☕️ Coffee & Covid ☙ Tuesday, April 26, 2022 ☙ FREE BIRD 🦠

Twitter explodes as Musk’s offer to take the company private was accepted; Disney unwittingly helps DeSantis break fundraising records; DeSantis signs a new elections-integrity law; and lots more.

Good morning, C&C family! It’s Tuesday, and I have to say, it’s great to be back on my normal post-pandemic schedule. We’re such creatures of habit, aren’t we? Yesterday’s news was OFF THE CHAIN, we have a great roundup: Twitter explodes as Elon Musk’s offer to take the company private was accepted; Disney unwittingly helps DeSantis break fundraising records; DeSantis signs a new elections-integrity law; ivermectin news; Arizona passes a slew of pro-freedom laws; Beto tests positive; Hochul polls below Biden; Walgreen’s covid data shows a surprising development; and a new Florida covid data report.

🗞 *THE C&C ARMY POST* 🗞

🪖 Operation Multiplier Updates: I’m working on getting some updates from our multiplier operation yesterday. Stand by. If you are just tuning it, donate any affordable amount, however small, ending in a ‘2’, here: https://secure.anedot.com/health-freedom-defense-fund-hfdf/donate.

🪖 Freedom Music! Over the tour I learned about a new genre of music that is bubbling up — Freedom Music. Independent singers and songwriters who’re as fed up as the rest of us are using their talents to promote values of freedom and justice for all, but — imagine this — are being ignored or even shadow-banned by traditional music outlets. One remarkable example is singer/songwriter Jierra, who performed on the “Save a Generation” tour Sunday.

This new music movement, completely contrary to the traditional establishment music industry, is a surprising and encouraging development. New music to be excited about seems pretty rare these days, but this movement is cool. I had a chance to chat with the artist backstage, and she explained the traditional music industry is even grosser than Hollywood, in just about every way you can possibly imagine. It’s horrible.

To listen to or support Jierra, have a glance at her artist page: amap.to/jierra

🗞*COVID NEWS AND COMMENTARY* 🗞

🔥🔥🔥 Shocking most reporters who thought Musk’s offer to buy Twitter would be undermined or torpedoed or regulated into oblivion, the board of directors accepted Musk’s offer yesterday and, apart from some unlikely contingencies, Musk will become the new owner of the platform. Following the announcement, things on Twitter immediately started changing and the platform LIT UP.

The first change was news that the company had locked its software code down, so that disgruntled employees couldn’t sabotage anything by making stealth changes to the algorithms. Then throughout the afternoon, existing conservative users began to report their follower numbers jumping. Even though I’m just a small bird in the Twitter forest, mine increased by 10% within a few hours. Apparently Twitter had been suppressing the growth of my account; and if they’d flagged MY little account, it must have been extremely widespread.

By this morning, Twitter was ON FIRE; a whole bunch of long-banned accounts were newly restored. I first noticed Dr. Robert Malone’s announcement, “I’m back!,” quickly followed by “Are we not spelling it 👁️verm%ktin anymore?” Tucker Carlson popped back into my feed, along with LibsOfTikTok, Michael Caine, and lots of others.

(Update: the Malone account was an imposter. Hopefully the good doctor will be back soon.)

On the other side, lefty twitter celebrities like David Hogg were reporting LOSING followers, which I’m guessing represents the ending of Twitter’s artificial promotion of those accounts with bots or fake followers. Other leftwing users were rage-quitting twitter, posting lengthy uncensored jeremiads about losing their free speech, if you can believe that. Conservatives started having a field day tweeting things that would’ve gotten them perma-banned the day before, like “vaccines cause many side effects including death,” and “J6 was not an insurrection.”

Folks, this is more pandemic blessings. Musk’s companies were shut down in California during the early pandemic, even though Tesla met the official state definition of an “essential service,” since it was an energy-related company. After an ugly spat with county officials, Musk moved his companies to Texas during the Great Migration last year. So, he knows how insane and wrong-headed the government covid overreach was.

Covid “misinformation” became the excuse for Twitter to crack down on speech on the platform. First, it was the posts and writers who questioned the “official” Covid narrative. Then it was vaccine information, particularly anything questioning whether the jabs were 100% safe and effective. Those government-approved filters then metastasized into political censorship, banning discussion of issues like Hunter Biden’s laptop or whether Lia Thomas was really a man, with those topics joining the ever-expanding definition of banned “misinformation.”

Unsurprisingly, Twitter’s stock lagged over the last year, which gave Musk an opening to buy the company at a significant discount. One of my good friends who runs an investment fund thinks the social media company was undervalued, pegging a fair market price for Twitter at $59 dollars per share (Musk bought at $54.20), and even up to $70 per share for a control premium.

Within hours of the announcement yesterday, Jen Psaki took the podium fretting darkly about threats to free speech on social media, concentration of social media power, and misinformation. She explained, “I’m not going comment on a specific transaction…[T]he President…has long argued that tech platforms must be held accountable for the harms they cause.”

Get ready.

Government regulation IS a potential problem for Twitter, but the government can’t regulate Twitter speech without also regulating Facebook, which remains a reliable government-controlled platform. So. We’ll see.

🔥 The Tampa Bay Times published a surprising article yesterday headlined, “Ron DeSantis’ Fight With Disney Helped Him Break Fundraising Records.” The left-leaning paper explained that the Governor has raised about $105 million dollars through the end of March, largely in small donations. That amount sets a record in Florida politics, not least of all for someone like DeSantis, who is not personally wealthy and is unable to self-fund.

With more than seven months left, DeSantis has already raised more than double his 2018 total. The three democrats running against DeSantis have only raised a combined $16 million, which more than anything highlights a certain lack of enthusiasm on the democrat side.

Tallahassee lobbyist and DeSantis fundraiser Nick Iarossi credited the Governor’s covid policies for turning him into a national foil against “lockdown” states and Joe Biden’s Administration. “Whether it’s $10 or larger, people want to be part of the campaign,” he explained. “A lot of times governors are really relatively unknown outside their state … [DeSantis’] name ID nationally is very high.”

Although you’d never have expected a Florida politician to take on Disney and survive, much less set fundraising records, that is exactly what happened. Thanks, Disney!

🔥 Speaking of Governor DeSantis, he signed a major election-integrity bill yesterday that creates a special new elections police force, criminalizes Zuckerbucks and ballot harvesting, and requires election supervisors to update voter lists more frequently.

Ron DeSantis @GovRonDeSantis

It’s been a bad week for Florida democrats. Earlier this week in a special session, Republicans passed a bill removing Disney’s special tax district and approving new electoral maps that increase republican seats. Widely-shared videos show democrat lawmakers protesting the bill by screaming incoherently and falling on the chamber floor in Tallahassee.

Owain Glyndwr😉 @OwainG2020

Listen to the Democrats screaming in the background to Cut Disney Tax privileges and the law making freedom Disney has, A massive blow to Disney time to pay up

💉 Hipster triple-jabbed Texas democrat and gubernatorial candidate Beto O’Rourke has tested positive for symptomatic covid. But it probably would’ve been worse without all that mRNA spike protein.

Beto O'Rourke @BetoORourke

In addition to being fully vaccinated and boosted, I regularly test for COVID-19 while traveling the state for town hall meetings. I tested negative yesterday morning before testing positive today. I have mild symptoms and will be following public health guidelines.

💊 Ivermectin can now be purchased over the counter without a prescription in Tennessee, after Governor Bill Lee signed a new bill into law.

🔥 Arizona Governor Doug Ducey signed bills banning local governments from requiring covid vaccines, preventing schools from mandating masks, and designating churches as “essential services” that are “vital to the health and welfare of the public” during any future emergencies. So.

🔥 New York’s replacement governor, Kathy Hochul, is apparently mired in low approval ratings. Fox 5 NY reported the story in an article headlined, “Governor Kathy Hochul’s job performance rating plunges – per new Siena poll.” The poll results show Hochul’s job performance rating is at a historic low of only 36%, just above the minimum hardcore ideological group that will approve anything at all.

💉 Walgreen’s most recent covid-19 report shows that, among its customers, the unvaccinated are now far less likely to test positive for a covid infection.

[image:20661828-7BFF-4EE3-85FE-F6D9700B427C-15548-000085EA357044A2/F03E1A87-9D0A-4388-B87E-D47C01E281CF.png]

Unvaxxed — 10%

1 Dose — 16.1%

2 Doses — 35.4%

3 Doses — 41.3%

Walgreen’s data also shows that unvaccinated folks test MORE OFTEN than anyone other group, presumably due to workplace testing requirements.

Even more interesting, those who’d had 3 doses were the MOST likely to test positive (41.3% of all positive tests). It’s almost like the vaccines are working in reverse, or like there’s something wrong with the immune systems of the most highly jabbed folks. So weird. It’s the opposite of herd immunity.

Wim @Wim04789402

@jeffreyatucker Interesting

📊 *COVID IN FLORIDA AND ALACHUA COUNTY* 📊

Florida published a new biweekly covid report. I’m embarrassed to say I somehow missed a cycle. Anyway, it shows the expected seasonal increase in cases as we move into the spring wave. But note the chart shows that deaths and hospitalizations remain low. So the new definitions are working!

Have a terrific Tuesday! I’ll see you guys back here tomorrow, there’s LOTS more news.

You can help get the truth out and spread optimism and hope: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/-learn-how-to-get-involved-

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