☕️ Coffee & Covid ☙ Tuesday, May 17, 2022 ☙ RATIONED 🦠

Pfizer and Moderna may have to be "rationed"; hopeful thoughts; another Senator strokes; baby food is back online; Fetterman sicker than we were told; Ukraine news; Sri Lanka news; and more...

Happy Tuesday and good morning, C&C! Today’s roundup: some reassuring thoughts about the world; the FDA magically approves Abbott’s baby food plant; Fetterman might not be out of the woods; another U.S. Senator has a stroke; the WSJ figured out where all the strokes are coming from; right after rationing J&J shots, the White House says it may have to ration the other shots too; an Azov battalion surrenders in Ukraine; and Sri Lanka’s PM tells citizens to get ready for a very bad time.

🗞 *SCRIBBLES AND GRINS* 🗞

I’ve seen a few comments flowing through suggesting some of you may be starting to worry again. Maybe its the “new thing” that replaced the pandemic. Whichever, let’s not fall for it again. Things are JUST FINE.

First, let’s evaluate the situation from both Christian and secular perspectives. From a Christ-follower’s point of view, we have absolutely nothing to worry about anyway. And despite lots of speculation, it is NOT the End Times, since Israel is not yet at peace and has not yet begun rebuilding the Temple — key signs of the beginning of the End. One world government is clearly reserved for the last few years of history, since the Book of the Revelation describes all the trappings of normal world function: nations, commerce, wealth, ships, and most important, a worldwide state of high function to be later destroyed by the Great Tribulation. Klaus Schwab must fail. So we can rest on the promises of Scripture that the world is going to keep on spinning more or less normally, at least for now.

From a secular viewpoint, as crazy as they are, they are nowhere near the kind of crazy that our parents and even some of us have seen before. The Carter years and earlier featured 90% income tax rates, double-digit interest rates, stagflation, race riots, gas lines, communist infiltration of government, and worst of all, hippies and disco, blech, and we still roared back from that unhappy period, not only surviving but manfully defeating the Soviet Empire in the process, without a nuclear war or even a non-nuclear war.

I know it’s hard to watch current foreign policy, Bill Gates, and the WEF, but never forget that conservatives were forced to grind their teeth down into tiny nubs watching helplessly while a known communist spy working for the U.S. State Department, Alger Hiss, helped design the United Nations. Later, Gerald Ford, a republican, tried to vaccinate the whole country for Swine Flu, until we hit 500 cases of Guillain Barré and they pulled the plug.

So.

While there are fair comparisons to make, we are still NOWHERE near those collective levels of suffering yet. Not even close. Not even after Joe Biden’s best efforts. Well, best efforts for Joe. You have to grade on a curve.

I’m not minimizing the risks and dark potentialities. Admittedly, our generation has its own issues. But don’t lose sight of the silver linings. Like what? How about the fact that a temporary period of hardship might be the way we come back from wokeness, CRT, dissolving definitions of morality and ethics, and loss of our national sovereignty.

They say that hard times create tough generations. Tough generations create good times. Good times create soft generations, which then create hard times again. Rinse, cycle, repeat. We’ve enjoyed a long period of prosperity. It’s possible that we are due for a little bit of a hard time that will toughen us up — which is just what we need. That means we’ll win in the end, and the faster we toughen up, the shorter the suffering will be. Let’s get tough!

Now on to the roundup. Lots of highly interesting news today!

🗞*COVID NEWS AND COMMENTARY* 🗞

🔥 And just like that, right after Abbott Labs went public with the FDA’s refusal to return its phone calls, the baby formula shortage has been addressed. The Daily Wire ran a story yesterday headlined, “Baby Formula Could Return To Shelves As Abbott Plant Takes ‘Major Step’ To Reopening Facility.”

So, literally two or three work days after Abbott tweeted that the FDA had been ignoring it for weeks, and Republicans pounced on the Biden Administration’s bungling, the formula manufacturer is now already “entering into a consent decree” with the FDA to take “the steps necessary to resume production and maintain the facility.” Just like that. Whoosh! That was fast.

The press release announcing the new agreement noted that production could restart within two weeks, meaning product would be available on merchant shelves in six to eight weeks. In the meantime, Abbott says it has also been authorized to work with an Irish facility to help meet short-term demand.

For some reason, Abbott’s president Robert Ford apologized in a carefully-worded statement. “We know millions of parents and caregivers depend on us and we’re deeply sorry that our voluntary recall worsened the nationwide formula shortage. We will work hard to re-earn the trust that moms, dads and caregivers have placed in our formulas for more than 50 years,” his written statement said.

To my trained lawyer ears, Ford’s apology sounds a lot like it was carefully negotiated and wordsmithed. Despite the apology, Abbott’s press release noted that the CDC’s investigation of its plant found “no … link between Abbott formulas and infant illnesses.” So what is Ford apologizing for?

Anyway, great news for moms and babies.

💉 Yesterday, I accurately reported that corporate media said Pennsylvania’s Lt. Governor John Fetterman, now running for Senate, had a stroke but the clot was promptly removed and all was well. You aren’t going to believe this, but that was, apparently, fake news. At least to some extent.

The Hill ran a story late yesterday headlined, “Fetterman stroke throws curve into Pennsylvania primary,” which said that Fetterman “would be off the campaign trail for the near future” and he has cancelled all his scheduled events. The Hill also noted that Fetterman “does not have a history of being in poor health.” It’s baffling.

So, apparently the news that Fetterman was right as rain was premature. We hope he recovers quickly.

💉 Racing close behind the Fetterman stroke story was ANOTHER one, this time a CNN story headlined, “Maryland Sen. Van Hollen Hospitalized After Stroke But Says No Long-Term Damage.”

According to CNN, the Maryland Democrat announced Sunday that he suffered a “minor stroke” over the weekend and is currently hospitalized. Van Hollen has not tweeted since his May 15th announcement about the stroke. Presumably he is following his doctor’s orders and resting.

Van Hollen’s stroke created renewed chatter about the Senate’s precarious 50-50 split. He is also running for re-election this year.

Just to recap, we now have THREE strokes among lawmakers so far this year:

1) New Mexico Senator Ben Ray Luján (D) — stroke in March

2) Maryland Senator Van Hollen (D) — stroke in May

3) Pennsylvania Lt. Governor John Fetterman (D) — stroke in May

🔥 But don’t worry! It’s not that mysterious after all. The Wall Street Journal ran a story yesterday headlined, “Strokes of John Fetterman, Chris Van Hollen Highlight One of U.S.’s Top Health Risks,” which informs us that strokes can happen to anybody at any time at any age. It’s totally normal.

The Journal explains that “common medical conditions” like diabetes can cause strokes at any age. It suggests, and this is truly cutting-edge medical advice, eating healthy and exercising. It ends by suggesting that STRESS causes strokes, and quotes a cherry-picked expert saying “The world is stressful these days.” So…

💉 What an amazing covid coincidence! Politico ran a story yesterday headlined, “White House Prepares To Ration Vaccines As Covid Funding Impasse Looms.” Stay with me here.

Politico explained that “a painful and foreboding reality is setting in for the White House as it enters a potentially dangerous stretch of the Covid fight: It may soon need to run its sprawling pandemic response on a shoestring budget.” Painful, foreboding, dangerous, sprawling, shoestring. Politico nearly wrote a poem about it.

First of all, the White House doesn’t run ANYTHING on a shoestring budget. That’s just a way to blame this on Republicans. To reinforce whose fault it is, Politico quoted an anonymous staffer who said, “inaction in Congress is already forcing difficult and unnecessary compromises that have dire consequences for the American people.” Dire ones.

Removing all the overheated rhetoric, the gist of the story was that because of Republican obstructionism, the mRNA vaccines may have to be reserved only for people who are at high-risk of covid.

None of it makes sense. Republican obstructionism? Please. The dems run the House! That’s a dumb excuse. But they’re running with it:

So, politics as usual. But consider the TIMING for a second.

We are within two weeks of the FDA’s rationing Johnson & Johnson for the most at-risk — for safety, citing the threat of ultra-rare blood clots. Now the White House is signaling it might ration the other vaccines too, this time citing poverty and obstinate Republicans. Different explanations, same result.

Budget limits doesn’t make any sense either. Biden literally JUST promised to vaccinate the WHOLE WORLD about ten minutes ago. They’re scaring up $40B for Ukraine. Now they suddenly can’t afford jabs for Americans?

And all of this right behind the similar J&J safety lockdown. Makes you think.

A cynical person might suggest the budget limit claim is just an excuse to remove the jabs from the market without admitting there’s anything wrong with them. Sure, they’re still available to at-risk people, but that just proves there’s nothing wrong with them, and jab injuries are harder to see in at-risk people, because any strokes, clots, or death can be blamed on their comorbid conditions.

Politico is upset that the jabs might dry up, and so it’s HOPING FOR a covid comeback to force congress to cough up the dough. I am not making that up. The article suggests longingly, IN WRITING, that “with little ability left to force Senate Republicans’ hand, there’s growing fear that perhaps the only way to keep the Covid response alive will be for Covid itself to swamp the nation in infections once again.”

The geniuses at Politico don’t seem to get the irony of hoping for the thing they want to avoid in order to get the thing that would prevent the solution, if you follow me. Dummies.

💉 I’m out of time, but tomorrow, I’m reporting on the biggest vaccine story this year, which slipped by under the radar exactly one week ago. If you thought that public health experts couldn’t be shown to be any dumber, prepare to be astounded and amazed.

🚀 *THE MINORITY REPORT* 🚀

🚀 After weeks of reporting that the Russians were losing, badly, all over Ukraine, the Wall Street Journal ran a long story yesterday headlined, “Ukrainian Soldiers Lay Down Arms at Mariupol’s Azovstal Steel Plant.”

Yesterday, the Kremlin agreed to allow Ukraine to evacuate wounded Azov battalion fighters from the besieged city, and the others became POWs. The Journal noted hopefully that while Moscow might claim victory, at least the Russian forces were tied up there during the siege. So that’s something. Silver linings, I suppose.

I think Ukrainian readers and other supporters believe that when I report news like this it means I don’t “support Ukraine” or something. That’s not true. I wish fervently for an end to the war and for not one more Ukrainian to be injured or die. But I frequently don’t believe our lying corporate media and call them out whenever I see their lips moving. Here, the WSJ was forced to report something they’d been explicitly denying for weeks.

In general, I do not want to be told what to think or who to support. I just want the facts. I want to make up my own mind. I believe I am smarter, more ethical, and more reasonable than the poltroons who are in charge of the narrative. Especially experts.

🚀 The prime minister of Sri Lanka, who was recently rescued from his compound in a daring pre-dawn operation, posted a remarkable tweet yesterday. It begins by admitting, “The next couple of months will be the most difficult ones of our lives. I have no desire to hide the truth and to lie to the public. Although these facts are unpleasant and terrifying, this is the true situation.”

Ranil Wickremesinghe @RW_UNP

1. The next couple of months will be the most difficult ones of our lives. I have no desire to hide the truth and to lie to the public. Although these facts are unpleasant and terrifying, this is the true situation. #SriLankaEconomicCrisis

Prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe (no idea), who just took the job last Thursday, goes on to lay out eight huge problems and short proposed solutions, most of which involve borrowing money and asking for help from the developed world. This is how the World Bank can make or break a country.

Prayers for the Sri Lankans as they navigate a terrible period.

🔥 Finally, here are the alert readers and scavenger-contest winners who found rare pictures of John Fetterman not wearing a hoodie!

— Dave Ross

— Heidi Shires

— Karen Karen

— Mary Barrentine

— Penny Bargo-Buckhalter

— Ellen Middlebrooks

I owe you guys lunch! Stand by for a Facebook message from my team.

Have a terrific Tuesday and I’ll see you back here tomorrow.

You can help get the truth out and spread optimism and hope: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/-learn-how-to-get-involved-

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