FIGHTING THE KOREAN INFORMATION WAR: The Trump Administration’s information warfare operation has strategic traction. Why, even The Grand Courtesan of Beltway Media, The Washington Post, has finally noticed.
RELATED: Stephen Green posted this article quoting Joni Ernst earlier this morning.
THERE ARE CERTAIN SECTIONS OF FLYOVER COUNTRY, COMRADE, THAT I WOULDN’T ADVISE YOU TO TRY TO INVADE: Communist Front Group ‘Refuse Fascism’ Plans Nov. 4 Revolution to Unseat Trump.
HOT NIGHT LAUNCH: An F-18F Super Hornet leaves the flight deck of the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz. Yes, an exhausting close-up.
WANT TO HELP A GREAT BLOGGER? Donate to Juliette “Baldilocks” Ochieng’s tip jar. I have.
I HAVE SOME FRIENDS WHO ARE EVACUATING NOW: California fires: At least 10 dead as 20,000 flee flames sweeping through wine country. There are more fires down by LA.
LEFTIES LOVE VIOLENCE: @Twitter openly shames Steve Scalise, who barely survived a Leftist assassin’s attack, for not learning his lesson.
Plus: “The collective shrug after this shooting was most deeply troubling thing to me of 2017. The news moved on in two days. No soul searching.” To be fair, you have to have a soul first.
Flashback: James T. Hodgkinson, Attempted Assassin Of Steve Scalise, Already Being Erased From History.
WITH ALMOST NO PRESS ATTENTION OUTSIDE THE DAILY CALLER, THE HOUSE DEMS’ IT SCANDAL MARCHES ON: Imran Awan’s Own Wife Accuses Him Of Fraud.
The indicted husband-and-wife team of former IT aides to Democratic Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz sat directly across from each other at the defendants’ table in federal court Friday in Washington, D.C., but refused to look at each other.
Even as they are co-defendants in a U.S. case, Imran Awan’s own wife, Hina Alvi, has become the latest person to accuse him of fraud, filing papers against him in Pakistani court, according to Pakistani news channel ARY.
The couple were in U.S. court to face bank fraud charges related to sending money to Pakistan around the time they learned they were under investigation for abuses related to their work managing IT for members of Congress. Awan was arrested at Dulles Airport in July attempting to board a flight to Pakistan.
Wasserman Schultz, former chair of the Democratic National Committee, and other House Democrats have vigorously defended Awan, claiming the Capitol Police might be drumming up charges out of Islamaphobia.
Alvi was arraigned Friday on four felony counts, and Awan, who has already been arraigned, requested that his GPS monitoring bracelet be taken off — citing the fact that his wife was in America as the reason he was not a flight risk.
Yet the couple entered and left the court separately, have different lawyers, and Awan’s lawyer told the judge that the husband and wife are staying “in a one-bedroom apartment and then also a house.”
Pakistani legal papers published by the news channel show Alvi recently accused Awan of illegally marrying another woman, and of fraud. “My husband Imran Awan son of Muhammad Ashraf Awan, committed fraud along with offence of polygamy,” she charges in the papers.
Hina’s U.S. lawyer, Nikki Lotze, did not dispute the account.
Related: Imran Awan ‘Very Strongly’ Wants To Block Review Of Hard Drive, Was Using Alias.
A Capitol Police report shows that the laptop was found in a phone booth in the Rayburn House Office Building after midnight, after Imran had already been banned from touching the House network, and that the laptop had the username RepDWS.
In an emotional exchange caught on video in May, Wasserman Schultz demanded that the Capitol Police chief return the laptop, saying there would be “consequences” if they did not. She said “if a member loses” equipment, police should not be able to look at it. She hired an outside lawyer to try to block prosecutors from looking at it, invoking the “speech and debate” clause, which covers members’ legislative activity. Two months later, she said it was actually Imran’s laptop and she had never seen it. She did not fire Imran for months after the laptop was found in his backpack, and continued to pay him until his arrest.
Flashback: House IT Aides Fear Suspects In Hill Breach Are Blackmailing Members With Their Own Data.
FOLLOW THE MONEY: As Democrats denounce Weinstein, Clintons and Obama stay mum.
Longtime Hillary Clinton aides have been confused by the former secretary of state’s silence on the issue, questioning — in private — why she has not weighed in at all.
Weinstein has long been a Clinton donor with ties to the political family. Weinstein was one of many from Hollywood who donated to Bill Clinton’s legal defense fund in the 1990s, a Washington Post report from the time stated. More recently, the Clintons rented a home next to Weinstein in the Hamptons in 2015, and Weinstein served as a connector between Hollywood stars and Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign.
Weinstein raised about $1.5 million from 1990-2016, according to data from the campaign finance-tracking Center for Responsive Politics, and was a bundler for Clinton’s 2016 effort, including at a star-studded fundraiser for Clinton in June 2016 at Weinstein’s Manhattan home.
Clinton personally headlined multiple fundraisers Weinstein was involved in organizing during the campaign.
CRP’s OpenSecrets website shows Weinstein was a bundler for Obama as well, and the Hollywood giant visited the White House on several occasions during Obama’s tenure. At a White House event for student films in 2013, first lady Michelle Obama credited Weinstein for making the event happen and praised him as a wonderful person and a good friend.
Former Vice President Joe Biden, who has been outspoken on the issue of sexual assault, also has not appeared to make any public statements about Weinstein since the report came out, and the Biden Foundation did not immediately respond to CNN’s request for comment.
The only Girl Power that Hillary has ever been interested in is her own, but how to interpret Obama’s reticence, given his status as our most vociferous former President?
Meanwhile, it’s business as usual in Clintonland.
IT WOULD HAVE BEEN EASIER AND BETTER TO REMAIN A HAVEN FROM THE POLITICIZATION OF EVERYTHING ELSE: Good job, ESPN: Now everyone hates you.
It’s no secret that many on the Right dislike ESPN.
Indeed, the sports network’s broad expansion into political commentary has been the subject of heated criticism from conservatives and Republicans for several years now.
However, the ranks of ESPN critics may have shifted leftward when the network announced Monday it had suspended a high-profile sports-commentator-slash-political-activist for two weeks after she appeared to call for a boycott of National Football League advertisers.
Many on the Right already detest the network’s position on key political issues. The decision to bench Hill after her boycott tweets, but not after she called the president a “white supremacist,” will further anger the White House’s supporters.
Add to that mix the number of viewers who support the national anthem protests. Add those who support Hill’s view that the White House is unrepentantly racist. Basically, add everyone. They likely won’t take kindly to the network punishing Hill because she appeared to let her beliefs get in the way of the network’s revenue streams.
Company policy or not, the uneven application of discipline will likely create more critics than it placates. Sure, maybe it sends a message to advertisers, but a fat lot of good that will do when viewers on both sides are angry.
Good job, ESPN. Now everyone hates you.
If only ESPN were run by people who care more about sports than politics.
RANDY BARNETT: Presenting a “unified” theory of Originalism.
DEROY MURDOCK: Trump’s Delicious Tax Cut.
House Speaker Paul Ryan (R., Wis.) proposes a simple postcard for filing typical tax returns. Rather than the current 1040 form’s 79 lines, Ryan’s postcard contains 14. With nearly every deduction and exemption discarded — beside the home-mortgage and charitable write-offs — there simply would be fewer lines to fill.
This should cheer Americans who struggle to machete their way through today’s tax system. The IRS’s Amazon jungle is impenetrable, menacing, and plagued by pitfalls at every turn. Last month in North Dakota, Trump called America’s tax structure “outdated, complex, and extremely burdensome.” He further lamented the “billions of hours wasted on paperwork and on compliance.” He added: “Our tax code is a giant self-inflicted economic wound.”
Genuine reform isn’t just cutting rates or eliminating brackets, it’s making the tax code transparent and free of cronyism. That’s why the bipartisan Tax Reform Act of 1986 was so revolutionary, and why it was so quickly corrupted by succeeding Administrations and Congresses.
LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: Weinstein & Vegas Shooter Updates, ESPN Fiasco and Much, Much More.
SMART: Walmart’s Latest Attempt at Making Life Easier and Getting You Off Amazon.
Through Walmart’s Mobile Express Returns, beginning next month, Walmart customers can use the retailer’s app to initiate a return, completing the process by dropping the item off at any store’s Mobile Express Lane and scanning the app’s QR code.
The new mobile returns will be available first for Walmart.com purchases, with in-store purchases added early next year. Walmart also said it’s currently planning a similar returns process for items purchased from third-party sellers on Walmart.com.
Additionally, beginning in December, for some items like shampoo and cosmetics, Walmart customers can be refunded on the app without needing to return the item to stores at all.
It’s become popular in some circles to threaten antitrust against Amazon, but before going down that road it might behoove us to see what else Walmart (and others) come up with.
YOU WILL BE MADE TO CARE: New California law allows jail time for using wrong gender pronoun, sponsor denies that would happen.
The sponsor, Democratic state Sen. Scott Wiener, has argued adamantly that nobody is going to be criminally prosecuted for using the wrong pronoun.
“It’s just more scare tactics by people who oppose all LGBT civil rights and protections,” he said in a statement last month.
But the language seemingly allows for the possibility, however remote.
The bill itself is aimed at protecting transgender and other LGBT individuals in hospitals, retirement homes and assisted living facilities. The bill would ensure those facilities accommodate transgender people and their needs, including letting them decide which gender-specific bathroom they prefer to use.
“It shall be unlawful for a long-term care facility or facility staff to take any of the following actions wholly or partially on the basis of a person’s actual or perceived sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, or human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) status,” the bill reads.
Among the unlawful actions are “willfully and repeatedly” failing to use a transgender person’s “preferred name or pronouns” after he or she is “clearly informed of the preferred name or pronouns.”
The law states that if provisions are violated, the violator could be punished by a fine “not to exceed one thousand dollars” or “by imprisonment in the county jail for a period not to exceed one year,” or both.
In California, a simple human misunderstanding is now a misdemeanor. Because rights, or something.
JONI ERNST: Trump Tweets Haven’t ‘Worsened the Situation at All’ with North Korea.
In fact, they might be helping.
UPDATE (From Ed): Right on cue, in showbiz bible Variety: Donna Karan Apologizes For Weinstein Comments.
THAT SEEMS SENSIBLE: Virgin Islands delegate: Trump doesn’t need to visit after hurricane because Pence did.
On the other hand, I think I may schedule a fact-finding expedition in about a year to see how the recovery is coming along.
BUT COULDN’T WE HAVE REPRODUCED BY FISSION? Wiles. (A star to those who identify the following quote: “I see a wile, I thwart!”)
BECAUSE OUTLAWS DON’T OBEY LAWS, DUH: Why gun control cannot work. I’m not sure why the left can’t understand this. The more gun control you pass, the fewer law abiding people able to defend themselves. The criminals? They’ll be armed.
THERE AIN’T ENOUGH LIPSTICK IN THE WORLD: Chelsea Manning: No amount of lipstick will change that pig.
THIS IS JUST INSANE: Rape & insult: Christopher Mirasolo given joint custody.
AND HAS. AND WILL. UNLESS YOU STOP IT: How Leftism Can Ruin a Once-Proud School District.
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