☕️ DEFERRED ARMAGEDDON ☙ Thursday, May 8, 2025 ☙ C&C NEWS 🦠

Corporate media slyly admits Trump’s tariffs are working; first trade deal announcement imminent; MAHA cheers new Surgeon General; FBI nabs pedos nationwide; media mocks Trump’s Epstein probe.

Good morning, C&C, it’s Thursday! I am hotel-blogging again. Your traveling roundup today includes plenty of good news: corporate media signals Trump’s tariffs are working despite all the expert advice to the contrary; first Trump tariff trade deal pending announcement this morning; MAHA scores huge win with Trump’s replacement Surgeon General nomination; FBI begins pedophile arrests in sweeping natiowide sting operation; and corporate media dunks on Trump’s Epstein investigations.

🌍 WORLD NEWS AND COMMENTARY 🌍

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For the last three days now, the Wall Street Journal has included an op-ed on its main page titled, “Have We Dodged the Tariff Disaster?” The subheadline grudgingly allowed that, “Brexit’s results were less dire than opponents had warned. Something similar may be happening here.” Incoming narrative pivot!

Corporate media’s op-ed sections serve various political purposes and exclude the quaint, archaic notions of balance or fairness. Timely deployed op-eds can manufacture an illusion of fairness, whitewashing an especially biased news cycle, sort of like cramming a lego under one corner of a thumping, unbalanced dryer.

But other times, the op-eds are where the media surfaces it limited hangouts, safe places where corporate media’s failed narratives can be carefully euthanized without creating too much cognitive dissonance. Sometimes op-eds become ladders, helping media climb down from their most extreme positions. For instance, they trotted out TV doctor Leana Wen in the opinion section to begin unwinding their experts’ advice to wear masks while jogging outdoors. Eventually, that became “common sense,” and the media’s credibility was preserved.

By all appearances, this op-ed suggests we can plant our farewell kisses on the media’s forecasts of Trump-tariff doom. “Armageddon,” author Gerard Baker parsimoniously conceded, “has been deferred.” The market-crashing Great Depression 2.0 that was predicted by “almost all economists and by even more non-economists, has so far failed to materialize.”

Imagine that.

Mr. Baker knows how the op-ed game works better than anyone. He was the Journal’s chief executive editor from 2013-2018, during the first half of Trump 1.0. His role now is “balance.” While editor, he once took flak for instructing WSJ staff to stop calling things Trump said “lies” unless they had evidence of his intent to deceive. But he has also been intensely critical of the President. Two weeks ago, he called Trump’s second Administration “strikingly incompetent.”

And he’s a British-American dual citizen. So, Mr. Baker offers a fine illusion of balance.

Whatever he is, Mr. Baker is no particular Trump fan, a fact amply evidenced by his essay’s absence of any credit to the President for outthinking “almost all the experts.” Rather, like the rest of us, Mr. Baker seems oddly perturbed about experts, and he castigated them in a very un-British fashion. “We live in an age when experts are so little trusted that everyone has become one,” Baker explained. Haha! We told you that would happen.

Generously including himself, and coining an awkward climate-change reference, he rhetorically asked, “Have we misjudged the impact of the Trumpian disruption? Could the effect be less that of a devastating weather event and more a change in the climate?”

In other words, it’s becoming undeniable that all the anguished experts’ economic predictions are about to be proven categorically wrong.

Then Baker offered the Journal’s tariff-apocalypse off-ramp. You see, it’s not that Trump outfoxed the so-called experts who nobody trusts for some mysterious reason. It’s just a coincidence! Experts weren’t wrong, not exactly. Trump just got lucky. “Perhaps all this is better understood,” Mr. Baker suggested, firing off the replacement narrative, “in the context of the wider process of deglobalization underway for a decade or more, and perhaps we are better off managing it rather than fearing it.”

Baker sees things the other way around. Trump didn’t cause deglobalization (and tariffs). Deglobalization caused Trump. “Deglobalization is a reality born of long-simmering popular discontent and rising economic insecurity. Among its political fruits were Brexit and Mr. Trump,” the former chief editor gamely explained.

In other words, discontented non-elites (that’s us) demanded populist change, ignored our experts, and so we got Trump tariffs. What the experts somehow missed, according to Baker, was the public’s ravenous appetite for eating globalism alive and spitting it out in bloody chunks. “If we see deglobalization not as a catastrophic act of self-harm but as a choice—even a rational one,” Baker suggested in a moment of rare generosity, “we can position ourselves better to deal with its consequences.”

“We,” apparently, referring to globalists like himself and the rest of the editorial staff and its squadrons of cherry-picked experts. They need to re-position themselves to avoid getting run over on the populist freeway, like cute little reptiles in the game Frogger.

In sum, this op-ed stands as a weathervane, signaling a changing narrative climate, the rapidly failing expert guidance that Trump’s tariffs were the most backwards, destructive, and strikingly incompetent economic plan since North Korea issued guidelines for approved hairstyles. In face-saving desperation, they’ve decided to throw globalism under the Trump bus.

And that, dear readers, is progress.

🔥 Related! Behold this morning’s New York Times headline:

Late yesterday, President Trump made international news with a tweet, writing, “Big News Conference tomorrow morning at 10:00 A.M., The Oval Office, concerning a MAJOR TRADE DEAL WITH REPRESENTATIVES OF A BIG, AND HIGHLY RESPECTED, COUNTRY. THE FIRST OF MANY!!!”

Details incoming tomorrow.

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In more great news, yesterday’s Wall Street Journal ran a story headlined, “Trump Picks a ‘MAHA’ Movement Leader for Surgeon General.” The UK Independent’s headline sneered, “Trump picks conspiracy theorist ‘wellness influencer’ Casey Means with no medical license to replace Fox contributor as Surgeon General.”

The U.S. Surgeon General is the nation’s top public health communicator, technically the head of the Public Health Service Commissioned Corps (USPHS), a 6,000-member uniformed swarm of health bureaucrats. The Surgeon General issues ‘public health advisories’ and publishes official reports, with well-known examples including 1964’s stop smoking campaign, or 2021’s focus on youth mental health (which obviously failed badly).

These reports often shift public opinion, which in turn shifts political will— making the Surgeon General a soft power health policy weapon. Surgeon General findings are often cited in Congressional hearings, used to justify funding, or incorporated into proposed bills. It’s like a federal think tank with a badge and a podium.

Since late December, Trump had increasinly enraged MAHA folks with the previous, now withdrawn, nomination of Dr. Janette Nesheiwat, who graduated from the prestigious American University of the Caribbean School of Medicine, which is located on the resort-like island nation of St. Maarten. She is also Mike Waltz’s sister-in-law. But those weren’t Janette’s worst PR problems.

Dr. Nesheiwat is a plump jab lover who thinks sex is assigned at birth and calls normal boys and girls “cisgender.” She often praised Biden’s efforts to cancel anti-vaxxer misinformation and gushed over school mask mandates. She blasphemously called the covid vaccines “a gift from God.” You could call her anti-MAHA.

Under growing pressure, or maybe for other reasons, who knows, Trump canceled Janette’s dance card yesterday, nominating instead MAHA favorite Casey Means, an anti-elite and a long-time, pro-natural-health jab adversary.

Dr. Casey Means is a health-freedom unicorn. She’s a well-liked ‘influencer’ and a Stanford-trained MD who defected from the pharmaceutical-industrial complex and now speaks fluent common sense. After leaving her residency in disgust over reactive health-by-pill, Dr. Means co-founded Levels Health, a company that produces inexpensive, non-prescription continuous glucose monitors (CGMs) —the “fitbits” of blood sugar— a device the FDA had essentially reserved for diabetics. By democratizing metabolic data, she snatched a tool from the clinical elite and handed it to the public.

Dr. Means’ 2024 book “Good Energy” proposed that mitochondrial dysfunction, caused by processed foods, toxins, sugar, and chronic stress, is at the root of nearly every chronic disease.

Though Dr. Means holds an M.D. from Stanford, she never completed her residency. To establishment types, that means she isn’t a “real” doctor— shockingly unqualified to give medical advice like they do, such as insisting the COVID shots safely and effectively stop transmission (they didn’t) or that “six-foot social distancing” was firmly grounded in science (it wasn’t).

Means is an anti-expert who thinks health experts are full of pharma-funded balderdash.

It’s fair to call MAHA euphoric over Trump’s new nominee. Her selection is universally seen as a significant victory for the movement, aligning closely with MAHA’s emphasis on holistic health and its well-founded skepticism toward traditional medicine.

President Trump has, once again, transformed controversy into conquest, by dumping MAHA villain Janette Nesheiwat and nominating MAHA favorite Casey Means. It was more terrific news.

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Yesterday, the Hill ran a very encouraging story headlined, “200+ alleged child predators arrested in FBI operation, officials say.”

CLIP: Attorney General Pam Bondi announces sweeping arrests of child predators, including some public officials (3:25).

It was a lightning-fast, nationwide sting operation involving all 55 FBI field offices. Bondi said, “This historic, unprecedented nationwide operation led to the arrest of 205 child sex predators. In just five days, this incredible operation—conducted with the FBI and our prosecutors—gave children and their families a chance to heal.”

FBI Director Patel called the crimes “some of the harshest we’ve seen.” He made it clear: “the priority of this Department of Justice and this FBI is protecting children.” Patel said the arrested included several “people in places of public trust,” and called out suspects who were “teachers, law enforcement personnel and other professionals that we look to safeguard our children.”

Two of the arrested were police officers. In Minneapolis, Jeremy Francis Plonky, a state trooper and former Army reservist, was arrested for producing child sexual abuse material (CSAM) while in uniform. In Washington, D.C., Officer Lynwood Barnhill of the Metropolitan Police Department, already a convicted sex offender, was arrested again for exploiting more children while on supervised release.

AG Bondi had strong warnings for parents:

“Parents—this is serious. Your child has no right to privacy on the internet. None. You must monitor what your kids are doing—whether they’re gaming, on social media, or using other websites. Online predators can find them anywhere. I always say: it goes from instant message to instant nightmare.

Predators pretend to be children. They manipulate kids into sending explicit pictures, then sometimes try to blackmail them. The suicide rate among teens aged 14 to 17 has increased as a result of this. Teens are being manipulated and abused online by child predators.”

Bondi had another message for predators. “I want to be clear: these depraved individuals, if convicted, will face the maximum penalty in prison—some, life. We will find you, arrest you, and charge you if you are online targeting a child— you will not escape us.”

🔥 DC police officer Lynwood Barnhill’s case in particular raises extremely troubling questions. Barnhill had authority, access, and the public’s trust— three things predators most desire. When sitting law enforcement officers become offenders, it undermines the entire criminal justice system. These offenses aren’t only crimes— they’re also fundamental betrayals of public trust.

As a police officer and convicted sex offender, Officer Barnhill knew exactly what would happen if he was caught re-offending. But he (allegedly) did it anyway. Who cleared him for supervised release? And why was he still in a position to exploit more victims? How did the system fail?

It is a fair, if perplexing, question as to whether the predators involved in these crimes even have any ability to control their behavior despite the terrible risks they take. Many, if not all, know the consequences full well— life sentences, public disgrace, and even violent retaliation in prison. And yet they continue to offend anyway. It points to compulsivity, not ignorance.

If some offenders are neurologically or psychologically incapable of resisting their urges, should we stop pretending they’re “rehabilitable,” and instead prioritize their permanent removal from society? For their own protection as well as to protect society’s most vulnerable?

🔥 And why was Biden’s progressive DOJ so focused on prosecuting grandmothers for attending a Capitol protest that it allowed this predator problem to fester and become so horrifically acute? While the FBI was scouring Facebook for MAGA memes and airline manifests for grandma’s travel records, online child sex trafficking exploded, exacerbated by open-border chaos. Digital predators flourished, exploiting kids’ isolation, their smartphones, and lax enforcement by officials. Convicted offenders like Lynwood Barnhill re-offended— all while supposedly being monitored.

Biden’s DOJ traded its core mission of public safety for narrative management and political theater. But why?

What do you think?

🔥 I found it most fascinating that, instead of highlighting the predator arrests, yesterday’s corporate media focused more on Bondi’s ambiguous comments about the Epstein files. For instance, the UK Independent ran a skeptical story headlined, “Pam Bondi dismisses claim Epstein info is missing and defends delays in releasing files.”

Nobody is more eager to see the Epstein files and prosecutions than I am. But as I’ve said many times before, I have serious doubts whether the blackmail evidence will ever be publicly released, at least in full. Frankly, I think it’s more likely that Nancy Pelosi will fly to the moon on a broomstick. In other words, it’s possible, but devilishly hard to suss out the mechanics.

I would love to be wrong.

The Administration is not signaling any imminent full disclosure. For example, yesterday Attorney General Bondi said FBI was diligently reviewing “tens of thousands” of Epstein videos “or child porn” that are by definition illegal. The government must protect victims. How could the DOJ in good conscience release that kind of material in any public way, without extremely careful and meticulous work beforehand?

Disappointing many conservatives, Bondi suggested the “tens of thousands” of Epstein videos included only Epstein himself and hundreds of underage victims. She did not mention his blackmail targets. So even if these videos were released, they are unlikely to satisfy anyone. Bondi said nothing about what we’re all really waiting for— the list.

Bondi’s comments included only one or two sentences, But they still made sneering headlines. And her comments responded to relentless questions from reporters about the status of the investigation. I find corporate media’s newfound curiosity and criticism to be completely inauthentic. Where was all this investigatory interest during the Biden years, when the Epstein files were buried in concrete under the FBI’s swimming pool?

All I know for sure is that the Trump Team knows full well what we really want to see, which is justice. Unlike corporate media, both Bondi and Kash Patel spent years criticizing the Biden Administration’s inaction. They know. But it is far too early to conclude that Trump’s people are now part of the cover-up.

If charges were to be brought against some of the world’s most politically powerful people, those cases must be airtight. Airtight cases don’t appear overnight.

And even if this calculus is morally indefensible, from a political perspective, holding back the Epstein files makes strategic sense. At this early moment in his second term, Trump is trying to negotiate with the same world leaders who probably fear disclosure. They are much more likely to cooperate if they think there is some chance they could escape the prosecutorial net. Given that incalculable political advantage, why rush something that shouldn’t be rushed anyway?

Why telegraph anything at all about the pending investigations?

On the flip side, if those same bad actors at the highest levels of global governance fear imminent disclosure, they will likely make non-negotiable demands for immunity and confidentiality, setting all other considerations aside. The more that people like Bondi or Patel ratchet up the rhetoric, the more likely it becomes that Trump will get bogged down in backchannel demands for Epstein investigation protection.

My point is not to defend any action or inaction from Trump’s DOJ. Rather, I’m simply pointing out that the situation is a hopelessly complicated plate of competing incentive spaghetti. We don’t know, and they can’t tell us, everything that is involved in the investigations.

But expecting some kind of frantic, poorly thought-through dump of the FBI’s Epstein files is naive at best.

Not everyone will agree with me. But I suggest we remain patient. The FBI has plenty of work to do to save this generation of children. And for Heaven’s sake, don’t take corporate media’s bait; their new fascination with the pace of the Epstein investigation is fake and ghey.

We must continue the drumbeats of demand for accountability. But let’s not throw our own team into the wood chipper along with the perpetrators. Be angry, but be wise.

Have a terrific Thursday! C&C will be right back, tomorrow morning, with a fully caffeinated Friday edition roundup of essential news and commentary.

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