☕️ LIFE IN PLASTIC ☙ Tuesday, Sept. 24, 2024 ☙ C&C NEWS 🦠

Fake recycling scam falling apart; another way experts poisoning us; Trump shooter news with new evidence; Routh letter; Ukrainian assassination teams; who's eating the cats?; Varma comeuppance; more.

Good morning, C&C, it’s Tuesday! Your roundup today includes: reporting on experts’ plastic scam over plastic recycling picks up momentum; plastic isn’t nearly as good for you as experts originally assured us; Trump shooter news as evidence tumbles out, including a bizarre handwritten confession letter; Representative Gaetz claims at least five assassination teams including one from Ukraine; the thing that isn’t happening is happening again somewhere else; and the best news of the week proves shame still exists.

🗞💬 WORLD NEWS AND COMMENTARY 💬🗞

🔥🔥 Remember, keep sorting! The Wall Street Journal ran a hard-hitting story yesterday headlined, “California Sues Exxon, Alleges Plastics Deception.” The word ‘plastic’ used to be a nifty euphemism for ‘fake.’ I think that, over time, that terminology lost favor and fell out of common parlance, on account of a totally unfair association with a certain silicone-based cosmetic procedure that doesn’t even use plastic anyway.

It’s too bad. ‘Plastic’ would be a great term to describe the fake recycling industry and the grifting experts who drift around it like trash-gobbling buzzards. Back when we were still gullible fools susceptible to plastic experts, we believed their sincere, PhD-laden assurances that assiduously sorting our garbage into different piles and paying more taxes to sketchy characters for collection and removal was virtuous and would signal to neighbors that we are good people who Care About The Planet.

The Journal’s article tried frame up a confused narrative about Exxon Corporation deceiving investors, because it over-promised results of investments meant to tackle “climate change.” It wasn’t clear, since climate change is fake (plastic) anyways, so of course any promises to tackle climate problems go nowhere.

If they can sell investments for climate change solutions, why not raise money to increase the Leprechaun population? Or to develop supplements letting mermaids stay longer on land? But I digress.

The article’s facts were much more interesting than its weak narrative framing. It turns out that Exxon holds California’s largest contract to recycle plastic. Cradle to grave! They make the oil that makes the plastic, then they get paid again to remove the plastic when we’re done with it, and the plastic cycle of life starts all over again.

At least, that how it is supposed to work. But guess what? According to the Journal, only eight percent (8%) of California’s plastic waste gets ‘recycled.’ The rest —over 90%— goes right in the landfill.

Exxon’s performance was actually above average. An Energy Department report from 2022 found that only about five percent (5%) of plastic waste is recycled, nine percent (9%) is burned, and the rest gets dumped. California’s Attorney General Rob Bonta told the Journal, “The truth is: The vast majority of plastic cannot be recycled.”

Now they tell us. You’d think this would have been bigger news.

Worse, according to the Energy Department, even the minuscule amount of plastic waste that can be recycled is not super productive. Experts are once again baffled, having discovered that consumer demand for recycled plastic is, well, practically nonexistent. For some reason, people don’t want their babies drinking out of plastic that came from the trash. It might not be rational, but there it is.

Every single day, a certain maternal relative (who shall remain un-named) carefully rinses all her plastic waste items, then cuts them up with shears before painstakingly placing them neatly in the recycling bin, in the unshakeable belief her labors will make her garbage more easily recycled.

I get why California is suing Exxon; it has deep pockets and is a hated petroleum corporation. But in a sane world, we would tar and feather the so-called scientists and climate experts who convinced everybody this plastic scam was a good idea.

After a fair trial, of course.

🔥🔥 Extending the theme, last week Euro News ran an alarming and widely covered story headlined, “Microplastics can be breathed into your brain, new study shows.” As if we needed one more damned thing to worry about. Thanks again, experts.

Brazilian researchers discovered nano-sized, microplastic fibers and particles in the olfactory bulbs of eight out of fifteen autopsied cadavers. The ‘olfactory bulb’ is a dense cluster of nerves connecting the nasal cavity to the brain. In other words, this study’s results explain last month’s study finding microplastics in people’s brains.

It looks like we’re breathing the microplastics in, right out of the air. Then they can go straight to the brain.

“The olfactory pathway is a potential major entry route for plastic into the brain, meaning that breathing within indoor environments could be a major source of plastic pollution in the brain,” explained Professor Thais Mauad, lead researcher from the University of São Paulo.

The list of potential health problems is staggering. Cancer, endocrine disruption, cardiac damage, cognitive decline, and … wait for it … decreased fertility. Of course. It always shows up in the list.

The alarming article began with a strong call to action: “Global scientists and campaigners are calling for immediate action on plastic’s impact on human health.” Haha, good one. This global health emergency is nothing like covid, when global governments shifted into overdrive to deal with a broad health problem affecting everybody.

This time, there are no fortunes to be made getting rid of plastic. Just the opposite, actually. So, don’t hold your breath. (Get it?)

Fortunately, I can think of a ready solution, that’s right at hand:

Not for me, of course. But you can go ahead.

🔥🔥 The Ryan Routh saga took several unexpected twists and turns yesterday as new evidence emerged from Routh’s pretrial detention hearing. USA Today ran the well-reported story headlined, “Judge detains Ryan Routh after prosecutors say Trump stakeout was an 'assassination attempt’.” Federal prosecutors apparently have the best evidence they ever could possibly want: a confession note. We got to see a cell-phone snap of the first page:

All the new information came from a filing in the case summarizing the evidence DOJ lawyers presented to the court yesterday. The filing was very interesting and included some good photos and maps you might not yet have seen. I retrieved the DOJ’s filing for you, and here it is at this link.

The first page of Routh’s note, written months ago, said this:

Dear World,

This was an assassination attempt on Donald Trump but I am so sorry I failed you. I tried my best and gave it all the gumption I could muster. It is up to you now to finish the job, and I will offer $150,000 to whomever can complete the job. Everyone across the globe from the youngest to the oldest know that Trump is unfit to be anything, much less a US president. U.S. presidents must at bare minimum embody the moral fabric that is America and be kind, caring, and selfless and always stand for humanity. Trump fails to understand any of …

That’s where page one cuts off. The DOJ did not include the second page.

Before we tackle Routh’s monstrous letter, the prosecutors revealed several other intriguing details:

— Routh’s fingerprint was on the rifle found at the scene.

— Routh had six cell phones and twelve pairs of gloves.

— On one of his cell phones was a search for directions from Palm Beach to Mexico without tolls. (Just kidding about the tolls.) It’s weird, since days of the trip is straight west on I10. So weird it feels almost staged.

— He had a handwritten list of dates of Trump appearances between August and October.

— Right on brand, Routh had a notebook packed with pro-Ukraine ranting and ‘criticism’ of Russia and China.

— Cell records showed Routh’s phones had repeatedly been near the golf course and Mar-a-Lago for the month leading up to his arrest.

— Just before he left North Carolina, Routh left his letter in a metal box with someone, called a ‘friend’ by media, and referred to only as a ‘civilian witness’ in the filing, who said he opened the box after Routh’s arrest and found the letter.

🔥 Routh’s ridiculous letter provoked some unfortunate online controversy among conservatives. Some were annoyed at the double standard that the Jeffrey Epstein Client Book and the Nashville Shooter Manifesto were kept secret, but Routh’s acidic, Anti-Trump Tirade was immediately released. Others offered outrage that the FBI would publish Routh’s provocative offer to pay someone to “finish the job.” Skeptical folks found it hard to believe Routh would have pre-written a failure note —in the past tense— months in advance of his attempt.

For example, here is yesterday’s outraged New York Post headline:

All those criticisms miss the point. Had the FBI withheld the letter, we all would have instantly demanded to see it. We’ve been constantly demanding transparency in the investigation (as we should). Governor DeSantis publicly predicted the feds would not be transparent, since they haven’t been transparent in other high-profile investigations. The secretive way the Kennedy Assassination Investigation was handled, or not handled, or mis-handled, is a permanent stain on the Nation (at minimum).

The attempted assassination of a President, even a former President, is of a completely different character than a school shooting or even an Epstein-style scandal. They’re not comparable. Conservatives would have rightly been irate had the letter been sealed up. I’m not saying the FBI disclosed it for transparency (since I doubt that very much), but it feels inconsistent to complain about too much disclosure.

Finally, from a purely legal standpoint, including the letter in yesterday’s proceeding made some sense. The DOJ’s case for pretrial detention was much stronger with the letter, to prove Routh’s murderous intent beyond any reasonable argument. It may be true that DOJ could’ve made the case without the letter, or could have redacted the more objectionable parts, but that just circles the argument back to disclosure.

Now they should disclose the rest of Routh’s letter. And they should disclose another letter allegedly found near Routh’s sniper’s nest addressed to the New York Times, which was mentioned during yesterday’s hearing but not produced.

🔥 The letter itself is a sick joke. Assuming he wrote it, Routh failed as a writer as much as anything else he’s ever tried. The letter’s cookie-cutter complaints about Trump could’ve been transcribed off any night’s MSNBC broadcast, or even from a Joe Biden speech. Every single word was consistent with the generic anti-Trump narrative, lacking any nuance or originality.

It definitely wasn’t the kind of thoughtful essay like that of math genius and Unabomber Ted Kaczynski, who prophetically described growing electronic totalitarianism. In other words, there was nothing personal in the letter (that we saw) linking it to Routh.

For instance, Routh said he wants presidents to be “kind” and to “always stand for humanity.”  What does that even mean, nevermind which previous president does it describe? Those words are discardable political aphorisms, meaningless mockingbird phrases meant to be chirped once and then thrown away. Nothing was original or even particularly deranged about Routh’s anti-Trump screeds; at least, not deranged compared to the TDS that viewers can watch anytime on the alphabet news networks.

The letter was so devoid of personally identifiable detail and so blandly unoriginal that it literally could have been written by anyone. I’m not saying it looks planted, but if it were planted, that’s exactly what you’d expect it to look like.

Slightly more interesting was Routh’s offer to buy an assassination. First of all, where’d he get the money to offer $150,000? It felt like another throwaway, a psyop meant to cause controversy but create no evidence that could be checked. For instance, it mentioned no details about how to collect the fee (again, not on the first page).

But if it was a psyop, whose psyop?

On that same note, where’d Routh get the money to buy six cell phones and everything else? Second, the offer was weirdly similar to that recent story of another Trump alleged assassin, the goofy Pakistani-Iranian who tried to hire a hitman in New York.

🔥 Yesterday, Representative Matt Gaetz (R-Fl.) said that, even before the Butler attempt, DHS had told him there were ‘five assassination teams’ in the country aimed at President Trump, and one of the teams was Ukrainian. Fast forward to today’s bizarre shooter. We know that Ryan Routh would die for Ukraine. And he was just in Ukraine. So Representative Gaetz wondered: was Routh part of the Ukrainian team?

CLIP: Representative Gaetz wonders whether Ryan Routh has a Ukraine connection (6:06).

It seems hard to believe that Routh acted alone: who paid for everything?

🔥🔥 The thing that isn’t happening is happening again! Headline from the Maine Wire, six days ago:

If wildlife is not responsible, then what do they think happened to kitty?

CLIP: Local news report on Bangor missing cat epidemic (2:00).

Who’s eating the cats? No remains were found, none, not a bit of fur or even a gnawed collar.

Hungry, hungry Haitians? A kitty psychopath? Voodoo economics?

Social media rumors are racing around alleging Haitian relocations to Bangor, but I found nothing in official media sources. I’d be surprised anyway, since it seems like Biden always moves Haitians into red counties.

🔥🔥 The glacier-like Covid Accountability Express continues chugging slowly down the tracks. It is painfully slow, but it does continue moving forward. Yesterday saw some terrific updates in the stomach-turning Dr. Jay Varma story. First of all, the Atlantic stealth-edited its hilarious sub-headline:

The first subheadline, which I reported last week, called Dr. Varma’s sex-parties relatable: “Public Health Officials Should Have Been Talking About Their Sex Parties the Whole Time — At least it would have shown that they’re relatable.”

Relatable? To whom? Who else was spending their spare time during the pandemic attending perverted, Ecstasy-fueled orgies? Who had even thought of something like that, before conservative podcaster Steven Crowder broke his hidden-camera exposé of New York’s top covid scientist?

Unsurprisingly, folks on social media started mocking the degenerates at The Atlantic who said they “related” to Dr. Varma. The mocking apparently worked. The edited sub-headline now reads, “An absurd lesson in transparency and hypocrisy.”

It was absurd all right. The good news is shame still exists. It turns out that shame has been badly underrated.

But even better was yesterday’s New York Post headline: “Ex-NYC COVID czar fired from job after copping to drug-fueled sex parties during pandemic.” Boom!

After leaving his lucrative taxpayer-funded job wrecking New York City, Dr. Varma landed another lucrative job with a publicly traded pharmaceutical company, SIGA Technologies. Yesterday, SIGA unemotionally notified the Securities and Exchange Commission that it fired Dr. Varma.

“On September 23, 2024, the Board of Directors of SIGA Technologies (NASDAQ: SIGA) terminated Dr. Jay Varma, effective immediately, other than for cause, from his position as Executive Vice President and Chief Medical Officer of the Company,” the firm explained in its SEC filing.

The concupiscent covid expert’s pain isn’t over yet. Bipartisan outrage at the shameless scientist is building in New York. Yesterday, the Post reported that “enraged city business owners and parents joined lawmakers on the steps of City Hall” to protest slimy Dr. Varma.

“Varma boasted about harassing people into submission over the vaccine mandate and admitted to participating in illegal sex parties, all while he, former Health Commissioner Dr. David Chokshi, and then-Mayor Bill de Blasio imposed draconian measures that shut down the entire city,” City Councilman Bob Holden (D-Queens) complained, adding “the hypocrisy is outrageous.”

Holden called Dr. Varma’s sudden and unexpected firing “a good first step.”

City Councilwoman Inna Vernikov (R-Brooklyn) raged, “While grandmothers took their last breaths alone on cold hospital beds, Dr. Varma was fulfilling his sick fantasies with hundreds of sweaty strangers.” 

Now, almost five years later, officials like Dr. Varma are still being brought to account. I get it, it should be jail, but there’s a bigger message being sent to all the other so-called covid and vaccine experts. They probably thought we would forget and move on, what with everything else going on around the world and here at home. But we haven’t forgotten, and these so-called men of science are still taking the online bait and getting set up to be taken down.

We haven’t forgotten, and we won’t forget. Never.

You have to admit, disgusting Dr. Varma’s firing is a little encouraging.

Have a terrific Tuesday! Then get back here tomorrow morning for a free refill of intellectually nourishing Coffee & Covid.

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