☕️ BIRKENSTOCK WARRIORS ☙ Saturday, June 15, 2024 ☙ C&C NEWS 🦠

A quick traveling roundup: Competing peace deals amount to more war; Supreme Court continues properly pruning Executive authority; and Louisiana's terrific new governor leads on 2nd Amendment.

Good morning, C&C family, it’s Saturday! Your Weekend Edition roundup is shortened, as the Childers family heads to the airport for the journey home from our educational and entertaining tour of U.S. historical sites. Today: competing peace plans highlight “international rules-based order” absurdities as the parties talk right past each other; another solid Supreme Court case drops; and Louisiana leads on Second Amendment issues.

🗞💬 WORLD NEWS AND COMMENTARY 💬🗞

🔥 Yesterday the corporate media platforms widely ran a story that was remarkable for the fact it was covered at all. The BBC’s article was headlined, “Vladimir Putin lays out terms for Ukraine ceasefire.”  That headline, omitting Putin’s presidential title, was the least dismissive of the crop of one-sided reporting on the Russian President’s remarks.

To get the full picture, we must first consider the competing narrative. Also yesterday, the Guardian UK headlined, “World leaders to gather in Swiss resort in attempt to forge Ukraine peace plan.” Sounds promising, right? Everyone is on the same peace page, and so forth.

Sadly, no. It’s 2024. What do you expect?

Russia was not invited to the Swiss peace conference (why invite Russia?). China and India were no-shows. And just wait till you see the top talent attending for America. And I hate to bring this up, it being such a sore subject, but Zelensky isn’t even a proper president anymore, not since his term expired last month amidst cancelled elections.

But nevermind all those problems. Ukraine is holding the taxpayer-funded, critically important “peace conference” at the most expensive, five-star place they could find, of course, since these days bureaucrats and public servants must be feted like billionaires to get any work out of them:

Here’s the Bürgenstock Resort Lake Lucerne website. It looks very nice. Rooms start at around $2,000 a night and skyrocket from there.

The peace conference is totally fake. Fake, fake, fake. A political stunt. One fact proves it: the U.S. is sending Kamala Harris. But the media is still doing its best to numb our brains and sell us this silly, champagne and caviar-fueled, kleptocratic show as real news, so we won’t object to paying for all the private planes, luxury suites for after-hours parties, and hundred-thousand-dollar dinners.

Let’s see how the media slyly packaged this awful boondoggle. Check out the Guardian’s description of Zelensky’s ‘peace conference’ goals, with the bar set so low that microbes can’t crawl under it:

The conference’s goal is … a joint communique! A ‘communique’ is much better, much fancier, and much more expensive than some silly press release.

Communiques can only be developed in five-star resorts on Swiss mountaintops, after spa treatments, stuffed game hens, and high-tech pagan potlach rituals.

While they’re at it, they should let Kamala dictate the communique. It would be even more effective in her … unique voice.

Either way. Swathes of lucky bureaucrats will enjoy a free Swiss vacation on your nickel today. And then, some staffer will type up a copy-pasted letter arguing, once again, that Russia is bad and NATO will keep fighting to the last Ukrainian! (In other words, according to the warbloggers, not for very much longer.)

Next, the Guardian openly admitted that the peace conference’s intended work product “is not seen as advancing peace in itself.” So, it’s a peace conference that is also a non-peace conference. War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.

Warmongering meeting is peace conference.

They’re not even hoping to get closer to peace. That’s not even on the agenda. And this, ladies and gentlemen, is what top international government dollar buys you these days. I blame shrinkflation.

Finally, the Guardian frankly conceded that the whole thing is just a political stunt: “it will be seen as a success for Volodymyr Zelensky.” Seen. Seen as a success. In other words, not any actual success. Just optics.

And, haha, the Guardian’s article never called him president Zelensky. He’s just Zelensky now.

This brings us back to the top, the BBC article about Putin’s proposed peace plan. Yesterday, the Russian President — who was re-elected before his term expired — got out in front of the Swiss non-peace conference by outlining achievable, practical, realistic terms for a long-term cease-fire.

Unlike the non-peace peace conference, Putin actually described a path to de-escalation.

Putin’s proposal was simple and had only two conditions: First, Ukraine would withdraw all its troops from the four disputed regions Russia already controls. President Putin did not say those areas would become Russian. Second, Ukraine must agree to stop trying to join NATO. That’s it.

If Ukraine agrees to those two conditions, Russia will suspend all military activity indefinitely, and will begin diplomatically negotiating a permanent peace.

While Putin did describe Russia’s demands for the permanent peace deal, he also said they were prepared to negotiate, which in diplomatic-speak means there is some flexibility. In other words, you can’t expect Putin to make Russia’s best offer before negotiations begin.

The bottom line is Ukrainians could stop dying right now. Putin’s demand for Ukraine to withdraw from the contested territories has precedent: in 2022, Ukraine, guided by the Americans, insisted Russia withdraw from Kiev before negotiating a cease fire, which Russia did (Ukraine just used the time to reinforce its military and break the deal).

For a counterpoint to Western reports about Putin’s comments, here is the Russian TASS story about the proposal, filed yesterday under the headline, “Russia makes another real peace proposal to Kiev — Putin.”

As if we needed more evidence of DEI’s complete failure in the military, yesterday U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin — who you’d think would understand practical battlefield conditions — rejected Putin’s offer out of hand:

Wait, what? Putin is “not in any position to dictate” peace terms? Well. Secretary Austin will be very surprised when he finds out what’s been happening in Ukraine lately, whenever he stops partying and starts working again. The battlefield map is looking pretty grim just now. All the arrows are pointing the wrong way:

Maybe Secretary Austin can be forgiven, since he’s probably listening to the Ukrainians. Ukraine, a legitimate glutton for punishment, also immediately rejected Putin’s proposal, calling the cease-fire proposal “absurd:”

This appalling situation has its unique elements.  A “non-peace” peace conference that deliberately excluded one of the two countries to the conflict. Luxury vacations for politicians while citizen soldiers ingloriously die in trenches. A simple cease-fire proposal by the winning country — amidst international efforts to broker peace — rejected without discussion. Negotiations appearing in headlines instead of at diplomatic tables.

What’s obvious is that neither Ukraine nor its Western allies want peace. Besides luxuriously treating themselves to fine wines and scenic getaways with our money, their singular goal remains: to badly beat Russia, leading to regime change.

We’ll see what kind of ‘peace formula’ the Burgenstock Resort conference produces. I’m not holding my breath.

🔥 The AP ran another reassuring legal story yesterday headlined, “Supreme Court strikes down Trump-era ban on rapid-fire rifle bump stocks, reopening political fight.” One of President Trump’s most controversial moves was to ban so-called “bump stocks,” which are a frame for rifles that absorb recoil, making it easier to fire more quickly.

First, federal officials declared that the Las Vegas shooter used bump stocks to carry out his still-mysterious mass shooting. In response, the Trump Administration issued ATF regulations making the accessories illegal by redefining bump-stock-equipped rifles as machine guns. At the time, the regulatory move relieved irresistible political pressure on Congress to “do something” about gun control in the wake of the Vegas massacre.

But in yesterday’s terrific 6-3 decision written by Justice Thomas, the Supreme Court ruled the DOJ was wrong to declare that bump stocks transformed semiautomatic rifles into illegal machine guns. According to the Court, despite the ATF’s attempted re-definition, they’re not machine guns, since each trigger depression in rapid succession still only releases one shot.

The Court also noted over a decade of previous ATF decisions that bump stocks weren’t automatic weapons. So.

The Court’s ruling was more about reining in Executive Powers, rather than narrowing gun control limits. Although the case was not principally about Second Amendment rights, it was nevertheless encouraging. What the Court found was the ATF overreached its authority by using semantic tactics to expand Congress’ 1930’s machine guns regulations.

Unsurprisingly, the three dissenting justices had no problem with the ATF’s wordplay. They seem willing to trade a little semantic sleight of hand here and there for more safety. ATF Director Steve Dettelbach perfectly framed that narrative, when he justified the department’s tricky regulation explaining that bump stocks “pose an unacceptable level of risk to public safety.”

The majority didn’t agree or disagree with that. The Court held that if bump stocks do “pose an unacceptable level of risk to public safety,” then the legislative branch — Congress — must address the risk, not some executive agency.

In other words, the Court didn’t opine on whether a bump stock ban would be Constitutional or not. If Congress does pass a law banning bump stocks, the way remains clear for another lawsuit challenging that ruling on Second Amendment grounds.

One of the most urgent things the pandemic proved is how desperately executive powers need pruning, and the Court’s recent decisions seem to be doing just that. Progress.

🔥 Speaking of Second Amendment rights, Breibart (but not one corporate media outlet) ran a terrific story yesterday headlined, “Gov. Landry Signs Bill Blocking Anti-Gun Banks from State Business.” Boom.

Governor Jeff Landry (R), was elected late last year in a stunning conservative victory cementing full Republican control of Lousiana’s government for the first time in a decade. While serving as Louisiana’s attorney general, Landry battled the state’s democrat governor and the Biden Administration over vaccine and mask mandates, which launched him to a conclusive win for Governor last Fall.

In late October, the New York Times reported Landry’s victory, for variety deploying the adjective “hard-line” instead of “far right:”

In 2021, the state’s previous governor Bel Edwards (D) vetoed two gun rights bills passed by Lousiana’s Republican legislature. Had it not been vetoed, the first bill would have authorized permitless carry, removing the requirement for citizens to obtain concealed carry licenses to keep firearms with them.

In March this year, Governor Landry signed a re-submitted permitless carry bill into law.

That was great news. But the second, possibly more interesting bill bans all state agencies from patronizing banks that discriminate against gun manufacturers. Gun shop owners and manufacturers currently face a tightly limited landscape of banking options, since many big banks refuse to give them accounts or process their credit card transactions.

It sounds like something Florida Governor Ron DeSantis would do, and I hope the Sunshine State follows Louisiana’s lead. If enough red states refuse to do business with anti-Second Amendment banks, things might change.

Hilariously, the solution is perfectly consistent with blue state monkey business. Blue states have been boycotting businesses for years whenever they feel like it. For example:

More progress! Great job, Louisiana.

Have a wonderful weekend! I’ll be back at post on Monday morning, back in the saddle, ready to write you a regular roundup. See y’all then!

We can’t do it without you. Consider joining with C&C to help move the nation’s needle and change minds.  I could use your help getting the truth out and spreading optimism and hope, if you can:  ☕ Learn How to Get Involved 🦠

How to Donate to Coffee & Covid
Twitter: jchilders98.
Truth Social: jchilders98.
MeWe: mewe.com/i/coffee_and_covid.
Telegram: t.me/coffeecovidnews
C&C Swag! www.shopcoffeeandcovid.com