McCarthy’s Withdrawal: Too Early for Conservatives to Rejoice

Many conservatives across the land have rejoiced over the withdrawal of Kevin McCarthy from the Speaker election. They shouldn’t. House Republicans are largely a collection of phonies.

In my view, there are only two who have earned the Speakership: Louie Gohmert and Steve King. I am confident that few conservatives would disagree that these two Representatives have demonstrated honesty, courage and outspoken defense of true conservative principles. Each towers far above the rest of the field. The election of anyone else as Speaker would be a travesty, indicating Republican business as usual.

I will not rehash what I wrote in detail in August: The Deceptive Misuse of Legislator Voting Records. But, faced with this golden opportunity, it is critically important for genuine conservatives to understand that few House Republicans have anything but contempt for them.

I pointed out that, during the Boehner reign, there were but a few roll call votes that vastly exceeded the importance of all the rest. Let’s not forget that, last December, after a major Republican victory, Speaker Boehner rammed through a bill called Cromnibus. This bill effectively nullified the 2014 Republican electoral victory, saved the ObamaCare monstrosity (for a second time under Boehner!), and enabled President Obama to continue to dictatorially further law breaking by aliens. As Sen. Ted Cruz put it in a magnificently courageous speech: “anyone watching Congress right now would have little reason to think that an historic election occurred only a few weeks ago.”

Either of the two current Speaker candidates, Jason Chaffetz or Daniel Webster, could have stopped Cromnibus dead in its tracks by blocking its even being considered by the House. But both voted to allow consideration. Chaffetz even voted for final passage. In fact, 67 Republicans voted against final passage of Cromnibus, but only 16 voted to stop it from being considered at all. In other words, 51 Republicans boasted of voting against passage of a bill they could have defeated by preventing it from even being voted upon.

Among the heroic 16 were Gohmert and King. (Since January 2011, King heroically has fought a courageous battle to prevent implementation of Obama Care.) Given their long history of principled courage placing them so far above everyone else in the House, if either of them is not elected Speaker, conservatives will see more of the same and they will have no cause to rejoice.

And it would be a time for tears if House Republicans elected a faux conservative, such as Trey Gowdy, again inexplicably being touted. As this is written, many reports echo this: Republicans are putting all of their money on Paul Ryan. This is what David Horowitz had to say about Ryan: “Paul Ryan is a nice man and is a very bright man but he hasn’t got a political brain cell.”

In sum, conservative joy is premature and tears may be warranted in the end. If conservatives really are serious, they should press either Louie Gohmert or Rep. Steve King to run for Speaker and then make clear that, if one of them is not chosen, the Republican Party has no claim on conservative support.

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Iranian-American Journalist Convicted, Iran News Agency Says

A court in Iran has convicted Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian, Iran’s ISNA news agency said on Sunday, but the U.S. newspaper said Tehran was working a political angle by not disclosing details.

ISNA quoted judiciary spokesman Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei as saying the California-born Rezaian, the paper’s Tehran bureau chief, had 20 days to appeal the verdict. Rezaian was arrested in July 2014. He was accused of espionage.

“He has been convicted. … But I don’t have the details of his verdict,” the news agency quoted Ejei as saying . . .

State Department spokesman John Kirby said the United States was monitoring the case closely. “We continue to call for all charges against Jason to be dropped and for him to be immediately released,” Kirby said earlier.

Iran has accused Rezaian, 39, of collecting confidential information and giving it to hostile governments, writing a letter to U.S. President Barack Obama and acting against national security. The Post has dismissed the charges as absurd. The final hearing in his trial was on Aug. 10. (Read more from “Iranian-American Journalist Convicted, Iran News Agency Says” HERE)

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No, Scientists Have Not Found the Gay Gene

This week, a team from the University of California, Los Angeles claimed to have found several epigenetic marks—chemical modifications of DNA that don’t change the underlying sequence—that are associated with homosexuality in men. Postdoc Tuck Ngun presented the results yesterday at the American Society of Human Genetics 2015 conference. Nature News were among the first to break the story based on a press release issued by the conference organisers. Others quickly followed suit. “Have They Found The Gay Gene?” said the front page of Metro, a London paper, on Friday morning.

Meanwhile, the mood at the conference has been decidedly less complimentary, with several geneticists criticizing the methods presented in the talk, the validity of the results, and the coverage in the press.

Ngun’s study was based on 37 pairs of identical male twins who were discordant—that is, one twin in each pair was gay, while the other was straight—and 10 pairs who were both gay. He analysed 140,000 regions in the genomes of the twins and looked for methylation marks—chemical Post-It notes that dictate when and where genes are activated. He whittled these down to around 6,000 regions of interest, and then built a computer model that would use data from these regions to classify people based on their sexual orientation. . .

The problems begin with the size of the study, which is tiny. The field of epigenetics is littered with the corpses of statistically underpowered studies like these, which simply lack the numbers to produce reliable, reproducible results. . .

There’s also another, larger issue . . . the team used their training set to build several models for classifying their twins, and eventually chose the one with the greatest accuracy when applied to the testing set. . . If you use this strategy, chances are you will find a positive result through random chance alone.
(Read more from “No, Scientists Have Not Found the Gay Gene” HERE)

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No Surprise: Facebook Is Stalking You

Facebook is following you around the Web. You knew that, right?

How else would Facebook know to serve that panda video straight into your news feed, and leave your college friend’s ill-informed rant about Pacific trade deals in the dark bowels of its servers? How else would it know to serve you with 7,000 ads for wedding dress vendors the very day you announce your engagement?

Facebook knows what you like. It knows what you don’t like. It probably knows whether you have been naughty or nice, and will be selling that data to Santa this Christmas season.

This bothers many people, especially since Facebook keeps expanding the list of things it knows about you, and the ways it is willing to use that data to make money.

The recent announcement that Facebook would soon target ads using your “likes” and “shares” has triggered some Olympic-level teeth- gnashing from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, because Facebook will get information from you not just when you actually like, “like” something, but when you load a page that has a “like” button on it. (Read more from “No Surprise: Facebook Is Stalking You” HERE)

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Here’s What Obama Had to Say About Rapper Kanye West’s Presidency Run

If you’re going to run for president, Kanye West, you might as well listen to someone who’s been there and done that.

“I do have some advice for him,” President Barack Obama said during a West Coast fundraiser featuring an appearance by the rapper. “Just some stuff that I’ve picked up on the way” . . .

“First of all, you’ve got to spend a lot of time dealing with some strange characters who behave like they’re on a reality TV show,” Obama said. “So you’ve just to be cool with that.” (Read more from “Here’s What Obama Had to Say About Rapper Kanye West’s Presidency Run” HERE)

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This Is What Donald Trump Says Should’ve Happened to Bowe Bergdahl

By Associated Press. Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump said Thursday that Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl should have been executed for leaving his post in Afghanistan.

“We’re tired of Sgt. Bergdahl, who’s a traitor, a no-good traitor, who should have been executed,” Trump said to cheers at a rowdy rally inside a packed Las Vegas theater at the casino-hotel Treasure Island . . .

It was practically an aside in a litany of complaints at the end of a more than hourlong, free-wheeling speech that included a large dose of media-bashing and a claim that he was behind Rep. Kevin McCarthy’s decision to drop out of the race for House speaker. (Read more from “This Is What Donald Trump Says Should’ve Happened to Bowe Bergdahl” HERE)

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Democrats Troll Donald Trump With ‘America Is Already Great’ Hat

By Denver Nicks. Donald Trump is famous for a few things. There’s real estate, of course, and his reality television shows. There’s his headline-factory personality. There’s the hair. And now there’s the red hat and the slogan, “Make America Great Again.”

How can the Democrats complete with all that? They can’t have his real estate empire or his TV show, not his made-for-prime-time personality and certainly not his hair (it’s unlikely science will ever fully unlock its secrets). But what they can have is a hat of their own.

The Democratic National Committee Friday unveiled a new baseball cap for sale on its website ($28) with the slogan “America is Already Great.” (Read more from this story HERE)

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John Boehner Says He’s Staying – At Least For Now

By Stephen Dinan. House Speaker John A. Boehner said Thursday he’ll stay in Congress until there’s a replacement speaker — raising the possibility he could stay on beyond the end-of-October retirement date he’d set for himself.

Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, his top lieutenant and the man expected to succeed him, withdrew from the race in a surprise move, sending House Republicans into disarray.

Mr. Boehner canceled the elections that had been scheduled for Thursday afternoon to choose the next speaker, and afterward issued a statement saying he’s not going anywhere — for now.

“As I have said previously, I will serve as speaker until the House votes to elect a new speaker,” he said. “We will announce the date for this election at a later date, and I’m confident we will elect a new speaker in the coming weeks.”

He had set an Oct. 29 date for an election in the whole House, which would have chosen his replacement and ushered him into retirement. That could still happen, but with the House scheduled to be on vacation next week and a major hearing with former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton slated for the week after, it’s unclear whether such a deadline is likely. (Read more from “John Boehner Says He’ll Stay Until Replacement Is Chosen” HERE)

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GOP Civil War Rages as McCarthy Falls

By David Lightman. Rep. Kevin McCarthy’s startling decision to pull out of the race for speaker of the House of Representatives was the latest vivid illustration of how today’s Republican Party is bitterly divided between hardcore conservatives and pragmatists.

And there’s little hope of healing anytime soon.

The Republican civil war has been escalating for years, particularly since the dawn of the tea party movement six years ago.

It’s intensified this summer and fall, thanks to a presidential race featuring three Washington outsiders leading most Republican polls. It’s obvious daily at the Capitol, where Republicans may control both chambers, but they struggle to get much done as they bicker among themselves.

McCarthy, the House majority leader, was the clear favorite to succeed Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, who plans to step down at the end of the month. But the California congressman was hardly a consensus choice. (Read more from this story HERE)

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Wikileaks Release of TPP Deal Text Stokes ‘Freedom of Expression’ Fears

Wikileaks has released what it claims is the full intellectual property chapter of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the controversial agreement between 12 countries that was signed off on Monday.

TPP was negotiated in secret and details have yet to be published. But critics including Democrat presidential hopefuls Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, unions and privacy activists have lined up to attack what they have seen of it. Wikileaks’ latest disclosures are unlikely to reassure them.

One chapter appears to give the signatory countries (referred to as “parties”) greater power to stop embarrassing information going public. The treaty would give signatories the ability to curtail legal proceedings if the theft of information is “detrimental to a party’s economic interests, international relations, or national defense or national security” – in other words, presumably, if a trial would cause the information to spread.

A drafter’s note says that every participating country’s individual laws about whistleblowing would still apply.

“The text of the TPP’s intellectual property chapter confirms advocates warnings that this deal poses a grave threat to global freedom of expression and basic access to things like medicine and information,” said Evan Greer, campaign director of internet activist group Fight for the Future. “But the sad part is that no one should be surprised by this. It should have been obvious to anyone observing the process, where appointed government bureaucrats and monopolistic companies were given more access to the text than elected officials and journalists, that this would be the result.” (Read more from “Wikileaks Release of TPP Deal Text Stokes ‘Freedom of Expression’ Fears” HERE)

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Federal Workers Earn 78% More Than Private Sector Employees

Are we allowed to talk about the “income inequality” gap between employees of the federal government and the private sector? Because it’s huge, it’s been huge for a long time, and it’s and getting worse.

According to a study of data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis, conducted by the Cato Institute, compensation for federal workers is 78% higher on average than compensation for private sector employees.

“Federal civilian workers had an average wage of $84,153 in 2014, compared to an average in the private sector of $56,350,” according to the Cato review. “The federal advantage in overall compensation (wages plus benefits) is even greater. Federal compensation averaged $119,934 in 2014, which was 78 percent higher than the private-sector average of $67,246.”

To put this in perspective, the federal government has “the fourth highest paid workers in the United States, after utilities, mining, and the management of companies.” The government pays better than information services, the financial sector, the insurance industry, and scientific industries. Federal compensation is more than double what the education industry receives, and over three times what retail workers make.

This would seem problematic in light of left-wing class warfare rhetoric. Compensation for the education industry is supposed to be the veritable benchmark of fairness. We are constantly told it’s outrageous that various professions are paid more than teachers. How, then, can statists justify federal workers making over twice what the education industry pays? (Read more from “Federal Workers Earn 78% More Than Private Sector Employees” HERE)

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Major Hollywood Actor Opens up About His Christian Faith

Hollywood actor Hugh Jackman, who will play the apostle Paul in an upcoming film, has opened up about his Christian faith and revealed that he seeks to honor God with his performances.

In a recent interview with Parade magazine, the 46-year-old Australian native first revealed that he was inspired to go into acting as a young boy after watching pastors speak in church.

“I’m a Christian. I was brought up very religious. I used to go to different evangelists’ [revival] tents all the time,” he said, “When I was about 13, I had a weird premonition that I was going to be onstage, like the preachers I saw.”

When asked what acting gives him that he “really needs”, Jackman said, “That’s the best question I’ve ever been asked. Peace. There are things driving me that aren’t all healthy-[needing] approval and respect to fill some hole who-knows-where in me. Am I worthy? All those fears. Through acting, I’m able to find a level of bliss and peace and calm and joy. And it feels natural” . . .

“This is going to sound weird to you. In Chariots of Fire the runner Eric Liddell says, ‘When I run, I feel His pleasure.’ And I feel that pleasure when I act and it’s going well, particularly onstage,” Jackman said. (Read more from “Major Hollywood Actor Opens up About His Christian Faith” HERE)

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