☕️ MEAL TEAM SIX ☙ Tuesday, October 14, 2025 ☙ C&C NEWS 🦠

Letitia James faces widening fraud woes; Dems downplay Trump’s peace triumph as media sulks; TikTokers mock ungrateful protestors; Scott Adams tribute trends; shutdown drags; pudgy troops benched.

Good morning, C&C, it’s Tuesday! As the world continues spinning faster and faster, the news keeps coming too. In today’s roundup: Indicted New York Attorney General Letitia James’s problems multiply as simple mortgage fraud case threatens to bloom into something uglier than a … well, than an ugly stick; Democrats already downplaying Trump’s peace deal (while the rest of the world continues celebrating) and pessimistic media experts predict it won’t last; even MSNBC notices Democrat praise stinginess; TikTokers notice the lack of appreciation from longtime Palestine protestors; touching tribute from Scott Adams; Government shutdown enters third week and pretty much nobody has noticed, thanks to nimble moves from the Administration; and fat troops get sidelined after unflattering photo goes viral.

🌍 WORLD NEWS AND COMMENTARY 🌍

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The strange Letitia James saga got weirder yesterday, when the Daily Mail ran a story headlined, “Letitia James’ family secret exposes damaging problem for law enforcer.” You’ll never guess who the state’s top prosecutor was stashing at the house at the center of the grand jury’s inquiry. Many have wondered how a liberal grand jury indicted such a high-profile progressive darling. It’s because it was ugly.

As a reminder for Portland readers, Ms. James is New York’s State Attorney General —its “top cop”— who campaigned for that office on a platform of “getting Trump,” and then did prosecute Trump, for overestimating real estate values on loans that he paid back on time, with interest. Last week, federal officials indicted James for mortgage fraud, for flat-out lying on her own loan application about using a property she bought in 2020 as her primary residence (to get a lower interest rate).

The Grand Jury saw tax records showing Ms. James reported rental income from the Virginia home. But, according to the Mail, James’ grandniece Nakia Thompson, 36, testified to the Grand Jury that she’d lived there since 2020, rent-free, with her three kids. That complicated things a smidge, suggesting possible tax fraud, but it got even worse when the papers checked public records and social media to find out who Nakia was, exactly.

“Nikki” is a serial criminal offender currently wanted in North Carolina for failing to complete probation. Over the years, she’s been charged with a law-school inventory of various crimes (some subsequently dismissed), including: assault & battery, assault against a government official, trespassing, petit larceny, grand larceny, possession of marijuana, possession of burglary tools, contributing to the delinquency of a minor, and over a dozen traffic violations of various kinds.

(Public safety notice: Nikki is obviously not a terrific driver. If you travel in that part of Virginia, keep your eyes peeled. You’ll probably see Nikki coming. You can’t miss her.)

Anyway, Nikki is apparently such a scofflaw that her family even cracks jokes and makes memes about her criminal history. The Mail helpfully reprinted one homemade meme depicting Nikki splattered with blood and the caption, “Nik-Nak’s Crime- GRAND LARCENY.” Another post was a picture of a marijuana leaf under the title: “Never underestimate the wisdom of a stoner.”

Also, never underestimate the stupidity of a stoner. No offense, stoners. Just saying.

The gist, or nub, is that it’s kind of a bad look for the top law enforcement officer in the State of New York to be harboring a criminal relative. One is tempted toward a certain degree of sympathy, since Ms. James was obviously providing for several generations of her extended family.

But alas, Ms. James holds the wrong job to be harboring criminals, even if they’re relatives, since James’s first responsibility is bringing criminals to justice. Not overseeing a miniature Biden crime family.

Lying on mortgage applications about using the house as her personal residence while also planning the political prosecution of a popular former president —a courageous undertaking that virtually guarantees blowback— demonstrates a stoner’s wisdom. Part of the guaranteed blowback James should have expected was being given a financial rectal exam.

Since Nikki testified she lives in James’s house for free, one naturally wonders about the source of Ms. James’ declared rental income. And then, one suspects that rental income must have come from a government program of some kind.

So … maybe jam welfare fraud onto the list as well. In that light, one’s sympathy about James’s family stewardship begins to shrivel. It looks more like James bought a property with almost nothing down, falsely claimed it as her personal residence, then installed her indigent grand-niece so that the house would qualify for low-income assistance— paying off her house using rental income derived from taxpayers and perhaps even scoring a profit.

In other words: the whole thing was a scam. Shocking, I know.

Anyway, it begins to look once again like the Trump team brilliantly chose James to be one of the first targets for the growing Storm of indictments. As the facts of James’s case get uglier and murkier, the AG’s political defenders will probably dry up and vanish.

Indeed, only the Daily Mail covered this story, raising the fascinating question of how it got the exclusive. There’s a lot going on behind the scenes.

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What would we do without experts? This morning, ABC ran a pessimistic peace-plan story headlined, “Trump declares end of Israel-Hamas war, but experts see the hard work as just beginning.”

As we saw yesterday, Trump delivered a banger of an address to Israel’s Knesset. Among many other quotables, Trump told the assembled lawmakers: “This is not only the end of a war, this is the end of an age of terror and death, and the beginning of the age of faith and hope and of God. It’s the start of a grand concord of lasting harmony for Israel and all the nations of what will soon be a magnificent region.”

Immediately afterward, President Trump jetted down to Egypt to meet with all the involved Arab officials and officially sign a preliminary peace plan with leaders of Egypt, Qatar, and Turkey— all witnessed by over 20 other world leaders and representatives of international organizations. It was called the Trump Declaration for Enduring Peace and Prosperity or the Sharm el-Sheikh Agreement.

No Democrats attended.

The new agreement laid out an initial, early phase of investment in Gaza, reinforced commitments to maintaining the ceasefire and resolving conflict through diplomacy, detailed the exchange of hostages and prisoners, scheduled troop withdrawals, and expanded the delivery of humanitarian aid.

Critics focused on the curious fact that neither Israel nor Hamas —the two parties to the on-the-ground conflict— participated in the signing. One is tempted by this to conclude that the Arab leaders were far more involved in the conflict than anyone is publicly willing to admit. But as the President pointed out: there is currently no fighting, Gazans are returning to their homes, the hostages have been returned, and the entire Arab region is focused on achieving peace.

The next step will probably take months to negotiate and effectuate. It involves Israel fully withdrawing, Hamas laying down arms, and turning over Gaza’s governance to Trump’s “Board of Peace.” Although media “experts” are “wary,” nobody is betting against Trump at this point.

🚀 Democrats were so stingy with credit yesterday that even MSNBC ran a story headlined, “The two words Democrats are avoiding in praising the Israel-Hamas peace deal.” The ‘two words’ were “Donald Trump.” The sub-headline explained, “Most Democrats have notably omitted praising a key piece of the agreement between Israel and Hamas.” Trump.

“Democrats,” MSNBC reported, “want to laud the potentially historic peace agreement without giving credit to Trump, a figure they and their voters largely loathe and whose actions throughout the war have drawn criticism.”

🚀 Folks are also starting to notice the decided lack of enthusiasm from people who, until ten minutes ago, were willing to risk jail to protest the continuing Gaza war. They wanted a ceasefire and they wanted it now. They camped in tents on college campuses, occupied libraries and admin buildings, marched in protest rallies, and generally made odious nuisances of themselves to the point it required a federal response.

Now, having achieved what they insisted they wanted, they’ve suddenly become as quiet as teenagers sneaking out a bedroom window after their parents went to sleep. And from viral posts on social media yesterday, many normal people are noticing. What were all those protests really about? For example:

CLIP: TikToker wonders where all the celebration of the Gazan ceasefire is, because he wants to celebrate too (0:51).

If one were cynical, one might suspect that peace can’t help destabilize America, and nobody is paying anybody to celebrate the ceasefire— even though the protestors could have now claimed partial credit for having pressured the world to make that happen.

And to think, President Trump —a lowly garbage truck rider, a fascist, and a McDonald’s drive-thru worker— finally figured out the formula.

🚀 Finally, though it widely circulated on social media yesterday, I’m including this touching clip just in case you were doing something more productive than scrolling. Dilbert-drawer Scott Adams, who was professionally canceled and ostracized after he came out for Trump in 2016, and who nearly died from turbo prostate cancer earlier this year, found himself brought to (manly) tears of joy:

“CLIP: I sacrificed everything because I believed it was worth it … and today’s the day (5:15).”

“I’ve been all in since 2016,” Scott recalled. “All in. I bet it all. I just bet everything. I bet everything to get to this point: the golden age. Here we are. I don’t know if I even want to talk about the news today, because it just feels so good to be on the right side of history.”

Scott was all-in four years before I took the plunge. It required a pandemic to prod me out of my political slumber. (But I am all-in now, you can bet on that.) But it wasn’t just Scott or Jeff or any other influencer— it was all of us.

“All the MAGA supporters: you took a personal and professional risk for the benefit of the country,” Adams added. “You all did that. And you knew it was going to cost you dearly. You lost family members. You lost friends. You lost jobs. It cost you money. And in the end, you were right. You bet the right way.”

Congratulations. We did it.

But we must never forget how MAGA was mocked and marginalized, deplored and deplatformed, excoriated and excommunicated. The choice always came with real-world costs. Democrats made sure of that.

MAGA chose the hard path anyway.

🚀 Scott then looked forward, past this current point, and correctly noted the momentum effect. Now that the world has witnessed Trump successfully broker this insanely complicated deal, the path to future success becomes easier. “Only Trump could have gotten it done,” Scott noted. “It puts Trump in a whole different category. Where now, he can do even more things that were impossible. People are going to say, what else can you do? And we’re probably going to find out.”

He’s right. This achievement has been recognized as remarkable even by the President’s stingiest critics (when they are pressed, that is). It will fuel further deals. And, as each one falls into place, new doors will open to even bigger opportunities. Remember: every single politician in the world, from capitalists to communists, libertarians to socialists, wishes to be attached to a winner. Every one. It’s human nature.

As he has done again and again, President Trump —hardened and perfected by his wilderness years of impeachment and persecution— has found a third way and made the impossible possible.

Just. You. Wait.

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In case you hadn’t noticed —and no one would blame you— the invisible government shutdown is still working, harder than ever. Yesterday, CBS ran a story headlined, “Government shutdown poised to enter a third week as Congress remains at stalemate.”

It’s beside the point, but … what if we sold the parks and museums to private operators? It would help pay down the debt. If we did, would there then be any way to tell when the government is shut down or not? The so-called shutdown hasn’t stopped the Democrats from making cringey TikToks and grandstanding, that’s for sure.

By last Thursday, Democrats and their corporate media allies were counting down the seconds till the shutdown-fueled spending freezes started to bite Republicans. For example, headline from the Hill:

But over the weekend, President Trump directed the War Department to keep paying all military personnel despite the government shutdown. The move infuriated Democrats, who are now sullenly trying to decide whether suing the Administration to block military pay would be a winning or losing political look. CBS added that yesterday the Department of Homeland Security, which runs the Coast Guard, figured a way to pay those brave men and women, too.

CBS noted without further comment that DHS Director Kristi Noem “did not specify a source of the funds.” They are so frustrated that they can’t sue to block military pay and also politically survive to guffaw about it later. Too bad.

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Speaking of the military, yesterday the Hill ran a delicately worded story headlined, “Hegseth touts push to replace heavyset National Guard troops in Illinois.” It all started with an unfortunately candid photo of plump Texas National Guard troops arriving in Chicago. Then, more unfortunately, the unflattering photo went viral:

Intolerant trolls on social media sarcastically fretted that Chicago restaurant supplies might soon be endangered. They meanly called the soldiers “Veterans of the Golden Corral” and the “Blueberry Brigades.” They outrageously referred to “Operation Dessert Storm” and “Meal Team Six,” and offered unkind comparisons to Family Guy’s Peter McGriffin.

But it was bad timing, like showing up at 4:45 and missing the early-bird special. War Secretary Hegseth had just finished telling the generals that military fitness standards would be enforced. Hegseth doesn’t want to see any more plus-sized troops or generals.

The unfortunate situation was even more troublesome for the Hill’s reporter, who scoured the thesaurus in sheer terror, and otherwise performed Olympic-level rhetorical gymnastics to locate delicate euphemisms and avoid using the simplest and shortest word describing the unlucky soldiers in the snap.

That well-known, three-letter word begins with an “f.” Don’t make me spell it out for you. (Hint: Secretary Hegseth was not afraid to use that word liberally and often.)

After the photo went viral, the Texas National Guard responded, issuing a similarly carefully worded statement: “The speed of the response necessitated a concurrent validation process, during which we identified a small group of service members who were not in compliance and have been replaced.”

“Not in compliance” must be the best euphemism yet. Bless the bureaucratic heart.

In other words, get back to PT. No drive-thrus on the way home.

With that encouragement, I think I’ll add an extra workout day this week. It can’t hurt.

Have a terrific Tuesday! Jog back here tomorrow morning, for another jazzy exercise session of essential news and heart-pumping commentary.

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 🦠

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