Congress
September 28, 2017 — Scott Johnson
Hunting Republicans, deranged leftist James Hodgkinson seriously wounded House Majority Whip Steve Scalise and others at the congressional baseball practice this past June. Rep. Scalise arrived at the hospital having lost so much blood he was in imminent risk of death. He survived major surgeries in critical condition. He defied the odds to make an emotional return to Congress this morning. The Washington Post has a good account here. The
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September 18, 2017 — Paul Mirengoff
Kyrsten Sinema represents Arizona’s Ninth Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives. She is said to be the first openly bisexual woman elected to Congress, as well as the only openly non-theist or atheist member of the current Congress. Sinema presents herself as a bipartisan moderate. She did not vote for Nancy Pelosi for Speaker of the House and reportedly voted with the Democrats “only” 73 percent of the
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September 17, 2017 — Scott Johnson
The curious case of the Awan family and its work for Democrats in the House of Representatives gets curiouser and curiouser. Daily Caller investigative reporter Luke Rosiak has broken story after story on the case. Former DNC chairman Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz lies (and lies) at the heart of the story. Last week Xavier Becerra entered from stage left. The Daily Caller has collected Rosiak’s stories here. It has been
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September 15, 2017 — Paul Mirengoff
President Trump has decided to work with Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi because he’s concluded that otherwise he won’t be able to get things done. This begs the question, which is whether the things he can get done with Chuck and Nancy are worth doing. President Obama didn’t work with Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan for the sake of getting things done. But Obama is a principled leftist. Trump is
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September 13, 2017 — Paul Mirengoff
In the public imagination, the dreamers are folks who were brought to the U.S. by their parents as young children. They are unfamiliar with the country where they were born and would be lost if forced to return there. They are hard-working and law abiding. Many attend college or serve in the military. But one can be a “dreamer” for purposes of benefiting from DACA without fitting any part of
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September 11, 2017 — Paul Mirengoff
I wrote here about how Rep. Luis Gutierrez called John Kelly, President Trump’s chief of staff, a “hypocrite” and a “disgrace to the uniform he used to wear.” Kelly served in the military for more than 40 years. Gutierrez never served a day. However, he became hysterical over Trump’s decision to phase out the DACA program, while giving Congress the opportunity to implement its protections. Gutierrez claimed that Trump’s action
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September 9, 2017 — Paul Mirengoff
In an interview that will air tomorrow, Steve Bannon tells Charlie Rose that the Republican establishment is trying to “nullify” the 2016 election. There’s a lot I respect about Bannon, but this claim strikes me as false. The obvious problem with it is that every Republican member of the House was elected in 2016 or later. Indeed, since it’s impossible to win a House seat with fewer votes than one’s
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September 6, 2017 — Paul Mirengoff
President Trump has published ill-advised tweets before, but last night he outdid himself. Trump tweeted: Congress now has 6 months to legalize DACA (something the Obama Administration was unable to do). If they can’t, I will revisit this issue! The tweet undermines the rationale for Trump’s suspension of DACA, namely that it usurps power vested with Congress by the Constitution. He takes essentially the same position President Obama took. The
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September 5, 2017 — Paul Mirengoff
Rep. Luis Gutierrez, Congressman open-borders himself, went on a rant today against John Kelly, the White House chief of staff. Gutierrez pronounced Kelly, who served in the Marines for more than 40 years, “a hypocrite who is a disgrace to the uniform he used to wear.” Gutierrez added that Kelly “has no honor and should be drummed out of the White House along with the white supremacists and those enabling
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September 5, 2017 — Steven Hayward
The “Ratchet Effect” is the well-known theorem that once liberals get a social welfare program in place, it is nearly impossible for a subsequent conservative government to roll it back. Margaret Thatcher did privatize a lot of nationalized industries in Britain, but then socialist or Labour Party governments did the same thing in New Zealand, Australia, and even France back in the 1980s, as the incompetence of government ownership of
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September 4, 2017 — Paul Mirengoff
By all accounts, President Trump is about to phase out the DACA program. DACA grants work permits to about 800,000 undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as children Trump reportedly will delay terminating the program for six months. This gives Congress time to pass legislation to replace it, if Congress chooses to do so. Trump has made the right decision. As Hans von Spakovsky argues, under our Constitution, Congress
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August 21, 2017 — Scott Johnson
We’ve been writing about, and seeking to understand, the Awan connection. It is a scandal involving former House IT staffers with ties to Pakistan who are accused of stealing equipment from members’ offices without their knowledge and committing serious, potentially illegal, violations on the House IT network. Interest in the scandal has been reinforced by the indictment of Imran Awan and his wife last week. Imran Awan had previously been
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August 4, 2017 — Scott Johnson
The Orlando Sun Sentinel’s Anthony Man caught up with Debbie Wasserman (a/k/a Blabbermouth) Schultz for an interview regarding her former IT employee Imran Awan, now charged with bank fraud and terminated from Schultz’s employ earlier this week. Man notes that Schultz kept him on the payroll of Team Blabbermouth “six months after he was banned from the House network and fired by other members of Congress.” It was also six
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August 2, 2017 — Paul Mirengoff
Sara Carter of Circa reports that former Obama administration National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes has emerged as a person of interest in the House Intelligence Committee’s unmasking investigation. Carter cites a letter sent yesterday by the committee to the National Security Agency (NSA). The letter requests the number of unmasking requests made by Rhodes from Jan. 1, 2016 to Jan. 20, 2017, according to Carter’s sources. Susan Rice, Samantha Power,
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July 29, 2017 — Paul Mirengoff
President Trump has decided not to veto the Russia sanctions legislation passed by Congress. The decision was probably an easy one inasmuch as (1) a veto would easily have been overridden, resulting in embarrassment for the president and (2) it would have added fuel to Trump-Russia connection stories. Naturally, Russia is angry about the sanctions. Europe is also unhappy, which is ironic because some European leaders have criticized Trump for
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July 26, 2017 — Paul Mirengoff
Scott wrote today about the “Awan connection” — a scandal, finally getting some attention, that involves House staffers with ties to Pakistan who are accused of stealing equipment from members’ offices without their knowledge and committing serious, potentially illegal, violations on the House IT network. Interest in the scandal has been reinforced by the arrest of Imran Awan Monday evening as he was about to board a flight to Lahore,
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July 26, 2017 — Scott Johnson
Poltico reported in February that five House staffers were under criminal investigation amid allegations that they stole equipment from more than 20 member offices and accessed House IT systems without lawmakers’ knowledge. The five staffers all worked for Democratic congressmen and have links to Pakistan. The Daily Caller reported that one of the suspects has hightailed it to Pakistan. Something is happening here. One can only infer that some serious
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