Better in their words…

JEFF CHILDERS MAR 25, 2026

Good morning, C&C family, it’s Wednesday! Your roundup includes: A quadruple amputee professional cornhole player gets jailed for murder, and I promise you’re not ready for the details. The FBI’s ‘Arctic Frost’ investigation into Kash Patel turns out to be even worse than reported — complete with judges privately coaching prosecutors on strategy. Dr. Malone dramatically quits the CDC’s vaccine panel because of all the drama. And the Supreme Court heard two blockbuster cases this week where the entire fate of border policy and mail-in voting hangs on what a four-year-old could tell you: what the words ‘in’ and ‘day’ mean.

ESSENTIAL NEWS AND COMMENTARY

🔥🔥🔥

Yesterday, the New York Times sports section published the most remarkable murder story to ever grace its normally non-homicidal pages, headlined, “Quadruple amputee cornhole professional jailed on murder charges.” Commenting on the story, Matt Walsh observed, “kids— never say anything is impossible.” Maybe. But for sure, the old platitudes were right about truth being stranger than fiction. I’m not sure AI could have come up with this one.

Dayton James Webber, 27, is a professional cornhole player who was a key nugget on the Maryland Assassins. Not just any nugget— the first quadruple amputee to compete in the American Cornhole League. He overcame his disability— an anger problem.

Where to start? First of all, I bet you didn’t even know cornholing was a legitimate career choice, did you? You probably missed that class. Second, no, you don’t need arms and legs to play cornhole, how dare you. Third, the murderer played for the Assassins. Are we in a simulation, or what?

I apologize. I am sure you have many questions. I’ll do my best.

On Sunday night, Dayton was driving three passengers (friends? other athletes?). And yes, Dayton was driving, when, according to survivors, he began arguing —maybe about cornhole etiquette, we don’t know yet— with the front-seat passenger, Bradrick Wells, also 27. So in a competitive spirit, Dayton shot him twice in the head.

Yes, Dayton was both driving and shooting. A short man, perhaps, but a man of tall talents, talents that propelled him into the top echelons of American Cornholing and also the back of a prison bus.

After the shooting, Dayton stopped the car. He ordered the two people riding in the back seat to help him shift the dead body into a bush. Instead, they fled. Disappointed and not a little put out, Dayton drove off with the body of his murdered friend, who rode shotgun for the last time.

Later the same evening, an alert Charlotte Hall, Maryland, resident notified officials of the unexpected appearance of a dead body in his front yard. We aren’t completely sure how Dayton got it there by himself. Detectives tracked Dayton’s car to a Charlottesville, Virginia, hospital, around 120 miles away, where they found the quadriplegic killer being treated for —these are the Times’s delicate words— “a medical issue.”

Could the intriguing “medical issue” be … powder burns? A pulled muscle from the exertion of getting Brad’s body out of the car? A chronic cornhole injury?

Dayton now faces first- and second-degree murder charges in La Plata, Maryland— about 40 miles south of Washington, DC. The American Cornhole League, I am not making this up, promptly posted an official statement to its social media accounts:

People: Always use discernment when you get into a car with a strange cornhole player who has no arms and legs and is driving and playing with a gun at the same time. And never argue with him (or her). However unlikely, accidents can happen.

🔥🔥🔥

In fits and starts, the weaponization story is trickling into the public eye. Yesterday, Reuters reported, “Exclusive: FBI investigation into Kash Patel was more extensive than previously reported.” That’s one way of putting it. Another way of putting it is: a corrupt nest of deep state judges and DOJ bureaucrats is being exposed to sunlight.

Yesterday, the Senate Judiciary subcommittee investigating special prosecutor Jack Smith held a contentious hearing and released all-new records. Including, among other things, a 30-page subpoena that had dug into nearly every part of Kash Patel’s life while he was a private citizen. They got it all: his phone records, internet history, email accounts, device IDs, banking records, and probably even the coat check receipt from the humiliating time he went to see Kinky Boots on date night.

The FBI named its wide-reaching January 6th investigation “Arctic Frost,” presumably because “Watergate on Steroids” was already taken. The newest documents were discovered in another one of those special “prohibited access” storage rooms that the FBI used to hide things from itself.

“The Biden administration’s ‘Arctic Frost’ scheme, is not a single act,” Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas), said. “It is a modern Watergate, trading a break-in at one office for a digital sweep into approximately 100,000 private communications, more than a dozen senators, and thousands of individuals’ lives.”

A clutch of DC Circuit judges green-lit and rubber-stamped the whole operation. Three main judicial participants chaperoned the domestic spying orgy: Chief Judge Beryl Howell (Obama appointee), the now-infamous and cadaverous Judge James Boasberg (Obama), and Magistrate James Mazzone (also Obama-era).

One internal DOJ email unearthed by Senator Grassley’s subcommittee said, “before we tell Main (as in main Justice), we’re going to fire off subpoenas for so many members (of Congress) that I should make sure Jack’s aware.” In other words, the conspirators recorded in an email that they were going to subpoena Congress before asking their supervisors. Ask forgiveness, not permission.

Another memo found by the subcommittee concluded that it would be unconstitutional to surveill Senators because they were protected by the “Speech and Debate Clause.” They issued the subpoenas anyway.

But perhaps the ugliest details were notes about coordination between Prosecutor Smith and the judges before the subpoenas were issued. “She liked our approach of pursuing the executive privilege litigation in an omnibus fashion,” one agent’s notes recalled, referring to Chief Judge Howell. Another noted, “Chief judge knows it is coming and loves the idea.”

I don’t know who needs to hear this, but a lawyer’s job is much easier if the judges tell you privately, ahead of time, what to put in the motion, and which ideas of yours they “love.” It sort of collapses the whole judicial system into a single easy step. It’s teamwork! Totally unethical and probably illegal, but what difference does that make? After all, they faced an unarmed insurrection.

Republicans wisely refused Democrat demands to have Jack Smith testify first. Now they have lots of information that they wouldn’t have otherwise had. By the time they get to Smith, the questions will be brutal.

Meanwhile, the volume of calls for Judge Boasberg’s impeachment is getting louder than a dance club just after midnight on Saturday. But Boasberg is only a symptom of the problem, like a horrid rash on your lower calf. Structural reform is required. Not tinkering. At some point, somebody needs to ask: what do we need to change to make sure a Boasberg cannot happen again?

💉💉💉

Chalk one up for the big pharma deep state. After ignoring him for six years, the New York Times reported yesterday, “Key Adviser Quits Federal Vaccine Panel.” Dr. Malone said he wouldn’t re-join the CDC’s vaccine advisory committee, ACIP, whenever it is reconstituted following a judicial freeze.

Dr. Robert Malone, who is either a co-inventor of mRNA vaccine technology or a dangerous conspiracy theorist depending on which platform you’re tuned into, resigned Tuesday from the federal vaccine advisory panel, explaining that he does “not like drama.” In the past twelve months, he has publicly feuded with Anthony Fauci, called the covid vaccines a “catastrophic mistake,” testified before the Senate, has written three books, started multiple podcasts, and tried to reform the federal vaccine committee that had just been dissolved by a court. If he does not like drama, it isn’t easy to tell.

It could be a bit more than just drama. “Hundreds of hours of uncompensated labor, incredible hate from many quarters, hostile press, internal bickering, weaponized leaking, sabotage,” Dr. Malone complained. Sounds like politics. “Suffice to say, I do not like drama, and I have better things to do.”

The ACIP lies in limbo. Last week, a judge enjoined the panel from meeting, finding that, in his view, its members lacked sufficient vaccine credentials. The Administration has promised to appeal but has not moved forward.

“If offered the opportunity to participate in a relaunched A.C.I.P., I will respectfully decline,” Dr. Malone said, adding, “this was not an impulsive decision.” Maybe. The straw that broke the doctor’s back seems to be over a tweet dispute. Malone tweeted that the court ruling wouldn’t be appealed. HHS Spokesman Andrew Nixon then told media it would be appealed, contradicting Dr. Malone.

“After Andrew trashing me with the press, I am done with the CDC and ACIP. That was the last straw,” Malone said in a text to Roll Call.

Dr. Malone got more media coverage by quitting ACIP than anything he ever did on the committee or during the pandemic. Ars Technica played it cute: “RFK Jr.’s anti-vaccine ally dramatically quits CDC panel complaining of drama.”

Dr. Malone was one of the committee’s most outspoken members and arguably best qualified. Decades back, he helped develop the original mRNA vaccine technology, and even holds an early patent. During the pandemic, he became an outspoken critic of the mRNA vaccines, not least because he was well familiar with their shortcomings and potential problems. The judge said his experience wasn’t recent enough.

Like many, I am sorry to see Dr. Malone go. My take is that the Administration is rethinking the ACIP’s role altogether. The committee is as useless a group of grifters and hangers-on as ever met in a swanky hotel conference room. It doesn’t do anything. It only makes recommendations. It was just a beard, a facade that rubber-stamped whatever the CDC wanted to do, and in the ultra-rare cases when it does oppose the CDC —such as when Biden’s CDC approved the jabs for kids— the CDC just ignores it and does what it wants anyway.

I think the truth is not that Dr. Malone hates drama. He is a pandemic warrior. He slogged through the trenches with the rest of us till the glorious end. Actually, I think he hates politics, and I don’t blame him one bit.

I say: abolish the ACIP. Since it’s probably mandated by federal statute, and can’t just be waved away, the Administration can stymie it by not appointing any better-credentialed members, and let the judge’s order do the rest.

⚖️⚖️⚖️

There were two terrific bouts of oral argument at the Supreme Court this week, and both made big news. The pundits think SCOTUS is about to hand the President two giant wins. The first case was Noem v. Al Otro Lado, and the New York Times reported, “Supreme Court Seems Open to Trump Request to Block Asylum Seekers at Border.”

You won’t believe this one. The case is ostensibly about whether President Trump’s immigration officers can refuse to let asylum-seekers automatically enter the country even if they say they want asylum. Lower courts said we have to let them in. The entire case revolves around the meaning of two simple dictionary words: “arrive in.”

That’s because a federal law allows noncitizens to automatically apply for asylum whenever they “arrive in the United States”— a process that takes months or years, and in the meantime the Haitians or whatever can enjoy local, state, and federal welfare and, apparently, open daycare centers.

So Trump’s immigration officials were refusing to let asylum seekers cross the border, forcing them to apply for asylum from much less hospitable conditions outside the US. Where they must pay their own room and board. And where they don’t get free cell phones to call their abuelita (or their voodoo witch doctor) or EBT cards for cat sandwich fixings and other incidentals. And so on.

At the hearing, lawyers for immigration activists made the astonishing argument —with straight faces— that “arrives in” includes walking up to the border, even if they never cross it. This can happen, for example, at any of our ports of entry along the border. Republicans argued that “arrives in” includes an important and very helpful preposition: in. I feel stupid for having to say this, but “in” is a well-known synonym for within, inside, and so on. Not “at,” “close to,” or “near.”

Maybe close gets you some points in cornhole, but not immigration law. In other words, you can’t just toss immigrants toward the border and still score when they don’t slide across.

Justice Kavanaugh called the debate “very artificial,” which is Supreme Court code-talk for “this is ridiculous, please stop.” The DOJ’s lawyer simply said, “You can’t arrive in the United States while you’re still standing in Mexico. That should be the end of this case.” And thank the stars, the majority of the Supreme Court appeared to tiredly agree. Sometimes the law is not that complicated. Sometimes it is way more complicated than it needs to be.

Anyway, back early last year, when the liberal judges were just warming up their war on Trump’s successful immigration policy, I wrote a whole post advising everyone to be patient, since the appellate court system would eventually work it all out. That’s exactly what’s happening.

A final decision is expected in a month or three. But it’s looking good.

⚖️ I chose Vox’s hysterical headline, since the Schadenfreude was so delicious. It appears SCOTUS is on the precipice of dropping Democrats’ mail-in ballot schemes into the abyss. On Monday, Vox reported, “The Supreme Court seems alarmingly willing to trash thousands of ballots.” The complicated legal question in this case is: in 1845, when Congress set the “Tuesday after the first Monday in November” as “Election Day,” did it mean ballots must be received by that day? Or just cast by that day?

If they find a stray beanbag below the cornhole board a week after the championship, does that still count? What does “Cornhole Day” even mean? It’s so complicated.

In the case before the Court, the Republican National Committee challenged Mississippi’s law allowing mail-in ballots postmarked by Election Day to be counted if they arrive as late as five business days after. Fourteen states have similar grace periods. The Fifth Circuit sided with the RNC against Mississippi. On Monday, SCOTUS heard oral arguments.

Based on the questions, this case could wipe out all late ballot counting.

In the immigration case, Democrats wanted to quibble about the meaning of the word, “in.” In this case, they argue about the meaning of the word, “day.” For Democrats, “election day” includes “election week,” “election month,” or “election as long as it takes to get the right answer.”

But it didn’t seem that complicated to Justice Samuel Alito. “We have lots of phrases that involve two words,” he patiently explained, “the second of which is day. Labor Day, Memorial Day, George Washington’s birthday, Independence Day, and Election Day.” In other words, why should Americans only get one day off for Memorial Day, but Election Day can stretch on however long the party in charge wants it to?

Tiresomely, this is all unavoidable political positioning. Nobody’s arguing the real issues. The real fight in the asylum case is: should we be able to turn (allegedly) persecuted people away at the border? The real fight in the ballot case is: does mail-in voting help Democrats cheat? But nobody in the courtroom says any of that out loud. Instead, nine robed philosophers spend four hours debating what a below-average four-year-old could tell you— what “in” and “day” mean.

⚖️ To strip away the legal mumbo-jumbo, here is the real problem with late voting. In close races, the party in charge of the vote can keep counting late mail-in ballots until they get the result they want— and then quit. They can disqualify the rest. They can game the extended voting period and stretch it to just the point where the scale tips in the right direction.

The problem isn’t late ballots. The problem is late ballots plus discretion.

A uniform Election Day receipt deadline is a bright line. Everybody knows the rules. The count is the count. But a grace period creates a window of discretion— and discretion in the hands of the party that controls the counting apparatus in a close race is… well, it’s a hungry fox guarding the henhouse with a five-day head start.

It’s not necessarily that every late ballot is fraudulent. The asymmetry of information is the real vulnerability. After Election Day, everyone knows the current score. Everyone knows exactly how many votes the trailing candidate needs to flip the result. And the people who control which late ballots are accepted and which are disqualified for technical defects also know the score.

That’s a fundamentally different situation than counting ballots before anyone knows the result. The states that require receipt by Election Day aren’t being mean. They’re removing the irresistible temptation for someone with a full week to put a thumb on the scales.

By the way, this is the same reason why early voting, which technically is probably also a violation of the statute —since early voting also doesn’t happen on election day— is not a similar threat. Early ballots are collected when no one yet knows the outcome— so there’s no incentive for gaming the system, or at least, less of an incentive than that produced by late-counted ballots.

I think the Supreme Court should strike down both late and early voting, and let Congress amend the statute. They could fix it with clear rules governing all 50 states the same way if they want to retain early voting, since it’s so “popular.” Personally, I would prefer one single Election Day, paper ballots, inkstained fingers, IDs, and that’s it. (But nobody in charge listens to me.)

Based on the hysteria in trad-media following the two oral arguments, it appears once again that the Supreme Court will ratify major portions of Trump’s agenda. And if they kill (at least) late ballot counting, the midterms suddenly take on an entirely different character, and new possibilities open up in the less likely places.

The polls aren’t helpful this time. The entire political map is being tossed up in the air, and unlike cornhole, nobody knows where any of the bags are going to land. It’s exciting, no? Let me know what you think in the comments.

Have a wonderful Wednesday! Fly back here tomorrow, with or without a map, for another terrific roundup of essential news and elucidating commentary.

Share

Give a gift subscription

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 🦠