All-purpose news and politics thread: Two Steps Beyond!

[numberthirty]

I've got to say...

Handing the job that was just vacated to a guy who comes from a world of rules to go along with the rules is certainly an interesting proposition when you think about Conway and this "Mooch" character being there just acting a fool.

[PaulBullion]

Number30, how are you feeling about the mystical cop Trump wants to use to solve Chicago's problems in 2 days?

[Shining Trapezohedron]

Best thumbs down I can recall since:

[worstblogever]

It was three years ago on this date that "Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day" published our profile of Harley Brown, who captured the imagination of the entire nation four years ago when he showed up to a spectacularly insane debate where the recovering drug addict, motorcycle enthusiast, and poster-child for why proper dental hygiene is necessary showed up to the debate wearing biker leathers, and who talked about his best friend, Fat Jack's wife insisting he move out of their cellar for being a lunatic. Needless to say, he did not fare too well against Gov. Butch Otter that night, or in the GOP Primary.



In both 2015, as well as in 2016, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” profiled James Comer, who was a GOP candidate for the Governor of Kentucky in the 2015 elections who somehow lost to cockfighting advocate Matt Bevin, as just before the primary, another candidate in the GOP field, Hal Heiner, accused Comer of abusing his girlfriend in college. While at first, this just seemed like an unsubstantiated slander, Comer's college paramour, Marilyn Thomas, and her mother came forward to confirm the accusations, and add that Comer had also gotten her pregnant, and pressured her into getting an abortion. Which, guess what? Comer also claims to be pro-life without exceptions for rape, incest, or the mother's life at risk... so that was not going to fly well for him. Comer ended up losing to Bevin in the primary by... 83 votes. Comer, as we noted in our write-up, is also pro-death penalty, opposes same-sex marriage, only wants abstinence-only sex education taught in schools, and has "A" ratings on his stance on guns from the NRA.

We thought Comer would have to lay low for a few years, or that his political career could be in jeopardy. Lo and behold, he is already back in the thck of Kentucky politics, and did not just run in the 2016 GOP Primary for the right to replace retiring Rep. Ed Whitfield for his seat for Kentucky's 1st Congressional District... he HANDILY won that primary, with 61% of the vote in a four-way race. Then again, his biggest challenge was from second-place finisher Mike Pape, who CSGOPOTD covered a little ways back for his grotesque ads with Mexican stereotypes sneaking across the border. Once Comer got out of the primary, he coasted to victory over Democrat Sam Gaskins with 73% of the vote, which makes sense what with the Cook Partisan Voting Index having a +18 Republican lean measured for Kentucky's 1st District. As such, Comer went to Washington to join the most fruitless session of Congress in decades:

• February 16th, 2017: Comer votes for HJR 69, to make it legal for hunters on wildlife reserves to kill several species of hibernating bears or wolves while they’re sleeping. Because… well, the logic really isn’t there as to why, it’s just awful.
• March 16th, 2017: James Comer votes for HR 1181, which would allow veterans deemed mentally incompetent to continue to own firearms, and not have them taken away without a judge's written order. We feel safer already.
• March 28th, 2017: Rep. Comer votes for SJ Res 34, which allowed internet providers to sell the data information of their customers' internet usage to businesses. Well, so much for privacy.
• May 4th, 2017: Comer votes for the House GOP's healthcare plan, that would kick roughly 24 million people off their health insurance plans, allow up to 28,000 more people to die a year, give $50,000 in tax breaks to millionaires, and would eliminate coverage for pre-existing conditions which would include such medical conditions as pregnancy (current or past), post-partum depression, or prior sexual assault. Oh, and a provision in the bill would make sure that Comer would be allowed to keep his healthcare plan as it exists under the ACA, which would be repealed for the rest of the country. He and his Republican compatriots threw themselves a beer bash to celebrate taking away healthcare from millions and then gloated about it with Donald Trump at a White House press conference, as well.
• June 8th, 2017: James Comer votes for HR 10, the GOP’s attempt to repeal Dodd-Frank financial reform, because what the country really needs is to allow the big banks to make the same mistakes that imploded the economy only a decade earlier.

James Comer was placed on the House Oversight Committee after making his way to Washington, D.C., but it doesn’t seem like he takes that responsibility too seriously, based on this May 2017 interview where he does his best to blow off the revelation of what was in former FBI Director James Comey’s memos, and chalks up most of the things Comey claims Donald Trump says that are highly inappropriate if not things that would qualify obstruction of justice in the Trump/Russia investigation as Trump “was just joking”. Because we’ve all heard that knee-slapper about Michael Flynn and how we should “let this thing go”. Perfect punchline, right?

[Kyer]

To the folks who could barely believe what McCain did, take a close look at that video.

It is someone who was there strictly to settle a score. That any good might come of it is a very distant second.

The same way that an infant in Britain was directed to die by a self-serving State government so that they would not lose their power of being able to dictate who shall live and who shall not.

I wish McStain had to exist solely by Obamacare in order to treat his brain cancer....and that they then decided he wasn't worth the cost even if he had the money for treatment. Go home and die. Or in Britain's case... Go to our hospice and die already in a foreign environment of our choosing.

So disgusted with 'human'itybitty.

[Mister Mets]

I've got to say...

Handing the job that was just vacated to a guy who comes from a world of rules to go along with the rules is certainly an interesting proposition when you think about Conway and this "Mooch" character being there just acting a fool.

I'm wondering how a former general will put up with any of that BS.

"What happened to Scaramuci?"
"He fell down the stairs."

[BeastieRunner]

I'm wondering how a former general will put up with any of that BS.

"What happened to Scaramuci?"
"He fell down the stairs."

Kelly got a reprimand for socking another officer. He got light punishment because he was defending what the man said about the man's (not Kelly's) wife. He is also known to punish people for swearing and gossiping. He's not gonna last long I think.

[Tami]

Not real news: A look at what did NOT happen this week

A roundup of some of the most popular, but completely untrue, headlines of the week. None of these stories are legit, even though they were shared widely on social media. The Associated Press checked these out; here are the real facts:

[Tami]

Trump Urges End of Filibuster to Pass Health Bill, Which Failed Without It

Despite naming a chief of staff who is expected to bring a new sense of discipline to the White House, President Trump resorted to his old Twitter playbook on Saturday, attacking Senate Republicans who he said “look like fools” — even as he demonstrated an uncertain understanding of the legislative process.

In a series of early morning messages, the president criticized the Senate’s filibuster rules, saying they were hampering his agenda.

It was not clear why he was focused on the filibuster rule, a parliamentary delay tactic that requires 60 votes to overcome. Republicans have a 52-seat majority in the Senate. A proposal this week to repeal portions of the health care law, as long demanded by Mr. Trump, required a simple 51-vote majority to pass and still failed.

Nonetheless, Mr. Trump plowed on in the flurry of Twitter posts that started shortly after 7 a.m., saying “many great Republican bills will never pass,” including health care, under the filibuster rule.

But Mr. McConnell’s former chief of staff, Josh Holmes, cited Mr. Trump’s tweets on Saturday as he sardonically suggested a “search for the idiot who keeps putting the President on irrelevant and counterproductive crusades.”

The Senate this year temporarily changed its rules to allow Neil M. Gorsuch, Mr. Trump’s nominee for the Supreme Court, to be confirmed by a simple majority. But historically, and facing increasingly narrow elections that can flip control of the Senate every few years, most senators have opposed permanently jettisoning the rule that allows the minority party to indefinitely obstruct something that has majority support.

The president on Saturday also cited a “Fox and Friends” report that claimed Russia was behind an investigation that last year that produced a dossier about alleged unseemly incidents in Mr. Trump’s past. He said the Fox report showed that “Russia was against Trump in the 2016 election” and again blasted the several continuing federal investigations into possible collusion between his campaign and Russia as a “witch hunt.”

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Kelly got a reprimand for socking another officer. He got light punishment because he was defending what the man said about the man's (not Kelly's) wife. He is also known to punish people for swearing and gossiping. He's not gonna last long I think.

Agreed. I don't see Kelly keeping Tony Pinocchio, one of Trump's made men under control. I think Kelly's there to ride herd on Captain Breitbart and the rest of the scalywags at the White House. Still, I'd be shocked if he's still on the team by year's end.

[Carabas]

Trump Urges End of Filibuster to Pass Health Bill, Which Failed Without It

I wonder if somebody tried to not get blamed for the Republican failure by lying to Trump and telling him the Democrats filibusterd it.

[Tami]

I wonder if somebody tried to not get blamed for the Republican failure by lying to Trump and telling him the Democrats filibusterd it.

Of course, they are always going to say "It's all the Democrats fault!"

[worstblogever]

Trump Urges End of Filibuster to Pass Health Bill, Which Failed Without It

He must figure since he won an election without a majority of the votes, that the Senate should work that way, too.

[Mister Mets]

Interesting problems in the office of former DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz.

Bank fraud was the stated charge on which Awan was arrested at Dulles Airport this week, just as he was trying to flee the United States for Pakistan, via Qatar. That is the same route taken by Awan’s wife, Hina Alvi, in March, when she suddenly fled the country, with three young daughters she yanked out of school, mega-luggage, and $12,400 in cash.

By then, the proceeds of the fraudulent $165,000 loan they’d gotten from the Congressional Federal Credit Union had been sent ahead. It was part of a $283,000 transfer that Awan managed to wire from Capitol Hill. He pulled it off — hilariously, if infuriatingly — by pretending to be his wife in a phone call with the credit union. Told that his proffered reason for the transfer (“funeral arrangements”) wouldn’t fly, “Mrs.” Awan promptly repurposed: Now “she” was “buying property.” Asking no more questions, the credit union wired the money . . . to Pakistan.

As you let all that sink in, consider this: Awan and his family cabal of fraudsters had access for years to the e-mails and other electronic files of members of the House’s Intelligence and Foreign Affairs Committees. It turns out they were accessing members’ computers without their knowledge, transferring files to remote servers, and stealing computer equipment — including hard drives that Awan & Co. smashed to bits of bytes before making tracks.

They were fired in February. All except Awan, that is. He continued in the employ of Wasserman Schultz, the Florida Democrat, former DNC chairwoman, and Clinton crony. She kept him in place at the United States Congress right up until he was nabbed at the airport on Monday.

This is not about bank fraud. The Awan family swindles are plentiful, but they are just window-dressing. This appears to be a real conspiracy, aimed at undermining American national security.

At the time of his arrest, the 37-year-old Imran Awan had been working for Democrats as an information technologist for 13 years. He started out with Representative Gregory Meeks (D., N.Y.) in 2004. The next year, he landed on the staff of Wasserman Schultz, who had just been elected to the House.

Congressional-staff salaries are modest, in the $40,000 range. For some reason, Awan was paid about four times as much. He also managed to get his wife, Alvi, on the House payroll . . . then his brother, Abid Awan . . . then Abid’s wife, Natalia Sova. The youngest of the clan, Awan’s brother Jamal, came on board in 2014 — the then-20-year-old commanding an annual salary of $160,000.

A few of these arrangements appear to have been sinecures: While some Awans were rarely seen around the office, we now know they were engaged in extensive financial shenanigans away from the Capitol. Nevertheless, the Daily Caller’s Luke Rosiak, who has been all over this story, reports that, for their IT “work,” the Pakistani family has reeled in $4 million from U.S. taxpayers since 2009.

That’s just the “legit” dough. The family business evidently dabbles in procurement fraud, too. The Capitol Police and FBI are exploring widespread double-billing for computers, other communication devices, and related equipment.

Why were they paid so much for doing so little? Intriguing as it is, that’s a side issue. A more pressing question is: Why were they given access to highly sensitive government information? Ordinarily, that requires a security clearance, awarded only after a background check that peruses ties to foreign countries, associations with unsavory characters, and vulnerability to blackmail.

These characters could not possibly have qualified. Never mind access; it’s hard to fathom how they retained their jobs. The Daily Caller has also discovered that the family, which controlled several properties, was involved in various suspicious mortgage transfers. Abid Awan, while working “full-time” in Congress, ran a curious auto-retail business called “Cars International A” (yes, CIA), through which he was accused of stealing money and merchandise. In 2012, he discharged debts in bankruptcy (while scheming to keep his real-estate holdings). Congressional Democrats hired Abid despite his drunk-driving conviction a month before he started at the House, and they retained him despite his public-drunkenness arrest a month after. Beyond that, he and Imran both committed sundry vehicular offenses. In civil lawsuits, they are accused of life-insurance fraud.

Democrats now say that any access to sensitive information was “unauthorized.” But how hard could it have been to get “unauthorized” access when House Intelligence Committee Dems wanted their staffers to have unbounded access? In 2016, they wrote a letter to an appropriations subcommittee seeking funding so their staffers could obtain “Top Secret — Sensitive Compartmented Information” clearances. TS/SCI is the highest-level security classification. Awan family members were working for a number of the letter’s signatories.

Democratic members, of course, would not make such a request without coordination with leadership. Did I mention that the ranking member on the appropriations subcommittee to whom the letter was addressed was Debbie Wasserman Schultz? Why has the investigation taken so long? Why so little enforcement action until this week? Why, most of all, were Wasserman Schultz and her fellow Democrats so indulgent of the Awans?

The probe began in late 2016. In short order, the Awans clearly knew they were hot numbers. They started arranging the fraudulent credit-union loan in December, and the $283,000 wire transfer occurred on January 18. In early February, House security services informed representatives that the Awans were suspects in a criminal investigation. At some point, investigators found stolen equipment stashed in the Rayburn House Office Building, including a laptop that appears to belong to Wasserman Schultz and that Imran was using. Although the Awans were banned from the Capitol computer network, not only did Wasserman Schultz keep Imran on staff for several additional months, but Meeks retained Alvi until February 28 — five days before she skedaddled to Lahore.

Strange thing about that: On March 5, the FBI (along with the Capitol Police) got to Dulles Airport in time to stop Alvi before she embarked. It was discovered that she was carrying $12,400 in cash. As I pointed out this week, it is a felony to export more than $10,000 in currency from the U.S. without filing a currency transportation report. It seems certain that Alvi did not file one: In connection with her husband’s arrest this week, the FBI submitted to the court a complaint affidavit that describes Alvi’s flight but makes no mention of a currency transportation report. Yet far from making an arrest, agents permitted her to board the plane and leave the country, notwithstanding their stated belief that she has no intention of returning.

Many congressional staffers are convinced that they’d long ago have been in handcuffs if they pulled what the Awans are suspected of. Nevertheless, no arrests were made when the scandal became public in February. For months, Imran has been strolling around the Capitol. In the interim, Wasserman Schultz has been battling investigators: demanding the return of her laptop, invoking a constitutional privilege (under the speech-and-debate clause) to impede agents from searching it, and threatening the Capitol Police with “consequences” if they don’t relent. Only last week, according to Fox News, did she finally signal willingness to drop objections to a scan of the laptop by federal investigators. Her stridency in obstructing the investigation has been jarring.

As evidence has mounted, the scores of Democrats for whom the Awans worked have expressed no alarm. Instead, we’ve heard slanderous suspicions that the investigation is a product of — all together now — “Islamophobia.” But Samina Gilani, the Awan brothers’ stepmother, begs to differ. Gilani complained to Virginia police that the Awans secretly bugged her home and then used the recordings to blackmail her. She averred in court documents that she was pressured to surrender cash she had stored in Pakistan. Imran claimed to be “very powerful” — so powerful he could order her family members kidnapped.

[Gray Lensman]

I'm not surprised in the least. If anyone was to ask me what nationally prominent Democrat would be involved in some kind of illegal shenanigans, DWS would be the first name I'd come up with. Andrew Cuomo (who has shut down investigations when they get too close to him or his pals) would be the second.

I believe the phrase is "Shocked but not surprised."