Better in their words…

Source: Coffee & Covid ☙ Wednesday, August 24, 2022 ☙ UN-BANNED

🗞 *LOCAL UPDATE* 🗞

🔥 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.

🗞*COVID NEWS AND COMMENTARY* 🗞

🔥 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:

“They’re going to try and come after me, anyway. I mean, probably less so if I’m not in the job,” Fauci said. “I don’t make that a consideration in my career decision.”

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:

• “Claims that wearing a mask is dangerous or causes negative physical health effects”
• “Claims that masks do not play a role in preventing the contraction or transmission of COVID-19”

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…”

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:

• A “special master” be appointed to oversee the decisions about which documents are privileged and which aren’t
• to stop the FBI from reviewing his documents until the special master is in place
• to require the government to produce a more informative receipt for property
• to require the government to return items not within the scope of the search warrant.

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.

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