☕️ GOLDEN GEESE ☙ Tuesday, January 13, 2026 ☙ C&C NEWS 🦠

Big Pharma tries to coopt a cancer-study lead—he refuses; California bleeds billionaires as Newsom flails; Democrats fracture; Trump tightens tariff screws on Iran; Sun Tzu nods; more.

Good morning, C&C, it’s Tuesday! Your roundup today includes: an update to the cancer story, as Big Pharma makes a play to coopt the lead researcher, who fortunately declines; California bleeding out its billionaires as oleaginous governor makes a last-ditch effort to stem the confiscatory tax tide; Democrats hell-bent on destroying themselves; party schisms; golden geese; Trump announces economic assault on Iranian regime; protests in the fog of war; increasing isolation of Iran; allies quiet; and Sun Tzu has more to say about Trump’s rapid-fire remaking of one of America’s most troublesome Middle East problems.

🌍 WORLD NEWS AND COMMENTARY 🌍

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We begin with an update to the cancer study I reported recently. You’ll recall that the paper —a roundup of 69 peer-reviewed studies linking the mRNA shots to cancer— was so radioactive that the online journal hosting it was knocked offline for weeks by sustained denial-of-service attacks. Because nothing says “trust the science” quite like hiring East German hackers to vaporize a scientific journal.

Naturally, C&C —operating in its customary samizdat capacity— helped smuggle out the digitally embargoed PDF and published a readable summary so the study couldn’t be quietly buried alive. While we were defeating the early effort to smother the study in the crib, Big Pharma kept brainstorming. According to the study’s lead researcher, Brown University professor Wafik El-Deiry, MD, PhD, FACP, on January 5th, a senior recruiter from Pfizer dangled before him the kingdoms of the earth:

This, dear reader, is how the system actually works. Had Dr. El-Deiry taken a senior oncology research position at Pfizer, he would be set for life. He would have achieved his heart’s desires. His life as a humble professor would end, and his new habit of vacationing in the Hamptons would begin. He would also sign a small notebook jammed with non-disclosure and non-disparagement contracts that would ensure he never ever uttered another word about any alleged problems with the mRNA shots.

Conceivably, Dr. El-Deiry would be required to withdraw any previously published papers damaging to Pfizer’s branded products.

Satan would, quite reasonably, explain, we’re not asking you to violate your principles, doctor, and start telling people the mRNA jabs are safe or anything. Don’t be silly. We’re not criminals. We’re just asking you to stop obsessing over ancient history. We want to put a man of your extraordinary talents where you can REALLY help people. Cure cancer. With a billion-dollar budget. And get rich doing so.

That’s Science!™ Can you smell the sulphur? That’s the odor of SHUT UP.

Before you scoff and announce that you would never even entertain such an offer, and never even consider haggling over your morals like a Turkish rug merchant, think again. I’m not suggesting you would sell your principles to the highest bidder. I’m just saying very few of us will ever really find out what our principles actually cost— because most of us are never shown the number.

What I am saying is that only one man in a hundred, maybe in a thousand, would stand on principle and not even listen to the number. Kudos to Dr. El-Deiry. He might not have helped his career much, but he saved his soul.

And here’s the best part, the most delicious irony: the offer itself proves all his critics wrong. Dr. El-Deiry isn’t a crank. He isn’t deluded. He isn’t a bad scientist. Because if he were, Pfizer wouldn’t have tried to hire him, would they?

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Whoopsies! At the same time Mamdani’s dabbling in rent-controlled bankruptcies hit a speed bump, far away on the other coast, California’s Governor Gavin Newsom was desperately trying to shut the barn doors after the progressive ponies were already down the hill. The New York Times ran the story this morning below the headline, “Gavin Newsom Vows to Stop Proposed Billionaire Tax in California.” Too little, too late.

The Golden State’s governor is wondering how you spell the word backfire. “Gov. Gavin Newsom vowed on Monday to stop a proposed wealth tax in California,” the Times reported, “saying that its mere introduction had already hurt the state by driving some billionaires to relocate and take their tax dollars with them.”

The first problem is that the potential ballot initiative is a trap. If it passes, it would be retroactive to January 1st of this year. It is also confiscatory. “The initiative,” the article explained, “would require Californians with a net worth beyond $1 billion to pay a one-time tax equal to 5 percent of their assets.” That comes to $50 million in tax per billion in total wealth (not income), on top of state income taxes (13.5%) plus any other taxes. Let the rich people pay for everything!

The second problem is, until now, Governor Newsom hasn’t publicly opposed the ballot initiative. Oh, he says he has. “Mr. Newsom, a Democrat, said in an interview with The New York Times that he had been relentlessly working behind the scenes against the proposal.”

Too bad he didn’t slither out from behind the scenes until now. Until quite recently, California held the record, being home to about 200 billionaires. That has recently and dramatically changed. Nor is it clear what Newsom can do. He can’t veto a ballot initiative that seeks to amend the state’s constitution. If it reaches the ballot, billionaires will be at the mercy of California voters, who may not take the broad view. They might say meh, what’s 5% to a billionaire?

Many billionaires didn’t wait around to find out how this Old West train robbery story will play out. With a retroactive deadline rushing at them like a locomotive filled with financial gunslingers, they got out of Dodge. According to an estimate from tech billionaire Chamath Palihapitiya, half of California’s billionaire wealth hastily evacuated before the January 1st deadline:

That estimate is consistent with what we’re hearing down here in Florida. New York Post headline, last week:

The CEOs of Netflix, Google, WhatsApp, and Stripe were all mentioned as shopping for ultra-luxury properties in swanky South Florida.

There’s so much that could be said about this California capital flight and the confiscatory tax proposal. Nobody sane believes that, if this works, California will be satisfied with milking the billionaires. Please. Have we learned nothing? It’s the same way they pushed the income tax through. It’s just on rich people, not you, no, never; and it’s only for two weeks, to slow the spread of the financial problem. Meaning, the next ten thousand years. Hope you like all the forms! Wheeeeeeeeeee

Point 1. The Democrats are destroying themselves. You can’t make this stuff up. California is a lovely state and home to many good, not-crazy conservatives. Fix voting fraud, and things might be a whole lot different. But in the meantime, it’s a uniparty catastrophe, and the nation’s progressive heart and soul. First they drove out Elon Musk, the world’s richest man and most productive entrepreneur, with stupid pandemic policies and history’s single most destructive tweet. Incredibly self-destructive.

Now they’re going after all the rest of their billionaires. “California’s state budget,” the Times explained, “relies heavily on high earners, who, under the state’s progressive tax structure, pay most of the state’s income taxes.” I’m reminded of that old gag about the goose and a gold omelet or something. How does it go again? Something about murdering the poor fellow?

Modern Democrats don’t learn nursery rhymes because they are racist and patriarchal, so the analogy is lost on them.

The only way I can explain California’s unbelievable commitment to self-destruction is that, maybe, the Democrats are finally paying the price for their unreasoning commitments to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. Their groups (like the unions) leaders and their local officials are all midwits and low-lights who never accomplished anything themselves, and who consider “accomplishment” to be something other people are forced to give you as compensation for your own victimized incompetence. It’s not our fault; it’s their fault! Get their stuff!

Point 2. The struggle highlights the Democrats’ intra-party schism. I’ve opined recently about how Trump’s adversaries are leaderless and fractured. This morning the Times proved it, explaining how Newsom and his allies are fighting against the unions and the far-left groups pushing the billionaire tax initiative. The Times spun it as burnishing Newsom’s centrist bona fides, but the truth is that centrist Democrats are battling the party’s own progressives.

Newsom wanted to keep the ugly blue-on-blue fight behind the scenes. But too many billionaires got in their jets and flew away to sunnier climates while the intra-party disagreement was on the DL. Going public hurts the party’s brand, but the remaining billionaires needed to see some resistance. They didn’t need to see Democrats resisting President Trump. They needed to see Democrats resisting each other.

You can add the West Coast’s billionaire tax initiative to the East Coast’s election of a socialist mayor for New York City. It’s like some kind of progressive Hunger Games has begun. The golden geese are coming home to roost, and the natives are eating them up faster than hungry Haitians at a city park.

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The Islamic Republic of Iran, long a thorn in America’s side, is encountering a high degree of what historians will probably refer to as ‘bad luck.’ As Iran’s latest round of national protests play out, with widespread reports that the regime has brutally cracked down on protestors —with some public executions reportedly scheduled to begin tomorrow— President Trump dialed up his tariff dashboard to ‘11.’ The Washington Post reported the story, headlined, “Trump announces 25 percent tariff on countries that trade with Iran.” He is getting pretty handy with that thing.

By all accounts, Iran’s economy is on the ropes. The country is experiencing something that may not technically be hyperinflation, but is the next closest thing. The protests this time are over what most commentators agree is profound economic mismanagement. Iranian officials have shut off the entire country’s Internet access, even deploying military-grade electronic jammers to block Starlink signals. Human rights groups claim that hundreds of protestors have been killed by police (some reports claim the figure is in the thousands).

For Iran’s part, officials have produced videos showing some of the slain and arrested protestors provoked the regime with violent attacks on police, and showing evidence of large, pro-regime counter-protests by supportive citizens who know what’s good for them. All the figures and videos and statistics from both sides of the conflict are hotly debated.

My guess is that there’s as much propaganda about Iran on social media as reliable information.

Yesterday, Iran announced it was “open” to further talks with the US —appearing to blame America for the unrest— but pre-emptively rejected any “maximalist demands,” and offered no concessions. This was widely seen as a stalling tactic. As pressure mounted, with reporters repeatedly asking the President and other US officials whether military intervention was imminent, yesterday, President Trump posted this announcement:

Rather than tariff Iran directly —which would probably be useless, since Iran already lies under lasagna-like layers of sanctions— Trump announced “effective immediately” tariffs of 25% on “any country doing business with” Iran. Nobody seems to know which countries will be affected, what “doing business with” means, or any other details. We await clarification of the Presidential post. Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Iran’s main trading partners are China, India, Turkey, UAE, and Iraq. Presumably, these countries lie in the tariff dashboard’s economic crosshairs. But either way, it isn’t good news for Iran. Once again, we see regime isolation: the truly remarkable lack of any international support for the Iranian regime. You might think the Europeans or the United Nations would take advantage of this sterling opportunity to resist Trump a little, but you’d be wrong.

🚀 This morning, the BBC reported that German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said “we are now witnessing the final days and weeks” of the Iranian regime, and that other European countries are summoning Iran’s ambassadors over the increasing violence against protestors. “When a regime can only maintain power through violence, then it is effectively at its end. The population is now rising up against this regime,” Merz added.

French President Emmanuel Macron did the same, complaining about Iran’s crackdown on protestors, not about America’s potential role:

The United Nations has also officially condemned Iran. Not the US.

Even Iran’s friends are being remarkably quiet. Russia —Iran’s key geopolitical ally— hasn’t issued any public position statement, confining its remarks to general condemnations of “foreign interference” with Iran, without mentioning the United States directly. China did the same, offering lukewarm expressions of concern about foreign interference, but again without criticizing the U.S. in any cognizable way.

An impenetrable fog of war blankets the conflict. It is impossible to know what is truly going on. Whatever it is, though, it is happening at breakneck speed. Take a moment and try to imagine how Iranian officials must be feeling. It probably feels like they’re caught on a malfunctioning Tilt-a-whirl at a traveling fair in a mall parking lot. They’re probably wondering whether they are going to live through the ordeal, and if so, how long their wife will remind them that she told them the fair looked sketchy.

🚀 At home and around the world, America’s adversaries are feeling the fierce rush of January’s events. It’s all happening so fast that the globalist swamp can’t decide what to do. Sun Tzu said, “Rapidity is the essence of war: take advantage of the enemy’s unreadiness, make your way by unexpected routes, and attack unguarded spots.”

The military master encouraged surprise attacks, all at once, to force the enemy to pick his battles. “The spot where we intend to fight must not be made known … Appear at points which the enemy must hasten to defend; march swiftly to places where you are not expected. If the enemy sends reinforcements everywhere, he will everywhere be weak.”

Nobody knows what President Trump plans to do about Iran next. The Iranians are left guessing. But whatever the President does, it will probably happen fast. The hapless Iranians never saw the tariff move coming; but in hindsight, it plainly reminds us of Sun Tzu’s admonition to weaken your enemy’s alliances. It is remarkably similar to how the U.S. Navy cut off Venezuela— except instead of using a carrier convoy, using tariffs.

I don’t need to remind you that major geopolitical history is being made this month. The world is being re-engineered in real time. I’ll do my utmost to keep you not only informed about what happens, but hopefully aware of what it all means.

Have a terrific Tuesday! Coffee & Covid will return tomorrow morning, with an overnight delivery of essential news and commentary. See you then.

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