☕️ PEST CONTROL ☙ Saturday, September 5, 2026 ☙ C&C NEWS 🦠

Economy adds 162,000 jobs, CNN calls it "choppiness"; NYT finds Shapiro's 2nd measles death, and it makes things worse; and the Grey Lady dishes the tea on the widening lab-leak probe; more.

Good morning, C&C, it’s Saturday! Your Weekend Roundup includes: the August jobs report blows past expectations by 150%, and CNN describes the good news like a rogue wave hitting a cruise ship; the AI jobs apocalypse stays parked just over the horizon while federal payrolls hit historic lows; the Times finally finds Governor Shapiro’s second measles death, and it turns out to be a one-month-old with a fatal genetic condition nobody bothered to report; the CDC stubbornly holds the line at zero measles deaths; the Times accidentally scoops itself with an exposé of the DOJ’s “sprawling and aggressive” lab-leak investigation; and a sitting federal grand jury is already hearing from EcoHealth’s bottom-of-the-pyramid witnesses while eight un-pardoned virus scientists sweat.

🌍🇺🇸 ESSENTIAL NEWS AND COMMENTARY 🇺🇸🌍

📈📈📈

Yesterday we enjoyed a good-news roundup about immigration (and learned important safety information). Today, let’s put on our helmets and tackle the economy. First up: jobs. Yesterday, CNN reported, “The US economy added 162,000 jobs in August, more than double expectations.” It already sounds good, but the news was even better. CNN tried to shrink it. “More than double” here means 2.5 times, or 150% more. As usual, experts were baffled.

The experts had only predicted +65,000 jobs. “This jobs report did blow expectations out of the water,” said Daniel Zhao, chief analyst at Glassdoor. Economists, wearing their orange-tinted glasses, had overly focused on feared “headwinds” including: an aging population, rapid adoption of AI, higher oil prices, the war with Iran, and an unseemly lust for news that could possibly damage Republicans right before the midterm elections.

But there was no way to sour-coat this news.

“The employment gains in August were some of the broadest seen since President Donald Trump took office,” CNN reported glumly. But fortunately they found a leaden lining. The sudden and unexpected surge of terrific economic activity allowed CNN to deploy sneering words like “whiplash,” “choppiness,” “a whipsaw effect,” “volatile,” and “unstable momentum”— as if it were describing a rogue wave hitting a Celebrity Cruise ship right as the buffet opened.

Although it clearly pained CNN, and even though the platform shrank these two additional admissions into two single-sentence paragraphs each, it grudgingly coughed up more good news. “August also marked the first increase in the labor force participation rate in eight months,” it allowed. “And the number of people working part-time for economic reasons fell to its lowest level in nearly two years.”

That was good, and fine so far as it goes. But the story left out a couple important statistics. First, the AI jobs catastrophe, which has been hysterically predicted by “AI experts” for years now, remains poised just beyond the horizon, always just out of reach. Headline from yesterday’s Economist:

That’s not all. My personal favorite was that the number of federal government jobs as a proportion of the overall market has now plunged to historic lows, chalking up yet another Trump 2.0 record and creating what psychologists call cognitive dissonance among professional economists, referred to in the diagnostic manual as “Eeyore Syndrome.” Behold:

In other words, between the surging jobs market and all the firings of federal employees, the burden of unproductive jobs funded by taxpayers is bottoming out. The Administration is setting all-time records. More promises kept.

🦠🦠🦠

But don’t worry! The New York Times is on the case, shaking out the nation’s couch cushions to find some appalling new threat to eclipse all the great economic news. After all, you can’t spend it if you’re dead. Yesterday, the Grey Lady excreted an especially malignant bit of misinformation deceptively headlined, “Six-Week-Old Infant Died From Measles, Lancaster Coroner Says.” Ironically, the subheadline accused Secretary Kennedy of lying: “The ruling casts doubt on statements from the federal health secretary, who speculated that measles deaths reported by the state may have been ‘fabricated.’” And it selected a gigantic cover image to trigger America’s germaphobes:

“The Lancaster County coroner has determined,” the Times’ story began, with a completely straight face, “that a six-week-old child in Pennsylvania died from measles.” Not “with.” From.

Alert readers will recall Josh Shapiro’s dramatic press conference eleven days ago, in which the Pennsylvania Governor (D) theatrically announced two unidentified but “completely preventable” measles deaths, both “unvaccinated,” which he flatly blamed on the Trump Administration in general, and Sec. Kennedy specifically, as if the HHS Secretary were sneaking around daycare centers injecting toddlers with measles virus.

Governor Shapiro then delicately refrained from providing any further information about the deaths, such as evidence for his claims, citing “privacy.” He didn’t even identify them. He just let everybody guess, like the “public health emergency” was some kind of morbid after-dinner round of Measles Clue.

Thanks to some real reporting, we quickly learned that Governor Shapiro’s first tragic example was a newborn infant who died from a “lacerated spleen,” which can be caused by a number of unfortunate reasons— but not respiratory viruses, unless they’ve learned how to use scalpels.

For an as-yet-unknown purpose, the newborn was PCR-tested for measles virus post-mortem and found to be positive. “At the time of the autopsy, we did obtain some tissue from the newborn and sent it for PCR testing that did confirm the presence of measles,” the coroner admitted to reporters. Mind you, no measles symptoms had been reported. The kid was just born. (They are searching as hard as they can to find themselves a measles poster child. Just saying.)

The Times, quoting unnamed Pennsylvania “State health officials,” still called the death “measles associated” since “the spleen can become enlarged in response to a measles infection, making it more vulnerable to injury and rupture.” Okay… But over a week ago, a local affiliate reported, “Dr. Diamantoni said the forensic pathologist did not feel the spleen was enlarged or inflamed, or showed any evidence of infection from measles.” The Times, which employs a whole ‘health desk,’ apparently missed that one.

🦠 The article’s breathless news was that the second death has now been identified. The county coroner, Dr. Stephen Diamantoni, said his office investigated Governor Shapiro’s claim and located the missing statistic. He discovered a one-month-old child who died because of Amish lethal microcephaly (the Times mysteriously omitted the word ‘lethal’ from the official disease name) and, in an admirable surge of professional self-preservation, said he “felt confident that measles contributed to the death.”

Measles is a mandatory reporting illness. All providers must “immediately report” even suspected measles cases. But nobody reported the Amish measles case. The Times explained, “the clinic that treated the child did not refer the case to the coroner because the death was not unexpected: children with this genetic condition typically die within months, often because of a viral illness.”

Um. What’s that?

The Times did not report the sad fact that children born with Amish microcephaly —an abnormally tiny head— never walk or speak and always die before twelve months— and usually within six months. Even if the Times’ unstated argument was that the infant might have lived a couple months more, the measles vaccine is not given before the first year anyway. And even if measles vaccine had been given to everyone else, the infant still would have soon died from the next respiratory illness to come along.

So what, exactly, was the Times’ point? The poor child never had a chance. She expectedly died from Amish microcephaly. Now, for the first time, even though it was never reported before, we are told it died with measles. Not “from.” With.

In a separate story, the Times reported that the CDC looked at the same two cases and correctly maintains that there have been zero measles deaths so far this year. (The CDC only counts them when measles is the cause of death on the certificate.) So.

The Times remains skeptical. I’m old enough to remember back when the Times considered the CDC to be the “gold standard.” How Times change. It’s probably also worth a mention that, even if the two deaths were “from measles,” two deaths would still be below 2025’s total (3). So what, precisely, are we arguing about here?

Hilariously, both stories dropped off the Times’ home page while I was writing this morning’s post, having been replaced by breaking news about the difficult conditions Palestinians are suffering in Gaza. Never mind.

🪳🪳🪳

The Times giveth and taketh away. Also during this morning’s blogging time, an unintentionally wonderful exposé-style story appeared at the tippy-top of the Times’ home page, headlined, “Inside the D.O.J.’s Investigation of Fauci and Other Virus Scientists.” (That’s a non-paywalled gift link.) They have a name now! Virus scientists. Meaning, scientists who are a plague on humankind.

Is it just me, or did President Trump’s facial expression whenever he was standing near the human cockroach always resemble the mug of a man who was thoughtfully starting to wonder if it had really been a good idea to consume that second Taco Bell breakfast burrito. But I digress.

The article’s subheadline, meant to terrify Times readers, was a balm in Gilead for sane people: “As Dr. Anthony Fauci has faced public scrutiny from congressional Republicans, the D.O.J. has pursued a quieter and more expansive effort against a wider circle of researchers.”

The story began with a bang: a theatrical retelling of how, in “early 2025,” then-FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino “summoned dozens of agents to the bureau’s Washington headquarters” and grilled them on the lab-leak investigation. According to the Times, Bongino (bless him) “and other officials helped set in motion a sprawling and aggressive investigative effort.”

According to “interviews with six current and former officials familiar with the investigations” —all too chicken to give their names— “F.B.I. agents and federal prosecutors have sought evidence related to at least eight scientists, among them a Nobel laureate and influential former government researchers like Dr. Fauci.” (Seven scientists, we note for the record, who did not receive pardons.)

The Times explained that the sources couldn’t disclose their identities because they were “not authorized to speak publicly”— so naturally, they spoke publicly through America’s most widely circulated newspaper. This is known as ethical ventriloquism.

According to the sources, FBI investigators “have demanded phone, email, grant and payment records, as well as grand jury testimony by scientists.”

Now we are starting to get somewhere. Finally. The pest control experts have arrived.

🪳 Irony abounds. The people who dishonestly investigated the lab leak are now themselves under investigation. And anonymous sources complaining about lack of transparency! That’s like ventriloquists complaining about hand puppets.

And, in case you were wondering, the Times knows exactly how it all looks. “Mr. Trump’s supporters accuse those scientists of helping to start the pandemic and aggravating its harms,” it sneered, “and believe the inquiries represent overdue accountability.” That is true. And having admitted it, the Times promptly dropped the thread like it just found a cottonmouth in its helmet.

Next, the Times buried the lede. It incidentally broke the most significant news. First, it described the now-infamous EcoHealth Alliance only as a “defunct nonprofit,” which is like calling Jack the Ripper an activist for sex-worker rights. But then, in the same breath, the story let slip, almost as an aside, that the DOJ has a sitting grand jury hearing witness testimony:

A grand jury means the criminal prosecution process has begun. It’s not just an investigation. Not every grand jury indicts, but calling this ‘an investigation’ is like calling the Lindsay Clancy trial ‘a meeting.’ You can quibble about when a “criminal investigation” becomes a “prosecution,” but the DOJ is now serving the jury ham sandwiches.

Note that the grand jury witness was a ‘former EcoHealth staff member.’ Mitchell Benzine, formerly the staff director of the Republican-run Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic between 2023 and 2025, described the committee’s strategy. “You make a pyramid,” he explained. “You talk to and get documents from the bottom of the pyramid, and you work your way up.”

Right after that, the Times identified Dr. David Morens, Fauci’s toady who chattered about destroying emails in emails that he forgot to destroy, as “nearer” the bottom of the pyramid. (One imagines prisoner-abuse pyramids.)

The Times accidentally revealed too much. If Morens is, in fact, also “nearer” the bottom of the pyramid (whatever that means), then, along with the Ecohealth staffer, the FBI is obviously working its way up. Morens recently pleaded guilty and faces sentencing in November.

Dr. Morens’s lawyer said that Dr. Morens “has taken responsibility for what he did and will continue to do so.” Interesting. How will Dr. Morens “continue” to take responsibility? Maybe continuing to take responsibility by cooperating with investigators?

🪳 The Times framed the whole story using the boring, timeworn Republicans Pounce tactic. But strip out the Bongino podcast quotes and what’s left is an already-running federal investigation that has issued subpoenas, hoovered up financial and communications records, and hauled at least one EcoHealth witness before a federal grand jury.

The article both told us there was a grand jury running in Maryland and also “a separate line of inquiry in the F.B.I.’s Cleveland office.” Like they said, a sprawling investigation. The FBI is devoting significant resources to this case.

Democrats are calling the investigations revenge. “It smacks of McCarthyism because it seeks to demonize individuals for seemingly fictional and illusory reasons,” said Senator Richard “Dick” Blumenthal (D-CT). “The question is whether there’s selective targeting.” Senator Blumenthal is very worried about ‘selective targeting.’ He was not, however, too troubled about it in 2023. Or 2024. Or during any of the four Trump indictments.

Former EcoHealth president Dr. Peter Daszak, now an unindicted co-conspirator in the Morens email-destruction case, complained, “It seems like retaliation.” He added, “The right learned pretty early on in Covid that public health is a threat to power.”

Dr. Daszak, at least, maintains a very high opinion of himself.

Attempting to discredit all the investigations, the Times diligently mined Dan Bongino’s podcast from the time before he went to work in the Trump Administration. “They hid the lab leak,” Bongino had said. “They knew that would be a destructive narrative for them because Donald Trump had been talking about the danger of China the entire time.” Well? He wasn’t wrong.

If you read this confusing story, which features a carefully jumbled timeline interrupted with constant quotes from critics, you will notice the conspicuous absence of anyone supporting these investigations. It begrudged a single sentence describing what “Trump’s supporters” think— without even quoting one.

Rand Paul, for instance, has been saying all this on the record since 2021. The Times must have accidentally deleted his number.

At bottom, the Times tries to transform the news of a massive criminal investigation into a revolting plea for sympathy. They want us to empathize with the plight of a profoundly unsympathetic network of arrogant elites and credentialed professionals who earn their livings soaking up taxpayers’ wages and conspiring to evade public records requirements and cover their butts.

Yet the Times could not afford one syllable of sympathy for the taxpayers, who lost jobs, loved ones, businesses, years of education, and their health.

But never mind. Thanks to the New York Times, and despite setting its spin cycle to ‘furious,’ we have learned several new and very encouraging things: (1) one of the first things Dan Bongino did in early 2025 was open a can of whoop-butt on the FBI over its stalled lab leak inquiry; (2) it quickly became a “sprawling and aggressive investigative effort;” (3) the investigation continues widening to at least eight scientists including Fauci; and (4) there is now a grand jury hearing evidence from witnesses including people who worked at EcoHealth.

That, my friends, is what pest control looks like, especially if the exterminator company has a virtually unlimited budget, hundreds of lawyers, and an army of FBI agents.

Have a wonderful weekend! Enjoy this crisp late-summer weather and then let’s meet back here on Monday morning, for another installment of essential news and caffeinated commentary.

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 🦠

How to Donate to Coffee & Covid

Twitter: jchilders98.
Truth Social: jchilders98.
MeWe: mewe.com/i/coffee_and_covid.
Telegram: t.me/coffeecovidnews
C&C Swag! www.shopcoffeeandcovid.com