A state judge in Oklahoma has refused to dismiss a lawsuit which alleges that a local school board turned off a public microphone because a man used “a Biblical worldview” to frame his comments.
Back in April, Brice Chaffin spoke at a public school board meeting in Stillwater, Oklahoma, about 65 miles north of Oklahoma City and the home of Oklahoma State University. Though the board had not planned to discuss rules related to bathroom use at schools, many in the audience, including Chaffin, elected to speak about the topic nonetheless.
Many residents wanted to weigh in on the issue since the board had recently updated its anti-discrimination policy to include “gender identity,” which meant that students could use the bathroom which corresponds to their “gender [identities],” rather than their biological sexes.
Chaffin began his comments by arguing for the reality of God and the necessity of accepting Jesus. When board members then asked Chaffin to speak about the bathroom topic at hand, Chaffin hinted at his opposition to “gender identity” as a concept and the related bathroom issue by referencing the Bible.
“So, I talked about physical laws,” Chaffin said. “We have spiritual laws. We also have natural laws. Natural law, for instance, one natural law is that on the day God created man, He made him in the likeness of God. He created them male and female. So, we have males and females.”
Chaffin then began to quote from the first chapter of the New Testament book Romans, a chapter often cited to denounce homosexuality.
At that point, school board members interjected once again and asked Chaffin to stay on topic. When he continued to read from Romans, the board silenced the microphone, and Chaffin’s words became inaudible. Security then removed Chaffin from the meeting.
After the meeting, Chaffin, with the help of attorney Maria Seidler, filed a lawsuit against Stillwater Public Schools, members of the Stillwater school board, and Gay Washington, who was acting superintendent at the time.
Jenni White, president of the group Reclaim Oklahoma Parent Empowerment (ROPE), which is also listed as a plaintiff, issued a statement in support of the suit.
“Any member of the taxpaying community has the right to speak at a school board meeting,” White wrote. “If you watch the video, it was clear that Mr. Chaffin was removed because he was predicating his comments on a Biblical worldview. According to the First Amendment our speech is protected from interference by the government and a school board is a governmental entity.”
“I’d just like the school boards to uphold the Constitution as they’re required to pledge upon taking office. Free speech must include religious speech,” White added.
Though the judge dismissed the charges against the school board as a whole, the judge upheld the suit against the district and each individual board member. A pretrial hearing has been scheduled for November. Chaffin and Seidler are not seeking monetary damages from the defendants, but a public apology and remittance for attorney’s fees.
State legislators have since changed state law to restrict students to using the bathroom which is in accords with their biological sex.
Imagine a doctor refusing to treat a patient until he stops engaging in orgies that put him at risk of contracting monkeypox. Well, he would be following the science and data a lot more than those refusing service to those who don’t get the shots or wear masks, but unlike in the latter cases, that doctor would be out of a job and up to his neck in civil rights lawsuits. The time has come to even the score on discrimination and human rights.
Rayne Barton of Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania, doesn’t have the luxury of avoiding the doctor. With diabetes, chronic heart problems, kidney disease, and spinal stenosis, Barton needs to constantly see doctors and get prescriptions refilled. Yet, as the Epoch Times reports, she has been banned from all Penn Medicine facilities since Feb. 17, 2022, because of mask disputes. On July 22, Hypertension and Kidney Specialists, an independent doctor’s office in Lancaster, called the police on her after she was told to leave the premises during a mask dispute. She was forced to ride in the back of a police car with her hands behind her back, despite her painful back condition.
How is this allowed to happen in America? How can a policy as inhumane, immoral, and illogical as covering one’s breathing holes be allowed to stand after being repudiated for two and a half years? How is free breathing not a basic human right, especially for those with disabilities, or at least covered by the Americans with Disabilities Act and anti-discrimination law? Companies often spend millions of dollars complying with ADA requirements for customers, yet here they can discriminate against trauma victims when it costs them nothing and when they are free to wear masks themselves if they believe they work, a proposition refuted by the very reality of the virus still spreading unrestrained in all of the most masked places in the world.
Most Americans are no longer affected by the masks because the powers at be smartly lifted the mandates for the majority of people headed into the election. But for people affected the most – those with disabilities needing to see the doctor often – it is still a devastating human rights violation. And unless we extirpate this inhumane treatment from our society, it will be reinstated on all of us intermittently.
The Epoch Times reports that Barton is incapable of placing a mask over her face because she is a victim of childhood trauma. She was attacked by a group of boys as a kid and had dirt stuffed down her mouth, which is why she can’t cover her mouth to this day without it triggering a panic attack. Even for medical interventions that have scientific rationale (and don’t have the option of others utilizing it, as does mask-wearing), we always make exceptions for those with disabilities. What has become of us as human beings that we are still engaging in this sort of behavior long after the “my mask protects you but not me” absurdity has been thoroughly debunked?
The time has come to codify medical discrimination into civil rights and ensure that nobody can ever be denied treatment on account of not getting a shot or wearing a mask. There is never a scientific or moral rationale for such a requirement, and it is clear that it is all promoted through the misinformation propagated by the federal government. Masking only became a thing because of government intervention; it therefore must be uprooted with a display of state government power.
The slate is not clean when it comes to the private sector and discrimination law, especially in something like medical treatment, which is often (especially in a hospital) designated as a public accommodation. They cannot discriminate against people even when their behaviors are proven to cause their ailments. Can hospitals turn away the recurring patients who are on their third drug overdose in as many months? Can they refuse to treat the gunshot victim who himself had been involved in multiple gang shootings? Can they deny treatment for monkeypox if the patient attended a super-spreader orgy that is almost exclusively responsible for the spread of the virus? Until they can, there is no moral or scientific rational for allowing doctors to deny organ transplants to people without shots or care for people who don’t cover their human breathing holes.
Emerging from the past two years of COVID fascism without instituting major legal and political protections against abuse of bodily autonomy would be like not addressing box cutters on planes after 9/11. Yet few Republicans care to act. They have a pre-March 2020 mindset about what we face in government, the medical cartel, and the globalist entities like the World Economic Forum and the WHO, all manipulated by China in the background. Policymakers are slyly choosing to subject only medical facilities and the military to continued regulations so as not to enrage the majority of the electorate, but make no mistake, those people are worth fighting for. Also, we will all continue to suffer from assaults on freedom if we don’t push for new civil rights concerning medical freedom. Such a plan would include:
Updating the Civil Rights Act of 1964, so that employers, retailers, hospitals, schools, and others would not be able to discriminate against individuals based on refusal to wear a mask or get a shot, just like they can’t discriminate based on sex, race, or religion. We the Patriots USA has delivered a petition to do just that to all the members of Congress. Red states with supermajorities could easily do this on the state level next session.
Subject anyone who forces someone to wear a mask or get a shot to liability for damage from masks or shots.
Threaten the nonprofit status of any hospital that engages in such discrimination.
Pass a patient bill of rights.
Pass a digital health privacy bill of rights.
Remember, none of these policies organically emerged from the free market. They were all ultimately mandated or manipulated by the federal government. States must fight power with power. If we had a true free market, even a minority of doctors who don’t believe in masks would be able to advertise and place themselves on a list for people like Barton to use. But they would be targeted for loss of board certification or even state medical licenses.
It is shocking that even as the Biden administration declares a second public health emergency on top of COVID, Republicans have not even made reversal of these policies a centerpiece of their campaign platforms. Let us not forget the admonition of founder John Dickinson: “All artful rulers, who strive to extend their own power beyond its just limits, endeavor to give to their attempts, as much semblance of legality as possible. Those who succeed them may venture to go a little farther; for each new encroachment will be strengthened by a former.” COVID fascism must be destroyed – root and branch – if we are to have a shot at precluding the next wave of encroachments on our bodies.
Patrick Collins, CEO of TheGunFood.com, says he’s “lost” thousands of dollars worth of ammunition. Why? Because customers’ orders don’t always seem to make it to their doors — especially when delivering with UPS. In fact, he says out of 18,000 rounds of ammunition shipped through UPS, only a third were actually delivered. That’s a lot of ammo to go missing. So, where is it?
Collins joined Glenn Beck on the radio program to detail the issue, the lengths his company has gone to work with the delivery service, and the lack of detailed response or explanation from UPS. Collins said UPS blames the packaging even though his company has always “met and exceeded” all available packaging protocols.
“I have pictures of how the packages are packed (and) within the packages,” he explained. “And I have all of that information. In fact, we changed our protocol here at TheGunFood.com to have our drivers, when they drop off the packages at the centers, they have to actually take a picture of it on the conveyor belt when UPS takes possession of our packages.”
Collins also told Glenn his company isn’t the only one to have ammunition go missing during delivery. “I know quite a few other folks, that have had well over $300,000 of ammunition gone missing. And it’s really changed the way we have to do our business,” he said.
“The Glenn Beck Program” reached out to UPS to ask why ammunition and gun sellers might be having these issues, but the shipping company didn’t exactly answer the question.
“Dear Glenn Beck Program … Regarding your question about shipping ammunition, as a common carrier, UPS transports ammunition that constitutes cartridges and small arms as defined in federal regulations. UPS has safety protocols to help ensure the safe transport of ammunition in our network. We work with our customers to address their concerns including those with packaging. You can find out more about how to ship your ammunition on UPS.com,” Glenn read.
“To [UPS], it’s just a write-off. However, it’s becoming a very expensive write-off. I would like to thank you for bringing a lot of attention to this because it really is a big deal,” Collins said to Glenn. “It impacts people on multiple levels, more than your average citizen would think. Imagine if the police department doesn’t receive the ammunition that they need to serve their civic duties.”
“Well, imagine if you got sloppy with ammunition and you were just kind of losing some from time to time. What would they accuse you of?” Glenn replied. “There’s no excuse. It’s either theft from their own employees or it is part of a hidden policy that is disrupting the flow of ammunition … and their stonewalling here bothers me, because there should be an answer. What happened to it?”
Watch the video clip below to hear more from Glenn. Can’t watch? Download the podcast here.
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into cartoons that have been popular all over the country, in various news outlets including “Fox News”, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and President Donald Trump.
A 25-year-old biological male who identifies as a woman was forced to leave a Texas cheerleading camp after allegedly choking a female teammate.
The trans-identified cheerleader, Averie Chanel Medlock, was kicked out of the camp held at Ranger College last month in Eastland County, Texas. Police responded to the campus on July 21 following reports of a dispute among members of the cheer team, according to Fox News.
A since-deleted Facebook post alleged that a teammate said Medlock was a “man with a penis” and that a man should not be on the cheerleading team.
“Well guys I’m officially retired as a cheerleader as of last night at 5:30 AM. A girl on the team was being very disrespectful and told me I am a MAN with a PENIS and that [guys] should not be on the team,” Medlock wrote.
“I stood up for myself and she called her mom and dad because she was scared because I [stood] up for myself. Her father said ‘she still has testosterone and a penis and I will kill anyone who comes after my daughter.'”
The father later identified himself as Mike Jones, and posted a comment on Facebook addressed to Medlock, claiming that at “no time did I ever say anything about your race or your gender.”
“I ask you what you would have done when receiving a phone call at 1 o’clock in the morning from your daughter stating they had locked themselves in the room with other girls,” Jones wrote.
In response, Medlock posted a video to Facebook with a caption reading, “This is video evidence that I did not assault her” and urged Jones to “get [his] facts straight.”
Medlock, who was kicked out of the camp and cited by police for misdemeanor assault, later denied the allegations of misconduct. Medlock told The New York Post that there “was no physical contact at all” and was “just trying to talk it out as an adult.” Medlock claims to have not been questioned by the college before being removed from the cheer team.
Eastland County District Attorney Brad Stephenson told The New York Post that there was an assault and that cops handled the incident appropriately.
“There definitely was an assault and it could’ve ostensibly been charged as a class A misdemeanor, but I think they appropriately charged it as a class C misdemeanor,” Stephenson was quoted as saying.
The incident comes amid growing debate over whether trans-identified athletes who are biologically male should be allowed to participate in women’s sports. The debate has gained national traction after swimmer Lia Thomas, a biological male formerly known as William, won the NCAA women’s championship in March in the women’s 500-yard freestyle. Thomas edged out the second-place finisher by nearly two seconds.
At least 18 states have passed legislation to prohibit or strictly limit transgender participation to the athlete’s birth sex, including Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah and West Virginia.
A stranded Iranian Christian migrant holds the Bible as he prays at dawn in front of a fence reinforced by barbed wire and a wooden barricade at the Greek-Macedonian border near to the Greek village of Idomeni November 30, 2015. | REUTERS/Yannis Behrakis
The Iranian government is actively inciting “derogatory public opinion” against Christianity and other faiths by using Iranian media outlets to spread religious propaganda, according to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom.
A new report from the bipartisan federal advisory committee says Iran’s government uses official media, government-linked media and social media to spread “falsehoods and misconceptions” about religious minorities to turn public opinion against these communities.
The report “Religious Propaganda in Iran” attributes the effort to a “systematic campaign to deny freedom of religion or belief to groups that do not conform to the government’s singular interpretation of Ja’afri Shi’a Islam.”
For instance, the government describes some Christians as belonging to an “Evangelical Zionist cult” and uses vague national security accusations to target Christian converts.
The phrase was referenced in the Nov. 3, 2021 ruling by Iran’s Supreme Court, declaring that promoting Christianity and establishing home churches are not crimes and do not amount to national security crimes.
The court’s opinion used the phrase “Evangelical Zionist cult” to refer to the Christian converts whose case it was addressing.
Under Iran’s legal system, a ruling by a Supreme Court branch is not necessarily binding on lower courts.
“This misinformation campaign restricts freedom of religion or belief for religious minorities in Iran,” USCIRF Commissioner Sharon Kleinbaum told The Christian Post.
According to USCIRF, Iranian state propaganda against Christian converts is often disguised as anti-Zionism, and Christian converts are regularly referred to as members of a “Zionist” network.
Officials say the reference to Zionism in this context does not refer to specific allegations of links between Christian converts in Iran and the state of Israel but rather “a broad conspiracy in which Evangelical Christians across the world promote political viewpoints that serve Zionist ideology.”
The report also cites what USCIRF called “Iran’s misinformation campaign against Christian converts,” which officials say seeks to differentiate Christian converts from Armenians and Assyrians as recognized religious minority groups.
Hojjat al-Islam Kashani, a Muslim cleric who serves as the secretary of the Islam-Christianity Dialog Association, told an Iranian media outlet, “What is being promoted today as Christianity is not traditional Christianity, but rather it is Evangelical and colonial Christianity.
“Evangelical Christianity is not a religion. It is a policy-oriented towards colonialism.”
According to the report, Kashani accused Evangelical Christian Iranians of pursuing a political agenda of expansion designed to undermine Iran’s government.
Those political aims of Evangelical Christians have “resulted in their alienation from other Christians, and that Iranian Armenians are opposed to Evangelical Christians,” Kashani said.
Iran’s history is replete with examples of outside intervention by colonial powers in its domestic affairs, so this comment appeals to the sense of injustice some Iranians may feel about foreign meddling in Iranian politics, Kleinbaum said.
“The impact on Iranian Christians is that they cannot rely on the government to uphold its obligations under international law to protect freedom of religion or belief, and are more likely to face discrimination from Iranians who internalize the government’s false messaging,” she added.
In addition to Christian converts, the USCIRF report identifies and reviews the significant themes Iran’s government deploys against Jews, Sunni Muslims, Gonabadi Sufis and Baha’is.
Besides providing data and analysis on religious freedom abroad, USCIRF also provides foreign policy recommendations to the president, secretary of state and U.S. Congress to fight religious persecution and promote freedom of religion and belief. Iran is one of 10 countries recognized by the U.S. State Department as a country of particular concern for tolerating and engaging in religious freedom abuses.
Just one year after Iran signed a historic nuclear deal with the U.S. and other Western nations in 2015, USCIRF reported that religious minorities in Iran, including Christians, continue experiencing severe human rights abuses.
The report found that religious freedom conditions “continued to deteriorate,” with Christians, Baha’is and the minority Sunni Muslims facing the most persecution in the form of harassment, arrests and imprisonment.
Open Doors USA, a watchdog group that monitors religious freedom abuses in over 60 countries, ranks Iran as the ninth-worst country regarding Christian persecution.
The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of Townhall.com, WhatDidYouSay.org.
Source: AP Photo/Ben Margot
It’s not every day that I praise a book by the former head of the American Civil Liberties Union, let alone the longest-serving president of that organization.
But I was delighted to have Nadine Strossen on my Substack recently to talk about her book, “HATE: Why We Should Resist It With Free Speech, Not Censorship” — and not just because I am one of America’s leading “hate speakers.” (Oh, settle down, girls. That’s according to woke college liberals, the only humans more infantile and narcissistic than Donald Trump.)
Her book is a thoroughgoing, no-holds-barred defense of free speech. This makes her the rarest of creatures: a principled liberal. We should get her DNA in a lab and study it.
Being a liberal herself, Strossen pitches her argument to the left. That’s fortunate, I’d say: These days, the most enthusiastic advocates for censorship are liberals.
Thus, she repeatedly notes that censorship has historically been used by the powerful to crush the “marginalized.”
I couldn’t agree more! On the other hand, the two of us have very different ideas about who’s “marginalized.” Strossen means feminists, gays, Muslims, blacks, Hispanics, immigrants, transgenders, nonbinaries and so on, whereas I mean everybody else, to wit: “cisgendered” white Americans.
Not a certified victim? Don’t even think of applying to Harvard, Princeton or Yale — unless you’ve made a spectacle of yourself carrying on about gun control. Don’t be funny, use hyperbole or engage in any conversation at all with bratty East Coast private-school kids on a college resume-building trip to Peru. (See Pulitzer Prize-winning science reporter Donald McNeil, fired by The New York Times for this reckless error.)
Every time I’d read a description of this or that “hate speech” ban in Strossen’s book, what leapt to mind wasn’t someone saying only women have two X chromosomes, but the nonstop venom that is directed at white people.
“Hate speech” has been defined as expression that is:
— “persecutorial, hateful and degrading”;
— “insulting [or] holding up to ridicule … specific groups”;
— “likely to expose” people to “hatred or contempt”: “unusually strong and deep-felt emotions of detestation, calumny and vilification” …
Throughout the country, white schoolchildren are being browbeaten about their “white privilege” and instructed to “unpack” their “white privilege knapsack.” Does that count?
How do you think it would go over if I wrote books with titles like: “Black Fragility,” “Dear Black People” and “The White Friend: On Being a Better Black Person.”
My guess is, not very well. And yet the Priests of High Culture at the Times have effusively — and repeatedly — praised books titled “White Fragility,” “Dear White People” and “The Black Friend: On Being a Better White Person.”
These, and dozens more with similar titles — “My Beautiful Black Hair,” “Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race,” “Black Girl Magic” and on and on and on — do not bring their authors into disrepute. To the contrary, they are rewarded with instant fame, unbridled praise and immense wealth. (Naturally, their books are assigned reading in college courses throughout the nation.)
Is all this loathing for white people simply the cry of the powerless against the powerful?
Here’s some power for you: Since at least 1973, when Allan Bakke was rejected from the University of California Medical School at Davis with grades and scores that would have won him a fast-track admission had he been black, white Americans have been openly and aggressively discriminated against by the government — and with even greater zeal by corporate America.
White people, if I may call you that, you suck at oppression.
Making both my point and hers, Strossen says that wherever hate speech laws have been tried, it’s the “marginalized” — not the “oppressors” — who get nailed.
Duh. People who think it’s cool to publish books with titles like “Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race” don’t exactly exude sweetness and light when talking to actual white people.
Thanks to the University of Michigan being forced to release documents in response to an ACLU lawsuit challenging its “hate speech” code in the late 1980s, Strossen reveals that, during the brief time it was in effect, more than 20 cases were brought against black people for racist speech.
The “irony” of hate speech laws being applied to the people who engage in most of the hate speech has led law professor Charles Lawrence to argue for “hate speech” codes that would apply only to those “in dominant majority groups,” i.e., white people.
See? To me, that sounds like the rule of an “oppressor.”
But like Strossen, I believe in free speech. It’s not the “hate speech” that bothers me; it’s the physical violence and intentional race discrimination against white Americans that’s beginning to get on my nerves.
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into cartoons that have been popular all over the country, in various news outlets including “Fox News”, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and President Donald Trump.
The Southern Poverty Law Center is facing allegations that the group is promoting a book for elementary school students that normalizes sexual behavior among children, drawing criticism from conservative Christian groups. Conservative news website Breitbart published a report last week about the SPLC’s “Learning for Justice” project, which includes an “LGBTQ Library” with a list of recommended books and practices that are controversial.
Jeff Johnston, the culture and policy analyst for the Colorado Springs, Colorado-based Focus on the Family, denounced the guide as promoting “false ideologies and damaging behaviors for children of all ages.”
“It promotes the false idea that there are not two sexes — male and female — but a variety of ‘gender identities,'” said Johnston in a statement emailed to The Christian Post on Monday.
“It encourages schools to violate privacy and safety in restrooms, locker rooms and showers by allowing students who ‘identify’ as the opposite sex into those spaces. And it urges schools to use curriculums that are radical and sexualized. This is ideology masquerading as education.”
Senior Fellow for Education Studies at the Christian conservative activist organization Family Research Council Meg Kilgannon also took issue with the guide, telling CP that the SPLC “has been in the business of sexualizing children in the name of ‘diversity’ for years.”
Kilgannon directed CP to a 2019 paper by the FRC, updated last year, which documented examples of the SPLC’s “Learning for Justice” program engaging in controversial practices.
“When sexual progressives want to teach children with ‘no normative pressures around sex,’ parents should know that kind of thinking can include the idea that age restrictions on sexual behavior adults and children is a ‘normative pressure,'” she explained.
“SPLC isn’t interested in preserving childhood innocence when they train teachers to implement Queer Theory in classrooms in California and around the country. School systems that rely on teacher training materials from SPLC should be aware of the dangerous political and sexual ideologies SPLC’s ‘free materials’ include.”
One of the recommended books in the guide, which received considerable attention from Breitbart, is Sex is a Funny Word by Cory Silverberg, which is aimed at younger readers.
“Less controversial than its title suggests, this comic book for kids includes children and families of all makeups, orientations and gender identities, providing an essential resource about bodies, gender and sexuality for young children that will help caregivers guide difficult conversations,”claims the guide.
The comic book features an illustration of a girl having an orgasm, with its author being quoted as wanting “a world with no normative pressures around sex.”
Elsewhere, the guide claimed that “children often know their gender as early as 2 or 3 years old” and that they “do not need to be pubescent or sexually active to ‘truly know’ their gender identity or sexual orientation.”
CP reached out to the SPLC for a response to the book, but a response wasn’t received by press time.
Under the category of “Classroom Culture,” the guide encouraged teachers to wear nametags indicating their chosen pronouns and encouraged the conducting of “pronoun check-ins.”“Collective pronoun check-ins help students learn peers’ pronouns without forcing nonbinary students to come out repeatedly,” the guide continued. “You may say, ‘To make sure we’re referring to each other accurately, let’s go around so everyone can share their name and pronoun.’ This process can help transgender and nonbinary students feel seen, not singled out.”
Launched in 1991 and originally named “Teaching Tolerance,” “Learning for Justice” describes itself as an educational resource project helping schools combat discrimination and celebrate diversity.
“Our free educational resources — articles, guides, lessons, films, webinars, frameworks and more — help foster shared learning and reflection for educators, young people, caregivers and all community members. Our engagement opportunities — conferences, workshops, and school and community partnerships — provide space where people can harness collective power and take action,”its website states.
“Through this continual cycle of education and engagement, we hope that we can build and maintain meaningful relationships with communities and we can all move from learning for justice to creating it.”
A far-left civil rights group, SPLC has garnered much controversy and backlash over its labeling of several conservative Christian organizations, including FRC, as “hate groups.” This became a major point of contention in 2012 when a gay rights activist inspired by the SPLC entered FRC’s Washington, D.C. headquarters and attempted to kill the staff. The SPLC apologized to ex-Muslim activist Maajid Nawaz in June 2018 and paid him $3.3 million in a settlement after wrongfully including him in a report on anti-Muslim activity.
In March 2019, the SPLC fired its founder, Morris Dees, in response to several allegations of sexual misconduct, as well as claims of racist behavior within the progressive group.
Michael Gryboski released the novel “The Enigma of Father Vera Daniel.” For more information, click here.
The Massachusetts State House in Boston, Massachusetts. | Wikipedia/Ajay Suresh licensed under CC BY 2.0
Massachusetts Republican Gov. Charlie Baker has signed into law a measure establishing abortion and “gender-affirming care” as constitutional rights, a move pro-life activists contend will turn the state into an “abortion sanctuary.”
Baker approved Bill H.4930, “an Act expanding protections for reproductive rights,” Friday. The bill’s approval follows the U.S. Supreme Court’s June 24 ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, which reversed the Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion nationwide.
The bill passed in the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives on June 29. The House voted 136-17 to advance the legislation, with 119 Democrats, 16 Republicans and an independent supporting it, while six Democrats and 11 Republicans voted in opposition to the bill. The Senate approved H.4930 in a unanimous vote of 40-0 on July 25.
“Access to reproductive health care services and gender-affirming health care services is recognized and declared to be a right secured by the constitution or laws of the commonwealth,” the bill declares. “Interference with this right, whether or not under the color of law, is against the public policy of the commonwealth.”
The social conservative advocacy group Massachusetts Family Institute claims the legislation ensures the state will protect “abortionists who perform abortions out-of-state, even if they violate other states’ laws.” The group contends the bill will lower or eliminate “safety requirements for pharmacies to dispense abortion pills” and “force[s] state universities to provide the abortion pill to students.”
The group stresses that the bill will also force insurance companies to cover abortion “even if they have religious objections” and prohibits insurance companies “from charging deductibles or copays for abortions but allows them to do so for all other pregnancy-related services.”
“[The bill allows] late-term abortions when a doctor deems a baby ‘incompatible with sustained life’ outside of the womb, which decision is not subject to review by any medical board,” the group stated in a statement.
“This is also an ‘intersectional’ bill, as its legal protections for abortionists extend to organizations who distribute puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones, even in states where they have been criminalized for use on children. You might not have realized that Planned Parenthood was also in the transgender hormone business, but they are… aggressively so.”
Baker signed an executive order on the day of the Dobbs decision proclaiming that the state government agencies may not assist other states seeking to impose civil or criminal liability against anyone who performs an abortion in Massachusetts. The governor cited concerns that other states would “impose civil or criminal liability or professional sanctions on health care professionals who provide and persons who seek and obtain reproductive health care services in the Commonwealth as permitted by the laws of the Commonwealth.” He maintained that “health care professionals lawfully providing and persons lawfully seeking and obtaining reproductive health services in the Commonwealth should be protected from legal liability premised on and professional sanctions issued under the laws of other States.”
“Massachusetts remains steadfast in its commitment to protect access to reproductive health care services, especially in the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade,” Baker said in a statement.
“The Court’s decision has major consequences for women across the country who live in states with limited access to these services, and our administration took quick action in the hours following that decision by issuing an executive order to protect access here in the Commonwealth,” he added. “This new legislation signed today builds on that action by protecting patients and providers from legal interference from more restrictive laws in other states.”
H.4930 contains language stating that “no person shall be subject to discipline by the board, including the revocation, suspension or cancellation of the certificate of registration or reprimand, censure or monetary fine, for providing or assisting in the provision of reproductive health care services or gender-affirming health care services.”
The enactment of H.4930 occurred in the aftermath of failed efforts to pass the Women’s Health Protection Act in U.S. Congress. The bill would codify the right to abortion into federal law and limit the ability of states to implement pro-life laws. The Women’s Health Protection Act passed the Democrat-controlled House multiple times, most recently on July 15, three weeks after the Dobbs decision. However, the bill failed to gain traction in the evenly divided U.S. Senate, where most legislation requires 60 votes to pass. On May 11, 51 of 100 senators voted against invoking cloture, a procedural step that would enable debate to begin on the Women’s Health Protection Act. The Senate previously rejected the Women’s Health Protection Act in a 48-46 vote on Feb. 28.
Even before Baker signed Bill H.4930 into law, Massachusetts had some of the most permissive abortion laws in the U.S. In late 2020, the ROE Act became law over Baker’s veto. The law codifies the right to an abortion into state law, allows abortions to take place after 24 weeks gestation in the case of a fetal anomaly and permits minors between the ages of 16 and 17 to obtain an abortion without parental consent. The pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute has identified Massachusetts as one of 16 states with laws protecting the right to abortion.
Massachusetts’ establishment of a right to “gender-affirming health care” comes after a handful of states have passed laws restricting the ability of minors to obtain puberty blockers and gender transition surgeries. Alabama, Arizona and Arkansas have implemented such laws while the head of the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services Commissioner Jaime Masters has classified gender transition surgeries for minors as child abuse. The state’s Attorney General Ken Paxton issued an advisory opinion saying the same.
We previously reported at The Gateway Pundit about the lawsuit filed in May by the states of Missouri and Louisiana against ALL of the MAJOR GOVERNMENT PLAYERS in Big Tech Censorship, including Joe Biden, Jen Psaki, Anthony Fauci, the CDC, the NIH, the Department of Homeland Security, DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, and many others.
The lawsuit alleges, and we all know this is true, that the Biden administration conspired with – and at times outright coerced – Facebook, Twitter, Google, and every other major tech monopoly, to enforce speech and thought conformity on the internet.
We later wrote about a whistleblower who dumped a cache of internal documents from the Department of Homeland Security into the lap of Senators Josh Hawley of Missouri and Chuck Grassley of Iowa.
The documents confirm that DHS has maintained an ongoing “disinformation” censorship program, targeting anyone with COVID vaccine concerns and 2020 election fraud concerns – and anyone else thinking Wrongthink.
Later, we reported that the federal judge in the suit granted Missouri AG Eric Schmitt and Louisiana AG Jeff Landry permission – at a minimum – to conduct an investigation into multiple Big Tech companies as part of the suit.
Today, Gateway Pundit’s Jim Hoft formally joined the suit as a plaintiff, alongside the states of Missouri and Louisiana, Dr. Martin Kulldorff of Harvard University’s Department of Medicine, Dr. Jay Bhattacharya of Stanford University, medical ethicist Dr. Aaron Kheriaty, and Jill Hines, the Co-Director of Health Freedom Louisiana.
For Our part, we cannot wait to depose Anthony Fauci, Alejandro Mayorkas, and the rest of the defendants.
This is the biggest opportunity yet for America to uncover the evil and unconstitutional activities of the Federal Government and its Big Tech monopolist co-conspirators.
Jim Hoft is the founder and editor of The Gateway Pundit, one of the top conservative news outlets in America. Jim was awarded the Reed Irvine Accuracy in Media Award in 2013 and is the proud recipient of the Breitbart Award for Excellence in Online Journalism from the Americans for Prosperity Foundation in May 2016.
National Security Council coordinator John Kirby was peppered with questions Tuesday over how the Biden administration will respond to the Taliban violating the Doha Agreement.
The United States carried out a successful counterterrorism strike against the leader of al Qaeda over the weekend, killing Ayman al-Zawahiri. American operators were successful partly because al-Zawahiri was “hiding” in plain sight in a wealthy Kabul neighborhood, thus underscoring the type of impunity the Taliban have extended to al Qaeda after the fall of Afghanistan last year.
The close relationship between the Taliban and al Qaeda violates the Doha Agreement, a peace treaty negotiated under former President Donald Trump between the U.S. and the Taliban. Specifically, the agreement bars the Taliban from allowing al Qaeda to operate in Afghanistan, a provision the Taliban have clearly violated. With the Taliban in clear violation of the Doha Agreement — a reality Secretary of State Antony Blinken acknowledged — reporters from multiple media outlets grilled Kirby over how exactly the Biden administration will respond.
“What will the repercussions be for the Taliban harboring al-Zawahiri?” ABC News chief White House correspondent Cecilia Vega asked.
“I’m not going to telegraph moves and decisions that we might make,” Kirby responded. “I’m certainly not going to get ahead of anything at this point.”
Kirby, however, disclosed that U.S. leaders have spoken with Taliban leaders for harboring al-Zawahiri, which he admitted is a clear violation of the Doha Agreement. But when NBC News chief White House correspondent Peter Alexander pressed Kirby on whether the Biden administration would hold accountable the Taliban, Kirby obfuscated, saying only that he will not “telegraph punches” and the Taliban know the U.S. is aware they violated the Doha Agreement. Kirby even suggested the Taliban might shape up because they want legitimization from Western powers.
Press Briefing by Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre and John Kirbywww.youtube.com
Then Fox News correspondent Peter Doocy ratcheted up the pressure.
“You guys gave a whole country to a bunch of people that are on the FBI Most Wanted list. What did you think was going to happen?” Doocy pressed.
Kirby responded by saying he takes “issue with the premise that we gave a whole country to terrorist groups.”
“The Taliban was harboring the world’s number-one terrorist. How is that not giving a country to a terrorist-sympathizing group, if not giving them permission to have terrorists just sit on a balcony?” Doocy pressed.
Engaging in circular reasoning, Kirby then told Doocy the strike against al-Zawahiri is proof the U.S. is not idly permitting the Taliban to harbor al Qaeda terrorists. And in the end, Kirby praised Biden.
“I would go so far as to say not only the American people are safer as a result of President Biden’s decision, but the rest of the world is safer,” Kirby said.
Other reporters asked Kirby similar questions about the Taliban and their violations of the Doha Agreement, but he never offered substantive answers.
Kirby said violations of the agreement will “lead to consequences not just from the United States, but from the international community” — but he never said what any of those consequences would be.
Rutgers University microbiologist Dr. Richard Ebright testified before the U.S. Senate Wednesday that top public health officials lied about dangerous gain-of-function (GoF) research experiments conducted in China. Ebright testified that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and other U.S. federal agencies funded research that fit the definition of GoF at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) without proper oversight. His claim directly contradicts those made by numerous public health officials, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID).
Live at Senate Homeland Security Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Spending Oversight: @RandPaul noting that gain-of-function research "has the "potential to unleash a global pandemic that threatens the lives of millions" but Congress has not held a hearing on it.
Specifically, Ebright testified that research funded by federal agencies at the WIV in the 2010s violated an NIH pause on GoF research funding between 2014 and 2017. After the pause was lifted in 2017, Ebright claimed that GoF projects which continued did not properly go through the agency’s regulatory process for oversight. NIH and other federal agencies funded various experiments in the 2010s at the WIV which made bat-based coronaviruses more dangerous by increasing their fatality and infectiousness. According to the strict definition of GoF research, those experiments should’ve fallen under the GoF oversight process or been banned by the funding moratorium.
“Gain-of-function research of concern involves the creation of new health threats–health threats that did not exist previously and that might not have come to exist by natural means for tens, hundreds, thousands, or tens of thousands of years,” Ebright said.
“The statements made on repeated occasions to the public, to the press and to policymakers by the NIAID director, Dr. Fauci, have been untruthful. I do not understand why those statements are being made because they are demonstrably false,” Ebright explained Wednesday.
Ebright’s assertion that the NIH-funded research is GoF work directly contradicts previous testimony by Fauci before the U.S. Senate.
“The NIH has not ever and does not now fund gain of function research in the Wuhan Institute of Virology,” Fauci said in May 2021. “Dr. Baric does not do gain of function research and if it is, it is according to the guidelines and is being conducted in North Carolina, not in China.”
Republican Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul has frequently clashed with Fauci over whether or not the federal government funded GoF research. Fauci called Paul “entirely and completely incorrect” on the subject.
Wednesday’s hearing, initiated by Paul, was the first American lawmakers held regarding the subject of GoF research. Some experts have theorized that the COVID-19 pandemic could have been spawned by the research taking place at the WIV, claiming it’s possible that the virus leaked from the lab after experimentation by researchers. The epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic began just blocks away from the WIV.
Several Trump-backed candidates came out ahead in Tuesday’s primaries, with some races notching wins for the former president as he publicly eyes a 2024 run. One of the most notable wins for Trump came in Michigan, where his endorsed candidate John Gibbs defeated Republican Rep. Peter Meijer, who voted to impeach Trump in 2020. Gibbs previously worked under Trump as the acting assistant secretary in the Department of Housing and Urban Development and backs the former president’s unfounded claims that the election was stolen.
Meijer is the second House Republican who voted for Trump’s impeachment to lose a primary, with the first coming in June after Trump-endorsed state Rep. Russell Fry beat out South Carolina Rep. Tom Rice.
Other Trump-endorsed candidates who won Tuesday evening include Arizona’s Blake Masters, a venture capitalist running for a Senate seat, Republican Michigan gubernatorial candidate Tudor Dixon and Arizona state legislator Mark Finchem, who is running in the state’s GOP secretary of state primary.
FILE PHOTO: Arizona Republican Senate candidate Blake Masters speaks during former U.S. President Donald Trump’s rally ahead of Arizona primary elections, in Prescott Valley, Arizona, U.S., July 22, 2022. REUTERS/Rebecca Noble/File Photo
Attorney General Eric Schmitt also won Tuesday evening in Missouri for the GOP Senate primary. Trump’s “endorsement” in this race was chaotic, with the former president issuing a statement roughly 24 hours before the primary that endorsed “ERIC” – the name of Tuesday’s winner but also the name of his opponent, Eric Greitens, who has been riddled with scandals in recent years. (RELATED: Missouri Governor Resigns Amid Sexual Misconduct Scandal)
In Arizona, Republican Rep. Paul Gosar snagged a Trump endorsement and won Tuesday’s primary, though his race was considered fairly safe ground.
While the former president saw success in Tuesday’s primary, some of his picks are still battling it out as of early Wednesday morning. Trump-endorsed Arizona Rep. David Schweikert is projected to win his race, according to Decision Desk, but former TV news anchor Kari Lake’s race remains too close to call.
Lake is running against Karrin Taylor Robson, who was endorsed by former Vice President Mike Pence.
Overall, Trump has endorsed over 200 candidates across the country, according to The New York Times. In competitive races, his record has been mixed, The Times also noted, perhaps representing the broader debate within the party regarding its loyalty to the former president.
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into cartoons that have been popular all over the country, in various news outlets including “Fox News”, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and President Donald Trump.
Days before the Capitol riot provoked a years-long effort to impeach, prosecute, and politically malign former President Donald Trump, Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney coordinated efforts to deter the very actions she now claims haunt the former president.
Cheney has blamed Trump for not ordering the National Guard to defend the Capitol complex, even though multiple sources confirm that he authorized their deployment days prior to the Jan. 6 rally at the White House and riot at the Capitol. Security officials in charge of the Capitol declined to call up troops to protect it, government records show. Yet Cheney herself seems to have orchestrated opposition to use of the military to quell election-related unrest, allegedly organizing a Washington Post op-ed on Jan. 3, 2021, signed by every living former defense secretary.
“All 10 living former defense secretaries: Involving the military in election disputes would cross into dangerous territory,” the headline read. It went on to threaten any military official who thought any use of the military might be a good idea. “Civilian and military officials who direct or carry out such measures would be accountable, including potentially facing criminal penalties, for the grave consequences of their actions on our republic,” the op-ed warned.
The op-ed was allegedly organized by Cheney, whose father was secretary of defense under President George H.W. Bush before serving as President George W. Bush’s vice president. Eric Edelman, a national security adviser to Dick Cheney, told the New Yorker the Wyoming lawmaker “was the one who generated” the piece for the Post.
Now Rep. Cheney has adopted Trump’s supposed inaction on the National Guard as a primary line of attack. On “Fox News Sunday,” Cheney again depicted Trump as an apathetic leader who dismissed pleas to deploy the National Guard while the Capitol was under siege.
“There are several witnesses who say they met with President Trump on January 4th,” said Bret Baier, “and he offered some 20,000 National Guardsmen to protect the Capitol building on January 6th but the offer was rejected. Is that true?”
“His own acting secretary of defense says that’s not true,” Cheney said, highlighting committee testimony from former Acting Secretary Christopher Miller who told the panel Trump made no order to deploy the National Guard. “So, the notion that somehow he issued an order is not consistent with the facts.”
Except the president did issue authorization for D.C. leaders to call up the National Guard for pre-emptive reinforcements days before the Capitol riot. While Mayor Muriel Bowser took limited advantage of the extra troops, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s sergeant at arms rejected or stonewalled the offer six times, according to former Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund. Pelosi’s office was reportedly concerned the guard’s deployment was bad “optics” after having spent the prior summer decrying the use of federal law enforcement to put down left-wing insurrections.
When Trump sent reinforcements to secure federal buildings under attack in Portland, Pelosi condemned the extra law enforcement as “stormtroopers.” After days of sustained riots wreaked havoc across Washington D.C., Pelosi called the sight of uniformed troops protecting the Lincoln Memorial “stunning” and “scary.”
The campaign to fight any use of troops to restore order during the left’s widespread and coordinated summer of rage was so effective that Gen. Mark Milley issued an abject apology for merely appearing in uniform at a site that had been ravaged by leftist arsonists.
“My presence in that moment, and in that environment, created a perception of the military involved in domestic politics,” Milley said about appearing in front of a historic church across the street from the White House. The night before, left-wing arsonists had targeted the church as part of a riot that besieged the White House and led to the injuring of dozens of Park Police and Secret Service officers.
Bowser’s use of guard troops on Jan. 6 extended to unarmed troops restricted to traffic control and removed from protests.
“[N]o DCNG personnel shall be armed during this mission, and at no time, will DCNG personnel or assets be engaged in domestic surveillance, searches, or seizures of [U.S.] persons,” she directed to law enforcement.
Although Cheney and her colleagues with the Select Committee have sought to indict Trump as responsible for a slow response from the National Guard on Jan. 6, the panel’s own findings have undermined the probe’s point. In December, the committee released a trove of private communications from former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, who pledged the National Guard would be ready to maintain order.
“Mr. Meadows sent an email to an individual about the events on January 6 and said that the National Guard would be present to ‘protect pro Trump people’ and that many more would be available on standby,” the committee wrote, as if revealing some grand scandal to help their case.
In June, Miller and former Chief of Staff of the Department of Defense Kash Patel went on Sean Hannity’s program to dispel committee accusations that the president was indifferent to the National Guard.
“Mr. Trump unequivocally authorized up to 20,000 National Guardsmen and women for us to utilize,” Patel said.
Miller, whom Cheney cited as evidence of Trump’s negligence, corroborated Patel’s testimony on air.
“To be clear,” Miller said, “the president was doing exactly what I expect the commander in chief to do, any commander in chief to do. He was looking at the broad threats against the United States and he brought this up on his own. We did not bring it up.”
Tristan Justice is the western correspondent for The Federalist. He has also written for The Washington Examiner and The Daily Signal. His work has also been featured in Real Clear Politics and Fox News. Tristan graduated from George Washington University where he majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow him on Twitter at @JusticeTristan or contact him at Tristan@thefederalist.com.
The campus of Seattle Pacific University, a Christian school located in Seattle, Washington | Seattle Pacific University
A Christian university is suing the attorney general of Washington state over an investigation into its hiring practices that university officials say violate the school’s religious freedom. Seattle Pacific University (SPU) filed suit on July 27 against state Attorney General Bob Ferguson, who is investigating potential illegal discrimination over the university’s refusal to hire LGBT applicants based on its statement of faith.
In the 22-page complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Tacoma, SPU said Ferguson “is wielding state power to interfere with the religious beliefs of a religious university, and a church, whose beliefs he disagrees with.”
“He is using the powers of his office (and even powers not granted to his office) to pressure and retaliate against Seattle Pacific University,” the suit stated.
The complaint claims that Ferguson’s investigation compels SPU to release “information on internal religious matters and decisions, detailed review of religious hiring practices, communications with ministerial employees, and even the selection of the University’s president, senior leadership, and board of trustees.”
A June 8 letter Ferguson sent to SPU requests that the institution to “[p]roduce any policies governing the hiring, promotion, discipline, and/or termination of University faculty, staff, and administrators, as it relates to their sexual orientation or status of being in a same-sex marriage and/or intimate relationship.”
“The attorney general’s probe inquires into confidential religious matters and is beyond the scope of authority granted under state law and the federal constitution,” attorneys for SPU said in the complaint.
In response to the lawsuit, Ferguson released a statement confirming the civil rights investigation.
“We did not publicize the letter, nor did we announce our investigation. In response to our inquiry, Seattle Pacific University filed a federal lawsuit,” the attorney general stated.
“The lawsuit demonstrates that the University believes it is above the law to such an extraordinary degree that it is shielded from answering basic questions from my office regarding the University’s compliance with state law.”
Ferguson launched the investigation after “[n]umerous Seattle Pacific University students, faculty, and others reached out to my office to file complaints or otherwise express deep concern that the University administration’s policies illegally violate Washingtonians’ civil rights.”
The private evangelical Christian and Wesleyan institution is affiliated with the Free Methodist Church and enrolls around 3,500 students. The institution claims it adheres to the biblical definition of human sexuality. Last year, SPU faced criticism after its board of trustees announced it would continue a hiring policy that prohibits hiring full-time faculty members who identify as LGBT. SPU’s Faculty Senate obtained responses from around 90% of the faculty on the board’s decision to maintain that policy despite objections from some in the school community.
Around 72% of the faculty who responded agreed with the “no confidence” vote regarding the board and its decision, according to The Seattle Times.
“The Board’s decision to maintain SPU’s discriminatory hiring policy related to human sexuality, as well as its manner of delivering that decision, have regrettably compelled the faculty of SPU to pass a vote of no confidence in the SPU Board of Trustees,” the faculty senate said.
In May, SPU’s policies attracted national attention following a student protest over the board’s vote to “retain Seattle Pacific University’s current employee lifestyle expectations regarding sexual conduct.”
“We want the community of SPU to know that this was a thorough and prayerful deliberation,” Board Chair Cedric Davis said in a statement.
“While this decision brings complex and heart-felt reactions, the Board made a decision that it believed was most in line with the university’s mission and Statement of Faith and chose to have SPU remain in communion with its founding denomination, the Free Methodist Church USA, as a core part of its historical identity as a Christian university.”
SPU is a member of the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities, which is opposing a lawsuit filed by former students from over two dozen Christian universities who say they felt discriminated against on their campuses. The lawsuit seeks to overturn religious exemptions to Title IX of the Civil Rights Act that allows faith-based institutions to adhere to scriptural beliefs on sexuality and gender.
Ferguson, who has served as attorney general of Washington since 2013, has a history of bringing charges against Christian entities deemed to have violated the state law barring discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
In 2013, Ferguson filed a consumer protection lawsuit against Christian florist Barronelle Stutzman for refusing to provide floral arrangements to a same-sex wedding on the ground that doing so went against her Christian convictions.
After a lengthy legal battle, Stutzman agreed to pay $5,000 to settle the lawsuit and announced her retirement.
When the federal government started a wildfire that burned 432 homes in New Mexico back in May, President Joe Biden promised that the U.S. government would be footing the bill.
“Today, I’m announcing the federal government’s covering 100 percent of the cost,” Biden said during a June 11 speech at the New Mexico State Regional Training Installation Facility in Santa Fe.
Unfortunately, that doesn’t appear to be the case, according to Reuters.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture is now telling victims that they need to share the cost of the fire because Biden’s declaration didn’t waive a federal statute requiring cost-sharing.
Lo and behold, the controlled burns got out of control. The resulting fire incinerated 432 residences over a 530-square-mile area, Reuters reported.
The burn damage consisted “of mostly privately owned forests and meadows, much of it held by members of centuries-old Indo-Hispano ranching communities,” the report said.
During his remarks in Santa Fe, Biden made it clear there was a bit of an asterisk to the promise that 100 percent of the cost would be borne by the federal government.
According to a White House transcript of his remarks, the president noted that “we have a responsibility, as a government, as a — to deal with the communities who are put in — in such jeopardy” and vowed that the federal government would cover “100 percent of the cost of debris removal and emergency protective measures for the next critical months.”
However, he added that the funding was intended to “be a strong bridge until we — that we pass the — the Hermit’s Peak Fire Assistance Act.”
If that law passes, it could provide total federal compensation — although not in the near term, given that the legislation isn’t likely to be voted on until the fall. Thus, for the moment, many of the fire victims now have to pay for the damage the federal government caused.
Take Daniel Encinias, a 55-year-old rancher who met Biden during his visit to New Mexico. He’s living in a camping trailer next to the ashes of his Tierra Monte, New Mexico, home. He’s not alone, either: His wife, Lori, his three teenagers and 12 pets are all in there, too.
He was also told by the Department of Agriculture he would get quick support at minimal cost. That’s a good thing because, as with many in his low-income corner of the world, he didn’t have insurance.
That’s not quite how it worked, however.
“Encinias submitted an application to the USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) to fix his well, but was told to share 25% of costs based on a federal statute that could not be waived as it did not fall under Biden’s declaration,” Reuters reported.
“Encinias said he was told by NRCS officials his application would be considered in September and recovery work would begin six to 12 months thereafter if he was accepted.”
“Why the hell am I going to pay anything when I didn’t cause this damn fire?” he said.
After starting New Mexico fire, U.S. asks victims to pay
Encinias, a retired electrician, is doing some of the work himself. As for feeding his cattle, he’s been forced to buy hay because the baler he owns was destroyed in the fire.
The family is surviving on the $37,000 maximum Federal Emergency Management Agency payout for the destruction of their five-bedroom house in the fire.
“I’m hoping that finally something works out where it helps the people,” Encinias said.
Then there’s rancher Kenny Zamora, who saw 170 acres of his forest burned. Following the fire, heavy rains caused debris to slide down hills no longer able to absorb water, leaving his pastures covered in 2 feet of muck.
“If you don’t have insurance, you’re pretty much on your own,” he said.
He’s not kidding. After applying to the USDA’s Farms Service Agency for help to feed his livestock, he was told he wasn’t eligible, with USDA officials telling him the Emergency Forest Restoration Program in the area hasn’t been funded yet.
These two are hardly alone, according to Reuters.
“Many fire-hit families cannot afford sharing at least 25% of costs on the USDA’s Emergency Forest Restoration Program (EFRP) which offers relief such as stabilization of burn areas prone to flash flooding, according to New Mexico State Forester Laura McCarthy. Residents sometimes own large areas of land passed down from 1800s Spanish-Mexican land grants while working blue-collar jobs,” the report said.
“They’re really struggling,” the state forester said.
So, what happens to people like Encinias in the interim?
Don’t ask the local NRCS office in Las Vegas, New Mexico, where Encinias had applied for aid. Its response to Reuters’ request for comment was to direct the wire service to the national office. The national office, however, didn’t respond to the request. Neither did the White House.
Biden made a promise. Yet his administration has been more concerned with getting its mega-spending bills through Congress than with delivering for these ranchers.
“It’s not a gift,” the president said in June. “We have a responsibility to help this state recover, to help the families who have been here for centuries, and the beautiful northern New Mexico villages who can’t go home and whose livelihoods have been fundamentally changed.”
If this really is a responsibility of his administration, he needs to start acting that way.
C. Douglas Golden is a writer who splits his time between the United States and Southeast Asia. Specializing in political commentary and world affairs, he’s written for Conservative Tribune and The Western Journal since 2014.
The first words spoken on Beyoncé’s new album are “please, motherf***ers.” She repeats the phrase over and over again, adding “ain’t stopping me.”
Please, motherf***ers ain’t stopping me.
“Renaissance,” her seventh studio album, is explicitly crude and profane. A New York Times reviewer described the 40-year-old singer’s 16-song collection as “steeped in black queer bravado.” Wesley Morris, the Pulitzer-winning reviewer, never defined black queer bravado. The reader is left to assume that queer bravado is as endemic to black people as full lips, wide noses, nappy hair, and obscene music.
Beyoncé, the so-called heir to Aretha Franklin’s title as the “Queen of Soul,” has more in common with Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion than the icon who demanded “Respect.”
Beyoncé symbolizes the catastrophic descent of black culture and America’s indifference to its fall.
“Renaissance” is controversial for its use of the word “spaz,” not the filth spewed by a middle-aged married mother of three. Expectations have fallen so low for American black people that no one expects Beyoncé to mature or make music that uplifts black folks.
No. Our only expectation is that she contains her penchant for degeneracy and denigration to black people only.
That explains why Beyoncé will eliminate the word spaz from her latest album. Disability rights advocates complained that the singer’s use of the word “spaz” in the song “Heated” is a slur against people with cerebral palsy. Spastic diplegia causes motor impairment in the arms and legs. The phrase “spazzing out” is mocking what happens to people with spastic diplegia.
I learned all that this morning when I heard the pop singer was editing the song. I did not know the etymology of “spaz.” Now I do. I’m not sure I care.
What I find fascinating about all of this is that people with cerebral palsy care more about policing the way they’re portrayed in the entertainment and media world than black people do.
We’re the only group with absolutely no standards. The entire rap music industry is built on the N-word. It is used repeatedly in nearly every successful commercial rap song. Rappers brag about killing n*****, raping n*****, robbing n*****, dissing n*****. No one cares. Beyoncé uses the N-word in “Heated.” No one cares.
Every minority group aggressively polices how they’re characterized in music, television, and movies except black people.
In 1995, Michael Jackson, the greatest force in the history of music, released the song “They Don’t Care About Us” on the album “HIStory.” It was a protest song. It decried racism. It argued that the government and the powerful elite only pretend to care about the great mass of humanity.
The song included the lyrics “Jew me, sue me, everybody do me/ Kick me, kike me, don’t you black or white me.”
On June 15, 1995, Bernard Weinraub wrote a piece in the New York Times suggesting that Jackson’s use of the words “Jew me” and “kike me” were anti-Semitic. Eight days later, after issuing two apologies, Jackson agreed to rewrite the song, eliminating the offending words.
On the same song, the rapper Notorious B.I.G. used the N-word twice. Bernard Weinraub did not care about that. Neither did anyone else. We don’t care about us. No one does. I don’t blame non-blacks. If we don’t care, why should they?
Jewish people care how they’re represented. Would they canonize a rap group “Kikes With Attitude”? Would the LGBTQ+ Alphabet Mafia canonize a rap group “Dykes With Attitude”? Does the Alphabet Mafia let anyone drop f****t in casual conversation?
Jewish people have self-respect. The LGBTQ crowd has more respect for itself than black people do for themselves.
We have allowed popular music to define black men as criminals and black women as hoes. Our men sell drugs and our women twerk to the sound of music the way dogs howl when they hear a siren.
Maybe that’s what black queer bravado is? Or maybe it’s not caring how you’re represented in popular culture. Maybe it’s not having a standard of conduct and behavior.
Beyoncé has black queer bravado. She instantly bowed to disability rights advocates while promoting degeneracy for black people.
Quemoy and Matsu, officially known as the Kinmen and Lienchiang Counties respectively, are groups of islands located directly off the coast of mainland Communist China but are under the administration of the Republic of China, Taiwan.
Quemoy and Matsu are not fortified, making their capture by the People’s Liberation Army an easy, but highly symbolic victory.
In the Second Taiwan Strait Crisis, also called the 1958 Taiwan Strait Crisis, the People’s Republic of China shelled the islands of Quemoy and Matsu Islands in part to probe the extent of the United States’ defense of Taiwan’s territory. During the 1960 Presidential campaign between Democrat John F. Kennedy and Republican Richard M. Nixon, the defense of Taiwan, as represented by Quemoy and Matsu, became a major issue during three of their debates.
According to recent reports, footage uploaded by civilians in China shows large military movements of troops and equipment as Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is expected to arrive in Taiwan.
The large military movements have occurred on major highways and railways throughout the Chinese province of Fujian, directly adjacent to Quemoy and Matsu.
In the last 24 hours, commercial flights have been abruptly canceled from airports in several cities in Fujian province. These airports include Xiamen, Fuzhou and Quanzhou. Xiamen Airlines put out a statement saying that the flight cancelations were due to “regional traffic control” and did not elaborate further.
This could be considered an invasion warning, the military occupation of the Quemoy and Matsu Islands as the first step by Communist China to subjugate Taiwan and eliminate U.S. influence in the Western Pacific.
Joe Hoft is the twin brother of TGP’s founder, Jim Hoft, and a contributing editor at TGP. Joe’s reporting is often months ahead of the Mainstream media as was observed in his reporting on the Mueller sham investigation, the origins of the China coronavirus, and 2020 Election fraud. Joe was a corporate executive in Hong Kong for a decade and has years of experience in finance, IT, operations and auditing around the world. The knowledge gained in his career provide him with a unique perspective of current events in the US and globally. Joe’s weekday radio show at Realtalk933.com has received rave reviews. He has ten degrees or designations and is the author of four books. His new book: ‘The Steal – Volume One: Setting the Stage’ is out now. It addresses the stolen 2020 Election and those activities that led up to November 3, 2020 – please take a look and buy a copy.
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into cartoons that have been popular all over the country, in various news outlets including “Fox News”, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and President Donald Trump.
Voters leave a polling station after casting their votes during the U.S. presidential election in Olmsted Falls, Ohio, November 8, 2016. | Reuters/Aaron Josefczyk
Politics can be a messy business.
From the varied special interests wielding influence behind the scenes to the undeniable fact that we’re often left with candidates who exhibit demonstrable character defects, the idea of voting our values as Christians can seem like a daunting enterprise.
This reality is one reason why the proverbial phrase “the lesser of two evils” has become a go-to expression each election cycle. It’s an acknowledgment that both political parties fall short of our biblical standards in some way — embodying worrying degrees of corruption, bad ideas, and problematic leadership.
But that phrase is also an acknowledgment that Christians shouldn’t just throw up their hands in surrender, even if our choices are less than ideal. As best we can, we should pursue the application of biblical principles to every area of life, which includes the domain of politics.
How, then, should Christians weigh upcoming elections as they assess who to support at the ballot box?
Thanks to the recent slate of excellent Supreme Court rulings, we at least have a practical blueprint to help inform us as we make our decision.
Here are five areas to sharpen our focus during election season.
Ally to the pro-life community
Protecting unborn life in the womb should be one of the primary motivating factors for any serious Christian. The ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization undid the horrors of Roe v. Wade, turning the abortion battle from the national to the state level.
Which politician, Christian or not, will be an ally to the pro-life community?
That’s the question we must ask.
The ones who are hostile to the pro-life community will make it obvious.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., for instance, demanded that the feds shut down crisis pregnancy centers by force while her colleagues in the House blocked a congressional resolution to condemn the violence and vandalism directed at faith-based organizations in the aftermath of Dobbs.
Meanwhile, abortion fanatic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, D, ghoulishly vetoed millions of dollars from the budget that was allocated by the Michigan legislature to “encourage adoption and support pro-life pregnancy facilities.”
Like I said, they make it obvious.
Religious liberty
What good is religious liberty if you can’t exercise it in a public place? Not good at all, the Supreme Court concluded in Kennedy v. Bremerton School District.
Coach Joe Kennedy, if you’ll recall, was canned by his employer, a public school district, for leading a voluntary prayer on the field after each game. The district ridiculously argued that this voluntary prayer, which players from both teams participated in, was a de facto establishment of religion by the school.
It was not.
It was an American citizen exercising his God-given right to praise his Creator free from government interference.
Which politician will rigorously protect the First Amendment’s guarantee of religious liberty and free speech?
This question is all the more important to sort out after we witnessed megalomaniac governors and local officials exploit the coronavirus pandemic to shutter churches and limit attendance capacity for almost a year, even as they allowed abortion clinics and pot shops to remain open and accessible.
Put differently, will the politician be a friend or foe to the Church?
Lest you think such a query is too abstract, remember that Beto O’Rourke, who is currently running for governor in Texas, previously told a CNN townhall audience in 2019 that, if elected president, he would rescind the tax-exemption status of any Christian nonprofit that opposed same-sex marriage.
School choice
In Carson v. Makin, the Supreme Court ruled that the state of Maine, if it is going to subsidize tuition costs for private schools, cannot freeze out faith-based schools from receiving funds as well.
“That is discrimination against religion,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote.
Three of Roberts’s colleagues objected to the decision, which means three Supreme Court justices believed that Maine was justified in explicitly barring tax dollars from going toward religious instruction even as the State made tax dollars available to other private institutions.
“Discrimination” is the right word choice.
For voting purposes, any program or law — charters, vouchers, home school protections — that aids Christians in removing their children from the public school system is a win.
Government schools are not values-neutral venues for education. They are temples of worship for humanism, where a secular worldview is at the core of what is taught. If that agenda wasn’t evident already, the relentless reporting by Christopher Rufo exposing the radical gender ideology showcased in the classroom should leave no doubts.
Separation of powers
Civil government isn’t the only form of government, biblically speaking. It’s one form among many.
And throughout Scripture He places different emphases and assigns different roles to each of these jurisdictions. Under this design, tyranny is averted because power is not centralized in any one form of government; it’s decentralized, or it should be anyway.
That’s the road to freedom. But that’s not how Washington, D.C., has functioned lately.
Americans have lost a great deal of their freedoms to unelected bureaucrats who populate the administrative state. No-name pencil pushers are imposing vast regulations on American society by decree, making a mockery of our Constitution’s commitment to “checks and balances.”
A seismic correction, however, could be in the works, thanks to the ruling in West Virginia v. EPA. Here the Supreme Court blocked the Environmental Protection Agency, and, by extension, other government agencies, from snatching power that was never delegated to them by Congress in the first place. As Neil Gorsuch underscored in a concurring opinion, any federal agency endeavoring to regulate “‘a significant portion of the American economy’” must be given an overt mandate by the legislative body. The same determination applies if an agency is trying to “require ‘billions of dollars in spending’ by private persons or entities,” the justice added.
It’ll now be more difficult for some Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez fanboy you’ve never heard of to micromanage your life from the windowless office of his D.C. cubicle.
While defanging the administrative state may not be as flashy as the other Supreme Court opinions handed down this term, West Virginia v. EPA is nonetheless a crucial part in upholding the biblical precept of separation of powers. Christians should be suspicious of any politician who doesn’t respect these constitutional boundaries.
One last thing…
This next topic wasn’t addressed in the Supreme Court’s most recent docket, but it remains an indispensable part of how Christians should assess who to back for political office. And that topic surrounds this question: What kind of people will the candidate staff his administration with?
That question is critical because who an elected leader hires to implement his policies reflects that administration’s beliefs and priorities. It’s not a one-man operation, after all.
Which brings us to President Joe Biden.
He appointed a man pretending to be a woman to a key healthcare role at the White House. Admiral “Rachel” Levine, formerly known as Richard Levine, is the assistant secretary for health at the Department of Health and Human Services. During an MSNBC interview not too long ago, Mr. Levine said he remains dedicated to empowering “trans youth” to get “gender-affirmation treatment in their state,” which is the euphemistic way of saying he supports pumping adolescents full of puberty blockers and recommending “sex” reassignment surgery if these “youth” convey discontentment about their gender.
Any politician or party who defends mutilating children over feelings they’ll eventually grow out of has tilted the “evil” in “the lesser of two evils” balancing act unequivocally to one side of the electoral scale … which means that balancing act no longer exists.
The Biden administration has similarly made news by hiring a guy at the Department of Energy’s nuclear waste division who shows up to work in stilettos, a dress, lipstick, and goes by the pronoun “they.” The same dude reportedly brags about his bizarre sexual fetish that involves animal role-playing. It’s called “pup-play,” if you’re interested.
What this means in the context of voting is that we may not like the candidate at the top of the ticket and may even find his personality obnoxious, but that should not automatically be a dealbreaker.
If the candidate is going to hire personnel who champion the unborn, who respect religious liberty and Christian education, who seek to scale back the size and scope of civil government, and who aren’t trying to subvert the biological differences between men and women and castrate kids in the process, then these are all strong factors to consider before casting a ballot.
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into cartoons that have been popular all over the country, in various news outlets including “Fox News”, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and President Donald Trump.
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American Family Association
American Family Association (AFA), a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, was founded in 1977 by Donald E. Wildmon, who was the pastor of First United Methodist Church in Southaven, Mississippi, at the time. Since 1977, AFA has been on the frontlines of Ame
American Family Association
American Family Association (AFA), a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, was founded in 1977 by Donald E. Wildmon, who was the pastor of First United Methodist Church in Southaven, Mississippi, at the time. Since 1977, AFA has been on the frontlines of Ame
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American Family Association
American Family Association (AFA), a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, was founded in 1977 by Donald E. Wildmon, who was the pastor of First United Methodist Church in Southaven, Mississippi, at the time. Since 1977, AFA has been on the frontlines of Ame
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American Family Association
American Family Association (AFA), a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, was founded in 1977 by Donald E. Wildmon, who was the pastor of First United Methodist Church in Southaven, Mississippi, at the time. Since 1977, AFA has been on the frontlines of Ame
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