Happy Hump Day, C&C! We are still waiting on the Supreme Court, which is being its usual inscrutable self, but there are some rumblings. Our grab-bag roundup today includes Narrative 2.0 news, DeSantis gives a State of the State speech, gain of function news, and more.

🗞 *THE C&C ARMY POST* 🗞

🪖 The Mandate Watch continues, with eyes on the Supreme Court waiting for news. So far nothing. Well, not exactly NOTHING. I have no direct information about when the decision is coming, but I got a hint yesterday. The clerk of the Supreme Court called our office yesterday afternoon and asked us to make a very fine procedural correction to the title page of our Amicus brief. It had to do with how the case numbers in the caption of the front page were listed.

That was unusual. Normally, it takes a long time for feedback like that to come down. Normally, it would have been handled by other staff and normally by email. So this feels fast-tracked, which suggests SOMETHING is happening. It could be that one of the Justices is citing our brief. It could be that the Court is cleaning up the docket in preparation for the entry of a final order. But something. Stand by.

🪖 The First DCA responded yesterday in our Pisano emergency appeal and ordered Mayo Hospital to file its Answer brief by tomorrow morning responding to our arguments. Then I get one day to reply, after which — hopefully — the Court can quickly decide something. This is terrific news for Dan Pisano, still in a coma on the ventilator, and the Pisano family.

🗞*COVID NEWS AND COMMENTARY* 🗞

💉 Right on time schedule, this article from Bloomberg appeared yesterday, headlined “Repeat Booster Shots Spur Europe Warning on Immune-System Risks.” Shocking. It sounds a lot like Narrative 2.0, to me. Back in Narrative 1.0, it was expressly forbidden to publish news articles throwing shade on the injections. It was verboten.

The first sentence from the article says “European Union regulators warned that frequent Covid-19 booster shots could adversely affect the immune system and may not be feasible.”

Adversely, means “bad,” I think. And “not feasible” is a fancy way of saying it won’t work.

According to Bloomberg, Marco Cavaleri, the European head of biological health threats and vaccines strategy said boosters “can be done once, or maybe twice, but it’s not something that we can think should be repeated constantly.”

I know, I know. Independent scientists have been saying this for a long time. But now it’s okay to talk about. That’s the shift.

🔥 Yesterday, the House Judiciary and Oversight Committee sent a prickly letter to DHS Secretary Xaiver Becerra asking for some answers. It seems that the Committee has reviewed a bunch of emails obtained from NIH, and the emails show that Fauci, Collins, and others talked a LOT in March 2020 about whether the Coronavirus might have come from the Wuhan lab. They discussed it in great detail, seeming pretty convinced, even analyzing the genome and pointing out viral characteristics that look clearly artificial.

Here’s a link to the letter, which includes very interesting attachments, like emails that haven’t been public before: https://tinyurl.com/yckmme48.

In the emails, Collins and Fauci also spent a lot of time talking about how to SQUASH the very same lab-leak theory in the media. That seems weird. I mean, if THEY were thinking it could be a lab leaked virus, why prevent the public from thinking it could be a lab leaked virus? It almost seems like they were trying to hide something. But these dedicated public servants surely have nothing to hide … Right? … Hello?

🔥 In more gain-of-function research news, Project Veritas released a new series yesterday. It exposes top-secret documents obtained from DARPA — the Department of Defense’s research outfit — documents describing a 2018 “Project Defuse” pitched by none other than EcoHealth Alliance, and which was a grant proposal to genetically engineer some bat coronaviruses to make them more dangerous. In other words, gain of function research.

According to the documents, DARPA rejected EcoHealth’s proposal, saying that, while the technology was feasible, the project was too dangerous. But guess what? It wasn’t too dangerous for the NIH/NIAID — Fauci’s department — which picked the project up and funded it. So.

Recently, Fauci testified to Congress that it the EcoHealth project was NOT gain of function research — even though that is the exact reason DARPA rejected it.

The documents are alleged to have been provided by a whistleblower with access to a top-secret share drive at DARPA. Another document from the drive says this about two commonly-discussed therapeutics for Covid:

> “Ivermectin (identified as curative in April 2020) works throughout all phases of illness because it both inhibits viral replication and modulates the immune response. Of note, chloroquine phosphate (Hydroxychloroquine, identified April 2020 as curative) is identified in the proposal as a SARSr-CoV inhibitor, as is interferon (identified May 2020 curative).”

Can you believe DARPA was endorsing a horse dewormer?? Sure, it was just secretly. But still.

🦸‍♂️ Governor DeSantis gave his “State of the State” speech yesterday — at the appropriate time of the year for a “state of” speech, I might add. The speech began with the Governor saying, “Together we have made Florida the freest state in these United States.”

Fact-check: true.

DeSantis’ speech, which included a long-list of great-sounding legislative proposals, could be summarized by this excerpt from the beginning:

> “Florida is a free state. We reject the biomedical security state that curtails liberty, ruins livelihoods and divides society. And we will protect the rights of individuals to live their lives free from the yolk of restrictions and mandates.”

Don’t you wish all governors talked that way?

You can watch or read the full text of Gov. DeSantis’ State of the State speech here: https://tinyurl.com/8c3dufnt.

🧑‍⚕️ USA Today reported that 25% of hospitals all across the US are now — for some reason — facing “critical STAFFING SHORTAGES.” Gosh. I wonder what could cause a uniformly nationwide staffing crisis? It would have to be something that affected them all the same way. Like a national standard, or directive, or mandate or something.

The experts are baffled. It’s a mystery.

🧪 Thanks, ObamaCare. Biden is fixing TEST SHORTAGES! Starting Saturday, private health insurers will now be required to reimburse up to eight home Covid tests per month for insureds. Isn’t it great how the federal government now has total control of what insurance companies cover and what they don’t cover? Doesn’t that make you feel all warm and fuzzy?

You see, it’s called “central planning,” where super-smart bureaucrats who have your best interest in mind plan everything in the economy without running it by you first, because why should they? What do you know about your own best interest?

Anyway, if the reason people were standing in line for hours at test centers was to get free tests, because they didn’t want to pay for their own tests, this might help alleviate the burden. But if the problem is too FEW tests, because Biden has wrecked the supply chain, and the stores can’t fill the shelves, this isn’t going to move the needle.

In other words, Biden can order insurers to pay for tests, and claim some kind of political victory, but if there is a SUPPLY SHORTAGE, and people can’t even get the free home tests, then who cares? It actually doesn’t help anything.

Isn’t it awesome how in one year we went from having the best economy in history to having store shelves that best resemble 1970’s Soviet Union store shelves?

💉 On Monday, Pfizer’s CEO, Albert Bourla, told investor media that “Two doses of the vaccine offers very limited protection, if any. Three doses with a booster offer reasonable protection against hospitalization and deaths. Less protection against infection.”

He was peddling fourth boosters, of course. But it’s a weird way to sell a product, isn’t it? I mean, he’s saying, our vaccines don’t work, but if you take enough of them, it works “reasonably” well. Not super compelling.

🔥 Iowa’s State Labor Commissioner Rod Roberts said on Friday that the state will not enforce the federal vaccine mandate, even if the Supreme Court upholds it.

“Iowa doesn’t have a standard requiring the Covid-19 vaccine or testing,” Roberts said. “But after closely reviewing the federal OSHA Vaccine Mandate, Iowa has determined it will not adopt the federal standard. Iowa has concluded that it is not necessary because Iowa’s existing standards are at least as effective as the federal standard change.”

Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds promptly issued a statement agreeing with Roberts.

“The Biden Administration continues to ignore the constitutional rights afforded to all Americans, which our country was built on,” Reynolds said. “Instead, they’d rather dictate health care decisions and eliminate personal choice, causing our businesses and employees to suffer and exacerbating our WORKFORCE SHORTAGE.”

Seems reasonable.

Have a wonderful Wednesday, and I’ll see you back here tomorrow.

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