☕️ MR. FIXIT ☙ Tuesday, July 29, 2025 ☙ C&C NEWS 🦠

Missing yard signs hint at cultural healing; Kennedy targets vaccine court reform; DOJ files on Boasberg; Trump hushes another war—just another morning in post-normal America; more.

Good morning, C&C, it’s Tuesday! The Childers family is on the move again, so please enjoy today’s short but hard-hitting vacation roundup: missing yard signs observation shows culture healing; Kennedy vows to fix vaccine injury compensation; DOJ goes after Judge Boasberg; and Trump quiets down another war, all in a morning’s work. It will only be a few more days, and things will return to normal. Apologies for typos or rushed rhetoric. Hang in there; we’re almost done!

🪖 C&C MORNING MONOLOGUE 🪖

The Childers family has, in quintessential American style, been enjoying a driving vacation. Since we prefer to avoid highways, we’ve passed through and along many quaint small towns and bustling suburbs throughout the Southeast. At first, I wasn’t sure… but now, I am ready to say: the progressive yard sign is becoming an endangered species.

I’m talking about the wire and cardboard lawn decorations shouting in all caps about BLM, diversity!!, and “I stand with Ukraine,” or that “you’re welcome here”. You know, the meaningless, smug, “we’re better than you,” virtue-signaling mishmash of hollow slogans that allow good progressives to tell everyone else how they voted in the last election.

In October 2021, ten months into Biden’s ‘presidency,’ the New York Times even ran a glowing feature story about them:

The story explained that In This House signs “translated into a symbol of the #resistance.” That is a direct quote; I did not make that up, I didn’t even add the hashtag. Still, there was a single moment of clarity when the overlong, annoying article finally —and painfully— revealed a brief flash of introspection, correctly observing that the signs were “the epitome of virtue signaling: an actual sign enumerating the owner’s virtues.”

And, the literal virtue-signaling signs, it said, had “become ubiquitous on the lawns of Democrats who have lawns.” Ubiquitous. Almost mandatory.

But over the last week or ten days, as I’ve driven the country’s highways and byways, the ubiquitous signs seemed to be anything but ubiquitous.

They seem downright scarce.

It wasn’t that I went looking for the signs or anything (heaven help us). But after a while, I slowly became aware of their absence. Then I started actually trying to find them. The more I looked, the fewer I found. So it made me curious. Was this just a personal experience, maybe just a run of good luck, or was something bigger going on?

So this morning, I ordered up another black coffee, pulled on my rubberized work gloves, and dove into Etsy. It didn’t take long. I quickly confirmed my field observations, adding a second, harder data point: virtue is having a fire sale:

My goodness. What is going on? I felt like I’d discovered a secret signal of how well the cultural counter-revolution is going. You would think that right now would be the best time for Democrats to signal their virtues the hardest, since immigration, DEI, and boys’ rights to wear dresses in girls’ bathrooms (i.e., “science”) are all under direct assault.

You would think these signs would be selling like hotcakes. Instead, they’re being marked down faster than team merchandise for the Arizona Coyotes. Something has shifted. At least in the Southeast United States, it has.

What’s your experience, where you are? Do you see more, less, or the same amount of liberal virtue signaling? Let us know in the comments.

🌍 WORLD NEWS AND COMMENTARY 🌍

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Just when you think the news can’t get any better, a sleeper like this story rolls along. I’ll need to unpack it a little for you. Yesterday, the New York Times ran a terrific story headlined, “RFK Jr. Plans Overhaul of Federal Vaccine-Injury Compensation System.”

The Times’ article was provoked by Kennedy’s long tweet yesterday. It announced the HHS Secretary plans to “overhaul” the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP). “The VICP,” Kennedy said on X, “is broken, and I intend to fix it.” It’s not just wonky. We’re talking about the potential to truly and quickly help people who are in the most awful circumstances imaginable.

Since back when everyone started paying attention, we’ve faced two different vaccine laws, which are often confused with each other. The pandemic law, which governs the covid vaccines, is called the PREP Act and applies only to treatments authorized in emergencies (“EUA”). Set that one aside; today’s story is not about PREP.

The bigger, older law was passed by Congress (under Reagan) in 1986 and is called the Childhood Vaccination Act. Under that law, people injured by any vaccines on the Act’s schedule can “sue” for compensation in the “court” of HHS. It actually has fake rooms that look like courtrooms, and fake ‘judges’ wearing pretend robes who aren’t really judges at all, but who are really just HHS employees hired to handle the “cases.”

This is how the VICP works— it’s a facade of due process, a kind of parlor trick that substitutes the trappings of justice for justice itself. (Note that, however bad the VICP process is, it’s a thousand times better than the PREP Act’s compensation process. But I digress.)

Secretary Kennedy pointed out some of the VICP’s biggest problems in his tweet. Since the “judges” are HHS employees, guess whose side they’re always on? (Hint: it rhymes with “blubbermint.”) And since the so-called “court” is just a fancy conference room decorated as a courtroom, it doesn’t actually provide injured applicants with discovery, depositions, or any other normal legal tools.

Worst of all, applicants are required to litigate against government attorneys, who have unlimited legal budgets (they’re using our own money to litigate against us).

You’d think vaccine manufacturers would love the compensation program, since it gives them a legal liability shield, and even more so since they don’t have to pay valid claims. But no. Big Pharma wants both liability protection and they still don’t want any injured people getting paid, even if the government pays the claims.

Because each award the government pays is one more black mark against the vaccine. In other words, too many awards make the vaccines look bad.

So, right out of the gate, the HHS “judges” dismiss half of injury cases. Even though the VICP Act requires that awards be paid “quickly and fairly,” even cases not dismissed take between five and ten years to resolve. Then, even when tenacious injured claimants finally do win, the government then drags its feet paying their claims, their attorneys, and their experts.

The entire process, top to bottom, is stacked against vaccine-injured people.

But all that could soon change. “I will not allow the VICP to continue to ignore its mandate and fail its mission,” Kennedy promised, “of quickly and fairly compensating vaccine-injured individuals.”

Kennedy’s reform plan has clearly been in the works for a while. Last month, Kennedy talked about reforming the VICP when he was on Tucker. The Times noticed that, even before Kennedy spoke to Carlson, HHS had hired an Arizona lawyer whose practice involves representing vaccine-injured people in the HHS “VICP court.”

Kennedy’s tweet didn’t include any details about proposed reforms, but he seems to have the whole problem in view. Kennedy plans to fix the VICP court first, and then haul the covid PREP Act cases along, folding them back into the new-and-improved compensation program.

“We’re looking at ways to enlarge the (VICP) program so that Covid vaccine-injured people can be compensated,” the Secretary told Tucker.

Some readers will say, “we don’t need to fix the vaccine court, we need to end vaccine liability protection.” I partly agree, but there are many vaccine injured people out there —especially injured from the covid vaccines— who need a fast path to compensation. Right now, they have nothing.

Here’s the thing. Every night I pray for vaccine-injured people and for parents of vaccine-injured kids. Their lives are horrible, and nobody in power is helping them. If Kennedy does reform the VICP, even a little, and lets covid-shot-injured folks use it too, it will make an immediate, real, and important difference in a whole lot of people’s lives, people who are suffering badly, can’t work, and can’t pay their bills.

If he pulls off what he promised, it might be the most important thing Kennedy does this year.

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Yesterday, CBS ran a very encouraging story headlined, “Justice Dept. slaps Judge James Boasberg with misconduct complaint.” You remember corpse-like Judge Boasberg, the DC Circuit’s Chief Judge, who somehow ‘randomly’ keeps drawing Trump cases, and who bears an uncannily resemblance to Lurch from the Adams Family:

Technically, Judge Boasberg may not actually be alive. He may be a different type of life-form, like an algae or fungus. We don’t know yet.

Either way, yesterday AG Bondi announced on X that the DOJ has filed an ethics complaint against the Judge:

The ethics complaint cited unhinged comments Judge Boasberg made at a recent judges’ conference about his concerns that the Administration will just start ignoring court orders. It also highlighted his habit of ramming government attorneys through rushed deadlines and issuing what DOJ called “extra-legal” diktats.

Under the Judicial Conduct and Disability Act of 1980 (28 U.S.C. §§ 351–364), misconduct complaints against federal judges are usually filed with the clerk of the court of appeals for that circuit— here, the D.C. Circuit. But if the complaint is against the chief judge, like Boasberg, then the next most senior judge on the D.C. Circuit, if not disqualified or conflicted, will review the complaint as ‘acting chief judge’ for this purpose.

At the time of press, it wasn’t clear which judge would get this hot potato. Don’t set your expectations too high; most D.C. Circuit Judges suffer from fulminating Trump Derangement— it’s only a matter of degree. The most likely outcome is dismissal. There’s a limited right of appeal to a special judicial council of more D.C. Circuit judges, but that’s it.

Still, the DOJ is showing signs of life and fighting back. We’ll soon see if this goes anywhere.

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This morning, CBS ran a terrific story headlined, “Cambodian official praises Trump's role in 'bringing peace' as ceasefire with Thailand takes hold.” The “border skirmish” between Thailand and Cambodia over the occult temple -slash-tourist-trap marched toward resolution yesterday after President Trump made time to encourage the sides to settle.

Trump was all over it. Specifically, on Saturday, President Trump posted on Truth Social that he would halt trade tariff talks with both countries if hostilities continued. Thailand had initially rejected third-party mediation, but started singing a different tune following Trump's tariff threat. Knock it off, or else.

Trump also called them. "Our prime minister received a call from U.S. President Donald Trump, who offered mediation to end this conflict, and immediately our prime minister accepted the offer," Lim Menghour, Director General of Cambodia's National Assembly, told ABC News. Finally, Trump sent Marco Rubio and State Department officials to help mediate.

Yesterday, leaders from both countries met in Malaysia, mediated with diplomats from the U.S. and China, and ultimately agreed to a ceasefire that started last night at midnight, ending weeks of withdrawn diplomats, hidden landmines, artillery bombings, spicy commentary, and F-16 strikes.

The media is predictably downplaying Trump’s role, as if this ceasefire were completely organic and probably would have happened anyway without Trump’s tariff threats, calls, and sending in the State Department.

Trump isn’t confused. “I have now ended many Wars in just six months — I am proud to be the president of PEACE!”, President Trump posted on Truth Social yesterday.

These kinds of ceasefires in kinetic conflicts often require a few attempts before they take. So we’ll have to wait and see whether the first time will be the charm. For the parties’ sake, we hope so.

Have a terrific Tuesday! Coffee & Covid will return tomorrow morning from a new location, since the roaming HQ departs shortly, with or without your author. Onwards.

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