Boehner sets House leadership vote for Oct. 29, Chaffetz gets feisty

Retiring House Speaker John Boehner said Monday that the vote for the next speaker would be held Oct. 29 and balloting for all other positions would be delayed until after that in light of the fact Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., is among the top candidates to succeed him.
In other words, no decision on who might replace McCarthy will be made until after it’s known if he's successful in his campaign to become the next speaker, especially in light of what appears to be a strong challenge from firebrand Utah Rep. Jason Chaffetz, who officially announced his bid on “Fox News Sunday.”
Chaffetz made his bid after McCarthy’s comments last week about the special Benghazi Committee that Democrats say proved the panel was a political front created to pummel the presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton.
Over the past two days, Chaffetz has heightened his rhetoric about why he wants the House’s top post and about being a better candidate than McCarthy.
“There will be a realization that we had better put up a fresh face,” Chaffetz told Fox News on Monday.
To win, McCarthy, Chaffetz and Florida GOP Rep. Dan Webster, the third party challenger, will need 218 of the 246 Republican House votes.
However, the roughly two dozen of the House’s most conservative members who were largely behind Boehner’s Sept. 25 resignation, are not expected to fully support a member of Boehner’s leadership team, like McCarthy.
Chaffetz, chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, on Sunday said McCarthy had a “math problem.”
On Monday, he said McCarthy's vote count is “dwindling … not growing.”
Chaffetz also suggested he was a better communicator than McCarthy.
“I'm very Margaret Thatcher that way,” he said. “We need to win the vote in the public first. … I didn't wake up and say, ‘Yeah, this was going to be cool.’ ”
Boehner said he made his decisions after consulting with colleagues and that the new speaker will establish the date for these additional leadership elections.
“This new process will ensure House Republicans have a strong, unified team to lead our conference and focus on the American people’s priorities,” he said.

Hillary Clinton attacks Benghazi committee in new TV ad

Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton used House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy's words against the House Select Committee on Benghazi in a new 30-second TV advertisement. 
The 30-second commercial, entitled "Admit", is part of a new national cable TV ad buy that starts Tuesday. The ad features McCarthy telling Fox News' Sean Hannity in an interview last week, "Everybody thought Hillary Clinton was unbeatable, right? But we put together a Benghazi special committee, a select committee. What are her [poll] numbers today?"
After McCarthy's remarks, a voiceover narration says, "The Republicans have spent millions attacking Hillary because she’s fighting for everything they oppose ... from affordable health care ... to equal pay, she’ll never stop fighting for you and the Republicans know it."
Emily Schillinger, a spokeswoman for House Speaker John Boehner said in response to the ad, "This is a classic Clinton attempt to distract from her record of putting classified information at risk and jeopardizing our national security, all of which the FBI is investigating."
McCarthy, who has put himself forward to replace the departing Boehner as Speaker, later backed off his initial remarks, saying he "never meant to imply" the Benghazi committee's investigation was politically motivated.
Earlier Monday, Clinton said that if she were president, she would have done everything in her power to shut down the investigation.
"Look at the situation they chose to exploit, to go after me for political reasons: the death of four Americans in Benghazi," Clinton told NBC's "Today" in an interview before a town hall appearance in New Hampshire. "This committee was set up, as they have admitted, for the purpose of making a partisan, political issue out of the deaths of four Americans."
Clinton has previously stopped short of joining some of her fellow Democrats in calling for the committee to be disbanded. She is scheduled to testify before the committee on Oct. 22. She told NBC she was looking forward to her appearance "to explain everything we've done, everything that I asked to happen."
Clinton's comments came as Democrats on the Benghazi panel released a partial transcript of a closed-door interview with Clinton's former chief of staff, Cheryl Mills, in response to what they called selective and inaccurate Republican leaks.
Release of the transcript is "the only way to adequately correct the public record," the Democrats said in a letter to the panel's chairman, Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C. They said they would release the full transcript in five days, in order to give Gowdy time to identify any specific information in the transcript he believes should be withheld from the American people.
A spokesman for Gowdy said the committee has not released transcripts from witness interviews in order to "gather all facts" and avoid tainting the recollections of future witnesses.
"By selectively leaking" parts of the transcript from Mills' daylong interview last month, "Democrats have shown their nakedly political motivation, willingness to violate the letter and spirit of House rules and their desire to defend Secretary Clinton without regard for the integrity of the investigation," Gowdy's spokesman, Jamal Ware, said.

Workers remove Ten Commandments monument from Oklahoma Capitol grounds

Workers began removing a Ten Commandments monument from the grounds of the Oklahoma Capitol late Monday in accordance with a court order.
The Daily Oklahoman reported that the six-foot high monument would be reinstalled outside the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs, a conservative think tank.
A contractor hired by the state began removing the monument shortly after 10:30 p.m. local time The works comes after the Oklahoma Supreme Court's decision in June that the display violates a state constitutional prohibition on the use of public property to support "any sect, church, denomination or system of religion."
The state is paying the contractor about $4,700 to remove the monument and take it to the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs' offices a few blocks away, Office of Management and Enterprise Services spokesman John Estus told the Associated Press.
The Daily Oklahoman reported that the private contractor was hired to move the 4,800-pound monument out of concern that state workers could not safely do the job without damaging or destroying it.
The Oklahoma Highway Patrol had increased security around the monument earlier Monday, and barriers were erected to keep visitors from getting close to it. Estus said the decision to remove the monument under the cover of darkness was made to avoid disturbing workers at the Capitol and to keep protesters from demonstrating while heavy equipment was being used to detach the two-ton monument from its base.
"We wanted it to be done as quickly and efficiently as possible, and doing it at night gave us the best opportunity to do that," Estus said. "The Highway Patrol was also very concerned that having it in the middle of the day could lead to having demonstrations of some kind."
Originally authorized by the Republican-controlled Legislature in 2009, the privately funded monument has been a lightning rod for controversy since it was erected in 2012, prompting a lawsuit from Bruce Prescott, a Baptist minister from Norman who complained it violated the state constitution.
"Frankly, I'm glad we finally got the governor and attorney general to agree to let the monument be moved to private property, which is where I believe it's most appropriate," Prescott said Monday. "I'm not opposed to the Ten Commandments. The first sermon I ever preached was on the Ten Commandments. I'm just opposed to it being on public property."
Its placement at the Capitol prompted requests from several groups to have their own monuments installed, including a satanic church in New York that wanted to erect a 7-foot-tall statue that depicts Satan as Baphomet, a goat-headed figure with horns, wings and a long beard. A Hindu leader in Nevada, an animal rights group and the satirical Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster also made requests.
The original monument was smashed into pieces last year when someone drove a car across the Capitol lawn and crashed into it. A 29-year-old man who was arrested the next day was admitted to a hospital for mental health treatment, and formal charges were never filed. A new monument was erected in January.
Former state Rep. Mike Reynolds, a Republican who voted to authorize the monument, was one of just a handful of supporters who watched as the monument was removed Monday night.
"This is a historical event," Reynolds said. "Now we know we have to change the Constitution. It would be good to get rid of some of the Supreme Court justices, too."
Several conservative legislators have promised to introduce a resolution when the Legislature convenes in February to send to a public vote an amendment that would remove the article of the constitution that prevents the use of public money or property for religious purposes.

Biden Cartoon

With lead dipping in early states, Trump touts overall dominance, unconventional foreign policy

Donald Trump, front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination, on Sunday steam-rolled a new poll showing his lead slipping in early-voting states, while touting his overall lead and his own brand of foreign policy.
Trump holds a 5-point lead in Iowa and New Hampshire among Republican voters, according to a Wall Street Journal/NBC News/Marist poll released Sunday.
However, his 24-percent support in first-in-the-nation Iowa among Republican caucus-goers is five percentage points less than it was last month. And his 21-percent support among New Hampshire Republicans is down from 28 percent.
“I'm winning everything,” Trump told ABC’s “This Week,” adding that a new poll in Florida shows he’s leading GOP primary rivals Jeb Bush, the state’s former governor, and Marco Rubio, a Florida senator.
“It’s been amazing. Texas, winning. Winning everything. Winning every state. Winning every national poll and big lead,” the provocative, billionaire businessman continued.
Trump said in a pre-taped interview for NBC’s “Meet the Press” that he’s “leading by a lot in every poll” including those in Texas, North Carolina and South Carolina.
He also continued to put forth his unconventional approach to solving Middle East problems after suggesting last week that Russia, now overtly launching airstrikes in Syria, will destroy Islamic State fighters in that country.
“This is usually not me talking because I’m very proactive. I’d sit back and see what’s going on,” Trump told NBC, arguing the mix of terror groups, supporters for the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad and rebel forces is now too complicated to decipher.
When pressed during the NBC interview, Trump suggested that the world would be better off had dictators Muammar Qaddafi and Saddam Hussein not been removed from Libya and Iraq, respectively.
“Of course it would be,” said Trump, calling Libya “a disaster” and Iraq “a mess.”
In sharp contrast to his repeated criticism of President Obama’s foreign policy, Trump appeared Sunday to agree with the president that Russian President Vladimir Putin is making a mistake by getting increasingly involved in Syria.
“He’ll get bogged down,” Trump said, arguing that the former Soviet Union’s involvement in Afghanistan sent the communist nation into bankruptcy.
On Friday, Obama predicted Putin’s heightened involvement would get Russia stuck in a "quagmire."
However, Obama suggested he was willing to work with Putin, while Trump said, “I don’t trust him at all.”

Biden suggests GOP and other presidential candidates are 'homophobes'

Vice President Joe Biden, who is considering a 2016 presidential run, on Saturday pledged his full support for gay and transgender equality while suggesting Republican and other White House candidates are “homophobes.”
Speaking at the Human Rights Campaign’s annual gala in Washington, Biden said gays and lesbians shouldn’t fear Americans trying to undo gay marriage and other advances because the country has moved beyond homophobia.
"There's homophobes still left,” he continued to laughter and applause, in his keynote address. “Most of them are running for president, I think."
His speech followed a morning address by front-running Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton who warned hundreds of activists and others in attendance about the potential danger of electing Ben Carson or other GOP candidates.
“We’re going to face some ridiculousness especially from our friends in the GOP,” she said. “In fact it’s already begun. Ben Carson says that marriage equality is what caused the fall of the Roman Empire.”
She also said Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, another 2016 GOP candidate, “slammed a political opponent for marching in a (gay) pride parade.”
The so-called LGBT community and the Human Rights Campaign will be an important voting bloc in the 2016 White House race, particularly in the Democratic primary.
The group contributed roughly $1.17 million in the 2014 election cycle, mostly to the Democratic Party and its candidates, committees and leadership PACs and to Democratic-leaning outside spending groups, according to OpenSecrets.org.
“If any one of them heaven forbid were ever to be elected president, they will do their best to threaten you and their families. Every single Republican candidate for president is against marriage equality,” said Clinton, who vows to make gay rights a key part of her presidency.
Her statements mark a clear political evolution, considering she opposed same-sex marriage for more than two decades in public life as first lady, senator and presidential candidate.
As recently as this year, Clinton said she personally supported gay marriage but that the issue was best left for states to decide -- a position held by most of the Republican presidential field.
Since then, she has placed equal rights at the forefront of her campaign, in part a reflection of the growing political and financial strength of the gay community in Democratic politics.
Biden also threw his unequivocal support behind letting transgender people serve openly in the U.S. military, as the Obama administration considers whether and when to lift the longstanding ban.
His declaration goes further than anything the Obama administration has said before, evoking memories of when Biden outpaced President Obama in endorsing gay marriage. Although the White House says Obama supports a Pentagon review aimed at ending the transgender ban, neither Obama nor the military has said definitively that the policy will be changed.
Biden also declared transgender rights to be "the civil rights issue of our time."
He reportedly could make his decision by this week about whether to run.
Transgender rights were a commanding focus at the group's gathering this year.
With gay marriage now law of the land nationwide, many gay rights activists have turned their attention to transgender issues, which have burst into the public spotlight only recently.
Biden won praise for endorsing gay marriage in 2012 ahead of Obama and Clinton, becoming the highest elected official to support the politically charged issue.
Vermont Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders, another Democratic candidate, is also aggressively courting LGBT voters' support and working.
Clinton had been the Human Rights Campaign's first choice to keynote the dinner, but she turned it down when she was booked on "Saturday Night Live" for the same evening. The group also asked Obama to speak, then invited Biden when Obama was unavailable.
Although Biden has enjoyed strong support from gay groups, many prominent gay Democrats have committed to Clinton, who drew loud cheers whenever her face appeared in videos played before Biden's speech.

Asian-American rock band fights to trademark 'disparaging' name

                                           Politically Correct Changing of America.

An Asian-American rock band called The Slants asked a federal appeals court last week to trademark its name even though the government says it disparages Asians.
The group argued before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit Friday that it has a First Amendment right to trademark the name because offensive speech or ethnic slurs cannot be censored by the government, Reuters reported. The case is being watched closely because it could affect an appeal brought by the NFL’s Washington Redskins after its trademarks were canceled by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on the grounds that the team’s name disparaged Native Americans.
The Slants frontman Simon Tam told Reuters that while most people today believe “Redskins” is offensive, few Asian Americans believe “Slants” is. He said the band, which plays "Chinatown" dance rock, named itself The Slants as a way to reclaim the racial slur.
The band sued after they tried to register the name with the patent agency and it was rejected. Federal law prohibits trademarks which may be considered disparaging.
Their appeal was dismissed by a three-judge appellate panel, leading to a rare “en banc” review by the circuit’s full slate of 12 judges.
During Friday’s oral arguments, the judges appeared evenly divided, with several expressing skepticism of the patent office’s powers to determine what is offensive, Reuters reported.
Judge Kimberly Moore asked what would happen if the government started rejecting copyrights for controversial art or other expressive works as it is doing with trademarks.
Would there be “no more porn? No more crucifixes in urine?” she asked alluding to a controversial photo many Christians found offensive.
The band’s lawyer Ronald Coleman told the judges the First Amendment “requires all speech, no matter how offensive, not be restricted or gate-kept in any way,” according to Reuters.
Justice Department attorney Daniel Terry countered that the law governing trademark registrations does not violate the First Amendment, Reuters said. Its purpose is not “to help people to make a political statement or prevent people from making political statements,” he said.

Hillary Clinton to push new gun control proposals, executive action expanding background checks

Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton will propose new gun control measures, including a vow to employ executive action to expand background checks for firearms sellers at gun shows and online.
Clinton will unveil her plans Monday during a campaign swing through New Hampshire. Her campaign says her proposals include a repeal of legislation shielding gun manufacturers, distributors and dealers from most liability suits, even in the case of mass shootings like the one that killed nine students and teachers at a community college on Thursday.

The proposals mark an attempt by Clinton to make up ground among the liberal wing of the Democratic party against her closest rival, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. While Sanders has wooed the Democratic base with his liberal positions on issues like income inequality and college debt, he's struggled to defend a more mixed record on gun legislation--a reflection, he says, of his rural, gun-friendly home-state. Sanders backed all the Democratic gun bills brought up in Congress after the Sandy Hook shooting in 2012. But in 1993, he voted against the landmark Brady handgun bill, which imposed a five-day waiting period for gun purchasers, and he backed the 2005 legislation granting legal immunity to many in the gun industry.
Sanders now says he supports banning assault weapons and closing the so-called "gun show loophole" that exempts private, unlicensed gun sales from background checks.
Clinton, meanwhile, has made strict gun laws a centerpiece of her presidential campaign. Clinton has emerged as one of the fiercest proponents of tougher gun control after a series of shootings over the past several months has reignited debate over gun laws on the presidential campaign

"What is wrong with us, that we cannot stand up to the NRA and the gun lobby, and the gun manufacturers they represent?" Clinton said on Friday in Florida. "This is not just tragic. We don't just need to pray for people. We need to act and we need to build a movement. It's infuriating."
Clinton also used the event to slam Republican lawmakers, who, she said, "refuse to do anything" about mass shootings.
"We need to make every politician who sides with [the NRA] to look in the eyes of parents whose kids have been murdered," she said. "The GOP counts on a dedicated group that scares politicians and says 'We will vote against you' ... So we will take them on. We took them on in 90s and we will do again."

The proposals mark an attempt by Clinton to make up ground among the liberal wing of the Democratic party against her closest rival, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. While Sanders has wooed the Democratic base with his liberal positions on issues like income inequality and college debt, he's struggled to defend a more mixed record on gun legislation--a reflection, he says, of his rural, gun-friendly home-state. Sanders backed all the Democratic gun bills brought up in Congress after the Sandy Hook shooting in 2012. But in 1993, he voted against the landmark Brady handgun bill, which imposed a five-day waiting period for gun purchasers, and he backed the 2005 legislation granting legal immunity to many in the gun industry.
Sanders now says he supports banning assault weapons and closing the so-called "gun show loophole" that exempts private, unlicensed gun sales from background checks.
Clinton, meanwhile, has made strict gun laws a centerpiece of her presidential campaign. Clinton has emerged as one of the fiercest proponents of tougher gun control after a series of shootings over the past several months has reignited debate over gun laws on the presidential campaign