Nothing To See Here: Capitol Police Chief Who’s Been Stonewalling For Reid, Resigns

Embattled U.S. Capitol Police Chief Kim C. Dine has submitted a letter of resignation to the Capitol Police Board, according to RollCall, citing “multiple sources with direct knowledge of the situation.”

It is not currently known whether the letter has or will be accepted by the three-member board, made up of the House and Senate sergeants-at-arms and the Architect of the Capitol. Multiple attempts to secure a comment from Dine were unsuccessful.

Dine has been under fire lately for refusing to release the Capitol Police event report of the New Year’s Day incident that resulted in Senator Harry Reid’s egregious facial injuries and cracked ribs.

Via the Las Vegas Badger:

The leadership of the troubled, 1,800 person Capitol Police force is withholding information about the circumstances surrounding Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-NV) gruesome New Year’s Day injuries.

Breitbart News poked holes in Reid’s story that the injuries resulted from a home exercise accident that occurred when the exercise band that he attached to the shower door in his bathroom “broke and spun me around and I crashed into these cabinets and injured my eye,” as he claimed.

Breitbart News has also reported that virtually all of the information concerning the events surrounding the New Year’s Day injury and Reid’s subsequent hospital treatment that day has originated from Reid’s office. It insists the senator’s Capitol Police security detail was with him at his Henderson, Nevada home when the injuries occurred on New Year’s Day and transported him from his home to St. Rose Dominican Hospital in Henderson for treatment.

As RollCall notes, Dine has also been under scrutiny for a number of other snafus:

…the handling of a car chase the night of the State of the Union, which ended without an arrest despite the fact that the suspect was driving without a license. Members of Congress also grilled Dine after the October 2013 fatal shooting of Miriam Carey, as well as the decision to call back officers from the September 2013 Navy Yard shooting.

You can read Poweline’s latest theory as to what happened to Reid on New Years Day, here. (It definitely doesn’t involve exercise equipment.)

Megyn Kelly Blisters Harry Reid For Lying About Mitt Romney’s Taxes (Video)

I know that headline looks dated – after all, it was back in 2012 that Dingy Harry shamelessly lied about Romney’s taxes to help Obama win reelection.

But Megyn Kelly saw the interview Dingy did with CNN’s Dana Bash, today and was infuriated to hear him claim he has no regrets about his past “McCarthyite” behavior -(no offense to Joseph McCarthy who doesn’t deserve the comparison.)

“Well, they can call it whatever they want,” Dingy simpered. “Um…Romney didn’t win, did he?”

Oh boy. Megyn Kelly didn’t cotton to that at all.

“That’s his response?” Megyn seethed.  “The Senate (now) Minority Leader says it doesn’t matter that he lied to the country repeatedly and the stakes were a presidential election? All that matters is that Romney lost. Think about that. And the response from our other officials .. has been crickets! After one of our top elected leaders shares with us his complete lack of integrity, complete lack of honesty – never mind respect for the American people! And none of his peers have so far seen fit to be at least a little bit ashamed? What does this say about Washington? About America? About our politics these days?”

Megyn’s guest, Dana Loesch said Harry Reid is “one of the most insufferable people in the history of the Congressional body” and should be censured for his “ends justify the means” dirty politics.

You can stop watching after Dana’s segment is over because liberal Democrat Richard Fowler has nothing to add to the conversation but his weak and pathetic talking points. Seriously, skip it – you don’t have time for his dumb inanities.

Earlier this month, Megyn Kelly slammed the media for not correcting the record on Ferguson, and she got results. Both the Washington Post and NYTs issued retractions.

Now it’s Congress’s turn to be shamed into action. At the very least they should censure the son of a bitch.

SEE ALSO:

AoSHQ: What the Hell Really Happened to Harry Reid?

Reporters are just accepting the claim that he was attacked by an ornery exercise band, huh?

John Hindraker of Powerline wonders about what really might have happened.

When a guy shows up at a Las Vegas emergency room on New Year’s Day with severe facial injuries and broken ribs, and gives as an explanation the functional equivalent of “I walked into a doorknob,” it isn’t hard to guess that he ran afoul of mobsters. Yet the national press has studiously averted its eyes from Reid’s condition, and has refused to investigate the cause of his injuries. To my knowledge, every Washington reporter has at least pretended to believe Reid’s story, and none, as far as I can tell, has inquired further.

So he was working out late on New Years Eve, huh?

Let’s consider what would really happen if someone where hit this badly by an exercise band.

I work out with exercise bands. I am in fact often afraid that they will either snap or, more likely, slip free of where they’re anchored, and hit me in the face.

I don’t know if this is a real possibility or not. I do know the possibility of a face hit by an exercise band has occurred to me.

But here’s why I don’t believe it in the case of Harry Reid:

Why isn’t he warning people about this being a real possibility?

I’ll tell you what, if this happened to me, believe me, I’d be on the blog telling you about it, and warning you to be very careful with these bands. In fact, if an exercise band took my right eye away from me, I’d be telling you to wear goggles at all times when using them.

Actually I think I’d tell you to join a gym — it’s safer.

Krauthammer: Harry Reid’s ‘a Disgrace to His Own Institution’

An “unrestrained” Charles Krauthammer dropped the hammer on Harry Reid Friday night on Fox News’ Special Report in reaction to the news that the Minority Leader is not seeking re election in 2016.

“Harry we hardly knew ye, and what we did know, we didn’t like,” Krauthammer said as his co-panelists tittered in the background.

Krauthammer said that he wasn’t against Reid being a partisan, but explained, “I do think he was a disgrace to his own institution because he emasculated it in the name of protecting the president and trying to re-elect Democrats.”

Krauthammer noted that Reid didn’t succeed because “he essentially shut down the Senate as soon as Republicans took the House in 2010.”

He added that Reid, “failed as a partisan because 9 of his party lost re election, but he succeed in protecting the president from having to exercise the veto – and in order to do that – he killed his own institution.”

Video via National Review:

SEE ALSO:

NRO: The Pugilist at Rest

There is no gentle way to characterize Senator Reid’s career: He is and long has been one of the worst things about American government — a self-interested, dishonest, sanctimonious, unscrupulous charlatan who began his career with an act of cheap theater — choking Jack Gordon, who had offered him a bribe, for the benefit of the FBI’s cameras — and capped it by filibustering a bill intended to help people being held as slaves because it did not allow for shunting public money into the coffers of Planned Parenthood for subsidized abortions, a stunt he pulled after boasting of his pro-life voting record.

Obama Lauds Dingy harry’s “Curmudgeonly Charm” In Vegas Radio Interview “Lovefest”

There’s very little to celebrate in American politics, these days, but the announcement from the most reviled Senate Leader in our nation’s history that he won’t be seeking reelection, is delighting Republicans from coast to coast. Some are openly wondering if the same person who beat him up earlier this year, maybe talked him into the decision.

While the rest of the nation celebrated, Barack Obama called in to a Las Vegas radio talk show while Reid was being interviewed Friday, resulting in what has been described as “an Obama-Reid lovefest.”

Prepare to be appalled, sickened, mortified, and strangely amused all at the same time:

“You’ve got that curmudgeonly charm that is hard to replace,” Obama told Reid on KNPR.

“Curmudgeonly charm” is one way of putting it. Or as others might say – poisonously demagogic, demented, dishonest, scummy and totally charmless.

“There are a lot of folks that are slicker, give smoother TV interviews,” Obama added, but Reid stands out “in terms of somebody that’s got heart.”

That Reid is not the slickest and smoothest communicator is putting it mildly. Dingy, in fact, stands out as someone with a long, sordid history of verbal diarrhea – who is routinely nasty and mortifying.

Obama referred to Reid’s working-class roots in the small town of Searchlight, Nev. “He knows there are Searchlights all across the country. There are kids just like he was, and he was fighting for them.”

I bet he was fighting for the kids when he got his face bashed in.

The president noted that while Nevada’s housing market and hospitality industry are still struggling to recover from the recession, “it would be so much worse off and in such a bigger funk … if it hadn’t been for the really tough but correct actions that Harry took.”

Of course, of course.  And when things start to improve as soon as he’s no longer involved in Nevada politics, (where he reportedly runs the state like a mob boss) it will just be a giant coincidence.

The love-fest turned dark and foreboding when Obama vowed that the two of them would “squeeze as much out of these next couple years as we can.”

Ugh. We know.

The president blew off a potential awkward moment when the KNPR host reminded the two of the time Dingy said Obama had been treated differently because of his skin color. Obama said, “One of the great things about Harry is he’s always looking forward; he’s not looking backwards.”

I too am looking forward — to a US Senate without Harry Reid.

Sen. Cruz’s Vote to Defund Obama’s Executive Amnesty Fails (Video)

Saturday night, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas raised a constitutional point of order against to defund Emperor Obama’s illegal executive amnesty. Via The Hill, his effort failed with 22 senators (less than half of the Senate’s 45 Republicans) voting with Cruz and 74 voting against his point of order.

Cruz explained the reason for his point of order in a statement, Saturday night.

“Forcing a vote on the constitutionality of Obama’s amnesty is important for two reasons. First, since President Obama enacted his unilateral amnesty after the elections, Democrats have never been made to answer for it. Tonight, they will and they will show America whether they stand with a lawless President, who is defying the will of the voters or the millions of Americans who want a safe and legal immigration system.

“Second, it allows Republicans to also show they are committed to ending Obama’s amnesty once and for all in the next Congress. If we agree it is indeed unconstitutional, we have no business funding it when the GOP controls Congress next  year.

“The Constitution matters, and we must defend it. That is why we have fought so hard to ensure this vote.”

Via The Blaze:

The only Republicans voting with Cruz were Sens. Roy Blunt (Mo.), John Boozman (Ark.), Richard Burr (N.C.), Mike Crapo (Idaho), Deb Fischer (Neb.), Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), John Hoeven (N.D.), Johnny Isakson (Ga.), Mike Johanns (Neb.), Mike Lee (Utah), Jerry Moran (Kan.), Rand Paul (Ky.), Rob Portman (Ohio), James Risch (Idaho), Pat Roberts (Kan.), Marco Rubio (Fla.), Tim Scott (S.C.), Jeff Sessions (Ala.), Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), Jon Thune (S.D.) and David Vitter (La.).

That leaves the usual suspects voting against – Thad Cochran, Orrin Hatch, McCain, Gramnesty, Corker, Ayotte, Collins — who am I missing?

Of course – Murkowsi, Flake, Kirk, Coats, McConnell!, Wicker, Heller, Toomey, Cornyn, Alexander, Ron Johnson, Enzi, Barrasso.

Coburn, Chambliss and  Inhofe didn’t vote.

The rollcall:

Alphabetical by Senator Name

Alexander (R-TN), Nay Ayotte (R-NH), Nay Baldwin (D-WI), Nay Barrasso (R-WY), Nay Begich (D-AK), Nay Bennet (D-CO), Nay Blumenthal (D-CT), Nay Blunt (R-MO), Yea Booker (D-NJ), Nay Boozman (R-AR), Yea Boxer (D-CA), Nay Brown (D-OH), Nay Burr (R-NC), Yea Cantwell (D-WA), Nay Cardin (D-MD), Nay Carper (D-DE), Nay Casey (D-PA), Nay Chambliss (R-GA), Not Voting Coats (R-IN), Nay Coburn (R-OK), Not Voting Cochran (R-MS), Nay Collins (R-ME), Nay Coons (D-DE), Nay Corker (R-TN), Nay Cornyn (R-TX), Nay Crapo (R-ID), Yea Cruz (R-TX), Yea Donnelly (D-IN), Nay Durbin (D-IL), Nay Enzi (R-WY), Nay Feinstein (D-CA), Not Voting Fischer (R-NE), Yea Flake (R-AZ), Nay Franken (D-MN), Nay

Gillibrand (D-NY), Nay Graham (R-SC), Nay Grassley (R-IA), Yea Hagan (D-NC), Nay Harkin (D-IA), Nay Hatch (R-UT), Nay Heinrich (D-NM), Nay Heitkamp (D-ND), Nay Heller (R-NV), Nay Hirono (D-HI), Nay Hoeven (R-ND), Yea Inhofe (R-OK), Not Voting Isakson (R-GA), Yea Johanns (R-NE), Yea Johnson (D-SD), Nay Johnson (R-WI), Nay Kaine (D-VA), Nay King (I-ME), Nay Kirk (R-IL), Nay Klobuchar (D-MN), Nay Landrieu (D-LA), Nay Leahy (D-VT), Nay Lee (R-UT), Yea Levin (D-MI), Nay Manchin (D-WV), Nay Markey (D-MA), Nay McCain (R-AZ), Nay McCaskill (D-MO), Nay McConnell (R-KY), Nay Menendez (D-NJ), Nay Merkley (D-OR), Nay Mikulski (D-MD), Nay Moran (R-KS), Yea Murkowski (R-AK), Nay

Murphy (D-CT), Nay Murray (D-WA), Nay Nelson (D-FL), Nay Paul (R-KY), Yea Portman (R-OH), Yea Pryor (D-AR), Nay Reed (D-RI), Nay Reid (D-NV), Nay Risch (R-ID), Yea Roberts (R-KS), Yea Rockefeller (D-WV), Nay Rubio (R-FL), Yea Sanders (I-VT), Nay Schatz (D-HI), Nay Schumer (D-NY), Nay Scott (R-SC), Yea Sessions (R-AL), Yea Shaheen (D-NH), Nay Shelby (R-AL), Yea Stabenow (D-MI), Nay Tester (D-MT), Nay Thune (R-SD), Yea Toomey (R-PA), Nay Udall (D-CO), Nay Udall (D-NM), Nay Vitter (R-LA), Yea Walsh (D-MT), Nay Warner (D-VA), Nay Warren (D-MA), Nay Whitehouse (D-RI), Nay Wicker (R-MS), Nay Wyden (D-OR), Nay

UPDATE:

SMH

Only 18 Republicans voted against CRomnibus.

18 Republicans voted NO on the #CRomnibus:http://t.co/06TDo2St0s pic.twitter.com/t7fFeeTGQt

— Roll Call (@rollcall) December 14, 2014

UPDATE II:

Matthew Boyle, Breitbart reports that Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA) was whipping votes, according to a congressional GOP aide,   against Cruz’s measure.

Toomey’s office hasn’t responded to a request for comment as to why he was whipping votes against Cruz’s measure, and in favor of Obama’s amnesty.

So bizarre.

UPDATE III:

The Hill: Rand Paul introduces bill to undo Obama’s immigration order

 Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) has filed a bill seeking to repeal President Obama’s executive order that delays deportation of five million immigrants, the Courier Journal reported Saturday.

Paul’s bill, “Preventing Executive Overreach on Immigration Act,” is companion legislation to a House bill passed last week from Rep. Ted Yoho (R-Fla.)

The Kentucky Republican’s proposal, posted on his website Friday, prohibits the president from using discretion when determining who to deport.

Must Read: Desert Storm Vet Hammers Obama Administration For Abandoning Iraq

The approach of Veteran’s Day got Desert Storm vet Michael Banzet to ruminating about his decision to retire from the Air Force after the elections of 2008. He wrote a powerful oped, Why I quit… Desert Storm vet explains decision to leave Air Force after 22 years that was published in his hometown newspaper in Montana, The Daily Inter-Lake in November of 2010.

Four years later, he says, “the thing that prompted me to attempt to put thought to electrons was, oddly enough, the recent massacre of 770 young men around Camp Speicher, Iraq.”

Via The Daily Inter-Lake:

I served 22 years in the Air Force, and without a doubt, the most rewarding year in my career was the year that I spent on the ground in Iraq. I was able to witness the results of the sacrifice made by so many young Americans, young and old, men and women, of all colors. I was humbled by what I found. The desperately courageous Iraqis, who had to operate in the most dangerous of circumstances, depended on the steady presence of the American armed forces. And of course, the numerous allies.

I noticed that the news coverage didn’t match what I saw with my own eyes and heard with my own ears. Everything was negative. Every setback was trumpeted, every advance muffled or ignored. There were “grim milestones” for casualties updated daily. Even an esteemed senator from Nevada claimed, while young Americans were engaged in active combat, that they were losers. I was in Baghdad for some of that. Awesome. That used to be unheard of. But it gets you re-elected today.

And eventually, with the “heads it’s negative, tails it’s not positive” coverage, people began to believe that we should leave. And why not? It was the “wrong war,” it was going badly, at least until we needed a justification to leave, and then it was “strong and stable.” So the United States elected a man who promised that he would declare victory and leave. And for those of you who are sputtering, “But BUSH!” consider this:

So completely wrong was the “declare victory and leave” position that the current administration is not only using Bush’s 2001/2 Authorizations for Use of Force for legal justification, they are also embracing the Bush Doctrine of pre-emption. For gosh’ sake, the carrier that launched some of the first airstrikes is the USS George H.W. Bush. Talk about complete reversal.

Of course, anyone with the ability to think deeply about the subject would realize that changing a culture is a long proposition. Far longer than merely the end of combat. And that really should be the end game of any war that the U.S. gets involved in. The end game of war, for us, is supposed to be a free, potentially prosperous people emerging from the carnage of war. Someone who will make a good ally in the future. And that’s what was happening in Iraq. 

Iraqis, for the first time in their lives, were able to trust. That may be a small thing for you. You, who have never feared for your life from your government. You, who have never wondered if something you say is going to get you killed at the hands of your government. You, who have been able to trust your friends, neighbors and associates; if you haven’t, it wasn’t because you thought they were a government informant, ready to turn you in at the slightest misstep, perhaps to be fed into a paper shredder.

But as the year of my duty in dusty Baghdad wore on, they were starting to trust. They were starting to timidly reach out to report IED emplacements, rocket set-ups, and bad guys in the neighborhood. The thing that moved me to write my book, “A Flowershop in Baghdad,” was this simple fact. The Iraqis who had been bombed, shot at, and we had tried to kill (in one case, actually being shot down by us), all referred to us the same way: 

“The Friendly Side.”

I wrote 341 pages about the exceptionalism of this country, and how much we were changing the young men and women who were clever enough to avoid being killed for the audacity to sign up for service in the Iraqi Air Force. The 20-somethings were great at absorbing the moral compass that guides our military operations. But I also wrote about the challenge of the older officers. It’s pretty hard to change from a life of selfishness, self-preservation and fear to one of selflessness and courage. But it’s do-able; just takes some time to reinforce the goodness in the ones who can change, and supervise the transition out of power of the ones who cannot. All the while nurturing the new generation, keeping them from harm until they can take over. It’s not an easy process.

I know that it would be pretty hard for me to completely change my world view at my age. I can certainly take in new facts, but to change a significant part of my belief system would take constant reinforcement, both in issues big and small. That requires “presence.” The simple act of being around influences behavior. That’s why the police don’t all just sit at the station, waiting for a call to come in. They actively patrol; for presence. It doesn’t cost them any more to patrol; you’ve already hired them. It’s common sense. Constant reinforcement and influence until good behavior is the norm.

Due to the type of reporting from Iraq, you never knew the progress that was being made; the connections that were being completed, the goodness that exposure to the U.S. military brings. Trust. Selflessness. Leadership. Followership. Courage. And yet you voted all that away; leaves blowing in a dishonest wind. Which brings us back to the 770 young men massacred around Camp Spiecher.

I knew those faces. Those confused, terrified young faces. About 175 of them were Iraqi Air Force recruits; the others, Army. This was precisely the process that I helped set up. Did I know personally this group? No. But they were the same young men, full of promise and hope. Capable of immense good, ready to be molded by whatever of our influence remained. But I wondered, as I looked at some of the pictures, why were they captured without uniforms? Without weapons? Why no resistance? It wasn’t until there were a couple of witness testimonies that it all snapped into place.

They were abandoned. First by us, then by the leaders, no longer influenced by “the friendly side,” that had fallen into their old habits.

One survivor talked of the young military recruits being told to change into civilian clothes, take no weapons: they would be loaded into trucks and sent to Baghdad. Another talked of their senior officers just disappearing. In both cases, the next organization that they met was ISIS. And then, they were taken out into the desert, and as an inevitable consequence of U.S. policy, slaughtered. Did ISIS pull the triggers, draw the knives across young throats? Absolutely. Did the rush to leave, for no reason other than it was Bush’s war enable them to do it? Absolutely.

If the police patrolling your neighborhood let it be known that they would no longer be patrolling your neighborhood, but that the neighborhood watch would be taking over, do you think bad behavior would go up or down? Is that because new people moved in? And in the absence of a strong presence for good, what will happen to evil?

 Read the rest, here.

Previously:

Book Review: A Flowershop In Baghdad

A Desert Storm vet explains His decision to leave Air Force after 22 years