Working On Capitol Hill

WORKING ON THE HILL: They Made The Transition From Being Staffers To Members Of Congress

Excellent story today on The Washington Examiner by Naoimi Lim on former congressional staff members who went back home, ran for Congress and won. There are also some former Members who came back as staffers.

Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), former chief of staff to Sen. John Cornyn

“At a personal level, going from staff to member, the hardest thing is to not staff yourself. I drive my staff crazy because I expect certain things. That’s the hardest part: try to just turn the keys over to that and just go do my job,” Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) told Lim.

Rep. Rob Woodall (R-Ga.), former press secretary for Rep. John Linder.

Roy was Sen. John Cornyn’s chief of staff before returning to the Lone Star State and winning the House seat previously occupied by Rep. Lamar Smith for many years. He and other Members who have made similar moves have a lot to say about the unexpected challenges with which they found themselves dealing.

“As a staffer, you fight to defend your member, you only work for one person, and you’re fighting to protect and serve that one person. As a member of Congress, you have 700,000 bosses back home that you’re fighting to protect,” Rep. Rob Woodall (R-Ga.) told Lim. He was press secretary for then-Rep. John Linder (R-Ga.).

Definitely want to read this if you are now or have ever before thought about seeking to become a Member of Congress after serving on the staff of a senator, representative or congressional committee.

THINK ABOUT THIS: You Are A ‘Poiema’ (That’s A Great Thing To Be, By The Way!)

There is a passage in the New Testament that is among my favorite in the entire Bible and that’s saying something, considering that the most widely read literature in all history is more than 1,000 pages in length and includes 66 discrete books written by about 40 people over a period of thousands of years.

The passage is Ephesians 2:8-10. Ephesians was written by Paul to a church in Ephesus, in present-day Turkey, where he had invested three years of his life leading and teaching the church he planted there:

Pages in the New Testament book of Ephesians.

“For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.” Continue reading “THINK ABOUT THIS: You Are A ‘Poiema’ (That’s A Great Thing To Be, By The Way!)”

HARD FACTS: Americans, And Most Everybody Else, Too, Are Becoming More Religious Today, Not Less

Two books every congressional aide should read, closely.

It is a commonplace in many of the most influential public policy precincts in the nation’s capitol these days — including among congressional aides working for senators, representatives and committees — that Christianity is in steep decline in America, that the country is fast becoming more secularized with every passing day.

That certainly appears to be the case, judging by many aspects of the elite culture and the intellectual, social media and political rhetoric it sanctions, but a totally opposite picture is easily seen once you get outside of Amtrak’s Acela Corridor and the LA-San Francisco-Seattle axis to examine the data that reveals the real America.

There we find a nation whose people are becoming more, not less, involved in their churches, small groups, Bible studies and caring ministries reaching out in their communities. Perhaps even more surprising is the fact that the same thing is true in their own ways of most of the rest of the people with whom we share this Earth.

This reality is made crystal clear by the data and analyses found in the two remarkable recently published books seen in the photo above. Continue reading “HARD FACTS: Americans, And Most Everybody Else, Too, Are Becoming More Religious Today, Not Less”

FIRST AMENDMENT: What’s With The Masked Guy In The ‘Science Uprising’ Videos?

Slowly but surely — very slowly, most of the time — the evidence for the reasonableness of Intelligent Design (ID) and illustrating major flaws in the case for evolution is beginning to get something approaching a serious look by serious people.

Science Uprising video series is from the Discovery Institute

Central to that development is the Seattle-based Discovery Institute, which among much else publishes EN, aka Evolution News & Science Today. EN describes itself as providing:

“Original reporting and analysis about evolution, neuroscience, bioethics, intelligent design and other science-related issues, including breaking news about scientific research. Continue reading “FIRST AMENDMENT: What’s With The Masked Guy In The ‘Science Uprising’ Videos?”

Artificial Intelligence Church Founder Removes God From His Driver-less Cars Vision

This Silicon Valley inspired congregation believes “machines” will soon take over.

If you work on technology issues in the transportation sector on Capitol Hill, you probably know the name, Anthony Levandowski, the guy who designed and built Google’s first driverless car, among other neat stuff.

Levandowski is such a believer in Artificial Intelligence (AI) that he literally went out and founded a church —Way of the Future Church —that in its statement of beliefs sounds, well, maybe a little whacko but definitely committed to bringing about an AI-driven paradise on earth:

“Way of the Future (WOTF) is about creating a peaceful and respectful transition of who is in charge of the planet from people to people + ‘machines.’

“Given that technology will ‘relatively soon’ be able to surpass human abilities, we want to help educate people about this exciting future and prepare a smooth transition.” Continue reading “Artificial Intelligence Church Founder Removes God From His Driver-less Cars Vision”

Even After Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Etc., There Are Still Moral Relativists?

If there are no absolute standards, justice is whatever anybody decides is ‘right for them’

Hitler killed at least six million Jews, plus millions of other people. Stalin starved millions of people living in “the breadbasket of Europe.” Estimates of how many millions were murdered by Mao range as high as 60 million.

And yet there are still many who insist there are no absolute moral standards, every culture has its own definitions of what is right and wrong and it’s all just a matter of what “works for you.”

The basic problem is that without an absolute standard of what constitutes good and what is evil, then on what basis can horrors like genocide, human slavery, poverty, hunger and all the rest be judged as evil? Continue reading “Even After Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Etc., There Are Still Moral Relativists?”

THINK ABOUT THIS: 19 Ways Christian Churches Make America A Better Place For Everybody

If you work as a policy adviser for a senator or representative, consider this passage from Baylor University Professor Byron Johnson’s foreword to Glenn Stanton’s important new book, “The Myth of the Dying Church,” available now on Amazon or a bookstore near you.

“Over the last several decades, thousands of studies published in peer-reviewed journals document that the practice of attending church is associated with making people happier, healthier, better spouses, more generous, more ethical, more tolerant and more civically engaged and responsible citizens.

Continue reading “THINK ABOUT THIS: 19 Ways Christian Churches Make America A Better Place For Everybody”