☕️ Coffee & Covid ☙ Wednesday, September 21, 2022 ☙ BUILD BACK WORSE 🦠
☕️ Coffee & Covid ☙ Wednesday, September 21, 2022 ☙ BUILD BACK WORSE 🦠
Today's roundup packed with snarky commentary: Vanderbilt nabbed telling the truth about trans surgeries; Biden Raid case updates; the Ukraine conflict upgraded, corporate media lied; and more.
Good morning and Happy Wednesday, C&C! Today’s roundup includes lots of juicy commentary and analysis: a gracious thank-you from Chris Rufo; an other example of the death of expertise; Vanderbilt hospital caught with its bloody fingers in the cash drawer; Biden Raid case updates; and a major upgrade to the Ukraine conflict, which corporate media lied about, again.
🗞 *THE C&C ARMY POST* 🗞
🪖 OPERATION MULTIPLIER UPDATE: Chris Rufo made C&C a “thank you” video! Here’s the link, enjoy.
🪖 I was attending some CLE yesterday and came across a perfect example of what I’ve been talking about since the beginning of the pandemic. File this story under “The Death of Expertise.”
So, I was watching a live continuing education program yesterday afternoon, a pretty good one actually, and the presenter — a 40+ year veteran trial lawyer — was going through his powerpoint on a particular type of civil rights litigation, when he got to his general pointers about jury selection.
Here’s one of the three main bullet points the presenter offered, after his long and successful trial career, about how to pick good jurors:
I bet the experts didn’t see THAT coming. Explaining his rationale, the presenter said something like, “I have nothing against people who think they are experts, but they tend to believe that just because they know a lot about ONE area, that means they should be able to tell everybody else what to think about everything. I much prefer common sense over expertise, when it matters.”
Indeed. When it’s life or death, or is about serious money issues, you’re better off with REGULAR FOLKS — not experts — on the jury. Even people with expertise in whatever the case is about! It’s not a knock against professionals. I know that a lot of our C&C army are professionals, and I bet they’d agree. I’m even in that group.
The points, neatly made in a single Powerpoint bullet, is that you can’t rely on experts to use common sense, and other people defer TOO MUCH to experts. We need to stop deferring to experts. They are valuable for giving us an informed opinion to consider, that’s all. You should feel free to reject expert advice if it doesn’t make sense to you.
🗞*COVID NEWS AND COMMENTARY* 🗞
🔥 After Matt Walsh of the Daily Wire broke a terrific story yesterday about his investigation into Vanderbilt University’s appalling but apparently highly profitable medical experiments on children, Governor Bill Lee announced that the state of Tennessee will investigate the hospital.
“The ‘pediatric transgender clinic’ at Vanderbilt University Medical Center raises serious moral, ethical and legal concerns,” Governor Lee said in a statement to The Daily Wire. “We should not allow permanent, life-altering decisions that hurt children or policies that suppress religious liberties, all for the purpose of financial gain. We have to protect Tennessee children, and this warrants a thorough investigation.”
In his exposé, Matt Walsh included two video clips from whistleblowers. In the first clip, you can see and hear Nurse McKaren (“health law expert” Ellen Clayton) scolding Vanderbilt doctors who might consider raising “conscientious objections” to the hospital’s glorious new plan to revolutionize childhood through surgery.
You can do it, Karen warned, but there WILL be consequences. “If you don’t want to do this kind of work, don’t work at Vanderbilt,” she ominously comminated.
You might be wondering, how could this happen? Administrators like McKaren learned how to bully doctors during the covid pandemic. You just threaten them economically and professionally. You can make them do practically anything. You can make them refuse to give dying patients safe, cheap, effective, Nobel-prize winning medication, for one example I picked completely at random.
And now, Vanderbilt is using the same techniques to force unwilling doctors to carve up children.
DOCTORS: WHERE IS THE LINE?? Something weird has happened to their ancient, respected profession, and just recently, too. Doctors used to be understandably arrogant, holding the power of life and death in their hands, having earned their stripes through years of hard work and nearly unbearably long hours. They’d earned respect from everyone, and didn’t take orders from anybody.
But now they sit quietly and take orders from Karen, and they’d better like it. Or else she might have to talk to the manager.
In my mind’s eye, I see that clip playing out completely differently. I see Karen making her threat, “if you raise a conscientious objection, there’ll be consequences!” But then, an attractive, silver-haired doctor in his early 60s, still fit and feisty, jumps up in the back of the room. “Madam,” he says quietly but forcefully, “that was the last threat you ever make to this hospital’s medical team. It’s not WE that will face consequences. YOU will be out of here inside 24 hours.” And then all the doctors walk out of the room.
Doctors! Be like the doctors in my imagination. You’ve earned respect, show it. Don’t be like the cowardly real-life Vanderbilt doctors in that video clip who just sat there and took a heaping helping of abuse, served up by an unattractive cross-dresser (or maybe not, it’s hard to tell).*
But it’s the next clip that I think really offends people. Maybe because it completely demolishes the narrative that trans doctors are just altruistic pioneers, selflessly devoting their lives to courageously advocating for the medical torture of young children, you know, to make them feel better via the power of the scalpel.
The doctor in the clip starts off noting that Obama’s Affordable Care Act requires medical providers to offer trans services. Her audience understands her perfectly; what she means is, there’s someone who will PAY for all these services, without asking questions: insurance companies. Insurance companies are now on the hook for whatever ridiculous nonsense the bureaucrats come up with, and ultimately YOU are paying for it.
Continuing, she tallies up the financial opportunities trans surgeries offer the hospital, citing estimates “just for top surgery” at $40,000 and up, and fingering phalloplasties as “huge moneymakers.” She explains, “They’re labor intensive, they require a lot of followup, they require a lot of O.R. time, and they make money! They make money for the hospital.”
Phalloplasty is the surgery we looked at the other day, which could more accurately be called a forearm-ectomy.
But, demonstrating the power of video over a bland transcript, the clip leaves you with a troubling, and in some ways terrifying, sense of medicine gone wrong. In this clip, it’s not just her words. It’s her sordid and unseemly enthusiasm, her bubbly excitement over the prospect of collecting all that cash, carving up kids.
In a deeply alarming way, the clip might challenge your fundamental paradigm about how you thought hospitals worked. But you shouldn’t be surprised. We already learned this, didn’t we, during covid? Even today, hospitals make hundreds of thousands in incentives and insurance overrides for each covid diagnosis, so long as it ends up with intubation.
In other words, Covid is a huge moneymaker! Just like trans surgeries.
For its part, Vanderbilt University Hospital is already scrubbing the evidence off its website. But Walsh said he saved everything and has the receipts, so it won’t help. What Vanderbilt NEEDS to do is not to get rid of the evidence. It needs a heart change. It needs to challenge itself, and figure out where it went off the tracks so badly. It needs a new purpose or vision or mission statement or something.
My honest advice to Vanderbilt is to stop trying to hide what it was doing and come clean. Doctors, healing begins with repentance.
In the meantime, Vanderbilt needs to take its bloodstained, money-grubbing hands off our children. Or else, as Nurse McKaren says, there will be consequences.
* Whenever I use the term “unattractive cross-dresser,” I get a little understandable pushback in the comments. Let me be clear. As a Christian, I love these unfortunate people, obviously suffering from an out-of-control but completely treatable mental illness. I don’t fault them; I fault the people around them, the so-called ‘affirmers,’ who are suffering from a willful, strong delusion that playing along with the cross-dresser’s mental illness is somehow helping anybody.
I won’t play along.
The term “unattractive cross-dresser” is accurate and true. It’s loving honesty, like gently telling your wife that, yes, honey, that dress IS a teeny-tiny bit unflattering (I’m not saying, “fat!”). Or like telling your friend that he has a face booger under his nose. Or like telling Nancy Pelosi, “dear, I think it’s time to hang it up; you just sound crazy up there.”
I believe people around these cross-dressers should be having a frank dialogue with them: What you are doing isn’t working. You need help.
More broadly, I intend for the words “unattractive cross-dresser” to rhetorically challenge the paradigm. I refuse to use the new words. I won’t do it. I’m calling this age-old phenomenon what it has accurately been called for my entire lifetime — up until about ten minutes ago. I will not use their new words.
People always gasp when I say ‘cross-dresser,’ which used to be the POLITE term; but that’s not the rule now, apparently. I have questions: WHO is making these new rules? Where are they written down? And who put these people in charge of our vocabulary?
🔥 Whew, there’s a LOT happening in the Trump raid case. Judge Dearie, the newly-appointed special master, is cracking the whip and apparently is trying to get to the bottom line. First, he accelerated the timeline, chopping over a month off the original proposed deadline and suggesting that the whole review could be finished in a couple weeks, by early October — well before midterms, coincidentally — which drew immediate, albeit gentle, objections from the Trump team.
Trumps’ team seems to be trying its best not to get sideways with Judge Dearie, but a confrontation is brewing. Based on a letter that made the rounds yesterday afternoon, Dearie apparently wants the Trump team to provide a sworn affidavit that clearly states whatever Trump says he did — or didn’t do — to declassify documents.
As I’ve explained before, THAT issue is the key, fundamental issue in the case. Dearie sees it too, and he’s trying to cut through all the decorative nonsense and strip the case down to the drywall, or whatever the modern equivalent of brass tacks is.
But disclosure doesn’t seem to be the Trump Team’s strategy just now. Team Trump told Dearie they don’t WANT to say what Trump did to disclose documents, since there could be a criminal indictment, and Trump’s declassification steps would then become a key defense. They explained that, if they have to say what Trump did NOW, then “the Special Master process will have forced the Plaintiff to fully and specifically disclose a defense to the merits of any subsequent indictment without such a requirement being evident in the District Court’s order.”
In other words, “Judge Cannon didn’t say we had to do that.”
Over in the 11th Circuit, where the DOJ is appealing the appointment of a special master in the first place, Team Trump filed a well-drafted 40-page response brief to the DOJ’s appeal at noon yesterday. There were two arguments. The main argument was that “the government has not proven the documents are classified.” Hence, argues Trump’s lawyers, a special master is needed to tell us whether the documents were even actually classified in the first place.
(Now, it seems like Judge Dearie might need to know whether Trump actually declassified the documents in order to determine whether the documents are classified or not, but that’s not today’s issue, I guess.)
Trump’s second argument merely contradicts the government’s position. Trump says “yes he does” own the documents, even if they are marked classified, and even if they were originally created by the government. Both issues were well argued by Trump’s lawyers.
Both cases — special master Dearie and the 11th Circuit appeal — are moving at the legal equivalent of warp speed. I expect further developments soon, maybe today, certainly this week.
Stand by for updates.
🚀 The Telegraph UK ran a story today on its news blog with the headline, “’I’m Not Bluffing on Nuclear Weapons’, Says Putin, as 300,000 Reservists Called Up to Army.”
Putin gave a speech this morning, which was originally scheduled for yesterday but then re-scheduled, leaving war-watchers all atwitter for 24 hours. In today’s speech, Putin announced significant escalations to the “special military operation,” a specific legal term distinguishing the Ukraine conflict from a “real” war, and strictly limiting Putin’s powers.
First, Putin announced that Russia is mobilizing 300,000 reservist troops, which is probably closer to a draft, for the war in Ukraine. That’s a lot of troops. The figure reminded me of the 300,000 troops that NATO said it was mobilizing back in June. A curious coincidence.
It’s the first such mobilization in Russia since World War II, and western corporate media are identifying it, of course, as a sign that the war in Ukraine is going badly for Russia. In a seven-minute televised address to the nation aired this morning, Putin warned the West that he isn’t bluffing over using ANY means at his disposal to protect Russia’s territory, in what pundits interpret to be a veiled reference to Russia’s nuclear weapons capability.
During the two days between the announcement and delivery of the speech, corporate media confidently but wrongly predicted that Putin was going to announce Russia’s unilateral withdrawal from the war in a disgraceful defeat. They were mistaken or lying again. Now, just because I point out how dishonest corporate media was, I’m not supporting Russia. I’m just pointing out that our media continues to lie to us and assume we have a gnat-like attention span.
What all the western reports omit is the fact that Russia’s massive, historic mobilization is happening RIGHT AFTER Putin attended the Shanghai Cooperation Organization’s meeting in Samarkand last week. There, he met with all the major Eastern bloc leaders, including China’s president Xi and India’s president Modi. The very next day he was back in the office — this Monday — the Russians announced Putin would make a “major” speech about the war (which was rescheduled to this morning).
So it’s eminently reasonable to conclude that Putin’s speech resulted from or was affected by his meetings with the leaders of Russia’s allies. Do you think, as I do, Putin might have been getting his support lined up for the upgraded Ukraine operation?
It’s not like there weren’t hints. Corporate media completely ignored widespread online reports in independent media that Serbian president and Putin ally Aleksander Vučić knew what was going to happen, because he predicted full-scale war was coming:
Specifically, Vučić said, “I suppose that from the phase of a special military operation we are approaching a major military conflict, in a month or two, into a big world conflict, which has not been since the Second World War.”
He was 100% right, and 100% ignored by corporate media, who claimed Putin would be announcing defeat and shutting down the war.
How about the Chinese? Their position seems kind of important. Two weeks ago, on Friday, September 9th — the week before the Samarkand meetings — Chinese officials expressed what looks a whole lot like full-throated support for Russia, fingering NATO as the conflict’s provocateur, and confirming the Russians have the moral and ethical right to defend themselves from NATO expansionism.
In the clip, Chairman of the National People’s Congress of China, Li Zhanshu, was shown meeting with representatives of Russia’s “Duma,” or congress. Among other things, Zhanshu said this:
In the Ukraine situation, the US and NATO forced themselves directly to Russia’s doorway, impacted Russia’s national security and that of people’s lives. In such a case, Russia took the action that should be taken.
We see that the United States and its NATO allies are expanding their presence near the Russian borders, seriously threatening national security and the lives of Russian citizens. We fully understand the necessity of all the measures taken by Russia aimed at protecting its key interests, we are providing our assistance.
China understands and supports Russia on issues that represent its vital interests, in particular on the situation in Ukraine.
But corporate media analysts view its allies as pressuring Russia to END the Ukraine conflict, quoting Turkish president Erdoğan as demanding Russia return “invaded territories,” especially Crimea, to the “rightful owners,” which means Turkey, since the Crimean peninsula was an Ottoman Empire protectorate until the Russians annexed the island all the way back in 1783.
So that’s kind of kooky and not super helpful. The New York Times reported that India’s president Modhi told Putin four days ago that “today’s era is not one for war,” and extrapolated from his statement that India plans to stay out of the war:
But at least one Indian social media influencer (700K followers) called the Times’ article out, saying Western journalists were mistranslating Modhi’s comments, originally delivered in Hindi. Meaning, she’s labeling the New York Times report as fake news.
So. Who knows. Do YOU think the New York Times would deliberately mistranslate a foreign leader to support its narrative?
What’s clear is Joe Biden’s escalation strategy is “working.” The war is escalating. If you’re going to say it’s all Putin’s fault, that Joe Biden had nothing whatsoever to do with heightening the ominous risk of global thermonuclear destruction, go sell your crazy somewhere else. We’re all stocked up here.
If you want to somehow argue Joe is the victim, or merely a defensive responder, you’re going to have to first discuss how military experts predicted in 2014 that Russia would react to NATO’s expansionism in Ukraine EXACTLY LIKE THIS.
Finally, if this is what Joe’s dumb slogan “Build Back Better” looks like, then I think I’m ready to trying building back WORSE, or whatever’s the reverse opposite of “Build Back Better,” which obviously is NOT working. It might be “making America great again,” but I’d settle for just “making America okay again.”
Have a wonderful Wednesday! I’ll be back tomorrow with more great C&C-style commentary.
C&C is moving the needle and changing minds. If you can, I could use your help getting the truth out and spreading optimism and hope: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/-learn-how-to-get-involved-
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As a physician, Jeff I agree w your comments about doctors. I have lost nearly all faith in my profession. For speaking up at a dinky hospital in MS, I now find myself working in North Dakota. Just yesterday, was texting a physician friend of mine who said he just “learned to be quiet” over the last two years. Most of Those who didn’t drink the COVId Koolaid, did the same - just got quiet. I believe Dietrich Bonhoeffer said it best, “Not to speak is to speak…”
I'd take "Make America a Place That Leaves People Alone Instead Of Actively Attempting To Ruin Their Lives", at this point.