☕️ SINKING SHIPS ☙ Saturday, January 20, 2024 ☙ C&C NEWS 🦠

Peak irony in British sports journalist's sudden death; Fani Willis scandal explodes all over democrats; WEF woes explainer; Moms for Liberty founder schools MSNBC; optimistic Tucker interview; more.

Good morning, C&Cers, and welcome to the Weekend Edition! We’re a little late in delivery today because there was just way too much to discuss and I somehow fit it all in. In today’s roundup: media hits peak irony with celebrity sports journalist sudden death; just when you thought it couldn’t get any uglier, the Fulton County DA scandal gets more sickening and gruesome than we could’ve imagined; the public responds; an explainer of the WEF’s substantial woes and the apparent pivot toward Trump; Moms for Liberty dramatically squashes book banning argument; and Tucker’s latest, most optimistic interview yet.

🗞💬 WORLD NEWS AND COMMENTARY 💬🗞

💉 This week the sports world processed several high-profile, sudden and unexpected deaths. Not just deaths, mind you. Sudden deaths, deaths of atypically healthy people, deaths of people at atypically healthy ages. Such as the sudden and unexpected death of a healthy, celebrated Daily Mail sports journalist — a death with one particularly ironic feature.

The Daily Mail ran the story about its own reporter headlined, “Goodbye Mr. Wimbledon: Tennis correspondent Mike Dickson dies aged 59.”

A 33-year veteran sports reporter at the peak of his career, Mike was covering the Australian Open in Melbourne and then apparently died quicker than a greased weasel. He chucked a wobbly and was gone faster than a fiddler’s elbow, like a rat up a drainpipe.

Mike was a superb sports writer with an acerbic sense of humor. He specialized in tennis reporting. A father and husband, he was by all accounts well-loved, often described as selfless, kind, generous, and a “brilliant bloke.”

I would never ever want to quibble about something like that, but I tried and couldn’t verify any specific examples of Mike’s selflessness, kindness, or charity. But it could be out there. Or he may have been quietly charitable.

More to the point, I couldn’t find any specifics about Mike’s death either. The details of what sounds like a spectacular public disaster are disappearing, like ghosts shrouded in foggy journalistic secrecy. All we got was a tweet from Mike’s grief-stricken wife announcing he “collapsed and died” at the Open.

Sounds like another instantly-fatal heart attack.

But this story takes a twist since back two years ago, during 2022’s Australian Open, Mike, the Brilliant Bloke, shoved aside his normal charitable and kind impulses and declared war on Novak Djokovic over the jabs:

Dickson was relentless. He argued often and publicly that Djokovic was wrong. Mike probably created a worldwide wave of anti-Djokovic dislike, to the point crowds booed the un-vaccinated champion and chanted things like “get vaccinated” at him from the stands during tournaments. It looked like Dickson found a personal journalistic calling to compel the Serbian champion to comply. And Dickie was all-in.

Rarely — in this life — do things turn about so completely as between Mike Dickson and Novak Djokovic. Novak did not “ruin his chances” of becoming the GOAT by refusing to take the vaccine. Instead Novak weathered the storm and became the GOAT in spite of (or because?) of his unjabbed status.

And Dickson took the vaccine and now he suddenly and unexpectedly hopped the twig. And most ironically — Dickson keeled over at the 2024 Australian Open. Almost exactly two years after declaring a public war on Novak Djokovic’s private medical decisions over the same event.

Don’t misunderstand. I wish no ill will against anyone, and only the very best for Dickson’s memory and his family in this tragic time. Dickson, more victim than villain, bought the lie and probably paid the ultimate price. He was understandably tempted by the devil in his nature to use his position, his journalistic duties, and his consummate skills with what he mistakenly believed were good intentions.

But now, ironically, the calls to protect Dickson’s medical privacy are deafening. Corporate media has jettisoned the default journalistic standard of disclosure — journalism’s raison d’être — a rationale used with devastating effect against Djokovic — who cares about Novak’s privacy — in favor of a fussy aversion to reporting any facts that might make the jabs look bad in the new name of privacy.

🔥 The Fani Willis scandal is expanding faster than the DA’s dress size. At least right now, the adulterous District Attorney’s story is swelling to eclipse the underlying Trump Racketeering case that DA Willis initially designed. Yesterday one of the Fulton County Commissioners sparked a potential state constitutional crisis by demanding DA Willis hand over documents related to her “selection” of inexperienced love puppy Nathan Wade as a Trump special prosecutor, and related to her approval of paying over a million dollars of Fulton County taxpayer dollars to Wade.

The Daily Caller ran this exclusive headline yesterday:

A showdown between DA Willis and the County looms large. Ironically, evoking distant echoes of Trump’s executive privilege argument, Willis’s allies now claim she is above the law. “Fulton County’s Code of Ordinances does not apply to the DA. The DA is a constitutional state officer,” explained a spokesperson for the Prosecuting Attorneys Council of Georgia.

But what really blew things apart yesterday was the sudden and unexpected appearance on the national stage of Nathan Wade’s wife, which hauled the largely-overlooked ethical issues into public view. Remember: Wade filed for divorce one day after signing his lucrative contract to work under Fani Willis.

Nathan and Joycelyn were married for 28 years, had kids, and the court had ordered Nathan to pay his wife $1,400 a month in alimony.

You aren’t wrong if you’re thinking $1,400 a month sounds kind of stingy given how well Nathan was doing financially. It turns out Nathan didn’t disclose the multi-million-dollar Fani Willis contract in his divorce. He played poor. Whoops! It’s not a good look for a righteous Trump prosecutor to have lied in his divorce filings. Even worse, it seems Nathan used Joycelyn’s debit card and spent the little bit of money he was paying her in alimony. All of that is a scoundrel’s play, and of course it is illegal under divorce law.

Joycelyn has every right under Georgia law to sue Nathan for more alimony and for back alimony. But that’s not all. Not even close.

All the money Nathan spent on his lover, Fani Willis, which should have gone to his family, is now in play. In other words, the details of Nathan and Fani’s relationship and all the money they shared and trips and gifts and so forth are legally relevant, and Joycelyn’s lawyer wasted no time subpoenaing Fani Willis for a deposition. Fani Willis wants to be deposed about these topics about as much as she wants to fly to the moon in a rocket designed by John Fetterman.

Yesterday, DA Willis petitioned the court to be excused from her deposition, causing a media explosion. The public filings over the deposition disclosed never-before-seen documents, like bank records showing Nathan lavishing gifts on the plump, entitled District Attorney. Here are a few of yesterday’s headlines. From ABC:

NBC:

Washington Examiner:

As if that weren’t bad enough, Fani Willis done lied in church. On Sunday, Willis stood proudly on the podium right alongside the holy altar and soberly misinformed a rapt Atlanta congregation that she paid all her prosecutors the very same amount, including her lover, Nathan Wade. But that Fat Lie was immediately debunked, raising new questions about the ultimate destination for Fani’s immortal soul and why the lightning didn’t just blast her off the stage right there.

Atlanta’s 11-Alive News rushed to set the record straight:

The “others” referenced in the headline are lawyers who are actually experts in racketeering, unlike Mr. Wade, who has no prior experience with complicated racketeering cases. DA Willis paid her lover more, both in total and by the hour, than the legal experts who were doing the real work.

If those two other lawyers — John Floyd and Anna Cross — have any self-respect, they will immediately withdraw from the case. We’ll see.

Aside from the headlines, Fani Willis does not seem to be getting any sympathy from the regular folks who just aren’t having it with the horrible lack of ethics. Enjoy this priceless rant:

CLIP: Real Housewives of Fulton County (1:41).

Joycelyn’s lawyer did exactly the right thing by subpoenaing Fani Willis. There is no way Willis will ever sit for that deposition. Don’t even start to get your hopes up. It will never happen. Either she’ll convince the court to protect her, or if that fails, well, Joycelyn is about to get a very favorable settlement in the divorce that will resolve the case before any more depositions need to be taken from anybody.

Dear Joycelyn’s Attorney: hold out for millions in a lump-sum settlement. They will pay it. Somebody will loan dear Nathan the money.

Now, back to the case. What a train wreck it is for the democrats! What an unholy mess! It is an unmitigated disaster, the sinking of the Titanic multiplied by that plane crash where the soccer players ate each other.  Willis and Wade are Dumb and Dumber; or maybe even dumber than Dumb and Dumber. They’re a pair of greedy, grasping, and manifestly unqualified scam artists.

And yet they are also the team trying to imprison the President of the most powerful country in the History of the World.

Make it make sense.

It has become obvious this is a devastating blow to the Trump prosecutions. Until about five minutes ago, democrats were lauding Fani’s case as their best chance for jailing Trump. The Fulton County team was beyond confident. E.g., from the Guardian, last month:

A month later, it’s obvious what’s actually happening: Trump isn’t being jailed and DA Willis is getting flushed. Soon they must admit the case against Trump is irrevocably tainted. Nobody will want to have anything to do with this Fulton County case, which now looks nothing like a righteous prosecution intended to show that nobody’s above the law. Instead it looks like a boring local scandal, a pretty pedestrian way for corrupt local bureaucrats to steal some money from the public till.

There’s no saving Fani’s case. It is fast taking on water and heaving amidships, or something to that effect.

No one has ever dared before to prosecute a popular former President, never mind one who is also a popular presidential candidate. Like stout Cortez and his men, who surmounting a peak in Darien star’d at the Pacific Ocean and look’d at each other with a wild surmise, I think we might be discovering one really good reason why local DA’s don’t prosecute presidents.

🔥 On the heels of yesterday’s surprising news about a pro-Trump contingent invading the World Economic Forum, appeared even more tales of Trump support from the most unlikely spots. Such as woke financial tyrannosaur Blackstone’s CEO, who soberly informed thunderstruck WEF attenders that the world will not survive four more years of Bidenomics:

CLIP: Blackstone CEO Stephan Schwartzman tells WEF the world can’t take another four years of Joe Biden (0:38).

In response to many comments yesterday, I researched what might explain this sudden strain of conservatism in the heart of woke darkness in Davos. It seems the WEF and its members face some intractable structural problems related — of course — to money. This year’s “economic forum” could be fairly described as being in complete disarray. The WEF is going broke.

First, the group faces a major P.R. problem. The World Economic Forum’s long, easy run of behind-the-scenes invisibility is over. Public scrutiny and widespread criticism have badly damaged the brand. Corporate media’s ability to run interference and to cover for the WEF is waning.

But those aren’t even the forum’s biggest problems, not by a long shot.

For fourteen long years between the real estate crisis in 2008 until mid-pandemic in February 2022, the Federal Reserve held interest rates to zero or near zero. Which means the mega-banks, including big foreign banks located in and near Davos, Switzerland, got no-interest fed loans, turn those loans around to then loan the money to businesses and people at above-zero interest rates, creating instant profits with no risk.

But those days are over. And the hangover is just starting.

It’s beginning to look like all the woke “investments” in diversity, equity, inclusion, climate, windmills, solar panels, electric fleets, green technologies, and all the other woke stuff might have been a bad idea. It’s beginning to look like maybe the banks should’ve invested all those easy profits in gold and uranium businesses instead of climate startups.

We are in the early stages where both the DEI industry and the climate scam are collapsing, and the rats are starting to stream off the SS Woke Incorporated:

Absent easy credit to support unprofitable political projects, it is starting to look a lot like the WEF may be backed into a corner and — of course — those dummies never had a ‘plan B.’ Now, it looks like many are scrambling to get on the Trump express before it’s too late:

🔥 Courageous Moms for Liberty founder Tiffany Justice might have just ended the argument over removing sexualized books from schools. And she did it in the most unlikely possible place. How courageous is Tiffany? Yesterday, in a political environment where saying one thing slightly wrong can end your career, Tiffany bravely ventured deep into hostile territory on MSNBC with Joy Reid to answer questions about so-called “book banning:”

CLIP: MSNBC’s Joy Reid asks Tiffany Justice why she loves banning books so much (0:55).

When Reid began to loudly press her to justify what Reid called modern-day “book banning,” Tiffany interrupted the liberal anchorlady and explained that nobody is banning books:

“No one’s banning books. Write the book, print the book, publish the book, put the book in the public library, sell the book. We’re talking about a public school library. Children don’t have unfettered access to the internet at school … Why is no one out there protesting to free the internet in schools?”

What an excellent question. How is limiting kids’ access to adult material in school books any different from limiting their access to adult material on the Internet? That question is what I call a mind worm — once you’ve thunk it, it never completely goes away — and in a sane world it should end the debate.

Maybe it will.

Kudos to Mrs. Justice for taking the big chances to help America’s kids by enduring the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, not to mention fake, woke news networks and their annoying, racism-goggle-wearing anchor ladies.

(Full disclosure: I sit on Moms For Liberty’s advisory board.)

🔥 Finally, if you have an hour sometime this weekend, your spirits will be elevated and your heart encouraged by Tucker Carlson’s most recent interview, this time with celebrity personal improvement mega-coach Anthony Robbins. The two self-made men discussed the fractious state of the world, describing it as a normal part of life’s cycle of destruction and rebirth, and focusing on the indisputable fact there are always opportunities for joy and profit in every cycle, no matter how hard.

CLIP: Tucker interviews Tony Robbins (56:54).

It was captivating when, around the 8:00 mark, Robbins began discussing his own pandemic experience and how obstacles that looked insurmountable — little things like having all his seminar venues shut down, no matter what they tried or where they tried it — instead wound up multiplying and improving his business and making him stronger. Robbins compared that story to how Tucker, who was abruptly fired from Fox during the January 6th video releases, was enjoying a developing career that was possibly headed to greater things than he could have ever accomplished at Fox.

Back in my twenties, I was a full-on Tony Robbins fan, and I went to half a dozen of his personal development seminars. Since I was saved, I don’t put nearly as much stock in any personal growth strategies, having been completely fulfilled by prayer, theology, and my personal relationship with Christ. But, for you secular types, Anthony Robbins is the gold standard. And even for Christians, with discernment, Tony Robbins’ unquenchable optimism can be a spiritual balm from Gilead.

Enjoy!

Have a superlative Saturday! I’ll see you back here tomorrow for more Coffee & Covid.

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