☕️ Coffee & Covid ☙ Friday, August 12, 2022 ☙ THE BIDEN RAID 🦠

A Biden Raid roundup; the CDC quietly sneaks massive changes into its covid guidance; DeSantis recruits quality teachers; and a Canadian lawsuit teaches us about covid experts.

Dear C&C, it’s Friday! Just like that, we’re back to school and almost halfway through August. Yesterday’s weather held a suggestion of coolness, like right after the rain stops, except it lasted all day. While summer isn’t nearly over, it’s end hove into sight yesterday.

Today’s blockbuster roundup includes: massive changes to CDC covid guidance snuck through the news cycle yesterday; a roundup of explosive Biden Raid news; Governor DeSantis recruits better teachers; and a Canadian lawsuit teaches us about covid experts.

🗞*COVID NEWS AND COMMENTARY* 🗞

🔥 In what looks a whole lot like the CDC taking advantage of the public’s focus on the Biden Raid, and just in time to allow a few months for people to calm down before the midterm elections, the United States’s “Gold Standard” public health agency effectively ended all of its most serious covid restrictions yesterday.

CDC @CDCgov

CDC is updating its guidance to help you better understand how best to protect yourself and others from #COVID19. Learn more: bit.ly/3bGvO6p.

NPR summarized the changes in a nifty infographic:

NPR @NPR

The update isn't a huge overhaul of the existing guidance, but it does represent an increasing focus on individuals making their own decisions about their level of risk and how they want to mitigate that risk, said Dr. Marcus Plescia, chief medical officer for the @ASTHO.

Not only that, but the CDC also ended “test to stay,” which means that students exposed to covid aren’t even recommended to take a test. So if your school district continues testing, they are “going against” the CDC, the gold standard. Get ready to hear all the screeching from some hysterical teachers and their unions threatening to quit.

There’s a lot to say about this. But maybe the most remarkable is NPR’s third bullet point: “Unvaccinated people now have the same guidance as vaccinated people.”

How about that.

Why? What changed? You better believe outraged reporters ran that one down. Rochelle Walensky couldn’t make it, apparently, so Greta Massetti, director of the CDC’s Field Epidemiology and Prevention Branch, answered the question at a press conference:

Natural infection! This may be the very first official recognition from the CDC that natural infection provides comparable protection to the jabs. It’s better, of course, but the CDC hasn’t even admitted this much until now.

But look closer at her statement. She said, “Both prior infection and vaccination confer SOME protection against severe illness.” SOME protection. “Some.”

In other words, they aren’t saying the jabs confer “good protection” anymore. Just “some.”

If I’d taken the jab last year based on the government’s assurances at that time, I’d be pretty hot about all this. It sure seems like people who took the jab got gypped. They believed the shots were VASTLY superior to natural infection — because the government said so. Not anymore, apparently.

Who’s going to restore the reputations of all the scientists who got booted from Facebook and Twitter for saying natural infection was just as good as the jabs?

Anyway, this change in recommendations is HUGE. All the local governments and private employers who treat their unvaccinated people differently now find themselves opposed to CDC guidance. In other words, employers don’t have cover from the CDC anymore. And since the feds are signaling they don’t want these restrictions interfering with the elections by reminding people of government overreach, employers better believe the EEOC will also not cover for them.

Let the lawsuits begin against employers who are still discriminating against unvaccinated workers! This is the day we’ve been waiting for.

Finally, in the same presser, Dr. Massetti also said that recommendations “such as the healthcare guidance, travel guidance, and guidance for congregate settings at high risk of transmission, will be updated by CDC in the coming week or so.”

So it looks like a certain unvaccinated tennis star may be able to play in the U.S. Open after all.

Covid-philes on Twitter were outraged by the CDC’s sudden betrayal! It’s not the Gold Standard anymore! They’re political hacks! This pandemic isn’t over! Everyone is immunocompromised since about ten minutes ago! Here are a few examples from posters having hundreds or thousands of followers:

Emma Crocker, DNP, RN @EmmaCrockerDNP

@NPR I truly hate this. As a nurse this puts me and my colleagues in so much danger. We are exhausted and y’all at the @CDCgov keep piling on. You are doing nothing to help the healthcare frontline workers. Absolutely nothing.

Liam. @lpferris

@CDCgov You’ve got to be kidding me. Right before school starts? The Fall semester is going to be a mess. Can we PLEASE fire @CDCDirector?

Cosmic Playtester @chaoticsequence

@CDCgov "CDC is updating its guidance after input from business interests and commercial landlords." Fixed it for you.

I don’t know quite what to say about these folks except I feel a profound sympathy for them; their brains were broken by military-level psyops during the pandemic.

🔥 The Biden Raid roundup.

The Swamp, quickly realizing its dreadful mistake, began to organize its pushback yesterday, which included an appearance by Merrick Garland, competing demands to release documents, selective leaks, and more precedent-shattering politics.

First, Liz Cheney is just mad as a hornet at all the anti-Raid outrage.

Rep. Liz Cheney @RepLizCheney

I have been ashamed to hear members of my party attacking the integrity of the FBI agents involved with the recent Mar-a-Lago search. These are sickening comments that put the lives of patriotic public servants at risk.

Okay Liz, calm down. Stay focused on your primary election next week.

Next, the Washington Post ran a story headlined, “FBI Searched Trump’s Home to Look for Nuclear Documents and Other Items, Sources Say.” The article explains an anonymous source (uh huh) said the federal agents were searching for NUCLEAR DOCUMENTS among other things:

Classified documents relating to nuclear weapons were among the items FBI agents sought in a search of former president Donald Trump’s Florida residence on Monday, according to people familiar with the investigation.

Nuclear documents? I guess that explains why they spent so long searching Melania’s clothes closet and asked for the Mar-a-Lago cameras to be turned off.

“Nuclear documents” sounds important but means nothing. Last month I described a Russian nuclear submarine and even included diagrams. I discuss nuclear weapons all the time here on C&C. All those posts are “related to” nuclear weapons but nobody cares. So it means nothing if they were seeking documents “relating to” nuclear weapons. It would be one thing if they claimed Trump had the only copy of the top secret plans to a next-generation hydrogen bomb that could fit in a double-scoop ice cream cone.

But THIS “leak” is meaningless, obviously intended to manufacture fake drama and a provide a patina of propriety. And my guess is even if the FBI suddenly produces all the top secret nuclear missile launch codes, claiming they were found rolled up in a Bill Clinton memorial cigar case in the back of Melania’s lingerie drawer, nobody would believe it anyway.

Think I’m joking? Remember the fake Russia dossier and its bizarre claims about President Trump paying prostitutes to urinate on him? The FBI swore the dossier was true in its affidavits supporting the FISA search warrants used to spy on Trump during the election. I don’t think the FBI has a lot of credibility left down at the bottom of the trust barrel. Why would anyone believe them now?

🔥 Under irresistible political and media pressure, Attorney General Garland popped out of his gopher hole and held an impromptu press conference on short notice yesterday.

I’m sorry, but Merrick Garland looks and sounds like an old woman. I mean no disrespect to old women by saying that. I’m just saying.

During the presser, he appeared feisty and combative, complained bitterly about unfair criticism of the FBI, admitted that HE PERSONALLY had approved the search, and promised to ask Epstein’s old lawyer to unseal the search warrant and the Raid inventory. Remember that part about the warrant.

Daily Wire @realDailyWire

AG Merrick Garland: "I will not stand by silently when their [FBI's] integrity is unfairly attacked... The men and women of the FBI and the Justice Department are dedicated, patriotic public servants."

Deranged Trump haters thought Garland’s performance was just terrific! He’s so angry! Trump is in for it!

Laura Bassett @LEBassett

Lol Garland just rolled in 35 minutes late, said "Yea, I did this myself, and you can see the warrant if you want" and then dropped the mic, took no questions and left. The swagger

Biden spokeslady Karine Jean-Pierre denied that Joe knew anything about Garland’s presser or the Raid; he’s just learning from the news like everybody else. He might not even be up from his nap time yet.

As I suggested he would, Trump immediately responded to Garland, upping the ante by demanding that HE wants ALL the documents IMMEDIATELY unsealed, even though they were drafted by Swamp Creatures.

It seems similar but there’s a Grand Canyon between what Garland said he would ask Magistrate Reinhart to unseal, and what Trump said HE wants made public. Let me explain.

As I told you yesterday, the process for obtaining a search warrant begins with a substantial affidavit prepared by law enforcement officers. The sworn affidavit describes all the evidence allegedly justifying “probable cause,” and is signed under oath by an investigator on the case. The affidavit is then presented to a judge who is required to accept its contents as true. Obviously the search’s target gets no chance to present competing evidence — they don’t even know it’s happening.

In this case, given the political stakes, it had to be a very substantial affidavit. I’d guess it was easily over a hundred pages long, including exhibits.

Once the judge reviews the affidavit and finds probable cause, the Court issues the search warrant, which sets out the LEGAL parameters for the search; what the agents are allowed to do or not do, take or not take, and so forth. Significantly, the search warrant generally does NOT recapitulate the probable cause predicate or recite any of the facts from the affidavit. It’s usually only a few pages long.

So between the two documents, the search warrant is the least interesting and least informative. The AFFIDAVIT is what you want to see. Garland didn’t mention the affidavit, only the search warrant. So despite the gleeful anticipation of the anti-Trump crowd, Garland’s offer will not result in anybody learning anything useful about the Biden Raid.

You almost never get to see it. The affidavit is the LAST thing that law enforcement usually turns over. They usually claim investigative privilege citing “sources and methods,” and want to wait until the entire investigation and any criminal charges are completely resolved before turning it over. But in the last case where I did get hold of the search warrant affidavit, after we saw what it said, and after we picked our jaws up from the floor, we immediately filed an emergency motion listing eight pages of incorrect facts or mischaracterized events.

For example, one complex set of events was described in seemingly random order, if you knew the actual dates when things happened. If you didn’t know the background, and read the affidavit carefully, it looked like it was intended to be a timeline. In that order — out of order — a crime looked likely to have been committed. But if you rewrote that section, putting the facts back in true chronological order, it then became crystal clear that NO crime had occurred.

In that case, law enforcement did not even bother to respond to my motion, but instead promptly agreed to return my clients’ seized property, which was what we were asking for in the first place.

So at best, the search warrant affidavit is a one-sided view of the facts, completely favoring law enforcement. But imagine the kind of things an unfairly biased investigator might sneak into an affidavit confident that nobody would ever see it except the judge, who doesn’t know anything about the case, and then it would be sealed up until it was far too late for anybody to do anything about it. The proverbial horse is out of the barn, down the field, and has visited Epstein’s island several times by then.

The two men are miles apart. Trump wants ALL documents, including the affidavit, to be released. Garland is only offering the useless search warrant. Draw your own conclusions.

🔥 By holding his presser, old lady Merrick Garland confirmed that HE is running the Trump investigation. This is perhaps the most insane and unbelievable part of the story, to date. The Attorney General is directly hired and fired by the President and is commonly understood to be working with him as a team. Everyone knows it; once Attorney General Eric Holder famously described himself as “President Obama’s wing man.”

Garland is a weird choice to run the investigation even if he wasn’t Biden’s Siamese twin. Think about it. Garland doesn’t have any law enforcement background. He was a judge, then he failed to get a Supreme Court nomination after Trump withdrew him from consideration. Then suddenly he was attorney general. Why on Earth would he be personally running the highest-profile case the FBI has ever had? Wouldn’t you want someone with decades of investigatory and law enforcement experience, not to mention unimpeachable nonpartisan credentials?

Garland is a hack.

If Biden’s hand-picked Attorney General is running the investigation, you might as well say Joe Biden is running the investigation. Biden ran against Trump in the last election and will probably run against him in the next one. Biden and Garland are hopelessly biased and legally conflicted. No one is going to trust anything they say about the case, nor should anyone trust them.

Given all that, why didn’t they appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Trump? If you want even more evidence the Biden Administration is its own little Banana Republic, look no further than this example. Real governments don’t let political operatives investigate their opponents.

I don’t think this is going to end well for Garland. The Biden Raid: Attorney Generals check in, but they can’t check out.

🔥 Governor DeSantis, who has been a quiet little mouse for several days following the Raid, announced a nifty new program yesterday to recruit veterans to teach kids in Florida schools.

Ron DeSantis @GovRonDeSantis

In Florida, we believe veterans have a wealth of knowledge and experience they can bring to the classroom, so we created a new program to help veterans become teachers. We stand by our veterans and want them in our classrooms.

After the examples we’ve seen on social media over the last couple years, I think we can all agree that there is room for improvement in the quality levels of some grade-school teachers. The quality of teachers in our schools is a fundamental problem, and the new program shows the Governor is taking the long view and leading again.

Note: It’s an easy target, but I’m NOT going to criticize DeSantis for staying out of the Biden Raid story for now. I’ll write more about this soon.

🔥 There’s an interesting lawsuit unfolding in Canada right now over that country’s draconian travel restrictions, and what is most fascinating is that they’ve finally gotten well into discovery. It may be the first major covid case to take depositions of high-ranking public officials and their cherry-picked experts, and it is starting to look JUST like what we always expected it would look like. I want to show you one recent example, because it reinforces what we’ve known about so-called covid “experts.”

The excerpt from a deposition transcript below is of Dr. M. Hodge, an “expert” the Canadian government principally relied on to pass its unprecedented travel mandates. Dr. Hodge holds a PhD in Epidemiology and Biostatistics. In the excerpt below, the lawyer asks Hodge what studies or reports he relied on to craft his recommendation to ban unvaccinated Canadians from traveling.

Let me sum up Dr. Hodge’s testimony.

1) He said he didn’t use any reports or studies to craft his recommendation.

2) He admitted he did not even bother to ask if there were any studies or reports that he could use.

3) Over a year later, he’s still never found out if there even were any studies or reports that would have supported his recommendation, but he HOPES that those kinds of studies and reports exist.

That’s a professional expert for you. That one man, Dr. Hodge, probably caused more human misery than any single person in Canada’s entire history, and it was just because he felt like it. Then the government put the whole weight of official state violence behind this genius’s deranged opinion.

Over the last two years, I’ve written several long-form essays about experts. I am an expert in experts, as all litigating lawyers must be. We use experts ALL THE TIME, in any case where a scientific, medical, or professional opinion is needed as evidence in the case. There are always at least TWO experts. They say what they are paid to say. And they always say the exact opposite things.

During covid, all the government did was squelch the opposing experts and declare that that science was settled. People like Hodge should have to answer for what they’ve done.

This is how we will get to the bottom of the pandemic. The time of reckoning will come. It comes slowly, in fits and starts, but it is irresistible. Each deposition is a brick that is used to build the foundation for the next level of lawsuits with their own depositions, et cetera, ad infinitum.

Have a fabulous Friday, and I’ll update you in the morning tomorrow with the weekend edition.

C&C is moving the needle and changing minds. If you can, I could use your help getting the truth out and spreading optimism and hope: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/-learn-how-to-get-involved-

Twitter: @jchilders98
Truth Social: @jchilders98
MeWe: mewe.com/i/coffee_and_covid.
C&C Swag! www.shopcoffeeandcovid.com
Emailed Daily Newsletter: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com