☕️ REFLECTIONS OF REGRET ☙ Thursday, December 26, 2024 ☙ C&C NEWS 🦠

Why is the WSJ back on the lab-leak story?; Biden's surprising "regrets"; Trump's trolling Christmas tweets; top Dem fundraiser gets herself out of the progressive cult; Texas trans lawsuit vs NCAA.

Good morning, C&C, it’s Thursday! We now enter the final countdown of this impossible-to-script year, with seven days remaining till we hit the quarter-century mark. I hope everyone enjoyed the peace and joy of a beautiful and spiritually rewarding Christmas yesterday. Today’s roundup includes: Wall Street Journal runs deep state limited hangout over tired old Wuhan lab leak thing and we wonder what are they up to now?; media can’t find any real news so the New York Times headlines, I’m not kidding, Biden’s upcoming vacation schedule and his “regrets” about covid check formatting; Trump Christmas tweets troll, well, just about everybody; top Dem fundraiser dumps party and says it is like leaving a cult; and Texas files truly hilarious lawsuit against NCAA for cross dressers.

🌍 WORLD NEWS AND COMMENTARY 🌍

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This morning, the Wall Street Journal ran an “Exclusive” headlined “Behind Closed Doors: The Spy World Scientists Who Argued Covid Was a Lab Leak.” The long-form, multimedia-rich story had all the hallmarks of a deep-state limited hangout.

Never forget that even asking the question about covid’s Wuhan laboratory origins was disinformation that could get you canceled off social media and maybe even fired from your job. Heaven help you if you forwarded a lab-leak meme or something.

But today, the Wall Street Journal ran a deep dive supporting the agencies and scientists who believed in the lab leak. The article (gently) criticized the Biden Administration for ignoring the alternative theory. Why? We cannot know, but my guess is it has something to do with this paragraph:

Call me cynical, but I think the deep state expects a stinker of a report from the Inspector General soon, and so we get this anonymously sourced limited hangout.

The article provides an enormous amount of insider detail. FBI microbiologist Richard Bannan waited for a car that never came to take him to a White House briefing. Three Defense Intelligence Agency scientists wrote a classified internal memo that was excluded from the agency’s final report, and were told to stop working with the FBI. We learned about an argument between FBI bioterror scientists and National Intelligence Council agents over including a chart comparing covid to prior animal-to-human pandemics.

How did the Wall Street Journal learn about all these insider details? Why were are all these spooks from many different agencies allowed to talk to reporters? Why now? The Journal never quoted any of the many named agency scientists, not directly. It only generically cited, over and over, unnamed “people familiar with the matter.”

One cannot help but suspect that, with a new Trump Administration poised to take control of the intelligence agencies, especially the FBI, up to several levels deep, and with an IG report poised to appear, some people in those agencies may have concluded it was time to start the damage control.

Why is this dusty old argument important? If the Trump Administration formally concludes what is now painfully obvious, that the most destructive virus in human history negligently emerged from a Chinese lab, then the next natural question will be who is responsible? At that point, the Chinese will surely start pointing their fingers, too, and upon whom will all those fingers of blame ultimately land?

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This morning’s New York Times suggested the year must be finally winding down. A year of frantically chasing each morning’s dramatic headlines could, perhaps, be settling into a mercifully calmer normal. The observation arose from the Times’ top story, featuring a truly side-splitting headline: “A Reflective Biden Harbors Some Regrets as His Term Winds Down.”

Please don’t make me. Trying to imagine Joseph Robinette Biden reflecting over his regrets produces the kind of sharp, intercranial pain that I once experienced at a University of Florida reception where, trapped in a corner, I endured a 43-minute monologue delivered by a tipsy physics professor attempting to explain the fascinating mathematical implications of non-euclidian geometry. I still get a headache thinking about it.

Maybe what the Times meant was that Biden regrets not milking the Ukrainians harder for all that military assistance. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Possibly even more comical, the Times decorated its already rip-roaring headline with this hilarious, ne plus ultra sub-headline: “President Biden will seek solace and ‘relief’ during a visit with Pope Francis next month.” A comedian can’t ask for better material than that.

Why did the Times enclose the word “relief” in inky, skeptical quotation marks? It wasn’t a coincidence. It happened again in the article’s body, causing me to spend no little time wondering exactly what the Times was trying to tell us. What sordid spectacle between Joe and the Pope are they hinting about? Why won’t they just say it? Is Joe is going to Rome to “relieve” himself? Again?

Oh well. The Grey Lady loves her puzzles. The article offered no help in figuring out what kind of “relief” the Pope plans to provide Mr. Biden, or what kind of “relief” Joe plans to get there.

As to Joe’s Regrets, I was prepared for all sorts of things. Maybe Biden regrets how he handled the botched surrender in Afghanistan. Or maybe he wishes he’d sent Hunter back to rehab for the ninth time instead of sending him on that first errand to Ukraine. Or maybe he regrets not listening to Jill who told him to get his bankers’ boxes of classified documents out of his garage. Or maybe he regrets agreeing to that early debate with Trump.

I can think of all kinds of things Biden should probably regret, assuming regret is an emotion that ever flashes across the six surviving neurons in Biden’s brain.

But no. I was way off. The Times only named a single regretful example. Biden “regrets,” and I am not making this up, that the autopen didn’t sign his, Biden’s, name on the covid stimulus checks like Trump did. That was it. That’s what he’s regretting. That rough beast of Bidenic regret, its hour come round at last, slouches toward Rome to seek “solace” and “relief” from the Pope.

Regardless, the reason I mentioned this at all is how remarkable it was that the top story in the New York Times this morning was a silly puff piece about Biden’s quote-regret-unquote over not being more like President Trump and Biden’s great future vacation plans overseas. If that’s the top news, we’re doing pretty well.

In other words, Christmas was by and large peaceful. Maybe it’ll be a trend.

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In classic form, the President fired off a pair of fiery holiday tweets yesterday that trolled China, Panama, Justin Trudeau and Canada, Greenland (and Denmark), Leftists, Joe Biden, and Biden’s 37 pardoned serial killers:

From my informal survey of social media posts, many Canadians were excited about Trump’s offer for Canadian statehood.

Those two tweets were Trump’s pot-stirring message. But President Trump and Melania Trump also separately posted a gracious and traditional message of hope and best wishes for Christmas and our New Year:

CLIP: Donald and Melania Trump Christmas and New Year’s wishes (1:23).

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On Christmas Eve, Fox News ran a prophetic story headlined, “DNC powerhouse fundraiser announces exit from Democratic Party following attacks: 'It's like leaving a cult’.” The sub-headline added, “Lindy Li said she was 'ostracized' from the party and labeled a 'wh—e’ after criticizing Kamala Harris.”

CLIP: Former Democrat super-fundraiser Lindy Li explains leaving the party and being savaged by her old friends (2:27).

Lindy Li is a (now former) Democrat strategist, media talking head, and fundraiser to the progressive super-wealthy. She sat on the DNC’s national fundraising committee. Recently, after the election, Lindy grew frustrated at how bad the loss was. She made her first mistake by going on Fox News. She sealed her fate when she said, “Democrats have a stench of loser hanging over them.”

That’s when the fireworks really started. Li told Fox, "People have called me a wh—e, the ‘C-word.’ People are calling me a communist spy. They asked for me to be deported.”

By people Lindy meant Democrats. Her former friends.

Ms. Li was mostly frustrated at how the badly money she’d raised was misspent. “My initial disillusionment became clear,” Lindy explained “when I realized (the Harris campaign) essentially set $2.5 billion on fire. There’s been no accountability. We still haven’t gotten any answer as to why Oprah —a billionaire!— got $2.5 million dollars through her production company. Why couldn’t she pay for it? She’s an oligarch! Not to mention they spent $450,000 putting Kamala’s face on The Sphere. Now tell me how that would help her win? Obviously it was utter failure.”

Amidst Lindy’s laundry list of complaints about the money appeared one completely separate objection that stood out since it wasn’t like the others: “I want to be a part of the team that says men are men and women are women and men shouldn't play in women's sports.” It’s a good team. Lindy added, “I don't want to be a part of this craziness anymore. They're (democrats are) accelerating my rightward shift."

Well. I’m not sure Lindy is shifting rightwards, even though it might feel that way to her. We’ve returned to that cartoon Elon Musk made famous: the Democrats are sprinting leftwards, which leaves people like Lindy in the dust. When the dust clears, they discover they’re actually closer to conservatives than to the woke progressives.

Lindy’s journey reminded me of a clip making the rounds yesterday. It was from a recent “Genius Life” interview of Harvard professor Arthur Brooks, who studies happiness. Over ten years ago, Brooks published a controversial op-ed in the New York Times disclosing his research finding that conservative women were one of the happiest groups he studied.

In his recent podcast interview, Brooks reported that conservative women under 30 remain the group who self-reports being the happiest; if anything, their satisfaction is even more pronounced, with up to 40% describing feeling very happy or even “blissful.” But the most unhappy group is now white liberal women under 30, with an astounding sixty percent being clinically diagnosed with a mental illness.

CLIP: Arthur Brooks on happiness and political affiliation (0:59).

My own theory is that progressivism (as distinct from classic liberalism) requires unhappiness as a signal of virtue. If you aren’t always mad and depressed at the woeful state of the world and all the hatred and injustice toward cross-dressers, how can you possibly call yourself a sensitive progressive? The torturous mental gymnastics needed to accept that being a good person also requires being unhappy produces mental illness. That’s my theory, anyway. What do you think explains all the unhappiness and lunacy among white liberal women?

Returning to Lindy Li, whose departure from the Democrat party could be better seen as a form of self-survival. After all, nobody who’s not in a cult wants to live that way.

Lindy’s leaving is twice as expensive as it looks. Every million she doesn’t raise for Democrats is a million she’ll be raising for someone else, summing to a net shift away from Democrats of two million dollars.

Lindy said she’d already been approached by Trump’s team. She’s thinking about it.

The question that should be dogging Democrat leadership (if there is any Democrat leadership) and keeping them awake at night, is the question of whether Lindy Li’s defection is an exception, or is she the Asian canary in the progressive coal mine?

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More great news from Texas! The Hill ran a terrific story earlier this week headlined, “Texas AG Paxton sues NCAA for allowing transgender women to compete.” Just wait till you hear his legal theory.

On Sunday, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed suit against the NCAA over its rules allowing cross-dressing men to play on women’s sports teams. (Is it just me, or has anyone else noticed that men never complain about girls wanting to play against them on their teams? Why is that? Is the problem that female gender-benders don’t want to play with real boys for some reason? Is that racist? Sorry, I digress.)

The most delicious part of Paxton’s lawsuit was that he is suing under the state’s consumer protection laws, arguing the NCAA is engaging in “false, deceptive, and misleading practices” by allowing trans women (men) to participate in athletic events it markets as women’s competitions.

In other words, it’s false advertising! It’s like, they’re calling them chicken nuggets, judge, but it’s really BUG nuggets. There’s no chicken content.

The lawsuit hilariously —and correctly— alleged that “Consumers purchase goods and services associated with women’s college sports because they enjoy watching women compete against women—not men competing against women.” Seriously. Who needs to see that?

When we bought our tickets, you said we would be watching shapely females in a fair game, but instead, the whole time we had to avoid looking at a bunch of unattractive guys in spandex.

The Hill has clearly not gotten the memo. Its appalled editors were so shocked at Paxton’s lawsuit’s referring to trans women as “men” that they even whined about it happening “repeatedly”:

Paxton’s lawsuit asks the court either to enjoin the NCAA from letting men play in women’s sports, or else make the NCAA stop calling it women’s sports if men are in it. Just admit it’s ‘co-ed.’

More and more, the NCAA is looking around and not finding many friends. They are fewer all the time. Like the Hill, the college sports league is holding out, for some reason trying to be one of the last to leave the trans party. Paxton’s new lawsuit is just the NCAA’s latest headache. On top of Paxton’s suit, a different group of biologically female athletes (including Riley Gaines, pictured above) is suing the NCAA, arguing the league violated their Title IX rights by giving a swimming award to Lia Thomas, a man, that they should have won or had a chance to win at the 2022 national championships.

Beyond that swimmers’ lawsuit, 26 states have now banned biological men from playing on women’s sports teams, and most included college-level sports. In April, the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics —an NCAA competitor focusing on smaller schools— banned boys from girls’ teams.

Finally, the Supreme Court is currently considering a Tennessee law, and after oral arguments, court observers think the Court’s majority will hew to logic and reason and not to woke linguistic gymnastics.

As former Democrat Lindy Li said, it seems like more and more folks “don't want to be a part of this craziness anymore” and just “want to be a part of the team that says men are men and women are women and men shouldn't play in women's sports.” This trans fetish is growing very expensive for progressives, I hope they can afford it.

Meantime, enjoy the growing conservative counter-revolution.

Have a terrific Thursday! C&C will return tomorrow morning with your Friday roundup of essential news and commentary.

Don’t race off! We cannot do it alone. Consider joining up with C&C to help move the nation’s needle and change minds. I could sure use your help getting the truth out and spreading optimism and hope, if you can: ☕ Learn How to Get Involved 🦠

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