☕️ BIRD CHIGGERS ☙ Monday, March 16, 2026 ☙ C&C NEWS 🦠

NYT sort-of admits covid vaccine injuries are real after leaked ACIP report; Tucker claims CIA is after him; NYC has one very odd monkeypox case, and health experts push vaccines; more.

Good morning, C&C, it’s Monday! It’s Spring Break for the Childers family, and we are engaged in the time-honored American tradition of the road trip. Believe it or not, I am highway-blogging this morning, and if you think that sounds easy, you should try it sometime. Your truncated roundup includes: a leaked ACIP report the Times didn’t want you to read; Tucker Carlson says the CIA read his texts; and NYC’s first case of a virus formerly known as something they’d rather you forget.

🌍🇺🇸 ESSENTIAL NEWS AND COMMENTARY 🇺🇸🌍

On Saturday, the New York Times published a story headlined, “Confidential Report Calls for Sweeping Changes to Track Covid Vaccine Harms.” After spending five years publishing story after story explaining that concerns about covid vaccine injuries were dangerous misinformation, anti-science hysteria, and a threat to public health— it has now platformed the federal government’s own advisory committee saying: actually, the injuries are real, there’s no system to track them properly, there’s no diagnostic code to document them, there are no clinical guidelines to treat them, and the report was “written with a sense of urgency.”

The leaked report was written by the COVID-19 vaccine workgroup advising panel, ACIP— the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. The workgroup is currently chaired by MIT professor Retsef Levi, whose credentials don’t matter, since he doesn’t toe the line.

The leaked report criticized both the covid vaccine approval program and all the studies purporting to show that the jabs were safe, for two key reasons:

1. The “study periods” were constrained to a narrow window, starting 14 days after the first shot and ending at 60 days— only about a 45 day-span overall, which the report called the “acute period.”

2. No serious effort has ever been made by the agencies to study medium- and long-term vaccine injuries, which is why evidence remains thin.

The report next cited two Rasmussen studies, which each found large proportions of people who either claimed injuries from the shots or knew of at least one person who died from the shots. The clear point was that, even though traditional scientific groups refused to study post-acute injuries and deaths, the public noticed.

The surveys might not be proof —especially since the scientific establishment does not care what non-credentialed people think— but they are nevertheless evidence of the existence of injuries.

So the report gave these unstudied injuries a name: Post-Acute Covid-19 Vaccination Syndrome, or (since no federal program is taken seriously without an acronym), PACVS. Symptoms include things like severe fatigue, cognitive impairment, neuropathy, dysautonomia, chest pain, immune disturbances, and cardiovascular problems that continue at least twelve weeks after vaccination and are not explained by anything else.

It observed, correctly, that there is currently no ICD-10 diagnostic code for chronic post-vaccination illness. It’s not that the code is wrong— there is no code.

If your insurance company, your disability attorney, your doctor, or a research scientist needs to classify what happened to you, there is no box to check. The workgroup’s conclusion was stark: the appearance that injuries were “rare” is a surveillance artifact, not a clinical reality. The system isn’t finding these patients because it isn’t looking for them; it didn’t even bother to create a diagnosis code if they were found.

The ACIP is scheduled to meet this week on March 18th and 19th— if a federal lawsuit doesn’t block it first. The hearing is set for Wednesday.

💉 The report is 47 pages long and includes 169 footnoted sources. The Times dismissed the entire thing in six paragraphs. To its credit, the Times linked the full report, and here is the link. Read it for yourself.

This is the most important point: the report concluded with a set of recommendations designed not to cancel any vaccines, but to help jab-injured people, with diagnosis codes, new tests to help figure out what’s wrong with them, and a “center of excellence” for studying the problem and proposing solutions.

At this point, you might be wondering who could possibly be opposed to helping vaccine-injured people. Well, you’ve never met the New York Times. According to the Times and its pharma advertisers, not only is it forbidden to talk about jab injuries, you may not even try to help people who have them.

In covering the ACIP work group’s confidential report, the Times cherry-picked three outside ‘experts.’ In a miasma of “fairness and balance,” all three of the article’s ‘experts’ are openly hostile to the committee. You could fairly say they are enemies. First up was Dr. Sean O’Leary, quoted extensively, who leads the lawsuit to block ACIP from meeting at all, on anything. O’Leary is literally trying to shut down the ACIP.

Quoting O’Leary is like asking the Ayatollah to comment on the Pentagon’s Iran policy. Do you think the war is a good use of American resources, Supreme Leader?

Unsurprisingly, O’Leary nastily dismissed the leaked report and its 169 footnotes as “cherry‑picked” and “straight out of the anti‑vaccine handbook.” The Times’s next expert was a former ACIP member who had been fired by Secretary Kennedy. He sneered at the proposal to help jab-injured folks as a “strange side quest” that makes U.S. vaccine policy “increasingly incoherent.” Stay in your lane!

The Times’s third and final expert was a former CDC chief medical officer —a TDSer who resigned in protest last August— who scolded the panel for being “hyperfocused on finding only the negatives.” That’s pretty rich. At this point, what difference does it make?

The Grey Lady couldn’t find a single outside voice to quote in support of the report’s basic premise that jab injuries deserve ‘urgent’ attention, or that ACIP’s proposed new diagnostic category, coding changes, and requested research network are overdue reforms. Nor did any of the Times’ experts ever engage with the report’s actual recommendation: that jab-injured people need a little more help than they are currently getting, and a lot less gaslighting.

This isn’t how real journalism works. Real journalism rounds up all legitimate perspectives —even minority ones— and presents them in their best light so readers can make up their own minds. I’ll grant the Times credit for at least disclosing the three biased experts’ conflicts of interest. Oh, and one more thing, in a spirit of helpfulness— Dear Times: more typos (stray quotation mark after “it said”). Get yourself together, honey.

💉 For more on this developing story, read Maryanne Demasi’s excellent article on Brownstone.

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Next up is another remarkable “MAGA fractures” story exploding across social media this morning. Tucker Carlson is on the hot seat. The UK Independent ran the story, headlined “Tucker Carlson claims CIA is building foreign agent case against him.” For years, one persistent rumor swirling around Tucker has been that he is CIA (his father ran Voice of America)— now he’s claiming the CIA is after him. Life can be pretty weird.

I’d like to make something absolutely clear: I like Tucker. I like him a lot. There is a lot to like. His January 6th coverage got him fired from Fox. He was a pandemic hero. He reinvented himself as an independent journo in a quintessentially American fashion. He interviewed Russian President Putin when the rest of the media was pretending Putin had died from oil cancer or something. But, recently, he’s been on an anti-Israel tear. He bought a home in Qatar. He won’t call Hamas a terrorist group. All of which has made him a lightning rod.

As far as I can tell, Tucker often makes very intelligent points and asks some difficult questions, but sometimes lately he also sounds deranged.

On Saturday, Tucker —probably wisely— got ahead of the story. He posted an astonishing video claiming that the CIA was making a criminal referral against him. Tucker doesn’t know why yet, but he thinks the claim is that he violated the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), which Biden’s two-tiered DOJ often wielded against conservatives (but not against people like Hunter). On the other side, Tucker’s critics darkly hint at treason.

CLIP: Tucker Carlson pre-defends himself against as-yet unfiled criminal charges (5:21).

“The other day, I found out that the CIA is preparing some kind of criminal referral against me, a crime report to the Department of Justice on the basis of a supposed crime I committed,” Tucker began. “What’s that crime? Well, talking to people in Iran before the war. They read my texts.”

Tucker was cool and measured. He then made some strong general points about the perils of domestic spying. He generously defended law-abiding parts of the CIA, and allowed that things always get tense during wartime when US soldiers’ lives are on the line. He emphasized his love for America and his patriotism. He then compared his situation to President Trump’s —a la Russiagate— and suggested that we are all potentially in the clandestine crosshairs.

But his main point was that the CIA is unfairly targeting his reputation through leaks for criticizing the war in Iran.

🔥 So far, so good. But, watching his clip, I kept waiting for two things that never came. First, I think Tucker might’ve told us what was actually in the texts, and which Iranians he was communicating with. Were the texts harmless journalism? Was he just asking questions? Or was he sharing stuff with them? If so, what? Why? And, was he talking to random Iranians? Or top-level IRGC officials?

Second, being perfectly fair, Tucker’s situation is a little more nuanced than he lets on. He’s not just any random American or even an independent journalist. He was in the Oval Office with President Trump talking about the Iran war off-record, and on the same day, he was on his phone texting with Iranian officials. I feel pretty safe saying that’s a tiny demographic. I dunno; it feels a little different.

I could see why the CIA might want to have a look at those texts. And I could see how the CIA might’ve been spying on Iranians and incidentally picked up Tucker’s chatter, rather than targeting him specifically.

So I would have preferred that Tucker tackle those issues a little more directly.

🔥 As little as Tucker actually shared on his video, we know even less. But there’s a rumor swirling around Tucker-critical social media, a little dot-connecting, that I also wished Tucker had directly challenged. For example:

One of the enduring mysteries of Operation Epic Fury is how easily the Ayatollah and his top officials were targeted on the first day of the war. Indeed, Epic Fury’s opening salvo was a decapitation strike on Khamenei’s personal compound, killing the Supreme Leader and dozens of top regime figures, who had gathered for some kind of extremely unwise huddle or stand-up.

Commentators and former intel officers have openly described it as “one of the most amazing decapitation strikes” they’ve ever seen, precisely because Khamenei and many of Iran’s top officials were in the same place above ground in broad daylight, during Ramadan, when the strike hit. Multiple analyses and think-tank pieces framed it as a deliberate “strategic decapitation” objective baked into the war plan from the start.

Senior Iranian officials knew the clock had run out. They could see the U.S. naval buildup. They heard the threats. But for some perfectly inexplicable reason, they still acted like the opening hours would be more bluster, more maneuver, maybe a small symbolic strike— anything except “today is the day the walls come down on all of us.” Even though that’s pretty much what President Trump told them would happen.

The Iranians’ complacency is so weird and baffling. Publicly, President Trump gave Tehran “10 to 15 days” to reach a “meaningful” deal and warned that “very bad things” would happen otherwise. The 10-day window had just expired when the opening strikes hit. Even if they didn’t believe he’d actually do it, why not just wait it out in a bunker anyway? Just to be on the safe side?

The Iranians have loads of secure, underground facilities. They are paranoid mole-people. The decision to expose the Ayatollah on the cusp of the deadline expiring was one of the worst intelligence miscalculations in history.

So Tucker’s critics are playing connect-the-dots. Juan Doe (cited above) is a Spanish influencer (200K followers). Citing unnamed “insiders,” Juan speculated that Tucker was texting the Iranians stuff he’d overheard Trump say in the Oval Office. The theory goes that, if Trump knew Tucker was talking to the mullahs —thanks to CIA intercepts— Trump might have played Tucker. He might’ve said something like “there’s no way we’re hitting Iran,” and if Tucker passed that along to the mullahs, it might explain why they were so lackadaisical about security.

All this must be qualified. It’s speculation and dot-connecting. But, if Tucker did tell the Iranians what Trump was saying in the Oval Office, Tucker may have a problema. I wish he would rule that out categorically. Just say, “I never ever told the Iranians anything I heard from the President.”

🔥 Ironically, the CIA didn’t leak this; Tucker did. He leaked it first. It was a counter-counter-leak. He says he heard the leak was coming, but he didn’t say how he heard that or who told him. He could have, but didn’t publish the innocuous texts he says the CIA is unfairly using against him, or even say who he texted with. So Tucker is playing the selective-leak game, too.

In other words, nobody is telling the whole truth. It’s wheels within wheels. And at some point, assuming there is a criminal referral, Tucker’s lawyers will tell him to shut up about it.

I’m pro-Tucker, anti-domestic-spying, and pro-First Amendment. But I am also a little uncomfortable with a man leaving the Oval Office and texting Iranian officials on the eve of hostilities. Still, apart from all the hot takes and speculation, we must wait for the process to play out. Assuming there is one. Which we also don’t know for sure.

💉💉💉

I hope you didn’t think media health hysteria had gone away. It was just taking a nap. Now it’s up again and feeling hungry. Yesterday, the New York Post breathlessly reported, “First known case of severe mpox virus strain detected in NYC.” I bet you didn’t even know that the last panic-pushing strain was not severe.

The “news” was hysterical. The Post fell over itself not providing details. “A … person,” the Post tremulously began, “traveled to … a place,” it continued haltingly, “to … uh … do something.”

The article described the variant —called a “clade” this time— as more serious, reminding us of the neverending series of “more transmissible” covid variants. Even after disclosing the horrifying more severity —how much more? In what way? Did it grow fangs?— the Post declined to say anything about how Patient Zero is doing. Is he dying? Sprouting stalks? Do the stalks have eyeballs on them?

Who knows. Not Post readers, that’s for sure.

That was all the Post thinks we need to know about the terrifying Patient Zero. A little string of delicate euphemisms topped with confusion. But we can make some guesses, can’t we? Could the “person” have been … a man? Could the place have been … Berlin? Could the activity have been … a BDSM festival?

The article quickly got around to the part we all know: “Most mpox infections in the US have affected gay, bisexual or other men who have sex with men — though anyone can get the virus, experts cautioned.”

True, anyone can get the virus. The trick is how. ‘Anyone’ doesn’t use their orifices the same way. Or their dogs. Just saying. (2022: “my colleagues and I have begun to worry about the increased risk of monkeypox spreading from humans to animals…” 2023: Never mind!)

But perhaps what was most amusing was the delicate dance the Post did around the virus’s name. It didn’t hide the original. “Formerly known as monkeypox, the virus is often transmitted during close, intimate contact, such as sex or face-to-face contact.” (Sex or face-to-face contact? Wait— isn’t sex face-to… oh!)

Moving on. So the Post took the time to remind readers the virus was “formerly known as monkeypox,” but then called it mpox for the rest of the story. I have questions.

Did you ever wonder what caused the sudden name shift in the fall of 2022? Did the monkey lobby get offended? Did chimpanzees feel the label was too stigmatizing? Seriously. Who got offended? Who complained?

Whoever it was had a lot of sway. After all, they still call it “swine flu.” Maybe it should be, “s-flu.” Why not? Do swine lack a decent lobby? And what about bird flu? (I suggest “bchiggers”).

How did they come up with “mpox” anyway? How is that pronounced, officially? It starts with an awkward consonant pileup. “M-pohx?” Or “umm-POHX?” Or “MUP-ohx?”

“The virus is rarely fatal,” the Post admitted, near the end of the article. You’d think it might’ve started with that. “And infections are typically mild,” it continued, “but serious illness can occur in older adults, young children, pregnant women and immunocompromised individuals.” Well, even the common cold can get serious. Just ask nursing homes.

So … we have a “more severe” variant of a “typically mild virus,” caught by one person who just returned from international travel of an indescribable nature. Somehow the Post added that puddle of perplexity up to a basis for “health officials” to “urge” people “to get the two-dose JYNNEOS vaccine series.”

The Post couldn’t tell us who, where, or what — but was absolutely certain we should get vaccinated.

No, thanks. We are definitely not doing this, again.

Finally, how moronic is it to change the name to protect gay men’s feelings, but then every time, mention that it was “formerly called monkeypox?” Sometimes I feel like public health experts are taking crazy pills. If I were gay, I would suspect this whole renaming thing was really meant to just rub it in.

But it’s even sillier if you spend ten seconds thinking about it.

Public‑health officials insist that rebranding ‘monkeypox’ as ‘mpox’ is a bold step against racism and homophobia— but they never show a single concrete outcome that the rename actually improved. Their studies are still finding stigma, discrimination, and care‑avoidance among gay and bisexual men, everywhere they look— just with a new label on the case forms.

It’s a nearly perfect example of symbolic politics masquerading as public health: no measurable gain in outcomes, but a powerful reinforcement of who has the authority to tell us which everyday words are suddenly more dangerous than the virus they used to describe. In other words: it’s just good old Marxist mind control. Again.

Resist! Break free from your cognitive prison! Just call it monkeypox.

Have a marvelous Monday! Sorry about the fragmented road post. The good news is I will be hotel blogging tomorrow, with decent internet, and free coffee refills, so hopefully quality standards will be maintained. See you then for more essential news and commentary.

Don’t race off! We cannot do it alone. Consider joining up with C&C to help move the nation’s needle and change minds. I could sure use your help getting the truth out and spreading optimism and hope, if you can: ☕ Learn How to Get Involved 🦠

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