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NYT-vs-NYT hantavirus whiplash; 30 lbs of uranium quietly extracted from Venezuela; the Times’ rigged verbs; DNI Tuls Gabbard turns 2022’s “Russian propaganda” into a real federal investigation; more.
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Good morning, C&C family, it’s Wednesday! I’m off to DC to attend an exciting conservative conference tomorrow and Friday. So there may be some traveling turbulence in the C&C schedule. Please bear with me. It might not be all bad— today your post is extra-early. Today’s roundup includes: the hantavirus media circus that doesn’t survive five minutes of CDC data; thirty pounds of weapons-grade uranium quietly extracted from Venezuela; the New York Times’ rigged-verb headline trick exposed; and DNI Tulsi Gabbard’s biolab investigation goes thermonuclear.
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I had hoped to let this ridiculous story blow over and avoid writing about it completely. But since the Democrats’ midterm chances are sinking, the volume of media hysteria predicting the next 100-year pandemic is becoming deafening and increasingly incoherent. Behold two of yesterday’s competing headlines. First, the New York Times, May 12th:
First of all, the CDC already tracks hantavirus, and has been tracking it for decades. It’s right on the website. You can see at the CDC’s link that, between 1993-2023, it has recorded 890 reportedhantavirus cases in the United States. Only five had confirmed foreign exposure:
To put that in perspective, more Americans are injured annually by vending machines. But the media would like you to know that this is the moment to panic, and they would appreciate it if you could do so before the November midterms.
There are so many that I won’t bother going through all the reasons you should instantly reject any hantavirus nonsense. It’s much less of a threat than monkeypox, even to leather festival aficionados. I’ll just point out a few key facts that will expose the whole rigged game.
On May 7th —less than a week ago— the NYT ran a different op-ed penned by Caitlin Rivers, a CDC epidemiologist, who provided her advice in the form of a handy-dandy flow chart:
“You do not need to worry.” Beyond the lack of any reason to be concerned —even according to the experts— and besides the fact that hantavirus cases pop up in the U.S. every single year, there is another solid reason to ignore this stupid story: the media is clearly lying through omission.
The average age of cruisers onboard the MV Hondius is 65. As usual, allegedly respecting the “privacy” of dead people, the media is revealing virtually nothing useful about the three passengers said to have died from their hantavirus infections, not even their ages (much less whether they had any comorbidities or were immune-compromised).
The media reports the age of virtually everyone and everything it covers. It’s like a nervous tic. It must be in the stylebook. Walter Wienerslav, 73, said he is furious watching his MAGA neighbor, Jenny Jenkins, 37, planting agave where his beloved Shih Tzu Little Walter, 12, loves to play. The three passengers who died of hantavirus aboard the Hondius are, as of this writing, the only people in any news story this year whose ages have not been reported. The media has explained this as a matter of “privacy.” The deceased could not be reached for comment on whether they found this respectful or suspicious.
It’s not like they are in the dark. The media surely know exactly who the deceased are. The Hondius carries 150 passengers and crew. This is not a large vessel. Its capacity is roughly equivalent to a below-average Waffle House. For context, a Celebrity cruise ship carries approximately 6,500 people. The idea that the identities and ages of three deceased passengers on a 150-person ship are somehow unknowable to thousands of international journalists who can find anyone’s stinker of a third-grade report card in forty-five minutes is, to put it gently, not credible.
Why trad-media would obscure these people’s ages en masse is anyone’s guess. (My guess is they were all over 90.) At least one article I found referred to them as “elderly passengers,” which I suspect means older than the average age.
I’ll bet Michelle’s Tahoe that, if the three deceased passengers were “three healthy software engineers in their 30’s from Berlin,” we not only would know their precise ages (and everything else about them), but their ages would be in the headlines. The fact the media is universally concealing this fact can only mean that these poor folks were at least in their 70’s, if not older.
If they told us the ages, everybody would ignore this story. And, if I had to bet, I’d push all my crypto on the square that their comorbidities and condition were so fragile that a bad cold would have done them in. Possibly even a strongly worded letter from the condo association.
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The next story was almost entirely embargoed by corporate media (only Fox covered it). India’s Economic Times reported it, though: “US removes highly enriched uranium from Venezuela.” I’ll bet you didn’t even know there was any enriched uranium in Venezuela. It turns up in the strangest places. Well, now we’ve got it. Another dividend from our Maduro-snatching operation.
“Thanks to President Trump’s decisive leadership, the dedicated teams on the ground completed in months what would have normally taken years,” said Brandon Williams, NNSA Administrator. “It is another signal to the world of a restored and renewed Venezuela,” he added. (The NNSA is a semi-autonomous agency within the US Department of Energy.)
Venezuela had a small research reactor, but activities ended in 1991. The 30 pounds of uranium, enriched above the 20% danger threshold, were left over as “surplus material.” Don’t get all conspiratorial. Every banana republic keeps yellowcake. It’s like a spare key for the Airbnb. Because, like all of us, rogue, cartel-linked communist governments in South America obviously need some spare uranium laying around just in case. Don’t be silly.
Anyway, it’s now been transported safely to the United States for even safer safekeeping— before anyone even knew it was on its way.
One gets the strong sense there is a lot happening in Venezuela right now, and the media either doesn’t know or won’t say. This might be the biggest, most concealed story in the world right now. Maybe I’ll connect some dots on the South American transformation soon.
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Time for another media malpractice lesson! Yesterday, the New York Times reported on FBI Director Kash Patel’s heated testimony before Congress, where Democrats accused him to his face —without a scrap of evidence— of being a bigger drunk than the barflies in the Simpsons. Here is how the Times headlined/framed it:
This is a masterpiece of the form. Note that the word “denies” does not require the underlying accusation to be true, sourced, or even minimally plausible. Using this technique, one could write “Lincoln Denies Theater Was Unsafe,” “Titanic Captain Denies Iceberg Concerns,” or “Times Editors Deny Knowing Exactly What They Are Doing.”
Only one of those headlines would be false.
The Times routinely headlines Republican statements as “falsely claims.” Senator Van Hollen accused Kash Patel, under oath, of being a liar and a drunk, with no supporting evidence. The Times headlined this as Patel “denying” it. But a consistent application of the Times style guide would have produced the headline: “Senator Van Hollen Falsely Claims Patel Is a Drunk.” The Times is aware of this option. They considered it briefly and then went to hot yoga.
The horrid article never even tried to justify the accusations of lying and “excessive drinking.” It just blandly reported that Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) (may a pox be upon him) said that. In that sense, this top-of-page story wasn’t “news” at all, since it just reported traded barbs. It wasn’t even fact-checking news. It was just Van Hollen’s stupid slur, repeated several times over for liberal engagement trolling.
See, the editors could have easily swapped the focus, and instead of reporting “Kash Denied” they could have more accuratelyreported, “In Heated Exchanges, Senator Van Hollen Falsely Claims Patel Lied, Drank.”
Corporate media deploys this mendacious trick all the time. I’ll prove it to you. They know exactly how it works and when to use it. Take their Trump reporting, for example. CNN, April:
MSNOW, February:
The UK Guardian, October:
Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer:
Basically, the corporate media style book is, if a Republican says something, especially about a Democrat, go with “falsely claims.” But if Van Hollen (D) claims something about an R, go with “Republican denies,” absent-mindedly failing to mention whether the Democrat’s claim is false. Whenever Democrats make blatantly false claims, trad-media becomes Mr. Magoo.
It’s a cheap headline trick to ensure the Republican always looks bad. This is not journalism. It is a Mad Lib with a political agenda, and the word that always gets filled into the blank is “Republican.” Where there’s smoke… there’s a Times Editor peeping at you from under the neighboring bathroom stall. (This is an extremely specific image, and I want to be clear that I have no evidence any Times editor has ever done this. I would, however, note that the Times has not denied it.)
Anyway, learn this trick and never fall for it again.
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We’ve waited a long time for this headline. Finally, it appears— helpfully (and totally coincidentally) within the midterm election sweet spot. In an exclusive, yesterday the New York Post reported, “DNI Tulsi Gabbard probes US funding to more than 120 biolabs abroad.” Ruh-roh! The article explained that at least 40 of those labs are in Ukraine.
Speaking of denials. When, in March, 2022, the Biden administration was caught having flatly and falsely denied the existence of U.S.-funded biolabs in Ukraine, officials explained that the denials were not lies, per se, but rather were part of an “Information Resilience” strategy designed to “shape the public narrative” and “counter foreign malign influence.”
This is a very useful concept. Husbands everywhere are encouraged to adopt it immediately. “Honey, I didn’t lie about buying the Cybertruck. I was implementing a domestic Information Resilience strategy to mitigate and counter foreign malign influence from the Tesla dealership.”
Usually I wait with these types of stories. If the ‘news’ is somebody said something, then whatever they said must have independent news value. Here, the bare threat of an investigation of this subject is potentially thermonuclear. To particular people. Alert readers will recall that, in addition to having a million-dollar-a-year board member gig with Ukrainian gas giant Burisma —a remote, no-work-required job— the presidential meth addict was also dabbling in bioweapons research.
In between chasing hookers and meetings with his drug dealers, Hunter Biden ‘co‑founded’ Rosemont Seneca Technology Partners, a venture capital fund that ‘invested’ in tech and biotech startup. Rosemont, in turn, sank $500,000 into Metabiota, a San Francisco-based companythat ‘builds disease-surveillance and outbreak-prediction systems,’ for a 14% stake. Hunter then helped Metabiota raise additional millions from other investors like Google and Goldman Sachs.
Hunter Biden’s professional résumé, as it has emerged over the years, is quite remarkable. It includes: board member of a Ukrainian gas company (no energy experience required), co-founder of a venture capital firm, investor in a Pentagon-linked biolab contractor, fine art painter (prices available upon request), and occasional international diplomat. This is an impressive range of expertise for a man whose primary documented skill was the ability to leave laptops at repair shops while on a bender and then forget about them.
🔥 Hunter Biden’s Laptop-from-Hell emails documented his pitch to Burisma —a natural gas company— for a “science project” involving biolabs in Ukraine. This is a perfectly normal thing for a gas company to be interested in. After all, when you think of the great synergies between fossil fuel extraction and gain-of-function pathogen research, the only question is why moreenergy companies aren’t getting into the bioweapons space.
It’s practically a natural fit. You drill down, you find something, you make it more infectious. It’s basically the same business model.
Anyway, Metabiota later became one of several subcontractors providing Pentagon-funded ‘biosurveillance’ in Ukraine. And to survey the bio, of course you have to genetically engineer it to see if you can make it more deadly and infectious. Don’t be stupid. It’s science.
Metabiota also got grant money from USAID —again, of course— including its PREDICT program, which was later linked to Wuhan and the covid pandemic.
CLIP: Metabiota – Hunter Corona Ukraine Connections (7:24).
More explosively, in 2022 Russia’s Ministry of Defense and senior officials made an official complaint to the United Nations Security Council, arguing that Hunter Biden’s Rosemont Seneca Partners secretly “sponsored a military biological program in Ukraine,” and highlighted its affiliations with Metabiota and Black & Veatch as Pentagon biolab co-contractors. Chinese outlets and commentators amplified this, explicitly claiming that Hunter Biden “raised funds” for Ukrainian biolabs through his investment in Metabiota and describing Metabiota’s work as part of a U.S. military bioweapons effort.
🔥 As far as we can tell from the limited information in the Post story, Tulsi Gabbard’s ODNI investigation will be a top-down audit of that entire overseas biolab ecosystem —including the Ukraine sites and probably Hunter Biden’s connections— under the authority of President Trump’s executive orders pushing back against gain-of-function and risky pathogen research.
This isn’t something Tulsi just thought of the other day. Indeed, Tulsi broke the biolabs-in-Ukraine story. On March 13, 2022, she posted a social media selfie titled, “There are 25+ US-funded biolabs in Ukraine.”
CLIP: Tulsi — There are 25+ US-funded biolabs in Ukraine (1:51).
Tulsi carefully framed this news as a bipartisan national‑security concern —that the Proxy War could accidentally trigger a bio-breach— and accused the Biden administration of covering up the labs’ existence and the risks. “We must take action now to prevent disaster,” she said. She pointed to Victoria Nuland’s congressional testimony a few days before, and to the State Department’s March 9, 2022 statement, as evidence of shifting Biden denials.
She was savaged by corporate media. You remember what it was like in 2022. The censorship machine was running at full speed, at its peak power. Trad-media fact‑checkers called her statements Russian propaganda. Military.com, Forbes, Newsweek, the New York Times, and others accused her of spreading misinformation. Mitt Romney beetled out from under a rotting log and croaked, “Tulsi Gabbard is parroting false Russian propaganda. Her treasonous lies may well cost lives.” He called her a “Russian asset.” (He’s since crawled back under the log.)
It turns out Romney was parroting false Biden propaganda and spreading treasonous lies. Just saying.
By 2024, Homeland Security had labeled Tulsi as a security threat and placed her on the dreaded Quad-S (“SSSS”) travel restriction list for ‘enhanced’ searches and mandatory airport escorts. (DHS later claimed it was a ‘mistake.’ Kristi Noem later ended the whole Quiet Skies program, citing Tulsi’s case. Tulsi wins.)
In hindsight, her early complaints sit right at the intersection of three things: Deep state info‑ops, a real DTRA/Pentagon/Hunter biolab network in Ukraine, and a deliberately dishonest messaging strategy from the highest levels of the United States government— exactly what Gabbard is now, as DNI, turning around and auditing.
🔥 Who and what could be implicated in Ukrainian corruption and illegal bioweapons research that may, at minimum, have broken U.S. laws about gain-of-function research? Why did Biden’s State Department order the Ukrainians to immediately destroy all the paperwork? Officially, they claimed the Ukrainians were only told to destroy the samples of pathogens, to keep them out of Russian hands, but videos showed Ukrainians at the labs hastily burning file folders, banker’s boxes, and reams of paper.
If you want to give the Biden Administration the benefit of the doubt (I don’t), you could say the Ukrainians were just being overly enthusiastic in closing down the offices.
Which raises another fascinating question: besides Hunter and his business partners, who else might receive an ODNI subpoena? Who might see Tulsi’s announcement and decide that discretion is the better part of valor and so forth, and that it might be best to keep a low profile as the midterm elections approach? The military-industrial complex might, for instance, conclude that it would be a terrific idea not to aggravate anyone by making any large midterm donations to the out-of-power party.
We have no way of knowing. But if Tulsi is now telling the Post about her biolab investigations, one suspects that she’s closer to being finished rather than just getting started. Why would she give her investigatory targets any advance notice? The public part of the investigation might be starting now, now that all the behind-the-scenes work is done and ODNI knows what to ask for and who to ask.
In that sense, Tulsi’s announcement was like a declaration of war.
Four years ago, she was just a private citizen, a veteran and former Congresswoman who suffered the humiliations, indignities, and risks of Biden’s weaponized justice system. Now she leads the most powerful intelligence apparatus in human history. Funny how the wheel turns. And she’s just told the New York Post that the game that started back in March, 2022, has come online.
Regardless of any political timing considerations, we finally begin to see a set of frustrating, long-dangling loose threads being tied together. The patchwork of corruption that Tulsi began stitching together just weeks after the Proxy War started is beginning to form a quilt that could conceivably smother someone.
One imagines Tulsi at her desk in the ODNI headquarters, surrounded by classified files, quietly knitting a blanket of doom. Ukrainian yarn. A gain-of-function pattern. And someone, somewhere, is already starting to get warm.
Have a wonderful Wednesday! I’ll be traveling today through Sunday, so posts may be hotel-blogged, truncated, or posted at odd times. Thank you for your patience! With any luck at all, we’ll be back tomorrow morning, on time, with an all-new edition of C&C’s essential news and caffeinated commentary.
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Rose Rambles... 