HE’S NOT WRONG: Trump To McConnell: Eight Senate Dems Are Making You “Look Like Fools.” With help from three Republicans.

Related: “A terrible failure for the GOP.”

HOW GOVERNMENT wrecked the gas can. “Soap doesn’t work. Toilets don’t flush. Clothes washers don’t clean. Light bulbs don’t illuminate. Refrigerators break too soon. Paint discolors. Lawnmowers have to be hacked. It’s all caused by idiotic government regulations that are wrecking our lives one consumer product at a time, all in ways we hardly notice. It’s like the barbarian invasions that wrecked Rome, taking away the gains we’ve made in bettering our lives. It’s the bureaucrats’ way of reminding market producers and consumers who is in charge.”

CLAUDIA ROSETT ON NORTH KOREA’S ICBMS AND OUR WORDS, WORDS, WORDS: “The predictable robo-condemnations, however ardently meant, have become a farce. Why not give something different a whirl?”

As Claudia writes, after eight years of Obama’s pablum, perhaps it’s time to unleash the Scaramucci Doctrine on the Hermit Kingdom. Read the whole thing.

DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ KEPT PAYING TECH EXPERT SUSPECTED OF STEALING HOUSE COMPUTERS, the Miami Herald reports:

When a computer expert who worked for congressional Democrats was accused of stealing computers and data systems in February, members of Congress cut him loose within days, leaving Imran Awan with no supporters five months later.

Except for Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz.

The Weston Democrat has not explained in detail why she continued to employ Awan until Tuesday when she fired him — after he was arrested on bank-fraud charges at Dulles International Airport in Virginia attempting to board a flight to Pakistan.

And she has not elaborated on what work Awan did for her after he lost access to the House computer network.

Related: Wasserman Schultz Seemingly Planned To Pay Suspect Even While He Lived In Pakistan.

As Mark Steyn told Tucker Carlson on Wednesday, the story of DWS and Awan has “everything that the Democrats and the media spent months… trying to prove [with] the Russia investigation…We have actual criminal elements. “Everything they’ve been looking for is… staring them in the face with this mysterious guy.”

Which of course, is why, with the notable exception of DWS’s hometown paper, the DNC-MSM can’t run away fast enough from story, and/or switch into “Republican overreach” mode.

As Iowahawk likes to say, “Journalism is about covering important stories. With a pillow, until they stop moving.” Just think of the media as Democrat operatives with bylines, and it all makes sense.

REPORT: IMRAN AWAN AND RELATIVES EMPLOYED AS HOUSE IT STAFFERS OWED MONEY TO HEZBOLLAH-CONNECTED FUGITIVE:

Congressional aides suspected of criminally misusing their access to House computer systems owed $100,000 to an Iraqi politician who is wanted by U.S. authorities and has been linked to Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed Middle Eastern terrorist outfit.

Imran Awan and four of his relatives were employed as information technology (IT) aides by dozens of House Democrats, including members of the intelligence, foreign affairs and homeland security committees. The aides’ administrator-level IT access was terminated earlier this month amid a criminal probe by U.S. Capitol Police of a suspected security breach, including an off-site server housing congressional data.

The Daily Caller News Foundation Investigative Group has reported that while working for Congress, the Pakistani brothers controlled a limited liability corporation called Cars International A (CIA), a car dealership with odd finances, which took–and was unable to repay–a $100,000 loan from Dr. Ali Al-Attar.

Read the whole thing.

TECH GUYS: An interview with Adam Wildavsky, retired Senior Engineer at Google, MIT graduate, world-renowned bridge player, and avid skier.

THEY’RE A HUMAN-RIGHTS VIOLATION: State Licensing Laws Are Mostly Awful; Sen. Mike Lee Might Have a Solution.

YOU KNOW, I WOULDN’T MIND AN AMPHIBIOUS MINI-MOKE.

IT’S ALL ABOUT POWER — A SIGNAL THAT THEY CAN FORCE YOU TO WASTE YOUR TIME ON B.S. Engineers baffled by ‘microaggression’ workshop at conference.

UPDATE: Heh.

TAKING THE NEXT STEP IN GEOENGINEERING.

The basic idea behind stratospheric injection is that spraying particles high above the Earth could help reflect more heat back into space, offsetting rising temperatures. It would mimic a natural phenomenon that occurs when large volcanic eruptions blast sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere, which nudges down global temperatures in the months that follow.

For the proposed experiment, Keith and fellow Harvard professor Frank Keutsch plan to launch high-altitude balloons that would spray small amounts of materials such as sulfur dioxide, alumina, or calcium carbonate into the stratosphere. They would then employ sensors to measure the reflectivity of the particles, the degree to which they disperse, and how they interact with other compounds. Initial test flights could occur as early as next year.

Just to hedge our bets, maybe we should also be thinking about responses to an Ice Age. And maybe working on frost-tolerant, short-growing-season crops.

DISPATCHES FROM THE INTERSECTION OF FAKE NEWS AND THE EDUCATION APOCALYPSE: NPR correspondent Tovia Smith tweets that Columbia’s mattress girl Emma Sulkowicz “considers herself a survivor & we ID her as such. We’ve clarified that their school found the student she accused ‘not responsible.'”

In the interview with British talk show host Russell Harty that’s the spine of The Who’s classic 1979 documentary, The Kids Are Alright, Keith Moon sardonically jokes that he’s “a full-time survivor. I survived all the major earthquakes, and the Titanic, and several air crashes.”

If that’s what Moon identified as, if we’re going by NPR’s postmodernist sophistry, who’s to see he was wrong? Though as Christina Hoff Sommers responds, “To be consistent,you should ID Nungesser as survivor of false accusation. He appears to have stronger claim to victim status than Sulkowicz.”

Related: Colleges won’t change the way they handle rape claims until this happens.

TRUE: Regulation Is Stifling Accessible Healthcare.

A CRIMINAL ORGANIZATION MASQUERADING AS A POLITICAL PARTY: Imran Awan Scandal Shows Just How Much Dirt Dems Wanted to Hide By Focusing on Trump-Russia.

Just think of the media as Democrat operatives with bylines, and their efforts to sweep DWS’s scandal under the rug all makes sense.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: Why Your Relationship Isn’t As “Complicated” As You Think.

ITS ORIGIN AND PURPOSE, STILL A TOTAL MYSTERY: Man Shouting ‘Allah Akbar’ Goes on Stabbing Spree in Hamburg Supermarket; One Dead.

LAW ENFORCEMENT AS ORGANIZED CRIME: Get a Speeding Ticket, Pay the DA for Better Treatment. Louisiana’s pre-trial diversion programs helps drivers avoid higher insurance premiums—and enriches DAs’ offices. “District attorneys’ offices across Louisiana are offering pre-trial diversion programs for traffic tickets, according to an investigation by The Lens. Under the programs, the fines associated with the tickets go directly to the DA’s office, and drivers can avoid having their tickets treated as moving violations and thus avoid higher insurance premiums. The hustle reveals what a central role revenue-raising plays in policing.”

WHAT EVERYONE NEEDS: A Ka-Bar “Tactical Spork?”

WHY NEWT GINGRICH THINKS BRINGING IN KELLY AS CHIEF OF STAFF IS A GREAT MOVE BY TRUMP: Read the whole thing.

UNEXPECTEDLY: Debbie Wasserman Schultz Avoiding Reporters Since Awan Arrest.

C’mon Debbie — tell the world how you had been “myzled” by Awan! (Bumped).

THE 1980s CALLED AND THEY’D LIKE THEIR ENTERTAINMENT BACK: Christian Toto on Five Killer ’80s Movies (Not Made in the ’80s).

THEY TOLD ME IF TRUMP WERE ELECTED, WE’D SEE A RERUN OF THE CONFEDERACY. AND THEY WERE RIGHT! CalExit: California Attorney General Allows Secession Effort To Move Forward.

TIM COOK THE MORAL BEACON: SJW bullies always seem to pick soft targets in their moralistic preening. Apple’s Tim Cook never met a progressive movement he didn’t like — check his Twitter feed — but when it comes down to hard choices that might actually cost him money, well, that’s another story…

China appears to have received help on Saturday from an unlikely source in its fight against tools that help users evade its Great Firewall of internet censorship: Apple. Software made by foreign companies to help users skirt the country’s system of internet filters has vanished from Apple’s app store on the mainland. One company, ExpressVPN, posted a letter it had received from Apple saying that its app had been taken down “because it includes content that is illegal in China.”

It costs nothing to demand that bakeries make gay-themed wedding cakes or that the military pay for gender reassignment surgery. But helping the world’s most repressive regime keep their citizens away from free speech and democracy? Inconceivable!

ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED? Andrew Klavan on President Chaos and the Keystone Kongress.