☕️ SHATTERED TERRARIUMS ☙ Friday, April 24, 2026 ☙ C&C NEWS 🦠

SPLC feeding frenzy rolls into day three, Regeneron cures deaf toddler on camera, Green Beret allegedly bet $33K on kidnapping Maduro, NYT throws a funeral for 280,000 unemployable USAID contractors.

Good morning, C&C, it’s Friday! Your roundup includes: why SPLC’s billionaire donors have all gone dead silent, the Regeneron miracle cure Trump just made free for American kids, the Green Beret who bet $33,000 on a classified mission, and all the USAID “senior vice presidents” now applying to manage spice stores.

🌍🇺🇸 ESSENTIAL NEWS AND COMMENTARY 🇺🇸🌍

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The SPLC story is expanding like a clown’s oversized birthday balloon. Unsurprisingly, the conservative New York Post is on it, and yesterday ran a delightful followup story headlined, “SPLC’s high-profile donors like Clooney, Soros stay mum after nonprofit indicted over alleged $3M hate group informant scheme.” They’re turning corporate media’s playbook against them.

“The DOJ claims the organization misled both donors and law enforcement,” the Post reported, “by paying undercover ‘F’ agents ostensibly tasked with gathering intelligence and conducting espionage within groups including the Ku Klux Klan, Aryan Nations, and the Nationalist Socialist Party of American Nazis.” (Using illegal bank accounts.)

The Southern Poverty “Law Center” was so good at finding hate that it amassed a donor-fueled endowment of roughly $800 million. This is because when you tell wealthy, virtue-signaling people that hate is lurking right under the bed, they will write very large checks to make it go away. The Post compiled an SPLC donor file, which reads like the guest list for a completely awful Hollywood dinner party: George Clooney’s foundation, George Soros, Apple CEO Tim Cook, JPMorgan, and, inexplicably, Chick-fil-A, who apparently just wanted everyone to eat more chicken in peace.

Hilariously, the Post’s reporters “reached out” to all these celebrities, bigwigs, and poseurs, and asked them to comment on their large SPLC donations. Only Chick-fil-A answered, to clarify they donated $2,500 one time and that’s it. It was basically saying, “Please leave us out of this, we just make sandwiches.”

But Clooney ($1M), Soros ($75K), Cook ($1M), and JPMorgan Chase ($500K) all remained strategically silent. They did not defend their donations, which tells us a lot. They can smell which way the smoke over Charlottesville is blowing.

Yesterday, intrepid independent investigators traced over $27 million in federal taxpayer money laundered to the SPLC through USAID and an NGO called the Tides Foundation.

The SPLC spent years making enemies. Now there’s blood in the water. For decades, the SPLC has been the undisputed heavyweight champion of pointing fingers at conservatives, right-leaning law firms, and legitimate whistleblowers —like Turning Point USA and Moms for Liberty— for upholding traditional marriage or opposing open borders. The SPLC righteously declared, “All those guys are haters.” Far-left media like the New York Times accepted their judgments as delivered wisdom. AI chatbots were trained to take the SPLC’s defamatory pronouncements at scientific face-value.

Now, the Reckoning has arrived like a school of media tiger sharks. And they are very hungry.

🔥 The Post article’s cover picture was a Fox News video about the SPLC fraud, making it two articles in one. This is a wonderful example of turning around another traditional corporate media smear technique: the feedback loop.

We’ve seen the left do this over and over. One platform launches a story, however thinly sourced, like a seagull snatching a french fry from a toddler’s tiny fingers. Then the other platforms rush to report on the first story, and before you know what’s happening, a whole flock of beach birds is squawking in a cacophonous feeding frenzy, frantically tearing a single fry into microscopic threads, and dropping a virtual cloud of pasty white seagull poop on the innocent beachgoers.

The intended result is for regular folks —who are just trying to get through the day without being replaced by an AI body-snatcher— to get the sense that the story is everywhere. That’s how the left has done it for at least the last 25 years, from around the time they started calling George W. Bush “Hitler.”

But now, the right is doing it back to them, except with better-sourced stories. Since Trump appeared on the scene, sane people have captured just enough of trad-media so that the feedback loop works.

For example, yesterday CBS —formerly squarely in the Corporate Media camp, but now under the new leadership of Bari Weiss— reported the SPLC story straight (though again, informant-based) and even went further, reported previous years of investigations alleging that the SPLC was wasting donor money and enriching itself. Hate is a profitable business.

CLIP: CBS reports SPLC story even-handedly (1:52).

Making the social media rounds on X —formerly part of the left-wing echo chamber till Elon Musk bought it— was a 2018 John Stossel report about the SPLC, which, among other things, reported how the group openly reported on its financial disclosures that it was salting money away in sketchy money-laundering locations like the Caymans, BVI, and Bermuda. Like cartel kingpins do.

CLIP: John Stossel 2018 exposé on the SPLC (2:43).

Were these early moves a coincidence? Or could this long-overdue move against SPLC have been planned since Trump 1.0? We’ll never know. But either way, it’s a happy result.

🔥 Whose opinion is all this feedbacking intended to influence? Not partisan Democrats, surely, who will stop up their ears and refuse to believe the allegations, no matter what anybody says. They don’t even care if they are true. (They have 800 million reasons not to care, sitting in the Caymans, BVI, and Bermuda.) Not conservatives, who were already delighted. All the interlinking coverage just makes the news cycle more delicious and rewarding for them.

On the other hand, it does build helpful momentum leading into the November midterms.

But the real audience is the middle. The loud, coordinated, mutually referential coverage about the allegations in the SPLC’s indictment is meant to teach low-information voters why progressivism is so fake and gay. Everything points to this story having legs that will last until November.

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In another update story, yesterday KOMO News reported, “2-year-old joins Trump at White House as president spotlights ‘miracle cure’ for deaf boy.” The tear-jerker story confirmed our special edition a couple weeks ago, where we mentioned the same cure. Now it’s standing in the Oval Office.

CLIP: President Trump announces free miracle cure for deaf kids (0:25).

Yesterday, President Trump held an Oval Office presser with feisty 2-year-old Travis Smith and his mother, Sierra. The President explained that the child was born deaf, but his life changed after he started a revolutionary treatment developed by Regeneron Technologies.

Sierra explained, Regeneron works miracles.” Travis “didn’t know his own name. He couldn’t hear me tell him how much I love him — and now, with Regeneron, and this amazing surgery, he can listen to music!” She continued, “And he loves it. He loves to dance. He loves instruments and yeah, now he can hear. He has a bright future ahead of him and I’m so thankful to everybody on the Regeneron team.”

Regeneron’s president made an equally dramatic announcement.

“We have decided to provide this first-of-its-kind gene therapy for hearing loss free for children in the United States,” said George Yancopoulos, President of Regeneron. “Why? To highlight the power of disruptive biotech innovation, and all the good we can bring to all of our lives and our health.”

If Regeneron’s name sounds familiar, it might be because the biotechnology firm developed one of the nearly miraculous monoclonal antibody treatments during the pandemic —the same one President Trump got— which the Biden Administration abruptly and unaccountably canceled.

But that wasn’t all. In the same presser, President Trump announced that 17 of the country’s biggest pharma companies (and Regeneron) have now joined his TrumpRX drug plan, advertising the lowest drug prices in the world to U.S. Medicare and direct-pay patients. Stat News reported, “Trump celebrates closing first round of drug pricing deals, promises more ahead.”

The announcement confounded corporate media, which have been harping on TrumpRx for hosting too few providers, or for the discounts not being big enough (even though the retail prices are below most people’s co-pays). So media has been reduced to making insane arguments like this one, linked in yesterday’s Stat story:

So … their criticism is that deaf people are just fine the way they are. They are specially abled. And they don’t even want a cure. So the President and Regeneron should be ashamed of themselves. How dare they. When Travis Smith grows up, he’ll probably resent that his deafness was cured when he was two.

Chris Klomp, the HHS official tasked with putting together the TrumpRx portfolio, promised much more. He said the administration now plans to work out agreements with the “many hundreds” of other pharma and biotech companies with drugs in the U.S. Klomp said, “We’re not done.”

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Yesterday, Axios reported, “U.S. special forces soldier arrested over Polymarket bets on Maduro raid.” Allegedly, one of the special forces members who snatched Venezuelan President Maduro placed a bet online ahead of the mission. When a reporter asked him about it, President Trump shot back, “did he bet for or against his mission?”

CLIP: President Trump responds to reporters’ questions about betting soldier (0:47).

In the storied annals of military history, there are many great tactical maneuvers. Hannibal crossing the Alps. Washington crossing the Delaware. And now, we add the newest maneuver: a U.S. Army Special Forces soldier logging onto a prediction market website to bet $33,000 that he was about to successfully kidnap the president of Venezuela.

In December, Gannon Van Dyke was brought in to help plan and execute “Operation Absolute Resolve,” which is the important-sounding kind of name you arrive at after you’ve rejected “Operation Big Trouble in Little Venezuela” and “Operation We Are Definitely Going to Caracas.” The goal of the mission was to ‘apprehend’ Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, a man who has spent years turning his country’s economy into a cartel laundromat and generally being the kind of dictator who dons athleisurewear for formal events.

As part of his job, Van Dyke was given a “Classified Information Security Briefing” and signed a non-disclosure agreement. This is a standard military document that essentially says, “Do not tell anyone what we are about to do, and definitely do not use this information to win money on the internet.” (Apparently, Van Dyke skimmed that second part.)

In the predawn hours of January 3rd, the U.S. military successfully apprehended Maduro and his wife. A few hours later, President Trump announced the raid to the world. And over on Polymarket, Gannon Ken Van Dyke’s account lit up like a pinball machine. His $33,000 bet turned into a healthy profit of $409,881.

You might think a special forces soldier enjoys special internet skills. Apparently not. Shortly after the raid, people on social media noticed that someone had made a suspiciously large, perfectly timed bet on Maduro’s capture. Van Dyke allegedly panicked. He asked Polymarket to delete his account, claiming he lost access to his email. He transferred the money to a foreign cryptocurrency vault. He changed his email addresses. It was a masterclass in looking exactly like a guy who just committed a federal crime.

When asked about the situation, President Trump offered a uniquely Trumpian perspective.

“That’s like Pete Rose betting on his own team,” Trump said. “Now, if he bet against his team, that would be no good.”

This was an excellent point. In 1989, legendary MLB player Pete Rose (4,256 career hits) was permanently banned for life for betting on his own team, the Cincinnati Reds, to win. It sparked a longstanding controversy about sports betting and whether it should be illegal to bet on yourself.

On one hand, you could argue that Van Dyke’s bets could have tipped off the enemy. If the Venezuelan intelligence service had been monitoring Polymarket —which, given the pitiable state of their economy, is entirely possible— they might have noticed the sudden spike in bets and thought, “Hey, maybe we should double the guard around the presidential tracksuit closet.”

On the other hand, President Trump had already spent weeks publicly informing President Maduro that he was in deep doodoo. Thank you for your attention to this matter. It wasn’t exactly a state secret that the U.S. was extremely displeased with him. “Come and get me,” Maduro dared just days before we did exactly that.

Furthermore, Van Dyke was betting for the mission to succeed. If you are going to kick down the door of a heavily armed dictator in his own fortified castle, you probably want the guy next to you to be highly motivated. And there is nothing more motivating than knowing you have $400,000 riding on the outcome.

So, what should happen to Gannon Ken Van Dyke? According to Axios, he currently faces up to 60 years in prison for commodities fraud, wire fraud, and unlawful monetary transactions.

Should he go to jail for six decades? Should he just get a stern reprimand and a mandatory class on the dangers of crypto-gambling? Or should the military start offering a commission on successful raids, to keep everyone properly focused?

Let me know what you think in the comments. But whatever you do, please don’t bet on the outcome. The Justice Department is watching.

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Yesterday’s New York Times brought one of April’s most unintentionally hilarious stories, headlined, “A Year After U.S.A.I.D.’s Death, Fired Workers Find Few Jobs and Much Loss.” Not just federal workers in general, mind you. USAID workers. For some reason, they in particular are struggling to find productive private-sector employment. Sad!

“Former U.S.A.I.D. workers,” the Times began, “estimate that less than half have found full-time work.” Being fired once has apparently left them permanently scarred. A full year later, the Times explained, “many said they were still dealing with mental trauma and a loss of confidence in their professional abilities.” Welcome to the world, morons.

They felt privileged. The Times explained that “U.S.A.I.D. workers thought of themselves as ambassadors for American ‘soft power’” —meaning leftist regime change— and “are still burning from President Trump’s characterization of them as ‘radical-left lunatics.’” Burn, baby, burn.

In the Times’ view, the real victim was not the taxpayer, but the United States Agency for International Development, infamously known as USAID. For years, USAID was in charge of distributing roughly $35 billion a year. You might assume this money went to things like food, medicine, and teaching people how to build wells. And some of it probably did! But as the Times quietly admitted in paragraph 47 of its story, “much” of that $35 billion actually went to Washington insiders.

Apart from that, the story was packed with unintentionally hysterical personal-interest anecdotes. When the music stopped and the agency was dismantled, roughly 16,000 federal employees and a staggering 280,000 contractors worldwide suddenly found themselves facing their most terrifying assignment yet: the private sector.

For instance, Amy Uccello earned a generous salary of $175,000 a year at USAID. The Times didn’t offer her title or job description. She just did … it. Whatever it was. Now she can’t find work doing it. Catherine Baker, 36, made $127,000 a year as a USAID contractor who “helped start up USAID projects,” whatever that means. Now she works nine hours a week as an adult babysitter.

Adrian Mathura, 55, who described himself as “a queer, brown immigrant,” was ‘involuntarily retired’ from his job as a senior USAID adviser in global health. (“A Queer Brown Immigrant” would be a good name for a punk rock band. But never mind that now.) The Times offered no context as to what a “senior advisor in global health” actually does at work. Whom did he advise? The Globe? Does the Globe listen?

It is truly shocking that the government would stop paying someone to advise the globe.

Anyway, Adrian now spends his days trying to get paid for being retired. The queer, brown immigrant has never faced something nearly every American without a government sinecure has endured: being fired. Adrian called it betrayal of the darkest character. “I never even once imagined I would be so betrayed by my government,” he whined.

🔥 Sheryl Cowan, 57, made $272,000 a year as a ‘senior vice president’ at a USAID.-funded nonprofit —not even USAID itself— when she got fired at the end of March 2025. Last month, the Times reported, Sheryl endured an online interview for a $19-an-hour job managing a Penzeys Spices store near her home in Falls Church, Virginia.

She’s hoping they’ll make her the senior vice president of sriracha. But her prosects aren’t great. Apparently, the skill of “being a senior vice president of a thing funded by a different thing” does not translate well to retail management.

Sheryl has “applied for 60 jobs.” That should keep the unemployment monitors off her back for a while.

Alysha Beyer, 53, ran reproductive health programs in Africa as a USAID contractor. She’s now unemployed and on welfare, which she described as “humbling.” Courtney Blake, 47, worked in Geneva, Switzerland in USAID’s ‘bureau of humanitarian assistance.’ Now she lives with her sister in New Paltz, New York. She said she has (unsuccessfully) applied for more than 40 jobs, which she would say, if she’s collecting unemployment.

Don Niss, 56, made $195,000 as a “USAID Development Advisor” at the Pentagon. Again, the Times didn’t bother translating the bureaucratese. Don has “depleted his savings” and is now invading his 401k. The story didn’t say whether Don has applied for any jobs, but we can assume the market for “development advisors” is soft.

🔥 The Times’ trail of USAID tears continued, paragraph after tragic paragraph. “I sat down by the river, and I cried a bit,” one former NGO contractor, Samuel Port, 32, manfully admitted.

It was hard not to feel a tiny twinge of sympathy as the miniature violins played. But the overarching lesson here was a brutal tutorial in economics. These exquisitely credentialed, highly paid specialists are discovering that their jobs only existed because the federal government mandated that they exist.

There is no organic, real-world demand for someone who monitors the paperwork of the person who is implementing the guidelines of the project starter.

The entire USAID ecosystem was a self-licking ice cream cone. The government gave money to the agency, the agency gave money to the nonprofits, the nonprofits hired senior vice presidents for $272,000, and the senior vice presidents hired project starters for $127,000. It was a beautiful, taxpayer-funded terrarium.

Now the terrarium’s glass has been shattered. The inhabitants are getting out, wandering around the real world, blinking in the harsh sunlight, wondering why nobody wants to pay them six figures to advise the globe. It is a tragedy, really. Some kind of tragedy. Maybe not Shakespearean. Hallmark-level, perhaps.

But if somebody needs someone skilled in helping start up a project to find an NGO to manage a budget, I know a few people who are available.

Have a fantastic Friday! Coffee & Covid shall return, tomorrow morning, fresh and bright, with another caraffe of essential news and commentary.

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