☕️ CRISES OF INCOMPETENCE ☙ Friday, April 12, 2024 ☙ C&C NEWS 🦠

Ugly Florida Man story compares to New York; Ukraine funding grab exposes hard facts; NYC's massive no-bid contract controversy; San Fransisco's great idea; top Aussie journal sheds vaxx truth; more.

Good morning, C&C, it’s Friday! Your roundup today: embarassing ‘Florida Man’ story highlights key differences between Florida and New York; Ukraine money-grab inadvertently excretes some truth nuggets; New York City no-bid contract controversy highlights dangers of emergency powers; San Fransisco incompetently tackles grocery store closure crisis; and top Australian journal pushes out long-overdue vaccine truths.

🗞💬 WORLD NEWS AND COMMENTARY 💬🗞

🔥 C&C has been complimentary to Florida recently, so it’s only fair to address today’s embarrasing major news story, which shamefully was not covered in Florida, but broke in New York. Yesterday, the New York Daily News breathlessly ran its exclusive law-and-order story under the dramatic headline, “Drunk Florida man believed he had a right to ‘sit naked in a trash can’ in public: police.”

According to the Pinellas County police report, “Defendant was observed sitting inside the trash can, half naked, refusing to let people use the trash can for its intended purpose.” Not too good. The Daily News’s diligent investigative reporter sussed out the probable cause, alertly discovering this revealing fact nugget buried in the official documentation: “Defendant was drunk, smelled of alcohol, was slurring his words and unsteady on his feet.”

Aha! Sketchy people acting out! In Florida!

The Daily News is the type of paper that is not satisfied with just giving its readers a superficial story or allowing other states’s officials off easy. The Daily’s reporter kept digging, and discovered that two years ago in 2022, Pinellas County resident James Weeks committed a very similar crime in Gulfport, having been arrested for public intoxication and nudity, although it was not immediately clear whether that time Mr. Weeks was stopping other citizens from using waste recepticles for their intended purposes.

Ha! Recidivism! In Florida! The Daily News’s story showed that, just like in New York City, in Florida criminals are right back on the streets committing the same crimes. If you squint hard enough you can see how the two states are just alike.

The New York Daily News prominently ran its groundbreaking story about Mr. Week’s arrest for misdeamanor public intoxication in Florida in its National News section:

If the Daily News was slyly suggesting that life in Florida is just as bad as in New York City, it failed miserably. After all, Mr. Weeks was promptly detained for illegally occupying a city waste facility, with or without pants, and officers who responded to the call promptly returned the trash can to its useful condition as a public convenience.

One easily imagines that if a drug-addled, half-nude vagrant were occupying a trash can somewhere in Brooklyn, cops would not even bother coming out.

And we know how New York deals with public intoxication. It took me five seconds to find this New York One headline from 2021:

From “compassion” — or something — New York City supervises addicts while they destroy their lives and shoot up. They won’t arrest or even judge the addicts, so long as they use the City’s official government crack houses. Terrific idea! Thanks, liberals. But the question is, where do we suppose the drug-crazed addicts go after they shoot up in the legal fentanyl dens? You don’t have to go home but you can’t stay here.

Sure, New York City has great restaurants and museums and occasionally a non-woke show somplace. But sorry, Daily News, nice try. Your stupid National News piece only proved that life in Florida, where we arrest and prosecute people for public intoxication, is roughly one million times better than in New York City. Just saying.

🚀  The Ukrainians are fighting a different war this week, a propaganda war to convince the U.S. Congress to fork over more billions in new war aid. The surprising result has been that some veiled truths are emerging about the lagging war effort; more than we are accustomed to seeing. Alarabiya News ran a story yesterday headlined, “Russian forces outnumber Ukrainian troops 7 to 10 times in the east, general says.

Don’t pass by that headline too quickly. “The east” is where the war is. The Russians outnumber the Ukrainians seven to ten times? Ten times as many Russians as Ukrainians? Apparently:

Russian forces outnumber Ukrainian troops seven to ten times in eastern regions, Ukraine's General Yuriy Sodol told parliament on Thursday. “The enemy outnumbers us by 7-10 times, we lack manpower,” said Sodol, who is commanding the troops in Kharkiv, Donetsk and Luhansk regions in eastern Ukraine.

When did they plan to let us know about this bad news?

General Sodol’s testimony was intended to prompt Ukraine’s parliament into approving a new round of drafts. It worked, too. A headline in the Guardian late yesterday confirmed the vote: “Russia-Ukraine war live: Ukraine passes controversial bill to broaden civilian mobilisation in attempt to boost military.”

The bill was originally labeled as a “de-mobilization” bill. Even though it would have added a new draft, it would also have allowed soldiers who’ve already been at the front for two years now to come home. That part, the de-mobilization part, was stripped out at the last second.

Many commenters believe passing the new draft was a behind-the-scenes requirement imposed by the U.S. to pass the emergency funding package. After all, Ukraine’s manpower shortage is its biggest current problem, and if we send more tanks, who will drive them? But while the new draft may scrape up some more young, untrained Ukrainians who’ll be promptly killed, it cannot possibly get anywhere close to equalizing the mismatched forces.

They stripped out the de-mobilization for exhausted troops at the last minute in a backroom, parliamentary sleight of hand. Imagine the message that sent, both to existing troops who were promised limited terms of service — now you’re only coming home in a body bag — as well as to whatever luckless young Ukrainians who are still hanging around waiting to be drafted this round: you can check in, but you’ll never check out.

Most of the long, complicated draft bill consists of new punishments for resisting the draft. We are told the Ukrainian public is totally behind the war effort and isn’t interested in negotiating with the Russians. If that’s true, why do they seem not to want to fight? And why are we making them?

🔥 The Epoch Times ran a story yesterday that perfectly exemplified our long-standing criticism of emergency powers and no-bid contracts. It was headlined, “NYC Will Let Controversial $432 Million Migrant Housing Contract Expire.” The sub-headline added “The no-bid contract was paying out $11 per meal, many of which were thrown out by migrants who didn’t want them.”

The wealthy contracting company is called “DocGo,” and it earned hundreds of millions during the pandemic under another no-bid contract to provide residents free covid tests. After the pandemic ended, DocGo was awarded — by executive fiat from the mayor’s office — yet more hundreds of millions providing “refugee relief” to a relative handful of illegal aliens.

Baffled New Yorkers have pondered how a covid testing company was also somehow qualified, staffed, and resourced to pivot right to a completely different type of service.

According to the article, DocGo says it currently serves 3,600 illegal aliens. That comes to $120,000 per alien. Just saying. A related article added, “the contractor has been dogged with investigations, lawsuits and audits.” You don’t say.

A few months back, DocGo’s CEO abruptly resigned, after an investigative journalist discovered his resume was made up, prompting a class-action lawsuit filed by investors.

This week, as scrutiny mounted over just who was benefiting from the contract, and who exactly was involved in the ownership of DocGo, the City suddenly announced it was terminating the contract and sending it out for bid.

Or is it? New York’s Times Union ran a story yesterday headlined, “NYC extends DocGo migrant contract another seven months.” Oh. The sub-headline explained “The City is not renewing the contract. But DocGo told its investors it received an extension.” Apparently the company received a new no-bid contract to handle the “transition” to a new provider through the end of the year.

The article explained the replacement provider will only charge one-tenth as much as DocGo, to deliver the same services.

There’s a lot you could say about this story. But the main point is the wreckage caused by unacountable no-bid contracting. All the lawsuits, graft, and lost taxpayer money could be avoided if local emergency powers laws were properly reformed.

🔥 Yesterday, Fox News ran a widely-reported story headlined, “San Francisco proposal would allow lawsuits over grocery store closures.” Apparently unsatisfied that the City isn’t being demolished fast enough, a maniac on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors now seeks to criminalize businesses closing  because they are being criminalized.

The lunatic proposal would require grocery store owners to give six months written notice before closing to the Board of Supervisors and to the Office of Economic and Workforce Development. The store would also have to post notices at all entrances and exits to inform the general public. If they don’t comply, the owners would be subject to class action lawsuits.

They aren’t called the Laws of Supply and Demand for nothing. They are called “laws” because they are LAWS, not just theories or good ideas. I don’t know who needs to hear this, but you can’t just pass an ordinance and change the way the laws of economics work.

Forcing businesses to stick it out for six months and do all these notices when things aren’t working out is a great way to convince new businesses not to open stores in San Fransisco. Nice job, morons.

Perhaps the Board of Supervisors deserves partial credit for trying. Or maybe not. Is it possible — just spitballing here — is there any chance they are trying to fix the wrong problem? I mean, do we have any clues as to what else might be making stores close, apart from ‘greed?’ I don’t know whether this means anything, but the following paragraph from the article caught my eye:

Last year, a Whole Foods location in San Francisco closed a little more than one year after it opened. Records indicated that the Market Street location was the scene of 568 emergency calls in a 13-month period due to incidents such as vagrants throwing food, yelling, fighting and attempting to defecate on the floor, according to the New York Times. At least 14 arrests were made at the location.

My goodness. San Fransisco sounds a lot like the inside of the monkey cage on a particularly restless day. But note the numbers: five hundred and sixty-eight emergency calls, but only fourteen arrests. So. Fox was telling us without telling us.

Why is San Fransisco’s Board of Supervisors afraid of punishing small crimes? If Florida can stop a drunk from sitting half-naked in a garbage can, why can’t San Fransisco stop lunatics from fighting in and trying to defecate on its grocery stores? For Pete’s sake.

It might be, as I’ve suggested before, this is coordinated enemy action. It might be a plot to lower property values through non-enforcment of crimes and destroy valuable urban centers, designed to help billionaire oligarchs buy up big cities for pennies on the dollar. It could be that. But after watching this video clip from Atlanta’s most recent Board of Commissioners meeting, I’m teetering back toward the explanation being a national crisis of incompetence:

CLIP: Atlanta’s diverse and wise city councillors sagely debate public policy (0:27).

Remember, Atlanta — Fulton County — is also where standout District Attorney Fanny Willis prosecutes crime. She’s the one on the Trump lawsuit who recently advised, in open court, under oath, that “if I owe somebody a G, they gonna get a G.”  So it seems like a whole-of-government problem.

You cannot make this stuff up. Somebody call Ayn Rand.

🔥 Yesterday we noted mega-influencer Russell Brand’s interview of Florida Surgeon General Dr. Joe Ladapo, as a great sign of the slowly dripping covid shot truth serum. The problem of course remains that the people who really need to receive that information probably don’t watch Russell’s podcast. So this next story is potentially even more significant. The April edition of The Australian Journal of General Practice included a viewpoint article that gently peeled off the vaccine band aid, titled “Long COVID Sufferers can take heart.”

The Australian Journal of General Practice (the AJGP) is a peer-reviewed medical journal published by The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners. It is a well-respected journal indexed in all the major sci/med databases, and it is widely read by Australian doctors in general practice.

The article’s main point — perhaps cleverly — was aimed at long covid, which one suspects is a problem that lots of Australian GPs are encountering in their practices. The article poignantly described the baffling syndrome:

Those subscribing to long COVID digital support groups report months of frustration at not being listened to, finding the health system woefully inadequate, with few primary or secondary care professionals knowing enough to offer much. The outcome for some of those experiencing long COVID is self-prescribed medication using over-the-counter remedies and dietary changes based on potentially conflicting or misleading online information. Some speak of a substantial proportion of their income being used in this way.

Meanwhile, jobs, careers, incomes, community involvements, friendships, relationships, hope for a recovery and mental health are being destroyed.

Just like the vaccine injured! But I digress.

Long covid is becoming big business. In the US, the NIH is swimming in long covid research money. Last year, in 2023, big long covid bucks flowed like water (headline from Stat News):

Results? Haha, results. Good one. But don’t worry, the NIH continues spending massive amounts of your money. Just this year (from the NIH’s website):

An infusion! Get it? Anyway, according to NIH, scientists remain baffled. But a lot of good little NIH-compliant, white-coated doggies are getting grant snacks, to diligently do studies, produce unparalled data, and publish useless long covid papers that blame everything but the jabs:

Nearly 90,000 adults and children are participating in NIH RECOVER observational studies through more than 300 clinical research sites across the country. The amount of data being produced is unparalleled compared to any program in the world. Recent RECOVER studies have found that severe cases of COVID-19 can change which genes are turned on or off(link is external) in certain stem cells; that individuals with comorbid conditions, such as HIV, may have more severe long-lasting symptoms(link is external) following COVID-19 infection; that virus can persist in tissues for many months, perhaps years(link is external), following initial infection; and there may be changes in the immune system(link is external) in people with Long COVID.

NIH expects this investment of time and resources in building a research program of this scale, scope and rigor will increase the odds in finding treatments that work.

Is it just me, or did that last sentence sound, well, not super confident? After spending nearly two billion dollars — just by the NIH — can we do no better than merely “increasing the odds” of finding a useful treatment?

Anyway, let’s return to this week’s Australian AJGP article. After setting the long covid table, and right before revealing the promised hope for long covid sufferers, the AJGP article suddenly switched to the vaccines in a monolithic, long, heavily footnoted paragraph (I highlighted some parts for you):

How about that? What might the average Australian general practitioner, carefully scanning the article to uncover a hope to tell her long covid patients about, make of that paragraph, which probably challenges everything she thought she knew about the jabs?

Some GPs will surely ignore that carefully researched paragraph. But one hopes it would shock and surprise others.

The article’s author packaged all that vaccine truth extremely carefully, allowing the AJGP’s editors comfort letting that one paragraph of jab criticism slip through, and while dangling the promise of an effective treatment to generate interest. Well done.

The terrific Dr. Campbell analyzed the AJGP op-ed in a recent video podcast, if you’d enjoy his take. Just be aware the vaxx problems described in the paragraph above were citations to prior studies, not any unique finding by this op-ed, a minor distinction that may not be competely clear in John’s video:

YOUTUBE: John Campbell’s Trickle of truth (20:35).

In terms of a single cohort, my guess would be that general practitioners probably represent the largest single group of medical professionals in Australia. As mentioned, “long covid” is probably a hot topic these days for general practitioners. So this article seems likely to be widely read.

Even though it wasn’t aimed at a large-audience of the general public, this article was aimed at a large audience of medical professionals who most need to hear that information. So this one wasn’t just a drip of vaccine truth, it was a gush.

Have a fabulous Friday! And come back here tomorrow morning, sober and fully-dressed, and not in a trash can, for more delicious Coffee & Covid.

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