☕️ RECKLESS ☙ Saturday, October 14, 2023 ☙ C&C NEWS 🦠

Jim Jordan is back in the running; Michigan electors update; Mi. Supremes' preferred pronouns; Middle East war updates, thoughts; Soros cuts 40% of staff; SADS singer; counter-revolution news; more.

Good morning, C&C, it’s Saturday! Time for the Weekend Edition. Your roundup this morning includes: watch the skies for the annular solar eclipse; Jim Jordan is solidly back in the running for Speaker of the House; dumbest state attorney general in the country torpedoes case against Michigan alternate electors; Michigan Supremes require judges to use preferred pronouns; Middle East war update and my reckless predictions; Soros Foundation cuts 40% of staff; very SADS opera singer; Australians reject woke constitutional amendment; and Kiwis elect conservative government in red wave, tossing Jacinda Ardern’s party.

🗞💬 WORLD NEWS AND COMMENTARY 💬🗞

🌒 Remember, today is the “Ring of Fire” annular eclipse. If you’re in the U.S. you can probably see at least a partial eclipse from wherever you are.

If you’re a sky watcher, don’t miss it! There won’t be another annular solar eclipse until 2049.

🔥 Last night, the Washington Post ran an encouraging story headlined “Republicans nominate Jordan for House speaker after Scalise withdrawal.” It should say, “re-nominate.” In other words, he’s back! And it is looking pretty good.

Yesterday Representative Jordan (R-Oh.) faced off against dark horse candidate Representative Austin Scott (R-Ga.), who launched a last-minute bid for the speakership early Friday morning. After earning fewer initial votes than Jordan, Austin dropped out and endorsed the conservative from Ohio. Former speaker Kevin McCarty (R-Ca.) also endorsed Jordan and reiterated a commitment not to run again.

Party leaders told lawmakers they will reconvene on Monday for the next voting round. Representative Andy Barr (R-Ky.) said Jordan asked for the weekend to win over more support ahead of Monday’s floor vote. Now Jordan needs to prove he can whip votes, an essential skill for any Speaker.

Amusingly, WaPo reported that all week, Republicans have publicly described their truculent and unproductive meetings as emotional “therapy sessions” or as Festivus, a fictional holiday from “Seinfeld” that includes a celebratory “airing of grievances.”

Time to get the Festivus pole down out of the attic!

And, hats off to the enduring social significance of Jerry Seinfeld’s sitcom about nothing.

🔥 Some C&C’ers asked me to weigh in on the latest developments in the Michigan Alternative Electors case. On Wednesday, the Detroit News ran a weird story headlined “Michigan AG's office got search warrant to examine false electors' defense fundraising.”  You may recall that Michigan’s woke, Soros-funded Attorney General Dana Nessel previously indicted 16 Republicans who had volunteered to serve as alternate 2020 electors. They were charged with eight criminal counts related to “forgery” and “election fraud.”

After review, my formal opinion is the case is a slow-motion train wreck.

Attorney General Dana is not the brightest legal mind in the LCD bulb pack. Last week, at an event with liberal activists, Dana jokingly complained she couldn’t “flip” any of the defendants against each other because they all still think they were right, and said the defendants have been “brainwashed” by President Trump.

Not having wreaked enough havoc with those reckless remarks, she then laughingly bragged that the cases will be tried by juries from a “very Democratic-leaning county,” not only suggesting it would be impossible for the defendants to get fair trials, but also confirming the cases are politically-driven.

Two defendants promptly filed motions to dismiss, since all eight of the crimes they are charged with require proof of criminal intent — and Dana, the state’s top prosecutor, just literally said the defendants all believed they did nothing wrong and were “brainwashed,” which also means they didn’t think they did anything wrong. Ergo, no criminal intent.

This week the judge partially denied both motions to dismiss, but left open possible reconsideration after the evidence develops.

AG Nessel was in the news again this week with more low-IQ legal maneuvering after her office subpoenaed the GiveSendGo records of anyone who’d donated to a fundraiser for the 16 electors’ legal defense. It’s not exactly clear what Dana thinks she is up to this time. There’s nothing illegal about donating to someone’s criminal defense — the crime has already occurred, so there’s no way to “aid and abet” anything. While there are some awful Patriot Act crimes on the books related to financing domestic terrorism, none of the electors were charged with domestic terrorism, and those crimes are federal laws anyway.

Finally, the investigation into the donations smells a lot like a First Amendment violation, and if it goes much further, lawsuits will surely be filed against Dana’s office.

Even though the two motions to dismiss were denied, Dana’s loose lips may still have torpedoed her own case. The SS Witch Hunt may not have sunk yet, but several legal rivets have now burst out of their steely seams and freezing cold water is gushing through the empty rivet holes. Dana just publicly admitted — at a political rally — that she has evidence of non-intent.

Dana just gave the defendants a giant stick with which to bash her for the rest of the case.

This kind of thing happens more than you’d think. When it does happen, I call it a “self inflicted injury.” It’s when your opponent does something so dumb that it’s like a neatly-wrapped legal gift box. Thank you!

During their trial, for example, the defendants could call Dana to the stand to testify about what she said. They also now have good grounds to take her deposition — a rare opportunity for criminal defendants. They now have grounds to appeal any guilty verdict, especially if the judge refuses to allow the evidence of what Dana said into the trial. And Dana’s arrogant comments about the democrat-leaning jury pool supplied the defendants with a slew of new legal weapons.

Keep talking, Dana!

🔥 Speaking of Michigan courts, last week PBS ran a goofy story headlined, “Michigan Supreme Court orders judges to honor pronouns of parties in court.” The statewide rule requiring judges to refer to parties by their “preferred” pronouns “or other respectful means” was approved 5-2.

Justice Elizabeth Welch explained, “The gender identity of a member of the public is a part of their individual identity, regardless of whether others agree or approve.” It’s not clear what precisely is the legal significance of “individual identity.”

I’m not sure it’s even clear to Justice Welch.

Justices Brian Zahra and David Viviano opposed the rule. Zahra said, “This is a fluid political debate into which our judicial branch of state government should not wade, let alone dive headfirst and claim to have resolved. Such hubris has no place within the operation of a judicial branch of state government.”

Let me explain the pronoun thing so that people who live in Portland can understand. It’s not about politics at all. It’s not even about respect. It’s about grammar.

In the history of languages, pronouns were a relatively late development. They were invented to make communication more efficient. A “pro-noun” is a shorthand placeholder for a proper noun. For example, it’s too wordy to say something like, “When Mr. Childers filed Mr. Childers’s lawsuit, Mr. Childers alleged in the lawsuit that Mr. Childers was offended.”

Pronouns neatly trim down that messy, difficult sentence. This is much better: “When Mr. Childers filed his lawsuit, he alleged in it that he was offended.”

But pronouns only work because there are a set of commonly-understood, basic rules that we’ve all agreed on. Like gender. Gendered pronouns tell you which proper noun a particular pronoun refers to. In the previous example, readers instantly understand “it” refers to the lawsuit and “he” refers to Childers. But suppose I were non-gender, or a-gender, or gender-fluid-non-binary or maybe I just identify as a potted fern. In other words, my preferred pronoun is “it.”

Here’s how that sentence would read: “When Mr. Childers filed its lawsuit, it alleged in it that it was offended.”

Ha! Try to understand that. Or how about Jack and Jill? Let’s say Jack has been watching too much bad stuff on the Internet and now he’s starting to wonder. He thinks he might be “she” and “her.” Translate this: “Jack gave Jill a pail, and she dumped water in it, spilling some on her pretty dress. She rolled her eyes and told her thanks a lot.”

It’s rubbish. “Preferred pronouns” destroy pronouns’ grammatical utility. Not only are fluid pronouns unwieldy and difficult to understand, but they place a horrible burden on the speaker to use different pronouns for everybody based on their current elastic selection.

Pronouns are supposed to make things easier, not harder.

If this preferred pronoun garbage continues, where we will end up is people will stop using pronouns altogether and revert to using proper nouns all the time, and everything will be wordier and less efficient, collapsing civilization back into language’s Stone Age, which is just how the Neo-marxists like it.

There are five Supreme Court Justices on Michigan’s bench who do not understand basic grammar. Not a good sign, Michigan.

🚀 Middle East War Briefing: Nothing significant changed overnight in Israel. The ground action has not started (1). Air strikes continued in Gaza, as Palestinian civilians desperately scramble to find a safe place to hide (2). Egypt reinforced its border walls to ensure no Palestinians can escape Gaza, expressing “reluctance” to help (3).

(1) AP: Palestinians flee northern Gaza after Israel orders 1 million to evacuate as ground attack looms

(2) Reuters: Gaza rescue workers scared and exhausted under Israel's air strikes

(3) CNN: The last remaining exit for Gazans is through Egypt. Here's why Cairo is reluctant to open it

It is utterly reckless for us to speculate about what’s really going on. We have no access to classified intelligence or even reliable information. I’m not even sure the Israeli military has access to reliable information. But all we have to go on is media, which is packed with official and amateur propaganda, rumor, innuendo, hot takes, overreactions, and simple errors.

Having issued those disclaimers, since many have asked, I will tell you what I think.

I think Israel may be rushing into a horrible mistake. I think Gaza could be a trap. I base this on two unarguable facts. First, while some quibble around the edges about the extent of the atrocity, Hamas’s furious and morally inexcusable attack was clearly designed to inflame Israelis’ rage and elicit the full spectrum of negative emotion, and to create massive political and moral pressure to force Israel’s government to act fast.

In legal strategy, when an opponent pushes you to act fast, it’s generally because they don’t want you thinking too hard about your next move, and they are hoping you’ll make a mistake. Usually it signals a trap.

The second red flag is Hamas’ unaccountably-high level of intelligence, planning, organization, and execution. Many believe that a major state must also be involved. Obvious candidates include Russia, Iran, and even China. Whoever it is must also have predicted and planned for how Israel would respond. It is impossible to believe the plan somehow stops at Gaza’s border. It looks a lot like they wanted to draw Israel in to Gaza on the ground.

Not only does it smell like a trap, but the certain cost in harms to Palestinian civilians and the predictable loss of Israeli soldiers fighting in the Gaza rubble will be enormous in a ground action, and maybe ultimately unaffordable. Israel has a clear moral imperative to defend itself, but everyone seems to agree there is a lot more going on here than meets the eye.

Based on limited and unreliable information, that’s what I think. Hopefully cool heads will prevail. We will probably find out sooner rather than later.

🔥 I don’t know what this means, but it sure sounds good to me. Bloomberg ran a story yesterday headlined, “Soros Closes Offices Across $25 Billion Philanthropy Empire.” The sub-headline added, “The charity is shuttering half a dozen locations in Africa.”

The article explained that the Soros Foundation plans to cut more than 40% of its staff, including most African locations as well as offices in Barcelona and Baltimore. “With the decision by the board in June to cut the staff by more than 40%, our staffing size and footprint by necessity needs to diminish,” Binaifer Nowrojee, OSF’s vice president of programs, said in an email. “We no longer have the bandwidth to operate multiple small offices, and thus the decision to further reduce our locations.”

“I’m very sorry that it’s turned out this way,” an African OSF director wrote to staff. “It’s obviously not what any of us expected and I’m also very sorry that I didn’t have the information on this earlier,” the director said, admitting that the changes weren’t what leadership “committed to two years ago.”

OSF is now in the hands of Soros’ 37-year-old son Alex, who became the organization’s chairman in December and was announced as George’s official successor in June. I’m sure Alex has his own plans, but I’ll take it. More like this, please!

💉 Italian Media ran a story this week headlined, “Soprano Patricia Janecková died at 25 years old of breast cancer” (translated).

Three months ago, hit German soprano Patricia Janecková, 25, married Slovakian actor Vlastimil Burda, who she called the “love of my life.” Now she’s dead.

Patricia was diagnosed with breast cancer at 23 years old in 2022. She had a double mastectomy and thought she was in the clear. But her breast cancer came raging back, having metastasized to her bones and organs.

Enjoy this short clip of the brilliant and beautiful singer, taken far too soon.

VIDEO: Patricia Janečková: Letzte Rose (with German and English subtitles) (3:30).

🦘 BBC ran a story this morning headlined, “Australians reject historic Indigenous Voice referendum.”

White, female, liberal, virtue-signaling tears of political anguish.

Yesterday, in a massive win for conservatism and a momentous loss for woke politics Down Under, Australians successfully rejected a national referendum to amend their constitution. The amendment would have revised the country’s constitution around racial grievance politics and created a privileged class of people genetically connected to so-called “native” Australians.

Opposition leader Peter Dutton said Australians would always reject a proposition which divides its people into different categories. "I think the Australian public rejected the proposition to divide us on the basis of ancestry or race and that is a great thing for our country,” he said.

Another counter-revolutionary battle won.

🔥 In another terrific counter-revolutionary story, the UK Guardian ran an article late last night headlined, “New Zealand election 2023: right-leaning coalition poised to form government after Labour swept from power.”

After a night described as a “bloodbath” for deposed lockdown queen Jacinda Ardern’s Labour government, outgoing replacement prime minister Chris Hipkins conceded that his party had lost the election to conservatives in a red wave. “As it stands, Labour is not in a position to form another government,” he told depressed, liberal guilt-ridden supporters who were crying through their face masks last night at the party’s headquarters.

They all had to take extra booster shots just to make it through the evening.

Chris Luxon, 53, becomes New Zealand’s new Prime Minister. Chris is a proven business executive who has sold deodorant and ice-cream, and run an airline. He is described as a “top corporate executive” who relished “turnaround jobs” for flagging businesses. In other words, he’s a doer, not a talker. His acceptance was described as “a speech without frills or sweeping ideological vision, marking a distinct change in tone from the left-leaning government that Luxon’s party ousted.”

No-frills turnarounds are exactly what the West needs right now. Chris, welcome to the revolution.

Have a wonderful weekend! Don’t let the Middle East eclipse all the good news. And come back Monday morning for more encouraging and delectable Coffee & Covid.

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