☕️ Coffee & Covid ☙ Tuesday, August 16, 2022 ☙ PUPPY POX 🦠
Lots more Biden Raid news; a missing affidavit; Trump’s stolen passports and attorney letters; hot takes; justice makes slow progress; Canadian doctor wipeout; celebrity breakthrough cases; & more...
Good morning, C&C, and Happy Tuesday! Yesterday I used Dr. McCullough’s saline-iodine nasal spray yesterday whenever I had a tickle in my throat or the back of my nose. Today I feel much better. Maybe not 100%, but enough.
In today’s roundup: lots more Biden Raid news; the missing affidavit; Trump’s stolen passports and attorney letters; hot takes; justice for a California church facing hundred of thousands of dollars in covid fines; LA County surprisingly becomes the center of anti-mask science; another Canadian doctor bites Fauci’s dust; Pfizer CEO gets covid; the Secretary of Defense gets covid AGAIN; the judge orders Twitter to give Elon Musk documents about twitter bots; and the literal bottom story of the day.
🗞*COVID NEWS AND COMMENTARY* 🗞
🔥 The Biden Raid story continued burning hotly over the weekend and yesterday, but without much additional fuel. The search warrant affidavit — now, The Affidavit!! — remains AWOL, and as I predicted the DOJ filed a motion yesterday opposing its release. It was all just an act last week when Garland took the podium, shook his tiny gnarled fist at reporters, angrily promised transparency, and swore that the DOJ would be happy — ecstatic, even — to unseal the warrant.
He meant JUST the warrant part. Not the affidavit part. He’s not THAT happy, or angry. He’s not STUPID.
DOJ’s argument to keep the affidavit under wraps, as I also predicted, is “sources and methods.” It’s what they always say, and usually it’s a conversation ender. You can’t oppose their ‘sources and methods’ argument without seeing the affidavit, which would then expose the sources and methods. Checkmate.
In its motion, the DOJ wrote:
If disclosed, the affidavit would serve as a roadmap to the government’s ongoing investigation, providing specific details about its direction and likely course, in a manner that is highly likely to compromise future investigative steps…
There is simply no alternative to sealing that could ensure the integrity of the government’s investigation and that would prevent the inevitable efforts to read between the lines and discern the identities of certain individuals, dates, or other critical, case-specific information.
I have no idea if the DOJ’s argument is legitimate. It might be. But I can tell you that EVERY SINGLE TIME I’ve somehow managed to get hold of a search warrant affidavit after state attorneys claimed it couldn’t possibly be made public without “compromising the investigation,” there was nothing — zero, zip, bupkis — not one single statement in the affidavit that disclosed any kind of sophisticated investigation.
In some cases, there could be sensitive information in a search warrant affidavit that needs to be protected. You don’t want a drug cartel finding out the names of witnesses to a murder, for example. The witnesses might wind floating in a sack in the Gulf of Mexico.
But in one of my pending cases, a police clerk accidentally handed my client a copy of the search warrant affidavit when he was picking up some other papers. It is not super-secret. There’s NOTHING sensitive in it at all. I can’t WAIT to ask the investigator who signed it under oath some hard questions. We got lucky. Absent the clerk’s error, it would have taken a vast effort to get a copy, and even then I wouldn’t have bet money on getting hold of it.
Ironically, all the public interest in, and fury over the affidavit works against disclosure. The feds will argue that agents and witnesses risk vicious retaliation by crazed Trump supporters, just look at Twitter.
The easiest thing in the world will be for former Epstein mouthpiece and anti-Trumper Magistrate Reinhart to rule that the affidavit must stay sealed to “protect the investigation.” In an article yesterday headlined “Merrick Garland Weighed Search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago for Weeks,” the Wall Street Journal wrote, “A judge will ultimately decide but is unlikely to unseal the document given the government’s opposition.” Yep.
On the other hand, this isn’t your normal police investigation. Given the politics, the pressure to unseal the affidavit will be enormous. It’s already white hot. Fox ran a story yesterday headlined, “Senate Intel Committee Sends Biden Admin Bipartisan Request For Mar-A-Lago Raid Details.” The Committee sent the letter over the WEEKEND. As the Committee pointed out, it usually reviews extremely sensitive national secrets, so it can handle a search warrant affidavit.
Don’t hold your breath.
The affidavit is CRITICAL to answering all the currently-unanswered questions. It would immediately clear up whether the FBI and the Magistrate were politically motivated. It would get intense attention. If unsealed, it would promptly be shredded into teeny-tiny microscopic bits, each of which would be fly-specked using electron microscopes to see whether or not they supported the wholly unprecedented step of raiding a former President.
For his part, Trump has already called for the affidavit’s release.
🔥 Yesterday, President Trump accused the DOJ of seizing his passports — a move which would be clearly illegal absent prior Court authorization. According to the same WSJ article, the DOJ then admitted that, whoopsies, it HAD “accidentally” taken three of Trump’s passports (two were expired) and offered to return them at a place and time convenient to the DOJ.
Hmm. Accidentally. One wonders, one scratches one’s head, one cudgels one’s brains to figure out just how Trump’s passports could have been “accidentally” seized. Experienced FBI agents were only supposed to collect documents that the warrant said must be “presidential” and dated during Trump’s term. How do passports possibly meet that criteria? Why even put them in the collection box in the first place? Plus, as Trump’s documents were collected, lead agents were inventorying everything into a list to give to Trump’s lawyers and the Court. But no passports were listed on the inventory. How’d the reviewer “accidentally” miss them? Had they been listed, Trump’s attorneys surely would have objected on the spot.
The FBI’s lame “accident” excuse is poppycock. Balderdash. Rubbish.
The only explanation I can come up with is that somebody at the FBI wanted to see where Trump’s been going lately, by looking at the stamps in his passport. Now, a week later, they’ve made copies or whatever and don’t need the passports anymore, he can have them back. Whoops. Sorry, our mistake, here you go. No harm done.
Regardless, even if it WAS “accidental,” the seizure of the passports raises some difficult questions. What else might have been “accidentally” seized? How careful — or careless — were the agents actually being to keep within the scope of the warrant? Trump also said that agents improperly took several boxes of private communications with his attorneys, which the DOJ has not denied. That doesn’t sound careful at all.
Were they carefully collecting documents using a shop vac?
🔥 The hot takes keep coming. Responding to the same WSJ article, Federalist founder Sean Davis opined yesterday that the DOJ’s messaging over the raid seems to be in complete disarray:
The Hill ran a story headlined, “Bolton: Trump Explanations On Classified Documents Show ‘Real Level Of Desperation’.” The article quotes goofy John Bolton, who doesn’t know anything more than anybody else, calling Trump a big fat liar and opining the former President must be “desperate” to lie so much. Or something.
On the other hand, Fox ran a story headlined, “Merrick Garland Has ‘Failed To Act’ As Attorney General, His Status At DOJ Is ‘Shrinking’: Jonathan Turley.” Fox quotes Turley complaining about how Garland hasn’t released the affidavit, and also about how the DOJ refused Trump’s perfectly reasonable request to allow his attorney-client privileged materials, seized during the raid, to be reviewed by a neutral judge or third party so they can be returned.
In other words, speculation is rampant and all over the map.
🔥 Great news. Yesterday, a California appellate court struck down $300 thousand dollars in fines and sanctions against Calvary Chapel Church in San Jose for staying open during the pandemic and ignoring the court’s order to close the church.
The court of appeals said the lower court never should have issued the original order to close the church, so the fines and sanctions for violating the order were null and void. It takes a lot of guts to defy a court order. Kudos to those pastors, who held the Word of God above the Word of Man.
The wheels of justice turn slowly, but they eventually get to the scene. And kudos to the lawyers who represented Calvary, too.
😷 The LA Daily News ran a shocking story Friday headlined, “Mask Mandate Didn’t Work Against Covid-19 In LA, Say Doctors From USC and UCLA.”
The article reports:
A letter from top-level doctors and researchers arguing against the effectiveness of indoor mask mandates, along with pushback from health departments, cities and business groups, possibly played a role in a surprise decision not to re-institute the mandate in Los Angeles County last month.
Not JUST doctors. “Top-level doctors.” Did you ever think you’d see the day? How long have we waited for THIS turnaround?
The LA Daily described what was in the letter:
The letter from the group of doctors cites the county’s statistics, and studies in Europe and some U.S. states, showing that after mask mandates were imposed, transmission of COVID-19 did not slow down. It contends that vaccines and boosters, plus immunity from those who’ve been infected, form a safeguard against high levels of serious illness, and that masks are not necessary in mid-2022, unlike during early stages of the pandemic.
Oh. So, they’re not yet admitting that masks were NEVER needed. Masks just never made any difference. Uh huh. Nuance, people. Nuance!
LA County’s pallid public health director Barbara Ferrer, who ironically looks a lot like death warmed over, announced a brand new mask mandate last month — but then immediately backed down and reversed herself, coincidentally after some of the same “top-level doctors” published an anti-mask op-ed in the Orange County register.
The docs’ letter, recently obtained by the paper through public records requests, was sent to Ferrer back in February.
According to the Epoch Times, city officials in Torrance, California, passed a vote of no confidence last week against Ms. Ferrer, saying the restrictions she imposed during the pandemic violated people’s freedom and hurt businesses.
So. The wheels keep on slowly turning.
💉 We just found out about another Canadian doctor who died suddenly and unexpectedly last month, bringing the 2022 total to fifteen (15) deceased doctors. Dead as a doornail, or a dodo, and so forth. Now extinct. This newest disclosure was of neurosurgery resident Ryan Buyting, 26, who died suddenly on July 26, 2022.
Canadian medical schools require ALL medical students and residents to be fully vaccinated (triple vaccinated) to be able to continue their education.
I wonder how the still-living Canadian doctors are taking this news. They might want to up their life insurance limits. How many more will die? Great job preserving the medical system, experts.
💉 Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla, allegedly quadruple vaccinated, if you believe that, is finally covid positive. He’s thankful though:
He SHOULD be thankful. Ten generations of Bourlas will never have to work again.
💉 Quadruple-vaccinated, double-masked, and face-shielded Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin — who ordered all U.S. servicemembers be jabbed or discharged — is now infected with covid for the SECOND TIME THIS YEAR.
Austin took the vaccine FOUR TIMES and caught covid TWICE in eight months. But thankfully he was vaccinated and double boosted, or he might have caught it EIGHT times.
Maybe he should try THREE masks.
🔥 Reuters ran a story yesterday headlined, “Judge Orders Twitter to Give Elon Musk Former Executive’s Documents.” Per an order entered in the lawsuit yesterday, Twitter must hand over documents Musk’s team believes are key to figuring out how many fake accounts are on the platform. Probably a lot. But the judge denyed Musk’s request for 21 other people with relevant information.
There’s only $43 billion dollars on the hook. Stay tuned.
🎾 Inquiring minds want to know whether, after the CDC’s rule changes recommending unjabbed be treated the same as jabbed, unvaccinated tennis champion Novak Djokovic will be allowed to enter the U.S. and play in the 2022 US Open. Tick tock.
🔥 The bottom story of the day, literally, is about an August 10th Lancet journal article titled “Evidence of human-to-dog transmission of monkeypox virus.” The article reports the first known transmission of the disease from dog owners to their beloved canine, and says “The men reported co-sleeping with their dog, [but] noted that they had been careful to keep their dog away from contact with other pets or humans following the onset of the their own symptoms.”
They really love that dog. Really.
In careful euphemistic language, the researchers explained the two gay men had caught monkeypox after attending a festival or something (“after sex with other partners”). The men had anal lesions, of course, and 12 days later, their Italian greyhound developed “a thin anal ulceration” too, and tested positive for the pox.
The researchers did NOT speculate on the mechanism of transmission, but suggested maybe keeping pets away from monkeypox patients. Especially these ones. I’ll leave further speculation up to you guys.
Have a terrific Tuesday and I’ll see you back here tomorrow for more.
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Saw a friend in the finance business recently.
They brought up the rise in all cause mortality and shared they've lost many clients. To confirm what they were implying I asked so you believe the all cause mortality increased by the shots is real. The answer was yes.
They then went on to share a heart breaking story of a client in their early 60's, perfectly healthy, whose kids wouldn't let them see their grandchildren. You all know where this is going. Got the shot, dead within a week from a stroke. My friend met with this client a few days before their death...perfectly fine.
Reminder to Ohio peeps....PLEASE find someone collecting signatures for the Medical Right to Refuse to get this proposed Ohio constitutional ammendment on the ballot. If you can only get your signature and have a friend validate it, please consider doing so. Much appreciation. https://www.medicalright2refuse.com/ https://m.facebook.com/groups/865453777503768
I’m going out on a rather large limb here and going to speculate that if the affidavit was damaging to Trump it would’ve been disclosed in the front page of every news media outlet. Conversely since it is being denied disclosure it must be pretty damaging to the DOJ. Anyone else see it that way?