I’ve just spent a few weeks almost entirely offline, paying almost no attention to the news (except for John McCreary’s weekdaily NightWatch digest, that is). Each day’s news being, in general, a reeking bucket of offal, the hiatus was pleasant — but old habits die hard, and I’ve had my nose back in the bucket again this week.

Of particular interest (unless you are the New York Times or other like-minded outlets) has been the story of the Awan family, a bunch of Pakistani grifters who, acting as IT specialists, wormed their way into the inner circle of various Democratic members of Congress, managed to get themselves top security clearances, sluiced millions into their pockets (and off to Pakistan), gained access to all sorts of privileged information, and generally played cat-among-the-pigeons until very recently, when Mr. Imran Awan was arrested for bank fraud as he attempted to flee the country, his wife having already absconded to Pakistan with a wad of cash (and a $283,000 bank transfer). At the center of the storm is the utterly unlovable Congresswoman and former head of the DNC, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, whose connections to Mr. Awan are deep and dark. It appears that she may be getting into some serious hot water over this. (One can only hope: with Anthony Weiner gone, Ms. Schultz is a strong contender for the vacated position of Ickiest Member of Congress. I do not wish her well.)

Andrew McCarthy has a good summary of the Awan story here.

Meanwhile, it appears that Donald Trump’s new communications director, a man by the name of Scaramucci, is a vain and loathsome little potty-mouth with, so far as I have been able to tell, no redeeming qualities whatsoever. (He gave a dismally revealing interview to Ryan Lizza at the New Yorker a little while ago that plumbed, for a senior White House official, new depths of public vulgarity and general odiousness.) Why on Earth did Mr. Trump choose this man, when no less than John Derbyshire himself had declared his own availability for the position?

Ah well, we already knew these were dark times. I’m afraid, though, that at this point I must put down the bucket; after all this time off I still find the stench rather more than I can bear for very long at one sitting.