RUTHFULLY YOURS

If the Jill Stein recount were a car, it would be on fire in a ditch while being swarmed by angry snakes.

The failed Green Party candidate raised $7.2 million for presidential recounts that have so far increased Trump’s lead in Wisconsin and made a convincing argument why Detroit shouldn’t be allowed to participate in elections after the ballots on the books didn’t match voting machine printouts in 59% of the precincts. Stein may end up having to pay the entire cost of the Michigan recount and is struggling in Pennsylvania. Meanwhile 42% of Clinton voters believe the recount will show she won.

They’re going to be very disappointed.

The recount follies are just one of a number of clumsy efforts to deny Trump the White House.

There’s the faithless elector drive which has so far signed up one Republican faithless elector who immediately got a New York Times op-ed. That’s something McCain couldn’t even swing when he was running for president. Too bad the Electoral College has 538 members. And so far the tactic of harassing electors with phone calls, emails and death threats isn’t getting Hillary Clinton any closer to victory.

4.6 million people, who have never read the Constitution or anything longer than a Tweet, signed a Change.org petition titled, “Electoral College: Make Hillary Clinton President.” It’s easy to mock these desperate outbreaks of soreloserdom. But the larger agenda isn’t to find 50 million ballots in a dumpster to make Jill Stein president or to have a bunch of faithless electors take John Kasich to the White House.

It’s about delegitimizing Trump.

The left doesn’t begin with policy critiques of Republican presidential candidates. Instead it accuses them of being temperamentally unfit for the office and illegitimately elected. The anti-Trump playbook is just the anti-Bush playbook with a little dust on the cover and a few more page creases. Bush was a cowboy who stole the election. Trump is erratic and stole the election. The rest is just elaboration.

President-elect Donald Trump has chosen Linda McMahon, World Wrestling Entertainment’s (WWE) cofounder and former CEO, to head the Small Business Administration in his Cabinet, his transition team announced Wednesday.

“Our small businesses are the largest source of job creation in our country,” McMahon said in a statement. “I am honored to join the incredibly impressive economic team that President-elect Trump has assembled to ensure that we promote our country’s small businesses and help them grow and thrive.”

As administrator, McMahon will spearhead the federal government’s efforts to work with small businesses and entrepreneurs across all 50 states. The 68-year-old executive was a major Trump donor during the 2016 presidential campaign.

Along with her husband Vince, McMahon founded WWE in 1980 and gradually built the wrestling company into a publicly-traded, $1 billion brand. McMahon left the company in 2009 to enter politics, running unsuccessfully for a U.S. Senate seat in Connecticut in 2010 and 2012.

“Linda has a tremendous background and is widely recognized as one of the country’s top female executives advising businesses around the globe,” Trump said in a statement. “She helped grow WWE from a modest 13-person operation to a publicly traded global enterprise with more than 800 employees in offices worldwide. Linda is going to be a phenomenal leader and champion for small businesses and unleash America’s entrepreneurial spirit all across the country.”

Steve Chabot (R-OH), chairman of the House Small Business Committee, applauded McMahon’s nomination in a statement.

WASHINGTON—Donald Trump has picked retired Marine Gen. John Kelly to head the Department of Homeland Security in his new administration, people familiar with the decision said Wednesday.

The move would put a military commander who directly supervised U.S. operations in Central and South America in charge of one of the president-elect’s signature platforms: securing the border between Mexico and the U.S.

Gen. Kelly would become the second retired Marine general to join Mr. Trump’s cabinet. Both he and retired Marine Gen. James Mattis, the choice for defense secretary, must be confirmed by the Senate.

Mr. Trump also has tapped retired Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn as national security adviser. And he is considering whether to nominate Adm. Michael Rogers to be the director of national intelligence, and retired Army Gen. David Petraeus as secretary of state, although there are several candidates for that post.

In addition to Gen. Mattis and Gen. Kelly, the chairman of the Pentagon’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Joe Dunford, also is a Marine and will be in that post through most of 2017.

Gen. Kelly’s last job was as chief of the U.S. Southern Command, the division that oversees U.S. military activities south of Mexico, including Central America, South America and the Caribbean. As Southern Command chief, Gen. Kelly focused on homeland-security issues, because his post involved monitoring drug trafficking and other illicit smuggling activity south of the U.S.

Gen. Kelly’s views on immigration and tightening the border were likely to have appealed to Mr. Trump. Before retiring, Gen. Kelly testified that the border between Mexico and the U.S. was too loose. “The border is, if not wide open, then certainly open enough to get what the demand requires inside of the country,” he said during congressional testimony.

Mr. Trump has vowed to erect barriers between the U.S. and Mexico, despite controversy and criticism about the potential cost. As a presidential candidate, Mr. Trump traveled earlier this year to Mexico and met with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto. CONTINUE AT SITE

BETHESDA, Md.—National Cancer Institute researchers have produced an immune-cell therapy that for the first time successfully targeted a genetic mutation involved in causing tens of thousands of gastrointestinal cancers.

The research, published in the New England Journal of Medicine on Wednesday, focused on only one patient whose metastatic colon cancer was completely reversed. But that patient’s unusual story may hold promise for many others, doctors said. The therapy targets a gene mutation estimated to drive more than 50,000 new cases of GI cancers in the U.S. each year, including about 90% of often-lethal pancreatic cancers and 45% of all colorectal cancers.

The NCI laboratory is headed by famed immune-therapy researcher Steven A. Rosenberg, the chief of surgery at the cancer institute. He has previously published landmark findings showing that immune therapy has effectively treated many patients with metastatic melanoma, as well as those with blood cancers such as leukemia and lymphoma. The technique also proved successful in a bile-duct cancer case reported in 2014. NCI is part of the National Institutes of Health, which is based here.

Targeting the commonly-occurring family of cancer-driving genes known collectively as RAS has been a kind of Holy Grail in oncology. Mutations in the subset of RAS genes known as KRAS are believed to be a driving force in most pancreatic cancers, which have a bleak survival rate, and in nearly half of colorectal cancers, the No. 2 cancer killer in the U.S. after lung cancer. In this case, the targeted mutated gene is known as KRAS G12D and is the most common of the KRAS gene mutations.

“We report the regression of metastatic colon cancer,” wrote the researchers, headed by Dr. Rosenberg and postdoctoral fellow Dr. Eric Tran. The researchers calculated that tens of thousands of patients annually could potentially be eligible for this treatment.

Dr. Rosenberg said that while the therapy depends on each patient’s own immune cells, it is potentially transferrable to many other patients because of receptors in the patient’s immune cells that grab onto the cancer. These anti-KRAS receptors can be widely used as a treatment, he said.

“This is truly exciting,” said Axel Grothey, a Mayo Clinic oncologist. “At this point in time I consider the presented data as an intriguing proof of principle that cellular immune therapy can be used to target cancer cells with specific molecular alterations. That alone is important and could represent a game-changer in the future.”

“This is really important,” said Leonard Saltz, chief of gastrointestinal oncology at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York. “It isn’t changing treatment today, but it may change it tomorrow.” He expressed caution because this is just one case, but said, “This is a terrific translation of elegant science into a real benefit for this patient, so in that respect it’s very exciting.” CONTINUE AT SITE

WASHINGTON—President-elect Donald Trump has tapped Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, according to a transition official, choosing a harsh critic of the agency to take its helm.

As the chief legal officer of a big oil and natural-gas producing state, Mr. Pruitt, a Republican, has led legal fights against some of President Barack Obama’s most significant environmental rules.

Mr. Pruitt has touted his leadership role in fighting the EPA rule that cut power-plant carbon emissions, as well as an EPA measure that put more bodies of water under federal jurisdiction. Both of those rules have been temporarily blocked by federal courts as litigation proceeds.

In choosing a legal official to head his EPA, Mr. Trump could be signaling that legal action will be central to his plans to repeal a raft of regulations, something he promised on the campaign trail.

The Obama administration has issued an array of regulations, most originating at the EPA, aimed at cutting greenhouse-gas emissions, including a high-profile rule that would reduce carbon emissions at power plants. Mr. Trump has vowed to repeal that rule, called the Clean Power Plan, and a host of others related to climate change and other environmental issues.

The selection of Mr. Pruitt reflects a request by some on Mr. Trump’s transition team that his cabinet—currently heavy on close allies and rich business people—should also include state officials and others not closely associated with the president-elect.

Mr. Pruitt wasn’t immediately available for comment.

Mr. Pruitt has been a close ally of the oil and natural gas industry, whose influence in Oklahoma rivals its clout in even Texas. Fifteen percent of Oklahoma’s GDP comes from oil and natural gas, second most in the country after Alaska, according to Kevin Book, managing director of research firm ClearView Energy Partners LLC.

Oklahoma City is also home to Continental Resources, whose founder and CEO, Harold Hamm, is a top energy adviser to Mr. Trump, as well as an ally of Mr. Pruitt’s.

“He understands the regulatory stranglehold that the EPA has had on industry during the Obama administration,” Mr. Hamm said of Mr. Pruitt Wednesday. “I believe that he will work to unleash prosperity in America through the proper use of regulations and adhering to the rule of law.”

Mr. Pruitt has pushed back against a group of Democratic attorneys general who are investigating ExxonMobil Corp.’s handling of climate-change science in recent decades. Mr. Pruitt has indicated he questions the scientific consensus that human activity is helping raise the Earth’s temperature, though he has been less outspoken about it than some other candidates Mr. Trump was considering to head the EPA, such as former Texas environmental regulator Kathleen Hartnett White. CONTINUE AT SITE

For those of us who love our country – it is refreshing to hear someone of stature describe the US as a near miracle of great global good; such sentiments are not often spoken in the modern era of globalism and anti-American rhetoric. Thankfully there seems to be an emergence, a renewal perhaps, of interest in our nation’s birth, as evidenced by the best seller lists of non-fiction. Thank God……

Because…. this tempestuous election year I found myself withdrawing into a sort of intellectual womb – trying to satisfy a need for political inspiration or at least connecting with folks who forged the greatest nation in the modern world – our nation. Perhaps you, too, found the need to go back in time to when it all started. And then trying to make sense of how we could get so far from the Framers’ intentions for the republic. So like Ben and Jerry’s for the brain, I’ve been binging on the writings of our founding fathers. Books like The Quartet, The Fever of 1721, Washington’s Secret Six, The Jefferson Bible, Hamilton, Faiths of our Fathers, The Federalist Papers, and similar.

Speaking of which….have you ever read the Silence Dogood letters? If not, may I suggest going online and reading those insightful missives that appeared in James Franklin’s New England Courant? Beyond being good literature, they take political satire and moral commentary to a level not readily viewed in early 18th Century America. That a largely self taught adolescent wrote them, all the while quoting some of the great philosophers (such as Cato) in their native language ought to impress, even if that young man happened to be Benjamin Franklin. Consider our nation was forged by adolescents of intellect and courage – Benjamin Tallmadge, Nathan Hale, Alexander Hamilton, and so many others – all of whom not only would be familiar with, they would be conversant about Cato, Voltaire, Cicero, Plato, Virgil, Epictetus, and similar. On the other hand, if I asked the average adolescent who Cato was, if I didn’t get a blank stare, the answer would likely be the Green Hornet’s side kick. And as for quoting, let alone reading Latin or Greek – unless the child is a prodigy or fortunate to attend a private school or exceptional public school – good luck with that. Yet nearly 300 years ago one might argue the average person was far more literate, even if not as well educated, as our average citizen.

More is the pity, because the Framers designed our nation around the notion of the citizen statesmen, and that the foundation of our country would be an engaged citizenry. I think if they listened to the average citizen today, most of the founding fathers and mothers might want to rise from the grave just so they could die all over again.

The progressive Left’s opposition to President-elect Donald Trump’s nomination of Ben Carson to be the next Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is predictably condescending, biased and hypocritical. For example, out-of-touch Democratic House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi called Carson a “disconcerting and disturbingly unqualified choice.” Democratic Senate Minority Leader-in-waiting Chuck Schumer said he had “serious concerns about Dr. Carson’s lack of expertise and experience in dealing with housing issues. Someone who is as anti-government as him is a strange fit for housing secretary, to say the least.”

It is incredible how progressives such as Pelosi and Schumer, neither of whom experienced real poverty first hand, are ready to demean Ben Carson, who grew up in abject poverty. They cannot deal with the fact that an incredibly accomplished African-American, who does not buy into the failed progressive ideology of big government social engineering, is poised to take over the leadership of a failing government bureaucracy that would rather dabble in social engineering than get its own house in order. Ben Carson simply does not fit the progressive image of how an African-American should think and act.

“I think the way that I’m treated, you know, by the left is racism,” Ben Carson has said. “Because they assume because you’re black, you have to think a certain way. And if you don’t think that way, you’re ‘Uncle Tom,’ you’re worthy of every horrible epithet they can come up with,” he added.

Ben Carson’s credentials for reforming the bloated, mismanaged Department of Housing and Urban Development come from his real life experience. “I grew up in Detroit, and I grew up in Boston. In Boston, we lived in the ghetto. There were a lot of violent episodes there. There were rats, there were roaches. It was dire poverty,” Carson said.

Carson’s opposition to government-imposed dependency is not based on some abstract conservative theory. He is not anti-government per se, but rejects the vicious circle of the dependency culture that progressive big government policies have fostered. “I’m interested in getting rid of dependency, and I want us to find a way to allow people to excel in our society, and as more and more people hear that message, they will recognize who is truly on their side and who is trying to keep them suppressed and cultivate their votes,” Carson said in a speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference in 2015.

Carson’s views are informed by what he saw first-hand growing up, including his own mother’s willingness to work at multiple jobs while raising her children as a single mother. She refused to simply rely on government handouts and instilled her work ethic in Ben Carson himself, which helped him escape the black hole of dependency. As a friend of Carson’s tweeted on Monday, “Dr. Carson’s mother worked 3 jobs at a time to keep them out of public housing, but he grew up around many who utilized housing programs.”

HUD is a failing government bureaucracy, which needs the kind of thorough overhaul that Ben Carson has the analytical skills to deliver, and the life experience to draw upon. He will not be trapped inside the bubble of conventional bureaucratic thinking that has led to gross financial mismanagement of HUD’s $50 billion annual budget during President Obama’s time in office, as well as poor performance. The fact that this renowned neurosurgeon, now retired, is willing to enter public service and bring a fresh outsider’s perspective to an entrenched government bureaucracy is to be lauded, not ridiculed.

During the tenure of the current HUD Secretary, Julián Castro, HUD’s own Office of Inspector General identified in its audit for fiscal years 2016 and 2015 eleven “material weaknesses,” seven “significant deficiencies” in internal controls, and five instances of “noncompliance” with applicable laws and regulations. “Overall, we determined that HUD’s financial management governance remained ineffective,” the Inspector General’s audit report concluded.

HUD’s management ignored over 60 prior recommendations on financial management presented by the Inspector General since 2012. Julián Castro became HUD Secretary in mid-2014, doing nothing since that time to fix the systemic problems at HUD. As Curtis Kalin, spokesman for Citizens Against Government Waste said to the Daily Caller News Foundation, “HUD’s failure to properly maintain basic financial documents calls into question the department’s commitment to safeguarding taxpayer dollars.”