It is Wednesday January 3, 2024. Since 2022, I have been obsessed with “Covid misinformation”. I find it deeply disturbing considering how wrong public health authorities have been since the beginning. There is evidence suggesting that the authorities have knowingly mislead the public about the professed ability of the vaccines to prevent infection and transmission, which was the basis of the mandate, and which until the Covid vaccines, was the whole point of a vaccine, and not only the point of it, but the actual definition of a vaccine until these shots were introduced.

And don’t even get me started with the Covid Mafia’s reputational assassination ordered against two of the world’s safest and most effective drugs in use today, Ivermectin and HCQ, which was required to obtain Emergency Use Authorization of the spike faux vaccines.

As I am presently a few miles from Ocean Beach, the notion that one guy closed beaches covering 500 plus miles for 40 million people, and then graciously allowed his subjects to walk but not stand (while he was dining with cronies at the French Laundry) is somewhat blood boiling. I hope and doubt that kind of restriction could ever be mandated again in this country.

But I digress.

The short and frank recap of the Covid misinformation wars by one of its warriors

In late 2021 and early 2022, the Medical Board of California sent letters of inquiry/investigation to 5 docs saying that complaints have been lodged against them for speaking out against the mainstream Covid narrative.

In July, 2022, I filed a lawsuit against the board for one of the recipients and sought a preliminary and permanent injunction on First Amendment grounds, A week after I filed the case, the board terminated the investigation, then I got a letter from the attorney general asking me to drop the case because there was no more investigation and hence the lawsuit was moot. I said no and tried to keep the case alive by adding an organization plaintiff. The judge said, no harm, no foul, so no case, and goodbye and good luck (ok he didn’t say the last two things and the first three, he used legalize, but you get the idea.)
Then coincidently, after my case was thrown out, the remaining investigations were also dropped. As they say, “better to be lucky than good.”

That was before AB 2098, enacted as Bus. & Prof. Code Section 2270 came into effect.

The short and ignominious life of Section 2270

A central district judge denied a preliminary injunction against AB2098 in late December 2023.

However, Eastern District Judge William B. Shubb granted an injunction on Fifth Amendment vagueness grounds based on the phrase “contemporary scientific consensus” in our case Hoang v. Bonta and Hoeg v Newsom on January 23, 2023.

Because of our injunction, general pushback against the law, and the tough time the 9th circuit judges gave the Deputy Attorney General at the oral argument in the appeal of the denial of the injunction, the board and the legislature decided to repeal AB2098/Section 2270. That’s to the good. Repeal effective as on January 1, 2024, so it is gone, gone, gone.

Now the bad

And it’s a double bad (or maybe even a triple bad).

The first and big bad is in announcing the repeal, a rep of the repudiated bill’s sponsor indicated that the repeal means nothing since the board going to target the same physician covid misinformation conduct under its standard of care statutory powers (Section 2234 (c)).

And in fact, the board filed a covid misinformation case back in the summer doing exactly that.
The new information is that a few weeks ago, the doctor agreed to surrender her medical license. So the Cali. board now has its first scalp in the Covid misinformation wars. But if all goes to plan, it will be its last, per the below.

But before I get to that, here is the second bad, but it’s a legal thing, and hopefully a temporary one.

Jurisprudentially speaking, right now we have Judge Shubb’s ruling on Fifth Amendment vagueness grounds that AB 2098 is probably unconstitutional (preliminary injunction standards are a likelihood of success on the merits and are not the final decision). Judge Shubb did not decide the First Amendment issue for probably judicial tactical reasons.

However, Judge Slaughter who denied the preliminary injunction in the prior case (McDonald) denied the motion on both constitutional grounds and (clearly erroneously)found that the speech was unprotected.

So right now, the only two judicial opinions on AB 2098 are Judge Shubb’s Preliminary Injunction on Fifth Amendment grounds, and Judge Slaughter’s denying probable success on both amendments, meaning the only ruling we have on the First Amendment is (my fingers freeze in trying to write it, but you get the drift).

The 9th panel gave the AG a very hard time about that and said ‘assume the speech is fully protected and strict scrutiny applies, what is your argument that it meets strict scrutiny.’ But that is just transcript talk and has no legal consequence whatsoever.

But now the angel of judicial death/judicial corpse remover enters

And by that I mean mootness.

Guess what the 9th circuit panel did after the Governor signed the repeal of Section 2270? Correct, It asked the parties to brief the mootness issue as the law was being repealed as of January 1, 2024. That briefing has been completed and no one expected the 9th to issue a ruling prior to its expiration two days ago. So,the clock started ticking as of yesterday.

I had notified Judge Shubb about the repeal and the 9th’s request for briefing on mootness. Naturally, he did the same (ordered briefing) and we had a status conference about it. He was reluctant to issue a ruling for one stated reason, there was no formal motion on file. I think the unstated reason was that he figures he’d wait for the 9th to make a ruling, to save him the trouble.

Here’s the possible third bad

In mid-December the Supremes held that the cases which granted preliminary injunctions to the challenges against the government vaccine mandates were moot because the government rescinded them. The supremes (lc intentional) also vacated the preliminary injunctions (boo). I think this is vaccine law judicial prejudice (ever here of Jacobson?) because in 2022, the Supremes took a skeptical view of the government’s mootness tactic to avoid/eliminate adverse precedent.

So, it is quite possible that the 9th will deny the McDonald appeal as moot, and order the dismissal of the four pending AB 2098 case, and dare I say, vacate our hard fought, richly deserved, and much beloved preliminary injunction. Or not, but I would expect a decision from the 9th very soon. (Those who know early Wittgenstein might remember that after you climb up the ladder, you must throw it away.)

WITH ALL THAT IN MIND, LET’S NOW UNBURY THE LEAD

Yesterday morning, January 2, 2024, we filed Kory v Bonta in the Eastern District of California.

Yes, Mr. Ivermectin is the lead plaintiff in Round Two!

Bobby, me, CHD’s newly minted/now official General Counsel, Kim Mack Rosenberg, together with usual suspects, Greg Glaser (the vaccine injury and law meat-based computer) and Black Belt Ray (Flores) ARE BACK!

Here is the complaint. Check out the docket number.

koryvbontafiling

Regulars of the site will be familiar with the tonality of the Introduction.

The first thing to be decided is which judge will hear the case. Cases are randomly assigned, but our case seems to related to our previous case and to the Hoeg case, both of which are presently before Judge Shubb. He has the discretion to take the new case or not take it. We shall see.

The Second Phase of the Cali. Covid Misinformation Wars has now started with Kory v. Bonta. The First Amendment will overcome the same defenses previously asserted by California the last times they tried to dictate and supress physician free speech to patients. So,

stayed tuned and Tally Ho!

Rick Jaffe, Esq.