Howdy All, a few Interesting Items for your information. Enjoy –
In this issue –
1. Jan 6
2. Meme
3. Euthanasia
4. Speaker
5. Tax Returns
6. Varda
7. Biolab
1. Jan 6. Jan 6 was such a persuasion gift to democrats, the swamp, and their cheerleaders / enablers in the media that the only logical conclusion is that it was first and foremost, a setup planned and executed by democrat leadership on Capitol Hill and their lackeys in law enforcement. This is why the 14,000 hours of video have not yet been released. It is also why the show trials of Jan 6 participants continue. Most importantly, it is why the FBI / CIA / Do(In)J refuse to tell how many feds participated, led and orchestrated the event. The show trials must continue as they support the narrative. But reality continues to unfold, with democrats committing crimes (according to newly revised definitions by the DC Federal Prosecutor and the Jan 6 Committee in the House). And if those criminals are democrats or their supporters, they get plea bargains rather than spending up to 1,000 days in the DC Gulag without being charged or tried like those Republicans being systematically hunted by this regime.
- The first example of the new double standard comes from Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D, NY), a former principal and current member of the squad. Bowman pulled a fire alarm in an attempt to delay a vote on a 45-day funding extension Sept 30. Bowman’s spokesman initially claimed that he thought that pulling the fire alarm would open the emergency exit right next to it, a laughable claim for a guy who was a former principal in the NY government schools. In the Jan 6 world, this would be prosecuted as obstruction of an official proceeding, subjecting the perp to some number of years in the DC Gulag before trial and many years after conviction. Not so for Bowman, who got a plea bargain with the DC Federal Prosecutor for $1,000 fine, a letter of apology to Capitol Police, with the charge tossed should he successfully make his way through three months of probation before pulling another fire alarm. A video of him removing warning signs from the doors before he pulled the fire alarm was released shortly after the pela bargain was agreed to, showing him scurrying away immediately after pulling the alarm.
- Second example comes out of a pro-Hamas protest, apparently funded in part by George Soros, that put over 100 protesters in the first floor of the Cannon House Office Building. The protest was led by Rashida Tlaib (D, MN), yet another squad member, who has been in her element since the Hamas attack on Israel three weeks ago. Capitol Police responded and escorted the protestors out of the building. There is no reporting on any of them arrested. Here’s the fun part: Although they did not occupy the Capitol itself, the various office buildings are integral to the operation of the House, which was in the midst of a weeks-long effort to elect a new speaker. Better yet, their action fits the new definition of an insurrection, courtesy of Nancy Pelosi’s Jan 6 Committee. They were also obstructing a government proceeding, that of selecting the third in line for the presidency, the Speaker of the House, an action worth years on the DC Gulag according to DC Federal Prosecutor Matthew Graves. Yet none were arrested. None as yet have been charged. And none ended up in the DC Gulag. IN the best response, Marjorie Taylor Greene (R, GA) is filing a censure resolution for Tlaib’s participation in an insurrection.
2. Meme. The final double standard story today comes courtesy of an O’Bama federal judge in NYC sentencing Douglas Mackey, who operated an influential pro-MAGA Twitter account “Ricky Vaughn” in 2016 to seven months in jail for what the prosecutor claimed was “election interference.” Mackey was arrested shortly after Biden took office in 2021. The case brought against him was based on tweets during the 2016 election urging democrats to avoid the crowds by voting on Election Wednesday. This is an old joke, used by all sides of the political divide. It works because it plays on the view that some number of voters don’t think. The federal prosecutor alleged that the tweet hit at least 4,900 unique phone numbers. It does not say how many of them (if any) refrained from voting due to the meme. Nor did the complaint explain why no such action was taken against others on the democrat side using the same meme aimed at Trump voters. The prosecution is being done under a post-Civil War law aimed at KKK intimidating blacks from voting, yet another century old law creatively used by the Biden / Garland (In)Justice Department to target their political opposition. Expect the case to be appealed on First Amendment grounds.
3. Euthanasia. One of the concerns about government supported euthanasia was that as they got comfortable with it, they would expand its use, especially in nations with socialized health care. Canada is one such locale, with state-sponsored euthanasia deaths accounting for a whopping 4.1% of all deaths nationally last year. They are currently planning on expanding their Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID – nice acronym, btw) this spring to include people whose sole medical condition is mental illness, which also covers those with substance use disorder. Those currently eligible are limited to those with serious disability or illness causing them to live in an advanced state of irreversible decline and enduring physical or psychological suffering. The problem with this is that there is no medical consensus on whether those with mental illnesses ought to have access to euthanasia, for how can the medically ill decide? And if their survivors or the doctors have that power, what controls how that power is used? There are already storied in Canada about those with poor income or inadequate housing attempting to get euthanasia. This change will only make that situation worse.
4. Speaker. Republicans in the House elected Mike Johnson (R, LA) last week. The vote was the first unanimous vote by the Republican conference for speaker since 2011. Johnson came out of nowhere (based on national reporting), though was apparently well-known and respected among House Republicans. It didn’t take democrats long to paint him as evil incarnate, Ruparing 20-year-old statements in opposition to gay marriage. Note that at the time, O’Bama himself was opposed to gay marriage. Rupar is a guy who creatively edited audio and video clips to present the opposite of what the speaker really said, mostly by dropping all context. He first and most famously did it with the anti-Trump Charlottesville Fine People Hoax, a hoax that Biden still refers to on a regular basis. Johnson celebrated his ascension by passing an appropriation bill. I expect him to get everything passed before the 45-day continuing resolution expires. Then his work will get interesting, as it looks like Senate leadership has yet to take up any of the four appropriations bills passed to date. So far, he is saying all the right things and has all the right enemies (McCarthy and at least one staffer with ties to both Governor Kemp (GA) and former VP Mike Pence). Stories following the election blamed former Speaker McCarthy for the extended period without a Speaker. McCarthy reportedly worked with democrats and moderate Republicans in an effort to torpedo all other nominees in hopes the House would reinstate him. It wasn’t just McCarthy, as the 20 or so who voted against Jim Jordan were accused by Tyler Durden in a Zero Hedge piece of being more beholden to the swamp than their voters. OTOH, they could just as well be Republicans elected out of Biden districts. Still, it is always nice when the enemy self-identifies as such. It is even nicer when they are predictable.
5. Tax Returns. The leak of two decades of Trump tax returns was perpetrated by one Charles Littlejohn, a Booz Allen IRS contractor who stole the tax returns from IRS computers in 2018 and leaked them to the NYT in 2020, part of what appears to be a conspiracy to sabotage Trump in 2020. Following the election, he leaked tax returns on a number of other billionaires including Musk and Bloomberg including major conservative donors to Pro Publica. The media then ran nicely timed stories about Trump before the 2020 election and the other donors afterwards. This is the third time Booz Allen has been in the center of a massive data breach. They were in the middle of the Edward Snowden leak of NSA worldwide anti-terrorist information. As their reward, the IRS just awarded a lucrative contract to modernize its databases to Booz Allen, apparently for a job well done by its employee. Littlejohn recently pled guilty to a single count of unlawfully disclosing tax information, a plea that may get him up to five years in Club Fed. My guess is that he will serve no time and get the charge expunged following probation. He was not charged for releasing any other of the thousands of tax returns he leaked to Pro Publica.
6. Varda. One of my favorite songs is Leonard Cohen’s Everybody Knows.
I like the way it describes the endemic corruption of our age. Sadly, that corruption is everywhere, sadly in unexpected places. The saga of Varda Aerospace is instructive. Varda is a 2020 startup committed to space manufacturing. There are some things you can do in microgravity that you cannot do in a gravity well, manufacturing chips and pharmaceuticals being two obvious applications. Having access to investor money, they acquired a platform and launched a pharmaceutical test in Jun 2023. The test was to return what they described as an HIV vax. The run time is done and it is time to bring the capsule back to see how (or if) everything worked. The problem is that neither FAA nor USAF will allow Varda to use their ranges for landing and recovery of the capsule. The FAA refused a license based on overall safety, risk and impact analysis, complete garbage rationale based on the asteroid sample recovered last month. As of this writing, Varda is negotiating with Oz for landing rights. Now, why would the feds deny landing permission, licensing and use of public facilities? My first guess is always to follow the money. Varda is about to introduce disruptive technology in the pharmaceutical world, a world that is complete control of at least one Cabinet member, HHS. And they appear to be using their insider position to ensure there will be no new competition. FAA and USAF are doing what they are being told to do. In the words of Leonard Cohen: The Game is Rigged, Everybody Knows.
7. Biolab. This one showed up first as an Epoch Times special report. It is most accessible cross posted in Zero Hedge Behind a secret Chinese biolab in California, a global web of connections. The extensive story describes the black market biolab discovered operating in Cali, subsequent investigation, the rat’s nest of shell companies obstructing ownership. The warehouse and biological hazards were first discovered Dec 2022 in Reedley Calif. There were thousands of vials of bacterial and viral agents along with 1,000 lab mice. The code enforcement officer who made the discovery reported it to her superiors. They returned in Mar 2023. This time they brought help, finally shutting the place down in Aug. Prestige Biotech nominally owned the lab, though it was owned by a number of Chinese owned and connected shell companies whose activities date back at least to 2019. There are also a number of Chinese nationals involved in ownership and operation. This is not the only lab that exists in the US. It is not the only group of Chinese citizens doing biological research in the US. There are real costs with doing business with China and we are about to find out those costs. Good and hard.
More later –
- AG