“Look, up in the sky; it’s a bird…it’s a plane…no, it’s a MOAB!”
Here’s the juice: no American President (other than “Benedict Arnold” Obama) would or could permit a madman, be they North Korean or Iranian, to possess a nuclear weapons delivery system capable of hitting the United States with either an EMP event or physical strike. Not unless they’re willing to subject America to perpetual blackmail.
And The Donald may be a lot of things…most of them unsavory…but we’re pretty certain that last one’s not one of them.
Now, here’s The Gouge!
We lead off the last edition of July with an absolutely must-read story first broken by The Daily Caller and courtesy of NRO, Andrew McCarthy offers the sordid details behind another looming Liberal scandal you won’t find covered anywhere in the MSM:
“In Washington, it’s never about what they tell you it’s about. So take this to the bank: The case of Imran Awan, Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s mysterious Pakistani IT guy, is not about bank fraud.
Yet 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. (More on that later.)
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.
Now for the best part…
“…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.
We don’t know if these allegations are true, but they are disturbing.The Awans have had the opportunity to acquire communications and other information that could prove embarrassing, or worse, especially for the pols who hired them.Did the swindling staffers compromise members of Congress?Does blackmail explain why were they able to go unscathed for so long?
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.“
Unlike the faux conspiracy The Left and their shills in the Fourth Estate continue to peddle about Trump. We were frankly flummoxed by the fact the FBI didn’t detain a foreign national fleeing the country having committed a flagrant felony…until we realized who was still running the FBI on March 5, 2017:
Nothing to see here folks; move along.
Next up, again courtesy of NRO, Kevin Williamson offers a compelling comparison between The Donald and another, wholly-fictional blowhard:
“…Glengarry Glen Ross is the Macbeth of real estate, full of great, blistering lines and soliloquies so liberally peppered with profanity that the original cast had nicknamed the show “Death of a F***ing Salesman.” But a few of those attending the New York revival left disappointed. For a certain type of young man, the star of Glengarry Glen Ross is a character called Blake, played in the film by Alec Baldwin. We know that his name is “Blake” only from the credits; asked his name by one of the other salesmen, he answers: “What’s my name? F*** you. That’s my name.” In the film, Blake sets things in motion by delivering a motivational speech and announcing a sales competition…
…Blake is a specimen of that famous creature, the “alpha male,” and establishing and advertising one’s alpha creds is an obsession for some sexually unhappy contemporary men. There is a whole weird little ecosystem of websites (some of them very amusing) and pickup-artist manuals offering men tips on how to be more alpha, more dominant, more commanding, a literature that performs roughly the same function in the lives of these men that Cosmopolitan sex tips play in the lives of insecure women. Of course this advice ends up producing cartoonish, ridiculous behavior. If you’re wondering where Anthony Scaramucci learned to talk and behave like such a Scaramuccia, ask him how many times he’s seen Glengarry Glen Ross.
…If that sounds preposterous, remind yourself who the president of the United States of America is.
Trump is the political version of a pickup artist, and Republicans — and America — went to bed with him convinced that he was something other than what he is. (Though many of us knew exactly what Trump was, but still, correctly, preferred him to Hillary.) Trump inherited his fortune but describes himself as though he were a self-made man.
He has had a middling career in real estate and a poor one as a hotelier and casino operator but convinced people he is a titan of industry. He has never managed a large, complex corporate enterprise, but he did play an executive on a reality show. He presents himself as a confident ladies’ man but is so insecure that he invented an imaginary friend to lie to the New York press about his love life and is now married to a woman who is open and blasé about the fact that she married him for his money. He fixates on certain words (“negotiator”) and certain classes of words (mainly adjectives and adverbs, “bigly,” “major,” “world-class,” “top,” and superlatives), but he isn’t much of a negotiator, manager, or leader. He cannot negotiate a health-care deal among members of a party desperate for one, can’t manage his own factionalized and leak-ridden White House, and cannot lead a political movement that aspires to anything greater than the service of his own pathetic vanity.
He wants to be John Wayne, but what he is is “Woody Allen without the humor.” Peggy Noonan, to whom we owe that observation, has his number: He is soft, weak, whimpering, and petulant.He isn’t smart enough to do the job and isn’t man enough to own up to the fact. For all his gold-plated toilets, he is at heart that middling junior salesman watching Glengarry Glen Ross and thinking to himself: “That’s the man I want to be.” How many times do you imagine he has stood in front of a mirror trying to project like Alec Baldwin? Unfortunately for the president, it’s Baldwin who does the good imitation of Trump, not the other way around.
Hence the cartoon tough-guy act. Scaramucci’s star didn’t fade when he gave that batty and profane interview in which he reimagined Steve Bannon as a kind of autoerotic yogi.That’s Scaramucci’s best impersonation of the sort of man the president of these United States, God help us, aspires to be.
But he isn’t that guy. He isn’t Blake. He’s poor sad old Shelley Levene, who cannot close the deal, who spends his nights whining about the unfairness of it all.
So, listen up, Team Trump: “Put that coffee down. Coffee is for closers only.”
Got that?“
At the risk of repetition, yes, we prefer Trump to Hillary under any and all circumstances. This does not mean the man isn’t both overmatched by the task at hand, and…
In a related item, once more brought to us by NRO, Dan McLaughlin explains…
The Party of Stupid once again defies common wisdom…or any other variety!
“Last night’s failure of “skinny repeal” may not be the end of Republican efforts to reform Obamacare, any more than the original failure of the AHCA was, but it’s yet another setback that makes it that much more likely that the core of the Affordable Care Act will survive despite the White House, Senate, and House all being controlled by people who claim to support its repeal. How did we get here?As usual, there’s more than one answer. Let’s list the major causes of the party’s inability to repeal Obamacare.
First, let’s be frank: Republicans and conservatives have just never been as interested in health-care issues as in other issues…
Second, it gets harder to unravel laws and benefits the longer they are in place…
Third, bluntly, some Republicans on Capitol Hill never really believed in full repeal, even though they campaigned on it and voted for it (Lisa Murkowski being the most glaring example — even more so than John McCain, who signaled all the way to the end his willingness to support a better replacement bill than the one on the table).The failure of the latest vote will only further inflame the sentiment that did so much to give us Trump: a sense among Republican voters that the party isn’t really on the level about what it intends to deliver, and just keeps repeating “Failure Theater” in which it only pretends to try.The fact that establishment party organs stood up for some of these folks in contested primaries will embolden those who think that even buffoons like Kelli Ward in Arizona are better than anyone who isn’t hated by the Beltway GOP. That’s unfortunate, because the overwhelming majority of congressional Republicans stuck their necks out with votes on the AHCA, BCRA, and “skinny repeal,” and will get flak from all directions for doing so…
Fourth, the (absolute!) absence of presidential leadership was costly in multiple major ways….Like it or not, for the past century, presidential leadership has been a key component of most major legislative drives to change the country’s direction on a big issue. A candidate who puts a plan or framework on the table, defeats all comers in the primary, then wins the general election, has generally won some political capital for that plan. In the fall campaign, Trump did absolutely nothing to sell any particular vision of health-care reform, but just coasted on the existing, entrenched public dislike of Obamacare…Trump compounded this in office by spending most of his time talking and especially tweeting about anything and everything but the contents of the health-care bill, driving up his own unpopularity to no good end and leaving the field open for Democrats to control the terms of debate. One lesson Republicans never, everseem to learn is that if you let the other side do all the talking about a topic, they will win the argument. Obamacare, which was deeply unpopular from 2009 through Election Day — at all times, less popular than Obama himself — suddenly started to climb in opinion polls as the Democrats went on the offensive while Trump was busy grousing about Mika Brzezinski and Jim Comey and his own attorney general…Trump’s fans will now find it easy and convenient to blame this entire debacle on people like Paul Ryan and John McCain (In McCain’s case, no only easily and conveniently, but accurately!), but no other president, just six months into his term, would have been such a non-factor in such a central policy debate…
Fifth, as Pat Toomey noted recently, nobody in the Republican Congress actually expected Trump to win the election, in which he trailed in the polls (sometimes badly) all the way to Election Day. As a result, there was no effort made to prepare the way for a Ryan-McConnell-led health-care bill without presidential leadership when it became obvious that Trump would not lead on the issue… (We find this reason less than convincing.)
Sixth, the rules of the process — the filibuster rules of the Senate, and the need to appease the Congressional Budget Office — acted at every turn to deter Republicans from simply proposing the best policies they could think of…So, when forced to choose between proposing good policy that would need 60 votes for passage and mediocre policy that could pass with 51 votes, Republicans repeatedly opted for the mediocre choices. That made it progressively harder to sell the bill as a good deal, and also made it harder to horse-trade amendments to the bill to build a coalition. It was the exigencies of trying to satisfy the reconciliation process, rather than use normal legislative channels, that seduced Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell into a ridiculous process… (As we do this one!)
…Republicans have learned how to win elections, and they have many better policy ideas on health care than the current system. But defeat, in this case, had many fathers. Understanding its causes is vital to improving how Republicans approach future battles.“
First, we cannot overemphasize the opportunity Trump squandered through his inattention to detail and incessant tweeting.
Second, while the GOP’s incalculably self-destructive healthcare debacle may indeed have had many fathers, it had three particularly ugly mothers…
…and one completely insufferable and utter son-of-a-b*tch:
For more on the pathetic excuse offered by the latter for his duplicity, we turn to Townhall.com‘s Leah Barkoukis, who tells us…
Why McCain Voted Against ‘Skinny’ Obamacare Repeal Bill
Sen. John McCain offered an explanation Friday for why he joined Democrats and two of his Republican colleagues in voting against the “skinny” repeal of Obamacare, saying he did not believe it would “actually reform our health care system.”
“While the amendment would have repealed some of Obamacare’s most burdensome regulations, it offered no replacement to actually reform our health care system and deliver affordable, quality health care to our citizens,” McCain said in a statement.“The Speaker’s statement that the House would be ‘willing’ to go to conference does not ease my concern that this shell of a bill could be taken up and passed at any time,” he added.
McCain, who came back to Washington this week after surgery related to his brain cancer diagnosis, cast the deciding vote against the legislation. He joined Republican Sens. Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski in opposing the bill.
Ahead of the vote he did not reveal his intentions, only telling reporters to “wait for the show.” The Arizona senator said he opposed one of the “major failures” of Obamacare, which was that it was “rammed through Congress by Democrats on a strict-party line basis without a single Republican vote.”
He did not feel it was right for Republicans to do the same. “We should not make the mistakes of the past that has led to Obamacare’s collapse, including in my home state of Arizona where premiums are skyrocketing and health care providers are fleeing the marketplace,” McCain said.
“We must now return to the correct way of legislating and send the bill back to committee, hold hearings, receive input from both sides of aisle, heed the recommendations of nation’s governors, and produce a bill that finally delivers affordable health care for the American people.”
What about the input of the people; you know, those (like us!) who are paying for Obamacare in the form of skyrocketing premiums, deductibles and out-of-pocket expenses?!? Furthermore, it’s not like The Unaffordable Care Act’s an incredibly lousy piece of legislation due to the mechanisms The Left used to ram it through, but because it was designed to fail from the start, an aspect of the program which seems to have escaped the doddering dolt who, upon his return from Hanoi, left his crippled wife for a buxom beer heiress.
Meanwhile, prior to torpedoing any chance Senate Republicans had to hack away at Liberals’ precursor to single-payer healthcare, back in Arizona McCain had the chutzpah to run the following campaign ad:
As noted above at our Video of the Day, not only is the senior Senator from Arizona…
“…We can argue about whether that is the right or wrong move at that moment. But it’s very difficult to characterize McCain’s decision as “leading the fight to stop Obamacare.” That’s more like leading the fight to keep Obamacare in place while you continue to look for a replacement that you like better. (Which you know won’t pass regardless!)Had Democrat Ann Kirkpatrick won the 2016 Arizona Senate race, she would have voted the same way.“
“Very difficult to characterize” our ample ass; it’s well nigh impossible. Making McCain a liar of the first order.
Writing at Best of the Web, James Freeman characterizes McCain’s subterfuge thusly:
“…Especially odd was Mr. McCain’s vote to kill the reform effort mere hours after Speaker of the House Paul Ryan had agreed to Mr. McCain’s demand that the lower chamber continue to negotiate changes with the Senate.
Not that anyone viewed the Arizona lawmaker as a reliable vote for more consumer choice or less Washington control over insurance markets. A former colleague once summed up John McCain’s political philosophy: “Duty. Honor. Country. Everything else is negotiable.”“
Again, what should one expect from a man who, upon returning from Hanoi, found his wife in a wheelchair, then ditched her for a large-bosomed blond beer heiress?!?
It’s also worth noting this observation from long-time reader, contributor and friend Bill Meisen:
“Keep in mind a good percentage of Republicans don’t want to repeal Obamacare. They’re not against big government; they just want to be the ones running it. Even more Republicans want to make sure Trump doesn’t get any big wins. The whole McCain vote was a set up. 49 Republicans now get to go back to their districts and say they voted to repeal it. McCain didn’t care because he’s likely not going to be around for re-election anyway. I believe he has 4 more years on his current term. Having McCain take the bullet was a designed strategy to give Republicans some opportunity to save face while allowing McCain to stick a shiv in Trump.“
Meanwhile, as these next two items conclusively demonstrate, Republican political hypocrisy isn’t limited to the national level:
Yes, Steinforth voted for Jerry Brown’s cap-and-trade scam anyway!
“New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie says public outcry over his decision to lounge with his family on a public beach that was closed during the state’s government shutdown “upset his children more than anything else” since he’s been in office.
The two-term Republican governor made the comments Thursday night during his regular radio call-in show on New Jersey’s WKXW-FM radio. Christie was photographed over Fourth of July weekend by NJ.com at Island Beach State Park, where the state provides a summer home to the governor.Christie ordered the shutdown of nonessential state government, including state beaches and parks, amid a budget impasse.
He said during Thursday’s radio show that his family was hurt by the backlash and “they don’t understand people’s unfairness and, quite frankly, their ignorance.”(Talk about a large pot-belly calling the kettle black!)
…Christie defended his visit at the time to the shore while the public was denied access, saying that he had previously announced his plans to vacation at the state-owned governor’s beach house and that the media had simply “caught a politician keeping his word…”
Babs Jansen certainly had Marc Steinorth and Chris Christie pegged:
Which brings us, appropriately enough, to The Lighter Side…
Then there’s this from G. Trevor, which demonstrates Progressivism has become a parody of itself…
…as diversity now only comes in one gender and color.
Finally, we’ll call it a day with this non-surprise in the Sports Section, courtesy of Katie Pavlich and Townhall.com:
Confirmed: NFL Fans Tuned Out of Games Last Year Because Players Protested the National Anthem
The NFL took a massive ratings dive last year after a number of players, led by former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, refused to stand for the National Anthem. At the time, NFL officials claimed they didn’t exactly know why ratings were down and even used the 2016 presidential election as an excuse for why more people weren’t watching.
But according to a new survey from J.D. Power, NFL fans did in fact tune out in droves because of the disrespect and protest of the National Anthem before games. From ESPN:
National anthem protests were the top reason that NFL fans watched fewer games last season, according to a new survey released by J.D. Power.
The pollster said it asked more than 9,200 people who attended either one football, basketball or hockey game whether they tuned into fewer games and why. Twenty-six percent of those who watched fewer games last season said that national anthem protests, some of which were led by Colin Kaepernick, were the reason.
After that, 24 percent of those surveyed who said they watched fewer games said they did so either because of the league’s off-the-field image issues with domestic violence or with game delays, including penalties.
After being dropped from the 49ers last year, sports pundits and fellow players have accused anyone and everyone of racism for Kaepernick’s failure to resign with another team. Turns out he’s not only a bad quarterback, but a business liability.
Patriotism is still winning in America and that’s a good thing. Here’s to hoping this season comes with more respect on the field from players who are privileged to live in the greatest country on earth.
If not, we for one will continue to seek our entertainment elsewhere.
Oh, and for those who still don’t understand, the NFL is first, foremost and without any question whatsoever, a business!
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