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WSJ finally admits covid was a lie; Rasmussen says 63% already knew; Democrats lose Virginia redistricting at SCOTUS; new hemispheric doctrine takes shape; Tina Peters freed; more.
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Good morning, C&C, it’s Saturday! Michelle and I are packing up to head home after a terrifically encouraging conservative conference in the nation’s capital. I’ll write more about it on Monday. For now, in this morning’s quick-hitting traveling roundup: the Wall Street Journal’s stunning revelation —at long last— that the federal government may, in fact, have lied to us about covid, a discovery requiring only five additional years of investigation beyond the timeline used by the rest of us; how Virginia Democrats achieved the rare distinction of losing the same case in three separate courthouses, the last of which dismissed them in a single sentence and didn’t bother to explain why; how the Trump Administration discreetly added Nigeria, Colombia, and Cuba to its growing collection of hemispheric satellite offices —with arrests, extraditions, and possible indictments of nonagenarian communists— while the corporate media squinted at China; and the long-awaited freedom of Tina Peters, granted by a Democrat governor who appears to have finally located a weather vane.
🌍🇺🇸 ESSENTIAL NEWS AND COMMENTARY 🇺🇸🌍
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Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal ran a remarkable and long-overdue op-ed with the mysterious headline, “For the Public, Covid Is No Longer a Mystery.” This was like saying gravity is no longer a mystery. The subheadline asked the truly important question: “In a whistleblower’s wake, it’s worth asking what else has government lied about and when lying is justified.” Or, what hasn’t government lied about? Remember margarine?
The essay was penned by Holman W. Jenkins, a longtime WSJ editorial board member and business columnist who bears an uncanny resemblance to Philip Seymour Hoffman. Jenkins has written for the Journal since 1990, and to his credit has occasionally dabbled in covid policy critique. In 2023, he gently chided people for wearing useless mouth masks in their cars. In 2024, he scribbled “The Real Covid Failure,” which called lockdowns and mandates a “hand-waving show.”
This week, Mr. Jenkins helpfully rounded up a brief Devil’s Inventory of examples he characterized as official disinformation,which the subheadline more honestly described as “government lies:”
- 1977’s flu pandemic (and, I might add, vaccine fiasco), which was confirmed 24 years too late as a Chinese lab leak. But good luck getting an apology from anyone at the government agencies who denied it for two and a half decades.
- Fauci’s Covid Origins Coverup, as detailed in this week’s Congressional testimony by whistleblower and career CIA officer James Erdman III— combined with the remarkably robust defense of China by Biden officials up to and including the Autopen itself. Remember how racist and xenophobicit was to even mention the lab leak hypothesis?
- The 54 “former intelligence officials” scraped together by the Biden folks to lie about Hunter Biden’s laptop and —so ironically— conclude the coke-dusted laptop “bore all the hallmarks of Russian disinformation?”
- This week’s settlement between the DOJ and former New York Times journalist Alex Berenson, which explicitly admitted that the government had coerced social media into canceling Alex over his covid policy criticisms— thus “deliberately promoting disinformation to justify the government’s vaccine mandates.”
Jenkins correctly noted that these official deceptions were “largely ignored in the media.” That’s one way of putting it. You could also say the media performed as the Biden team’s good little attack dog, savaging anyone stupid enough to stick their head up and look around. And he left plenty of examples out, like fake six-foot distancing science, t-shirt mask advice, deadly ventilators (with fake shortages), nursing home scandals, et cetera ad infinitum.
Regular readers are all too familiar with Jenkins’s examples. I’ve only been writing about them at length for five years or so. Personally, during the late, great unpleasantness, I was canceled at least a half-dozen times. (To this day, I still can’t even log onto Medium or Patreon, not for any reason, because I am a notorious scofflaw who violated the terms of service.)
Seeing another major media player recognize the government’s covid lies is incrementally satisfying. But the deeper philosophical question that Jenkins’s essay gingerly poked at deserves further discussion.
💉 “Rarely is it justified to hide important truths from the public,” Jenkins wrote, “and even less to lie to the public.” He wrote with deep solemnity, as though he was revealing a mysterious new truth, like if Moses hauled out a third tablet nobody’d noticed before.
Jenkins was quite broad-minded and forgiving. He even allowed that there could be some cases where official lying is excusable or even necessary. But he fingered the real trouble inherent in tolerating any official deception by our own government.
The perfectly predictable problem is that, once the government gets a taste of wielding military-grade propaganda against its own citizens, it starts to get greedy. It can’t stop. And its good reasons get thinner and thinner. “As the U.S. government gave itself license to engage in disinformation aimed at the American people,” Jenkins explained, “its motives rapidly degenerated into the basely political and corrupt.”
Having ripped the band-aid off the ugliest post-pandemic sore remaining on the national nose, Jenkins appears to have concluded that his work was done. He laid down the pencil before drawing the line a millimeter further, where he could have sketched out any kind of logical conclusion or policy prescription.
💉 The reason for his recalcitrance is obvious. He didn’t want to say it. The implication is clear to any sentient being (by definition excluding partisan Democrats and Portlanders). As Jenkins wrote just over a year ago, a Reckoning™ is required. That’s not a preference. It’s an existential crisis.
Any civilization that tolerates “basely political and corrupt” official disinformation “aimed at its own people” cannot long survive.
Thus, official disinformation cannot be tolerated. It must be squashed, mangled into a jelly, and ground to a powder. As America’s third graders could easily explain, even those luckless children lodged in California’s public school system: transparency and accountability are the only tools that can square this pear-shaped mess.
The significance of this essay lies not in its language, which was welcome. But it is more consequential for what it proves: a substantial minority —stretching to the top of even some corporate media monoliths— is convinced about the system’s brokenness. All that is required for substantial change is a sufficiently motivated minority.
We may even have passed a ‘substantial minority’ going 60 mph and raced right into a solid majority. Two days ago, Rasmussen ran this headline:
Even beyond that welcome news, Rasmussen’s survey also reported, “Fifty-nine percent (59%) of voters believe it’s likely that side effects of COVID-19 vaccines have caused a significant number of unexplained deaths, including 37% who think it’s Very Likely.” In other words, a majority of Americans now understand the government lied —and people died— and they will be voting, supporting candidates and issues, and tweeting till the glaciers melt.
Mr. Jenkins, who earns our praise for explicitly naming the problem, was too shy to go all the way— but I will. Bring on the Reckoning.™ After fair trials, of course.
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Yesterday, the Washington Post ran an unintentionally encouraging story headlined, “Supreme Court blocks effort to revive Va. voting map that bolsters Democrats.” Democrats’ last, long-shot hope of reversing their setback in Virginia is now over. Apparently, it is not yet time for self-reflection. Virginia’s Attorney General blamed Republicans:
“Many legal experts saw the last-ditch bid by Virginia Democrats to the high court as a long shot,” the WaPo explained, “since federal courts generally defer to state court rulings on matters of state law.” Translating this to normal English: Democrats’ chances were so bad that every single legal expert the WaPo reporter called said the same thing— it was dead on arrival.
The Democrats now confront a losing trifecta: they lost at the trial court, which found seven different ways the redistricting amendment was unconstitutional under Virginia’s constitution, and said the ballot language of “restoring fairness” was incomprehensible gobbledegook. Then they lost at the Virginia Supreme Court.
Now, they’ve lost at the U.S. Supreme Court, which issued a one-sentence order that didn’t bother explaining its reasoning.
After losing in every single court, and considering all the various factors involved in the debacle, BlueSkyers blamed the Democrat Party officials who completely mangled the redistricting strategy. Haha, just kidding! They blamed the Supreme Court.For example, here’s a bluebird dropping posted by Wahajat Ali (400K followers):
“In all,” WaPo concluded, “the efforts could help net Republicans roughly a dozen extra seats in November’s elections.” Conspicuous by their abs. were last month’s euphoric predictions of a midterm Blue Wave and commencement of Impeachment 3.0.
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As President Trump returns from China, leaving corporate media completely in the dark as to what, if anything, just happened, the Donroe Doctrine powers ahead here at home during 2026’s Year of Action. Distracted by the China spectacle, the news cycle overlooked several major developments closer to our own hemisphere. First, late yesterday, CBS reported, “Trump says U.S. has killed Islamic State leader in Nigeria”
Last night, President Trump posted that, “Tonight, at my direction, brave American forces and the Armed Forces of Nigeria flawlessly executed a meticulously planned and very complex mission to eliminate the most active terrorist in the world from the battlefield.”
In 2023, the Treasury Department placed Abu-Bilal al-Minuki (deceased) on its Specially Designated Global Terrorist list. He was described by Biden’s State Department as a member of ISIS’s global leadership, overseeing operations and funding for ISIS’s worldwide network. The Trump Administration also identified him as involved in the regional persecution of Nigerian Christians.
“He will no longer terrorize the people of Africa, or help plan operations to target Americans,” the President tweeted. A Nigerian goverment press announcement added, “Several of his lieutenants were also killed.” So.
🔥 Also yesterday, and moving even closer to our own shores, ABC affiliate WPDE-15 reported, “Accused Tren de Aragua leader extradited to US in first-of-its-kind terrorism case.” The “war on drugs” is starting to look like more than just a slogan.
Jose Enrique “Chuqui” Martinez Flores, 24, appeared in federal court in Houston yesterday, after Colombian authorities arrested him at the FBI’s request. FBI Director Kash Patel tweeted that this case was the first time a Tren de Aragua cartel member has been extradited to the US on terrorism-related charges. In February, 2025, Trump’s executive order designated Tren as a Foreign Terrorist Organization.
Chuqui Flores was called part of the Tren’s “inner circle” of leadership in Bogotá, “where he oversaw criminal operations including drug trafficking, extortion, prostitution, and murder.” You know, a typical South American entrepreneur.
The Latin American gangs are starting to learn what happens when they cross the border and take over apartment complexes in Colorado. Three more Tren leaders remain at large on the FBI’s wanted list, with bounties of $4-5 million.
Chuqui’s case is the latest evidence of the Monroe Doctrine’s modern form, in which U.S. law enforcement agencies view the entire Americas as being within their jurisdiction, applying American law to top bad guys in our hemisphere— bad guys who are directly or indirectly causing trouble in the USA.
It is being called a historic development in US-Latin American relations. Colombia’s Embassy tweeted, “We’re seeing many countries that have not historically cooperated with things like extraditing criminals back to the U.S. or allowing, coordinating operations in their countries. That’s changing.”
Relations are “changing” for one reason. It is the fruit of the Trump Administration’s aggressive policy of policing our own hemisphere, using hard power, which works more effectively and quickly than long-term, destabilizing “soft power” games. It’s not justabout pushing China and Russia out of our sandbox —though that is part of it— but also about keeping the American Hemisphere itself tidy and safe for man and child.
🔥 Yesterday, and third, the New York Times reported, “With Possible Raúl Castro Indictment, U.S. Eyes Venezuela Playbook.” Uh-oh!
The article reported that on Thursday, CIA Director John Ratcliffe visited Cuba to “deliver a stark demand: shut down Russian and Chinese listening posts and take steps to open the economy.” One day later, “word came that federal prosecutors in Miami were working on an indictment of Raúl Castro, 92, the brother of Fidel.”
“The unstated warning could not have been clearer,” the Times explained. “Just look at what happened in Venezuela.”
In case the warning wasn’t clear enough, the Times broke it down anyway. “It cannot be lost on anyone in the Cuban government that the Trump administration used a federal criminal indictment against Nicolás Maduro, the authoritarian leader of Venezuela.”
In other words, yet another Latin American communist leader is now in the DOJ’s crosshairs —not the Pentagon’s crosshairs— for violating U.S. criminal law. Another way you could look at it is that the Trump Administration is deploying Democrat-style lawfare against communists all over the American hemisphere.
The historic nature of what we’re doing cannot be understated. Rather than using classic tools of diplomacy, international aid, covert ops, and the military, the Trump Administration is doing something new: using domestic criminal laws and simply exercising jurisdiction over the whole hemisphere as though it belonged to us.
The “criminal indictment” playbook resembles a classic decapitation strike, but without the war part. After January’s Maduro operation, Latin American countries are learning that the US can reach into their countries whenever we want and pluck out the violent strongmen who have always confidently believed they can send drugs and terrorists through our formerly porous borders, co-opt our local politicians and judges, and set up shop here— without any consequences.
Well … fool around and find out. But it’s bigger than that. These “small stories” are an expression of a new hemispheric policy. We’re not just cracking down on domestic crime at home, we are policing the whole hemisphere. When you combine that with the President’s approach to Russia and China, you begin to see something immense emerging.
Trump has been very firm with Beijing and Moscow in our part of the world. He’s rudely evicted them from South and Central America, the Panama Canal, and the Caribbean. But at the same time, he is also softening our positions on Ukraine and Taiwan, retreating from NATO expansionism in Europe, seeking trade deals with them, and courting both Putin and Xi with high-profile diplomatic outreach.
Wait— this is where it gets really good. Every bit of all that geoplitical reorganization is happening completely outside the United Nations’ “rules-based international order.” And we could add Trump’s remaking the Middle East in real time, the end of OPEC, and the Board of Peace.
Trump doesn’t have to “end the UN,” he is making it irrelevant. He’s not attacking the UN head-on. He’s building an expressway around the UN and strip‑mining its relevance.
This week’s three stories are not just unrelated individual operations. They represent a hemispheric police doctrine nested inside a broader shift away from global hegemony toward something more like “Fortress America plus deals.” No wonder the globalists are panicking.
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Finally, in truly terrific news, 2020 election hero Tina Peters’s seemingly unending nightmare is finally over. The Associated Press reported, “Colorado’s Democratic governor commutes ex-election clerk Tina Peters’ sentence after Trump pressure.” She’s getting out.
Yesterday, Colorado Governor Jared Polis (D) signed a commutation order directing that, after 4.5 years in state prison, Tina Peters, 70, must be released in two weeks on June 1st. It essentially cut her 9-year sentence in half.
Peters was convicted by a hard-left Colorado judge after she kept proof of 2020 election irregularities and gave it to independent investigators. The proceedings were so unfair that a Colorado appeals court recently reversed her sentence (but leaving a re-sentence open), citing a series of comments by Tina’s judge criticizing things she’d said about the election, which plainly violated her First Amendment rights.
With some helpful additional pressure from the federal government, Governor Polis wisely decided to commute Tina’s sentence, rather than hold another trial to determine a new prison term consistent with the court of appeals’ guidance. It’s over.
In a letter to Peters, Polis wrote that she’d been convicted of serious crimes and deserved to spend some time in prison. “However, this is an extremely unusual and lengthy sentence for a first-time offender who committed nonviolent crimes,” the governor wrote. No kidding.
President Trump celebrated on Truth Social:
Tina’s freedom is long overdue. That’s good. But even better, one more lingering Biden-era injustice is, at least partly, finally being corrected. Hopefully Tina’s lawyers will enjoy a burst of renewed energy and —as soon as she is safely back in the public domain— will sue the state like the Dickens for violating her First Amendment rights.
After all, the court of appeals just provided them with a ton of ammunition.
Have a wonderful weekend! With a little travel luck, Coffee & Covid will be back in the saddle at C&C HQ on Monday morning, as usual, with a non-rushed roundup of essential news and caffeinated commentary.
Rose Rambles... 