Kelly’s first task: Stabilize the West Wing

Politico
"Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly has griped privately for months about the disarray at the White House. Now he’s tasked with bringing order to the chaos. 7/29/2017 Kelly’s first task: Stabilize the West Wing 

"When he officially becomes chief of staff on Monday, Kelly, a no-nonsense retired Marine Corps general, will be thrust into the center of the West Wing soap opera, where President Donald Trump’s policy agenda regularly gets preempted by feuding advisers and headline-grabbing scandals.

"It remains to be seen whether Kelly can succeed where Reince Priebus failed — by figuring out a way to rein in an unpredictable president and put a lid on the steady stream of drama at the White House.

"Privately, White House aides and others close to the administration acknowledged it won’t be easy. Even without Priebus, the West Wing remains fractured, with advisers competing for influence over the president.

“ 'I think this is the best and last shot,” said one person close to Kelly. “This is it.”

Best visual commentary ever on transgenders in the military?

Bookworm Room   "It’s quite possible that this is the best poster yet made to comment on the whole transgenders in the military debacle — a debacle predicated on a lie."

"And if you want the proper commentary to go with that poster, I highly recommend Brendan O’Neill’s brutal honestyabout the Orwellian thinking that is being pushed on ordinary people. His starting point is the Tory proposal that people can edit their birth certificates at will to state their preferred gender (of the moment):

It’s madness. And most people know it’s madness. Ask any normal, decent member of the public if Dave, 32, born a boy, still in possession of a penis, and a five o’clock shadow on a rough weekend, is a man or a woman, and I bet you they will say: ‘Man.’ Not because they are prejudiced or ‘transphobic’ – the latest phobia slur designed to pathologise dissent – but because they understand reality. And truth. And biology and experience. They know that in order to be a woman, you first have to have been a girl. 

But the true person in charge of the White House was first lady Michelle Obama.

UK Daily Mail  . . . 'She's the boss,' Mostromonaco said. 

'If he was mad at you for any reason, you'd be, like, "OK." If she was mad at you . . . if you thought for some reason she might be, you were, like, "I'm in so much trouble

The Maverick shoots down any chance of Obamacare repeal

Legal Insurrection "Overnight the Senate failed to pass a so-called “skinny” repeal of Obamacare, when three Republican Senators (Collins, Murkowski and McCain) voted against the measure.

"Whether the “skinny” repeal was an actual repeal was doubtful. As unveiled late last night, it removed the mandate, the medical device tax, and defunded Planned Parenthood, but it was something of a charade. Several Senators voted for it only after Paul Ryan gave some assurance that the Senate bill could be subject to a conference with the House, and would not be passed by the House as is.

"But passing the “skinny” repeal kept hope alive that there might emerge some meaningful form of Obamacare repeal. The defeat of the bill killed any form of Obamacare repeal for the foreseeable future.

"Collins and Murkowski always were expected to vote No, but McCain was the surprise. Even though Murkowski and McCain* had voted in 2015 for full, clean repeal of Obamacare, they didn’t have the guts to put their votes where their mouths had been just a couple of years ago." . . .

GOP flip-floppers were in favor of repeal before they were against it  . . . "Based on a tweet from political operative Jack Posobiec, "[m]ultiple Hill staffers confirm last night McCain was heard laughing w Dems and remarked, 'Lets see Donald make america great again now'."  Mission accomplished.  Revenge is best served cold, and here is one of Trump's signature campaign issues, served ice cold on the morgue slab, ready for the incinerator.

"Never mind what McCain promised his constituents.  He is now the darling of the left and the NeverTrumps.  He will be invited on all the Sunday talk shows, basking in his "maverick" glow. 

"If McCain is "flip," then Murkowski is "flop."  In 2015, she was also in favor of repealing Obamacare, telling Alaskans, "I will support the bill that repeals the ACA and wipes out its harmful impacts."  Not so this week." . . .

You picked a fine time to leave us, McCain   . . . We wish Senator McCain well.  He faces serious health challenges, but a lot of us won't forget what he did this time."

FLASHBACK Friday: Here Is Every GOP Senator Who Voted To Keep Obamacare In 2017 Promising To Repeal In 2015…

Weasel Zippers

Tim Young‏

Verified account

@TimRunsHisMouth

WATCH: Here's all the GOP Senators who voted against repealing Obamacare... Saying they'd repeal Obamacare. #FlashbackFriday @DailyCaller

11:46 AM - 28 Jul 2017

Murkowski Refuses To Explain Why She Campaigned On Obamacare Repeal But Voted Against It  "Alaska Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski refused to explain why she voted against the repeal of the Affordable Care Act when she previously supported similar proposals in her campaigns. 

"Following the failed “skinny repeal late Thursday night, Murkowski, one of the three Republican senators who voted against it, told The Daily Caller she was not ready to respond to why she campaigned on repealing Obamacare in her last election but reversed her position on the matter recently.

“ 'I am really very tired and so you’re asking for a really thoughtful response and I actually appreciate your question but rather than respond to each and individual request with all of these cameras around me, I’m gonna take a pass,” she said." . . .

Who Paid for the ‘Trump Dossier’? Democrats Don’t Want You To Find Out, A Scandal Of Its Own

Weasel Zippers

"Finally, someone in MSM asking the right questions and doing some real journalism.

"Via WSJ:

It has been 10 days since Democrats received the glorious news that Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley would require Donald Trump Jr. and Paul Manafort to explain their meeting with Russian operators at Trump Tower last year. The left was salivating at the prospect of watching two Trump insiders being grilled about Russian “collusion” under the klieg lights.

Yet Democrats now have meekly and noiselessly retreated, agreeing to let both men speak to the committee in private. Why would they so suddenly be willing to let go of this moment of political opportunity?

Fusion GPS. That’s the oppo-research outfit behind the infamous and discredited “Trump dossier,” ginned up by a former British spook. Fusion co-founder Glenn Simpson also was supposed to testify at the Grassley hearing, where he might have been asked in public to reveal who hired him to put together the hit job on Mr. Trump, which was based largely on anonymous Russian sources. Turns out Democrats are willing to give up just about anything—including their Manafort moment—to protect Mr. Simpson from having to answer that question.

What if, all this time, Washington and the media have had the Russia collusion story backward? What if it wasn’t the Trump campaign playing footsie with the Vladimir Putin regime, but Democrats? The more we learn about Fusion, the more this seems a possibility.

CHELSEA MANNING ATTACKS MILITARY FOR WANTING TO SPEND MONEY ON PLANES INSTEAD OF TRANS SURGERIES

Milo  Whom we might say is an authority on this subject.

"Former U.S. Army soldier Chelsea Manning has lashed out at the military, attacking their willingness to spend money on silly things like planes in the wake of President Donald Trump’s announcement that transgender people will not be allowed to serve in the military.

"Taking to Twitter this morning, Manning – who is a trans woman – cried, “so, biggest baddest most $$ military on earth cries about a few trans people but funds the F-35? Sounds like cowardice.”

 Follow

Chelsea E. Manning 

✔@xychelsea

so, biggest baddest most $$ military on earth cries about a few trans people  but funds the F-35?  sounds like cowardice 

Twitter Ads info and privacy

"Manning continued to rant via a number of other tweets containing “brilliant” suggestions like “we should dismantle the bloated and dangerous military/intel/police state to fund #healthcare for all.' ”

Nunes: Obama political aides made hundreds of unmasking requests

Legal Insurrection

Rick Moran  . . . "This sort of thing used to be illegal until Obama relaxed privacy rules in 2011.  So while it's not technically illegal (Nunes and others think it should be), it is a clear abuse of the privilege.  It may even be an abuse of power if the White House used the unmasking to leak the names of Trump officials to the press for political purposes.

"The press is totally uninterested in this story, even though many of us would like to know what the hell the Obama administration was doing with all this information.  Is it not important that the then-president of the United States was using intelligence agencies to do his political dirty work?  I guess if it doesn't lead with Trump and Russia, it's non-news.

"It's unnerving to think your identity could be compromised even if the NSA did not have a warrant to spy on you.  But the Obama administration was far more concerned about which Republican was meeting with foreign leaders or businessmen and what they discussed than any constitutional right to privacy. "

Imran Awan Scandal Shows Just How Much Dirt Dems Wanted to Hide By Focusing on Trump-Russia

PJ Media

"When U.S. Capitol Police, the FBI, and Customs and Border Protection teamed up to arrest Imran Awan, an IT staffer for Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) and other congressional Democrats, Americans began to realize just how broken and corrupt the Democratic Party has become. Indeed, such scandals beg the question of whether the Trump-Russia hype has not been a desperate attempt to distract the country from a long train of scandals on the Left.

"Awan was arrested Monday night on charges of bank fraud, to which he has pled not guilty. As Forbes' Frank Miniter argued, however, his strange case "has all the feeling of the opening scene of a movie that might soon include political corruption and so much more."

Politico reported that Awan is "at the center of a criminal investigation potentially impacting dozens of lawmakers." He was arrested after wiring $283,000 from the Congressional Federal Credit Union to Pakistan, The Daily Caller reported." . . .

. . . "The Awan brothers worked for more than 30 House and Senate Democrats, as well as former Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who only fired Imran Awan on Tuesday after his arrest. News of the investigation broke in February, but Schultz kept Awan on staff for five months before firing him. Schultz even threatened Capitol Police Chief Matthew Verderosa about the investigation in May." . . .

ABC, NBC, And CBS Pretty Much Bury IT Scandal Engulfing Debbie Wasserman Schultz's Office   . . . "Concerning media coverage, Politico has reported something on it, but the big three—ABC, NBC, and CBS—have virtually buried this story, preventing the millions of viewers that tune into these respective networks from learning about it. NBC and ABC have been silent in their broadcasts, but CBS did devote 37 seconds to it. That's it (via Newsbusters):

Survey: Anthem protests top reason people watched fewer games last year

Rick Moran  
. . . "A new survey released by J.D. Power shows that the number-one reason some people watched less sports on TV was protests against the National Anthem.

ESPN:

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.

One in five (20 percent) listed excessive commercials and advertising as a reason, something the NFL is seeking to address by moving around traditional ad blocks.

. . . 

"It is significant that the numbers dropped precipitously early in the season, when the anthem protests were big news, and then recovered toward the end of the year as attention to the protests waned.  It is also significant that fans are apparently getting tired of reading about athletes in trouble with the law, as the parade of sports figures being arrested for various crimes continues."

California history textbook photo?

Hey, it can happen.

Counterpoint: Krauthammer now sees Trump-Russia collusion

comicallyincorrect.com

Charles Krauthammer: Bungled collusion is still collusion  "The Russia scandal has entered a new phase and there’s no going back.

"For six months, the White House claimed that this scandal was nothing more than innuendo about Trump campaign collusion with Russia in meddling in the 2016 election. Innuendo for which no concrete evidence had been produced.

"Yes, there were several meetings with Russian officials, some only belatedly disclosed. But that is circumstantial evidence at best.

"Meetings tell you nothing unless you know what happened in them. We didn’t. Some of these were casual encounters in large groups like the famous July 2016 Kislyak-Sessions exchange of pleasantries at the Republican National Convention. Big deal.

"I was puzzled. Lots of cover-up, but where was the crime? Not even a third-rate burglary.

"For six months, smoke without fire. Yes, President Trump himself was acting very defensively, as if he were hiding something. But no one ever produced the something.

"My view was: Collusion? I just don’t see it. But I’m open to empirical evidence. Show me.

"The evidence is now shown. This is not hearsay, not fake news, not unsourced leaks. This is an email chain released by Donald Trump Jr. himself. A British go-between writes that there’s a Russian government effort to help Trump Sr. win the election, and as part of that effort he proposes a meeting with a “Russian government attorney” possessing damaging information on Hillary Clinton." . . .