Stinking D.C. swamp: Do these former House IT workers have dirt on congressional Democrats?

Debbie Wasserman-Schultza another swamp Idiot.

During his campaign, then GOP-nominee Donald J. Trump pledged repeatedly to “drain the swamp” in Washington, D.C. Though he’d been around politics for years prior to throwing his hat into the presidential ring, there’s no way he could have fully understood just how wide and deep — and incestuous — the stinking D.C. swamp really is.
Now a new scandal that appears to threaten primarily Democratic lawmakers on Capitol Hill has emerged, and it seems to have all of the makings of a real-life House of Cards.
As reported by The Daily Caller, four Pakistani relatives — at least three of them brothers — who were in charge of managing office information technology for members of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and other members on other panels, were suddenly relieved of their duties back in February after authorities suspected them of accessing the information of some congressional members without permission.
“Brothers Abid, Imran, and Jamal Awan were barred from computer networks at the House of Representatives,” the site reported then.
The computers of Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who was the target of a disastrous leak of stolen data from the Democratic National Committee when she was serving as chairwoman, as well as other Democratic members were suspected to be compromised.
Fast forward to Monday, when The Daily Caller followed up on its initial reporting, saying that despite allegations of having committed crimes, no charges have yet to be filed against any of the former IT staffers, leaving current congressional IT workers to think that the integrity of high-level, sensitive information may have been compromised.
What’s more, affected congressional members “have displayed an inexplicable and intense loyalty towards the suspects who police say victimized them,” the site noted, adding that current aides suspect that perhaps the fired Pakistani brothers may have something incriminating or otherwise sensitive enough to use as blackmail over the members of Congress.
“I don’t know what they have, but they have something on someone,” said Pat Sowers, who has overseen IT for several members of Congress for a dozen years. “It’s been months at this point” without anyone being arrested. “Something is rotten in Denmark.”
The DC noted further suspicious revelations:
A manager at a tech-services company that works with Democratic House offices said he approached congressional offices, offering their services at one-fourth the price of Awan and his Pakistani brothers, but the members declined. At the time, he couldn’t understand why his offers were rejected but now he suspects the Awans exerted some type of leverage over members.
“There’s no question about it: If I was accused of a tenth of what these guys are accused of, they’d take me out in handcuffs that same day, and I’d never work again,” he said.
After the Awans were banned, 20 House members’ offices had to find a replacement IT company, but another contractor who thought he’d be a lock to get their business has been thwarted by them, saying they believe he was responsible for blowing the whistle on the Awans’ theft of data.
One House IT worker who talked to The Daily Caller on condition of anonymity said that some, but not all, of the offices left stranded by the Awans’ ban were “thin clients” which sent all data to a server off site, in violation of House rules.
In addition to the Awan brothers, two of their wives — Hina Alvi and Natalia Sova — were also on the payrolls of various Democratic House members soon after one of them began working for Wasserman Schulz in 2005. Since 2010, The Daily Caller reports, they have collected $4 million. (RELATED: Do these fired House IT workers have dirt on several Congress members?)
“The number of offices they had would definitely be suspicious. The loyalty [members] had [coupled with] customer service that wasn’t there,” Sowers said. “I love the Hill but to see this clear lack of concern over what appears to be a major breach bothers me. Everyone has said for years they were breaking the rules, but it’s just been a matter of time.”
Understand that as IT workers, they had access to all computerized data in members’ computers.
“You have the power to shut down the office, remove all their data and lock everyone out,” said the anonymous IT worker. “It’s got to be a trusted adviser. How could you not see this? Maybe it’s not specifically blackmail, maybe it’s, you knew this was going on and let me do this” for years.
Or, it’s blackmail.
A separate Democratic IT contractor told The DC that members “are saying don’t say anything, this will all blow over if we don’t say anything.” The Awans “had [members] in their pocket,” and “there are a lot of members who could go down over this.”

Howard Kurtz, host of 'MediaBuzz' Media ignoring positive stories about Trump administration?

Hillary Clinton attacks proposed Trump budget cuts as ‘cruelty’

Idiot just won't and can't let go!

Hillary Clinton assailed the man who beat her to the White House, slamming as “unimaginable cruelty” President Donald Trump’s proposal to cut $3.6 trillion in government spending over the next decade in a speech on Friday.
The defeated Democratic candidate did not name the Republican president in her remarks to the graduating class at her alma mater, Wellesley College. But she took several veiled swipes at the businessman-turned-politician, whose budget proposal earlier this week proposed sharp cuts in programs for healthcare and food assistance.
“Look at the budget that was just proposed in Washington. It is an attack of unimaginable cruelty on the most vulnerable among us,” Clinton told a crowd at the all-women’s college, located in Boston’s suburbs.
“It grossly underfunds public education, mental health and even efforts to combat the opioid epidemic.”
White House officials have described the proposed budget as providing tax cuts that they say would stimulate economic growth and create more private-sector jobs. As with all presidential budget proposals, the proposal was more of a wishlist that is unlikely to be approved in its current form by Congress.
Clinton, a former secretary of state, warned against an erosion of accepted standards of truth in U.S. public discourse, and also appeared to be attacking Trump on this issue.
“You are graduating a time when there is a full-fledged assault on truth and reason. Just log on to social media for 10 seconds, it will hit you right in the face,” she said, citing hoax online reports that her campaign was tied to a Washington pizzeria that operated a child sex ring.
“When people in power invent their own facts and attack those who question them, it can mark the beginning of the end of a free society,” Clinton said. “This is not hyperbole, it is what authoritarian regimes throughout history have done.”
She also urged graduates of the liberal-leaning school, which is located in one of the most Democratic states in the country, not to retreat into their own partisan echo chambers, saying, “your learning, listening and serving should include people who don’t agree with you politically.”
Clinton has had a long public career since graduating in 1969 from Wellesley. She was first lady during her husband Bill Clinton’s two terms in the White House and was later elected to the U.S. Senate representing New York state. She made an unsuccessful presidential run in 2008 before serving as the country’s top diplomat during President Barack Obama’s first term.
Clinton, 69, has gradually returned to the public eye since her upset November defeat, saying that she will not run for office again but will serve as an activist citizen.

Members of Congress Question Hack of DNC Server

Washington, DC – Young Richardson, OAN Political Correspondent
Wikileaks released tens of thousands of internal Democratic National Committee emails last summer, with Russia thought to be the source, and just weeks after the release, DNC staffer Seth Rich was fatally killed while walking to his Washington, DC home. Now some Members of Congress are raising questions about these events.
“I do not believe that the evidence at this time proves that the Russians would conclude that the Russians are the the ones who hacked the DNC. We have heard every report from the intelligence groups that are making their reports and they have weasel words in them, and they are based on opinion based on someone who is probably a strong liberal democrat,” says Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-California).
Reports of the Russian hack of the DNC seem to be based on mere opinion says California Congressman Dana Rohrabacher. And Rohrabacher believes other possible alleged sources of the computer breach—potentially including murdered DNC staffer Seth Rich–should be investigated.
“Whoever it could be, we need to look into it and verify. The fact that the young man’s death has not been followed by an investigation that would even be in place for an ordinary murder is very suspicious to me,” Rohrabacher ventures.
And Rohrabacher isn’t the only Member of Congress asking questions. Texas Congressman Blake Farenthold also wonders whether or not the intrusion into the DNC computer server may have been an inside job, potentially by any DNC staffer in a similar position like that of Seth Rich.
“I think it should definitely be a part of the investigation. It’s an alternative theory and any good investigation looks at alternative theories,” observes Rep. Blake Farenthold (R-Texas). “We need to investigate all the options. A lot of the allegations about Russia and some of the allegations about President Trump now are all coming from un-named sources. Sources suggesting it was an inside job are probably just as valid as somebody not willing to give their name.”
With Members of Congress asking questions about the DNC hack, it may be possible there will now be some answers.

Cartoons US Lawmakers

U.S. lawmakers to fight massive Trump Saudi arms deal

U.S. lawmakers introduced legislation on Thursday seeking to stop at least a portion of President Donald Trump’s sale of weapons to Saudi Arabia.
Republican Rand Paul and Democrats Chris Murphy and Al Franken introduced a resolution of disapproval in the Senate to force a vote on whether to block part of the sale.
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee received formal notice of the pending sale on May 19.
The Arms Export Control Act of 1976 allows a senator to force a vote on an arms sale, once Congress is formally notified of plans to go ahead. The same three senators introduced a similar resolution last year seeking to block the sale of $1.15 billion of tanks and other equipment to Saudi Arabia. That measure was defeated overwhelmingly.
Saudi Arabia was the first stop on Trump’s first international trip this week, and he marked the visit by announcing the arms deal in Riyadh on May 20. Saudi Arabia agreed to by $110 billion of U.S. arms, with options running as high as $350 billion over 10 years.
The lawmakers aim to block about $500 million of the sale, the portion including precision-guided munitions and other offensive weapons.
“Given Saudi Arabia’s past support of terror, poor human rights record, and questionable tactics in its war in Yemen, Congress must carefully consider and thoroughly debate if selling them billions of dollars of arms is in our best national security interest at this time,” Paul said in a statement.
Members of the U.S. House of Representatives also took action on the planned sale on Thursday. Republican Representative Ted Yoho and Democrat Ted Lieu wrote to the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee asking for a hearing to review the sale of precision-guided munitions to Riyadh.
Democratic President Barack Obama’s administration suspended the planned sale of precision-guided munitions in December because of concerns over the Saudi-led military campaign in Yemen and civilian casualties.
But Trump has said he wants to encourage international weapons sales as a way to create jobs in the United States.

Trump directly scolds NATO allies, says they owe ‘massive’ sums

U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday intensified his accusations that NATO allies were not spending enough on defense and warned of more attacks like this week’s Manchester bombing unless the alliance did more to stop militants.
In unexpectedly abrupt remarks as NATO leaders stood alongside him, Trump said certain member countries owed “massive amounts of money” to the United States and NATO — even though allied contributions are voluntary, with multiple budgets.
His scripted comments contrasted with NATO’s choreographed efforts to play up the West’s unity by inviting Trump to unveil a memorial to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States at the new NATO headquarters building in Brussels.
“Terrorism must be stopped in its tracks, or the horror you saw in Manchester and so many other places will continue forever,” Trump said, referring to Monday’s suicide bombing in the English city that killed 22 people, including children.
“These grave security concerns are the same reason that I have been very, very direct … in saying that NATO members must finally contribute their fair share,” Trump said.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg defended Trump, saying that although he was “blunt” he had “a very plain and clear message on the expectations” of allies.
But one senior diplomat said Trump, who left the leaders’ dinner before it ended to fly to Italy for Friday’s Group of Seven summit, said the remarks did not go down well at all.
“This was not the right place or time,” the diplomat said of the very public harangue. “We are left with nothing else but trying to put a brave face on it.”
In another unexpected twist, Trump called on NATO, an organization founded on collective defense against the Soviet threat, to include limiting immigration in its tasks.
And Trump did say that the United States “will never forsake the friends who stood by our side” but NATO leaders had hoped he would more explicitly support the mutual defense rules of a military alliance’s he called “obsolete” during his campaign.
Instead, he returned to a grievance about Europe’s drop in defense spending since the end of the Cold War and failed to publicly commit to NATO’s founding Article V rule which stipulates that an attack on one ally is an attack against all.
“Twenty-three of the 28 member nations are still not paying what they should be paying for their defense,” Trump said, standing by a piece of the wreckage of the Twin Towers.
“This is not fair to the people and taxpayers of the United States, and many of these nations owe massive amounts of money from past years,” Trump said as the other leaders watched.
Nicholas Burns, a former long-time diplomat and ambassador to NATO from 2001-2005, now a professor at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, said every U.S. president since Harry Truman had pledged support for Article V and that the United States would defend Europe.
White House spokesman Sean Spicer said Trump was “100 percent” committed to collective defense. “We are not playing cutesie with this. He is fully committed,” Spicer said.
“BARE MINIMUM”
Praise was always going to be in short supply after Trump’s sharp election campaign criticism of the alliance, which he blamed for not doing more to combat terrorism.
Last year, Trump threatened to abandon U.S. allies in Europe if they did not spend enough on defense, comments that were particularly unnerving for the ex-Soviet Baltic states on Russia’s border which fear Moscow might try a repeat of its 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea.
Although he has since softened his tone in phone calls and meetings with Western leaders, Trump’s sharp words on Thursday recalled his awkward meeting with Angela Merkel in March, when he pressed the German chancellor for Germany to meet NATO’s military spending target.
NATO diplomats planned to placate Trump with a pledge on Thursday to agree to national plans by the end of this year showing how NATO allies will meet a promise to spend 2 percent of economic output every year on defense by 2024.
But Trump increased the pressure, calling that agreement made at a summit in Wales in 2014 “the bare minimum”.
“Even 2 percent of GDP is insufficient … 2 percent is the bare minimum for confronting today’s very real and very vicious threats,” Trump said.
He also made his presence felt at his first NATO summit, literally, pushing his way past Montenegro’s prime minister, Dusko Markovic, whose country joins the organization next month, in footage that went viral.
Spicer said he had not seen the video but assumed the U.S. president was moving to his designated spot.
NATO nonetheless strived to impress Trump with allied jets flying overhead and a walk through the new glass headquarters, which replaces a 1960s prefab structure.
Trump, a real estate magnate, called the building “beautiful” and joked that he did not dare ask how much it cost.

Trump plans to boost White House staff with 'war room' to go after critics

Once President Trump wraps up an initial foreign trip that aides believe has gone very well, the Commander-in-Chief plans to strike quickly next week to beef up the White House staff with a "war room" aimed at taking the fight to the administration's critics more aggressively, according to two advisers to the president.
The names of David Bossie and Corey Lewandowski, two trusted hands from the Trump campaign, are being bantied about as possible additions to the White House staff.
But the advisers to the president stress both men are currently focused on continuing to help the president from outside, and no final decisions have been made on whether the president will ask them to officially join the administration or simply defend the president more aggressively from the outside.
The advisers to the president describe a hands-on Trump who is prepared to go on offense after realizing -- perhaps belatedly -- that he has to get far more serious about two critical matters, pushing back against leakers in the federal government and dealing with the political damage from the various Russia investigations led by Congressional committees and Special Counsel Robert Mueller.
"It's all hands on deck," said one of the advisers to the president who is involved in the planning.
The second adviser added bluntly, "there are going to be some changes" to the president's existing staff.
However, both advisers were adamant about stressing that the continued speculation about a massive staff "shakeup" is overblown, and that there is nothing imminent in terms of potential changes for Press Secretary Sean Spicer and other top aides.
Instead, the president's moves next week are more likely to be about addition than subtraction. "It is about bolstering and adding on to the staff," noted one of the advisers.
The website Axios quoted one Trump ally as saying, "The White House is embracing the fight, which is going to last as long as Donald Trump is president. We're getting street fighters ready to go."
The president has already selected Mark Kasowitz, a tough New York lawyer, to lead his outside legal team to focus on the investigations. One adviser to the President noted Kasowitz is "ready to rumble" with the President's critics from outside the White House, so now the focus is who will be added to the West Wing to help Trump.
In the spotlight now are Bossie and Lewandowski, two people who have the trust of the president but did not join the administration in the early months. Advisers now describe Bossie and Lewandowski as still wanting to help Trump from the outside, but both men would be honored and hard-pressed to say no if the President asks them for more direct help when he returns from the foreign trip.
Lewandowski said on "Tucker Carlson Tonight" Wednesday night that he has no plans to join the administration and only goes to the White House as a visitor. But he still left the door open by saying he would be honored if the president wants him to work in the White House.
"My loyalty is to the president and the agenda he ran on," Lewandowski said, adding "if I can help the president do that, of course."