Login
On Friday’s broadcast of Bloomberg’s “Balance of Power,” White House Council of Economic Advisers Chair Jared Bernstein reacted to the April Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) index by stating there has been a consensus that “the kind of stall in disinflation
The post White House on Annual Core, Overall PCE Holding, Monthly Core Dropping 0.1%: Still Have Good Disinflationary Forces appeared first on Breitbart.
On Tuesday’s broadcast of the Fox Business Network’s “Cavuto: Coast to Coast,” White House Senior Adviser Amos Hochstein stated that the White House wants to lower energy prices and “we’re going to try to work to make sure that we
The post White House: We Want to Lower Energy Prices, Some Biden Restrictions on Drilling ‘Good’ appeared first on Breitbart.
On Tuesday’s broadcast of the Fox Business Network’s “Cavuto: Coast to Coast,” White House Senior Adviser Amos Hochstein stated that the Biden administration “made enormous progress to advance renewable energy in this country, to advance electric vehicles, but that’s not
The post White House: Green Transition ‘Not the Solution’ to Get ‘Lower Prices’ appeared first on Breitbart.
On Tuesday’s broadcast of the Fox Business Network’s “Cavuto: Coast to Coast,” White House Senior Adviser Amos Hochstein said that America is the largest producer of oil and gas in the world, but they don’t want to see that continue
The post White House: We Don’t Want to Be World’s Leading Oil, Gas Producer Forever appeared first on Breitbart.
Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin will be going through a medical procedure on Friday evening. As a result, Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks will temporarily "assume" his duties.
The post Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to ‘Temporarily’ Transfer Duties While Undergoing Medical Procedure appeared first on Breitbart.
Reflect on the words of Rep. Bill Pascrell, D-N.J., in his Washington Post article titled “Why Is Congress So Dumb?” Thereby hangs a tale of congressional anemia and languor.
The veteran congressman laments, “our available resources and our policy staff, the brains of Congress, have been so depleted that we can’t do our jobs properly. … Congress is increasingly unable to comprehend a world growing more socially, economically and technologically multifaceted—and we did this to ourselves.”
While the size of the federal government was mushrooming, staff levels in House member offices ticked down from 6,556 in 1977 to 6,329 in 2021. Congress’ annual budget is $5.3 billion, a tiny fraction of the $1.5 trillion spent on the military-industrial-security complex. And only 10% of the $5.3 billion is spent on human capital as opposed to buildings, the Capitol Police, and maintenance.
“For every $3,000 the United States spends per American on government programs,” Pascrell writes, “[Congress] allocates only $6 to oversee them.”
The congressman’s diagnosis is spot-on. It deserves further amplification.
Congress is largely run by rookies paid miserly wages who then move on after a few years to lucrative lobbying on K Street as a financial necessity. Congress is starved of institutional memory and expertise. Members and staff are constitutionally clueless, political tyros. The executive branch runs circles around them, stiff-arms oversight, and typically originates major legislation for Congress to entertain.
Congressional staff commonly parachute into high-level, well-paid executive branch positions. The reverse—executive branch talent coming to work for Congress—is as rare as unicorns.
This is a disaster for Congress as a coequal branch of government and for the Constitution’s separation of powers. It is also a break in history, tracing back to former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., who in 1995 seized the lion’s share of legislative powers from committees and member offices by shrinking their budgets and prerogatives and enfeebling their intellectual infrastructures.
Gingrich also defunded the Office of Technology Assessment, tantamount to a congressional lobotomy. His objective was to handcuff any challenges by members or committees to his personal policy predilections and compromises with the White House. None of Gingrich’s Republican and Democratic successors—Dennis Hastert, Nancy Pelosi, John Boehner, Paul Ryan, Kevin McCarthy, and Mike Johnson—have undone his dumbing down of Congress.
The typical chief of staff or chief counsel in the House is a recent university or law school graduate in their mid-20s hired primarily because of their loyalty and campaign work. They are awed by the White House and ignorant of the vast powers the Constitution entrusts to the legislative branch: the war power, the power of the purse, the power to supersede treaties or executive orders, and the inherent power of contempt to sanction summarily any executive official for withholding documents or testimony from Congress.
The result, among other things, is secret government and a reliance on whistleblowers, who commonly have ulterior motives, to disclose executive branch crimes or wrongdoing in lieu of Congress.
In the pre-Gingrich era, the Watergate crimes were exposed by the Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, and the Church Committee disclosed the crimes and wrongdoing of the intelligence community. In the post-Gingrich era, Congress goes on its hands and knees, like Henry IV at Canossa, pleading for the White House voluntarily to share information.
The House and Senate Armed Services committees need vastly greater manpower and experts to oversee the nearly trillion-dollar annual, unaudited Pentagon spending. On 9/11, former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld shared that $3 trillion in Pentagon funds accumulated over an unknown number of years could not be accounted for.
Congress retains the power to return to the pre-Gingrich era. Under the Constitution, the House and Senate decide their respective budgets with no outside interference. Congress can and should raise salaries and retain experts to attract talent and make serving as congressional staff a financially viable professional career. Congress should institutionalize the recruitment of staff and experts from universities and the private sector based more on competence in discharging constitutional responsibilities and less on personal loyalty or nepotism.
Overseeing and reforming a federal government that spends more than $6.5 trillion annually, regulates every nook and cranny of economic life, and groans under a national debt exceeding $34 trillion is too important to do anything less.
President John Quincy Adams left the presidency in 1829. He served in the House of Representatives from 1831 to 1848, acquiring fame in opposing the gag rule, which forbid discussion of slavery in the House, and the Mexican-American War, fueled by presidential lies.
Adams’ congressional service was not a demotion but a professional and constitutional step up. Today, it is inconceivable that a president would follow in his footsteps. That needs to change fast, or the executive branch will continue to run roughshod over the Constitution, Congress, and the American people.
COPYRIGHT 2024 CREATORS.COM
The Daily Signal publishes a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Heritage Foundation.
The post Who Is Running Congress? appeared first on The Daily Signal.
Aides to Joe Biden corrected nine gaffes on a transcript of his speech delivered on Sunday, raising concerns about his fitness for office.
The post White House Scrubs Joe Biden’s Transcript of Nine Embarrassing Errors, Gaffes appeared first on Breitbart.
The White House previously bragged about not asserting executive privilege over Special Counsel Rob Hur's probe into President Joe Biden.
The post Flashback: White House Bragged About Not Asserting Executive Privilege over Special Counsel Probe into Joe Biden appeared first on Breitbart.
Cliff Sims had a front-row seat in the White House to some of President Donald Trump’s biggest decisions and helped craft the administration’s message to the American people.
As a special assistant to the president, Sims served as a key staffer in the White House communications office before later moving to a different role as deputy director of national intelligence for strategy and communications.
Along the way, Sims wrote a bestselling book, “Team of Vipers: My 500 Extraordinary Days in the Trump White House.” And this month, he is now out with a new book, “The Darkness Has Not Overcome: Lessons on Faith and Politics from Inside the Halls of Power.”
Sims writes from the perspective of a Baptist minister’s son whose own Christian faith guided him during his time in the Trump administration. He spoke to The Daily Signal about the lessons he learned and his advice for Americans as they prepare to make a choice for our country’s future.
Listen to the full interview on “The Daily Signal Podcast” or read the transcript—edited for length and clarity—below.
Rob Bluey: What inspired you to write “The Darkness Has Not Overcome”?
Cliff Sims: When I left the government, a lot of it was me wrestling with what that time period of my life meant for me, like, what were some of the things I could have learned from that experience, and I journaled a lot about it and was thinking a lot about it.
I realized through that process that a lot of the things that I could have learned I was learning, the takeaways that I had could apply to anybody’s life. No matter what they’re doing, they had to serve in government to have some takeaways from it.
I realized that there was an opportunity to write a book that told a bunch of cool stories from behind the scenes in the White House and CIA and Office of the Director of National Intelligence and Air Force One and all these different things, but use those to jump into biblical takeaways, faith takeaways that could apply to anybody’s life. So that was really what inspired me to write the book.
Bluey: Can you speak to your upbringing as the son of a Baptist minister and how that shaped your approach to faith and particularly politics during your time serving a government?
Sims: The subtitle for the book is “Lessons on Faith and Politics From Inside the Halls of Power.” But the first thing that people would need to know about me is that I come from about as far away from those halls of powers you could possibly imagine—lived in, grew up in a working-class family, working-class neighborhood. My dad was a Baptist minister and faith was an integral part of our lives. We’re in the church every time the doors were open.
But really my personal faith journey, I had a knowledge of the Bible that was more than a lot of my friends growing up. There’s no doubt about that, but it really had not had a heart change in me until later in life.
A lot of that kind of grit and determination from growing up in a working-class family I think I’ve applied to a lot of things I’ve done professionally. And really the moment in my life when—well, I guess there wasn’t a moment in my life that I could point to that’s like that’s when God changed my heart. Even though I certainly remember the moment that I accepted Christ, my savior, and things like that.
I learned a lot about the way that God changes people and it’s not the way that we think about it. We focus a lot on our actions. Any self-help podcast that you listen to, it focuses on actions. If you could just work out a little bit more. If you could just get up a little bit earlier. If you could just spend more time with your family. If you were a better networker, all these things and actions.
The real "threat to democracy."
— Cliff Sims (@Cliff_Sims) May 8, 2024
The Darkness Has Not Overcome: Lessons on Faith and Politics from Inside the Halls of Power is out NOW https://t.co/B7qlVi6H9L @MarkLevinShow pic.twitter.com/YXSocrBHJK
What I’ve learned in my own life is the way that God changes people is, like, I would call it like concentric circles. And at the center of that concentric circle is worship. I found in my life, I’ve worshiped my career, I’ve worshiped power, I’ve worshiped fame, I’ve worshiped money. I mean, go down the list of these things.
What you worship becomes what you think about. What you think about becomes your desires, and your desires become your actions. And what God did was he changed what I worshiped or who I worshiped. Once he was at the center of that Venn diagram, it changed the things that I think about and changed my desires and, ultimately, that changed my actions.
And the way that that manifested itself in serving in government is, I think, in retrospect, I struggled with a lot of things that I didn’t know that I would, such as like the attraction of power.
When you don’t have power, how do you know that you’re going to be susceptible to the attraction of power? But being able to lean back on my faith and look to Scripture for new challenges, things that I was struggling with that I never had to think about before, that biblical foundation helped me not lose myself in the process.
Bluey: I wanted to go back to something you said earlier, and that was that you found yourself growing up far from the halls of power. So did you ever imagine as a younger man that you would be serving the most powerful man in the world?
Sims: No, definitely not. I mean, that’s the thing about life in general is, like, all of us only know the universe that we’ve been exposed to. I mean, I had never met anybody who had money. How could I know what someone with money would do with money? I’d never met someone who’d served in the government. How would I know what people who walk the halls of power, so to speak, what they do, how they lived their lives?
I’d never in a million years would have imagined that. But I do remember the moment when I realized, in retrospect, that God was ordering my steps, that kind of the way that the trajectory of my life has gone on, that he was organizing all of that.
SCOOP: A former top White House and intelligence official will release a book targeting an overlapping audience of political conservatives, particularly those in Trump's base, and evangelical Christians, who play a big role in election outcomes. https://t.co/LA8NVbUFR6
— Axios (@axios) February 15, 2024
I was playing college basketball at a university in Mississippi, a buddy of mine was playing at a junior college in South Alabama, and I was thinking about wanting to transfer. My family was living in Florida at the time. I go and visit this tiny town called Enterprise, Alabama, which is most famous for having a monument to a bug in its downtown, to a boll weevil. It’s the only city in the country with a monument to a bug. It’s all I knew about it.
So, I go and visit and I really liked it. The team was good. I thought, “You know what,? I’m going to transfer here.” And the last thing I needed to do was call my dad and say, “Hey, I’m going to transfer.” And again, they were living in Florida at the time and I called my dad and said, “I’m going to transfer to this tiny school in Enterprise, Alabama.” And it was an awkward silence on the phone, and I said, “Well, is that OK?” And my dad said, “I was going to call you today and tell you that our family is moving to Enterprise, Alabama.”
My dad was a Baptist minister. His friend had become a pastor of a church in Enterprise and called him to be the executive pastor there. And so, my friend was a pastor of a church in Enterprise and called him to be the executive, was kind of reunited on coming from two separate tracks, and it’s like a moment in time where even the most fervent atheist would have a difficult time chalking that up to mere coincidence.
I remember it because at a time in my life where I didn’t care what God’s plan was for my life, he was already ordering his steps. And my Sunday school teacher, the day that I walked into Sunday school, the first day at our new town, was a guy named Barry Moore. Moore, who was a small business owner, but now he’s Congressman Barry Moore.
So, the first thing I did in politics in the 2010 election cycle was help to run Barry’s campaign. And six years later, I had an office in the West Wing. A lot of stuff happened in between there, but that’s kind of my journey in politics. Well, God’s plan for each of us is truly amazing.
Bluey: Thank you so much for sharing that, that story. Wow. Speaking of the West Wing, can you share a specific example from your time working there where you felt challenged in maintaining your Christian principles in this political environment in which we live?
Sims: There aren’t a lot of examples from the West Wing where there’s like a dramatic moment where it’s like, oh my gosh, I’m being asked to do something that is against my sincerely held beliefs.
I worked in the Trump White House and, fortunately, from a policy perspective, I was a fervent believer in a lot of things that we’re doing, what President Trump did from a policy perspective for the faith community—things like ending the “Mexico City policy,” funding with taxpayer resources abortions in foreign countries, or putting pro-life justices on the Supreme Court, or instructing the Department of Justice to no longer … go after the nonprofit status of faith-based nonprofits that speak into divisive political issues. I think you can go down the list of these things.
. @Tgowdysc is joined by @Cliff_Sims as he dissects the clash between one’s political identity vs. spiritual identity when holding a position of power. https://t.co/6ov8gO1GMX pic.twitter.com/6EkRK0c4Mh
— FOX News Radio (@foxnewsradio) May 7, 2024
I think the wrestling with what serving in government meant for my faith or how my faith applied to that experience or where it was tested really has come more in retrospect. And I think the most direct example that I could give is the day that Joe Biden was inaugurated president, Jan. 20, 2021.
I was deputy director of national intelligence at the time, and I was standing alone in the nearly empty hallways of the CIA. And I was wandering those empty halls by myself because it was not just a transition moment for the country. I knew it was a transition moment for me, that this was going to be the last opportunity that I had to walk those halls, at least in the short term.
And I was wrestling with this nagging feeling that nothing that I will ever do in life will be this important. It’ll never be this big of a deal again. How could I ever find value in the work that I’m doing when it’s never going to be like this again? And, of course, that’s ego talking, but it’s also just wrong because what I learned through that process about work is that who we are working for is more important than what we are doing.
The Bible says whatever you do, do it as unto the Lord. And when you put work in its proper context—that whether I’m in the White House or in a coffee house I’m performing with excellence and there is meaning to it because I’m serving God in my work—your work becomes an overflow of worship. And that’s a totally different way of looking at work.
So, I think the way to answer your question that my faith was tested was, I was in what C.S. Lewis would call the inner ring. I had access to power and influence and things that test your character. Only in retrospect was I able to come to terms with that is not what defines me. I’m not defined by the title that I have. The fact that my phone quit ringing when I left because people didn’t like me, they were calling me because of the title that I had. I had to come to terms with that.
Going through that and wrestling with that, I’ve been able to put my work, my career, in a much better, more biblical context.
Bluey: There’s so much in our culture that happens outside of government and politics, but obviously, 2024 is a big year. There’s a lot of focus on elections, not only at the national level, but local level. How much is at stake when it comes to the future of our country and the direction we go when it comes to electing leaders?
Sims: Every single election cycle, it feels like we say, “Well, this is the most important election of our lifetimes.” And it’s like, well, in retrospect, some of these elections were not as important as others. Let’s just be honest about them.
But this is another moment where I think we are at a real crossroads as a country and deciding kind of what to do, what direction we’re going to go. Are we going to go the path of limited government, more human freedom and flourishing? Are we going to go the path of bigger government, more intervention in our daily lives where the government does play a meaningful role in our daily lives here? Which I don’t want to happen.
Millions of college students may be protesting Israel, but if Trump wins 2024, Israel WILL have a loyal friend in the WH again. Former Deputy DNI @Cliff_Sims tells me how determined Trump was to move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem: "[He said] I said I would do it. We're doing it." pic.twitter.com/jRxw7b9zNo
— Glenn Beck (@glennbeck) May 3, 2024
On every single issue from foreign affairs—right now you’re seeing just mayhem in every corner of the world. From the Middle East to Eastern Europe to China’s breathing down Taiwan’s neck in Southeast Asia, foreign affairs to economics, where you’re going to have a decision and people aren’t thinking about early next year. We’re going to have to re-up the tax cuts that came for from the Trump presidency. Are we going to do that or we’re going to have to be more taxed and more regulated? All these different issues.
So, I do believe this is one of those elections that we’ll look back on and say that that was a really, really important election.
Bluey: What is one of the things that you hope readers take away from the book, especially those who may be feeling discouraged or disillusioned by the current state of politics and society today?
Sims: Thank you for asking that. I mean, I’ll go back to the title of the book, “The Darkness Has Not Overcome.”
It comes from the Gospel of John 1:5, “The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.” This is a promise from Scripture that we can lean on, even in the darkest of times, that Scripture makes it clear the good guys win. Again, we can skip to the end. End of the book: The good guys win.
It’s hard not to be discouraged at the moment. We have work to do, and we need to do everything that we can to spread the Gospel and fight for policies that we believe in government.
All these different things are very important. But even in the darkest times, we can lean on that promise that the darkness will not overcome this, that we have a hope that is bigger than our politics and it’s found in our relationship with God.
Bluey: I’m so glad the book is doing well. I encourage our Daily Signal listeners to pick up a copy wherever books are sold or online. Thank you so much for writing it and sharing your experiences and advice with us today.
Sims: Rob, thanks for having me. I love The Heritage Foundation, love The Daily Signal. Love everything that you guys do. It’s an honor to be on with you.
The post Faith and Politics: An Insider’s View From Former Trump Aide Cliff Sims appeared first on The Daily Signal.
Vice President Kamala Harris dropped an f-bomb while dishing out advice during the APAICS Summit in Washington, DC, on Monday.
The post Kamala Harris Drops F-Bomb While Giving Advice: ‘Kick That F**king Door Down’ appeared first on Breitbart.
Attorney General Andrew Bailey of Missouri has demanded the Department of Justice turn over "communications relating to the illicit prosecutions of President Trump."
The post Missouri Attorney General Demands DOJ Provide ‘Communications Relating to the Illicit Prosecutions of President Trump’ appeared first on Breitbart.
On Thursday’s broadcast of NewsNation’s “The Hill,” House Armed Services Committee Ranking Member Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA) said that the White House “needs to clean…up” President Joe Biden’s comments on Israel to CNN “and reiterate our support for Israel,” because
The post Top House Armed Services Dem on Biden Israel Threat: ‘White House Needs to Clean It Up’ or It Emboldens Hamas appeared first on Breitbart.
On Thursday’s broadcast of NewsNation’s “The Hill,” House Armed Services Committee Ranking Member Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA) stated that President Joe Biden’s statement to CNN on weapons to Israel “is not really the administration’s position” according to people in the
The post Top House Armed Services Dem: ‘Huge Problem’ White House Says Biden’s Israel Threat ‘Not Really the Admin.’s Position’ appeared first on Breitbart.
During an interview with CBS on Friday, White House Council of Economic Advisers Chair Jared Bernstein responded to a question on how long it will take prices to drop if President Joe Biden is re-elected by stating that we have
The post White House on When Prices Will Drop if Biden’s Re-Elected: We’ve Cut Some Costs appeared first on Breitbart.
On Friday’s broadcast of NewsNation’s “The Hill,” White House Senior Adviser Gene Sperling discussed the recent jobs report and stated that things are “not good enough, because people are still facing too high costs in their family and personal lives.
The post White House: We Have Job Market That’s ‘Better Than Even a Soft Landing’ appeared first on Breitbart.
Mark Hamill made a surprise visit to the White House press briefing room after meeting with President Joe Biden.
The post Mark Hamill Crashes White House Press Briefing After Meeting with Biden: ‘Can I Call You Jo-Bi-Won Kenobi?’ appeared first on Breitbart.
Actor Mark Hamill visited the White House, where he gushed over White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre and President "Joebi-Wan Kenobi."
The post Watch: ‘Star Wars’ Star Mark Hamill Visits White House, Gushes over Karine Jean-Pierre and President ‘Joebi-Wan Kenobi’ appeared first on Breitbart.
The White House has reportedly been considering whether or not to accept Palestinians from Gaza as refugees amid Israel's war with Hamas.
The post Report: White House Considers Inviting Gaza Palestinians as Refugees appeared first on Breitbart.
Vaunce News 