CDC admits folks aren't getting the jab. Especially children.
Visits: 9
by Sophie Putka, Enterprise & Investigative Writer, MedPage Today
Just putting this out there. COVID Drops to Fourth Leading Cause of Death, CDC Says — Virus-linked deaths in 2022 dipped below those caused by unintentional injury.
Unintentional injury deaths, driven in large part by drug overdose deaths, actually dropped slightly compared with 2021, but COVID-19 deaths dropped more — by 47%. COVID-19 was listed as the underlying or contributing cause of 244,986 deaths (61.3 per 100,000) in 2022 compared with 462,193 deaths (115.6 per 100,000) in 2021.
The overall age-adjusted death rate also decreased 5.3%, from 879.7 to 832.8 per 100,000 from 2021 to 2022 (P<0.05).
The decrease in COVID-19-associated deaths came as “a welcome relief, given the overall burden of the pandemic since its global eruption in late 2019,” said David Aronoff, MD, director of the Division of Infectious Diseases at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in Nashville, Tennessee, and a member of the MedPage Today editorial board.
The highest weekly numbers of overall and COVID-19-associated deaths happened in the early months of 2022; they have since fallen furtheropens in a new tab or window in 2023.
Though Aronoff predicted that the CDC will keep providing guidance on preventing COVID-19, “cancer, heart disease, and unintentional injuries (including drug overdoses) remain major causes of illness and death, and it is likely that these will remain front and center in public health improvement strategies led by the CDC, state, and local health departments.”
Ahmad and colleagues suggested that their data “can guide public health policies and interventions aimed at reducing mortality directly or indirectly associated with the COVID-19 pandemic and among persons most affected, including persons who are older, male, or from members of certain racial and ethnic minority groups.”
Both COVID-19 and overall death rates were highest among non-Hispanic Black and non-Hispanic American Indian or Alaska Native people.
COVID-19-associated death rates were higher in males than females (76.3 vs 49.8 per 100,000), which was true for deaths overall as well. Of people who had COVID-19 on their death certificate, around 76% had it listed as the primary cause, while 5.9%, 3.9%, 1.6%, respectively, had heart disease, cancer, and chronic respiratory disease listed as the primary cause, as was detailed in a related MMWRopens in a new tab or window.
In 2022, heart disease caused 699,659 deaths, cancer caused 607,790 deaths, and unintentional injury caused 218,064 deaths. The number of unintentional injuries was slightly higher in 2021, at 219,487.
The report drew on National Center for Health Statistics’ (NCHS) National Vital Statistics System (NVSS), which is based off of U.S. death certificate data. It uses provisional data, or an early estimate of deaths before a final release of data, based on the flow of death certificate data to the system. Trends in deaths throughout the year used the number of deaths each week from all causes and from COVID-19.
COVID-19-associated death rates decreased for many demographic groups in 2022, but increased for those younger than 15opens in a new tab or window. They decreased in those ages 85 or older, although still remaining higher than in other age groups.
A higher proportion of COVID-19 deaths occurred at homes, nursing homes, or long-term care facilities. The proportion of inpatient hospital deaths decreased but still made up most of the COVID-19 deaths.
Limitations to the study included the use of provisional data, which are estimates. The authors also mentioned the variation in timeliness of death certificate date by jurisdiction and the potential for misclassification of some categories of race and Hispanic ethnicity reported on death certificates.
Sophie Putka is an enterprise and investigative writer for MedPage Today. Her work has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Discover, Business Insider, Inverse, Cannabis Wire, and more. She joined MedPage Today in August of 2021.
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The corporate media has been buzzing the last few months about a defamation lawsuit filed against Fox News by an electronic voting machine company. In fact, the left-wing corporate press is positively salivating at the monetary damages that might be inflicted on Fox News if the case is lost. Apparently, those purple-haired kids don’t understand that $1.6 billion is hardly a fine for Rupert Murdoch — he probably pays that much semi-annually for those routine divorces he’s always getting.
Why would the American corporate media cheer on a lawsuit that has broken all the rules for discovery, and threatens the First Amendment protections of journalists? And since when do vendors operating as third-party proxies for state governments in national elections get to sue the Fourth Estate for defamation?
That’s a tough question — legally speaking. Of course, it’s an easy question in terms of politics. What can you tell Democrats that they won’t believe? For example: that boys are girls and girls are boys? There’s no basic fact of biology that Democrats won’t deny — if necessary. There’s no scientific law they won’t denounce in a pinch — gravity! chemistry! the third law of thermodynamics! — to remain in the good graces of their shameless mob.
After all, the memory of the average Democrat voter is about the same as a fruit fly dipped in Fentanyl.
That’s why the corporate media can publicize the private text messages of Fox journalists, and expect that dangerous precedent to be viewed as normal too.
That was not the only time Judge Davis spoke out in colorful terms about Fox’s coverage in the aftermath of the election, which he has described in scathing terms throughout this case. “I could have a lot of fun with this case,” Davis said at one point, during a discussion of Dominion’s opportunity to cross examine Fox witnesses.
Nothing like the judge openly admitting that he views Fox News as guilty before the trial. Do you remember a time when judges tried to hide their liberal bias? I sure do. That’s the old America. In the new Amerika (thank you Kafka!) the communist judges advertise their lack of impartiality to the communist press. And why not? Maybe there’s a Soros retirement bonus waiting for any robed idiot who turns our judicial system into a modern Stalinist replica that’s suitable for the Banana Republic of Biden.
Though it’s hard to believe, MSNBC’s trashy commentary was even more toxic and absurd than Mediate’s garbage:
“There could be a lot of implications depending on how it plays out,” said Imraan Farukhi,an assistant professor at Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications. Besides the financial impact, Farukhi added, “The other question is what will they do with their talent if they lose? The majority of the stars at Fox are implicated. Any other news organization would have probably seen their hosts losing their jobs for improper reporting.”
Who’s going to tell Imraan Farukhi that if getting fired for “improper reporting” was actually a thing in American corporate media, there would no longer be American corporate media?
For that matter, who’s going to tell Imraan Farukhi that good entertainment lawyers don’t leave to become assistant professors at third-tier colleges? (I peeked at his bio.) How much does Farukhi even know about media? Or America for that matter? Did he just cross the southern border or something? I ask because he seems to be — well, you know — new here.
Of course, Assistant Professor Farukhi is not the only lunatic who’s out howling in the moonlight about the Fox lawsuit.
Everywhere you look, you find manifest absurdities on display in this lawsuit.
1st: The judge involved the case has already ruled that Fox’s claims about the electronic voting machine company are false.
In this case, it’s obvious that Delaware Superior Court Judge Eric Davis is writing checks with his mouth that he simply can’t cash. The Constitution mandates that individual states conduct our elections. It is illegal for individual states to outsource our elections to foreign companies owned by foreigner individuals using private software that cannot be reviewed or audited.
This is basic law 101.
Why would such an absurd scenario be tolerated by our national security state (just think of all the cybersecurity spooks at the FBI, CIA, NSA and DHS) for even a moment? The answer, of course, is that it would not be tolerated — unless the national security state was the ultimate power behind it all.
That’s why you see 2020 election votes being counted in Spain by a DoD “contractor” called Scytl. That’s why you have a FBI agent posing as Arizona’s Director of Elections for the 2022 midterm disaster in Maricopa County.
And that’s why you have Delaware judges pretending to be cybersecurity experts who want you to believe that flaws in our election systems (that are published by CISA on its official website no less!) are really just “conspiracy theories.”
2nd: The plaintiff was allowed to seize the data from any journalist or producer or anchor at Fox News that it wanted. When has that ever happened in America?
A private company has never been allowed to hoover up the data from a legacy media network and embark on a fishing expedition. Never. Until now.
How was that data used?
On Monday March 6th, Tucker Carlson released the first footage of the January 6th insurrection showing police ushering protestors inside the Capitol.
Notice the perfect timing. The data from discovery was used as leverage.
That same day, Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer publicly warned Fox News owner Rupert Murdoch against running more footage: “Rupert Murdoch has a special obligation to stop Tucker Carlson from going on tonight […] our democracy depends on it.”
These are not subtle threats.
3rd: Chuck Schumer’s public threat to Rupert Murdoch gave the game away — it’s the federal government behind it all.
Why did the leader of the U.S. Senate claim that the owner of a news network had “a special obligation” to stop a TV anchor from investigating January 6th? That’s just the sort of thing that violates our democratic norms isn’t it? What was he talking about? The “special obligation” is no doubt Fox’s role in trying to sell the American people on the phony results of the stolen 2020 election — and the early Arizona call for Biden/Harris in particular.
There’s a word for this sort of threat and the word is: kompromat.
After all, subverting America is a delicate business.
Our spy agencies understand that they’ve lost their legitimacy with the American people — which is why they’re trying to seize power through the TikTok bill this week after getting caught trying to infiltrate Catholic churches last week in between investigating angry parents at school board meetings as “domestic terrorists” and stealing MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell’s cellphone in a parking lot for no good reason.
It’s hard work rigging America’s elections at taxpayer expense — especially once its citizens start to notice.
(Those documents showed the FBI planned to use churches as “new avenues for tripwire and source development.” The federal law enforcement agency also aimed to specifically target “mainline Catholic parishes” as part of its efforts.)
FBI used an undercover ‘employee’ to monitor Catholic clergy and parishioners.
“When a federal bureaucracy becomes this toxic, there’s only one answer left. You shut it down,” Ramaswamy said. “Top-down ‘reform’ becomes impossible.”
(“Anti-Catholic bigotry appears to be festering in the FBI, and the Bureau is treating Catholics as potential terrorists because of their beliefs,” the 20 AGs wrote to FBI Director Christopher Wray and U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland.)
(An internal document from the bureau’s Richmond, Virginia, field office allegedly vowed to spy on “radical traditionalist Catholics and their ideology.” “He or she stated the very simple statement, which is that if they’re going to go after radical, traditional Catholics, then radical traditional Baptists are next and radical, traditional evangelicalism and anybody else that espouses essentially what is radical, which is just a Christian faith and that is dangerous apparently in this country,” )
(Federal prosecutors have offered a no-jail plea deal to a vandal who admitted to defacing a Catholic church with profane graffiti, destroying a Virgin Mary statue, assaulting a church worker, and resisting arrest.)
Huh?
No jail time for a federal felony hate crime??? Interesting.
Whatever you may think of Jack Kennedy, can you imagine these things happening while he was President? Neither can I.
Biden is nominally a Catholic.
Biden is nominally a Catholic, even though his transgressions put Kennedy’s peccadilloes to shame by several orders of magnitude. So why are they going against Christians in general and Catholics in particular? Power, pure and simple.
It would be both easy (and fallacious) to simply blame George Soros and the globalists like WHO and WEF. Or to get all caught up in other “End Times” conspiracy theories. The former should not need an explanation. The latter is explained in the Bible itself.
1.) There will be no “Rapture” prior to the 2nd coming. (that concept was introduced over 1800 years after the Crucifixion.) What people point to as “the Rapture” is in fact a description of the second coming.
2.) What did Jesus Himself say to those seeking to know when the “end times” would be? : Acts 1:6-11 [NIV]6 Then they gathered around him and asked him, “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?” 7 He said to them: “It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority.8But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”9 After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight. 10 They were looking intently up into the sky as he was going, when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them. 11“Men of Galilee,” they said, “why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.”
3.) Further 1 Thessalonians 5 states that His return will happen like “a thief in the night” while everyone is saying “peace and safety”. So, the more people are expecting the end at any time the less it is likely to happen — at least IMO. 1 Thessalonians 5:1-5:1Brothers and sisters, we don’t have to write to you about times and dates. 2 You know very well how the day of the Lord will come. It will come like a thief in the night.3 People will be saying that everything is peaceful and safe. Then suddenly they will be destroyed. It will happen like birth pains coming on a pregnant woman. None of the people will escape.
Those last six words seem to eliminate the idea of a Rapture right there. And while not a popular position. many biblical scholars point to passages in both the Old and New Testaments that indicate that the “end days” started with Jesus Christ’s appearance on earth either at His birth or His death/resurrection.
That said, I don’t like how things are going, but how is it any different than what happened throughout the last two millennia? Or more, if you count the Jewish people.
Either way, what is happening is, in fact, evil, and — as a number of men have stated in various forms: Evil only flourishes when good men and women do nothing.
You don’t have to agree with my own religious opinions but don’t attack me rather instead of staying on the topic(s) stated above.
Don’t worry, you won’t miss it. But it’s not what you’re expecting.
Even Robert A. Heinlein — who was not exactly a devout Christian — depicts the Rapture as simply the second coming (See his book JOB.)
Will two time election denying loser run for another office? Shockwaves are being running wild about Abrahams running again for some political office in Georgia (Dog Catcher?). Over thirty Democrat party officials are not feeling the love for Miss Stacey.
“Interviews with more than three dozen Democratic officials, party leaders and activists suggest she may not have the same unified support she enjoyed after her first defeat to Kemp in 2018,” Bluestein wrote.
Chair of Monroe County’s Democratic Party Yvonne Stuart, for instance, said that while she appreciated Abrams’ fundraising and get-out-the-vote efforts, she felt another Democrat should run for office.
“I do believe there might be another charismatic Democrat that can take us all the way in 2026,” said Stuart.
“I believe that there are opportunities for others to step up to the plate and run for governor,” said David Ellis-Mendoza, the chair of the Bartow County Democrats
“The party needs to move forward. And going 0-3 isn’t a way to go forward. Does she really want to be the next Guy Millner?” former head of the Democratic Party of Georgia Bobby Kahn said.
Abrams saw her star power take a hit in December of last year for her poor financial management in the wake of her failure to unseat Republican Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp.
As Breitbart News previously reported, Stacey Abrams raised over $100 million for her failed campaign but still found herself over $1 million in debt, prompting her to fire staff immediately after the November election. Democrats did not withhold their criticism of her financial decisions.
“It’s incredibly bad planning, and it shows where their values are at,” a senior Democratic official told Greg Bluestein of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “You can’t look up one day and realize you can’t pay the bills.”
McCarthy VS Jefferies. McCarthy Elected and Jefferies selected. BBC Photo
Visits: 17
McCarthy VS Jefferies. McCarthy Elected and Jefferies selected. We are seeing two different styles. McCarthy who had to negotiate vs Jefferies, the affirmative action pick who does what he’s ordered.
McCarthy has been moving legislation that’s been getting positive reviews and even has had bi partisan support. VS Jefferies who’s doing the bidding of the MSM, Race Baiters, and White Plantationists. Being a good boy.
Trump’s comment during his tour of East Palestine was widely interpreted to mean that he had nothing to do with regulatory rollbacks during his presidency — an odd remark since he frequently celebrated how many regs he had eliminated. (He often exaggerated the impact of his record, but that’s another story.)
Steven Cheung, a spokesman for Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign, said Trump was speaking more generally about regulatory changes being falsely blamed for the derailment of 38 train cars, including 11 carrying hazardous materials, in East Palestine on Feb. 3. Biden administration officials have strongly suggested that the Trump administration buckled under pressure from rail industry lobbyists, laying the groundwork for an accident.
We decided to examine every possible regulatory change made under Trump that could be related to the accident and assess whether it could have made an impact. A preliminary report by the National Transportation Safety Board, which is investigating the incident, said the Norfolk Southern crew received an alert about an overheated wheel bearing and was trying to slow the train before it came off the tracks.
From our analysis, none of the regulatory changes made during the Trump administration at this point can be cited as contributing to the accident.
Electronically controlled pneumatic brakes
On long trains, these “ECP” brakes, which use electronic signals along the length of a train, are considered superior to an older braking system that uses compressed air to individually stop each car. The Trump administration in 2017 repealed an Obama-era rule that would have required ECP brakes on “high hazard” trains that carry flammable hazardous materials. A Government Accountability Office report had cast doubt on the Transportation Department’s estimates of the benefits from the requirement.
The GAO study was a requirement included, at the behest of industry, in a 2015 law signed by Obama, the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation (FAST) Act, after dozens of trains hauling oil and ethanol crashed. The accidents included one in 2013 in Quebec that killed 47 people and destroyed the town of Lac-Mégantic. The Trump DOT determined that revised estimates found the costs outweighed the benefits. The Associated Press later discovered that the DOT estimate had miscalculated the potential benefits — what officials claimed at the time was an “unintentional error.” Even with a correction, the department still said the costs outweighed the benefits.
The Biden administration has not acted to reinstate the rule, which would have gone into effect starting in 2021 if Trump had not shelved it.
Relevance to derailment:Minimal. The train was not equipped with ECP brakes; instead its locomotive used dynamic braking — electric traction motors acting as generators, which slow the train and dissipate mechanical energy as heat. When the crew received the alert about the overheated wheel bearing and engaged the dynamic brake, an automatic emergency brake application kicked in to stop the train, the NTSB said. That’s a full application of a train’s main air brakes that takes place when the train senses that air-brake hoses between rail cars have been disconnected — indicating the train had already derailed.
NTSB chair Jennifer Homendy said on Twitter that the repealed rule was not relevant to the accident. “The ECP braking rule would’ve applied ONLY to HIGH HAZARD FLAMMABLE TRAINS. The train that derailed in East Palestine was a MIXED FREIGHT TRAIN containing only 3 placarded Class 3 flammable liquids cars,” she wrote. “This means even if the rule had gone into effect, this train wouldn’t have had ECP brakes.”
But Cynthia Quarterman, who helped write the rule as administrator of the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration during the Obama administration, told The Fact Checker that if the rule had not been delayed and then shelved, she believes ECP brakes might have been widely adopted by industry and could have ended up on this train.
Brake safety inspections
The Trump administration in 2020 issued a rule that extended how much time a freight rail train could be parked with its air brake system depressurized before requiring a new brake inspection. The rule permitted U.S. trains to be off air for as long as 24 hours, similar to the rule in place in Canada since 2008; before the rule change, the limit was four hours. The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) estimated the change would result in 110,000 fewer brake inspections, saving the industry $500 million over 10 years.
Relevance to derailment: Unclear. There is no determination yet that the braking system played a role in the accident.
Two-person crew requirement
After the Lac-Mégantic crash, which had only one crew member on the train, the Obama administration in 2016 proposed a rule to require two-person crews on all trains. The Trump administration withdrew the proposal in 2019, saying “no direct conclusions could be drawn about train crew staffing’s safety impact” on Lac-Mégantic or other accidents. The Biden administration has said it will seek to revive the rule.
Relevance to derailment:None. The 149-car train that derailed had two crew members plus a trainee on board.
Minimum rail safety requirements
The Trump administration in 2020 revised minimum safety requirements for railroad track, which among other measures allowed for quicker inspections.
Relevance to derailment: None. The NTSB inspected the tracks, and the preliminary report makes no mention of any problem.
Recurring safety audits
The FRA regulates the safety of railroad tracks, and railroad companies are responsible for maintaining and inspecting tracks. Under the Obama administration, the FRA in 2015 began audits known as the Crude Oil Route Track Examination (CORTEx) program, which sent dozens of additional inspectors to specific regions to conduct track inspections along crude oil routes. The last audit was in 2018, and the program was not renewed for the rest of the Trump administration.
In 2021, the Biden administration launched a different audit program that focused on railroad companies, beginning with Union Pacific Railroad.
Relevance to derailment: None. In 2022, FRA conducted an audit of Norfolk Southern, the company involved in the Ohio incident, and made a number of recommendations for improvement. “FRA observed inconsistencies in NS’s operational testing and inspection program, ranging from access to and accuracy of records, to the methods and processes used to prioritize the testing of rules that prevent accidents,” the audit said. “The failure to properly administer and implement the program of operational testing can diminish the capacity to correct accident/incident and injury trends.”
Deregulation of ethylene oxide
The Trump administration, bowing to industry pressure, ignored federal scientists and adopted weaker standards for regulating emissions of ethylene oxide, a hazardous air pollutant that could pose a risk of lymphoid and breast cancer. The Biden administration has said it would reconsider the rule.
Ethylene oxide is used to manufacture ethylene glycol, a toxic chemical used in hydraulic brake fluids, antifreeze, inks and paints. Ethylene glycol, generally a clear, syrupy liquid, was found near the derailment site.
Relevance to derailment:None. The rule concerned emissions by chemical plants, not the synthetic chemical released in the accident.
Far-left HuffPost sided with a man who slashed a mother’s throat and killed a cop in order to score a sleazy political point against Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Thursday.
The site obviously never hides its left-wing slant, and serious people never expect substantive reporting or opinions from its pages.
But a story written by “reporter” Jessica Schulberg and published by the junk outlet sent Ariana Huffington’s creation to a shocking new low.
The website offered up this abomination of a headline: “Florida Executes Man Used As ‘Political Pawn’ By Ron DeSantis.”
In reality, the man committed murders in a state where capital punishment was on the table and the state carried out its lawful duty to exact justice for the victims.
Schulberg led a Thursday-evening story with a quote from twice-convicted killer Donald Dillbeck, 59, who politicized his own death before he was killed by lethal injection in Starke, Florida, on Thursday evening.
“I know I hurt people when I was young. I really messed up,” Dillbeck stated in a comment to open Schulberg’s piece. “But I know Ron DeSantis has done a lot worse.”
Schulberg’s angle to the story, which was sympathetic to Dillbeck in its tone, cleverly left out the grisly details of how he ended up on death row.
As a teen, Dillbeck stabbed a man in Indiana while he attempted to rob the victim of his CB radio.
While on the lam in Florida, Dillbeck shot and killed Lee County Deputy Dwight Lynn Hall in Fort Myers Beach with his own gun.
After almost a decade into a life sentence for the cold-blooded murder, Dillbeck escaped.
While he was out, Dillbeck procured a paring knife and stabbed 44-year-old Faye Vann 20 times with it before he slashed her throat in Tallahassee.
HuffPost postured as if it had taken issue with the fact Dillbeck’s jury voted 8-4 when it sentenced him to death. Schulberg slanted her article in favor of unanimous decisions.
DeSantis supports capital punishment by a majority vote, which was the law when Vann was brutally murdered. Meanwhile, Schulberg cited sources who explained to her how archaic they believed Dillbeck’s execution was.
But none of that was the point of her article. The point was not to highlight Dillbeck as a man done wrong by the justice system.
The narrative was certainly was not to shed light on Vann and other female victims of violent crime.
The story was published and disseminated purely as an attack against DeSantis.
Vann’s adult children actually thanked the governor personally in a hand-written letter for not stopping their mother’s killer from meeting his fate. Schulberg left that out of her piece until DeSantis ally Christina Pushaw shared it online.
Perspective… this monster killed a police officer, went to jail, escaped, stabbed this mom to death in a parking lot at the Tallahassee Mall at random, and Huffington Post thinks HE is the victim.
HuffPost was rightly eviscerated on Twitter all evening after it shared Schulberg’s obscene piece on its opinion page.
This is beyond pathetic. In an attempt to own a politician you don’t like, you quote and thus implicitly support, even if in some roundabout, attenuated sense, a literal murderer. This man was a scumbag who robbed two children of their mother. You should delete this in shame.
HuffPost’s editors are so desperate for content they feel could harm a popular Republican they opened an article with a quote that accused him of doing “worse” than two gruesome murders.
In doing so, the outlet is currently at rock bottom — which is saying a lot.
Former President Donald Trump hands out Make America Great Again hats to McDonalds employees in East Palestine, Ohio. (Jabin Botsford via Getty Images) TGIF: Dignity for Oompa Loompas Robots replace academics. Another Dolezal. The censors come for Roald Dahl. Buttigieg blows it in Ohio. Plus: David Mamet on cowboys.
By Nellie Bowles
February 24, 2023
→ Home sales fall for 12 straight months: It’s the longest streak since 1999. Mortgage rates are still too high. See I only care about politics that directly impact me financially, and this does because it means when I look at my house on Zillow I see the number going down. Not allowed! Meanwhile, office landlords are beginning to default as those 10-year leases end.
→ Georgia grand jury foreperson gone wild: The head juror for the special grand jury looking into Trump’s effort to overturn the 2020 election results has gone rogue. She is Emily Kohrs, 30, a private citizen, a grand jury foreperson tasked with protecting elections, and as of this week a chatty new media darling.
To MSNBC: “I kind of wanted to subpoena the former president because I got to swear everybody in. And so I thought it’d be really cool to get 60 seconds with President Trump, of me looking at him and being like, ‘Do you solemnly swear?’ And me getting to swear him in.”
To CNN: “There may be some names on that list that you wouldn’t expect. But the big name that everyone keeps asking me about—I don’t think you will be shocked.”
Emily’s having fun! (And of course she’s into witchcraft.) Honestly, the grand jury foreperson’s main bias seems to be toward drama and chaos, and in that we salute her.
“This was a horrible idea and I I guarantee you prosecutors are wincing”
As an aside, you know why Trump hasn’t been caught for anything big? The man never writes anything down. Not an email, not a text. The resistance, run by chaos Wiccans like Emily, will simply never catch him.
→ Roald Dahl meets 2023: The long-dead British children’s books author—Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Matilda, The BFG, and, who could forget, The Witches—has not escaped our moment, and now his books are getting a modern makeover to remove offensive bits. I forget, were those books racist? Sexist? Not exactly, no, but lots of people might be offended, for example, by the fact that Dahl describes witches as bald. And so now there is a new line in the book right after his description of a witch’s hairless head: “There are plenty of other reasons why women might wear wigs and there is certainly nothing wrong with that.” (I’m dead serious.)
Augustus Gloop in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was described as “fat.” That’s gone (now he’s just “enormous”). And did anyone ask the Oompa-Loompas whether they self-identified as “small men?” Now they are “small people,” which of course gives these characters, who are called Oompa. Loompas. All their dignity back. In one story, a character Dahl described as “ugly and beastly” is now just “beastly,” a concession, I guess, to sensitive ugly people. But what about the beastly?!
Now the next lines from James and the Giant Peach are so offensive, I want you to be very careful who sees your screen. These were traditionally sung by the Centipede: “Aunt Sponge was terrifically fat / And tremendously flabby at that.” And: “Aunt Spiker was thin as a wire / And dry as a bone, only drier.”
Those are gone now, replaced with new and worse rhymes coughed up by the very nice censors at Inclusive Minds.
Now, Dahl was also famously an antisemite, which he occasionally cloaked as simple anti-Zionism. Actually, that didn’t need a modern progressive update at all. Now excuse me while I go track down my original copy of The Twits before a sensitivity reader with red pens shows up at my door.
→ Ancestry is complex: One-time Black Panther Angela Davis went onto the PBS show Finding Your Roots, where Henry Louis Gates Jr. does a deep dive into your ancestry. But then something strange happened: It turns out her ancestors arrived on the Mayflower. Now the gotcha here from the right is something like “Oh she’s a descendant of the Mayflower! Not so victimized, eh?” But actually it’s sort of a vindication of the 1619-mindset, in that the history of America and slavery is entwined from the start. It’s worth watching the clip just to see Davis’s face and the gravity of being tied genetically back to that ship. “No, my ancestors did not come here on the Mayflower. No, no no. That’s a little bit too much to deal with right now.”
→ Selling unused Covid gear on the cheap: New York City is auctioning off $200 million in Covid supplies for just $500,000. This comes from local news blog The City, who got the scoop. Among some of the details from the story: A junk dealer from Long Island picked up $12 million in ventilators for just $24,600. “It took the dealer 28 truckloads to cart the stuff away, auction records state.” It’s a great story that also includes emails showing city officials fretting that people might find out how much they overspent. It’s like Storage Wars but so, so sad.
Congratulations to the junk dealer who got 500,000 pounds of ventilators.
→ Jimmy Carter, 98, in hospice: The former president is now in hospice in his Plains, Georgia, home. I recommend this 2018 feature about his sweet and simple life in retirement with Rosalynn, where every Sunday he taught a lesson at the Maranatha Baptist Church. TGIF salutes Jimmy Carter, a model of decency.
Speaking of gentle souls with good intentions, humble dreams, and devoted marriages, let’s see what Bill Clinton and Donald Trump are up to this week. . .
→ Trump gets to East Palestine before the White House: Trump visited the site of the toxic train derailment, spoke to residents, and brought pallets of water (Trump-branded, of course). He stopped at McDonalds, telling workers quite believably: “I know this menu better than you do.”
Meanwhile, local officials in East Palestine are getting on camera to show themselves drinking tap water. Like, see, it’s totally safe! The fish are dead and your dog is dying, but we’re cool! Don’t be so uptight about “vinyl chloride” and “phosgene,” which are just fancy words for totally not-toxic water.
One thing that makes Trump successful is he says that things are shitty when they’re shitty, and I’m sorry, but the water in East Palestine is shitty right now.
Racing there after Trump was Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, the man who is proving single-handedly that Rhodes Scholars are overhyped. Buttigieg whiffed when he arrived: he ran away from reporters, leaving his press secretary begging those reporters to turn off their cameras before she would talk to them. When he did finally speak, he said he “lost his train of thought.” Oh god:
Is there something I’m missing here? Why did the train derailment get coded as so conservative that no one could talk about it? Why do the cameras have to be off? Why isn’t Michael Moore there? To me, this whole thing is a gimme for Democrats: use it to argue for more and smarter government infrastructure spending. But for some reason, acknowledging the crash and its environmental impact is verboten. If you can answer this political mystery, please do in the comments.
→ I really don’t like this item: Mark Middleton, a one-time advisor to Bill Clinton, who seemed to be involved with handling his Jeffrey Epstein relationship, is dead by apparent suicide. Details came out this week: Middleton was found hanged with an electrical cord—and with a gunshot wound to his chest. When it comes to Epstein-related shadiness and the extended cover-up of that scandal, at this point, I’m willing to believe just about anything. On the other hand, people who have done bad things do generally want to avoid facing their own souls. So I’d say I’m Epstein-related-murder-conspiracy-open but not sold. But let’s give it a week.
→ James O’Keefe is out: Project Veritas, the right-wing undercover investigations outlet, has ousted its leader and star, James O’Keefe. He spoke to staff before leaving and you can watch that strange, rambling speech here. The board accused him of spending “an excessive amount of donor funds in the last three years on personal luxuries.” Items and amounts that the Veritas board lists: “$14,000 on a charter flight to meet someone to fix his boat under the guise of meeting with a donor” and “over $150,000 in Black Cars in the last 18 months.”
Now, to be clear, James O’Keefe’s job is setting up shady stings of his enemies. One of my friends who got stung was on his third date with a woman who turned out to be an undercover Veritas operative. It was on that date that she recorded him. To me, there’s no one better to run an operation like that than a dude who spends $14,000 to meet someone about a boat. Over $150,000 on limos is basically the minimum spend for a guy like this.
→ Ozy Media founder arrested: It’s not only right-wing media that’s losing a star this week. On Thursday we learned that Carlos Watson, founder of progressive media company Ozy, had been arrested on charges of fraud. The United States of America v. Carlos Watson and Ozy Media, Inc. is pretty fun reading. Among other things, Watson allegedly had a subordinate— Samir Rao, Ozy’s COO—pretend to be a YouTube executive on a call with Goldman Sachs, to say how great Ozy Media was doing on YouTube.
This whole thing was first broken open by scoop hound Ben Smith, now of Semafor. An idea: maybe Carlos Watson and James O’Keefe can start something new together?
And now, a word from resident cartoonist David Mamet . . .
→ University DEI admins come up with their perfect replacement: Vanderbilt University’s office of diversity issued a statement consoling students about a recent mass shooting at Michigan State. But apparently they are so very busy that they used AI to write it.
Let me back up: last week, 43-year-old Anthony Dwayne McRae—who had previously pleaded down a felony charge that would have prevented him from possessing a gun—slaughtered three students, seemingly at random, on Michigan State’s campus.
In response, Vanderbilt’s equity workers released a touching statement about how everyone needs to be kind and inclusive to, I guess, prevent mass shootings by nearby career criminals: “Another important aspect of creating an inclusive environment is to promote a culture of respect and understanding.” And: “[L]et us come together as a community to reaffirm our commitment to caring for one another and promoting a culture of inclusivity on our campus.” And: “Finally, we must recognize that creating a safe and inclusive environment is an ongoing process that requires ongoing effort and commitment.” It’s the same nonsensical but warm sentiment said over and over—inclusive (7 times), community (5 times), safe (3)—and it kinda worked!
Except at the bottom of the statement was this sentence: Paraphrase from OpenAI’s ChatGPT AI language model, personal communication, February 15, 2023.
People were upset. The university apologized. And yes, you could ask what exactly these bureaucrats are doing all day. But their laziness might also be their genius: replace all university bureaucrats with ChatGPT. Like the discovery of penicillin, sometimes accidents make genius.
→ NPR cutting 10 percent of its staff: The public radio station—that is, in part, taxpayer funded—is losing money and needs to cut staff. I can’t point to an institution that has more fully failed its mission than NPR, which went from fulfilling a genuine public service with news and great stories (I’m thinking of early This American Life) to just another hyper-partisan maker of mush. Tote bags and mush.
→ NYT union versus NYT workers: The New York Times’ labor union is a funny thing because reporters pay into it every two weeks and, in turn, the union’s main project is getting some of those reporters fired. It’s a bit like musical chairs: If you’re too slow putting the fist in your Twitter profile picture, you’re it. See, the union is pretty bad at achieving boring stuff like raises, but it shines at gathering groups of reporters to get a deskmate ousted. Who needs money when you can draw blood?
The latest: the union stepped in to help ax a couple Times writers who reported on trans issues with anything close to an objective lens. Here’s what union head Susan DeCarava wrote to Times staff in a note about how to organize: “[E]mployees are protected in collectively raising concerns that conditions of their employment constitute a hostile working environment.” Oh yes, reporting on trans issues makes a hostile work environment. Perfect. We got the language, now let’s march on Katie, that very bad Times reporter! Let’s picket the awful Emily! The people united will get Katie fired!
Except finally, finally, the union this week is seeing some organized pushback, and a group of Times people wrote their own letter asking the union to just please stop. “We ask that our union work to advance, not erode, our journalistic independence.”
If media union bosses can’t wake up and get Katies and Emilys fired, what exactly are they supposed to do all day?
Note the date above: May 7, 2025. On that date, you will become a second-class citizen unless you bow to your masters’ demands.
Papers, please!
Although it’s been delayed several times, the insidious Real ID is coming. You will need to pay for the government’s approval so you can board a flight that NEVER LEAVES THE COUNTRY. And you won’t be able to seek redress of grievances because you won’t be ALLOWED into a Federal — and likely state — building if you don’t have their “Good Sheeple” ID to see your elected representatives. You won’t even be able to check with your local Social Security office about retirement without it. Or register to vote — if you’re a native-born American, that is.
Already, Drivers License locations have a security guard stationed inside them, because “Real ID” is given out there.
So far it’s supposedly a one-and-done deal, once you pay, the Real ID gold star is yours for life.
Does anyone really believe that the bureaucrats won’t draw from that well again — and again? Isn’t that what we were promised for the Covid-19 clot shot, one-and-done? How about the promise that Federal Income tax would only be on the rich? Or that electric cars would be cheaper to run — and less polluting — than internal combustion vehicles?
Okay, so maybe you don’t need to fly across the country, so what? Remember though that the TSA controls ALL public transportation. Think I’m kidding? Did you ever see those notices like on City buses: “The TSA requires all passengers to wear a mask….” How long do you suppose it will take the elitists to require Real ID to board a cross-town bus? They’re already trying to take our cars away from us.
Real ID is anathema to our country’s ideals
The very idea of Real ID is anathema to what the country stands for (or used to stand for) in the first place. In the second place, does anyone care to bet that the current surge of illegal immigrant/future democrat voters won’t need it — or that the elitists will provide it to them so they can continue to vote democrat?
I didn’t think so.
I know some leftist loons will claim I’m a conspiracy theorist. OTOH, how many things that the left decried as a “conspiracy theory” has been proven true?
"Part of the reasons are our politics are inflamed, is we do not have an unbiased media. We don't," Sen. Ron Johnson said. | Patrick Semansky/AP Photo
Visits: 12
IF you watched Sunday’s meet the press, you would have seen Chuck Todd taking the defensive position for the Biden cartel. The good Senator wasn’t having any of it. Todd wanted to talk about Trump and Trumps son in law. Todd seems to forget that it’s the Biden cartel that is under investigation.
Sen. Ron Johnson said Sunday that media coverage of his proximity to 2020 election denial was a “smear” in a contentious interview with host Chuck Todd on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
“This has been a complete smear job against me,” Johnson (R-Wis.) said. Todd had asked Johnson about a moment after the 2020 election in which Johnson allegedly considered helping to send an alternative slate of Wisconsin electors to then-Vice President Mike Pence.
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