☕️ SWAMP CREATURES ☙ Saturday, January 4, 2025 ☙ C&C NEWS 🦠

Polar vortex; Trump sentencing updates; Johnson sweeps Speaker election; Biden decorates devils with awards; New Orleans and Vegas incidents get more complicated; court signals swamp trouble; more.

Good morning, C&C, it’s Saturday! Our Inauguration countdown stands at T-minus 15 days and counting. Your roundup today includes: Polar Express bringing cold weather; Judge Merchan issues an 18-page order excoriating Trump but doing nothing; Mike Johnson easily re-elected Speaker and delivers stem-winding speech; Biden passes out awards to progressive devils like candy at a Halloween carnival; New Year’s Day incidents unsurprisingly become more, not less, complicated; and Sixth Circuit strikes down Net Neutrality in a terrific sign for the future.

🌍 WORLD NEWS AND COMMENTARY 🌍

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Yesterday, the UK Guardian ran a wintery weather story headlined, “Polar vortex expected to bring snow, ice and brutal cold to most of US.” In typical alarmist Weather Channel fashion, the panicky subheadline warned, “Millions from Kansas to Florida will be hit by wintry blast with potential for ‘disaster’ next week, meteorologists say.” At least the editors primly decorated the word “disaster” with scare quotes.

Disaster might be a strong word, maybe completely inappropriate, but it will be cold and windy. Let’s call it blustery. It won’t be any kind of record, or even close, but it’s probably getting chilly. “This could lead to the coldest January for the US since 2011,” explained Dan DePodwin, AccuWeather’s Director of Forecast operations.

They’ve already trimmed back the snowpocalyptic predictions a couple times. But even the current forecast is daunting. Looking at Georgia and places north, I’m not sure I understand what those numbers with the dashes in front of them are supposed to mean. But, to be honest, even allowing for Weather Channel scaremongering, a forecast of 22 for Daytona Beach alarmed this Florida native.

Regular readers living outside the Sunshine State may fail to fully appreciate how dimly Floridians view this kind of news. Most residents here would happily take two extra hurricanes instead of a below-freezing January. We can’t handle it. We don’t want to handle it. Governor DeSantis needs to do something. Just think of our poor, cold-blooded alligators.

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Yesterday, the New York Times ran a story headlined, “Judge Upholds Trump’s Sentencing in Hush Money Case but Signals No Jail Time.” The short version is, Judge Juan Merchan entered an 18-page stinker of an order denying the Trump team’s latest motion to dismiss, but ended up almost apologetically advising that he doesn’t think he will sentence Trump to any jail time.

Judge Merchan oversaw the only criminal case against President Trump that got anywhere, the case fueling all the crazed “convicted felon” campaign rhetoric. Last year, in a legal first, a New York jury found President Trump guilty of the victimless crime of ‘falsifying’ his internal business records since his bookkeeper wrote “legal expenses” on checks made out to Trump’s lawyer.

But Judge Merchan has judiciously taken his time in sentencing the President-Elect. Until Trump is sentenced, he cannot truly be said to have been “convicted,” not really, which is driving Democrats batty. On the other hand, Trump’s appellate rights are limited until the Court issues what’s called a “final order,” defined as when the court has nothing further to do in a case.

Although Trump could have faced up to four years in prison, the judge realized the impracticality of imprisoning a President-Elect. So the court indulged in a little judicial baby-splitting. The order suggested that at a January 10th sentencing hearing, Judge Merchan would issue an “unconditional discharge,” meaning Trump would become a convicted felon but without any punishment, including incarceration, fines, or public service, so as to get everything wrapped before Trump is sworn in on January 20th.

Merchan wrote that a rare unconditional discharge “appears to be the most viable solution to ensure finality and allow defendant to pursue his appellate options.”

The Times speculated that President Trump might just accept the verdict and move on, but based on the President’s posts, he is not planning to take it lying down (nor should he) and appeals are sure to follow.

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It looked close, but it was never really close. The New York Times ran a story yesterday headlined, “How Mike Johnson clinched the speakership — with an assist from Trump.” After President Trump personally called two Freedom Caucus holdouts, the deal was done. Johnson was easily approved on the first ballot (although in a third round of voting).

The Republican majority in the House is thin, as thin as fresh roadkill. Yesterday Johnson had zero margin for error. Love him or hate him, the Speaker proved his political abilities by wrangling the vote for his own Speakership, albeit with a little assistance from the President-Elect. A Speaker’s greatest power is agenda setting, which in practical terms means controlling whether bills ever reach the floor for a vote, and in what order. A Speaker’s top job is ensuring his party’s priorities pass.

With Johnson elected, the way is now clear to certify Trump’s election victory on Monday, January 6th (Part II). The Democrats, lacking daily briefings on what is happening inside the Transition, are muted and show no sign of protest. President Trump has the Speaker he wanted and has shown he can control the Republican caucus.

At the risk of oversimplifying or minimizing the concerns of deficit hawks and Freedom Caucus allies, the three-round, one-ballot vote looks less like an actual challenge to Johnson’s authority and more like political theater, meant to allow reluctant Representatives to establish a record of resistance before getting down to business.

For his part, Johnson delivered a very encouraging acceptance speech you’ll enjoy. Near the beginning, Johnson said “In the coming months, we are going to pass legislation to roll back the totalitarian fourth branch of government known as the administrative state…we’re going to return the power back to the people.”

CLIP: Mike Johnson acceptance comments about drastically pruning the federal government (1:10).

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Biden, with about two weeks left, is trolling us. NBC ran a truly horrible story yesterday headlined, “Hillary Clinton, George Soros and others to receive Presidential Medal of Freedom.” Ugh, now I don’t want one. But the most common reaction to the news on the far-left platform BlueSky was “MAGA heads are going to explode.” In other words, even they can see how annoying and ugly it is.

But wait! There’s more. It got even more annoying. Technically, you can’t say Biden’s awards bonanza wasn’t bipartisan. Earlier this week, in a separate grab-bag of Presidential handouts, Biden awarded a “Citizens Medal” to, wait for it, Liz Cheney.

Wearing a purple dress, Cheney eagerly accepted Biden’s stupid medal “for putting the American people over party” — to extended applause, according to the New York Times. At least, BlueSky regulars loved it since it annoys conservatives.

But the good news is we’ll probably never hear from Liz again.

Nobody sane, especially President-Elect Trump, was pleased with Biden’s presidential generosity. President Trump blasted away on Truth Social, calling Biden’s medals “fake”:

If he’s awarding Soros and Clinton, why not give Karl Marx a Presidential medal, or Chairman Mao while he’s at it? Or Hitler, for providing so much rhetorical ammunition against Republicans. For that matter, given the totalitarian theme, I’m surprised Joe didn’t award himself a medal.

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Yesterday, we were hoping for narrative simplicity in the two New Year’s Day incidents. Sadly, we were disappointed. Instead, even more bizarre facts emerged sending both narratives spinning wildly into conspiracy land with new theories multiplying like amphetamine-addicted jackrabbits. We begin with yesterday’s understated Newsweek headline, “FBI leaving evidence behind at New Orleans attacker's home raises questions.” That’s putting it mildly. It was so bizarre that Twitter’s initial reaction was the New York Post video must be a hoax.

CLIP: New York Post reporter tours Bourdon Street killer’s house in Texas (2:13).

My personal favorite part of the ‘tour’ of Jabbar’s Houston home was the prominently placed —not staged— Quran open to a passage about martyrdom. My second favorite scene was Jabbar’s apparently undisturbed bomb-making workbench.

According to the New York Post, the visible passage was Verse 9:111, which discusses Muslims’ responsibility to murder Allah’s enemies while willing to die in exchange for eternity in paradise.

The Post’s “Killer House” tour —a first as far as I can remember— began with the camera focusing on the FBI’s search warrant, conveniently decorating the kitchen counter, as though left behind in case Jabbar returns from the dead and comes home.

Oddly, there were no signs of an FBI search. Apart from the front door having been forced open, nothing in the tour appeared tossed or even out of place.

The cops who searched Peanut the Squirrel’s house searching for contraband wildlife even took the toilet off its base. What exactly in Jabbar’s house did the FBI search? Why’d they leave so much evidence —like a motive-defining Quran or a bomb assembly station— behind? Why was the scene immediately cleared and opened to LuluLemon fanatic and New York Post reporter Jennie Taer?

The FBI’s handling of the Bourbon Street attack has been radically different from the Waukesha Terror Attack. On November 21, 2021, rap artist and domestic terrorist Darrell Brooks Jr. drove his SUV at high speed through the annual Christmas Parade in Waukesha, Wisconsin. Darrell murdered six people and injured 62 others. He was captured and in November, 2022, was sentenced to six consecutive life sentences without parole plus an additional 762.5 years.

I found no evidence the FBI ever held a single press conference about the Waukesha attack. The agency did not take over the investigation from local police. It never released any information about Brooks. And, it’s not just the FBI. Social media was filled with folks complaining about media ignoring the Waukesha terror attack and the killer’s colorful antics at trial.

If anything, the media invented a fake cover story that the killings were accidental, because Brooks was being pursued by police for a different crime. The police later testified that never happened; it was a complete media invention.

(Waukesha, by the way, is a solid example of a simplifying narrative.)

The coverage between the two stories could not be more different. On the day after the Waukesha attack, the New York Times ran its story on page A22:

Compare that treatment to the multiple, daily, front-page feature headlines for the very similar New Orleans attack. How can we innocently explain the media’s preoccupation with the Jabbar attack, when Waukesha was so uninteresting? And how to explain the media’s downright Islamophobic sprint to accept the FBI’s “certainty” it was an ISIS-inspired religious terrorism attack?

But wait, there’s more. A lot more.

🔥 The twin Las Vegas incident got even weirder yesterday, to the point of involving antigravity UFO technology, Hollywood, government surveillance, and more. I am not making any of that up.

First, the deceased Cybertruck driver, allegedly Green Beret Matt Livelsberger, had acting experience. The New York Post (and only the Post, oddly) covered the story under the headline, “MMA star Tim Kennedy who competed with Cybertruck bomber Matthew Livelsberger on ‘History Channel’ reality show speaks out over explosion.”

True, it was “only” the History Channel, and it was “only” a reality show, but still. I’d bet a camo-colored golf cart it was scripted. Matt and his partner won the competition.

The Post reported that Matt was “known to be a staunch supporter of President-elect Donald Trump,” a fact already rumored on social media. Matt’s partner from the 2013 competition, Tim Kennedy, posted yesterday the same thing everyone else who knew Matt said: he literally couldn’t believe it:

But that odd news paled in comparison to Matt’s “manifesto,” which also unexpectedly turned up yesterday. NBC ran its version of the widely-covered story headlined, “Soldier who died in Cybertruck left writing criticizing government, authorities say.”

In an emailed letter that the helpful, garrulous FBI volunteered was authentic, Matt wrote:

“We are the United States of America, the best country ... to ever exist, but right now, we are terminally ill and headed towards collapse. This was not a terrorist attack. It was a wake up call. Americans only pay attention to spectacles and violence. What better way to get my point across than a stunt with fireworks and explosives. ... I need to cleanse my mind of the brothers I’ve lost, and relieve myself of the burden of the lives I took.”

NBC’s story, and the rest of corporate media covering the letter, omitted how the letter started, with Matt ominously warning about Chinese antigravity (“gravitic propulsion”) drones, apparently referencing last month’s bizarre mystery-drone infestation in New Jersey.

“Only we and China have this technology,” Matt allegedly wrote, without explaining how he knew that. It hardly needs to be said, but conventional physics does not recognize gravitic propulsion, a subject more likely to be discussed at a UFO conference.

The FBI also claimed at a press conference yesterday, without evidence, that Matt was suffering from anxiety and stress, which describes about 70% of the U.S. population, especially the so-called AWFLs. But that “anxiety” led to various articles like in the BBC, headlined “Cybertruck explosion suspect suffered from PTSD, police say.”

As far as I can tell, the PTSD “diagnosis” is traced to a comment by a Las Vegas police spokesman who said Matt “likely suffered from PTSD,” which is a good guess, but it’s still just guessing.

The whole thing feels off, not just to me. There is so much official and unofficial confusion, all the officials are so unusually helpful and forthcoming, and the media is so peculiarly attentive, that it has made a lot of folks suspicious.

For example, Intellectual Dark Web influencer Bret Weinstein dismissively called it “Conspiracy Catnip:”

He’s not wrong. Keep an open and skeptical mind.

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Finally, in more great judicial news, the BBC ran a story Thursday headlined, “Court strikes down US net neutrality rules.”

In short, “net neutrality” is an Obama-era FCC proposal that would allow the federal government to censor the internet and social media platforms in the name of “fairness” and “neutrality.” It had just gotten off the ground when Trump took office, and he repealed it in 2018. In 2023, the Biden Administration breathed new life into the long-dead rules package, and it was poised to take effect last week when a federal appeals court tossed it out.

You’ll love the reason why.

The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals held that the FCC was abusing its authority by trying to extend antique telephone-era rules to wireless and home broadband services. Best of all, the Sixth Circuit cited the Supreme Court’s recent ruling overturning the so-called Chevron Doctrine, which means the courts are taking a broad view of the holding limiting agency authority.

That —the way the court curtailed the FCC’s authority— was especially encouraging. It suggests the courts are aligned with President Trump and with the Republicans in Congress, as Speaker Johnson explained in the video I linked above. All three branches are aimed at eviscerating the administrative state. It truly seems more likely than ever that Trump could actually achieve “draining the swamp,” and fulfill his original and most important promise.

Enjoy a wonderful weekend! C&C will be here ready to brief you on Monday morning with another warm and comforting roundup of essential news and commentary.

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