☕️ CROOKED TRIO ☙ Friday, November 3, 2023 ☙ C&C NEWS 🦠

This week sees three top democrats sitting in criminal crosshairs; a major inflection point in the Middle East war; the Overton window opens wider for jabs and health agency misconduct; and more.

Good morning C&C, it’s Friday! Your roundup today includes: three top democrats in the criminal crosshairs; stroke-addled Senator Fetterman files surprisingly sensible Senate security proposal; former Speaker target of very strange criminal subpoena; terror group makes major announcement signaling inflection point in the Middle East war; inflection points; America pushed Russia pushed into helping Iran; Representative Gaetz picks up Montana lab story; and Ed Dowd makes some telling points about the jabs.

🗞 THE C&C ARMY POST 🗞

🪖 It’s Day Three of my Fall cold. Symptoms are better than yesterday, and I also slept better — but not exactly like a log. It was more like a couple of sticks. My nose is still producing impressive quantities of liquid snot and weirdly, yesterday my right kidney started aching. When I mentioned it to her, Michelle said she’d had the same thing when she got this cold last week. I hope to be back to scratch tomorrow. Thanks for all the well-wishes and for putting up with sickday posts this week!

🗞💬 WORLD NEWS AND COMMENTARY 💬🗞

🔥 The New York Times ran the first of three eye-popping stories yesterday headlined, “U.S. Investigating Whether Adams Received Illegal Donations From Turkey.” The sub-headline ominously added, “A raid at the home of Eric Adams’s chief fund-raiser was part of an inquiry into whether foreign money was funneled into his mayoral campaign, a search warrant shows.”

To be clear, it wasn’t Adams’s house that was raided, it was his top fund-raiser. The Times reported that the FBI raid was related to a “broad public corruption investigation” into whether Adams’s 2021 campaign conspired with Turkey over illegal campaign donations.

Turkey! You probably wouldn’t assume the muslim nation was closely affiliated with New York City, but you’d be wrong. Apparently Mayor Adams loves to go there. According to the Daily News, at an event last week Adams bragged, “I think I’m on my sixth or seventh visit.” The Times said the Turkish government funded at least one of Eric’s trips, and maybe more.

The article explained that, right when Adams was jetting toward Washington to complain to White House officials about the city’s crisis-level migrant meltdown and the lack of any federal dollars for same, he heard the FBI had raided his top fund-raiser’s house in Brooklyn. So Adams promptly canceled all his D.C. meetings, turned Mayoral plane around, and flew right back to the Rotten Apple to take care of business.

We don’t know, but a legal noose of some kind seems to be slowly tightening around the Mayor’s sweaty neck. The Times reported that New York’s District Attorney Alvin Bragg — the same one prosecuting Trump — recently indicted Mayor Adams’s former senior adviser Eric Ulrich, charging him with 16 felony counts including conspiracy and bribe taking. Ulrich was also involved with Adams’s 2021 fundraising.  In July, DA Bragg indicted six other folks for organizing illegal donations to Adams’s 2021 campaign.

Worse for Adams, whatever DA Bragg is up to is completely separate from yesterday’s FBI raid, which is a federal matter. So far, the setup has the classic appearance of a RICO investigation, where prosecutors roll up the conspiracy from the bottom, offering deals to lower-level participants to testify against the crooks at the top of the pyramid.

Adams is one of three top democrats in the crosshairs of criminal investigations this week. All of the investigations are democrat-run.

🔥 In the second such story yesterday, Politico ran the wildly unlikely headline, “Fetterman makes his move against scandal-plagued Menendez.” The sub-headline awkwardly explained, “The Pennsylvania progressive is proposing to punish any senator under indictment for certain crimes — like those Menendez is accused of.”

In another surprising democrat prosecution also featuring bribery, corruption, and muslim foreign nations, diminutive Senator Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) was recently federally indicted as an illegal secret foreign agent working for the Egyptians. Menendez gave up his Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairmanship, obviously, but he’s holding on to several committee seats and even attended classified briefings on the Middle East war this week.

So yesterday, vaccine-injured slow talker John Fetterman (D-Pa.) filed a sensible Senate proposal to sanction any senator indicted for specific security-related offenses like mishandling classified information, being charged as a foreign agent, or compromising national security. The Fetterman resolution would strip any senator facing those specific charges of all their committee assignments, their access to classified briefings and information, their power to request earmarks, and their power to use government funds for international travel.

Obviously, Fetterman is squarely aiming at fellow democrat Menendez. When reporters asked, Fetterman cited the fact that Senator Menendez — accused of being a secret Egyptian agent — was attending classified briefings on the Israel situation. “It's astonishing to me how anyone would be okay with that," Fetterman explained, in what might be the first thing he’s ever said that I agreed with.

The whole thing is astonishing. I was astonished Fetterman filed anything that made sense to anyone.

Predictably, a vexed but feisty Menendez reacted by essentially telling reporters that Fetterman should mind his own beeswax. But Fetterman has amped the rhetoric, calling in halting sentences for Menendez to resign from the Senate. Politico thinks the quite rational Fetterman proposal is a long-shot.

It’s so strange that Fetterman — and not any of the Senate Republicans — filed the proposal.

Obviously, Republicans should support Fetterman’s proposal. I understand there’s potential for abuse, but as we have heard over and over in the Trump classified documents prosecution, national security trumps everything else, no one is above the law, et cetera and so forth.

🔥 As if those two cases weren’t weird enough, things got even weirder yesterday, when the New York Post ran a story with the intriguing headline, “Nancy Pelosi served subpoena as husband’s attacker heads to trial in California.”

The story is both more and less than it seems. Since it was a third-party subpoena in a federal criminal case, Nancy is not the case’s immediate target. But there are other odd parts.

Under House rules, Representatives must disclose whenever they receive legal process of any kind, such as a subpoena. So on Wednesday, Nancy did just that, saying only that she was “served with third-party subpoenas from the prosecution and the defendant to produce documents in a criminal case and United States District Court for the Northern District of California.”

Most folks are logically speculating that the subpoenas are related to the imminent trial of David “Hammer Time” DePape, which kicks off in federal court on November 13th. We don’t know for sure the subpoena is related to DePape’s case. But if it is, it is strange because Pelosi could have voluntarily turned over documents. So, why did the parties feel the need to subpoena the San Fransisco lawmaker? And, what documents? What documents of Nancy’s could be relevant to prosecuting DePape for attacking Paul Pelosi?

Could the subpoena possibly be related to a completely different criminal prosecution, and the suggestive timing is purely coincidental? A document subpoena served this close to trial is not unheard of, but it is very rare. There’s not much time left for reviewing documents and preparing for trial. If the subpoena is related to DePape, my best guess would be some new information just broke and the prosecution and defense are scrambling.

It’s also possible that the documents are somehow confidential, and Nancy asked for subpoenas for legal cover for turning them over. But if so, what documents?

Neither Pelosi or anybody related to the DePape case will say one way or the other, which is also weird. Why not just admit, yeah, we subpoenaed Pelosi for some documents? Why wouldn’t Pelosi just admit yeah, it’s about the guy who attacked my husband? It might be nothing at all, but it is very odd, especially in light of today’s first two items involving corrupt top democrats.

And Nancy makes three!

💣 The BBC ran a story yesterday headlined, “Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah to make first speech on Israel-Gaza war.”

About the time you start reading this, at 3pm Lebanon time (9am Eastern time), the terrorist group Hezbollah will begin delivering a hyped public address advertised for over a week now, even featuring movie-style trailers, not to mention nonstop media commentary and speculation. We have no idea what they’re going to say.

But one thing is clear: the speech will be an inflection point.

In this sense, an ‘inflection point’ is a binary change in the course of where the conflict is headed. For a recent example, back in the early summer NATO held its annual summit, and it was widely thought that the defense alliance was preparing to admit Ukraine, which would have instantly broadened the war. For example, this headline appeared on the Department of Defense’s website:

That headline was pure propaganda. The summit came and went, and Ukraine was not admitted. NATO leaders didn’t even try. At that point, it became clear to everyone: NATO had flinched. The alliance showed a distinct lack of appetite for World War III. And that meant it was only a matter of time before Russia ate Zelensky and his corrupt oligarchs for a mid-morning snack.

NATO July Summit was an ‘inflection point’ in the war. If you wondered why I was never too worried about the Proxy War’s prospects to mushroom into mushroom clouds, this is why. NATO talked about it a lot, but never seriously tried to bring Ukraine under its defensive umbrella, which it could have done at any time.

Likewise,  Hezbollah’s much-hyped “major announcement” today is an inflection point. If Hezbollah declares kinetic war against Israel, then the conflict will expand. But if Hezbollah only condemns Israel and makes more threats, when they had the world’s eyes and ears, and after building up the speech all week, it will be clear the Iranian axis lacks any current appetite for a broader regional conflict.

We will find out very soon. Updates tomorrow.

💣 In related news, the Wall Street Journal ran a fascinating story yesterday headlined, “Russia’s Wagner Group Plans to Send Air Defenses to Hezbollah, U.S. Says.”

According to the Journal, U.S. intelligence officials (I know) said yesterday Russia’s Wagner Group offered to give Hezbollah one of Russia’s most advanced anti-aircraft systems, called the SA-22. It can shoot down missiles, F-16s, and F-35s. All of which would be very problematic for Israel.

Russia denied the claim.

Either way, right now the story is pure war propaganda. Even if it’s true, Russia has only “offered” to deliver an SA-22. Offers are super easy to make. Delivering stuff is where things get expensive. Still, it was a helpful bit of war propaganda to somebody in the lead up to Hezbollah’s big announcement today.

It’s worth reflecting on why Russia is helping the Hezbollah terrorists. According to reports, the Hamas planned the October 7th Massacre for two years. So planning would have started around October, 2021 — six months into Russia’s Special Military Operation in Ukraine, and several months after the U.S. started meddling.

I’m not saying Russia was involved in the Hamas attack. I’m just pointing out the timeline. And the fact that the October 7th Massacre effectively ended Ukraine’s chances of winning. And the fact that Hamas’s undeniable and unforgivable brutality against unarmed Israeli civilians, women, children, and old people, looks more designed to incite rage and revenge rather than accomplishing any identifiable military objectives.

It would be just like the Russians to patiently wait two years to spring a trap like that to distract the U.S. from the Proxy War. Note: I’m not claiming they did it; how would I know?

Whatever may be true, Russia is clearly helping Hezbollah now, if only by refusing to condemn the terror group for the October 7th Massacre. And Hezbollah is Iran’s prize proxy. So by helping Hezbollah, Russia is actually helping Iran. Which is only fair, because Russia owes Iran, since Russia was caught flat-footed when the U.S. sent Ukraine a bunch of high-tech drones.

Iran came through for Russia, fixed its drone problem, and fixed it so well that military media commonly refers to Russia’s drones as “Russia’s Iranian Drones:”

In other words, when things got sticky in Ukraine thanks to U.S meddling, Russia turned to Iran for help. And Iran helped. Defying U.S. sanctions, Iran shipped Russia thousands and thousands of drones, which arguably turned the tide of the war in Russia’s favor. (Things remain murky, but it a highly arguable point.) Meanwhile Joe Biden cunningly handed the Iranians $6 billion dollars and lifted most sanctions, but I digress.

The point is: any help Russia gives to Iran and Hezbollah at this point is arguably directly blamed on the U.S., for starting the drone war in Ukraine in the first place. It’s an uncomplicated ‘butterfly effect,’ except with SCUD-missile equipped butterflies. To be clear: It’s not me saying Russia’s new alliance with Iran is America’s fault. Many others have said it. For instance, Britain admitted it early this month, and Voice of America repeated the claim:

So.

💉 On Wednesday, I covered the breaking story about a Montana NIH lab infecting bats with a SARS-like virus from Wuhan back in 2018, right before the pandemic started. I was pleased to see that Representative Matt Gaetz (R-Fl.) picked up the story yesterday, and among other salty comments on his podcast, suggested the NIH’s experiments were “potentially criminal.”

CLIP: Representative Matt Gaetz calls Montana lab experiment potentially criminal (3:09).

Now we’re getting somewhere. More talk like this, please. (And then, of course, action.)

Gaetz also said the new information about the lab would be help lawmakers “root out these inappropriate foreign collaborations.” Yes! Root them out!

💉 Social media phenom Russell Brand interviewed financial data analyst and jab skeptic Edward Dowd yesterday about the shots. In the clip below, Dowd opines that the manmade part of the disaster is “unmatched in the history of the world,” and it “won’t be talked about for the next ten years, but for the next 100 years.”

CLIP: Russell Brand asks Ed Dowd about jab crimes (2:21).

Encouragingly, Dowd — like me — thinks we are making progress. He told Russell, “The good news is, word is getting out, booster uptake is down, and people are starting to spread it, despite the media clampdown on this issue, and the political clampdown, and the regulatory clampdown.”

Guess what? You and I are a critical part of this good news, since we are all helping get the word out. At some point soon, a point racing closer and closer, we’ll reach a tipping point where enough people realize what actually happened and then things will start happening.

And at that point, there will be a reckoning that, in Dowd’s words, will be “unmatched in the history of the world.”

Have a fabulous Friday! Everyone meet up back here tomorrow morning for another warm, delicious C&C roundup.

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