☕️ PETS’ REVENGE ☙ Wednesday, October 22, 2025 ☙ C&C NEWS 🦠

Feds put bullseye on Fani Willis as steel drums pound “Island Indictment;” Haitian temp army loses jobs, visas, and factories; a silent, upside-down Trump 1.0 shutdown drags into week three; more.

Good morning, C&C, it’s Wednesday! Your mid-week roundup includes: feds put legal bullseye on Fulton County DA Fani Willis, and the steel drums play a dramatic tune called “Island Indictment;” small-town Haitian invaders face setbacks as their staffing agencies disappear, temporary work status ends, and the company that hired them goes out of business; largely invisible, second-longest shutdown enters third week, but this one is the opposite of Trump 1.0’s shutdown story.

🌍 WORLD NEWS AND COMMENTARY 🌍

🔥🔥🔥

Yesterday, the New York Times ran a tremendous story headlined, “Justice Department Scrutinizes a Trip Fani Willis Took to the Bahamas.” It was as grotesque a bit of journalistic malpractice-slash-prebunking we’ve seen in a long time, and all for what? Trying to save the Love Bunny? But it’s still a fun and encouraging morality tale of how to combine business with pleasure, or vice-versa.

The short version is that the Times ‘somehow’ got hold of a subpoena that Atlanta’s new Trump-appointed US Attorney, heroic Ted Hertzberg, had rudely transmitted to Ms. Fani Willis, the Fulton County prosecutor who relentlessly pursued Trump and his lawyers for “election interference”— and just as relentlessly pursued her male subordinates for, well, something all of us would prefer not to imagine.

Fani’s romantic side interests eventually got her tossed off the case, which the Times reluctantly conceded remains “in limbo.”

Which was funny, because there was also probably a lot of limbo at the so-called Bahamas “leadership conference” mentioned in the subpoena. Practically the entire story was soused in what was obviously only one of many requests from the DOJ subpoena. But the Times —despite claiming to have seen the subpoena— failed to mention any of the other document request categories, which almost certainly included things like Fani’s communications with the Biden Administration and her busy cruise schedule. But never mind.

Instead, all the Times wanted to talk about was a single subpoena request: “The district attorney attended a leadership training seminar in preparation for the start of her second term,” said Willis toady Jeff DiSantis (no relation to Florida’s superlative governor, and a quite poor example of people who share his first name).

Willis, the Times reported, enjoyed the Bahamas training trip along with “some colleagues” last November, after her most recent re-election.

A few paragraphs later, the story quietly explained that the “some colleagues” who went on the “training trip” was Fani’s “chief investigator.” They didn’t name the industrious gentleman, but the office website revealed that would be one Richard Randolph, who Fani had just promoted to the position and who also remarkably resembles Fani’s previous love cushion, Nathan Wade:

Nathan probably thought he was irreplaceable, but Nathan’s hot dogs come in packs of a dozen. One wonders how much of New Nathan’s, I mean Mr. Randolph’s, island “leadership training” included office services above and beyond the ordinary call of duty. (One shudders in dread even thinking about it.) Susan Ryan, one of the training company’s owners, called the seminar “very intensive”— for Randolph, perhaps kind of like what the Abu Ghraib prisoners experienced, but with Rum Punch.

Anyway, the Times credulously reported whatever silly excuses Willis’ office vomited up: no government money was used for the trip (but why not, if it was legit?)— only “campaign funds;” the trip was not a junket but a legitimate “leadership course to prepare for her second term” provided by the “Vera Causa Group” (why is the so-called course not listed on the group’s website?); and anyway the whole story is a nothing-burger (but then … why report it at all?).

Times readers were left with the lasting impression that brave Fani was bravely leading the battle against Trump racketeering, from an all-inclusive resort, building morale with her male subordinate(s), and earning Continuing Lounge Education (CLE) at the same time. Win-win.

This story is a great example of what I call a “prophylactic narrative,” or a pre-bunking story. It’s definitely not investigative reporting. The giveaways are: It unquestioningly regurgitated the target’s unverified claims as fact; it omitted any hard data (who attended, cost, hotel, agenda); and it limboed right under the real ethical question: if the trip wasn’t official, why is it okay for a sitting D.A. to spend campaign cash at a Caribbean resort?

The real story, intentionally lost in the conga line and buried under the buffet, was the subpoena and the DOJ’s obvious continuing investigation. They’re probing Fani hard (that’s what she said) and they’re leaving no junket unturned. And if things were going well for Fani, there’d be no need for any prophylactic.

Well, except for Randoph. It might be a good idea if he took an antibiotic or something.

🔥🔥🔥

Remember the residents’ poor cats and dogs in Charleroi, Pennsylvania, the tiny town infested by Biden’s imported Haitians? Most of the imported Haitians got jobs at a single local food processing plant. Well, guess what? I bet you never saw this coming: Last week, local ABC affiliate WTAB ran a story headlined, “Fourth Street Barbecue in Charleroi to lay off more than 250 workers, set to close late October.”

CLIP: October 2024 documentary exposing the Charleroi-Haitian scam (21:39).

You can’t make this stuff up. The Haitians, who were credibly accused of hoovering up neighborhood pets and city park geese, worked at a barbecue processing plant. I mean, come on.

In the short documentary above, the narrator described the Biden-era scam. “Staffing agencies” provided employers with non-citizens who the Autopen had granted “temporary protected status.” The staffers collected 25% of the wages. The non-citizens were “placed” with willing businesses that paid undermarket wages and demanded extreme work conditions. It was win-win-win.

Now, nine months after Trump closed the border, the gravy train has shuddered to a halt. The employers feasted on the illegal largesse dished out by Biden cronies and outright criminals (one staffing company owner was arrested this year for ordering a hit on a competing staffing company owner). Now the “staffing” companies and even some of the employers are going out of business, leaving the displaced workers milling around the empty lobby in confusion.

The big employer in Charleroi was 4th Street Barbecue, which even bought up houses in the town where the Haitians could live, thereby also getting paid by the federal government for providing them with “temporary housing.” The whole thing was a top-to-bottom taxpayer-funded scam of covid proportions.

But suddenly and unexpectedly, now that the federal money barbecue has ended, 4th Street is going bankrupt.

WTAB’s on-scene reporter explained, “Many of the employees, I’m told, are Haitian immigrants who are here living and working under Biden’s Temporary Protected Status.” Shockingly, the reporter explained, “the closure came six days after 4th Street Barbecue was sued for defaulting on loans of $80 million dollars.”

As a commercial litigation lawyer who’s seen my share of defaulted business loans, that $80 million figure leaped off the page like a wild goose trying to flee from a hungry voodoo priest. That’s a lot of debt in a single loan for a company the size of Fourth Street Barbecue (1,000 employees) with only two locations in tiny Charleroi. It’s possible, but it’s weird. I’d like to know whether that loan was federally subsidized.

Even if it was above-board and not yet another facet of the scheme, that would be even stranger: why would a ten-year-old company doing well enough to legitimately borrow that much suddenly wink out of business?

Could it have something to do with staffing a quarter of the entire company with Haitians who can’t read or speak English, or even drive a car (staffing companies provided buses to pick them up for work every day)? Workers who will soon become deportable illegal immigrants after their TPS expires? Fourth Street fired nearly all the local American workers to hire the Haitians. I doubt they want to go back there.

According to alert local immigration lawyer Joe Murphy, a bigger problem arises from the fact that the Haitians’ Temporary Protected Status expires in a few months (February 2026). Nobody expects Trump’s officials to extend the program. Even if the workers were not promptly deported in February, Fourth Street still couldn’t legally employ them.

“From the perspective of the company itself,” lawyer Murphy generously allowed, “closing is not a bad move.”

Thus, as of Halloween, when the company closes for good, a horde of Haitians in temporary subsidized housing will immediately become unemployed and unhoused— up to 800 families worth, according to Murphy. The Haitians dominate the tiny town, whose pre-immigration population hovered around 4,000 residents.

Even though DHS is currently paying illegals to leave, and even covering their costs and throwing some cash at them, the Haitians probably won’t self-deport. Consider this remarkably frank interview excerpt from a City Journal article, one year ago:

The catastrophe is likely to fall squarely on the state. Pennsylvania’s governor Josh Shapiro has shrilly condemned President Trump’s remarks about the Haitians, calling Trump’s comments “xenophobic,” “absolutely false,” and “really dangerous.” Shapiro claims the Haitians “contribute positively” by opening businesses, bringing skills, and filling needed jobs. Let’s see how he tackles Charleroi’s sudden Haitian implosion.

For your listening pleasure, and as a reminder of how far we’ve come in such a short time, here’s the viral “They’re Eating the Cats” mashup.

🔥🔥🔥

Yesterday, Bloomberg ran its latest shutdown update story headlined, “US Government Shutdown Is Now Second Longest in History.” Today (Wednesday) marks day 22— just over three weeks since it began. In two more weeks, President Trump will beat his own record, since he also holds the title for longest shutdown— following the 35-day media circus during his first term.

Last time, Democrats won. Trump finally gave in. Crushed under a tsunami of negative media, airport delays, and federal employees facing missing a second consecutive paycheck, President Trump surrendered his demand for border wall funding. (Haha, it’s funded now. TAW.)

This 2025 shutdown also holds a different record: it is the least visible government shutdown in history.

During the Trump 1.0 shutdown, the media orchestrated a relentless drumbeat of coverage that painted the President as the architect of chaos. Headlines blared his infamous “I will take the mantle” remark, endlessly replaying scenes from a tense Oval Office clash with congressional leaders and amplifying the sense of crisis. Axios, January 2019:

Networks looped images of anguished federal workers in food bank lines, TSA agents calling in sick, and national parks shutting down, all set against the backdrop of Trump’s stubborn demand for border wall funding. Scathing editorials dissected the shutdown as an act of political brinksmanship and branded it as a personal gamble that backfired. Poll after poll splashed across screens and homepages shouting that the public squarely blamed Trump, reinforcing a swelling narrative of presidential isolation and defeat.

By controlling the narrative and saturating the airwaves with stories of hardship and dysfunction, the media boxed the President in, leaving him with dwindling political leverage and a shrinking space to maneuver, until at last he conceded with no new wall funding— underscoring the pre-pandemic media’s ability to frame, drive, and ultimately corner the presidency itself.

Things are much different this time.

Trump, now a shutdown veteran, entered the 2025 shutdown season with a shrewd strategy, not accepting the blame this time, at all, but positioning this ‘crisis’ as a direct result of Democrat intransigence. He has relentlessly branded it the “Schumer Shutdown.” From the outset, his communications machine has hammered home the theme that Democrats are sabotaging government operations to advance their own health policy priorities, flooding the airwaves and social media with accusations of reckless partisanship.

Yesterday, for example, in an Oval Office presser, President Trump demanded the Democrats stop playing games and re-open the government:

CLIP: “We will not be extorted on this crazy plot of theirs; Democrats need to vote for the clean, bipartisan CR and reopen our government” (1:12).

“Democrats are the obstructionists,” Trump said. “We’re doing well with everything,” he continued. “Car plants are pouring back into our country. AI plants, we’re leading, we’re dominating China now in AI.” Yesterday, Jon Stewart told Bernie Sanders that Democrats “have boxed themselves in.” Senator John Fetterman (D-Pa.) —whose jab stroke turned him conservative— called it “groundhog day” since Democrats keep voting to keep the government closed, saying “we all lose, and it’s embarrassing.” CNN’s Wolf Blitzer asked Senator Martin Heinrich (D-NM), “is this a crisis of your party’s own making?”

Meanwhile, unlike the Trump 1.0 shutdown, the President’s approval rating is holding steady. Reuters, yesterday:

Also unlike the first shutdown —where Trump’s less experienced rhetoric handed the media an easy target— this time he has deliberately ceded no ground, turning every press opportunity into a harsh indictment of Democratic motives. Conservative outlets have amplified his framing, and official messaging from federal agencies now openly blames Democrats for the impasse, a tactic that’s covered by mainstream media with almost weary acceptance. AP, October 2nd:

So far, Trump’s shutdown layoffs have been stymied by a judge (of course), while a legal battle ensues over the extremely perplexing question of whether spending any money on mass layoffs during a shutdown to reduce expenses violates federal budget laws prohibiting shutdown spending. Chicken, meet egg.

Regardless, this is not any repeat of the Trump 1.0 shutdown, even if this one continues for two more weeks, and Democrats know it. Instead of pressure mounting against the President, it’s exactly the reverse this time. This time, the pressure is building against Democrats. But since their party is leaderless and in shambles, if they give in, the backlash from their base could tank their midterm prospects.

I can’t wait for whatever happens next.

Have a wonderful Wednesday! Coffee & Covid shall return tomorrow morning, with a steaming hot refill of essential news and 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