☕️ HYPERSONIC ☙ Thursday, April 17, 2025 ☙ C&C NEWS 🦠

Nemesis nips Letitia James as Trump’s team flags her for mortgage fraud; RFK’s autism summit breaks records and lies; MAHA rockets forward; and science makes a comeback from clownworld.

Good morning, C&C, it’s Thursday! Your roundup today includes: Nemesis comes for one of the most puffed-up and arrogant prosecutors in the whole Trump-hating deck; Kennedy’s autism conference shatters American health records, stands up for the voiceless, and reveals the media’s worst fake-news narrative spinning since they reported that General Custer attacked innocent civilians; Secretary Kennedy joins Indiana governor in putting jet fuel into national MAHA; and our new Director of Science Policy describes America’s looming golden age of innovation and the end of Biden’s war on civilization.

🌍 WORLD NEWS AND COMMENTARY 🌍

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Let she without sin cast the first trumped-up lawsuit and drag people through years of lawfare Hades. As they say, what goes around often turns up drunk in your driveway at 3am and wants to have a long argument about something that happened back in college. But I digress. Yesterday, the New York Times ran a story dripping with Schaudenfreude headlined, “Trump Official Scrutinizes N.Y.’s Attorney General Over Real Estate.” The sub-headline explained, “The head of a U.S. housing agency told prosecutors that Letitia James appeared to have falsified real estate records, a move that could be the start of an investigation.”

For the benefit of Portland readers, Letitia James is the New York State Attorney General —Heaven only knows why New Yorkers elected her— who in 2022 sued President Trump for allegedly falsifying his mortgage applications by overvaluing (in her opinion) his real estate holdings. With timely assistance from wispy-haired judge Arthur Engoran, she ultimately won and obtained the largest civil judgment ever levied against an individual person. (The case remains on appeal.)

But now the proverbial worm has turned, and is tunnelling into the Attorney General’s own mortgage applications.

You would think that any puffed-up prosecutor with two brain cells to rub together who was thinking about suing one of the most popular former presidents in history, would make absolutely sure her own record was completely spotless and unassailable, especially for the exact same thing she was thinking about prosecuting the former president for.

You would think, wouldn’t you?

Anyway, this particular dedicated public servant owns a bunch of investment property in New York, not on any Trump scale, but she’s doing very well for a career in government. Her net worth seems to be somewhere between $10M — $15M, and her disclosed investment real estate holdings are around $4M (her values, so presumably on the low side. She wouldn’t overvalue them, right?).

I could find no meaningly explanations for how James got wealthy. She makes $220K as State AG. I guess the sanctimonious prosecutor is a much better investor than she is an attorney general. Just like the rest of them.

Anyway, this week, Trump’s Housing Director, Bill Pulte, flagged some of James’ mortgage transactions and sent them to Pam Bondi at DOJ as a criminal referral. Among other things, in various loan applications, James allegedly claimed: to be married to her father (I’m not making that up), to be under financial duress from covid, to reside in the house shown above as her principal residence, and was, shall we say, generous with various facts related to the properties like how many units there were.

All those claims seem clearly intended to get better interest rates, the very same type of public injury she’d alleged against President Trump, since fraudulently-obtained interest rates increase everyone else’s rates, or so she’d successfully argued to Judge Engoran.

Director Pulte’s criminal referral helpfully suggested various criminal charges, including wire fraud, mail fraud, bank fraud, and making false statements to a financial institution (the same charge levied against Trump), among others.

The obsequious Times sprang to her defense. It was just mistakes! Anyone could make them! She said them correctly on her other documents! Yes, yes, calm down Gray Lady, the pompous AG will get a chance to explain all that to the court. Just like Trump got a chance to explain why he picked the values he did, and like how the banks got a chance to testify that they were fine with his values.

Of course, one could argue that her different answers on different documents just makes things that much worse, but hey, I’m a lawyer, not… oh wait, this is lawyer territory. Yeah, it looks bad.

It’s wonderfully ironic and consistent with our theme of Nemesis, and delightfully in line with the Times’s obsession with its “revenge” narrative (even though Trump didn’t personally make the referral). But so far as we know, no criminal investigation has yet been opened by DOJ. We wait with hopeful expectation to find out what happens next.

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It might have been the single most important HHS press conference ever, and it was one of the best chances to learn media’s reprehensible narrative tricks in years. Yesterday, CNN ran the story headlined, “In first news conference as HHS secretary, Kennedy says autism is an epidemic in the US.” Specifically, Kennedy persuasively argued that autism must be caused by an “environmental toxin,” and he announced an urgent series of new studies to get to the bottom of it. Media instantly deployed its secret soldiers to discredit him.

CLIP: Kennedy reveals autism rates are now up to 1 in 12.5 boys (0:59).

To begin, they badly misquoted the new HHS Secretary. For mysterious reasons that historians will surely someday study, the media completely omitted Kennedy’s shocking autism statistics from the most recent CDC and state surveys. The autism rate continues increasing relentlessly, now up to 1 in 12.5 boys in the most recent California survey, which Kennedy called “an unrelenting upward trend.” That should have been the headline.

In other words, the fussy, selective media reporting misrepresented the urgency and specificity of his argument, since the California figure was a key piece of evidence Secretary Kennedy used to challenge the official ‘diagnostic’ narrative. Not only didn’t they headline that appalling statistic —the most recent data— but they whitewashed it altogether.

It gets worse.

Media also misdescribed Kennedy’s focus. He wasn’t talking about kids with quirks or trouble reading social cues, euphemistically labeled “neurodivergent.” Those are the fortunate ones. Kennedy was laser-focused on the left-behind: “these are kids who will never pay taxes. They’ll never hold a job. They’ll never play baseball. They’ll never write a poem. They’ll never go out on a date. Many of them will never use a toilet unassisted,” he explained.

Autism ‘activists’ focus on the most lightly affected, but the HHS Secretary noted that an astonishing “25% of diagnosed children are nonverbal, non-toilet trained, and exhibit severe symptoms like headbanging and sensory sensitivities.” They certainly can’t advocate for themselves.

Also ignored by reporters, Kennedy made the commonsense point (2:03) that we Gen-Xers and Boomers never encountered these stratospheric numbers of profound autism. “It’s difficult to find any widely prevalent cases of full-blown autism in older generations,” he said, adding, “you can’t find these people in homes— there are no homes for them.”

💉 Parents of the profoundly autistic report an all-too-familiar conspiracy of silence, of enforcement and cancellation, designed to browbeat them into silence:

Eileen isn’t alone. A 2023 Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders study found that 40% of parents of severely autistic children experienced ostracism or harassment in online autism communities after sharing their struggles, and were discredited as “ableist” or “anti-autistic.” I found many anecdotal reports evidencing the reprehensible treatment of autism parents.

For example, @AutismMom23 wrote, “I shared my nonverbal son’s daily struggles, and activists called me a bad mom, saying I’m harming the community.” Other parents report doxxing or coordinated campaigns to discredit them, such as @SevereAutismDad, who posted, “Activists leaked my address after I supported cure research.”

It’s the extreme, coordinated cancellation crusade we helplessly watched sprouting like kudzu during covid. A 2022 Autism in Adulthood article highlighted cases where parents lost speaking engagements or sponsorships after being labeled “anti-neurodiversity”— just for discussing severe autism’s challenges. For instance, @AutismCaregiver2024 posted, “I lost my job at a nonprofit after activists called me out for ‘pathologizing’ my son’s autism. I was just asking for more support for nonverbal kids.”

💉 Despite Kennedy’s clear focus on profound autism (e.g., “25% of diagnosed children are nonverbal, non-toilet trained”) and his obvious appeal to parents who feel ignored, as parent Eileen Lamb posted (“those voices are too often ignored”), no corporate media articles quoted any parents or organizations supporting Kennedy’s call for more studies.

There are lots of pro-Kennedy people media could have quoted, and they are easy to find. Groups like the NCSA, which advocate for research into the causes of severe autism, and parents like @fedupmom12 on X—“It’s truly unreal that there are parents of kids with autism who don’t support Kennedy”— were completely AWOL from yesterday’s mainstream coverage.

Not only did corporate media fail to quote parents of profoundly autistic children, but they also forgot to solicit any direct perspectives from the many researchers whose studies Kennedy cited, such as the 2010 EPA study identifying 1989 as a potential inflection point for rising autism diagnoses. Instead, all the big platforms consistently chose to quote neurodivergency activists and anti-cure doctors.

For me, I’d bet a card-counting Rain Man that the ‘neurodivergency activists’ busily canceling parents get tons of NIH grant money. Last year, the National Council on Severe Autism (NCSA) complained that only 20% of the 2024 Autism CARES Act’s $1.2 billion targeted severe autism, despite those needs being much more urgent and compelling.

I’ll let you guess at the reasons why the media coverage was so one-sided. Either way, media bias was as plain as the kid hitting his head against the wall in the corner.

The takeaway for resisting the media’s spider-like narrative spinning is to focus on the obvious bias generally, and then zero in on the lack of any mention of profound autism versus media’s monofocus on quirky neurodivergency. That’s the giveaway.

💉 Secretary Kennedy offered reporters an intriguing clue. “There’s a timeline,” he said. “Something happened. In fact, Congress ordered the EPA to tell us what year the autism epidemic began. The EPA scientists came back and said it happened in 1989. So you have to find a toxin that became ubiquitous around that time period and that affected every demographic.”

That EPA study, ordered to be done by Congress, was completed fifteen years ago in 2010. Think about that.

But yesterday, urgency became the word of the day. “We don’t wait two years to react to a measles epidemic … or any kind of infectious disease. We shouldn’t have to do that for diabetes or autism,” Kennedy stressed. “I would urge everyone to consider the likelihood that autism – whether we call it an epidemic, a tsunami or a surge of autism – is a real thing that we don’t understand, and it must be triggered or caused by environmental or risk factors,” he continued. “We need to address this question seriously because, in my opinion, for the last 20 years, we’ve collected data but not made real progress in understanding what causes autism or how to effectively prevent it or treat it effectively.”

Big Autism not only denies that there is any cure for the syndrome, it insists that no cure is needed. It’s just a different personality type, neurodivergency activists argue, claiming the condition is completely explained by genes. Zoe Gross, director of advocacy at the Autistic Self Advocacy Network, explained that seeking a cure “is a message that is very detrimental to the self-concept, self-esteem of young autistic people.”

Kennedy flatly rejects that hypothesis, and even spent half his presser making the point. “Genes do not cause epidemics. It can provide a vulnerability. You need an environmental toxin,” Kennedy stressed.

Adults are back in charge of the health agencies. We’ll see if they can push through the institutional bureaucratic resistance and make progress. Kennedy says he’ll have at least some answers by September. We shall see.

Media grade: F-.

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Kennedy is starting to get his sea legs. Earlier this week, he was seen out in Indiana with Dr. Oz setting more health records. Fox ran the encouraging story under the headline, “Kennedy applauds 'visionary' Indiana governor's MAHA executive orders.”

In short, Indiana Governor Mike Braun (R) is wrapping his arms around MAHA and issued eight health-related executive orders.

During Tuesday’s press event, Governor Braun reported that more SNAP dollars (food stamps) were going to sweets than fruits and vegetables. Under a new order, Indiana’s SNAP program will require able-bodied beneficiaries who are not currently working to seek jobs. Imagine that. And candy and soft drinks will no longer be bought with SNAP benefits there.

Braun also directed an evaluation of food dyes and additives, a study of “diet-related chronic disease,” a review of Hoosier access to locally produced foods, and development of new school fitness curricula.

“You’re setting the stage at the federal level; we’re going to be your best ally at the state level,” Braun assured HHS Secretary Kennedy and CMS Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz. “This isn’t a usual top-down, one-size-fits-all public health agenda. We’re focused on root causes, transparent information and real results,” Braun added.

MAHA.

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Remember our ongoing theme of a twenty-five year “Great Freeze” in science, arts, and culture? Apparently, we aren’t the only ones who’ve noticed. Fortune ran the story yesterday headlined, “Trump’s tech and science policy chief says Biden led with 'spirit of fear' and that today's progress lags 20th century innovation.” Director Kratsios actualy asked the single most important question: where are our flying cars?

I don’t want to ruffle any feathers, but does the new Trump Team project a certain masculine energy that was invisible for the last four years? I’m not saying that deploying the military to the border and getting excited about technological possibilities is limited to the males of the species or anything. But I’m just saying. Don’t cancel me.

Either way, whatever it is, it’s a very welcome change.

In his first public remarks since his confirmation, President Trump’s newly-confirmed director of tech and science policy, Michael Kratsios, accused the Biden Administration of leading with a “spirit of fear” and laid out a plan for achieving America’s Golden Age. His diagnosis of cultural and technological stagnation was stark:

Over the past 30 years only three commercial nuclear reactors have been built, and 10 have been closed. Despite spending almost twice as much on healthcare as peer nations, we have the lowest life expectancy. Apollo 17’s steps on the lunar surface have proved mankind’s last. The X-15’s record still stands, and the Concorde was decommissioned more than two decades ago. Our passenger planes are slower than they used to be. Our trains crawl compared to those in other parts of the world. Our cars do not fly.

Advances have not stopped, but something has gone wrong.

He has a point. I’ve been talking about the Spirit of Fear since 2020. And, so far as I know, America lacks a single high-speed train. It’s frankly humiliating that China and the Europeans can do it, but we can’t. Where’s our national pride?

Kratsios blamed strangling over-regulation. “The well-intentioned regulatory regime of the 1970s,” he argued, “became an ever-tightening ratchet; we have lost focus and vision, have lowered our sights, and have let systems and structures and bureaucracies muddle us along.”

He described a spirit of American innovation that clings to life, but is being held hostage. Kidnapped not by any lack of ingenuity, but by a web of institutional sclerosis, crony capitalism, and infrastructural inertia. Try laying a new rail line through five counties, three environmental reviews, seven lawsuits, and an ardent chorus of NIMBYs. Good luck.

During Trump 1.0, the President appointed Director Kratsios as Chief Technology Officer of the United States. From as early as 2017, Kratsios led the development of the American AI Initiative, with surreal, world-changing results we’ve all seen. He’s now calling for a whole-of-industry revitalization, promising that “the Golden Age of American innovation is on our horizon, if we choose it.”

The most quoted line from his speech to the Endless Frontiers Retreat in Austin was this gem: “Our technologies permit us to manipulate time and space. They leave distance annihilated, cause things to grow, and improve productivity.” What, folks wondered, was Kratsios referring to when he mentioned manipulating time and space? Was it a secret reference to cold fusion or downed UFO technology?

Sadly, probably not. He probably just meant commercial space and instant communications. Probably. But it was an odd turn of phrase.

We can argue about the pros and cons of hyper-technology, which is coming like a hypersonic train whether we like it or not. But it’s terrifically encouraging that we finally have a forward-looking administration that is talking about hope and opportunity and golden ages, instead of a relentlessly backward focus on equity, diversity, and “curing historical injustices.”

I’m out of time this morning, but for folks having an interest, consider the previous two centuries’ timelines of technological development. Focus on the technological explosions in the 1820’s and the roaring 1920’s. You’ll find a fascinating rhythm of technological detonation followed by social upheaval, a kind of century-cadence of disruption.

In short, the 1820’s delivered the Industrial Revolution, which changed everything. In the 1920’s, electricity lit the world, mass production went mainstream, radios shrank space and time, aviation took off, and the home refrigerator became the new family hearth.

If history rhymes —and the evidence, I think, speaks for itself— we’re not in any normal decade. We’re in a fulcrum moment, a century-sized inflection point. Just like steam upended muscle and electricity upended distance, AI and synthetic tech are upending cognition itself. And our long-studied conservative cultural revolution is coming to a glorious head, strongly suggesting a welcome but disruptive social realignment that could be comparable in scale to the last two centuries.

What a time to be alive.

Have a terrific Thursday! Climb aboard the digital speed train and get back here tomorrow morning, for another pit stop along the timeline of historic news and insightful commentary in this year’s Good Friday Edition. See you then.

Don’t race off! We cannot do it alone. Consider joining up with C&C to help move the nation’s needle and change minds. I could sure use your help getting the truth out and spreading optimism and hope, if you can: ☕ Learn How to Get Involved 🦠

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