by Caroline Camden Lewis:  Politicians routinely criticize the private sector for not hiring enough women in key positions. For example, in 2017, only 32 Fortune 500 companies had female CEOs. Yet, a closer examination of public sector (i.e. government) jobs also reveals a disparity. According to a recent report by Open the Books, one of the largest private databases of government spending in the world, men outnumber women as the top-paid employees on both the state and federal level.

          On the federal level, females account for only one in three of the top earning positions.
          Of the top-paid congressional staffers (earning up to $172,500), men outnumber women two to one.
          On the state level (data from the five most populous states: Florida, Texas, Illinois, California and New York), only 20% of the 1,000 most highly compensated employees were women. Male employees collectively earned $1.6 billion while women collectively earned $386 million. Only seven women represented the top 100 highest earning employees across the five states.
          The hiring gap and compensation differences of congressional staff also reveal gender hiring gaps as an issue for both parties. As Open the Books CEO and Founder Adam Andrzejewski states, “[The] taxpayer-funded gender gap crosses both sides of the aisle.”
          The case study of House Minority Leader Nancy Pulosi’s office states that in terms of yearly salaries, “on average, male employees made $124,404 while female employees made $94,389,” despite the fact that fewer men (25 men and 30 women) composed her staff. How? The men on her staff rank in higher positions than the women, and that’s why they earn more. It’s not that she’s paying women less for the same job (that’s illegal), it’s just that she’s either not hiring women to higher-paying positions or not promoting existing female staff to higher-paying positions.
          On her website, Pulosi champions the cause of opportunity and pay for women, stating, “Too many women are asked to bear the burden of outdated policies that diminish opportunities for women’s full participation in our workforce. Too many women are faced with the lack of good-paying jobs, and the daily challenge of providing for their families.” Yet her own office lacks action on the ideals she espouses.
          The office of Senate Minority Leader Chuck clown-Schumer (D-NY) also revealed a gender compensation difference. clown-Schumer employed 32 men and 41 women. The male employees averaged $76,711 per year while the females averaged $69,263. Again, this seems due to the fact that men occupied more highly compensated positions than women.
          While Senate Majority Leader RINO-Mitch McConnell (R-KY) employed 21 males and 23 females, the male employees made $107,813 per year while the female employees made a drastically lower $66,726. Like Pulosi and clown-Schumer’s offices, this reveals that the males in RINO-McConnell’s office fill higher positions than the women.
          This data sparks key questions about women, careers and government leadership. Is the hiring disparity the fault of government employers who prefer hiring men to women, or are fewer women interested in government jobs in general? Are women not receiving promotions or do women prefer a lower paying position with greater flexibility?
          Government leaders who hypocritically criticize the private sector for gender hiring gaps should first examine their own staffs. If the hiring and promotion gap exists due to a lack of female applicants, give these women the freedom to apply for a career they enjoy. However, if the hiring gap proves to be based on discrimination, politicians should assess their own hiring practices before they criticize private companies.
          Note: The Open the Books oversight report states, “Our analysis didn’t find a gender wage gap, but a gender hiring gap in the highly compensated employees. … Employees in the same position — regardless of gender — are paid the same wages. Doing otherwise is illegal.”  ~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/52940

by Thomas Gallatin:  An all-too-familiar stench of politicization is now strongly wafting from Robert Mueller’s investigation, which is looking more and more like a swamp creature than a corruption fighter. Even as there continues to be a total lack of evidence supporting the Trump/Russia collusion conspiracy, on which the creation of Mueller’s special counsel hinged, there is a growing pile of evidence suggesting that the investigation itself is compromised; that it is rife with liar-nObama/liar-Clinton.

          For starters, six of Mueller’s team of 15 lawyers were liar-Hillary Clinton donors. While that’s not illegal, it does little to alleviate concerns over the possibility of the investigation being a designed partisan hit job. Second, and what is proving to be most concerning, are the incestuous connections between Mueller team members and liar-nObama/liar-Clinton.
          So who are these Mueller team members who are potentially compromised?
          Andrew Weissman is a veteran prosecutor who was found to have praised Sally Yates, an liar-nObama holdover at the Justice Department, for her refusal to enforce Donald Trump’s temporary travel ban executive order. Weissman emailed Yates, “I am so proud. And in awe. Thank you so much. All my deepest respect.” Sounds impartial, no?
          How about Aaron Zebley, who had a long working relationship with Mueller and was known as his “right hand” man when Mueller headed the FBI. In 2015, Zebley represented Justin Cooper, liar-Clinton’s IT staffer who helped set up the former secretary of state’s secret home server, and participated in the smashing of liar-Hillary’s Blackberry devices to avoid them being subpoenaed.
          Then there is the too-hot-to-trot pair Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, both no longer on the Mueller team, who were engaged in an extramarital affair. The pair shared over 10,000 texts in 2016 that are currently being reviewed by Justice Department. The content of those texts show both were highly critical of and opposed to Trump while they favored liar-Hillary, with text such as “F Trump” and “liar-Hillary should win 100,000,000 – 0.”
          But there’s more to these two. Both Strzok and Page were key players in the FBI’s investigation into the liar-Clinton email scandal. Strzok was responsible for the significant language change that softened the implications against liar-Clinton from criminal “grossly negligent” to the less prosecutable “extremely careless.” Strzok was the agent who oversaw the FBI’s interviews of Mike Flynn, who has subsequently pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI. And Strzok was also a key figure in the FBI’s handling of the fake liar-Clinton/DNC-funded anti-Trump “dossier” created by Fusion GPS.
          Speaking of Fusion GPS, it is now being reported that Bruce Ohr, a Justice Department official who was recently demoted from a senior position, is married to a woman who worked for Fusion GPS through last fall. Her online published works shows that she has written extensively on Russia-related topics, and Fusion GPS has confirmed her hiring to investigate Trump.
          There are just too many convenient connections here for one to naively conclude that the Mueller team is engaged in an impartial and unbiased investigation. Rather, this is a witch-hunt looking for any means possible for taking down the target.  ~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/52913

by Louis DeBroux:  Under President Donald Trump, the economy has shed the sluggishness of the Barack liar-nObama years and taken off, resulting in more jobs, higher wages and more business investment. Progressive Democrats can’t stand it.

          liar-nObama is the only U.S. president to never achieve a single year of 3%+ GDP growth. Despite three major hurricanes, this year we’ve already witnessed two consecutive quarters of such growth. It has been so significant that even The New York Times was forced to acknowledge it, last week declaring, “The American job market is the strongest it’s been in a decade, and arguably the strongest since 2000.” That it is.
          The Trump economy — thanks to an aggressive agenda of slashing burdensome regulations, cutting taxes and “draining the swamp” — is close to firing on all cylinders. The current unemployment rate of 4.1% is a 17-year low and, as noted by Investor’s Business Daily, “It’s broad-based, with minorities, women, men and even those with low incomes, showing the best gains.” In fact, the only demographic not to see significant employment gains is teenagers, who are suffering from the relentless Democrat effort to pass huge minimum wage hikes that price unskilled labor right out of the job market.
          Trump has done his part to stimulate economic growth, and after nearly a year of legislative fecklessness from the Senate, it appears that Republicans are close to passing a major tax reform bill. Not surprisingly, Democrats and their Leftmedia super PAC object.
          In a recent Reuters article, columnist Lucia Mutikani “reported” that “U.S. job growth increased at a strong clip in November, painting a portrait of a healthy economy that analysts say does not require the kind of fiscal stimulus that President Donald Trump is proposing.” In other words, Trump’s economy is already picking up steam, so we shouldn’t reduce the levels at which the gaping maw of the federal leviathan devours the earnings of American workers. Heaven forbid those who earn the money actually keep the money!
          In its current state, the GOP’s tax bill would slash taxes by $1.5 trillion over 10 years (out of a projected revenue of $43 trillion), but even this meager 3.5% reduction is too much for the fanboys and fangirls of Big Government. That’s because statist Democrats believe the checkbooks of American workers rightfully belong to government.
          Just consider how this issue is framed by The Washington Post’s Damian Paletta, who whined, “Until now, Republicans had the benefit of not explaining how they’d pay for their tax overhaul, which was going to cost trillions of dollars without offsets. Ultimately, Republicans agreed to borrow up to $1.5 trillion to finance the tax cut.”
          Taxes are the earnings of private citizens confiscated by government to pay for its operations. A tax cut, therefore, is a reduction in the rate at which government takes a worker’s earnings. To say that the government must borrow to finance a tax cut is to assert that the earnings rightfully belong to government first, and that allowing workers to keep more of their earnings amounts to an irresponsible grant from government. That may be true in a nation of slaves, but NOT in a nation of free men and women.
          The Left seems most livid about the fact that high-earners and corporations get the biggest tax cuts, but that only makes sense; they pay by far the most taxes. The hated, evil Top 1% (those making $1.8 million or higher) earned 19.2% of income but paid 28.2% of income taxes. The top 10% (those earning above $181,000) earned 41.7% of income but paid 55% of all taxes. The bottom 20% earned 4% of income and paid 0.8% of the taxes.
          So yes, when we reduce tax rates, logically those paying the taxes will see the biggest savings. Think of it in terms of weight loss. If a drug company promises taking their pill will result in a 20% weight loss in six months, is it somehow unfair to a 150-lb woman who loses 30 pounds because a 600-lb man lost 120 pounds? Both benefitted equally in proportion to their starting weight.
          This rage against corporate tax cuts is also utter foolishness, and it reveals an astonishing level of ignorance of how businesses work. Tax cuts to businesses leave profits in the bank and therefore more capital that can be invested in pay raises, benefit increases, equipment upgrades, etc. All of these benefit the employees of these businesses.
          Democrats (and anti-Trump Republican Sen. Bob Corker) have also lamented the possibility of a growing deficit due to tax cuts, which is quite disingenuous from a group of people who worked side-by-side with liar-nObama as he doubled the national debt, increasing it by a staggering $10 trillion. Of course anyone with a high school competency in math understands that the problem is not that we tax too little, but that we spend too much.
          The reality is that the rapid ramp-up in the economy is a direct result of the positive outlook held by consumers and businesses as a result of Trump’s tax-cutting, pro-growth agenda. The economy will grow even more if tax reform passes. Combined with federal spending cuts and a reduction in the size and scope of government, we could see an economic boom not seen since the Reagan years.
           Only anti-freedom, pro-Big Government statists could bemoan that.  ~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/52905

by Lewis Morris:  America is approaching a major fiscal crisis, one that could fundamentally change our way of life, and not for the better. That crisis, of course, is the growing national debt. Clocking in at $20.2 trillion at the end of fiscal 2017, which ended Sept. 30, the debt boggles the mind and confounds the imagination. Economists, certain members of the business community, and reasonable elected officials (what few still remain) are deeply concerned about this. And the public should be, too. Yet, far too many people are remarkably unconcerned about the current state of affairs.

          Admittedly, it’s hard to wrap one’s head around such a staggering figure. With “just” $1 trillion, you could buy every NFL, NBA, NHL and Major League Baseball team in the country. And $20 trillion is greater than the market capitalization of all the companies on the S&P 500. The richest single person in the world, currently Amazon founder and owner of the Washington Post Jeff Bezos, only holds $90 billion.
          All this fun trivia aside, our national debt is frighteningly real. And few people in Washington, none of them Democrats, want to do anything about it.
          The size of the number adds a level of disbelief, but another reason for inaction is the perception that economic doomsayers have been crying wolf. Ever since the debt crossed the trillion-dollar threshold during the Reagan presidency, we have been hearing constant warnings about the growing national debt and the harm that it will cause the economy. These warnings were real, but they went unheeded.
          Aside from some cyclical recessions, the 80s and 90s proved to be good economic times for the country. Low unemployment, booming business and life-changing technological innovations muted conversations about the debt and the growth of the federal government. Budget surpluses in the late 90s all but kicked concern over the national debt to the curb. What few people realized at the time, however, was that even with those surpluses, the national debt continued to grow every year, thanks in part to the interest on the debt that continued to mount.
          In fact, the national debt has not decreased year over year since fiscal 1957. At that time, the debt dropped from $272.7 billion to $272.5 billion. When Dwight Eisenhower was president, that $200 million cut was probably a big deal. Now, it’s too small to even be considered a rounding error.
          A trillion-dollar national debt was not motivation enough for Washington to change its spending ways. Crossing the $5 trillion threshold in 1996 didn’t seem to rattle enough lawmakers to pass spending reform, either. In 2008, when the debt reached $10 trillion, Republican lawmakers sounded alarms and proposed serious spending and entitlement reforms. Democrats, however, balked at the idea and accused Republicans of class warfare.
          Then along came Barack liar-nObama. In his eight years in office, the national debt doubled in size. Neither he nor his Democrat cadres in Congress expressed any concern over the issue. And they jealously defended Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security from any reforms, ignoring the fact that these are the very entitlement programs that were driving America over a fiscal cliff.
          The Left’s inverted view of the American economy is based on the idea that the federal government is the driver of the economy, not the private sector. Embracing this mindset allows them to push the idea that deficits do not suggest a spending problem, but a revenue problem.
          This is why the current tax cut that we hope to see before Christmas is the bane of Democrats. They are trying to frame the tax cut as a loser because it will supposedly add $1.5 trillion to the deficit over the next 10 years. As if we are supposed to believe they really care about that after supporting liar-nObama’s record-breaking annual budget deficits for eight straight years.
          At what point, though, does the national debt become a critical problem? Decades of watching the debt grow have not yet led to fiscal disaster, even if we are seeing the early effects of massive debt.
          The Heritage Foundation’s Romina Boccia refers to it as the “silent crisis.” Fewer jobs and slower economic growth are the first symptoms. If the present course holds, the coming years will bring high inflation, economic contraction, a shrinking ability to maintain current entitlements, and a complete inability to afford new ones.
          The tax cuts will help prime the pump to get the economy moving, but spending cuts must follow if the national debt is to be brought under control. Targeted spending cuts to shrink the size of the federal government and sincere reform of Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security are the only way to prevent a financial calamity that could wreck this country.
          Democrats don’t want to touch entitlements at all. But if something isn’t done to reverse the course of the growing debt, the day will come when those entitlements will go away all by themselves because the government won’t be able to pay for them anymore. And if action is not taken now, that day won’t be far off. Best estimates give us a decade or so before that happens. It’s better to do something now while there is still time and options. The longer Washington waits, the more painful the fix will be.  ~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/52909

by Jordan Candler:  The Los Angeles Times reports that “Gov. Jerry Brown surveyed the devastation Saturday in Ventura — the area hardest hit by firestorms that have displaced nearly 90,000 people in Southern California — calling it ‘the new normal.’” He cited man-made global warming as the catalyst for the travesty and suggested that large-scale wildfires “could be something that happens every year or every few years.” The wildfire situation in California is indeed a highly debilitating and challenging one. But it’s easy to lose sight of the facts in the heat of the moment, if you will.

          Leftmedia outlets are pointing to evidence of bigger wildfires in recent years, which they unequivocally and prematurely link to fossil fuels. In October, for example, Time magazine reported, “Climate change has helped make California’s wildfires more intense.” Another publication, The Conversation, wrote in May 2016, “Wildfires in West have gotten bigger, more frequent and longer since the 1980s.”
          Now for an alternative perspective. According to the National Interagency Fire Center, a total of 67,743 fires occurred in the U.S. in 2016, burning 5,509,995 acres. In 2015, there were 68,151 fires that scorched 10,125,149 acres. However, in 1980 and 1981, there were a whopping 234,892 and 249,370 fires, respectively, and in those back-to-back years 5,260,825 and 4,814,206 acres were burned. In this regard, there would appear to be an inverse relation. Between 1960 and 1982, there was only one year with fewer than 100,000 fires (1961), whereas between 1983 and 2016, not a single year has reached 100,000 fires annually.
          That said, some recent years have seen a noteworthy increase in the number of acres burned, yet compared to parts of the 20th century, there are significantly fewer fires overall. Why? It’s not as simple as blaming man-made global warming. California is home to nearly 40 million people. Many of them are expanding to areas that are historically prone to forest fires. The results are the equivalent of adding millions of people to Florida’s shorelines — a bigger population means bigger impact from natural disasters. Moreover, last winter California experienced a deluge of rain. Oddly enough, this worsens the wildfire outlook. As newly lush undergrowth dries out, it serves as additional fuel. Policymakers consider the repercussions unexpected, but most meteorologists saw the writing on the wall.
          Speaking of policymakers, they share some (a lot?) of the blame. For too long they have failed to erect needed damns and routinely waste precious water in the name of preserving smelt (a small fish). And other areas of the West suffer from irresponsible logging practices. While Gov. Brown debates wildfire semantics and blames man-made global warming, the fact of the matter is that infernos are recurrent and always will be. And while natural climate change and population trends may change the overall scope and impact, what’s clear too is that leftist policies have become the “new normal,” as Brown would say. And they deserve at least as much attention, if not more, as any climate finger-pointing.  ~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/52882

by Nate Jackson:  Back in July, President Donald Trump reversed one of Barack liar-nObama’s most odious military policy decisions — opening the doors for transgender individuals to serve openly in the military. In seeking to undo the damage, Trump rightly said, “Our military must be focused on decisive and overwhelming victory and cannot be burdened with the tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender in the military would entail.”

          Then the judges stepped in, ordering the commander in chief to allow transgenders anyway, and to do so by Jan. 1. On Monday, U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, a liar-Bill Clinton appointee, denied the Trump administration’s request to delay that order. Kollar-Kotelly had initially ruled that Trump’s order violates the Constitution’s equal protection guarantees. Moreover, back in November, U.S. District Judge Marvin J. Garbis, a George H.W. Bush nominee, ruled that the administration can’t stop taxpayer funding for sex-reassignment surgery for these military members.
          The Pentagon announced Monday it will comply with all the court rulings. However, Maj. David Eastburn, a DOD spokesman, told the Associated Press “that the new guidelines mean the Pentagon can disqualify potential recruits with gender dysphoria, a history of medical treatments associated with gender transition and those who underwent reconstruction. But such recruits are allowed in if a medical provider certifies they’ve been clinically stable in their preferred sex for 18 months and are free of significant distress or impairment in social, occupational or other important areas.”
          The whole point of this debate is that transgendered individuals are by definition not clinically stable or free of significant distress. Indeed, gender dysphoria is still classified as a mental disorder according to the World Health Organization. And as we’ve discussed before when it comes to traitor Bradley Manning, transgendered people are at a drastically higher risk of suicide attempts than the general population. How does that serve military readiness? How does outfitting mentally ill people with military weaponry uphold constitutional equal protection? This is why wearing a black robe in a courtroom does not qualify one to set military standards.  ~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/52881

by Thomas Gallatin:  The mainstream media does it again! On Friday, CNN reported that Donald Trump Jr. had received an email purporting to give him access to hacked DNC documents that WikiLeaks had obtained but had yet to make public. Ah ha! Another apparent smoking gun for the Leftmedia’s long-running Trump/Russian collusion narrative … except for one tiny little detail. CNN erroneously reported the date of the email to have been Sept. 4 rather than the actual date of Sept. 14, which meant the email was merely alerting Trump Jr. to the already-public WikiLeaks document dump; it wasn’t an inside collusion job. CNN was later forced to admit its error after both The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal noted the mistaken date. Is it any wonder that the vast majority of America doesn’t trust the mainstream media?

          Donald Trump took to Twitter Saturday to call out his favorite MSM whipping boy for dispensing more “fake news.” Trump tweeted, “Fake News CNN made a vicious and purposeful mistake yesterday. They were caught red handed, just like lonely Brian Ross at ABC News (who should be immediately fired for his ‘mistake’). Watch to see if @CNN fires those responsible, or was it just gross incompetence?” (Recall that ABC’s Ross likewise made a serious chronology error in his zeal to nail the president.) Trump continued, “CNN’s slogan is CNN, THE MOST TRUSTED NAME IN NEWS. Everyone knows this is not true, that this could, in fact, be a fraud on the American Public. There are many outlets that are far more trusted than Fake News CNN. Their slogan should be CNN, THE LEAST TRUSTED NAME IN NEWS!”
          The truth is that CNN stepped right into this mess. Its Trump Derangement Syndrome has so affected the news agency that it has become blinded to its own bias. The subjective and absolutely unsubstantiated belief that Trump must have cheated to win the election hampers much of the MSM’s ability to objectively and faithful report the news. Until journalists understand that their job is not to form public opinion but merely to report events, the problem of bias and blinders will continue.  
~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/52861