY. Not abortion, January 6th, or President Trump, which were the issues the democrats staked their elections on.
But:
While abortion, January 6th, and President Trump are still better issued than the deranged “defund the police,” it’s still like their strategists have strapped the democrat candidates onto a giant lazy susan at a Berlin ‘festival’ or something.
Think monkeypox.
Now, remind me. Which president said, “it’s the economy, stupid!” Wasn’t it a democrat president? I can’t remember.
Finally and especially interestingly, the Week reported the biggest shift was found in women registered as independents, who in September were D+14. Now — a few short weeks later — they’re R+18, a 32-point jump into the red.
🚀 You might recall a mysterious story I reported last month about tons of flights being cancelled around Beijing, along with independent video showing military assets headed INTO the capital. Yesterday, former Chinese leader Hu Jintao was mysteriously and publicly escorted out of the Great Hall of the People ahead of an expected speech by President Xi at the end of the annual Communist Party Congress.
胡锦涛很明显是被强行带离现场，什么原因将成为千古之谜。旁边的栗战书吓得直冒汗，站起来被王沪宁拉下去。
6:26 AM ∙ Oct 22, 20226,086Likes1,385Retweets
Hu Jintao looked somewhat … unenthusiastic about going along with those two nicely-dressed gentlemen, who probably worked as interviewers for shady influence-buying operations when they were in college.
What I know about communism suggests we won’t be seeing Mr. Hu again. Not anytime soon. Maybe not ever. Can you say, “purge?”
What a great news day! Be optimistic, grateful, and diligent. I’ll see you guys back here on Monday, to kick off the new week.
C&C is moving the needle and changing minds. If you can, I could use your help getting the truth out and spreading optimism and hope: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/-learn-how-to-get-involved-
Twitter: @jchilders98
Truth Social: @jchilders98
MeWe: mewe.com/i/coffee_and_covid.
C&C Swag! www.shopcoffeeandcovid.com
Emailed Daily Newsletter: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com
© 2022, Jeff Childers, all rights reserved
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
By George Miller, 10-21-22
I did a double take when I saw an article on an obscure site called American Liberty News: “Communist China Has Been Detaining American Officials in COVID Camps for Two Years.” REALLY? COVID has an infectious period of weeks- max. In addition to the thought that this is a weak excuse to imprison Americans for so long, one considers that they may be in possession of important information and the Chinese have them at their mercy and may have been trying to extract information under duress.
Before springing into action, I “Googled” it to find some corroboration. NOTHING – as in zero- could be found. Try it yourself: https://www.google.com/search?q=Communist+China+Has+Been+Detaining+American+Officials+in+COVID+Camps+for+Two+Years . Maybe you’ll get different results, as Google customizes searches for you. By changing search parameters, I was able to find an NTB You Tube video addressing it very briefly. Only about 60,000 people had seen it and I don’t see it in the headlines, do you?
But before we put this in our fake news circular file, we also checked search engine Duck Duck Go and look what we came up with:
Search-
from this search:
https://republicans-oversight.house.gov › release › comer-mccaul-press-blinken-on-china-detaining-u-s-diplomats-in-covid-quarantine-camps
We write to request more information from the U.S. Department of State (Department) on efforts to end the detainment of U.S. diplomats in COVID-19 quarantine camps in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and reestablish reciprocity in diplomatic relations more broadly. We ask that you preserve all documentation related to this request.
https://gop-foreignaffairs.house.gov › press-release › mccaul-comer-press-blinken-on-china-detaining-u-s-diplomats-in-covid-quarantine-camps
We write to request more information from the U.S. Department of State (Department) on efforts to end the detainment of U.S. diplomats in COVID-19 quarantine camps in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and reestablish reciprocity in diplomatic relations more broadly. We ask that you preserve all documentation related to this request.
The two releases are from the House Oversight and House Foreign Affairs Committees and are the same.
We also found this. Interesting:
On the https://www.youtube.com/c/ChinainFocusNTD YouTube channel:
Then there was also this:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/18/us/politics/china-us-threats-detain.html
Oct 18, 2020 Thomas Peter/Reuters. WASHINGTON — Chinese officials have told the Trump administration that security officers in China might detain American citizens if the Justice Department proceeds with …
Republican members of House Oversight Committee press release text. Why is this not broadcast all over with high level officials involved? ….
Press Release Published: Sep 29, 2022
WASHINGTON—House Committee on Oversight and Reform Ranking Member James Comer (R-Ky.) and House Committee on Foreign Affairs Ranking Member Michael McCaul (R-Texas) today are pressing Secretary of State Antony Blinken for information about the State Department’s efforts to end the detainment of U.S. diplomats in COVID-19 quarantine camps in the People’s Republic of China. Ranking Members Comer and McCaul are calling for the preservation of documents related to the request and a briefing on efforts to protect U.S. personnel in China against counter-intelligence efforts.
Below is the text of the letter to Secretary Blinken. The full letter can be found here.
September 29, 2022
The Honorable Antony J. Blinken
Secretary
U.S. Department of State
2201 C Street NW
Washington, DC 20520
Dear Secretary Blinken:
We write to request more information from the U.S. Department of State (Department) on efforts to end the detainment of U.S. diplomats in COVID-19 quarantine camps in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and reestablish reciprocity in diplomatic relations more broadly. We ask that you preserve all documentation related to this request.
U.S. Embassy officials in Beijing recently confirmed that 16 U.S. diplomats and their family members—throughout the pandemic—have been involuntarily held in quarantine camps and subjected to strict confinement measures with no definitive release date. Committee Republicans are concerned that U.S diplomats could be or have been pressured to surrender intelligence while detained in PRC quarantine camps. We must ensure the protection of all Americans abroad—especially those who have access to classified information—and put an end to the undignified detainment of U.S. diplomats.
The confinement of U.S. diplomats in the PRC raises grave national security concerns. The PRC poses a geopolitical threat to the United States and should not be coercing U.S. diplomats into and surveilling them under draconian quarantine policies. According to The Washington Post as well as internal correspondence whistleblowers have provided to Congress, the PRC engaged in a sustained campaign to deprive U.S. diplomats of their liberties under the guise of COVID-19 containment. For example, the PRC reportedly has improperly tested U.S. diplomats for conditions and diseases other than COVID-19, isolated families with young children in a fever clinic for lengthy periods and attempted to separate quarantined children from their parents.
Unfortunately, these extreme containment measures are part of the PRC’s attempt to undermine United States national security and undermine basic reciprocity in diplomatic relations. According to a report the Department provided to Congress,“[t]hrough a sustained harassment and intimidation campaign, the PRC government discourages its citizens from participating in routine public diplomacy programs and U.S. government funded exchanges.” The PRC also controls (and substantially restricts) U.S. diplomatic access to local officials and researchers through its Foreign Affairs Office (FAO) program. Further, as has been documented comprehensively in recent years, the PRC state has directed or supported the theft of trillions of dollars of U.S. companies’ intellectual property and troves of invaluable intelligence to narrow the technological capacity gap between itself and the U.S. Sometimes this “cool war” has deadly consequences. During the Obama Administration, for example, China reportedly executed over 30 American intelligence sources. Given that troubling reality, it is reasonable to wonder and worry about the threats posed by the PRC to U.S. diplomats while they are or were being involuntarily and unjustly quarantined, ostensibly under the guise of COVID-19 protocols.
To assist the Republicans on the Oversight Committee in conducting oversight of the Department’s efforts to protect its personnel in China against counter-intelligence efforts, we request a staff-level briefing as soon as possible but no later than October 6, 2022.
Thank you for your consideration of this important issue. To make arrangements to schedule the briefing or ask any related follow-up questions, please contact Committee on Oversight and Reform Republican Staff at (202) 225-5074. The Committee on Oversight and Reform is the principal oversight committee of the U.S. House of Representatives and has broad authority to investigate “any matter” at “any time” under House Rule X. Please also keep the Committee on Foreign Affairs (HFAC) courtesy copied on any correspondence. Thank you in advance for your cooperation with this inquiry.
Sincerely,
James Comer
Ranking Member
Committee on Oversight and Reform
Michael T. McCaul
Ranking Member
Committee on Foreign Affairs
George Miller is Publisher and Co-Founder of Citizens Journal Florida, based in Fernandina Beach. He is a “retired” operations management consultant, software and publishing executive and manufacturing management professional.
By Jeff Childers
10-21-22
Happy Friday, C&C, and good morning! Today’s roundup includes: CDC school vaxx schedule news; a proposal for winning the vaxx wars; governors for/against school jabs; Liz Truss is out as UK PM before she could send out a single mean tweet; NC Museum shutters epic kids’ drag show after publicity; US sets a depressing record; Fetterman put on a suit and polls badly; Biden proposes petroleum plan; news of the apocalypse; corporate media shifts the midterm polling narrative; Florida arrests illegal voters; Israel decides NOT to help Ukraine; and Italy seems to prefer Putin.
🪖 I’ll be speaking tomorrow in The Villages, Florida, at the second annual Covid Summit. Yesterday I announced a small, quiet meet & greet for C&C fans, and the free tickets sold out in five minutes. So we called the hotel, got another room, doubled the available space, and updated EventBrite.
The extra space immediately sold out again. The hotel doesn’t have any more rooms! I apologize to those who wanted to attend but couldn’t get a ticket. Still, entry enforcement might be lax, you never know.
💉 Well, they did it; it’s done. Yesterday, after completely bypassing the FDA’s vaccine committee for the first time in history, the CDC’s committee officially approved adding the jabs to its lunatic school vaccine schedule. As expected.
It changes nothing.
5:24 PM ∙ Oct 20, 20221,412Likes441Retweets
The jabmakers already enjoyed liability protection under the PREP and CARES acts due to “emergency use.” But the music had to stop sometime, so now, under the rules related to scheduled vaccines, they can start selling their non-EUA products without fear of liability.
At least now we can get out of the state of emergency. Betting odds favor Biden ending the National State of Emergency before the election. Hurrah, or something.
States that want to jab kids, like California, had already tried to mandate vaccines as early as October, 2021:
5:30 PM ∙ Oct 1, 2021605Likes121Retweets
Although California failed to push the jabs through in 2021, this week’s news will almost certainly spark the issue there. Other states’ laws automatically include the entire CDC vaccine schedule, so when the CDC added the jabs to the list, it also effectively added the mandate to those states.
So, to put it simply, we have another mandate fight on our hands. Fortunately, we are all veterans of the mandate wars now. It’s not an alien development. It hasn’t taken us by surprise. If you’re honest — you always knew this day was coming. It was always in the recipe.
🔥 There’s no point crying about it, we have work to do.
In the short term, school mRNA vaccine mandates must be opposed, blocked, tied up in litigation, and overthrown. We need to lobby the CDC to REMOVE the jabs from the vaccine schedule.
But those are battles. We can win the vaccine wars, by doing just one single thing. This objective is the final hill, the enemy’s HQ, it’s Hitler’s Bunker. Pharma has a single point of failure, an Achille’s Heel, an exposed port on its Death Star. If we can capture this objective, it will be all over.
We need a federal law removing vaccine injury liability shields.
If we do that, if we reverse the state and federal protections for vaccine makers, our long national nightmare will be over. It would instantly kill every single mandate. One tiny federal law would do it. Because federal law pre-empts state law, it simply doesn’t matter if blue states have their own liability shield laws. All it will take is a one-sentence federal law reversing ALL liability shields and requiring vaccine manufacturers to be liable for injuries caused by their products.
It’s that simple. Not easy, but simple.
There are also battles to be won at the state level. For example, Florida has a Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act (FDUTPA), which allows lawsuits against companies that mislead consumers about the safety and efficacy of their products.
Right now, FDUTPA includes a long-standing exemption for pharma. But that exemption could be removed. Florida lawmakers?
Anyway, someone needs to start organizing a national campaign to reverse pharma’s vaccine liability shield. I’m not saying it will be easy. Pharma will fight like crazy.
But we know what we need to do. Let’s do it.
💉 I did a quick survey, and found the following governors who’ve publicly stated they will NOT add the covid shots to the school vaccine schedules in their states:
You noted, I’m sure, that there’s only one ‘D’ in that list. And the following prominent Republican governors are, surprisingly, currently ‘missing in action’ on the school vaccine issue:
🔥 In widespread news from the UK, after only 45 days in office, Britain’s replacement Prime Minister, conservative Liz Truss, has resigned in disgrace, allegedly for the ‘crime’ of sending a government-related email from her personal email account.
Paging Hilary Clinton!
Truss, who had just announced a moderate reduction in the top income tax rate, won the Guinness world record for shortest-serving British Prime Minister. The British smell a rotting kipper. Former Brexit leader Nigel Farage says the UK’s government was just overthrown in a coup led by globalist elites, if you can believe that:
A “GLOBALIST COUP” IN THE UK: Nigel Farage says that Liz Truss’ tax plan was “to allow small business, free market, genuine capitalist enterprise to flourish, rather than focusing on the big global corporates” – the ‘globalists’ stopped her. bit.ly/3EVe2OB @Nigel_Farage
One of the things Farage is complaining about is the new interim Prime Minister, Jeremy Hunt, is a full-throated, unrepentant globalist dripping with murky connections to Davos and China, and who actively lobbied to set up covid quarantine camps — for kids. I’m not making that up.
Even more surreal, guess who’s now expected to win the special election for replacement Prime Minister Liz Truss’s replacement?
Boris Johnson.
9:29 AM ∙ Oct 21, 2022110Likes40Retweets
Johnson, who oversaw draconian covid lockdowns and the creation of a government psychological operations team formally chartered to make the British people more fearful, was himself driven out of office for appointing pedophiles to high government office and then lying about it. Not to mention failing to follow his own covid rules.
Will (eat your soul) 🇺🇦 Absolute Shower @ShowerAbsolute
@ZacGoldsmith I think it’s because he put a known sexual offender in a position of pastoral authority, then lied to the ministers he sent out to defend him. Yeah I think it was that6:19 AM ∙ Jul 13, 202227Likes1Retweet
It’s a weird old world, isn’t it?
🔥 This week, Christopher Rufo helped shut down another “family friendly” drag show, this time at the North Carolina Museum of Art, which was advertising the show to “promote gender fluidity” and — I am not making this up — to ignite a “maelstrom of passion” for children as young as two years old.
Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ @realchrisrufo
6:44 PM ∙ Oct 20, 20223,921Likes928Retweets
Really, who ARE these people? And how did they get put in charge of all our institutions like the North Carolina Museum?
And, why are these drag shows and story hours always for KIDS? Why don’t they have drag shows and story hours for accountants and lawyers and stuff? How did drag get connected to reading trans books to kids in the first place?
🧩 I have another serious question that has been bugging me for a while. What EXACTLY is the difference between a “transvestite” and a “transgender?”
Google hasn’t helped any. I already tried.
💊 Thanks, experts! After two disastrous years of covid pandemic policy, the United States now, depressingly, leads the world in consumption of ANOTHER big pharma product: antidepressants.
P. D. Mangan Health & Freedom Maximalist 🇺🇸 @Mangan150
Global antidepressant use by country. USA number one.
12:39 PM ∙ Oct 19, 20225,654Likes1,751Retweets
🔥 John Fetterman was spotted yesterday wearing a suit! He was meeting with Joe Biden, who stopped by Pennsylvania to help Fetterman campaign for the Senate against Dr. Oz.
Coincidentally, Fetterman’s polling has slipped and now Dr. Oz is projected to win.
Real Clear Politics: Dr. Oz projected to win over John Fetterman in U.S. Senate race in Pennsylvania bit.ly/3MMwxGG
🔥 Joe Biden’s extra-diverse, alternatively-lifestyled press secretary told a reporter this week that, to keep gas prices down, banning ALL PETROLEUM PRODUCTS was an idea that was “on the table.”
As gas prices remain high, the White House spokesperson says banning petroleum products is “on the table.” rumble.comJean-Pierre: We Could Ban Petroleum ProductsQ: “How seriously is the administration considering a ban on U.S. petroleum products?” Jean-Pierre: “So, everything is on the table.”…6:51 PM ∙ Oct 20, 2022131Likes61Retweets
I wonder how they came up with THAT plan. They really are mining all the very best ideas, aren’t they? Or, does this Administration sound like it has no idea what it is doing?
I report, you decide.
🔥 In news of the apocalypse, the Catholic News Agency ran a story this week headlined, “Pope Francis Appoints Pro-Abortion Economist to Pontifical Academy for Life.” According to the article, back in 2016 Pope Francis approved rules eliminating the requirement that members of the Catholic think-tank declare themselves “pro-life,” which paved the way to start appointing people to the pro-life institution who are actually pro-abortion.
📉 After months of reporting polls purportedly showing democrats closing the gap with Republicans in the mid-term congressional races, NBC news revealed a new poll yesterday showing that voters are most concerned with the economy and with inflation. Abortion, which democrats had bet would be their winning issue, ranks near the bottom, with only 5% of voters calling it their ‘top issue.’
5:50 PM ∙ Oct 18, 2022424Likes132Retweets
🔥 This week, Florida started arresting people who voted illegally in the last election, and corporate media thinks it is the WORST THING EVER.
There’s new video of the Florida voting arrests. Even the police are bewildered. Cop: “I’ve never seen these charges before in my entire life” Ex-felon/voter: “Why would you let me vote if I wasn’t able to vote?” Cop: “I’m not sure, buddy” Via @lmower3 tampabay.comPolice cameras show confusion, anger over DeSantis’ voter fraud arrestsLocal police carrying out the arrests were patient, understanding — almost apologetic….1:51 PM ∙ Oct 18, 20229,227Likes3,044Retweets
According to corporate media, voting can be confusing, especially if you’re a convicted felon who hasn’t paid all your court costs. Illegal voting could happen to anybody! Plus, Governor DeSantis is an evil dictator literally one million times worse than President Trump.
Or something.
🔥 This week, according to its defense minister, Israel announced that it will NOT supply anti-drone weaponry to Ukraine after all. It did offer to help Ukraine build an ‘early warning system,’ however.
The decision might have something to do with Ukraine’s Nazi-affiliated battalions, since the Jews are a little touchy about Nazis after what happened during the LAST world war, but I’m just guessing.
🔥 The New York Times reported yesterday that the prime minster of Italy, Silvio Berlusconi, ran into a hot-mike problem this week and was caught blaming the Ukraine war on … Ukraine.
Breaking News: Silvio Berlusconi, the former Italian leader and linchpin of the incoming right-wing government, was caught on tape blaming Ukraine’s president for pushing Russia to invade. nyti.msBerlusconi, Caught on Tape Gushing Over Putin, Heightens Anxiety About ItalySilvio Berlusconi, the former Italian leader and linchpin of the incoming right-wing government, blames Ukraine’s president for pushing…2:28 PM ∙ Oct 20, 20224,577Likes1,584Retweets
Apparently it’s not just the prime minister. Although unreported by corporate media, massive nationwide protests in Italy are decrying the war, and calling for an end to Italy’s involvement.
It’s probably just Putin lovers or something. Still, that’s a lot of Putin lovers.
5:00 PM ∙ Oct 7, 20225,375Likes2,270Retweets
Have a fabulous Friday! I’ll see you back here tomorrow morning, for the weekend edition.
C&C is moving the needle and changing minds. If you can, I could use your help getting the truth out and spreading optimism and hope: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/-learn-how-to-get-involved-
Twitter: @jchilders98
Truth Social: @jchilders98
MeWe: mewe.com/i/coffee_and_covid.
C&C Swag! www.shopcoffeeandcovid.com
Emailed Daily Newsletter: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com
© 2022, Jeff Childers, all rights reserved
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
From County of Nassau
The Board of County Commissioners is working with the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity (DEO) to determine gaps in high-speed internet service to both unserved and underserved areas of Nassau County. This will assist the Board in their efforts to make high-speed internet/broadband services available to everyone in the County.
The DEO has created a Broadband Availability Map and speed test to identify broadband internet service throughout the State. Residents are urged to take this speed test to help further develop the Broadband Availability Map, which in turn will help Nassau County and the DEO identify gaps in high-speed internet service.
As part of DEO’s efforts to encourage public participation collaboration and ensure a high level of transparency, the Florida Broadband Availability Map will be continuously updated on the webpage. Please note that the map is not complete and will continue to be updated as more data is added and changes in broadband availability are identified.
To learn more and take the speed test today, click the link below.
https://floridajobs.org/community-planning-and-development/broadband/office-of-broadband
If you have any questions, please contact Nassau County’s Chief Innovation Officer, Derrick Lindsay, via email at [email protected] or by phone at (904) 530-6050.
By Nassau County Sheriff’s Office
10-20-22
This afternoon, the Nassau County Sheriff’s Office received a report of an 8th grade student bringing a firearm to school at Yulee Middle School. The school was placed on a hold and the student was immediately detained. A school official received a tip that a student had a gun in their backpack. After the student was escorted by our SRO and school administrators to the front office it was discovered that the student had an unloaded gun in his backpack. Sheriff Bill Leeper said the student told deputies that he brought the gun to school not to hurt anyone but “for his own protection.” That firearm, an unloaded revolver, was secured however there were also bullets inside the backpack and the student was arrested by NCSO. Bringing a weapon to school is a felony and this individual will not be returning to Yulee Middle School.
“We are thankful that a student reported this incident quickly and our students are safe. It’s important for parents to stress to their children the seriousness of this situation and understand that anyone who brings a weapon to school will be arrested,” Sheriff Bill Leeper said.
Have you ever noticed yellow dune daisies’ smiling faces and wondered how they hold those smiles from sunrise to sunset? Me neither! That is, not until today. As I walked down to the crossover for the umpteenth time early this morning, those happy little flowers greeted me on my right and left, all aglow with sunlight. And I thought…they are smiling at me! Well…of course I had to smile back. You would have done the same thing.
As far as I’m concerned, a smile transcends all language barriers, all cultural and religious differences, all dress codes and yes, even all differences of opinion regarding art and music and the like. It’s magical! God certainly must have realized Humans BeComing would need some special commonality in order to survive the enormous challenges on Earth. And a smile most definitely can change attitudes and dispositions in a New York second. Thankfully!!!!
When I traveled to Tibet several years ago, the people there greeted me with a smile and said: “Tashi Deley.” This simple greeting means “I honor the greatness in you.” Wow! I was a stranger in their land. How beautiful is that! And how beautiful were those smiling faces. I can still see them. The Tibetans lived in dire poverty and oppression, constantly under Chinese military watch, who were often disguised in street clothes. Yet, they smiled!!! And you bet, I smiled back!
All people want and have the right to be treated with dignity and respect. No exceptions. Jesus taught us, “Love one another as I have loved you.” What better way to show someone the love of Christ than with a smile. It requires no interpretation. It is free. It is from the heart. And… a gift from the heart blesses all who receive!
“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” John 13:34,35
Jennifer St. Clair
Jennifer St. Clair is a pianist, award-winning songwriter, composer, artist, author and photographer. She relocated to Jacksonville Beach, Florida from the north Georgia mountains in 2014. Currently she serves as Pianist at Amelia Plantation Chapel. Her solo piano compositions can be found on sheetmusicplus.com. For more information:
www.jenniferstclair.com
The opinions expressed are those of the author and may not represent the opinions of citizensjournal.net
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By Jeff Childers
10-20-22
Good morning, C&C, and Happy Thursday! Today’s roundup: the CDC committee’s odious vaccine schedule decision; another covid coincidence; Biden’s next pandemic plan breaks records; New York is like Hogwarts, it’s fun and then you die; Russia tries again to get the UN to investigate US biolabs in Ukraine; AOC hears from some more constituents; a good example of dressing down the school board; and Alex Stein’s wife’s boyfriend won’t share the breadsticks.
💉 I was able to find one person in the U.S. — little Sally Rodriguez, 3rd grade, from Akron, Ohio — who was surprised yesterday to learn that the CDC’s vaccine approval committee (“ACIP”) met, took public comment, and then voted 15-0 recommending that covid shots be added to the childhood vaccination schedule.
Two of the 15 committee members, who supposedly are experts or something, were wearing a mask ON ZOOM. They actually believe covid travels over the internet. Or maybe they think they can get it from THEMSELVES. Either way, it was a bad sign right from the jump.
The committee, who were all sitting in little boxes in a dystopian version of “Celebrity Jeopardy,” never discussed the fact that covid poses a miniscule risk to healthy kids. The committee never discussed natural immunity. The committee never discussed adverse events.
The CDC hasn’t yet officially added the shots to the standard school schedule, but given the unanimous recommendation from the committee, it’s a sure bet, likely to happen today or tomorrow.
As soon as that happens, the vaccine makers will permanently enjoy liability protection, and the national state of emergency that is currently shielding them can end. So that’s a blessing. Then it will be up to each state whether to follow the CDC’s new guidance and include the mRNA shots in its list of vaccines required to attend school. Many states allow religious exemptions, and a few states have recently eliminated exemptions.
There were a lot of reactions. Tucker interviewed Dr. Marty Makary about the vote, and the two discussed the lunatic absence of ANY clinical data supporting the ACIP’s decision.
12:50 AM ∙ Oct 19, 202232,448Likes16,058Retweets
Florida announced that nothing is going to change in the Sunshine State; covid will not be added to childhood vaccine schedules; and the state’s ban on covid vaccine mandates precludes requiring them anyway. So.
Joseph A. Ladapo, MD, PhD @FLSurgeonGen
Regardless of what @CDCgov votes tomorrow on whether COVID-19 vax are added to routine child immunizations – nothing changes in FL. Thanks to @GovRonDeSantis, COVID mandates are NOT allowed in FL, NOT pushed into schools, & I continue to recommend against them for healthy kids.9:13 PM ∙ Oct 18, 202232,165Likes9,557Retweets
Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake promised that, if elected, she would make sure that the shots are not required for children in that state.
7:31 PM ∙ Oct 19, 202212,699Likes3,454Retweets
There’s a lot about this vote that is unique in American history. For one thing, it’ll be the first time a brand-new, unproven EUA drug will be mandated for kids. But in at least one sense, there’s nothing new about this.
For example, although Hepatitis B is almost always sexually transmitted, the CDC says it is necessary for infants. Infants! What does the CDC think is really going on in nursery school?
The CDC’s recommended schedule also includes a tetanus shot, even though tetanus is not infectious. The oral polio vaccine is actually a source of viral transmission, but it was still approved by the CDC for the school schedule. Neither measles nor mumps are fatal to children but those vaccines are also required to attend school.
For some reason.
Looking on the bright side, the silver lining is that the mask has been ripped off the CDC’s grotesque rubber-stamping process. Because of covid’s visibility and the intense interest around parent’s rights, quite a lot of people are paying attention, this time. This time, it’s not just a small group of kooky anti-vaccine activists bellyaching about autism or whatever. THIS TIME, a whole lot of folks are downright furious.
The decision was a done deal long before yesterday’s vote. The REAL battle will be at the state level. Except this time, the politically-devastating zeitgeist powering the pushback against vaccine mandates for adults is going to fuel parents’ war against jabs for their kids. This time, the resistance will be even more passionate, and this time, the pro-mandate position is weaker than ever.
Get ready, states. This time, it’s going to get real.
💉 In another one of those wild covid coincidences, ACIP member Camille Nelson Kotton, who just voted to including the covid jab in the childhood schedule, is married to Darrell Nelson Kotton, one of the researchers on that new study explaining how to create an 80% lethal Omicron variant.
It’s a cozy little covid family! Like the Brady Bunch, on mRNA.
🔥 Bloomberg ran a story Tuesday headlined, “Biden’s Plan for Next Pandemic Eyes Vaccine Supply Within 130 Days.” According to the story, the Biden Administration produced a new National Biodefense Strategy outlining how the United States will react to the “next” pandemic. They used to come every 100 years, but the next one is likely right around the corner, because climate change.
You never know.
On Tuesday, Biden signed National Security Memorandum-15, directing government agencies to implement the new National Biodefense Strategy, which nobody’s seen yet in its full form, and to incorporate its $88 billion-dollar objectives into future budgets.
Summaries of the new Biden strategy say it requires the U.S. to come up with a test for a new virus within 12 hours after first discovery, to develop a vaccine within 100 days, and to manufacture enough vaccine to protect the entire nation within 30 days after that.
But … why so slow? The strategy should have required a test within ONE hour, not 12 hours. And, let’s have a vaccine for everybody within a WEEK, not three months. We need to move at the speed of science, not the speed of Biden. This lumbering strategy is an outrage!
According to the press release on the White House’s website, the ambitious new plan and its vast new budget will balloon federal public health staffing, by “recruiting, training, and sustaining a robust, flexible, permanent cadre of essential critical health infrastructure workers, outbreak emergency responders, public health laboratory scientists, technicians, data quality managers, and animal disease epidemiologists in our territories and all 50 states.”
It also helpfully includes a substantial media budget for U.S. intelligence agencies to “counter disinformation.”
Council on Strategic Risks @CSRisks
🆕 Today, the @WhiteHouse released its National #Biodefense Strategy and Implementation Plan + an accompanying NS Memo. Nolan Center experts were quick to analyze and react to these encouraging steps. See selected highlights below; the full writeup at ➡️ councilonstrategicrisks.org/2022/10/18/exp…
I don’t know why nobody thought of this before! Just set rapid goals to eliminate diseases and then bury them in taxpayer dollars. Problem, solved. Next up: cancer! Heart disease! Obesity! Opiate addiction! Wokeism!
Okay, maybe not wokeism. That one will take special handling.
Let’s go, Brandon! What are you waiting for? We could have all these diseases resolved before the end of the year. Just issue some more strategy blueprints or whatever you call them.
🔥 Project Veritas’ crack team of investigative reporters has done it again, this time catching New York Mayor Eric Adams’ advance team leader Chris Baugh telling some wicked home truths. In the clip, Baugh drinks beer and discusses the City’s odious vaccine mandates.
BAUGH: The cops are mad at us, though, because we rolled back the private sector mandate but we’re not rolling back the public sector mandate.
PV: Why?
BAUGH: Who gives a sh*t? Covid is over, is the short answer. Why are we still doing it for the public sector? I don’t know. We’ll probably stop that in a few months. 1,400 people voluntarily quit their jobs rather than get vaccinated. They don’t deserve their jobs back. They chose not to do a very, very harmless thing that protected the rest of society. F**k them.
PV: What does the mayor say?
BAUGH: He said, “They quit. Why should they get their jobs back? They quit.”
Baugh continued digging himself into a nice big hole, encouraged by the fascinated Project Veritas reporter, who was presumably pretending to be on a date or something. Baugh described government jobs as “very cushy,” and regarding cops, he said “being a cop is like the cushiest job in the City; you might get shot, but otherwise it’s very good.”
Yeah. Except for getting shot.
Baugh seems to deeply resent fired city workers, saying, “I have no sympathy for them.” He cheerfully noted that “for a while … you just had to move out of New York, which was great.” Baugh admitted that the lack of police made the City more dangerous, but he seems to think that’s kind of exciting, including a crazy Harry Potter reference: “New York is sort of like Hogwarts … it’s a lot of fun, great opportunities, and people die.”
10:00 PM ∙ Oct 19, 20225,477Likes2,824Retweets
It’s fun how people die violently in the City. It’s also a great opportunity. Whenever they die, it opens up a rent-controlled apartment somewhere.
Baugh then continued destroying his career by slamming his boss, Mayor Adams, explaining that the Mayor was so corrupt, he should never run for president. So many skeletons.
Well New Yorkers, they say you get what you vote for. It’s a good thing your best and brightest are in charge!
🚀 Yesterday, Russia issued a formal statement on its latest effort to legally complain to the United Nations about the illegal U.S. biolabs in Ukraine, with the wordy title “Joint Statement on the Results of the Consultative meeting of the States Parties to the Convention on the Prohibition of Biological and Toxin Weapons (BTWC) under BTWC Article V.”
Among other points, the Russian statement explains:
It’s also super regrettable that we — the American people — have never received an explanation from our OWN GOVERNMENT about what we’ve been up to in Ukraine. Why did we need all those biolabs over there? What were we trying to accomplish? Why were our tax dollars spent on all these high-tech facilities, and were we following U.S. and international law while we were doing … whatever we were doing?
Surprisingly, I couldn’t find a single reference to Russia’s complaints anywhere in Western corporate media, not even an article rebutting Russia’s claims. Not one. Weird!
https://mid.ru/en/foreign_policy/news/1834390/
🔥 This week, New York Representative Ocasio-Cortez endured another ‘difficult’ town hall meeting, where half the audience constantly boo’d and heckled her.
Citizen Free Press @CitizenFreePres
“AOC has got to go!” Sandy was humiliated again at a town hall in her backyard tonight
2:29 AM ∙ Oct 20, 20225,396Likes1,457Retweets
Do you think she might be starting to get the idea?
🔥 This next clip is an excellent example of a man lucidly and rationally addressing the Wake County school board, hammering away at wokeness and ‘diversity.’ The clip ends with this electric point: “…as we are teaching cultural marxism and grooming children to be the next pervert, we are damaging our kids in this public school system, and it needs to stop.”
This man addresses a woke liberal school board in the right way, with facts
5:49 PM ∙ Oct 19, 20227,328Likes3,307Retweets
Indeed.
🔥 Finally, to make you smile, here’s Alex Stein at a recent Dallas City Council meeting. Stein’s three minutes provides a terrific example of how to highlight the absurdity of local government by making a joke out of public comment. Enjoy!
1:02 AM ∙ Oct 19, 202210,672Likes2,137Retweets
Have a terrific Thursday, and I’ll see you back here tomorrow for more!
C&C is moving the needle and changing minds. If you can, I could use your help getting the truth out and spreading optimism and hope: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/-learn-how-to-get-involved-
Twitter: @jchilders98
Truth Social: @jchilders98
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The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
By Kyle Becker, 10-19-22
The CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) held its vote to add Covid-19 shots to its childhood vaccination schedule on Wednesday. Watch as the committee members voiced their votes on the controversial measure.
The ACIP panel voted unanimously 15-0 for the CDC to recommend that children get the Covid-19 vaccines and boosters. The CDC is now almost certain to add the Covid shots to its ‘Childhood Vaccines Schedule,’ which schools often rely upon to mandate ‘vaccines’ in order to attend public school.
The CDC earlier opened up its scheduled vote for public comment and received fierce blowback. Tens of thousands of comments poured into the CDC, the great majority seemingly in direct opposition to the vote to add the Covid vaccines to the childhood schedule. You can read more comments and add your own here.
Read more on Becker News
Robert Malone OPINION on this:
| Robert W Malone MD, MS Oct 19 |
So today, the ACIP panel voted unanimously 15-0 for the CDC to recommend that children get the COVID-19 “vaccines and boosters.”
The actual vote to add this experimental COVID-19 mRNA injection to the childhood vaccination schedule is tomorrow.
Important to recognize that this is a work-around because congress is not funding more jabs into arms. If this product is put on the childhood schedule, Congress does not have a say in the funding. Furthermore, if the EUA vanishes, they the liability of the companies continues under the childhood schedule. This is corruption.
I honestly didn’t think the ACIP would “go there.” For one, this is still an unlicensed product. I am still not sure a EUA vaccine product can be added to the schedule. I don’t believe it has ever been done before.
It is now predicted that CDC is now almost certain to add the Covid shots to its ‘Childhood Vaccines Schedule’ tomorrow. This means that public schools, who all use this schedule, will now be able to mandate ‘vaccines’ in order for children to attend public school.
This is all being done last minute and basically behind the backs of the public, as this received virtually no media attention prior to the vote. I do not believe that this vote was announced to the public beforehand. Alternative media only figured it out due to the sharp eyes of Steve Kirsch.
The CDC very recently opened up its scheduled vote for public comment and received thousands of negative comments. You can read comments here. Please feel free to add your own comments.
ACIP’s decision to add the COVID-19 shots is based on regulatory capture, budgetary issues, politics, and it is not based on scientific data.
We all know the adverse event profile. It is horrific. The small sample size in the clinical trials were poorly designed and inadequately powered.
We all know other countries have completely stopped vaccinating children with these products.
If they add these jabs to the childhood schedule tomorrow, it will completely break the trust of the American family in the CDC, as it should.
I am shocked by the malfeasance. I have no trust left at all in our public health. It is broken.
Fully approved and more on 10-20-22
More than half the states refer to Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices recommendations in their immunization laws.
The CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices unanimously approved the addition of COVID-19 vaccines to the routine immunization schedules for children, adolescents and adults at its meeting Thursday.
The child and adolescent schedule recommends up to four doses of COVID vaccines, including those still under emergency use authorization, starting at 6 months old. It includes a two- or three-dose primary series and a booster. The adult schedule, starting at age 19, is the same.
Adding COVID vaccines to the routine schedules will trigger laws in some states that require school districts to enforce the schedule on schoolchildren. More than half the states referenced ACIP recommendations in their immunization laws as of January 2021.
Read more in Just the News
By Larry Sand
10-18-22
The leader of the American Federation of Teachers is having a terrible year, and it’s only October.
James “The Amazing” Randi, who died at age 92 in 2020, began his career in the in the 1940s as an illusionist and escape artist. But eventually he became a “disillusionist” who traveled the country “exposing seers who did not see, healers who did not heal, and many others.”
Then there is the head of the American Federation of Teachers, Rhonda “Randi” Weingarten, who is actually the antithesis of the Amazing Randi. In fact, had James Randi lived, he could devote his life to skewering Weingarten, and have little time for anything else. What follows is a brief summary of distortions, missteps, and all-around blather from the union boss so far this year.
In February, Weingarten revealed that her union had engaged NewsGuard, a “leading anti-misinformation tool,” which protects and champions legitimate journalism and fact-based reporting and “will help educators and their students navigate a sea of online disinformation.”
But like so many “fact-checkers,” NewsGuard’s fact-checking is not close to objective. Nine of the 10 websites on NewsGuard’s “Ten Most Influential Misinformers” list for 2021 lean right, with NewsMax, TheGatewayPundit.com and The Federalist deemed the worst of the worst. On the other hand, “The Ten Top Trustworthy and Trending Sites” are all center to far left with NBCNews.com, The New York Times and The Washington Post ranked highest.
In March, the half-truth about her teaching reared its head again. In an article called “Choosing aspiration over anger,” she mentions, “I taught social studies and civics.” Not the first time she claimed to be a teacher. Yes, she taught history at Clara Barton High School in Brooklyn for a few years, but in 2011, EAG News obtained her personnel file via a Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) request. According to the New York City Board of Education, she was hired as a substitute teacher in 1991, received a provisional license in 1993, and a certificate to serve as a substitute in 1994. Additionally, “A 1997 letter indicates she didn’t submit documentation showing she’d met requirements for licensure. No record indicates she ever served as a full-time teacher or were evaluated by a principal or other school official.”
Yet, she has never acknowledged these details or corrected the record. When she ran for president of New York’s United Federation of Teachers in 1998, her opponent Michael Shulman suggested that that she not a “real teacher,” explaining, “She worked five months full-time that I’ve been aware of, in 1992, at Clara Barton High School,” Shulman was quoted as saying in the New York Times. He added, “Since then she taught maybe one class for 40 minutes a day.”
Also in March, she stated that masking should be required until there is “zero transmission in schools.” Which is tantamount to saying that children should not be allowed to ride in cars till there are “zero deaths” of children due to auto accidents. Additionally, cloth masks have been shown to be little more than facial decorations.
Additionally, Gov. Ron DeSantis signed Florida’s House Bill (HB) 1557 into law in March, which disallows or limits schools from instructing children in certain sexual matters. The heart of the new law states, “Classroom instruction by school personnel or third parties on sexual orientation or gender identity may not occur in kindergarten through grade 3 or in a manner that is not age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards.”
This outraged Weingarten, who went off the rails, grousing that the law will “single out certain kids and families for derision and denigration. It is just wrong. Its intent is to divide our communities and make political hay, but it hurts children, hurts families and makes it hard for teachers to do their jobs.”
Nonsense. The law simply doesn’t allow teachers to discuss certain sexual identity issues with young children. Weingarten also inanely insisted that the law would shame “LGBTQIA+ people back into the closet by policing their identity.”
In April, Weingarten had the temerity to write a piece called, “When crisis strikes, teachers are there.” (A more apt name would have been, “When teachers strike, a crisis is there.”)
To continue reading, go to https://www.forkidsandcountry.org/blog/the-sandstorm-the-unamazing-randi/
Larry Sand, a former classroom teacher, is the president of the non-profit California Teachers Empowerment Network – a non-partisan, non-political group dedicated to providing teachers and the general public with reliable and balanced information about professional affiliations and positions on educational issues.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
By Caroline Catherman
| October 19, 2022 DON’T MISS FDA chief on Ladapo’s vaccine advice, ‘losing the battle’ against misinformation | Exclusive FDA Commissioner Robert Califf spoke to the Orlando Sentinel about the rise of misinformation on social media and its impact on U.S. life expectancy. Read the Latest |
From County of Nassau, 10-19-22
On Wednesday October 19, 2022 NCSO officially “rolled out” it new Bicycle Unit in the Wildlight community. Over the summer these deputies had the chance to train with the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office to get familiar with using a bike while on patrol. The Bicycle Patrol Unit consists of Special Operations/Community Affairs Deputies. The Unit will be used to occasionally patrol bicycle paths and trails around Nassau County and will also be used for special events. The use of a patrol bicycle allows deputies to become more mobile, visible, and approachable to members of the community. Thanks to a generous donation of nearly $9,000 from Friends of Amelia Island Trails, the sheriff’s office was able to purchase 4 bikes and important safety equipment such as helmets and blue lights.
“We appreciate the partnership with Friends of Amelia Island Trails for allowing us the opportunity to serve our community in a new way and to allow our deputies the ability branch out in new areas our patrol vehicles just don’t have access to,” Sheriff Bill Leeper Said.
P.S. More pictures and videos to come on Facebook!
By Jeff Childers
10-19-22
Good morning, C&C, and Happy Wednesday! The World War III news is moving so fast that I had to cut and rewrite a large section because of events developing WHILE I was drafting. In today’s roundup: CDC advisory committee meets to discuss scheduling childhood covid vaccines, and I have thoughts; more gross sordid elite sex stuff comes to light; the war seems to be escalating fast — developing news down to the minute; new study on IFRs shows covid comparable to flu; new study shows negative vaxx efficacy for most Omicron variants; great moments in gaslighting update; middle-school teacher and drag queen is headed to hell, in his own words; SNL mocks the J6 committee; and Bill Maher tells his audience that pandemic injuries were self-inflicted.
🪖 There’ll be a private C&C Army meetup this Friday night, 5:30—6:30 for those of you attending the Second Annual Covid Summit this weekend. We’ll have our own room at the Wolfgang Puck Kitchen and Bar. I’ll have to jet up to a speaker’s event right afterwards, but we can hang out and have a beer or two. Wear your C&C swag, and I hope to see you there!
RSVP here: C&C Meet and Greet Tickets, Fri, Oct 21, 2022 at 5:30 PM | Eventbrite
💉 The CDC’s mostly-ineffective vaccine advisory committee will meet today starting at 8:30AM (EST) to decide whether to recommend making the experimental mRNA covid vaccine part of the childhood vaccine schedule. Then the CDC will ignore the committee and do whatever the government wanted to do anyway. If you’re a glutton for punishment, you can watch the all-day hearing here:
http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/acip/index.html
Actually, if you’ve time and interest, you’ll probably hear a lot of public comment that you agree with, including solid scientific information. So it might be worth a watch. Some of us have to work, though.
Public comments are still open and are due before the end of the day tomorrow. It might not do any good, but it can’t hurt to throw your $0.02 in. Hey, THEY asked. There were only 422 approved comments as of this morning, which blew my mind. Surely we can do better than that. Here’s the link where you can submit your comment, but read the rest of this section first.
https://www.regulations.gov/document/CDC-2022-0111-0001
The comment guidelines say duplicated or mass-submitted comments will be deleted, so you’ll have to draft your own. If you go for it, you should review their “checklist for comments” to get an idea of what they’re willing to approve. Feel free to mine old C&C posts for whatever might be helpful or useful.
To give you an example, here’s the comment I submitted. (Don’t copy and paste it — they’ll just remove the duplicates.) While I have no idea whether they’ll approve it, my comment meets the ‘checklist.’
“The precautionary principle argues that, in cases where harm may occur, the proponent of a treatment has the burden of proving harmlessness.
Easily available evidence suggests that pediatric covid vaccination MAY BE linked to increased cases of pediatric myocarditis. And, based on its own research, the State of Florida has recommended against pediatric vaccination absent compelling need.
Those promoting the covid vaccines for children MUST prove the ABSENCE of causation before the drugs can be approved for the childhood vaccine schedules.
Although the precautionary principle may be overly-limiting in some cases, when dealing with our own children, who are the future and security of the human race itself, the principle must be paramount. Reject scheduling the vaccines until and unless proponents can prove safety and efficacy beyond a reasonable doubt. Thank you.”
Have at it! Remember: your comment is a permanent record that you objected to this madness when you had the chance.
If (when) the CDC approves the drugs for the childhood vaccine schedule, Pfizer and Moderna will immediately enjoy permanent liability protection. Their current liability protection under the PREP and CARES Acts ends when emergency use authorization expires. Thus, childhood vaccination scheduling is IMPERATIVE for the drugmakers, and thus, also imperative for their captured government regulators.
Regardless of whether the CDC approves scheduling the mRNA shots, remember — we’re in a war, not a battle. If the covid shots are scheduled, we’ll shift the battle lines to de-scheduling them.
We will never, ever quit.
🔥 In yet more sordid news exposing deplorable elite behavior, the Post Millennial ran a story yesterday headlined, “Harvey Weinstein’s Legal Team to Argue His Relationship With Gavin Newsom’s Wife ‘Consensual’ After New Evidence.”
I bet you didn’t even know about the link between Gavin Newsom and Harvey Weinstein. The link is Gavin’s wife, Jennifer.
The article reports that Weinstein’s lawyers have produced a “smoking gun” email where Jennifer Newsom emailed Harvey a few years ago asking for advice about how to manage breaking news of Gavin’s 2005 affair with a married staffer, Ruby Rippey-Tourk.
At the time, Newsom’s affair partner, blonde democrat feminist Rippey-Tourk, 33, blamed the extensive dalliance — and the consequent destruction of her marriage — on firewater and a pesky self-destructive impulse.
Former actress Jennifer Newsom, who married Gavin in 2008, has accused Weinstein of raping her in 2005, “at a purported business meeting that turned out to be a trap.” Back when news broke about Gavin’s affair with Ruby in 2007, Jennifer emailed Weinstein asking him for advice on how to handle the scandal. Two years after the alleged rape.
Weinstein’s lawyers plan to argue that Jennifer’s 2007 email for sex-scandal advice contradicts her claim of rape in 2005. Weinstein attorney Mark Werksman explained, “Of all things you’d think a woman that is raped by Harvey Weinstein wouldn’t do, it’s ask him how to deal with a sex scandal.” He argued “The fact that she comes to Mr. Weinstein for that advice indicates the friendship and companionship of [Jennifer] and Mr. Weinstein. The defense will be that they had an affair, that they had consensual sex.”
I can see the flaws in counsel’s argument, and I take no pleasure in the sordid details of all these people’s interpersonal failures. As the Bible says, let those without sin chuck the rocks and stuff. But these are the very same people who wielded absolute power over California’s citizens during the pandemic.
Their tragic personal lives suggest they should be minding their OWN business. Not ours.
🚀 In World War III news, Russian media reported yesterday that the country’s security counsel would meet this morning and might declare martial law and/or close the country’s borders, signaling a significant escalation in the war. Some suggested that Russia would formally declare war with Ukraine — upgrading the conflict from a ‘special military operation,’ which has precluded direct use of the most significant Russian military assets.
As I was writing this post, Putin began speaking, and announced martial law in the four newly-annexed territories in Ukraine. Presumably this will give him more legal options in handling the special military operation, but I don’t know yet. The security council meeting continues.
Also this morning, Sky News ran a breaking story headlined, “Ukraine war: Mysterious Defence Secretary Trip to Washington Amid Fears of Russian Escalation.” Describing the trip as “secretive” and “hastily-arranged,” Sky reported that a UK defense minister, James Heappey, told Sky that Britain’s Defense Secretary Ben Wallace’s last-minute scramble to America was to discuss topics which are “beyond belief.”
At this point, I can’t imagine what topics are “beyond belief” but it can’t be good.
Ominously, Heappey added, “really the fact [is] we are [now at] a time when these sort of conversations are necessary… There are conversations which frankly you don’t want to have over the telephone.”
Officially, the British Ministry of Defense would only admit, “The defence secretary is in Washington DC to discuss shared security concerns, including Ukraine. He will be visiting his counterpart at the Pentagon and senior figures at the White House.” In order to fly to the U.S. for the meeting, at the last minute Wallace canceled a scheduled appearance before a committee of MPs in London to discuss the UK, US and NATO.
Unconfirmed but uncontradicted reports say Russian heavy bombers have been landing in Belarus. Meanwhile, other reports suggest the U.S. has deployed nuclear-capable B-52s which are now flying the Belarussian border.
2:48 PM ∙ Feb 24, 2022334Likes79Retweets
Maybe Joe should offer Putin an ice-cream cone or something. You have to start somewhere. Anyway, things are happening fast. I’ll keep you posted.
🔬 A new pre-print study published on medRxIV last week titled, “Age-stratified infection fatality rate of COVID-19 in the non-elderly informed from pre-vaccination national seroprevalence studies.” In the study, researchers calculated the current worldwide ‘infection fatality rate’ for covid. You remember the IFR — it’s the ratio of number of deaths to number of confirmed infections.
Back in the day, you could get canceled for comparing covid’s IFR to the flu’s IFR.
The researchers found, for unvaccinated and for previously uninfected, the median covid infection fatality rates were:
I probably don’t need to say this, but for all cohorts under 50, these IFR’s are far below the flu. For 50-59, the covid IFR is comparable to flu. And, flu IFR’s are also higher for older people, I just don’t have those figures handy this morning.
So.
💉 Another new study was published this month in medRxIV titled, “Effectiveness of mRNA-1273 against infection and COVID-19 hospitalization with SARS-coV-2 Omicron sub variants: BA.1, BA.2, BA.2.12.1, BA.4, and BA.5.”
The researchers looked at the effectiveness of three doses of mRNA jabs to prevent infection and hospitalization from each of the five primary Omicron variants. Although the study authors scrupulously avoid discussing this awkward fact, their table shows that, for all variants except BA.1, the vaccine efficacy (VE) ends up NEGATIVE. Meaning, a thrice-vaccinated person is MORE LIKELY to get a subsequent Omicron infection than unvaccinated people:
You know what you DON’T want in a vaccine? Negative efficacy. It sort of defeats the purpose. And remember, this study included hospitalization, so it addresses the argument that the drugs reduce severity. In other words, if you have to stay at the hospital, I think we can all agree you have a ‘bad’ case.
What’s most ironic about this data is that a lot of people who refused to take the jabs got fired. But it turns out they actually protected their coworkers better than the vaccinated employees did.
Funny old world, isn’t it?
🔥 In more Great Moments in Gaslighting, lizard-lipped, revolting puppy-torturer Tony Fauci told an interviewer this week that he had NOTHING to do with closing schools, so don’t blame HIM.
“Was it a mistake…to see schools closed as long as they were?” FAUCI: “I had nothing to do with it!”
3:28 PM ∙ Oct 16, 20227,168Likes2,153Retweets
🔥 LibsOfTikTok tweeted this week about portly Alabama middle-school teacher James Miller, who moonlights as unattractive cross-dresser “Ms. Majesty Devine.”
While clowning around as Majesty Devine, James likes to read “trans-positive” books to young children at so-called ‘Drag Queen Story Hours.’ In the clip obtained by LoTT, a wigged James can be seen reading a book to very young children, excitedly pronouncing, “the hips of the drag queen go swish, swish, swish, all through the town.”
SCOOP: Drag queen who’s also a middle school teacher in @HSVk12 was caught on video making inappropriate sexual comments in front of children during drag events which he headlined. Read (or listen!) to the full story here: libsoftiktok.com/p/watch-drag-q… https://t.co/jQOWkikCHi
At another “family friendly” event to benefit a dog shelter, also attended by kids, James joked around saying “everybody likes a big bone,” and “all men have meat on their mind.”
Gross.
LoTT sought comment from Mountain Gap Middle School, where James works. The school had no comment.
James also produces a show at a local bar, ironically named “Drag Us to Hell.”
Well, he’s asking for it.
🔥 Shocking and delighting its audiences, last weekend Saturday Night Live actually mocked the January 6th Committee.
Saturday Night Live – SNL @nbcsnl
Closing statements of the January 6th committee
4:02 AM ∙ Oct 16, 2022988Likes160Retweets
Here’s some more:
Jack Posobiec 🇺🇸 @JackPosobiec
8:49 PM ∙ Oct 16, 20223,769Likes888Retweets
🔥 Bill Maher, who tweeted this clip himself, argued that the pandemic’s collateral damage — like lost learning years — was self-inflicted. At one point he even argued, “the PANDEMIC didn’t do this, the way we HANDLED IT did this. It wasn’t written in stone.” One of his guests even discussed the Great Barrington Declaration — and the audience actually listened.
We’re now learning just how bad the “collateral damage” is post-pandemic.
6:38 PM ∙ Oct 18, 202218,878Likes4,665Retweets
Progress!
Have a wonderful Wednesday, and I’ll be back tomorrow for more, unless we’ve been raptured or bombed back to the Stone Age or something.
C&C is moving the needle and changing minds. If you can, I could use your help getting the truth out and spreading optimism and hope: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/-learn-how-to-get-involved-
Twitter: @jchilders98
Truth Social: @jchilders98
MeWe: mewe.com/i/coffee_and_covid.
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The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
Governor’s Press Office
10-17-22
Awards include more than $13 million to Southwest Florida
NORTH PORT, Fla. – Today, Governor Ron DeSantis visited Toledo Blade Elementary on its first day back in session to announce more than $200 million in awards through the School Recognition Program. These awards will go to 1,400 schools across the state that demonstrated student growth and teaching excellence in the 2021-22 school year. To be eligible, schools must receive a school grade of “A” or improve at least one letter grade from the prior year.
In Southwest Florida, 96 schools received $13 million:
To view the full list of awards, click here.
“I was glad to award more than $200 million to 1,400 schools that demonstrated student growth and teaching excellence over the past year,” said Governor Ron DeSantis. “These awards can be used to give our hard-working teachers bonuses, and are particularly important in Southwest Florida where they will go a long way toward helping our teachers in the area get back on their feet.”
“It was great to award Toledo Blade Elementary with nearly $150,000 in school recognition funds, which is a testament to their commitment to academic excellence,” said Education Commissioner Manny Diaz, Jr. “I am also proud of the work they have done to quickly get kids back in the classroom. None of this would be possible without the leadership of Governor Ron DeSantis, the efforts of state leaders, and the resiliency of district leadership and staff.”
Schools can use the funding for a variety of provisions, including:
The exact distribution of funds is determined by the school’s staff and school advisory council.
For more information about the School Recognition Program, click here.
By Jeff Childers
10-18-22
Good morning, and Happy Tuesday, C&C! Our roundup today includes: Russia and its allies prepare for a big move, while our corporate media keeps selling fairy tales about Ukrainian victory; energy, drones, troops, and Belarussians; Tucker questions Ukraine aid; Canadian doctor rounds up 80 sudden doc deaths; Dr. McCullough links bursting myocarditis cases to jabs; Tulsi endorses Kari; French general salutes unvaccinated; and the latest salty cause of blood clots.
🚀 Things are moving fast. I need to update you on the war.
First, the usual disclaimer: Due to historic levels of propaganda and the wholesale occupation of corporate media, it is hard to know exactly what to believe. Even independently-sourced reports are squashed under a morbidly-obese clown of fake bot accounts and false-flag trolls from all the various intelligence agencies. So I’m doing my best.
But here’s what our corporate media is telling us about the war in Ukraine. The New York Times ran an article this morning headlined, “Ukrainian Forces Are Slowing Their Advance in the East as Russia Tries to Regroup.” The gist of the Times’ story is that Russia’s front has been broken in half, divided, and the Ukrainians are still advancing, solidifying their gains from a weeks-old initiative, while scattered Russian forces weakly try to ‘regroup’ by ineffectively lobbing missiles and drones over the frontlines.
Remember that. It’s another fat lie.
To understand what’s REALLY going on in Ukraine, we need to look at energy, drones, troops, and Belarussians.
🚀 Energy.
A few weeks ago, “somebody,” *cough* we did it *cough*, bombed both of Russia’s fantastically expensive undersea natural gas pipelines in a cowardly terrorist attack. The sinking of the Nordstream pipelines, not unlike the sinking of the Lithuania, was what you might call a precipitating event. It hurt Russia, hurt most of Europe, and forced cash-strapped europeans to start buying overpriced American natural gas.
From NATO’s point of view, it was win-win-win.
But the Russian bear did not respond. So in another cowardly terrorist attack last weekend, “somebody,” *cough* Ukraine *cough* tried to bomb the Kersh bridge, an engineering accomplishment Ukrainians hated so much that, for the first couple years, they even refused to show the bridge on their maps.
The poke at their bridge seems to have woken the Russian bear up. Putin responded by immediately appointing a new general to head up the entire Ukraine war theatre, a general whose background lies in the Russian AIR FORCES. Shortly after the Kerch bridge bombing, Russia began attacking Ukraine’s national energy infrastructure from the air — with missiles and drones. The infrastructure attacks have continued relentlessly, every day since.
Some reports say one third of all of Ukraine’s power infrastructure has now been eliminated. The unintentionally hilarious New York Times headline this morning advises, “Ukrainians Conserve Energy as Russian Strikes Damage Infrastructure.”
According to the Times, Ukrainians sitting in the dark are “conserving energy.” So, the good news is, it’s helping the climate!
Let’s pause for a moment and consider the implications. In our lifetimes, we’ve seen various wars. Do you recall the first thing the U.S. did when it attacked Iraq? Remember a catchy phrase the corporate media swooned over, “shock and awe?”
We took out Iraq’s energy infrastructure, which is the textbook first move before starting the ground assault. So.
🚀 Iranian Drones.
One of the very first things clueless Joe Biden did when he occupied the White House, right after shutting down our domestic oil industry, was to cancel a bunch of Trump-era Iran sanctions, including a ban on the sale of military equipment. That allowed Russia to buy cheap suicide drones from Iran, and is now using them to detonate Ukrainian power stations.
I guess the Ukrainians should be thanking Joe. Or something.
6:20 PM ∙ Oct 17, 202231Likes26Retweets
Next, here is Ukraine’s former jokemaker-turned-president encouraging citizens to resist drone attacks, via a badly faked and obviously green-screened supportive message from the ‘streets of Kiev.’ Watch his eyes, he’s just reading a script. Who knows where the little guy really is. His new villa in Italy? And, who wrote the script? The CIA? Nancy Pelosi?
8:15 AM ∙ Oct 10, 20221,450Likes510Retweets
The Iranian drones, designed to evade Israel’s “iron dome” anti-missile system, confound conventional air defenses, forcing hapless Ukrainians to, albeit enthusiastically, shoot at the deadly high-tech flying bombs with their handguns:
Business Ukraine mag @Biz_Ukraine_Mag
10:25 AM ∙ Oct 17, 20221,958Likes270Retweets
Obviously, firing tons of ammo into a dense city center poses some risks of its own:
IOSTOCONPUTIN 🇷🇺💪🇷🇺💪🇷🇺💪 @ilciclistainblu
⚡⚡⚡Interior Minister Denis Monastyrsky urged Ukrainians not to shoot drones with their own weapons “Indeed, the probability of being shot down is extremely small and the danger of an inexperienced person shooting (at the drone) outweighs the possibility of shooting down⚡⚡⚡10:38 AM ∙ Oct 17, 202248Likes9Retweets
Reports indicate that, not only are Iranian drones in Ukraine, but Republican Guard specialists are also there, presumably assisting with the tech. Iran’s direct participation shows it has allied with Russia. Israel’s interim prime minister agrees, and this weekend pledged to send Israeli hardware to Ukraine to help the Ukrainians defend themselves. Why Israel? Because it has special equipment designed to counter Iranian drones.
But Russia warned Israel, they’d better not do it:
Joseph C. Okechukwu @jcokechukwu
10:26 PM ∙ Oct 17, 2022249Likes106Retweets
Christians end-times watchers noted with great interest the developing Russia-Israel conflict.
🚀 Belarussians.
Russian ally Belarus sits over Ukraine’s entire northwest border, and separates Poland from Russia. It lies just north of Ukraine’s capitol, Kiev (or Kyiv, or however you spell it).
Despite corporate media assurances that “public opinion” in Belarus “completely opposes the war,” reports indicate that Belarus is nevertheless massing troops along its border with Ukraine, including around 70,000 Belarussian soldiers and up to 10,000 Russian troops.
IOSTOCONPUTIN 🇷🇺💪🇷🇺💪🇷🇺💪 @ilciclistainblu
2:46 PM ∙ Oct 14, 2022128Likes32Retweets
Not only that, but the drones attacking Kiev this week were launched from Belarus, for reasons obvious from a quick look at the map. In other words, Belarus is ALREADY helping Russia in the war.
If, as appears likely, Belarus invades from the north, and Russia presses in from the east, Ukrainian troops will be nearly surrounded. Currently, all Ukraine’s forces are staged in the east, along the eastern front line facing Russia’s current position. Belarus presently has unimpeded access to Kiev, a short trip from the border, and can march in behind the Ukrainian lines.
If Belarus attacks, Ukraine will have to divide its forces, in which case, unless NATO directly intercedes and goes to war with Russia, Ukraine would almost certainly fall quickly.
Reports now suggest that Iran and Belarus are joining the fight. Note how, like in previous World Wars, Russia’s allies are coming together to form a united bloc, an assembly precipitated by the gutless terrorist attacks sinking Russia’s pipelines and attacking its bridge.
Corporate media, and probably a couple of our C&C friends in the comments, will say I’m just distorting the facts and repeating Russian propaganda because I love Putin so much, or something.
🚀 But I’m not the only one who’s thinking about the potential for a massive new allied Russian invasion. While corporate media continues lying to the U.S. public, saying things are just ducky in Ukraine and Russia is almost completely defeated, and Zelensky just needs a few more billion to put this thing to bed, all the countries allied to Russia — and some others — are voting with their feet; they have suddenly ordered all their citizens OUT of Ukraine.
🚀 Meanwhile, several independent media sources report that Moscow has required citizens to move their cars out of underground parking garages, so they can be converted into bomb shelters.
@UkrainianNews24 Good that they are starting to equip underground parking lots into shelters in Moscow. “Muscovites were urged to free the parking lot from cars and personal belongings by October 18…” ukrainetoday.orgMoscow builds bomb shelters in underground parking lots – Russian mediaThe decision was made on October 11 at a meeting at the Moscow City Hall. Russia is preparing bomb shelters / photo from UNIAN In the u…7:06 PM ∙ Oct 17, 20221Like1Retweet
So, it appears that everybody except U.S. corporate media can read the tea leaves. While our corporate media continues assuring U.S. taxpayers that the war is going right according to plan, Russia is poised to start fighting for real.
🔥 Last week, Tucker pushed back against Ukraine’s jokester-in-chief, after the poorly-dressed president demanded even more billions from the U.S. for his war with Russia.
The Columbia Bugle 🇺🇸 @ColumbiaBugle
12:28 AM ∙ Oct 14, 202224,595Likes6,334Retweets
🚀 Last week I suggested the Kersh bridge was hit by a missile attack, and linked an independent video appearing to show the strike. For those of you interested in this issue, on Sunday, an independent military explosives expert explained in detail why he thinks the bridge was damaged by a HIMARS missile.
Kersh Bridge attack. What’s my take? (former military explosives engineer and civil explosion investigator) It wasn’t a truck bomb. It wasn’t a boat. It wasn’t charges placed under the bridge. Why not?11:28 PM ∙ Oct 16, 2022177Likes22Retweets
💉 The Washington Standard ran a story yesterday headlined, “Dr. William Makis Proves Canadian Doctors Deaths Following COVID Shot Have More Than Doubled To 80.”
Dr. Makis sent the Canadian Medical Association (CMA) a spicy letter last month, notifying the organization about 32 doctors who’ve died suddenly and unexpectedly since the jabs came out. Recently, he’s discovered even more such deaths, and on Friday, sent an updated letter notifying the CMA the tally is up to EIGHTY dead doctors — most young ones.
According to Mr. Makis, mortality rates in Canadian doctors — especially younger doctors — has shot right through the roof:
So far, the CMA has ignored Dr. Makis’ letters. But just a small group of member doctors could force the CMA to respond. The CMA could then force the government to respond. Doctors, you are being killed in great numbers. Speak up for yourselves!
It’s not hard. Send out an email blast or something to all CMA members, inviting them to a private zoom meeting, to talk about the excess mortality problem among healthcare professionals in Canada, and about what can be done. You only need around a dozen motivated volunteers, and you could change the country.
The key to not losing your license is to avoid taking a position on causality. That’s not your job anyway. You’re only demanding that the CMA investigate, and issue a formal report explaining WHY there are so many excess doctor deaths in the past two years.
They can’t cancel you for that. Nut up or shut up.
💉 On Charlie Kirk’s show late last week, Dr. McCullough reported on a new Thai study concluding that pediatric myocarditis cases have jumped from a baseline of 4 cases per million before the shots, up to TWENTY FIVE THOUSAND cases per million after the shots.
6:50 AM ∙ Oct 15, 20221,750Likes1,185Retweets
4 / million ➡️ 25,000 / million. Seems like a big jump.
🔥 Former democrat presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard endorsed Kari Lake for Governor of Arizona yesterday:
4:29 AM ∙ Oct 18, 202215,197Likes2,345Retweets
Last week, Tulsi also said that denying the biological differences between men and women is a way of “erasing women as a category of people.”
Those who deny the biological differences between a man and a woman are not only erasing women as a category of people, they’re denying the existence of objective reality, and the “truth” becomes whatever those in power want it to be. youtube.comTulsi Gabbard Receives Independent Women’s Forum AwardTulsi Gabbard is honored with the Independent Women’s Forum 2022 Resilience Award.Independent Women’s ForumAnnual Awards Gala30th Anniv…1:20 PM ∙ Oct 13, 202240,323Likes6,390Retweets
Indeed.
🔥 Seen online:
🔥 The UK Express helped muddy the waters again, adding to the cacophony of nonsense helping hide big pharma’s liability for its products’ harms, by identifying POTATO CHIPS as the latest culprit causing blood clots.
Thanks experts! They’ve finally gotten to the bottom of this! They found the SMOKING GUN. Potato chips. From the picture, it looks like barbecue-flavored ones are the culprit. Dang it.
Have a terrific Tuesday! I’ll see you back here tomorrow for more steaming hot Coffee & Covid.
C&C is moving the needle and changing minds. If you can, I could use your help getting the truth out and spreading optimism and hope: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/-learn-how-to-get-involved-
Twitter: @jchilders98
Truth Social: @jchilders98
MeWe: mewe.com/i/coffee_and_covid.
C&C Swag! www.shopcoffeeandcovid.com
Emailed Daily Newsletter: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
By George Miller, 10-18-22
Our neighboring state Georgia’s US Senate election could decide which party controls that legislative body. If the Democrats retain control, it would continue to support the toxic Biden administration agenda, along with appointments to many key positions and approval treaties. Both Georgia US Senators are now Progressive Democrats, via questionable special elections. Now, ex-football megastar, businessman and philanthropist Herschel Walker is challenging short-time incumbent preacher Raphael Warnock for the office.
Based on the video of the debate we saw, Walker kicked ass. Just check it out and watch for yourself how his common sense traditional value positions and logic annihilate Warnock’s well left of center “Progressive” rhetoric. Of course, well left-of-center Progressives may not agree completely with me on this.
I compliment the debate organizers in allowing responses when warranted and managing the process professionally.
Event video highlights are accompanied by some good commentary by Anthony Brian Logan (pictured below). Click to read and watch video highlights.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
Edited by Michael Hernandez, 10-16-22
(Editor’s Note: this is part of a weekly compendium of recent significant events, culled from world news and curated by Michael Hernandez.)
Tulsi Gabbard leaves Democratic Party, denounces it as ‘elitist cabal”
Anders Hagstrom (Oct. 11) Fox News
Former Democratic presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard announced she left the Democratic Party on Tuesday, denouncing the organization as an “elitist cabal.”
Gabbard, who retired from the House of Representatives in 2021, attacked the institution in a nearly 30-minute video posted to her YouTube account. She did not announce plans to join the Republican Party or adopt any other political affiliation, however.
“I can no longer remain in today’s Democratic Party that is now under the complete control of an elitist cabal of warmongers driven by cowardly wokeness, who divide us by racializing every issue & stoke anti-white racism,” Gabbard said in an excerpt posted to Twitter. She went on to call on other moderate Democrats to follow in her footsteps.
“I believe in a government that is of the people, by the people and for the people. Unfortunately, today’s Democratic Party does not. Instead, it stands for a government that is of, by and for the powerful elite,” she continued. “I’m calling on my fellow common sense, independent-minded Democrats to join me in leaving the Democratic Party.”
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/tulsi-gabbard-leaves-democratic-party-denounces-elitist-cabal
FRANCES MARTEL (Oct 13) Breitbart News
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Saudi Arabia issued an outraged statement Thursday condemning the White House, without naming any official in particular, for claiming that Riyadh supported an OPEC+ decision to cut oil production by two million barrels a day because it had decided to side with Russia in the ongoing Ukraine war.
The extensive statement also mentioned rumors, first reported in the Wall Street Journal, that the administration of President Joe Biden had attempted to convince Saudi officials to delay any oil production cut until after the midterm elections. While the Foreign Affairs Ministry neither confirmed nor denied that American diplomats had made the request, it rejected the idea as potentially having “negative economic consequences.”
The statement adds to what is becoming a growing scandal for the Biden administration that began with Biden himself visiting Saudi Arabia and meeting Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), reportedly to urge him to increase Saudi Arabia’s oil production.
According to this week’s Wall Street Journal report, the Riyadh visit went so poorly for Biden that MBS decided to cut scheduled oil production increases after meeting with the American president. The report also claimed that Biden’s officials had urged the Saudi government to pressure OPEC+, a cartel that includes Russia, to wait until after the midterm elections to announce any production cuts, keeping prices lower just in time for Americans to vote.
Biden officials have dramatically announced a total reevaluation of diplomatic ties with Saudi Arabia in the wake of the production cut and attempted to tie the decision to the Ukraine war, claiming Riyadh had now taken sides against Kyiv. In reality, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has maintained close communications with MBS for months and thanked Saudi Arabia for aiding in the release of Ukrainian prisoners. Saudi Arabia voted to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine at the United Nations on Wednesday.
By Megan Henney (Oct. 13) FOXBusiness
Social Security benefits are set to rise by 8.7% in 2023, the biggest bump in four decades as stubbornly high inflation erodes the buying power of retired Americans, the Social Security Administration said on Thursday.
The increase, known as a cost-of-living adjustment (COLA), is the biggest since 1981, when recipients saw an 11.2% jump. It will increase the average monthly benefit by about $140. More than 64 million Americans collecting Social Security will receive the bigger payments beginning in January, the administration said.
The higher payments come in response to the hottest inflation in four decades: Prices paid by U.S. consumers surged 8.2% in September from the previous year, the Labor Department reported on Thursday, despite an aggressive campaign by the Federal Reserve to cool inflation. It also comes as the national debt tops $31 trillion for the first time.
The annual Social Security change is calculated based on the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers, or the CPI-W, which jumped 8.5% over the past year.
Higher Social Security payments can reduce eligibility for low-income safety net programs like food stamps and can push people into higher tax brackets. More significant payments, essentially, do not necessarily result in more money in people’s pockets.
The average benefit in 2022 jumped by 5.9%, which amounted to an average monthly increase of $92 for retired Americans, bringing the total amount to $1,657, the Social Security Administration announced last year. Soaring inflation has already eroded the entirety of the increase, however, with recipients losing 48% of their buying power as of August, according to calculations by the Senior Citizens League.
What’s more, the unusually large COLA could move the Social Security insolvency date forward by more quickly depleting the funds. The average monthly benefit would have to increase by $417.60 for retirees to maintain the same level of purchasing power as in 2000.
https://www.foxbusiness.com/money/social-security-recipients-see-biggest-cola-increase-1981
JEFF POOR (Oct 10) Breitbart News
During Sunday’s broadcast of FNC’s “Life, Liberty & Levin,” host Mark Levin criticized the Democratic Party and President Joe Biden.
He suggested the country was headed in the “wrong direction” because Democrats “hate America.”
Transcript as follows:
LEVIN: This election comes down to really two positions. Do you love America or do you hate America?
Because the Democratic Party has made it abundantly clear — I’m not trying to be provocative — I just listen that they hate America. Well, tell me how they support it?
Now, I’m no special pleader for the Republican Party, but that’s the nature of the beast. You either vote for one or the other. If you vote for a third party, you’re voting for a Democrat.
So my view, and it is unusual in this election cycle is vote for all Republicans. We will deal with them later. We have got to stop what’s going on in this country. So you either love America, or you hate America. But you’ve got to vote against the Democrats and for the Republicans.
Now what am I talking about? Well, ladies and gentlemen, we’re in a recession. I don’t care how they try and spin it. It’s two quarters of negative growth. Negative growth is oxymoronic, but that’s what they call it. That’s what we had. We’re in a recession.
We also have inflation teetering on double digit inflation. We have had massive, massive deficit spending, borrowing, effectively the printing of money, and even with inflation through the roof, the Democrats decided, let’s give it another trillion dollar boost, don’t you think? Because they want to subsidize part of their base, the wealthiest among us, and that is graduate students, law students, doctoral students, and all the rest by paying for some of their student loans. You paying for them. Most of you have paid if you had student loans for your own.
So, what has this done? Well, let me tell you a little secret that’s not been reported on. Your HVAC system, your air conditioning system, your refrigeration system, the prices are going through the roof, the Biden administration through regulations, is significantly changing the processes yet again.
Fertilizer is on short supply, it is very expensive. That’s why there’s 20 percent less planting now than there was last year. Now, what does that mean? Less food, reduced food supplies, lower supply, demand goes up higher costs. Higher prices for animals that need to eat. Those kinds of harvest foods, like cattle, like chicken, eggs are going up, beef is going up — all of these prices are going through the roof.
Diesel fuel. Back up again. Why? Well, because we aren’t able to produce as much as we need, even though we can, we are not allowed. Eighteen-wheelers, it is costing much, much more to move harvest product from the fields, from the packaging plants to the grocery stores that paid for them.
And of course, the cost of appliances are going through the roof, the costs of automobiles are going through the roof, and we’re just getting started, folks. Biden is not done. The Democrats aren’t done.
They are running our economy, managing our country, mostly through the bureaucracy and destroying it. Let’s take a look.
Why do we have high energy prices when we had low energy prices? Well, many reasons. Biden has appointed the most radical people in academia and think tanks, nonprofit organizations, the Obama administration throughout the Federal bureaucracy, and no more obvious than at the EPA and the Interior Department and other departments that control our energy sources.
So, what are they doing? Biofuel mandates. Biofuel mandates — there is not a biofuel to power anything. They are attacking capital investment in drilling and development through this ESG — these ESG policies, environmental, social engineering, governmental engineering policies that are being pushed by the hard left in these boardrooms.
They are subsidizing massively electric vehicles. Electric vehicles — and that has had an enormous effect on two of the three Big 3 auto producers. Other than GM, the others are full speed ahead on electrical vehicles and no combustion engine vehicles in the near future.
The administration is staffed with people who regard fossil fuels as evil and they have a generally hostile energy environment, massive regulations, massive taxations at every level, harassing these people with investigations.
Real Clear Energy points out that not only they canceled the Keystone XL Pipeline, they’ve closed other pipelines. They are reviving the social cost of carbon — carbon, you know, the non-polluting that you exhale — halting lease sales and Alaska’s ANWR. President Trump had opened them up.
Placing a moratorium on drilling on Federal lands. A moratorium on drilling on Federal lands. The Federal government controls 25 percent of the land in America, they put a moratorium on it.
Rejoining the Paris Climate Accord, which is all the other countries of the world ganging up on the United States and attacking us. Proposing energy inhibiting budgets, canceling oil and gas drilling leases that they already let, initiating punitive government investigations of not just Big Oil, but small oil and medium oil where they have to spend time on those sorts of things.
Restricting Permian Basin drilling using ozone rules that is in Texas and New Mexico, imposing stricter methane emission rules, I wish they’d impose them on themselves. But that’s a big problem and supporting a range of other anti-energy policies.
On top of that, Biden is draining these Strategic Petroleum Reserve like no President since we’ve had it, which puts us in a gravely dangerous national security position and he is doing that for political reasons. And of course, OPEC is now cutting two million barrels a day, because Biden is a failed diplomat, as he is a failed President.
What is going on here? Fundamentally, the Democrat policies are working. This is what they want. They want a poor America. They want a degrowth movement. They are anti-capitalism. They’re pro-economic socialism, and they have been for at least half a century.
They are centralizing decision making in their own hands, but politically, it’s a non-starter, so they have to lie about it.
Rather than celebrating it, they have to lie about it. So, they’ll blame you. They’ll blame Big Oil, they’ll blame big Putin, they’ll blame whatever they have to blame. They will talk about price gouging when there isn’t price gouging.
So they create the very scenario that they are criticizing and this is what they do on the Marxist left in the Democratic Party. But that’s not all. Why do the Democrats hate America? US murder rate highest it has been in 25 years as big cities shatter records. Chicago, New York, L.A., Minneapolis, Philadelphia.
Philadelphia. Wow. My home city, the City of Brotherly Love. People can’t even go out on the streets anymore. These cities are being depopulated. People are getting out if they can afford to get out, poor people who can’t afford to get out are being abused. This is undermining the police forces in America. What have the Democrats done about it? What have they done to fix it?
Well, how are they going to fix it when they broke it? They broke it just like they did our economy, on inflation; just like they did on energy independence when it comes to energy. They broke police enforcement. That’s what’s happened in this country.
Now, interestingly enough, they like to say they support abortion because they believe women have a right to choose to protect their bodies. Well, rape is way up in this country, way up, particularly in the heavily populated inner cities. Don’t those women want to protect their bodies, too? So how come the Democrats don’t support that?
Oh, Mark, what are you trying to say? What do you mean what am I trying to say? Everything I’ve just described you is a man-made disaster. That is a Democratic Party made disaster and it is continuing.
Look at immigration on the Southern border. BBC “Heartbreaking conditions in US migrant child camp.” What do they talk about? They talk about rampant disease. They talk about rancid food. They talk about children being molested by staff and strangers. They talk about children being separated from their parents, hundreds of thousands of them. This is the Biden border right now.
“Five Biden illegal immigration records that have already been shattered in 2022.” It goes on and goes on and goes on illegal. Immigration like we’ve never seen it before. Death on the border like we’ve never seen it before. Criminals coming in like we’ve never seen it before. You have sex trafficking going on in the border like we’ve never seen it before.
And in our country, crime is through the roof again, partly as a result of this. Fentanyl overdoses become number one cause of death among us adults ages 18 to 45. It is a national emergency. It’s coming through the open border mostly produced by our enemy, Communist China using the drug cartels, our enemy in Mexico to bring this fentanyl across an open border that is killing American young people, approximately 110,000 record breaking last year and the records are breaking this year. And we have the highest number of illegal immigrants getting into the country known and unknown in American history.
And what’s happening in our classrooms? “Student test scores plummeted in Math and Reading after the pandemic: New assessment finds.” It is not just the pandemic, it’s the teachers unions. It’s the teacher administrators. It’s the Democratic Party who rely on these people for contributions, for precinct workers who use them to unleash the FBI and the Department of Justice and Merrick Garland against parents who have had enough with critical race theory, and perversion and sexuality being taught to the five and six and seven-year-olds, and enough with the propaganda about economic socialism and climate change.
If you dare to go to a School Board meeting, you might get your name written down and Merrick Garland is ready to strike. What else?
The Democrats hate America. That’s my hypothesis. It’s actually a reality. Look at the withdrawal on Afghanistan. Look, you’re still negotiating with Iran, that is Biden, who wants nuclear weapons on missiles that will change the whole world, even though they have attempted to assassinate former American officials, including former Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo.
Look at what he is doing to Israel. He is forcing Israel to sell oil leases or trying to, to Hezbollah, which is an international terrorist organization. He has pushed Saudi Arabia closer to Russia.
What else has he done? Look at the culture wars. He has destroyed women’s sports, has Biden, by taking Title IX and turning it on its head. He has institutionalized racism in this country, which is one of the reasons we cannot meet our objectives, our objectives in terms of military recruiting, all the wokeism.
The army is down 40 percent. Forty percent. If you’re a patriot, you’re not going to join the military because of what Biden and his Generals have done to the United States military, and he appointed to the Supreme Court Justice Jackson. It’s her contention, she said the other day in so many words, that racism is embedded in the 14th Equal Protection Amendment.
They are attacking the Constitution, the First Amendment, the Second Amendment, the Fourth Amendment, the Fifth Amendment, the 10th Amendment. Separation of powers, checks and balances. And of course, they’ve unleashed their corrupt Department of Justice and the FBI, like the old East German Stasi against anybody they disagree with — pro-lifers, parents, the former President of the United States, Donald Trump, and your next.
https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2022/10/10/mark-levin-the-democrats-hate-america/
PAM KEY (Oct 9) Breitbart News
Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on this week’s broadcast of “Fox News Sunday” that President Joe Biden’s comments warning of armageddon in response to nuclear threats from Russia were “reckless.” At a fundraiser last week, Biden said, “We have not faced the prospect of armageddon since Kennedy and the Cuban Missile Crisis.”
Discussing Russian President Vladimir Putin, Biden added, “I know fairly well. He’s not joking when he talks about potential use of tactical nuclear weapons.”
Pompeo said, “First of all, those comments were reckless. Even more importantly, they demonstrate maybe one of the greatest foreign policy failures of the last decades, which was failure to deter Vladamir Putin in the same way the Trump administration did for four years.”
He continued, “When you hear the president talking about armageddon as a random thought, just mussing at a fundraiser, that is a terrible risk for the American people. He ought to be talking to us in a serious way.”
Pompeo added, “More importantly, he should be doing the things necessary to deter Vladamir Putin. We’ve been here in October of ’62 and other times, as well, and America has pushed back by showing enormous resolve, executing quiet diplomacy in the same way we did during our time in office, making clear to Vladamir Putin the cost of him using a nuclear weapon would bring the force of the United States and Europe and the whole world against Vladamir Putin. I hope they are doing this quietly.”
https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2022/10/09/pompeo-bidens-armageddon-comments-reckless/
Susie Moore | (Oct. 08) RedState
As we reported previously, payment processing giant PayPal announced a new policy that, according to The Daily Wire, could dock users by up to $2,500 for participating in the spreading of “misinformation.” Per the initial reporting: A new policy update from PayPal will permit the firm to sanction users who advance purported “misinformation” or present risks to user “wellbeing.”
The financial services company, which has repeatedly deplatformed organizations and individual commentators for their political views, will expand its “existing list of prohibited activities” on November 3. Among the changes are prohibitions on “the sending, posting, or publication of any messages, content, or materials” that “promote misinformation” or “present a risk to user safety or wellbeing.” Users are also barred from “the promotion of hate, violence, racial or other forms of intolerance that is discriminatory.”…
…Deliberations will be made at the “sole discretion” of PayPal and may subject the user to “damages” — including the removal of $2,500 “debited directly from your PayPal account.” The company’s user agreement contains a provision in which account holders acknowledge that the figure is “presently a reasonable minimum estimate of PayPal’s actual damages” due to the administrative cost of tracking violations and damage to the company’s reputation.
Not surprisingly, the news of this policy was met with significant consternation and pushback, with many users declaring via social media that they would be closing their accounts.
“An AUP notice recently went out in error that included incorrect information. PayPal is not fining people for misinformation and this language was never intended to be inserted in our policy… We’re sorry for the confusion this has caused.”
One is forced to wonder how “language [that] was never intended to be inserted in our policy” nevertheless found its way… into their policy. Certainly, it didn’t materialize out of thin air.
Someone thought it a worthwhile enough idea to draft the language. Just one more indicator of the troubling impulses in much of corporate America when it comes to curtailing speech — or “wrongthink.” As Bonchie rightly notes:
Regardless, it is an egregious attack on the principle of free speech for a payment processor to start fining its users because those users might disagree with the broader left politically. And don’t kid yourself, that’s exactly what this is about. Today’s “misinformation” is tomorrow’s confirmed fact, a dynamic that has played out many times during the COVID pandemic.
The scourage of woke-ness in corporate America is only getting worse, and we can reasonably look at this PayPal move as a test run for far worse sanctions to come. Major banks will be next in line to try this stuff (they already have when it comes to guns). The censorship regime is real, and Democrats have successfully gained influence via crony captialism over the last decade. The good news is: PayPal has reversed course on this proposed policy change. For now.
AMY FURR (Oct. 8) Breitbart News
Democrat operatives are reportedly using seemingly local news outlets to push articles favoring their party as the midterm elections approach.
Approximately 51 sites have emerged since 2021 with names such as the Milwaukee Metro Times, the Mecklenburg Herald, and the Tri-City Record, according to an Axios article published Thursday.
“The sites are focused on key swing states with elections in 2021 and 2022: Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, Michigan, New Hampshire, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin,” the report said, adding that the sites feature stories about local happenings along with news promoting Democrat midterm candidates while targeting Republicans.
The sites are reportedly all managed by a company called Local Report, Inc., and all appear to be connected to the American Independent (TAI), which was “launched by Democratic operative and fundraiser David Brock — also known for founding the left-leaning media watchdog Media Matters for America,” per Axios.
The outlet noted that several TAI writers have reportedly contributed to the sites. TAI President Matt Fuehrmeyer formerly worked as a senior aide with the Democrat Congressional Campaign Committee and with the late Harry Reid, who was Senate Majority Leader from 2007 to 2015.
In addition, Jessica McCreight is the Vice President and executive editor of the TAI. She worked in communications in the White House during Barack Obama’s presidency, the Daily Caller reported. According to McCreight, the relationship between TAI and Local Report is a “co-publishing agreement.”
In July 2020, CourierNewsroom.com, a “news outlet” created and funded by Acronym, a Democrat-aligned nonprofit, spent millions to flood Facebook with ads prior to the 2020 election, but reportedly did not share information about its political donors. CourierNewsroom.com shelled out over $1 million on social media ads to promote House Democrats.
Breitbart News reported in March 2020 that “Acronym owns the technology firm Shadow, Inc., which was responsible for developing the infamous app used in the chaotic Iowa caucuses.”
The outlet continued: Acronym is funded by the “liberal dark money group” New Venture Fund, which is “part of a larger group called Arabella Advisors, which provides philanthropic guidance and manages four nonprofits,” according to the nonpartisan ethics watchdog group Americans for Public Trust. Those also include the Sixteen Thirty Fund, Windward Fund, and Hopewell Fund.
The financial web, however, goes far beyond those connections. The political group American Bridge, which was founded by David Brock — a close ally of the Clintons and founder of Media Matters for America — is also involved in the overarching efforts to spread misinformation on President Trump’s response to the coronavirus and further politicize the crisis.
Per the Axios article, Local Report stories offer news coverage their political allies may use for their own purposes. “Local Report stories have popped up in communications from the Democratic Parties of Georgia and Michigan, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, Michigan’s Democratic secretary of state and independent political groups such as Color of Change and the Democratic Coalition,” the outlet said.
JACK MONTGOMERY (Oct 8) Breitbart News
The rail and road bridge from mainland Russia to the Crimean peninsula, annexed by Moscow in 2014, has been pictured in flames the morning after President Vladimir Putin’s 70th birthday.
The Crimean Bridge, also known as the Kerch or Kerch Strait Bridge, which stretches over more than eleven miles and cost hundreds of billion of rubles, has long been considered a signature piece of infrastructure, as the only physical link between Crimea and the Russian Federation prior to the general invasion of Ukraine in February of this year.
It has also long been considered a prime target for the Ukrainians, and while the cause of the damage to it is unknown as of the time of publication it is likely to be a source of great embarrassment for the Kremlin.
Pictures and video of the damaged section of the bridge show the rail portion engulfed in towering flames, and a section of the road portion collapsed into the sea.
“According to preliminary information, a fuel storage tank is on fire… Navigable arches were not damaged. It is too early to speak about causes and consequences. Work to extinguish the blaze is under way,” commented Oleg Kryuchkov, described as an aide to Russia’s head of Crimea by Russian News Agency TASS.
Russia’s National Anti-Terrorism Committee has attributed the incident to a truck having “blown up”, according to RIA Novosti, which like TASS is owned by the Russian state.
Ukraine’s official position on the incident is currently ambiguous, although the country’s air force did post footage of the destruction on Telegram with the caption: “Morning on the Crimean bridge. Fuel tanks are on fire. Part of the roadway was also destroyed! Everything will be Ukraine!”
Our Hope
| Fri. & Sat., OCTOBER 21st and 22nd PRAY CALIFORNIA 21st Annual Conference! Doors open at 8:30am both days. Please register for historical gathering in Southern California (first time in 15+ years). www.praycalifornia.org |
| Register: Registration 2022 – PRAY CALIFORNIA (Free)/Sat. Lunch: $18 |
Host: New Beginning Community Ministries, 504 Rimgrove Drive,
La Puente, CA 91744
California voters: “Every life is valuable” – Vote No on Proposition 1 For more info: https://proposition1-whyvoteno.com/
(Michael Hernandez, co-founder of the Citizens Journal—Ventura County’s online news service is a former Southern California daily newspaper journalist and religion and news editor. Mr. Hernandez can be contacted at [email protected] and is editor of “America: The End and Our Hope”.)
By Florida Family Policy Council, October 2022
Intro: Most of us are unfamiliar with the judicial candidates on our Nassau County ballot- which for us includes the Supreme Court and 1st District Appeals Court confirmation candidates in this voter guide (above), from Conservative faith-oriented Florida Family Policy Council. They have no opponents- you just confirm or not.
Note that only one candidate on the Nassau County ballot, 1st District Appeals Court Judge Jorge LaBarga, is NOT recommended. We are attempting to learn why they made this recommendation. This little tidbit of interest might have something to do with it: https://www.wmnf.org/abortion-rights-advocates-are-urging-florida-voters-to-reject-all-but-one-of-the-state-supreme-court-justices-on-the-ballot-this-year/
Florida Family Policy Council voter guides:
These endorsement voter guides are NOT church voter guides but they can be distributed by private individuals anywhere. We have Church Voter Guides (C3) at FLfamily.org for the general election in November.
Endorsement Guide – 2022 Florida Governor, US Senate, US House, Florida Cabinet
(Click here for Spanish Version)
Endorsement Guide – 2022 Florida Senate, Florida House
(Click here for Spanish Version)
Endorsement Guide – 2022 Florida Judicial Candidates – FL Supreme Court, DCAs, Circuit, County
(Click here for Spanish Version)
Endorsement Guide – 2022 Florida Constitutional Amendments
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
By Jeff Childers
10-17-22
Today’s roundup: experts prove they are dangerous morons; Atlantic runs a poignant story about a vaccine specialist’s post-jab cancer flare up; NATO starts up nuclear drills in Europe, for no particular reason; fitness author dares jabs to do their worst and keels over; WWE star dies suddenly and unexpectedly; pop singer has seizure; and Ultra Beauty Products, Incorporated steps on the wokeness rake.
🔬 I decided to re-run this item from yesterday’s supporter bonus edition, since it’s such an important story. Apologies to re-readers.
The Encyclopedia Galactica reports that there is a planet in the distant galaxy inhabited by the Universe’s stupidest civilized race, the Ch’kkukolaitans. They don’t have nations, because they’ve all forgotten exactly where they’re from. They just sort of wander around in a Biden-like daze. Over the last thousand years, they’ve completely lost their worldwide civilization three times, but they are so moronic that the survivors didn’t even realize it was gone, so society accidentally came back — twice.
But public health experts in this country are even dumber than the Ch’kkukolaitans. Encyclopedia Galactica will have to update that entry.
Let’s have a little thought experiment. Try to imagine the dumbest thing the public health experts could do at this point. Allow that the PHE folks do stupid stuff all the time, so you have to thing big. No, BIGGER. Think even dumber than whatever you’re thinking right now. The DUMBEST POSSIBLE thing.
On Friday, BioRxIV naively published a blandly-named study titled “Role of spike in the pathogenic and antigenic behavior of SARS-CoV-2 BA.1 Omicron.” There are 23 scientists credited with helping create the study, and the acknowledgements identify it was funded by a major grant from the NIH/NIAID.
The study provides a detailed, step-by-step recipe for how to genetically enhance the Omicron virus to make it vaccine-resistant, lung-penetrable, and 80% lethal.
They didn’t even wait till the first pandemic was over! They’re so excited for a doomsday virus, and so impatient with Mother Nature, that they are going to just manufacture it themselves, through gain-of-function research that should be so toxic it gets you hounded out of your career and driven into a life of humiliating obscurity. Not published.
Think I’m exaggerating? Here’s how the researchers described their work:
These mad scientists and generous government grant-approvers know better than anyone that we JUST went through a global pandemic almost certainly caused by a virus that was produced by gain of function research to “enhance” its transmissibility and pathogenicity, which LEAKED OUT OF A LAB. And they know it’s been illegal to conduct gain of function research in the U.S. since the Obama Administration.
Why, oh why, are these criminals, I mean scientists, still allowed to tinker around with this kind of explosive material? Why haven’t we ALREADY passed laws criminalizing ALL gain of function research? Seriously. Gain of function research merits the death penalty or something, no appeals. And WHY is the government still PAYING FOR gain of function research, or whatever obtuse euphemism they are using these days to disguise the fact that it’s ‘gain of function research’?
Have we learned NOTHING from the Wuhan lab leak?
Hey, lawmakers: LABS LEAK!! This is the kind of lesson we really, really don’t need to learn again. Pretty please.
How about, instead of paying scientists millions to cook up civilization-ending viruses, we could invest those resources in tracking down rogue terrorists cooking up bugs in garage labs and stuff. We should be finding those people and blowing them to Kingdom Come. Don’t even knock. But, in this case, thanks to our witless ‘health agencies,’ we — taxpayers! — are funding our own destruction.
You’ve GOT to be kidding me. Please tell me I’m dreaming all this.
The preprint study carefully and methodically walks the reader through exactly how the scientists created the ultra-lethal covid variant, step by step, right down to describing the make and model of the incubator, the names and serial numbers of the human cell lines, and the brand of centrifuge. It’s a flipping recipe. Anybody could follow it.
Hello! We’re now about two seconds away from midnight on the Doomsday clock. If we aren’t even smart enough to stop GAIN OF FUNCTION RESEARCH after what the entire world just went through, then we should grudgingly accept the title from the Ch’kkukolaitans, who’ll be relieved to lose their status as the Universe’s most imbecilic civilization.
And, this is just ONE study. If they’re paying for THIS kind of research, imagine what ELSE the government must be funding, scads of other projects described only in obscure, densely-worded grant proposals buried deep in the NIH’s sub-basement file cabinets.
Sometimes I’m convinced we are literally sprinting toward the apocalypse, at the speed of science. All those horrible afflictions in the Book of the Revelation, the terrible boils and deadly plagues and stuff? I’m starting to believe that those aren’t caused by God. I’m starting to believe we’re going to do it to ourselves.
💉 Last month, the Atlantic ran a story headlined, “Did a Famous Doctor’s Covid Shot Make His Cancer Worse?” The sub-headline explains, “A lifelong promoter of vaccines suspects he might be the rare, unfortunate exception.”
Almost exactly one year prior to the article’s publication, Belgian immunologist Michael Goldman, 67, one of Europe’s best-known champions of medical research, rolled up his sleeve at a clinic and gratefully received his covid booster.
He was grateful because he’d just been diagnosed with an early case of lymphoma, a cancer of the immune system. Because Goldman knew he’d have to take immune-suppressing drugs as part of his cancer treatment, he wanted to get his booster fast, while there was still time for it to have an effect.
But after the jab, he quickly started feeling even worse, and more worrisome, his lymph nodes were swelling fast. Three weeks later, he went back to see his cancer doctor (coincidentally, his brother), and both men were astounded that the new scans showed “a brand-new barrage of cancer lesions—so many spots that it looked like someone had set off fireworks inside Michel’s body” — especially in his right armpit and along the right side of his body.
Oddly, the same side where he’d got his third covid shot.
Goldman immediately suspected the vaccine, but he wasn’t sure. He used to run an institute for vaccine-technology research, and he’s been interviewed many times about covid, reassuring the public of the safety of the jabs, and the safety of mRNA vaccines in particular. In December 2020, he told an interviewer that “if there was a real problem with the technology, we’d have seen it before now for sure.”
For SURE.
As he began and continued his cancer treatment, Goldman also was researching HOW there might be a link between the jab and his surging cancer. He finally found a theory, and in November, 2021 published a study titled “Rapid Progression of Angioimmunoblastic T Cell Lymphoma Following BNT162b2 mRNA Vaccine Booster Shot.”
The Atlantic article spends most of its energy emphasizing how Goldman struggled over whether to admit that his cancer got worse because of his jab, and the reporter stressed over and over how rare his syndrome was. The article’s author even puts herself in the story, describing her own struggle over whether to write the piece in the first place, because of her fear that anti-vaxxers would abuse the story.
His cancer is now back under control. These days, according to the Atlantic, Goldman often contemplates the possible connection between his lymphoma flare-up and his covid vaccination. “If it exists, it must be very rare,” he said. But he doesn’t regret going public with his case, saying, “I’m still convinced it was the right thing to do.”
But Goldman admits he’s struggling over whether to take the fourth shot. “I don’t know what I will do,” he told the reporter.
Well. I know what I would do. But Goldman’s an expert, and so he’s baffled.
🚀 In a brilliant effort to de-escalate the risk of global nuclear war, NATO announced that it is starting nuclear drills involving 14 countries and up to 60 aircraft, including B-52 bombers, as early as today. Reuters says the NATO drills will likely to overlap similar Russian nuclear drills which are usually held around this time in late October.
In case you’ve got the wrong idea, NATO emphasized on its website, “The exercise, which runs until 30 October, is a routine, recurring training activity and it is not linked to any current world events.”
So. Just coincidental. Nothing to see here, move along.
💉 Bodybuilder and fitness author Doug Brignole, 63, died suddenly and unexpectedly last Thursday, of “undetermined causes.” He was currently training to guest pose at the AAU Mr. Universe competition scheduled in Las Vegas on October 22nd.
Uh-huh.
A well-known fitness influencer, Brignole always strongly supported the jabs. In one post advocating for the covid shots, he even dared people to use his reaction as an example:
“I have enough confidence in the vaccine, based on my research, to get it done. Those of you who think the vaccine kills people can use me as a test. If I die, you were right. If I don’t die, and have no ill effects, you were wrong, and should admit it (at least to yourselves).”
Well then. I guess WE were right.
💉 WWE star and Reality TV star Sara Lee, 30, winner of the 2015 “Tough Enough” competition and mother of three young children, died suddenly and unexpectedly on October 6th. The day before Sara died, she posted a message on her Instagram account saying she was celebrating finally being healthy enough to go to the gym two days in a row, after recovering from a “first ever sinus infection [that] kicked my butt.”
No cause of death has been released, nor do we have any information about whether Sara was following Doug Brignole’s medical advice.
💉 Pop singer Brandy Norwood, 43, known as “Brandy,” who sang the National Anthem at the NFL’s NFC Championship this year, was hospitalized after a sudden and unexpected seizure last week at her home.
5:31 PM ∙ Oct 12, 202214,152Likes2,657Retweets
The singer updated her social media on Wednesday, saying “To my beloved fam, friends, and starz thank you for sending love and light my way. I am following doctors’ orders and getting the rest I need due to dehydration and low amounts of nutrition. Thank you for your prayers and support. Grateful for you all, see you soon.”
She was seen in public on Saturday, so fortunately she appears to be doing much better.
🔥 Oh dear. Women’s cosmetic maker Ulta stepped in the woke cowpie yesterday when it posted a “podcast” between two unattractive cross-dressers, labeled it “the Joy of Girlhood,” and assured their customers “trans girls can do it all!” With obnoxious claps.
Trans 👏 Girls 👏 Can 👏 Do 👏It 👏 All! Tune into the latest episode of The Beauty Of… where host @DavidLopezzz sits down with guest Dylan Mulvaney to chat all things girlhood 💝 Watch now: bit.ly/3rSTtKX
Ulta’s podcast went over like a porcupine at a balloon-stuffed baby shower.
As an aside, between the two men, I think my favorite is the guy with all the facial hair; he’s not JUST trans, he’s identifying as a classic circus sideshow bearded lady, which really takes guts. But you still have to give some props to the skinny one, Dylan Mulvaney, 25. His story is that, since he was “overwhelmed” by the terrifying prospect of coming out as a woman, he decided to start by identifying as a teen “girl,” so that he can experience the joys of girlhood before becoming a lady. Hence the interview.
The gals were having none of it. Calls for a boycott immediately ratio’d the edgy Ulta post. FN The general feeling amongst the ladies seems to be that the two men are appropriating femininity through bad costumery:
FN A tweet is “ratio’d” when it gets a lot more comments than likes, showing that the twitter audience really hated the tweet.
This next one, from a self-described feminist, albeit very crass, highlights the level of anger among Ulta’s customers, who are, after all, women who appreciate cosmetics and obviously value femininity.
Get woke, go broke.
But I appreciated conservative commenter Alexandra Lains’ thoughtful comment the most. Among other pointed remarks, Alexandra observed that “girlhood is not a product that you can purchase at the makeup store.”
Alexandra Lains 🇺🇸 @realalexlains
Indeed. When it went after girlhood, Ulta, which probably thought it would be praised and celebrated for its delightful woke sensitivity, got the sharp end of womanhood instead, right in the eyeball. It feels like Ulta crossed a line somehow, and a lot of regular women finally had enough and are spicily speaking their minds.
Speak up, ladies! Tell us how you REALLY feel.
Have a marvelous Monday! I’ll see you back here tomorrow for more.
C&C is moving the needle and changing minds. If you can, I could use your help getting the truth out and spreading optimism and hope: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/-learn-how-to-get-involved-
Twitter: @jchilders98
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The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
News
By Matthew Decker
10-16-2022
Nassau County bus drivers are in an uproar over the firing of Billy Connor and the reassignment of preferred bus routes from senior drivers to substitute drivers. Drivers feel they were unfairly bumped form their seniority-earned routes, which were then given to substitute drivers. The School District has supported this change to ensure coverage of all necessary routes. The School Board lamented over the bus drivers’ concerns but was not able to rectify the situation. Additionally, Community member Richard Lamken’s Public Records request for budget transfers was effectively stonewalled due to lack of information from the School District.
During the Nassau County School Board meeting on October 13th, multiple bus drivers expressed their frustrations over a new route bidding policy that the District implemented. Bus routes are bid on. Historically, drivers with more seniority received the preferred routes. The premier routes in Nassau County are in Hilliard. As driver, Mrs. Bennett, said, “Hilliard is heaven.” Under the direction of Brad Underhill, the Director of Transportation for the District, substitute bus drivers were brought in to fill gaps in route coverage. The bidding process was changed to accommodate the needs of the substitute drivers. Additionally, certain routes were eliminated. This resulted in several senior drivers being removed from their routes and being bumped to less desirable routes, while new substitute drivers were given the better routes.
Bus driver, Mrs. Slayton, pointed out that driving a bus has always been a “part-time job” as there is always waiting time during the day. During her down time, she was able to start a side business. Due to the new bidding process, she now has to run between Hilliard and Yulee, which significantly impacts her side business. She has been a driver since 1997 and has worked for Nassau since 2004. She lamented that there are already bus runs in Yulee that could pick up her one stop there.
Driver, Mrs. Connor, the lead driver for Nassau County for the last four years, has been working for the county since 1998. She stated that, “Drivers still love their jobs and are dedicated to it…but when is enough, enough?” Her Hilliard route was eliminated per Director Underhill’s command, and her husband Billy Connor, also a driver, was fired. She claims her husband had a perfect record and was not disciplined or warned prior to being terminated. She asked the School Board to, “Look into his [Director Underhill’s] actions and see what is going on here.” Other drivers, including her son in-law, who offered public comments during the meeting, supported Billy Connor and decried his termination. Director Underhill has been reached out to for comment on Billy Connor’s firing.
Several bus drivers for Nassau County professed their love for their jobs and the kids they care for each day. They all expressed concern over low morale among drivers. The chief concerns cited for the low morale were the change in route bidding and the termination of Billy Connor.
The School Board, under the direction of Mrs. Martin, has proposed a policy change to address the morale issue among bus drivers. They proposed a $3 per hour increase to any driver whose route had been changed as a result of the new bidding policy. This proposed change will have to go to The Nassau Educational Support Personnel Association for approval prior to being implemented. Bus driver, Mrs. Slayton, expressed that the additional $3 per hour was “nothing” and would be eaten up in gas costs due to her newly assigned route.
Community Member, Richard Lamken, grilled the School Board over the recent fulfillment of his Public Records request. He requested information and attachments regarding budget transfers. He specifically questioned budget inconsistencies including unexplained adjustments. The justifications for budget transfers provided to Mr. Lamken as part of his records request were inadequate. He claimed justifications included ambiguous statements such as, “funds moved to cover payroll” and “covers purchases.” He also received no attachments (agendas, budgets, etc.…) that were requested in his filing.
Chairwoman Martin disagreed with Mr. Lamken’s concerns over the budget transfers. She stated that a State Auditor is on campus almost all year long and, “not once has anyone said we don’t follow procedures or policies correctly.” She argued that the budget is thoroughly inspected by the State, is created using the State laws and guidance, and is fully correct.
Mr. Lamken also pointed out that there are a large number of teachers who are “out of field” this year. Out of field means that the teacher is not certified in the area in which they are teaching. Chairwoman Martin questioned this as well during the meeting. Nassau County School District Staff assured her that the “out-of-field” numbers were normal and were mainly due to difficulties in hiring teachers.
Additionally, during the meeting the Consent and Personnel Agendas were passed unanimously.
Matthew Decker is a Co-Founder of Citizens Journal Florida, having set up some of the technical and social media infrastructure. He also developed sourcing for some of its municipal government and business content. He is an Aerospace Engineer by trade. He has worked in NGO’s performing civic activities. He originally hails from Ventura, CA
By Nassau County Parks and Recreation
10-14-22
The Board of County Commissioners and GreenPointe Communities, Inc., will host a Ribbon Cutting Ceremony next week celebrating completion of Phase One of the Tributary Regional Park. This phase consists of new a playground, athletic fields, a multi-use space, concession stand, and restroom facility. Future phases include additional athletic fields, a dog park, board walk with kayak launch, multi-use trails, and nature trails.
The park is a result of a public-private partnership between the Board of County Commissioners and the Developer, GreenPointe Communities, Inc. The Park is located on Edwards Road, just east of I-95 and although it’s adjacent to the Tributary community, it is a regional park that will be available for all Nassau County residents to enjoy.
WHAT: Ribbon Cutting for Tributary Park (Phase One)
WHEN: Thursday, October 20, 2022 at 10:00 a.m.
WHERE: Tributary Park, 75425 Edwards Road, Yulee, FL 32097
If you have any questions, please contact Parks & Recreation Director, Jay Robertson, at (904) 530-6120 or via email at [email protected].
By Jeff Childers
10-15-22
Happy Saturday, C&C! Welcome to the Weekend Edition. Today’s roundup includes: Judge jails mask objector; study shows Pfizer’s covid drug can be dangerous; CDC hired same PR firm as Pfizer, Moderna; Biden destroys Chinese chipmaking industry overnight; EU prosecutor confirms it is investigating the jabs; Epstein was working for the FBI; FBI arrests senior sitters; Stanford doc compares “her testicles” to her appendix; and corporate media discovers Hurricane Ian’s most tragic victim.
🔥 Yesterday, RedState ran a story headlined, “Rural North Carolina Judge Sends Potential Juror to Jail – With No Bond – For Refusing to Wear Mask.” According to RedState, earlier this week Harnett County Superior Court Judge C. Winston Gilchrist threw potential juror and law-abiding citizen Greg Hahn into the slammer over a mask violation.
Apparently, when Hahn showed up for jury duty, the clerk told the pool of potential jurors that, even though there is no mask mandate in North Carolina, Judge Gilchrist requires masks to be worn at all times in his kingdom, I mean courtroom. In October 2022. After everything.
Anyway, when the clerk asked if anyone had a problem with the mask rule, Hahn raised his hand.
The clerk promptly sent Hahn up to see Judge Gilchrist, explaining “the judge wants to talk to you.” According to Hahn, when he got there, Judge Gilchrist said, “I understand that you don’t want to wear a mask?” Hahn said, “That’s correct, sir.” Gilchrist asked, “May I ask why?” Hahn helpfully replied, “There is no mask mandate in the courthouse, in the county, or in the state.”
Seems logical.
But, after confirming that Hahn would not wear a mask if ordered, the judge promptly sentenced the luckless potential juror to a day in jail, for contempt of court. On his way out, escorted by the bailiff, Hahn told the judge he was a single dad and needed to make a call to arrange child care. The judge refused to let him call. Hahn then asked if he could just be released from juror duty instead of spending a day in jail.
The judge said, “I could do that, but I’m not going to.”
Harnett County, NC Judge Winston Gilchrist has some explaining to do. Greg Hahn, whose story was first covered nationally at @RedState, appeared on #Tucker to share more about what happened. redstate.comRural North Carolina Judge Sends Potential Juror to Jail – With No Bond – For Refusing to Wear MaskJudge Charles “Winston” Gilchrist, who was a criminal defense attorney until appointed to the bench, attempted a power trip against a man who actually served his country.7:32 AM ∙ Oct 15, 202219Likes10Retweets
Hahn told reporters that the judge was not wearing a mask at the time. Ironically, no masks are required in Harnett County Jail, so Hahn didn’t have to wear the mask. The joke was on Judge Gilchrist, who could not be reached for comment.
I wonder if Judge Gilchrist would consider an order requiring jurors to wear a “MAGA” cap in his courtroom. A MAGA cap stops covid just as well as cloth masks do. Maybe we should mail him some, so he could test them out. I get the impression he might appreciate some new ideas at this point.
💊 Uh-oh! This isn’t going to be good for business. The Daily Mail UK ran a story yesterday headlined, “Pfizer’s Covid Drug Paxlovid – Which Was Used to Treat Biden – Can Cause Deadly Blood Clots, Study Warns.”
Blood clots. Again!
The study’s gist was, researchers from Harvard Medical School found Paxlovid can cause serious health problems — including blood clots — when coupled with very common heart disease medication, like statins and blood thinners. It can also cause irregular heartbeat when taken along with drugs for heart pain, and when taken with statins can be toxic to the liver. When taken with immunosuppressants, Paxlovid can lead to toxic levels of blood plasma.
It’s SO great we’re finding out about all these problems AFTER the drug was released and millions of doses purchased with our tax dollars. Thanks Pfizer clinical studies! Thanks FDA regulators!
The speed of science!
WHOOOOSH. “What was that?”
“That was science, mate.”
“What was it doing?”
“It just stole your pocketbook, silly.”
Since Paxlovid is intended for use by patients likely to become seriously ill from covid, like seniors and people with pre-existing conditions — like heart disease — checking for drug interactions is pretty important.
Not only does Paxlovid give you a worse covid infection as a “rebound,” but it can also kill you. Sounds familiar, just like another medicine that Pfizer makes. Weird coincidence.
🔥 Investigative reporter Paul Thacker, who was instrumental in the BMI’s bombshell investigation of Pfizer’s vaccine-trial misconduct, published another expose this week, headlined “Weber Shandwick Provides PR for Moderna and Pfizer, While Staffing the CDC’s Vaccine Office.”
Weber Shandwick is a public-relations firm that has long represented Pfizer and other pharma companies, and started providing public relations services to Moderna in 2020. During the you-know-what. So it has 100% of the approved covid vaccine makers as clients.
Thacker came across some social media posts by Weber Shandwick employees celebrating being assigned to a new account — the Centers for Disease Control. He did some digging and found a September, 2020 article in Medical Marketing and Media announcing Weber Shandwick got a $50 million contract to support the CDC’s Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases. In September 2020. Right before the jabs were deployed.
Shortly thereafter, on November 18th, 2020, a day that will live in infamy, Pfizer announced that their covid ‘vaccine’ had met all of the primary efficacy endpoints in their clinical trial. Ta-da!
Dr. Martin Kulldorf, Professor of Medicine at Harvard (on leave), told Thacker “It is concerning that CDC talking points are provided by the same public relations company that works for the vaccine manufacturers.”
You think?
I have lots of questions. First of all, WHY DOES THE CDC NEED A PR FIRM? Fifty million dollars worth? Second of all, why does the CDC need a PR firm that specializes in DRUG PROMOTION? I didn’t know the CDC was a pharma company, but in hindsight, I guess it makes sense. Third, and I can’t believe I even have to ask this question, what about Weber Shandwick’s CONFLICT OF INTEREST?
I mean, what happens if the jabs aren’t working so good? The CDC, and its agent, Weber, would have a manifest duty to publish negative information about the jabs — but it would hurt Weber’s other clients, Moderna and Pfizer. So …?
The worst thing about this story is it shows how hopelessly intertwined government regulatory agencies are with the drug companies they are supposed to be regulating.
If you want more details, here’s the link to Thacker’s Substack article.
Weber Shandwick Provides PR for Moderna and Pfizer, While Staffing the CDC’s Vaccine Office
7 minute read Early last month, CDC Director Rochelle P. Walensky endorsed recommendations by the CDC Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) for updated COVID-19 boosters from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna. “This recommendation followed a comprehensive scientific evaluation and robust scientific discussion…Read more4 days ago · 74 likes · 4 comments · Paul D. Thacker
🚀 Foreign Policy ran a story this week headlined, “Biden Is Now All-In on Taking Out China.” The sub-head explains, “The U.S. president has committed to rapid decoupling, whatever the consequences.”
‘Whatever the consequences’ seems to be Joe’s normal operating mode.
The news comes amid reports that the U.S. has been “evacuating” computer chip makers from Taiwan, due to fears that the Chinese could effectively blockade the island nation using “military exercises.”
A massive computer-chip war has quietly started, without us noticing.
FP’s article reports that last Friday, in a dense regulatory filing, a little-known federal agency called the Bureau of Industry and Security deployed new limits banning exports to China of advanced semiconductors, chip-making equipment, and supercomputer components. The filing placed new criminal penalties on Americans helping Chinese chipmakers.
The BIS’s filing hit the chipmaking industry like electric shock treatment. Americans working in China dropped everything, hastily accessing Word’s “resignation letter” wizard, and swamping airlines’ websites buying up tickets to get back home. Biden’s new guidance prompted apocalyptic tweets like this one:
Jordan Schneider @jordanschnyc
The following is the translation of a thread posted earlier this week by @lidangzzz. “Lots of people don’t know what happened yesterday. To put it simply, Biden has forced all Americans working in China to pick between quitting their jobs and losing American citizenship.11:52 AM ∙ Oct 14, 20227,013Likes1,551Retweets
In a followup tweet, China analyst Jordan Schneider said, “Every American executive and engineer working in China’s semiconductor manufacturing industry resigned yesterday, paralyzing Chinese manufacturing overnight.” Continuing, he said bleakly, “This is what annihilation looks like: China’s semiconductor manufacturing industry was reduced to zero overnight. Complete collapse. No chance of survival.”
Other analysts aren’t quite so dire, saying China will soon replace the American workers from other countries, and be back in business before you know it. But either way, it’s a body blow to a critical Chinese high-tech industry.
As I’ve been saying, the Biden Administration has a one-trick approach to diplomacy: overreacting. The Biden Administration is like a latin girlfriend who starts hurling all the dishes at you because your iPhone randomly dropped a picture of an ex-girlfriend into your daily photo timeline. “Cabrón! Worthless Hijo de puta!”
It’s a good thing the world is in such a stable state, giving us political breathing room to sanction all these countries so hard.
💉 Yesterday, the European Public Prosecutor’s Office announced it is investigating the “acquisition of Covid-19 vaccines in the European Union.” Wisely, it is not releasing any more details.
In my experience, law enforcement agencies normally won’t even confirm whether an investigation exists or not. So this “public confirmation” is very different. It could be huge.
European twitterers commenting on the story are super excited because the EPPO has authority to get hold of the private messages between EU president Ursula Von Der Leyan and Pfizer president Albert Bourla, which Von Der Leyan has claimed were ‘accidentally deleted’ or ‘lost on her old phone’ or bleachbitted or something.
I’m not ready to get excited yet, though. This could just as easily be a whitewashing investigation, instead of one that could result in any criminal charges against anybody. Or the investigation could just be a pressure play by the EU to force Pfizer to let it out of the jab contract, now that nobody wants the shots anymore.
But it’s movement in the right direction.
🔥 Twitterers pounced on newly released FBI forms suggesting that the most prolific pedophile in history, Jeffrey Epstein, might also have been an FBI informant.
This form — one of many, apparently — raises the question of whether the FBI knew about — and ignored — Epstein’s continuing human trafficking operation, wherein he arranged for large numbers of young girls to be raped by famous people, and for which Ghislaine Maxwell was also convicted, after a trial in which not one of the people who raped the underaged girls was identified.
Despite having Epstein’s cooperation, the FBI was never able to find any of the child rapists, not one single one, despite what — I am sure — was a heroically diligent investigation. Don’t judge, they are super busy rounding up abortion-clinic blockers.
But, now that Epstein is dead, there’s no reason to protect his secret informant files, is there?
Let’s see them all. Show them to me.
🔥 Don’t lose faith, because the FBI is ON TOP OF THINGS. This week, the FBI arrested 87-year-old concentration camp survivor Eva Edl for violations of the FACE Act, for peacefully ‘blocking’ the door to an abortion clinic.
She probably got her looney ideas watching all those YouTube videos of Antifa thugs torching courthouses and police stations and seizing downtown Portland. I bet Eva thought, if THOSE criminals aren’t being charged for violent crimes, I can get away with sitting in front of an abortion clinic.
Haha, not so fast, Eva! You may have evaded charges for trespassing, but you forgot about the crack squad of highly motivated law enforcement personnel down at the F.B.I.!
So, don’t worry, citizens, there’s nothing to fear. The FBI won’t tolerate any lawless sitters, not in THIS country. Agents are hard at work, protecting society from scurrilous sedentary senior citizens like Eva. And I’m sure that, once they round up all the reclining 80-year-olds, they’ll get around to those Antifa goons and child rapists. Just you wait.
The FBI has to prioritize things, after all.
🔥 Chris Rufo got hold of a clip showing that, during a recent TED Talk, a Stanford University doctor excitedly bragged that “demand for transgender surgery has increased” 500%. In the clip, she wonders whether adolescents should be allowed to consent to transgender surgery, comparing removal of the testicles to removal of the appendix, suggesting both organs are useless, unnecessary, and just get in the way.
Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ @realchrisrufo
Continuing at the speed of science, the Stanford’ doctor’ called them, “her testes.” HERS. TED talks aren’t quite what they used to be. Talking about “her testicles” makes a good TED talk these days, apparently, and please don’t get me started about standards at Stanford.
The doctor also helpfully suggested that, “The transgender patient may be one of the MOST well-informed patients … [and] rather than use strict age limits … insurances involved SHOULD consider older adolescents for getting gender affirmation surgeries.”
Oh. Insurance companies. The ones that PAY for the endless expensive surgeries. Uh huh. Okay, doc.
🔥 Corporate media has discovered Hurricane Ian’s most tragic victim — democrat gubernatorial candidate Charlie Crist.
Poor Charlie! Life can be SO unfair sometimes. I blame climate change. Please keep Hurricane Ian victim Charlie Crist in your thoughts today, while you’re doing your bathroom business.
Have a wonderful weekend! I’ll see you guys back here on Monday morning to kick the week off right.
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The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
by Joan Swirsky, ©2022
(Oct. 12, 2022) — In 1959, I was 18, newly married to my former boyfriend of four years, and thrilled to be starting my “grown-up” life with the man of my dreams. Little did my then-apolitical self know that the close of that halcyon decade had been preceded by nearly a century of a concerted effort to destroy the American family, an effort fueled by the same fanatical Communist zealots who now occupy the Oval Office of the United States of America!
Now why would anyone––much less a huge number of people––want to destroy the greatest and most successful experiment in government in world history, one which President Abraham Lincoln described as “of the people, by the people, for the people,” the Democratic Republic of the United States of America?
Simply, because it flew in the face of every political system that previously existed––monarchies, dictatorships, oligarchies, aristocracies, totalitarianism, communism, socialism––systems in which the immense power and abuse-of-power that these regimes exercised would be vanquished if replaced by the Power of the People that the Founding Fathers of America envisioned.
The mission of those other regimes was never ever about concern for their populaces; rather it was––and is today––purely about the acquisition and maintenance of power and control and especially the immense wealth that comes with both power and control. Always, always, always follow the money!
HOW CAN WE DESTROY AMERICA?
The enemies of America thought long and hard about how to destroy this fledgling experiment. It was clear to them that America’s strength was a function of three phenomena:
If we destroy all three, our enemies reasoned, the masses they considered essentially stupid would be forced to rely exclusively on Big Government. And so, to this day, the socialists-cum-communists among us are employing––as their predecessors did–– every malevolent, criminal, and vicious tactic they can muster to actualize that goal.
ASTOUNDING PROGRESS
The America haters among us have already:
Still, the family remains their most desired––yet maddeningly elusive––target.
HELP ALONG THE WAY
That effort was generously helped––perhaps, at first, innocently––by the theories of Sigmund Freud (1836-1939), the Austrian neurologist-cum-psychiatrist who was wildly successful in convincing the relatively new and free-thinking American public that the genesis of neuroses, phobias, anxieties, obsessions, depression, psychosis, and general psychological malfunction not only took place in the first few years of life, but that the mothers who raised these suffering children were primarily to blame. Later therapists, like the sadistic psychiatrist Bruno Bettelheim, blamed mothers for their children’s autism.
Mission #1 Accomplished: Mothers are not good for children.
These psychological theories prevailed throughout the 20th century and up to today, embraced by generations of psychiatrists, psychoanalysts, and psychotherapists until 1998 when they were thoroughly debunked by Judith Rich Harris in The Nurture Assumption, where the Harvard-educated psychologist and editor of most of the psychology texts used in colleges and medical schools in America argued persuasively that a person’s peer group is the major influence of thought, feelings, and behavior throughout life.
THE NEXT STEP
In 1960, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the most world-changing medication in history, developed by Dr. John Rock, a Harvard professor and obstetrician-gynecologist with five children––along with Drs. Gregory Pincus, C.M. Phang, and Selzo Garcia. Their creation was the birth-control pill, aka The Pill! For the first time in world history, women had control over their reproduction.
For millions of women, it was their own Declaration of Independence, and a huge relief not to have to worry every month about getting pregnant.
Mission #2 Accomplished: Now we can be just like men, some women reasoned, and have as much sex as we want without worrying about getting pregnant. Thus was the Free Sex movement born and a complete redefinition of traditional morality.
GET OUT OF THE HOUSE!
Three years after The Pill, in 1963, a book by Betty Friedan, a housewife with three children, shot to the top of every bestseller list. In essence, The Feminine Mystique told women that they were simply too smart, too creative, too intrinsically or at least potentially powerful to be spending their time, actually wasting their time changing diapers, folding laundry, and—the most colossal waste of time of all––raising children.
Nevertheless, Friedan’s book resonated with multimillions of women who had lived through the peaceful ‘50s and been spared the suffering and sacrifice of their mothers and grandmothers who had lived through the Great Depression in 1929, planted Victory Gardens during World Wars I and II, joined Rosie the Riveter in working in factories and shipyards to help the WWII war effort, lost husbands and sons to war, often raised children on their own, yet kept their families intact. The list of their arduous and valorous deeds goes on and on.
But that was then, the young women of the ‘60’s believed…this is now. Look what we have already accomplished! After that stodgy old Republican President (and former General) Dwight D. Eisenhower, we elected the dashing Democrat John F. Kennedy, with his glamorous wife Jackie and their two adorable children––all who ushered in the age of politics on “live” TV.
Mission #3 Accomplished: Multimillions of young women abandoned the once-desired goal of early marriage and motherhood and instead enrolled in colleges and universities where they pursued professional careers ranging from medicine and law and architecture to jobs like telephone linewomen to military combatants to firefighters to hedge fund managers to business executives, et al.
Coincidentally, ahem, an economy that once allowed men to work outside of the home and support a wife and children magically became an economy that only two working parents could afford. Kind of like an economy that was completely energy independent in 2020 quite magically became one in which the President of the United States had to beg foreign countries to sell him oil in 2021.
REALITY SETS IN
But the ‘60s also ushered in the historically unprecedented rash of violent assassinations––live on TV––of:
All of a sudden, the idealized world of the newly emancipated women was shattered. The world is out of control, they realized. Is it any wonder that so many of them enthusiastically embraced (or attended) the 1969 Woodstock Music Festival, with not only free sex but a geyser of drugs for the smoking and snorting and injecting?
Mission #4 Accomplished: Many of these college-educated women congratulated themselves on avoiding marriage and especially motherhood, asking themselves: “Who wants to bring a child into this world?”
ONLY A FEW YEARS LATER
In 1971, Gloria Steinem––“We are becoming the men we wanted to marry” ––founded the first national feminist magazine, Ms., along with founding editor Letty Cottin Pogrebin and others.
Its message, as Pogrebin said on TV, was to spare women the dire fate of talking to their friends about laundry detergents. This and other angry feminist messages inspired an entire generation of women to use The Pill, defer marriage, go to college, pursue careers, and not even contemplate marriage or motherhood until their early- or mid-thirties, when their biological clocks started ticking quite loudly.
Mission #5 Accomplished: The traditional nuclear family was being dismantled by a new generation of women who bought into the notion that making money was infinitely more satisfying, meaningful, and important than raising children.
MARRIAGE OUT––NOW BABIES OUT!
On January 22, 1973, the Supreme Court issued a 7–2 decision in Roe v. Wade that all women had a “right” to an abortion. To this day, that decision is the Holy Grail of millions of women who believe that “my body, my choice” starts after they’ve had unprotected sex and gotten pregnant with a baby they don’t want.
In 2022, the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and sent the decision for abortion back to each individual state. Today, every woman in the United States who wants an abortion can get an abortion, although some may have to endure the inconvenience of traveling to another state…forget about the inconvenience their embryos face of a death sentence!
Mission #6 Accomplished: The once-most-cherished accomplishment of both men and women—to be the parent of a newborn baby––was effectively reduced to ending that baby’s life in utero. And today, in some states, abortion exists right up to the moment a full-term baby is delivered, and, believe it or not, in California, even up to the time a healthy thriving baby is 28 days old!
THE TICKING CLOCK
But uh-oh. After graduating from college and laboring in the workforce for over a decade, millions of women realized that this money-making thing wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. But looking for a good man––after stepping on their necks on the way up the ladder––was even more problematic.
Nevertheless, the new social phenomenon of women marrying in their mid-thirties and older took hold, and not coincidentally gave rise to a booming in-vitro-fertilization industry, as millions of these new brides learned that conceiving and carrying a child after the age of 35 was both a “high-risk” and extremely pricey enterprise.
Mission #7 Accomplished: Take the joy out of intimacy and sex, make it a mechanical act, and further erode both marriage and the family at the same time.
BUT WHAT ABOUT MY CAREER?
The modern women had been told by the influencers of the day that they could “have it all” –– marriage, children, and career. Since they wanted it all, they bought it!
Some women were lucky to have their mothers or mothers-in-law or even young grandmothers volunteer to raise their children, and a rare few could afford expensive nannies.
But most women had to rely on another industry that boomed like no other––the daycare business––where mothers dropped off their infants, babies, toddlers, and preschoolers to caregivers who tended up to 20 or more children at a time. This meant that for the entire day, paid workers made sure that those children were safe and fed, but not necessarily held, loved, comforted, taught, or nurtured.
However, this still allowed the mothers of these infants, babies, toddlers, and preschoolers to brag that the hour or so they spent with their child at the end of a day––in which both mother and child were exhausted––was, ahem, “quality time.”
In addition, these “older” mothers, already guilty about the protracted hours away from their children, strove to be “friends” with their kids, praising them for, um, waking up in the morning, even smoking pot with them, and, in essence, abandoning the traditional role of the parent who teaches right and wrong, good and bad, proper behavior, et al.
Mission #8 Accomplished: Women out of the home, children being raised by strangers, the American family being dismantled piece by piece.
THE GENIUS STEVE FACTOR
Two geniuses…Steve Case, the founding CEO of America Online (AOL) in 1983 (which really took off in the ‘90s), and Steve Jobs, who invented, created, introduced the iPhone in 2007 and the iPad in 2010.
No need to elaborate on the degree to which these geniuses totally eliminated face-to-face communication and succeeded in riveting both parents and children to all the tantalizing distractions on these electronic devices that separate people and depersonalize intimate relationships, especially meaningful communication between parents and children.
Mission #9 Accomplished: Family concerns take a backseat to beeping texts, sexy emojis, Facebook invitations, Instagram images, Hollywood gossip, and horrifically graphic porn sites, which even savvy eight-year-olds can access with ease.
Worse, this has given rise to an entire generation of sociopaths who, understandably, have little or no human empathy, given the largely robotic care they received, combined with their toxic schooling and intimate “relationships” with their electronic devices.
Also, a remarkably fragile generation. When parents fear that “everything children see, do, eat, hear, and lick could hurt them,” write Lenore Skenazy and Jonathan Haidt in “The Fragile Generation,” children are left “more fragile, more easily offended, and more reliant on others.” Safe spaces, anyone?
EMBOLDENED PSYCHOPATHS
With all this success, it is no wonder that the lunatics who are running the insane asylum that is America today have inflicted their warped vision of the world on a tremendous number of people, thanks largely to a corrupt leftist media who are literally paid––see Media Whores––to carry these sick messages 24/7.
Men can have babies, they say. Well, of course, it you’re a woman who thinks she’s a man and decides to “transition” and undergo a double mastectomy and take testosterone injections but keeps her ovaries and uterus and Fallopian tubes and then is artificially inseminated and conceives and carries a baby, all the time proclaiming her maleness, he/she must think we’re all like recent Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who when asked to define a woman said she couldn’t because “I am not a biologist.” Right.
“YOU DON’T HAVE TO BE THERE”
And now we have an ad––since removed and eliminated from every search engine––that shows a child laughing and sharing an experience with her clearly delighted mother. Both are on iPads communicating long distance. The ad ends with a voice telling the mother: “You Don’t Have to Be There.”
Right. The mother doesn’t have to be there to raise and love and comfort and teach and tuck her child in at night, and the father doesn’t have to be there, either. Only Big Government should raise their child to be a good little obedient Communist. That’s the message!
Mission #10 Accomplished: Father never mentioned, mother out of the picture, the actual premeditated murder of the American family.
I rest my case.
Republished with author’s permission
Joan Swirsky is a New York-based journalist and author. Her website is www.joanswirsky.com, and she can be reached at [email protected].
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
By Joan Swirsky, 9-29-22
A friend recently reminded me of an article I had written on October 5, 2020, just before the presidential election that found all TV networks reporting that President Donald Trump was crushing Joe Biden across the board—including in the all-important battleground states—and then that coverage mysteriously stopped cold, disappeared for over three hours, and reappeared to report that the exact opposite was true, that Joe Biden had magically become the Crusher in Chief, ultimately “winning” the 2020 election.
“Remember the title of your article?” my friend asked me. In fact, I did, since it was the only time in decades of writing that I had capitalized a word in the title. It read like this:
The ONLY Issue in the 2020 Election is Voter Fraud.
Well, it’s election time again, and sure enough the same thing is true. And after viewing Dinesh D’Souza’s jaw-dropping “2000 Mules,” which documents the massive fraud that indeed took place in 2020, and after reading dozens of reports about audits that were done in the battleground states and others which uncovered overwhelming voter fraud, including thousands of dead voters, it appears that voter fraud is once again the ONLY issue of concern. Great concern.
When you peel back all the layers of the onion of a human being’s psychology, our species is really not that complicated. Whether man or woman, black or white, rich or poor, from whatever background, religion, or culture, we all have similar if not identical needs.
In 1943, psychologist Abraham Maslow introduced the concept of a Hierarchy of Needs, which hasn’t changed much since then. They include:
Physiological needs that are vital to survival:
Security and Safety Needs
Social needs
Yes, these are needs common to everyone, and yet in the past two years, under the Biden regime, every single one of them has been threatened if not destroyed.
With the stupefying mismanagement of our national budget—and in spite of the booming economy and high employment he inherited— the Biden inflation factor didn’t take long to set in, followed in short order by the Biden Recession. There went the security most Americans felt in buying food and gas and paying rent. Even reproduction is down as younger people hoping to move out of their parent’s basement have hunkered down for an indefinite stay.
At the same time, there went the country’s security and safety needs. With four-million illegal aliens swarming over Biden’s open southern border, including drug cartels with so much Fentanyl that the deaths of young people have already increased exponentially, and thugs and criminals being bused and flown in the middle of the night to cities and suburbs throughout our country, even a walk in the park or a trip to the supermarket has become a looming threat.
And with liberal legislators all over the country ignoring the massive criminality of thuggish groups like Antifa and Black Lives Matter, and innocent pedestrians being assaulted—sometimes fatally—and the passing of no-bail laws that put rapists and muggers and even murderers back on the street 20 minutes after they are so-called “booked,” life in America has become a daily and nightly menace.
And let’s not forget Biden’s pathetic reliance on foreign oil, going hat in hand literally begging for the resources to keep us going, while only two years ago, President Trump had achieved one-hundred percent energy independence—to last us 500 years!
Then there is the war in Ukraine and the billions (going on trillions) we have sent to what is now widely recognized at The Money-Laundering Capital of the World!
A normal person would look at the bleak state of our union and conclude that the powers-that-be—those running the show from the Oval Office—are so woefully inept, have such patronizing contempt for We the People, and such a deep loathing for America the Beautiful, that it would seem to be a given that every Democrat candidate, including those running for the U.S. Senator or the U.S. Congress on Tuesday, November 8, would lose in a landslide.
Over the past many decades—with the advent of electronic voting machines and mail-in ballots—American elections have not been predictable. Why? Because the only thing Democrats have cared about for the past hundred years is winning elections with the goal of inflicting their strangulating socialist/communist and now Islamist style of government on the American people.
In the past two years in particular, they’ve been maniacally obsessed with insuring that President Trump is unable to run again for POTUS, even if the perpetual sore losers of the left have to buy the guns they say they hate to wage a Civil War!
Why? Because citizen-cum President Trump won the 2016 election by exposing:
Even diehard leftist partisans acknowledge that Democrats have stolen elections over the past many decades by enlisting the votes of illegal aliens, absentee voters who simply don’t exist, cartoon characters, and of course dead voters.
Then there is Ballot Harvesting, a scheme exclusively used by Democrats to, ahem, win elections. According to California political commentator Stephan Frank, anyone—campaign workers, minors, illegals, et al—go door to door to “help” people fill out ballots that strangely favor Democrats and refuse to collect ballots from anyone they suspect of voting the “wrong” way. They even pay them to vote the “right way.”
According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, currently 26 states allow this fraudulence, a practice that was aggressively and somewhat successfully challenged by Tom Fitton of [email protected].
Not to omit ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now), in operation since 1970. But the group was exposed for its criminal activities in 2009 by James O’Keefe, founder of The Veritas Project, resulting in multiple convictions for massive voter fraud in several states, and it closed its doors in 2010, although it is believed that splinter groups formed and are active to this day.
The following is a tiny example of the vote-rigging methods used exclusively by Democrats going into the 2020 election:
But Democrats don’t stop! This past August, Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson’s tried to dismiss the Public Interest Legal Foundation’s (PILF) lawsuit for her failure to remove 25,975 dead registrants from the state’s voter rolls.
According to PILF:
In August, the United States Western District Court of Michigan denied Benson’s attempt.
In July, a hearing on the Maricopa, Arizona, 2020 election audit revealed the following:
In addition, a recent Georgia audit of the 2020 election revealed:
According to a Google whistleblower in Allum Bokhari’s book, #DELETED: Big Tech’s Battle to Erase the Trump Movement and Steal the Election,
When voters find out what Big Tech companies have done to meddle in the upcoming election, they’ll be rightly furious
at the attempts of Google, Facebook, Twitter, and other tech companies to sway the election in Biden’s favor.
In addition, Democrats Sen. Charles Schumer and Rep. Nancy Pelosi are closely aligned with groups like Majority Forward (created in 2015) that funnel millions in secret cash into 2020 elections, according to FreeBeacon.com.
Linda Goudsmit, author of The Book of Humanitarian Hoaxes: Killing America with ‘Kindness’, sees the upcoming midterms as yet another “sinister leftist, Islamist, globalist attack on America.” “We are only weeks away from the election,” she said, and “the enemies of America are desperate” and behaving like cornered animals poised for attack. Their survival is at stake because if Republicans take the Congress, they will start the process that President Trump began of taking down the Deep State and exposing them all.
It must be incomprehensible to all those liberals/leftists/progressives—with all their prestigious college degrees, high IQs, impeccable credentials, fancy job titles, and positions in the highest reaches of the American government—that every ploy they used against President Trump, every arch machination, every exquisitely formulated plan of action, all resulted in crashing failures, and that everything they’ve done to try to legitimize Joe Biden and enact his deeply anti-American agenda has resulted in equally colossal failures.
But still, there remains ONLY one overriding issue in the 2022 midterm elections, and that issue is Democrat Voter Fraud!
Our Republican and Conservative leaders have had two years to right the egregious wrong of the 2020 election. If that sordid history repeats itself, they only have themselves to blame!
Republished with author’s permission
[email protected] | Website | + posts
Joan Swirsky is a New York-based journalist and author. Her website is www.joanswirsky.com and she can be reached at [email protected].
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
By The Newcomers Club of Amelia Island
10-12-22
The Newcomers Club of Amelia Island is a local ladies social club whose purpose is to extend a friendly hand to all women who currently reside in Nassau County. It offers many social and service activities in the community and an opportunity for developing new friendships.
Whether it’s collecting food for the animal shelter or supporting the clients at ARC, a daytime care center for developmentally challenged adults, Newcomers generously donate their time.
They hold a monthly introduction and welcome meeting on the second Tuesday of every month at the Community Meeting Room of the Nassau County Library, Fernandina Beach Branch, 25 N. 4th St. (just off Centre Street ). The next meeting will be on November 8th. For information on how to register and attend visit newcomersamelia.org.
By Jeff Childers
10-14-22
Good morning, and happy Friday, C&C! We’re halfway through October and less than a month before midterms. Hold onto your hat. Today’s roundup includes: J6 Committee subpoenas President Trump for testimony after “convicting him” of sedition, or insurrection, or something; Tulsi leaves the democrats, nuking the bridges behind her; inflation “unexpectedly” surges, baffling Joe Biden; MEP demands a refund for “fake vaccines”; PayPal tries to bribe users to stay; Twitter cancels AOL critics; State Department tries to start World War III; Biden forgets stuff; and the best Freudian slip you’ll see all year.
🪖 Last night I spoke at the Unity Conference Event in Clearwater and had a chance to visit with tons of loyal C&C fans. In case you missed it, I will also be speaking at the second annual Covid Summit in Ocala, Florida next Saturday, October 22, with a terrific lineup of other speakers, including Doctors Robert Malone, Ryan Cole, Pierre Kory, Richard Urso, Paul Marik, Steven Hatfill, and many others, including my awesome fellow attorney Bobbie Ann Cox, who single-handedly shut down New York’s deplorable quarantine camps.
Last year’s Covid Summit was one of the best such events in 2021, as judged by feedback and by how often people still mention it. This one looks to be even better, and is being held at a great venue in the Villages, Florida. You can register at prescribetruth.com. Hope to see you there.
🔥 Remember, it’s totally coincidental. This story has nothing to do with the mid-terms — nothing at all — but yesterday — three weeks before the critical congressional elections — the January 6th Committee held a blockbuster hearing, you’ll be forgiven if you weren’t aware it was even happening, and in a dramatic finale voted to subpoena President Trump for public testimony before the Committee and to produce tons of documents.
They even let the detestable Miss Piggy, I mean Liz Cheney, propose the resolution.
NOW – Jan. 6 committee votes to subpoena Trump ahead of the United States midterm elections.
7:38 PM ∙ Oct 13, 20222,091Likes584Retweets
It’s another stunt; the Committee has no more meetings scheduled before the elections. Furthermore, a congressional subpoena CAN request documents within a short period, like a week or two, but in practice nothing happens for at least a month. Trump’s attorneys will respond, almost certainly raising various objections that will have to be hashed out in court.
So Trump WON’T testify before the elections.
But the Committee MIGHT have time to do it before the new Congress convenes in January and pulls their plug. Maybe. They should’ve started this a month ago. It makes you wonder if they really want to hear from Trump, or just want to complain about him resisting their subpoena and force the Republicans to “let him off the hook.”
To give you some flavor of how things went, corpulent Committee chair Bennie Thompson kicked off the hearing announcing that the “evidence” has “proven” Donald Trump “led” a “plan” to “overturn” the 2020 election — and the “plan” directly led to an attack on the U.S. Capitol and an attempt to stop a congressional proceeding.
First of all, it’s not a court. They’re not judges. Their silly video clips are not “evidence.” They have no legal right to “prove” anything. Bennie Thompson is one of the dimmest bulbs on the Democrats’ flickering Winter Solstice tree. Anyway, they played a bunch of cherry-picked, heavily edited video clips of various people saying all the usual impassioned things that people — including democrats — say before elections.
Thompson concluded insisting they’ve proven beyond any reasonable doubt that, after giving his speech on January 6th, Trump intended to personally lead a “heavily armed” group of “terrorists wearing body armor” in an attack on the Capitol. Or, he wanted to drive the Beast “off the road” to meet the terrorists at the Capitol, instead of walking there. Either way.
I am not making that up.
The Committee explained its theory that Trump just wanted to delay the election certification by a few days, so that his “fake elector plot” would have time to work, which would overturn the totally unexpected historical vote for Joe Biden that magically appeared in the middle of the night. Then the Committee voted to subpoena Trump, and the unhinged leftwing twitter swamps erupted in widespread celebrations. It was like a virtual block party in Wonderland combined with a deranged ticker-tape parade.
Presidents have been subpoenaed before — Thomas Jefferson for documents, Richard Nixon for tapes and Bill Clinton for testimony. All were settled without anyone testifying. But I don’t think the Committee is going to settle this one. I think that in the future we can confidently expect a lot more former presidents to be subpoenaed.
You don’t hear the term “banana republic” nearly as often as you should these days.
🔥 Former democrat presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard announced this week she is leaving the Democrat Party, surprising Alabama resident Leon Jeffries, who just awoke from a twenty-year coma. That unsurprising announcement probably won’t bother Nancy Pelosi much, but the next part will. Tulsi didn’t just leave. She also called for OTHER democrats to quit:
“I’m calling on my fellow, common-sense, independent-minded democrats to join me in leaving the Democratic Party. If you can no longer stomach the direction that the so-called woke Democratic Party ideologues are taking the country, then I invite you to join me.”
11:00 AM ∙ Oct 11, 2022277,357Likes61,742Retweets
Tulsi blew up her bridges better than the terrorists who attacked the Kersch bridge in Crimea. It’s an interesting analysis to consider whether Tulsi’s statement will actually persuade many democrats to leave the party. But it probably does move the Overton Window, giving sane liberals who might have been on the fence some cover. They can now cite Tulsi to their virtue-signaling liberal friends.
Her next comments showed Tulsi must be a conspiracy theorist. She said:
“I can no longer remain in today’s Democratic party that’s under the complete control of an elitist cabal of warmongers who are driven by cowardly wokeists.”
An elitist cabal of warmongers! And, “cowardly wokeists” — ouch! That kind of talk right there can get you banned from YouTube.
Talk already started about a Trump-Gabbard ticket. It’s WAY too early for that.
📈 ZeroHedge ran a story yesterday headlined, “US Core CPI Surges To 40 Year Highs; Food & Shelter Costs Soar.” The ‘CPI’ is the “Consumer Price Index,” a measurement of inflation the government carefully games so as to show as small an effect as possible. So it is fair to conclude that REAL inflation is worse, maybe much worse, than the CPI shows.
At 8.2% annual inflation, the United States is now at the highest rate of inflation since the early 80’s. As I said, given how the government has watered-down the statistics over the years, we might be even closer to the Carter peak than the graph suggests. In other words, a Carter economy is starting to look like a best-case scenario. As you can see from the chart, prices have increased steadily since the time Biden took office.
In the latest repot, rent and shelter inflation saw the highest price increases on record, in history, ever. Food prices are up at least +13% from one year ago. Again, these figures are probably understated. Meanwhile, on the other side of the household ledger, real wages have fallen for EIGHTEEN STRAIGHT MONTHS.
It’s no coincidence that prices started spiking as soon as Biden invaded the White House. His first official acts effectively shut down U.S. domestic oil production, directly leading to higher energy costs. And higher energy prices quickly boost most other economic sectors due to higher transportation costs.
Joe Biden is baffled. He promised this would never ever happen. I don’t know, maybe he still has a trick up his sleeve that we haven’t seen, along with the little note cards that remind him where to stand and what to say.
4:36 PM ∙ Jul 19, 2021329Likes143Retweets
But I wouldn’t bet on any tricks up Biden’s sleeve, except making it worse.
Depending on your point of view and level of educational attainment, it might also reassure you that Biden rammed through the most expensive spending bill in the history of the country — his “build back better” climate bill relabeled with a new and improved Orwellian moniker, “the Inflation Reduction Act.”
That Inflation Reduction Act seems to be working exactly as intended. Good times.
💉 Pfizer’s “speed of science” admission this week continued blossoming yesterday, when Croatian lawyer and EU Member of Parliament Mislav Kolakusic demanded a refund for the jabs. Calling them “fake vaccines,” Kalakusic demanded the immediate termination of the Pfizer vaccine contract and a refund of the €71 billion euros paid to date.
Mislav Kolakusic MEP 🇭🇷🇪🇺 @mislavkolakusic
1:52 PM ∙ Oct 13, 202213,798Likes6,381Retweets
So.
🔥 PayPal, whose share price plunged after unsuccessfully attempting to $2,500 fine its own users for murkily-defined “misinformation,” is now dangling a $15 credit to entice users attempting to cancel their service to stay with the service.
Paul Joseph Watson @PrisonPlanet
PayPal is reportedly offering account holders $15 to prevent them closing their accounts after the platform shamefully threatened to steal their money if they express the ‘wrong’ opinion. summit.newsPayPal Appears To Be Desperately Offering Bribes Of $15 To Stop Droves Of People Cancelling Accounts2:02 PM ∙ Oct 13, 20221,761Likes480Retweets
But the bribe may not have been a super-awesome idea. Wily PayPal users are reportedly taking the credit and THEN cancelling their accounts.
Get woke, go broke. Et cetera.
🔥 Yesterday I posted a viral clip showing two students shouting angrily at Representative Ocasio-Cortez, calling her an elitist warmonger or something. Then later yesterday, Twitter locked the accounts of the two young men who confronted AOC in the clip.
4:34 PM ∙ Oct 13, 20221,562Likes610Retweets
I know what you’re thinking. But social media giants are NOT collaborating to help democrats. How dare you.
🚀 As Biden’s elite cabal of State Department warmongers work overtime to find a way to jam Ukraine’s NATO application through, Russia said Ukraine’s NATO membership would probably start World War III, just wait and see.
Jack Posobiec 🇺🇸 @JackPosobiec
Russia says Ukraine’s entry into NATO would ‘guarantee’ World War 3 thepostmillennial.comRussia says Ukraine’s entry into NATO would ‘guarantee’ World War 3: reportOn Thursday, a top Kremlin official warned that by admitting Ukraine into NATO, the west risks descent into a third world war….7:20 PM ∙ Oct 13, 20223,082Likes1,048Retweets
Geopolitical strategy genius and dancing comedian Volodymyr Zelenskyy urged his allies to start the nuclear war, immediately. In order to prevent the war. Or something. “What NATO has to do to prevent or deter the use of nuclear weapons by Russia,” Zelenskyy argued, is take “preventive strikes, preventive action” so that Russia would get a taste of the consequences before they deploy nuclear weapons first.
Hey, Zelenskyy’s no Einstein, okay? Don’t mock the mentally disabled. He grew up drinking water out of lead pipes.
Russia’s Security Council Alexander Venediktov responded by pointing out the obvious fact that Zelenskyy’s proposed first-strike nuclear attacks would inevitably lead to global nuclear apocalypse. “We must remember: a nuclear conflict will affect absolutely the whole world — not only Russia and the collective West, but every country on this planet,” Venediktov said. “The consequences would be disastrous for all mankind.”
But who cares! You can’t have a Great Reset without breaking a few Geiger counters. Viva Ukraine!
🔥 Earlier this week, oil-cancer-survivor Joe Biden forgot that his son Beau died from brain cancer, and mis-remembered that Beau was killed in action in Iraq.
Washington Examiner @dcexaminer
President @JoeBiden incorrectly said his late son Beau “lost his life in Iraq.” washex.am/3EAd3TE
The latest Biden gaffe is just one in a series lately. Just in the last month, Joe Biden asked to speak with a dead woman, claimed he was raised by Puerto Ricans, had to be escorted off the stage, and wandered off during a hurricane briefing.
But at least he’s not mean-tweeting! I don’t think he could mean tweet even if he were inclined to.
Record number of votes, and didn’t even campaign.
🔥 Every once in a while, a politician says what they really MEANT, and not what they MEANT TO SAY. Today’s amusing clip is a terrific example of a horrible, terrible, disastrous Freudian slip:
2:10 PM ∙ Oct 13, 202215,144Likes6,056Retweets
The look on Craig’s opponent Tyler Kistner’s face is … priceless. This clip could be the poster-child for the entire pandemic. Memers, get busy.
Have a fabulous Friday! I’ll see you back here tomorrow for the weekend edition.
C&C is moving the needle and changing minds. If you can, I could use your help getting the truth out and spreading optimism and hope: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/-learn-how-to-get-involved-
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© 2022, Jeff Childers, all rights reserved
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
By Dave Scott, 10-14-22
While Chicago, New York, and major California cities are losing corporations and residents Florida is benefiting as those people and companies fleeing high taxes and crime are finding a safe haven in the Sunshine State, particularly in cities like Miami, which resembles a boom town.
The polices of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, U.S. Senators Marco Rubio, Rick Scott and Miami Mayor Francis Suarez have attracted hundreds of thousands of new residents at the expense of California, Illinois, New York, Michigan, etc. And they aren’t bringing the Democrat politics of their former states with them. This year Florida registered more Republicans than Democrats for the first time in its history.
According to Mario Loyola, who teaches environmental law at Florida International University and is a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, Miami leads the country in tech-job growth and migration and is among the top 10 U.S. cities for venture capital investment.
During the first 15 months between April 2020 and June 2022 Florida realized an increase of nearly 200,000 people, more than any other state. According to Mr. Loyola, Florida led the nation in income migration, gaining more than $20 billion in net income from 2010 to 2020, while California and New York each lost almost as much.
While businesses and families are moving here in record numbers, tourists both foreign and domestic are also rushing in for a look-see.
Lat year was the best year for domestic tourism in the state’s history. In addition, more than 40 percent of international tourism to the U.S. in 2021 was to Florida.
Florida has also reported that it has a $22 billion revenue surplus, despite being a state without an income tax. That is a result of rapidly expanding economy, fueled by out-of-state migration and investment.
DeSantis’s gubernatorial opponent is the pathetic Charlie Crist, a former Republican governor, Independent candidate, and current Democrat 13th District Congressman from the confused Left Coast county of Pinellas. The national Democrat party has essentially written this loser off and is contributing nothing to his campaign. As Time Magazine said recently about DeSantis, the Democrats have given him a pass and “seem powerless to stop him.”
But what about DeSantis’s former gubernatorial opponent Andrew Gillum, the former mayor of Tallahassee? If you’re a Democrat don’t ask. In 2018 this sad sack was found by police in a hotel with a male sex worker and another guy who overdosed on drugs. He was also recently indicted for alleged wire fraud, conspiracy, and false statements. This is quality of Florida’s Democrat candidates, even though they are a step above those in New York, California, and Illinois.
***
Wait! What? While ditzy Vice President Kamala Harris was telling us that to ensure equity Florida’s minority population should be first in line for aid following Hurricane Ian, an even dimmer President Biden told a Puerto Rican crowd that he “was sort of raised in the Puerto Rican community at home, politically.” Delaware is a state that has only a 2.5 percent Puerto Rican population and probably had even less when this idiot was living there.
Biden also told us all that he attended a black college (he didn’t); that he was appointed to the U.S. Naval Academy (he wasn’t); said he drove an 18-wheeler (he didn’t); tells us the southern border is secure (it isn’t); says he never spoke to his son Hunter about his business dealings (he did); said he finished second in his law school class (he finished 76th out of 85); said he was arrested while trying to visit activist Nelson Mandela in a South African prison (he wasn’t); said he participated in civil rights marches and sit-ins to desegregate restaurants and movie houses (he didn’t); says America’s southern border is secure (it isn’t); called out for a recently deceased Congresswoman to join him on stage (he did); said he was a university professor (he wasn’t); says the Catholic Church no longer makes the argument that there are no exceptions for abortion (it still does); and said his home once burned while his wife was in it (it didn’t).
These two mentally challenged morons who are allegedly running the country aren’t qualified to operate a front yard lemonade stand.
The November elections can’t get here fast enough so a Republican majority can throw a legislative net over these two dangerous twits, take the gavel away from the aged and out-of-touch Nancy Pelosi and stuff Chuck “The Schmuck” Schumer down the Senate minority drain.
***
And Don’t Let The Door Hit You In The….. Now that the courts have tossed Stacey Abram’s lawsuit out by ruling that Georgia’s election laws are fair and equally open will Delta Airlines, Coca-Cola and Major League Baseball apologize to the people of Georgia for having the 2021 All-Star Baseball game moved to Denver and then show the jerks that advised them to do so the door. Why doesn’t this trio of twits owe reparations to all the small businesses (many black owned) in Atlanta that lost millions because of their rash and ill-advised actions? In the future this troika of bozos should stick to what they do best: play a game, sell sugar water, and lose luggage.
***
Nobody Goes There Anymore, It’s Too Crowded: Results of a recent survey says Kentucky Fried Chicken serves its food faster than any other drive through chain while indicating Chick-fil-A was the slowest.
Of the ten fast food joints surveyed Chick-fil-A was rated the best food with the most pleasant employees and ranked as the most crowded, explaining the slower service of three and one-minutes longer than KFC.
The only conclusion I can draw from this survey is that there are people out there that want lousy food and they want it in a hurry.
***
Speaking Of “To-Go” Firms: A number of firms are packing up and leaving Chicago due to rising crime rates with chicken giant Tyson Foods the latest to announce that it will be moving its offices out of the Chicago area to Arkansas.
Tyson is toddling out of Chicago as that city experiences a 37% increase in violent crime and follows on the heels of Caterpillar and Boeing announcing plans to hit the bricks in recent months. The Citadel hedge fund headed up by Chicago’s richest resident, Ken Griffin, is also relocating more than 2,600 staffers from their office in the crime-ridden city to Miami, a city that’s benefitting from the migration of corporations escaping crime and high-taxes in Democrat-led cities.
Despite its tagline of “I’m lovin’ it” McDonald’s CEO Chris Kempczinski hinted he may be leavin’ it. At a recent speech he cited crime in Chicago, where the company is headquartered, saying it’s “seeping into every corner of our city. What’s going on in Chicago?” he asked, saying that it was getting difficult to recruit people in their downtown offices because they express concern about it not being safe.
“We have violent crime that’s happening in our restaurants.…we’re seeing homelessness issues in our restaurants. We’re having drug overdoses that are happening in our restaurants,” he said while speaking last month at the Economic Club of Chicago.
His is not a happy face.
***
Beautification Project: Amelia Island, which is ranked as one of the most beautiful spots to visit in the U.S. by a variety of tourist publications and sites, got a whole lot prettier in October 2020 when Patti Baker moved here from Virginia Beach with her U.S. Navy husband, Joshua.
Ms. Baker, who was crowned Mrs. USA Universe in a pageant held outside of Atlanta this past August, will compete for the whole shebang when she heads to Seoul, South Korea, this December to compete for the Mrs. Universe title.
Patti Baker
According to Mrs. Baker the pageant is designed to celebrate “married women who are making meaningful contributions to their communities.” She says contestants compete in a variety of categories including country costume, swimwear, evening gown and formal presentations with each delegate presenting on their respective charitable activities.
A native New Yorker, the local pageant contestant says she was attracted to pageantry competition, “as a way to fundraise and advocate for the veteran organizations.” She is a former military veteran having served in the U.S. Army as a Human Intelligence Collector for the 42nd Infantry Division where she was trained and certified in interrogations and strategic debriefings. She is an ardent supporter of Homes for Our Troops, a nonprofit organization that builds and donates specially-adapted homes nationwide for severely injured post–9/11 veterans.
Mrs. Baker currently works as the Director of Marketing at a multibillion-dollar, global specialty insurer.
Since moving to Fernandina, she has been involved in a variety of community projects including serving as a board member and the Marketing Committee Chair of Keep Nassau Beautiful, a nonprofit with a focus on environmentalism, sustainability, and beautification.
She, her husband, and one-year-old son Brooklyn live in downtown Fernandina Beach.
For more information about the pageant go to https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100063651576073
***
Go Green Then Go Where? If Joe Biden and the green loons that control him are successful and eliminate fossil fuels forcing us all to drive electric cars, how will we get where we want to go?
According to the Federal Highway Administration, 94 percent of all U.S roads are paved with asphalt, a petroleum product. Once that runs out how will these idiots build roads? And how are we supposed to charge the batteries in all those electric cars, that are currently charged by coal, petroleum and natural gas fired power plants?
Oh, we’ll also lose a few other petroleum items that these green twits think come from the Tooth Fairy including the sheathing on electric wiring and cell phones, ink, paint, IV bags, catheters, pill casings, plastic bottles and bags, ball point pens, perfume, floor wax, roofing, antifreeze, shampoo, heart valves, ammonia, jet fuel, hand lotion, golf balls, fertilizers, panty hose, caulking, motor oil, antiseptics, tires, and even bubble gum and much more.
Biden is an empty vessel and spews whatever nonsense he’s told to, while the green puppets and ventriloquists behind the draperies have the combined IQ of loopy New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio Cortez who has never had a coherent thought
***
Election Day Reminder: Tuesday, November 8, a little more than three weeks from now, is election day and an opportunity to take out the trash locally and nationally.
Locally there are two candidates running for the Fernandina Beach City Commission that if successful can end the two-man rule of Chip (Commissioner Ross) and Dale (City Manager Martin).
A keen observer of all things relevant within the city and a fellow who knows more than most tells me: “I’ve had lengthy conversations with both Darron Ayscue and Dr. James Anton and these guys have the right approach—control and accountability, which is sorely needed. If either Bean or Sturges aligns with them, the Chip & Dale era will come to an end.”
He added that this duo supports the My Fernandina concept as a way to benefit from the area’s ever-growing tourist trade….by getting visitors to help pay for preserving public assets, not just we locals.
“Let’s get sanity and discipline driving city hall, not I-want-I-get,” he added
The writer who identifies as “Amazed Taxpayer” signed off saying: “When we moved here more than 15 years ago, one of the first things I noticed was all the brand-new vehicles city employees were driving. Now, we moved here from Fairfax, Virginia, one of the wealthiest counties in the country, and city/county vehicles there were not all just off the lot.
“So, I concluded that this little town was pretty extravagant….and that observation still applies all these years later. “Give ‘em whatever they want—money no object” was then, and is now, the law of the land. Why do residents put up with that?”
Mayor “Left Coast” Lednovich
A couple of weeks ago the candidates gathered at city hall ‘s commission chambers for a forum without candidate Ayscue, who was pulling an all-nighter at the Fire Station where he’s employed. Publicly avowed socialist Ron Sapp, who for reasons unknown was allowed to introduce the group, said Firefighter Ayscue wasn’t attending the event, never explaining that he was on duty protecting the folks in attendance.
During that session Dr. James Antun who is running against the pompous blowhard California transplant, Mike “Left Coast” Lednovich, expertly explained how he would approach a variety of issues facing the city with public-private partnerships and called for an audit of the controversial building/permitting fee processes. Meanwhile Lednovich blathered on incoherently about “customer service” and suggested a survey, apparently forgetting the Chamber of Commerce survey that had folks loudly protesting in front of city hall, waving signs, and telling the city and Lednovich that their current policies stink.
Lednovich came across as a spittle-spewing, anti-property rights activist proudly proclaiming he’s opposed every residential development project proposed since Jean Ribault sailed here in 1562. Dr. Antun offered well thought out, reasoned and deliberate proposals, an indication of the representation he will offer as a Commissioner. We’d be lucky to have him.
All seven candidates for the two seats on the Fernandina Beach City Commission have been invited to a another one-hour forum tonight, Friday, Oct. 14 from 6-7 pm at city hall.
In case readers missed it previously I’m posting a photo here of Commissioner and current Mayor “Left Coast” Lednovich proudly displaying his support for the dangerous, violent, and fraudulent Black Lives Matter organization as he parades through downtown Fernandina Beach. He’s pictured here wearing a Fernandina Beach Police Department cap despite not being a cop. He’s also wearing a red clown nose, but that’s understandable.
While spearheading a beach smoking ban saying smokers “violate my rights” Lednovich remained silent about BLM victim’s rights as that group conducted violent riots, looting, burning and assaults across the nation. Instead, he marched proudly down Centre Street displaying his BLM sandwich board. It apparently didn’t bother the clueless mayor that BLM figures, including co-founder and admitted Marxist Patrisse Cullors, conducted dealings such as buying a $6 million California mansion, thus validating the fact that BLM is also a massive scam.
Read Dave Scott’s Blog regularly
Republished with the author’s permission. Read The Dave Scott Blog– subscribe Free
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
News/Elections
The Nassau County Chamber of Commerce (web site) sponsored a City Commissioner candidate forum. Here are the Seat 4 & 5 event videos to see for yourself:
(you may have to wait a few moments for videos to display here)
From Nassau County Sheriff’s Office, 10-12-22
Nassau County Joint Narcotics Task Force has been actively investigating numerous individuals, their residences, and other known areas with a high volume of illegal narcotics activity in various communities in Nassau County. A total of 54 arrest were made between April to August of this year. 25 of those arrested were from Fernandina Beach, 11 from Yulee, 5 from Georgia, 5 from Hilliard, 5 from Callahan, 2 from Jacksonville, and 1 from Lake City. The total amount of Criminal Charges for suspects arrested during this period is approximately 223. The Operation Heavy Weights board also has a breakdown of all drugs seized. All agencies involved in this operation were NCSO, FBPD, ATF, DEA, and the FBI.
By Roy M Postel
10/13/22 Nassau County
Four candidates remain on the November midterm ballot to fill two vacancies on the Nassau County School Board. Voters have an opportunity to give the five-member board a bit of a facelift, as there’s only one incumbent among the field to fill two vacancies for the next four years.
The candidates in the race for District 1 (Fernandina Beach & Piney Island) are incumbent Jamie Deonas and newby Shannon Hogue. Vying to represent District 3 (Yulee, Chester & Blackrock) are Albert Wagner and Curtis Gaus. The County School Board is structured like the County Commission. Elected members reside in specific geographic areas but are selected “at large” so every eligible voter in Nassau County can vote to select the representative from each district.
To help voters assess the choices presented, Citizens Journal Florida invited each candidate to participate in a short survey on the main issues confronting the Nassau County School District. The full results are posted below.
Candidates Gaus and Deonas did not respond to the survey questions and did not accept an invitation to take additional time to respond.
CJF–Q1. Would you vote to establish a Citizens Budget Advisory Council in Nassau County?
Hogue: “I’m in favor of a Citizens Budget Advisory Board. I have been spoken in favor of this during my campaign.”
Wagner: “Yes, 100%. I have stated this several times throughout my campaign.”
CJF–Q2. If elected to a 4-year term, will you serve the entire period, or do you intend to run for Superintendent in 2024?
Hogue: “Yes, I’m only interested in being a School Board member.”
Wagner: “Yes, I have no higher political interest.”
CJF–Q3. Will you pledge to eliminate any trace of promoting CRT and LGBTQ++ in the curriculum?
Hogue: “Governor DeSantis has taken care of this for education.”
Wagner: “Yes. I pledge to keep those out of the curriculum. I further pledge to establish a
parent oversight committee to review curriculum and library materials.”
CJF–Q4. Beside financial issues, what do you view as a significant reason for the district’s low retention rate with teachers and staff?
Hogue: “After speaking to many staff members, they feel micromanaged and that expectations are unrealistic. Each year, more duties and responsibilities are added to their plates. Yet, they are not rewarded for their efforts and extra time.”
Wagner: “No matter the business, but especially in teaching, teachers don’t leave just for more money, they leave because of management. Teachers leave because of top-down leadership that does not respect the talents of professionals. When teacher creativity is taken away and teachers are told to read from a script, they start to consider other opportunities.”
CJF–Q5. Will you agree with, or oppose via an opt-out strategy, any future Federal public health mandates for students?
Hogue: “I will follow the course our governor (Gov. Ron DeSantis) puts in place.”
Wagner: “I agree with an opt-out strategy. Parents’ rights supersede that of Federal Mandates.”
CJF–Q6. Is the millage referendum the best strategy to correct the district’s financial course?
Hogue: “At this moment, yes. However, the spending should be very specific and made public for people to view.”
Wagner: “No and yes. The district dug themselves into a hole with poor fiscal responsibility so right now, they need the surplus that the millage will provide them. However, if elected, I pledge to not ask for another millage increase once this one runs out. Through conservative fiscal responsibility, and in working with a CBAC (proposed Citizens Budget Advisory Committee) I believe we can do better than to raise our taxes. So, (in the longer run) “no” the referendum’s not the best strategy to correct the district’s financials.
Besides the board race, citizens can also vote up or down on referendum to hike by 1 mill the property tax levy for school operating. It is projected to funnel up to $11 million in new revenue to the school district beginning in 2023-2024 school year.
In past public forums sponsored by the citizens group, “We The People,” the Nassau County Republican Party and the Nassau Chamber of Commerce, these issues have been of interest to voters in attendance. The chamber granted Citizens Journal permission to pass along links to video recordings of forums for the District 1 and District 3 candidates produced at the chamber prior to the August primaries….
In the August primary, just over 20,000 voters cast ballots in the two races. Since no candidate received 50 percent, the top two vote getters in each race are on the November ballot to settle the contest in accord with Florida law.
Data from the Nassau County Supervisor of Elections states as of Oct. 13, 2,000 mail in ballots have been received, so that’s 10 percent of the August total already. Election Day is Tuesday, Nov. 8. Early voting is conducted at select locations from Oct. 26 to Nov. 5.
Hogue was the top vote getter in August, receiving 9,735 votes. Official totals for all the candidates from the primary can be seen here.
Board member Lissa Braddock, District 5 (Callahan & West Yulee) earned a second 4-year term on the board in May when here petition to seek re-election was unopposed.
Roy M. Postel is an off-island Fernandina Beach resident. He was formerly a reporter for two major MidWest newspapers, working the city desk.
By George Miller & Sandy Kerry, Updated 10-13-22
Some recent local residential construction appears to encroach on an Amelia Island coastal sand dune. People who have been following this tell us that the owner had applied last year for a variance to build four houses on the property on 1505 S. Fletcher Ave.
This was denied, but the applicant later came back and secured approval for a new plan for three houses. Two will be built directly backing up to a sand dune in the rear of the property. Recent rainfall has caused parts of the now undermined dune and trees upon it to collapse. Local residents Sandy Kerry and Bryn Byron have taken an interest in this for a while and complained to the City. Ms. Kerry told us that Mayor Mike Lednovich says he has contacted City Manager Dale Martin about the situation five times. But City Engineer Charlie George points out that the plan is legal under current City law, explained later in this article.
The city authorized a private inspector to monitor the project. The houses were being built without a retaining wall yet in place for the dune alongside them in the rear of the property. The wall is belatedly under construction.
When we visited the site on Wednesday, we confirmed all we had heard- dune and trees are collapsing and are now right up against the under-construction building in the rear of the property, which is across the street from ocean front homes.
A crew had recently excavated for the retaining wall footings, placed forms and just poured fresh concrete when I arrived (see photos).
Ms. Kerry doesn’t believe that the houses should even be where they are, even with a wall constructed, as they are way too close to the dune (see photos). A few people we talked to expressed surprised that such an environmentally sensitive community didn’t have more dune protection.
Mayor Weighs In
We spoke to Mayor Mike Lednovich about the situation. He has gone to the city manager multiple times about this at the behest of residents. He told Mr. Miller that permits are issued independently of the City Commission. He laments that “the city has not done a very good job to protect the coastline/dunes”. When Miller asked him what state laws might apply, he mentioned the CCCL (Coastal Construction Code Line) – see image below, but the location is outside the boundary. He said that the applicant was ordered by the city to put the wall up.
He opined that inspectors for all trades should be vigilant about environmental matters, such as this, tree barriers and not just be “silo-focused” on their own specialties.
In response to a question we posed, he stated that projects like this do not require a City Commission vote for approval, but only permission from the permit department.
City Engineer Weighs In
(updated 10-13-22)… We also called City Engineer Charlie George for details on the permit and inspection/monitoring and heard back from him on Thursday. He informed us of the following:
So, if residents don’t like it, they could work to change the law.
It is our understanding that the city retained a private company to do the inspections.
City Attorney Weighs In
City Attorney Tammi Bach confirmed that the project is in compliance with ordinances/laws -local, county and state. She says that they also talked to FL EPA, even though there is no legal requirement to do so and that they were OK with it as long as harm was minimized. We haven’t actually read the applicable law or had an independent legal look at it.
Dune Expert/PhD Weighs In
Sandy Kerry knows local resident Frank Hopf, PhD in geology and coastal morphology, who talked with us. He admitted that he isn’t an expert in the legalities, but he sure does know about dunes. He has many years of experience, relevant schooling and operates The Dune Science Group, LLC. He did his doctoral dissertation on the Sacramento River Delta.
He does not agree that no harm is done, saying that stripping off the dunes and ruining vegetation will actually result in lowering the water table, which will further starve the plants of water, so they can’t recover, resulting in less to hold the dunes together.
Dr. Hopf described the local geology as “two sand piles on a pile of mud over porous limestone bedrock, held together by vegetation.” He elaborated by saying that we have a fragile local environment, low lying with only a few high spots of 40 ft above sea level. He noted that the tallest and second tallest dunes in the state are both right here, in the American Beach area (Nana dune system).
He says that the dunes need better protection and that he and a colleague are working with the City Attorney on proposed legislation to accomplish that, on a volunteer basis.
If we understood him correctly, he said that a 100 year flood line was drawn in 1984 and that a 500 year flood line goes 5000 feet in from the coast or the entire width of a barrier island, which is what Amelia Island is. He said that the state lacks the resources to monitor building activity, so it defaults to the local jurisdictions to do so.
City Manager Dale Martin Doesn’t Weigh In
After multiple calls, we haven’t yet heard back from City Manager Dale Martin. We’ll let you know if we learn anything from him on the matter
Ms. Kerry provided this recent correspondence with city officials:
From: Sandy Kerry
Date: October 12, 2022 at 11:44:00 AM EDT
To: [email protected], [email protected]
Cc: Mike Lednovich <[email protected]>
Subject: Fwd: Dune encroachment on S Fletcher
Dear Ms. Sellers & Ms. Armstrong,
I have notified the mayor after heavy rains last night there’s been further collapse of the dunes and a tree on the dune falling over after the beginning of the building of the so-called protective wall. The protective wall should’ve been put in first and it is meant to protect the dune not the house. A neighbor said they were trying to backfill & the dune keeps collapsing. Further building is only going to encroach on the dues even more. Ages of Ajax (a consulting & engineering firm) was there when pics were taken this morning. This needs to stop now.
Sandra Kerry
Resident of Amelia Island
Sent from my iPhone
Begin forwarded message:
Subject: Dune encroachment on S Fletcher
I took these pics this morning 10/12 & sent to the Mayor & Bradley Bean with this text: “This is supposed to be the protective wall? This is more encroachment!” 2 men were on the property & 1 drove away in the truck from Ages of Jax Inc. the mayor said at the Friends of Fernandina Beach candidate forum Mon nt that he had asked the city mgr 5 times including that morning to take care of this.
From: Len Kreger <[email protected]>
Subject: RE: City Commissioners,
Date: October 5, 2022 at 4:36:23 PM EDT
To: Bryn Byron
Bryn:
I am told that this is allowed by State Law. I have not yet been able to determine if we can refuse the request. In either case, City Staff needs to be involved in any project involving environmental sensitive land.
Len
Len Kreger
Vice Mayor
City of Fernandina Beach
204 Ash Street
Fernandina Beach, FL 32034
(904) 432-8389 | [email protected]
http://www.fbfl.us
If this email is related to the Board, Committee or Commission that you serve on, please DO NOT REPLY TO ALL.
Disclaimer: According to Florida Public Records Law, email correspondence to and from the City of Fernandina Beach, including email addresses and other personal information, is public record and must be made available to the public and media upon request, unless otherwise exempted by the Public Records Law. If you do not want your email address released in response to a public records request, do not send electronic mail to this entity. Instead, contact this office by phone or in writing.
________________________________________
From: Bryn Byron
Sent: Wednesday, October 05, 2022 12:51 PM
To: Mike Lednovich; Len Kreger; Bradley Bean; David Sturges; Chip Ross
Subject: City Commissioners,
CAUTION: This email originated from outside the organization. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender, were expecting this email, and know the content is safe.
City Commissioners,
I’m just a little confused.
As a taxpayer of Fernandina Beach, we pay five City Commissioners ( one of which is our City Mayor), a City Manager and his assistant City Manager, employees in the planning department, a city engineer, people in the code enforcement and permitting department. Why in the world did the City release the property owner from their inspection by the city building inspector? This action of using a private inspector should not have been allowed and is the reason we have this encroachment issue!
Last year we spent numerious (S.I.C.) hours preventing this owner from infringing on the dunes as she was trying to get a varience (S.I.C.) to build four houses on this property.
Please explain how none of these people could prevent this travesty on South Fletcher Avenue of an eight foot high invasion into the dune.
BLUFFED again!
Deeply concerned,
BB
George Miller is Publisher and Co-Founder of Citizens Journal Florida, based in Fernandina Beach. He is a “retired” operations management consultant, software and publishing executive and manufacturing management professional.
Sandy Kerry lives on Amelia Island and is interested in environmental issues,
By John Hawkins
People have been talking about the potential consequences of our nation’s irresponsible accumulation of debt for almost as long as I’ve been alive. Every person reading this has heard some variation of, “If we keep borrowing all this money, people will lose faith in the dollar, quit buying our bonds, and it’ll cause us to go bankrupt!” Then, someone usually chimes in with, “HA! America can’t go bankrupt because we can always print our own money!” Next, the response to that is something like, “Yes, we can print our own money, but it’ll lead to hyperinflation like Weimar, Germany and you’ll need a wheelbarrow full of cash to buy a loaf of bread! You can say that isn’t bankruptcy, but it sounds like it to me!” On and on it goes… and it makes perfect sense, right? We all understand on a very fundamental level that we can’t keep borrowing ever-increasing amounts of money or at some point, we won’t be able to pay it back and everything will fall apart.
The problem is that human beings as a general rule and politicians, in particular, tend to be highly focused on getting pleasure and avoiding pain in the short term while ignoring that there will potentially be severe consequences for our actions later. This is how people get in debt, get hooked on drugs, drink and drive, and do a thousand other dumb things that we human beings do. It really is human nature for people to put all of that out of their minds until something horrible happens and we get shocked back into reality. Someone quits smoking right after they get a lung cancer diagnosis or drops 50 pounds to get a “revenge body” after their husband leaves them. Didn’t they know there was a problem before? Of course, they did, but until they actually burned their hand on the hot stove, it didn’t truly sink in. Americans have never had that kind of experience when it comes to government spending.
Sure, on an intellectual level they may understand that every taxpayer owes almost a quarter of a million dollars in debt, but isn’t the government still able to print and borrow as much money as it needs? Aren’t there politicians suggesting insanely expensive new programs all the time? Sure, the politicians in DC are jackasses, but someone there knows what they’re doing, right? They wouldn’t let us get in way over our heads, would they?
What people forget is that politicians, especially the sort of soulless narcissists and sociopaths who tend to succeed in DC, operate just like every other human being. They tell people whatever they want to hear to get reelected today and figure that by the time things get really bad, it’ll be someone else’s problem. Granted, they may hope that the big economic nightmare scenarios are way down the line, but they’re just as much in the dark as the rest of us about when the bill is ultimately going to come due for America’s financial idiocy.
Disturbingly, according to one famous economist/investor, Peter Schiff, the waitress is walking over to the table with the check as we speak:
…. Read more on Culturcidal by John Hawkins
About John Hawkins: 101 Things All Young Adults Should Know | Right Wing News Founder | King of Conservative Lists | Raised 600k in a GoFundMe for Brett Kavanaugh
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
From City of Fernandina Beach- 10-12-22
The Fernandina Beach Police Department and the Fernandina Beach Police Foundation will be organizing a relief effort for Southwest Florida. Please consider lending your help to this effort, while our local officers will guarantee that the goods are delivered quickly and efficiently to those in need in the Fort Myers area.
Accepting donations until Friday, October 14 at the Fernandina Beach Police Department (1525 Lime Street).
Items to consider: water, cleaning supplies, flashlights, batteries, non-perishable foods, toiletries, first aid items, hygiene products, pet food, baby diapers, formula
10-13-22
The government has nothing to give to anybody that it doesn’t first take from someone else.
By Jeff Childers
10-13-22
Good morning, C&C! It’s Thursday and I have a great roundup for you today: the “speed of science” story rapidly builds up steam and races down the track; a new narrative begins crashing and burning; a new Canadian premier calls out discrimination — against the unjabbed; the Saudis expose Joe Biden as a useless hack; Moderna announces a new mRNA drug to treat the old mRNA drug; and AOC hears some hard home truths.
💉 Yesterday I reported about the Pfizer exec who admitted to the EU parliament that its so-called “vaccine” was never even intended to prevent infection. They didn’t even test for that. Why would they? The were running at the “speed of science,” whatever that is. Pfizer was heroically working around the clock to make a brand new kind of vaccine, a vaccine that kind of treats illness instead of stopping infection. If people wanted to wrongly assume that the drug stopped infections, well, that’s on them.
It’s rapidly becoming a bigger story than I thought it would. You might say it is developing at the speed of science.
It might even be a tipping point.
Whichever, the story has been BLOWING UP, and the narrative machine is running at the highest setting trying to control things. Their best pushback narrative they’ve been able to come up with is that “Pfizer never SAID it would stop infections.” Then they point out that there is some obscure medical/scientific language buried deep in the footnotes of Pfizers’ clinical trial documents — which weren’t available to us until after a two-year legal battle – making it perfectly clear to anyone with three decades of training in drug trials and time to read thousands of dense pages that Pfizer EVEN SAID the trials weren’t about infection control.
So.
Echoing the new narrative, someone challenged me yesterday in the comments after I asked, “what about the 95% efficacy? 95% of WHAT?” I presume the commenter was well intentioned, but they (kindly) lectured me on the science of how these kinds of vaccines CAN’T POSSIBLY stop infections and the 95% figure clearly referred to the relative risk reduction or something.
Silly me. How could I have got the wrong idea? Maybe I should’ve studied the subject matter harder. Or, maybe I got the wrong idea from covid “experts” like that worthless waste of space, lying liar Eric Topol:
In case the print is too small, Eric claimed an “overwhelming 95% efficacy of these vaccines to PREVENT INFECTION.” Not an “overwhelming 95% efficacy to reduce relative risk.” So the real problem is not what Pfizer did, or even what it may have buried in the legal documents it submitted to the FDA and then fought to keep hidden for two years.
The real problem is how Pfizer lied about it.
Next, once we start producing the receipts, they’ll say we should never have listened to empty-headed dummies like Eric Topol. But nope. Oh, no. They’re not getting off that easy. First, we WEREN’T listening to Eric Topol. The media and government were. Second, where were all these “it was so obvious” armchair quarterbacks two years ago, when they might have actually been helpful?
Nowhere, that’s where.
But third, and most important, note the parenthetical after Eric’s explanation. He said he got the information “(from the FDA briefing documents)”. Eric didn’t make the 95% thing up. He was citing the GOVERNMENT. And where’d the greedy drones in the government get that idea?
They got that idea from Pfizer, the prince of lies. And of course Moderna, which can be the drag queen of lies if it wants to.
In fact, Pfizer has been carefully pushing the lie that the drugs prevented infection. Receipts:
Early 2021:
Or, how about YESTERDAY?
“Prevent” covid-19. Not “mitigate” covid-19.
💉 This Pfizer story has — unexpectedly — cracked the narrative’s foundation, exposing the narrative engineers who are writhing around like maggots at the bottom of a neglected garbage can. The news has caused a lot of people — some in political offices — to start asking some hard questions and make some sharp points.
Like, why’d we push vaccine passports, if we always knew the drugs didn’t stop infections? Why’d we fire people that were not actually threats to co-workers, if we always knew the drugs didn’t stop infections? Why’d we do any of that stuff, if we always knew the drugs didn’t stop infections?
Romanian MEP Cristian Terhes explains it beautifully:
𝓝𝓮𝓻𝓭𝓧𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓬𝓸𝓻𝓷 𝓜𝓓, 𝓟𝓱𝓓 @NerdXUnicorn
4:20 AM ∙ Oct 13, 20222Likes1Retweet
But most importantly: IF ONLY PFIZER KNEW, WHY DIDN’T PFIZER SAY SOMETHING WHEN PEOPLE MISTAKENLY STARTED HURTING FOLKS FOR NOT TAKING THE DRUGS?
That is an unanswerable question. Because none of those questions can be answered, it shows that the narrative engineers made a gigantic mistake claiming Pfizer always knew the drugs wouldn’t stop infections. The narrative engineers screwed up.
And then I saw the next story, and even more dots connected.
💉 Danielle Smith is the new Premier (governor) of Canada’s Alberta province. She made news yesterday at her inaugural press conference, where she — remarkably — identified unvaccinated people as “the most discriminated against group that I’ve ever witnessed in my lifetime.”
She warmed to her theme and continued:
10:10 PM ∙ Oct 11, 202236,234Likes10,201Retweets
Smith differentiated herself from other major Canadian politicians by vowing to stand up for the unvaccinated:
“That’s a pretty extreme level of discrimination that we’ve seen… I want people to know that I find that unacceptable. We’re not going to create a segregated society on the basis of a medical choice.”
This is groundbreaking stuff, especially for Canada. Premier Smith joined Florida in major states breaking out of the narrative. Last week Florida became the first U.S. state to officially recommend against the vaccine, citing risk of vaccine injury as the reason. Governor DeSantis has long criticized differential vaccine-status treatment.
Now, in Canada of all places, the first governor (Premier) has explicitly identified — as a moral issue — the awful way unvaccinated people have been treated, and she vowed to CHANGE THAT.
But more significantly, Premier Smith’s address illuminates the path to accountability. New politicians — those who weren’t around during the pandemic — are going to campaign AGAINST sitting politicians by pointing out the pandemic’s failures. It’s too good and too easy of a weapon, and it’s too good to ignore.
Black pilled people feel hopeless that nothing will change, because the politicians are all in on it. But not ALL the politicians are in on it. They’re forgetting about the up and coming groups of candidates who are blameless and can all run against the overreach. They’re forgetting about the minority of politicians who opposed vaccine passports and other covid restrictions and are slowly being vindicated. They’re forgetting that, to save themselves, guilty politicians will soon need to start throwing SOMEBODY under the bus to save themselves.
It WILL happen. It’s coming. It’s as inevitable as more myocarditis cases.
🔥 Remember several weeks ago when Joe Biden took his little oil tour in the Middle East? When he went to the Saudis, hat in hand, bumping fists, right after vowing during the campaign to make the Kingdom into a hissing and a byword for executing marxist ‘journalist’ Jamal Kashoggi?
Well. The Saudis just threw Joe Biden under the gas bus.
Jack Posobiec 🇺🇸 @JackPosobiec
2:23 AM ∙ Oct 13, 202251,737Likes21,327Retweets
Last week, OPEC took a long-scheduled vote to reduce the supply of oil, which will increase the price of gas, which is exactly what Joe Biden DOESN’T want. So Biden and his State Department have been attacking and threatening the Saudis, since all the Biden Administration knows about diplomacy is how to punish countries that disagree. Biden said there would be “consequences” for lowering oil supplies:
President Biden warns that Saudi Arabia will face “consequences” after OPEC+ last week announced the biggest cut in oil production since the start of the coronavirus pandemic. nbcnews.to/3Mq1AYQ
In a long, diplomatic response, the Saudis first denied that the OPEC decision has anything to do with America’s mid-term elections, and then they opened the curtain on Biden’s recent trip a teeny-tiny bit:
“Postponing the … decision for A MONTH … has been suggested.”
What’s clear from that statement is that, when Biden visited the Saudis, he didn’t ask them not to reduce the supply. He asked them to only POSTPONE the decision to reduce supply — for ONE SINGLE MONTH. Until after the mid-terms.
In other words, Biden wasn’t trying to lower gas prices for CONSUMERS. He was trying to lower gas prices for DEMOCRATS. For just a month. Then, who cares what happens to gas prices! The sky’s the limit! Go bonkers!
Biden just needed to get past the mid-terms.
Nobody reading this blog will be surprised by this news. But the Saudis just exposed Biden to the entire world as a clumsy political hack. It was a dumb move because it telegraphed weakness, and it was dumb because it gave the Saudis a political weapon to use against Joe, which they just did.
One term to describe what Biden was trying to do is “quid pro quo.” Trading political benefits to get another country to do something for political reasons, rather than in America’s interest is a quid pro quo. That latin phrase probably sounds super familiar, because the democrats used it as the basis for impeaching President Trump.
You could also call what Biden was doing “election interference.” Which some DOJ officials have called “an insurrection.” Just saying.
💉 Good news! Moderna announced yesterday that it is working on a brand new gene-modifying mRNA drug. Guess what it’s for? It’s to treat CARDIAC INJURY.
5:26 PM ∙ Oct 10, 20221,138Likes731Retweets
Moderna’s french-accented CEO, who coincidentally helped build the Wuhan lab where covid started, says that the company’s new drug can be injected into a damaged heart, and will instruct cells to grow new blood vessels and stuff.
“It sounds like science fiction,” he bragged.
It sounds like making money off the side effects caused by your previous drug, you moron.
But the good news is, the drugmaker is already working on a fix for the side effects that will be caused by its new heart-fixing gene drug. Chronic explosive diarrhea.
I’d REALLY like to see them working on an mRNA drug to inject into politicians to make them honest and trustworthy. Sadly, I don’t think there’s any money in it.
🔥 Haha, you’re going to love this one. Multi-syllabic former bartendress Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, now an iconic leftwing Congressional Representative for New York, ran into some unexpected turbulence during a hometown town hall meeting this week with her leftist supporters. As you will see, her supporters aren’t too happy that AOC is supporting “the war.”
Citizen Free Press @CitizenFreePres
3:26 AM ∙ Oct 13, 202218,760Likes6,369Retweets
One always wonders where the “peace at all costs” contingent hides out whenever the Democrats are in charge. It looks like a few of them might be sprouting up. And I guess the virtue-signaling embargo on criticizing the war is over now. That didn’t take long.
Anyway, I’m not too sure about the whole socialism thing, but I am ALL FOR avoiding World War III. Who’s with me?
Have a terrific Thursday and I’ll see you back here tomorrow morning, for more delicious Coffee & Covid.
C&C is moving the needle and changing minds. If you can, I could use your help getting the truth out and spreading optimism and hope: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/-learn-how-to-get-involved-
Twitter: @jchilders98
Truth Social: @jchilders98
MeWe: mewe.com/i/coffee_and_covid.
C&C Swag! www.shopcoffeeandcovid.com
Emailed Daily Newsletter: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com
© 2022, Jeff Childers, all rights reserved
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
By Larry Sand
10-11-22
As test scores drop and funding ramps up, children are ditching no-accountability, government-run schools.
In August, it was reported that over the past two school years, children whose public schools were shuttered during the Covid panic were much less likely to return when they reopened. According to the American Enterprise Institute, k-12 enrollment in the 2020-2021 school year had declined by 2.7%, or about 1.2 million students nationwide.
Updated enrollment numbers and chronic absenteeism
But a new survey has revealed that between spring 2021 and spring 2022, there was a 9% drop in families saying their children were enrolled in a government-run school – a plunge of about 4 million students. At the same time, the number of children in charters, private schools, and homeschools shot up. While the dropout numbers aren’t actual data, there is no doubt that a massive education exodus is underway.
Another sign of turbulence is the number of children who are still enrolled in district schools but are “chronically absent,” meaning that they miss more than 10% of school days for any reason. Per the U.S. Department of Education, at least 10.1 million students were chronically absent during the first full year of the Covid-19 pandemic. The data, collected for the 2020-21 school year, is a substantial increase from the approximately 8 million students chronically absent in the prior years. Excessive absences have serious consequences – kids’ learning suffers, and they are more likely to get suspended in middle school, and are at greater risk of dropping out of high school.
The future does not promise a reversal. In fact, chronic absence continued to surge during the 2021-2022 school year. Although no national data have been released yet, several diverse states – Connecticut, Michigan, Ohio, Virginia and California – claim that high absentee rates doubled in the aftermath of the pandemic.
Money flows in; no accountability required
While increasing numbers of kids are either dropping out or playing hooky, the government is pouring massive piles of accountability-free cash in an attempt to stanch the bleeding. Tony Kinnett, Executive Director of Chalkboard Review, reports that typical of large American school districts, Chicago now spends over $29,000 per student, compared to $17,800 per student in 2020. At the same time, district enrollment has decreased by 8.9% since 2020, with the Chicago Sun-Times projecting an additional 2.8% decrease in 2023, and only 26% of high school juniors can read or do math at grade-level.
In New York State, schools now spend on average $34,272 per student (including federal COVID aid) with no accountability strings attached. In 2019, before the devastating shutdowns, only 34% of the state’s eighth-grade students performed at or above the National Assessment of Educational Progress proficiency level for math, 32% of eighth graders were at or above proficient in reading, and 30% were at or above proficient in science.
Then there are the feds, led by Clueless Joe Biden. According to Fox News, Biden’s 2023 fiscal budget calls for $468 million to fund a “community schools” program that focuses on utilizing“culturally relevant” pedagogy ( a polite way of sneaking Critical Race theory into schools) and “restorative justice” practices, which turns teachers into therapists, emphasizes “making the victim and offender whole,” and involves “an open discussion of feelings.” Nothing about teaching kids to read and write or holding anybody accountable for anything.
The teachers unions attempt to woo parents
The teachers unions are in a collective snit about the current upheaval. Sensing that parents are not happy with schools, the unions are trying to unite with them. In late September, the American Federation of Teachers announced that it was awarding more than $1.5 million to 27 state and local affiliates. The union’s website asserts that the money will go “toward efforts to organize parents and educators, providing training to support advocacy campaigns, and increasing collaboration among union affiliates and other organizations in communities.”
That’s like the wolf trying to unite with Little Red Riding Hood. But then again, there is nothing really new here. The unions and the PTA have been in bed together for some time now. In 2001, Thomas Toch, scholar at the Brookings Institution, disclosed that the “PTA has particularly strong ties to teacher unions. Charlotte Frass, chief Washington lobbyist for the American Federation of Teachers, said, ‘We often lobby together.’”
Ties also exist to the National Education Association. “One of the PTA’s three Washington lobbyists is married to an NEA lobbyist, and from the founding of the PTA’s Washington legislative office in 1978 through 1993, its lobbyists were housed in rent-reduced offices in the NEA’s headquarters a few blocks from the White House.”
More recently, Daily Wire writer Luke Rosiak noted, “National PTA board member Eric Champy was on the board of the NEA for years. After losing a race for president of the Massachusetts teachers’ union in 2018, he was elected to the National PTA Board of Directors in June 2019.”
Parents awaken
While parents should most definitely shun the PTA, there are myriad organizations worthy of their attention. On a national level No Left Turn in Education, Parents Defending Education and Moms for Liberty are just a few of the many groups for parents who are disgusted with the direction government-run education is going in, and are not shy about letting their thoughts be known. In August, for example, Moms for Liberty, which claims to have 195 chapters in 37 states with almost 100,000 members, tweeted in response to union president Randi Weingarten sharing an article about health care for transgender children: “Randi kept schools closed, masked our kids & is now promoting the mutilation and sterilization of children…Time to put the k-12 cartel out of business.”
Also, in Oakland, CAa newly formed coalition of parents, dissatisfied with the state of their kids’ public school education, is trying to get a seat at the table when the Oakland Unified School District negotiates a new contract with the teachers union.
Education freedom advances in two states
The ultimate in parent power lies in educational freedom. And two embattled universal choice measures both green-lighted recently.
On March 29, West Virginia passed the most expansive school choice program in the country to date. Under the new law, all parents are given unrestrained options. If parents choose a private school for their kids, they will receive 100 percent of their state education dollars – $4,600 annually – to help defray expenses. In addition to private school tuition, parents can use the funding to homeschool or for other education expenses.
However, the new law was blocked by a Charleston-area judge in July after she ruled that the program violates the state’s constitutional mandate to provide “a thorough and efficient system of free schools.” But on October 6, the state Supreme Court issued an order reversing the lower court’s ruling.
Also, Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey signed HB 2853 into law in July, making every family in the Grand Canyon State eligible for an educational savings account. Participants will receive about $6,400 per year per child, which can be used at the parents’ discretion for private school, homeschooling, learning pods, tutoring, or any other kinds of educational services that best fit their kids’ needs outside the traditional public school system. Any family that wishes to opt out of their local public school – or who already has – would be allowed to join the ESA program.
However, a teacher union-backed group that opposes school choice, Save Our Schools Arizona (SOS), attempted to put the ESA program to a vote in a ballot referendum. If successful, this would have put the law’s implementation on hold, pending the outcome of a popular vote on the measure in 2024. But the signature gathering fell way short, and the ESA will go forth. This was a huge win for the families of Arizona.
Exit doors are slowly but surely opening, and parents are fleeing the public education plantation. The exodus is advancing!
Larry Sand, a former classroom teacher, is the president of the non-profit California Teachers Empowerment Network – a non-partisan, non-political group dedicated to providing teachers and the general public with reliable and balanced information about professional affiliations and positions on educational issues.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
News
There will be a candidate forum at City Hall Friday at 6pm Friday, October 14. See our event listing for more details: https://www.citizensjournal.net/event/fernandina-beach-2022-10-14-public-notice-of-gathering-candidate-forum/
By Jeff Childers
10-12-22
Good morning, and happy Hump Day, C&C! Today’s roundup includes: Fetterman sits for his first live interview since his stroke, and it doesn’t go well; Trump files emergency appeal to the Supreme Court; Supreme Court issues important elections decision; Europe risks economic domination by the U.S.; Pfizer exec says they never tested whether the drugs prevent infections; video games are literally killing kids now, for some reason; basketball player blood clot; record label founder cardiac arrest; former French presidential candidate changes his mind about the jabs; Dr. Drew changes his mind about the jabs; and Governor DeSantis continues crushing the Hurricane Ian response.
💉 As I describe this next story, I want you to try to remember if anything like this has ever happened in American politics before. Yesterday, CBS News aired a remarkable interview with hoodied Pennsylvania Senate candidate and jab victim John Fetterman about his ‘health status’ — presumably meaning his stroke and his mysterious neck lump — and to ask whether he can assure voters he is up to the job.
The interview probably didn’t go quite like Fetterman’s handlers hoped it would. It’s the first time they’ve let him be interviewed since his stroke early this year. For what became obvious reasons.
The segment started with somber lead anchor Lester Holt briefly interviewing perky blonde reporter Dasha Burns, who had interviewed Fetterman. Out of the gate, Lester’s first question was, “this was not the normal interview, was it Dasha?”
Nope.
Burns explained that Fetterman used close captioning for the interview, because he’s having problems hearing things right. His ears aren’t working. But his eyes — his reading — are better. Burns told Lester that during small talk before the interview, it felt like Fetterman had no idea what she was saying.
Hearing just those facts, I wondered, do we REALLY need we go forward with this embarrassing interview? Isn’t the Senate all about TALKING and LISTENING? If he wins, won’t Fetterman need some kind of frantic, error-prone real-time transcription to keep up? And what about all the dealmaking on the side?
In other words, doesn’t Fetterman’s auditory processing disability suggest he should sit this one out, focus on his recovery, and THEN run for the Senate next time around after he gets better? He’s a young guy. He has plenty of time. Why do THIS?
Apparently nobody agrees with me, and the interview kicked off, with casually-dressed Fetterman sitting slightly behind a large iMac, his thick hoody covering the back of his neck. Each time Burns asked questions, Fetterman paused, turning to the monitor to read what she’d just said, and then give short answers.
His answers were mostly coherent, but they suffered in two ways. He sometimes stumbled over his words; once, he tried three times to come up with the word “empathetic.” But more significantly, he didn’t answer the critical questions about his health.
At one point, Burns asked, why won’t he release his medical records. Why haven’t voters seen anything from his doctor for six months? If he’s recovering, as he claims, why not document it? Fetterman’s quick answer was, let the voters decide whether medical records are important or not.
Um. That’s a TERRIBLE answer. The reason to release reassuring medical records BEFORE the vote is to persuade the voters who are on the fence. The ones who are wondering if giving Fetterman the job would be a train wreck.
Anyway, you can watch it for yourself. It’s painful. But the question is: when have you EVER, in your entire life, seen a candidate persist after a stroke that plainly damaged his cognitive and sensory abilities? I certainly can’t remember anything like this before. Is it the ‘new normal?’
I wish Dana Burns would’ve asked Fetterman about the jabs. He be already packing his bags for D.C. right now, if it weren’t for the shot.
Oh. And she didn’t ask him about the neck lump.
🔥 Trump has filed an emergency appeal asking the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse the 11th Circuit’s decision disallowing the special master from any review of the classified documents seized by the FBI. Yesterday, the DOJ filed its brief opposing Trump’s requested review.
I’m quite sure the Supreme Court would rather stay out of this battle. It would be easiest and safest for the Court to just deny review and send it back. Both sides make strong arguments. Denying review and letting the 11th Circuit handle it keeps the Supremes out of the mud, and might keep a bunch of noisy protestors from spending the night outside their houses cursing on bullhorns.
Denial of review seems like the safest bet.
But. This is a landmark case. Nothing like this has ever happened before. It is all about unsettled issues of Presidential classification powers that are sure to be back before the Court at some point. If the case does come back to the Supreme Court later, as seems likely, it might be helpful to have the input of a well-informed, neutral Special Master. The DOJ raised strong arguments in its opposition; we’ll have to see how the Trump team handles the reply.
This is new territory, and there’s no way to predict what happens next.
Feds ask Supreme Court to deny Trump request to block review of Mar-a-Lago docs fxn.wsMar-a-Lago probe: DOJ asks Supreme Court to deny Trump request to block its review of classified recordsDOJ asked the Supreme Court to reject former President Trump’s request to block the agency from continuing review of classified documen…5:50 AM ∙ Oct 12, 202253Likes12Retweets
🔥 Speaking of the Supreme Court and of Pennsylvania, the Court issued a significant elections decision yesterday in a Pennsylvania mail-in voting case.
The Court reversed a Third Circuit decision allowing “undated” mail-in ballots to be counted in Pennsylvania, even though their elections statute requires mail-in ballot envelopes to have a handwritten date of receipt. The reversal was only on procedural grounds though, leaving the ultimate issue undecided. Nevertheless, it doesn’t look good for people who want undated ballots to count.
Think about it this way. If the Court APPROVED of counting undated ballots, it could’ve easily overlooked the procedural problems, since the Third Circuit got the “right” decision anyway. There’s no reason to overturn unless the Court doesn’t agree with all this flexible interpretation of election statutes.
But since the Supreme Court didn’t say one way or the other, Pennsylvania’s Secretary of State has directed county officials to count undated ballots anyway. So the issue will be back to the Supreme Court soon.
It’s a half-step, but it’s a half-step in the right direction.
The Washington Times @WashTimes
Supreme Court upends Pennsylvania precedent permitting undated mail-in ballots trib.al/kZBymb7
🔥 Yesterday I told you that Europe was suffering from the U.S.’s interest rate increases, which were really aimed at China and Russia, and the EU is just collateral damage. Apparently I wasn’t the only one. Yesterday, French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire told the assembly that “The conflict in Ukraine must not result in US economic domination and a weakening of the EU.”
2:18 PM ∙ Oct 10, 20222,612Likes1,238Retweets
Bruno also complained about the sky-high price of American natural gas. Too bad for Europe those Nordstream pipelines suddenly and unexpectedly blew up. Good for America, though.
🔥 A video clip from the EU Parliament went viral yesterday, after a Pfizer executive testified, admitting that the pharma company “never” tested its drug to see if it would prevent transmission of the virus. Don’t be silly.
That’s horse hockey.
What was the “95% effective” all about, then? 95% of WHAT? Why were all the politicians saying the mRNA drugs would “shut down the pandemic?” Why did news anchors say the drugs would make people a “viral dead end?” Were they all just making it up? Was it all just a giant misunderstanding?
1:43 PM ∙ Oct 11, 202219,905Likes9,671Retweets
I don’t know about you, but to me, she seems kind of defensive. Good.
Even more shamefully, and the part I want to focus on, the executive continued, telling the MEPs that “We had to really move at the speed of science…to really understand what is taking place in the market.”
First, what on Earth is “the speed of science?” I’ve heard that term a few times now, and it sounds good, nice and focus-group-ey, but what does it MEAN? Is it like the speed of light? Does science go really fast? Not usually, surely. It took 48 years to discover the Higgs boson.
Maybe that second clause helps: “to understand what is taking place in the market.” The MARKET. Marketing. Marketing is a kind of science, too, right?
Anyway, Pfizer shares are down from around $53 in July to only $42 yesterday. And it seems headed down. Investors Business Daily ran a story yesterday headlined, “Pfizer’s Covid Sales Are Expected To Decline, Again — Is PFE Stock Now A Sell?”
Is Pfizer’s stock dropping at the ‘speed of science?’ We can hope.
🔥 The UK Telegraph ran an alarming article yesterday headlined, “Video Games Could Trigger Heart Attacks in Children.”
Video games! Heart attacks! In CHILDREN!
In other words, they’re saying if you get killed in the game, you could be killed in real life. I think there was a movie about that or something.
The story reports a new Australian study reviewing TWENTY-TWO cases where children suddenly and unexpectedly collapsed, unconscious, while playing video games. They speculate the adrenaline and excitement caused by tense experiences playing competitive multi-player war games can trigger “previously unidentified heart issues.”
Uh huh.
Dr. Jonathan Skinner, the study’s co-author, said he was “staggered” to see how widespread the issue is — and that it has led to some children dying. Weird that it’s happening just now.
Now, I’m just spitballing here, but I wonder if the researchers looked for other common factors among the kids who collapsed. I don’t know what it could be, of course, but I wonder if they all took the same medication or something. They should probably ask. You never know.
Anyway, you might want to take it seriously if the advertisement says, “this video game is a knockout!”
🔴Young people with undiagnosed cardiac issues most at risk if they get too excited from playing games, say researchers telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/10/1…
telegraph.co.ukVideo games could trigger heart attacks in childrenYoung people with undiagnosed cardiac issues most at risk if they get too excited from playing games, say researchers…7:40 AM ∙ Oct 11, 202243Likes31Retweets
💉 Basketball powerhouse Butler University got some bad news yesterday, when its forward/center Jalen Thomas was diagnosed with a rare, sudden and unexpected pulmonary embolism. He’ll be out the rest of the season. At LEAST.
Jalen Thomas will miss the beginning of the 2022-23 season due to a pulmonary embolism. A full recovery is expected. –> bit.ly/3fOOQ1z
A pulmonary embolism is a BLOOD CLOT in the lungs. The clot restricts blood flow and lowers oxygen levels while also increasing blood pressure in pulmonary arteries. It’s not good.
Various media have observed how rare the condition is in healthy athletes. I wonder what could have caused this? Scientists are baffled, of course.
💉 Last week, Joel Morowitz, 55, co-founder of 1990’s indie label spinART Records, died suddenly and unexpectedly of cardiac arrest at his Bethesda, Maryland home.
Judy MillerSilverman @motormouthmedia
Joel was the lovely half of this label when I worked on Apples in Stereo many moons ago. So sad to hear of his passing. billboard.comJoel Morowitz, Co-Founder of Indie Label spinArt, Dies at 55Morowitz was “one of the good people on the planet,” says Jeff Price….5:40 PM ∙ Oct 11, 202212Likes1Retweet
Cardiac arrest, again. Weird.
💉 In an interview on French TV, former presidential candidate and long-time French politician Jean Lasalle said that, despite originally being FOR the vaccines, he’s now changed his mind, after four post-jab heart surgeries. “I got the … vaccine that almost killed me, that distorted my heart,” he said. “I have had four surgeries since January 3rd of this year.”
Lasalle explained that he got the jabs because Prime Minister Macron urged everyone to do it, and he wanted to show he was being part of the solution. But later, he said he found out that Macron and most other French ministers were NOT VACCINATED.
Martine et le Covid, 🇨🇭🇫🇷 💉😷🐒🇺🇦🇪🇺👉🐑 @Martine_LeCovid
6:47 AM ∙ Oct 10, 202261Likes45Retweets
💉 TV doctor and radio host Dr. Drew Pinsky has also done a complete reversal on the vaccines. In December 2020, Dr. Drew told his listeners that he was getting the jabs and didn’t even care what kind. “Yeah, just give it to me,” he said excitedly.
But both Drew and his son had a “terrible reaction” to the vaccines. In 2021, Drew interviewed Peter McCullough. In February 2021, he interviewed stand-up comedian Heather McDonald, who collapsed on stage during a live performance in Tempe, Arizona, immediately after having gotten through two jokes about how she was fine after a recent covid vaccination and how J*sus loved her the most. McDonald suspects she was jab-injured, and during her interview, Dr. Drew described a good friend who still can’t walk across the room.
By September of this year, Dr. Drew was highly critical of the vaccine and interviewing people like Robert Malone.
Here’s a video timeline of Dr. Drew’s transformation:
Dr. Drew changes his tune on Covid Vaccines.
12:12 PM ∙ Oct 11, 20228,091Likes4,292Retweets
🔥 You almost have to see it to believe it. Mere days after Hurricane Ian washed away the Sanibel Island bridge, crews deployed by Governor DeSantis and the Department of Transportation have already fixed the bridge, restored vehicular traffic, and are sending teams of electrical workers in to get the power back on.
5:53 PM ∙ Oct 11, 20229,243Likes2,089Retweets
THAT is the kind of thing government should be doing. Great job, Governor!
Have a wonderful Wednesday, and I’ll see you guys back here tomorrow for more!
C&C is moving the needle and changing minds. If you can, I could use your help getting the truth out and spreading optimism and hope: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/-learn-how-to-get-involved-
Twitter: @jchilders98
Truth Social: @jchilders98
MeWe: mewe.com/i/coffee_and_covid.
C&C Swag! www.shopcoffeeandcovid.com
Emailed Daily Newsletter: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com
© 2022, Jeff Childers, all rights reserved
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
From City of Fernandina Beach, 10-12-22
| Sanitation Collection and Disposal see related documents… Read on Status Open Bid Category All Bids Publication Date/Time August 29, 2022, 08:00 AM Closing Date/Time October 25, 2022, 02:00 PM |
By Larry Sand, 9-30-22
Mercifully, Banned Books Week, celebrated Sept. 18-24 this year, is over, and we can take a deep breath for the next 51 or so weeks till it once again rears its ugly, hysterical, manipulative, leftwing head.
Whatever righteousness this week may have once held, it has been taken over by progressive sex obsessives and groomers who are trying to legitimize the field once known quaintly as “obscenity.”
Started in 1982, Banned Books Week is proudly promoted by the American Library Association, whose incoming president, Emily Drabinski, is euphoric at the prospect of leading the organization. In a tweet, she gushed, “I just cannot believe that a Marxist lesbian who believes that collective power is possible to build and can be wielded for a better world is the president-elect of @ALALibrary. I am so excited for what we will do together. Solidarity!”
In a similar pathetic vein, she added on LinkedIn that she’s proud “to have the support of Randi Weingarten of the American Federation of Teachers for our campaign for president of the American Library Association. Solidarity!”
Then there is PEN America, an organization that purports to stand at the “intersection of literature and human rights to protect free expression in the United States and worldwide.” Like ALA, the organization has a far-left agenda, and has no problem with the fact that porn can wind up in the hands of a six-year-old.
And, of course, the National Education Association – chief kiddie porn-purveyor in the country – embraces Banned Books Week. A perfect example of the union’s perverse leanings was recently reported by Christopher Rufo. He writes that the NEA and its local affiliate in Hilliard, Ohio, have been providing staff in the city’s school district with QR code-enabled badges, which point to the “NEA LGBTQ+ Caucus” website and resources from various gender activist organizations.
One of these resources, Teen Health Source’s “Queering Sexual Education,” promises to “empower youth” and includes a how-to guide for performing “anal sex,” “bondage,” “rimming,” “domination,” “sadomasochism,” “muffing,” and “fisting.” The materials are extremely graphic, explaining, for example, how to “[put] a fist or whole hand into a person’s vagina or bum.”
It’s important to note that National Education Association perviness has been with us for some time. At its 2004 convention, the union gave its prestigious Human Rights Award to Kevin Jennings, founder of the Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network (GLSEN). This is the group that presided over the infamous “Fistgate” conference held at Tufts University in Massachusetts in March 2000, where state employees gave explicit instructions (about “fisting” and other forms of gay sexual activity) to children as young as 12.
Unfortunately, “Fistgate” was not an isolated incident. On April 30, 2005, GLSEN held an event at Brookline High School in Massachusetts, and distributed an obscene booklet to hundreds of middle and high school students. With headings like F**kin’, S**kin’ and Spit or Swallow?, it describes various sexual practices that can only be described as perverse.
And who can forget the in-your-face “NEA Drag Queen Caucus” (thankfully now defunct) which came to be in 2010.
Then in 2011 Diane Schneider, representing the NEA at a UN conference on the status of women, said, “Oral sex, masturbation, and orgasms need to be taught in education,” and advocated for more “inclusive” sex education in U.S. schools, with curricula based on liberal hetero and homosexual expression. She claimed that the idea of sex education remains an oxymoron if it is abstinence-based, or if students are still able to opt-out. “Gender identity expression and sexual orientation are a spectrum,” she explained, and said that those opposed to homosexuality “are stuck in a binary box that religion and family create.”
Some school boards are just as bad as the NEA. In Fairfax County, Virginia, Lawn Boy is available to middle and high schoolers. This blatant porn includes such charming passages as, “What if I told you I touched another guy’s d**k?” … “What if I told you I sucked it?” … “I was ten years old, but it’s true. I put Doug Goble’s d**k in my mouth.”
Additionally, the Fairfax school board is also gives its blessing to Gender Queer, whose protagonist says, “I can’t wait to have your c**k in my mouth — I’m going to give you the bl*w j*b of your life. Then I want you inside me.”
Individual teachers can do things without getting an okay from their school board or principal. In California’s Capistrano school district, for example, a teacher has a “queer library” in her classroom. One of the books, Juliet Takes a Breath by Gabby Rivera, contains extremely graphic imagery of sex between women. Everything you Ever Wanted to Know About Being Trans discusses bondage, sadomasochism, fetishes and kink.
Aside from the downright perversity, there is a pile of irony – not to mention hypocrisy – to the book banning hysteria. The same anti-banning radicals are also in the vanguard of the so-called Cancel Culture, which has led to the censoring of mainstream icons like Dr. Seuss and JK Rowling because they didn’t toe the Woke party line. Also, Columbus Day has been canceled, and statues of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt have been torn down in various locales.
Additionally, Facebook workers have routinely suppressed news stories of interest to conservative readers from the social network’s influential “trending” news section, according to a former journalist who worked on the project.
Ultimately, all the Banned Book Week harrumphing is dishonest because no one is actually trying to take away the right to publish any books. The thought of banned books evokes images of totalitarian regimes tossing written material into massive bonfires. In Nazi Germany, the ruling party burned thousands of books written by Jews, communists, and others. The problem that parents have with the books in question is simply that they are not age-appropriate, and have no place in our schools. It has nothing to do with censorship. Our laws prohibit 12-year-olds from going into a store and buying a Playboy or Hustler magazine. Why should schools be allowed to push Lawn Boy on a child of that age?
If your preteen wandered into a park and came upon a sweaty guy in a trench coat who handed her some porn, would you wish him a Happy Banned Books Week and just move along?
No, you’d probably call the cops on the pervert.
A few years back, a Florida school teacher humiliated a 12-year-old boy in front of the entire class after she caught him reading a book during free reading time. The teacher, at Park Lakes Elementary School in Fort Lauderdale, ordered Giovanni Rubeo to pick up the telephone on her desk and call his parents. As the other students watched, the teacher left a terse message on the family’s answering machine.
“I noticed that he has a Bible in the classroom,” she said on the recording. “He’s not permitted to read those books in my classroom.”
Larry Sand, a former classroom teacher, is the president of the non-profit California Teachers Empowerment Network – a non-partisan, non-political group dedicated to providing teachers and the general public with reliable and balanced information about professional affiliations and positions on educational issues.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
Governor’s Press Office
10-11-22
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Today, Governor Ron DeSantis visited Fort Myers to give updates on recovery efforts and announce that temporary repairs to the Sanibel Causeway will allow a one-time convoy of power restoration equipment, supplies and crews temporary access to Sanibel Island for power restoration efforts. Once crews are on the island, the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) will resume repairs to restore access to the island for residents, which is expected to be complete by the end of this month. Full remarks can be found here.
There are currently 19,362 reported power outages. In Lee and Collier counties, there are only 1,000 accounts on the mainland that remain without power that can receive it. More than 42,000 linemen have already restored power to over 2.6 million accounts across the state, representing over 99% of accounts restored since the peak.
Yesterday, Governor DeSantis announced that $2.5 million in loans have been awarded to 55 businesses through the Small Business Emergency Bridge Loan Program to help those impacted by Hurricane Ian. Additionally, $126 million will be going to 24 communities across the Panhandle that are continuing to rebuild and strengthen after Hurricane Michael made landfall 4 years ago.
First Lady Casey DeSantis announced that the Florida Disaster Fund has raised nearly $40 million since activation. To read more info, click here. To contribute, please visit www.FloridaDisasterFund.org or text DISASTER to 20222.
Additionally, the First Lady has worked with the State Disaster Recovery Mental Health Coordinator, Sara Newhouse, to compile a webpage of resources to help first responders navigate resources for mental health needs post hurricane. To visit the site, click here. Mental health resources for individuals and communities are available at MyFLFamilies.com/HurricaneIan. Floridians’ health and well-being are a top priority, and the Department of Children and Families is reminding individuals that they are not alone. All Floridians impacted by Hurricane Ian can find someone to talk to today through the Disaster Distress Helpline by calling 800-985-5990.
Safe and found persons can be reported safe at http://safe.fl.gov.
Additional programs that have been put into place to aid communities include the activation of the Florida Small Business Emergency Bridge Loan Program, the initiation of the Army Corps of Engineers’ Operation Blue Roof, and FDOT’s diligent work to construct temporary bridges into areas that are cut off from motorists. First Lady Casey DeSantis, Volunteer Florida and Tervis have created a design with Florida imagery for a new tumbler product. With every sale of this tumbler, all proceeds will go to the Florida Disaster Fund. Products are available for purchase on the Tervis website HERE and will soon be available in stores for purchase.
State response efforts include:
Search and Rescue
Florida Division of Emergency Management (FDEM)
Power
Health and Human Services
Infrastructure
BRIDGES
Bridges Closed as of 11 a.m. on 10/10/22
ROADWAYS
Roads Closed as of 11 a.m. on 10/10/22
PORTS
AIRPORTS
RAIL
Passenger Rail
Freight Rail
Mass Care
Law Enforcement
Private Sector Support
Florida Department of Education (DOE)
Florida Department of Environmental Protection (DEP)
Telecommunications
Licensing
Insurance
Florida Main Street Program
Elections Update
Office Closures
By Jeff Childers
10-11-22
Good morning C&C, and Happy Tuesday! This morning’s roundup includes: corporate media makes the bad decision to smear Florida’s new jab guidance; a great decision from the 11th Circuit supporting Florida’s vaccine passport ban; setbacks for nasal covid vaxx; study shows bad odds for Bell’s Palsy victims; setbacks for trans rights in the military; UN begs fed to stop the pain; Russia continues shelling Ukraine, which prints stamps celebrating bridge attacks; Biden promises to send higher tech air defenses; California raises taxes; and an intriguing update on Nurse Tiffany Dover.
💉 After almost three days of completely ignoring the story, corporate media has finally chosen the form of its destructor for Florida’s new guidance recommending against the jabs for men under 40, and finding a +84% chance of DYING from cardiac arrest using a well-established scientific method for establishing vaccine causality.
They’re going with trying to discredit Florida’s exceptionally well-credentialed Surgeon General, Dr. Joseph Ladapo.
Dr. Ladapo made a great point on Tucker Carlson’s show yesterday. He said, “If it had been known two years ago or so, that this vaccine would increase cardiac deaths in young men by 84%, would they have approved it? The obvious answer is no.”
Election Wizard 🇺🇸 @ElectionWiz
2:00 AM ∙ Oct 11, 202210,608Likes4,226Retweets
Ladapo has a point. Whatever else you want to say about the new guidance, the whether it’s “peer reviewed” or “sufficiently large,” the cluster of deaths after the jabs should have disqualified the shots. Which then raises the question of why they’re still on the market, but I digress.
I surveyed the headlines, almost all negative about the new guidance:
I only found one corporate media source that played it straight:
I reviewed the corporate media propaganda, I mean the stories, and it won’t surprise you that the complaints all criticize Florida’s research without offering a SINGLE OPPOSING STUDY. Sure, they wave their hands around the CDC, and claim the shots have been “well proven” to be “safe and effective” — like THAT’S fooling anybody these days — but never point to the high quality, gold-standard, peer-reviewed, journal-published research they demand from Florida.
Dr. Ladapo is pretty feisty. Late yesterday he’d already tweeted his responses to the “substantive” criticisms:
Joseph A. Ladapo, MD, PhD @FLSurgeonGen
I love the discussion that we’ve stimulated. Isn’t it great when we discuss science transparently instead of trying to cancel one another? I’m going to respond to the more substantive critiques.🧵12:07 PM ∙ Oct 10, 202222,248Likes4,990Retweets
Meanwhile, joke candidate Charlie Crist called Ladapo a “quack:”
Our quack Surgeon General Ladapo is back with more misinformation. When I’m governor, I’ll appoint a surgeon general who isn’t a partisan ideologue and who will provide sound medical advice. floridapolitics.comTwitter flags anti-vaccine guidance from Joseph Ladapo as misinformationFlorida’s Surgeon General recommended against mRNA vaccines for those under 40….5:11 PM ∙ Oct 9, 20227,815Likes2,501Retweets
Since it’s a family blog, I can’t tell you what I really think of Mr. Crist.
💉 Yesterday, in more good news, Reuters reported that Norwegian Cruise Lines has finally lost its poorly-considered appeal against the State of Florida. NCL had sued Florida over its ban on commercial businesses requiring proof of vaccination. But yesterday, the 11th Circuit entered an order supporting Florida’s ban, finding that the law regulated commercial CONDUCT, and not, as Norwegian argued, anybody’s First Amendment SPEECH.
Free speech! It was a dumb idea from the start. One of the judges pointed out Norwegian is free to ask anybody they want about their vaccine status, as often as they like, but they can’t condition a cruise on it.
Just before the opinion issued, Norwegian dropped the vaccine requirement last week. They hung in there longer than any other cruise line.
It’s progress! But we’re not out of the woods yet. To give you an idea where we are, the decision was 2-1. The dissenting judge — an Obama appointee — wrote just last week that Florida’s vaccine passport ban would “lead to the spread of” covid, and he referred to the ban as a “heavy burden” on the cruise industry that provides only “minimal benefits.”
That kind of analysis from a judge at this stage of the pandemic is pretty shocking. But it tells us that some judges — fortunately, in the minority here — still believe we’re in a state of medical emergency in this country. At this point.
So. We’re winning. But we still have a lot of work to do.
💉 Vaccine specialist and FDA Vaccine Committee member Dr. Paul Offit seems to have finally reached a line of sorts. He’s made some public comments critical of the vaccines lately — in particular the new boosters — even using the derogatory phrase, “mouse data.” Here’s a little compilation for you:
8:34 PM ∙ Oct 10, 20221,293Likes785Retweets
It’s not good news for the jabs. When you’ve lost Dr. Offit, you’ve got problems.
🔬 A new study published in the Annals of Medicine and Surgery this month with the timely title, “Development of Facial Palsy Following COVID-19 Vaccination: A Systematic Review.” It is a meta-study — a study roundup, if you like — of 38 other studies of Bell’s Palsy and related vaccine-induced illnesses. In total, 58 patients were included. The researchers compiled some interesting statistics.
The majority (53.45%) of cases had bilateral (both sides) facial palsy. Significantly, they happily reported that 76% of patients had “partially recovered.”
I appreciate a cheerful academic who sees the vial as ‘half full’ as much as the next blogger, but that’s a TERRIBLE statistic.
What that number means is that THREE QUARTERS of jab victims failed to completely recover from their vaccine-induced facial palsy. In other words, they have what appears at this point to be a permanent injury. And, it need hardly be said, but faces are kind of important. Especially to actors like Justin Bieber. And everybody else. The study reported that only 22% of patients in the surveyed studies had fully recovered.
Those aren’t good odds.
Don’t start with me about how partial recovery is okay, “maybe Justin will recover enough to resume his career without any serious problems” or some rubbish like that. The point is, he was injured by a defective, dangerous product, and it never should have happened. Even taking the rosy assumption of a successful partial recovery, just try to estimate the dollar value of a single lost year in Justin Bieber’s career.
Whatever that number is, it would be the lawsuit value, if Justin weren’t prohibited from suing the manufacturer of the defective, dangerous product that harmed him. But of course, he IS prohibited from suing.
For now!
💉 Uh-oh. Reuters ran a story this morning headlined, “AstraZeneca’s COVID Vaccine Suffers a Setback in Nasal Spray Trial.” Setbacks are what you DON’T want in your vaccine development.
What was the “setback?” According to Reuters, the setback was “initial testing on humans did not yield the desired protection.”
Oh. You know what else did not “yield the desired protection?” The regular jabs. But I digress.
Sounds like the nasal one doesn’t work. Reuters explained, an “antibody response in the respiratory mucous membranes was seen in only a minority of participants in the trial.” Sandy Douglas, chief investigator of the trial at Oxford University admitted, “The nasal spray did not perform as well in this study as we had hoped.”
No doubt.
As far as I’m concerned, they can take as much time as they need. I do not want it in the arm. I do not want it in the nose. I do not want it, Sam I Am.
🔥 The Post Millennial ran a story yesterday about a giant setback in trans rights, headlined “Biden admin requires trans women to register for draft if they were born male.”
Hahahahaha! The article’s subhead expands the humor, explaining ”US citizens or immigrants who are born male and changed their gender to female are still required to register. Individuals who are born female and changed their gender to male are not required to register.”
Oh man, you really can’t make this stuff up.
It’s contradictory because one of the first executive orders Biden signed when he occupied the White House directed the U.S. military to pretend that cross-dressing soldiers were the sex they are imitating, rather than their actual, biological gender. But I guess you have to draw the line somewhere. When it comes to registering for the draft, they aren’t interested in playing dress-up any more. That’s a nice skirt, but if you have — or ever had — the berries and the stem, you gotta sign up, Loretta.
Michael Warburton @MichaelWarbur17
5:03 PM ∙ Oct 8, 20221,278Likes174Retweets
That makes sense, because you don’t want people gender-bending just to evade mandatory service. Sorry, Klinger. The more curious part, to me, is why provide an exception for trans men (women) from the requirement? That’s the part that gives away the reality this is all make-believe.
Why not make women sign up for the draft if they want to wear pants and be called ‘Bruce’ and change their birth certificate?
🔥 The United Nations has had enough. It wants the Fed to stop increasing interest rates. The Wall Street Journal ran an article yesterday headlined, “U.N. Calls On Fed, Other Central Banks to Halt Interest-Rate Increases.” Except it’s really just about the Fed, not so much “other central banks.”
In its most recent annual report, the U.N. said the Fed’s recent rate increases pose “risks [of] significant harm to developing countries if it persists with rapid rate rises.” The real problem is that the Fed is at war with the rest of the world. The Fed isn’t interested in preventing harm to developing countries.
In a news conference following the U.N.’s announcement, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said the central bank DOES account for the impact of its policies on the rest of the world, thank you, but will keep lifting interest rates anyway. To bring inflation under control, he said.
You may have noticed that residential mortgage rates have skyrocketed, now in the 6%, 7% and even low 8% range. That’s a direct result of the Fed’s recent moves, described by the Biden Administration as necessary to “control inflation.” But that’s not the real reason.
The real reason the Fed is raising rates is to strengthen the dollar. Russia, China and other countries have been working diligently to replace the dollar as the world’s reserve currency, and our government is fighting back. It’s complicated how it works, but the simple version is raising interest rates makes the dollar stronger relative to other currencies. That hurts other countries and makes the dollar more attractive.
You may have heard that it’s a good time to travel to Europe, because of the strong dollar. For instance, the dollar is currently stronger against the British pound than it has been in a long, long time. That helps us, but it’s badly hurting Europe. For instance, the Wall Street Journal also ran a story yesterday headlined, “Bank of England Further Expands Bond-Market Rescue.”
The article quoted the Bank of England, which stated that “Dysfunction in this market, and the prospect of self-reinforcing ‘fire sale’ dynamics pose a material risk to U.K. financial stability.” The dry term ‘a material risk to U.K. financial stability’ means ‘worst case scenario.’ Last week, the Bank of England almost folded and went out of business, requiring emergency financial measures to keep it afloat, such as printing even more money.
10:31 AM ∙ Oct 11, 202217Likes4Retweets
Britain’s financial problems are a direct result of the United States’ current monetary policy, which is more intended to control Russia and China than to control domestic inflation. As long as this conflict continues, the rates are likely to increase or at least stay high.
Sorry, Europe!
🚀 Russia continued its airstrikes on Ukrainian infrastructure targets all day yesterday. Meanwhile, it turns out that Ukraine already had new postage stamps celebrating the terrorist attack on the Kerch bridge ready to go:
So the Ukrainians aren’t doing so badly they can’t troll Russia with their postage stamps. You have to have your priorities.
🚀 In case you were confused about it, Joe Biden isn’t planning to just sit around while the Russians bomb his favorite Eastern European crack house, I mean ally. CNN ran a story yesterday headlined, “Biden Promises Ukraine ‘Advanced Air Defense Systems’ After Russian Missile Strikes.”
The article explains that Biden called with former rapper/comedian and Ukraine president Zelenskyy yesterday, promising the U.S. will quickly send its ally even more advanced anti-missile and anti-aircraft systems. CNN said the White House didn’t specify which air defense systems Biden discussed with Zelensky, but the U.S. has previously committed to sending some of its National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems, which can engage Russian cruise missiles.
Putin has said that if the U.S. provides anti-aircraft weapons to Ukraine, it’s on like Donkey Kong. So.
📈 Gavin Newsom isn’t taking the world’s problems lying down, either. Last week the Wall Street Journal ran a story headlined, “Gavin Newsom’s Stealth Tax Increase,” with the sub-headline, “The state quietly raises the marginal income tax rate to 14.4% in 2024.” That’s an INCREASE of +1.4%.
The hike is billed as only affecting high earners, but it also provides for the state to further raise payroll taxes on ALL employees, regardless of income. You have to hand it to Newsom, he has great timing. It seems like a terrific time to raise taxes. It’s not like we’re suffering crippling inflation and productive people are already fleeing the state.
Oh, wait.
🔥 One story that isn’t going away is that of nurse Tiffany Dover, who infamously collapsed on camera early in the pandemic while giving a press conference at her hospital about how much she appreciated her Pfizer shot she just got.
After she recovered, the tremulous nurse explained that she’d always been a fainter, often having an “over-reactive vagal response,” which she blamed for keeling over after the jab. Shortly after that, she was seen — motionless — in one distant, masked photo op with the hospital, again promoting the jabs, and since then she has been 100% missing in action.
LOTS of people have been looking for her ever since, without result. Jordan says it has been 650 days since anyone saw Tiffany, that we know of.
A couple months ago, NBC produced a five-part podcast ‘debunking’ the ‘conspiracy theory’ that Tiffany Dover is dead. The problem with the podcast was, despite crawling over every inch of Dover’s small Alabama town, NBC’s investigators never actually found Tiffany. But no matter; NBC finally relied on an over-lawyered hospital statement that Tiffany was just fine, and her employment status is undisclosed for privacy reasons.
So shut up.
Yesterday, on his Substack “the Dossier,” investigative journalist Jordan Shachtel published the first installment of his own two-part investigation. Jordan discovered Tiffany’s signature on two mortgage documents from August 2021 — eight months after her fainting episode. Based on the mortgage and other evidence, he speculates that Tiffany is under a strict NDA after getting a substantial settlement from the hospital. He thinks she’s probably vaccine-injured.
Here’s the link to Jordan’s article: [Nowhere to be found: What really happened to Tiffany Dover?](https://dossier.substack.com/p/nowhere-to-be-found-what-really-happened?r=46y49&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web)
According to Jordan, Tiffany’s nursing license expires next month, and must be renewed if she’s alive and well enough to keep working as a nurse. So next month we should know more — if and when a new nursing license hits public record.
Even if Tiffany only turns out to be vaccine injured, and not dead, CHI Memorial Hospital and its managers will still be exposed as the biggest frauds since Bernie Madoff. The scandal could put the hospital out of business.
As it should.
Have a terrific Tuesday! I’ll see you all back here tomorrow for more.
C&C is moving the needle and changing minds. If you can, I could use your help getting the truth out and spreading optimism and hope: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/-learn-how-to-get-involved-
Twitter: @jchilders98
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© 2022, Jeff Childers, all rights reserved
© 2022 Jeff Childers
Gainesville, FL 32605
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
But this IS subject to a fine: “PayPal prohibits “activities that … relate to … the promotion of hate, violence, racial or other forms of intolerance that is discriminatory or the financial exploitation of a crime.”” They define what it is.
By John Solomon
In a censorship experiment gone awry, PayPal reversed course Saturday night and said it was withdrawing a new policy that would have allowed the company to fine users $2,500 if they spread “misinformation.”
The company sent a statement to the National Review saying the Acceptable Use Policy had been sent out mistakenly,
“An AUP notice recently went out in error that included incorrect information. PayPal is not fining people for misinformation and this language was never intended to be inserted in our policy,” the firm said in the statement.
“Our teams are working to correct our policy pages. We’re sorry for the confusion this has caused,” it added. The policy lit up social media over the weekend, drawing widespread rebuke even from the company’s former CEO. Until the reversal, PayPal was set to impose the new terms, which laid out a list of policy violations which “may subject [users] to damages, including liquidated damages of $2,500.00 U.S. dollars per violation, which may be debited directly from [their] PayPal account.”
Among those violations is any activity that “promotes misinformation,” though the company did not clarify what it means by that term.
Also disallowed are “any messages, content, or materials” that the company dubs, in part, “objectionable.”
The company policy also encouraged users to “immediately” report other PayPal customers for violations of the policy.
Read more in source article
Still more:
Publisher’s note: Citizens Journal Florida does not use and will likely never use PayPal.
Here Is How To Make That Happen….Call to Action!
By Michael Miller
Many problems with fraud and abuse in our electoral system have been revealed since the 2020 presidential election. No matter which side you are on, we all need to be able to trust the integrity of the process, right? We now we face a task that is critical to the survival of Liberty, and our nation. Will you, citizens of the nation respond?
The problem:
In the absence of electoral integrity, nobody can trust the process and be willing to accept election results peaceably. In the recent past, changes in election procedures have diminished the trustworthiness of the process. The various plague mandates and restrictions have enabled the relaxation of once strong rules. (Don’t let a good crisis go to waste).
Many fear that the absence of election integrity could lead to an autocratic, unrepresentative government, even widespread violence or civil war. Denial of the problem by the establishment /media narrative, and some states even passing laws to legalize 2020 irregularities have infuriated mandates , making this more likely. There will be far more scrutiny of the elections now, as it should be. How can anyone feel confident or satisfied with election results if the system is vulnerable to cheating and therefore unreliable?
Some Examples of Rules That Undermine Election Integrity:
Above are some of the vulnerabilities that have been created. They open opportunity for mischief, and those opportunities are being exploited. Coordinated interference in just several swing states is believed to have swung the 2020 election from Trump to Biden. Think of the amount of damage that has been inflicted on the nation and our individual rights in the past less than 2 years! This must not be allowed to continue if we are to preserve our Constitutional Republic.
Steps To Create Voting System Integrity:
I believe the implementation of the following procedures will solidify the integrity of our system:
Discussion:
Our failure to enact these policies into our voting laws will result in the doom of our republic. If no one can trust the results, there will be conflict and acrimony that could shake our foundations. The will of the people will not be implemented, as it was not in 2020. Can you see that this is a task that must be accomplished?
I hear many statements of resignation and abdication, “There is nothing we can do about it”. “When is somebody going to pass a law?” My pastor recently spoke about people who pray for something, when they do not really want it deep in their heart. Those prayers are not answered! So to those who want these changes, I ask, Do you really want these changes? Those who answer, “Yes!” are now called to volunteer for this Special Operation.
For those who step up for this mission, Here Are The Steps To take:
1. Do you have a relationship with a state or national representative? Seek a meeting and ask for a commitment to introduce and /or support legislation to enact these policies.
2. If you do not have a special relationship, still request an appointment. Call and write to request this commitment from your state and national reps. Remember, they work for you.
3. Do you write a blog or have a friend who does? Ask them for a commitment to join this operation by publishing an appeal to their readers to get these policies enacted.
4. Send this mission announcement to all in your address book, or at least all who could hear the call. Ask them to act, then forward it.
5. Post these reform points on all your social media accounts. Ask followers to like and send to their friends/ followers. Ask all to forward this post and act upon the “orders”.
6. Consider running for office or strongly supporting a potential candidate who subscribes to this agenda.
7. Initiate/support referendums to enact this agenda.
Our objective is to bring this mission to nation-wide awareness and action. We, who are called upon to initiate this and start the momentum; Now is our chance to be the origin of an amazing and vital national movement. Are you tough enough? Do we have the commitment? While there will not be sufficient time to get new laws enacted before next months election, we definitely have an ample window to get this done prior to the upcoming presidential race in ‘24. To those who accept this task, I pray that the Lord is with you, and shout, CHARGE!!!!
Here are some links for further supporting information:
Dear XXXXXXX:
I am writing you to secure your commitment for a vital initiative regarding our electoral system integrity.
Many vulnerabilities and flaws in the system are raising doubts about election results. I’m sure you agree that this is a threat to the survival of our constitutional republic. When citizens cannot trust the results of elections, conflict, acrimony and pandemonium are likely to ensue.
Here are new rules that will eliminate most of the flaws in current procedures:
1 All voting on Election Day. This will allow a high level of scrutiny of the process, and no ballots lying around for weeks to be altered, disappeared, etc.
2 Make Election Day a state or national holiday. This makes it easy for everyone to vote. No excuses.
3 Paper ballots, counted manually or by scanner/ counters with no software. No more vulnerable, unreliable electronic voting machine hacking.
4 Positive ID, confirmation of residence. This must be a voting requirement throughout the nation.
5 Absentee ballots only to those who specifically request one. Ballots not to be blindly mass-mailed out. An individual request is required to secure one. Extenuating circumstances must be demonstrated. This will eliminate countless opportunities for cheating.
6 More aggressive election scrutiny, protests and litigation.
Do I have your commitment to promulgate these rules into legislation by all means available to your office?
Thank you for your efforts to strengthen our republic with more secure electoral laws.
In allegiance to our US Constitution,
XXXXXXXX
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
Michael Miller, A Co-Founder of Citizens Journal Florida is a fierce defender of Liberty. The retired Fire Lieutenant/EMT from NY has been in FB for 8 years. He is a local sailing captain and instructor. He dabbles in theatre, photography, geopolitics, markets and now writing. Look for his writing here and at: https://firesail.substack.com/
Project Patriot
10-10-22
Democrat President Joe Biden has actually admitted that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) has “done a good job” during remarks about the Republican governor’s handling of the response to Hurricane Ian.
During a visit to survey the damage caused by the hurricane on Wednesday, Biden commended DeSantis for his response to the storm in a surprising shift from the president’s usual criticism of the Republican leader.
Biden’s praise came during a visit to Lee County, which saw severe damage from the Category 4 hurricane.
“What the governor’s done is pretty remarkable,” the president admitted.
“I think he’s done a good job,” Biden added, going on to acknowledge that, while they have “different political philosophies,” DeSantis has done a good job handling the crisis.
Read the whole article at: https://projectpatriot.com/shocking-biden-praises-desantis/
By Jeff Childers
10-10-22
Good morning, C&C, and Happy Monday! Today’s roundup includes: CDC makes a big change in covid reporting and some people don’t like it; progress in CDC’s mask guidance; PayPal fines and then un-fines misinformation in one day; Twitter censors, then un-censors, official government misinformation; Russian attacks Ukrainian infrastructure after Ukraine attacks a key Russian bridge; Obergefell prediction comes true; FBI feels the heat from Republicans in the Senate; and a hilarious followup to Biden’s “two words” gaffe.
🪖 Thanks for all the terrific feedback on my American Thought Leaders interview. If you missed it, here’s the no-subscription-required link.
🔥 Last Thursday, CBS ran a long-overdue story headlined, “CDC Ends Daily Reporting of Covid Case and Death Data, in Shift to Weekly Updates.” Finally!
The massive health bureaucracy explained the shift would “allow for additional reporting flexibility, reduce the reporting burden on states and jurisdictions, and maximize surveillance resources.” Sounds good. The new guidance states that from October 20th, state and local health departments will now only need to report new covid cases and deaths to the agency every week, on Wednesdays.
I thought it was good news, but Twitter covid experts were “furious:”
@DataDrivenMD They don’t care if we die. They don’t care if more people are disabled by this. They don’t care if kids have to live with knowing that they gave a virus to a family member and it killed them or disabled them.9:54 PM ∙ Oct 9, 2022
I don’t know. Maybe these fearful folks should be more a smidge more concerned about the risk of global thermonuclear war, rather than fretting about getting their daily updates on a bad cold that has a ton of available treatments at this point?
Just asking. Don’t cancel me.
🔥 This next story is progress, but it’s going to vex you anyway. Guess what the scientists at the CDC just discovered? FACES ARE IMPORTANT FOR CHILDHOOD DEVELOPMENT.
#DidYouKnow smiling is a developmental milestone for babies? Celebrate #WorldSmileDay by making silly faces to make your baby smile 😊. Visit cdc.gov/Milestones to find other milestones you can track.
Where was World Smile Day the last two years? Oh, that’s right, it was masked by an ineffective cloth virtue-signaling device. That’s where it was.
Thanks, CDC! $cience.
You have to pay close attention. Science changes fast. It can turn on a dime. Here’s the same over-funded government health agency from THREE DAYS BEFORE:
Parents: #COVID19 vaccination helps keep kids from getting seriously sick if they get COVID-19. Protect the health of your children ages 6 months & older by getting them vaccinated as soon as you can. Learn more: bit.ly/3u3wsHF.
So.
💉 The news is moving fast these days. There were two stories over the weekend where the action completely reversed in the SAME DAY. First on Saturday, PayPal published a new user license agreement that allowed the transaction processor to fine users $2,500 every time it thought a user “promoted misinformation,” whatever that means, but by the end of the day, and after thousands of prompt account closures, the company reversed course and said nope, sorry, how’d that get in there, it was just an accident.
Never mind!
Then yesterday, Twitter jailed as “misinformation” Friday’s tweet by Florida Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo, wherein he announced Florida’s new guidance advising against vaccination for males under 40, citing drastically high rates of cardiac death following the jabs.
1:58 PM ∙ Oct 9, 202228,185Likes10,249Retweets
You can imagine what people were saying. Ladapo is a STATE OFFICIAL. His agency’s guidance is OFFICIAL GOVERNMENT INFORMATION. Who is Twitter to decide that official government information is MISinformation? Who died and made Twitter king?
Apparently Florida asked twitter to explain themselves. Then — whoops! sorry! — by the end of the day yesterday, without explanation, Twitter un-jailed Dr. Ladapo’s official tweet:
Joseph A. Ladapo, MD, PhD @FLSurgeonGen
Today, we released an analysis on COVID-19 mRNA vaccines the public needs to be aware of. This analysis showed an increased risk of cardiac-related death among men 18-39. FL will not be silent on the truth. Guidance: https://t.co/DcWZLoMU5E Press Release: https://t.co/Y0r9yepi7F3:55 PM ∙ Oct 9, 20221,335Likes373Retweets
Twitter really needs to get its act together. What the heck.
🚀 German news magazine Bild ran an indignant story early this morning headlined, “German Consulate Also Hit in Kiev.” The sub-head clarified, “The visa office of the German consulate in Kiev was hit by Russian missiles.” The article included this picture:
If that photo is accurate, that is a HUGE visa office. My goodness. Just how many German visas were they processing in Kiev? It must have been truckloads of visas. Now they’ll have to figure out a different way to handle all those Ukrainians wanting German visas, since Russia has decided to redecorate the place.
The shameless attack on Germany’s visa office appears to be part of a larger initiative. The New York Times ran a story this morning headlined, “Live Updates: At Least 10 Cities in Ukraine Come Under Sustained Attack.” The subhead says, “Authorities said at least five people were killed in Kyiv, as Russia fired missiles across Ukraine in retaliation for an attack on Saturday on a key bridge.”
Ukrainian officials stated the Russians unleashed 77 missiles from 6:20 a.m. to 11:15 a.m. this morning in a nationwide attack. Airstrikes also came from Belarus and the Crimean peninsula using 17 Shahed-type drones. Ukraine’s prime minister Denys Shmyhal said in a Telegram post that eleven important “infrastructure facilities” in eight regions and Kiev were damaged. “Parts of those regions have been de-energized,” he said.
I think he means without power, not demoralized.
One still-unanswered question that I’ve been asking since February is, why hasn’t Russia targeted Ukrainian infrastructure from day one? Russia could have easily crippled the Ukrainians without the loss of a single comrade. So far, I see nothing in the breaking news suggesting that the Russians have made any serious effort to shut down Ukraine’s power and water. They’re just poking at it. It’s like they’re not even trying.
Russians are starting to ask similar questions about the war. I listened to a podcast this weekend — the no-excuses pro-Russia “Russians with Attitude” — and the hosts seriously discussed whether the war was “real” or possibly stage-managed — principally because of the lack of infrastructure damage.
The only rational explanation I can imagine is that Russia has scrupulously avoided creating more humanitarian injury than necessary. But that explanation is inconsistent with the corporate media narrative that president Putin is frenzied madman. So.
This morning’s attacks are being attributed to ‘bridge revenge.’
🚀 The Kerch bridge is a 12-mile span connecting Russia with Crimea built in 2018, after Crimea controversially joined Russia in 2014. According to lore, Putin himself inaugurated the bridge, and was the first to cross it in an orange dump truck. Ukrainians famously detest the bridge, they just can’t stand it, they see it as a symbol of Russian occupation.
On Saturday, a mysterious, massive explosion destroyed a key segment of the middle of the Kerch bridge. Hot takes initially identified the cause as anything from a “truck explosion” to a “commando demolition,” and the BBC later “revealed” the driver’s license of a Ukrainian boat captain alleged to have conducted a suicide attack using a fishing boat or something.
Insider Paper @TheInsiderPaper
JUST IN 🚨 The aftermath of Crimea bridge explosion
7:06 AM ∙ Oct 8, 20221,416Likes648Retweets
But yesterday I saw this, which makes much more sense than a suicide boat attack. It was probably a missile strike.
9:47 PM ∙ Oct 8, 2022787Likes424Retweets
Tellingly, in an official statement, Putin labeled the bridge strike an illegal terrorist attack on “critically important civilian infrastructure,” which frankly is hard to argue with. Ukrainian social media pundits argued that since Russia drove some tanks over the bridge one time, it is fair game, or something. But if that holds water, then nothing is civilian infrastructure.
Vladimir Putin has declared the explosion on a key bridge linking Crimea and the Russian mainland was a terrorist act planned by Ukraine special services. Watch TalkTV live 👉🏻 youtu.be/8VC8gFexeZc
Putin’s logic seems to justify this morning’s attacks on Ukraine, under the goosey-gander rule. In his statement, Putin also alleged that Ukraine “tried to blow up” the TurkStream natural gas pipeline. He warned, “If attempts to carry out terrorist attacks continue, Russia’s response will be severe and at the level of the threats facing it. Nobody should be in any doubt.”
We can see a pattern developing. The Nordstream pipelines, the Kerch bridge, and now possibly the Turkstream pipeline: The Ukrainians hate things in the water! Haha, just kidding. It appears they are targeting significant Russian assets outside the borders of that country. Since Russian law forbids use of tactical nuclear weapons unless the Motherland is directly attacked, the choice of oceanic targets suggests the Ukrainians are being careful not to give Russia any nuclear options.
🚀 Last week, Russian president Putin signed a declaration annexing four Ukrainian territories into Russia, meaning under Russian law any attack on them will now be a direct attack on the Motherland. One of the four regions was Zaporizhzhia, home of the largest nuclear power plant in Europe.
🔥 Apocalypse alert! The New York Post ran a bizarre story this weekend headlined, “NYC Judge Rules Polyamorous Unions Entitled to Same Legal Protections as 2-Person Relationships.”
Hahahaha! That HAS to be a mistake! We were PROMISED when Obergefell made gay marriage the law of the land that this would NEVER HAPPEN. It was just a lunatic conspiracy theory to predict that the extra-constitutional decision would be quickly extended to polygamy and all sorts of other deviant sexual behavior.
NYC judge rules polyamorous unions entitled to same legal protections as 2-person relationships trib.al/fVtdv3J
But the headline was NOT a mistake. The lawsuit was about tenants’ rights; the lease provided that only family members could use the unit. The judge found that the third gay polygamist — it was three men — was just as much a part of the “family” as the two original guys in the apartment and was entitled to renew the lease too. It seems there was a breakup and the original guy on the lease left to go touring European festivals or something.
Finding that the third “partner” could renew the lease, even though he wasn’t on it, the judge described the bizarre arrangement using the unwieldy euphemism “significant multi-person relationships”:
Uh huh. It’s complex all right. She continued, raising the awful specter of hateful INTOLERANCE: “Why then, except for the very real possibility of implicit majoritarian animus, is the limitation of two persons inserted into the definition of a family-like relationship for the purposes of receiving the same protections from eviction accorded to legally formalized or blood relationships?”
Um, maybe it’s not hateful animus. Maybe it’s just because landlords want to have SOME control over who lives in their units.
Then the judge asked the $64,000 question: “Do all nontraditional relationships have to comprise or include only two primary persons?”
Um, yes. It should’ve ended there.
But, amazingly, the judge cited Justice Robert’s DISSENT in the Obergefell decision, where he ruefully predicted this very thing would happen: “If not having the opportunity to marry serves to disrespect and subordinate gay and lesbian couples, why wouldn’t the same imposition of this disability … serve to disrespect and subordinate people who find fulfillment in polyamorous relationships?” Roberts opined sadly.
Indeed. I can’t wait to see the next kind of “nontraditional relationships” New York judges find deserve the full and fair protection of the law. Maybe puppies? Cat people?
🔥 The Hill ran a story last week headlined, “665 FBI Employees Left Agency After Misconduct Investigations: Whistleblower Disclosure.” The gist is that for the last 15 years or so, the agency allowed a bunch of FBI agents — mostly supervisors — who were credibly accused of sexual abuse to retire instead of being disciplined, allowing them to keep their taxpayer-funded pensions and retirement benefits.
Senator Chuck Grassley penned another nasty-gram to FBI Director Chris Wray, which said “The allegations and records paint a disgraceful picture of abuse that women within the FBI have had to live with for many years. This abuse and misconduct is outrageous and beyond unacceptable.”
Republicans in Congress seems to be turning up the heat on the FBI. For some reason. Maybe it has something to do with the agency’s selective prosecutions lately, I don’t know.
“The FBI has failed to announce a single arrest in connection with some 83 attacks on Catholic Churches and 73 crisis pregnancy centers. Strange then that it would have time to track down Houck and the 73-year-old Gallagher.” thefederalist.comThe Next GOP Congress Should Impeach Merrick GarlandGarland has weaponized the DOJ and the FBI, using them as blunt instruments to criminalize the Biden administration’s political opposit…9:37 PM ∙ Oct 7, 20224,906Likes2,193Retweets
Just saying.
💉 It’s baffling. ANOTHER celebrity has been diagnosed with Bell’s Palsy, joining Justin Bieber and Canadian actress Jennifer Gibson. That’s three in one year! This time, it’s broadway actress Susan Egan, who’s had to cancel her Disney-princess-themed show because of a bizarre, sudden and unexpected flare up of facial paralysis:
Susan Egan has revealed that she will no longer be touring with Disney Princess – The Concert this fall due to being diagnosed with Bell’s Palsy. broadwayworld.comSusan Egan Reveals Bell’s Palsy Diagnosis; Anneliese Van Der Pol & Sarah Uriarte Berry to Perform as ‘Belle’ on TourSusan Egan, who has been performing on tour with Disney Princess – The Concert and was set to star in its fall 2022 leg, has revealed t…7:43 PM ∙ Oct 6, 202243Likes9Retweets
Maybe we should call this one, “Belle’s Palsy?”
Sorry. Couldn’t help myself.
🔥 In a hilarious followup to Joe Biden’s “two words — made in America” gaffe last week, congresswoman Lauren Boubert baited a bunch of lefties right into the social media briar patch.
End Wokeness @EndWokeness
LMAO @laurenboebert baited the blue-checks into mocking Biden’s latest gaffe
4:12 AM ∙ Oct 9, 2022
52,604Likes9,569Retweets
LMAO @laurenboebert baited the blue-checks into mocking Biden’s latest gaffe
4:12 AM ∙ Oct 9, 202252,604Likes9,569Retweets
Apparently these wokesters think only a friggin’ moron would get confused over “two words.” So.
Have a magnificent Monday! I’ll catch you back here tomorrow for a free refill.
C&C is moving the needle and changing minds. If you can, I could use your help getting the truth out and spreading optimism and hope: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/-learn-how-to-get-involved-
Twitter: @jchilders98
Truth Social: @jchilders98
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The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
By Jeff Childers
10-08-22
I have penned a handful of posts that I self-labeled as among the most important I’ve ever written. I still remember the day back last December when I correctly predicted that the pandemic was over, we just couldn’t see it yet. It was a risk; except for corporate media and covid experts, failed predictions have a way of ending people’s careers. But I’m going to do it again.
As Gandalf famously said, I come to you now at the turn of the tide. I’m not minimizing the historic threats and dangers that we still face, both within and without our great nation, but today’s roundup will, I think, convince you that we have surmounted a critical inflection point, and the tide, as that ancient wizard quipped, has begun to turn.
We’ve been showered with blessings this week. Buckle up.
🪖 But first! I’ll be appearing on Epoch TV tonight, in a terrific one-on-one interview on “American Thought Leaders.” They did a fantastic job, and you guys will just love the subject matter. It ties in nicely with today’s epic post.
I’ll admit that I’m a little self-conscious about it because that was the first interview where they plastered make-up on me. Ugh. I’m pretty enough, at least Michelle thinks so.
💉 I’m not exaggerating when I tell you that this next story is possibly the most significant development in the ongoing vaccine story — since day one. And it’s only one of two such blockbuster developments today.
Yesterday, Florida broke bad, again, this time by issuing an explosive new advisory RECOMMENDING AGAINST THE COVID INJECTIONS FOR ALL MEN UNDER 40 YEARS OLD.
First of all, I am not making that up. Second, it gets even better.
Florida’s Department of Health issued the new guidance yesterday. It begins by stating that Florida conducted its OWN analysis of the mortality risk following the jabs, using an evidence-based technique called the “self-controlled case study,” which was originally developed for evaluating vaccine safety.
Let’s pause for a moment, and consider the implications from just that one fact.
First of all, in over two years, Florida is the first and only state to conduct a study of vaccine safety. Period. And it would not have happened without Governor DeSantis appointing a heavyweight, highly-credentialed intellect like Harvard-trained doctor Joseph Ladapo as the state’s Surgeon General.
Second, the federal Centers for Disease Control, with a budget larger than some countries’ annual gross domestic product, has never studied jab outcomes. For some reason. Nor has the FDA. Nor has the NIH. Each of those agencies would naturally have been expected to laser-focus on vaccine safety from the very first injection. Nope.
So Florida did it for them.
Governor DeSantis just shattered the gigantic bulletproof glass wall protecting Pfizer and Moderna from ACCOUNTABILITY. You were probably only thinking in terms of how the new guidance would affect shot uptake. Think bigger. A LOT bigger. The guidance now constitutes a state-sanctioned finding that the shots are NOT “completely safe and effective.” Judges will pay attention to this.
Here’s what Florida’s analysis found:
[T]here is an 84% increase in the relative incidence of cardiac-related death among males 18-39 years old within 28 days following mRNA vaccination… With a high level of global immunity to COVID-19, the benefit of vaccination is likely outweighed by this abnormally high risk of cardiac-related death among men in this age group… Males over the age of 60 had a 10% increased risk of cardiac-related death within 28 days of mRNA vaccination [while] Non-mRNA vaccines were not found to have these increased risks among any population.
“Abnormally high risk.” In other words, males 18-39 were almost twice as likely to die after getting the shot. It’s also worth noting that the analysis didn’t even consider non-fatal vaccine-induced injuries.
Finally, the one-page guidance expanded the state’s previous recommendation from March against vaccinating children for covid, now including infants and toddlers. Florida now recommends against jabbing ANY kids, regardless of age.
This is SO huge. Let’s talk about all the implications. First, corporate media will ignore the story, because that’s the psyop playbook for bad news that can’t easily be discredited. They’ll just pretend like it didn’t happen.
There’s a reason I predict corporate media will NOT follow the usual path of criticizing Florida’s analysis for not being peer-reviewed or using the right data or being politically motivated or whatever. Since Florida is a STATE GOVERNMENT, media can’t just call the guidance an ‘outlier.’ To discredit the guidance, they’ll have to do all that other stuff PLUS come back with opposing research evidencing the shots REDUCE mortality.
Which they can’t. They can’t produce that research. Because that research does not exist. And everybody knows it.
Next, unlike media, doctors and healthcare institutions cannot ignore the new guidance, because they MUST follow best practices to get their covid liability protection. And Florida just established a new best practice, or ’standard of care,’ as follows:
See? The new best practice requires ALL patients to be informed of cardiac complications before they receive a covid shot, and kids and men under 40 told that the state recommends AGAINST the shots. Before jabbing patients, pharmacies, doctors, nurses, and every other healthcare professional in Florida will now have to inform people of the cardiac risk, or their liability shields may disappear in a puff of legal dust.
ALL patients — men and women, regardless of age — who are confronted by doctors insisting on jabs can now produce a single page, Florida’s new guidance, and shut the doctors up. It’s a mic drop moment for patients in Florida, but even patients in other states can wield the guidance — because there’s no opposing evidence, apart from vague hand-waving by federal officials.
Students in colleges can use this guidance. Military service members can use this guidance. Employees can use this guidance. All they have to say is, “I have some family history of cardiac problems, so I don’t think the risk is justified IN MY CASE.” Done!
Finally, lawyers now have something to work with, something to get their fingernails under, a place to start. My attorney brain is already bursting with ideas.
Get ready! Like everything, it will take time, but it’s going to be GREAT.
Links: Florida’s guidance. Florida’s analysis.
🔥 Yesterday, anti-vaccine activist Pam Popper announced that her lawyers successfully served Peter Daszak of EcoHealth Alliance with a new “mass torts” lawsuit. http://drpampopper.com/about-pam/
Link: https://rumble.com/v1mwcg6-the-big-announcement-we-have-been-waiting-to-make.html (The lawsuit news starts at 2:25.)
Popper said the lawsuit alleges that Daszak and EcoHealth are responsible for infecting people with an engineered virus, covid-19, and many people died. Imagine that. The lawsuit also sues 100 “John Does,” or as-yet-unidentified co-defendants who can be added later depending on what comes out of discovery.
It’s genius! This is the very first covid liability lawsuit that I am actually excited about. This one has a LOT of potential that previous lawsuits lacked, for several reasons.
First, Daszak and EcoHealth are not protected by the PREP Act or any other covid liability shield. They are alleged to have made a VIRUS, not a vaccine. Haha, there’s no liability protection for making viruses. So this lawsuit won’t have to navigate all legal landmines blocking lawsuits against agencies and pharma companies.
Second, even though I’ve not seen the actual complaint yet, I can easily imagine what it alleges. It will almost certainly survive the initial hurdle of dismissal, which means … discovery. Imagine, for a moment, how little a deep-state cockroach like Daszak will enjoy the excruciating scrutiny of producing under court order records, emails, and text messages that he never in a million years thought would ever see daylight.
Not to mention his deposition. How I long to attend that delightful interview.
Third, Daszak was almost certainly in close contact with top NIH scientists and bureaucrats, maybe intelligence agents, many of whom we do not yet know about. Assuming it plays out like I expect, we’re about to learn some new names, because the discovery will inevitably lead down the rabbit hole of all Daszak’s contacts and connections to government.
I would not be surprised if Daszak suddenly claims he is a paid government employee entitled to various protections, and claims that his communications and documents are classified government secrets. Wouldn’t that be something.
Let us not forget the Chinese. I think we might be on the verge of finally finding out EXACTLY why the NIH was using a Chinese lab to evade Obama-era bans on gain-of-function research. I’ll bet you a beagle puppy that none of the millions of relevant communications with U.S. health officials will include the statement, “Peter, be SURE you aren’t doing any gain of function research over there.”
I’d stake my life on it.
Fourth, and not even finally, the cover-ups will almost certainly be relevant in discovery. So the coordinated effort to bury the “lab leak” hypothesis will also be fair game in the lawsuit. Which means depositions of Fauci, Collins, and the rest of their devil’s gallery. The reason it’s relevant is simple; as I have told you many times, evidence of an attempt to conceal something provides a valid inference of consciousness of guilt.
Which makes the cover-up relevant evidence.
I could go on. But the takeaway for this morning is: this is the most important pandemic lawsuit filed to date, bar none. It probably couldn’t have been successfully filed any earlier than now. But now, the amount of evidence already available in the public record will put Popper’s lawyers on solid ground.
Popper’s team might need a multiplier. I’ll find out.
🔥 That’s not all! There’s more good news. In Joe Biden’s home state of Delaware, the state’s Supreme Court just found the state’s law allowing for mail-in-voting is UNCONSTITUTIONAL under the state constitution. It only allows for absentee ballots upon a valid request, where there is a good reason why someone is physically unable to vote in person.
Nick Miles @realNickMileswdel.comDelaware court strikes down new vote-by-mail lawDelaware’s new vote-by-mail system has been struck down by a Delaware’s Chancery Court decision Wednesday.9:56 PM ∙ Sep 16, 202226Likes6Retweets
In other words, mail-in-balloting is DEAD in Delaware. Another glass wall, shattered.
🔥 Yesterday, President Trump called for an end to computer-based voting, and said we need to go back to paper ballots and stop the “no excuse” mail-in balloting.
Breaking: Trump calls for return to paper ballots, end of no-excuses mail-in voting trib.alTrump calls for return to paper ballots, end of no-excuses mail-in voting“You would have elections that everybody could be proud of. Because right now this country is a laughingstock all over the world,” former president said in an interview with Just the News.10:32 PM ∙ Oct 5, 2022850Likes246Retweets
I completely agree with President Trump. The argument for electronic elections originally arose from the concern that cheating can happen during transportation of ballots, where poll workers carry the voted ballots from their precincts to the supervisor’s office for counting. But, the argument went, electronic scanning machines at polling locations can upload the results instantaneously, eliminating the potential for cheating during travel time.
It’s a nice argument. Except that it doesn’t work in real life. We have seen, over an over, that the transmission of voting results is anything but instantaneous. Sometimes it takes all night. Sometimes it even takes longer than counting paper ballots. Sometimes the electronic version provides more opportunities for cheating than it forecloses.
In my county, the supervisor just announced that since she doesn’t trust the modems to work right anymore, all the electronic votes will be hand-carried to headquarters on memory cards. Now, we now have the worst of both worlds. First, the problem of travel time is back, offering opportunities to cheat during travel by modifying the memory card data. Second, the electronic data is even easier to change than paper ballots! All you need is some software, a $10 memory card reader, and about thirty seconds.
Originally, the argument for electronic scanning machines and instantaneous election results was superficially logical. But we have seen that concept crash and burn worse than a thousand Hindenburgs. Our country is on the brink of civil war because of these gadgets. They HAVE to go.
We should use the scanning machines to build some new environmentally-friendly coral reefs for sea critters, and go back to watermarked, serial-numbered paper ballots. Period.
Who’s with me?
🔥 If the other news wasn’t good enough, after a lower court blocked a new school choice law in West Virginia, yesterday that state’s supreme court overruled the block, and found the new school choice law WAS constitutional.
Corey A. DeAngelis @DeAngelisCorey
BREAKING: West Virginia Supreme Court just overturned a circuit court judge’s decision to block the state’s new school choice program. The injunction is now lifted. Families won.8:09 PM ∙ Oct 6, 202213,057Likes3,677Retweets
Passed in 2021, West Virginia’s Hope Scholarship program is the second most expansive education savings account (ESA) program in the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave. It allows all West Virginia families to apply for a flexible savings account covering tuition, therapies, tutoring, and other educational expenses, if the families opt out of public school.
Progress!
🔥 Here’s the clip that probably got Dr. McCullough banned from twitter.
This is why they took him down
In the clip, Dr. McCullough persuasively accused the U.S. government of having created SARS-CoV-2 and the spike protein. No wonder twitter deleted him. This stuff is very dangerous to the narrative.
But the information is getting out anyway, faster than they can pass laws to prevent it.
🔥 Yesterday, superstar Florida sheriff Grady Judd advised Floridians to shoot hurricane looters “until they look like Swiss cheese.”
Charles Weber – AKA “THE Jew from Boca” @CWBOCA
Now THAT’S what a Second Amendment state looks like.
Curiously, news of looting in the wake of Hurricane Ian has been hard to find. For some reason.
🔥 Yesterday, after Matt Walsh and the Daily Wire ran an exposé of Vanderbilt’s maniacal gender modification surgery program, and Tennessee legislators started asking questions, the school “voluntarily paused” its “gender affirmation surgeries on patients under 18,” until the school can “complete a review,” which they said could take months.
“We are pausing gender affirmation surgeries on patients under 18 while we complete this review, which may take several months.” bit.lyVanderbilt Pediatric Gender Clinic Pausing Transgender Surgeries On Minors | The Daily WireThe Vanderbilt Pediatric Gender Clinic has agreed to pause all gender transition surgeries on minors, according to a letter from the clinic to a Tennessee lawmaker obtained by The Daily Wire. Vanderbilt also told the lawmakers that it would protect conscientious objectors who work at the facility an…12:00 PM ∙ Oct 8, 2022459Likes80Retweets
The Frankensteinian gender-bending surgeons at Vanderbilt are outraged, of course. It’s bigotry! And racism! And some kind of phobia! Or something.
Anyway, fantastic work by Matt and the Daily Wire crew. I assume they’re neatening up their houses for the predictable visit from friendly FBI agents.
People are always asking me, who is REALLY behind the trans movement? It can’t possibly be the unfortunate trans people, who are suffering from mental illness and are, in reality, an extremely small group who’ve never had any political support. So whoever it is, it’s obviously a well-funded and highly-motivated cabal with high-level and powerful political connections.
I suggest that you consider the transhumanists are the real culprits. The trans people are victims. Just think about it.
🔥 Even since he released the shocking documentary “What is a Woman?,” Matt Walsh has endured virtually ceaseless cancellation attacks. This week, his enemies found some old clip where Matt opined that teen pregnancies always happened in human history, because that’s when women are most fertile. He said, and this is what they’re after him about, that it was better for teens to be married and have a stable family when pregnancies happen.
So of course, the left predictably misconstrued his comments, delightedly labeled him a pedophile, and are noisily demanding an apology.
Matt issued an apology statement. His ‘apology’ is priceless:
Stuck in the Middle @StucknDaMid
Not only did Matt refuse to apologize, but among other choice remarks he said:
“You sick freaks should be the ones apologizing to me for lying and defaming me and doing it all because I’m trying to prevent you from sexually mutilating children.”
Hahahaha! That is how you do it.
Over the years, I’ve advised a number of high-profile clients about how to navigate cancellation attempts. The first rule is that you NEVER EVER apologize. The apology is just the left’s way of completing the summary judgment phase of the trial, so they can begin sentencing. In other words, any kind of apology is an implicit admission of guilt. No matter how carefully you word it, if you didn’t do anything wrong, you have nothing to apologize for.
I loved the way lefty James Carville handled a far-left cancellation attack over a decade ago. He held a press conference and said something like, “A bunch of folks have asked me to apologize. I spent a lot of time in self-reflection and have carefully considered how my words have affected others, and so I’M NOT SORRY AND I DON’T APOLOGIZE. Thank you.” And that was it.
Never apologize if you haven’t done anything wrong. Except to your wife, of course.
🔥 As the icing on today’s delicious news cake, let me end off with two words. TWO WORDS.
Have a wonderful weekend friends! I’ll see you back here on Monday morning as things start getting real in final weeks before the elections.
C&C is moving the needle and changing minds. If you can, I could use your help getting the truth out and spreading optimism and hope: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/-learn-how-to-get-involved-
Twitter: @jchilders98
Truth Social: @jchilders98
MeWe: mewe.com/i/coffee_and_covid.
C&C Swag! www.shopcoffeeandcovid.com
Emailed Daily Newsletter: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
By Gray Franchi
Former Democrat presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard is not your typical Democrat. She demolished Kamela Harris in the primary debates, but didn’t go on to be nominated. In Mr. Franchi’s video, he expresses awe for the former military officer’s shooting skills and that she shows ease and comfort in competently handling firearms in a tactical competition. But he goes on to point out that she has voted the anti-gun party line in Congress. So is this photo op designed to deceive the pro-Second Amendment community while she is attempting to ban the very firearms she was wielding?
and FLASH- she’s leaving Democrat party but going where?
https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/gabbard-announces-shes-leaving-democrat-party?
By Dave Scott, 10-7-22
CNN demonstrated this past Sunday why it’s rapidly losing viewers when Florida Governor Ron DeSantis displayed how adept he is at handling biased media during an interview with a CNN dolt posing as a news reporter.
“Do you stand behind Lee County’s decision to not have that mandatory evacuation until the day before the storm?” CNN’s Nadia Romero asked the governor Sunday while he was on the ground actively engaged in the recovery process.
“Well did you — where was your industry stationed when the storm hit?” DeSantis responded. “Were you guys in Lee County? No, you were in Tampa.”
DeSantis defended Lee County’s preparations, noting officials closely monitored the hurricane’s progress while ensuring shelters were ready. The county, he said, had good reason in the days before the storm made landfall to believe it wouldn’t be in the path of a direct hit.
“They were following the weather track, and they had to make decisions based on that,” DeSantis said. “But you know, 72 hours, they weren’t even in the cone, 48 hours, they were on the periphery. So, you’ve got to make the decisions the best you can. I will say they delivered the message to people, they had shelters open, everybody had adequate opportunity to at least get to a shelter within the county.”
DeSantis — shown in the top photo serving first responders at a Lee County Waffle House — said many residents expected the brunt of the storm to hit north, toward Tampa, and that many resisted leaving their homes.
DeSantis explained the obvious to the oblivious reporter clarifying how early forecasts showed the hurricane hitting a different part of the state and only hours before the storm actually hit that the officials, particularly meteorologists, knew where the storm would make landfall.
The candid no-nonsense governor was supported in the impacted community when in the hard-hit south Florida town of Arcadia, a man was videoed pointing to a fuel tanker saying: “I don’t know about the rest of ya’ll, but it’s here in Arcadia. So ya’ll know who we voting for.” He added. “I don’t know about the rest of you (expletives deleted) but I’m voting for DeSantis — and I’m a Democrat!”
DeSantis, and his staff do not run from questions, but answer them head-on. Outspoken Rapid Response Director Christina Pushaw confronted a snarky and misinformed Peter Schorsch, of the website FloridaPolitics, calling him out for suggesting that DeSantis had not been warning Floridians about the dangerous storm, but was instead attending a high school football game.
Pushaw scorched Schorsch, not only for misrepresenting the timeline which initially showed the hurricane making landfall further to the north, but also for evidently predicting what the National Hurricane Center (NHC) hadn’t, and then keeping it to himself and criticizing Pushaw. Schorsch, now a bonified member of the media left’s anti-DeSantis tub-thumpers, was tweeting from New York, quoting the New York Times and nowhere near Florida, but 1,000 miles distant.
Pushaw’s rapid response to Schorsch came after the governor’s communications director Lindsey Curnutte corrected Schorsch for his remarks tweeting, “This is false and dishonest” and provided an accurate account of the governor’s response.
Pushaw fired off a one-two punch obliterating the jerk’s twisted logic: “You literally said he should have flown to SWFL last weekend to tell people to evacuate there. SWFL was not in the cone. You are a pathetic and disgusting misogynist, and this state is worse off because of you, she blasted sarcastically countering his amateurish playground comments earlier when he attempted to politicize the hurricane and the state’s rescue and relief efforts and personally attacked Pushaw.
“Or is your position that the governor should have ordered an evacuation of the entire State of Florida because all of it was in the cone at one time or another?” Pushaw asked. “How in the world does that make any sense? I may be ‘new to Florida’ but I know when you’re full of [sh*t].”
WOW! I like this gal! But I sure wouldn’t want to be married to her and come home late after happy hour!
***
Wait! What? Last Saturday morning the DeSantis’ team was not only rushing aid to clean up Hurricane Ian’s path of destruction but also pushing back on absurd comments made about hurricane aid by the tone-deaf and dim Vice President Kamala Harris.
This week Harris told a Democrat National Committee women’s leadership forum that race, and income should be factors when it came to deciding where aid and resources would go, in areas impacted by natural disasters.
“It is our lowest-income communities, and our communities of color that are most impacted by these extreme conditions and impacted by issues that are not of their own making,” Harris said. “And so, we have to address this in a way that is about giving resources based on equity. Understanding that we fight for equality, but we also have to fight for equity.”
The vice president’s garbled and incoherent remarks prompted anger and backlash within Governor DeSantis’ office and elsewhere. The state’s rapid response director, Christina Pushaw, tweeted, “This @VP’s rhetoric is causing undue panic and must be clarified. FEMA Individual Assistance is already available to all Floridians impacted by Hurricane Ian, regardless of race or background.”
***
Nattering Nabobs Of Negativism: Governor DeSantis doesn’t hide his contempt for the media and his remarks this week mirrored those of Richard Nixon’s late Vice President Spiro Agnew’s “nattering nabobs,” speech more than 50 years ago.
“They want to use storms and destruction as a way to advance their agenda” he said of the media. “And they don’t care what destruction’s in their wake. They don’t care about the lives here. If they can use it to pursue their political agenda, they will do it.”
He slapped down VP Harris’s insane babbling saying: “I think she is trying to play identity politics with a storm and a natural disaster. I think it’s ridiculous. And honestly, we had the FEMA administrator in Florida with us, and she threw cold water on that, so that is not going to happen. It’s totally not appropriate. You don’t have to politicalize every single tragedy in this country. And I think people, I tell you, in Florida are really sick of the nonsense.”
DeSantis also noted during a press conference Tuesday that three of the four looters who were arrested in Lee County over the weekend were in the country illegally.
***
Hurricane Hoorahs: An almost full-page opinion article in the Saturday/Sunday edition of the Wall Street Journal last weekend, Oct. 1-2 (A Hurricane Test for the ‘Florida Model’) praised DeSantis for his handling of hurricane Ian quoting those elected and nonelected officials in areas impacted by Ian and analyzing his decisions. The article went on to describe the governor’s increasing popularity and programs he’s enacted, explaining why he’s considered a contender for the GOP presidential nomination, even though he hasn’t said he’s seeking it. Does anybody out there want to bet me he won’t win the race for Governor this November? Who can even remember his opponent’s name?
***
Thinking Out Loud: Here’s an idea. Give all of those who are on public assistance jobs rebuilding south Florida and put all the illegals to work cleaning up, before deporting them. It makes more sense than anything the confused and dazed VP Harris suggests.
***
DeSantis Designates DiBella: I had an opportunity to speak by phone with former Nassau County Economic Development Director and head of the Ocean Highway and Port Authority of Nassau County, Laura DiBella, earlier this week as she was headed to Lee County to assist local businesses in their effort to recover from Ian. DiBella, the state’s Deputy Secretary of Commerce, told me she is just one of the many state agencies being deployed to Fort Myers to assist local residents in their recovery efforts and predicts she’ll be there a long time. This is another no-nonsense professional distaff member of the governor’s staff. Nassau County misses her talent, and the governor is fortunate to have her on his team.
***
Brace Yourselves No-Growth Grumps: This past Tuesday, Oct. 4, Condé Nast Traveler announced the results of its annual Reader’ Choice Awards with Amelia Island voted as the third best island to visit in the U.S coming in behind number one Hilton Head Island and number two Kiawah Island, both in South Carolina.
More than 240,000 Condé Nast Traveler readers submitted responses rating their travel experiences and providing their opinions of the best places they visited this year.
In a comment bound to make no-growth isolationists and local grumps even grumpier, Gil Langley, President of the Amelia Island Convention and Visitors Bureau said:. “Notable recognition such as this keeps Amelia Island top-of-mind and attracts curious visitors to our 13 miles of coastline. This is an accomplishment for the entire community and tourism industry. Together, we’ve created an award-winning destination and visitor experience, which compelled visitors to vote for Amelia Island.”
The 2022 Readers’ Choice Awards are published on Condé Nast Traveler’s website at CNTraveler.com/rca and will be in its November issue.
***
Jumping Joe: Amelia Island is chock-a-block full of interesting people, each one with a fascinating story. I met one of its most remarkable residents a few weeks ago when good friend Joe Murphy invited me to the Amelia River Golf Club for lunch with Joe Sullivan.
Sullivan is a witty, high-energy man of many interests and talents who didn’t indicate he had plans to slow down anytime soon despite the fact he’s 96-years old.
Born in Columbus, Ohio in 1927 to a tool and dye-maker and truck-driving dad and housewife mother, Sullivan admitted he wasn’t a model primary school student, except on the football field where he was a running back. Graduating at 19 he worked at various jobs including unloading lumber from box cars until he and a few friends decided to check out the various military recruiting offices located in the city’s post office.
The U.S. Army Airborne appealed to the 130-pound 5’5” Sullivan who barely met the military’s height requirements and he was sent to Fort Benning Georgia jump school and became a member of the 82nd Airborne unit.
Hi first assignment following jump school was in the unit’s maintenance function as a “parachute tester,” a job title that reads like it like it was created by a stand-up comedian. However, testing the parachutes didn’t involve jumping out of airplanes but ensuring that all the harnesses, etc. were in working order and in perfect condition.
Sullivan ended up in Korea and parachuted in during General Douglas McArthur’s infamous September 1950 landing at Inchon, an amphibious invasion and a battle that resulted in a decisive victory and strategic reversal in favor of the United Nations Command.
During his many jumps into combat situations in Korea he jumped out of planes carrying tanks, howitzers and other supplies, lost equipment including side arms, hand grenades and hooked up with a tank unit. For his efforts he was awarded three bronze stars, the fourth-highest ranking award a service member can receive. The Bronze Star is awarded for “heroic and meritorious deeds performed in an armed conflict and for those who receive the BSM, it is a signal of their sacrifice, bravery, and honor,” says the Department of Defense.
Following his military service Sullivan got serious about school and enrolled at Ohio State using the GI Bill to earn a degree in marketing. He eventually went to work for North Santiam Lumber Co, and was so successful he eventually bought the firm and relocated its Salem, Oregon headquarters to Columbus. It is still in business today.
During his career Sullivan took up golf with a passion despite never playing the game until he was in his early 30s and then shooting in the low to mid 70s. Age hasn’t diminished his appetite for the game and as we sat at the table several golfers came by to ask him about clubs he was working on for them. I discover he converted his talents in the lumber business to making and repairing golf clubs at a workshop in his home.
***
An Election Reminder: Early voting begins Wednesday, October 26 from 9 am to 6 pm daily and election day is Tuesday, October 8.
In case readers missed it previously I’m once again posting a photo of Commissioner and California transplant and current Mayor Mike “Left Coast” Lednovich proudly displaying his support for the dangerous, violent and fraudulent Black Lives Matter organization as he parades through downtown Fernandina Beach. He’s pictured here wearing a Fernandina Beach Police Department cap despite not being a cop. He’s also wearing a red clown nose, but that’s understandable.
Even black rapper, record producer and businessman Kanye West said “Everyone knows that Black Lives Matter was a scam. Now it’s over,” he wrote in a social media post this week.
While spearheading a beach smoking ban saying smokers “violate my rights” California transplant Lednovich remained silent about BLM victim’s rights as that group conducted violent riots, looting, burning and assaults across the nation. Instead, he marched proudly down Centre Street displaying his BLM sandwich board. It apparently didn’t bother the clueless mayor that BLM figures, including co-founder, Patrisse Cullors, conducted dealings such as buying a $6 million California mansion, to validate the fact that BLM is a massive scam.
My vote to boot California transplant Lednovich off the Fernandina City Commission Seat 4 will go to Chiropractor Dr. James Antun, who along with his chiropractor wife, Jayde, owns a clinic in town and has firsthand knowledge of the issues small businesses face hereabouts. As one reader told me Dr. Antun understands what a pain in the neck the city can be and will administer appropriate treatment.
My vote for the City Commission Seat 5 being vacated by term-limited Len Kreger will go to local Fire Fighter Darron Ayscue, a lifelong resident of Nassau County who will look out for the best interests of all city residents, not just specific minority groups.
***
Drinking, Dining & Dancing: The final Sounds on Centre event of 2022 will be held this evening, Friday October 7, from 6-8 pm on downtown Centre Street between Centre and Front, featuring Soundwavz, playing classic rock tunes. Bring a chair and enjoy the music and the balmy October weather.
Republished with the author’s permission. Read The Dave Scott Blog– subscribe Free
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
Edited by Michael Hernandez, 10-8-22
(Editor’s Note: this is part of a weekly compendium of recent significant events, culled from world news and curated by Michael Hernandez.)
Jim Thompson (Oct. 3) RedState
Before the Iranian revolution in 1978, Iran was a modern progressive country. After Islamic students (with the approval of clerics) stormed the American Embassy, Iran turned into an oppressive, regressive state sponsor of international and interior terrorism. After the return of Ruhollah Khomeini, Iranians saw their liberties stripped. For 44 years, Iran had successive “Supreme Leaders” and has been ruled by Islamic hardliners.
In subsequent years, students have rebelled against the internal repression of freedom with little success. The “green” revolution in 2009 had a chance of forcing real change, but President Obama was pushing a nuclear deal, not a “regime” change. The clerics in power warned America to stay out of Iran’s affairs and Obama obliged. The uprising was brutally pushed down.
Now, with Obama’s former VP in the Oval Office and Biden pushing for a revival of the disastrous nuclear deal Obama gave Iran, the Islamic Republic is roiled in another student uprising with students and everyday Iranians again seeking freedom from the oppression of successive Supreme Leaders.
The 2022 iteration of Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is blaming America and, of course, Israel for the 3-week protest and riots.
On September 16, a 22-year-old woman named Mahsa Amini was arrested and beaten to death by sanctioned Iranian thugs called “Mortality Police”. She was detained for violating moral codes principally – for not wearing a head scarf and modest clothes. She died in custody and protests ensued.
Khamenei claimed he is “heartbroken” about the death and said it was a “sad incident”. He also railed against the “Great Satan”.
“This rioting was planned. These riots and insecurities were designed by America and the Zionist regime, and their employees.” “The duty of our security forces, including police, is to ensure the safety of the Iranian nation. ‘The ones who attack the police are leaving Iranian citizens defenseless against thugs, robbers, and extortionists.”
A reminder – Iran’s “Supreme Leader” can spout nonsense and threaten Israel and America, but Trump is banned from Twitter.
Of course, Zionists, America, and outside foreign agitators are his excuse to crack down on the protestors and use of communication with the outside world. Security forces and “Basij” militia have attacked protestors with human rights groups reporting that at least 130 people have been killed by Iran’s sanctioned thugs. Iran has claimed that many of its security forces have also been killed.
Since Iran is a state sponsor of terror and has, without a doubt, enlisted terrorists to kill Americans and Israelis, it is possible that there has been some “help” from Israel to foment protestors to action. But it was Iran’s morality police who killed Amini not Israel and certainly not Biden’s administration. Biden isn’t interested in destabilizing Iran. Like Obama’s administration, Biden’s handlers are more interested in a phony nuclear deal than helping everyday Iranians topple a repressive regime.
Khamenei blaming America and Israel is his way of justifying a crackdown; instead of admitting that it is organic and homegrown disaffection with repression, Khamenei can blame the Great Satan and Zionists.
It’s also a reminder of why we have the 2nd Amendment.
SIMON KENT (Oct 3) Breitbart News
Wrap up and keep warm. Consumers across Europe were given a bleak warning Monday the winter ahead will be long, cold, and uncomfortable given challenges to global energy supplies.
They were told to lower their thermostats accordingly and make all necessary “behavior adjustments” as the region faces “unprecedented risks” to global natural gas delivery networks.
The Paris-based International Energy Agency (IEA) said in its quarterly gas report European Union (E.U.) countries would need to reduce use by at least 13 percent over the winter in case of a complete Russian cutoff amid the war in Ukraine.
Much of that cutback would reportedly have to come from consumer behavior such as turning down thermostats by one degree and adjusting boiler temperatures as well as industrial and utility conservation, the group said.
Germany has already issued a warning of its own about the troubles that lay ahead, as Breitbart London reported, cautioning the situation was extremely tense and there is a possibility the country may run out of gas.
The European Union on Friday agreed to mandate a reduction in electricity consumption by at least five percent during peak price hours by mandating controls on consumer use and supply.
AP reports another hazard identified in the study was a late winter cold snap, which would be particularly challenging because underground gas reserves flow more slowly at the end of the season due to less gas and lower pressure in the storage caverns.
The E.U. has already filled storage to 88 percent, ahead of its goal of 80 percent before winter. The IEA assumed 90 percent would be needed in its Russian cutoff scenario.
Ultimately domestic consumers have been told to make do with less as emergency energy-saving measures are enacted by governments.
JOHN CARNEY (Oct. 5) Breitbart News
A panel of energy ministers of the OPEC+ alliance of oil-exporting countries on Wednesday agreed to recommend a historically large cut in output, a stinging rebuke to the Biden administration that is likely to mean higher prices at gas pumps in the United States and Europe.
The alliance, which is led by Saudi Arabia and includes Russia, is meeting in Vienna to negotiate the largest production cut since the pandemic first struck. The energy ministers who comprise the cartel’s Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee recommended a cut of two million barrels per day in the group’s overall production. A final decision will be voted on later on Wednesday.
The Biden administration has reportedly been attempting to persuade the Saudis not to support a production cut. The administration fears higher prices will aid Russia, hurt U.S. allies in Europe, and be a blow to U.S. consumers ahead of the midterm election.
The Biden administration has been releasing huge volumes oil from the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve to dampen global prices. These releases were scheduled to end in October but that is now in doubt in light of the OPEC+ cuts.
CHARLIE SPIERING (Oct. 4) Breitbart News
The White House on Monday released a photo of President Joe Biden driving a classic Corvette to promote a “better America” under his leadership. “Get in, folks. We’re building a better America,” the message posted on social media read, featuring Biden in his classic Corvette.
Team Biden appears to be trying to channel an old “Mean Girls meme” successfully used by former President Barack Obama’s social media team to promote health care.
The post sparked widespread mockery online, as voters pointed out high gas prices, a falling stock market, growing inflation, and other problems in the country under his leadership.
KRISTINA WONG (Oct 3) Breitbart News
Republicans slammed President Joe Biden for praising a Coast Guard rescue swimmer who is facing discharge from the military because of Biden’s own vaccine mandate for the armed forces.
Biden had called Aviation Survival Technician Second Class Zach Loesch on Friday to thank him and his fellow Coasties for saving the lives of Floridians suffering from Hurricane Ian wreckage.
The president boasted about the call afterwards and the White House put out a press statement on the exchange between the two.
However, as reported by Breitbart News, Loesch is due to be kicked out of the Coast Guard within 30-60 days for being unvaccinated, given the Biden administration’s August 2021 military vaccine mandate.
“Zach Loesch was deployed by the Coast Guard to rescue stranded Floridans but is still being kicked out over [a] vaccine. Biden’s mandate must end!” Rep. Mike Waltz (R-FL), a National Guard Green Beret colonel, tweeted Sunday.
Loesch told Breitbart News in an interview on Saturday that he has applied for religious exemption from the mandate but his request, as well as an appeal, were both denied. Now Loesch, as well as other unvaccinated Coast Guard rescue swimmers, are due to be kicked out amid hurricane season. Loesch said the Coast Guard in the affected areas is already drawing on rescue swimmers from other states to help with rescue efforts.
Loesch has been a rescue swimmer for six years. On Friday, he personally pulled out a disabled woman and her husband from their back bedroom that had a doorway jammed with a couch.
The rescuer kicked through a wall to pull them both out, and then later went back to retrieve her specialized wheelchair, strapping it to his body as he was hoisted by a helicopter.
Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) tweeted, “Joe Biden said it himself — COVID is over. Yet, he is still firing our brave men and women who serve our nation, like Coast Guard Rescue Swimmer Zach Loesch. Zach kicked through a wall to save an elderly couple trapped due to Hurricane Ian.”
The Biden administration has indicated it does not plan to lift the vaccine mandate imposed on all members of the military. So far, nearly 8,000 service members have been kicked out of the military due to the mandate, in the midst of a recruiting crisis.
There are still tens of thousands more service members who are unvaccinated, including those waiting for religious exemption requests to be adjudicated.
There are also legal questions as to whether the mandate is lawful, as reported by Breitbart News.
By law, the defense secretary can only mandate a vaccine that is FDA-approved, unless he seeks a presidential waiver. To date, Biden has not issued the waiver and the Department of Defense has administering a vaccine to troops that is under Emergency Use Authorization, not approved by the FDA.
The FDA-approved vaccine, known as Comirnaty, has not been widely available in the United States, let alone to service members.
Breitbart News reported last week that the DOD considered in October 2021 allowing troops to wait for the FDA-approved vaccine before being kicked out, but ultimately opted against it. Service members have filed several lawsuits, alleging the DOD is not following the law.
By Stuart Varney (Oct. 3) Fox Business News
It looks like another gaffe. It’s certainly a controversy. Vice President Harris spoke about the effects of climate change on people of color, and how to distribute aid after hurricane damage in Puerto Rico and Florida. She said resources should be given based on “equity.”
What exactly does that mean when it comes to allocating hurricane assistance? You get help depending on the color of your skin?
Social media jumped on it. Elon musk tweeted, “Should be according to greatest need, not race or anything else.” Well said, Elon!
You listen, and you feel like you’re in a sociology class. Lots of left-wing jargon designed to cover the real message.
Fox News Digital caught up with Harris and asked her to explain her “equity” comment. She would not answer. Would not clarify. I suspect this administration “would” hand out assistance based on race.
But Kamala Harris can’t say it in plain English because there’s an election in five weeks, and most voters surely don’t want any racial preference in helping hurricane victims.
DAVID NG (Oct. 4) Breitbart News
Rap mogul and billionaire fashion entrepreneur Kanye West has declared that Black Lives Matter was always just a “scam,” saying that the movement is now “over.” On Tuesday, Kanye West posted a haiku-like obituary for the BLM movement to his Instagram stories, taking at least partial credit for its demise.
As Breitbart News reported, Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation (GNF) executive Shalomyah Bowers has been accused of “siphoning” off more than $10 million from donors, allegedly funneling the money to his consulting firm after he joined the board of the foundation.
Earlier this year, BLM co-founder Patrisse Cullors admitted to using the group’s $6 million property to host private parties after she had previously resigned from the organization. Cullors previously came under fire for purchasing a $1.4 million compound in the upscale Los Angeles neighborhood of Topanga.
The new documentary Uncle Tom II exposes BLM as one in a long line of socio-political movements orchestrated by white Marxists who are intent on manipulating black Americans to foment racial strife, with the ultimate goal of undermining American institutions.
This week, Kanye West was spotted wearing a “White Lives Matter” sweatshirt while promoting his fashion line in Paris, France.
Our Hope
The following is an open letter from Pastor John MacArthur to Governor Gavin Newsom, in response to billboard advertisements placed across the country by Newsom’s campaign shamelessly misquoting Mark 12:31 in support of abortion. View a PDF version of the letter.
September 29, 2022
Governor Gavin Newsom
1021 O Street, Suite 9000
Sacramento, CA 95814
Sir,
Almighty God says in His Word, “Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a disgrace to any people” (Proverbs 14:34). Scripture also teaches that it is the chief duty of any civic leader to reward those who do well and to punish evildoers (Romans 13:1–7). You have not only failed in that responsibility; you routinely turn it on its head, rewarding evildoers and punishing the righteous.
The Word of God pronounces judgment on those who call evil good and good evil (Isaiah 5:20), and yet many of your policies reflect this unholy, upside-down view of honor and morality. The diabolical effects of your worldview are evident in the statistics of California’s epidemics of crime, homelessness, sexual perversions (like homosexuality and transgenderism), and other malignant expressions of human misery that stem directly from corrupt public policy. I don’t need to itemize or elaborate on the many immoral decisions you have perpetrated against God and the people of our state, which have only exacerbated these problems. Nevertheless, my goal in writing is not to contend with your politics, but rather to plead with you to hear and heed what the Word of God says to men in your position.
“Let all kings bow down before Him, all nations serve Him” (Psalm 72:11).
“He who rules over men righteously, who rules in the fear of God, is as the light of the morning when the sun rises” (2 Samuel 23:3–4).
“It is an abomination for kings to commit wicked acts, for a throne is established on righteousness” (Proverbs 16:12).
What God said to Cyrus is a truth you should take to heart: “I am the LORD, and there is no other; besides Me there is no God. I will gird you, though you have not known Me; that men may know from the rising to the setting of the sun that there is no one besides Me. I am the LORD, and there is no other” (Isaiah 45:5–6).
In mid-September, you revealed to the entire nation how thoroughly rebellious against God you are when you sponsored billboards across America promoting the slaughter of children, whom He creates in the womb (Psalm 139:13–16; Isaiah 45:9–12). You further compounded the wickedness of that murderous campaign with a reprehensible act of gross blasphemy, quoting the very words of Jesus from Mark 12:31 as if you could somehow twist His meaning and arrogate His name in favor of butchering unborn infants. You used the name and the words of Christ to promote the credo of Molech (Leviticus 20:1–5). It would be hard to imagine a greater sacrilege.
Furthermore, you chose words from the lips of Jesus without admitting that in the same moment He gave the greatest commandment: “You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength” (Mark 12:30). You cannot love God as He commands while aiding in the murder of His image-bearers.
Psalm 50:16–19 speaks to people who pervert the Word of God for their own sinful ends:
But to the wicked God says,
“What right have you to recount My statutes
And to take My covenant in your mouth?
For you hate discipline,
And you cast My words behind you.
When you see a thief, you are pleased with him,
And you associate with adulterers.
You let your mouth loose in evil
And you harness your tongue for deceit.”
My concern, Governor Newsom, is that your own soul lies in grave, eternal peril. “Each one of us will give an account of himself to God” (Romans 14:12). One day, not very long from now, you will face that reality. Nothing is more certain. “It is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment” (Hebrews 9:27). You will stand in the presence of the Holy God who created you, who is your Judge, and He will demand that you give an account for how you have flouted His authority in your governing, and how you have twisted His own Holy Word to rationalize it. As you look over the precipice of eternity, what will your answer be? When you look ahead of you and see that nothing awaits you but eternal misery—the just punishment for your sins—what will all the clever rationalizations and political talking points avail for you then? And by then it will be too late for any remedy or redemption. “It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (Hebrews 10:31).
My plea to you, Sir, is that you would not let it come to that—that you would not go to that day of judgment apart from receiving forgiveness and righteousness through faith in Christ alone. In Psalm 50, after rebuking the wicked for uttering God’s words in a profane way, Scripture makes this promise: “Now consider this, you who forget God, lest I tear you in pieces, and there will be none to deliver. He who offers a sacrifice of thanksgiving glorifies Me; and he who orders his way, I shall show the salvation of God” (Psalm 50:22–23).
So there is salvation for those who repent. Christ purchased full redemption for all who will turn from wickedness, forsake their evil thoughts and actions, and trust fully in Him as Lord and Savior.
Our church, and countless Christians nationwide, are praying for your full repentance. Please respond to the gospel, forsake the path of wickedness you have pursued all your life, turn to Christ, ask for forgiveness, and use your office to advance the cause of righteousness (as is your duty) instead of undermining it (as has been your pattern).
Seek the LORD while He may be found; call upon Him while He is near. Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts; and let him return to the LORD, and He will have compassion on him, and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon. (Isaiah 55:6–7)
Governor Newsom, “now is the acceptable time, behold, now is the day of salvation” (2 Corinthians 6:2).
For the Master,
John MacArthur
Pastor-Teacher
California voters: “Every life is valuable” – Vote No on Proposition 1
For more info: https://proposition1-whyvoteno.com/
(Michael Hernandez, co-founder of the Citizens Journal—Ventura County’s online news service is a former Southern California daily newspaper journalist and religion and news editor. Mr. Hernandez can be contacted at [email protected] and is editor of “America: The End and Our Hope”.)
By Tiffany Layne
Many states lack the power grid to support an all electric fleet of vehicles. The replacement cost of the batteries is astronomical. And now, owners must fear the possibility that their car could actually EXPLODE!
I know what you’re thinking, “fat chance”, right? Obviously this sounds like something straight out of a movie scene. But I assure you, this isn’t science fiction. This is cold hard fact.
A top Florida state official warned Thursday that firefighters have battled a number of fires caused by electric vehicle (EV) batteries waterlogged from Hurricane Ian.
EV batteries that have been waterlogged in the wake of the hurricane are at risk of corrosion, which could lead to unexpected fires, according to Jimmy Patronis, the state’s top financial officer and fire marshal.
“There’s a ton of EVs disabled from Ian. As those batteries corrode, fires start,” Patronis tweeted Thursday. “That’s a new challenge that our firefighters haven’t faced before. At least on this kind of scale.”
“It takes special training and understanding of EVs to ensure these fires are put out quickly and safely,” he continued in a follow-up tweet. “Thanks to [North Collier Fire Rescue] for their hard work.”
Read more in Blacksphere
Also:
News
There’s still more than a month to go before Election Day, but in Florida it looks like the governor’s race is Gov. Ron DeSantis’ to lose, according to the most recent polling in the state. NBC News reported that voters were beginning to receive vote-by-mail ballots throughout the state, even… Read more…
Source: Nassau County
October 10 – October 14, 2022.
Please note that meetings are subject to change. Please review our website calendar for up-to-date information.
Meeting agendas can be located here.
All meetings are in Commission chambers, except library event.
| Meeting | Date/Time | Location |
|---|---|---|
| Board of County Commissioners: Workshop for a Presentation of the American Rescue Plan and amended Prosperity Plan | Monday, October 10, 2022 at 4:00 p.m. | Commission Chambers, 96135 Nassau Place,Yulee, FL 32097 |
| Board of County Commissioners: Regular Meeting | Monday, October 10, 2022 at 6:00 p.m. | Commission Chamber,96135 Nassau Place,Yulee, FL 32097 |
| Development Review Committee | Tuesday, October 11, 2022 at 9:00 a.m. | Commission Chambers, 96135 Nassau Place,Yulee, FL 32097 |
| Library Advisory Board Meeting | Tuesday, October 11, 2022 at 3:00 p.m. | Callahan Library,450077 State Road 200,Callahan, FL 32097 |
| Code Enforcement Board Meeting | Tuesday, October 11, 2022 at 6:30 p.m. | Commission Chambers, 96135 Nassau Place,Yulee, FL 32097 |
| American Beach Water & Sewer District Advisory Board | Thursday, October 13, 2022 at 4:00 p.m. | 96135 Nassau Place,Yulee, FL 32097 |
By Jeff Childers
10-07-22
Good morning, C&C, from the frozen wasteland of Florida. Okay, maybe I’m exaggerating a LITTLE. But it’s chilly for us natives down here, in the morning anyway. I hope you all had a terrific week as we roll into the weekend with a thought-provoking roundup. Peter McCullough gets deplatformed, again; HHS terrifies the nation with tweets about radiation sickness and the goofy leader of the free world mentions armageddon; a bizarre link between the new nuclear narrative and the jabs; and Pfizer gets caught with its hand in the cookie jar, again.
🪖 I’ll be speaking at the Florida Summit on Covid II on October 22, in The Villages, Florida, at the fabulous Brownwood Hotel, along with a great lineup of others — almost too many to list. More information and registration information is available at Florida Summit On Covid II The Future of Medicine in Post-Covid America.
🔥 Super-credentialed, widely-published and well-respected doctor Dr. Peter McCullough has been permanently banned from Twitter, apparently for his vaccine skepticism, despite — or maybe because of — having a half-million followers.
The Musk-Twitter acquisition is developing, with most recent news suggesting Musk no longer opposes the acquisition and will move forward. Behind that story is another, bigger one, with the Supreme Court having accepted a case dealing with Section 230, the law allowing social media companies like Twitter to censor political speech and not be considered “editors” under defamation law.
I intend to write more about both issues soon.
🚀 It’s funny how sometimes I’ll see a headline and think a story is going to be about one thing, but after I dig into the details I often wind up finding an entirely different point of view. This story is a great example. I thought I found one new narrative but it might be something completely different.
My first thought was, we might have a fresh new narrative to play with.
TownHall published a story yesterday headlined, “Why Did the Biden Admin Just Buy $290M Worth of Anti-Radiation Drugs for Nuclear Emergencies?” HHS issued a press release about buying the drugs through its disaster preparedness agency, BARDA, on TWITTER:
Today, we purchased a supply of @Amgen’s Nplate, a drug to combat the effects of acute radiation sickness after radiological or nuclear emergencies. For more about how we leverage existing technology & inventory management practices to ensure preparedness: bit.ly/3EedtyT
Speculation ran wild. What did HHS know? How likely IS war, if they’re stockpiling drugs to treat radiation burns? How worried should we be? Are they trying to panic everybody?
To make sure we got the point, BARDA followed up with more tweets about nuclear preparedness:
BARDA is partnering with ASELL to develop biodosimetry diagnostics to rapidly identify individuals exposed to radiation after a nuclear or radiological incident: Alentic’s Prospector CBC analyzer, CellRADx Software & CellRADx Instrument. Learn more: bit.ly/3RTSAfT
Also yesterday, as if the government were a synchronized swim team, Biden also began yammering about the threat of nuclear war.
The New York Post ran a story yesterday headlined, “Putin’s ‘Not Joking’: Biden Says Nuclear ‘Armageddon’ Risk Highest Since ‘62 Crisis.” Biden was speaking at a swanky democrat senatorial fundraiser in New York and announced Russian President Vladimir Putin was “not joking when he talks about the use of tactical nuclear weapons or biological or chemical weapons.”
Not joking!
Biden told top democrats that Putin “isn’t joking.” I wonder how many of them thought Putin has been joking about nuclear war. Did YOU think Putin was joking? Not once in my entire life can I recall Putin telling a joke. He doesn’t really seem like the jokey type.
I’m getting tired of typing this sentence, but: what on EARTH is Joe Biden talking about? Was it just a bad choice of words, “Putin’s not joking?” Of COURSE he’s not joking, he’s as serious as vaccine-induced myocarditis. Nuclear war is the the least funny subject in the history of mankind. What a dumb thing to say.
Wait! Maybe Joe actually believed Putin’s been joking all this time, and he’s JUST NOW realized that Putin ISN’T joking? I think that could be it.
Joseph Robinette Biden might not be the leader we want, but he is the leader we have. The Bible says he’s the leader we deserve. But it’s not ALL bad. While he might be shoving us to the brink of global nuclear war, labeling Republicans a fascist threat, libeling unvaccinated people, arresting pro-life activists, and lying about his oil cancer, at least he’s not calling Hilary Clinton names in mean tweets.
PLEASE don’t lecture me in the comments that the nuclear risk isn’t really Joe’s fault, it’s really Putin’s fault. Look, I ALREADY feel like we’ve spent enough money on Ukraine’s war. How do you think I feel about sacrificing even more, by going through a nuclear war for them? No thanks. I’ll volunteer every one of my spare bedrooms and couches for Ukrainian refugees but I don’t want my kids to glow in the dark, if you don’t mind.
I’m sure that many Ukrainians are justifiably angry enough that they would love it if the U.S. and Russia traded nukes. But, if Joe’s right, then the only sane option is for the US to withdraw its military support for the Ukrainians RIGHT NOW. Stop this madness.
But I don’t think that’s the point of this new narrative. I think this clumsy new nuclear war narrative is supposed to convince followers that Russia is a direct threat against the United States. Why? I wondered, are they planning to declare war with somebody? The new nuclear narrative does make it feel like they’re preparing for another big military escalation. Or something.
Then I thought about how Putin doesn’t seem to be taking the bait.
🔥 What do I mean? In two recent developments, if Putin were HALF the man corporate media claims he is, the president-for-life would have ALREADY escalated the war.
Fox News ran a story yesterday headlined, “Swedish Investigative Team Finds ‘Detonations’ Damaged Nord Stream Pipeline.” Surprising exactly no one, Reuters reported the Swedish security police said, “There have been detonations near Nord Stream 1 and 2, within the Swedish economic zone, resulting in extensive damage to the gas pipelines.”
Detonations. Not accidents.
The Fox story reported that NATO already accuses the Russians of sabotaging their own pipelines, which are said to probably be irreparable, a total loss. The Russians hotly deny it, of course, and insist they won’t accept the results of any investigation that they don’t get to participate in, which is going to be tough, since the sabotage occurred in NATO-controlled seas.
Fox reported that Russia is accusing the United States of using underwater drones to blow up the pipelines. The Biden Administration denies it.
If Putin really WERE a reckless warmonger who can barely control his temper, and be believes the U.S. was behind the attacks, wouldn’t he have retaliated SOMEHOW after his country’s two largest gas pipelines were destroyed by state-sponsored terrorists?
And what about young Darya Dugina? Wouldn’t the hotheaded Russian president have swiftly retaliated after state-sponsored terrorists blew up the 29-year-old daughter of one of Putin’s closest friends and advisors? Or what about after the deep state gave him a little extra push, by leaking an article this week through the New York Times making it super clear the Ukrainians had planted the car bomb?
But the Russian president has not been provoked, after significant cause, contrary to everything corporate media has told us about the man. Rather than a reckless, irresponsible hothead, from what we can see, Putin seems more like a careful, cautious planner who suspects he might be being played. It’s probably driving the State Department crazy.
I thought, maybe that’s why they’re rolling out the new narrative. But then I found a wrinkle that changed everything.
💉 What would you say if I told you I was going to connect the nuclear-narrative story to the jabs?
Remember how HHS just bought $300 million dollars of medicine that it noisily claims is for nuclear preparedness? Specifically, BARDA said it bought Amgen’s Nplate drug, which can be used to “combat the effects of acute radiation sickness.”
But guess what ELSE Nplate treats? I checked Amgen’s website. Oddly, I didn’t find anything on the Nplate page about treating radiation sickness. But I did find THIS:
How about that, Sally? Nplate’s primary approved use is to treat “immune thrombocytopenia.”
“Immune thrombocytopenia” sounded familiar.
On a hunch, I hopped over to PubMed and searched the journals for the keywords “vaccine immune thrombocytopenia.” Guess what? It returned NINE HUNDRED AND SIX hits:
Uh oh!
One of the 2021 studies explains:¹
It’s not going away, either. Just six days ago, the journal Vaccines published a brand new study titled, “A Systematic Review of Reported Cases of Immune Thrombocytopenia after COVID-19 Vaccination.” In its conclusion, the authors noted:
Fatigue… Sounds a lot like “long covid,” doesn’t it?
I bet you’re wondering what causes ITP. According to the NIH’s website, it’s VACCINES:
While causes of ITP include do viral infections, in such cases the ITP occurs DURING the infection, and the treatment for those cases is to treat the underlying infection. So it’s not covid.
I know this sounds like a mad conspiracy theory, but try to follow me here. HHS just bought an historic amount of drugs approved to treat a vaccine-induced blood disorder, a vaccine-induced disorder linked to the most widely-used vaccine in history, a vaccine-induced disorder easily diagnosed by a standard blood test.
If ITP is widespread, it will be impossible to hide, once doctors start looking for it.
HHS said the Nplate is for treating radiation burns. That might be true, but radiation injuries are nowhere on the list of approved uses — on the drug’s own website. HHS made its drug-buying announcement right at the exact same time Joe Biden announced that “Putin is serious” about nuclear war.
They wouldn’t provoke a nuclear war just to cover up a vaccine-induced disaster, would they? That would be crazy, right? Even for Joe? They aren’t stockpiling ITP drugs to treat a massive wave of long covid, I mean ITP, are they?
Anyway. Who knows. But I have to conclude that the new narrative might NOT be about escalating the Ukraine conflict, after all. Maybe the new narrative is to cover up what’s giving all these people “long covid.” Or maybe I’m seeing things that aren’t there.
You have to admit, it’s a bizarre connection. What do YOU think?
🔥 Yesterday, I came across an interesting media-embargoed story about Pfizer from August. As far as I can tell, it was only reported in a handful of obscure financial media. On August 7th, the SEC issued a press release titled, “SEC Charges Pfizer with FCPA Violations.” Corpwatch reported on the story the very next day with the headline, “Pfizer Admits Bribery in Eight Countries.”
Pfizer settled charges of bribing doctors with cash payments and other gifts going back to 2001. The pharma giant will have to pay about $65 million in fines, a mere trifle, a slap on the wrist, and nobody’s being charged criminally. Corpwatch noted that “the practice of settling fraud cases with companies while not charging any employees might be giving executives an incentive to push the limits of the law.”
You don’t say.
In August, during a congressional hearing, U.S. senator from Rhode Island Jack Reed asked, “A lot of people on the street, they’re wondering how a company can commit serious violations of securities laws and yet no individuals seem to be involved and no individual responsibility was assessed.”
It’s a terrific question that I’ve been asking for a while. Especially after reviewing so many criminal subpoenas served on individual doctors just for prescribing Ivermectin.
I guess Pfizer has a better lobbyist, or something.
Have a fabulous Friday! I’ll see you back here tomorrow for the weekend edition.
C&C is moving the needle and changing minds. If you can, I could use your help getting the truth out and spreading optimism and hope: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/-learn-how-to-get-involved-
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The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
By Sabrina Robertson, PIO, Nassau County
10-07-22
Just a friendly reminder that the bi-annual Household Hazardous Waste Recycling Event and Food Drive will be held on Saturday, October 15, 2022, from 8:00 a.m. – noon (or until trucks reach capacity… whichever comes first).
Examples of items that will be accepted include:
– Aerosol cans
– Household cleaners
– Cooking oil (used)
– Oil, lubricants, oil filters
– Insecticides and pesticides
– Computers
– Radios
– Printers
– Power tools
– Televisions, VCRs, DVD players
– Batteries
– Propane Tanks
– Paints and paint thinners
– And much, much more!
What: Household Hazardous Waste Recycling Event
When: Saturday, October 15, 2022 from 8am-12pm (or until truck reaches capacity)
Where: Nassau County Road Department, 86200 Gene Lassere Blvd., Yulee, FL 32097Please enter the facility utilizing Courtney Isles Way from Chester Rd.(see map below for details)
This event is FREE to Nassau County residents with proof of residency. Small businesses may also be approved to dispose of items for a small fee, however you must call Keep Nassau Beautiful in advance to register at (904) 261-0165.
Participants are asked to bring a non-perishable food item to be donated to the Barnabas Food Pantry.
By George Miller, 10-6-22
At the 9-8-22 special meeting/final public hearing on the Budget, the Nassau County School Board approved a $258,397,234.33 budget, a 10.6% year over year increase for the upcoming fiscal year. As recently as 2013-14, it was only about $52 million. There were 12,380 students last year. The entire meeting with this and six minutes for just two public comments took only 25 minutes. However, much prior planning and discussion went into it. But the board and administration had vigorously resisted any formal oversight and heavy public interaction in this process.
The regular board meetings aren’t much different, with agenda items raised, with little discussion and no real presentations to explain it to the public, very thin public participation, and not a lot of board interaction, then voted on, usually unanimously.
For this article, Citizens Journal drew upon Richard Lamken, a former Assistant Schools Superintendent elsewhere who also held other senior positions in the public and private sectors. He is also the education board member for County Citizens Defending Freedom’s (CCDF-USA) Nassau County, FL Chapter. (Editor’s note: the author of this article is not a public education professional or expert, but has covered 5 different school boards (such as this one in CA) sporadically over the years and done executive/management education as a consultant.)
Keep in mind that Nassau County School District is rated #2 in the entire Florida state roster of public schools which participate in the evaluation process, so they must be doing something right. But Florida is, in turn, only about 26th in state rankings. Also keep in mind that the student body is heavily middle class white, a demographic exceeded in performance only by students of Asian extraction. District student make-up is 79.1% (FL- 36.1%) white, 6.6% (FL- 21.3%) black, 7.8% (FL- 35.5%) Hispanic, 5.3% (FL- 4%) identify as multi-racial, Asian 1% (FL 2.8%). Lamken also points out that the district is more free of the social turmoil and “wokeism” of other counties such as Duval County.
Lamken thinks the district is academically doing well when compared to other districts in a middle of the road state. He thinks teachers here are still significantly underpaid – including entry level people who start at $46-47,000, plus benefits. What’s worse, he said, is that the compensation upside for experienced teachers with advanced degrees is too small to attract experienced educators. The state has contributed substantial dollars to increase entry level salaries but attached a proviso that prevents the normal salary differential based on experience and advanced education. Now we have major inflation on top of that to keep up with. He believes that this contributes to the very high district teacher turnover, which puts a strain on district resources and the quality of instruction. He said that in 2019-20, 47% of the district’s educators were in their first, second or third year of teaching and that he thinks that number is even higher now with 15-20% turnover the last two years.
When asked if this proposed 1 mill increase referendum for it is on the November ballot), which he said amounts to about $250/year/family, could become unnecessary if other cuts were made, he would only say that cuts look possible but was not willing to venture how much or where. Per Mr. Lamken, the Superintendent has refused to say, when asked by Board members, what her Plan B is, if the referendum fails to pass.
When CJ asked him how the district was able to score so well vs. other participating Florida districts, he attributed it to the hard work of individual educators, the District’s “teach to the test” focus and the excellence of the Executive Director of Curriculum & Instruction. Misty Mathis is the Executive Director who has been with the District for 25 years. See: http://nassaucountysd.swagit.com/play/09082022-785
Other Ratings
https://www.fldoe.org/accountability/assessments/
As described by Mr. Lamken, There were three budget workshops before the September 8 final approval meeting. Roughly a third of the budget was covered in each one. The sessions were open to comments and questions by board members. The public could also participate but only in 3-minute opportunities for comment per person per session. They were not interactive and questions most often went unanswered or were inadequately answered, including those asked by Board members, per Mr. Lamken. The District failed to have the Department Managers who created their Budgets there to answer questions of the Board members Some Department Budgets had increased 20-25% year over year.
Inflation, year over year increase in students and competitive salary adjustments were offered as reasons for at least some of the 10.6% year-over-year budget increase, according to Mr. Lamken. I asked him for a ten-year budget vs students served chart, which he doesn’t have, so Citizens Journal is requesting this info from the district.
Although school board meetings are televised and have on demand video available online to the public, the workshops do not, nor do they have well-developed agendas (look at the August 1, 2022 workshop agenda). Some of the meeting agendas do not have links for all meeting materials. Considering that, the lack of access to the decision making process and what Lamken says are unsatisfactory answers to questions and observed lack of discussion on or even explanation of meeting items before quickly moving to votes, which we have also observed via video, would collectively seem to mean a lack of transparency and accountability in the process.
Those who have been following district news know that Mr. Lamken has been a big proponent of forming a Citizens’ Budget Advisory Committee (CBAC), which he has repeatedly proposed/advocated. The district finally put it on the agenda, but voted it down 4-1, with only Dr. Grooms voting for it. Reasons given for refusal of this discretionary move included: it takes too much time, the public wouldn’t understand the complexity, audits haven’t uncovered any issues and that it wouldn’t significantly improve results. Not once did anyone talk about a review of HOW the District is spending taxpayer money. Lamken did concede that it would take more time and effort by district personnel but disagreed that it wouldn’t be worthwhile or that interested members of the public were incapable of understanding. Two citizens with substantial School District finance experience have agreed to serve if the CBAC is created.
Mr. Lamken further told us on 10-7-22: “As far the budget process is concerned, only by having a CBAC will Citizens really be able to understand the Departmental budget building process, be able to question those responsible for their Department’s budget and get meaningful data. The current budget process is one where even Board members don’t get meaningful and complete answers to their questions do they don’t insist on getting one. It’s very much a “you don’t have a need to know” process.”
September 8 Special Meeting Agenda
1. Meeting Opening
A. Call to Order
2. Discussion Items
A. Discussion of Rollback Rate
B. Discussion of Five Year Work Plan
3. Action Items
A. Five Year Work Plan
B. Required Local Effort Millage
C. Discretionary Millage
D. Capital Improvement Millage
E. 2022-2023 District Summary Budget
https://go.boarddocs.com/fl/nassau/Board.nsf/files/CHSRB26BEE61/$file/ESE139%20for%20BoardDoc.pdf
F. Resolution #1359 – Revenues & Millages
G. Resolution #1360 – Final Budget 2022-2023
https://go.boarddocs.com/fl/nassau/Board.nsf/files/CJ4KWP53DA44/$file/1360_Resolution.pdf
4. Adjournment
A. Adjournment
Editor’s note: These items had attachments. We’re just showing samples. Go to School Board website for more.
Regular meeting
9-8-22 official meeting minutes SOURCE
School Board Special Meeting – Budget (Thursday, September 8, 2022)
Generated by Connie Daughtry on Friday, September 9, 2022
Members present
Donna Martin, Gail Cook, Jamie Deonas, Lissa Braddock, Cynthia Grooms
Others present
Scott Hodges, Mark Durham, Misty Mathis, Bill Plachinski, and Judith Meredith.
Meeting called to order at 5:30PM
Meeting Opening
Procedural: A. Call to Order
Ms. Cook opened the meeting with prayer and Dr. Grooms led the pledge to the American flag.
Discussion Items
Discussion: A. Discussion of Rollback Rate
Superintendent Burns led the discussion of the rollback rate.
Discussion: B. Discussion of Five-Year Work Plan
Superintendent Burns answered questions from the Board.
Action Items
Action: A. Five Year Work Plan
Approval of the Five-Year Work Plan.
Motion by Jamie Deonas, second by Lissa Braddock.
Final Resolution: Motion Carries
Yes: Donna Martin, Gail Cook, Jamie Deonas, Lissa Braddock, Cynthia Grooms
Action: B. Required Local Effort Millage
To approve the Required Local Effort Millage as 3.253 mils plus a prior year adjustment of .002 for a total of 3.255.
Motion by Jamie Deonas, second by Lissa Braddock.
Final Resolution: Motion Carries
Yes: Donna Martin, Gail Cook, Jamie Deonas, Lissa Braddock, Cynthia Grooms
Action: C. Discretionary Millage
To approve the Discretionary Millage as .748 mills.
Motion by Gail Cook, second by Cynthia Grooms.
Final Resolution: Motion Carries
Yes: Donna Martin, Gail Cook, Jamie Deonas, Lissa Braddock, Cynthia Grooms
Action: D. Capital Improvement Millage
To approve the Capital Improvement Millage as 1.5 mills.
Motion by Jamie Deonas, second by Lissa Braddock.
Final Resolution: Motion Carries
Yes: Donna Martin, Gail Cook, Jamie Deonas, Lissa Braddock, Cynthia Grooms
Action: E. 2022-2023 District Summary Budget
To approve the 2022-2023 District Summary Budget in the amount of $258,397,234.33.
Motion by Jamie Deonas, second by Gail Cook.
Final Resolution: Motion Carries
Yes: Donna Martin, Gail Cook, Jamie Deonas, Lissa Braddock, Cynthia Grooms
Action: F. Resolution #1359 – Revenues & Millages
To adopt Resolution #1359 determining revenues and millages levied.
Motion by Gail Cook, second by Cynthia Grooms.
Final Resolution: Motion Carries
Yes: Donna Martin, Gail Cook, Jamie Deonas, Lissa Braddock, Cynthia Grooms
Action: G. Resolution #1360 – Final Budget 2022-2023
Adopt Resolution #1360 adopting the Final Budget for Fiscal Year 2022-23.
Motion by Jamie Deonas, second by Lissa Braddock.
Final Resolution: Motion Carries
Yes: Donna Martin, Gail Cook, Jamie Deonas, Lissa Braddock, Cynthia Grooms
Public Comment
Richard Lamken shared concerns with Board procedure and response. Mr. Lamken expressed concerns that the Nassau County School District does not have an easy mechanism to ask questions and get answers.
David Jones questioned the Board regarding a letter received in the mail. The Chair explained that the letter was sent from the County and not the School Board. The Chair and Superintendent attempted to answer questions that Mr. Jones presented in regard to the Nassau County School Board.
The public hearing was closed, and the Chair thanked everyone for their hard work.
Adjournment
Meeting adjourned at 5:55PM
Dr. Kathy K. Burns, Superintendent
Brett Steger, School Board Attorney
We’ll try to do more in-depth analysis in the future as we get more staff and they become more familiar with the school district.
George Miller is Publisher and Co-Founder of Citizens Journal Florida, based in Fernandina Beach. He is a “retired” operations management consultant, software and publishing executive and manufacturing management professional.
By John Solomon
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, a relentless critic of creeping censorship and cancel culture in America, is vowing an aggressive investigation into federal agencies’ collusion with private entities to silence Americans’ opinions on Big Tech platforms if Republicans capture control of Congress.
McCarthy’s comments Wednesday came after Just the News reported how the departments of State and Homeland Security essentially outsourced censorship activities to a private consortium that facilitated federal officials’ requests to censor content on social media platforms during the 2020 election
The sprawling effort impacted over 4,800 web URLs, 20 news organizations, two dozen conservative influencers such as Sean Hannity, Charlie Kirk and Mark Levin and nearly 22 million social media posts, according to the consortium’s own internal after-action reports.
McCarthy said the operation, a precursor to the now-dismantled Disinformation Governance Board, was troubling and violated the Constitution.
“Holding both Big Tech and the government agencies they colluded with accountable will be a top priority of a Republican majority.”
Read more in Just The News
By AF Branco
Pfizer Announces FDA Approval Of Hurricane Vaccine
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
By Jeff Childers
10-06-22
Good morning C&C, your long wait is over; I’m back! I have a terrific roundup for you today: anti-vaxxers, the new global menace, are back in the crosshairs; Pfizer starts phase 3 trials of its brand-new mRNA flu shot, and I bet you can’t wait; UK considers jailing people for “legal but harmful” social media posts; the FBI raids even more pro-life activists for standing around abortion clinics; a narrative-bending story makes the New York Times and exposes Ukrainian terrorism; and Governor DeSantis is crushing hurricane relief efforts in Florida.
🪖 I want to (again) thank our guest bloggers — who are also C&C army members — for being so generous with their time, and for tiding you all over with high-quality posts while I was out. My response to Tessa Lena’s terrific “Thankless Labors of the Global Elite” is that I’d be quite thankful for them to take a nice rest after all their unthanked labors. How about a PERMANENT rest? And Margaret Anna Alice blessed us with her well-researched and entertaining letter to Klaus Schwab yesterday.
Many thanks to both ladies.
💉 It’s over when they SAY it’s over. The Times UK ran an op-ed yesterday headlined, “Antivaxers Are a Global Menace Who Must Be Defeated.” Well. This generous and mildly-expressed sentiment is based on the terrifying fact that, as the author notes, 6.1% of British are “completely” unvaccinated. Not COMPLETELY vaccinated. Which means, not the first two jabs, which would makes you “partly” vaccinated.
They REALLY don’t like the fact that about 20% of folks in the U.S. aren’t “completely” vaccinated either.
The setup for the op-ed is that, as you know, the new-and-improved boosters are here. But they’re not exactly flying off the medical trays. They’re sort of doing the reverse opposite of that. They’re flying towards the incinerators after they expire, or whatever Pfizer makes pharmacies do with the unused evidence, sorry, I mean “product.”
Cue the fear mongering.
Forgive me for being skeptical about the author’s motives. According to his own bio, “Lord” Darzi is an Iranian-British surgeon, academic, and politician. Mr. Darzi (here in Florida we don’t call folks “lord,” just “sir” or “mister”) is an ‘academic’ surgeon who haunts the surgical department over at the Imperial College of London. That’s the same college where Niall Ferguson worked, the “expert” who falsely modeled an influential covid apocalypse while he was cheating on his wife and breaking his own lockdown rules.
The Imperial College has impeccable standards. How dare you.
Anyway, Mr. Darzi — born in Baghdad, but no relation to Baghdad Bob, not that we know of — Darzi said the high-flyers will meet in Qatar this week to draft a “report that will urge the UN to create a task force to respond to the growing threat” — specifically, the growing threat of the “anti-vaccine, anti-science movement” — which, according to Mr. Darzi, “has become a global menace.”
A global menace! Another one.
Mr. Darzi, whose superpower is finding global menaces at the drop of a prescription pad, seems most concerned about “the pernicious impact of organized disinformation.” Organized disinformation? I wonder who he could be referring to. Darzi fretted about the loss of trust in officials (like him) and concluded the solution requires “credible, trusted information, clearly communicated.”
Maybe that’s a clue as to what the report’s going to advise the UN?
Why does it always come down to shutting up the people who disagree with the experts? That sure makes your expert job easier, doesn’t it? I mean, the last thing you want is some un-lorded high-school graduate poking holes in your covid models.
But, how does this over-educated pufta conclude calling people “a menace” will make them trust him more?
Two thoughts. First, I would like to see a statement of disclosure of interests. Who’s paying this guy to write this op-ed? Even indirectly? With which large pharma companies does Baghdad Darzi have a relationship?
Finally, drunk with their recent covid powers, the experts are now trying to pull off some kind of coup. For all of human history, the role of “experts” was only to ADVISE. For example, my recent jury trial included two experts. The experts are included as witnesses to “advise” the jury about complicated issues. But the jury is fully allowed to completely ignore either expert or both of them. The issue is credibility. My job, as a lawyer, is to show the jury that the opposing expert is NOT credible.
Mr. Darzi, I do not find you credible. So. Buzz off.
💉 Monday, BusinessWire ran a story headlined, “Pfizer Initiates Phase 3 Study of mRNA-Based Influenza Vaccine.” The U.S. study includes 25,000 adult victims, sorry, I mean ‘volunteers,’ who received their experimental doses this week to “evaluate the efficacy, safety, tolerability and immunogenicity” of the company’s new mRNA flu shot.
You have to hand it to them. They aren’t quitters.
Sometimes you learn more about a topic by what is left out. The BusinessWire article says exactly nothing about how the mRNA shots work. I assume that, like the failed covid shots, the flu shots deliver an mRNA payload to trillions of cells, forcing them all to produce massive amounts of foreign flu virus protein, probably based on a strain prediction made by Pfizer employees. A flu virus strain that recipients might not have even encountered, absent the shot.
But flu virus doesn’t have spikes. Which part of the flu virus will the mRNA shots force the body to make? The article doesn’t say what part.
But don’t worry! I’ll bet you a real beefsteak dinner that the U.S. government will buy tons of Pfizer’s new flu shots, which, like the covid shots and other vaccines, enjoy broad legal liability protection.
My old economics professor used to say, if you see a distortion in the market, look for the withered hand of government. GOVERNMENT created this runaway market for vaccines with its laws eliminating manufacturer liability. By locking in liability protection, pharma companies can now sell drugs to HEALTHY PEOPLE — the largest market there is. And the government will use taxpayer dollars to help sell those products to the taxpayers.
Actually, government itself can now be the biggest consumer of those products even if taxpayers don’t want them. And, what a market.
A vaccine for flu! Get out of here! It’s the biggest market ever! Every single healthy person “needs” it EVERY SINGLE YEAR OF THEIR LIVES. And the best part is, if it hurts or even kills customers, they can’t sue you! It’s even better than a gold mine, because a gold mine eventually runs out of precious metal.
Before you start typing angry comments, I am not opposed to the development of new technologies to protect AT RISK people from the flu. I am opposed to total liability protection. I am opposed to drugging healthy people. And I am opposed to secrecy. Secrecy plus liability protection is a bad combination. At minimum, to get liability protection, pharma should have to disclose EVERYTHING. They should be subject to public records laws.
Or, we could just fully or partially end the vaccine liability protection gravy train. That would be a good start. Something to think about.
🔥 The UK will soon be considering a stinker of a potential new law tagged with the Orwellian name “the Online Safety Bill.”
5:00 AM ∙ Oct 6, 2022471Likes173Retweets
The bill would criminalize — meaning they can lock you up — information that is not only “misinformation” but also information that may be “legal, but harmful.”Proponents cite a British incident where a teenager killed herself after finding out about effective methods of suicide on social media.
Molly’s death should break all our hearts and make us determined to prevent social media giants from continuing to put their profits above the safety of children. The online safety bill must not be delayed any longer. Young lives are at stake. bbc.co.ukMolly Russell inquest: Father makes social media pleaTech firms should “stop monetising misery”, the father of Molly Russell says as her inquest ends….11:38 AM ∙ Sep 30, 202253Likes32Retweets
Lawmakers are pretending they aren’t targeting “covid misinformation,” not really, but nobody’s buying that. British folks are currently engaged in a lively discussion about whether new prime minister Liz Truss will allow the bill onto the pending legislative agenda. We’ll learn a lot about Liz based on what happens.
The people have no idea what would happen if they unleash a law like this. They are so comfortable thinking that because they are in charge, they’ll decide who gets arrested and who doesn’t for “information that may be legal but harmful.” What happens when the other side gets in charge? Or when a totally unscrupulous person gets to be in charge?
Think, British people. At least try.
🔥 The Justice Department charged 11 more people with criminal violations of the “FACE Act” for peacefully blockading an abortion clinic last year in Mount Juliet, Tennessee.
Mary Margaret Olohan @MaryMargOlohan
NEW: The Justice Department has charged 11 more pro-life activists with violations of the FACE Act for blocking the entrance of an abortion clinic in 2021. dailysignal.comJustice Department Targets Pro-Lifers AgainThe Justice Department has charged 11 pro-life activists with violations of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act….12:31 AM ∙ Oct 6, 2022533Likes360Retweets
The FBI, which raided several of the activists homes with guns drawn, found the case through a social media post with a video of the event. So the crack squad of highly-motivated FBI anti-terrorism investigators are keeping themselves busy by sitting around the office, searching people’s social media posts. Impressive.
This latest news follows outcry over the dramatic arrest of Mark Houck, a Catholic father and pro-life activist, who was arrested at home by armed FBI agents during a night raid, in front of his family, for allegedly shoving a pro-abortion activist who harassed his son.
Sounds like a great use of FBI resources. The federal government really needs to get to the bottom of that shoving match.
Meanwhile, zero FBI raids or arrests have been made of “Jane’s Revenge” group members who firebombed a dozen pro-life pregnancy centers this summer after the Supreme Court’s decision came out.
Sounds fair.
🔥 The New York Times ran a startling anti-narrative story yesterday headlined, “U.S. Believes Ukrainians Were Behind an Assassination in Russia.”
The story refers to Daria Dugina, 24, the daughter of one of Russian president Putin’s closest friends and advisers, Aleksander Dugin. In August, The young journalist was blown to bits by a car bomb in a terrorist attack at a farmers’ market in Russia.
The Times’ sub-headline explains, “American officials said they were not aware of the plan ahead of time for the attack that killed Daria Dugina and that they had admonished Ukraine over it.”
Oh.
The story reports that Ukraine originally denied being involved in the attack, but last week U.S. intelligence agencies circulated a report concluding the Ukrainian government authorized the car bomb attack near Moscow in August. Unidentified U.S. officials told the Times our government “took no part in the attack, either by providing intelligence or other assistance,” and “they were not aware of the operation ahead of time and would have opposed the killing.”
Huh. If the Times doesn’t identify WHICH U.S. officials denied involvement in the attack, how do we know they aren’t just uninformed? In any event, Ukrainian officials contacted by the Times continued denying they had anything to do with the terrorist act. The Times does not mention Ukraine’s response to being “admonished” by the U.S.
Admonished? What does that even mean?
Anyway, the story raises some interesting questions. Why would intelligence agencies leak the report to the Times? Why now? Why would the Times run this article, essentially calling the Ukrainians liars, and exposing their culpability for terrorism?
We don’t know the answers to these fascinating questions, of course, how could we, but I’ll speculate anyway. The most obvious explanation is that the Ukrainians won’t do something that Washington wants them to do, so the State Department is punishing them by publishing this dangerous anti-narrative story.
Narrative blackmail.
If I’m right, what does Washington want the Ukrainians to do that they don’t want to do?
🔥 Governor DeSantis and the former vice-president have been publicly getting along and working together well this week, to get government resources to the folks affected by Hurricane Ian. But, watch Governor DeSantis’ body language in this clip, while Biden claimed yesterday that the recent hurricane “ended the debate” about climate change:
Biden: #HurricaneIan “ended” the debate on climate change
7:05 PM ∙ Oct 5, 2022597Likes141Retweets
If you can’t see it, watch it again, and this time compare DeSantis’ body language to the other three people standing behind Joe. So funny.
Meanwhile, DeSantis has possibly been leading better after a major disaster than any other governor ever has, ever.
5:33 PM ∙ Oct 5, 20222,019Likes497Retweets
Have a terrific Thursday and I’ll see you back here tomorrow!
C&C is moving the needle and changing minds. If you can, I could use your help getting the truth out and spreading optimism and hope: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/-learn-how-to-get-involved-
Twitter: @jchilders98
Truth Social: @jchilders98
MeWe: mewe.com/i/coffee_and_covid.
C&C Swag! www.shopcoffeeandcovid.com
Emailed Daily Newsletter: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
By Nassau County, FL|Board of County Commissioners
10-05-22
Nassau County, Florida, October 5, 2022 – The Board is excited to announce that
the County has once again received an improvement in its Classification in the
Community Rating System (CRS). CRS is a voluntary incentive program that
recognizes and encourages community floodplain management practices that exceed
the minimum requirements of the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP). Nassau
County joined the program in May 2017 and since that time has worked hard to
improve its rating to allow for a reduction in flood insurance premiums for property
owners within the unincorporated areas of the County.
Flood insurance premiums are set nationally based on the age of structure, building
materials and level of risk. However, communities that volunteer to adopt and enforce
stricter ordinances, known as “Higher Standards,” to reduce flood risk can enroll in
the CRS Program to earn insurance premium discounts for their residents.
In order to maintain and/or improve CRS Ratings, the County earns “credits” for its
efforts in providing information to the public, maintaining current flood maps,
improving flood regulations to reduce the possibility of flood damage, and ensuring
flood preparedness. Based on total credits earned, communities are assigned a CRS
Classification which determines the percentage of discounts given to property
owners.
Nassau County’s previous CRS Rating was a Class 8 which allowed County
residents to enjoy a 10% premium reduction for flood insurance with an overall cost
savings of $176,000 for the residents. However, during the most recent cycle
verification, the County was notified that its efforts have now achieved enough points
to move them to a Class 7 CRS Rating, allowing residents to benefit from a 15%
premium reduction with an overall cost savings of $232,000 to property owners with a
flood insurance policy.
County Manager, Taco Pope, stated, “With the threat of increase to property
insurance premiums throughout the country, the Board is happy to do what it can to
provide relief to property owners within Nassau County. Special acknowledgment is
given to our floodplain experts in the County’s Building and Planning Departments
who work year-round to provide flood information to the public through community
outreach events and to conduct other initiatives to increase its credits. We also
appreciate the guidance provided by our consultants of Oceania Flood Services.
Thanks to all their hard work, our residents will continue to enjoy reduced flood
insurance premiums. We will continue these efforts in hopes to improve our rating
again during the next cycle verification.”
For information on the CRS Program, visit FEMA’s website at:
https://www.fema.gov/floodplain-management/community-rating-system
By WND Staff, October 4, 2022
The U.S. Postal Service has been caught spying on conservatives and gun owners through a special program called the Internet Covert Operations Program.
A report at Foreign Desk News explains that postal inspectors instituted the spy program, and it was revealed to senior Cato Institute fellow Patrick Eddington through a federal Freedom of Information Act process.
It confirmed that from September 2020 through April 2021 postal inspectors watched their targets through various social media surveillance procedures.
“The Post Office has no business devoting a cent of taxpayer money to monitoring groups involved in the political process. Those officials who authorized or otherwise participated in this iCOP program who are still on the federal payroll should be fired and the program terminated,” Eddington told AmmoLand News during an interview.
Among those targeted were participants in “peaceful armed protests” in Virginia where Americans rallied for Second Amendment rights.
The inspectors observed, in their report, “The gathering lasted approximately two hours, with members identifying themselves as affiliates of the Proud Boys, Boogaloo Bois and Last Sons of Liberty. Counter-protesters from the Black Lives Matter movement also attended. With heavy law enforcement presence, the demonstrations stayed peaceful in nature.”
Foreign Desk News explained Philip Van Cleave, of the VCDL, told AmmoLand News that it looks like a politically based agenda opposing the Second Amendment.
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“If they had done even the tiniest amount of research, they would have realized that VCDL had a rally with over 50,000 people the year before with zero problems, and we left Richmond cleaner than it was before our rally. In fact, VCDL has always coordinated its rallies with the police to ensure that the gun-control crowd doesn’t start any trouble. In what alternate universe would VCDL in any way be a threat to the postal service or its employees?” he said.
Erich Pratt, an executive with Gun Owners of America, pointed out that gun owners are “100 percent law-abiding and committed no crimes” at a previous event.
“This just shows the anti-gun animus at USPS. After all, did the agency track the Antifa rioters who tore apart city after city during 2020-21? Or did the Postmaster General track the thugs who burnt St. John’s Church, when the Secret Service had to whisk away the President to safety? Ignoring the real criminal element just shows that anti-gun Leftist bureaucrats are ignoring the ‘elephant in the room’ in order to persecute and harass their political opponents.”
The USPS said, “The U.S. Postal Inspection Service occasionally reviews publicly available information in order to assess potential safety or security threats to Postal Service employees, facilities, operations and infrastructure.”
The surveillance strategies even have gotten headwinds from its service’s own inspector general, who determined those programs may not have had legal grounds for being implemented.
That office said “certain proactive searches iCOP conducted using an open-source intelligence tool from February to April 2021 exceeded the Postal Inspection Service’s law enforcement authority.”
For 25 years, WND has boldly brought you the news that really matters. If you appreciate our Christian journalists and their uniquely truthful reporting and analysis, please help us by becoming a WND Insider!
Republished with permission- SOURCE
10-5-22
| Please join us for an informative Happy Hour for Concerned Conservatives on Monday, November 7, 2022 from5:00 to 7:00 pm at Walkers Landing70 Marsh Creek Road (Via the main Omni Resort gate) Meet like-minded friends & neighbors as we hear from Chris Huband Deputy Directorof theNassau County State Attorney’s Office ~ ~ ~ ~ $10.00 per person, plus BYOB and bring an appetizer to share free to invite any friends who may have an interest RSVP to Deb Boelkes by November 3rd 904-310-9602 ~ [email protected] If you register but are unable to attend, please cancel in advance with Deb ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ |
| About Chris Huband Chris Huband is the Deputy Director of the Nassau County State Attorney’s Office. He was born and raised in Jacksonville, a 2010 graduate of the University of North Florida. In 2013, Chris graduated cum laude from Florida Coastal School of Law, where he was a member of the Law Review and earned an Advanced Research and Writing Certificate. At Florida Coastal, Chris earned several book awards for obtaining the highest grade in a course and received the Dean’s Merit Scholarship for academic achievement after his first year. Chris began working with the Fourth Circuit State Attorney’s Office as an undergraduate intern in 2009. Chris then began his career as a prosecutor with the Fourth Circuit State Attorney’s Office in August 2013. Since that time, Chris has received recognition for his work with the 2014 Rookie of the Year award and the State Attorney Award in 2017. After working on the Circuit Line, Chris worked in Repeat Offender Court (ROC) and Homicide Major Crimes, trying 17 cases in 2016. Before serving in the Nassau County office, Chris was assigned to the Targeted Prosecution unit since its inception in January 2017, where he served as a Division Chief and maintained duties on the homicide rotation. |
Guest blogged by Margaret Anna Alice
10-05-22
Good morning, and Happy Wednesday, C&C! I know I said I’d be back today, but there’s been a marvelous development. After two long courtroom days of some of the best and most effective trial work my team has ever done, and at the end of the other side’s case in chief late yesterday afternoon, observing the dark clouds piling up on their case’s horizon, they made their first reasonable settlement offer since the lawsuit began. We settled shortly thereafter, a grateful jury was thanked and excused, a delighted judge congratulated all sides, and we hauled 20 or so bankers’ boxes of document binders back down to the parking garage, three days early.
So the great news is, you get regular C&C back, full time, starting tomorrow morning, and our very own C&C army member, regular commenter, and masterful Substack author Margaret Anna Alice is here to guest blog for you this morning so I could recuperate a little.
Margaret Anna Alice Through the Looking Glass
Dearest Klaus,
I know how much you like playing super-villain, but you’re really more of a mediocre-villain. C+ at best. Sorry to break it to you.
No matter how hard I try, I can’t summon terror, rage, or even disgust when I behold your dopey, dull, doltish demeanor. The most I can muster is pity. And cringe. Lots and lots of cringe.
Fawning over Henry Kissinger, for example. Like a tongue-tied seventh-grader crushing on a rock star backstage, you tumble over yer verds, a goofy smile frozen on your flushed face as you bat your eyelashes at your dreamy guru.
You were equally smitten with David Rockefeller protégé, “collectivist global government” advocate, self-described socialist, multimillionaire, suspected bribee, climate change godfather, Agenda 21 instigator, and WEF Cofounder and Executive Chairman Maurice Strong, whom you described as follows after his death in 2015:
“He was one of the most extraordinary personalities I ever met.… He was my mentor since the creation of the Forum: a great friend; an indispensable advisor; and, for many years, a member of our Foundation Board. Without him, the Forum would not have achieved its present significance.”
This is a man who once mused about a “fiction book” in which a global cabal torpedoed civilization to save the planet:
“What if a small group of world leaders were to conclude that the principal risk to the Earth comes from the actions of the rich countries? And if the world is to survive, those rich countries would have to sign an agreement reducing their impact on the environment. Will they do it? The group’s conclusion is ‘no.’ The rich countries won’t do it. They won’t change. So, in order to save the planet, the group decides: Isn’t the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn’t it our responsibility to bring that about?”
What’s weird is that sounds exactly like the Club of Rome’s origin story:
I’m sure it’s just a case of coinciditis. There’s a lot of that going around these days.
After predicting two thirds of the population will die off by 2031 (interesting choice of year) in his autobiography, Where on Earth Are We Going?, Strong dreams a little dream:
“A glimmer of hope for the future of our species and its potential for regeneration.”
In a 1972 BBC interview, he admits to having gotten into trouble for raising the idea of reproductive licenses:
“Licenses to have babies incidentally is something that I got in trouble for some years ago for suggesting even in Canada that this might be necessary at some point, at least some restriction on the right to have a child.”
Championing a one-world government, Strong writes:
“The concept of national sovereignty has been an immutable, indeed sacred, principle of international relations. It is a principle which will yield only slowly and reluctantly to the new imperatives of global environmental co-operation. It is simply not feasible for sovereignty to be exercised unilaterally by individual nation states, however powerful. The global community must be assured of global environmental security.”
Maurice Strong and the Club of Rome
See, https://www.bitchute.com/video/iHhHxe5c5mTU/
You certainly have a type, Klaus.
And then there’s your cuddle session with Albert Bourla where you got all gooey and bonded over those silly anti-vaxxer conspiracy theorist far-right–wing extremists saying mean, misinformationy things about you both.
Your girlish infatuation with father-figure strongmen probably stems from your daddy issues. Growing up as the son of a Nazi collaborator couldn’t have been easy, especially one who:
“led the Nazi-supported German branch of a Swiss engineering firm into the war as a prominent military contractor. That company, Escher-Wyss, would use slave labor to produce machinery critical to the Nazi war effort.”
It must be irksome trying to keep that Totenkopf jammed in the closet.
You were seven when Germany surrendered to the allies. A certain axiom comes to mind:
“Give me a child until he is seven, and I will show you the man.”
Smart dude, that Aristotle.
But it was your dad, not you, who abetted Nazis, I hear you saying. You were just a boy, sins of the father notwithstanding.
Fair enough. But you went on to work for Escher-Wyss. Remember, Herr Professor? You put it on your factsheet.
There’s no shame in that, you might say. Plenty of people are proud to work for IBM, to which the Final Solution owed its astounding efficiency. And some of the world’s most popular automobile corporations—BMW, Mercedes, Porsche, and Volkswagen—made bank during the Third Reich. I won’t even get into I.G. Farben. (You’ll find these all on the Successful Rebranding Campaigns masterclass syllabus.)
So maybe Escher-Wyss reformed just like those wholesome multinationals had. But—yes, another but—while you served on the board in the sixties, Escher-Wyss (later Sulzer AG) “began secretly procuring and building key parts for nuclear weapons” and “helped South Africa’s apartheid government develop their illegal nuclear weapons program.”
Oops. That doesn’t sound so good. Better stuff that uhlaka lwamathambo back in the closet, too.
Despite your grandiloquence, claims of inventing stakeholder capitalism, and vauntsabout having “penetrate[d] the global cabinets of countries with our WEF Young Global Leaders,” you strike me as a big-ticket huckster, a carnival barker to Davos Manwith “an incredible knack to smell the next fad.”
You glom onto lasciviously opulent, illustrious, world-spinning philanthropaths, flattering them to curry favor as they pipe metric tonnenweise of Swiss francs into your accounts.
Your nephew, Hans Schwab, exposed your history of avarice when he described a last-minute ownership change in a business contract once you got a whiff of the plump sums involved:
“He said, ‘This needs to get done right now.’
“I had never heard of the Schwab Foundation, and I suddenly had to change all of the contracts. I knew it was his little thing that he was cooking up. Suddenly, in the last hour, he could see that there was going to be huge sums of money involved, the sort of money that he had never seen before, and he wanted to put it in a structure over which he had 100 percent control.”
You’d think the blandished billionaires would see through your long con, but they’re just as vapid as you and feed off flummery.
The middling-minded lap up your how-to manuals on virtue-signaling the world into destruction—from COVID-19: The Great Reset to The Great Narrative to The Fourth Industrial Revolution to Stakeholder Capitalism to Shaping the Future of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
Normally, I would read a book before bashing it, and I have perused excerpts of The Great Reset here and there. Thankfully, braver souls than me have suffered those soul-evaporating pages for the rest of us.
As the uproariously mordant Chris Bray explains of his decision to finally read your book:
“It’s a little like saying, ‘Man, you know, I’ve never gone swimming in the sewer,’ and then pulling on your swimsuit.”
eugyppius also dove into the effluvium, bless him, and reported back from the frontlines with The Terrifying Vacuity of Klaus Schwab:
“You have the feeling not only of a sad, small man, struggling to play the part of global governance guru, but of his equally pathetic audience of Hillary Clintons and Olaf Scholzes and Emmanuel Macrons, who hear this garbage and somehow manage to find it insightful and wish to be associated with it. What clouded intellectual lives all these people must lead.”
Igor Chudov joined the sewage pool party with his own unique take, posing the question:
“Is there a possibility that important, world-changing ideas are wrapped in layers of feel-good, patronizing, virtue-signaling words, intentionally strung together into endless, hard-to-understand sentences?”
He concludes that you are indeed using “CODED LANGUAGE to Communicate Unthinkable Plans,” wrapping “radical proposals that would upend the most basic foundations of our Western societies” in such boring jargon that ordinary people cannot bear to read it and thus scoff at “conspiracy theorists” who invest the effort to decode its civilization-zapping recipe.
And this is how we wind up with Holodomor while you and your WEFing cohorts feast on Lucullian delicacies, as feisty feline el gato malo envisions:
“if you let these people try to feed new york city for a month, everyone in it would die of starvation while klaus and co ate prime rib stuffed with hummingbird tongues in a penthouse somewhere and blamed the peasants for not peasanting hard enough before flying off to davos in a fleet of private jets to hand out awards to one another.”
Perhaps JP Sears is right, after all, and you are the “most dangerous man in the world”:
But dangerous doesn’t equal smart, or superior, or special—just masterly at manipulating minions, making millions, and mass-murdering.
And mediocre.
Don’t sulk, Klaus. You still have lots of toys left to play with.
Meanwhile, Henry, Bill, and other puppeteers will keep working your strings until you Great-Reset two thirds of us into our graves.
Or not. As a practitioner of the Stockdale Paradox, I’m betting on not. Instead, millions of decent, heroic folks and I are working to make The Good Reset come true.
Gandhi’s got a memento mori for you:
“When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it—always.”
— Margaret Anna Alice
Have a wonderful Wednesday! I’ll see you guys back here tomorrow for regularly-scheduled C&C programs.
C&C is moving the needle and changing minds. If you can, I could use your help getting the truth out and spreading optimism and hope: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/-learn-how-to-get-involved-
Twitter: @jchilders98
Truth Social: @jchilders98
MeWe: mewe.com/i/coffee_and_covid.
C&C Swag! www.shopcoffeeandcovid.com
Emailed Daily Newsletter: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
By Jeff Childers
10-04-22
Good morning C&C, and happy Tuesday! My jury trial continues today (but I’ll reappear briefly tomorrow), and I am delighted to present a special guest blog by author, technocracy blogger, and C&C Subscriber Tessa Lena. Raised in Moscow, trained in classical piano, she is also a talented artist and a musician for the digital age, and in 2017 published an album named the same as her blog, “Tessa Fights Robots.” Not only does she fight robots, but Tessa fights resetters, from Lenin to Schwab.
I miss you guys! I’ll meet you all back here tomorrow for a regular edition, since the courthouse is closed for Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement. There’s a lot to catch up on.
Tip: for extra delight, when you read Tessa’s writing, imagine it in a Russian accented female voice.
🗞*WORLD NEWS AND COMMENTARY — TESSA LENA EDITION* 🗞
The global elites are in labor. They are giving birth to a robot. They are birthing a managerial robot that–they hope–will help them manage us, useless eaters.
Their pocket politicians are eager midwives. Newsom, for example, signed a California bill abolishing debate in COVID “science.” All to save “our democracy,” for sure! In my home state of New York, Hochul is fighting with tooth and claw for her right to imprison citizens into very democratic quarantine camps on suspicion of maybe being infectious. Speaking of Hochul, in her plight to “protect” us (from our freedom), she has also been a juust a tad nepotistic toward her donors.
Nicole Malliotakis @NMalliotakisNew Yorkers got fleeced by Hochul who made taxpayers pay $13 per covid test (45% more than California) from one of her biggest donors. She gets caught & arrogantly says she would do it again. A vote for her is a vote for corruption. ‘Would do that all again’: Hochul doubles down on $637M ‘pay-to-play’ dealHochul renewed her support of the deal, which investigative reporters revealed likely allowed a donor’s firm to overcharge the state for COVID tests.nypost.comSeptember 29th 2022173 Retweets396 Likes
More obscure midwives, like, for example, David Schweikert in Arizona, introduced a bill allowing literal robots to issue prescriptions and otherwise legally equating AI with doctors.
Letgoofthat @letgoofthatDestruction of Medicine? A Bill to Allow Prescriptions by AI: November 1st, 2021 By Dr. Joseph Mercola Contributing writer for Wake Up World On September 30, 2021, David Schweikert (R-Ariz.) introduced a bill (HR5457) that, if enacted, would qualify AI… dlvr.it/SBfCC8
What an elegant solution to getting rid of pesky dissenters! With human doctors, one would need to terrify, cajole, or bribe them into compliance. But with robots, bribing isn’t needed! Come, Pfizer! Come, Moderna! It’s a feast day! Elegant and simple.
Eager as they are though, politicians are rookie midwives. They are only allowed to serve as junior-level helpers. The experienced, confident midwives are corporate “leaders.” (Siri, what is fascism? Ah, never mind, Siri. )
Just look at Eric “don’t do evil” Schmidt of Google. Now we are talking! Eric Schmidt has been at it forever, with quite a bit of contempt for us, mortal meat bags. And after being at it forever, in 2019, an obscure government committee he personally headed issued a report that formally listed in-person doctor visits as a hurdle in the way of successfully competing with China in his precious AI race. What is the way of the future, according to Eric? Telemedicine and robots.
Speaking of telemedicine, meet another midwife, the Federation of State Medical Boards. FSMB is a private trade association with a non-profit status, deep connections, and big ambitions.
Peter A. McCullough, MD, MPH™ @P_McCulloughMDBurdick, CHD, FSMB now understood to be linked to IAMRA in an international relationship that is being leveraged on doctors to promote the false agenda. Scientific data or analyses not in line with the agenda is fraudulently labeled “misinformation” and the doctors are attacked. September 15th 2022532 Retweets1,062 Likes
Their focus is on serving their bosses in Big Pharma and on regulating any dissent that endangers corporate profits straight off the market.
Maybe that is what the servants of global owners mean when they say that they “own science”?
Daniel Boguslaw @DRBoguslawNEW: The CIA Just Invested in Wooly Mammoth Resurrection Tech The CIA Just Invested in Woolly Mammoth Resurrection TechnologyWhile skeptics doubt the prospects for de-extinction, the CIA’s venture capital firm deems powerful genetic manipulation tools worth the money.theintercept.comSeptember 28th 2022114 Retweets766 Likes
But wait. Politicians, corporate fascists, and shady “respectable” NGOs are not the only midwives. When all else fails, here come the journos!
There are also “flying syringes.” Are you excited? I am so excited. And, speaking of insects on special missions, please meet DARPA, with their dreams of world domination through behavioral and genetic modification. The good fellows at DARPA are here to protect us, and make sure we are excited about the “new normal”!
Oh, and there is also this C.I.A-funded project whose stated goal is to resurrect the wooly mammoth. I mean really, to hell with useless eaters, wooly mammoths are so much better! Although, to be completely fair, I am not convinced that they are actually trying to resurrect the wooly mammoth. It is possible that they are just scamming the investors.
Which brings us to the gazillion dollar question. What in the hell is wrong with the global owners? What are they thinking? And are they actually thinking, or merely acting on inertia, anxiety, and family traditions?
I have spent a lot of time wondering about the inner workings of the minds of technocratic crazies.
Are they just genocidal maniacs, I asked, or do they believe they are doing the right thing for our species?
In the end, my honest answer is, it doesn’t matter. The exact flavor of insanity may vary from one “global owner” to another, but why should I care? Even a serial killer may believe in his own goodness. Thus, I don’t care if our aspiring masters just like to kill people or if they think we need it for the good of the planet. What I care about is that I decline their offer of being dominated, and am not complying.
From what I can gather, some of them are true genocidal maniacs, and some might believe their own bu****t. But as far as I am concerned, in either case, they are a hazard to our existence, and if they love the “new normal” so much, they have my permission to inject themselves with a million GMO mosquitos and go on vacation to a quarantine camp, under the supervision of Hochul.
Have a terrific Tuesday! I hope you enjoyed today’s guest blogger, and I will be back tomorrow with a normal C&C edition. If you can call it ‘normal,’ that is. Till then.
C&C is moving the needle and changing minds. If you can, I could use your help getting the truth out and spreading optimism and hope: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/-learn-how-to-get-involved-
Twitter: @jchilders98
Truth Social: @jchilders98
MeWe: mewe.com/i/coffee_and_covid.
C&C Swag! www.shopcoffeeandcovid.com
Emailed Daily Newsletter: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
Victor Davis Hanson, October 3, 2022
American Greatness
For all the dramatic late-summer Ukrainian success, we are witnessing yet another deadlock in the war—one that supposedly will be resolved by escalations on all sides.
Mutually Exclusive Agendas
A rebooted Ukraine is clamoring for more offensive arms. It claims it can win the war, with victory now giddily defined as sending every Russian back home in disgrace.
Russia is screaming threats about using nuclear weapons—though how Vladimir Putin would use them remains in dispute. Putin is ominously no longer qualifying his Strangelovian threat with the adjective tactical, as he calls up 300,000 more troops.
An addled and non-compos mentis Joe Biden only nominally remains the leader of the West. He initially refused to send offensive arms to Ukraine, and then offered to evacuate President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. But now Biden 2.0 has blasted Putin as a killer, someone equivalent to the domestic semi-fascists he blasted in his Phantom of the Opera hate speech.
Biden has called for Putin’s removal. But until Putin’s demise, he wants still more sanctions against Russia. Yet it is hard to distinguish who is more detached from reality—Biden, suffering from cognitive decline as he talks to dead people and shakes the hands of ghosts, or a physically ailing and paranoid Putin. Meanwhile American Vice President Kamala Harris is rambling about a mythical American alliance with lunatic North Korea and the need to disperse federal help to storm-ravaged Florida on the basis of race.
The United States is sinking knee-deep into recession. Once again it is hit with spiraling fuel prices. No matter: Biden promises to borrow still more billions of dollars for Ukrainian aid as he drains the last drops of the strategic petroleum reserve that he inherited almost full.
Biden is on record that there will not be a negotiated end to the war. He instead believes, to paraphrase Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, that the proxy disaster must serve the permanent weakening of Russia, the deserved humiliation of Putin, and his removal from office.
So how does it all end, or will it all end, with so many mutually exclusive and escalating agendas?
The Ukrainians survived the initial Russian effort to decapitate their government and absorb Western Ukraine. Months later they are still frantically trying to push Russians back to, and even well beyond, their areas of control prior to February 23.
Ukraine’s ultimate hopes seem threefold: (1) reestablishing their pre-2014 borders, (2) finding permanent collective security within the West, formally through NATO to acquire future deterrence from the Russian war machine, and (3) weakening the economic and social fabric of Russia itself to the point that it is no longer a superpower capable of such aggression. Translated that means Ukraine wishes to be a permanent proxy of the West, which will pledge its own strategic security on behalf of Zelenskyy’s agendas.
Russia Has Other Plans
As for the Russians, their idea of dissecting Ukraine by incorporating its eastern half and then gradually wearing down, whether economically or militarily, Western Ukraine, for now has failed.
But Vladimir Putin is not entirely foolish. He has pivoted by redefining victory as institutionalizing and declaring as “Russian” the disputed borderlands, and soon Crimea, that he grabbed in 2014. To fight there, he will allege, is to go on the offensive inside Russia. He believes his misadventure in a year or two will still be seen as worth the terrible costs to the Russian people and the thousands of Russian and Ukrainian dead—if he can brag that he still insidiously continues to reclaim lost lands of the Russian Empire.
In the mind of Putin, Russians’ current popular furor at his meat-grinder, at the sanctions, and at their global cultural ostracism will all fade—once Putin achieves his newly defined victory and brags that he turned back the intrusive proxy efforts of a decadent West.
Putin’s propaganda constantly escalates. Now it focuses on the idea that Mother Russia is threatened by Western Nazi-like aggressors. Like the duplicitous Stalin, Putin turns his own September 1939-like aggression into June1941-like victimhood.
So again, how do all these parties find pathways to their mutually incompatible versions of victory and thus see the war end?
Ukrainian Dreams
Ukraine would like to push the Russians out of its former territory before the winter sets in and an additional Russian 300,000 recruits, despite their poor quality, are streamed into the invasion forces. Russians are now de facto on the defensive. But they are also the beneficiaries of shorter interior lines and more effective propaganda that the soil of Mother Russia is now imperiled from the aggrandizing West.
The use of American intelligence to assassinate Russian generals, and raid into Russia, and of sophisticated weapons to blow up Russian conscripts, and sink billion-dollar Russian ships only feed into Putin’s narratives.
Meanwhile Ukraine—waging mobile and encircling offensives on its borders against a country of 145 million and an economy 10 times larger—soon will punch too far beyond its weight. Millions of Ukrainians are leaving the country. The Ukrainian economy is in shambles. Putin has inflicted trillions of dollars in damage to Ukrainian infrastructure that is beginning to resemble 1918 occupied France and Belgium. And Zelenskyy’s appetite for far more, and more lethal, Western weapons is insatiable.
Ukraine also needs a far greater stream of replacement parts and ammunition. It demands much more Western money and economic aid. And it harangues for greater political and military Western solidarity to ensure that Europe and the United States, via NATO, would be permanently willing to deter a humiliated and defanged Russia from opportunistically resuming its aggression a few years down the road.
Strategically, Ukraine feels that it must bleed the Russian military by hitting supply and staging areas inside Russia, and on the Black Sea. It apparently assumes such risky retaliatory escalation is achievable by denying these very attacks—and, if undeniable, justifying them because “Russia, not us, started it and they, not us, invaded a neighbor.”
Even before victory is achieved, Ukraine talks of multitrillion-dollar reparations for the horrific damage and death inflicted upon it by a criminal Russian war machine. That demand is certainly justified and understandable. But historically, reparations are the stuff of postwar haggling among the victors—and commence only after the enemy is first defeated and helpless.
Western Reality Checks
Will Ukraine then end up achieving all its long-term strategic goals?
Not likely and for a great number of reasons.
A once haughty and sanctimonious green Europe is more terrified of returning to premodern winter cold and scarcity than ensuring it remains a loud model of postmodern energy sustainability. It is one thing to give Churchillian speeches in the Bundestag about new German solidarity with NATO, but quite another to send even a few multimillion-Euro Leopard tanks to Ukraine to blast away at Germany’s decade-long gas supplier. Remember, as the hated Donald Trump once warned, it was the diabolical Putin’s once dirt-cheap and reliable natural gas that gave German moralists the margins of error to push their suicidal green gospel upon the world.
Critical Russian natural gas shipments to Europe are no longer guaranteed. It will take years for Europe to find comparable alternative new sources. Yet in these months before its impending 19th-century winter, the European Union still remains hostile to its own fracking and horizontal drilling, nuclear power, and coal generation.
Under Joe Biden’s pressure, Europe passed on the win/win EastMed Israeli/Cypriot/Greek natural-gas pipeline. Some Americans talk grandly of saving Europe by shipping massive amounts of American liquified natural gas to new German terminals. But at home, Joe Biden has shut down pipelines as well as oil and gas fields. No president in the last 80 years has issued fewer new federal natural gas leases.
Europe is still wounded by greens who, albeit more quietly, prefer unaffordable gas and oil prices. Bankrupting the fossil-fuel-guzzling middle class they believe will at least spur greater use of windmills, solar panels, and batteries.
European leaders, however, who won over the American Left to their ritual cannibalistic green policies, now reverse course and beg the United States to drill all the hot-burning natural gas it can export. So, by next January, cold, broke, and immobile Europeans may resent even one more lecture from Volodymyr Zelenskyy about the need for more sacrifices on Ukraine’s behalf.
American weapons are the best in the world—and apparently the most expensive and difficult to produce in massive numbers.
Supplying Ukraine has squeezed America’s tactical and strategic weapon reserves down to dangerous levels—the military equivalent of Joe Biden’s draining the strategic petroleum reserve, even as global oil prices are once again spiraling, and the weather disrupts supply.
Joe Biden has a bad habit of exploiting the petroleum and weapons bounty that he inherited from Trump, depleting and not replenishing it, and then covering his tracks by blaming Trump.
The more our Ukraine proxy advances to the border, the more it sinks Russian capital ships and the more it conducts raids into Mother Russia, so all the more it relies, de facto, on the American or NATO nuclear umbrella in the face of Putin’s contrived threats.
But are these ultimata completely empty intimidations?
An aged and ailing Putin now cites America’s first use of a bomb over Hiroshima (that saved millions of lives by ending the Pacific war abruptly against Soviet Russia’s erstwhile four-year, non-aggression partner Japan.) To justify a nuclear strike, Putin weirdly insists U.S. World War II-area bombing was inhuman, forgetting that it served as a second front until June 1944 and thus forced the Wehrmacht to redirect homeward thousands of flak guns, fighter aircraft, and troops away from the Russian front.
Surveillance photos show Russian transference of strategic bombers nearer to the Ukraine border. All the while Putin seeks ever more diabolical ways to decouple Ukraine’s sponsors.
In sum, are the strapped American people now willing to up their nearly $100 billion supply pipeline to Ukraine, with assurance that its own cities are to risk Armageddon to deter Russian missiles over Kyiv?
As for Russia, a wounded Putin knows even empty nuclear threats must be taken seriously. But they are just one tool in his apparent ample kit to frighten off Ukraine’s suppliers. Meanwhile, Russia keeps selling oil to its new, anti-American partners China and India—40 percent of the global population. He mobilizes more manpower. He transforms his stale propaganda from posing as a reluctant, legitimate oppressor to a noble oppressed victim. He watches the West slide into recession and mutual bickering, Biden slide into utter incoherence, and America slide into dangerous pre-midterm factionalism.
No End in Sight?
So how does it all end and all these agendas become compatible?
It doesn’t and they won’t.
The once American, isolationist, and antiwar Left is now mimicking the old, interventionist, neocon Right. After the failure of the Russian collusion hoax and the various impeachments, it wishes to construct the war as proof that it was right all along about demonic Vladimir Putin—as if anyone ever doubted that he was a dangerous adversary who should never have been appeased by the embarrassing “resets” of Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, Barack Obama—and Joe Biden.
Hillary Clinton’s own stealthy hiring of Igor Danchenko and Christopher Steele’s use of eager Russian sources to find dirt on her political opponent Donald Trump are ironic ways to warn about the dangers of Russian election interference.
America, then, no matter its economic and fuel woes, no matter the dangerous loose mouth of a grumpy and fading Joe Biden, and no matter the loss of American strategic deterrence in 2021-22, apparently will supply Ukraine until the last Russian leaves the borderlands.
As for Russia, it cannot fulfill even its limited goals, even with more oil money, more manpower, and more weapons—unless it can sever the supply of Western arms. So far nuclear threats, blown-up pipelines, fuel cutoffs, and Chinese, Iranian, and Indian help haven’t ended the Western-Russia proxy war.
So, Putin will still try to peel off individual NATO members with hyped threats of attack. He will hope he can sell his fuel to new customers and cut off, for good, his old dependent Western buyers. And he will search for new targets and areas for leverage, be it through cyberattacks, satellite interference, terrorism, fresh proxies, or Chinese help.
The mere idea of a negotiated ceasefire or settlement that allows plebiscites overseen by third parties in the disputed territories between 2014 and 2022 is an anathema to all sides. So, the battlefield alone will apparently be the final arbiter—as it is so often in history.
Apparently, Ukraine, Russia, NATO, Europe, and the United States all believe their own war aims can be achieved and the unfortunate losers will accept the verdict and crawl away to lick their wounds.
Good luck with that in the age of nuclear contestants, transcontinental cyberattacks, continental-sized energy dependencies, gain-of-function plagues, and globalized markets and interdependence.
Or to put it another way, everyone is signing up for a very long, very cold winter.
Victor Davis Hanson is the Martin and Illie Anderson Senior Fellow in Residence in Classics and Military History at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, a professor of Classics Emeritus at California State University, Fresno, and a nationally syndicated columnist for Tribune Media Services…. READ MORE
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
By Les DeMerle Amelia Island Jazz Festival
10-03-22
 Ken Peplowski in ConcertFriday, October 7“Since the advent of Benny Goodman, there have been too few clarinetists to fill the void that Goodman left. Ken Peplowski is most certainly one of those few. The man is magic.” ~Mel TorméCONTINUE…  John Pizzarelli Trio in ConcertSaturday, October 8 “the genial genius of the guitar.” ~ The Toronto Star “a rare entertainer of the old school.”~ Seattle TimesCONTINUE… 2022 Amelia Island Jazz Festival Schedule of ConcertsGET READY… the 2022 Amelia Island Jazz Festival concerts look forward to explode with exciting swinging jazz, played with passion, expertise and soul by many of today’s leading jazz artists.Don’t miss out and buy your tickets today… Oct.2 – JAZZ PARTY AT THE REC – Free Concert (Learn more…) Oct. 3- JAZZ FESTIVAL SPONSOR PARTY (Learn more…) Oct. 4 – JAZZ AND WINE TASTING (SOLD OUT) Oct. 5 – JUMP JIVE & WAIL / SWING NIGHT (Buy Tickets…) Oct. 6 – HOT LATIN JAZZ CONCERT & DANCE (Buy Tickets…) Oct. 7 – KEN PEPLOWSKI IN CONCERT (Buy Tickets…) Oct. 8 – JOHN PIZZARELLI TRIO IN CONCERT (Buy Tickets…) Oct. 9 – DIXIE TO SWING JAZZ BRUNCH (Buy Tickets…) TICKETS ARE ALSO AVAILABLE AT…THE UPS STORE – Island Walk Shopping Center1417 Sadler Road – Fernandina Beach For more information visit AMELIAISLANDJAZZFESTIVAL.COM LIKE US |
Les DeMerle Amelia Island Jazz Festival
Amelia Island Jazz Festival
P.O. Box 16684
Fernandina Beach, FL 32035
By Jeff Childers
10-03-22
Good morning, C&C! You just get a teaser version today, since I am lead counsel on a 4-day jury trial that starts this morning — in a real live courtroom with a real live jury and NOT on Zoom. Progress! I’m planning on a full C&C for Wednesday, and I will have some great guest bloggers for you on the other days. Hang in there!
🔥 It’s unbelievable, but at the same time it’s also very believable. Fauci, a short-timer now, obviously doesn’t really care too much what we think anymore and has thrown all caution to the wind.
Alex Berenson @AlexBerensonThis must be a joke. Please tell me this is a joke. @NIH just gave @EcoHealthNYC and Peter Daszak a NEW grant for bat coronavirus research? Including supplying “viral sequences and isolates for use in vaccine development”? Nope. Not a joke. The joke, apparently, is on us. October 2nd 20227,237 Retweets13,698 Likes
🔥 Life comes at you fast. You have to pay attention, or you might miss something. Over the weekend, Ukraine applied for NATO membership:
BBC Breaking News @BBCBreakingUkraine’s President Zelensky applies for fast-track membership of Nato, after Russia’s illegal annexation of four regions of Ukraine Ukraine war latest: Putin declares four areas of Ukraine as Russian – BBC NewsUkraine’s president responds to Russia’s widely-condemned move by applying for fast-track Nato membership.bbc.inSeptember 30th 2022973 Retweets5,294 Likes
So far, twelve NATO members have ALREADY signaled they’ll vote to approve — including the USA:
ТРУХА⚡️English @TpyxaNewsUkraine’s membership in NATO has already been supported by 12 countries: 🇨🇿Czech Republic 🇪🇪Estonia 🇱🇻Latvia 🇱🇹Lithuania 🇲🇰North Macedonia 🇲🇪Montenegro 🇵🇱Poland 🇷🇴Romania 🇸🇰Slovakia 🇨🇦Canada 🇩🇪Germany 🇺🇸USA This was also confirmed by Zelenskyy’s office.October 2nd 20221,018 Retweets7,169 Likes
Turkey will probably be the hold out, which will require NATO to do some deft legal work, to evade the unanimity requirement for admitting new members. Of course, tricky legal work is the Biden Administration’s speciality.
Now, I’m just a lawyer, not a military expert, but it seems to me that if Ukraine IS admitted, we will immediately be in a full-scale kinetic war with Russia.
Am I right or wrong on that one?
🚀 Even though a few weeks ago, the Biden Administration was courting Iran to get it to sign the awful Obama nuclear agreement, the U.S. Treasury Department this weekend issued serious sanctions against the mullahs.
Council on Foreign Relations @CFR_orgU.S. President Joe Biden and other Western leaders condemned the actions of Iran’s morality police, and the U.S. Treasury Department announced new sanctions against members of the force. More on this from Ray Takeyh. Iran’s Protests, Raisi’s UN Speech, and Nuclear Deal Talks: What to KnowThe death of Mahsa Amini has sparked large-scale protests in Iran. But President Raisi’s speech at the UN General Assembly signals that the regime is not likely to soften its stance toward the Irania…on.cfr.orgOctober 2nd 20222 Retweets6 Likes
The sanctions pile on the recent widespread protests roiling that country, which are definitely NOT a CIA-sponsored color revolution, at all, even if it DOES look suspiciously similar to the George Floyd riots from the U.S. in the summer of 2020.
Why would you even think that?
🔥 This insane new California law will almost certainly be challenged as a first amendment violation of doctors’ free speech rights. I predict it will be throw out. But it shows you how cray-cray the Golden State crowd has gotten. I blame overtight masking. Except in Newsom’s case, of course, since he only wore them for press events.
Erin Elizabeth Health Nut News 🍥 @unhealthytruthGuv Newsom signed bill now allowing doctors in California to face discipline for “mis information”. This could entail losing their license ..and the very few good doctors left there told me they are trying to leave California & get licensed elsewhere like Florida & Texas. October 1st 2022130 Retweets293 Likes
🔥 The Hill ran a totally unexpected op-ed this weekend, penned by a Catholic priest, if you can believe the Hill would publish him, that is sharply critical of democrat abortion policy, referring to the democrats’ “Pagan roots,” meaning child sacrifice.
The Hill @thehill“The Pagan roots of Democrats’ abortion extremism” (@TheHillOpinion) trib.al/DsqMskq
October 2nd 202227 Retweets57 Likes
I would LOVE to know the whole story about how this op-ed made it past the Hill’s editorial team.
🔥 You may have heard of the latest FBI shenanigans. The federal police force recently raided the home of a pro-life protestor who got involved in a minor scuffle with a pro-abortion activist. The activist was harassing the protestor’s 10-year-old, and a little shoving ensued. Nobody was hurt, the local police refused to press charges, and a federal judge dismissed a civil lawsuit.
So of course, the FBI then arrived with 20 heavily-armed agents in about 15 vehicles, and arrested the poor guy at gunpoint in front of his terrified family.
Friday, Senator Josh Hawley wrote a strongly-worded letter to Merrick Garland. Maybe I should say, Garland has received ANOTHER strongly worded letter. I bet he has a special file for them now.
Sean Hannity @seanhannity‘WRONG AND DANGEROUS’: Hawley Wants Garland to Testify After DOJ Targeted Pro-Life Activist trib.al/UaeH4LtSeptember 27th 202287 Retweets521 Likes
The Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act of 1994, or FACE Act, is a Clinton-era law intended to “ensure Americans’ access to pro-life and pro-choice reproductive health services.” Under the FACE Act, threatening to use force to “injure, intimidate, or interfere with” a person “seeking reproductive services” is a federal crime, with steep fines and jail time.
In its report on the story, Fox News noted that, for some reason, the DOJ is apparently ignoring 17 cases of violent attacks on crisis pregnancy centers, even though a demented group called “Jane’s Revenge” has publicly taken proud credit for the violence.
It’s not like the FBI doesn’t know who did it.
Anyway, I haven’t reviewed the language of the Act, but it seems to me that since the alleged victim involved in the scuffle was a MALE activist, and not a “person seeking reproductive services,” the Act doesn’t even apply here. But what do I know, things are pretty fluid these days. Maybe it was a pregnant man. 🫃🏻
🔥 I’m a Musk fan, but I’m not too sure about this one. Elon Musk unveiled Tesla’s new … robot butler.
TESLARATI @TeslaratiTesla Optimus deliveries should be possible within 3-5 years: Elon Musk teslarati.com/tesla-optimus-…by @ResidentSpongeTesla Optimus deliveries should be possible within 3-5 years: Elon MuskDuring AI Day 2022’s Q&A segment, Elon Musk estimated that the humanoid robot’s deliveries could start in around 3-5 years.teslarati.comOctober 1st 2022104 Retweets796 Likes
Is it just me, or are all these humanoid robots super-creepy?
Have a marvelous Monday! I’ll see you guys catch-as-catch-can this week. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do. No jabs!
C&C is moving the needle and changing minds. If you can, I could use your help getting the truth out and spreading optimism and hope: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/-learn-how-to-get-involved-
Twitter: @jchilders98
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© 2022, Jeff Childers, all rights reserved
Gainesville, FL 32605
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
Edited by Michael Hernandez
(Editor’s Note: this is part of a weekly compendium of recent significant events, culled from world news and curated by Michael Hernandez.)
JORDAN DIXON-HAMILTON (Sept. 29)Breitbart News
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) on Thursday said the state was hit with a “500-year flood event” one day after Hurricane Ian made landfall in southwest Florida. “We’ve never seen a flood event like this,” he said at a news briefing in the state’s capital, Tallahassee. “We’ve never seen a storm surge of this magnitude.”
Although Hurricane Ian hit southwest Florida the hardest, DeSantis said that counties in central Florida are “looking at potential major flooding. The amount of water that’s been rising and will likely continue to rise today even as the storm is passing is basically a 500-year flood event,” DeSantis said. He also highlighted the influx of resources the state has received in the past day and praised Floridians for their resiliency. “The response here and the way people have reacted has been very impressive,” DeSantis added.
Florida first lady Casey DeSantis said the state raised $2 million in 24 hours to help the hurricane’s victims. Hurricane Ian hit Florida as a strong category-four storm on Wednesday, with maximum sustained winds of 155 miles per hour, the Hill reported. Ian has since been downgraded to a tropical storm, but Florida officials warned that the wind and rain are still dangerous.
DeSantis also announced he spoke with President Joe Biden, who declared a major disaster for nine Florida counties. DeSantis reportedly plans to ask Biden to expand the emergency declaration to more counties, allowing Florida residents to receive individual assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).
“This storm is having broad impacts across the state and some of the flooding you’re going to see in areas hundreds of miles from where this made landfall are going to set records, and that’s going to obviously be things that will need to be responded to,” DeSantis said at his press conference.
The storm left more than 2.5 million Floridians without power and caused structural damage to several vital pieces of infrastructure, including the Sanibel Causeway, which connects the Sanibel Islands to the mainland.
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2022/09/29/gov-ron-desantis-hurricane-ian-500-year-flood-event/
Francesca Chambers and Kim Hjelmgaard (Sept. 30) USA Today
Russian President Vladimir Putin used a speech in Moscow on Friday to falsely proclaim four Ukrainian regions were now part of the Russian Federation, a move that comes amid Moscow’s growing battlefield setbacks in its war in Ukraine and a decision to call up tens of thousands of reservists. Putin claimed the illegal annexations were “the will of millions of people” to huge applause during a signing ceremony in the Kremlin’s St. George’s Hall despite widespread reports of voter coercion and people being pressured at gunpoint.
The illegal occupation could potentially raise the stakes of Russia’s seven-month-old war in Ukraine because Putin vowed to defend the annexed territories with “all available means,” a veiled reference to his insistence he would be prepared to use nuclear weapons if Russia’s territory is threatened.
Russia is incorporating the Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson areas of Ukraine – representing roughly 15% of Ukraine’s territory – following widely discredited referenda that mirrored a similar move to annex Ukraine’s Crimea region in 2014. Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine in 2014. Only a handful of countries, such as North Korea and Syria, have recognized that annexation.
Ukraine and Western officials have characterized the move as little more than a land grab and desperate tactic by Putin to disguise growing battlefield losses to Ukraine.
Sens. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., introduced legislation on Thursday that would prohibit countries that recognize Russia’s annexation of the four new regions from receiving economic or military assistance from the United States. The bipartisan pair is also pushing for passage of legislation that would designate Russia a state sponsor of terror for over its actions in Ukraine. Just four countries — North Korea, Syria, Cuba and Iran — have the designation.
SIMON KENT (Sept 26) Breitbart News
Giorgia Meloni, leader of the Brothers of Italy party that won the most votes in Italy’s national election, was preparing to be the country’s first woman premier on Monday. The center-right coalition leader is bound for office declaring “We defend God, country, and family” built on opposition to gender ideology and the LGBT lobby alongside support for strong borders and an end to limitless mass migration.
Meloni sounded a moderate, unifying tone in a victory speech that noted Italians had finally been able to clearly determine who they wanted to govern and the direction they wished to go in defiance of establishment elites. “Italians have sent a clear message in favor of a right-wing government led by Brothers of Italy,” she told reporters in Rome, holding up a sign saying “Thank you Italy.” All of which has sent much of Europe into a gasping, political tail spin.
The vice president of the European Parliament, Katharina Barley of the Social Democrats of German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, cast Meloni’s victory as “worrying” given her affiliations with Hungary’s leader Viktor Orban and former U.S. President Donald Trump. “Her electoral lip service to Europe cannot hide the fact that she represents a danger to constructive coexistence in Europe,” she was quoted as saying by German daily WELT, AP reports.
“I am afraid of incompetence, not the fascist threat,″ said Roberto D’Alimonte, a political science professor at LUISS, a private university in Rome. “She has not governed anything.” He neglected to mention Meloni did serve as youth minister in Berlusconi’s last government a decade ago.
Prof Gianluca Passarrelli of Rome’s Sapienza University told the BBC he hoped she would avoid rocking the boat on Europe and focus on other policies, before expressing the fear she might enact the promises she was elected on, cautioning “I think we will see more restrictions on civil rights and policies on LGBT and immigrants.”
German magazine Stern splashed its front page with a photo of Meloni, under the banner: “The most dangerous woman in Europe.” The Financial Times reports just last week E.U. commission chief Ursula von der Leyen put Rome in the same basket with Budapest and Warsaw as challengers to the overarching desire of the E.U. to govern all of Europe without exception or challenge to its own autocracy. “If things go in a difficult direction,” she said when asked about the Italian elections, “I’ve spoken about Hungary and Poland, we have tools.” This was a reference to the rule of law disputes and funding freezes that both countries have experienced.
The implied threat sparked outrage in Rome, particularly amongst the political right of center and online in the MIGA (“Make Italy Great Again”) circles, where von der Leyen was accused of interfering in the election.
Despite the threats from around the E.U., Meloni has no intention of being intimidated as her audience saw as far back as 2019 at the World Congress of Families: She will need that fortitude in coming months and years.
Italy is suffering rampant inflation while an energy crisis looms this winter, linked to the conflict in Ukraine. The Italian economy, the third largest in the eurozone, is also saddled with a debt worth 150 percent of gross domestic product. Despite the gasps from her opponents inside and outside Italy, Meloni is bound to act to secure the country’s economic future despite what her detractors say is her underlying euroskeptic beliefs.
JORDAN DIXON-HAMILTON (Sept 24) Breitbart News
The president of a pregnancy center that far-left radical pro-abortion protesters firebombed over the summer filed a lawsuit to retrieve video surveillance of the attack from federal authorities.
In early June, one of CompassCare Pregnancy Services’ locations in Amherst, New York, was attacked by far-left radicals. The pro-abortion perpetrators spray-painted “Jane was here” on the building, damaged the building, and burned portions of it.
Unfortunately, the attack on the CompassCare location was just one of the hundreds of such attacks on pro-life organizations, churches, and pregnancy centers since the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade leaked in May. The CompassCare attack was attributed to Jane’s revenge, which has taken credit for various attacks on pregnancy centers nationwide.
As Breitbart News editor-in-chief Alex Marlow detailed in his “Summer of Rage” series, Jane’s Revenge is one of several militant groups violently targeting pro-life institutions. The “Summer of Rage” series revealed that one conservative advocacy group complained about being harassed by far-left groups just weeks before Jane’s Revenge members firebombed its offices.
The Family Research Council reported that as of September 22 there have been more than 100 incidents of violence against pro-life institutions since May.
James Harden, president and CEO of CompassCare Pregnancy Services, provided the FBI with surveillance footage and a “mountain of other evidence” shortly after the attack. However, Harden could not copy the footage before giving it to law enforcement because of damage to the building. Harden has asked the FBI and local law enforcement for access to the footage, but they only showed him still images taken from the video.
After months of no action being taken against the attack’s perpetrators, Harden filed a lawsuit asking a judge to order law enforcement to turn over the footage, Catholic News Agency (CNA) reported. “Time is of the essence to commence a civil litigation because the longer time goes by the more likely it will be that those responsible for the firebombing will spoliate other evidence,” the complaint reads.
Harden told CNA: “The public has a right to know what’s going on. There is a serious sickness in the body politic of America and the FBI isn’t even talking about it. It’s the largest law enforcement agency on the globe and it appears that they’re treating this like some sort of bubble gum theft.”
The surveillance footage reportedly shows “multiple perpetrators,” clear figures, and license plates that Harden said would make identification of the perpetrators possible. Law enforcement in this case seems to be following President Joe Biden’s lead by ignoring another example of the systematic attacks on pregnancy centers.
“These attacks have generated minimal acknowledgement, much less a response, from the Biden administration and federal law enforcement, who steadfastly track—and prosecute—incidents targeting abortion providers,” Breitbart News reported.
Due to the administration’s few words on the acts of violence against pregnancy centers, Reps. Chris Smith (R-NJ) and Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA) recently introduced the Protect Pregnancy Care Centers Act of 2022, which among other things, would require Biden to update Americans on how his administration is investigating and prosecuting those who engage in “domestic violent extremism” against pro-life institutions.
However, while the Republican party is still the minority party in Congress, it is unlikely the bill will go anywhere, given that House Democrats voted to kill a resolution that would have condemned the violent attacks on pregnancy centers, churches, and other pro-life institutions.
NEIL MUNRO (Sept 26) Breitbart News
Americans oppose President Joe Biden’s lawless and wage-cutting mass migration because they are “racist, not because of their economic worries,” according to former President Barack Obama.
“Right now, the biggest fuel behind the Republican agenda is related to immigration and the fear that somehow America’s character is going to be changed if, people of darker shades, there are too many of them here,” Obama told a meeting of Hispanic realtors on September 25 in San Diego, California.
Obama used his divide-and-rule claims of racism to hide the public opposition to migration’s economic impact, according to his comments posted in a September 25 report by the San Diego Union-Tribune:
“I wish I could be more euphemistic about it except [they’re] not that subtle about it — they’re just kind of saying it,” Obama said. “You hear it on hard-right media, you hear it from candidates and politicians, you hear things like ‘great replacement theory’ — I mean, this is not subtle. Unless we’re able to return to a more inclusive vision inside the Republican Party, it’s going to be hard to get a bill done.”
Obama also argued that public opposition to mass migration is more dangerous than government support for the nation-changing migration that has killed thousands of migrants and many more Americans: “When you have that kind of rhetoric floating around out there, we’ve seen in history that is dangerous rhetoric. It’s dangerous wherever it appears and it’s dangerous here in the United States.”
Since January 2021, Biden and his pro-migration border chief have extracted roughly 3 million migrants from poor countries into the U.S. economy via the southern border, likely in violation of federal law.
“When you have that kind of rhetoric floating around out there, we’ve seen in history that is dangerous rhetoric. It’s dangerous wherever it appears and it’s dangerous here in the United States,” said Obama.
KATHERINE HAMILTON (Sept 26) Breitbart News
Breitbart News Editor-in-Chief Alex Marlow announced Monday that he filed a formal Internal Revenue Service (IRS) complaint against the George Soros-backed Good Information Foundation for allegedly attempting to tamper with the 2022 midterm elections.
Marlow made the announcement during an appearance on the Charlie Kirk Show, stating that the tax-exempt organization appears to be participating in activities that violate federal law prohibiting 501(c)(3) organizations from “directly or indirectly participating in, or intervening in, any political campaign.” Kirk called the official complaint a potential “marker in the sand” because the onus rests with the IRS now that the agency has been officially notified.
“So earlier today, I filed a complaint, yes as a journalist but also as an American individual who thinks that this is clear corruption, and I don’t trust the government to look into it unless someone like me reaches out,” Marlow said.
Marlow filed the complaint less than a week after attorney and legal commentator Preston Moore posted a video saying he was offered, and rejected, $400 by the “Good Information Foundation” to make a video attacking Donald Trump and “Trump Republicans.” The foundation allegedly wanted Moore to create the video about January 6 and post it on his social media platforms to reach the widest possible audience.
“It became really clear that … they wanted me to use the most graphic images possible,” Moore told Breitbart News. “They wanted me to use fear to manipulate people into voting blue, or into voting not Trump. … And when they’re giving examples of the things they wanted me to say — don’t say ‘Trump and his allies,’ say ‘Trump Republicans’ — it became really clear that this was about putting out information … to impact midterms.”
Marlow said if what Moore said is true, “we are seeing flagrant violations of 501(c)(3) rules that forbid people from participating in politics, both directly or indirectly. And you would think that in an era where we are talking about adding 87,000 new IRS agents, this would be front and center for the IRS.”
As Breitbart News previously reported, the Good Information Foundation’s website states that it is the 501(c)(3) nonprofit arm of Good Information Inc., “a public benefit corporation committed to restoring social trust and strengthening democracy by investing in solutions that counter disinformation and increase the flow of good information online.” Good Information Inc., which is backed by billionaires Reid Hoffman, George Soros, and others was established in 2021 to fund media companies and “efforts that tackle disinformation,” Axios reported in October 2021.
The organization’s 501(c)(3) status is especially notable because the designation is typically reserved for organizations that serve a noble public interest, such as public education and charitable work. A 501(c)(3) designation allows these organizations to forgo paying taxes on revenue and allows donors to write off donations.
Breitbart News previously asked the IRS if the Good Information Foundation’s alleged activities put the organization in violation of 501(c)(3) rules. The IRS said it could not comment on the legality of an organization’s actions without an official audit and pointed to the aforementioned federal statute.
Kirk described the Good Information Foundation and other similar organizations as operating “kind of like a traveling circus” or a “build-a-tent-and-collapse-it model.”
Good Information Inc. appears to be a reiteration of ACRONYM, which was partly funded by Laurene Powell Jobs and Reid Hoffman. Notably, Hoffman has a history of funding organizations accused of election tampering. He previously issued an apology in 2018 following news that he spent $750,000 funding an organization that used tactics modeled on Russian influence operations to spread disinformation about the Republican candidate, Roy Moore, on Facebook and Linkedin.
ACRONYM operated Courier Newsroom, which is a network of left-wing media websites posing as local news sources and was notorious for funding Shadow Inc., the Democrat Party-contracted firm that delayed reporting during the Iowa caucus.
Axios reported in October of 2021 that Good Information Inc., also backed by Hoffman and Soros among others, acquired ACRONYM for “an undisclosed sum.” The founder and CEO of Good Information Inc., former Democrat strategist Tara McGowan, also happens to be the founder and CEO of ACRONYM and the publisher of Courier Newsroom.
Good Information Inc. and Good Information Foundation appear to be dealing with tens of millions of dollars, though there is not much information on the organization’s financial records. Vox’s Recode reported in February of 2021 that McGowan was trying to raise $65 million for Good Information Inc. and the nonprofit, which was, at that point, named the “Good Information Project.” McGowan had reportedly denied that the corporation was building a nonprofit arm to Axios in October of 2021, but received its 501(c)(3) status from the IRS in April of 2022.
As an added bonus, RC Di Mezzo, former national press secretary for the anti-Trump Lincoln Project, left the super PAC to work as the Director of Communications for Good Information Inc. Di Mezzo worked with the Lincoln Project during its tiki torch hoax, in which operatives attempted to link Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin to white supremacists in the days leading up to Youngkin’s election.
Marlow said swamp creatures in Washington, DC, think these mercurial organizations are “a genius model and they all get in on it, and then the billionaire class recruits other billionaires to engage in this activity.”
“They only got their 501(c)(3) status in April of this year. So, they got right down to business knowing that they were going to be able to influence this election before any investigation took place,” Marlow alleged. “Even if the IRS does look into them — and I’m not holding my breath, though I hope they do — there is no way we are going to have a conclusion before they have already interfered in the election. This is the design: they keep designing new places and new ways to get this billionaire cash.”
Marlow added that these billionaires have “tipped their hand” a number of times already and have “suggested on many occasions that they … try to achieve their political aims by any means necessary.”
“This is a phrase you hear constantly uttered by the left that you never hear by the right, so I take them at their word,” he continued. “They are willing to corrupt the entire American system and they are willing to buy votes. They are willing to, in the most Orwellian way possible, get people to claim they are fighting misinformation while blatantly lying to the public as is the case here with Preston Moore.”
Breitbart News has previously reached out to the Good Information Foundation for comment and asked if the accusations are true and if the organization has contacted others similarly or used the same approach against other public officials or candidates. The organization has not responded
DEBORAH BRAND (Sept. 29) Breitbart News Network
The Biden administration expressed “deep concern” Wednesday over an uptick in violence in the West Bank, after four Palestinian terrorists were killed during an Israeli counter-terrorism raid earlier in the day.
Israel Defense Forces troops in Jenin targeted the home of Ra’ad Hazem, the terrorist who carried out a deadly attack at a café in Tel Aviv in April, hoping to arrest his brother, Abed Hazem. Abed Hazem, together with other terrorists operating from the home, opened fire on Israeli forces. Israeli troops responded, killing Hazem and three other terrorists.
“We are deeply concerned by the deteriorating security situation in the West Bank,” U.S. Department spokesman Ned Price Price said. “This year alone, more than 100 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank and more than 30 in Gaza, while more than 20 Israelis and other civilians have been killed in terrorist attacks.” Price didn’t mention that the overwhelming majority of Palestinians killed were terrorists while all the victims in Israel were innocent. “We call on all parties to do everything in their power to de-escalate the situation and return to a period of calm. This is in the interest of all Israelis and Palestinians,” Price said.
“As we have said for some time, we call on the parties themselves to contain the violence. The United States and other international partners stand ready to help but we cannot substitute for vital actions by the parties to mitigate conflict and to restore calm.”
Price used the opportunity the once again highlight the administration’s endorsement of a Palestinian state, saying that “a negotiated two-state solution negotiated between Israelis and Palestinians” was Washington’s “ultimate goal.”
JOEL B. POLLAK (Sept. 30) Breitbart News
Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) signed a bill Thursday making California a sanctuary state for children to obtain “gender-affirming” surgery or drugs. The bill, SB 107, was sponsored by Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), who also sponsored a law in 2020 that reduced penalties for adults who had oral or anal sex with a willing minor child within ten years of their age by removing a requirement that they register as sex offenders, leaving that to judges’ discretion. The law ostensibly addressed discrimination against LGBTQ people.
SB 107 “would prohibit a provider of health care, a health care service plan, or a contractor from releasing medical information related to a person or entity allowing a child to receive gender-affirming health care or gender-affirming mental health care in response to a criminal or civil action” from another state that bans transgender surgery or drugs for minor children under 18. It would also prohibit California police from enforcing arrest warrants for transgender treatments for minors that are illegal in their own states.
The bill would also “prohibit the enforcement of an order based on another state’s law authorizing a child to be removed from their parent or guardian based on that parent or guardian allowing their child to receive gender-affirming health care” in California.
In a signing statement, Newsom described SB 107 as a bill about “parental choice.” However, there is nothing in the bill that requires that the “gender-affirming health care” be performed with parental consent. It also does not specify a minimum age at which a child qualifies for surgery or pharmaceuticals that would cause potentially irreversible physical changes to genitals or other organs.
The Los Angeles Times noted: “Whether SB 107 itself will be upheld in court is also in question because of federal requirements that states must recognize out-of-state laws when residents travel.” It also quoted State Sen. Brian Dahle, who pointed out that California would be in a difficult position if one parent supported a child’s transgender surgery and the other parent opposed it.https://www.breitbart.com/health/2022/09/30/gavin-newsom-signs-law-making-california-a-sanctuary-for-child-transgender-surgery/
Our Hope
Ryan Foley (Sept. 28) Christian Post
Students across the United States and worldwide gathered in prayer Wednesday morning as ministry groups work to ensure that Christian outreach on school campuses lasts the whole year. The 33rd annual See You at the Pole event held was a student-organized “global movement of prayer.”
Each year, students gather in a circle around their school’s flagpole to pray together on the fourth Wednesday of September. Students can participate in elementary, junior high and high schools, as well as at universities worldwide. Adults can also participate by praying at the same time at their work, church or at their local city hall.
The theme of this year’s See You at the Pole event was “Aflame,” specifically focusing on the Bible verse Romans 12:11-12 proclaiming, “Never let the fire in your heart go out. Keep it alive … PRAY!”
Student activists affiliated with the group Claim Your Campus hosted a livestream featuring prompts for participants in See You at the Pole to consider. They called on students to “turn this moment into a movement,” pointing to the ministry’s app and free campus prayer guide as tools to continue to “gather with your friends to pray for change in your school.”
The annual event dates back to 1990, when a high school youth group in Burleson, Texas, felt compelled to go to the flagpoles at schools in their area and pray for their friends, schools and leaders. Shortly thereafter, youth leaders across the state envisioned simultaneous, student-led events at school flagpoles statewide. The first See You at the Pole event occurred on Sept. 12, 1990, with 45,000 teenagers at schools in four states participating. The following year, the movement expanded to include approximately 1 million students nationwide. In the past 30 years, See You at the Pole has spread to 64 countries and about 1 million students take part each year.
While See You at the Pole does not have an official sponsor, the Baptist General Convention of Texas has the rights to the trademarked phrase “See You at the Pole” and Student Discipleship Ministries in Burleson, Texas, creates and distributes promotional materials for the event such as videos. The National Network of Youth Ministries handles media relations for the event.
See You at the Pole is not the only event held annually to encourage students to share their faith. Bring Your Bible to School Day, scheduled to take place on Oct. 6 this year, “empowers Christian students of all ages to speak God’s grace and truth into the culture around them, starting with two simple steps — bringing their Bibles to school and sharing what God’s word means to them.”
California voters: “Every Life is Valuable” – VOTE NO on Proposition 1 / For more info: https://proposition1-whyvoteno.com/.
(Michael Hernandez, co-founder of the Citizens Journal—Ventura County’s online news service is a former Southern California daily newspaper journalist and religion and news editor. Mr. Hernandez can be contacted at [email protected] and is editor of “America: The End and Our Hope”.)
10-1-22
To contribute, please visit www.FloridaDisasterFund.org or text DISASTER to 20222.
Governor DeSantis is, first and foremost, focused on the recovery efforts for communities affected by Hurricane Ian. He is dedicated to helping communities recover and rebuild from the impacts of the hurricane and is working with local, state and federal officials to support Floridians who are in need.
The Governor has been issuing updates on Hurricane Ian every day along with Division of Emergency Management Director Kevin Guthrie, First Lady Casey DeSantis, CFO Jimmy Patronis and numerous federal, state and local emergency management officials.
There are currently 42,000 linemen responding to the more than 1.9 million reported power outages. They have already restored power to more than 700,000 accounts in Southwest Florida.
First Lady Casey DeSantis also announced that donations have poured in to the Florida Disaster Fund, surpassing $10 million in just the first 24 hours of being activated. The Florida Disaster Fund is the State of Florida’s official private fund established to provide financial assistance to our communities as they respond to and recover from times of emergency or disaster. In partnership with public, private, and other non-governmental organizations, the Florida Disaster Fund supports response and recovery activities. To contribute, please visit www.FloridaDisasterFund.org or text DISASTER to 20222.
The state website for reporting missing persons related to Hurricane Ian is http://missing.fl.gov. If you need to report a missing person, fill out the form on behalf of “Someone Else.” You can also fill out the form on behalf of yourself if communications are limited.
Stay up to date with the latest news releases on recovery efforts following Hurricane Ian at www.flgov.com.
ATTORNEY GENERAL MOODY EXPANDS PRICE GOUGING HOTLINE STATEWIDE
Attorney General Ashley Moody has expanded Florida’s Price Gouging Hotline statewide. All Floridians can now report instances of severe price increases on essential commodities to the Attorney General’s Office. Florida’s price gouging law only applies to commodities and services essential to preparing for, or recovering from, a storm during a declared state of emergency.
For tips on reporting price gouging, click here.
For more information on price gouging, click here.
To download Attorney General Moody’s Scams at a Glance: Price Gouging brochure in English, click here. To download the Spanish version, click here.
CONSUMER ALERT: BEWARE OF HURRICANE IAN CHARITY SCAMS
Florida’s Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis warns individuals and businesses looking to contribute to Hurricane Ian relief efforts to be cautious of imposter GoFundMe style crowdfunding websites and charity scams and encourages Floridians to donate to the Florida Disaster Fund. To contribute, please visit www.FloridaDisasterFund.org or text DISASTER to 20222.
Tips to avoid charity scams from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC):
PAID FOR BY THE REPUBLICAN PARTY OF FLORIDA. NOT AUTHORIZED BY ANY CANDIDATE OR CANDIDATE’S COMMITTEE. WWW.FLORIDA.GOP
By Deb Boelkes, 10-2-22
Hello to We the People – Hope everyone did OK during and after the hurricane. Since Amelia Island was under evacuation orders and the Plantation (where we live) was asked to stay away even longer, until they cleared out the downed trees and branches blocking the roads, we did not return until last night. Thankfully all was well, other than four downed trees that had been leaning anyway…so God took care of them. Thankfully downed them without damaging other things. Whew…we got lucky!
Hopefully you all have seen the notice that our We the People meeting scheduled for tomorrow night, October 3, from 5 to 7 PM will be held in a different venue (due to standing water in the Walkers Landing parking lot). The meeting will now be held at Shuckers Oyster Bar, just off island, instead….same time. No cover charge. Just order whatever you might want to eat or drink off the restaurant menu. Hope to see you there…Should be a nice cool evening.
In the meantime, thanks to some of our members, I have a couple very interesting podcasts for you. One about hurricane Ian and what might have been behind it, the other with an FBI whistleblower about the commies in our government.
Also on the subject of Ian, check out this 2-minute time lapse video of the 15 foot storm surge washing away a home in Forth Myers Beach. Stunning: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=al8yTiCVfro
You can continue to stay on to watch more stunning video (8 minutes) of the massive destruction from hurricane from ABC news, even in St. Augustine and our very own Nassau County: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2eGyztHGbgQ
On the subject of enemies within, check out this Gateway Pundit article about who in Congress is taking money from Bill Gates: https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/09/exclusive-bill-gates-bought-republican-wave-2022-full-list-congressional-republicans-funded-gates/
Having evacuated to west TN where life was beautiful, Chris and I feel incredibly lucky and blessed to have returned to just a messy yard and a couple downed trees. Hope everyone on this list faired as well as we did. Our hearts and prayers go out to the millions of people in Florida who were not nearly as fortunate as we were.
God bless all of you…and everyone precious to you,
Deb
Deb Boelkes
Founder, Business World Rising, LLC
Keynote Speaker and award-winning Author of:
Women on Top: What’s Keeping You From Executive Leadership?
The WOW Factor Workplace: How to Create a Best Place to Work Culture
Heartfelt Leadership: How to Capture the Top Spot and Keep on Soaring
And coming soon:
Strong Suit: Leadership Success Secrets from Women on Top
Office: 904-310-9602
Email: [email protected]
DebBoelkes.com || BusinessWorldRising.com || HeartfeltLeadership.com
Success just got easier ®
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
| Please join us for another informative Happy Hour for Concerned Conservatives on Monday, October 3rd, 2022from5:00 to 7:00 pm at *** SHUCKER’S OYSTER BAR *** 96008 Wades Place Fernandina Beach, FL 32034*** Back Patio *** Meet like-minded friends & neighbors as we hear from FEATURING: Taco Pope Nassau County Manager and Marshall Eyerman Assistant County Manager ~ ~ ~ ~ *** NO COVER CHARGE *** Bar and Restaurant Menu Available Feel free to invite any friends who may have an interest RSVP to Deb Boelkes 904-310-9602 ~ [email protected] If you register but are unable to attend, please cancel in advance with Deb ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ |
About Taco Pope As County Manager, Taco serves as the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Nassau County government. In this capacity, he provides fiscal, strategic, and operational leadership to the organization, as well as sound analysis and professional recommendations and implementation of the Board’s policies. The County Manager promotes quality-of-life/quality-of-place and generational sustainability through the professional management of the organization’s resources. Taco is a native Floridian and 35-year resident of Northeast Florida. He is a certified professional planner through the American Institute of Certified Planners (AICP) with seventeen years of local government experience in the State of Florida. Taco has served as both a technical practitioner in the field of urban/community planning and as an administrator/program manager for local government. Prior to accepting the position of Nassau County Manager in 2020, Taco served the citizens of Nassau County in several roles including as Assistant County Manager and Planning Director. Taco holds a Bachelor of Business Administration in Business Management and Transportation & Logistics from the University of North Florida. He received his Master of Public Administration in Environmental Policy and Planning from Florida Gulf Coast University. In July 2022, the Florida City-County Management Association (FCCMA) recognized Taco for his personal and professional excellence in local government administration. In June, Taco was selected as one of only two City/County Managers statewide for the FCCMA’s 2022 Who’s Who Under 40 Award.  About Marshall Eyerman Marshall currently serves as Nassau County’s Assistant County Manager, ensuring taxpayers are continuing to receive the highest quality services in the most cost-efficient manner while maintaining a balanced budget. As part of his duties he also oversees the Office of Management & Budget, Technology Services, Procurement, Human Resources and Fire Rescue. Marshall has over 25 years of experience in administrative, financial, operational, and program management in both the public and private sectors. Prior to joining Nassau County, Marshall spent 13 years with the City of Moreno Valley, where he served as the City’s Assistant City Manager/Chief Financial Officer/City Treasurer. During his career with the City, he had held multiple positions, starting as the Special Districts Program Manager, Budget Officer, Financial Resources Division Manager, and then Assistant City Manager /Chief Financial Officer. Marshall initially began his career as a stock broker focused on municipal bonds and then spent eleven years consulting to municipalities and overseeing various activities including continuing disclosure, arbitrage rebate, impact fees, cost allocation plans, cost of service studies, utility rates, and special financing district formations. Marshall is an alumnus of California State University San Marcos where he earned a Master’s in Business Administration and a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration. Marshall continues his education through continued involvement with the International City/County Managers Association, the Government Finance Officers Association, and State organizations including the Florida Association of Counties and the Florida Government Finance Officer Association. |
Governor’s Press Office
10-01-22
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Today, First Lady Casey DeSantis announced that within 48 hours of activation the Florida Disaster Fund raised over $20 million in donations to support communities impacted by Hurricane Ian. To contribute, please visit www.FloridaDisasterFund.org or text DISASTER to 20222.
“Raising more than $20 million in 48 hours for The Florida Disaster Fund is a testament to the generosity and compassion from people across Florida and the country,” said First Lady Casey DeSantis. “This funding is already being utilized by organizations in the field to help people who have been impacted by this storm. We are incredibly grateful for the outpouring of support for Florida.”
Major donations from across the state and nation include:
The Florida Disaster Fund and Volunteer Florida are working with the Department of Children and Families and Sunshine Health through the First Lady’s Hope Florida Initiative to open Family Resource Support Centers with one-on-one support for impacted families, including Hope Navigators and counseling resources on site for those who are struggling and need help. The first resource centers will open in Tampa and New Port Richey, but anyone who needs help can call the Hope Line at 850-300-HOPE.
Additionally, private sector partners from across the state and the nation are providing exemplary assistance to those impacted by Hurricane Ian. Volunteer Florida, Visa, MasterCard, American Express and Paypal’s Braintree have waived their fees so that every dollar donated to the Florida Disaster Fund goes directly to helping victims. To partner with the state on recovery efforts or to find updates on closures, inventory supply, and supply chain information, visit: FloridaDisaster.Biz/CurrentDisasterUpdates.
Businesses offering services and assistance for Floridians impacted by Hurricane Ian include:
Publix Supermarkets – Publix has delivered more than 700 truckloads of water equal to almost a million cases, delivered more than 3 million pounds of ice, and is storing double inventory volumes. Prior to closing stores impacted by the storm, Publix donated perishable products to local police, firefighters, and emergency response teams, and also ensured that associates that work nearby and prepare these stores for the storm received donated product for themselves and their families. Publix associates have diligently taken care of their customers, communities, and each other.
Walmart – Walmart has activated Disaster Displacement Assistance for impacted associates to assist them in evacuating to safety. Walmart Transportation has positioned 400 drivers in Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia to support recovery efforts. Walmart and Sam’s Club have pushed more than $23 million in additional water and disaster related merchandise ahead of the storm, including over 660 truckloads of additional water and disaster related merchandise ahead of the storm. A public-facing map showing store and club closures that updates in real-time has been published at Hurricane Ian Facility Status (walmart.com).
Lowe’s Home Improvement – The Lowe’s Command Center remains in full activation to support stores impacted by Hurricane Ian, moving more than 1000 trucks into impact zones, and continues to move much-needed response and recovery product, such as generators, water, gas cans, sand, plywood, batteries, flashlights, and other materials. All Lowe’s stores in Florida are now open; opening and closing hours are being monitored to ensure the safety of associates and customers. Additionally, Lowe’s has committed $2 million to support disaster relief efforts for associates, customers and communities in Florida. Funding will assist Lowe’s disaster relief partners and nonprofit Pro customers, helping these organizations and others provide critical relief and recovery supplies.
Uber Technology – Private-sector partner, Uber, is offering round-trip rides to and from Southwest Florida shelter locations in Orange, Brevard, Seminole, Volusia, and Osceola counties listed at www.FloridaDisaster.org/PlanPrepare/Shelters. Riders can enter promotional code IANRELIEF in the app to redeem a free round-trip up to $30 each way. Rides must be requested to or from any state-approved evacuation shelter in Florida.
U-Haul International, Inc. – As families evacuate, U-Haul is offering 30 days of free storage and U-Box container usage at 43 Florida locations. Find additional information at www.uhaul.com/about/ listed under “Top Stories.”
Expedia – VISIT Florida has activated the Emergency Accommodations Portal at Expedia.com/Florida with the latest available hotel listings. Expedia reached out encouraging their partners to waive cancellation fees and to waive pet restrictions.
Xfinity – Comcast has opened Xfinity WiFi hotspots in Central, North and Southwest Florida, and the Panhandle for Xfinity customers and non-customers to stay connected during and after the storm. Details are available at Florida.Comcast.com/2022/09/27/comcast-opens-free-xfinity-wifi-hotspot-network-as-hurricane-ian-approaches/.
Rosen Hotels & Resorts – Rosen Hotels and Resorts is activating their Florida Residents Distressed Rates to give Floridians a safe, affordable place to ride out Hurricane Ian. Evacuees can call 866-33-ROSEN (76736) to reserve a room.
AT&T – AT&T is waiving talk, text, and data overage charges for AT&T Postpaid & PREPAID customers with billing addresses in 828 zip codes across Florida from September 28, 2022, through October 28, 2022, to keep customers connected.
Target – Target is working quickly to ensure its team members are safe and is mobilizing its supply chain to fast-track critical supplies to Target stores. Target is also working with its team members, guests, and regional partners in the coming days to help ensure that all communities impacted by Hurricane Ian have the resources they need to support recovery and rebuilding.
Charter Communications – Charter Communications has opened Spectrum Out-of-Home WiFi access points in response to Hurricane Ian. Spectrum WiFi access points are typically found in public parks, marinas, city streets and other public areas. A map of access points is available at spectrum.com/internet/wifi-access-points.
Anheuser-Busch – Anheuser-Busch has coordinated seven trucks – more than 360,000 cans – of emergency drinking water in response to Hurricane Ian.
Wawa Convenience Stores & Gas Stations – Wawa has made a $500,000 donation to the Florida Disaster Fund to help aid in recovery efforts. Wawa stores in Florida are providing free coffee and fountain beverages to all first responders in Florida, including police, fire, EMT and the National Guard for all they are doing to support and serve our communities during Hurricane Ian response and recovery efforts.
Amazon – Amazon has activated its Disaster Relief Hub, a special warehouse in Atlanta where the company prepositions over 1 million relief items most needed when a disaster strikes; loaded 10 trucks with over 360,000 bottles of water and strategically prepositioned the vehicles around Florida and in other southern U.S. states to quickly deliver clean water to impacted communities; and, reserved a parking lot at one of its Jacksonville, Florida, facilities to allow the American Red Cross to park up to 75 trailers to transport relief items as they’re needed.
T-Mobile – T-Mobile has four Community Support Trucks loaded with supplies including chargers, charging cords and cell phones, as well as three wi-fi trailers with the ability to charge up to 80 phones each, along with Wi-Fi. These assets are staged just outside of the impact area and will be deployed as soon as it is safe to do so. Most T-Mobile customers are on plans with unlimited talk, text, and data, for those who aren’t, T-Mobile continues to offer unlimited talk, text, and data starting September 28 through October 3 for those most impacted by the storm. Text to Give opportunities are also available and the most updated information from T-Mobile can be found at https://www.t-mobile.com/news/community/hurricane-ian.
Verizon – Verizon residential and small business customers in affected ZIP codes impacted by Hurricane Ian will have access to unlimited domestic Talk, Text & Data through October 4, 2022. Click here to see eligible zip codes. Verizon Wireless’ crisis response team will also provide free communications support to public safety agencies responding to the hurricane, setting up portable cell sites, Wi-Fi hotspots, free charging stations and other services.
Buc-ees – Buc-ees is also giving away meals and soft drinks to first responders on their way to the area at their Daytona location through October 2.
The Florida Disaster Fund is the State of Florida’s official private fund established to provide financial assistance to our communities as they respond to and recover from times of emergency or disaster. In partnership with public, private, and other non-governmental organizations, the Florida Disaster Fund supports response and recovery activities. To contribute, please visit www.FloridaDisasterFund.org or text DISASTER to 20222.
Donations to the Florida Disaster Fund are made to the Volunteer Florida Foundation, 501(c)(3) charitable organization, and are tax-deductible. Donations may be made by credit card on the secure website www.floridadisasterfund.org or by check to the below address.
Checks should be made payable to the Volunteer Florida Foundation and should include “Florida Disaster Fund” in the memo line.
Volunteer Florida Foundation
Attention: Florida Disaster Fund
1545 Raymond Diehl Road Suite 250
Tallahassee, FL 32308
Govenor’s Press Office
10-01-22
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Today, Governor Ron DeSantis issued updates on Hurricane Ian after surveying various impacted areas and meeting with impacted communities. Governor DeSantis traveled to Waffle House in Punta Gorda to serve food and meet with first responders, emergency response staff and volunteers. The Governor also traveled to Fort Myers to visit points of distribution for Floridians impacted by Hurricane Ian.
Today, the Governor announced that 30 Starlink units have been deployed to Lee and Charlotte Counties to help residents communicate once they check into established points of distribution in these counties, in addition to 10 smaller Starlink units for Emergency Operations Centers and first responders to use to communicate in the field. There are currently 42,000 linemen responding to the more than 1.2 million reported power outages. They have already restored power to more than 1.4 million accounts across the state.
The state website for reporting missing persons related to Hurricane Ian is http://missing.fl.gov. If you need to report a missing person, fill out the form on behalf of “Someone Else.” You can also fill out the form on behalf of yourself if communications are limited. Safe and found persons can be reported safe at http://safe.fl.gov.
First Lady Casey DeSantis announced the first awards from the Florida Disaster Fund, to read more info, click here. The Florida Disaster Fund is the State of Florida’s official private fund established to provide financial assistance to our communities as they respond to and recover from times of emergency or disaster. In partnership with public, private, and other non-governmental organizations, the Florida Disaster Fund supports response and recovery activities. To contribute, please visit www.FloridaDisasterFund.org or text DISASTER to 20222.
State preparation and response efforts include:
Search and Rescue
Florida Division of Emergency Management (FDEM)
Power
Health and Human Services
Infrastructure
o Alachua, Bay, Baker, Bradford, Broward, Calhoun, Clay, Columbia, Dixie, Duval, Escambia, Franklin, Gadsden, Gilchrist, Gulf, Hamilton, Holmes, Indian River, Jackson, Jefferson, Lafayette, Leon, Levy, Liberty, Madison, Martin, Miami Dade, Monroe, Nassau, Okaloosa, Palm Beach, Putnam, Santa Rosa, St. Johns, St. Lucie, Suwannee, Taylor, Union, Wakulla, Walton, Washington
Turnpike Service Plaza Closures
Road and Bridges
Current Major Road and Bridge Closures. The list of closures as of 7:00 a.m., 10/1/22 is listed below. Up-to-date closures listed on FL511.com:
o A Max Brewer Memorial Parkway at Indian River – All lanes closed, both directions
o I-75 at MM 179 through MM 193 – All lanes closed, both directions
o Tamiami Trail Southbound at Peace River – All lanes closed
o US-41 Southbound at Peace River Bridge – All lanes closed
o I-10 Westbound at I-75 Southbound – Off-ramp closed
o I-10 Eastbound to I-75 Southbound – Off-ramp closed
o I-75 Southbound at I-10 – All lanes closed
o NE Highway 70 at SE Mahon Avenue – Lane closed, both directions
o SR-70 from CR-661 to N Baldwin Avenue – Lane closed, both directions
o SR-72 Eastbound from CR-661 to SR-70 – Lane closed
o US-17 at SW Welles Road – All lanes closed, both directions
o US-17 Northbound from SW Welles Avenue to SW Fletcher Street – All lanes closed, both directions
o S Oceanshore Boulevard at S 15th Street – Lane closed, both directions
o S State Street at W Court Street – All lanes closed
o SR-100 at S Church Street – All lanes closed, both directions
o Florida Cracker Trail at CR-665 – Lane closed, both directions
o SR-64 at Parnell Road – All lanes closed, both directions
o SR-64 at Old Town Creek Road – Lane closed, both directions
o SR-64 Eastbound at Golfview Drive – Lane closed
o SR-64 at Peace River – Lane closed, both directions
o SR-64 at Charley Bryan Road – Lane closed, both directions
o SR-64 from Florida Cracker Trail to School House Road – Lane closed, both directions
o SR-636 from N 5th Avenue to SR-64 – Lane closed, both directions
o US-17 at Bronco Drive – All lanes closed, both directions
o US-17 from 9th Avenue W to Moffitt Road – All lanes closed, both directions
o Pine Island Road Bridge (SR-78/Pine Island Road at Matlacha Draw Bridge)
o Sanibel Causeway
o CR-865 at Broadway Channel – Lane closed, both directions
o I-75 at MM 179 through MM 193 – All lanes closed, both directions
o Estero Boulevard at Broadway Channel – Lane closed, both directions
o SR-37 at Manatee/Polk County Line – Lane closed, both directions
o SR-64 at Kersey Road – Lane closed, both directions
o SR-70 Eastbound at Verna Road – Lane closed
o SR-70 at County Line Road – Lane closed, both directions
o I-4 Eastbound at Ivanhoe – On-ramp closed
o I-4 Eastbound at MM 71/Central Florida Parkway – Off-ramp closed
o N Orange Avenue at S Ivanhoe Boulevard – All lanes closed
o I-4 Eastbound at MM 65/Osceola Parkway – On-ramp closed
o I-4 Eastbound at MM 67/SR-536 – Off-ramp closed
o Pleasant Hill Road at Northgate Drive – All lanes closed, both directions
o 6th Street Northbound at Mirror Terrace NW – All lanes closed
o Lucerne Park Road at Lucerne Loop – Lane closed, both directions
o SR-17 Northbound before and beyond Hunt Brothers Road – All lanes closed
o SR-544 before and beyond US-27 – All lanes closed, both directions
o US-98 at Laurel Lane – Lane closed
o US-98 at US-17 – All lanes closed, both directions
o CR-780 at Sinclair Drive – Lane closed, both directions
o CR-780 at Manatee/Sarasota County Line – Bridge closed
o I-75 Southbound at Exit 193: Jacaranda Boulevard – All lanes closed
o I-75 Northbound at Exit 179: Toledo Blade Boulevard – All lanes closed
o I-75 at N Sumter Boulevard – All lanes closed, both directions
o SR-776 Southbound beyond Old Englewood Road – All lanes closed
o SR-776 at N Elm Street – All lanes closed, both directions
o Oviedo Road at Walsh Street – Lane closed, both directions
o SR-426/Fairbanks Avenue/Aloma Avenue before Lake Jessup Avenue – All lanes closed, both directions
o SR-46 Eastbound at N Jungle Road – Lane closed
o Dunlawton Avenue Eastbound at US-1 Southbound – All lanes closed
o Dunlawton Avenue Westbound at S Peninsula Drive – All lanes closed
o I-95 Southbound at Exit 244/SR-442 – On-ramp closed
o LPGA Boulevard Eastbound at W International Speedway Boulevard – Lane closed
o LPGA Boulevard Westbound at Welshinger-Butler Circle – Lane closed
o Ridgewood Avenue at 6th Street – All lanes closed
o SR-46 Westbound at Morgan Alderman Road – Lane closed
o US-1 Southbound at Commonwealth Boulevard – All lanes closed
o US-92 Eastbound at I-4 Ramp Overpass – All lanes closed
o US-92 Westbound at Doctor MLK Boulevard – All lanes closed
Ports:
o Port Everglades: Fuel terminals are open for normal operations
o Port Tampa Bay: Fuel terminals are open for normal operations
o Port Manatee: Fuel terminals are open for normal operations
o Port Canaveral: Expect all fuel terminals to be operating 7:00am Saturday
o Jacksonville Terminals: (Off Port Private Terminals) will be fully operational Saturday 6:00am.
o Airports
o Punta Gorda Airport
o Southwest Florida International Airport
Transit
o Charlotte County
o LeeTran
o Sarasota County Area Transit
o Lynx (modified service)
o Votran (modified service)
o Flagler
o Levy County
o St Johns County
o Citrus County
Passenger Rail
Freight Rail
Mass Care
Law Enforcement
Private Sector Support
Florida Department of Education (DOE)
Florida Department of Environmental Protection (DEP)
Telecommunications
Licensing
Office of Insurance Regulation (OIR)
Resource Management
Department of State
Office Closures
By Jeff Childers
10-01-22
Good morning and Happy Saturday, C&C! It’s now October, the month of pumpkin spiced-everything and jack-o-lanterns and the speed-ramp to Christmas. Today’s roundup includes an Ian multiplier, and looks at Putin’s major speech yesterday, along with some eyebrow-raising historical context, plus a little good news to warm your heart. Literally.
🪖 OPERATION MULTIPLIER: Today we aim the mighty power of the C&C Army at Hurricane Ian and our fellow citizens and Floridians who struggling with wrecked homes and broken businesses and crushed cities today. Many, many people have lost everything they owned.
There were lots of great options and suggestions, it was very difficult to decide, but ultimately I settled on the fund created by the Governor’s office, which is a public-private partnership. I did communicate with the Governor’s office to confirm the details. Only 3% of donated funds, up to a maximum of $30,000, will be used for administration.
Right now, click over to https://www.volunteerflorida.org/donatefdf/ and give any affordable amount ending in a ‘2’. It doesn’t matter how much or how little, $2, $12, $22, or whatever. You get the idea. (This one doesn’t take decimals, like $5.02.). Working together, each with our small individual gifts, we form a tsunami of help. You’ll feel terrific after you do it, it only takes a minute, and then you’ll be right back here to finish reading today’s post.
Again: https://www.volunteerflorida.org/donatefdf/
I’m not sure we’ll get feedback on this one, although I’ll try. But things are, well, kind of hectic.
🪖 These days, trial is never certain till it’s here, but next week I’m lead counsel in a four day jury trial. Given the dawn-to-dusk demands of jury trial work, posts next week could be spotty or missing. So get ready. To bridge the gap, and give you something to gnaw on while I’m out, I’ve arranged two very cool guest bloggers. Plus, since the courthouse is closed Wednesday for a jewish holiday, you’ll get your rhetorical caffeine then for sure.
🪖 Next Thursday, October 13th, from 7-9pm (doors open at 6pm), I’ll be speaking at Abundant Life church in Largo, Florida, at the “One Nation Under God” event, along with Trevor Loudon. Should be great if you’re around and free. If interested, you can register at https://alm.churchcenter.com/registrations/events/1449434.
🗞*WORLD NEWS AND COMMENTARY* 🗞
The big news yesterday was Russian president Putin’s speech, largely ignored or misquoted by corporate media, of course. Before we get to the details, let’s start with some historical background first.
🔥 Back in 2014, Condoleeza Rice was being interviewed about the then-conflict in Ukraine, and in her mild, sweet voice, suggested regretfully that the key to solving Ukraine was much, much tougher sanctions on Russia, no matter the cost, with a you-can’t-make-an-omelet-without-breaking-a-few-eggs sort of tone:
https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/aF0uYIjaTNE?rel=0&autoplay=0&showinfo=0&enablejsapi=0
Huh. Rice’s plan sounds EXACTLY like what’s happening now. SO weird. It almost sounds like it’s a State Department plan that came off a top-secret shelf somewhere, and I don’t mean Mar-a-Lago. A “Use In Case Of Ukraine Conflict” kind of plan.
If they ARE following the plan, they totally mucked it up. They gave Putin too much time before they blew up the pipelines, time to coordinate replacement customers for his European energy products. If the deep state did plan to blow up the pipelines, they should’ve done it to start with, when it would’ve made a difference.
Anyway, in the clip, Rice referred to a meeting between President Obama and Angela Merkel in Washington. I think I found it, in a telling article from the World Socialist Website:
The article starts out complaining about Obama’s meddling in Ukraine, and noting all his problems working with the German Chancellor, mostly because Edward Snowden just leaked that the NSA had been spying on her. In language that would be familiar to all of us, the article described nazi forces (real ones) brutally attacking Eastern Ukrainians living in pro-Russian areas, and speculated that the U.S. was encouraging or even directing the violence. It even complains about Victoria Nuland.
Remember, this article is from 2014. Not yesterday.
It was all so eerily familiar. But I was really gobsmacked when I reached these prophetic paragraphs from the 2014 article:
If you listened to corporate media, you would think that Vladimir Putin cooked up the invasion of eastern Ukraine in February of this year, without any provocation or warning at all. Dumb reporters.
I know, it’s the World Socialists. Forget about the source. At best, the World Socialists are kooks. At worst, the website is a fake, a Russian cyber-military propaganda farm. I might even lean toward the latter, given the article’s overheated rhetoric. Whatever the truth about that is, the article still clearly predicted exactly where things were headed. It just took until 2022 to get there.
In other words, it sure looks like the Ukraine war has been marinating in the State Department’s deep state pressure cooker, for years, in a cunning covert operation spanning multiple administrations. If you don’t agree, point to where we did anything to relieve tensions and head off the war. I think you’ll find that our government did the reverse opposite of that.
I can speculate with the best of them, but it’s true that I have no actual idea what dark plans echo down Washington’s marble corridors of power. So my interest in this story is confined, once again, to marveling over our utterly useless and beyond-pathetic media. Why do non-journalists have to do all the heavy-lifting connecting the dots? Why, for Pete’s sake, isn’t anyone in the media asking our government actors the obvious questions?
In the movies from the 70’s, 80’s, and 90’s featuring plucky heroes chased around by out-of-control government agencies, there’s a reason the happy ending was always when the good guys — at the last second — delivered evidence of the massive illegal government operation to A JOURNALIST AT A MAJOR NEWSPAPER. It was an homage, of sorts, to Watergate and the Pentagon Papers. But these movies all ended the same way for a really good plot reason: because it was the only believable way for ordinary citizens to beat an out-of-control government.
In other words, it was common knowledge that the media held the government in check. So what happens when the media stops doing its job?
🔥 Which brings us to Putin’s dangerously attractive and fundamentally deceptive speech yesterday. Here’s a link to the transcript, you should read it when you have 10-15 minutes.
Now don’t start with me arguing that I shouldn’t link to “Putin’s propaganda.” It’s a historic speech by possibly the most important man in the world right now. In a democratic republic, the citizens govern themselves, so citizens must be informed. This isn’t just a job for the State Department’s skunkworks team.
As I said, it’s a long speech, so I’ll just touch on a few highlights, or low lights, depending on your point of view.
I called president-for-life Putin’s speech dangerously attractive because it is lucid, logical, and moral, which is the opposite of what we always get from our own Glorious Leader, even when he’s banging the podium delivering a carefully-scripted teleprompter oration. See, e.g., Biden’s Anti-MAGA Hate Speech. The dangerous part of Putin’s speech was that, while fairly criticizing the West and the U.S., it completely whitewashed Russia’s own murderous history and glorified the former Soviet Union, which was itself organized by the very same dirty tricks he now accuses us of doing.
Ostensibly, the address was intended to announce Russia’s integration of the four new Ukrainian territories. Putin argued persuasively that democracy and history approved, and escalated the rhetoric by promising that Russia would defend its Homeland with all the tools in its arsenal. Meaning you-know-whats.
Delivering the counterpoint, disgraced ex-prime minister and maskless party boy Boris Johnson gave Putin’s speech an F-minus:
Boris Johnson @BorisJohnsonVladimir Putin your speech is a fraud and a disgrace. The world must never accept your sham referendums or your cruel and illegal attempt to colonise Ukraine. We stand with the people of Ukraine and will support them without flinching until their country is whole and free.September 30th 202220,404 Retweets163,113 Likes
Continuing, Putin next said it’s all over now; he called for an immediate cessation of hostilities to negotiate a peace based on the new geography:
He then goes into a long discussion of how, after the collapse of the USSR, the West used bribery, trickery, and colonial expansion to achieve a unipolar world — he calls it a hegemony — led by the United States. Haha, he also pointed out the hypocrisy of the West about borders and illegal migration:
So far, the speech was well-delivered but mostly-expected nationalistic rhetoric. But Putin was only warming up. Mid-speech, he dropped this rhetorical bomb:
He has a point after the pandemic we just went through.
Putin, using the West’s own woke invective, called us “racists” for “stoking Russophobia,” participating in the slave trade, massacring the Indians, and — in a reference to the UK — using drugs (opium) as a weapon against China. He pointed out the U.S. is the only country that ever nuked anybody. And now he says we’ve intentionally manufactured a global food and energy crisis (see, e.g., Condoleeza Rice’s comments, above):
And then Putin dropped the hammer, pointing out the profound insanity of our current social “revolution:”
Um, I kind of agree with all of that. I don’t want three parents. I don’t want groomers and perverts teaching our kids how to be transsexuals, to twerk, pole dance, or perform for pedophilic adults in kiddy drag shows. I don’t want insane gender fluidity and bizarre medical experimentation on anyone, least of all kids. It’s unacceptable to me. I want a different future for MY kids, too.
Every one of those things leads directly to depopulation and civilizational collapse. Radical environmentalists want that, billionaires want that, twitter crazies want that, but well-balanced, moral people DO NOT WANT THAT.
And that’s where Putin has a better handle on the argument. You have to admit, he’s got us there. No rational civilization wants our woke effluvia. It’s disgusting, offensive, and dangerous. I completely sympathize with the president-for-life on that one.
And how much do you long for our leaders to say something like:
Our craven leaders are so terrified of being accused of transgressing the ultra-constitutional notion of separation of church and state that they’ve decided it’s safest not to talk about the moral issues at all. In fact the paragraph above is the only full paragraph I saw quoted by corporate media; they mean it to horrify secular folks. Oh my gosh! He said, “Jesus!”
I’m running long. Let me summarize by saying this: If Putin is a threat, it is because we made him a threat. Putin is a product of the communist left. The left in this country paved the way for Putin to properly and accurately criticize — and logically reject — our culture. The communists might have engineered relativism. But it doesn’t matter. It’s still our problem to fix.
In other words, we have to fix OURSELVES before we can fix Ukraine or anybody else.
🔥 Biden responded to Putin’s speech with remarks completely consistent with the 2014 Rice plan. The Wall Street Journal’s article on Putin’s speech said Biden was “quick to condemn Mr. Putin’s move.” I bet he was.
Last night, Biden said, “[Putin] can’t seize his neighbor’s territory and get away with it. It’s as simple as that. America is fully prepared with our NATO allies to defend every single inch of NATO territory. Every single inch. So, Mr. Putin: Don’t misunderstand what I’m saying. Every inch.”
I’m not sure that *I* understand what Joe is saying, and I’m a native English speaker. Does Joe mean every inch of Ukraine? Ukraine isn’t in NATO. So … which inches is he talking about? I guess it’s not really “as simple as that.” Or maybe it is, to Joe.
Like the rest of corporate media reporting on the story, the Wall Street Journal ignored Putin’s strongest points. They certainly didn’t mention gender reassignment surgery or three-parent households. They mostly just focused on listing all Russia’s military weaknesses, which suggests we are going to be in for a very long war.
Right in line with that prediction, the WSJ quoted a military analyst with the Carnegie foundation, who said “The Ukrainians will keep the situation hot. An insurgency is an important part of what comes next.” Great.
And the New York Times didn’t cover Putin’s speech at all, not in any headlined article.
🔥 You didn’t think I was going to just leave you there, did you? How about some good news? The Hill ran a fabulous article yesterday headlined, “Two to Three Cups of Coffee a Day Could Lead to a Longer Life: Study.
”
The sub-headline quotes the related study, explaining “Our findings indicate that drinking modest amounts of coffee of all types should not be discouraged but can be enjoyed as a heart healthy behavior.”
The article reports a newly-published British study of nearly 450,000 folks found drinking two to three cups of coffee every day was statistically associated with significantly lower risks of cardiovascular disease, irregular heartbeat, and death, compared to people who, for some reason, avoid coffee.
Even decaf helps!
27,809 people died over the course of the study. Instant coffee drinkers had an 11% lower risk. Those who drank two to three cups of decaffeinated coffee had a 14% lower risk of death compared with non-drinkers. But those who drank ground coffee had a whopping 27% risk reduction.
“The results suggest that mild to moderate intake of ground, instant and decaffeinated coffee should be considered part of a healthy lifestyle,” the researchers concluded.
So! Coffee & Covid is good for you!
Okay, late finishers, here’s the link again: https://www.volunteerflorida.org/donatefdf/
Have a wonderful weekend! I’ll see you on Monday unless trial preparations interfere. Hang in there.
C&C is moving the needle and changing minds. If you can, I could use your help getting the truth out and spreading optimism and hope: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/-learn-how-to-get-involved-
Twitter: @jchilders98
Truth Social: @jchilders98
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The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
By Dave Scott
09-30-22
(This week’s commentary was completed while Hurricane Ian was rolling by Amelia Island and in hopes that my Florida relatives, friends, and neighbors survived it safely with no serious damage to their properties. Also, a huge “Thank you” and shout out to the Nassau County Emergency Management Department and county Public Information Officer Sabrina Robertson for their outstanding professional efforts to keep residents safe and informed and to Florida Power & Light for keeping the lights on.)
A flyer in a box in the yard of a home two doors down from us advertises a monthly rental price of $4,250.
“It’s a very, very, very fine house” as Cosby, Stills and Nash sang in 1970. But at $4,250 per month, it seemed pricey to me. Since our neighborhood doesn’t allow short term leases the tenant must sign a one-year contract totaling $51,000. That doesn’t include utilities.
However, based on what’s currently taking place in the local housing market the monthly rate may be a bargain.
The rental price is an indication of what’s taking place all over Amelia Island and is spreading across Shave Bridge and I-95 to encompass much of Nassau County, pricing many folks out of the market.
High prices and a shortage of desirable real estate is not unique to Nassau County. Many sought-after areas in America are running out of housing and land to build more. Blue state residents fleeing exorbitant taxes, lousy union-run schools and rampant crime in their Democrat governed states are key to generating the escalating prices. Because they are recipients of the mass exodus from Democrat-led states Southern states, particularly Florida, are coming up short in developable real estate and affordable housing. On Amelia Island there is absolutely nowhere left to spread out unless your house floats.
The rental house down the street from us is currently estimated to have a $938,000 value based on real estate sources I researched. Hypothetically, let’s suppose a buyer negotiated a $900,000 price if it was for sale, and put 20 percent down. The mortgage minus closing costs would be $720,000.
As of September 23, 2022, the 30-year fixed mortgage rate was 6.73%. At that rate the buyer would have a $4,660 monthly payment. Add a very low estimate of $1,000 monthly for taxes and insurance and it would come to $5,660, a total of $1,410 more than the asking rental price of $4,250.
Prior to Joe Biden’s inauguration the lowest historical mortgage rates in history for 30-year fixed rate mortgages was in December 2020 with rates at 2.68%, according to Freddie Mac. At that rate the hypothetical purchaser would have a monthly payment of $3,310, which is $940 less than the rental price and almost enough to cover the cost of taxes and insurance.
As long as people keep moving to Republican-governed states such as Florida, Texas, Tennessee, Arizona, etc. they are pushing up the prices of properties thereby increasing housing shortages in these fast-growing desirable locations. And the Biden administration’s catastrophic economic policies are forcing the feds to continue to increase interest rates in an attempt to stem the Biden-generated inflation.
The Wall Street Journal says in the South the average price of vacant land per acre doubled in the past two years through the second quarter.
Don’t expect prices to go lower anytime soon. People are continuing to flock to southern cities. Remote work has given Americans more choice and they can settle anywhere they want. And they want to get away from the Democrats that are taxing them into the poor house in communities where crime is running rampant and public schools have become progressive indoctrination centers. In most cases rising real estate prices are lower than the hellholes they’re escaping and even if they weren’t it would be worth it.
Two of the greatest boomtowns in America today are the Tampa and Miami areas. How many out of state license plates have popped up in your Nassau County neighborhood recently?
The New York Post reported that, according to Florida driver’s license registrations 41,885 New Yorkers moved here so far this year. The Census Bureau reported that overall in 2019 that “Florida has the most domestic in-movers from another state within the past year with 566,476 while California had the most domestic out-movers with 661,026.”
Florida’s conservative no-nonsense Governor Ron DeSantis and mayors like Miami’s Francis X. Suarez prove that low taxes, fewer regulations, a commitment to public safety, parent-led school systems, and the encouragement of private enterprise are formulas for success. People want to live in that kind of environment and the new residents from New York, Michigan, California, New Jersey, etc. confirm it.
Since the pandemic began more adjusted gross income has moved into Florida than has ever moved into one state over a similar time in American history, claims Governor DeSantis.
This growth puts pressure on elected Fernandina City and Nassau County officials to focus on the housing needs of all segments. They should ignore and not be intimidated by the unreasonable shrieks of a handful of tree-hugging, anti-development, no-growth extremists and encourage public-private partnerships, rezone underutilized land, and use the free-market system to secure affordable housing for those on fixed incomes, hospitality workers, police and firemen, teachers and others vital to the well-being of the entire community.
***
Speaking Of New Floridians: High interest rates aren’t discouraging folks from flooding into Florida. If voter registration is an indication those newcomers from NY, CA, NJ, etc. have had enough of high taxes, bad schools, and increasing crime.
The massive influx of new residents has also had a positive impact on Florida’s Republican voter registration rolls and a negative one for Democrats.
Overall, from October 2018 to July 2022 Florida has gone from 13,278,070 overall voters to 14,315,755 voters. Democratic Party enrollment rose from 4,962,064 to 4,944,867 — an increase of a meager 17,197.
In 2018 the Republicans were in second place to the Florida Democratic Party voters with 4,681,598 and now outnumber them by 509,420. The 2022 numbers show the state with 5,191,018 Republicans. That means from the 2018 election until this summer, the Florida GOP increased by 10 percent.
The number of non-affiliated voters rose from 3,549,094 to 3,905,562 — an increase of more than 10 percent.
“The biggest number in Florida Politics that no one is talking about: 17,197. While Florida has added 1,037,685 net new voters since Ron DeSantis’ 2018 victory, the Democrat Party only managed to convince 17,197 of them to register as Democrat,” says the website Florida’s Voice.
***
Who Is Ray Epps? Ray Epps, whoever he is, was recorded on video yelling for people in Washington, D.C. to “Go into the Capitol” on both January 5 and 6, 2021. The crowd around him began pointing and shouting “No! Fed, Fed” suspecting he was a federal agent planted in their midst.
The New York Times writes glowing pieces about him, and the January 6 Committee doesn’t appear to have any interest in questioning him about his activities during the alleged “riot”. People who did less than Epps are now in jail. What’s up with that?
Some conservative news outlets speculated this past week that due to Republicans’ increased pressure on the Justice Department for more information about “fake protestor Ray Epps this week, the government psyops teams shifted into hyperdrive, spreading incredible fake rumors about Epps all over the internet, in an attempt to flood the information zone so nobody knows what’s true and what’s false.”
They claim there are hundreds, if not thousands, of sketchy twitter accounts claiming “breaking news” that “public information requests” showed Nancy Pelosi had six phone calls with Ray Epps right before January 6th, and that Epps’ wife used to work for Dominion voting systems.
“But” they say, “it’s government misinformation trying to deflect from the real news about Epps.”
What the heck is the real story about this guy? Fox News commentator Tucker Carlson https://www.foxnews.com/video/6309560509112 provides an insight here and suggests there’s much more. I’d like to hear what it is.
***
Like It? Take It! In Portland, Seattle, New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Los Angles, San Francisco, etc., if you see something in a store you like that is out of you price range, no problem. Take it as long as it doesn’t cost more than $1,000. It’s only a misdemeanor. Store owners and employees are afraid of being prosecuted or assaulted if they confront you, so have at it. If you’re actually arrested you’ll be back on the street within hours that same day. No problem. No bail. If you do go to court the judge will utter a ”tsk, tsk” and suggest you try to refrain from repeatedly helping yourself to other people’s stuff, but that’s it. However, it’s not as lucrative as the student loan forgiveness sham, which has a $10,000 cap that your neighbors are on the hook for.
***
Blutarsky’s Windfall: “Seven years of college down the drain…” sighed John “Bluto” Blutarsky, played by John Balushi in the 1978 film Animal House, could now be rewritten as: “Seven years of college on the house” or at least some of it, thanks to Joe Biden.
Today Blutarsky would be a member of the Democratic voting bloc known as “overeducated and underemployed deadbeats” living on handouts from their neighbors particularly the $10,000 loan forgiveness penalty foisted upon American workers by Biden.
The boondoggle loan handout is a Democrat finger in the eye to all Americans who saved or took out loans to start a small business, earned a trade school diploma, paid off their or their kids’ college loans, or never went to college.
So far the Biden administration represents two years of American government down the drain with two to go…if we can survive his financially irresponsible, corrupt and inept administration that much longer.
Hopefully the Republicans can take both the House and Senate in November and bring a halt to the college loan forgiveness crap among other dangerous and economically damaging programs. The dimwitted Biden will probably hit back with another Blutarsky quote: “Did we give up after the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Nothing is over until we decide it is!”, he’ll likely shout.
***
Remember This? “They said the stock market will boom if I am elected,” President Trump said during a 2020 presidential debate. And it did. Referring to Biden he said: “If he’s elected, the stock market will crash.” And it is. If you have an IRA, a 401K, or any other stock investments you probably vividly recall the former president’s prophecy. Let’s hope those delusional twits that voted for this economic misery remember it this coming November when they peek at their rapidly shrinking portfolios.
***
“A Penny For Your Thoughts….Oh, Wait, Never Mind: North Carolina resident, author, and freelance writer Bill Shuey provides pithy and punchy weekly commentary with one of his most recent and best being about our sad sack President Joe Biden’s habit of claiming other people’s words, thoughts, and honors as his own.
“Biden has a long history of dependence on other people’s thoughts, perhaps that is why he is so leadable and malleable,” says the North Carolina sage. “At one time or another he has plagiarized speeches by: Robert Kennedy, John F. Kennedy, Hubert Humphrey, and quoted Neil Kinnock, leader of the British Labor Party verbatim. While at Syracuse University Law School, he failed a course because he got caught plagiarizing an article from the Fordham Law Review. Recently he even plagiarized Trump!”
Shuey goes on to claim that in addition to using other people’s thoughts, Biden has been caught in several lies. He claimed to have graduated “in the top half of my class.” When Biden eventually graduated from law school, he was ranked 76th in a class of 85. “I suppose math isn’t Biden’s forte either,” Shuey adds. “Biden claims to have started his college career at Delaware State, a black college. The university refutes his claim. Either Biden can’t tell the truth or doesn’t have the ability to recognize truth. One makes him a liar, the other an idiot.” I like Mr. Shuey’s style.
***
In Case You Missed It: Here’s a photo of Fernandina Beach City Commissioner and current Mayor Mike “Left Coast” Lednovich proudly marching downtown demonstrating his public support for Black Lives Matter (BLM), while at the same time that group was shooting and beating people, rioting, burning, and looting. That didn’t appear to bother the California transplant, who recently advocated banning smoking on the beaches here because he says, “smokers violate my rights.” He has never once mentioned the rights of BLM victims.
In this photo he’s wearing a “Fernandina Police” cap despite not being a Fernandina policeman. He’s also wearing a red clown nose but that’s self-evident.
My choice for Left Coast’s Seat 4 on the Commission is Chiropractor Dr. James Antun, who along with his Chiropractor wife, Jayde, owns and operates a medical clinic in Fernandina Beach and has suffered some of the same trials and tribulations at the hands of the city as other small businesspeople hereabouts. Lednovich has contributed nothing but whiney nonsense, insipid comments, misguided advice, and poor judgement. He’s never run a business here but says he has elsewhere, but I doubt it. He isn’t good at running anything but his mouth.
For the City Commission Seat 5, being vacated by Len Kreger, I’m casting my vote for local Firefighter Darron Ayscue, a life-long no-nonsense resident who understands the needs of the city and all of its residents, not just certain segments.
Electric Irony: An alert reader sent me the below photo he took Wednesday, September 28, of an electric car driver near Main Beach filling up eight jugs with gasoline. Florida Power & Light must have been busy bracing for Hurricane Ian as apparently she was unable to fill them with electricity.
Republished with the author’s permission. Read The Dave Scott Blog– subscribe Free
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
By Jeff Childers
09-30-22
Happy Friday C&C! In today’s hard-to-believe roundup: Hurricane Ian persists in infesting Florida’s EAST coast; updates from the bizarre satanist/cannibal pedophile ring in Utah; another outlandish story featuring a treasonous cross-dressing Army doctor and his treacherous Johns Hopkins wife; a jab-injured Canadian actress smuggles the truth out right under the guards’ noses; another Canadian actor has a SADS death; media outdoes itself in weather reporting; and the matrix glitched, badly, on The View.
🪖 ERRATA: Yesterday I mistook Hurricane Michael for Hurricane Irma, unfortunately undermining my otherwise excellent point about how memorable these storms are, but at the same time, if you think about it, totally supporting my point about how memorable these storms are.
🌪️ After disintegrating into a tropical storm and exiting Florida’s east coast into the Atlantic Ocean yesterday, Ian got its second wind — literally — and whirled up into a Category 1 hurricane again, giving Jacksonville and Fernandina Beach a hard time and heading for South Carolina’s coast. Meanwhile 2.6 million Floridians remain without power, and an unknown number are stranded in dire circumstances. I am researching a reliable relief operation that we can multiply, stand by.
Sky News @SkyNewsTwo people have been rescued from a sailboat in Fernandina Harbor, Florida, as dangerous Hurricane Ian descended on the state. More here: trib.al/fE4Oxgm
September 30th 202212 Retweets28 Likes
🍗 Wednesday, police arrested hypnosis/peyote ‘therapist’ David Hamblin in the bizarre Utah case that first clued me into corporate media’s infatuation with cannibalism.
Adam Herbets @AdamHerbetsBREAKING – @UCSO just arrested a suspect in ritualistic sex abuse case. This is David Hamblin’s previous mugshot. He’s a former therapist who lost his license. He previously confessed to rape but had all charges dropped. THREAD BELOW ⬇️ September 28th 2022240 Retweets590 Likes
In case you joined late, C&C reported back in July about a woke Utah County Attorney, David Leavitt, who’d called an impromptu press conference and made a, well, startling announcement, leading to this surreal headline:
Leavitt indignantly announced he’d found out he was the target of a “political hit job” by the Utah County Sheriff. Since April 2021, the Sheriff had been quietly investigating a large, three-decades-old pedophile ring, featuring cannibalism and occult (satanic) ritualistic worship. So the Sheriff’s Office issued a public statement calling for witnesses in three Utah counties.
It gets even murkier. News surfaced that Biden’s DOJ had abruptly pulled the plug on an ongoing federal investigation into alleged child cannibal Leavitt for pedophilic sex trafficking and abuse, and it looks like the Homeland Security investigator on the case, perhaps outraged at being suddenly and unexpectedly reassigned, may have ‘accidentally’ turned some of his files over to the Utah County Sheriff. Or maybe he’d been working with the Sheriff all along. Who knows?
As if the potential for deep-state involvement in the case weren’t crazy enough, Leavitt has also described himself as close friends and business associates with former Ukrainian president Victor Yuschenko, Zelensky’s hapless predecessor. What are the odds? Leavitt and Yuschenko were cooking up a deal to buy live buffaloes from the Nations at bulk rates and sell them to Ukraine, for some reason. That scheme connected County Attorney Leavitt with Chief Killsback of the Northern Cheyenne tribe, who — just before going to prison on unrelated fraud charges — helped Leavitt adopt an 8-year-old native girl. Leavitt allegedly gave the tribe an old car to cover his adoption fee.
I’m quite sure you guys think I make all this stuff up. But I couldn’t possibly make it up. Don’t be silly. This isn’t even the first time.
Several books down on my reading list is “The Franklin Scandal: A Story of Powerbrokers, Child Abuse & Betrayal,” about a similar investigation in Nebraska back in the 90’s, that proponents claim was ultimately squashed by powerful political forces. In the book’s introduction, the author says he made a short DVD to pitch the story to editors. In his words: “The DVD told the tale of a national pedophile network that pandered children to America’s power elite and also of its cover-up by state and federal law enforcement. The story was shocking and surreal, and it ran counter to everything that the editor had been taught to believe about America.”
The equally-bizarre Franklin story features a shady bank, Franklin Credit Union, a Catholic orphanage named Father Flanagan’s Boys Town, and a now-disgraced but then up-and-coming black Republican politician named Larry King, no relation to the famous pundit. The book describes a federal judge’s decision in a civil case against King, where after entering a one million dollar default judgment for the plaintiff, the judge wrote:
Wikipedia says two of the alleged victims-turned-witnesses were ultimately convicted of perjury, after a government investigation by Nebraska’s Division of Family Services determined that there was no basis for ANY of the testimonies of scores of witnesses and tons of inexplicable and unexplained ‘coincidences,’ and concluded the entire thing was completely made up. Boys Town’s wikipedia page does not mention the Franklin Scandal, at all.
So. I hope the Utah Sheriff knows what he’s up against.
🔥 In another bizarre story I can’t make up, yesterday Fort Bragg doctor Jamie Lee Henry — the Army’s first openly transgender officer — was indicted for … wait for it … trying to give American soldiers’ private medical information to Russia. According to prosecutors, last month the couple met with an undercover FBI agent posing as a Russian diplomat, and they offered to turn over medical information from their base, Fort Bragg, home of the military’s elite Delta Force.
Greg Price @greg_price11The Army’s first openly transgender officer was just indicted for trying to sell soldiers’ medical information to the Russians. First Openly Transgender Army Officer Indicted for Trying to Give Soldiers’ Medical Info to Russia – Washington Free BeaconThe Army’s first openly transgender officer was indicted Thursday on charges of trying to provide American soldiers’ medical information to the Russian government. A federal grand jury in Baltimore indicted Jamie Lee Henry and his wife, Anna Gabrielian, on charges of conspiracy and wrongful disclosu…freebeacon.comSeptember 29th 20223,775 Retweets8,732 Likes
According to prosecutors, Henry told the undercover agent he offered to join the Russian military after it invaded Ukraine, but was rejected, due to lack of combat experience. Uh huh. In other words, the Russians, who according to corporate media are even hiring prisoners and mental patients as soldiers, didn’t want the unattractive cross-dresser. For some reason. Henry also allegedly told the agent that he thinks “the United States is using Ukrainians as a proxy for their own hatred toward Russia.”
Henry’s wife, Anna Gabrielian, a Johns Hopkins University anesthesiologist, told an undercover agent during an August 17th meeting that “she was motivated by patriotism toward Russia to provide any assistance she could to Russia, even if it meant being fired or going to jail,” according to the indictment. Gabrielian gave the undercover agent medical information about the spouse of someone working in the Office of Naval Intelligence, and “highlighted” a medical issue that “Russia could exploit.”
Ironically, Henry was a minor corporate media darling while he was transition, and became an advocate for MEDICAL PRIVACY. He didn’t like everybody knowing about HIS private medical information.
For some reason that I can’t figure out, the two have only been indicted on charges of conspiracy and wrongful disclosure of individually identifiable health information. Seems like treason should be in there somewhere. People used to say, “if you love Russia so much, why don’t you move there?” Looks like Henry and Gabrielian took that sentiment to heart. Unfortunately for them, they shouldn’t have tried to take confidential military records along, or give them to fake Russian diplomats.
This is a terrific story about the FBI doing some excellent, effective work at protecting the U.S., but for some reason it was easier to find references to the story in foreign media.
LesÉtatsdesUnis @FrenchRicainLe major Jamie Lee Henry, sourire colgate et premier officier trans US Army, et son épouse, Dr Anna Gabrielian, accusés d’espionnage au profit de la Russie Ils ont tenté de vendre les dossiers médicaux des 52000 militaires de Fort Bragg, le QG des forces spéciales et delta ☠️ September 29th 20222 Retweets4 Likes
I don’t even know what to say about the trans angle, except that, if you put people with obvious mental illnesses in important jobs, bad things can happen. Don’t cancel me.
💉 Meet beautiful Canadian actress Jennifer Gibson:
Yesterday, Ms. Gibson, 45, posted a courageous but heartbreaking selfie video to her TikTok feed.
D. Scott @eclipsethis2003 @eclipsethis2003Canadian actress Jennifer Gibson. September 29th 20228,826 Retweets20,931 Likes
Like Justin Bieber, the actress now has partial facial paralysis from Bell’s Palsy, which according to Gibson started two weeks after she got her shot, which she says gave her a “rough go.”
Unfortunately people have focused on the latter part of her TikTok, wherein she shockingly claims that even if she’d known, she’d still have taken the vaccine because “this is what we have to do … to see people.” The Hot Takes see Gibson as a mindless drone, so jab happy that she doesn’t care if she loses her health and career over the chance to slurp up some more spike protein.
I can understand; people are shell-shocked and they aren’t looking closely. But Gibson ISN’T a mindless drone. She’s actually very clever. Her unimaginable statement that she’d take the shot again slipped her video past the censors, who just love that pioneering, stiff-upper-lip kind of spirit. But Jennifer won anyway. She beat them, she beat the censors. Badly.
The giveaway is in her brief explanation. You have to look at what she DIDN’T say. She did NOT follow the script. The script is, “I’m grateful for my shot’s protection, because I’m convinced it would have been worse.” Instead she said she would agree to take the shot and lose her career anyway because in Canada “this is what we have to do … to see people.”
THIS. “This” is what we have to do. To escape isolation. To escape solitary confinement.
“This” wasn’t referring to the shot. “This” referred to the blackmail. “This” referred to the coercion. “This” referred to having to make the Sophie’s Choice of destroying her health and career or getting out of government-imposed prison. In other words, “this” is what she was FORCED to do. Watch it again. You’ll see it.
For any sane person with a professional career in the media industry, where an attractive appearance is critical to their success — especially for women — going public with a video like this is incredibly brave. I am 100% convinced Gibson’s TikTok was a radical sneak attack on the vaccines; a cunning way to smuggle the truth out right under the noses of the prison guards.
I admire her greatly and pray she’ll have a full recovery.
💉 But Gibson’s Bells Palsy could have been worse. Last Friday, handsome Canadian “Heartland” and “American Gods” actor Robert Cormier, 33, died suddenly and unexpectedly. His obituary does not mention a cause of death.
Heartland @HeartlandOnCBCFor those of us who knew Robert Cormier and worked with him, he was a kind-hearted, talented actor. He was passionate about art and film. His legacy will live on in the upcoming season of CBC’s Heartland. We will be dedicating Heartland Season 16 in Robert’s honour. September 28th 2022109 Retweets891 Likes
Cormier’s obituary explained, “Robert was an athlete, an actor, and a great brother. He had a passion for helping others and was always looking to achieve more. He enjoyed movie nights with his family, and looked up greatly to his father.”
His sister told media that Cormier had died in the hospital after suffering injuries from “a fall.” She didn’t say what kind of fall. We note that falls can happen after heart attacks. Just saying.
In any event, Cormier’s passing is incredibly SADS.
🔥 The media continued its diligent project of destroying whatever credibility it has left in a variety of pitiful hurricane reports in the past couple days, like this pathetic nominee for worst actor:
Pelham @Resist_05Wait for it… watch the guy at the back calmly walk to his car. September 29th 202210,447 Retweets45,961 Likes
🔥 Sometimes the matrix glitches and the stage-managed narrative backfires. When earlier this week, The View welcomed giant puppet “Little Amal” to generate sympathy for illegal immigrants, they probably didn’t expect that the imagery would showcase a lifeless puppet whose every move is controlled by a pack of nameless handlers, towering over a faceless crowd of obedient mask wearers:
Déjà The View @dejatheviewpodnothing could have prepared me September 28th 202267 Retweets1,095 Likes
Genius! More like this, please.
Have a fabulous Friday, and I’ll meet you back here tomorrow for more.
C&C is moving the needle and changing minds. If you can, I could use your help getting the truth out and spreading optimism and hope: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/-learn-how-to-get-involved-
Twitter: @jchilders98
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The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
By Jeff Childers
09-29-22
Good morning, C&C Army. Two and a half million Floridians are out of power this morning, but not me. I am writing to you from North Central Florida, just now reaching peak winds, around 20-25 miles per hour, which means its weirdly cold outside and every tree in sight is writhing like an electric mixer.
But this is nothing compared to the 100+ mph winds that Southwest and Central Floridians experienced yesterday and throughout the night. Right before impact, Hurricane Ian’s track shifted south, and instead of hitting Tampa, it landed three hours’ drive time away, in the normally-idyllic Fort Meyers area, just south of Sarasota, and just north of Naples.
They didn’t have enough warning to prepare for a direct strike.
When the storm landed on Florida’s shores, it was practically a Category 5, only two or three miles an hour under the official definition. Fatalities are already reported in the hundreds.
As I write this, the storm has rampaged across nearly the entire width of the state. It took the long way, traveling diagonally northeast in a line across heavily-populated central Florida, and in two hours or so should dump itself into the Atlantic. It’s still a Category 1 hurricane, despite having been over land for so long. That almost never happens. The storms usually start unwinding as soon as the winds encounter the hard friction of dirt.
As a lifelong native Floridian, I have grown somewhat jaded when it comes to most hurricanes. Most hurricane seasons only produce two or three false alarms, where the weather channel desperately strives to win an Emmy, local reporters pretend to drown in puddles, and newbies descend on Publix and Home Depot like Old Testament locusts, turning the battery racks into little forests of empty pegs, and scouring the beverage aisle, leaving only empty shelves behind. Forget about trying to find diapers.
Meanwhile we natives, like the alligators, blink at all the commotion with gimlet eyes and swim quietly into the tall bushes. Haha, just kidding. It’s Florida! We’re ‘Florida man.’ We make snapchat videos showing off how unworried and defiant we are by bolting a barbecue grill onto the roof. Just in case we have to live up there for a while.
In other words, natives have time for hi-jinx because natives are ALWAYS ready for a hurricane. We don’t NEED to raid Home Depot. That’s for amateurs.
But natives and long-time Floridians know hurricanes can trick you. Some storms are just different. In 1992, I was in Miami as a presenter at a major tech conference the day before Hurricane Andrew deleted Homestead hamlet. I grumbled, but I evacuated; we all just knew. The turnpike was so congested with evacuees it took 16 hours to drive the five hours home. The widespread damage was so bad that, after the storm, my small-business clients in South Florida armed all their employees, and hired retired marines to protect their businesses from looters in the weeks after the storm.
Weeks.
In 2004, Florida had a tough hurricane season. Four major storms hit Florida that year. Hurricane Charlie, one of the strongest hurricanes to ever hit the United States, crawled up the middle of Florida until it got here, to Gainesville, where I live. During the tranquil ‘eye of the storm’ interlude, my wife and I sat on the front porch, cooling off and taking in the eerily quiet and amazingly fast cloud displays. The power had been out for hours and we’d just got our first baby to sleep in his crib.
Suddenly in the quiet afternoon we heard a booming CRACK! and then a vast noise and a rush of air just like a jet airplane makes when you’re standing next to it on the tarmac. I grabbed Michelle and shouted … something … probably “run!” … and we raced into the house a split second before a massive tree’s canopy crushed the porch, the chairs, and most of the roof on the front of the house. Michelle was freaking out.
I remember that I never saw it coming. All I can recall is a flat wall of green rushing towards us at around 100 mph. We were attacked, in our own home, by a water oak. The police report was priceless.
Like Andrew, Hurricane Charlie was one of those different kinds. We remember them all, every one. The last one was Hurricane Irma, which in 2017 turned Mexico Beach into a sandy patch.
It’s pretty clear Hurricane Ian will be scratched onto the Devil’s list of storms Floridians always remember and discuss for decades. Even now, as the storm is still blowing, everyone knows somebody in a hard-hit area. One of my best friends owns a place on Sanibel Island, which was smack dab in the middle of the crosshairs. Or maybe I should say, “owned.” (Fortunately he and his wife are out of town.)
The preparations for the massive relief efforts are already underway. Meanwhile, useless political types are already plotting how to use the storm to further their climate change agenda and slander the governor for his allegedly incompetent preparations and response. (He’s been doing terrific, by the way.)
But even now, as the massive storm polishes off its work, Florida’s natural defiance remains undamaged and untarnished. We’ve been through this before, many times. We will rebuild. We won’t be frightened off our beloved peninsula.
Writing this, it occurred to me that Florida’s defiance toward nature is part of our love for nature and the reason why Florida became the “Freest State” in the country during the pandemic. We stubbornly and doggedly insist on clawing our way back into nature’s bosom whenever she chucks us out. In other words, we don’t let anyone — not even nature — push us around. Not for long, anyway. We value independence and self-reliance, which you have to have sometimes, to live here and be happy.
The Governor even has a website where folks in the emergency zone who refused to evacuate can let the state know where they are.
In other words, the state’s evacuation order wasn’t MANDATORY. Not really. They let citizens decide for themselves. Even if we refused to leave, the state government will come help us out. You might agree with that policy or not, but the state of Florida respects our freedom, and doesn’t substitute its judgment for ours.
Here’s what the spirit of ‘dependence on government to save us from a pandemic’ has produced:
And this:
I humbly suggest to you that what the country needs right now, nay, what the world needs right now, is more of the courageous, tenacious, and defiant Spirit of Florida.
Hang in there! C&C’ers in hard-hit areas, help is on the way. Everyone else, stay safe and well and keep an eye on the skies. I’ll see you all tomorrow.
C&C is moving the needle and changing minds. If you can, I could use your help getting the truth out and spreading optimism and hope: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/-learn-how-to-get-involved-
Twitter: @jchilders98
Truth Social: @jchilders98
MeWe: mewe.com/i/coffee_and_covid.
C&C Swag! www.shopcoffeeandcovid.com
Emailed Daily Newsletter: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com
© 2022, Jeff Childers, all rights reserved
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
From Gov. DeSantis’ Office, 9-28-22
| TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Today, Governor Ron DeSantis has held two briefings on Hurricane Ian at the State Emergency Operations Center and delivered remarks while meeting with linemen in North Central Florida. Full remarks are available here, here, and here. Ian is currently a Category 4 hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 155 miles per hour, nearing a category 5. Because of the severity and devastation of this storm, Governor Ron DeSantis is requesting a Major Disaster declaration from President Biden for all 67 counties of the state. As part of this request, Governor DeSantis is also asking that President Biden approve a FEMA federal cost share of 60 percent for 45 days to support recovery efforts in the wake of Hurricane Ian. This FEMA funding would support debris removal and emergency protective measures (FEMA Categories A and B) to help counties that will be directly impacted by Hurricane Ian. The President has the authority to issue a waiver and increase the federal cost share for hurricane recovery. The approval of this funding has the potential to save Florida communities and the state hundreds of millions of dollars. FEMA Category A funds costs associated with the removal of debris following a storm. This includes wreckage produced while conducting emergency work, and anything that eliminates the immediate threat to lives or public health and safety. FEMA Category B funds emergency protective measures taken before, during and after a disaster. This includes warnings of risks and hazards, search and rescue efforts, emergency evacuations, food and water provisions at central distribution points and emergency mass care. Current Watches and Warnings in Effect: Hurricane Warnings: Pinellas, Hillsborough, Manatee, Sarasota, Charlotte, Lee, Collier, Hendry, Glades, Hardee, Desoto, Highlands, Okeechobee, Osceola, Polk, Lake, Orange, Seminole Tropical Storm Warnings: Monroe, Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach, Martin, St. Lucie, Indian River, Brevard, Volusia, Pasco, Hernando, Citrus, Levy, Dixie, Marion, Flagler, Putnam, St. Johns, Clay, Duval, coastal Nassau, coastal Taylor, coastal Jefferson, coastal Wakulla, coastal Franklin Tropical Storm Watches: Inland Nassau, Baker, Union, Bradford, Alachua, Gilchrist Tornado Watches: Brevard, Broward, Charlotte, Collier, Desoto, Glades, Hardee, Hendry, Highlands, Indian River, Lee, Manatee, Martin, Miami-Dade, Okeechobee, Orange, Osceola, Palm Beach, Polk, Sarasota, Seminole, St. Lucie State preparation and response efforts include: Florida Division of Emergency Management (FDEM) FDEM has compiled a Shelter in Place Survey to provide critical information to first responders during and after the anticipated landfall of Hurricane Ian. We are asking all individuals in the impact area of Hurricane Ian that made the decision to shelter in place complete the survey. Please visit FloridaDisaster.org/Info to find the Shelter in Place Survey.FDEM has activated the State Assistance Information Line (SAIL) to provide an additional resource for Floridians to receive up-to-date information regarding Hurricane Ian. Residents and visitors can call this toll-free hotline at 1-800-342-3557.FDEM Liaisons are being identified and deployed to counties to provide on-site response assistance and to conduct damage assessments after the storm.At the direction of FDEM Director and State Coordinating Officer Kevin Guthrie, an Incident Management Team (IMT) from Ohio is on-scene to ensure additional support for response and recovery efforts after the storm.FDEM is deploying several hundred shelter support staff to address staffing needs in counties that have opened their Special Needs hurricane shelters. Currently, more than 200 public shelters are open and available to impacted residents, with more than 50 of these being Special Needs Shelters.FDEM is leading the State Emergency Response Team (SERT) for the Hurricane Ian response, with more than 350 SERT members staffing the State Emergency Operations Center (SEOC).The Division has received nearly 1000 resource requests for Hurricane Ian and fulfilled. Over 800 of these requests are currently being processed and are either en route or being mobilized. This includes the coordination of resources such as: trucks of food and water, generators and water pumps.FDEM has loaded 360 trailers with over 3.5 million meals and over 1.8 million gallons of bottled water in preparation for distribution to impacted areas.Several hundred generators and pumps, in addition to debris equipment, have been staged for response and recovery efforts. 100,000 tarps to protect homes and allow more residents to stay at home rather than in a public shelter. Five Florida Urban Search and Rescue (USAR) Teams are activated and will be prepared to deploy to impacted areas. Federal USAR Teams from Virginia, Texas, Ohio and Indiana are on-scene and stand ready to assist in response and recovery efforts.FDEM is currently coordinating the provision of meals for first responders staged in Orange County.FDEM has begun setting up a Logistical Staging Area in Polk County and is identifying potential additional staging areas and points of distribution to ensure food and water are readily available if counties request it.FDEM is in constant communication with all 67 county emergency management offices and state agencies to coordinate protective actions and needed resources ahead of potential storm impacts.FDEM is coordinating with utilities to ensure crews are prepared to respond and restore power. Utility providers have more than 30,000 linemen staged and prepared for power restoration efforts. Florida National Guard A total of 5,000 Florida Guardsmen are being activated to State Active Duty and pre-positioned at armories across the state for Ian response operations. Up to 2,000 Guardsmen from Tennessee, Georgia and North Carolina are also being activated to assist.In addition, the Florida Guard has mobilized and is on standby with five Route Clearance Teams and Aviation assets.The Florida National Guard is well-equipped, with assets including high-wheeled vehicles, helicopters, boats, generators and more. Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) FDLE regional support and logistics teams throughout the state are preparing to deploy personnel and equipment for a ready response to the aftermath of the storm. FDLE has started pre-staging equipment and mobile command posts at strategic locations. Teams with chainsaws, tarps, and other supplies are assembling. Florida Department of Health (DOH) DOH and Agency for Health Care Administration have initiated Patient Movement Mission to support medical transport and evacuations of health care facilities. This mission is evacuating 15 hospitals in areas of anticipated landfall. DOH continues to assess and support any additional necessary evacuations.This mission also supports the evacuation of over 100 health care facilities. Over 400 ambulances, paratransit busses, and support vehicles are responding to areas of anticipated landfall. DOH has prepared for Special Needs Shelter operations to begin in areas of anticipated landfall. A press release has been deployed statewide for additional information on special needs shelters. The State Surgeon General has signed Emergency Order 22-001 waiving statutory procurement requirements to ensure DOH is able to deploy necessary action due to Hurricane Ian. This can be found here.The State Surgeon General has signed a letter to allow staff of the Department and Agency for Health Care Administration to travel past curfews across state lines to conduct any necessary health and safety actions. DOH has coordinated with the Office of Insurance Regulation to distribute an alert regarding permitted early prescription refills during a State of Emergency. This alert was sent to health insurers, managed care organizations, health entities, and licensed health care providers. The alert can be found here. DOH has coordinated with Federal partners to support the deployment of nearly 100 individuals through various health and medical teams. These teams stand ready in Orlando, Atlanta, and Warner Robbins Air Force Base in Georgia. DOH continues to coordinate across 67 county health departments on any necessary preparation resources, in coordination with county emergency managers. Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA) AHCA has activated reporting in the Health Facility Reporting System (HFRS) and is requesting all health care providers report their census, available beds, evacuation status and generator status information. This information allows AHCA to assist health care providers in transferring patients if needed and ensure health care providers in impacted areas have the necessary resources and adequate power.Patient Movement Mission (DOH 4052) is activated. This mission is a combined by AHCA, along with FHA, FHCA, LeadingAge, Florida Senior Living and Florida Assisted Living Associations.This mission also supports the evacuation of nearly 7,000 patients and residents from more than 150 health care facilities. AHCA sent a Medicaid Provider Alert outlining Key Medicaid Information for Fee-For-Service and Managed Care Providers during Hurricane Ian, this can be found here. AHCA has activated the Emergency Patient Look-Up System (E-PLUS). Special needs shelters for 16 counties are able to utilize the system to retrieve patient medical records. E-PLUS is also available to assist medical providers and emergency response personnel with locating missing or displaced persons after the storm.The State Surgeon General has signed a letter to allow staff of the Department and Agency for Health Care Administration to travel past curfews across state lines to conduct any necessary health and safety actions, this can be found here. 81.61% of all facilities have reported into the Health Facility Reporting System.AHCA has completed 343 onsite visits in Nursing Homes and ALFs that were previously identified as out of compliance with generator requirements. AHCA has identified Home Medical Equipment providers that can assist with supplying oxygen supplies to Special Needs Shelters.AHCA partnered with Florida Health Care Association and Florida Hospital Association to initiate statewide calls with long term care facilities and hospitals.As of yesterday, 100% of operating long-term care facilities have a generator on-site. The Generator Status Map for long-term care facilities is available here. Agency for Persons with Disabilities (APD) APD’s Tacachale Center in Gainesville, home to 242 residents, has enacted its Emergency Preparedness Plan. They have confirmed adequate food, water, medications, fuel, and other necessities.APD is hosting a virtual meeting daily with its partner associations to update them on storm activities and to offer assistance, if needed.99 APD-licensed group homes have evacuated to ensure client safety from Hurricane Ian.APD has developed and disseminated a curfew letter for Direct Support Professionals who will need to travel past curfews to provide necessary health care and personal supports to clients with developmental disabilities following the storm. Florida Department of Children and Families (DCF) DCF’s federal waiver request to release SNAP benefits early in preparation for Hurricane Ian was approved, and food assistance benefits were released on 9/27to Floridians that may be impacted by Hurricane Ian. More information here: ACCESS Florida – Florida Department of Children and Families (myflfamilies.com)Early Learning Coalitions have closed in the following counties: Bradford, Baker, Brevard, Broward, Citrus, Charlotte, Collier, DeSoto, Dixie, Duval, Flagler, Gilchrist, Glades, Hardee, Highlands, Hendry, Hernando, Hillsborough, Indian River, Lake, Lee, Levy, Martin, Manatee, Marion, Miami-Dade, Monroe, Nassau, Okeechobee, Orange, Osceola, Palm Beach, Pasco, Putnam, Pinellas, Polk, Sarasota, Seminole, Sumter, St. Johns, St. Lucie, Volusia. DCF is maintaining contact with contracted partners, including, Managing Entities, Community Based Care lead agencies, and child care providers to ensure Florida’s communities remain apprised of all storm updates. DCF is also ensuring all Mental Health Treatment Facilities and methadone treatment programs are prepared for the storm. Florida Department of Elder Affairs (DOEA) DOEA service providers around the state are in progress or have completed check-in and informational calls to their senior clients. Area Agencies on Aging that are expected to be impacted by Hurricane Ian have been distributing shelf-stable meals to their home delivery meal clients.Area Agencies on Aging in the affected areas are coordinating with other agencies to answer local Elder Helpline calls during power outages (1-800-96-ELDER). Florida Department of Veterans Affairs (FDVA) Veterans enrolled in VA Health Care in need of routine or urgent care services in the projected path of the storm can contact VA Health Connect, also known as the VISN 8 Clinical Contact Center, at 1-877-741-3400.The Bay Pines VA Healthcare System will close the following locations for in person and procedure appointments:C.W. Bill Young VA Medical Center: Monday, September 26 through Thursday, September 29. This closure extends to the Emergency Department.North Pinellas and St. Petersburg VA Clinics: Wednesday, September 28 and Thursday, September 29.Sarasota, Bradenton, and Port Charlotte VA Clinics: Wednesday, September 28. Florida Department of Education (DOE) Commissioner Manny Diaz, Jr. communicated to all Superintendents and College Presidents that the DOE stands ready to assist if needed before, during, and after the storm. The Florida Department of Education is consistently updating their website with school district closures, as well as State University System and Florida College System Closures.As of 10 a.m. closures have been announced in 59 school districts, 24 Florida College System institutions and 11 State Universities. For a full list of closures, visit fldoe.org/storminfo. Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) Floridians should stay indoors and stay off the roads. Bridges Bridges have been closed in Central Florida. The complete list of closures as of 12:00pm includes: Manatee County Bridge at S.R. 64 / Manatee Ave East Cortez Bridge Sarasota County John Ringling CausewayPinellas CountySunshine Skyway Bridge Tolls Tolls have now been suspended on roadways in Central Florida. The complete list of toll facilities include: SR 91 Turnpike Mainline from Osceola Parkway (MP249) north to I-75 SR 417 – Southern Connector Extension, Central Florida Greeneway and Seminole Expressway SR429 – Western Beltway SR429 – Wekiva Parkway SR408 – Holland East-West Expressway SR528 – Beachline Expressway SR414 – John Land Apopka Expressway SR538 – Poinciana Parkway SR453SR551 – Goldenrod Road ExtensionI-4 ExpressPolk Parkway in Polk CountySuncoast Parkway in Pasco, Hernando, and Citrus CountyVeterans Expressway, the I-4 Connector, and the Selmon Expressway in Hillsborough CountyPinellas Bayway and Sunshine Skyway Bridge in Pinellas CountyAlligator Alley in Collier and Broward Counties Updated toll suspension information, including those west coast roadways whose tolls have already been suspended, can be found at fdot.gov/IanTollSuspension Ports All ports currently have adequate fuel supplies and are staging appropriate measures to be well-positioned after the storm in order to quickly reinstate operations and keep fuel supplies moving.Ports that are currently closed: Port Tampa Bay, Port of St. Petersburg Seaport Manatee, Port of Fort Pierce, Port of Palm Beach, and Port of Key West Ports that are open while preparing for storm impacts: Port Everglades, PortMiami, Port Fernandina, JAXPORT (closure expected Wednesday) Port Canaveral (closure at midnight Tuesday) Port of Pensacola (with restrictions), Port Panama City, and Port St. Joe Airports Current status is listed below. While some facilities have scheduled closures, individual airlines may decide to cease flights earlier than that. Tampa International Airport will suspend operations at 5pm Tues September 27 St.Pete/Clearwater International Airport will close at 2pm Tues September 27 Sarasota Bradenton International Airport- Airport will close 8pm local Tuesday September 27 through 8pm Thursday September 29 Southwest Florida International Airport – All flight operations are cancelled at Southwest Florida International Airport for Wednesday, September 28. Many flights have also been cancelled for Thursday. Tallahassee International Airport- Currently open and continuing storm preparations Pensacola International Airport- Currently open and continuing storm preparations Punta Gorda Airport- Currently open and continuing storm preparationsOrlando International Airport- Closing Wednesday, September 28 at 10:30 amOrlando Sanford International Airport- Passenger terminal closing at 5pm. Airport Facility closing at 11PM. Flights on Wednesday and Thursday are cancelled Transit and Rail HART suspended transit service in Zones A and B at 9 p.m.HART, Pasco, and LeeTRAN suspended fares Transit agencies focused on life-sustaining trips Amtrak service cancelled south of Jax September 27-29 Regional Rail (Florida Central, Florida Midland, Florida Northern and Port Manatee Railroads) shut down operations beginning, September 27 at midnight. Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles (FLHSMV) The Florida Highway Patrol is assisting FDOT with bridge closures across impacted areas, including the Sunshine Skyway Bridge.FHP completed an escort of volunteer shelter workers convoying from out of state to Pinellas County to support sheltering efforts in Florida due to Hurricane Ian. FHP has deployed a mobile command center to the State Emergency operations Center to provide enhanced communication capabilities and additional resources.More than 1,700 sworn FHP members are ready to assist with enhanced evacuation and response efforts.FHP has activated 12-hour Alpha, Bravo shifts for more than 400 Troopers across Florida gulf coast.FHP has placed 330 Quick Reactionary Force troopers on standby, ready to move into affected areas quickly to provide immediate relief.FHP has strategically staged its fixed-wing aircraft to monitor traffic routes and to aid search and rescue and damage assessment efforts.FHP has placed its unmanned aerial vehicle teams on standby to assist in search and rescue and damage assessment efforts.FHP Regional Communications Centers are preparing to perform take-over services for other impacted FHP dispatch centers to ensure all state law enforcement officers continue to receive dispatch services.FHP is providing liaisons to affected county emergency operations centers. FHP encourages evacuating motorists to report disabled vehicles or dangerous driving conditions to *FHP (*347). FLHSMV driver license and motor vehicle service center closures can be found here.FLHSMV has issued Emergency Order 092422, which: Waives specific requirements for commercial motor vehicles providing emergency relief; and Waives the replacement fees for driver’s license and identification credentials, vehicle registrations and titles, vessel registrations and titles and temporary parking permits for impacted individuals. Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) 87 FWC officers and 1 vehicle and vessel mechanic are prepared to deploy following the storm’s passing, anticipated Thursday morning.15 FWC Special Operations Group officers from the Northwest Region are staged in Orlando with Urban Search and Rescue Teams for pre-landfall briefings and preparation for immediate insertion into the affected area following the storm’s passing. The FWC will be deploying 1 mobile command trailer and 2 BERG units to provide communications and operational support in the event lodging, power and water may not be available to responding units.FWC will be deploying more than 100 four-wheel drive vehicles, approximately 50 vessels of various drafts, ranging from airboats to shallow to large platform vessels.FWC responding officers have UTVs, ATVs, and swamp buggies for rough terrain and high-water response functions.30 FWC officers from the Northwest Region are standing by to augment the first wave of response units, with additional four-wheel drive vehicles, vessels, UTVs, ATVs and other equipment.Nearly 300 FWC patrol officers, including 30 SOG members, live and work in potentially affected areas. Following the storm’s passage, if personal circumstances permit, all will mobilize to assist the storm response effort. These assets include approximately 300 officers (30 SOG), approximately 300 four-wheel drive vehicles, approximately 250 vessels of various drafts and additional UTVs, swamp buggies, etc.Officers are preparing a variety of specialized equipment, including shallow draft boats, larger platform vessels, ATVs, airboats, and four-wheel drive vehicles to use in the response, and will likely stage Wednesday in safe locations, for immediate post-storm insertion. These assets do not include local FWC officers in potentially affected areas.FWC Aviation Section has readied all appropriate aircraft for deployment for EOC aerial assistance, reconnaissance, and post-storm damage assessments.FWC is directing the public to myfwc.com/notices/ for information about wildlife management areas, fish management areas, shooting ranges and FWC office closures due to the forecasted effects of Hurricane Ian. Florida Department of Economic Opportunity (DEO) DEO has activated the private sector hotline at 850-815-4925 from 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.DEO is working with its private-sector partners to provide updates on FloridaDisaster.biz/CurrentDisasterUpdates related to supply chain concerns, inventory storages of emergency supplies, and general concerns and priorities of the business community.Partners including Walmart and Publix have indicated that they are constantly bringing additional supplies into the state to restock inventory.VISIT Florida has activated Emergency Accommodations Portal at Expedia.com/Florida is being updated with the latest on available listings.Comcast has opened Xfinity WiFi hotspots in Central, North and Southwest Florida, and the Panhandle for Xfinity customers and non-customers to stay connected during and after the storm. Details are available at Florida.Comcast.com/2022/09/27/comcast-opens-free-xfinity-wifi-hotspot-network-as-hurricane-ian-approaches/.Lowe’s continues to have stores open in counties not directly impacted by Hurricane Ian to receive storm and recovery-related products, such as generators, plywood, and other materials. Additionally, 30 fuel trucks staged at Lowes store locations for re-entry after the storm.The Florida Restaurant and Lodging Association is getting the word out to lodging establishments to relax their pet policies and to share that there are still available hotels and other lodging available from Tallahassee to Pensacola and Palm Beach, Broward and Dade.As families evacuate and create their emergency plans ahead of Hurricane Ian, UHaul is offering 30 days of free storage and U-Box container usage at 43 Florida locations. Find additional information at www.uhaul.com/about/ listed under “Top Stories.”Private-sector partner, Uber, is offering round-trip rides to and from Southwest Florida shelter locations in counties listed at www.FloridaDisaster.org/PlanPrepare/Shelters. Riders can enter promotional code IANRELIEF in the app to redeem a free round-trip up to $30 each way. Rides must be requested to or from any state-approved evacuation shelter in Florida.DEO is working with business, industry, and economic development partners to distribute informative flyers about disaster preparation, response, and recovery.DEO has alerted the statewide Community Action Agency (CAA) Network to initiate disaster preparedness activities following the Emergency Order.DEO’s Secretary Dane Eagle distributed a memo on Tuesday, September 27, 2022, releasing $1.4 million in Low-Income Home Energy Assistant Program (LIHEAP) set-aside emergency funding for use by LIHEAP providers across the state to support preparedness activities such as transportation and temporary housing to preserve health and safety.DEO has closed its offices in Jacksonville, Orlando, and Ft. Lauderdale pursuant to local county government closures. While this may impact wait times, the Department is supporting the call lines with additional staff to support Floridians. The Tallahassee contact center will support all calls starting Wednesday, September 28, 2022; Floridians in need of support will receive assistance.DEO’s Rebuild Florida team is mobilizing construction teams to secure construction sites on in-progress Hurricane Michael and Hurricane Irma construction projects.Career centers in the following counties may experience temporary closures following county closure announcements: CareerSource Gulf CoastCareerSource Florida CrownCareerSource Northeast FloridaCareerSource North Central FloridaCareerSource Citrus Levy MarionCareerSource Flagler VolusiaCareerSource Central FloridaCareerSource BrevardCareerSource PinellasCareerSource Tampa BayCareerSource Pasco HernandoCareerSource PolkCareerSource SuncoastCareerSource Research CoastCareerSource Palm Beach CountyCareerSource Southwest Florida VISIT FLORIDA VISIT FLORIDA has activated its Emergency Accommodations Module on Expedia to provide real-time hotel availability and lodging resources for impacted Floridians and visitors. Florida Housing Finance Corporation (Florida Housing) Florida Housing has ensured that all current listings are up to date in the event that families need to quickly relocate at www.FloridaHousingSearch.org.Each SHIP office has an adopted disaster strategy that allows for assistance in the immediate aftermath of a declared disaster. Strategies may include temporary relocation and rental assistance, debris removal and short-term repairs to prevent further damage to the structure or to allow for occupancy until further repairs are made. Florida Lottery The Lottery’s Orlando District Office will be closed to employees and the public beginning Wednesday, September 28 until further notice.The Lottery’s Tampa and Fort Myers District Offices remain closed to employees and the public until further notice.Players are encouraged to visit www.flalottery.com for the most up-to-date information regarding Lottery office closures. Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation (DBPR) DBPR has published an emergency page at http://www.myfloridalicense.com/DBPR/emergency/ for the current status of DBPR office locations, executive orders, board meeting updates, and other resources related to Hurricane Ian. DBPR’s Division of Drugs, Devices and Cosmetics is coordinating with wholesale distributors of prescription drugs and medical gases to provide information and support relating to exceptions for the emergency distribution of these critical supplies where needed. Office of Insurance Regulation (OIR) OIR is coordinating with its regulated entities, including property and casualty insurers, to collect information on Hurricane Ian preparedness efforts and to ensure companies have all necessary resources to assist policyholders.OIR has updated its list of resources to assist Florida policyholders with their hurricane preparedness and response efforts. Florida Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) Following the issuance of the Governor’s Executive Order, DEP issued an Emergency Final Order waiving permitting requirements for the storage and processing of solid waste, including storm debris.DEP has also issued an Emergency Final Order to expedite necessary repair, replacement and restoration of structures, equipment, surface water management systems, works and other systems damaged by the storm.Inspectors completed pre-storm beach surveys in all shoreline counties.Hazardous Area Response Teams are preparing for potential assessment and deployment to impacted areas.All significant Hazardous Waste facilities within the affected counties have been contacted to ensure all pre-storm landfall preparations are being made.Florida state park closures can be found at www.floridastateparks.org/StormUpdates.Visitors with existing camping and cabin reservations at impacted parks will be notified of their reservation status.WaterTracker is active, DEP’s online portal for wastewater and drinking water facilities to report their operational status. Florida Department of Management Services (DMS) The Telecommunications Division is working with telecom partners to ensure that the state’s communications networks have redundancies and remain operations for first responders to respond to Floridians during the storm.State buildings in the following 25 counties are closed for Wednesday, September 28, 2022:AlachuaBradford BrevardBrowardCharlotteCitrusClayCollierDeSotoDuval FlaglerGladesHardeeHendryHernandoHighlandsHillsboroughIndian RiverLakeLeeLevyManateeMarionMartinMonroeNassau OkeechobeeOrangeOsceolaPalm BeachPascoPinellasPolkPutnamSarasotaSeminoleSt. JohnsSt. LucieSumterVolusia An updated list of state building closures can be found here and a news release can be found here. Florida DMS Emergency Information Hotline is 888-336-7345 and has been updated with these closures. Florida Department of Revenue Florida’s temporary licensing program, which allows exporters, petroleum carriers, and importers to request a temporary license during a disaster or declared state of emergency, has been activated. Applicants are not required to submit a fee, secure bonding, or undergo a background check if they apply for and receive a temporary license. Florida Department of Juvenile Justice (DJJ) DJJ facilities in the projected impacted areas have generators in the event of loss of power, and ensured food, medicine, and emergency supplies are stocked and ready. Florida Department of Corrections (FDC) All inmates housed in facilities impacted by Hurricane Ian are safe, secure and have ample food and water supplies. All institutions have back-up power generators in the event commercial power is lost. |
09-28-22
A Hurricane watch, storm surge and tropical storm watch has been issued for Nassau County incuding Amelia City, Fernandina Beach and Yulee. A Hurricane watch means hurricane force winds are possible somewhere within these areas within the next 48 hours.
Also, at eight A. M. Nassau ordered an evacuation of Zones A. Alpha and D. Delta. Storm-related questions, call 548-0900 or see www.OneNassau.com.
Nassau County has two shelters opening at 12:00 p.m. today. They are as follows:
Special Needs Shelter: Hilliard Middle Senior High
1 Flashes Drive
Hilliard, FL 32046
General Population and Pet Friendly: Callahan Middle School
450121 Old Dixie Highway
Callahan, FL 32033
If you are planning to go to the Special Needs Shelter, please ensure that you have completed the special needs registration through the Department of Health. They can be reached at 888-353-8387. You can also register online at https://snr.flhealthresponse.com/. If you have already registered, you will be contacted by
the Department of Health.
Everyone visiting a shelter should be prepared to bring:
• Personal identification including Photo ID, insurance card, emergency contacts and your primary care provider’s contact information
• Medical information including medications taken, dosage and doctor name/contact info
• Any prescription and/or over the counter medication that you may need
• Vital equipment for those who are electrically or oxygen dependent
• Food/snacks, particularly those with special dietary needs
• Bedding (sheets, blankets, pillows)
• Medications and copied of prescriptions
• Sanitary supplies (soap, shampoo, sanitizer, disinfecting wipes)
• Clothing
Bus routes/transportation has been established as follows:
If you need special accommodates to ride a bus, please call Emergency Management at (904) 548- 0910.
Please continue to remain vigilant and follow public safety announcements. They can be heard on NOAA Weather Radio; Local radio stations 89.9 FM, 104.5 FM and 690 AM; and local news stations Channels 4, 12, 30 and 47.
Information related to the storm can also be found at www.OneNassau.com. Follow Emergency Management on social media at www.facebook.com/NassauEM or at www.twitter.com/NassauEM.
If you have any questions, please contact Nassau County Emergency Management at (904) 548-0900.
By Jeff Childers
09-28-22
Good morning, and Happy Wednesday, C&C! It’s hurricane day in Florida, with Cat-4 Hurricane Ian’s landfall expected late this afternoon. So today’s your last guaranteed roundup, since the power might be off tomorrow: Biden offers words of encouragement for hurricane preparation and I roundup all the news about the Nordstream attacks.
🔥 The wife and I were reviewing our hurricane preplist yesterday and I couldn’t shake this nagging feeling that I was overlooking something. Something … important. Something big. What could it be? “Honey, what are we forgetting?” We had gas, batteries, water… Then I saw Joe Biden, emerging out of the Internet’s glowing mists, with a timely reminder:
Vaccination! The most important part of hurricane preparedness! Of COURSE. How could we have forgotten vaccination? We felt so stupid.
Well, SOMEBODY should feel that way. Here’s what Biden said, decide for yourself: “Let me be clear. If you’re in a state where hurricanes often strike like Florida or the Gulf Coast or into Texas, a vital part of preparing for hurricane season is to get vaccinated. Everything is more complicated if you’re not vaccinated in a hurricane or natural disaster hits,” Biden advised.*
Fortunately, Florida’s governor tweeted yesterday that the state will still help unvaccinated people like Michelle and me.
DeSantis War Room 🐳 @DeSantisWarRoomThis is a strange and puzzling assertion from @POTUS. Governor DeSantis and Florida’s world class emergency management & first responders are ready to help all Floridians impacted by #HurricaneIan, regardless of vaccination status. David Leatherwood 🇺🇸 @brokebackUSANo better way to prepare for a hurricane than to get vaccinated! https://t.co/fRg1ftCVL7September 27th 2022259 Retweets847 Likes
(* Biden said it last summer, but it was making the rounds yesterday and DeSantis’ office responded to it. So I thought it was fair game. He DID say it.)
🔥 It’s an international whodunit fraught with nuclear possibilities! Let’s do some sleuthing. It’s World War Clue.
The Crime: yesterday, deep in the Baltic Sea, in NATO-controlled waters, BOTH of Russias natural gas pipelines were blown up, at depths of 70-90 meters, or about 300 feet deep — far deeper than scuba divers can go. So far, nobody has taken credit for what is obviously a well-planned, perfectly-executed, deeply-resourced terrorist attack.
The depth of the attacks rules out any private actors. You need a submarine, or something like a submarine, to reach those depths. The depths help hide the attack, and make it hard to gather evidence to figure out who did it. The attacks’ depth also makes it hard to repair the pipelines. The explosions produced earth tremors up to 2.5 on the Richter scale, so we can safely assume the terrorists used military-grade weapons.
Let’s set up the board.
🔥 The Library: Nordstream 1 (NS1) is an existing pipeline providing Western Europe cheap Russian natural gas, cheaper than U.S. producers can provide. Germany in particular relies on NS1; one now-famous video shows President Trump trying to convince laughing Germans to buy U.S. natural gas, ironically arguing the Russians could cut off the supply in the event of war.
♟️ The Study: Nordstream 2 (NS2) is a new pipeline allowing Russia to send even cheaper gas to Western Europe, because the gas doesn’t go through Ukrainian or Polish territorial areas, so Russia would not have to pay transit fees to those countries. Russia just recently completed NS2 in the face of massive opposition from Ukraine, Poland and USA. U.S. sanctions have prevented the new pipeline from opening so far.
♟️ Mr. Green: Russia has recently been throttling back Europe’s NS1 gas supply, while telling the Europeans that it can immediately flood both pipelines if Germany will just drop its sanctions. Germany has been hedging its bets, keeping some options open, just in case, and maybe getting a little wobbly on the whole sanctions thing lately. The day before the attacks, Germans demanded an end to U.S. sanctions:
RadioGenova @RadioGenovaThousands of people in Gera in Germany against Olaf Scholz’s policy and the explosion of energy and gas prices. They demand an end to sanctions on Russia and the reopening of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline. Demonstrations also in other German cities but EU media censors them. September 26th 20226,035 Retweets13,026 Likes
Reuters reported about ten days ago that Putin invited Europe to solve its energy crisis by ignoring U.S. orders and opening up the NordStream 2 pipeline. “Just push the button and everything will get going,” Putin offered.
Kim Dotcom @KimDotcomThe sabotage of Nord Stream 1 and 2 targets the desire of Germany to negotiate peace with Russia in an effort to safe the German industry from total collapse. This goal to find a settlement is the reason why Germany is refusing to send Leopard II tanks etc. to Ukraine.September 28th 20222,811 Retweets9,097 Likes
♟️ Professor Plum and the Lead Pipe: Britain and its minehunters. About a month ago, the Defense Post ran an article headlined, “UK Donates Underwater Drones to Ukraine for Mine-Hunting.” Fascinating. The article explained the drones are remote-controlled, and can swim up to 100 meters (328 feet) deep — thirty feet deeper than the two explosions, in other words.
♟️ The Revolver: The New York Times. The day before the attacks on the pipelines, the Times ran a prominent op-ed titled, “Biden’s Cautious Foreign Policy is Imperiling the United States.” The op-ed encouraged a more direct, more forceful, more aggressive response to Russia; it argued that fears of World War III were overblown and were making Biden too timid.
♟️ Colonel Mustard: Joe Biden. I reviewed Biden’s twitter feed. Over the last two days, he’s rambled about climate change, Hurricane Ian, Social Security, and capitalism, but has said NOTHING about the Nordstream attacks. Which is odd, because you’d think the U.S. would want to distance itself from the terrorist attacks. The normal script writes itself: “While we strongly disagree with Russia’s illegal war in Ukraine, we also condemn the terrorist attack on its energy infrastructure in international waters, and we pledge our full support to help Russia identify and bring the perpetrators to justice.”
He might have just forgotten though. You know Joe.
Joe may or may not remember that, back in February, he smirkingly promised that “there will be no longer a Nordstream 2, we will bring an end to it … if Germany, uh, if Russia invades” Ukraine:
ABC News @ABCPres. Biden: “If Russia invades…then there will be no longer a Nord Stream 2. We will bring an end to it.” Reporter: “But how will you do that, exactly, since…the project is in Germany’s control?” Biden: “I promise you, we will be able to do that.” abcn.ws/3B5SScx
February 7th 20228,550 Retweets13,316 Likes
And, of course, Russia DID invade Ukraine, didn’t they? So…
♟️ Miss Scarlet: Around the same time as Biden’s comments, Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, who engineered the 2014 color revolution in Ukraine, and is all messed in with the Ukraine biolabs somehow, also threatened the pipeline:
Kim Dotcom @KimDotcomFrom the mouth of the 2014 Ukraine coup d’etat manager: “If Russia invades Ukraine >ONE WAY OR ANOTHER< North Steam 2 will not move forward. September 28th 2022905 Retweets2,320 Likes
Nuland’s statement proves it was a matter of U.S. policy, and not just something goofy that Joe said.
♟️ Mrs. Peacock: Ukraine. The day before the terrorist attacks, Russia completed a referendum which by all accounts just effectively transferred 20% of Ukraine’s territory to Russia, which would be comparable to Mexico annexing the states of Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico. Ukraine considers the referendums to be a sneaky trick, legalistic sleight-of-hand. But the same sleight-of-hand worked about ten years ago when Russia annexed Crimea.
Ukraine also now has those British mine-hunter drones that can go 330 feet deep. Those might really be dangerous if, say, Ukraine had a larger ally to help rig a couple mine-hunters for detonation, and point out exactly where the pipelines are.
It’s not a new idea. Back in 2015, the Pipeline Journal ran an article headlined, “Explosive-Laden Drone Found Near Nord Stream Pipeline.” The article said the Swedish military successfully cleared a remote operated vehicle (drone) rigged with explosives near the Nord Stream Natural Gas offshore pipeline system. The drone’s nation of origin was never determined, for some reason.
♟️ Mr. Black: Poland, which stands to lose substantial transit revenues it receives from Russia if Nordstream 2 goes live, encouraged the U.S. to destroy the pipeline last month. Poland’s president, Andrzej Duda, exhorted last month that “we cannot return to normal business with Russia… A change in policy in the West is not just a complete termination of Nord Stream 2, but also the liquidation, complete dismantling of this stream.”
Complete dismantling. Liquidation of the stream. Sounds about right. The pipes are full of water now, and last I checked, water was a liquid.
Poland has been hosting the U.S.’s most important military base, the base that is staging the American support in the Ukraine war. Right after the attack, influential Polish MEP and staunch U.S. ally Radek Sikorski thanked the United States, right over a picture of the attack:
Radek Sikorski MEP @radeksikorskiThank you, USA. September 27th 202211,760 Retweets37,863 Likes
🔥 Now that we have the board set up, let’s play the game. The Analysis:
🔎 CUI BONO? The first intellectual tool we’ll apply is ‘cui bono,’ or ‘who benefits?’ Let’s see:
Players Benefited: Ukraine, United States, UK, Poland, Biden (promise kept, allies pleased), Nuland (same), and the New York Times (Biden followed its op-ed advice).
Players Harmed: Russia, Germany, Putin, and the rest of Western Europe, whose energy prices are about to reach escape velocity.
(* There’s a goofy leftwing theory going around that Russia blew up its own super-expensive pipelines, in NATO-controlled waters, just to blame others. That’s dumb and it only reinforces the point that the attacks hurt Russia. And Russia hasn’t even blamed anybody yet. I bet they won’t. They’ll stick in the knife in the dark when nobody’s looking.)
🔎 ABILITY: Which players had the resources, access, and opportunity to carry out the crimes? The UK and the United States, without help. Ukraine could have helped, but could not have pulled off the job, not by itself.
🔎 PRIMACY AND RECENCY. Next, especially when dealing with an unclaimed terrorist attack, we must examine the timing. Is there anything significant about the date? Terrorists’ crimes don’t work if people can’t easily connect the dots. The Nordstream attacks came the day after Russia completed its referendums in Eastern Ukraine, and the day after widespread German demands to an end to sanctions. Also yesterday, quite fortuitously and coincidentally, Poland and Denmark opened their own brand-new underwater pipeline bringing Norwegian gas to the Netherlands and Europe.
Chancellery of the Prime Minister of Poland @PremierRP_en🎥The launching ceremony of the #BalticPipe gas pipeline with participation of PM @MorawieckiM, PM of Denmark Mette Frederiksen & @prezydentpl @AndrzejDuda. The Baltic Pipe is a strategic infrastructure project aimed at creating a new gas supply corridor on the European market. September 27th 202253 Retweets157 Likes
🔎 CORPORATE MEDIA: Corporate media’s narrative can tell us a lot. In this case, corporate media is downplaying its reporting of the attacks. The Wall Street Journal this morning doesn’t even have a headline article about them, relegating the story to a bullet sub-headline, which reads “Nord Stream Leaks Spur Scramble to Protect Europe’s Energy Infrastructure.”
Leaks! Haha. And that’s the Wall Street Journal.
Given all the facts, the players, and the weapons, what do you think? Who killed the Nordstream pipelines? Dog-faced pony soldiers?
🔥 We don’t know a lot yet, but one thing is certain. Russia will retaliate. It practically HAS TO, to discourage further attacks. Russia can do the same analysis that we can, much better in fact. There are even more public details that I left out due to space considerations, because they were redundant to what we already know. Details that Russia will certainly consider.
Whoever did it, the attacks were a gigantic, poorly-considered, reckless escalation. The U.S. and other countries (like Poland, see above) have their own vulnerable underwater assets. One in particular — the transatlantic Internet cable — seems like a very attractive target if Russia ever decides the U.S. was involved somehow.
Have a wonderful Wednesday, and Floridians, stay safe. I’ll see you tomorrow unless the power is out!
C&C is moving the needle and changing minds. If you can, I could use your help getting the truth out and spreading optimism and hope: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/-learn-how-to-get-involved-
Twitter: @jchilders98
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The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
By George Miller, 9-27-22
Frankly, we are confused by all the conflicting weather forecasts this week. One late Tuesday local weather forecast predicted 22 mph winds Thursday. Others predicted 35-70 MPH- or even knot- winds in FB.
Storm surge estimates ranged from 2-6 feet, on top of a 7.5 ft tide.
One thing most agreed on is that there will be LOTS of rain: 8-15 inches, meaning flooding.
Here’s one tropical storm warning:
One that’s likely understated:
Here’s the newest storm “cone” prediction we had as of publication time (source):
Wind: https://weather.com/safety/hurricane/news/2022-09-26-hurricane-ian-florida-tampa
Storm surge:
Wind
From Governor DeSantis’ Office, 9-27-22
| Governor Ron DeSantis Issues Updates on State Preparedness for Hurricane Ian |
| TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — This Afternoon, Governor Ron DeSantis issued updates on Hurricane Ian at the State Emergency Operations Center with Florida Division of Emergency Management Director Kevin Guthrie. Full remarks are available here. Ian became a Category 3 hurricane early this morning and is located in the southeastern Gulf of Mexico, roughly 180 miles south of Punta Gorda as of 8pm. Hurricane Ian will approach the southwest coast of Florida on Wednesday and storm impacts are expected to spread northward throughout the week. Mandatory Evacuation Orders have been issued for coastal communities, mobile homes and low-lying areas in the following counties: Charlotte Citrus Collier Hernando Hillsborough Lee Levy Manatee Pasco Pinellas Putnam Sarasota Current Watches and Warnings in Effect: A Hurricane Warning has been issued for west central Florida including Pinellas, Hillsborough, Manatee, Sarasota, Polk, Lake, Seminole, Orange, Osceola, Okeechobee, Hardee, Highlands, Desoto, Charlotte, Lee, Coastal Collier counties. A Hurricane Watch has been issued for Glades, Hendry, Inland Collier counties. Tropical Storm Warnings are in effect for Monroe, Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach, Inland Collier, Glades, Hendry, Highlands, Martin, St. Lucie, Indian River, Brevard, Pasco, Hernando, Citrus, Sumter, Levy, Dixie, Coastal Taylor, Coastal Jefferson, Coastal Wakulla, Coastal Franklin, Marion, Volusia, Flagler, St. Johns, Duval, Coastal Nassau, Clay, Putnam counties. Tropical Storm Watches have been issued for Inland Nassau, Baker, Union, Bradford, Alachua, Gilchrist counties. A Storm Surge Warning is in effect from Suwannee River southward to Flamingo, including Tampa Bay, Dry Tortugas, as well as from the Flagler/Volusia Line to the mouth of the St. Mary’s River. A Surge Warning is also in effect along the St. Johns River. State preparation and response efforts include: Florida Division of Emergency Management (FDEM) FDEM has activated the State Assistance Information Line (SAIL) to provide an additional resource for Floridians to receive up-to-date information regarding Hurricane Ian. Residents and visitors can call this toll-free hotline at 1-800-342-3557. FDEM Liaisons are being identified and deployed to counties to provide on-site response assistance and to conduct damage assessments after the storm. At the direction of FDEM Director and State Coordinating Officer Kevin Guthrie, an Incident Management Team (IMT) from Ohio is en route to Florida to ensure additional support for response and recovery efforts after the storm. FDEM is deploying several hundred shelter support staff to address staffing needs in counties that have opened their Special Needs hurricane shelters. FDEM is leading the State Emergency Response Team (SERT) for the Hurricane Ian response, with more than 350 SERT members staffing the State Emergency Operations Center (SEOC). The Division has received more than 600 resource requests for Hurricane Ian and fulfilled 495. Requests are currently being processed and are either en route or being mobilized. This includes the coordination of resources such as: trucks of food and water, generators and water pumps. 160 truckloads (85 loads of water and 75 loads of MREs) are ready to deploy, with some of this supply already en route to Hillsborough and Pinellas counties. Several hundred generators and pumps, in addition to debris equipment, have been staged for response and recovery efforts. 100,000 tarps to protect homes and allow more residents to stay at home rather than in a public shelter. Five Florida Urban Search and Rescue (USAR) Teams are activated, and will be prepared to deploy to impacted areas. Federal USAR Teams from Virginia, Texas and Indiana stand ready to assist in response and recovery efforts, and a federal USAR Team from Ohio is currently mobilizing. FDEM is currently coordinating the provision of meals for first responders staged in Orange County. FDEM has begun setting up a Logistical Staging Area in Polk County and is identifying potential additional staging areas and points of distribution to ensure food and water are readily available if counties request it. FDEM has loaded 360 trailers with over 2 million meals and over one million gallons of water in preparation for distribution to impacted areas. FDEM is in constant communication with all 67 county emergency management offices and state agencies to coordinate protective actions and needed resources ahead of potential storm impacts. FDEM is coordinating with utilities to ensure crews are prepared to respond and restore power. Utility providers have more than 30,000 linemen staged and prepared for power restoration efforts. Florida National Guard Following Governor DeSantis’ authorization, a total of 5,000 Florida Guardsmen are being activated to State Active Duty and pre-positioned at armories across the state for Tropical Storm Ian response operations. 2,000 Guardsmen from Tennessee, Georgia and North Carolina are also being activated to assist. In addition, the Florida Guard has mobilized and is on standby with five Route Clearance Teams and Aviation assets. The Florida National Guard is well-equipped, with assets including high-wheeled vehicles, helicopters, boats, generators and more. Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) In advance of Hurricane Ian, FDLE regional support and logistics teams throughout the state are preparing to deploy personnel and equipment for a ready response to the aftermath of the storm. FDLE has started pre-staging equipment and mobile command posts at strategic locations. Teams with chainsaws, tarps, and other supplies are assembling. Florida Department of Health (DOH) The Department and Agency for Health Care Administration have initiated Patient Movement Mission to support medical transport and evacuations of health care facilities. This mission is evacuating 15 hospitals in areas of anticipated landfall. The Department continues to assess and support any additional necessary evacuations. This mission also supports the evacuation of over 100 health care facilities. Nearly 400 ambulances, paratransit busses, and support vehicles are responding to areas of anticipated landfall. The Department has prepared for Special Needs Shelter operations to begin in areas of anticipated landfall. A press release has been deployed statewide for additional information on special needs shelters. The State Surgeon General has signed Emergency Order 22-001 waiving statutory procurement requirements to ensure the Department is able to deploy necessary action due to Hurricane Ian. This can be found here. The State Surgeon General has signed a letter to allow staff of the Department and Agency for Health Care Administration to travel past curfews across state lines to conduct any necessary health and safety actions. The Department has coordinated with the Office of Insurance Regulation to distribute an alert regarding permitted early prescription refills during a State of Emergency. This alert was sent to health insurers, managed care organizations, health entities, and licensed health care providers. The alert can be found here. The Department has coordinated with Federal partners to support the deployment of nearly 100 individuals through various health and medical teams. These teams stand ready in Orlando, Atlanta, and Warner Robbins Air Force Base in Georgia. The Florida Department of Health (Department) continues to coordinate across 67 county health departments on any necessary preparation resources, in coordination with county emergency managers. Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA) AHCA has activated reporting in the Health Facility Reporting System (HFRS) and is requesting all health care providers report their census, available beds, evacuation status and generator status information. This information allows AHCA to assist health care providers in transferring patients if needed and ensure health care providers in impacted areas have the necessary resources and adequate power. Patient Movement Mission (DOH 4052) is activated. This mission is a combined by AHCA, along with FHA, FHCA, LeadingAge, Florida Senior Living and Florida Assisted Living Associations. The Agency sent a Medicaid Provider Alert outlining Key Medicaid Information for Fee-For-Service and Managed Care Providers during Hurricane Ian, this can be found here. AHCA has activated the Emergency Patient Look-Up System (E-PLUS). Special needs shelters for 16 counties are able to utilize the system to retrieve patient medical records. E-PLUS is also available to assist medical providers and emergency response personnel with locating missing or displaced persons after the storm. The State Surgeon General has signed a letter to allow staff of the Department and Agency for Health Care Administration to travel past curfews across state lines to conduct any necessary health and safety actions, this can be found here. 80.13% of all facilities have reported into the Health Facility Reporting System. AHCA has completed 296 onsite visits in Nursing Homes and ALFs that were previously identified as out of compliance with generator requirements. AHCA is working to identify Home Medical Equipment providers that can assist with supplying oxygen supplies to Special Needs Shelters. The Agency will be partnering with Florida Health Care Association and Florida Hospital Association to initiate statewide calls with long term care facilities and hospitals. As of today, 100% of operating long-term care facilities have a generator on-site. The Generator Status Map for long-term care facilities is available here. Agency for Persons with Disabilities (APD) APD hosted a virtual meeting with its partner associations to update them on storm activities and to offer assistance, if needed. APD Regions have reached out to 2,135 group homes to ensure there are no unmet needs. In APD’s Suncoast Region, more than 50 group homes are in mandatory Evacuation Zones have enacted their Emergency Preparedness plans and are evacuating. Florida Department of Children and Families (DCF) Early Learning Coalitions have closed in the following counties: Hardee, DeSoto, Highlands, Charlotte, Hillsborough, Lee, Collier, Hendry, Glades, Manatee, Pasco, Hernando, Pinellas, Polk, and Sarasota. DCF has been working with contracted partners, including, Managing Entities, Community Based Care lead agencies, and child care providers to ensure Florida’s communities remain apprised of all storm updates and are making preparations for potential impacts. DCF is also ensuring all Mental Health Treatment Facilities and methadone treatment programs are prepared for the storm. DCF’s federal waiver request to release SNAP benefits early in preparation for Hurricane Ian was approved, and food assistance benefits will be released earlier than scheduled to Floridians that may be impacted by Hurricane Ian. More information here: ACCESS Florida – Florida Department of Children and Families (myflfamilies.com) Florida Department of Elder Affairs (DOEA) DOEA service providers around the state are in progress or have completed check-in and informational calls to their senior clients. Area Agencies on Aging that are expected to be impacted by Hurricane Ian have been distributing shelf-stable meals to their home delivery meal clients. Area Agencies on Aging in the affected areas are coordinating with other agencies to answer local Elder Helpline calls during power outages (1-800-96-ELDER). Florida Department of Veterans Affairs (FDVA) Veterans enrolled in VA Health Care in need of routine or urgent care services in the projected path of the storm can contact VA Health Connect, also known as the VISN 8 Clinical Contact Center, at 1-877-741-3400. The Bay Pines VA Healthcare System will close the following locations for in person and procedure appointments: C.W. Bill Young VA Medical Center: Monday, September 26 through Thursday, Sept. 29. This closure extends to the Emergency Department. North Pinellas and St. Petersburg VA Clinics: Wednesday, Sept. 28 and Thursday, September 29. Sarasota, Bradenton, and Port Charlotte VA Clinics: Wednesday, September 28. Florida Department of Education (DOE) Commissioner Manny Diaz, Jr. communicated to all Superintendents and College Presidents that the DOE stands ready to assist if needed before, during, and after the storm. The Florida Department of Education is consistently updating their website with school district closures, as well as State University System and Florida College System Closures. As of 4 p.m. closures have been announced in 56 school districts, 23 Florida College System institutions and 10 State Universities. For a full list of closures, visit fldoe.org/storminfo. State University System of Florida Florida Gulf Coast University: classes canceled Tuesday-Friday University of North Florida: classes canceled Wednesday-Friday Florida International University: classes canceled 5 pm Tuesday-Wednesday Florida Atlantic University: classes canceled 5 pm Tuesday-Wednesday Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) Tolls Tolls have now been suspended on roadways in Central Florida. The complete list of toll facilities include: 1. SR 91 Turnpike Mainline from Osceola Parkway (MP249) north to I-75 2. SR 417 – Southern Connector Extension, Central Florida Greeneway and Seminole Expressway 3. SR429 – Western Beltway 4. SR429 – Wekiva Parkway 5. SR408 – Holland East-West Expressway 6. SR528 – Beachline Expressway 7. SR414 – John Land Apopka Expressway 8. SR538 – Poinciana Parkway 9. SR453 10. SR551 – Goldenrod Road Extension 11. I-4 Express 12. Garcon Point Bridge in Santa Rosa County 13. Spence Parkway and Mid-Bay Bridge in Okaloosa County 14. Polk Parkway in Polk County 15. Suncoast Parkway in Pasco, Hernando, and Citrus County 16. Veterans Expressway, the I-4 Connector, and the Selmon Expressway in Hillsborough County 17. Pinellas Bayway and Sunshine Skyway Bridge in Pinellas County 18. Alligator Alley in Collier and Broward Counties Updated toll suspension information, including those west coast roadways whose tolls have already been suspended, can be found at fdot.gov/IanTollSuspension Emergency Shoulder Use Emergency Shoulder Use (ESU) has been implemented on the I-4 corridor to move people east. ESU is allowing motorists to use the left shoulder of I-4 from U.S. 41 to S.R. 417. The extra lane of travel adds capacity to move higher volumes of traffic and helps to increase traffic flow. A major benefit of ESU is that it keeps both directions of travel open. This allows us to get people out of the area, but still keep supplies and resources coming in. The endpoint of the ESU has been strategically determined given the access to other major connections such as S.R. 429 and S.R. 417 or continue on I-4 in the regular lanes. Ports: All ports currently have adequate fuel supplies and are staging appropriate measures to be well-positioned after the storm in order to quickly reinstate operations and keep fuel supplies moving. Ports that are currently closed: Port Tampa Bay, Port of St. Petersburg Seaport Manatee, Port of Fort Pierce, Port of Palm Beach, and Port of Key West Ports that are open while preparing for storm impacts: Port Everglades, PortMiami, Port Fernandina, JAXPORT (closure expected Wednesday) Port Canaveral (closure at midnight Tuesday) Port of Pensacola (with restrictions), Port Panama City, and Port St. Joe Airports: Current status is listed below. While some facilities have scheduled closures, individual airlines may decide to cease flights earlier than that. Tampa International Airport will suspend operations at 5pm Tues Sept 27 St.Pete/Clearwater International Airport will close at 2pm Tues Sept 27 Sarasota Bradenton International Airport- Airport will close 8pm local Tuesday Sept. 27 through 8pm Thursday Sept. 29 Southwest Florida International Airport – All flight operations are cancelled at Southwest Florida International Airport for Wednesday, Sept. 28. Many flights have also been cancelled for Thursday. Tallahassee International Airport- Currently open and continuing storm preparations Pensacola International Airport- Currently open and continuing storm preparations Punta Gorda Airport- Currently open and continuing storm preparations Orlando International Airport- Closing Wednesday, September 28 at 10:30 am Orlando Sanford International Airport- Passenger terminal closing at 5pm. Airport Facility closing at 11PM. Flights on Wednesday and Thursday are cancelled Transit and Rail HART suspending transit service in Zones A and B at 9 p.m. tonight, September 27 HART, Pasco, and LeeTRAN suspended fares Transit agencies focused on life-sustaining trips Amtrak service cancelled south of Jax September 27-29 Regional Rail (Florida Central, Florida Midland, Florida Northern and Port Manatee Railroads) will shut down operations beginning today, September 27 at midnight. Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles (FLHSMV) The Florida Highway Patrol is assisting FDOT with limited Emergency Shoulder Use on Interstate 4 from the 3-mile marker in Hillsborough County to the 63-mile marker in Osceola County to increase traffic capacity for evacuating motorists. FHP has deployed an unmanned aerial vehicle team to augment traffic monitoring and traffic control for limited Emergency Shoulder Use. FHP reminds motorists to only use the shoulder when directed by law enforcement and highway signs and to use extreme caution when driving on the shoulder. FHP personnel, along with local first responders, continue to assist in evacuation efforts, including door-to-door notification of Cedar Key residents. More than 1,700 sworn FHP members are ready to assist with enhanced evacuation and response efforts. FHP is activating 12-hour Alpha, Bravo shifts for approximately 340 Troopers in Troop C (Tampa) and Troop F (Sarasota), Troop B (Gainesville) in response to Hurricane Ian. FHP has deployed troopers along major roadways to assist with traffic control and evacuation efforts. FHP has placed 330 Quick Reactionary Force troopers on standby, ready to move into affected areas quickly to provide immediate relief. FHP has strategically staged its fixed-wing aircraft to monitor traffic routes and to aid search and rescue and damage assessment efforts. FHP has placed its unmanned aerial vehicle teams on standby to assist in search and rescue and damage assessment efforts. FHP Regional Communications Centers are preparing to perform take-over services for other impacted FHP dispatch centers to ensure all state law enforcement officers continue to receive dispatch services. FHP is providing liaisons to affected county emergency operations centers. FHP encourages evacuating motorists to report disabled vehicles or dangerous driving conditions to *FHP (*347). FLHSMV driver license and motor vehicle service center closures can be found here. FLHSMV has issued Emergency Order 092422, which: Waives specific requirements for commercial motor vehicles providing emergency relief; and Waives the replacement fees for driver’s license and identification credentials, vehicle registrations and titles, vessel registrations and titles and temporary parking permits for impacted individuals. \ Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) 15 FWC Special Operations Group officers from the Northwest Region are enroute to Orlando to rendezvous with Urban Search and Rescue Teams for pre-landfall briefings and preparation for insertion into the affected area following Hurricane Ian’s passing. Response teams from areas anticipated to be minimally affected by Hurricane Ian have been identified and are readying for deployment. Officers are preparing a variety of specialized equipment, including shallow draft boats, larger platform vessels, ATVs, airboats, and four-wheel drive vehicles to use in the response, and will likely stage Wednesday in safe locations, for immediate post-storm insertion. These assets do not include local FWC officers in potentially affected areas. FWC Aviation Section has readied all appropriate aircraft for deployment for EOC aerial assistance, reconnaissance, and post-storm damage assessments. FWC is directing the public to myfwc.com/notices/ for information about wildlife management areas, fish management areas, shooting ranges and FWC office closures due to the forecasted effects of Hurricane Ian. Florida Department of Economic Opportunity (DEO) DEO has activated the private sector hotline at 850-815-4925 from 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., Eastern Time. Inquiries may also be emailed to [email protected]. DEO hosts an Emergency Support Function (ESF) 18 private-sector call each day at 1:30 p.m., Eastern Time, at 888-585-9008. The participant code to join the call is 753 329 128. DEO is working with its private-sector partners to provide updates on FloridaDisaster.biz related to supply chain concerns, inventory storages of emergency supplies, and general concerns and priorities of the business community. Partners including Walmart and Publix have indicated that they are constantly bringing additional supplies into the state to restock inventory. DEO is updating www.FloridaDisaster.biz with real-time information for business owners to prepare their businesses, families, and employees for Hurricane Ian. Private-sector partner, Uber, is offering round-trip rides to and from Southwest Florida shelter locations in Hillsborough, Pinellas, Manatee, Lee, Charlotte, Sarasota, and Pasco counties listed at www.FloridaDisaster.org. Riders can enter promotional code IANRELIEF in the app to redeem a free round-trip up to $30 each way. Rides must be requested to or from any state-approved evacuation shelter in Florida. Homeowner Assistance Fund in-person Customer Assistance Centers closed today, September 27, 2022, at 1:00 p.m. Applicants in need of assistance may contact the HAF Customer Assistance Center at 833-987-8997. DEO is working with business, industry, and economic development partners to distribute informative flyers about disaster preparation, response, and recovery. DEO has alerted the statewide Community Action Agency (CAA) Network to initiate disaster preparedness activities following the Emergency Order. DEO will release $1.4 million in Low Income Home Energy Assistant Program (LIHEAP) set-aside emergency funding for use by LIHEAP providers across the state to support preparedness activities. DEO’s Rebuild Florida team is mobilizing construction teams to secure construction sites on in-progress Hurricane Michael and Hurricane Irma construction projects. DEO is preparing to administer the Disaster Unemployment Assistance Program. DEO is working with the Local Workforce Development Boards in the impacted areas to administer the Dislocated Worker Grant Program and provide mobile services, if required, as well as monitor office closures. Career centers in the following counties may experience temporary closures following county closure announcements: CareerSource Northeast Florida CareerSource North Central Florida CareerSource Citrus Levy Marion CareerSource Flagler Volusia CareerSource Central Florida CareerSource Brevard CareerSource Pinellas CareerSource Tampa Bay CareerSource Pasco Hernando CareerSource Polk CareerSource Suncoast CareerSource Research Coast CareerSource Palm Beach County CareerSource Southwest Florida VISIT FLORIDA VISIT FLORIDA has activated its Emergency Accommodations Module on Expedia to provide real-time hotel availability and lodging resources for impacted Floridians and visitors. Florida Housing Finance Corporation (Florida Housing) Florida Housing has ensured that all current listings are up to date in the event that families need to quickly relocate at www.FloridaHousingSearch.org. Each SHIP office has an adopted disaster strategy that allows for assistance in the immediate aftermath of a declared disaster. Strategies may include temporary relocation and rental assistance, debris removal and short-term repairs to prevent further damage to the structure or to allow for occupancy until further repairs are made. Florida Lottery The Lottery’s Orlando District Office will be closed to employees and the public beginning Wednesday, September 28 until further notice. The Lottery’s Tampa and Fort Myers District Offices remain closed to employees and the public until further notice. Players are encouraged to visit www.flalottery.com for the most up-to-date information regarding Lottery office closures. Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation (DBPR) DBPR has published an emergency page at http://myfloridalicense.com/emergency for the current status of DBPR office locations, executive orders, board meeting updates, and other resources related to Hurricane Ian. DBPR’s Division of Drugs, Devices and Cosmetics is coordinating with wholesale distributors of prescription drugs and medical gases to provide information and support relating to exceptions for the emergency distribution of these critical supplies where needed. Florida Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) National Estuarine Research Reserve and Aquatic Preserve closures can be found at https://floridadep.gov/rcp/aquatic-preserve. Following the issuance of the Governor’s Executive Order, DEP issued an Emergency Final Order waiving permitting requirements for the storage and processing of solid waste, including storm debris. DEP has also issued an Emergency Final Order to expedite necessary repair, replacement and restoration of structures, equipment, surface water management systems, works and other systems damaged by the storm. Inspectors completed pre-storm beach surveys in all shoreline counties. Hazardous Area Response Teams are preparing for potential assessment and deployment to impacted areas. All significant Hazardous Waste facilities within the affected counties have been contacted to ensure all pre-storm landfall preparations are being made. Florida state park closures can be found at www.floridastateparks.org/StormUpdates. Visitors with existing camping and cabin reservations at impacted parks will be notified of their reservation status. WaterTracker is active, DEP’s online portal for wastewater and drinking water facilities to report their operational status. Florida Department of Management Services (DMS) The Telecommunications Division is working with telecom partners to ensure that the state’s communications networks have redundancies and remain operations for first responders to respond to Floridians during the storm. State buildings in the following 25 counties are closed for Wednesday, September 28, 2022: Alachua Bradford Brevard Broward Charlotte Citrus Clay Collier DeSoto Duval Flagler Glades Hardee Hendry Hernando Highlands Hillsborough Indian River Lake Lee Levy Manatee Marion Martin Monroe Okeechobee Orange Osceola Palm Beach Pasco Pinellas Polk Putnam Sarasota Seminole St. Johns St. Lucie Sumter Volusia An updated list of state building closures can be found here. Florida DMS Emergency Information Hotline is 888-336-7345. Florida Department of Revenue Florida’s temporary licensing program, which allows exporters, petroleum carriers, and importers to request a temporary license during a disaster or declared state of emergency, has been activated. Applicants are not required to submit a fee, secure bonding, or undergo a background check if they apply for and receive a temporary license. Florida Department of Juvenile Justice (DJJ) DJJ facilities in the projected impacted areas have finalized storm preparations including having generators in the event of loss of power, and ensuring food, medicine, and emergency supplies are stocked and ready. |
By Michael Hernandez, 9-26-22
KINTNERVILLE, PENNSLYVANIA—American Center for Law and Justice Senior Counsel Andy Ekonomu called the FBI Friday (Sept. 23) home raid of pro-life activist Mark Houck “against all legal, moral authority of God.” Houck is the founder and president of The King’s Men, which promotes healing for victims of pornography addiction and promotes Christian virtues among men in the United States and Europe.
Houck, 48, was arrested Friday morning by a team of at least two dozen FBI agents who had guns drawn at his residence in a small unincorporated community of Kintnerville, population 3,000 in Bucks County, approximately 42 miles from Philadelphia. His crime according to the FBI’s warrant: was violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, FACE (which protects Planned Parenthood abortion clinics) and an alleged “attack of a patient escort.”
However, the facts of this incident go back to last October according to ACLJ Senior Counsel CeCe Heil to an incident where Houck was protecting his son from a Planned Parenthood escort in a case that was reviewed by local police, a District Attorney and then went to a civil case and dropped prior to the Department of Justice and the FBI deciding to come to the defense of abortion activists and reactivate the case with criminal proceedings in a federal court. Houck faces a maximum sentence of criminal charges that could put him in jail for up to 11 years with three years of supervised release and fines of up to $350,000.
During Monday’s broadcast of the ACLJ radio show heard and seen throughout the nation, Chief Counsel Jay Sekulow said that the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances requires blockage of a Planned Parenthood facility which did not happen as the father of seven tried to protect his son who was with him at a pro-life sidewalk protest last October. (Editor’s Note: To hear the ACLJ broadcast go to:
https://aclj.org/pro-life/fbi-raids-continue-pro-life-activist-arrested.)
Mark’s wife, Ryan-Marie, a homeschooling mom with seven children, told LifeSite News, “when he opened the door, ‘they had big, huge rifles pointed at Mark and pointed at me and kind of pointed throughout the house.’ When they came in, they ordered the kids to stay upstairs. “Our staircase is open, so (the kids) were at the top of the stairs which faces the front door, and I was on the stairs as well, coming down. The kids were all just screaming. It was all just very scary and traumatic.’ After asking them why they were at the house, the agents said they were there to arrest Mark. When Ryan-Marie asked for their warrant, ‘they said that they were going to take him whether they had a warrant or not.’
When Ryan-Marie protested, saying that is kidnapping, ‘you can’t just come to a person’s house and kidnap them at gunpoint,’ they agreed to get the warrant for her from one of their vehicles.
ACLJ Chief Counsel Jay Sekulow called this latest action of the Department of Justice and the FBI “the weaponizing of our institutions” while Executive Director Jordan Sekulow said: “you’re not going to shut up…they don’t realize that pro-life protestors are non-violent and they don’t give up.”
According to Andy Ekonomu: “This is the politicization of the FBI and our government to further a political agenda. These are policy decisions and not law. This is aimed at stifling pro-life activists. (They want to send a message: we’re) going to come after you with guns blazing in a criminal fashion.”
“They shackled him and took him away,” said Jay Sekulow. “Our job as lawyers is to not let these injustices go away without some reckoning in the legal system.”
As of Monday noon (Sept. 26), an online fund drive had raised over $188,000 on a GiveSendGo Pro-Life account to Support the Houck Family with legal costs.
(Editor: To see three related articles on the pro-life fight in LifeSiteNews go to:
https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/biden-and-the-democrats-have-declared-war-on-christians/
(Michael Hernandez, co-founder of the Citizens Journal—Ventura County’s online news service is a former Southern California daily newspaper journalist and religion and news editor. Mr. Hernandez can be contacted at [email protected] and is editor of “America: The End and Our Hope”.)
From Nassau Emergency Management, 9-26-22
Mission: Helping the whole community
before, during, and after disasters.
Vision: A county that is aware, prepared,
and resilient to all hazards.
Tim Cooper- Director of Emergency Management
Bill Leeper- Nassau County Sheriff
Nassau County Emergency Operations Center
77150 Citizens Circle • Yulee, FL 32097
EOC Joint Information Center # 904-548-0900
E-mail: [email protected]
Website: www.OneNassau.com
Facebook & Twitter @NassauEM
September 26, 2022
Monitoring Hurricane Ian and Availability of Sandbags
Nassau County is continuing to monitor Hurricane Ian. While it’s still too early to determine the exact impacts of the storm locally, preparations are taking place to ensure we are ready. At a minimal, Nassau County is expected to receive heavy rains and flooding.
Nassau County residents living in low-lying and/or flood prone areas should begin preparing
now. The County will have sandbags available at two locations:
• Yulee Road Department: 86200 Gene Lasserre Boulevard, Yulee, FL 32097
• Hilliard Road Department: 37356 Pea Farm Road, Hilliard, FL 32046
Both sites will be open beginning at 12:30 p.m. today and will close at 7:00 p.m. tonight.
Following today, sites will be open from 7:00 a.m. – 7:00 p.m. until further notice.
Hundreds of bags are pre-filled and available on a first come, first served basis. Once the prefilled bags are gone, residents will need to fill their own bags. Please bring a shovel. Must provide proof of residency.
If you have any questions, please contact Nassau County Emergency Management at (904) 548-0900.
All updates and information related to the storm can be found at www.OneNassau.com.
Follow Emergency Management on social media at www.facebook.com/NassauEM or at
www.twitter.com/NassauEM.
From Governor DeSantis’ Office
Updated 9-27-22
Good Afternoon,
Today, Governor Ron DeSantis issued Executive Order 22-219 (Amending Executive Order 22-218, Emergency Management – Tropical Depression Nine), expanding the state of emergency statewide.
On September 23, 2022, Tropical Depression Nine strengthened into Tropical Storm Ian, with maximum sustained winds of 40 miles per hour. The threat posed by Tropical Storm Ian requires that timely precautions are taken to protect the communities, infrastructure, and general welfare of Florida.
A copy of Executive order 22-219 can be found here.
Sincerely,
Taryn Fenske
Director of Communications
Governor Ron DeSantis
STATE OF FLORIDA
OFFICE OF THE GOVERNOR
EXECUTIVE ORDER NUMBER 22-219
(Amending Executive Order 22-218, Emergency Management – Tropical Depression Nine)
WHEREAS, on September 23, 2022, I issued Executive Order 22-218 and declared a state of emergency exists for several counties in Florida’s Peninsula and the Florida Keys due to Tropical Depression Nine; and
WHEREAS, as of 11:00 PM EDT on September 23, 2022, Tropical Depression Nine strengthened into Tropical Storm Ian, with maximum sustained winds of 40 miles per hour; and
WHEREAS, as of 8:00 AM EDT on September 24, 2022, Tropical Storm Ian was approximately 855 miles southwest of Key West, Florida; and
WHEREAS, Tropical Storm Ian is forecasted to become a major hurricane before making landfall along Florida’s West Coast; and
WHEREAS, the Florida Division of Emergency Management, working together with the National Hurricane Center to evaluate weather predictions, has determined there is a continuing risk of dangerous storm surge, heavy rainfall, flash flooding, strong winds, hazardous seas, and isolated tornadic activity for Florida’s Peninsula and portions of the Florida Big Bend, North Florida, and Northeast Florida; and
WHEREAS, the threat posed by Tropical Storm Ian requires that timely precautions are taken to protect the communities, critical infrastructure, and general welfare of Florida; and
WHEREAS, as Governor, I am responsible to meet the dangers presented to Florida and its people by this emergency.
NOW, THEREFORE, I, Ron DeSantis, as Governor of Florida, by virtue of the authority vested in me by Article IV, Section 1(a) of the Florida Constitution and by the Florida Emergency Management Act, as amended, and all other applicable laws, promulgate the following Executive Order, to take immediate effect:
Section 1. Section 1 of Executive Order 22-218 is amended to read as follows:
Because of the foregoing conditions, which are projected to constitute a major disaster, I declare a state of emergency exists in the State of Florida.
Section 2. Except as amended herein, Executive Order 22-218 is ratified and reaffirmed.
Section 3. This Executive Order is effective immediately and shall expire upon the expiration of Executive Order 22-218.
IN TESTIMONY WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Great Seal of the State of Florida to be affixed, at Tallahassee, this 24th day of September, 2022.
More info on Ian
9-26-22
As of 9-25-22
| Tropical Weather Outlook Text | Tropical Weather Discussion |
ZCZC MIATWOAT ALL TTAA00 KNHC DDHHMM Tropical Weather Outlook NWS National Hurricane Center Miami FL 200 AM EDT Sun Sep 25 2022 For the North Atlantic...Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico: Active Systems: The National Hurricane Center is issuing advisories on Tropical Storm Ian, located over the western Caribbean Sea, on Tropical Storm Gaston, located near the western Azores, and on Tropical Depression Hermine, located over the far eastern Atlantic. 1. Central Tropical Atlantic: An area of low pressure located several hundred miles west of the Cabo Verde Islands is producing minimal shower activity. Any development of this system should be slow to occur while it moves very little through the early portion of next week. Environmental conditions could become marginally more conducive for development by the middle portion of next week, when the system is forecast to begin moving slowly northward. * Formation chance through 48 hours...low...10 percent. * Formation chance through 5 days...low...20 percent. Forecaster Beven
Also
By Jeff Childers
09-24-22
Good morning, C&C, welcome to the weekend edition! Today’s roundup includes: connecting the dots about the Russian referendums in occupied Ukrainian territories; connecting the dots about the new Iranian “Jane Floyd” protests; and connecting the dots between more bad news for jabs and unexpectedly poor jab uptake.
🚀 Russia is already holding referendums in the occupied territories of Ukraine, which make up about 20% of the country. There are only two boxes on each ballot: a box to join Russia and a box to remain in Ukraine. Depending on which ‘side’ you are on, the referendum is either a shining example of democratic self-determination, or it’s a disgusting travesty of a sham election. In fact, the Economist’s story about the referendum this morning even has the word ‘sham’ right in the headline:
I won’t list all the various elections issues Remainers are rightfully complaining about, there are a lot. But one is that the election is being run by armed Russian soldiers, which might tend to depress the Remain vote for some reason. And the election’s lightning speed leaves no time for campaigning, education, or even any real discussion. Just hurry up and vote! Third, Remainers validly complain that many pro-Remain voters fled when the Russians occupied the zone, reducing their voting bloc.
On the other hand, the Russians appear to be making every effort to be transparent; for example, the soldier/proctors clearly don’t object to being recorded on video, and — from what I can tell — citizens are even being allowed to record video INSIDE polling locations, which you can’t do in Florida. I have seen no complaints about cheating or backdoor ballot deliveries or secret suitcases of ballots under tables.
Even better, they aren’t using machines. No electronics. It’s just paper. I wish America would go back to paper. The machines are a problem.
Remainers in the occupied territories also have understandable gripes about the legitimacy of the vote in general. To them, it probably feels a lot like it would feel here if the Mexican cartels held a “referendum” in South Texas about whether a bunch of Texas counties should join Mexico. Um, problem.
On the other hand, the referendum would have no chance at all if there weren’t a large group of Ukrainians in the territories, obviously profoundly unhappy with their existing government, who clearly prefer to live under Russian rule. It might even be a majority; there’s no way to tell now.
Pro-Ukraine Remainers are allowed to protest and rally:
The Kyiv Independent @KyivIndependent“Snihurivka has always been and will be Ukraine. We never wanted and will not want to join Russia,” said residents of occupied Snihurivka at a protest against the pseudo-referendum organized by Russia’s proxies in Mykolaiv Oblast. Media: People rally against sham referendum in occupied Snihurivka, Mykolaiv OblastResidents of the occupied village of Snihurivka have gathered for a protest against the pseudo-referendum organized by Russia’s proxies in Mykolaiv Oblast, local news outlet Prestupnosti Net reported on Sept. 23. “Snihurivka has always been and will be Ukraine. We neverkyivindependent.comSeptember 23rd 2022723 Retweets4,149 Likes
Pro-Russia voters seem happy to vote to leave Ukraine:
AZ 🛰🌏🌍🌎 @AZmilitary1🇷🇺🇺🇦People started voting in Kherson,there are lot of them,but this referendum is not valid for the West since their will is not their “democractic choice” here September 23rd 2022334 Retweets969 Likes
Maybe even a whole LOT of them:
Fiorella Isabel @FiorellaIsabelMMass rallies with thousands in attendance are happening throughout Russia today in support of referendums in the liberated territories. Many Russians support the decision of the DPR, LPR, Kherson and Zaporozhye regions to become part of the federation. September 23rd 2022532 Retweets1,410 Likes
And the Russians may have invited foreign observers to monitor the fairness of the elections:
🇷🇺Ghost of kherson🇷🇺 @ILRUSSO1⚡⚡⚡The foreign observer (French) controls the smooth running of the referendum of kherson… THE RUSSIANS HAVE NOTHING TO HIDE⚡⚡⚡ September 24th 202294 Retweets293 Likes
I can’t vouch for any of the videos; I’m just including them for flavor. During my research, I found pictures and videos of rallies and protests that were re-used from other past events, sometimes other causes, sometimes even the other side of the issue. So who knows? Everybody is lying.
There’s a strategic reason Russia is racing to complete the referendums. Once the occupied territories become part of Russia — a result that seems inevitable at this point — then Russia can claim self-defense, and can legally access previously-unavailable military tools. That’s where all the nuclear talk (on both sides) comes from.
This new strategy is Russia’s response to the recent Ukrainian military gains in the occupied territories. Russia has done this before; it was the strategy it used to annex Crimea. So Western military experts should have easily predicted this would happen, but of course, well, you know. Our brain-damaged experts have been completely useless for ages. They’re just bleating packs of ‘yes’ men now, apparently.
Swirling internet rumors suggest that the warp speed Russian mobilization announced this week is secretly a whole lot bigger than 300,000 new troops. Since I can’t confirm it from any official Russian source, I won’t cite the figures. Whether it’s 300,000, or more than 300,000, the timing suggests that the new troops will be used to hold the annexed territories. In other words, Russia could end the war by just hunkering down, loudly claiming legal entitlement to the annexed regions, and threatening a nuclear response to any continued hostility.
So get ready for all the people who claimed the 2020 U.S. elections were the fairest and cleanest elections in history to start bitterly complaining about the Russian referendum election. And, whereas criticizing U.S. election results makes you a domestic terrorist and an insurrectionist, the schizophrenic psyops teams are going to try to make it your moral duty to criticize the Ukraine election, including all-new Facebook profile flags or ribbons or something.
If you say the Ukraine elections were fair, you’re also a terrorist or insurrectionist or whatever. You can follow this, right? Criticizing U.S. elections = bad. Criticizing Ukraine elections = good.
It’s so simple!
🚀 Iran has been roiled with country-wide protests by thousands and thousands of angry women who are sick and tired of being threatened into wearing the muslim hijab, or headscarf. The genesis of the massive waves of unrest is disquietingly similar to the George Floyd protests here in the U.S. in the summer of 2020.
Reuters World @ReutersWorldIran must deal decisively with protests, president says reut.rs/3xOM1Uu
September 24th 202216 Retweets50 Likes
What is undisputed is that a 22-year-old woman, Mahsa Amini, was arrested in Iran for not having her hijab on properly. According to reports, she was wearing a hijab, but it wasn’t the right kind or was out of place or something. After being arrested, she fell into a coma and several days later, she died. Widespread rumors in Iran claimed she was beaten to death, but Iranian authorities claimed Amini suffered from “pre-existing conditions.”
Sound familiar?
Mostly-peaceful protests broke out all over the country. Thousands of Iranians have been arrested, all over Iran, according to regional reports, and at least eight people have been outright killed by security forces.
Iran’s Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi told media that the government’s initial investigation showed it had done nothing wrong. “Reports from oversight bodies were received, witnesses were interviewed, videos were reviewed, forensic opinions were obtained, and it was found that there had been no beating,” Vahidi claimed. In a statement last week, Tehran police said right after her arrest, Amini “suddenly suffered from a heart problem” and was “immediately taken to hospital”.
But Amini’s father says the 22-year-old had no pre-existing health problems, and he says the police are responsible for her death.
Joyce Karam @Joyce_KaramBurning of #Iran Supreme Leader Khamenei’s statue in his own hometown of Mashhad as protestors chant “death death to Khamenei.” Protests in Day 7 with anger directed at top of regime: September 23rd 20221,828 Retweets7,776 Likes
Hmm. You know, I can think of ONE reason that an otherwise healthy 22-year-old might experience sudden and unexpected heart problems, especially when under stress. It’s given in two doses. But I’m not allowed to name it on Facebook, so mum’s the word. And I doubt the officials are going to suggest that possibility, either.
Seventy-four percent of Iranians are vaccinated:
Iran didn’t use the mRNA vaccines, but it did use AstraZeneca, well-known to have similar problems to the mRNA jabs. It would be ironic, wouldn’t it, if the government’s vaccine policy led to a George Floyd event? They can’t tell the truth to stop the protests, because that would probably lead to other protests. It’s a conundrum.
I don’t know; I’m not saying anything. I’m just saying.
Finally, mandatory headscarves are a lot like mandatory masks. Both are religiously based and include strong associations with social conformity and government compliance.
So.
💉 God bless him, Tucker Carlson continues courageously reporting on problems with the jabs. Most recently, he discussed a Lancet study following up with kids 12-29 who suffered from myocarditis. Almost a third of the studied kids required chronic medication to manage the condition at three months, and a fifth (20%) said they still experienced pain.
Tucker Carlson @TuckerCarlsonAfter forcing millions of children to get the Covid vax and insisting it was “safe and effective,” hospitals are now normalizing a side effect they once called rare: myocarditis. September 23rd 202211,872 Retweets24,382 Likes
Tucker also reported on Presbyterian Hospital’s goofy new advertisement for pediatric myocarditis — a condition that used to be so rare nobody’d ever heard of it before last year. People are upset at Presbyterian, not because it ran the ad — treating these vaccine injuries is important, as is awareness — but they are understandably upset because the ad ignores what CAUSED the kids’ heart damage.
True, so far it’s only Tucker. But Tucker’s audience exceeds the combined totals of the other networks. And there are signs the signal is getting through the noise: booster uptake is pitiful. NBC ran a story yesterday headlined, “Less Than 2% of Eligible People Have Gotten Updated Covid Booster Shots, 3 Weeks Into the Rollout.”
Oh no. (Sad emoji.)
NBC reported Dr. Scott Roberts, a Yale Medicine infectious disease expert, called the relatively low booster uptake “demoralizing.” He’s demoralized! He explained glumly, “I would expect a much higher proportion of Americans to have gotten the booster by this point.”
Dash it! Disappointed expectations!
Dr. Eeyore, I mean Dr. Roberts, blamed Joe Biden for the new jab’s pitiful performance, and he isn’t too optimistic about its future prospects either. “The fact that this booster came out days before Biden said the pandemic is over is a huge mixed message,” he sighed. “Now it’s going to be that much harder to convince those at risk who are on the fence to get a booster.”
Poor, poor experts. 🎻
Still, nearly 5 million Americans have taken the new shot, even though, as NBC admitted in its article, the jabs “were distributed without results from human trials.” There are a lot of customers who want even MORE spike protein out there, they can’t get enough of the stuff, and as long as that holds, and as long as the rivers of cash keep flowing, they’ll keep making them.
As for me, nope. No thanks. I’m doing fine!
Have a wonderful weekend. Enjoy this cooler weather, and I’ll be back on Monday with some seasonal pumpkin-spiced Coffee & Covid for you.
C&C is moving the needle and changing minds. If you can, I could use your help getting the truth out and spreading optimism and hope: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/-learn-how-to-get-involved-
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The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
With the hurricane season in full swing, people may want to know where they could turn for information or help. Nassau County Emergency Management is a good place to start.
Keep this URL available: https://www.onenassau.com/
Better yet, sign up to get bulletins sent to your email and/or phone: https://www.onenassau.com/citizens-alerts/
Their number- 904-548-0900
Our Alert Nassau Citizen Alerts system is part of the Alert Florida Statewide Notification System, a mass notification tool that lets public safety officials rapidly warn the population about imminent or sudden hazards via phone, text message, email, social media, and mobile apps.
Residents, business owners, and visitors who want to receive these local alerts must “Opt-In” via the secure Alert Nassau Citizen Alerts website and provide their personal contact and location information. Choose a username and password you will remember – you will need them to log back into Citizen Alerts to make changes.
Edited by Michael Hernandez
(Editor’s note; this is part of a weekly compendium of recent significant events, culled from world news and curated by Mr. Hernandez.)
Poll: Majority of Democrats Believe There Are ‘Tens of Millions of Dangerous MAGA Republicans’
HANNAH BLEAU (Sept. 19) Breitbart News
Most Democrats believe that there are “tens of millions” of “dangerous MAGA Republicans,” a Harvard CAPS-Harris Poll released in September found.
The survey followed President Biden’s angry speech in which he demonized millions of Americans, deeming “MAGA Republicans” a great threat to the very “foundations of our republic.” The poll asked voters, “Do you think there are tens of millions of dangerous MAGA Republicans backing violence and trying to overthrow the constitution or is that a gross exaggeration and distortion?”
While a majority across the board, 54 percent, said that characterization is a “gross exaggeration,” 46 percent believe that there are, in fact, “tens of millions of dangerous MAGA Republicans.”
But what is more, nearly three-quarters of Democrats, 73 percent, tend to believe Biden’s divisive rhetoric, concluding that there are literally “tens of millions of dangerous MAGA Republicans” who are overtly “backing violence and trying to overthrow the constitution.” Forty-two percent of independents agree with the majority of Democrats, as do 20 percent of Republicans.
The survey was taken September 7-8, 2022, among 1,885 registered voters and follows Biden’s angry September 1 speech, in which he stated that “Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic.”
“And here, in my view, is what is true: MAGA Republicans do not respect the Constitution. They do not believe in the rule of law. They do not recognize the will of the people,” Biden said, quoting Federal Circuit Court Judge Michael Luttig, who, according to Biden, called Trump “and the extreme MAGA Republicans, quote, a ‘clear and present danger’ to our democracy.”
“Democrats, independents, mainstream Republicans: We must be stronger, more determined, and more committed to saving American democracy than MAGA Republicans are to — to destroying American democracy,” Biden said, striking a very different tone from the pitch for “unity” he touted during his presidential campaign.
The survey also found that most Americans overall, 59 percent, believe Biden is raising these issues about MAGA Republicans to “avoid talking about inflation, immigration, crime, and other issues.” However, the vast majority of Democrats, 70 percent, believe he is “fairly raising MAGA Republican issues.”
Notably, a Convention of States Action/Trafalgar Group survey released last week found 58.7 percent of voters expressed the belief that Biden has, in fact, divided the country.
Texas Attorney General secures win for First Amendment rights
Summer Lane Sept. 20 RSBN
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) revealed on Twitter that he had secured a huge win for free speech in federal court, hitting back against the tyranny of Big Tech’s rampant online censorship. “BREAKING: I just secured a MASSIVE VICTORY for the Constitution & Free Speech in fed court,” Paxton wrote.
He continued, “#BigTech CANNOT censor the political voices of ANY Texan! The 5th Circuit ‘reject[s] the idea that corporations have a freewheeling First Amendment right to censor what people say.”
Paxton attached two images of court documents to his tweet, highlighting a ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit. The ruling took overturned a decision made in a lower court that stonewalled Texans from being able to sue Big Tech companies for censoring their political viewpoints, per Just the News.
According to the ruling:
“The implications of the platforms’ argument are staggering. On the platforms’ view, email providers, mobile phone companies, and banks could cancel the accounts of anyone who sends an email, makes a phone call, or spends money in support of a disfavored political party, candidate, or business. What’s worse, the platforms argue that a business can acquire the dominant market position by holding itself out as open to everyone – as Twitter did in championing itself as ‘the free speech wing of the free speech party.’”
According to Just the News, the federal court’s new decision will uphold the law allowing both Texas residents and the Office of the Texas Attorney General to file lawsuits against social media giants like Twitter or Instagram if they engage in censorship.
“Today we reject the idea that corporations have a freewheeling First Amendment right to censor what people say. Because the district court held otherwise, we reverse its injunction and remand for further proceedings,” the ruling concluded.
The Lone Star State’s legal win against the suppression tactics of social media platforms comes on the heels of widespread suspicion and distrust of sites like Facebook.
In early September, a Louisiana judge ordered key members of the Biden administration to hand over communications between themselves and Big Tech companies, per RSBN.
The lawsuit, spearheaded by Missouri state Attorney General Eric Schmitt (R), specifically took aim at censorship that was coming top-down from the current administration’s alleged partnership with social media platforms.
Trump Laments Mar-a-Lago Home ‘ransacked” by FBI home
Fran Beyer (Sept 19) NewsMax
Former President Trump is back at his Mar-a-Lago residence — lamenting on Monday his Palm Beach, Fla., home had been “ransacked” by the FBI’s seizure of White House documents and would “never be the same.”
Dozens of supporters lined a bridge waving flags and cheering as his limousine crossed a bridge near the estate, video footage of the caravan showed.
Writing on his Truth Social platform, Trump said he had “a long and detailed chance” on Sunday night to look around the property.
“Arrived in Florida last night and had a long and detailed chance to check out the scene of yet another government “crime,” the FBI’s Raid and Break-In of my home, Mar-a-Lago,” he wrote. “I guess they don’t think there is a Fourth Amendment anymore, and to them, there isn’t. In any event, after what they have done, the place will never be the same. It was ‘ransacked,’ and in far different condition than the way I left it. Many Agents – And they didn’t even take off their shoes in my bedroom. Nice!!!”
https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/donald-trump-mar-a-lago-ransacked/2022/09/19/id/1088073/
Biden gains power over U.S. dollar with executive order
The following content is sponsored by Paradigm Press.
On March 9, 2022, President Biden quietly signed Executive Order 14067.
In fact, this provision sets the stage for:
It’s no wonder Fox News recently called this “a deeply troubling development.” Still, most Americans have never even heard of Executive Order 14067.
That’s why today, Jim Rickards – a world-renowned economist and former advisor to both the CIA and the Pentagon – has just sounded the alarm on this troubling new development. In fact, according to Mr. Rickards, this order could mean the end of the U.S. dollar as we know it.
“We’re in for a major upheaval of the U.S. dollar,” he says. “In fact, I predict the 3rd Great Dollar Earthquake has already started…“The first was Roosevelt confiscating private gold in 1934…“The second was Nixon abandoning the gold standard in 1971…“Now,” he says, “Biden’s plan could pave the way for ‘retiring’ the U.S. dollar – and replacing it with this disturbing new alternative.”
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2022/09/20/biden-signs-death-warrant-for-u-s-dollar/
Our Hope
Writing Room Podcast: Access.com
(Michael Hernandez, co-founder of the Citizens Journal—Ventura County’s online news service is a former Southern California daily newspaper journalist and religion and news editor. Mr. Hernandez can be contacted at [email protected] and is editor of “America: The End and Our Hope”.)
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida. Note: we classified this article as opinion, even though it is mostly news.
News
From Heritage Foundation (digested from report- https://www.heritage.org/electionscorecard/index.html
Last November, we released a report, Safe Harbor, detailing the problems of election crimes not being prosecuted in Florida. Governor DeSantis took action and created a state election crimes agency to investigate election crimes. Last month, he announced the arrest of 20 individuals who voted illegally in the 2020 election.
Example comparison:
FL (now rated #6 in the nation) vs CA ranking (CA is 49th):
| CATEGORY | SCORE | SCORE |
| Overall Score | 78 | 30 |
| Voter ID Implementation | 19 | 4 |
| Accuracy of Voter Registration Lists | 23 | 19 |
| Absentee Ballot Management | 16 | 2 |
| Vote Harvesting/ Trafficking Restrictions | 3 | 1 |
| Access of Election Observers | 3 | 3 |
| Verification of Citizenship | 1 | 0 |
| Identification for Voter Assistance | 2 | 0 |
| Vote Counting Practices | 2 | 1 |
| Election Litigation Procedures | 0 | 0 |
| Restriction of Same-day Registration | 3 | 0 |
| Restriction of Automatic Registration | 3 | 0 |
| Restriction of Private Funding of Election Officials or Government Agencies | 3 | 0 |
Heritage Foundation’s Election Fraud Database
From Simon & Schuster
Much more than a collection of essays by eminent writers, Against the Great Reset is intended to kick off the intellectual resistance to the sweeping restructuring of the western world by globalist elites.
In June 2020, prominent business and political leaders gathered for the 50th annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, under the rubric of “The Great Reset.” In the words of WEF founder Klaus Schwab, the Great Reset is a “unique window of opportunity” afforded by the worldwide COVID-19 panic to build “a new social contract” ushering in a utopian era of economic, social, and environmental justice. But beneath their lofty and inspiring words, what are their actual plans?
In this timely and necessary book, Michael Walsh has gathered trenchant critical perspectives on the Great Reset from eighteen eminent writers and journalists from around the world. Victor Davis Hanson places the WEF’s prescriptions and goals in historical context and shows how American politicians justify destructive policies. Michael Anton explains the socialist history of woke capitalism. James Poulos looks at how Big Tech acts as informal government censors. John Tierney lays out the lack of accountability for the unjustified panic over the virus. David Goldman confronts the WEF’s ideas for a fourth industrial revolution with China’s commitment to being the leader of a post-western world. And there are many more.
These writers see the goal of the Great Reset as not just a world without racism, disease, economic inequality, or fossil fuels—but rather, a world with no individual autonomy and power in which our betters rig the system for their own purposes. Find out what the Great Resetters ultimately have in store for you, and join the intellectual resistance—before it’s too late.
Featuring Essays by:
Michael Anton
Salvatore Babones
Conrad Black
Jeremy Black
Angelo Codevilla
Janice Fiamengo
Richard Fernandez
David P. Goldman
Victor Davis Hanson
Martin Hutchinson
Roger Kimball
Alberto Mingardi
Douglas Murray
James Poulos
Harry Stein
John Tierney
Michael Walsh
Edited by Michael Walsh
Published by Bombardier Books
Distributed by Simon & Schuster Hardcover
LIST PRICE $35.00
PRICE MAY VARY BY RETAILER
By Dave Scott
Fernandina Beach, 9-23-22
Americans are experiencing what is called the “new normal.”
This “new normal” is directed by a group of faceless unelected bureaucrats that are pulling abnormal Joe Biden’s strings causing economic, educational, social, and personal misery for millions.
In spite of the obvious chaos, the puppet masters and ventriloquists hiding behind the Oval Office curtains keep shoving this mindless dummy out on stage to tell the country how good things are and to scream angry speeches calling Republican voters fascists, dangerous, and a threat to American democracy.
They’re frantic to fend off a Republican wave in November and will say and do anything to prevent it. In desperation they might even open up the country’s southern border to massive illegal immigration, sex trafficking and drug smuggling, call parents at PTA meetings domestic terrorists, or even send the FBI to raid former President Donald Trump’s home. Oh, wait a minute…
This Fifth Column of White House handlers conveniently discovered Covid to be an expedient excuse to start concocting their witch’s brew of “new normal.” At their command raspy voiced little weasel, Dr. Fauci, played “Simon Says” with Americans, and was used to shut down whatever segment of the country annoyed them most.
Fauci is a cartoon character, who utters totally contradictory and nonsensical comments about wearing a mask, not wearing a mask, and wearing one, two or three masks and other thoroughly inconsistent and absurd dictates and phony information. Using the false premise of a deadly plague, vaccines of questionable value, and lying to Congress, he turns the economic, social, and educational spigots on and off whenever he is told to.
They don’t worry about running anything through Congress or the American public. Just send in the doctor or the dummy, have the national media propagandists broadcast and print whatever they tell them, sign an executive order, and get on with it. In the beginning Covid made it easy for them.
Under the Democrat’s “new normal” program, Americans are dealing with a variety of unparalleled and disastrous experiences ranging from economic and educational to social and foreign.
They say that unless we immediately latch on to the climate change rage and demand a livable planet and life for all, we’ve only got 12 years or less before we experience mass death for people, plants, and animals. That’s according to world-renowned climate scientist Alexandria Ocasio Cortez and her teenage Swedish sidekick, Greta Thunberg. There’s no time to waste. Just do it. RIGHT NOW, they demand. No more gasoline powered engines, coal, or natural gas-fired power plants. Learn to live with rising gasoline prices, high heating and air conditioning bills, failing grids and expensive electric cars or die you ignorant plebs. The old normal doesn’t work anymore they say, it’s a short path to mass death. By the way, what does an electric Harley-Davidson sound like?
The new normal also produced some unexpected consequences for these Fifth Column plotters, particularly when the southern border was opened, the wall construction halted, and “Bienvenidos” signs planted by Biden from East Texas to southern California.
“NO! NO! Not here, you ignorant, unwashed, savages,” screamed the sanctimonious, hypocritical, and shocked Democrat sanctuary island and city residents on Martha‘s Vineyard, and in Washington D.C., Chicago, and New York when their enthusiastically grateful illegal foreign guests arrived. The high-fiving and “Atta boys” in Tallahassee, Austin and Phoenix could be heard all the way to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
Based on their economic policies it’s obvious not a single person in the Biden administration understands the role and value of private markets or basic economics, including supply and demand. To them the only reason for today’s astronomical inflation and busted supply chain is because the system they don’t understand doesn’t work. So, blow it up with presidential executive orders, climate change nonsense, media propaganda, insane rules and regulations, and other nonnegotiable agendas. Nobody in the White House including Biden has ever worked outside of the government system with the exception of Hunter, but that’s another story.
The Biden administration’s commitment to destroying the nation’s current education system is displayed by its dedication to teachers unions, pandemic school closures and teaching critical race theory. It applauds school closures and dismisses declining academic test scores, chronic absenteeism, and social promotion. It approves of taking elementary school children to transvestite bars on field trips and providing pornographic literature in classrooms but pooh-poohs the success sequence: graduate from high school, find a job, get married and have children, in that order.
Outside of the classroom the “new normal” White House crew cheers defunding the police, no bail, and emptying prisons while crime across the county increases at an unprecedented pace.
In its “new normal” arena of foreign affairs, the administration bounces from disaster to disaster. It gifted the Taliban billions in weapons during its disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, an act that emboldened Russia’s Vladimir Putin to invade Ukraine. China is a total mystery to this crowd. Every time the Oval Office dummy opens his mouth about that country without his handlers nearby the White house PA system blares an alert screeching: “Clean up on Aisle 46” or “Lucky Wok order for the Big Guy at the front gate.”
In November the country will go to the polls seeking a return to the old normal and an escape from the “new normal” nightmare Biden unleashed. In the meantime, expect the Democrats and their acolytes to continue with their vicious all-out assaults on the country’s cherished institutions and traditions and calling Republicans anarchistic devils. These are desperate, devious, dangerous, demonic people, e.g., they’re not normal.
(An abridged version of this commentary also appears on the national sites American Wire and Biz Pac Review at https://www.bizpacreview.com/2022/09/22/the-new-normal-from-an-abnormal-administration-1288103/).
***
Things I Wish I’d Said: “For the first time ever you can post: ‘He’s an idiot’ and 90 percent of the people in the world will know whom you are talking about.” — anonymous.
***
Double, Double Toil & Trouble: Remember the polls prior to the 2016 election? They all had Hillary Clinton winning in a landslide. It turned out the pollsters lost bigger than the hysterical incredulous Democrat presidential candidate who has since sunk into a state of despondent hostility, currently spending her time stirring her caustic cauldron and cackling curses.
Stunned media pundits said that the pollsters and Clinton were the most dumbfounded losers in the 2016 election. The pollsters’ credibility was DOA said an unusually candid media crowd after the election.
So, don’t believe any of the polls about the upcoming November elections. They were dead wrong in 2016 and 2020, especially about the Senate races where they predicted Republicans were going to lose lots of seats.
There are a couple of other reasons to disregard polls. First, there is a bias by most pollsters, and secondly, many Republicans and independents don’t respond to surveys.
Economic fears are getting worse recently with markets moving downward while the feds increase interest rates and housing prices drop, and that will change many voter’s minds. And no sane person of voting age cares about voting to go green.
I foresee a red tsunami in November.
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Overheard At PJD’s Beer & Wine Garden: “There was a faster response to Martha’s Vineyard than there was to Benghazi.”
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Shocker! Amazon tried to go green by putting solar panels on the roofs of all its warehouses. However, so many caught on fire they are now all shut down. Hideous and expensive bird chopping windmills are not an option and are being rightly rejected for permits in many towns. So, what do they do now? It’s just another of many examples of why all this solar and wind nonsense will not solve any energy issues, only make them worse.
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California Crazy: The delusional Governor of California, Gavin Newsom, actually blamed people fleeing California on the “visa policy in the Trump administration.” Newsom also said, “This whole damn border debate is made up. It’s made up!” That will be a relief to the folks in Del Rio, Eagle Pass, El Paso, Nogales, etc. who are obviously just imagining things.
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Sign Language: In case readers missed it the past few weeks here’s a photo of current Mayor and Fernandina Beach City Commissioner Mike “Left Coast” Lednovich sent to me by a reader. The California transplant is wearing a Fernandina Police Department hat while parading through town displaying a “Black Lives Matter” sandwich board while at the same time BLM was beating and shooting citizens, burning, rioting and looting. “Left Coast” spearheaded the recent smoking ban on the beaches saying smokers “violate his rights” while not once mentioning the rights of the BLM victims.
I can’t explain the red clown nose, but it seems appropriate. I’ve been told that this photo appeared on his Facebook page but disappeared once I started using it here.
By the way, a very rationale and articulate candidate, Chiropractor Dr. James Antun, is running against “Left Coast” for City Commissioner. Dr. Antun and his chiropractic doctor wife, Jayde, operate a Fernandina Beach clinic and have experienced first-hand some of the Byzantine city tactics other local business owners have suffered that are ignored and even encouraged by Lednovich. I’m casting my vote for Dr. Antun.
A clever local resident, Jeff McDowell, last week also expressed his support for Dr. Antun writing here: “By the way, Dr James Antun is a fresh choice for city commissioner. Instead of being a pain in the neck, he has the ability to bring relief to that pain. Win, Win! Take my vote, please!”
***
Drinking, Dining & Dancing: If you enjoy fun toe tapping music, requesting tunes, and Italian comfort food, then American Legion Post 54 tomorrow, Saturday, September 24, from 5-7 pm is the place you need to be. Popular piano man John Springer and his affable sidekick drummer Rob Taylor will perform while the no-nonsense Bronx accented Florence will head up a kitchen crew that’ll dish out lasagna and sides for just $16 as long as it lasts. The Post, which is open to the public for this event, is located at the corner of Gum and South 3rd Street in Fernandina Beach. Not only does Coastal Pizza at 1916 South 14th Street (around the corner from Publix) have some of the best pizza in town, but it also has really good wings and on football weekends (Saturday and Sunday) customers can enjoy the best wing prices on the island at $12.99 for 15 as long as they last. Eat ’em there while you watch your game or take ’em home. Call ’em at 904/491-9998. There’s always a friendly crowd, multiple TVs, and a full bar with wine, beer and liquor. If you want special attention from the kitchen buy them a round of beers for just $6 and if you want to hear some stupid jokes ask to speak to personable owner Tom Demaro. This place is one of the area’s most fun neighborhood joints featuring personable and pretty barmaids and servers with high tolerance levels.
I publicized my personal issues with the discourteous, rude, and outrageous behavior of the Sandbar & Kitchen staff here in early May after one of its grinning, prancing little managers, Joey Helms, blurted for me to “get out,” when I chided him for not having the courtesy to fulfill the former owner’s commitment and follow through with a “yes” or “no” on a News Wrecker ad. I verbally labeled him a “weasel” inspiring him to yell, “Get Out”, then toss 200 News Wreckers into a parking lot dumpster as I was driving by the front door to pick them up.
However, my Sandbar tale pales in comparison to what local residents Ned and Lori Fleming experienced and related to me and various online outlets in an unsolicited email and then confirmed later in personal conversations. I’ve known the Flemings for some 10 years and never once have I ever heard them express a negative comment about a local establishment. If they don’t like a place they’ve kept it to themselves. I’ve been a guest in their home and it radiates an Ozzie & and Harriet atmosphere. Therefore I have good reason to believe every word they told me.
Here’s their story in their words:
“Dave, thanks for taking time to listen to me vent over our recent appalling experience at Sandbar and Kitchen. Here are the facts relative to what occurred:
“Friday, July 29th: My husband, Ned, and I typically enjoy dinner and drinks at Lagniappe on Friday nights. On July 29th, we decided to change it up and go to The Sandbar instead for a pizza. We did not have a reservation and walked in around 6:00 to find the first-floor bar and seats full. We proceeded upstairs and were pleased to find the upstairs seating completely empty and the bar only serving two couples – each couple was seated at far ends of the bar – one couple was just ordering and one couple was finishing their meals. We walked up to the center of the bar, greeted the bartender, and ordered a wine and beer – our first drinks of the evening. We stood in the center of the bar (no additional bar stools were available), sipping our drinks and discussing our day, while waiting for the couple on the right to finish their meals and depart so we could eat at the bar. We were mere sips into our drinks when a waitress approached the couple to our right, bent down and hugged them and started whispering – it was obvious that the couple and the waitress were acquaintances. What happened next is what blew our minds. The waitress approached Ned and said, “You’re standing too close to this gentleman.” I overheard the comment and asked her to repeat herself and again she said to Ned, “Sir, you are standing too close to this man who’s trying to eat his dinner.” We were easily two feet away from the patrons on our left and our right. She then said, “You are making this man feel very uncomfortable while he’s enjoying his dinner.”
“At this point, we were completely flabbergasted to the point we thought it was some kind of joke. We thought that maybe we knew the couple (the man never said a word, never faced us, never made a comment himself). By now, the bartender joined in, piling on and agreed that we were making the diners feel uncomfortable by our presence. It became a real head-scratcher so I asked to speak with the manager who quickly arrived and immediately stated that since we were making his staff and patrons feel uncomfortable, we must leave. We should have just walked out at that point, but we paid our bill (one house Chardonnay, one draft beer). The manager then escorted us down the stairs, out the front door and stood waiting to make sure we got in our car and drove away. We went home and I went on every social media site (Facebook, Yelp, TripAdvisor) I could find to report on the ridiculous way we were harassed. I even located the current owners (“SHRIMP BASKET RESTAURANTS) on LinkedIn and sent the Chief Restaurant Officer (Mark Kirke) and COO (Kevin Eagle) messages to let them know about our experience. I have not heard back from either of the owners, but I know that Kirke saw my message because he looked at my profile.
Mark Kirke’s profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markkirke/
Kevin Nagle’s profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevin-nagle-538724b/
“Dave, you know us! I’m in my sixties and Ned will be 80 next year. We have been model citizens of Amelia Island since we first moved here in 1996. Ned is involved in the arts scene and has an art studio at 2nd Story Gallery and also displays his fine art at the Plantation Art Gallery. I’m heavily involved in Pastoral Care at Amelia Plantation Chapel where we serve our members and this community with open hearts. When my dad, Smoky, was alive, our band regularly played our music sets at local venues and particularly at veterans events (Smoky, Ned and I are all veterans – Smoky in Korea, Ned in-country in Vietnam, and me as a Captain in U.S. Space Command, launching GPS satellites). We are well traveled and obviously know how to conduct ourselves in public and otherwise. We had not just rolled in from the gym or the beach, barefoot, sandy, and covered in tanning oil. We were in resort casual attire, out for an evening and supporting our beloved Amelia Island local establishments.
“Needless to say, we will never step foot inside The Sandbar again. The staff and management need to be 1) reprimanded, 2) retrained and 3) taught the meaning of customer service. Not to mention the place was filthy.
“Thanks for listening!”
Lori Flemming
There’s nothing I can add to this scathing testimony. It’ s not the first one I’ve heard since the Sandbar changed hands, but it’s certainly one of the most blistering. And that’s not sour grapes on my part. If anyone has opposite or similar experiences they’re welcome to post them here in the comment section, which I never edit unless they are profane.
Read Dave Scott’s Blog regularly
Republished with the author’s permission. Read The Dave Scott Blog– subscribe Free
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
By Jeff Childers
09-23-22
And it’s Friday! Good morning, C&C, I hope everyone had a terrific week and are enjoying the (slightly) cooler weather. Today’s roundup: fake news about Facebook and Trump; fake news about Trump and QAnon; yet another lawsuit filed by the government against Trump; an unlikely hero strikes back; the New York Times flunks journalism; deep-staters try to cover for Ray Epps; Stacy Abrams flunks science; the Air Force tackles micro aggressions; 2018 Obama letter shows double standards; and Russia declares war on NATO, kind of.
🔥 The PostMillennial ran a bizarre non-news story yesterday headlined, “BREAKING: Facebook Could Lift Trump’s Suspension by 2023.”
According to widespread corporate media reports, Facebook is “considering” reinstating President Trump’s account next year, in 2023, according to Meta’s president of global affairs Nick Clegg. At an event in Washington, DC, he told reporters, “When you make a decision that affects the public realm, you need to act with great caution.”
Huh?
First of all, does it seem to you like it’s an odd time for Facebook to be gassing on about MAYBE reinstating Trump AT SOME POINT? It’s not like they’re talking about putting Trump back online anytime soon, not before the midterms, not even this year. So why even bring it up?
And second, there’s not really any NEWS here. Clegg only said he’s thinking about possibly doing something. In his comments, Clegg even admitted that he hasn’t yet run it by anyone on Meta’s board.
People THINK about a lot of stuff. Who cares?
Great job, corporate media, you flunked journalism 101. The headline for this dumb clickbait story should be: “Man Briefly Thinks About Something.”
Yawn.
🔥 I’m not sure if this next story is news, fake news, or narrative news, but SOMETHING is afoot. CNN ran a breathless story yesterday headlined, “QAnon Fans Celebrate Trump’s Latest Embrace of the Conspiracy.” It’s kind of another non-news story, also echoed in other corporate media outlets, meaning it must be a politically-motivated psy operation designed to tell us what to think.
Is it just me, or is the news lately all Trump, all the time?
Spoiler alert, I don’t want you to get your hopes up: CNN never actually gets around to explaining what the “conspiracy” mentioned in its headline is. It’s a mystery, apparently. Whatever it is must not help the narrative. So anyway, CNN immediately flunked journalism 101, by writing a stupid headline about a thing that’s not even in the article.
Getting past the rubbish headline, the actual “news” was Trump did something that triggered the deep state somehow. Well, two things. First, at a rally, he played a song “associated” with the so-called “QAnon movement,” whatever that is. CNN doesn’t say. We’re just supposed to know that whatever it is, it’s bad.
Trump also forwarded a cartoon on Truth Social that CNN doesn’t like. The cartoon showed Trump wearing a “Q” pin on his lapel, along with two slogans CNN said were associated with the QAnon movement: “The storm is coming” and “WWG1WGA,” which CNN explained stands for “Where We Go One, We Go All.”
Then, after making such a big deal about it, CNN doesn’t even print the cartoon in the article. And CNN’s entire description of the QAnon movement — which is the heart of the piece, mind you — was confined to one subjunctive clause: “followers … who believe in the existence of an evil cabal and view Trump as their hero.”
Um, that’s not super informative. What cabal? Why evil? That’s a pretty generic description. It could describe a lot of people. Shoot, *I* believe in an evil cabal, of entrenched bureaucrats who maliciously suppressed true information about covid during the pandemic, information like the Wuhan lab leak theory.
Since I believe in an “evil cabal,” does that make me QAnon?
The real purpose of this story, and the others like it, is pure boogeymanism. Corporate media is just identifying the latest public enemy, today’s target for the government’s Orwellian “two minutes of hate,” with QAnon people, or maybe Trump, or both, as its Emmanuel Goldstein.
What’s wrong with QAnon anyway? CNN doesn’t say. Is it even an organization? Or just an idea? To me, it just seems like something people think; something now a thought crime. And why is their song a problem? CNN doesn’t say. I listened to the song, WWG1WGA, on Spotify and it seems perfectly harmless, kind of catchy actually. I’d let my kids listen to it.https://open.spotify.com/embed/track/05UdgVOtKwAoHjW6pXEHEn
I’ve reported about the media’s fascination with QAnon before, but I still really don’t know much about the movement, or belief, or theory, or whatever it is. From my research, QAnon is just an account on 8CHAN (a kind of Twitter alternative), but the media seems to think QAnon is something else, something bigger.
I recall first hearing about it back in 2020 while I was completely overwhelmed fighting the mask and jab wars day and night. I remember thinking at the time Q seemed kind of fringe and conspiracy-theory-ish, a rabbit-hole, but of course most conspiracy theories are looking a lot less outlandish now.
Just give it a few months!
Anyway, the actual news was that corporate media seems completely terrified by the QAnon movement, for some reason, to the point they can’t even talk about its beliefs out loud, like a Harry Potter cosplay fan afraid to say “Voldemort.” Honesty, the way corporate media gets triggered anytime someone says “Q” is starting to make me think these QAnon folks must be on to something.
Giving the movement even more credibility is the fact that, apparently, the FBI doesn’t like QAnon much either. CNN reported that the FBI warned (somebody) last year of the “potential” for QAnon to “stoke violence.” That’s a lot of weasel words; “potential” means maybe, and “stoke violence” is not even close to the same as “commit violence.”
If we’re going after everything that “stokes” violence, I’d suggest they take a hard look at that lunatic Kathy Griffin.
CNN also quoted former FBI agent Greg Ehrie, who abruptly labeled QAnon a cult: “What we have is a former President… legitimizing what is in essence a cult.” Well, more accurately, former agent Ehrie said QAnon is “in essence a cult.” What’s the “essence” of a cult, and how is it different from a proper cult? Ehrie’s a coward. If you want to call somebody a cult, just do it plainly, you lizard-lipped chicken.
One of these days I’m going to have to stop and figure out what all this QAnon excitement is really about.
🔥 In case there was any danger of Trump fading out of the headlines, they’ve sued him, again. Yesterday, ABC ran a story headlined, “New York AG Letitia James Files $250M Lawsuit Against Trump for Defrauding Lenders, Others.”
This latest lawsuit is a civil case, filed by New York Attorney General Letitia James in state court, against Trump and his family members, for “numerous acts of fraud and misrepresentations.” It’s a 222-page blockbuster.
Here’s another one of my counter-intuitive rules about lawsuits. The longer the complaint, the less likely it is to have any merit, and the more likely it was to have been drafted by immature attorneys.
If it takes 222 pages to explain why what the person did was wrong, that’s not a good sign. The technical term for this is “over pleading,” and it is actually a rookie strategic mistake, because the more stuff you jam in the allegations, the more material you give the defendant to work with in a motion to dismiss.
I skimmed it. It was a waste of time. Letitia has been running a criminal investigation against Trump for years now and, instead of filing criminal charges, she filed this civil case instead, suggesting that she couldn’t come up with any criminal charges that would stick. I predict this one isn’t going anywhere either. It’s just a distraction.
Here’s Letitia, explaining the complaint in her own words:
ABC News Live @ABCNewsLiveBREAKING: NY AG Letitia James files $250M civil lawsuit against former Pres. Trump and his family. “The complaint demonstrates that Donald Trump falsely inflated his net worth by billions of dollars to unjustly enrich himself and to cheat the system.” abcn.ws/3DEPSqP
September 21st 202237 Retweets79 Likes
I suppose she had to file something, to justify all those investigations. I guess the current strategy is, “death by a thousand lawsuits.”
🔥 In related news, last week disgraced former New York “Luv Guv” Andrew Cuomo filed a 48-page state ethics complaint against the same Attorney General Letitia James, claiming that she deliberately mishandle the sexual harassment investigation against him and used the outcome for political purposes. Can you believe that?
So. What goes around, comes around!
It’s a crazy old world, isn’t it? If you’d asked me whether there was any chance I’d ever be rooting for Andrew Cuomo, I’d have laughed myself into an umbilical hernia. Go Andrew!
🔥 Last week, the New York Times ran a syrupy puff piece about the poor downtrodden immigrants forced to go on vacation at Martha’s Vineyard. Basically the whole story revolves around the Times’ interview with this wholesome-looking illegal, Ardenis Nazareth:
I think it’s the face tattoo that really completes the look, don’t you?
Anyway, the Times glowingly reported Mr. Nazareth’s many complaints about his ill treatment at the rough hands of dictator-in-waiting Governor DeSantis, like his free private air transportation to the popular vacation destination. “I thought I was coming to Boston,” Nazareth complained. “I ended up on this little island.”
Martha’s Vineyard is probably even worse than Venezuela.
Anyway, unlike the Times’ professional reporters, editors, and fact checkers, some alert twitterers quickly discovered that Mr. Nazareth is a KNOWN DRUG DEALER from Venezuela:
Haha! The garbage New York Times ALSO flunked journalism 101. Sorry, narrative!
(Hat tip to Revolver.news, which reported the story.)
🔥 Probably due to Republicans’ increased pressure on the Justice Department for more information about fake protestor Ray Epps this week, the government psyops teams shifted into hyperdrive, spreading incredible fake rumors about Epps all over the internet, in an attempt to flood the information zone so nobody knows what’s true and what’s false.
There are hundreds, if not thousands, of sketchy twitter accounts claiming “breaking news” that “public information requests” showed Nancy Pelosi had six phone calls with Ray Epps right before January 6th, and that Epps’ wife used to work for Dominion voting systems.
But it’s all fake news, government misinformation trying to deflect from the real news about Epps.
Darren J. Beattie 🌐 @DarrenJBeattieI repeat… watch out for bullshit on Epps Epps did not call Pelosi, Epps’ wife did not work for Dominion Voting Do not take the bait on these junk stories from questionable accounts Regime is going to do everything it can to shut down the legitimate questions on Epps Darren J. Beattie 🌐 @DarrenJBeattieWatch out for bullshit stories on Ray Epps… recently a story claiming FOIA records show Epps calling Pelosi’s office Another story suggesting Epps’ wife worked for Dominion Voting Systems Both stories are bullshit, and possibly part of a disinfo campaignJuly 27th 2022203 Retweets559 Likes
Out of curiousity, I audited one of the fake news tweets, and looked through its follower accounts. All bots. Here’s what a bot account looks like, if you want to see for yourself. https://twitter.com/TimNorfolk3. You’ll notice the inhuman number of meme posts and retweets, all posted on the same day (yesterday), an obvious AI-generated effort to make the account look real.
I wish I could say I think it’s Russians spreading all this misinformation. But unfortunately, I think the real information terrorists are closer to home. Please. Just. Stop.
🔥 In the bottom story of the month, capably illustrating the vast intellectual firepower of the left, yesterday Stacy Abrams denied that six-week-old infants have any heartbeat. Science!
Speaking at a conference event, Abrams said, “There is no such thing as a heartbeat at six weeks. It is a manufactured sound designed to convince people that men have the right to take control of a woman’s body.”
Daily Wire @realDailyWireStacey Abrams: “There is no such thing as a heartbeat at six weeks. It is a manufactured sound designed to convince people that men have the right to take control of a woman’s body.”
September 22nd 20221,143 Retweets4,601 Likes
Science!
Actually, Abrams flunked science. Alert twitterers — not journalists or fact-checkers — promptly debunked her insane rant:
G_Kraig @g_kraig@GlennKesslerWP Science does not agree with you. “Gestational Age Week 6 (Fetal age: 4 weeks) Between 5 ½ to 6 ½ weeks, a fetal pole or even a fetal heartbeat may be detected by vaginal ultrasound. ” Early Fetal DevelopmentIt’s common to have concerns about early fetal development and what’s to be expected. Here’s how to optimize your health during pregnancy.americanpregnancy.orgSeptember 22nd 20221 Retweet5 Likes
The real question is, would an ultrasound show Stacy Abrams has a heartbeat?
🔥 Our military is in the best of hands. The PostMillennial ran a story yesterday headlined, “Air Force Tells Cadets to Use ‘Gender Neutral Language,’ No More ‘Mom’ and ‘Dad,’ in Diversity Training.”
A leaked powerpoint from new cadet training showed the Air Force instructing cadets not to say “you guys,” but rather to use gender-neutral words, like “y’all/team/squaddies/everyone/folks.” It also tells them to say “partner” instead of boyfriend or girlfriend.
Another slide helpfully advised the cadets, “Some families are headed by single parents, grandparents, foster parents, two moms, two dads, etc.: consider ‘parent or caregiver’ instead of ‘mom and dad.”
Watch out, microaggressors! It’s war against hurt feelings!
I think the Air Force generals are spending too much time in too-tight high heels, and it’s choking off the blood supply to their brains. They are confused about who the enemy is; apparently the military is now fighting a teeny-tiny micro aggression war.
Somebody needs to tell the generals the difference between micro and macro aggression. They’re flunking the military academy.
🔥 The Biden Raid case looks even more ridiculous after an alert reader linked a Conservative Treehouse article that has uncovered a September 11, 2018 Obama letter to the National Archivist, which is the same deep-state department complaining about Trump having classified records. Obama’s letter advised the Archivist about the status of millions of records that Obama took with him:
Take a look at paragraph seven:
Classified and unclassified records. “Classified.” As of the date of the letter, Obama had obviously been hanging on to a bunch of classified documents, in a place called Hoffman Estates. Hoffman Estates is a fancy name for a renovated Chicago warehouse. It’s not a secure storage facility or anything.
Now, it’s true that Obama’s letter was talking about MAYBE moving the documents back into a NARA-run facility, subject to “negotiation of terms,” but it is also true that these are records that, by the letter’s plain language, will also be “digitized” into the Obama library. Including the classified documents, which don’t seem to be much of a big deal to anybody, for some reason.
No demands for immediate return of documents. No FBI raid. No criminal investigation. If it weren’t for double standards, they wouldn’t have any standards at all.
🔥 Finally, there’s been a lot of discussion in the comments about Russia’s mobilization of 300,000 reservists this week in the Ukraine conflict. It appears to be true that a bunch of Russians tried to flee the country in the wake of the news, and Russia may or may not have ordered them not to leave, suggesting the draft isn’t super popular, at least with some Russians.
But the reason Putin is calling RESERVISTS is because, due to the legal status of the “special military operation” — and not a declared “war” — Russia has not relied on its REAL military yet. According to mil-blog reports, Russia can mobilize an army of up to 25 million troops if it wants. If it declares war.
That declaration might be coming sooner rather than later. Two days ago, Russia’s Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu announced that Ukraine’s military has been so degraded that Russia is now basically only fighting NATO — not Ukraine. He said that all the NATO-controlled space satellites, hundreds of them, have now been dedicated to the Ukraine conflict, and are assisting with targeting Russian military and civilian targets.
Specifically, the defense minister said, “Today we are at war not so much with Ukraine as with the collective West,” since Ukraine itself “has long since run out of weapons.”
According to Shoigu, the escalation should be seen as Russia equipping its troops in Ukraine to fight on NATO’s level. In other words, Russia is preparing its army to fight with NATO. More intense fighting is not good news for ordinary Ukrainians, who are likely to be ground to hamburger between the NATO and Russian forces.
Maybe the former Vice-President will negotiate a peace deal between the two countries. If he remembers them.
Have a fantastic Friday! I’ll see you tomorrow morning, in the weekend edition.
C&C is moving the needle and changing minds. If you can, I could use your help getting the truth out and spreading optimism and hope: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/-learn-how-to-get-involved-
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The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
From MyFlorida CFO, 9-21-22
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – Today, Florida Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Jimmy Patronis issued a statement following recent media reports that credit card companies are going to start tracking gun and ammunition sales. The reports state that major credit card companies such as Visa, Mastercard and American Express have decided to apply a new sales code to distinguish firearm purchases at U.S. gun stores. Additionally, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals recently ruled on a Texas bill (NetChoice V. Ken Paxton), establishing that major corporations, including banking institutions, do not have a right to limit American’s constitutional rights.
CFO Jimmy Patronis said, “The second amendment is foundational to our American way of life. The idea that law-abiding Americans would be put on some kind of corporate watchlist is disturbing. Our rights come from our Creator, not the government, and especially not big corporations. It is clear that the actions by these credit card companies are part of a larger effort to curtail God-given constitutional rights of Americans. It is also symptomatic of the virus known as ESG, which is part of a global effort to socially re-engineer the country that we love so much. There is no way we are going to allow that to happen in the free state of Florida.
“If we come to the legislative session and companies like Visa, Mastercard and American Express are generating these reports to create a chilling effect against the purchase of firearms, then I’ll work with the Legislature to pass a law penalizing businesses who are targeting the right to bear arms. We’ve seen a groundbreaking ruling come out of the Fifth Circuit limiting corporations’ ability to curtail American’s constitutional rights, so we are on solid legal footing to pursue a bill protecting Floridians 2nd Amendment Rights. We can also take it a step further by barring these companies from doing any business with the State of Florida. We will send a message out to these large corporations that if you are interested in doing business with Florida, you need to make sure that you’re protecting Floridians right to arm and defend themselves.”
Sometimes being in the right place at the right moment takes on different merits than you’ve ever imagined possible! So it was for all those faithful early risers several days ago who ventured to the beach for sunrise. And to think I nearly talked myself out of it when first light peeped through my shades at predawn, showing no promise of anything extraordinary. No soft pinks or warm peach clouds even faintly streaked the slate gray canvas outside my window. Yet, I have learned when light breaks through the darkness of night, it becomes time sensitive and moves with rapid speed! Thirty seconds can be too late to see the Greatest Show on Earth as the black velvet curtain on the horizon suddenly lifts to reveal the center attraction! Grandfather Sun!
As I rushed to get dressed that morning, I became breathless in anticipation of reaching the crossover on time to witness the wonder of God’s artistry for one more photo moment to share with friends less fortunate enough to be there in person with me. You might think one would tire of all this rushing around every morning and push the snooze button; but, the way I see it? Each day God gifts us contains unexpected surprises and I simply want to find out first hand what He has for me from the start!
Well He certainly showed His unforgettable handiwork as soon as I began walking to the beach. The sky blazed with rays of unbelievable colors, intensifying every second. “Please, God! Slow the show a little so I can capture the beauty before it evaporates from sight!” Whew! And I did! Of course, what you see in the photograph is merely pre-show extravaganza. The main attraction occurred beyond the crossover!
On occasion we reach a point in the life cycle when God puts a ‘crossover’ in our view. Perhaps it seems untimely and makes no sense to us. We push the snooze button and wish to procrastinate making any effort to move toward understanding what it’s all about. However, just as the ‘crossover’ in this photo reveals God’s amazing wonders, so are the plans He has for us when we dare to take the first step forward.
Jeremiah 29:11 “For I know the plans I have for you. Plans to prosper you and not harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”
Jennifer St. Clair is a pianist, award-winning songwriter, composer, artist, author and photographer. She relocated to Jacksonville Beach, Florida from the north Georgia mountains in 2014. Currently she serves as Pianist at Amelia Plantation Chapel. Her solo piano compositions can be found on sheetmusicplus.com. For more information:
www.jenniferstclair.com
The opinions expressed are those of the author and may not represent the opinions of citizensjournal.net
By Jeff Childers
09-22-22
Good morning, C&C! It’s a crisp, cool Thursday here in Florida, and I have a terrific roundup for you today: a Louisiana court strikes another Biden vaccine and mask mandate; the Eleventh Circuit torpedos Trump’s special master and I wonder about the strategy; Biden and Zelensky discuss peace in Ukraine at the UN; Biden in the back; and Gavin Newsom reveals his awesome plan to repopulate California.
🔥 A Louisiana federal court just struck down the so-called “head start mandate,” which required vaccination and mandatory masking of all teachers and staff participating in the federal “head start” program.
You know it’s going to be good when the judge starts the order by quoting James Madison: “The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands … may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.”
The 27-page opinion ends issuing a permanent injunction against the program’s vaccine and mask mandates in the 24 plaintiff states (Louisiana, Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, West Virginia, and Wyoming). Add Texas and you have a pretty good starting list for a “Free States Coalition.”
This is great news, and congratulations to the attorneys litigating this case. What’s frustrating, though, is that the Biden Administration surely knew that its executive orders and unilateral actions were plainly unconstitutional, but they did it anyway, knowing how much time and effort it would take to unwind their illegal actions and how many people would go ahead and get jabbed in the meantime.
On the other hand, I did NOT see any corporate media whining about activist judges and how the decision is going to wind up killing kids. We are way past that point now. Which is also great news.
🔥 Well, I usually hate to say I told you so, but I especially hate to say I told you so in this case. Even though 10 state Attorneys General filed amicus briefs supporting Trump, the 11th Circuit ruled against him yesterday, taking the special master right off the table when it comes to the so-called ‘classified documents.’
In other words, the FBI may now continue its investigation and the special master will NOT get to review the classified documents.
There’s a lot I could say; the 11th wrote a scathing 29-page order that agreed with the government in every aspect, right down the line. Since I practice in the 11th circuit, I will be circumspect about saying anything that could be considered critical of the very fine and nonpartisan judges who make up that court.
I’m going to cite only one paragraph from the order, a key paragraph that I believe is the linchpin in the 11th’s reasoning. If you pulled this fact out of their order, the whole thing would crumble like an overbaked scone. And this one fact is indisputably true. In a section discussing whether Trump might have a personal interest in the seized documents, the judges wrote:
It’s true. All Trump has done so far is “suggest” that he declassified… some documents. Maybe. Or maybe not. You never know. And when the special master prompted Trump for an affidavit attesting that he DID declassify, Trump’s lawyers declined to provide one. So … which is it? Who knows.
I have a bunch of litigation shorthand for strategy that I refer to with my team. Two of my terms come to mind in this situation. First, Trump’s waffling is what I call an “ugly fact,” or sometimes a “dead baby.” That sounds morbid, but it’s the dynamic that occurs in any case where a baby died. That fact, that a baby died, is a fact that is SO ugly, it distorts everything else in the case. It always becomes the beating heart of the lawsuit.
In a jury trial, for example, if the plaintiff’s baby died, you can bet the plaintiff is going to get some money. I don’t care how good the defenses are, or even how bad the plaintiff’s lawyer is. The jury won’t get past that a tiny human with infinite possibilities was snuffed out. It’s just so unfair BY ITSELF that it practically doesn’t even matter what else happened.
Sometimes I just call it an “ugly fact,” which is something that is definitely going to snag a judge’s attention, irritate her, and be something the judge just can’t get out of her mind. You just know, right from the beginning of the case, that the ugly fact is going to be somewhere in the final order.
Trump’s unwillingness — for whatever reason — to say, one way or the other, whether he declassified, is an ugly fact. By NOT saying, he’s kind of saying that he DIDN’T declassify. And worse, he’s annoying the judge by refusing to admit that and moving on. At least, that’s how it looks to the judge. It’s that simple.
The second term from my personal lexicon that I think applies here is, ‘self-inflicted injury.’ Because Trump could SO EASILY eliminate the ugly fact, but doesn’t, it is his own fault, or at least, his choice. So his own choice to waffle is making his own case a lot more difficult. It’s a ‘self-inflicted injury.’
Maybe there’s a really good reason, but I don’t know what it could be.
My reading of the applicable law is that Trump needn’t do anything at all to declassify a document. In my view, all he has to do is DECIDE, and then act in conformity with that decision. So, I believe that if President Trump moves a classified document twelve inches, say moving it one foot out of the secured area into the common area, that’s all he has to do to declassify.
Taking the documents to Mar-a-Lago is an act in conformity with his decision to declassify. To me, it’s that easy.
I base my conclusion on that hypothetical I suggested when I first analyzed this problem. Here it is again. Suppose there’s a global diplomatic emergency. Major powers are about to go to war. Trump is in the Oval Office, intently reading a brand-new classified report that could defuse the entire situation: our intercepts prove a diplomat was really killed by an angry prostitute, not an assassin. Trump has minutes to spare before missiles fly. So the President jams the report in his jacket pocket, hops in the Beast, and races to the Serbian embassy, where he personally presses the report into the ambassador’s hands. And just like that, war is averted.
You with me so far? Believe me, the President is in the clear. He didn’t break any laws. But let’s take it up a notch. Now imagine the same scenario, but also imagine that Serbia is a U.S. enemy. So Trump is giving top-secret material directly to an enemy of the United States without consulting or even telling anybody.
I think it still doesn’t matter; I STILL believe what the President did in the hypothetical is 100% legal. It HAS to be, or the President would be completely hamstrung, especially in emergency situations.
Now ask yourself exactly WHEN in the hypothetical timeline did Trump “actually declassify” the Serbian prostitute intel? Was it when he handed the classified report to the Serbian ambassador? Was it when he got in the Beast with the report? Was it when he jammed the report in his jacket pocket?
Or, as I believe, was it the moment when, while he was reading the report and realizing what he needed to do, the President silently made a decision to declassify? That’s what I think. I think all it takes is a decision. The President doesn’t have to tell anybody until he’s ready to disclose. That’s the only thing that makes sense.
I assume Trump’s lawyers have a good reason for playing it so coy, but I have no idea what they’re thinking. Maybe Trump is worried that if he has to make a list of exactly what he declassified, the FBI could then magically produce some documents not on the list. Or maybe it’s that Trump took some actions not in conformity with declassification, like asking the FBI to redact parts of the reports, and has to explain those actions.
Those issues might be thorns, but they are easier to handle than the entire cactus of doubt that Trump’s waffling has produced.
But what do I know? I’m just a lawyer, not a … hey, wait a minute!
🚀 After the Russians declared a massive new mobilization yesterday, the twin members of the dynamic duo, Bat-Biden and Zelensky-hood, both mentioned the prospect of peace while speaking at the UN’s general assembly yesterday.
Fox News ran a story yesterday headlined, “Ukrainian President Zelenskyy Lays Out ‘Peace Formula’ to End War in Country, but Says ‘Russia Wants War’.” He laid out five aspirational peace-deal categories, like “punishment for aggression,” and “restoration of territory,” that were more generalized talking points than any kind of actual offer.
But still.
It was a different tone than the usual triumphalist braggadocio that we’ve always heard before. Interestingly, the trained seals at the UN gave Zelenskyy’s ‘peace’ speech a standing ovation. I guess everybody wants peace.
Well, everybody except NATO, the military-industrial complex, Klaus Schwab, and the deep state.
For his part, old man Joe also obliquely mentioned resolving the conflict. He rambled forgettably about the UN’s glorious high-minded purposes, to be “united in their commitment to work for peace.” Regarding the war, Biden apocalyptically announced, “this war is about extinguishing Ukraine’s right to exist as a state — plain and simple.” But Biden said the U.S. wants the war in Ukraine to “end” on “fair terms.” He didn’t specify WHAT terms.
Joe ended his speech with a gaffe, of course, saying “Thank you for your tolerance listening to me. I appreciate very much.”
There was polite applause but no standing ovation for Joe. Corporate media was curiously quiet about Joe’s big U.N. speech. For some reason.
🔥 In more Biden news, the leader of the free world was seated at the back of the Royal funeral, packed in between the Czech Republic’s Prime Minister and the president of Poland.
C’mon, man. There’s no way to take this but as a deliberate, quite British, insult. I heard the Brits explained that Joe was in the back because the front section was reserved for relatives and royalty, but PLEASE. Nobody believes that Britain’s most important ally would be packed in, fourteen rows back, behind the Polish president. The Polish president isn’t a relative or royalty either. So Biden wasn’t even in the front of the back group.
Corporate media has been pretty quiet about this story, too. Too close to the midterms, I guess.
🔥 In the funniest story of the day, and I am not making this up, delusional Governor of California Gavin Newsom actually blamed people fleeing California on the “visa policy in the Trump administration.” Hahahaha!
Breaking911 @Breaking911WATCH: Calif. Gov. Newsom says people are fleeing California “because of visa policies in the Trump administration.”
September 21st 2022512 Retweets1,781 Likes
Newsom also emphasized, “This whole damn border debate is made up. It’s made up!” That will be a relief to the folks in El Paso, who are obviously just imagining things.
He also claimed, “our formula for success is getting first round draft choices from around the world.” Which I THINK means that California’s growth strategy is attracting foreigners rather than attracting U.S. citizens. Haha, they gave up on convincing informed Americans to move there. But California’s net migration proves the “first round draft” plan is obviously not working, so even foreigners don’t want to move there.
Best and brightest!
Have a terrific Thursday, and I’ll see you back here tomorrow for more.
C&C is moving the needle and changing minds. If you can, I could use your help getting the truth out and spreading optimism and hope: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/-learn-how-to-get-involved-
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The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
From Nassau County
Nassau County, Florida, September 21, 2022 – Please join us in welcoming Derrick Lindsay
as the County’s first Chief Innovation Officer. Derrick brings with him over 30 years of
experience in management of information systems, telecommunications and technical support of business software and hardware.
As the Chief Innovation Officer, Derrick will support the County by providing effective
leadership of information technology resources to ensure stable business applications and the efficient delivery of service to support the Board of County Commissioners. Derrick will lead the Technology Services Department by providing management and strategic direction to the County and its partners to certify that the department’s priorities are aligned with the overall goal of the County. He will also develop multiyear action plans, financial forecasts, policies/programs for procurement of technology software and applications, and oversight of the County’s cybersecurity program.
Derrick has served as the Information Systems Director for the Mississippi Attorney
General’s Office, the Chief Information Officer for the Mississippi Department of Education,
Vice President of Technical Services for a MS Technology Company, Vice President of
Broadband, and a Government Account Executive for a Fiberoptic Company. While serving
in these positions, Derrick offered oversight of system performance and operations while
providing technical support to hundreds of employees.
Derrick obtained his education from the University of Mississippi where in Minored in Business and obtained a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science. He also has knowledge in Local Area Networks, Wide Area Networks, Data Storage, Network Security, Document
Management, system migration, and data workflow.
Assistant County Manager, Marshall Eyerman stated, “Mr. Lindsay’s experience in both the
public and private sector has given him the knowledge needed to lead the Technical Services Department. We are excited to welcome him and look forward to the new innovations and efficiencies he will bring.”
By Michael Hernandez, 9-20-22
SACRAMENTO—California Governor Gavin Newsom has launched a billboard campaign and a one-million-dollar state-run website promoting abortions in seven red states.
The billboard campaign which states: “Need an abortion? California is ready to help” was launched in Indiana, Ohio, Oklahoma, Mississippi, South Carolina, South Dakota and Texas with the website: https://abortion.ca.gov/ which also lists 169 California in-person abortion providers as well as six virtual providers.
The advertising campaign also includes a scripture verse (Mark 12:31): “Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no greater commandment than these.”
“This invokes (that) trying to protect a baby from being killed is not loving your neighbor,” said CeCe Heil, Senior Counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ), one of the most prestigious law firms in the nation. “This is using a bible verse to justify killing of a baby…There always has to be a justification or you can’t kill a baby.”
“Gruesome Newsom invokes Christ for evil law” is the name of the Sept. 20 ACLJ broadcast with Chief Counsel Jay Sekulow calling the campaign “evil…using the words of Jesus is a heck of a gusty move in a horrible way.”
(Editor: To hear the ACLJ broadcast go to: https://aclj.org/radical-left/gruesome-newsom-invokes-christ-for-evil-law.)
In a Sept. 13 news release from the Office of Governor, Newsom states:
“Abortion is legal, safe and accessible here in California – whether or not you live here, know that we have your back. As Republican states continue rolling back fundamental civil rights and even try to prevent people from accessing information online or crossing state lines for care, you’re welcome here in California and we’ll continue to fight like hell for you.”
(Editor: Read release at: https://www.gov.ca.gov/2022/09/13/california-launches-abortion-ca-gov/ or watch 45-second message from Gavin Newsom: https://twitter.com/cagovernor/status/1569717602104274945).
The bottom of the abortion billboard, states: “Paid for by Newsom for California Governor 2022.” Newsom tagged several Republican governors, including Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves and Texas Gov. Gregg Abbott with the billboard image.
Joy Stockbauer, a policy analyst for the Center for Human Dignity, told The Christian Post: “Governor Newsom’s disrespect for the sincerely held religious convictions of Bible-believing Americans is disturbing, but sadly nothing new from far-left extremists within the Democratic Party.
“Perhaps Newsom wouldn’t be so desperate to draw vulnerable women to California if his actual constituents weren’t fleeing the state in droves due to his unwillingness to address the rampant violent crime problem.”
The abortion website received funding through a $200 million budget package funded by taxpayers as California seeks to be a sanctuary for abortions. The website states that California law allows minors to “independently consent to their own abortion care” despite any objections from their parents. The website links to http://www.teenhealthrights.org/ which tells minors they do not need your parents’ or caregivers’ permission to get an abortion if you are under 18.”
The Christian Post reported on Sept. 2 about California’s “historic” bill package of nearly a dozen bills that “erases the idea of an illegal abortion” passed by California lawmakers. They include:
“Newsom is looking past a Joe Biden vs. Donald Trump matchup to a Gavin Newsom vs. Ron DeSantis matchup for President,” said ACLJ Chief Counsel Jay Sekulow.
(Michael Hernandez, co-founder of the Citizens Journal—Ventura County’s online news service is a former Southern California daily newspaper journalist and religion and news editor. Mr. Hernandez can be contacted at [email protected] and is editor of “America: The End and Our Hope”.)
By Claudia Aoraha, 9-21-22
Popular comic strip is canned by 77 newspapers after artist Scott Adams began incorporating anti-woke plotlines, including black character who identifies as white.
Scott Adams’ much-loved ‘Dilbert’ comics have been in circulation since 1989 and frequently poke fun at office culture, but he announced he was sensationally dropped by publisher Lee Enterprises. The media company own nearly 100 newspapers across the country, and had been publishing Adams’ jokes about the corporate ladder for years. One of his most recent controversial comic strips included a black worker – named Dave – who identifies as white being asked to also identify as gay to boost his company’s environmental, social, and governance ratings.
Read MORE in Daily Mail UK
By Jerry Newcombe, D.Min., 9/21/22
I remember a 10-year-old girl in school who came home one day proudly wearing a big button that declared, “I’m for sharing.” But when she starting munching on a candy bar, her dad asked her if he could have a bite. She said, “No. It’s mine!” And he said, “Well, then stop wearing a button that says ‘I’m for sharing’ when you really aren’t.”
The left’s reaction to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis sending 50 illegal immigrants to Martha’s Vineyard and Gov. Greg Abbott sending many more to Vice President Kamala Harris’ residence in Washington, D. C. has exposed the hypocrisy of those who advocate for open border policies.
U.S. Rep. Michael Waltz (R, Florida) says the left is having a “collective political meltdown.” A reaction they did not have when illegal immigrants were being sent to various other states—often without prior notice.
As Ron DeSantis declared: “In Florida, we take what is happening at the southern border seriously. We are not a sanctuary state, and we will gladly facilitate the transport of illegal immigrants to sanctuary jurisdictions.”
There is a sign at Martha’s Vineyard, which declares in part “We stand with IMMIGRANTS, with REFUGEES, with INDIGENOUS PEOPLES….All Are Welcome Here, hate has no business here.” [emphasis in the original]
Is it not hypocrisy to claim to be a “sanctuary” when you really don’t mean it? Many “compassionate” liberals on the island freaked out about the 50 illegals coming there.
The UK Daily Mail observed: “DeSantis accused critics of his move to fly migrants to Martha’s Vineyard of ‘virtue signaling’, saying their concern for the welfare of the migrants was a ‘fraud’. He said: ‘The minute even a small fraction of what those border towns deal with every day is brought to their front door, they go berserk, and they’re so upset that this is happening.’”
The illegal immigrants were deported within a day of arriving at Martha’s Vineyard. I heard one conservative on the radio mock, “They couldn’t have those ‘peasants’ come into the Vineyard.”
The Oxford Languages on-line dictionary defines “virtue signaling” this way: “The action or practice of publicly expressing opinions or sentiments intended to demonstrate one’s good character or the moral correctness of one’s position on a particular issue.”
Those who are familiar with the Gospels know that Jesus Christ often had clashes with the religious leaders of His day, including the Pharisees. He often chewed them out because what they did was not sincere. It was just for show.
For example, Jesus said: “Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven.”
He applied this to giving, to fasting, to praying. For instance, here’s what He said about giving: “Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward.”
Jesus said this is how we should donate instead: “But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing.”
The Pharisees were the virtue signalers of their day. The Woke crowd are in effect the Pharisees of our day. They like to be regarded as the compassionate ones, without any of the inconvenience actual compassion requires.
Dr. D. James Kennedy once noted that “a hypocrite is someone who is not himself on Sunday.”
But, of course, hypocrisy is not reserved for church members.
The founders of America were concerned about hypocrisy.
Alexander Hamilton declared, “Til the millennium [when Jesus reigns on earth] comes, in spite of all our boasted light and purification, hypocrisy and treachery will continue to be the most successful commodities in the political market.”
In our day, we are seeing no end of hypocrisy. As one critic noted: “Over 4.9 million illegals entered the United States during Joe Biden’s first 18 months in office via the open southern US border. But send 50 illegal immigrants to an exclusive liberal enclave? That is a humanitarian crisis!”
At the very least the ritzy hotspot for the left should tear down that “I’m for sharing”-type sign, welcoming all. It’s just their Pharisaical way of saying they care, when they apparently don’t.
If Biden closed the border, this would not be happening. As DeSantis noted, “At the end of the day, this is a massive policy failure by the president. A massive and intentional policy that is causing a huge amount of damage all across the country, and it is all rooted in a failure to take care that the laws are faithfully executed and to fulfill his oath of office.”
Hypocrisy, thy name is Woke.
Jerry Newcombe, D.Min., is the executive director of the Providence Forum, an outreach of D. James Kennedy Ministries, where Jerry also serves as senior producer and an on-air host. He has written/co-written 33 books, including George Washington’s Sacred Fire (with Providence Forum founder Peter Lillback, Ph.D.) and What If Jesus Had Never Been Born? (with D. James Kennedy, Ph.D.). www.djkm.org @newcombejerry www.jerrynewcombe.com
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
By Jeff Childers
09-21-22
Good morning and Happy Wednesday, C&C! Today’s roundup includes lots of juicy commentary and analysis: a gracious thank-you from Chris Rufo; an other example of the death of expertise; Vanderbilt hospital caught with its bloody fingers in the cash drawer; Biden Raid case updates; and a major upgrade to the Ukraine conflict, which corporate media lied about, again.
🪖 OPERATION MULTIPLIER UPDATE: Chris Rufo made C&C a “thank you” video! Here’s the link, enjoy.
🪖 I was attending some CLE yesterday and came across a perfect example of what I’ve been talking about since the beginning of the pandemic. File this story under “The Death of Expertise.”
So, I was watching a live continuing education program yesterday afternoon, a pretty good one actually, and the presenter — a 40+ year veteran trial lawyer — was going through his powerpoint on a particular type of civil rights litigation, when he got to his general pointers about jury selection.
Here’s one of the three main bullet points the presenter offered, after his long and successful trial career, about how to pick good jurors:
I bet the experts didn’t see THAT coming. Explaining his rationale, the presenter said something like, “I have nothing against people who think they are experts, but they tend to believe that just because they know a lot about ONE area, that means they should be able to tell everybody else what to think about everything. I much prefer common sense over expertise, when it matters.”
Indeed. When it’s life or death, or is about serious money issues, you’re better off with REGULAR FOLKS — not experts — on the jury. Even people with expertise in whatever the case is about! It’s not a knock against professionals. I know that a lot of our C&C army are professionals, and I bet they’d agree. I’m even in that group.
The points, neatly made in a single Powerpoint bullet, is that you can’t rely on experts to use common sense, and other people defer TOO MUCH to experts. We need to stop deferring to experts. They are valuable for giving us an informed opinion to consider, that’s all. You should feel free to reject expert advice if it doesn’t make sense to you.
🔥 After Matt Walsh of the Daily Wire broke a terrific story yesterday about his investigation into Vanderbilt University’s appalling but apparently highly profitable medical experiments on children, Governor Bill Lee announced that the state of Tennessee will investigate the hospital.
“The ‘pediatric transgender clinic’ at Vanderbilt University Medical Center raises serious moral, ethical and legal concerns,” Governor Lee said in a statement to The Daily Wire. “We should not allow permanent, life-altering decisions that hurt children or policies that suppress religious liberties, all for the purpose of financial gain. We have to protect Tennessee children, and this warrants a thorough investigation.”
In his exposé, Matt Walsh included two video clips from whistleblowers. In the first clip, you can see and hear Nurse McKaren (“health law expert” Ellen Clayton) scolding Vanderbilt doctors who might consider raising “conscientious objections” to the hospital’s glorious new plan to revolutionize childhood through surgery.
You can do it, Karen warned, but there WILL be consequences. “If you don’t want to do this kind of work, don’t work at Vanderbilt,” she ominously comminated.
Matt Walsh @MattWalshBlogVanderbilt was apparently concerned that not all of its staff would be on board. Dr. Ellen Clayton warned that “conscientious objections” are “problematic.” Anyone who decides not to be involved in transition surgeries due to “religious beliefs” will face “consequences” September 20th 20224,526 Retweets16,859 Likes
You might be wondering, how could this happen? Administrators like McKaren learned how to bully doctors during the covid pandemic. You just threaten them economically and professionally. You can make them do practically anything. You can make them refuse to give dying patients safe, cheap, effective, Nobel-prize winning medication, for one example I picked completely at random.
And now, Vanderbilt is using the same techniques to force unwilling doctors to carve up children.
DOCTORS: WHERE IS THE LINE?? Something weird has happened to their ancient, respected profession, and just recently, too. Doctors used to be understandably arrogant, holding the power of life and death in their hands, having earned their stripes through years of hard work and nearly unbearably long hours. They’d earned respect from everyone, and didn’t take orders from anybody.
But now they sit quietly and take orders from Karen, and they’d better like it. Or else she might have to talk to the manager.
In my mind’s eye, I see that clip playing out completely differently. I see Karen making her threat, “if you raise a conscientious objection, there’ll be consequences!” But then, an attractive, silver-haired doctor in his early 60s, still fit and feisty, jumps up in the back of the room. “Madam,” he says quietly but forcefully, “that was the last threat you ever make to this hospital’s medical team. It’s not WE that will face consequences. YOU will be out of here inside 24 hours.” And then all the doctors walk out of the room.
Doctors! Be like the doctors in my imagination. You’ve earned respect, show it. Don’t be like the cowardly real-life Vanderbilt doctors in that video clip who just sat there and took a heaping helping of abuse, served up by an unattractive cross-dresser (or maybe not, it’s hard to tell).*
But it’s the next clip that I think really offends people. Maybe because it completely demolishes the narrative that trans doctors are just altruistic pioneers, selflessly devoting their lives to courageously advocating for the medical torture of young children, you know, to make them feel better via the power of the scalpel.
Matt Walsh @MattWalshBlogVanderbilt opened its trans clinic in 2018. During a lecture the same year, Dr. Shayne Taylor explained how she convinced Nashville to get into the gender transition game. She emphasized that it’s a “big money maker,” especially because the surgeries require a lot of “follow ups” September 20th 20227,234 Retweets23,299 Likes
The doctor in the clip starts off noting that Obama’s Affordable Care Act requires medical providers to offer trans services. Her audience understands her perfectly; what she means is, there’s someone who will PAY for all these services, without asking questions: insurance companies. Insurance companies are now on the hook for whatever ridiculous nonsense the bureaucrats come up with, and ultimately YOU are paying for it.
Continuing, she tallies up the financial opportunities trans surgeries offer the hospital, citing estimates “just for top surgery” at $40,000 and up, and fingering phalloplasties as “huge moneymakers.” She explains, “They’re labor intensive, they require a lot of followup, they require a lot of O.R. time, and they make money! They make money for the hospital.”
Phalloplasty is the surgery we looked at the other day, which could more accurately be called a forearm-ectomy.
Matt Walsh @MattWalshBlogVanderbilt opened its trans clinic in 2018. During a lecture the same year, Dr. Shayne Taylor explained how she convinced Nashville to get into the gender transition game. She emphasized that it’s a “big money maker,” especially because the surgeries require a lot of “follow ups” September 20th 20227,234 Retweets23,299 Likes
But, demonstrating the power of video over a bland transcript, the clip leaves you with a troubling, and in some ways terrifying, sense of medicine gone wrong. In this clip, it’s not just her words. It’s her sordid and unseemly enthusiasm, her bubbly excitement over the prospect of collecting all that cash, carving up kids.
In a deeply alarming way, the clip might challenge your fundamental paradigm about how you thought hospitals worked. But you shouldn’t be surprised. We already learned this, didn’t we, during covid? Even today, hospitals make hundreds of thousands in incentives and insurance overrides for each covid diagnosis, so long as it ends up with intubation.
In other words, Covid is a huge moneymaker! Just like trans surgeries.
For its part, Vanderbilt University Hospital is already scrubbing the evidence off its website. But Walsh said he saved everything and has the receipts, so it won’t help. What Vanderbilt NEEDS to do is not to get rid of the evidence. It needs a heart change. It needs to challenge itself, and figure out where it went off the tracks so badly. It needs a new purpose or vision or mission statement or something.
My honest advice to Vanderbilt is to stop trying to hide what it was doing and come clean. Doctors, healing begins with repentance.
In the meantime, Vanderbilt needs to take its bloodstained, money-grubbing hands off our children. Or else, as Nurse McKaren says, there will be consequences.
* Whenever I use the term “unattractive cross-dresser,” I get a little understandable pushback in the comments. Let me be clear. As a Christian, I love these unfortunate people, obviously suffering from an out-of-control but completely treatable mental illness. I don’t fault them; I fault the people around them, the so-called ‘affirmers,’ who are suffering from a willful, strong delusion that playing along with the cross-dresser’s mental illness is somehow helping anybody.
I won’t play along.
The term “unattractive cross-dresser” is accurate and true. It’s loving honesty, like gently telling your wife that, yes, honey, that dress IS a teeny-tiny bit unflattering (I’m not saying, “fat!”). Or like telling your friend that he has a face booger under his nose. Or like telling Nancy Pelosi, “dear, I think it’s time to hang it up; you just sound crazy up there.”
I believe people around these cross-dressers should be having a frank dialogue with them: What you are doing isn’t working. You need help.
More broadly, I intend for the words “unattractive cross-dresser” to rhetorically challenge the paradigm. I refuse to use the new words. I won’t do it. I’m calling this age-old phenomenon what it has accurately been called for my entire lifetime — up until about ten minutes ago. I will not use their new words.
People always gasp when I say ‘cross-dresser,’ which used to be the POLITE term; but that’s not the rule now, apparently. I have questions: WHO is making these new rules? Where are they written down? And who put these people in charge of our vocabulary?
🔥 Whew, there’s a LOT happening in the Trump raid case. Judge Dearie, the newly-appointed special master, is cracking the whip and apparently is trying to get to the bottom line. First, he accelerated the timeline, chopping over a month off the original proposed deadline and suggesting that the whole review could be finished in a couple weeks, by early October — well before midterms, coincidentally — which drew immediate, albeit gentle, objections from the Trump team.
Trumps’ team seems to be trying its best not to get sideways with Judge Dearie, but a confrontation is brewing. Based on a letter that made the rounds yesterday afternoon, Dearie apparently wants the Trump team to provide a sworn affidavit that clearly states whatever Trump says he did — or didn’t do — to declassify documents.
As I’ve explained before, THAT issue is the key, fundamental issue in the case. Dearie sees it too, and he’s trying to cut through all the decorative nonsense and strip the case down to the drywall, or whatever the modern equivalent of brass tacks is.
But disclosure doesn’t seem to be the Trump Team’s strategy just now. Team Trump told Dearie they don’t WANT to say what Trump did to disclose documents, since there could be a criminal indictment, and Trump’s declassification steps would then become a key defense. They explained that, if they have to say what Trump did NOW, then “the Special Master process will have forced the Plaintiff to fully and specifically disclose a defense to the merits of any subsequent indictment without such a requirement being evident in the District Court’s order.”
In other words, “Judge Cannon didn’t say we had to do that.”
Over in the 11th Circuit, where the DOJ is appealing the appointment of a special master in the first place, Team Trump filed a well-drafted 40-page response brief to the DOJ’s appeal at noon yesterday. There were two arguments. The main argument was that “the government has not proven the documents are classified.” Hence, argues Trump’s lawyers, a special master is needed to tell us whether the documents were even actually classified in the first place.
(Now, it seems like Judge Dearie might need to know whether Trump actually declassified the documents in order to determine whether the documents are classified or not, but that’s not today’s issue, I guess.)
Trump’s second argument merely contradicts the government’s position. Trump says “yes he does” own the documents, even if they are marked classified, and even if they were originally created by the government. Both issues were well argued by Trump’s lawyers.
Both cases — special master Dearie and the 11th Circuit appeal — are moving at the legal equivalent of warp speed. I expect further developments soon, maybe today, certainly this week.
Stand by for updates.
🚀 The Telegraph UK ran a story today on its news blog with the headline, “’I’m Not Bluffing on Nuclear Weapons’, Says Putin, as 300,000 Reservists Called Up to Army.”
Putin gave a speech this morning, which was originally scheduled for yesterday but then re-scheduled, leaving war-watchers all atwitter for 24 hours. In today’s speech, Putin announced significant escalations to the “special military operation,” a specific legal term distinguishing the Ukraine conflict from a “real” war, and strictly limiting Putin’s powers.
First, Putin announced that Russia is mobilizing 300,000 reservist troops, which is probably closer to a draft, for the war in Ukraine. That’s a lot of troops. The figure reminded me of the 300,000 troops that NATO said it was mobilizing back in June. A curious coincidence.
It’s the first such mobilization in Russia since World War II, and western corporate media are identifying it, of course, as a sign that the war in Ukraine is going badly for Russia. In a seven-minute televised address to the nation aired this morning, Putin warned the West that he isn’t bluffing over using ANY means at his disposal to protect Russia’s territory, in what pundits interpret to be a veiled reference to Russia’s nuclear weapons capability.
During the two days between the announcement and delivery of the speech, corporate media confidently but wrongly predicted that Putin was going to announce Russia’s unilateral withdrawal from the war in a disgraceful defeat. They were mistaken or lying again. Now, just because I point out how dishonest corporate media was, I’m not supporting Russia. I’m just pointing out that our media continues to lie to us and assume we have a gnat-like attention span.
What all the western reports omit is the fact that Russia’s massive, historic mobilization is happening RIGHT AFTER Putin attended the Shanghai Cooperation Organization’s meeting in Samarkand last week. There, he met with all the major Eastern bloc leaders, including China’s president Xi and India’s president Modi. The very next day he was back in the office — this Monday — the Russians announced Putin would make a “major” speech about the war (which was rescheduled to this morning).
So it’s eminently reasonable to conclude that Putin’s speech resulted from or was affected by his meetings with the leaders of Russia’s allies. Do you think, as I do, Putin might have been getting his support lined up for the upgraded Ukraine operation?
It’s not like there weren’t hints. Corporate media completely ignored widespread online reports in independent media that Serbian president and Putin ally Aleksander Vučić knew what was going to happen, because he predicted full-scale war was coming:
ТРУХА⚡️English @TpyxaNewsThe war in Ukraine may reach the level of a world-class conflict – Vučić. He also added that in a month or two the world could enter into a conflict that has not been seen since World War II September 20th 202229 Retweets190 Likes
Specifically, Vučić said, “I suppose that from the phase of a special military operation we are approaching a major military conflict, in a month or two, into a big world conflict, which has not been since the Second World War.”
He was 100% right, and 100% ignored by corporate media, who claimed Putin would be announcing defeat and shutting down the war.
How about the Chinese? Their position seems kind of important. Two weeks ago, on Friday, September 9th — the week before the Samarkand meetings — Chinese officials expressed what looks a whole lot like full-throated support for Russia, fingering NATO as the conflict’s provocateur, and confirming the Russians have the moral and ethical right to defend themselves from NATO expansionism.
Natalia 🦊 Наталья 🇷🇺☭🇨🇴 @NTY57NTYLi Zhanshu Chairman of the National People’s Congress of China gives a clear explanation that China will stand with Russia in all major international issues. China supports and understands the Special Military Operation and it’s fight with United States and NATO. 🇷🇺🤝🇨🇳 September 17th 202247 Retweets120 Likes
In the clip, Chairman of the National People’s Congress of China, Li Zhanshu, was shown meeting with representatives of Russia’s “Duma,” or congress. Among other things, Zhanshu said this:
But corporate media analysts view its allies as pressuring Russia to END the Ukraine conflict, quoting Turkish president Erdoğan as demanding Russia return “invaded territories,” especially Crimea, to the “rightful owners,” which means Turkey, since the Crimean peninsula was an Ottoman Empire protectorate until the Russians annexed the island all the way back in 1783.
POLITICOEurope @POLITICOEuropeVladimir Putin must return the Black Sea peninsula, including Crimea, to its “rightful owners,” Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said. His remarks come after the leaders of India and China also dealt Putin a rhetorical blow in recent days. Erdoğan to Putin: Return Crimea to ‘rightful owners’Turkish leader joins parade of leaders dealing blows to Putin.bit.lySeptember 20th 2022648 Retweets2,172 Likes
So that’s kind of kooky and not super helpful. The New York Times reported that India’s president Modhi told Putin four days ago that “today’s era is not one for war,” and extrapolated from his statement that India plans to stay out of the war:
The New York Times @nytimesPrime Minister Narendra Modi of India told Vladimir Putin on Friday that “today’s era is not one for war,” underlining Russia’s increasing international isolation one day after China’s leader refrained from fully supporting Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Amid Russia’s growing international isolation, India’s leader tells Putin that today is no time for war.Mr. Modi was speaking on the snyti.msSeptember 16th 2022367 Retweets1,382 Likes
But at least one Indian social media influencer (700K followers) called the Times’ article out, saying Western journalists were mistranslating Modhi’s comments, originally delivered in Hindi. Meaning, she’s labeling the New York Times report as fake news.
Shefali Vaidya. 🇮🇳 @ShefVaidyaIf you know Hindi, it is obvious that @narendramodi ji neither ‘chided’ nor ‘rebuked’ Putin. He stated India’s position on the matter and said, he will get a chance to better understand Putin. Western journos are trying to fire from India’s shoulders. September 17th 2022257 Retweets1,269 Likes
So. Who knows. Do YOU think the New York Times would deliberately mistranslate a foreign leader to support its narrative?
What’s clear is Joe Biden’s escalation strategy is “working.” The war is escalating. If you’re going to say it’s all Putin’s fault, that Joe Biden had nothing whatsoever to do with heightening the ominous risk of global thermonuclear destruction, go sell your crazy somewhere else. We’re all stocked up here.
If you want to somehow argue Joe is the victim, or merely a defensive responder, you’re going to have to first discuss how military experts predicted in 2014 that Russia would react to NATO’s expansionism in Ukraine EXACTLY LIKE THIS.
Finally, if this is what Joe’s dumb slogan “Build Back Better” looks like, then I think I’m ready to trying building back WORSE, or whatever’s the reverse opposite of “Build Back Better,” which obviously is NOT working. It might be “making America great again,” but I’d settle for just “making America okay again.”
Have a wonderful Wednesday! I’ll be back tomorrow with more great C&C-style commentary.
C&C is moving the needle and changing minds. If you can, I could use your help getting the truth out and spreading optimism and hope: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/-learn-how-to-get-involved-
Twitter: @jchilders98
Truth Social: @jchilders98
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The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
Governor’s Press Office
09-20-22
BRADENTON, Fla. — Today, Governor Ron DeSantis announced a portion of his tax relief proposal for the upcoming legislative session which would provide $1.1 billion in tax relief for Florida families through multiple tax holidays, if passed by the Legislature. Included in the proposal is an expansion of the annual Back to School tax holiday and permanent tax exemptions for baby and toddler items in addition to a yearlong tax exemption on other household items families need every day. Details on the proposal can be found here.
“I’m proud that Florida has a record budget surplus and am happy to propose historic tax relief to Florida families,” said Governor Ron DeSantis. “This proposal will allow families to purchase items for their children at a lower cost and help families keep more money in their pockets. I look forward to working with the Legislature to bring this major relief to Florida families.”
“Governor DeSantis and I both have young families, and we understand the burden of necessary expenses associated with essentials such as diapers, school supplies, and gas,” said Department of Economic Opportunity Secretary Dane Eagle. “Today’s announcement proves that Governor DeSantis is continuing to work tirelessly to lift up Florida families. With today’s supply chain issues and outrageous inflation, this tax relief initiative will help Florida families stretch their dollars further.”
The proposal includes tax holidays on items frequently purchased by Florida families:
The proposal also includes a continuation of tax holidays for the 2023-2024 fiscal year:
This tax relief proposal is in addition to the statewide toll relief proposal announced by the Governor earlier this month. The proposed toll relief plan would provide a 50 percent discount for commuters with more the 40 toll transactions in a month, saving the average commuter an estimated $550 over one year and impacting approximately 750,000 Floridians who frequently commute.
Local congressional candidate Aaron Bean also weighs in on the issue
Fernandina Beach, Fla. – Republican candidate for Florida Congressional District 4 Aaron Bean today released the following statement regarding Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ announcement of a portion of his tax relief proposal that would provide $1.1 billion in tax relief for Florida families through multiple tax holidays, if passed.
“I’m proud of our tax-cutting Governor, and I look forward to Florida making these family friendly tax breaks permanent and expanding more relief.
“This is the type of tax-cutting spirit I will take to Washington to overturn the Biden-Pelosi tax increases and their reckless spending that have given our country the worst inflation since the Jimmy Carter economy.”
For more information on the Aaron Bean for Congress campaign, visit AaronBean.com.
9-20-22
Here’s a new CJF feature. Yes, it is one-sided. That’s why we labeled it “Opinion.” Please let us know what you think ….
Extra!:
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
By Jeff Childers
09-20-22
Happy Tuesday, C&C, it’s a good news roundup! Today: A massive Fifth Circuit win for social media users that will shake the platforms to their core; the Epoch Times gallantly exposes more Martha’s Vineyard hypocrisy; DeSantis shatters fundraising records; the great cleanup might be starting as USA Today investigates covid profiteering; no deaths after weird Mexican earthquake; white hats in the FBI reveal the agency is trading sex trafficking for January 6th investigations; two late-night comedians dunk on lefty cultural trends;
🪖 Yesterday some alert C&C readers commented on my tip for grabbing a disposable phone number from Google Voice, pointing out that since Google is the devil, folks might want to consider other more private options. Personally, I don’t care if Google sees a million marketing tweets from Republican candidates, but intelligent opinions vary.
For a throwaway phone number, privacy-minded C&C’ers suggested using PhoneApp https://phoneapp.io/ instead of Google Voice, although it is a paid service.
And for anonymous email addresses, if you must enter an email address, you could try:
* Burner mail — temporary anonymous “burner” email addresses. https://burnermail.io/
* 10minute mail — a temporary email address that disappears after 10 minutes. https://burnermail.io/
I surrendered my gmail address to spam a long time ago, and now I basically use it as a disposable email address. But I have to admit, 10 Minute Mail looks kind of interesting. If you try it, let me know how it works out.
🔥 In an epic win for social media user rights, on Friday, the Fifth Circuit upheld a new Texas statute prohibiting large social media platforms from political viewpoint-based user censorship. The Court noted that the platforms made the bizarre oxymoronic argument that they have a free speech right to “muzzle speech.”
The Fifth Circuit judges were having none of it. They explained that the platforms’ argument makes no sense:
The short, two-page order ended like this:
BOOM.
The appeal was filed by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who has been doing some truly fantastic work lately.
The Court’s holding interferes with the deep state’s narrative-manipulation tools, so you can imagine that they must be thinking this is the worst thing that could ever have happened, literally a million times worse than the Hindenburg disaster. They’re squawking, too. For instance, here’s how deep state mouthpiece Foreign Policy magazine described the ruling in its headline:
See? According to the deep state, the problem is that a free and open social media town square is NOT SAFE. “Extremists” from “the globe” might post stuff that hurts your feelings, which is even worse than ACTUALLY hurting you, say through a jab mandate or something.
Safety uber-alles!
The authors of the Foreign Policy op-ed admitted their conflict of interests, noting parenthetically that “(Full disclosure: At Valens Global, we have received funding from Meta, the owner of Facebook, for our work on how national security intersects with technology.)” So.
The parade of horribles offered by the op-ed’s writers is mostly fantastical. For example, they begin the piece by warning their hands over a lunatic who live-streamed a shooting incident. If the platforms can’t censor THAT, then even more lunatics will be encouraged to shoot people and live-stream themselves.
The problem with that argument, of course, is that censoring criminal activity is not political viewpoint discrimination. The authors next invoked “radical Islam,” worrying that social media can be used to “radicalize” jihadists.
I’d say that letting the radical jihadist talk on social media helps us figure out where they are, and frankly I’m more concerned about the social media platforms censoring opinions for “Islamophobia.”
As my First Amendment professor used to say, “the antidote to bad speech is more speech.”
🔥 One of the dumb excuses Martha’s Vineyard locals used to justify why the 51 illegal immigrants couldn’t stay on their idyllic little island was that is just no work for them, what with the summer rush over and everything. For example, Charles Rus, music director at St. Andrew’s, the episcopal church in Edgartown where the illegal immigrants were temporarily housed, flatly told the Epoch Times there were no jobs on the island for the migrants, so. Buh bye.
But the Epoch Times did a little digging — a very little digging, it didn’t take much — and found jobs all over the place, in scads and buckets. For instance, there are over 50 help wanted ads in classified section of the Vineyard Gazette alone, including jobs for laborers, custodians, landscapers, bakers, cooks, dishwashers, technicians, library assistant, and several retail positions.
Epoch’s reporters also called the Martha’s Vineyard YMCA and discovered several more open positions, including housekeepers, “ice arena” workers, and a front desk administrator. The YMCA shares a building with a local charity, Martha’s Vineyard Community Services, which itself needs a “bilingual” administrative assistant.
Bilingual.
Although the Community Services charity almost certainly receives state and/or federal funding, Epoch couldn’t find anyone in the generously-appointed offices when the reporter went by to ask about the job opening.
Even more appalling, Epoch’s reporter discovered that the island’s local supermarket chain, Stop & Shop, has empty worker dormitories — where the summer overflow workers live during the busy summer tourist season. Obviously the immigrants could have been housed there — and Stop & Shop is even hiring for several open positions right now.
Martha’s Vineyard is one of eight “sanctuary cities” in Massachusetts and — up till about 10 minutes ago — regularly “celebrated diversity.”
Not any more, apparently.
📈 MSN begrudgingly ran a story Friday headlined, “Ron DeSantis Breaks Fundraising Record For Governors Amid Martha’s Vineyard Immigration Stunt.”
The news agency reported that, following the news over last week’s Martha’s Vineyard disaster for liberals, Florida’s governor broke all-time fundraising records, ever, by any governor in U.S. history.
And it’s not just fundraising…
🔥 The latest figures on party registration in Florida show that, since DeSantis was elected governor in 2018, Florida’s Republican Party had added 509,420 new registered voters, but in the same period, Democrats have only added 17,197 voters.
Oops. Pretty soon, democrats in Florida might find out what California Republicans feel like.
🔥 Is the great cleanup starting? USA Today ran a revealing investigative story a couple weeks ago headlined, “Cashing In On Covid: USA Today Investigates Claims Against Companies That Profited In Pandemic.”
The article rounds up a series of related articles about state and federal investigations into pandemic “no bid” profiteering, where people who got government covid contracts under emergency authority are now having to account for where the money went.
And guess what? A lot of taxpayer money went right into people’s pockets. I know; shocking, right?
For now, the investigations are mostly into covid testing labs, the same ones who used absurdly-high PCR thresholds to inflate covid infection figures and keep the pandemic cash machine rolling — while keeping the rest of us locked down and masked up.
Here’s a list of headlines from USA Today’s linked articles:
If the references to GOP governors and states troubles you, don’t worry. There’ll be plenty of these cases in the blue states, too, you’ll see. They just won’t get as much corporate media coverage.
And if you ever wondered why the RINOs jumped right behind the pandemic madness — I didn’t — this is your explanation.
Covid was the biggest cash grab in human history. And I really believe that — sooner rather than later — we WILL ultimately crawl all the way up the chain, right up to the big pharma execs who snatched generational wealth from citizens, by selling dangerously defective snake oil to 70% of the first world’s population using no-bid government contracts.
Trust the greed process. There’s blood in the political water. The lower-level sharks are already circling around all that new generational wealth money, and the feeding frenzy could start anytime.
🔥 A powerful 7.6 magnitude earthquake struck southwest Mexico off the Pacific coast yesterday, which, along with the Taiwan quake, makes TWO recent serious earthquakes, on opposite sides of the Pacific Ocean, within a couple days of each other.
Fortunately there were no casualties or major building damage, according to reports.
The quake was weird for another reason. Yesterday’s earthquake hit on the September 19th anniversary of TWO previous large earthquakes around Mexico City, one that killed over 10,000 people in 1985, and another that killed over 360 in 2017. In other words, three major earthquakes have now hit Mexico on the same day of the year — September 19th.
In fact, because of the anniversaries, officials had JUST finished an earthquake drill in Mexico City when yesterday’s earthquake hit. You have to admit it’s kind of weird.
🔥 There are signs of intelligent life and ethics in the FBI. Yesterday, Jim Jordan sent a letter to FBI Director Chris Wray, complaining about what the FBI agents who are providing the House Judiciary Committee are saying about what’s been going on in the agency since Biden took up residence in the White House.
Jordan explained that, all around the country, FBI agents are being told to stand down child sex trafficking investigations, and start prioritizing investigations about J6 cases:
House Judiciary GOP @JudiciaryGOP#BREAKING: New whistleblower information reveals that the FBI is moving agents off of child sexual abuse investigations to instead pursue political investigations. The whistleblower recounted being told that “child sexual abuse investigations were no longer an FBI priority.” September 20th 20223,632 Retweets5,583 Likes
Jordan told Wray that “whistleblowers describe a “rotted” culture within the FBI’s senior leadership in Washington.” According to the whistleblowers, to make it look like there’s some kind of sudden explosion of domestic terrorism around the country, the DC field office is referring J6 cases to local offices around America and telling them to “originate” the case in those local jurisdictions.
According to the whistleblowers, this statistical sleight-of-hand lets the DOH claim that new cases are breaking out all over the country (instead of coming right from D.C.) amounting to “significant increases in domestic terrorism … instead of hundreds of investigations stemming from a single, black swan incident at the Capitol.”
I don’t know what will come of this, but the story shows there are still good cops in the FBI, and they’re talking a blue streak. Finally.
🔥 There are some significant signs that the culture may be shifting. Yesterday, Business Insider reported that Charlamagne The God, a center-left social media influencer turned Comedy Central “black news” commenter, called DeSantis a genius for sending the illegals to Martha’s Vineyard:
TheBlaze @theblazeRadio host Charlamagne on DeSantis sending illegal immigrants to Martha’s Vineyard: “I personally think it’s genius.” September 19th 202272 Retweets376 Likes
🔥 And last week, classically-liberal Bill Maher even called out leftist historical revisionism.
Bill Maher @billmaherIn today’s world, when truth conflicts with narrative, it’s the truth that has to apologize. #Presentism September 17th 20225,914 Retweets20,591 Likes
Maher is looking more conservative by the minute. But he hasn’t changed. Neither has Charlamagne. I’ll remind you of the brilliant cartoon illustration popularized by former democrat Elon Musk, showing how moderate liberals must be starting to view their place in the world:
So, be encouraged! We’re moving in the right direction. It just takes a long time to turn a mega-cruise-ship around, what with with Klaus Schwab constantly showing up on the bridge and trying to grab the helm.
Have a terrific Tuesday! I’ll see you guys back here tomorrow for more.
C&C is moving the needle and changing minds. If you can, I could use your help getting the truth out and spreading optimism and hope: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/-learn-how-to-get-involved-
Twitter: @jchilders98
Truth Social: @jchilders98
MeWe: mewe.com/i/coffee_and_covid.
C&C Swag! www.shopcoffeeandcovid.com
Emailed Daily Newsletter: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
By Dickerson Bakker
New study by DickersonBakker shows many Christian schools not ready for influx of new students, lack fundraising know-how
PRIVATE CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS SEE ENROLLMENT SURGE: Christian schools across the U.S. are seeing a surge in enrollment, says a new report, A National Study on Christian School Growth and Sustainability, by fundraising firm DickersonBakker (www.DickersonBakker.com). But many Christian schools aren’t geared up for the influx resulting from the exodus of nearly 2 million students from public schools since the pandemic. NEWS PROVIDED BY
DickersonBakker
Sept. 20, 2022RALEIGH, N.C, Sept. 20, 2022 /Christian Newswire/ — More parents want their children in private Christian schools, but many Christian schools aren’t geared up for the influx of new students, a new research study by nonprofit consulting firm DickersonBakker says .Christian schools — including many that were until recently struggling to fill classrooms — are seeing a surge in interest and enrollment, says the just-released report, A National Study on Christian School Growth and Sustainability.
Eight out of 10 Christian school leaders say there’s increasing demand for Christian education in their area, and the same number report their enrollment has grown since the pandemic. It’s part of a national trend following COVID-19 public school closures when students had to switch to online classes at home — and many parents weren’t happy with what they saw.”Large class sizes, inadequate staffing, disorganized virtual education, curriculum limitations, and rapidly changing social and moral standards… caused parents to take a new look at Christian schools,” says the report.
Public School Exodus: Opportunity For Christian Schools
Public schools across the U.S. have seen an exodus of nearly 2 million students since the pandemic, according to a report last month in The Christian Post. And a recent survey by EdChoice revealed four out of 10 parents say they’d prefer a private education for their children.”
For Christian schools, this represents an opportunity for unprecedented growth,” said Derric Bakker, president of DickersonBakker (www.DickersonBakker.com). “But this great opportunity also presents some sobering challenges, particularly related to financial sustainability.”
Enrollment Surge Leads to Challenges
Key challenges include balancing budgets amid soaring costs and making tuition fees affordable. Three out of every four Christian school leaders say they’re struggling to hire qualified staff, a third say they don’t have enough room on campus for more students, and yet only three out of 10 schools have increased their fundraising activities.”
Remarkably, seven of the top 10 challenges (identified by Christian school leaders) are related to financial sustainability, and can be at least partially resolved by increasing annual fundraising,” says the report.
Fundraising: A Sticking Point For Many Schools
Although a whopping 97% of Christian school leaders say upping their fundraising efforts is vital to the future of their school, Christian schools “on the whole are not raising money effectively,” and most administrators lack training and guidance on the topic, the study concludes.”If we don’t find a way to fix it, many Christian schools are going to struggle, and some might not survive,” said Bakker, whose firm has helped hundreds of schools boost fundraising.
DickersonBakker estimates Christian schools, on average, invest less than 3% of their annual revenues into raising funds, and nearly six out of 10 of the school leaders involved in the study acknowledge their fundraising efforts need “substantial” improvement. “The upshot of this study is that many Christian schools across the nation are seeing increased enrollment and face many challenges that come with that growth — challenges that can be wholly or partially resolved by increasing their annual fundraising,” Bakker said. “It’s a new era for Christian schools in America.”
DickersonBakker (www.DickersonBakker.com) has been providing professional fund development consulting services to schools and nonprofit clients for over 35 years. With offices in Texas and North Carolina and full-time consultants living in several states, the firm has served hundreds of nonprofits – especially faith-based organizations – across the U.S., Canada and overseas. SOURCE DickersonBakkerCONTACT: Stephen Reed, 843-964-9339, [email protected]
By Jeff Childers
09-9-22
And we’re off! It’s the hopeful start to a new week in post-pandemic, pre-election America today, and I trust all you C&Cers had a wonderful weekend. Today’s roundup includes: Biden apparently pivots on the border wall; a HUGE story about the democrats getting caught with their chocolate-stained hands in the disinformation cookie jar; Biden announces the pandemic is OVER; New York doesn’t get the memo; and Taiwan is hit with a serious earthquake.
🪖 Operation multiplier tips: Here’s a page with step-by-step instructions for getting a free Google Voice phone number that you can use on donation sites instead of your real cell phone number: https://www.lifewire.com/get-a-google-phone-number-5211558
That way, solicitations texts will go to your Google voice number and not to your actual cell phone.
🔥 The Intercept ran a timely article yesterday headlined, “Border Wall Construction Resumes Under President Joe Biden.” Hahahaha, oh they’re killing me this morning! The sub-headline explained, “The Biden administration laid out its plans to rev up work on completing Donald Trump’s signature project.”
You may recall that Biden halted the Trump’s border wall right after he took office in January 2021, mumbling something about “what border crisis?” Now, although there’s no official announcement, and corporate media is completely silent about the massive policy shift, but it seems as though an unofficial policy to continue the construction is now suddenly and unexpectedly in force.
The Intercept reported that last week, “U.S. Customs and Border Protection confirmed that work on the border wall that began under Trump is revving back up under Biden,” explaining that “[s]tarting next month, contractors will return to the Sonoran Desert in Arizona to resume work on the wall, senior CBP officials said in a public webinar.”
Gosh. What could have caused this sudden shift in Biden’s thinking? I have two ideas. First, according to a weekend story in Just the News headlined, “Two More Texas Counties Declare Invasion At Southern Border, Bringing Total To 29.”
So far, Governor Abbott has stopped short of declaring a statewide invasion — no state has. But with literally hundreds of thousands of untracked, unvetted, illegal foreign nationals streaming across Texas’ border every month, one wonders WHAT the governor thinks an “invasion” is?
There must be some other, highly-technical definition of the word out there that I’m not aware of.
Last week, Texas neared 30 Texas border counties declaring their own local states of invasion. But then, more significantly because it blew up on corporate media, Governor DeSantis shipped a handful of migrants to the sunny shores of Martha’s Vineyard, and THEN we find out the Biden administration want to start building the wall again.
Could it have something to do with headlines like this?
Pivoting! It’s no way to run a government, of course. Biden is acting more like a paranoid, secretive dictator than the leader of a transparent democratic government. All this shifting and pivoting whenever the mood strikes him, stopping and starting construction of a Congressionally-approved border wall, without even a public announcement, seems pretty anti-democratic, actually.
🔥 The Democrats have gotten their sticky little hands stuck in the fake news cookie jar, this time. A TikTok video went viral this weekend, which simultaneously illustrated the underhanded tactics of the left, rogue deep state government actors, massive funding, and the shady NGOs carrying out its demonic agenda — as well as the how desperate it’s getting.
The viral video was posted by a popular TikTok “Harvard trial attorney” Preston Moore (@trialbypreston). He wasn’t happy. Not at all.
First of all, as I can assure you, since I’m also a lawyer who posts on social media, serious lawyers are always careful to tell what they believe is the truth, especially online, because their reputation has to be solid in front of judges and juries. A reputation for lying kind of hurts if you’re a trial lawyer. Not to overlook ethics, of course.
Second, on his TikTok channel, Preston has been consistently critical of the former president. He has repeatedly posted about his opinion that the FBI has enough evidence to indict President Trump for concealing national defense information, for example.
I’m sure that’s why they thought it was safe to contact him. They forgot some people care about ethics and telling the truth.
In his latest video, Preston says he got an unsolicited email invitation from “Jane” at the “Good Info Foundation,” offering a “paid collaboration” where he could earn $400 for making certain posts to his TikTok and Instagram accounts.
Curious, he responded that he was interested, and then got a link to a private web page providing instructions for what needed to be in the paid post. The Good Info Foundation (or, the “GIF”) wanted him to talk about January 6th, but from a certain, er, point of view:
Preston thought all this seemed kind of sketchy. Then he noticed under the heading, “Key Messaging (in your own words!),” the Good Info Foundation’s private web page advised him to make this remarkable claim:
Preston followed up, emailing back and asking Jane to explain what evidence backed up the claim that the Trump campaign paid “literally millions of dollars to make” the January 6th siege happen. And guess what? Jane didn’t provide any evidence. She backed off and said, “you don’t have to say that if you don’t want to.”
Here’s Preston, in his own words:
Ian Miles Cheong @stillgrayThis lawyer on TikTok is exposing a disinformation campaign to drive certain talking points about Donald Trump and “MAGA Republicans” to sway viewers into voting for Democrats in the upcoming midterms. September 18th 2022664 Retweets1,614 Likes
🔥 So, who or what is this Good Info Foundation anyway? The GIF’s list of board members and officers is a rogue’s gallery of Deep State operatives. For example, the GIF’s board chairman is Richard Stengel, a former State Department official (and then ‘MSNBC contributor’). Alert independent investigators quickly dug up this video clip featuring Stengel speaking in 2020:
Max Blumenthal @MaxBlumenthalOne is Richard Stengel, self described former “Chief Propagandist” and supporter of domestic US propaganda Ben Norton @BenjaminNortonMore of the revolving door between mainstream corporate media outlets and the US government: Three paid analysts on MSNBC have left to join Joe Biden’s administration. A fourth paid MSNBC contributor helped write Biden’s victory speech. https://t.co/TGhmzVWml7November 11th 2020280 Retweets852 Likes
In the clip,* Stengel explains when he worked at the U.S. State Department, his job was literally called the “Chief Propagandist.” I am not making that up. And then I nearly spit out my coffee when he says this:
“I’m not against propaganda. Every country does it. And they have to do it to their own population. And I don’t think it’s that awful.”
Um. They HAVE TO DO IT THEIR OWN POPULATION. They “have to.” That used to be illegal! Oh well, at least he admitted it. But, just spitballing here, maybe it’s time for a new Church Committee. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_Committee
Apparently Richard’s “Good Info” — a non-profit public interest organization — is now paying TikTok influencers $400 bucks PER POST to propagandize Americans about January 6th and falsely claim that Trump paid millions to “make it happen.”
I don’t think “good information” means what they think it means. You usually don’t have to pay like-minded influencers to talk about “good” information.
Another “advisor” listed on the GIF’s website is Dan Pfieffer, who used to be Obama’s White House Communications Director. The website identifies a woman named Tara McGowan as the “founder” of GIF. InfluenceWatch describes McGowan as “a Democratic political operative,” and says this about her:
InfluenceWatch didn’t list Good Information, Inc., which runs the Good Info Project, but it did mention this interesting little nugget:
$65 million! That’s a whole lot for one single project. Pretty ambitious. Having tried my hand at some public-interest fund-raising, I know how much work it takes.
🔥 So wouldn’t you like to know where all the millions to pay for top-tier deep-staters and buy off social media influencers are coming from? Oh wait, someone already tracked it down:
George Soros, what a shock! I knew you’d be surprised.
🔥 Now let’s go back and think about some of the talking points, because they evidence an interesting new narrative pivot.
First of all, the GIF advised Preston to call it a “criminal conspiracy,” and NOT an “attempted coup,” “treason,” or even an “insurrection.” Those other words must not be polling well, or maybe they just aren’t a great predicate for an indictment. Instead the GIF clearly prefers the term “criminal conspiracy.”
Second, they echoed the White House’s recent talking points, advising Preston to say that “MAGA Republicans” were to blame, and NOT “Trump and his allies.” It’s just one data point, but it sure looks like coordination with Team Biden.
Finally, the Good Info Foundation clearly wants its paid influencers to link “anger” at the “criminal conspiracy” with voting against Republican candidates. In other words, they are trying to influence the elections.
So what does all this suggest? It suggests that the democrats are ramping up to argue there is some kind of ongoing criminal conspiracy directly fueled by President Trump, with the enthusiastic support of “MAGA Republicans.”
Haha, I think there IS a criminal conspiracy all right. Except it’s a criminal conspiracy to influence the elections, through fake news and disinformation, directly fueled by lunatics like George Soros, with the enthusiastic support of deep state actors.
🔥 Still, there’s a lot of good news here. First of all, if they’re backing down from the term “insurrection,” that must mean the old narrative bit the dust somehow. So they’re testing a new narrative, maybe based on the FBI raid.
Second, if they have to pay influencers $400 PER POST, they’re obviously not seeing a lot of volunteerism. The more expensive it is to pay for this message, the less it must make sense to ordinary democrats. In other words, media influencers — especially liberal and anti-Trump ones — should be happy to report talking points that were true or popular.
But not only did that effort fail with this Harvard trial lawyer, he went public with it, understandably upset that someone was trying to buy him off to publish fake news. It’s a setback.
And, they over-reached this time, pitching their little scheme to someone that they didn’t know FOR SURE would keep it quiet. So they are either running short of regulars or they are making a huge pre-election push.
It is worth reflecting, though, that they wouldn’t be doing this at all if it hadn’t already worked with a lot of other social media influencers.
The bottom line is, social media is so influential now as an alternate source of news that they are having to spend tons of money trying to push their disinformation online. Which means people must be paying a whole lot less attention to corporate media.
🔥 Finally, here are the issues that the “Good Info Foundation” appears to highlight as “disinformation” on its website. I thought you might find them interesting too:
— Vaccine skepticism
— January 6th
— 5G concerns
— Election skepticism
I didn’t used to be too interested in the whole 5G thing, but this gives me pause. I might have to look into it now. And, the website also features scary pictures of Steve Bannon and Tucker Carlson.
So.
🔥 Moving on, CNN ran a chipper story late yesterday headlined, “Biden: ‘The Pandemic Is Over’.”
On his Sunday morning appearance on 60 Minutes, Biden tried to straddle the line and make all sides happy right before the elections, saying, “The pandemic is over. We still have a problem with Covid. We’re still doing a lot of work on it. It’s — but the pandemic is over.”
Well then, I guess that’s settled. Of course, the federal state of emergency continues, but let’s not nitpick. Science!
💉 New York hasn’t got the memo, apparently. The New York Post ran a story this weekend headlined, “850 More Unvaxxed NYC Teachers, Aides Fired For Not Complying With Mandate.”
It turns out that about 1,300 DOE employees took a deal last year that gave them a year’s unpaid leave, in exchange for an agreement to be jabbed by September 5th of this year, or be “deemed to have voluntarily resigned.” The year has finally come around.
Of the 1,300 courageous deferrers, some 450 finally gave in and took the shot, but the rest held out. All of them are now terminated, including 225 teachers and 135 paraprofessionals.
Actually, given what we now know about the shots, 450 is more than I would’ve guessed. Anyway, if you are an unjabbed, newly-“resigned,” experienced NYC paraprofessional considering moving to Florida, give my office a call. I understand we’re also hiring teachers down here.
🔥 A strong earthquake hit Taiwan over the weekend, reported as anywhere from 6.4 to 7.2 on the Richter scale. Images included everything from shaking buildings to avalanches to toppled buildings.
According to the Hill’s report, there was only one reported fatality as of yesterday afternoon.
I’m very, very happy there weren’t many casualties. But if Taiwan has another earthquake, or a more serious one, then China could just walk in under the banner of humanitarian aid.
It’s a good thing the Chinese don’t have secret earthquake technology.
Have a magnificent Monday! I’ll be back tomorrow with more.
C&C is moving the needle and changing minds. If you can, I could use your help getting the truth out and spreading optimism and hope: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/-learn-how-to-get-involved-
Twitter: @jchilders98
Truth Social: @jchilders98
MeWe: mewe.com/i/coffee_and_covid.
C&C Swag! www.shopcoffeeandcovid.com
Emailed Daily Newsletter: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
By George Miller, 9-17-22, as told by Jack Knocke
CCDF (County Citizens Defending Freedom) USA- Duval County Chapter sponsored a Constitution Day celebration today at the Jacksonville Naval Museum aboard the destroyer USS Orleck (photo, above), a 77 year-old navy vessel that saw action in Korea & Viet Nam. The vessel was transferred to the Turkish Navy, before eventually returning stateside and being placed in several “foster homes” before making it to Jax.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Orleck
Jack Knocke, Executive Director of the embryonic CCDF USA Nassau County chapter told us about it and provided the photographs for this article.
Jax Councilman Al Ferraro helped bring the USS Orleck to Jacksonville and said a few words at the event. Then Students from Classical Academy Charter School spoke on the Bill of Rights. Knocke later opined that our Nassau County School system should be based on the classical curricula of this school. He also advocated making Constitution day a national holiday.
“We the People in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice and ensure domestic tranquility…”
Read CCDF’s own REPORT on this event
George Miller is Publisher and Co-Founder of Citizens Journal Florida, based in Fernandina Beach. He is a “retired” operations management consultant, software and publishing executive and manufacturing management professional.
By Jeff Childers
09-17-22
Good morning, and Happy Saturday, C&C! Today’s roundup: the DOJ appealed Trump’s special master; Martha’s Vineyard fights back; moving on from a sudden and unexpected death; Indonesia shopping for cheaper oil; a high speed Trump Train to the world’s end; Epoch documentary; and why the West is starting to admire Russia despite the constant anti-Putin propaganda.
🔥 Proving that government can act in a hurry when it wants to, yesterday the DOJ promptly appealed Judge Cannon’s order appointing a special master in the Biden Raid case. The appeal was filed in the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta and claims that ANY DELAY in the FBI’s investigation — no matter how short — will cause IRREPARABLE HARM to the entire government of the United States of America. According to the DOJ, it would literally be worse than a million Vietnam wars.
To support its claims, DOJ made two main arguments:
First, DOJ argued that, by definition, all classified documents are government documents. Government documents are the government’s property, not President Trump’s property. Therefore, Trump can’t claim he has any special interest in keeping documents that he doesn’t own. But on the other hand, the government DOES have a legal right to get its own confidential property back, and do whatever it wants with its documents.
Second, DOJ claimed it is absolutely critical that the government gets complete control of its own documents back, RIGHT NOW, so it can keep on investigating, to find out who President Trump might have disclosed the documents to, and whether there might be any more documents out there somewhere. The DOJ seems to be implying that if it can’t complete its investigation before the mid-term elections, then it’ll be a Hindenburg-style national security disaster, just wait and see.
Once again, the briefing provided a lot of helpful background information that cuts right through corporate media talking-head speculation and noise. The DOJ says it seized 11,000+ documents in the raid, but only 100 of them were classified (1%). In other words, they grabbed over ONE HUNDRED TIMES more than they needed to.
That seems to kind of tell the whole story.
In its appeal, DOJ said it is only asking for a limited stay of Judge Cannon’s order, just enough to let it continue investigating the confidential documents, which is meant to seem like a fair compromise or something. They’re arguing, “hey, appeals judges, we only want to keep reviewing about 1% of documents. We’re cool with Judge Cannon’s order on the other 99%, no problem, happy to wait.”
It’s a classic baby-splitting scenario. They’re baiting the hook, offering the court a way to seem wise and fair and non-biased — like King Solomon — and to give both parties a little something. The DOJ hopes the judges will issue an order ending like this: “We agree with Judge Cannon’s reasoning regarding the vast majority of items seized from the Plaintiff, but we cannot agree regarding the very small number of classified items clearly and indisputably identified as the government’s property. Therefore, we hereby STAY the Order, but only as to those seized items that are plainly and obviously government property and are necessary for the government’s continuing national security investigation.”
But as with most of what we can see about the government’s raid so far, DOJ’s argument is profoundly deceptive, maybe even irrational. The whole predicate of the search was to get the classified material; the existence of those 100 documents was the entire argument they used to justify the unprecedented search of the President’s residence. In other words, if the investigation will continue with only the 100 classified documents, then the DOJ’s argument is, at its core, an admission that the 11,000 other items AREN’T NECESSARY FOR THE INVESTIGATION.
Judge Cannon’s order said the special master would prioritize reviewing the classified items first. Although DOJ claimed that any tiny delay would cause “irreparable harm,” it did not offer any compelling evidence for that harm, except to wildly speculate that Trump might have shown the documents to someone, someone like an evil foreign dictator — like Putin! — and somewhere, some undercover agents might need immediate protection. Who knows? After all, without looking at the documents, how can they tell if there’s even a problem?
It’s purely speculative, and the 11th should say no, DOJ, you waited almost a year to raid the President, you can wait a few more days to let the special master take a look first.
What happens next is the 11th Circuit will issue a briefing schedule, setting a deadline for when Trump’s attorneys must respond to the government’s brief. I’ll let you know when I know.
🔥 Adios muchachos! The alert citizens of Martha’s Vineyard wasted no time yesterday, violently reacting to the terrifying new threat posed to their utopian seaside community. They desperately yanked on the political strings that wealthy, well-connected progressive elites have access to — not available for YOU, of course — and the Massachusetts National Guard promptly ‘relocated’ all 51 hapless migrants to a nearby military base.
Smells like racism!
The entire unfortunate mess was all cleaned up in a hurry, in less than 36 hours. Do you think the residents of El Paso wish they had the kind of political clout that Martha’s Vineyard residents have?
The activation of Massachusetts’ military against these poor defenseless immigrants had some folks scratching their heads, puzzled about the ubiquitous signs previously wallpapering Martha’s Vineyard’s sandy shores, which declare virtuous-sounding ideals like, “hate has no business here” and “todos son bienvenidos” (“all are welcome HERE”).
I wonder what kinds of immigrants the fine, virtue-signaling elites on Martha’s Vineyard had in mind, when they gaily decorated their neatly-manicured lawns with such lovely, welcoming, multilingual invitations. Not hispanic immigrants, apparently. Those people have TO GO. Not welcome there. Personas non gratas, lo siento mucho.
Maybe the immigrants weren’t diverse enough. Do you think the illegal immigrants could have stayed if they’d also been transgender drag performers? Next time, Governor DeSantis should try issuing spike heels and strapon fake boobs, so we can see if the fine citizens of Martha’s Vineyard like that better.
PS — I stand with Martha’s Vineyard.™ Let me know where I can find a flag for my bio!
💉 Holmes County High School golf team member Tyler Erickson, 17, died suddenly and unexpectedly Monday while practicing for an upcoming tournament. Tyler’s father, Clint Erickson, said the accident couldn’t be explained, it was God’s will. “It was an unexplainable accident … We believe it was God’s will for this to happen… it’s difficult to move on but we’ve got to move on.”
Our thoughts and prayers are with the Erickson family.
🚀 Reuters ran a story yesterday headlined, “Indonesia Open to Buying Cheap Oil ‘From Anywhere’, Energy Minister Says.”
You know what THAT means. “Anywhere” means Russia.
According to Reuters, Indonesia’s president Joko Widodo told the Financial Times earlier this week that Indonesia was considering joining India and China in buying Russian oil to “offset increasing pressure on his country’s energy subsidy bill.” The country is “evaluating” the risk posed by U.S. sanctions compared to the widespread protests and unrest caused by high energy prices.
Or maybe they’re saying, give us some cheaper oil or we’re going to talk to Putin.
The story illustrates that there is going to be a point where, to some of these poorer countries, U.S. sanctions would be better than the alternative. Biden should consider whether he is driving toward a tipping point that could cause the world to suddenly lean toward the Russia/China alliance, to avoid even bigger problems.
And we’ve seen just this week that German social media influencers are angry with the U.S. for the local problems in that country. If that sentiment spreads to German officials, then all bets are off. I wonder how many other worldwide citizens suffering under the Biden sanctions regime agree.
Adam Tooze @adam_toozeMoscow has offered to sell oil to Indonesia at price that is 30 per cent lower than the international market rate, according to the country’s tourism minister. ft.com/content/36ae27…
September 12th 202248 Retweets115 Likes
🔥 Lebanon is floundering amidst the late stages of a complete financial collapse, most recently in the form of a string of bank robberies committed by bank CUSTOMERS who just want their own money back.
Al Jazeera English @AJEnglishThis week several banks across Lebanon were held up by depositors frustrated at withdrawal limits imposed by banks amid a spiralling economic collapse. Al Jazeera’s @ZeinakhodrAljaz explains why depositors are going to extreme lengths to get their own money ⤵️ September 16th 202273 Retweets129 Likes
The media is struggling to come up with a word for these “bank robbers.” They aren’t really bank ROBBERS, because they only want to make a withdrawal from their own accounts. That makes them bank CUSTOMERS. But of course, they are having to use force to try to get it. So what, exactly, are they?
Victims?
📖 Israel 365 News ran a story this week headlined, “Ben Gurion Gearing Up to Bring All 70 Nations Straight From the Airport to Third Temple.”
Ben Gurion, Israel’s largest airport, located in Tel Aviv, has announced plans for a 2023 high speed rail line that will transport travelers directly to the Temple Mount in a hurry. According to the story, the terminal station near the Western Wall will be named for the U.S.’s 45th President, Donald J. Trump.
This story is highly exciting to end-times believers, who have long been watching for a rebuilt temple in Jerusalem as a sign of the beginning of the end of the World. While the Israelis are not publicly SAYING they plan to build a new temple, there are some hints, like an informational flyer distributed by the government in Jerusalem’s ultra-orthodox neighborhoods, answering questions about how the new train line might affect them. The flyer included this cheerful graphic:
It’s a high-speed sheep train! “Israel Rail: when you need to move your farm animals in a hurry.”
Notice all the produce and farm animals among the happy train passengers? It’s not aimed at farmers. The unfortunate veggies and beasts would be hauled in by Jewish worshippers to be sacrificed. In the Jewish religion, sacrifices may only be made by priests at a temple. So folks are connecting some dots, and concluding that the government is not-too-subtly suggesting a new temple is also in the works.
What we DO know — for sure — is if you want to ride the Trump Train to Jerusalem, you probably shouldn’t wear your best shoes. Just saying.
🔥 The Epoch Times has been doing some excellent documentary work lately. One outstanding offering is their documentary “The Real Story of January 6,” which can be viewed here. The segment about Ashley Babbit is especially interesting, but all of it’s good.
🚀 I’ve been mulling over whether I should report this next story, because it’s going to draw the usual complaints that I’m pushing Putin on people. But I’ve decided the story is too important. So here goes.
A video of a 2013 Putin speech has been making the rounds lately. In it, Putin attacks the West for our moral death spiral, particularly — and presciently — naming the normalization of pedophilia and the erosion of Judeo-Christian values as some of the biggest problems. Back in 2013, this was the stuff of paranoid conspiracy theory, discussed over here only by kooky fundamentalist Christians complaining about phallic-shaped coral formations in Disney animated movies and stuff.
But not any more.
Here’s the clip, uploaded in 2017 but originally delivered almost ten years ago:
In the short clip, from a speech delivered long before Ukraine and Trump, and long before he became the Left’s Great Satan, Putin specifically identifies globalism, anti-Christian (anti-religious) policies, relativism, pedophilia, wokeism, gender confusion, the tyranny of the minority, and the profound destruction of human dignity in the West.
If only OUR leaders had been able to see the looming danger.
To be clear: I am NOT promoting Vladimir Putin. For all I know, the erosion of Western values is a clever long-game Russian plot masterminded by the KGB. But you can’t deny that American progressives enthusiastically embraced all the trends that Putin complained about, and now we are paying the piper. If it WAS a KGB plot, it would never have worked without the wholehearted participation by lots of Western elites and politicians. I don’t blame voters — not as much — because it was sold to us as Christian “tolerance” and non-judgmental “diversity.”
But we need to face a difficult fact: whether or not his comments are part of a secret plot, Putin was right.
So here’s what I think is significant about Putin’s criticisms, and the fact they are (finally) making the rounds in U.S. social media circles. First, because we willfully participated in the scheme, whether it was originally initiated by the KGB (or anyone else), we have opened ourselves up to hissing, booing, and well-deserved criticism, which completely undermines our ability to make a moral argument about what anybody else is doing.
And second, this short video provides everything you need to know about why most Russians support Putin. They see what we have and they don’t want to have anything to do with it.
One well-accepted explanation for why the West won the Cold War against communism is the “economic envy theory,” which supposes that communist citizens spending their days standing around in bread lines saw well-stocked Western supermarkets and recognized communism could never give them a similar abundant lifestyle.
How times have changed.
It’s not a good sign that many U.S. citizens are starting to envy Russian culture. It’s not a good sign that social media influencers are credibly labeling America as the “evil empire,” and not Russia. It’s not a good sign that our federal government just threatened schools with Title IX sanctions unless they let boys hang out in girls’ bathrooms, never mind all the medical torture and disfigurement of our young ladies.
Matt Rosendale @RepRosendaleThe Biden admin’s proposed changes for Title IX to allow biological males to compete in women’s sports and use women’s bathrooms/locker rooms is unacceptable, and America’s parents are unsupportive of this radical scheme. FACT: men cannot become women. Biden’s controversial Title IX rule bombarded with record number of comments from concerned parentsParents are fired up over President Biden’s proposed changes for Title IX, leaving a record number of public comments about the inclusion of gender identity.foxnews.comSeptember 12th 202210 Retweets24 Likes
We must stop accommodating diversity and stand up for morals, values, and innocent kids, and fast, before a beneficent dictator like Putin starts looking like a good solution to the problem.
Have a wonderful weekend, and I’ll see you on Monday, to kick off another exciting week here in the elite’s bizarre utopian experiment, Post-Pandemia.
C&C is moving the needle and changing minds. If you can, I could use your help getting the truth out and spreading optimism and hope: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/-learn-how-to-get-involved-
Twitter: @jchilders98
Truth Social: @jchilders98
MeWe: mewe.com/i/coffee_and_covid.
C&C Swag! www.shopcoffeeandcovid.com
Emailed Daily Newsletter: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
From Gov. DeSantis’ Office, 9-16-22
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Today, Governor Ron DeSantis announced the appointment of Hunter Bland, Christopher Castelli, and Robert Hilliard to the Boating Advisory Council.
Hunter Bland
Bland, of Williston, is a National Boating Safety Advocate and Professional Bass Angler. He was previously a Biological Scientist and Fisheries Technician for Florida Fish and Wildlife. Bland earned his bachelor’s degree in forest resources and conservation at the University of Florida.
Christopher Castelli
Castelli, of Green Cove Springs, works for Geico Insurance and is a previous Marine Patrol Deputy with the Clay County Sheriff’s Office. He serves on the International Association of Marine Investigators Board of Directors. Castelli earned his bachelor’s degree in criminal justice from Western Carolina University.
Robert Hilliard
Hilliard, of Clearwater, is a retired Project Engineer and Manager at Lockheed Martin. He is an avid boater and sportsman with experience in operating kayaks, canoes, paddleboards, sailboats, and powerboats. Hilliard earned his bachelor’s degree in industrial and systems engineering from the University of Florida.
From County of Nassau, 9-16-22
On Monday, September 12, 2022, the Board of County Commissioners held a special meeting for presentations on the Amelia Island Beach Front Park Branding Harmonization and Visitor Experience Enhancement Initiative and the Strategic Master Plan for public beach parking and access on Amelia Island. The presentation can be viewed on the Clerk of Courts website by clicking here.
By George Miller, 9-16-22
CA Governor Gavin Newsom Challenged FL Gov. Ron DeSantis to a Debate. But it would be on CNN. So who knows what the venue, moderator, questions and audience would do to affect it? We await DeSantis’ response.
The invitation came in the form of a Tweet- how very Trumpian:
“Hey @GovRonDeSantis, clearly you’re struggling, distracted, and busy playing politics with people’s lives. Since you have only one overriding need — attention –let’s take this up & debate. I’ll bring my hair gel. You bring your hairspray. Name the time before Election Day. @CNN”
Many people on both sides would love to see a real debate between the two.
It is amusing that Newsom accused DeSantis of “playing politics with people’s lives,” since the Democrats are doing exactly that, but scaled up many orders of magnitude– 50 to Martha’s Vineyard compared to reputedly 500,000 in just one Texas city near the border and millions during the Biden administration open borders era.
It seems that Newsom and others also want DeSantis and TX Gov. Abbott “investigated”
for sending illegal aliens to Democrat-run cities, where they are supposedly welcome and even have formal “sanctuary”.
Media bulletins on this:
https://www.google.com/search?q=Newsom+challenges+DeSantis+to+debate
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/gavin-newsom-challenges-ron-desantis-debate-name-time
https://twitter.com/RealMacReport/status/1570877407116263424?
George Miller is Publisher and Co-Founder of Citizens Journal Florida, based in Fernandina Beach. He is a “retired” operations management consultant, software and publishing executive and manufacturing management professional.
Starting Point Behavioral Healthcare
09-15-22
Starting Point Behavorial Healthcare is excited to announce our Glow Up Festival and 5K run to shine a light on recovery of mental health and substance use disorders.
We promote emotional wellness through psychiatric, mental health and substance use disorder treatment services and community education and awareness. We are located at 463142 S.R. 200 in Yulee. Check us out at SPBH.org or call 904-225-8280.
Come join us for The Glow Up Walk on Septmeber 24 for a fun filled day of dancing, shopping, eating and entertainment at Central Park in Fernandina Beach from 3:00 to 8:30 p.m.
Hope to see you there!
By Jeff Childers
09-16-22
Good morning, C&C, it’s Friday! Today’s roundup includes: Trump’s special master is selected and appointed, disappointing Dems; Danish people are done with universal jabs; California teacher controversy illustrates my point from yesterday’s blog; China objects to the W.H.O.; bankers think a depression is possible; Kim Dotcom blames the U.S. for the world’s woes; Biden wants to INCREASE sanctions; media starts agreeing with anti-NATOists; and Russia demonstrates its increasing isolation at a giant non-NATO world conference.
🔥 Yesterday, federal Judge Aileen Cannon entered two orders in the Biden Raid Case, temporarily stopping the FBI from investigating President Trump, and appointing a retired judge as a special master to review the confiscated documents ahead of the FBI, in order to remove anything federal agents shouldn’t be pawing through.
The orders were even-handed. Although she granted Trump’s request for a special master, she shortened the review time from the requested three months to one month, and ordered Trump to pay for the special master’s salary and expenses. Yesterday, the Hill ran a piece about the orders headlined “Judge Appoints Special Master, Denying DOJ Access to Classified Records.”
The special master will be retired federal judge Raymond Dearie, a Reagan appointee, who was suggested by Trump and agreed to by the DOJ. Dearie was one of the judges on the secret FISA Court that approved the now-infamous 2016 warrant to wiretap Carter Page during the DOJ’s fake “Russian interference” investigation.
Dearie’s an electrifying choice. Shoving him on the list seems like a high-stakes gamble. His FISA decision was obviously awful, and might be evidence of anti-Trump pro-Deep State bias. On the other hand, Dearie may feel burned by the DOJ because of that experience, and could now be well aware of what the creepy Deep State is up to. There’s no way for us to tell.
After pointing out that the shorter one-month review deadline still moves the issue to the other side of the midterm elections, the Hill forecasted that the DOJ will appeal the decision to the Eleventh Circuit, but the paper seems gloomy about the prospects, suggesting the 11th is stacked with Trump appointees. It couldn’t bear to mention or even think about what might happen at the Supreme Court.
💉 Danish people seem to be done with the shots:
New official guidance in that country says it will no longer jab healthy people under 50: “People aged 50 years and over will be offered vaccination. People aged under 50 who are at a higher risk of becoming severely ill from covid will also be offered vaccination.”
So.
🔥 There’ve been more exciting staffing changes at CNN under new ownership. After eight years hosting his own primetime show “Don Lemon Tonight,” the lunatic leftist, jab-pusher, and CNN host is being reassigned to a new morning show, not as a singular talent but as part of a host team.
Too bad, Don!
🔥 Illustrating my theme from yesterday’s post, Fox ran a story, also yesterday, headlined “California Teacher Speaks Out After ‘Queer Library’ With BDSM/Kink Exposed: ‘I Believe… in What I’m Doing’.”
But … what exactly is she doing?
San Juan Hills high school teacher Danielle Serio calls herself “Flint” in her online media accounts. Fox News Digital found that Flint is an avid TikToker who has repeatedly posted about keeping sexually explicit books in her “queer classroom library,” boasting the books have been available to her students for five years now.
The college-degreed professional educator says her classroom library is packed with over 100 books – including sexual imagery and information about orgies, sex parties and BDSM. Without getting into the graphic details, one of the books shown above, titled “This Book is Gay,” discusses the gay sex-hookup service “Grindr,” and includes detailed information on how to have anal and “girl on girl” sex.
This Book is Gay claims, “We all want to have sex with loads of people.” It continues, “[T]he prostate gland… feels amazing when massaged. Lots of men, gay or straight, like how this feels.” It also encouraged kids to explore orgies and anonymous sexual experiences: “Saunas, or ‘bath houses,’ are dotted all over the country, and they are perfectly legal. People (many saunas run lesbian nights) pay some money to enter and then have a bit of a sauna and some random sex. Again, this is fine as long as you’re safe.”
Another one of her books, “Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Being Trans,” links trans identity and bizarre sexual practices with sexual liberation. It teaches, “the BDSM/kink community [is] extremely open-minded and welcoming in every way; it’s a place of sexual liberation.” It also claims that students will be more ‘accepted’ if they are trans and explore perverted sexual behavior, explaining “There is often more blanket level of acceptance of transgender people within the kink/BDSM (bondage and discipline, dominance and submission, sadism and masochism) scenes and sites such as FetLife.”
In one of her social media posts, Flint explained her life’s mission to get the books to as many kids as possible, saying, “The library has some of these titles but getting them into circulation is pretty challenging.”
I would hope it’s not easy. The next thing I’m wondering is, if this “non-binary” teacher is stocking these books in the classroom library, what is she TELLING the kids in class?
Obviously, this young lady is a very confused person. She is a useful tool for whoever or whatever is behind this civilization-destroying trend, and is validating her own perverted impulses by normalizing them in her classroom. It makes her feel better to think that SHE is “normal,” and parents who object to this kind of deviant conduct are the weird ones.
In another TikTok video, she explained, “I’ve been wondering lately why it’s so hard for so many people in the general public to trust educators about education – the thing that we studied and do every day. It’s been so long since they were in school, I’m wondering if they have extreme or outdated views about what’s happening in the classroom.”
She just can’t imagine why it’s so hard for the general public to trust educators. So. Weird.
You have to admit, they’ve succeeded beyond their wildest imagination by linking the popular concept of “freedom” with sexual deviancy, calling it “liberation.” That’s the link that must be broken. Sexual deviancy is not freedom. It’s the reverse opposite of freedom. It’s the most degrading kind of slavery.
🔥 Yesterday, Bloomberg ran a piece headlined, “China Shuts Down Videos of WHO Saying End of Pandemic in Sight.”
It started with WHO Director-General Ghebreyesus, who remarked Wednesday that “we have never been in a better position to end the pandemic. We are not there yet, but the end is in sight.” I suppose it’s good that he can SEE the end. It’s right over here! Where the rest of us live.
But after Chinese media quoted Ghebreyesus’ optimism, all stories about the remark disappeared from the Chinese internet, and its social media platform, Weibo, completely censored the W.H.O. comment. It’s going to be covid-zero for China.
🔥 Recently, online financial advisory magazine The Motley Fool ran a story headlined, “JPMorgan CEO Warns U.S. Is Headed Toward Something Worse Than a Recession.” That’s going to flummox the Biden Administration, who practically just finished re-defining “recession” to mean whatever they say it means, so what they don’t need is rogue bank CEOs throwing different words around.
JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon toed the line. He said the economy was “strong,” but he also said that he was convinced conditions are likely to deteriorate, and there’s a 20% to 30% chance of soon facing “something worse” than a recession. He blamed low consumer confidence, saying it was “because of inflation, because of partisan politics, and a lot of leftover anger from COVID-19.”
Imagine that. Leftover anger from covid. I assume he means anger toward the government’s over-reaction to covid, not that people are actually mad at the VIRUS.
So what’s worse than a “recession?” Dimon didn’t say the word, but there’s really only one candidate, and it rhymes with “depression.”
The Biden Administration is hanging in there, though, with Joe stumping this week, trumpeting the wonderful U.S. economy. But the Fortune story on Dimon’s depressing comments pointed out that businesses are already contracting, with retailers like Walmart and Target slashing their profit forecasts, and tech companies like Shopify, Apple, Meta, and Microsoft are announcing plans to cut workers or slow hiring.
Fortune even quoted Mark Zuckerberg, who bleakly predicted to Meta employees in a conference call that, “If I had to bet, I’d say that this might be one of the worst downturns that we’ve seen in recent history.”
So.
🚀 German social media giant Kim Dotcom continued his anti-war screed yesterday. He’s now explicitly calling the Ukraine war a “U.S. Proxy War,” and blaming the CIA for deliberately spreading online misinformation:
Kim Dotcom @KimDotcomThat’s why Langley and Kyiv have created a social media army that any useful idiot can join. Under the #NAFO hashtag US operatives direct their attack dogs against Twitter users who are critical about the US proxy war. Even politicians who want this war to end are being targeted.September 16th 202297 Retweets466 Likes
Dotcom blames the U.S. for the war and for Europe’s financial troubles, and pretty bluntly calls us “evil”:
Kim Dotcom @KimDotcom@KyleRiecker I know US Govt methods and evil better than most and have been a longtime student of the Wikileaks and Snowden archives. In a world of nonstop US propaganda it’s understandable that most people don’t see what I see. Ukraine has been used by the US to unbalance Russia and Europe.September 15th 202257 Retweets474 Likes
There has been some confusion in the comments about the REASON for why I’m following this Dotcom phenomenon. I am not adopting Kim’s anti-NATO position. What’s interesting to me is that this trend, represented by Kim’s latest tweets, does not blame Putin, or even Ukraine, for that matter.
Folks like Kim are blaming the U.S. for the war. For some reason.
Yesterday I was called “anti-NATO” in the comments for linking a tweet showing American soldiers fighting for Ukraine, as if being “anti-NATO” were the latest thought crime or something, eclipsing being “anti-Ukraine” as the best evidence that someone is a bad citizen. I’m not anti-NATO, but even if I were, so what? NATO is a giant money vacuum hoovering up American tax dollars, and for what? What do American taxpayers get out of it?
Anyway, calling me “anti-NATO” is a weird take. Dotcom is complaining that the U.S. — not Russia — is destabilizing Europe, which is basically NATO. In Kim’s view, the U.S. is undermining its own NATO allies. Again, I’m not endorsing Kim, what do I know, I’m just a lawyer, but I’m pointing out that the official government narrative is starting to run off the tracks.
And if you don’t like that, don’t blame ME. If you want your narrative to work, stop lying and trying to suppress other people’s opinions whenever you don’t like them.
🚀 It looks like I’m not the only one who sees the European situation as a destabilizing mutual sanctions battle between Europe and Russia. The Economist — no bastion of independent analysis — ran this cartoon last week:
What’s left unsaid in the cartoon is what CAUSED this destabilizing situation. The label on the “sanctions” wrench should be “American-ordered sanctions.” And the wrench on Russia should be only pinching a little bit of the Russian butt.
🚀 This week, the Biden Administration announced plans to sanction more countries. Yesterday, the Hill ran a story headlined, “Biden Administration Mulls Sanctions on Iranian Entities Following Salman Rushdie Attack.”
Yesterday, the UK Express ran a story headlined, “Biden May Enforce Sanctions on China in a Move to Discourage Disaster in Taiwan.” The sub headline explains, “Joe Biden is considering placing sanctions on China in order to continue its support of Taiwan as an independent region while the European Union is under pressure to do the same.”
Haha, not “president Biden.” They said “Joe Biden.” Welcome to the club.
It seems weird to me that at the time we are trying to make sanctions work against one major enemy, we would even CONSIDER a sanctions regime against the other one, who is also one of our biggest trading partners. Apparently it’s not just me. The Express noted, “the notion of implementing sanctions on the world’s second-largest economy and a major global supply chain [partner] throws its practicality into question.”
No kidding.
Me and the Express are not the only ones noticing that the Whisperer-in-Chief seems to have no foreign policy at all, just a make-it-up-as-you-go-along, whack-a-mole approach to sanctioning everybody who disagrees with whatever Joe wants today. Yesterday, the Spectator ran a story headlined, “The Missing Biden Foreign Policy.” The sub-headline explained, “There’s no plan, no careful set of chess moves, just an empty void.”
Haha! They noticed the empty void. I assume they mean Biden. And it would be generous to allow he might even be playing checkers. I think we’re well past the point of checkers now. Go fish might be more Joe’s speed at this point.
The Spectator even called Ukraine, “Biden’s failure:”
And guess what? The Spectator is starting to see things the Kim Dotcom way:
Oh no! There goes the Spectator, showing its true anti-NATOist roots. Activate the twitter bots!
It gets worse. The Spectator sees Biden’s BIGGEST failure — among many, presumably — as being his wild, unfocused, non-chess-like sanctions free-for-all:
The magazine explained that Russia and China are the greatest beneficiaries of sanctions, but Americans have paid the most dearly — even more than Europeans. We’re sanctioning ourselves! It’s almost like Joe is doing it on purpose to raise up America’s historic enemies while simultaneously destroying the U.S.’s superpower status.
Crazy, I know, but there you are.
🚀 Vladimir Putin has been pretty spry this week for a guy who supposedly was arrested, deposed in a coup and executed after a single bad weekend in the Ukraine war. Instead of all that other stuff, he’s now attending a non-NATO Shanghai Cooperation Organization world conference in Samarkand, where he’s demonstrated the awful effects of the “increasing isolation” of Russia by meeting with: Chinese president Xi, Indian president Narendra Modi, Iran’s president Raisi, Pakistan’s president, and a slew of other leaders that together represent the vast majority of the world’s population.
NATO is looking more isolated than Putin.
The U.S. proxy war in Ukraine, as Kim Dotcom calls it, has managed to do at least one thing: unite most of the non-NATO world against us.
So you can’t say Joe has been a TOTAL failure.
Have a fabulous Friday! I’ll see you guys back here tomorrow for more.
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The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
By Dave Scott, 9-16-22
Comments at the Tuesday, September 6 Fernandina Beach City Commission session by resident Glen Stettler combined with his August News Leader opinion editorial, have revived the contention swirling around the city’s alleged illegal impact/capacity fees and building code mismanagement.
Glen Stettler
In Stettler’s Wednesday, August 26 News Leader op-ed piece (“View from the cheap seats”) and his September 6 commission appearance he claims the folks at city hall have a lot of ‘splaining to do, alleging that they’re dodging and lying.
City Attorney Tammi Bach didn’t refute Stettler’s allegations, only offering a preposterous “cocktail napkin” defense of the city’s malfeasance that could have been scripted by Mel Brooks.
As a retired Navy Commander and past Presidential Communications Officer, who also served as Acting Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for International Technology Security and Director of Technology Security, Stettler is used to wading through bureaucratic government BS to reveal what’s actually going on.
After researching, discussing, and reading about the disputes with parties on both sides (including attorneys) of lawsuits that the city lost, Stettler says it’s clear to him that the city’s current actions administering impact/capacity fees remain illegal despite the court telling the city to knock it off.
Here’s why.
Some years ago, citizens organized a class action, suing the city for the illegal administration of impact fees. The city lost. But it wasn’t about to let its golden goose fly the coop, so it promptly initiated a new suit in a Machiavellian attempt to pledge the impact fees to be used to support a bond issue.
The state joined in, and the court again found the fees to be unlawful. With the state piling on a clear message was sent from Tallahassee to the city, telling them to stop. “Phooey,” said the folks at city hall. Bilking local tax payers is far too lucrative to let the state and courts cook this bountiful golden goose.
The court’s decisions against the city were applauded by a series of local residents’ “opinion” articles published in the bi-weekly News Leader that were critical of the city’s illegal activities.
There was no other public outcry. And other than the local residents’ opinion pieces, the News Leader never once editorialized about the city’s unlawful acts or conducted any investigative reporting. Not one city official publicly took issue with any of the citizens’ published opinion pieces critical of the city.
At Stettler’s city hall appearance the current Commissioners sat silently after he detailed the city’s misconduct. They appeared indifferent, acting as if it was all new news to them and didn’t ask a single question.
Long-time City Consigliere Bach feigned surprise exclaiming: “I didn’t have any idea about the article.” Her bewilderment was reminiscent of the “Casablanca” movie scene when Captain Renault says: “I am shocked—shocked—to find that gambling is going on in here!” just before the croupier handed him his winnings.
About an hour after Stettler spoke to the Commission Bach finally responded, blaming an unnamed consultant for the city’s legal woes but never denying that the fees are illegal. “The only reason we lost is because a consultant didn’t do a good job justifying it, calculating fees on a napkin,” she whined.
The city spent more than $1 million and three years defending itself and all Ms. Bach can offer in its defense is a consultant scribbling fees on a cocktail napkin?
In her closing comments Bach added: “We are not illegal.” She said the state attorney general is welcome to “look at our impact fee policy” adding: “If a Commissioner or City Manager wants to use impact fees they can come see me or the Comptroller and she and I will decide if that is the right thing to do.”
Stettler presented the issue to the Commissioners at 1:50 into the below video and Bach responded at 2:51:18. It can be viewed at: https://fernandinabeachfl.new.swagit.com/videos/179947
Pat Keogh, local real estate investor, attorney, and national author, who was instrumental in initiating the successful class action suits against the city, annihilates Bach’s defense saying: “Nothing Attorney Bach said about why the city lost the class action impact fee lawsuits was true. They lost because the court found in two trials over three years that administration and expenditure of fees violated state law. The decisions had nothing to do with the calculation of the fees on a napkin she says was used to design the fees by their consultant.”
Keogh continues to scorn Bach’s “cocktail napkin” defense adding: “Think about how ludicrous and self-condemning her explanation is. She was city counsel before, during and since the trials. Why would she have supported spending a million dollars in outside attorneys to defend the napkin impact fees? Then, having lost the first trial because the fees were found to be unlawful why would she support initiating a case to pledge the napkin impact fees to support a city bond issue? Also note Ms. Bach never wasted her breath on denying Mr. Stettler’s charge that the city’s outlandish building code fees violate state law.”
Stettler sums it up saying: “It ought to concern all tax paying city residents that these illegal city activities continue to this day without any consequences.”
After losing the suits the city was forced to refund the citizens’ money. For years city management – both elected and appointed – have viewed its residents as easy marks from which to extort cash. Undeterred and disregarding the guilty verdicts following the trials, the city hired a $24,500 consultant with tax payer cash. He recommended that the city change the name of the “impact fees” to “capacity fees” and continue raking it in. Talk about as easy payday! To paraphrase Juliet’s comment to Romeo: “That which we call an impact fee by any other name would smell as illegal.”
Why don’t victims of the city’s fleecing loudly express their disgust and publicly call for corrective or legal action? Simple, they are retaliated against. Even the fat cats with deep pockets back off. If they want to keep doing business hereabouts or get one off the ground they’ll keep quiet and pay up or they’ll find it difficult if not impossible to obtain building and inspection permits or even one to own a dog.
Remember the controversy arising from the Chamber of Commerce survey that found the city was charging exorbitant fees to locally administer the state building code? The customarily silent and impotent Chamber protested, for once acting on behalf of its dues paying members. The city’s building department head, Steve Beckman, who had been strongarming citizens, eventually resigned. Satisfied, the Chamber then went back to snipping open house ribbons, drinking cheap white wine, and eating rubbery cheese cubes but nothing changed.
Who is encouraging the city’s bad behavior and endorsing these extortionist practices?
Stettler points out that there was a Commission discussion about using impact fees for purposes other than those prescribed by law. “That is effectively using impact fees as de facto taxes,” he says. “Again, this violates state law. The laws governing impact fees are not ambiguous.” Stettler explains: “Fees are not to be used as tax revenue and if not needed for the lawfully stated purpose they must be returned to the citizens who paid them.”
This rogue free-spending group of city officials are to Fernandina what Dr. Tony Fauci is to health care – dangerous arrogant frauds, extortionists, and liars.
“What is taking place is a continued pattern of illegal activity,” says Stettler. “It has gone on for so long that the city has lowered the bar for acceptable enforcement of state law. Each time the topic is raised, the city waits it out, the complaints diminish, and the illegal activity continues.”
City Consigliore Bach nonchalantly says the city is abiding by the law and is doing nothing wrong. Since she said she would welcome the State Attorney to conduct a full review of impact/capacity fees and building code fees, administration, and enforcement, then the community should extend that invitation.
Local citizens concerned over this violation and flaunting of the law can write to the state and ask them to look into it. Below is a sample letter other citizens have already sent to Governor DeSantis asking him to have his Attorney General investigate. You can cut and paste it, use it as is, alter it to suit your style, or write your own.
Office of Governor Ron DeSantis
State of Florida
The Capitol
400 S. Monroe Street
Tallahassee FL 32399-0001
Dear Governor DeSantis:
As a resident of the City of Fernandina Beach in Nassau County, Florida, I have a special request.
I believe our local government is administering state statutory charters to unlawfully generate supplemental local revenues.
A number of years ago local citizens brought a successful class action lawsuit against the City for the unlawful administration of water impact fees. Following three years of litigation and two trials citizens recovered about $3.5 million in unlawful fees.
Incidentally, the City, in a second lawsuit attempted to pledge water impact fees to support a municipal bond issue. The state successfully joined the class in objecting to using fees, previously found to be unlawful, for that purpose.
Upon the successful resolution of the second lawsuit the City hired a consultant who recommended changing the name of the “impact fee” to “capacity fee” and reinstated what the courts had found to be an unlawful local tax. Those fees are still in place today stifling growth and economic activity in our local economy, not to mention the financial hardship to local citizens.
More recently, Governor, our Nassau County Chamber of Commerce conducted a survey of local businesses and found that the administration of fees based on the state building codes were 550% higher in the City of Fernandina Beach than in our surrounding Nassau County. Literally, Governor, fees for the administration of the state building code are five and one-half times higher on the City side of the street than the Nassau County side.
Sir, I am requesting that you direct state government to conduct a review of the City of Fernandina Beach’s administration of these and any other state mandates to insure compliance with both the letter and spirit of Florida law.
Sincerely,
***
Speaking Of City Hall Balderdash: Last week in this space Fernandina Beach Mayor and Commissioner Mike “Left Coast” Lednovich, labeled me “Pinocchio” saying I inaccurately reported his twisted logic concerning the “beach smoking ban (no cigarettes, vaping devices, or pipes, but cigars are fine) and his convoluted support of the violent, Marxist Black Lives Matter thugs.
The California transplant said that his parading through Fernandina Beach during a June 2020 demonstration wearing a large “Black Lives Matter” sandwich board had “absolutely nothing to do with Black Lives Matter” but was to protest the death of George Floyd at the “hands of responding police officers in Minneapolis.” Really? Then why was he wearing the huge sandwich board that said only “Black Lives Matter” while at the same time those Marxist thugs were shooting and beating bystanders while rioting, looting, and burning in cities all over America? He says smokers on the beach “violate my rights” while never mentioning the rights of the victims of BLM.
Lednovich also attempted to throw former Police Chief Jim Hurley under the bus saying: “That same day Fernandina Beach Police Chief Jim Hurley said at that rally: ‘I know that police chiefs from cities large and small are outraged by the behavior of the officers in MN and I join them in expressing my disappointment and condemning the horrific actions of a few that serve to undermine the good works of police officers all across America.’”
While proudly displaying his massive BLM sign, “Left Coast” was also wearing a baseball cap saying: “Fernandina Beach Police Department.” Parade observers who didn’t know or recognize the masked, red nose wearing Lednovich would rightly assume he was a member of the local police department since his hat didn’t say “City Commissioner” and his sign read only “Black Lives Matter.”
In his comment here the backpedaling mayor said: “The Fernandina Beach Police hat you’re so annoyed about was personally given to me by Police Chief Hurley. I specifically wore the hat the day of rally to demonstrate my support of our fine local police while protesting the murder (the officers involved have all been convicted) of Mr. Floyd.” He must still be mourning career criminal Floyd’s death as I see him wearing that hat constantly.
In case readers missed it, “Left Coast” is pictured here, in a photo sent to me by a reader, wearing his Fernandina Police Department hat while parading through town displaying his “Black Lives Matter” sandwich board. I don’t see any mention of George Floyd on his sign. I can’t explain the red clown nose, but it seems appropriate. I’ve been told that this photo appeared on his Facebook page but disappeared after I started using it here.
By the way a very rationale and articulate candidate, Dr. James Antun, is running against “Left Coast” for City Commissioner. Dr. Antun and his chiropractic wife operate a Fernandina Beach clinic and have experienced first-hand some of the Byzantine city tactics other small business owners have suffered that are ignored by Lednovich. I’m casting my vote for Dr. Antun.
***
True To Their Word: When I read about Herbert E. Kohler, Jr.’s death this past week it reminded me what an extraordinary company he led.
When Linda and I moved into our Amelia Island home, we purchased Kohler fixtures. They weren’t cheap but were exactly what we wanted, and the workmanship was excellent. About five years after they were installed one set of fixtures on a bathroom sink began to corrode. I recalled Kohler’s “lifetime” warranty promise, took photos of the corroded fixtures, and sent them to the company along with copies of the receipts. In two weeks, maybe less, we received new fixtures, no questions asked.
We’ve since purchased only Kohler fixtures and have never been disappointed. The Kohler Company is an excellent example of product integrity, and we will never consider purchasing similar products from any other firm.
***
Poll Results: The last poll on this site asked readers if they approved of the Biden administration’s student loan forgiveness program. The final results showed that of the 144 people responding 89 percent or 128 respondents said “No” while just 11 percent, 16 folks said “Yes.” Apparently 16 folks hereabouts or their offspring still have loans to pay off and prefer to stiff their neighbors with their debt rather than meet the obligation they promised to honor.
Here’s a thought. Since colleges encourage students to borrow money and since that money goes to them, then make the colleges responsible. They’re the ones that promised these students degrees that would ensure they succeed and earn enough to comfortably pay it all back. Most of the student deadbeats either drop out or walk away with worthless educations in absurd fields of study that are of value to no one.
The government should loan to the schools, then the schools loan to the students, thereby putting the school on the hook for the debt since they would be underwriting the loans. Then see how much “loan forgiveness” would be extended.
***
New Poll: A new poll asks Fernandina Beach residents if they think the state government should review Fernandina Beach’s capacity/impact fees and permitting fees to ensure they are in compliance with state law?
***
Read Dave Scott’s Blog regularly to get it straight
Republished with the author’s permission. Read The Dave Scott Blog– subscribe Free
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
Edited by Michael Hernandez, 9-15-22
(Editor’s note; this is part of a weekly compendium of recent significant events, culled from world news and curated by Mr. Hernandez.)
Biden plans Election 2022 mid-term intervention
JOEL B. POLLAK (Sept 12) Breitbart News
The Department of Justice (DOJ) is refusing to release 15 pages of documents explaining the Biden administration’s strategy to implement a “voter access” policy that is being coordinated with left-wing groups just weeks before the 2022 election.
In March 2021, President Joe Biden signed Executive Order 14019, “Promoting Access to Voting.” As Breitbart News noted:
President Joe Biden issued an executive order on “access to voting” on Sunday that instructs federal government agencies to promote voter registration, help Americans apply to vote by mail, and “combat misinformation,” among other measures.
The “Executive Order on Promoting Access to Voting” reads like a Democratic Party wish-list of “reforms” that enshrines many of the practices that were adopted on a temporary basis during the pandemic-affected 2020 election. Its provisions include:
One provision states: “It is the responsibility of the Federal Government to expand access to, and education about, voter registration and election information, and to combat misinformation, in order to enable all eligible Americans to participate in our democracy.”
Under the U.S. Constitution, elections are largely administered by the states. But critics of Biden’s executive order noted that it amounts to an attempt to federalize elections, and to do so without authority from Congress, never mind the Constitution.
As Mollie Hemingway of The Federalist noted in June, Biden was elected in 2020 after Democrats and their donors, such as billionaire Mark Zuckerberg, funded and commandeered local election administration in key counties in crucial swing states.
The Foundation for Government Accountability (FGA) filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for documents about the DOJ plan last year, which the DOJ refused to produce until compelled to do so by a federal court last Thursday, two months before the 2002 midterm elections. While it did provide a few documents, the DOJ used a loophole in the FOIA legislation to withhold the “strategic plan” for Executive Order 14019.
As Byron York of the Washington Examiner notes: So the strategic plan, the document that would give the world some information on what the administration is doing to enact Biden’s order, remains a secret. But that’s not all. The Justice Department is withholding lots of other information, as well.
One troubling clue did make it past Justice Department censors. On July 12, 2021, the Justice Department held a “listening session” with outside activists working on voting rights. The group included dozens of people, all of them from left-leaning groups. There were 10 from the American Civil Liberties Union, five from the Campaign Legal Center, three from Demos, three from the Southern Poverty Law Center, five from the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, two from Black Lives Matter, and many others. The list would not reassure anyone hoping that the Justice Department is working in a scrupulously nonpartisan way. But of course, we don’t really know what the department is doing because the administration is keeping it a secret.
While the DOJ hides information about how the federal government is intervening in the upcoming election, Biden, his party, and their allies in the media are claiming that the midterm election is about defending “democracy” from its opponents, and liken those who doubt election results to traitors and terrorists.
Democrats: secret sleepers running as Republicans in state races
By Jim Hoft (Sept. 10) Gateway Pundit
Democrats are running as Republicans in races across America today. It’s the only way they can win in a majority of locations around the country. They pretend to be Republicans until after they are elected. They even have a name for these Democrat plants. They’re called “secret sleepers.“
In June Project Veritas released leaked audio of Democrat US Senate candidate Krystle Matthews speaking on the phone with an inmate at Perry Correctional Institution. Democrat Matthews called for “secret sleepers” to infiltrate the South Carolina Republican party.
Krystle Matthews: “We need some secret sleepers. Like you need them to run as the other side, even though they for our side. And we need them to win… We need people to run as Republicans in these local elections. This is the only way you’re gonna change the dynamics in South Carolina.”
Democrats have been running “secret sleepers” for years now. Recently, we heard from an anonymous source that Democrats have been running as Republicans in Republican districts for years. It’s a tactic of the left. This may also explain the actions and non-action from the national Republican party.
Biden uses war on terror language and tactics against Republicans
PAM KEY (Sept 12) Breibart News
Fox News host Jesse Watters said Monday on his show “‘Jesse Watters Primetime” that President Joe Biden calling MAGA Republicans semi-fascist is using “War on Terror” language and tactics against the GOP.
Watters said, “Make no mistake, the Democratic Party, the media, and obviously the FBI have designated the Republican Party as a terrorist group and believe it’s their patriotic duty as Americans to extinguish the threat. How exactly voting for Donald Trump is a threat? How is that more dangerous than the 9/11 hijackers? ISIS terrorist cells plotting to blow up the Brooklyn Bridge, the Democrats won’t call them Islamic terrorists, but if you voted for Donald Trump and have a personal grievance, you are a fascist, and homeland security is coming for you.”
He continued, “I remember during the Bush years when Democrats would howl at Republicans for ‘politicizing 9/11’ because they wore a little flag pin. Now Democrats declared a war on terror against Republicans on the anniversary of 9/11. What makes you a terrorist again? Because you have personal grievances? Well, I have a personal grievance. Is that going to put me on a no-fly list? You are a terrorist for believing in false narratives. If I believe Hunter’s laptop is real, am I going to Gitmo? The big guy sounds like W., except the enemy is a red hat instead of a box cutter.”
Waters added, “This is Biden’s War on Terror. He’s straight up saying you’re either with us or you are against us. When the Bush administration was spying on Muslims, raiding their homes, and arresting them, the Democrats were up in arms. Remember? ‘What about the terrorists’ rights? Bush has gone too far.’ Now Biden’s using Bush’s War on Terror language and tactics against Republicans, American citizens.”
FBI raids homes of Trump supporters across the nation
By Jim Hoft (September 9) Gateway Pundit
On Friday afternoon Steve Bannon told Charlie Kirk that 35 Trump allies had their homes raided by the FBI on Thursday.
Steve Bannon: You saw from the demonic speech that Biden gave in Philadelphia that this is a dying regime. That was a primal scream. And here what they’re trying to do, no matter who it is whether Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago. There were 35 FBI raids last night. Right. And there’s another grand jury coming together on January 6th, the Washington Post reported it. THIRTY-FIVE Senior Members of MAGA! of Republicans, supporters of Donald Trump that the FBI rolled in on. When they didn’t need to do it. Right? All these people have lawyers. The jack-booted Gestapo has to show up at their door and make a big display of this.
FBI swarms Mike Lindell and seizes his phone
by Timothy Frudd (Sept, 14) RSBN
FBI agents surrounded MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell in public on Tuesday and seized his phone in the Justice Department’s latest move to intimidate Trump allies. The FBI reportedly approached Lindell and demanded the MyPillow CEO turn over his phone at a Hardee’s drive-thru in Minnesota.
“Cars pulled up in front of us, to the side of us, and behind us,” Lindell said. “It turns out, they were the FBI.” On his show, Lindell explained, “I said, ‘You know, you guys, are you going to arrest me?’ I said ‘I’ve been asking for you guys. This will make international… news!’”
While the FBI did not arrest Lindell, they seized his phone after sharing proof of a warrant they had obtained to confiscate it. Lindell believes the FBI’s actions are a result of his fierce stand for election integrity and his actions to expose voter fraud in the 2020 election.
President Donald Trump shared news of the FBI’s raid on Lindell on Truth Social, stating, “Breaking News: Mike Lindell, ‘THE Pillow Guy,’ was just raided by the FBI.” The 45th president warned Americans, “We are now officially living in a Weaponized Police State, Rigged Elections, and all. Our Country is a laughing stock all over the World.”
Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton pointed out the hypocrisy of the FBI’s recent actions, tweeting, “Car loads of FBI agents swarmed My Pillow’s Mike Lindell. But Hunter travels on Air Force One.”
Trump urged Americans to help take back the nation and restore justice to America, saying, “The majesty of the United States is gone. Can’t let this happen. TAKE BACK AMERICA!”
DOJ targets Trump supporters with subpoenas for political speech
By Bonchie (Sept. 13) Red State
News of dozens of subpoenas being sent by the DOJ to Trump supporters broke on Friday and was finally confirmed on Monday. The subpoenas, which were ostensibly tied to investigations surrounding January 6th, targeted over 40 people. Two more phones were seized from Trump associates as well, including his in-house counsel.
It marked another move in what appears to be a highly politicized investigation targeting the political enemies of Joe Biden for nothing more than wrong-speak. Backing that assertion up was Tucker Carlson, who obtained some of the subpoenas and provided some of the disturbing demands within them.
In the clip, Carlson provides an excerpt from the subpoena that purports to define what the current investigation is about. Here’s how that reads. Any claim that the Vice President and/or the President of the Senate had the authority reject or choose not to count presidential electors.
Carlson brings up the fact that the DOJ did not seek to go after leading Democrats in 2016 that sought to stop the counting of electors for Donald Trump. The Fox News host then lists some of the names these subpoenas are targeting, including Stephen Miller and Jenna Ellis, but the most shocking is Boris Epshteyn. That is Trump’s current lawyer. Yet, the DOJ is demanding his communications, many of which are privileged, with a wink and a nod promise to sort through everything.
Biden: ‘Difficult 2 Years’ Ahead If Dems Lose Congress
(Sept. 12) Associated Press (News Max)
President Joe Biden said Monday said if Democrats lose Congress after the upcoming midterm elections, it’s going to be a “difficult two years,” and he’s going to be spending a lot of time “with the veto pen.”
Biden was speaking at a Democratic National Committee reception in a swanky Boston apartment following his speech about his administration’s efforts at ending cancer “as we know it.”
In the starkest terms yet, the president laid out how important the upcoming November midterm elections are. The U.S. Senate right now is split 50-50 with Vice President Kamala Harris as the tie-breaker. The House is 219-211 in favor of Democrats. “If we lose the House and we lose the Senate it’s going to be a really difficult two years,” he told a crowd of about 30 donors and guests. “I’ll be spending more time with the veto pen than getting anything done.”
Republican National Committee Ronna McDaniel said Biden remained focused on “an out-of-touch and divisive agenda, one that benefits the wealthy, while struggling Americans pay more.”
In his remarks, the president also took aim at the “ MAGA Republicans,” continuing his sharp attacks against former Republican President Donald Trump and his supporters, an effort that has emboldened Democrats across the country ahead of the election.
He questioned the Republican platform and touted his own achievements but came back to how the Democrats couldn’t “afford to lose this off-year election.”
https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/biden-dnc/2022/09/12/id/1087137/
By Hannah Grossman (Sept. 13) Fox News
The chief diversity, equity and inclusion officer at the Department of Defense’s education wing, who describes herself as a “woke administrator,” wrote a series of disparaging posts about White people on Twitter, Fox News Digital found.
Kelisa Wing is the DEI chief at Department of Defense Education Activity (DoDEA), which provides K-12 education to the DoD community in the U.S. and all over the world. After Fox News Digital reached out for comment, Wing’s Twitter was put on private, but she did not immediately respond.
Wing has also referred to former President Trump as the “whole boy version of a Karen” and former secretary of education Betsy DeVos as “the queen of Karens.”
Wing – who oversees curriculum at DoDEA, according to a press release, – has also co-created children’s books which said that White people must confess their privilege and were de facto hurting Black people by being benefactors of unearned advantages.
Wing said that her responsibilities at DoDEA included taking “a holistic view of the agency in terms of recruitment and retention, development and promotion, teaching and learning, and then as well as climate,” according to a video posted to the education wing’s YouTube channel.
Biden’s executive order pushes transhumanism on America
By Jim Hoft (Sept. 13) The Gateway Pundit
If anyone needed proof that the powers pushing the levers behind the mindless moron who sits in the Oval Office are fully on board with the World Economic Forum/United Nations agenda of biomedical tyranny and transhumanism, look no further than the executive order that Joe Biden signed on Monday, September 12.
By quietly getting Biden’s signature on this document, his handlers may have given us the most ominous sign yet that we stand on the threshold of a technocratic one-world beast system. Prepare to make your stand because it’s about to get much more intense.
This document’s Orwellian title, Executive Order on Advancing Biotechnology and Biomanufacturing Innovation for a Sustainable, Safe, and Secure American Bioeconomy, will assure that its significance will fly right over the heads of 99 percent of the media, even the conservative media. They will read it and yawn. I plead with everyone reading this article to please not make that same mistake. Because of the arcane scientific language in which this document is written, even most of those who take the time to read and study it (I assure you Biden did not) will not fully grasp what is being ordered by the White House.
That’s where we strive to help. Karen Kingston, a former Pfizer employee and current analyst for the pharmaceutical and medical-device industries, helps us decipher what’s going on in this executive order. Kingston stated in a Twitter post:
“Let me read between the lines for the America. Biden’s Sept. 12, 2022, executive order declares that Americans must surrender all human rights that stand in the way of transhumanism. Clinical trial safety standards and informed consent will be eradicated as they stand in the way of universally unleashing gene-editing technologies needed to merge humans with A.I. In order to achieve the societal goals of the New World Order, crimes against humanity are not only legal, but mandatory.”
Patrick Wood, an economist and author of several books on technocracy, has been following the transhumanist and global technocracy movements for four decades. He told me that Kingston is not overstating the issue. He said this E.O. is proof that the executive branch is now owned lock, stock and barrel by the biomedical/pharmaceutical industry. It will be Katy bar the door from here on out.
“The transhumanists within Big Pharma have completely taken over government policy and taxpayer funds to promote their own anti-human agenda of hacking the software of life,” Wood told me. “It also clearly demonstrates who has the power, and who sets the policies in America.”
The mRNA injections that have already gone into the bodies of at least 70 percent of adults in the U.S. mark the gateway to transhumanism. We have been told this by Kingston as well as by the late Dr. Zev Zelenko and Dr. Robert Malone, a co-inventor of the mRNA platform.
LeoHohmann.com was one of the first sites to blow the whistle on Moderna’s former chief medical officer, Tal Zaks, who told the world straight up in December 2017 that “We have hacked the software of life,” and that this mRNA gene-editing biotechnology would be incorporated into vaccines to treat and prevent all manner of illnesses. We’ve seen how well they work, with millions getting sick and even dying after getting two or more doses of the Covid injections offered up by Moderna and Pfizer. With the FDA and CDC now totally on board, this mRNA technology is being included in scores of other vaccines, including flu shots.
The September 12 executive order was no doubt put in place as back up for the continued experimentation on the human population, and I expect the vaccine industry will exploit it to the max. Soon we will see the return of vax mandates, this time more ferociously policed and enforced than before.
This E.O. may also have been timed at least partly in anticipation of the new pandemic treaty that the Biden administration is hoping to get passed through the United Nations World Health Organization next year. This treaty will transfer sovereignty over matters of “health emergencies” from the national level to the WHO.
Wood said the E.O.’s intended consequences is to push the frontier of genetic modification of all living things and especially humans. He believes this will ultimately spark the biggest public backlash in modern history. “Biden pledges not only funding but an all-of-government transformation to support this anti-human scheme from top to bottom,” Wood writes. “It also automatically blocks any agency or department from dissent.”
Below are just a few of the highlights quoted directly from the document:
What this means is that human beings will be data mined for their most personal possession, their DNA and genomic properties, and the government will offer no protection. It will actually be encouraged and seen as a green light for biomedical practitioners worldwide. It is the goal of the technocratic proprietors of Agenda 2030 to catalogue, map out, and monitor every living thing on earth.
This was spelled out in the early 2000s by the late researcher Rosa Koire and put into book form in 2011 with “Behind the Green Mask: U.N. Agenda 21.” Koire was a Democrat, but she understood that the takedown of America and indeed every nation of the formerly free world, would not be accomplished by the left or the right but by supranational globalists with an allegiance to no nation. In fact, these globalists detest the nation-state model that has dominated the world for thousands of years. Their goal is a “global governance” and they say it out loud in their own documents.
EMMA-JO MORRIS (Sept.14) Breitbart News
My Son Hunter, the new movie from Breitbart News, is a fact-based dramatization of the life of debauchery and corruption lived by the first son Hunter Biden. Although the movie takes certain artistic liberties, many scenes portray true accounts of the Biden scion’s life.
True Fact: Hunter Biden inked a $1.5 billion deal with a subsidiary of the Bank of China, just 12 days after he visited China with his father, then-Vice President Joe Biden.
Hawaiian Democrat Senator issues “call for arms” while debating abortionPAUL BOIS (Sept. 14) Breitbart News
Democrat extremism in the wake of President Joe Biden’s “Dark MAGA” speech heated up some more on Wednesday when Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-HI) issued a “call to arms” on the Senate floor while debating a national abortion ban.
“When I hear my colleagues talking about how, you know, ‘it should be state rights’ or ‘government should not be telling us what to do,’ the word ‘hypocrites,’ it doesn’t even go far enough to call them out on what they’re doing,” said Hirono.
“This is an outright attack on women in this country,” she continued. “That is how I see it. That is how more and more women and those who support our right to make decisions about our own bodies, that is how we see it. Why? Because that’s what’s happening.”
Hirono concluded her speech by saying the proposed abortion ban after 15 weeks is “literally a call to arms in our country.” Hirono’s rhetoric follows statements from Democrat Ohio Senate candidate Tim Ryan, who said his party needs to “kill and confront” an “extremist” Republican movement.
“Look, Democrats aren’t right on everything, and I’m willing to sit down and have conversations about how we can move out of this age of stupidity and into an age of reconciliation and reform. How do we fix all of these broken systems,” he said on MSNBC’s Morning Joe. “Some of those answers will come from Republicans, not the extremists that we are dealing with every single day. We’ve got to kill and confront that movement, but working with normal mainstream Republicans, that’s going to be really, really important,” he added.
Both statements followed President Joe Biden’s infamous “Dark MAGA” speech in which he portrayed MAGA Republicans as violent right-wingers who disrespect the constitution and seek to strip Americans of their most basic rights.
“MAGA Republicans do not respect the constitution,” Biden said. “They do not believe in the rule of law, they do not believe in the rule of law, they do not recognize the will of the people.”
“MAGA forces are determined to take this country backwards,” he added. “Backwards to an America where there is no right to choose. No right to privacy. No right to contraception. No right to marry who you love. They promote authoritarian leaders and they fan the flames of political violence.”
A Harvard CAPS-Harris poll found that a majority of Americans believe Biden’s speech only divided the country and did little to help unite the nation.
Our Hope
The Great Boatlift during 9-11 was America’s greatest marine evacuation
By Margaret Flavin (Sept. 11) The Gateway Pundit
Twenty-one years ago, America was attacked by Islamic terrorists and 2,997 innocent Americans were lost. In all of the horror of that day, there were powerful moments that brought us together. The beautiful story of the Great Boatlift is one of many examples of how everyday Americans became extraordinary.
All modes of transportation out of Manhattan were cut off that day. Then came the boats. A call was sent out to any and all vessels in the area to come to New York Harbor and Battery Park to help with the rescue. More that 150 commercial vessels and private boats heeded that call to save their fellow Americans. The Great Boatlift of 9/11, over a nine-hour period, brought 500,000 people trapped that day in Manhattan to safety.
For the first few hours after the unthinkable had decimated their city, the efforts from the water were spearheaded by New Yorkers simply reacting to what needed to be done. With that, the 9/11 boatlift began.
“All available boats, this is the United States Coast Guard….” Those were the words the U.S. Coast Guard used in their initial radio message asking for assistance as they took control of organizing evacuation efforts.
That call was sent out to all ships in the vicinity, requesting them to converge on the New York Harbor and Battery Park to begin transporting as many people as they could to safety. As more than 800 mariners scrambled to help, desperation had seized some of those waiting on the shore. People began jumping into the water in panicked attempts to swim to approaching boats. Remarkably, not a single drowning was reported.
Under the watchful gaze of the Statue of Liberty, over 150 ferries, tugs, Coast Guard ships and privately owned recreational boats worked together to shuttle half a million people to Staten Island, Ellis Island and New Jersey. Speaking to CNN in August of 2017, NYPD officer Tyrone Powell had this to say about the extent of the harbor front rescue efforts put forth by himself and hundreds of others.
It’s also more than the number of Allied troops evacuated during Operation Dynamo in the early days of World War Two. Often referred to as the Miracle of Dunkirk, this wartime operation saw civilian and navy vessels being called into action to help rescue soldiers trapped along the beaches of the French city of Dunkirk as German forces moved to surround them. That impressive operation saved the lives of over 330,000 men, but unlike the boatlift on September 11, it took nine days.
“With the New York Harbor challenges of 9/11 itself where we took 500,000 people off the south end of Manhattan to safety and that was just the Coast Guard and the whole maritime community of the Port of New York and New Jersey, standing up and recognizing what needed to be done,” explained U.S. Coast Guard Admiral James Loy, Commandant at the time of the 9/11 attacks during an interview with Coast Guard Compass.
“We grabbed the Staten Island Ferry, the tour boat that goes around the Statue of Liberty and anything else that floated. And at the same time, we had rallied the wherewithal to take a half a million people, scared and frightened to death, through the Battery and off the southern tip of Manhattan.”
JACK MONTGOMERY (Sept. 8) Breitbart News
A double rainbow which appeared in the sky over Buckingham Palace on the day Queen Elizabeth II passed away has been attributed to the late monarch and her husband, Prince Philip. The Queen, who has passed away aged 96, bid a final farewell to Prince Philip, her husband of over seven decades, just last year.
Some standing in the drizzling rain outside Buckingham Palace, the British monarchy’s best-known royal residence in modern times, have interpreted a double rainbow in the skies overhead to the late couple, who together were the longest-serving monarch and the longest serving consort to a monarch in British history.
(Michael Hernandez, co-founder of the Citizens Journal—Ventura County’s online news service is a former Southern California daily newspaper journalist and religion and news editor. Mr. Hernandez can be contacted at [email protected] and is editor of “America: The End and Our Hope”.)
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida. Note: we classified this article as opinion, even though it is mostly news.
By George Miller, highlighting Robin Lumb’s letter on Dean Black, 9-15-22
Citizens Journal Florida ran an article during the primary campaign about FL Statehouse 15th District candidate Dean Black (who is also the current Duval County GOP Chair) falsely and personally attacking opponent Emily Nunez. It goes into what was said and the veracity, or lack of it (link below):
Nunez also spoke out against it, as did Deb Boelkes of We the People local grassroots group, but voter lack of knowledge due to no other media coverage largely buried it. Black easily won. Not a word heard, at least publicly, from GOP officialdom.
But, now, former Duval County Republican Chair Robin Lumb, who is a current Committeeman and served in various executive committee roles since 2004, writes to his own party and gives us permission to publish it.
Lumb’s summary statement:
“It’s my belief that Dean Black’s attacks on Emily Nunez went way over the line. This 8-page analysis is intended to give you the information you need to decide for yourself. Ultimately, it’s your call to make.“
He further characterized Black’s attacks as “The politics of personal destruction.” But it appears that the only remedy he is calling for so far is an apology by Black to Nunez. He sent us a better copy of his document today-easier to read on the smartphones that most of our readers are now using. And here it is – a page at a time:
The views and opinions expressed here by Robin Lumb are his own and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
By Ben Whedon, 9-15-22
U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon on Thursday appointed New York Judge Raymond Dearie as special master to independently review documents the FBI took from former President Donald Trump’s Florida home in early August.
Cannon’s appointment of Dearie came alongside a separate ruling that denied the Department of Justice’s request to continue its own review of the documents.
Read MORE in Just the News
Editor’s notes:
https://www.nyed.uscourts.gov/content/judge-raymond-j-dearie
https://trac.syr.edu/tracreports/judge/327/reports/9x205203d02320.html
Dearie was the judge that accepted Najibullah Zazi‘s plea bargain.[14]
This information was compiled from public arrest records, which contain the following disclaimer: The County Clerk of Court shall not be held liable for use of ANY information contained on this website, which is provided as a public service for informational purposes. PLEASE NOTE that this information is NOT intended to be used as an authoritative public record or as a legal document and shall have no legal force or effect. The User or Users of this website releases the Clerk and Clerk’s employees and agents from any liability and any damages resulting from or related to (a) interrupted service of any kind; (b) The User’s equipment; (c) use of, or viewing of, electronic court records. Nothing in this Agreement may be construed as waiving the sovereign immunity of the Clerk or the Clerk’s employees and agents or of the User’s sovereign immunity, if applicable, or modifying the recovery limits against the Clerk or User as set forth in section 768.28(5), Florida Statutes.
By Kaitlyn McCue, 9-13-22
The Jacksonville Port Authority promoted infrastructure and development leader James Bennett to chief operating officer on Aug. 15.
Bennett served as urban transportation development manager for FDOT for 10 years before moving to the private sector and then joining Jaxport in 2017. He serves as a county commissioner for Baker County.
Bennett managed the completion of the $420 million, 47-foot harbor deepening project, a $100 million berth modernization project, and renovations to improve operational efficiencies at the Jaxport Cruise Terminal, all initiatives to further the growth of the port.
To find out what he wants to do, read more in Jacksonville Business Journal
From St. Johns River Water Management District
PALATKA, Fla., Sept. 13, 2022 ― Today, the St. Johns River Water Management District Governing Board approved the execution of seven contracts that will provide local growers with over $860,000 in cost-share funds. Together, these projects will reduce water use by 44 million gallons per year and significantly reduce the amount of harmful nutrients entering nearby water bodies, including the St. Johns River and Crescent Lake.
“Implementing projects like these not only benefit the environment, but also the growers by saving them money and allowing them to maintain the long-term sustainability of their operations,” said St. Johns River Water Management District Executive Director Mike Register. “The continued commitment by the District’s Governing Board and our funding partners is a testament to the importance of continuing to reduce the amount of nutrients flowing into our waterways.”
The Tri-County Agricultural Area Water Management Partnership Cost-Share Program was developed to assist farmers and growers who choose to implement projects that conserve water, reduce nutrient loading (amount of nutrients entering a water body), and result in more efficient farm management in Flagler, Putnam and St. Johns counties. Approved projects will receive up to 75 percent of cooperative funding, not to exceed $250,000 per applicant annually, toward the design, construction and implementation of technologies and strategies to improve water efficiencies and protect natural systems.
More than half of this year’s funded projects include the installation of precision fertilizer equipment, which results in less fertilizer being applied to crops through more accurate placement, as well as adjustable-rate application. The growers can use GPS controllers to avoid overlapping fertilizer patterns and apply fertilizer in various portions of their fields based on the different soil types found on their property.
Projects receiving funds are:
Multiple agencies partner to contribute cost-share funding to growers in the area, including the Florida Department of Environmental Protection and the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. A fourth partner, the Natural Resource and Conservation Service, also provides cost-share opportunities to TCAA growers through federal dollars. To date, more than 158 projects have received funding from the combined efforts of the four partners.
For information about District cost-share programs, visit www.sjrwmd.com/localgovernments/funding.
By Jeff Childers
09-15-22
Happy Thursday, C&C! As we approach the end of another post-pandemic, pre-election week, your roundup includes: a multiplier update; Idaho schools push kiddie porn; an essay on the war for civilization; El Paso teacher gets the boot for grooming; Florida gives the elites a taste of their own medicine; Ukrainians learn English; a potato goes to Harvard; and a news roundup from the war. Spoiler: Putin’s NOT arrested.
Trigger alert: there are some gross images in today’s post. So. First a long title picture to make sure you don’t accidentally see anything you’d rather miss.
🪖 Operation Multiplier Update: Received from Mr. Rufo: “I am happy to announce the campaign was a smashing success! So far we received over $70,000 from over 2,500 individual donors. We really can’t thank you, Jeff, and the entire C&C army enough!”
This is a terrific result for a smaller Multiplier with a less-well-known beneficiary.
Remember — we ALL win when the multiplier succeeds. Our joined power far exceeds what any of us could do on our own. In this case, we just sent corporate media a clear message: we supported this guy BECAUSE you are trying to cancel him. Keep trying to cancel people, and we’ll keep multiplying them.
Christopher Rufo works as a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a conservative “think tank.” He has spoken at Hillsdale College and is described by corporate media as a man who has “assumed a vastly outsized role in conservative movement politics.”
In June, 2021, the Washington Post identified Chris Rufo as THE person who blew up the CRT problem, in an article headlined, “Republicans, Spurred By An Unlikely Figure, See Political Promise In Targeting Critical Race Theory.” In April of this year, The Nation magazine ran an article dismissing parent’s concerns about CRT as a “moral panic,” and featuring the subheadline, “Christopher Rufo, the man behind the moral panic over ‘critical race theory,’ has fabricated another foe.”
Those darned fabricators.
Also in April, Salon Magazine ran a hit piece on Rufo headlined, “The Guy Who Brought Us CRT Panic Offers A New Far-Right Agenda: Destroy Public Education.” The article credits Rufo as being “the man who’s been widely credited with single-handedly willing the ‘critical race theory’ panic into existence.”
Chris is still at it. You can’t believe the kinds of things the former documentary producer is uncovering.
Yesterday, for example, Rufo — who’s approaching half a million followers — shined a spotlight on how Idaho’s state government is teaching kids that watching porn is “normal” and is even GOOD for kids as young as Third Grade. I am not making that up:
Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ @realchrisrufoThe Idaho state government is now training students in “porn literacy,” teaching how pornography can “sexually excite and create fantasy” for children. It’s time to break the state-run education monopoly and provide families with universal school choice. September 14th 20221,093 Retweets2,915 Likes
You really can’t make this stuff up. We JUST went through a decade of introspection of how HARMFUL pornography is. Now public schools are ramming it down kids’ throats. Since they are teaching kids how to hide porn addictions from parents (see video, above), the only way that parents can find out what’s going on is by the efforts of courageous volunteer human lightning rods like Chris.
It’s my job to show you guys WHY it’s important to multiply about people like Chris and send messages to corporate media and lunatic leftists. If I don’t do MY job well, then multipliers suffer. As a busy litigating attorney also deep into the front lines of the war for civilization, I can sometimes work too fast.
Anyway, GREAT WORK C&C! The message was sent, and we’ll learn from and build on this effort. I’m considering someone similar to Chris for our next multiplier target. Also in April of this year, the Washington Post ran a now infamous story headlined, “Meet the woman behind Libs of TikTok, secretly fueling the right’s outrage machine.” In the story, the WaPo doxxed previously anonymous Chaya Raichik, a young real estate saleswoman from Brooklyn.
We’ll talk more about Chaya soon. Meantime, let me know if you already agree we should find a way to multiply her.
🪖 I met yesterday with a top Florida lawmaker to discuss parent’s rights and the coming legislative agenda. I’m not allowed to say much, but it was encouraging. It appears that the Florida legislature is treating the last session as a warm up act, so get ready.
My team came to the meeting prepared with a stack of foul school library books, handouts, and a letter from Sheriff Grady Judd, all illustrating the disgusting, perverted, and repulsive material that has infested school libraries under the false flag of “inclusion.” I won’t offend you by offering any images from the books here, you can believe me, it’s awful.
NO sane, loving parent wants their kid looking at this kind of stuff. I don’t care WHAT sexual orientation the parents are. Nobody rational wants this.
I’m going to try to connect some dots and update the vocabulary a little. The problem with our current laws is that school are allowed to offer obscene material unless “when taken as a whole, the material lacks ANY artistic or literary merit.” So elementary libraries can legally stock copies of Hamlet with added selections from the Penthouse Forum.
Except it’s not even Hamlet. It’s literary trash with added stuff that looks just like the Penthouse Forum.
Here in my county, I doubt ANY of the school board members could name even five titles from the Western Canon. They have NO IDEA what literary merit is. Because they are poorly-educated and intellectually lazy, they’d probably say that ‘literary merit’ is in the eye of the beholder or something. In other words, it’s whatever they think is politically convenient.
It reminds me of a story about an encounter 1880’s philosopher William James had with a stubborn little old lady:
Just like the little old lady in the story, these school board members have nothing supporting their notions of ‘literary merit’ except politics. It’s just politics, all the way down.
For far too long, we have accommodated the politics of sexual liberation, when we clearly should have opposed it on MORAL grounds. But we accepted the notion that it somehow isn’t fair or nice to talk about sexual morality, because morality was the first thing we grudgingly accepted as being completely subjective, under the tired-out mantra of “separation of church and state.”
As if only religious people hold moral convictions.
This accommodationist policy, the policy of “live and let live” as to the boundless morality of uninhibited sexual freedom, has inevitably led us through a series of disappointing social failures to the point we’re at now: celebrating the cruel and inhumane torture of children using medical experimentation in the name of unshackled subjective sexual expression.
Do you think it’s hyperbolic to describe trans surgeries as ‘torture?’ You should do your homework. Look up the appalling daily routine that a male-to-female surgery survivor has to undergo EACH AND EVERY DAY to prevent their faux vagina from healing over. Or what Boston Children’s Hospital is inflicting on little girls in the name of creating a useless, non-functioning fake penis, which involves carving up their forearm to remove enough tissue to build into a faux phallus.
I’m not making it up. Here’s a surgeon from Boston Children’s Hospital selling the surgery to teenagers, whose brains aren’t yet fully developed:
Colin Wright @SwipeWrightThe fade out at the end of this video about phalloplasties revealing “Boston Children’s Hospital” set to soothing tones might be the most dystopian thing I’ve ever seen. August 12th 2022414 Retweets1,712 Likes
I wonder if the surgeons at Boston Children’s Hospital show kids what the surgery looks like. It’s not just a little forearm tissue. It’s a LOT of tissue:
Lorna 🦖 @lorcaatDissection of forearm in construction of penis for ” female to male” surgery. April 9th 202127 Retweets89 Likes
Now, tell me that’s not torture. And after all that, the damn thing doesn’t even work. You sure can’t make a baby with it. But forget about THAT, you can’t even imagine the disastrous scarring and the shocking opportunities for complications and poor outcomes (80%+). To many on the insane left, this all seems perfectly fine, just a teeny-tiny sacrifice in the name of unimpeded sexual libertarianism. “Are you happy to see me, or is that a part of your forearm in your pocket?”
I also chose the phrase “medical experimentation” carefully. Surgeons have never done this kind of thing before, because about ten minutes ago it would have gotten the doctor’s medical license pulled faster than Joe Biden’s handlers rush him off when reporters approach, and the doctor would have had to change his name and flee the country under cover of darkness.
I hate to do this to you, but you need to see it. Here are the ‘after
pictures; after pictures of the forearm, anyway. The other part is WAY too gross to show in this family blog, even with Halloween on the way:
This isn’t a brand-new subject. Here’s a tweet from over two years ago, linking to heartbreaking article about a mom distressed because her 19 year old daughter was saving up to get this very procedure:
Caroline ffiske @carolinefff@Mermaids_Gender @jk_rowling ‘My once beautiful daughter is now 19, homeless, bearded, in extreme poverty, sterilized, not receiving mental health services, extremely mentally ill & planning a radial forearm phalloplasty – to construct a fake penis’ ‘My Once Beautiful Daughter’ – The American ConservativeFive anonymous moms of trans kids speak outtheamericanconservative.comJune 13th 20203 Retweets14 Likes
Someone convinced that poor woman’s daughter that she’d be happier after voluntarily undergoing the torture of an experimental forearm transplant. They’ve convinced her the transplant will transform her body into something MORE attractive, instead of the reality, that it will transform her into a freakish speedboat accident survivor.
But don’t worry! Fortunately, there’s a surgeon at Boston Children’s Hospital who will do it for her. “Right this way, ma’am! Dr. Mengele, ehrm, Dr. Mendoza will see you now.” And he won’t even lose his medical license and have to move to South America in disgrace. Instead he’ll probably publish something in a prominent medical journal.
Here are the dots: The library books and the pornography instruction are the launch pad for training kids to think that the way to be happy in life is to let criminally insane doctors experiment on their genitals. “It’s Penis-Millenium Edition! It’s even better than a real penis!”
And we all know how Windows-ME worked out. This could turn out even worse, if you can imagine that.
I am arguing that the moral accommodationist policy toward sexual liberation must end, or we won’t just lose the culture, we’ll lose CIVILIZATION. There is NO WAY that a civilization that does this kind of thing to its children can last for long. Nor should it. We should WANT that civilization to fail. We should pray for its failure.
So it not a “culture war” that we find ourselves in. Calling it a “culture war” obscures what’s really at stake. It’s a war for civilization. Period. Full stop.
If you still aren’t convinced, ask yourself: what’s next? AFTER forearm-genital transplants?
That bottomless source of eternal wisdom about morality, the Bible, ominously predicted what happens to people who toss all moral and ethical considerations out the window to go adventuring in the boundless horizons of sexual experimentation. It says God will curse them by giving them exactly what they want, a fully depraved mind, a mind incapable of even knowing what’s good for itself:
Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another… Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity.
Romans 24, 28-29.
I, for one, am working to stop this, to save civilization from itself. And Florida’s lawmakers appear to be fully awake and engaged. We have a good shot at shutting this kind of nonsense down in Florida. Texas has already criminalized these kinds of surgeries on kids. We need a LOT more of this kind of thing.
Now. I can’t just leave you there, can I? Not without some good news.
🔥 CBS News ran a hopeful story this week headlined, “Texas Teacher On Administrative Leave After Telling Students To Call Pedophiles ‘Minor Attracted Persons’.”
An alert Franklin High School student in El Paso videoed his English teacher, Amber Parker, while she was ranting about how unfair it is to call pedophiles that awful, discriminatory word, “pedophile.”
“We’re not gonna call them that,” Miss Parker is heard saying in the video. “We’re gonna call them MAPs, minor attracted persons. So don’t judge people just because they wanna have sex with a 5-year-old.”
Right, exactly. Why be so judgy all the time? Just because they want to have sex with toddlers? What’s wrong with that? It’s not like they DID anything. At least, you can’t prove it.
The El Paso district Board of Trustees promptly and unanimously voted to start termination procedures for Miss Parker. Thanks to teachers’ unions, the next step is “an appeals process governed by the Texas Education Code.”Good luck. Miss Parker is now on PAID administrative leave pending termination, thanks to her union, the El Paso Groomer’s Association — sorry — the El Paso TEACHER’S Association.
A herd of twitter bots instantly claimed that Miss Parker was probably just speaking ironically, or something. But Parker isn’t talking, on advice of counsel. Good advice. But the Board of Trustees did the right thing, either way.
🔥 Yesterday, Fox News ran a story headlined, “Ron Desantis Sends Two Planes Of Illegal Immigrants To Martha’s Vineyard.
Governor DeSantis’ communications director, Taryn Fenske, told Fox, “Yes, Florida can confirm the two planes with illegal immigrants that arrived in Martha’s Vineyard today were part of the state’s relocation program to transport illegal immigrants to sanctuary destinations.”
A “relocation program!” Hahaha!
Fenske explained that, “As you may know, in this past legislative session the Florida legislature appropriated $12 million to implement a program to facilitate the transport of illegal immigrants from this state consistent with federal law.” (Remember! The past legislative session was a warmup act.)
Hahaha! Who came up with this idea? They’re sending them to Martha’s Vineyard, the “playground of rich progressives!” The irony. Now, of COURSE, I am appalled that these poor folks are being used as political pawns, but the simple fact is, they are WAY better off in Massachusetts than in Florida.
Fenske explained. “States like Massachusetts, New York and California will better facilitate the care of these individuals who they have invited into our country by incentivizing illegal immigration through their designation as ‘sanctuary states’ and support for the Biden administration’s open border policies,” Fenske told Fox.
See? The Sanctuary State of Massachusetts has better social services for illegal immigrants than Florida does, so they’ll be better served in Martha’s Vineyard. The rich progressives there are well-equipped to care for these homeless, jobless, prospect-less migrants. It makes complete sense to help get them to Massachusetts.
Thanks, Governor and legislators!
🚀 I can’t vouch for the authenticity, but social media personality Kim Dotcom (875,000 followers) tweeted a short video yesterday, expressing amazement at how well Ukrainian soldiers’ English skills are coming along:
Kim Dotcom @KimDotcomImpressive. Ukrainian troops speak fluent English with an American accent. September 14th 20229,875 Retweets27,832 Likes
At least this video provides a hint about how the Ukrainians suddenly managed to do so well in the war last weekend.
But it doesn’t sound like Ukraine thinks it can keep it gains, not by itself, anyway. It’s weird.
🚀 The Hill ran a story this morning headlined, “U.S. Must Help Ukraine Retain Its Crucial Gains, Says Ex-Zelensky Press Secretary.”
We must? Why must we? Do we get to vote on it?
Iuliia Mendel, Zelensky’s former press secretary, told the Hill, “We all know there is always fatigue from every war. People can always ask themselves questions: ‘How long will we need [to support a] war?’” That’s a great question. Mendel continued, “If the United States stops helping Ukraine, then all our achieved results will not make any sense because Putin will not stop killing us.”
Wait. I thought the Russians were on the run? And Putin was arrested or overthrown in a coup or something? I mean, literally a million twitter bots JUST told us the conflict was practically over; and the courageous, perfect-english speaking, mastermind Ukrainians were obviously triumphant. A moron could see it.
That’s what they said, anyway. Well, I suppose opinions vary.
🚀 Yesterday, social media outrage erupted after Russian cruise missiles took out a Ukrainian dam, which caused a river to rise, which halted Ukraine’s eastern advances.
Yaroslav Trofimov @yarotrofWater level rising fast in Kryvy Rih, one of Ukraine’s largest cities, after a salvo of Russian cruise missiles breached a reservoir dam, causing a flood. Seven months into the war, long-promised US and German air defenses that could prevent such strikes have yet to arrive.September 14th 20221,956 Retweets6,912 Likes
And then, Putin met with Chinese president Xi yesterday, causing the Chinese government to affirm support for Russia:
Elbridge Colby @ElbridgeColby“China will not change its willingness to develop ties with Russia, because that is determined by geopolitical dynamics,” said Yun Sun. “If Russia wins, China will gain a powerful ally. Even if Russia loses, it will likely become a vassal of China.” China’s Xi and Russia’s Putin Seek to Counter West in First In-Person Meeting Since Ukraine War BeganThe two leaders are expected to discuss a new gas pipeline as Moscow faces setbacks on the battlefield and mounting economic pressure from U.S. and its allies.wsj.comSeptember 14th 2022113 Retweets282 Likes
It’s just so weird how Putin was able meet with president Xi, what with being under arrest in his Dacha and overthrown in the coup and everything.
Standard disclaimer: I don’t like Putin, and I love the Ukrainian people! They deserve MUCH better. They should’ve had a peace deal back in April instead of months of war. And I love the American people, who’ve already spent 20 billion and have a lot of their own problems too. We’re both suffering under our elites.
🔥 In the bottom story of the day, the leftist revolving door spun again and disgraced, potato-headed ex-CNN anchor Brian Stelter is now a highly-paid professor at Harvard University. See how that works? I won’t bore you with the dumb details about what great work he’s going to do there to save democracy from fake news and stuff, because it would just make you mad, and I want your Thursday to be happy and funny.
Less than a year ago, before he became another unemployed reporter, Stelter was a media hero:
Now, he’s a punchline.
Have a terrific Thursday and I’ll see you back here tomorrow for more.
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The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
By Joseph Weber, 9-15-22
The Senate will delay its vote on same-sex marriage until after the midterms, Wisconsin Democrat Sen. Tammy Baldwin, a lead sponsor of the bipartisan measure, said Thursday.
Democrats had planned to hold a vote as soon as Monday on a measure, which attempts to codify same-sex marriage, over apparent concerns the Supreme Court will strike down laws that make such marriages legal.
However, it appears after weeks of effort senators championing the measure cannot get 10 Republican votes to reach 60 to get the measure passed.
read MORE
By Sister Toljah, 9-15-22
I’ve watched with a mixture of perplexion and amusement at the mainstream media handwringing over Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis shipping off planeloads of illegal immigrants to Martha’s Vineyard and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott sending more to Vice President Kamala Harris’ doorstep just days after she falsely declared the southern border to be “secure.” ….
…. And then there’s DeSantis, whose public safety czar Larry Keefe told the DC Examiner nearly a year ago that some 70 flights that contained illegal immigrants had been flown into Jacksonville over a period of several months and that the flights were landing at a time when they thought no one would be paying attention (late at night/early morning hours). Keefe also told the Examiner that no one at DHS, the DOJ, or any other related federal department would give Florida any specific info on the oversight of the flights in terms of who was dictating what, etc.
Read the whole article on Red State
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
News
By Matthew Decker
09-14-2022
During the September 13th meeting of the Fernandina Beach Parks and Recreation Advisory Committee. Committee members voted 4 – 3 to recommend to the City Commission that no lease agreement should be pursued for the Pocket Park on Centre and North 3rd Streets. The City Commission of Fernandina Beach will have the final say on whether to pursue a lease for the Pocket Park or not. They also discussed the Beach Harmonization Plan
Pocket Park Lease Discussion
The Pocket Park is near Amelia Island Coffee off of Centre Street. It provides an area for locals and tourists to sit and relax while in downtown Fernandina. The park is privately owned by Jon Lasserre and previously has been leased to the city for $1 per year with 30 days termination notice required. The city performs landscape maintenance and installs benches donated by community members. As part of that lease agreement, the city had agreed to block vehicular access from North 3rd St. Mr. Lasserre pointed out that there have been problems with contractors and other individuals parking in the grass of the park. He also noted that the city had failed to sufficiently block vehicle access off of North 3rd St. If the city opts to continue leasing the park, Mr. Lasserre recommended a fence to block access. Mr. Lasserre is seeking a new agreement with the city, whereby the city covers the costs of taxes and pays more for use of the park. Mr. Lasserre presented three lease options for the park:
Option A: This option presents the city with a one-year lease with annual renewals for $20,000 per year. The lease is terminable by the landlord with 60 days notice and can be marketed as available to lease.
Option B: This option presents the city with a five-year lease with an option for five more years for $100,000 per year. This lease is non-terminable and the lease cannot be marketed as available.
Option C: The city does not pursue a lease, and the landlord looks elsewhere for leasing opportunities.
Chairwoman Cheryl Grant questioned why Option B costs five times as much as Option A per year. Mr. Lasserre answered that the cost differential was due to the non-terminable nature of Option B.
Committee member Philip Chapman championed the Pocket Park, pointing out that residents use it frequently to drink coffee and enjoy the historic downtown. He stated, “It’s a part of downtown Fernandina… That Pocket Park is really important to people. It’s part of the culture downtown.” Chapman also pointed out that the city lost another pocket park across Centre St. that is now an unmaintained vacant lot.
Committeewoman Shelia Cocchi agreed with Chairwoman Grant affirming that the Pocket Park is, “Nice to have…but there are other needs that are more important or urgent.”
Chairwoman Grant motioned to recommend to the City Commission that Option C, no lease, be adopted. The Advisory Committee voted 4 – 3 in favor of this recommendation with Committee members Camera, Chapman, and Mountjoy objecting. The City Commission will make the final determination to lease or not lease the Pocket Park. Mr. Lasserre summarized that if the City chooses not to pursue the lease deal, then other entities will be presented the lease options, including the Tourist Development Council and the County Commission.
Beach Harmonization Master Plan
The Beach Harmonization Master Plan, which seeks to completely redo infrastructure at three beaches within the city (Main, North, and Seaside) and additional beaches in the county, has never been presented to the Parks and Recreation Advisory Committee. Mayor Lednovich stated that he had told EDSA, the company designing the beach updates, to present to the (City) Advisory Committee twice. Interim Director of Parks and Recreation, Scott Mikelson, said he would follow up with EDSA to have them present the plan to the Advisory Committee.
Parks and Recreation Master Plan
The Advisory Committee discussed the Master Plan for Parks and Recreation. Chairwoman Grant brought up that the plan was developed in 2015 based off a questionnaire which 480 people responded to. She expressed her concern that the plan had outdated predictions for population growth and was incorrect in other areas. The Advisory Committee proposed presenting the shortcomings of the Master Plan to the new Parks and Recreation Director in hopes that an update might be pursued. The Advisory Committee then expressed concern over its own usefulness as they had presented recommended Master Plan changes previously that had not been adopted by the Parks and Recreation Department. Committeeman Camera, asked Mayor Lednovich to express what his believed role is for the Parks Advisory Committee at their next meeting in October.
Central Park
Central Park in Fernandina Beach received a $500,000 donation to replace the play structures. The donor expressed the desire to have the updates completed by February 2023. The Interim Director of Parks and Recreation, Scott Mikelson, said that the equipment had been purchased and that they were on track to finish the park in early February 2023.
Staff Report
The Interim Director Mikelson, attempted to dissuade rumors that the Parks and Recreation Department plans to take over the golf course. He explained that the Parks and Recreation Department may offer “managerial support” in the form of the Parks and Recreation Director to the golf course. He stated that this managerial support might be offered if the golf course director leaves his position. Committeeman Chapman pointed out that if the golf course manager leaves, then the Parks and Recreation Director may be running both her department and the golf course. Interim Director Mikelson asserted that the finances would be separate by law even if the same manager ran both entities.
Matthew Decker is a Co-Founder of Citizens Journal Florida, having set up some of the technical and social media infrastructure. He also developed sourcing for some of its municipal government and business content. He is an Aerospace Engineer by trade. He has worked in NGO’s performing civic activities. He originally hails from Ventura, CA.
By George Miller, 9-14-22
Rayonier Performance Fibers has applied for a permit to dump over 26 million gallons a day of “non-process wastewater, process wastewater and storm water” into the Amelia River and also “secondary wastewater treatment solids and boiler ash to the Yulee Active Sludge Management Site.” We contacted the company and were told that this is a renewal of an existing permit which has been in place for decades. They sent us a written statement for publication as well. The applicant is listed as Rayonier Performance Fibers, LLC and the statement came from Rayonier Advanced Fibers. There is a hearing on this October 6 (see below).
We contacted the company about this and received the following statement, which we publish in its entirety:
“RYAM is simply renewing an existing permit (one that’s been in place for decades), which is a normal part of the regulatory process. The renewal does not change the volume or content of treated water. FDEP has determined that we continue to meet all state and federal regulations, which protect both water quality and the health of the Amelia River. The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) must also review and approve the permit before it is finalized.”
– Ryan Houck, Rayonier Advanced Materials
We received this email via a local activist:
“FDEP ALERT. There’s a meeting coming up at FSCJ October 6, 2022, 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. at the Nassau Center Campus that people may have questions about.
Rayonier is requesting to dump 26.31 MGD of non-process wastewater, process wastewater, and stormwater in the Amelia River. Who knows about water quality? And how this will affect water quality of the river?
Rayonier will also be dumping or continuing to dump fly ash in Yulee. Fly ash is heavily contaminated and causes cancer and premature mortality. Seems like someone living near such a site would like to know….”
They also included the state’s bulletin:
From: <[[email protected]](mailto:[email protected])>
Date: Mon, Aug 22, 2022, 12:18 AM
Notice of Meeting/Workshop Hearing
Department: Department of Environmental Protection
Subject: The Department of Environmental Protection gives notice of its preparation of a draft permit and intent to conduct a public meeting regarding the permit application of Rayonier Performance Fibers, LLC, Mr. Mark J. Homans, Post Office Box 2002, Fernandina Beach, Florida 32034 for renewal NPDES permitting to operate the Rayonier Fernandina Dissolving Sulfite Pulp Mill – Sludge Management Site.
This permit authorizes the permittee to operate a 26.31 MGD maximum daily flow of non-process wastewater, process wastewater, and stormwater to Amelia River; and land apply of secondary wastewater treatment solids and boiler ash to the Yulee Active Sludge Management Site.
The facility is located at latitude 30 degrees 39′ 45.12″ North, longitude 81 degrees 28′ 12.23″ West on 10 Gum Street, Fernandina Beach, Florida 32034-4285 in Nassau County.
The Department has assigned permit file number FL0000701-012-IW1S to the proposed project. The public will have the opportunity to ask questions of Department staff and submit comments to consider for the Department’s proposed permitting decision.
Date/Time: October 6, 2022, 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.
Location: Florida State College Jacksonville (FSCJ), Nassau Center Campus, Lewis “Red” Bean Nassau Technical Career Center, 76346 William Burgess Blvd, Yulee, Florida 32097
[https://www.flrules.org/gateway/View_Notice.asp?id=26197292](https://nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.flrules.org%2Fgateway%2FView_Notice.asp%3Fid%3D26197292&data=05%7C01%7C%7C68958e197c7744b8b0fc08da841e0ec8%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C637967561918452992%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=Lex1497EdFUrxJbi9ZwR0Di9iRL4hxgFI3LOyW7uAwo%3D&reserved=0)
George Miller is Publisher and Co-Founder of Citizens Journal Florida, based in Fernandina Beach. He is a “retired” operations management consultant, software and publishing executive and manufacturing management professional.
By Jeff Childers
09-14-22
Happy Wednesday, C&C! It’s a short but sweet roundup this morning, including some keen legal analysis from yours truly that you’re going to love. The gist: Biden backs down from the federal contractor mandate; thoughts about timing; Biden’s sweeping new executive order wants to turn us all into programmable robots, and basically even say that; the Trump Raid case is boiling down to the essence and Trump has a spectacular opportunity; good news for Navy SEALs; and just when you thought things couldn’t get crazier in Germany, it’s madness.
💉 Even though the 11th Circuit partially vacated the injunction on the federal contractor mandate last month, effectively limiting its scope to just the plaintiff states, the Biden Administration’s GSA issued new guidance yesterday stripping the mandate from federal purchasing requirements. The government now says it will take no action to enforce the mandate “absent further written notice from the agency.”
Ding, dong. Another jab mandate is dead.
🔥 One of the dreariest but most rewarding parts of a litigating lawyer’s job is reviewing bank statements. There’s a lot I could say about it, but for this morning, that often mind-numbing task is not just about WHAT people did with their money but it’s also about the TIMING. You can learn so much about people by looking at what they do with their money and especially, WHEN.
For example, say you have a guy who is a defendant in a lawsuit that went to trial on January 1st. He wound up losing big and owing a lot of money. That guy’s December bank statement is going to be EXTREMELY interesting, as would the entire last half of the year before trial while he was fretting about what would happen. You’re looking for large transfers to relatives or foreign jurisdictions that suggest he was trying to get ready to be judgment proof.
Once, I looked into a guy who only used his Venmo account when he traveled, and it was always to give $200 or $300 dollars to individuals, usually female names, suggesting he was always lonely when he was away from the comforts of home. By the way, you can always tell when someone was traveling, because the charges on their statements are from out-of-state or out-of-country gas stations, hotels, restaurants, and shops.
On the other hand, cash transactions are not so helpful. Sure, you can point to cash withdrawals and say “aha! Look, judge, he took out $10,000 cash out of the account every time he went to Vegas!” But it doesn’t PROVE anything. The witness will just say, “I needed it for something else; I can’t remember. I definitely didn’t gamble with it, are you insane?” Sure, it makes them look bad, and the judge might help you out, but it can’t prove where the money WENT. You still need the casino receipts.
Many people think this is part of reason governments are suddenly pushing for digital currencies; because it’s so easy to know everything worth knowing about someone by their account records.
But I digress. The point is about the TIMING. When you’re trying to figure out what another person is up to, the WHY of something they’re doing, you should consider whatever they did in the context of what ELSE is happening around the same time.
Right now, we have to consider everything Joe Biden does in the context of the mid-term elections.
🔥 Biden issued a massive new executive order yesterday that sweeps through every agency in the U.S. government, with the awkward title, “Executive Order on Advancing Biotechnology and Biomanufacturing Innovation for a Sustainable, Safe, and Secure American Bioeconomy.”
It’s the E.O. on A.B.B.I.S.S.S.A.B!
The order sets the driving policy of the Biden Administration to massively increase investment in bioengineering and manufacturing, because “[t]he COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated the vital role of biotechnology and biomanufacturing in developing and producing life-saving diagnostics, therapeutics, and vaccines that protect Americans and the world.”
Stop laughing! He’s serious, pay attention.
Biden’s latest mega-order claims that the government has a CRITICAL NEED; a need to re-program people like robots. I’m not making that up. Here’s exactly what the E.O. says:
Haha! “Predictably program biology.” In case you missed the memo in second grade, YOU are biology, partner. Biden wants you to be predictable. Like a computer program. No pesky software bugs. No garbage in, garbage out. No MAGA extremism.
Haha, this is so over the top I’m starting to think they’re deliberately trolling us. I’m also sensing that the robot program must be struggling, since Biden seems to think it’ll be easier to re-program US than our metallic assistants.
Anyway, within the next two months, the order requires the Secretaries of HHS, Energy, Agriculture, and Commerce, plus the Director of the National Science Foundation, to come up with recommended programs to incorporate biotechnology and biomanufacturing into nearly every aspect of American government, “in order to further societal goals.”
Sounds legit, right?
After the agency heads turn in their proposals, the E.O. gives the OMB and other agencies about 3 months to “develop a plan (implementation plan) to implement the recommendations in the reports. “ They have to “solicit input” from “experts” on ethics, environmental sustainability and environmental justice, whatever that is, and however it is different from regular “justice.”
Soliciting input is not the same as following input.
Then, within two years, the agencies will have to report on how well they’ve implemented the bioengineering plans.
The two words of greatest interest are so broadly defined in the E.O. that they aren’t particularly helpful:
Now. I know what you’re thinking. You want to talk about the awful dystopian implications of predictably reprogramming everybody’s cells, but that’s bait.
Think about the timing. Right before mid-terms.
The real story is, the gold rush is on! Aside from anything else this order might actually accomplish, it will positively be a HUGE cash grab. Nearly every federal agency is going to be wanting to buy new products with the “bioengineered!” label on them. Every federal agency is going to be soliciting grants for products and services that help achieve the new bio-plans. Every federal agency will be handing out lucrative low-accountability bio-contracts to its special friends, like candy at Halloween. Some for you, some for you, and some for YOU!
It might be even bigger than the Covid Gold Rush.
So here we are, less than 60 days out from the midterms, and Biden is offering a brand-new gold rush, a massive across-the-board federal purchasing program that depends on a cooperative Congress to fund it. It’s an offer to corporate America — forget about the supply chain! Forget about mandates! Forget about CRT!
Because, if the right people get elected, we’ll shower you all with crisp, newly printed cash. And remember, you’ll only get the money if you play ball. They’ll remember who their friends were — and weren’t — during the elections.
And as a side benefit, the E.O. is bioengineered to spin up MAGA extremists and the medical freedom lobby, who are expected to decry and condemn the E.O., which will turn MAGA into a threat to anybody who stands to make oodles of money from all the proposed new programs.
Don’t take that bait! I’m not saying you should relax into this, just wait till the day after the elections, and then be smart about it.
Now we know why Joe Biden has been on vacation for the entire summer. They were resting him up for all this stuff he’s doing now, from his Great Big Hate Speech to his stump speeches and executive orders. It’s all about the midterms.
🔥 Trump’s lawyers and the DOJ have now traded feisty briefs on whether the judge should stay her order requiring a special master until the DOJ’s appeal runs its course. Which of course will be well after the FBI finishes doing whatever it is planning to do. But a spectacular opportunity is shaping up for President Trump, and if he planned it this way, he’s a genius.
There’s a lot of great stuff in the briefs. President Trump’s brief persuasively argued that the president has sole authority to declassify whatever he wants; it even cited a very helpful Obama executive order reinforcing that authority. But I’m detecting a momentum, a momentum pushing toward a single legal issue, and that issue was neatly summarized by the DOJ in its reply brief, filed yesterday, which made this perfectly legitimate point:
The DOJ is right. If President Trump wants to argue that the classified records he was keeping at Mar-a-Lago were declassified, he needs to say so, and say it clearly. At present, Trump is playing coy, one of his usual strategies, and is trolling the government by saying that he’s NOT saying he did declassify or didn’t declassify, but as far as the government knows, he DID.
That kind of fence-sitting won’t hold up forever. In fact, it’s probably not going to hold up for very much longer at all, now that the DOJ has explicitly called him out. The judge can see this issue looming on the judicial horizon just like I can. It’s the key to the entire case. I wouldn’t be surprised if the judge sets a special trial just to determine whether the records are or are not declassified.
So so this could quickly and finally produce a miraculous victory for Trump, not just in the case but against the entire Deep State, a definitive victory once again snatched right out of the jagged jaws of defeat. We know that, shortly before he left office, Trump had proposed to declassify a bunch of records relating to Russiagate and other FBI corruption. He sent those records to the FBI so they could offer redactions of anything that would harm U.S. interests. But the FBI slow-walked their response until Trump was out of office.
Sorry!
It is not unreasonable to assume the records snatched by the FBI at Mar-a-Lago were the very same ones Trump proposed to declassify: the evidence of FBI corruption (and maybe a lot more) in the Russiagate papers, at least.
So Trump has been trapped in a weird middle ground. Were the records declassified even though the FBI never completed its redactions? Was Trump’s act of requesting the redactions merely a courtesy, and not a requirement for redaction? These are unsettled questions. Trump can’t — shouldn’t — release those documents until a court says they’re declassified, or they COULD lock him up.
But to get a judge to issue a “declaration” of a party’s rights — like the rights of a former president to publish declassified records — there must a REAL and PRESENT dispute over those rights, not just a hypothetical dispute. This may not make sense to non-lawyers, but judges may not give pure ‘advisory opinions.’
In other words, the only way Trump could have gotten this issue in front of a judge, the issue of whether the records ARE IN FACT declassified, was to pick a fight with someone over it. I have no idea whether the Trump team planned it this way, but it could not have possibly played out any better than it has. If Trump had been the one to instigate a dispute, it would have almost certainly been heard in D.C., where all the agencies are located, and where the deck is completely stacked against the 45th president.
To get the issue into an unbiased jurisdiction, Trump had to get someone ELSE to start the fight, in a place where he could fight on neutral ground. Where better than Florida?
Because the FBI raided Trump in Florida, starting a case there, and because the DOJ has now called the issue out, the decision over the records’ classified status will be heard in Florida, the inevitable appeal will travel to the 11th Circuit, and then it will go to the U.S. Supreme Court.
I will skinny out onto a thin branch and predict Trump is likely to win in all three courts. If he’d started in D.C., he would’ve lost twice — at the D.C. federal court and then the D.C. appeals court — and then the Supreme Court would’ve had the odious and unwanted duty of overturning both lower courts. If it had played out this way, the corporate media would have trumpeted the Supreme Court decision as more evidence of out-of-control judicial activism, and the whole thing would have looked illegitimate.
All that noise would have distracted from the real story, which is the Deep State’s corruption, exposed by the declassified records.
Trump’s lawyers know a lot more than I do. I might be missing something. But the strategy now looks crystal clear to me. All Trump has to do now is say the magic words, “I DID declassify those records,” and the judge can set the matter for a showdown in Florida.
I know it sounds weird, but this could be the best thing that ever happened to Trump. Thanks, DOJ!
💉 Fox ran an uplifting story yesterday headlined, “Navy Quietly Rolled Back Punishments for SEALs Seeking Religious Exemptions to the COVID Vaccine.” The article explains that the Navy’s jab order, issued a year ago, was titled “Trident Order #12,” and medically disqualified any SEALs who asked for religious jab exemptions, precluding them from training, traveling for deployments, and other standard business.
In other words, making them unemployable.
Fox reported that the Navy just filed a brief in the case that attached a May 2022 order rescinding Trident Order #12. The new order plainly states, “This order rescinds reference A [Trident Order #12] on COVID-19 Vaccinations.”
Even the SEALs were surprised to see the order. It’s not clear whether the Navy might’ve replaced Trident Order #12 with a new jab order, but the lawyers in the case don’t think so.
So. Progress!
🚀 Reuters ran an article Sunday headlined, “Germans Switch to Costly Fan Heaters as Gas Shortage Fears Bite.” The headline tells you the whole story; Germans aren’t stupid. They’re buying up every electric heater they can get their hands on and German grid operators are freaking out. Electric heaters place HUGE demand on the grid. But it’s better than freezing.
So as you can see, the Russia Sanctions are really working out great. The GERMANS are starting to feel the pain. Russians, not so much. Maybe Germany will surrender soon?
And it’s a good thing Germany’s best and brightest are in charge. Guess what they’re up to now?
Last week, the Guardian UK ran a story headlined, “German Chancellor Rejects Calls to Reverse Nuclear Power Plant Closures.” Hahaha! That’s right, suckers! You Germans think you can warm yourselves with electricity, with your cute little heaters? Think again!
The Guardian reported that German chancellor Olaf Scholz rejected calls to extend the life of the country’s three nuclear power plants, insisting that Europe’s largest economy will have plenty of energy to get through the winter, don’t worry.
If you think that sounds crazy, you’re not alone. The Guardian said the opposition conservative alliance and at least one leading economist described the decision to close one reactor and place the country’s last two remaining reactors on standby status, in case of an emergency, instead of letting them produce electricity, as “madness.”
Madness!
I wonder what “emergency” they’re waiting for.
It gets better. After taking criticism for his decision, Scholz blamed German conservatives for the country’s power problems. “You were incapable of bringing about the expansion of renewable energies. You led defensive battles against every single wind turbine,” Scholz whined.
Hahaha! Wind turbines! These guys kill me. It’s even funnier that corporate media takes that kind of kooky talk seriously.
Have a wonderful Wednesday! I’m flying this morning to meet with some state politicians about proposed parents’ rights legislation, so I have to cut it short. But don’t worry! C&C will be back tomorrow morning with another great roundup. See you then.
C&C is moving the needle and changing minds. If you can, I could use your help getting the truth out and spreading optimism and hope: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/-learn-how-to-get-involved-
Twitter: @jchilders98
Truth Social: @jchilders98
MeWe: mewe.com/i/coffee_and_covid.
C&C Swag! www.shopcoffeeandcovid.com
Emailed Daily Newsletter: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
Nassau Habitat for Humanity
09-13-22
The Nassau Habitat for Humanity board of directors recently pledged to increase the number of homes built in Nassau County from two per year to six per year, by 2026. This exciting initiative has brought together a wide range of sponsors and supporters who are eager to join hands and ensure the success of Nassau Habitat for Humanity’s new signature fundraiser She Nailed It!.
She Nailed It! is an all-women, team hammering competition where community sponsored teams race the clock and each other to record the fastest time. The event will be held on October 23rd from 2PM-6PM at Mocama Beer Company and New South Food Truck Park on 8th Street in Fernandina Beach.
Nassau Habitat is counting on corporate sponsors and silent auction donations to help them reach their goal. “We are pleased but not surprised with the early enthusiastic response of the community” said event committee chair Cindy Jacoby. Some of the four-member teams who have already pledged to raise $1000 and will be competing include: WestRock, Amelia Coastal Realty, The Newcomers Club, Buchanan Builders, Pickett Construction, First Presbyterian Church, Rotary Club of Fernandina Beach, Rotary Amelia Island Sunrise Club, Wallace-Pierson Travel, MCG Construction, Sea Cottages of Amelia, the Silver Rappers, Manzie & Drake among others!
For more information about sponsorship, team registration and auction item donation please visit the Nassau Habitat website at www.nassauhabitatforhumanity.org.
Tickets to watch the event and cheer for your favorite team are also now on sale at www.nassauhabitatforhumanity.org. Each ticket holder will receive an official swag bag containing $10 in Habitat Bucks to spend at the New South food truck plus a drink token compliments of Mocama Beer Company and other sponsor- donated items.
By Jeff Childers
09-13-22
Good morning, C&C, it’s Tuesday! Today’s roundup includes: news about Ukraine buried in propaganda avalanche; rumors fly about Putin and Trump arrests; Biden unveils the new and improved 2022 Cancer Moon Shot and you’ll never believe what makes it work; the home of covid-zero throws in the towel on jab requirements for international visitors; New York ends its state of covid emergency; a breakthrough study finds jab risks greatly outweigh jab benefits for young people; Detroit Free Press argues it’s time to end the national state of emergency; and Monkeypox infections are falling, and you’ll never guess who’s going to get the credit.
🔥 It was impossible to follow the developing Ukraine story yesterday, since most social media became utterly worthless, with any reliable information completely swamped by an anti-Putin propaganda-lanche. The scale was completely unprecedented, unlike anything I’ve seen before. A thousand thousand small accounts breathlessly reported that, because of the single military setback in Ukraine, Russian president Putin: was arrested, was under guard at his Dacha, was going to face trial for crimes against humanity, was deposed in a military coup, is facing impeachment in the Russian congress, has lost all support of the Russian people, will soon be executed; et cetera, ad infinitum.
Here are a couple representative examples, which don’t provide any sense of the actual scale of the thing, like offering a single salty drop to try to explain the Pacific Ocean:
Ramon Agusta @ramonagusta”Rumours are swirling in Moscow that former generals and KGB officials are preparing to oust Russia’s president Vladimir Putin & plan to end the war in Ukraine, which is increasingly seen in Russia as a strategic mistake & above all, an economic disaster.” Kremlin coup rumours growing in Moscow: Disgruntled generals join FSB looking to oust Putin and end Ukraine warRumours are swirling in Moscow that a number of former generals and KGB officials are preparing to oust Russia’s president Vladimir Putin and plan to endcityam.comSeptember 12th 20228 Retweets38 Likes
Dash Dobrofsky @DashDobrofskyWe ask you to relieve yourself of your post’: Kremlin officials have begun a mutiny against Vladimir Putin. ‘We ask you to relieve yourself of your post’: Kremlin officials are turning against Vladimir PutinHalfway through his invasion of Ukraine’s sixth bloody month, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s grip on power in Moscow is imploding as scores of Kremlin officials are calling upon the 69-year-old autocrat to quit.Putin had anticipated his February 24th “special military operation” to be a cakewalk…rawstory.comSeptember 12th 2022923 Retweets3,874 Likes
We need a new word to describe this kind of seemingly coordinated, completely unhinged, global propaganda. I say ‘coordinated’ because it’s all obviously completely made up, and normal people just don’t make up this kind of stuff. Apart from a few outliers, normal folks may exaggerate, they may even speculate hyperbolically and repeat dumb things they’ve heard online, but I just do not believe THIS MANY folks originate calculated lies.
So at present, the actual news — whatever it is — is buried under a tsunami of fake news. There’s nothing new about anti-Russian war propaganda, of course. You can see it at work because the anti-Russian social media army is nearly always wrong. For example, they’ve previously reported that Putin was dying any number of times. He had cancer, was poisoned, was worried about BEING poisoned, refused to leave Moscow out of fear of assassination, and so forth.
It’s happened so often that I stopped reporting on the “confirmed” news about Putin being on his deathbed.
As far as corporate media goes, as I predicted, CNN ran a long-form story yesterday celebrating the brilliant Ukrainian offensive headlined, “Russia’s Collapse In Northeast Ukraine Ignites Fury From Putin Loyalists.” The article describes how the wily Ukrainians tricked the blockheaded Russians into thinking a forward push was going to happen further south, but then broke through Russian defenses that had been thinned out in the north. Now, CNN says, Russia is all but defeated: out of weapons, out of manpower, and completely demoralized.
Thank goodness! Maybe now we can stop Venmo-ing billions of American dollars to some of the most corrupt actors in the world. Republican lawmakers, take note. As CNN says, the Ukrainians now have the war situation well under control. They don’t need more money or weapons. Or, in other words, at this point, WE need the money and weapons more than they do.
🔥 Curiously, a similar propaganda effort targeted President Trump yesterday, albeit on a smaller scale. After corporate media reported that he’d been seen landing in Washington, DC, the fake social media army went to work claiming that President Trump: was indicted; was arrested on the tarmac outside his plan; had been met by FBI agents and local law enforcement; was obviously dressed in a hurry because he wanted to turn himself in before being arrested in front of news cameras; is now sitting in a DC jail; would soon be tried for crimes against humanity; and so on, and so forth.
Here’s a representative example:
bernadette @bluckingThis. Now. Trump is in DC on a tarmac w no entourage. Arrested? https://t.co/F9ploIH3UaAngry Staffer 🌻 @Angry_StafferA lot of folks have asked, but I don’t have a clue why Trump is in DC. My thoughts: 1. Health issue / going to Walter Reed 2. Turning himself in? 🤷♂️ It’s not often Trump does anything without fanfare, so this makes me think it’s a narrative he can’t control. https://t.co/IGXsPzeBhbSeptember 12th 20226 Likes
So, it’s weird — right? — that on the VERY SAME DAY, social media armies pushed rumors about both Trump and Putin that both leaders were separately being arrested to face trial for their myriad “crimes against humanity.”
One might fairly speculate whether this stuff all originates from a single polluted spring.
💉 Good news everybody! Biden held a live event yesterday, to unveil the glorious details of his new and improved 2022 Cancer Moon Shot, as opposed to his lame 2016 Cancer Moon Shot, which apparently has finally expired after a long, debilitating, bureaucratic illness. We don’t need stupid moon shots like the pathetic last one, which OBVIOUSLY hasn’t worked. The improved 2022 version has a new “secret sauce,” and it’s REALLY REALLY going to work, this time.
Ironically, the secret of the 2022 Cancer Moon Shot is … a shot! Specifically, an mRNA shot. The shot doesn’t actually exist yet but — try to follow Joe’s logic here — because the mRNA shots work so well at stopping covid, they are going to stop cancer, too. See? If it works good against covid, it must be good against cancer. It’s probably good against everything, like some kind of miraculous elixir sold off of a gaily-painted stagecoach that can instantly transform into a stage while also allowing for a hasty midnight departure.
Greg Price @greg_price11Biden: “To prevent cancers, scientists are exploring whether mRNA vaccine technologies, that brought us safe and effective covid-19 vaccines, can be used to stop cancer cells when they first arise.” September 12th 2022165 Retweets514 Likes
See? You probably thought I was making that up. But it is basically what Biden actually said. Second, if the shots work as well against cancer as they did against covid, we are in serious, serious trouble, people.
On the other hand, if we bury them all, maybe the mRNA shots will grow into a giant, leafy, magic bean tree.
Anyway, as usual with Democrat initiatives, results don’t matter, it’s the intent that counts. (And, how much cash you can funnel to your friends, of course.) Biden isn’t forecasting anything good happening anytime soon — in fact, he’s explicitly saying it will take TWENTY FIVE YEARS, not even to beat cancer, just to cut the ballooning numbers in half:
I wonder how they calculated that 50%? Anyway, the Washington Post ran a skeptical story on Biden’s speech headlined, “Biden Touts Cancer ‘Moonshot’ At JFK Library, Despite Setbacks.”
The article explains that the “renewed” Moonshot takes the form of ANOTHER new health agency, called ARPA-H. Apparently the CDC and the NIH aren’t enough. We need even more agencies with even more fabulously-paid directors who enjoy even more lifelong tenures and can hire even more of their good buddies and can hand out even more generous research grants to even more scientists who play ball and don’t ask questions.
And THAT should do it, this time. Because SCIENCE!!!
You shouldn’t joke around. As you know, Biden has personal experience with cancer. He’s an oil cancer survivor. He got the cancer when he was a kid growing up in Delaware and there was oil IN THE AIR, so thick that his parents had to run the windshield wipers to clear the glass so they could see where they were going. I’m not making that up. At least, that’s what Joe said. Anyway he recovered from his oil cancer, somehow, fortunately. That part of the story isn’t clear.
Maybe Joe’s oil cancer experience also explains his hostility to gas-powered cars?
💉 After spending two years uselessly chasing covid-zero, bragging about having total border control, and still getting their vaccinated butts kicked by a tiny virus, New Zealand has finally thrown in the towel and is finally ashcanning jab requirements for international travelers who — for some reason — want to visit the island nation.
Zain Chagla @zchaglaNo vaccine or test requirements for entering New Zealand. Come on Canada. This is getting ridiculous The latest rules for travel to New Zealand as all Covid-19 entry restrictions are scrappedPrime Minister Jacinda Arden is removing all but a few Covid-related rules with vaccination requirements axed for international travellersinews.co.ukSeptember 12th 20221,614 Retweets5,940 Likes
💉 You know who else is throwing in the covid towel? Replacement governor Kathy Hochul of New York, who suddenly and unexpectedly ended the state’s hyper-extended covid state of emergency last week.
New York Post @nypostHochul finally ends COVID-19 state of emergency as close election looms trib.al/zDoByat
September 12th 2022145 Retweets527 Likes
The Post’s headline obviously connected Hochul’s decision to her flaccid re-election — first election? — poll numbers. But there might be another, stiffer explanation.
Last week, the Post ran another story headlined, “Hochul Gave Covid Test Contract To Campaign Donor That Charged Taxpayers Double.” In the story, the Post explained:
Pay to play schemes? Say it isn’t so. New York’s emergency declaration gave Governor Hochul power to bypass normal procurement requirements for state purchases and award ‘no bid’ contracts whenever the mood struck. It’s shocking that there could have been any abuses. I mean, Hochul is completely above reproach and so forth. I know that you’re shocked. Shocked and appalled. How could this happen, and so forth.
“The order finally expiring today is a powerful illustration of why it’s dangerous to let governors overuse their emergency powers,” health policy expert Bill Hammond explained. “The Legislature should investigate what happened and reform the law to make sure it can’t happen again.”
Who could have ever seen this kind of thing coming?
💉 A brand-new peer-reviewed Harvard / John’s Hopkins study of vaccination risks versus vaccinated rewards for young people explicitly concluded that the jabs CAUSE more illness than they prevent. This is a game changer.
The 50-page study, posted to SSRN yesterday, is titled “COVID-19 Vaccine Boosters for Young Adults: A Risk-Benefit Assessment and Five Ethical Arguments against Mandates at Universities.” Significantly the researchers concluded that, for each covid-related hospitalization theoretically prevented in young people, the jabs may cause 18 to 98 serious adverse events.
The researchers explained:
Extrapolating from this data-driven conclusion, the researchers made five arguments why university booster mandates are medically UNETHICAL:
In other words, the jabs are not a good bet for young people. If you have a child in college, this study might be useful to forward to your kid’s jab-happy college administrators. Just saying.
The study is more evidence that the covid narrative has been abandoned.
🔥 The Detroit Free Press ran an op-ed yesterday, republished by Yahoo News, captioned, “Enough With The Backdoor Policymaking. It’s Time To End The Covid Public Health Emergency.”
The article calls for the end of the national covid state of emergency. The authors point out that Biden’s emergency powers have allowed him to create a “bolus of payments” that avoid the normal legislative process, including:
The authors argue that, whether or not you think these policies are helpful, since covid is no longer an ACTUAL emergency (if it ever was), these issues are issues for LEGISLATORS, not the executive branch. Which is what C&C has been arguing since March 2020.
The experts who wrote the piece summarized why it is manifestly unhelpful to concretize these covid policies into a never-ending state of emergency:
So.
🔥 As Biden appointed an actual Satanist to coordinate the nation’s response to the Monkeypox festival epidemic, rates of infection are now, apparently, dropping.
Even though the infections began dropping BEFORE the newest joker was added Biden’s deck of bureaucratic wild cards, covid experts were straight off congratulating the demonic Monkeypox coordinator for ALREADY solving the epidemic:
Monica Gandhi MD, MPH @MonicaGandhi9MONKEYPOX: Great to see decline in cases in this global outbreak (first reported May 12 to WHO) likely due to behavior changes, then natural immunity, now vaccination. Dr. Demetre Daskalakis @dr_demetre our monkeypox coordinator in US doing a GREAT job Monkeypoxtally @MonkeypoxtallyAnother step in the right direction: This is the 4th week in a row where monkeypox cases decline globally as we continue to see a clear downtrend in cases in the last month and a half. 5 weeks ago we recorded 6,887 cases vs 4,317 cases this week. Let’s keep up the awareness! https://t.co/smzddSC1CuSeptember 11th 20226 Retweets34 Likes
That was fast! Hot take: Maybe he made a deal with the devil?
Have a terrific Tuesday! I’ll be back right here tomorrow morning, brewing up some more delicious Coffee & Covid for you.
C&C is moving the needle and changing minds. If you can, I could use your help getting the truth out and spreading optimism and hope: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/-learn-how-to-get-involved-
Twitter: @jchilders98
Truth Social: @jchilders98
MeWe: mewe.com/i/coffee_and_covid.
C&C Swag! www.shopcoffeeandcovid.com
Emailed Daily Newsletter: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
By Michael Hernandez
9-12-22
WASHINGTON, D.C—The national narrative of both the left and the national media is that the Jan. 6, 2021 protest at the U.S. Capitol was an attempted coup—an insurrection against democracy. This narrative is challenged by The Epoch Times documentary “The Real Story of Jan. 6” that focuses more on the police response, including “use of force” against protesters by law enforcement expert Stan Kephart.
Video clips show the shooting of 35-year-old Ashli Babbitt by US Capitol Police Lieutenant Michael Byrd and the deaths of three other supporters of President Donald J. Trump: including the death of Rosanne Boyland who video clips show beaten by policewoman Lila Morris before being trampled (not dying from a drug overdose as reported by the media); and the mysterious deaths of Benjamin Phillips and Kevin Greeson. (photos above)
It examines the human impacts of Jan. 6, including the suicide of one defendant and the long pretrial imprisonment of dozens of others. It also investigates claims that some of the attacks on the Capitol and police were carried out by unindicted suspicious actors.
To provide new clarity on the events of that day, EpochTV and The Epoch Times have produced a documentary, “The Real Story of Jan. 6,” which premiered on Friday, July 22. The film is narrated by Joshua Philipp, host of “Crossroads” on EpochTV and a senior investigative reporter at The Epoch Times.
Jasper Fakkert, editor-in-chief of The Epoch Times, said: “There has been a narrative perpetuated about January 6 that omits many of the facts about what happened that day. With in-depth interviews and exclusive video footage, we take an objective look at the issues, the people, and the impacts of the events.”
Was The New York Times accurate in reporting the suicide of Metropolitan Police Officer Jeffrey Smith as a “line-of-duty” death? Where is the justice for the J6 protestors (such as Jake Lang with at least 865 people charged) in prisons in the District of Columbia and across the country that were let into the Capitol by law enforcement and now are in solitary confinement (without due process)?
Why the raids on the homes of President Trump supporters? (35 FBI raids made of Trump supporters on Sept. 8: see link: https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/steve-bannon-fbi-raids-35-trump-allies-as-biden-admin-steps-up-attacks-on-maga-republicans/).
Why the lack of arrests during the Antifa and Black Lives Matter looting, rioting, chaos during six months of 2020? (See story posted Jan. 9, 2021 by Stacey Matthews on the Legal Insurrection website created in 2008 by Cornell Law School professor William A. Jacobson: https://legalinsurrection.com/2021/01/flashback-2020-six-months-of-antifa-blm-looting-rioting-and-chaos/.)
“The Real Story of Jan. 6” is now available on demand for free until the end of September. To watch the documentary, click TheRealStoryOfJan6.com or go to this link: (https://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_app/the-real-story-of-jan-6-documentary_4596670.html.)
(Michael Hernandez, co-founder of the Citizens Journal—Ventura County’s online news service is a former Southern California daily newspaper journalist and religion and news editor. Mr. Hernandez can be contacted at [email protected] and is editor of “America: The End and Our Hope”.)
By Jeff Childers
09-12-22
Good morning, and Happy Monday, C&C! As we begin a fresh new week, a fresh new roundup for you: corporate media buries the biggest development in the Ukraine war since it started; Joe’s next cancer moon shot; an global epidemic of cancer; and you’ll never believe all the new risks for getting cancer.
🚀 After weeks, if not months, of creeping Russian advances, back-and-forth artillery strikes, and wrangling over a nuclear power plant, the situation in Ukraine shifted rapidly over the weekend, as war zones can do sometimes. You won’t get the whole story from corporate media though, because it puts the narrative on thin ice.
On Saturday morning, my Ukraine/Russian channels were reporting Ukraine had suddenly and unexpectedly pushed Russia out of two large areas of the Donbas. According to local reports, the Ukrainian troops included a lot of American and British “mercenaries,” and the unusually well-coordinated action seemed to take the Russians completely by surprise, who were forced to retreat in disarray.
According to British media, by Saturday night a jubilant Zelensky was already mocking Moscow in an online video, boasting “the Russian army in these days is demonstrating the best that it can do, showing its back.”
By mid-day, corporate media was spinning up the narrative machine, getting it all ready to start spamming the zone with long-form narratives and personal interviews about Ukraine’s glorious defeat of the foul Russian aggressors, and how this momentum was just what was needed to get the war politics back on track, and to get the dollars flowing freely again from Washington into the Deep State’s Eastern European crack house, Ukraine.
Francis Harris @fharris2011″In the end, the Russians fled any way they could on Friday, on stolen bicycles, disguised as locals. Hours after Ukrainian soldiers poured into the area, hundreds of Russian soldiers encamped in this village were gone” Amid Ukraine’s startling gains, liberated villages describe Russian troops dropping rifles and fleeingUkraine’s blitz liberated Izyum and other occupied areas in Kharkiv region, but Russia still holds large swaths of territory and a major advantage in firepowerwashingtonpost.com
September 12th 20222 Retweets6 Likes
But by the time I got done with church and Bible study on Sunday, my local sources were reporting that Russia had started bombing Ukraine’s network of antique Soviet-era power stations, marking a massive change in the character of the war.
Valeria @Valere_ia✅🇷🇺🇺🇦❗ Massive blackout in Ukraine after missile launch from Black Sea. Power down fully or partially in: ⚡️ Kharkiv Oblast; ⚡️ Sumy Oblast; ⚡️ Poltava Oblast; ⚡️ Dniepropetrovsk Oblast; ⚡️ Zaporizha Oblast; ⚡️ Odesa Oblast; ⚡️ ZSU-controlled parts of DPR;
September 12th 202251 Retweets164 Likes
According to some reports, up to HALF of Ukraine lacked power yesterday night. Since the start of the war, Russia held off taking this elementary military step; a step that the U.S. promptly took in Iraq when we invaded that country. Of COURSE you take out the enemy’s power, it hampers communications, impedes enemy special forces, and helps thicken the fog of war.
In fact, I even speculated on C&C in early March that it might be a fake war BECAUSE Russia was withholding bombing Ukraine’s power. It seemed to me that Russia wasn’t really TRYING to win. Later, the evidence suggested that Russia was trying to avoid damaging civilian infrastructure and was trying to avoid creating a humanitarian disaster.
When I got up this morning I immediately searched corporate media for reports on the power strikes. It’s a made-for-news story. It writes itself. Civilians in Ukraine — already suffering greatly — have now been plunged into the dark by the outrageous and unprovoked Russian attacks. But I was surprised to find a single story on the power. One Reuters story this morning mentioned the power strikes in the link, but after I clicked it, the headline was only, “Ukraine Troops Sweep Ahead After Russian Collapse In Northeast.”
But the Independent UK ran a story this morning headlined, “Blackouts In Ukraine As Retreating Russian Forces Target Power Stations.”
According to the Independent, as Russian forces were pushed out of large areas in the Kharkiv region, they struck the power plants there, pulling the plug on large parts of Ukraine. The strikes appear to have been missiles launched from Russian ships in the Baltic Sea. Former comedian and Ukrainian president Zelensky then denounced the “deliberate and cynical missile strikes” against the power plants as acts of terrorism.
“The [Russian] occupiers have struck critical infrastructure in the city and region of Kharkiv,” Kharkiv governor Olegh Synehubov wrote on Telegram. “In several population centres, there are no electrical or water supplies. Fires have broken out where these strikes occurred and emergency crews … are containing the blazes.”
GEROMAN – – Zerbian – -👀- @GeromanAT1Closer images. September 11th 20228 Likes
According to the Independent UK, the head of the eastern Sumy region, Dmytro Zhvytsky, said electricity and water losses affected at least 135 towns and villages. Perhaps hinting where this may be going, the Independent noted darkly that “deliberate targeting of essential civilian services is a violation of international law.”
Possibly. I suppose invasions violate international laws too.
This move by the Russians positively suggests a new strategy, a strategy that will be difficult for the Ukrainians to counter. Ukraine is completely outmatched in a full-scale conflict. So if Russia is taking the gloves off, things are going to get livelier in Ukraine, NATO will be under pressure to escalate its involvement, and the Deep State will be freaking out.
I’m guessing this is why corporate media is avoiding reporting the story. First, they want to celebrate Ukraine’s success before clouding the narrative with Russia dropping the hammer. Second, they don’t want us to recognize that Russia could having taken out anything they want, at any time, FROM THE SEA. They don’t HAVE to creep across Ukraine inch-by-inch if they don’t want to, or even lose a single tank.
In other words, the Russians could just bomb Ukraine’s infrastructure from the ocean and then go where they like. They could hit Zelensky’s palace in Kyiv. The fact they haven’t done that raises a lot of hard questions and puts unwanted stress on the narrative.
🔥 Joe Biden announced another announcement this weekend, saying that this week he’ll be revealing the “details” of his next big program — the Cancer Moon Shot. Or, I should rather say, “the Second Cancer Moon Shot,” because Joe already announced the first Cancer Moon Shot back in 2016 while he was VP for Obama.
He’s already dumped at least $1.8 billion into his Cancer Moon Shot. So let’s see how it’s working out so far.
🔥 A new study by researchers at Brigham’s and Women’s Hospital in Boston, published in Nature Reviews Clinical Oncology last week, asked whether global cancer rates in younger people are increasing. I’ll give you one guess what they found.
According to the study, since the early 1990’s, cancer rates in people under 50 have been steadily climbing, in some cases dramatically. “A genuine increase in the incidence of early-onset forms of several cancer types also seems to have emerged,” the researchers said. They found breast, colon, esophagus, kidney, liver, and pancreatic cancers, among others, rose drastically beginning in the 1990s.
SOMETHING has to be causing it. The researchers concluded the evidence shows that, whatever is causing the cancers must be something that happens when people are YOUNG:
Weird. What happens to people at a young age that is increasing with each generation? It’s baffling. The researchers considered processed food, alcohol consumption, sleep deprivation, obesity, and lots of other options.
But there was one glaringly obvious thing they did NOT consider. You know what it was. You know what the potential risk factor was, that the poor scientists did not dare mention. 💉
It’s a timely study though. It nicely tee’d up the government’s new cancer narrative. Joe only has to swing the club. If he can swing clubs these days, that is.
💉 Cancer rates are rising even faster since Joe’s (first) Cancer Moon Shot started. In fact, only this morning, the Telegraph UK published an article with this alarming headline:
Gosh. The Telegraph says that, according to “extremely worrying” new data, death rates among men with prostate cancer tripled during the covid pandemic. The paper spends most of its time speculating that the increase must be due to deferred treatments and hospital backlogs.
It didn’t consider the you-know-what.
💉 Get ready to start finding out about slew of new things that cause cancer, because it’s already started. Here’s another new headline, from BBC News, published two days ago:
Air pollution causes cancer! And also obesity:
Medical Xpress @medical_xpressAustralian research shows rates of #obesity-related cancers quadrupled in a generation doi.org/gqsc9fmedicalxpress.com/news/2022-09-a…September 9th 20226 Retweets9 Likes
And career choices:
AppOrtho @apporthoWhy do orthopedic surgeons have such high breast cancer rates? motherjones.com/politics/2022/…via @MotherJonesWhy do orthopedic surgeons have such high breast cancer rates?Many don’t learn about the risks until it’s too late.motherjones.comSeptember 6th 20229 Retweets8 Likes
And processed foods:
Lars-Johan Larsson @LarsJohanLNew study links ultra-processed foods and colorectal cancer in men: Researchers found that men who consumed high rates of ultra-processed foods were at higher risk for developing colorectal cancer than those who did not. sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/…September 12th 20221 Like
And HIV:
IPVS – International Papillomavirus Society @IPVSocietyHPV-oropharyngeal cancer incidence rates were 3-fold higher among veterans with #HIV compared to veterans without HIV. Suggests greater levels of immune suppression may increase #HPV persistence & progression to cancer bit.ly/3AR7uhzListen 👇 to @angela_mazul discuss
September 2nd 20224 Retweets5 Likes
And poor screenings:
CDC Cancer @CDC_CancerClinicians: uterine cancer rates are on the rise. ACOG and CDC have partnered to offer a free online course, Prevention and Early Diagnosis of Uterine Cancer: acog.org/education-and-…
September 11th 20225 Retweets3 Likes
And hormone treatments:
Philippe Aftimos, MD @aftimospFertility preservation with or without hormonal stimulation not associated with any increased risk of relapse or disease-specific mortality in women with breast cancer jamanetwork.com/journals/jamao…#bcsmRelapse Rates and Mortality Following Fertility Preservation at Time of Breast Cancer DiagnosisThis cohort study investigates the risk of disease-specific mortality and relapse in women who underwent fertility preservation with or without hormonal stimulation compared with women who did not at time of breast cancer diagnosis.jamanetwork.comSeptember 7th 20222 Retweets8 Likes
And abstinence-only sex education (I am NOT making that up):
Gary Dunavant @GarybhamRates of cervical cancer rising, especially in South: The report’s authors cite #Alabama’s emphasis on abstinence-only sex education in schools, gynecologist shortages in rural areas and the state’s failure to expand Medicaid as contributing factors. As cervical cancer rates tick up, experts cite links to abstinence-only sex educationdescriptionreckon.newsAugust 30th 202216 Retweets21 Likes
And blackness:
ACS CAN Texas @ACSCANTexasCancer affects all of us, but it doesn’t affect all communities equally. Communities of color have higher cancer incidence and mortality rates than other groups. Progress in improving cancer outcomes involves increasing everyone’s access to care Shamed for sickness: How women of color often face social stigma for cancer diagnosisMisinformation and cultural norms can leave some women diagnosed with cancer feeling shunned. Here’s what experts say will help them to recovery.caller.comSeptember 7th 20222 Retweets3 Likes
And whiteness:
UT Health San Antonio Grad School @UTHealthBiomedA new study on cervical cancer showed rates of advanced cervical cancers are spiking, with unusual increases in white women. Dr. Patrick Ramsey, maternal medical director at @UTHealthSA says it’s partly due to restricted care access during the pandemic. Doctors working to figure out why advanced cervical cancer on the riseA large new study found the rates of advanced cervical cancers are spiking, with unusual increases in white women, and experts are trying to find out why.bit.lySeptember 7th 20221 Like
And ancestral heritage:
Charles Onyango-Obbo @cobbo3Globally prostate cancer is the 2nd most frequent cancer, and the 5th leading cause of cancer death, among men in 2020. Across sub-Saharan Africa, mortality rates are 2.7 times higher than global averages. Prostate cancer subtypes linked to ancestral heritageTwo new studies identify ancestry-linked prostate cancer subtypes and cancer drivers that could predict whether it might become life-threatening.cosmosmagazine.comSeptember 3rd 202215 Retweets13 Likes
And, just to mix it up a little, cancer treatment also causes heart attacks, FYI:
Heart Failure Policy Network @HFPolicyNetworkHeart failure rates among people who have had cancer treatment are growing. We must address this with integrated cardio-oncology management across the care pathway. Spotlight on cancer treatment and heart failureThis report highlights the need for integrated care and collaboration between oncology and cardiology services.hfpolicynetwork.orgSeptember 4th 20223 Retweets13 Likes
For a little Team Reality moment, Ethical Skeptic has been ringing the cancer alarm bell for months. Here’s his latest chart, using CDC data:
That vertical line showing where the jump in cancer began marks April, 2021, when SOMETHING changed. So weird. He says the cancer data (the top chart) is now somewhere between an 8-sigma and 20-sigma statistical event, which means something that only happens once in Earth’s history.
All of those articles about the scary new causes of the cancer epidemic were published from the last month or so; meaning that the studies they reported on were probably started sometime after April. Most of the articles ran during the last two weeks — so all the underlying studies were probably started around the same time. A weird coincidence. A happy coincidence, because they all came out right before Joe’s big (second) Cancer Moon Shot announcement.
Do I have to say it? It’s OBVIOUSLY a coordinated corporate media push about cancer. They are SO predictable.
So great ready for the new narrative. One way to interpret all this new attention on cancer is that they can’t hide the spiking cancer rates any more, so they need a new narrative: Everything causes cancer (so it’s not THEIR fault). And — fortunately for us — the administration is ON IT. Because they care about our well-being.
Joe’s getting ahead of the breaking story. I can’t wait to hear all the details!
Have a marvelous Monday, and I’ll be back tomorrow with more.
C&C is moving the needle and changing minds. If you can, I could use your help getting the truth out and spreading optimism and hope: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/-learn-how-to-get-involved-
Twitter: @jchilders98
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The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
From Florida Division of Emergency Management, 9-9-22
Today, on the eve of the 5-year anniversary of Hurricane Irma, Governor Ron DeSantis celebrates the resiliency of impacted communities across the state and encourages all Floridians to remain prepared as Florida enters the historical peak of hurricane season. Hurricane Irma was the strongest hurricane ever observed in the open Atlantic Ocean and the longest-lived Category 5 hurricane on record.
“Hurricanes can destroy people’s homes and businesses in an instant, which is why we’ve prioritized helping Florida’s communities rebuild stronger in the aftermath of disasters,” said Governor Ron DeSantis. “On the anniversary of Hurricane Irma, I’m proud of the work that we’ve accomplished to improve the resiliency of our communities and equip them to face future storms.”
“Today, we remember the devastating impact Hurricane Irma left on millions of Floridians statewide five years ago. Thanks to the leadership of Governor DeSantis, the Division has been able to streamline our processes and ensure that communities are quickly and efficiently receiving the funding they need to recover and rebuild,” said FDEM Director Kevin Guthrie. “We will continue to support cities and counties throughout their recovery and stand ready to respond to potential storms this hurricane season that may threaten the State of Florida.”
“Under Governor DeSantis’ strong leadership, the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity’s Rebuild Florida program continues to support Hurricane Irma long-term recovery efforts, helping impacted communities from coast to coast rebuild and become more resilient against future storms,” said Florida Department of Economic Opportunity Secretary Dane Eagle. “Since Hurricane Irma made landfall, DEO has awarded $430 million to more than 4,100 Florida homeowners and an additional $240 million to impacted communities, and all Rebuild Florida’s Hurricane Irma programs are slated to be completed on time by August 2023.”
“Hurricane Irma left a path of devastation across our state – destroying the homes, livelihoods, and memories of so many. And while Hurricane Irma was strong, the resolve of Floridians proved to be stronger,” said FLHSMV Executive Director, Terry L. Rhodes. “As we reflect on the five-year anniversary of Hurricane Irma, let this be a reminder to all Floridians that disaster preparation doesn’t go out of season. Every household should have a plan in place, a stocked disaster kit, and at least a half of a tank of gas in their vehicles at all times this hurricane season.”
“The FWC is often one of the first agencies to respond to natural disasters and in the aftermath of Hurricane Irma, virtually every FWC officer in the state came to assist recovery efforts in the months that followed this deadly storm. Working together with our partner agencies, we were able to quickly provide support so desperately needed by residents of this special community,” said FWC Lieutenant Colonel Alfredo Escanio. “This five-year anniversary serves as a somber reminder of how powerful and destructive storms can be and should spur all of us to stay prepared during hurricane season.”
Hurricane Irma made landfall near Cudjoe Key, Florida on the morning of September 10, 2017, as a powerful Category 4 storm with maximum winds of 130 mph. The center of the storm then made landfall in Marco Island as a Category 4 later that afternoon. To date, Hurricane Irma is the costliest storm to impact the State of Florida.
An estimated 6.8 million residents were ordered to evacuate during Hurricane Irma, causing significant traffic congestion and fuel shortages. Roughly 6.7 million homes and businesses across the state were left without power immediately after Hurricane Irma’s landfall, and personnel and resources from 28 states and Washington, D.C. deployed to Florida to assist in Hurricane Irma response and recovery efforts.
The State of Florida immediately requested and was granted a Major Disaster Declaration, which authorized assistance for all 67 counties under the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Public Assistance program and the Hazard Mitigation Grant Program (HMGP). The Division continues to support long-term mitigation and recovery efforts for communities impacted by Hurricane Irma. Projects include:
Since 2018, the Division has distributed nearly $7.6 billion in critical disaster recovery funding to support long-term recovery efforts for communities rebuilding from recent disasters.
The 2022 Atlantic Hurricane Season runs through November 30, with the historical peak of the season occurring in September. While the season has been off to a relatively quiet start, disasters can strike at any time. The Division encourages Floridians to stay prepared and take advantage of no-cost and low-cost disaster preparedness activities, including:
Today, Florida Division of Emergency Management (FDEM) Director Kevin Guthrie was joined in Marathon, FL by state and local officials to recognize the 5-year anniversary of Hurricane Irma.
For more safety and preparedness tips, visit FloridaDisaster.org/PlanPrepare.
Full remarks from this morning’s press conference are available here.
Of the last three presidents, Trump was either the most indifferent or the most obstructed when it came to using government agencies for his own partisan political advantages or to neuter his enemies.
By Victor Davis Hanson, August 28, 2022
For the Left, Donald Trump is synonymous with “fascism” (or “semi-fascism,” as Joe Biden put it the other day). And for Liz Cheney and most of the NeverTrumpers, he remains an existential threat to democracy.
But to quantify those charges, what exactly has Trump done extralegally—as opposed to his bombast and braggadocio about what he might have wished to have done?
And what are the standards by which to judge this supposed menace? Did Trump illegally and with a mere signature nullify over $300 billion of contracted student loans—to firm up his college-student and college-graduate base nine weeks before the midterm elections?
Did Donald Trump weaponize the feared IRS, the logical place to find fascistic tendencies of any president bent on using government to punish his enemies? Did he push through a plan to add 87,000 new IRS investigative agents at a time of national discord?
For the last five years, Trump was rumored to be under investigation by the IRS. Currently, his accountant is facing felony sentencing for advising improper write-offs.
Certainly, from the contents of Hunter Biden’s laptop and the remarks of Hunter’s associates like Tony Bobulinksi, the Biden family raked in millions of foreign dollars. Evidence so far suggests Joe Biden was a recipient (as the “Big Guy”) of 10 percent of these quid pro quo payments. At times, Bobulinksi may have sent a strapped and broke Hunter thousands of dollars in cash gifts. Were any of these stealthy transactions taxed? Does the recently heavily Biden-endowed IRS care?
If Trump wished to abuse his power over the IRS, he would have followed the Obama model of weaponizing it during a reelection year to go after his ideological enemies.
In Obama’s case, the tax agency slow-walked or denied nonprofit status for groups whose ideology was deemed not helpful to Obama’s campaign in 2012. There was a reason Lois Lerner invoked the Fifth Amendment, and it was not to protect Donald Trump.
Did Trump blatantly use the national security apparatus of the government to enhance his own reelection bid in 2020? That is, did he do anything analogous to Obama’s gambit with Vladimir Putin in 2011?
Was Trump ever caught on a hot mic promising a Russian president that he would try to ease Russian worries about Eastern European missile defense if only the Russians would give him space during his 2012 campaign for president against Mitt Romney?
What we forget about the 2011 Seoul, South Korea hot-mic Obama exchange with then-Russian President Dmitry Medvedev was that all the conditions outlined in their hushed 2011 recap were adhered to by both parties: Obama did dismantle plans for a joint U.S.-Eastern European long-range missile defense—a system that might be now of advantage to the U.S. and its allies. Putin did stay quiet during the Obama campaign cycle. Obama did get reelected. And Putin did invade Ukraine and Crimea only after Obama was elected (or, a cynic might put it, because Obama was reelected).
A current Trump “collusion” critic, mutatis mutandis, might have surmised that a colluding Barack Obama put the national security of the United States and its allies at risk in order to use his office to massage campaign advantages over Mitt Romney in 2012. And the ultimate result of such machinations was a loss of U.S. deterrence that in part explained Russian aggression in 2014.
Did Trump weaponize the FBI? That is, did the FBI go after journalists, former Obama officials, or Democratic Party activists who variously were attacking Don Jr. or Ivanka on the pretenses of retrieving one of their lost laptops or diaries?
Did Trump use Republican National Committee firewalls to transfer money to private lobbyists and law firms to find dirt on Hillary Clinton in 2016, and then turn it all over to the FBI to launch a Crossfire Hurricane investigation of Clinton, centered around a Trump-hired ex-spy who became a paid FBI informant?
Are there texts of Trump-era FBI agents talking about how to “stop” Hillary Clinton’s or Biden’s election bid?
Did Trump’s FBI, in the predawn hours, burst into the homes of New York Times reporters—in James O’Keefe -style—and march them outside in their underwear, all for the possible “crime” of receiving a stolen draft of the Supreme Court early draft of the Dobbs decision? Which is the greater “crime”—trafficking in clearly stolen confidential Supreme Court papers or looking at the abandoned, lost, and lurid diary of a wayward presidential daughter?
Did the Trump Justice Department start an investigation of the suspected illegal lobbying of Joe Biden and Hunter Biden, who used the former’s political connections to win large cash payments from foreign governments? Were there Trump officials in the permanent Justice Department who went after his various political opponents on the pretexts of the Logan Act? Or did the Trump Administration help spread the allegations of any hired anti-Clinton ex-spies and salt them around the bureaucracies?
Speaking of Trump and threats to the democratic order, did any Trump attorney general refuse a congressional subpoena, as former Attorney General Eric Holder did? Was anyone held in contempt of Congress, as Holder was? Did any simply refuse to honor subpoenas and withhold requested documents from Congress, as the Obama Administration did time and again?
Did Trump order an FBI raid on the Obama home, on rumors that there were thousands of documents under dispute with the National Archives in his possession, especially given the Obama record of fiercely fighting any Freedom of Information Act lawsuits to release his documents?
Was a John Podesta put in leg irons by the FBI? Was Robbie Mook’s house stormed to learn of what he knew about Hillary Clinton’s missing emails?
Was Jake Sullivan’s phone grabbed by the FBI at an airport to determine his role in the Russian collusion hoax?
Or, with a look ahead to his own reelection, did Trump in 2018 order a raid on the Biden home, in search of “lost” Biden vice presidential documents, supposedly improperly removed after Biden’s tenure that might have shed light on the Biden family’s extracurricular foreign lobbying?
Are there now any former Trump loyalists who, as “anonymous” officials in cabinet agencies or obstructionists on the National Security Council, are writing op-eds about their stealthy daily efforts to undermine Biden’s executive orders or his administration’s action? Is anyone listening to Biden’s phone calls with foreign leaders while working with Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee and while prepping a “whistleblower” to find grounds for impeachment based on some of the things Biden has allegedly said to foreign leaders?
Did Pfizer rush prematurely to announce a viable COVID-19 vaccination to aid Trump’s reelection—or in contrast, did it slow walk a viable vaccination’s rollout until after the election to massage the result?
Are there now “50 former intelligence officials” who signed affidavits in support of Trump’s allegations about the authenticity of Hunter’s laptop? Are there dozens of retired four-stars now opportunely blasting Joe Biden’s historic humiliation of the United States in Kabul? Have any retired admirals mocked the Uniform Code of Military Justice to write New York Times op-eds suggesting a befuddled Biden leave office “the sooner, the better”?
Are there former Trump officials writing in Foreign Policy that Biden is a disaster who could be removed by impeachment or the 25th Amendment—or more rapidly by a military coup? Are retired officers writing to General Mark Milley urging him to act should he feel in the next election that a likely Republican loss seems suspicious?
Between 2017 and 2020, did Trump’s team systematically seek to change the voting laws in key states to radically transform traditional balloting, in a mail-in or early voting revolution, in which only 30 percent of the electorate would vote on Election Day?
If Trump improperly questioned the ballot result of the 2020 election, then he sinned in the long tradition of presidential ballot objectors, including former U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), January 6 committee chairman himself Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), and Hillary Clinton, who claimed Trump was an illegitimately elected president and advised Biden not to concede if he lost the 2020 popular vote. A defeated Stacey Abrams toured the country claiming she was the “real” governor of Georgia, yet nobody smears her as an “election truther.”
Was there any “dark money” effort analogous to the efforts of corporate and tech money along with DNC activists and Biden operators in what Time magazine’s Molly Ball described as a “conspiracy” to ensure the defeat of Trump’s opponent?
Did Trump’s team coordinate with right-wing billionaires to infuse hundreds of billions of dollars to modulate street protests, to absorb the work of state and local registrars in key precincts, and to censor unfavorable stories on social media?
Trump impotently railed and bayed to the wind about the “fake news” reporters at his rallies. By contrast, the Left, both private elites and public officials, kept quiet and injected half a billion dollars to alter the way people voted and effectively to censor the way people produced and consumed the news.
How about Trump’s efforts to revolutionize the very system of government? Did he promote a court-packing scheme to ensure he might not just get a 5-4 majority, but perhaps an 11-4 conservative advantage in a new 15-justice Supreme Court?
Did he keep mum while right-wing demonstrators swarmed the homes of Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan? Did his attorney general ignore the obvious felonies involved in such threatening tactics? Did Trump work with his Republican Congress in 2017 to end the filibuster to ensure his legislation would not be stonewalled? Did he dream up ways of getting rid of the Electoral College so the “blue wall” might never return?
It’s alleged that Trump was insincere when he approved the request for thousands of federal troops to be available to local law enforcement on January 6, or that he did not really mean it when he instructed pro-Trump demonstrators on January 6 to “Peacefully and patriotically march to the Capitol.”
Perhaps even the hint of encouraging any type of protest was reckless in such partisan times. But just days after violent protestors attacked Secret Service agents manning barricades and had sought to storm onto the White House grounds, did Trump boast to the nation of the ongoing demonstrations, as did Kamala Harris, soon to be a vice presidential candidate?
“They’re not going to stop. And everyone beware, because they’re not going to stop. They’re not going to stop before Election Day in November, and they’re not going to stop after Election Day. And that should be—everyone should take note of that, on both levels, that they’re not going to let up, and they should not, and we should not.“
Was that a sober or insurrectionary thing to advise in a summer of rioting that saw 120 days of violence, $2 billion in damage, 35 dead, and hundreds of police officers injured?
Did Trump as president meet with CIA and FBI directors who, in their weekly and daily briefings, apprised him of efforts to monitor, spy, and infiltrate the campaign of Joe Biden?
Was there, after 2017, a Republican majority committee investigating the former Obama role in launching Operation Crossfire Hurricane, or Attorney General Loretta Lynch’s secret meeting with Bill Clinton while she was investigating Hillary Clinton? And if there were, would Obama loyalists in the House be excluded by the Republican speaker from participating in House investigations that also would allow no hostile or even neutral witnesses, no general counsel’s report, and no cross-examinations?
The strange thing about Trump was that he did not use extraordinary powers to investigate anyone unlawfully. He boasted, he railed, he screamed, he whined, he became at times crude and obnoxious. But he did not use the FBI, the CIA, the Justice Department, or the IRS to go after the Obamas, the Clintons, or the Bidens.
Instead, he became the most investigated, probed, smeared, and autopsied president in modern history. Trump’s legislative agenda did not include revolutionary changes in the Electoral College or the filibuster, or radical changes to the Supreme Court.
In fact, of the last three presidents, Trump was either the most inept or indifferent, or the most obstructed concerning any issue of using government agencies for his own partisan political advantages or to neuter his enemies.
In truth, the entire apparatus of permanent government—the Pentagon hierarchy, the Washington elites at the FBI and CIA, the permanently entrenched at the Justice Department, and the apparat at the IRS all despised Donald Trump. And they did not just hate him but acted on their antipathy by using their powers of government to destroy his campaign in 2016, to undermine his transition, to either obstruct or sabotage his initiatives while president, and to hound him as an ex-president. As ex-felon and FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith put it of his own illegal effort to destroy a president, “Viva le [sic] resistance.” Is that the sort of FBI we want—a cadre of self-described revolutionaries?
Donald Trump was impeached for raising the question of Biden family corruption in Ukraine with the Ukrainian president and delaying offensive military aid that had never been approved by a Democratic president.
Evidence since Trump’s impeachment suggests he was prescient in his warning to the Kyiv government to stay out of domestic American politics. Everything thing we know since that 2021 impeachment vote solidifies—not contradicts—Trump’s point that the Biden family was corrupt, and Hunter Biden was receiving large sums of money from Ukraine and China solely because Joe Biden had been vice president and was seen as a possible or even likely future president worthy of such corrupt investment. Or to put it another way, why would those with contacts with the Ukrainian government ever pay millions to an incompetent, drug-addicted miscreant like Hunter Biden, if not for pay-for-play influence?
In that context, Joe Biden’s early boast that he got a Ukrainian attorney general fired, most likely for probing too deeply matters involving his family, gives credence to Trump’s instincts. So does the fact that both Obama and Biden for a time stopped shipments of offensive weapons to Ukraine, while Trump for a time only delayed them but eventually gave them what they wished.
The result of this unprecedented effort to accuse Trump of using government fascistically while fascistically using government to destroy a president is all too clear in the destroyed careers who sought to undermine constitutional government. What John Brennan, James Clapper, Kevin Clinesmith, James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Bruce Ohr, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, and a host of retired flag officers and intelligence operatives share is not just their venomous antipathy toward an elected president and their efforts rhetorically and often concretely to neuter him, but their subsequent disgrace even among those who once cheered them on.
Victor Davis Hanson is a distinguished fellow of the Center for American Greatness and the Martin and Illie Anderson Senior Fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. He is an American military historian, columnist, a former classics professor, and scholar of ancient warfare. He has been a visiting professor at Hillsdale College since 2004. Hanson was awarded the National Humanities Medal in 2007 by President George W. Bush. Hanson is also a farmer (growing raisin grapes on a family farm in Selma, California) and a critic of social trends related to farming and agrarianism. He is the author most recently of The Second World Wars: How the First Global Conflict Was Fought and Won, The Case for Trump and the newly released The Dying Citizen.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
By Dr. Ted Baehr, a Hollywood mainstay and the founder of Movieguide, an organization that helps families navigate entertainment content
In addition to all the demonic content, the mother uses witchcraft to ward off the demons and to help her daughter in sticky situations. The Satan character has an ulterior motive in seeing his daughter regularly, once every other weekend. He wants to use her powers to rule the cosmos. Lot of false religion too (there are multiple metaphysical realms according to the Satan character), as well as “f” words, Jesus and GD profanities. Definitely the most violent cartoon I’ve ever seen, so it’s pretty extreme, especially the first episode, which is about the daughter reaching puberty. The second episode has the daughter enjoying possessing people. She tries to “do good” by helping people overcome their differences, but she becomes addicted to it and it backfires. Many lame jokes as well as the extreme content.
Now more than ever we’re bombarded by darkness in media, movies, and TV. Movieguide® has fought back for almost 40 years, working within Hollywood to propel uplifting and positive content. We’re proud to say we’ve collaborated with some of the top industry players to influence and redeem entertainment for Jesus. Still, the most influential person in Hollywood is you. The viewer.
What you listen to, watch, and read has power. Movieguide® wants to give you the resources to empower the good and the beautiful. But we can’t do it alone. We need your support.
Edited by Michael Hernandez
By Nicole Wells (Sept. 8) NewsMax
Queen Elizabeth II’s death on Thursday ended the longest reign of any British monarch and set into motion a contingency plan known as Operation London Bridge.
The death of the monarch in Scotland has also triggered a part of the contingency plan known as Operation Unicorn, which sets in motion additional ceremonial events in Edinburgh ahead of the logistics of moving the queen’s coffin back to London.
According to the plan, the first person outside of the queen’s Scottish residence Balmoral and Buckingham Palace to be informed of her death was the prime minister in a phone call.
It has been rumored since the plan was first prepared that the code “London Bridge has fallen” would be used to communicate her death, but it has not been confirmed if that took place Thursday.
A number of institutions are set to take part in the operation, including the media, the Metropolitan Police Service, the Church of England, the British Armed Forces, Transport for London, the Royal Parks, the Greater London Authority and London boroughs.
Prime Minister Liz Truss commented shortly after the death, and other officials waited to speak until after the prime minister delivered her remarks.
The Commonwealth countries where Elizabeth served as queen will receive the news from the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office’s Global Response Centre and the British, Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish parliaments will convene for emergency meetings. Truss will also address the House of Commons.
Elizabeth’s heir, Charles, Prince of Wales, effectively became king, though protocol dictates he will be declared the new monarch the day after her death. He will have a ceremony in a separate operation known as Operation Spring Tide.
Prince William ascended to the Duke of Cornwall and became next in the line of succession, followed by his children Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis.
Government buildings lowered their flags to half-staff. The day after the queen’s death, the Accession Council will recognize the new king at St. James’ Palace. Parliament will be suspended for 10 days and will swear allegiance to King Charles III, and the governments of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland will recognize the new monarch within two days after Elizabeth’s death.
According to the plan, King Charles will begin a tour of the United Kingdom three days after the queen’s death. It is expected that the queen will be laid to rest on a Sunday, 10 days after her death.
https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/queenelizabeth-unitedkingdom-kingcharles/2022/09/08/id/1086653/
Conservatives react to Biden’s “threat” to “the very soul of this nation” speechALANA MASTRANGELO (Sept 4) Breitbart News
Conservatives on social media reacted to President Joe Biden’s recent divisive political speech, in which he referred to “MAGA Republicans” as a “threat” to “the very soul of this nation,” by sarcastically explaining how they are threats to the nation as well.
“I go to work. I work hard. I go to the gym. I hunt. I fish. I spend time with friends and family. I pay my taxes and don’t break the law. I play disc golf. I am a threat to the very soul of this nation,” one Twitter user wrote.
“I’m a registered nurse nearing retirement,” another explained. “I like taking walks and reading mystery novels. I adopted a baby and she’s now an engineering student with a scholarship. I pay my taxes. I don’t break the law. I am a threat to the very soul of this nation.”
“I work hard, garden, cook, bake, spin, knit weave and throw pots. I’ve been married 33 years and have two grown kids. I’ve owned businesses and pay taxes. I am a threat to the very soul of this nation,” a third said.
“I’m a mom, I take care of my sick mother, who can’t live on her own. I love my dogs and I cook ‘real food’ for them twice a day, everyday. I just bought my first house, and I love to decorate and bake goodies for my neighbors. I am a threat to the very soul of this nation,” another echoed.
“I work 40 hours per week. Watch my grandsons after work while my daughter goes to trade school. Pay taxes. Work part time for a charity. Cook and clean for my grandkids and love my dogs! I am a threat to the very soul if this nation,” another Twitter user wrote.
Another said, “I’m a middle-aged mom. I raised two children whom I taught to love Christ and be kind to others. I bake casseroles. I listen to 80’s pop music. I pay my taxes and don’t break the law. I’m also now considered a threat to the soul of the nation.”
“I’m a 63-year-old single grandmother. I take care of disabled seniors, my 21 year-old blind deaf and dying cat, I don’t drink or do drugs. I spend quality time with my kids/grandkids. I’m a threat to the soul of this very nation,” another tweeted.
Trump: Biden is an “enemy of the state” not Republicans or conservatives
By Cassandra Fairbanks (Sept. 4) The Gateway Pundit
Former President Donald Trump called Joe Biden an “enemy of the state” during his massive rally in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania on Saturday. Trump also asserted that Biden’s “Battle for the Soul of the Nation” primetime speech on Thursday was the “most vicious, hateful, and divisive speech ever delivered by a president.”
During Biden’s speech on Thursday, he said that the over 74 million Americans who voted for Trump “present a “clear and present danger to our democracy” and “threat to this country…Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic,” Biden said.
Trump had previously responded to Biden’s speech in a series of posts on Truth Social, speculating that Biden “must be insane or suffering from late stage dementia…Someone should explain to Joe Biden, slowly but passionately, that MAGA means, as powerfully as mere words can get, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”
Trump wrote in one of the posts. “If he doesn’t want to Make America Great Again, which through words, action, and thought, he doesn’t, then he certainly should not be representing the United States of America!…If you look at the words and meaning of the awkward and angry Biden speech…he threatened America, including with the possible use of military force. He must be insane, or suffering from late-stage dementia!” Trump continued in another post.
Trump: Justice Department raided “hopes and dreams” of America-loving citizens
By Eric Mack (Sept. 3) NewsMax
The Justice Department raided not only the home of a former president, but also the “hopes and dreams” of America-loving citizens, according to former President Donald Trump in his first Save America rally since the raid.
“It was not just my home that was raided last month — it was the hopes and dreams of every citizen who I have been fighting for since the moment I came down the golden escalator in 2015, wanting to represent the people, wanting to stop the massive corruption in this country,” Trump told the Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania rally, which aired lived on Newsmax.
“The radical Democrats are engaging in a desperate attempt to keep me from returning to the White House, where they know I will clean this mess up again,” Trump added. “They want to stop us from completing our mission to bring back American values.”
Trump noted the raid was conducted “on a phony pretext” in order to deflect from Biden’s struggles and the impending midterm elections.
“The Biden administration invaded the home of their chief political opponent, who is absolutely destroying him and everyone else in the polls — I hate to say it — even including the Republicans, but we love the Republicans,” Trump said, noting the raid began only after “getting permission from a highly political magistrate, who they handpicked late in the evening, just days before the break in and trampled upon my rights and civil liberties.”
https://www.newsmax.com/newsmax-tv/justice-department-raid-fbi/2022/09/03/id/1085891/
Senator Rubio: DOJ, FBI “leaks” are “deliberate effort to influence US politics”
One American News (Sept. 8)
In an interview Wednesday, Rubio said the DOJ and FBI do not comment on ongoing investigations and they don’t usually leak any information. He stressed, if the probe into Trump were an unbiased investigation, then the FBI would have consulted with lawmakers, but it didn’t.
“Why didn’t they come to the Gang of Eight or the Intelligence Committee heads and say, ‘we’ve got this major problem on our hands’?” asked the Florida lawmaker. “Instead, what we get is these constant leaks and the only reason to leak to the media is to influence the narrative. Which tells you this is being politicized, which is doing damage to the FBI, the Justice Department, to important institutions, to our country.”
Zuckerberg money pays Michigan election officials
Solange Reyner (Sept. 2) Newsmax
Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson allowed Mark Zuckerberg-funded organizations to pay local election officials millions of dollars in exchange for directing how the election officials conduct Michigan elections, a group of Michigan voters said.
A reply brief was filed earlier this week by the Thomas More Society challenging Benson’s failure to follow Michigan’s Election Code of Constitution.
The group was addressing Benson’s claim that she was not responsible for the funding because “she did not personally hand out the money,” the Thomas More Foundation said in a press release.
“Secretary Benson is wrong,” Thomas More Society special counsel Thor Hearne said in a press release. “This lawsuit does not seek to relitigate the results of the 2020 general election. Rather, it is about how future Michigan elections are conducted and Secretary Benson’s responsibility to conduct elections according to Michigan’s Constitution and Election Code so that every Michigan voter has equal access to the ballot.”
The Thomas More Foundation first filed the lawsuit against Benson in October 2020 in the Michigan Court of Claims, claiming that Zuckerberg paid almost $20 million to local election officials through a third-party charitable organization, the Center for Tech and Civic Life.
Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, contributed $400 million nationwide into the 2020 presidential election through their Chicago-based nonprofit.
The lawsuit also claims that Benson allowed organizations funded by Zuckerberg to pay local election officials millions of dollars in exchange for directing how the election officials conduct Michigan elections and that at least $17 million of unreported payments were made to Michigan election officials.
“Evidence confirms that Benson was aware of this private funding scheme and even encouraged election officials to participate,” the group said in a press release.
https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/zuckerberg-michigan-voters/2022/09/02/id/1085797/
The Left Is Terrified of ‘My Son Hunter’ALEXANDER MARLOW (Sept. 7) Breitbart News
My Son Hunter is…about the current President of the United States… is available at MySonHunter.com Sept. 7, for streaming and downloading and focuses on:
1. ‘The Biden Five’: The Definitive Breakdown of One of America’s Most Corrupt Families
3. White House Refuses to Provide Transparency on Hunter Biden’s Artwork
4. Treasury Filings Confirm Concerns About Hunter Biden’s Foreign Deals
5. Hunter Biden Was Given a 2.8 Karat Diamond by a Now-Jailed Chinese Businessman
6. Hunter Biden Took at Least 23 Flights Through Joint Base Andrews, Home of Air Force One and Two
8. Twitter Censors New York Post Bombshell Stories About Hunter Biden
Our Hope
“Drought in the Promise Land”
By Prophet Lovy L. Elias (Sept. 4)
Key Bible Verse:
“Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, and whose hope is the Lord. For he shall be like a tree planted by the waters, which spreads out its roots by the river, and will not fear when heat comes; but its leaf will be green, and will not be anxious in the year of drought, nor will cease from yielding fruit.” (NKJV: Jeremiah 17:7-8)
(Note: Lovy L. Elias is founding pastor of Revelation Church LA located in Simi Valley, CA which started as a prayer group in his living room and focuses on revelatory teaching, the prophetic, deliverance, healing and manifestations of miracles, signs and wonders. The church mission is: “to build a people of fire.” Watch his message on: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxKCmj2XGk4.)
ACLJ Action seeks petitions to Department of Education protecting pro-life speech
(ACLJ Action Statement/Sept 8):
“The Biden Administration’s Department of Education has issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) to amend current regulations implementing Title IX of the Education Amendments Act of 1972 (Title IX).
“The NPRM changes the definition of discrimination to include “termination of pregnancy,” placing abortion legally and morally on par with pregnancy and childbirth.
“These changes are unconstitutional and could:
– Prohibit pro-life speech and pro-life activism at schools.
– Punish pro-life speech as “discrimination.”
– Ban pro-life instruction in a medical or moral context.
– Force schools to provide access to or support for abortion services.
(Editor’s Note: “The Biden Administration must provide an individualized response to each unique submission. Please use the module to comment by September 12. You can be most effective by adding 3-4 sentences of your own personal thoughts, concerns, or stories related to this important issue. To send your comment to the U.S. Department of Education go to: https://acljaction.quorum.us/campaign/42366/.)
Message Template:
“I write to oppose this rule redefining sex discrimination in Title IX to include “termination of pregnancy.”
“As you know, Title IX is an important statute for the prevention of sex discrimination and the protection of women.
“I am saddened and disturbed that the Department of Education is undermining this purpose and instead using Title IX to undermine the rights of women and others whose conscience leads them to oppose abortion.
“I am particularly concerned that the proposed rule would lead schools to:
1) Prohibit pro-life speech and pro-life activism at schools;
2) Punish pro-life speech as “discrimination”;
3) Ban pro-life instruction in a medical or moral context; and
4) Force schools to provide access to or support for abortion services.
“I am further concerned that this new regulation is unconstitutional. As recently noted by the Supreme Court in Dobbs, citing previous precedent: “…the ‘goal of preventing abortion’ does not constitute ‘invidiously discriminatory animus’ against women.” Bray v. Alexandria Women’s Health Clinic, 506 U. S. 263, 273–274 (1993)
“I therefore submit that this NPRM is an extreme and unjustified overreach by the Executive Branch. The Department of Education does not have the authority to unilaterally alter federal law and restrict fundamental rights to free speech and conscience.”(Michael Hernandez, co-founder of the Citizens Journal—Ventura County’s online news service is a former Southern California daily newspaper journalist and religion and news editor. Mr. Hernandez can be contacted at [email protected] and is editor of “America: The End and Our Hope”.)
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
By Jeff Childers
09-09-22
Happy Friday, C&C! There you go — zip! — the short week is over. In today’s roundup: A fantastic new multiplier; Dr. Gold flies the coop; DOJ appeals special master order; parents in Idaho beat grooming festival; polls beat the Giant Mouse; Disney goes full Satan; Biden hires monkeypox satanist; another comedian suddenly and unexpectedly bites the dust; a retro gold rush in Germany; Russians torch Europe’s gas — literally; and wait till you see the latest Swedish thermostat mandate.
🪖 OPERATION MULTIPLIER: New orders, C&C Army! September’s operation multiplier target is Christopher Rufo, who nearly single-handedly shifted the national discussion about improper premature sexualization of children. He’s driving leftists crazy; because Rufo has dared to commit most of his time to online advocacy to help kids, lefties are so outraged and appalled that they accidentally mismatched their spiked heels with their nail polish.
Chris is shaping the national discussion. To give you an idea of Rufo’s reach, Governor DeSantis’ press secretary frequently replies to his tweets.
If you’re new to C&C, about once a month, we all work together to “multiply” our individual reach, to send a LOUD message to corporate media and anti-civilization activists that we may not have a George Soros, but there is still a lot of power in our numbers. It takes less than a minute! So click the link below RIGHT NOW and give any affordable amount ending in a ‘2,’ so he’ll know it came from the Coffee & Covid army.
Here’s the link: https://donorbox.org/christopher-f-rufo. Be sure to click the “One Time” button if you don’t want to make it a recurring donation. Donate any amount that you can easily afford, ending in a 2 — for example, $2, $12, $22, or any round number with two cents, like $5.02.
Do it now! It only takes a second. Then read the rest of today’s post. We’re asking EVERYBODY to help. Just give whatever you can afford. It adds up. Our last multiplier raised $175,000 for Dr. Simone Gold. We raised a similar amount for Senator Ron Johnson, Moms for Liberty, and raised meaningful donations for many others.
Here’s the link again: https://donorbox.org/christopher-f-rufo. Take one minute and do it! You’re going to feel great after, I PROMISE.
🔥 An Epoch Times reporter called me late last night for a comment on the just-released news that Dr. Simone Gold will be released from federal prison this morning before her sentence is up, for good behavior. She was sentenced to 60 days in federal prison on a first-time misdemeanor trespassing charge.
This really frustrates Democrat hopes that Gold would rot in prison.
When I visited Dr. Gold in Miami’s Fort Knox-like Federal Detention Center recently, she was working on two books, was counseling a bunch of inmates, and was digging into her cell mate’s legal case to see if she could help. Just as you’d expect from that human dynamo.
The press release from America’s Frontline Doctors says Dr. Gold will be holding a live press conference this morning at 11am EST. If it were me, I’d probably want to go home first, get a shower, have a three-course breakfast, and get out of the orange jumpsuit.
But Dr. Gold is raring to go.
Dr. Gold’s assistant, Lisa Andrzejewski, pointed out to the Epoch Times that the doctor has been fully vindicated:
“[The publicity over her early release is] giving her more of an advantage to do so, especially with everything that’s coming out now, how she basically was right. We knew she was right, but they kept discrediting her. Everything’s coming out now, and she’s ready for the fight.”
Welcome back, Dr. Gold!
🔥 Multiple media sources reported yesterday that the Department of Justice has appealed Judge Cannon’s order appointing a special master to oversee the Biden Raid case. It’s the right move for the feds, because what the FBI does NOT want is any oversight.
The appeal takes the case to the 11th Circuit in Atlanta, where most legal pundits think the order has a good chance of surviving. I’ll be able to comment more once we see the government’s appellate brief.
📉 The Idaho Olympian ran a story yesterday headlined, “As Sponsors Drop Out, Boise Pride Festival Drops Drag Kids Event Over Safety Concerns.”
Last week and this week, local Idaho parent groups pressured sponsors to cancel their support for the “Boise Pride Festival” — another festival, it’s always festivals , why is it always festivals? — because it included an appalling event called “Drag Kids” — featuring boys as young as 11 years old.
After parents and Idaho groups began loudly (but politely) complaining, a slew of organizations backtracked and pulled their financial commitments to the ‘festival,’ including Zions Bank, the Idaho Department of Health & Welfare, and Idaho Power, festival organizers announced yesterday that they’d “made the very difficult decision to postpone this performance due to increase safety concerns.”
Safety concerns? I think they meant the festival’s BUDGET’s safety.
The Festival didn’t like it, but had no choice but to pull the “show.” Still, their announcement tried to save face by doubling-down on the “drag kids” concept, promising that soon “we will make it our top priority to bring these kids the safe and incredible show that they deserve.”
And we will make it our top priority to STOP the next safe and incredible kids’ drag show.
The festival’s announcement is signed, “Riley Burrows, co-producer and host, Drag Kids.” Here’s courageous child-sexual-performance-art advocate Riley Burrows (I think):
Is it just me, or is there a ‘type’ with these folks? And, I’ll be honest, I don’t know any real, biological, XX-chromosomed women who dress or act like this. So who are they REALLY impersonating?
📉 The Mouse is looking more and more like a Rat to many Americans, according to the latest polling.
WPA Intelligence surveyed registered voters about how they felt about various media groups. Most media providers — Netflix, YouTube, Amazon, and Apple, rated high with all voters; almost all of them were over 80% favorable.
One media company stood out, though. Disney. Almost half of Republicans view the “family friendly” company UNFAVORABLY, with only 37% of Republicans having favorable feelings toward the long-standing provider. Nearly 30% of independents were equally disgusted with the Mouse as Republicans.
In total, only 51% of Americans surveyed were positive toward Disney. That’s a huge fall from grace for the Mouse: In March 2021, 77% of Americans said they were favorable. That’s a precipitous plunge.
This is a real accomplishment for Disney’s woke corporate managers. It’s almost like they’re TRYING to wreck the brand. Even Netflix — infamous “Cuties” producer — scored well above the legacy media company.
In a normal world, this kind of bad news would result in a major shakeup in top management.
But not at Disney! They just announced with great relish a new animated series on their FX channel about a woman who has a one-night-stand with Satan, gets pregnant, and delivers the Antichrist. The show is about how hard it is to be a single mom and stuff while dealing with a cantankerous absentee father who happens to be the Father of Lies and summons demons, and the day-to-day challenges faced by a daughter whose Dad is a fallen angel who is also the Prince of Hell.
The show is called, “Trolling Christians,” oops, sorry, I mean “Disney Doubles Down,” sorry, my mistake, I mean “Little Satan.” Satan will be voiced by mega-star Danny DeVito, who is making a bizarre career choice. I am not making any of this up.
This pic is from a Disney promo for the show, showing the anti-heroic mom summoning some kind of infernal assistance before doing the laundry or something, and it’s one of the milder images making the rounds:
If Christians needed any better evidence that we are in the End Times than the top family entertainment company in the world gleefully producing a big-budget, all-star cartoon series featuring satanic imagery, witchcraft, nudity and violence, and titled “Little Satan,” I don’t know what to tell you.
The funniest thing about all this is how corporate media has mocked Christians for decades as conspiracy theorists whenever they complained that Disney was SNEAKING satanic imagery into their programming. Dumb Christians! Religious nut jobs. They think they see satan everywhere. Disney is a family company, they’d never do that! Please.
Uh huh. I think I’ll sell some more Disney stock short.
Also, it’s going to be hard to pick the title picture for today’s post. Too many delicious options.
🔥 Speaking of satan, Joe Biden just appointed a new health czar, who is also an open satanist and a festival expert. Biden appointed Demetre Daskalakis to be the United States’ new “White House National Monkeypox Response Deputy Coordinator.”
Well, since people always say I’m too critical of these Biden officials, and trying to be positive, I can admit that Daskalakis looks fully qualified to run the monkeypox operation. He appears to have some solid experience with ‘festivals.’ So.
The appointment should also delight Democrat voters because Daskalakis checks a lot of ‘diversity’ boxes, especially religious diversity. Too bad he’s pasty white and looks like a neo-nazi. No offense intended.
Shut up, Christians, quit whining. (And keep praying.)
💉 On Saturday, comedian David Arnold, 54, alum of several Netflix comedy specials and creator of Nickelodeon’s “That Girl Lay Lay,” posted a video of his intense weightroom workout to his social media for his fans to enjoy.
Three days later he was dead.
Arnold died suddenly and unexpectedly on Wednesday, three days into his most recent comedy tour. The statement from his family said doctors concluded Arnold’s sudden death was from “natural causes.” Sure, it’s totally natural.
Natural causes have really been hell on comedians the last year or so.
🚀 Following the shutdown of Russian gas lines, there’s a new gold rush on in Germany. A stone-age gold rush. A gold rush for wood. Germans are cutting up wooden park benches and decks and everything else that isn’t made of steel or plastic, and are invading forests to cut down their trees.
Hello? Environmentalists? Climate people?
Armstrong economics published an article last week titled, “Germans Stockpiling Firewood.” The article explains that Google search results for “brennholz” (firewood) peaked this August in Germany, after German officials announced the country will continue supporting Ukraine — indefinitely. Makes sense. This will show those nasty Russians.
Reports indicate that retail firewood is GONE in Germany, the fibrous resource is being stolen in truckloads, and imports from other countries are going up in flames. Germans are hoarding piles and piles firewood in their backyards and even hiring guards to protect their splintery stashes.
Meanwhile in Russia, the price of energy dropped again. It’s not working, so they need to sanction harder!
🚀 Meanwhile, the Russians have angered environmentalists again, this time because they are burning up $10M dollars a day of natural gas in Finland. This is the gas coming down the Nordsteam-1 pipeline, that would have gone to Germany (and other places in Europe), but with no other place to send it, the Russians are setting it ablaze as it streams out of the pipe in a gigantic conflagration.
In other words, while the Germans are cutting down their forests to get through the winter, the Russians literally have natural gas to burn.
One of my mentors in college while I was earning my Economics degree sagely advised that, whenever you see a market dislocation, look for the withered hand of government.
Environmentalists are fretting that the giant Russian natural gas bonfire will overheat the local environment or something. Like “global warming,” except here it’s “local warming.” I don’t really understand what they’re complaining about, but you get the idea.
But the environmentalists should probably be more concerned about the COLD. Because it’s going to get cold this winter without all that natural gas. Not just around the pipeline in Finland, which is where you can go to get warm. It’s going to get cold in the entire continent. Global cooling.
🔥 More mandates! According to the Daily Mail UK, Sweden is considering misdemeanor jail time for Swedes who set their thermostats too high this winter:
What would we do without mandates? Better yet, why don’t we just let the government make ALL our day-to-day decisions? Then we can just lie down and binge-watch Netflix all day.
Okay, my beloved procrastinating C&Cers. Here’s the multiplier link again, knock it out: https://donorbox.org/christopher-f-rufo.
Have a fabulous Friday! I’ll see you guys back here tomorrow for the weekend edition.
C&C is moving the needle and changing minds. If you can, I could use your help getting the truth out and spreading optimism and hope: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/-learn-how-to-get-involved-
Twitter: @jchilders98
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The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
From Heritage Foundation
8-9-22
Since 1950, public school enrollment is up 100%, teacher jobs are up 243%, and administration jobs are up 709%.
Chief Diversity officers are employed in 40% of school districts with 15,000+ students.
Education is a top priority to millions of American families, and parents should be empowered to choose a safe and effective education for their children. To serve that goal, The Heritage Foundation has published the Education Freedom Report Card, to serve as a guide for assessing education freedom in each state.
Our report card measures four broad categories (School Choice, Transparency, Regulatory Freedom, and Spending) that encompass more than two dozen discrete factors.
In this inaugural 2022 edition of the Education Freedom Report Card, Florida is the top-ranked state across the board. Families looking for a state that embraces education freedom, respects parents’ rights, and provides a decent ROI for taxpayers should look no further than The Sunshine State.
In second place overall this year in our report card is Arizona, a state that will certainly give Florida a run for its money next year in light of its recently expanded, now-universal ESA program. Idaho takes third place overall, thanks in large part to a strong ROI for taxpayer dollars and high levels of transparency to parents.
At the other end of the spectrum, New Jersey, New York, and the District of Columbia came in 49th, 50th, and 51st, respectively, doing little to provide transparency, accountability, and choice to families. This report card sets a high bar for achieving and maintaining education freedom in the states. Our goal is that this annual ranking of states will not only inform parents and policymakers of what their states do well and where they need improvement, but that it will spur necessary and lasting reform.
NOTE: The report card was first published September 9, 2022, assessing all state education laws as currently written. It will be regularly updated as states make reforms and changes to those laws.
By Dave Scott
9-9-22
I’ve known local resident Fred Borakove for more than 10 years. He’s a very pleasant man, smart, courteous, well-read, and well-spoken. He’s also a retired employee of the Internal Revenue Service, serving full time from 1971 to 2003. Following his IRS employment, Fred served from 2003 to 2012 as a Senior Law Enforcement Advisor for the US Treasury Department, Office of Technical Assistance.
In a nutshell he is loyal civil servant with a lengthy and admirable record. As such he took exception to my criticism of the Biden administration’s mislabeled “anti-inflation bill” that included 87,000 more “armed” agents. The agency currently has 78,000 employees so it will more than double in size.
He objected to me saying they will ALL be “armed” and wrote an opinion editorial defending his former employer. The local bi-weekly News Leader used it verbatim.
In his defense of the agency, he rightly reminded readers that it is the only organization that got the goods on crime boss Al Capone, nailing him for income tax evasion. He cited a number of other notorious criminals the agency successfully apprehended and jailed including Benny Rodrigues, of the famous “French Connection” heroin ring; TV stars Todd and Julie Chrislyn, who were found guilty of bank fraud and tax evasion; and the Hydra Market the largest darknet marketplace to date. There are many more such successes.
However, as impressive as the agency’s achievements are it doesn’t need 87,000 more employees. These new hires won’t be hunting criminals, they’re coming after you and me.
According to the Daily Caller a recent poll says only about 31% of voters believe the IRS will actually use its new resources to focus on auditing large corporations and rich people. A majority of voters believe that the IRS will now target middle-class Americans and small businesses.
“We wanted to understand whether or not voters believe that the true purpose of hiring 87,000 new IRS agents is to focus on – as the Biden Administration has been claiming – ‘large corporate and high-net-worth taxpayers’ or whether something else is afoot,” Mark Meckler, president of the Convention of States, said in a statement. “Democrats believe that this is the case, and that what they’ve been told by their leaders is accurate. Independents and Republicans strongly believe the country is being lied to, and that this new IRS is going to target either everyday Americans, or those who are political opponents of the federal bureaucracy.”
The IRS’s annual enforcement budget was $5.4 billion this year, and it’s getting $45.6 billion more from the new law. That means more people of all income levels will get audited.
Will Democrats use the IRS as a political tool like they are doing with the FBI and DOJ? Ask Lois Lerner or Merrick Garland. Is it any coincidence that the IRS Union contributes 97% of its political donations to Democrats. By hiring thousands of agents, taxpayers will now pay for their own audits. The Democrats are merely laundering taxpayer money back to Democrat coffers. And a new legion of 87,000 IRS employees will be cheered on by Democrats anxious to fleece us for more money.
Fred’s piece also alerted me to something I didn’t know that’s equally frightening.
“The IRS is not the only government agency that some people may be surprised to find purchasing guns and ammunition for law enforcement officers,” he wrote.
“Other Agencies include the Department of Agriculture, which buys weapons and ammunition for the U.S. Forest Service and the Department of Education, which purchases them for its Office of the Inspector General, the Department of Health and Human Services and the Food and Drug Administration.”
No wonder the Democrats want to confiscate our guns and get rid of the Second Amendment.
***
Get Off My Lawn You Little B…..: Florida Governor Ron DeSantis explained why President Biden’s Thursday, September 1 speech was “one of the most disgusting speeches an American president has ever given.”
Most on the right and even many on the left agree with Governor DeSantis. Even CNN’s White House correspondent asked three times what action Biden intends to take to combat what he says is the MAGA “threat to democracy.” As usual the mental and physical midget WH Press Secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, came up short and was unable to answer.
The 79-year-old choleric demagogue spoke in Philadelphia before a sinister red background with two U.S. Marines behind him. The Marines were forced to listen as the doddering old fool attacked Republicans he labeled enemies of the state. The Marines do what their Commander-in-Chief orders, but they must have been furious listening to such treacherous words and irate at being used as props.
Here’s what our Florida governor had so say about the talk: “Biden’s speech was one of the most disgusting speeches an American president has ever given. He ran as being a unifier, and he’s basically saying to the vast majority of the country that disapproves of him that they’re effectively a threat to the republic. He dodders, he lashes out. But at the end of the day, his policies are why there’s so much opposition to him.”
“He came in and he opened the border, and we’ve seen what a disaster that’s been. He kneecapped American energy. We’ve seen how that’s hurt millions and millions of people across our country. They’ve inflated the currency. We have one of the worst inflations we’ve had in over 40 years. So of course, people are going to be upset at all the wreckage that he’s left in his wake. He is the American Nero. He’s a failed leader.”
There’s nothing Governor DeSantis said that I disagree with as Biden came across like a cartoon figure of an angry old man shaking his cane at the moon.
Biden gave his Nuremberg-style speech in Philadelphia, home of the U.S. Constitution and a city that earlier this year reported that only 44% of its residents felt safe in their neighborhood after dark. Some 65% said they’d heard gunshots near their homes in the past year. Some 362 people have been killed in the city so far this year compared to 226 in the first eight months of 2019. Meanwhile Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner is bragging about how few criminals he’s put behind bars.
Democrats saying Americans are beneath contempt is nothing new. Former President Barack Obama said that Americans who didn’t support him in 2008 were bitter bigots, clinging to “guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren’t like them.” Hillary Clinton called them a “basket of deplorables.”
The “semi-fascist” label Biden tossed out in his talk doesn’t come as a surprise. What’s surprising is that a sitting president would utter such a vile and disturbing tirade against Americans who didn’t vote for him.
The actual threat is this angry old fool who would spout contemptable comments such as: “There’s no question that the Republican Party today is dominated, driven, and intimidated by Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans. And that is a threat to this country. Donald Trump and MAGA Republicans are a threat to the very soul of this country.”
***
Overheard At PJD’s Beer & Wine Garden: “Instead of playing ‘Hail to the Chief’, the band should break into the Beatles’ ‘Nowhere Man’ when Biden appears.”
***
Speaking Of Failed Politicians: Fernandina Beach Mayor and City Commissioner Mike “Left Coast” Lednovich scolded me at a chance meeting at PJD’s Beer & Wine Garden last Friday, September 2, saying I should “stop the criticism of the smoking ban on local beaches,” telling me: “You don’t understand it.”
When I suggested that the mayor express his objections and defend the new ordinance on this blog he responded saying: “I’m telling you now.”
He proceeded to “tell” me that the city based its contradictory and controversial ban on a state ordinance. When I responded saying: “You didn’t have to follow it word-for-word” since it’s contradictory and unenforceable, that incensed the California transplant.
He angrily spat: “Do you have grandkids, and if so do you want them stepping on cigarette butts on the beach? “Nope,” I responded, “but I also don’t want them stepping on cigar butts which are not banned under this screwy new ordinance?” The contradictory ban, which local law enforcement officials tell me is unenforceable, also applies to city parks and the downtown marina. Lednovich ignores or is unaware that the city already has a “no littering” law that applies to the beach.
If law enforcement officials spot smoke swirling from a group of visitors enjoying the beach, do they approach them and ask to see who is smoking? If the smoke is coming from a cigarette, pipe and a vaping device does the officer fine those folks $75 each while giving the stogie smoker a thumbs up? How do they explain that to the confused crowd, who by this time probably think they’re vacationing in Oz? At the least they’ll have a hilarious vacation story tell their family and friends when they return home that begins with “You won’t believe this but…”
I thought the mayor, who was wearing a yellow vest and baseball cap labeled “police’, was headed to the beach to nab errant smokers. Instead, he had volunteered at the Friday “Sounds On Centre” event to help direct pedestrian and vehicle traffic.
Oh, and in case you missed it in the previous postings, here’s a photo of Mayor “Left Coast” Lednovich, publicly and proudly supporting the militant and Marxist Black Lives Matter (BLM) organization about 20 months ago while at the same time that group was rioting, burning, looting, and shooting and beating bystanders. He supports the violent BLM organization while opposing smoking on the beach, which he says, “violates my rights.” Oh, he’s running for the Commission again. I’m posting this photo as a public service so folks will know who NOT to vote for in November.
In this photo he’s wearing the same Fernandina Police Department “Police” cap he wore when I saw him downtown last Friday. Folks that don’t know better might assume that he’s a member of the local police department and that the department endorses BLM.
Personally, in the District 4 City Commission race that includes “Left Coast” Lednovich, I’m casting my vote for Dr. James Antun, a local chiropractor who along with his Chiropractor wife, owns a clinic in the city. As a local businessman he’s experienced the same trials and tribulations suffered by other business people at the hands of a boated, bullying, insensitive city bureaucracy. Dr. Antun is a hands-on guy who will give the city a needed adjustment – puns intended.
***
Speaking Of City Hall: The flat millage just approved by the Fernandina Beach City Commission will net an additional $1.8 million into the general fund. What are we, the taxpayers getting for that money?
It has been suggested to all five commissioners that the city issue a statement that clearly shows what this money will buy. Since no one reads the budget book a clear statement would be helpful. Anybody at city hall listening?
***
My ACLU Pen Pal: For some inexplicable reason I received a fund-raising letter from the Executive Director of the ACLU that also asked me to participate in a national survey.
I have no idea why this organization, that I and many others consider to be on one of the most dangerous and contemptable groups in the country, would write to me. Maybe someone in their New York City HQ had time on their hands or had a letter-mailing quota to meet.
There was nothing in the request for funds that surprised me. The director pleaded for money saying that unless their goal was met awful things would happen. He said they needed the money to stem a “growing assault on voting rights, reproductive freedom, transgender rights, classroom censorship and more.” Yikes!
In just the first two brief paragraphs of the two-page plea he used the terms “extremists, vengeance, alarming, volatile, unconstitutional , un-American and downright dangerous” to emphasize their need for more cash.
I was exhausted after that and skipped to the end where a fellow with the quixotic name of Anthony D. Romero signed off adding under his title “Pronouns: he, him, his.” If nothing else these ridiculous and dangerous people are always good for a few laughs.
***
Drinking, Dining & Dancing: The Tavern’s parking lot behind its 318 Centre Street brew bar and restaurant will be converted into a German-style Oktoberfest Saturday, September 24 from 12-7 pm.
The last day of Oktoberfest is always the first Sunday of October. Over the years, as Oktoberfest grew in popularity, organizers worked backward to capitalize on September’s warmer German weather.
The original annual Bavarian beer bash evolved from a royal wedding. In October 1810, Bavarian Crown Prince Ludwig married Princess Therese of Saxony-Hildburghausen, and beer-quaffing locals celebrated in Munich. They’re still at it when not interrupting the festivities to invade neighboring countries.
The local Tavern says its event will kick off at noon with tournament-style games hosted by the “Siegtoberfest” crew, whatever they are, then feature live music from 2-6 pm by the Stevie Trio.
Organizers say there will be “bier, brats, pretzels, and more bier!” All ages are welcome, and admission is free. Beer and food tickets are $7 each, or five for $30.
VIP Packages are available for $80 and include: “early entry at 11 am, an event t-shirt, a refillable 22 oz event mug, exclusive swag, a growler of Oktoberfest Bier (to-go), and five food/drink tickets.”
Stop by The Tavern, call 904-310-6088, or visit AIBC on the Oznr app to purchase VIP packages.
Speaking of beer and bratwurst, the German Beer Garden on South 3rd Street that two local Teutonic brothers wanted to open by July 4, is still shuttered. Why? I hear it’s because the city is continuing to drag its feet on their permitting processes, another example of how the city stymies local enterprise instead of encouraging it.
Read Dave Scott’s Blog regularly
Republished with the author’s permission. Read The Dave Scott Blog– subscribe Free
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
Water News
09-08-22
| The St. Johns River widens to form Lake George in a region where springs and tributaries contribute to the river’s flow. Exploring the lower basin of the St. Johns River In our continuing journey along the St. Johns River, we’re exploring the section of Florida’s longest inland river just downstream from Lake Monroe where the Wekiva River joins the St. Johns River. Here, as each stream and tributary drains, the St. Johns grows increasingly wider. Two hundred miles into its journey, the St. Johns is the accumulated drainage of surface water across 3,200 square miles of wetlands, farmland, forests, and urban and suburban neighborhoods. Read the fifth installment in the journey along the St. Johns River, now in StreamLines. Read other chapters in the series here. In the News District’s Governing Board meets Sept. 13 The District’s Governing Board will hold its monthly meeting Tuesday, Sept. 13, beginning at 3 p.m. at Palatka headquarters. The September meeting starts later in the day than the traditional morning meeting due to the first of two public budget hearings scheduled for 5 p.m. the same day. See agenda Budget hearing agenda Meet our Governing Board members Deadline nears for District’s Blue School Grant Program funding Teachers don’t miss your opportunity to apply for project funding through the District’s Blue School Grant Program. The application cycle is open until 5 p.m. on Sept. 15, 2022. Teachers in grades 6–12 at public and charter schools within the District are eligible. Grantees will be notified at the end of October. The District offers up to $2,000 per teacher/school for project proposals that address key concepts of watershed/ecosystem understanding, water quality, and human use (supply and conservation). Since 2016, the District has funded 75 projects and reached over 9,400 students. Find the application, overview video and documenton our website. ICYMI on Facebook Ever wonder why the District conducts prescribed burns? 🔥 Prescribed fire is the use of carefully planned fire purposefully set under stringent conditions to manage the fire’s effects. The benefits of prescribed fire include restoring and maintaining natural communities, reducing chances of destructive wildfires, perpetuating fire-adapted plants and animals, cycling nutrients, managing tree diseases and opening scenic vistas. 📷 Land Resource Specialist Chris Kinslow Check out our latest videos on our YouTube channel. Explore more information about the District by reading stories and press releases on our Newsroom page and in StreamLines. Water conservation Tip Do you know your designated watering day? It’s based on your address and the time of year. You’ll only need to water if your lawn and landscape show signs of needing water. Learn about districtwide watering restrictions and how they help us all save water. #WaterLess Visit WaterLessFlorida.com How much rain has your area seen? Rainfall average in the past month through Sept. 8 is 7.36 inches within the 18 counties of the District. Click here to find rainfall data for your area Visit our website SJRWMD privacy policy |
| SJRWMD Water News | P.O. Box 1429, Palatka, FL 32178-1429 |
Nassau County Board of County Commissioners
09-08-22
Nassau County, Florida, September 8, 2022 – We are excited to announce that Nassau County Fire Chief, Brady Rigdon, has been selected to serve as the Northeast Regional Director for the Florida Fire Chief’s Association.
The Florida Fire Chief’s Association (FFCA) is Florida’s leading management education organization for fire and emergency services professionals, specializing in promoting and supporting excellence in fire and emergency services management. As the Northeast Regional Director, Chief Rigdon will participate in FFCA’s board meetings and will carry out duties as directed by the FFCA President. These duties may include, but are not limited to, internal and external committee assignments; establishment of a communication plans and implementing long-range communications strategies for the Northeast Florida region; reviewing regional membership data; and serving as liaison between regional members and the Board of Directors.
FFCA President, Doug Riley, stated, “I am both honored and excited to appoint Fire Chief Brady Rigdon as the Northeast Regional Director for the Florida Fire Chief’s Association. He came highly recommended and I look forward to serving alongside him on the Board of Directors”.
The Board of County Commissioners commends Chief Rigdon on his willingness to further serve his community and his colleagues throughout the region. We have no doubt that he will be a great asset to the FFCA and that he will represent Nassau County well.
To learn more about the FFCA, please visit their website at www.ffca.org.
By Deb Boelkes
9-8-22
To We the People – Following my investigative report on Mr. Aguilar’s campaign financing, some of you requested I investigate Aaron Bean’s campaign financing. Although we still have 8+ weeks before the general election, and there may be additional campaign contributions and expenditures between now and November, my findings are below.
In summary, of the $511K in contributions to his own campaign fund, Bean has so far spent $415K of that. In addition, at least two major PACs spent a combined $1.337M to fund Bean’s campaign. Total expenditures, between Bean’s contributions and the two PACs funding mailers and TV ads, over $1.75M was spent in support of Bean in the primary . The $$ contributions Bean received directly from other PACs (listed immediately below) pales in comparison to what the two PACs, Keep Florida Red and American Dream Federal Action, bought and paid for. Here are the details:
Total contributions to the Aaron Bean for Congress Campaign Committee: $511,343 (this compares to Erick Aguilar’s $1.2M total, which included his own $450K).
The $511K is comprised of:
Per Florida Politics (7/21/22 and 8/15/22 and ) – “The Health care industry is well represented”…with itemized individual contributions of $38K from 10 PACs.
Per FEC.gov, Aaron’s top contributors are as follows:
Bean’s Total Disbursements / Operating Expenses so far: $415,829
Ending Cash-on-Hand: $95,514
Debts / Loans owed by the committee: $16,272
Disbursements paid to:
Summary of the major Marketing and Campaign Consulting-related Expenditures:
Website: http://www.mentzermedia.com/ — “has been helping clients win elections and campaigns through targeted media buys since 1991.” According to SourceWatch.org, they broker media buys, decide where to place ads, and buy air time to run them. CEO / Owner: Bruce Mentzer
Website: https://bascomllc.com/ The only strategic communications and public affairs firm that handled messaging and public relations/ communications for two wining GOP Congressional Campaigns(Aaron Bean and laurel Lee in CD 15). They advise some of Florida’s most influential trade associations, CEOs, and Fortune 100 executive teams.
President: Sarah Bascom (served on the DeSantis campaign team in 2018).
I was unable to find a website for Consensus Media LLC.
According to CorporationWiki.com: Consensus Public Relations, LLC >> Consensus Communications, Inc >> Consensus Media, LLC
Website: https://onmessage.com/ – Consensus Communications, Inc. manages strategic communications for corporate, political, and civic clients across Florida. They work in specific areas such as crisis communications, issues management, politics, ballot initiatives and lobbying. They represent Florida’s leading industries including agribusiness, healthcare, real estate, tourism, transportation and infrastructure, and environmental resource industries.
Registered Agent for Consensus Media, LLC: Marchena and Graham, PA
According to Transparency USA (which monitorsmoney in State politics): During the 2022 Campaign Season, Consensus Media LLC paid out $28K to Wilton Simpson; $21K to Ashley Moody; $10K to Florida Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee; and $10K to Prosperous St. Petersburg
WinRed is the official secure payments technology for donors to quickly and securely donate to GOP candidates. According to its website pricing page, WinRed charges 3.94% for every transaction made. This would indicate donors contributed approximately $195K to Aaron Bean for Congress via WinRed.
Now lets look at the two PACs that funded the bulk of Aaron’s Campaign:
According to the Federal Elections Committee (FEC.gov):
Independent Expenditures totaling $886,875 paid by Keep Florida Red to Support Aaron Bean in 2021-2022; Payments to:
SCRP Media: A full-service political media firm that produces advertising for some of the most high-profile and competitive political campaigns in the country. They offer strategy, creative, and media placement (TV, OTT, Digital, radio and print) services. Clients include Gov. Greg Abbott (TX), Gov. Mike DeWine (OH), Sen. Bill Cassidy (LA), Sen Bill Frist (TN), Sen. John McCain (AZ).
StoryTellers Group, LLC – unable to find website, but I did find this 24/48 Hour Report of Independent Expenditures (schedule E) for StoryTellers Group (as Payee) for Candidate Biden, Joseph R., Jr. for $84,710 for Direct Mail Printing and Postage, paid 5/13/2020 https://docquery.fec.gov/pdf/185/202005229239493185/202005229239493185.pdf
According to the Federal Elections Committee (FEC.gov):
Independent Expenditures totaling $450,747 paid by American Dream Federal Action to Support Aaron Bean in 2021-2022; Payments to:
Full Reach Media Group, LLC, VA – provides consulting services in the filed of facilitating the buying, planning, and placement of media, television, radio, cable, print, and digital. Supported candidates include Sen. John Boozman (AR – R), Congressman Brad Finstad (MN- R), Congressman Michael Simpson (ID-R)
Franklin Creative Group, LLC – https://franklin-creative.com/ – for the past decade, theyhave been involved in races from President to city council, producing winning mailers for clients.
—-
So, there you have it. Now you know how Bean’s Congressional campaign has been funded so far.
For those of you who have asked me, “What happens to all the funds left in the campaign’s Cash-on-Hand, after the candidate either wins or loses the election?” check out this article about what our own former 8-term Congressman Ander Crenshaw allegedly did with his campaign account’s cash-on-hand (otherwise known as Zombie Funds): https://www.floridabulldog.org/2021/10/ex-congressman-used-zombie-campaign-cash-personal-expenses/ Notice that Benjamin Ottenhoff, Treasurer of Keep Florida Red, was also the Treasurer of Ander PAC.
According to the FEC, leftover cash-on-hand may be used for only a handful of things, such as a donation to charity, or transferred into to a future campaign, or transferred to a national or local political party, or be donated in limited amounts to other candidates, or just leave it sit. I do know that when Todd Wilcox of Orlando ran for US Senator back in 2016 and then dropped out of the race—along with every other contender when Rubio lost to Trump as the Presidential nominee and ultimately ran for Senator again—Wilcox refunded our contributions. Here’s an interesting article about the general rules and loopholes regarding the use of Zombie funds: https://www.nhpr.org/politics/2020-11-25/ask-civics-101-what-happens-to-campaign-funds-after-an-election-is-over
Your digital soldier,
Deb Boelkes
Founder, Business World Rising, LLC
Keynote Speaker and award-winning Author of:
Women on Top: What’s Keeping You From Executive Leadership?
The WOW Factor Workplace: How to Create a Best Place to Work Culture
Heartfelt Leadership: How to Capture the Top Spot and Keep on Soaring
And coming soon:
Strong Suit: Leadership Success Secrets from Women on Top
Office: 904-310-9602
Email: [email protected]
DebBoelkes.com || BusinessWorldRising.com || HeartfeltLeadership.com
Success just got easier ®
Editor’s note: This is a privately-researched record of Aaron Bean’s campaign finances for his Congressional candidacy, by an independent author. State Senator Bean isn’t being accused of any crime. This finance profile is fairly typical of what successful candidates do. The information provided by the author was compiled from public records,- including the candidate’s and PACs’ own filings, Internet and interview sources.
By George Miller
9-8-22
Last week, hundreds of people attended an event run by the Nassau County, FL chapter of CCDF (County Citizens Defending Freedom) USA now being formed. The event was held at First Baptist Church Fernandina Beach.
The ambitious 3+ hour event included:
Event Messages
It’s difficult to succinctly summarize conclusions/outcome of such a varied event, but we’ll try:
Their stated main focus is election integrity, education, honesty/transparency/frugality in government and preservation of freedom. CCDF USA
9. CCDF USA Nassau Chapter startup Executive Director Jack Knocke’s ([email protected]) main points were that we have issues right here in Nassau County with elections, schools, politicians & spending. They are trying to spotlight issues and make sure that our freedoms are preserved. Finally, they are seeking public support in funding and working on projects to accomplish this.
If time/resources permit, we may expound on some of these items in future articles.
George Miller is Publisher and Co-Founder of Citizens Journal Florida, based in Fernandina Beach. He is a “retired” operations management consultant, software and publishing executive and manufacturing management professional.
By Richard Tribou
NASA has asked the U.S. Space Force if it would allow for two opportunities later this month to try again to launch the Artemis I mission to the moon, but NASA would also need to sign off on fixes in the works to the $4.1 billion rocket on the launch pad at Kennedy Space Center.
Read the Latest in the Orlando Sentinel
News
Hurricane Earl won’t even come close to NE FL shores, but the waves and curents will be significant.
From Fox News35
ORLANDO, Fla. – Hurricane Earl is gaining strength in the Atlantic and is now forecast to become a powerful Category 4 hurricane. While Earl won’t have a direct impact on land, Florida’s east coast beaches could still feel the effects from the system.
Read MORE
By Jeff Childers
09-08-22
Happy Thursday, C&C! I hope you’re all having a terrific week. Your roundup today includes: inside the C&C joke machine; Liz Truss breaks bad in Britain with energy policy and limits to jabs for kids; bad news for jabbed kids in the UK data; sudden and unexpected celebrity and athlete deaths and injuries; Steve Kirsch is on a rampage over a new whistleblower report; and a neat music video for you to help promote.
🪖 Believe it or not, I never INTEND to offend anyone with my daily reflections. My wife was mortified the first time I drily blogged that a senior Biden official “an unattractive cross-dresser.” But I was just expressing a funny truth in an admittedly edgy way, to challenge folks to THINK, by (hopefully) combining several ideas on conscious and subconscious levels.
Twenty years ago, men who dressed as women (and vice-versa) WERE cross-dressing, and it was considered pathological. Back in the day, leftists even slandered J. Edgar Hoover by calling him a cross-dresser, and what they meant by that was Hoover was crazy AND a pervert. Nowadays, according to the thought police, you’re not supposed to say “cross-dresser,” which is exactly why I say it. It used to be an accurate term to describe a mental illness, widely used during a much more polite period of history than we’re living through today.
And as a lawyer, to whom the meaning of words is critically important, I refuse to surrender words to anyone.
I think maybe it was the word ‘unattractive’ that horrified Michelle, more so than the label ‘cross-dresser.’ She was probably worried I was calling him fat. But because the word ‘unattractive’ is delightfully ambiguous, the mind is forced to search for meaning in context; and here the mind discovers long-existing levels of social and cultural offense that arise when men impersonate women badly.
I mean, come on, it’s like the guy’s not even TRYING. Just look at him.
Yesterday I noticed that covid czar Ashish Jha was blasphemously invoking religion when he said, “God gave us two arms for two injections.” To be fair, he’s probably more ignorant about religion than malevolent (that guy desperately needs a witness). But he wasn’t well-intentioned; though Jha said it jokily, it was really a clumsy attempt to manipulate Christians into getting even more shots.
Of course Jha completely missed the point of why God created us in the first place (it wasn’t for shots). I honestly hope that he finds the Truth and is saved. But right now he’s practically sprinting toward the hot place.
Anyway, to highlight what Jha was up to, I emphasized the bumbling, manipulative, and sacrilegious nature of Jha’s dumb remark by mixing his secular religion — Branch Covidianism — with his clumsy misunderstanding of true religion, in a way that would be accessible to secular people as well as people of faith, by describing a made-up sacred object, a covid rosary. That edgy image seemed to prompt the brain to consider all the different ways what Jha said was wrong.
Since protestants (like me) work hard NOT to attach religious meaning to manmade stuff, we can sometimes forget that our Catholics brothers and sisters genuinely hold some special items to be sacred, requiring careful handling. A few devout Catholics in the C&C family, who take great comfort and hold sacred significance in their rosaries, were appalled by the Jha joke and they let me know about it, and no mistake. Someone even called the office.
I hope this partial explanation of how I come up with some jokes — always in a hurry, always on an insanely-tight publication deadline — helps folks understand that I was not intentionally careless or irreligious. Just the opposite. In fact, that was the exact point I meant to illustrate about Jha, that his remark was careless and irreligious. I think some folks got it, but for a few people, the rosary’s special status prevented the humor from landing the way it was intended.
One of our terrific commenters found a better joke anyway. If the right arm is for the flu shot, and the left arm is for the covid shot, in what member will Jha take his monkeypox shot? Just asking!
PS — No need to defend C&C in the comments. It’s all good.
🔥 In spite of gloomy predictions by conservatives that she’d just be another useless WEF stooge, it seems to me that UK’s new prime minister Liz Truss, who just recently replaced disgraced covid party-PM Boris Johnson, is off to a pretty good start.
First, the Telegraph UK ran a story yesterday headlined, “Liz Truss Vows ‘Never Again’ on Exorbitant Energy Bills.” The sub-head attempts to explain, “Prime Minister pledges to ‘revolutionise’ supply as she takes action to ease household fuel crisis.”
The actual news is that starting TODAY (how’s that for fast? she was just elected Monday) Liz plans to lift Boris’ fracking moratorium, allowing Britain to take advantage of the cheapest, fastest, most successful technology for producing domestic oil. Observers also predict the new government will promptly delete carbon taxes from Brits’ energy bills.
The Telegraph also predicted the new Prime Minister will immediately move to support more oil and gas drilling in the North Sea, and will prune regulations to speed up the approval process.
You may recall that President Trump flipped the U.S. into energy independence for the first time in history in just two years using a similar strategy. Trump taught the world how to do it, and it looks like Liz is now pursuing a Trumpian energy policy.
On the other hand, Biden CANCELED fracking. And look where we are now.
That’s pretty good for her first few days in office. But that’s not all!
💉 Although corporate media has embargoed the story — for some reason — UK government health agencies quietly updated their jab guidance to essentially prohibit covid vaccines for healthy kids under eleven. Under the newly-released rules, after the current program ends this year, any child who was five years old as of August should not be eligible get the vaccine until they are at least eleven. From the official UK “Green Book,” in bureaucrat-ese:
For kids eleven and over, although the UK’s Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) is currently advising that covid vaccines should be OFFERED to 5–11-year-old children in the UK, it deems the injections to be “NON-ESSENTIAL.” In other words, it does not advise the jabs for them.
So, that’s TWO pretty good moves for a new Prime Minister. British C&C’ers, what do you think?
💉 The UK jab policy change may have something to do with the latest report from the Office of National Statistics (ONS) in Britain, which issued shortly before Boris Johnson resigned.
Exposé News charted the report’s horrifying data on outcomes in children. Put simply: vaccinated kids in Britain are astronomically more likely to die from covid or from any cause than unvaccinated kids. WAY more likely.
This is just one of the Exposé’s charts. Here’s the link. (https://expose-news.com/2022/07/27/uk-gov-vaccinated-children-increased-mortality/)
Wouldn’t it be great if the CDC collected this kind of information for the U.S.? Oh well. I guess they need a bigger budget or something. Or maybe the CDC is useless.
💉 Youthful Aylesford Soccer Club ‘superstar’ Danielle Cubitt died suddenly and unexpectedly on August 30th. The club’s matches on September 4th were postponed, and it announced, “This has naturally affected our players deeply.”
No doubt.
💉 Huddersfield Town Soccer Club is mourning the loss of its communications team member Eleanor Haigh, 26, who died suddenly and unexpectedly on Friday, September 2nd. No cause of death released.
💉 “Superfit” Scottish doctor Mike Wilson, 46, died suddenly and unexpectedly on August 18th while he was training for a triathlon in Lochindorb in Grantown-on-Spey, and he experienced a massive heart attack. For some reason. Maybe he was too joyful.
💉 TV star Pauley Perrette, 53, who played the beloved character Abby Sciuto on NCIS, revealed last week that she’d suffered a sudden and unexpected “massive stroke” a year ago. And that’s not all:
Pauley Perrette @PauleyPIt’s 9/2 One year ago I had a massive stoke. Before that I lost so many beloved family and friends, And daddy And then Cousin Wayne Yet still a survivor after this traumatic life I’ve been given so far… And still so grateful, Still so full of faith, And STILL HERE! September 2nd 2022355 Retweets10,440 Likes
💉 Teenager Kaden Clymer, a promising Wauseon, Ohio junior lineman, cannot play football any more. He had SIX FEET of blood clots removed from his legs just days before the current season kicked off.
The night before the Wauseon Indians took the field for their first Fall team practice, Kaden suddenly and unexpectedly had to be ambulanced to Toledo Children’s Hospital after feeling sick. Kaden’s mother Maurine Clymer explained that the problem started on August 1st. “His dad took him to the emergency room after he was having severe pain in his back and legs. His calves were swelled up four inches larger in circumference.”
Kaden spent nine days in the hospital. Now, because of the blood thinners he has to take in his stomach twice a day, every day, Clymer’s football career is over.
Doctors have been unable to figure out what caused Kaden’s illness. They’re completely baffled.
💉 Philanthropist anti-vaxxer Steve Kirsch is on a rampage. His September 2nd Substack is all about a story he called the most important thing he’d ever written, and that should be front-page news, at least in Israel if not globally, about an Israeli whistleblower who reported definitive proof of jab injury causation, a report that was buried under a pile of lies by the Israeli Ministry of Health.
Briefly, after being widely criticized for failing to track vaccine injuries at all, the Israeli government hired a third party research group in December of last year. Their job was to analyze the insurance data from one of Israel’s large HMOs, which covers about 15% of Israelis.
In June, the researchers presented their findings in a zoom meeting to senior officials with Israel’s Ministry of Health. The results were so worrisome that they even suggested that the government consider the legal liability ramifications. There were three main categories in the report.
First, the researchers said they found “new signals,” which are side effects not currently associated with the jabs, including neurological side effects such as hypoesthesia, paresthesia, tinnitus, and dizziness; back pain; and digestive system symptoms in children (abdominal pain).
Second, they found long-term effects that contradicted the prevailing notion that most adverse events happen right after taking the shot. They discovered side effects that were chronic or long-lasting, including menstrual irregularities, various neurological side effects, musculo-skeletal injuries, GI problems, and kidney and urinary system problems.
Third, and most importantly, the researchers discovered many cases of “re-challenge,” which is the recurrence or worsening of a side effect following repeated doses of the vaccines. In fact, they identified cases of re-challenge in all the 5 most common side effects they analyzed.
We’ve heard over and over that “correlation does not equal causation.” But in the private briefing, the researchers stressed that, according to established literature, their ‘rechallenge’ findings PROVE a causal relationship between the vaccine and the adverse effects.
That’s HUGE.
The Ministry of Health slow-walked the response. It took two months to get around to publishing a public report on the group’s findings. The public report completely rewrote what the researchers actually found, it was a complete whitewash, and it falsely told the Israeli public that the research project had proved that adverse events were rare, short-lived, and the jabs were safe and effective.
In other words, the exact opposite of what the researchers told them.
A big fat lie.
What the Ministry of Health didn’t know was that an unidentified whistleblower secretly recorded the zoom call, and after the false public report was issued, the whistleblower sent the recorded zoom meeting to a few people, including Israeli journalist Yaffa Shir-Raz, who broke the story. Yaffa was fired from Israel’s biggest newspaper last year after she tweeted critical things about the jabs.
Yaffa Shir-Raz @YaffaRazMy breaking on this scandal, published on August 22: Breaking: The Israeli Ministry of Health has been warned it might openIn a leaked recording of a Zoom discussion with IMOH officials, revealed by the BG News channel on Saturday, researchers hired by the ministry to conduct artmag.co.ilSeptember 3rd 2022152 Retweets315 Likes
Now, Steve Kirsch is trying to get the story out, broadband. He’s forwarded it to virtually everyone in his address book: politicians, doctors, and scientists. In his Substack he said he’s forwarded it to dozens of CDC researchers. Here’s a partial list of who he sent it to:
He asked all of them to respond. So far, nothing. I know, you’re shocked.
🔥 An alert reader pointed out someone did a cover of the song “Mad World” set to a high-production-value music video. Even if it’s not your music genre, please take a second and give it a like, and maybe a share, to encourage the makers, because we need a LOT more of these. (
Have a terrific Thursday! I’ll see you guys back here tomorrow for more.
C&C is moving the needle and changing minds. If you can, I could use your help getting the truth out and spreading optimism and hope: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/-learn-how-to-get-involved-
Twitter: @jchilders98
Truth Social: @jchilders98
MeWe: mewe.com/i/coffee_and_covid.
C&C Swag! www.shopcoffeeandcovid.com
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© 2022 Jeff Childers
2135-B NW 40th Terrace, Gainesville, FL 32605
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
From NASSAU COUNTY
BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS
Nassau County, Florida, September 7, 2022 – We are excited to announce that
Nassau County’s 4-H Youth Development Hippology Team is heading to a national
competition November 4 – November 6, 2022, in Louisville, Kentucky. Team
members, Emma Norstrem, Charlie Norstrem, Raelin Tew, and Lauren Walters will
compete against other 4-H Youth Development Hippology teams from around the
country, proving their individual and team mastery of equine sciences.
The term “Hippology” comes from the Greek “hippo”, meaning horse, and “ology”,
meaning the “study of”. A Hippology contest is designed to test a youth’s knowledge
of equine science, as well as vet science and farm management. Participants may be
asked to identify anatomy, breeds, and pieces of equipment through a variety of
verbal and written tests.
Just a few short years ago, Nassau County’s Hippology team began their progress
towards the national competition, led by the County’s 4-H Extension Agent, Kelsey
Irvine. This year, the team won the State Hippology contest and successfully earned
a spot at the national competition.
Kelsey Irvine stated, “The youth have worked hard for several years to qualify for this
event by studying and practicing their skills. We are very excited to support them in
Louisville. We are also very proud of their overall success and their dedication in
improving their mastery within the equine science program.”
Please join us in congratulating the Nassau 4-H Hippology Team for securing their
place at nationals! We know they’re going to do a great job and look forward to
sharing their success with the community upon their return.
Are you interested in learning how you can help 4-H and/or the Hippology Program?
If so, please contact 4-H Agent, Kelsey Irvine, at (904) 530-6350 or via email at
[email protected].
By Dave Scott
9-2-22
Nowhere in Florida’s Parental Rights in Education and Individual Freedoms Acts bill is the phrase “Don’t Say Gay” used.
That didn’t prevent Fernandina Beach News Leader reporter Holly Dorman, from mislabeling it the “Don’t Say Gay” bill in her front-page news article Friday, August 26. The nonexistent verbiage: “Don’t Say Gay” was also in the headline of her story running across all five columns at the top of the page broadcasting: “NCSD policies to align with “‘Don’t Say Gay,’ other acts.”
Ms. Dorman obviously did not read the bill (_h1557er.docx (flsenate.gov) that not only does NOT contain the phrase “Don’t Say Gay” but not even the word “gay.”
Instead of reading the bill Ms. Dorman probably Googled it and plucked the phrase “Don’t say gay” from one of the numerous misleading mainstream media articles that conform to her own political views.
Pay attention Ms. Dorman. Not only does the bill not ban the word “gay” in school settings, but it also doesn’t ban casual discussions of topics relating to sexual orientation and gender identity in the classroom either. If you had read the bill you were reporting on you would know that.
What the bill does is prohibit classroom instruction on “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” with children in third grade or younger, “or in a manner that is not age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards.”
I suggest that if Ms. Dorman wants to continue to pursue a career in journalism that she obtain the book, “On Writing Well” by William Zinsser. That and the “AP Stylebook” will greatly enhance her performance and dissuade future criticism such as this.
Republished with the author’s permission. Read The Dave Scott Blog– subscribe Free
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
By Jeff Childers
09-07-22
Good morning, C&C, it’s already Wednesday, if you can believe it. That’s the magic of a short week. Your roundup today: Biden still walking back his Hate Speech; court orders White House and Fauci to turn over records and answer interrogatories under oath; Californians mull over the best way to fire their entire state government; the EU aims to flatten the next curve; another live on-air jab injury; Biden’s covid czar finds religion; a long-awaited study of the easiest possible way to check for jab injury; and some fun videos to brighten your day.
🔥 Ever since his Great Big Hate Speech, Biden has playing around with different formulations of “extreme MAGA Republicans,” trying to find one that doesn’t make him sound like the love child of Grandpa Simpson and Mussolini. Each iteration is weaker than the previous one, with the rhetorical strength wheezing out and the whole thing going flat, like air gushing out of an overinflated colostomy bag. The Former Senator published his latest clarification yesterday:
President Biden @POTUSI want to be clear: Not every Congressional Republican is a MAGA Republican. I know because I’ve been able to work with these mainstream Republicans. But an extreme set of MAGA Republicans in Congress have chosen to take us backwards. Together, we can choose a different path.September 6th 202219,078 Retweets121,253 Likes
Having already chucked “semi-fascist,” this time Joe dropped his “threat to democracy” language in favor of the milder version, “taking us backwards.” Going backwards is a lot less alarming than facing a “threat to democracy.” In many ways, backwards would be a relief for a lot of people.
Anyway, hopefully all this backtracking reassures people that Joe isn’t about to issue brown shirts to all those 87,000 new IRS agents and send them marching after us.
At least, not yet.
It was easy to see this coming. MAGA Republicans are only Joe’s current “threat of the year.” Last year, what worried Joe the most was the threat of “the unvaccinated.” And you saw how THAT one turned out.
I’ve been thinking we should organize a club or something, for everyone who’s been labeled a threat by the leader of the greatest superpower on planet Earth. As for me, I’m a veteran, a DOUBLE threat. I should at least get some badges or something. What do you think?
🔥 Yesterday, U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty compelled the White House and Doctor Fauci to respond to interrogatories and document requests in a First Amendment case filed in May by the Attorneys General of Missouri and Louisiana.
The case claims that the White House, Doctor Fauci, and other agencies in the federal government conspired to censor social media about covid-19, the Hunter Biden laptop, and election integrity. Can you believe that?
The Court, which by its order clearly understands the issues and what’s at stake, approved expedited discovery and swatted aside the government’s fantastical claim of executive privilege, since the AGs are only asking for communications between government officials like Fauci and the social media companies. There’s no such thing an executive privilege between a member of the executive branch and an outside party; to the extent it exists, the privilege only protects internal communications.
A lawsuit like this could not have been possible a year ago. But now, the judges have learned enough sketchy background information to be skeptical of government claims. So they’re starting to make the government follow the rules.
I saw the same thing happen during the late, great real estate collapse. Before 2008, when tall-building lawyers representing banks strutted into county courthouses, the local judges always deferred to them and accepted whatever the lawyers said as True with a capital-T. But after a couple years of finding out about wide-scale falsification of bank documents and affidavits, often involving the tall-building lawyers, the tide shifted, and it started becoming possible to beat the big banks in local court, since the judges started holding them to the same standards as everybody else.
It’s not that the courts became biased against the banks, they just leveled the playing field. And on a level playing field, it was easy to beat them. I think we’re entering that phase with government, where its tall-building lawyers aren’t getting any special advantages.
Absent a legitimate emergency (or an illegitimate emergency dressed up like one), and in the swale of news about official misfeasance or malfeasance, government defendants might not continue to enjoy the deference they are used to getting from courts.
If I’m right, and there’s a correction in court demeanor toward government officials, then it’s a whole new ball game, baby.
🔥 Californians are wondering if it’s possible to fire the entire state government this week, after last week’s advisory not to charge their electric cars for a while, after repeated “Amber alert” style warnings on their phones titled “Emergency alert: severe,” advising them to conserve energy for SAFETY — in other words, the psyops continue — and most appallingly, after learning that the power companies in Texas and Colorado have been stealthily adjusting people’s “free” smart-thermostats behind their backs — and then LOCKING THEM DOWN.
You read that right. Many consumers have Google’s NEST thermostats, which were given to them “for free” by their power companies to get a teeny-tiny discount or rebate or something. In Texas, people didn’t even get a rebate, they just got “entered in a sweepstakes to win a $5,000 credit” toward their power bill. Suckers! There’s one born every minute. Look how many voted for Biden, for instance.
The problem seems to be that the fine print in the terms and conditions of service allow the power companies take over your thermostat and decide FOR YOU what the temperature in your house should be. They can — and HAVE — lock the thermostat so you can’t move it back. After their thermostats wondrously adjusted THEMSELVES up to 78 degrees — which is even hot down here in Florida — here’s what 22,000 Coloradans saw on their cool little internet-connected NEST screens:
Emergency! It’s a magic word, like “abracadabra” or “crucio” from Harry Potter. If you wave your hands and say “emergency!”, you can do anything. Even fly. But mostly you can force your fellow citizens to be extremely uncomfortable till they do whatever you want. Worst of all, these programs have quietly crept into the fine print in a whole bunch of states, including California.
Right now, it says you can “opt-out.” Good luck. But you know what comes NEST, I mean next.
If you don’t have a NEST, for heaven’s sakes do not get one. Don’t fall for it! If you were even THINKING about getting a NEST, go wash your eyeballs with rubbing alcohol, and stop it, right now. If you DO have a NEST, you should upgrade it immediately to a 1950’s-style dialed-up version. Just be sure to not to talk about removing NEST beforehand, at least not in hearing distance of the thing, and when you do carve it out, use thick rubber gloves and eye shields to defeat the electric self-defense systems.
Now I think about it, you might just want to eschew ALL “internet connected” devices until we get a better government. Why do light bulbs need to be connected to the internet anyways?
Seriously, though, NEST must fail as a brand because of this. Sorry, Google. We need to boycott these “smart devices” now, before they become mandates. NEST should have provided a button to opt-out right from the cute little screen, not refer you to an unresponsive email address. But it’s obviously designed for mandates.
Anyway, Californians are seriously un-gruntled about all the new “emergency” power regulations. They’re fretfully musing about how the state government has shut down the nuclear plants, gambled billions on pitiful solar and wind systems, mandated electron-guzzling electric cars, and wound down several perfectly functional natural gas plants, but now they can’t even make enough power to run a window a/c unit.
Gavin Newsom @GavinNewsomCALIFORNIA: We’re now in a Flex Alert. What does that mean? We all need to conserve as much energy as possible during this record breaking heatwave. Here’s what to do until 9pm tonight: – Set thermostats to 78 – Turn off unnecessary lights – Avoid using large appliancesSeptember 7th 20222,279 Retweets10,104 Likes
Believe me, Californians are painfully aware that ALL gas cars will be banned in their state just seven years from now. They’re starting to realize that they haven’t seen ANY official analysis of exactly how much power the Golden State will need to run all those electric cars during the middle of the summer. Why wouldn’t the elite officials and their experts calculate that particularly helpful figure? Seems like political malpractice. How many new wind turbines will the state need? Will there be ANY birds left? Worst come to worst, doesn’t it take years and years it take to build a new nuclear plant?
And if they can shut down your thermostat … can they shut down your electric car? Just asking.
🔥 Hahahahahaha! The European Union is proposing a “mandatory target for reducing electricity use at peak hours” .. to “flatten the curve:”
Disclose.tv @disclosetvNOW – EU will propose a “mandatory target for reducing electricity use at peak hours” in order to “flatten the curve.” September 7th 20222,837 Retweets6,940 Likes
The experts are overjoyed. New mandates! Novel curves! Remember how well flattening the curve worked last time? Get ready, Europeans. Here come the mandates, so just try to relax into it.
💉 On Saturday, fully-vaccinated Oklahoma news anchor Julie Chin suffered a mild stroke on TV during the middle of a live, on-air report:
Mike Sington @MikeSingtonTulsa news anchor Julie Chin has the beginnings of a stroke live on the air. She knew something was wrong, so tossed it to the meteorologist, as her concerned colleagues called 911. She’s fine now, but wanted to share her experience to educate viewers on stroke warning signs. September 5th 20221,395 Retweets6,465 Likes
Chin later posted on Facebook, “The past few days are still a little bit of a mystery, but my doctors believe I had the beginnings of a stroke live on the air Saturday morning. Some of you witnessed it firsthand, and I’m so sorry that happened.”
“The episode seemed to have come out of nowhere. I felt great before our show,” she continued, going on to describe a handful of alarming and difficult symptoms that suddenly and unexpectedly began as soon as the newscast started.
“First, I lost partial vision in one eye,” Chin explained. “A little bit later my hand and arm went numb. Then, I knew I was in big trouble when my mouth would not speak the words that were right in front of me on the teleprompter. If you were watching Saturday morning, you know how desperately I tried to steer the show forward, but the words just wouldn’t come.”
As of Monday, Julie was in the hospital and reportedly recovering well. “At this point, doctors think I had the beginnings of a stroke, but not a full stroke,” Chin said on Facebook. “There are still lots of questions, and lots to follow up on, but the bottom line is I should be just fine.”
We hope her medical problems are completely resolved and do not recur.
💉 During a recent covid-19 team press briefing, Biden’s covid advisor Ashish Jha said he “truly believe[s] this is why God gave us two arms — one for the flu shot and the other one for the COVID shot.”
I am not making that up.
Disclose.tv @disclosetvNOW – Biden COVID advisor Ashish Jha believes “God gave us two arms — one for the flu shot and the other one for the COVID shot.” September 6th 20221,829 Retweets5,028 Likes
I heard through the grapevine that Jha is having a special rosary made, with beads shaped like little spike proteins. Every ten beads, you have to take a booster shot.
💉 Finally! I’ve been waiting FOREVER for someone to do a comparative blood study of jabbed versus unjabbed blood, and yesterday, the Epoch Times — which has been tearing the vaccines a new one lately — ran a story headlined, “Study Found ‘Foreign Metal-Like Objects’ in 94 Percent of Sample Group of Symptomatic People Who Took mRNA Vaccines: Italian Doctors.”
The sub-head explains, “Among a study sample of over 1,000 people who developed symptoms, researchers found ‘graphene-family super-structures’.”
The study published in the International Journal of Vaccine Theory, Practice, and Research last month, and is titled “Dark-Field Microscopic Analysis on the Blood of 1,006 Symptomatic Persons After Anti-COVID mRNA Injections from Pfizer/BioNtech or Moderna.”
Out of 1,006 patients analyzed, researchers found only 58 had a normal blood profile. In other words, 95% of the thousand patients had abnormal blood following the injections. The researchers had access to pre-injection blood samples so were able to accurately compare the patients’ blood before/after.
This is a mild example of what they found in one of the 950 of cases:
Before Injection After Injection
The study explained the visible differences:
In other words, in the “after” image, the patient’s blood cells look “sticky,” which is exactly what you don’t want. Blood cells should be smooth and easily slide off each other. Sticky blood leads to clumping which leads to clotting. Blood cells should also be nicely disc-shaped, but the “after” photo shows the blood cells assuming a variety of distorted shapes. Discs are designed to easily slide through veins and capillaries. When the cells are oddly and unevenly shaped, they can hook onto each other, blocking veins and capillaries.
There’s also a weird structure visible in the “after” picture. The researchers noted such abnormal structures were common in the samples. They found these aberrant structures in three main types: smooth “butterfly-like” structures, complex crystalline structures, and tubular structures. They also noted the presence of what appear to be graphene particles interacting with blood cells:
None of the structures or particulates were present in the patients’ “before” blood samples.
Here’s the study’s conclusion, which speaks for itself:
I’d be remiss if I didn’t highlight the fact that the 1,006 study participants were all experiencing symptoms of vaccine injury, so these results aren’t evidence of what anyone is facing who took the injections and feels fine. But it’s very significant anyway, providing evidence of CAUSATION between the jabs and the variety of strange illnesses people are suddenly and unexpectedly experiencing after taking the shots.
In other words, Sudden Adult Death Syndrome might be a little less baffling now. This kind of study is easy to reproduce. If the researchers are wrong, they could be disproven in a few days. If only we had a giant, well-funded health bureaucracy that could follow up on something like this, dangit.
💉 I can’t believe I missed this. I finally got around to watching Dr. Peter McCullough’s interview with Alex Jones, and he pointed out something that is notably missing from Fauci’s self-congratulatory resignation letter. Although I’d noticed some other things that were notably absent, this is a HUGE one.
The old puppy-torturer’s special letter doesn’t mention covid at all.
It’s highly telling. Covid should have been the capstone to a long and distinguished career. But he left it out. Especially when combined with Fauci’s abrupt about-face on his recent commitment to see out the Biden administration, it really makes you think. What does he know?
Still: Bye, Felicia!
🔥 First, to make you chuckle, the DeSantis campaign is CRUSHING IT with their ads:
DeSantis War Room @DeSantisWarRoom🌶️ @CharlieCrist and Democrats say “Hola, my Latinx brethren”🌮 September 6th 2022276 Retweets1,091 Likes
And finally, to sweeten your day a little, here’s the best campaign ad ever from Team DeSantis, except maybe “Sweet, Sweet Florida”:
Benny Johnson @bennyjohnsonRon DeSantis just dropped the best ad of 2022. This is pure 🔥 Watch and you will get chills… September 6th 20227,180 Retweets29,827 Likes
Have a wonderful Wednesday! I’ll see ya’ll back here tomorrow for more spicy Greek food, I mean more spicy C&C news and commentary.
C&C is moving the needle and changing minds. If you can, I could use your help getting the truth out and spreading optimism and hope: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/-learn-how-to-get-involved-
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The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
From Jack Knocke, CCDF USA Nassau
9-6-22
| Thank you so much to everyone who attended one or more of our events last Thursday. We had a Pastor Breakfast, a Private Fundraiser Lunch and the main event with the movie and speakers. After our local events Thursday, the speakers traveled to Savannah to do it all over again. I’m going to do a brief summary here and follow up this week with more information. A huge shout out to all of the volunteers who spent time setting up, greeting, cooking, organizing and cleaning up! Many thanks to Fernandina Beach First Baptist for allowing us to use the facility throughout the day. The entire First Baptist team is awesome. Thanks also to the many folks who contributed to CCDF-NASSAU. We are still short of of $50k goal, so please consider giving today so that we can officially launch CCDF-Nassau. Spending 3 days with our speakers was a tremendous blessing to me personally. I wish we had more time for every one of you to interact with each speaker. They are each so passionate about saving America, exposing bad actors, driving awareness of corruption, and fighting the war on God that seeks to separate us from our core values. KCarl Smith rocked the house in Savannah on Friday with his message of unity around the Fredrick Douglass Life Empowering Values. We should all read up more about Fredrick Douglass – a former slave who taught himself through reading, authored several books, and advised 5 US presidents. Steve Maxwell as the Founder and National Chairman of CCDFUSA, not only explained the CCDF model and why it is so important, but he gave private insights to smaller groups demonstrating how CCDF is leveraging our local communities to make a difference nationally. We must establish full-time, professionally managed groups in the counties to correct the problems and protect freedoms going forward – long term. Matt & Joy Thayer the Director and Producer of [S]election Code movie shared so many of their personal experiences that I don’t even know where to begin. The [S]election Code movie very clearly showed how election machines are manipulating elections. (See the Local teams may feel they have physical security, but once data is in the machines, it can and is being manipulated. Matt’s training, in the film industry, included training on propaganda. You can easily tell he is not the only one who received that training. When you look at what Hollywood produces, what Disney is now promoting, what social media blocks vs. promotes and how our news media manipulates messages, you can see why people are confused on what to believe. Based on 2000 Mules, [S]election Code and the follow up data releases that have been coming out, there was clearly election fraud in 2020. More will continue to come out over the next weeks and months. |
| Now for the mic drop – it is happening here in Nassau County. This is not just a national issue. Seth Keshel went through the Nassau County 2020 voting results and found some startling observations that there were likely 3,500 excess Biden votes cast in the 2020 election – IN NASSAU COUNTY. In the movie, they call it point shaving – a little from every county. He also focused on Precinct 302 to show an example of some very strange results that warrant additional research to identify the source of the excess votes. |
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| Bottom line is that we need local residents to get involved. We are focused on freedom and transparency in elections & with elected officials, in our schools and in following the money. This is a team effort. CCDFUSA-Nassau is building the team. We need all types of players – volunteers, leaders, organizers, and contributors. We ask a little bit from everyone to make this work. Please use the link below to sign up as an Ambassador to stay informed and hopefully get involved in some way. We ask, if possible, that you sign up to donate on a monthly recurring basis. This will be very helpful to the Nassau County team for planning purposes. Give us one year…if we don’t do what we say we’ll do, we will never ask you for another cent. But when we do what we say we’ll do, we ask you to stay with us long term. This didn’t get broken overnight and it’s going to take time to repair it but together, WE CAN DO THIS! Will you join us in taking back your county? |
| God Bless, CCDF-USA Nassau |
Press Release
Baptist Health
09-06-22
Jacksonville, Fla., September 6, 2022 – Kimberly M. Jones, MBA, has been promoted to Senior Vice President and Chief Philanthropy Officer of the Baptist Health Foundation. Jones is succeeding Michael D. Aubin, Baptist Health’s current Chief Philanthropy Officer, who will retire on October 3, 2022.  Jones joined the Baptist Health Foundation in May 2022 as the Associate Chief Philanthropy Officer, bringing more than two decades of experience in philanthropy and donor engagement in the non-profit sector. Deeply rooted in the First Coast community, Jones previously served as the Chief Development Officer for UF College of Medicine – Jacksonville and Assistant Vice President for UF Health Jacksonville where she was responsible for all fundraising, engagement and development strategies and efforts across the continuum of donors. Before that, she held successive leadership positions at Jacksonville University (JU), where she successfully completed a $120 million comprehensive fundraising campaign in collaboration with trustees, alumni, friends and faculty. Prior to JU, she was the Director of Community Engagement at Feeding Northeast Florida. “Kimberly believes that philanthropy plays a vital role in fueling the growth and innovation required to improve the health and well-being of our community,” said Michael A. Mayo, DHA, FACHE, President and CEO of Baptist Health. “She is a mission-driven leader with a gift for building and sustaining relationships. I know she is looking forward to working with our generous donors to Baptist Health and Wolfson Children’s Hospital.” Jones is active in numerous community organizations, including World Affairs Council, The Community Foundation for Northeast Florida and St. Paul’s Catholic Church. She is immediate past chair of The Discovery School Board, and a member of Leadership Jacksonville’s class of 2022. She attended the University of Florida where she earned her Bachelor of Science in Public Relations and received her Master of Business Administration from the University of North Florida. ### About Baptist HealthBaptist Health is a faith-based, mission-driven system in Northeast Florida comprised of Baptist Medical Center Jacksonville; Baptist Medical Center Beaches; Baptist Medical Center Nassau; Baptist Medical Center South and Wolfson Children’s Hospital – the region’s only children’s hospital. All Baptist Health hospitals have achieved Magnet™ status for excellence in patient care. Baptist Health is part of Coastal Community Health, a highly integrated regional hospital network focused on significant initiatives designed to enhance the quality and value of care provided to our contiguous communities. Baptist Health has the area’s only dedicated heart hospital; orthopedic institute; women’s services; neurological institute, including comprehensive neurosurgical services, a comprehensive stroke center and two primary stroke centers; a Bariatric Center of Excellence; a full range of psychology and psychiatry services; urgent care services; primary and specialty care physicians’ offices throughout Northeast Florida; and Baptist Home Health Care by BAYADA. The Baptist MD Anderson Cancer Center is a regional destination for multidisciplinary cancer care, which is clinically integrated with the MD Anderson Cancer Center, the internationally renowned cancer treatment and research institution in Houston. For more details, visit baptistjax.com. |
By Jeff Childers
I hope you all had a joyful and rewarding Labor Day, and Happy Tuesday C&C! I took the day off yesterday, slept in, recharged the sarcasm batteries, and so forth, and was all set to write a long-form essay called “Kirsch’s War” today when current events washed over the blog in a giant news tsunami just like NASA’s secret weather machine went on the fritz.
Steve Kirsch is on a rampage, and the C&C Army is going to help him, but given the pace of events, I’ll have to get to that tomorrow. Your roundup today includes: big win for Trump in the Biden raid case; a big win for Trump in the J6 Committee’s case against the RNC; new Ivermectin study finds 92% mortality improvement and Brazilian feds indicted the lead researcher; Russia cuts off Europe’s gas; worldwide civil unrest tops the charts; sanctions keep backfiring; signs of life in Chile; Jane Fonda gets blood cancer; and Fetterman’s stroke stops debate.
🔥 Judging by the heartbroken and outraged reactions found in the lefty TDS-fever swamps on Twitter, Trump’s lawyers scored a significant victory Friday when the federal judge in Miami granted Trump’s motion to appoint a special master over the raid, and also halted the FBI’s investigation until the special master has been selected, hired, and has completed his review.
On an aside, you know, it’s just heartbreaking that there’s not an mRNA vaccine for TDS yet. We need another Operation Warp Speed.
Judge Aileen Cannon’s 24-page order is quite informative. She reviewed the actual history of the raid and noted the vast amount of material taken during the raid: “agents seized approximately 11,000 documents and 1,800 other items from the office and storage room[,]” including, by the FBI’s own admission, “personal effects without evidentiary value and… upwards of 500 pages of material potentially subject to attorney-client privilege.”
Here’s a link if you want to read it for yourself: https://tinyurl.com/4yfv6wam.
Judge Cannon thoughtfully and carefully rejected the government’s arguments about Trump’s lack of standing to request a master, and the argument that former presidents can’t invoke executive privilege if the sitting president waived that privilege. The judge found the law unsettled regarding the second question.
She then questioned the government’s approach to reviewing the seized documents, noting that on at least two occasions, the FBI’s ‘taint team’ initially failed to catch privileged material. Even though investigators subsequently noticed the privileged nature of the documents and returned them to the ‘taint team,’ the investigators who were exposed to the sensitive material were not removed from the reviewing team, so the harm has been done.
Judge Cannon ordered the parties to confer and submit a proposed list of special masters, so she can select one, and more importantly, she issued an injunction shutting down the FBI’s continued review until the special master is appointed and can finish their work.
The practical effect of the order is that it will prevent the raid from being used to arrest Trump before the midterms. But maybe even more significant, Trump’s lawyers now have a neutral judge involved in the case, and not just a magistrate who has blasted Trump on his Facebook page.
Unsurprisingly, the government is distinctly not happy about the decision, and said it is “reviewing the options.”
You can tell how bad this is for team FBI by how violently the left reacted to the notion that a neutral third party should be allowed to supervise the unprecedented public investigation of a former U.S. president. The lefties don’t even know who the special master will be, but they are already freaking out about it. Which tells you everything you need to know.
Great job, Trump team.
🔥 In another win for Trump, late last week the J6 Committee dropped its most ambitious subpoena, the one seeking all the RNC’s donor information. The UK Daily Mail reported that the J6 Committee formally withdrew its subpoena for fundraising information from the Republican National Committee and President Trump.
The Daily Mail explained that “the subpoena issued earlier this year sought records from Salesforce on the performance metrics and analytics related to email campaigns from Donald Trump, his reelection campaign and the RNC,” which includes personally identifiable information about most, if not all, major Republican donors.
“We said all along that this subpoena was unconstitutional,” RNC spokeswoman Emma Vaughn said after the subpoena was withdrawn. “This is a victory for freedom of speech, privacy, and Americans’ right of political association without fear of partisan reprisal.”
Notably, the decision to drop the request came after beetle-like Liz Cheney’s profound re-election defeat to Harriet Hageman in Wyoming, and after the announcement by the other Republican turncoat on the committee, Adam Kinzinger, of his retirement from politics. Which leaves the Committee with NO “bipartisan” cover.
So.
💊 You may have seen articles this weekend about a new peer-reviewed study of over 80,000 patients taking Ivermectin in Brazil, published in Cureus, titled “Regular Use of Ivermectin as Prophylaxis for COVID-19 Led Up to a 92% Reduction in COVID-19 Mortality Rate in a Dose-Response Manner: Results of a Prospective Observational Study of a Strictly Controlled Population of 88,012 Subjects.”
In short, and unsurprisingly, the researchers found a blockbuster NINETY-TWO PERCENT reduction in mortality from covid in the group taking Ivermectin as opposed to the group not taking the drug.
What you may not have heard is that they are now going after the lead researcher on the study, Flavio Cadegiani. Brazilian police indicted the scientist for “crimes against humanity,” for conducting a 2021 study on a chloroquine-like drug in the Amazon. Ironically, they alleged Flavio failed to get full informed consent from his patients.
I know. The irony. You can’t make this stuff up.
The charges are that 200 of Flavio’s 600 study patents died during the study, which sounds pretty awful. But Flavio defends that outcome, pointing out that at the time, hospitals in the Amazon were experiencing 50% covid mortality. So Flavio says his study actually showed a benefit. And he says his study was pre-approved by government agencies before he began.
It can’t possibly be that they are weaponizing law enforcement against the researcher because he wrote about Ivermectin. That would be bonkers. Be serious.
🔥 In a totally predictable story which corporate media is pretending took them completely by surprise, the Financial Times ran an article yesterday headlined, “Russia Switches Off Europe’s Main Gas Pipeline Until Sanctions Are Lifted.”
You’ll recall that Russia warned them, twice, both times claiming it couldn’t get spare parts “because of sanctions” and so had to reduce the natural gas flow first to 40%, then to 20%, but Europe was just going around, fat and happy, pretending like it never got the overdue notices.
The elites just can’t understand this move, not at all. First of all, they’ve never even KNOWN anyone who’s had their power cut off before. They think having the power cut off is a MORAL failure. Since elites believe Europeans are morally superior to Russians, this power-cutting-off is an outrage! It’s defamation! It’s disgustingly inequitable. It’s backwards, the opposite of equity. It’s non-equity! And even worse, it’s socially unjust or something. (I can’t follow the lefty logic.)
According to the Times, the Kremlin abruptly announced that Russia’s gas supplies to Europe through the NordStream 1 pipeline won’t — can’t — be fully reconnected until the “collective west” lifts sanctions against Moscow over the invasion of Ukraine. The announcement went something like this, “European comrades do not pay bill, do not make arrangement, and always call Russian people bad names. So have no choice but cut gas, very sorry.”
Corporate media and ignorant politicians in this country think it is patently unfair for Russia to stop selling its gas to Europe, just because of a few sanctions between friendly countries. Here’s a hilarious example from the article of how out-of-touch the elites are:
Hahahahaha! I can’t believe they actually printed that horse hockey. Please. These guys are giving me too much material.
What do these dummies think “sanctions” are? Hey, Europeans! You guys cut the Russians off from a bunch of stuff, like SWIFT, and now the Russians are sanctioning you back. YOU STARTED IT. Say what you want about the Russians, but at least they aren’t going around whining about their sanctions like the Europeans and lefty politicians in America.
Europe, you want to fight with the big boys? Get out of that dress, put some real shoes on, and take your sanctions like a man. Quit crying about them, you big babies.
Germany, which was particularly surprised by the announcement while gayly frolicking at a leatherwear ‘festival’ or something, will be hardest hit. Already suffering from crippling energy inflation, with prices having skyrocketed up to ten times since the beginning of the year, the country’s citizens face truly astronomical energy bills as it heads into a frigid winter.
Elites aren’t affected by energy prices too much, because if their power bill goes from $500 a month to $5,000 a month, they don’t really even notice. For heaven’s sake, their next cut out of the Ukraine cash grab is over a hundred times that much. But the average German can’t afford the rates where they are now, much less where rates are headed.
In other words, a lot of ordinary Germans are going to have THEIR gas cut off for not paying their bills. So far, German elites have elevated principle over practical politics, sacrificing its citizens to boost the West’s suicidal Ukraine policy. How long the Germans will put up with this remains unclear.
They aren’t completely quiescent though. Signs of life are sprouting up. For example, German social media influencer Kim DotCom (1M followers) retweeted this post by Lebanese influencer Sarah Abdallah (300K followers), about French protests to get out of NATO:
Sarah Abdallah @sahouraxoThis is HUGE. People all over Europe are starting to resist the NATO proxy war. “Let’s get out of NATO!” shout tens of thousands of French people in the streets of Paris yesterday. September 4th 202211,341 Retweets34,936 Likes
You’ve heard about the French protests to get out of NATO, haven’t you? Haha, just kidding. Of COURSE you haven’t. That’s the wrong kind of civil unrest for corporate media. They don’t like reporting THAT kind.
But there’s a lot of that kind of unrest going around.
🔥 On Friday, Business Insider ran a story headlined, “Risk of Civil Unrest Surging in More Than Half of the World’s Countries, Analysis Says.”
Verisk Maplecroft, which sounds like a character from a James Bond movie, is a UK-based risk consulting and intelligence firm. Among other things, it calculates a ‘risk’ of civil unrest score, using variables like inflation levels, how countries respond to dissent, and how devastating an impact civil unrest could have on a country’s infrastructure.
In its latest report, published last Thursday, over half the countries on its Civil Unrest Index (101 of 198) increased their risk of civil unrest between the second and third quarters of this year. In other words, the natives are getting restless. “Although there have been several high-profile and large-scale protests during the first half of 2022, the worst is undoubtedly yet to come,” the report noted, in a somber British accent.
Apparently this is another one of those “firsts” we’ve been seeing so often lately. Maplecroft said it has never before seen levels of civil unrest risk this high, not since it began tracking the index. Now, keep in mind this index is a “model;” they aren’t calculating high UNREST, they’re scoring high RISK of unrest. It’s a bad sign, but it’s not reality, not yet.
Predictably, the report blames the problem on the Russians for invading Ukraine, which is like blaming kids’ learning losses on covid. Of COURSE it’s not the war. Covid over-reactions, U.S. sanctions, and the nearly-universal cooperation with those sanctions by Western countries have all plunged the world into unprecedented rates of civil unrest risk.
And before you light up the comments section, I am NOT arguing the U.S. “shouldn’t have done anything” about Russia invading Ukraine. But I AM saying that Biden should have “done something” that DIDN’T cause worldwide inflation, energy crises, and civil unrest.
But maybe that’s setting the bar too high for him? I don’t mean to be unfair.
🔥 The Daily Mail ran an informative infographic over the weekend that illustrates the profound irony of Russia sanctions, by comparing various economic metrics in the UK to the same ones in Russia:
The sanctions are going SO great. Who came up with these sanctions again? Oh, that’s right, a demented nursing home patient. Weird that it’s backfiring, right?
And it’s just as interesting that the UK media is noticing.
🔥 Stay hopeful. Fox News ran an article over the weekend headlined, “Chile Voters Overwhelmingly Reject Left-Wing Constitution: ‘A Path of Hope’.”
I was just talking recently about how, although we are living through historically unprecedented times, human history is consistent about one thing: social movements always correct themselves.
The gist of the Fox story is that, during the pandemic, Chile elected lefty president president Gabriel Boric, 36, its youngest president in history. Boric ran on an idealistic platform of “reforming” the country’s constitution to add a bunch of wacky leftwing stuff, you can imagine, jam-packed with “social issues,” “gender equity,” and “climate fairness.”
Voting on the constitutional referendum was mandatory, which explains the 96% turnout and never-ending lines at polling locations. After Sunday’s vote, the faction to reject the new constitution won with nearly 62% support, compared to about 38% who voted in favor.
It’s not clear what happens next, because a majority of Chileans still favor changing the current constitution. But the rejection of the leftwing fantasy-constitution is a start. It’s progress.
💉 Communist sympathizer and activist Jane Fonda, 84, who famously labeled covid as “the best thing that ever happened to the Left,” and who enthusiastically advocated for vaccine mandates, announced this weekend she has been newly diagnosed with Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma and has started chemo treatment.
Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma is a blood cancer, usually in the immune cells, that tends to grow in the lymph nodes. It’s another weird coincidence, given the nature of jab injuries.
Fonda says she remains optimistic and we wish her a speedy recovery.
💉 Corporate media have been sniping at each other over the propriety of criticizing candidate John Fetterman for announcing he could not debate Dr. Oz because he is “still recovering” from the sudden and unexpected stroke that he had back IN MAY.
Now, I can remember when, back in the good old days, about two years ago, it was good sport and perfectly fair to discuss in great detail the health status of politicians and candidates for political office. You know, like if somebody’s neurological problems prevent them from even debating the issues, how can they properly represent their state on those issues in the rough-and-tumble of the Senate?
Well, here in post-pandemia, questions like that are mean or unfeeling or shine too much light on things that are better left buried. It’s out of bounds. Don’t. Even. Ask.
Have a terrific Tuesday! I’ll see you back here tomorrow with another great roundup.
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The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
By Michael Hernandez
Biden: Trumpism threatens democracy
By The Associated Press (Sept. 2)
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — President Joe Biden warned Thursday night that “equality and democracy are under assault” in the U.S. as he sounded an alarm about his predecessor, Donald Trump, and “MAGA Republican” adherents, labeling them an extremist threat to the nation and its future.
Aiming to reframe the November elections as part of a battle for the nation’s soul — “the work of my presidency,” Biden used his prime-time speech at Independence Hall in Philadelphia to argue that Trump and “Make America Great Again” allies are a challenge to nation’s system of government, its standing abroad and its citizens’ way of life.
White House accuses Trump supporters of posing an extremist threat” CHARLIE SPIERING (Aug 31) Breitbart News
The White House denounced supporters of President Donald Trump on Wednesday, accusing them of posing an “extremist threat to our democracy.”
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre began the daily briefing by condemning Republican leaders for their dangerous rhetoric but also said that President Joe Biden believed supporters of former President Donald Trump were also a threat.
“Let me be very clear, it’s not just Republican leadership, it’s not just that blanket right?” she said to reporters. “He’s talking about an extreme portion, an extreme part of the party.”
Biden threatens his political enemies with U.S. F-15 jets WR HAWKINS (Aug 31) Breitbart News
President Joe Biden again threatened his political enemies via the mention of F-15 jets, this time during his Tuesday speech in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.
Breitbart News reported on how Biden mocked Americans who believe owning AR-15s and similar rifles provides them a way to defend their liberty.
He said, “For those brave right-wing Americans who say it’s all about keeping America independent and safe, if you want to fight against the country, you need an F-15, you need something a little more than a gun.”
This is not the first time Biden has seemed to talk of pitting F-15s against his political enemies. He did it in February 2020, while on the campaign trail, and he did it again in June 2021, just months after taking office.
On February 10, 2020, Breitbart News noted Biden letting gun owners know that their AR-15s and AK-47s are no match for the government’s F-15s.
He said, “Those who say ‘the tree of liberty is watered with the blood of patriots’ — a great line, well, guess what: The fact is, if you’re going to take on the government, you need an F-15 with Hellfire Missiles. There is no way an AK-47 is going to take care of you, if you’re worried about the government knocking down your door.”
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2022/08/31/joe-biden-threatens-political-enemies-f-15-jets/
FBI agents want Director Christopher Wray gone
By Mark Moore (August 31) New York Post
FBI Director Christopher Wray has lost the confidence of rank-and-file FBI agents after a senior bureau official left under a cloud of accusations that he shielded Hunter Biden’s laptop from a criminal probe — and some believe the top G-man should step down, a new report says.
“I’m hearing from [FBI personnel] that they feel like the director has lost control of the bureau,” Kurt Siuzdak, a lawyer representing FBI whistleblowers, told the Washington Times in a report published Tuesday. “They’re saying, ‘How does this guy survive? He’s leaving. He’s got to leave.’
“[The FBI agents] are telling me they have lost confidence in Wray. All Wray does is go in and say ‘We need more training and we’re doing stuff about it,’ or ‘We will not tolerate it,’” Siuzdak said.
His comments come in the wake of Timothy Thibault, the top agent in charge of the FBI field office in Washington, either resigning or being forced out the door amid claims he blocked investigations into the first son’s laptop.
Thibault was escorted out of the field office last Friday by “headquarters-looking types,” the Washington Times reported.
Siuzdak told The Post that he left the bureau in March after a 25-year career, because management failed to hold bosses accountable, a problem that stems from politicization at the highest levels of the agency.
He told the Times that the whistleblowers have alleged that Wray, who was appointed by President Donald Trump in 2017, did not take action when confronted with issues inside the bureau that ranged from agents being forced to sign false affidavits to sexual harassment claims.
https://nypost.com/2022/08/31/fbi-agents-say-christopher-wray-has-got-to-go-report/
Pro baseball teams promote child sex change operations WARNER TODD HUSTON (Aug 31) Breitbart News
An analysis by National Review shows an unseemly trend among 20 Major League Baseball teams supporting organizations that perform sex change operations on children.
The magazine reviewed the causes and organizations to which these teams are handing out millions of dollars in donations and found that many support sex-change surgery, hormone treatments, and other dangerous procedures for “transitioning” teens and pre-teens.
National Review found that almost every team in the league “promote or fund groups that encourage or provide sex-change procedures and gender-transition hormone treatment for minors as young as 12. Other organizations promote ‘social transitions’ — i.e., nonmedical changes in ‘gender expression,’ including the adoption of new names, pronouns, and clothing — for children as young as three.”
Much of the support these teams are lending is organized under the rubric of the widespread LGBTQ “Pride Nights” that the league pushes.
“It’s a classic case of institutional capture by the Left,” the magazine concluded. It is up to the fans to speak out and urge the league to reverse course on this outrageous advocacy.
Biden Administration: No one “walks over’ the border
By Lindsay Kornick (August 29) Fox News
Fox News’ Peter Doocy stumped White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre over the border crisis, Twitter users declared on Monday.
“But that’s not it’s not like somebody walks over and-” Jean-Pierre stammered. “That’s exactly what’s happening,” Doocy repeated. Social media users attacked the press secretary for once again failing to properly answer a question and misleading on the border crisis.
Former acting ICE director Tom Homan argued on Aug. 18 that the border crisis under President Biden is one of the largest he has seen in over 35 years. Customs and Border Protection recorded over 2 million migrant crosses within the fiscal year of 2022, doubling the number from 2021.
Democrats “Out to Get” Trump “any way possible”
By Charles Kim (August 29) Newsmax
Dick Morris, political activist and adviser to former presidents Donald Trump and Bill Clinton, told Newsmax on Monday that the Democrats are using federal agencies like the FBI and IRS to “get” Trump “any way possible.”
“I think the Democrats realized [they can’t beat Trump at the polls] and they decided to abstain from the political process and just use the control of the FBI and the IRS, and the various government agencies, to hound Trump out of office, and hopefully indict him, and make it illegal for him to run,” Morris said during “American Agenda” on Monday. “It won’t work, but we’re going to go through it. They’re going to indict Trump on any grounds they can.”
Morris said the recent FBI raid on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, was “a fishing expedition” to find something incriminating on the former president.
Morris said Democrats will almost definitely find a reason to indict Trump to drive him from the American political stage.
“That’s why they did the search warrant,” Morris said. “That’s why they’re harassing him as much as they can. It’s of a piece [that] they’re going after his family, going after his children, going after his business, and groups that supported him.
“All that harassment is of a piece with the desire to go outside of the political realm and get rid of Donald Trump by any means possible.”
https://www.newsmax.com/newsmax-tv/morris-trump-democrats/2022/08/29/id/1085105/
California set to allow abortions up to one month after birth
By Jordan Sekulow (August 31) ACLJ.org
The ACLJ has just taken action today to put California’s extreme abortion supporting Governor Gavin Newsom on notice for a disgusting new bill he’s likely about to sign.
“We’re talking about California legislation AB 2223,” said ACLJ Senior Counsel CeCe Heil and “it’s the abortion legislation that included the perinatal language…We’ve been reporting on this ghoulish bill from its inception and, as we’ve warned you before, this bill could legalize infanticide up to 28 days after the baby is born (the perinatal period).
“Now the California legislature just passed the vile legislation into the night. We got notice from the legislature after 11 p.m. PST. Now it heads to Governor Gavin Newsom to be signed into law. If he does, it could allow instances of infanticide, actually preventing any kind of investigation where a newborn baby dies.
“Using the term ‘perinatal’—which is not the same as ‘prenatal” (before birth) is clearly intentional. Perinatal sounds like prenatal but it’s different. Prenatal refers to the baby in the womb. Perinatal can refer to a baby up to one month after birth. It’s outrageous.
“You can read our very detailed legal analysis where we break down how this bill and its use of “perinatal” instead of “prenatal” could essentially legalize infanticide. We have sent numerous legal letters to the legislature warning about the horrors this could unleash in California.
“In addition, we just sent a legal letter this afternoon directly to Governor Newsom’s office laying out exactly why the bill is depraved and deceptive and urging him not to sign it. As ACLJ Policy Director Harry Hutchison pointed out, this legislation could have far-reaching consequences beyond California.”
Our Hope
California District Court rules against mandatory abortion coverage
By Michael Hernandez (Aug. 27) CitizensJournal.net
SACRAMENTO—A U.S. District Court issued a ruling after an eight-year legal battle that California churches and universities cannot be forced by the California Department of Managed Healthcare to cover abortions. The ruling was issued Wednesday, Aug. 24 by California’s Eastern District (one of four U.S. Districts in California) Chief Justice Kimberly J. Mueller—a Barack H. Obama appointee.
The three California churches that brought forth the lawsuit against California through Alliance Defending Freedom were Foothill Church in Glendora (Lead Pastor Chris Lewis), Calvary Chapel of Chino Hills (Pastor Jack Hibbs), and The Shepherd of the Hills Church in Porter Ranch (Lead Pastor Dudley Rutherford).
The significance of this 1st Amendment case: Was whether the state can force churches to violate their religious beliefs by requiring them to cover elective abortion in their health plans.
The Key Points:
Five Key Facts:
“For years, California has unconstitutionally targeted faith-based organizations, so we’re pleased the court has found this mandate unconstitutional and will allow the churches we represent to operate freely according to their religious beliefs,” said ADF Senior Counsel Jeremiah Galus.
“Because Obamacare requires health insurance coverage, and the California mandate requires abortion coverage in any health plan, these churches are truly left with no way to opt out of paying for abortions,” said Galus. “What’s absurd, though, is that the same government that rightfully does not require California churches to pay for contraceptive coverage requires them to pay for elective abortion coverage. Californians should not be forced to choose between following their deepest convictions and submitting to unlawful and unnecessary government mandates.
“Elective abortions are not part of ‘basic health care,’” said Galus. “They have no business being forced into the medical coverage provided by churches that do not wish to support terminating lives due to very real, sincere, and well-known faith convictions.”
(Michael Hernandez, co-founder of the Citizens Journal—Ventura County’s online news service is a former Southern California daily newspaper journalist and religion and news editor. Mr. Hernandez can be contacted at [email protected] and is editor of “America: The End and Our Hope”.)
Col. Allen West, 8-3-22
There is no debate that the current Biden administration is potentially the most unconstitutional presidential administration we have seen. The disregard for our rule of law is evident in the disregard of the Constitution’s guarantee clause, Article IV, Section 4 when it comes to the open borders policy of Biden.
Last week we witnessed yet another act of blatant overreach of executive power in our system of governance. When Joe Biden stepped forth and issued his decree that he was forgiving student loan debt, he far exceeded his constitutional enumerated powers. Show me where the president, according to the Constitution, has the enumerated power to relieve individual contractual debt and use taxpayer funds as the means of payoff. This goes along the lines of the government issuing edicts from a federal agency that individual rental contractual obligations did not have to be honored…which the Supreme Court ruled against.
Another of the Biden administration’s unconstitutional delusions was to threaten to cut off school lunch funding if school districts did not adopt a gender dysphoria indoctrination curriculum. First, the federal government has no enumerated power in matters of education. But my question is: how fascist, tyrannical, and abjectly mean is this administration to issue an order that would starve children to get their way? Yet, no one addresses this very disconcerting behavior?
But for me, and I am sure many of you, the most nefarious, and yes, evil unconstitutional delusion was the COVID shot mandate. This is a shot that Dr. Deborah Birx recently acknowledged was known not to have efficacy in preventing Americans from being infected with COVID.
Yet, a year ago, during the Afghanistan withdrawal debacle, Biden stepped to the podium one evening in the White House and issued his unconstitutional vaccine mandate. The U.S. Constitution enumerates no power allowing the president to tell any of us that we must be injected with an unproven and minimally tested substance. Still, Americans were forced to decide to obey or lose their jobs.
Regarding our military, Joe Biden, as the Commander in Chief of the US Armed Forces, issued not just an unconstitutional mandate, he gave our military an unethical, immoral, and unlawful order. His shot mandate ploy was a political maneuver to shift the narrative away from Afghanistan, where Biden was responsible for the deaths of 13 Marines, Soldiers, and Sailors.
Today, members of our military are being forced out of service. Just last week, it was reported that several Cadets from the US Coast Guard Academy were expelled, which is consistent with other service academies, for refusing this shot. Troops are being segregated into horrific living conditions and treated as lepers for their refusal to receive this injection. Members of our military are being threatened. Command assignments and retirements are being taken away. Some have been discharged with less than Honorable designation. And formerly healthy troops who did submit are now experiencing debilitating illnesses and medical conditions such as myocarditis.
As for Milley and Austin? Yes, they are silent, just as they were a year ago when the debacle in Afghanistan was taking place. These two individuals should resign immediately.
Our military readiness is being adversely affected due to the termination of highly skilled servicemembers. According to Military News, the Army recently ended the military pay and benefits for more than 60,000 National Guard and Reserve Soldiers who refused the COVID-19 shot. That action affects more than the servicemember— it affects their families. Then again, it all makes sense — those called to defend our Constitution are the biggest enemies of the leftists in America.
Those of us who love the Constitution and our rule of law must be the voice for those, such as the unborn and our military service men and women. We must protect them from this lawless administration’s unconstitutional and delusional decrees, mandates, and orders.
Another very good Allen West message: The Real American Crisis: Executive Power
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
A group of pastors has determined that government action to prevent assembly and worship services exceeds the constitutional authority of the issuing parties. Acts 5:29 is a national coalition of pastors committed to worshiping freely in obedience with God’s Word and in accordance with our U.S. Constitutional rights. The First Amendment in the Bill of Rights states that, “ Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…” Previously, churches had been fined hundreds of thousands of dollars for defying mask and occupancy mandates and shutdowns.
As reported in the Gateway Pundit on August 17, 2022: One of the churches that was fined was Calvary Chapel San Jose. Its pastors were held in contempt of court and fined in 2020 and 2021 for violating state and county limits on indoor public gatherings during the COVID-19 pandemic. A state appeals court ruled that they won’t have to pay about $200,000 in fines,
We are standing firm and invite all pastors in local churches across America to stand with us in declaring that we will never again comply with the arbitrary orders of an elected or appointed official concerning the conduct and operation of our churches which are secured by the Constitution of the United States, and outside the purview and authority of local, state, and the Federal officials. In an article entitled “Christ, not Caesar, Is head of the Church,” Rev. John MacArthur, speaking on behalf of the pastors and elders of Christ Community Church, accurately posited that a “… recent state order requiring churches in California to limit or suspend all meetings indefinitely … exceeded [the] legitimate jurisdiction…” of their civic leaders, and that “faithfulness to Christ prohibit[ed] them “from observing the restrictions” they [had] attempted to impose on their corporate worship. During the Covid-19 pandemic, elected and appointed Government officials clearly exceeded their Constitutional authority, even to the point of forbidding public worship by churches. Dr. MacArthur is correct in stating that obedience to any such order puts followers of Jesus Christ at odds with the Head of the Church and his commandment that we “forsake not the assembling of ourselves together.” (Hebrews 10:25). An arbitrary edict by Government that obviates a Divine injunction, places pastors in the unenviable position of choosing between the will of God or the will of men. The Apostle Paul wrote that choosing to please men disqualifies one as a servant of Christ. (Galatians 1:10) Corporate worship is a spiritual discipline essential to spiritual development. If as a pastor, elder, or other church leader, you agree that decisions concerning the nature and timing of corporate worship do not belong to Government but to the Church, please link arms with us and our brothers and sisters around the world, by taking the following three actions: 1. Sign the statement below by clicking the “sign now” button. 2. Share this website to help us reach our initial goal of 5000 signatures. 3. On New Year’s Day 2023, email governing officials in your local, state, and Federal jurisdiction to inform them that you are a signee and will not be closing your church again at their order. On the email: Include your name, title, and mailing address in the subject line. In the body, be sure to include the website link.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
During the recent COVID-19 “pandemic,” representatives who were elected to secure our God-given rights, clearly transgressed their lawful authority in executive action that prohibited public meetings or mandated the wearing of masks and “social distancing.” God’s word directs us “not to forsake the assembling of ourselves together.” (Hebrews 10:25) This verse is a Divine injunction.
We must obey God rather than the arbitrary decrees of men.
As a national coalition of pastors and churches, we reject any Presidential or gubernatorial decree requiring us to disobey the word of God. We will resist any attempt by a Federal, state or local official to restrict or prohibit the free exercise of our Religion or place restrictions thereon.
The end of all civil government being the good of society, we affirm our submission to lawful civil authority as instituted by God himself; but when rulers exceed the scope of their Constitutional and God-given authority, they act contrary to their office and the public good and effect the ruin and misery of society.
We do not need the permission of civil authorities to obey what God has commanded, nor does the Church need the approval of civil authorities to serve and worship our God in the way he has prescribed.
The Greek word translated Church is “Ekklesia” which means “the Assembly.” Our identity as the Church of Jesus Christ means we are by nature an assembly; we assemble to hear his Word preached, partake of the sacraments, and fellowship with one another. The Apostles’ teachings are unambiguous in this regard.
Civil magistrates have no authority to dictate what churches may do or not do.
The Constitution of the United States is the highest law in our land. In 1803 in Marbury v. Madison, the Supreme Court ruled that “any law repugnant to the Constitution is null and void.”
We are on solid Constitutional footing in our refusal to comply with restrictions on public worship. Again, the First Amendment states that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” Any law, order, or mandate that infringes our God given right to worship according to conscience, violates the First Amendment and is unlawful.
We the undersigned hereby affirm the preceding statements.
Here is the Acts 5:29 site link that pastors are invited to join: https://acts529.com/
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of Acts 5:29 and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida. This is merely a news article reporting it.
Michael Miller, A Co-Founder of Citizens Journal Florida is a fierce defender of Liberty. The retired Fire Lieutenant/EMT from NY has been in FB for 8 years. He is a local sailing captain and instructor. He dabbles in theatre, photography, geopolitics, markets and now writing. Look for his writing here and at: https://firesail.substack.com/
AUDREY CONKLIN REPORTER
Republished 9-4-22
While many Americans see Labor Day as an early day off school or long weekend spent eating hamburgers, drinking beer and swimming in the pool before it closes, its origins were chaotic.
There is some dispute over the exact point in history Labor Day became an idea, but it goes back in part to Manhattan on Sept. 5, 1882, when the Central Labor Union and thousands of workers went on strike as they paraded through the city.
Twelve years later, a bloody demonstration displayed even more unrest among workers in Pullman, Illinois.
The Chicago company town was founded by George Pullman, president of the Pullman railroad sleeping car, for the workers who manufactured his products. Assembly workers lived in row houses, managers lived in modest Victorian-style homes and Pullman lived in a lavish hotel, according to PBS.
Residents’ paychecks came from Pullman bank, and George Pullman set rent prices for his workers, which were “deducted automatically from their weekly paychecks,” PBS reported.
The little utopia operated smoothly until about 1893, when an economic depression hit and Pullman decided to lay off hundreds of employees and cut workers’ wages by about 30% without cutting their rent prices, Business Insider reported. The result was an employee strike that had the backing of the American Railway Union under socialist Eugene Debs in 1894.
The union had between 125,000 and 150,000 members who refused to work until their wages increased and rents decreased, causing a nationwide backlog of undelivered mail and “transportation nightmare,” according toTIME.
Some members of the union, who were attending a Debs speech in Blue Island, Illinois, set buildings in the area on fire and derailed a mail train locomotive June 29, 1894.
“This was the turning point, because it enjoined the ARU and Debs from doing anything to support or direct the strike,” Indiana State University history Professor Richard Schneirov told History. “Labor has for much of its history been hemmed in by injunctions, but the Pullman injunction was the first big instance where it really came to the attention of the public.”
Then-President Grover Cleveland stepped in a day after the June 29 incident, under pressure from railroad and postal service companies to get business back on track. Cleveland declared the strike a federal crime and deployed troops to Pullman in an attempt to break up demonstrations.
“The whole thing is the most one-sided, biased action on the part of the federal government in a labor dispute that you could think of,” Schneirov told Business Insider.
Bloodshed and violence erupted during a Chicago strike July 6 and 7, killing between 12 and 30 people.
The strike became nationwide news, and more protests against Cleveland’s decision to send troops to Chicago took place across the country. (RELATED: This Labor Day, Americans Workers Can Say The Economy Is Strong)
Cleveland signed a bill June 28, 1894, to make Labor Day a national holiday before sending more troops to Chicago.
“By making one day in each year a public holiday for the benefit of workingmen the equality and dignity of labor is emphasized. Nothing is more important to the public weal than that the nobility of labor be maintained. So long as the laboring man can feel that he holds an honorable as well as useful place in the body politic, so long will he be a loyal and faithful citizen,” the bill reads.
The strike officially ended in August 1894.
Check out The Daily Caller
Thanks to Citizens Journal- Ventura County
By Jeff Childers
09-04-22
Good morning, C&C, and welcome to Saturday’s weekend edition! Today’s roundup includes a roundup of responses to the Biden’s Big Teleprompter Speech; good news about Free Florida; and we look at the FBI’s more detailed inventory of stuff it grabbed during the Biden Raid on Mar-a-Lago.
🪖 Yesterday I deleted a comment from someone with a brand-new Substack account, because it sounded just like our friend Ray Epps. The comment, which didn’t refer to anything particular in the post, ended with, “…so we are going to have to take things into our own hands and it’s going to get ugly. Who’s with me?” Or something like that.
Ironically, the comment was about the very post where I advised NOT taking the bait. If the guy was legit, and not a stool pigeon, I deleted the comment for his own good.
So. I’m not saying it was somebody getting paid by somebody to stir up trouble and collect evidence. But to be clear to anyone wondering, we aren’t doing any insurrections here, just mocking the stupidity of it all. It’s a dry hole.
Anyway, I can’t read all the usually-fantastic comments all the time, so if you’re a regular in the comments section and you see something else like this crop up, please call it out and shut it down.
🔥 Yesterday, ’Friday Joe Biden’ obliquely criticized ‘Thursday Joe Biden’, when Fox News’ Peter Doocy asked Biden if he considered ALL Trump supporters to be a threat to the country. Biden snapped, “I don’t consider ANY Trump supporters a threat to the country.”
Thursday night’s Joe Biden was not available to comment on what Friday Biden said.
Appearing to have forgotten all about his speech the previous night, Friday Biden further explained to Mr. Doocy that, just because people vote for somebody, it doesn’t automatically, make them a threat, that is unless they don’t believe Biden won fairly, or if they literally attacked the Capitol, or if they don’t believe that January 6th was indisputably one million times worse than the Civil War:
“Anyone who calls for the use of violence … refuses to acknowledge when an election has been won, [or] insists on changing the rules about the way we count votes. That is a threat to democracy.”
But Biden allowed there might be some good Republicans out there somewhere:
“When people voted for Donald Trump and support him now, they weren’t voting for attacking the Capitol. They weren’t voting for overturning an election. They were voting for a philosophy he put forward. I am not talking about anything other than it is inappropriate… the failure to recognize and condemn violence when it is used for political purposes, [or] failure to condemn the manipulation [of] election outcomes.”
That sort of describes a lot of people. Maybe Biden DOES mean all Republicans. But Friday’s messaging was quite different, more qualified, and toned-down. I guess the overnights didn’t poll well. Or maybe Friday Biden just forgot what Thursday Biden read off the teleprompter. You never know.
Next, I really hate to ‘go there,’ but I am aware there’s a conspiracy theory that Joe Biden uses a bunch of body doubles for everything from giving interviews to meeting with foreign leaders. There’s some pretty wild video out there that really makes you wonder. But normally I stay far away from the conspiracy theories, not least of all because that market is already fully saturated.
But still, I mean, come on. Are these really the same two guys?
Haha, I’m only kidding. It’s probably just that his meds were working better Thursday night. Or something.
🔥 The New York Post ran an amusing story yesterday headlined, “Democrats Melt Down After CNN Hosts Criticize Biden Speech.” Leftist media types seem to think that CNN is trying to reform its awful image as a bastion of loony blueAnon conspiracy theories, and lefties don’t like it, not one little bit. The unhinged social media reaction yesterday focused on this tweet by CNN reporter Brianna Keilar:
That’s not much evidence that CNN is wholesale pivoting. But you know, there might be something to it. This before/after shot of two tweets from recently-fired CNN reporter John Harwood was also making the rounds yesterday:
CNN was right to fire Harwood. Reporters are supposed to be neutral, or at least look that way.
It’s not like CNN is tacking to the right of Fox or anything. But SOMETHING seems to be shifting. On Thursday after Biden’s boisterous speech, CNN anchor Don Lemon vigorously defending Biden — but he was doing so while debating a gal who was representing the conservative take on the speech. In other words, they aired both sides. If CNN does get its act together and start reporting the news in an even-handed way, that would be fine with me. Fox could use a little competition.
But CNN’s liberal viewers have launched a campaign to delete the CNN app from their devices in protest of the network presenting both sides of the Biden Speech debate. If you like the way it’s going, or just like poking the left, you might consider the previously unthinkable option of downloading the CNN news app as a counter-protest.
🔥 Governor DeSantis labeled Biden “the American Nero,” and called his speech “one of the most disgusting speeches an American president has ever given.” DeSantis pointed out Biden’s goofy hypocrisy: “he ran as being a unifier, and he’s basically saying to the vast majority of the country that disapproves of him that they’re effectively a threat to the Republic.”
What I appreciated most from his remark is that DeSantis understands the difference between “muh democracy” and “our Republic.”
🔥 Somebody tallied up the important issues Biden referenced in his great big prime-time “rally the country by breaking it in half” speech, in order of least- to most-often mentioned by Biden during the speech:
Haha, just kidding about Corn Pop. The rest of it’s right though.
🔥 I think Fox’s Greg Gutfeld had the right take on the Biden Speech:
“They’re trying to goad you into an emotional state for violence. That’s what they actually want. This was the funniest — one of the funniest — this looks like it was put on by South Park. Joe tried — I mean — he’s Darth Vader in depends. They tried to project some kind of darkness on the Republican Party. But it actually projected backwards, right? It looked like a dystopian movie trailer where the dead president is played by a hologram. The whole vibe was hilariously creepy… You gotta laugh at this. Probably one of the funniest presidential moments in history.”
Fox News @FoxNewsGreg Gutfeld: Biden’s ‘MAGA Republicans’ speech is one of the funniest presidential moments in history @greggutfeld Greg Gutfeld: Biden’s ‘MAGA Republicans’ speech is one of the funniest presidential moments in historyFox News host Greg Gutfeld shook off President Biden’s Thursday night speech attacking “MAGA Republicans” as “hilarious” and having backfired on “The Five.”fxn.wsSeptember 3rd 202295 Retweets576 Likes
Okay, enough Biden Teleprompter Reading fallout news.
📈 Governor DeSantis keeps on winning the survey wars. According to the latest CATO Institute freedom survey, the Sunshine State is in first place over all the states for both fiscal and economic freedom, and Florida is second overall for personal freedom.
Great job, Governor!
Despite the high overall ranking, CATO’s report did identify one area of possible improvement:
Legislators, take note of some opportunities to shore up our wins.
👽 Of all places, the Hill ran an op-ed this week titled, “The Pentagon should release dozens of UFO videos.”
The author isn’t just some guy in a basement. Marik von Rennenkampff, whose name makes him sound like he time-traveled here from 1830, was an analyst with the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation, and an Obama administration appointee at DOD. So.
I’m just so amazed by all this UFO interest. What happens if they’re really here? Then what?
🔥 This week Governor DeSantis also announced that Florida sued the FDA. The dispute is over a Trump-era program allowing States to buy drugs from Canada, where Pharma sells their products much more cheaply than in the U.S. The program requires states to submit their proposed programs to the FDA for approval. But the FDA, which just approved covid boosters after studying eight mice for about ten minutes, has moved with bureaucratic glacier-like speed on its review of Florida’s 18-months-old drug application.
Apparently the FDA has also been unable to provide ANY documents — not one — related to the process for approving drug program applications, not in a year and a half. First, Florida asked nicely, then it submitted a freedom-of-information request. Still nothing.
So if you’ve had trouble getting documents from your public records requests, don’t feel like you’re all by yourself. It can even happen to STATES.
The Epoch Times @EpochTimesFor 630 days a warehouse in Lakeland has sat vacant—waiting on a shipment of drugs from #Canada that never came. @GovRonDeSantis said he “has waited long enough” and is filing suit against the @US_FDA to “put an end to” delays. DeSantis Files Lawsuit Against FDA for Delaying Drug ProgramPUNTA GORDA, Fla.—For 630 days, a warehouse in Lakeland has sat vacant—waiting on a shipment of drugs from …theepochtimes.comSeptember 1st 202230 Retweets117 Likes
🔥 Finally, the FBI filed a more detailed inventory of what they snatched from Mar-a-Lago during the Biden raid, in an effort to frustrate President Trump’s request for a special master. As a lawyer, I find the inventory to be extremely interesting.
Here’s a link what the FBI filed. (https://tinyurl.com/3krntcjb)
The inventory doesn’t add a whole lot of detail. The original inventory was two pages long, this new one is seven pages long, grouping the items into seven “items from office” classes and twenty-six “boxes from storage room” classes. It describes the various items and documents seized like this representative example from Item #4, labeled “Documents from Office”:
This example includes two (2) documents with confidential or secret markings, which seem like fair game under the FBI’s admittedly weak theory of the case. Of course, these documents could have already been formally or informally declassified, as Trump has argued. There’s no way to tell.
But the example also includes 383 documents that are NOT marked confidential or secret, including many magazine articles and random “government” pictures. When thinking about the pictures, imagine things like photos of President Trump meeting with Brazilian president Balsonero in the Rose Garden or something.
Why would the FBI seize magazine articles and random White House pictures?
The VAST MAJORITY of the items listed on the detailed 7-page inventory fall into this second category of items that are NOT marked classified or secret. Some entire classes of items are patently non-classified, like Item #8, “Box/Container from Storage Room”:
In this example, the crack team of FBI investigators seized a bunch of magazine articles, a book, two photos, and an “article of clothing/gift item.” Like a t-shirt from Cracker’s Oyster Bar or something. In what universe would a t-shirt have any possible interest or relevance to the breathless and hyperbolic claims that Trump stole top-secret nuclear data?
In total, the raid grabbed five different articles of gift clothing. Best and brightest.
And how about that book? Unless it was Thomas Jefferson’s original diary or something, it seems hard to imagine why the FBI would have scooped it up during the raid.
While it MIGHT be arguable that the FBI needed an entire box containing a single classified document so that they could later prove where the classified document was kept, there’s not really any good reason for them to have collected entire boxes without ANY classified documents at all.
One box contained some empty file folders that have triggered the lefty fever swamp’s delusional imagination:
In the tortured imaginations of radical twitterers, Trump carefully extracted top-secret classified documents and traded the secrets to North Korea for a fistful of cash, leaving the empty file folder behind in the box, every time. Which makes no sense at all if you stop to think about it for three seconds.
Having raced down these rabbit trails all too often in the midst of a contentious lawsuit, very often these “clues” turn out to be the most unremarkable of facts. I’m just spitballing, but maybe the empty folders look a lot more like someone just cleaned out a drawer in the Oval Office and dumped it in a box — after someone else had already removed the classified documents for safekeeping. And the empty folders labeled “return to staff” suggest the documents were already RETURNED TO STAFF.
I’m not saying I know anything more than anyone else. That’s the point. We don’t know. These hot takes are hilarious.
Lacking any better explanation, the inventory seems like evidence that maybe the FBI grabbed a lot more than they were looking for so as to obscure the REAL reason for the raid, whatever it was. The alternatives don’t really add up.
Have a wonderful weekend! I’ll see you guys here first thing Monday morning for more.
C&C is moving the needle and changing minds. If you can, I could use your help getting the truth out and spreading optimism and hope: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/-learn-how-to-get-involved-
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© 2022 Jeff Childers
2135-B NW 40th Terrace, Gainesville, FL 32605
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
By Andrew West August 29, 2022
As our nation continues down this path of politically-minded division and violence, we appear to be moving ever closer to the edge of some very serious trouble.
There have already been a number of instances of political violence in America, from Portland to Pennsylvania Avenue and back again.
Now, with the possible prosecution of former President Donald Trump hanging in the ether, some are warning that more trouble is looming just over the horizon.
Read MORE
Also see: DeSantis Condemns Biden, Says President Doesn’t Care About Rule of Law
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
Press Release
Celebrate with US!
Constitution Day Celebration Event
September 15, 2022 at 6:00pm
at the Nassau County Courthouse
76347 Veterans Way,
Yulee, FL 32034 United States
We are having a Constitution Day Celebration Event at the Courthouse, and you’re invited! Constitution Day is designated to commemorate the signing of the U.S. Constitution in Philadelphia on September 17, 1787.
| Join us as we celebrate this historic moment for our great nation, featuring the stirring performance of Washington’s Farewell Address by Judge Adrian Soud.Enjoy snacks and a cash bar while learning about USCSF, our Constitution Plaza, and celebrating the signing of the U.S. Constitution. Here’s a look at our agenda for the evening: 6:00pm Pre-event Gathering in Grand Jury Room- beer & wine cash bar 6:25pm Move to Program in Courtroom A6:30pm Welcoming Comments – Al Watson 6:32pm Pledge of Allegiance – Judge Jim Daniel 6:33pm Invocation – Judge Steven Fahlgren 6:35pm About USCSF and Constitution Plaza – Stan Cottle 6:42pm Paver Dedication – Mike Cole 6:45pm Washington’s Farewell Address – Judge Adrian Soud 7:30pm Closing Remarks – Al Watson Will you be joining us? |
| The Constitution Plaza is a great local symbol for patriotism and love for our country. In December 2018, Nassau County set aside 700 square feet of the Robert M. Foster Justice Center for an area designated “The Constitution Plaza” to enshrine with brick pavers the names of student graduates and scholarship winners. Additionally, donations for pavers in The Constitution Plaza by private citizens or corporations are enshrined and used to help provide scholarships for the students. These funds are used exclusively for scholarships. The Constitution Plaza is a place to honor and remember those that have made our community and America great: Students U.S. Military First Responders Teachers Veterans Firemen Police Officers Judges Doctors/Nurses Those We Love |
| Please join us on September 15th, 2022 at 6:00pm to celebrate our U.S. Constitution! |
| The U.S. Constitution Scholarship Foundation Al Watson Bill Amos Howard Pines Jim Flynn Rod Odom Tripp Amos The U.S. Constitution Scholarship Foundation is a non-profit corporation organized under the laws of the State of Florida and is recognized by the IRS as a tax-exempt, public charity identified as a 501(c)(3) organization. |
From County of Nassau
8/31/2022
The County is seeking one individual to serve on the Conservation Land Acquisition and Management (CLAM) Committee. The application period ends September 30, 2022 at 5:00 p.m. Candidates should, at a minimum, have skills, expertise, or demonstratable experience that relates to the acquisition of lands in one of the following areas:
For more information about the CLAM program, click on the following link: https://www.nassaucountyfl.com/1283/Conservation-Land-Acquisition-Management
If you have specific questions about the CLAM program or the role of the Committee, please contact Holly Coyle at (904) 530-6010 or by email at [email protected].
To apply, please click here. Applications will be accepted through 5:00 p.m. on Friday, September 30, 2022.
From Gov. DeSantis Office
89-2-22
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — On June 2, 2022, HB 7027 became law and “the terms of all members of the judicial nominating commissions of the First District Court of Appeal, the Second District Court of Appeal, and the Fifth District Court of Appeal” were terminated to account for the change in boundaries caused by the creation of the Sixth District Court of Appeal. Ch. 2022-163, §17, Laws of Florida. Today, Governor DeSantis announces the following appointments to the First, Second, and Fifth District Courts of Appeal Judicial Nominating Commissions, as well as appointments to the newly created Sixth District Court of Appeal Judicial Nominating Commission.
First District Court of Appeal Judicial Nominating Commission
Nathan Adams IV, of Tallahassee, is a Partner at Holland & Knight, LLP. He received his bachelor’s degree from Wheaton College, his master’s degree from the University of Florida, and his law degree from the University of Texas. Adams is appointed from a list of nominees recommended by the Florida Bar for a term ending July 1, 2026.
Hayden Dempsey, of Tallahassee, is a Shareholder at Greenberg Traurig, LLP. He received his bachelor’s degree from Wake Forest University and his law degree from Nova Southeastern University. Dempsey is appointed from a list of nominees recommended by the Florida Bar for a term ending July 1, 2026.
Erik “Rick” Figlio, of Tallahassee, is a Shareholder at Ausley McMullen, PA. He received his bachelor’s degree from Davidson College and his law degree from the University of Georgia. Figlio is appointed from a list of nominees recommended by the Florida Bar for a term ending July 1, 2023.
Edward Fleming, of Milton, is a Partner at McDonald Fleming, LLP. He received his bachelor’s degree from Georgia State University and his law degree from the University of Georgia. Fleming is reappointed for a term ending July 1, 2023.
Benjamin Gibson, of Tallahassee, is a Partner at Shutts & Bowen, LLP. He received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Florida and his law degree from Florida State University. Gibson is reappointed for a term ending July 1, 2026.
Gary Hunter Jr., of Tallahassee, is a Partner at Holtzman Vogel Baran Torchinsky & Josefiak, PLLC. He received his bachelor’s and law degrees from the University of Georgia. Hunter is reappointed from a list of nominees recommended by the Florida Bar for a term ending July 1, 2024.
Amber Nunnally, of Tallahassee, is a Partner at Shutts & Bowen, LLP. She received her bachelor’s and law degrees from Florida State University. Nunnally is appointed for a term ending July 1, 2023.
Peter Penrod, of Tallahassee, is the Chief of Staff for the Florida Department of Financial Services. He received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Florida and his law degree from Florida Coastal School of Law. Penrod is reappointed for a term ending July 1, 2024.
James Percival II, of Tallahassee, is the Deputy Attorney General of Legal Policy for the Office of the Attorney General. He received his bachelor’s degree from the University of California Santa Barbara and his law degree from the University of Virginia. Percival is appointed for a term ending July 1, 2024.
Second District Court of Appeal Judicial Nominating Commission
Charbel Barakat, of Tampa, is the Regional General Counsel at D.R. Horton, Inc. He received his bachelor’s degree from John Hopkins University and his law degree from New York University. Barakat is reappointed for a term ending July 1, 2024.
Alexander Caballero, of Tampa, is a Managing Partner at Sessums Black, PA. He received his bachelor’s degree from the University of South Florida and his law degree from Florida State University. Caballero is reappointed from a list of nominees recommended by the Florida Bar for a term ending July 1, 2026.
Tyler Cathey, of Tampa, is the Chief Operating Officer and General Counsel at Franklin Street Financial Partners. He received his bachelor’s degree from Muhlenberg College and his law degree from the University of Florida. Cathey is reappointed for a term ending July 1, 2024.
Hunter Chamberlin, of Tampa, is the Owner of the Chamberlin Law Firm. He received his bachelor’s degree from Hamilton College and his law degree from the University of Miami. Chamberlin is reappointed for a term ending July 1, 2023.
Todd Jennings, of Belleair, is a Shareholder at Macfarlane Ferguson & McMullen, PA. He received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Tennessee and his law degree from the University of Florida. Jennings is appointed for a term ending July 1, 2026.
Ryan Owen, of Sarasota, is a Partner at Adams and Reese, LLP. He received his bachelor’s degree from Washington & Lee University and his law degree from the University of Miami. Owen is appointed from a list of nominees recommended by the Florida Bar for a term ending July 1, 2026.
Eliot Peace, of Tampa, is Assistant General Counsel at General Dynamics Ordnance & Tactical System, Inc. He received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Georgia and his law degree from the University of South Carolina. Peace is reappointed for a term ending July 1, 2023.
Samuel Salario Jr., of Tampa, is a Shareholder at Brannock Humphries & Berman. He received his bachelor’s degree from American University and his law degree from the University of Florida. Salario is appointed from a list of nominees recommended by the Florida Bar for a term ending July 1, 2024.
Lara Tibbals, of Tampa, is Of Counsel at Hill Ward Henderson. She received her bachelor’s degree from Florida State University and her law degree from the University of Florida. Tibbals is reappointed from a list of nominees recommended by the Florida Bar for a term ending July 1, 2023.
Fifth District Court of Appeal Judicial Nominating Commission
Adam Brandon, of Jacksonville, is a Shareholder at Rogers Towers, PA. He received his bachelor’s degree from Wheaton College, his master’s degree from the United States Naval War College, and his law degree from the University of Notre Dame. Brandon is appointed for a term ending July 1, 2023.
Amanda Carl, of Osteen, is the Director of Legal & Government Affairs at Harrell’s, LLC. She received her bachelor’s and law degrees from the University of Florida. Carl is reappointed for a term ending July 1, 2024.
Carrie Eisnaugle, of Sanford, is Of Counsel at The Grosshans Group, PLLC. She received her bachelor’s degree from Luther College and her master’s and law degrees from Vanderbilt University. Eisnaugle is reappointed for a term ending July 1, 2024.
Alexandria Hill, of Fleming Island, is a Shareholder at Rogers Towers, PA. She received her bachelor’s degree from Stetson University and her law degree from the University of Florida. Hill is appointed from a list of nominees recommended by the Florida Bar for a term ending July 1, 2026.
Joe Jacquot, of Jacksonville, is a Shareholder at Gunster Yoakley and Stewart, PA. He received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Virginia and his law degree from the University of Florida. Jacquot is appointed for a term ending July 1, 2026.
Ned Price, of Jacksonville, is a Mediator at Ned I. Price, PA. He received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of South Florida and his law degree from Stetson University. Price is appointed from a list of nominees recommended by the Florida Bar for a term ending July 1, 2026.
Tance Roberts, of St. Augustine, is the Owner of the Matanzas Law Firm, PA. She received her bachelor’s and law degrees from Florida State University and her master of law degree from the University of Florida. Roberts is appointed from a list of nominees recommended by the Florida Bar for a term ending July 1, 2024.
Michael C. Sasso, of Oviedo, is a Partner at Sasso & Sasso, PA. He received his bachelor’s degree from Colgate University and his law degree from Northern Kentucky University. Sasso is reappointed for a term ending July 1, 2023.
Milo Scott Thomas, of Ponte Vedra Beach, is a Partner at Burr and Forman, LLP. He received his bachelor’s and law degrees from the University of Florida. Thomas is reappointed from a list of nominees recommended by the Florida Bar for a term ending July 1, 2023.
Sixth District Court of Appeal Judicial Nominating Commission
Jeff Aaron, of Maitland, is a Shareholder at GrayRobinson, PA. He received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Florida Gulf Coast University and his law degree from the University of Florida. Aaron is appointed for a term ending July 1, 2023.
Paul Davis Cooper, of Naples, is a Managing Partner at Cooper Law Partners, PLLC. He received his bachelor’s and law degrees from the University of Alabama. Cooper is appointed for a term ending July 1, 2026.
Ronald Edwards Jr., of Windermere, is a Shareholder at Lowndes Drosdick Doster Kantor & Reed, PA. He received his bachelor’s and law degrees from the University of Florida. Edwards is appointed for a term ending July 1, 2024.
Patricia Franklin, of Sebring, is President at the Law Office of Patricia Lynch Franklin, PA. She received her bachelor’s degree from Tulane University and her law degree from Loyola Marymount University. Franklin is appointed from a list of nominees recommended by the Florida Bar for a term ending July 1, 2023.
Josh Grosshans, of Winter Garden, is the Founder of The Grosshans Group, PLLC. He received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Central Florida and his law degree from Florida State University. Grosshans is appointed for a term ending July 1, 2024.
Russell Kirshy, of Punta Gorda, is an Attorney at Russell T. Kirshy, Esquire, PA. He received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Massachusetts and his law degree from Suffolk University. Kirshy is appointed from a list of nominees recommended by the Florida Bar for a term ending July 1, 2024.
Jayne Skrzysowski Pittman, of Orlando, is a Managing Partner at Conroy Simberg. She received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Scranton and her law degree from the University of Miami. Pittman is appointed from a list of nominees recommended by the Florida Bar for a term ending July 1, 2026.
Michael A. Sasso, of Orlando, is a Managing Partner at Sasso & Sasso, PA. He received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Florida and his law degree from Barry University. Sasso is appointed for a term ending July 1, 2023.
Richard Straughn, of Lake Wales, is a Partner at Straughn and Turner, PA. He received his bachelor’s and law degrees from the University of Florida. Straughn is appointed from a list of nominees recommended by the Florida Bar for a term ending July 1, 2026.
By Jeff Childers
09-02-22
Happy Friday C&C! It’s been a great week with lots of encouraging news. Today I will (reluctantly) cover Biden’s MAGA Rant and then sneak in a little roundup that hints at the purpose for what appears to be the new covid pivot.
🔥 Last night, shattering more presidential precedents and traditions, former U.S. Senator Joe Biden gave an historic speech in Philadelphia in which he labeled a sizable number of the country’s citizens a pack of rascally ne’er-do-wells that he likes to refer to as, “MAGA Republicans.”
I watched a few painful minutes just to get the flavor, and then waited for the transcript. You’re welcome. You’ve probably already heard all about the demonic red uplighting and Joe’s Hitleresque fist shaking and his lunatic inflammatory rhetoric, all of which was clearly designed for shock value, so I’m going to just bypass all that psyop nonsense.
According to Joe, he’s not alone; it’s not just him who thinks MAGA Republicans are dangerous to democracy. He said “even prominent conservatives” agree, citing a single example of a prominent conservative: DC Federal Circuit Court Judge Michael Luttig. Luttig would have like to attend the speech but has been so, so busy lately sentencing first-time offending J6 prisoners to years-long jail terms for misdemeanor trespass.
You’ve heard of “prominent conservative” Luttig, right? He’s VERY prominent. Prominent in SOMETHING.
Anyway, I want to begin by saying something NICE about the speech, because that’s the polite thing to do, apparently. Anyway, Joe actually gave credit to God. It only happened once, late in the speech, but there it was: “The soul of America is defined by the sacred proposition that all are created equal in the image of God,” Joe mumbled.
So I’m giving him credit. He could’ve stopped at “created equal.”
And that’s about it for things to compliment. Apart from that, the speech seemed carefully crafted to create political cover for something big the Biden Administration is about to do next. In other words, the speech’s literal words don’t add up to anything rational.
For example, after about two-thirds through the nasty part of the speech, Joe’s MILINT speechwriters transitioned to the uplifting message part, where Joe referenced what he has planned for the future during the second half of his term. But he could only come up with two things. I’m going to quote them:
“We’re going to end cancer as we know it. Mark my words. (Applause.)”
“We are going to create millions of new jobs in a clean energy economy.”
That’s it. And even those two goals are fabulously flimsy; weak tea. Regarding the laughable war on cancer, we don’t even need to get into all the news about skyrocketing cancer rates because of the [CENSORED]. The Cancer Moon Shot is a Utopian impossibility, and was neatly framed by lawyer weasel words anyway (“as we know it”). The audience betrayed its ignorance by clapping for this one.
Joe’s second goal of creating green jobs is a fuzzy paradoxical impossibility devoid of detail. Nobody even WANTS a “clean energy economy,” whatever that is, except elites who’ve invested in (or been gifted stock in) green tech. A clean energy economy, if that’s even possible, can only arise via mandates, which are job KILLERS. The audience was smart not to clap for that one, even if it made them seem unappreciative of the Big Guy’s genius.
Anyway, that’s the whole plan. In other words, the lazy speechwriters grabbed two amorphous, unaccountable aspirations and jammed them into the speech to suggest they were actually a fantastic, well-thought-out agenda of some kind. But it backfired, because it just proves Joe has no plan. At least, no plan he wants to tell us about. (Obama probably doesn’t give him the details anyway, because everybody knows Joe can’t keep a secret.)
In case you’re stationed in Antarctica or something, right after all the throat-clearing stuff, Joe kicked off the main theme of the speech, that was obviously meant to rile everybody up:
“Too much of what’s happening in our country today is not normal. Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic.”
He continued for a while in that line, hilariously calling MAGA Republicans everything bad he could think of: election deniers, disrespecters of the Constitution and the rule of law, promoters of authoritarian leaders, fanners of the flames of political violence, posers of a “clear and present danger” to democracy, and contrivers of “a threat to our personal rights, to the pursuit of justice, to the rule of law, to the very soul of this country.”
You naughty, naughty MAGA people.
Joe even said MAGA people don’t believe the January 6th stormtroopers were trained and well-funded insurrectionists hell-bent on overthrowing the government. Can you imagine that?
So the hot take, the one we’re SUPPOSED TO immediately latch onto, is that this impotent, demented nursing home patient is about to declare martial law or something and start rounding up everyone who voted for Trump the last time around. Don’t buy it. It’s like the scene from the excellent Mad Max remake, Fury Road, where Tom Hardy glances up at the fit naked woman crying for help atop the tower, and flatly says, “that’s bait.”
More thoughtful social media pundits also recognized this evident truth last night and offered theories about what the speech is REALLY covering for. The truth is, who knows what those idiots are planning next. But I realize that truth is not particularly satisfying, so here are some speculative options.
Jack Posobiec not only opined, but actually claims to have a White House source saying, that Biden plans to pardon Trump today (Friday). In this hypothetical, Biden’s maniacal speech was intended to inform and offset what will be a very angry and disappointed Democrat base. In other words, Biden gave them a little, by officially labeling MAGAs a “clear and present danger” to democracy, but will also take away, by pardoning Trump in a generous, majestic,Ulysses Grant-style national re-unification effort.
It’s possible, who knows, and it would definitely help carve Biden out of a burgeoning political super-pickle that’s already the size of greater Manhattan, currently sprouting out of the raised garden in Mar-a-Lago’s backyard.
Or, it could be that they plan to arrest Trump this weekend, and need a better cover story than ‘he had some overdue National Library materials.’ This is probably less likely; but again, consider who we’re dealing with. They’re not rocket surgeons.
Those are some options. But here’s what I think.
Forget about REPUBLICANS possibly overreacting to the speech. This speech WAS a Biden overreaction. Whatever else it was, it betrayed the fact that Trump is somehow getting to them. BIDEN should have the upper hand right now. He should be able to sit back and enjoy the show. His DOJ just raided Trump’s home, scooped up lots of “incriminating material,” leaked damning photos of Trump’s personal office and, according to all of corporate media, Joe holds all the cards.
Joe could’ve played the statesman, letting the DOJ investigation play out, saying he was surprised and appalled at what he was learning through the newspapers like everybody else.
But somehow — somehow — Trump has once again outflanked his enemies and shoved Biden and his handlers into producing THIS revolting spectacle. Say what you like about that devil Hitler but at least the guy could give a speech. Biden can’t even read the teleprompter without gaffes and stutters. Outside the python-infested inner acres of the leftist fever swamp, ordinary Democrats who watched that mockery of governance last night are, in their hearts, appalled.
They know Joe’s speech was a painful eyesore and a mistake.
In my view, Republicans’ best response to last night’s speech is no response. It was an embarrassingly bad joke. When someone tells an off-color joke, you ignore it and move on. I’m ignoring this bad joke. I suggest you consider doing so as well. Let Joe pickle himself in it.
🔥 Another hint about the new covid narrative pivot dropped into place yesterday when Biden’s ultra-diverse spokeslady — and I PROMISE I am not making this up — blamed covid school closures on Trump and the Republicans.
In response to a question about how the Administration plans to address kids’ post-pandemic learning loss, Biden’s spokeslady Jean-Pierre actually said this:
“Let’s step back to where we were, uh, not too long ago, when this president walked into this administration. Uh, how mismanaged, uh, the pandemic, the response to the pandemic was. Uh, how 47% of schools, uh, uh, were, uh, in, in less than six months, uh, our schools went from 40 per—, uh, 46% percent, uh, to, to open, to nearly all of them being open, full time. That was the work of this president. And that was the work of democrats. In spite of Republicans not voting for the American Rescue Plan…
We were, we were in a place where, uh, uh, schools were not open. The economy was shut down. Businesses were shut down. And — what we have seen is, uh, you know, we’ve seen the numbers. But I think that’s what WE see, that’s how we saw, it, it shows you how mismanaged, uh, the pandemic was. Uh, and how the impact of that mismanagement had on the chil—, uh, on kids’ progress, and academic well being…
And, you know, every Republican congress voted against that money. That is the reality. We had to do this on our own.”
Hahahahahahaha! Oh it hurts to laugh! Somebody make it stop!
Let me translate: Trump’s mismanagement of the pandemic lead to school closures and American kids’ loss of learning. Not teacher’s unions and Randi Weingarten. Not complicit Democrat politicians like Gavin Newsom. Not captive medical associations. Not the politically-enslaved CDC.
It was really TRUMP and all the Republicans in Congress. You remember that, right?
This new gaslighting expedition means that they can’t come up with any better ideas than denying they were for covid before they were against it. So, two months before the midterms, Democrats and the deep state appear to be pivoting to a new narrative, a narrative that covid restrictions that destroyed the economy, killed lots of folks with bad medicine, and set back a generation of kids were never their idea to begin with.
Maybe if they say it often enough, and loudly enough, people will believe it. You think that could work? In spite of all the receipts?
Meanwhile:
https://twitter.com/ariodzernbc6/status/1310997445053222912?s=20&t=LqqoDRyMOjs-WTHvBrLCOg&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
I don’t know how long they can keep it up. Gaslighting is getting expensive, what with the Nordstream pipelines shut down and everything.
Just saying!
Have a fabulous Friday and I’ll be back tomorrow with a full news roundup.
C&C is moving the needle and changing minds. If you can, I could use your help getting the truth out and spreading optimism and hope: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/-learn-how-to-get-involved-
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© 2022 Jeff Childers
2135-B NW 40th Terrace, Gainesville, FL 32605
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
Ed. note: This is an official transcript of Biden’s speech. We would be interested in seeing readers’ comments (enter below) on whether this furthers his stated aim of uniting our nation and do you agree with what he said.
By Joe Biden
SEPTEMBER 01, 2022• SPEECHES AND REMARKS
Independence National Historical Park
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
8:03 P.M. EDT
THE PRESIDENT: My fellow Americans, please, if you have a seat, take it. I speak to you tonight from sacred ground in America: Independence Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
This is where America made its Declaration of Independence to the world more than two centuries ago with an idea, unique among nations, that in America, we’re all created equal.
This is where the United States Constitution was written and debated.
This is where we set in motion the most extraordinary experiment of self-government the world has ever known with three simple words: “We, the People.” “We, the People.”
These two documents and the ideas they embody — equality and democracy — are the rock upon which this nation is built. They are how we became the greatest nation on Earth. They are why, for more than two centuries, America has been a beacon to the world.
But as I stand here tonight, equality and democracy are under assault. We do ourselves no favor to pretend otherwise.
So tonight, I have come this place where it all began to speak as plainly as I can to the nation about the threats we face, about the power we have in our own hands to meet these threats, and about the incredible future that lies in front of us if only we choose it.
We must never forget: We, the people, are the true heirs of the American experiment that began more than two centuries ago.
We, the people, have burning inside each of us the flame of liberty that was lit here at Independence Hall — a flame that lit our way through abolition, the Civil War, Suffrage, the Great Depression, world wars, Civil Rights.
That sacred flame still burns now in our time as we build an America that is more prosperous, free, and just.
That is the work of my presidency, a mission I believe in with my whole soul.
But first, we must be honest with each other and with ourselves.
Too much of what’s happening in our country today is not normal.
Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic.
Now, I want to be very clear — (applause) — very clear up front: Not every Republican, not even the majority of Republicans, are MAGA Republicans. Not every Republican embraces their extreme ideology.
I know because I’ve been able to work with these mainstream Republicans.
But there is no question that the Republican Party today is dominated, driven, and intimidated by Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans, and that is a threat to this country.
These are hard things.
But I’m an American President — not the President of red America or blue America, but of all America.
And I believe it is my duty — my duty to level with you, to tell the truth no matter how difficult, no matter how painful.
And here, in my view, is what is true: MAGA Republicans do not respect the Constitution. They do not believe in the rule of law. They do not recognize the will of the people.
They refuse to accept the results of a free election. And they’re working right now, as I speak, in state after state to give power to decide elections in America to partisans and cronies, empowering election deniers to undermine democracy itself.
MAGA forces are determined to take this country backwards — backwards to an America where there is no right to choose, no right to privacy, no right to contraception, no right to marry who you love.
They promote authoritarian leaders, and they fan the flames of political violence that are a threat to our personal rights, to the pursuit of justice, to the rule of law, to the very soul of this country.
They look at the mob that stormed the United States Capitol on January 6th — brutally attacking law enforcement — not as insurrectionists who placed a dagger to the throat of our democracy, but they look at them as patriots.
And they see their MAGA failure to stop a peaceful transfer of power after the 2020 election as preparation for the 2022 and 2024 elections.
They tried everything last time to nullify the votes of 81 million people. This time, they’re determined to succeed in thwarting the will of the people.
That’s why respected conservatives, like Federal Circuit Court Judge Michael Luttig, has called Trump and the extreme MAGA Republicans, quote, a “clear and present danger” to our democracy.
But while the threat to American democracy is real, I want to say as clearly as we can: We are not powerless in the face of these threats. We are not bystanders in this ongoing attack on democracy.
There are far more Americans — far more Americans from every — from every background and belief who reject the extreme MAGA ideology than those that accept it. (Applause.)
And, folks, it is within our power, it’s in our hands — yours and mine — to stop the assault on American democracy.
I believe America is at an inflection point — one of those moments that determine the shape of everything that’s to come after.
And now America must choose: to move forward or to move backwards? To build the future or obsess about the past? To be a nation of hope and unity and optimism, or a nation of fear, division, and of darkness?
MAGA Republicans have made their choice. They embrace anger. They thrive on chaos. They live not in the light of truth but in the shadow of lies.
But together — together, we can choose a different path. We can choose a better path. Forward, to the future. A future of possibility. A future to build and dream and hope.
And we’re on that path, moving ahead.
I know this nation. I know you, the American people. I know your courage. I know your hearts. And I know our history.
This is a nation that honors our Constitution. We do not reject it. (Applause.)
This is a nation that believes in the rule of law. We do not repudiate it. (Applause.)
This is a nation that respects free and fair elections. We honor the will of the people. We do not deny it. (Applause.)
And this is a nation that rejects violence as a political tool. We do not encourage violence.
We are still an America that believes in honesty and decency and respect for others, patriotism, liberty, justice for all, hope, possibilities.
We are still, at our core, a democracy. (Applause.)
And yet history tells us that blind loyalty to a single leader and a willingness to engage in political violence is fatal to democracy.
For a long time, we’ve told ourselves that American democracy is guaranteed, but it’s not.
We have to defend it, protect it, stand up for it — each and every one of us.
That’s why tonight I’m asking our nation to come together, unite behind the single purpose of defending our democracy regardless of your ideology. (Applause.)
We’re all called, by duty and conscience, to confront extremists who will put their own pursuit of power above all else.
Democrats, independents, mainstream Republicans: We must be stronger, more determined, and more committed to saving American democracy than MAGA Republicans are to — to destroying American democracy.
We, the people, will not let anyone or anything tear us apart. Today, there are dangers around us we cannot allow to prevail. We hear — you’ve heard it — more and more talk about violence as an acceptable political tool in this country. It’s not. It can never be an acceptable tool.
So I want to say this plain and simple: There is no place for political violence in America. Period. None. Ever. (Applause.)
We saw law enforcement brutally attacked on January the 6th. We’ve seen election officials, poll workers — many of them volunteers of both parties — subjected to intimidation and death threats. And — can you believe it? — FBI agents just doing their job as directed, facing threats to their own lives from their own fellow citizens.
On top of that, there are public figures — today, yesterday, and the day before — predicting and all but calling for mass violence and rioting in the streets.
This is inflammatory. It’s dangerous. It’s against the rule of law. And we, the people, must say: This is not who we are. (Applause.)
Ladies and gentlemen, we can’t be pro-ex- — pro-ex- — pro-insurrectionist and pro-American. They’re incompatible. (Applause.)
We can’t allow violence to be normalized in this country. It’s wrong. We each have to reject political violence with — with all the moral clarity and conviction this nation can muster. Now.
We can’t let the integrity of our elections be undermined, for that is a path to chaos.
Look, I know poli- — politics can be fierce and mean and nasty in America. I get it. I believe in the give-and-take of politics, in disagreement and debate and dissent.
We’re a big, complicated country. But democracy endures only if we, the people, respect the guardrails of the republic. Only if we, the people, accept the results of free and fair elections. (Applause.) Only if we, the people, see politics not as total war but mediation of our differences.
Democracy cannot survive when one side believes there are only two outcomes to an election: either they win or they were cheated. And that’s where MAGA Republicans are today. (Applause.)
They don’t understand what every patriotic American knows: You can’t love your country only when you win. (Applause.) It’s fundamental.
American democracy only works only if we choose to respect the rule of law and the institutions that were set up in this chamber behind me, only if we respect our legitimate political differences.
I will not stand by and watch — I will not — the will of the American people be overturned by wild conspiracy theories and baseless, evidence-free claims of fraud.
I will not stand by and watch elections in this country stolen by people who simply refuse to accept that they lost. (Applause.)
I will not stand by and watch the most fundamental freedom in this country — the freedom to vote and have your vote counted — and — be taken from you and the American people. (Applause.)
Look, as your President, I will defend our democracy with every fiber of my being, and I’m asking every American to join me. (Applause.)
(A protestor disruption can be heard.)
Throughout our history, America has often made the greatest progress coming out of some of our darkest moments, like you’re hearing in that bullhorn.
I believe we can and we must do that again, and we are.
MAGA Republicans look at America and see carnage and darkness and despair. They spread fear and lies –- lies told for profit and power.
But I see a very different America — an America with an unlimited future, an America that is about to take off. I hope you see it as well. Just look around.
I believed we could lift America from the depths of COVID, so we passed the largest economic recovery package since Franklin Delano Roosevelt. And today, America’s economy is faster, stronger than any other advanced nation in the world. (Applause.) We have more to go.
I believed we could build a better America, so we passed the biggest infrastructure investment since President Dwight D. Eisenhower. And we’ve now embarked on a decade of rebuilding
the nation’s roads, bridges, highways, ports, water systems, high-speed Internet, railroads. (Applause.)
I believed we could make America safer, so we passed the most significant gun safety law since President Clinton. (Applause.)
I believed we could go from being the highest cost of prescriptions in the world to making prescription drugs and healthcare more affordable, so we passed the most significant healthcare reforms since President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act. (Applause.)
And I believed we could create — we could create a clean energy future and save the planet, so we passed the most important climate initiative ever, ever, ever. (Applause.)
The cynics and the critics tell us nothing can get done, but they are wrong. There is not a single thing America cannot do — not a single thing beyond our capacity if we do it together.
It’s never easy. But we’re proving that in America, no matter how long the road, progress does come. (Applause.)
Look, I know the last year — few years have been tough. But today, COVID no longer controls our lives. More Americans are working than ever. Businesses are growing. Our schools are open. Millions of Americans have been lifted out of poverty. Millions of veterans once exposed to toxic burn pits will now get what they deserve for their families and the compa- — compensation. (Applause.)
American manufacturing has come alive across the Heartland, and the future will be made in America — (applause) — no matter what the white supremacists and the extremists say.
I made a bet on you, the American people, and that bet is paying off. Proving that from darkness — the darkness of Charlottesville, of COVID, of gun violence, of insurrection — we can see the light. Light is now visible. (Applause.)
Light that will guide us forward not only in words, but in actions — actions for you, for your children, for your grandchildren, for America.
Even in this moment, with all the challenges we face, I give you my word as a Biden: I’ve never been more optimistic about America’s future. Not because of me, but because of who you are.
We’re going to end cancer as we know it. Mark my words. (Applause.)
We are going to create millions of new jobs in a clean energy economy.
We’re going to think big. We’re going to make the 21st century another American century because the world needs us to. (Applause.)
That’s where we need to focus our energy — not in the past, not on divisive culture wars, not on the politics of grievance, but on a future we can build together.
The MAGA Republicans believe that for them to succeed, everyone else has to fail. They believe America — not like I believe about America.
I believe America is big enough for all of us to succeed, and that is the nation we’re building: a nation where no one is left behind.
I ran for President because I believed we were in a battle for the soul of this nation. I still believe that to be true. I believe the soul is the breath, the life, and the essence of who we are. The soul is what makes us “us.”
The soul of America is defined by the sacred proposition that all are created equal in the image of God. That all are entitled to be treated with decency, dignity, and respect. That all deserve justice and a shot at lives of prosperity and consequence. And that democracy — democracy must be defended, for democracy makes all these things possible. (Applause.) Folks, and it’s up to us.
Democracy begins and will be preserved in we, the people’s, habits of heart, in our character: optimism that is tested
yet endures, courage that digs deep when we need it, empathy that fuels democracy, the willingness to see each other not as enemies but as fellow Americans.
Look, our democracy is imperfect. It always has been.
Notwithstanding those folks you hear on the other side there. They’re entitled to be outrageous. This is a democracy. But history and common sense — (applause) — good manners is nothing they’ve ever suffered from.
But history and common sense tell us that opportunity, liberty, and justice for all are most likely to come to pass in a democracy.
We have never fully realized the aspirations of our founding, but every generation has opened those doors a little wider to include more people who have been excluded before.
My fellow Americans, America is an idea — the most powerful idea in the history of the world. And it beats in the hearts of the people of this country. It beats in all of our hearts. It unites America. It is the American creed.
The idea that America guarantees that everyone be treated with dignity. It gives hate no safe harbor. It installs in everyone the belief that no matter where you start in life, there’s nothing you can’t achieve.
That’s who we are. That’s what we stand for. That’s what we believe. And that is precisely what we are doing: opening doors, creating new possibilities, focusing on the future. And we’re only just beginning. (Applause.)
Our task is to make our nation free and fair, just and strong, noble and whole.
And this work is the work of democracy — the work of this generation. It is the work of our time, for all time.
We can’t afford to have — leave anyone on the sidelines. We need everyone to do their part. So speak up. Speak out. Get engaged. Vote, vote, vote. (Applause.)
And if we all do our duty — if we do our duty in 2022 and beyond, then ages still to come will say we — all of us here — we kept the faith. We preserved democracy. (Applause.) We heeded our wor- — we — we heeded not our worst instincts but our better angels. And we proved that, for all its imperfections, America is still the beacon to the world, an ideal to be realized, a promise to be kept.
There is nothing more important, nothing more sacred, nothing more American. That’s our soul. That’s who we truly are. And that’s who must — we must always be.
And I have no doubt — none –– that this is who we will be and that we’ll come together as a nation. That we’ll secure our democracy. That for the next 200 years, we’ll have what we had the past 200 years: the greatest nation on the face of the Earth.
We just need to remember who we are. We are the United States of America. The United States of America. (Applause.)
And may God protect our nation. And may God protect all those who stand watch over our democracy. God bless you all. (Applause.) Democracy. Thank you. (Applause.)
9-2-22 Update: soon to be a hurricane. Tropical storms Danielle and Javier gaining force
BY JOSEPH MICHALITSIANOS FOR DAILYMAIL.COM
8-30-22
By Dave Scott
9-1-22
Prominent Ohio Republican Congressman Jim Jordan told an enthusiastic crowd at Amelia Island’s Walkers Landing last night (Thursday, September 1) that the media and the Democrats are in lockstep and “the disdain they have for ‘We the people’ is scary.”
Speaking without notes or a teleprompter the eloquent 15-year influential congressman didn’t hold back in his criticism of the press and the Biden administration during his fiery and emotional talk before an audience of local U.S. Constitution Scholarship Foundation members.
Despite what he said was the “lying media and the Democrat’s disdain for America” he was confident Republicans would take back control of the House and Senate because President Joe Biden and the Democrats “haven’t done one thing right and the American people – We the People get it,” he emphasized.
He cited the proposed hiring of “87,000 new IRS employees that will be coming after you” and the Department of Justice’s calling American “mothers and fathers that speak out at school board meetings terrorists” as examples of the “left coming after you and me” and lying aboutiut. He got a round of applause when he reminded the audience: “The House controls the money, and when we win the majority back we won’t be giving the Department of Treasury the money top fund 87,000 more employees.”
He didn’t spare his contempt for the media adding: “They lie about me every day, they’re always lying, and they’re going to continue to lie. We have to push back.”
In response to a question, he said the Republican leadership will soon unveil its “Commitment to America” program much like Newt Gingrich did with the “Contract With America” in 1994 when Republicans took won eight Senate seats and 54 in the House to take total control of Congress for the first time since 1952.
He concluded saying: “We need to get rid of these guys and put Republicans in charge,’ and then if we win, it’s on us to do what we told the American people we were going to do and fight for the things that really matter. The country gets that.”
Read Dave Scott’s Blog regularly
Republished with the author’s permission. Read The Dave Scott Blog– subscribe Free
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
By Sigrid Weidenweber
8-31-22
Like all the thinking people of America, I, too, have racked my brain in an effort to understand why the Biden government would want to incur the ill will of the American public by allowing millions of aliens from all-over the world to enter our defenseless country.
Why allow foreigners and criminals to disappear unchecked among the hapless civilian population? Many of the disease and Covid-ridden aliens were not subjected to our governmental mandates requiring us to submit to barrages of jabs and boosters. Why overload schools with pupils whose parents contribute nothing to the support of the institutions? Why subject the emergency rooms and hospitals of small cities to the onslaught of people with illnesses not seen in here in a hundred years? Why does our government allow foreign and Mexican gangs to flood America with all sorts of drugs, especially China produced Fentanyl? Do the governing powers not know, or care, that last year alone 107,000 million Americans lost their lives to overdose?
Well, nothing made sense to me until I received an e-mail from Europe, better defined, from Holland and Austria.
The Oostenrijkse politicus sounded the alarm that at least 70 million, perhaps as many as 500 million Africans are slated by the European Union, or more precisely the One-World Elites in Brussels, to be brought to Europe to be distributed among the European member states. The English version of the Frontnieuws reads as follows: Austrian politician sounds the alarm: “EU is preparing the immigration of up to 500 million Africans to Europe.” This is according to a secret EU plan that proposes distribution of the Africans among member states according to a distribution key. “The biggest burden is to be carried by Austria, Sweden and Germany calculated based on population size and economic strength.
Of course, consultation of citizens did not take place. Non-aligned MEP Roman Haider says that all this is being prepared in deep secret. I quote, “it all happens in secret. The EU claims that it has held two citizens consultations on this issue, but even I, as a member of Parliament, know nothing about it. In fact only a few pro-asylum lobby groups have been consulted—and it is clear what the outcome will be.
Haider is launching an information initiative to inform the population about the EUs plan. It is www.saveeurope.at.
Having read the articles in this, and two other publications, it became quite clear to me why we have open borders. According the One-World crowd the two to three millions of illegal migrants are just the beginning. As long as their front-man Biden is in charge they do not have to prepare secret settlement laws to be forced on the American populace, as they do in Europe. No, by pretending the border is secure, we can allow, in the years to come, another fifty to seventy million more people from all over the world to stream in and accomplish the secret plans hatched in Caux Switzerland and Brussels.
Sigrid Weidenweber grew up in communist East Berlin, escaping it using a French passport. Ms. Weidenweber holds a degree in medical technology as well as psychology and has course work in Anthropology. She is co-founder of Aid for Afghans. Weidenweber has traveled the world and lived with Pakistani Muslims, learning about the culture and religion. She is a published author and lecturer. You can find her books on Amazon.com
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
By Water News
09-01-22
| Devices to help you save water include (from left) a rain sensor shut-off device, commercial evapotranspiration (ET) controller and a soil moisture sensor. |
| Take control of your irrigation controller and save water As we enter the dog days of summer and afternoon rainstorms are a regular feature, our landscapes and yards are much greener than in April, when we waited for the rainy season. This is the time of year when many seasoned homeowners and lawn landscapers turn off their irrigation systems and allow rain to do its job. Read tips from our water conservation coordination for ways you can take control of your controller and help save water. Now in StreamLines. http://www.sjrwmd.com/streamlines/ |
| Read StreamLines for the rest of the story – https://www.sjrwmd.com/streamlines/controlling-your-controller-whos-the-boss/ |
Opinion
By Jeff Childers
09-01-22
Happy Thursday, C&C, and welcome to September. I’ve been advised that Halloween decorations are now available at the Home Depot, expect Christmas lights shortly. In today’s roundup: Biden calls DeSantis a fascist; DOJ releases a “gotcha” picture from Trump’s office; thoughts about change agents; more of the DOJ’s case against Trump gets debunked; a NY Post op-ed calls for disbanding the CDC; a NY Times essay recounts Fauci’s legacy of failure; SADS deaths; add joy and test proctors to the danger list; and DeSantis creates the most popular state in the U.S..
🔥 Yesterday, the former vice president’s press secretary, Karine Jean-Claude, I mean Pierre, called Governor DeSantis a “semi-fascist,” whatever that is, for wishing that, instead of waiting for his retirement at the end of the year, someone would just go ahead and throw that little elf Fauci across the Potomac right now.
Karine made the comment while defending President Biden, who recently called the entire “MAGA wing” of the Republican Party semi-fascists.
So, according to Biden and his extra-diverse mouthpiece, a “semi-fascist” is a person who makes dwarf-throwing jokes. They shouldn’t be so cavalier with their re-defining everything. Mussolini is probably turning somersaults in his toasty grave.
🔥 Biden and his pet Attorney General Merrick Garland made a ghastly breach of federal law enforcement ethics yesterday. Maybe I should say “another ghastly breach.” They shattered all precedent by publishing an investigatory picture from Trump’s office allegedly showing some secret documents.
Let’s deal with the precedent-breaking issue first. There was no legal need to leak the picture. They laundered the leak by unnecessarily including the picture in their response to Trump’s motion to appoint a special master. I’ll talk more about why it was unnecessary in a minute. Anyway, the feds knew it would be front-page clickbait in ten seconds, even though it proves nothing and doesn’t relate to the special master issue.
The picture was not intended to further the DOJ’s legal argument, it was intended to make Trump look bad. It’s that simple.
In defense of the DOJ’s prosecutors, normally — unlike Trump — the only thing a politician under investigation will publicly say is, “Pursuant to my attorney’s advice, I’m not going to comment, but I expect to be fully vindicated.” But that’s not Trump’s style.
In contrast to the usual strategy of staying quiet, Trump has thrown legal caution to the wind and is talking a blue streak. The prosecutors probably see Trump as breaking some kind of unwritten agreement, so the gloves are off, we’re not going to fight with one arm tied behind our backs, and if Trump wants to try this case in the media then so be it! Or something like that.
But what can you say? That’s Trump. He’s a bull in a china shop. He doesn’t shop for bargains; he kicks the display tables over and then asks how much the owner wants for all the broken pieces at a lot price.
Don’t take that as critical; I mean it as a compliment. Allow me a brief digression to explain.
🔥 In management jargon, there’s a term for a specific type of manager: “a change agent.” A change agent is the CEO that you bring in during a crisis when you need to make big layoffs and completely restructure the company. To manage that kind of change, the new CEO must be brutally efficient, hard-nosed, and completely unfeeling, since the company’s existence is at stake.
Everyone, CEO included, knows perfectly well that the employees are going to wind up hating him. But there’s a natural remedy. Once all the corporate surgery is over, you can make a big show of terminating the now-reviled CEO, and ceremoniously replace him with a peacemaker. This pattern is so well-established that boilerplate language in the change agent CEO’s contract always includes a giant golden parachute. It’s always intended to be a short-term gig.
The current situation is perfectly simple: Trump is a change agent, like in the corporate example. Like any other change agent, you probably wouldn’t want Trump to be president forever, not if you really think it through (he’s too old anyway).
Trump’s job was always to restructure the government, so that another President who’s a great manager can come in and take over, after the restructuring is finished, and after things are back to running smoothly.
At the broadest level, fixing our government isn’t really complicated. Professional managers can see what needs to be done, it’s just like a bloated aging corporation: there are too many employees, the budgets are busted, workers are distracted by a bunch of random off-mission projects, and the entire company is unprofitable.
It’s past time for America to hire a change agent, it’s that simple. Whether it’s Trump or somebody else. We need someone to prune the workforce, shutter all unneeded departments, refocus the company (the country) back to the original core mission, and get it running profitably (i.e., a budget surplus).¹
Whether it’s Trump or someone else, whoever ultimately fixes the government is going to make a LOT of enemies, so the change agent needs to be someone at the end of their career, probably someone who isn’t a professional politician, and someone who doesn’t already owe favors to lots of people in Washington. Trump fits that profile, and that’s the best argument for Trump.
Back to the picture. Here it is:
🔥 The turgid leftist fever swamps on Twitter are agog over the FBI’s picture, which lefties excitedly feel “proves” Trump is literally one million times worse than Benedict Arnold, the most hated and despised traitor since Brutus literally stabbed Julius Caesar in the back. But as usual, the rhapsodic lefties are more exuberant than rational.
This picture shows nothing interesting.
(1) Trump wasn’t keeping the documents on his floor. Obviously the FBI agent scattered the papers on the floor for the picture, to make a record they were there, so it would be harder for Trump to later claim the documents were planted, as both the tagging card (“2A”) and the rulers suggest.
(2) The entire country ALREADY KNEW there were confidential and top-secret documents in Trump’s office. He hasn’t denied that. The photo adds nothing.
(3) Only the documents’ cover pages are visible (or were redacted). We have no idea WHAT the top secret information relates to. There aren’t even dates shown on any of the documents, so as far as we know, they could contain Civil War field reports.
(4) Trump’s position is he declassified the documents he kept, and he has credibly argued that under well-established law he has the unilateral authority to declassify anything he wants, for any reason, or for no reason at all. The picture does not contradict that argument in any way.
I could go on, but you get the point. Since the picture adds nothing new or legally probative, it wasn’t necessary to the government’s objection to any appointment of a special master. But it was needed to give corporate media a talking point.
🔥 Consider a September 5, 2019, article from NPR headlined, “Can President Trump Really Tweet A Highly Classified Satellite Photo? Yep, He Can.”
In late August, 2019, Trump tweeted a top-secret satellite photo of a failed Iranian missile launch. The photo included intelligence labels and margins markings indicating the origins of the picture, which apparently was a top-secret U.S. intelligence satellite, USA 224.
In the story, NPR reported that Trump told skeptical reporters, “We had a photo and I released it, which I have the absolute right to do.”
Now, here’s the important part. NPR itself debunked the idea that Trump had done anything wrong:
Of course, NPR is singing a different tune NOW, but if it weren’t for shifting principles, NPR wouldn’t have any principles at all.
🔥 The argument that Trump broke the Presidential Records Act has also been debunked, causing another one of the DOJ’s claims to disappear in a puff of sulphur. First, as scholar Jonathan Hurley pointed out, the PRA is not a criminal statute and includes no criminal penalties. But even more significantly, in 2012 Bill Clinton was sued for keeping some presidential records in his sock drawer, I am not making that up, and a federal court found Clinton did nothing wrong:
Seems pretty clear.
🔥 Trump’s decision not to follow the usual script of staying quiet during an investigation is triggering corporate media, hard. Yesterday Yahoo News ran an article headlined, “With Legal Peril Rising, Trump Turns to QAnon and 4chan Memes for Support.”
It’s a hysterical, over-the-top rant about Trump retweeting a bunch of stuff yesterday that Yahoo distorted completely out of context. For example, Yahoo claimed Trump said “it was the FBI and members of antifa who had stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.”
That would be a little wild, even for Trump. I chased that one down, and it turned out that Trump had only retweeted a thread about January 6th instigator Ray Epps, who has been credibly identified as an intelligence asset and — while Epps publicly denies it — has never denied that under oath, nor has he sued anybody for defamation. Somehow Yahoo turned that into a Trump “claim” that the FBI stormed the Capitol. Nonsense.
💉 A study published yesterday in the journal Vaccine titled “Serious adverse events of special interest following mRNA COVID-19 vaccination in randomized trials in adults.”
The researchers used Pfizer and Moderna’s own randomized, placebo-controlled trials and compared them against an industry list of common adverse events following vaccination. Guess what they found?
That’s not good for business.
You can add this study to the ever-growing list of journal articles critical of the jabs. Remember: jab-critical studies have been embargoed until just recently; journal editors have simply refused to print them because they “could cause vaccine hesitancy.”
Something is changing.
🔥 There was more evidence of the pivot when, a couple weeks ago, the New York Post ran an op-ed headlined, “Too Little, Too Late: Disband the CDC Now.” The author argued that, given the CDC’s politicization during the pandemic, such as by involving the teachers’ unions in crafting covid guidance, and its many mistakes and missteps and revolving advice, the CDC is beyond any possible hope of reorganization.
I couldn’t possibly agree more. Why is the government in the health business anyways? Pull the plug.
But there’s more. This New York Post op-ed seems to have been the start of a trend.
🔥 In perhaps the most remarkable recent example of the developing narrative pivot, the New York Times ran a “guest essay” Tuesday titled, “Why Many Americans Turned on Anthony Fauci.”
The article begins by asking, “how by 2022 did Dr. Fauci become, to so many, a villain?”
My first thought was, how much time do you have?
The author acknowledges that a lot of “wacky” conspiracy theories and so-called “misinformation” prominently featured that monstrous puppy torturer Fauci, and maybe some of those claims were unfair. But then it gets to the point:
The author doesn’t stop with Fauci. He went after the CDC, too:
You don’t say.
But then the article actually listed Fauci’s many failures. You might ask yourself, when have you ever seen a list of Fauci’s mistakes printed in the New York Times? Here’s the list:
Remember, this appeared in the New York Times. The Left’s Gold Standard. The anti-Fauci essay was approved by the Times’ editors.
Fauci’s flip-flop on masking may be his undoing. Here’s how the Times’ essay described that shining example of bureaucratic flexibility:
Sigh. How many times have I made the exact same point? But it wasn’t JUST the mask flip. The Times essayist also made the more fundamental point, that Fauci HIMSELF undermined public trust in science by fantastically claiming the he personally embodied “science:”
I couldn’t have said it any better. But maybe the most important paragraph in the story is this next one, which accurately and persuasively describes the most terrible implications of what the public health establishment has wrought:
That’s a powerful indictment of the fundamentally destructive nature of public health’s pandemic excesses. Finally, the essay’s remarkable conclusion explicitly called for Fauci’s entire legacy to be labeled as a FAILURE:
Where have all these public health experts who so keenly recognize Fauci’s failure been for the last two years? Oh, well.
This New York Times essay is remarkable, not just for existing at all; it’s most remarkable for where it appeared — featured in the New York Times. There is an extraordinary narrative pivot quietly underway.
Unlike previous pivots where the government and its media allies gave clear advance signals where it was going, with this one, I can’t tell yet. But it’s going somewhere.
💉 Yesterday, junior hockey Captain Eli Palfreyman, 20, suddenly and unexpectedly keeled over, dead, DURING a hockey tournament in Ontario, Canada. He’d just been named captain of the team five days before he died.
Clarington Eagles @EaglesPJHLTragedy in AYR yesterday as Captain Eli Palfreyman passed away during a hockey game. The entire Clarington Eagles organizations thoughts and prayers go out to the Centennials organization, it’s fans as well as the friends and family of this young man. therecord.com/news/waterloo-…
August 31st 202216 Retweets69 Likes
Safe and effective!
💉 Otherwise healthy FIU linebacker Luke Knox, 22, died suddenly and unexpectedly last week. Local 7 News Miami reported, “While the cause of his death has not been revealed, police don’t suspect foul play.”
WSVN 7 News @wsvnSince the passing of 22-year-old FIU linebacker Luke Knox, Monday was the first time his teammates and coaches had a chance to let people know how much Knox meant to the program. Teammates and coaches reflect on death of 22-year-old FIU football player Luke KnoxMIAMI (WSVN) – Since the passing of 22-year-old FIU linebacker Luke Knox, Monday was the first time his teammates and coaches had a chance to…wsvn.comAugust 29th 20221 Retweet8 Likes
Maybe they don’t suspect foul play, but I do, just not the kind that the police meant.
💉 You really can’t make this stuff up. I’m just going to copy the headline in here, or you’ll think I’m exaggerating:
Now that’s bold. You have to hand it to them. They just added “joy” to the growing list of everyday experiences that can suddenly kill you — but only by a heart attack, stroke, or blood clot. And it’s not some kind of super life-changing joy. It just the joy from seeing one semester’s report card.
It really adds a whole new dimension to the expression, “overjoyed.”
I’d really like to mock this UK Mirror article into oblivion, but I have committed to refrain from humor when reporting these tragic SADS deaths. As much as I can.
🔥 The death-from-joy article is really a two-fer. Because of the similarities to Mubarak’s case, the Mirror cited an Indian news report from March, about a student who died from a heart attack after being told she was in the wrong exam room and would have to run to the correct room and start over. They blamed the test proctor:
Scribble test proctors onto the list. But in all seriousness, it seems these young people’s hearts are giving out from any little kind of stress at all. For some reason.
📈 In yet more evidence of Governor DeSantis’ winning, the Florida Standard ran a story last week headlined, “Americans: Florida Best State to Live In.”
An August Rasmussen poll reported that Florida is now the nation’s most desirable state to live in. It wasn’t even close. Florida collected more selections than any other state, collecting a full 18% of the total survey responses. Surprisingly, California ranked second, with 11% of selections.
The paper didn’t quibble about the reasons, either:
> With no state taxes, warm weather and iconic beaches, Florida has long been an attractive place to live. Over the past two years, however, Governor Ron DeSantis’ policies have attracted many Americans who were unwilling to endure COVID restrictions across the country.
Beaches, weather, and taxes aren’t new. The only factor the paper identified apart from those long-standing advantages was Florida’s covid policies. But let’s not forget the other policies, like anti-CRT, anti-rioting, and medical protection for vulnerable kids with gender dysphoria.
Maybe this survey finally proves that all the states should follow Florida’s model. Just saying.
Have a terrific Thursday, and I’ll see you back here tomorrow for another solid roundup of news and commentary.
C&C is moving the needle and changing minds. If you can, I could use your help getting the truth out and spreading optimism and hope: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/-learn-how-to-get-involved-
Twitter: @jchilders98
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1
Since he’s NOT a career politician, Trump’s first four years are best viewed as his training, learning how the company works. The next four years would be when he can really start cutting.
© 2022 Jeff Childers
2135-B NW 40th Terrace, Gainesville, FL 32605
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
It’s now Saturday: https://www.orlandosentinel.com/space/artemis/os-bz-nasa-artemis-i-launch-traffic-and-crowds-take-2-20220901-t3xxqcj3ivd3hbqc26ouwacjli-story.html
By Paul FarrellIt
The first Moon rocket launched by NASA in five decades is expected to take off as early as August 29 from the Kennedy Space Center on Florida‘s coast.
Read more in the Daily Mail
By George Miller
8-31-22
The upcoming 6 pm September 6 Fernandina Beach City Commission special meeting will be a:
| PUBLIC HEARING | ||
| 1 Statement regarding the percentage increase in Millage over the rolled-back rate necessary to fund the budget and the specific purpose for which ad valorem tax revenues are being increased. I. Millage rate for operation expenditures | ||
| Summary Truth in Millage Statement Proposed Budget |
The rolled back rate is 4.7709 mills per $1,000 of assessed value.
The percentage increase is 11.78% over the rollback millage rate.
The operating millage rate to be levied is 5.3330 mills per $1,000 of assessed
value. This is forecasted to generate a 14.02% increase in property tax revenue over last year.
Here’s the meeting AGENDA.
This will be followed by the regular City Commission meeting which will cover a host of items, with highlights being:
Read all the items in the regular meeting AGENDA, or get all the details in the meeting PACKET.
The meetings will be at City Hall:
204 Ash Street
Fernandina Beach, FL 32034
Phone: 904-277-7300
Interestingly the meetings scheduling is overlapped, with the special meeting shown as 6 pm- to 7pm, while the regular meeting shows as starting at 6:15 pm.
George Miller is Publisher and Co-Founder of Citizens Journal Florida, based in Fernandina Beach. He is a “retired” operations management consultant, software and publishing executive and manufacturing management professional.
By CBS News
8-31-22
A Florida judge on Thursday declared a Florida law championed by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis that restricts race-based conversation and analysis in business and education unconstitutional.
Tallahassee U.S. District Judge Mark Walker said in a 44-page ruling that the “Stop WOKE” act (ed. note: Stop the Wrongs to Our Kids and Employees (W.O.K.E.) Act) violates the First Amendment and is impermissibly vague. Walker also refused to issue a stay that would keep the law in effect during any appeal by the state.
The law targets what DeSantis has called a “pernicious” ideology exemplified by critical race theory — the idea that racism is systemic in U.S. institutions that serve to perpetuate white dominance in society.
Read MORE
Other MEDIA
Opinion
By Jeff Childers
08-31-22
Happy Wednesday, C&C! It’s the final day of August. What fresh excitement will September bring as we home in on the midterms elections? In today’s roundup: Trump expertly trolls the media with predictable results; a mysterious conclusion to a new study of German excess mortality; sudden and unexpected celebrity deaths; Canadians reject school vaccines; whistleblowers report FBI hi-jinx; electric cars run out of batteries in California; a big win for Gibson’s Bakery; and the Russians dial back Europe’s natural gas even more.
🔥 President Trump expertly trolled the media and the loony left yesterday by suggesting in a social media post that he be immediately declared president, or that the country promptly hold a new election. He was responding to news that Mark Zuckerberg told Rogan that just before the 2020 elections, the FBI ‘asked’ Facebook to bury any stories that looked like Russian propaganda, which Zuck told Rogan was the reason Facebook banned the Hunter Biden laptop story.
Corporate media instantly hit the books, frantically trying to discover a new crime somewhere in Trump’s tweet. Trump’s lawyers pulled their hair out in clumps. And lefty activists turned the outrage dial up to ’11.’ How dare he! It’s another insurrection! For just one example out of many:
Dash Dobrofsky @DashDobrofskyWow. Trump just “demanded” to have a “new election” and accused the FBI of “cheating” in 2020. Trump is actively attempting to defraud the US Government. He is deliberately inciting violence against Federal Institutions. Shut Truth Social down and indict him for his crimes, now.August 29th 20226,431 Retweets25,803 Likes
🔥 A new study published on ResearchGate this week titled, “Excess Mortality in Germany 2020-2022.” It uses actuarial science to estimate how many all-cause deaths in 2020 to 2022 there would have been absent the pandemic. Then it compares the number of actual all-cause deaths with the no-pandemic figure, yielding the excess mortality in Germany for the pandemic years 2020 to 2022.
The researchers concluded:
Something must have happened, something must have changed in April 2021. SOMETHING. Something mysterious and baffling. So weird! What could have happened in April 2021 that started slaying all those young Germans? We’ll probably never ever know. It’s an unfathomable mystery wrapped in an impenetrable riddle encased in a confounding conundrum. It must all be SO frustrating for corporate media, since they usually swoon over a good “deadly threat” story.
Once while on a business trip in Miami, I watched with great interest an elucidating segment on the local news affiliate captioned, “Could your bra be killing you?” Hey, it’s important to keep up on these huge … developments.
Too bad for corporate media. We might also pause for a moment and have a little sympathy for the poor researchers, who probably know exactly what is going on, but aren’t allowed to say it and still get published.
💉 Scottish cyclist Rab Wardell, 37, died in bed last week from a sudden and unexpected heart attack. His partner Katie described him as healthy and happy, and was dumfounded by his sudden passing, saying “I still don’t understand what happened; if this is real.”
Katie Archibald @_katiearchibaldI think you’ve heard that Rab died yesterday morning. I still don’t understand what’s happened; if this is real; why he’d be taken now – so healthy and happy. He went into cardiac arrest while we were lying in bed. I tried and tried, and the paramedics… /1August 24th 2022566 Retweets21,321 Likes
💉 Longtime San Fransisco Chronicle business and sports editor Al Saracevic, 52, expired suddenly and unexpectedly Saturday after collapsing at a concert in San Francisco’s Mission District.
💉 Talented new South African actress Charlbi Dean, 32, whose upcoming movie recently won the Palme d’Or award at Cannes, gave up the ghost Monday in New York City, from a sudden, unexpected, and undisclosed illness.
💉 The Canadian Globe and Mail reported the next baffling development yesterday in a story headlined, “Routine Vaccination Rates For Children, Teens In Canada Dropped Dramatically Since Start Of Covid-19 Pandemic.”
School vaccination rates in Canada aren’t just down a little; they’re down a LOT.
The Globe blames the lower rates on pandemic-related disruptions, school closings, reduced access to physicians’ offices and MISINFORMATION. But it doesn’t get into exactly WHAT misinformation might be making parents suddenly hesitant to jab their kids with dozens of no-liability injections. Weird. Baffling. Unexplainable.
It has NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with all those young, healthy, and DEAD DOCTORS in Canada. Shame on you for even thinking that.
Some people might chalk this up as ANOTHER unexpected benefit of the pandemic. Not me. No, never. I think I’ll blame… public health experts.
🔥 Last week, Senator Ron Johnson (multiplied) fired off a letter to the DOJ about what FBI whistleblowers had told him about the Hunter Biden Laptop investigation.
Specifically, Johnson wrote:
Decisions based on how they affect an election sure sounds like politics to me. But what do I know, I’m just a lawyer, not a political scientist. Johnson continued:
They slow-walked it, eh?
Note this is a completely different letter than the one Senator Chuck Grassley sent the DOJ in May that apparently resulted in senior DC FBI agent Timothy Thibault’s resignation this week. Senator Grassley’s letter said:
Politics again. Weird. Last week, the Washington Times described the FBI whistleblowers’ reports in an article headlined, “Whistleblowers Describe A Culture Of Corruption At FBI Field Offices: ‘Completely Out Of Control’.” Among the many out-of-control high-jinx whistleblowers reported were going on down at the local FBI field offices included that supervisors:
Here’s a tip: you never want your sexual act to climax in a car crash. While exciting, it’s poor performance.
The whistleblowers also alleged the FBI was literally making up cases because Washington was rewarding high domestic terrorism investigation numbers. “You have to have so many terrorism cases per year in your office, or else you fail,” one whistleblower testified in an affidavit. “So they would come to us and say things like ‘Open up a case. I don’t care if it’s got merit or not. Just open it up. We only have nine, and we need 10 for me to pass.’”
Gosh! Maybe it’s time for a “reorganization.”
🔥 Houston, there might be a problem with this whole renewable energy thing. A new public announcement from California’s power grid operator warns that high temperatures are stressing the grid out, and consumers might have to reduce their power use during “flex times.”
Let me translate: Stop charging those power-hogging electric cars or else we cut the power off.
It’s my seventh year of driving a Tesla. People ask me how I like it; I love it. It’s the best car I’ve ever owned. But — and this is critical — I’d NEVER recommend it as your only car. I live in Florida. The power was out for a WEEK after the last hurricane came through. The only thing worse than no power after a hurricane is not having a way to get around after a hurricane. It literally could be a life-or-death issue. Suppose you need to get to a hospital? Or to a hair sniffing event?
Electric cars are great when the juice is flowing. But when the government cuts off the juice, or when — as the California advisory says — solar power isn’t working, you just have to sit still. But at least you’re saving the planet or something.
Haha, that didn’t take long. Little Peter Buttigieg told Californians to just buy more electric cars to save money on gas, then two months later, they say don’t use the electric whenever it’s hot. Whoops! You didn’t notice that in the fine print? Suckers.
🔥 Back in 2016, Oberlin College encouraged and supported students and faculty in falsely accusing the local Gibson’s Bakery of RACISM. The bakery then sued the college for defamation, its lawyers enduring years of every dirty legal trick a large, well-funded woke college could throw at them, but a jury eventually awarded the little bakery $36 million in damages.
More years of appeals followed. But yesterday, Ohio’s Supreme Court turned down Oberlin’s final appeal 4-3, meaning the school will now have to stroke a check to the bakery it nearly put out of business with its reckless, goofy, woke nonsense.
Justice. This is the kind of thing that makes lawyering worthwhile.
The back story is that in 2016, several diverse Oberlin students attempted to steal booze from Gibson’s, a local family-owned bakery near campus that had long served the Oberlin community. A family member who noticed the theft chased the students out of the store; they attacked him. He called the police, the students were arrested, pleaded guilty, and finally admitted race had nothing whatsoever to do with their arrest.
But that didn’t stop Oberlin. Students and faculty members called the bakery owners racists; they staged protests outside; and Oberlin officials participated in the protests, endorsing and supporting the protestors’ fake narrative. Protestors harassed bakery customers, taking pictures and insulting them. They also blocked customers from store aisles and slashed the tires of a store employee.
In private emails later unearthed by Gibson’s hardworking lawyers, Oberlin’s degreed and credentialed administrators can be seen constantly vilifying the tiny bakery and anyone who defended the small business, calling Gibson defenders “idiots” and saying, “F*** them.”
Best and brightest! Oberlin parents, you sure are getting your money’s worth! In case the sarcasm wasn’t clear, by “sure are,” I mean, “sure AREN’T.”
To this day, Oberlin refuses to admit it did anything wrong, has cancelled all its long-standing contracts for baked goods from Gibson’s, and officially advises its students not to shop there, all of which, as you can easily imagine, became a major talking point in the various appellate briefs filed by Gibson’s lawyers along the way. In my law practice, I call that kind of vindictive post-lawsuit behavior “self inflicted injuries.”
It’s not too difficult to imagine that, had the college just promptly apologized to Gibson’s, paid them a hundred grand, and increased a few bakery contracts, all would have been well and this would be a non-story. But that’s not how woke works. Woke means never having to say you’re sorry, even if you have to pay somebody $36 million bucks.
Apologies are racist anyways.
🚀 I told you this would happen! Reuters ran a story yesterday headlined, “Gazprom Tightens Gas Squeeze on France’s Engie.” Last month, Russia cut Europe off from its main source of natural gas through the Nordstream-1 pipeline, first closing it down completely for ten days for “routine maintenance,” then after restarting, reducing the flow to 40% of normal, claiming broken parts.
Well, now Russia has cut the flow again, this time to 20% of normal, and has again closed off the pipe for three more days of “unscheduled maintenance,” starting today and continuing through Friday. As a result of the squeeze, some Europeans have reported increases in energy bills by as much as TEN TIMES, which let me tell you, takes a bite out of your disposable income.
The European Union accuses Russia of using energy as a weapon. Moscow denies that, and blames sanctions for the drop in fuel exports. Reuters suggested that Ukraine might replace the lost Russian natural gas, but oddly didn’t mention that the unlucky Ukrainians have their hands full right now with a WAR WITH RUSSIA.
European elites aren’t ready to give in though. “I strongly suggest we spare ourselves the humiliation of always asking Putin for something that we’re not going to get,” said Kevin Kuehnert, the number two official in German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s party. “The dependence on him has to end for once and all,” he groused.
This is probably not the time, but several years ago President Trump told the Germans this would happen, and they laughed at him. I bet they’re not laughing now.
So.
Have a wonderful Wednesday, and I’ll catch you on the flip side tomorrow morning for more.
C&C is moving the needle and changing minds. If you can, I could use your help getting the truth out and spreading optimism and hope: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/-learn-how-to-get-involved-
Twitter: @jchilders98
Truth Social: @jchilders98
MeWe: mewe.com/i/coffee_and_covid.
C&C Swag! www.shopcoffeeandcovid.com
Emailed Daily Newsletter: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
8-31-22
Hunter Biden is the subject of a brand new narrative film My Son Hunter, marking Breitbart’s expansion into film distribution. It’s the story the establishment media don’t want you to see.
It’s available for PRE-ORDER NOW at MySonHunter.com. The film becomes available for Streaming and Downloading September 7.
By Jeff Childers
08-30-22
Happy Tuesday and good morning, C&C Army! Finally, we have feedback on Dr. Gold’s multiplier, and you’re going to love it. Plus today’s roundup: a biased senior FBI agent gets the boot; myocarditis risk study has bad news for guys; UK pivots on guidance for pregnant people; another sudden and unexpected athletic death; 11th Circuit trims contractor mandate injunction; good news for Marines; governments halting reporting covid outcomes by jab status; boosters approved with mouse data; and the Tamp Bay Times discovers medical autonomy.
🪖 OPERATION MULTIPLIER REPORT: I never expected it would take this long to get the results of our last operation, but I think you’ll agree, it was worth the wait. Unsurprisingly, Dr. Gold’s team is hunkered down while she on her all-inclusive holiday in scenic downtown Miami Club Fed, and they are all feeling a little wary about strangers. But after my live visit, information controls loosened, and we now have the numbers.
Although a few more donations trickled in later, between Saturday, July 30th (Multiplier Day) and the following Friday, SIX THOUSAND C&Cers (5,927) donated $176,793.94 to Dr. Gold’s freedom fundraiser. That’s nearly $90,000 per month of her sentence.
Dr. Gold was sentenced to federal prison for first-time misdemeanor trespassing. She never even said anything about the elections. She was there to make an anti-mandate speech. A courageous advocate for medical freedom, Dr. Gold has done so much for all of us, by speaking out and holding the line against further loss of liberty, and by publishing alternative treatments that literally saved tens of thousands of lives. It’s the least we could do.
By each giving a little that we could easily afford, we not only blew up the fundraiser, but we also sent a clear message about how we feel about the selective prosecution and punishment of a first-time offender.
We could only have done it by working together. I am VERY proud to be part of the C&C Army!
On to the news.
🔥 The Washington Times ran a short story yesterday headlined, “Top Agent Exits FBI Amid Charge of Political Bias Undermining Hunter Biden Probe: Sources.” The Times reported that a senior FBI official in the bureau’s Washington DC field office, Timothy Thibault, abruptly resigned yesterday after congressional scrutiny for political bias in handling the investigation of Hunter Biden’s laptop computer.
I know, you’re shocked. Shocked and appalled. How could this happen, and so forth.
The Times anonymously cited “two former FBI officials familiar with the situation,” who said Thibault “was escorted by two or three ‘headquarters-looking types.’”
And that’s the whole story from corporate media.
Independent media sources added some details. Just the News reported, “Former Special Agent Thibault was accused of displaying bias in his handling of politically sensitive investigations, including the criminal investigation of Hunter Biden’s laptop and FBI probes of former President Donald Trump.”
Apparently, Thibault’s departure is connected to Senator Chuck Grassley’s recent disclosure of a group of FBI whistleblowers who alleged, and I know you aren’t going to believe this, partisan enforcement at the agency. The online paper said the whistleblowers alleged that Thibault “concealed the partisan nature of evidence from FBI Director Christopher Wray and Attorney General Merrick Garland to secure their approval to open an investigation into former President Donald Trump in 2020 unrelated to the [Mar-a-Lago] raid.”
Becker News reported that in May, Senator Grassley asked the DOJ for records relating to Thibault’s work history, after discovering Thibault’s anti-Trump social media posts on Twitter and LinkedIn. The next thing you know, Thibault is out, at least out of the DC office.
While there was online speculation that Thibault was connected to the Biden Raid of Trump’s residence, I could not confirm that in any official source. So stay tuned. I’m sure there will be more.
💉 TctMD ran a story last week headlined, “Myocarditis Risk Low Overall After COVID-19 Vax, but Higher in Some Groups.” It’s a lot of blah-blah word salad about a new study, but it — finally — admits that myocarditis risk is MUCH higher in one teeny-tiny cohort: all men under 40.
The paper tentatively suggested that SOME PEOPLE might want to consider the pro’s and con’s. One expert quoted for the story, who chairs the American Medical Association’s pediatric committee, said this:
It’s a nice sentiment, but good luck finding someplace to have a frank and transparent discussion on the pro’s and con’s of vaccination. Let me know how that works out for you.
Notwithstanding that advice, another one of the paper’s cherry-picked experts, whose comment was blown up in a callout in the middle of the article, opined, “The overwhelming recommendation is strongly in favor of COVID vaccination, even when myocarditis is the endpoint.”
I guess they have to say that. After all, what’s a little myocarditis among oh-so-virtuous people who care about grandma and who care about virtue signaling?
💉 Jason Jenkins, 47, Miami Dolphins’ senior vice president of communications and community affairs, died suddenly and unexpectedly on Saturday, according to a team announcement.
Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel told reporters that Jason was previously completely healthy. “This was a healthy, healthy guy that just brought it every day. … Just full of life,” McDaniel said. “That’s the hardest part. There’s just no words to describe. He has a great family. His wife’s awesome, and his children. It’s tough. It’s a tough one to swallow. He will be missed. He will not be forgotten, I can tell you that much.”
I hope that Jason won’t be forgotten, but I have my doubts. Of course, Jason’s cause of death was not disclosed. I mean, who’d be interested in knowing why a completely healthy man in the prime of his life would keel over suddenly and unexpectedly? Don’t be ghoulish.
💉 The New York Post ran a story over the weekend headlined, “Latest COVID Booster Shots Will Be Released Before Human Testing Is Complete.”
If THIS is what we’re going to be doing now, why do we even NEED an FDA? That’s a serious question. Why don’t we just surgically remove the FDA like any other useless organ, like a swollen appendix or infected tonsils?
The jabs are magic now! We don’t need to test them, what a silly idea. They are safe and effective. Because the government and the corporate media says so.
Plus, it’s not like they don’t have ANY idea. According to FDA Commissioner Dr. Robert Califf, instead of waiting for data from testing in humans, the agency will just use data from mice trials — and real-world evidence of the safety of current covid vaccines (ahem) and test results from boosters targeting older strains — to evaluate the new and improved boosters.
They have mouse data! Not everyone is thrilled though. The Post quotes vaccine expert Paul Offit, from the FDA’s sidelined vaccine approval committee, as being hesitant to approve the new jabs. “I’m uncomfortable that we would move forward — that we would give millions or tens of millions of doses to people — based on mouse data,” Paul Offit wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed in June.
It’s like the punchline to a joke.
Oh, the Post also reported that Pfizer and Moderna both said the newest shots are safe and effective. So. You can trust them.
Does anyone else feel like the government is completely schizophrenic at this point? Over at the CDC, the emergency is over, all mitigations have been dropped, and vaccinated and unvaccinated share equal status. But at the FDA, the emergency is burning so hot they can’t wait a couple months for human trials to finish to approve jabs for millions of Americans. So … which is it? Is it an emergency or isn’t it?
💉 Last week, the UK government quietly revised its vaccine guidance and pivoted with respect to pregnant and breastfeeding women, I mean people. The new guidance explicitly wants against shots:
I’m old enough to remember back when you got kicked off Facebook for warning pregnant women not to take the jab. Here’s the link.
Now you just get kicked off Facebook for calling pregnant people “women” when you advise against the shots.
Now, I realize a lot of chronic complainers are going to ask, “what about the pregnant and breastfeeding women who took the shots based on the OLD guidance?” Do they get an apology? Or at least a lollipop or something? But look, NOBODY EVER SAID the shots were safe and effective during pregnancy. Okay, maybe they DID say that. But they’ve pivoted. There’s new data or something. So it’s all good.
And … shut up! Science!
💉 On Friday, a split decision in the 11th Federal Circuit partially upheld and partially dropped the injunction against the Federal contractor covid vaccine mandate. The dissenting judge, a Carter-appointee, wrote that he thinks the federal government has clear authority to order the mandate whenever it wants to. But the judge writing for the majority, a Trump appointee, upheld the injunction, but held that enjoining the entire country was over broad, and reduced its effect to just the seven states who joined the lawsuit plus the Associated Builders and Contractors union, which also joined.
Although this means the Biden Administration could restart the mandate in the other states, reports say officials are “still considering” what will happen next. They’ll probably keep considering it, at least until after the midterms. Vote accordingly.
💉 Last week, Florida federal Judge Steven Merryday enjoined the entire Marine Corps from enforcing the Military Mandate against any soldier asserting a religious objection to the jabs. Props to the heroic lawyers who litigated the case.
💉 Here’s the very last report on covid outcomes by vaccine status from the Canadian province of Manitoba, from May:
See how it doesn’t look too good if you take the deaths category, add Fully Vaccinated to Booster deaths, then compare that to Unvaccinated deaths? And keep in mind that they’re probably pumping up the unvaccinated numbers by including single-shotters and folks not past 30 days after the second dose.
Corporate media, of course, completely ignored the the data’s ramifications or even suggestions, but Alex Berenson wrote a short stack about it. Then, immediately after publishing the May report, Manitoba Public Health decided, for some reason yet to be explained, to STOP REPORTING the data. They must have got a lot of questions about that, because the latest report for August includes this brief disclaimer:¹
Nah nah nah nah I can’t hear the data I can’t hear you nah nah nah.
See, if they don’t report the data, there’s no actual problem, because the problem isn’t about who’s dying, the problem is about whether it makes politicians look bad. In a sane world, the corporate media would be screaming bloody murder about a cover-up. But now we live in Clown World, where corporate media is a wholly-owned subsidiary of government.
And it’s not just Manitoba. Ontario stopped reporting outcomes by vaccination status around the same time. So did Scotland, back in February. So did Britain, in April.
Thanks experts!
🔥 The Tampa Bay Times ran a whiny story yesterday headlined, “Some Doctors Stopping Treatment For Transgender Youth In Florida.” The sub-headline explains, “In Tampa Bay, a child’s surgery was canceled. In Miami, a hospital stopped accepting new patients seeking care for gender dysphoria. It comes as Florida calls for a ban on such procedures.”
Oh no! A child’s surgery was canceled? Stopping a child’s genital mutilation surgery is a PROBLEM for the Tampa Bay Times. That’s where we are now.
I could say a lot about this story. One noteworthy point is that the State of Florida is successfully pushing back against maniacal medical procedures, and apparently some doctors are starting to turn down the surgeries. I’d call that progress.
But even more interesting was the following paragraph:
Haller lives where I do, in Gainesville. I am aware of this doctor, a champion of coerced vaccination and masking during the pandemic. Now suddenly he’s discovered a newfound sense that the government should stay out of people’s medical decisions. At least whenever Haller thinks it should, or if it’s the second Tuesday of a month ending in a -y.
Still, it’s progress. Kind of.
Have a terrific Tuesday, and I’ll see you back here tomorrow morning for more!
C&C is moving the needle and changing minds. If you can, I could use your help getting the truth out and spreading optimism and hope: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/-learn-how-to-get-involved-
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https://www.gov.mb.ca/health/publichealth/surveillance/covid-19/2022/week_31/index.html.
© 2022 Jeff Childers
2135-B NW 40th Terrace, Gainesville, FL 32605
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
By Larry Sand
Date: August 30, 2022
A book written in 1958 explains our current cultural upheaval.
My father was a liberal Democrat. He worshipped FDR and didn’t care much for the GOP. His parents were staunch Republicans, and the political discussions I remember from the 1950s were always entertaining – if not a bit confusing – to this eight-year-old. Importantly, while my dad was a liberal, he was a virulent anti-Communist, who saw them as evil as the Nazis he went to war to eradicate.
The reasons my father hated the Communists are neatly spelled out in The Naked Communist, a book written in 1958 by political theorist W. Cleon Skousen, who eerily predicted our current state of affairs. In a section titled “Current Communist Goals,” he elucidates the plan in 45 steps, explaining that “many loyal Americans are working for these same objectives because they are not aware that these objectives are designed to destroy us.”
Skousen is especially insightful on the cultural and educational strife we are now experiencing. For example, in Step 20, he writes, “Infiltrate the press. Get control of book-review assignments, editorial writing, policy-making positions.”
While there certainly is a conservative media, is there any doubt that the predominant mainstream media runs far left? A good example of press manipulation was the ongoing reference to the George Floyd riots – where there was mass violence and 164 structure fires from arson in a four-day period in 2020 – as “protests.” Another was the complete suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story, which may very well have altered the outcome of the 2020 presidential election.
Step 24: “Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them ‘censorship’ and a violation of free speech and free press.” In a similar vein, Step 25 reads, “Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio, and TV.”
Compared to what we have now in films, TV and music, Playboy and the ravings of Lenny Bruce in the 1950s seem Church-worthy.
In Step 30, Skousen foresaw the current mania to deny the greatness of George Washington and other iconic Americans who don’t toe the utopian party line. “Discredit the American Founding Fathers. Present them as selfish aristocrats who had no concern for the ‘common man.’”
Skousen is especially on-target when he presaged the Marxist infiltration into the education sector. Step 17 asserts: “Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers’ associations. Put the party line in textbooks.”
Clearly Critical Race Theory, with its Communist roots and Black Lives Matter (whose co-founder Patrisse Cullors described herself as a trained Marxist) is alive and well in many of our nation’s schools. All too often “readin’, ritin’, and ‘rithmetic” have been replaced by “repression, rebellion and revolution.” Textbook companies follow the educational zeitgeist simply because they want to sell au courant books in order to keep their bottom line healthy.
As for the teachers unions, there is certainly the stench of Marxism. We all must realize that no matter their rhetoric, teachers unions are not beneficent organizations that care about children, their parents, taxpayers or quality education. They are ruthless special interest groups that will stop at nothing to advance their agenda. The National Education Association playbook was adapted directly from Marxist community organizer Saul Alinsky, who was hired by the union as a trainer in the 1960s. John Lloyd, an NEA insider at the time, explained that to understand the union, learning about Alinsky is a must. Reading Rules for Radicals, will help one “understand NEA more profoundly than reading anything else,” he said, because the organization was modeled on Alinsky’s precepts, which the union used to train its staff.
The Alinskyite model is perhaps best typified by Cecily Myart-Cruz, the socialist leader of the United Teachers of Los Angeles. In 2021, when was asked about how her union’s insistence on keeping L.A.’s schools locked down for over a year may have impacted the city’s k-12 students, she insisted, “There is no such thing as learning loss. Our kids didn’t lose anything. It’s OK that our babies may not have learned all their times tables. They learned resilience. They learned survival. They learned critical-thinking skills. They know the difference between a riot and a protest. They know the words insurrection and coup.”
Step 28: “Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the ground that it violates the principle of ‘separation of church and state.’”
Prayer in school was banned a few years after Skousen predicted its demise. Our Lady of the Marxist secular religion is prospering, however.
Step 38: “Transfer some of the powers of arrest from the police to social agencies. Treat all behavioral problems as psychiatric disorders which no one but psychiatrists can understand or treat.”
Police now are out of favor. Typical is the Los Angeles Unified School District which cut 133 or about 40% of its school cops in favor of kinder and gentler “climate coaches” in 2021. It was also decided that police would no longer patrol campuses, and would only be called upon to respond in-person during emergencies. “Restorative justice” and other similar non-consequences for willful defiance and worse have become the norm. As a result, discipline suffers and a few disruptors can make life miserable for behaving students and teachers alike. It turns teachers and counselors into therapists, emphasizes “making the victim and offender whole,” and involves “an open discussion of feelings.”
Step 40: “Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce” and Step 41: “Emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative influence of parents. Attribute prejudices, mental blocks, and retarding of children to suppressive influence of parents” are obviously related.
Clearly, Skousen hits the bull’s-eye here. The area of sex and gender is especially vexing. While God has been banned, schools see fit to tell your boy he may be a girl trapped in a boy’s body, and can change his school identity and hide it from the parents.
On the national level, the Biden administration is pushing to redefine “sex” in the Title IX rules to include “gender identity.” In reality, the change would threaten one of the basic principles of American society: that parents, not the state, are the primary caretakers for children. With the proposed change, the country is poised to compel school districts to treat students as the opposite sex, without their parents’ knowledge or consent. Even without federal help, many states are pursuing a similar anti-family path on their own.
In New Jersey, “there is no affirmative duty for any school district personnel to notify a student’s parent or guardian of the student’s gender identity or expression.”
In California, state law provides that “instruction or materials that discuss gender, sexual orientation, or family life and do not discuss human reproductive organs and their functions” are not subject to parental notice and opt-out laws, according to The California Safe School Coalition. Also, at a California Teacher Association conference in October 2021, teachers were advised on “best practices for subverting parents, conservative communities and school principals on issues of gender identity and sexual orientation.” Additionally, since 1997, the state even permits girls to be excused from school to get an abortion without any parental notification whatsoever.
A school in Wisconsin recently hung up a poster which proclaimed, “If your parents aren’t accepting of your identity, I’m your mom now.” And in a similar vein, at the 2022 Teacher of the Year ceremony hosted by the White House, President Biden claimed that school children don’t belong to parents when they’re in the classroom. “They’re all our children. And the reason you’re the teachers of the year is because you recognize that. They’re not somebody else’s children. They’re like yours when they’re in the classroom,” he said.
Had Biden said that 60 years ago, it may not have been controversial, but these days, his words are frightening.
Karl Marx once stated, “The education of all children, from the moment that they can get along without a mother’s care, shall be in state institutions.”
The long march Marxist through the institutions is continuing at breakneck speed. Had my father been alive to see what’s going on now, he’d think we live in a totalitarian state. In fact, maybe we do.
Larry Sand, a former classroom teacher, is the president of the non-profit California Teachers Empowerment Network – a non-partisan, non-political group dedicated to providing teachers and the general public with reliable and balanced information about professional affiliations and positions on educational issues.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
Governor’s Press Office
08-30-22
THE VILLAGES, Fla. — Today, First Lady Casey DeSantis announced the expansion of her Hope Florida initiative to the Florida Department of Elder Affairs.This expansion, called Hope Florida – A Pathway to Purpose, will provide support for Florida’s elders by increasing assistance for seniors in need while helping to facilitate opportunities for seniors looking to serve.
This announcement comes on the heels of the First Lady’s Hope Florida – A Pathway to Prosperity initiative, which she launched in 2021 to break down traditional community silos to unite the private sector, faith-based institutions, non-profits, and government entities to maximize resources and uncover opportunities for Floridians in need. Implemented by the Florida Department of Children and Families, Hope Florida – A Pathway to Prosperity has served nearly 50,000 individuals, helping them find an individualized path to prosperity, economic self-sufficiency, and hope.
With today’s expansion, the Department of Elder Affairs and the state’s eleven Area Agencies on Aging established their own Hope Navigators, who will further break down traditional community silos by uniting seniors and caregivers with community partners, giving seniors direct access to help locating immediate needs. In addition, the Hope Navigators will help identify ways for these seniors to find purpose, which could take the form of volunteering or mentoring. To be paired with a Hope Navigator, call 850-300-HOPE.
For seniors who wish to give back to society, Hope Florida – A Pathway to Purpose is simplifying opportunities for seniors to help meet the needs of their communities. One way to serve is with Elder Affairs’ newly established “Hope Heroes Program,” through which retirees can learn how to support seniors in need. To become a Hope Hero or to learn about additional volunteer opportunities, call 800-96-ELDER or visit helpcreatehope.com.
With Hope Florida – A Pathway to Purpose, faith and private sector entities in Florida’s communities who want to help meet the needs of seniors can also sign up to receive real-time alerts of requests for assistance in their area and, when able, volunteer services in response. To sign up to receive alerts regarding needs in your community, call 800-96-ELDER or visit helpcreatehope.com.
“Hope Florida – A Pathway to Purpose is an all-hands-on-deck operation to meet the needs of seniors while creating opportunities for them to give back,” said First Lady Casey DeSantis. “We are not only aiding Floridians in search of help, but also tapping into the Florida retiree population to volunteer. It’s incredible to see 45 seniors already lined up as Hope Heroes today; we are grateful for their willingness to serve and are committed to making it easier for them to do so. We are also expanding the role of the private sector and faith-based organizations by alerting those who wish to help but may not know of seniors’ needs in their area. I’m happy to say that with today’s expansion, we are continuing the Hope Florida theme of organizing the generosity and goodness of neighbors to help one another.”
“We are thrilled to be part of Hope Florida – A Pathway to Purpose and to launch the Hope Heroes initiative,” said Department of Elder Affairs Secretary Michelle Branham. “Florida has a robust aging network that has an engaging presence in each local community. It’s our goal to ensure seniors are living well and aging well in the place of their choosing. Hope Florida is an innovative and thoughtful initiative that gives us a new, hands-on approach to care.”
“We are so appreciative of the First Lady’s commitment and dedication to ensuring the needs of our State’s most vulnerable populations are met,” said Department of Children and Families Secretary Shevaun Harris. “Through Hope Florida – A Pathway to Prosperity, we are helping to connect those in need with individuals and organizations who want to help and are so excited to see the program expand to serve Florida’s seniors.”
By Just the News
8-29-22
Former Washington Field Office Special Agent in Charge Tim Thibault was reportedly escorted out of the Bureau’s headquarters on Friday, amid whistleblower allegations that he showed political bias in his handling of politically sensitive investigations.
The Washington Times reported eyewitness accounts that “Mr. Thibault was seen exiting the bureau’s elevator last Friday escorted by two or three ‘headquarters-looking types.'”
Whistleblowers alleged that Thibault concealed the partisan nature of evidence from FBI Director Christopher Wray and Attorney General Merrick Garland to secure their approval to open an investigation into former President Donald Trump. That investigation culminated in the FBI’s raid on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate earlier this month.
But wait, there’s MORE
For more background, see also: https://justthenews.com/accountability/fri-fbi-official-transferred-after-whistleblower-allegations-political-bias-senator
Still MORE
and More
Governor’s Press Office
08-29-22
Electric buses modernize public transit, reduce emissions, and improve air quality
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Today, Governor Ron DeSantis celebrated another step in the state’s efforts to modernize public transit and reduce air pollutants caused by diesel emissions. Through the Volkswagen settlement, the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) is awarding more than $68 million that will secure 227 electric transit buses in 13 counties statewide that will replace existing diesel transit buses in Alachua, Broward, Duval, Escambia, Hillsborough, Leon, Marion, Miami-Dade, Monroe, Orange, Palm Beach, Pasco, and Pinellas counties.
“This funding will help lower emissions while also bringing our transit bus fleets to more modern standards,” said Governor Ron DeSantis. “This is a win-win for air quality and advancing the state’s efforts to bolster growing electric vehicle usage.”
In addition to today’s announced electric transit bus grant awards, DEP has also awarded grants to seven school districts to purchase a total of 218 electric school buses in Broward, Manatee, Miami-Dade, Orange, Palm Beach, Pinellas, and Sarasota counties. Introducing electric buses is an important and effective way to reduce harmful emissions, especially in highly populated areas where mobile sources are the largest sources of air pollution. As more and more electric vehicles are deployed, emissions of air pollutants will be reduced, which will continue to improve Florida’s air quality.
“Florida continues to be a national leader in air quality and is proud to be the most populous state in the nation to have met all of EPA’s National Ambient Air Quality Standards,” said DEP Secretary Shawn Hamilton. “Through collaboration with partner agencies and the private sector, we are able to implement projects to protect air quality and support the needs of our communities.”
These projects and others are a result of DEP’s Florida Beneficiary Mitigation Plan, which was created to outline how the state would spend its allotted $166 million from the Volkswagen settlement. The plan focused on constructing new electric vehicle charging stations, procuring electric buses for select school districts and transit agencies, and providing funding for Diesel Emission Reduction Act (DERA) projects.
Through Florida’s settlement allotment, DEP has awarded grants to install 150 electric vehicle charging stations along the state highway system and several DERA grants to reduce emissions in and around the state’s ports. These projects include marine engine replacements, an electric freight switch, and port cargo handling equipment.
For more information on Florida’s Mitigation Plan and project selection, please visit DEP’s webpage at http://floridadep.gov/Volkswagen.
Opinion
By Jeff Childers
08-29-22
| Happy Monday Morning, C&C! It’s a new week, bursting with fresh hopes and possibilities. I’m just playing with updated names this week, let me know if anything grabs you, or if you’re one of many who prefer the original. In today’s roundup: Moderna sues Pfizer over its spike patent; we learn how that retiring fraud Fauci originally got put in charge of the massive U.S. biodefense apparatus; vaccines are literally falling from the skies now; Trump’s lawyers earn their keep; Ukraine continues shelling Europe’s largest nuke plant; DC shot mandate pushed back; unjabbed Djokovic banned from U.S. Open; Beto catches a mysterious infection; and for some weird reason, carbon-friendly Beyond Burgers are failing to grip with consumers.‘ *NEWS AND COMMENTARY* 🗞🔥 In another perfectly predictable late-pandemic development, Moderna sued Pfizer last week. The suit alleges that Pfizer infringed Moderna’ patents related to the covid vaccine. Specifically, Moderna claims Pfizer stole two things: First, its key innovation — the technique of replacing uridine with methylpseudouridine in order to ‘fool’ the immune system and stabilize the mRNA particles. Some folks have suggested the technique overshoots the mark and makes the mRNA TOO stable, which is why it is loitering in the body so much longer than the developers expected. Here’s a good stack if you want to dig into the microbiology: Pseudouridine, mRNA Vaccines & Spike Protein Persistence. https://mindandmatter.substack.com/p/pseudouridine-mrna-vaccines-and-spike?s=w&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email Second, Moderna claims Pfizer stole the entire spike protein, which Moderna had raced to patent: 21. … the Pfizer and BioNTech vaccine encoded for the exact same type of coronavirus protein (i.e., the full-length spike protein), which is the coronavirus vaccine design that Moderna had pioneered based off its earlier work on coronaviruses and which the company patented and uses in Spikevax®. It’s a fascinating lawsuit, and if the case isn’t quickly settled and goes forward, we’re going to learn a lot of stuff that we couldn’t have found out about any other way. My mouth was already hanging open in dazed wonderment by the seventh paragraph. The complaint was talking about how Moderna developed the pseudouridine technique for the MERS virus back in 2015, when they created their first mRNA vaccine, and then made this astounding claim: Animal challenge studies showed that the new vaccine successfully resulted in the production of neutralizing antibodies and prevented MERS infection. Those experimental results provided proof of concept that mRNA encoding for the full-length spike protein in a lipid nanoparticle could be used successfully to prevent coronavirus infection. I had to read it twice. Sure enough, it claims that the mRNA vaccine “prevents” covid infections. Moderna repeats the claim again later in paragraph 15, albeit qualified by limiting the efficacy to Wuhan strain: Moderna blew away those expectations and was able to show that its vaccine was 94% effective against infection by the strain of the COVID virus then circulating. I think Moderna’s lawyers must have been on a long trip to the Antarctic or something and are out of touch with recent events. Later, the complaint mentions boosters, but tellingly, makes no claim at all about efficacy of SpikeVax as a booster. Even more fascinating, you can read the complaint forwards and backwards and you’ll find NO CLAIM of any protection — partial or otherwise — from “severe hospitalizations and death.” This complaint could have been written in the summer of 2020 before the vaccines came out. Why wouldn’t Moderna just admit the stupid jabs don’t prevent infections? They could have adopted the silly replacement argument that it prevents “severe hospitalizations and death,” right? As a lawyer, the only explanation that comes to mind is that Moderna (1) never intended the shots to work that way, and/or (2) they know that the jabs DO NOT prevent serious hospitalization and death, and they don’t want to lie in a federal court filing, which is a criminal felony. Either way, it’s a remarkable omission. You might be wondering why they even mentioned the jab’s effect at all. In a patent case, you have to show what the invention is FOR. In other words, what it is intended to do. It can be something silly, like traveling through time, but there has to be a PURPOSE for the invention. Out of all the options, Moderna picked “preventing infection.” Think about that. For legal beagles, here’s the complaint.🔥 UnHerd ran an equally fascinating article this weekend titled “How Dick Cheney Created Anthony Fauci.”The article describes how the Bush Administration responded to the post-9/11 anthrax attacks by creating a new biodefense organization, knitting it together out of a long list of pre-existing departments and agencies, and by 2003, promoted the obscure NIAID’s AIDS-veteran and biodefense “expert” Anthony Fauci to its head. Worst of all, they let Fauci design his own position, which ended up with him being impossible to fire, being nearly unaccountable, and being the best-paid employee in the entire federal government, even over the President.UnHeard explained, “Fauci now had..carte blanche to not merely approve but design and run the kind of research projects he sought—and could do so with no oversight..Biodefence projects that formerly would have fallen under..authority of military or intel..agencies were now under his..supervision. ”Fauci’s promotion was not just another bureaucratic reshuffling. It was a tectonic event, a shifting of political mountains and the plates underneath the entire U.S. health and biodefense infrastructure. Its budget ballooned into a multiple of all research into cancer, heart disease, and obesity combined. According to UnHerd, Fauci “went from being the director of one the NIH’s constituent 27 institutes to being the only one who really mattered. ”It explains a lot. Hopefully, he’s starting to pack up his office.💉 I know you guys. You are going to think I’m making this up, so here’s a screen-grab of the headline so you can read it for yourself: https://www.wral.com/the-usda-is-sprinkling-fish-flavored-vaccines-from-the-sky-to-fight-rabies/20437623/ Welcome to 2022, when literally ANYTHING is possible. The USDA says it is vaccinating WILD RACCOONS for rabies. Because it is a TRAGEDY how many wild raccoons suffer from the completely preventable disease. How can we, as moral beings, stand by and allow our furry forest friends to suffer, when we have planes, fish flavoring, and cutting-edge oral vaccine technology? The USDA allowed that domestic animals like cats and dogs might also gobble up the loaded snacks, but don’t worry, the medico-bites are SAFE and EFFECTIVE. They definitely WON’T wind up making it MORE LIKELY your cats and dogs will catch rabies. That would be ridiculous. Why would you even think that? So. It’s not mind-control powder in the contrails, you silly conspiracy theorists. It’s VACCINES. So just calm down already. 🔥 Trump’s lawyers scored a major win on Friday when a Miami federal judge set a hearing on their motion to appoint a special judge to oversee the FBI’s raid. Initially, the judge seemed skeptical, asking Trump’s lawyers why the case shouldn’t just stick with Magistrate Reinhart, where it started. But after they explained that magistrates can’t legally appoint ‘special masters,’ because only real Article III judges can, the judge agreed and set a hearing for this Thursday to make a final decision. She even indicated in her order that she was leaning toward approving the request. This is a huge development because Trump’s first priority in having any realistic ability to enforce his rights was to somehow get the case re-assigned to a full federal judge, and away from the magistrate who’d criticized Trump on Facebook and already recused himself from another Trump case. Trump’s lawyers seem to have done it. Nice work, gentlemen (and ladies). 🚀 AFP ran a short story this weekend headlined “Fresh Shelling At Ukraine Nuclear Plant Sparks Radiation Fears.” It’s a little hard to discern from the terse two-sentence report, but basically they’re saying that Ukraine continued to lob explosive mortar rounds at the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant over the weekend. Zaporizhzhia is the largest nuclear power plant in Europe. The Russians have controlled it without incident since the beginning of the war. If you can believe anything coming out of the war, the Russian ministry of defense said Ukrainian shells have landed near areas storing fresh nuclear fuel and radioactive waste. Ukraine’s puppet president Zelensky admitted that the situation around Ukraine nuclear plant was “very risky and dangerous. ”I’m just spitballing here. But one idea to lower the risk and danger might be to stop bombing a gigantic nuclear power plant. On the other hand, what do I know? I’m just a lawyer, not a nuclear physicist. 💉 The Post Millennial ran a story this weekend headlined, “DC ‘No Shots, No School’ Vaccine Mandate Enforcement Pushed Back To 2023. ”In other words, now that they’ve coerced a bunch more kids into taking the jabs, they shifted the onerous childhood jab mandate back until after the midterms, when it will ostensibly spring back into place for the Spring term. I suppose we’ll see. Either way, it gives them another three months to wear down some more anxious parents. In related news, on Thursday a DC Superior Judge ruled that Mayor Bowser’s covid vaccine mandate for all DC employees, including teachers, was unlawful. So in other words, as students return to school in the Spring, vaccine mandates will apply to kids, but not to the adults teaching them. Makes perfect sense.💉 Even though the CDC dropped disparate treatment for unvaccinated people, the Moderna-sponsored U.S. Open refused to allow unjabbed Serbian tennis champion Novak Djokovic to travel to the U.S. to play in the championship.TheBlaze @theblazeTennis star Novak Djokovic forced to miss US Open due to vaccination status Tennis star Novak Djokovic forced to miss US Open due to vaccination statusNovak Djokovic, a 21-time tennis major champion and former top-ranked player, has withdrawn from next week’s US Open — one of tennis’ four major events. Djokovic has not been vaccinated against COVID-19, and the U.S. does not allow unvaccinated foreigners to enter the country.“Sadly, I will not be a…dlvr.itAugust 27th 202231 Retweets84 LikesNovak Djokovic @DjokerNoleSadly, I will not be able to travel to NY this time for US Open. Thank you #NoleFam for your messages of love and support. ❤️ Good luck to my fellow players! I’ll keep in good shape and positive spirit and wait for an opportunity to compete again. 💪🏼 See you soon tennis world! 👋🏼August 25th 202217,940 Retweets147,238 Likes Science! Shut up! 💉 Wish well the jabbed and boosted Texas gubernatorial candidate “Beto” O-Rourke, or whatever his name is, who is struggling this week. The Hill ran a story this weekend headlined, “Beto O’Rourke Pauses Campaign After Being Hospitalized With Bacterial Infection.” I know what you’re thinking. It is definitely NOT VAIDS. People, PLEASE. But, what kind of bacterial infection is it? How’d he catch it? What kind of symptoms is he having? Who knows! Beto isn’t saying, and the Hill is completely silent about all those perfectly normal questions. Inquiring minds may want to know, but they aren’t going to find out. If you’re a Beto fan, don’t worry. I predict he’ll be right as rain in five to seven days. Don’t make me say it, but I think his mysterious infection might rhyme with punkeymox. Andrew Gillum could not be reached for comment. 🔥 I’m sorry to report this bad news, but you need to know. The Daily Mail UK ran a story earlier this month headlined, “Fake meat fail? Beyond Meat reels as sales slow and stock plummets, with an analyst saying it’s ‘burning through cash’ and may go bankrupt as partnerships with McDonald’s and Taco Bell don’t pan out. ”Uh-oh! That can’t be good for business. Wall Street darling Beyond Meat’s stock prices peaked in July of 2019 at over $234 per share. But the price began steadily slipping last year, and is now trading at around $32. The stock disappointed investors by falling 74% in the last twelve months. Worse yet, Market Watch recently cited an independent analysis listing Beyond Meat as a ‘zombie stock’ that could soon hit $0 a share. Zero. Nada. Bupkis. So weird! But why? For some baffling reason, the carbon-friendly meat-alternative’s test locations just aren’t performing too well. Many of Beyond Meat’s fast-food partners are either not expanding their plant-based options to any more restaurants, or are deleting the veggie-based items off the menu entirely. For instance, McDonald’s “McPlant” products have reportedly seen disappointing sales, and some locations have stopped serving the faux-meat burgers altogether. Help! Beyond Burgers needs a mandate! Seriously though, I’m as grossed out and skeptical of “Beyond Meat Burgers” as anybody, but we should probably have some sympathy for the innovative firm. It’s not like Beyond Burgers grow on trees or anything. Have a marvelous Monday! I’ll see you all back here tomorrow for more.Upgrade to paidShare C&C is moving the needle and changing minds. If you can, I could use your help getting the truth out and spreading optimism and hope: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/-learn-how-to-get-involved- Twitter: @jchilders98 Truth Social: @jchilders98 MeWe: mewe.com/i/coffee_and_covid. C&C Swag! www.shopcoffeeandcovid.com Emailed Daily Newsletter: https://www.coffeeandcovid.comLikeCommentShare For the full experience, become a paid subscriber.Subscribe © 2022 Jeff Childers 2135-B NW 40th Terrace, Gainesville, FL 3260 |
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
Governor’s Press Office
August 26, 2022
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Today, Governor Ron DeSantis announced the appointment of Edwin Moore and the reappointment of Glenton Gilzean to the Florida Commission on Ethics.
Edwin Moore, PhD
Moore is the former President and Chief Executive Officer of the Independent Colleges and Universities of Florida. He was previously appointed as a member of the Governor’s Efficiency Task Force, as well as CareerSource Florida. Moore earned his bachelor’s, master’s, and doctorate degrees from Florida State University.
Glenton Gilzean
Gilzean is the President and Chief Executive Officer of the Central Florida Urban League and currently serves on the Ninth Judicial Nominating Commission. He previously served on the Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University (FAMU) Board of Trustees and the Pinellas County School Board. Gilzean earned his bachelor’s degree in biomedical sciences and his master’s degree in entrepreneurship from the University of South Florida.
These appointments are subject to confirmation by the Florida Senate.
By Michael Hernandez
8-27-22
SACRAMENTO—A U.S. District Court issued a ruling after an eight-year legal battle that California churches and universities cannot be forced by the California Department of Managed Healthcare to cover abortions. The ruling was issued Wednesday, Aug. 24 by California’s Eastern District (one of four U.S. Districts in California) Chief Justice Kimberly J. Mueller—a Barack H. Obama appointee.
The three California churches that brought forth the lawsuit against California through Alliance Defending Freedom were Foothill Church in Glendora (Lead Pastor Chris Lewis), Calvary Chapel of Chino Hills (Pastor Jack Hibbs), and The Shepherd of the Hills Church in Porter Ranch (Lead Pastor Dudley Rutherford).
While the three Southern California churches were the plaintiffs in the case, Mary Watanabe, in her official capacity as Director of the California Department of Managed Healthcare was the defendant.
The significance of this 1st Amendment case: Was whether the state can force churches to violate their religious beliefs by requiring them to cover elective abortion in their health plans.
Background: In August, 2014, the California Department of Managed Health Care (DMHC) sent letters to seven private health insurers, directing them to remove any limitations on or exclusions of abortion care services from the health care coverage they offered to various employers, including the churches.
Beth H. Parker, the Chief Legal Counsel for Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California began writing a series of emails in February, 2014 that continued into May informing California’s DMHC that insurance companies were excluding abortion from their coverage for employees at Loyola Marymount and Santa Clara University. Other emails were written by Planned Parenthood California lobbyist Brianna K. Pittman to Lark Park, a policy advisor for then Gov. Jerry Brown and to Donna Campbell, deputy secretary of the Office of Legislative Affairs at the California Health and Human Services Agency.
Initially, these emails started with Planned Parenthood requesting to know why California exempted religious universities from sponsoring abortions. Planned Parenthood of California then began trying to persuade the DMHC to reverse their exemption and ultimately the DMHC asked Planned Parenthood for their assistance.
Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California responded by demanding that the DMHC:
The Alliance Defending Freedom filed an original complaint in the Eastern District of California on Oct. 16, 2015 against Michelle Rouillard, Director of California’s Department of Managed Health Care for changing the law on Aug. 22, 2014 to mandate that health insurance companies provide coverage for abortions and removed all exemptions from churches and other religious employers.
The original lawsuit states that the churches believe, “as a matter of religious conviction, that it would be sinful and immoral for them intentionally to pay for, participate in, facilitate, or otherwise support abortion, which they believe destroys innocent human life.
“Because federal law requires Plaintiffs to offer health insurance to their employees, the Mandate illegally and unconstitutionally coerces Plaintiffs to violate their religious belief under threat of heavy fines and penalties.”
The churches state in their original lawsuit that they have insurance plans through Kaiser Permanente, Blue Shield, Anthem Blue Cross and Aetna. To see the original lawsuit go to: https://adflegal.org/sites/default/files/2020-11/Foothill%20Church%20v.%20Rouillard%20-%20Original%20complaint.pdf.
The Key Points for the Foothill Church Case according to the Alliance Defending Freedom:
Five Key Facts listed by the Alliance Defending Freedom:
“Churches have the constitutional right to operate according to their religious beliefs. The government has no business forcing churches to violate those beliefs.”
To read the Aug. 24 ruling made by California’s Eastern District Court go to: https://adflegal.org/sites/default/files/2022-08/Foothill-Church-v-Watanabe-2022-08-25-District-Court-Decision.pdf
“For years, California has unconstitutionally targeted faith-based organizations, so we’re pleased the court has found this mandate unconstitutional and will allow the churches we represent to operate freely according to their religious beliefs,” said ADF Senior Counsel Jeremiah Galus.
“Because Obamacare requires health insurance coverage, and the California mandate requires abortion coverage in any health plan, these churches are truly left with no way to opt out of paying for abortions,” said Galus. “What’s absurd, though, is that the same government that rightfully does not require California churches to pay for contraceptive coverage requires them to pay for elective abortion coverage. Californians should not be forced to choose between following their deepest convictions and submitting to unlawful and unnecessary government mandates.
“Elective abortions are not part of ‘basic health care,’” said Galus. “They have no business being forced into the medical coverage provided by churches that do not wish to support terminating lives due to very real, sincere, and well-known faith convictions.”
The Alliance Defending Freedom (President and CEO Michael P. Farris) is a non-profit legal organization that advocates for the right of people to freely live out their faith. They have represented parties in 14 (played a role in 72) wins at the U.S. Supreme Court, securing over 2,000 legal victories and focus in litigating First Amendment legal cases.
Michael Hernandez, co-founder of the Citizens Journal—Ventura County’s online news service is a former Southern California daily newspaper journalist and religion and news editor. Mr. Hernandez can be contacted at [email protected] and is editor of “America: The End and Our Hope”.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
By John R. Lott, Jr.
August 10, 2022
Dr. John Lott has a new piece at Real Clear Investigations about the large systematic errors in the FBI’s count of armed civilians who have stopped what otherwise would have been mass public shootings.
The shooting that killed three people and injured another at a Greenwood, Indiana, mall on July 17 drew broad national attention because of how it ended – when 22-year-old Elisjsha Dicken, carrying a licensed handgun, fatally shot the attacker.
While Dicken was praised for his courage and skill – squeezing off his first shot 15 seconds after the attack began, from a distance of 40 yards – much of the news coverage drew from FBI-approved statistics to assert that armed citizens almost never stop such attackers: “Rare in US for an active shooter to be stopped by bystander” (Associated Press); “Rampage in Indiana a rare instance of armed civilian ending mass shooting” (Washington Post); and “After Indiana mall shooting, one hero but no lasting solution to gun violence” (New York Times).
Evidence compiled by the organization I run, the Crime Prevention Research Center, and others suggest that the FBI undercounts by an order of more than three the number of instances in which armed citizens have thwarted such attacks, saving untold numbers of lives. Although those many news stories about the Greenwood shooting also suggested that the defensive use of guns might endanger others, there is no evidence that these acts have harmed innocent victims.
“So much of our public understanding of this issue is malformed by this single agency,” notes Theo Wold, former acting assistant attorney general in the U.S. Department of Justice. “When the Bureau gets it so systematically – and persistently – wrong, the cascading effect is incredibly deleterious. The FBI exerts considerable influence over state and local law enforcement and policymakers at all levels of government.”
Related: The ‘Good Guys With Guns’ the FBI Stats Omit
As many on the left seek more limits on gun ownership and use in response to mass shootings and the uptick in violent crime, and many on the right seek greater access to firearms for protection, the media’s reliance on incomplete statistics in covering incidents such as the one at the Greenwood Park Mall takes on new significance.
The FBI defines active shooter incidents as those in which an individual actively engages in killing or attempting to kill people in a populated, public area. But it does not include those it deems related to other criminal activity, such as a robbery or fighting over drug turf.
The Bureau reports that only 11 of the 252 active shooter incidents it identified for the period 2014-2021 were stopped by an armed citizen. An analysis by my organization identified a total of 281 active shooter incidents during that same period and found that 41 of them were stopped by an armed citizen.
That is, the FBI reported that 4.4% of active shooter incidents were thwarted by armed citizens, while the CPRC found 14.6%.
Two factors explain this discrepancy – one, misclassified shootings; and two, overlooked incidents. Regarding the former, the CPRC determined that the FBI reports had misclassified five shootings: In two incidents the Bureau notes in its detailed write-up that citizens possessing valid firearms permits confronted the shooters and caused them to flee the scene. However, these cases were not listed as being stopped by armed citizens because the attackers were later apprehended by police. In two other incidents the FBI misidentified armed civilians as armed security personnel. In one incident, the FBI simply failed to mention the citizen engagement at all
For example, the Bureau’s report about the Dec. 29, 2019 attack on the West Freeway Church of Christ in White Settlement, Texas, that left two men dead does not list this as an incident of “civic engagement” because the perpetrator was fatally shot by a parishioner who had volunteered to provide security during worship. That man, Jack Wilson, told RealClearInvestigations he was not a security professional. He said that 19 to 20 members of the congregation were armed that day, and they didn’t even keep track of who was carrying a concealed weapon.
As for the second factor — overlooked cases — the FBI, more significantly, missed an additional 25 incidents identified by CPRC in which the active shooters were thwarted by armed civilians (see full list here). These include:
— An August 31, 2021, incident in Syracuse, New York, in which a property manager pulled out a legally possessed 9mm handgun and fatally wounded a man who opened fire on a crowd outside a building. The district attorney credited the property manager with saving the lives of several individuals.
— An August 11, 2021 incident in San Antonio, Texas, in which a woman who crashed into a parked car in San Antonio’s West Side neighborhood climbed out of her vehicle and began shooting indiscriminately at people who came out of their homes to rush to her aid. An armed resident fired back and shot the driver to death.
— A February 13, 2019 incident in Colonial Heights, Tennessee, in which a man, after killing his wife, turned his gun on others in dental office where she worked. A patient who had a concealed handgun permit holder shot the murderer as he was aiming at another person.
These omissions and discrepancies are not surprising given the limits of data collection and the judgment calls involved in categorizing such incidents. Law enforcement agencies around the country do not provide comprehensive reports of active shooter incidents, so local news coverage is a crucial source of information. The FBI contracts out this work to the Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response Training Center at Texas State University and then reviews and refines its findings.
The CPRC discovered cases the Center missed, but even the CPRC’s approach almost certainly misses incidents. “[T]here’s no reason to think that the [CPRC’s] list is complete, since there may well have been such incidents that weren’t covered in the news in a way that would come up on the Center’s searches,” UCLA Law Professor Eugene Volokh wrote in June.
Asked about these discrepancies, the FBI declined to address them. A representative from the Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response Training Center, M. Hunter Martindale, suggested that its numbers were not definitive:
“We do appreciate you sending potential active shooter cases for the FBI team to review for inclusion in the active shooter dataset. As promised, I sent the email chain to the FBI team yesterday. As I’m sure you know, the FBI Active Shooter reports are released on an annual basis. My assumption is that any amendment retroactively adding cases would likely be included in a release with the annual report.“
Although collecting such data is fraught with challenges, some see a pattern of distortion in the FBI numbers because the errors almost exclusively go one way, minimizing the life-saving actions of armed citizens.
“Whether deliberately through bias or just incompetence, the FBI database of active shooters cannot be trusted,” said Gary Mauser, an emeritus professor at Simon Fraser University in Canada who has extensively studied gun control and defensive gun uses. Mauser’s concern dovetails with those voiced by Rep. Jim Jordan in a July 27 letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray. Jordan alleged that whistleblowers have come forward claiming political biases in the FBI’s domestic terrorism data.
“No correction was necessary,” the AP reporter responded. AP
Despite these problems, the FBI’s numbers are routinely cited as authoritative by the news media. In its coverage of the Greenwood mall attack, the Washington Post linked to a Bureau report while informing readers, “In recent studies of more than 430 ‘active shooter incidents’ dating back to 2000, the FBI found that civilians killed gunmen in just 10 cases.”
In its Greenwood article, the Associated Press reported, “From 2000 to 2021, fewer than 3% of 433 active attacks in the U.S. ended with a civilian firing back, according to the Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response Training Center at Texas State University.”
When my organization emailed Ed White, the AP reporter who wrote that article, about omissions in the Texas State numbers, he responded: “Our reporting, citing the specific research by Texas State U. over a 20-year period, was accurate. No correction was necessary.”
News outlets often raise concerns that allowing concealed handgun carry will result in innocent bystanders being shot or in police accidentally shooting permit holders. White’s AP dispatch on the Greenwood shooting quoted Adam Lankford, identified as “a criminal justice expert at the University of Alabama,” who stated: “While it’s certainly a good thing in this mall shooting that someone was able to stop it before it went any further, let’s not think we can substitute that outcome in all past and future incidents. If everyone’s carrying a firearm, the risk that something bad happens just gets much larger.”
Carl Moody, a professor at William & Mary who studies mass public shootings, told RCI that such warnings are misleading:
“The media and gun control advocates always seem concerned with the worst possible outcomes when firearms are involved. We know that armed citizens do, in fact, stop active shooters. And while there’s a possibility of a bystander getting hurt, the data show that an armed citizen has yet to accidentally shoot an innocent bystanders. We also know that the police have accidentally shot the hero citizen just once. That was in Colorado on June 21, 2021. That’s not something that would normally happen, because the police usually arrive long after the incident is resolved.“
Experts interviewed by the Washington Post and New York Times argue that stopping these attacks should be left to the police. “I think you might get more individuals carrying, sort of primed for something to happen, which is particularly dangerous … in reality that’s the job of the police,” Indiana University Bloomington law professor Jody Madeira told the Washington Post.
“In reality that’s the job of the police”? In a 2013 survey, many in law enforcement begged to differ. PoliceOne
But many in law enforcement disagree. In March 2013, PoliceOne surveyed its 380,000 active-duty and 70,000 retired law enforcement officer members. Eighty-six percent of members believed that casualties from mass public school shootings could be reduced or “avoided altogether” if citizens had carried permitted concealed handguns in those places. Seventy-seven percent supported “arming teachers and/or school administrators who volunteer to carry at their school.” No other policy to protect children and school staff had such widespread support.
“A deputy in uniform has an extremely difficult job in stopping these attacks,” Sarasota County, Florida, Sheriff Kurt Hoffman told RCI. “These terrorists have huge strategic advantages in determining the time and place of attacks. They can wait for a deputy to leave the area, or pick an undefended location. Even when police or deputies are in the right place at the right time, those in uniform who can be readily identified as guards may as well be holding up neon signs saying, ‘Shoot me first.’ My deputies know that we cannot be everywhere.”
Similarly, Massad Ayoob, a self-defense advocate who has taught police techniques to law enforcement since 1974, noted: “When a life-threatening crisis strikes and seconds count, the real first responders are the citizens present.”
The FBI’s active shooting reports do not mention whether the attacks occur in gun-free zones. “The issue is that when places are posted as gun-free zones, law-abiding citizens obey those rules and would be unable to stop the attacks in those areas,” notes Professor Moody.
Surveys show that criminologists and economists had the same top four preferred policies for stopping mass public shootings. On a 1 to 10 scale where 1 was the least effective policy and 10 the most, American criminologists rated the following policies most highly: Allow K-12 teachers to carry concealed handguns (6.0), allow military personnel to carry on military bases (5.6), encourage the elimination of gun-free zones (5.3) and relax federal regulations that pressure companies to create gun-free zones (5.0). The top four policies for economists were the same, but in a different order: encourage the elimination of gun-free zones (7.9), relax federal regulations that pressure companies to create gun-free zones (7.8), allow K-12 teachers to carry concealed handguns (7.7), and allow military personnel to carry on military bases (7.7).
Between 2014 and 2021, citizens stopped 41 out of 109 potential or actual mass shootings where we could identify that guns were allowed in the area.
So 38% of attacks were stopped by people legally carrying concealed handguns. That’s an ever higher rate than for all attacks, where 14.6% were stopped.
The numbers indicate If we didn’t have gun-free zones, we would have more people stopping these attacks.
The general public seems to agree. An early July survey by the Trafalgar Group showed that a plurality of American general election voters believe that armed citizens are the most effective element in protecting you and your family in the case of a mass shooting. First on the list was “armed citizens” at 42%, followed by “local police” (25%) and “federal agents” (10%). [“None of the above” was the answer chosen by 23% of respondents.] A survey by YouGov in May – before the Uvalde, Texas, attack – found that by a margin of 51% to 37% American adults supported letting schoolteachers and administrations carry concealed handguns.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
The topic of the escalating expenses of Fernanda Beach city government has been a hot one lately with all the discussion of the new budget and consequent proposed tax burden. The city’s website shows 2019 actual expenses as $51,753,980, compared to 2022 budgeted of $70,980,328 for a $19 million increase, or 37% over 3 years. The city population is estimated at 13,364 in 2022 and the annual population growth rate has been running around 1.25% for the past 10 years. (according to worldpopulationreview.com)
Speaking of growth of city expenses, consider the lifeguard expansion. Once only at Main Beach and by Sadler Rd., the operation continues to expand to several other beach entry points. The Fernandina Beach Fire Department declined to return my call requesting for budgetary data and beach policy. My statements here are therefore based only upon my personal observations.
We see lifeguard towers, pick-up trucks, jet ski, ATV and expanding service territory. There is a flag warning system of yellow and red, but no green. Even in calm conditions the yellow flag is flown. Lifeguards have kept people out of the water if it is rough. I do not remember surrendering responsibility for my well being to government entities.
Speaking of government overreach, do you recall that early in the onset of the plague, the city commission prohibited walking on the beach? This is an example of increasing government power at the expense of individual freedom. I had been under the mistaken impression that freedom of movement was a God given right.
When I grew up, a person learned to swim, was guarded by family and friends and swam within his limits. If you were a strong swimmer, you ventured out even into rough surf. If you weren’t, you stayed out of the water or bathed in tidal pools. I, or my parents were responsible for my safety. When did it become the responsibility of city government, at taxpayer expense, to protect the incompetent or ill advised from drowning?
Is this view extreme? I am old school, libertarian and was comfortable when there was freedom, self responsibility, and limited government. The expansion of this operation is symptomatic of government mission creepand the Peter Principle: the level of work rises to fill the given workforce. I would prefer to see the trend revert to limited government.
Here is a solution for how to reign in expense at the beaches: Provide protection at say, Main Beach area and Sadler road. Post signs at the other beach entrances stating: “Lifeguard protection at XXX locations only. Swim here at your own risk.” Then let citizens decide what level of risk they wish to assume by voting with their feet. Those who choose city protection will frequent the appropriate locations. Presto! Downsizing and cost reduction for city taxpayers.
This type of thinking applied to other areas of local government will expand freedom while shrinking bureaucracy and reducing unnecessary and creeping expenses that weigh down our tax paying residents who may have other ideas about how to spend their money.
What other government services have undergone expansion which many would elect not to finance? How could these be modified, reduced or eliminated? Department Heads? Dale Martin? City Commissioners? What are your thoughts?
Michael Miller, A Co-Founder of Citizens Journal Florida is a fierce defender of Liberty. The retired Fire Lieutenant/EMT from NY has been in FB for 8 years. He is a sailing captain and instructor for Windward Sailing. He dabbles in theatre, photography, geopolitics, markets and now writing. Look for his writing here and at: https://firesail.substack.com/
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
By Jack Knocke
8-22-22
Over the past several weeks information has been pouring out on a number of election related fronts – all seem to be centered around “control” of the people and the message. It is a staggering story that we see nationally and in our local community. Below are highlights of some of the national and local issues and local implications and actions necessary.
Elections
Election machines
Voter Rolls
Law enforcement
Media
Local Action
Thanks for all of your interest and support. Spread the word!
Jack
Common Sense Fernandina Beach
County Citizens Defending Freedom – Nassau County
Jack Knocke
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
… and she did: read MORE
By Just the News Staff
8-27-22
A federal judge on Saturday indicated that she will likely grant former President Donald Trump’s request for a “special master” to oversee the FBI’s review of documents seized at his Mar-a-Lago home earlier this month.
U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon declared in a two-page notice on Saturday her “preliminary intent to appoint a special master in this case.” The hearing to finalize the decision is scheduled for Sept. 1, next Thursday.
Cannon in the notice also demanded that the Department of Justice provide a fuller rundown of what FBI agents seized at Mar-a-Lago when they raided it several weeks ago.
A “special master” is “appointed by a court to carry out some sort of action on its behalf,” often to ensure that legal proceedings are followed properly by plaintiffs and/or defendants.
Read MORE
See also:
https://www.google.com/search?q=trump+search+warrant+special+master+appointment
By Deb Boelkes
8-25-22
To We the People – First, I know I gave my readers a lot to watch / listen to recently, but thanks to one of them, I recommend you take 2-hours sometime soon to listen to an excellent, fast-paced yet detailed history of the Deep State, including who’s who and how they got there. This video interview was conducted at Mike Lindell’s Moment of Truth Summit last weekend by Zak Paine (RedPill78News.com) with Ivan Raiklin, former Army Green Beret and Lt. Col. In the Army Reserve who worked with Lt. General Michael Flynn, also a Constitutional Attorney and intelligence community professional. It’s a fascinating and eye opening education regarding high profile people you’ve heard about but may not know the inter-relations. https://rumble.com/v1h7ayl-special-interview-with-ivan-raiklin-the-pence-card-and-the-moment-of-truth.html
Next: I know the primary election is behind us, but due to continued comments and questions from some of you, I’ve still been diving into campaign financing. Today, I’m taking you down the rabbit hole that led to the losing hand of FL District 4 U.S. House of Representatives primary candidate Erick Aguilar, because something still smells fishy.
Thanks to those of you who have said things like:
I’ve now done some research on the Federal Elections Committee website (as of 8/26/22) to see how Aguilar spent his $1.2M+ in contributions:
Total Disbursements: $520K
Ending Cash on Hand: $733K
Debts / Loans owed by Committee: $345K
Major / Relevant Disbursements paid to:
Now lets look at Erick’s major Marketing and Campaign Consulting-related expenditures:
Website: https://www.chrandcompany.com/ – Reed + Company specializes in public affairs, public relations, and political consulting. Claims its partners have 26 combined years experience
Partners:
Clint Reed: Served as Senator Marco Rubio’s Chief of Staff, overseeing nearly 70 employees in DC and FL. Prior to that, he was Rubio’s campaign manager. According to LinkedIn, Reed currently resides in Little Rock, AR and DC.
Lance Watson: Graduated with a Bachelors in History and Poli-Sci in 2015 from FSU, also has a Masters in Applied Politics & Public Policy from FSU, 2017. He has served as Marco Rubio’s Capital Area Regional Director in Tallahassee, where he resides.
According to Florida Politics article by Jacob Ogles (July 19, 2022): https://floridapolitics.com/archives/539909-consultant-dumps-erick-aguilar-over-fraudulent-email-accusations/
Consultants for Republican congressional candidate Erick Aguilar have dropped him. Reed + Company confirmed to Florida Politics they have cut ties with the disgraced politician.
“We terminated our agreement with Erick Aguilar over the weekend,” said Lance Watson, the Florida director for Reed + Company. “From the beginning, unfortunately, Erick has not been a candidate willing to run a campaign worthy of being elected to Congress.”
The decision came after WinRed banned Aguilar for sending out fake fundraisers supposedly from prominent Republicans including Gov. Ron DeSantis and former President Donald Trump, as first reported by POLITICO. As the tactic came to light, questions arose about whether Aguilar had relied on infrastructure through Reed + Company, especially since company founder Clint Reed has previously been fired as Sen. Marco Rubio’s Chief of Staff for violating “office policies regarding proper relations between a supervisor and their subordinates.”
Watson said the firm had nothing to do with any emails defrauding donors into believing they were supporting DeSantis and Trump. Moreover, Watson suggested that for Aguilar, this behavior was to be expected. “We’ve tried extensively to steer him, but there has been a reluctance to embrace winning strategies and a continuation of making really dumb decisions,” Watson said.
According to Florida Politics article by Wes Wolf (July 21, 2022): https://floridapolitics.com/archives/540623-bean-triples-aguilar-cd4/
The largest group of [2Q 2022] disbursements from the [Aguilar] campaign account went to the Arkansas-based consulting firm Reed + Company — more than $71,260 over April, May and June. The firm terminated its agreement with Aguilar after allegations about his fundraising practices came to light. “We’ve never been involved or approved any of the online fundraising strategies put together by Nick Britton at WinRight Strategies and approved by Erick Aguilar,” Lance Watson, Florida director for Reed + Company, said at the time. “We were not made aware of the story about the dubious emails until we read about it Friday morning.”
According to OpenCorporates.com: WinRight Strategies LLC 6333 NW 42nd Terrace, Coconut Creek FL(in a residential neighborhood);Incorporation date: 7/26/21; Owner: Nicholas J Britton.
I found NO website for WinRight Strategies, only a Facebook Page: WinRightStrategies with just 275 likes. Most recent Facebook post was 6/14/2021.
According to Linkedin: Nicholas Britton is the President of WinRight Strategies in the Miami-Fort Lauderdale Area. Britton was Account Exec with WinRight from 4/2021 – 10/2021, prior to becoming President. Britton is currently also the owner of The Britton Family Group (2015 to present), which manages and own several real estate properties throughout FL and New England. WinRight has ONE employee (Britton) listed on LinkedIn.
Nicholas Britton’s Education: BA / BS Psychology and Education from Norwich U 2011; Masters of Ed in Early Childhood Special Ed, 2014. He was a pre-school teacher from July 2012 to Mar 2015. He has authored three books (sold on Amazon) from 2016 to 2017: Children Know Success. Do You?; Lessons from the Little Ones; and Your MBA: Helping you balance life and all the moving pieces.
His “About” description on LinkedIn says:
I had a great education. This consisted of graduating from a prestigious military academy and getting my Masters degree. I had my own home and was forced to rent out rooms and share my kitchen and living rooms just to make ends meet. I was working three jobs just to pay my bills, justifying my life style because “I was helping kids.” I had an obsession with reading books that made me think. I also loved listening to podcasts while in the gym. Somehow I came across Bigger Pockets Podcast #108 with Grant Cardone and I heard him say, “Success isn’t measured comparing yourself to others. Success is the distance between where you are and where your potential is.”I was a very big fish in a little pond (Vermont,) in the field of early childhood education. In comparison to my colleagues, I was very successful. I accomplished more in three years in education then most educators dream of, however; by Grant Cardone’s definition, I was not successful.
I gave my notice to all my jobs, cashed out my 401K and moved to South Florida. Many friends and family thought I was crazy, but I knew I was doing what I had to do to be successful. Without knowing anyone or anywhere I would spend hours at Starbucks learning everything I can about real estate. I found a place to live and quickly began looking for real estate properties. Within three months I closed two deals, and realize I can get back to helping people by starting a Property Management brokerage. Since I made a commitment to this lifestyle, successful is my only option. I have sold that company and then went back to growing a new business, Mountain Top Media Group.
Britton’s author profile on Amazon https://www.amazon.com/Nicholas-Britton/e/B01GNHM6VO/ref=aufs_dp_fta_dsk makes no mention of him being a political strategist or marketing consultant.
NOTE: Erick’s first payment to WinRight was made just one week after WinRight was incorporated. Was Erick the firm’s first client? Why did Erick pick them as Marketing Consultant to support a very important Congressional run?
According to LinkedIn: the owner of AD Marketing, Alex Dew, graduated from Trinity Baptist College in 2016 with a Bachelor in Business. He was a marketing and operations manager at a Chick-fil-A franchise from July 2016 to July 2019, then became the owner and lead strategist of AD Marketing. Dew has ONE endorsement on Linkedin for Lead generation, Social Media Marketing, etc.—from one person named John Smith. Alex has never posted anything (such as articles or activities) on LinkedIn, which seems odd for a Marketing Strategist. What “Marketing Services” services did AD Marketing actually perform?
Stipe is a Payment Processing platform for the internet. According to their website https://stripe.com/pricing Stripe’s “Pay-as-you-go” (per transaction, fee-based) pricing is 2.9% + $ .30 per successful charge card processed. The $24K paid to Stripe correlates with Erick’s approximately $805K in contributions ($1.255M in total receipts less the $450K he contributed himself).
My questions are:
You be the judge.
Your digital soldier,
Deb Boelkes
Founder, Business World Rising, LLC
Keynote Speaker and award-winning Author of:
Women on Top: What’s Keeping You From Executive Leadership?
The WOW Factor Workplace: How to Create a Best Place to Work Culture
Heartfelt Leadership: How to Capture the Top Spot and Keep on Soaring
And coming soon:
Strong Suit: Leadership Success Secrets from Women on Top
Office: 904-310-9602
Email: [email protected]
DebBoelkes.com || BusinessWorldRising.com || HeartfeltLeadership.com
Success just got easier ®
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
Relevant articles:
Opinion
By Jeff Childers
Good morning, C&C, and welcome to the weekend edition! This morning I roundup all the news about the Biden Raid search warrant affidavit, along with my own impressions and perspective. And there’s some great news from Florida, as Governor DeSantis delivers some long-awaited justice.
Since everybody in the social media world is also reporting on the Affidavit, I’m going to try to avoid redundancy, try to point out a few things I’ve noticed but haven’t seen mentioned anywhere else, and give you one practicing lawyer’s perspective on the process.
🔥 This looks bad. REALLY bad. According to the FBI’s partially-redacted affidavit released yesterday afternoon, Trump maintained a secret email server at his home through which he surreptitiously ran all his classified communications. Then, investigators discovered that lots of hostile foreign governments had hacked the server and read all kinds of classified secrets. And then, when asked about the server, Trump used special software normally used by organized crime, to completely erase the hard drives, and then he physically destroyed all the evidence by smashing the hard drives into bits.
Oh, wait. That was Hilary. Oops! Wrong folder, sorry.
Here we go.
🔥 In its summary section, the Affidavit — as expected — was so heavily redacted that it does NOT establish probable cause for a raid of a former’s president’s home, despite what some otherwise smart pundits argue. Plus, there were other tools available to the FBI, like a subpoena, but they went with the most invasive and violent choice instead, and the Affidavit does not explain that remarkable decision. I’ll return to this point in a bit.
🔥 Here’s how it started. Between May and December 2021, deep-state bureaucrats at the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA or the National Archives) pestered Trump’s people about a small number of presidential documents that NARA thought should’ve been turned over to the Archives instead of stored at Mar-a-Lago.
Those conversations ended in early January when Trump returned fifteen boxes of documents to NARA. Fifteen banker’s boxes of documents is NOT a lot. For reference, even my smallest trial cases consume more than fifteen banker’s boxes of documents. In one case, now settled, my client recently got around to picking up five year’s worth of payroll records; those ALONE filled about twelve banker’s boxes, never mind all the OTHER documents related to the case.
So fifteen boxes of documents from a four-year Presidential term is really nothing.
According to the Affidavit, the fifteen boxes Trump sent to NARA included “newspapers, magazines, printed news articles, photos, miscellaneous print-outs, notes, presidential correspondence, personal and post-presidential records,” and mixed in with everything else, a handful of documents having secret classification markings.
The classified materials could’ve fit into a couple large manila file folders.
You can imagine the gleeful laughter around the NARA office when they fly-specked the fifteen boxes and yanked out the ones with classified markings. So what’s a diligent anti-Trump deep-state bureaucrat to do? Report a crime, of course! In February, NARA essentially filed a police report with Biden’s DOJ, which immediately called a grand jury and began an investigation.
It’s DEFINITELY not politics. Shame on you.
🔥 You may recall that immediately after the raid, Joe Biden was CLEAR. He didn’t have ANYTHING to do with the raid; it was purely a law enforcement matter. In fact, he said, he didn’t even KNOW they were investigating Trump, never even heard about it.
We now know Joe lied. Shocking, I know. It turns out there was a major impediment to the FBI’s legal ability to search a former president’s home: Presidential privilege. The privilege completely protects a former President’s confidential records and communications. It was a thorny problem.
But don’t worry! Joe and his lawyers found a loophole: Joe, acting as the CURRENT President, conveniently waived aside the Presidential privilege FOR TRUMP, on the theory that the acting President holds the right to waive or preserve the privilege, no matter which President first asserted it.
Is the waiver legal? Who knows. Who cares! It’s never been done before. But it gave the FBI the cover it needed to move forward with the raid, and since he didn’t KNOW Joe had waived his privilege, Trump couldn’t fight it. Checkmate.
Joe is dumber than a crate of pop rocks. I hope the next Republican president waives the presidential privilege for EVERY OTHER PRESIDENT going back to George Washington. BAM.
And … where’s all the outcry and protest from the other former Presidents? Hello? Bush? Bueller? Anybody? And of course, the useless corporate media is completely silent. You can’t find any major article discussing this historic Biden legal wrangling, not at all.
🔥 As I’m sure you’ve already heard, the Affidavit is heavily redacted:
That’s not surprising, we expected heavy redaction. The Affidavit’s introduction, which contains a bunch of conclusory statements about probable cause, defamatory remarks about Trump, and the early case timeline, is mostly intact. But in every single instance where the FBI cited to any FACT that could support the Affidavit, that fact is completely redacted.
Because of this, possibly the most important thing to know about the Affidavit is that there are NO FACTS supporting the need for the raid. We must assume that some relevant facts are concealed in the redacted parts. In other words, the redacted Affidavit does NOT establish probable cause for the raid, which was what everyone was waiting to see.
Haha, even the FBI’s reasons for redacting the Affidavit were themselves redacted:
Double redacted! The only unredacted rationale remaining for redaction is “agent safety,” proving that the FBI is afraid of the American people and views us as the enemy.
Remember, Magistrate Reinhart could have, but did not, press the FBI to unredact more of the Affidavit. He just went with THIS.
🔥 One thing that we CAN tell from the redacted Affidavit is exactly what the FBI is accusing Trump of doing. At bottom, all they are criminally accusing the former President of is STORING CLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS IN AN INAPPROPRIATE PLACE.
That’s it. It’s 100% a process crime. They did NOT allege Trump gave classified documents to anybody, except himself. They did NOT allege that anybody took or even looked at the documents without Trump’s knowledge, and the FBI even watched lots of Mar-a-Lago video to try to find someone.
Now consider the fact that Mar-a-Lago enjoys full Secret Service protection. It’s hard to imagine higher security than that. And the FBI admitted the documents were always under video surveillance. So, the FBI isn’t even arguing that the documents weren’t SECURE. It’s just that they weren’t secured in the RIGHT WAY.
It’s amateur hour.
🔥 I pulled out the key paragraphs in the Affidavit discussing the alleged crimes, so that you can see I’m not exaggerating or leaving anything out. The very first paragraph explains:
That’s it. That’s the whole “investigation.” To confirm the documents were stored in “unauthorized spaces.” They might’ve just asked Trump, “did you keep the documents in such-and-so closet at Mar-a-Lago?” He would’ve said, “yep,” and then there’d be no need for a raid. Dummies.
The Affidavit’s third paragraph further confirms my take:
Haha, obstruction. That’s like “resisting arrest,” they always bolt that one on to whatever else the person is charged with.
You guys with me so far? So far, we only have the crime of storing classified records in an “unauthorized location.” It’s just a process crime.
🔥 According to the Affidavit, in July the DOJ sent Trump’s lawyers a letter complaining about the lack of an official “secure location” at Mar-a-Lago and demanding that all presidential documents taken by Trump be “preserved.” Preserved at Mar-a-Lago, the supposedly unauthorized location. And in their “current condition” — unauthorized. Until further notice, like a surprise raid.
You can’t make this stuff up:
Down in the Affidavit’s 77th paragraph, when it was summing up the charges, again the FBI fell back on the “unauthorized” nature of Mar-a-Lago as a storage location, rather than any actual or even potential security threat:
It wasn’t authorized!
In a typical affidavit sleight-of-hand, at one point the FBI darkly hints — but does not explicitly claim — that even MORE classified records were shifted from Mar-a-Lago, AFTER the fifteen boxes were sent to the National Archives on January 9th. The Affidavit claims, “at least two moving trucks were observed at the PREMISES on January 18, 2021.”
That’s it. They don’t actually claim that Trump snuck classified documents away nine days after sending fifteen boxes back to NARA, at least it doesn’t allege that in the unredacted parts. And it is hard to imagine how an allegation like that would not be unredacted.
The reason the moving trucks are in the Affidavit is to make the judge suspect there’s funny business going on. But hilariously, the moving truck allegation actually undermines the entire premise for the search. In other words, if the FBI thought Trump cleared the evidence out of Mar-a-Lago on January 18th in two moving trucks, then … why raid Mar-a-Lago, the one place you know the evidence ISN’T?
So in that way, the Affidavit is self-contradictory. Numbskulls.
🔥 Here’s a thought experiment for you. I don’t know the answer to this question, but this is what I’d ask any of the really smart constitutional lawyers looking at this situation if I got the chance.
Consider this hypothetical. The President receives a classified “eyes only” intelligence report saying that some Iranian terrorists are smuggling a dirty bomb into Jerusalem and plan to detonate it in four hours. There’s no time to wait.
First, what would happen if the President faxed that classified document to an unauthorized foreign ally — the Prime Minister of Israel? Would that break the law? Could the President be impeached for this? Or, does the President have full authority to disclose that classified document if he thinks it’s necessary and proper?
Next, does the President have to ask PERMISSION before sending a classified document to someone he thinks should get it? Who does the President have to ask? How long does he have to wait to get permission to declassify the document in an emergent situation? In other words, is the President bound by the classification procedures of the people who work for him?
All the Supreme Court case law on classification suggests that if the President sent the report to the Prime Minister of Israel would NOT be a crime, which is exactly what you’d expect. And if the President can declassify documents in an emergency, why can’t he do it any other time?
Now let’s think about unauthorized storage. Suppose the President was already meeting the Prime Minister at a dinner in an hour. Instead of faxing it, could the President put the classified report in the breast pocket of his suit jacket, so he could show it to the Prime Minister when he got to the event? His pocket isn’t locked up. It’s not “authorized.” In fact, his suit completely lacks any system for logging classified documents in and out.
Would the President be guilty of one of the FBI’s alleged process crimes for “storing” the classified dirty-bomb report in an “unauthorized location,” his pocket?
I doubt it. I doubt it a lot.
🔥 Here is the Affidavit by the numbers.
The Affidavit was only 38 pages long including attachments. That seems pretty short given its historical significance.
The FBI redacted 20 of 32 pages of the main part of the Affidavit.
About half of the affidavit’s contents are redacted in all. All the factual parts supporting probable cause are redacted, like the part where a witness claims Trump tried to grab the Beast’s steering wheel. Haha, just kidding about that one. It might be there though.
Long continuous sections of the Affidavit are redacted, page after page, including most of pages 11 through 16, 19 through 22, and 23 through 29.
According to DOJ leaks published in the New York Times, in the fifteen boxes returned in January, a total of only 184 documents had classification markings, including just 25 labeled “top secret.”
Only 67 documents were marked as CONFIDENTIAL.
Only 92 documents were marked as SECRET.
Only 25 documents were marked as TOP SECRET.
These added up to only about 700 total pages of classified documents including cover pages, blank pages, redundant pages, and pages with nothing actually classified on them. To put that 700 pages in perspective, a ream of copy paper is 500 pages. So we’re talking a ream and a half out of fifteen banker’s boxes of paper. A banker’s box holds ten reams of paper. One can imagine that 700 pages could be easily slipped among fifteen banker’s boxes worth of documents, if a bad actor was trying to set somebody up.
I’m not saying anything. I’m just saying.
🔥 The Affidavit’s single attachment is a letter from Trump’s lawyers dated May 25th, 2022. In the letter, Trump’s lawyers described the NARA documents with classified markings as “unknowingly included among the boxes brought to Mar-a-Lago by the movers.”
The Affidavit does not dispute that claim.
Trump’s lawyers also cited case law providing that Presidents have unilateral authority to declassify documents, and noted that at least one of the FBI’s criminal statutes doesn’t apply to Presidents at all. They asked that the letter be included with any warrant application as exculpatory evidence, and it was attached as the only exhibit.
No allegedly classified documents were attached as exhibits, so the Magistrate had no way to evaluate what they were all about.
The Affidavit does not dispute the President’s authority to declassify documents. The Affidavit does not discuss that issue at all, except to note that Trump asserted it.
But more significantly, because the letter asks to be attached to any search warrant affidavit, it shows Trump’s lawyers smartly recognized in late May that it was likely or at least possible that Mar-a-Lago would be searched. And the fact that Trump’s lawyers knew wasn’t a secret, since they were corresponding with DOJ’s lawyers about that.
So … what justified the raid? It couldn’t have been that the FBI was worried that evidence might be destroyed or removed in August. Trump’s lawyers expressly referred to a potential search warrant in MAY, so he clearly had plenty of time to remove things, even if they hadn’t been taken away in the two moving vans in January.
Dumb.
🔥 So now we know a lot of things corporate media and the government have lied about.
First, nothing in the Affidavit remotely suggests the confidential documents included nuclear secrets, which in the days following the raid was what the media said its anonymous sources reported as the urgent reason for the surprise raid.
Second, nothing in the Affidavit suggests there was any kind of legal emergency justifying the raid. In fact, the Affidavit contradicts the very idea of an emergency; the FBI knew about the classified documents all the way back in FEBRUARY. And as I noted, even Trump’s lawyers suspected a possible search in MAY.
What took so long?
Third, also as noted above, Biden lied when he said he didn’t know about the raid, because he had to waive Trump’s Presidential privilege to allow the raid to proceed.
Finally, the Affidavit undermines the raid rationale that Trump was uncooperative. It admits he voluntarily sent the fifteen boxes back in January. It states that Trump’s lawyers cooperated with securing and preserving the storage room. There are no facts in the unredacted portion of the Affidavit suggesting that Trump refused to cooperate with anybody.
Here’s the thing. If you have a strong case, you don’t HAVE to lie. Lying suggests your case stinks.
🔥 The redacted Affidavit is also remarkable for what it OMITS.
There’s no rebuttal to Trump’s argument that Presidents can declassify documents just by saying so or acting like they’re declassified.
The Affidavit does not appear to include any exculpatory evidence or mitigating facts, such as the fact that Mar-a-Lago is secured by the Secret Service. Exculpatory facts are required to be included in search warrant applications.
The Affidavit does not say who packed the boxes, which appears to be one of the critical facts. If Trump didn’t pack them, then how can he have “willfully” taken classified documents?
The Affidavit includes applicable law favorable to the government, but completely omits any favorable court decisions, such as those holding a President has unlimited ability to declassify.
None of these things would credibly be redacted, so it’s safe to assume the Affidavit omitted them.
🔥 As I said, there are hundreds of hot takes today on social media. But here’s what two smart constitutional scholars, both on the left, said about the raid.
Jonathan Turley, Shapiro Chair of Public Interest Law at George Washington University, seems very skeptical after reviewing the Affidavit:
Alan Dershowitz, a respected constitutional scholar and democrat, wrote an op-ed for the Hill yesterday titled, “The Trump Affidavit: Four Conclusions on Guilt and Evidence.” As the title suggests, he makes four points.
Dershowitz was trying for balance. Two of his points argued there were sufficient facts in the Affidavit and leaked reports to support probable cause and even an indictment. While Dershowitz said ‘yes’ to both questions, he also noted that the standard for both probable cause and indictments is very low. He opined that, even if Trump could be indicted, under what Dershowitz calls the Nixon standard and the Hilary Clinton standard, Trump should NOT be prosecuted under these facts.
Dershowitz’s other two points were that the Affidavit seems to clearly violate the Fourth Amendment by being overbroad, and it also fails to show why a subpoena wouldn’t have been more appropriate than a raid:
So Dershowitz’s op-ed agrees with me.
🔥 Finally, President Trump’s characteristic response:
██████ ████ @HarrisonKrankTrumps response to the redacted affidavit. August 27th 2022121 Retweets697 Likes
🔥 Changing subjects, for some very encouraging news, National Review ran a story yesterday headlined, “DeSantis Suspends Four School Board Members for Neglect of Duty after Parkland Shooting Report.”
Yesterday, Governor DeSantis suspended four Broward county school board members for “incompetence.” And I don’t think he’s going to be called a “dictator” this time. They REALLY deserved it.
The school board members were suspended because a grand jury investigation into the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting concluded that the school district showed “clear evidence of incompetence, neglect of duty, misfeasance or malfeasance” when it came to school safety.
Among other findings, the grand jury concluded that the school board members mismanaged the SMART Program, a multimillion-dollar bond intended for school safety and renovations.
For years, bereaved Parkland parents believed the school board was responsible for the deaths, for implementing ineffective woke disciplinary policies and diverting grant money that should have gone to safety equipment and staff to woke programs instead.
Yesterday Governor DeSantis finally brought some long-overdue justice for these unfortunate — and angry — parents. For far too long, public officials have seemed completely unaccountable for their terrible decisions. Governor DeSantis supplied some real accountability yesterday. Arrests would have been better, but this is a strong start.
Have a superlative Saturday! We’ll kick the week off right with a fresh cup of C&C on Monday morning.
C&C is moving the needle and changing minds. If you can, I could use your help getting the truth out and spreading optimism and hope: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/-learn-how-to-get-involved-
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© 2022 Jeff Childers
2135-B NW 40th Terrace, Gainesville, FL 32605
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
From Florida Wildlife Corridor Foundation
8-23-22
August 23, 2022 – Earlier today during the Florida Cabinet meeting, seven parcels of land totaling 19,897 acres within the Florida Wildlife Corridor were approved for acquisition or conservation easement made possible by the state’s Florida Forever Program and Department of Agriculture’s Rural and Family Lands Protection Program.
These seven parcels of land are a mix of native and working lands that provide habitat and connectivity for key Florida species including the Florida panther, Florida black bear, swallow-tailed kite, and gopher tortoise. This protected land ranges from the Everglades watershed to ancient longleaf pine forests and provides additional priority connections for the Florida Wildlife Corridor to preserve the ecosystems necessary to maintain Florida’s unique biodiversity.
“The Florida Wildlife Corridor Foundation and our partners appreciate Governor Ron DeSantis and the Board of Trustees’ commitment to protecting Florida’s wild legacy for future generations and ensuring working lands can stay working lands,” said Mallory Dimmitt, Chief Executive Officer of the Florida Wildlife Corridor Foundation. “Today’s public investment of more than $56 million is significant to big-picture progress as we continue to celebrate the one-year anniversary of the passing of the Florida Wildlife Corridor Act. This forward-looking Act is inspiring action to protect working lands and key linkages throughout the Florida Wildlife Corridor.”
The Florida Wildlife Corridor Act became law July 1, 2021, with unanimous bipartisan approval. At a Cabinet meeting in September 2021, 19,739 acres of land were approved for acquisition. Today marks the third cabinet meeting since the Act was signed and is a critical step in supporting the Florida Wildlife Corridor. With this announcement, a total of 56,342 acres of land will be protected through public investment by the State of Florida since the Act.
“We are grateful to Governor DeSantis and the Cabinet for supporting these acquisitions,” said DEP Secretary Shawn Hamilton. “These projects will provide protection to imperiled species, connectivity for recreational and wildlife corridors, and support the preservation of Florida’s natural landscapes for future generations. We also appreciate our many agency and community partners who helped to make these projects possible.”
Properties specific to the August 23 Cabinet meeting were supported by the dedicated efforts of partner organizations, including The Nature Conservancy, Conservation Florida, Florida Conservation Group, and private real estate agents. Federal investment was also provided from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture Natural Resources Conservation Service. Three of the approved properties are within the newly designated Northwest Florida Sentinel Landscape in the panhandle.
· Crippen Ranch, part of the Kissimmee-St. Johns River Connector Florida Forever Project and the Avon Air Force Range Sentinel Landscape, is a 615-acre conservation easement. The property is located near Kissimmee Prairie Preserve State Park and within a key region of the Northern Everglades Headwaters National Wildlife Refuge and Conservation Area, which is a mosaic of seasonally wet grasslands, longleaf pine savannas and working cattle ranches. This conservation easement, through partnership with Conservation Florida, will support rural agricultural practices that are compatible with ecosystem functions that are necessary for resilient and sustainable wildlife populations. This includes habitat for the Florida Grasshopper Sparrow, sandhill cranes, gopher tortoise, wood stork, and crested caracara.
· Abington Preserve, part of the Kissimmee-St. Johns River Connector Florida Forever Project and the Avon Air Force Range Sentinel Landscape, is a 3,634-conservation easement located in the Northern Everglades Headwaters National Wildlife Refuge Conservation Partnership Area and borders Kissimmee Prairie Preserve Park, containing approximately 2,100 acres of imperiled dry prairie ecosystem. The landscape consists of globally imperiled upland habitat rich in biodiversity with significant hydrological resources and provides habitat to numerous listed species, including the Florida Grasshopper Sparrow, sandhill cranes, gopher tortoise, wood stork and crested caracara.
· Horse Creek Ranch, part of the Horse Creek Ranch Florida Forever Project, is a 11,958-acre conservation easement that is part of a coordinated effort between the Department of Environmental Protection and the Southwest Water Management District to acquire protections over the entire 16,316-acre project area, with the District acquiring an easement on the remaining 4,358 acres west of Horse Creek. Horse Creek Ranch has been maintained for cattle ranching and other agricultural and recreational activities; three generations of the Carlton Family currently work on the ranch and the fourth generation is on its way. The land acquired for the conservation easement contains mesic and wet flatwoods, bottomland forest, depression and basin marshes, mesic hammock, scrubby flatwoods, baygall, and blackwater streams. The land is a tributary of the Peace River and lies within a wildlife corridor identified in the Florida Ecological Greenways Network.
· The land acquisition on the George J. Marh property borders Tate’s Hell State Forest and has nearly two miles of frontage on Whiskey George Creek. The landscape features planted pine and natural wildlife habitat, including areas of active Red Cockaded Woodpecker clusters. Acquisition of the property will eliminate an inholding within Tate’s Hell State Forest and provide additional public access and recreational opportunities while securing protection for water resources, help maintain water quality, and safeguard native ecosystems. Notable wildlife in the property area includes swallow-tailed kite and Florida black bear.
· The land acquisition in the Wolfe Creek Forest Florida Forever Project is part of the Northwest Florida Sentinel Landscape. This is part of a large-phased-landscape acquisition partnership between the Department of Environmental Protection, the Navy, the U.S. Department of Interior’s Federal Forest Legacy Program, Santa Rosa County, and donations from the Knobloch Foundation. The 768-acre parcel is adjacent to the Blackwater River State Forest and is currently utilized as a timber and hunting tract. The acquisition provides a critical north-south corridor connection from Blackwater River State Forest to Naval Air Station Whiting Field, and protection to notable wildlife in the area including Florida black bear and southeastern weasel.
· Hendrie Ranch, part of the Lake Wales Ridge Florida Forever Project, has been managed for timber and beef for more than 65 years by the Hendrie family. The property is adjacent to Archbold Biological Station and several properties protected by existing conservation easements. Acquisition of this conservation easement, in part through a USFWS RLA grant whose purpose is to protect the habitats of the Florida panther and listed bird species, including the Florida scrub-jay and crested caracara. The Nature Conservancy has committed $100,000 in funding for the establishment of a non-wasting endowment to provide for the long-term management of the acquired property.
· The 1,883-acre conservation easement is a part of the 6,754-acre Buck Island Ranch located near Lake Placid in Highlands County, operated by Archbold Biological Station. The ranch consists of working lands that supports a 3,000 head cow-calf operation and is one of the top cattle producers in Florida. Despite habitat loss from historical pasture conversion, the ranch’s landscape supports high regional native species diversity, including 371 native plants and 171 document bird species. The ranch also provides habitat for the indigo snake, Florida black bear, Florida panther, and snail kite. The conservation easement will add to existing protections on the property, resulting in the ranch being 67% protected.
To help understand the importance of these land parcels and visualize the land, Wildpath and Archbold Biological Station have developed a media kit with photos, video footage, and maps representing the newly approved properties, available here. Please feel free to download and use these materials.
Quotes from Property Partners:
“We appreciate the public support under the state’s RFLPP program and the USDA for the conservation of Archbold’s Buck Island Ranch. Lying in the Headwaters of the Everglades, northwest of Lake Okeechobee, Buck Island protects valuable grassland habitat and provides critical linkages for wildlife, helping to build the Florida Wildlife Corridor,” said Dr. Hilary Swain, Archbold’s Executive Director. “This easement will contribute towards Archbold’s ability to sustain Buck Island Ranch as a protected working landscape and a vital long-term research center. Our science drives conservation action by providing data and significant results to inform conservation organizations and the future of Florida’s agriculture. We are proud that Buck Island Ranch is a critical part of the Florida Wildlife Corridor embracing the natural and working lands that make Florida unique, valuable, and the state the world loves to visit.”
“For more than 30 years, The Nature Conservancy in Florida has joined with leading scientists, committed citizens, engaged partners, and dedicated leaders united in a vision to protect and care for nature. We are pleased to work with our partner, the Florida Forest Service, on the Hendrie Ranch conservation easement, which is a prime example of working together to create functional wildlife corridors,” said Temperince Morgan, Executive Director, The Nature Conservancy in Florida. “We are committed to taking actions that will shape a better future for Florida and its residents, and we thank the Governor, Cabinet, and Florida Legislature for its continued support and funding to make protection of these lands happen.”
By Deb Boelkes
8-26-22
To We the People – FIRST, I know some of you watched at least part of Day II of Mike Lindell’s Moment of Truth symposium yesterday. If you missed it, it can still be viewed in its entirety or in part on Frankspeech.com. The whole point of the Lindell event was to prove that ALL electronic voting machines everywhere in the US must be eliminated, and only paper ballots, voted by hand count should be the only method used for all elections going forward.
I highly recommend watching at least the last two hours of the Sunday event, which is when the real bombshell dropped, showing the sworn testimony / affidavits signed by the world’s top cyber experts, including whistleblower Dennis Montgomery and Dr. Navid Keshavarz-Nia, that the voting machines in every state / county (regardless of vendor) are programmed intentionally in such a way that the voting records / vote counts can be modified without anyone ever being able to detect that a modification to the data occurred!
Lindell ended the event by urging everyone in every county to submit a CAST VOTE RECORD request for the November 2020 election to your Supervisor of Elections, and then provide that report to your County Sheriff to investigate. Timing is of the essence, because federal law only requires voting records for the 11/2020 election to be maintained until September 3, 2020. At that point the voting records no longer need to be maintained unless state law specifically requires longer maintenance.
Lindell said you could download a CAST VOTE RECORD request form from the Frankspeech App, but as of this morning, I still can’t seem to find or download any such item from the app or website. Meanwhile, I plan to send a formal email request to our SOE.
For those of you who did not see Saturday’s Day I event when Florida made their report during the State of the States portion, you can see it at https://frankspeech.com/video/florida-election-fraud-moment-truth-summit The Florida report was made by Raj Doraisamy of Defend Florida, who summarized the results of the canvassing they did in 32 of 67 Florida counties. He then explained how they then worked with the Florida Legislature, Secretary of State, and the Governor’s office to get our 2022 Election Integrity legislation passed to criminalize many aspects of vote fraud. Just so you know, as a member of the Nassau County Supervisor of Elections Advisory Council, I reviewed the preliminary graphical report results created by Defend Florida with our SOE earlier this year.
By the way, I re-listened to Saturday’s prologue to the showing of Selection Code. My interpretation of their statements regarding why Lara Logan was cut out of the movie, may be due to her desire to take a deep dive into “Who Dunnit.” They didn’t want to get into “Who Dunnit” in this movie. Instead, the intention of Selection Code is to get people to agree that we should never again use electronic voting machines (perhaps there will be another movie in the future about Who Dunnit?). To see the full report of what went on in Mesa County, CO go to https://tinyurl.com/mesa-report-3, where you can download the pdf of the #3 report, in addition to viewing a video with cyber experts Dr. Walter Daugherity and Jeffrey O’Donnell discussing the Mesa County CO Report #3.
BTW, cyber experts O’Donnell and Daugherity did a superb job on Day 2 of the event explaining, in no uncertain terms, why the 2020 vote in Fulton County, GA MUST BE DECERTIFIED (my words, not theirs).
NEXT, thanks to Albert Wagner, candidate for Nassau County School Board Member in District 3, for sending me the original draft of an article he had published in the Yulee News (both online and in paper format) earlier this month, titled What Happened to the “WE in We are Nassau?”. According to Albert, the online version for some reason didn’t indicate who authored it: https://theyuleenews.com/2022/08/04/what-happened-to-the-we-in-we-are-nassau/ The original, by Albert Wagner, is attached here. It’s well worth your time to read this article to see his perspective on what has happened in Nassau County Schools since 2018.
Finally, Congratulations to our current Congressman John Rutherford for being endorsed by President Trump in his race in the new Florida Congressional District 5. https://www.forbes.com/sites/brianbushard/2022/08/20/trump-endorses-matt-gaetz-in-primary-after-opponent-accused-him-of-being-fbi-informant/?sh=6fa576ce506f Note, Trump has not endorsed anyone in our Congressional District 4 race.
Be sure to vote in the Florida Primary tomorrow, if you have not voted already. Together, we will take our country back…
Just know who you are voting for,
Deb Boelkes
Founder, Business World Rising, LLC
Keynote Speaker and award-winning Author of:
Women on Top: What’s Keeping You From Executive Leadership?
The WOW Factor Workplace: How to Create a Best Place to Work Culture
Heartfelt Leadership: How to Capture the Top Spot and Keep on Soaring
And coming soon:
Strong Suit: Leadership Success Secrets from Women on Top
Office: 904-310-9602
Email: [email protected]
DebBoelkes.com || BusinessWorldRising.com || HeartfeltLeadership.com
Success just got easier ®
Deb Boelkes is an award-winning author, keynote speaker, symposium producer, and founder of Business World Rising, LLC. She is a Conservative patriot, based in Fernandina Beach.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
From Nassau County
8/25/22 @ 12:45 p.m. – At yesterday’s meeting, the Board of County Commissioners approved a grant agreement with the Florida Fish & Wildlife Commission in the amount of $77,500 for removal of four derelict/abandoned vessels in Nassau County’s waterways.
According to the FWC, derelict vessels can become safety hazards to the public. When a vessel is abandoned, the County notifies the FWC to investigate the vessel(s) to determine if it meets the criteria outlined in Florida Statute, Sections 705.103(3) and 823.11. Upon the FWC’s determination that the vessel is in fact derelict, the FWC provides notice to the last known owner/custodian of the vessel and affords him/her an opportunity for a hearing compliant with fundamental procedural due process. After that process is completed, the FWC will authorize the County to remove and destroy the vessel.
The County received approval from the FWC to remove four derelict vessels as follows:
Upon receiving authorization to remove the four vessels, the Board promptly submitted an application to the FWC for grant funding through the Florida Boating Improvement Program, a division of the State that collects revenue through the local Tax Collector by collection of registration fees.
Now that the Board has approved the grant agreement, it will be returned to the FWC for final execution. Once the County receives the executed contract, we will move forward with having them removed.
If you have any questions, please contact Assistant Facilities Director, Jeff Little, at (904) 530-6120 or via email at [email protected].
-Sabrina Robertson
Public Information Officer
By Michael Hernandez
8-26-22
Trump: “Law enforcement cannot be a weapon for political purposes” JORDAN DIXON-HAMILTON (Breitbart News) 22 Aug 2022
Former President Donald Trump filed a motion requesting an independent review of the documents seized from Mar-a-Lago during an FBI raid on his home earlier this month.
“Law enforcement is a shield that protects Americans. It cannot be used as a weapon for political purposes,” Trump’s motion said. “Therefore, we seek judicial assistance in the aftermath of an unprecedented and unnecessary raid on President Trump’s home at Mar-a-Lago, in Palm Beach, Florida.”
Trump’s Motion for Judicial Oversight and Additional Relief requests the court appoint a Special Master, prohibit the FBI from further review of the seized documents until the Special Master is appointed, order the government to release a more detailed property receipt, and return any item seized that was not within the search warrant’s scope.
“My rights, together with the rights of all Americans, have been violated at a level rarely seen before in our Country,” Trump said on Friday. “We are now demanding that the Department of ‘Justice’ be instructed to immediately stop the review of documents illegally seized from my home,” Trump said. “We are demanding that all items wrongfully taken from my home be immediately returned.”
Documents show Biden White House behind attack on Trump JORDAN DIXON-HAMILTON (Breitbart News) 22 Aug 2022
President Joe Biden’s White House was intimately involved in the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) criminal probe into former President Donald Trump, according to government documents reviewed by Just the News.
Several correspondences between Trump’s attorneys and members of the Biden administration revealed that the federal government appeared poised to waive Trump’s claims of executive privilege over documents that Trump kept at Mar-a-Lago until earlier this year.
As Just the News reported:
The memos show then-White House Deputy Counsel Jonathan Su was engaged in conversations with the FBI, DOJ and National Archives as early as April, shortly after 15 boxes of classified and other materials were voluntarily returned to the federal historical agency from Trump’s Florida home.
By May, Su conveyed to the Archives that President Joe Biden would not object to waiving his predecessor’s claims to executive privilege, a decision that opened the door for DOJ to get a grand jury to issue a subpoena compelling Trump to turn over any remaining materials he possessed from his presidency.
Biden: Make America Great Again movement is “semi-fascism” CHARLIE SPIERING (Breibart News) 25 Aug 2022
President Joe Biden announced his belief Thursday that former President Donald Trump’s movement to Make America Great Again is basically fascism.
“It’s not just Trump, it’s the entire philosophy that underpins the — I’m going to say something — it’s like semi-fascism,” Biden said, criticizing the “extreme MAGA philosophy” driving the Republican Party.
“What we’re seeing now is either the beginning or the death knell of an extreme MAGA philosophy,” Biden said.
Biden administration harassing gun owners SEAN MORAN (Breitbart News) 23 Aug 2022
Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) wrote a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland on Tuesday, sounding the alarm over whether the Biden administration is harassing or coercing firearm owners into legally dubious investigations.
Ernst set out her reasoning in the letter;
“In all of the ‘knock and talk’ incidents brought to my attention, none involved the presentation of a warrant. Simultaneously, multiple ATF agents, dressed in official ATF gear—including bulletproof vests—did not inform the resident purchaser of the optional nature of his or her participation in brandishing the requested firearm. The combination of these factors calls into question whether the ATF’s actions are meant to harass or coerce firearm purchasers into, at best, legally questionable ‘investigations.”
In the letter, Ernst requested details on the criteria used by ATF to establish probable cause prior to “knock and talks,” whether or not ATF obtains warrants for these visits, the number of visits conducted without a warrant, and, if no warrant is acquired, what the legal basis is to ensure a purchaser’s Fourth Amendment rights are protected during the visit, among other information.
Read Sen. Ernst’s letter to Attorney Garland here.
California criminals released on $0 bail commit additional crimes
By Audrey Conklin | Fox News (August 22, 2022)
A California district attorney has found that more than 70 percent of criminal suspects released on $0 bail between 2020 and 2021 in his county committed new crimes.
The California Judicial Council in April 2020 implemented the statewide Emergency Bail Schedule, or $0 bail, which supporters say makes the criminal justice system more fair for those who cannot afford to get released.
“When over 70 percent of the people released under mandated $0 bail policies go on to commit additional crime(s), including violent offenses such as robbery and murder, there is simply no rational public safety-related basis to continue such a practice post-pandemic, especially in light of the increasing violent crime rates across California,” Yolo County District Attorney Jeff Reisig said in a Monday statement.
Woke Capitalism destroying America CONSUMERS’ RESEARCH (SPONSORED)
23 Aug 2022
Sponsored by Consumers’ Research.
It’s an innocuous-looking initialism that swims among a sea of other investment terms. But make no mistake, ESG, or “Environmental, Social, and Governance,” is a vicious shark that’s leaving higher prices for energy, housing, and groceries in its wake.
Much like China’s social credit system which the Communist government wields to reward citizens for approved behaviors and penalize them for non-compliance, the ESG investment scheme similarly seeks to transform American society by assigning companies a score to compel their adherence to a set of subjective goals.
Larry Fink, chairman and CEO of BlackRock Investment Management Company, has been referred to as the “architect of woke capitalism.” Together in coordination with other financiers, Fink has sought to weaponize pension funds through ESG to make radical changes to our economy that would never be approved in a legislature or ballot box. “Society is increasingly looking to companies, both public and private, to address pressing social and economic issues,” he wrote in a 2019 letter to CEOs. “These issues range from protecting the environment to retirement to gender and racial inequality, among others.”
Conspicuously absent from these priorities is maximizing their clients’ financial investments.
As the world’s largest asset manager, BlackRock controls more than $8.5 trillion in assets. Fink and BlackRock leverage this vast pool of money that doesn’t belong to them as a means of compelling companies to fall in line with their agenda. “Behaviors are going to have to change, and this is one thing we are asking companies, you have to force behaviors and at BlackRock, we are forcing behaviors,” Fink has stated.
BlackRock and Larry Fink spent years trying to force oil and gas companies to divest and to make it more difficult and expensive for them to operate. As a result, American families are paying more to fuel their cars and to warm and cool their homes. BlackRock’s former ESG czar Brian Deese, who now serves as President Biden’s economic advisor, notoriously responded to concerns over high gasoline prices in June by saying, “This is about the future of the liberal world order and we have to stand firm.”
World Health Organization pushes for more money and power HANNAH BLEAU (Breitbart News) 22 Aug 2022
World Health Organization (W.H.O.) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Monday that the Chinese coronavirus pandemic demonstrated that the world needs a “stronger” and more “empowered” organization.
“The pandemic has demonstrated not only why the world needs W.H.O., but why the world needs a stronger, empowered and sustainably financed W.H.O.,” he said during the 72nd session of the Regional Committee for Africa before thanking Member States for “the historic commitment you made at this year’s World Health Assembly to gradually increase assessed contributions to 50 percent of the base budget over the next decade.”
Our Hope
“Game of Thrones”
By Prophet Lovy L. Elias (Aug. 21)
“You, O Lord, remain forever; Your throne from generation to generation.”
(NKJV: Lamentations 5:19)
“For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him.” (NKJV: Colossians 1:16).
“Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” (NKJV: Hebrews 4:16)
(Note: Lovy L. Elias is founding pastor of Revelation Church LA located in Simi Valley, CA which started as a prayer group in his living room and focuses on revelatory teaching, the prophetic, deliverance, healing and manifestations of miracles, signs and wonders. The church mission is: “to build a people of fire.” Watch his Sunday message by going to: https://www.revelationchurchla.org/. To watch Prophet Elias Aug. 21 message on “Game of Thrones” go to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3ox0tItVzQ.)
Michael Hernandez, co-founder of the Citizens Journal—Ventura County’s online news service is a former Southern California daily newspaper journalist and religion and news editor. Mr. Hernandez can be contacted at [email protected] and is editor of “America: The End and Our Hope”.)
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
By George Miller, 8-26-22
Under great pressure and a court order from the Magistrate Judge who initially ordered the search, the U.S. Dept of Justice today released a 38 page heavily redacted version of the affidavit used to justify the wide ranging warrant used to raid and gather material from Donald Trump’s sprawling seaside Mar a Lago complex in Palm Beach.
They were not only looking for classified documents, but ANY of his presidential documents:
“a. Any physical documents with classification markings, along with any
containers/boxes (including any other contents) in which such documents are located, as
well as any other containers/boxes that are collectively stored or found together with the
aforementioned documents and containers/boxes;
b. Information, including communications in any form, regarding the
retrieval, storage, or transmission of national defense information or classified material;
c. Any government and/or Presidential Records created between January
20, 2017, and January 20, 2021; or
d. Any evidence of the knowing alteration, destruction, or concealment of
any government and/or Presidential Records, or of any documents with classification
markings.”
The government claims Trump illegally took and possessed classified materials. The affidavit states that Trump returned 15 boxes of materials from his residence on January 18, 2021, which contained some highly classified material, that there was probable cause to believe he had more and that going there could also reveal some of the causes of obstruction.
They claim that the 15 boxes received on 1/18-21 and 12 more returned in December 2021 after multiple requests contained material with classification codes suggesting NDI (National Defense Information).
Trump claims he declassified the documents and that the government knew what he had and had even been there to examine them before and some were given back. He also said that the FBI took additional materials they had no right to, such as his passports, attorney-client protected materials and more. He claimed that he implemented recommended security procedures, but it seems that the FBI had little difficulty in accessing materials there.
Our understanding is that ex-Presidents retain top secret clearance for life, but that document possession/use and actual practice vary widely. Some say that is being used to nail Trump, while other ex-Presidents are not held to the same standard. Past Presidents, such as Obama and Clinton, have removed vast quantities of documents from the White House. Some have conducted large portions of their duties away from the White House, which would require sensitive documents. Presidential libraries hold vast quantities of documents.
The timing and theatrics of the raid could suggest that it might have been designed to affect elections and harm the feasibility and even possibility of Trump running for President in 2024 – 88 days before mid-term elections and approaching the time when presidential prospects lay the groundwork for their 2024 campaigns
We await statements from Trump and others on the matter. Here’s the first one:
https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/108890236953567273
We have seen quite a bit of opining and spinning already about the whole matter- and now the documents- so we thought we would make images of the actual documents available for examination by our intelligent, motivated readers to make up their own minds:
There will likely be major haggling, propaganda/spin and litigation from all sides before this is over, if it ever is.
Per Judicial Watch, which was instrumental is securing the release:
“In a remarkable and historic victory for transparency, Judicial Watch today forced the release of the infamous and heavily redacted Trump raid affidavit. Now we know why the Biden Justice Department did not want to release this material, as it exposes how there was significant evidence of President Trump’s cooperation, a major legal dispute about the legal status of the records believed to be in Trump’s possession, and that the FBI abusively raided his home anyway. The Biden Justice Department’s dishonest redactions of the reasons for its redactions makes a mockery of the American people’s right to know the entire story about this FBI raid, which was a wild abuse of power by the Biden administration.”
-Judicial Watch, 8-26-22
Some more good articles on this:
https://www.axios.com/2022/08/12/trump-search-warrant-unsealed-doj
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2022/08/26/affidavit/
Many MORE– good and bad
George Miller is Publisher and Co-Founder of Citizens Journal Florida, based in Fernandina Beach. He is a “retired” operations management consultant, software and publishing executive and manufacturing management professional.
By George Miller
8-26-22
Reporter Andrew Pantazi of the Tributary quickly put together an impressive next-day 2022 Duval County primary election analysis, which we only got around to reading today.
He concluded that more voters weighed in on the Sheriff’s race than any other one, that race played a part, even though all candidates were black, that backlash against school performance and woke policies – or “culture war” issues, as he put it- caused school board composition changes and that DeSantis helped influence these, and that the voters elected to increase their own school taxes, ostensibly to pay teachers more.
Read Mr. Pantazi’s article here:
By Dave Scott
8-26-22
For fun let’s assume that the real reason behind the DOJ’s and FBI’s unprecedented raid on former President Donald Trump’s Florida home was that the Dems were desperately searching for child molester Jeffrey Epstein’s little black book of guests who visited his fantasy island of underaged girls in the Caribbean.
Above photo: Prince Andrew, a very young friend, and Ms. Maxwell on Epstein’s fantasy island.
The late Epstein’s girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell, has been tried and convicted for abusing and trafficking underage girls and has been sentenced to 20 years in prison.
Those who were guests of the two child molesters are probably sweating bullets wondering where the book containing their names, details, and dates of trips on Epstein’s jet might be stashed. They know she knows who they are.
The United Kingdom’s Prince Andrew was exposed as an Epstein frequent flier and got the royal boot from his no-nonsense mum, the Queen. He disappeared from public view faster than a disgraced Cold War era Soviet Union politburo member on the Kremlin Wall above Moscow’s Red Square at a May Day parade.
Ms. Maxwell is no stranger to intrigue and the ways of the media. She’s the daughter of the late Robert Maxwell, an impoverished Czechoslovakian refugee who become a decorated war hero, a businessman, a British Labor MP and then a media mogul, owning the Mirror Group newspapers and the New York Daily News. He mysteriously fell to his death from his massive yacht in 1991 in the Canary Islands and was eventually exposed as a fraud, embezzler, and suspected spy. His daughter, Ghislaine, was frequently photographed by his side during his business trips and at various social events. She may have picked up his methods if only by exposure.
The location of the book, if it exists, could be Ms. Maxwell’s life insurance policy. Why aren’t the media interested in pursuing the story and revealing the identities of the businessmen, politicians and celebrities who were guests of the sordid Epstein-Maxwell duo? Are they covering up for their Democrat pals and party donors? As one prominent politician says: “Come on man.” Bill Clinton’s name is rumored to be in it, probably many times, and a lot of folks suggest that’s probably true. Are celebrated media figures also on the list? A number of wealthy businessmen have been alleged to have cavorted at Epstein’s fantasy island as have prominent senators, congressmen, and appointed government officials. These would all be people desperate not to be exposed.
Now let’s suppose the book does exist and Donald Trump has it stashed in an undisclosed location. Was it at Mar-a-Lago? Is that why federal agents ransacked every room there including the former First Lady’s closets and even cracked a safe?
If Trump has it wouldn’t the opportune time to reveal it be when he announces his candidacy for president in 2024? Or for an even more dramatic effect he could spring it on his opponents on a debate stage. That would be a very Trumpish thing to do. Don’t underestimate the guy. Remember when during the 2016 debates he told Hilary Clinton he’d put her in jail?
I haven’t read this theory anywhere, not even in the grocery store tabloids and am just making it up as I go along. But what if it’s true? If it is or isn’t, it would make a page-turning novel.
A very talented Twitter user named “Stevenvoiceover” was clever enough to produce the following that satirizes the inept Biden administration’s Mar-a-Lago raid. Click on it and be prepared to chuckle.
(An abridged version of this commentary was published in Biz Pac Review this week at https://www.bizpacreview.com/2022/08/24/come-on-man-wheres-the-black-book-1276938/)
***
A Prophetic Sign? 100,000 more Republican voters turned up at the Florida polls this past Tuesday than Democrat ones, a signal that all those folks with the New Jersey, California, Michigan, and New York license plates that recently arrived here have had enough of the woke garbage that inspired them to flee those blue hellholes.
***
Blowing Smoke: The Fernandina Beach City Commission passed a totally ridiculous, unenforceable and contradictory no smoking ban for city parks, city beaches, and city marina this past week championed by Mayor Mike “Left Coast” Lednovich, an enthusiastic supporter of liberal lost causes and loony legislation.
City Attorney and consigliere Tammi Bach signed the new ordinance, which makes it illegal to smoke on beaches and parks within the city limits. Violators will be fined $75.
However, the ordinance (2022-16) states that not all smoking is banned. Section 42-64, titled “Smoking Prohibited Beaches and Parks,” paragraph (a) says: “Smoking is a public health nuisance and is strictly prohibited in all City parks and on City beaches, with the exception of the smoking of unfiltered cigars.” I have a copy of the ordinance and that is exactly what it says.
What! What? People can’t light up a cigarette, pipe, or suck on one of those plastic vaping gizmos, but stogies are OK? A guy with a lit cigarette is slapped with a $75 fine while his pal next to him puffing away on a massive $10 stogie gets a thumbs up? How does that make any sense? Is cigar smoke nontoxic? Does it contain healthy airborne properties?
None of this makes sense because nothing Lednovich does or proposes ever makes sense. I’m not a smoker, and I’ve never been annoyed by folks smoking on the beach. I’ve never walked into a cloud of exhaled smoke as the constant ocean breezes quickly blow it away. In fact, most smokers I’ve witnessed on the beach have a tough time even firing up their tobacco products due to the always constant breeze.
Commissioner Bradley Bean was the lone sensible vote against this unenforceable and silly piece of codswhallop. The rest of the folks running amok in city hall are in need of some serious adult supervision or therapy.
In addition to the contradictory and nonsensical law, many of the poor saps (Beach Ranger volunteers and law enforcement) charged with administering this bit of foolishness have told me privately that it is “unenforceable.” They say that would be the case even without the inexplicable “cigar” clause.
The city’s consigliere Bach and liberal California transplant “Left Coast” Lednovich are blowing smoke up your, well you know….
Oh, and for you folks that don’t know what Mayor “Left Coast” Lednovich looks like I’ll be running this photo of him every week up until the November 8 general election so you can easily recognize him. He’s shown here publicly supporting the Marxist Black Lives Matter organization in downtown Fernandina about 20 months ago while that group was actively rioting, burning, and looting when they weren’t destroying public property and beating and shooting citizens in numerous U.S. cities.
BLM supporter Mayor Lednovich, the driving force behind the beach and park smoking ban, said at the Commission meeting last week that smoking in public places “infringes on his rights.”
***
Hupp, Hupp Hooray! Local musician and novice public office seeker Hupp Huppman received more votes than any other Nassau County elected official this past Tuesday, marking the affable music man as a guy to keep an eye on in area politics hereabouts. Based on the latest information I have following are the top five voter getters in Nassau County:
1. A. M. “Hupp” Huppman (13,612 votes) – County Commissioner – District 2
2. Justin Taylor (12,062 votes) – Ocean Highway and Port Authority Member – District 3
3. Aaron Bean (10,267 votes) – Representative in Congress – District 4
4. Alyson McCullogh (10,067 votes) – County Commissioner – District 4
5. Shannon Hogue (9,720 votes) – School Board – District 1
Hupp’s in rarified company. He’s like a rookie baseball player winning the batting title in a league featuring Ted Williams, Willie Mays, Babe Ruth, and Lou Gehrig.
***
Speaking Of Winners & Losers: Other than Hilary Clinton the biggest loser in the November 2016 presidential election were the national pollsters that predicted Clinton winning by wide margins.
They’re at it again, predicting that the Democrats are gaining ground in midterms and that the races will be closer than most folks think.
Despite what the pollsters say and based on what I’ve heard and read the GOP will win big in November. The same failed 2016 pollsters say: “not so fast.”
I’ve never been contacted by a pollster, ever. They must all live in Washington, D.C., the biggest blue bubble in America, with 91 percent of its populace voting Democrat in the last presidential election. They ought to wander outside the city limits and survey folks other than their tax dollar consuming federal employee swamp-dwelling neighbors who want things to stay just the way they are.
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Read All About It: If you haven’t done so yet, you should take a peek at the new Citizens Journal Florida, an online news outlet that thoroughly and objectively covers Nassau County and the rest of northeast Florida as well as national items that impact area residents
After surveying the news gathering scene hereabouts newly arrived conservative thinking Californian George Miller determined correctly that there was a vacuum that required filling.
The bi-weekly print News Leader is showing its age and treads cautiously editorially, not wanting to step on any current or prospective advertiser’s toes. The only other local outlet, the online Fernandina Observer, is blind as a bat and its founding editors, Susan Steger and Suanne Thamm, were content to have their “paper” serve as a pandering newsletter for the Fernandina Beach city government. Its new editor Mike Phillips doesn’t appear to be much better with two of his recent top stories being snoozers about the painting of the city’s water tower and a nature feature about ants in the Egans Creek Greenway. Wednesday morning, the day after the Tuesday, August 23 elections, the Observer’s only posted story was about the guest speaker at a local garden club while The Citizens Journal had a complete summary of each race posted. It wasn’t until two days after the election that the Observer managed to observe the election results.
If you haven’t already done so check out the Citizens Journal website at https://www.citizensjournal.net/. Subscriptions are free and its readership is increasing rapidly. The reporting is timely, crisp, and far-reaching.
Because it’s a free publication there is no profit motive, a sure way to go broke. So, to make ends meet Mr. Miller is seeking folks who can string together a coherent sentence, tell the difference between a newspaper and a church bulletin, and who are willing to volunteer their talents. He’s also seeking folks with deep pockets who may be interested in keeping the outlet afloat. The paper is offering a few paid positions including advertising sales. It’s all on the website. Or contact George at 805/807-5114 or by email at [email protected]
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Government Larceny: Linda and I are proud that when our kids graduated from college they did so debt-free. We paid their tuition, room, board, and books and they got part-time jobs to help. Our son paid for his graduate degree on his own once he was employed full time and was able to take advantage of his company’s tuition refund program.
They also graduated with practical degrees in fields they enjoyed and ensured they would land decent-paying jobs. It paid off as they are prospering in their chosen fields and now have children of their own to educate.
So, since they have no college debt and will have to pay to educate their own children, why are they being told by the Biden administration that they’re now on the hook for the education of their neighbors’ kids?
President Clousseau announced Wednesday that he would cancel up to $20,000 in federal student loan debt for Pell Grant borrowers and up to $10,000 for other borrowers with an income of less than $125,000 for an individual and $250,000 for a household. There’s also a continued pause on student loan repayments until Dec. 31. Additionally, there are limits on accrual of interest on these debts. The administration estimates about 43 million borrowers would benefit, including 20 million who’d see their remaining debt erased.
Biden’s student loan cancellation is estimated to cost each American taxpayer more than $2,000 a year. Now watch as the colleges jack up their tuition by that same amount. These are the same institutions that misrepresent and sell shoddy products, and prosper at tax payer expense. They’re the ones who end up with our tax money, so why aren’t they responsible for giving it back, particularly when they have endowments of billions of dollars?
Biden and his band of Democrat thieves are telling us we now have to subsidize the education for children whose parents earn a combined income of up to $250,000 annually. Using our tax money and that of our children, these kids go off and join Antifa, march in Marxist BLM parades, protest for an end to capitalism, and pick up degrees in gender and African-American and oppression studies, diversity administration, and other worthless fields. As Fox News host Tucker Carlson said: “It’s like subsidizing an NPR pledge drive. The message? They do not care about you at all, and they’re no longer pretending.”
Why should the American people including truck drivers and farmers and welders and small business owners and members of the military, waiters and waitresses and bartenders and taxpayers who never went to college, or maybe already paid off their student loans be forced to pay for college for a bunch of elite twits that contribute nothing to society but chaos? They’ll take your money, then gleefully run over you in their goofy tax payer- subsidized electric cars that dad gave them as graduation gifts. At the same time these colleges and universities that teach their students to hate America, laugh hysterically as they continue to rake in our tax dollars from a dimwit Biden who is buying votes from college students and graduates who can barely read at an 8th grade level.
I encourage everybody who receives a fund raising letter from their alma mater to forward it to the White House.
***
Speaking Of Student Loan Forgiveness: The last poll here asked if readers approved of the Fernandina Beach budget proposal presented by City Manager Dale Martin. “No” said 98 responders while just 6 said “Yes.” City elections hereabouts have been decided by a lot less votes than that. A new poll posted today asks if folks agree or disagree with Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness.
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Drinking, Dining & Dancing: Tomorrow, Saturday, August 27, locals are invited to American Legion Post 54 to hear piano-man John Springer and his sidekick drummer, Rob Taylor, perform from 5-7 pm. Guests can purchase an Italian dinner for just $16 and enjoy a full bar. The Legion is located at 626 South 3rd Street, Fernandina Beach. If there’s a better deal in town please let me know. Despite the city’s and Mayor Mike “Left Coast” Lednovich’s best efforts to shutter and tear down the local 30-something-year-old landmark restaurant Brett’s, a judge has ruled against them in the matter regarding the safety of Brett’s supporting pilings/beams says City consigliere Tammi Bach. “The Judge ruled against the City and overruled or quashed the decision of the Board of Adjustment. We are back at square one where the City will have to post a new Notice of Unsafe Structure,” whines the distaff city legal enforcer. How much in lost revenue, legal fees, inspections, etc. has the city cost this private enterprise that is constantly harassed by the loony Lednovich-led crowd that wants to tear down the pier and build a park. I thought city government was supposed to work hand-in-hand with local businesses for mutual prosperity. But as long as the loopy lefty Lednovich remains in office they’ll have to contend with some whacky and expensive nonsense. November 8 can’t get here fast enough.
Read Dave Scott’s Blog regularly
Republished with the author’s permission. Read The Dave Scott Blog– subscribe Free
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
By George Miller, 8-26-22
Facebook knowingly and admittedly suppressed news about the Hunter Biden laptop release and its bombshell content before the 2020 election. This was pretty much known when it happened, as this news was out on the blogs and alternative news media before the election. But Facebook and so-called “Mainstream Media” either suppressed it, claimed it was “Russian propaganda (sound familiar?) or demonized the sources, which helped Biden claim to be elected. So it never got to most of the masses in time to make a significant difference in the election.
The FBI knew about the Hunter Biden laptop and its contents long before the election and had plenty of time to properly vet it. They suppressed it for a lot longer than 7 days as Facebook’s Zuckerberg allegedly claimed.
The laptop contents revealed to date show that the Biden son is corrupt, dissolute, greedy and that his father appears to be knowledgeable, even involved and complicit in some of the business dealings mentioned.
Now, it’s coming out in force, with more details. Some representative articles:
Zuckerberg says FBI pressure led Facebook to censor Hunter Biden laptop story
Here’s a somewhat biased, hard look at it, or get your own copy:
By Jeff Childers
Good morning, C&Cers! We’ve successfully survived another week in Post Pandemia without dropping over like one of Joe’s bobbled ice cream balls. It’s Friday, the last full week of August, and your roundup includes: Happy affidavit day!; the Fetterman stroke mumbling story spreads to corporate media; UK media breaks covid lockdown story; Biden disses Israel and embraces Ukraine over different nuclear crises; Texas Child Protective Services dips its shriveled toe into the sex-trafficking pond; and DeSantis disses reporters.
🔥 It’s affidavit day! Yesterday, side-swapper and former Epstein lawyer Bruce Reinhart, Magistrate over the Biden Raid case, ordered the FBI to disclose its heavily-redacted search warrant affidavit by sometime today, conveniently heading into the weekend news cycle. The redacted affidavit was already prepared and the Magistrate has already reviewed it. So the order looks to me like puffing; he’s ordering them to redact and disclose an already-redacted affidavit.
Anyway, here’s what the Magistrate’s order said about the redactions:
Narrowly-tailored! Remember that phrase for when we see the document. It’s heartwarming that the FBI got all their redactions EXACTLY RIGHT on the very first try. Great job! It’s a crime-fighting miracle. Absent from this latest order was any of the high-flying language from the last order about the unprecedented nature of the investigation, the public’s interest, and so on. This order was all business.
So we’ll see whether whatever is actually disclosed today moves the needle at all. I have no predictions, none; we’re in all-new territory, and Kamala spilled her blackberry wine cooler all over the map again.
💉 CNN picked up the Fetterman stroke-speech story yesterday — after C&C covered it — and the clip below includes some helpful examples of Fetterman’s obvious post-stroke cognitive struggles:
You win some, you lose some. At least he won’t have any serious side effects from COVID.
🔥 The UK Telegraph ran a story yesterday that will gratify many of you headlined, “Rishi Sunak Is Just the Start. The Great Lockdown Scandal Is About to Unravel.” The sub-head explains, “The pseudo-scientific sheen is finally being stripped off the decision to shut down Britain.”
Rishi Sunak was Britain’s Chancellor of the Exchequer during the pandemic, and recently ran to replace Boris Johnson. His campaign stalling, he is now talking to journalists about the climate of fear and total control inside the British government during the early pandemic when lockdowns were originally being cooked up.
Sunak says that virtually all decision-making was handed over to a small group of cherry-picked lockdown scientists, and everyone was expected to go along or face political destruction. In other words, the lockdown instructions were coming from the top. The article describes it like this:
The paywalled article is a very interesting read for folks who hope that accountability will someday catch up with current events. Here are my favorite two paragraphs:
This is a good start, and it’s encouraging to see it in corporate media. But a huge question remains: Who was directing this from the top? WHO or WHAT was able to coerce nearly every government on Earth into going along with the lockdown program, no matter the cost, all within a few days of each other?
Obviously, we can only speculate. For my Revelation watchers, these verses seem like a hint:
“Then the angel carried me away in the Spirit into a wilderness. There I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast that was covered with blasphemous names and had seven heads and ten horns. The woman was dressed in purple and scarlet, and was glittering with gold, precious stones and pearls. She held a golden cup in her hand, filled with abominable things and the filth of her adulteries. The name written on her forehead was a mystery:
BABYLON THE GREAT
THE MOTHER OF PROSTITUTES
AND OF THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.”
— Revelation 17:3-5.
I don’t know. I’m a lawyer, not a theologian. But to me, it seems like a pretty good description of the mysterious whoever or whatever orchestrated the global pandemic response.¹
🔥 Joe Biden has now gone 40 out of 56 days without taking a single question from the media, and he has not sat for an on-camera interview since February 10th.
🚀 Remember when Biden jetted over to Israel and Saudi Arabia, fist-bumping everybody, all notwithstanding having sworn during the campaign to make the Saudis into a “pariah nation” for assassinating a woke international journalist and probably spy of some kind? But it was all okay, no problem bwana, because Joe’s high-minded trip was well-intentioned, for the express purpose of brokering Middle East peace, and it was definitely NOT to beg the Saudis for oil. (How dare you.)
Well, it turns out Joe’s interest in Middle East peace comes and goes. You have to catch him on a good day.
The Times of Israel ran an embarrassing story Wednesday with the oblique headline, “US Said to Rebuff Request for Lapid-Biden Call, Gantz-Austin Meet Amid Iran Push.”
Haha, I don’t wonder the Times of Israel soft-pedaled the headline. What really happened was, Israel’s Prime Minister Yair Lapid urgently called Biden to talk to about the Iranian nuclear situation, saying it was an emergency. Then — get this — he was icily told “Biden is on vacation, dummy. He’ll call you back when he’s in the office.”
I am not making that up or exaggerating in any way, I swear. Here’s how the Times of Israel described what happened, in its own words:
> [T]he White House recently rejected an Israeli request for an emergency phone call between Prime Minister Yair Lapid and US President Joe Biden… the president’s office claimed Biden was unavailable for a conversation with the premier because he was on vacation. However, the sources emphasized that the talk would be arranged eventually.
“CLAIMED Biden was unavailable,” haha. Good one.
Now remember, Israel is the U.S.’s MOST important Middle-East ally. Allegedly. And Israel is armed to the wisdom teeth with nukes. And it has sworn to start a preemptive nuclear war if necessary to prevent Iran from getting its own nuclear weapons. And Joe was JUST THERE a month ago to “broker peace” in the region. So that’s a lot of reasons to take the call right there.
Now add the fact that Joe is on his FOURTH WEEK of being out of action, two weeks of double-covid quarantine, followed by two weeks of vacation to recover from his harrowing brush with death. I mean, at HIS AGE, Joe practically has to brush the Wings of Death out of his mouth every time he takes a nibble from his Rocky Road triple scoop. They’re basically sharing a bathroom at this point.
The U.S. is about to close a deal with Iran, which has demanded even more money, the legitimization of its terrorist front group, higher allowed levels of nuclear enrichment, less oversight, the instructor’s manual to some class called “How to Build a Nuclear Bomb,” free passes for Disney cruises, and six truckloads of all-green M&Ms with Khamenei’s face printed on the sides. For its part, the U.S. has demanded that the Iranians sign the deal, any deal, it doesn’t matter, just sign the damned thing.
You wouldn’t know anything about this appalling spectacle by reading U.S. corporate media, it’s embargoed. I had to use Israeli sources and translate the whole thing from Hebrew:
Haha, just kidding. The Times of Israel has an English language version. But I’m NOT kidding that U.S. media is pretending like the story doesn’t exist, like a bunch of teenagers carefully stepping over a puppy accident to grab a power-bar from the kitchen and muttering, “what? I didn’t see it.”
The Hebrew state is conflicted about what to do about the pending Iran deal. The Jerusalem Post illustrated the difficulty in an article Wednesday headlined, “Lapid Close to Criticizing Biden on Iran as Netanyahu Looms Large.” The sub-head asked the pressing question, “Should Israel ‘play nice’ with the White House or be aggressive when it comes down to Iran nuclear talks?”
The article reports that Prime Minister Lapid is not super copacetic with the proposed M&M deal with Iran, but neither does he want to get sideways with Biden. He delicately told reporters, “In our eyes, [the Iran deal] does not meet the standards set by President Biden himself: preventing Iran from becoming a nuclear state.”
So.
🚀 I need to brief you in on the Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Plant situation, because it’s big and murky and mostly embargoed. I’ll start with a Hill article yesterday headlined, “Biden, Zelensky Discuss Concerns Over Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Plant.”
Haha, Israel, vacationing Biden doesn’t have time to talk about YOUR nuclear problems with Iran, but he does have all the time in the world to chat with the dancing comedian about HIS little nuclear power plant issue.
A White House call summary explained, “The two leaders also called for Russia to return full control of the Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant to Ukraine and for International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) access to the plant.”
Like THAT is going to happen.
So what is it? Zaporizhzhya is the largest nuclear power plant in Europe. Russia has safely and quietly controlled the plant since early in the war. But lately the Ukrainians have been lobbing mortars at the plant, for weeks now, which is making a lot of people very nervous about a potential ‘accident’ that could be literally one million times worse than Three Mile Island multiplied by Chernobyl.
Currently, Ukraine enjoys the protection of a fully-powered-up criticism shield, which destroys all Western media that touches it. So, OF COURSE the Zaporizhzhya threat is ALL Russia’s fault — not the bat-guano insane Ukrainians firing explosive rounds at a NUCLEAR POWER PLANT. Are you confused? It’s Russia’s fault because Putin started the war in the first place. See how easy that was?
Ironically, the Ukrainians have justified the shelling by accusing the Russians of storing ammunition and military supplies inside the reactor grounds. I say ‘ironically’ because Ukraine has itself been credibly accused of placing ammo and supplies in civilian locations like schools, shopping malls, apartment buildings, and churches.
But I don’t know if they’re truly comparable. It seems like a nuclear reactor is a strategic, non-civilian site, and if you captured it, you’d probably want some military hardware there, because capturing a target is only half the equation. You also have to KEEP the target. You don’t want nuclear power plants falling into the wrong hands.
But I’m just a lawyer, not a woke, unattractive cross-dressing general. So what do I know about military strategy?
🔥 Yesterday, citing obvious safety concerns, the Russians disconnected the Zaporizhzhya plant from the European power grid for the first time in history. Since it is almost impossible to find any credible reporting about the situation in Western corporate media, I am forced to rely on local independent reports on Twitter, which suggest the power outage continues this morning:
https://twitter.com/IntelDoge/status/1563064767706963968?s=20&t=1x5XrPRO0qlpkw9_LzT8_w&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
The ability to turn the power on and off is an ace card for the Russians. From the beginning of the war, I wondered about why the Russians were not taking out all Ukraine’s power. It would be child’s play. But it has become clear over time that the Russians are being extremely careful to avoid damaging civilians and civilian infrastructure as much as possible.
Leaving the power off for too long will create a humanitarian disaster, which the Russians seem to be trying to avoid. But strategically turning it on and off at critical moments, like maybe whenever U.S. congresspeople come for photo ops and to deliver or pick stuff up, could be a very useful weapon in the overall war effort.
This may just be another one of those myriad of stories that mysteriously fades away again after the outrage machine billows smoke and pivots loudly toward a different target. But I thought you should hear about it.
🔥 In the bottom story of the day, the crack squad of highly motivated personnel down at the Texas Child Protective Services’ office are getting, um, creative about ways to help orphaned kids. Fox 26 Houston ran a story last week headlined, “CPS Employee Caught on Camera Telling 14-Year-Old Girl to Become a Prostitute.”
It seems like that’s exactly what happened. CPS has already fired the worker and is trying to move all the involved kids around, leaving some parents complaining they are being punished for blowing the whistle. CPS has not denied any of the allegations. What happened was, a 14-year-old runaway living in a state-supplied motel, waiting for a foster placement, went in to the Houston CPS office to complain about being hungry. Because she’d received sketchy advice before, the teen used her cell phone to record the CPS worker’s advice.
In the video, the CPS worker can clearly be heard telling the girl she could make up to $1,500 a day as a prostitute, so that she can get some food. It’s a pretty wild story, but at least Child Pimping Services, I mean PROTECTIVE Services, did the right thing and buried the story beneath a thousand banker’s boxes of red tape.
Who cares how many times it’s happened before, whether there are other caseworkers involved, or whether there even might be an organized sex trafficking ring operating out of that office?
Don’t be nitpicky.
🔥 Finally, to warm your hearts, Governor DeSantis — who has been on a ROLL for two years now — took a hostile election question from reporters yesterday, jammed it into a political hand grenade, and tossed it right back at them:
Enjoy!
I hope ya’ll have a fantastic Friday, and I’ll meet you back here tomorrow for the weekend roundup.
C&C is moving the needle and changing minds. If you can, I could use your help getting the truth out and spreading optimism and hope: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/-learn-how-to-get-involved-
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1
Revelation Chapter 17 continues by describing the beast’s heads and horns as representing the kings of the earth. So, the beast represents world government, the horns and heads represent the leaders of earth governments, and the Prostitute is sitting on the beast, controlling it. Get it?
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The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
From Office of FL Governor Ron DeSantis
8-23-22
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Today, Governor Ron DeSantis announced the approval of Mark Glass as Commissioner of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE). Glass has been serving as the Acting Commissioner since May 1, 2022.
“As Acting Commissioner, Mark has led the brave men and women of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement with honor and integrity,” said Governor Ron DeSantis. “In less than four months, he has made major strides towards combating Biden’s Border Crisis, safeguarding Florida’s elections, and advancing FDLE’s crime fighting capabilities. I am proud to appoint him as Commissioner and I have the utmost confidence he will continue to serve and protect all Floridians.”
Under Commissioner Glass’ leadership, FDLE has taken action to fight illegal immigration and combat the Biden Border Crisis. Beginning in June 2022, FDLE has played a key role in a strike force of state and local law enforcement to interdict human smuggling and human trafficking and to seize illegal weapons being transported through the state. The strike force has undertaken three criminal interdictions, the most recent of which concluded August 21. The first two interdictions, along I-10 in Northwest Florida and along I-75 in Hernando and Sumpter counties, resulted in 16 charges of human smuggling, 102 total felony charges, and the seizure of more than $300,000 worth of illicit drugs. The most recent interdiction was conducted statewide, and more information will be available in the near future.
Additionally during Commissioner Glass’ tenure, Governor DeSantis announced that FDLE, in coordination with the Office of the Statewide Prosecutor and newly created Office of Election Crimes and Security, is arresting 20 individuals for breaking elections laws. More on that announcement can be found here.
FDLE Commissioner Mark Glass
Commissioner Glass is a 30-year veteran of the United States Armed Forces, serving in the U.S. Army as a UH-60 Blackhawk pilot and in the U.S. Coast Guard as a Jayhawk pilot. He served honorably in various command roles throughout his military career including with the Florida Army National Guard, the District of Columbia National Guard and the U.S. Army, eventually retiring from the home of Army aviation at Fort Rucker, Alabama. He is a master aviator and received two meritorious service medals.
Prior to his appointment as commissioner, he served as director of Florida Capitol Police, overseeing all safety and security efforts in the legislative and executive branches.
Mark Glass was appointed Acting Commissioner by Governor Ron DeSantis on May 1, 2022. Commissioner Glass joined FDLE in 2015 as the director of the Office of Statewide Intelligence. In 2017, he was appointed to deputy director of Capitol Police.
Prior to joining FDLE, he served as the director of security for the Florida Lottery overseeing multiple law enforcement functions, including investigations, intelligence, forensics, mutual aid and physical security.
Commissioner Glass is a graduate from the Florida Highway Patrol Academy and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement Special Agent Academy and has served as a state trooper in Florida, a Florida Fish and Wildlife officer and a criminal investigator for the state of Texas. He has been a member of the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force and the U.S. Attorney’s Anti-Terrorism Advisory Council.
He formerly served as the lead Office of Intelligence and Analysis representative to Florida, where he was the Department of Homeland Security representative to the State of Florida, Executive Office of the Governor, Florida Legislature, and Homeland Security adviser through the Florida Fusion Center. He also served as a senior intelligence analyst supporting the National Operations Center and the chief intelligence officer.
With over 32 years of combined federal and state service, he has served as a law enforcement officer, military officer, national intelligence officer, federal civilian supervisor and senior executive. Commissioner Glass holds a Bachelor of Science degree in criminology from Florida State University and an Associate of Arts degree from Northwest Florida State College. Furthermore, he received the honor of being selected as the 2018 Distinguished Alumni Award Recipient from Northwest Florida State College and serves on the Florida Board of Directors for the American Legion Boys State.
From Judicial Watch
8-25-22
(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton made the following statement regarding Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart’s latest decision granting Judicial Watch’s motion and ordering that “before noon Eastern time on Friday, August 26, 2022, the Government shall file in the public docket a version of the Affidavit containing the redactions proposed:”
In no small victory for transparency and against government corruption, the court finally granted Judicial Watch’s request and ordered the release of the redacted affidavit used to justify the warrant in the unprecedented raid on the home of former President Trump. We expect the redactions to be unnecessary and that they will demonstrate contempt for the American people’s right to know the entire story about the Biden administration’s wild abuse of power. This legal battle for accountability is just getting started.
Judicial Watch has been in the forefront in the court battle for transparency regarding the abusive FBI raid.
On August 9, Judicial Watch filed its motion asking the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida to unseal as soon as possible the search warrant materials used by the FBI to raid President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home in Florida (U.S. v. Sealed Search Warrant (Case No. 9:22-mj-08332)).
On August 11, the DOJ filed a motion offering to unseal certain warrant materials.
On August 12, Judicial Watch Judicial Watch filed President Trump’s public statement with the court, in which he made it clear that he would not oppose the release of documents related to the August 8, 2022, raid. Later that day, the DOJ made a partial release of the Trump raid warrant materials.
Initially, the Albany Times Union and the New York Times joined Judicial Watch in filing for the unsealing of the warrant by filing an amicus letter and motion respectively. Other interests later joined in the effort.
The Justice Department was ordered by Magistrate Judge Reinhart to respond by August 15 to Judicial Watch’s Motion to Unseal the warrant and supporting materials behind the FBI raid. In its filing, the Justice Department alleged that releasing the affidavit would “cause significant and irreparable damage” to its ongoing criminal investigation.
The court also ordered the release of other documents concerning the warrant.
On August 17, Judicial Watch submitted its reply to the DOJ’s effort to keep under seal the affidavit used to justify the controversial raid on the home of former President Trump. Judicial Watch cited former President Trump’s support for the release of the affidavit.
After last week’s hearing in West Palm Beach, FL, the court issued an order which stated:
As I ruled from the bench at the conclusion of the hearing, I find that on the present record the Government has not met its burden of showing that the entire affidavit should remain sealed. It is ORDERED that by noon EST on Thursday, August 25, 2022, the Government shall file under seal its proposed redactions along with a legal memorandum setting forth the justification for the proposed redactions.
Four additional filings were made public on August 22, click here.
By George Miller
8-23-22- we will update this article periodically
FL Governor- Crist 60% easily beat Fried 35% in the Dem race and will face incumbent Governor DeSantis, who was unopposed in the primary, in the general election
Congressional District 4 (Rep), Aaron Bean was way ahead with 68% of the vote last time I checked, with Erick Aguilar at 26%, the rest for Jon Chubo.
Congressional District 4 Dems– Holloway and Hill are almost in dead heat, with the former slightly ahead.
Congressional District 5 (Rep) Rutherford, with 66%, Macie 18%
District 15 State House (Rep)– Dean Black with 64%, Emily Nunez 36%
State Senate- Smith (Dem) and Clay Yarborough (Rep) were both uncontested and will face off in November.
For U.S. Senate, Deming (Dem) 84% vs Rush 6% . Rubio (Rep) incumbent uncontested
Attorney-General – Ayala (Dem) 45%, Ulfelder 28%. Rep. Moody uncontested
Nassau County
Board of Commissioners
District 2 Hupp Huppman won big with 63% vs Aaron Bell 37%
District 4- Alyson McCullough 47%, George Spicer 28%, Thomas Ford 24%
Ocean, Highway & Port Authority
District 3- Justin Taylor 61%, Scott Hanna 39%
District 4- Ray Nelson 51%, Nate Bell 26%, Kyle Caswell 23%
School Board
District 1- Shannon Hogue 47%, Jamie Deonis 34%, Rick Pavelock 20%
District 3- Curtis Gaus 38%, Albert Wagner 35%, David Dew 27%
Fernandina Beach City Commission- Note that the vote won’t happen until November
County Voting Stats
Registered Voters:
74,467
Ballots Counted:
22,872
Voter Turnout:
30.71%
Latest numbers: https://enr.electionsfl.org/NAS/3204/Summary/Scrolling/Banner/
Note that the Elections officer reports that ALL votes were counted by tonight, 8-23-22, except for provisional ballots, which require some research. Sure is a lot better than some of the troubled “swing states” of 2020
George Miller is Publisher and Co-Founder of Citizens Journal Florida, based in Fernandina Beach. He is a “retired” operations management consultant, software and publishing executive and manufacturing management professional.
News
8-25-22
The Department Of Commerce revised the estimate of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) Thursday morning, finding similarly to July’s estimate that real GDP contracted in the second quarter of 2022.
The revised estimate for the second quarter finds that real GDP decreased annually at a rate of 0.6%, slightly less than the July 28 estimate of a 0.9% decrease, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis.
This matches the expectations of economist E.J. Antoni, who told the Daily Caller News Foundation in advance of the results that it was unlikely that the revised estimate would significantly change from the July estimate. (RELATED: Businesses Make More Cuts In August, Signaling An Increasingly Weakening Economy)
One well-known rule of thumb for defining a recession is two consecutive quarters of GDP contraction, a measure that the Biden administration has repeatedly attempted to argue is not necessarily accurate. The White House has typically deferred to the National Bureau of Economic Research to officially declare a recession, with Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen stressing the health of the labor market ahead of the July GDP estimates as an example of why the U.S. is not in a recession.
Read MORE
News
By Matt Decker
08-25-2022
On August 12th, 2022, a Water Quality Alert was issued by the St. Marys Riverkeeper to avoid swimming and fishing in Nassau County’s Alligator Creek (Map). Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP) testing revealed elevated concentrations of E. Coli. Contact with E. Coli can result in sickness.
Concentrations of E. Coli were found to be at 1,033 CFU/100ml (Colony Forming Units) on August 3rd and 1,233 CFU/100ml on August 9th. These concentrations are in excess of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) safe recommended level of 235 CFU/100ml. The EPA advises against contact with water with concentrations of above 600 CFU/100ml.
The creek will continue to be monitored by Nassau County, the City of Fernandina Beach, and the FDEP.
Matthew Decker is a Co-Founder of Citizens Journal Florida, having set up some of the technical and social media infrastructure. He also developed sourcing for some of its municipal government and business content. He is an Aerospace Engineer by trade. He has worked in NGO’s performing civic activities. He originally hails from Ventura, CA.
From White Oak Conservation
08-23-22
| August Elephants August is Asian Elephant Appreciation Month, and we can’t think of a more fitting month to honor these magnificent pachyderms. The word ‘august’ according to the Merriam-Webster© Dictionary website, means “marked by majestic dignity or grandeur.” Seems appropriate. Did you know that there are only approximately 50,000 Asian elephants left in the wild? Some of the threats they face include habitat loss, human encroachment, and poaching for their tusks and skin. But there are things we can do to help protect these amazing pachyderms, even right here at home:· Don’t buy ivory or other wildlife products. Currently, it’s illegal in many states, and ivory bans are being considered in several more.· Be aware of the products you buy. Look for fair-trade or shade-grown coffees. Purchase products that contain sustainably sourced palm oil (there’s a handy-dandy app for that: Palm Oil Scan App)· Support organizations that are working to stop illegal poaching and protect wild elephant habitats. After all, the world would be a sadder place without these amazing pachyderms. |
The elephants here at White Oak are doing well. They have continued to settle into their new home and explore their habitat daily. If they aren’t hanging out in the woods, they can be found at the lake taking a bath. Check out this video of Luna enjoying a swim and looking very, as they say, ‘august.’
2022 Update
Want to learn more about how our elephants are doing? Here’s a link to our 2022 Elephant Update.
581705 White Oak Road, Yulee, FL 32097 l 904-225-3396 l www.whiteoakwildlife.org
News
By Matthew Decker
08-24-2022
At the Nassau County Board of Commissioners Meeting on August 24th, 2022, the Amelia Island Tourist Development Council (TDC) presented its third quarter results. In spite of increasing revenues from new hotel room availability, the TDC acknowledged slowing demand due to inflation and elevated gas prices. The impending economic recession was not cited as a factor in decreased demand. The TDC’s goal is to position “Amelia Island as one of North America’s top 10 island destinations.” To achieve this goal, an increase in high-rise developments and high-density rentals may be necessary. The County Commission election results were discussed by the Commissioners, and Commissioners Bell and Ford complemented their replacements in the Primary Election.
The Commissioners started off the meeting by recognizing selected County employees for their service and contributions to Nassau County. They recognized Mr. David White, Lead Electrician for Nassau County Facilities Maintenance, for 20 years of service. Mr. Martin Pruitt, a Nassau County Animal Services Animal Control Officer, was acknowledged for the Employee of the Quarter Award. Mr. Robert Companion, Deputy County Manager/County Engineer, was heralded for his reception of the Florida State Government Engineer of the Year Award for 2022.
Mr. Gil Langley, the President and CEO of the Amelia Island Convention and Visitor’s Bureaus, presented the Third Quarter Report from the Amelia Island Tourist Development Council (TDC). The Tourist Council’s stated goal is to position “Amelia Island as one of North America’s top 10 island destinations.” To note, the TDC will likely fund the Beach Harmonization Plan to revitalize and improve Amelia Island beaches.
Per Mr. Langley, “April and May [of 2022] stayed strong” in terms of hotel revenue, with revenue per room being the highest in the State of Florida. June and July hotel revenue started to decline due to increased gas prices and rampant inflation. Mr. Langley emphasized that a new marketing campaign will be introduced by the TDC to counteract lowered demand due to the market’s inflationary state. As a whole, hotel revenues increased by 32%, from last year, despite inflation. This is the result of additional rooms being available on Amelia Island. Mr. Langley covered the Bed Tax and its associated revenues. In total, hotels made up 62% of bed tax revenue in 2021/2022 and the overall hotel bed tax generated $3.75 million in revenue.
The following ongoing TDC projects were discussed:
The Beach Harmonization Plan was discussed at the Fernandina Beach City Commission Meeting on August 2nd, 2022. The City Commission provided recommendations for the three plans presented by EDSA, and a finalized plan will be presented to the City and County Commission in September. EDSA will provide a high-level budget for the Beach Harmonization Plan. A separate detailed budget will have to be approved by the County Commission and by the Fernandina Beach City Commission (for parks within the city boundaries) prior to implementation. The TDC is expected to be the paying entity for the Beach Harmonization Plan.
The TDC has several ongoing projects to encourage tourism on Amelia Island. The “Be Kind” Mural, the African American Heritage Brochure, the 360 Degree tour, and sports tourism initiatives are all part of the TDC’s purview.
The remainder of the County Commission meeting was dedicated to new business items including changed purchase orders, the installation of an outside air system and insulation at the Sheriff’s mechanics garage, and acceptance of a State grant to aid in removal of derelict vessels. All items were unanimously approved by the County Commission.
At the close of the meeting, County Commissioners Bell and Ford graciously congratulated Hupp Huppmann and Alyson McCullough, their respective replacements in the Primary Election. In the Primary, Huppmann garnered 63% of the vote for District 2, while Bell received 37% of the vote. McCullough got 47% of the vote for District 4, with former Commissioner George Spicer receiving 38%, and incumbent Ford getting 24%. For more information, the Primary Election results are covered here: https://www.citizensjournal.net/2022-primary-election-results-for-nassau-county-so-far/
Matthew Decker is a Co-Founder of Citizens Journal Florida, having set up some of the technical and social media infrastructure. He also developed sourcing for some of its municipal government and business content. He is an Aerospace Engineer by trade. He has worked in NGO’s performing civic activities. He originally hails from Ventura, CA.
By Jeff Childers, 8-24-22
Happy Wednesday, C&C! I’m racing to catch a flight to Miami, so I don’t have time to summarize today’s information-packed roundup. Enjoy! I’ll see you back here tomorrow.
🔥 Local elections here in our county went smoothly last night. Smoothly, that is, if “smoothly” includes running out of Republican ballots in the largest precincts mid-afternoon, so that R-voters getting off work couldn’t vote. It was also raining heavily on and off through the evening so the suggestion to wait around outside for officials to print new ballots was not super helpful.
Then, after the polls closed, based on what we know so far, the modems in many of the voting machines all “malfunctioned,” so voting results were not updated for hours, and then voting officials took memory cards out of the scanning machines and drove them down to HQ for processing in the middle of the night.
I assume there will be a statement from the Supervisor of Elections this morning explaining all the issues, and what effect they had, in GREAT detail, along with an assessment of whether there needs to be a complete reboot of the election. That’s my assumption. Otherwise, there are going to be a lot of unhappy campers around here.
🔥 I re-read Fauci’s resignation letter yesterday. I don’t know how I missed it before, but it’s glaringly obvious once you start looking for it. HE NEVER SAYS ‘WHY.’ Most of these letters say, at least, “to spend more time with my family,” suggesting they resigned due to the pressures of the job or something like that. Fauci just says “to pursue the next chapter of my career.”
In the letter, there’s a hint, a whiff, a trace odor, of a man who’s not leaving voluntarily. He didn’t say he quit or resigned, he’s “stepping down.” Maybe I’m reading too much into this, but it seems like “step down” is used a lot in the context of polite pressured resignation:
Don’t get me wrong; people can also be asked “to resign,” and there are plenty of examples of that usage. But “asked to resign” seems to be the blunt, impolite idiom, and “asked to step down” is what you say about your otherwise beloved but past-the-expiration date darling who needs to be handled a tad delicately so they don’t become a human wrecking ball on the way out.
So we’ll probably never know, but I think, after all these long years and mishap after mishap, somebody finally got to the consummate deep-state bureaucrat. It wasn’t his idea. Fauci’s idea was to continue infesting the NIH for another two and a half years, at least. This Fox News headline was from an article published only ONE MONTH AGO:
In the July article, Fox asked Fauci about potential investigations under a new Congress, and he didn’t seem phased at all, pointing out that he’ll be investigated in or out of the job:
So something changed between June 18, when Fauci said he wasn’t worried about investigations and planned to stay at least through the end of Biden’s term (if you can call it that). As I described yesterday, my best theory on the available facts is that the deep state is getting its house in order prior to the arrival of a Republican-led Congress.
🔥 I thought that *I* had fun with the Fauci Resignation story, but on his show Tuesday night Tucker Carlson seems even happier than I was. Nor does Tucker buy the argument that Fauci randomly resigned.
Tucker’s Fauci segment (17:00): https://video.foxnews.com/v/6311272948112#sp=show-clips
Tucker speculates that Fauci is worried about the investigations, and lists all the things the Republicans might want to look into, including some surprises like: treatments that he knew didn’t work, lies about herd immunity, lies about masks — and listen to this one — lies about UKRAINE BIOLABS, gain of function research, and remdesivir.
Tucker flatly accused Fauci of helping create covid and then trying to cover it up: “Tony Fauci covered up evidence that HE — Tony Fauci — helped create that virus in the first place.”
Tucker also spends several minutes arguing in detail that the EcoHealth Alliance grant WAS in fact gain of function research, as many scientists believe, and accused Fauci of lying to Congress. “He’s the one who authorized the grants,” Tucker points out.
I was most impressed with Tucker’s obvious interest in the Ukraine biolabs. He even asked the obvious question — the one we’ve been asking for months now: “WHY do we have all these biolabs in Ukraine of all places? It’s not like Ukraine is a hotbed of pharmaceutical research or anything.” Indeed. I can’t WAIT to find out the answer to that one.
Tucker also dug into Fauci and Collin’s early February 2020 conspiracy to clamp down on scientists who were frantically emailing the NIH saying the new virus looked engineered. After which Fauci went on to promote the lie that the virus’ origin must have been natural, from cave bats or pangolins or sock puppets or something. Tucker also spotlighted the attempt to discredit the Great Barrington scientists, calling Francis Collins “repulsive,” and quoting the now infamous and chilling line from Collins’ email: “There needs to be a quick and devastating takedown of [the Great Barrington Declaration’s] premises.”
Another surprise was when Tucker tackled Remdesivir, stating as fact what we already know but never hear from corporate media: “Remdesivir doesn’t work as advertised…. But they all made a ton of money.” Tucker was a little more cagey on this topic; he did NOT say it killed people, probably concerned about a defamation lawsuit. He COULD have used MUCH stronger language about that drug, and about what happened to a lot of people that got it in the hospital — and often got it without their permission or even against their direct instructions.
Tucker also had a great time mocking the vaccines. He pointed out the obvious fact that no other vaccine results in you immediately getting the disease the vaccine is supposed to protect you from. Haha, he’s right. Tucker also reminded the audience about Fauci’s lies about vaccines being effective to stop transmission, and played video clips of Fauci jumping right on the doomed Biden bandwagon and parroting, “it is, in fact, a pandemic of the unvaccinated.”
Tucker ended the delightful segment with what may be Fauci’s most infamous line, where the old beagle torurer not only bizarrely referred to himself in the third person but equated himself with capital-“s” Science: “I represent science. So if you are trying to get at me … you’re really attacking not only Dr. Anthony Fauci, you’re really attacking Science.”
🔥 Ding, dong, Fauci’s dead, and masks are dying. While I languish in Facebook jail for ANOTHER 30 days, YouTubers just got a reprieve. The platform recently slid a stealth update into its covid policies, removing the bans on claims that masks don’t work. Gosh. Here’s the before / after:
In case it’s not clear from the graphic, YouTube removed these two particular bans:
So. Go ahead and discuss the fact that masks don’t work on YouTube now. Aren’t you pleased? Never mind about the last year of getting deplatformed, shadow-banned, or perma-banned. Everybody makes mistakes, and its just pedantic to insist on apologies and stuff.
Notwithstanding that it is still defending a lawsuit to preserve the CDC’s authority to order things LIKE masks, this stealthy YouTube shift is evidence the Biden Administration just chucked masks out the window, or as the kids would say, yeeted them. As further evidence, around the same time, two hardcore pro-mask media experts, Doctors Leana Wen and Monica Gandhi, completely pivoted on masking:
Both ladies have ALWAYS been reliable weathervanes for official government policy, and both are currently taking a lot of heat from followers for this sudden and unexpected betrayal. Wen even made it personal, invoking harms to one of her kids. The two docs were so helpful to government that, if they aren’t being paid by deep-state psyops teams, they should be on the payroll. So ‘science’ now says masks cause more harm than benefit.
What does it MEAN? It means that goofy characters like the Philly school board who are still hanging onto masks have NO SUPPORT, and parents in that district have LOTS of new ammunition with which to mercilessly mock the board members as science deniers, which until ten minutes ago being a ‘science denier’ made you a BAD PERSON or a flat earther or moon-landing-refusnik or something.
It took a while, but we finally got here: the Triumph of Reason. I get that the victory took too long to get here, and is bittersweet at best, but we were up against an age-old problem. As far back as 1710, three hundred years ago, author Jonathan Swift described the same problem, but more eloquently, like this:
“Besides, as the vilest Writer has his Readers, so the greatest Liar has his Believers; and it often happens, that if a Lie be believ’d only for an Hour, it has done its Work, and there is no farther occasion for it. Falsehood flies, and the Truth comes limping after it; so that when Men come to be undeceiv’d, it is too late; the Jest is over, and the Tale has had its Effect…”
– Jonathan Swift
If you’re a C&C reader, odds are that you’ve been on board, or at some point got on board, the Team Reality express, and at least you can feel vindicated.
Masks don’t work.
🔥 In another bit of late good news, good news that just made everybody furious, the Hill ran a story Monday headlined, “New York Ending COVID-19 Rules In Schools.” Messianic replacement governor Kathy Hochul has finally announced relaxing most — albeit not all — covid rules in primary schools in the state.
The removed rules mainly relate to the worst and least logical quarantine guidelines. New York is going to stop contact tracing and random testing, and no quarantine will be required for kids who have contact with positive testers. They’re also shuttering social-distancing rules.
The governor blamed the original rules, which utterly failed to reduce the spread, on ‘inadequate information.’ Hochul said, “No longer are we going to be sending kids home, keeping them away from that essential experience of being together in the classroom because we are now still dealing with the fallout of those decisions made when we had less information.”
Less information? I wonder what more information she needed? Did she suddenly discover in-person learning was “essential?” And who’s this “we” she keeps referring to?
🔥 More good news came Sunday in a Zero Hedge article headlined, “Judge Permanently Blocks Biden Oil And Gas Leasing Pause In 13 States.”
Biden signed an executive order in January, 2021, that banned all new oil and natural gas leases on federal lands and offshore waters. But in last week’s ruling, Judge Terry Doughty of the Western District of Louisiana permanently blocked the January 2021 executive order in the 13 states that joined the lawsuit.
The details are complicated, but there was a five-year agreement to allow leasing that Biden terminated with his order. The judge found that only Congress can make changes to the agreement, and not the executive branch. We’re going to need those leases when the strategic reserve runs out.
🔥 Joe Biden says employment is GREAT in the U.S., but Breitbart ran a story yesterday headlined, “Report: Ford to Cut About 3K Jobs amid Transition to Electric Vehicles.” The spin is that, by adding a NEW technology and a NEW line of cars and trucks, Ford needs FEWER employees. That makes sense, right?
Breitbart also reported that Ford just increased the price of its vehicles by about +$8,000 each, “because of material costs rising and additional factors.”
So Ford is cutting employees AND making the vehicles more expensive. BAM! The two-by-four of reality strikes the Biden Administration again.
🔥 On Monday, the Biden Raid’s federal Magistrate and former Epstein lawyer Bruce Reinhart entered an order saying he plans to unseal PART of the search warrant affidavit. Part is the key language. But before we get to that, let’s look at some interesting word choices in the Magistrate’s order.
First, Magistrate Reinhart dismissed the DOJ’s silly “undue burden” argument, wherein the government claimed that all the work from having to redact the Affidavit would tie up too many federal resources, and would “set a bad precedent,” presumably for the next time they want to raid one of President Trump’s properties.
“The Government argues that even requiring it to redact PORTIONS of the Affidavit that could not reveal agent identities or investigative sources and methods imposes an undue burden on its resources and sets a precedent that could be disruptive and burdensome in future cases,” Reinhart wrote. “I do not need to reach the question of whether, in some other case, these concerns could justify denying public access; they very well might.”
He disposed of the DOJ’s undue burden argument in a way that suggests he is starting to recognize that even the Court might be a little over its skis: “Particularly given the intense public and historical interest in an unprecedented search of a former President’s residence, the Government has not yet shown that these administrative concerns are sufficient to justify sealing.”
This is the first time that Magistrate Reinhart has explicitly recognized the “unprecedented” nature of the search. I would have preferred to see this in an earlier order, but there it is, now. Before, the Court was acting like this was just any old search warrant; but Reinhart just signaled those halcyon days are over.
Ultimately, Magistrate Reinhart said he rejected the government’s argument that the entire affidavit should be kept under seal. He ordered that “by the deadline [tomorrow], the Government shall file under seal a submission addressing possible redactions and providing any additional evidence or legal argument that the Government believes relevant to the pending Motions to Unseal.”
Obviously, Reinhart could just approve an affidavit that is so heavily redacted that it is effectively useless. We don’t know yet. In the meantime, he wisely chose this approach, slowly splitting the legal baby, giving both sides a little something they wanted, and also withholding a little something they wanted. Classic judge move. But we could easily still wind up with an unsealed partial affidavit that does not move the needle.
Stay tuned.
🔥 The Wall Street Journal ran an article Tuesday headlined, “Trump Files Lawsuit Challenging Mar-a-Lago Search by FBI.” The sub-head explains, “Former president seeks appointment of special master to review seized material and calls for freeze in examining it.”
President Trump filed what appears to be a hastily-prepared, but professional, Motion for Judicial Oversight and Additional Relief. Trump wants four things:
Here’s a link to the motion/complaint.
If I had to guess at Trump’s strategy, it would be to publish his side of the story in the official record. That motion, long as it is, is written in plain English and is fairly interesting even for non-lawyers. It tells the story of Trump’s full cooperation with the investigation and eviscerates the government’s lame story that he ever STOPPED cooperating.
I can’t help feeling that there are wheels within wheels in this story. But who is getting ground up in those wheels?
🚀 Another Mission Impossible story emerged this week from the Ukraine conflict. The Epoch Times ran a story yesterday headlined, “US Embassy Alerts All Americans Still in Ukraine to ‘Leave Immediately’.” Apparently, today is Ukraine’s 31st anniversary of its separation from the Soviet Union, kind of like our Fourth of July. But all public celebrations in Kyiv have been cancelled.
According to a bulletin from the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine, “The Department of State has information that Russia is stepping up efforts to launch strikes against Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure and government facilities in the coming days.”
The advisory continued, “The security situation throughout Ukraine is highly volatile and conditions may deteriorate without warning. U.S. citizens should remain vigilant and take appropriate steps to increase their security awareness.”
So things are heating up, but it may not be about the anniversary. Here’s the wild spy-movie part. The UK Telegraph ran a story on Sunday headlined, “Russians Vow To Strike Ukraine After Daughter Of Vladimir Putin’s Ally Dies In Car Bomb.”
Over the last few days, Russian security officials blamed Kyiv for a car-bomb attack killing Daria Dugina, 29, the young adult journalist daughter of Russian political commentator Alexander Dugin, one of Putin’s close personal friends and advisors.
Here’s Darya, now deceased:
Here’s her alleged assassin, Natalya Vovk, now on the run:
The Telegraph reported it was likely that Darya’s father, who has been called “Putin’s brain” and is close to the Kremlin, was the intended target. He was supposed to drive back into Moscow from visiting an arts festival with his daughter, Darya, but he decided at the last minute to travel back in another car.
There is currently a raging twitter war between independent Russian and Ukrainian citizens alternatively tracking the alleged assassin, or debunking the tracking evidence. The Ukrainians call the car bombing a Russian false flag operation, to the point of accusing the Russian FBI of planting the bomb and killing the girl themselves.
But what IS clear is that Darya’s father, Mr. Dugin, who was already a hardliner against Ukraine, and who is influential with Moscow, will now be fully committed to Ukraine’s utter destruction. What we don’t know is how much influence he’ll wield. Russia has vowed serious retaliation for strikes within its border.
Somebody remind me how World War I started. Things could get pretty hot over there.
Have a wonderful Wednesday! I’ll be back tomorrow with more delicious C&C.
C&C is moving the needle and changing minds. If you can, I could use your help getting the truth out and spreading optimism and hope: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/-learn-how-to-get-involved-
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The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
8-24-22
By Carlos Garcia
Candidates backed by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) successfully flipped control of the Miami Dade school board to Republican hands over controversy over race and gender studies.
Monica Colucci and Roberto Alonso were also backed by the 1776 Project PAC, which was formed to combat the implementation of critical race theory in local public school curricula.
“Both of our candidates in Miami Dade County, Florida just WON their elections, flipping the school board conservative. Miami Dade is now the LARGEST county in America with a conservative school board majority,” read a tweet from the 1776 PAC.
“As the next School Board member for District 8, I will keep woke ideologies out of the classroom, ensure curriculum transparency, and defend parental rights,” said Colucci.
The PAC also celebrated flipping school boards in Martin County Clay County, Sarasota County, and Duval County.
Read MORE
By Newt Gingrich
Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich said the country has reached a turning point after the FBI raided the home of former President Donald Trump over allegations he stored classified documents.
We are watching the American left methodically destroy the Constitution and the rule of law.
The Washington establishment is deeply hostile toward former President Donald Trump. It has contempt for at least half of the American people. And it adamantly opposes the idea of reforming the deep-state bureaucracies. All too many conservatives don’t fully understand this.
For several generations, the right has grumbled while allowing the left to take over more and more of the American system.
Conservatives in general – and establishment Republicans in particular – have insisted on pretending that our opponents are reasonable people operating within ground rules that President Dwight Eisenhower and the World War II generation would have understood.
While I was being interviewed on a TV show immediately after 30 FBI agents occupied the private home of Donald Trump, a former (and probably future) president of the United States, it hit me: Many people who should be enraged are calmly asking the FBI to explain what it is doing.
But the modern FBI isn’t going to tell them the truth.
We know the FBI lied to judges about the fake Russian Dossier. We know the FBI has had two years to follow up on the Hunter Biden laptop scandal and hasn’t. When Hillary Clinton had more than 100 emails containing classified information on the server in her home, the FBI did not raid her house. When Hillary Clinton deleted 31,000 emails, used BleachBit software to wipe her system, and had her staff use a hammer to literally destroy a hard drive, she faced no legal consequences.
Even further back, when former Clinton administration National Security Advisor Sandy Berger went into the National Archives and was caught literally stuffing secret documents about 9/11 down his pants, he was given a slap on the wrist (a $50,000 fine and a temporary revocation of his security clearance).
As we learn more about the raid on Mar-a-Lago, the situation becomes sicker.
The FBI went judge shopping to get its warrant signed. Agents found a judge who had twice donated to Barack Obama – and had defended Jeffrey Epstein, the convicted pedophile and purportedly close friend of former President Bill Clinton. This judge would have agreed to sign anything designed to hurt Trump.
And the recent outrages extend beyond Trump.
A day after the raid on Mar-a-Lago, FBI agents tracked down Pennsylvania Rep. Scott Perry and confiscated his cellphone, which contained legislative material, private messages, and other information which the executive branch has no right to acquire.
Former U.S. President Donald Trump claps as the crowd cheers him on during a rally in Washington Township, Michigan, U.S. April 2, 2022. (REUTERS/Emily Elconin)
This fits with a report that the FBI agents opened a letter from outgoing President Barack Obama to incoming President Trump and read it. This is a confidential document between the two highest elected officials in America.
The arrogance, aggressiveness, and dishonesty of the FBI has turned it into the left-wing secret police. It is far from the traditional American vision of law enforcement, truth-seeking, and equal justice.
And the problem is not only within the FBI.
When Democrat Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer stood in front of the U.S. Supreme Court at a pro-abortion rally and said Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh had “released the whirlwind,” and would “pay the price” for their court decisions, he was undermining the Constitution and committing a felony (since it is illegal to threaten a federal judge about a case).
When the White House Press Secretary says the 87,000 new IRS agents the Democrats want to hire will only audit big corporations and the incredibly wealthy, she is clearly lying.
Across America, left-wing district attorneys are refusing to enforce the law. Murders, rapes, carjackings, and robberies are skyrocketing as a result. Their refusal to enforce the law – which they are sworn to uphold – is a further step toward undermining the Constitution and the rule of law.
Every American should understand how direct and serious the threat is.
Then-California Gov. Ronald Reagan warned us that: “Freedom is a fragile thing and it’s never more than one generation away from extinction. It is not ours by way of inheritance; it must be fought for and defended constantly by each generation, for it comes only once to a people.
Now it is our time to stand in the breach, defend freedom, and insist the Constitution and the rule of law be upheld. It is our job to arouse the American people and get every citizen who loves America to vote this November.
We still have the right to insist on Abraham Lincoln’s “government of the people, by the people, for the people.” If we do not act, the forces that are threatening us will establish government of the deep state, by the deep state, and for the deep state.
That would be the end of the American dream.
It is that serious.
By Trevor Schakohl, Legal Reporter
8-24-22
REUTERS/Ting Shen/File Photo
The Democrat-led climate bill signed into law Aug. 16 grew the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) authority over energy after the Supreme Court limited it in June, the bill’s text shows, by defining carbon dioxide as an air pollutant.
The court’s decision in West Virginia v. EPA limited the EPA’s regulatory power and found that Congress had not authorized the agency under the Clean Air Act (CAA) to impose greenhouse gas emissions caps under the now-replaced Clean Power Plan to force a national transition away from coal power. Several of the Inflation Reduction Act‘s sections define the term “greenhouse gas” as “the air pollutants carbon dioxide, hydrofluorocarbons, methane, nitrous oxide, perfluorocarbons, and sulfur hexafluoride.”
Read MORE
By Ben Whedon
8-23-22
Rep. Charlie Crist claimed victory in Florida’s Democratic gubernatorial primary Tuesday night and will challenge Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis in November.
The now-Democratic nominee won with 60.2% of the vote, according to the Associated Press.
While DeSantis ran unopposed, Crist, a former Florida governor, faced off against Commissioner of Agriculture Nikki Fried for the Democratic nomination. Also running for the Democratic nomination were Cadance Daniel and Robert Willis.
Crist served one term as Florida’s governor while a Republican. He then lost the party primary for the state’s Senate race in 2010 but ran nonetheless as an independent. He again ran for governor as a Democrat in 2014 but lost to now-Sen. Rick Scott, a Republican. In 2016, he was elected to Congress as a Democrat.
Crist faces an uphill battle against DeSantis.
Read MORE in Just the News
By George Barna
8-23-22
Before classes began for the fall semester, the entire staff and faculty of Arizona Christian University gathered for two days of prayer and preparation. The event was called the “All Hands” meeting — as in, “all hands on deck,” the Navy call-to-action when everyone must be present to engage in the task at hand.
The November 8th midterm elections represent an “all hands on deck” moment for biblical Christians in America.
For many decades, Christians have felt they satisfied their citizen obligation by simply casting a ballot on Election Day. But the times have changed dramatically. Those votes were cast during an era when the government was legal and healthy (albeit sometimes misguided), and elections were generally fair and trustworthy. Those days are long gone. Corruption, deception, abuse of power, misuse of government funds, and media collusion are the new political norm in America. Merely voting is no longer enough to ensure the security and extension of a safe country driven by the Constitution, rule of law, and biblical morality. If there is any hope of stabilizing and restoring our nation, we desperately need an ALL HANDS ON DECK commitment from biblical Christians between now and November.
You might be surprised to learn how few devoted Christians actually participate in the election process beyond voting. Recent national research by the Cultural Research Center at Arizona Christian University indicates that most of the devoted Christians in America typically add little value to the process beyond their vote. Those who do provide a service beyond voting generally take part in a single election-related pursuit. In an age where millions of voting records are being falsified, elections are being stolen, and government agencies are guilty of selective enforcement of the law, followers of Christ cannot afford to sit on the sidelines and watch their country be destroyed from the inside-out.
Let’s get more specific. A recent Cultural Research Center survey measured election participation in eight ways. The complacency of the body of Christ despite this time of urgency is evident upon exploring the commitment of each of several key Christian segments.
Among theologically-defined born-again Christians:
Among theologically-conservative adults (both Protestant and Catholic), the profile is almost identical:
Among adults who attend an evangelical church, the behavior patterns are again similar:
Even among Integrated Disciples — i.e. adults who possess a biblical worldview — commitment to political engagement is sorely lacking and is eerily similar to that of the previously-described Christian niches:
Perhaps the most striking realization is that when it comes to faith and politics, even our “showcase” niche (SAGE Cons) has a lot of room for growth. These Spiritually Active Governance Engaged Conservative Christians (SAGE Cons) may be defined by engagement in both spiritual and political matters, but they bear more in common than in contrast with the other Christian segments just detailed.
By definition, SAGE Cons are registered to vote, but they take that privilege seriously: more than 90% of them have voted in each of the last four national elections (presidential and midterm), far surpassing the levels of the other Christian segments listed above. Reflecting their political awareness and spiritual commitment, SAGEs are three times more likely than other believers to say they are committed to participating in civil disobedience, if necessary. They are about 40% more likely to spend time researching the candidates and initiatives that will appear on their ballot. But what about those other, in-between indicators of engagement?
When asked to identify our “best of class” regarding faith-based sociopolitical engagement, SAGE Cons are our go-to segment. But clearly, in a time of national distress, everyone needs to step up their game — even SAGE Cons.
It seems that sometimes conservatives are in danger of being like the boy who cried “wolf” too often, turning the ears of his tribe deaf to his pleas for help when such action was truly needed. As I look at the state of our country today, during this time of government-driven oppression, persecution, deception, disunity, and redefinition, I do not believe that begging the true Church to stand strong and long is either ill-timed or overreaching. If we do not stand this November, we may not have the chance again. And standing in November means more than simply voting and carrying out some other non-strenuous election-related effort. This is a season for intensity, diligence, solidarity, sacrifice and intercession.
Topics:
George Barna is a Senior Research Fellow at FRC’s Center for Biblical Worldview.
SOURCE– The Washington Stand
August 23, 2022
From FL Governor’s Press Office
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Today, Governor Ron DeSantis along with fellow Trustees of the State Board of Administration (SBA) passed a resolution directing the state of Florida’s fund managers to invest state funds in a manner that prioritizes the highest return on investment for Florida’s taxpayers and retirees without considering the ideological agenda of the environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) movement. This update to the fiduciary duties of the SBA’s investment fund managers and investment advisors clearly defines the factors fiduciaries are to consider in investment decisions and states that ESG considerations will not be included in the state of Florida’s pension investment management practices.
The resolution passed today specifies that investment decisions “must be based only on pecuniary factors [which] do not include the consideration of the furtherance of social, political, or ideological interests” and stipulates that the SBA “may not sacrifice investment return or take on additional investment risk to promote any non-pecuniary factors” when making investments or proxy votes. The resolution also instructs the SBA to “conduct a comprehensive review and prepare a report of the governance policies over the voting practices of the Florida Retirement System Defined Benefit Pension Plan.” The text of the resolution can be found here.
“Corporate power has increasingly been utilized to impose an ideological agenda on the American people through the perversion of financial investment priorities under the euphemistic banners of environmental, social, and corporate governance and diversity, inclusion, and equity,” said Governor Ron DeSantis. “With the resolution we passed today, the tax dollars and proxy votes of the people of Florida will no longer be commandeered by Wall Street financial firms and used to implement policies through the board room that Floridians reject at the ballot box. We are reasserting the authority of republican governance over corporate dominance and we are prioritizing the financial security of the people of Florida over whimsical notions of a utopian tomorrow.”
This follows action taken in December by Governor DeSantis, CFO Jimmy Patronis, and Attorney General Ashley Moody to reclaim the SBA’s proxy voting authority from large financial firms such as Blackrock, State Street, and Vanguard and provides guidance to the SBA employees now responsible for proxy voting and investment decisions. This guidance will ensure that the decisions made by these civil servants on behalf of the people of Florida are in accordance with the voters’ values as expressed through the democratic process rather than blindly in lockstep with the ESG mania taking hold of Wall Street and Washington.
Last month, Governor DeSantis also unveiled proposed legislation for the 2023 Legislative Session that would amend Florida’s Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices statute to prohibit discriminatory practices by large financial institutions based on ESG social credit score metrics. For more information, click here. To watch a video of the announcement, click here.
by Jeff Childers
08-22-22
Happy Monday, C&C! It’s going to be a great week as we coast down the remainder of August and start looking hopefully forward to cooler weather. Your author is much improved, if a tad sleepy; this must be what Joe Biden feels like all the time. But I hope to enjoy a ‘normal’ work week anyway. Today’s roundup includes: more vaccine injury news breaks through corporate media; Epoch Times explicitly links cancer to jabs; Dr. Birx laughably advises the CDC on how to regain public trust; reality catches up to Team Biden on the economy; Bloomberg reports grim real estate news; and surprisingly, China is hit hardest.
🔥 Operation Multiplier: I’m still working on getting Multiplier results from Dr. Gold’s outfit. Without her in charge, I think the problem is that things are locked down pretty tight over there. But I will have big news about this issue soon, if plans work out. Stay tuned.
💉 We’ve been watching the narrative over jab safety and efficacy pivoting for two months now, and then last week we saw the CDC pivoting to drop all its covid restrictions for unjabbed people, and announcing a “top to bottom” reorganization. Weird.
Then over the weekend, Tucker Carlson rounded up jab injury studies.
Tucker’s first study was from the Lancet in February titled “Risk of infection, hospitalisation, and death up to 9 months after a second dose of COVID-19 vaccine: a retrospective, total population cohort study in Sweden – The Lancet”.
So it’s not that Tucker was breaking any new “news.” The real news was that Fox was giving prime-time coverage to direct vaccine injury studies. Tucker’s been warming up to this, I told you in July when he first referenced a study about the jab disrupting interferon signaling. But his tone in July was much more cautious than it was this weekend.
Tucker is getting aggressive about jab risks. The CDC and its allies MUST realize that it’s simply too late to screw a cap onto all the studies — the cat’s already out of the bag, as Dr. McCullough keenly observed yesterday:
He’s right — there are more than 30,000 papers and studies now published on the harms caused by spike protein, which is the mRNA shots’ one and only effective by-product. And many of those papers specifically examine jab-induced spike protein rather than just spike generally.
Now Tucker needs to do excess deaths. That’s the government’s weakness, the reality that they won’t be able to dissemble away.
💉 In another example, albeit not in corporate media, the Epoch Times ran a story Friday headlined, “New and Recurrent Cancers After mRNA Vaccines, Studies Suggest Immune Changes.”
The article starts with an alarming timeline for former cancer patient Bonnie Eisenberg. She recovered from breast cancer in 2012, and since then has been regularly testing for cancer markers every few months. They’ve always been low, averaging 0.4 ng/mL.
But after Bonnie took the first jab in January 2021, her next cancer marker test showed slightly elevated — but not alarming — levels at 3.7 ng/mL. After her second jab in February 2021, it bumped up again, to 5.2 ng/mL. But after she took the booster in October, her marker shot up to a red-hot 17.6 ng/mL and her doctor called her in for an immediate PET scan.
You guessed it; her breast cancer was back and not only that, it had already metastasized. Bonnie explained, “it went to all my bones … it didn’t go to any of my body organs, but it was over every bone you could think of. On the PET scan I lit up like a Christmas tree.”
She was suddenly and unexpectedly in stage 4. They immediately put her on chemo ($14,000 a month), which got the cancer under control. But Bonnie will remain on serious medication for the rest of her life, and is already experiencing side effects like hair loss, loss of bone mass, and so on.
Epoch quoted MIT’s Dr. Stephanie Seneff, who is apparently doing some great work in this area. Dr. Seneff explained in a recent study, “Impaired type I IFN signaling is linked to many disease risks, most notably cancer, as type 1 IFN signaling suppresses proliferation of both viruses and cancer cells by arresting the cell cycle.”
The paper then pointed out that “research on spike protein and mRNA vaccines suggests that IFN-alpha action may be impaired when exposed to spike protein.”
In other words, they’re saying the shots cause immune system problems, which pave the wave for cancer.
The immune system is what keeps cancer in check in healthy people. Epoch cited an analysis by The Expose on VAERS data that indicated a jab-linked explosion of cancers by 143,233 percent. That’s a lot.
The article cites more examples, like John Rolf, a healthy 68-year-old who suddenly developed stage 3 esophageal cancer after his jab in March 2021. Although doctors were optimistic, and started him on aggressive chemo, John died in his sleep in October. His wife Cheryl said, “I got up and he said ‘I want to sleep some more’ and he didn’t get up. I went and looked [later] and he had passed away.”
Is it possible we’ve finally reached the stage where the problems can no longer reasonably be hidden or denied, and that’s why the CDC is suddenly pivoting so hard, and why the U.S. is signaling that it will stop paying for jabs?
If so, it’s a fabulous development. We need a new Operation Warp Speed 2.0, to develop treatments for what the first Operation Warp Speed came up with. An all-hands-on-deck effort to treat vaccine injuries can’t happen until they admit there’s a problem.
Just admit it! Everybody already knows anyway.
🔥 Over the weekend, goofy scarf-fan Dr. Deborah Birx had some advice for the CDC on how to “rebuild trust” with the American people. Laughably, she told Face the Nation that “The way you rebuild public trust is be transparent.”
Hahahaha! Don’t make me laugh any more! It’s starting to hurt!
How about we start by being transparent with all the excess deaths data that the CDC is currently hiding behind a lame “software upgrade” excuse? That would be a nice transparent start.
Birx also thinks the CDC just needs to EXPLAIN its reasoning better. “Recommendations that are created out of lack of transparency, and out of a black box where you can’t really follow the logic is what leads to fracturing in trust,” the disgraced doctor advised.
Birx is out making the rounds trying to hawk her recently-published book. In the book, she admits knowing that “14-days to stop the spread” would never work but she advised it anyway, knowing the whole time it would really take much much longer, because she had to get people to first swallow two weeks, then it would be easier to get us to agree to lockdown for months more.
That admission — the she lied to us just to get us to go along — plus more examples, like where Birx bragged about tricking the public about vaccine efficacy to get more jabs in arms (she said she “always knew” the shots wouldn’t stop infections), generated fun headlines like this one last month from RedState:
So it’s pretty rich to hear Birx gabbling about transparency and explaining your reasoning to the public. Shut up, Deborah. Nobody cares what you have to say anymore. Go back to scarf collecting.
📉 There’s an old parable about the perils of subjectivity. It goes something like this: you can have your own “truth” if you want to, but if your truth is always having a ‘green light,’ you’re going to get flattened in about ten minutes. In other words, reality always overtakes subjectivity, sooner or later, and it’s usually exquisitely painful.
Joe Biden and his crew are subjectivists. Take vaccines. To Joe, a vaccine is anything that treats a disease. Could be vitamin C, exercise, band-aids, gravity boots, mRNA shots, whatever. That’s what HE has always considered to be a vaccine. He always thought it was unfair that only deactivated viruses that prevent diseases were allowed to be ‘vaccines.’
So when he had the power, and wasn’t feeling too sleepy, Joe ordered the CDC to change the official definition of a ‘vaccine.’ Bliiiiing! Ta-da! Now everybody had to use Joe’s subjective, ever-changing definition of a vaccine. And it worked! Like the parade-goers in the tale of the King Who Had No Clothes, everybody grabbed hold of Joe’s special new definition and clapped hysterically, like North Vietnamese generals at Kim Jong Il’s gala 23rd birthday party.
So when Joe started hearing about this “recession” thing, he knew just what to do. Joe never felt that it was fair to use MATH to define things. Math is racist! Math is probably homophobic, too, and I bet math NEVER puts the toilet seat down after.
So Joe ordered the credulous fools racing around Washington trying to carry out his increasingly bizarre and conflicting orders to just redefine the word ‘recession.’ Now it means: we’ll let you know when there’s a recession, probably when the next Republican is in the White House. Till then, there’s no recession, got it?
The Daily Mail observed drily that Biden and his insects, I mean cabinet officials, “point to metrics like record job growth and steady levels of consumer spending to argue that the country is not yet in a recession – and previously claimed that such a downturn was not inevitable.”
See? Unless EVERY SINGLE metric is going down, it’s NOT a recession. Forget about math!
Corporate media obediently slurped up Joe’s new recession definition like a pack of trained SeaWorld penguins wolfing down their kipper rewards after gliding through ice hoops:
After all, it’s Joe’s personal truth, and you can’t argue with that. How dare you question his lived reality? But … there’s this pesky thing called ACTUAL reality and it tends to come along right when you’re minding your own business, whistling Dixie, and skipping toward the Circle-K to cash in your $100 winning lottery ticket. Life is just coming up all roses, till just when you turn the corner, BAM!, Life smashes you in the face with the two-by-four of karma.
In this case, the two-by-four of karma came in the form of a story in the UK Daily Mail yesterday headlined, “97% of US Executives Believe US Is Now in a Recession or Close to One, Despite Biden’s Consistent Denials.” BAM!
Now, I’m just a lawyer, not a mathematician, but 97% seems like a lot. I would even feel safe to call that, “most.”
So despite corporate media’s best efforts to make us all think like Joe, it appears not to be working this time.
The Stifel Financial survey also showed businesses think labor constraints, inflation, supply chain disruptions and the recession are the biggest threats to their profitability. Guess which threat ranked lowest on their concerns?
The economy is not some made-up theory. The economy is the collective result of billions of individual transactions. If consumers and business think we’re in a recession, guess what?
Reality is a you-know-what, isn’t it?
🔥 You’re probably thinking I’m exaggerating, right? Maybe you think that, while it isn’t GREAT that 97% of business owners think we’re in a recession, that’s just THEIR truth. Nope. You got it backwards. Business owners make decisions based on what they believe, and all their decisions add up to: the economy.
On Friday, Bloomberg ran a story that did NOT hew to Biden’s reality, bluntly headlined, “US Mortgage Lenders Are Starting to Go Broke.”
BAM! There goes Life’s two-by-four of karma again.
Despite Joe’s subjective lived reality, Bloomberg reported that “market watchers nonetheless expect a string of bankruptcies broad enough to trigger a spike in layoffs in an industry that employs hundreds of thousands of workers.”
It affects the least well-capitalized firms first. Firms like Sprout Mortgage and First Guaranty Mortgage, which Bloomberg said “have already stopped operating or scaled down dramatically.” Or like Pacific Investment Management Co., which just filed for bankruptcy, “saying it failed after it made loans earlier this year that dropped in value.”
One bankruptcy often leads to others. Consider the fact that Pacific’s bankruptcy filing says it owes Flagstar Bank and Customers Bank about $418 million. Not good news for the banks.
First Guaranty also filed for bankruptcy. But just before filing in June, the company fired 471 of its 600 workers. In other words, it doesn’t plan to reorganize. It’s going out of business.
Seems like we’ve heard this song before, back in 2008, remember?
There’s no reason to panic, pretty much everyone agreed the real estate market was overheated and needed correction. I’ve heard from many folks who bought in 2000 and have seen their property values double in two years. That can’t last.
Folks grudgingly accepted the new reality that vaccines are whatever the government says they are. But that isn’t working with the economy. Math is going to win this time. BAM!
🔥 I’m not sure it’s right to call this “good news,” but China’s real estate problem is MUCH worse than ours.
The Chinese are tearing down entire blocks of unfinished apartment buildings. I can’t remember seeing anything like it, not ever.
Their real-estate market is even more over-heated than ours:
Worse, China’s growing middle-class is heavily invested in real estate. 70% of China’s wealth is tied to real estate, which is twice as high as the US’s rate. Like ours, Chinese consumers are also not buying their government’s propaganda about the economy. It’s a real problem.
Relatedly, Bloomberg ran a story last week headlined, “Chinese Shun Debt and Pile Up Savings, Threatening Global Growth Engine.” The sub-head explains, “Households downbeat about their prospects are retrenching, with consequences for local giants as well as multinationals.”
Maybe we should send Joe to China to help them re-define things? Can we, please?
Have a magnificent Monday! I’ll see you back here tomorrow morning for more.
C&C is moving the needle and changing minds. If you can, I could use your help getting the truth out and spreading optimism and hope: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/-learn-how-to-get-involved-
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© 2022 Jeff Childers
2135-B NW 40th Terrace, Gainesville, FL 3260
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
from the White House
AUGUST 22, 2022•STATEMENTS AND RELEASES
During my time as Vice President, I worked closely with Dr. Anthony Fauci on the United States’ response to Zika and Ebola. I came to know him as a dedicated public servant, and a steady hand with wisdom and insight honed over decades at the forefront of some of our most dangerous and challenging public health crises. When it came time to build a team to lead our COVID-19 response – in fact, in one of my first calls as President-elect – I immediately asked Dr. Fauci to extend his service as my Chief Medical Advisor to deal with the COVID-19 crisis our nation faced. In that role, I’ve been able to call him at any hour of the day for his advice as we’ve tackled this once-in-a-generation pandemic. His commitment to the work is unwavering, and he does it with an unparalleled spirit, energy, and scientific integrity.
Dr. Fauci has served under seven Republican and Democratic Presidents during his career, beginning with Ronald Reagan. He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2008 under President George W. Bush. For almost four decades, he has served as Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, helping our country navigate health crises ranging from HIV/AIDS to COVID-19. Because of Dr. Fauci’s many contributions to public health, lives here in the United States and around the world have been saved. As he leaves his position in the U.S. Government, I know the American people and the entire world will continue to benefit from Dr. Fauci’s expertise in whatever he does next. Whether you’ve met him personally or not, he has touched all Americans’ lives with his work. I extend my deepest thanks for his public service. The United States of America is stronger, more resilient, and healthier because of him.
By George Miller and Jessica Styers
8-21-22
The Nassau County Republican Party’s August meeting was a candidate forum, which posed some pretty good prepared-in-advance questions. It was a 90 minute information-packed session with plenty of questions for the eight candidates who showed up. There was no opportunity for the audience to question the candidates. Event Moderator Chris Kirkland (above photo) instructed candidates to stay away from negative attacks on other candidates. That minimized fratricide but also cut off some legitimate attempts by the candidates to differentiate themselves from each other. Given what has gone on this year, I can’t fault the GOP for doing it, though. Since this was a party event, only Republicans were participating for the partisan positions. The Democratic Party has been unresponsive to Citizens Journal Florida’s inquiries/offers, which still stand.
Nassau GOP is still recruiting poll watchers.
Candidates:
Ocean, Highway & Port Authority Member, District 3
Scott Hanna
Justin M. Taylor
Ocean, Highway & Port Authority Member, District 4
Nate Bill (not present. Unclear whether he was invited)
Kyle Caswell
Ray E. Nelson
Ocean, Highway & Port Authority Member, District 5
Mike Cole (unopposed, didn’t participate)
State House
Emily Nunez
Dean Black
House of Representatives District 54
Jon Chuba
Erick Aguilar (invited- did not participate)
Aaron Bean (invited- did not participate)
State Senate
Clay Yarborough (unopposed in primary- made brief statement. He will be the main speaker at the September meeting) …
FL US Senate incumbent candidate Marco Rubio sent a representative who spoke briefly (sorry- didn’t hear her name)…
Here was the original meeting notice we received:
The Republican Party of Nassau County will hold our next monthly meeting 7PM August 18, 2022, at the Nassau Room of the Florida State College Nassau Campus in Yulee (76346 William Burgess Blvd. Yulee, FL 32097). The meeting will feature a candidate forum consisting of local Republican candidates for Ocean Highway and Port Authority Districts 3 & 4, Florida House of Representative District 15, and U.S. Congressional District 4.
REC members may submit questions for Port Authority, State Legislative, and Congressional candidates in writing to: [email protected] We ask that your questions not be directed at a specific candidate and focus on qualifications, experience, and the specific platform(s) of candidates. All questions will be vetted to ensure objectivity and appropriateness.
This was the second forum and both were very good. Chris Kirkland did a wonderful job setting up the ground rules and asking the questions. He wanted to keep the comments by the candidates about themselves and to eliminate the negativity that seems to have been brought into Nassau County in the mailers from the candidates and the PACs.
This forum focused on the positions of Ocean Highway and Port Authority for District 3 and 4. Also there were the candidates for the State Representative, District 15 and one candidate for Representative in Congress, District 4. In addition, uncontested Clay Yarborough, Florida State Senate, District 4 came and was given time to speak after the forum wrapped up. Clay Yarborough will be featured at the next Republican Meeting.
It was disappointing that the City Commissioners were not featured, because there had been emails and flyers that were very negative and it would have been great for those emails and flyers to be addressed. All of those candidates had been featured at the first forum, though, so this was by design.
We always focus on the commissioners, the state, school board, and the federal candidates. So to have a forum that gave the majority of the questions to the Ocean Highway and Port Authority for District 3 and 4 was incredibly informing. Scott Hanna and Justin Taylor were there for District 3 and Kyle Caswell and Ray Nelson were there from District 4. Unfortunately Nate Bell was not there to answer questions from District 4.
We really got to know the issues, where very often the positions of Ocean Highway and Port Authority are on the back burner. I learned a lot about how the city of Fernandina and the County need to work together and all the candidates had plans to address this. There were comments about Hazardous Materials and the importance of both ports in attracting jobs to our area, especially with the technical skills. We also got to know the differences in the candidates, although the differences were more about experience, backgrounds, and approach to the job than difference in policy. We had young candidates and more mature candidates. We had incumbents and candidates looking to unseat the incumbents. Generally the discussion was friendly and respectful.
The State Representatives in District 15 Dean Black and Emily Nunez discussed their own positions – and did not discuss all the negative flyers, as per the ground rules set up by Chris Kirkland. Early on, it appears Dean Black had sent out a large number of flyers with many of them being very negative about Emily Nunez. At that time, Nunez had sent out a few mailers which addressed her position. This has been a heated race with much negative campaigning. I think both these candidates are conservative and voters should investigate their positions carefully and vote accordingly. At this forum, the candidates for State Representatives in District 15 Black and Nunez discussed their own positions and what they would do if elected.
Jon Chuba was in his element since he was the only candidate from the Representative in Congress, District 4. He was asked “Should Nancy Pelosi have gone to Taiwan?” His answer was “absolutely not”
We’ve covered or watched a few local candidate forums so far. With a transcontinental move and all that entails, buying, outfitting and moving a boat a thousand miles and starting a newspaper from scratch, all in the last year, we’ve just begun to have the time to study local politics. We’ve already seen the Republican State House, Congressional and County Commission candidates in action, but the Harbor Commission and Senate candidates were new to us.
District 3 & 4 Ocean, Highway & Port Authority Member
There were two candidates each participating for the District 3 & 4 Ocean, Highway & Port Authority Member openings. These positions have increased in importance as the Port faces challenges of technology, capital, marketing, the changing economy and poor community relations over its “footprint” and transparency/responsiveness issues. With a new operator taking over, there is some optimism and some uncertainty. My understanding is that these people would not actually run the port, which is the task of the operator, but collectively act as the board of directors and are known as “Commissioners.”
For District 3, incumbent Scott Hanna promoted his practical experience and skills as a small businessman (electrician) and Commissioner, of course. He pointed out that on his watch, a tugboat, cranes, and other equipment were brought in, port information went online, a new port operator was brought in and the port was designated a “superhighway” for barge service.
Justin Taylor presented his civic activity and educational qualifications. He listed economic development, partnerships and transparency as his top three priorities that he would bring to the position. He said he was rated among the top 40 under 40 business people and was a past county GOP Chair, County Commissioner and on the county economic review board.
For District 4, 23 year old Kyle Caswell led with his own strengths, which he described as 5 years’ hands-on port operations activities and bringing the perspective of youth, which he said is the future.
Ray Nelson had all that Caswell offered, but also tacks on 40 years experience, which includes actually setting up and running ports, up to the General Manager level. He lamented that the Port is the “best kept secret on the East Coast”, but said that is an opportunity, with great upside, but that there are local “footprint” concerns to address.
District 15 State House
District 15 State House candidates Dean Black (Duval County GOP Chair) and Emily Nunez, retirement planner, once more went head to head, subject to the moderator’s restrictions on negative engagement. Sparks only flew and only briefly. when Dean asserted that he ran a “clean campaign.” Anyone who has been the recipient of his campaign flyers and actually read and understood them could legitimately disagree. This mars his otherwise good candidacy and qualifications as a candidate. Nunez’s response was indirect and quite mild, but she got her licks in afterward (see photo and caption below).
Black informed the audience that his family has ranched in the area since 1803- eight generations and that he has added 5 kids to that. He is running because of deep concerns about what is going on in local, state and federal levels. He said the free state of Florida is great and he wants to help keep it that way. He highlighted the dysfunction of the radical left and added that he will fight back against their agenda, including the recent bill which would add 84,00 IRS agents.
Both candidates are veterans, both have business experience. Black is well connected in the party and has significant PAC support. We the People leader Deb Boelkes has done extensive “deep diving” research on local candidate campaign finance (you can see this in a previous forum report in this publication). Black’s endorsers tend to be establishment Republican officials, while Nunez has Conservative superstar endorsers such As General Michael Flynn, Anthony Sabatini, Ted Yolo and also some faith groups. Nunez’s campaign has more of a MAGA flavor. Black claims he can get things done better, while Nunez doesn’t agree with all the priorities he might try to address.
On negative campaigning – see photo & caption, below ….
District 4 State House of Representatives
The sole District 4 House of Representatives candidate to show up was Jon Chuba, a health insurance plan writer. He is an unabashed Conservative Christian and church deacon, who takes no money from special interests and supports a more Conservative agenda than most establishment Republicans. He said he was “called” to run, that the (2020) election was fraudulent, that Biden’s Afghan withdrawal and border crisis are disastrous. His watchwords were faith, family, freedom, capitalism, Constitution, all of which are being destroyed by the radical left, he intoned.
It is clear that opponent Aaron Bean, who has made himself scarce at candidate forums and does not respond to our requests for info, has the money, endorsements, name recognition, popularity and track record. We haven’t seen or heard much from opponent Erick Aguilar, who is supposedly polling a distant second to Bean, ever since the allegations of fundraising fraud surfaced. We interviewed him and his campaign manager twice on that. The only thing we could get from them is “I have done nothing wrong.” They would not address the specifics “at this time” and said it would come out later. Aguilar also has a strongly Conservative agenda, but no track record to verify it. He has run before, but was getting more traction this time, until July.
~~~~
We’ll add a bit to this report if time permits, We wanted to get something out, since the primary is Tuesday.
All photos by George Miller/Citizens Journal Florida.
Jessica Styers is a concerned Citizen of Nassau County, Conservative Christian, American First.
George Miller is Publisher and Co-Founder of Citizens Journal Florida, based in Fernandina Beach. He is a “retired” operations management consultant, software and publishing executive and manufacturing management professional.
Relevant articles:
Edited by Michael Hernandez
HANNAH BLEAU 17 Aug 2022
A recent report from Florida Medicaid, requested by the Secretary of the Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA), concluded that “gender-affirming” treatments for individuals struggling with gender dysphoria — from puberty blockers to surgeries — are not proven as “safe or effective” treatments but are “experimental and investigational.” “Studies presenting the benefits to mental health, including those claiming that the services prevent suicide, are either low or very low quality and rely on unreliable methods such as surveys and retrospective analyses, both of which are cross-sectional and highly biased,” the document reads in part. It was revealed last week that Florida is barring Medicaid from covering transgender procedures — a rule which will go into effect August 21.
Florida is prohibiting Medicaid from covering transgender procedures — from puberty blockers to surgical procedures — per new rules added by the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration. The new rules outlined by the Sunshine State will take place August 21. The program will not cover what radical leftists have dubbed “gender-affirming” treatments for individuals struggling with gender dysphoria. That includes hormone therapy, surgical procedures, and puberty blockers. This decision comes two months after a Florida Medicaid report requested by the Secretary of the Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA), which concludes that so-called treatments for those with gender dysphoria — from gender reassignment surgery to hormone therapy — are not “safe or effective” but fundamentally “experimental and investigational,” as Breitbart News reported:
SPENCER LINDQUIST 17 Aug 2022
The California Department of Education prepared a resource list intended for students, teachers, and families that included multiple clinics that offer sex change surgeries and other medical interventions. The California Department of Education’s resource list, titled “LGBTQ+ Resources: Region 4 – Bay,” specifically advertises resources in seven different counties in California’s Bay Area. The site, archived here, advertises MarinHealth, a clinic that offers “gender affirmation surgery.” The list of operations they perform includes “top surgery,” phalloplasty, vaginoplasty, breast augmentation, and facial feminization. MarinHealth also has several podcasts where they discuss some of these procedures. The clinic has at least 12 different staff members who perform or facilitate these surgeries. MarinHealth does not explain what ages they are willing to operate on. MarinHealth was just one of the medical establishments that aids in sex changes and was featured on the California Department of Education’s list. The University of California San Francisco (UCSF) Child and Adolescent Gender Center was also listed. Breitbart News previously revealed that Dr. Stephen Rosenthal, the director and cofounder of the Child and Adolescent Gender Center, was one of several doctors who aids sex change attempts and has received compensation from pharmaceutical companies that manufacture puberty blockers. The center accepts patients between the ages of 3 and 17 and offers “comprehensive medical and psychological care, as well as advocacy and legal support, to transgender, nonbinary and gender-expansive kids.”
IAN HANCHETT 19 Aug 2022
During the Overtime segment of Friday’s broadcast of “Real Time,” host Bill Maher said that some of the increased funding for the IRS in the Inflation Reduction Act will be used to audit middle-class taxpayers.Author, Commentary Magazine Editor, and MSNBC Contributor Noah Rothman…said, “To audit middle-class taxpayers.” Maher responded, “Right, which, some of it will.”
By Jerry Newcombe 17Aug 2022
The pledge has now been nixed from school board meetings in Fargo, North Dakota. Ben Kesslen reported for the New York Post on this move against the pledge by the members of the school board: “Board member Seth Holden said that because ‘the word “God” in the text of the Pledge of Allegiance is capitalized … the text is clearly referring to the Judeo-Christian god and therefore, it does not include any other faith such as Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, all of which are practiced by our staff and students.'” Kesslen adds: “[Holden] claimed he is not against the Pledge itself, but that it can’t be said in a school committed to diversity, equity and inclusion.”
Posted by Charlie Kirk Staff 20 Aug 2022
A school district in California has reversed its mask mandate for students after a video taken by a parent went viral showing his four-year-old special needs child being escorted out of the building by a principal. According to reports, the boy became upset and “inconsolable” for hours after being led out of the school and prevented from attending classes without a mask. BizPac Review notes: In the video which was recorded by the child’s father, the boy is seen trying to enter Theuerkauf Elementary School in Mountainview, California when he is prevented from gaining access by a woman who has been identified as Michelle Williams, the school’s principal. The video clip also shows the child being escorted out of class by Williams who cites the mask policy of the Mountain View Whisman School District as well as an explanation from the school’s resource officer. Mountain View Whisman School District Superintendent Ayinde Rudolph announced the following day, the mask mandate would be rescinded and that donning one would become “optional.”
“…God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. Then God blessed them, and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion…over every living thing that moves on the earth.” (Genesis 1:27-28).
“Then David said to the Philistine, ‘You came to me with a sword, with a spear, and with a javelin. But I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, who you have defied.” (1 Samuel 17:45)
“…the Lord does not save with sword and spear; for the battle is the Lord’s and He will give you into our hands.” (1 Samuel 17:47)
“And even now the ax is laid to the root of the trees. Therefore, every tree which does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.” (Luke 3:9)
(Editor’s Note: Michael Hernandez is editor of “America: The End and Our Hope” and can be contacted at [email protected]. Mr. Hernandez is co-founder of the Citizens Journal—Ventura County’s online news service and is a former Southern California daily newspaper journalist.)
By Just the News
8-22-22
Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart on Monday formally rejected the Justice Department’s plea to keep sealed the entire affidavit used for the search warrant to raid former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate.
In a filing Monday morning, Reinhart, who originally approved the warrant, said he rejects “the government’s argument that the present record justifies keeping the entire affidavit under seal,” Fox News reported.
The decision was expected, considering Reinhart last week ordered the department to deliver a redacted copy of the affidavit.
Justice officials opposed unsealing the entire affidavit, or even a redacted one, arguing such a move would “provide a roadmap” of the investigation into whether Trump had classified White House documents on the estate and could “chill” other possible witnesses.
Read MORE in Just the News
ALSO, this Press Release:
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| From Judicial Watch FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: 202-646-5188 August 22, 2022 |
| Court Grants Judicial Watch Request: Orders Partial Release of Trump Raid Affidavit (Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton made the following statement regarding Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart’s latest decision partially granting Judicial Watch’s request to unseal the affidavit and other materials used to justify the unprecedented raid on former President Trump’s home: Judge Reinhart today affirmed his decision to deny the Biden administration’s attempt to keep the affidavit completely sealed. He states in today’s ruling that “given the intense public and historical interest in an unprecedented search of a former President’s residence, the Government has not yet shown that these administrative concerns are sufficient to justify sealing.” In the meantime, the Biden DOJ continues to dishonestly hide its reasons for its abusive and unprecedented raid on the home of former President Trump. We’re glad the court agrees the secrecy must end. The courts should reject the Biden DOJ “modified limited hangout” approach to coming clean about abuse of President Trump. Four additional filings were made public today. Click here. After last week’s hearing in West Palm Beach, FL, the court issued an order which stated: As I ruled from the bench at the conclusion of the hearing, I find that on the present record the Government has not met its burden of showing that the entire affidavit should remain sealed. It is ORDERED that by noon EST on Thursday, August 25, 2022, the Government shall file under seal its proposed redactions along with a legal memorandum setting forth the justification for the proposed redactions. The court also ordered the release of other documents concerning the warrant. Judicial Watch has been in the forefront in the court battle for transparency regarding the abusive FBI raid. On August 9, Judicial Watch filed its motion asking the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida to unseal as soon as possible the search warrant materials used by the FBI to raid President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home in Florida (U.S. v. Sealed Search Warrant (Case No. 9:22-mj-08332)). On August 11, the DOJ filed a motion offering to unseal certain warrant materials. On August 12, Judicial Watch Judicial Watch filed President Trump’s public statement with the court, in which he made it clear that he would not oppose the release of documents related to the August 8, 2022, raid. Later that day, the DOJ made a partial release of the Trump raid warrant materials. Initially, the Albany Times Union and the New York Times joined Judicial Watch in filing for the unsealing of the warrant by filing an amicus letter and motion respectively. Other interests later joined in the effort. The Justice Department was ordered by Magistrate Judge Reinhart to respond by August 15 to Judicial Watch’s Motion to Unseal the warrant and supporting materials behind the FBI raid. In its filing, the Justice Department alleged that releasing the affidavit would “cause significant and irreparable damage” to its ongoing criminal investigation. On August 17, Judicial Watch submitted its reply to the DOJ’s effort to keep under seal the affidavit used to justify the controversial raid on the home of former President Trump. Judicial Watch cited former President Trump’s support for the release of the affidavit. ### |
By Tom Lockie
8-20-22
Strap in tight, this situation will not change overnight. In fact, it could last for years unless drastic steps are taken to correct the competing trajectory of several intersecting events. Let’s attempt to “unpack” those events, see how they’re related, and the consequences of each for the flying public.
The Effects of COVID
Okay so let’s take the easy one first, which by the way, is also the least consequential in the long run.
At the onset of COVID, no one in America had a grasp on the disruption the virus would wreak on all facets of our lives. From “supply chain” issues to flight cancellations and delays, who knew?
Airlines faced an unprecedented and immediate drastic decrease in airline travel, both business and leisure related. With the help of a $54 billion infusion from the federal government, airlines began the pandemic by keeping all employees on the payroll in hopes the virus could be brought under control in the short term. Faced with mounting revenue loss and the eventual “no end in sight” nature of the virus, airlines then went into survival mode by offering all employee groups (pilots, flight attendants, mechanics, agents and ground services personnel) both short-term and long-term voluntary leaves of absence. They also grounded substantial portions of their aircraft. Then came the final nail in the COVID coffin – early retirement packages for all employee groups and the resulting loss of a large chunk of their most experienced people across the network. At some point, to return to pre-pandemic flight schedules, these individuals would have to be replaced. This process does not happen overnight due to scheduling and training requirements, not to mention the fact training facilities are currently operating at capacity. With the work force cut drastically and to the bone, early on most airlines flew a skeleton flight schedule. At one point, some airlines flew no passengers and relied solely on cargo operations to sustain what little revenue they could muster.
THEN, with the containment of the virus, things changed drastically again. The airlines were keen on getting back to pre-pandemic revenue streams and this caused ill-advised strategic and tactical moves regarding their flight schedules. Keeping in mind airlines plan routes and frequency of those routes several months in advance (over 300 days in advance), as the airlines restarted their “pre-pandemic” schedules, they did so with a staffing level incapable of sustaining the schedule, nor one able to adjust to the never-ending list of variables affecting schedules every day (crew legality issues, weather, maintenance, FAA issues, etc.). Couple this move with the mandatory training required for new employees, the unfortunate outcome was daily flight delays rolling into daily flight cancellations, along with wholesale cancellations of large chunks of flights out into the future measured in days, weeks, and next month as airlines collectively scrambled to fill their ever-growing staffing needs. A more modest return to flight schedules would obviously have limited the level of pain the public (and the airlines) still experience, but would have still been there. Welcome to where we are now….
Unfortunately, this is only the tip of the iceberg. Several other intersecting issues have been percolating from as far back as the mid 1980’s!
Cyclical Airline Hiring
As with any industry, the hiring cycle changes as our economy changes. In booming times, airlines expand their schedules, purchase additional aircraft, and hire many new employees. Likewise, during economic downturns, airlines typically reduce their flying schedules and lay off employees. This affects all employee groups, most notably pilots. The long-term result? Airlines find themselves with large numbers of pilots retiring basically at the same time due to the mandatory retirement age for airline pilots, currently 65 years old.
An important historical fact now affecting our current delay/cancellation situation is the HUGE group of pilots hired from the mid 1980’s to the mid 1990’s across all airlines. This same group of pilots are now reaching the mandatory retirement age and are leaving the workforce in droves.
Les Abend, contributing editor for Flying Magazine and long-time airline pilots, has brought to light the fact airlines will each need to hire between 65 to 80 pilots a month for the next 10 years minimum starting yesterday! Most are currently hiring in the range of 30 to 50 pilots a month due to training centers bursting at the seams.
The Mandatory Pilot Retirement Age
Well change the mandatory pilot retirement age you say! Not so fast compadre. This age is decided by the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) and as such does not change overnight, nor within months.
Let’s say the age is eventually changed to 67, this will only be a temporary band-aid to the hiring issue mentioned already. Instead of 65-80 pilots a month at each airline for the next 10 years, a false sense of “problem solved” will only kick the tin can down the road and cause an even longer amount of time the public and airlines will face delays and cancellations, with no temporary solutions for today’s scheduling issues.
Contributing Issues
As with any airline operation, there are a myriad of issues affecting airline schedules.
Weather
One such issue is weather. Like it or not, this affects every airline network every day. Whether airlines model their operations off the hub-and-spoke system or the point-to-point system, flight schedules must be adjusted. These adjustments affect flight crews, both pilots and flight attendants. With mandatory maximums for time spent “on-duty” in any given day (a safety requirement), airlines face crew scheduling issues due to crews “timing out” through no fault of their own. This leaves airlines with aircraft sitting at the gate in a city where there’s no available crews. Reserves need to be flown in, or crews taken off their current flight to man the flight sitting at the gate with no crew. Either way, you’re faced with a poor solution then made worse by the downline effects on the schedules of crewmembers involved. At this point, refer back to the discussion of airlines being short staffed……
Aircraft Maintenance
Another factor is of course aircraft maintenance. The skeleton workforce mentioned earlier includes mechanics who are faced with increasing workloads due to short staffing to the point it’s all they can do to complete required daily inspections. Should an aircraft need fixing, this at times throws an insurmountable wrench into the mix causing increased delays. Ah, hire more mechanics you say! Same issue as with pilots- lead times for required training and the sheer volume of new mechanics necessary to fly the schedule.
The FAA
The FAA is also in the mix of challenges airlines face every day. In a well-intentioned move (wildly successful for fully manned airlines), during weather events the FAA will issue ground stops to flights into and out of a city experiencing a weather event affecting flight operations. The positive effect is airlines save money on fuel (no sense circling in the sky waiting for the weather to clear or sitting in a long line of aircraft awaiting takeoff for the same reason). These ground stops are good for passengers too, allowing them to relax in the airport terminal versus being stuck in a seat on the airplane. The negative effects unfortunately include the real potential for crews ”timing out” and the eventual delays and cancellations in downline operations. And it can’t go without saying, the numerous times airport towers or radar control centers across the US have been closed due to a COVID outbreak has been crippling to airline schedules.
The New Pilot Pipeline
One issue affecting long-term hiring for the next 10-15 years is the fact at some point, the “experienced pilots” (former military and corporate as well as regional airline pilots) will dry up. Add to that the fact all major airlines with regional airline feeders use a “flow through” agreement to move pilots from the regional ranks to the major airline ranks. At some point, this option will dry up also. Besides the regional carriers, the Jet Blue, Frontier, and Spirit sized airline groups, as well as smaller airline carriers will be the first to feel the tightening of available for hire experienced pilots.
The result now slowly rearing its ugly head is the amount of time it takes to train brand new pilots. The licensure process is extensive and time consuming, but is also needed. It takes the average student pilot close to a year to complete their Commercial Pilot License. This license allows them to be hired for some types of flying including cargo and flight instruction. With this new Commercial Pilot License, they then face the need to complete more flying hours to achieve the mandatory 1,500 hours required to become an airline pilot. With a “commercial pilot” having around 300 flying hours under their belt at the completion of their Commercial Pilot License, this leaves them roughly 1,200 required flying hours to complete to become eligible for hiring by an airline. This amount of flying time can take upwards of another year, for a total of 2 years start to finish.
Airlines have recently partnered with flying schools or have created their own. This ensures a steady stream of new pilots automatically into their regional carriers, thus allowing current regional pilots the ability to transfer into their major airline partner.
Is There No End?
The short answer is “yes”. You might already be guessing the amount of time it will take. If you guessed 10 to 15 years, you’re right! Yeah, but what can be done until then, and how can I as “traveling John Q. Public” reduce my level of pain when it comes to flying?
The reality is airlines are reducing their schedules. You’ve seen the headlines regarding wholesale future cancellations. According to data from flight tracking site FlightAware, 48,000 US flights were canceled between May 27, the Friday before Memorial Day, and August 14. That figure represents 2.3% of the flights scheduled. Nearly 483,000 US flights were delayed during that period, or about 24% of flights. It causes all of us anxiety and reduces the airlines’ ability to make a profit as cancellations equal revenue loss, let alone the havoc it causes in the lives of current airline employees. There’s no way around this until staffing is drastically improved.
Now, how about your upcoming travel plans? One suggestion is to always book the first flight of the day. The schedule tends to operate normally in the first part of each day (think 6am to 10am). With that in mind, take the nonstop whenever possible. Unless there’s stagnated severe weather in your area, you’ll most likely be good to go.
As you’ve read, there’s a myriad of complex issues and moving parts that will continue to affect our travel experience for quite some time. Strap in tight and bring a good book.
Sources
Les Abend, Contributing Editor for Flying Magazine
Flight Aware – www.flightaware.com
Business Insider – https://www.businessinsider.com/20-biggest-airlines-in-the-world-southwest-american-delta-2022-8?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=news_tab&mibextid=8zg3wr
Fox Business – https://www.foxbusiness.com/lifestyle/flights-delayed-canceled-august-9?mibextid=8zg3wr
Tom Lockie is the Transportation and Travel Editor for the Citizens Journal Florida. A veteran and recently retired airline Captain, Tom considers aviation and travel his ongoing passions . Tom is a published author, featured in the USA Today for his children’s book “Come Fly with Me“.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
From CCDF Nassau County
If you are interested in a fun River Cruise for a good cause, we have Hupp and Ray Playing music, light food, a great sunset, and good friends – please join us for a good cause!
Opinion
By Captain Lawrence Piper
08-20-22
Needless to say, I was a bit surprised when I saw the final FWC Commission’s (Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission) decision to change the Redfish rules to one fish per angler in the NE Florida Region. For months FWC staff have been reporting and promoting and disseminating that their recommendation for NE Florida would be to keep the two fish per angler, but change the boat limit down to four, from eight. Also slated to change was to remove Captains from counting in the “take”.
I’ve had no issue with these proposed changes and, truth be told, I have no issue with even a one fish per angler and dropping the boat limit down to four, and removing the captains as counting. In past comments I’ve stated just that. What I do have a problem with is that FWC Staff studied this over the last couple of years, began taking input a year ago, kicking off with a day-long Redfish Summit down in Ocala, hosted numerous regional workshops, and then made their recommendations to the Commissioners based on the data and science and that year long input. When the final decision was made at the Commission meeting in Jacksonville in July, after a number of passionate testimonies from anglers at the final meeting, four of the commissioners (the other three were absent), threw all of that year long effort out the window and while they were at it, threw the FWC Staff under the bus.
Has anyone in the last two years not heard the term, “Trust the Science”? I don’t know how many researchers and scientists and data crunchers that the FWC employ but I have to assume that they all put their heads together studying the data. Then we all went thru what turned out to be a charade of the Redfish Summit, then a multitude of regional presentations and workshops, and on-line request for input from we “Stakeholders”. They had a full year of input from those stakeholders across the region. And finally, FWC Staff settled on and published the recommendations that they were going to present to the Commissioners. At the July Commission meeting FWC Staff made these recommendations for NE Florida:
All good right?
Nope, this is where it got hinky.
FWC Staff made the above recommendation. Then the Commission took more public input (you can click here and see the entire meeting, but if you go to 1:11:56 you can see where the presentation is made with following public comment that begins around 1:24:45)
There were 21 speakers on the subject, most advocating to drop that bag limit from 2 to 1 in the NE Region. Some were very passionate in their speeches and evidently convincing enough to sway the commissioners. If you get a chance, listen to the speeches. Even though one advocate made his case and stresses that “these are the facts”, when it comes to the regulations, shouldn’t we be making decisions based on the data and the research? There were a couple of tournament anglers who were having trouble catching Redfish in their tournament. Did they just have a bad day? One speaker mentioned making the 1-fish rule across the board so it would be easier for law enforcement. Why then the multiple Regions? Another suggested it was “sick” to kill ANY Redfish. Another mentioned “listen to Stakeholders”. I guess he meant only the ones at that July meeting – not the hundreds who provided input during the year-long charade.
Shortly after the Commissioners took public comment, the Commissioner representing NE Florida, Sonya Rood proposed an amendment to change the FWC recommendation and move the bag limit down to 1 fish person. I’d give a shaky thumbs up to Chairman Rodney Barreto for at least mentioning that FWC Staff had made recommendations……but…but…ok…..let’s vote on it with Ms. Rood’s amendment and BAM! FWC Staff recommendation thrown out the window (and it slowly rolled under the bus).
The new rules will go into effect September 1, 2022:
The FWC supposedly plans to take data, do research and study the Redfish population over the coming year and annually make their recommendations. There was some talk about including other species – Seatrout, Flounder and Snook in the new studies.
My questions are these:
REWARD: To the first person who watches the entire FWC July Meeting video, I’ll pay .25 per time anyone mentions or says the word “Stakeholder(s)”!
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
The original article can be found at https://theanglersmark.blogspot.com/2022/08/fwc-staff-thrown-under-bus.html
Captain Lawrence Piper is a charter fishing Captain in Fernandina Beach. His charter opportunities, writings, fishing reports, and more can be found at https://theanglersmark.blogspot.com/.
By Grayson Bakich
8-19-22
Governor DeSantis’ Thursday press conference on election integrity continues to draw criticism from Florida Democrats and liberals. As we covered earlier today, Rep. Carlos G. Smith (D-FL-49) focused his Twitter umbrage on Attorney General Ashley Moody.
Early Friday morning, State Attorney Andrew Warren levied his own attack on DeSantis. Warren, who was suspended by DeSantis in early August, says that the suspension overturned his elected position in the following tweet……
…. As The Floridian previously reported, DeSantis suspended Warren for “neglect of duty” and “incompetence.” This suspension came shortly after Warren stated his refusal to prosecute individuals who violate Florida’s new 15-week abortion ban. Additionally, he would not enforce the prohibition on “gender-affirming care” for minors. Recently, Warren has filed suit against DeSantis to get his job back.
Read MORE in the Floridian
By Dave Scott
8-19-22
Meanwhile Back At The Ranch: Dr. Gerald Decker, keen observer and analyst of all things strange going on at Fernandina Beach’s city hall, offered a quick summary of why city taxes are increasing while the population stays relatively steady.
Dr. Decker, says some budgetary items just don’t add up, and he should know as he boasts a doctorate in mathematics from the University of Chicago.
He says there are two issues that drive the excessive rise in property taxes, which are:
Following are statistics compiled by the mathematically disposed observer and former member of the city’s Marina Advisory Board.
Staff Growth
City staff headcount is now the highest it has ever been—272 personnel. The last time staff levels were this high was in 2010, peaking at 247. In recent years the headcount has been slightly over 200, falling below 200 in 2015 and 2016. Interestingly, during the pandemic, when everything essentially stopped, headcount actually leapfrogged well above 220.
Personnel whose salaries are paid using taxes is also at a historic high—183, up 23 from 2010, mostly in parks and recreation. During the 2010-2022 timeframe only one (unused and unequipped) park has been built on Simmons Road.
Now city population has, indeed, increased by some 1900, or 16%, during the last decade, so some reasonable increase in city personnel is warranted—but the magnitude actually working on our behalf does seem a bit much. What new services or facilities or governance has been implemented to justify that?
Impact fees have an “impact”.
The second issue is the stagnant use of impact fees.
These fees are collected to provide new services and facilities required because of population growth. As we have seen, our population increase over the last decade is 16%. During the same period Nassau County grew at a 28% rate, with continued rapid growth at 3% per year—and is predicted by the Florida Bureau of Economic and Business Research to be the seventh fastest growing county in Florida.
The city seems a bit stagnant when compared to our home county. The uproar that accompanies any proposed new development in the city, and the overly expensive building fees being assessed, effectively discourage new construction—the city has a decidedly anti-development image.
But—the city has collected and sits on millions of dollars of impact fees. Since these fees are to support population growth (i.e., new development) and new development is seemingly discouraged, how can these funds ever be put to their intended use?
This is becoming a real problem, as the law requires that unused fees must be returned to those who paid them. Now that seems downright foolish—collect money, sit on it, then return it.
So, the challenge facing city government is serious—since you collected this money a proper way must be found to use it for the public good—time is passing, and something must be done.
“Finally, concludes Dr. Decker, “is this city commission, or the next one elected in November, up to handling these two most important issues?”
Citizens should contact their elected commissioners – all five of them – and tell them to start doing what they were elected to do – take the lead, not follow, advises Dr. Decker in conclusion.
Those commissioners that are confused and befuddled may want to pay close attention to Commissioner Bradley Bean, the one Commissioner in my opinion who appears to know what’s best for the folks that elected him and the future of Fernandina Beach.
Republished with the author’s permission. Read The Dave Scott Blog– subscribe Free
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
By Dave Scott
8-19-22
Mainstream journalism in America is on its death bed and Amelia Island’s Ken Timmerman was one of the first casualties when it was attacked from within.
Timmerman being interviewed by Mike Wallace on “60 Minutes” in 1991.
Timmerman was an international reporter some 30 years ago when the media administered its first self-inflicted wound. He has publicly chronicled its demise ever since.
He was there at the beginning of the end in 1994 when he was unceremoniously fired by Time Magazine for his investigative reporting about the Clinton administration.
His credentials are impressive. The veteran reporter covered wars and political upheavals for major news organizations in the United States and around the world, including the New York Times, Newsweek, Reader’s Digest, CBS’s 60 Minutes, ABC News, Le Monde, L ’Express, Le Point, among others.
“That was when these organizations still tried to be “mainstream” and did not hold back, self-censor and lie to protect their political allies” says the former political liberal and 2006 Nobel Prize nominee, whose new book “And the Rest is History: Tales of Hostages, Arms Dealers, Dirty Tricks, and Spies,” (Post Hill Press), will be released August 30. It’s his 12th book of nonfiction. The Book Loft, at 214 Centre Street in downtown Fernandina, has advance copies of the book and is featuring in its front window.
Read MORE on Dave Scott Blog
Republished with the author’s permission. Read The Dave Scott Blog– subscribe Free
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
From FL Governor’s Press Office
8-19-22
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Today, Governor Ron DeSantis announced Florida’s unemployment rate dropped to a historic 2.7 percent in July as the state’s job creation skyrocketed. Florida’s July 2022 unemployment rate is the lowest since February 2020 and this level has only been reached three times since Florida began recording unemployment data in 1976. Florida’s private sector employment grew by an outstanding 70,000 in July 2022, doubling the nation’s job growth rate over the same period. Before July 2022, Florida has reached this level of over-the-month job creation only 6 other times since data began to be collected in 1990. Florida’s labor force also grew over the month in July 2022, while the national labor force shrank for the second consecutive month. July 2022 employment data demonstrates that Floridians are continuing to enter the workforce and businesses are continuing to create jobs.
“Florida continues to outperform the nation because freedom first policies work,” said Governor Ron DeSantis. “July’s job numbers represent one of the largest month’s job gains over the past generation and Florida continues to outpace the nation in labor force growth.”
“July’s employment data speaks for itself — under Governor DeSantis’ leadership, Florida is thriving. July is one of the best months Florida has seen for job creation, representing an achievement the state has only reached seven times in its history,” said DEO Secretary Dane Eagle. “DEO will continue to support Governor DeSantis’ strategic investments in Florida’s residents, businesses, and communities to continue this momentum and keep Florida’s economy strong.”
The national unemployment rate was 3.5 percent for July 2022, 0.8 percentage point higher than Florida’s rate. Florida’s statewide unemployment rate has been lower than the national rate for 20 consecutive months and has declined or held steady for 24 consecutive months in July 2022, indicating that Florida’s economy is secure and resilient.
Total private employment grew by 5.5 percent (433,500 jobs) over the year, 0.7 percentage point faster than the national rate of 4.8 percent. Florida employers have added jobs for 27 consecutive months in July 2022, and Florida’s over-the-year private sector job growth rate has exceeded the nation’s for 16 consecutive months since April 2021.
Florida’s labor force also grew by 26,000 (+0.2 percent) over the month, while the national labor force shrank by less than 0.1 percent. In July 2022, Florida’s labor force grew by 291,000 (+2.8 percent) over the year, faster than the national rate of 1.6 percent by 1.2 percentage points.
Data in the month of July continues to indicate there are many job opportunities available for Floridians throughout the state, with more than 545,000 jobs posted online. Floridians in search of work and new job opportunities are encouraged to turn to the CareerSource Florida network for help. Floridians can find guidance on how to register with Employ Florida and search listings of available local job openings. Career seekers also can improve their employability by perfecting resume writing and interviewing skills, establishing career goals, and pursuing customized career training. These services are provided at no cost to job seekers.
Florida Economic Indicators for July 2022 include:
To view the July 2022 jobs reports by region, please see below:
To view the July 2022 employment data, visit: www.floridajobs.org/labor-market-information/labor-market-information-press-releases/monthly-press-releases.
Visit Florida Insight for more information on labor market and economic data. Additionally, the Department has provided a video to assist users in explaining the data provided through Florida Insight.
From Gun Owners of America
8-18-22
| GOA is Fighting for Gun Rights The last couple of months have been a roller coaster for gun owners. For starters, Republican Senator Cornyn led 14 other GOP Senators to backstab gun owners and pass federal funding for “red flag” gun confiscation laws and more gun control. Then, Speaker Pelosi seized her chance and rushed a so-called “Assault Weapons” Ban through Congress. GOA Spokeswoman Testifies Before Congress Gun Owners of America fought hard in Washington, D.C., against this ban. Testifying alongside the AR-15 manufacturers Sturm Ruger and Daniel Defense, GOA’s Antonia Okafor (above photo) defended the right to own an AR-15 before the House Oversight Committee. One anti-gun Congressman even “attacked” Antonia for sharing a GOA post about defunding and abolishing the “Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosions [sic].” Yup, the same Democratic party that consistently gets the ATF’s name wrong and that thinks an arm brace allows you to “bump fire” a pistol in “full auto,” also thinks GOA’s stance against the ATF is scandalous. Later, an entire sob story was written in The Guardian about the incident. In an article entitled “I testified to Congress about the gun industry. It rattled me to my core,” Ryan Busse wrote that: “Republicans invited a witness from Gun Owners of America (GOA) – a group so extreme that it calls for abolishing the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives – as one of their experts.” Thanks for the resounding endorsement! But after the House passed its unconstitutional gun ban, the fight moved over to the Senate. Backdoor Assault Weapons Ban in the Inflation Reduction Act?  Gun Owners of America’s team in Washington D.C. was hard at work, over a recent weekend, monitoring the passage of the so-called Inflation Reduction Act. Gun owners had reason to be concerned, as Rep. Don Beyer proposed an Assault Weapons Ban in the form of a 1,000% tax. Thousands of GOA activists answered our call when we highlighted the fact that this unconstitutional tax was designed to be amended to the spending bill which passed that weekend. Gun owners demanded that no gun control be included in the upcoming bill. Thanks to your activism, Senators on Capitol Hill realized they were being watched by their constituents. The end result was that no gun control passed, and a $700,000,000,000+ monster of a spending bill did not contain any hidden gun control! So thank you to everyone who took action! You helped keep gun control off-the-table and out of consideration. GOA Lawsuit Against ATF Rule Gains Major Traction While the House of Representatives was busy criticizing GOA because we want to defund the ATF, GOA’s lawsuit to hold the ATF accountable really picked up steam. In an unprecedented show of support from top law enforcement officials around the country, 17 states’ Attorneys General signed onto our lawsuit challenging ATF’s so-called “Ghost Gun” ban. These Attorneys General read our lawsuit against ATF and agreed that it was so well written that they would rather become plaintiffs in our case than merely file an amicus to help us. Again, this was the lawsuit where GOA and the Gun Owners Foundation (GOF) filed against the ATF to stop it from implementing Biden’s restrictions on homemade guns. This rule would also expand ATF’s illegal gun registry and force gun stores to keep Firearm Transaction Records (Forms 4473) FOREVER. Sam Paredes, on behalf of the Board of Directors for the Gun Owners Foundation, thanked the Attorneys General saying: “Despite the ATF acknowledging serious issues with their preliminary rule, this anti-gun administration has made clear that they would not be deterred in going after ‘ghost guns’ one way or another. GOF is excited to partner with the chief law enforcement officers of so many states in this fight. We are confident that our challenge to this final rule has serious merit and that we will ultimately prevail in having it dismantled as unconstitutional in federal court.” Thank you to everyone who donated to make this lawsuit possible! Gun YouTube Celebrities Join with Gun Owners With all of your generous support, GOA has grown so much over the last few years. Just recently, we added two major YouTube celebrities to our ranks. Eric Blanford from the channel IraqVeteran8888 and Tim Harmsen from the Military Arms Channel have both joined Gun Owners of America as state directors. Eric handles Georgia; Tim handles Indiana. With these patriotic Second Amendment advocates combined with GOA’s grassroots activists, the voice of gun owners in Washington D.C. and your state capitol just got even louder. Together, we can all defend the Second Amendment from infringement and restore it where our rights have already been infringed. Welcome to the team, Tim and Eric! Premier Women’s Gun Rights Coalition Growing GOA’s Empowered 2A program is also growing. Led by Antonia Okafor, GOA’s women’s outreach program is spreading the message: gun rights are women’s rights! The program hosts in-person activism and firearms training for female GOA members across the country. It’s a great program for any woman wanting to get involved in federal and state Second Amendment activism. And right now, Antonia needs your help. She’s looking for female volunteers to be state directors for Empowered 2A’s state chapters. If you or a female gun activist in your area is interested in this position, please have them reach out to [email protected] to apply before August 31st, 2022. Thank you We’ll keep an eye out in Washington D.C. and in your state capitals and alert you to the next major battle against gun control. Thank you for everything that you do to support GOA and defend the Second Amendment. In Liberty, Aidan Johnston Director of Federal Affairs Follow me on Twitter or Instagram. P.S. To renew your GOA membership or to join for the first time, please click here. IMPORTANT NOTE ON FORWARDING: If you forward this email to others, it is strongly recommended that you first remove the ‘unsubscribe’ link at the bottom of this message. Otherwise, it is possible for a secondary recipient to inadvertently unsubscribe you from the GOA alert system. |
| Gun Owners of America 8001 Forbes Place – Suite 202 Springfield, VA 22151 703-321-8585 |
By Victor Davis Hanson
8-11-22
Take the FBI’s deliberately asymmetrical application of the law. This week the bureau surprise-raided the home of former President Donald Trump — an historical first.
A massive phalanx of FBI agents swooped into the Trump residence while he was not home, to confiscate his personal property, safe, and records. All of this was over an archival dispute of presidential papers common to many former presidents. Agents swarmed the entire house, including the wardrobe closet of the former first lady.
Note we are less than 90 days out from a midterm election, and this was not just a raid, but a political act.
The Democratic Party is anticipated to suffer historical losses. Trump was on the verge of announcing his 2024 presidential candidacy. In many polls, he remains the Republican front-runner for the nomination — and well ahead of incumbent President Joe Biden in a putative 2024 rematch.
In 2016 then FBI Director James Comey announced that candidate Hillary Clinton was guilty of destroying subpoenaed emails — a likely felony pertaining to her tenure as secretary of state. Yet he all but pledged that she would not be prosecuted given her status as a presidential candidate.
As far as targeting presidential candidates, Trump was impeached in 2020 ostensibly for delaying military aid to Ukraine by asking Ukrainian officials to investigate more fully the clearly corrupt Biden family — given Joe Biden at the time was a likely possible presidential opponent in 2020.
The FBI has devolved into a personal retrieval service for the incorrigible Biden family. It suppressed, for political purposes, information surrounding Hunter Biden’s missing laptop on the eve of the 2020 election.
Previously, the FBI never pursued Hunter’s fraudulently registered firearm, his mysterious foreign income, his felonious crack cocaine use, or his regular employment of foreign prostitutes.
Yet in a pre-dawn raid just before the 2020 election, the FBI targeted the home of journalist James O’Keefe on grounds that someone had passed to him the lost and lurid diary of Ashley Biden, Biden’s wayward daughter.
At various times, in Stasi-style the FBI has publicly shackled Trump economic advisor Peter Navarro, swarmed the office of Trump’s legal counsel Rudy Giuliani, and sent a SWAT team to surround the house of Trump ally Roger Stone. Meanwhile, terrorists and cartels walk with impunity across an open border.
FBI Director Christopher Wray last week cut short his evasive testimony before Congress. He claimed he had to leave for a critical appointment — only to use his FBI Gulfstream luxury jet to fly to his favorite vacation spot in the Adirondacks.
Wray took over from disgraced interim FBI Director Andrew McCabe. The latter admitted lying repeatedly to federal investigators and signed off on a fraudulent FBI FISA application. He faced zero legal consequences.
McCabe, remember, was also the point man in the softball Hillary Clinton email investigation — while his wife was a political candidate and recipient of thousands of dollars from a political action committee with close ties to the Clinton family.
McCabe took over from disgraced FBI Director James Comey. On 245 occasions, Comey claimed under oath before the House Intelligence Committee that he had no memory or knowledge of key questions concerning his tenure. With impunity, he leaked confidential FBI memos to the media.
Comey took over from Director Robert Mueller. Implausibly, Mueller swore under oath that he had no knowledge, either of the Steele dossier or of Fusion GPS, the firm that commissioned Christopher Steele to compile the dossier. But those were the very twin catalysts that had prompted his entire special investigation into the Russian collusion hoax.
FBI legal counsel Kevin Clinesmith was convicted of a felony for altering an FBI warrant request to spy on an innocent Carter Page.
The FBI, by Comey’s own public boasts, bragged how it caught National Security Advisor-designate General Michael Flynn in its Crossfire Hurricane Russian collusion hoax.
As special counsel, Mueller then fired two of his top investigators — Lisa Page and Peter Strzok — for improper personal and professional behavior. He then staggered their releases to mask their collaborative wrongdoing.
Mueller’s team deleted critical cell phone evidence under subpoena that might well have revealed systemic FBI-related bias.
The FBI interferes with and warps national elections. It hires complete frauds as informants who are far worse than its targets. It humiliates or exempts government and elected officials based on their politics. It violates the civil liberties of individual American citizens.
The FBI’s highest officials now routinely mislead Congress. They have erased or altered court and subpoenaed evidence. They illegally leak confidential material to the media. And they have lied under oath to federal investigators.
The agency has become dangerous to Americans and an existential threat to their democracy and rule of law. The FBI should be dispersing its investigatory responsibilities to other government investigative agencies that have not yet lost the public’s trust.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
From Ken Timmerman
9-18-22
The Book Loft, at 214 Centre Street in downtown Fernandina, now has copies of my new book, And the Rest is History: Tales of Hostages, Arms Dealers, Dirty Tricks, and Spies.
They are featuring the book in the front window.
This is a unique opportunity to get your copy of the book before it is officially released on Aug. 30. Plus, it helps to support our local indie bookseller.
If you happen by PJD’s, or some other downtown venue, stop by the Book Loft this week to get your copy.
Upcoming local speaking engagements:
And here are a couple of recent TV appearances on the book:
8/15/2022: Talking with Newsmax TV’s John Bachman on Salman Rushdie attack, Afghanistan, and his new book. https://youtu.be/hrOA5gnOuvc
8/13/22: Ken Timmerman discusses his new book, Iran, and Communist China with Tom Basile of Newsmax. https://youtu.be/qteloVWhGnk
8/12/22: Talking with Newsmax anchor Shaun Kraisman about journalism, the media, and Trump raid. https://youtu.be/r0rE7FMXiEY
I hope you enjoy it. This is where I finally tell my story — and a whole lot more, as well!
Yours in freedom,
Ken
—
Ken Timmerman’s 12th book of non-fiction, And the Rest is History: Tales of Hostages, Arms Dealers, Dirty Tricks, and Spies, will be released by Post Hill Press on Aug. 30.
And the Rest is History can be ordered from Amazon using this direct link: https://tinyurl.com/2p9b745x
– National Security and Foreign Policy Advisory Board, Trump for President 2016
– Republican nominee for Congress, Maryland District 8 (2012)
– President & CEO, Foundation for Democracy in Iran, www.iran.org
– Nobel Peace Prize nominee, 2006
Cell: 301-675-7922
Www.kentimmerman.com
Twitter @kentimmerman
Facebook: kentimmerman
Reply to: [email protected]
Amazon.com author’s page: amazon.com/author/kentimmerman
From Judicial Watch
8-16-22
(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today that a hearing is ordered on August 18, 2022, at 1 p.m. ET in the West Palm Beach Division regarding Judicial Watch and media requests for the underlying affidavit and other warrant materials tied to the unprecedented and controversial raid on the home of former President Trump. Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart will preside.
Date: Thursday, August 18
Time: 1 p.m. ET
Location: West Palm Beach Division
Paul G. Rogers Federal Building and U.S. Courthouse
701 Clematis Street, Room 202
West Palm Beach, FL 33401
Yesterday, the Biden Department of Justice opposed Judicial Watch’s request that the court unseal the affidavit. The Justice Department was ordered by Magistrate Judge Reinhart to respond yesterday to Judicial Watch’s Motion to Unseal the warrant and supporting materials behind the FBI raid of President Donald Trump’s home in Mar-a-Lago. In its filing, the Justice Department alleged that releasing the affidavit would “cause significant and irreparable damage” to its ongoing criminal investigation.
Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton issued the following statement in response the Biden Justice Department’s opposition to Judicial Watch’s Motion to Unseal:
It seems like the Biden Justice Department is telling the court what to do. Respectfully, the court should make its own independent assessment of the compelling public interest in transparency about this abusive raid. The ‘criminal investigation’ the Biden administration is covering up reeks of corruption and dishonesty – and is based on a reinvention of law about presidential records that is at odds with the U.S. Constitution, court rulings, federal statutes, and prior government legal positions and practice. No administration should be able to raid the home of a former president and putative presidential candidate based on ‘secret’ reasons.
The U.S. Constitution and federal law give unreviewable authority to President Trump to take whatever records he wishes at the end of his presidency. The Biden administration’s dishonest depiction of personal records of President Trump it illicitly seized during the raid as “classified” is further demonstration that the raid was a brazen act of raw political abuse.
On August 9, Judicial Watch filed its motion asking the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida to unseal as soon as possible the search warrant materials used by the FBI to raid President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home in Florida (U.S. v. Sealed Search Warrant (Case No. 9:22-mj-08332)).
On August 11, the DOJ filed a motion offering to unseal certain warrant materials.
On August 12, Judicial Watch Judicial Watch filed President Trump’s public statement with the court, in which he made it clear that he would not oppose the release of documents related to the August 8, 2022, raid. Later that day, the DOJ made a partial release of the Trump raid warrant materials.
Initially, the Albany Times Union and the New York Times joined Judicial Watch in filing for the unsealing of the warrant by filing an amicus letter and motion respectively. Other interests later joined in the effort.
Due to multiple organizations filing to unseal the warrant, Judge Reinhart further ordered that, “To avoid the need for individualized orders on any future motion(s) to unseal, it is ORDERED that the Government shall file an omnibus response to all motions to unseal on or before 5:00 p.m. Eastern time on August 15, 2022.”
In its motion Judicial Watch states:
Judicial Watch is investigating the potential politicization of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the U.S. Department of Justice and whether the FBI and the Justice Department are abusing their law enforcement powers to harass a likely future political opponent of President Biden.
***
The public has an urgent and substantial interest in understanding the predicate for the execution of the unprecedented search warrant of the private residence of a former president and likely future political opponent…. [N]o official explanation or information has been released about the search. As of the filing of this motion, the public record consists solely of speculation and inuendo. In short, the historical presumption of access to warrant materials vastly outweighs any interest the government may have in keeping the materials under seal.
***
Given the political context, and the highly unusual action of executing a search warrant at the residence of a former President and likely future political opponent, it is essential that the public understands as soon as possible the basis for the government’s action. Any government interest in securing the identities of witnesses and confidential sources, if any, may be addressed by appropriate redactions from the search warrant affidavit.
https://twitter.com/JudicialWatch/status/1559586345135251464?
By Luis Miguel
8-17-22
Is the monkeypox scare narrative already beginning to crumble?
While the prevailing opinion from public health officials on monkeypox (MPX) has thus far been that the disease is primarily being transmitted by skin-to-skin contact, a growing number of experts now believe the outbreak is, in fact, chiefly driven by man-on-man sex itself — both anal and oral sex.
Even the skin contact that is involved in sex, the experts say, is far less a factor than the sex itself.
This new opinion is based on an increasing pool of evidence that includes three studies published in peer-reviewed journals (see here, here, and here), as well as widely circulated reports.
The ramifications of the evidence are immense, as knowledge of the disease’s transmission forms the basis for developing guidelines and policies to counteract its spread.
“A growing body of evidence supports that sexual transmission, particularly through seminal fluids, is occurring with the current MPX outbreak,” Dr. Aniruddha Hazra, medical director of the University of Chicago Sexual Wellness Clinic, told NBC News in reference to studies that found the monkeypox virus in semen.
As a result of the new insights, scientists told NBC News that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and other health authorities should accordingly update their resources to emphasize the crucial role in transmission played by the sexual relations of homosexual and bisexual men.
Dr. Jeffrey Klausner, an infectious disease physician at the University of Southern California, is one of these growing number of voices. On August 14, he, along with Dr. Lao-Tzu Allan-Blitz (a global-health resident physician at Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital), published an essay on Medium reviewing research that indicates homosexual sex is primarily how monkeypox is being transmitted.
“It looks very clear to us that this is an infection that is transmitting sexually the vast majority of the time,” said Allan-Blitz.
While some other experts did not express that same level of certainty, they were at least willing to admit that monkeypox is more readily spread through intercourse.
Dr. Paul Adamson, an infectious disease specialist at the UCLA School of Medicine, said, “I’m not sure we can say it is primarily the sexual transmission and not the skin-to-skin contact that also occurs during sex that is contributing to the most transmission during this current outbreak. However, emerging data seem to suggest that monkeypox might be more efficiently transmitted sexually.”
NBC News notes of Klausner’s findings:
First, he noted that, according to the WHO [World Health Organization], more than three quarters of global monkeypox cases are among men 18 to 44 years old. This is a typical age breakdown for diagnoses of sexually transmitted infections among gay and bisexual men, he said. What’s more, in recent studies of pooled monkeypox cases among this demographic, 17% to 32% of those diagnosed with the virus received a sexually transmitted infection (STI) diagnosis at the same time.
Second, during the global outbreak, atypical to what has historically been seen in the 11 African nations where the virus has become endemic since first being identified in humans in 1970, monkeypox lesions have in the majority of cases occurred in men’s genital and anorectal areas. This … suggests that these were the sites where the virus first passed into the body.
… Third, researchers have found monkeypox in semen and have been able to culture that virus, which suggests it could transmit through ejaculation. Also, the authors of two recent studies have detected the virus after taking anal swabs among men who had monkeypox but were asymptomatic, which indicates that the virus might transmit from the anorectal area during anal intercourse before people develop symptoms.
In addition, Klausner said, scientists have found a connection between specific sex acts and the appearance of monkeypox lesions.
For instance, in a paper published August 8 in The Lancet, the authors detailed 181 cases of the virus in Spain, of which 38 percent of the men who reported having engaged in the practice of “bottoming” (receptive anal intercourse) got inflammation of the rectum, also known as proctitis.
By contrast, only seven percent of the men who had homosexual sex but did not engage in “bottoming” developed proctitis.
Furthermore, 95 percent of the men with tonsillitis said they had performed oral sex on another man.
Thus far, the mainstream media and scientific community have played down the notion that monkeypox is mostly being spread by the gay community. Is this out of a desire to “protect” the image of the LGBT world? If so, how much longer will they be able to do so in the face of mounting scientific evidence countering their narrative?
http://LuisMiguelForFlorida.com
Luis Miguel is a writer whose journalistic endeavors shed light on the Deep State, globalism, and the enemies of freedom. Follow his exploits on Facebook, Twitter, and Parler at @LuisMiguelUS. Contact at luisantoniomiguel.com.
By CCDF
8-18-22 (originally published 8-9-22)
CCDF-USA Nassau County is bringing the shocking movie of the year and its creators to Fernandina Beach. Admission is now FREE thanks to CCDF-Nassau sponsorship of the movie! Reserve your seats today! Tuesday Sept. 1, 5- 8 PM EDT at First Baptist Church Fernandina Beach Registration is required.
See Movie Trailer
Selection Code is a movie documentary exposing the deep secrets behind voting machines – control, manipulation, candidate selection. If you saw 2000 Mules, you will not want to miss this one. Facts, data, proof – everything that has been suspected is now revealed with solid proof – and it is bigger than you ever thought. According to Gregg Phillips who masterminded the technology behind 2000 Mules “there is something 10 times bigger that will change the entire political landscape in the US, and will have repercussions worldwide”. You will not want to miss this movie.
Click here for Another Trailer for Selection Code
On September 1st, we will have a showing of the movie and then you will hear from the creators – Lara Logan & Matt Thayer along with expert data analysis from Capt. Seth Keshel looking at Nassau & Duval. This is the elite team that put this all together!
We look forward to seeing you there for this fantastic event.
If you are interested in attending any of the Fundraising VIP sessions where you can speak personally with the creators, please contact Jack Knocke at [email protected] Subject: VIP Fundraising Events. Share your phone number and we will contact you to discuss available options.
Jack Knocke
From Unreported Story Society
8-17-22
We’re thrilled to let you know that the release of our movie “My Son Hunter” is coming soon! We’ve poured so much time into this project exposing both the Biden family corruption and one of the biggest media cover-ups in history. We are very excited that we are getting close to the release.
This is the film the establishment doesn’t want you to see because it is the truth. On today’s Scoop, we meet with our talented screenwriter Brian Godawa to discuss how “My Son Hunter” challenges the one-sided narrative the media wants you to believe by presenting straight facts mixed with comedy and tragedy. This is not your typical leftist political satire. Hunter Biden is a human and tragic figure and the film does not lose sight of this as it exposes his corruption and the corruption of his family.
Stay tuned for major movie updates coming soon! You can learn more about “My Son Hunter” HERE.
Meanwhile, Canada is moving to expand their already horrendous euthanasia laws. We speak with Wesley Smith of the Discovery Institute on how this is a direct assault not just on the terminally ill but on all disabled persons. It is chilling.
In other news, we share how the left always finds a way to make everything woke. We were able to catch the excellent new play “Here There Are Blueberries,” portraying the inside lives of Nazi staff members at Auschwitz. Unfortunately, it was not spared from woke influences. Similarly, the tragic news of actress Anne Heche’s death was used for the same woke agenda by the media.
And the recent murder attempt on novelist Salman Rushdie highlights a primary difference between Margaret Thatcher and Boris Johnson’s England. We discuss what this shows about the cowardice of modern liberals.
We hope you enjoy this episode of the Ann & Phelim Scoop!
Thank you,
Ann and Phelim
By Richard Lamken
8-16-22
On Wednesday, August 3, 2022, the News Leader ran a front-page article entitled, “NCSB votes against budget committee”. In it, I am referred to as the “main force urging the Nassau County School Board to form the committee”, which is correct. I am the Schools Division Lead for County Citizens Defending Freedom, (CCDF). The committee referenced is the Citizens Budget Advisory Committee (CBAC). While the article is generous to the Board members, including much of their statements, mostly in opposition to the creation of a CBAC, it fails to give me the opportunity to define it, give some background and demonstrate the need for one in the Nassau County School District.
At a Board workshop on May 26th, the Superintendent, Dr. Burns, spoke out in favor of creating a CBAC. I thanked the Superintendent at the Board meeting that followed for her agreement to constitute a CBAC. She accepted my thanks. On June 1st at a meeting with her, Dr. Burns reneged on that commitment after she found that its creation was only encouraged and not mandated in state statutes. I guess best practices never entered her mind. I then began pressing the Board to create a CBAC which is their right and we saw the results at the July 28th Board meeting with only Dr. Grooms understanding what it means for the Board to be transparent and accountable in fiscal matters.
Numerous Florida School Districts have CBACs. Here’s a good overview:
Purpose. The Budget Advisory Committee is hereby created for the purposes of making recommendations to the School Board regarding the School District’s annual budget and any policies and practices that may be relevant to the budgeting process.
Committee Key Areas of Responsibility. The Budget Advisory Committee (Committee) shall have such responsibilities as follows:
CBACs typically meeting monthly from January through May and twice monthly in June and July. They are involved in all aspects of the Budget creation and development. They serve in an advisory capacity and relate the educational priorities of the parents and the community to the School Board and to the Superintendent.
I am the only citizen to read the almost 400 pages of Budget documentation, to attend all three workshops and to speak at all three, where I was allocated a total of 13 minutes, cumulatively. I was appalled at the lack of oversight by all but Dr. Grooms among the School Board members. Here’s a sample of some of the questions asked and the inadequate answers given, that the Board deemed satisfactory.
Q. Why did this line-item increase from $7,000 to $75,000, year over year? A. It’s just a placeholder!
Q. Why did this line-item increase from $4K to $85K? A. We spent way more than our Budget last year so we just increased this year’s Budget!
Q. Why did this line-item go up over 10% and over 50K? a. Well, you know, everything has gone up!
There was only the Director of Business Services to answer questions, not the Department Managers who created their Department’s Budget.
It seems the Board still believes Brett Seger, Board Attorney, speaking at the July 19th School Board Meeting, regarding the proposed Citizens Budget Advisory Committee (CBAC) who said, “There’s no more ability to contribute to the process through an advisory committee than there is available currently, which is the workshops, the materials, those kind of things”. My allowance of 13 minutes to address 100 questions and concerns on 50 pages of the Budget Book disproves that theory.
I told the Superintendent and the Board multiple times that we have 4 highly qualified individuals, including 2 with extensive School finance experience, who are willing to serve on a CBAC. It seems the Board isn’t inclined to either be the stewards of the taxpayers’ money or to actually have oversight on the Budget process, as evidenced by their rubberstamping everything, whether they understand it or not. Because of their abdication of this role, we need citizens, who understand the meaning of the word “fiduciary”, to serve on a CBAC. After all, when it comes to this years’ Budget, we are talking about a quarter of a billion dollars! We need a CBAC in place in January, 2023 when next year’s Budget process commences.
Richard Lamken
Mr. Lamken and his wife Meg reside in Fernandina Beach. He is a retired Assistant Superintendent of Schools. He is the President of the Baptist Nassau Hospital Auxiliary and the Schools Division lead and Board member of County Citizens Defending Freedom (CCDF), Nassau.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
By Grant Newsham
8-17-22
A U.S. government friend involved in Indo-Pacific defense matters asked me the question a lot of people are wondering about.
Following U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taipei on Aug. 2-3, China launched a series of aggressive moves targeting Taiwan, most visibly unprecedented military exercises. So he asked: “Running up to the 20th Party Congress to be held towards the end of the year, do you think the PRC [People’s Republic of China] will ramp up? Keep the ‘new normal’? Or decrease its pressure on Taiwan?”
Here’s what I told him:
China is on a timeline for seizing Taiwan. It will move faster or slower as opportunity allows. When does the timeline “end”? By 2030 or sooner—and maybe much sooner.
Beijing prefers to get Taiwan without fighting—and ideally without tangling with the Americans. But it’s willing to do both—to include “going kinetic” and taking on the Americans (and the Japanese)—and sees itself as able to do so and succeed.
The upcoming 20th Party Congress somewhat shapes the Chinese regime’s behavior toward Taiwan, but I think it’s a less important variable. Xi Jinping has plenty of enemies, but his control seems solid enough as things stand now. However, he doesn’t want to appear to have been “bested” by the Americans (or anyone else) or to have gotten China into a catastrophe of some sort. Neither has happened.
I would suggest that Chinese decision-making is more affected by the state of affairs on the U.S. side. Specifically, the more the United States (and the Biden administration) looks weak, distracted, and confused, the more pressure the Chinese communists will apply on Taiwan—including tightening the “military” noose.
And there is also the all-important question of “will”—that is, Beijing’s perception of whether the Biden administration has the nerve/spine/fortitude/sang-froid to respond effectively as China makes its incremental moves against Taiwan. And the moves at some point will not be incremental as China aims to finish things off.
At least from my perspective, the Biden administration’s responses to the most recent exercises and rehearsal for blockading and assaulting Taiwan were weak. Yes, some nice language, but nothing that would make Beijing think it had gone too far—and was going to face some serious punishment.
The Biden administration’s response has been largely “reactive”—doing very little in hopes China will back off. And many parts of the U.S. elite, commentariat, business, and official classes called for the United States not to escalate matters. Washington even “postponed” a scheduled missile test in the Pacific and billed it as a “responsible” step to not escalate matters further. Beijing saw it as a weakness.
One notes that many officials handling Indo-Pacific affairs for Team Biden have “a history” with China—and don’t exactly put the fear of God into the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leadership (that undoubtedly has thick files available on demand about each of them).
Additionally, the American response has also seemed condescending, including prim statements that the Chinese are “overreacting” to Pelosi’s visit and are not behaving the way a “responsible nation” acts.
One imagines the men running China (they’re all men) chuckling and saying, “Maybe that matters to Americans, but we’ve just taken a few more serious steps towards ‘locking up’ Taiwan.”
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
Press Release
From Nassau County Supervisor of Elections
8-16-22
Under Florida law, email addresses are public records. If you do not want your email address released in response to a public records request, do not send electronic mail to this entity. Instead, contact this office by phone or in writing. — F.S. 668.6076
Conforme a la legislación de Florida, las direcciones de correo electrónico son registros públicos. Si no desea que su correo electrónico se divulgue como respuesta a una solicitud de registros públicos, no envíe un correo electrónico a esta entidad. En su lugar, póngase en contacto con esta oficina por teléfono o por escrito. — F.S. 668.6076
Note: This response is provided for reference only and does not constitute a formal legal opinion or representation from the sender or the Nassau County Supervisor of Elections Office. As applied to a particular set of facts or circumstances, interested parties should refer to the Florida Statutes and applicable case law, and/or consult an attorney to represent their interests before drawing any legal conclusions or relying upon the information provided.
Nota: Esta respuesta se proporciona solo como referencia y no constituye una opinión legal formal o representación del remitente o de la Oficina del Supervisor de Elecciones del Condado de Nassau. Según se aplique a un conjunto particular de hechos o circunstancias, las partes interesadas deben consultar los Estatutos de Florida y la jurisprudencia aplicable, y / o consultar a un abogado para representar sus intereses antes de sacar conclusiones legales o confiar en la información proporcionada.
By Trent Moorman
This time of the year can be a steam bath. Step outside and bam, you’re drenched in sweat. The swampy, thick heat and moisture can be a challenge in Florida cities. Hydration is key.
A research company called House Method conducted a survey ranking the most and least humid cities in the US.
The survey used data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on the humidity of each city and compiled it to find the average annual humidity.
Florida comes in with four of the most humid cities. Drum roll please:
Gainesville: #7, 89% average annual relative humidity
Fort Myers: #13, 88% average annual relative humidity
Jacksonville: #14, 88% average annual relative humidity
Orlando: #15, 88% average annual relative humidity
And the list of the 15 most humid cities….
Read
By Michael Hernandez 8-15-22 Global Elitist: “We don’t need the vast majority of the population to live” World Economic Forum Advisor Yuval Noah Harari, an Israeli national, in an interview (published Aug. 9) with Chris Anderson (head of TED Talks) made the claim that “we just don’t need the vast majority of the population. “Because the future is about developing more and more sophisticated technology, like artificial intelligence [and] bioengineering. Most people don’t contribute anything to that, except perhaps for their data and whatever people are still doing which is useful, these technologies increasingly will make redundant and will make it possible to replace the people. Earlier this year, Harari warned of a growing class of “useless people” not needed by the global elite and suggested keeping them docile by way of drugs and video games. “The problem is more boredom, what to do with them and how will they find some sense of meaning in life when they are basically meaningless, worthless.” FBI raids former President Donald Trump’s Mar-A-Lago homeJORDAN DIXON-HAMILTON (8 Aug 2022) “These are dark times for our Nation,” said President Donald Trump. “Nothing like this has ever happened to a President of the United States before. “After working and cooperating with the relevant Government agencies, this unannounced raid on my home was not necessary or appropriate. It is prosecutorial misconduct, the weaponization of the Justice System, and an attack by Radical Left Democrats who desperately don’t want me to run for President in 2024, especially based on recent polls, and who will likewise do anything to stop Republicans and Conservatives in the upcoming Midterm Elections,” said President Trump. “Such an assault could only take place in broken, Third-World Countries. Sadly, America has now become one of those Countries, corrupt at a level not seen before. They even broke into my safe! What is the difference between this and Watergate, where operatives broke into the Democrat National Committee? Here, in reverse, Democrats broke into the home of the 45th President of the United States.” https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2022/08/08/fbi-raids-former-president-donald-trumps-home/ Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 seeks to double IRS with 87,000 new agents Jordan Sekulow August 3 Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Senator Joe Manchin have proposed the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, calling for an additional $8 billion in funding to the Internal Revenue Service agents per year over 10 years, adding some 87,000 new agents and over 1.2 million more audits. President Joe Biden says he will sign the measure that doubles the size of the IRS which was approved by the U.S. Senate and is now before the U.S. House. According to ACLJ Senior Counsel Andy Ekonomou, “The IRS is still stuck… In the middle ages as far as digitization and the proper handling of tax returns and the proper handling of relations with taxpayers. “Now instead of modernizing the equipment you need to have in order to deal with the proper collection of revenue, you’re earmarking $45.6 billion dollars to litigate, criminally investigate.” An IRS ad for the hiring of new agents stated the qualifications needed included: “willingness to use force.” Our Hope “Becoming who we are in the fruits of the Spirit of the Lord.” Masterpiece: Talks from the Book of Ephesians By Pastor Nathan Edwardson (July 31) “Walk worthy of the calling with which you were called.” (NKJV: Ephesians 4:1) “Sit, walk, stand with Jesus.” “Sit in Christ.” (Ephesians 1-3). “Walk in Christ.” (Ephesians 4). “Stand in Christ.” (Ephesians 6). (Note: Nathan Edwardson is founding pastor of The Stirring, a Christian and Missionary Alliance Church started in 2007 in Redding, CA whose mission states: “We love. We make disciples.” Watch his Sunday message at: https://subsplash.com/thestirring/media/mi/+75nprsr?autoplay=true.) “Side effects of the anointing.” By Prophet Lovy L. Elias (July 31) Key Verses: “It shall come to pass in that day That his burden will be taken away from your shoulder, And his yoke from your neck, And the yoke will be destroyed because of the anointing oil.” (NKJV: Isaiah 10:27) “And the sons of the prophets said to Elisha, “See now, the place where we dwell with you is too small for us. Please, let us go to the Jordan, and let every man take a beam from there, and let us make there a place where we may dwell.” So, he answered, “Go.” Then one said, “Please consent to go with your servants.” And he answered, “I will go.” (NKJV: 2 Kings 6:1-3) (Note: Lovy L. Elias is founding pastor of Revelation Church LA located in Simi Valley, CA which started as a prayer group in his living room and focuses on revelatory teaching, the prophetic, deliverance, healing and manifestations of miracles, signs and wonders. The church mission is: “to build a people of fire.” Watch his Sunday message on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7na6vQadONE. To watch Prophet Elias Aug. 7 message on “Anointing, Grace and God” go to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fURxML7WwIE.) Michael Hernandez, co-founder of the Citizens Journal—Ventura County’s online news service is a former Southern California daily newspaper journalist and religion and news editor. Mr. Hernandez can be contacted at [email protected] and is editor of “America: The End and Our Hope”. The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
America- The End (July 31-August 13)
Opinion
By Jeff Childers
8-15-22
Good morning, C&C; it’s Monday! Unfortunately, I am feeling a little under the weather this morning. It is NOT covid. Probably. Anyway, you just get a mini-roundup this morning, to tide you over till tomorrow.
💉 A new research letter published on August 3rd in JAMA’s Network Open titled “Rate of SARS-CoV-2 Reinfection During an Omicron Wave in Iceland.” The letter describes the results of a new study of reinfections during the Omicron wave (December 1st 2021 through February 22nd 2022).
The researchers were surprised by two things. First, they found higher rates of reinfection than they expected. But second, among the study group of about 12,000 previously-infected icicles, I mean Icelanders, they were shocked to find a statistically-significant correlation between jabs and reinfections.
Specifically, they found that people with 2 or more shots were the group with the highest chance of being reinfected with covid. The researchers wrote, “Surprisingly, two or more doses of vaccine were associated with a slightly higher probability of reinfection compared with one dose or less.”
That’s not good news for the jabs! At minimum, it suggests something about the shots makes them do the exact opposite thing they were originally intended to do.* At worst, it reinforces other studies appearing to show something about the mRNA shots is weakening recipients’ immune systems, so-called “VAIDS.“
(* yes, yes, I know they moved the goalposts. That’s why I said ORIGINALLY intended.)
Oh well. It’s probably just an anomaly! Any day now we should start seeing all the studies about how GREAT people are doing after getting all those shots. Keep hope alive, and get your booster.
🦇 Judicial Watch says it got a batch of documents from the NIH recently showing the FBI was investigating Fauci and the NIH in 2016, over grants made to the Wuhan lab, and whether they involved “gain of function” research.
The documents also suggest that the FBI was interested in EcoHealth Alliance’s failures to comply with data reporting rules related to the Wuhan lab grants.
Don’t get your hopes up. In an April 2021 letter, Peter Daszak wrote to the NIH’s compliance office saying that “we recently confirmed there are no pending investigations” of EcoHealth. So, something must have changed after the new Biden Administration took over. Weird.
Judicial Watch also noted that in 2021, officials at the NIH asked EcoHealth Alliance to “Provide [a sample] of the actual SARS-CoV-2 virus that WIV used to determine the viral sequence.” But Daszak responded that it would be “effectively impossible” to request such a sample. So apparently nobody could get a viral sample, not even the NIH, at late as April 2021. Lots of people were canceled as conspiracy theorists for suggesting we’d never seen an isolate of the virus.
Weird again.
Not only that, but when rat-face Fauci testified before Congress, he mocked as hilarious the notion that the NIH had funded any gain-of-function research. What nonsense! Preposterous! But at the time, Fauci must have known about the FBI investigation. Some people thought there were gain-of-function problems. So I’d call that lying.
Maybe I should say, still lying, or lying again. How that man still has a job is another covid mystery.
If you want to read more:
Tom Fitton @TomFittonNEW: Fauci Wuhan grant was under FBI investigation! judicialwatch.org/nih-fbi-inquir…
July 13th 2022662 Retweets1,603 Likes
🔥 Jim Jordan said this weekend that fourteen (14) FBI whistleblowers have contacted his office with information about corruption and politicized law enforcement inside the agency. That seems like a lot. God bless them if it’s true.
Zachary Miller @ZmillerLawJim Jordan says 14 FBI whistle blowers have come forward about the politicization of the FBI. Jim Jordan and John Ratcliff slam the politicalization of the FBI and DOJ.14 whistleblowers have now came to GOP office discussing a whole host of things going on at the FBI.rumble.comAugust 15th 2022
Of course, hearings on the whistleblowers’ information must wait until Republicans are in the majority in the House, which hopefully will be soon.
🔥 Governor DeSantis commented on the Biden Raid this weekend at a Turning Point event, and made all the right points.
He enumerated the FBI’s many recent failures, including pointedly asking, “Is the FBI out there protecting our conservative Supreme Court Justices? No! … They’re enforcing the law based on who they like and who they don’t like.”
It sure does look that way.
Benny Johnson 🍊 @bennyjohnsonGov. DeSantis calls out the FBI’s raid of Donald Trump’s home at Mar-a-Lago. August 15th 2022904 Retweets2,902 Likes
🔥 Corporate media is trying to find a sunny side. They’re trying out a new narrative, which is that the Biden Raid was a political win for … Joe Biden! The narrative suggests that Biden is playing four dimensional chess, and his Raid on Mar-a-Lago was a strategic victory because he’d prefer to run against Trump, instead of Ron DeSantis. Since the Raid has boosted Trump’s polling among Republicans against DeSantis by at least +10, the theory goes that Biden’s excellent strategy worked.
Daily Wire @realDailyWireBill Maher: FBI Raid Might Have Saved ‘Martyr’ Trump From Losing To DeSantis In GOP Primary dlvr.it/SWcS7j
August 14th 202240 Retweets509 Likes
The problem is, I can’t see Biden playing checkers, much less 4D chess. But they are firefighting, and in a crunch you have to work with the equipment that you have, not the hair-sniffer you wished you had.
I’ve missed an interim report, but I the covid numbers in Florida continue to drop, as expected for this season. New “cases” for the most recent weekly period were down to 54,000 from 74,000 for the week ending July 22nd. More interesting were the booster statistics, were are at all all-time low since I began tracking them, with only 30,415 doses given statewide during the most recent week.
Boosters have been trending down as covid numbers wane. It will be interesting to see whether they pop up when the Fall wave comes around.
Have a magnificent Monday! I’m going back to bed. But I’ll be back tomorrow with a full update. Almost certainly.
C&C is moving the needle and changing minds. If you can, I could use your help getting the truth out and spreading optimism and hope: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/-learn-how-to-get-involved-
Twitter: @jchilders98
Truth Social: @jchilders98
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The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
By WND News Services
Published August 13, 2022 at 5:10pm
(INDEPENDENT SENTINEL) – A federal jury awarded Republican Roy Moore $8.2 million in damages Friday after finding that a Democratic super PAC defamed him in an advertisement during the 2017 U.S. Senate race in Alabama.
Conservative Roy Moore had won the Senate primary. Democrats then set out to destroy his candidacy.
Jurors found the Senate Majority PAC made false and defamatory statements against Moore in the ad that attempted to capitalize on a sexual misconduct accusation made against Moore during the 2017 race, Yahoo News reports.
Opinion/Elections
August 2022
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From St. Johns River Water Management District
8-13-22
PALATKA, Fla., August 4, 2022 — Now entering the seventh year of its Blue School Grant Program, the St. Johns River Water Management District with full support of its Governing Board is offering up to $20,000 in grants for education projects that enrich student knowledge of Florida’s water resources through hands-on learning. The application period runs August 1–Sept. 15 and is available to middle and high school teachers within the 18-county area.
“The District’s Blue School Grant program is a unique and meaningful way for us to help our local schools educate students on the importance of water conservation and how to be good stewards of the environment now and in the future,” said St. Johns River Water Management District Education Coordinator, Laura La Beur.
To date, the District has funded 75 water resource education projects with a total of nearly $105,000 awarded to local schools.
Through the District’s Blue School Grant Program, up to $2,000 per school may be awarded to middle and high schoolteachers to enhance student knowledge of Florida’s water resources. Public and charter teachers within the District’s boundaries are eligible to apply.
Examples of previous successful grant applications include:
Teachers receiving grants will be notified in late October.
Information about criteria and deadlines and the online application can be found at www.sjrwmd.com/education/blueschool or contact Laura La Beur at [email protected] or 321-473-1339.
By Dr. Frank Hopf
8-10-22
Nassau County and the Tourist Development Council (TDC) are currently conducting a “beach harmonization” study, reportedly an effort to somehow improve the beach experience for residents and visitors alike on Amelia Island. An outside consultant has been hired and comments to the study have been encouraged from both residents and visitors from far and wide. I fear that science may get lost in the shuffle of opinion. Any final recommendations must reflect the unique nature of Amelia Island as a barrier island.
Amelia Island is a barrier island, a relatively rare and the shortest-lived geomorphic form in existence. Our island is likely only about 6,000 years old but its life span as a structure is not infinite. Barrier islands protect the mainland but are suspectable to flooding. As sea levels rise, they naturally migrate onshore. Our island is basically a pile of sand sitting on a bed of mud (a geomorphic term for clay and silt), held together by vegetation from sea oats to saw palmettos to live oaks.
A 1770 English map of the island shows that we inherited from Nature “high sand hills being a natural dyke or fort against the sea.” Unfortunately, over time, these sands have eroded due to both human initiatives and natural events such as Hurricane Dora in 1964. Much of the island became vulnerable to major flooding—and thus vulnerable to destruction in a major storm, often defined as the 100-year event.
The US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) then constructed a rock revetment to provide temporary and very limited protection against the next storm (see monument at Main Beach), and has engaged in beach renourishment efforts, notably the Nassau County Shore Protection Project signed between Nassau County and the USACE in 2008. This provides at least 50 years of an engineered restoration of our needed sand resupply.
With the return of the island’s sand supply, the onshore winds, sea oats, panic grasses, sea purslane, beach elder and other dune building vegetation have since 1980 rebuilt the dunes needed to protect against the sea. In fact, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) found in 2017 that all of the homes between Sadler and the north end of the undeveloped Riverstone Properties are out of the 100-year flood zone, thanks purely to the beach-dune system that has re-established itself, often with human help.
Any beach harmonization study on this unique, developed barrier island must first enhance the protective nature of the beach-dune system to the existence of the island itself. The good news is that with a little planning and some minor access controls, all the developed beachfront on the island can grow sufficient dunes in height and width to meet FEMA requirements to get out of the 100-year flood zone.
Sustaining our protective dune system requires protection of the vegetation that builds, restores and holds together the dunes. These highly adapted plants, led by the State protected sea oats, can handle the harsh sandy, dry, salt spray environment but cannot handle trampling well. Any beach harmonization plan must provide beach access that protects this vegetation. Dune friendly walkovers require adequate elevation above the dune surface to allow dune vegetation growth and wind movement to allow the dune to continue to grow and renew itself, out to the vegetation line on the beach. The Florida Department of Environmental Protection standard provides general guidance on this; however, the critical beach/dune systems on Amelia Island also need to restore and preserve the remnants of the old USACE rock revetment, if we are going to improve resiliency against flooding. Critical areas of concern are in the City of Fernandina Beach north of Sadler and in American Beach north of Burney Park. These represent the developed area of the island, where we have not yet achieved dune volume satisfying FEMA requirements to keep properties out of the 100-year flood zone.
While this all may make the dune system sound like a large inhibitor to tourist and resident enjoyment of the beach, nothing could be further from the truth. Our dunes provide a sanctuary for the gopher tortoises and their associated fauna community; a nesting area for everything from endangered sea turtles to migratory birds that visit from all over the Earth. This is all supported by a variety of native plants that attract these and a variety of butterflies, hummingbirds, and other pollinators. Many of these native plants on the dune put on beautiful floral displays themselves.
In short, the beach-dune system of Amelia Island reflects something very important to both residents and tourists alike, a still largely natural beach experience with the comforts of home. A harmonization plan should recognize the vital importance of dunes and avoid any recommendations that would harm them.
Frank Hopf , Geomorphologist and Amelia Island Resident and members of the Comp Plan/LDC Working Group (aiwg.org).-
Frank Hopf, Ph.D., P.E.(Texas)- MBA
dba Dune Science Group
Previous related article:
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
From State of Florida
Florida Attorney-General Ashley Moody released this handy one sheet publication highlighting resources parents can use to become aware of back to school “digital dangers” to kids and warn them. It covers drugs, online predators, child trafficking, texting while driving & drinking.
Check it out- download, share, print:
http://myfloridalegal.com/webfiles.nsf/WF/CPAL-CGZPP2/$file/Web+Link.pdf
By Matthew Decker
8-12-22
During the Schoolboard meeting on August 11th, the school board approved a June Budget Amendment that included a 20% budget increase for the Instruction and Curriculum Account and 24% for the Instr. Tech Account, over the original 2021-2022 budget. The school board heard legislative updates from the Florida State House and Senate. Among the legislative updates was the establishment of the Victims of Communism Day on November 7th and the restriction of classroom instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity.
All Board members were present for the Nassau County School Board Meeting.
Agenda Approval:
The board adopted the agenda for this meeting, with one public comment from Richard Lamken. Mr. Lamken started by stating that his reason for bringing these items up in the meeting was that, “I have attempted to meet with the Superintendent… and can no longer have a conversation with someone who treats me and my organization [Common Sense, Fernandina Beach] with complete and utter disrespect and disregard.” Mr. Lamken then criticized the proposed June budget amendment by commenting that, “[Instruction and Curriculum (Acct. 6300)] increased by 20%” and the“[Instr. Tech.(Acct. 6500)] “ increased by 24%.” The June budget amendment can be found, here. The School Board unanimously approved the agenda.
Superintendent Spotlight:
This meeting’s Spotlight highlighted School Resource Officer Brian Evatt. Officer Evatt is responsible for the safety of almost 1,000 students at Fernandina Beach High School.
Consent Agenda:
This item is required by the Florida Legislature. It requires strategies to increase school-based mental healthcare.
The Board voted to unanimously approve the plan.
This item revises the description of Assistant Superintendent, Mr. Durham’s, current position. Mr. Lamken provided a public comment stating that this is one more case of the Superintendent hammering a round peg into a square hole. asserting that the School Board is not correctly defining or filling the position. He said that this is best filled by an Executive Director of Financial and Administrative or Operational Services, a position that the District recently eliminated. He further said that Mr. Durham is not qualified as a PIO, which is listed as his # 1 responsibility. Superintendent, Dr. Burns, stated that, “We do not have the luxury to have that person [PIO] in the district.” The Board then proceeded to defend Mr. Durham’s performance and qualifications.
The Board voted to unanimously approve the job description change.
This item allows students to be dual enrolled at Fernandina Beach High School and Florida State College in Jacksonville.
The Board voted to unanimously approve the agreement.
This item clarifies the description of the District’s rules for public records.
The Board voted to unanimously approve the rule revision.
This item revises School District code to reflect current regulations regarding background screenings.
The Board voted to unanimously approve the rule revision.
This item revises School District code to reflect current regulations regarding school safety and security.
The Board voted to unanimously approve the rule revision.
This item increases measures to prevent suicide throughout Nassau County schools.
The Board voted to unanimously approve the rule revision.
This item revises School District code to reflect current regulations regarding first time student school entry requirements.
The Board voted to unanimously approve the rule revision.
The Board voted to unanimously approve the hiring.
This item addresses the June budget amendment.
The Board voted to unanimously approve the amendment.
The Millage Pie Graph depicts how revenue from the proposed property tax increase will be spent by Nassau County Schools. 70% of the new tax revenues, approximately $9,100,000, will be spent on salaries.
The Board voted to unanimously approve the graph.
Discussion Items:
The District Organization Chart was discussed, it can be found here. This is a proposed chart and must be voted on prior to adoption. Mr. Lamken offered a public comment criticizing the organizational chart for being a “relationship chart” that does not accurately depict organizational relationships and stated that clearly this is not an organizational chart and provided clear evidence of same, pointing out, among other things that the District failed to clearly define its supervisory relationships. He also pointed out that previously the “Citizens of Nassau County” were listed at the top of the organizational chart, showing that the Schoolboard reports to the Citizens.
Legislative Updates:
The Assistant Superintendent, Mr. Durham reviewed the legislative changes to education from the Florida State House and Senate.
SB 1048 – Student Assessments
HB 7 – Individual Freedom
HB 395 – Victims of Communism Day
SB 1054 – Financial Literacy Instruction
HB 1467 – K-12 Education
HB 173 – Care of Students with Epilepsy or Seizure
HB 225 – Restraint of Students with Disabilities in Public Schools
HB 758 – Charter Schools
SB 2524 – Education
SB 1421 – School Safety
HB 1557 – Parental Rights in Education
SB 896 – Educator Certification Pathways for Veterans
Public Presentations:
Douglas Cronky of the St. Johns River Water Management District presented the School District with information on the Blue School Grant Program offered by St. Johns to educators who promote Florida’s freshwater resources and estuaries. The goal is to train and inspire the next generation of environmental science experts in Florida. The grants are available to educators and applications are accepted from August 1st – September 15th.
The full meeting video is available, here.
Matthew Decker is a Co-Founder of Citizens Journal Florida, having set up some of the technical and social media infrastructure. He also developed sourcing for some of its municipal government and business content. He is an Aerospace Engineer by trade. He has worked in NGO’s performing civic activities. He originally hails from Ventura, CA
From State of Florida
On August 5, 2022, in News Releases, Recent Appointments, by Staff
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — Today, Governor Ron DeSantis announced the appointment of Judge Renatha Francis to the Florida Supreme Court. Francis’ appointment fills the vacancy of former Florida Supreme Court Justice Al Lawson, who announced his retirement earlier this year. Francis will officially take her seat on the Supreme Court on September 1, 2022.
“Judge Renatha Francis has an incredible life story that epitomizes the American Dream and proves that those who come to our country have the opportunity to pursue their dreams and, through hard work and the application of their God-given talents, reach the highest heights of whatever field they choose,” said Governor Ron DeSantis. “Before immigrating from the Caribbean to Florida, Renatha Francis was a small business owner in her native country Jamaica where she ran two successful enterprises while being the primary caregiver for her younger sibling. Her pursuit of a legal career began later in life than most attorneys, yet she has advanced rapidly on her merit to serve as a judge first in Miami-Dade County and then on the 15th Circuit Court. When she takes her place on the Florida Supreme Court, I am confident she will serve our state with distinction.”
“I’m incredibly honored and humbled by Governor DeSantis’ unwavering support for my ascension to the Florida Supreme Court,” said Judge Renatha Francis. “I may be taking my seat on the bench two years later than anticipated, but as a student of history I continue to be in awe of this country’s respect for the rule of law and the freedoms guaranteed in the text of the United States Constitution. As a Supreme Court Justice I will apply the law as written by the people’s duly-elected representatives, knowing that I am a member of the judiciary in a system with separation of powers.”
Renatha Francis
Francis, of West Palm Beach, has served as a judge on the 15th Circuit Court since 2019 and previously served as a judge at the Miami-Dade County Court from 2017-2019. Francis also served as an attorney for the First District Court of Appeals in Tallahassee from 2011-2017. Before attending law school, Francis owned and successfully operated two businesses for five years. Francis received her bachelor’s degree from the University of The West Indies and her Juris Doctorate from Florida Coastal Law School. She and her husband Phillip are the parents of two sons. Francis will officially join the Supreme Court on September 1, 2022.
By Dave Scott
8-12-22
Hypocrisy, dishonesty, lying, and cheating don’t even begin to describe today’s Democrats.
The total politicization and weaponization of the IRS and FBI by the Democrat party is now complete as evidenced by the FBI’s raid of former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home this week and the morbidly obese spending bill voted on by every Democrat member of the U.S. Senate. Not a single Republican voted for this monstrosity.
Above photo: FBI agents meet on the grounds of Mar-a-Lago after riffling through Melania Trump’s closets.
There are only 27,000 border agents, and Democrats refuse to add to that or build the border wall. But the Democrats voted in a dreadful bill to add 87,000 new IRS auditors to go after you and me. This is in addition to the current 75,000 employees the IRS already has.
Instead of going after the tens of thousands of illegals including drug smugglers, terrorists, murderers, sex traffickers and others illegally crossing our southern border they’re coming after us and former President Trump. In their nine-hour rampage of the former president’s house these government thugs even rummaged through Melania Trump’s closets.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis agrees, saying this week: “The fact that the Left is turning taxpayer-funded government agencies into extensions of the Democrat Machine to do their political bidding right before our eyes should be alarming to every American. These are not actions indicative of leaders in a free republic. This mirrors a Banana Republic. This blatant overreach by the federal government is an attack on our democracy and the American people.”
Florida Republican Senator Rick Scott said this week: “The FBI, Merrick Garland, and Joe Biden must explain what happened TODAY – or face impeachment.”
Marco Rubio, our other Florida Senator, echoed Scott’s sentiment saying: “Using government power to persecute political opponents is something we have seen many times from Marxist dictatorships, but now, we’re seeing it from the Biden administration.”
Even if you’re a Democrat be worried, very worried. If you make only $10,000 a year and own a business, no matter how small, and you’re sitting in your yurt reading this by candlelight, they’re coming after you too. If the FBI can barge into the former president’s home you’re small beer to them, a push over. If the FBI doesn’t nail you their pals at the IRS will.
Like FBI agents, IRS auditors are armed and authorized to use deadly force if necessary. That’s scary.
A current IRS recruiting ad says qualifications include: “Carry a firearm and be willing to use deadly force, if necessary. Be willing and able to participate in arrests, execution of search warrants, and other dangerous assignments.”
A letter from the IRS is frightening enough for most people causing them to possibly rethink that deduction of a Denny’s “Grand Slam” while they chatted with a casual business acquaintance on a cell phone.
Recent actions by Democrats make it clear why they want to take guns from American citizens.
The Democrat party now resembles the Nazi party of the early 1930s with the FBI’s Christopher Wray acting as Attorney General Merrick Garland’s chief lieutenant backing up the new armed IRS recruits, much like Reinhard Heydrich, head of the Schutzstaffel (SS) did for the Nazi’s Heinrich Himmler. Both the Gestapo and SS were under the control of Himmler, who bears a striking resemblance to Garland. Both are mousey looking, nasty little men, who depend on the muscle of others to enforce their party’s obscene programs.
The FBI and DOJ have enabled the Democrat party’s illegal activities for years. Following are just a few examples.
Where were the FBI and DOJ when ANTIFA and BLM were rioting and destroying federal buildings? Where have the resources been to investigate any wrongdoing by anyone on the left? What is the name of the Supreme Court clerk who leaked information about the Dobbs decision and why hasn’t this person been as ardently prosecuted as those who were involved in the January 6th “insurrection”? Why was the IRS’s Lois Lerner allowed to retire with a full pension even after it was proven she targeted conservative groups?
Even some Democrats are alarmed at their party’s thuggish tactics including Andrew Cuomo, the former governor of New York who resigned following accusations of sexual misconduct. Unless the FBI and DOJ found something huge their blunder is backfiring, propelling Trump into contention as the favored 2024 GOP presidential candidate, among independents, Republicans and even some Democrats who don’t want to see America run like a banana republic.
The raid at Trump’s home is a disaster for the U.S. domestically and in the eyes of foreign governments, who are now looking at us like we do those third world countries that jail or exile their former elected leaders.
The Biden administration is probably looking at this fiasco as a positive since it has been keeping the public from focusing on raging inflation, a stumbling incoherent buffoon in the Oval Office, and the coming avalanche of IRS agents and tax increases as a result of the misnamed ‘Inflation Reduction Act” which is the height of recklessness and stupidity.
Insanity doesn’t begin to describe what’s happening.
***
Things I Wish I’d Said: “Always be yourself – unless you suck.” – Senator John Kenney (R-Louisiana).
***
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Republished with the author’s permission. Read The Dave Scott Blog– subscribe Free
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
By Paul Sperry
8-8-22
The Select Committee to Investigate Jan. 6 has adjourned for a well-deserved summer break. Misleading the public is exhausting work.
A careful review of the official transcripts of its eight long hearings shows the committee repeatedly made connections that weren’t there, took events and quotes out of context, exaggerated the violence of the Capitol rioters, and omitted key exculpatory evidence otherwise absolving former President Donald Trump of guilt. While in some cases, it lied by omission, in others, it lied outright. It also made a number of unsubstantiated charges based on the secondhand accounts—hearsay testimony—of a young witness with serious credibility problems.
These weren’t off-the-cuff remarks. Panelists didn’t misspeak. Their statements were tightly scripted and loaded into teleprompters, which they read verbatim.
In other words, the committee deliberately chummed out disinformation to millions of viewers of not just cable TV, but also the Big Three TV networks—ABC, CBS, and NBC—which agreed to preempt regular daytime and even primetime programming to air the Democratic-run hearings. And because Democrats refused to allow dissenting voices on the panel or any cross-examination of witnesses, viewers had no reference points to understand how they, along with the two Trump-hating Republicans they allowed on the committee, shaded the truth.
Read MORE in the Epoch Times
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
By Jeff Childers
8-11-22
Dear C&C Army, it’s Thursday already! For many, this was the first week back to school and I hope everything went smoothly and masklessly for everyone. Our roundup today includes: other are countries starting to notice the FBI raid and are thinking about it; FBI Director criticizes criticism; another Trump impeachment Republican falls; National Review surprises with a good test for the raid; the FBI raids a Trump-aligned lawmaker’s cell phone; a sudden and unexpected death; disabilities skyrocket in Israel, and experts are baffled; a new Thai study shows kids at risk of jab injury; Denmark bans covid jabs for kids; the AP fact-checks the 87,000 new auditors; Biden’s foreign policy emerges from the fuddled fog of Joe’s brain; and a stellar example of settled science.
🪖 Despite the fact that I have a number of contacts at America’s Frontline Doctors, my team has been unable to reach any of them to get feedback on our multiplier. The guess is they are under a communications lockdown while Dr. Gold is detained or something. I’ll keep trying.
🔥 Fox ran a story yesterday headlined, “El Salvador President Rips FBI Trump Raid, Questions What US Gov’t Would Say If His Police Targeted Candidates.”
The story notes that since 2019, the U.S. State Department has sent reports to El Salvador identifying people allegedly involved in public corruption in that country. It’s a safe assumption we do this with lots of countries. Our credibility to opine on other countries’ corruption only comes from having a largely corruption-free system of our own. So our world image is important currency that we rely on to point out other countries’ flaws around the globe.
The article is based on a tweet posted by the president of El Salvador, which raises an interesting angle about the raid we haven’t yet considered. We’ve been so busy thinking about how the raid affects OUR lives and OUR politics that we haven’t given much thought to how the issue will play internationally.
Other countries are watching. They saw the same unprecedented, politically-motivated raid that we did. They’re all thinking about it now. What does it mean to those countries if the Biden Administration, with all its political, economic, and military might, completely abandons any pretense to morals or ethics or consistency, and resorts to raw force to get what it wants? How does that affect THEM?
THAT is what they are probably thinking about, a lot. And that means the raid’s injury to our republican form of government has also injured the world and the United States’ standing in it.
Great work, Joe! What could they do for an encore?
Don’t answer that.
🔥 In a story headlined, “FBI’s Wray Denounces Threats Following Search of Trump Home,” the AP noted that FBI Director Christopher Wray refused to answer questions about the raid during an unrelated presser yesterday, but did express his displeasure with vague online ‘threats’ against federal employees.
Wray called random online loudmouths complaining about the raid “deplorable,” and delighted the AP by stressing that “Violence against law enforcement is not the answer, no matter who you’re upset with.”
If violence against law enforcement is not the answer, it would have been informative if Wray had explained what the question was. Don’t get me wrong, I’m pro-police and I oppose violence against anybody. But I’d like to hear Wray explain why all these people are so upset.
🔥 Incumbent House Representative Herrera Beutler (D-Wa), one of the ten Republicans who voted to impeach President Trump, was defeated in the Republican primary earlier this week by relatively unknown candidate Joe Kent, a former Green Beret and ardent Trump supporter.
Beutler outspent Kent during the race. She was backed by various RINO groups including Winning for Women, Maggie’s List and some super PACs aligned with “the Republican Party establishment.”
According to the Hill, which reported her defeat, Beutler went down because of her impeachment vote. “It was all the impeachment vote,” a national Republican strategist told the Hill. “There was no other factor at play. She wouldn’t have had a primary if it weren’t for that vote, and even if she did get a primary without the impeachment vote, she would have been fine.”
So.
🔥 Next week, Liz Cheney, one of two Republican January 6th Committee members who has become the odious J6 Committee’s disposable figurehead, faces Harriet Hageman in Wyoming’s Republican primary. C&C multiplied Ms. Hageman. So stand by.
According to the Hill, Jennifer Lim, executive director of (fake) Republican Women for Progress, said “All the signs aren’t looking good [for Cheney]. I think a lot of people are expecting [Cheney] to fall victim to what happened to Herrera Beutler, unfortunately.”
Unfortunately, Republican Women for Progress appears to be a crypto-marxist front group. So.
🔥 As people continue considering the raid and its consequences, more well-formed ideas are starting to emerge. Surprisingly, one emerged from the never-Trumpers over at National Review in an article helpfully headlined, “How to Prosecute Donald Trump.” The oddly-framed article was based on this simple and excellent thesis: “If you’re going to prosecute an ex-president, your case must be simple, clear, and damning. It must also avoid novel legal theories and any whiff of selective prosecution.”
That is exactly correct, and neatly stated. And it also shows how the raid failed so badly, on each and every element.
National Review @NROIf you’re going to prosecute an ex-president, your case must be simple, clear, and damning. It must also avoid novel legal theories and any whiff of selective prosecution. | by @baseballcrank How to Prosecute Donald Trump | National ReviewA criminal case against an ex-president must be simple, clear, and damning. It must also avoid novel legal theories and any whiff of selective prosecution.nationalreview.comAugust 11th 20227 Retweets40 Likes
🔥 Fox ran a story yesterday headlined, “Trump Ally Rep. Scott Perry Says The FBI Seized His Cellphone One Day After Mar-A-Lago Raid.” It’s actually worse than the headline makes it sound.
While traveling with his family earlier in the day Wednesday, Representative Perry — a close Trump ally — was approached by three FBI agents who handed him a warrant and demanded he hand over his cellphone, which he did. Not surprisingly, Perry told reporters the “phone contains info about my legislative and political activities, and personal/private discussions with my wife, family, constituents, and friends.”
Significantly, back in October, Representative Perry filed articles of impeachment against Attorney General Merrick Garland.
Acyn @AcynBoebert: Think about it Laura. Chairman Perry filed articles of impeachment against AG Garland and then, he’s the one whose cell phone is tracked down and taken.. August 11th 202253 Retweets243 Likes
While the raid on Perry’s phone is not as historically unprecedented as the raid on Trump’s residence, it is still pretty remarkable, and is not getting anywhere near as much coverage as it should, having been completely eclipsed by news about the Trump raid. It sure like like the DOJ retaliated against Representative Perry for filing articles of impeachment against the Attorney General.
Perry’s phone holds a TON of sensitive and confidential political information, such as emails and texts about Republicans’ midterm election strategies.
It could be that the timing — a day after the Trump raid — was coincidental.Or it could have been timed for news about Perry’s phone to be obscured by the Trump raid. Either way, the timing is suspect.
It looks like J6 has something to do with the phone raid, too. PennLive ran a story yesterday headlined, “FBI Delivers Subpoenas To Several PA. Republican Lawmakers: Sources Say.” According to the article, federal investigators delivered subpoenas or visited several House and Senate Republican offices in the Pennsylvania Capitol on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Sources told PennLive that the supoenaed information centered around Representative Perry and his involvement in Trump’s alleged January 6th plan to coordinate alternative slates of electors. The J6 Committee has been very interested in Representative Perry.
Late last fall, I predicted that politically-motivated prosecutions of Republicans over January 6th would begin this summer, in order to have the greatest effect on the midterms. Attorney General Garland is not disappointing me. If my predictions are correct, in late September or early October, look for the J6 Committee to publish a stinky report accusing the entire Republican Party of being domestic terrorists or something.
And look for arrests, or at least indictments, to start in a month or two.
💉 Kelly McKee Zajfen is a model, best known as one of Megan and Harry’s close friends. Earlier this week, one of Kelly’s 9-year old twins was found unresponsive in bed after he didn’t wake up in the morning. The 9-year-old boy, George, had no known heart conditions. The devastated parents are waiting for autopsy results.
💉 The number of disability certificates issued in Israel in the last two years has skyrocketed, independent online analysts say.
2022 seems to be on track to blow out 2021. So weird. I wonder what could possibly explain this. Despite being CERTAIN the jabs are safe and effective even without reliable data, experts are, of course, baffled at what could be causing all these permanent disabilities.
Personally, I blame Vladimir Putin, for invading Ukraine. That’s probably what did it. Somebody should sanction him.
💉 A new preprint study from Thailand did a controlled review of 300 children aged 13-18 who took the Pfizer jab. Researchers closely monitored all their cardiac markers for a few months post-injection, and found that a third of the jabbed children experienced cardiac side effects.
ONE THIRD.
The side effects ranged from mild (chest pains) to severe (hospitalization). Three kids in the study — one in a hundred — were hospitalized for clinical myocarditis or pericarditis.
While all the patients recovered, what is unknown are the long-term effects of all these sub-clinical cardiac injuries. In adult populations, similar sub-clinical cardiac injuries usually have poor long-term prognoses. Dr. Peter McCullough — a cardiac specialist — has opined there is no such thing as “mild” heart injury due to the long-term consequences.
The preprint study was published in Cardiology and is titled “Cardiovascular Effects of the BNT162b2 mRNA COVID-19 Vaccine in Adolescents.”
I have questions. Why hasn’t a study like this been done for adults? How hard would it be to follow a couple thousand patients after receiving the jabs to measure all their cardiac markers for a few months?
Why wasn’t this study done before the FDA approved the drug for use in kids?
Finally, it is well-known there are lots more cardiac side-effects from Moderna than Pfizer. That one needs a study, too. Well?
💉 Canada’s Western Standard ran a story yesterday headlined, “Denmark bans COVID vaccines for children.” According to the story, the Danish government has barred children under 18 years old from taking covid vaccines due to the low risk they face from the virus.
In a June statement, the Danish government said it will no longer be possible for children under 18 to get the 1st jab, and from September 1st it will no longer be possible to get the 2nd jab, although high-risk children can be vaccinated after being assessed by a doctor.
Although Florida discourages jabs for healthy kids, the official U.S. policy is that every single American baby and child should get the “safe and effective” jab that was designed for a virus variant no longer in circulation.
🔥 In fact-checking news, yesterday the AP “fact-checked” the claim that 87,000 proposed new IRS agents in Biden’s Inflation Reduction Bill would create a “mob of armed auditors targeting middle-class taxpayers.” What nonsense! The AP helpfully fact-checks that vicious and unfounded rumor as false.
Wait! Sorry, sorry. My mistake. They didn’t fact check it as FALSE. They labeled it, “misleading.” Misleading because not ALL of the 87,000 new employees will be auditors, you see. They are hiring TWO kinds of folks: “The Treasury says it will hire experienced auditors and workers who will improve taxpayer services.”
So stop lying about the bill! True, it WILL create a mob of auditors targeting middle-class taxpayers, but there will ALSO be some new workers IMPROVING the audits. And not all of them will carry guns. So please get it right and quit misleading everybody.
AP Fact Check @APFactCheckA major economic bill working its way through Congress would increase the ranks of the IRS — but wouldn’t create a mob of armed auditors targeting middle-class taxpayers, as some Republican lawmakers are claiming. AP FACT CHECK: GOP skews budget bill’s impact on IRS, taxesRepublican politicians and candidates are distorting how a major economic bill passed over the weekend by the Senate would reform the IRS and affect taxes for the middle class.apne.wsAugust 10th 2022470 Retweets680 Likes
The AP inadvertently fact-checked something right though — the claim that only corporations will pay the new taxes. AP quoted economists who said something very similar to what I did about those taxes:
Now, the AP used those quotes to fact-check as FALSE the claims that taxes were going to be raised on lower-income folks. That’s how fact-checking works. See, the economic impacts on people making under $400,000 will be INDIRECT effects, so it’s false to say TAXES are raised on the middle and lower class. They’ll just be paying higher PRICES for everything, in the exact amount of the taxes.
Try to keep up.
🔥 Earlier this week, I challenged you all to explain the Biden Administration’s foreign policy. We didn’t really nail anything down, but now I think I’ve figured it out and it can be described in two words: childish bullying.
ZeroHedge ran a story this morning headlined, “US Threatens African Nations With Sanctions If They Buy Russian Products Other Than Grain.” According to the story, hyphenated-American Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield warned African countries last week they better not buy anything from Russia besides grain and fertilizer, or else they could face sanctions too.
Specifically, she ominously advised, “We caution countries not to break those sanctions because then… they stand the chance of having actions taken against them.” Her comments were made in preparation for Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who will be visiting Africa next week to do damage control after Russian and China have been romantically courting the entire continent of Africa.
ZeroHedge suggested that the bullying strategy, which it calls “the US approach of using force to get the results that it wants,” is backfiring, and is just pushing more countries closer to the Russia-China bloc. I think that’s right. The Biden Administration is giving countries childish ultimatums, ignoring their economic realities, and it is working about as well as when someone gives their girlfriend an ultimatum.
“It’s him or me,” is almost never a good move. It might work for a little while, but it usually implodes with the guy getting dumped in the most embarrassing way possible. That’s the entire Biden foreign policy.
🔥 Now for something completely different. The Economist ran a baffling story yesterday headlined, “Earth’s Continents May Owe Their Existence To Bombardment From Outer Space.” Sub-head: “Rather than forces within.”
The article exposes an interesting conflict that is brewing in the science of early Earth history. Apparently there is growing dissatisfaction with the long-held explanation of ‘plate tectonics’ as having formed the original continents. The article describes a new Australian study attempting to reinforce a competing “asteroid theory” of how the continents formed, because the old theory is leaking. The problem has to do with how hot the Earth probably was in the early days, and whether plate tectonics could occur at those high temperatures.
I’ve noticed over the years that many odd mysteries of science ultimately result in scientists throwing their hands up in the air and invoking asteroids, as a kind of temporary deus ex machina which papers over the embarrassing gaps in scientific knowledge, until scientists can cook up a better theory. Whenever scientists start invoking asteroids, you know the old theories are completely falling apart.
Why do I mention this story? Because I GUARANTEE you, there was a time where if a scientist heretically “denied” the tectonic theory of continental development he’d be banned from the college’s snack room and disinvited from playing in the regional hackeysack competition.
Yet here we are. I bet you never even knew that the tectonic theory was a “theory.” You probably just thought it was “settled science.” So in other words, some of the most well-established “facts” in science can — in the blink of an eye — get discredited and replaced with dumb placeholder theories, like blaming it on asteroids.*
Science does a good enough job of cementing its own thinking and acting dogmatic. It SURE doesn’t need the government’s help in doing that.
(* Venus is my favorite example. The “settled” explanation for the formation of the Solar System is that tiny particles swirled around the sun, eventually forming planets, and the rotational effects from the swirling explain why the planets all orbit the Sun going the same way, and all why they all rotate in the same direction. Um, except Venus. Venus spins the opposite way from all the other planets. Oops. The experts are baffled. Out of many nebulous and unlikely theories, the most widely accepted explanation is a massive asteroid strike that sent Venus spinning the opposite way. Asteroids! They can do anything. Okay, astronomical C&Cers, you can have at me now.)
Have a tremendous Thursday and I’ll be back tomorrow, with a hot new over-caffeinated update.
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By Harvey Slentz
8-11-22
2022 NASSAU COUNTY SCHOOL DISTRICT ELECTION
Above photo- L-R: Current Nassau County School District Board: Jamie Deonas; Dr. Cindy Grooms; Gail Cook, Vice-Chairman; Dr. Kathy Burns, Superintendent; Donna Martin, Chairman; Lissa Braddock; Brett Steger, Board Attorney
The Nassau County School Board will fill two Board member seats in this election, in District 1 and in District 3. The Board member in District 5 is reelected because the only opponent was disqualified because she lived outside the District – by less than 200 feet. This is explained further at the bottom of this article.
There are three candidates for each district, and each is different from the other two. Voters will have an opportunity to select from among candidates who have board experience, who have education experience, and who are ‘outsiders’ seeking to bring that outside perspective to the board.
Nassau County School Board District 1 Candidates:
Jaime Deonas is an incumbent member of the Nassau County School Board, representing District 3. He is the only current board member running for reelection, but he is running this time in District 1. This is his third campaign, having won his first and second elections without opposition. He believes in supporting teachers and students, and says he’s seen the district do much to cut costs as the county grows, but it’s not enough. “Looking at these numbers, I don’t like the fact that we’re ranked 50th out of 67 (districts) — I think we’re better than that,” Deonas said. “Are we to blame for that? Is it just where we are? Is it the system that we’re in? I just think we can do better.” (Florida Politics, August 11, 2022) Mr. Deonas urges a 1 mill property tax increase to support the population growth and the cost of living increase that we’ve seen in the last year. He believes that this is the best way to increase retention of current teachers, and to support students. Since 1995, Mr. Deonas has served a paramedic and engineer with the Nassau County Fire Department. He is the founder of Best Friends Companion Care in 2011. Deonas and his wife, Janet, have two children who attended district schools.
Shannon Hogue is a candidate with multiple Education degrees, and more than 20 years as an educator. She focuses on reading skills at Emma Love Hardee Elementary School in Fernandina Beach. Like Mr. Deonas, Ms. Hogue is concerned about retaining our new teachers and staff. She is concerned that the continued turnover of teachers will jeopardize Nassau County School District “A” rating, and she says on her campaign announcement: “When schools’ ratings begin to drop, so do our property values. We must be proactive in our community.” She is married to Brent Hogue and has three daughters. Ms. Hogue established her business, Ms. Shannon’s Summer Camps, as a local summer camp business. During Covid-19 she also established Sunshine Saturday Ministries. It delivers flowers to Northeast Florida and Southeast Georgia citizens who need a smile. She was named Emma Love Hardee’s Teacher of the Year last year, and this year she was recognized by the Veteran of Foreign Affairs’ Elementary Teacher of the Year for District 6.
Rick Pavelock is a Registered Investment Advisor. He relocated here from North Carolina, and he’s said that he and his family feel incredibly blessed and fortunate to call this place home. His wife Kristy and he are the proud parents of 3 beautiful daughters, and they are expecting their newest addition soon.
While all candidates have identified issues they believe are important, Mr. Pavelock emphasizes that he wants to implement common-sense solutions to address present-day challenges, and he offers detailed action plans including —
Detailed information and explanation of the plans can be found at the link here.
ISSUES | RICK FOR NASSAU (pavelockfornassauschools.com)
Nassau County School Board District 3 Candidates:
David T. Dew is a 4th generation Yulee native and attended Yulee and Fernandina Beach schools from K-12 and has a 10-year old child who now attends Yulee Elementary School. His career began in industrial construction, then supervising and planning, estimating, scheduling and project management for power plants and oil refineries. Mr. Dew is currently employed at the Department of Defense Fleet Readiness Center Southeast, the largest tenant command aboard Naval Air Station Jacksonville, serving NASJAX, NS Mayport and Cecil Field. Mr. Dew is active in several local nonprofits including advocacy for the special needs community and director for the Yulee Holiday Parade and Festival. He also participates in planning fundraising events in Nassau County. As a School Board Member, Mr. Dew will support transparency in decision making, parental rights to decide educational guidance of their children, pay increases for educators (especially experienced and veteran teachers), and will expect elected officials to do their research and listen to the people they represent before making decisions that will impact our district.
Curtis Gaus is a candidate for School Board member in District 3. He left West Nassau in 2020, and currently is the principal at Bronson Middle-High School in Levy County. His vision is to build on the successes of the past to provide each student with a quality education so they can make an informed choice about their future. Like many other candidates, he believes that retaining quality teachers and staff is an essential requirement for success of the School District, and he points out that with inflation and surrounding counties paying more than Nassau, the educator pay gap between Nassau and nearby counties continues to grow. Mr. Gaus recognizes the great potential in building relationships between the private sector and the educational system to assure that we are building seamless pathways to high-skill, high wage careers for our students. He believes that STEMA education (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math, and the Arts) is essential for future career success, and that again requires a good understanding of what employers will need, and cooperation with parents to assure that their children can practice ‘digital citizenship’ outside the classroom. Mr. Gaus is an advocate for shared communication among the Nassau County Schools, the business community and the economic development board.
Albert J. Wagner is Assistant Principal at Windy Hill Elementary School in the Duval County. He was previously a teacher at Yulee Elementary School. He was an unsuccessful candidate in the 2020 election for Nassau County School Board member. He has nearly years in education, which he believes will provide him “the foresight to understand how board decisions will affect our children in the classroom”. In a social media post, Mr. Wagner set out his vision: “From classroom teachers to district leaders fleeing our district for Georgia, to the safety of our students, to equality of compensation for our staff, to fulfilling (individualized education plan) accommodations with certified and trained staff, to expanding business partnerships, to fiscal transparency, etc.”
NOTE: Lissa Braddock will be reelected unopposed in District 5.
Her only filed opponent, Ashley Benoit, learned after filing that she lived less than 200 feet outside District 5. According to Ms. Benoit, one factor leading to the mistaken thought that she was in District 5 was inaccurate information on the government websites. Ms. Benoit encourages everyone to get involved in local elections.
There you have it – six candidates possessing markedly different experiences, educations, careers, visions. This article can provide some insight for contrast and comparison, but nothing can substitute for your research at the candidate’s website and other sources of information about the candidates.
This year, School Board decisions around the country have become national news. Some parents have been very vocal and upset about what is in the curricula. There are few elections – if any – that will affect you and your family more than how your children, grandchildren and the children of friends are educated.
Harvey Slentz is an industrial engineer and attorney who completed a 30-year career in professional and senior executive operational leadership roles in a $65 billion organization, then moved with his wife Tish to Amelia Island, where he has practiced some law, taught some law, been a stand-up comic at the Comedy Zone, and had a ball with his four grandchildren who live in St. Johns County.
By Matthew Decker
8-11-22
The City Commission took a “vote of consensus”, voting 4-1 in favor of adopting the tax-increasing proposed FY 2023 budget, at a Budget Workshop on August 4th. The “vote of consensus” is non-binding, as it is only a polling of support. The final vote will occur at one of the two final public hearings on September 6th or September 20th. An official vote to adopt the budget must be held during a properly advertised meeting under the Florida Sunshine Law. The City Attorney affirms that, “The Commission did not vote.”
During the Budget workshop on August 4th, 2022. The Fernandina Beach City Commission chose to conduct a “vote of consensus” on the proposed budget for FY 2023. The proposed budget for FY 2023 has a millage rate of 5.3330 mills and results in an 11.78% tax increase for Fernandina Beach property owners.
At the end of the budget workshop, Commissioner Chip Ross made a motion to approve the proposed millage rate and the budget as written. City Attorney, Tami Bach, warned, “We cannot adopt a budget, we have two public hearings [left], which have to be advertised…we advertise this as a budget workshop, so that may be why we don’t have a lot of people here.” Commissioner Ross responded, “Let me rephrase it, I would like to take a vote of consensus to see if we can go forward adopting the current budget with the current millage rate.”
The proposed budget and millage rate for FY 2023 was approved with a 4-1 “vote of consensus”, with only Commissioner Bean voting No. Commissioner Bean had previously noted over one million dollars worth of extraneous line items in the budget.
City Attorney Tami Bach may have warned against voting by the City Commission, because voting on proposed budgets or other measures during a workshop (an insufficiently advertised meeting) is illegal under the Florida Sunshine Law. When questioned about the Commission’s “vote of consensus”, Mrs. Bach replied, “The Commission did not vote since the meeting was a budget workshop. [There are] No violations of Sunshine Law when polling Commissioners during a public meeting. The 2 public hearings and votes on millage rate and 2022-23 Budget will occur on Sept. 6 and Sept. 20.”
The full meeting video is available, here. For the “vote of consensus” refer to the 50:00 minute mark.
Matthew Decker is a Co-Founder of Citizens Journal Florida, having set up some of the technical and social media infrastructure. He also developed sourcing for some of its municipal government and business content. He is an Aerospace Engineer by trade. He has worked in NGO’s performing civic activities. He originally hails from Ventura, CA
By Dave Scott
8-10-22
I’ve been a press spokesman for a variety of corporations, and I’ve volunteered as press secretary for politicians running for office.
My background as a newspaper reporter prepared me for the onslaught of hostile questions I could expect when standing at a lectern in front of a group of journalists anxious to score an exclusive or publicly attack the enterprise conducting the media event.
The job offered an opportunity to fail or succeed in a public arena and I’ve witnessed folks who have done both.
One of the best spokespeople ever was the late Tony Snow, who served as the 25th White House Press Secretary for President George W. Bush from May 2006 to September 2007.
Snow, who was a journalist, political commentator, anchor, columnist, and musician, radiated charisma and charm. He came to the lectern fully prepared. When he didn’t have an answer he admitted it and then got back to the questioner. He managed the toughest press secretary’s job in the world with self-confidence, composure, humor, and grace. Sadly, ill health forced him to leave the position and just a few months after departing, he died of cancer at 53.
Currently the best in the business is unflappable Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s press secretary, Christina Pushaw.
How good is she? So good that Washington Post antagonist and media reporter, Paul Farhi, in a failed attempt to disparage her did just the opposite by penning the following: “In the 14 months since joining DeSantis’s staff, she has transformed the typically buttoned-down role of gubernatorial press secretary into something like a running public brawl — with Twitter as her blunt-force weapon. Her usual targets: Democrats, the news media and anyone else she deems insufficiently supportive of DeSantis’s agenda and her own conservative politics.”
Farhi’s lame attempt to discredit Ms. Pushaw inadvertently painted her as one of the best professionals in the business.
She doesn’t back down, staying on the offensive General George Patton style, continuing to advance even when her adversaries are retreating and in disarray. Her targets include biased and inaccurate outlets ranging from The New York Times and the Associated Press to the USA Today and CNN among other media outlets that get the facts wrong and allow their biases to slant their articles.
Farhi’s feeble Post piece quotes a publisher of a Sunshine State political website as saying that “She’s the Dennis Rodman of Florida politics,” referring to the professional basketball player who specialized in getting under the skin of his opponents.
Last month when a group of liberal media outlets publicly whined about being denied access to the conservative Sunshine Summit in the south Florida town of Hollywood Ms. Pushaw mocked them on Twitter saying: “Liberal media in Florida doomed itself to irrelevance because these ‘journalists’ make every story about themselves & their delusions of persecution,” she wrote. “People don’t want to read your handwringing. It’s not news. Nor is the 500th hit piece on Gov. DeSantis.”
The putrid media garbage Ms. Pushaw contends with is unrelenting. For example, when DeSantis sacked Florida Hillsborough County’s State Attorney Andrew Warren last week for pledging not to enforce laws that restrict abortions after 15 weeks and sex changes for minors, the reliably leftwing Tampa Bay Times described the action as: “politically craven, legally suspect, suspiciously timed and odorously soaked in autocracy, partisanship and bad faith.”
Last Friday, August 5, when the Florida Board of Medicine voted to begin the process of banning transgender hormone treatments for little children Ms. Pushaw blasted the media for their misleading reporting with numerous headlines saying: “Florida medical board moves to block gender affirming treatments for minors,”
In tweets posted Saturday, August 6, she called out the media for playing games with the “Orwellian euphemism ‘gender-affirming care.’”
Under her direction her office recently rejected a DeSantis invitation by ABC’s The View to appear on that show providing a producer a list of vile statements that program’s hosts previously made to smear the wildly popular Florida governor.
Someday this lady will make an outstanding White House press secretary.
Two of the worst White House press secretaries ever came back-to-back: Jen Psaki and Karine Jean-Pierre.
While staying calm under pressure, Ms. Psaki was arrogant, condescending and an outright liar. Her successor, Ms. Jean-Pierre, is flat out awful.
Like her boss in the Oval Office, the pathetic Ms. Jean-Pierre doesn’t appear to know where she is or what she is supposed to be doing. She provides answers that have nothing to do with the questions. She reads material unrelated to the question word-for-word from a thick briefing book without ever looking up. She is ill-prepared and easily flustered. Her appearances are cringeworthy. Her only qualifications appear to be that she’s a black lesbian.
I don’t know who is in charge of appointing White House press secretaries in the Biden administration but whoever it is should consider Admiral John Kirby, the knowledgeable former Pentagon spokesperson who is currently spokesman for the National Security Council. He’s smart, articulate, well-informed and can address issues without reading from notes or briefing books. However, since he’s as white as Snowy Bleach and doesn’t tick off any of the LGBTQA, etc. boxes he’s probably not under consideration.
Republished with the author’s permission. Read The Dave Scott Blog– subscribe Free
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
BY Jesse Scheckner
‘It’s the biggest single donation Crist has received this election cycle.’
U.S. Rep. Charlie Crist’s bid to retake the Governor’s Mansion this year is getting a big funding infusion from the American Federation of Teachers.
AFT, which boasts more than 1.7 million members across 3,000 local affiliates nationwide, is donating $500,000 to help him win the upcoming Democratic Primary and then defeat Gov. Ron DeSantis in November.
That’s the biggest check Crist’s campaign accepted this election cycle, according to his fundraising filings with the Division of Elections. It follows $50,000 worth of contributions since June from the Florida Education Association, which has endorsed Crist along with United Teachers of Dade, Democratic Public Education Caucus of Florida and other such unions throughout the state.
Read MORE in Florida Politics
8-9-22
from Emily Nunez Campaign
Meet & greet District 15 state house candidate Emily Nunez
Thursday August 11, 530-7pm. She’ll fight for Nassau County! Come meet her and ask questions.
By Jeff Childers
8-10-22
In a bizarre twist, another government scandal shows ties to Jeffrey Epstein. You can’t make this stuff up. And everything you need to know about the developing Trump raid story.
Good morning and Happy Humpday, C&C! It’s another Trump Raid Roundup, because there is that much to talk about. The roundup includes: conservatives fumed and even lukewarm Trump supporters got on board; smart liberals were anxious while the others were excited; even corporate media seems to doubt the FBI’s raid premise; the judge who signed the warrant looks 100% sus; and a bizarre connection to … Jeffry Epstein. You can’t make this stuff up.
🔥 The rhetorical conflagration continued burning out of control yesterday over the FBI raid on President Trump’s residence in Florida, as new details slowly emerged. Dems seemed surprised by the backlash and were in full retreat by the end of the day. Ms. Jean-Pierre told reporters Joe Biden had no idea about any raid, what raid? Pelosi slurred something about not having any information about the warrant.
Meanwhile senior GOP leaders, especially those with more ‘challenging’ relationships with Trump, were slow to address the issue, but by the end of the day yesterday even Mitch McConnell had — maybe not LEAPT into the fray — definitely at least dipped his toes into the fray.
Mark Payne @Mark_PaynewriteStatement from Sen. Mitch McConnell on the FBI raid at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago. August 9th 20222 Likes
McConnell got the message. To give you an idea how hot everybody is, after McConnell refused to comment about the raid earlier yesterday, a gigantic movement swelled on Twitter calling for him to resign. McConnell, no amateur to politics, got the idea by late afternoon and was back on the bus.
Every politician who wanted media attention got in the game. Although nobody cared what he thinks, even disgraced ex-governor Andrew Cuomo chimed in, worrying that the raid had better be well founded or it would “undermine” the January 6th investigation.
Former Democrat Presidential candidate Andrew Yang tweeted several times, also concerned that the raid would only help Trump’s 2024 prospects.
Politico ran a story about the raid with this one-sided but telling headline: “After the search: GOP Torches FBI, Hugs Trump.” The Politico article helpfully rounded up a bunch of other reports. One source told the Miami Herald that probable cause was established by Trump’s prior VOLUNTARY cooperation with the FBI when he had repeatedly invited them in to review documents at Mar-a-Lago and look at whatever they wanted. It sounds like this whole thing is IN FACT just about documents that some people think should be in the National Archive.
If that’s true, it will just make everyone madder. Even Politico said, “One perplexing aspect of the Mar-a-Lago search, at least to some legal analysts, is that the crime reportedly being investigated does not seem to match the unprecedented tactic of an FBI search of a former president’s residence.”
Some analysts went even further, already suggesting the raid could be a historic disaster for democrats, a political Hindenburg:
Rich Lowry, editor of the conservative National Review, examined the other side of the coin, suggesting that the raid was the best thing that could have possibly happened to Trump.
Rich Lowry @RichLowryTrump is winning the FBI-raid caucus going away—we’ll learn more, but this is his best day in pursuit of the 2024 nomination in a long timeAugust 9th 2022105 Retweets822 Likes
The liberal Washington Post ran a frustrated piece headlined, “The GOP’s Inauspicious Knee-Jerk Reaction To The Trump Raid.” Inauspicious? Id’ say it’s more like the RAID was inauspicious, but whatever. The WaPo thinks Republicans are deliberately over-reacting and theatrically using the raid as a political opportunity to express faux outrage. But there was this one concession that tells the whole story:
Indeed. I’m predicting “blowback” is an understatement.
The most interesting fact in the WaPo “analysis” was a link to a February WaPo article headlined, “National Archives Asks Justice Department To Investigate Trump’s Handling of Government Records.” The plain implication was that the National Archives’ request may have provided the predicate or excuse for the raid.
If so, that’s going to backfire badly.
In the looney leftwing fever swamps on Twitter, there was impassioned excitement yesterday after Marc Elias fingered a statute providing that people who mishandle classified documents become “disqualified from holding any office.” In their excitement to block Trump from running in 2024, they’d all forgotten that only a couple years ago, lefty legal minds already diagnosed the statute as unconstitutional, back when conservatives were equally excited about the prospect of applying it to Hilary Clinton.
The gist of their analysis was that the CONSTITUTION determines eligibility for the Presidency, and a documents-handling statute can’t change that. I think that’s right.
Evidencing that the establishment seemed to realize they’d badly overplayed their hand, somewhere around mid-day yesterday corporate media suddenly pivoted like a flock of mutant crows and dropped the word “raid:”
Not that it matters, and I’m sure you know this already, but — for the record — the definition of “raid” explicitly includes — at least it did up till yesterday — a sudden police action:
So get ready for the inevitable redefining fiesta.
🔥 Does all this amount to a political win for Trump? Here’s a telling anecdote for you.
Yesterday as I was leaving work, the owner of a neighboring business caught me in the parking lot. He’s a very nice, friendly guy and we’ve known each other for several years at the building. I always had the sense he was a moderate conservative, a person like I used to be, who probably pays little attention to local politics and maybe votes in the presidential election if they have time.
Anyway, he asked me about the raid and what I thought of it. He said it worried him. As we finished up, he told me that until yesterday he was dead set against Trump running again; “we’ve had enough of that.” But now, he said anxiously, he REALLY wants Trump to win. “He’s the only one who can fix this,” he explained.
It’s a sample size of one. But I’d bet a small electric car this is how a lot of folks are feeling. Biden bidened it, again.
There is a small class of people that I always advise clients it is not worth litigating against. These are people who pathologically LOVE to fight. The more you fight them, the more they like it, and the litigation always gets bigger, more complicated, and vastly more expensive.
Trump is one of those people. He loves the fight and can’t stand losing.
For evidence, just look at how he always enjoyed sparring with reporters. He loves it. And those fights only helped him, every time. No matter what reporters threw at him, Trump always turned it around and made it a political win. All Trump’s famous (or infamous) conflicts with media personalities worked in his favor.
Biden and the DNC would be certifiably insane to push this any further. But crazy seems to be right where they are living these days.
🔥 We also got some insight into which judge signed the search warrant authorizing the raid, and it’s totally uninteresting, everything looks perfectly normal and above-board. Haha, just kidding. You already guessed the whole thing is pretty sus. The warrant’s signer now appears to have been South District of Florida Magistrate Judge Bruce E. Reinhart.
I know you want to hear about Epstein, but hang on a second. Let’s talk about magistrate judges first, and where they come from. The first three Articles of the Constitution create the three branches of government. Article I creates the Legislative Branch. Article II creates the Executive Branch. Article III of the Constitution creates and empowers the Judicial Branch, including the federal court system.
As you would expect, regular federal judges exist and have power because of language provided by Article III. The Constitution provides that federal judges are appointed for life by the President and confirmed in the Senate.
So far, so good. But since a river of legal detritus constantly flows through federal courts that federal judges don’t want to have to deal with, they HIRE lawyers to be Magistrate Judges. Wielding powers delegated by the federal judges, these deputized magistrates can hold minor hearings, handle legal emergencies, adjudicate procedural disputes like arguments over discovery, sign search warrants, but who ultimately cannot enter significant orders themselves and only RECOMMEND things to the real federal judges.
There are some terrific, smart, long-serving magistrate judges. But they are not appointed by the President. They are not confirmed by the Senate. They do not serve for life. They are more like contract employees, and there is nothing in Article III that provides for them. Sometimes they’re called “Article I judges,” because they are created and authorized by statute (via the Legislative Branch) instead of the Constitution.
Without any criticism of magistrate judges, many of whom are excellent, they are NOT federal judges. They can be hired and fired, but they can’t sign final orders, which they can draft but which must be signed by a “real” federal judge. The magistrate job is viewed in the legal community as a real peach; good pay, great benefits, a great score.
You tell me: does it make sense for a newly-hired MAGISTRATE JUDGE to sign a search warrant authorizing a raid on a former President of the United States who is also a current candidate for the next Presidential election? Or do you think that might be the kind of thing a magistrate would send upstairs to a “real” federal judge, or maybe even a group of such judges?
You might think so, but Magistrat Reinhart evidently disagreed.
In other words, this warrant was NOT the kind of ordinary, run-of-the-mill, high-volume, low-importance kind of thing that magistrate judges are designed for, to help reduce the volume of more important legal matters that real federal judges have to deal with. So that’s weird.
But it gets weirder.
Perhaps anticipating blowback, the Southern District of Florida has disabled the link to Magistrate Judge Reinhart’s official web page. You can’t click on Reinhart’s name. He’s the only one out of SIXTEEN magistrates without a link. That’s not sketchy at all. Of course, he probably just doesn’t want to get a bunch of calls and emails or something. Either way, his page has been completely locked down:
Locking his web page down was useless, of course, because the page — a public record — can be viewed in the Internet Archive: Judge Bruce E. Reinhart | Southern District of Florida | United States District Court.
Reinhart has also set his Twitter profile to “private.” So.
Alright, now let’s talk about the OTHER stuff.
🔥 The NY Post ran a story yesterday headlined, “Judge Who OK’d Mar-a-Lago Raid Obama Donor Once Linked To Jeffrey Epstein.” It includes a good summary of what is now known about the magistrate.
Bruce Reinhart donated to President Obama’s campaign, made a small donation to Trump’s primary opponent Jeb Bush in 2016, and in 2017, posted anti-Trump comments and woke content on his Facebook page. All together, just this much was probably enough that Reinhart should have recused himself from the Trump warrant.
But in fact, just two months ago, Reinhart ALREADY recused himself from Trump’s lawsuit against Hilary Clinton filed earlier this year.
For context, here Reinhart is in a 2007 photo from his Facebook page:
Back in 2007, Reinhart was an assistant U.S. Attorney in the Southern District U.S. Attorney’s office, which was then prosecuting the Jeffrey Epstein case. According to court documents, Reinhart abruptly and without warning resigned on January 1st, 2008, and the very next day on January 2nd, he switched sides and started representing several of Jeffrey Epstein’s lieutenants and co-conspirators.
In fact, two of Epstein’s victims would later sue Reinhart, accusing him of violating Justice Department policies by switching sides in the middle of the Epstein investigation, suggesting he had spilled inside information about the probe to Epstein, which is why the infamous pedophile hired him to represent his co-defendants.
In a 2013 court filing, Reinhart’s former colleagues at the U.S. Attorney’s office testified that Reinhart had in fact “learned confidential, non-public information about the Epstein matter” while employed by the US Attorney’s Office. Reinhart denied it, of course, and the civil case against him was ultimately dismissed by the Justice Department. And the wheels of government spun on.
In the 2008 Epstein case, Reinhart represented Epstein’s pilots; his scheduler, Sarah Kellen, who arranged “massages” — up to three a day — where Epstein would rape his victims, according to witnesses; and Nadia Marcinkova, who Epstein once reportedly described as his “Yugoslavian sex slave,” but who is described in legal documents as Epstein’s collaborator, co-conspirator, and procurer.
Reinhart helped his clients get complete immunity from the government, in a controversial 2007 deal with federal prosecutors that also allowed Epstein to plead guilty to lesser state charges rather than any of the more serious federal crimes.
Here’s a clip of Reinhart defending Lois Lerner’s weaponization of the IRS to persecute conservatives:
Maze @mazemooreWatch the mental gymnastics that Bruce Reinhart (judge who signed off on Mar-a-Lago warrant) goes through to defend Lois Lerner deleting two years of emails during the IRS scandal. August 9th 20222,705 Retweets3,943 Likes
In March 2018, Reinhart was hired as a Magistrate Judge for the Southern District.
It’s a fair question to ask how Reinhart got assigned to the case. According to criminal defense attorneys who practice in the Southern District, magistrate judges are assigned to warrant duty on a weekly rotation and the schedules are published in advance. DOJ prosecutors can time when they file for the search warrant to get whatever judge they want.
Gosh, I’m already late and running long. You’re up to date for your Raid Day Two news. Hopefully we’ll be back to a regular news roundup tomorrow. Stand by!
Have a wonderful, if wacky, Wednesday, and I’ll see you then.
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© 2022 Jeff Childers, Republished with author’s permission
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
By Steve Frank
8-10-22
While this is satire—it is the truth. Dick Cheney loved wars. Under him as VP, we passed the first of the fascist bills, name The Patriot Act. It was anything but patriotic, just as the Inflation Reduction Act is anything but an income reduction act and freedom reduction Act.
“”Donald Trump is an evil reprobate and a big meanie, and a danger to our Constitutional rights,” growled the retired politician who orchestrated the brutal torture of hundreds of detainees who were held without trial. “We must make sure he never gets elected to office again. And also, vote for my daughter, Liz.”
I wonder if on August 16 Liz Cheney will claim voter fraud as the reason she lost her congressional seat—or if she will use the loss on August 17 to announce she wants to embarrass herself nationally and run for President.
BabylonBee.com, 8/5/22
WILSON, WY — Former Vice President Dick Cheney, who famously started two wars in the Middle East and shot a dude in the face while hunting, now says Donald Trump is the greatest threat America has ever faced.
“Donald Trump is an evil reprobate and a big meanie, and a danger to our Constitutional rights,” growled the retired politician who orchestrated the brutal torture of hundreds of detainees who were held without trial. “We must make sure he never gets elected to office again. And also, vote for my daughter, Liz.”
Political consultants applauded Liz Cheney for her brilliant move of tapping one of the most hated politicians in history to help boost her political chances. Initial polling indicates her approval has climbed .0000002 percentage points since Dick Cheney’s statement.
“If there’s a singular figure universally adored by every hard-working American, it’s Dick Cheney,” said a spokesperson for the campaign. “We are grateful for his endorsement, and look forward to seeing her represent the citizens of Wyoming.”
Trump was quick to respond to Cheney’s statement, saying “Poor little Dick Cheney! He’s so mad that I got elected president instead of him. Boo hoo! Maybe he should stop shooting dudes in the face! Sorry, Dick!”
At publishing time, Liz Cheney’s approval dipped again after her Dad accidentally shot another dude in the face.
Originally appeared in California Political Review
Stephen Frank is the publisher and editor of California Political News and Views. He speaks all over California and appears as a guest on several radio shows each week. He has also served as a guest host on radio talk shows. He is a fulltime political consultant.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
By Kevin Derby
8-9-22
U.S. Reps. Stephanie Murphy, D-Fla., and John Rutherford led a congressional letter to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Administrator Richard Spinrad, asking him “to suspend further consideration of area closures in the South Atlantic until data from the ongoing South Atlantic Great Red Snapper Count can be integrated into management decisions.”
Rutherford’s office offered some of the reasons why he helped organize the letter.
Read more in Florida Daily
From State of Florida
8-3-22
ROCKLEDGE, Fla. – Today, Governor Ron DeSantis was joined by Florida health officials to announce the expansion of a new, piloted substance abuse and recovery network to disrupt the opioid epidemic. The network of addiction care – Coordinated Opioid Recovery (CORE) – is the first of its kind in the nation, coordinated through the Department of Health, Department of Children and Families, and the Agency for Health Care Administration. Governor DeSantis also announced the appointment of Dr. Courtney Phillips as the first Statewide Director of Opioid Recovery. For more information, click here.
“Biden’s border crisis has caused a massive infusion of drugs coming into our state,” said Governor Ron DeSantis. “This year we increased the penalties for individuals trafficking drugs in our state, and now we are giving Floridians the tools they need to break the substance abuse cycle. Substance abuse can affect any family at any time, so from education to law enforcement to treatment we are going to make sure that Floridians can take advantage of this new addiction recovery model.”
“It is so vital for individuals contending with a substance use disorder to have access to the right array of services that will work for their individual needs,” said Department of Children and Families Secretary Shevaun Harris. “When agencies, stakeholders, and partners alike come together to bolster our state’s system of care, we can ensure that Floridians have access to comprehensive services when they need it most. Today’s announcement of the implementation of the CORE Network model throughout the state is yet another example of how the DeSantis administration is leveraging our state’s resources to help families move forward with dignity on their journey of recovery.”
“Addiction is heartbreaking for all involved, and we ultimately want to help people address the stress traumas that led them to addiction,” said State Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo. “One day the standard of care will address the trauma and the stress, but until then we have the evidence-based practices that exist in place. This program is an applied, intensive application to managing addiction through powerful, effective practice that connects people to what they need to get out of the horrific cycle of addiction.”
“Substance use disorder is a chronic, life-threatening, and relapsing disease that needs to be treated like all other chronic diseases with medical and subspecialty expertise,” said Florida Department of Health Deputy Secretary for Health Dr. Kenneth Scheppke. “Launching CORE will create a sustained system of care to manage the complex medical needs of these patients and bring lasting recovery and good health.”
“I understand the struggle on a more personal level – today I am over 4 years sober,” said Haven House Peer Recovery Coach Justin Perse. “At a young age I was sexually abused and did not know how to deal with this mental burden. My mom never gave up on me, and her prayers paid off. I was put in touch with a wonderful couple who let me into their home, and then I was in a faith based program to become the best version of myself. I want to lead people and guide them through the pitfalls of alcohol and addiction, it’s only by His grace that I am here today.”
As the Statewide Director of Opioid Recovery, Dr. Courtney Phillips will provide support for the behavioral health system. Dr. Phillips will offer clinical consultations for addicts seeking treatment and recovery services. She is an adult psychologist who currently serves as the Director of Behavioral Health for the Health Care District of Palm Beach County.
“The state of Florida should be proud today to take the lead on systematically tackling the opioid and substance use epidemic with compassion and competent care,” said Statewide Director of Opioid Recovery Dr. Courtney Phillips. “Our state and communities did not choose this epidemic, but today we choose to treat this medical and psychiatric illness like any other, with access, evidence based care, and lifelong comprehensive treatment.”
In 2022, there have already been nearly 2,000 fatal overdoses in Florida. In Brevard County, law enforcement is seizing more illicit drugs than ever before, especially fentanyl. Last year, the Brevard County Sheriff’s Office, with the Central Florida High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area Team, saw a 72% increase in drug overdose fatalities related to fentanyl.
This program was successfully piloted in Palm Beach County for nearly two years and will be expanding in up to twelve counties to break the overdose cycle. Floridians battling with addiction can utilize CORE for stabilization and to receive medical assisted treatment that is specialized to sustain a clean pathway to success. CORE will be expanded in two phases. Phase one counties include Brevard, Clay, Duval, Escambia, Gulf, Manatee, Marion, Pasco, and Volusia counties.
Those of us around in the early 60s remember Jackie Gleason’s trademark response to his wife Alice, yet the Moon has captivated mankind ever since man started looking up into the sky. The story of our return to the moon is filled with milestones, innovation and creativity.
Why Go Back?
The technological innovations that come from human exploration of the Moon have direct practical applications here on Earth. Technology developed by NASA, according to “how stuff works” is now used in everything from infant formula to cell phones. We now have robotic surgical capabilities. Aircraft flights are much safer due to deicing chemicals developed by NASA. Other items you may or may not realize as being developed by the space program include better sunglasses, memory foam, freeze-dried food, microchips and cordless tools to name just a few. You get the picture.
Developing the technology necessary to establish a human presence on the Moon will have untold applications in the future. Moon exploration can give us a wealth of information about our sun, our solar system, and earth.
The Moon also has exciting potential resources, according to NASA. Mining rare earth elements and platinum group metals can provide valuable commercial development. Helium-3 could be used to power nuclear fusion reactors, fueling clean energy development. Creating the technology to explore and extract the Moon’s resources will help us learn to extract resources from asteroids.
Perhaps the most valuable resource on the Moon is water in the form of ice. Lunar ice can help us replenish oxygen and create rocket fuel that propels us to Mars. The two elements that make up water can be separated and converted to the basic elements of rocket fuel: liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen. Using the Moon as a refueling station will allow us to launch from Earth without being weighed down by all the fuel needed for the entire Mars journey.
Lunar ice is just one of many reasons that our ambition to visit Mars and travel deeper into space requires us to first return to the Moon. It will give us the ability to develop and test technology, life-support, radiation protection, communications, and propulsion systems to safely send humans to Mars.
From NASA’s Artemis webpage, there are 4 integral parts to getting us back to the Moon safely and returning multiple times.
The Space Launch System
SLS is the heavy-lift launch vehicle that will get Artemis hardware first into orbit around Earth, then to the Moon. SLS is designed to be flexible, based on the needs of the mission: launching crew or cargo to Earth orbit, sending material and personnel to the Moon, etc. The rocket will thus be available in different configurations, known as blocks.
The SLS Block 1 will be able to lift more than 59,000 pounds (26,760 kilograms) to the Moon; later versions will lift more than 100,000 pounds (45,360 kg) to the Moon. Crewed versions of the SLS will carry an escape system atop the Orion crew capsule, whereas cargo versions will not. SLS can carry payloads of various sizes, depending on what a given mission requires.
SLS consists of two solid rocket boosters (SRBs) attached to a central liquid-fueled core stage. Although on the surface, this looks a lot like the Space Shuttle Program’s launch vehicle, these SRBs are larger than those used for the Space Shuttle. This will allow Artemis to send payloads beyond Earth’s orbit.
The core stage looks like the one used for the space shuttle. The Artemis core stage not only carries the same liquid hydrogen and oxygen fuel tanks, but will also house four engines. The space shuttle’s external tank had no engines of its own. Instead, NASA used the shuttle orbiter’s three main engines. The Artemis core stage will hold more than 500,000 gallons of liquid hydrogen and almost 200,000 gallons of liquid oxygen. Wow, think about THAT gas bill!
The Orion Spacecraft
The Orion spacecraft will carry crews. Like Apollo, Orion will also be topped by a launch escape system that fits over the crew module (CM). Its three solid rocket motors can be ignited if a situation arises requiring the astronauts to separate from SLS during launch.
The Orion crew module (CM) is larger than its Apollo predecessor and can accommodate four astronauts per mission, as compared to Apollo’s three. While the longest Apollo mission (Apollo 17) lasted about 12 and a half days, Orion is designed to accommodate spaceflights up to 21 days in length.
In contrast to Apollo’s crowded control panels, which featured hundreds of manual switches and controls designed to be operated by hands in bulky pressure suit gloves, Orion will be fully controllable via just a small number of flatscreen interfaces (similar to SpaceX’s manned Dragon spacecraft) with limited switches.
Orion also carries four solar panels. These panels are stowed during launch and deployed once Orion is safely in space.
The Lunar Orbiter – “Gateway”
The design of the Lunar Orbiter -Gateway- is very original and is a manned space station that will orbit the Moon. Gateway will be about 1/6 the size of the International Space Station (ISS) currently in use. It will serve a variety of functions: a local “mission control” for crewed missions to the lunar surface, a site for spacecraft to rendezvous on trips between the Moon and Earth, a platform for astronomical observations, a space-based science laboratory. One day Gateway will serve as a launch point for missions to Mars.
Gateway will be constructed in stages, with different modules and components launched into space at different times. NASA has contracted with SpaceX to use its Falcon Heavy rocket to loft the first two components of the station into space. The pair will be integrated on the ground before launch. Other modules will be added later on, including a habitation module.
The Lunar Lander
The Lunar Lander will ferry astronauts to and from the lunar surface. Once the Orion spacecraft nears the Moon and docks with the Gateway in orbit, astronauts will use the Lunar Lander to step foot on the Moon. It is basically a hybrid design of the Apollo lunar lander. NASA has selected three companies: Blue Origin, Dynetics, and SpaceX to develop the lunar landing system for the Artemis Program.
The First Three Missions
NASA details the first three flights to the Moon on its Artemis webpages.
Artemis I
NASA aims to launch Artemis I, an uncrewed flight test of the Orion spacecraft, sometime during the late 2022. Artemis I will travel 280,000 miles from Earth in the direction of the Moon, pass it, and not land on its lunar surface. If all goes to plan, Artemis I will return to Earth after setting a new record for the most time in space without docking to the ISS.
Artemis II
After the success of Artemis I, and in mid to late 2023, Artemis II will launch as the first crewed flight of the Orion spacecraft. Orion will circle the Earth twice and possibly fire up its engine allowing it to be propelled towards the Moon. After orbiting the Moon, Orion will use the Moon’s gravitational pull to slingshot itself back to Earth with the crew for a safe landing.
Artemis III
The year 2025 marks the main event with Artemis III, a second crewed flight aboard the Orion spacecraft. Once in orbit, the spacecraft will dock with the Gateway that is currently being built. The astronauts will transfer to the lunar lander, allowing for the first woman and next man to step foot on the Moon’s south pole.
On December 9, 2020, NASA announced the Artemis Team, consisting of the top nine men and woman astronauts selected to lead the way for missions to the Moon. One of the nine women will be the first to step foot on the lunar surface.
5 Million Parts, All By The Lowest Bidder…….”
Considering the short timeline until we once again land on the Moon, we’re still facing some large technical and financial challenges. Development of the Artemis space suits alone is now projected to cost $1 billion, and the entire Artemis project is currently estimated to cost $93 billion through 2025. NASA is eager to move forward with the Artemis program, but has had several setbacks, including COVID-19 and its related supply chain issues.
The space race that took all of us on a flight of imagination with Apollo to the Moon had the nation’s support. Artemis is a much different program, one that has limitless possibilities and includes the eventual landing on Mars. A different program for a different century, one in which few remember the saying “to the Moon Alice! “God’s speed Artemis!”
Sources
https://astronomy.com/news/2022/02/nasa-inches-closer-to-artemis-i-launch
https://aviationweek.com/artemis
https://www.planetary.org/space-missions/artemis
https://science.howstuffworks.com/innovation/inventions/top-5-nasa-inventions.htm
https://spacenews.com/cost-and-schedule-overruns-continue-to-grow-for-nasa-programs/
Tom Lockie is the Transportation and Travel Editor for the Citizens Journal Florida. A veteran and recently retired airline Captain, Tom considers aviation and travel his ongoing passions . Tom is a published author, featured in the USA Today for his children’s book “Come Fly with Me“.
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By George Miller
8-9-22 (originally published 2-4-21)
Channel Islands Republican Women Federated hosted Dr. Wen Chen as the featured speaker at their recent meeting at a popular harbor eatery. Her mission was to expose what she and many others believe to be the significant menace posed by the Chinese Communist party (CCP).
Above photo: Wen Chen speaking at Channel Islands Republican Women Federated meeting
Dr. Chen, a noted speaker on Chinese culture, history and human rights, grew up in China in an environment dominated by the CCP, which rules the nation with an iron hand. She came to the US on a student visa, with a scholarship to CalTech, works as a biologist and information scientist and also focuses on raising her children and speaking.
“Wen said that 371 million Chinese have renounced their affiliation to the Chinese Communist Party through a “Quit the Party” movement (https://faluninfo.net/the-tuidang-movement-and-falun-gong/) and that resistance is building.” The affiliation includes the Chinese Communist Party, the Youth League of the Chinese Communist Party, and the Young Pioneers of the Chinese Communist Party. One may have only joined the Youth League or the Young Pioneer but not the official party. 371 million include all of them. She never had a Party membership.
Chen’s husband works for the famously anti-Communist Epoch Times. Growing up surrounded by everything CCP, she told us that over a five year period she realized the evil the party was doing and committed herself to doing something about it.
Her presentation: “Chinese Communist Party’s Censorship and Infiltration into the World”, more than lived up to its already ambitious objective. You can view the visuals here: CIRWF_20210127
From the original event announcement:
A CONVERSATION WITH CHINA SPECIALIST DR. WEN CHEN
THE CHINESE COMMUNIST PARTY (CCP) QUICKLY GAINED FINANCIAL POWER AFTER CHINA JOINED THE WORLD TRADE ORGANIZATION. DURING THE PAST 20 YEARS, THE CHINESE GOVERNMENT BUILT UP BUSINESS TIES WITH HOLLYWOOD AND OVER 30 MAINSTREAM MEDIA WORLDWIDE TO TELL A BETTER STORY ABOUT CHINA. HUNDREDS OF UNIVERSITIES, INCLUDING THE COLLEGE BOARD, OUTSOURCED MANDARIN TEACHING TO THE CHINESE GOVERNMENT.
THE CHINESE CONSULATES ACTIVELY MANIPULATE CHINESE AMERICANS AND BUSINESS OWNERS WHO MAY STEAL INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY OR INFLUENCE ELECTIONS. THE U.S. LAWMAKERS CANNOT STOP AT “CONDEMNING HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES IN CHINA.” THEY MUST TAKE SERIOUS ACTIONS TO PREVENT AMERICAN BUSINESSES FROM SPONSORING THE CCP. WE ALSO NEED SERIOUS MEASURES TO PROTECT ACADEMIC AND PRESS FREEDOM.
It was supported by comprehensive visual aids (see link above) and was very impactful in describing: the heavy oppression and surveillance the Chinese Communist Party imposes upon citizens; the shocking degree of infiltration of institutions, governments and societies around the world; the surveillance, intimidation and co-opting of Chinese citizens abroad; the reign of fear and terror it maintains at home and is rapidly spreading abroad. Finally, she connected some of the dots to show us how they are employing espionage, pressure tactics, infiltration, blackmail and more to exert a huge amount of control in the USA and what might be done about it.
Considering all of that, it is not hard to understand why the Trump administration departed from past practices and worked so hard to change US policies regarding China. This recent article in the Epoch Times covers that. In fairness, China’s greatly increased aggressive policies in recent years made it more evident, making both the threat and the need to address it more obvious. Dr. Chen did not delve much into related partisan issues.
Things are Bad In-County
Dr. Chen first described the Chinese Communist Party rule as “totalitarian,” a total surveillance and controlled society- by the party and for the party. She outlined generations of rule, including:
1957-60- The Great Leap Forward” which resulted in a famine and 30 million dead.
First generation- Mao Tse Tung (ruled 1949-1976) and the Great Cultural Revolution, which resulted in schools being shut down for ten years and eradication of the elites. She said 2 million died, antiques and temples were destroyed and Mao was portrayed as a god.
Second Generation- Deng Xiaoping. He was best known for brutal repression, illustrated by the Tiananmen Square Massacre which followed a peaceful protest.
Third generation- Jiang Zeman brought about more major, brutal repression, which has also resulted in millions killed, imprisoned, tortured, organ-harvested, sexually abused, and more, especially to the Falun Gong group.
Major censorship and repression of activities, media, political and social expression is worsening. Censorship is impacting books, foreign media, Internet access, blogging and viewing, especially political and social. China has largely separated the public from the worldwide Internet and gone to its own Intranet, fenced off by the “Great Firewall of China” (a play on “The Great Wall of China”) complete with 2 million “Internet Police.” Phones are also monitored. (But, then that’s also beginning to occur in the USA.) She gave an estimate of over 200 million surveillance cameras in the country. Much of this equipment is augmented by speech/visual recognition and artificial intelligence systems.
But while all this was happening, China was developing and building an industrial, technological, commercial and organizational base for the future, After joining the World Trade Organization (WTO) things really took off. But there was a dark side to all this, Chen pointed out. The ruling CCP resorted to any and nearly all methods to win and dominate, many of them illegal, unethical and cruel.
Currently, the government, which is ruled by the CCP, controls all media, with censorship of books, films, social media and foreign media exclusion. They have blocked most of the worldwide Internet, However, dissidents have had some success breaching “The Great Firewall”. The same repression applies to telephone systems. The Communist Party has chapters in every company, school and organization. Artificial intelligence, facial recognition and social credit surveillance are employed.
She pointed out that American Companies have helped CCP tyranny, including CISCO helping to build the Great Firewall and Yahoo giving them Chinese journalists’ email.
Chen asserted that China controls the UN, pointing out the countries in its orbit which usually vote with it, not only in the General Assembly, but on numerous committees and organizations within the UN, such as the World Health Organization (WHO).
CCP throws up huge obstacles to American business, imposing rules making it tougher to do business and make a profit. They are infamous for intellectual property (IP) theft and coercing transfer of IP, reverse engineering and counterfeiting. They make it very difficult if not impossible to contest this. They engage in currency manipulation and do export subsidies in violation of WTO rules. They do not hold themselves to the same anti-pollution and labor laws as much of the rest of the world and have negotiated tremendously lopsided advantages for themselves in agreements such as the Paris Accords, which were rejected by the Trump Administration but immediately re-accepted by Biden.
But the CCP Control is Spreading World-Wide
Dr. Chen pointed out that China is propping up other totalitarian dictatorships, such as North Korea, Iran & Cuba and even providing them resources to stir up trouble elsewhere in the world. This includes support for NK’s nuclear program and exporting US technology to Iran.
To start with, CCP attempts to monitor and control Chinese Americans’ activities, via holding families as hostages, and extreme pressure tactics. Citizens are recruited to spy on each other- in fact, that’s often a condition for foreign postings, study and work.
Chinese consulates are utilized as spying and control hubs to monitor Chinese Americans’ activities (students, workers), pressure them via passport renewal cancellations/visas, threats to family back in China, forced return.
CCP is buying or obtaining operating contracts for ports and other key infrastructure.
Chinese electronics can have “backdoors” built in which facilitate surveillance, remote control, even sabotage.
CCP’s Belt & Road initiative locks up weaker countries in one-sided trade, development and loan arrangements.
CCP Influence Increasingly Gripping the USA
Many of the worldwide threats mentioned above also affect the USA. Chinese students, businesses and workers in the US are often pressured and controlled. Spies steal military and industrial secrets/intellectual properties in industry, academia and the military, not just in the US, but in countries/companies abroad.
They are making large donations to US universities, funding chairs/schools and spreading their ideas via the “Confucius Institute and influencing curricula.They even form CCP chapters right here in the US.
CCP has made increasing inroads into Hollywood, sometimes influencing or demanding movie content changes, or influencing what productions occur. They even own the largest US movie theater chain- AMC.
CCP has stolen military and industrial technology and processes that have enabled it to leaprog generations of development, avoiding much of the time and expense while posing stronger military and competitive trade threats.
Chinese hardware and software can be used to collect the above, plus maintain surveillance on companies, military, organizations and individuals. In some cases, companies are coerced or even willingly do this for CCP. In some cases, software developed for repression in China is used in the US or inspires versions that are. American companies have sometimes developed this software for China. Some can be and is used in the US too.
Chinese consulates are hubs for spying on the US government, industry and society. Chinese nationals in the US are pressured to spy for the CCP.
China has infiltrated American Academia via its “Confucius Institute ” program, funding programs, blacklisting scholars and journalists who say things they don’t like, especially about human rights- and offering special treatment to those who do. Publishers are pressured to censor material CCP doesn’t like. They control Chinese student organizations, block universities speaking out on human rights abuses, threaten student leaders.
CCP has been successful in influencing American Mainstream Media content in its favor, It even has many of them distributing its own propaganda sheets inserted into their publications. “China Watch” is inserted in numerous major papers. It comes with the LA Times one Sunday per month (see below)
“China Watch” delivered with last Sunday’s LA Times
Most Chinese language media in the US are controlled or influenced by the CCP. CCP media ownership is also increasing. “The Chinese government’s TV, Radio, and newspapers are made available in the U.S. At the same time, Beijing also offers to buy mainstream English media. San Francisco Examiner was acquired by a local family with close ties to the CCP.
Significantly, CCP is also influencing politics, supporting people who will help their objectives, opposing those that don’t. They have co-opted political representatives and officials via “honey traps,” money, negative publicity, special favors. Such people are strongly discouraged, even threatened, not to speak out against CCP human rights abuses, and not to support Taiwan, Hong Kong, Tibet or Uyghurs.
Fighting the CCP Threat
Just becoming aware of the type, source and level of threat is the first step of dealing with it.This presentation is an example.
In 2018, DOJ ordered two Chinese state-run organizations to register as foreign agents: Xinhua News Agency and China Global Television Network. The US State Department identified those and three others: China Radio International, China Daily and People’s Daily, have been identified as “Foreign Missions.” (It will be very interesting to see how the Biden administration deals with this and other China threats.)
Some US universities are shutting down Confucius Institute chapters and the US is refusing to fund programs offered by CI. It remains to be seen what the Biden administration will do about such things.
Senator Ted Cruz introduced the Stop Higher Education Espionage and Theft Act.
Wen presented Falun Gong as the most powerful mainland China counterweight to CCP tyranny. While are not designed as an opposition group, their philosophies are antithetical to much of the CCP’s and are regarded as a threat to them.
Some media, such as the Epoch Times (1 million+ circulation and growing fast) and this publication have run numerous articles exposing some of this, its consequences and what might be done about it.
Dr. Chen summarized Falun Gong resistance to CCP within China, with these highlights:
1989-1999: Chinese people remained silent towards injustice after the Tiananmen Massacre
1999-2001: Falun Gong practitioners’ public appeal against the persecution awoke Chinese society
2001 – present: Falun Gong practitioners developed & distributed free software to help Chinese people to bypass the Internet Great Firewall
2004 – present: The “Quit the Communist party” (a.k.a “Tuidang”) Movement allowed 371 million Chinese people to renounce their affiliation with the Chinese Communist Party, the Youth League of Chinese Communist Party, and the Young Pioneer of the Chinese Communist Party.
2005 – present: Hundreds of human rights lawyers emerged in China
2015 – present: Chinese people filed lawsuits against human rights perpetrators
Much more is happening or proposed than was covered in this presentation, which mainly focused on threat identification.
Impressions
The presentation was very well-received by the mostly Conservative, mostly women audience. My conversations with a few attendees revealed that they were already concerned about the situation and this presentation revealed even more than they already knew.
Q & A Session (words are paraphrased, not quoted):
Q: Was the CCP virus (COVID-19) engineered?
A: A 2015 Nature article indicated the Wuhan Lab had been genetically engineering “gain-of-function” coronaviruses with collaboration with a research group in the U.S. when such funding was still allowed during the Obama administration. (while it hasn’t been positively determined that was the source of COVID-10, there are some indications that it might be.) SARS viruses escaped twice from a Lab in Beijing in 2004. In Jan. 2020, a Chinese scientist was sentenced to prison for selling Lab animals to markets. China passed the first biosafety law in Feb. 2020.”
Q: What can we do about corrupt officials/institutions?
A: First identify, expose and confront them. Hollywood belongs to the Chinese.
Q: I remarked that this was a powerful presentation with some blockbuster accusations and asked if it is supported by references/bibliography, as my publication of a report on this event would result in some pushback and demand for sourcing.
A. Dr, Chen said she would provide that and later sent me this first installment of sources: https://wenchenview.blogspot.com/2021/02/the-chinese-communist-partys.html . More will be coming, we were promised.
Q: Panama Canal belongs to (is actually operated by) Chinese.
A: Also Port of London, Some SoCal facilites and more. They have attempted to control LA, San Diego, Long Beach- rejected.
Q: You are brave- are you in danger?
A: Can’t ever return to China. Many are now speaking out about the dangers of CCP.
Q: What about students coming from China?
A: The CCP always wanted students to work for the government, whether they came by themselves or were sponsored by the Chinese authority. No matter what, once these students are here, it is their opportunity to learn freedom and democracy. The CCP encourages students to report fellow students’ activities. There is a distrust among the Chinese students regarding these sensitive topics, but they trust Americans. Americans should tell them the facts about China. I awoke from the CCP’s brainwash because my American colleagues helped me.
Q: What about “Formosa” (Taiwan)?:
A: It would be very difficult for China to take it by force and US opposes it. A free Taiwan has great importance since it is living proof of how much freer and more prosperous a free Chines society can be. It is a great example of democracy in great contrast to CCP China. It was Taiwan which was the first outside land to discover the CCP virus in China and the first to block air travel from mainland China and rely upon its own approach to dealing with it (NOT WHO’s).
Q: What about CCP “tentacles” in Argentina/South America/Patagonia?
A: I am not familiar with the situation in Argentina. The CCP has been migrating Chinese people to areas they wanted to occupy or influence, such as Tibet or Xinjiang. The same to other countries. There are many Chinese workers in countries involved in Belt & Road Initiative, such as Italy. They are also buying U.S. lands.
Q: COVID-19 vaccine?
A: The U.S. vaccine should be much better than the ones in China. COVID has a low death rate, and vaccines also have side effects. Certain people (such as those who with allergy) may not be suitable for vaccines. It depends on personal situations. A significant number of people may already have antibodies.
More:
You can check these articles on https://challengesweface.org/. Each article is a summary with references to mainstream media reports.
Infiltration to U.S. education system:
https://challengesweface.org/professors-comrades/
https://challengesweface.org/china-money-floods-u-s-universities/
https://challengesweface.org/ccp-cells-on-campus/
https://challengesweface.org/ccp-propaganda-in-u-s-curriculum/
https://challengesweface.org/ccps-united-front-in-the-u-s/
Infiltration to U.S. media
https://challengesweface.org/how-china-shapes-our-media/
Infiltration to Hollywood
https://challengesweface.org/chinawood/
Chinese Consulates’ Secret Mission
https://challengesweface.org/secret-missions/
Also, about Wen’s personal experience of propaganda in China:
https://wenchenview.blogspot.com/2020/11/awake-from-communist-brainwashing.html
and Wen’s personal notes (with references) about the origin of SARS_CoV-2:
https://wenchenview.blogspot.com/2020/12/timeline-tracking-origin-of-sars-cov-2.html
This article originally published in Citizens Journal- Ventura County on 2/04/2021
George Miller is Publisher and Co-Founder of Citizens Journal Florida, based in Fernandina Beach. He is a “retired” operations management consultant, software and publishing executive and manufacturing management professional.
By Jeff Childers
8-9-22
Happy Monday, C&C! Since it will surely dominate the news cycle, this morning’s post includes a roundup of news and hot takes on yesterday’s raid of President Trump’s home. And a little good news to tide you over.
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🔥 Joe Biden, wearing a stunning leopard-print monokini, backstroked across the Rubicon yesterday. Lefty Florida Politics broke the story late yesterday and it spread like wildfire: In service to the lowest-polling president in history, failed Supreme Court candidate Merrick Garland ordered thirty FBI agents to raid President Trump’s personal residence in Mar-a-Lago, Florida.
Peter Schorsch @PeterSchorschFLScoop — The Federal Bureau of Investigation @FBI today executed a search warrant at Mar-a-Lago, two sources confirm to @Fla_Pol. “They just left,” one source said. Not sure what the search warrant was about. TBH, Im not a strong enough reporter to hunt this down, but its real. August 8th 20224,799 Retweets19,601 Likes
The raid’s rationale remains unknown. Corporate media pundits speculated yesterday the raid was related to some “missing” National Archive documents Trump was supposed to have taken with him when he left office. In its article about the raid, for example, the Wall Street Journal noted that “Officials can face up to five years in prison for removing classified materials.” But that theory turned out to be a hot take and has mostly dried up since it emerged online that the documents had been returned to the National Archives weeks ago.
Neither DOJ or FBI commented, citing an ongoing investigation.
Trump wasn’t there when the FBI raid happened; he was in New York. President Trump’s lawyer Christina Bobb, who was present during the search, confirmed that federal agents “seized paper.” A statement from the former President said agents also broke into his safe. Eric Trump, who was on site, told reporters the safe was empty, nothing was found in it.
You could say nothing like this has ever happened before an election, but the truth is, nothing like this has ever happened before in U.S. history — period, full stop. Not before, during, or after an election. It’s new territory, a brave new post-Covid world, a great reset of our of representative republic.
It is impossible to underestimate how politically significant this raid will be.
In a two-page letter released after the raid, President Trump used the term “banana republic,” and he’s not wrong. There’s a reason why former presidents have always been off-limits for criminal prosecution despite there being plenty of reasons to investigate each and every one of them. Take Biden for example. The contents of Hunter’s laptop, plus Hunter’s former business partner’s testimony, provide plenty of justification for a potentially momentous investigation of the Resident in Chief by a subsequent administration.
If the Justice Department is going to pin its raid on “improperly removed documents,” then folks will have a LOT of questions about why Bill Clinton was never prosecuted. And don’t even get me started on Hilary Clinton’s mishandling of classified documents and her private classified email server — which were also never prosecuted. The FBI credulously accepted Clinton’s explanation of ignorance of the law and cheerfully overlooked her bleach-bitted evidence destruction.
People are understandably doubtful about the raid, because there’s already a storied history of failed prosecution attempts against Trump. From Russia-gate to two impeachment cases — one for an allegedly mis-handled call with Ukraine where Trump wanted a certain former vice-president investigated, who is now directing the investigation against Trump. Not to mention that the Trump investigation is being run by an Attorney General who Trump rejected for the Supreme Court. No conflicts of interest there! Now consider how the FBI has lately been exposed selectively prosecuting Biden’s political adversaries, and has been outed for manufacturing evidence, like in Gretchen Whitmer’s “kidnapping” case.
Coincidentally, Stephen D’Antuono, the same FBI agent who led the Detroit field office during the embarrassing Gretchen Whitmer kidnapping-manufacturing evidence scandal, did such a bang-up job that he was promoted to lead the Washington D.C. office as the pandemic got under way in 2020. The FBI’s Washington D.C. office is almost certainly the same office that is now handling the Trump investigation and the raid.
So.
As it happens, I recently sued a city and its police department over what is alleged to have been a politically-motivated SWAT raid that seized electronics. That was just a local affair. In order to execute a highest-profile search like this one against former President Trump, a bunch of important high-level stuff had to happen, and a lot of top-level Biden Administration officials must have been involved.
First, a senior FBI agent had to swear out an affidavit of probable cause that would support a search. As a history-making search, it is almost certain that both FBI Director Chris Wray and Attorney General Merrick Garland had to sign off on it, and may even have presented it to the court together. A federal judge had to review and approve the affidavit. We’ll eventually find out which judge it was, and I’ll bet you an all-expenses paid trip to Taiwan on Nancy Pelosi’s jet that the judge was appointed by a democrat president.
The judge would have asked the DOJ why a simple investigatory subpoena or ordinary search warrant couldn’t get the job done, and the DOJ would have to explain a concrete basis for the surprise raid that would overcome the Fourth Amendment concerns, not to mention the vast political implications. The FBI would have had to swear, for example, that they were seriously concerned about material evidence being destroyed, the documentary equivalent of a baggie of meth flushed down the john.
Even many lefty pundits recognize that this is a Rubicon moment, a kind of point of no return. The Rubicon metaphor is particularly apt, because when he crossed that river, Julius Caesar was on his way to deposing its democratic government becoming the dictator for life of the Roman Empire.
Yesterday on CNN Tonight, controversial anti-Trump Trump aide Alyssa Farah Griffin warned, “I hope that DOJ went about this meticulously and that there is a ‘there’ there because if not, it will tear the country apart.” She continued, “You [are] already seeing it, the rhetoric already that’s coming out from my fellow Republicans, and I’m really hoping that this was done for a credible reason and that it goes somewhere.”
If ANY reason is good enough, it better be a lot more solid than just a “credible” reason.
The Washington Examiner’s op-ed ran after 10m last night and concluded “You don’t have to be fond of Trump to realize what a dark turn of events this is … They are bringing our country right up to the edge of the Third World. It’s pretty scary stuff.”
I’d say they’ve leapt off the edge with bells on.
Obviously, there hasn’t been much time to process events, and conservative voices are just getting going. Echoing Trump’s letter, Governor DeSantis also referred to Banana Republics in his response tweet:
Ron DeSantis @RonDeSantisFLThe raid of MAL is another escalation in the weaponization of federal agencies against the Regime’s political opponents, while people like Hunter Biden get treated with kid gloves. Now the Regime is getting another 87k IRS agents to wield against its adversaries? Banana Republic.August 9th 202223,941 Retweets80,852 Likes
Expect all that outraged chatter to multiply every single day from here on into the foreseeable future.
🔥 Now, let’s talk implications. The GOP House Judiciary’s twitter account expressed the first and most significant implication — the raid shows there are now no limits and everyone is in the crosshairs. Top GOP donors, for one example.
House Judiciary GOP @JudiciaryGOPIf they can do it to a former President, imagine what they can do to you.August 8th 20224,680 Retweets24,248 Likes
Second, conservatives are furious and they’re just getting started.
Jill Savage @Jill_SavageEvery freaking word @dbongino 🔥 August 8th 20225,899 Retweets17,814 Likes
Third, Joe Biden just found something that can eclipse inflation and the economy as an electoral issue. Every candidate will have to weigh in on this; many will want to avoid talking about it, but it won’t work. This raid — and what should be done about it — will almost certainly become the defining issue of the 2022 midterms.
Fourth, journalist Julie Kelly has followed the January 6th prosecutions from the beginning and has even already published a book about them. She credibly warned that Trump’s arrest is now inevitable:
Julie Kelly 🇺🇸 @julie_kelly2No one on this side has followed DOJ/FBI prosecution of Jan 6 than I have. I’ve warned for months this was coming—indictment is next. Biden regime and House Democrats have created an expectation they must fulfill. Next is Trump in handcuffs. Inevitable.August 9th 20221,661 Retweets5,081 Likes
That’s probably right. If they can get a judge to authorize a warrantless raid of a former president’s home, what would hold them back from arresting and charging Trump for something? While arresting a former president would shatter traditional decorum, I’m not sure an arrest would shatter precedent as much as the raid already has.
Finally, this entire post is a hot take. We only know for sure the raid happened. We don’t know anything else for certain yet; it’s all guesswork. This story is going to continue to develop over the next days and weeks and get a LOT more interesting, if that’s possible.
🔥 Thoughts and reflections. My first thought was that President Trump needs to thoroughly sweep his property for electronics when he gets back. It might not be so much about what the FBI took, as what they left behind.
Second, did Trump know it was coming?
Maze @mazemooreTrump two nights ago – “We are a nation that has weaponized its law enforcement like never before against the opposing political party.” August 9th 2022327 Retweets859 Likes
Third, the FBI has been circling Comet Ping Pong’s grease trap for years. A few recent examples include:
For whatever reason, none of those things was enough to galvanize any significant pushback. And I’m not the only one who noticed:
Julie Kelly 🇺🇸 @julie_kelly2I said from the start this was coming. I reported on this for 18+ months to defend those wrongly accused to build the case against Trump. With few exceptions, no one in GOP cared. They ignored my reporting as hundreds of lives were destroyed. GOP owns this and all the damage.August 9th 20221,621 Retweets5,307 Likes
But this raid is going to finally do it. Something has to give. The pressure on the GOP will be irresistible. Governors like DeSantis and maybe Abbott may begin talking about limiting federal activity in their states, as Arizona’s Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake suggested last night:
Kari Lake for AZ Governor @KariLakeFULL STATEMENT: ⤵️ August 9th 20228,357 Retweets25,387 Likes
Fourth, the people who planned this raid are salivating for conservatives to make missteps, such as through civil disobedience. There have already been some reports from folks who went to protest outside the Trump residence yesterday that by 11pm federal agents were taking their photos and license plate numbers.
Julia 🍊 @Jules31415.@CryptoLawyerz reports that feds are swarming the crowd of hundreds of Trump supporters near Mar-a-Lago “taking pictures of people’s faces” and photographing car license plates. “The agents are now amongst us. They’ve taken a perimeter stance around everyone.”August 9th 2022106 Retweets194 Likes
In conclusion, my initial thinking is that any response to this should be carefully-considered and strategic, and people need to avoid taking the bait to create a pretext for more investigations and prosecutions of conservative protesters. “Behold, I am sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves, so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.” Matt. 10:6.
For his part, President Trump seems optimistic. He dropped a new campaign ad on TruthSocial following the raid. It ends with the words, “… the best is yet to come.”
https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/108790947668067601
Joe Biden is infecting our Banana Republic with monkeypox. You know how that works.
💉 Ending with some good news, Norwegian Cruise Lines became the first cruise company to allow unvaccinated cruisers yesterday, finally dropping its odious jab requirement.
Cruise Radio | Doug Parker @CruiseRadioJUST IN: Norwegian Cruise Line Drops COVID-19 Vaccine Requirements, Welcomes Everyone to Sail cruiseradio.net/?p=149822#cruiseNorwegian Cruise Line Drops COVID-19 Vaccine Requirements, Welcomes Everyone to SailEffective September 3, Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings is dropping the green flag for unvaccinated guests to sail, making it the first cruise company to allowcruiseradio.netAugust 8th 202222 Retweets112 Likes
I guess they got the message about all those fully-jabbed ships that kept catching covid. Progress! Get cruising!
Have a terrific Tuesday, and I’ll see you back here tomorrow for more.
“We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you.” 2 Chron. 20:12b.
If you can, I could use your help getting the truth out and spreading optimism and hope: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/-learn-how-to-get-involved-
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The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
By George Miller
8-8-22
This is mind-boggling- hard to believe. Donald J. Trump, former President, some say still legally President, claims that his home was raided by the FBI. Unprecedented. Check it out if you don’t believe us:
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=trump+statement+on+mar+a+lago+raid
https://search.yahoo.com/search?fr=mcafee&type=E211US714G0&p=trumps+home+raided+by+fbi
Statement by Donald Trump appears below. We will continue to watch this and keep you informed.
| – August 8, 2022 – |
| Statement by Donald J. Trump, 45th President of the United States of America |
| These are dark times for our Nation, as my beautiful home, Mar-A-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, is currently under siege, raided, and occupied by a large group of FBI agents. Nothing like this has ever happened to a President of the United States before. After working and cooperating with the relevant Government agencies, this unannounced raid on my home was not necessary or appropriate. It is prosecutorial misconduct, the weaponization of the Justice System, and an attack by Radical Left Democrats who desperately don’t want me to run for President in 2024, especially based on recent polls, and who will likewise do anything to stop Republicans and Conservatives in the upcoming Midterm Elections. Such an assault could only take place in broken, Third-World Countries. Sadly, America has now become one of those Countries, corrupt at a level not seen before. They even broke into my safe! What is the difference between this and Watergate, where operatives broke into the Democrat National Committee? Here, in reverse, Democrats broke into the home of the 45th President of the United States. The political persecution of President Donald J. Trump has been going on for years, with the now fully debunked Russia, Russia, Russia Scam, Impeachment Hoax #1, Impeachment Hoax #2, and so much more, it just never ends. It is political targeting at the highest level! Hillary Clinton was allowed to delete and acid wash 33,000 E-mails AFTER they were subpoenaed by Congress. Absolutely nothing has happened to hold her accountable. She even took antique furniture, and other items from the White House. I stood up to America’s bureaucratic corruption, I restored power to the people, and truly delivered for our Country, like we have never seen before. The establishment hated it. Now, as they watch my endorsed candidates win big victories, and see my dominance in all polls, they are trying to stop me, and the Republican Party, once more. The lawlessness, political persecution, and Witch Hunt must be exposed and stopped. I will continue to fight for the Great American People! |
According to Fox and CNN’s sources, Trump was at Trump Tower in NY when this occurred, claimed in one of their articles today. Several news sources claimed the raid was about Trump’s removal of documents from the White House. All attributed to “people familiar with the situation,” but didn’t name names.
FL Gov. DeSantis weighed in:
“The raid of MAL is another escalation in the weaponization of federal agencies against the Regime’s political opponents, while people like Hunter Biden get treated with kid gloves” …. “Now the Regime is getting another 87k IRS agents to wield against its adversaries? Banana Republic.”
More:
“The raid of MAL [Mar-a-Lago] is another escalation in the weaponization of federal agencies against the Regime’s political opponents, while people like Hunter Biden get treated with kid gloves,” DeSantis tweeted from his personal account, not his official Florida governor’s account. “Now the Regime is getting another 87k IRS agents to wield against its adversaries? Banana Republic.”
– DeSantis Twitter account
“We’ve invaded nations and toppled dictators for less than what our own FBI is doing right now. Why do we put up with blatant third-world thuggery from a man who can’t even put on a jacket without his wife’s help?” – Charlie Kirk.
According to CBS News, both the FBI and Justice Dept. declined to comment.
We haven’t seen anything from the Democrat party yet, but an article in the leftist Atlantic is probably similar to what you will see soon.
George Miller is Publisher and Co-Founder of Citizens Journal Florida, based in Fernandina Beach. He is a “retired” operations management consultant, software and publishing executive and manufacturing management professional.
By George Miller
8-8-22, Fernandina Beach
Fernandina Beach resident and California transplant Deb Boelkes wins Annual 2022 Florida Authors and Publishers Association President’s BookAwards, which recognized Women on Top: What’s Keeping You From Executive Leadership? in the category of Business, as a Silver medal winner.
When we moved to Fernandina Beach, Florida last year, several people recommended the local civic organization called “We The People.” It had monthly meetings which featured speakers on political and social topics and urging officials and members to take action. It was at those meetings where I was introduced to our congressman, commission members, other officials, a couple of noted authors, several excellent bloggers and lately, candidates for office. There was no Citizens Journal Florida yet when we started going, but we have since written several articles about their meetings, which can be found on line.
It quickly became apparent that the force behind that organization was Deb Boelkes, formerly of Orange County California (came here 9 years ago). She told us that helping to prevent Florida from becoming another California and the USA from sliding into oblivion were motivating factors to do this. Her husband Chris is teamed with her in this effort and handles IT and virtually everything else but programs/communications.
When we asked her how this got started, she said that they held a cocktail party for about 50 like-minded people- who she described as “concerned Conservatives”- and the rest is history. It eventually morphed into what exists today.
But this is just her side gig. Ms. Boelkes also has a “day job,” educating and mentoring women with executive aspirations or helping to improve those who are already in the executive suite. She speaks at conferences and does work for companies and universities. She has somehow also found time to write multiple books and publishes several blogs.
Until recently, she was also the President of the local chapter of PEO (Philanthropical Educational Organization), a 150 year old women’s sorority/charity which provides scholarships to women.
Here is the press release announcing Ms. Boelkes’ award:
Local Author Deb Boelkes Receives National Recognition
Lake Buena Vista, FL (7/30/2022) – The Annual 2022 Florida Authors and Publishers Association President’s BookAwards recognized Women on Top: What’s Keeping You From Executive Leadership? by Deb Boelkes, in the category of Business, as a Silver medal winner.
Hosted by the Florida Authors and Publishers Association, this prestigious national award is open to books published between 2020 and 2022. The judges for this national competition are librarians, educators, and publishing professionals.
“The FAPA President’s Book Award exists to promote excellence in the publishing industry by recognizing talented contemporary authors who put both heart and soul into their work. FAPA is proud to be a champion of authors and publishers going the extra mile to produce books of excellence in every aspect,” said Pat Stanford, a Past President of FAPA.
Women on Top: What’s Keeping You From Executive Leadership? is a non-fiction Leadership book—the third in a four-book series—published by Business World Rising, LLC, which lays out a blueprint for getting out of your own way so you can make real progress. In it, Boelkes tackles big roadblocks like fear, impostor syndrome, gender bias, and victimhood and offers advice on overcoming them. She masterfully weaves her own story together with been-there-done-that advice from seven high-level women from various industries.
“We are proud to announce this year’s winners who truly embody the excellence this award was created to celebrate. Their works are representative of creative storytelling, bold concepts, and innovative ideas which make the President’s Book Awards so well respected by librarians and those in the publishing industry. We salute all our winners for their fine work.” said FAPA’s Immediate Past President, Renee Garrison.
The Florida Authors and Publishers Association is an organization for authors, publishers, illustrators, editors, printers, and other professionals involved in the publishing industry. It focuses on providing the highest quality of information, resources, and professional development to members and others interested in the writing and publishing profession.
Very nice. Hey, after all she’s done for the community and the help she’s given us with articles, why not a free plug? …
Deb Boelkes
Founder, Business World Rising, LLC
Keynote Speaker and award-winning Author of:
Women on Top: What’s Keeping You From Executive Leadership?
The WOW Factor Workplace: How to Create a Best Place to Work Culture
Heartfelt Leadership: How to Capture the Top Spot and Keep on Soaring
And coming soon:
Strong Suit: Leadership Success Secrets from Women on Top
Office: 904-310-9602
Email: [email protected]
DebBoelkes.com || BusinessWorldRising.com || HeartfeltLeadership.com
Success just got easier ®
George Miller is Publisher and Co-Founder of Citizens Journal Florida, based in Fernandina Beach. He is a “retired” operations management consultant, software and publishing executive and manufacturing management professional.
By Florida Department of Environmental Protection
8-8-22
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – The Florida Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) has acquired 240 acres that will expand the boundaries of Pumpkin Hill Creek Preserve State Park in Jacksonville. (Above photo: Florida flatwoods, Pumpkin Hill Creek Preserve State Park)
Pumpkin Hill Creek Preserve is included in the 7 Creeks Recreation Area, a network of partner parks and preserves managed by local, state and federal governments as well as nonprofit organizations. The recreation area spans 5,600 acres in northeast Jacksonville and features five of Florida’s state parks. Visitors can enjoy more than 30 miles of natural surface trails for hiking, biking, horseback riding and wildlife viewing.
“We are excited to acquire this long sought after addition to Pumpkin Hill Creek Preserve State Park, which will expand recreational opportunities in the Jacksonville area,” said DEP Secretary Shawn Hamilton. “Along with the increased public access, this property encompasses four known archaeological sites containing evidence of human history dating back 4,000 years.”
Part of the Pumpkin Hill Creek Florida Forever project in Duval County, this addition complements and enhances multiple partnerships and efforts to conserve the rich natural diversity and cultural history of the area.
The Pumpkin Hill Creek property is part of a larger tract on Black Hammock Island initially purchased by Trust for Public Land for conservation and public access. The remaining acres will be conveyed to the National Park Service as an addition to the Timucuan Ecological and Historic Preserve.
“This property not only offers visitors increased recreational access to hiking, wildlife viewing and fishing, but it also plays a crucial role in creating climate resilience against extreme weather events like hurricanes through protection of marshes and native forests,” said Doug Hattaway, senior project manager for Trust for Public Land. “We’re proud to be part of this effort to expand Pumpkin Hill Creek Preserve and the historic, natural and cultural significance it holds.”
The acquisition protects some of the largest remaining natural coastal uplands in Duval County and enhances the protection of water quality for the Nassau and St. Johns rivers. It supports an important fishery and protects wading bird rookeries, one of which is used by the federally endangered wood stork. In addition, manatees frequent both the St. Johns and Nassau rivers and move into tidal creeks such as Hill Creek and Clapboard Creek.
Governor Ron DeSantis and the Board of Trustees of the Internal Improvement Trust Fund previously approved this acquisition on March 29, 2022. Funding support for the project was also provided by the city of Jacksonville.
The property will be managed by DEP’s Division of Recreation and Parks as an addition to Pumpkin Hill Creek Preserve State Park.
The Florida Department of Environmental Protection is the state’s principal environmental agency, created to protect, conserve and manage Florida’s environment and natural resources. The department enforces federal and state environmental laws, protects Florida’s air and water quality, cleans up pollution, regulates solid waste management, promotes pollution prevention and acquires environmentally sensitive lands for preservation. The agency also maintains a statewide system of parks, trails and aquatic preserves. Visit the department’s website at FloridaDEP.gov
by Michael Miller
8/4/22
Observations
…..of continuing media trends reveal the following to me- The current worldwide narrative regarding “Covid” is that:
This narrative is promulgated by hundreds of world and state governments, the WHO, FDA, CDC, WEF, NIH, OSHA, to name just a few. All the woke tech firms and social media, MSM, universities, hospitals are fully on board and enforcing the restrictive mandates and imposing the actions prescribed in # 9. The statements of these entities are in lockstep as if they were reading from the same teleprompter. The entire narrative appears to be immunized against dissent, scientific debate, indeed any discussion by our media gatekeepers. The message is comply or you will be erased.
Here are some inconvenient challenges to that narrative :
First let’s address the phenomenon of fluid definitions. The recent trend to just change the definition of words has been enabled by the transition from hard paper records to the virtual, online repository. This makes it easier to make changes that are undetected, while manipulating perceptions about a situation.
For example, “Pandemic” In 2009, the WHO changed the definition of pandemic. Formerly it referred to an epidemic spreading over a large region with high mortality and morbidity. They dropped the high mortality and morbidity part, so that it would still be a pandemic, absent significant lethality. This allowed them to declare the H1N1 pandemic that triggered ‘sleeper contracts’ with African nations, activating orders for $18 million of vaccines even though the death total had only reached 144.
The Evolution of Words-
“Vaccine”- Then: “A product that stimulates a person’s immune system to produce immunity to a specific disease”. Now: “A preparation that is used to stimulate the body’s immune response against diseases.” Notice how the new definition allows the deceit that the shots are effective at preventing the disease?
“Vaccination”- Pre- 2015: “Injection of a killed or weakened infectious organism in order to prevent the disease.“. 2015-2021: The act of introducing a vaccine into the body to produce immunity to a specific disease.” Now: The act of introducing a vaccine into the body to produce protection to a specific disease.” Witness the same weakening power of the word to excuse the failure to prevent the disease.
Deceitful techniques are being used to convince people that the shots are “safe and effective”. How many times has that phrase been drilled into your head? Isn’t constant repetition a brainwashing technique?
Influencing Beliefs and Attitudes
Do you know that congress authorized, and the DOH spent $1 Billion (that is 1,000 millions of dollars) on media campaigns to promote the shot and overcome vaccine hesitancy? Do you grasp the enormity of $1 Billion? What has our $Billion bought? The complicity and advocacy of the press for the government’s positions. We do not even know how these payments were distributed. That is another secret. Suffice it to say that our “MSM” is bought and paid for.
Do you think you could expect objectivity from media that is the beneficiary of this magnitude of largesse?
This whole rushed, untested, now proven unsafe and ineffective “vaccine” campaign has never made sense. What is going on here? Why are there Herculean efforts to convince and cajole us into getting their shots? Who benefits? What is the intended result? Why will they not allow free speech and conflicting views to be presented and debated by the world’s eminent medical professionals? Why are people like Dr. Robert Malone (inventor of mRNA technology), Dr. Peter McCullough, (possibly the world’s foremost cardiologist and author of 100s of peer reviewed studies), Sunetra Gupta, University of Oxford, Martin Kulldorff, Harvard University, and Prof. Jay Bhattacharya, Stanford Medical School, Dr Simone Gold, co-founder of America’s Frontline Doctors, to name a few being censored, de-platformed, maligned, etc?
Here is a link to an article by 57 prominent Drs and researchers: 57 DRs
Then there was the Great Barrington Declaration: https://gbdeclaration.org This was issued in October of 2020. It has been signed by 15,505 medical and public health scientists, 47,104 Medical practitioners and 868,537 concerned citizens. Shouldn’t this carry some weight?
Here is a VAERS (vaccine adverse events reporting system) chart showing the vaccine mortality reports through July, 2022. There have been more deaths reported from covid shots in less than 2 years than all other vaccines combined over the last 30 years! Do you think there might be a problem with these Covid Vaccines? Why have they not been withdrawn?
It is important to understand that the VAERS is not meant to be an exact count of verified events. It can not do that for a number of reasons:
1 Many of the public, including doctors, are not aware of it
2 It is cumbersome and time consuming to complete a report
3 It is not required and not a politically correct practice at many health establishments
The purpose of the VAERS is to be an early warning system identifying troubling trends. It is thought that it dramatically under-reports these events, capturing an estimated 3-10% of cases. For that reason it is thought by many that the actual damage rendered by covid shots is many times worse than reported. Why does the CDC fail to respond to the VAERS reports?
Here is a chart of CDC data illustrating all cause mortality of working age people. How do we account for the drastic increase?
Please see the Global Research report on Pfizer confidential data released in FOIA Order. Pfizer docs By February of 2021, Pfizer had already received more than 1,200 reports of deaths allegedly caused by the vaccine and tens of thousands of reported adverse events, including 23 cases of spontaneous abortions out of 270 pregnancies and more than 2,000 reports of cardiac disorders.
I have been following the “Covid narrative” since the beginning. So how did I miss the implications of this? What about you? Were you aware that Pfizer and the FDA knew right in the first 2 months of their so called vaccine program, that this mandated mRNA concoction was dangerous to health with shocking mortality and morbidity numbers reported? Shouldn’t the program have been withdrawn immediately in accordance with the first law of medical practice, “First, do no harm”? But it was not withdrawn, and still is not, in the face of accumulating data showing a rise in the overall mortality rate of working age people.
The EUA (emergency use authorization) for the Pfizer Bio-N-Tech covid vaccine was issued by the FDA on 12/14/20. Those death and morbidity figures revealed in the Pfizer confidential report were available by February of 2021, some 2 months later. They were kept as the dirty secret of Pfizer and the FDA until forced by court order to release them. Even then, Pfizer tried to negotiate a document release rate that would have required 75 years to expose all the data to public scrutiny. Fortunately the Judge put them on a more expedited schedule.
Instead of immediately halting the administration and promotion of this deadly experimental mRNA jab, it is continually pushed by WHO, FDA, NIH, Fauci, Biden, and most governors. Right here in our own neighborhood, institutions such as Baptist Health, UF health and Mayo Clinic, just to name a few, continue to demand masks while they parrot the “safe and effective” lie, exhorting their patients to get the shot. Many corporations and institutions of higher education are still coercing employees and students to “get vaccinated/ boosted” under threat of loss of employment or denied admission to schools. Thousands have been fired or refused admission for refusal to comply after being ordered to do so.
The forcing of free citizens to abdicate bodily sovereignty by injecting an experimental, untested substance into their body in the absence of informed consent constitutes coercion forbidden by the terms of the Nuremberg Codes. It is unethical at best, and now risks being criminal when the danger of mortality is clearly documented. All these institutions that cling blithely to this narrative could end up being convicted of, if not murder, then gross negligence resulting in wrongful death. I would be very scared if I was imposing this demand on people under my authority. Wouldn’t you?
Here is a 4 minute compilation of the evolution of vaccine claims. Very enlightening!
In conclusion, I ask you if you are doubting the veracity of the many assertions, advice, warnings, mandates, restrictions that are being imposed? Do you think there is enough evidence of damage rendered upon all of us? Do you wonder what could be the possible motives for this colossal dis-information campaign?
Many with whom I have spoken with are unable to accept that a plot this vast, with this unanimity of governments and agencies, with this level of collusion, by entities they have trusted, could really be happening. They think: “It has to be a conspiracy theory, right? I will dismiss it because it is too preposterous to be really happening”. Isn’t this the current version of “the emperor has no clothes”?
I hope that those who have not already begun will seek alternative sources, think independently and act for the survival of selves and family. Set boundaries around what bodily intrusions we will draw the line against. Seek to educate those we care about to see through what appears to be a nefarious campaign.
Here is my challenge:
Just watch the amazing documentary, UNINFORMED CONSENT. It is an incredible body of work. I can not believe the amount of work to pull together all these eminent people, all these clips, to cover the entire plague/ vaccine/ mandates/ censorship/ de-platforming and other forms of denial that are blocking truth and enabling this crime against humanity that we are in the midst of. If you, or anyone one in your life does not comprehend the evil, the lies and deceit that is being perpetrated, this will fill in all the missing pieces that I have not addressed here.
Everyone please watch, share and promote this fine documentary.
https://librti.com/uninformed-consent#dpr
For those of us perplexed and disturbed by these events, keep in mind these words from scripture:
“When my anxious thoughts multiply within me,
Your consolations delight my soul.
Can a throne of destruction be allied with You,
One which devises mischief by decree?
They band themselves together against the life of the righteous
And condemn the innocent to death.
But the Lord has been my stronghold,
And my God the rock of my refuge.
He has brought back their wickedness upon them
And will destroy them in their evil;
The Lord our God will destroy them.”
– Psalm 94-19
Michael Miller, A retired Fire Lieutenant/EMT from NY has been in FB for 8 years. He is a fierce advocate for Liberty, a sailing captain and instructor for Windward Sailing. He dabbles in theatre, photography, geopolitics and markets and now writing. Look for his writing here and at: https://firesail.substack.com/
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
By George Miller
8-5-22
We’ve received questions about the budget process and timeline. The county has been pretty good about making that available.
In case you’re interested:
Next Steps to Budget:
July/August
August
8/3 Board Meeting
8/4 Millage submitted to Property Appraiser
8/24 Board Meeting
8/29 Board Meeting
Budget workshops, as needed
September
Budget workshops, as needed
Set final millage and budget
9/12 Public Hearing
9/26 Public Hearing
October
10/1 start of Fiscal Year
Useful Info
FY 2022/2023 Budget
FY2022/2023 Tentative Budget Millage Rate
FY2022/2023 Tentative Budget Presented 7-25-2022
FY2022/2023 Not-For-Profit Funding Request Application
FY2022/2023 Fleet Replacement Program
FY2022/23 through 2026/27 CIP Presentation
FY2022/23 – 2026/27 Guide Book
By Dave Scott
8-5-22, Fernandina Beach
Fernandina Beach News Leader columnist and former local car dealership owner, Rick Keffer, wrote in his Friday, July 29 “Keffer’s Corner” column (“A historic eye opener”) that he recently read a book, something he admitted he rarely does.
“Sign the sales contract today and I’ll throw in my favorite book.”
He wrote, “I am not a book reader” but “digested this one ‘bit by bit’ and ”learned about Black American history.” He would have been better off eating and digesting it bite by bite.
He says the book – “The 1619 Project”– by Nikole Hannah-Jones, was gifted to him six months ago and “…has changed my outlook.”
In his column Mr. Keffer wrote that the book so influenced him that he is now working with a local group called Nassau Racial Equity Coalition (NREC) to “engage the business community, the medical community, our school system and law enforcement.”
Mr. Keffer said he wants “to stem a four-century tide of our minority history.” That’s frightening, because the book that influenced him to become a local activist promotes critical race theory, revisionist history and racial hatred.
The naïve and admittedly poorly read Mr. Keffer has been duped. He swallowed the book’s bunkum hook, line, and sinker.
Celebrated historians, journalists and educators have debunked the sloppy book’s theory, more than two hundred years of American literature disproves it, most alert parents know it’s false, and yet it is being promoted as part of grade school curricula and unquestionable orthodoxy on college campuses. Mr. Keffer, The naïve local columnist, says he intends to actively promote it here in Nassau County schools.
The “1619 Project” is not just bad history and hogswallop, it’s a danger to our national way of life, replacing the idea, goal, and reality of American unity with race-based obsessions that have played out in violence, riots, and the destruction of American monuments—not to mention the wholesale rewriting of America’s historical and cultural past. That’s not just my opinion.
In her 2021 book, Debunking the 1619 Project, scholar Dr. Mary Grabar, eloquently exposed the 1619 Project, showing in dramatic fashion, just how full of flat-out lies, distortions, and noxious propaganda the book really is. Dr. Grabar’s book is essential reading for every concerned parent, citizen, school board member, and policymaker. The “1619 Project” is not, as Rick Keffer thinks, a handbook for use by our school systems and law enforcement, just the opposite.
The book has been roundly criticized, condemned, and discredited by as many celebrated black authors, essayists, intellectuals, and educators as white ones. These include the late Walter Williams; civil rights attorney Leo Terrell; author and columnist Candace Owens; Wall Street Journal columnist Jason Riley; author, educator, and economist Thomas Sowell; author, and columnist Larry Elder; commentator and author James Golden; retired neurosurgeon and former Secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Dr. Ben Carson; and Robert Woodson founder of the Woodson Institute. These prominent blacks who disagree with Ms. Hannah-Jones have been called “race traitors” by leftists.
George Leef the director for editorial content at the James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal summed up the book writing: “The ‘1619 Project’ is the product of a faux newspaper (the New York Times) and a faux journalist (Nikole Hannah-Jones) meant to convince people that the U.S. is an irredeemably racist country. One of its claims is that the American Revolution occurred because the inhabitants of the colonies were afraid that Britain was going to abolish slavery.”
George Mason University economics professor Don Boudreau struck another blow. “The fact of the matter is that the 1619 Project is not really about history at all,” he says. “The NYT and Ms. Hannah-Jones want to instill animosity toward the U.S. in hopes that readers will adopt the ‘progressive’ mindset that the country must be transformed from a liberal (in the original sense of the word) republic into a tightly controlled socialist nanny state run by the elites.”
In his Washington Times review of Dr. Grabar’s book, Herbert W. Stupp, the editor of Gipperten.com and a former New York City Commissioner (1994-2002) says: “Perhaps the most pernicious aspect of the 1619 Project is the actual harm it can do to young people. Non-Black youth, if persuaded that racism is ‘in their DNA,’ might wrongly accept ‘collective guilt’ for what some evil whites did well before they were born. Such an acceptance runs headlong into long-accepted Judeo-Christian principles of individual responsibility for one’s actions and inactions. Even more harmful,” he points out, “is the likely impact on Black young people, who might waste potential if they believe a “racist system” is hopelessly rigged against them.”
Published earlier this year, Woody Holton’s new book about the Revolution, “Liberty is Sweet”, flatly dismisses the 1619 Project’s assertation that America’s founding should be shifted to the first arrival of slaves. Holton accurately shows that white southerners and other colonists did not support the revolution because they feared the growth of an anti-slavery movement in Britain.
The next time Mr. Keffer decides to read a book about America’s founding and or slavery he should do some research and select one by an authenticated and respected historian and accomplished author. Some he may want to consider adding to his thinly populated bookshelf include: “John Adams” and “1776”, by two-time Pulitzer Prize winner David McCullough; “The Day the American Revolution Began” by William H. Hallahan; “Founding Brothers” by Joseph J. Ellis; “Paul Revere’s Ride” by David Hackett Fisher; “Redcoat” by Bernard Cornwell; “The British Are Coming”, by Pulitzer Prize winner Rick Atkinson, and anything by the late Stephen Ambrose.
In his column Mr. Keffer says he is a “very conservative Republican.” Wyoming Congresswoman Liz Chaney said the same thing once. The News Leader’s self-described socialist columnist, Ron “Get Off My Lawn You Little Bastards” Sapp, must have a big grin on his face after reading Mr. Keffer’s claptrap.
Mr. Keffer may not be the most naïve person in Nassau County, but he should hope whoever is doesn’t die.
Read the rest of Dave’s 8-5-22 post
Republished with the author’s permission. Read The Dave Scott Blog– subscribe Free
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
From Aaron Bean campaign
8-5-22
ICYMI: Aaron Bean in Commanding Lead for Republican Nomination in CD 4
Clear Takeaway from New St. Pete Polls Survey: “Aaron Bean Faces Little Challenge in Winning Republican Primary”
Fernandina Beach, Fla. – In case you missed it, Florida Politics today highlighted that Republican candidate for Florida Congressional District 4 Aaron Bean is in a “dominating position ahead of [the] CD 4 GOP Primary.”
The Florida Politics story states that the poll found that “More than 59% of GOP voters included in the poll favor Bean for the Republican nomination in CD 4. Just 16% prefer Erick Aguilar and about 6% want Jon Chubato win the Primary.” And that “among the 16% of respondents who already cast their vote-by-mail ballots in the race, nearly 62% say they voted for Bean. Just over 15% already put in their vote for Aguilar and around 6% have voted for Chuba.”
Florida Politics also reported that:
“Bean has led the money race. Meanwhile, Aguilar faced heavy criticism in recent weeks after WinRed booted him from the fundraising platform for allegedly sending emails fraudulently representing the cash would go to DeSantis or President Donald Trump. DeSantis called such actions ‘fraud on the donor.’
“A look at crosstabs shows Bean in a dominating position with most demographics. More than half of voters in all age groups prefer the state Senator. Bean’s support is weakest among voters ages 30 through 46, but he still takes 50% of the voter there, compared to 22% who prefer Aguilar and 11% who plan to support Chuba, the only place group where Chuba cracked double-digit support.
“About 62% of women and 62% of men will support him, compared to 15% of women and 16% of men who want Aguilar instead.”
To read the article in full, click here.
Bean has secured an extensive list of endorsements, including United States Senator Marco Rubio, the Florida Attorney General and Chief Financial Officer, and leaders from the Northeast region and the district, as well as Duval, Nassau, and Clay Counties, in addition to the sheriffs of Duval, Clay and Nassau Counties. Read those announcements here.
Bean currently represents the people of Nassau and Duval counties in the Florida Senate, serving in the Republican-led Senate as its Senate President Pro Tempore. Elected to the Senate in 2012 and to the Florida House before that, Bean has been a noted advocate for lowering taxes on hardworking Floridians and focusing on pro-business, pro-family initiatives and supporting the Florida freedom agenda and policies of Governor DeSantis. Bean has long served his local community, while raising a family and running a small business, with a focus on knowing what it means to work hard every day and on what his community needs.
For more information on the Aaron Bean for Congress campaign, visit AaronBean.com.
# # #
| Paid for by Aaron Bean for Congress |
City of Fernandina Beach
8-5-22
| Bid Number: | RFQ 22-01 |
| Bid Title: | Golf – Golf Professional Services |
| Category: | All Bids |
| Status: | Open |
| Description: INTRODUCTION. The City of Fernandina Beach (the “City”) is accepting sealed qualifications from interested contractors (Golf Professionals) for Golf Professional Services at the City of Fernandina Beach Golf Club located at 2800 Bill Melton Road, Fernandina Beach, FL 32034. The City will receive sealed qualifications at the location stated below no later than 2:00pm, September 6, 2022. Publication Date/Time:8/5/2022 8:00 AM Closing Date/Time:9/6/2022 2:00 PM Submittal Information: see related documents Related Documents:RFQ 22-01 Golf Professional Services |
From Nassau County Elections
Early Voting: August 10, 2022 – August 20, 2022
9 am – 6 pm daily, including Saturday & Sunday
Election Day: August 23, 2022, 7 am – 7 pm
James S. Page Governmental Complex
96135 Nassau Place, Suite 3
Yulee, FL 32097
Hours: 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM, Monday through Friday
Phone: 904-491-7500
Toll Free: 1-866-260-4301
Fax: 904-432-1400
Email: [email protected]
Web: https://www.votenassaufl.gov/upcoming-elections
Your voter info, registration status, polling place: https://www.votenassaufl.gov/check-my-voter-status
By Jeff Childers
8-5-22
It’s Friday! Good morning, C&C. We wrap the week up today with a tight roundup: Biden remains covid++; DeSantis leads again with a HUGE move with potentially game-changing ramifications; another Rasmussen poll finds even dems fault Biden for crashing the economy; Brittney Griner gets 9 years at labor; another dumb abortion poll; the White House obfuscates about responding to China’s aggression toward Taiwan; Viktor Orban comes to Texas; and Amnesty evidences Ukrainian war crimes.
💉 Biden tested positive for covid again yesterday. So. It’s all going great.
🔥 Wednesday, Governor DeSantis’ spicy spokeslady Christina Pushaw teased that the Governor would make an exciting announcement yesterday to drive the woke media crazy. She was right and wrong.
She was right it was a blockbuster announcement. Where she was wrong is that corporate media is pouting and has decided to try to largely ignore and downplay the story to try to make it just go away. Christina probably expected them to attack DeSantis about the move, but instead they were shocked because they’d never considered the strategy or that a governor would be bold enough to do it, and media is terrified it might spread to other red states, just when they were getting started wrecking the major cities.
For background, let’s begin with Hillsborough County State Attorney Andrew Warren. The Miami Herald has described him as “a rising star in progressive law enforcement circles.” In other words, he’s one of these Soros-backed prosecutors who believes in selectively not enforcing the law against career criminals but instead enforcing it against regular citizens for politics. Hillsborough police have been complaining for years about the Hillsborough State Attorney’s office routinely letting bad actors go. Warren even instituted an official — written — policy of “presumptive non-enforcement” of certain crimes.
Since he was elected in 2016, Warren has been declining to prosecute drug arrests and has refused to seek the death penalty in some pretty gruesome cases. On the other hand, in April 2020, Warren leapt to prosecute a PASTOR who’d been arrested for holding in-person church services.
(The charges against the pastor were later dropped after Governor DeSantis signed an executive order specifically allowing in-person church services.)
Most recently, Warren announced that the Legislature could pass whatever laws they wanted to, but HE would refuse to enforce ANY laws related to new prohibitions of castration of minors for “transitioning,” or related to protections for babies under new anti-abortion laws. In other words, he was vetoing those laws for Hillsborough county.
So DeSantis flexed his Governor’s powers yesterday and suspended Warren from office, appointing his interim replacement. Boom! Buh bye.
Not only that, but DeSantis ALSO sent the state police to physically remove Warren from his office, “and to ensure that no files, papers, documents, notes, records, computers, or removable storage media are removed from the Office of the State Attorney…”
“The constitution of Florida has vested the veto power in the governor, not in individual state attorneys,” DeSantis said. “So, when you flagrantly violate your oath of office .. when you make yourself above the law, you have violated your duty, and you have neglected your duty, and you are displaying a lack of competence to be able to perform those duties,” he explained.
DeSantis said that Florida had watched other states struggling with the issue and was not going to allow woke selective-prosecution-techniques take root in the Sunshine State.
Last night, Tucker seemed very pleased that somebody had finally taken action against a Soros DA, and he had Governor DeSantis on the show, calling Warren’s removal “kind of a big deal.”
Watch Video:
https://video.twimg.com/amplify_video/1555352789382938624/vid/628×360/L8i_L6_bl2VDypM9.mp4?tag=14
https://twitter.com/TPostMillennial/status/1555354890896977920?s=20&t=lxApPSy0uJtYQE3BGT__Hw
For his part, Warren isn’t a happy camper, of course, calling his removal a “political stunt” but not saying he was going to fight it, either.
Andrew Warren @AndrewWarrenFLToday’s political stunt is an illegal overreach that continues a dangerous pattern by Ron DeSantis of using his office to further his own political ambition. It spits in the face of the voters of Hillsborough County who have twice elected me to serve *them*, not Ron DeSantis… August 4th 20226,834 Retweets21,207 Likes
So!
Summit.News ran a story yesterday headlined, “Poll: Almost 40% Of Democrat Voters Say Democrats Have ‘Run The Economy Into The Ground’.” Uh-oh!
It’s even worse than that. The sub-head says, “Almost half of Democrat voters also said they believe the economy is in a recession.” Whoops. I guessed they missed the memo about the new definition of “recession.” They’re still mulling over the last time the Democrats ran the economy into the ground, back when Nancy Pelosi re-defined “unemployment” as “fun-employment,” where you have a lot more time for poetry, artwork, travel and stuff.
In it’s July 30th poll, Rasmussen asked 1,000 likely voters this question:
“Democrats inherited an economy that was primed for an historic comeback, and promptly ran it straight into the ground.”
Do you agree or disagree with this statement?
AGREE:
Haha! “PROMPTLY ran it straight into the ground!” This isn’t a good sign for Dems. The poll result might actually be even higher since democrat voters may have been reluctant to agree with the poller.
As an aside, the 15% of GOP’ers who disagreed with the statement must be the NeverTrumper contingent or something, I love them and everything but I can’t quite understand how they think.
Anyway, the only quibble I have with the poll results is that Biden has arguably run a lot more than just the economy into the ground. How about Afghanistan, domestic oil production, kids’ learning, drug abuse rates, the border, and so on and so forth.
🔥 National Review ran a story yesterday headlined, “Russian Court Sentences WNBA Star Brittney Griner to Nine Years in Penal Colony.” Yikes. It’s too bad Britney got used to selective Soros DA non-enforcement over here, or she might’ve been more careful, maybe even given up drugs altogether.
According to State Department spokesguy John Kirby at the White House Press Briefing yesterday, this is exactly how Russians usually sentence foreigners caught with drugs. For her part, Griner is a well-known critic of American culture which she believes is not only systematically racist but also anti-LGBTQ++, so she generally agrees with Russian President Putin’s criticisms. Even though she thinks the U.S. is systematically anti-gay, Griner was somehow able to marry her girlfriend anyway. In fact, she’s on her SECOND gay marriage to a biological female, having divorced her first wife/husband after she/they unexpectedly turned up pregnant.
I hope I got the pronouns right.
After being arrested at the airport on February 17th, Griner admitted the drugs were hers and pleaded guilty. She said she’d forgetfully tossed the recreational vape cartridges into her suitcase by accident. Griner’s lawyer said the confused WNBA player had “no idea” that the strict penalties for drug possession in Russia were so harsh, it was just a teeny-tiny amount of drugs, and it was an “honest mistake” that any young athlete could make.
Griner is 31 years old.
One positive arising from the case is that Griner, who wrote a pleading letter to Joe Biden on the 4th of July, has discovered a newfound sense of patriotism and love for her country. “On the 4th of July, our family normally honors the service of those who fought for our freedom, including my father who is a Vietnam War Veteran,” Griner wrote.
Progress.
🔥 The Hill ran an amusing article yesterday headlined, “3 in 5 People in 27 Countries Say Abortion Should Be Legal.” The gist was that a new Ipsos poll supposedly found most people support a right to terminate the baby’s life at some point prior to birth.
The reason stories like this tickle me is they are immediately self-negating. If the poll is accurate, then people who support the right also have the numbers to vote that right into the law. They don’t need courts or anything else. Just vote. But, people HAVEN’T voted themselves the right. The poll is obviously wrong. So why bother reading any further than the headline?
Stupid corporate media.
🔥 I listened to a great deal of the White House press briefing yesterday while I was working on a long legal draft, and I was not disappointed when Biden’s defense spokesman, John Kirby, rattled on a lot about just how unhappy Biden is about what is happening between China and Taiwan, and about how important a “free and open Indo-Pacific” is, but was very very light on anything sounding like any kind of promise to help.
Kirby did say the carrier USS Ronald Reagan would stick around “in the region to observe.” So we’re OBSERVING Taiwan being surrounded. That must be a great comfort to them.
Fox’s Peter Doocey asked the most interesting question, of course. Regarding China, he asked Kirby something like, “When Russia was building up troops along Ukraine’s border, Biden was in front of a microphone every couple days warning Putin to stop. But now that China’s surrounding Taiwan, Biden is nowhere to be seen, why?”
The answer: word salad.
Daily Wire @realDailyWireDoocy: “Why is it that, over the last couple of months, President Biden has been so much tougher on Russia than he is on China?” WH Spokesperson John Kirby: “I wouldn’t agree with the premise of the question.” August 4th 202233 Retweets192 Likes
FBN’s Edward Lawrence asked Kirby in a roundabout way whether the U.S. might consider sanctions against China to get them to stand down. But it would be an awkward time to start sanctioning ANOTHER huge international supplier, given our current worldwide supply chain problems. Kirby essentially answered, “no.”
Curtis Houck @CurtisHouckFBN’s @EdwardLawrence: “Given the aggression we are seeing…and the FBI director…saying that China…is the #1 threat to the U.S. in the next 10 yrs, would [Biden]…caution companies from expanding…in China?” Kirby replies “private companies…make their own decisions” August 4th 202236 Retweets81 Likes
Unlike how we responded to early RUSSIAN aggression toward Ukraine, yesterday the U.S. cancelled a planned ICBM missile test, citing tensions with China. Kirby described the decision to stand down as “demonstrating the behavior of a responsible nuclear power by reducing the risks of miscalculation and misperception.”
We wouldn’t want the Chinese to get the wrong idea that the U.S. might respond to an invasion of Taiwan militarily or anything.
You see folks, this is VERY delicate statecraft. It might seem confusing that we are treating Russia’s aggression toward the 3rd most corrupt country in the world, Ukraine, so differently than we are treating China’s aggression toward one of our longest-standing allies in the Pacific theater, Taiwan. You couldn’t possibly understand, so Don’t. Even. Try.
🔥 After meeting with President Trump in New Jersey, Hungarian Leader Viktor Orban addressed the conservative CPAC conference in Texas yesterday, massively triggering the Dems, some of whom demanded that the DOJ and Merrick Garland do something to stop his speech, which was practically domestic terrorism or an insurrection or something. I am not making that up.
Orban told CPAC attendees that “The globalists can all go to hell. I have come to Texas.” Orban, who was recently re-elected for a fourth term, is widely viewed as both a Trump and Putin ally and a staunch Soros adversary. The Hill’s article about his speech hinted darkly at Orban’s “Nazi-like rhetoric” and his authoritarian tendencies, just like how they usually describe Governor DeSantis. Other woke liberals were worried Orban’s speech would lead directly to America’s descent into totalitarianism, which is pretty ironic:
Dash Dobrofsky @DashDobrofskyHungary’s dictator Viktor Orban is speaking at CPAC today in Dallas. He’ll be joined by America’s failed dictator, Donald Trump. Let’s be clear: Orban’s giving the GOP his strategy for how to turn America into an Authoritarian state. This is not “America-First.” This is Fascism.August 4th 20226,328 Retweets16,451 Likes
In his speech, Orban explained that progressives and communists are the same, and they must be defeated — again — through “revitalizing” our churches, our universities, and our institutions.
CPAC 2022 @CPACPrime Minister Viktor Orban shares the importance of preserving freedom around the world. #CPAC August 4th 202254 Retweets155 Likes
I don’t see what the problem was.
🚀 Russia got an unlikely ally yesterday in Amnesty International, which released an investigative report condemning Ukraine for war crimes, producing scads of evidence of Ukraine surreptitiously nestling military assets amongst unknowing and unwilling civilian groups, including hospitals, schools, and shopping centers, where those civilians would have promptly fled had they known they were being used as human shields. But they didn’t get the choice.
Amnesty International @amnesty⚡️ Ukrainian forces have put civilians in harm’s way by establishing bases and operating weapons systems in populated residential areas.August 4th 202211,970 Retweets31,391 Likes
Amnesty International @amnestySuch tactics violate international humanitarian law and endanger civilians, as they turn civilian objects into military targets 👇 amnesty.org/en/latest/news…Ukraine: Ukrainian fighting tactics endanger civiliansMilitary bases set up in residential areas including schools and hospitals Attacks launched from populated civilian areas Such violations in no way justify Russia’s indiscriminate attacks, which have killed and injured countless civilians Ukrainian forces have put civilians in harm’s way by establi…amnesty.orgAugust 4th 20222,706 Retweets8,117 Likes
The report carefully tries to be even-handed, pointing out Russia’s many alleged transgressions such as invading in the first place, but ultimately convicts Ukraine as having committed what are clear war crimes and violations of international human rights agreements.
But of course, the crime wasn’t that Ukraine put all those innocent civilians — its own citizens! — in harm’s way, getting many of them killed, but the real crime was that Amnesty said anything about it. That’s the REAL crime. They should keep their damn mouths shut. Amnesty’s report instantly sparked a furious backlash against Amnesty, as social media experts who were formerly pro-lockdown, then pro-mask, then pro-jab, and now are pro-Ukraine, accused the human rights group of being a mindless propaganda front for the Russian. Which I thought was ironic.
Who knows? It could be, I guess. I’ve never much cared for Amnesty, so I’m staying out of this one. What do YOU think?
Have a fabulous Friday, and I’ll see you back here tomorrow for the weekend edition!
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© 2022 Jeff Childers (republished with author’s permission)
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
8-4-22
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Thursday announced the suspension of a Hillsborough County state attorney linked to liberal donor George Soros, arguing the official had indicated his intent to not enforce state laws related to abortion and child transgender surgery.
DeSantis said state attorney Andrew Warren (photo, above) would be suspended immediately and potentially removed from office in the near future over his stated intention to ignore laws passed by the state.
In June of last year, Warren “signed a letter saying that he would not enforce any prohibitions on sex change operations for minors,” DeSantis said during the press conference; elsewhere, Warren also “signed a letter saying he would not enforce ANY laws relating to protecting the right to life in the state of Florida,” the governor added.
“State Attorneys have a duty to prosecute crimes as defined in Florida law, not to pick and choose which laws to enforce based on his personal agenda,” DeSantis said in a press release. “It is my duty to hold Florida’s elected officials to the highest standards for the people of Florida.”
The governor’s office said that Hillsborough County Court Judge Susan Lopez would take over Warren’s position for the duration of the suspension.
Read MORE
By Chris Queen
8-4-22
If you’re following what’s going on in Florida with Gov. Ron DeSantis — and who isn’t? — you’re probably familiar with Christina Pushaw, DeSantis’s press secretary. She’s a bold spokesperson for the governor’s agenda, and it’s fun to watch her fight back against the left’s narratives on Twitter.
I had the pleasure of interviewing her on Monday afternoon, and she and I talked about what’s going on in Florida, why some states seem to gravitate toward freedom, and how conservatives can combat the left. I hope you enjoy reading our conversation as much as I enjoyed speaking with her.
Note: this interview was edited for length and clarity.
Chris Queen: Tell me a little bit about yourself your background, and how you got involved in politics.
Christina Pushaw: Well, I’m from Los Angeles. I grew up there and went to college at USC [University of Southern California] in downtown L.A. So I grew up in a place that’s, I think, the most beautiful state in the United States, but it’s completely been destroyed by one-party, Democrat rule. So I saw that with my own eyes just how the progressive policies can absolutely destroy a state with so much potential, so much wealth, and so many great people, but it’s just been turned into, like, a dystopia basically, because of hard left-wing policies. Growing up and seeing that, I was always kind of interested in politics, but I never really was that engaged in politics until after getting my master’s degree in Washington, D.C.
I actually spent some time working in Eastern Europe. I was a political consultant. I studied international relations. I lived in former Soviet countries like the country of Georgia, and I saw the legacy of Communism as almost similar in a way to growing up in California. Seeing the harm and damage done by this far-left ideology, this dystopia that it became, I think, really solidified my desire to fight against that happening in America as a whole.
How I came to Florida goes back to COVID. Honestly, I lived in between D.C., California, and Eastern Europe during the beginning of the pandemic, and I had not paid a whole lot of attention to Florida until Governor DeSantis emerged as a leader for all governors on standing up to these public health bureaucrats who were trampling on the Constitution and trying to destroy small businesses and the American way of life and civil liberties. And I just thought, “You know, he’s the one standing up to it.”
And it was amazing because Florida being the third biggest state, having such an outsized impact on the country, and getting so much attention, I felt like he got a lot of unfair criticism for the common sense policies that he made. What he was doing really impressed me, so I was following him for a bit. And at the end of 2020, right after the election here and an election I worked on in Eastern Europe at the same time, I came back to the U.S. and thought it was time for me to get involved in politics in my home country. And I decided to do that by writing an article about Governor DeSantis’ pandemic response and getting it published. It ran in Human Events at the beginning of 2021, and it went viral, basically. And so that’s how I got on the radar. And a few months later, I started working in Florida, and the rest is history.
Read MORE
By Matthew Decker
8-4-22
On Tuesday, August 2nd, the Fernandina Beach City Commission heard a tentative Beach Harmonization Plan. The plan is for proposed park designs at North Beach, Main Beach, and Seaside parks. Parking was the top issue raised by the community for all the parks. Currently, no budget or funding plan has been offered by the city to pay for the proposal. The Tourist Development Council (TDC) solicited this proposal and according to the City Commission will likely be the group paying for it. Also in this meeting, the city approved the purchase of a new 170 ft. aerial ladder fire truck to supplement the current ladder truck that is currently out of service. At the close of the meeting, Mayor Lednovich, challenged the public to come up with ways to reduce the proposed FY2023 city budget.
Beach Harmonization Plan:
Preliminary draft plans for the Amelia Island Convention and Visitors Bureau – Beach Harmonization Program were presented to the City Commission by Katie Bockel of EDSA. EDSA is a landscape architectural firm out of Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. The preliminary plan was presented in order to solicit final feedback prior to finalization of the Beach Harmonization Plan. It is a 10–15 year plan that establishes baseline infrastructure improvements and determines how the beach parks can be enhanced. The main changes include the addition of bathrooms, pavilions, benches, and waste receptacles, along with expansion of boardwalks. Several options were presented to the City Commission. Public comments have been gathered via online surveys and open houses. The presentation offered by EDSA can be found here.
EDSA acknowledged that one of the biggest challenges at the three beach parks is parking. The plan called for bringing the three parking lots up to code. This requires the addition of shade coverage and medians. The result is a loss in parking spaces. Commissioner Ross lamented over the parking situation; however, he did not want to “pave over paradise to put up a parking lot.” Commissioner Sturgis suggested the addition of golf cart parking to help ease the parking issues.
For North Beach the primary changes included, added restrooms, permeable surfaces for the parking lot, additional medians and shade coverage for the parking lot (city code), signage and wayfinding for the beach park, and an expansion of the boardwalk.
For Main Beach three options were presented. Option one renegotiated existing space and resulted in the fewest changes. Option two was the most drastic in terms of change. It expanded the boardwalk, added a formal amphitheater and a central playground. Option three connected the boardwalk North to South across the park, added play areas and an informal grass amphitheater. All three of these options resulted in a slight reduction of parking, as the parking lots had to be updated to city code (adding medians and shade cover).
For Seaside Beach the boardwalk would be expanded, more pavilions would be added, and parallel parking would be allowed off of Sadler Avenue.
EDSA specified that these options represent a proposed implementation plan and budget and final costs are addressed by a separate consultant. EDSA will provide a high-level cost estimate overview for the City Commission.
Commissioner Bean expressed concern over funding allocation to this project. Mrs. Bockel clarified that the scope of EDSA’s role is to provide a design, not a complete budget. A formal budget will be approved prior to implementation of the Beach Harmonization Plan.
Vice Mayor Kreger informed the public that the TDC, which will fund the Beach Harmonization Plan, consider Seaside Park the priority and currently have a $535,000 surplus out of a $1,978,000 budget. This money could be used for the Plan.
Commissioner Bean, Vice Mayor Kreger, and EDSA consultant, Mrs. Bockel, agreed that all signage and wayfinding at the three beach parks within city limits will include the city of Fernandina Beach on the sign itself.
Commissioner Ross stated that his, “major concern” is “about adding all this infrastructure, we’re putting in more boardwalks, more other things, and how do you take care of it going forward…. we add more and more infrastructure, and we don’t have a way to pay for it.”
Vice Mayor Kreger echoed Commissioner Ross’s worry about maintenance costs saying that, “There is no justifiable reason that in this whole process, when we get to the budget, that there isn’t an amount of money set aside, a percentage of that money for preventative maintenance.”
Mrs. Bockel claimed that not expanding the boardwalk in some cases or the adding of only one restroom versus two could help mitigate budgetary concerns. She assured the Commissioners that preventative maintenance would be factored into EDSA’s high-level cost estimate.
Consent Agenda:
The Consent agenda included a change order totaling $59,474 to Western Specialty Contractors of America. They are currently restoring the 93-year-old Peck Center building on a $1,2000,000 bid. In addition, a mutual aid agreement was authorized. This will allow the sharing of law enforcement resources between the Nassau County School District Police Department and the City of Fernandina Beach Police Department. The final Consent Agenda item was that the Capital Improvement Fund required a budget amendment in the amount of $25,000 for the paving of North Wolff Street.
The Consent Agenda was passed unanimously, 5-0.
Ladder Fire Truck Purchase:
City Manager Dale Martin requested the purchase of a new 170 ft. aerial ladder truck for the city’s Fire Department. The new truck would cost $1.2 million and would be financed over nine years with a debt service of $170,000 per year. This proposal is not included in the FY 2023 budget as delivery (and first payment) of the truck will take 14-16 months.
Resident Greg Roland offered his support for the Fire Department’s purchase in a public comment. He lives in a three-story house where the third story is only accessible by a ladder truck.
Vice Mayor Kreger questioned the purchase of a second ladder truck, “I’m not going to support this…there is a new [county] ladder truck on the south end of the island.”
Commissioner Ross came to the defense of the purchase, “It think it’s an essential piece of equipment for public safety.” He expressed concern over the budget increase of 2.78% or $170,000 per year for nine years. He planned to address the budget concern in tomorrow’s budget workshop.
Commissioner Sturgis stated that, “Public safety is the City Commission’s number one priority.” He claimed the Fire Department has been talking about a new truck for six to eight years and that the current truck, “doesn’t function, is rusty, and needs to be replaced.”
Fire Chief Silcox offered his reasons for purchasing the new truck. He confirmed the city does own a ladder truck: “There is a [county] ladder truck on the South end of the island and just like any mechanical apparatus, any vehicle that is brand new can end up in the shop. The city has a ladder truck that is nearly 20 years old. It’s been out of service for a couple of months now. We are having trouble getting parts for that apparatus.” He further explained that if the county ladder truck is out of commission or tied up on another call, then there will be no available truck as the city’s 20 year old truck is unserviceable. Recently, the county ladder truck was used to put out a ship fire at the Port, highlighting the importance of the asset.
The City Commission voted 4-1 in favor of the ladder truck purchase, with Vice Mayor Kreger voting No.
Parking Fines Doubled:
As part of an updating of Chapter 78 of the Traffic and Vehicles Code, parking fines were doubled from $25 to $50 per offense. Commissioner Bean did point out that the fines have not been updated since the 1990s.
The City Commission unanimously voted to amend the Traffic and Vehicles Code.
Outsourcing of Cemetery Landscaping:
Two landscaping positions at the Fernandina Beach Cemetery were outsourced to a private firm, Natural Landscaping of Jax. The two city employees were transferred to the City Parks Department. Commissioners Bean, Sturgis, and Ross complemented the City on this move as it allowed two city employees to maintain their jobs, while reducing the city headcount.
Closing Remarks:
Mayor Lednovich lamented over his reception of critical emails from the public. These emails expressed desire for the City Commission to create a budget in-line with the rollback rate, as opposed to the currently proposed 11.78% tax increase. He stated, “I would welcome any suggestions [from the public] to pass a budget at the rollback rate.”
Meeting Video: https://fernandinabeachfl.new.swagit.com/videos/178173
Matthew Decker is a Co-Founder of Citizens Journal Florida, having set up some of the technical and social media infrastructure. He also developed sourcing for some of its municipal government and business content. He is an Aerospace Engineer by trade. He has worked in NGO’s performing civic activities. He originally hails from Ventura, CA
8-2-22
From US Rep. John Rutherford, FL District 4
Washington, D.C. – Today, Congressman John Rutherford (FL-04) released the following statement on Democrats’ proposal to implement tax increases on American businesses:
“On the heels of spending $52 billion in federal funds to subsidize U.S. corporations that manufacture semiconductors, Democrat leaders in Congress are now pushing a bill, wrongly titled the ‘Inflation Reduction Plan,’ which would raise taxes on American businesses to provide $60 billion for new environmental justice funding and $80 billion in increased IRS funding, among other things. This expansion in federal spending fails to include meaningful reform to correct a broken system.
This is further proof of just how out of touch Democrats are. And Americans are paying the price.
U.S. GDP has falen for over two consecutive quarters, a textbook indicator that we have now enetered a recession, and inflation continues to hit record highs. The average American family will spend almost $6,000 more this year to maintain the same quality of life. Yet, Democrats continue to push to spend more, raise taxes, and make energy more expensive. This is a path that can only lead to more inflation, slow economic growth, and corporate welfare.
As a member of the House Appropriations Committee, I have made it a priority to look for ways to decrease spending and root out waste.
Congress must be better stewards of taxpayer dollars, fight against tax increases, and focus on pro-growth policies. This is the only way to get our economy, and our future, back on the right track.”
from https://myfwc.com
At its July meeting, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) approved new management regions and regulation changes for redfish in state waters following the final rule hearing.
These regulation changes, which go into effect Sept. 1, 2022, will:
“With this new forward-thinking management approach, we’re trying to do what’s best for this fishery. This agency is committed to working proactively to conserve the redfish fishery in Florida for future generations while balancing stakeholder interests,” said FWC Commissioner Steven Hudson.
The changes to redfish management regions and regulations, as part of FWC’s new management approach, will better capture regional differences and improve angler satisfaction. The new management approach includes annual reviews of the redfish fishery and redfish regulations may be changed each year in response to the reviews.
For more information, including the July 2022 Commission meeting presentation, visit MyFWC.com/Commission and click on “Commission Meetings.”
For current recreational redfish regulations, visit MyFWC.com/Marine and click on “Recreational Regulations” and “Redfish.” This page will be updated with the new regulations when they take effect.
Source: https://myfwc.com/news/all-news/redfish-722/
By George Miller
8-4-22
There is quite a bit of political infighting/mudslinging among some Republican candidates for office. Reminds me of the California version that I fled last year. Fortunately, most of them are above this.
I’ll use for an example the worst local race, for District 15 State House, between Duval GOP Chair Dean Black, who describes himself as a local business owner and rancher vs. newcomer, former US Marine Corp Officer and now Chartered Retirement Planning Counselor Emily Nunez. Both candidates are veterans, both involved in productive business/commerce activities, both profess to be Republican Conservatives.
We had to listen to accusations traded between them at a recent candidate forum Citizens Journal Florida covered: https://www.citizensjournal.net/report-on-fl-house-district-15-republican-primary-candidate-forum/ . At home, we also regularly receive attack campaign mailers from the far better-funded Dean Black. He is a very established, embedded, funded Republican, so he shouldn’t have to resort to that to beat a relatively unknown, lightly funded newcomer. (update 8-8-22- forgot to mention before that Dean Black is the Chair of the Duval County Republican Party. Should we ask what the party thinks of all this? I’m still receiving attack mailers, including another one today.)
Black has been heard multiple times paraphrasing Ronald Reagan’s famous “Republican 11th Commandment”, which goes something like: “Thou shalt not speak ill of another Republican”, semi-humorously taking off on the Judeo-Christian biblical 10 Commandments handed down from the Mount to Moses by God. But does Black follow it?
Although Black claims that Nunez started the personal attacks, his are far worse and disingenuous. I sent him this question and received the following response from his campaign:
CJF Question- You said that you only went into attack mode because Emily did first. What specifically were you referring to and was it a personal attack(s) or her just objecting to certain behaviors?
A-Black- Unfortunately Ms. Nunez made this campaign negative from the moment she filed against a popular Republican incumbent in Cord Byrd – so popular that he was recently appointed by Governor DeSantis to serve as Secretary of State. She and her supporters have chosen to post numerous personal attacks and half truths that are easy enough to find online. I believe voters will see through her desperate mudslinging.
So much for specifics. Then, her negative attack consisted of her filing to run against a “popular Republican incumbent?” Interesting. He extended the 11th Commandment to forbid even running against a Republican incumbent. No specifics of any negative attack on him were included, although it wouldn’t surprise me if they existed.
I sent a similar question to Nunez and got a short written answer:
I have no clue what Dean Black was referring to with this statement. The only thing I can think of is the disapproval of Representative Sabatini speaking at the Federated Republican Woman of Nassau as he is banned from speaking at the Republican Women’s club of Duval of which Esther Byrd is the club president. Other then that I cannot fathom what he meant. I believe that statement had nothing to do with me as a candidate.
She later sent us specifics on Black, including video clips. After Black recently lambasted her as a “Liberal,” which is akin to a Liberal calling someone a “racist,” one of the video clips of part of a candidate forum event has Black admitting that they are actually pretty close on issues near and dear to Conservative hearts, but he also asserted back then that he has the skills to put them into practice.
Transcript- Black: “What makes me more Conservative than my opponent? We’re both pretty Conservative, both pretty darn far to the right… What makes me most Conservative is my ability to get the Conservative agenda accomplished.” Download/watch video:
Dean Black admits that Emily Nunez is very Conservative:
https://www.citizensjournal.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/IMG_3902.mov
At a more recent forum, when asked by We The People leader Deb Boelkes why he had labeled Nunez a Liberal, Black responded that Liberals break the law, she breaks the law, so she’s a Liberal. (Q.E.D.)
Reading through Nunez’s latest candidate statement sounds at least as Conservative as Black- check it out.
We’ll go through sample Black mailer attacks on Nunez first, as follows, then what we learned about these:
Regarding the two candidate Black attack mailers above, Ms. Nunez stated that they refer to things she supposedly did earlier in the year, but complaints were only filed very recently in an attempt to spike her primary prospects. She says that they were initiated by a Dean Black supporter and that every every accusation is wildly distorted or bogus. She adds more about them:
Black was against Ron DeSantis before he was for him, which was only after DeSantis won. But, now he’s one of his biggest supporters, which is politically smart. So accusing Nunez of being “an anti-DeSantis Liberal” who “turned her back on Governor DeSantis” is really quite humorous, ironic and hypocritical. She is a huge DeSantis fan. Black actively opposed DeSantis, while Nunez merely didn’t vote in the primary that year. She asked, how does that make me “a Liberal?”
From Black campaign web site: “A staunch Trump supporter, Black was a campaign surrogate, official Delegate to the 2020 Republican National Convention, and had a leading presence on the campaign trail.”
But what about this?
The pattern repeats itself. Did he have an epiphany later when Trump took over the party, or just fall into Republican lockstep??
An integral part of Black’s campaign is repeatedly stating his Christian faith and that it motivates everything that he does. His closing comment at the July We The People statehouse candidate forum: “Recognize I do nothing without God. Ambition is a terrible reason to run for office. I’m running because I was called- I listen to Him.”
In closing, we have two candidates for District 15 State House that I would have been satisfied to have in office when I was in California. One of the reasons we left that state is that we could get hardly any such people into office in such a “blue” state. But it’s not right to use any means at all to get there.
—-
So will some stalwart establishment Republicans now accuse us of also being part of the circular firing squad, or will they instead agree that it was good to point all this out and that the unwarranted, untrue, distorted attacks should be halted? Please.
George Miller is Publisher and Co-Founder of Citizens Journal Florida, based in Fernandina Beach. He is a “retired” operations management consultant, software and publishing executive and manufacturing management professional.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
8/3/2022
By Michael Miller
The hit musical, CHICAGO opens at Amelia Musical Theatre, Fernandina Beach, on August 4th for a 2 week run.
This show is comprised of an all high school cast, backed by a full live orchestra. After viewing the dress rehearsal last night, I have this advice: You don’t need to have a kid in the show to go see this. It is a high energy cast driven by the choreography of Jennifer McCarthy and Carey Dresser. The rousing and energetic dance routines will razzle dazzle you and of course the catchy score, including “All That Jazz”, “All I Care About ”, “Razzle Dazzle”, and “Mister Cellophane” will inhabit your brain. These features made CHICAGO the 2nd longest running show on Broadway.
Set in the jazz age, “Chicago” tells the story of Roxie Hart and Velma Kelley, two rival vaudeville performers awaiting trial for murder in the Cook County Jail. They scheme for success with their attorney Billy Flynn, reporter Mary Sunshine, Roxie’s forgotten husband Amos, and of course the Cook County Jail’s infamous Mama Morton. The show’s brilliant comparisons between show business and the justice system come to life in music by John Kander, lyrics by Fred Ebb, and a book by Ebb and legendary choreographer Bob Fosse.
At AMP, Jill Dillingham admirably fills the roles of Director, Musical Director and piano for the orchestra. Choreographer Jennifer McCarthy has been in numerous AMP productions and led choreography in previous shows. Carey Dresser, who directed the smash adult version of the play here 5 years ago danced with the Metropolitan Opera at Lincoln Center and the Manhattan Ballet in a former life. Many others, too numerous to mention here, have combined to produce an impressive entertainment offering for the fortunate residents of Fernandina Beach. The AMP venue is a small and intimate 90+ seat venue. Even in the back row you are closer to the stage than in expensive orchestra seating at larger theaters.
Taking in the dress rehearsal, brought me back to my own experiences performing in shows. The challenging work of memorizing lines, learning and perfecting songs, dance routines, all the rehearsals, the direction and nuances to be captured. I remember the nervousness and fear that I, and / or the show, would be a flop. And then somehow, on opening night it just seemed to fall into place and click. Bringing live theatre to the stage is an amazing creative and cooperative process. I see it as a miracle that this concert of individuals, all driven by a passion to perform can create this live art, in this moment, never to be seen again. It is so worth experiencing, for your own enjoyment as well as to honor and acknowledge the vulnerability, courage, and dedication of all the players. There is little of such a rich entertainment experience to compete with this. I implore you to attend.
Show dates are August 4,5,611,12,13 at 7:30 pm and August7 & 14 at 2:30 pm. AMP musicals typically sell out, so get your tickets SOON online at 904tix or by calling the box office at 904-277-3455. The show is sponsored by Royal Amelia Dance Academy and Nader’s Pest Raiders.
1955 Island Walkway
Fernandina Beach, Florida 32034
Michael Miller, A retired Fire Lieutenant/EMT from NY has been in FB for 8 years. He is a fierce advocate for Liberty, a sailing captain and instructor for Windward Sailing. He dabbles in theatre, photography, geopolitics and markets and now writing. Look for his writing here and at: https://firesail.substack.com/
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
By Greg Piper
8-1-22
Google’s argument for dismissing an antitrust lawsuit by YouTube competitor Rumble — a haven for unfettered discussions about COVID-19, election fraud and Ukraine-Russia relations — so perplexed a federal judge that he took only eight pages to reject Google’s motion.
“Without real dispute,” Rumble has adequately alleged that Google violated Section 2 of the Sherman Act, U.S. District Judge Haywood Gilliam wrote Friday, questioning Google’s “somewhat counterintuitive premise that [Rumble] has pled too much.”
It’s the third censorship-related lawsuit against Big Tech pillars to win approval for legal discovery in recent months.
Last month, a federal judge ordered that social media companies Meta (Facebook), Twitter, and YouTube must turn over documents and answer questions in a suit alleging collusion between the companies and the Biden administration to censor “disfavored speakers, viewpoints, and content” on their platforms.
Read MORE in Just the News
8-3/22
From Emily Nunez, Republican for State Republican District 15
My name is Emily Nunez and I am a Florida-First Conservative running for State
House in Nassau County. After graduating from high school, I enlisted in the Navy and
served my first tour of duty in Atsugi, Japan with Fighter Attack Squadron VFA-192. I
was then selected to join the prestigious Navy Flight Demonstration Squadron Blue
Angels in Pensacola, Florida.
After serving for six years as an enlisted sailor, I was then selected for the Seaman to
Admiral (STA-21) officer commissioning program – after which I joined the United States
Marine Corps achieving the rank of Lieutenant before returning home.
I am currently a Chartered Retirement Planning Counselor assisting small businesses
with designing, implementing, and managing qualified retirement plans throughout
Florida. I am also a contributing author for OpsLens Media Group and a senior
researcher for FloridaDaily.com.
To be clear, I am not a politician. I was a soldier, so I will be clear and straight to the
point: I am running for State House because I truly believe the people of this great state
are SICK AND TIRED of Radical Socialists and WEAK RINOs in Tallahassee. We are
sick and tired of politicians not being held accountable for the values they campaign on
or to the people they represent. Corruption… back-room deals… false promises.
People are tired of the same-old story. WEAK RINOs who wave the flag at election time
and say they are pro-God, pro-life, and pro-gun and yet once elected, allow God to be
taken out of the classroom… allow unborn babies to go without a voice to protect
them… and let our Second Amendment rights go undefended. The excuses are always
the same, “We cannot go against leadership’s agenda” or “Now is not the right time for
that bill”.
Well, I am here to tell you, HEAR and NOW, it is ALWAYS the right time to STAND UP
for our God-given and inalienable rights!
As a veteran and former officer of the Marine Corps and Navy, I promise you that I will
ALWAYS put my country and my state first. Our rights, given by God, and codified in the
Constitution, will always be my first priority.
Speaking of priorities, here are mine:
The Right to Life is non-negotiable, the unborn will no longer go without a voice, one
which I will provide in the State House. I will work to pass the Heartbeat Bill, and make
sure that the constituency of any Republican that does not support this bill knows about
it.
The Right to Keep and Bear Arms is an inalienable and God-given right. A Right that
due to our nature as a free people, cannot be restricted, reduced, or restrained by the
laws of man. We need to BAN Red Flag gun laws, reinstate due process at all levels,
and PASS CONSTITUTIONAL CARRY IN FLORIDA NOW!
Over the past decade, I think many parents were caught sleeping when it came to what
was being taught in the classroom. Critical Race Theory, multiple genders, that men can
play in women’s sport and physically change their biological sex. It was and IS
absolutely appalling. With that being said, parents should have more say in how and
where their children are educated. That is why we need SCHOOL CHOICE NOW in
Florida. American Values in American Classrooms!
These are just a few of what I plan to achieve, election integrity included, but if you ever
find yourself asking “What does Emily Nunez stand for?”, it can be summed up very
easily in the term… Florida-First.
News
By Matthew Decker
7-30-22
The Florida Commission on Ethics found no probable cause to believe Commissioner Ross abused his Commissioner seat.
On July 22nd, the Florida Commission on Ethics reviewed a complaint filed against Commissioner Ross by Nassau Terminals LLC. According to Commissioner Ross, the then-President of Nassau Terminals, Christopher Ragucci, alleged that he harassed OHPA and Nassau Terminals. His supposed motivation for harassing conduct was that he would benefit from the closing of the Port of Fernandina, as his residence is two and a half blocks away and would increase in value if the Port was not in operation. In the July 26th Special Meeting of the Fernandina Beach City Commission, Commissioner Ross claimed an example of this harassing conduct was that he had filed four Public Records requests against Nassau Terminals.
The Florida State Ethics Commission conducted a ten-month investigation and found “No probable cause…to believe he misused his position when the City reviewed a grant application that would affect a port in the vicinity of Mr. Ross’ residence.” Commissioner Ross, stated, “Many of the statements Mr. Ragucci made under oath were not true. I can only speculate as to what motivated Mr. Ragucci to file the complaint. Mr Ragucci recently sold his interest in the Port, and I wish him well in his endeavors.”
Sources: http://www.ethics.state.fl.us/Documents/Ethics/PressReleases/Jul22pres.pdf?cp=2022731 and last City Commission meeting aftersession.
Matthew Decker is a Co-Founder of Citizens Journal Florida, having set up some of the technical and social media infrastructure. He also developed sourcing for some of its municipal government and business content. He is an Aerospace Engineer by trade. He has worked in NGO’s performing civic activities. He originally hails from Ventura, CA
By Jeff Childers
7-31-22
The Florida Department of Education published a new parents’ rights website this week: https://www.fldoe.org/ParentalRights/
The website rounds up information and tools for parents of school kids in Florida. It also provides an email address for reporting concerns, presumably violations by teachers or administrations: [email protected].
Even better, it mentions the top concern my office is hearing from parents these days — inappropriate sexual materials in schools, and the DOE strongly suggests that kind of material could be a CRIMINAL matter:
Source: Appeared in 7-31-22 Covid & Coffee Blog
Jeff Childers is an attorney, based in Gainsville, but also has a home in Fernandina Beach
Opinion/Analysis
By Jeff Childers
07-30-22
Happy Saturday, C&C, and welcome to the weekend edition! This morning’s “good news” roundup includes: a new parent’s rights dashboard debuts in Florida; corporate media “fact-checks” the Canadian doctors story, and I fact-check the checkers; New York is back under emergency and the CDC offer some helpful festival tips; Director Walensky explains where kids get monkeypox; Twitter’s on a banning streak; Biden builds back the wall, better; animals hit hardest by masks; a fantastic new injunction on the Air Force’s jab mandate; another amazing win as Liberty Counsel settles a jab case for healthcare workers for $10 MILLION DOLLARS; and Nature panics over supply chain problems with childhood vaccines.
🪖 OPERATION MULTIPLIER: Love her or hate her, Dr. Simone Gold was the first to publicly lead the pushback against the covid shots, and she has been squarely in the Pharmacological-Industrial complex’s crosshairs ever since. Having a Chicago medical degree and also a Stanford law degree, Dr. Gold tirelessly campaigned for alternative treatments and against the jabs in the face of massive pushback, and she founded America’s Frontline Doctors, which helped teach independent doctors all over the country to save people’s lives.
On January 6th, she briefly entered the Capitol during the protest, gave an anti-vaccine speech, and then promptly left after being asked by police. She was later arrested in Florida, and — with no prior criminal record of any kind — this week she began serving a 60-day prison sentence for trespassing, while Ray Epps tours the country in his travel RV.
Today our orders are to multiply Dr. Gold. But this is not about Dr. Gold. This is us sending a message, a message to everyone who thinks Dr. Gold “got what she deserves” because she opposed vaccine mandates. That’s why we need every C&Cer’s help, regardless of whether this is personally “your issue” and regardless of whatever you might think of Dr. Gold.
Here’s how it works. Click on the link and donate any amount ending in a $2 so they know where it came from. It doesn’t matter whether you cover the processing fee, they get a report showing the original donation amount. Donate what you can easily afford; it can be as little as $2, $12, $22, or however much you feel like giving or that you won’t notice out of your budget.
The key to our success is that we ALL help out, diehard C&Cers as well as first-time readers. Here’s the link, do it NOW BY CLICKING HERE, do it before you read today’s post.
I know you’re tempted to keep reading today’s awesome post first, but it only takes a few seconds, and then you’ll be right back here to keep reading. Let’s blow it out — no matter how much the total winds up being, everyone will see that thousands of us made donations. It’s a huge message, not only to our adversaries and to Dr. Gold, but to ALL the independent doctors who stand up for medical freedom, and who are shocked and appalled at what’s happening to Dr. Gold.
We have their back.
It doesn’t make any difference, but I’ll add that Dr. Gold and AFLDS have been loyal friends to C&C from the beginning, even before she moved from LA to Florida. Here’s the link again. If this is your first time, you’re going to feel GREAT after you do your part, I promise. You’re now part of a movement, an army of Davids taking on a geopolitical Goliath.
This is how we win, working together.
🪖 The Florida Department of Education published a new parent’s rights website this week: https://www.fldoe.org/ParentalRights/
The website rounds up information and tools for parents of school kids in Florida. It also provides an email address for reporting concerns, presumably violations by teachers or administrations: [email protected].
Even better, it mentions the top concern my office is hearing from parents these days — inappropriate sexual materials in schools, and the DOE strongly suggests that kind of material could be a CRIMINAL matter:
Florida law makes it illegal for an adult to knowingly distribute to a minor on school property, or post on school property, any pornographic or harmful materials, as defined in law. If you have questions or concerns regarding the potential introduction of pornographic or other materials harmful to minors within your child’s school, please contact your local state attorney’s office.
Progress!
💉 After fastidiously ignoring the shocking story for two weeks, corporate media courageously tackled the Canadian doctors’ situation yesterday, with multiple outlets running “fact check” stories (all on the same day) insisting that at least three of the five deaths were NOT related to the jabs. No way. Actually, all the stories suggest the cluster was only three deaths, not five; they don’t mention the inconvenient other two at all.
Here’s the lineup according to Reuters, which along with all the other corporate media fact-checkers, only relied on a single source to rule out the jabs: the doctor’s employer, Trillium Partners Healthcare system.
The unmentioned included:
Tellingly, Reuters’ “false” verdict did not explicitly claim the vaccines were uninvolved. Instead, it circuitously fact-checked vaccine involvement as “false” by finding there was “no evidence” of jab injury. That’s completely different. There’s no evidence of jab injury for a reason, because the people who have the evidence are suppressing it.
But aside from that, the fact checkers still resolved nothing. Dr. Segall and Dr. Sawicki’s two cancers are perfectly consistent with suspected vaccine injury:
From the study (caps added for emphasis):
“We also identify potential profound disturbances in regulatory control of protein synthesis and CANCER surveillance. These disturbances potentially have a causal link to neurodegenerative disease, myocarditis, immune thrombocytopenia, Bell’s palsy, liver disease, impaired adaptive immunity, impaired DNA damage response and TUMORIGENESIS.”
Next, Dr. McKenzie’s “serious illness” might or might not be a vaccine injury — they released too little information to say. But I find it odd Trillium told us about the two cancers but wouldn’t say what the third doc’s “serious illness” was. It doesn’t prove anything but it is suspicious. In the law, evidence of an attempt to conceal evidence supports an inference of a guilty conscience.
So. The third doc’s enigmatic secret illness does not rule out vaccine injury. The cancers don’t rule out vaccine injury either, as the study suggests, a fact which Reuters could have discovered by spending ten seconds searching online medical literature instead of credulously accepting whatever the doctors’ employer’s public relations firm said.
As a lawyer, I would call the employer’s testimony “impeachable,” because the employer is biased. The employer’s incentive is to avoid admitting responsibility for the doctors’ deaths, since the hospital was the one that mandated the jabs. Dead young doctors with lots of remaining lifetime earning potential represent potentially HUGE damages, if the survivors successfully connected the dots and sued the employer over its mandate.
So OF COURSE Trillium said it had nothing to do with the jabs.
You’d think Reuters might have pointed out Trillium Partners’ potential conflict of interest, but no. Not a peep. It’s almost like Reuters WANTED to excuse the hospital from liability.
Finally, Reuters undermined its own fact check by completely ignoring the two athletic deaths. The fact there were FIVE dead doctors — not just three — is newsworthy by itself, and also adds to the analysis of potential causation. In other words, the lack of underlying disease in the two athletic deaths argues for a possible common cause tying together the cancers and the mystery illness.
Therefore, I hereby officially rate Reuters’ Fact-Check of the Canadian Doctor Deaths — FALSE.
I bet you saw this one coming. Fresh out of the covid emergency, New York’s replacement governor Kathy Hochul has declared a new state of emergency, this time for — you guessed it — monkeypox — sorry New York Department of Health! I mean Brokeback Mountain Spotted Fever:
New York will tell you all about it if you text MONKEYPOX to 81336. (Maybe they should use a different key word?) But before you try it like I did, you should know you don’t actually get any information, they just sign you up for “monkeypox updates.” I can’t wait to get my first one.
The NYDOH’s auto-response also refers you to its dashboard, which includes a link to a helpful CDC video for “sexually active” people. It should have included “non-monogamous gay” in the title, but whatever. Here’s the link:
You won’t believe it’s come to this. The official CDC government video includes information about safely attending raves and group sex parties, and give tips about navigating back rooms “where there is little clothing and sex occurs.” It suggests remembering to disinfect your fetish gear and sex toys. And — I am not making this up — if you DO have sores, the CDC says “consider having sex with your clothes on.”
In other words, don’t STOP having sex. Don’t be silly. Keep on. Just wear more clothes. Clothes are like a body mask.
The video is also a little jarring because the speaker, who appears to have been selected to appeal to a certain audience (you decide), uses all this clinical language but then keeps saying “butt” when referring to places where sores appear. I bet they had a nice debate about what word to use. It’s also jarring when the polite, suited gentleman discusses “rave parties” and “fetish wear.”
Maybe a guy with a face tattoo would have been less distracting.
Anyway, congratulations, New Yorkers. You’re back in emergency land, where the governor can issue emergency executive orders whenever the mood strikes. Get ready!
Folks have been asking where the kids with monkeypox infections might have picked up the disease. CDC Director Walensky answered that question, sort of, but very very delicately.
She said, “Both of those children, um, are traced back to, uh, individuals who come from the men-who-have-sex-with-men community, the gay men, uh men, community.”
Uh huh.
Within the last 48 hours, Twitter has been on a banning rampage. It banned Moms for Liberty for calling someone a “groomer.” It banned Dr. Mary Talley Bowden (@mdbreathe), and has labeled all the Epoch Times’ posts as “unsafe.” That’s just three examples, there’re lots more.
My best guess at answering “why now?” is that this looks like battle space preparation for the midterms. Not that Twitter is trying to influence the elections, no, no, never. They’re just making Twitter safe for democrats running in the midterms.
Speaking of midterms, CNN ran a happy story yesterday headlined, “Biden administration to close border wall gaps in Arizona.”
The gist is that after shutting down the border wall project, and returning land to owners who sold or had land taken in eminent domain proceedings, the Biden Administration yesterday approved completing four small gaps in the otherwise-finished wall located in Arizona near the Morelos Dam. Officials explained it was just to help save lives by protecting illegal migrants from drowning. I guess the small gaps in the otherwise finished wall are an attractive hazard or something.
Anyway, it’s two political jaybirds with one cynical stone! First Biden gets to claim credit for tackling the border problem, and also he did it for the best interests of the migrant invaders. Ta-da! You’re welcome.
Yesterday, Fox’s Peter Doocy asked diverse White House press secretary Jean-Pierre about the wall, and a hilarious exchange ensued:
Hahaha! They’re re-defining “building a wall!” They’ll tell you what the words mean. You don’t even have to think AT ALL now.
Where are the animal lovers when you need them? The UK Daily Mail ran a story yesterday headlined, “The Devastating Impact of Covid-19 Litter on Earth’s Wildlife: Shocking Photos Snapped in 23 Countries Show Animals Tangled in Face Masks, Disposable Gloves and Other Personal Protective Equipment.”
The article reports on a “study” that collected photos of animals — birds, mostly — tangled up in discarded face masks. The article mentions another study estimating more than 25,000 tons of PPE including masks and other types of covid-related plastic waste has been dumped into Earth’s oceans.
At least the oceans won’t catch covid.
Remember how the experts PROMISED that masks were totally harmless? They’re fully inconsequential, just a minor inconvenience. People who complained about masks were making a big deal about nothing. I guess they didn’t mean birds or fish, for whom masks seem a little more inconvenient.
Anyway, I’m thinking of making some social media badges out of the bird pictures. What do you think?
Aaron Siri, who’s been doing yeoman’s work on the military mandates, had a big win Thursday when his newly-certified class received a preliminary injunction from the federal district court in Ohio. The Court ordered the Air Force, Space Force, Air National Guard, and the related academies not to take any disciplinary action against any service member who refuses the jabs on religious grounds.
Judge McFarland appeared to agree that the Air Force has been trampling on service members’ religious liberties. He wrote, “due to the systematic nature of what the Court views as violations of Airmen’s constitutional rights to practice their religions as they please, the Court is well within its bounds to extend the existing preliminary injunction to all Class Members.”
So!
That’s not all. Mat Staver and Liberty Counsel of Orlando, another civil rights powerhouse, settled another class-action vaccine case with a private employer who refused to recognize religious exemptions for $10.2 million dollars yesterday.
According to a statement on Liberty’s website, Staver sued NorthShore University HealthSystem “on behalf of more than 500 current and former health care workers who were unlawfully discriminated against and denied religious exemptions from the covid shot mandate.”
Lol. Mat always calls them the covid “shots.”
Anyway, assuming the Court approves the settlement, Liberty will get about $2M, or 20% — a VERY reasonable contingency fee — and each terminated employee will get $25,000. The statement estimates that even employees who weren’t terminated, but who were coerced to take the shot, will each get $3,000.
The figures aren’t the important thing.
We’ve been waiting for a win like this for two years. What’s important is that, to the legal community, this case is like discovering a new legal continent. Law firms that have been sitting on the sidelines because “nobody can win vaccine cases and make money” will smell the sweet scent of cash and a flotilla of legal ships will set sail for the new world.
Private employers who decided to “play doctor” with their employees and force them to take shots will likely be paying through the nose for years and years and years. As we predicted over a year ago when all this madness started, it’s going to be bigger than the tobacco litigation.
I’ll also add that I recently spoke to one of our allied attorneys who said she expects to receive her first EEOC letter suggesting that after the agency’s investigation, it appears “likely” that the employer illegally discriminated against the unjabbed employee by treating them as disabled, by requiring them to wear masks and take other actions not required of vaccinated employees.
There is a small but well-developed set of case law holding that employers can’t just assume that a healthy employee is sick simply because they are in some at-risk category. Consider the case of an employer treating a healthy gay person as having AIDS and requiring them to work from home or something. That’s not fair. It turns out that kind of differential treatment violates the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Lawyers are now arguing that employers who discriminated against healthy unvaccinated employees by requiring masks or segregating them violated their ADA rights by assuming they were disabled.
Assuming this works, employers may have liability even though they accepted religious exemptions, because they discriminated somehow against the employees who invoked their religious exemptions to the jabs.
Get ready! The legal gold rush may be starting. Too bad so many employers trusted that the federal government would have small businesses’ back. Not so much.
Nature ran a panicky story this week headlined, “Pandemic Drives Largest Drop in Childhood Vaccinations in 30 Years.”
Imagine that.
Nature never considers vaccine hesitancy, or more accurately, it never wonders if a few more people might now be reluctant due to learning about the pharmaceutical companies’ outsized influence in driving the massive childhood vaccination industry.
Instead, Nature blames the 5% drop in vaccination rates — 25 million kids worldwide — on “supply chain” and “economic disruptions.” According to Nature, that small drop in the general jab rate poses a nearly existential threat to all life on Planet Earth.
But the story doesn’t make sense. A temporary drop in jab rates do to transitory supply chain issues isn’t anything to panic over. Just fix the supply chain. It almost seems like Nature is worried there’s a DIFFERENT reason people are avoiding the shots for their kids. So it wants to reassure everyone that shots are ABSOLUTELY CRITICAL for life as we know it. Just trust Nature.
Or, you could decide for yourself! I know that’s a radical concept, but just think about it. Maybe we could redefine “vaccine” for ourselves this time.
the Operation Multiplier link: https://www.freedrgold.org/#__donate. Don’t wait! Do it RIGHT NOW. Remember: donate any amount that ends in a $2, and the processing fee is up to you — it works either way.
Have a terrific weekend! I’ll be back on Monday morning to help kick off the new week and the new month the right way, with more C&C.
If you can, help me get the truth out and spread optimism and hope: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/-learn-how-to-get-involved–
MeWe: mewe.com/i/coffee_and_covid.
Twitter: @jchilders98
C&C Swag! www.shopcoffeeandcovid.com
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
On Tuesday, July 26th, the City Commission of Fernandina Beach held a Special Meeting to vote on adoption of the tentative millage rate for FY 2023. The City Commission voted 4-1 in favor of adopting a tentative millage rate of 5.3330 mills, with only Commissioner Bean voting No. This millage rate generates $1.8 million over the rollback rate and $963,000 over the adjusted rollback rate. This amounts to a tax increase of 11.78% for property owners in Fernandina Beach.
All commissioners were present, with Vice Mayor Kreger being virtual, for Tuesday’s meeting to establish a tentative millage rate of 5.3330 mills.
Commissioner Bean raised two objections to the proposed tentative millage rate, either of which he said, “would be enough to vote No.” The first concern as stated by Commissioner Bean was, “I’ve identified a million dollars in items that I don’t think, and we all might agree on, don’t belong in the budget.” He added, “If we cut that million dollars we can get back [the budget] to avoid such a tax increase.” He challenged his fellow City Commissioners to bring items they believe can be cut from the budget to the next budget meeting, “I’m bringing a million dollars, what can you guys bring?”
The second reason to vote No on the proposed millage rate from Commissioner Bean, was that the approximately $3 million from the American Rescue Plan Act would inflate the budget, requiring another tax increase the next year. The other half of the ARPA payout was received by the city last year; together the two payments total $6.6 million. He concluded, “Let’s treat this money from the federal government like it is, a bonus. Let’s spend it wisely. I don’t think we need to raise taxes this year; I’m voting No.”
Vice Mayor Kreger voiced concerns with several budget items including the Capital Improvement Plan, headcounts, and department budgets. He also reminded the Commission that the millage rate can be adjusted up or down. With respect to the five-year Capital improvement Plan and its ten-year outlook, he stated, “Don’t assume we don’t need more money.”
Commissioner Sturgis echoed Vice Mayor Kreger’s concerns but reminded taxpayers that although everyone is seeing rising costs, “the city sees the rising costs as well.” Additionally, he mentioned the city’s $20 million debt and how any way to address this debt was would be good. He clarified that, “we can’t burden our taxpayers with all this debt”, and that the city should look for alternative revenue streams outside its residents. He voiced support for the proposed tentative millage rate with acknowledgement that the rate can be lowered in the future.
Commissioner Ross addressed Commissioner Bean’s comments by claiming that ARPA funds are, “a one-time expense to address deferred maintenance” and have, “no effect on the current rate.” He looked forward to hearing about the million dollars’ worth of cuts to the budget but wanted to pass the tentative millage rate. In response to Commissioner Sturgis’s suggestion to find alternative revenues outside the taxpayers, he reminded the Commission that there will be a meeting to address alternative revenue sources next week.
Mayor Lednovich called for the vote, and the Commission voted 4-1 in favor of the tentative millage rate, with only Commissioner Bean voting No.
FY 2023 Budget Process:
08/03/22 and 08/04/22 – City Commission budget workshops
09/06/22 – Budget public hearing
09/20/22 – Budget public hearing adoption
10/01/22 – 2023 fiscal year begins
https://fernandinabeachfl.new.swagit.com/videos/177817
Updated 07/31/22 at 6:30 PM to reflect that the $3 million received from ARPA this year is half the total amount received by the city over two years.
Matthew Decker is a Co-Founder of Citizens Journal Florida, having set up some of the technical and social media infrastructure. He also developed sourcing for some of its municipal government and business content. He is an Aerospace Engineer by trade. He has worked in NGO’s performing civic activities. He originally hails from Ventura, CA
Press Release
By Board of County Commissoners
07-29-22 Nassau County
The Nassau Board of County Commissioners approved a Capital Improvement Plan (CIP) valued at $133 million, at its regular July 11 meeting, including $49 million in CIP projects funded for Fiscal Year 2022/2023.
We are pleased to announce that the Board was able to determine funding sources that will not require the use of FY 22/23 projected ad valorem revenues earned from property tax collection, but instead utilize a diverse mix of funding sources including grants, impact fees, mobility fees, tourist development tax funds and other restricted funds, according to a statement issued Thursday.
Capital improvement projects refer to physical assets that include the design, purchase, construction, maintenance, or improvement of public resources such as land, buildings, parks, public infrastructure, equipment and public spaces.
The Capital Improvement Plan (CIP) is a working blueprint for building and sustaining the community’s publicly funded infrastructure.
Each year, the County compiles a list of identified projects for the CIP. The current CIP reflects the goals and objectives in the County’s first interim Strategic Plan, adopted earlier this year. The Interim Strategic Plan can be found here.
Below is a sampling of projects to be funded in coming fiscal year.
Transportation
• Extension of Amelia Island Trail from Simmons Road to Hickory Street
• Reconstruction of County Road 121
• US 301-Crawford Road Intersection Improvements
• Dove Road extension to William Burgess Blvd.
Parks, Recreation & Quality of Life
• Goffinsville Boat Ramp improvements
• New bleacher pads, new bleachers, and new shade structures at the Yulee, Hilliard, Callahan,
and Bryceville Sports Complexes
• Nassau Crossing/William Burgess Community Park ‘Splash Pad’
• Callahan “Town Center/Farmers Market”
• Bryceville Community Park “Town Center/Social Space”
• Wilson Neck Boat Ramp [John Claxton Boat Ramp] Park Improvements
Public Safety
• Public Safety Training Complex – Phase Two. (Phase One completed with Ribbon Cutting July 13)
• Security camera replacement for the Detention Center
• Equipment updates at the Emergency Operations Center
Stormwater/Drainage
• Clements Road drainage improvements
• Thomas Creek mitigation project
Facilities
• Civic Center Campus conceptual design work and preliminary engineering
• New courtroom buildout
• Historic Courthouse window replacement
Again, this is just a sampling of capital improvement projects that have been approved for the next Fiscal Year. To see all projects in 5-Year CIP (fiscal years 2022/2023 through 2026/2027), including the current fiscal year (2021/2022), visit this link.
Please note that projects placed into the County’s 5-year CIP are considered to be funded, however the CIP is subject to the adoption of the annual budget which is considered at two public hearings every September.
7-29-22
Source: Nassau County Insider
Development Review Committee
Tuesday, August 2, 2022
at 9:00 a.m.
Commission Chambers, 96135 Nassau Place,
Yulee, FL 32097
Board of County Commissioners- Special Meeting (this is in place of the August 8th meeting that had to be cancelled due to early voting activities in the Commission Chambers)
Wednesday, August 3, 2022 at 6:00 p.m.
Commission Chambers,
96135 Nassau Place,
Yulee, FL 32097
American Beach Water & Sewer District Meeting
Thursday, August 4, 2022 at 4:00 p.m.
Commission Chambers,
96135 Nassau Place,
Yulee, FL 32097
7-29-22
6:35PM FRIDAY, JULY 29, 2022
On Friday evening, July 29, 2022, the U.S. House passed H.R. 1808, the so-called Assault Weapons Ban of 2022.
The highly partisan vote was 217 to 213. Two Republicans voted in favor, including Chris Jacobs (NY) and Brian Fitzpatrick (PA), while five Democrats voted against, including Henry Cuellar (TX), Jared Golden (ME), Vicente Gonzalez (TX), Kurt Schrader (OR) and Ron Kind (WI).
Buckeye asserts that this is a flagrant infringement of the Constitution, which clearly protects weapons in common use by citizens, including the semi-automatic rifles targeted by this bill.
Theoretically, this bill would now move to the Senate. However, it is unclear whether the Senate will take up this bill or not.
Since the bill now heads for the US Senate, you might want to let Senators know your views on it.
This is how the bill is described on Congress.gov:
This bill makes it a crime to knowingly import, sell, manufacture, transfer, or possess a semiautomatic assault weapon (SAW) or large capacity ammunition feeding device (LCAFD).
The prohibition does not apply to a firearm that is (1) manually operated by bolt, pump, lever, or slide action; (2) permanently inoperable; (3) an antique; or (4) a rifle or shotgun specifically identified by make and model.
The bill also exempts from the prohibition the following, with respect to a SAW or LCAFD:
The bill permits continued possession, sale, or transfer of a grandfathered SAW, which must be securely stored. A licensed gun dealer must conduct a background check prior to the sale or transfer of a grandfathered SAW between private parties.
The bill permits continued possession of, but prohibits sale or transfer of, a grandfathered LCAFD.
Newly manufactured LCAFDs must display serial number identification. Newly manufactured SAWs and LCAFDs must display the date of manufacture.
The bill also allows a state or local government to use Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant Program funds to compensate individuals who surrender a SAW or LCAFD under a buy-back program.
Other media
https://reason.com/2022/07/29/the-dubious-and…
3 hours ago · The House of Representatives today approved H.R 1808, which would ban the production and sale of “assault weapons,” including semi-automatic rifles with features such as pistol grips, folding or …
https://www.aol.com/news/house-vote-semi-automatic-gun-182144015-233741931.html
https://georgiarecorder.com/2022/07/29/u-s-house…
3 hours ago · WASHINGTON — The U.S. House of Representatives on Friday passed a ban on semi-automatic firearms — the weapons used in multiple mass shootings during the last three months — on a near party-line vote. With the 217-213 vote, the bill, H.R. 1808, will head to the evenly divided Senate, but it’s unlikely to advance there, as the ban would …
https://bearingarms.com/camedwards/2022/07/29/…
13 hours ago · We haven’t heard any Democrats who were on the fence come out in favor of the ban in the past 24 hours, and the legislative page for HR 1808 still lists 212 co-sponsors.
https://kansasreflector.com/2022/07/29/u-s-house…
30 minutes ago · WASHINGTON — The U.S. House of Representatives on Friday passed a ban on semi-automatic firearms — the weapons used in multiple mass shootings during the last three
https://www.firearmspolicy.org/fpc-statement-on-house-passage-of-the-assault-weapons-ban-of-2022
https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/house-passes-assault-weapons-ban
From Nassau County
7-26-22
7/26/22 @ 4:00 p.m. – On January 25, 2021, the Board of County Commissioners adopted the Parks Recreation and Open Space Master Plan which outlines an updated level of service for all existing and future parks. In the report, recommendations were given to enhance park experiences, including upgrading or adding playgrounds at various locations throughout the County park system.
During the planning of the initial Five-Year Capital Improvement Program in 2021, Hilliard Ballpark was identified as one of the locations that could benefit from the addition of playground space. During adoption of the Fiscal Year 2021/2022, the project was funded 100% utilizing Impact Fees (a one-time fee collected when building permits are issued to fund future construction and improvements).
We are excited to announce that at the July 11, 2022 meeting, the Board approved the purchase and installation of the playground equipment. Below are renderings of the future playground which is anticipated to be installed by November 2022.
If you have any questions, please contact Parks & Recreation Director, Jay Robertson, at (904) 530-6120 or email [email protected].
By Dave Scott
7-29-22, Fernandina Beach
Fernandina Beach residents got hit harder financially than most others due to the lingering effect of the pandemic on the tourism industry and inflation’s impact on the numerous local retirees on fixed incomes.
The pandemic knocked area residents for a fiscal loop. Busted supply chain issues added to the misery with retailers and shoppers still in search of items ranging from baby formula and hand sanitizers to toilet paper and a variety of food items.
When inflation came roaring in, registering a more than 40-year high of 9.1 percent, it was a triple whammy. The cost of basic necessities including food, housing, gasoline, heating and cooling, and more increased rapidly and are still going up. It’s estimated that inflation costs the average American family $500 a month. That’s like paying for a new car and not getting it.
We’re suddenly seeing many of our neighbors cutting their own grass, holding off on car purchases, backing off on refinancing, putting home renovations on hold, and more. The U.S. economy contracted for the second straight quarter from April to June, hitting a widely accepted rule of thumb for a recession the Bureau of Economic Analysis reported Thursday. And it’s going to get worse.
Even Biden’s doddering 75-year-old Secretary of the Treasury, Janet Yellen, who only makes public appearances to admit she was wrong the last time she made a public appearance, went public yesterday, July 28, and muttered incoherently about a recession. We’re in one, she thinks. Yellen and Biden must share the same speech writer.
However, Fernandina Beach’s City Manager Dale Martin thinks Fernandina residents are flush and immune to financial slumps. He says we’re chumps who need to pay more to keep the city coffers full so he can hire more folks and buy nifty new stuff. It’s city hall that’s suffering he says, not the residents.
Instead of expressing sympathy and offering solutions for the city’s economically reeling citizens Martin told them to bend over, they’re taking a 14 percent tax hike. In a Friday, July 22 News Leader opinion editorial sporting a photo of the grinning Martin, he did an impression of Bedford Falls’ Henry F. Potter, announcing tax increases to pay for the all the new stuff and additional hires in his 2023 budget proposal. Here’s the financial train wreck he proposed: Link to the Full FB Budget for 2022/2023
In his quarter page News Leader word jumble he never mentioned inflation, recession, the residents’ current economic misery, or any other hardships that many locals have endured the past two years and are continuing to suffer. He didn’t express a single word of sympathy for the financial plight of city residents…nothing!
Instead, this tone-deaf bozo had the unmitigated gall to whine that the city is the victim saying, “….higher expenditures are the result of national, state, and regional economic factors: the increased cost of labor, equipment and materials following the COVID-19 pandemic.” He’s seeking our compassion for his reckless spending plans while telling us we’re going to get hosed. He’s like a hospice visitor complaining to a dying patient about his stubbed toe.
“This year, the City Manager has irresponsibly recommended a flat millage rate that equates to a 14% increase in dollars year over year. The city has been hiring excess staff, spending wastefully and now seeks to ask for a massive increase in spending.” – Jack Knocke, Common Sense Fernandina Beach
In addition to his lame excuses for raising our taxes Martin glosses over the fact that the city received $6.5 million from the federal government’s American Rescue Plan (RPA). He already has plans for those tax dollars, and they don’t include relief for local tax payers. Don’t even ask, that’s his private stash.
Even former City Comptroller Patti Clifford took issue with Martin in a note to the Commissioners saying: “The income from Property Taxes has gone up on average 10% for each of the past six years and the 2022/2023 tax increase in dollars is 14.025%. This is NOT sustainable! The City must learn to live within its means.”
Jack Knocke, head of the watchdog group Common Sense, took issue with Martin’s extravagant tax proposal in a note to the Commission and his Common Sense followers in part saying: “This year, the City Manager has irresponsibly recommended a flat millage rate that equates to a 14% increase in dollars year over year. The city has been hiring excess staff, spending wastefully and now seeks to ask for a massive increase in spending.”
Martin’s proposed budget now goes to the City Commissioners, who work for the tax paying residents who voted them into office. Martin works for the Commissioners who hired him.
If the system worked like it is supposed to the Commissioners, who work for us – the voters – would tell their employee – Martin – to take his proposed budget and shove it.
“Come back,” they should say, “…..show us what items you are cutting and how many staffers you propose shedding. We also demand a hiring and purchasing freeze and want you to request that every department cut a minimum of 10 percent from its budget.”
“Oh, and while you’re at it Dale, tell the building and permitting departments that if they don’t stop harassing, intimidating and financially strong-arming residents we’re going to fire all of them and transfer those corrupt operations to the county, where they will be run efficiently and honestly. And then sort out the water and sewer department and its dishonest “impact/capacity” fee structure or we’re going to sell it to the highest private bidder where it would come under supervision of the Florida Public Service Commission and all of its fees would be overseen and regulated. Then we’ll take care of the golf course and its $750,000 white elephant Toptracer fiasco you created.”
Because Martin apparently never took a math class, he believes that city government can tax its way to any fantasy he can come up with. He views the city tax payers through the eyes of a child, an extremely backward child, who thinks he can always get more money from them.
Hopefully there are at least three commissioners who still have a connection to reality and will point out that a tax increase of any amount is out of the question.
The Commission should also demand that Martin explain to them how the city is NOT in violation of Florida law with its outrageous fee structures, shuffling of funds, and impact/capacity fee extortion tactics. Then it should sack the grinning spendthrift.
It only takes three votes to send this guy packing. Commissioners Len Kreger, Bradley Bean and David Sturges, are you listening?
The budget approval process for fiscal year 2023 takes place as follows:
08/03/22 and 08/04/22 – City Commission budget workshops
09/06/22 – Budget public hearing
09/20/22- Budget public hearing adoption
10/01/22- 2023 fiscal year begins
***
How Corrupt & Stupid Are They? When I asked a city department head, who will remain anonymous for obvious reasons, if he/she would be willing to submit a budget reflecting a 10 percent reduction and a hiring freeze, he/she said: “Yes”.
So why isn’t City Manager Martin telling them to do that? Is the Commission going to stand up to their employee, Martin, and tell him his budget stinks and local citizens are fed up with increased taxes, outlandish fees, bureaucratic mumbo-jumbo, arrogant staff, and reckless spending?
A number of property owners and business people have relayed horror stories to me about the building and permitting department, capacity fees, and the lack of concern and common courtesy by city hall staff. Like the anonymous city official, they also want to remain anonymous due to the city’s well-deserved reputation for retaliation.
The city is notorious for its outrageous permitting, inspection, and building fee structure but nothing ever changes.
Dale Martin is running the city like an organized crime don. His capos on the Commission sit back and nod approvingly while Martin directs them on how to fleece the populace. The only things missing are the big cigars and diamond pinky rings.
The mayoral position Commissioner Mike Lednovich currently holds is worthless. He has no more authority than any other Commissioner. His job is to run the Commission meeting, cut ribbons and pose for photos. Unless he has at least two Commission allies, he can’t do zilch.
How are the current exorbitant building and permitting fees still justified? Why are they more than five times those of similar county fees? Building Department Director Steve Beckman is gone, the Chamber of Commerce protests are fading memories, but nothing has changed. Why does a permitting fee that costs an average of $6,700 in Jacksonville cost $201,000 in Fernandina Beach?
From what I understand any city income not authorized by the state to be exacted from citizens is illegal. That includes impact fees, now called “capacity” fees charged inconsistent with state law as well as building fees in excess of those authorized by law. City funds are shuffled from one entity to another and back again. Isn’t that using government entities to launder money? It’s like a Ponzi scheme.
I’ve heard rumors that State Attorney General Ashley Moody and Melissa Nelson, Florida’s Fourth Circuit State Attorney who handles the counties of Nassau, Clay, and Duval, may be close to taking a peek at the alleged financial shenanigans taking place in Fernandina Beach’s city hall. If so, I wish they would hurry.
Frequent city critic, lawyer, investor, and author Pat Keogh sums up the current city financial mess succinctly and offers an interesting analysis saying: “Every service offered by the city is also offered by the county on the other side of the street, literally, except for cemetery services,” he explains.
“As part of the city budget process department heads should be required to demonstrate that the county providers of comparable services cost more than comparable city services. If not, the county should be provided the opportunity to be the alternative source of supply for those services.
“City residents, who are also county residents, should have the opportunity to access parks and recreation management services. How about building services, planning services, code enforcement, police, and fire?”
Where is the outrage by those folks running for seats on the Commission? This is an opportunity to tell residents why they should vote for you.
Somebody – anybody – do something!
***
Things I Wish I’d Said: “The trouble with being poor is that it takes up all your time.” – Willem de Kooning
***
Fair & Thorough Reporting: If you want to read a balanced blow-by-blow report of the 15th District Republican primary debate between Emily Nunez and Dean Black sponsored by Deb Boelkes’ We The People organization this past Monday click here to read the Citizen Journal’s George Miller article: https://www.citizensjournal.net/report-on-fl-house-district-15-republican-primary-candidate-forum/.
The print bi-weekly News Leader totally ignored the story in its Wednesday edition while the pathetic Fernandina Observer ran an article about ants in the Greenway. (I didn’t make that up, honest.)
Instead of covering the political scene the News Leader featured a letter from its new Editor Tracy Dishman, telling readers all about her kids, and pets and how much she enjoys living here. Yawn! On the same page self-confessed socialist Ron “Get Off My Lawn You Little Bastards” Sapp spewed his familiar liberal claptrap, this time criticizing Governor Ron DeSantis for what Sapp claims is the Governor’s “attempt to corrupt and ultimately destroy public education.”
Florida’s wildly popular governor’s latest move obviously had socialist Sapp gasping for breath. The State of Florida is suing a bar that hosted drag shows with children present after investigators found that the establishment was exposing minors to sexually explicit content, according to documents obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation.
DeSantis discussed the complaint and spoke out against sexualized content targeting children during a Wednesday speech in Tampa on environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG). Preventing teachers from taking classrooms of kids to a strip bar is apparently what Sapp says is an attempt to ” corrupt and ultimately destroy public education.”
“Get off my lawn you little…..”
Sapp was an indoctrinator at Fernandina Beach High School and from what I hear from his former students and their parents he brought his leftwing blather into the classroom with him.
The Citizens Journal is quickly proving to be the most accurate and thorough newspaper in the area. If you haven’t subscribed do so. Oh, it’s free.
***
Overheard At PJD’s Beer & Wine Garden: “Why are the Post Office and Courthouse on Centre street such enjoyable places to conduct business and the offices in Fernandina Beach’s city hall such a mess?”
Republished with the author’s permission. Read The Dave Scott Blog– subscribe Free
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
Opinion/Analyis
By Jeff Childers
07-27-22
Good day, C&C! It’s Thursday, and we’re closing in on the end of July here in Post Pandemia. Today’s roundup includes: the greatest scientific study ever published promises a cure for all that ails us; guess what two new studies say is causing the pediatric hepatitis outbreak; newly-discovered documents show massive coordination between the CDC and social media during the pandemic; media pivots to new “recession” definition; democrats fund election deniers while prosecuting election denial; Venezuela and Iran and farm land; DeSantis kicks over ESG metrics; the most terrifying new threat yet; and Trump explains his Fauci policy.
☕ Late last week, the Washington Post ran a very helpful story that I happen to agree with headlined, “Regular Coffee Drinkers Had Lower Chance of Dying in 7-Year Period.”
Ha! See? I mean, what CAN’T coffee do?
According to a new study published in Annals of Internal Medicine, people who drink up to 3½ cups of coffee a day have a better chance at a longer life span. And that’s even if you ruin it with a little sugar, apparently.
It wasn’t some cheap coffee-industry study of ten broke college kids or something. The researchers tracked the coffee consumption and health of 172,000 caffeine addicts over a seven-year period. They found that those who regularly drank 1½ to 3½ cups of coffee a day, plain or even sweetened with up to a teaspoon of sugar, were up to -30% less likely to die than non-drinkers from ANY CAUSE — including blood clots, heart attacks, strokes and cancer. Or even monkeypox, I mean Brokeback Mountain Spotted Fever. Sorry.
I get it, tea is probably good too, but … it’s science, people. Don’t be a science denier. Drink coffee, read C&C, live long and prosper.
🔬 CNBC ran a story yesterday about a new pediatric hepatitis study, headlined “Scientists Identify Likely Cause of Mysterious Children’s Liver Disease.”
Whew. Glad we figured THAT out.
The researchers came up with a surprising conclusion. They ruled out covid and the shots. Instead, they decided the cause of the crippling pediatric hepatitis outbreak was … lockdowns. LOCKDOWNS. Nearly 40% of the hospitalized cases — mostly children under 5 years old — needed ICU treatment, and about 5% — 1 in 20 — needed liver transplants.
Specifically, in separate studies published Tuesday, two UK research teams both concluded that infants may have missed out on developing immunities to two linked viruses: adenovirus and adeno-associated virus 2 (AAV2), because of lockdown restrictions.
Some people were warning right from the jump that locking kids down, strapping masks over their tiny faces, and dousing them in hand sanitizer might — maybe — make them MORE vulnerable to disease. But the experts overruled us. Put them in bubbles!
At some point we may need to have a delicate conversation about exactly what should be done about all the so-called experts who pushed lockdowns and school closures so hard. The Lord sayeth vengeance is His and everything, it’s hard but that’s the rule, but that still doesn’t mean we have to keep listening to media-appointed “experts.” We can cancel them, right?
The Washington Free Beacon ran an exposé yesterday about some newly released CDC documents, headlined “How the CDC Coordinated With Big Tech To Censor Americans.”
Shocking.
According to the Beacon, newly-discovered documents show that starting in December 2020, CDC officials routinely emailed workers at Twitter, Facebook, and Google about “vaccine misinformation.” CDC officials even flagged specific posts as “examples” of misinformation. But they did it secretly, strongly suggesting they knew it was wrong.
The emails suggest even wider coordination than email campaigns. In one email, a Twitter employee says he is “looking forward to setting up regular chats” with the CDC officials. Others show coordination of zoom meetings with the CDC over how to best police alleged misinformation about covid vaccines. One internal March 2021 email from a senior CDC staffer says “we are working on [sic] project with Census to leverage their infrastructure to identify and monitor social media for vaccine misinformation.”
The Census Bureau! Come ON. They weaponized the entire federal bureaucracy against us.
Other emails show Facebook gifted the CDC with $15 million in free advertising credits in April 2021, massively promoting the government’s WRONG covid messaging. Do I need to repeat the list? 95% efficacy, vaccines prevent infection, lockdowns flatten the curve, masks work. And so on. All fake.
It’s ironic, don’t you think? The government got millions in free ad credits to promote MISINFORMATION while censoring the information that turned out the be accurate. The Bible explains God is not the author of confusion, 1 Cor. 14:33, so now we know where it comes from — the CDC!
Anyway, all this is CLEAR evidence of a massive conspiracy to violate Americans’ Constitutional freedom of speech. Private businesses may not conspire with government to censor Americans. And remember, it all occurred in the context of very public discussions, especially among democrat politicians, about “needing to revisit Section 230” — the Communications Decency Act — which allows social media platforms to exist.
I think it would be fair at this point to give all of US some free ad credits and censor the CDC. Who’s with me?
Fox News did a roundup of corporate media, showing how they all pivoted like a flock of starving pigeons chasing a bread crust to embrace Biden’s clever wordplay over “recession.” The Fox article I was headlined, “Biden White House Talking Points Redefining Recession Quickly Embraced by Media Outlets.”
The article makes some pretty funny points, like where it quoted the odious Paul Krugman, who had just finished apologizing for last year’s awful prediction that we wouldn’t see any serious inflation, but NOW he’s SURE that recession talk is overblown, and the White House’s new and improved definition was always how it should have been in the first place.
The article quotes Boston Globe reporter Jim Puzzanghera, who even went so far as to claim “it’s not officially a recession until a small group of experts empaneled by the National Bureau of Economic Research in Cambridge says so — and they are known to take their time.”
In other words: look, dummies, it’s not a recession just because your family is suffering financially from bad government policy. It’s only a recession when a tiny group of unelected, undisclosed, anonymous experts says it is, long after the fact. Just trust the experts, who are currently saying it’ll be a year or more before they can tell us whether it’s a recession or not. So you’d better not say it IS a recession, or you’ll be a disinformer, and you know what happens to disinformers.
So.
Meanwhile, Politico stealth-complained about the dumb redefining, but went along with it anyway: Click here to read post
It’s nuanced. It only took internet sleuths about three seconds to find where the exact same Politico author, Morning Money Ben, said the exact OPPOSITE thing two years ago:
It got better. Morning Money Ben even endorsed the old definition as recently as LAST MONTH:
Whoops! Listen to PRESENT me, not prior me!
In totally unrelated news, Politico ran a story about how White House officials are running around twisting reporters’ arms, to make them toe the newest line about how great the economy is: Click here to see the post
See, the news isn’t about the RECESSION. It’s about how a recession might give Republicans a way to attack Biden. Whenever it’s bad news, corporate media always runs with “Republicans pounce!”
Jared Bernstein, one of Biden’s longest-serving aides, said “What we are trying to do is explain things in a much more nuanced way than most people are getting from the daily news flow.”
Much more nuanced. MUCH MORE.
Making Politico’s point, Texas Representative Kevin Brady, top Republican on the House Ways and Means Committee, pounced, quipping “It’s too bad the White House doesn’t have a vaccine for denial.”
Hahaha! Good one.
Senior White House aides promised that Biden will be heading back to the midterm campaign trail — soon — as soon as he “fully recovers” from his covid infection, to counter the Republican narrative with an even sharper, much more nuanced, message on the economy. According to his aides, Biden will insist that the economy is not only great (e.g., high job growth) but it’s also getting even better (e.g., falling gas prices).
Much, much more nuanced.
Unfortunately, pollsters think Biden’s semantic acrobatics are too little, too late. “Inflation is way bigger an issue, three times bigger, than anything else on anyone’s mind including Covid, Ukraine, guns, you name it,” explained Tim Malloy, a Quinnipiac University analyst. “There is very limited time for them to fix this as the clock ticks down to the midterms. There really is little upside potential for them here.”
Axios ran a story yesterday headlined, “Jan. 6 Committee Divided on Dem Meddling in GOP Primaries.”
Axios says some democrats on the J6 committee are “concerned” about the “trend” for Democrats — flush with covid cash — to donate to pro-Trump Republicans in primaries, trying to boost what they consider to be “unelectable” candidates over mainstream options.
In the example from the article, the Democrat Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) is throwing cash at Republican candidate John Gibbs, who has suggested there may have been SOME cheating in the 2020 elections, and who is running in Michigan against Congressman Peter Meijer, a Republican who voted to impeach Trump.
I say good riddance. But this tactic is not new. This is how they got Trump. But they aren’t learning.
Some anonymous democrat congressman who was too chicken to give his name explained, “The DCCC is playing with fire. It undercuts the great work of the Jan. 6 committee and makes us look like hypocrites.”
Ah. So the problem is that with their left hands, the Democrats are allegedly fighting to save democracy by protecting the integrity of free and fair elections, but with their right hands they’re shoving cash at insurrectionists and “election deniers.”
Hahahaha! Life can be complicated.
Unkempt democrat J6 Committee member Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) took a more balanced view. He told Axios that hey, these things happen:
“One can certainly understand an argument that it’s categorically wrong to do anything that would objectively help insurrectionist election deniers. But in the real world of politics, one can also see an argument that if the pro-insurrectionist, election-denier wing of the Republican caucus is already dominant, then it might be worth it to take a small risk that another one of those people would be elected, in return for dramatically increasing the chances that Democrats will be able to hold the House against a pro-insurrectionist, election-denying GOP majority. Jean-Paul Sartre said that in politics we all have dirty hands up to our elbows. Nobody’s pure. And we are in desperate times to defend democratic institutions and practices.”
There’s so much material here. I’ll just end by observing that Peter Meijer made a bad bet by siding with Dems to vote to impeach President Trump. Now the Dems are using that same vote to primary him, to help elect a pro-Trump, election-denying candidate.
It’s a funny old world, isn’t it?
Venezuela gave Iran a MILLION ACRES of farmland this week. I thought, you could hide a lot of missile silos in a million acres.
Governor DeSantis is leading again. Yesterday, he appeared on Tucker’s show to announce that Florida will ban ”ESG metrics” from being used to drive Florida pension fund investments.
In case you haven’t been following the issue, so-called ”ESG metrics” are what’s been causing all these corporations to get super-woke. ESG stands for “environmental and social governance.” It’s a Soros/WEF-backed initiative to “score” every publicly-traded company based on how well the companies comply with woke guidelines like hiring diversity officers, making employee endure Maoist struggle sessions, reducing carbon use, promoting LGBTQ+ issues, adding pronoun policies, and generally acting like complete asses.
The scores have permeated big finance to the extent that companies with terrible products can still perform well in the markets by hitting high ESG scores. And if a company isn’t toeing the woke line, the scorers punish them by lowering their score, which generally cuts their stock price by putting the stock on the ESG blacklist.
In his comments, DeSantis speculated that other governors will soon follow his example and also eliminate ESG scores from pension investment criteria. Progress, and leadership!
There’s a terrifying new threat out there, and the AP ran a frightful story about it yesterday headlined, “Japanese City Alarmed by Biting, Clawing, Attacking Monkeys.”
But it’s much worse than that. The AP explained the monkeys are targeting INFANTS, attacking them — and stealing them.
BABY STEALING MONKEYS.
There have been 58 attacks in Yamaguchi just since July 8th. It’s getting so bad that city officials hired a special monkey-hunting squad armed with tranquilizer guns.
City official Masato Saito explained yesterday that the monkey “are so smart, and they tend to sneak up and attack from behind, often grabbing at your legs.”
STEALTH baby stealing monkeys!
The experts are — unexpectedly — baffled. “I have never seen anything like this my entire life,” Saito said. The AP reported that no one knows why the attacks are suddenly happening, or where the stealthy troop of monkeys came from. The pit, presumably.
This clears up ANOTHER prediction from the Book of the Revelation. “I looked, and there before me was a pale horse! Its rider was named Death, and Hades was following close behind him. They were given power over a fourth of the earth to kill by sword, famine and plague, and by the wild beasts of the earth.” Rev. 6:8
We’ve already seen the sword, famine, and plague. Now, the wild beasts! I always wondered what that would look like. Turns out it was far more terrible than anything I could have possibly imagined: mysterious, stealthy, baby-stealing monkeys.
In spicy media comments earlier this week, President Trump explained that, while he was in the White House, “I just listened to Fauci and whatever he said, I did the opposite… I came out very good.”
That used to be the C&C position! I used to say, just do the opposite of whatever the experts suggest and you’ll be fine. I’m gratified to see President Trump came to the same conclusion.
Have a terrific Thursday! I’ll be back tomorrow as usual, with a new roundup for you.
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The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
By George Miller
7-26-22, Fernandina Beach
Local grassroots Conservative civic group We The People (WTP) held still another candidate forum Monday, July 25 at Walkers Landing, to provide exposure for Republican primary candidates for District 15 Florida State Assembly- Dean Black and Emily Nunez.
Sparks flew at this event more than at any of the other forums we have been to- not so much on political issues, but over allegations of illegal, immoral or sleazy behavior. Campaign finance, (lack of) transparency and bogus accusations surfaced as the most prominent issues, sometimes obscuring the real issues and the job we need done for us in Tallahassee.
WTP leader Deb Boelkes presented a series of complex, obviously well-researched questions from the group, heavily weighted toward campaign finance.
Ms. Boelkes was kind enough to give us the text of the questions, which we have incorporated into our summary proceedings, adding a summary of the responses below ….
Two Minutes per question, unless noted:
Q-1-Please tell us about yourself:
Where you were born
Where do you live
Your family situation (i.e., married, number of children)
How long you have lived in what is now State House District 15
Your past and current employment
Past / present elected positions
Do you have endorsements from any big names?
A- Nunez- Lives in Yulee. Endorsed by General Flynn, Rep. Anthony Sabatini, former Rep. Ted Yolo. 12 years: USMC officer and USN enlisted. Worked with Blue Angels. Left military in 2016. Unmarried. Is an investment advisor, specializing in retirement plans. Lived in Jacksonville, but Nassau County is now home. She’s 3rd VP of Nassau Republican Women Federated. Does research for FL Daily.
A- Black- 8th generation NE Floridian, lifelong regional resident. Family went into cattle business in 1803 and still in. Has been a small businessman. Raised 5 kids, hoping for grandchildren- thinks you should have them first. Why running: can’t believe what has been happening in America. Very concerned about the future for children and grandchildren. Best days could still lie ahead- defend, support freedom. Education: PoliSci major at U Miss, vet: USAF/Air National Guard, generations served in military.
Q-2- for Both: What would you say to the claim made by someone deeply involved with investigating 2020 election fraud: Apparently if you hire a couple key consultants you can pay to get an endorsement. We just found in Kansas it cost $100K.
A- Nunez- a tragedy if anyone can pay for an endorsement- I didn’t.
A- Black- Ditto
Q-3- for both: Anyone who has not attended our events before may not be aware that We the People is NOT affiliated with any political party. No doubt there are several people in this room who believe that the Republican party left them. Both of you are entrenched in the Republican party. Please tell us how long you have been involved as a GOP organization leader, either at the local, county, state, and/or national level, and what your specific roles have been in these various GOP-related organizations.
A- Nunez- I am not entrenched, opponent is. (She serves on Republican Women Federated Executive Committee). There is a crisis in the party and what it stands for- America First vs. old way. Many changes needed. Wants to eliminate “pay for play”.
A- Black- I have been Republican as long as I can remember, a proud conservative Republican. The party is the natural home of conservatism. My mother told me that “the only thing in the middle of the road is road kill.” Some Republicans disappoint me. How to fix it: support most conservatives candidates, run (for office) yourself- show true colors. Work within the party to make it more conservative.
Q-4- for Dean: Something I like to do before moderating candidate forums is to look at the candidates’ campaign financing, including past races. Upon reviewing the Federal Election Committee (FEC) website, I found that you ran for Congress in 2010 in then District 3. That Congressional seat had been Corrine Brown’s since 1993, and she ended up winning that 2010 election as well. I found the total donations to her FEC campaign account in 2010 were $990K. Comparatively, I found the financing of the Dean Black for Congress Election account for that race as follows:
Receipts: $65,097
65 entries (average donation $1,001)
LARGEST donations: 5 from FL individuals @ $2400; 4 from FL individuals averaging $2,345. All but one donation was from individuals, the 1 business was TJSR Enterprises, an Automotive Repair business in JAX ($500); all but 4 from FL
Ending Cash on Hand: $5
Debts/loans owed by Committee: $22,725
It also appeared that you originally planned to run for Congress this year as the FEC showed Receipts & Disbursements (from 1/1/21 to 5/25/21) for Dean Black’s 2022 Congressional campaignwere$20,725. Why are you now running for State House in the new District 15 instead of running for Congress?
A- Black- Campaign debt was owed, committee was kept open while resolving. I had no intention of running for Congress this time. Brown held the seat, but the seat she should have gotten is in prison. She is now running in Orange County (shows incredulous facial expression). We had a campaign to send sandbags to her house for the hurricane after story emerged of her using govt. resources to do this. He feels “called to run”, the will of the people & Him (presumably God).
Q-5- for Emily: Like Dean Black, you are a Duval County native. While Dean Black has lived very close to the Nassau County border west of I-95 for a long time, you moved to Nassau County from Duval in September of 2021, after announcing your candidacy to run for State House in the old District 11, specifically to run against Cord Byrd. In January 2022, ProGunNews.com quoted you as saying that you were challenging Byrd because he allegedly “allowed HB 123, the Constitutional Carry bill, to get stuck in the Public Safety and Criminal Justice committee.” Now that Cord is our Secretary of State, why are you running for State House?
A- Nunez- Mike Yost beat Dean, later endorsed Nunez (corrected). Cort Bird is a great statesman, but I want constitutional carry.
Background for upcoming campaign finance questions: As I shared last week, a recent social media post said, “Candidates should have to wear jackets with names of their biggest sponsors, like NASCAR”. So, we like to follow the money to see how much money candidates receive from donors, and who the biggest sponsors are.
Under Florida law, campaigns, committees, and electioneering communications organizations are required to disclose detailed financial records of campaign contributions and expenditures.
In reviewing the Florida Department of State – Division of Elections website (as of 7/20) I found the total Receipts for each individual’s Candidate Campaign was as follows:
Dean Black Finances for 2022 State Rep – District 15: According to the Florida Department of State – Division of Elections website on Campaign Finance committee https://dos.elections.myflorida.com/cgi-bin/contrib.exe
Emily Nunez Finances 2022 State Rep – District 15: https://dos.elections.myflorida.com/cgi-bin/contrib.exe
Q-6 for Dean: This is a three-part question: A March 7, 2022 article in Florida Politics claimed as of March 1, you had collected over $350K in donations for your campaign which included:
So, I looked up the Political Committee TRUE Conservatives on the Florida Department of State – Division of Elections website, under Campaign Finance committees and found the following: https://dos.elections.myflorida.com/cgi-bin/TreSel.exe
If we add together donations to your personal campaign (as reported to the State) AND the donations to your committee, TRUE Conservatives (as reported to the state), as of 7/20/22 you have total donation receipts of $438,072.
A- Black- It’s my political committee. I have an overriding interest in my committee, but will later use it to support other constitutional conservatives. State and federal committees are very different- federal ones are far more difficult and complex. I have run a federal committee. I am the Duval County GOP Chair. I am supported by numerous PAC’s. I believe in the Constitution and our right to have our say. None of the PAC’s control me. I’m a businessman. Time is money and money is time. I may have people on multiple sides contributing to me. I may accept money from someone one day and vote against them the next day. I would not accept money from Planned Parenthood or Disneyworld I work always for you. My campaign and funding are very successful. He mentioned several PAC’s including Americans for Prosperity and said some act on their own, which he disowns responsibility for (deniability). He said True Conservatives sent out a “contrast” piece. Claimed Nunez turned it into a negative race, attacked him, Cord Byrd and wife and his own. Said that Republican Party is the party off law and order and that you can’t be a lawmaker and a lawbreaker (referring to a discrepancy on who paid for one of the Nunez mailers).
A- Nunez- Pointed out that the inaccurate attack ads on her are funded by PAC’s with interlocking management and common addresses in Tallahassee. Numerous PAC’s share one address. A former Gainesville party chair is involved. She said the establishment opposes her. Claims she was ousted from Duval Republicans when she ran for office. She prefers multiple $100 donations to a $1000 one- shows grassroots support. She says Koch backers of Americans for Prosperity (funding Black) “are very Liberal.” She said her friend Roger Stone says that the only thing worse than being attacked is being ignored, which means you’re irrelevant- so she’s not irrelevant.
Q-7- for Emily: While we are talking about interesting articles, I found an article from July 14 in Florida Politics titled, Former judge files elections complaints against HD 15 candidate Emily Nunez alleging you had not filed forms to disclose your relationships to a political committee that is noted on your campaign website to have paid for the site, known as Conservative Leadership Coalition.
So, I looked up the Conservative Leadership Coalition Campaign Finance Activity on the Florida Department of State – Division of Elections website under Campaign Finance committees and found the following: https://dos.elections.myflorida.com/cgi-bin/TreSel.exe
Is the Committee Conservative Leadership Coalition, which According to the Florida Dept of State was organized May 24,2021 and is chaired by Anibel David Cabrera in Tampa, FL, with Party or Candidate supported as “TBD”, dedicated to you alone?
A- Nunez-(Her answer appears later)
Background: I cannot tell from the Dept of State – Division of Elections website how much either of you has spent so far on your campaign from your reported contributions to your campaigns directly (as I could for the Congressional Candidates).
Anyone who watches FOX News at different times of the day knows Dean Black has run several TV ads on FOX News, and we know Dean has sent numerous multi-colored mailers, at least, all of which are about himself:
Then there are at least two negative mailers which focus on Emily Nunez—the largest one calling her a “Phony Conservative who is trying to Fool Us” and “Emily Nunez and her Liberal ideas can’t be trusted”, although it doesn’t specify what her liberal ideas are.
On the other hand, I’ve received just ONE positive multi-colored, large mailer about Emily Nunez, Paid for by Emily Nunez, Republican for State Representative.
Q-8- for Dean: I have to say, the flyer about Emily that says she “can’t be trusted” seems to have been paid for by a PAC of PACs that can’t be trusted. That said, as of July 20, 2022 on the bottom of each page on your campaign website, VoteDeanBlack.com, it says, “Paid for by Dean Black, Republican, for Florida House of Representatives District 15.” I assume the funds to pay for your website are from your personal campaign funds.
Can you tell us how much the Dean Black campaign and the TrueConservatives Committee have spent on this primary campaign so far, and how much money you expect to have remaining by the end of the primary to campaign with for the General Election, should you win the primary?
A- it appears that this was answered elsewhere
Q-9 for Emily: Can you please tell us how much you have spent on this primary campaign so far, and how much money you expect to have remaining to campaign with for the General Election, should you win the primary?
A- Nunez- it appears that that Ms. Boelkes already answered the fundraising totals. Nunez has little money left, but stated that the race would be won or lost in the primary, which also seems to be the consensus of political types we have read or talked to.
Q-10-for Dean: According to Florida Politics, the Nassau County establishment held a fundraiser for you in May, hosted by Sheriff Bill Leeper, Tax Collector John Drew, Property Appraiser Mike Hickox, City of Fernandina Beach Mayor Mike Lednovich, FB Vice Mayor Len Kreger, and City of FB Commissioners Bradley Bean and David Sturges. That said, since 2018 you have been the Chairman of the Duval County GOP. I heard through the grapevine you intend to remain Chairman of the Duval GOP. Is this true, and if so, if you are elected to be our State Rep, how will you do both jobs, how why should Nassau County think you will give us much of your mindshare, and how will people like me be able to reach you other than via TEXT Messaging, which candidly is very annoying and unprofessional!
A- Dean- I’m a Republican- I can walk and chew gum at the same time. I don’t have to do this, but it’s a “calling.” It’s about NE FL and Country. We do fundraisers, some events, donors, are not Republican, They are hired to do a job, host fundraisers. We take the money. Buddy Jacobs is no longer a Democrat.
Q-11-for Emily: Going back to the article I found from July 14 in Florida Politics titled, Former judge files elections complaints against HD 15 candidate Emily Nunez alleging you had not filed forms to disclose your relationships to a political committee that is noted on your campaign website to have paid for the site, known as Conservative Leadership Coalition. The article also says “State statute requires candidates to submit the [Statement of Solicitation] form if they raise money through a political committee. Violations of the statute are punishable by a fine of up to $50 per day.
As of July 20th, on the bottom of each page on your website, EmilyNunez.com, it says, “Paid for by Emily Nunez, Republican, for State Representative.” Can you tell us if indeed your website had been paid for by the Political Committee, Conservative Leadership Coalition, why it doesn’t say that now?
A- Nunez- The PAC paid for the web site. A (former?) judge made the assertion that had was the wrong disclaimer. No fines have been levied. Citizens Journal didn’t understand/follow a technicality she raised about not being able to use her name on the PAC. She wonders why this has only now become an issue after months and months- maybe because it is at a critical moment in the primary? She points out that Black supporter “Lefty” Lednovich (F.B. Mayor) marches with BLM downtown and that Duval County went “blue” under Blacks’ leadership and wonders how he intends to take it back.
A- Black- Duval went Blue and that’s why he ran for GOP leadership in 2018- to fix that. When he hears his opponent attack the good work his staff has done, he’s outraged. They have made caught up 10,000 Republican registrations in the county. (ed: This has also been attributed to conservatives fleeing here from Blue states.)
Background: At our Congressional candidate forum last week I read a list of the Top Voter Midterm Issues, from a poll of likely US Voters by Rasmussen Reports. Those issues are as follows:
Rising Gas Prices
Inflation
The Economy
Violent Crime
Election Integrity
School Issues
Abortion Rights
Election Cheating
Illegal Immigration
I would say our organization, We the People, has been, and continues to be most concerned about three things:
Regarding Election Integrity / Election Cheating:
Q-12- for Both: Yes / No Do you believe the 2020 Presidential election was stolen or not?
A- Nunez- Yes
A- Black- Yes
Q-13-for Both: Yes / No Do you believe the 2020 election was rigged down for down ballot candidates?
A- Nunez- Yes
A- Black- Yes
Regarding School Issues
In this last legislative session Gov DeSantis signed a number of terrific laws related to our children and schools, including the official ban of critical race theory in classrooms, and banning biologic males from participating in women’s sports.
The Florida Citizens Alliance is instrumental in the development of much of Florida’s school related legislation, including several new proposals to be addressed in the 2023 session, including:
Q-14-for Both: Yes / No Will you commit to supporting such legislation designed to protect Florida’s children if you are elected?
A- Nunez- Yes
A- Black- Yes
Regarding State Sovereignty:
Q-15-for Both: Yes / No Will you commit to pro-actively sponsor or support Florida legislation to push back on any Presidential Executive Orders or Congressional legislation that is not within the limited powers vested in the Congress Article I of the US Constitution, and /or to the President of the United States within Article II of the US Constitution?
A- Nunez- Yes
A- Black- Yes
For Both: Conservative Floridians are sick and tired with a great number of things that we see going on—some for many years. I have created a list of 25 such items. Since we don’t have all night to discuss all these issues, please select a number from 1 to 25. I’ll give you that item, and I’d like each of you to define what you would do about it, if elected
Note: The two selected items were these:
Q-16- PACs and Dark Money
A- Black- Support transparency/integrity in the election system with all available resources. Would inform people. Most don’t seem to make it their responsibility.
A- Nunez- Should be more transparent. Problem/solution within the party.
Q-17- Government attacks on fossil fuels and energy
A- Nunez- Republicans used to say “drill, baby, drill,” now they are silent. There is lots of Florida energy- should be developed.
A- Black- Tampa and Miami are actually trying to ban use of natural gas, in favor of solar, which isn’t working well. State to make sure we have access to all types of energy. There are brownouts in other states. We are the Free State of Florida and set an example for all other states- a contracts to California and New York. A strategic opportunity to take America back.
Q-18- 1- MINUTE EACH – Q for both: What is your greatest strength and, if elected, what will you do and/or not do in 2023 that will make the voters of Nassau County glad that we elected you?
A- Nunez- Moral courage. De Santis is the only one right now with the moral courage to set the state right.
A- Black- Recognize I do nothing without God. Ambition is a terrible reason to run for office. I’m running because I was called- I listen to Him.
We still had some questions on our minds after the event and forwarded these few to the candidates (their answers also appear, below).
For Emily Nunez:
Q-Dean said that he only went into attack mode because you did first. What do you think he was referring to and was it a personal attack(s) or just objecting to certain behaviors?
A- Nunez- I have no clue what Dean Black was referring to with this statement. The only thing I can think of is the disapproval of Representative Sabatini speaking at the Federated Republican Woman of Nassau as he is banned from speaking at the Republican Women’s club of Duval of which Esther Byrd is the club president. Other then that I cannot fathom what he meant. I believe that statement had nothing to do with me as a candidate.
Q- Could you recap the “dark” funding , PACS, interlocking management claims you made at the forum? I couldn’t write as fast or accurately as you rattled them off.
A- Nunez- Dean Black’s treasurer is William S Jones. They are both listed on his Pac “True Conservatives” as he stated in the Forum. William Stafford Jones is also the treasurer/chairman of Florida Prosper (the other pac that did the attack mailer) and about 18 other Pac’s. Florida Prosper is the other Pac that did the hit piece on me.
Q- On those other issues discussed , it seems like you and Dean weren’t that far apart. Would you please contrast where you differ and why?
A- Nunez- As the chairman of the Republican Party of Duval County Dean Black has remained silent on many issues that the county has faced. We have a majority Republican city council that has voted for a Democrat over a Republican to be its president (dean said nothing), they have raised our gas taxes and property taxes (dean said nothing) and they passed the HRO bill (dean said nothing). He was allowed to say yes that he believed in those issues, but if I would have had time to challenge him on what he has not done locally then people would realize they were getting lip service. He is a go along to get along establishment puppet. His inaction permitted Duval to go Blue and for Biden.
He was afforded an opportunity to debate me on the issues at the Nassau federated women and at the concerned citizens in action meeting and both times he was a no show.
I can’t respond on what he didn’t discuss, but he did mention that he believed the election was stolen. As the chairman of the Duval GOP what has he done to rectify that and how has he prevented future election fraud? Also, he portrays himself as a huge trump supporter and America First, but you can clearly see he was not on the trump train when he called him a bully, billionaire, and fraud for public consumption. He was the vice chair of the GOP when he made that comment. He then became the chair shortly after.
Dean Black Questions/Answers …
Q- It sounded like you agreed that some of the very tools you are using in the campaign should be curtailed in the future?
A- Black- No, however I do advocate for greater transparency in election finance while preserving free speech.
Q- The forum questions were very heavily weighted toward campaign finance, which detracted a bit from discussion of other issues. On those other issues discussed , it seems like you and Emily weren’t that far apart. Would you please contrast where you differ and why?
A-Black- I can’t speak for my opponent but there is only one candidate in this race who is a proven job creator, has been a consistent, lifelong conservative and can lead to get things done for Northeast Florida.
Q- Why specifically should it be Dean and not Emily?
A- Black- As a businessman, veteran, husband, father and proven leader, I am ready to work with Governor Ron DeSantis and deliver for our community from day one in office.
Q- You said that you only went into attack mode because Emily did first. What specifically were you referring to and was it a personal attack(s) or her just objecting to certain behaviors?
A-Black- Unfortunately Ms. Nunez made this campaign negative from the moment she filed against a popular Republican incumbent in Cord Byrd – so popular that he was recently appointed by Governor DeSantis to serve as Secretary of State. She and her supporters have chosen to post numerous personal attacks and half truths that are easy enough to find online. I believe voters will see through her desperate mudslinging.
We talked to a few people in the audience, observed in general and got mixed reactions.
It looked like the majority had at least tentatively made up their minds, based on observing campaign T-shirts, affiliation tables, applause and comments heard.
Carl Meux was in a small group talking afterward. I asked him his impressions and he responded that Nunez would support Nassau (County) better and Dean is “too entrenched” in Duval. The group nodded as he voiced those sentiments to me and other stronger ones he didn’t wish to be quoted on.
A well-known local businesswoman greatly favors Nunez because she feels she is a “true conservative.
I spoke to a woman at a Dean Black table. In my presence, someone who said she is a party official told her “don’t talk to the press”. But I later received an email from her and we talked. She wanted to record the conversation because she feared her words would be twisted. So I said: I’ll email you the questions and will publish your answers verbatim – and here they are, below:
Dean Black supporter Harriet Vazquez (questions and answers were done in writing)
Q- What did you think of the overall meeting?
A- Vazquez- I think the meeting was a great opportunity for voters to hear candidates speak and meet the voters directly. I liked that there was an opportunity for guided questions through the moderator, but, also an opportunity to further engage with candidates in direct conversation.
Q- Do you think it was fair and unbiased?
A- Vazquez- Certainly, I think it was fair. I believe voters want to know who they are voting for, and they deserve the opportunity to ask the questions that arise as they are formulating their thoughts and making decisions. I believe the forum could have addressed a wider array of topics, that would allow voters to understand the candidates in a broader scope and how that may be directly pertinent to the voter.
Q- What do you think came out of it and did you learn anything new from it?
A- Vazquez- I had the opportunity to hear Dean and Emily respond to a slew of questions that Deb, the moderator, prepared in advance. And through that experience, I was able to hear Dean’s unwavering commitment and obedience to the call of God. Whereas, his opponent, Emily, portrayed an unclear commitment to the conservative GOP voters; not only denouncing conservative voters as “political junkies,” but, also proudly claiming to be a leader within a GOP women’s group. In my opinion, that kind of double talk is disingenuous, and really gives me pause as far as what to expect, if she were to represent the conservative voters in Florida. Alternatively, Dean’s response, claiming his faith in Christ to be his best attribute, made it clear, that his role in Tallahassee would be rooted in the will of God the Father.
There were some other things addressed orally, but we agreed that she wouldn’t be quoted on those.
George Miller is Publisher and Co-Founder of Citizens Journal Florida, based in Fernandina Beach. He is a “retired” operations management consultant, software and publishing executive and manufacturing management professional
Opinion
By Michael Cutler
07-27-22
My article today is predicated on admission of the head of the TSA (Transportation Security Administration) that at least hundreds of illegal aliens have been permitted to board airliners on the sole basis of presenting an administrative Warrant of Arrest issued by immigration law enforcement officials. These illegal aliens were not in the custody of law enforcement authorities but were simply traveling by themselves wherever they wanted to fly to wherever they wish in the United States.
Administrative arrest warrants do not meet minimum standards to prevent counterfeiting and may easily be used by imposters. Furthermore, let us not forget the term “undocumented” frequently invoked by immigration anarchists to describe illegal aliens. This term is used because many of these aliens have no reliable and/or authentic documentation to attest to their true identities.
Now think of the stringent requirements that citizens of the United States, lawful permanent resident aliens and non-immigrant aliens must meet in order to board airliners.
Think of how many Americans and lawful immigrants are on so-called “No Fly” lists and are barred from boarding airplanes in the United States.
The only question that ought to be asked is for the administration to explain how this dangerous policy is in the best interest of America and Americans.
Obviously, this lunacy is diametrically opposed to the best interests of our nation and our citizens and violates the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission, as you will see in my commentary today.
Click here to read the entire post…
-michael cutler-
Please check out my website:
On Friday evenings from 7:00 PM until 8:00 PM Eastern Time, I host my show, “The Michael Cutler Hour” on the USA Talk Radio Network on Blog Talk Radio.
Call in and join the conversation! The phone number is 310-982-4145
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The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
8-27-22
By George Miller
We’ll be making a few changes to our web site tonight for security and usability reasons. This may cause the site to go down for a while, so apologies in advance if needed.
Citizens Journal Florida IT
By Jack Knocke
7-23-22m, Fernandina Beach
I’m looking forward to getting our civic group together to brief the full team on so many things happening locally – budget season, elections, and schools. We will have Sheriff Bill Leeper opening the meeting speaking to our group about the Sheriff’s Department and Election Integrity Locally.
Location: Fernandina Beach First Baptist Church, 1600 8th street, Fernandina Beach, Florida 32034 – enter back of building
REGISTER HERE Please register and bring a friend Registration required to enter and to be sure that we have adequate seating.
We have some solid success stories. We also have some challenges to deal with and some areas that we have not touched on yet.
There are several very exciting projects we are working and exciting events coming up you will want to be aware of and/or get involved in.
In order to become an official chapter of CCDF, we are fundraising to meet the $50,000 minimum – we are 40% there. Once we reach the minimum, CCDFUSA National will fund one full headcount from the national budget. Additional, fundraisers are planned over the next few months to fund our ongoing local expenses and our small action oriented team. I want to share some great things that we have coming up. THANKS to all of you who have already contributed!
We look forward to seeing you there next Thursday!
Jack Knocke
470-295-4365
By Matthew Decker
7-24-22, Fernandina Beach
The City is proposing no increase to the millage rate, which translates into an 11.78% tax increase, resulting in a $2 million windfall, when increased property assessments are factored in. This will be covered at a Tuesday July 26 special meeting. Another $6.6 million is coming from the American Rescue Plan Act. Also, the city code will be amended to ban smoking in public parks and beaches as a public health nuisance.
For the Fernandina Beach City Commission Meeting– 19th July, 2022, reported below, all five City Commissioners were present.
June Budget Summary:
Comptroller Pauline Testagrose offered the Budget Summary for the month of June to the City Commissioners. General Fund revenues have reached ~90% of total year revenues and 75% of the fiscal year budget has been met. Most departments are below the mark with planned General Fund expenditures; however, a few departments are exceeding the budget due to maintenance contracts. From the Capital Improvements Fund encumbrances and/or funds were issued for Tyler ExecuTime payroll, a skid steer, street paving, police funding, and the Peck Center project. Golf club membership revenues are up $64,000 from the prior year. Utility Fund revenues exceed expenditures except for wastewater. Diesel fuel revenues are up 115% from last year at the marina.
FY 2023 Proposed Budget:
Following the Budget Summary, City Manager Dale Martin, shared the proposed budget for fiscal year 2023. Martin proposed maintaining the same millage rate as last year, 5.3330 mills. Next Tuesday, a Special Meeting will be held at 6PM to finalize the millage rate for FY 2023. This constitutes an 11.78% tax increase. The average rate increase will be less than $50. The following examples were given: for every $103,000 of homestead property value, a $16 tax increase will occur; for every $107,000 of non-homestead property value, a $37 tax increase will occur. A Consumer Price Index of 7% is being used for the calculations. Non-homestead homes are capped at 10% of added assessed value per year, whereas homesteads are capped at 3% of added assessed value per year. The tax increase for the upcoming fiscal year will result in a $2 million increase in property tax revenues to the city.
The proposed budget also provided hiring billets for three new firefighters to replace retiring personnel. City Manager Martin championed Chief Ty Silcox’s diversity-focused hiring practices and congratulated him on hiring female firefighters and other diverse individuals. Other changes include, transitioning two cemetery maintenance positions to contractors, eliminating several part-time positions, and absorbing and integrating code enforcement into other city departments.
Capital Projects highlighted by City Manager Martin included sidewalk and street repair, the Peck Center, the Atlantic Recreational Center, Central Park, Seaside Park, downtown, hardware and software tools, the access #40 walkover, firefighting breathing apparatuses, the library, City Hall, utility relocation, debt service, and the MLK Jr. Recreational Center. Vice Mayor Len Kreger expressed his concern that he had seen conflicting budget numbers for capital improvement projects. City Manager Martin assured him that numerical discrepancies would be corrected in the proposed budget.
The budget approval process for FY 2023 takes place on the following dates:
FY 2023 Budget Process:
07/26/22 – Special Meeting of the City Commission to officially propose a tentative millage rate
08/03/22 and 08/04/22 – City Commission budget workshops
09/06/22 – Budget public hearing
09/20/22- Budget public hearing adoption
10/01/22- 2023 fiscal year begins
American Rescue Plan Act:
Fernandina Beach will be receiving $6.6 million from the American Rescue Plan Act. The Act allowed for claims of up to $10 million in lost revenue due to Covid-19 lockdowns. The City Commission elected to claim $6.6 million in lost revenues. The city plans to spend $1.5 million on the Amelia River Waterfront, $1.3 on government facilities, $1.2 million on stormwater infrastructure, $1 million for road construction, and $1 million for wastewater services. Taking the lumpsum claim of $6.6 million allows the city to spend the money on these general items at their discretion. The funds from the American Rescue Plan Act will be held in a Capital Reserve Fund.
Mayor Mike Lednovich, questioned City Manager Martin, “If I am layman taxpayer and you presented a city budget keeps the same millage rate, which is essentially a tax increase, and yet we are getting seven million dollars, two of which is already spent. So that’s five million that’s going into the general fund. So as a layman taxpayer why are we raising taxes?”
City Manager Martin clarified that the funds will be held in a Capital Reserve Fund and stated, “As indicated in the budget we have increased costs due to labor, materials, and equipment, and general direction from the City Commission that we have to address deferred maintenance on a variety of city infrastructure.”
The City Commission voted 5-0 in approval to claim $6.6 million from the American Rescue Plan Act.
Gate Fuel Service:
Gate Fuel Service was awarded the diesel fuel service at the Fernandina Beach Marina. Two bids were submitted, one from Gate Fuel Service and the other was from Petroleum Traders. Oasis Marinas recommended the bid from Gate despite being slightly more expensive than the Petroleum Trader’s bid. Gate Fuel Service previously has been able to supply fuel with less than 12 hours’ notice, whereas Petroleum Traders could only commit to delivery with 24 hours’ notice. In light of the high demand of diesel fuel, especially in the season, the City Commission voted 5-0 in favor of Oasis Marina’s selection of Gate Service.
Quasi-Judicial Hearing – Roadway Standards Variance Request:
City Attorney Tami Bach conducted a quasi-judicial hearing to determine if standards for a variance were met. Mr. Dan McCranie of McCranie and Associates had filed a variance request to city roadway standards for properties at 2344 South Fletcher Avenue. The undeveloped lots in question had been subdivided into four lots from two, by a prior owner. Mr. McCranie requested the extension of 1st Avenue 200 feet. This would provide parking and access to his lots without having to access via an easement at the Miramar Townhomes and Condos located adjacent to the property. Mr. McCranie had initially filed this variance in response to the Miramar Townhomes and Condo Association denying him access via the easement on their property.
The City Planning Board denied all six necessary criteria for granting a variance. They found that further expansion of 1st Avenue would violate the Coastal Upland Protection Zone. Additionally, increased road traffic and the road surface material were other concerns of the City Planning Board. Despite denial of the variance, Ms. Taylor Hartman, a City Planner for Fernandina Beach, was able to assure Mr. McCranie that access to his lots via a 12-foot easement on the Miramar property was legal and within his rights. As Mr. McCranie only file d the variance to gain access to his property, he withdrew his variance request and will access the property via an easement. Withdrawing his variance request will allow him to refile as needed, if he had accepted the denial of the variance, he would have to wait a year to reapply.
Voluntary Annexation Agreement:
The City Commission voted unanimously, 5-0, to annex two properties into the city. Both properties had failing septic systems and will generate approximately $1,000 in combined property tax revenue to the city.
Additionally, a commercial property with a failing septic tank system was unanimously annexed into the city and will continue to be used commercially.
Variance Request – Accessory Building:
Mr. Kirchmeyer of Fernandina Beach requested a variance to city building code. He has an accessory dwelling of 1,000 square feet. City code only allows 625 square feet for an accessory dwelling. He requested the variance to rebuild the flood damaged building. His neighbors were concerned with blockage of their view. Through mediation of the city both parties were able to reach a satisfactory agreement, the building would be expanded to 1,100 square feet while retaining the original height. The City Commission voted to unanimously pass granting of the variance, 5-0.
Fire House Roofing – Blackwater Construction:
City Manager Martin requested $12,000 net change for different roofing materials on a fire station. Material shortages resulted in switching materials. The City Commission unanimously passed the request.
Land Development Code Amendment:
The land development code was amended to correct errors and omissions, change definition, and redefine water bodies as no longer being impervious surfaces. City Commissioner Ross recommended that in the future the Planning Board should submit changes in smaller packages instead of large revisions. Debate over the definition of water as a non-impervious surface and unintended consequences from this change were discussed. The City Commission voted to unanimously pass the amendment.
Pensions Code Amendment:
Changes to the General Employees’ Pension and the Police and Fire Pensions were made to prevent collection of pensions while reemployed by the city as a general employee. These changes were unanimously passed by the City Commission.
No Smoking in Public Parks and Beaches:
The city code will be amended to include smoking in public parks and beaches as a public health nuisance. The House Bill from the Florida State Legislature, that allows cities to regulate smoking in public beaches and parks as they see fit, originally provided exemptions for cigars and pipes; however, the passed version of the bill only provided exemptions for unfiltered cigars. The penalty proposed was a $75 fine or citation. The third and final reading of this code change will be held on August 16th at 6PM. Vice Mayor Kreger questioned how this ban will be enforced. City Attorney Bach, recognized his concern.
Public Comment was offered by a resident, Joyce. She claimed that, “Cigarette butts are the number one form of beach trash in the world.” Commissioner Sturgis also expressed concern over finding so many cigarette butts on city beaches.
Commissioner Bean expressed dismay over the proposed ban, “I can’t restrict a person’s right to enjoy the outdoors in the way they perceive; I’m going to vote no.”
Mayor Lednovich discussed New York State’s similar albeit statewide ban on cigarettes, stating, “If an entire state can do it, we can do it.”
He continued, “A person does not have a right to exhale toxic materials, that I can breathe in that will adversely impact my health. That right does not exist. The right to pollute the environment and our wildlife habitat does not exist. Neither does the right to negatively impact wildlife or sea life. Those rights don’t’ exist. We are not limiting anyone’s rights. They don’t have that right to begin with. That’s bunk. That’s what it is. That’s bunk. So, I will vote for this.”
All voted in favor of the proposed ban except for Commissioner Bean who voted no.
City Manager Report:
Vice Mayor Kreger resigned from the Nassau County Economic Development Board. Commissioner Bean will serve in his place for the remainder of his term. The City Commission voted unanimously to allow this.
Chief Foxworth of the city police department will take a six month leave of absence to conform to newly adopted city standards. In the interim, a previous chief, Chief Hurley will serve for up to six months. Upon the end of his six months of leave, Chief Foxworth will return to his role as chief.
City Manager Martin encouraged residents of Fernandina Beach to participate in the National Community Survey (this used to be called the National Citizen Survey). The survey will be open for two more weeks.
Quarterly Litigation Report:
City Attorney Bach confirmed that new cases occurred and that both an eviction case and the Ocean Highway and Port Authority pilot payment lawsuit are both progressing.
City Clerk Report:
For the 2022 General Election, the following will appear in group four on the ballot: James Antun, Mike Lednovich, Chelsey Lemire, and Christopher Nickoloff. For group five, Darron Ayscue, Staci McMonagle, and Genece Minshew, will appear on the ballot. The contest for Mayor will be between Commissioners Bradley Bean and David Sturgis.
Mayor and Commissioner Comments:
Vice Mayor Kreger pointed out that under new tariffs, the city can install led lights in the street lights. This amounts to slight savings. The city rents the street lighting system.
Commissioner Ross stated that Ridgewood Infrastructure and Savage Enterprises quired the port from Worldwide Terminal. After meeting with a representative from the companies, he is “cautiously optimistic”.
Mayor Lednovich reflected on and offered condolences on the passing of Stanley Bunch, affectionately known as the Christmas Tree Man.
He reminded the public that the Police Foundation is hosting a spaghetti dinner Monday August 1st, from 5-8PM, at the Amelia Tavern.
For the full video of the City Commission meeting: https://fernandinabeachfl.new.swagit.com/videos/177351
Also:
Matthew Decker is a Co-Founder of Citizens Journal Florida, having set up some of the technical and social media infrastructure. He also developed sourcing for some of its municipal government and business content. He is an Aerospace Engineer by trade. He has worked in NGO’s performing civic activities. He originally hails from Ventura, CA
Opinion/Analysis
By Jeff Childers
07-25-22
Good morning, C&C, it’s Monday! And we’re off, off into another week of glorious adventure here in phantasmagoric Post-Pandemia, where the news is getting more implausible by the minute. This morning’s post is a little late, but it’s worth it.
In today’s roundup: giant developments as the corporate media embargo on vaccine injuries begins to lift; the newest cause of sudden and unexpected heart attacks; three more sudden and unexpected celebrity/athlete deaths; Biden re-defines the word, “recession”; ABC finds Panama; and a Ukrainian connection to — I am not making this up — an alleged organized child trafficking and cannibal ring in Utah.
🪖 I’d like to speak with any folks whose banking was frozen, de-platformed, or otherwise negatively affected after making a donation to the Canadian truckers. U.S. citizens only. If you fit this description, please email [email protected]. Feel free to forward this to anyone who matches the description.
🔥 Corporate media broke the embargo on vaccine injuries last week.
It was Tucker — it HAD to be Tucker — who ran a segment discussing some of the jab studies that WE have already been looking at for months but the entire media apparatus has been industriously ignoring, like teenagers making a PBJ sandwich while casually pretending not to see a puppy accident on the kitchen floor, so they don’t have to clean it up.
In his show Thursday night, Tucker started by riffing on Biden’s oil cancer and his convenient covid diagnosis, and then used all that to segue into a monologue questioning the jabs:
Is it possible that the vaccine actually can hurt you, especially if you keep getting boosted? Can it weaken your immune system? Well, that looks possible. Multiple studies have looked into this. Just last month, the Journal of Food and Chemical Toxicology published the findings of several MRNA researchers and we’re quoting, “In this paper, we present evidence that vaccination induces a profound impairment in type one interferon signaling, which has diverse adverse consequences to human health.”
Tucker continued discussing the study, saying:
The researchers continue that, in their studies of the COVID vaccine, “We identify potential profound disturbances in regulatory control of protein synthesis and cancer surveillance. These disturbances potentially have a causal link to neurodegenerative disease… myocarditis, Bell’s Palsy, liver disease, impaired adaptive immunity, impaired DNA damage response, etc.”
So, it’s possible. In fact, it’s looking likely that the vaccine might suppress the immune system. This fact, the authors concluded, will “have a wide range of consequences, not the least of which include the reactivation of latent viral infections and the reduced ability to effectively combat future infections.” Now again, we sincerely hope that’s not true, but it’s not just the conclusion of one scientific journal.
He said immune suppression — VAIDS — was “likely!” Tucker then moved to a different Lancet study from February, and said:
Read this section and more of C&C by clicking the link below.
Via Twitter:
Peter McCullough, MD MPH @P_McCulloughMDTucker correctly cites Yamamoto observation after 2 of them, the immune system is less responsive than the pure unjected with an intact and natural immune response. More evidence the products are backfiring and why so many regret taking them in the first place. @TuckerCarlson
Either way, this is a HUGE development. Who do you think will be next?
💉 Meanwhile, the UK Express ran a terrifying story this week that made my blood run ice cold headlined, “Heart Attack: The Shower Habit That Could ‘Precipitate’ a Heart Attack in the ‘Healthy’.” Showers! Habits! Habitual showers.
The headline’s enigmatic “shower habit” is: cold showers. Cold showers are risky and dangerous now. Thanks, experts!
Germans were less concerned, since they’re under government orders to cut their showers back to save gas. Good timing.
💉 Navy veteran and “Naked and Afraid” star Melanie Rauscher, 35, died suddenly and unexpectedly on July 17th, while dog sitting for a friend. No cause of death has been released. The dog, having endured a quite harrowing weekend after its sitter dropped dead, suspects the jabs, but what does IT know?
💉 Former Notre Dame offensive lineman Paul Duncan, 35, died suddenly and unexpectedly July 15th while jogging in his neighborhood. He’s survived by his wife Ellen and two young daughters. Ellen said his organs would be donated, to help others. Too bad he hadn’t got the news yet that jogging causes strokes.
💉 Former Miami Hurricane Football wide receiver Sam Bruce, 24, died suddenly and unexpectedly from a heart attack on April 28th. He’d been involved in a minor car accident, and then had what authorities first thought was a seizure. On July 22nd, medical examiners released their report finding Sam had died of “natural causes:” acute myocardial infarction due to coronary heart disease.
Coronary heart disease. Myocarditis. Natural causes. At 24. An athlete!
Uh huh.
📉 Hahahahaha! It worked so well for covid that they’re trying it again. The White House just redefined the word “recession,” so that the U.S. is NOT in a recession after all. Not anymore. Not after they redefined it. Shazam! You’re welcome.
Fox News ran a story yesterday headlined, “Treasury Sec. Janet Yellen Acknowledges Economic ‘Slowdown’ but Downplays Recession Fears.” The sub-headline said, “Yellen insists U.S. economy is ‘not an economy that’s in recession’.”
Yellen admitted to Fox that the “common” definition for a recession is two consecutive quarters of negative GDP, and allowed that economists DO expect to see negative growth again this quarter following last quarter’s -1.4% drop, but still, Yellen insisted that does NOT mean the U.S. is in a recession.
Why not? Because, borrowing a play from the CDC, the White House just updated its website to reflect the new, improved definition of the word:
So. The definition USED TO be two consecutive quarters of falling GDP. Now, under the new, improved definition, a recession can’t really be defined at all; it’s “holistic.” Intangible. Squishy. In other words, they’ll let us know when it’s a recession, don’t bother trying to figure it out for yourself.
Of course, it’s just political nonsense. The money people know what a recession is, and they’ll act appropriately regardless of whatever Yellen and Biden say. In that sense, their silly wordplay is meaningless. But what it DOES signal to markets is that Treasury Secretary Yellen is about to do the exact opposite of whatever a treasury secretary SHOULD do in the face of a recessionary economy.
What would we do without these experts?
🔥 In another remarkable news development, ABC actually reported on the Panamanian protests in an article yesterday headlined, “3 weeks of protests in Panama cause food, fuel shortages.” The sub-headline explains, “Three weeks of continuous demonstrations and road blockades to protest high fuel and food costs in Panama have begun to cause shortages of some food products, fuel and medicine.”
The short, carefully-worded article included zero interviews with Panamanian officials. It did not speculate on what might have caused the “high fuel and food costs.” Nor did it mention any of the other countries experiencing the exact same type of bad luck.
Finally, ABC did not mention experts, covid lockdowns, or Russia sanctions, nor did the reporters point out how the combination of the three factors has been particularly effective in collapsing weaker economies all around the globe.
But hey, at least they noticed Panama is struggling a little.
🔥 Something really weird is going on, and it involves cannibals. Eating children. In the U.S. Check out these recent headlines:
And finally, this “once-in-a-lifetime” headline from Utah last month that cemented some lucky headline-writer’s career:
The Utah story kicked off earlier this year, when the Utah County Sheriff calmly read this jaw-dropping statement:
In April of 2021, an investigation began into ritualistic child sexual abuse and child sex trafficking that occurred in Utah County. The ensuing investigation discovered that other victims had previously reported similar forms of ritualistic sexual abuse and trafficking that occurred in Utah County, Juab County, and Sanpete County during the time between 1990 and 2010. Portions of these allegations were confirmed.
These allegations are being investigated by the Utah County Sheriff’s Office in cooperation with other local and federal agencies. We are pleading with the public and encourage victims, or individuals with knowledge of these crimes, to contact the Utah County Sheriff’s Office Special Victim’s Unit, so that they can be offered all the assistance possible. We understand that there are individuals who have concerns for their safety and/or well-being, who have been silenced. We need your help.
The Sheriff said the main focus of the investigation is organized, ritualistic child sexual abuse spanning two decades.
A few weeks after the announcement, the county’s District Attorney, David Leavitt — who was not currently a suspect in the investigation — held a press conference and, without any advance warning at all, angrily announced that he’d been wrongfully accused of murdering small children, and eating them. He said he’d reviewed a witness statement that accused him of being involved in some very heinous crimes. Then Leavitt blamed the whole thing on the Sheriff, for orchestrating a political witch hunt against him.
Tellingly, Leavitt failed to mention the rather significant fact that for a couple years he’d also been under a Homeland investigation for pedophilic sexual abuse and trafficking. More on that in a minute.
The neatly-bearded District Attorney, who ran as a Republican, shocked the red county after he was elected by actually turning out to be one of these woke prosecutors who halts prosecution of a wide range of crimes, tries to “reimagine” the justice system and most tellingly, he tried to shut down the county’s special victims unit. For some reason. During his tenure, he has consistently been attacked by local Republicans as a RINO or worse, and has been just as consistently defended by leftwing media.
In other words, he’s a stealth Soros prosecutor.
In a recent June 27th article, Fox 13 Salt Lake said it got hold of a 2020 documentary including an interview with Leavitt, where he describes “a strategy” to basically buy the adoption of a Native American baby girl from her Montana tribe. You think the story is bizarre so far? This is where things start to get REALLY bizarre.
In the video, Leavitt says he’s close friends with and a business associate of former Ukrainian president Victor Yuschenko. Ukraine again! District attorney Leavitt and former president Yuschenko were cooking up a scheme in 2017 to introduce buffalo to Ukraine, because … whatever. The idea was, Leavitt and Yuschenko would pay top prices for buffalo from a lucky American tribe on some kind of long-term contract.
Who wants to bet the whole Buffalos-to-Ukraine deal would be funded by our tax dollars through some shady federal “biodiversity” grant?
In furtherance of his scheme, Leavitt flew to Montana and met face-to-face with Chief Killsback of the Northern Cheyenne tribe to pitch the lucrative buffalo deal, which the Chief was very, very interested in, but there was a catch: as part of the deal, Leavitt insisted as a pre-condition on getting, I mean adopting, a Native American baby girl. The Chief said no problem, paleskin. Leavitt describes, actually he sort of BRAGS about his repugnant buffalos-for-babies scheme ON CAMERA, although he dressed it all up with self-serving descriptions of his selfless humanitarian aims.
After tribal social services denied Leavitt’s request, citing a long-standing law barring adoption of native babies by non-natives, Leavitt called the chief to complain. Here’s how he described what happened next: “Five minutes later the phone rang and it was the social worker saying, ‘I think I’ve figured out a way to get this child to you.’”
Hurrah! Leavitt said he took the baby girl home with him that SAME DAY. A one-day adoption! It was a social services miracle.
Shockingly, former chief Killsback couldn’t be interviewed for the 2020 documentary because he was in prison for fraud related to some other awesome deal he’d cooked up.
Fox 13 then reported that, back in 2020, the video had made its way to a Homeland Security investigator, Noel Engels, who for several years was already investigating sexual allegations against Leavitt. Engels shot the video up the chain at Homeland for higher-level investigation of the human trafficking angle, and a few months later, Engles was suddenly and unexpectedly reassigned off the case.
Engels was suspicious. It didn’t make sense. He filed a whistleblower complaint, suspecting his removal from the case had been improper.
A few months later, Engels got a letter back from Homeland’s internal investigations unit, saying they found “a substantial likelihood of wrongdoing based on the information you submitted in support of your allegations,” and that the case had been referred to the Secretary of Homeland for investigation. Fox 13 somehow got hold of the letter.
So, the bottom line is it looks “substantially likely” that someone in Homeland protected Leavitt by killing Engels’ investigation. By his own admission, Leavitt was under investigation for sexual abuse, murder, and cannibalism. If someone at Homeland DID act to protect Leavitt — which seems “substantially likely” — then we’re dealing with a deep-state federal conspiracy of some kind.
Not surprisingly, on June 29th, Leavitt lost the Utah County Republican primary. The miracle was he ever believed he could win at this point.
Okay. This story is totally bizarre and might seem completely disconnected from normal C&C fare. But, given just the headlines and what’s been published in local Utah media, there’re a bunch of loose threads that all seem to be snaking toward a common center somewhere.
In this one single story, we have: ritualized child sexual abuse, a woke prosecutor, trafficking, murder, Natives, Ukrainians, deep-state government conspiracists, plus — from the bowels of the pit — cannibalism. You guys still with me?
And all that’s from just what’s in the record. I haven’t even speculated at ALL, even though I have LOTS of ideas informed by my legal background.
Now, let’s turn to the New York Times’ seemingly unrelated and totally revolting article on the joys of cannibalism.
The Times’ major premise is that the country is enjoying a season of delicious cannibalistic liberty:
Turns out, cannibalism has a time and a place. In the pages of some recent stomach-churning books, and on television and film screens, Ms. Summers and others suggest that that time is now.
The long-form article describes — at great length and in horrifying detail — a bunch of recent TV shows, movies, and books including descriptions of cannibalism in various forms. But it’s not clear to me, and the Times doesn’t say, whether there’s any more or less cannibal media chatter than at any particular time in the past.
But it IS clear that the Times is suggesting that the subject is an edgy but fascinating “sign of the times” or something. Twitter blew up with criticism mocking the article.
What I’m wondering is: is this creepy story somehow related to the Utah story? The timing is awfully convenient. Are the Narrative Managers trying to blunt the damage from something really awful we might find out about soon? Something involving government actors and credible allegations of ritual sexual abuse and — gulp — cannibalism? (Some of you will recall the “spirit cooking” parties revealed in Hilary’s emails, I’m sure.)
If you’ll indulge me, I’ll speculate just a teeny tiny bit to try to tie these unrelated stories together a little. First, one detail that’s missing is how the Utah County Sheriff’s investigation started, beyond vague references to having received “some information.” It seems like a safe guess that, his federal investigation frozen out by his bosses, Homeland Security investigator Engels could easily have dropped his file off with the local Sheriff, who also has jurisdiction to prosecute many of the crimes.
If so, then Homeland knows everything that the Utah County Sheriff knows. So they know what might come out in the grand jury, and in the (so far) local media.
Thus, if the Utah County investigation implicates national or international figures, or even just reflects badly on Ukraine, the same feds who “substantially likely” pulled the plug on Engels’ investigation could easily have tipped the New York Times that a little memetic cover would be helpful right now, to start blurring the lines between fact and fiction.
But maybe there’s no conspiracy, no connection. As the Times’ article suggests, maybe it’s just that there is something rotten in the zeitgeist. Maybe it’s all just a coincidence, after all. There ARE a lot of coincidences these days.
Have a magnificent Monday! I’ll see you guys back here tomorrow for refills.
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The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
By Patti Clifford
7-23-22, Fernandina Beach
Dear Commissioners,
First, I apologize for the length of this email but thank you in advance for reading through to the end.
Millage Rate
Please vote on Tuesday for the Adjusted Rollback rate as the Tentative Millage Rate.
Look at the Calculated Receipts column of the historical Property Tax Information on Page 2 of the Proposed Budget Book. The income from Property Taxes has gone up on average 10% for each of the past six years and the 2022/2023 tax increase in dollars is 14.025%. This is NOT sustainable! The City must learn to live within its means.
Impact on Citizens
A 5% increase in Stormwater Fees – I understand. The initial rate was low based on studies.
A 5% increase in Water and Wastewater on top of an increase in Property Taxes – OUTRAGEOUS! And for what? So you can transfer big bucks to the Golf Course and Marina? I do not believe either of these funds has ever had a rate increase of more than 3% in the past – that is the maximum rate increase I would recommend for the FY 2022/2023 budget.
Non-homesteaded properties will feel the brunt of any tax increase. The City Manager made the point that Lakeside and the Vintage Apartments are now in the top 5 taxpayer category. Who does this impact? Senior citizens who may be on a fixed income and renters who may be making little more than minimum wage. You can bet both facilities will be significantly increasing their rates. These are the PEOPLE that a tax increase and utility fee increases will directly impact.
PEOPLE are dealing with inflation, including the price of gas, and significant drops in their investments.
What are you saying to the PEOPLE with this bloated budget?
Headcount
I once again implore you to look at the headcount – particularly in the General Fund.
Get an historical report – see where additional positions have been added over time.
These increases in staff on top of the pay hikes are not sustainable.
Other
The Proposed Budget uses $2.4 Million of General Fund Reserves. The plan starts with a Reserve of $7.667 Mil and ends with $5.263 Mil. Is this methodology sustainable?
I was surprised to see how many line items for the current year projection exactly equal the current year budget. An accurate projection is a key in analyzing the request for funds in the upcoming year.
The Transfers from the Wastewater Fund to the Golf Course and Marina are robbing the Utility Fund and leaving Wastewater Reserves low – dangerously low? Maybe. I wonder how bond raters will feel about these transfers and the rate hikes.
Thank you for serving our fine City. This is the toughest part of your job – digging into City finances and understanding the impact your decisions have on the citizens.
Respectfully,
Patti Clifford
After serving for just over 14 years as the Comptroller, Ms. Clifford retired in January 2019 from the City of Fernandina Beach. She worked for 4 City Managers and 3 or 4 interim managers. Her experience provides extensive and unique insight into how the city works, particularly the finances.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
By Michael Miller
7/25/22
Above: Band leader and drummer Les DeMerle leads his 7 piece Little Big Band.
Les DeMerle’s “Little Big Band” tore it up Friday night during the Swing, Swing, Swing concert at Story and Song Bookstore of Fernandina Beach in front of a sold out crowd. The show was the second of a 3 part series on “The Story of Jazz”.
Les was backed by his old stand-ins, Dr. Bill Prince on flute, clarinet and alto sax and Doug Matthews on Keyboard. Bonnie Eisele was the vocalist, along with a few tunes from the always entertaining Les. Some new young blood was brought aboard for the show. We heard Ajax McDonell on tenor sax, Cameron Strine on trombone and Wyatt Bruno on trumpet and flugelhorn. Wyatt was the winner of the scholarship award from last year’s Amelia Island Jazz Festival.
Bonnie Eisele regaled us with some popular standards and then really delivered with a soulful rendition of Bésame Mucho. Another great moment was when Les called each player to the front for a solo and then scat singing with Les. He puts his players on the spot while giving them a chance to shine. They all did. The drum solos by Les in Sing Sing Sing and Drummin’ Man were astounding in speed and complexity. I believe Les is one of the most entertaining and playful musicians ever. As usual, I was kept smiling by the ever-present joy that he projects when he is sharing jazz with his audience. Be careful though- this joy is highly contagious for music lovers. The stories of the history of jazz and all the greats that Les has played with are informative and entertaining and round out the total experience.
The last concert in the series, Bebop, Blues and Beyond is planned in the same venue for September 17, 2022 at 5 pm. Watch our events section for upcoming gigs. Les will bring us the music of Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Joe Williams and Sade. Don’t miss it and buy your tickets early. The word is getting out. Also watch for our announcements of the upcoming Amelia Island Jazz Festival slated for October.
Michael Miller, A retired Fire Lieutenant/EMT from NY has been in FB for 8 years. He is a fierce advocate for Liberty, a sailing captain and instructor for Windward Sailing. He dabbles in theatre, photography, geopolitics and markets and now writing. Look for his writing here and at: https://firesail.substack.com/
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
Press Release
7-24-22, By Salvation Army Hope House
The Newcomers Community Service Group engaged both their members and the community on Thursday. July 14 in a very successful food drive to benefit our Nassau neighbors in need who come to the Salvation Army Hope House for emergency food, clothing, toiletries, household items, financial aid and more!
Pictured above from left to right: Mary Moore, Salvation Army Hope House Manager with Newcomers Carol Miller and Michele Farr.
Gratitude is in order to so many for your generosity and kindness! For the Newcomers’ members who handed out shopping lists at the Fernandina Beach Publix and Harris Teeter. For the stores who provided the venue. For Joan Krull and Kay Heard who organized the event and for our wonderful, loving community who puts your caring into action! We so appreciate how you, each doing your small part, came together to ensure bellies don’t growl unceasingly in Nassau!
Press Release/Technology
By American Military News
07-24-22
NASA is finally set to launch the Artemis I rocket in the first step to return humans to the moon.
Mission managers said Wednesday it was targeting three potential launch days from Kennedy Space Center in a window from Aug. 29-Sept 5. The announcement came on the 53rd anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing.
“Launch day is going to be here before we know it,” said Mike Sarafin, NASA’s Artemis mission manager.
The first potential liftoff is Aug. 29 with a two-hour window that opens at 8:33 a.m. The mission would last 42 days; sending the Orion capsule to an orbit around the moon with a return to Earth on Oct. 10.
See the full post here at American Military News.com
By George Miller
7-22-22
The US House of Representatives Judicial Committee voted 25-18 to advance the so-called “assault weapons” ban bill HR 1808 through Congress, even though its constitutionality and effectiveness are questionable.
And yet news is now breaking that Congressional Democrats are pushing the largest firearms ban in American history. - NRAILA
If you read the bill (see below), you would learn that it would outlaw the sale, manufacture, transfer or import of whole classes of widely-owned semi-automatic rifles with detachable magazines, plus standard magazines, which they refer to as “high-capacity magazines” and more. These are primarily AR-15 and AK-47 frames, but dozens of others are called out by make and model as well. It is estimated that at least 20 million of these are widely owned throughout the USA.
https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/1808
Per the House Judiciary Committee announcement:
The Assault Weapons Ban of 2021 (H.R. 1808):
~~~~~~~~~~~
If you read the announcement, you will see that it is loaded with highly partisan language, distortions and untruths.
It appears that a full House vote hasn’t been scheduled and that may be because leadership doesn’t have the votes. Then, there is the matter of getting it through the Senate, although it did pass another major gun control bill, with 15 Republicans supporting it.
Considering the Democrats’ razor thin House Majority, a lopsided 25-19 membership mix on the committee seems rather unfair- even “inequitable”- but this is how Congress works now.
Democrats believe that banning certain guns will eliminate or drastically reduce mass shootings. Or so they say. Keep in mind that the previous ban did not appreciably change the rate of change of gun violence, which was already in a downtrend. The recent gun control bill (“Bipartisan Safer Communities Act”) passed because a majority believed that banning high risk people from buying/possessing guns and addressing related mental illness might help.
Gun homicides had dropped by half since 1992, until the last few years. A previous federal “assault weapons” ban ran from 1994 to its expiration in 2004 (HR 2818 has no expiration date that we noticed). The Judiciary Committee gave the previous ban credit for the huge drop, but that is obviously false, since only a very small percentage of homicides were committed with rifles- even smaller for the ones covered by the latest attempted ban. More people are killed with hammers and clubs (we are not making this up). Knife statistics are close. In addition, gun homicides continued to drop after the ban expired in 2004.
Unrest in recent years has resulted in all murders increasing, especially in Progressive-run cities. We won’t attempt to say why in this article, since it is highly complex and subject to conjecture.
All in all, there has probably been more loosening of gun control in red states and less in the blue states- quite the opposite, actually. Ironically, some of the blue cities have the biggest gun violence problems- and the most stringent gun control. Subtracting those cities, the USA would be about average in gun murders in the world.
It is apparent that mass shootings are increasing and and that AR-15 style rifles are being used more. One wonders if that has anything to do with the relentless publicity accorded such events, which might produce “copycat” attempts. In addition, perpetrators of such incidents disproportionally tend to be young, emotionally disturbed, alienated young men taking psychotropic drugs, another apparent uptrend. Some have religious or political agendi.
Finally, we address legal issues. THE USA was founded by breaking away from British colonial masters, who violently resisted the colonies’ efforts to separate themselves from the British empire when their suppression became obvious and legal remedies proved fruitless. The British attempted to confiscate the weapons of colonial militias, which touched off the 1775 violence. Another Continental Congress, after the first one that established the original 1787 Constitution, convened to further protect rights by adding the “Bill of Rights,” which established Amendments 1-10.
The Second amendment was passed not so much for hunters, target practice and hobbyists, but to help enable us to defend ourselves from bad people- private or public. The Founders saw out-of-control government as a great danger and legislated accordingly. The Second Amendment reads:
How’s the War on Truth Going?
“A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
All this seemed pretty clear at the time. Militias met, trained, were deployed, militiamen were responsible by buying, maintaining and training with their arms. But they didn’t want the village idiot or nutcase running around with guns or anyone using them unjustifiably, hence the term “well-regulated.” So Joe Biden is not totally off base when he says that “the Second Amendment is not absolute.”
Over the years, the militia withered away when there weren’t imminent local threats. Police, military and the National Guard were used instead, although all 50 states and the federal government still have laws and regulations for militia. There are perhaps maybe only a few hundred militia units remaining in the USA, mostly small, poorly organized and vilified by the establishment. Some states, like California, have made it virtually impossible for militias to actually operate as intended.
The Left maintains that the National Guard is the militia and that there is no place for Citizen Militias. They go even further in insisting that private Citizens have no right to own guns, but the Supreme Court has strongly upheld that right.
“Assault weapons’ are “weapons of war”?
The Left has asserted that the public has no business owning AR-15/AK-47,etc. firearms, which they say are used in combat and even claim that the Constitution and the Second Amendment backs them on this, although the Supreme Court has been coming down hard in favor of gun rights. If oppressed colonists hadn’t had arms as good as the oppressors’, we might still be colonies.
Democrats and most Mainstream Media point to gun bans in other nations as being successful. Often-used example Australia, which had a large, mandatory “gun buyback” years ago, actually has more guns in private hands now than before that, according to Fox News commentator Dan Bongino.
The Left has characterized AR-15/AK-47 style rifles as “weapons of war,” because they look like the automatic M-16’s used by our military. But, AR-15’s are not automatic weapons. Combat is now dominated by artillery, missiles, bombs, tanks, IED’s, fighters, bombers and drones. Those are the really lethal “weapons of war” which account for an overwhelming percentage of combat casualties. These are largely banned for private ownership, along with M-16’s, M-4’s and machine guns.
Democrats have convinced some Republicans to support some of their gun control agenda, most recently, the “Bipartisan Safer Communities Act” – see: https://www.citizensjournal.net/republicans-enable-senate-gun-control-to-advance/ . This bill focused on red flag laws, banning sales to certain people determined to be an unacceptable risk, education (some say anti-gun propaganda), identification and treatment of related mental illness. It had strong Republican support in the Senate.
The red flag laws, certain types of background checks and ownership restrictions have been touted as “common sense” gun control by the left and “moderate” (some say “RINO” (Republican In Name Only) Republicans). However, much of it is worded such that these can be abused by authorities to become de facto unconstitutional gun bans and gun registries. Last month’s federal bill passed is an example of that.
It appears that one Republican did not vote. Checking …
Mar 11, 2021 · Assault Weapons Ban of 2021. This bill makes it a crime to knowingly import, sell, manufacture, transfer, or possess a semiautomatic assault weapon (SAW) or large capacity
https://www.bradyunited.org/legislation/assault-weapon-ban-2021
https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/117/hr1808/text
https://judiciary.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=5029
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/house-committee-approves-first-assault-weapons-ban-bill-decades
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
George Miller is Publisher and Co-Founder of Citizens Journal Florida, based in Fernandina Beach. He is a “retired” operations management consultant, software and publishing executive and manufacturing management professional
NEWS
By Roy M Postel
07-23-22 Nassau County
Nassau County Commissioners take a plunge this week into the budget process during a public workshop beginning Monday at 4 PM. The presentation will be followed by a chance for “the public to engage and participate in discussions” the posted agenda states.
Here is a link to the posted agenda for the workshop. The commission will consider setting a tentative millage for property owners to finance the budget for fiscal year 2022-2023. It will also consider setting the date and time of the first public hearing on the new budget.
The meeting will be held in the Commission Chambers at the James S. Page Governmental Complex, 96135 Nassau Place in Yulee.
As noted in the image below, the Budget Workshop at 4 PM is preceded by a workshop on the county’s comprehensive plan at 3 PM. The commissioners will convene their final formal meeting for July at 6 PM. The agenda for the Board Meeting is here.
OPINION/ANALYSIS
By Jeff Childers
07-23-22
Good day, C&C, and welcome to the Weekend Edition! In this morning’s roundup: Super-Dodgers; School board pays up after 1st amendment violations; Birx says she always knew; bad booster stats from Canada; Time for infinite boosters; four healthy Toronto docs kick the bucket; a new Monkeypox study provides useful statistics; Germans start to stink up Europe, and Nancy Pelosi terrifies the world again.
🪖 At long last, after an excruciating committee review of a super-competitive crop of entrants, I am pleased to finally announce the winners of our youth “letters to the editor” contest:
1st Place Youth Editor – Parker Anderson, 13, Brooklyn Park MN Read letter here
2nd Place Youth Editor – Lauren Herrick 17, Portland OR Read letter here
3rd Place Youth Editor – Hailey Keller, 14, Snohomish WA Read letter here
Honorable mention: Rhodri Miot, 11, our youngest contestant.
Congratulations Parker, Lauren, Hailey, and Rhodri! I might ask you to guest-host the blog sometime, you never know. Great job!
And congratulations to ALL of our entrants, every single one of which was good enough to be published in “real” newspaper. C&C will be recognizing each of you.
🔥 The Washington Post ran a story yesterday headlined, “Meet The Covid Super-Dodgers.” The sub-headline explains, “The no-covid club gets more exclusive every day. And some members have no idea how they’re still there.”
Hey! That’s me! I’ve never had it, although my family’s gone through it twice.
Anyway, the WaPo story is a long, rambling series of anecdotes about reckless people — gamblers — who live life in constant amazement they haven’t gotten covid yet. Three of the people used as examples in the story had tested positive by the time the article went to print, according to a little postscript, so I guess they weren’t such super-dodgers after all.
Here’s the real key to super-dodging: don’t take the test. It’s been working for me so far.
🔥 Several parents sued the Pennsbury School Board last year after board members cut off their microphones and ordered them removed from a public meeting. Last week, the school board voted to settle the case for $300,000.00. So.
Karen, I mean Christine Toy-Dragoni, Pennsbury’s school board president, had sent an unconstitutional letter to parents explaining that one speaker’s public comments “contained micro-aggressions as well as explicitly-racist ideas that connected the black community to several commonly-held, stereotypical beliefs that are harmful.” Tellingly, and very helpfully for the lawsuit, Toy-Dragoni (what a mouthful) apologized to the parents for not shutting the speaker down soon enough.
Here’s one of the spicy speakers that the school board snowflakes apparently had a problem with, who also illustrates some nifty techniques for addressing school boards, for all you podium warriors out there: (Click here)
🔥 Birx is back, this time in a Fox News interview. Fauci must not want to go there or something. What she said will make you want to stick vaccine needles into a Deborah Birx voodoo doll.
NEIL CAVUTO: The 20% or so of Americans who have not been vaccinated are going to look at [Biden’s infection] and say, why bother?
BIRX: If you’re in the middle of this wave, what’s going to save you is Paxlovid … I knew these vaccines were not going to protect against infection and I think we overplayed the vaccines… [so get vaccinated anyways because it’ll prevent hospitalization and death] … but let’s be very clear, 50% of the people who died from the Omicron surge were older and vaccinated.”
Wait, what?
First of all, she said she “knew” the vaccines weren’t going to stop infection. She KNEW. So … why didn’t you SAY ANYTHING, Deborah?
Second, you “overplayed the vaccines”? Does that bother you?
Third, she says Paxlovid will “save you” in this wave. Why not other waves? Why won’t the jabs save you in this wave, if you’re uninfected? I thought you took Paxlovid AFTER infection?
Finally, and most worst, she explicitly admits “50%” of people dying are jabbed. We could quibble about that percentage, since U.S. hospitals are using funny numbers, but never mind. Let’s say “at least” HALF. Which leads us to the most significant unanswered question: if jabs prevent “serious injury and death” — if we know that for a FACT — then HOW MUCH do the jabs prevent “serious injury and death?”
I mean, EXACTLY how much? It the number predictable, repeatable? Is it consistent between countries? And, how did you figure it out? Where are the studies? Please tell me it’s not just based on the awful raw numbers that the hospitals and blue states are reporting — like where they count “unknown” jab status as “unvaccinated” — but please tell me that you did some kind of controlled clinical study before you started organizing our entire society over that particular statistic.
From Scott Morefield on Twitter:
Dr. Deborah Birx: “I knew these vaccines were not going to protect against infection and I think we overplayed the vaccines …” Claims vaccines “protect against severe disease and hospitalization” before saying that 50% of those who died via Omicron were older & vaccinated.
(The jab-happy will argue that admissions and deaths are weighted toward jabbed because there are MORE jabbed than unjabbed. But note the chart compares RATES not gross numbers.)
In all three scenarios, the combined rates of jabbed admissions and deaths exceed the rate for unvaccinated. In the case of regular hospitalization, and DEATH, the added vaxxed rates FAR exceed the unvaccinated rate. Like in the case of death — which we can all agree is a poor outcome — in this data, jabbed Manitobans were THREE TIMES as likely to die from covid as the un-vaxxed.
So.
💉 On Thursday, Time Magazine ran a mushy-headed article with the headline, “Why You’ll Need to Get COVID-19 Boosters Again and Again.”
No, thanks!
The writers — “covid experts” — sum up their rationale like this: “people don’t complain about having to get their 60th dose of the influenza vaccine [so] We should think of COVID-19 vaccines the same way.”
Um, just speaking for myself, I WOULD complain if I had to get 60 doses of flu vaccine, and I sure hope the writers haven’t done that.
Why so many boosters? Is it because the vaccines don’t work well or at all? No, silly! The writers dumb it down for us. The first two shots, they explain, are like HIGH SCHOOL. It’s pretty good, but you’ll miss out on the “college experience.” If you want your immune system to go to college, then you’ll have to take more classes, which are the booster shots. Then, the college graduates need to take continuing education refresher classes to stay current, which are, you guessed it, MORE boosters.
See? It makes COMPLETE SENSE.
Except it doesn’t really. In this analogy, every booster shot is exactly the same as the first two shots. So it’s less like going to college and more like taking ‘introduction to algebra’ sixty times in a row. True, practice makes perfect, but after a while, the kid isn’t paying attention anymore. And he isn’t getting any better at math.
The most hilarious thing is, you can see they DESPERATELY want to compare covid directly to flu — they’re practically begging in between the lines — because it would be so perfect — what with the annual shots and everything — but they can’t, dammit. All they can do is sort of hint, because — ha ha — that’s not part of the narrative! You can NEVER say covid is like the flu!
The article’s most ominous section was the conclusion, which the writers start by saying, “Researchers and industry are furiously working on developing next-generation vaccines.” The bare notion of “better” covid vaccines makes my blood freeze to ice in my veins.
Hard pass.
🔬 A new study published Thursday in the New England Journal of Medicine titled, “Monkeypox Virus Infection in Humans across 16 Countries — April–June 2022.” The researchers compiled lots of interesting statistics.
They reviewed 528 confirmed infections from 43 clinics in 16 different countries. 98% of the infected were gay, 75% were white, 41% also had HIV, they averaged 38 years old, and transmission occurred through sexual contact in almost all (95%) of the cases.
Almost all (95%) of the patients presented with a rash, most (64%) had fewer than 10 lesions, most (73%) had anal/genital lesions, about half (41%) had mucosal lesions, and about 10% only had a single genital lesion. The study mentioned that single lesions can be easily confused with STI’s.
Out of 377 patients who were also tested for STI’s, in 109 cases additional infections besides monkeypox were found. 29 out of 32 patients whose semen was tested using PCR showed positive for monkeypox.
The authors don’t know whether semen is an agent of transmission or not. But it seems like you might want to assume that it is, at least for the time being.
The study includes some helpful images that are too gross to include in a family-friendly blog. I warned you.
One of the problems with an outbreak of this type is that the people most likely to be infected are already people who are comfortable with high-risk activities, and might even seek out high-risk activities on purpose, BECAUSE they enjoy the thrill of the risk.
The experts are performing just as poorly with monkeypox as they did for covid; it’s just that they are failing in the exact opposite way. But both times, the experts gave the worst possible advice, almost like it was designed to spread the diseases rather than actually contain them.
Utterly useless.
🔥 Yesterday, ZeroHedge ran a story headlined, “Germans Taking Fewer Showers In Response To Cost Of Living Crisis.” It should have read, “Germans Take Fewer Showers as Sacrifice for Elite’s Russia Sanctions.”
A Bild newspaper poll found the majority of Germans are getting smellier by the minute: 62% of respondents said they’d recently reduced their time in the shower, and are also showering less often. Almost half of the respondents (45%) said they were preparing for a difficult winter, like stocking up on firewood, or buying wood-burning stoves and generators.
Earlier this month, Hamburg’s environmental minister warned Germans about mandates if they don’t get their energy usage down voluntarily: hot water could be rationed, and maximum room temperatures could be set by the government. Another minister said Germans should just try turning off the heat and wearing sweaters.
Frans Timmermans, European Commission vice-president, recently suggested EU citizens should “support Ukraine” and help Russia sanctions by taking fewer showers, by not driving their cars, and by airing their clothes out instead of washing them. I’m not making that up.
Remember, Germany is in the midst of a heat wave.
From DW Politics on Twitter:
The heat wave has reached Europe, and Germany is also affected by high temperatures. The German Weather Service reported that the 40° C mark could be cracked in western Germany this week. The previous temperature record in 2019 was 41.2° C.
https://www.dw.com/en/europe-heat-wave-uk-records-hottest-ever-temperature/a-62522077
It’s a very sweaty time in Germany right now. No showers? Just “air out” clothes? It must be a European thing.
Earlier this month, Summit News ran a related story headlined, “Germany’s Largest Residential Landlord to Impose Heating Rationing For Tenants.”
That would be illegal in the United States. Just saying.
The article says Germany’s largest residential landlord — which owns a half-million properties — has notified tenants it will impose energy rationing this winter, which will automatically cut tenants’ heating at night, because of falling gas imports from Russia.
Heater temperatures will be strictly limited to a maximum of 62 degrees.
So. No showers, no heating. These Ukraine sanctions are really teaching the Germans a lesson they won’t forget!
🔥 In a fascinating development, the US military opposed a proposed Nancy Pelosi trip to Taiwan this week following Chinese threats of some kind of retaliation. A Wall Street Journal article yesterday reporting on the story carried the headline, “Nancy Pelosi’s Possible Trip to Taiwan Unsettles China—and the White House.”
On Tuesday, the Financial Times cited six sources saying Pelosi planned to lead a new delegation to visit Taiwan next month. Then Wednesday the AP reported that, when reporters asked him to comment on Pelosi’s trip to Taiwan, Biden said, “Well, I think that the military thinks it’s not a good idea right now.”
Then on Thursday, at her weekly press conference, a reporter asked Pelosi to respond to Biden’s comment, and she said, “I think what the president was saying is maybe the military was afraid our plane would get shot down, or something like that, by the Chinese.”
Shot down. And she still wants to go.
You might recall that Pelosi had planned a trip to Taiwan back in April, but, amidst criticism over the trip, was forced to cancel after she allegedly got covid.
The Speaker sure is trying hard to get over there, without a very clear explanation of the point of the trip. I wonder if she has to pick something up. Like a check or a bag of cash or something.
Anyway there’s some kind of disagreement between the branches about the trip and it’s spilling out into the papers. Should be fun to see how it plays out. Hopefully it won’t play out into a kinetic military experience!
It’s weird how Nancy Pelosi’s decision to go or not to go to Taiwan could determine whether a world war starts. Could you possibly imagine a worse person to hold that kind of power? I can’t. If YOU can, tell me in the comments.
Have a terrific weekend, and I’ll see you back here on Monday to jump start the new week.
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The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
NEWS
By Roy M Postel
07-23-22 Fernandina Beach
Inflationary trends loom as an animating force for fiscal planners at Fernandina Beach City Hall, based on documents released earlier this week.
The proposed annual budget summary is an 80-page tome of pie charts, spreadsheets and line items that could bring a squint to the eyes of the most ardent CPA. But the immediate takeaway reveals city planners expect fiscal year 2023 revenues to increase by about 10%, even with the millage rate holding steady at the 2022 rate of 5.333 mills. Here is a link to the budget summary.
Property tax revenue projections estimate receipts in the year ahead to be $17.6 million, up from $15.4 million, thanks to an estimated 14% increase in property values within the city’s taxing district, explains City Manager Dale Martin in a 2-page summary memo at the start of the extensive budget document. City planners expect a collection rate of 96%, the same as the current year.
“While the cost of living (+7.0%) and market values of properties (+14.0%) continue to significantly rise”…provisions of Florida state law “limit the increase of “homesteaded” (principal residence) properties’ assessed value to only 3.0%,” the memo continues.
“Owners of a “homesteaded” property limited to the 3.0% increase will pay approximately an additional $16.00 per $100,000 of Taxable Value. For a homestead property with an Assessed Value of $300,000, the increase is approximately $50” more than the previous year, Martin writes. By comparison, “non-homesteaded properties will pay an additional $37.00 per $100,000 of Assessed Value” in the current proposal.
Based on the table below, a rollback rate reduction to 4.771 mills would keep estimated property tax revenues virtually unchanged at $15.7 million in FY 2023. An adjusted rollback of 5.063 mills would see estimated property tax revenue climb to $16.6 million. The final scenario listed on the table below begins with a bump in the millage rate to 5.570 mills for an income stream of $19.1 million from property owners.
“For the first time in six years, the City’s water and wastewater fees will increase modestly,” Martin states but does not specify the amount of the increase in his memo. (More to follow in another report.)
The pandemic is tagged as driving costs upward, Martin states. “Higher expenditures are primarily the result of national, state, and regional economic factors: the increased costs of labor, equipment, and materials following the Covid pandemic.”
Overall, the city’s budget total is put at $195.3 million, with a third of that amount coming from reoccurring activity “associated with trust and agency funds, the memo explains. With these funds set aside, the 2023 budget estimate totals $124.6 million, up 12.5% from $110.8 million estimated for the current budget year.
“The portion of the proposed budget that typically draws the most interest is the General Fund, which is the primary operating fund for the City, and principally financed by property tax receipts,” observes the city manager in his opening memo. But what may surprise many residents is this is actually less than 40% of the overall spending plan. The proposed General Fund expenditures total $25,910,546 an approximate increase of 10% over FY 2022,” the city manager states.
Below is a breakdown of revenue sources flowing into the General Fund for fiscal year 2023. The Latin phrase “Ad Valorem” refers to funds from property taxes.
By Rich Lamken
July 21, 2022.
Ed note: Rich Lamken (photo above) leads the Common Sense School team seeking to ensure that our schools are safe for our kids, free from indoctrination, and efficient in spending to give the kids the best education possible. It seems that most of the budget process happens away from the citizens until it is essentially done and voted on. Why not let us in earlier in the process?
The problem is that it’s not true
The News Leader accurately quotes the NCSB (Nassau County School Board) attorney, Brett Seger regarding the proposed Citizens Budget Advisory Committee (CBAC), speaking at the July 19th School Board Meeting, “There’s no more ability to contribute to the process through an advisory committee than there is available currently, which is the workshops, the materials, those kind of things”.
The problem is that it’s simply not true. I have been pushing for the CBAC in NCSD for months. I have four qualified citizens willing to serve, two with extensive school finance experience. I took exception to his statement in an email to the School Board the following morning.
Here’s an excerpt from my email that defines the CBAC, “Budget Advisory Committees are created for the purposes of making recommendations to the School Board regarding the School District’s annual budget and any policies and practices that may be relevant to the budgeting process.
Budget Advisory Committees have the following responsibilities:
Contrast this process with what’s currently happening in NCSD. They held their first Budget workshop on Tuesday, July 19th. Despite several requests from me for the “Budget Book” to review prior to the meeting, which was provided to the School Board days earlier, it was not available for me to review until 9:00 am, the morning of the meeting. It took a request the day of the meeting to get it posted online. It’s 366 pages long. Additionally, a new document, to be discussed at the workshop, was handed to me at the beginning of the workshop. I was also given a copy of the “completed Budget” which the School Board approved for advertising. 10.6% increase in spending, 42 additional positions added.
Mr. Steger, there’s nothing “Advisory” about being told what the District is going to spend. We deserve a seat at the table at the beginning of the budget process, not when it’s virtually completed.
Call to Action
The creation of a CBAC is on the agenda for the next School Board meeting, next Thursday, July 28th. Nassau County Citizens, let the Board Chair, Donna Martin, know you support the creation of the CBAC. Her email is [email protected].
Rich Lamken is retired and lives with his wife, Meg in Fernandina Beach. He is a retired Assistant Superintendent of Schools, Human Resources/Technology. He is the Schools Division Lead of Common-Sense, Fernandina Beach and the President of the Baptist Nassau Hospital Auxiliary.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
FEATURES
By Eugene L. of ALLOUTDOOR.COM
07-21-22 Volusia County
In most parts of the nation beach driving is either highly regulated needing passes and other requirements or just flat out not permitted, but in Volusia County on the Fun Coast of Florida that is not the case. Ranging from Ormond Beach down to New Smyrna Beach there is easy public access to drivable stretches of the beach. To access these beaches there are no prerequisites or special permits needed.
For vehicle choice, I recommend only taking 4-wheel drive vehicles onto the sand. While I did see many 2-wheel drive cars on the beach, I also saw many 2-wheel drive vehicles get stuck. Talking to a Beach Patrol Officer while helping get a truck unstuck he says on the weekends in just his small stretch of beach north of Ponce Inlet he says anywhere north of 20 cars get stuck on a busy day. Also, while he chooses to help people get unstuck, it’s not actually his job to help people get their cars out of the sand. Other officers will just hand out the phone number to the tow truck that works the beach under contract.
The beach can vary in condition so it can either be hard-packed sand or very soft sand that only 4-wheel drive cars can pass. The beach patrol will put out signs to warn you of the conditions so do pay attention as you drive. Either before you get on the beach or right as you get on the beach you should air down your tires. This will increase the surface area of your tires, which gives you a better grip and more likely to stay on top of the sand instead of digging in. Airing down is also better for your drive train in the long run.
I recommend having at least some basic recovery gear with you when heading out onto the beach. I brought some traction boards, a small shovel, and a compact air compressor. All three of which were utilized by the end of the day. Other items I might recommend would be a recovery rope or snatch strap with shackles. There were several cars that ended up buried too deep to be dug out and had to be yanked out.
…go to Alloutdoor.com to see the full story.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
State of Florida, https://flgov.com/
On July 20, 2022, in News Releases, by Staff
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Today, Governor Ron DeSantis announces the following appointments and reappointments to Florida’s Judicial Nominating Commissions.
Florida Supreme Court Judicial Nominating Commission
Fred Karlinsky, of Weston, is a Shareholder at Greenberg Traurig, LLP. He received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Miami and his law degree from Florida State University. Karlinsky is reappointed for a term ending July 1, 2026.
Heather Stearns, of Tallahassee, is the President of Liberty Dental Plan of Florida, Inc. She received her bachelor’s degree from the University of Miami and her law degree from Florida State University. Stearns is reappointed for a term ending July 1, 2024.
Third District Court of Appeal Judicial Nominating Commission
John Meagher, of Coral Gables, is a Managing Partner at Shutts & Bowen, LLP. He received his bachelor’s degree from the University of South Florida and his law degree from Georgetown University. Meagher is appointed for a term ending July 1, 2026.
Fourth District Court of Appeal Judicial Nominating Commission
Jason Hilborn, of Fort Lauderdale, is an Associate at Boies Schiller Flexner, LLP. He received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Florida and his law degree from Harvard University. Hilborn is appointed for a term ending July 1, 2026.
Gregor Schwinghammer, Jr., of West Palm Beach, is a Shareholder at Gunster Yoakley & Stewart, P.A. He received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Virginia and his law degree from the University of Miami. Schwinghammer is appointed from a list of nominees recommended by the Florida Bar for a term ending July 1, 2026.
Casey Walker, of Vero Beach, is a Member at Murphy & Walker, P.L. He received his bachelor’s degree from Harvard University and his law degree from the University of Florida. Walker is appointed from a list of nominees recommended by the Florida Bar for a term ending July 1, 2026.
First Judicial Circuit Judicial Nominating Commission
Aaron McCurdy, of Pensacola, is an Attorney at Lloyd, Gray, Whitehead & Monroe, P.C. He received his bachelor’s degree from Florida Gulf Coast University and his law degree from Liberty University. McCurdy is appointed for a term ending July 1, 2023.
Second Judicial Circuit Judicial Nominating Commission
David Axelman, of Tallahassee, is General Counsel of the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation. He received his bachelor’s degree from Florida International University and his law degree from the University of Miami. Axelman is appointed from a list of nominees recommended by the Florida Bar for a term ending July 1, 2026.
Third Judicial Circuit Judicial Nominating Commission
Billy Washington, of Pinetta, is the Clerk of the Circuit Court and Comptroller for Madison County. He received a bachelor’s degree from Florida State University. Washington is appointed for a term ending July 1, 2026.
James Willingham, Jr., of Jasper, is the Owner of James Estes Willingham, Jr. Attorney and Counselor at Law. He received his bachelor’s and law degrees from the University of Florida. Willingham is reappointed for a term ending July 1, 2024.
Fourth Judicial Circuit Judicial Nominating Commission
Courtney Grimm, of Green Cove Springs, is the County Attorney serving the Clay County Board of County Commissioners. She received her bachelor’s degree from Sweet Briar College and her law degree from the University of Florida. Grimm is reappointed from a list of nominees recommended by the Florida Bar for a term ending July 1, 2026.
Patrick Krechowski, of Atlantic Beach, is a Partner at Balch & Bingham, LLP. He received his bachelor’s degree from Florida State University and his law degree from Nova Southeastern University. Krechowski is appointed from a list of nominees recommended by the Florida Bar for a term ending July 1, 2023.
Lanny Russell, of Jacksonville, is a Shareholder at Smith Hulsey & Busey. He received his bachelor’s degree from the University of South Florida and his law degree from the University of Florida. Russell is appointed from a list of nominees recommended by the Florida Bar for a term ending July 1, 2026.
Fifth Judicial Circuit Judicial Nominating Commission
Nicole Blumenauer, of Minneola, is the Managing Partner at Blumenauer & Blumenauer, P.A. She received her bachelor’s degree from Iowa State University and her law degree from Drake University. Blumenauer is appointed from a list of nominees recommended by the Florida Bar for a term ending July 1, 2026.
Robert “Bo” Briggs, of Ocala, is a Partner at The Briggs Law Firm. He received his bachelor’s degree from Florida State University and his law degree from Stetson University. Briggs is appointed for a term ending July 1, 2023.
David Ellspermann, of Ocala, is the former Clerk of Court and Comptroller for Marion County. He received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Georgia and his master’s degree from Rollins College. Ellspermann is appointed for a term ending July 1, 2024.
David Jordan, of Mount Dora, is the Lake County Tax Collector. He received his bachelor’s degree from Warner University. Jordan is appointed for a term ending July 1, 2026.
Richard Mutarelli, Jr., of Ocala, is a Partner at McGraw, Rauba & Mutarelli, P.A. He received his bachelor’s degree from Concordia University – Wisconsin and his law degree from Florida Coastal. Mutarelli is appointed from a list of nominees recommended by the Florida Bar for a term ending July 1, 2026.
Sixth Judicial Circuit Judicial Nominating Commission
Petra Justice, of Land O’ Lakes, is a Partner at Banker Lopez Gassler, P.A. She received her bachelor’s degree from the University of Florida and her law degree from Stetson University. Justice is appointed from a list of nominees recommended by the Florida Bar for a term ending July 1, 2026.
Thomas Minkoff, of Pasco County, is a former Sixth Judicial Circuit Court Judge. He received his bachelor’s degree from Rutgers University and his law degree from St. Mary’s University. Minkoff is appointed for a term ending July 1, 2026.
Lindsay Moore, of Trinity, is a Bureau Chief and General Counsel at the Pasco Sheriff’s Office. She received her bachelor’s degree from the University of Florida and her law degree from Florida Coastal. Moore is appointed from a list of nominees recommended by the Florida Bar for a term ending July 1, 2026.
Seventh Judicial Circuit Judicial Nominating Commission
Andrew Morgan, of St. Augustine, is an Equity Partner at Canan Law. He received his bachelor’s degree from Eckerd College, his master’s degree from Winthrop University, and his law degree from Florida Coastal. Morgan is reappointed for a term ending July 1, 2026.
Eighth Judicial Circuit Judicial Nominating Commission
Candice Brower, of Newberry, is the Criminal Conflict and Civil Regional Counsel for the First District Court of Appeal. She received her bachelor’s degree from the University of Florida and her law degree from Nova Southeastern University. Brower is reappointed from a list of nominees recommended by the Florida Bar for a term ending July 1, 2026.
Norm Fugate, of Williston, is the President of Norm D. Fugate, P.A. He received his bachelor’s and law degrees from the University of Florida. Fugate is reappointed from a list of nominees recommended by the Florida Bar for a term ending July 1, 2026.
Ninth Judicial Circuit Judicial Nominating Commission
Eric Jontz, of Winter Park, is an Associate at Fishback Dominick, LLP. He received his bachelor’s degree from Dartmouth College, his master’s degree from Rollins College, and his law degree from Emory University. Jontz is appointed from a list of nominees recommended by the Florida Bar for a term ending July 1, 2026.
J. Timothy Schulte, of Winter Park, is a Shareholder and President of Zimmerman Kiser & Sutcliffe, P.A. He received his bachelor’s and law degrees from the University of Florida. Shulte is reappointed from a list of nominees recommended by the Florida Bar for a term ending July 1, 2026.
Tenth Judicial Circuit Judicial Nominating Commission
Julie Ball, of Lakeland, is a Partner at Hardin & Ball, P.A. She received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Florida and her law degree from Florida State University. Ball is appointed from a list of nominees recommended by the Florida Bar for a term ending July 1, 2026.
Walt Engle, of Lakeland, is a Senior Attorney at Publix Super Markets, Inc. He received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Florida and his law degree from Mercer University. Engle is appointed for a term ending July 1, 2026.
Nicholas Zbrzeznj, of Bartow, is a Managing Member at Southern Atlantic Law Group, PLLC. He received his bachelor’s degree from Pennsylvania State University and his law degree from Florida Coastal. Zbrzeznj is reappointed from a list of nominees recommended by the Florida Bar for a term ending July 1, 2026.
Eleventh Judicial Circuit Judicial Nominating Commission
Scott Dimond, of Miami, is a Shareholder at Dimond Kaplan & Rothstein, P.A. He received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Virginia and his law degree from Columbia University. Dimond is reappointed from a list of nominees recommended by the Florida Bar for a term ending July 1, 2026.
Robert Fernandez, of Miami, is a Principal Shareholder at Robert H. Fernandez, LLC. He received his bachelor’s degree from Columbia University and his law degree from New York University. Fernandez is reappointed for a term ending July 1, 2026.
Kansas Gooden, of Pinecrest, is a Shareholder at Boyd & Jenerette P.A. She received her bachelor’s degree from James Madison University and her law degree from St. Thomas University. Gooden is appointed from a list of nominees recommended by the Florida Bar for a term ending July 1, 2026.
Twelfth Judicial Circuit Judicial Nominating Commission
Patrick Neal, of Bradenton, is the Chairman of Neal Communities Executive Committee. He received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania. Neal is reappointed for a term ending July 1, 2026.
Thirteenth Judicial Circuit Judicial Nominating Commission
Matthew Hall, of Tampa, is a Shareholder at Hill Ward Henderson, P.A. He received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Massachusetts and his law degree from the University of Florida. Hall is reappointed from a list of nominees recommended by the Florida Bar for a term ending July 1, 2026.
Chad Mizelle, of Tampa, is the Chief Legal Officer at Affinity Partners. He received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Florida and his law degree from Cornell University. Mizelle is reappointed for a term ending July 1, 2026.
Diego Pestana, of Tampa, is an Attorney at The Suarez Law Firm. He received his bachelor’s degree from Saint Leo University and his law degree from Stetson University. Pestana is appointed for a term ending July 1, 2023.
Fourteenth Judicial Circuit Judicial Nominating Commission
Adam Hood, of Lynn Haven, is the President of Adam L. Hood, P.A. He received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Florida, his master’s degree from Western New England University, and his law degree from Florida Coastal. Hood is appointed for a term ending July 1, 2026.
John Maceluch, Jr., of Panama City, is a Partner at Sunshine Legacy Law, PLLC. He received his bachelor’s degree from Florida State University and his law degree from Loyola University. Maceluch is reappointed from a list of nominees recommended by the Florida Bar for a term ending July 1, 2026.
Allen Register, of Chipley, is a former Fourteenth Judicial Circuit Court Judge. He received his bachelor’s and law degrees from the University of Florida. Register is appointed from a list of nominees recommended by the Florida Bar for a term ending July 1, 2026.
Fifteenth Judicial Circuit Judicial Nominating Commission
Eric Levine, of Boca Raton, is a Partner at Atlas Solomon, PLLC. He received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Cornell University, and his law degree from Harvard University. Levine is appointed for a term ending July 1, 2026.
Robert Rosenberg, of Highland Beach, is a former Seventeenth Judicial Circuit Court Judge. He received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Michigan and his law degree from the University of Wisconsin. Rosenberg is appointed from a list of nominees recommended by the Florida Bar for a term ending July 1, 2026.
James Sallah, of Boca Raton, is a Partner at Sallah Astarita & Cox, LLC. He received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Ohio University, and his law degree from the University of Miami. Sallah is appointed from a list of nominees recommended by the Florida Bar for a term ending July 1, 2024.
William Shepherd, of Palm Beach Gardens, is a Partner at Holland & Knight, LLP. He received his bachelor’s and law degrees from Georgetown University. Shepherd is reappointed from a list of nominees recommended by the Florida Bar for a term ending July 1, 2026.
Seventeenth Judicial Circuit Judicial Nominating Commission
William McCormick, of Fort Lauderdale, is a Managing Shareholder at The McCormick Law Firm, PLLC. He received a bachelor’s degree from the University of Florida and his law degree from St. Thomas University. McCormick is reappointed for a term ending July 1, 2026.
John Richards, of Fort Lauderdale, is a Partner at Boyd Richards Parker and Colonnelli. He received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Florida and his law degree from Stetson University. Richards is appointed from a list of nominees recommended by the Florida Bar for a term ending July 1, 2026.
Alice Sum, of Pembroke Pines, is an Attorney at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. She received her bachelor’s and law degrees from the University of Florida. Sum is reappointed from a list of nominees recommended by the Florida Bar for a term ending July 1, 2026.
Eighteenth Judicial Circuit Judicial Nominating Commission
John Knutton, of Longwood, is the General Counsel to the Seminole County Clerk of Court and Comptroller. He received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Toronto and his law degree from Barry University. Knutton is appointed from a list of nominees recommended by the Florida Bar for a term ending July 1, 2026.
R. Scott Robinson, of Melbourne, is a Shareholder at Eisenmenger, Robinson, Blaue & Peters, P.A. He received his bachelor’s and law degrees from the University of Florida. Robinson is reappointed from a list of nominees recommended by the Florida Bar for a term ending July 1, 2026.
Nineteenth Judicial Circuit Judicial Nominating Commission
Elizabeth Hunter, of Palm City, is the Owner of Hunter Law and Mediations, PLLC. She received her bachelor’s degree from Rollins College and her law degree from Barry University. Hunter is appointed from a list of nominees recommended by the Florida Bar for a term ending July 1, 2026.
Robert Schwerer, of Fort Pierce, is a Managing Shareholder at Hayskar Walker Schwerer Dundas & McCain, P.A. He received his bachelor’s and law degrees from the University of Florida. Schwerer is reappointed from a list of nominees recommended by the Florida Bar for a term ending July 1, 2026.
By Jordan Highsmith
Published: 8:15 PM EDT July 21, 2022
Updated: 8:15 PM EDT July 21, 2022
MIAMI — Two Democratic gubernatorial candidates shared their political strategies on how to lead the state of Florida in a pre-recorded debate Thursday evening.
Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried and U.S. Rep Charlie Crist took part in a debate from 7 p.m. to 8 p.m. on NBC and Telemundo affiliates.
Florida’s primary election is scheduled for Aug. 23, 2022, and the focus of many Democrats will be deciding who will challenge Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis in the Nov. 8 general election.
Thursday’s debate gave each candidate a moment to speak to the many different communities in Florida about their views on same-sex marriage, the overturn of Roe V. Wade, abortions rights, gun control, climate change, immigration and more.
Read more on wtsp.com
By George Miller
7-20-22, Fernandina Beach
Local We The People civic group sponsored a forum for District 4 Republican Congressional Candidates Dr. Erick Aguilar and Jon Chuba. It featured more and much more in depth questions than some previous local forums we attended, allowing better insight into candidates’ thinking/views.
Above pic (L-R), District 4 Congressional primary candidates Dr. Erick Aguilar and Jon Choba. Photo: George Miller, Citizens Journal Florida.
We the People President Deb Boelkes not only formulated thoughtful questions on relevant key issues, but included a few additional ones in advance of the event, held at Walker’s Landing. Original event listing HERE
Ms. Boelkes was a bit unhappy that candidate FL Senator Aaron Bean, who had committed to attend, later elected to ditch the event for a fundraiser in Jacksonville without even offering to send a representative or providing a statement to be read.
The questions were somewhat complex, so We The People sent us the text of them for publication. They are included below with a summary of the candidate responses.
Audience response was rather positive for both candidates. Both candidates sounded more Conservative than any others running in this race. Applause sounded stronger for Aguilar, who is more well known at this point.
Democrats and the Republican write-in write-in candidate weren’t even mentioned, so we will do so in a separate article.
2 minutes to respond to each question, unless noted
Q1-Please tell us about yourself:
Where you were born?
Where do you live now?
Your family situation (i.e., married, number of children)
How long you have lived in this Congressional District (Duval County)?
Your current employment / position
Past / present elected positions
Do you have endorsements from any big names?
A- Aguilar- I am the America First Warrior congressional candidate. Born in Honduras, came to U.S.- Brooklyn, NY (NYC) at 7, raised there. Grew up poor. Mother worked at Trump’s Grand Hyatt. Joined navy at 21- very positive, broadening, experience. Went all over the world, came to Jacksonville in 2000.Went to Japan for 2 years in 2012. “Politicians are a bunch of crooks who do nothing- I want to do something. I want to be better for my son to be proud of.” Second marriage, first wife passed away. Education- MBA, doc management, IT Security, comp. info, history.
A- Choba- From Pittsburg, PA, great family (“progressive”), 1 brother. Family came to Jacksonville while he was in College, so he stayed there (10 years and counting). Education- Dusquesne University- Philosophy and Political Science major. Wanted to be a Catholic priest. He writes hospital contracts for Florida Blue. His wife is from Havana, they met in Jacksonville. He’s a Deacon at Terry Parker Baptist Church. Running because he’s upset with the political climate, election, Biden. He felt “called on” to run. Ran in “blue district,” then Tallahasse. Not wealthy, lacks “connections.”
Q2- Campaign Financing
Q2A- recent social media post said, “Congressional Candidates should have to wear jackets with names of their biggest sponsors, like NASCAR”. The Federal Election Committee (FEC) website (as of Saturday, July 16) showed the total Receipts/Cash on Hand for each Candidate was as follows:
Erick Aguilar:
Aaron Bean:
Jon Chuba:
Q2A- For Erick Aguilar: Two-part Question on Campaign Finance: 1. What is “Defend Liberty” and “Friends of Erick Aguilar” ($500)? 2. Given you are just 45 years old (born in 1975), you spent 20 years in the Navy and retired as a Chief Petty Officer in 2016. You obtained a BS in Information Systems in 2001, an MBA in 2005, of Doctorate of Management in 2009, a Masters in History in 2015, and a Graduate Certificate in Information Security Mgt in 2016. Your campaign website indicates you also spent 16 years teaching at the undergrad, masters, and doctorate levels. That’s a lot of time in school, in addition to being enlisted in the Navy for 20 years. Your LinkedIn page says you have worked as a Tax / Financial consultant since 2015. Given all your time in the military and in school, where did the $400K+ come from with which you self-funded your campaign?
Q2B- for Jon Chuba: One Question on Campaign Finance: If you were to win the August primary, how will you manage your Congressional campaign for the General Election in November, with just $9600 cash on hand?
A- Chuba- GOP will step in to help. We’ll make good use of what we have. Don’t you budget with what you have? The government doesn’t. I do all this and still have $9.600. Running things good. We do save.
A- Aguilar- Did really well with the stock market, consulting on the side. He said he’s a “huge penny-pincher.” “What am I gonna do with the money? The best investment is America. We’re losing our country very quickly to people who don’t have our best interests in mind. Can’t Google to learn how to deal with them.” Less than 2% of political donations come from N FL.
Q3- On Friday, July 15, a Florida Politics article titled Aaron Bean Demands Probe of Opponent’s Fraudulent Fundraising, said, “Erick Agular was removed from the Republican fundraising platform WinRed after revelations he had been appropriating the identities of national Republicans like Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis in pursuit of small-dollar donations.” It went on to say, “Aguilar has reported raising over $1M for this race, with donations from around the country amounting to a big chunk of that sum…many of the donors contacted had no clue who Aguilar was.” Aaron Bean was quoted, “Erick Aguilar has been scamming seniors and others in FL and all across the country to get contributions to his campaign …. Impersonating Gov. DeSantis and President Trump in fundraising emails is shameful. It is also fraud and should be investigated at the state and federal level.”
(Ed. note: the story was broken by Politico Florida)
Q3A- for Erick Aguilar: From my brief experience with the WinRed.com app, it calls itself the “Official Fundraising Platform for the GOP” where (1) Donors can create profiles, donate to multiple candidates all at once, and track their donation history; and (2) Candidates or Teams can create campaigns to raise funds. Can you explain how WinRed really works and if it is possible to set up campaigns to fundraise for yourself, but use various PAC names or other candidates’ names, like Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis? In other words, is there no validation performed by the applicant to prove who you are?
A- Aguilar- Here we go again, using political leverage on me. They don’t like me because I expose them. (he didn’t specify who “they” is.). He has stated in the past that establishment politicians forces are going all out to stop “MAGA” candidates. WinRed (fundraising platform) didn’t give out my information. There is a big push for certain candidates to win. They claimed I was a Democrat for 4 years. Aguilar reserved special criticism for Florida Politics online publication, although the story initially broke on Politico Florida.
A- Chuba- I haven’t seen any bad articles about me- hardly any articles at all- smiles.
Q3B- for Jon Chuba: According to LinkedIn, you graduated college in 2010 with a BA in Philosophy (with minors in Political Science and Theology) and you got a Masters in 2018 in Healthcare Regulation. Out of college you worked 1 year for Verizon Wireless, then spent 2 years as a legal assistant, then the last 9 years as a Contract Analyst with Florida Blue, interpreting hospital contracts for commercial and government products and researching CMS (Medicare & Medicaid) billing guidelines. What is it that you bring to the table that will enable you to recommend meaningful legislation to solve some of the biggest challenges our country has ever faced?
A- Chuba- I’m a man of faith, have core principles and values. My education in philosophy helps me listen to opposing views. But I may not change views on things like pro-choice vs life debate. We need to learn to handle faith vs politics and not be at each others’ throats.
Q4- Why running? In 2017, a US Congressman from Colorado, Ken Buck (who has served CO’s 4th District since he was first elected in 2014) published the book, Drain the Swamp: How Washington Corruption is Worse than You Think. In it, he talks about the lavish parties, committee chairmanships for sale, pay-to-play corruption, backroom arm-twisting, votes on major legislation going to the highest bidder. As soon as he went to DC, he realized why nothing in Congress gets done. On his own words, “It was not because of political gridlock, but because Republicans and Democrats work together all too well to fleece the taxpayers and plunge America deeper into debt. It is an insular process directed by power-hungry party elites who live like kings and govern like bullies.”
Q4: Aside from attending lavish parties, getting rich, and having job security for decades, What are the three main reasons you are running for Congress, and how many terms do you intend to serve?
A- Chuba- I felt a calling. We need to take seats from Democrats, take back our country. Stop $1 million city council races. Downsize, give $ back to the People. I signed a three term pledge in house and two in Senate, because people change in Congress. I want to do as much for people as I can in Congress, then go home.
A- Aguilar- 12 years total in House/Senate combined. My values haven’t changed, will work for the People. I’m not a “party person”. Will have 24/7 job commitment- I prayed about this, got my wife’s permission. This is common sense, not rocket science. What is happening there is shameful, need to bring in good, strong people. Push service, not self-serving. The DC swamp shouldn’t change you.
Q5-Decertifying elections? The State GOP of TX has adopted a resolution, the AZ Maricopa County Republican Executive Committee (REC) rejecting the 2020 election results. Last week, the former WI Supreme Court Justice suggested the WI State Legislature seek to decertify the 2020 election results, as did Wisconsin Rep Ramthun (who is running for Governor, and Karen Mueller who is running for WI Attorney General. The US Constitution is silent on what is to happen if States decertify election results after a President has been sworn into office.
Q: What do you believe Congress (or the County) should do in the event enough states decertify their 2020 election results to retroactively disqualify Biden from winning the 2020 electoral vote?
A- Aguilar- States should have decertifying procedures. People who give the authority have the right to remove it Election integrity is near to my heart. Voter fraud is a big problem and it isn’t just the 2020 election. 60,000 registered Republicans never voted. It’s easy to take these registrations and vote with them. Some states even allow voter registration with driver’s licenses, which can be given to illegal immigrants. Secure the border. Illegal immigration can overpower elections. They never will say Trump won and that there was election fraud.
A- Chuba- Yes, I want a state decertification procedure. Believes election was stolen and that a special election was needed. Saw 2000 Mules movie (which documented ballot harvesting, drop box abuses and more). We don’t have a true President right now. Mail is sent to registered voters and it comes back- moved, vacant lots, abandoned buildings. Require every state to audit voter rolls. Ballots were sent to people not registered. Need voter ID, validate signatures, have every security procedure. I don’t trust the election system.
Q6: Do you believe the January 6 Capital protest was an insurrection; and what do you believe should be done with those who have been arrested and imprisoned for months without hearings, essentially their lives destroyed, for participating in the January 6th event?
A- Chuba- The Capitol actions were staged. But yes, the protestors reacted to it. Some didn’t act like Constitutional Christians. People were arrested, imprisoned, under unconstitutional conditions. Release them, restore rights, make restitution.
A- Aguilar- No such thing as an accident, It was staged. What led to that? People protested peacefully. The election was stolen. Biden cheated. Unlawful orders. Person at fault gave unlawful orders. Someone gave the order to open the Capitol. Some staged events. It was all politicized in prime time. A huge attack on MAGA candidate. All MAGA candidates are getting attacked. Protest was huge compared to BLM lighting cars on fire.
Q7: Who are your top 3 choices for Speaker of the House in 2023 and why? Please name names.
A- Aguilar- Jordan. Good heart, knows what is going on. Leftist reps don’t like him or The Freedom Caucus. Don’t play footsie with the Democrats. Majority of Reps may not be constitutional.
A- Chuba- Don’t have any special name. Look at their hands, hearts, what they have to offer. Rand Paul? (ed.: he’s Senator). Don’t know him personally.
Q8-Conservative Americans are sick and tired with a great number of things that we see going on—some for many years. I have created a list of 40 such items. Since we don’t have all night to discuss all these issues, please select a number from 1 to 40. I’ll give you that item, and I’d like each of you to define what you would do about it, if elected to Congress:
Items selected by candidates (by picking a number, blind choice)
Q8A- Allowing Medicare and Medicaid to deny payment to hospitals and health care providers if they don’t stick to FDA mandates
A- Chuba- They are allowing Medicare/Medicaid to deny payment if FDA mandates not followed. Disagrees with this. Find ways to reduce costs. Set up artificial groups, which would reduce them significantly. (Chuba writes health care policies for a living). The Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) raised costs, passed to taxpayers. Much red tape, waste, CMS. Biden added even more costs.
A- Aguilar- Same. Be smart about health care $- be more competitive. Obamacare is not competitive. Should never have the government manage anything. I understand why it happened. Dept. should be eliminated.
Q8B- The EPA
A- Aguilar- EPA has too much overreach. Conservatives care about the environment, but do it smarter. Green New Deal and its costs not serving anything. EPA can be more efficient. Need better policy. Big tool for climate change agenda.
A- Chuba- Go through the budget, where $ are going, less regulation, less $ to govt. to take control of our lives. We care about the environment, but EPA regulates excessively. I won’t know for sure until I look at the budget. Look at every single agency. Can’t continue (current course?) forever.
The next two Questions are straightforward issues where I’m just looking for a Yes or No Answer.
Q9: Will you pledge to We the People to push back on and vote NO on any House bill that is not within the limited scope of the legislative powers vested in the US Congress, as enumerated in Article I of the US Constitution? Yes or No?
A- Chuba- (Sounded like a qualified yes). Give powers back to the states.
A- Aguilar- Yes. Problem is that people won’t stick to it.
Q10: Will you pledge to We the People to push back on and vote NO on any proposed legislation that you have not been given sufficient time to vet? Yes or No?
A- Aguilar- Yes. Want a time period set. Stop “packing” legislation. Vote on items separately.
A- Chuba- Agree 100%. In line with Constitution, benefits we the People.
Last Question 1- MINUTE
Q11: What is your greatest strength and, if elected, what will you do and/or not do in 2023 that will make the voters of Nassau County happy that we elected you?
A- Aguilar- God gave me a lot of different strengths. Highlighted his ability to learn seek problems out, get to the root of them. We are so overregulated that one person can’t even read it all. I can show others.
A- Chuba- I’m a true servant. Too many seek power & money, not me. I take no money from PAC’s and lobbyists. I will be a true voice of the people.
Editor’s note: due to the large, rapid-fire volume of information covered and no video to fall back upon, just notes, it is possible we missed or misstated something. If you were there and differ, or just want to comment, let us know via a note to [email protected] or a reader comment.
George Miller is Publisher and Co-Founder of Citizens Journal Florida, based in Fernandina Beach. He is a “retired” operations management consultant, software and publishing executive and manufacturing management professional.
FEATURES
By Roy M Postel
07-19-22 Nassau County
A newcomer and two candidates with lengthy political campaign experience offer more options for independent and Democrat Party voters as the 2022 midterm cycle heats up.
The newcomer is LJ “LaShonda” Holloway. She is a Jacksonville resident who went to work on Capitol Hill after earning a law degree from University of Florida. As a staffer for U.S. Rep. Carrie Meek (D), Holloway served as a Fellow with the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation. Meek, who died last November at age 95, represented Miami area voters in the 17th Congressional District.
According to her campaign website, as a political appointee she helped draft the “No-FEAR Act” designed to shield federal whistleblowers. She is a cancer survivor and lists access to healthcare and affordable housing as her top priorities.
Former Florida State Senator Anthony “Tony” Hill is the veteran Democrat Party candidate vying for a spot on the November ballot. Hill represented Senate District 1 in Tallahassee from 2002 to 2011. The U.S. Army veteran and longtime labor leader represented his native Jacksonville in the Florida State House from 1992 to 2000.
For the past five years he has worked to on the staff of U.S. Rep. Al Lawson (D) and helped thousands of constituents in Congressional District 5 connect with federal agencies such as Veteran Affairs, HUD, and IRS in Washington, according to his campaign website.
Gary Koniz is running a write-in campaign for the 4th Congressional District seat. He is an U.S. Army veteran, serving in Vietnam with the Army Corps of Engineers. His experience led him to a career as a heavy equipment operator and affiliations with both the International Union of Operating Engineers and the AFL-CIO, according to information on his campaign website.
Koniz is a Republican and will conduct a write-in campaign for the general election on Nov. 8, rather than compete in the GOP primary Aug. 23rd. He has mounted unsuccessful independent campaigns for Florida’s 4th Congressional District in 2016, 2014 and 2012.
FL Dept. of Education
7-18-22
Tallahassee, Fla. — Today, Governor Ron DeSantis awarded Polk State College, Broward College, and Florida State College at Jacksonville (FSCJ) with $6.5 million to launch the Career Pathways for Public Service Initiative, which will develop a national model for preparing students for public service and careers in local or state government. The Civics Academies will allow students to start preparing in 9th grade for meaningful careers while learning about the importance of public trust, government efficiency, and the values of our state and nation. This announcement is part of Governor DeSantis’ larger Civic Literacy Excellence Initiative to develop civics curriculum and support the implementation of Florida’s revised civics and government standards in K-12 public schools.
“It was great to award $6.5 million to create civics academies through three of our nation-leading state colleges,” said Governor Ron DeSantis. “This first-of-its-kind program will teach our future leaders foundational American values as they prepare for careers in public service.”
“A strong civics education is a necessity for those entering civil service,” said Education Commissioner Manny Diaz, Jr. “By providing a pathway for students to pursue careers in the public sector, Florida is ensuring a smarter, more efficient state and local government for years to come.”
“FSCJ is honored to be selected for this grant, in partnership with Polk State College and Broward College, and is dedicated to collaborating on the development of a critical curriculum focused on producing a civically engaged, highly skilled workforce,” said John Avendano, President of FSCJ. “Through collaboration with the Florida Department of Education, Florida College System, the Lou Frey Institute, our school districts, and our local municipalities and businesses, our institutions will lead the way for quality workforce civic education in the State of Florida and beyond.”
“Our Florida College System institutions are honored to partner with the Florida Department of Education, the Lou Frey Institute, our school districts, and our local municipalities and government entities to foster quality civic literacy opportunities, thereby enhancing the lives of Florida’s students,” said Gregory Adam Haile, President of Broward College. “Enhancing civic literacy and related workforce training will not only benefit our students, but will also ultimately benefit Florida’s future.”
“This initiative will establish a higher education pathway for students interested in public service, using the Florida College System model of programs partnering with high schools to prepare students for in-demand jobs and rewarding careers,” said Angela Falconetti, President of Polk State College. “At a time when civic literacy and engagement are so highly valued, we are excited to partner with our local school districts and other institutions to support the development of our public service workforce and provide opportunities for students interested in these careers.”
Polk State College, Broward College, and Florida State College at Jacksonville will work in partnership with the Lou Frey Institute, which will serve as the lead curriculum developer for new statewide “Civics Career Academies.” The grant will support the development and implementation of no less than three regional civic pathway partnerships to be managed by Polk State, Broward College, and Florida State College at Jacksonville. The three colleges will partner with their school districts to implement the civics career academies in their communities, anticipating over 1,000 students enrolled in the 2023-2024 academic year.
The civics career academies will launch in August, 2023. Courses will include public service leadership, careers and communication, experiential learning, pre-apprenticeship and apprenticeship opportunities with local and state agencies, and a research seminar.
“The Career Pathways for Public Service Initiative aligns with the Lou Frey Institute’s development of a civic assessment currently being administered by institutions across Florida,” said The Lou Frey Institute Director Stephen Masyada. “We are excited to expand that work by creating a secondary civic curriculum and accompanied teacher training which will ensure students graduate high school with the knowledge and skills to succeed in both the public sector and in advanced public service career preparation. The value of lifelong civic learning, connecting civic education and engagement to professional development and careers, is critical for advancing civil society.”
Additionally, the partnership with local school districts will include summer 2023 programming at the three colleges to prepare students for industry certification exams in areas such as Project Management (PMP) and SCRUM, Advanced Microsoft Office, Adobe, and a variety of other industry certifications relevant to a career in public administration. The colleges will also work with local municipalities to offer paid internships and pre-apprenticeships for students to gain real-world experience before graduating from high school to prepare them for careers in local and state government.
Governor DeSantis announced the Civic Literacy Excellence Initiative in July 2021. Of the $106 million to establish the initiative, $6.5 million was allocated for the civics career academy program to develop partnerships between secondary schools and government institutions, and to allow students to explore government and public administration as a way to inspire the next generation of leaders in Florida.
In 2019, Governor DeSantis set a goal to make Florida the number one state in the nation for workforce education. Since then, Florida has invested more than $5 billion into workforce education, expanded access to apprenticeship programs by registering over 50 new programs for a total of over 300 programs, and now there are over 770,000 K-12 students enrolled in career and technical education programs — the most in Florida’s history. While much of this training has been in programs that are useful for the private sector, such as diesel mechanics, nursing, CDL, information technology, manufacturing, etc., this initiative will also advance the skills of those who will work in state and local government.
Some positions graduates would be prepared for include:
By George Miller & Michael Miller
7-19-22
District 4 Republican House of Representatives candidate Dr. Erick Aguilar has been accused of scamming donors by sending out mailers appearing to fundraise for Gov. Ron DeSantis and others but funneling the money to his own account. A July 15 article and Tweets in Politico Florida (links below) a publication with a left-wing bias, touched off a furor that has some Republicans turning on him with a vengeance. The website flafourfacts.com of unknown ownership displays some accusations.
(Image shown above is example of alleged deceptive advertising.)
We have asked Aguilar to address the specific allegations repeatedly. He has said “I’ve done nothing wrong”. This afternoon we asked again via telephone and he replied that “this is all a smear campaign.” Earlier today, his campaign manager told us that “we have nothing to hide, we’ve done nothing wrong.”
When I tried to go through my list of specific questions with Aguilar, he said “I will not respond at this time” (emphasizing the last three words). When I asked if he thought he would be able to participate in the GOP “Sunshine” debate next week, he said that he was quite sure and that things will come out there, although he wouldn’t say what.
He did provide a few tidbits though… The allegation that his consultant dumped him, he said, “is a complete lie.” He claims that the consultant was also working for his opponent Aaron Bean (conflict of interest). He also said that the termination violated the 30 day cancellation clause. He added that implications that he needed the mailers to raise $100,000 to qualify for the state GOP debate were false, as he already had far more than that from other sources, including his own donations. Debate participants must poll at least 10% (he claims 14%) and have $100,000 (Claims he already had much more).
Bean is now also making accusations and demanding an investigation. Our inquiries to the Bean campaign for info/comments were shunted to a media consultant and our email got no response by time of publication.
As a result of the 2020 census, Florida gained a House of Representative seat. The brand new District 4 has Nassau County and portions of Duval and Clay counties. Six candidates are still running, three on the Republican Ballot, two Democrats and a Republican write-in candidate. Candidate and long time elected official Aaron Bean appears to be way ahead in the polls and official endorsements, but way behind Aguilar in fundraising, which brings us to the crux of the matter.
Per Deb Boelkes of the We The People grassroots civic group in Fernandina Beach, said Aguilar had raised over a million dollars as of Saturday, over $400,000 of it self-funded. He said he had made a lot of money in the stock market, was also a “penny pincher” and thought that the best investment he could make was in his country and that his candidacy was it.
At a candidate forum they sponsored Monday night, Boelkes asked Aguilar a question about the accusations. Aguilar’s response was to launch into a series of assertions that he was being attacked by “anti MAGA” people and denied he was doing anything wrong, without responding to the specifics. We got a similar response from him later while talking after the event. We tried to set up an interview, he would not commit, but said we could talk the next day.
After getting no response from him after calling the next day, we contacted his campaign manager, who agreed to work with him on written questions we submitted. We agreed that we would run his answers verbatim with zero modifications. Aguilar finally called and his non-answers to the specific questions and general comments are noted herein.
We posed the following questions to the Aguilar campaign today, 7-19-22:
1. Is it true that your WinRed account was used to send out mailers soliciting donations, not mentioning you, but Trump, DeSantis and other politicians?
2. Did mailers give the impression that the solicitation was for them or you? Did the money go to you or your campaign fund? How much and when?
3. Please send us the mailers you did send.
4. Did you create and/or send the mailers or did some other person or organization do it? If so, who? Did you know about this? If so, when did you become aware of it and when and how did you act on it?
5. What were your communications with WinRed and the political consultant mentioned in articles?
All that the attack articles have provided so far are assertions that those were the ads, that those ads were sent by him and money funneled to them. The proof hasn’t been provided, although this may be part of the strategy.
The state Republican party is already contemplating action to remove him from the debate at their upcoming event, although he says he is confident that won’t occur. It would seem that prompt forthright answers would be the best route to regaining legitimacy and credibility with the electorate. Without that the primary race is down to Bean, a conservative with extensive establishment backing or Jon Chuba, also conservative, but a newcomer without the resources and backing for likely victory.
So, we await the next moves from all parties.
Most of the articles linked below are based upon an article and Tweets in Politico Florida, a publication with a left-wing bias:
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/07/15/florida-republican-aguilar-trump-00045643
George Miller is Publisher and Co-Founder of Citizens Journal Florida, based in Fernandina Beach. He is a “retired” operations management consultant, software and publishing executive and manufacturing management professional.
Michael Miller, A retired Fire Lieutenant/EMT from NY has been in FB for 8 years. He is a fierce advocate for Liberty, a sailing captain and instructor for Windward Sailing. He dabbles in theatre, photography, geopolitics and markets and now writing. Look for his writing here and at: https://firesail.substack.com/
Good morning and Happy Saturday, C&C! Today’s roundup includes: a new study shows natural immunity is far superior to induced immunity; DeSantis trumps teachers’ unions; beagles saved from big pharma; big pharma finances dems; mask mandates creeping back; UK media covers Makary and Høeg essay; now Italy’s prime minister resigns; new San Fran DA cleans house; and Starbucks closes stores in woke cities.
Here’s a cut of my panel with Florida Representatives Erin Grall and Joe Harding (55 mins).
So far, I’ve been “hit” in at least one news article about the conference suggesting I’m a wacky conspiracy theorist. It also misidentified where I live. So, you know. Accuracy may vary.
🗞*COVID NEWS AND COMMENTARY* 🗞
💉 A new peer-reviewed study published this week in JAMA is titled, “Long-term Immune Response to SARS-CoV-2 Infection Among Children and Adults After Mild Infection.” What? Natural immunity is a thing again?
The study concludes that antibodies to covid “may persist more than a year from infection in all age groups. This work provides further evidence of sustained immune response in children up to 1 year after primary SARS-CoV-2 infection.” Even from MILD infection.
And it showed a SUSTAINED immune response. In other words, mild infection confers an immune response that doesn’t “wane.” It doesn’t wane like some other kinds of artificially-induced immune responses that might come from certain drugs from companies like Pfizer and Moderna.
Furthermore, the researchers found “[c]hildren had significantly higher S-RBD IgG titers than older patients across all follow-up time points[.]” You don’t say. Significantly higher. How much higher? “[I]n patients younger than 3 years, 5-fold higher than adults[.]”
Five TIMES higher for younger kids than for older folks, underscoring how little the kids need the jabs.
Now, I am quite sure you’ll recall how Dr. Fauci and the CDC swore — they PROMISED — that natural immunity was inferior to vaccine-induced immunity. They said the “best” immunity came from a glass bottle. But this study proves it was all fake. It was all a lie. Ten pinnochio’s!
But hey, everybody makes mistakes. You trust the experts now, right?
🔥 An NBC News article reporting on my conference yesterday was headlined, “DeSantis’ Education Message Is Winning in Battleground States, Teacher Union Poll Finds.” Uh-oh!
NBC first reported about the Moms for Liberty conference and DeSantis’ speech (right before my panel began), then the article explained that a major U.S. teacher’s union recently told its members to stop focusing on CRT and trans issues, and get back to class sizes and teacher’s salaries. Why? Because the union took a national voter poll, testing DeSantis’ education messaging, and the results were DEVASTATING for the union’s woke issues.
NBC called the poll a “major set of red flags… for Democrats and teacher unions.” Weird! All the experts have said DeSantis was “extreme” and a “dictator” and stuff. How could they have been wrong?
One poll question found voters, by a +32 percentage-point margin, said they were more likely to vote for candidates who think public schools should focus less on teaching race and more on core subjects. Imagine that. By +27 points, voters said schools should be banned from teaching sexual orientation and gender identity to kids in kindergarten through third grade. Gosh! By +28 points, voters said transgender athletes should be banned from competing in girls’ sports. Who could’ve possibly predicted this?
Not teachers’ unions, obviously.
So … whoops! Talk about reading the room wrong. Democrats have been SO SURE that race, CRT, gender, LGBTQ+++ and trans issues in schools were the way forward. How could they have been so wrong?
Reacting swiftly to the bad news, union president Randi Weingarten pivoted, laying out a brand-new strategy this week, that blasts Republicans for made-up “extreme” proposals like “book-banning,” and emphasizes “expanding educational opportunities” for students. Buh bye, race, LGBTQ, and trans issues. Don’t let the door hit you in the pillowy parts.
NBC didn’t have any trouble finding some democrats who are agonizing over how their pet issues have fallen flat. It quoted former Democrat state House member and political organizer Sean Shaw, who marveled at DeSantis’ ability to “pick fights where he knows we have to respond and where it can be a problem for us.”
Shaw also admitted that his woke messaging isn’t getting through to ANYBODY. “Look, I’m a black man. All I want to do is talk critical race theory. But I can’t. It’s stupid. When you go to a black barbershop, they’re not talking about CRT. They’re talking about the price of gas and rent,” Shaw confessed.
“Openly gay” Florida state Senator Shevrin Jones, also a black Democrat, wondered, “Could we have done a better strategy and done a better job? Yes. We’re too reactionary.”
According to Jones, Democrats need to “do” a better strategy next time. But that’s not super helpful advice. You should probably always try to “do” a better strategy.
The article wraps up actually quoting DeSantis’ speech for the first time. At least they gave him that. But then they still gave Randi Weingarten the last word — and she used it to complain that Republicans weren’t willing to come together and work with Democrats “for the children.”
Please. Work together? Ten seconds ago you were calling us domestic terrorists.
Randi, we will NEVER EVER EVER forget what you did to kids during the pandemic. You’re a fake, a fraud. You don’t care about kids. You proved it beyond all possible doubt. Go away.
🐶 The New York Post reported a story this week headlined “4,000 Beagles in Need of Homes After Rescue From Virginia Facility.” That’s a lot of beagles. I overlooked the story at first, because the leftists unleashed a flood of misleading reports obscuring the real story. But the Post gets right to it, explaining “[t]he hounds were bred in the Envigo facility to be sold for use in pharmaceutical and biotech research, according to its website[.]”
Imagine that. Remember any other stories about beagles and biotech research lately?
Liberal media has been misleadingly labeling the outfit mistreating the beagles a “breeder” facility, so it sounds like the pups were just being raised for sale to individual owners or something. The New York Times’ story takes TEN PARAGRAPHS to get around to mentioning that the dogs were to be used for pharmaceutical research, but right after saying the animals were “well socialized,” suggesting that the research was for something innocuous like researching whether kids on the pediatric floor do better if they get to pet beagles every day.
But what “well socialized” really means in this context is that the beagles are easy to handle while the pharma researchers are experimenting on them. But you’d never ever know that from reading the NYT article.
If leftwing media can diss its dog-loving readers like this, Pharma must totally own the leftwing corporate media at this point. If there were any newspaper who’d decry animal experimentation on innocent beagles, you’d think that newspaper would be the New York Times. But no. They’re deceptively trying to thread the needle by decrying “poor conditions” while simultaneously protecting their masters by downplaying pharma’s role in the disaster.
🔥 The Florida Democrat party happens to be holding its “Leadership Blue” conference across the street at the JW Marriott, headlined by JB Pritzker, for some reason. A rumor making the rounds yesterday suggested Kamala Harris was making a surprise guest appearance to shore up the Florida troops.
Anyway, I looked it up, and there’s only one large sponsor. Guess who it is? Pfizer, of course! See for yourself.
It sure is nice of Pfizer to pay for the Dems’ swanky three-day conference, isn’t it?
😷 Mask mandates are BACK in the San Diego school district. Just like everybody knew they would be. According to a recent advisory, as of Monday morning indoor masking will be mandatory at all schools and district offices. Mandatory despite ample evidence that masks do NOT stop the spread, reduce transmission, or flatten the curve. But, shut up. Science!
San Diego parents, don’t give that school board a minute’s rest. Have at them.
In related news, a friend texted this morning advising his local Ace Hardware is requiring masks to enter again. Here we go! My view is, we need to push back as hard as we can this time, every single place mask mandates raise their irrational little heads, to try to stop it before it spreads like monkeypox.
🔥 Once again, we look to UK media for news about what’s going on in the U.S. on important topics of great public interest. Thursday, the UK Daily Mail ran an article with one of its classic extended headlines: “Health Experts Are Quitting the NIH and CDC in Droves Because They’re Embarrassed by ‘Bad Science’ – Including Vaccinating Children Under 5 to ‘Make Their Advice Palatable to the White House,’ Doctors Claim.”
The Daily Mail followed up on the Substack essay by Doctors Marty Makary and Tracey Høeg that I reported on yesterday, apparently recognizing it as newsworthy, despite the U.S. media’s complete embargo of the important report. The essay said that a number of scientists had quietly old the two doctors that morale is at an all-time low at the federal health agencies, and people are quitting and resigning in large numbers.
You’d think major unrest at the federal health agencies would interest Americans, especially after what we’ve all been through lately. You’d think so, but corporate media apparently disagrees, because they can’t even be bothered to DISPROVE Makary’s claims by making a phone call or two.
Of course, making a phone call or two might also get them an answer they don’t want. Makary and Høeg might be right.
The Mail quoted an anonymous NIH scientist saying, “They have no leadership right now. Suddenly, there’s an enormous number of jobs opening up at the highest level positions.” Referring to the approval of jabs for infants and toddlers, an FDA official said “The public has no idea how bad this data really is. It would not pass muster for any other authorization.”
Bad data? How could this be? The EXPERTS are all completely satisfied with Pfizer’s data. Weird.
But maybe it’s not surprising that corporate media is ignoring this story. It’s a triple-whammy: corporate media needs to protect the feds, it needs to protect pharma, and it hates the competition from a big story breaking on Substack.
🔥 Another European leader dropped out yesterday. They’re falling faster these days than dominoes scattering after Biden bumbles into the table. ZeroHedge ran an article about the news yesterday headlined, “Davos Loses Big Time… Draghi On the Way Out In Italy.”
What happened was, Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi tendered his resignation to President Sergio Mattarella yesterday, who is ceremonially refusing to accept it — for now. But the cards appear to be dealt and it’s only a matter of time.
The cause of his resignation is complicated and murky; Italian media is all over the map and Italian politics are nearly incomprehensible. But ZeroHedge speculates that the urgency to remove the prime minister has more to do with how Italy’s energy sector is totally unprepared for the winter, a winter without Russian natural gas. The article also suggests that Draghi’s fall could be pushback against Davos for the political assassination of Boris Johnson.
The news comes while an Italian farmer strike is getting underway in that country.
Tony @mrtdogg_Italian farmers hit Milan with the message: “We are not slaves, we are farmers!” Still the media turn a blind eye.
July 15th 20223,154 Retweets7,314 Likes
🔥 Remember how ultra-woke District Attorney Chesa Boudin was too woke even for San Fransisco voters, and last month got removed in a recall? A CBS story back in June on the recall was headlined, “San Francisco Votes Overwhelmingly to Recall Progressive DA Chesa Boudin.”
After the recall, S.F. Mayor London Breed appointed a new DA, Brooke Jenkins, and she’s CLEANING HOUSE. According to the San Fransisco Guardian, Jenkins has “launched a massive staff overhaul, firing at least 15 employees and announcing the selection of four new lieutenants who will help lead her management and transition teams.”
Something’s happening. Remember: the West Coast usually leads the culture. This could be the start of something big and nationwide.
🔥 It’s not just San Fransisco. The Federalist reported on leaked audio of Starbucks’ newly-returned CEO Howard Schultz in an article headlined, “Starbucks CEO Blames Woke Elected Officials For 16 Store Closures In Dangerous Cities.”
Apparently Starbucks has been closing down stores in ultra-woke city centers like Portland, Seattle, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C.. Officially the company has just generally cited “safety concerns.”
But in leaked footage of CEO Schultz speaking at an internal meeting, published on Thursday, the coffee-chain executive blamed democrat officials for creating a hostile environment in which it’s too unsafe to operate.
Schultz can be seen saying, “In my view, at the local, state, and federal level, these governments across the country and leaders, mayors, and governors and city councils have abdicated their responsibility in fighting crime and addressing mental illness.”
The CEO explained that he traveled to stores all around America to figure what was going on:
“We are beginning to close stores that are NOT unprofitable. We’re closing stores as a result of the… [sixty] sessions that we’ve had and, uh, it shocked me that one of the primary concerns that our retail partners have is for their own personal safety.
And then we heard the stories that go along with it, about what happens in our bathrooms. The issues of mental health. The issues of homelessness. And the issues of crime.
And Starbucks is a window into America. We have stores in every community. And we are facing things which the stores were not built for. And so we’re listening to our people and closing stores and this is just the beginning. There are gonna be many more.”
Ari Hoffman @thehoffatherEXCLUSIVE: Today at an internal meeting CEO Howard Schultz said: “Starbucks is a window into America… we are facing things in which the stores were not built for… we’re listening to our people and closing stores, & this is just the beginning. There are gonna be many more. 🧵
July 13th 20221,586 Retweets4,350 Likes
I think he’s right that this is just the beginning. Pay attention. Starbuck and San Fransisco are signs. The re-assertion of reason may be starting.
Have a super Saturday! I’ll see you all back here on Monday morning for more delicious Coffee & Covid, and to start the week off right.
Read, subscribe free to source: Coffee & Covid blog
PRESS RELEASE
By Supervisor of Elections
07-16-22 Nassau County
Nearly 18,000 vote-by-mail ballots were sent to registered voters of Nassau County Thursday for the upcoming 2022 midterm primary contests, the Supervisor of Elections Office announced Friday.
County Supervisor of Elections, Janet Adkins said the primary ballots features a return envelope with an improved design. It includes a signature flap that covers the voter’s signature entirely while in the custody of the US Postal Service, while on its return trip back for tabulation at the county elections office.
“Election security is my highest priority, and this innovative envelope feature is essential to protecting identifying information of Nassau County voters,” Adkins stated.
Early primary election voting is set to run from Aug. 10 to 20. Primary Election Day is scheduled for Aug. 23.
Vote by Mail ballots must be received by the Elections Office no later than 7pm on election night. Voters can return their ballot one of three ways:
Voters can track their ballot by signing up for real-time notifications via text, email, or voice. Download the new Vote Nassau FL mobile app and select “Track my Ballot.”
OPINION/NEWS
07-15-22
Happy Friday! Your roundup today includes: some good news about military mandates; why higher interest rates are actually good news; a new study explains the absence of new jab types; a new verb hits the mainstream; discontent at the agencies; does a major Putin speech make sense?; and news on inflation, Biden hit hardest.
🪖 I’m speaking this morning at the Moms for Liberty National Conference in Tampa, Florida, which is why your roundup is a little abridged this morning.
💉 In great news on military mandates, yesterday a federal judge in Ohio certified a national class action lawsuit against the Air Force, and issued a 2-week restraining order barring enforcement of the covid vaccine mandate against any airmen seeking religious exemptions.
The Court ordered the Air Force to file a memorandum by July 21st “identifying why this Court should not grant a class-wide preliminary injunction.“ The preliminary injunction is the one you want; it lasts for the entire case until a final decision. Because it’s now a class, the injunction applies to the entire Air Force and not just the individual plaintiffs.
We need more like this. Great job to all the attorneys who are working on the case.
💉 Remember how Moderna and Pfizer always said that their mRNA platforms were so great because they could just quickly reprogram them to mint new variant-specific versions of their vaccines whenever we needed them? And how the president of Pfizer said in December that they’d have an Omicron-specific version out as soon as January or February?
And then … nothing happened?
I’ve wondered several times on the blog about where those promised variant-specific vaccines were hiding. Well, a new study seems to provide some answers. The bottom line is, the new versions are here but they DON’T WORK.
The study, quietly published earlier this year, bears the somewhat opaque title, “mRNA-1273 or mRNA-Omicron boost in vaccinated macaques elicits comparable B cell expansion, neutralizing antibodies and protection against Omicron.” It weighs in at a blockbuster 66 authors, including NIAID and NIH scientists.
The researchers compared the rates of waning antibodies in monkeys after being vaccinated with the original mRNA jab to the rate of waning antibodies after vaccination with the variant-specific version. They were surprised to find that there was no additional benefit from the new vaccine version over the original, even though the monkeys in both groups were infected with Omicron and not the original Wuhan strain.
They concluded, “Significant and equivalent control of virus replication in lower airways was observed following either boost.”
So that wasn’t good for business and explained why we haven’t seen any variant-specific versions. But then things got even more interesting. The 66 authors invoked OAS, original antigenic sin, as a LIKLEY potential explanation for why the newer drugs don’t work against the new variants. Likely.
The observation that boosting with either mRNA-1273 or mRNA-Omicron resulted in the expansion of a similarly high frequency of cross-reactive B cells likely stems from the principle of original antigenic sin, otherwise termed antigenic imprinting, whereby prior immune memory is recalled by a related antigenic encounter.
For new readers, original antigenic sin is a problem observed in some leaky vaccines. What happens is, a person’s immune system gets locked into its original response and never learns any new responses when it encounters variants. In other words, because of the leaky vaccine (the “original sin”), the person’s immune system only makes antibodies to the ORIGINAL viral strain, and never updates its antibodies at all to match new variant types, like an unvaccinated immune system can and will easily do.
In other words, injectees’ immune systems are no longer trainable against the disease.
Because the locked immune systems spur genetic development of the target virus, over time the original antibodies become increasingly less effective against new variant types. This can leave the vaccinated people in a really difficult spot. In bad cases, it basically makes them into AIDS patients as to the particular bug they got vaccinated against. In other words, they become immunocompromised to that particular disease, doomed to keep catching it over and over, with each case getting more and more severe.
Since the OAS issue was not the authors’ primary research objective, they didn’t chase it down to prove whether OAS caused the failure of the variant-specific jabs or not. They could have, but they didn’t. For some reason.
But they did say, “likely.”
🔥 Great news everybody! Higher interest rates! Money ran a story this week headlined, “4 Reasons Higher Mortgage Rates Are Actually Good for Homebuyers.” Isn’t it wonderful how the corporate media can always somehow find a silver lining in the bad news when it wants to? Remember “funemployment?” Good times.
Anyway, the ‘good’ part is: FEWER PEOPLE CAN AFFORD TO BUY HOUSES. I thought those people were also called “homebuyers,” but I was wrong. Since they can’t buy homes anymore, they aren’t home “buyers.” They are home not-buyers, a totally different category, and we’re not talking about whether the higher rates are good for THOSE people.
Anyway, REGULAR homebuyers will “benefit” from a soft market collapsing because fewer buyers are coming around competing for houses. Inventories will build up as frustrated sellers are unable to close their deals, which drives prices down. Who knows, slashed prices might even make up for the higher interest rates. Cash buyers like Blackrock will especially benefit. Finally, scraping the bottom of the good news barrel, Money pointed out hopefully that banks might even “eventually” increase your savings account interest rate by a fractional interest point or something.
So, the headline could’ve been, “Horrible News for Sellers and People Who Now Can’t Buy Houses.” But why be so negative? Look at the bright side!
🔥 The tag “Epsteined” was trending on Twitter this morning, so I checked it out. I was bemused to find it was related to the news that Donald Trump’s ex-wife Ivana, 73, died suddenly and unexpectedly yesterday. She was found at the bottom of some stairs in her apartment. No cause of death released. 💉
So anyway, I discovered the word “Epsteined” is now a verb, in this case suggesting that President Trump had Ivana bumped off to advantage himself in some kind of deposition he has to attend this week. It’s nonsense; there’s no evidence whatsoever and even the so-called motive falls apart with three seconds of rational reflection.
But what was really interesting is that even the rabid leftwing Trump-derangement community is now using Epstein’s name as a verb. Like, “oh I guess Hillary Clinton’s assistant just epsteined himself yesterday.” Or, “I hope they have an eye on Ghislaine so she can’t epstein herself.”
In other words, if his name is now a verb that even the radical left uses, that means NOBODY believes Epstein killed himself. Nobody. So, can we all quit pretending?
🔥 “I can’t tell you how many people at the FDA have told me, ‘I don’t like any of this, but I just need to make it to my retirement,’” an anonymous FDA official told Dr. Marty Makari and Dr. Tracy Høeg, who just published a joint Substack headlined, “U.S. Public Health Agencies Aren’t ‘Following the Science,’ Officials Say.”
Another senior FDA official lamented, “It’s like a horror movie I’m being forced to watch and I can’t close my eyes. People are getting bad advice and we can’t say anything.”
Meaning, people are getting bad advice from HIS agency — the FDA.
Makary and Høeg say that they are getting lots of calls from doctors and scientists at the CDC, FDA, and NIH. The agency workers are complaining about low morale, high turnover, and short staffing. One complained, “Things have become so political, so what are we there for?” Another CDC scientist admitted, “I used to be proud to tell people I work at the CDC. Now I’m embarrassed.”
According to the authors, the agency employees have been bullied into silence by rampant cancel culture, so they don’t or can’t say anything about their concerns in their official capacities. Thus, they stay off the office radar, using private Signal chats for mutual support and to vent frustrations.
According to the article, the main concerns expressed by the unhappy scientists are the harms to children from lockdowns, and the recent decisions at the FDA and CDC to approve covid shots for infants and toddlers — without any evidence of efficacy, never mind any evidence that could possibly justify the risks.
I sympathize with their plight, I really do. But America needs folks in the federal agencies to DO SOMETHING. Speak up if you can. Whistleblow. Leak when you can, legally. Find a way to help. Don’t just complain about it. Don’t just wait out your retirement and punch your ticket.
If you take action to help, you’ll like yourself more, and things will work out fine, one way or the other. Just think about it.
🔥 Last week, Russian president Vladimir Putin gave a major speech to his Duma (congress), and said “Everyone in the West must realize we haven’t really started the war yet. If they want peace. We’re ready. Otherwise, we’re game.”
Disinformation!
The rest of his speech, I mean disinformation presentation, shows Putin has been paying very close attention. Here’s a small snippet:
The ruling classes of the Western countries, which are supranational and globalist in nature, realized that their policies are increasingly detached from reality, common sense, and truth, and they have started resorting to openly despotic methods.
The West, which once declared such principles of democracy as freedom of speech, pluralism and respect for dissenting opinions, has now degenerated into the opposite: totalitarianism. This includes censorship, media bans, and the arbitrary treatment of journalists and public figures.
These kinds of prohibitions have been extended not only to the information space, but also to politics culture, education, and art — to all spheres of public life in the Western countries. And, they are imposing this on the world; they are trying to impose this model, a model of totalitarian liberalism, including the notorious cancel culture of widespread bans.
Guys, listen. We are making it WAY too easy for Putin to criticize us. Totalitarian liberalism! Not only are we making ourselves easy to criticize, but we’re also making it super easy to divide us. I find myself resonating strongly with the concept of “totalitarian liberalism.” It’s crazy that we’d ever get to a place where I would be tempted to sympathize with Vladimir Putin — even a little.
Anyway, there’s a lot more, but good luck trying to find any of it in corporate media. For some reason. It can’t be that Putin is shaming Joe Biden, who is not making many inspirational speeches about the big picture, or even that give anyone any hope or anything. It can’t be THAT, because, well, c’mon man!
Okay, look. Biden might not be good at giving speeches, riding bicycles, walking up the steps into AF1, remembering what to do next, or even staying awake, but at least he’s good at … … sorry, I forgot what I was going to say.
Via Twitter, here’s video of Putin’s speech today, addressed to the west. Text of the speech was posted above in italic.
🔥 The new inflation numbers came out this week and they’re not good. They’re quite bad, actually. Despite the fed’s interest rate hikes and reduction of the money supply, U.S. inflation still shot up to 9.1% — the highest rate since the horrible Carter years back in the 1970’s.
Remember last July when Joe Biden promised us that “Our experts believe and the data shows that most of the price increases we’ve seen are — were expected and expected to be temporary. . . . There’s nobody suggesting there’s unchecked inflation on the way — no serious economist.” Remember when he said that? Haha, good times.
ZeroHedge’s article on the news bore the snappy headline, “The Inflation Monster That Our Leaders Have Created Is Voraciously Eating Away Our Standard Of Living.” The article points out that while, or possibly because inflation is skyrocketing, real wages have fallen for 15 straight months.
But hey, at least we don’t have any mean tweets anymore! And I can’t wait for Money’s newest article, coming out any day now: “Six Ways Inflation Produces Surprising Benefits.”
Have a fabulous Friday and I’ll see you back here in the morning.
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The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
by Kari Donovan, WND News Center. This story was originally published by the WND News Center
July 15, 2022
While approval ratings show that Democrats are losing hope of retaining their power in 2022 due to the unfavorability of their policies, gun control demands continue to be one of the top remaining unifying calls to action for the people who are remaining in the party.
“The worries of the Antoinette liberal elite—climate change, abortion on demand, transgenderism, strict gun-control—are not those that terrify the middle/ lower classes. The latter first want enough affordable food and energy and to be safe from criminals, ” Victor Davis Hanson said recently about the Democrat’s determined gun stand- and he is on to something.
Now there is news that House Judiciary Committee will be moving on the 2021 “assault weapons” ban bill that targets at least 45 specific AR-15 rifles and approximately 30 specific AK-47s, the legislation authored by Rep. David Cicilline’s (D-R.I.) assault weapons bill as H.R. 1808.
The text of HR 1808: Assault Weapons Ban of 2021
This bill makes it a crime to knowingly import, sell, manufacture, transfer, or possess a semiautomatic assault weapon (SAW) or large capacity ammunition feeding device (LCAFD).
The prohibition does not apply to a firearm that is (1) manually operated by bolt, pump, lever, or slide action; (2) permanently inoperable; (3) an antique; or (4) a rifle or shotgun specifically identified by make and model.
The bill also exempts from the prohibition the following, with respect to a SAW or LCAFD:
The bill permits continued possession, sale, or transfer of a grandfathered SAW, which must be securely stored. A licensed gun dealer must conduct a background check prior to the sale or transfer of a grandfathered SAW between private parties.
The bill permits continued possession of but prohibits sale or transfer of, a grandfathered LCAFD.
Newly manufactured LCAFDs must display serial number identification. Newly manufactured SAWs and LCAFDs must display the date of manufacture.
The bill also allows a state or local government to use Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant Program funds to compensate individuals who surrender a SAW or LCAFD under a buy-back program.
A Punchbowl News report that said the bill will be marked up Wednesday by the House Judiciary Committee and Democrat leadership aides indicated “the bill could come up for a floor vote as soon as the last week of July.”
Breitbart reported about the timeline of the gun grab:
“The Washington Times suggests the Supreme Court of the United States’ (SCOTUS) June 23 pro-Second Amendment ruling in NYSRPA v. Bruen puts all types of gun control in the crosshairs of gun rights groups.
On June 23 Breitbart News reported that SCOTUS issued a ruling in Bruen which struck down New York’s proper cause requirement for concealed carry permit issuance.
Within the next 24 to 36 hours California and New Jersey dropped similar concealed carry permit issuance requirements in their states, and on July 5 Maryland suspended its “good and substantial reason” clause for concealed carry permit issuance.
The Washington Times suggests the Bruen ruling means gun control of all types will now face challenges and in some cases, it is already being challenged.
The Times paraphrases Justice Clarence Thomas’s emphasis on the importance of rulings like Bruen, McDonald v. Chicago (2010), and District of Columbia v. Heller (2008), saying, “The test courts must apply is whether a firearms restriction would have seemed reasonable to the founding generation that crafted and ratified the Second Amendment. If not, the law must give way to the Constitution.”
At this point, the Second Amendment Foundation is seeking to challenge a federal ban on handgun purchases by people 18 to 20 years old, and the Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) is pointing to the Bruen decision as it seeks to have New York’s “assault weapons” ban ruled unconstitutional.
FPC claims, “There is no constitutionally relevant difference between a semi-automatic handgun, shotgun, and rifle. While some exterior physical attributes may differ — wood vs. metal stocks and furniture, the number and/or location of grips, having a bare muzzle vs. having muzzle devices, different barrel lengths, etc. — they are, in all relevant respects, the same.”
Moreover, on July 1 Breitbart News pointed out that SCOTUS vacated and remanded a number of cases centered on an “assault weapons” ban in Maryland, a “high capacity” magazine ban in California, and carry restrictions in Hawaii.
A challenge to New Jersey’s “high capacity” ban was also among the cases vacated and remanded.
Bloomberg Law noted that in remanding the cases Justice Clarence Thomas wrote, “While that judicial deference to legislative interest balancing is understandable—and, elsewhere, appropriate—it is not deference that the Constitution demands here.”
The cases were vacated and remanded in light of the Bruen ruling.
On January 13, 2021, Breitbart News noted National Shooting Sports Foundation numbers that there were “20 million firearms in private possession which Democrats label ‘assault weapons.’”
Those 20 million were a portion of the overall 432 million privately guns then in Americans’ possession.
By Dave Scott
7-15-22, Fernandina Beach
While Miami is welcoming Chicago‘s $51 billion dollar Citadel hedge fund, and Texas is toasting the arrival of that violent city’s Boeing and Caterpillar headquarters operations, clueless sad sack Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot is toddling off to Europe to promote her crime-ridden city as a viable place to do business.
At the same time as the Chicago Exodus tone-deaf, slick-haired snake oil salesman, California Governor Gavin Newsom, is begging his state’s former residents to make a U-turn and head back West.
Democrat lightweight Lightfoot claims that “Chicago’s economy is thriving, and our business sector has set records, keeping us competitive with top global financial cities.” How well are they doing? Citadel’s Ken Griffin reported that he has had “multiple colleagues mugged at gunpoint, a colleague stabbed on the way to work and countless issues of burglary.”
The pathetic Lightfoot is as delusional as Governor Newsom, who recently placed hundreds of thousands of dollars in advertisements in Florida begging departing Californians to turn those U-Hauls around and head back to California where he says: “freedom reigns.”
He maybe be right if your idea of freedom is to live, poop and shoot-up publicly on city streets, steal whatever you require from the corner drugstore, and shoot your neighbor and take his property without suffering any consequences. Other California benefits include the highest state taxes in the U.S., man-made drought caused by environmental extremists, rolling blackouts, sanctuary cities, paying double for electricity and quadruple for rents so you can live amongst homeless mentally deranged vagrants and watch homicidal maniacs roam the streets because leftist prosecutors won’t prosecute them.
Newsom appears seriously puzzled as to why Florida is attracting some 3,000 new citizens a day and the roads headed out of California are clogged with U-Hauls headed to Texas and the Sunshine State. Lightweight Lightfoot must think Europeans are unaware of the chaos and mayhem taking place in Chicago.
For the first time in its history Florida has reported it has more registered Republican voters than Democrats….currently 50,000 more.
One of the major reasons so many folks are skedaddling out of California and Illinois and headed to Florida is rampant crime in their current home states.
They’re aware that Florida is a safe place to live because it has managed to achieve something that Democratic district attorneys in their cities won’t – actually reduce crime.
And that no-nonsense approach to crime is happening right here in Florida’s Fourth Circuit, covering the counties of Nassau, Clay, and Duval.
Our district is headed by Republican State Attorney Melissa Nelson, who’s made a name for herself by pursuing creative policies for finding and prosecuting criminals.
One of her methods is to bring firearm charges against repeat offenders in connection with weapons that show up in music videos. She also pursues harsh penalties against those convicted of gun crimes.
Jacksonville, one of Florida’s most crime-ridden cities, has benefitted from Ms. Nelson’s tactics. “In 2021, Jacksonville’s murders were down 30% and overall shootings down 17% from the year prior,” David Chapman, speaking for the Fourth Circuit State Attorney’s Office, told Fox News, citing records of non-domestic shooting incidents from the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office.
So far in 2022, the district has experienced another reduction in homicides, though shootings remain consistent with last year’s statistics. In an interview with Fox News Nelson explained her take on the situation. “Improving public safety and fighting violent crime remains a top priority for our office and law enforcement partners,” she said. Governor Newsome must read that and think: “What a unique concept!”
This is a huge contrast with Democrat-run cities around the country like Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, New York, and Baltimore where progressive prosecutors have made it clear that they won’t pursue criminals and their crime statistics reflect their lack of enforcement.
We are indeed fortunate to have Ms. Nelson enforcing the law and to have a governor like Ron DeSantis in charge.
Maybe we can get Ms. Nelson to take a look at the some of the shenanigans going on in the City of Fernandina Beach’s building and permitting departments. Why are some of the rates there more than five times those in the county? Are state rules being followed? If not, why not? Anyone from the city care to answer?
***
End Of An Era: When I was a reporter for The Tampa Tribune many years ago there were five daily newspapers within a 50-mile radius: The Tribune, the Tampa Times, the St. Petersburg Times, the St. Petersburg Independent and the Clearwater Sun. Two of those papers (the Tampa Times and the Independent) were afternoon papers.
All of these papers had one thing in common – they were generated on linotype machines, clanging, banging, Rube Goldberg-like contraptions that used molten lead and enabled its operators to produce entire lines of type. By the 1970s those machines were gone replaced by computers. So are most of the newspapers.
The only remaining daily newspaper in the Tampa Bay area is the Tampa Bay Times. There isn’t an evening paper left anywhere in Florida. There is only one left in the entire country, the 2,500 circulation Livingston, Montana Enterprise, and its future is precarious as it’s a money loser.
There is also only one linotype machine left in the country, a 1920 model owned by 70-year-old Dean Coombs, publisher and editor of the Saguache Crescent, a Colorado weekly that boasts 360 subscribers and costs $16 a year or 35 cents a copy. It may be the only surviving linotype machine anywhere in the world that is still operational, the rest having been melted down for razor blades many years ago.
Personally, I don’t like reading the news on a computer and having to sit through a variety of advertisements to view it on TV or hear it on the radio. I enjoy having a cup of coffee with a newspaper or magazine in my hand, ripping articles out or highlighting them with a pen. That may harken back to when I was an elementary school kid and my mother insisted that I at least read the headlines in the paper at the breakfast table before I left the house. I soon discovered the sports section and baseball box scores and today am still a hardcore fan.
I eventually wandered through the rest of the paper finding fascinating items including the daily horoscope, the crossword puzzle, comics, Ann Landers and Dear Abby, TV schedules for the three networks, updates on the Korean War, the Eisenhower-Stephenson presidential elections, how to survive a nuclear strike, crooked local politicians, Castro’s Communist takeover of Cuba, and our neighbor Mike Morgan’s daily humor column “Moment With Morgan.” I was hooked and still am, but other than the daily Wall Street Journal, there’s not much print news to choose from anymore. And don’t look for baseball box scores in the WSJ.
When I was a kid the daily newspaper subscription was one of my widowed mother’s few luxuries. And it packed a lot of information and entertainment for the per issue bargain price of 10 cents.
I also discovered that working in the news gathering business was intense and exciting but not very lucrative. When I started as a daily newspaper reporter with the Tampa Tribune, the paper cost 25 cents. My starting salary was $92.50 a week.
Despite their diminishing numbers, whenever we travel to a new town, I always look for a local paper (usually a weekly nowadays) to get a feel of what’s going on in the community. The letters to the editor, schedule of local events, and police blotter give visitors a general idea about the economic health of the area, places to go and places to avoid.
Reading the news on a computer screen doesn’t provide the same comfort factor.
***
Speaking Of News Outlets: Publisher George Miller tells me that his newly created online newspaper, the Citizens Journal, covering Nassau County, is now online with area news, commentary, events, etc. To access it go to https://www.citizensjournal.net/
George says the outlet is still seeking reporters, writers, editors, social media, circulation, sales (commissioned) and more! “We conducted and are still conducting training for use of the site for authors to submit their work, as well as mentoring new writers and editorial staff, ” he says.
“We are also looking for charter advertisers and donors to keep us publishing and growing,” he adds. “We’re starting to receive and publish ads as well, offering a charter advertisers special that includes a 300 x 110 pixel (like a business card) or 300 x 210 pixel ad, plus a multi-page advertorial, plus display in our email version- contact [email protected]”
Those interested can contact George at the above email or call him at 805/807-5114.
***
Non-News News: A few months ago Susan Steger announced that newcomer Mike Phillips would take over her online Fernandina Observer “news” outlet that had been operating as nothing more than a public relations vehicle for the folks at Fernandina Beach’s city hall. Mr. Phillips has been in charge for a couple of months now and I’ve yet to see any change in the tripe it considers newsworthy, unless photos of birds and sunsets and state wire service items are your idea of breaking news hereabouts.
***
Another Reason To Skip College: During a Senate a Judiciary Committee hearing on abortion rights Tuesday, July 12, Berkeley Law School professor Khiara Bridges provided a reason to skip attending college.
During the session Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) demonstrated that it is impossible to engage in any kind of a rational discussion with an illogical preposterous leftist when the Berkeley professor insisted that men can get pregnant while accusing the senator of being transphobic and exposing transgenders to violence if he doesn’t think like her.
The woman, who appeared to be wearing hula hoops for earrings and boasted several decorative nose rings, also demonstrated with her daffy babbling why parents should immediately yank their kids out of any class taught by this mental midget or save a boat load of money by skipping that university altogether.
When Senator Hawley tried to get a straight answer on what Bridges had repeatedly referred to as “people with the capacity for pregnancy” the Berkely loony tune came unglued.
Senator Hawley asked: “Professor Bridges, you said several times, you’ve used a phrase I want to make sure I understand what you mean by it, you referred to people with a capacity for pregnancy, would that be women?”
“Many women, cis women have the capacity for pregnancy, many cis women do not have the capacity for pregnancy,” Bridges responded. “There are also trans men who are capable of pregnancy as well as non-binary people who are capable of pregnancy.”
“Do you believe that men can get pregnant?” Bridges asked the senator.
“No, I don’t think men can get pregnant,” Hawley answered.
“So, you are denying that trans people exist,” Bridges exclaimed. “Thank you.”
“And that leads to violence? Hawley asked. “Is this how you run your classroom? Are students allowed to question you, or are they also treated like this, where they’re told that they’re opening up people to violence by questioning?”
The Mad Hatter Tea Party babbling by the nutty professor shines a whole new light on the term “higher” education. Who hires these people? Are the administrators at the universities as insane as the instructors? Why would anyone pay to attend a class taught by this imbecile?
***
Speaking Of Imbeciles: Last Friday, July 8, Joe Biden railed about the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade, reading from a teleprompter, and calling the decision an “exercise in raw power.” But when he quoted the majority decision, he read the instructions inserted by a speechwriter.
“Women are not without electoral or political power, it is noteworthy that the percentage of women who register to vote and cast a ballot is consistently higher than the percentage of the men who do so, end of quote, repeat the line,” Biden stammered.
He would have read the recipe for his grandmother’s pot roast if someone had inserted it in the teleprompter.
***
Unanswered Questions: Where is Jeffrey Epstein’s little black book containing the list of folks he flew to his sex island with underaged girls? His imprisoned long-time girlfriend and accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell, surely knows who these prominent politicians, businesspeople, entertainment celebrities, etc. are. But like Hunter Biden’s laptop, the media and government law enforcement officials haven’t shown any interest? Why not?
***
Short Sellers? The most recent poll posted here asks: “Have the Biden Administration’s policies had a positive, negative or no impact on you economically?” Some 151 people responded with 135 or 89 percent saying negative; 11 folks (7 percent) saying positive and 5 people (3 percent) saying no impact. I’m curious what those 11 people who said it had a positive impact did. Maybe they’re short sellers in Biden’s down markets. Will one of these financial whizzes share their wisdom?
***
Speaking Of Sellers: Florida Politics wire service’s Wes Wolfe reports that Chris Ragucci is selling his Worldwide Terminals company at the Port of Fernandina to a joint effort of Utah and New York firms called Transportation Infrastructure Partners (TIP). TIP’s split 50-50 between Salt Lake City’s Savage Services and Ridgeway Infrastructure in New York City, with Savage being the operating partner reports Wolfe.
Republished with the author’s permission. Read The Dave Scott Blog– subscribe Free
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
NEWS
By CJF Editors
07-14-22
Orlando attorney and circuit court magistrate Craig McCarthy was appointed Monday to the Ninth Judicial Circuit by Gov. Ron DeSantis.
He is a former chair of the Florida Bar Association’s Public Interest Law Section and founding chair of the section’s Parents Advocacy Committee, the group posted on its website. His private practice spanned 16 years before being appointed in 2021 as magistrate by Chief Judge Donald A. Myers.
McCarthy earned a law degree from Florida State University after gaining a bachelor’s at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point
McCarthy fills the judicial vacancy created by the retirement of Judge Bob LeBlanc.
NEWS
By CJF Wires and Roy M Postel
07-14-22 Nassau County
A Clay County parent said the local school board cut his microphone off during a meeting last week after he tried to read aloud the “vile” and “pornographic” content found in some of the books found in district libraries.
The video of Bruce Friedman’s appearance at the Clay County School District exploded on social media. Here’s a clip as Friedman attempts to read from Lucky, a book by Alice Sebold, available in the Fleming Island High School Library.
In the video Friedman begins: “I’m going to read things; if there’s children watching, cover their ears,” Friedman said at the meeting.
“I’m going to stop you right there, sir,” someone responded to Friedman, calling to “turn off his microphone, please”:
Friedman and his family moved from New York and is now head of Florida’s No Left Turn in Education. The group has state chapters around the country. It’s national website invites interested parents to become active. The Florida Facebook group has grown by nearly 50 percent in past week according to community of nearly 200.
“Thank you for signing up to fight for our kids! No Left Turn in Education is a national nonprofit organization that stands for excellence in education and fair standards — not indoctrination. You will receive updates from NLTE now,” is the message posted to newcomers.
In recent months particularly, school boards have transformed into battlegrounds as more parents are speaking out.
By George Miller
7-15-22, Fernandina Beach
Local We The People civic group sponsored a forum for Nassau County Board of Commissioners Candidates. It featured more and much more in depth questions than previous local forums we attended, allowing better insight into candidates’ thinking/views. Above pic (L-R), County Commissioner candidates “Hupp” Huppmann, Alyson McCullough, George Spicer. Photo: George Miller, Citizens Journal Florida.
We the People President Deb Boelkes not only formulated thoughtful questions on relevant key issues, but included a few additional ones in advance of the event, held at Walker’s Landing.
Original event listing HERE
District 2 Candidates:
Aaron Bell – incumbent (schedule conflict)
A.M. “Hupp” Huppmann
District 4 Candidates:
Thomas Ford – incumbent (schedule conflict)
Alyson McCullough
Jeanne Scott (dropped out)
George Spicer
We the People scheduled this session so it wouldn’t conflict with the normal 1st Monday board meeting schedule, but didn’t realize that the meeting had been moved to Jthe second and fourth Mondays, so we missed incumbents Bell (District 2) and Ford (District 4). They submitted brief statements which Boelkes read aloud to those assembled.
Nassau County Commissioners Candidate Questions – 2022
1 – Minute per question, unless noted:
A: Huppmann- 2 businesses run: Hawaiian Surf & Trading Co, musician, married w/2 adult children, construction and HR background, was USAF navigator, retired military, worked for railroad,
A: McCullough- Lifelong in Callahan area (Hilliard now) , married, 4 active children, teaches career tech- Teacher of the Year- Nassau County School District, State Agriculture Advocate.
A: George Spicer- 32 year Nassau resident, married 50 years, raised 4 children, has 5 grandchildren and 2 great grandchildren, retired boilermaker, C of C volunteer of the year- multiple service organizations, says is qualified.
A: Aaron Bell- written statement read by organizer: Dist. 2 incumbent, MBA, CEO of multiple companies, raise impact fees, lower taxes, control growth, tell bad developers to “go pound sand”, deny Riverstone II 85′ towers.
A: Thomas Ford- written statement read by organizer: Dist. 4 incumbent, served 4 years, Passed FL Assoc. of Counties curricula, helped manage in global pandemic, transportation planning, affordable housing, balanced budget.
2- What are the three main reasons you are running for Nassau County Commissioner?
A: McCullough: People, Taxes, Future. Want to educate voters on how things work, where is the money going? Will ask questions, push back. She is getting responses of no-no-no from officials, who are not obeying the people and she intends to help address those problems.
A: Spicer- served 2014-18, the only vote against tax & gas tax increases, helped switch a 10 yr project financed by a 4% bond to all cash, was Fl Assoc of Cities rep, running on his record, wants more infrastructure and less taxes.
A: Huppmann- Rowed across the Atlantic as part of team that raised $900,000 for charity as a result. Wants to prevent future episodes like the one that illegally removed trees from his neighborhood, which provoked him to pay attention to what is going on.
3- If elected, will you hold any other employment besides the Board of Commissioners?
A: Spicer. No, I have income security (retired)
A: Huppmann- wife will run family business, but he will “dabble” in music.. On pension.
A: McCulluogh- “I am the only non-pension candidate”, says her school supports her and will work with her to make sure she is available for the work to be done for the Board of Commissioners.
4- The VoteNassauFL.gov website (as of Sunday, July 10) showed these are the total monetary contributions for each BOCC candidate:
District 2:
District 4:
Who are your top five campaign donors?
A: Huppmann- Rick Tal–? , a potential opponent, instead supports him with $1000, friends neighbors, small businessman. He did not enumerate who.
A: McCullough- All donors are in-county, says she is not willing to sell her soul, got $1000 checks from friends, family, a conservation organization, small businesses. Didn’t name names.
A: Spicer- He is biggest fundraiser, says that his wife donated $23,000 (about half), very conservative PACS, small businesses, hard working taxpayers, building trades.
5- THREE minutes: Keeping in mind General Michael Flynn’s assertation “Local Action Create National Impact” according to NassauCountyFL.com the persons we elect as our commissioners are responsible to:
Enact resolutions and ordinances for the general health, safety, and welfare of the residents of Nassau County
Levy taxation when necessary to finance the operation of the county government, and
Provide necessary services to safeguard the well-being and safety to the residents
As such, the Commissioners oversee: the County Attorney (and therefore Risk Management) and the County Manager.
Commissioners do not oversee: the Sheriff, The Clerk of the Court or Comptroller, the Property Appraiser, the Tax Collector, or the Supervisor of Elections.
Q: As it relates to Commissioners’ responsibilities, what three things do you believe Nassau County residents are most concerned about at this time, and what do you intend to do about them?
A: McCullough- public safety, good growth, taxes. A dream Nassau County to live, work and play. Have high wage careers here. Job creation here lowers property taxes, Govt transparency, She did her research. People don’t care. IU will serve you the taxpayer.
A: Spicer- Taxes, Cost of doing business, Public Safety. The tax base. Roll back sales tax was from the $1.4 MM state refund, not doing of the county. Wants millage (property tax) rollback. Never voted for a tax increase. Vote was 3-2 on millage, + 5% gas tax. Stopped it.
A: Huppmann- Public Safety, Taxes/Budget, tax cuts but must balance budget, meaningful budget reductions- not just reallocations. Restore order- City Manager and Attorney were the same, and Commissioners allowed this.
6- Now that property values are higher than ever in Nassau County, which will lead to higher property tax income to the county, what are your thoughts on providing tax relief to property owners?
A: Spicer- Property value increases automatically increase taxes. Small businesses have no exemptions, Will due his due diligence.
A: Huppmann- Get tax burden “off rooftops,” “relieve the pressure.” Get more businesses here- Crawford Diamond (industrial park).
A: McCullough- There has not been detailed accountability until recently. Need multiple allies on the board to get things done. I have youthful energy, “You work for me, bossman” (Govt works for people?). We haven’t had a voice on the Commission.
7-One recent controversial Commission decision was related to the 50-acre parcel owned by Riverstone Properties at the south end of Amelia Island. The property is zoned RG-2, which formerly allowed single-family dwellings, duplexes, townhomes, and multi-family dwellings as permitted uses.
Single family dwellings, duplexes and townhomes have a maximum building height of 35 feet and a maximum lot coverage of 35%.
Multi-family dwellings could exceed 35 feet up to a maximum of 85 feet or seven stories.
Riverstone originally envisioned building 11 84’ towers. Their vision put the value of the land at an estimated $72M.
Then, in August 2021, the County Commission modified beachfront height restrictions on new construction, to not to exceed 45 feet (so that high-end single-family homes could be built).
In March 2022, Riverstone (represented by the Rogers Towers law firm) threatened to sue the County for $27M, representing their opinion of the lost value of the parcel under the Bert Harris Private Property Protection Act, designed to protect a landowner against any lost value of their property due to actions taken by government.
Six weeks ago, the County Commissioners voted 3-2 against settling the case brought against it by Riverstone Properties under the Bert Harris Act (Aaron Bell, incumbent in District 2 was one of three who voted AGAINST settling the case; Thomas Ford, incumbent in District 4 voted FOR settling the case). Because the Act requires a settlement offer, the offer to be presented to Riverstone proposes NO changes to county building height regulations. Instead, some opponents have suggested building 18-oceanfront lots with an estimated value of $3M each, coupled with 18 lots near the beach, with an estimated value of $1M each. Some residents on the south end want the property to be made part of the State Park. Some residents would like see a new high end resort to go in as an alternative to the Omni and the Ritz.
The only concession Riverstone has offered to the county is a beach access area for the public. Action is still pending.
Q: What is your position on this case?
A: Huppmann- This is very complicated. City passed an ordinance, stand by that decision, opportunity was compromise. Find a meaningful solution. Do not have all the facts. Don’t use provocative, combative slogans.
A: McCullough- Honor the law. That’s the law. Don’t waste tax money on legalities. There are property owner rights.
A: Spicer- This is a no-brainer- abide by the ordinance. FB is a jewel in the state of Florida. Benefits are articulated. Some voted against stewardship. Developer did not want to listen.
8- What are your thoughts, in general, about property owner’s rights vs. enacting more regulations to limit redevelopment or the renovation of existing properties?
A: McCullough- People do not want more. There are major drainage issues. Spoke of ana example of 90 acres rezoned from ag to res near her.
A: Spicer- For strong property rights. Work on growth, which is coming, like it or not. Don’t want “urban sprawl” like Yulee is developing into. Appease and slow down developers
A: Huppmann- 3000/day are coming to Florida. We are 6th fastest growing county in FL. “30,000 ft level planning” needed. maintain affordability.
9- What is your position on the maintenance of roads, walking paths, bike trails, and county public beach access points, and the foliage that grows out-of-control alongside these roads and paths, harming the totally covering the trees and creating safety concerns, especially for women walking and riding alone?
A: Spicer- Supports public beaches & access is the law. Also infrastructure on the roads. Drainage is an issue.
A: Huppmann- Vision vital to Commission. Don’t like beach access limitations. Favor partnerships- use private contractors to develop/maintain this infrastructure. Private is cheaper and no pensions to pay.
A: McCullough- Private road maintenance and competition is working. Government fails 90% of the time.. Many govt. positions are vacant.
10- Some Nassau County homeowners along Thomas Creek, north of JAX airport, which typically floods, have sought to have the county purchase their homes to make the area a park. Are you in favor of doing so, and if so, what are your thoughts on using conservation bond funds for this purpose?
A: Huppmann- Corps of engineers say it is not manageable and to roll over and buy it. He wants commercial interests to take it on instead of govt. Gov. is offering property current value.
A: McCullough- No on referendum. Govt. has no business spending $30mm to buy property. She’s been to Thomas Creek and doesn’t want to spend tax money on it.
A: Spicer- Agrees with McCullough. If elevated, where does the water go? (drainage). Corps of Engineers will need $30MM to dredge it. City has a drainage problem.
11- What are your thoughts on the City of Fernandina promoting FB as an LGBTQ+ “safe city”?
A: McCullough- “I am rooted in faith and family.” “I don’t give a flying hoot what they are doing.” Don’t want the city to promote a sexual agenda.
A: Spicer- Agrees with McCullough. “I too believe in The Word” (Bible). What you do is your business. Don’t try to force feed me or my children. Doesn’t want to hear “are you a boy or a girl?” He says he almost fell down when (rainbow) flag flew at City Hall. Raise kids, work hard, love Jesus.
A: Huppmann- Govt. has no role in this. Live and let live. Free to be ourselves.
12- What is your position on how the County and the City of Fernandina might best control spending and expansion of the City government?
A: Spicer- Combine city and county sheriff and fire depts. There is double taxation within city limits. Million$$ wasted. In the marina, shrimp boats used to blow out the silt – now not allowed (expensive dredging does it).
A: Huppmann- yes, there are duplicated resources- consolidate. End east vs. west county differences- ONE Nassau County. Support each other.
A: McCullough- Volunteer fire depts in east county LOWER taxes. The cost of permits in city vs county is quite different.
13- Do you have any thoughts on the potential to create synergies, improve service levels, and reduce costs by combining some of the city and county services such a trash pick-up and other things?
A: Huppmann- Use contractors more.
A: McCullogh- Reiterated before- want public/private partnerships. Big govt.= big problems.
A: Spicer- Think outside the box. Be competitive. Work to save taxpayers/small businesses money. Nobody wants to work anymore. Agree with McCullough, his opponent and Huppman- we all all neighbors and friends.
We didn’t get to the following questions:
What do you think about the City of Fernandina’s building department regulations that have caused contractors, vendors, and retail shops to leave the city?
What are your thoughts on what should be done with the “FB city property” such as the City Hall, the Atlantic Seafood Building between the marina and the railroad track (both of which are in disrepair), Brett’s Waterway Café which has been declared structurally unsafe, and 101 Front Street (where critical permits were allowed to lapse)?
What is your position on the City of FB’s actions to manage enterprise fund assets (such as the Marina and the FB Municipal Golf Course?
Editor’s note: due to the huge volume of information covered and no video to fall back upon, just notes, it is possible we missed or misstated something. If you were there and differ, or just want to comment, let us know via a note to [email protected] or a reader comment.
George Miller is Publisher and Co-Founder of Citizens Journal Florida, based in Fernandina Beach. He is a “retired” operations management consultant, software and publishing executive and manufacturing management professional.
NEWS
By CJF Editors
07-14-22
A Palm Beach County jurist who served 19 years in the Florida Attorney General Criminal Appeals Division has been appointed judge of the 15th Judicial Circuit Court by Gov. Ron DeSantis, according to a post by the Florida Bar Association.
Melanie Suber of Delray Beach was named to the post late last week. She was previously appointed in 2019 to serve as a judge in Palm Beach County.
Surber received her bachelor’s degree from Boston University and her law degree from Nova Southeastern University.
Surber fills the judicial vacancy created by the retirement of Judge Janis Brustares Keyser.
By Michael Miller
7-14-22
Following a diagnosis last October, I chose Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, FL as my case management provider. This was due to their reputation for excellence in treatment innovation. Digging a little deeper, I began to question the integrity of the institution.
I was very impressed with their vast campus and the palatial architecture of the many treatment specialty buildings. Countless people thronged through the building for Tx. The operation ran like clockwork with on-time appointments and alert, knowledgable staff. I have only compliments for the quality of treatment I was given.
It was not encouraging to face a desk of people armed with boxes of masks and insisting I comply with Mayo’s mask policy, upon arriving at the facility. (in accordance with CDC guidelines, of course). I got accustomed to playing along with the mask theatre, wearing it under my nose to facilitate continued breathing, but not happy to have my personal choice overruled.
Answer me this one question: If you are vaxxed and masked, what possible concern do you have about my choice to abstain? The only possibility is that you doubt (correctly) the efficacy of your jab and your own mask. If this is the case you have forfeited your right to compel me to comply with your mandate.
Here is the initial Fauci statement, made on a 60 minutes interview, regarding masks, later to be rescinded:
“When you’re in the middle of an outbreak, wearing a mask might make people feel a little bit better, and it might even block a droplet; but it’s not providing the perfect protection that people think that it is. And often, there are unintended consequences: people will keep fiddling with the mask and they keep touching their face.” —Dr. Anthony Fauci
Face masks have not previously been used here, except by healthcare providers to prevent exchange of bodily fluids during procedures. We have now been mandated to comply for 2 years. When does an ”emergency” end? Is it a month? 1 year? 2 years?? The current “pandemic emergency” is no longer an emergency. It is a way of life. I, for one do not agree to be masked for the rest of my life. In fact I am done. There are now many studies revealing that masks do not prevent the spread of viruses. The practice has been compared to using a chainlink fence to keep out mosquitos.
So, On my next visit i decided that I would announce that, “I will not be wearing a mask today.” I chose to deal with however that unfolded. Even though the story is entertaining, I will spare you. The bottom line is that I am no longer a patient of Mayo Clinic. I have found a private provider whom I trust and respect to manage my condition. And I feel a sense of relief to have made the decision. It did not sit right with me to be forced to sacrifice my own informed choices for medical freedom.
Mayo Clinic is also a vociferous advocate of jab compliance. I was receiving weekly texts from them stating, “the covid vaccine is safe and effective. Schedule yours now.” I continually wonder if they have perused the VAERS data (vaccine adverse effects reporting system). Here they would find that there are far more adverse effects and deaths reported from covid “vaccines” in this past year than the total of all other vaccines over the past 30 years. Shouldn’t this set off a few alarm bells? Have they seen the mounting studies showing more illness among the “vaccinated” than those who have refused the jab? Do they have any concern that they are asking their patients to inject an experimental mRNA substance into their bodies which has not completed safety studies and is administered under EUA (emergency use authorization)? So called EUA protects the manufacturer from liability for health consequences resulting from the jab. Would you buy a car from a company that was granted immunity from liability for defects in their product?
Have they noticed that the all cause mortality rate for working age people is ascending rapidly?
Have they considered that the Nuremberg Codes forbid experimental medical procedures without informed consent? Does anyone wonder why the federal government would need to spend $1 Billion of our money for a media campaign to promote their vaccine?
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/03/documents-reveal-hundreds-media-companies-including-conservative-media-paid-federal-government-promote-covid-19-vaccines/ And all this for a disease with a 99.5% survival rate.
My bottom line is that I demand integrity from an organization to which I entrust my medical care. I expect rigorous adherence to scientific examination and open debate to determine the accuracy of government pronouncements, guidelines and mandates. Unfortunately in the current climate of cancel culture, censorship, de-platforming, this is not happening. It seems that all of these medical provider conglomerates are beholden to various government agencies such as Medicare, Medicaid, the CDC, NIH and more. They will lose their funding if they challenge the assertions of the bureaucrats. And now, doctors are being threatened with the loss of licensure for challenging the covid narratives.
Where does this leave those of us who depend on these institutions for accurate scientific information, diagnosis and treatment? If they are willing to deny reality to the extent of mis-informing us, and in fact preventing effective treatment, then it is time to demand repentance or find trustworthy sources as I have done.
This kind of forced compliance with mandates, in opposition to my personal beliefs constitutes a violation of personal sovereignty over my body. Those who think this is not worth resisting should ask themselves, “at what point will I have surrendered my freedom in what was once a free Constitutional republic?”
My greatest concern, as manifested by these medical institutions, doctors, government officials and more is the tendency to cling to a narrative, such as the current mask/ vaccine advocacy that has been clearly proven false. It helps me to understand how the people of Nazi Germany went along with the narratives they were fed. We place the security of continued employment, admission to a certain school, approval of this or that board or licensure agency above our personal integrity and willingness to risk the consequences of standing truth to power. But all it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing. We need those good men to stand up now.
God hates dishonesty, regardless of who, or what agency is promoting it. ”Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord, but those who act faithfully are His delight.” Proverbs 12:22.
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2022/07/joseph-mercola/how-masks-make-you-sick-instead-of-protecting-you/
Michael Miller, A retired Fire Lieutenant/EMT from NY has been in FB for 8 years. He is a fierce advocate for Liberty, a sailing captain and instructor for Windward Sailing. He dabbles in theatre, photography, geopolitics and markets and now writing. Look for his writing here and at: https://firesail.substack.com/
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
By George Miller
7-13-22
A recent study noted in FloridaPolitics.com claims that 59% of Floridians approved of the recent federal gun control bill signed into law last month and want still more. This was based on a sample size of 600, with no methodology/sampling technique/demographics cited, nor were the specific questions supplied.
We reproduce this article under “Fair Use” doctrine guidelines:
7-12-22
New polling shows Floridians approve of the recent bipartisan gun reforms passed by Congress and would support more extensive gun policy reforms.
The University of South Florida, in collaboration with Florida International University, polled 600 Floridians and found that 59% of them support the legislation that was signed into law by President Joe Biden in late June.
The bill included $750 million for state-run crisis intervention programs as well as a funding boost for mental health programs and school security. It also closed the so-called “boyfriend loophole” to prevent perpetrators of domestic violence from having guns and encourages states to include juvenile records in background checks.
Floridians, however, say they would go further. More than nine out of 10 residents polled said they would support a universal background check requirement. Support for the proposal crossed party lines with 96% of self-identified Democrats, and 91% of independents and Republicans in favor.
Support was also strong for a ban on selling “assault weapons” to people who are under 21 years old, with 95% of Democrats, 89% of independents and 81% of Republicans on board. Notably, Florida banned the sale of long guns to those under 21 in the wake of the Parkland shooting.
There was similar support for requiring any person, regardless of age, to obtain a special license to purchase assault weapons and for instituting a mandatory waiting period for all gun purchases.
The USF/FIU survey was conducted July 2-10 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4%.
Curious about such results in the “Castle Doctrine” state of Florida, we asked nationally known gun crime expert John Lott of the Crime Prevention Research Center what his take was on the matter.
Mr. Lott’s response:
These surveys are notoriously inaccurate. It is unlikely that most people have a clue what is in the legislation that was passed by the Congress.
As to the accuracy of these polls, take a look at the times Bloomberg has put universal background checks on the ballot.
Given the supposed 90% support in polls for universal background checks and the massive financial support provided by Bloomberg, one would think that these initiatives in states such as Nevada and Maine would be slam dunks. Yet, Bloomberg lost in Maine by 4 percent, and won in Nevada by just 0.8 percent. Bloomberg’s initiative only eked out the win in Nevada because of the $20 million spent to support it, amounting to an incredible $35.30 per vote. He outspent his opponents by a factor of three – in Maine, the $8 million he spent outdid the other side by a factor of six. Bloomberg was responsible for more than 90 percent of the money going to support these ballot measures.
It turns out that “an error” in how the Nevada initiative was written prevented it from taking effect. But it really probably wasn’t an error since the issue is who would pay for these background checks. The initiative just assumed that the federal government would pay for it though even the Obama administration has made it clear that the states have to pay for this. Correcting this “error” in the original initiative so that the state would pick up the cost means that Bloomberg would likely have lost the vote in Nevada.
John R. Lott, Jr., Ph.D.
President
Crime Prevention Research Center
http://crimeresearch.org
[email protected]
(484) 802-5373
Opinion/Analysis
By Jeff Childers
07-12-22
Good day and Happy Tuesday, C&C Army! The summer is well and truly here, and it’s warm weather time. Today’s roundup includes: NYC pushes masks, again; covid boosters don’t work as expected; a breakthrough article in liberal media suggests dems shed groomers; British people wait for a long-expected grooming report; more Hunter Biden leaked videos and voice mails emerge; progressive groups oppose Biden’s re-nomination; BRICS countries continue working to replace SWIFT; and the Russians play hardball with European gas shipments.
😷 Even though they don’t stop covid transmission, and never have, New York City is once again encouraging residents to wear “high quality masks:”
Science! I suppose they are covering up mask failures with “high-quality masks” now. Cut up t-shirts just won’t do it anymore, what with the new variants and everything. Science!
Given such an obvious opportunity, DeSantis’ press secretary leapt on the news, commenting the migration of New Yorkers to live in Florida:
ran a story this weekend headlined, “New Study: COVID Booster Significantly Delays End of Infection.” Uh-oh! This won’t be good for business.
A new study in the New England Journal of Medicine concluded that boosted people recover significantly slower and are contagious for much longer than unvaccinated people.
Now you tell us.
At five days post-infection, fewer than 25% of the unjabbed were still contagious, whereas around 70% of boosted people still carried viable virus particles. Among partially vaccinated, half were still contagious at +5 days. Worse, at +10 days, 31% of boosted people still carried live, culturable virus. But only 6% of the unvaccinated remained contagious at day 10.
In other words, boosted people are five times more likely still to be contagious at +10 days post-infection than unvaccinated people. So the booster shots actually INCREASE infections. They speed up the spread.
It’s working great!
🔥 The Week ran an article yesterday headlined “Democrats Can Prevail in the Culture War. But They Won’t Like the Winning Move.” Just for reference, The Week is so left-focused that the article starts out noting Democrats’ historic STRENGTH on economic issues, and then dismisses without discussion any need to address economic issues for November’s elections. Who cares about that stuff anyways?
We’ve come a long way from “it’s the economy, stupid.” Evolving. Pivoting.
And, maybe just a little frightened of the import of its words, while carefully building its case, The Week waits until almost the very end of the article to offer its prescription:
If Democrats want to challenge Republicans on their preferred cultural terrain, then, they will need to… stat[e] clearly and repeatedly that they don’t favor the positions on gender fluidity and medical interventions for children that the right claims they do. If Democrats can’t or won’t do that, any effort at pushback on culture will fail.”
Wow. This advice is absolutely sensible and right on target. Let’s review how we got here:
Covid “Pandemic”
-> “Distance Learning” (unlearning)
-> Parents See Zoom Lessons
-> Parents See Radical BLM, Trans Agenda
-> Parents Get Furious and Activated
-> Parents blame Democrats
There was a singular moment in time, right as everyone recognized how the radical left had termited throughout the national school system, occupying school boards and colonizing superintendent positions. For that brief moment in time, the Democrats had a chance to side with parents against the radical leftwing of their own party.
They blew it.
It might seem counterintuitive that there was even a choice for Democrats. But I don’t think the Democrat party writ large is really responsible for what’s happened in schools. The true villains are Soros, the WEFfers, and similar revolutionary leftwing corporatist-Nazi activist groups. I doubt most Democrat parents are comfortable with their agenda — even if they aren’t allowed to say it out loud.
The Democrat party COULD have seized that critical moment to heroically advocate “for the children,” and purged a handful of destructive radicals from the ranks. Alas. Instead the Democrat party reflexively closed ranks around its most extreme — and wealthiest and most anti-democratic — elements. This pushed ordinary democrats like Elon Musk to start seeing the party as illustrated in this now-famous cartoon:
The Week seems to recognize this awful political problem. The comments were turned off, so I couldn’t evaluate how its readers reacted. Unfortunately, the radical progressives are the noisiest members of the Democrat party, and they bully traditional liberals into silence. The Week is trying to break through the noise with some common sense.
I wish them luck, but I’m skeptical that reason will prevail at this moment in history. We shall see.
🔥 Meanwhile, Sky News UK ran a related story this morning headlined, “Long-Awaited Report Into Widespread Grooming of Children in Telford Due to Be Published Today.”
An independent inquiry will report today on its months-long investigation of claims that up to 1,000 children were groomed in Telford, UK over a 40-year period, while the local police turned a blind eye or even assisted the groomers. It is literally unbelievable, but it is also undeniable that SOMETHING horrible happened there. Out of many, many examples, one middle-class girl interviewed for the story said she was trafficked to “men of every kind” between ages 14 and 18. She said the traffickers would “threaten that they would rape my mum or my sisters. There was quite a bit of violence involved.”
There are credible reports of scores of underaged pregnancies in Telford that somehow failed to trigger social agency investigations, and were essentially ignored — even including cases of repeat pregnancies in the same underaged girls. There are other credible reports of girls who would not cooperate with groomers being murdered along with their families, usually by burning their homes down in the middle of the night.
When the scandal emerged several years ago, residents claimed well-known “gangs” of muslim men were behind widespread organized grooming and trafficking of British school girls, which provoked an even bigger debate in the UK about hate speech.
A 2018 investigation by the Sunday Mirror concluded:
* Social workers knew of abuse in the 1990s, but police took a decade to launch the first probe.
* Council staff saw abused and trafficked children as “prostitutes” instead of victims, according to discovered files.
* Abusers addicted middle-class girls with drugs to keep them compliant.
* Authorities failed to even record details about Muslim abusers for fear of “racism.”
* In one case, police failed or refused to investigate FIVE TIMES until an MP intervened.
* One victim said cops tried to stop her from finding out why her abusers had not been prosecuted, because they feared she would talk to the media.
Meanwhile leftwing media in Britain has downplayed the scandal. The BBC has consistently reported that the Telford cases have been “sensationalized.” Wikipedia’s entry on Telford doesn’t even use the word “muslim,” although that feature of the scandals has roiled Britain for years.
Gerard Batten, UKIP’s Interim leader at the time, told press: “These horror stories out of Telford are further evidence that these rape gangs are not a local, but a national problem, with new examples being constantly uncovered. There is a refusal on the part of the authorities to recognize that this is a consequence of Islamic ideology and to face the ghastly truths.”
The British experience parallels the U.S. experience in several key ways. The grooming, the leftwing defense of the groomers, and the deployment of political correctness to squash speech and necessary investigations can be found in both countries. In Britain, the extremist left has captured the local police and the social agencies; here in the U.S. it has captured school boards and the medical establishment.
In Britain it’s trafficking; here it’s transition affirmation and treatment.
So, will the Telford report today be courageous and honest, or will it just be more politically-correct pabulum designed to de-escalate the discussion about why the left is always siding with child abusers? We’ll see.
In both countries, the radical left are political arsonists, taking a blowtorch to the culture wars. The good news is it is creating an untenable situation that has to be resolved one way or the other. I believe good will be triumphant over evil in the end.
🔥 I didn’t report this story over the weekend because corporate media was ignoring it and I couldn’t source it anywhere solid, but finally yesterday, National Review ran a story headlined, “Secret Service Responds to Graphic Hunter Biden Photos, Videos.”
The Secret Service confirmed yesterday it is “aware” of reports that Hunter Biden’s iCloud account was leaked by 4Chan hackers over the weekend, exposing texts, pictures, and videos of Joe Biden’s son doing drugs and engaging in other salacious and almost certainly illegal activities.
To give you some idea of what kind of material was on Hunter’s iCloud account, when I checked, the 4Chan’ers were in the midst of heated discussion with each other this weekend, warning about how to avoid becoming a target of federal investigation for publishing pictures of Hunter involved with underaged girls, because the pics could be characterized as child pornography, and the leakers could be accused of publishing it. The videos that they did leak, and that survived 4Chan censorship, are pretty bad.
In one example, for some reason, Hunter Biden filmed himself weighing out a baggie of crack cocaine and arguing with a prostitute about how much there was. Now imagine for a brief moment how the media might be responding if the video included Donald Trump, Jr. instead of Hunter Biden.
4Chan, usually quite hands-off, has already cracked down on many of the posts and deleted their content, presumably because the pictures featured illegal child pornography. So we can expect the hackers to be trying other more creative ways to get the information out. If you are unfortunate enough to encounter one of these, do NOT republish it.
Note that the new material is NOT from the Hunter Biden laptop. It’s from his ICLOUD account. Where Hunter stored all his private stuff, with Apple.
In the cloud. Online.
One has to wonder: what would motivate Hunter to record himself doing all this criminal stuff and putting it online? Losing his laptop was bad enough but this is an order of magnitude even more reckless. It rockets far beyond a secret desire to get caught. It’s almost like Hunter is bragging that he is entirely immune from prosecution. He can do whatever he wants. He’s rubbing it in our faces.
So far, he’s right.
🔥 In more bad signs of Democrat discontent with Joe Biden, the Blaze ran an article yesterday headlined, “Progressive Group Says Running Biden as the 2024 Democratic Presidential Nominee ‘Would Be a Tragic Mistake,’ and That It Will Campaign to Ensure He Is Not Nominated.”
The gist is that a full-on progressive group said it will actively campaign against Joe Biden if he runs again. The group, RootsAction, released a statement saying, “President Biden has been neither bold nor inspiring. And his prospects for winning re-election appear to be bleak. With so much at stake, making him the Democratic Party’s standard-bearer in 2024 would be a tragic mistake.”
It’s not just Joe’s advanced age and fragility. “It’s his performance,” explained RootsAction, “his inability to fight for working people and stand up against Republican and corporate obstruction — that has us worried about 2024.”
The unintentionally hilarious part is that it’s starting to look like what we have all been assuming is flat wrong. We all assumed there’d be NO WAY Joe would run again. We assumed it was obvious that he was a one-termer. We assumed it was one and done.
It seemed obvious. It they don’t expect him to run again, that explains why they don’t care about Joe’s polling — what does it matter?
But, if democrat activists are worried enough to go public, that means they they must think there’s a good chance Joe WILL run again. Or, maybe this is all just a big stage drama to pave the way for Joe’s graceful exit, stage left.
🔥 ZeroHedge ran a story yesterday headlined, “China And Russia Want To Replace US Dollar With BRICS Currencies.” BRICS is an acronym for Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, and represents a group of nations working together to replace the U.S.’s SWIFT international payment-processing service.
International traders use the U.S. SWIFT system to process cross-border payments because it is safe, fast, accurate, and convenient, linked to 100 countries and able to convert currencies in real-time.
The BRICS attacks on the SWIFT system are only possible because the U.S. started playing games with SWIFT at the outset of the Ukraine crisis earlier this year. In other words, Joe Biden did that. The petulant children in the Biden Administration did what no previous administration was ever reckless enough to do: sacrificed the credibility and trustworthiness of the SWIFT system for short-term political objectives.
It remains unclear whether BRICS can pull off creating a viable SWIFT replacement; it’s a huge job. But the Biden Administration is making that job a whole lot easier. Thanks, Joe!
🔥 European media is reporting that Canada has finally agreed — over Ukrainian objection — to return a German natural-gas turbine that had been under repair. The Germans plan to use the turbine in the Russian gas pipeline system, which is what caused the controversy, and caused the Canadians to lock down the part. Shipping it now required a special exemption from the Russia sanctions.
Meanwhile yesterday, Russia closed its Nordstream-1 natural gas pipeline for ten days “for maintenance.” That cuts Germany off from Russian natural gas, which the Germans depend on. They are freaking out, worried that the Russians won’t turn the gas back on at the end of the ten-day maintenance period.
The Germans aren’t the only ones. ZeroHedge ran a story yesterday headlined, “Goldman Doubles 2023 European Gas Price Target As It No Longer Sees Full Restoration Of Nordstream 1 Flows.” The story explains Goldman Sachs’ investment team also predicts Russia will partially or fully shutter its pipeline unless the Germans make major political concessions on sanctions.
One concession that the Russians want is approval of their brand-new Nordstream-2 pipeline, which is very similar to Nordstream-1 except, if I understand the complex factors correctly, Nordstream-2 would allow Russia to avoid shipping natural gas through Ukraine. Ukrainian energy companies like the ones Hunter is involved with would lose significant revenue if Nordstream-2 comes online.
Nordstream-2 has been mired in political lockdown from the war sanctions, and Russia wants those sanctions lifted. So some observers think Russia is playing hardball with Germany to coerce approval of its new, Ukraine-excluding pipeline. It’s getting harder and harder to keep track of all the moving pieces on the world’s chess board.
Have a terrific Tuesday, and I’ll see you back here tomorrow for more.
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The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
PRESS RELEASE
By Supervisor of Elections
07-11-2022
Nassau County voters now have access to a new mobile phone app ahead of the 2022 election cycle.
According to County Supervisor of Elections Janet Adkins the app is the first of its kind in Florida and will allow voters to stay connected to their current election information. The app features services such as viewing polling place wait times, vote by mail ballot status, candidates on the ballot and election night results.
“We urge voters to get election ready by downloading our new app and staying connected to your current election information. We are here to serve you and are excited to provide the voters of Nassau County with this modern mobile app technology,” Adkins stated. Voters with Apple iPhones can download the app by searching “Vote Nassau FL” in the App Store.
Android users should have access soon. Final details may be worked through by the end of this week for approval on Google Play Store, a source said.
The Nassau County Elections office strives to build trust, create transparency in the elections process and promote communication with the voters of Nassau County. This mobile app is an essential tool to support this ongoing effort.
Opinion/Analysis
By Jeff Childers
07-11-22
Happy Monday C&C! Welcome to the new week, fresh with the promise of unrealized opportunities. Or something. In today’s roundup: a totally unacceptable scapegoat for blood clots; unjabbed Djokovic handily wins Wimbledon, again; Dutch pilot shortages and candid remarks; Gates’ fake meat store burns; AP finally reports on farmer protests; covid rates and deaths prefer high-jabbed countries; weird fires in Rome; the AP is baffled over what’s making so many people distrust government; and Russia, China, and Iran steam toward Venezuela.
🔥 Okay, now they’ve done it. Finally, after all these long months, they’ve gone too far. An incredibly offensive and defamatory article in the UK Express yesterday bore the headline, “Blood Clots: The Nation’s Favourite Drink Could Make Your Blood Sticky – Increasing Risk.”
Oh, no you don’t. This aggression will not stand.
In an Express “exclusive,” cherry-picked expert Professor Mark Whiteley warned caffeine can cause “sticky blood”, increasing the risk of a blood clot. “Dehydration affects the constituents of the blood, making blood thicker and more ‘sticky’,” the useless expert explained.
Quit smirking, tea drinkers, you didn’t dodge the bullet either. He also defamed tea. The Express reported Professor Whiteley noted tea – Britain’s favorite brew – also contains caffeine, “which actually causes you to lose water.” It wrings the H2O out of you, just like squeezing a moist dishrag.
And guess what else dehydrates you? The prof pointed out that ALCOHOL is also a terrific dehydrator.
This is SO dumb. You know what else makes you dehydrated? NOT DRINKING WATER FOR A FEW HOURS. Remember all those people getting blood clots after forgetting to hydrate at an endless JV volleyball tournament or something? Yeah, me neither.
Haha, the doctor also pointed out that dehydration — and sticky blood clots — can even come from an unexpected source — WATER: “over-drinking [water] can also cause problems,” Professor Whiteley warned.
Water causes blood clots! I’m not making that up!
Let me bottom line this for you: Blood clots must be getting so common that they are now blaming EVERYTHING. Everything causes blood clots. Air. Mosquitos. Bad news. Joe Biden sniffing your hair. A candid photo of Nancy Pelosi. Scooters. Hair nets. Overtight bras. Everything.
Express readers are, apparently, dumb enough to slurp up this conspicuous nonsense. I’m only going to say this once: Keep your mad theories but Leave Our Coffee Alone, Brits! Remember what happened last time!
🎾 Novak Djokovic just won Wimbledon for the 7th time. But he can’t enter America to play in the U.S. Open, because he didn’t get the jab. Which doesn’t prevent transmission, slow the spread, or flatten the curve. Because science!
Via global media watcher Efrat Fenigson on Twitter:
I know it seems unfair to Djokovic, but on the other hand, is it really fair to let unjabbed athletes compete against the jabbed ones? Just asking.
✈️ A feisty German Minister of Parliament named Christine Anderson made some uncensored public remarks this weekend, revealing that pilot shortages might not only be an American phenomena caused by a computer glitch:
“A lot of pilots that did not want to get vaccinated had been laid off, and the ones that did get vaccinated because they had families to feed and mortgage[s] to pay … may no longer be fit to fly. And that is a problem.”
Indeed. Back in November, Senator Ron Johnson held a committee hearing here in the U.S., where former vaccine-injured pilot Cody Flint testified:
Pilot Cody Flint Senate Testimony
The unfortunate jab-taking pilot testified he’s had SIX spinal taps over eight months and has lost a year of his life to medical treatments and recovery. His doctors say only a vaccine injury or a massive head trauma could have caused all his health problems.
So.
🔥 The Dutch aren’t messing around. The Netherlands are burning. Well, parts of the Netherlands. Parts owned by someone named Gill Bates or something:
At least it’s finally making the news. The Dutch farmers have caused enough of a ruckus that corporate media has had to tentatively recognize them. The AP ran a barely-informative story this weekend headlined, “Anger Simmers for Dutch Farmers Who Oppose Pollution Cuts.”
Simmers.
The AP tentatively labeled the national shutdown in the Netherlands as merely a “summer of discontent” for peeved farmers: “Dutch farmers are embroiled in a summer of discontent that shows no sign of abating.” The news service almost immediately tipped its hand though, when it said the Dutch experience could “foreshadow similar reforms — and protests — in other European nations whose farmers also pump out pollutants.”
Haha. Farmers, pumping out pollutants. Good one. But… WHAT ABOUT FOOD, you idiots?
And exactly what is the pumped-out pollutant? The AP said, “Airborne nitrogen leads to smog and tiny particles that are damaging to people’s health.”
Airborne nitrogen. Hmm. What’s the atmosphere made of again? Dummies. You know where nitrogen for fertilizer comes from in the first place? It’s distilled out of THE AIR.
Quoting the Dutch government, the AP said it “sees three options for farmers: become (more) sustainable, relocate or stop.”
Stop? Stop farming? Then what happens after the farmers stop farming? Oh, wait … is Joe Biden running the Netherlands too?? That would explain a lot.
After the United States, the Netherlands is the world’s second-largest food exporter. Or, was. WAS the world’s second-largest food exporter. Not this year, is my guess.
Lookey there! India, Philippines, and Africa — the three lowest jabbed populations — also have the least cases. And the three most-jabbed countries — Singapore, Australia, and New Zealand — also have the most cases. Weird! But, who cares about cases anymore, am I right? Deaths, now that’s the important metric. Let’s check deaths:
And there they are down at the bottom, again: India, Philippines, and Africa. And New Zealand and Australia are back at the top (Don’t worry, Singapore got a late start, they’ll catch up).
Do you think there’s any chance the CDC will look into this? I’m betting not.
🔥 Over the weekend, multiple reports emerged online about huge fires and underground explosions breaking out near Vatican City.
I cannot find any corporate news reports about the fire, but individuals are reporting various things. There WAS at least one major fire, that is clear. Some say it was dry conditions, some there was one fire in a park, some say there were multiple fires, and others cite underground explosions. Multiple tweets from individuals mention damage to the Vatican’s obelisk.
I’ll keep an eye on this breaking story.
🔥 The Associated Press is baffled and confused about what’s making so many people distrust the government these days:
Have they considered ALL the possibilities? How about … the media? Might the media have anything to do with it? The AP doesn’t even speculate as to what might be causing trust to wane and conspiracy theories to rise. The article seems to blame the conspiracy theorists themselves, but that’s just more circular logic.
🔥 The UK Express ran an under-reported story last week headlined, “Iran, China and Russia Link Up for Military Operation to Challenge ‘Unipolar World’.”
The RICe alliance — Russia, Iran, and China — is significant enough news. Christians are triggered because they identify that axis with an Ezekiel 38 end-times prophecy. Regardless, the apocalyptic undertones underscore the dark significance of an incredibly dangerous military axis that is not a good combination for the West and has no business being on our southern doorstep.
That’s right, southern doorstep. The article’s sub-headline explains that the three RICe countries are joining “10 other nations in Venezuela to take part in joint military operations in a defiant message to the unipolar world order.” In VENEZUELA.
So much for Joe Biden’s oil outreach to that South American communist hellhole. In other words, Russia, China, and Iran are moving major military assets into Venezuela — just two hours south of the U.S. border. It’s for a “drill.” And Venezuela is another one of the biggest non-Arabian oil producers in the world. This alliance, VRIC, can’t be good for gas prices. But there’s a bigger problem.
Think about it. While we are busily relocating all our major military assets to the East — toward Ukraine — the eastern nations are hauling their major military assets to the West — toward us. Um, is this raising any red flags or anything? Are the generals paying attention? Or, are they distracted by planning the base’s next drag show?
Where’s the corporate media on this story? It seems like a terrific bit of fear porn. You could fairly compare this move to the Cuban Missile Crisis. Where’s Joe Biden? So far, it’s all crickets. We are forced to read about the South American “drill” in the UK Express, right next to a story headlined, “Kim Kardashian Displays Her Ample Assets While Frolicking In a Silver Bikini at Beach Bash.”
You literally cannot make this stuff up.
Keep smiling! I’ll be back tomorrow with more tasty C&C — caffeine-caused blood clots or not.
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The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
By Common Sense Fernandina Beach (CSFB)
7-11-22, Fernandina Beach
We are at a crossroads with the Nassau County School District(NCSD). Superintendent Kathy Burns, after multiple earlier prompts from Rich Lamken, at a NCSD Workshop in May, indicated that the District would start utilizing a Citizens Budget Advisory Committee (CBAC).
Rich wrote an email to the Superintendent on June 5th, copying the School Board, after his meeting with her on June 1st, where she misinterpreted the State Statute re: the need for a CBAC. The email calls for her to act with transparency, accountability and integrity and establish the CBAC in the current Budget cycle. The email is shown at the end of this communication. No response to this email, a month later, from either the Superintendent or the School Board.
At a Board meeting, on June 9th, Superintendent Burns qualified her statement, saying the formation of the CBAC was conditioned on the 1 Mil tax resolution passing in November, ignoring the need for a CBAC in the current Budget process. Is this an attempt at blackmail to concerned residents and taxpayers?
Rich wrote an email to all five Board members two weeks ago, asking them to step up and insist on the formation and utilization of a CBAC in the current budget process. Links were sent to the Board highlighting two School Districts that effectively utilize CBACs. Also enclosed was the State Statute showing that this decision is in their hands not in those of the Superintendent. In Rich’s email, he enclosed his phone number along with email address and asked them to contact him to set up a meeting. He spoke to the members of both the Schools Division and the Financial Accountability Division and was very pleased by the interest indicated by numerous members, including some with School Finance experience. Only Dr. Grooms has responded and they’re arranging to meet at a mutually convenient time. Nothing from the other four.
We are asking each of you (and as many of your friends who will participate) to write to the School Board members and make the following statements in your own words. You can send an email to the Nassau County School board. You can also link this article on social media and add your own words. Our collective community message is:
I support the formation of a Citizens Budget Advisory Committee, (CBAC) for use in the current Budget Cycle as part of the District’s responsibility to be both transparent and accountable.
It’s up to the School Board, not the Superintendent, to make the decision to form and constitute the CBAC.
I reject the notion that the school budget is “too complex” for Nassau County citizens.
You can also send a separate message or call the Nassau County School Board Members (below).
Lissa Braddock 904-507-9522 [email protected]
Gail Cook (904) 261-9127 [email protected]
Jamie Deonas 904-277-0006 [email protected]
Cynthia Grooms 904-845-8105 [email protected]
Donna Martin 904-261-9015 [email protected]
Here is the email sent by Richard Lamken
Sent: Sunday, June 5, 2022 4:23 PM
To: Kathy Burns [email protected]
Cc: Misty Mathis [email protected]; Donna Martin [email protected]; Gail Cook [email protected]; Jamie Deonas [email protected]; Cynthia Grooms [email protected]; [email protected]
Subject: Citizens Budget Advisory Committee
Dr. Burns,
This is a follow-up to our meeting last Wednesday and our discussion concerning several items of mutual interest. This is the citation related to Citizens Budget Advisory Committees for School Districts in the Florida State Statutes. The bolding is mine. What’s “encouraged” is the posting on the district’s website, not the creation and utilization of the Committee. It’s a vital part of transparency, as spelled out in (1).
“Budgetary transparency leads to more responsible spending, more citizen involvement, and improved accountability”.
1011.035 School district fiscal transparency.—
(1) It is important for school districts to provide budgetary transparency to enable taxpayers, parents, and education advocates to obtain school district budget and related information in a manner that is simply explained and easily understandable. Budgetary transparency leads to more responsible spending, more citizen involvement, and improved accountability. A budget that is not transparent, accessible, and accurate cannot be properly analyzed, its implementation thoroughly monitored, or its outcomes evaluated.
(2) Each district school board shall post on its website a plain language version of each proposed, tentative, and official budget which describes each budget item in terms that are easily understandable to the public and includes:
(a) Graphical representations, for each public school within the district and for the school district, of the following:
1. Summary financial efficiency data.
2. Fiscal trend information for the previous 3 years on:
a. The ratio of full-time equivalent students to full-time equivalent instructional personnel.
b. The ratio of full-time equivalent students to full-time equivalent administrative personnel.
c. The total operating expenditures per full-time equivalent student.
d. The total instructional expenditures per full-time equivalent student.
e. The general administrative expenditures as a percentage of total budget.
f. The rate of change in the general fund’s ending fund balance not classified as restricted.
(b) A link to the web-based fiscal transparency tool developed by the department pursuant to s. 1010.20 to enable taxpayers to evaluate the financial efficiency of the school district and compare the financial efficiency of the school district with other similarly situated school districts.
This information must be prominently posted on the school district’s website in a manner that is readily accessible to the public.
(3) Each district school board is encouraged to post the following information on its website:
(a) Timely information as to when a budget hearing will be conducted.
(b) Each contract between the district school board and the teachers’ union.
(c) Each contract between the district school board and noninstructional staff.
(d) Each contract exceeding $35,000 between the school board and a vendor of services, supplies, or programs or for the purchase or lease of lands, facilities, or properties.
(e) Each contract exceeding $35,000 that is an emergency procurement or is with a single source as authorized under s. 287.057(3).
(f) Recommendations of the citizens’ budget advisory committee.
(g) Current and archived video recordings of each district school board meeting and workshop.
(4) The website should contain links to:
(a) Help explain or provide background information on various budget items that are required by state or federal law.
(b) Allow users to navigate to related sites to view supporting details.
(c) Enable taxpayers, parents, and education advocates to send e-mails asking questions about the budget and enable others to view the questions and response.
This Citizens Budget Advisory Committee is essential for the District to be transparent and fully accountable to all parents, citizens and taxpayers. As I stated at a previous Board Meeting, I have several highly qualified individuals, including ones with Schools Finance experience, ready and willing to serve. This needs to get done in the current Budget cycle. Please let me know ASAP so I can contact our members who have expressed an interest with a time and place of the first meeting.
Please provide me with a link or links to the 45 new laws affecting Florida School Districts and, when available, the link for parents and citizens to review the District’s curriculum, both of which we discussed last Wednesday. Thank you for your assistance.
Richard Lamken
Responses from the Nassau County School Board, Superintendent and the public are welcome
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
Common Sense Fernandina Beach is a community-based oversight group focusing on responsible government spending, accountability and protecting children/schools. It has over 400 members and thousands of social media followers. Contact Jack Knocke: [email protected]
PRESS RELEASE
By Veterans for America First
07-09-22 Jacksonville
Erick Aguilar, Republican candidate for Florida Congressional District Four, received the endorsement from the Veterans for America First Non-profit.
Veterans for America First (VFAF) is a national non-partisan civil liberties grassroots organization. The organization was established by U.S. Military combat Veterans and works in conjunction with Veteran service organizations, nonprofits, corporate sponsors, and government agencies.
The primary directive of Veterans for America First is to provide voice, support, and advocacy for Veterans, first responders, and patriots who believe in America First principles. The goal is to reverse the degradation of the culture on both local and national levels through honest conversation, policy, and community engagement. VFAF is led by Admiral Charles Kubic, their National Spokesman, and Stan Fitzgerald, their Chief Political Advisor.
“Erick is 20-year Navy combat Veteran and a battle tested and proven leader on and off the battlefield”, said Fitzgerald.
“Erick’s campaign is rooted in the America First agenda where he vows to sponsor and champion legislation that takes care of our veterans at home instead of sending unnecessary funds to proxy wars overseas. We need a veteran in Congress who is going to step up to the plate and address the problems facing our Vets here at home- Erick is that guy,” Fitzgerald continued.
“I am humbled to receive the endorsement from the VFAF organization…,” said Aguilar. “Members of Congress today, including some RINOs, would rather send money to countries overseas and help fund wars than address problems here at home, even if it means less funding for our Veterans.”
“We have Vets suffering from PTSD, homelessness, and lack of medical care just to name a few,” Aguilar noted. “We owe everything to our men and women in uniform and I want them to all know they will have a champion who will unapologetically support them always when I go to D.C. next January.”
OPINION
By Kathleen Marquardt
07-09-22 American Policy Center
While most of us thought that we had a government of the people, by the people, for the people, we do not and have not had one for many decades. The transformation has been in the works for over 100 years, but the final weapon to take us to a one-world government was the two-part President’s Council on Sustainable Development/National Partnership for Reinventing Government. The first part embedded Agenda 21 into even the most minor areas of government — from federal to Podunkville. The second, while we heard even less about it, is the dangerous “focus on leading a fundamental culture change in the government”, that transfers(ed) power from Congress to the bureaucracy; from representatives of the people to unelected bodies (and thus we have no ability to oust them) who “ultimately control international finance, all corporate & business activity, government policy, and international relations.” And thus, they “have constructed a system that will enable them to seize the “global commons (ed: control of the entire world). ”[1]
This transfer of power “destroyed the check and balances in the Constitution at the local level, and therefore destroy(ed) representative government. This power shift is a philosophical shift to a completely new form of government. It is a merger between government, corporations, and non-governmental organizations.[2] This established Public/Private Partnerships (PPP) to become the new nucleus of the government. The Preamble to the Earth Summit/Agenda 21, stated flat-out that Public Private Partnerships were the future. And the Earth Summit/Agenda 21, p. 15 tells us that “Government, business and industry, including transnational corporations, strengthen partnerships to implement the principles and criteria for sustainable development.”
Editor’s note: With the growth rate in Nassau County projected to be among the top 2 percent in the nation in the decade ahead, this is fertile ground for predator investment interests.
Now that 30-some years have passed since the Globalists began putting this into effect, we are seeing the results – and they are hideous and overwhelming. The PPPs have morphed into one Global Public/Private Partnership (GPPP), too big to fail — they hope. The term “too big to fail” is used to describe a company that’s “so entwined in the global economy that its failure would be catastrophic” If it doesn’t fail, it will be the end of civilization on this earth. But it will fail. There are too many power-hungry maniacs running things; there will be fights on who’s “king of the mountain”, who’s in charge today. When it fails, it will still be an ugly and dangerous world, but not one in which tyrants will be in control of every area of our lives. But let’s look at what the GPPP is now.
The Global Public/Private Partnership is a network of the world’s stakeholder capitalists. What is stakeholder capitalism? It is the notion that “a firm focuses on meeting the needs of all its stakeholders: customers, employees, partners, the community, and society as a whole”. Dream on. You and I, and the customers, employees, the community, and society as a whole (if that were even possible), are not, and never will be, stakeholders. The stakeholders are those rich men and women, those who run the central banks and a few government leaders. No ordinary people allowed! Think about it; it is impossible to meet the needs of all its stakeholders that they list – unless those stakeholders are told what they want, i.e., “you will own nothing and be happy”. That is the only way this can work; there are too many competing interests with that large a sphere of categories to cater to.
The stakeholders of the GPPP are global corporations, central banks, governments, billionaire foundations, think-tanks, major academic and scientific institutions, non-governmental organizations, and even labor unions. What entity did they leave out? Uh, we citizens. We will have no say (not that we have much now). Not that the governments that are considered their stakeholder partners have any say either. If you look at the U.S., you can see that the government bureaucrats hold all the power of Congress; while the executive branch is controlling those entities, the Globalists (with the Deep State) are controlling the executive.
Free-market capitalism has been dominant in the Western world since the breakup of feudalism, in which most means of production are privately owned, production is guided, and income is distributed largely through the operation of markets. And history shows that free-market capitalism has been the best economic system ever yet devised. We have not been living under a free-market system for decades; it has been gradually morphed into what we have today, a corrupted, manipulated, and controlled mess with no central structure and a monetary system with nothing to back it. And most or all of the world’s economic systems are on the verge of collapse. A planned collapse so the GPPP can step in and take over. “Since the creation of the US Federal Reserve over a century ago, every major financial market collapse has been deliberately triggered for political motives by the central bank. . .. today the US Fed is acting with its interest rate weapon (another tool of asymmetrical warfare) what is the greatest speculative financial bubble in human history, a bubble it created) [3]. All to create globalism.
Right now, we are dealing with severe land-use and housing regulations that are forcing people into cities (now called human habitats – as opposed to the rural areas which are to become part of the animal habitat). Single-family homes are considered damaging for the environment (see Sustainable by Tom DeWeese) so people need to be urged (driven) out of them and into Stack-n-Pack housing (see The Ideal Communist City). [4] Calling suburbia “sprawl” to denigrate big yards and neighborhoods with yards, barbeques, and lots of kids running around, is another tool of asymmetrical warfare. But many, if not most, of those living in suburbia in their single-family homes are middle class; the backbone of America building on the American Dream. Those desiring to own a home are finding fewer available, so they are losing a chance to build equity. Economic freedom is at stake, and with it free-market capitalism – a cornerstone of American liberty.
Now, let’s look at probably the most dangerous Global Public Private Partner, BlackRock. It is the world’s single most powerful financial institution with assets now at 9.6 trillion dollars. As Tucker Carlson said, “… that fact gives the CEO, Larry Fink, unparalleled control over the U.S. economy”. Not a pleasant thought that one person has so much power. BlackRock advises central banks and has connections with state leaders of the world. Apple and Microsoft are just two of their investments. BlackRock established a new investment fund in China; the first owned entirely by a foreign firm. Chinese investors have put a billion dollars into it. It has already attracted over 111,000 investors.
But I want to focus on BlackRock’s investing here in the U.S. – pensions and property. Re pensions: Consumers’ Research is warning that BlackRock is taking pension funds that are invested through BlackRock and putting that money into investments in China. As Consumers’ Research states, “What we’ve seen is that while BlackRock is virtue signaling[5] in the U.S., they’re aiding our adversaries with American pension dollars.” They also list the ten states whose “public pension funds are most deeply invested in Blackrock: Washington, Florida, New York, Nevada, South Carolina, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Montana, and West Virginia.”
What about property? We at American Policy Center have been writing and speaking for years about how the world’s bureaucrats have been making laws, regulations, rules, and reinventing governments to establish Agenda 21 through the U.N., World Economic Forum (WEF), and the GPPP. One of the many outcomes of a completed Agenda21/2030 world would be “no private property”.
The federal government (i.e., Deep State and Globalists running D.C.) incentivized Wall Street to get into the housing market. “In early 2012, it launched a pilot program that allowed private investors to easily purchase foreclosed homes by the hundreds from the government agency Fannie Mae. These new owners would then rent out the homes, creating more housing in areas heavily hit by foreclosures.” [6]
Sounds great; government has the answer. Wait. The renters of these single-family homes have discovered that a big, deep-pocket company as landlord isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. And the companies are finding out that, while they may consider these homes are, basically, cookie cutter homes and the tenants are cookie cutter tenants, life may work that way in technocracy, but it doesn’t in real life. But the tenants are the ones paying for the glitches. (See the Atlantic article on Wall Street landlords. [7] That was last year; then BlackRock was a minor figure in real estate.
BlackRock is now aiming to become one of the largest landlords in the U.S.; they already own $34 billion in real estate here. And more than half of our country’s properties are owned by institutional investors (BlackRock and other stakeholders of the GPPP). According to the New York Times, BlackRock is buying every single-family house they can find, paying 20-50% above asking price and outbidding usual home buyers.” (And before you ask, BlackRock is connected to Black Stone, but that is another story.)
BlackRock and one of the other GPPPs are also “. . . taking over centralized food production technologies and will have near-total control over the future food supply in America”. [8] They also largely own the world’s top ten food companies. And owner, Larry Fink, says it is time to force people’s behavior to change. What behavior is that? Where we live, what we eat, if we procreate? Those are the general Agenda21/GPPP/Great Reset points. To “build back better” in Marxism means to destroy everything of moral value and individual freedom and leave a rotten, fallow, world behind. Marxism cannot build back anything; it is built on the Hegelian Dialectic which tears down step after step – with no reconstruction. So, according to the GPPP, building back better means taking full control of the global commons. The global commons used to mean “those parts of the planet that fall outside national jurisdictions and to which all nations have access”. Now they mean “and all the other parts of the planet, too”.
Will they succeed? In my opinion, no. They have rushed their plan in attempt to complete it – it being Agenda 21 and one-world government – by 2030, rather than their 2050 initial date. There are other factors that will undo them, including that no matter how big your computer, you cannot factor in every variable necessary to build that tyrannical rule. In fact, there are schisms amongst the players right now. And the biggie – we Americans who still have functioning brains and moral compasses are not ready to be serfs or be composted for fertilizer.
We will prevail, but because so many waited so long to wake up, it will be an ugly, dystopian world because the “building back better” only builds, at best, brownfields.
Being BlackRocked is a dream of the GPPP and a “nightmare of all nightmares” for sane, rational, moral people.
The Lion may be battered and bruised, but he will still Roar.
Kathleen Marquardt has been an advocate for property rights and freedom for decades. She has been featured in national publications including Fortune, People, the Washington Post, and Field and Stream, as well as television news programs such as Hard Copy, The McLaughlin Group, Geraldo, and many others. Today, she serves as Vice President of American Policy Center. Kathleen now writes and speaks on Agenda21/2030, and its threat to our culture and our system of representative government.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
Press Release
From Nassau County Insider
7-8-22
In January 2017, the Nassau Board of County Commissioners dedicated 40 acres of County-owned property for a Public Safety Training Center to be used by public safety personnel. Long term plans for the center include gun ranges, training rooms, a mock jail, K-9 training area with kennels, an SRT training obstacle course, shoot house, dive-team training pond, Fire/Rescue training area (with classroom, training tower, railcar prop, semi/fuel prop) and other possibilities as future needs develop.
A Groundbreaking Ceremony was held on March 21, 2021, to celebrate the commencement of construction. The first phase of the Public Safety Training Center consisting of gun ranges and temporary parking is now complete. To celebrate, the Board will host a Ribbon Cutting for Phase One and Firing of the First Shot Ceremony on Wednesday, July 13, 2022, at 11:00 a.m. at the site’s location at 153322 County Road 108, Yulee, FL. The public is invited to attend.
Phase Two of the project will commence in the very near future and will include construction of the classroom building with airnaseum, a storage building, and resurfacing of the parking lot.
If you have any questions, please contact the Nassau County Sheriff’s Office at (904) 225-0331.
NEWS
By American Wire
07-08-22 Madison
State officials in Wisconsin went beyond their authority by permitting ballot drop boxes in the 2020 election.
In a 4-3 decision Friday, justices at the Wisconsin Supreme Court upheld a lower court ruling that absentee ballots must be delivered by mail or in-person to a local clerk’s office or designated alternate site.
However, the court did not rule on whether voters can have someone else handle their ballot on its way to a mailbox, according to reports.
Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Rebecca Bradley authored the majority opinion and said the Wisconsin Elections Commission (WEC) did not have the authority to authorize drop boxes.
“Only the legislature may permit absentee voting via ballot drop boxes,” Bradley wrote. “WEC cannot. Ballot drop boxes appear nowhere in the detailed statutory system for absentee voting.”
Read the full report here.
OPINION
By Jeff Childers
Good day and Happy Friday, C&C! Another week, in the can. In today’s roundup: another Trump ally assassinated; Twitter lays off recruiting staff while on a fed hiring spree; Berenson is back; states ban Zuckerbucks; Uruguay judge halts jabs for kids; Fed forecasts ‘some pain’; more Monkeypox nonsense; Dems mad at Biden; and polling shows the Dobbs decision won’t save Dems this November.
🔥 Japan’s former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, 67, was assassinated with a home-made shotgun during a campaign speech supporting a local candidate. Abe died in the hospital after the shooting.
According to police, Abe’s killer confessed. Ex-military member Tetsuya Yamagami, 41, told cops he wanted to kill Abe because he was ‘dissatisfied’ with him. Dissatisfied.
Japan’s current Prime Minister, Fumio Kishida, called the shooting an attack on “the foundation of democracy”, describing it as “heinous,” “barbaric and malicious,” and “absolutely unforgivable.” “I would like to use the most extreme words available to condemn this act,” the Prime Minister added.
Abe, who retired in 2020 for health reasons after setting the record as Japan’s longest-serving and most-popular Prime Minister, was a well-known ally to President Trump. Just like Boris Johnson. It’s odd, isn’t it, that in the same week, two of Trump’s close political allies were assassinated? Abe was literally assassinated, and Johnson was politically assassinated.
One is a coincidence. Two is … what?…
“Twitter, Headquartered in San Francisco, Announces Mass Layoffs Amid Alleged Elon Musk Crisis”
Apparently, the deal with Musk is on hold, if not on life support, and meanwhile the social media giant seems to be having trouble making ends meet.
The news is that Twitter laid off a third of its “talent recruitment team,” which I think is just a fun way of describing the human resources department. This follows news of a hiring freeze announced back in May. A company spokesperson told SFGATE that the newest layoffs are just a way for the company to “refocus its business needs” during a “lean period.”
One possible read is that Twitter was already on the ropes back when Musk made his offer, and its board saw the deal as a lifeline, so they could dump a crashing company on the next sucker, but the canny billionaire figured it out after reviewing their financials before taking possession. Maybe.
But I can’t help but think of another article I saw recently in Blaze Media, headlined, “Exposé Reveals Twitter, Other Social Media Platforms Routinely Hire Former Feds: It’s a ‘Revolving Door.’”
The story explains that tiny MintPress News has just released an investigative report on hiring practices in Silicon Valley, particularly at Twitter, finding that many social media companies have filled some of their most influential positions with former members of federal agencies, especially the intelligence services, including the FBI, CIA, and the military.
So. Weird.
Former FBI agent and whistleblower Coleen Rowley told Mintpress that there’s now a “revolving door” between federal agents and the companies they are supposed to be policing. And it’s not just the U.S.’s federal government. In 2019, news broke that Gordon Macmillan, Twitter’s editorial head for Europe, Middle East, and Africa, was a current member of the British Army’s notorious 77th Brigade, which is “dedicated to online warfare and psychological operations.”
Gosh. Who could have predicted this unlikely turn of events?
So, another read on the shrinking “talent team” is that Twitter doesn’t NEED recruiters anymore. They have so many CIA, FBI, NSA, and foreign intelligence agents wanting to work there, they don’t even have to advertise, much less do interviews and stuff.
We need to come up with a new, more descriptive name for Twitter. Or maybe a different logo. Instead of the little bluebird, think about a stool pigeon or something. Maybe one of our graphic artists can come up with something good for them.
And we need a better term than “regulatory capture.” This trend is a kind of reverse regulatory capture, where government agencies capture businesses.
🔥 Former New York Times journalist Alex Berenson, one of the first influencers to begin questioning the covid narrative, was reinstated on Twitter this week to resolve his defamation lawsuit against the social media giant. The settlement also required Twitter to admit that Berenson’s tweets should NOT have gotten him suspended at that time. In other words, Twitter has to admit they were wrong.
Berenson can’t say much more about the settlement that that, since the terms are confidential. I’m guessing that Twitter settled to avoid participating in discovery. And wouldn’t THAT have been fun?
🔥 According to reports, through the first half of 2022, at least 20 states have passed laws banning private funding of state and local elections operations. These types of funds are colloquially called “Zuckerbucks.” In short, during the 2020 elections, creepy Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg dumped $350 million into a sleepy nonprofit, the Center for Technology and Civic Life, which promptly forwarded the funds to hundreds of county and city elections officials in 47 states and the District of Columbia.
Another word for all that is money laundering, but who’s counting? Anyway, a lot of states are now shutting that nasty little loophole down.
The article was headlined: “Uruguay Suspends COVID Vaccination for Children Under 13.”
The suspension is the result of the work of a Uruguayan anti-vaccine group, which convinced a judge to freeze juvenile vaccinations until government officials hand over vaccine contracts. The government says a confidentiality clause stops it from sharing the contracts, and plans to appeal.
Among other things, the judge wants to know whether the contracts provide civil and criminal immunity for adverse effects from the vaccines, as well as more information about the chemical composition of the drugs. So.
As of yesterday, 44% of Uruguayan children aged 5 — 11, and 75% of kids aged 12 — 14, have received at least two doses.
They REALLY don’t want to turn over those contracts, do they? So far, we have not seen a single one. It will come out at some point. Just wait.
🔥 Despite Joe Biden’s insistence that there is no inflation, that we are only seeing “Putin’s price hikes,” whatever that is, the Federal Reserve sees it differently. The Financial Times ran a story this week headlined, “Federal Reserve Officials Warn Entrenched Inflation Poses ‘Significant Risk’.”
Not JUST risk. Significant risk.
In June, the Fed raised interest rates by 0.75%. Minutes from that meeting, now disclosed, noted “Many participants judged that a significant risk now facing the committee was that elevated inflation could become entrenched if the public began to question the resolve of the committee to adjust the stance of policy as warranted.”
The Times described “the alarm spreading through the top ranks of the US central bank over inflation.” You don’t say. They just noticed, I guess. Industry insiders predict the Fed will raise interest rates another +0.75% at this month’s meeting, which would be considered a very aggressive shift. The concern seems to be that consumers might start to EXPECT inflation.
For example, Kathy Bostjancic, chief US economist at Oxford Economics explained, “If inflation becomes entrenched in consumer and business psyches, it will be much more difficult to lower it over the medium term. That is the breaking point for [the Fed], and they really want to do their best to ensure that it doesn’t happen.”
IF it becomes entrenched? Where do the Fed officials live? Chalet’s in Davos? I’m thinking it is probably too late to avoid consumers expecting inflation. Have they been to a grocery store lately? Or, who don’t you try reading Twitter for ten minutes? If it’s okay with the FBI, that is.
The Fed’s forecast: MORE PAIN. Fed chair Jeremy Powell, in remarks last week, said “The process is highly likely to involve some pain, but the worst pain would be from failing to address this high inflation and allowing it to become persistent.”
The article wonders about whether we’re “headed for” a recession. Headed for? Really?
Experts! What would we do without them? I mean, really, what would we do without them. Maybe be happy and allowed to mind our own business or something?
You knew this was coming. The Washington Post published an editorial yesterday by covid ‘expert’ Eric Dingle-Fingle or Fiegl-Ding, or whatever his name is, titled “Let’s Call Monkeypox What It Is: A Pandemic.”
Hahahaha! That was SO predictable.
Ding misses the old days. He strongly suggests in his op-ed that “Governments and health authorities worldwide should alert the public regarding protection measures and provide support for mitigation, rapid case identification, early diagnostics, contact tracing, and isolation.”
I’m starting to think that maybe Ding really, really wants to attend some European festivals or something. But I digress.
Want to know what was missing from his article? Any actual definition of what a pandemic is. It’s not just anytime you’re scared, doc. Anyway, Ding doesn’t seem to know that there are actual metrics and stuff, mostly relating to infection rates, that have to be met before you can formally label a bug as being a “pandemic.”
But hey, suit yourself, doc. If you want to call it a pandemic at home and wear masks and stick yourself with needles, knock yourself out. But be private about it. Don’t expect us to ride along with you.
Experts!
📉 The Hill ran a moronic article this week headlined, “Frustrated Democrats Express Alarm Over Biden’s Powerlessness.” Well, I don’t know about that. Joe is sure causing a lot of damage for somebody “powerless.” I suppose that’s not what they meant, though.
According to the Hill, the Dems’ main complaints seem to be: Biden didn’t stop the Supreme Court from overturning Roe, he didn’t ban guns after recent shootings, and he can’t seem to stop skyrocketing gas prices by passing more green laws and shuttering oil leases.
Dems are FURIOUS about it. “It’s infuriating,” complained one top Democratic strategist. “Our house is on fire and it seems like they’re doing nothing to put the fire out. They’re just watching it with the rest of us.”
Polls aren’t helping. A Gallup survey this week found only 23% of Americans say they have confidence in the presidency, down -15% from a year ago. A Monmouth University poll found 88% of Americans think we’re on the wrong track, with a paltry 10% saying we are headed in the right direction. Those must be the Chinese sleeper agents.
Even worse, a recent poll showed Biden’s approval rating at only 30%, and critically, scraping the bottom at a paltry 20% among independents. Biden is setting new records at this point, bad ones. Given that presidential approval polls are usually gamed to favor Democrats, the real numbers are probably lower, maybe much lower.
Biden does not intend to change course. At a White House press briefing Tuesday, reporters peppered extra-diverse press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre multiple times about complaints from Democratic lawmakers, activists and pundits that Biden has shown a lack of urgency and fire on certain issues. “I can’t speak for them, I can only speak to what we’re trying to do,” Jean-Pierre allowed.
📈 In yet more bad news for Dems, the National Review ran a story this week with the completely uninformative headline, “Harvard-Harris: Americans Don’t Know What Roe Did.”
Stupid Americans.
The actual news is that a Harvard-Harris poll showed that the Dobbs decision, which overturned Roe v. Wade, hasn’t moved the political needle much, shattering Dem hopes it would become a litmus-test issue for the November elections.
In the poll, only 55% said they disagreed with the Dobbs decision, while 45% said they were all for it. Furthermore, 72% — a clear majority — said they supported a 15-week limit, and half (49%) said they preferred only six weeks. This is consistent with what most red states are doing, such as Florida, which recently passed a 15-week limit on termination.
The worst news for Democrat hopes was that the poll found 63% percent of Americans still believe the Court is “legitimate,” and 59% think the Democrats are wrong to say otherwise. When folks were asked whether Dobbs would affect their vote in the November midterms, the results were a wash. 36% said it would make them more likely to vote for a Democrat, 36% said it would make them more likely to vote for a Republican, and 29% said it would have no effect on their vote at all.
So it looks like there won’t be a backlash against Dobbs after all. Maybe — just maybe — people think there are bigger fish to fry right now. In other words, Americans are sane and we’re NOT stupid. We see what’s going on. Go peddle your manipulative psyops somewhere else.
Have a fabulous Friday! I’ll see you back here tomorrow for the weekend edition.
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The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
Politics
By Dave Scott
7-8-22
Laura DiBella, Former Nassau County Economic Development Director and head of the Ocean Highway and Port Authority of Nassau County, has accepted a position this week in Florida Governor Rob DeSantis’s administration as Deputy Secretary of Commerce for the State of Florida. You read it here first.
In her new position, which she assumes July 25, Ms. DiBella reports directly to Governor Ron DeSantis as the position of Secretary of Commerce is vacant, essentially making Ms. DiBella the unofficial or acting Secretary of Commerce.
If she excels in her new job could the Secretary of Commerce job be hers? Why not, I haven’t heard of anyone else waiting in the wings to fill the position. But I’m getting way ahead of the story here.
Jamal Allen Sowell, the former Secretary of Commerce, resigned as Secretary to attend military training for the United States Navy Reserve.
Ms. DiBella, successfully served as Nassau County Economic Development Director from 2014 to October 2019 and unpaid Director for the Ocean Highway and Port Authority of Nassau County. She resigned those positions to assume the newly created position as Executive Director of the Florida Harbor Pilots Association in Tallahassee.
The very professional, personable, and attractive Ms. DiBella, who looks like she just stepped off the pages of Vogue Magazine, is a tough lady who doesn’t back down when she knows she’s right.
Diplomatically dealing with a squabbling Nassau County board of Commissioners, an indecisive Port Authority Board, and the loopy Fernandina Beach City Commission prepared this tough-as-nails gal for anything that lays ahead.
In a letter announcing her departure from Nassau County in October 2019 Ms. DiBella was gracious, polite, and offered to assist in the transition to a new director and aid on ongoing projects. Her list of successes in attracting businesses and jobs to our community is lengthy and lasting.
There is no doubt this talented lady will be an asset to the state and its citizens.
read more of Dave Scott’s Blog
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
Government/Elections
By Janet Adkins
7-6-22, Yulee
The Nassau County Supervisor of Elections Office is committed to safe, secure, and accurate elections. We are blessed in Nassau County to have competent staff who collectively have over 80 years of election experience.
Data integrity is key. We understand that election security is based on a foundation of clean voter rolls. In 2021 and early 2022, we removed nearly 2,500 voters who were identified in ERIC as voters who had moved out of Nassau County. We also completed over 1,700 updates using the USPS National Change of Address.
While this is a good start, we acknowledge that list maintenance work is never done. Every day, our staff are updating voter records to reflect deaths, address changes, party changes, and to process potentially ineligible voters. In the election world, voters can be active, inactive, or ineligible.
Inactive voters are defined in FS 98.065. It states that we must designate as inactive all voters who have been sent an address confirmation final notice and who have not returned the postage prepaid, preaddressed return form within 30 days or for which the final notice has been returned as undeliverable.
A voter on the inactive list may be restored to the active list of voters upon the voter updating his or her registration, requesting a vote-by-mail ballot, or appearing in person to vote. However, if the voter does not update his or her voter registration information, request a vote-by-mail ballot, or vote by the second general election after being placed on the inactive list, the voter’s name shall be removed from the statewide voter registration system and the voter shall be required to reregister
to have his or her name restored to the statewide voter registration system.
Ineligible voters are defined in FS 98.075 and include deceased persons, registered voters who have been adjudicated mentally incapacitated with respect to voting and who have not had their voting rights restored, registered voters who have been convicted of a felony and whose voting rights have not been restored, voters who do not meet the age requirement pursuant to FS 97.041, an individual who is not a United States citizen, is a fictitious person, or has listed a residence that is not his or her legal residence.
While we know that our work is never done, I would ask that anyone who has the “3,700 challenged voter registrations” share this information with our office. Please note that to protect the security of our information technology systems, we do not open files received via email. We kindly ask that this information be given to us in paper form.
The reality is that while FS 97.1031 requires voters to notify their Elections Office when they relocate outside of Florida, very few voters comply. We are grateful when they do; but we are equally grateful for tools that enable us to conduct voter list maintenance when they do not.
ERIC (Electronic Registration Information Center) is a database for sharing voter information. Florida’s membership in ERIC is permitted under Florida Statute 98.075(2), which authorizes membership in a nongovernmental entity whose sole purpose is to share and exchange information in order to verify voter registration information. It requires that membership of the nongovernmental entity must be composed solely of election officials of state governments or the District of Columbia.
This statute allows the Department of State to share confidential and exempt information after becoming a member of a nongovernmental entity.
I have heard concerns that health information is shared with ERIC. According to FS 98.075, this would be a violation of law in Florida. The statute directs, the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles, pursuant to a written agreement with the department, to provide driver license or identification card information to the Department of State for the purpose of sharing and exchanging voter registration information with the nongovernmental entity. There is no provision for sharing health information.
Readers may also find it of interest to know that Florida Statutes require the sharing of confidential information between agencies. Specifically, FS 98.093 directs the Department of Health to furnish to the Department of State monthly a list containing the name, address, date of birth, date of death, social security number, race, and sex of each deceased person 17 years of age or older.
This statute also requires each clerk of the circuit court to furnish monthly to the Department of State a list of those persons who have been adjudicated mentally incapacitated with respect to voting during the preceding calendar month, a list of those persons whose mental capacity with respect to voting has been restored during the preceding calendar month, and a list of those persons who have
returned signed jury notices during the preceding month to the clerk of the circuit court indicating a change of address. Each list shall include the name, address, date of birth, race, sex, and, whichever is available, the Florida driver license number, Florida identification card number, or social security number of each such person.
For individuals with a drivers license, it is important to note that the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles is required to furnish monthly to the Department of State a list of those persons whose names have been removed from the driver license database because they have been licensed in another state. The list shall contain the name, address, date of birth, sex, social security number,
and driver license number of each such person.
Many Elections Offices, like Nassau County, have access to the DAVID system. DAVID is the Driver And Vehicle Information Database used by Florida Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles and contains personal information including the last four digits of the social security number. Security protocols are in place which require specialized training before access to the database is granted. In the Nassau County Elections Office, each query is documented on a log identifying the date, staff
member and reason for the query. Audits are performed quarterly.
Supervised voting is governed by FS 101.655 which allows the supervisor, in cooperation with the facility administrator, to select a date and time when the supervised voting will occur. Written requests for supervised voting must be made no later than 28 days prior to the election As such, we are unable to fulfil requests for a full list of the assisted living and nursing homes that have requested supervised voting, nor a specific scheduled date for voting as this information has not been finalized.
Finally, FS 101.69 specifies the location of secure ballot intake stations (formerly referred to as drop boxes). This statute mandates that secure ballot intake stations be located at all early voting locations during the hours of early voting AND that they be monitored in person.
Secure ballot intake stations shall be placed at
2. at each permanent branch office of the supervisor,
3. and at each early voting site.
Additional restrictions related to secure ballot intake stations include:
2. Secure ballot intake stations must be geographically located so as to provide all voters in the county with an equal opportunity to cast a ballot, insofar as is practicable.
3. Except for secure ballot intake stations at an office of the supervisor, a secure ballot intake station may only be used during the county’s early voting hours of operation and must be monitored in person by an employee of the supervisor’s office.
4. A secure ballot intake station at an office of the supervisor must be continuously monitored in person by an employee of the supervisor’s office when the secure ballot intake station is accessible for deposit of ballots.
While Florida Statutes are silent regarding surveillance cameras on secure ballot intake stations; FS 102.031 prohibits photography inside a polling location, except for photographing one’s own ballot.
Please know that the Nassau County Elections Team is working hard to ensure that our election is safe, secure, and accurate. We mailed vote-by-mail ballots to our military and overseas voters on July 5 and plan to mail ballots to domestic voters on July 14. Vote-by-mail envelopes will look different this year as we are working to protect voter signatures. You can scan the QR code on your vote-by-mail secrecy sleeve to view a video on how to return your ballot.
We will also mail each Nassau County registered voter a sample ballot on July 14. If you would like to come to our office to receive your ballot, July 14 is the first day that this service is available.
Our website is updated weekly and now you can download our new mobile app. With your Apple iPhone, enter “Vote Nassau FL” and you will find the first elections mobile app in Florida. With this app, you will be able to update your voter registration, review candidate information and learn the wait times at your polling location.
We encourage all Nassau County voters to get election ready: download the app, update your signature, and verify your address. Please visit www.VoteNassauFL.gov to learn about other important election news.
Janet Adkins is the Nassau County, FL Supervisor of Elections- read MORE
OPINION
By Jeff Chiders
07-07-22
Good day C&C! It’s Thursday, and today’s roundup includes: Boris Johnson’s involuntary retirement over covid policy; the Georgia Guidestones explode; the FBI and the MI5 team up against China; Monkeypox cases double in NYC; and today’s bit of humor to lighten your day.
🪖 Although I’m still weeks away from prison release on Facebook, I’m now posting daily updates to TruthSocial. If you’re active there, please follow @jchilders98 and re-Truth a few, to see if we can spread the word.
🪖 Alert! Next week we’ll multiply Feds for Med Freedom. At long last.
🔥 Another popular Western leader falls, the victim of covid overreach. The Wall Street Journal ran an article this morning headlined, “U.K.’s Boris Johnson to Resign After Scandals Grow Too Great to Handle.”
I reported yesterday on the abrupt public resignation of Johnson’s revolting crypto-marxist health minister Sajid Javid, who joined a half dozen other members of Johnson’s team bolting for the door this week. According to the WSJ, the resignations continued yesterday, topping FIFTY departures. Top members of Johnson’s Conservative party confronted him on camera demanding his resignation, while Johnson insisted he would “stick it out” for the “good of the country” because, Johnson claimed, the last thing anybody needs right now is more change.
Johnson never saw it coming. Just recently he’d chatted happily about his goal to stay in the office until the 2030s. Last week he jovially bragged to reporters about his maniacal vision of “rebuilding the Roman Empire.” But it was never going to work.
Vast political skullduggery was on display yesterday as insiders plotted, cabals met in back rooms, operatives sharpened their political knives, all while Johnson’s defensive forces were draining away like water out of the palace’s hot tub, and all while the politicians publicly chatted politely with each other about the unseasonably hot weather in the hallways of power. The British are better at dark politics than anyone.
The article explained that by morning, Johnson had turned loose of his goal to stick it out, and has agreed to resign. He wants to continue as “custodian” until elections in August, which would deprive his party of a chance to appoint a successor. We’ll see if they let him, but I doubt it. Someone who wants to cling to a disgraced office that badly is probably a man who desperately needs to bury some bodies before he turns the lights off and hands in his key.
There’s a reason I’m spending all this time on this story. The Journal claims Johnson fell because of “a series of scandals,” but only names two. They’re worth looking at.
The first scandal you already know about: the hedonistic parties at Number 10 Downing Street — the prime minister’s official residence slash offices. If you were a connected politician during the harsh British lockdowns, that’s where you went to vent a little steam. They let the good times roll. Worse, Johnson had denied any parties occurred — to Parliament — several times before he was forced by the quick rush of events to admit it all HAD, in fact, happened. Having the parties was “bad judgment.” So was lying.
So that’s one.
The second enumerated scandal was Johnson’s appointment of Chris Pincher as Deputy Chief Whip, which among other things runs the party’s pastoral care and discipline. Pincher owns a long, neatly-tucked-away history of complaints about unwanted sexual advances toward young men. Groping and such. In typical British understatement, they’re calling Pincher the “Chief Whip sex pest.” And apparently a bunch of people knew about it, including Johnson, who knew about Pincher’s pestilent little problem for years.
Someone leaked it. Someone who knew about Pincher AND about Johnson knowing about Pincher. Think about that for a second. It had to be someone at the top level of government, someone who knew Pincher’s dirty little secret and the coverups, and most significantly, knew that Johnson had been told and had promoted Pincher anyway. So the leaker must have been one of the top members of his own party.
In other words, they shanked Boris Johnson, the hero of Brexit, right between the shoulder blades. Et tu, Brute? Or, if you want to be properly British, you might simply call the whole sordid episode Johnson’s involuntary retirement.
Getting to the point, Johnson is reaping the harvest of his own stupid lockdowns, mandates, and executive orders. His wantonly destructive covid policies infuriated people and pushed his popularity dial over towards unpopularity. The lockdowns made people who disliked Johnson actively hate him. They made people who were neutral to Johnson into folks who strongly disliked him. And they made Johnson’s own supporters less ardent, and less willing to support him when the political rubber hit the road. Which it yesterday.
I described the Pincher scandal so you could understand that Johnson’s fall was NOT because of “a series of scandals.” The pedo appointments had been going on for YEARS. They were leaked to wound Johnson BECAUSE everyone hates him now, and because Johnson lied about exempting himself and his buddies from his despised covid lockdown policies.
Plus, what is up with that hair? I assume Johnson has heard of a hairbrush. Man, please. Have some self-respect.
Anyway, back at the time, I allowed that all these dictatorial leaders were enjoying their heyday, but I also predicted there would eventually be a reckoning. I said the more grotesque the overreach, the stronger the backlash would be. I warned them this would happen, but they wouldn’t listen.
It’s just starting. I’m not kidding: I would not be surprised if even president Xi’s insane covid lockdown policy winds up taking him out too. Famously inscrutable, Chinese people can be hard to read. There are a lot of them. They are also good at dark politics. Who knows, they may already be far past the breaking point, it’s just difficult to tell.
Here at home in the U.S., a lot of democrats are about to find out how unhappy people are over all their covid overreach this November.
🔥 This next story is a little odd, and I debated whether to write it up, but ultimately I couldn’t help it. There’s a metaphor here. The story is, the Georgia Guidestones blew up.
You can search U.S. corporate media forever and won’t find this story, and maybe it’s not particularly newsworthy.1 Maybe it’s just a minor act of freshman vandalism on a weird out-of-the way amateur tourist attraction or something.
Maybe. But the so-called Georgia Guidestones are enough of a story that at least one minor gubernatorial candidate pledged recently to destroy them if elected, and even called them “satanic.” Here’s the tweet from Kandiss Taylor’s primary campaign this spring:
Called “America’s Stonehenge” by fans, the Guidestones sprouted without fanfare in a rural Georgia field in 1980 as if they were designed to fuel conspiracy theories. Maybe because they knew their little monument wouldn’t be super popular, forty+ years later the builders remain completely anonymous, protected by layers of cutouts, shell corporations, and lawyers contractually pledged to secrecy. But whoever built them has enough juice that cameras linked directly to Georgia’s 911 call center constantly monitor the sinister monolith to keep it safe.
It didn’t work.
A 2009 article in Wired Magazine said the monument was commissioned by an unknown person or group under the deliberately-provocative pseudonym “Robert C. Christian,” on behalf of “a small group of local Americans” who had been planning the monument for decades. The fifteen-foot-tall stones are packed with occult symbology, including various holes, lines, and markings tied to various astronomical features. In several languages, including Hebrew, this message is inscribed all over them:
”Maintain humanity under 500,000,000 in perpetual balance with nature; Guide reproduction wisely, improving fitness and diversity; Unite humanity with a living new language; Rule passion, faith, tradition, and all things with tempered reason; Protect people and nations with fair laws and just courts; Let all nations rule internally, resolving external disputes in a world court; Avoid petty laws and useless officials; Balance personal rights with social duties; Prize truth, beauty, love … seeking harmony with the infinite; Be not a cancer on earth — leave room for nature — leave room for nature.”
The inscription can be fairly understood as a prescription for massive depopulation, radical birth control, eugenics, oppressive government, and a new world order. The occult designs and imagery arguably can be tied to various well-known satanic themes. It has lots of other super weird features. For just one example of many, the Guidestones are placed exactly 666 miles from the United Nations building.
It might be a coincidence. Maybe. Anyway, it’s weird.
So you can easily imagine that — especially considering its secretive construction — a lot of folks, for some reason, think that world governments and NGO’s are conspiring to bring about what the Guidestones suggested over 40 years ago.
Anyway, according to surveillance footage, a sharp explosion occurred at the Guidestones at 4:03am local time on Wednesday, July 6th. The cameras show nothing but a flash of light and one of the three pillars crumbling. Later yesterday afternoon, Georgia authorities demolished the remaining stones for tourists’ safety.
The internet is vibrating with speculation. Did someone finally say enough was enough and blow the damnable things up somehow? Or was it taken down by its own makers, in some kind of occult ceremony symbolizing the destruction of the old order to make way for a new one, or something? Who knows.
What we DO know is: somebody wanted the insane monument gone. While decrying destruction of private property, of course, I can’t help feeling a tiny bit better that the Guidestones aren’t around. We’ll deal with whatever comes next if and when it raises its beastly head.
about how, for the first time in history, NATO identified China as a strategic threat. Yesterday I reported on how the U.S. is now openly criticizing China’s support of Russia, especially over Russia’s biolab disclosures. Then yesterday, we witnessed another first, reported in a BBC article headlined, “China: MI5 And FBI Heads Warn of ‘Immense’ Threat.”
Setting another historical record, the head of the FBI, Christopher Wray, and Ken McCallum, the head of Britain’s counterpart, MI5, held a joint news briefing in London. Wray announced that China is the “biggest long-term threat to our economic and national security” and has interfered in politics, including — wait for it — recent elections.
Elections interference is an act of war. Just saying.
The FBI director said the Chinese government had directly interfered in a congressional election in New York this spring because they did not want a candidate who was a critic and former protester at Tiananmen Square to be elected. Wray said the Chinese hired a private investigator to dig up compromising information on the candidate. When they couldn’t find anything, Wray described a Chinese effort to create a controversy using a sex worker, and even considering staging a car accident to take the candidate out.
For his part, McCallum described the challenge of the Chinese Communist Party as “game-changing.” Wray echoed his sentiment, labeling the China threat “immense” and “breath-taking.”
In response, China Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said the FBI director was just “playing up the China threat to smear and attack China,” revealing his “Cold War mentality,” and urged Wray to stop making “irresponsible” remarks. The statement didn’t deny or even address Wray’s claims.
Wray had concluded his remarks by saying, “China has for far too long counted on being everybody’s second-highest priority. They are not flying under the radar anymore.”
It’s the last bit that’s most interesting, about the Chinese not flying under the radar anymore and not being our second priority. The statement was a warning to the Chinese that the U.S. and the U.K. intend to expose them and make them a “top” priority.
All things considered, this looks a lot like an effort to push China away from Russia. Coming down on China is a good start in my view, but Joe will Biden it somehow.
Remember that President Trump promised to crack down on China? Wouldn’t it be deliciously ironic if this whole Ukraine biolabs deal winds up creating the kinds of sanctions on China that Trump really would have loved?
“Monkeypox Cases in New York City Double in Past Week.” So, New York City’s health department tweeted Tuesday that 111 people have now tested positive for the pox, up from 55 in the previous week.
The health department is offering smallpox vaccine to “at risk” men, presumably European “festival” attenders and those having well-developed “sexual networks.” Nowhere can you find any recommendations that people desist from the, er, activities that are spreading the virus. It sure looks like perverts get advisories, but normal folks get lockdowns.
There’s something very wrong with our government right now. Maybe those Guidestone conspiracy theorists are really onto something.
Have a terrific Thursday! And come on back here tomorrow, ya’ll, for more. Click to SHARE this column.
If you can, help me get the truth out and spread optimism and hope: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/-learn-how-to-get-involved-
Twitter: @jchilders98
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The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
Opinion
By Jeff Childers
07-06-22
Surprise! Suddenly and unexpectedly, I’m back, since covid claimed my trial as its latest victim. So today, your unexpected roundup includes: the biolabs story breaks in US media; I connect some more biolab dots for you; UK top covid doc suddenly and unexpectedly resigns; DeSantis signs patient protection law; Canadians face shifty re-defining of “fully vaxxed;” EU requires cars to have digital tracking; Farmer protests continue in Netherlands; Biden shuts down more US oil production; an Ice Cream Panic; sudden and unexpected cancellations due to unexplained illnesses; and I check in with Florida’s covid figures.
🪖 So this is what happened. My team and I were hard at work over the weekend, preparing for trial, when about noon on Saturday I got a call from my opposing counsel. He sounded congested and miserable, and said I was never going to believe it. “I have good news and bad news,” he said, “and they’re both the same thing.”
He’d tested positive for covid on Saturday morning.
And that was, as they say, that. As it turned out, the judge was also working, and by 1pm my trial — covid’s latest victim — had been rescheduled for October. It’s hard to describe how this feels; it’s like being all dressed and ready for an Olympic competition when at the last second, the games are canceled because a kid in the snack shop sneezed into the chili dip.
So anyway, the good news is, I’m back!
🔥 Uh-oh! The cat is rapidly clawing its way out of the biolabs censorship sack. Yesterday, top government media mouthpiece Bloomberg ran an article headlined, “US Ambassador Urges China to Stop Spreading Russian ‘Lies’.”
The article not only finally reported that Russia is accusing the U.S. of running bioweapons labs in Ukraine, but also that China apparently believes it, too. In a Chinese government-sponsored “World Peace Forum” on Monday, US Ambassador to China Nicolas Burns said this:
“I would hope that Chinese foreign ministry spokespersons would stop accusing NATO of starting this war. That’s Russian propaganda. I hope Foreign Ministry spokespersons would also stop telling lies about American bioweapons labs, which do not exist in Ukraine. These all came from Russia. Unfortunately, this has been picked up by the Chinese.”
Unfortunate, indeed.
Bloomberg reported that top Chinese officials and its state media have repeatedly blamed the U.S. for provoking Russia through NATO expansion. And Chinese diplomats have officially “amplified” Russian-backed “conspiracy theories” that the U.S. produced biological weapons in Ukraine.
The paper then uncritically reported that the U.S. government denies the claims and argues that China is spreading Russian misinformation. What Bloomberg didn’t mention is that there are now TWO members of the UN Security Council — the two largest players apart from the U.S. — that are now accusing us of running illegal bioweapons labs in the beleaguered country.
Bioweapons are considered weapons of mass destruction, just like nuclear warheads. Just saying.
Having been forced to admit that there were U.S.-linked biological RESEARCH labs in Ukraine, the U.S. seems to be trying to thread the needle by making the childish distinction that the gain-of-function research on deadly pathogens is not a “weapon” because it was for purely defensive purposes. Sure, the bugs COULD BE used by unethical actors, like Russians, as weapons. But you can trust US. We would NEVER do that, or accidentally release a devastating global pandemic.
Here’s Undersecretary of State Victoria Nuland carefully explaining to Senator Marco Rubio that, while there ARE dangerous biolabs in Ukraine, they aren’t WEAPONS labs, no, never:
Once again, this story is not about what our diplomat said. The news is that Bloomberg reported that the bioweapons accusations exist. This kind of embargo-breaking usually signals some kind of pending narrative pivot. I can’t wait.
🔥 The disputed labs in Ukraine have been clearly linked with an American company called MetaBiota. MetaBiota was also the only American company allowed to work at the Wuhan lab in China. MetaBiota’s start-up capital came from Rosemont Seneca — Hunter Biden’s company.
Here’s a 2014 email to Hunter Biden, recovered from his laptop, from MetaBiota VP Mary Guttieri, offering Hunter a helpful memorandum about how “we can potentially leverage our team, networks, and concepts to assert Ukraine’s cultural and economic independence from Russia[.]”
So many questions. First, what was Hunter doing dabbling in Ukraine’s independence from Russia? Why was he so interested in THAT? Why was an American biotechnology company involved in Ukraine’s independence from Russia? What does that Ukrainian independence from Russia have to do with biotech?
But the question that really gets me is, when Russia inevitably became aware of these efforts, when Russian prostitute-loving Hunter inevitably spilled the beans, how were the Russians SUPPOSED to respond? Especially after Hunter’s dad, the “Big Guy,” then infested the office of the Presidency in 2020 under — let’s be honest — somewhat sketchy circumstances?
One suspects the Russians could feel rather gloomy about Hunter Biden and MetaBiota now being fueled by the entire apparatus of the United States government.
And, to place another layer on the slime cake, here’s a photo of Nathan Wolfe, WEF young global leader and CEO of MetaBiota, posing with Epstein’s top procurer and daughter of CIA pet billionaire Robert Maxwell, notorious pedophile and madame Ghislaine Maxwell:
🔥 British Bankester and WEF (World Economic Forum) bootlicker Sajid Javid, the UK’s top Covid Minister, resigned suddenly yesterday, and he did it right, publishing a fiery bridge-burning letter he sent to Boris Johnson, saying he’d lost confidence in the prime minister. “It has been an enormous privilege to serve in this role, but I regret that I can no longer continue in good conscience,” the UK’s head health minister told his boss.
Javid is just the latest rat scampering off Boris Johnson’s sinking political ship. After a no-confidence vote last month, a slew of ministers with unpronounceable names have resigned so far: Rishi Sunak, Sajid Javid, Bim Afolami, Saqib Bhatti, Jonathan Gullis, and Andrew Murrison all rage-quit, presumably getting out before the political contagion spreads any further.
Johnson, who pinned the British people down under an endless series of useless lockdowns while he threw gala parties at HQ for two years, now finds himself in political quarantine. It’s a darned shame.
Yesterday, Governor DeSantis signed the “No Patients Left Alone Act,” which increases patient protections, makes hospital visitation by relatives a fundamental right, forbids limiting physical contact with patients, and bans hospitals from requiring visitors to prove covid vaccination status.
DeSantis is a pleasant contrast to Boris Johnson’s imploding administration.
💉 Meanwhile, north of the border, the Toronto Sun ran an article Monday headlined, “’TWO DOSES ARE NO LONGER ENOUGH’: Canadians Required to Get COVID Shot Every Nine Months.” Ha! Boosted!
Canada’s Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos said that the previous definition of “fully vaccinated” makes no sense, explaining that it’s more important that shots are “up to date” and whether or not a person has “received a vaccination in the last nine months.” Haha, suckers. You believed it was just two little pricks and you’d be done.
Duclos didn’t specifically comment on the fact that the jabs were designed for the original strain of the virus and clearly aren’t working on the new variants, except that he admitted, “We will never be fully vaccinated against COVID-19.”
Never ever ever.
“Like the virus, our immunity also evolves. Two doses are no longer enough,” the health minister explained. Apparently, INFINITE doses are also no longer enough.
Most Canadian jab mandates have been lifted, but when asked, Duclos wouldn’t rule out the return of mandated shots. He would only say, “We want to be prepared for next fall and that requires an up-to-date vaccination which is based on the nine months.”
Every nine months. Weird. That’s the exact same timeframe as the human gestation cycle. Just saying. Don’t cancel me.
🔥 Today, a new European Union law requires all new cars and trucks to include “black boxes” that record activity and performance information, including whether or not seat belts are in use. In this initial incarnation, only law enforcement can access the data, which actually seems a lot more sinister to me than privacy advocates’ worries that insurance companies will eventually use the data to set individual prices.
Since the black boxes are integrated with vehicles’ computer systems, critics’ other concerns include whether officials would use real-time access to enforce speed limits, remotely shut cars down to wait for police to arrive, or even disable vehicles completely because the owner tweeted something mean about people who wear face masks in the shower, or wrote on Facebook that President Xi of China is impotent and bears a striking resemblance with Winnie the Pooh, which he is and he does.
🥕 Farmers’ protests continued in the Netherlands this weekend and yesterday. Food producers are upset over a 2019 ‘green law’ called the Habitats Directive, which requires automatic reductions in farming if proportions of native plant species change from increased nitrogen in the soil or for any other reason.
Well, now the species are changing or something. Dutch growers claim the law’s automatic limits will require mass slaughter of food animals and the shuttering of up to a third of the country’s farms — right when global famine is blipping onto the apocalypse radar.
Haha! Stupid farmers! They think it’s just a coincidence caused by morons minting loopy environmental regulations. “At the time, politicians having always been as stupid as they are now, nobody was thinking ahead and wondering, look, what might this mean in the future?” Dutch representative Thierry Baudet said.
The Dutch farmers are protesting by withholding veggie shipments, using their trucks and tractors as rolling road blocks, and getting up to all sorts of other creative ways to communicate their dissatisfaction, like using manure spreaders to deliver pungent products to the front steps of government buildings.
For some reason, the protesting farmers seem a little, well, untrusting of the government’s intentions. In widespread social media chatter, the farmers have been warning each other about “Romeos” — undercover government agent provocateurs — who are inciting violence or even committing violent acts themselves to blame on the farmers. Some circulating videos appear to show men dressed as farmers vandalizing a government building and then all climbing into a police van a couple blocks away.
Dumb cops. Never use the official police van! Not when you are committing crimes, planting evidence, and otherwise secretly trying to get innocent citizens in trouble.
Anyway, it sounds like the Netherlands’ deep state has been getting pro tips from the January 6th Commission. I’ve been tracking this story for several days and have yet to see any official response from the Dutch government addressing the main issues, like whether it is TOTALLY FLIPPING INSANE to slaughter Bessie the Milk Cow and shutter Alpine Acres right when a global famine is kicking off.
The Dutch seem intent on live-action role playing a childhood fairy tale. Here’s a hint: what does “killing the golden goose” mean?
📈 Haha, stupid Dutch people. You voted for those dummies, so you deserve what… um, hold on a sec. Maybe I spoke too soon. A Saturday UPI article was headlined, “Biden Proposes to Block Offshore Drilling in Atlantic, Pacific Oceans, Allow Some In Gulf of Mexico.”
Oops. I guess we did it, too. Thanks a lot, 81 million alleged Biden voters.
That’s right! Just like the leaders in the Netherlands, our leaders have concocted the awesome, totally-green idea to shutter production in the midst of a shortage; in our case, cutting oil production in the middle of a worldwide fuel crisis. Brilliant!
What does “self-inflicted injury” mean?
Released on Friday, Biden’s proposal would cap new oil drilling leases in the Gulf of Mexico at only ten, allow one possible lease sale in northern Alaska, and ZERO lease sales for the entire Atlantic and Pacific drilling areas — through 2028.
Joe’s draft plan will be published in the federal register later this month allowing a 90-day public comment period. I can’t wait to see the comments. It should be epic.
Just in case you were wondering, Joe didn’t come up with this insane idea completely on his own. This terrific brainstorm is being provided to you by the most reckless, self-destructive political party in history. The UPI explained, “During a legislative session earlier this year, Democrats urged [former vice-president] Joe Biden to do more to stop offshore drilling.”
On the other hand, 14 Republican states sued the Biden Administration for banning new oil and gas drilling on federal lands, baffling Democrats by arguing that bans drive up energy costs. Imagine that. Shady environmental groups are outraged by the proposal to allow even ten leases in the Gulf over the next five years. “The Biden administration had an opportunity to meet the moment on climate and end new offshore oil leasing in Interior’s five-year program,” said Drew Caputo, vice president of litigation at Earthjustice.
Let’s drill down a little. EarthJustice’s website brags that it employs 180 lawyers in 15 regional offices and has an astounding 650 current lawsuits. SIX HUNDRED AND FIFTY. Just lawyers’ salaries alone would be well over $40 million annually. The website says they raise $150 million every year from ‘individual donations and foundations.” FOUNDATIONS being the key word. Think Gates, Soros.
They’re busy little beavers down at the EarthJustice center. In fact, just yesterday the legal group reversed a Trump-era modification to the Endangered Species Act:
I often wonder whether shadily-financed groups like this are really the most dangerous threat we face, rather than corrupt politicians, cartel drug dealers, Russian oligarchs, covid deniers, or soccer moms.
🔥 In the latest “outbreak” reminiscent of the Abbott lab shutdown, the CDC says it thinks Big Olaf Creamery, an ice cream brand only sold in Florida, may be to blame for a small listeria outbreak. Between January and June, 14 out of the 17 people interviewed by the CDC reported eating Big Olaf ice cream before symptoms started.
Although it is cooperating with a recall, Big Olaf is not so sure. “Our brand has not been confirmed to be linked to these cases,” said their official statement. “Nothing has been proven,” and “it is only speculation” that their ice cream is to blame.
Listeria, a type of bacterial food poisoning usually treated with antibiotics, can be serious for people with weak or underdeveloped immune systems. Either way, the symptoms are on the messier, less pleasant side.
I’ve never tried Big Olaf ice cream, never even heard of it. Is it weird that I want to try some now?
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The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
OPINION
By Alyson McCullough
07-06-22 Hilliard
As a “millennial” I am supposed to be on the streets marching and protesting for every right and empowerment. Is this true of every thirty to forty year old in America? Absolutely not. I grew up under the Rush Limbaugh doctrine on AM 690 in my grandpa’s garage helping him sort through thousands of random tools, nuts, and bolts. After retiring from the military, he taught shop at the Westside Skill Center in Jacksonville, Florida. He also taught me and all of his grandchildren to be actively engaged in our local, state, and national politics. Far too often in a world of instant media access – a false narrative is painted as convincing truth.
I wanted to give you the reader of truth a positive insight to the true Millennial class in Nassau County. We go to work, we take our kids to the ballpark, and we vote. The consensus for lack of political engagement? After talking to more than one hundred registered voters from age 30-40 in Nassau County, the reason that they have never expanded their horizon to run for office or engage in political movements.…. Establishment. More than ever the division of a two party system has created a distance from the polls. Establishment wasn’t a reference to a Rhino or a Donkey put to pasture, it was ALL of it. Millennials want progress, peace, and a place. They feel the Republican party, Democrat party, and the voting process have all lost their integrity. As I came home and mulled over this data and these kitchen table conversations a fire was lit. A fire for advocacy. A call to action. A request to the establishment: We the People are tired of it. Across the Nation I pray that people are humbly brought back to their roots, that lobbyists and special interests no longer have a place at the table but truck drivers and nurses are compelled to lead.
Culture has purposefully created a socially distracted society. It is more imperative than ever to look back on where we have come from and where we are headed. That we reach across party lines. Unfortunately, our nation’s appreciation for our founding ideas have slipped over time. This isn’t a new phenomenon; President Reagan warned us of it in his farewell address: “We’ve got to do a better job of getting across that America is freedom — freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of enterprise — and freedom is special and rare.”
Fellow patriots, history enthusiasts, TIk Tok dancers, the old and the young let this be my words of advice, take them for what you paid for them. If we do not act now, we will cease to exist in freedom. If our “politicians” aren’t talking about the constitution and rights of the people – then they are just that “politicians” not representation. There is more to a candidate than funding. Remember we won freedom in the western civilization on a common vision not a blank check.
Alyson McCullough is a wife, mother, taxpayer and educator who lives in Hilliard. She is a candidate for Nassau County Commissioner in District 4.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
PRESS RELEASE
07-06-22 Baptist Health, Jacksonville
Baptist Health has once again been recognized for its outstanding stroke care by the American Heart Association (AHA). Baptist Medical Center Jacksonville, Baptist Medical Center Beaches, Baptist Medical Center Nassau and Baptist Medical Center South received the American Heart Association’s GoldPlusGet With The Guidelines® – Stroke Quality Achievement Award for their commitment to ensuring stroke patients receive the most appropriate treatment according to nationally recognized research-based guidelines.
Stroke is the No. 5 cause of death and a leading cause of disability in the United States. A stroke occurs when a blood vessel that carries oxygen and nutrients to the brain is blocked or bursts. Without the blood or oxygen they need, brain cells die. Early stroke detection and treatment are key to improving survival, minimizing disability and accelerating recovery times. Access to the type of stroke care offered at Baptist Health helps patients receive the timely care they need.
Each year, Get With The Guidelines participants qualify for the award by demonstrating how their organization has committed to providing quality care for stroke patients.
“Every day, our teams put proven knowledge and processes to work, providing the latest research- and evidence-based case to patients. Their care and dedication to preventing and treating strokes helps ensure more people in the Jacksonville region can experience longer, healthier lives,” said Michael A. Mayo, DHA, FACHE, president and CEO of Baptist Health.
“The Baptist Health team is dedicated to providing excellence in stroke care to our patients. Every day, we offer our community the highest level of treatment for those suffering a stroke so they may have their best life going forward,” said Ricardo Hanel, MD, PhD, neurosurgeon and co-medical director of the Baptist Stroke & Cerebrovascular Center.
With cutting-edge technology and state-of-the-art facilities, Baptist Jacksonville’s Stroke & Cerebrovascular Center is the regional epicenter for advanced diagnostics and treatments for strokes, brain aneurysms and other cerebrovascular conditions. The Joint Commission Certified Comprehensive Stroke Center offers patients dedicated facilities for neurological care, including a Neurointensive Care Unit, a dedicated Neurosurgical operating room and interventional radiology suite with specially trained staff and the latest technology, and a specialized area in the emergency department designed for stroke, brain aneurysms and other neurological emergencies. This dedicated area was the first of its kind in Florida. In addition, all other Baptist Health hospitals and satellite emergency centers are recognized by the Joint Commission as stroke centers. This expert stroke care is also available to patients throughout the Jacksonville area and beyond via the Tele-stroke network, which virtually connects physicians and health care professionals from 14 sites within a 160-mile radius of Baptist Jacksonville.
In addition to the GoldPlusGet With The Guidelines® – Stroke Quality Achievement Award, AHA recognized Baptist Health’s hospitals for other achievements, including:
Opinion/Elections
By Staci McMonagle
7-5-22, Fernandina Beach
I’ll be honest. I wasn’t thrilled with the idea of our city commissioners declaring June Gay Pride Month. I read the article on the front page of the News-Leader on Wednesday, June 29, 2022, titled “Church espousing anti-gay language will be polling place”.
The church in question was Lighthouse Baptist Church. The so-called “anti-gay” language was “shame on the Fernandina City Council (S.I.C.) – Prov. 10:28”. The biblical passage referred to there is “The hope of the righteous will be gladness, But the expectation of the wicked will perish,” which applies to all wickedness and leaves the consequences up to the Lord.
I learned a long time ago playing the blame game gets nothing accomplished, so we won’t be going there. As a Christian, I know very well that we as Christians are called to speak up and take a stand calling out our public officials with whom we disagree when we feel our Judeo-Christian values are not being represented by those we elected. It’s our duty as Christians and our right as a Citizens of these United States. I would have it no other way.
I’m appreciative of those Christians in authority having the courage to speak to issues they think need to be addressed. It takes courage and conviction to stand against the norm. So I applaud pastors with the breadth and depth of character to speak out when necessary, setting aside their personal welfare.
Everyone Should Be Safe
While at the same time, as a Citizen of the United States, I believe that every Citizen has the right to cast their vote and feel safe while doing it, and I will defend that right no matter who you are and without consideration as to whether or not we agree on any or all issues. Your vote is as important as mine, and it must be cast, and you have every right to feel safe at your polling precinct.
Two thoughts follow that I hope will help the LGBTQ+ community feel safe no matter where they vote
Christians are commanded to “love thy neighbor as thyself” and to pray for those with whom we are at odds. The commandment to love thy neighbor as thyself is not a superficial love. It is unconditional love, the kind that a parent has for a child, even when they vehemently oppose one another. It’s in disagreement that unconditional love proves its worth. Because unconditional love is more powerful than disagreement, I feel completely justified stating that the LGBTQ+ community should feel safe casting their vote at any church which has chosen to open its doors to the public in support of our Constitutional right to vote.
But if not, fortunately for Fernandina, Florida statute 102.031 is already in place to handle such incidents as the one our small town could be faced with right now. The statute states and I quote: “Florida statute: 102.031 Maintenance of good order at polls; authorities; persons allowed in polling rooms and early voting areas; unlawful solicitation of voters.—
The sheriff shall deputize a deputy sheriff for each polling place and each early voting site who shall be present during the time the polls or early voting sites are open and until the election is completed, who shall be subject to all lawful commands of the clerk or inspectors, and who shall maintain good order. The deputy may summon assistance from among bystanders to aid him or her when necessary to maintain peace and order at the polls or early voting sites.”
I pray these two facts will help put the people of the LGBTQ+ community’s minds at ease and help them to understand that although we may have fundamental differences, our responsibility as Christians and as Citizens is to see that all our rights are ensured. By doing so I pray that one day the LGBTQ+ community can be counted on to stand with us when we could be faced with losing constitutionally protected rights that we hold dear. Rights such as to teach the Bible, to worship our God and pray in the name of our savior and Lord Jesus. Today you want to feel safe casting your vote, and I stand with you in your pursuit. But one day, we Christians may need you to stand with us. I ask, will you?
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
Staci McMonagle is a native of NE Florida and has lived in Fernandina Beach for over 20 years, having worked here in the hospitality industry for 15 years. She has been on the board of Young Life and served on the InterFaith Dinner Network (helps homeless & indigent). She is a candidate for City Commission Seat 5. See her Facebook page @stacimcmonagleseat5
Opinion/Elections
By Sandy Kerry
7-5-22, Fernandina Beach
I have concerns right here in Nassau County about our election process.
ERIC Voting software
Here in FL we have ERIC voting software which shares personal data of voters (Social Security # etc) with other participating member states without voters’ knowledge or permission. Many are not aware of this.
3700 Challenged Voter Registrations
Our voter rolls in Nassau County are far from being up-to-date as evidenced by >3,700 questionable voter registrations which are currently being challenged.
Supervised Voting
We have supervised voting that is being proposed to be held beginning early August prior to the early voting period of August 10-20 in Nassau County in assisted living and nursing homes. Yet despite repeated requests we have yet neither received a full list of the assisted living and nursing homes that have requested supervised voting, nor a specific scheduled date for voting at each facility. Supervised voting is a particularly potentially vulnerable population and other than the two person team of election workers the SOE is planning to use at each facility, we need to have volunteer poll watchers at each, since there will be NO video surveillance there.
Video Surveillance
Video surveillance is NOT allowed at polling locations. Recorded video surveillance is REQUIRED at all drop box locations. The problem is six of our drop boxes for early voting are actually at six of our precincts / polling places.
When I asked our SOE (county Supervisor of Elections) about having video surveillance at these sites, she said she was not required to do so and that there would be an election worker posted at each drop box location all day. The boxes are inside buildings, implying there was no need for such surveillance. She went on to quote the following in an email to me:
RE: Ballot drop boxes – surveillance
“Secure ballot intake stations will be located inside the early voting sites to ensure compliance with FS 101.69. Each secure intake station will be monitored in person by an election worker.
FS 102.031 prohibits photography inside a polling location, except for photographing one’s own ballot.”
My personal opinion is that I do not interpret photography to be the same as recorded video surveillance. However, more importantly is that by locating the drop boxes at polling locations, it seems to negate the requirement for video surveillance at these locations.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
Sandy Kerry is an 8-yr Nassau County resident of Amelia Island – active in local politics – former City Council member in GA
Editor’s note: We asked Nassau County Supervisor of Elections Janet Adkins about some of the issues above and she told us:
Use of the ERIC system is mandated by the state legislature and is out of her hands. When I asked about the privacy issue brought up by Ms. Kerry, Ms. Adkins suggested that I contact the Secretary of State about that and the decision to utilize ERIC.
She never received a list of the 3700 names, but was given a list of 50, analyzed the first approx. 20, all of which she said were correct in department files, either being already classified ineligible or were military.
She ran out of time after that and asked me to send additional questions. We do thank Supervisor Adkins for taking he time to answer some of these questions in the midst of an election season going into high gear. Ballots were recently sent to the printer. Military ballots must very shortly be mailed, followed by general mail-in ballots by July 14, then early voting August 10-20, and of course the primary on August 23, then the general election in November, then counting, reconciliation, certification and endless questions from pesky reporters and the public.
We also asked the author, Sandy Kerry, about the challenge of the 3700 voter registrations. She replied that True the Vote lists and criteria were used and that duplicate registrations found anywhere in the nation was one of the main selection points.. She said the info that Adkins initially showed her did not show the military designations, nor did the True the Vote lists. She added that Scott from IT went out of the room to check this somewhere else.
Regarding the supervised voting, Ms. Kerry is still trying to get the final schedule, so that she can provide independent election observers, which is allowed for under FL state law.
Finally, on the ballot drop boxes, she marveled that they would be placed specifically where video surveillance couldn’t be done by law- at polling places. She believes that would be more effective than trying to use polling place employees to watch the boxes.
News
By Doug Miller
Fernandina Beach, July 5, 2022
Filed Nassau County candidate for School District 5, Ashley Benoit, is left out in the cold and is no longer a candidate. She told Citizens Journal Florida (CJF) that she was informed by Supervisor of Elections Janet Adkins on June 14th that she was deemed ineligible to run due to the December 2021 redistricting, (which placed her home in a new district), even though she claims her application was submitted successfully two months ago. She further maintains that the maps had not yet been updated at that time.
Ms. Adkins has a very different story, which appears in its entirety later in this article. Her response also contains much useful information about filing to run for office.
Ms. Benoit said in a phone interview with CJF that she went in person to the Supervisor of Elections office on April 18th, reviewed the district maps with Caitlin Tompkins and that all seemed to be in order, i.e., she was within the new district boundary. She stated that she joked at the time that “she hoped she would not be bumped from her district” ( like Jaime Deonas being moved from district 3 to district 1).
Ironically the new district line leaves her out by a mere 200 feet- she can look across Old Dixie Highway and see district 5.
Supervisor of Elections Janet Adkins responded to the allegations that the district maps were not updated in time, and said that since the December redistricting, they had adhered to standard procedure and informed the public via social media and the Supervisor of Elections website and began updating by March 2022 .
When asked directly if the maps in the office of the Supervisor of Elections were updated as of April 18th, Ms. Adkins replied that they were. She further stated that although she felt bad for Ms. Benoit, that it was “incumbent upon the candidate to perform due diligence” as to whether she was in the district for which she was running.
In an email from Janet Adkins to Ashley Benoit, the information seemingly contradicts what CJF was told (see below), as far as the time frame of the map update, and states that the updates began in early May. (below):
Meanwhile, there were originally other candidates who wanted to run against the incumbent in District 5, too, per Benoit. Benoit said she didn’t know this initially, but heard afterward that they dropped out to clear the field because they thought she had a better chance to win. Now they are out in the cold, too, leaving no opposition at all for the incumbent.
Ms. Benoit told us that she received a call from Supervisor Adkins 1/2 hour before their scheduled interview on June 14. She added that Adkins told her that she woke up that morning with a feeling that she should have her assistant, Maria, audit the candidacy and discovered that Adkins now lived out of the district. Adkins vehemently denied that in a phone call with Citizens Journal’s Publisher.
In response to Adkins’ statement that candidates are responsible for due diligence, Benoit said that it was her understanding that the maps were to be updated last December, 2021, that she thought she was working with current maps in the election office and that no one told her that updates would be delayed so long.
She believes that Adkins’ email was a concession that she hadn’t done everything right.
We told Ms. Benoit that the new map on the web site had a May 2022 date (see featured image of map) and asked her what was the date on the map she saw. She said that she did not notice a date on the map. Adkins told Citizens Journal on July 5 that a map was indeed published on their web site in May, but the lines were the same as in December.
Benoit also said that there is no evidence that this was done to foil her candidacy, but “there a lot of coincidences in this whole matter” and that “it just doesn’t smell right.” “They took every single day from me for nine weeks.” “If I knew about this earlier, I would have saved a lot of money, time and effort poured into the campaign.” “It takes all of your time.”
She closed with: “if I ever run again, I will make them tell me everything- what, when, how, etc.”
All candidates were provided an equal opportunity to present qualifying papers. Our office qualified 35 candidates during the qualifying period of June 13 – June 17.
Candidates do not submit an application to run for office. The term “application” implies an approval process and does not accurately describe the candidate filing process. Florida Statute 105.031(5) details the items required to be filed for a school board candidate. These items include
1) A properly executed check drawn upon the candidate’s campaign account in an amount not less than the fee required by subsection (3) or, in lieu thereof, the copy of the notice of obtaining ballot position pursuant to s. 105.035. (Petition process of qualifying for certain judicial offices and the office of school board member).
2) The candidate’s oath required by subsection (4), which must contain the name of the candidate as it is to appear on the ballot; the office sought, including the district or group number if applicable; and the signature of the candidate, duly acknowledged.
3) The loyalty oath required by s. 876.05, signed by the candidate and duly acknowledged.
4) The completed form for the appointment of campaign treasurer and designation of campaign depository, as required by s. 106.021.
5) The full and public disclosure of financial interests required by s. 8, Art. II of the State Constitution or the statement of financial interests required by s. 112.3145, whichever is applicable.
Candidates for the office of school board member shall qualify no earlier than noon of the 71st day, and no later than noon on the 67th day before the primary election. (June 13, Noon – June17, Noon). This is based on F.S. 105.031(1).
Additionally, candidates are allowed 14 additional days to pre-qualify as referenced in F.S. 105.031(6) which states, “a filing officer may accept and hold qualifying papers submitted not earlier than 14 days prior to the beginning of the qualifying period, to be processed and filed during the qualifying period.”
F.S. 105.035 details the petition process for obtaining ballot position.
F.S. 105.035(3) states, “Each candidate for election to a judicial office or the office of school board member shall obtain the signature of a number of qualified electors equal to at least 1 percent of the total number of registered electors of the district, circuit, county, or other geographic entity represented by the office sought as shown by the compilation by the Department of State for the last preceding general election. Signatures may not be obtained until the candidate has filed the appointment of campaign treasurer and designation of campaign depository pursuant to s. 106.021.”
105.035(4)(a) states, “Each petition shall be submitted, prior to noon of the 28th day preceding the first day of the qualifying period for the office sought, to the supervisor of elections of the county for which such petition was circulated.”
As shown on our Candidate Fact Sheet (attached), a school board candidate must submit 722 valid petitions no later than noon, May 16, or pay a qualifying fee of $1,381.84.
It is not our practice to review district maps with candidates at the time of filing. In speaking with our staff member, Caitlyn Tompkins, this statement is false. None of our staff members have recollection of any joking conversation regarding being bumped from a district.
Benoit resp.: They may not “recall” but the conversation happened. I distinctly remember us specifically discussing Jamie Deonas being moved from District three to District One and how inconvenient that was.
I am unaware of any allegations regarding our office. No statement was made regarding waking up in the morning with a feeling. This is a false statement.
Our office is aware of no other candidates for District 5 School Board Member, other than the two who submitted paperwork.
Benoit resp.: I never said the SOE knew of any candidate, I stated I was told by others in the political arena that there was a third party interested in running and they decided not to due to my odds against the incumbent
It is the practice of our office to audit all candidate files at the time of qualifying and to notify candidates of any concerns. This practice is based on the Supervisor’s Handbook on Candidate Qualifying published by the Florida Division of Elections, which states, “In determining whether a candidate is qualified, the qualifying officer shall review the qualifying papers to determine whether all items required have been properly filed and whether each item is complete on its face including whether items that must be verified have been properly verified pursuant to Section 92.515(1)(a), Florida Statutes.”
The email was not a concession, but a response to the candidate’s email and public records request.
Benoit resp.: My response to this is that it is simply odd that on one hand Ms. Adkins says she didn’t say that she decided to audit my file, and then state that it is common to audit them at the time of qualifying. It’s also interesting that she has stated they do not inquire or investigate where people live but this statement above contradicts it.
At all times, it is the responsibility of the courts to determine the eligibility of candidates, not the Supervisor of Elections. This was communicated to the candidate and is statutorily mandated ins. 99.061(7)( c).
“The filing officer performs a ministerial function in reviewing qualifying papers. In
determining whether a candidate is qualified, the filing officer shall review the qualifying papers to determine whether all items required by paragraph (a) have been properly filed and whether each item is complete on its face, including whether items that must be verified have been properly verified pursuant to s. 92.525(1)(a). The filing officer may not determine whether the contents of the qualifying papers are accurate.”
When evaluating if residency requirements are met, our office refers to the Supervisor’s Handbook on Candidate Qualifying which states,
“Ultimately, whether a candidate or office holder is a resident is a determination for a court and not for a qualifying officer. A key element of residency is the intent of the individual. No single piece of evidence is decisive in determining residency. A person’s legal residence is wherever a person intends to make a permanent domicile, which can be factually supported. Examples of evidence that may be considered in determining whether legal residency has been established include drivers’ license, tax receipts, bank accounts, homestead exemption documents, the relocation of personal effects, and the purchase or rental of property.”
The Florida Division of Elections has published DE Reference Guide 0008, Guidelines for Determining When Residency Qualifications for Elected Office Must be Met (attached). While the timeline for meeting residency requirements varies by the office sought, this reference guide states that school board members must meet residency requirements at the time of qualifying and cites Florida Statutes 1001.34 and 1001.361.
The information provided by our office regarding maps is consistent. The process of redistricting is long and complex; and one must differentiate between district maps, precinct maps and precinct tables.
Benoit resp.: Mrs. Adkins specifically told me “your precinct has changed moving you outside of the district.”
It is important to note that our office can only begin implementing district lines once ALL agencies have adopted their lines. This includes any resolution of litigation dealing with the state house, senate, or congressional lines. (The congressional district lines were finalized on April 21, 2022.)
The district map was adopted by the Board of County Commissioners in December 2021. Prior to the adoption, a website was published, and hearings were held to solicit public input.
Our office published a post on our social media platforms on December 2, 2021, advising that the BOCC would be adopting new district lines on December 13. We advised voters they could view their current district by visiting our website and that they could view the redistricted plans for Nassau County on the county’s website.
Florida Statute provides the Nassau County School Board the option of drawing its own district lines. The Nassau County School Board adopted Resolution 1354 on December 9, 2021, where they determined that school board district lines would be congruent with BOCC district lines.
Upon adoption of the district map by the Board of County Commissioners, the map was sent to our vendor to convert the data and prepare it so that precinct lines could be drawn. This process took place between January and March.
In early April, we posted the “option 3” district map (adopted by the Board of County Commissioners (BOCC) on December 13, 2021) to our website showing the newly adopted district lines. (As a cost-savings matter, our office works with the Property Appraiser’s Office regarding the production printing of maps.) The “option 3” district map was replaced with the May 2022 district map as soon as we received it from the Property Appraiser’s office.
Our office presented the proposed precinct lines to the Board of County Commissioners on May 9, 2022. Upon their approval, our office posted the revised precinct map on our website in early May. BOCC approval of the precinct map also allowed us to update the precinct table in our voter registration database. This process took place on May 15.
Benoit resp.: The interesting factor is when were the maps updated on the SOE’s website. They were not correct on 4/18.
Upon updating the voter registration database, all Nassau County voters were mailed a new voter information card on May 31 showing their new precinct number and polling location.
Our office strives to communicate with all Nassau County voters through our website and social media outlets:
May 10, 2022: Post on social media regarding the BOCC approval of precinct lines.
May 31, 2022: Post on social media regarding the new voter information cards.
June 3, 2022: Post on social media regarding the district lines for Districts 4 and 5. This post was in response to several calls that our office received from voters
questioning why they were now in district 4 when traditionally they had
been in district 5, Callahan.
Each of these posts can be viewed from our homepage at www.VoteNassauFL.gov.
Doug Miller, Citizen reporter, is an itinerant free spirit and jack of all trades. Born in New York and raised in Puerto Rico, he now operates Quality Home Services in Fernandina Beach and dreams of the next hurricane swell.
Politics
By George Miller
7-2-22
From various sources
After insisting for over two years that the COVID-19 virus did not originate from a lab and that it was a wacko “conspiracy theory,” the establishment power structure has been starting to reconsider it. The latest sign is Congress planning on banning funding of labs in “adversary” countries, like China, Russia, North Korea and Iran. But what about places like the Ukraine? Funny, we don’t remember seeing this first in “Mainstream Media” sources. Just the News seems to have broken the story:
With little fanfare and in bipartisan fashion, House appropriators quietly amended the 2023 federal budget for health and science agencies on Thursday to ban any funding to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which U.S. intelligence fears may have been the origin point for the coronavirus pandemic, and other labs like it…. Read MORE in Just the News.
But, some caveats:
1. As far as we know, the bill, with amendments, still hasn’t passed.
2. Also, among the amendments, by Rep. DeLauro (Chair) are provisions for funding to non-elected regional government councils.
3. In addition, an amendment was accepted that encourages still more money to be spent on public health information, which in the recent past has included disputed government propaganda via advertising in local news media.
4. An amendment by Rep. Tom Cole to delete additional funding for some abortions was blocked.
5. An amendment by Rep. Rep. Barbara Lee to strengthen medication abortion care was adopted.
6. An amendment by Rep. Moolenaar to block funding to require or enforce COVID “vaccination” was blocked.
7. An amendment by Rep Cline to block funding to declare gun violence as a health emergency was blocked.
So they don’t have to pass the bill so you can see what’s in it
News articles rarely list the actual bill, so Citizens Journal looked it up for you. All this is related to the Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Services Appropriations Bill- Fiscal Year 2023- Full Markup
Read the bill summary: https://appropriations.house.gov/news/press-releases/appropriations-committee-releases-fiscal-year-2023-labor-health-and-human
Read the full bill text(no number assigned yet): https://docs.house.gov/meetings/AP/AP07/20220623/114920/BILLS-117–AP–LaborHHS.pdf
George Miller is Publisher and Co-Founder of Citizens Journal Florida, based in Fernandina Beach. He is a “retired” operations management consultant, software and publishing executive and manufacturing management professional.
Feature
by Tom Lockie
07-01-22
As we all enjoy celebrating the birth of our nation, it’s a good time to reflect on the sacrifices made along the way to insure our freedom. For as we all know, “Freedom isn’t free”.
How It All Began
In the sweltering summer heat of 1776, 56 brave men defied British rule and signed their names to the Declaration of Independence. This document became our nation’s birth certificate. Much has been made of the demise of those 56, but further research has debunked as fiction the myths handed down through the ages. True, some of the 56 were devastated by family tragedies, bankruptcies, disease, and just plain bad luck. Most came through unscathed, yet all felt at great personal risk until the war’s end.
Happy August 2nd Instead……Wait, What?
Funny thing about history over the years—it’s been scrubbed, spit-shined, and unfortunately dumbed-down, for a plethora of reasons.
The idea of a Declaration of Independence was conceived on June 7, 1776 by Richard Henry Lee of Virginia. Heated debate ensued, with the Continental Congress doing what we’ve all become familiar with—they postponed the vote until July. A committee was formed (sound familiar?) and given the task of writing the document.
The committee consisted of Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Robert Livingston, and Roger Sherman. In the end, Jefferson carried most of the water. Debate began at the end of June, and by July 1st only nine colonies supported the document. By the time a vote was taken on July 2nd, twelve of the thirteen colonies voted in favor, with New York abstaining due to waiting for “permission to vote yes”. The document was adopted on July 4th, but only 2 men signed that day—John Hancock and Charles Thomson. Finally, by August 2, 1776, most of the fifty-six had signed the document. The last signer didn’t pen his name to the document until 1781! With the date July 4, 1776 emblazoned across the top of the document, July 4th stuck as the “official” date.
Our republic was built by several noteworthy documents and wars and by many patriots. Whether or not each knew ahead of time, their life’s work became forging a republic, often facing fractured elements across the land.
Important Historical Documents
Many historical documents have molded our nation besides the Declaration of Independence. Each has a backdrop of turmoil, strife, and untold personal sacrifice woven into its passage. These include:
The Constitution (1791), often called the Bill of Rights
The Louisiana Purchase (1803)
The Emancipation Proclamation (1863)
Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) brought with it the official end of slavery
The 15th and 19th Amendments to the Constitution (1870 and 1920 respectively) gave most Americans the right to vote
The Social Security Act (1935)
The Serviceman’s Readjustment Act (1944), better known as the GI Bill, ushered in the economic boom of the 1950’s
Brown v. Board of Education (1954) made segregation unconstitutional
The Civil Rights Act (1964)
Wars Molding America
We cannot consider the shaping of America without considering the wars we’ve found ourselves in, whether by choice or not. These include:
The American Revolution (1775-1783) ~ 31,000 “Americans” lost their lives
More than 12 major Indian wars (1776-1924)
The Quasi War (1798-1800) brought the end of French privateering on American merchant shipping
The Barbary Wars (1801-1805 and 1815) brought to an end privateering of American merchant shipping in the Mediterranean
The War of 1812 (1812-1815) stopped the British military invasion of America ~ 15,000 Americans lost their lives
The Texas Revolution (1835-1836) created an independent Texas and led to its subsequent annexation by America in 1845
The Mexican American War (1846-1848) allowed America to annex Texas and California ~ 13,283 Americans lost their lives
The Civil War (1861-1865) ~ 655,000 total lives lost on both sides
The Spanish-American War (1898) ~ 2,446 American lives lost
World War I (1917-1918) ~ 116,516 Americans lost
World War II (1941-1945) ~ 405,399 Americans lost
The Korean War (1950-1953) ~ 36,516 American lives lost
The Vietnam War (1955-1975) ~ 58,220 American lives lost
The Gulf Wars (1990-1991 and 1991-2003) ~ 148 Americans lost
Wars in Bosnia, Croatia, and Kosovo (1992-1995 and 1988-1989) ~ 30 Americans lost
The Post 9-11 War on Terror (including Afghanistan and Iraq 2001-2022) ~ 7,075 Americans lost
A Pause for Reflection
Yes, it’s a long list of human strife and the numbers of those who made the ultimate sacrifice are staggering. 1,340,597—let that sink in. This list doesn’t include the numerous other wars, campaigns, skirmishes and black ops our nation has been involved in over the last 246 years, since before the Declaration of Independence was signed. Don’t construe this as a political statement; it’s just math.
One thing’s for sure, our country has faced some enormous challenges over the years and will continue to do so. The common thread is the resilience of the American people, be they soldier, sailor, flyer, patriot, citizen-soldier, farmer, or caregiver. Our democracy is a messy and beautiful thing. It’s both the envy and pariah of many a nation. I’ll take it any day over the various forms of government existing today, from hideous to exemplary.
So as you fire up the grill over the holiday weekend, take a moment before those burgers and dogs start to burn and think about what it means to be an American and all it has taken to get us where we stand today. It has been a long road, and by the grace of God and the combined efforts of every citizen, we will persevere. Look around and reconnect with your neighbor, be they Democrat or Republican, for as the saying goes—united we stand, divided we fall. And by all means, let’s remember that, truly, “Freedom isn’t free”.
Sources
https://online.norwich.edu/academic-programs/resources/10-important-documents-of-american-history
“Signing Their Lives Away” by Denise Kiernan and Joseph D’Agnese
The United States Air Force Academy History Department – for their training, mentoring, and for conferring on me a Bachelor of Sciences degree in Military History
Tom Lockie is the Transportation and Travel Editor for the Citizens Journal Florida. A veteran and recently retired airline Captain, Tom considers aviation and travel his ongoing passions . Tom is a published author, featured in the USA Today for his children’s book “Come Fly with Me“.
Click to Subscribe to Citizens Journal FL Free Email Bulletins, Please Donate to Keep Us Publishing.
Opinion
By Jeff Childers
| Jeff ChildersJul 2 |
Good morning, and Happy Saturday, C&C! As we head into a patriotic Fourth of July weekend, I have a terrific roundup for you: Florida’s Surgeon general battles the House Covid Committee; new civics curriculum in Florida; ACHA pans trans drugs and surgeries for kids; sudden and unexpected athlete deaths; Biden says gas prices will stay up as long as it takes to create a new world order; covid rages back in Australia and UK prompting talks of masks and lockdowns; an epic rant; NATO invited Finland and Sweden to join; and Russia makes alarming accusations about U.S. biolabs and promises a blockbuster report just in time for the elections.
🪖 Note that C&C will be largely closed next week, apart from some possible quick updates, as I will be completely absorbed in a week-long jury trial. But I’ll catch up with you guys on the other side, I promise!
🔥 Florida’s Surgeon General Joe Ladapo responded to some lame criticism from the House Covid Oversight Committee yesterday in a letter released to the public. Apparently the House Oversight Committee wanted to meet on June 28th, after which the members said a bunch of dumb stuff about Florida being reckless and so forth. So Dr. Ladapo wrote them a letter.
After clarifying that Florida has NEVER interfered with doctors’ ability to order jabs for small children, he explained why Florida recommends AGAINST vaccinating kids under 5, based on THE SCIENCE:
The House Committee responded to Ladapo’s letter later in the day, doubling down, accusing Florida of preventing people from getting jabs, and calling Florida “dangerous” and “anti-vax:”
Note the Committee did not respond to Dr. Ladapo’s invitation to produce FACTS and SCIENCE. They just want you to trust them. I guess the Committee knows better than SURGEON GENERAL Ladapo about what kinds of experimental drugs to inject into your baby, who hasn’t learned English yet and can’t tell you whether he’s having chest pains or not. Makes sense.
House Covid Oversight Committee Chair James Clyburn, 81:
Clyburn is running for re-election in November, despite that he’ll be 82, and despite the fact that he’s hogged the same South Carolina seat for thirty years now. Plucky Republican lawyer Duke Buckner has agreed to run against the Democrat heavyweight. Watch this short video on Duke’s website: https://www.voteforduke.com/bio.
#UnofficialMultiplier
💉 Some members of the FDA’s vaccine advisory panel meeting expressed concerns that if they approved the drugs for kids, those approvals would soon morph into mandates. Donkey-like corporate media experts brayed in hilarity at those naive concerns. But of course, it’s already happened.
New York City’s Mayor Eric Adams announced this week he plans to mandate covid vaccines for school kids.
In response to a reporter’s question, Adams admitted that yes, the vaccines WILL be mandatory, and that he and his team are still “meeting and discussing” and trying to come up with the “best way to do it.”
Well. The best way to do it is to NOT do it. But I doubt they’re considering that option.
I predict even more population shifts between New York City and Florida. NYC people, you’re welcome to move here but please: first stop voting for psychopathic, anti-scientific morons.
🔥 Meanwhile, Governor DeSantis announced new civics curriculum in Florida that instead of running down the U.S., celebrates our country and teaches kids about how government actually works. Watch this video from a school teacher happy about the new curriculum, especially when he talks about where ‘rights’ come from, and how he handles sharing his political opinions in class:
David Reaboi, Late Republic Nonsense @davereaboiWatch 7th Grade Civics teacher @AbeLopezFL talk about Florida’s new, pro-freedom, pro-American K-12 curriculum. And follow him. July 1st 2022102 Retweets319 Likes
Civics education is critical to enable free citizens to govern themselves. For some reason, it seems like some people prefer kids don’t know anything at all about how the government works. Weird.
🔥 Earlier this month, Florida’s Agency for Healthcare Administration issued a press release announcing Florida is withdrawing Medicare support for “transitioning” drugs and surgeries for kids, based on THE SCIENCE:
Oddly, the corporate media does not seem so interested in “the science” when it comes to these topics.
💉 Atlanta Braves PA announcer Casey Motter, 53, died in his sleep on Wednesday, the team announced on the its Twitter page Thursday afternoon. No cause of death was announced.
💉 Malaysian athlete Stephanie Sim Shu, 19, an up-and-coming air-pistol shooter expected to earn a medal at the upcoming 2022 Sukma Games in Kuala Lumpur, died suddenly after suffering a stroke last week.
💉 Former cyclist and national coach Jack Schiavone, 52, passed away last Sunday, leaving the citizens of Malta in mourning. Schiavone “died suddenly” of undisclosed causes.
🔥 The Biden Administration is in it to win it, no matter the cost. You have to hand it to them. Bloomberg reported this week that Joe says we should be thanking him for our high gas prices, because Putin:
Later, in a live on-air interview, a Biden official explained WHY ordinary Americans should sacrifice for Ukraine: it’s for the “future of the Liberal World Order.” I am not making that up.
The only thing is left out was the word, “new,” which I think is implied anyway. Here’s the transcript:
CNN: “What do you say to those families that say, ‘listen, we can’t afford to pay $4.85 a gallon for months, if not years?’”
BIDEN ADVISOR BRIAN DEESE: “This is about the future of the Liberal World Order and we have to stand firm.”
The receipts:
Breaking911 @Breaking911CNN: “What do you say to those families that say, ‘listen, we can’t afford to pay $4.85 a gallon for months, if not years?’” BIDEN ADVISOR BRIAN DEESE: “This is about the future of the Liberal World Order and we have to stand firm.” July 1st 202215,668 Retweets28,798 Likes
💉 Down under, in one of the most jabbed countries in the world (93%), covid is back. Again. A telling article from the Sydney news yesterday was headlined, “Top Doctor Signals Return of Masks as Covid Cases Surge.”
How could this happen?
Australia, on the other side of the globe, is in its winter now. It is having a massive winter wave, and vaccines apparently aren’t stopping it at all. Queensland alone recorded 5,313 new cases yesterday and six deaths. Queensland’s chief health officer Dr. John Gerrard said new covid strains are evading natural immunity and the vaccines.
Who could have seen this coming?
In fact, at fifty deaths per day, covid is now the LEADING cause of death in Australia — even above heart disease and cancer — and the trend is going UP. You might say it’s skyrocketing. The experts, baffled.
It’s bad, and it’s getting worse. The top covid doc explained the current wave of covid cases were going to “get significantly worse in the coming weeks.” A dark winter!
It’s not just Australia. Britain has it now, too.
The UK’s Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, refused to rule out another lockdown yesterday as covid cases also surged in Britain. Apparently, one in 40 people – 1.3 million folks – had the virus in Britain LAST WEEK. Speaking in an interview at the NATO summit in Madrid, Johnson allowed that, while a new lockdown was unlikely, it would be “irresponsible” to rule it out.
Wait. I thought we’ve established now that lockdowns failed to stop the spread. Did the lockdowns work, or not? Why is Johnson even considering lockdowns? What am I missing?
But unlike Australia, Britain is in its summer. What’s going on in Australia and Britain?
🔥 I feel a lot of sympathy for this hardcore democrat who is so sick and tired of unwanted text messages soliciting political donations that he made this epic online rant: (warning, adult language)
Ultra Jeff @RidinRoadsTXI actually like this guy. He’s a liberal. And I like him. June 29th 20227,485 Retweets33,857 Likes
🚀 On Wednesday, the U.S. formally invited Finland and Sweden to join NATO. Vladimir Putin responded yesterday saying that Russia and Belarus would accelerate “unification,” and threatening to respond in kind if military infrastructure or NATO troops are placed in the two Nordic countries.
Meanwhile, NATO began polishing its rubber stamp.
🚀 It is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to find any corporate media reports about what Russian government officials are saying about pretty much anything. I get that they lie a lot, but do they lie any more often than our own government officials do? Just like the Russians living in the old Soviet Union, Americans are getting pretty good at this point at automatically distrusting whatever narrative the government is peddling today.
I say let us hear it all, and then WE will decide. We’re adults and free citizens living in a democracy. We don’t need the government to screen out potentially dangerous information.
Anyway, because they ARE screening out the Russians, I have to rely on non-traditional sources. My promise to you is I test them every way I can, to determine reliability, but I cannot guarantee anything.
The information for this update comes from the guy who first figured out that the Russians were targeting US Biolabs in Ukraine by noticing the patterns of artillery fire on the map. That was back when the US government stupidly denied there even were any biolabs in Ukraine, even though the information was easily found on archives of our Ukrainian embassy’s website.
Ultimately Tucker carried the story, and the government and corporate media were forced to admit the biolabs exist. But only for peaceful purposes, of course.
According to the same guy who figured out the Russians were shooting up U.S. biolabs in Ukraine, Irina Yarovaya, Deputy Chairwoman of Russia’s State Duma, reported on US biolabs this week to the Duma (Russia’s congress). The first and most significant thing she said was that Russia is building a case, a “dossier,” against the U.S., allegedly featuring heavy Democrat involvement in illegal weapons research, and plans to release the report in August. Right before midterms.
Specifically, Yarovaya said “The Commission is forming a dossier in order to systematize cases of criminal activities and qualify them and will be ready to present a final report in Autumn.”
Hahahahaha! That’s the same month that the Democrats plan to release the novel version of their January 6th show! Everybody’s trying to influence the elections.
She also told the Duma that the Ukraine war — the “special military operation” — was justified to put a stop to the “Pentagon’s dangerous military-biological activities on the territory of Ukraine.” She reported that Russian investigators found specific evidence in Ukraine of illegal U.S. bioweapons research, including one colorful project where counterfeit bills would be intentionally “infected with a very dangerous, highly pathogenic strain of Asian tuberculosis.”
I wish I could say I didn’t believe a word of it.
She also reported that the “veterinary lab” in Mariupol, Ukraine, was discovered to be hosting super-non-veterinary germs like “typhoid fever, paratyphoid fever, perfringens. And 124 other seized strains are being studied by specialists.”
(FYI, clostridium perfringens is one of the most common causes of human food poisoning in the U.S.)
Yarovaya also claimed Russian investigators discovered “documents that were seized by the Ministry of Defense showing that dangerous experiments were conducted on Ukrainian servicemen,” allegedly killing them within 72 hours.
The U.S. government is responding to these allegations by canceling Russia. Maybe it’s no wonder the Biden Administration is spending so much effort and energy on its “disinformation board.” We thought it was all about covid and ivermectin and stuff. But what if it was REALLY about Ukraine the whole time? Maybe what they are really doing is trying to get ahead of Russian disclosures about their dirty little science experiments?
Remember bizarro-world Mary Poppins, the kooky young lady they first hired to run their new cancellation board? Her super-thin resume included working for that failed technopop actor Zelenskyy — in Ukraine. Get it?
Maybe her hiring wasn’t such a bizarre choice after all? Maybe it’s not a disinformation board at all. Maybe it’s really an anti-biolab information board.
Anyway. You know what would be a whole lot easier and more effective than creating a giant disinformation board to cancel Russia to stop Americans from wrongthinking? OPEN THE BOOKS. Just release all the information about those peaceful, non-military, veterinary labs we’ve built in poor countries to keep everyone safe. Be transparent.
Someone once said the truth would set you free, or something like that. Try it, just once. See if it works.
🇺🇸 And finally, I hope you all have a patriotic and joyful Fourth of July!
Have a super Saturday, and I’ll see you in a week! (But maybe I’ll sneak in a little something for you here and there, you never know.) Be well.
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The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
News
Nassau Now (a county publication)
7-1-22, Fernandina Beach
Nassau County Fire-Rescue 3101 and the Fernandina Beach Fire Department responded to a ship fire at the port late Sunday evening. 35 firefighters battled the fire for approximately four hours until it was determined to be under control. Approximately two hours later, it was finally out.
The reason for the fire is currently unknown but is under investigation by the US Coastguard’s Investigations Division. No civilians were injured however one NCFR firefighter was transported to Baptist Hospital with non-life threatening injuries.
Through interlocal agreements, the City and County are able to jointly respond to incidents requiring greater resources. We appreciate this partnership and the ability to better serve the residents of Nassau County.
Source:
Politics
By George Miller
7-1-22, Fernandina Beach
Prominent local supporters held a fundraiser this week for Florida District 4 US House candidate Senator Aaron Bean, who is currently the President Pro Tempore and a 2-termer in the Florida Senate.
He is a former 2-term State Assembly member and Mayor/Commissioner of Fernandina Beach, as well as a former bank president and golf course manager. But, he says he’s not a “career politician,” since he has done the latter things and also trades options and sells insurance. According to his campaign web site, he has worked for UF Health Jacksonville for 13 years in development. Florida Legislative jobs don’t pay exceedingly well.
The by-invitation event was held at real estate executive Steve Simmons and his wife Pam’s home on the bluffs at Egans Creek in Fernandina Beach. It appeared to be just as much a networking gathering of like-minded patriotic Citizens as a money-raising event.
Introduction
Not content to merely be a host, Simmons made a stirring introductory speech that invoked the shared values of the group with Bean. There was no doubt that these are somewhat Conservative Republican principles and objectives. He also stressed what he said was Bean’s history of principled beliefs and actions being something they could trust and support him to continue to carry out on the new playing field of the U.S. Congress. Finally, he stressed the urgency of putting many representatives like Bean in office to take strong actions to reverse the terrible things being done to our country.
Simmons sees this an effort which may not bloom until the next generation, but needs to start very soon to have any chance of success. “We might never reap the benefits, but our children will,” he announced. He is dismayed about people who say “nothing can be done” and “won’t even vote” and wants to propel Bean to higher office and motivate the public to engage.
Political pundits of every stripe are predicting a massive change in Congress this year in favor of the Republicans, but Democrats are doing everything possible to reverse or at least slow down the “red tide” forecasted.
Aaron Bean Speech
Bean first saluted and thanked his supporters orally and in the event invitation, which highlighted hosts the Simmons, as well as Bill & Belinda Agricola, Dr. John & Linda McClane, Bill & Chris Bryan, Jay & Ginger Mock, Hayward & Ginny Burnet, Ralph & Aleesa Williams, along with Bill & Gail Greeson. Local leaders like Pastor Zach Terry of First Baptist Church Fernandina were also present, 42 in total.
Bean has clearly hitched his wagon, at least rhetorically, to Governor Ron DeSantis, who he thinks very highly of and described as “one of the great leaders of a lifetime.”
He touted the victory of getting the election redistricted maps approved and through court challenges. He rejoiced over the passage of the fair elections bill, which addresses abuses of ballot harvesting and establishes an election integrity force and more.
He is glad that legislation passed to “empower parents to say no to objectionable teaching.’ He said “they should stick to reading, writing,” etc.
Bean said he’s “a defender of the 2nd Amendment … wants people to be able to defend themselves and bad guys held accountable.”
Bean was very happy and proud about legislative progress partnering with DeSantis on things like pork from the state coffers for Nassau County including Hwy A1A past and proposed improvements, bike paths, trails and more. Our very new publication already gets a constant stream of press releases about state funding coming into Nassau and Duval Counties, which DeSantis recently described as “where people want to be.”
He also brought up major problems to be addressed, such as:
When we asked him if January 6 (2021) was an “insurrection”, he wouldn’t answer, laughed it off and ended the Q&A session.
This session was not about finding new voters, but rather cementing/reinforcing for the faithful what he can do and raising campaign money.
More Difficult Than Previous Campaigns
Bean told the crowd that no one from Nassau County has ever been elected to Congress, that this is a brand new district (the census results gave Florida a new Congressional seat- this is it) encompassing portions of three counties: Nassau, Duval and Clay. The sheer size and population of this district and unfamiliarity with Bean to much of that population presents a campaigning task to reach many more people. This involves much TV and social media to reach the voters and make them familiar with Bean as a candidate and a man and the issues.
This is much more expensive than “retail politics” of many smaller events involving talking to voters and “pressing the flesh,” which they must also do. He seemed a bit uncomfortable with the scale of fundraising required to do all of this successfully, but said he has immersed himself and campaign team to do this on the advice of his previously successful advisors/campaign team.
Endorsements
Bean claims to have about 78 former and current officials endorsing him, with more coming on board. It was apparent that most at the event strongly supported him, with some being friends and neighbors who weren’t so politically attenuated.
Sponsor Aleesa Williams testified to a small group present that Bean “gives back to the community,” “born and bred here,” “was high school valedictorian” and more.
Debbie Burford described him as “a Christian man with Christian values”- a man of his word.
Susan Devanne told us that “if he (Bean) is running for anything, anywhere, I will vote for him”. She added that “politics informs policies, but character drives them.”
Election Analysis
This is a crowded race with six candidates still running- three Republicans, two Democrats and an independent. “Experts” say that it will likely go to Republicans, which would make it mainly a primary race, with all Republican candidates claiming to be “Conservative.” So, it really boils down to who really is, what their skills- personal, managerial, integrity, are- and their strengths in campaigning, fund-raising and connections. Bean is looking strong.
Bean asked for attendees’ support and donations to help his campaign be a winning one. Because only 8 weeks until the primary and 4 weeks before mail in ballots go out remain, he appealed for funding right now https://aaronbean.com/
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George Miller is Publisher and Co-Founder of Citizens Journal Florida, based in Fernandina Beach. He is a “retired” operations management consultant, software and publishing executive and manufacturing management professional.
Opinion
By Dave Scott
07-01-22
A wildly woke training video featuring two rainbow-clad U.S. Navy sailors explaining how to create a “safe space” by using “proper gender pronouns,” and “inclusive language” must have America’s foreign military adversaries roaring with laughter and gleefully rubbing their hands together.
The feedback in the U.S. from expected sources has been merciless, as it should be.
Retired Navy SEAL combat veteran and Texas Representative Dan Crenshaw tweeted: “Here’s an idea, fire everyone in the Navy who puts pronouns in their email signature and focus on how to be better at war. For God’s sake, stop this stupidity.”
In a video posted on Facebook and Instagram on Tuesday, June 21, Crenshaw added: “And look, side note: we already have inclusive language in the military. It’s called ranks. You can just call somebody a chief, or a petty officer or a captain or a lieutenant. Boom. Inclusive. Problem solved.”
Rob O’Neill, the Navy SEAL who killed Osama Bin Laden, echoed Crenshaw’s comments, calling the guidance “ridiculously useless. Let me make it simple for the entire @USNavy: Your pronouns are shipmate/shipmates. There. I just saved the taxpayers millions by avoiding ridiculously useless training. Anchors aweigh,” he tweeted.
In the absurd Navy video, Naval Undersea Warfare Center engineer Jony Rozon introduces himself by telling the viewer that he uses “he/him” pronouns. His co-host, engineer Conchy Vasquez, then says she uses “she/her” pronouns.
The video goes on to promote the use of “inclusive language” and being “allies,” as well as instruction on what to do if someone is “misgendered.”
When I was in the military the video would have been an instructive narrative on how to get a Section 8 and its producer treated for a mental illness, then dishonorably discharged…
***Things I Wish I’d Said: “Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfills the same function as pain in the human body. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things.” – Winston Churchill***
Nothing But One’s Here:
The overturn of Roe v. Wade has led to temper tantrums in the streets and on social media with scores of frantic activist women who didn’t get their way calling for abstinence in the form of a nationwide sex strike to protest the Supreme Court’s decision.
They’ve gone bonkers. The photos, and videos I’ve seen of these gals indicate that most of those calling for a “sex strike” are the ones the late Mickey Gilley was singing about in his iconic tune “Don’t All the Girls Get Prettier at Closing Time.”
However, after observing these gals there’s not enough whiskey in Texas to drink any of them anything close to pretty. Think Maxine Waters, Joy Behar, Wanda Sykes, Elizabeth Warren, Lori Lightfoot, or Lena Dunham. And after listening to their shrill screeds there’s nothing any drunk guy, no matter how toasted, would possibly find desirable. Abortion should not be an issue for anyone in this protesting crowd…
Caution! It’s Fernandina Budget Time:
Keen Fernandina Beach city observer Dr. Gerald Decker alerts us to the fact that the City Commission’s agreement to fund major pay/benefits increase for City employees will have a significant impact during the upcoming budget discussions.
“The increase was required to improve retention and be more competitive in hiring—all reasonable actions in the tight labor market caused by the Great Pandemic, “ points out Dr. Decker.
But he also warns that the consequences of this strategy will significantly increase personnel expenses—estimated at $2 million for this next year alone, thereby calling on Commissioners to minimize the impact on taxpayers…
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These are excerpts from infamous local Blogger Dave Scott’s weekly edition. Read the whole thing HERE AND SHARE
Veteran reporter, publicist and blogger Dave Scott of Fernandina Beach
http://www.davescottblog.com/about/
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
Feature
By Roy M Postel
06-30-22 Fernandina Beach
Looking for an inspirational book to enhance your summertime reading experience?
If you are among the top managers and city commissioners in Fernandina Beach the search is complete, thanks to City Manager Dale Martin. Earlier this month, Martin attended the annual meeting of the Florida City and County Managers Association.
“The presentation was intriguing and provoking,” Martin wrote of the meeting’s Keynote speaker, Canadian author Doug Griffiths. The title of his talk was 13 Ways to Kill Your Community. His remarks centered on stories taken from Griffiths’ book by the same title.
“I purchased eight copies of the book to share with the city commissioners and staff,” Martin revealed in a post last week on Fernandina Beach website.
Although unfamiliar with his work, Martin was impressed as Griffiths argued through anecdotes and wit that communities throughout the world have many common characteristics.
“Every community strongly desires to distinguish itself as exceptionally unique, but at its foundation…,” Martin writes, “Every community is extraordinarily common.”
The book is organized in a way that each chapter defines an aspect of community life, which if mismanaged, will become a flashpoint of contention and ultimate disfunction. There are 13 chapters, each titled with an issue and a warning to city government officials “Don’t…(insert issue here)” or trouble will ensue.
Here are some titles for our readers to contemplate:
The original edition of 13 Ways to Kill Your Community was published in 2010 and co-authored with Kelly Clemmer. The second edition in 2016 is now in paperback with contributions from Paul MacNeill.
Press Release– NASSAU FL CONSERVATIVES IN ACTION (NFCIA)- 6-1-22 Candidate Spotlight |
Click to Learn More About Emily Nunez
Welcome to our Candidate Spotlight Series. This is where we spotlight individual Nassau FL candidates who meet the deep conservative values of the NFCIA member.(Donations greatly appreciated! Thank you.)’
Nassau FL Conservatives In Action | Scott Rd, Amelia Island, FL 32034
OPINION
06-29-22
Good morning and Happy Wednesday, C&C! Today’s action-packed roundup includes: more great legal news from New York; random thoughts on incompetent government; the January 6th Show jumps the shark; sudden and unexpected celebrity deaths and illnesses; the long knives come out for Biden; Russia warns Finland and Sweden about NATO membership; and Russia targets US-linked biolabs in Armenia.
C&C Army donations continue trickling into Dr. McCullough’s Multiplier. Some comments from his donation page within the last 24 hours:
Our Army is amazing.
In another miraculous development Monday, New York’s Supreme Court struck down a new ordinance allowing non-citizens to vote in the Big Apple. The law would have added 800,000 new voters to the rolls, allowing resident non-citizens to vote for mayor, public advocate, city council, borough presidents, and school boards.
Justice Ralph Porzio wrote the decision, saying the law directly violated the New York State Constitution. “The New York State Constitution expressly states that CITIZENS meeting the age and residency requirements are entitled to register and vote in elections,” he explained.
The bill allowed non-citizens to register in political parties and vote in local elections as long as they were residents of New York City for at least 30 days and had a green card or a working visa. In other words, temporary foreign residents could vote in NYC elections. Makes sense. Mayor Eric Adams was on board, saying that while the new law might not be legal, green card holders should get the vote, because fairness.
Who cares about trifles like legality and constitutions anyway?
Thank God for the judicial branch. Am I right?
A highly-destructive myth about the U.S. government has been a permanent fixture of American politics for as long as I can remember. The myth, which seems mostly held by folks on the left, is that there is a bench of highly intelligent experts available to “help” a popular president who might be a little light in experience or, shall we say, intellectual heft. I call it the “hired expertise” theory of politics.
For example, President Obama’s pre-White House resume was a little on the thin side, having served only one term in the U.S. Senate and before that held a job as a paid political activist (“community organizer”). But that thin resume was no problem! He would just hire or appoint super-smart people with experience, and brainy subject-matter experts. That way his oratory and diversity strengths could shine, and any weaknesses would be erased by anonymous flocks of unaccountable administrators and skilled bureaucrats.
If Biden hasn’t shaken people of this myth, I don’t know what will.
The House January 6th Committee’s gala anti-Trump show jumped the shark yesterday when it aired its rescheduled blockbuster Episode 6.
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The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
Technology
Jason Winesburg
06-22-22
Peeling away the layers of machinery inside the wooden cabinet of the Mechanical Turk reveals ‘merely’ a man, a pearl ensconced within an artificial shell. The Mechanical Turk was an elaborate cabinet with a mannequin attached that posed as a chess-playing machine. Behind a screen of gears and gizmos, a human chess master huddled beneath the board, manipulating the pieces with a magnet. The illusion was convincing enough that it duped luminaries like Napoleon and Benjamin Franklin into believing they were matching wits with a thinking machine. However, the ‘artificial’ intelligence within was only artifice. Almost two centuries later, authentic chess-playing computers exist capable of beating all human grandmasters—not just as a fluke, but every time. Chess is a game of logic, though, and computers are nothing if not avatars of logic—not so, a man. Man is a thing of passions, driven by forces within to create. Surely, the Arts stands as a bastion for humanity. Enter OpenAI’s revolutionary DALLE-2 to challenge man’s dominance, at least in the realm of creating unique, high-quality artwork.
As the digit on its moniker implies, DALLE-2 is not the first of its kind, but it is the first to make the skeptic search wildly for the man inside the Mechanical Turk. DALLE-2 is an artificial-intelligence driven Application Programming Interface (API) that allows a business or end-user access to OpenAI’s mechanical magician; enter a few plain-English words in a text prompt, akin to typing a query into a search engine, and ten unique images return. These images are generated using an artificial intelligence technique that connects hundreds of millions of images to associated text descriptions, and compares these images mathematically to isolate the salient features when contrasted with other images (see a detailed description of the process here). What is so magical about DALLE-2 in comparison to previous AI image-generation ventures is that the images actually look good, to the point where the inattentive could easily mistake them for works by a real artist.
While OpenAI’s own site has plenty of images created by DALLE-2 and the powerful computers to which it connects, the skeptic would again assume that these are only cherry-picked examples of the best it has to offer. However, For real-world examples of DALLE-2 in action, the place to go is the DALLE-2 subreddit, where users blessed by OpenAI with a coveted invite post the best responses to their text prompts (user-created content, potentially NSFW). At the time of this writing, I see Darth Vader inserted into Grant Wood’s American Gothic, “Singing in the Rain” starring velociraptors, and the Statue of Liberty wearing a VR headset, among thousands of other prompts. As as user scrolls through these images, one after another, it begins to dawn that this is a transformative tech just beginning to surface, one that will devour entire fields of human endeavor, quickly and ruthlessly.
Potential early uses are both mundane and profound. Royalty-free stock photographs of just about anything will be generated with ease. Authors will be able to illustrate their works painlessly. Game designers will be able to use this tool to make their vision come to life. Musicians will be able to create album covers. Human artists will use the digitally generated artwork as a base, cleaning up the images and adding detail, speeding the pace of their own work—for a while, at least. What happens when the student exceeds the teacher, as the chess AIs eventually did? Chess is more popular than ever, even with no hope of ever dethroning the machines.
In the not-so far future, DALLE-2 and similar tech will likely be able to generate longer, more coherent content. AI will generate entire movies, entire games, entire novels and comic books and television shows.
AI will also be used to create nightmares. OpenAI is wary of the potential for misuse already. In the terms of service for the API are prohibitions against using it for:
Each of these bullet points is the gestating embryo of at least one potential dystopia. Creating photo-realistic images at a whim will lead to a world where you cannot trust what you see, in the same way that you can no longer trust what you read. The implications on the legal system, at the very least, will be catastrophic. When photo-realistic content of any person, engaging in any act imaginable, can be created by anyone, how will this be used by our enemies? Will infinite blackmail material lead to a world of social Mutually-Assured-Destruction, where civility will win out when anyone’s reputation can be annihilated by anyone else. Or will we simply tune it out, ignoring every scandal as fake because we can no longer tell what is real or not.
OpenAI takes steps to guard against some of these nightmares. Up until today, DALLE-2 would not generate photo-realistic images of people’s faces, instead typically generating a blurry mess. It is not trained on explicitly violent or pornographic content. But many users consider these measures akin to sticking a finger in the hole in the dam. A few months after DALLE-2’s creation, the restrictions are largely holding. However, as more and more users gain access to the system and more and more competitors arise, including Google’s rival model Imagen, it seems like only a matter of time until this new creation spins out of control. During the writing of this article, Google posted new images that rival or even surpass those created by DALLE-2.
Under near-infinite layers of digital accretion still lies that pearl of humanity; human politics and human passions will decide what becomes of DALLE-2 and its kindred. Will the Elon Musk-founded OpenAI dominate the field, deciding which images are appropriate to create, or will it be Google, perhaps bringing with it the same political baggage that it promotes with its “Google Doodles”. These companies are already expressing concerns that the AI is ‘reinforcing bias’, for example by making images of flight attendants female and construction workers male.
You can experiment yourself with AI image generation immediately using DALLE Mini. The images you create will not be as jaw-dropping as those from DALLE-2 (DALLE Mini is not made by OpenAI), but they can give you a hint at the power and potential of this fairly new technology. You can also sign up for the waiting list to try DALLE-2 out for yourself.
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Jason Winesburg is a Montessori Teacher for students ages 9-12, and wears many hats. Jason moved to Amelia Island last year to enjoy the freedom and the beauty.
Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer announced on Wednesday that he will officially retire from the high court on Thursday at noon.
“The Court has announced that tomorrow, beginning at 10 a.m., it will hand down all remaining opinions ready during this Term. Accordingly, my retirement from active service under the provisions of 28 U.S.C. § 371(b) will be effective on Thursday, June 30, 2022, at noon,” Breyer wrote to President Joe Biden in a letter dated June 29, 2022.
Justice Breyer will be replaced by Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson
read MORE
Opinion
By Alyson McCullough
6-29-22, Hilliard, Fl
More recently than ever, Americans are feeling the tingling pains of inflation. We all want to ensure that we are getting the most bang for every buck. Taxes are not excluded from this equation. I recently read an online short story of a man being taxed to his death. Tax the land, tax the groceries, tax the gas, tax his breath, tax the man to his death. We all live here in Nassau County whether we were fortunate enough to be born and raised here or stumbled upon the gem of appeal that our timber and tides bring. The true statement about both types of residents is that they feel the strain of homeowners carrying the fiscal budget of Nassau County on their shoulders.
When we look at our rapidly growing county, we look to where the almighty tax dollar goes- animal control, engineering, libraries, road and bridge department, the sheriff’s office, facilities, parks and recreation, all of the amenities and way of life residents demand but don’t want to foot the bill for. While Nassau County is able to pay its operating expenses, it has a huge backlog of capital needs with no revenue sources identified to fund them. We’re simply not able to fund the capital maintenance and replacement needs of our growing county, while maintaining an acceptable level of service for all county residents. County assets continue to deteriorate faster than the county can maintain them. Yet we keep voting for the same old same old rhetoric at the polls and put our good ole boy candidates in power to fill their pockets instead of our potholes.
While you might hear Nassau County has a fully-funded five-year CIP, that couldn’t be further from the truth. We lack political leadership willing to take risks on economic development grants to reward not only our current workforce but to grow our Nassau County High School Workforce. Taxpayers will receive the best bang for their buck investing in our future workforce. It’s time for Nassau County to join the twenty-first century and create a true countywide vocational apprentice program. Who better to invest in our future tax base than our current one?
A broader and more diverse tax base that includes commercial and industrial development will decrease the county’s dependence on residential property taxes to fund all government services, protect our quality of life and maintain our relatively low residential property taxes. A broader and more diverse tax base is also vital to the county’s ability to make necessary investments in our schools, parks, transportation infrastructure and the many other demands placed upon local government from the dramatic residential growth we’ve already experienced. Where does this workforce come from? HERE. Let’s put our money where our mouth is and invest in students aged 15-18 in a true model program of on the job training and workforce. Small businesses across the county are chomping at the bit to invest in the future of our county.
Until we can grow in a balanced way, that includes private capital investment in non-residential land uses, to meet the needs of our large and quickly growing county, our county’s stability will remain uncertain. Go visit that seemingly annoying teenager down the road. Offer them a ride to work two days a week, mentor them on balancing a checkbook. If we want Nassau County to improve, it’s up to WE THE PEOPLE, not the five commissioners and county staff.
Candidate profile
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
Press Release
06-27-22 Nassau County
Among appropriations from the recently completed legislative session was more than $5 million to extend the Amelia Island Trail from Simmons Road to Hickory Street, the Nassau County Board of Commission announced earlier this month. Nassau County has been working closely with the City of Fernandina Beach and members of the Friends of the Amelia Island Trail to identify a path to extend the existing Amelia Island Trail from Simmons Road to the City of Fernandina Beach Waterfront. |
The partnership also includes North Florida Transportation Planning Organization (TPO), which centers on developing a safe and viable non-vehicular transportation system to improve mobility in the county. Part of this effort includes development of the Amelia Island Trail, a multi-use path that allows residents and visitors to easily access the places they want to go without having to drive there. The trail’s convenient location provides access to parks, beach accesses, and a variety of shopping and dining venues by foot or bicycle, thus reducing the need for a vehicle and alleviating traffic. The County ultimately submitted this project to the TPO as a top priority project. Then, the County submitted a funding request to the House of Representatives and the Florida Senate to be considered during the 2022 Legislative Session. The Trail route will follow the Will Hardee, Sadler Road, and 14th Street corridors. In coordination with the City of Fernandina Beach, additional funding will be needed to complete the segment from FBMS/FBHS to the Waterfront. The total project is estimated at $7.1 million. Kelly Gibson, Planning Director for the City of Fernandina Beach, stated, “Extending the trail offers additional off-road options for our community to support daily needs and increase recreational opportunities.” This funding supports the over two decades of planning and coordination efforts to connect Amelia Island through walking and biking trails. Benefits of the trail extensions will serve our residents, tourists and local businesses for many years to come”. Mike Pikula, President of the Friends of the Amelia Island Trail, stated, “From the perspective of Amelia Island’s many walkers, runners, and cyclists, this $5.1 appropriation for construction of a northward extension of the Amelia Island Trail is tremendous news! We appreciate the County and the City of Fernandina Beach for supporting our efforts in developing the trail and for their commitment to improving the quality of life for our community”. The Legislative funding will be made available to the County in 2023. Once received, the County will begin the design phase of the project. In a statement the County acknowledged area legislators supporting its request, particularly Senator Aaron Bean and former State Representative (now Secretary of State), Cord Byrd. The Board also extends their gratitude to the City of Fernandina Beach for its support to expand the trail and the Friends of the Amelia Island Trail for their partnership in development of the trail. If you have any questions, please contact Deputy County Manager/Engineer, Robert Companion, at (904) 530-6010 ext. 6014 or e-mail [email protected]. |
News
By Harvey Slentz
06-26-22
Each election year provides more evidence that elections do matter.
On Friday the 13th of May, Governor Ron DeSantis appointed Cord Byrd, a Neptune Beach Constitutional Attorney, and Florida Representative from our 11th District to become Florida’s Secretary of State. One of the most important responsibilities of the Secretary is to oversee elections held for members of the U.S. Congress, for state legislators and Governor, and for local elected officials.
On June 6th, almost 100 members of “We the People”, led by Deb Boelkes assembled at the Walkers Landing venue at Omni Amelia Island Plantation for its monthly meeting. We the People leader Deb Boelkes welcomed Secretary Byrd, our own (now former) 11th District Representative to the Florida House of Representatives. He has represented Nassau County and the Jacksonville Beaches since 2017, and resides in Neptune Beach, Florida with his wife Esther, and their two children.
What can we expect with Secretary Byrd’s appointment? His focus as a legislator is perhaps seen best in his most recent legislative acts as our Representative before his appointment as Secretary of State. He co-sponsored Florida House Bill H0007, Individual Freedom. It provided that “. . . subjecting any individual, as a condition of employment, membership, certification, licensing, credentialing, or passing an examination, to training, instruction, or any other required activity that espouses, promotes, advances, inculcates, or compels such individual to believe specified concepts constitutes discrimination based on race, color, sex, or national origin.” Secretary Byrd also played a key role in passing a 2019 bill to ban so-called “sanctuary cities” in Florida.
In professional practice for two decades, Secretary Byrd focused his law practice representing clients in administrative and judicial proceedings related to gun rights as defined in the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
The Secretary of State leads many state services, but the Secretary is spotlighted in one frequent ‘test’: The conduct of national, state and local elections. Nassau County’s Supervisor of Elections, Janet Adkins, was present at this meeting, as were some Northeast Florida election integrity advocates. “We’ve seen the importance of assuring election integrity” Secretary Byrd said, “and we will work with our sixty-seven County Supervisors of Elections to make sure that integrity is maintained.”
Cord Byrd was born in Jacksonville, Florida. He served as a member of the United States Air Force, received his bachelor’s degree from the University of North Florida, and his law degree from St. Thomas University. Byrd’s experience includes his time in the U.S. Air Force, his more than two-decade career as an attorney recognized for his expertise in gun law in Florida, and his service in the Florida House of Representatives from 2016-2022.
In September, 2021, Mr. Byrd was named chairman of the Florida House redistricting subcommittee. Until his appointment as Secretary of State, he also served as vice-chair of the House Judiciary Committee, on the Pandemics & Public Emergencies Committee, and on the Public Integrity & Elections Committee.
Harvey Slentz is a U.S. Army veteran, and resident of Amelia Island, Florida who has enjoyed a long career as an industrial engineer, an attorney and as the CEO of a $300 million regional sector of a $70 billion national service provider, along with leading strategic planning for national operations. He and his wife Tish spend their leisure wrangling their 4 grandchildren in St. Johns County, Florida.
OPINION
By Dave Scott
06-27-22
Remember when kids were scolded by loony left-wing extremists for wearing sombreros on Halloween, telling them it was a form of demeaning appropriation? They said the same about white restauranteurs who sold tacos and burritos.
Don’t even think of wearing black face unless you’re the Prime Minister of Canada (Justin Trudeau) or a Democrat Governor of Virginia (Dr. Ralph Northam). That’ll get you branded a dim-witted dangerous racist bigot unless you’re a member of the Left’s woke crowd.
However, female impersonators, the largest category of appropriation offenders, are applauded by the woke mob. Males, who are normally labeled as oppressors, not only mock women but are celebrated by the Left as they perform an overtly demeaning form of appropriation. They are even encouraged to perform their vulgar raunchiness for young children at local schools and libraries.
In Dallas earlier this month elementary age school children attended what was billed as a “family friendly” event at a gay night club to celebrate Pride Month. At the same time a number of U.S. school districts were hosting drag queen story times for elementary school kids.
Isn’t exaggerating feminine characteristics to absurd comic effect just like blackface? And why are young children being exposed to drag queens performing in a sexually suggestive manner that is totally inappropriate?
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Satirical Things I Wish I’d Said: “The Biden administration honors the LGBTQ+ community on Father’s Day. Sends congratulations and best wishes to all pregnant fathers.” — Larry Elder.
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Can They Toddle? News reports out of Chicago say that despite the out-of-control crime in that “toddling town” it will get worse as a new policy bars police there from chasing after criminals on foot.
The city is governed by an inept, worthless, and totally incompetent Mayor Lorie “Beetlejuice” Lightfoot while the city’s Prosecutor Kim Fox has a revolving door policy allowing criminals to stop by the local jail to pause only long enough for a mug shot and a cup of coffee.
The new policy, which was introduced this past Tuesday, encourages cops to “consider alternatives” to pursuing someone who “is visibly armed with a firearm.” It has Chicago radio talk show host Bill Cameron asking: “So, if cops can’t chase bad guys, and judges won’t keep so many of them in jail and the states (sic) attorney so often won’t prosecute them, why is it called law enforcement?”
Meanwhile Back At The Ranch: An alert reader who does his research and knows more than most about such things wonders out loud about the disparity in the number of folks employed by Nassau County and the City of Fernandina Beach.
This wise citizen points out that Nassau County, with 89,000 residents, has 362 employees while Fernandina Beach boasts 239 employees and just 13,000 residents. Why does the city with 76,000 fewer residents require one employee for every 54 people while the county has just one employee for every 246 folks. Is it because the city’s spendthrift City Manager Dale Martin and a couple of commissioners like California transplant Mayor Mike (Left Coast) Lednovich and Chip (The Pompous Bully) Ross continually contribute to the bloat with overspending on parks, vehicles, facilities, etc. and never look at cutting budgets, only ways to increase them?
Some friends of mine and I met with a couple of City Commission candidates this past Wednesday evening whose fiscal conservancy will serve city tax payers well. Dr. James Antun, a local chiropractor will give the city budget a much needed adjustment, while Darron Ayscue, a local firefighter, will put an end to Martin burning through our tax dollars.
Mr. Ayscue is running for the seat currently held by Left Coast Lednovich while Dr. Antun is running for the seat being vacated by term-limited Commissioner Len Kreger. If elected they’ll team up with fiscal conservatives Bradley Bean and David Sturges to bring city expansion and spending under control and isolate the gas bag Ross. Oh, and it only takes three Commission votes to boot the city manager. More about these two candidates later.
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These are excerpts from infamous local Blogger Dave Scott’s weekly edition. Read the whole thing HERE.
http://www.davescottblog.com/about/
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
Opinion
International, National, Local
By Michael Miller
I walked into Walmart yesterday. The door was wide open, I sashayed in, nobody was wearing a mask. I thought to myself, “ Wasn’t it just a few months ago that there was a guard at the door and I would be denied entry without my mask securely in place?” I might be accosted by a duty-bound employee, or even an irate fellow shopper when I removed mine after entering. Isn’t it interesting that this “vital” mandate, upon which our survival depended, that was the law of the land for almost 2 years, just evaporated? How is it that this practice disappeared to no effect whatsoever upon our health and survival? Have we yet arrived at a point where it behooves us to go back and re-examine the many practices that were mandated upon us by government fiat? But of course all these intrusions into our basic liberties were for our safety and well-being, right?
Most of us were raised and educated by a system that taught us that we have freedom and democracy here. We are the exceptional nation. Our officials are public servants who have our best interest at heart, right? This kind of belief system is being gradually eroded. But now, in these past few years, things are deteriorating more rapidly and a new examination of this paradigm must take place.
Have many of us yet arrived at a state of fatigue from all the fear propaganda that shut down businesses, churches, social gatherings, schools, our lives? All this for a disease with a 99.5% survival rate. Could it be that we were played? Millions of absentee ballots were mailed out wholesale, allowing allegations of vast election fraud, (see film, 2000 Mules for documentation: https://rumble.com/v13v4sv-2000-mules.html). Last minute rule changes allowed reduced scrutiny of voter ID and legitimacy. All justified by the imperative of “social distancing”. it was too risky to go out and vote. This is just one of the many objectives that were accomplished through the imposition of illegal and unconstitutional violations of personal liberty and bodily integrity. Other objectives are grist for a future article.
Now that the grip of COVID fear has dissipated from the public imagination, what can government do to reclaim the attention of the masses and solidify compliance with its mandates? We could hype up the propaganda for our proxy war against Russia and its “brutal dictator”? A hot war with Russia might get their attention? ….. Wait a minute, I know, Monkeypox! Sounds pretty scary right? Picture Bill and Melinda Gates grinning while assuring us of how the next pandemic will get our attention. See for yourself: https://rumble.com/v1406vc-the-plan-the-globalist-plan-revealed-before-your-very-lives.html This is a short video, right from the horses mouths of the key players telling us exactly what was going to happen in the years and months leading up to the ”pandemic”. How did they know?
Sounds like it might be time to give this Monkey Pox thing a closer look now that “Joe Biden” is warning us to take it seriously. He even ordered the $119 Million purchase of Monkey Pox Vaccine. So what do we know about it? Well, Dr. Robert Malone, if he is any authority, had a few observations for us: https://rwmalonemd.substack.com/p/monkey-pox Spoiler alert: He downplays the threat that has been trumpeted on MSM. The only curious thing is how this has now become a sexually transmitted disease when I do not recall that this was the case previously. Gain of function research, anybody?
Would you be concerned if you found out that the government paid $1 Billion to the media to buy vaccine propaganda supporting their “safe and effective” claims? A Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request by TheBlaze shows congress funded $1 billion for a Health and Human Services media campaign to build public confidence in, and uptake of, COVID-19 “vaccines” using mainstream news outlets. https://www.technocracy.news/us-government-paid-news-media-1-billion-for-propaganda-to-promote-vaccines/
Here is a link to the actual law that was passed on 3/11/21, H.R.1319 – American Rescue Plan Act of 2021. https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/1319/text This bill is so dense, difficult to understand and packed with pork for everyone, that it is shocking. I dare anyone to attempt to read it without shooting themself. 🙂
Here is a short video contrasting CDC director, Rochelle Walenski with Dr. Clare Craig of the HART Group. The CDC is exhorting parents to get their six month – five year-olds “vaccinated” against COVID. Dr. Craig is disclosing the deceit employed in Pfizer’s trials. (which aren’t scheduled to be completed until 2024 anyway!) that are being used to justify approval of this jab for toddlers who are near bulletproof from the disease. You be the judge:
The links provided here offer a starting place for those who would like to go a little deeper in their investigation of covid and other pandemic machinations. Is it possible that government is not really working for us, that the master-servant roles have been reversed? Is there some nefarious plan behind all the seemingly unrelated chaos being unleashed in recent years? You get to decide.
There is a lot of craziness going on here. When alternative opinions are being marginalized, blocked, censored, de-platformed, it is time to start reading the handwriting on the wall. The American Board of Internal Medicine is beginning a procedure to remove the licenses of physicians who disagree with CDC/ FDA, etc. I’m talking the most prominent and respected, including Dr. Peter McCullough. Now is a good time to follow events carefully. Be sure to take mainstream pronouncements with a grain of salt. Be aware and take precautions to protect your family. Now is a good time to strengthen our connection with the Lord.
Ephesians 6:12: “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.”
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
Michael Miller, A retired Fire Lieutenant/EMT from NY has been in FB for 8 years. He is a Sailing Captain and Instructor for Windward Sailing. He dabbles in theatre, photography, geopolitics and markets. Look for his writing here and at: https://firesail.substack.com/
News
6-24-22
Conservatives praised the Supreme Court’s Friday decision that overturned Roe v. Wade, which in 1973 legalized abortion nationwide.
The court, in a 6-3 ruling, upheld a Republican-backed Mississippi law that bans abortion after 15 weeks. The justices held that the Roe v. Wade decision that allowed abortions performed before a fetus would be viable outside the womb — between 24 and 28 weeks of pregnancy — was wrongly decided because the U.S. Constitution makes no specific mention of abortion rights.
Read MORE
Eliminate media middlemen and READ THE ACTUAL RULING yourself
The opposition, of course, strongly disagrees with the ruling which reverses what was granted as a right in the Roe v Wade original ruling a half-century ago. It looks likely that there will be mighty struggles by the pro-abortion left to overcome this huge setback.
Press Release
Wolfson Children’s Hospital/Baptist Health
06-23-22, Jacksonville
Wolfson Children’s Hospital will welcome area media to a ribbon cutting ceremony June 28 to celebrate the opening of the C. Herman and Mary Virginia Terry Heart Institute. Tours will be offered along with opportunities to interview members of the pediatric cardiology, cardiac imaging, cardiac critical care, and heart surgery teams.
Activities begin at 10 am at the site, located at 841 Prudential Dr. Suite 280, Jacksonville. This will be the ninth Terry Heart Institute location for outpatient care. It is located across the street from Wolfson Children’s Hospital.
The new clinic provides a larger, collaborative space for pediatric cardiologists, cardiothoracic surgeons, cardiac intensivists and other subspecialists providing outpatient and inpatient cardiovascular services on Wolfson Children’s downtown Jacksonville campus. Construction began last summer. This is the ninth Wolfson Children’s Terry Heart Institute outpatient office location.
Interview Opportunities
Organizers expect the following officials to be on hand to speak with reporters:
Feature
Opinion- Satire, Parody
By Dave Scott
The 2022 Amelia Island News Wrecker is now online. It can be accessed by clicking www.amelianewswrecker.com. Approximately 20,000 of the 24-page tabloid parody newspapers were printed and distributed throughout Nassau County. There are still a few print copies available in local restaurants, bars, B&Bs, hotels and various shops.
Consumer warning:
The News Wrecker
This newspaper is a satirical publication that uses invented names with the lone exceptions being the public figures who are satirized. Any other use of real names is coincidental. If you can find anything factual in this newspaper with the exception of the ads, you may be eligible to win a free, lifetime subscription. However, this may possibly be the last issue ever published.
News
By George Miller
6-22-22
Update 6-23- Senate passed today 65-33- on to House. Final bill text unknown to us. Meanwhile, the House is trying to pass its own, more stringent gun control bill.
Riding the wave of outrage over the Uvalde and Buffalo mass shootings, the controversial proposed US Senate “Bipartisan Safer Communities Act” gun control bill discussion draft was rapidly voted into its next step of passage. The text has finally found its way into the public domain:
https://www.murphy.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/bipartisan_safer_communities_act_text.pdf
This 80 page, wide-ranging document is labeled “discussion draft” and did not even have a bill number. Per Alexander Bolton, writing in The Hill on 6-21-22, “The Senate voted to proceed to the bill just more than an hour after negotiators unveiled its text, giving lawmakers little time to digest its details.”
!4 GOP and all Dem Senators voted to advance the bill to the next stage. Republicans:
McConnell- KY
Tillis- NC
Collins- ME
Graham- SC
Cassidy- LA
Blunt- MO
Burr- NC
Romney- UT
Portman- OH
Capito- WV
Ernst- IA
Murkowski- AK
Young- IN
Cornyn- TX
Toomey- PA- didn’t vote for it but provided a written statement of support for it.
Unless some of them can be rapidly persuaded to reverse course, this bill will likely be passed this week and sent to the House, where leadership has vowed to move it through quickly and the President to sign it into law.
What’s in it?
This is the biggest federal gun control effort with a high chance of success in decades. Without getting into a whole lot of detail, there are several main parts of the bill revealed in this document:
“(5) Strategies to promote the delivery of accessible and culturally competent care via telehealth, including addressing the needs of individuals with disabilities, medically underserved urban and rural communities, racial and ethnic minorities such as American Indians and Alaska Natives, individuals with limited English proficiency, and individuals of …” . It’s unclear how some of this would reduce gun violence. As written, the money might be used for other purposes.
“(a) IMPROVING NICS EXAMINATION OF JUVENILE RECORDS.—”
We will further study this bill, as it morphs during the process, but the deliberately fast and secretive track forced by majority leadership and lagging data may not allow us to do this before it’s a done deal.
Bipartisan
As of last night, we read that 14 Republicans voted for it and all Democrats. Democrats point to this as ‘bipartisan” support, while Conservatives rush to convince several supporters to back down to stop this.
Gun rights groups are saying that Republican Senators supporting the bill should hear your opinions on it.
The NRA statement on the bill:
The NRA will support legislation that improves school security, promotes mental health services, and helps reduce violent crime. However, we will oppose this gun control legislation because it falls short at every level. It does little to truly address violent crime while opening the door to unnecessary burdens on the exercise of Second Amendment freedom by law-abiding gun owners.
This legislation can be abused to restrict lawful gun purchases, infringe upon the rights of law-abiding Americans, and use federal dollars to fund gun control measures being adopted by state and local politicians. This bill leaves too much discretion in the hands of government officials and also contains undefined and overbroad provisions – inviting interference with our constitutional freedoms.
Decisions by the Supreme Court of the United States in the Heller and McDonald cases make clear that the Second Amendment is an individual constitutional freedom. We will always fight for those freedoms – and the fundamental values we have defended for over 150 years.
Other views:
Conservative news/commentary site Red State highlighted several points they thought to be highly objectionable in this article.
More:
https://www.npr.org/2022/06/12/1104433332/gun-control-senate-deal
https://nypost.com/2022/06/21/gun-control-bill-finalized-in-wake-of-deadly-mass-shootings/
https://www.aol.com/news/setting-gridlock-aside-congress-set-051203831-174502530.html
https://www.theepochtimes.com/4-key-proposals-in-senates-gun-control-bill_4548643.html
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2022/jun/22/house-republicans-wont-back-gun-bill-defying-senat
What’s behind it?
Since the Texas and Buffalo mass shootings, leftist forces, via the Democratic Party, national/international NGO’s and some corporate interests, have made a major push for more stringent gun control, which they view as the solution to the wave of violence building in the nation.
In the last decade, “blue states” passed a wave of gun control bills. Some “red” states passed loosened carry and “castle laws.”
According to FBI statistics, the great majority of US shooting deaths are suicides and accidental shootings. Shooting homicides hit a high in 1992 and fell by about half until about 2015, when they began increasing. Why is a point of disagreement.
Gun control laws have tightened in more states than have been loosened. Generally speaking, the shooting death rate is higher in large, Democrat-run cities, which tend to be areas with the most stringent gun control. Civil unrest, including the staged ANTIFA/BLM riots, have led to increased violence, arson, theft and murder rates, including unprecedented increases in attacks on police.
While the anti-gun forces mostly say that they don’t want to end the Second Amendment, some admit that they do and that this bill is just one step, as evidence occasionally proves. Anti-gun forces incorrectly maintain that only the US has this problem. A future article may deal with this in more depth.
Conservatives have long insisted that guns aren’t the problem, but mental health, ideology and societal moral breakdown are. They may get some of what they wish for this time, since much of the bill focuses on mental behavior, gun trafficking and terrorism. Addressing societal moral breakdown is notably absent from the bill.
The mass shooters have very different demographic/psychological profiles than the bulk of shooters, who account for the vast majority of victims. Sometimes, more people are killed weekly in Chicago alone than in both of the recent publicized events in TX and NY.
_________________________________
George Miller is Publisher and Co-Founder of Citizens Journal Florida, based in Fernandina Beach. He is a “retired” operations management consultant, software and publishing executive and manufacturing management professional
Press Release
Governor’s Press Office
06-23-22, Tallahassee
Today Gov. Ron DeSantis has directed the Department of Management Services (DMS) to begin implementing provisions that prevent Florida tax dollars from supporting firms that knowingly transport illegal aliens into the state.
DeSantis directed the DMS management team and top directors of all state executive agencies to review current contracts with corporate vendors and notify all applicable firms of the new law. Florida agencies are to provide written communication to any vendors currently transporting illegal aliens into Florida that their contracts will not be renewed or amended unless they comply with Florida law.
“Floridians’ tax dollars should not go to corporations that facilitate the international human smuggling operation encouraged by the Biden administration,” DeSantis said while issuing the directive. “I was proud to sign Senate Bill 1808 to protect our state from the effects of Biden’s Border Crisis.”
Ed. note: Based on reports earlier this year, the new law may generate a review of procedures by area transport companies moving undocumented immigrants from federal-sponsored flights arriving at Jacksonville International Airport.
The new provision, referred to as Senate Bill 1808, prohibits governmental entities, including state agencies, counties, municipalities, and other governmental authorities, from executing, amending, or renewing contracts with a person, firm, or corporation that transports a person into Florida knowing that the person is an illegal alien. The law does allow for exceptions, if the illegal party is being transported for detention or removal from Florida or the United States.
Effective October 1, 2022, all contracts, including grant agreements and economic incentive programs, between governmental entities and common carriers or contracted carriers must include an attestation that the carrier will comply with the new law and a provision for termination of the contract for cause if the carrier violates the new law. Governor DeSantis has directed DMS to immediately develop by rule a common carrier and contracted carrier attestation form.
Opinion
By Dr. Rich Turner
6-23-22
Citizens Journal Florida is live!
The exclamation mark might be surprising and maybe you are asking yourself the question: Why is that such a big deal? Quite possibly you are thinking, with so many national and local news outlets, what does one more voice matter? Don’t we have enough news sources already?
(Rich and Sandy Turner shown in photo, above)
Citizens Journal Florida is different in a number of important ways. First, it is a news source that desires to present the news as factually and objectively as possible. Of course, we all see the world around us through our own biases and preconceived ideas. But the editors of Citizens Journal Florida recognize this and are attempting to first and foremost present news that is relevant, accurate, and impartial. A great example of impartial reporting can be found here: Fernandina Beach Pride Event- 6-11-22 – Citizens Journal Florida
This desire to produce relevant, accurate, and impartial news is the exact opposite of what we are currently observing from the so-called “Mainstream Media.” In much of the mainstream media opinions are heralded as facts, and inconvenient news or news that is inconsistent with the editorial staff’s worldview is minimized, ignored, or even worse, altered. One only has to muse for a few seconds to think of clear examples where this type of “journalism” resulted in reports that were completely contrary to the actual truth. Examples that come to my mind include many COVID articles, the exaggeration of the protection that cloth masks provide against the spread of COVID, many Summer 2021 violent protests being portrayed as non-violent, the whole Trump Russia hoax, and the dismissal of the Hunter Biden laptop stories. These are just a few examples. In all of the above cases, plus many others, the media initially took a strong stand that was totally wrong. A initial stand that was against the truth.
Point number two as you think about all the current local media outlets, they are all, at a minimum, left leaning with some having abandoned any attempt at honest reporting. Nassau county needs a place where the truth is honestly reported and point number two, conservative opinions and ideas are provided a place to be freely expressed. Of course, liberal ideas will also be provided a place of expression. But what is actually needed is a place where honest conservative thoughts, opinions, and ideas can be expressed, discussed, and even debated. The reality is the truth can not only handle scrutiny but desires such investigation.
That brings me to my third and closing point. The truth matters. What we want to be true, what we hope is true, or what we wish was true, at the end of the day does not really matter. Imagine going to the emergency room reporting strong and persistent chest pains. What you need from that doctor is simply the truth, with all the tests and their best understanding, you need to know the truth. Without the truth, you could possibly leave the Emergency Room and make subsequent decisions that could have tragic outcomes. In all areas of our life the truth matters. We need to learn to desire the truth, even when we do like what we have learned. The truth matters in every area of our life. Where did we come from, how did the universe come into being, what things are driving inflation, or what have we learned about how to respond to COVID? Although these questions are very different and even their overall importance is very different, they all have one key element in common. The truth matters!
As Jesus Christ of Nazareth stood before Pontius Pilate, after much questioning by Pilate, Jesus stated: “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world” (John 10:36; ESV). Pilate then responded with a question: “So you are a king?” (John 10:37a). At which point Jesus responded: “You say that I am a king. For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world — to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice” (John 10:37b; ESV). To this, Pilate essentially ended the conversation by responding: “What is truth?” (Joh 10:38a). What a foolish and tragic response. A man who needed the truth in every other area of his life, failed to see the importance of the truth in this area.
If we are not careful, we can make the same tragic mistake in areas of our life. We can delude ourselves into believing the actual truth does not matter, only what we want the truth to be true. This type of thinking can prove to be disastrous.
Citizens Journal Florida is committed to first and foremost presenting the truth in all areas of reporting. I contend that the truth not only matters but is critical in every area of our lives. Earlier in his ministry on earth, as Jesus spoke with Jews who had believed in him, he told them: “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (Joh 8:31b-32 ESV).
That is the nature of truth. The nature of lies is bondage and error. The nature of the truth is freedom.
Dr. Rich Turner is the leader of the “Truth Seekers” Sunday School class at First Baptist Fernandina Beach. He also serves as the Associate Vice President of Academic Operations and Dean of Kent Campus at Florida State College at Jacksonville.
News
6-21-22
The state is awarding Callahan $4 million from the Job Growth Grant Fund to help finance a clean water plant at Crawford Diamond Industrial Park in Nassau County.
Gov. Ron DeSantis announced the award June 20 at a news conference in Nassau County with local and state officials.
DeSantis said the project is expected to create more than 2,000 manufacturing and related jobs at the 1,814-acre certified megasite.
Read MORE in Jacksonville Daily Record
MORE info from Citizens Journal Florida
Feature
By Michael Miller
6/20/22, Fernandina Beach
450 kids enrolled in the Vacation Bible School at First Baptist Fernandina, 1600 S. 8th St. The 5 day event ran from June 6-10. The theme was “Spark Studio, Created, Designed and Empowered for God’s purpose”. Kids were encouraged to identify their unique gifts and learn how they could be part of God’s plan for them.
(Featured photo at top: VBS kids perform for their families during VBS celebration service on 6-12-22 at First Baptist Church)
Each day was action packed with music, dance, scripture study, crats, outdoor recreation, devotion time and a snack. The annual event, led by Kids Ministry Pastor, Jonathon Murdock, involved a huge group of volunteers who planned, organized, decorated the entire facility and staffed the operation. It was an inspired, exciting event for the kids, who came from all around the county. 44 kids made a decision to accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior during the week.
Kids had a friendly competition to see who could raise the most money as an offering for the Pate Ministries, Ecuador Mission. The kids were promised the chance to throw a pie in the face of all the leaders if they exceeded the goal, and they did, raising $10,500. As you can see, it wasn’t pretty.
First Baptist Church sent a team down to Ecuador in April to support and work with the Kids Ministry there. Gary and Dena Pate, originally from Callahan, and their staff run weekly Bible clubs for kids. They minister to 400- 600 kids every week in some remote and poverty stricken areas. The First Baptist Kids offering will go a long way in supporting that effort.
Michael Miller, A retired fire Lieutenant/EMT from NY has been in FB for 8 years. He is a Sailing Captain and Instructor for Windward Sailing. He dabbles in theatre, photography, geopolitics and markets. Look for his writing here and at: https://firesail.substack.com
Opinion
By Jack Knocke
06-19-22
The June 14 “2000 Mules” event was a huge success. Thanks so much for the organizers and all of you who attended!
We had 180 people watch the movie at 5:00. After the movie, we had 230 people listen to Catherine Engelbrecht, co-developer of the film, came to Fernandina Beach to explain how we got here, the truth about the movie, and what we MUST do with this information.
Engelbrecht is president of the national election watchdog group, True the Vote. The organization teamed with filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza and used research on cell phone data tracking to tell the story of “2000 Mules.” The movie portrays the movement of “mules”—people presumably being paid for their work to carry ballots from politically motivated non-profits to drop boxes in densely Democratic urban areas in the swing states of Arizona, Wisconsin, Michigan, Georgia – and the big kahuna – Pennsylvania.
Earlier in the day, Engelbrecht met with Nassau County Sheriff Bill Leeper and Florida State Senator Aaron Bean. At the event, Nassau County Supervisor of Elections Janet Adkins was in the audience to hear directly about election fraud was discovered in the movie.
The key take-away message that Engelbrecht delivered was “we have the proof, now it is time for local citizens and law enforcement to take action”.
Catherine Engelbrecht’s story.
Engelbrecht started True the Vote 12 years ago seeking to challenge election irregularities that were going on in Texas. After enough challenges, she was on the radar screen – a target actually – of 5 government agencies who audited her books 23 times. Finally, she decided to sue the IRS, who at the time, was attacking conservative 503 (c) 3 organizations. She sued the IRS and won a $2 million judgement in 2019. To date, the IRS has never paid her the judgement. Fast forward to present day. After seeing the key changes being pushed through ahead of the 2020 election – 100% mail out ballots, drop boxes, NGO massive funding and watering down signature verification – they had a roadmap to investigating how election fraud may have happened. Then came the movie.
Movie debunked? NOT!
You may have heard news services attempt to debunk the movie. Why no more video? Can we trust cellphone tracking? Was this just the mules’ normal day? Even former attorney general Bill Barr laughed off the seriousness of the proof delivered in the movie.
Here are some answers to the debunkers that Engelbrecht shared. Regarding videos, many districts either did not install video as required, delivered unusable quality, deleted videos before statutory holding requirements, pointed the video at the ground or claimed that they had none. Even with these challenges, there is still a great deal of video that is time and location synced with the cell phone data.
Regarding cell phone tracking. The cell phone tracking tools used in 2000 Mules were the same technique used to identify a murder in Atlanta in a cold case that was 4 months old, same techniques used to track down protesters at the capital on January 6th . These techniques are proven and widely used in law enforcement. The precision of cell phone ping data today is very sophisticated and precise in some case to within VERY VERY small areas.
Mule travel patterns were compared prior to the election, after the election and during the election period to specifically ensure that the election pattern was NOT consistent with prior patterns or after election patterns and not just their normal daily routes.
Regarding Bill Barr, the former Attorney General in the Trump Administration and natorious election fraud naysayer, dismissed the movie’s conclusions in the film. Typically, when indication of a crime is presented, a law enforcement official or officer would seek additional corroborating information to prove or disprove the accusation. In Barr’s this case, it seems that the evidence presented was dismissed out of hand without any research, any questions, any curiosity or any due diligence to prove or disprove. Interesting….
In conclusion, the debunkers seem to be just naysayers without real questions. The good news is that within a few weeks “Project Ripcord” will be released. This is when all of the data behind the movie will be released to the public. Videos, cell phone pings and more. All of it for the American people to research, digest and make their own conclusions as the facts. This will put pressure on local law enforcement to act. Maybe national law enforcement also.
What we must do with this information.
The call to action from Engelbrecht was very clear – you have the proof of election fraud, it needs to be addressed in each county through local sheriffs and local attorney generals driven by the will of the people. We must all get involved. Ask questions. Demand action. Watch the next election.
I am personally asking you to sign up as an Ambassador/Volunteer with CCDF to launch our County Chapter. We need your help. Our local teams are forming and working to protect the community – schools, elections and following the money. Go to the www.CCDFUSA.com web site and type “Nassau”. Register to be a part of our local team as an Ambassador. We are providing Local Insight and taking Local Action. We need to community to help with the mission locally. We support the American values of Freedom – life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness – and the founding documents. We are nonpartisan. We are not afraid to express our faith as did our founding fathers.
Many thanks to the event organizers who helped make the “2000 Mules” movie and conversation with Catherine Engelbrecht possible. Billie Tucker Volpe-Eye on Nassau, Deb Boelkes-We The People, Steve and Pam Simmons-sponsors, CCDFUSA and the Courtyard Marriott for a great facility to host the event.
We are also fundraising to support the LOCAL organization. If you can donate, please take a minute now to do so.
Watch the local free press coverage of this event and other important local news. More updates are coming soon on local issues that we are addressing for the community.
Eye on Nassau
Citizens Journal Florida (Starting July 4th) (ed. note: actually available now)
If you are interested in getting involved and want to find the best way for you to get involved, please feel free to call or send me an email. I would love to talk!
Jack Knocke
470-295-4365
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
2022 Letters
This section is for Citizens Journal Florida readers’ general opinions (comments section , below). Readers may also post comments directly to most of the articles. Feel free to respond to other readers’ letters as well. What you write won’t show up immediately, as we are regretfully forced to review all comments prior to publication due to potential abuse of this section.
We urge and insist that dialogue on these pages be conducted civilly and respectfully and look forward with you to seeing informative and interesting conversations.
We reserve the right to refuse publication of or edit any material. By entering content here, you authorize us to use it and certify that it is not defamatory or libelous or otherwise illegal. Our failure to delete content does not constitute acceptance or approval.
Regards,
Citizens Journal Florida Editorial Team
You can help build Citizensjournal.net into a powerful force for good. This thought was prompted upon re-reading this article below covering the congressional debate sponsored by “We The People” on 7/20/22. I then had the following thoughts:
at that event. So I can state that this report is accurate, detailed, impartial, informative and a useful tool to help voters make informed choices. It fulfills all the functions of local citizens journalism.
While George Miller is my brother, I can still state objectively that he is a man of enormous commitment, passion, integrity, and productivity. I am proud to be his brother. I am proud of what his leadership, along with the contributions of our growing team, are creating.
There has been what I view as a dearth in supply of effective local journalism. Important issues cry out for a hearing. Woke ideology is imposed. Ideas outside of the current establishment narrative are avoided. For example, have you seen a single article questioning mask and vax mandates and their efficacy? I haven’t. Isn’t this a vital debate for all of us? Why does establishment media block the voice of thousands of eminent physicians, epidemiologists, virologists on this controversial topic?
Here is our chance to change that with this up and coming, dynamic and vibrant publication. Your additional support and participation will propel the successful growth and maturity of citizensjournal.net
Do you want real news? Do you value the potential of this newspaper? If your answer is yes, here are some things you can do to help build citizensjournal.net into a powerful force for good:
1. Subscribe– A large subscription base increases power and ad revenue needed for growth, while keeping you in the know.
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5. Advertise– Even better! You get to support the effort, exposure for your business, and fully tax deductible business expense. With added pages included and a link direct to your website! All at very reasonable expense with 24/7/365 exposure. call for rates.
We hope you will become part of this new local adventure while benefiting from great local coverage. Be a reader, a subscriber, a donor, an advertiser, or try a new role in journalism. We want you on our team. Our publisher awaits your call for questions and discussion of opportunities. Call George at 805 807 5114.
Michael Miller, A retired Fire Lieutenant/EMT from NY has been in FB for 8 years. He is a fierce advocate for Liberty, a sailing captain and instructor for Windward Sailing. He dabbles in theatre, photography, geopolitics and markets and now writing. Look for his writing here and at: https://firesail.substack.com/
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
Opinion
By Dave Scott
6-17-22
Do Something! Anything! Why isn’t our 4th District Republican Congressman John Rutherford holding press conferences at the Jacksonville Airport every time one of the Biden Expresses flies in there loaded with illegal aliens from Texas that are then bussed to who knows where?
When I wrote about these flights last August Congressman Rutherford told me he couldn’t do anything about them because the GOP was in the minority. That’s not good enough.
Governor Ron DeSantis is fed up and is taking action. Our popular governor intends to formally approve a bill that will reroute illegal migrants to left-leaning states, including President Joe Biden’s Delaware, along with sanctuary states. He’s also targeting contractors that transport the illegals.
Illegals deplaning in Jacksonville.
“I’m gonna sign a bill very soon. It will be effective July 1. The contractors are gonna get penalized if they dump illegal aliens in Florida from the border,” said DeSantis on Thursday.
Under the DeSantis plan, Florida will soon have the resources to redirect illegal migrants crossing the U.S-Mexico border via large caravans to “places like Delaware and other sanctuary states.”
Why don’t Congressman Rutherford and Senators Marco Rubio and Rick Scott get together with DeSantis and call a press conference at the airport and explain how they’re jointly going to fix this Biden-created disaster?
DeSantis pulls no punches when discussing Biden’s open border policy. “There’s a massive caravan that’s coming towards the southern border right now. And what is Biden doing? He’s fumbling around on late-night TV shows, and he needs to get in the game here, and he needs to defend our country’s sovereignty because that’s gonna absolutely get overwhelmed — not just Texas — but it’s gonna overwhelm a lot of other communities throughout the United States of America,” DeSantis continued.
“Now, this is the worst it’s ever been, and the result is you have fentanyl pouring into this country. You’ve got sex trafficking, you’ve got all kinds of really, really bad stuff,” DeSantis said.
“That would not happen if you didn’t have the border open and this stuff pouring in in record numbers,” added DeSantis, while characterizing Biden’s policies as “destructive.”
“We have a responsibility to be fighting back,” said DeSantis.
If you have children or teach in Nassau County you already know how this illegal invasion is negatively impacting our schools. The schools don’t have enough foreign language teachers and the English-speaking kids are getting short changed because of the alien kids crowding into the classrooms. I’ve heard horror stories from parents and teachers. Not only are our kids suffering but local tax payers are getting hosed.
It’s time our elected officials besides Governor DeSantis stepped up and did something besides telling us to wait until November.
***
Things I wish I’d said: “I have been referring to ‘the January 6 hearings,’ but will in future use the more accurate term ‘Democratic National Committee Telethon.’” – Ann Coulter.
***
Guilt By Association: I’m almost embarrassed to mention to folks that I was once a member of the mainstream media for fear of being associated with the irrelevant and disgraceful crowd that now claim to be legitimate “newsgatherers.”
I was a daily newspaper reporter many years ago when injecting an opinion, omitting facts, or popping altered quotes into a news article to slant the story were offenses that quickly resulted in you joining the ranks of the unemployed.
Today it appears it’s just the opposite.
A once highly respected news gathering organization that has lost all credibility is the Associated Press. There’s no longer anything admirable about the AP. Based on its recent record nothing this organization reports can any longer be accepted as fact. Its reporting is sloppy, inaccurate, and biased.
Earlier this week for example an AP story out of Miami “reported” about Democrats attempting to purchase Spanish-language radio stations in Florida, a move not popular among the conservative Cuban community there.
The AP claimed it interviewed Miami Radio Host Marie Flores on Wednesday, June 8, and quoted her in the article. The problem is that Ms. Flores has been dead for two years.
Intentional blunders like this one are a major reason Americans can’t trust the legacy media. Where are the editors? It would have taken less than five minutes to look up Flores and realize she is dead, but an editor didn’t take the time to do so before publishing the article. Why are the reporter and editor still employed at the AP?
The biased mainstream media are outraged about the possible Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe vs. Wade and provide daily coverage of protests in front of the justices’ homes. But they ignore the fact the protests are illegal and the attempted assassination of Justice Brett Kavanaugh. During last Sunday’s news programs not a single network, other than FOX, mentioned a word about the arrest of an armed lunatic who admitted he came from California to kill Kavanaugh. The media continue to keep making themselves irrelevant and disgraceful.
***
These are excerpts from infamous local Blogger Dave Scott’s weekly edition. Read the whole thing HERE, which also includes guest writer Dr. Gerald (Jerry) Decker‘s “Are escalating taxes sinking our island paradise?” and more.
http://www.davescottblog.com/about/
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
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Feature
By Juneteenth.com, via Citizens Journal Ventura County
Juneteenth is the oldest nationally celebrated commemoration of the ending of slavery in the United States. Dating back to 1865, it was on June 19th that the Union soldiers, led by Major General Gordon Granger, landed at Galveston, Texas with news that the war had ended and that the enslaved were now free. Note that this was two and a half years after President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation – which had become official January 1, 1863. The Emancipation Proclamation had little impact on the Texans due to the minimal number of Union troops to enforce the new Executive Order. However, with the surrender of General Lee in April of 1865, and the arrival of General Granger’s regiment, the forces were finally strong enough to influence and overcome the resistance.
Later attempts to explain this two and a half year delay in the receipt of this important news have yielded several versions that have been handed down through the years. Often told is the story of a messenger who was murdered on his way to Texas with the news of freedom. Another is that the news was deliberately withheld by the enslavers to maintain the labor force on the plantations. And still another is that federal troops actually waited for the slave owners to reap the benefits of one last cotton harvest before going to Texas to enforce the Emancipation Proclamation. All of which, or none of these versions could be true. Certainly, for some, President Lincoln’s authority over the rebellious states was in question. Whatever the reasons, conditions in Texas remained status quo well beyond what was statutory.
General Order Number 3
One of General Granger’s first orders of business was to read to the people of Texas, General Order Number 3 which began most significantly with:
“THE PEOPLE OF TEXAS ARE INFORMED THAT IN ACCORDANCE WITH A PROCLAMATION FROM THE EXECUTIVE OF THE UNITED STATES, ALL SLAVES ARE FREE. THIS INVOLVES AN ABSOLUTE EQUALITY OF RIGHTS AND RIGHTS OF PROPERTY BETWEEN FORMER MASTERS AND SLAVES, AND THE CONNECTION HERETOFORE EXISTING BETWEEN THEM BECOMES THAT BETWEEN EMPLOYER AND HIRED LABORER.”
Read the rest of the story on Juneteenth.com
Press Release
| Nassau FL Conservatives In Action (NFCIA) |
 |
| Dear Fellow Conservative, This is a friendly reminder of the next Nassau FL Conservatives In Action (NFCIA) meeting: Tuesday, June 21st, 5:30 pm Mocama Beer Company628 S. 8th Street, Fernandina Beach, FL 32034 Light hors d’oeuvres provided by You Know Chef Shawn LLC ***(CASH BAR)*** Bring other conservative friends and family members. ALL are welcome. Federal, state, and local candidates and leaders who will be in attendance for a short forum and a Q&A session include: Nassau FL County Commissioners Aaron Bell (Candidate District 2) Thomas Ford (Candidate District 4) John Martin Alyson McCullough (Candidate District 4) George Spicer (Candidate District 4) U.S. House of Representatives, District 4 Jon Chuba (Candidate) Ben Foreman – Campaign Mgr for Erick Aguilar (Candidate) House of Representatives, District 15 Emily Nunez (Candidate) Someone once said, “the most important office, and the one which all of us can and should fill, is that of a private citizen.” Please join us and let your voice be heard! Look forward to seeing you there! Respectfully, Nassau Florida Conservatives in Action |
Please CLICK to Submit Forum Questions
Contact us – [email protected]
Feature
Here’s a collection of recent Second Amendment articles from Bearing Arms
| Cornyn defends Senate deal from attacks on the right x Jun 15, 2022 Sen. John Cornyn was one of the key leaders in the discussions that led to the Senate gun control deal. There was a lot of trepidation about the deal before it was announced. Afterward, well, it could have been worse. Yet “could have been worse” is far from “good.” There’s literally … [Keep Reading] |
 | Rep. Byron Donalds has a powerful and personal take on why fear can’t dictate gun policy x Jun 15 2022 I’m planning to have the congressman on Cam & Co next week to talk about this, but I don’t want to wait until then to write about the Florida congressman’s response to calls for more gun control after the massacres in Uvalde and Buffalo in recent weeks. Writing at Fox News, … [Keep Reading] |
 | Professor invokes Tenth Amendment to infringe on Second x Jun 15 2022 Your average gun rights advocate also tends to be a fan of the Constitution. Most of us recognize that you cannot protect one constitutional right unless you’re willing to stand up for other constitutional rights–meaning, rights guaranteed by the Constitution, not right supposedly granted by it. But the Tenth Amendment is … [Keep Reading] |
 | SCOTUS, the Senate, and more – VIP Gold Live Chat – Replay Available  x Jun 15 2022 Once again I expect that Second Amendment issues are going to top our things to talk about when Hot Air’s Ed Morrissey joins me and our VIP Gold members for our weekly live chat at 1:30 ET, and I’m fired up and ready to dive into the big issues of … [Keep Reading] |
 | Op-ed: North Carolina has a choice to make on guns x Jun 14 2022 North Carolina is a bit of a strange place when it comes to guns. It’s a southern state with a generally pro-gun, red-state lean to it yet it also has some rather draconian anti-gun measures that date back to Jim Crow. In fact, a bill to end some of the worst … [Keep Reading] |
 | Anti-gun voices want to push us down slippery slope x Jun 14 2022 With the Senate reaching a deal for gun control, it feels like the door is open. 10 Republican senators cracked it open just a bit, and now the foot is in the door. Informal logical fallacies are often handy ways to dispute arguments. I’m rather fascinated by them myself, but a … [Keep Reading] Los Angeles County supervisors propose wave of new gun control restrictions Jun 15, 2022  California already dozens of gun control laws on the books, but that’s not stopping supervisors in the state’s most populous county from looking to add even more local restrictions on top of the state’s 10-day waiting period, universal background checks, magazine ban, “assault weapons” ban, red flag law, and the … [Keep Reading] National Review: GOP should be cautious over Senate deal Jun 15, 2022  We’ve spilled a lot of digital ink over the Senate deal of late, but that stands to reason. It’s a bipartisan agreement to pass gun control. Did anyone think we’d just brush this kind of thing off? Of course, we’re not the only ones talking about it. That’s hardly surprising either. … [Keep Reading] The party that gave us $5 a gallon gasoline now wants to raise the price of AR-15s to $20K Jun 15, 2022  More than three dozen House Democrats have signed on to a bill that doesn’t ban AR-15s and other modern sporting rifles outright, but simply ensures that only the wealthiest among us could afford to buy one. It’s an odd position for uber-lefties like Pramila Jayapal, the Washington Democrat who heads the … [Keep Reading] RI legislature approves mag ban, ban on gun sales to under-21s, and more Jun 15, 2022  In a lot of ways, Rhode Island is one of the most gun-controlled states in the nation. They have gun control all over the blasted place. The last thing they needed was still more gun control. Yet, in the wake of mass shootings in Uvalde and Buffalo, it seems the state … [Keep Reading] |
Press release
http://www.thecountyinsider.com/
6/15/2022
Nassau County, in partnership with the North Florida Transportation Planning Organization (TPO), has taken a proactive approach in developing a safe and viable non-vehicular transportation system to improve mobility. Part of this effort includes development of the Amelia Island Trail, a multi-use path that allows residents and visitors to easily access the places they want to go without having to drive there. The trail’s convenient location provides access to parks, beach accesses, and a variety of shopping and dining venues by foot or bicycle, thus reducing the need for a vehicle and alleviating traffic.
The County has been working closely with the City of Fernandina Beach and members of the Friends of the Amelia Island Trail to identify a path to extend the existing Amelia Island Trail from Simmons Road to the City of Fernandina Beach Waterfront. The initial estimate for this project came to approximately $7.4 million and left the City and County searching for funding mechanisms. The County ultimately submitted this project to the TPO as a top priority project. Then, the County submitted a funding request to the House of Representatives and the Florida Senate to be considered during the 2022 Legislative Session.
We are pleased to announce that during the 2022 Legislative Session, the Florida Legislature appropriated $5.1 million in Legislative Funding to Nassau County to be used to extend the Amelia Island Trail from Simmons Road to Hickory Street. The Trail route will follow the Will Hardee, Sadler Road, and 14th Street corridors. In coordination with the City of Fernandina Beach, additional funding will be needed to complete the segment from FBMS/FBHS to the Waterfront.
Kelly Gibson, Planning Director for the City of Fernandina Beach, stated, “ Extending the trail offers additional off-road options for our community to support daily needs and increase recreational opportunities. This funding supports the over two decades of planning and coordination efforts to connect Amelia Island through walking and biking trails. Benefits of the trail extensions will serve our residents, tourists and local businesses for many years to come”.
Mike Pikula, President of the Friends of the Amelia Island Trail, stated, “From the perspective of Amelia Island’s many walkers, runners, and cyclists, this $5.1 appropriation for construction of a northward extension of the Amelia Island Trail is tremendous news! We appreciate the County and the City of Fernandina Beach for supporting our efforts in developing the trail and for their commitment to improving the quality of life for our community”.
The Legislative funding will be made available to the County in 2023. Once received, the County will begin the design phase of the project.
The Board appreciates the Legislative Delegation for supporting its request for funding, particularly Senator Aaron Bean and former State Representative (now Secretary of State), Cord Byrd, as they championed for Nassau County to ensure our needs were met during this year’s Legislative Session. The Board also extends their gratitude to the City of Fernandina Beach for their support of our efforts to expand the trail and the Friends of the Amelia Island Trail for their partnership in development of the trail.
If you have any questions, please contact Deputy County Manager/Engineer, Robert Companion, at (904) 530-6010 ext. 6014 or e-mail [email protected].
News
By George Miller
Fernandina Beach, 6-11-22
LGBTQQIP2SAA advocates staged the 2nd Annual Fernandina Beach Pride Parade and Festival on 6-11-22, sponsored by Fernandina Beach Pride. The avowed purpose stated by several attendees and leadership was to provide visibility and support to the movement and stand up for their rights.
First, there was a parade, followed by a festival, with dozens of booths and food trucks, music and a spirited keynote speech by Jacksonville movement civil rights attorney-activist Jimmy Midyette.
Event Sponsors
Fernandina Beach Pride staged the event. It’s headed by local F.B. City Commission candidate Genece Minshew- President, Reanna Boudrow- Vice President and five others.
Dr. Zachary Henry of AHF/HIV Care, VyStar Credit Union, Nikki Fried for Governor, UF Health, TD Bank, Jaguar Foundation, Smith, Gambrell Russell and the Dept. of Consumer Affairs, Democratic Club of Amelia Island and Democratic Executive Committee were some of the major financial sponsors.
Parade
Led by county emergency vehicles, The parade commenced promptly at 10 AM, staging in Central Park, heading into downtown via backstreets and returning on Centre Street and Atlantic Avenue, which were lined with hundreds of people- bystanders and supporters. There were a couple of dozen vehicles and groups, which took 5 minutes to pass the starting point.
The audience seemed to consist of LGBTQQIP2SAA people, but even more so, just supporters. We based this on a quick informal poll of people passed by or observed along the parade route and at the park. Two churches, Memorial United Methodist Church and New Vision Congregational Church had a high profile presence there which was very supportive, beyond just tolerance.
We observed no overt hostility during the event- most seemed sympathetic and some bystanders viewed it impassively.
However, we spotted only three people with signs that weren’t aligned with the event message. One was merely “Jesus Saves”, leaving one to wonder specifically what he was advocating related to this event. The other two were more definitive (see sign pic here) So, we conducted an impromptu interview of regular local religious protesters Michael Alford and Darnell Robinson, who are opposed to the LGBTQQIP2SAA lifestyle, which they told me was at odds with the scriptures. When I asked what he thought about the event and its advocacy, Alford replied that “the Bible makes it obvious… I don’t see how people could conclude anything else.” He invoked Romans 1 to support that. Of course, that is reiterated in other passages too, but the Bible also instructs us to love everyone, even those regarded as sinners and to let the Lord judge.
When asked if people have given him trouble for his advocacy, he replied that in the past, he had been shouted and cursed at, spit on and assaulted. “They hated me first, but they’re really mad at God,” he concluded.
Festival
The mood was festive and upbeat, with some flamboyant decorations, signs and costumes on display. We estimated that about 700+ people were in the Festival Area in Central Park at about 11 AM, some of whom came in from the parade route. Allowing for all coming and going along the way, there might have been 1500 or more involved in all phases of the event, although it’s hard to say, with all of that movement.
There was lots of networking going on among attendees, organizers and exhibitors. They delighted in comparing outlandish costumes and signs. We noted a high percentage of health care-related services and some products, with an emphasis on mental health and addiction treatment, which is just a subset of the former.
We spoke to at least ten people about why they were there and what they hoped to accomplish in doing so. All were there “in support.” Most who would disclose it said that they are straight, but support LBGT people. Some said that they have friends/relatives who are.
Everything at the event was well organized- parade out and back on schedule, music and speech right on schedule, sound was excellent, facilities, food trucks good.
Tell Us Your Story
Gaye Foote of the United Methodist Church and also the “Tell US Your Story” group told me that they fully support the LGBT’s. She would not venture anything about them being “sinners” per biblical verses. She was part of the sign display on Center Street and their Memorial United Methodist Church and was also at the story-telling pavilion, which she stressed is NOT connected with the church.
6-14-22 update- We had a conversation this week with Rev. Carrie Yoder, Associate Pastor, Memorial United Methodist Church. She gave us this statement for publication:
“For 200 years, Memorial United Methodist Church has been a presence in our community seeking to remind people that God loves each and every one of us. Our church members are encouraged to embody and reflect the love of God to each and every person they meet. As a church family, we have heard a call from God to ensure that love shows up for our neighbors, throughout our community and world, not just with words, but with actions.
We also acknowledge and grieve that many of our neighbors have felt shut out or harmed by churches in their past. Hurtful words and actions are not of God. God is love.
One of our values at Memorial is to represent God’s welcome by creating a space for everyone to grow in their faith and connect deeply to God. We invite all people to experience authentic Christian community with us.” – Rev. Carrie Yoder
The purpose of “Tell Us Your Story”, I was informed, is to enable LGBT’s to tell their story in a loving environment that they do not otherwise feel they have- an opportunity to unburden themselves. In addition, they were handing out “A Love Letter From God.” It is a two page collection of biblical verses which describe God’s boundless love for humanity and contains dozens of citations to allow you to trace them back to the scriptures.
But there is a warning contained on page three, where the editor states: “So what? You now have a choice to consider. You can choose to live your own life, go your own way, and do your own thing apart from God. You have that freedom. Unfortunately, that’s a path that leads to a lonely separation from God…..” (etc.)
As if to underline the Tell US Your Story message, right outside of the pavilion, we ran into New Jersey expatriate and admitted “binary” Jim Lee, who relocated to the Island. He told us about a long time good friend who died at 70, never revealing to him his darkest secret hidden in the closet. Jim described his deep sadness upon finally learning that his friend could never bring himself to tell him and carried that burden to his death.
Group from Camden County
We stopped a group of high school and college age young people- male and female, black and white, to ask them their thoughts. We decided not to publish their great group pic or mention names because some of them are minors. Some were wearing LBGT regalia.
In summary, they were there and eager to support the movement, said that they are straight, but have “lots of friends” who aren’t. They lament that said friends are “not allowed to love.” When I asked for more info, they told me that “people should be equal”. They said that parents, community, schools and government are preventing it.
I suppose this sounds like news, since governments and schools appear to be bending over backwards with total acceptance and promotion of the lifestyle. No, more than one said. They said parents strongly discourage it, that one of their high schools refused to allow a GSA (Gay Straight Alliance) chapter, and another had heard that one state wanted separate marriage licenses for straight and not-straight couples.
Festival Keynote Speech by Jimmy Midyette
Keynote speeches normally embody the intellectual heart and soul of an event/movement, as did this one. Attorney Jimmy Midyette is known for his advocacy of LGBTQQIP2SAA rights via civic action and litigating perceived injustices. Evidently, the courts have agreed with him on multiple occasions where his causes have prevailed, including… (we’re waiting for him to send his speech and cases, which we will add later)
He described Fernandina Beach as “The heart of the reanimation of Pride” and reminded us that this is Pride month, just in case we hadn’t noticed it 24/7 all over the media for weeks. He took a quick voice poll which suggested that about 2/3 participating were local, about 20% from Jacksonville and south, with the remainder from “Georgia and north.”
He sadly reminisced about the police brutality against “gay, transgender and bi’s”, which triggered the 5 day NYC Stonewall Inn Uprising (“gay” bar), also described as riots, starting on June 28, 1969. This is often described as the start of the “Pride” movement.
He asked if people were “here to protest and raise hell” and received light applause. He then cited the more recent attack on the Orlando, Florida LGBT Pulse Nightclub where 49 were killed. This worst ever mass shooting to date then in the USA was done by an alleged islamic extremist.
Midyette then claimed that there were “two-spirit, intersex” Timucuan residents here a thousand years ago who were celebrated in their society.
But, he said, society is now dangerous to the LBGT community … and that community is dangerous to the “power structure.”
He then went on to attack the Florida House Bill (HB) 1557, Parental Rights in Education, which he described as the “don’t say gay” bill, in lockstep with the Democratic Party’s incorrect narrative. Midyette claimed that it tells schoolchildren that something is wrong with a different sexual orientation, which he says is “under attack”. Our reading is that it merely blocks teaching sex to kindergarten through 3rd grade students and others where it is in violation of age-appropriate Florida laws. Read it yourself and see.
He also said that “trans girls are not allowed to play sports”. Of course, people may play in leagues with members of their their own sex. Women’s athletic participation and victories are now being ruined by much stronger “trans” competitors and they are furious about it. Legislators and courts will attempt to sort this out.
Midyette said he is “not apolitical” and that cause issues should be addressed at the ballot box. He said the movement is under attack by Governor Ronald DeSantis, who he said is the worst one in the history of Florida and that his Republican friends agree. He called upon people to “liberate us from his hateful agenda which would push us back in the closet.”
He wrapped up by urging the crowd to vote when the ballots come out in August (primary) and November (general election). He warned “our lives are at risk… by political machinations… by these monsters in Tallahassee.”
Local Pastor Comments
Most local religious leaders do not wish to condemn people who are trying to find a way. Local Senior Pastor Zach Terry of First Baptist Church Fernandina Beach agrees and has always counseled congregants to love everyone, and he does mean EVERYONE. He offered the following statement:
“Sex was God’s idea and beside salvation, it was the best one He ever had. As Christians we believe sex and gender are wonderful gifts that should be enjoyed and celebrated. As with any gift, if we use it improperly it can be dangerous, even devastating. Fire within a fireplace can warm a home, if it leaves the fireplace it can destroy a home.
The Bible teaches that sexual immorality of any kind, outside the bonds of a heterosexual marriage, should be repented of and forsaken, not celebrated. Simultaneously, scripture teaches that those who take part in the LGBTQ+ community are not our enemies. We love them, we want the best for them. We do not seek to persecute or harm them in any way. We cannot, however, celebrate something that we believe to be destructive to their souls.
Personally, I have enjoyed conversations with people from the LGBTQ+ community. I have learned much about how they think philosophically, morally and politically. Each of these conversations have led to a measure of mutual respect and even some common ground.
While I am not able to celebrate the lifestyle they have chosen, I can celebrate the fact that Jesus Christ died for their sin just as He did for mine.”
– Senior Pastor Zach Terry, First Baptist Church Fernandina Beach, FL
Other Media Reports on This Event
_________________________________
George Miller is Publisher and Co-Founder of Citizens Journal Florida, based in Fernandina Beach. He is a “retired” operations management consultant, software and publishing executive and manufacturing management professional
By Doug Miller
Fernandina Beach June 9,2022
The Nassau County School Board met on Thursday to pass the first millage increase since 2008, citing that “the national teacher shortage and an alarming increase in resignations and retirements have created a continuous increase in vacancy rates in Nassau County.”
Average teacher salaries are about $52,000 in Florida and Nassau County falls below that at around $47,000 annually. The school board feels that wage increases are necessary to attract and retain high quality teachers- as well as support personnel. They are now short 38 teachers and 95 support staff.
The current millage rate is at 4.47 percent and would rise to 5.47 , if it passes in the general election. Although this is still lower than the rate in 2008, which was 5.64 percent, it’s still more than a 20 percent increase.
Admittedly, costs have certainly risen since then, even without the current runaway inflation. The question is, do the property tax revenues on inflated home prices make up for this, or is the 1 mill increase warranted? According to Nassau County Property Appraiser Mike Hickox, taxable value of Nassau County property exceeded $12.6 billion as of Jan 2, 2022.
Other action items voted in included a “Voluntary cooperation law enforcement mutual aid agreement ” between the Fernandina Beach Police Department, and the Nassau County School District Police. This detailed the legal and logistical arrangement between the two so as to provide each other with extra personnel when needed and to clarify command structure when that would occur.
The “Concurrency proportional share mitigation agreement ” with Bonnieview FB LLC on their Marsh View construction project also got the go-ahead, which will generate $20,639.00 towards future school projects.
It was also determined that Constangy, Brooks, Smith & Prophete would be retained for “collective bargaining services” with the NTA and NESPA for future negotiations.
Richard Lamken came forward, once again, to discuss creating a citizens budget advisory committee for the school board. Mr. Lamken is lead for the education division of County Citizens Defending Freedom, or CCDF, a local civic group.
He stated that he had emailed information to Dr. Burns and copied the other five board members about the subject and had not received any replies. Referring to Dr. Burns he said “I think I heard her talk about a citizens budget advisory committee that was going to be part of the budgeting process, is that correct?” Dr. Burns replied that “my conversation was in relation to the resolution to the millage.”
Mr. Lamken continued to speak about the need for such a committee, and how budget transparency leads to more responsible spending, more citizen involvement , and improved accountability. “We as citizens should be involved,” he said.
He stated that his group, CCDF, had 500 members- some of whom had considerable experience in school budgets, private sector finance and that they would be willing to donate their time to help the school board develop the next year’s budget. He finished by asking the board,” Do you support a citizens budget advisory committee?”
For the second meeting in a row, several citizens- parents and one student- showed up to speak about the dismissal of former Yulee high School Principal Rudy Joinville.
Renee Watts, who has two special needs daughters, moved here because of Nassau County schools’ good reputation. She said Mr. Joinville intervened when, as she stated, “the Dean of students singled out her daughters for their differences.”
Stating that Mr Joinville was “passionate about his school”, and that the children adored him, so that his firing was “a horrible injustice.”
Avery Gallegler, a Yulee high school senior, also stood up for his former principal, because to him he was “a pillar of hope and strength.” He said had never heard a negative comment about him.
Rudy Joinville sat quietly while many spoke out on his behalf and declined to speak when the board asked him to comment.
William Don, a retired Navy veteran, also moved here to provide a good education for his children. He spoke up on the former principal’s behalf and stated that “he was so passionate for his school.” He thought Mr. Joinville was a “scapegoat for a racial case.” Many people are still unsatisfied with the outcome at Yulee High and feel like no explanation was given for for his dismissal.
There will be an article dedicated to this subject in the near future.
_________________________________
Doug Miller, Citizen reporter, is an itinerant free spirit and jack of all trades He was born in New York, and raised in Puerto Rico. He now operates Quality Home Services in Fernandina Beach and dreams of the next hurricane swell.
Feature
It is estimated that thousands participated in the event, as 1,300 boats registered for the parade alone. As witnessed by Breitbart News, nearly all of the vessels had several individuals aboard, suggesting that the preliminary estimations of turnout are likely accurate. Supporters also gathered along the sidelines and aboard the USS Orleck, “one of the most decorated US Navy ships since WWII,” which has been docked alongside the St. Johns River in downtown Jacksonville. The U.S. Navy ship was adorned with flags — from the “thin blue line” flag to others showing support for the popular governor.
Enthusiastic Floridians gathered in Jacksonville, Florida, in a massive show of support for Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) via a boat parade on the St. Johns River, which Duval County Republican chairman Dean Black described as the “first in the nation DeSantis Flotilla.”
Read more on Breitbart:
Original event invitation:
News
By By Michael Hernandez, 6-10-22
Alexandria, Virginia—A non-profit’s June report shows that billionaire George Soros has funded at least 75 radical “social justice” prosecutors in America by spending “millions of campaign dollars” supporting “political neophytes” with “zero prosecutorial experience” and “no previous criminal case experience.”
The report issued this month by the Law Enforcement Legal Defense Fund is titled “Justice For Sale” and examines these prosecutors “route to power, source of funding, and affiliations and allies dedicated to supporting their social justice agenda” and how “candidates were elected to implement an ideological agenda.”
The Law Enforcement Legal Defense Fund (LELDF) is a non-profit “dedicated to supporting and defending the law enforcement profession and those law enforcement officers who have devoted their lives to upholding the Constitution and serving the United States and its citizens while enforcing its laws.”
The “Justice For Sale” report states five conclusions:
*InfluenceWatch.org as well as FloridaPolitics.com and the Orlando Sentinel have reported on how Monique Worrell has become the second Soros candidate to become state attorney for Orange and Osceola County in the Orlando metro area. She received $1 million from Soros’ The Democracy Alliance. Her predecessor, Aramis Ayala was a “long-shot candidate” elected in 2016 with the help of more than $1.3 million from the Soros’ Florida Safety and Justice Political Action Committee.
Other George Soros-backed organizations include:
(Editor’s Note: To see the complete June, 2022 LELDF report go to:
To see a link to 22 Soros backed prosecutors in 15 States go to:
https://www.influencewatch.org/app/uploads/2021/04/Soros-Attorney-Funding.pdf.
To see Breitbart News reporting on this topic, go to:
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2022/06/08/report-u-s-has-75-soros-backed-radical-prosecutors/ and
_____________________________________________________
Michael Hernandez, co-founder of the Citizens Journal—Ventura County’s online news service is a former Southern California daily newspaper journalist and religion and news editor. He worked 25 years as a middle school teacher in Monrovia and Los Angeles Unified School Districts. He also has family members living in Kiev, Ukraine. Mr. Hernandez can be contacted at [email protected].)
Opinion
By Paul Burich
6-10-22
Here we go again. Election integrity ruling in PA shows that state election legislation can be overruled by judges–including federal judges — who should have NOTHING to do with election laws. 2022 is going to be another %$#@ show.
Key paragraphs:
“The Supreme Court on Thursday cleared the way for a Pennsylvania county to count mail-in ballots that do not comply with a state law requiring voters to write the date on the ballot’s envelope. Although the case arose from a single local judicial race, it raised broader issues about how federal voting-rights protections apply when voters fail to meet state clerical requirements — a conflict that may crop up again in this year’s midterm elections.
In an unsigned and unexplained order, the justices rejected an emergency appeal from a Republican candidate who currently holds a narrow lead in a 2021 race for a judgeship on a Lehigh County trial court. The candidate, David Ritter, wanted the justices to block the local board of elections from counting ballots that were received by Election Day but arrived in undated envelopes.
Justice Samuel Alito dissented from the ruling, in a five-page opinion that was joined by Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch. He urged the court to take up the case on the merits and fast-track it for an argument in October so that it can resolve the issue before the November elections.”
Read in SCOTUS Blog:
Paul Burich is still another California refugee who fled to Arizona and is doing just fine, thank you.
Opinion
By Michael Cutler
6-9-22
Sanctuary Cities Now Provide Sanctuary For Deadly Illegal Drugs
The NYC Health Dept. shows how to use them “safely.”
Kindly forward this to your senators and congressional representatives and to as many folks as you can and then ask that those to whom you send this forward it along to everyone they can- I am attempting to create a “Bucket Brigade of Truth!
Please remember to listen to my radio show, “The Michael Cutler Hour” on BlogTalk Radio on Friday evenings at 7:00 PM, Eastern Time, and find podcasts of my previous programs at:
My article today is predicated on the insane efforts of the New York City Board of Health and similar supposed “health” departments in cities being destroyed by lunatic Radicals, to encourage the use of illegal and dangerous drugs- even as record numbers of people have died in the United States last year as a direct consequence of drug overdoses.
The very same radicals who are aggressively pushing “gun control” refuse to consider criminal control!
It should be readily apparent that the goal of radicals is not to make us safer and protect innocent lives, but to destroy American communities from within.
Furthermore, as I have documented in many of my previous articles, the proceeds from the drug trade fund transnational gangs and international terrorist organizations.
I hope my commentary provides you with serious “food for thought” and motivates you to contact your Congressional representatives and U.S. senators to make your concerns known.
Facts are indeed, “stubborn things!”
Please take the time to read my commentary in its entirety and check out the links to other articles and materials I included in my article.
Ignorance is not bliss. Knowledge is power, so my article provides some cold hard facts for you to consider and hopefully share with others.
If you like my article I ask that you make a point of posting it on FaceBook and other social media and forward this e-mail to as many folks as you can. It is important to dispel the lies and nonsense about the true nature and significance of effective immigration law enforcement in this particularly perilous era.
Being “Pro-Enforcement” is not “Anti-Immigrant.” Indeed, advocates for immigration anarchy are actually taking an “Anti-Immigrant” position by obfuscating the line that separates lawful immigrants from illegal aliens. To provide a bit of clarity, while we are indeed a “Nation of immigrants” America is not a nation of trespassers. The difference between an immigrant and an illegal alien is comparable to the difference between a houseguest and a burglar.
Americans must be willing to stand their ground and not be intimidated by the false accusations- far too much hangs in the balance! We must speak out against mayors and governors who create “Sanctuary Cities” and “Sanctuary States.”
Many people have come to complain that we have become too “Politically Correct” to speak the truth about important issues. My view is that the artful use of language that has been described as examples of political correctness are in fact, examples of Orwellian “Newspeak.”
Having invoked George Orwell, it is appropriate to consider a couple of his brilliant quotes:
In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.
I addressed the way that control of language leads to thought control and ultimately a loss of our freedoms in my article for The Social Contract:
“Language Wars: The Road to Tyranny Is Paved with Language Censorship”
Sanctuary Cities Now Provide Sanctuary For Deadly Illegal Drugs
The NYC Health Dept. shows how to use them “safely.”
Wed June 8, 2022 Michael Cutler
Archive of My Articles for FrontPage Magazine
On February 27, 2019 Newsmax published my article, The Truth About Immigration Can Unite All Americans.
On November 15, 2014 I was honored to join three true leaders in the United States Congress in a panel discussion on immigration- then-U.S. Senator Jeff Sessions and Congressmen Louis Gohmert and John Fleming. A video of this panel discussion has been posted on the David Horowitz Freedom Center’s website under the title, “IMMIGRATION WARS: An all-star panel takes on America’s immigration crisis at Restoration Weekend.”
The video has also been posted on YouTube under the title-“Immigration Wars.”
The perspectives of these true leaders are well worth listening to.
To provide you with a bit of additional material, during my remarks at the panel discussion, I referenced my June 22, 2007 Op-Ed for the Washington Times, Immigration bill a ‘No Go’ that focused on my concerns about the previous attempt to enact Comprehensive Immigration Reform. Then-Senator Jeff Sessions quoted from my commentary, on three separate dates, from the floor of the U.S. during the contentious floor debates in 2007 when Comprehensive Immigration Reform legislation was under consideration.. In my piece I recommended that Comprehensive Immigration Reform be given a more honest and descriptive title, I suggested that it be renamed the “Terrorist Assistance and Facilitation Act!”
Discussions about immigration almost invariably focus on the lack of integrity to the border that is supposed to separate the United States from America. Clearly that border lacks integrity and represents little more than a speed bump to smugglers who transport illegal aliens and contraband including record quantities of dangerous drugs such as heroin and cocaine into the United States.
However, there are many more components to the immigration system including systems by which aliens are granted visas to enter the United States and various immigration benefits such as conferring employment authorization to aliens in the United States and also include the adjudications process by which aliens are granted lawful immigrant status and even United States citizenship.
All of these systems of the immigration system lack integrity. Aliens who have gone on to commit crimes and even participate in terrorist attacks have often been dissevered to have successfully gamed the immigration benefits program in order to embed themselves in communities around the United States as they went about their deadly preparations.
The findings and recommendations of the 9/11 Commission must be the starting point for any discussion about immigration legislation. That commission determined that a lack of border security, including the visa process. and fraud in the immigration benefits program, enabled terrorists to enter and embed themselves in the United States, as they went about their deadly preparations.
Immigration is not a single issue but a singular issue that impacts nearly every challenge and threat confronting the United States today! Simply stated, the immigration laws were enacted to save lives and protect the jobs of American workers. In point of fact, our borders and our immigration laws are America’s first line of defense and last line of defense against international terrorists and transnational criminals.
It is not “Anti-Immigrant” to be “Pro-American” it is also not “Anti-Immigrant” to be pro-immigration law enforcement!
Our armed forces are charged with securing America’s borders externally while the DHS is supposed to secure those same borders from within. The failures of the DHS to live up to its half of the equation are undermining the efforts, valor and incredible sacrifices of Americas men and women who serve in our military!
If our government’s failures to protect American jobs by securing our nation’s borders and effectively enforcing our immigration laws concerns you or especially if it angers you, I ask you to call your Senators and Congressional “Representative. This is not only your right- it is your obligation!
All I ask is that you make it clear to our politicians that we are not as dumb as they hope we are!
We live in a perilous world and in a perilous era. The survival of our nation and the lives of our citizens hang in the balance.
American Lives Matter!
This is neither a Conservative issue, nor is it a Liberal issue- simply stated, this is most certainly an AMERICAN issue!
You are either part of the solution or you are a part of the problem!
Democracy is not a spectator sport!
Lead, follow or get out of the way!
-michael cutler-
Please check out my website:
On Friday evenings from 7:00 PM until 8:00 PM Eastern Time, I host my show, “The Michael Cutler Hour” on the USA Talk Radio Network on Blog Talk Radio.
Call in and join the conversation! The phone number is 310-982-4145
Here is the link to my program and my archived shows:
Call in via Skype for free here
(while show is Live)
Press Release- Elections, Education
Sponsored by By We the People
| Please join us for an enlightening Happy Hour for Concerned Conservatives on Monday, June 20th, 2022 from 5:00 to 7:00 pm at Walkers Landing 70 Marsh Creek Road (Non-AIP property owners may enter through the main Omni Resort gate) Meet like-minded friends & neighbors as we hear from the …. Candidates for Nassau County School Board including District 1 Candidates: Jamie Deonas – incumbent from District 3 Shannon Hogue Rick Pavelock District 3 Candidates: David Dew Curtis Gaus Albert Wagner District 5 Candidates: Lissa Braddock – incumbent Ashley Benoit ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ $10.00 per person, plus BYOB and bring an appetizer to share Feel free to invite any friends who may have an interest RSVP to Deb Boelkes by June 16th 904-310-9602 ~ [email protected] ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ If you register but are unable to attend, please cancel with Deb by June 16 |
| About Ashley Benoit – Candidate for District 5– Ashley Benoit is an educator, business owner and parent. Ashley has spent more than 14 years in education as a teacher, reading coach and curriculum coordinator. As a business owner, Ashley has learned how to start and grow a business from the ground up. She understands how fiscal decisions impact the day-to-day operations. Ashley is passionate about education and serving the students of Nassau County. She believes in authentic instruction, increasing our teacher retention and performing due diligence prior to voting on mandates and purchases. About Lissa Braddock – Incumbent for District 5 Bio not available by time of publication. About Jamie Deonas – Candidate for District 1 (currently represents District 3) Jamie Deonas was born and raised in Nassau County, FL, and is a graduate of the Nassau County public school system class of 1989. Jamie is happily married to Janet Deonas and they have two adult children who both graduated from the Nassau County public school system, and a grandson who currently attends Fernandina Beach Middle School. Jamie is a 27 year veteran with the Nassau County Fire/ Rescue Department where he serves as a Paramedic and Engineer. Jamie is also a small business owner. He has started, owned and operated several small businesses all located in Nassau County. Jamie is deeply invested in his community and very active in many areas throughout the county. Jamie is proud to be a 5th generation Nassau County resident. About David Dew – Candidate for District 3 David T. Dew is one of the current candidates for the seat of Nassau County School Board, District 3. A 4th generation Yulee native. He started kindergarten at Yulee Primary School and graduated from Fernandina Beach High School in 2004. He’s an active volunteer in the community with several local nonprofits. A father of a 10 year who attends Yulee Elementary School. David works as a Civil Service Employee for the Department of Defense -FRCSE- at NASJAX, NS Mayport and Cecil Field. He started his career in industrial construction as a tradesman then on to Supervisor, Planning, Estimating, Scheduling and Project Management for Power Plants and Oil Refineries. He’s an advocate for the special needs community and the director for the Yulee Holiday Parade and Festival. Most of his free time is dedicated to volunteering in our community or planning fundraising events. He’s a supporter of transparency in decision making, parental rights to decide educational guidance of their children, pay increases for educators (especially experienced and veteran teachers), and for the elected officials to do their research and listen to the people they represent before making decisions that will impact our district. About Curtis Gaus – Candidate for District 3 Information not available by time of publication. About Shannon Hogue – Candidate for District 1 Shannon Hogue is running for the District 1 Nassau County School Board seat. She is married to Brent Hogue and they have three daughters. Her entire career has been centered around training and developing highly effective teachers and creating a culture of lifelong learning within students. She has been in education for the last 23 years and have served and advocated for the educational needs of our community’s children, 7 years as a Curriculum Director of a local private school and most recently, as the Reading Coach at Emma Love Hardee Elementary. She owns Ms. Shannon’s Summer Camps, a local summer camp business. During Covid, she began a ministry, Sunshine Saturday Ministries, that delivers flowers to Northeast Florida and Southeast Georgia citizens who need a smile. Last year, she was named Emma Love Hardee’s Teacher of the Year and this year she was named the Veteran of Foreign Affairs’ Elementary Teacher of the Year for District 6. About Rick Pavelock – Candidate for District 1 Information not available by time of publication.  About Albert Wagner – Candidate for District 3 Albert Wagner is a public servant who has served communities in public education for over 17 years. During his career, Albert has worked in the capacity of Elementary Principal, Assistant Principal, Instructional Coach, and Teacher. Albert graduated from Temple University with a Bachelor’s Degree in December 1999 in Elementary Education. In December 2004, Albert attained his Master’s Degree in Educational Leadership from St. Joseph’s University. Albert has certifications as a K-6 Elementary Teacher, ESE teacher, School Principal, Supervisor, and District Administrator. Albert has worked as a teacher at Yulee Elementary School prior to his current role as Assistant Principal. During his time at Yulee Elementary, Albert gained a positive reputation in the community of facilitating hands-on lessons for his students, going above and beyond for his school, and developing professional and respectful relationships with stakeholders. Albert is currently a candidate for District 3 School Board for Nassau County. He is hoping to bring his wealth of experience and expertise to Nassau School Board and empower the Board to be more transparent and accountable to district employees and the residents/businesses in Nassau County. Albert resides in Yulee Township with his wife of 16 years Kendra. Together they have two beautiful daughters Rylee, age 13, who will be entering 8th grade at Yulee Middle School, and Addisyn, age 10, who will be completing her last year at Yulee Elementary. Albert and his wife Kendra are proud to be raising their children in Nassau County. Whether you live on the island or in Hilliard or anywhere in between, Albert will always be available to discuss your concerns regarding our school district. He will listen, gain an understanding, and follow through to assist you in any capacity that he can. Albert will always serve through respectful collaboration, fiscal, staff, and policy transparency, and accountability to all stakeholders in Nassau County. |
Press Release- Elections
Staci McMonagle, a 25-year resident of Fernandina Beach and a life-long Floridian, has announced her candidacy for City Commission Seat 5. Staci’s motto is: “Your Vote Is Your Voice. Make Your Voice Heard.” I want to be the voice for people that are being ignored.
For instance, who represents the families of Fernandina? Recently, the City unveiled their plan to get rid of the baseball fields at Central Park. Activities that benefit and engage our youth have been disappearing from our town for years, and now a plan has emerged to push our youth activities to the outskirts of town. If they go forward with this plan, the City will have wasted $430,000 of our taxpayer dollars since the lights at the ballpark were only updated three years ago. This is a perfect example of wasteful spending.
What does that tell us? It tells us that families and kids are no longer a priority. It shows us how out of touch our city officials are with the needs of our community as a whole. Such thoughtless planning changes the very core of why we all have chosen to make Fernandina our home. This beautiful small-town community has been in the making for generations and it’s the small town atmosphere we inherited that keeps us here. It matters not if you recently joined our community or if your family has been here for years. It is evident to anyone listening that we all share a common desire to see Fernandina remain faithful to her roots. Knowing this I can’t sit back and allow the very heart of our island to be destroyed.
Our city government seems to have lost sight of who we are and what makes this place we all call home so special. But we, the people, have not. We know exactly who we are, and now is the time to come together. If not now, when? If not us, who? If we wait any longer, the Fernandina we all know & cherish will no longer be here. She will have gone the way of all the beach communities south of us.
Staci said her most valuable qualifications for public office are: her problem-solving ability; knowing what it means to serve as a servant-leader; and her compassion for people. “I can think outside the box. I don’t let the box define the solution. As a concierge at the Ritz-Carlton Amelia Island, I was trained to think not only of win-win solutions but to have THREE wins! For instance, when presented with an issue at city hall, I will work diligently to come up with a solution for all parties involved.
Ms. McMonagle’s volunteer experience includes: the Salvation Army Hope House, the Interfaith Dinner Network, and Young Life where she served on their board. She is currently a licensed Certified Nursing Assistant with her own business, C.N.A. Care Services. As a small business owner, Staci said she believes in shopping local and supporting other small businesses and tourism. “With my many years of concierge experience, I understand the value of tourism to this island. We are no longer a tourist destination only a few months out of the year. Our tourist industry is our community’s bread and butter and it works hard 24/7, 365 days a year.”
Staci supports: LEADERS who listen to their constituents and act decisively on behalf of the community as a whole; STEWARDSHIP keeping a steadfast watch over taxpayer dollars; GOVERNMENT that is fiscally responsible and accountable to the citizens of Fernandina; and GROWTH that enhances and protects our fragile barrier island.
Staci can be contacted at 904-477-4086 and [email protected]. Her Facebook page is:
On her Facebook page she is committed to doing a weekly 3-minute long video to address whatever people are commenting on that week. It’s called, “Give Me 3 Minutes” because that’s all you’re given to speak at in a city council meeting.
Elections
By Jack Knocke
Common Sense Fernandina Beach/County Citizens Defending Freedom
6-7-22
Have you ever found yourself saying “how can I get information about the candidates to know who I should vote for?”. It is important to not just throw darts or pick a name you heard. I get the question all the time “Jack, who should I vote for in the Nassau County local elections. I don’t know any of the candidates.”
We have a group in Common Sense/CCDF that is preparing questions for the candidates to inform you and the community so that everyone can vote with transparency as to who the candidates are and what they stand for. We could use your help if you are interested. If we can get a little help from everyone, this project will be hugely successful.
I wanted to follow up with you regarding small groups that are forming to focus on Candidates and Election Integrity. Do you have a few minutes for a quick call to discuss? Let’s talk about where you may have an interest.
Here are some of the things we are doing in this area:
Candidate Vetting
Election Integrity
Please call Sandy Kerry [email protected], James Bruner [email protected] or Jack Knocke to discuss. Please leave us your phone number if you want to talk. We look forward to talking when you have a few minutes.
Jack
| Jack Knocke Prospective Affiliate Executive Director– Nassau County, Florida cell: 470-295-4365 email: [email protected] CCDFUSA.COM |
From: James Bruner <[email protected]>
Subject: Report on the CCDF Candidate Vetting Meeting Held at Bruners on 5/10/22
Dear CCDF Ambassadors and Friends,
Attached below is the agenda from our recent Candidate Vetting meeting. At the meeting we identified the difference between Election Integrity and Candidate Vetting, i.e. voter rolls and ballot counting process versus ensuring good candidates for office. Persons interested in Election Integrity were and are directed to Sandy Kerry for coordination. Candidate Vetting was then discussed as detailed in the attached agenda.
As you can see the following volunteer positions on the Candidate Vetting Committee are needed to take on this endeavor. We still need:
1. Volunteer Coordinator
2. Typist to prepare Candidate Questionnaire and Voter Guide. Experience in Xcel and Word formats is helpful.
3. Race Coordinators ( City, Town, County, and School Board, etc.) 4 -5 people
4. LABEL Coordinator (Letters to the editors/blogs)
5. Candidates’ Night Coordinator
Please contact me by email or phone if you would like more information on these positions or would like to serve in such capacity. Signing up as a CCDF Ambassador-Nassau is required (no cost). Do that here.
Please also know that we need your donations to CCDF-Nassau County. Donate here,please. While CCDF-USA processes your gift, the money stays in Nassau County for CCDF-Nassau projects.
This is your chance to help save your community and country.
Cordially,
James H.K. Bruner
jamesbruner@kevin-howden
06-05-22
The Fernandina Beach Airport has over 7.2 million dollars in projects underway to insure it stays ahead of current and future infrastructure needs while maintaining an operations tempo of 4,179 takeoffs and landings in the month of May 2022 alone.
According to Nathan Coyle, Fernandina Beach Airport Director, the airport has 6 new hangar units in 2 buildings currently under construction with a 01July22 projected completion date.
The newest city fire station is now under construction at the airport entrance. The primary purpose of the station will be to support the local community. Fire station personnel will also train in aviation response with a dedicated entry gate onto airport property. Ground breaking was in April, and the projected completion date is March 2023.
FHB Aircraft Hangars LLC signed a ground lease agreement with the airport and completed construction of 3 hangar units in the Spring of 2021. Additional hangars by the company are currently under review. Landmark Modernization Contractors just signed a ground lease in April for the construction of a private 3,500 square foot hangar. Requests for hangar units for private aircraft by individuals has soared in recent years. Additional hangars are slated for construction each year for the next few years, starting with an FDOT grant approval this Fall to begin planning for the construction of more hangars. Good news for the 65 individuals on the hangar waiting list.
Currently in the bidding process is a project to rehab a portion of the transient ramp area where charter and private transient aircraft operate. The project has a cost estimate ranging from 1.2 – 1.35 million dollars and has a projected completion date of mid-February 2023.
Funding for airport projects comes from three major sources – Grants from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT), as well as revenues generated by the airport. In the case of private hangars like the FHB Aircraft Hangars LLC hangars, a ground lease is established (a revenue generator) and the private company then foots the bill to build. The airport also receives revenue from property leases with private entities located along the airport boundaries, and with the City of Fernandina Beach.
Fernandina Beach Municipal Airport was originally developed during World War II by the United States Navy and served as a naval aviation training facility.
The airfield was used by the Navy for F-4U Corsair training as well as Atlantic Coast Ocean Surveillance Operations. The architecture of the welcome center, in the shape of an F-4U Corsair, gives a nod to the airfield’s beginnings.
Following World War II, the Airport facilities were transferred to the City of Fernandina Beach in accordance with the provisions of the U.S. Surplus Property Act of 1944. This transfer, which occurred on July 10, 1947, provided ownership of 1,116 acres of property along with all buildings and airport improvements to the City of Fernandina Beach.
After a recent extensive airport tour, I can attest to the fact the airport is in fine shape and positioned to serve the needs of both local and visiting users. KFHB (aviation vernacular for the Fernandina Beach Airport) is being run efficiently and with great attention to detail. The airport staff takes their fiduciary responsibilities seriously and are keen on providing the best bang for the buck with all projects and operations.
Excellent facilities and staff with easy driving or flying access in and out. No wonder KFHB is indeed “the little airport that can”!
Sources
https://www.fbfl.us/66/Airport
https://www.fbfl.us/67/Airport-History
https://www.fbfl.us/168/Airport-Information
http://www.airnav.com/airport/FHB
https://flightaware.com/live/airport/KFHB
https://www.fbfl.us/DocumentCenter/View/17399/2015-Final-Airport-Master-Plan—Copy?
https://www.fdot.gov/aviation/default.shtm
Tom Lockie is the Transportation and Travel Editor for the Citizens Journal Florida. A veteran and recently retired airline Captain, Tom considers aviation and travel his ongoing passions . Tom is a published author, featured in the USA Today for his children’s book “Come Fly with Me”
Opinion
6-4-22
Happy Saturday, and welcome to C&C’s weekend edition! I’ve got a great roundup for you this morning: worldwide demand for jabs is cratering; Moderna chucks jabs into the literal garbage; Hoody fan and stroke victim John Fetterman gets a pacemaker; the Supreme Court allows NY school jab mandate; ratio of breakthrough covid deaths rises; federal vaccine compensation plans are overwhelmed for some reason; re-lockdowns in Shanghai; a judge rules against city jab mandate; giant naval practices begin; another Iranian drone scientist dies suddenly and unexpectedly; Americans fret about civil war; Medvedev invokes the Apocalypse; and California suffers a mega-drought.
💉 The Motley Fool ran a story Thursday headlined, “Why Moderna and Pfizer Lagged the Market Today.” The finance mag reported “discouraging news from Moderna,” in that the European Union just revised its vaccine contract with Moderna, reducing the number of doses the bloc will buy this year.
Reuters reported that Pfizer has also reduced its planned EU shipments after a contract change, explaining “the region has [] seen a drop in demand for COVID-19 vaccines.” The Motley Fool concluded that “investors are clearly taking the news as a sign that demand for COVID jabs might be weakening.” You think?
Even though Thursday’s market was up 2% overall, Moderna fell 2%, and Pfizer only increased 0.6%, which the Fool seems to consider a net loss.
Moderna @moderna_txWe’re announcing an agreement with the @EU_Commission to amend their originally agreed contractual delivery schedules for our #COVID19 vaccine (mRNA-1273) booster product or updated booster vaccine candidate. investors.modernatx.com/news/news-deta…
June 2nd 202211 Retweets48 Likes
In its article, Reuters framed the news by suggesting that the EU is just shifting deliveries forward, anticipating a new booster campaign in the fall. But the news agency provided no hard facts about said fall campaign.
It seems clear that demand for the jabs is down in the EU. For some reason. I wonder how much of governments’ booster-pushing is really a scheme to use up excess pre-purchased inventory to help politicians avoid embarrassment for buying too many expensive doses in the first place?
💉 It’s not just the EU. Stéphane Bancel, Moderna’s CEO, is a sad puppy. Frowny face. On May 24th, in a panel discussion at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Bancel announced some alarming news in his quaint French accent. The problem: demand for jabs is way down. Everywhere. He kind of went on and on and on:
It’s sad to say, I’m in the process of throwing away 30 million doses in the garbage because nobody wants them. We have a big demand problem… we right now are … trying to get demand up in the countries. We’ve contacted so many governments … and nobody wants to take them. The Chinese don’t want the mRNA vaccine. The issue in many countries is people don’t want vaccine. In U.S. people don’t want vaccines.
Poor Stéphane. The good news is he got a lot of sympathy from the Davos crowd. As Bancel spoke, the other panelists looks alarmed, audibly gasping in horror at some points. Demand down! What! You mean the psyops aren’t working?
Lindsay @TexasLindsay🚨WATCH: Stéphane Bancel, Moderna, CEO: “Sad to say, I’m in the process of throwing away 30M doses in the garbage because nobody wants them. We have a big demand problem… and are working to create demand into countries…” #WEF2022
Now, what do you suppose Bancel meant when he said he was working with governments “to get demand up?” How, exactly? The possibilities are endlessly alarming.
💉 Remember jab-pushing John Fetterman, the hoody-wearing Democrat nominee for U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania who’s recovering from a sudden and unexpected stroke? Seems like I still owe a few of you lunches on that one. I’m good for it.
Anyway, his campaign disclosed yesterday that, on top of his stroke, Mr. Fetterman now has oddly also developed cardiomyopathy. A sudden and unexpected stroke AND a sudden and unexpected heart disease. At the same time. Baffling.
Cardiomyopathy is a condition where the heart muscle becomes weakened and enlarged, two things that you really don’t want in a heart muscle. The AP explained “cardiomyopathy can impede blood flow and potentially cause heartbeats so irregular they can be fatal.”
Not too good.
Fortunately, Fetterman’s doctors installed a pacemaker in the 52-year-old lawmaker, to shock his heart back into shape whenever it stops beating properly. Whew. He only has another 40-50 years to live with that thing.
Mr. Fetterman still has not said when he might be able to get back to campaigning for the Senate. He’s currently Pennsylvania’s lieutenant governor, but needless to say, he was a no-show in the state Senate all last week, where the hoodied 6’8” giant usually presides over floor sessions. But his neurologist cheerfully reported that Fetterman is making “great progress” in recovering from two conditions that each used to be extremely rare in healthy 52-year-old men.
Now, not so rare. But Fetterman is grateful for the vaccines.
💉 New Yorkers have been enduring a very difficult time lately as the state continues sneaking covid restrictions back into everyday life, especially regarding kids. It’s hard to avoid suspecting that the state government in New York would feel better if kids just weren’t around.
Anyway, Bloomberg ran a story yesterday headlined, “N.Y. School Vaccine Mandate Survives as Top Court Rejects Appeal.” The story is the US Supreme Court declined to hear a challenge to New York’s vaccine mandate for school kids, even though in 2019 the state cancelled its longstanding religious exemption to school vaccines.
So now that the Supreme Court has essentially endorsed the mandate, New York families must find a different way to defeat these mandates, by electing better politicians, homeschooling or podschooling, or moving to Florida along with everybody else. Maybe New Yorkers should start looking into what kinds of purchase contracts the state has signed with vax makers. Gotta use those jabs somehow.
People, I’ve said it a million times and I’ll say it again: Constitutional rights are only as good as what a court will enforce. It’s not magic. We cannot depend on the Constitution to save us, especially if we lose the courts.
But the silver lining is New York’s mandate should help boost vaccine demand. So there’s THAT.
💉 Last month, ABC News quietly ran a story headlined “Breakthrough deaths comprise increasing proportion of those who died from COVID-19.”
But don’t worry! The subhead quickly reassures, “These data should not be interpreted as vaccines not working, one expert said.” Well, thank goodness. If ONE cherry-picked expert said it, it must be true.
According to ABC, a growing proportion of covid deaths — DEATHS, not cases — are in those who took the safe and effective vaccines. The jabbed were only 18.9% of deaths as of last August, but their share jumped to over 40% by February. Looking just at the boosted, they were only 1.1% of deaths last September, but were ramped up to over 25% by February.
The jabs are working great!
ABC’s cherry-picked expert said the data ACTUALLY shows how WELL the jabs are working, and shouldn’t be considered anything else. So many people are jabbed, he explained, you should EXPECT a lot of them to die from covid. The exact same disease the safe and effective jab was supposed to stop them from dying of. So. Of COURSE their numbers are increasing.
You following the logic? Don’t think about it too hard.
💉 Politico ran a story this month headlined, “Vaccine Injury Compensation Programs Overwhelmed as Congressional Reform Languishes.” Gosh. I wonder why the safe and effective vaccines would be overwhelming the compensation programs? Let’s see if we can figure it out.
Politico reported that, between 2010 and 2020, the federal Countermeasure Injury Compensation Program had just 500 total complaints. But in the last two years, the program has received over 8,000 filed complaints, with injuries ranging from a sore shoulder to the big one, as Fred Sanford used to say.
But the magazine says the vaccine injury fund has paid zero claims so far. “Compensation determinations are made based on individual case reviews, and the statute sets a very high standard that a claimant must meet to be eligible for compensation,” HRSA spokesperson David Bowman said.
Apparently that statutory bar is set REALLY high, since not one of the 8,000 claims have managed to hurdle it yet.
According to Politico, Congress has been slow to fix the problems with the program due to “fears those optics could fuel vaccine hesitancy if the public mistakes the situation as too many injuries flooding the program.” If we MISTAKE the flood of injuries. Because we’re too stupid to recognize the truth, which is ….
🔥 Yesterday, CNN ran a story headlined, “Shanghai Neighborhoods Return to Lockdown a Day After Restrictions Eased.” Not too good for Shanghai people.
It was a great day on Wednesday, when Shanghai finally lifted its brutal two-month lockdowns, allowing most of its grateful 25 million residents to leave their homes (apart from about 2 million people still confined in “high risk” areas).
But Shanghai health officials found seven positive tests on Thursday. Seven! So, lockdown protocols resumed, not even a day later, with four large neighborhoods swiftly sealed off and designated as “medium-risk areas” – meaning residents will be confined to their homes for another two weeks. To slow the spread. The rest of Shanghai must undergo near-daily tests to travel anywhere outside the home.
CNN reported that lines at testing centers can take hours and hours. So you can’t really go too far.
The China People’s Daily verbosely reported that, “Shanghai is actively exploring new mechanisms for normalized prevention and control in the mega-city, and accelerating the return of economic and social development to the normal track.”
In other words, they’re trying to think of new ways to get things back online faster.
💉 Some good news from St. Paul, where a judge ruled against the city’s vaccine mandate. The Pioneer Press ran a story headlined, “Judge rules in favor of St. Paul unions over COVID vaccination mandate.”
The judge’s perceptive order said, “It is difficult for this Court to imagine what could be more intrusive and more destructive to the employer-employee relationship than requiring employees to forfeit their bodily autonomy in the name of maintaining their livelihood.”
Precisely.
The case was brought by some local employee unions, and the judge’s ruling was based on union labor laws. The mandate is now enjoined until and unless the mandate becomes part of a negotiated labor agreement. Which seems unlikely.
🚀 Naval Today ran a story Thursday headlined, “26 Nations to Participate in World’s Largest Naval Exercise.”
The military mag reported that 26 countries including the U.S. and the UK, 38 surface ships, four submarines, nine national land forces, over 170 aircraft and about 25,000 soldiers “will participate in the biennial Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) exercise scheduled to take place between 29 June and 4 August.”
Naval Today said the exercise “includes amphibious operations, gunnery, missile, anti-submarine and air defense exercises, as well as counter-piracy operations, mine clearance operations, explosive ordnance disposal, and diving and salvage operations.”
Practice makes perfect!
🚀 The Times of Israel reported yesterday that another Iranian military drone scientist died suddenly and unexpectedly, possibly of “food poisoning.” I doubt it was the jab this time.
Drone research in Iran seems like a high-risk occupation.
🚀 The Daily Mail UK ran a story this week headlined, “More than HALF of Republicans say U.S. ‘Seems Headed’ Towards Another Civil War in the Near Future, New Poll Shows.”
The poll showed 44% of Americans generally, and a majority of Republicans (53%), think the US is “headed toward another civil war.” But before you get too concerned, the poll was conducted by the odious Southern Poverty Law Center, so who knows. The poll also included a bunch of race-baiting nonsense about so-called “replacement theory,” which I think is a euphemism for people worried about anti-white discrimination in government hiring practices.
SPLC thinks that you must be totally racist if you are concerned about anti-white discrimination in government hiring practices. So shut up, you replacer.
🚀 In an interview with Al Jazeera, which often seems more reliable than U.S. corporate media these days, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev warned, “This isn’t a forecast, but what’s already in play. The horsemen of the apocalypse are galloping ahead and we can only look towards Almighty God.”
7_SealsOfTheEnd @sealsoftheendRussian Security County Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev said in a recent interview that “one can believe that the horsemen of the Apocalypse are already on their way and all hope is in Almighty God,” the Russian-state run news agency TASS reported. Russia warns of “horsemen of the Apocalypse” as Ukraine war hits 100 daysOne Russian official issued a warning that biblical figures mentioned in the book of Revelation are on their way.newsweek.comJune 4th 20222 Retweets4 Likes
🚀 Speaking of Horseman of the Apocalypse. Gizmodo ran a story yesterday headlined, “California’s Drought Is So Bad, It’s Going to Slash Hydropower.”
California is currently experiencing what local media calls a “mega drought.” It’s the worst drought in California history, EVER. Californians are already subject to tough water restrictions, with violators facing $2,000 fines. Now the state has announced that it has to start shutting down some of its 270 hydroelectric plants to save water.
So, it seems like California is also headed for power restrictions next. Here’s my hot take: the drought and power shortage have been created by idiotic government ecological regulations. Thanks, experts.
Have a wonderful weekend, and I’ll see you back here on Monday morning for more.
You can help get the truth out and spread optimism and hope: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/-learn-how-to-get-involved-
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By Doug Miller
May 25,2022, Fernandina Beach
In a very timely move, considering the recent gruesome Texas and New York school shootings, the Nassau County School Board approved multiple school safety Administrative Rules which had already been in the pipeline.
Meeting Agenda & Video
The Thursday, May 26 meeting went off smoothly, with Administrative Rule (A. R. ) votes being unanimous and with little comment. Meeting documents may be accessed in the links in the agenda (click above).
Of interest was A.R. 2.55 ,the “safe school officers ” proposal, stating that “the school district may enter into an agreement with local law-enforcement to provide local enforcement and related services”. The proposal would also seek to include charter schools within our district.
Individuals would be “certified officers” and “employed by enforcement agencies.” One goal of this program would be to promote a positive image of law enforcement and respect for the law.
The proposal proceeds to state that student discipline is the responsibility of the school district, but law enforcement would be called on in the case of a crime being committed or a serious threat made.
School safety specialist and former Fernandina Beach police detective Al Smith came forward to reiterate the schools‘ commitment to safety, especially in light of the recent Texas school shooting.
As a 27 year veteran of the Fernandina Police Department, Detective Smith has been a School Resource Officer and has an impressive resume and extensive training in active shooter response.
A. R. 2.51, the safe and secure schools proposal, also passed with a unanimous vote. This is a comprehensive security plan including threat assessments, notification protocols and violence prevention. It includes procedures for identifying and dealing with students who may have mental health or substance abuse problems, addressing them before they become more serious.
This is exactly what many school districts and law enforcement agencies have not managed well, and we have seen the tragic results.
AR 5.79 , the student records proposal, deals with security and access of student records, which was straightforward.
A question was asked why parents must sign and date requests for records, whereas teachers, guidance counselors, academic advisers and others have free access. AR 5.79 also states that schools may collect Social Security numbers until the Department of Education issues student ID numbers.
AR 7.58, the emergency disaster proposal, seeks to use school facilities in the event of disasters. Apparently, Red Cross shelters are not available and it makes sense to use these facilities in those cases.
Items 6 through 10 were all change orders for the various school construction projects.
Several citizens came up to speak at the podium for their allotted 3 minutes:
– Richard Lamken of Fernandina Beach had several good points about discrepancies in the labeling of financial statements and also questioned why funds slated for COVID measures were being used for general operating expenses. Lamken is the Board of Directors‘ education representative for the Nassau County chapter of County Citizens for Defense of Freedom (CCDF), a civic group headed by local civic activist Jack Knocke. –
– Thomas Coleman approached the podium to ask for the reinstatement of Yvon Joinville, the former Yulee High School Principal, stating that he felt that no clear reason was given for his dismissal. Two others came forward to express their views that he was a dedicated and qualified administrator and felt he should return to his job.
Prior to this meeting was a workshop where the school board floated the idea of a tax increase to cover rising costs in many areas , including teacher salaries, fuel , and the Florida retirement system. It remains to be seen if voters will approve an increase. For more details, see floridapolitics.com/archives/628373-nassau-school-tax-increase.
Doug Miller, Citizen reporter, is an itinerant free spirit and jack of all trades. Born in New York and raised in Puerto Rico, he now operates Quality Home Services in Fernandina Beach and dreams of the next hurricane swell.
By Tom Lockie
05-30-22
The North Florida Shipyards in Jacksonville is slated for a 30 million dollar investment by Fincantieri Marine Repair.
Fincantieri Marine Repair, a Italy-based global company (https://fincantierimarinegroup.com), is planning an expansion of its ship repair facility next to the Hart Bridge in downtown Jacksonville.
The main focus of the investment will be a 500-foot drydock capable of lifting a 13,000 ton vessel out of the water. The current drydock is limited to a 2,700-ton capacity.
Fincantieri plans to increase employment to 300 in Jacksonville by 2028. The Fincantieri Group employs 19,000 people worldwide.
Sources
By Tom Lockie
05-29-22
The Jacksonville Transportation Authority (JTA) just announced improvements to its Mayport Ferry in anticipation of summer traffic. The ferry connects Mayport to Fort George Island across the St. Johns River and completes the connection between the north and south ends of Florida A1A across the river.
The schedule has changed, with operating hours now starting at 6 a.m. Monday through Thursday on the Mayport Village side, and 6:15 a.m. at Fort George Island. The start times are 7 a.m. and 7:15 a.m. Friday through Sunday.
Additionally, a recent infusion of 7.2 million dollars allowed for upgrades to car queue safety on both sides, as well as a covered pavilion, landscaping and ADA-accessible restrooms on the Mayport Village side.
If you’re in search of something a little different, the Mayport Ferry might be just the outing you’re looking for.
Sources
http://www.jacksonvilletransportationauthority
http://www.mayportferry/schedule
Tom Lockie is the Transportation and Travel Editor for the Citizens Journal Florida. A veteran and recently a retired airline Captain, Tom considers writing, aviation and travel among his passions . Tom is a published author, featured in the USA Today for his children’s book “Come Fly with Me“.
By Tom Lockie
05-28-22
The Jacksonville Aviation Authority (JAA) recently announced a planned expansion of the Jacksonville International Airport (JIA) terminal and facilities valued at 300 million dollars.
The new concourse B will feature 6 additional gates, increasing the gate total to 26. The airport currently has 20 gates split between two concourses (A & C).
The project, slated to commence in October 2022, is currently projected to be finished in July 2025.
Planned to be completed in phases, the first phase will focus on installing new security screening equipment at all current TSA security checkpoints. The new security machines will process 250 passengers per hour. By comparison, the current machines process 135 passengers per hour.
JAA Chief Operating Officer, Tony Cugno, describes the new concourse design as having the same modern architecture as concourses A & C with a focus on natural light and a lot of glass.
The proposed expansion is expected to help alleviate issues arising from future passenger and traffic growth. JIA airport statistics (http://www.flyjax.com/content2015.aspx?id=18) for the month of April reflect a total of 558,694 passenger arrivals and departures, with a month-over-month increase expected thanks to COVID-19 restrictions being lifted.
Fifty-five percent of the total project cost will be funded by the Passenger Facility Charge (PFC) program. According to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), commercial airports are allowed to charge passengers up to $4.50 per flight segment. Airports use these fees to fund FAA-approved projects that enhance safety, security, or capacity; reduce noise; or increase air carrier competition.
With the recent addition of new carriers like Frontier and Breeze, as well as the addition of new routes both in and out of JIA by current carriers serving the airport, the expansion will be a welcome relief to the delays passengers currently experience at JIA.
Sources
http://www.flyjacksonville.com
http://www.faa.gov
http://www.fdot.gov
Tom Lockie is the Transportation and Travel Editor for the Citizens Journal Florida. A veteran and recently retired airline Captain, Tom considers writing, aviation and travel among his passions . He is a published author, featured in the USA Today for his children’s book “Come Fly with Me“.
By Michael Miller
5/26/22
Texas school shooting details begin to emerge:
Another tragic act of violence shakes our country. Is our society descending into chaos and immorality? Can you imagine losing your little boy or girl at the beginning of their blossoming life? Let us pray for the families who are suffering. Let us pray for peace and sanity.
Isn’t it strange though, that it has taken so long for some of the details of this horrifying event to be disclosed? Don’t we have journalism in this country anymore? For example, I just read that police stayed outside the school for over an hour, refusing to enter and confront the gunman. Police physically prevented parents who wanted to storm the shooter from going in to save their kids! A police spokesman is depicted in a video saying that some police entered the school to remove their own kids and failed to confront the gunman. (See report with videos) https://www.zerohedge.com/political/go-there-distraught-parents-begged-texas-cops-enter-school-gunman-inside-hour
I have to wonder about the timing and location of this shooting. In Texas? Right where the NRA’s annual meeting is to be held this weekend! What are the chances? There are after all, 50 states. You have to look and say “hmmmmm”. It is just too perfectly timed and positioned to intimidate political figures who were scheduled to speak there. The next step will be to demonize all those who believe in Liberty and self defense. Is it coincidental? Other false flags or staged incidents have occurred with propitious timing. Does the leak of the supreme’s abortion vote fit this profile? They seem designed to incite the left’s base. Remember, “never let a good crisis go to waste”. Do you trust our government and those who control it? Do you trust our so called legacy media? I, for one do not. It is another tragedy that our government, and whatever powers orchestrate it’s doings have eroded trust to the point that questions must be asked. I am troubled by the loss of my government’s credibility.
Why would they do this? It has been observed that the Dems are in serious trouble at the polls this November. Maybe it’s the defeat and humiliating retreat from Afghanistan that left a massive cache of advanced weapons in the hands of the Taliban? How about millions of illegal, unvetted aliens entering the country over the southern border, which this administration has chosen not to defend? How about $4.60/gallon gas along with diesel shortages? How about inflation forcing families to choose between paying for food or rent? How about sending $50 billion into the corrupt, NAZI-controlled, money laundromat (at least for some people) of Ukraine while US mothers can’t get baby formula? And if all this isn’t enough, the announcement that troops are now permitted to demand transfers if local laws are not favorable to their sexual identity!
Those are just some of the things that jeopardize the Dem’s chances in the November elections. There are plenty of things they need you to be distracted from. The campaign badly needs a jolt to energize the demoralized base who are struggling to defend the many bizarre and destructive actions emanating from this administration and Congress. How will we ever get them to the polls to avert the impending bloodbath? We could start by igniting the left’s gun hysteria.
My suspicion that something is fishy with the timing of this event may be more well-founded than you think. Remember that the COVID “pandemic” was preceded by predictions of its arrival by Bill Gates, Fauci, and other insiders? Even to the extent that they held a “simulation” just months before? Turns out they were implicated in financing its “gain of function” research. What about the new monkey virus? I read that they held a tabletop exercise on that last year. It is not at all beyond belief that “the powers that be” conduct events to distract us and steer the populace in the direction they want us to go, using fear and mis-direction. Many of the “conspiracies” that occur seem to have FBI informants and agents among those provoking the staged events. For example, there are many unexplained actors, as well as Capitol Police that opened doors, and exhorted others to enter the Capitol on January 6th. The fallout from this event intimidated many of those who were planning to protest the certification of Biden’s “election”. Mission accomplished. Look where that got us.
Here are a few events that might have created mistrust of Government:
Increasingly over the past years, our inattention and naïveté have allowed government to become an unaccountable Frankenstein monster that plods along, destroying everything in its path. The US now sweats under an unpayable $30+Trillion in debt. The Fed continues to print and borrow, destroying the purchasing power of our savings. They continue to pursue permanent wars, enriching the defense industry and raining death and destruction on thousands of innocent people. Laws continue to be legislated that eviscerate the Bill of Rights. Are we to trust our government? Have you become immune from the train of abuses? It is time for a sleepy populace to awaken.
More details and testimony will continue to emerge from this tragic event. This incident is one of many that justifiably warrants Citizens’ suspicion. Our government has earned this reputation and is now forced to regain our trust, if that is indeed possible. These are trying times.
Michael Miller, A retired fire Lieutenant/EMT from NY has been in FB for 8 years. He is a Sailing Captain and Instructor for Windward Sailing. He dabbles in theatre, photography, geopolitics and markets. Look for his writing here and at: https://firesail.substack.com
Editor's note: We welcome Dave Scott as CJ-FL's first columnist!
Nassau County School Board meetings are open to the public and comments are welcomed. Just don’t expect the folks that run the system to pay much attention to your concerns according to feedback I’ve received.
Also, don’t waste time searching for amplification in the local media, they’re busy looking after their own interests. The online Blind Observer is preoccupied publishing patronizing pablum from Fernandina Beach city officials while the bi-weekly print News Leader is in a feverish lather bashing the state for damming up its stream of taxpayer revenue.
I’ve never attended a School Board meeting but plan on doing so soon since I’m fascinated to see firsthand the way the sessions are structured. From what I’ve heard they’re knee-slapping hilarious…..well maybe not so funny for taxpayers. The School Board apparently makes decisions, then allows comments only after it has already voted on the issue. That’s like closing on a house then requesting an inspection.
Jack Knocke, head of the community watchdog group Common Sense, attended last week’s session packed with contentious topics including the controversial ouster of teacher John Pate as Hilliard’s football coach, questionable public records requests, and a controversial $3.7 million property purchase.
Again, don’t expect much in the way of coverage on these issues from the local news outlets, they are as opaque as the school board and its administration.
The bi-weekly News Leader Editor Scott Bryan and Publisher Foy Maloy are so consumed with losing a major revenue stream of government paid public notices that they’ve dropped the reporting ball.
A front-page News Leader article this past Wednesday, March 16, by Editor Bryan “reporting” last week’s school board meeting, failed to say why John Pate lost his coaching job, mention the controversial $3.7 million taxpayer funded land purchase, or cite Common Sense’s scramble to obtain public records concerning it.
However, the paper did publish a whiney quarter page editorial (“Good riddance to poor representation from Bean, Byrd”, Wednesday, March 16) bashing local state legislators, Representative Cord Byrd, and Senator Aaron Bean, for correctly voting along with an overwhelming majority of other state legislators to derail the paper’s tax-funded gravy train. The legislation says the state no longer has to pay with our tax dollars to publish public notices in print newspapers.
Thanks to taxpayer advocates like Bean and Byrd the state is no longer required by law to pay to post them in the News Leader or any other newspaper. It’s like legislating that cities are no longer required to build hitching posts for local citizens to tether their horses.
The legislature overwhelmingly voted that those notices can now be run online. Thanks to taxpayer advocates like Bean and Byrd the state is no longer required by law to pay to post them in the News Leader or any other newspaper. It’s like legislating that cities are no longer required to build hitching posts for local citizens to tether their horses.
The online Blind Observer is irrelevant and never reports on anything newsworthy. It serves as the public relations arm of the city and runs pap about birds and bugs, blather from bombastic city poohbahs, and prints verbatim press releases from area do-gooders and advertisers. It will, at times, feebly attempt to bash a local conservative, but is otherwise a harmless worthless outlet lacking any credibility or skilled writers.
But back to the School Board. A perplexed Mr. Knocke said that he arrived at the meeting a little late, but not late enough to hear frustrated citizens discuss issues the Board had already decided.
He explained: “Unlike other jurisdictions, public comments at the school board meeting were reserved for the end – after everything was decided. Huh? Why are we speaking then?” asks Knocke.
“We are unable to influence anyone’s opinion after all of the votes are over,” he says. “Other jurisdictions invite speakers to speak on each agenda item. Non agenda comments are reserved at a general section at the end. Other jurisdictions allow speakers to speak multiple times if there are multiple items they are interested in speaking about. The Nassau County School Board allows speakers once and for only three minutes”
The entire comment process was bizarre he continued: “Speakers are mixed like a Dairy Queen shake. Coach…property purchase…coach…public records requests…coach…coach…union negotiations…coach…coach…coach…public records requests. Many were passionate speakers – some courageously speaking for the first time to the School Board. What a confusing mess with all issues intermingled. How could board members keep up with this? It really didn’t matter since it was already done.”
Knocke said that speakers were unanimously united on one topic: Keeping Pate as the Hilliard football coach. “The testimonials were over-the-top in his favor,” he says. “The speakers supporting Coach Pate were passionate and compelling and included parents and students. They cited Pate’s positive influence such as having four players graduating and going on to play college football, his leadership skills and accountability, grade improvement, increased class attendance and kids playing football instead of getting in trouble.”
The feedback indicates Coach Pate is being removed against the will of parents and students. He retains his teaching position.
I called the School Board and asked why Pate was removed as coach and was told that they will not discuss personnel issues. My question was emailed to Superintendent Kathy Burns, the school system’s HR director and the assistant superintendent. I heard nothing back in time for this commentary. However, it is Spring Break.
It’s been rumored that the much admired and respected retired U.S. Army officer was booted for cursing. Imagine that! A retired Army veteran coaching boy’s football heard cursing! Good grief! Hide the women and children!
Knocke reports that the property purchase closing issue was pushed back a week to April 6th. “This was done in the interest of full disclosure,” he adds. “A one-week delay to give parties the opportunity to review information. Recall this is property purchased for $1,400,000 May 2021. Appraised for $1,400,000 in July 2021. And then appraised for $3,750,000 in August 2021. The School board has authorized the purchase for $3,700,000. The school board could have purchased this property years ago, for much less, why the urgency now? Why pay the ridiculously high price?”
The public records request issue was also perplexing Knocke explains: “What was astounding was that Board Member Dr. Cyndy Grooms offered to pay the $100 to release the emails regarding the sale. But wait. Dr. Grooms is a School Board Member! School board members must pay $100 to get public information so that they can make an informed decision? Is that legal – charging a board member for public information? That information should be provided to the board members at NO COST at their request for full disclosure. Strange. How can these board members afford to hold those positions if they are asked/forced to pay $100 to see relevant public information that they will rely on to justify a vote?”
I smell a Mel Brooks or Monty Python movie in here somewhere.
Following the head-scratching session Knocke encouraged his Common Sense members to get involved saying: “We need courageous, passionate moms, dads, business people, etc. to run for the school board. We need board members who are passionate about the kids, passionate about transparency, passionate about cost control and not afraid of holding the School Board Superintendent accountable when necessary with probing questions to clarify actions. Our benchmark should be the best schools in the country – our kids deserve it.”
I foresee the School Board as a fountain of material for future columns.
Nassau County School Board Members
Lissa Braddock 904-507-9522
Gail Cook 904-261-9127
Jamie Deonas 904-277-0006
Cynthia Grooms 904-845-8105
Donna Martin 904-261-9015
The School Board site is: https://www.nassau.k12.fl.us/domain/89 and contains the board members email addresses. The meetings are at the School Board Building at 1201 Atlantic Avenue, across the street from Central Park.
Jack Knocke can be contacted at [email protected] or (470) 295-4365. To learn more about Common Sense go to: https://commonsensefb.org/index.html
***
Is “A Guy A Guy Wherever He May Be”? The 1952 Doris Day hit song “A Guy Is Just a Guy” probably couldn’t be played on radio, TV, or broadcast on social media today without generating an outpouring of protest from hare-brained far-left crackpots.
The song’s refrain (below), which is as appropriate today as it was then, would send them into apoplectic fits of uncontrollable rage:
“Because a guy is a guy wherever he may be
So listen while I tell you what this fellow did to me”
Take a listen to this catchy tune at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ei_I_poCNFI
In a nutshell here’s how nutty things have become in the preceding 70 years: A guy wearing a girl’s bathing suit is winning women’s collegiate swimming competitions in record times while another guy, employed by the federal government who wears a dress to work, was just named to a national “Women of the Year” list.
According to the folks behind all this silliness “a guy is NOT a guy wherever he may be” and here’s what these fellows did.
Let’s start with the whacky swimmer.
A man named Will Thomas, who says he is now a gal named Lia Thomas, is permitted by the crackpots that run the University of Pennsylvania to use the girl’s dressing room and swim for the girl’s team. Thomas, who physically resembles Mark Spitz not Esther Williams, is racking up win-after-win over his female opponents. That’s because he’s a guy, not a gal, and guys are biologically stronger than girls, no matter what the nitwits at Penn claim.
Thomas competed for three years on the Penn men’s swim team before deciding that the odds would be better swimming against the “weaker sex” and the girl’s locker room a lot more interesting. So, he dove into the deep end and moved his gear from the guy’s locker room to the gal’s. Despite protests from the girls and their parents, the whack jobs at Penn declared that this was perfectly normal behavior. This is a school where parents shell out an average of $81,000 annually to have their kids indoctrinated.
Leftist loons tell us that this guy is a “transgender”, which they allege describes a particular “gender identity.” But there’s a problem. It’s a lie. All of this “transgender” and “gender identity” nonsense is rubbish. It’s all about an arrogant and naked emperor. Any male pervert prancing around naked in the girl’s locker room should have his butt kicked out, be cuffed, and arrested.
Penn says otherwise. Mr. Thomas is now completing his senior year, piling up trophies that rightfully belong to the second place finishing girls at schools he swam against and that the actual girl’s on his team would have won. All of his trophies, school and Ivy League records should have an asterisk with a note declaring: “Girly-boy category”.
The cross-dressing government employee’s story is equally bizarre.
Rachel Levine, aka Richard Levine, is Joe Biden’s assistant secretary for health for the Department of Health and Human Services and possibly the first man in that job to wear a dress to work. It’s been rumored that the late FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover was a cross-dresser, but reports say he had the dignity and courtesy to only prance around in his tutu in the privacy of his home.
Levine, who may also be the homeliest “woman” to ever serve in government, was named to USA Today’s list of “Women of the Year”, a list that includes gymnast Simone Biles, Kizzmekia Corbett, one of the women who helped develop the COVID-19 vaccine, and Linda Zhang, chief engineer behind Ford’s electric F-150 Lightning automobile.
By putting Mr. Levine – who identified as a biological male for 50 years – on the list, USA Today is implying that the achievements of Levine, a biological male, are the same as biological women and their exemplary accomplishments. How is that fair to biological women since Levine’s place on the list steals that spot from an actual biological woman?
All humans are either female or male. Chromosomes within a human body remain the same as they were from birth, even when a person has taken cross-sex hormones or has surgery. At a genetic or cellular level, a transgender person remains biologically male or female.
Where are all the women’s equal rights organizations when the gals really need them?
An abridged version of this commentary can be found at https://www.bizpacreview.com/2022/03/18/dave-scott-is-a-guy-just-a-guy-not-anymore-1213991/
***
Dumb & Dumber: Joe Biden is flat out stupid or else thinks that the public will believe his outrages lies – maybe a combination of both. For example, he keeps yammering that Build Back Better will reduce inflation, and claims he is doing a great job with the economy.
Biden and his Democrat lemmings are still pushing for more spending despite inflation at a 42 year high, gas the priciest it’s ever been, grocery prices souring, etc. hammering Americans financially.
With the war raging in Ukraine, Biden now says all our problems are caused by Russian dictator Vladimir Putin despite the fact the price of gasoline was rising weekly before Putin shot his first rocket, or that inflation was rising uncontrollably before Putin invaded, or that a couple million illegals were invited into our country before Putin did anything.
Putin isn’t responsible for U.S. oil imports and skyrocketing prices. Biden is. Biden’s war against fossil fuel caused it. Like a guilty kid pointing to the cat for the busted table lamp, Biden is also blaming the oil industry because oil companies won’t drill non-productive wells. No new permits have been approved for offshore or public land drilling since Biden was inaugurated.
While Secretary Pete Buttigieg’s husband was off reciting the homosexual pledge of allegiance with a group of kids, wife Pete was telling Americans to buy electric cars: no mention of how to charge them or where to get the $75,000.00 to buy them.
As one of my favorite pundits Bill Shuey says: “Aren’t you glad insanity isn’t a communicable disease!”
***
The Greatest Generation NOT! A recent Quinnipiac poll found unsurprisingly that the most unreliable segment of the U.S. population consists of those who identify as Democrats.
The poll revealed something most of us already know – that Democrats are weak, unpatriotic, and lily-livered.
The poll asked: What would you do if you were in the same position as Ukrainians are now, stay and fight or leave the country? More than half of Democrats (52%) said they would cut and run if the U.S. homeland were invaded. We aren’t talking about women and children, or even some cadre of pacifists and conscientious objectors. This is most Democrats saying they’d rather leave America than defend it. Only a pathetic 40% said they would stick around.
Republicans did better. More than two-thirds (68%) said they would stand their ground. But 1 in 4 Republicans said they’d flee—not exactly a patriotic G.I. Joe spirit, but better than the cowardly Dems.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida
Source:
Dave Scott spent several years as a daily newspaper reporter in Florida and New York before joining the corporate world and heading up communications activities for IBM, ITT and other Fortune 50 companies in the U.S. and Europe, eventually running his own Atlanta agency. He lives on Amelia Island, FL, and blogs at www.davescottblog.com. He also writes, edits, and publishes the annual Amelia Island News-www.amelianewswrecker.com, a newspaper parody with the tag line “Amelia Island’s sacred cows make the best burgers.”
PRESS RELEASE
By Jack Knocke
Through Common Sense Fernandina Beach and soon through CCDF, we are shining a bright light on the cities, the county, and the school system in Nassau County. Local leaders have been making decisions that are not consistent with protecting our freedoms, safeguarding our children, and responsibly managing finances.
Local leaders need guidance, oversight, truth, and accountability. We plan to deliver that! To start with, we have 3 teams of a dozen people activating around Election Integrity/Government Oversight, Schools, and Financial Integrity – and we need more volunteers in the wings for the next phase. We need as many people as possible locally to be involved in some way. Volunteers can sign up here. Our approach is biblical, respectful, and determined. The truth will prevail.
We are aligning with County Citizens Defending Freedom (CCDF) to organize, activate, leverage national resources, and fix our broken systems locally. The CCDF plan is to save America one county at a time – and we are well on our way locally, but we need your help.
We are fundraising to hire 2-3 full-time positions to manage and activate the team on key issues and specific action plans. This is an action and results oriented program designed to impact several established government entities. We need everyone’s help with initial fundraising to get started. Once we are up and running, our leadership team plans to speak all over Nassau County to build broad ongoing financial support.
Let’s work together to get Nassau County clean, transparent, and protecting our freedoms.
Please call or text me now so that we can setup a time to meet. I’m happy to explain exactly how we plan to execute. We are going to battle with God on our side shining a light and taking action so that our county and our country are protected for our children and grandchildren.
Jack Knocke
Prospective AED – Nassau County, Florida
cell: 470-295-4365
email: [email protected]
This blog will take a break for the month of April while we concentrate on writing and editing articles and selling ads for this year’s Shrimp Festival edition of the Amelia Island News Wrecker.
The annual Shrimp Festival News Wrecker wasn’t published the past two years because there wasn’t a Shrimp Fest and the businesses wise enough to advertise in past issues were either closed, scaled back their hours, or cut back on advertising due to the government’s Covid restrictions.
This year the Wrecker will celebrate its 6th edition of “misinforming Nassau County residents”.
In an effort to beat other media outlets with fast-breaking news the Wreckersometimes has to make the news up before it takes place. As a result, the paper may make a few mistakes, but its alert editors and crack reporters don’t really care, and they don’t try that hard anyway, making the News Wrecker no different than any other area news outlets.
This year’s News Wrecker will have difficulty competing with the silliness the left tosses our way on a daily basis (see stories below), but we’ll try.
Since 2015 the News Wrecker has provided area residents with scoops such as the massive iceberg wedged between sandbars at Main Beach, the nuclear power plant being constructed across from the Fernandina marina, restaurants installing scales to prevent overweight people from overindulging, the sunset switching from the west to the east side of Amelia Island, and much more.
This year’s edition will be jam packed with helpful news, features, opinions, and upcoming community events. Stories other local media outlets are afraid to tackle are no problem for News Wrecker Editor Anita Nuderbeer and her crack staff including Society Editor Cody Pendant, Sports Editor Linus Scrimmage, Fishing Editor Marianna Trench, Restaurant critic E. Coli, editorial page editor Ty Raid, and more.
If you have a business or anything you want to sell, lease, buy, or encourage people to eat or drink that’s legal, then contact me at [email protected], call me at my unlisted phone number, or email [email protected].
***
WOW! A front-page article in the Wednesday, March 23 edition of the local bi-weekly News Leader headlined: “Battling the odds” by a reporter with the fortunate name of “Julia Roberts”, detailed the platforms of a couple of Democrat party candidates running for state-wide office, who were invited to speak to likeminded folks at a group of Nassau County Democrats hereabouts.
One of the Democrat candidates, Ryan Morales, who is vying for the office of Agriculture Commissioner, was described as a “cannabis activist who specializes in Internet development and cybersecurity.” In the article he was also quoted as saying: “We need to talk about psychedelic mushrooms” that he said are a “good source of protein and bioremediation.”
Just what our state needs, a cybersecurity guy stoned on weed and hallucinatory mushrooms.
I’m not sure the News Wrecker could have made up this story.
***
Speaking Of Silliness: The national satirical Babylon Bee received a notice from Twitter Sunday, March 20 that it has been locked out of its account for engaging in “hateful conduct.”
Their crime? They jokingly selected Rachel Levine — a male government official who wears a dress to work — as its pick for “Man of the Year.” This was its satirical response to Levine’s being named one of the top women of the year by USA Today, something that paper actually did.
So, they are being locked out of their account for reporting that a man, who wear a dress to work, is a man.
They were told by Twitter that their account will be restored in 12 hours, but the countdown won’t begin until THEY delete the tweet that violates Twitter’s rules.
Here’s Twitter’s statement to the media regarding the account’s suspension: “The account you referenced has been temporarily locked for violating our hateful conduct policy. The account owner is required to delete the violative Tweet before regaining access to their account.”
Babylon Bee CEO Seth Dillon remains adamant that they will not be deleting their post, stating, “Truth is not hate speech. If the cost of telling the truth is the loss of our Twitter account, then so be it.” He also encouraged others to never censor the truth and force the social media platform to “ban tens of millions of us.”
An “update” is included at the end of the Bee piece where the author adds, “Since announcing this award, we’ve been told that Levine actually identifies as a woman. We have still chosen to give the award as his self-identification has no bearing on the truth. Congratulations, Rachel Levine!”
I feel slighted because I’ve never been blocked or banned by Twitter. That’s because I’ve never used it. I have no idea how to tweet or access Twitter. I have enough problems plugging in the toaster, using email and posting this column on Facebook. I have been honored to occasionally having this blog kicked off some local Facebook sites and their reasons why always make interesting blog items.
***
But Wait! There’s More! While the Babylon Bee is being censored for reporting that a man is a man, Joe Biden’s Supreme Court nominee, Ketanji Brown Jackson, told Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) that she couldn’t define a woman saying: “I’m not a biologist.”
This is a gal who is married to a guy and has given birth to a couple of kids, who says she doesn’t know the difference between a man and a woman.
Later in the confirmation hearing session Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) asked Ms. Jackson “If I can change my gender, if I can become a woman, and then an hour later, if I decide that I’m not a woman anymore, I guess I would lose Article III standing — tell me, does that same principle apply to other protective characteristics?” asked Cruz. “For example, I’m a Hispanic man. Could I decide that I’m an Asian man? Would I have the ability to be an Asian man and challenge Harvard discrimination because I made that decision?”
“Senator, I’m not able to answer your question,” Jackson responded. “You’re asking me about hypotheticals and, ummm –”
So, if Biden’s Supreme Court nominee doesn’t know what a woman is how does Biden know if he nominated one for the Court?
How does the entire Senate chamber keep from bursting out into uncontrollable laugher, then unanimously dismissing this nitwit and asking the next candidate to come in for questioning?
***
Speaking of Fake News: The New York Times, a media shill for the Democrat swamp machine, finally admitted that Hunter Biden’s laptop computer was the real deal, a story first reported by The New York Post just before the 2020 election. Shouldn’t the paper now suggest that the FBI be on the case with a team of investigators because of the threat to national security? The Times’ admission is proof of censorship by the news media, who colluded with elected officials and law enforcement officers to protect guilty parties. Sounds like a – GASP! – conspiracy.
***
Hey Kid! Or anybody else who will listen.
Amelia Island investor, entrepreneur, developer, lawyer, and author Pat Keogh’s book “Hey Kid! Wanna Own Great American Businesses” explains how kids can happily transfer their instant gratification from the mall to the stock exchange and become fledgling tycoons.
Pat explains to kids in language they can understand that buying stakes in individual corporations ranging from Walmart and McDonalds to Target and Pepsi Cola can make them rich. “It’s good to be rich” Pat tells the tykes and explains why and how to do it by gradually buying shares of companies, particularly the ones that pay dividends.
Pat’s book is directed toward children, but his advice is suitable for adults particularly in a financial world turned upside down by the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
National investor, pundit, author, university lecturer, and corporate executive Joel Ross agreed saying recently: “Bonds are absolutely not what you want to invest in. Speculative stocks are not where you want your money. Annuities are not a good investment, nor are mutual funds due to fees and having no control over what your money gets invested in. You do not need to pay a broker or advisor to put your money into a mutual fund or annuity so you can pay a second set of fees. It is a stock picking market from here on” he said referring to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
You can read my review of Pat’s book at http://www.davescottblog.com/national-media-reports-feds-are-dumping-illegal-aliens-here-while-our-pathetic-local-media-continue-to-ignore-the-story/
Pat wrote another book a while back titled: “Make Your Family Rich” another straight forward easy to read financial primer geared toward adults.
Both of Pat’s books are available through Amazon.
You can hear from Pat and ask him questions when he appears at the downtown Fernandina Beach library Thursday, April 21.
***
Kamala Harris Oratory Contest Winner: Question: “If you could live forever, would you and why?”
Answer: “I would not live forever, because we should not live forever, because if we were supposed to live forever, then we would live forever, but we cannot live forever, which is why I would not live forever,” – Miss Alabama in the 1994 Miss USA contest
***
Corporate Cuckoos: The corporate clowns that run AT&T joined the empty suits at Atlanta-based Delta Airlines and Coke as corporations out to establish their far left woke credentials by telling their employees to bone up on Critical Race Theory and pushing the BLM claim that if white people want to know who’s a racist, they need only look in the mirror.
The company is also promoting reparations for blacks and promoting the defund-the-police movement.
Not since major industrialists like Siemens, IG Farben, Krupp, Daimler-Benz, Porsche, Maggi, Hugo Boss, etc. lined up in support of Adolf Hitler have we seen corporations shown themselves to be this beholden to Fascists.
***
Green Bird Brains: Those gigantic windmills are far more efficient when it comes to slaughtering birds than providing homeowners with electricity. The late West Coast pundit Burt Prelutsky once said that wind farms are just a nice name for bird Cuisinart’s.
***
BLM’s Green Is Missing: News is surfacing that a lot of money, in fact millions, is missing from the coffers of Black Lives Matter. The Washington Examiner has been looking into the accounting, especially the tsunami of money that were corporate donations made during the George Floyd canonization by the Democrat church. The auditors claim millions of dollars are not accounted for. BLM co-founder Patrisse Cullors said in February that the money her group received in 2020 came from “white corporation guilt,” but there may be another term for their “donations” – Extortion.
An expert on minority organizations extorting corporate America is my friend and nationally known Amelia Island author and journalist, Ken Timmerman. His 2002 best-selling book “Shakedown: Exposing the real Jesse Jackson” is an example of how these organizations and people coerce government, corporations, and unsuspecting individuals into coughing up money to finance their lavish lifestyles with no accountability.
Ken has written 11 books all of which can be ordered on Amazon.
***
Wait! What? Democrats cheered for rioters for eight months before they were “outraged” by the January 6 rally! But Putin still has a Twitter account while President Trump has been censored.
***
Nothing To See Here: In Joe Biden’s America if you’re a black cop and take out your pistol and shoot and kill an unarmed white woman it’s a no-fault murder.
Biden’s U.S. Justice Department performed a sham investigation into the death of Ashli Babbitt, a participant in a Jan. 6, 2021, riot, who was shot by U.S. Capitol Police, saying there was no evidence to prove the officer who shot her had violated her civil rights.
Documents uncovered by Judicial Watch reveal that eyewitness – including three police officers at the scene – told investigators they did not hear Capital Police Lt. Michael Byrd give Babbitt any verbal warning prior to firing his pistol, contradicting what Byrd told “NBC Nightly News”.
***
Speaking Of Miscreants: Whatever happened to the investigation into Representative Ilhan Omar’s (D-MN) messy marital history? The last I heard she had been accused of filing income tax returns with one man while married to another. She also stood accused of having married her brother at some point during one or the other of the two marriages in order to illegally get around U.S. immigration laws. I realize that all of this is perfectly normal as far as Democrats are concerned but is there a Republican legislator or media outlet out there that can satisfy my curiosity?
***
How stupid is Joe Biden? He keeps telling Russian dictator Vladimir Putin what he won’t do. Isn’t that like playing poker with all your cards showing?
***
Grave Spinning Time: If Martin Luther King were alive today and made a speech saying: “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character” he’d be kicked off most college campuses and called a racist by the woke commies in the Democrat party.
Just like his inept Vice President Kamala Harris, Joe Biden’s Supreme Court nominee was picked solely because of her skin color and gender. He said so. Biden, or whoever is running that administration, excludes numerous qualified candidates for no other reason than their race or gender.
OOPS!
Downtown South 2nd Street was blocked for several hours last Monday when a bus bottomed out entering the Hampton Inn and Suites Hotel. Efforts to get the bus back on the road kept the folks outside at PJD’s Beer & Wine Garden and the Boat House Restaurant entertained while the bus driver was busy sending out his resume.
By Dave Scott
April 29, 2022
A flurry of media activity is taking place in Northeast Florida including reporting and editorial shuffling, an upcoming challenge to the area’s legacy news outlets, and the reemergence of the satirical Amelia Island News Wrecker.
Nationally, on Wednesday, April 26, the Biden Administration announced it would take steps to combat misinformation on social media by forming a new department called the “Ministry of Truth,” oops sorry, it’s called the “Disinformation Governance Board.” It’s going to govern misinformation or, in other words, things they do not want you to read or see.
Let’s focus initially on what’s going on with local media outlets.
Citizens Journal Florida will be the new kid on the block and is currently under-construction. This is not a kitchen table start-up staffed by a crowd of left-leaning Brenda Starr wannabes desirous of spreading neighborhood gossip, sucking up to local officials, hugging trees, and badmouthing local developers and businessmen.
The Citizens Journal is headed-up by publisher and veteran media executive, George Miller, a newcomer to the area from Ventura County, California, who created a similar publication in a much more inhospitable California media environment.
But, before shouting: “CALIFORNIA?” check out Miller’s background. He shares no resemblance to left-wing Fernandina Beach Mayor “Marxist” Mike Lednovich, another California transplant pictured here (below) during a Fernandina BLM parade.
In 2013 Miller constructed, successfully operated, and eventually sold a similar and now flourishing news outlet in that socialistic hellhole of a state. If he did it there it should be a piece of cake in a community populated hereabouts by mostly Republican-registered voters hungry for news other than the monotonous stream of pap currently spewed by the area’s politically timid, left-wing media crowd.
To read the rest of this article, please go to Dave Scott’s Blog
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
By George Miller, originally published 11-7-20
Is the establishment striking back at President Trump and supporters? Was there massive election fraud?
Yes, the title of this article was borrowed from Star Wars V and seems somehow befitting for current events, although the circumstances differ somewhat. An unlikely, irreverent, combative real estate billionaire takes on the left wing Globalist establishment, otherwise known as the “Deep State” or “The Swamp” to its opponents. In an unlikely victory, he takes over the reins, or at least attempts to, for four years, endeavoring to reverse the worst excesses of Empire, with yuuuge opposition at every step. Another four years is not looking too likely now, although it will be due process all the way. Is he Luke Skywalker? Then who is Darth Vader?
Joe Biden sorely lacks the heft to be Darth Vader. So, the icon of the Empire has instead been a shape-shifting series of nightmare holographs- Hillary Clinton, morphing into Nancy Pelosi, Adam Schiff, James Comey, George Soros, anonymous black clad mace-wielding ANTIFA creatures, resentful Barack Obama in his DC Bunker, the comical bartender AOC, then finally the unlikely visage of basement-dwelling, black-masked, child-sniffing, Globalist-Fascist-enabling, influence-peddling corrupt mediocrity Joe Biden, to the tune of “Hail to the Chief?” This is their best? Baaad trip, duuuude.
But, no matter what, the Empire was super pissed-off to lose even partial control of what it thought was its rightful place fully in charge- for a full presidential election cycle. So, it came back at Luke/Donald with everything it- and its allies- Democratic Party, Globalist team, Beltway Bandits, the Left Academia and Leftist media and tech oligarchs and their platforms, had. Add in BLM, ANTIFA, George Soros and his various affiliates and you have a very powerful space armada to bring to bear on the rebels. This was unleashed before Luke/Donald was even elected.
I have watched and occasionally participated in politics for decades, but have never seen anywhere even close to the magnitude, intensity, ferocity and dirtiness of their opposition to Luke/Donald. Opposition to Bush(es), Reagan, even Goldwater, was paltry in comparison. But no one but Trump has EVER been such a threat to the Secular “Progressive” (Socialist) fascist empire which has bulked up up increasingly over the years.
If nothing else, the last five years have proven that there is indeed a “Deep State,” living in a figurative “swamp,” which goes on and does pretty much whatever it wants, no matter who is in the White House.
So, WHY do they hate and fear Luke/Donald so much more than any other President in our lifetimes? His independent great wealth and super-tough “toxic masculinity”, “grab ’em by the P*ssy” personality make him less subject to manipulation than any other President we’ve ever seen. But even that wouldn’t upset the Empire so much if he at least wanted what they wanted. LBJ, Nixon, Kennedy (who also came from wealth), even Clinton, all had the toxic male thing, too. It pretty much goes with the territory, unless you’re Carter or Obama. But, let’s face it, most Presidents have been errand boys to whatever constituency bought them the White House (although some say JFK was snuffed because he stepped off the reservation). But the White House was a big step down for Donald. He gives his piddling $400,000 salary to charities.
Wake-up call: The #1 REAL reason the Empire hates Luke/Donald is that he is the biggest, baddest anti-Globalist since George Washington. Trump’s personal antics, tweets and malapropisms are not the cause of the Empire’s heartburn.
The Empire/Deep State controls most of the levers of government, academia and though its private actors, the levers of finance, commerce and information flow. To be sure, Luke/Donald did twist its tail and make some earth-shaking changes which struck them to the core. For example, he rattled the antiquated but sacred NATO and made Europe start carrying more of its own load, scoffed at the UN and its corrupt inefficient and often anti-American organization, moved the Israeli embassy to Jerusalem, wrecked ISIS and killed off the world’s worst terrorist leaders, ended the absurd Iran nuclear agreement, achieved record high stock market and lowest unemployment on record (before COVID-19), shifted defense emphasis toward China, withdrew from the one-sided and absurd Paris Accords, renegotiated some one-sided trade treaties, greatly trimmed federal bureaucratic regulations, increased border security including hundreds of miles of The Wall (his biggest opposition was from people who agreed with him 10-12 years ago), facilitated prison reform which disproportionately helps blacks, opposed baby-killing (yes it IS), appointed hundreds of at least somewhat more constitutional judges and, oh yeah, didn’t get us into any new wars like his predecessors did, was nominated four times for the Nobel Peace Prize.
For five, not just four years, we have seen the Empire throw everything but the kitchen sink at Luke/Donald- and that too came flying at him this week, in the form of election dirty tricks on steroids, which of course, have been planned for years, They even told us about it, in the form of their “Election Transition Project” manifesto (no, YOU go look it up).
Previously, they tried to discredit/destroy him via the powerful “MainStream” Leftmedia and Social Media, Justice Dept., FBI and State Dept., fraudulent use of FISA Court, attempted to manipulate electoral votes, tried to invoke the Emoluments Clause and the 25th Amendment, IRS audits, impeachment, investigation and attempted indictments, destroying some of his appointees and associates.
So, the question of the week:
Did The Empire Commit Election Fraud against Trump?
Couldn’t be, because the MSM (even Fox), DNC, RINO wing all say there’s “not a shred of evidence of widespread election fraud.” I beg to differ. I watched the voting numbers all Tuesday night into the wee hours of Wednesday and was shocked to see a campaign which was winning an electoral landslide at midnight slide into deficit in multiple swing states before breakfast. Just what the hell happened? I saw images of computer screens with 6 figure numbers added to Biden votes and nothing to Trump in some time periods, such as in Michigan. Election officials couldn’t or just wouldn’t explain how that could happen. I saw repeated statistical improbabilities of vote swings.
While it’s true and I have observed that mail-in and provisional ballots which are often counted later than those cast at polling places tend toward Democrat votes (I won’t get into why- that’s a separate argument/article, if not a book). In any case, the level of discrepancies is much higher than that alone would cause.
I can remember previous election all night vigils with the network talking heads droning on an on, with scenes of and interviews during election activities of counting, tallying and updating. But Tuesday night was uncannily quiet. Some states seemed to stop counting when they didn’t like the numbers.
Some of the networks/news companies were adding states to the Biden electoral tally, but not being so generous with the states where Trump was ahead just as much. The arrogance of them thinking they are entitled to “call” states when they have zero authority and questionable qualifications to do so and when they have been seen to have shown bias in the past. I shunted back and forth between multiple sources and noticed big differences among them.
There have been numerous reports of discarded ballots being discovered and various anomalies in ballot printing, distribution and voting discrepancies. But Tuesday night and Wednesday on, these reports skyrocketed. Nevada said they were recommending criminal charges on thousands of offenses- does that sound “widespread?” Nothing new for Nevada. When Sharron Angle ran for the US Senate in 2010, she amassed over 5,000 election complaints and took them to a judge, she later told attendees at an election seminar. His answer? Come back when you have 10,000, she revealed.
The most visible problems weren’t about voters, but about election officials/employee/judicial actions. Independent and Republican election observers were illegally blocked or impeded in PA, NV, MI and other places. In Michigan a court order prevented them from blocking observers and the governor promptly blocked them again, this time using COVID-19 as a justification (but she didn’t stop the massive BLM “mostly peaceful protests” for that). Does this qualify as “widespread”? How can you detect fraud if you are blocked from even meaningfully observing the process? Closer to home, Registrar Mark Lunn did that right here in Ventura Country and successfully defended it in court with help of County Counsel. We pay all of their salaries.
But the biggest election fraud isn’t at the polling places, it’s in the state houses, courthouses and election departments. Do you doubt me on that? Read on ….
Why did a District court ruling block checking ID at the polls? Do you think this has “widespread” impact- over multiple states?
Why are millions of invalid voter registrations- moved, died, forfeited- left on the books? This was made FAR worse this year when many states mailed out ballots to ALL of these. Election Integrity Project California and Judicial Watch reached a settlement with LA County earlier this year to delete 1.25 MILLION invalid voter registrations. I am told that they weren’t deleted and ballots were mailed out. This is happening in many states this year. Do you think this has “widespread” impact- over multiple states?
We understand that multiple jurisdictions had turnouts exceeding 100% of voter registration or unbelievably high. Do you think this indicates problems and has “widespread” impact- over multiple states?
Some states, such as California, now automatically register voters when they get drivers licenses, with minimal safeguards. Do you think this has “widespread” impact- over multiple states?
Some states permit “ballot harvesting,” with varying degrees of restrictions. In California, for example, people could deliver truckloads of ballots, with minimal if any checking at polling places. Do you think this has “widespread” impact- over multiple states?
Some states aren’t too careful about checking ballot signatures. This is especially dangerous if you aren’t very careful where and to whom you send them or give them to people at polling places without even verifying their ID. Do you think this has “widespread” impact- over multiple states?
Did COVID-19 really make it necessary for multiple states to mail out ballots and restrict poll observers? Do you think this has “widespread” impact- over multiple states?
Do you think that leftist activists threatening rioting, mayhem, burning and looting if the election doesn’t go their way constitutes election intimidation? Do you think this has “widespread” impact- over multiple states?
Public schools and many private schools using similar curricula have been mostly increasingly left-biased for multiple generations and getting worse. Do you think this has “widespread” impact- over multiple states?
Do you think that Silicon Valley big tech platforms (Google, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, etc.) manipulation of search results, censorship of posts, demonetizing and de-platforming political opponents, using phony “fact-checking” sites with biased interpretations, artificially starving page traffic via selective notifications, has “widespread” impact- over multiple states?
Polling bias was acute, absurdly in favor of Biden and Dem Senate and House candidates, not borne out by actual results. It was said to have an inhibiting effect on getting out the Republican vote. Do you think this has “widespread” impact- over multiple states?
Last but not least, do you think that 24/7/365 x 5 years nonstop negative media “reporting,” one-sided leftist opining, unduly influences elections? Do you think this has “widespread” impact- over multiple states?
If you don’t think this all adds up to the biggest election fraud in US history, then you’re either deaf, dumb, blind, mentally deficient, or simply in denial.
By the way, what happened to all the claims of “Russian and foreign influence” this year?
Does criticizing the voting system like this constitute “undermining our institutions?
In a conversation with a local mayor, he criticized Trump supporters (including me, I guess) for “undermining our sacred institutions, such as our voting process, by attacking them.” He’ll have a field day with this article, which I’ll make sure he gets. But a lot (not all) of the criticisms are justified. So, is it better to withhold criticism in the name of protecting the institutions’ reputations, or to address/correct their weaknesses before they undermine confidence in the entire government, Mr. lame duck mayor? He made it very clear that he was favoring the former approach. When the stakes are this high, the latter is the only sane approach, which would at least increase the possibility of fixing it before it undermines the whole system.
I WAS GOING TO INCLUDE A NUMBER OF STORIES ABOUT THE CIRCUMSTANCES IN WISCONSIN, PENNSYLVANIA, MICHIGAN, ETC., ETC., ETC., BUT IT SEEMS A WASTE. AT THIS POINT WITHOUT RE-VOTES, SIMPLY RECOUNTING THE BALLOTS IS UNLIKELY TO CHANGE ANYTHING. GOOD AND BAD BALLOTS HAVE ALREADY BEEN INTERMINGLED. UNLESS LARGE TRANCHES OF EXISTING BALLOTS ARE INVALIDATED (AND HOW WOULD THAT BE ACCOMPLISHED?), A PROLONGED BATTLE JUST WASTES TIME BETTER SPENT INDICTING THE COUP CRIMINALS AND DECLASSIFYING AND UNREDACTING EVERYTHING POSSIBLE. IF THE DEMS CHEAT AT ELECTIONS WITHOUT CONSEQUENCES, THEN WE NO LONGER HAVE A WORKING REPRESENTATIVE REPUBLIC. IT’S TIME TO TAKE THE GLOVES OFF. ERR ON THE SIDE OF COMPROMISING INTEL SOURCES AND METHODS AND SHOW THE ENTIRE WORLD WHO THE DEEP STATE ACTORS ARE AND HOW CORRUPT THEY ARE. TRUMP SHOULD PULL IT DOWN WITH HIM.- READER PAUL B.
Some relevant articles
BY MIMI NGUYEN LY The Republican National Committee (RNC) announced on Friday they have set up legal teams in the four battleground states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, amid alleged “clear irregularities” in the vote counts for the general election. “Democrats and their friends in the media spent four years talking about a Russia hoax on the […]
November 6, 2020
BY ZACHARY STIEBER AND CHARLOTTE CUTHBERTSON PHILADELPHIA—Voters on Friday told The Epoch Times they gathered outside the Pennsylvania Convention Center, where mail-in ballots are still being tallied, to call for all votes, or all legal votes, to be counted. “I think it’s important that every vote should be counted,” said Skylar Harris, 40, an archivist who supports Democratic presidential nominee Joe […]
November 6, 2020
Californians seem to have rejected Proposition 15, a massive property tax increase on Golden State employers that would make many low-margin small businesses unprofitable, reduce job opportunities when they’re needed most, and raise consumer prices when so many are struggling to get by. The tax would force some businesses to relocate out of state. […]
November 6, 2020
BY JANITA KAN As ballot counts wind down, President Donald Trump and his campaign have launched legal fights in several battleground states asking courts to protect the integrity of the voting and counting process. “We believe the American people deserve to have full transparency into all vote counting and election certification, and that this is no longer about […]
November 6, 2020
THOMAS CATENACCI CONTRIBUTOR Elections officials in Michigan and Wisconsin refused to explain Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s sudden and dramatic vote tally increase that occurred in both states Wednesday morning. Michigan and Wisconsin state officials warned against misinformation being shared online, but wouldn’t comment on specific vote tranches that appeared to show former Vice President Joe […]
November 5, 2020
BY IVAN PENTCHOUKOV Trump campaign officials said on Thursday that the Philadelphia sheriff is refusing to enforce a judge’s order that compels election officials to allow Republican observers adequate access to monitor the ballot count. Earlier on Thursday, Commonwealth Judge Christine Fizzano Cannon, a Democrat, ordered that effective immediately “all candidates, watchers, or candidate representatives be permitted to be […]
November 5, 2020
BY JACK PHILLIPS President Donald Trump on Thursday suggested that he will continue to fight despite races in several key states showing that his path to victory is getting narrower. “If you count the legal votes I easily win,” he said at around 6:45 p.m. ET. “If you count the illegal votes,” then the race will go to […]
November 5, 2020
The Trump team held a news conference in Philadelphia regarding the ballot count in Pennsylvania and Federal Lawsuit that has been filed on behalf of the campaign.
November 4, 2020
THOMAS CATENACCI CONTRIBUTOR Elections officials in Michigan and Wisconsin refused to explain Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s sudden and dramatic vote tally increase that occurred in both states Wednesday morning. Michigan and Wisconsin state officials warned against misinformation being shared online, but wouldn’t comment on specific vote tranches that appeared to show former Vice President Joe […]
November 4, 2020
Extra credit if you digest this rather long analysis by polling expert Richard Baris (thanx to Paul B):
This article was originally published in Citizens Journal Ventura County on 11-7-20
George Miller is Publisher and Co-Founder of Citizens Journal Florida, based in Fernandina Beach. He is a “retired” operations management consultant, software and publishing executive and manufacturing management professional.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
By Bob Allison, January, 2023
Not everyone understands how important Fernandina Harbor Marina is to the world’s yachting community. The Saint Mary’s River offers the safest channel on the U.S. East Coast for transit to and from the Atlantic Ocean. Fernandina’s marina sits less than two miles from this safe all-weather deep water entrance. Also, the importance of the City’s waterfront in relation to the Intracoastal Waterway cannot be understated. This is a busy water highway and premier gateway in and out of Florida. The folks traveling this route spend money in every community they visit along the way. My first-hand knowledge of these facts led me to dedicate several years of my career bringing my vision of Fernandina Harbor Marina to reality. None of this was easy. Early on, the permitting appeared impossible and most doubted my ability to find six million dollars in other people’s money to build the facility.
Now, with the current leases expiring, the City has to decide to either patch up what is worn out on the waterfront or to embark on a whole new grand plan. My belief is if the City decides to embark on the right grand plan, we might expect the City’s waterfront to become the envy of small cities everywhere. It needs to be a plan that meaningfully addresses both the downtown parking crisis and current and future needs of the marina. Ideally, it needs to be a plan that does not add to the outrageous debt on the marina and better yet one that does not cost the City taxpayer a single dime. I provided the City such a plan back in 2017 prior to the repair of the damage caused by hurricane Matthew. The most important aspect of the plan described how the bulkheads at the marina can be relocated to create valuable new land. The City owns the land under the water at the marina and, with a permit to mitigate a tiny smidgeon of marsh grass, it can place its bulkheads wherever it chooses.
My plan was ignored by the City Manager. The important common sense ideas presented in the plan were never even brought before the City Commission for discussion. I have over fifty years of experience dealing with the marina and delivered to the City Fernandina Harbor Marina and Brett’s restaurant but alas, I had to realize the City Manager, in his own mind, believes he knows more about everything than anyone else. Ignoring the recommendations in my plan led to the City making more mistakes in the restoration and repair of the marina than can be described in this short missive. The reconfiguration of the marina’s docks totally failed to address parking crisis at the west end of Centre Street. Access to some of the docks could easily have been designed to connect to the City’s property south of the boat ramp substantially reducing the parking demand in Lots A and B. The dockage for Mr. McCarthy’s Amelia River Cruise boats could also have been moved to the south end further reducing the demand for parking at the west end of Centre Street. Tens of thousands of dollars were wasted building the largest dinghy dock in the free world. It is at least twenty times larger than what could ever be needed by boat crews using the City’s mooring field. The marina has been operating at near capacity for years and yet not one single provision was made for its future expansion. Wonderful opportunities to improve the marina and the City’s waterfront were simply never considered and overlooked.
Subsequent to the marina repair, I have watched the City continue to stumble. Putting lipstick on a pig is never easy. Look closely at the picture below of the South Shore Stabilization project. The timber bulkheads I built nearly forty years ago were never built to be load bearing and are well past their useful life. Placing heavy concrete structures on these worn out old bulkheads and their broken support pilings guarantees their early failure. This is an expensive temporary fix and an obvious waste of hundreds of thousands of dollars of City funds.
Try something as foolish as this on your personal property and watch how fast inspectors from the City’s Building Department shut you down. If the South Shore had been stabilized with new bulkheading at the boundary of the marina, enough new land would have been created for more one hundred new downtown parking spaces.
Perhaps a better example of waste of City funds might be the charge Mr. Martin led to spend $680,000.00 to buy a postage stamp size property at 101 Front Street. This property is not adjoining the City’s property. The deed to the City for the property indicates it was prepared for the sellers by Mr. Jacobs’ attorney’s office leading to the conclusion, at the time of the sale, Mr. and Mrs. Vuturo were clients of Mr. Jacobs. They now have the taxpayers $680,000. and the City has the property and I wonder for what? In the six years since this transaction occurred, Mr. Martin has yet to explain why he led the City to buy this property or how he sees it ever being used.
City Hall has wasted tens of thousands of dollars for consultants to prepare plans for its waterfront. All have been completely worthless and have ended up thrown in the trash. I am attaching below a copy of the plan and Report I provided to the City back in 2017. Unfortunately, many of its recommendations for the planned marina repair are dated and no longer possible to achieve. No, the plan is not perfect but it can be an important first baby step in the right direction. It proposes viable solutions to critical City issues including parking, the future cost of dredging, and the ideal marina dock configuration. Most importantly it provides a plan for the peaceful and shady waterfront park the City’s citizens have been clamoring about for decades. It also explains how the City can have all of this completely paid for by others which is exactly how the City acquired Fernandina Harbor Marina and Brett’s Restaurant.
If you take the time to read this Report and find yourself saying “no way” then you will be making the same comment made by many others when I first came forward with my plans for Brett’s Restaurant and Fernandina Harbor Marina. For the City’s citizens to have something really special on their waterfront, there first has to be a vision and then a common sense plan.
Bob Allison, a resident of Fernandina Beach, is the father of the FB City Marina
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
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