Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz, an Obama Administration appointee, is scheduled to deliver a report this afternoon (6/14) on DOJ and FBI abuses during the 2016 campaign cycle.

Remember: His last investigation of FBI misconduct advised a criminal referral for fired former Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe, who allegedly lied to federal investigators.

McCabe and at least a half-dozen other FBI employees quit, retired, were fired, or were reassigned as a result of fallout from the politicization of the FBI.

Yet, as Barack Obama left office, his chief of staff, Denis McDonough, strangely boasted that the Obama Administration “has been historically free of scandal.” Obama himself recently concluded of his eight-year tenure, “I didn’t have scandals.”

That’s because the Obama Administration succeeded in covering up its non-stop scandals by waging a veritable war against the watchdog inspectors general of various federal agencies.  Here’s the record.

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When every last Trudeau eyebrow has been scraped off the floor of the Manoir Richelieu, it's worth remembering that the divisions in the G7 are not quite as straightforward as the media would have us believe. For one thing, it's not G6 vs. Trump, for there's another disrupter in town:

And how about this for getting it right?  For the first time since the "humanitarian crisis" began five years ago, the Italian government has closed its ports to a migrant vessel: The MV Aquarius, operated by SOS Mediterranée and Médecins Sans Frontières, was refused permission to dock in Sicily, and told to push off and find somewhere else.

As the London Economist sniffed (6/12):  Italy Refuses to Let a Boat Full of Migrants Land. After all, what could be more heartwarming than an NGO rescue ship named after a song from Hair?

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No wonder the President was so upset he tweeted this earlier today (6/07).  He was reminded how bad this scandal is when he saw Luke Rosiak’s latest report on it in The Daily Caller Wednesday (6/05):  Wasserman Schultz Screamed At House Officials To Kill Hacking Probe.

The woman is terrified and for good reason.

The curious case of Imran Awan, which sounds like an international spy thriller, is entering its third act. Awan was a congressional IT aide to Florida Dem Debbie Wasserman Schultz, and he was finally fired just after he was arrested trying to fly to Pakistan last summer.

Awan and his wife, Hina Alvi, were charged last summer with bank fraud. They now appear poised to strike a plea deal with the Department of Justice. A plea agreement hearing is set for July 3 before U.S. District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan in Washington, Fox News reported Wednesday.

Theft of congressional equipment, massive data breaches of Congress members’ emails, massive espionage and more are all wrapped up in this case that involves data from 40 or more Democrat members of Congress.  After endless delays, we may have explosive traction.

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Sandra Bullock is Miss Congeniality

New York Times headline yesterday (6/05), “Miss America Ends Swimsuit Competition.”

Gretchen Carlson, chairwoman of the now-swimsuit-free Miss America, would very much like you to know that she isn’t just a pretty face. She also has a degree from Stanford and spent a year studying Virginia Woolf at Oxford.

Even so, let’s pause and ponder for a moment which  elements on her CV got the studio executives most excited when considering her for her jobs on TV.  Choose a) or b).

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Avignon, France—The Rhone River Valley in southern France is a storybook marriage of high technology, traditional vineyards, and ancestral villages. High-speed trains and well-designed toll roads crisscross majestic cathedrals, castles, and chateaus.

Traveling in a Europe at peace these days evokes both historical and literary allusions. As with the infrastructure and engineering of the late Roman Empire right before its erosion, the Continent rests at its pinnacle of technological achievement.

There is a Roman Empire-like sameness throughout Europe in fashion, popular culture and government protocol—a welcome change from the deadly fault lines of 1914 and 1939.

Yet, as in the waning days of Rome, there is a growing uncertainty beneath the European calm.

The present generation has inherited the physical architecture and art of a once-great West—cathedrals, theaters, and museums. But it seems to lack the confidence that it could ever create the conditions to match, much less exceed, such achievement.

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On Sunday, June 3, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo issued a press statement regarding the 29^th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre by the Chinese Communist Government on June 4, 1989.   In part it read:

“We join others in the international community in urging the Chinese government to make a full public accounting of those killed, detained or missing; to release those who have been jailed for striving to keep the memory of Tiananmen Square alive; and to end the continued harassment of demonstration participants and their families.”

While this was seriously displeasing to China’s rulers, they are in fact more worried about what is happening in their country right now. It’s being called the “Rice Bunny” movement for women’s rights in Communist China.  The characters for “rice bunny,” you see, are pronounced “me-too.”

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“FBI Used Informant to Investigate Russia Ties to Campaign, Not to Spy,” read the headline on a lengthy New York Times story May 18.

“The Justice Department used a suspected informant to probe whether Trump campaign aides were making improper contacts with Russia in 2016,” reads a story in the May 21 Wall Street Journal.

So much for those who dismissed charges of Obama administration infiltration of Donald Trump’s campaign as paranoid fantasy. Defenders of the Obama intelligence and law enforcement apparatus have had to fall back on the argument that this infiltration was for Trump’s — and the nation’s — own good.

It’s an argument that evidently didn’t occur to Richard Nixon’s defenders when it became clear that Nixon operatives burglarized and wiretapped the Democrat National Committee in June 1972.

Until 2016, just about everyone agreed that it was a bad thing for government intelligence or law enforcement agencies to spy (er, secretly collect information?) on a political campaign. Especially a campaign of the opposition party. Liberals were especially suspicious of the FBI and the CIA.

Nowadays, they say that anyone questioning those agencies' good faith is unpatriotic.

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