The Alligator News Roundup

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The Alligator News Roundup

Don’t start your weekend without this upbeat and encouraging review of selected headlines!

Number Five. The Gateway Pundit. Excess mortality just got even worse.

Well, okay, maybe this one is not so encouraging after all.

Mortality is never a fun thing to talk about, and especially when it involves children. But we all know that death is a fact of life, and over a long period of time and large populations, data researchers can make pretty good guesses as to what we can expect.

If we expect a thousand people to die during a year, and only 800 people die, then we have beat the odds, and there is usually some explanation: Better nutrition, new medicines, warmer weather, fewer catastrophes than last year, the absence of war, whatever.

If, on the other hand, more people die than we expected, then we look for causes, which might be the opposite of those just named.

Except that sometimes we do NOT look for the causes.

That activity of avoiding looking for the causes is itself caused by something, which probably should be investigated. If there is no investigation, some might ask, “Why not?”

Take child mortality rates in the United Kingdom. In 2020 and 2021, death rates were 7 to 9 percent lower than expected. That was good news and, while measurable, was hardly worth investigating.

However, in a striking shift, 2022 saw a 16% increase in excess deaths, and a projected 22% increase is anticipated for 2023.

One might suggest that a negative 9% followed by a positive 16% nets out to about a 7% increase across the two years. And that would probably not be significant, if not for the expected 22% gain the following year.

More children are dying than would normally be expected in the UK. A lot more.

Why?

One researcher has introduced the concept of the correlation coefficient, which measures the strength of the relationship between two variables. A measure of zero indicates no relationship; minus 1.0 indicates a perfectly opposite relationship (as in, 11-year-old boys who are also astronauts), while a plus 1.0 indicates a perfectly positive relationship (as in, cows which can potentially be made into hamburger).

In this case, the two variables were deaths of the children and the COVID-19 vaccine rollout.

The correlation coefficient in the study group was .94. In layman’s terms, that means there is a 94% probability that the death was related to the vaccine.

Now, before you get your shorts in a wad, consider what this does NOT mean. It does NOT mean that there is a 94% chance a child will die if vaccinated; rather, it means that if a child dies, there is a 94% chance that the child had been vaccinated. This is not the same as saying that the vaccine killed the child.

If, for example, child vaccines were only administered in a radioactively toxic clinic, the cause of the death might be radiation poisoning rather than the vaccine. Correlation does not indicate causation.

Which means the cause of the deaths remains an open question, and a 22% increase merits serious investigation.

On the other hand, it may only mean that virtually every child in the UK was vaccinated. So, is that true? That would seem a question worth asking.

According to this article, the 22% figure is a projection, not a fact. But if it proves accurate, we would expect a fairly huge government initiative to find out why.

And if there is not such an investigation, we would expect a fairly huge government initiative to find out why not.

Ironically (some would say diabolically) the COVID-19 affliction itself is hardly any risk to children at all. It is only the vaccine that is in question.

And, according to these statistics out of the UK, it is a real question.

Number Four. American Greatness. Head of American Library Association says libraries need to be sites of Socialist organizing.

As mentioned in these pages on August 11, the American Library Association is now headed by a Marxist lesbian who has been quite outspoken about both her self-proclaimed identity (as though anyone cares) and her politics (which, given her position and influence, is slightly more interesting).

Emily Drabinski is at it again, this time making, at the Socialism 2023 conference in Chicago, what some might see as controversial remarks. Others might see the remarks as completely antithetical to American values and offensive to freedom-loving people everywhere.

Ms. Drabinski advocates for public schools and libraries to become "sites of socialist organizing." Drabinski had initially been scheduled as a featured speaker at the conference but was quietly removed from the event following media attention on her Marxist beliefs.

Somebody must be reading The Alligator Blog.

The Socialism 2023 conference featured various far-left speakers, including Bill Ayers (Weather Underground, confidant of Barack Obama) and Angela Davis (Communist Party USA, Lenin Peace Prize), and covered topics such as "Kids as Comrades," "Police Abolition," and "Fighting Fascism."

There is also an intriguing topic called “Resisting Carceral Sanism.” I’m not sure what that means, but I suspect it refers to locking people up because of their skin color, and it sounds like the session will say it should be resisted. Can’t argue with that, but there is a question of the major premise.

Drabinski attended the conference and participated in a panel discussing how to introduce socialist ideas, like Critical Race Theory, into classrooms despite legal restrictions.

During the panel, Drabinski acknowledged the important role of public education and libraries in socialist organizing. She stressed the importance of connecting with the public education system and called for libraries to be on the agenda of socialist organizing efforts.

In plain language, this means she endorses socialism (which is a kinder word than Marxism, or Communism) being taught favorably in your local public school. I actually would not be opposed to giving a higher profile to Communist ideology in public school, such as an honest discussion of imposed poverty, oppression of free speech and violent death that are the hallmarks of that ideology.

The previous century boasts a body count of about 100 million people worldwide attributed to Communism and its cousin Fascism.

Drabinski has also faced criticism for her hostility toward Christianity and traditional family structures.

Really? Who would have thought?

Somebody voted for this woman to be head of the American Library Association.

If you find yourself tempted to say, “That makes no sense!” I would encourage you to examine your outrage. If, looking through your filter, you cannot understand someone’s position, you may need a different filter.

Depending on one’s perspective, voting for Emily Drabinski to set library policy for public schools in the U.S. might make perfect sense.

Number Three. Just the News dot com. Guilty pleas secured in election-related cases.

There! We are finally making progress in bringing the guilty to justice. Or at least in imposing sentences upon those who are willing to admit they are guilty of something.

We don’t use torture in this country to extract confessions. It’s probably far more effective to lodge an outlandish legal accusation and then let the sweating defendant plea it down to one that is not as harsh.

And the headline will still shout: “Guilty pleas secured in election-related cases!”

The U.S. Department of Justice, headed by that bastion of virtue Merrick Garland — the same Merrick Garland who, in a violation of DOJ rules appointed Delaware U.S. Attorney David Weiss to oversee the investigation of Donald Trump after the same Delaware U.S. Attorney David Weiss had botched the investigation of Hunter Biden — has now successfully obtained guilty pleas from at least three defendants in charges stemming from the defendants’ criticism of the outcome of the 2020 presidential election.

In each case, per DOJ statements, the three guilty parties pled guilty to (1) posting an online threat, (2) sending a threatening communication, and (3) sending a threatening communication.

Threatening communications are not taken lightly by this Department of Justice, which, incidentally, gets to decide what is a communication and what is a threat.

Whether there was any investigation of the actions of the election officials in Georgia and Arizona which prompted the threats is not clear. I have my guess.

If my car is stolen and driven into a tree, and I think you did it, and I say, “I had better not find out you stole my car and crashed it into a tree!” my comment may actually be seen as a threat. And it rightfully would be.

And also, because two things can be true at the same time, maybe you really did steal my car and introduce it to the tree.

Is anyone looking at that?

No, of course not. We have our guilty pleas. Let’s move on.

Number Two. Breitbart dot com. Joe Biden used alias to email Hunter about White House hire.

And while we are on politics, let’s stay with this a minute longer.

It’s getting so a Vice-President just has no privacy anymore.

When a close family member, say an adult son, wants to ask a perfectly legitimate favor of another close family member, say, his dad, who happens to be Vice President of the United States, the son may have to resort to sending an email to an address the Veep set up under a fictitious name. Such as, in this case, the single email sent to the fictitious Robin Ware.

(This is in distinction from the other 5,000 emails sent between Hunter Biden and “Robin Ware,” or “Robert Peters,” or “JRB Ware,” all of whom were actually the real Joe Biden while the real Joe Biden was the real Vice President.)

The only reason the VP would do this would be to keep prying journalists from prying into private family communications. Such as communications about asking Dad to appoint a Deputy White House Counsel to an open position in the Treasury Department.

Sounds perfectly personal. Nothing involving government here.

The favor Hunter asked Dad about (which was discovered on the now-infamous laptop from Hell) was that Dad appoint one John McGrail to a career position in the U.S. Department of the Treasury.

And who is John McGrail, anyway? Linkedin says there is someone by that name currently Counselor to the Under Secretary for Domestic Finance at the U.S Department of the Treasury.

According to the public bio today, he has been at Treasury for 6 years 9 months. That would put him joining Treasury in very early 2017, coincidentally about the same time the Obama/Biden administration left office.

Prior to that, this John McGrail was Counsel to the Vice President from 2014 to 2017. Which happens to be the time when Joe Biden was that very Vice President.

Which means that John McGrail worked for Joe Biden, and Hunter asked Joe to appoint John to the Treasury Department job before Joe left office, and John ended up with the Treasury Department job when Joe left office. Seems like that one’s not too hard to follow.

I’m sure it’s perfectly reasonable that Hunter would ask Joe to appoint John to a permanent Treasury Department position, seeing that the new Vice President elected in 2016 might not keep his predecessor’s attorney employed.

And it’s also perfectly reasonable that Hunter would send such a request to a fake email name which Joe was using. Although one might wonder why.

I have been patiently waiting for follow-up investigative journalism to ask questions like, What was the business relationship between Hunter and John during the time when Joe was Vice President?

Which, coincidentally, was during that time when Joe made a dozen official trips to Ukraine, with Hunter on Air Force 2, and when Hunter sat on the board of Burisma, the Ukrainian oil firm, at a salary of $83,000 per month, and during the time when the Ukrainian investigator was probing corruption at Burisma, and during the time when Joe demanded that investigator be fired in exchange for $1 billion of U.S. taxpayer aid to Ukraine.

Was John McGrail on Air Force 2 during those trips? There is probably a flight manifest somewhere. He was Counselor to the Vice President, after all, and if Joe needed legal advice about making Ukraine fire their lead investigator, did he ask John?

And, seeing that John was an attorney and was closely allied to Joe, is it possible that John was also consulting with Hunter about Hunter’s business while John was on the government payroll? Surely not!

Where are Woodward and Bernstein when you really need them?

Number One. Redstate dot com. Former state senator transformed COVID relief funds into Porsches and Ferraris. Opinion piece.

And now, back to good old local corruption without so many darned questions.

This state government thing is probably the way to go. I am beginning to suspect I am wasting my time with this keyboard; I should get myself into state elective office.

A casino owner in New Hampshire is a former state senator, while his wife is a current state representative from the “Live Free or Die” place.

This piece brings a whole new meaning to living for free.

When the U.S. Congress approved $5 trillion in direct payments for COVID relief (what???) the money was made available to distressed individual citizens who couldn’t go to work, and to distressed business owners who couldn’t stay open.

The difference is the citizens were sent checks (or not, depending on some arcane means testing), whereas the business owners had to make application for it.

Lest you think the individual money offered an opportunity to milk the system and the business application came under heavy scrutiny, no.

The individuals had no real chance to game the system; they either got a check (or checks) or they didn’t. The amounts were fixed.

The business people had the opportunity to submit an application. In the case of former Republican State Senator Andy Sanborn, he made such an application for his casino business.

Trouble was, casinos were explicitly excluded from receiving COVID relief funds (thanks to some meddlesome, narrow-minded Puritanical federal legislative bill-writing committee), but not to worry. When Senator Sanborn filled out the application for the sorely needed funds to keep his business in business, he made a simple clerical error in neglecting to provide the name of the business.

He called it simply “miscellaneous services.”

This should have drawn the attention of whomever reviewed the application. But apparently there was not anyone who reviewed the application. In the interests of time, it was simply approved.

Hey, this crisis was so bad and so deadly and so urgent that we just had to get the money to the people who needed it. And if “miscellaneous services, inc” needed the money, well, by gum, we were going to send it to them.

And need it Senator Sanborn did. Porsche sports cars don’t grow on trees; the two that he purchased with the COVID relief money cost $181,000. And the Ferrari that his wife the Representative required was another $80,000.

I’ll bet she was the envy of those chumps in the New Hampshire House who hadn’t thought of it. But more than likely, she was merely a quiet, innocent, stay-at-home Christian mom (who drives a Ferrari) who was cajoled into running for office by grassroots Republican soccer-mom supporters in order to restore decency and honor to state government.

Or so the statement will read when the depositions are filed.

And on that note, you may enter the weekend with a renewed sense of confidence in our government leaders at every level. Not to mention a renewed interest in what it would take to get elected to a state representative gig like that.

Good weekend!

Curt