Good morning, C&C family, it’s Wednesday! Your special California edition roundup today includes: a sitting governor who called a press conference to announce that he is, personally, a criminal suspect— a bold marketing strategy normally avoided by criminal suspects; a four-minute-and-forty-two-second basement selfie video, shot in a lighting style we’ll call Hostage, in which Newsom bravely reveals he’s under federal investigation while heroically declining to mention for what; a leaked talking-points memo whose first question is “what is he being investigated for?” and whose first answer is —and I am not making this up— essentially “good question, ask the DOJ”; millions that mysteriously wandered into his wife’s feminism-themed nonprofit and somehow never wandered back out; a Native American tribe that donated nearly two million dollars at right about the moment Gavin took its side in a casino fight, which is either a remarkable coincidence or a remarkable non-coincidence; a former chief of staff who just pleaded guilty to Fraud and Lying, which would make an excellent name for a punk rock band; and the governor’s central thesis that the most powerful man on Earth is personally terrified of him, despite said man not appearing on any ballot Gavin will ever reach, even on his best day. Grab a glove and your petroleum jelly. It’s probing time.

JEFF CHILDERS ( PROCTOLOGIST)

https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/jelly-probes-wednesday-june-17-2026?