Dear Readers: Brief Cases will be published occasionally to update information on previously published articles and/or to add comment upon them. Sometimes the content will be new, particularly as we deem the material to be of note.
WACKOS IN UNEXPECTED PLACES
Meet Frank Wuco, former conservative talk radio host and now a senior adviser at the State Department’s Bureau of Arms Control, Verification and Compliance. Among wacko Wuco’s assertions:
- Former president Barack Obama was not born in the United States
- Former CIA director John Brennan converted to Islam
- Former attorney general Eric Holder Jr. had been a member of the Black Panthers
- Former Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin had ties to the Muslim Brotherhood
But it gets worse. Wuco suggested dropping nuclear bombs on Afghanistan after the 9/11 attacks. And he works on arms control at the State Department (emphasis added). When CNN unearthed his comments last year, he was working for the Department of Homeland Security, where a spokesman said the comments had “no bearing on his ability to perform his job for the American people.” OK, good to know.
Alexandra Bell, senior policy director at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation and a former Obama administration official, said the comments are troubling given the challenges the department faces.
“Wuco’s bureau is busy dealing with the aftermath of the collapse of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, emerging technologies that could upend long-standing theories on nuclear policy, the strategic threats posed by a militarizing China and the uncertain future of the New START accord,” she said. “It cannot afford distractions connected to a senior adviser who once casually mused about nuking Afghanistan.” Ya think?
Most frightening, though, is this: How many Frank Wucos are out there, burrowed into the federal bureaucracy, virtually unseen? What becomes of them apres Trump? One can almost envision a McCarthy-like congressional hearing beginning with the question, Are you now or have you ever been a lunatic?
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BRIDGE OVER GARBLED WATERS
We have a situation where we’re looking very strongly at sinks and showers and other elements of bathrooms where you turn the faucet on — in areas where there’s tremendous amounts of water, where the water rushes out to sea because you could never handle it — and you don’t get any water. You turn on the faucet; you don’t get any water. They take a shower and water comes dripping out. It’s dripping out — very quietly dripping out. People are flushing toilets 10 times, 15 times, as opposed to once. They end up using more water. So, EPA is looking at that very strongly, at my suggestion.
You go into a new building or a new house or a new home, and they have standards, “Oh, you don’t get water.” You can’t wash your hands, practically, there’s so little water comes out of the faucet. And the end result is you leave the faucet on and it takes you much longer to wash your hands. You end up using the same amount of water.
So we’re looking at, very seriously, at opening up the standard. And there may be some areas where we’ll go the other route — desert areas. But for the most part, you have many states where they have so much water that it comes down — it’s called rain — that they don’t know — they don’t know what to do with it. So we’re going to be opening up that, I believe. And we’re looking at changing the standards very soon.
–Donald Trump
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KILLER JEWS
A lot of you are in the real estate business because I know you very well. You’re brutal killers. Not nice people at all.” [Some in crowd laugh.] “But you have to vote for me; you have no choice. You’re not going to vote for Pocahontas, I can tell you that … You’re not going to vote for the wealth tax.”
— Trump addressing a meeting of AIPAC, American Israel Public Affairs Committee
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ATCHISON, TOPEKA AND SANTA FE
Several places around the nation have determined that the need for new residents is worth offering a financial bonus. In 2018, Vermont offered $10,000 to anyone who would move to the state to work remotely to counter that state’s aging population. Now, Topeka, Kansas has decided to pay up to $15,000 to help with buying a house or $10,000 to renters. According to local officials, the initiative is to stem a stagnating population. If successful, the present program for 40 families would be increased to 50 or 75. “You add 50 or 75 families, that has real impact,” an official proclaimed. “Fifty to 75 families in New York, Jiminy Christmas, that’s not going to fill one building.”
The next iteration of this dynamic is certain to be an app developed to capitalize on demographic dynamics. There already exists a dating app for conservatives, a real estate app to locate conservative-friendly neighborhoods, and tour groups to visit conservative-friendly attractions. Seems a natural for one to guide users to the land of Kris Kobach, and to Louis Gohmert’s Texas county. Gosh knows, as VoxFairfax recently reported (Reaganomics Succumbs to Reality, http://wp.me/p9wDCF-QR), an app could even steer conservatives to Ronald Reagan’s childhood home.
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