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βοΈ Coffee & Covid β Saturday, March 12, 2022 β RUSSIAN DISINFORMATION π¦
Biden's electoral vision; Florida creates election police; Ladapo demands the data; the gay lobby strikes back; Biden's sanctions don't amount to much; and Russia dis-informs the United Nations.
Happy Saturday, C&C! We have a nice weekend roundup for you today, including: news about the airplane mask mandate; Biden tries selling a vision for how Democrats can add seats in the midterms; Florida creates the first elections police team in the nation; Austria, one of the worst offenders, drops its population-wide vaccine mandate; Ladapo wants to see the data; the gay lobby comes after DeSantis and ropes in a giant ally; Florida ratchets back its Covid reporting; Bidenβs pathetic Russia sanctions are exposed; Russia presents its Ukrainian biolab disinformation at the UN; and the White House gives a security briefing to TikTok influencers.
And, new Florida Covid numbers.
π*COVID NEWS AND COMMENTARY* π
π₯ On Thursday, the Transportation Security Administration announced that it will extend the mask mandate on public transportation, including air travel, until April 18th. The mandate was set to expire on March 18th. The White House said the CDC will come up with a revised framework for when the mask rules can be lifted during this time, based on hospitalizations and local hospital capacity, similar to the CDCβs new national mask guidance.
Not everyone was happy with the extension. Senator Rand Paul said he plans to force a vote next week to end the unscientific mandate. βAs the entire world is learning to live with COVID, the federal government still uses fear-mongering to stubbornly perpetuate its mandates, rather than giving clear-eyed, rational advice on how to best protect yourself from illness.β
My take: I think they WILL end the mandate on April 18th, after the CDC comes up with some insanely complicated rubric to confuse and distract mask lovers. The extra month is intended to give loyal mask enthusiasts time to work through the five stages of grief.
π₯ The Hill ran two articles this week trying to paint a more optimistic picture for Democrats going into the 2022 midterm elections, portraying Joe Biden as some kind of inspiring leader to the party. As best it could, under the unfortunate circumstances.
The first article, released Thursday, seemed a little more on the alarming side, featuring the headline, βBiden Warns Democrats It Will Be a βSad Two Yearsβ if Republicans Take Control of Congress.β
Sad!
Biden addressed the DNC Thursday evening, encouraging Democrats to work extra hard in the midterm elections to ADD seats. He should be worried about KEEPING seats. Biden rambled incoherently about how bad it will be if they donβt, babbling βIf we donβt do that, donβt do that, itβs going to be a sad, sad two years. Think about Republicans if they controlled the Congress these last two years.β Heβll be sad. Frowny face!
Biden delusionally insisted that under his leadership things have been going terrific. Couldnβt be better. βI believe we have a record to be incredibly proud of β¦ now what we have to do is we have to sell it with confidence, clarity, conviction and repetition,β he said.
Itβs going to take a LOT of selling.
Biden rattled off a terrifying list of issues that he thinks are winning ones for Democrats, which bizarrely included Ukraine. In fact, the Hill unironically reported that βthe president listed Ukraine as an issue for Democrats to run on.β Go ahead, run on getting us into a World War. Should go great. He also blamed gas prices and inflation on Russian President Vladimir Putin, calling it all βPutinβs price hike.β
I wonder if that will stick.
The second article, published Friday, suggests the Hill got some pushback from the White House over the previous dayβs negative tone. Fridayβs article seemed to take a smidge more of an optimistic route, with the slightly less negative headline, βBiden Seeks to Rally Democrats Ahead of Crucial Midterms.β
Biden was speaking at the House Democrat Caucus on Friday in Philadelphia. He repeatedly stressed that the midterm elections would be βone of the most important in modern history.β Really? Why? Whatβs he got under his hat now? What ELSE can he break?
βThis off-year election, in my view, may be the most important off-year election in modern history because we know what happens, we know the fundamental change that shifts if we lose the House and the Senate. The only thing Iβll have then is a veto pen,β Biden explained.
Well, we can HOPE the only thing heβll have then is the veto pen. Somehow it doesnβt seem like it could possibly be that easy. But we can hope.
The president said, incoherently, βI thought we had to unify the country because ultimately we are a democracy. And there needs to be, for it to work, there has to be a consensus. And consensus, youβve got to get a majority. Weβve not been able to do that for a lot of the important things, thatβs why we have to continue to maintain our majority.β
I will pay ten dollars to the first person who can translate that into normal English.
The Hill noted that Biden was doing his high-low yelling and creepy whispering act again: βThe president yelled at points throughout his comments and spoke softly, at times no louder than a whisper, in other moments.β Hahahaha. I wonder if someone is telling him that is an effective speaking style.
βMake no mistake, inflationβs largely the fault of Putin,β Biden insisted lamely, after having gassed on about how he ALWAYS takes responsibility for stuff that goes wrong, unlike certain mean tweeting former presidents.
It didnβt seem like the democrats were buying what Biden was selling. The Hill β a left-leaning political magazine β reported that βlawmakers applauded sporadically and laughed politely at Bidenβs jokes, but mostly the cavernous room was silent.β
Well. Can you blame them?
π₯ The Florida Legislature passed a bill creating an elections police force in Florida, albeit somewhat reduced from what the Governor originally requested. DeSantis first asked for about $6 million to hire 52 law enforcement officers to be stationed around the state. The officers would be tasked with investigating reports of election law violations.
Instead, the bill the legislature passed included only $1.4 million for just 10 police officers who will be assigned to Floridaβs new Office of Election Crimes and Security, or OECS. The office β the first of its kind in the nation β will have a full-time staff of 25 folks, and will be an executive agency under the Department of State, which answers to the Governor.
Itβs a start, and itβs another great move by Florida that hopefully provides an example to the rest of the country. At least to the Free States.
π Austria, the only country in Europe to mandate vaccination for ALL adults, said Wednesday it was suspending the mandate since the pandemic no longer poses the same danger β just a few weeks after the law took effect. People who refused to get the shots were threatened with fines up to β¬3,600.
Austrian minister Karoline Edtstadler explained the lawβs βencroachment of fundamental rightsβ could no longer be justified by the danger posed by the pandemic. βWe see no need to actually implement this compulsory vaccination due to the (Omicron) variant that we are predominantly experiencing here,β Edstadler said.
βJust like the virus keeps on changing, we need to be flexible and adaptable,β he added. Uh huh.
π₯ Floridaβs Surgeon General was on Laura Ingrahamβs show late this week insisting on SEEING THE DATA that jabs benefit kids. βShow me the data,β he said. Hereβs a great clip for you:

π₯ Governor DeSantis is taking a significant amount of flak over Floridaβs new law banning sex ed for grades K-3. But the sexual freedom groups are assembling a coalition of corporations like the ones who opposed Georgiaβs voting reforms laws last year, threatening to pull their conferences out of Florida and otherwise punish the state somehow.
Late this week, the media piled on the Governor big time trying to get him to veto the bill, a pressure tactic that culminated with Disneyβs CEO Bob Chapek demanding β and getting β a one-on-one meeting with DeSantis to express how just how unhappy the rodent-based entertainment giant was over what it sees as the Sunshine Stateβs interference with the gay agenda. DeSantis signed the bill anyway.
Disneyβs gay employee groups went berserk, causing the media behemoth to try to placate them by announcing the end of donations to all Florida Republicans (some reports suggest the Mouse will not be donating to any campaigns in Florida this year at all). The gay lobby is not satisfied, though. They want blood.
Incidentally, Iβm curious: was Mickey Mouse gay? Is that possible? True, he was dating Minnie for a while, but he never actually closed the deal. Lifelong bachelor and all that. Donβt cancel me β Iβm just wondering.
Anyway. If this doesnβt blow over soon, which it should, because the bill does not ACTUALLY target sexual freedom groups, only groomers, then Iβll be spinning the C&C army up to help with the Governorβs defense. Stand by.
π₯ Triggering the media even more, if thatβs possible, Florida announced yesterday that it will be shifting to bi-weekly Covid reporting. Media nearly lost its collective mind back when Florida shifted from daily reporting to weekly; this time, since we are post-Covid, Media β while extremely anxious β is largely keeping its mouth shut.
The less Covid reporting, the better, in my view.
π *THE MINORITY REPORT* π
π₯ The Ukraine narrative is already starting to crack. The Wall Street Journal published an op-ed by Kim Strassel yesterday headlined, βBiden Is Failing the Sanctions Test.β She reports that, despite the rhetoric, Bidenβs sanctions package against Russia doesnβt really amount to much.
First, Strassel noted that the administration was slow in applying sanctions in the first place. Initially, Biden completely refused to impose sanctions in the lead-up to the invasion, citing βmultilateralismβ and blaming European alliesβ reluctance. On Friday, the Treasury Department quietly clarified that the new sanctions wonβt even start applying to most energy transactions until June 24th β meaning Wall Street can keep buying and selling Russian oil and gas for now.
June 24th. Wait, what month are we in today? Oh, thatβs right. MARCH. Nice sanctions. That ought to scare βem.
Next, the sanctions that have been passed lack real teeth anyway. The fine print on the Treasury Departmentβs website explains, βThe energy sector of the Russian Federation economy itself is not subject to comprehensive sanctionsβ β a minor point to Treasury but one that Strassel describes as βa scandalous caveat the media largely ignored.β When asked about it, Undersecretary of State Victoria Nuland admitted that the Administration βdid agree to a phase-inβ because of energy-dependent βEuropean allies.β
In other words, the sanctions are not very burdensome, but itβs not Bidenβs fault. Again. Itβs our alliesβ fault.
Finally, Strassel also points out that the White House is actively WORKING AGAINST any real sanctions. This week, Biden demanded congressional Democrats stand down on a bipartisan bill that would have suspended Russiaβs preferential U.S. trading status. Strassel further notes that the White House is also blocking a Republican bill that would impose tough sanctions on Russiaβs oil, gas, mining and mineral sectors.
She ends the piece with this comment: βMr. Biden can talk all he wants about his plans to cripple Mr. Putinβs economy. He has yet to take the steps that might actually do it.β
Let me ask you a question. Iβm not saying that Biden is really working WITH Russia because the sanctions are trivially light and are not even in force for about four more months. Iβm not even asking whether this whole war is just a pretext to setup a massive transfer of wealth from the U.S. to Russia and Ukraine. What Iβm wondering is whether this thing is going to end with Russia and Ukraine getting huge U.S. aid packages that just enrich a bunch of bad guys. That could never happen, right? Somebody tell me Iβm crazy.
π¦ Thatβs not all. Last week Russia was accused of spreading disinformation about fake, made up biolabs in Ukraine β wait, sorry, the totally exaggerated non-U.S. involved biolabs in Ukraine β wait, sorry, okay so maybe there ARE biolabs in Ukraine and maybe there IS U.S. involvement in them but itβs still totally fake and made up because science.
Anyway. After being accused, like many of us, of being disinformers, Russia insisted on having a hearing at the UN Security Council on Friday to present evidence of the totally fake and made up U.S.-involved biolabs in Ukraine. And on Friday it presented evidence to the UN Security Council allegedly proving that it is possible or even likely such labs do exist.
Oh no they donβt. βWeβre not going to let Russia get away with gaslighting the world or using the U.N. Security Council as a venue for promoting their disinformation,β Olivia Dalton, the spokesperson for the U.S. mission to the U.N., told ABC News Thursday.
Since then, there has been a blitzkrieg of anti-Russian propaganda about the presentation. Itβs almost impossible to find U.S. media reporting about it at all. But a long CBS article about the presentation was headlined, βRussia Escalates False Chemical Weapons Claims About US, Ukraine by Bringing Them To UN.β
CBS doesnβt even say Russia ALLEGED claims about the labs, which how they usually make things sound sketchy. CBS comes right out and literally labels the claims as FALSE, right in the headline. And it gaslights readers by referring to Russiaβs claims as βchemical weapons claims,β which is deliberately misleading, since the thrust of Russiaβs claims are about BIOLOGICAL weapons not chemical weapons.
Now. Do you suppose, in its long article about the presentation, that CBS News reported on the evidence Russia presented and then debunked that evidence piece by piece? Haha, of course not. Read the lengthy piece all you want and you wonβt find one single reference to whatever was said at the UN. Instead youβll read a long, rambling denial that looks like a State Department press release, and includes βstraight newsβ like this:
βUkraine does not have biochemical weapons laboratories. Instead, there are public health and veterinary health labs operated with U.S. support in Ukraine.β
Haha, dummies, theyβre just biosafety level 3 veterinary clinics. You believe that, right?
Even CBS doesnβt believe that, not really. The network got its wires crossed and later in the article described a comment by CIA Director Bill Burns during a Senate hearing Thursday, when he answered a question about whether deadly pathogens were stored in those Ukraine labs: βIn any public health system around the world, thereβs going to be work done in the interests of wider public health, to ensure that we have a grip on issues like that. But thatβs in no way threatening. Thatβs not something that can be weaponized in the way that the Russians have clearly demonstrated β by their own actions against their citizens and people outside their country β their willingness to use.β
The U.S. governmentβs position is that Russia is just saying all this because IT has biolabs and probably Russia is going to use those weapons and try to blame it on US. Which is a kindergarten argument.
I wish we had some adults around in our government who could answer questions directly, respond to the Russian allegations, and not talk in word salad. Wouldnβt that be nice for a change?
Now, I know some of you are going to be all like, Jeff, how could you print that Russian disinformation in your blog and not denounce it as completely fake and made up and evil and so forth? Iβll tell you how. Because I just spent the last two years being called a disinformer by the exact same people who are now calling the Russians disinformers β about very similar issues, like whether the US was or is involved in dangerous pathogen experiments that it shouldnβt have been. Cough, Wuhan, cough.
Iβm not naive. I totally see the possibility of Russia taking advantage of my well-founded mistrust. But Russia didnβt cause the mistrust. So, if the same liars who called me and other people I greatly respect βdisinformersβ for 24 months, if they now want me to just take their word for it, that ainβt happening. Theyβre going to have to come clean and open the books. Letβs see βem. Show me the evidence.
π₯ In the bottom story of the day, MSN ran an article yesterday headlined, βThe White House Is Briefing TikTok Stars About the War in Ukraine.β Yes, you read that right. I am not joking or making that up.
The article reports that on Thursday, National Security Council staffers and White House press secretary Jen Psaki personally briefed β30 top TikTok starsβ on a Zoom call, providing them with βkey information about the war unfolding in Ukraine.β I was like, this HAS to be a joke. I checked to make sure I hadnβt lost track of the date again. But no, it wasnβt April 1st. And I found the story widely reported.
MSN said speckled Jen Psaki briefed the social media influencers about the United Statesβ strategic goals and answered influencersβ questions.
Our strategic goals. With TikTok stars. TikTok.
An article in The Washington Post this week said that TikTok announced that, under pressure from U.S. and Ukrainian officials, it would begin adding warning labels about misinformation to Russian TikTok accounts and canceling offenders. βWe continue to respond to the war in Ukraine with increased safety and security resources to detect emerging threats and remove harmful misinformation and other violations of our Community Guidelines,β TikTok spokeswoman Jamie Favazza said in a statement.
You may recall that in 2020, President Trump tried to shut down TikTok over concerns about Chinese communist espionage and propaganda. But on his first day in office, Biden revoked President Trumpβs TikTok ban, and TikTok has been happily streaming along ever since.
Hereβs the bottom line for me. I would prefer that the government just completely stay out of the βinfluenceβ business. Just tell us the facts and let us make up our own minds. We donβt need the government to tell us what to THINK. It seems like they got all happy with the giant pandemic propaganda hammer they made and now everything looks like a nail. War in Ukraine? Activate the network! Bam!
π *COVID IN FLORIDA AND ALACHUA COUNTY* π
Florida released the last of its weekly Covid reports yesterday. Until the next change, theyβll now be released bi-weekly. Hopefully soon Florida will stop reporting altogether. As you can see from the new chart, all the numbers are bottoming out again, just as they did at the end of the previous wave. We are about two weeks away from finding out if these numbers will hold or begin their seasonal spring escalation again.
I know some of you are worried that rising Spring case rates could result in the replacement of mandates. Do not worry about that. They have made structural changes that will end the pandemic (at least, this one). For example, theyβve really wound down the testing. Most hospitals in Florida are no longer testing for Covid at all unless a patient shows symptoms. One of my relatives was in the hospital for eight days this week in Central Florida. Heβs in a high-risk category, maybe several. But he was never tested for Covid.
Ending testing will lower both case rates AND death numbers, since so many death statistics arise from the bare existence of a positive test anytime before death.
Theyβre also re-defining how deaths are counted, and how hospitalizations are counted. So that means they are already planning for cases to rise again and making sure it wonβt matter. They know cases will go up again. Just like flu. Thatβs why the structural changes. So donβt worry. For now, the pandemic is over.
Have a terrific weekend! I will see you guys back here on Monday to kick off the week the Coffee and Covid way.
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βοΈ Coffee & Covid β Saturday, March 12, 2022 β RUSSIAN DISINFORMATION π¦
βI will pay ten dollars to the first person who can translate that into normal English.β
Iβll have a try: βWe want to rule without the consent of the peopleβ.
'Austrian minister Karoline Edtstadler explained the lawβs βencroachment of fundamental rightsβ could no longer be justified by the danger posed by the pandemic.'
If conditions exist where the law can encroach on fundamental rights, then how are those rights fundamental? In fact, how are those rights even rights?