Christine Ciccone, the chief operating officer for Jeb Bush’s campaign, is leaving the team as the former Florida governor dramatically cuts costs and asserts himself as the Republican establishment frontrunner.
Ciccone was being paid roughly $12,000 a month but is departing the campaign after the campaign notified employees that they were reducing their payroll by 40 percent, according to a report from the Wall Street Journal . . .
After leaving a government job, Ciccone became the Vice President of Government relations at the lobbying firm Honeywell before moving to a position as Senior Vice President of External Relations for the USEC. (Read more from “This GOP Candidate’s Chief Operating Officer Just Quit the Campaign” HERE)
A dramatic crack has suddenly formed in the foothills of Wyoming’s Bighorn Mountains that measures an impressive 750 yards long and 50 yards wide. It was discovered recently by surprised backcountry hunters who travel frequently to the area in search of game.
First reported by SNS Outfitter & Guides, a hunting company, on their Facebook page, the mammoth chasm appeared over the course of just a couple of weeks. It’s an impressive example of just how quickly very large geological events can occur under the right conditions.
“Everyone here is calling it ‘the gash.’ It’s a really incredible sight,” wrote SNS on the group’s Facebook page.
“An awesome example of how our earth is not as stable as you might think. Awesome forces at work here to move this much dirt!!” added Randy Becker, one of the hunters to stumble upon “the gash.” Becker shared a number of stunning photographs of the crack to his own Facebook page . . .
Contrary to some sensational claims swirling about on social media, the crack is not an opening to the underworld or a sign that Yellowstone is about to erupt. The processes that created the crack are not even all that mysterious. (Read more from “Massive ‘Crack in the Earth’ Opens up Suddenly in Wyoming’s Bighorn Mountains” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-10-31 00:19:532016-04-11 10:56:44Massive ‘Crack in the Earth’ Opens up Suddenly in Wyoming’s Bighorn Mountains
There was a time when one of the criticisms of the church, and of preachers in general, was that there was too much hellfire-and-brimstone preaching. If this was referring to some guy getting worked up as he talked about judgment all the time with a twinkle in his eye, then I’m with the critics.
Here is my concern, however. Where are the hellfire-and-brimstone preachers today? When I turn on Christian radio or Christian television, I rarely hear a mention of hell, much less a sermon on the topic of hell. What I do hear is a lot of preaching on how to be successful, see your dreams fulfilled and be prosperous. But I don’t hear any sermons anymore about the subject of hell.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not going to start preaching or writing about hell every week. On the other hand, I’m not going to skip it because it is awkward or difficult or makes people uncomfortable. Jesus spent more time talking about hell than anyone else in all of the Bible.
It isn’t unloving to address this subject. Rather, it’s the most loving thing I could do. If you were asleep in a house that was on fire, and I walked by and did absolutely nothing to get you out of that potential disaster, what kind of neighbor or friend would I be? I would want you to wake up. I would want you to get out. And if Jesus, the very author of grace, spoke about hell more often than anyone else, then it must be a crucial truth. If Jesus took the time to elaborate on it, then certainly we need to know more about it.
One thing we can all agree on is that death will come to every person. The book of Ecclesiastes says, “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens: a time to be born and a time to die” (3:1–2 NIV). (Read more from “Hell Is No Laughing Matter” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-10-31 00:19:182016-04-11 10:56:44Hell Is No Laughing Matter
A 16-year-old Crook County girl has been diagnosed with bubonic plague, Oregon health officials confirmed.
The Oregon Health Authority said the girl likely acquired the disease from a flea bite during a hunting trip near Heppner on Oct. 16. She got sick five days later and was admitted to the intensive care unit at a Bend hospital.
On Friday, the girl was moved out of intensive care.
“The challenge in Oregon is both avoiding it in the first place, and then, making sure that people, especially in eastern Oregon, are aware that while rare, it’s present and to make sure that doctors also know,” said Katrina Hedberg, state epidemiologist and health officer . . .
“Many people think of the plague as a disease of the past, but it’s still very much present in our environment, particularly among wildlife,” said state public health veterinarian Emilio DeBess. “Fortunately, plague remains a rare disease, but people need to take appropriate precautions with wildlife and their pets to keep it that way.” (Read more from “Oregon Girl With Bubonic Plague Moved out of Intensive Care” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-10-31 00:18:262016-04-11 10:56:44Oregon Girl With Bubonic Plague Moved out of Intensive Care
By Jack Davis. For 21 years, a wounded veteran who served with the 101st Airborne fought for his nation. On Tuesday, in an emotionally charged face-to-face meeting, Donald Trump promised to take this veteran’s side in the ex-soldier’s current battlefield: the Department of Veterans Affairs.
Trump was answering questions at a Sioux City, Iowa, campaign stop when a wounded veteran named Todd was given the opportunity to speak.
“These are our greatest people. The wounded warriors. These are the greatest. The best,” Trump said before leaving his podium to greet the man and his family.
“With the current administration, warrior care is lacking to say the least…especially post-service,” Todd said to Trump, noting that he did not work and his wife, April, was his caregiver. “What will the Trump administration do better than the Obama administration?”
“Is the VA not doing the job?” Trump asked.
April explained that Todd was supposed to enroll in a new VA program, but can’t get an appointment. (Read more from “Watch: This Vet Just Asked Trump 1 Question That Makes Him Instantly Walk off Stage” HERE)
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Donald Trump Rights Ship on Immigration
By Stephen K. Bannon and Alexander Marlow. Last night during the CNBC primary debate, Donald Trump, who to this point in the campaign had been the Republican candidate most closely aligned with the conservative grassroots on immigration policy, seemed to have altered his message in several significant ways.
Breitbart News documented some of these changes here.
Trump, who leads many national 2016 polls, granted Breitbart News an interview on the subject. Full questions and responses below:
BNN: The media has been filled with stories about companies flying in low-wage H-1B workers to replace American workers in tech jobs. Adding insult to injury, these American workers have been forced to train their replacements. If you were President, would you put a stop to this practice?
DT: Day one. This is why I got into this race. Because the everyday working person in this country is getting screwed. Lobbyists write the rules to benefit the rich and powerful. They buy off Senators like Sen. Marco Rubio to help them get rich at the expense of working Americans by using H-1B visas–so called “high tech” visas–to replace American workers in all sorts of solid middle class jobs. If I am President, I will not issue any H-1B visas to companies that replace American workers and my Department of Justice will pursue action against them. (Read more from “Donald Trump Rights Ship on Immigration” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-10-30 01:31:262016-04-11 10:56:44Watch: This Vet Just Asked Trump 1 Question That Makes Him Instantly Walk off Stage
All the headline grabbing difficulties to choosing a new Speaker of the House are due mostly to one thing — the emergence of the powerful House Freedom Caucus. But the caucus may also now be the solution to those difficulties. Now that a supermajority in the caucus is supporting Paul Ryan to replace John Boehner as speaker, Ryan is all but certain to get the position. Two other factions in the House are expected to endorse him Friday, the centrist Tuesday Group and the mainstream Republican Study Committee, and he is expected to be confirmed by the full House the next day. Ryan has a respectable rating of 90 from The American Conservative Union, and is well-liked by both conservatives and moderates, so he is a natural choice for speaker.
For those who thought the establishment status quo could never be defeated, it was a real shock to see Boehner announce his resignation. But when the Republicans took over the House in 2010, a powerful new conservative GOP formed, the Freedom Caucus, currently composed of 38 conservative, anti-establishment and Tea Party House Republicans. Together, they presented enough of a voting bloc that Boehner realized his effectiveness would be short lived, as the caucus began plotting to force him out.
After Boehner announced his resignation, there was another shock when Boehner’s designated establishment successor, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, announced he was withdrawing from the race. As a former majority whip, he had experience rounding up votes, and said at one point he had collected enough votes to win. But the Freedom Caucus decided to put their support behind little-known Daniel Webster from Florida instead, and McCarthy realized that even if he could get enough votes for the first vote among Republicans, he wouldn’t make it past the second vote on the House floor if the Freedom Caucus members refused to support him. He didn’t help himself by making a comment on TV at this time that seemed to imply the House Benghazi Committee had been set up for the purpose of taking Hillary Clinton out of the presidential race.
Even conservative Jason Chaffetz couldn’t capture the Freedom Caucus’s support after Boehner announced his resignation. Chaffetz has a respectable 92 rating from The American Conservative Union, but he would not agree with the Freedom Caucus on all of the procedural changes they are demanding. Procedural issues are such a serious concern for those House conservatives that they were willing to put their support behind the more moderate Daniel Webster instead, whose lifetime conservative rating is only a paltry 78. This is because without key reforms, the House faces more of the same gridlock that has stopped the Republicans from getting much done even while in control. The changes the conservatives are demanding will decentralize power away from the establishment and old guard in Congress and turn more of it over to committees and other members of Congress.
But with Webster as such a weak candidate, the clamoring increased to entice a uniter like Ryan to enter the race. After much persuasion, he finally did, and the rest should become history.
Why didn’t Ryan jump into the race earlier? Because the speaker’s job is a taxing and thankless position. The speaker is expected to spend much of his time flying around the country fundraising for the party. He (or she) gets the blame when things go wrong — even if they’ve done a great job getting things accomplished. Think of Newt Gingrich’s successful Contract With America, followed by his sudden resignation. Ryan understands this about the position.
He also understands that he may want to run for president some day and that the speaker position could take a toll on his reputation as principled conservative — all that wheeling and dealing and compromising to get bills through can make for powerful fodder for attack ads coming from opponents. Can Ryan serve as speaker then move on to president? Can he do the speaker’s job and still find time for his young family? Can he compromise on prudential matters to achieve worthy ends while never compromising on core principles? It’s a gamble he’s decided to take. (For more from the author of “How Did We Get to Paul Ryan as the Likely New Speaker of the House?” please click HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-10-30 01:24:292016-04-11 10:56:44How Did We Get to Paul Ryan as the Likely New Speaker of the House?
Ask yourself this question: imagine what we’d know about our candidates if conservatives moderated these debates and focused on policy and the future of the Republican Party?
At present, the polling numbers of each candidate are distorted based on how much time they are given to speak, how often they are allowed to cut in (notice Carly Fiorina always has more time), how many attack questions they are able to turn into jujitsu broadsides on the moderators, and how they answer the tailor-made personal attacks questions about their opponents. All the while, we know very little about where the candidates stand on the most critical issues and the important philosophical debates that are taking place within the party today.
Perhaps the most substantive, respectful, and informative part of last night’s debate was when Christie and Huckabee disagreed over austerity vs. populism on Social Security and Cruz interjected by noting how the conservative approach is to marry the two by allowing younger workers to invest in private accounts while keeping the promises to older voters. But that represented just three minutes of the debate. Aside from a few isolated moments, especially when Rick Santelli brought some sanity to the debate and engaged in a serious discussion with Cruz about the Federal Reserve, this debate was a complete freak show.
The consensus from the talking heads is that Rubio did really well, but unlike Cruz, his “doing well” hinged on his defense against the personal attacks from the moderators. That is great, but is that how we are going to pick our candidate? Does that make a conservative? To be fair to Rubio, he didn’t have much of an opportunity to address the questions about policy and the divide within the party. And therein lies the problem.
Take a look at this list of questions I prepared several months ago and check off how many of them were addressed. As a result of this faux debate, we have no sense as to what the candidates will do about the massive social transformation, the disenfranchising of the people, the Islamic refugee issue, the war on religious liberty, judicial reform, their views on how our system of governance is broken and how to restore it to the original constitutional mandate. No fundamentals whatsoever. Even the few serious policy questions were the typical insipid issues designed to launch the candidates into their boilerplate stump speeches. In many ways, these primary debates are worse than the questions asked during the general election debates, which we automatically expect to be moderated by the liberal media.
What we are seeing on display in Washington is a Republican Party that no longer exists, yet we are no closer to understanding how these candidates would deal with any of the issues that have destroyed the party – other than Ted Cruz who is currently fighting these battles. There might be other candidates who have plans to address the broken party establishment, but that will never be properly vetted until we have a debate by conservatives, for conservatives.
If the candidates were smart, they’d form a non-aggression pact and all agree to a demand that the next debate be controlled by a panel of conservatives. And no, Fox News doesn’t cut it. Or at least, if we are going to have liberals moderate the debate can we tap Nancy Pelosi and make this entertaining? (For more from the author of “When Will GOP Stop Letting Liberals Pick Our Nominee?” please click HERE)
Coach Joe Kennedy has been booted from the locker room at Bremerton High School in Washington State, Fox News has learned exclusively.
Superintendent Aaron Leavell placed the longtime coach on administrative leave after he refused to stop his post-game prayers.
“Effective immediately, pending further District review of your conduct, you are placed on paid administrative leave from your position as an assistant coach with the Bremerton High School football program,” Level wrote to the coach in an Oct. 28th letter. “You may not participate, in any capacity, in BHS football program activities.”
Kennedy, who is a devout Christian, had been under investigation since September after someone complained about his post-game prayers at the 50-yard-line.
He was directed to cease and desist those prayers on Sept. 17th. He was also ordered to avoid kneeling, bowing his head or doing anything that could remotely be seen as religious. (Read more from “This Horrible Thing Just Happened to the Praying Football Coach” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-10-30 01:21:262016-04-11 10:56:44This Horrible Thing Just Happened to the Praying Football Coach
Iran intends to dispatch “a fleet of warships” to the Atlantic Ocean shortly, the semi-state Fars news agency reported Thursday, quoting the regime’s navy chief.
“Our warships will soon berth at ports in the Atlantic Ocean,” Navy Commander Rear Admiral Habibollah Sayyari promised at a ceremony on Wednesday marking the return to port of Iranian warships that Fars said had taken part in joint drills with the Russian navy.
Sayyari said the Iranian vessels had been in the Caspian Sea and at the Russian port of Astrakhan. “The presence of Iranian warships in international ports shows the Iranian Navy’s prowess,” Fars quoted him saying.
Sayyari made a similar pledge to deploy warships in the Atlantic in early 2014. At the time, Iran promised to send its fleet close to American maritime borders as a counter to the US navy’s presence in the Gulf. But in April, the navy chief said the move had been canceled “due to a change in schedule.” (Read more from “Iran to Send ‘Fleet of Warships’ to the Atlantic Ocean” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-10-30 01:19:432016-04-11 10:56:45Iran to Send ‘Fleet of Warships’ to the Atlantic Ocean
Two top senators are probing use by the Internal Revenue Service of secret cellphone tracking systems that are more often utilized by federal or local law enforcement agencies.
IRS Commissioner John Koskinen admitted this week that the agency does use the technology, known as cell-site simulators, or StingRays. The admission came after a report by The Guardian that indicated the IRS has spent more than $71,000 to upgrade a version of the device and to receive training from a company that manufactures the devices.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley and ranking member Patrick Leahy on Thursday sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew demanding answers about the use of the technology by the IRS.
“We were surprised to learn that IRS investigators may be using these devices,” Mr. Grassley, Iowa Republican, and Mr. Leahy, Vermont Democrat, wrote in the letter. “While the devices can be useful tools for identifying the location of a suspect’s cell phone or identifying an unknown cell phone, we have previously expressed concerns about the privacy implications of these devices.”
Cell site-simulators work by mimicking cellphone towers to trick cellphones to connect to them, enabling investigators to obtain identifying information about the phones and their locations. Law enforcement officers often deploy the suitcase-sized StingRays by hauling them around in vehicles as they drive through neighborhoods looking for a suspect’s phone, scooping up data on the cellphones of any passers-by in the process. (Read more from “Senators Demand Answers About IRS Use of Secret Cellphone Tracking Systems” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-10-30 01:18:572016-04-11 10:56:45Senators Demand Answers About IRS Use of Secret Cellphone Tracking Systems
