☕️ FORBEARANCES ☙ Monday, August 25, 2025 ☙ C&C NEWS 🦠

Limited hangouts collide with Kennedy’s HHS reforms; Trump deploys JAGs to DC; WaPo flails over Bolton raids; the Times runs its most morally bankrupt Proxy War puff piece yet; and more.

Good morning, C&C, it’s Monday! Welcome to the last week of August, as the heat indices burst through their little red tubes and will soon, thankfully, recede. Let’s get this party started. Your roundup includes: the latest eye-popping, if not infuriating, limited hangout tries to let the air out of Kennedy’s HHS reforms but winds up revealing more than it meant to; Trump deploys military prosecutors to DC on misdemeanor duty and media loses its darned mind; WaPo Editorial Board rages incoherently about Bolton raids and gives away the game; and the most morally deplorable Proxy War story the Times has ever published, and that’s saying a lot.

🌍 WORLD NEWS AND COMMENTARY 🌍

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Spare a moment’s sympathy for our embattled HHS Secretary, who can be right six times a day, but parsimonious ‘experts’ will never toss him a scrap of credit. He’s just a lawyer, not a PhD. But oh, dear reader, I digress. Thanks to an alert commenter who drew my attention to this important story, behold an Orwellian masterpiece: last week, more experts excreted their latest limited hangout in Slate, gloomily headlined “There’s Something Very Dark Happening to Millennials and Gen Z Adults.”

The three authors, the hyphenated Elizabeth Wrigley-Field, Andrew Stokes, and Jacob Bor, made sure we knew: The sub-headline flatly stated: “We are mortality experts.”

Whew, thank goodness it’s not lawyers again.

Slate’s trio of credentialists solemnly informed readers that +700,000 extra “missing young Americans” died in 2023— folks brimming with life’s promise, snuffed out early, who’d still be alive had they only been born somewhere else, like Belgium instead of Buffalo. Those shocking excess deaths account for nearly two out of three among 25- to 44-year-olds— who wouldn’t have died if they’d been lucky enough to live in the next-deadliest industrialized country.

That age range means working-age adults. The ones most likely to be coerced into taking the you-know-whats (or else it gets the pink slip). “Among Americans younger than 65,” the experts ritualistically intoned, “almost half of deaths wouldn’t happen if we had a death rate that matched our peers. Among those aged 25 to 44, a group we call ‘early adults,’ it’s 62 percent—nearly two out of three deaths at those early ages.”

Millennials should be furious. It’s a genocide. Or a “democide” — defined as “the intentional killing of an unarmed or disarmed person by government agents acting in their authoritative capacity and pursuant to government policy or high command.”

But hang on. Pause, for a moment of silence, to memoralize all those fired CDC employees who have been doing such terrific work making Americans sicker and more likely to kick the bucket in large numbers. Oh no, Kennedy just laid them off. Whatever will science do, & etc.

💉 I shall now spoil the story’s ridiculous bit of narrative wrangling. The money bit, the careless clue tossed into the rhetorical shrubbery like a missing chess-set rook, appeared halfway down the article, buried in real-subject-avoidance nonsense, plopped ineligantly at a paragraph’s end, and promptly abandoned faster than a vaccine-injured patient who just demanded the doctor fill out a VAERS report. Ready?

The authors remarked, offhand, incuriously, almost as a footnote, that: “Since COVID-19, their increased mortality is unique.”

And there it was. (And there is stopped.)

I know what you’re thinking, dummies. But listen. They are the mortality experts. They even told us so, to ensure we weren’t confused by all the misinformation or by doing our own research. So, when the three otherwise loquacious experts dropped covid into the conversation, but then completely failed to speculate about covid causality, or spike proteins, or even mention the “v-“ word at all, even to dismiss it, that wasn’t an accident.

Oh, despite admitting classic expert bafflement —“We don’t know exactly why this is happening”— they still speculated, abundantly. You betcha. And by some happy confluence, all their speculative ideas aligned perfectly with leftwing social policy preferences. For example, they carefully scrutinized the fact that “others highlight America’s permissive gun laws and the large amount of time we spend in our cars.”

Behold the cream of expert thinking in 2025! Nevermind that gun deaths usually leave shell casings and weird traces of lead behind. It’s a mystery how guns kill without bullets! But hey, let’s take their guns and cars away anyway, in the name of public health. You know, while we’re at it.

Every. Single. Time. It’s like a nervous tic, or an OCD, or some sort of fulminant brain inflammation. They can’t help it. Squawk! Communitarianism wants a cracker!

Anyway, they disproved their own theory. The authors gifted us with more largesse from their bags of expertise, reporting that: “the fact that death rates have remained high across so many kinds of deaths, from car collisions to fatalities from circulatory diseases and diabetes, hints at more encompassing and systemic problems.” In other words, it’s not guns or liver failure from alcoholism or fentanyl overdoses or suicides.

Watson, consider the dog that didn’t bark in the night-time.

Here’s what I think this late, credulous admission means. They’re breaking this story now, trying to horn in front of one Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Headline from the Associated Press, August 7th:

This wasn’t Slate bravely breaking a taboo. It’s pre-spinning. They see the accountability train coming down the tracks —Kennedy’s team soon dropping undeniably bad statistics— and they’re scrambling to build a better train station first, so they can say: “Oh, that? We already covered it in August. Old news, dummies.”

It’s crisis comms 101: serve up a soupçon of truth on your own terms, bury the dangerous part in bureaucratese and word salad, and then, when the entrée arrives, just shrug and say, “Nothing to see here, we already dished that back in August.”

This wasn’t expert analysis. It was inoculation, against a forthcoming truth.

💉 Regular readers know I’ve very little patience left for the failing expert classes. Now, I propose a radical solution. Just as Reagan fired all the illegally striking air traffic controllers back in the 1980’s, I suggest we fire the entire expert class— every single one who got the pandemic wrong.

I’m sorry (not sorry) if that sounds extreme. It’s not revenge. It’s self-protection. All these sold-out experts are dangerous.

If we don’t ashcan them, the same credentialed parrots will still be squawking about cars and guns while another 700,000 young Americans quietly shuffle off this mortal stage. Pretending the problem doesn’t exist guarantees it persists. Ignoring the vaccine-shaped hole in the mortality curve isn’t just playing politics, it’s malpractice. We’ll never develop protocols, treatments, or genuine public-health safeguards to save the people who’ve been hurt if the official line remains, “shhh.”

Come on, let’s go for it. Let’s just purge them all. Then we can start over from scratch. And let’s do it now, before everybody forgets or kicks the bucket. Who’s with me?

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This next story is fascinating, unprecedented, and as a bonus it had the QAnon crowd all a-twitter (literally). NBC News (the original one, not the recently reblanded one) ran the story yesterday, headlined, “Military officers shifted to prosecute local D.C. crimes amid Trump takeover.”

Amid a shortage of staff in the DC office, new Attorney General Jeanine Pirro announced this weekend that twenty DoD military prosecutors will join her office, to handle the swelling crowd of jailbirds and miscreants rounded up by National Guardsmen in DC.

Adding insult to progressive injury, the announcement said they would be assigned to handle misdemeanors, like open container, loitering, and failing to abate a smoky chimney. Did you or did you not jump the turnstile!!

Unsurprisingly, NBC framed it as a Trumpian failure. So far as I can understand, they’re laughing like nitrous-huffing hyenas because Trump made his own bed by firing 90 prosecutors and 60 paralegals who worked the January 6th cases, and now he has to lie in it. Haha!

Or something like that.

But the choice of JAGs wasn’t desperation. Sorry, NBC. It’s strategic. If this were just about filling chairs, DOJ has plenty of options: detail prosecutors from Baltimore, Richmond, or Philly, hire temps, or even reassign AUSAs from less busy districts. They’ve done that before. But this time, they tapped military prosecutors. That tells us a lot.

First of all, JAG culture is military culture. They’re trained to see order, discipline, and accountability as non-negotiable. In their normal courts-martial world, “catch and release” isn’t a thing. The signal couldn’t be any clearer: The days of “no bail” and “deferred prosecution deals” are over.

(Portlanders: ‘JAG’ stands for “Judge Advocate General Corps.” It’s the U.S. military’s legal department. Every branch has its own JAGs— Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, and the Coast Guard. They’re commissioned officers who serve as both prosecutors and defense attorneys in courts-martial, advise commanders on military law, and handle things like rules of engagement, investigations, and international issues.)

Second — and the reason NBC didn’t dare shriek “authoritarianism” this time — is that it’s perfectly legal. D.C. isn’t a state; it’s a federal zone. Misdemeanors there are already prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office, not a local DA. So swapping in JAGs doesn’t break the law — it bends the narrative. Which is exactly the point.

Trump’s move is theater with a purpose: put military prosecutors in the nation’s capital, then point to the results as a living split-screen between real justice in D.C. and the chaos still unfolding in blue cities where progressive DAs hand out no-bail deals like parking tickets. It’s less about shoplifters and loiterers, more about proving a point: discipline works, and everyone can see who’s delivering it.

Also unsurprisingly, this move lit up the QAnon message boards, where some folks are already convinced the JAGs are secretly here for military tribunals and mass deep state arrests. Sorry, guys— for now, at least, they’re starting with drunks and shoplifters.

But give Trump this much: he sure knows how to make theater look like prophecy.

And, we must admit that we don’t know the plan (nor should we). What starts as JAGs handling easy misdemeanor cases could be a tentative toehold. Once they’re embedded in the office, and start learning their way around civilian law, their scope can expand— from jaywalkers to carjackers, from shoplifters to shooters, from loiterers to high public officials.

In short, the uniforms are in the room now, and one suspects Trump won’t just leave overpowered pieces idle once they’re on the board.

We’ll be watching the dockets with great interest.

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Late last week, the Washington Post’s entire editorial board ran a handwringing editorial springing to Republican John Bolton’s defense, headlined, “FBI raid targeting Bolton crosses a line in the Trump revenge campaign.” Obviously, nobody takes their blatant hypocrisy seriously, but come on. Wait till you see the op-ed’s final paragraph.

When it was President Trump, the endless mantra was “no one is above the law.” Now that it’s Bolton, the newly high-minded Editorial Board wants “independent-minded prosecutors to employ forbearance.”

Forbearance! That’s just a fancy way of saying: our people should get a pass.

The only paragraph worth reading was the piece’s unbelievable conclusion:

First, and least important, where was all this justice-minded energy six months ago, when the “excessive” judgment dropped, and the same editors were deliriously firing champagne corks at each other? Back then, the judgment was proof of Trump’s criminality, democracy’s salvation, and Lady Justice in fine form.

But now, with John Bolton under the microscope, the reversal of the judgment magically becomes a teachable moment about prosecutorial restraint.

Please. Spare us.

But this: “Just because someone can be charged with a crime does not mean they should be.” Translation: justice is conditional, depending on who’s in the dock. The Post is outright arguing for a principle of two-tiered justice — as if peeking under Lady Justice’s blindfold were the bedrock of democracy.

If the crimes are overbroad, change the statute. If not, and someone can be charged, it obviously does mean they should be, regardless of whether they share your deplorable and unpopular political philosophy.

🔥 Hilariously, the Editorial Board bent over backwards to scold Trump for “revenge raids” and to sermonize about “forbearance,” but not once did they trot out their favorite mantra: “no one is above the law.” That line was practically a daily drumbeat during the Mar-a-Lago saga and every other Trump case. But now, when it’s Bolton’s boxes? Suddenly, the slogan vanishes, disappearing like the faint ghost of a distant echo.

The deepest irony is that they convinced themselves that Trump was a one-off, an aberration, a man so uniquely dangerous that feeding “norms and standards” into the shredder was justified by the exigencies of the moment. Every raid, every novel theory of prosecution, every “emergency” departure from precedent was platformed as democracy’s last stand.

The problem with governing by exception is that exceptions have a nasty habit of becoming precedents and biting you in the tender parts. Once you’ve broken the seal —politicized prosecutions, FBI raids on ex-presidents, hyper-creative readings of statutes— you shouldn’t be surprised when the same exacting playbook is used against your people. Yet somehow, the Post seems shocked that the tools sharpened for Trump are now cutting against Bolton.

It’s the oldest legal lesson of all: if you cheer when the state stretches the law to nail your enemy, you don’t get to complain when the same stretched law comes looking for you.

It’s not like this is some novel post-millennial phenomenon. Two thousand years ago, when Jesus sermonized from the Mount, he clearly said: “For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you.” (Matthew 7:2). Whether He referred to human or divine justice, the advice remains solid.

Maybe if we still taught the Bible in grade school, they could’ve avoided this mess.

Hang them higher than Haman.

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Good grief. A literally unbelievable story appeared in this morning’s New York Times that shows just how far liberals can go when unopposed. It was headlined, and I am not making this up: “Expecting on the Front Lines: Motherhood in Ukraine’s Military.” The Times framed it as western moms are weak compared to Ukraine’s heroic war-fighting expectant mothers. Not a joke, as the cabbage would say.

Just give her a gun

For instance, there was Nadia, 25, who served as a frontline radio operator until she was eight and a half months pregnant. The Times told us, “Ukraine’s military is finding it hard to recruit young men” —no kidding— but “women are a bright spot.” See guys? It’s not that hard. Be a bright spot.

Some people, including me, would say that any culture that allows its pregnant women to fight in combat at all, much less up till birth, was a demonic culture not worth saving. The people who would say that obviously don’t work at the Times.

Thus, at last, we behold the monstrous manifestation of feminism’s final form. “I wanted to challenge society by saying that a woman in a complex combat position can perform her duties on an equal footing with a man,” Valentyna said, before cutting her maternity leave short to return to the front.

It was presented as empowerment. What it really revealed is a progressive newspaper so broken that it applauds mothers abandoning newborns for the trenches. To the Times, equality is measured not by human flourishing, but by equal exposure to death.

Totally normal

Behold: the true theatre of the macabre, the abolition of humanity, and the lip-glossed horrors of progressivism, brought to us courtesy of credulous Times propagandists, in two hideous sentences:

Unlike the Times reporters, not all Ukrainian men have devolved so far into delirium. “Finding a unit to accept her back wasn’t easy,” the Times angrily reported. “Several turned her down, including one whose commander said she should stay home with her baby.” Can you believe that? Thank goodness for the spirit of feminism, though, because Valentyna persisted, triumphantly becoming the newest hero of the sexual revolution.

Here, the Times detected Bias! Discrimination! Patriarchy! Pregnant women can fight, too! (Of course, you don’t see Times reporters signing up to fight, even ones who aren’t pregnant.)

I won’t belabor this ridiculous and pathetic excuse for ‘news,’ even though it would be fun. The conclusion is simple: once a movement reaches the point where pregnancy is treated as nothing more than an inconvenient wardrobe malfunction — “uniforms don’t fit pregnant women” — it has rotted past redemption. It must be excised, killed, and studied by scientists, like a malignant turbo cancer.

At least we can thank the Times for drawing our attention to this matter.

Finally, I felt this appalling story also revealed everything you need to know about how the Proxy War is going. In short: Badly for Ukraine. When the propaganda pieces feature ovulation apps buzzing in trenches and maternity uniforms sewn by NGOs, you’re not looking at strength — you’re looking at moral and physical exhaustion disguised as empowerment.

If America supports this disaster, we become just as morally compromised as the leaders in Ukraine who’re fueling this horrific farce. And on an aside, I’ll note that President Trump is the only leader who ever talks about the human cost of the war. Everyone else is counting tanks and shells; he’s the only one counting mothers and babies.

The Proxy War can’t possibly end too quickly. Just give the Russians the whole damned thing and send the moms back to the babies. I’m sorry to all the slava people, but enough is enough. Ukraine has already lost. This article proved it. End it now.

Have a magnificent Monday! Coffee & Covid shall return tomorrow, same time, same spot, with another installment of entertaining commentary and educational essential news.

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