Better in their words…

Source: LOCKDOWN 2023? ☙ Sunday, August 20, 2023 ☙ C&C NEWS

WORLD NEWS AND COMMENTARY

🔥 Yesterday, an alarmed Michelle asked me about an Alex Jones clip making the rounds on social media. I knew if Michelle was fretting about it, a lot of other people must be worrying too. So let’s dive in.

In the clip, Jones described a TSA insider and a Border Patrol agent who both claimed Bob Peters’ Administration, sorry, I mean the BidenAdministration, issued secret guidance on the return of covid mandates next month in September.

https://twitter.com/TheRightMelissa/status/1692705115361161587

According to Jones, the TSA source claimed that airline masking would be re-implemented in September, and in December, the “full covid protocol” would be reinstated. It wasn’t just Michelle, a lot of folks are alarmed about the news, which seems especially possible because of the upcoming election season, mail in ballots, and so forth.

The Jones segment cascaded into dire headlines running all over conservative media, like this one from yesterday’s Daily Fetched:

Constant vigilance is critical, but we might want to dial it back a trifle. The actual news is that anonymous sources claimed covid protocols are planned for next month. That is quite different from any kind of official announcement. I’m not saying it can’t happen, and nobody trusts Bob Peters and his gang of merry handlers, but there are other feasible possibilities.

So let’s look at those.

Please note the other two breaking stories this week. I reported them both. First of all, there’s this new, even more transmissible variant that we are supposed to be worried about, dubbed “Eris.” From Reuters, yesterday:

These people sure do love their Neo-paganisms. The name “Eris” comes from Greek mythology. In Greek mythology, Eris was the goddess of strife, discord, and chaos. I am not making that up. The name’s etymology traces back to the Greek word “ἔρις” (eris), which literally translates to “strife” or “discord.”

It’s not a big secret or anything. The  “Goddess Eris” was the main antagonist in DreamWorks’ seventh full-length animated feature film Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas (2003).  Sinbad’s archenemy Eris was depicted as the beautiful, but wicked goddess of chaos whose plan was to make the world as chaotic as possible.

Ironically, chaos struck the movie instead, and Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas was a box office disaster that nearly bankrupted Dreamworks. Anyway, “Eris” is what they named the new covid variant debuting in Establishment Media this week.

Eris’s rollout created a pretext for Establishment Media to terrify its zombiefied constituents using the same old tricks. From Lester Holt on NBC this week, behold: “Covid Cases Rising Again This Summer:”

https://twitter.com/CitizenFreePres/status/1692658691357434307

NBC anchor Annie Thompson ended the segment looking straight into the camera and enthusiastically hawking Moderna’s new and improved bivalent booster shots:

“So until the new covid booster comes, get prepared. Stock up on at-home tests — they do cover that new strain — keep a mask handy in case you’re in a crowded place, and most of all, get your shots: covid, flu, and RSV, all by Halloween, to give yourself your best chance to stay healthy.”

Hold up. I have questions. First of all, why is anybody still testing? What difference does it make? I mean, really. I wish someone would explain that to me. Second, they say the new variant is more transmissible? I thought we’d already splashed through sixteen rounds of ever more transmissible variants. How transmissible can it get? Does it come through the radio now? Phone calls? Third, how do they know covid hospitalizations are up when most places have stopped reporting them?

But I digress. Let us focus.

The second story breaking this week was the FDA’s torrid preparations to fast-track approval of Moderna’s new annual mRNA covid booster shot, which coincidentally and propitiously turned out to be specially designed for the super-duper transmissible Eris variant. From the Hill on Thursday:

Whew. Thank goodness for Moderna. What would we do without them?

To recap, all in one week, look at what all rolled out: (1) announcement of a scary, chaotic new even more transmissible variant, and (2) the announcement that the government is getting ready to buy billions of dollars of more doses, for our safety, plus (3) anonymous rumors that covid lockdowns are coming back.

Now let’s add one more variable to consider: that government-affiliated Moderna, which only has one successful product, one whose patents benefit dozens of highly-placed NIH employees, is — sadly — struggling financially. From Forbes, two weeks ago:

Gosh. Wouldn’t it be horrible if all those government employees stopped getting all those windfall payments from their Moderna jab royalties, wouldn’t it? What can be done?

You know what.

So. Here’s what I think. Rather than actual new lockdowns, I think what we’re seeing is more likely to be an Establishment psyop justifying buying billions of dollars of useless mRNA shots. Jab-happy people will be grateful to get the newest pokes, although I suspect uptake will remain poor, but who cares, since the U.S. government is the paying customer. Conservatives will be satisfied when lockdowns are ‘averted’ by popular outcry.

And nobody will ask why we’re spending so much money on useless and dangerous experimental jabs. It’s win-win-win.

Now here’s why I don’t think they’re preparing for new lockdowns.

🔥 They might try airline masking again, to frighten the covid maniacs, but there are several reasons why I doubt full-on lockdowns are on the calendar: (1) the legislative environment is completely different, (2) the social and legal environment is completely different, (3) they don’t have “an emergency” to justify bypassing legislation and ramming things through, and (4) they lack the tools they had the first time around.

You’ll recall, I’m sure, all the covid lawsuits over the last two years. One happy result was that there are now a lot fewer ways the government can mandate pandemic protocols. The CDC is enjoined from any more transportation mandates, such as masks. Congress won’t do it. So, if masks return to planes this fall, it could only be through a Biden executive order, which will instantly be challenged in court.

When they first slipped all these odious mandates over on us, it was during an atmosphere of total panic, with sketchy videos of Chinese people collapsing on the streets and fake Establishment Media shots of hospital corridors packed with bloody gurneys and stacks of body bags. They can’t do that now. Nobody will believe that nonsense, not even Branch Covidians.

Socially, people won’t stand for lockdowns. Just imagine the uproar from parents at the barest suggestion of closing schools again.

Next, all the mandates over the last three years were passed using emergency executive authority. None of them were passed by legislatures, by the peoples’ voting representatives, after debate and evidence. I’m not saying Bob Peters couldn’t declare another covid emergency, but the courts are not going to give the executive branch a pass like they did last time, back when most judges actually believed there might be some kind of real emergency.

Finally, in my opinion (even at the time) the 2020 lockdowns violated the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution, because they constituted a “taking” of private property, namely small business revenues. Last time, the government avoided this thorny Constitutional problem by delivering rafts of cash to everyone, in the form of forgivable Paycheck Protection loans. In legal terms, the government provided value for the takings, which is what the Constitution requires.

Biden can’t repeat that “stimulus” technique without a Congressional appropriation, and the Republican-majority House of Representatives would almost certainly not agree.

Having said all that, I am humble enough to admit I could be wrong. This Fall could be when they deploy the WHO’s international pandemic authority and shoot for the whole enchilada. Or, Geert Vanden Bossche’s apocalyptic predictions could be right, and the jabbed will start dying in droves this Fall from vaccine-escaped viral covid strains, and what we’re seeing now is just the warmup for the government’s response to help cover up its role in creating the disaster in the first place.

But, evaluating all the evidence that we do have, setting aside apocalyptic speculation, what we can see looks a lot more like ordinary late-stage-capitalism, looting-of-the-treasury stuff, rather than preparations to return to 2020 covid lockdowns. So I do not think there’s any reason to panic.

Feel free to express your different take in the comments. All opinions respected.

Now that we’ve given some perspective to the recent concerns about new lockdowns, we’ll now continue with the normal Sunday subscriber bonus edition.

🔥 Yesterday’s post included the awful USA Today article and related study condemning heterodox doctors for having opinions about covid different from the CDC’s. I also separately described the backlash against London’s “Ulez” climate change cameras that automatically charge anybody who drives in London.

I never imagined those two stories would somehow intersect. But guess what showed up in the UK Telegraph yesterday? This:

Imagine that.

According to internal emails obtained by the Telegraph, London’s Mayor Sadiq Khan (if that’s his real name) tried to discredit and silence scientists who were about to publish a study concluding that his “ultra-low emissions zone” (ULEZ) policy would not in fact reduce greenhouse gases to any extent justifying the expense.

Instead, under pressure from the Mayor’s office, the scientists released a wholly different statement — which was partially drafted by the Mayor’s assistant — that said the exact opposite, that Ulez cameras help to “dramatically reduce air pollution.” The scientist who signed the statement received more than £800,000 (over $1M dollars) in that last two years in science grants from Mr. Khan’s office. So he was paying close attention, you bet.

It’s science! Shut up!

The Telegraph’s article included a bunch of emails between the scientist, Frank Kelly, and Mayor Khan’s office, essentially conspiring about how to overcome the damaging political effect of the prospective study and to make the Mayor’s office look good.

Apparently this is part of a scientist’s job now, pleasing patrons in high government office.

And this is also how they manufacture official scientific consensus. This is also what causes independent scientists to be given the ‘Semmelweis Reflex’ treatment, and punished by the orthodox establishment for daring to ask questions.

So.

🚀 Also yesterday, I included a gloomy New York Times headline about the Proxy War, titled, “Troop Deaths and Injuries in Ukraine War Near 500,000, U.S. Officials Say.” That article, and other similar recent ones, display a shocking lack of liberal empathy for the flower of Ukrainian youth.

In yesterday’s post, I included only the headline, as part of a visual narrative of the week’s Proxy War news. But there were some intriguing details in the Times’ story, and similar related ones, with a new, nasty, unsympathetic tone that bears closer attention.

The Times’s article reported that NATO commanders are vexed with the Ukrainians, because the Ukrainians are unfortunately, more and more, becoming what the Times euphemistically called “casualty adverse.”

In other words, the Ukraininans don’t want to die. Imagine the nerve. After all we’ve done for them.

Rather than charging into mine-laden battlefields without air cover, the Ukrainians are now shifting tactics to using artillery and long-distance weapons, while keeping their remaining troops safely behind the lines. Alive.

Here’s how the Times described it:

Ukrainian commanders decided the pivot [to artillary] reduced casualties and preserved their frontline fighting force. American officials say they fear that Ukraine has become casualty averse, one reason it has been cautious about pressing ahead with the counteroffensive. Almost any big push against dug-in Russian defenders protected by minefields would result in huge numbers of losses.

That seems completely unsurprising and non-newsworthy. But wait, there’s more.

A similar Washington Post article published Thursday was headlined, “U.S. intelligence says Ukraine will fail to meet offensive’s key goal.”  In its article, the Post cited anonymous U.S. and Western intelligence officials who admitted that the massive, unbelievable losses Ukraine has suffered in the rushed counteroffensive were anticipated in planners’ war games.

In other words, NATO war planners knew in advance that hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians would die. But, the Post explained, they “envisioned Kyiv accepting the casualties as the cost of piercing through Russia’s main defensive line.”

Um.

I also covered a Wall Street Journal article last month headlined “Ukraine’s Lack of Weaponry and Training Risks Stalemate in Fight With Russia.” I quoted the WSJ’s report that other unidentified western military officials said they always “knew Kyiv didn’t have all the training or weapons” needed to push out Russia, but the war planners “hoped Ukrainian courage and resourcefulness would carry the day” anyway. It didn’t.

On Friday, Politico ran a story headlined, “Milley had a point.” Here’s the first paragraph:

The conversation about Ukraine’s counteroffensive has shifted from one of excitement to disappointment, as Kyiv’s slow gains lead some U.S. officials and insiders alike to whisper: Should we have listened to Gen. Mark Milley? In November,  said Ukraine’s strong military position and upcoming winter season combined to make a good time to consider peace talks.

Earlier last week, Joint Chiefs Chairman General Milley advised the Washington Post, “If the end state is Ukraine as a free, independent, sovereign country with its territory intact, that will take a considerable level of effort yet to come. That’s gonna take a long, long time, but you can also achieve those objectives — maybe, possibly — through some sort of diplomatic means.”

Bob Peters doesn’t know what to do:

One U.S. official, who didn’t want to run afoul of the administration by offering real views on the record, said the realities of the counteroffensive are sinking in around Washington… Another U.S. official said the administration is increasingly asking itself this question: “If we acknowledge we’re not going to do this forever, then what are we going to do?”

Tick, tock. The Peters, I mean Biden Administration has a couple more months to wrap up the Proxy War before election season begins in earnest. That’s why they rushed the counteroffensive, to try to ram it through before voters started paying attention. But, now that the counteroffensive is mired in bloody Ukrainian mud, what do you think Biden will do? Will the F16s carry the day?

Before answering, don’t forget about Afghanistan!

To summarize, according to U.S. war planners, the Ukrainians are cowardly, ungrateful morons who can’t see the obvious way to win is by becoming meat missiles. If only someone could have seen this coming.

🔥 One-party Democrat-run New York City may now be literally collapsing in on itself, according to this admittedly unconfirmed but eye-opening video:

https://twitter.com/TheMarieOakes/status/1693058324793622580

The good news is that the Public Works department is 100% focused on diversity. And don’t forget the the democrat Congress passed the most expensive infrastructure bill in history almost two years ago.

Don’t worry. Once things get bad enough, we will be forced to start hiring people based on merit again. “Bad times make strong men.” And so forth.

🔥 Seen online, right before it was “fixed:”

Whoopsies!  (Does CBS know something??)

🔥 Meme alert! (Hat tip: Wall Street Apes.)

Remind me sometime to write about the stealthy narrative shift from “15 minutes cities” to “Smart Cities.” Because who can argue with something that’s “Smart?”

Have a blessed Sunday, and seriously, thank you for loyally supporting C&C. I couldn’t do this without you. See you tomorrow!

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