Better in their words…

The Four-Year Anniversary Edition! A ‘scandalous’ author interview; Trump wins again and libs lose their ever-lovin’ minds; the UK Daily Mail’s ‘cancer epidemic’ story follows the template; and more.

Source: FOUR YEARS ☙ Tuesday, March 26, 2024 ☙ C&C NEWS

WORLD NEWS AND COMMENTARY

🔥 The media is having a quiet temper tantrum. As predicted, yesterday we found out how Trump is handling the collection bond. Not everyone was happy about it. Don Lemon and Whoopi Goldberg sobbed themselves to sleep last night, drenching their soggy pillows in salty tears of rage and despair. In spite of its broad effect, you won’t find the story covered by corporate media anywhere; you can search their websites in vain.

Reuters got closest with its distracting headline: “Billionaires sought to help fund Trump bond in civil fraud case, sources say” The International news agency smuggled the real news into what looked like a random, boring story about Trump’s billionaire donors.

Hilariously, in a fit of unmitigated pique, Reuters obviously applied an orange filter to their Trump photo (not the one above), a tricky bit of photoshopping obvious even to me, a red/green colorblind. Reuters must have been more enraged than Nancy Pelosi opening her second Subzero freezer and discovering it was also out of dragonfruit gelato.

Yesterday’s big news, which you probably already heard blanketed on conservative media, was that Trump’s appellate motion seeking a bond reduction was partially granted. It didn’t waive the bond, but the appellate court wisely reduced the bond amount, from around $600 million (including interest) to a flat, more affordable $175 million dollars.

But much better than the welcome reduction, the appellate court also gave Trump another ten days to come up with the money, putting him safely past Truth Social’s public offering, when it will be much easier to afford the $175 million.

According to Reuters, Trump told reporters in New York that “I’ll post either the $175 million in cash or bonds or securities or whatever is necessary, very quickly.”

Done and done.

Reuters’ ‘billionaire donor’ facade was a red herring. But, from reading the story, it turned out liberals were just waiting for some billionaire to step up to the plate, so they could be criminally indicted for exceeding campaign finance donation limits. It was always a trap. (Just ask conservative filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza, who spent a year in jail for a $30,000 campaign contribution.)

But now, Trump won’t need any billionaires. Oh well! Another reason for liberal media types to cry themselves to sleep again tonight.

And, while the appellate court’s decision was good, it wasn’t great. Even a $175 million dollar bond in this case is outrageous. The good news is the amount — a third of the original — signals the court of appeals is leaning toward lopping the head of Judge Engoran’s ridiculous fine.

The appellate judges are probably thinking about the Constitutional issue.

Under the Constitution and settled Supreme Court law, punitive finesgenerally can’t exceed three times actual damages. Nor can they be so large as to bankrupt someone, or even “impose an undue financial burden on the individual.” Overlarge fines offend the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition of excessive fines. In a major recent case, Timbs v. Indiana (2019), the Court confirmed that the excessive fines clause of the Eighth Amendment applies to the States (not just the federal government), in both civil and criminal cases.

So that’s my best guess as to what the court of appeals had in view. That and politics. If it waived the bond requirement it would have been pilloried. Media doesn’t seem to know what to make of the $175 million bond, which is still a LOT, so they’re mostly ignoring it.

Assuming that Judge Engoran’s fine for “overestimating real estate” stands at all, it seems likely to be greatly reduced.

Three days ago, the Biden Campaign released an unseemly series of messages and ads prematurely celebrating President Trump’s inability to pay for his appeal bond. The new campaign tried to stick Trump with a dumb new nickname, “Broke Don”:

Whoops. But it looks Trump can raise money; a lot, too. Biden blundered again!

Maybe Biden should be the one to get a new nickname. How about “Broke Brain Biden?” What do you suggest?

💉  On Sunday, I dissected the UK Telegraph’s “epidemic of young cancer” story, explaining exactly how the media twists the cancer narrative and the facts to protect the jabs. Yesterday, the Daily Mail UK ran a similar story headlined, “Alarm over mystery cancer ‘epidemic’ striking under-50s like Kate Middleton as scientists scramble to find cause of startling increase.”

To its credit, the Daily Mail almost seemed like a kidnapping victim, desperately trying to smuggle out a secret message: help me! Right from the top of the story, it included this remarkable bit of reporting:

Scientists are scrambling to find the cause of a mystery cancer ‘epidemic’ which is striking under-50s. Despite years of research, researchers are baffled as to what is behind the problem.

But, in the wake of the Princess of Wales’ news, one surgeon claimed a yet-to-be discovered factor could be to blame. Professor Andrew Beggs, a consultant colorectal surgeon and a senior clinical fellow at the University of Birmingham, said: ‘There might be an unknown environmental factor that we haven’t discovered, despite extensive research.’

An unknown environmental factor! What could it be?? Does it come in a needle? Obviously the Mail immediately dropped that line of inquiry and lost all interest in speculating what kind of environmental factor might be involved. But they put it out there as a limited hangout.

Maybe the Mail’s handy infographic map could give us a clue. It shows western countries plus Russia and China with the highest rates of under-50 cancer:

Poor Australia! That benighted continent is now the young-cancer epicenter. What could have happened there, out in the desert, so far away from everyone? What common “environmental” factor could possibly tie Australia to Europe and the U.S., which are both drafting right behind the Down Under? Hmm?

Like the Telegraph, the Mail’s article fogged the cancer story with the same batch of distracting nonsense. For example, it named a bunch of early-onset cancer victims, but they were red herrings. For example, the Mail rounded up a small batch of celebrity cancers to demonstrate the trend.

But the Mail’s four sample cancers occurred over a twenty-year period — all before the jabs, and some a quarter-century ago: Black Panther’s Chadwick Boseman (died of colon cancer in 2020, aged 43); Modern Family’s Sophia Vergara (thyroid cancer in 2000, aged 28); A-lister Ewan McGregor (skin cancer —two moles!— removed in 2008), and Australia’s top singer Kylie Minogue (breast cancer back in 2005, aged 36).

A twenty-five year span? Come on. I could round up four celebrities with turbo cancer just over the last four months. And if you give me the last three years, I could easily beat four times that many.

And I won’t even include celebrities who just had a couple moles removed.

Anyway, the Daily Mail also rounded up some cancer doctors, so you can add them to the ones quoted for the Telegraph. For example:

Oncologist Dr Shivan Sivakumar, from the University of Birmingham, said: ‘There is an epidemic currently of young people (under 50) getting cancer. Nobody knows the cause, but we are seeing more patients getting abdominal cancers.’

Professor Karol Sikora, a world-renowned oncologist with over 40 years’ experience, said experts had ‘no idea’ what was causing a ‘frightening’ surge in cases of pancreatic cancer, especially among young women.

UK data shows women in their early 40s, like Kate, are twice as likely (2.1 times), to get cancer than a man of the same age. Cancers of the breast, prostate, lung and bowel make-up the overwhelming majority of all new cancer diagnoses, accounting for around half of the total.

Finally, the article cited the same irrelevant study that popped up in the Telegraph’s article. At least the Mail linked the study. As we noted before, that study shows an increase in young cancer rates over a thirty year periodbetween 1990 and, conveniently, 2019. Misleadingly, the Mail printed not one single word about cancer rates during the last three years, allowing readers to falsely conclude they are looking at just one long, uninterrupted trend.

Baffling! A baffling environmental factor.

Kate Middleton’s tragic cancer story — we must never forget the Royal Family initially insisted it was definitely not cancer — her tragic cancer story has conveniently opened a box of permission for media to talk about the epidemic of turbo cancers in young people. The stories are rolling out now, all following the identical repulsive narrative formula.

It looks like a well-organized, coordinated limited hangout, reprehensibly using Kate Middleton’s cancer diagnosis as a pretext.

The recent ‘cancer epidemic’ stories are so similar it is tempting to think they all came from the same desk. But that would just be kooky conspiracy talk. It is merely a coincidence that all these different media platforms wrote their ‘cancer epidemic’ stories the same way, using the same language of baffling epidemics, citing the same irrelevant study, and exhibiting the same moribund lack of curiosity about the “environmental cause.”

Shut up! Science!

Have a terrific Tuesday, and Happy Anniversary! Get yourself back here tomorrow for another great C&C roundup, where our hangouts are always UNlimited.