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Posts tagged ‘Indiana’

NAACP Branch Targets Republican Councilwoman With 7 Kids At 6 a.m. Outside Her Home

BY: JOY PULLMANN | MAY 04, 2023

NAACP Amy Drake protest — Republican official Amy Drake cited the FBI’s definition of domestic terrorism: ‘Appearing to be intended to influence the policy of government by intimidation or coercion.’

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A South Bend, Indiana, branch of the NAACP held a press conference Thursday at 6:30 a.m. outside the house of Republican County Councilwoman Amy Drake to protest her criticism of Indiana’s public health bureaucracy. A May 1 press release and social media posts proclaimed the group’s intent to protest outside Drake’s home, where she lives with her husband and seven children.

South Bend NAACP Chairwoman Trina Robinson told The Federalist Wednesday that after internal pushback she decided to switch the “peaceful demonstration” to a press conference, still outside the Drakes’ home at 6:30 a.m. Drake, who has written opinion articles for The Federalist, told The Federalist that holding any demonstrations outside her home is a form of “domestic terrorism” intended to influence her votes by harassing and threatening her family.

Drake cited the FBI’s definition of domestic terrorism: “Appearing to be intended to influence the policy of government by intimidation or coercion.” She and her husband spent three days before the event calling police, fielding calls from constituents and friends, and making plans to ensure their children’s safety.

“There is no such thing as a peaceful protest in front of a person’s home. Protests in front of homes are designed to intimidate and frighten,” Drake said in a press release.

Robinson told The Federalist the goal of visiting Drake’s home was indeed to put pressure on her and express displeasure at Drake’s public record, since their public comments at city council meetings did not move Drake to vote as the group wants. “The NAACP are not here to make people uncomfortable,” she said this morning on the sidewalk across from the Drakes’ home while a school bus picked up children in the background.

Drake ran for office in 2022, motivated by Republican Gov. Eric Holcomb’s extensive lockdowns and their associated public health fiascos. She has been an integral part of increasing the fundraising and effectiveness of the local Republican Party, bringing in conservative energy, volunteers, and ideas. That has made her a top target of local Democrats and the public health bureaucracy.

South Bend is where Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg was mayor from 2012 to 2020. Buttigieg’s parents were professors at Notre Dame University.

The demonstration fits a pattern of confrontational political actions against conservatives and Republicans, including mob action in the state capitols of Tennessee, Texas, Montana, Kentucky, Kansas, Florida, Oklahoma, and Missouri. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito told The Wall Street Journal this week that the five constitutional justices remain under constant threat of assassination.

Robinson says she considers showing up at a public official’s home a form of “free speech” and said local police told her the group could show up at Drake’s home so long as they stayed on the sidewalk. Drake says she asked for police presence to ensure everyone’s safety and was told they might send an unmarked car. On Thursday morning, Drake said she couldn’t see any police outside as the press conference commenced.

The Saint Joseph County Police Department’s communications officer did not respond to two voicemails requesting comment Wednesday. Sheriff William Redman’s official bio says he is a “Westside Democratic Club Lifetime Member.”

According to a live-streamed video on Facebook, about 10 people showed up to support the South Bend demonstration. Two were black, including Robinson, and eight were white. One appeared to be local Democrat Party Vice Chairman Don Westerhausen, according to on-site sources. The demonstrators held signs stating: “Amy Drake voted no $$$ for -behavioral crisis center -Motels4Now -Portage Manor,” “Lead Testing Protects Children,” and “We Support Opioid Crisis Relief Funding.”

Jonah Bryson, associate press secretary for the national NAACP organization, took The Federalist’s comment request at 3 p.m. ET Wednesday but failed to return comment on whether NAACP as an organization supports demonstrations outside politicians’ homes.

With her toddler grandson’s coos in the background, Robinson explained to The Federalist on Wednesday her thinking behind demonstrating outside Drake’s home.

“When you take on responsibilities to be a leader of a community, sometimes people are not going to agree with you. That pretty much comes with the territory,” Robinson said. “We’re not wanting to disrupt her children or anything, we would never disrupt her family.”

When asked whether Robinson was aware that Drake and her husband were alarmed for their children’s safety and they’d said so publicly on Facebook, Robinson said she was not: “I am not friends with her on Facebook.” Robinson also emphatically denied any desire to provoke violence, saying she was concerned the Drakes might respond to the demonstration outside their home with violence.

“Just because people disagree with you doesn’t necessarily mean they come to do bodily harm,” Robinson said.

Drake told The Federalist she and her husband decided against any kind of counter-demonstration to avoid “escalating.” They also adamantly opposed violence of any kind. But they considered the local activists’ decision to personalize politics by showing up at their home at the time their children go to school to be an act of hostility.

The Federalist asked Robinson about that several times. She said protesting on a public sidewalk is an American right, and that people in South Bend have protested at local representatives’ homes before.

“This isn’t Germany, this isn’t Russia,” she said. “We’re Americans, we can speak out. That’s a right we have.”

Robinson then directed her focus to the desperation she and others feel at many South Bend residents’ tragic conditions. Like many other American cities, South Bend has highly visible homeless, generational poverty, and drug problems. For years, visitors and residents have seen shocking scenes on the many emaciated streets of South Bend, common to cities across the United States. Trillions of taxpayer and private dollars poured into these problems since the 1950s have not improved conditions in most cities. In many cities, things are worse: dirtier, filled with even more homeless people and addicts, more violent, and uglier. Robinson equated Drake’s opposition to expanding ineffective government bureaucracy with leaving desperate citizens without the resources to make better lives.

“You can’t say you oppose a mental health crisis unit when here in South Bend a man in a mental health crisis was gunned down in front of his mom. And we don’t need a mental health crisis unit?” Robinson said. “We have homeless in this town. If you don’t have another solution for them, why are you opposing them being where they are? At least they’re not on the street downtown in tents.”

When asked if she had ever talked with Drake about these concerns one on one, Robinson replied: “No, we haven’t had a conversation. I spoke at the council meetings. She has never come up to me. I haven’t approached her either, so that goes both ways. So, we’re both to blame for that. I’ll take responsibility for that.”

Robinson said she would be willing to go out to lunch or coffee with Drake. She invited Drake to call her and said if Drake didn’t want to do that, she’d call Drake.

When The Federalist asked Drake her response, she discussed it with her husband and sent back this via text: “[Robinson] needs to admit domestic terrorism is wrong. She needs to apologize for creating fear in my family and causing us to interrupt our lives to put protective measures in place. After a month cooling off period, we can have a civil discussion.”

Joy Pullmann is executive editor of The Federalist, a happy wife, and the mother of six children. Her just-published ebook is “101 Strategies For Living Well Amid Inflation.” Her bestselling ebook is “Classic Books for Young Children.” Mrs. Pullmann identifies as native American and gender natural. Her many books include “The Education Invasion: How Common Core Fights Parents for Control of American Kids,” from Encounter Books. Joy is also a grateful graduate of the Hillsdale College honors and journalism programs.

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Indiana Health Dept. Sits On Records Showing Two Babies Born Alive After Abortions, Three Women Dead

BY: JOY PULLMANN | APRIL 27, 2023

girl at abortion facility — Indiana’s GOP legislature is poised to increase funding 2,000 percent for an agency that oversaw abortion businesses after whose services three women died in 2022.

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Indiana abortion records The Federalist obtained this week indicate that in 2022 three women died after abortion procedures and two babies were born alive after chemical abortions. They also suggest Indiana abortionists failed to report four abortions on girls aged 15 and younger, as legally required. One of the minors not referred for a state abuse investigation after her abortion, a violation of state law, was just 13 years old, the records say.

The Indiana Department of Health receives legally mandated Terminated Pregnancy Reports on each abortion committed in the state. More than 100 of these from January to November 2022 indicate that abortion facilities in the state may have committed crimes and health violations, according to recordkeeping from Voices for Life, a Hoosier pro-life organization.

IDH has shut down no abortion facilities since January 2022, however, even facilities where records show women died after abortions. As for the 22 abortionists named in these numerous recent reports indicating potential medical malfeasance, “I am not aware of any doctors who have lost their licenses,” Voices for Life Executive Director Melanie Garcia Lyon told The Federalist Wednesday.

IDH communications personnel did not respond to any questions about these records from The Federalist.

GOP to Reward Incompetent Health Agency

Indiana’s Republican governor and Republican-dominated legislature are poised to increase taxpayer funding for the health department by 2,000 percent this week, from $7 million a year to more than $150 million. IDH also pushed Indiana families into lockdown and covid testing chaos across two school years despite early-available evidence children were at low risk from Covid-19 exposure.

Gov. Eric Holcomb is now using the damage his lengthy Covid shutdowns caused, including mental distress, obesity, and academic catastrophe, to amp up funding for the shutdowns’ top enabler and enforcer in Indiana. That enforcer also happens to be low-energy in investigating abortion businesses whose services have resulted in Hoosier women’s deaths.

Voices for Life and their national partner Students for Life collect these records and file complaints about apparent violations with IDH and the state attorney general’s office, Garcia Lyon told The Federalist. Forty percent of the potential violations the group found from January to November 2022, Garcia Lyon said, were from Planned Parenthood locations.

After receiving such complaints, the office of Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita investigates, then submits a summary or a complaint to Indiana’s medical licensing board, said Rokita Press Secretary Kelly Stevenson. The board hears complaints and decides whether to sanction the investigated abortionist or facility. Indiana’s governor oversees that board and appoints its seven members.

On Saturday in Indianapolis, Students for Life and Voices for Life will highlight the state-reported health and safety violations related to an abortion facility that may move across the border to Illinois. That’s the Clinic for Women, currently in Indianapolis.

In September, Indiana banned abortions, except for very small babies who are the claimed results of rape and incest. The law is currently suspended by two injunctions pending litigation. Garcia Lyon noted that the law “still allows for abortion at hospitals. And the same people making these violations often do abortions in hospitals already. [So] code violations will still be relevant once the law goes into place, because it’s still the same people, just moving places.”

Records: 15-Year-Old Girl’s Womb Evacuated By Infamous Abortionist

One of the abortion reports, dated April 21, 2022, shows a chemical abortion on a 15-year-old girl performed by abortionist Deborah Nucatola in Bloomington, Ind. at a Planned Parenthood. Nucatola was infamously recorded on a 2015 undercover video discussing how to “crush” a child to death during an abortion to leave his organs intact for sale.

The state report suggests this abortion was not reported, as legally required, to the state Department of Child Services for investigation as the potential result of child rape. The space on the form for the date of reporting this abortion to IDH is blank. Legally, the form states, the abortion should have been disclosed to DCS within three days of the child’s death.

Debora Nucatola_PP Bloomington 4.21.22 Unreported Abortion on Minor (1) by The Federalist on Scribdhttps://www.scribd.com/embeds/640915572/content?start_page=1&view_mode=scroll&access_key=key-IfmOusQhz4pGVSMM0Ko3

One of the four underage girls whose 2022 abortions weren’t reported to child services, as legally required, was 13 years old when her child was aborted, according to state records. That surgical abortion on a seven-week-old baby was performed at a Planned Parenthood branch in Indianapolis by abortionist Cassandra Cashman, the record states.

DCS also failed to answer any Federalist questions about these reports.

Records: 3 Women Died After Indiana Abortions in 2022

According to three TPRs from 2022, three women died in Indiana after abortions at facilities overseen by the Indiana Department of Health. At the Indianapolis Sidney and Lois Eskenazi Hospital, a 31-year-old married woman died after an abortion on June 25, 2022, says one TPR.

The record says she was given abortion pills when her baby was 21 weeks of gestation, an age at which babies can survive outside the womb in a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). The baby was diagnosed via ultrasound with a chromosomal anomaly, says the record, which IDH received on July 22, 2022. The physician committing this abortion was listed as Amy Caldwell in the report.

Caldwell was also the abortionist listed on the April 24, 2022 report of another Hoosier woman who died after an abortion at Planned Parenthood-Georgetown in Indianapolis. The 29-year-old unmarried woman was given abortion drugs to kill a 7-week-old baby, say the state records.

The third Hoosier woman to die after an abortion in 2022 undertook a surgical abortion in Bloomington, Indiana, by abortionist Rhiannon Amodeo, says another state record. The baby cut to pieces inside her was an estimated eight weeks old. His mother was 31 years old. The Indiana Department of Health received the report of this double death on November 23, 2022.

Caldwell is also listed as the physician on a January 7, 2022 report that says she delivered a baby alive during an abortion procedure. That baby was also potentially viable in a NICU: she was listed on the report as 20 weeks old when her mother and an abortionist ended her life.

Indiana Department of Health Blaming Data ‘Errors’ Since 2018

In March 2022, Hoosier pro-lifers said the Indiana Department of Health stopped releasing Terminated Pregnancy Reports for a South Bend facility after local conservative news highlighted TPRs indicating multiple illegal abortions at the Whole Women’s Health facility.

“Over the past four years, IDOH has taken zero action on reported abortions that indicate they were illegally performed,” wrote state Rep. Jake Teshka in a March 2022 letter to the agency about the incident.

More than 50 Indiana lawmakers wrote to Holcomb in 2021 complaining about the IDH’s history of alleged data errors and lackluster follow-up on abortion reports that indicate potential crimes. The letter noted that since at least 2018 the department has claimed several abortion reports that indicate criminal or health-violating activity were false, due to “computer error.”

“We submit complaints all the time about things that are reported on Terminated Pregnancy Reports, and the excuse nearly every time is, ‘Oh, it was an error. Oh, it was an error,’” Jackie Appleman, a Voices for Life board member, told a local newspaper in February after the department used the excuse again over reports of unlicensed abortions occurring in Indiana. “We’ve been getting this excuse back from the (Indiana) health department for the last, I don’t know, three or four years.”

The December 2021 letter from elected officials notes that despite multiple postabortion deaths of women and abortions performed at unlicensed facilities, Indiana abortionists have failed to lose their medical licenses and IDOH has failed to resolve investigations into such cases. The officials asked Holcomb to update them on “on all open cases relating to abortion clinics” and to investigate why complaints “are not examined and resolved.”

Holcomb responded in January 2022, providing no update on IDH investigations of abortion facilities nor announcing any investigation into why IDH fails to secure penalties for abortionists after procedures that lead to women’s deaths. One year later, he moved to reward the badly discredited IDH with hundreds of millions more taxpayer dollars. Holcomb’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

Instead of demanding that IDH prove competence at stopping criminal and human rights violations under its purview before any expansion of its duties, the Indiana legislature is cooperating with Holcomb in rewarding IDH with a 2,000 percent increase in taxpayer funding.

Joy Pullmann is executive editor of The Federalist, a happy wife, and the mother of six children. Her just-published ebook is “101 Strategies For Living Well Amid Inflation.” Her bestselling ebook is “Classic Books for Young Children.” Mrs. Pullmann identifies as native American and gender natural. Her many books include “The Education Invasion: How Common Core Fights Parents for Control of American Kids,” from Encounter Books. Joy is also a grateful graduate of the Hillsdale College honors and journalism programs.

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Poll Worker Fired For Selecting Straight Democrat Ticket On Voter’s Ballot, Calling Republicans ‘Racist’

BY: VICTORIA MARSHALL | NOVEMBER 07, 2022

A Democrat poll worker in Indiana has reportedly been fired after allegations surfaced that he had pressured voters into voting against Republican candidates and selected the “straight Democrat ticket” option when helping an individual fill out their ballot.

James Zheng, a poll worker in Carmel, Indiana, is allegedly being investigated by the Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office for incidents of “electioneering and election interference.”

On Thursday, as a group of pro-parental rights education activists stood outside the Carmel polling place, Zheng allegedly told two black voters that they should not vote for the pro-parent, Republican candidates because the activists outside were “racist.” After the voters submitted their ballots, they alerted the activists to what Zheng had told them. The activists then complained to election officials.

Later, a second incident was reported. According to Hamilton County election administrator Beth Sheller, when Zheng was assisting a voter with an electronic ballot, he pressed the straight Democrat ticket option when explaining to the voter how to use the voting machine. The voter was “then confused about how to change the selection” and asked another poll worker for help. That poll worker resolved the issue and alerted the polling location’s election inspector about the incident.

Zheng had been removed from his post as of Friday.

Hamilton County GOP chairman Mario Massillamany told Fox News that Zheng’s conduct raises questions as to how many voters had been confused after he had attempted a similar maneuver but did not alert election officials.

“This should serve as a cautionary reminder that those desperate to hold onto power or gain power will do anything – including breaking the law – to thwart the efforts of parents and taxpayers to replace our school boards with officials who more accurately reflect the values of our community,” he said.

The incidents come after Democrats and their allies in the corporate media launched a nonstop propaganda campaign claiming GOP poll workers represent an existential threat to democracy (despite the fact that actual threats of violence and intimidation are extremely rare). Yet when a Democrat poll worker engages in election interference, Democrats are silent.

As Republicans are expected to make massive gains on Tuesday, expect Democrats to pull out all stops including using their minions (like Zheng) to influence voters, buying votes, interfering in the administrative process, and questioning election results. (According to the corporate media narrative, after all, it’s only acceptable to question elections if they favor GOP candidates.)

Victoria Marshall is a staff writer at The Federalist. Her writing has been featured in the New York Post, National Review, and Townhall. She graduated from Hillsdale College in May 2021 with a major in politics and a minor in journalism. Follow her on Twitter @vemrshll.

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‘The Real Hero’: Good Guy with Gun Ends Mass Shooting in Indiana Mall

BY: JORDAN BOYD | JULY 18, 2022

Greenwood, Indiana firetruck responds to shooting at mall

Less than three weeks after Indiana’s new constitutional carry law went into effect, an armed bystander shot and killed an assailant suspected of fatally shooting three people and injuring two others in an Indiana mall on Sunday evening.

Reports of a shooting in the Greenwood Park Mall began around 6 p.m. on Sunday when an unnamed gunman opened fire in the food court. After striking at least one male and four females including a 12-year-old girl, the suspected shooter was quickly shot and killed by a bystander who “observed the shooting in progress.”

As of Monday morning, police had not released the identity of the man who shot the gunman, but local news reports indicated he is 22 years old and from the nearby Bartholomew County.

“The real hero of the day is the citizen that was lawfully carrying a firearm in that food court and was able to stop the shooter almost as soon as he began,” Greenwood Police Chief Jim Ison told reporters.

Greenwood Mayor Mark Myers also praised the “good Samaritan” for stopping “further bloodshed.”

“This person saved lives tonight,” Myers said in a statement. “On behalf of the City of Greenwood, I am grateful for his quick action and heroism in this situation.”

CNN tried to downplay the “good guy with a gun” by claiming that it is extremely rare for armed citizens to step in. Their article about the shooting dedicated four paragraphs to warning that, according to a New York Times data chart, “having more than one armed person at the scene who is not a member of law enforcement can create confusion and carry dire risks.”

Several local news outlets centered their coverage on the narrative that the man who took down the suspected assailant violated the mall’s no weapons policy.

“Armed ‘Good Samaritan’ stopped Indiana mall shooting, broke mall rules,” WANE 15 reported.

According to Fox 59 out of Indianapolis, the mall owner, Simon Property Group, “states in its code of conduct that no weapons are allowed at their shopping centers.” It isn’t until later in the article that Fox 59 noted, “While the property group has the ability to set policies against weapons, what the man did was not illegal.”

Meanwhile, Moms Demand Action founder Shannon Watts took a swipe at the good guy with a gun and the Second Amendment, and Kris Brown, president of the anti-gun Brady Campaign, smeared him as a “vigilante.”

Under pressure from a wave of primary challengers this spring who made constitutional carry a top critique of Republican incumbents, the GOP-controlled legislature and governor passed a new law earlier this year that no longer requires gun owners to obtain a permit to legally “carry, conceal or transport a handgun within the state.” The law took effect on July 1.

A Houston police sergeant is also being hailed as a hero after he tackled a man armed with a rifle, 120 rounds of ammunition, and a handgun in the Houston Galleria over the weekend.

Jordan Boyd is a staff writer at The Federalist and co-producer of The Federalist Radio Hour. Her work has also been featured in The Daily Wire and Fox News. Jordan graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow her on Twitter @jordanboydtx.

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Man Charged with Rape in Connection To 10-Year-Old Who Traveled for Abortion: REPORT

REPORTED BY LAUREL DUGGAN, SOCIAL ISSUES AND CULTURE REPORTER | July 13, 2022

Protest in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade abortion decision, in Washington — **REUTERS/Michael A. McCoy**

A man was arrested Tuesday and charged with the felony rape of a 10-year-old girl who later travelled to Indiana for an abortion, The Columbus Dispatch reported. Police said 27-year-old Gershon Fuentes confessed to raping the child on at least two occasions, according to the Dispatch. The child reportedly obtained an abortion in Indianapolis June 30. Franklin County Children Services referred the case to the police June 22, and the suspect is being tested for paternity.

Dr. Caitlin Bernard, an Indianapolis obstetrician-gynecologist, shared the story with the press July 1 and said the child had gone to Indiana for the abortion because it was illegal in her home state of Ohio, a fact that has been contested by the state’s attorney general. She has since been disciplined for a HIPAA violation for publicizing the patient’s details, Fox News reported. (RELATED: Biden Considers Declaring Public Health Emergency To Help Secure Abortion Access)

“A Columbus man has been charged with impregnating a 10-year-old Ohio girl, whose travel to Indiana to seek an abortion led to international attention following the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v Wade and activation of Ohio's abortion law.”https://t.co/EMWfJyq3V2
— Jerry Dunleavy (@JerryDunleavy) July 13, 2022

Fuentes is being held on a $2 million bond, which the judge said was especially high in order to protect the child’s safety.

Bernard did not respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.

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Indiana’s GOP Gov. Eric Holcomb vetoes bill barring biological males from girls’ sports

REPORTED By Michael Gryboski, Mainline Church Editor | Tuesday, March 22, 2022

The Republican governor of Indiana has vetoed a bill that would have prohibited biological males who identify as female to participate in female sporting competitions, expressing multiple concerns about the proposed legislation.

Gov. Eric Holcomb vetoed House Enrolled Act 1041 on Monday, explaining his reasoning in a letter to Indiana House of Representatives Speaker Todd Huston, also a Republican. Holcomb expressed concern with the bill’s “wide-open nature of the grievance provisions,” believing they made it “unclear about how consistency and fairness will be maintained for parents and students across different counties and school districts.”

The governor worries about the potential for the bill to tie the state up in litigation. He noted that other states that have passed similar legislation had been sued, with some court decisions coming down in favor of the plaintiffs.

Holcomb believes that the Indiana High School Athletic Association is doing a sufficiently decent job maintaining fairness in student sports without the new law.

“I am heartened by the IHSAA which has done an admirable job to help maintain fairness and consistency in all sports,” wrote Holcomb. “Nowhere in the testimony on this legislation was a critique leveled against their model on how to govern this and other complex matters.”
“Furthermore, not a single case of a male seeking to participate on a female team has completed the process established by IHSAA’s now decade-old policy.”

Meridian Baldacci of the socially conservative Family Policy Alliance, which supported the legislation, contends in a statement that Holcomb has “abandoned young Hoosier girls” and left them susceptible to the “same fate” as female college swimmers who lost to trans-identified swimmer Lia Thomas in the NCAA 500-yard freestyle national championship this month. While Thomas finished first by 1.75 seconds in the NCAA 500-yard freestyle, the athlete finished eighth in the 100-yard freestyle championship and fifth in the 200-yard freestyle final. Thomas is now a three-time All-American by competing in the finals of all three categories.

“Every time a male is awarded a limited girls’ roster spot, competition placement, scholarship, championship title or career opportunity, a female athlete has that same opportunity taken away from her – in a contest meant just for females,” stated Baldacci.
“The Indiana General Assembly must override this misguided and concerning veto from the governor of one of the most conservative states in the nation.”

Critics contend that biological males who identify as females have innate advantages from being biologically male and, on average, are larger with more muscle mass and higher bone density. However, liberal organizations, like the American Civil Liberties Union, have denied that any “unfair” advantage exists for trans-identified biological males who compete against women or girls because “athletes vary in athletic ability just like cisgender athletes” and success often depends on techniques and training.

According to the LGBT activist group the Movement Advancement Project, 12 states have passed laws prohibiting men who identify as female from competing in sports designated for females. The others include Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Iowa, Mississippi, Montana, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas and West Virginia. Earlier this month, Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds signed a law requiring students to confirm their biological sex before being allowed to compete in girls’ sports.

“No amount of talent, training or effort can make up for the natural physical advantages males have over females. It’s simply a reality of human biology,” stated Reynolds. “Forcing females to compete against males is the opposite of inclusivity and it’s absolutely unfair.”

In 2021, the NCAA threatened not to host championship tournaments and contests in states that have passed laws impacting the ability of trans-identified athletes to compete based on their gender identity.

The success of Thomas, a biological male who competed previously on the Penn men’s swim team before competing this year on the women’s team, has sparked much debate about NCAA policies on trans-identified athletes. Virginia Tech swimmer Reka Gyorgy, who missed the cut to compete in the 500-yard freestyle finals, voiced her displeasure with the NCAA’s policy. She wrote a letter to the NCAA on Sunday.

“It feels like the final spot was taken from me because of the NCAA’s decision to let someone who is not a biological female compete,” she wrote.
“I know you could say I had the opportunity to swim faster and make the top 16, but this situation makes it a bit different, and I can’t help but be angry or sad. It hurts me, my team and other women in the pool. One spot was taken away from the girl who got 9th in the 500 free and didn’t [sic] make it back to the a final preventing her from being an All-American. Every event that transgender athletes competed in was one spot taken away from biological females throughout the meet.”

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As Country Prepares for Midterm Elections, Fake American Licenses from Hong Kong Flood United States

Reported By Christine Favocci January 27, 2022

Democrats are quick to smear election integrity legislation as racist, but a recent discovery proves just how easy it is for people to commit fraud.

Last week, U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents seized 1,200 counterfeit driver’s licenses from more than 20 states, according to the agency’s website. The fake IDs were part of three shipments from Hong Kong declared as $20 worth of “Game Card,” with one labeled for a Chicago destination and the other two headed for New York.

Many of the identification cards reused photos with different names and had dates of birth consistent with people of college age. They were knock-offs of licenses from states including Michigan, Pennsylvania, California, Texas, New Jersey, North Carolina, South Carolina, Illinois and Ohio.

“Counterfeit driver’s licenses have historically been used by those under 21 years of age for the illegal consumption of alcohol, but fake IDs ……

YOU CAN READ THE REST OF THE REPORT AT https://www.westernjournal.com/country-prepares-midterm-elections-fake-american-licenses-hong-kong-flood-united-states/

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26 state school board associations distance themselves from national group calling parents ‘terrorists’

Reported By Anugrah Kumar, Christian Post Contributor| Monday, November 15, 2021

High school, classroom, California — IT Support Technician Michael Hakopian (R) distributes computer devices to students at Hollywood High School on August 13, 2020, in Hollywood, California. With over 734,000 enrolled students, the Los Angeles Unified School District is the largest public school system in California and the 2nd largest public school district in the United States. | Rodin Eckenroth/Getty Images

At least 26 state school board associations have distanced themselves from the National School Board Association after it urged the Biden administration to use federal law enforcement agencies against parents who oppose the teaching of controversial curriculum in public schools by labeling them as potential “domestic terrorists.”

The national grassroots organization Parents Defending Education says the states that have distanced themselves from the NSBA’s letter include: Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, New Hampshire, New Jersey, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming.

Out of these, 12 states — Alabama, Florida, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina and Wisconsin — have taken further action to withdraw membership, participation or dues from the NSBA.

PDE wrote to NSBA member states for their comment on the Sept. 29 letter sent to them by NSBA Interim Executive Director Chip Slaven, which critics believe likened activism of concerned parents to “domestic terrorism.”

The letter said the NSBA had asked the U.S. Department of Justice to mobilize law enforcement agencies to respond to “threats and acts of violence against public schoolchildren, public school board members, and other public school district officials and educators” as actions of “domestic terrorism.”

While some school board members across the nation have publicly shared incidents of threats they’ve purportedly received from angry residents, critics believe the request to get federal law enforcement involved is unwarranted and an attempt to silence parents. Specific examples of concerning actions included the disruption of school board meetings “because of local directives for mask coverings to protect students and educators from COVID-19,” the incitement of “chaos” at school board meetings by “anti-mask proponents,” and the confrontation of school boards by “angry mobs” that have led boards to “end meetings abruptly.”

John Halkias, the director of the NSBA’s Central Region, wrote to Slaven the same day, on Sept. 29, sharing his belief that “the Board of Directors should have been consulted before a letter like this was sent out publicly, and no less to the President of the United States and the National Press.”

“I also agree that the letter took a stance that went beyond what many of us would consider to be reasonable and used terms that were extreme, and asked for action by the Federal Government that many of us would not request,” he added. “In fact in a recent press conference, the White House Press Secretary stated that when these incidents occur, it is a matter for local law enforcement and local authorities, and NOT the federal government.”

In an Oct. 2 email, NSBA President Viola Garcia told the organization’s board of directors that “NSBA has been engaged with the White House and the Department of Education on these and other issues related to the pandemic for several weeks now.”

Five days later, the Department of Justice published a memorandum directing “the Federal Bureau of Investigations, working with each United States Attorney, to convene meetings with federal, state, local, Tribal, and territorial leaders within 30 days” to “facilitate the discussion of strategies for addressing threats against school administrators, board members, teachers and staff.”

Republican members of Congress also criticized the memo.

“As someone who was born in the Soviet Union, I am … disturbed, very disturbed, by the use of the Department of Justice as a political tool, and its power as the police state to suppress lawful public discourse,” Rep. Victoria Spartz, R-Ind., said in a House Judiciary Committee oversight hearing. “The FBI is starting to resemble old KGB with secret warrantless … surveillance, wiretapping and intimidation of citizens.”

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Graphic Content Warning: Crowd Gasps as Fed-Up Parents Read School’s Pornographic Books Out Loud at Board Meeting

Reported by Christine Favocci | July 30, 2021

If there’s one good thing that came out of school closures, it’s that parents finally had a window into what their kids were being exposed to in the classroom — and many were horrified by what they saw.

That’s exactly what happened in Carmel, Indiana, where parents learned the full scope of the perversion being peddled to their children. The school libraries there are filled with storybooks pushing radical transgender ideology, lessons on masturbation for middle schoolers, and novels with explicit sexual scenes including one describing a bloody rape.

At a meeting of the Carmel Clay School Board on Monday, outraged parents took turns reading excerpts from these materials. They are so objectionable that it’s necessary to issue more than our usual warning of graphic content. Watch at your own risk — but keep in mind, this smut is being made available to schoolchildren.

WARNING: The following video contains graphic language that some viewers will find offensive.

One parent spoke out against the “global campaign to promote sexualized material to grade school children which is heralded by the UN, championed by Planned Parenthood and is now making its way into the Carmel schools.”

She noted some of the titles available at elementary schools, including “Introducing Teddy: A Gentle Story About Gender and Friendship,” which uses a teddy bear to teach kids that gender isn’t determined by biology. There is also “Sparkle Boy,” about a toddler’s cross-dressing tendencies, and “Call Me Max,” in which a kindergarten girl gets a teacher to call her by a boy’s name.

(Whatever happened to reading Dr. Seuss books to schoolchildren? Oh, right — canceled by the woke mob.)

Another parent read from a novel available to Carmel high schoolers that includes a pornographic scene explicitly describing characters engaged in various sex acts. It’s too obscene to even summarize.

A third parent read from the book “It’s Perfectly Normal,” which is available to middle school children and promoted by Planned Parenthood. It teaches kids how to masturbate and is filled with nitty-gritty details.

A book called “Crank” details a disturbing rape that transpires when a young couple goes into the woods to get drunk and high on meth.

“If I had known you were just going to lay there, I wouldn’t have bothered,” the rapist tells his victim on the car ride home.

The video of Monday’s school board meeting was uploaded to YouTube by the group Unify Carmel, which is raising the alarm on the wokeism pervading the city’s public schools.

Alvin Lui, a parent activist, told WIBC in May that he fled California to escape radical leftist ideology — only to find it in his new home in Indiana.

“If I [raised] my daughter in California, the schools and the culture there would teach her that her two most important things in life [are] that she’s Asian and she’s female,” he said.

Lui said he began to worry about his daughter’s new school when he saw ideas like critical race theory make their way into the curriculum, a change that no doubt came about when the district hired its first “diversity, equity and inclusion officer” in January.

“We saw a lot of little things before other people saw it because we’ve lived through it previously,” Lui said. “So for my wife and I, it kind of feels like we’re living through that same nightmare all over again except in the very beginning.”

Parents have already begun pushing back against other items on the woke agenda, but Monday’s meeting in Carmel revealed the sexual indecency introduced to children in public schools.

“If I were to read it to you, you wouldn’t be able to air it because it would be against FCC obscenity laws,” Lui told WXIN-TV. “Everyone was uncomfortable, and these are adults.”

To his credit, Carmel Clay Superintendent Dr. Michael Beresford said he wasn’t aware of the books until the meeting and pledged to look into them. Carmel certainly isn’t the only place where so-called educators are sexualizing children — leftists are hard at work across the country. They know that sexually active kids make great abortion clients for Planned Parenthood and turn into Democratic voters when they become impoverished single parents.

Transgender advocates know that if they can get a hold of kindergarten minds, they can recruit a generation of confused children. The doctors who prescribe the puberty blockers and perform the “transition” surgeries can get that much richer.

Beyond the political sphere, what we have here is a battle for the hearts and souls of American children. This perversion tailored to kids stems from a diabolical determination to spoil their innocence and set them up for a life of servitude to sin. Whether they know it or not, the teachers giving smut to their students are cooperating with the dark powers that would turn us away from God by shackling us to our basest desires. There’s no surer way to do that than to expose children to this filth early and often.

Americans now have the opportunity to see and hear exactly what’s going on in public schools — and it’s our job to do exactly what these parents did on Monday.

Christine Favocci

Christine earned her bachelor’s degree from Seton Hall University, where she studied communications and Latin. She left her career in the insurance industry to become a freelance writer and stay-at-home mother.@CFavocci Facebook

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White Student Born in Drug and Alcohol Abuse Home Asks School Board How She Can Have ‘White Privilege’

Reported by Michael Austin | June 29, 2021

One brave girl from Fishers, Indiana, had some important questions for members of her local school board last week. Fighting back tears, the girl explained to the board members how they have “failed [her] as a student.” Her comments can be seen starting around the 41:57 mark in a video on the Hamilton Southeastern Schools website.

“I have been in counseling as long as I can remember because I was adopted from foster care at age 4,” she said at the school board meeting on Wednesday.
“The things I’ve learned along the way are being challenged now when my science or math teacher is trying to teach me how to be emotionally — and why are they teaching me about sexuality and how to identity?” the girl said.
“I don’t want to hear about sexuality during class in front of other students because that should be a private thing. This should be left in the homes and between students and counselors or one-on-one conversations.‘
“This has been a very traumatic part of my past, and the more that the school focuses on sexuality, the more it affects me and my anxiety.”

Following that, she revealed that she had been accused of having “white privilege” by school staff members.

“I was told I have white privilege. How can a child born in an abusive, drug and alcohol abuse home who lost her entire biological family, that has experienced all forms of abuse and neglect, be privileged?” the girl asked.
“If you found a child at 15 months in a home with holes in the floor eating cat poop, would you consider them privileged? Just asking, because when I was told that, I was upset and cried myself to sleep.”

A quick look at the website of the girl’s school district confirms that far-left “equity and inclusion” propaganda is being disseminated to students. Just as she said, this propaganda focuses on sexuality and anti-racism (which teaches about the supposed prevalence of “white privilege”).

An “Equity and Inclusion” web page on the district’s website offers various “Anti-Racism/Bias Resources,” presumably for teachers, students and parents to use for educational purposes.One resource recommended by the district encourages educators to read a book by Ibram X. Kendi, a controversial scholar known for pushing the philosophy of “anti-racism.” According to Kendi, you are either an anti-racist — a progressive political activist who agrees with Kendi’s vague redefinition of racism — or a racist. In his view, there is no in-between.

“What’s the problem with being ‘not racist?’” Kendi wrote. “It is a claim that signifies neutrality: ‘I am not a racist, but neither am I aggressively against racism.’ … One either allows racial inequities to persevere, as a racist, or confronts racial inequities, as an antiracist.”

In other words, vote for Democrats and radical socialist policies such as welfare redistribution — the very same policies that have impoverished the African-American community for decades — or you are a racist. These are the sorts of ideas that Hamilton Southeastern officials push on their students.

Another resource offered by the district links to a video defending the political goal of equity, also known as equality of outcomes.

In its argumentation for the necessity of equity policies, the video uses a popular meme that supposedly shows how equality, or treating people as equals, is not good enough to address supposed systemic inequity. Instead, the proponents of equity argue, in order to reach true equality of outcomes, minorities must be afforded special privileges in order to address the unique disadvantages they face.

Not only is such thinking illogical, but it is also deeply racist due to the fact that it treats minorities as helpless children in need of government aid. Moreover, as conservative commentator Ben Shapiro explained in a Feb. 2 Op-Ed, such reasoning is faulty because it fails to take into account group differences.

“This philosophy is both idiotic and perverse. It’s idiotic because all human groupings — literally all of them — will result in differential outcomes. Draw a line down the middle of any room in random fashion and the result will be unequal income distribution, criminal records, educational histories,” Shapiro wrote.
“When culture takes a hand, disparities can be more deeply rooted than random chance. Discrimination would still not be the cause of such disparity. As a basic logical matter, discrimination is not the cause of all disparity.’
“This philosophy is perverse because it attributes malice to those who have none; it fosters policy that actively discriminates, supposedly in order to alleviate unproven discrimination.”

Indeed, when it comes to the Hamilton Southeastern Schools, this philosophy certainly attributed “malice” to someone who has none.

A girl who has suffered abuse and neglect was called “privileged” just for being white.

Michael Austin

Michael Austin joined The Western Journal as a staff reporter in 2020. Since then, he has authored hundreds of stories, including several original reports. He also co-hosts the outlet’s video podcast, “WJ Live.”@mikeswriting

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California Lady Moves to Red State, Suddenly Sends Unexpected Message to Lib Friends Back Home

Reported By Benjamin Arie | on September 19, 2017 at 12:59pm

URL of the original posting site: https://conservativetribune.com/calif-lady-moves-to-red-state/?

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Flyover country. Bible belt. Middle America. Coastal elites in liberal cities have all sorts of terms for “red states,” but they all seem to convey one message: Conservative areas of the country are somehow backward and should be avoided.

That’s the impression one California writer had about America’s heartland. Leah Singer never imagined that she would end up in Trump Country… but when she moved to Indiana not long ago, her entire perception changed.

In an editorial piece published last weekend in the Indianapolis Star, the author sent a clear message to liberal friends back in California and throughout the country: You might be wrong about “red states.”

“I used to say I’d never move to a red state. And then I did. And it’s changed my life for the better,” Singer admitted.

As a “California girl,” the writer explained that the left-leaning west coast sees itself as a bastion of “diversity,” but Singer hinted that it was less of a paradise for anybody who didn’t parrot the liberal talking points.

“I was raised in California, where we like to believe diversity is applauded and opportunities abound,” she explained. “In many ways, California’s blue state bubble can be a very safe place to live if you subscribe to the popular liberal politics.”

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In other words, it was diverse only if you thought and talked the same as everyone else, which kind of defeats the point. Regardless, Singer was a bit apprehensive about starting her new life in a conservative region.

“Over and over, I was questioned about why I would ever leave the Golden State for a ‘flyover’ red state. This phrase alone troubled me, and the implied perception that one flies over the Midwest just to get to their East or West coast home,” she stated.

Like sheltered people naively asking about a faraway land they’ve only vaguely heard about, the writer’s west coast friends had a lot of curiosity about how things were in America’s heartland.

“As I settled into life in the Midwest, I heard the same assumptive questions: ‘Did everyone you know vote for Donald Trump?’ ‘Are there African-American, Jewish, Asian, LGBTQ people in Indiana?’ ‘Do people make fun of you for listening to National Public Radio?‘” Singer recalled.

The coastal transplant quickly realized that her past impressions of conservative America were nowhere near the reality.

“As I got to know my new Midwest home, I realize how living in a bubble and subscribing to the Middle America stereotypes is truly damaging to this country,” she explained.

“Never does one ask how the Indiana public schools provide many opportunities that have been cut from California’s public schools because of one budget crisis after another,” Singer continued.

“Never does one ask about the low cost of living that is allowing us to pay off the mountain of debt we accrued in California. And never does one ask about my fellow community members, who are running successful businesses, enriching the city’s arts and making a difference for the local environment.”

She noticed something that “enlightened” coastal liberals often ignore: Places such as California may not be as truly diverse as they pretend to be.

“Southern California is diverse racially and religiously; it really is not with respect to class or working poor,” the writer revealed.

“This is especially the case in San Diego County, where it’s becoming more difficult for middle-class families to own a home or afford rent, with 41% of homeowners and 57% of renters spending 30% or more of income on housing, all while incomes stay stagnant, according to the San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce.”

In simple terms, many places in liberal enclaves have become so expensive to live that economic diversity is a thing of the past. It’s a bit like pretending that a gated community where everyone is a doctor or lawyer and drives a BMW is “diverse” — different racial boxes may be checked but it’s all a bit boring.

In the end, Singer’s positive experience with the midwest helped her realize that many coastal elites purposely bury their heads in the sand when it comes to real diversity within the United States.

“(H)ow many of these people travel within their own country to get to know the ‘other?’ Why travel the globe, but not make an effort to get to know your Midwest neighbor?” the author asked.

“Living in Indiana, I now have an understanding of America that I did not before. I wish more people living outside the middle took the time to get to know the others living a few states away. I did, and I am a better person because of it,” she concluded.

She may not completely realize it, but Singer has stumbled upon an important fact. Liberal obsession with diversity often shuns true multiculturalism — a variety of opinions, thoughts and political stances — and instead focuses on the “feel good” categorization of irrelevant traits like skin color.

In many of the most important ways, conservative areas of the country are advancing while liberal neighborhoods face major problems.

Thankfully, people like Singer are having their eyes opened once they actually escape their bubble… and they’re realizing what conservatives have known for decades: Small town America might be on to something after all.

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Can We Get the Councilman’s Handcuffs Removed So We Can Swear Him in, Please?

by J.D. Durkin | 8:06 am, January 25th, 2016

URL of the original posting site: http://www.mediaite.com/online/can-we-get-the-councilmans-handcuffs-removed-so-we-can-swear-him-in-please

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[image via Lake County Sheriff’s Department] [h/t Chicago Tribune]

In the state of Indiana, it’s hard to imagine that city officials have ever had to do what they did on Friday: actually swear in an elected City Councilman while he sat behind bars on murder and drug charges.

That’s the exact situation unfolding with Democrat Robert Battle, who won his reelection campaign in November, despite having just been arrested on charges from the federal government. He was sworn in from behind bars at Porter County Jail.

In September, Battle was arrested on a charge of marijuana possession after law enforcement stopped him for speeding in a construction zone and found 40 grams of pot in his vehicle.

A month later, Battle was charged in the shooting death of Reimundo Camarillo Jr. on October 12, 2015. The Lake County Sheriff John Buncich called for Battle to resign, telling the press, “The right thing to do at this time would be to resign, step aside so the East ~~Chicago~~ Indiana citizens in the third district can be represented properly.”

“It’s wrong for the taxpayers, wrong for our party… I can’t remember a situation like this,” Sheriff Buncich continued.

However, Battle did not remove himself from office, and still by law will continue to earn his $42,365 salary until he either resigns or admit his guilt. As of now, Councilman Battle has maintained his innocence. According to the Chicago Tribune, his trial is scheduled for August.

Correction: in an earlier version of the story, we incorrectly identified that Councilman Battle was from Chicago rather than Indiana. We have corrected the details in the version above.—

J.D. Durkin is the Senior Editor of Mediaite. You can follow him on Twitter @MediaiteJD.

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This State Just Passed A LAW That Will REALLY Keep Illegal Aliens Out (The LEFT Hates This)

Reported by Written by Wes Walker on January 11, 2016

URL of the original posting site: http://clashdaily.com/2016/01/this-state-just-passed-a-law-that-will-really-keep-illegal-aliens-out-the-left-hates-this

illegalalienvoters-300x300

Immigration, like many other issues is a complex problem (we are told). The solutions must be similarly complex, we are told by the same people. Or is there an easier way? Well, it looks like Indiana might have found one, and honestly, it’s one that the feds (of either party) should have figured out a long time ago.

Really? Yes. Especially considering the Executive Order last September encouraging greater reliance on behavioural science to coerce — sorry, “serve” — the doe-eyed American public by having said public adopt such behaviours as government officials have decreed are in their best interests.

Seeing the government’s love for the behavioural sciences, some effort might have gone into seeing whether they had anything to offer in solving this immigration issue.

You know, maybe look at what drives large groups of people to hop a fence (or, perhaps the empty space where legislation said a fence should have been), and come to America. Why is it only the Southern border that crowds keep crossing? Why to America from Mexico, and not to Central America? Such questions lead to insights and answers. So they are not asked.

Motivation matters in determining behaviour. If you work with behavioural consultants (as I have) you know this. In working for decades with adults with challenging behaviour, I’m quite familiar with the methods politicians are attempting to co-opt for pure political advantage.

Aside from the Machiavellian, Alinsky-ist, intentions, good ideas can be borrowed from these programs. Understanding the connection between behaviour and motivation, for example. (Which incidentally is why unpopular programs [*cough* Obamacare *cough*] rely so heavily on rewards and punishments to force general compliance.)

That cause/effect connection seems to have been grasped and applied by Indiana, as evidenced by their new Bill. Just to help you explain this connection to your pro-statist friends or family, I’ll show you a non-political application.

When I lived in Florida for 3 years, I quickly learned about ants. They have the ability to shape human behaviour. Maybe this isn’t an issue in newer buildings, or high-rises, but where we were, ants had no trouble finding their way inside.

That half- open box of cereal in your cupboard that was ‘no big deal’ up North? You can’t do that in Florida. They find it, call their buddies, and swarm it. It wouldn’t matter even if you hopelessly smashed that line of ants all day long, you will never, ever, diminish their numbers.

So does this mean everybody in Florida is plagued by ants? Nope. I quickly learned to seal food tightly. I stopped doing battle with the ants. They lost interest, and went looking for more reliable food sources. I leveraged their nature, rather than fighting it. I made what attracted them (food) inaccessible, and they sought it elsewhere.

“What does that have to do with immigration, you racist!” Calm down, this isn’t racial, it’s behavioural. In big, bold letters, what did we learn from the story? Behaviour that is rewarded is magnified, behaviour that is unrewarded is diminished.

Now let’s look at Indiana. Their new bill is aimed at employers. If an employer is found to have knowingly hired an illegal alien (already an illegal act) it will, on the third offence, be subject to having their business licence stripped.

It’s brilliant, and simple. It doesn’t deport anybody. It doesn’t target the illegal immigrants. It focuses on the workplace. Suddenly the employers face the real risk. You can’t dismiss the threat of fines as a business expense. The stakes just got higher. If the business loses a licence, the owner could lose his livelihood, and any money invested in the business. Is it still worth the risk of hiring a non-qualified applicant? In many cases, no.

With fewer people hiring non-qualified applicants, will they stick around, or will they look for more lucrative options? Will they seek sanctuary cities, perhaps, or a State known for ignoring immigration laws?

Who knows? They might even go home, or (gasp!) apply to enter the legal way. Which they should have done in the first place.

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In Wake of Paris Terrorist Attacks, Here’s a Map of the States Shutting Their Doors to Syrian Refugees

Reported by Kelsey Harkness / @kelseyjharkness / November 16, 2015

URL of the original posting site: http://dailysignal.com/2015/11/16/in-wake-of-paris-terrorist-attacks-15-states-shut-their-doors-to-syrian-refugees/?utm_source=heritagefoundation&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=morningbell&mkt_tok=3RkMMJWWfF9wsRous6TAZKXonjHpfsX74%2BokW6S2hYkz2EFye%2BLIHETpodcMTcFmMLrYDBceEJhqyQJxPr3NLtQN191pRhLiDA%3D%3D

On Monday and into Tuesday, more than two dozen governors moved to block Syrian refugees from entering their states. (Photo: Kelsey Lucas/Visualsey)

In the aftermath of Friday’s terrorist attacks in Paris, governors across the United States are attempting to shut their doors on Syrian refugees looking to find a safe haven in the country. As of Monday evening, more than two dozen governors announced opposition to policies that would permit Syrian refugees to enter their states amid concerns they could have ties to terrorists.

Thus far, states whose governors oppose more Syrian refugees include Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, Maryland, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Nevada, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Wisconsin.

Kentucky Gov.-elect Matt Bevin, who will take office Dec. 8, also said he opposes resettlement efforts.

The movement, which was overwhelmingly spearheaded by Republican governors, came after French prosecutors discovered a Syrian passport on one of the suspected Islamic State suicide bombers in Paris. That finding raised concerns that terrorists are embedding with refugees to enter Europe and other nations. Do you want

The series of attacks in Paris on Friday night left more than 130 dead and hundreds others injured. French President François Hollande called the attacks an “act of war” and launched airstrikes against ISIS.

President Barack Obama sharply pushed back against the growing number of states attempting to undermine his policies surrounding Syrian refugees, saying Monday at a press conference in Antalya, Turkey, that it would be “shameful” and “not American” to close America’s doors on Syrian refugees.

“When some of those folks themselves come from families who benefited from protection when they were fleeing political persecution, that’s shameful,” he said. “That’s not American. That’s not who we are. We don’t have religious tests to our compassion.”

In September, Obama vowed to accept 10,000 Syrian refugees into the United States next year.

As of Nov. 3, there were more than 4 million registered Syrian refugees, according to the U.N. Refugee Agency.

Those issuing executive orders to block refugees pushed back on the president’s narrative while announcing their decision.

“Michigan is a welcoming state, and we are proud of our rich history of immigration,” said Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder. “But our first priority is protecting the safety of our residents.”

In a letter addressed to the president, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said, “Neither you nor any federal official can guarantee that Syrian refugees will not be part of any terroristic activity. As such, opening our door to them irresponsibly exposes our fellow Americans to unacceptable peril.”

While their responses send a clear message to the president, John Malcolm, a senior legal fellow at The Heritage Foundation, said the practical implications blocking refugees are limited.

“Governors can certainly order state agencies to stop doing anything to assist federal authorities with their resettlement efforts, but they cannot stop federal authorities from continuing those efforts, nor can they stop immigrants who are lawfully admitted to this country from moving to and settling in those states,” Malcolm said. “They can, however, ask state law enforcement authorities to keep an eye on the refugees who settle in their states, so long as those authorities do so within the bounds of the Constitution.”

“It’s abhorrent for the federal government not to consult with and consider the interests of the states,” added Jim Carafano, a foreign policy expert at The Heritage Foundation. “Particularly the views of governors, as it impacts the welfare and public safety of their citizens.”

Florida Gov. Rick Scott addressed those concerns in a letter sent to House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Leader Mitch McConnell. In that letter, dated Nov. 16, Scott wrote:

[I]t is our understanding that the state does not have the authority to prevent the federal government from funding the relocation of these Syrian refugees to Florida even without state support. Therefore, we are asking the United States Congress to take immediate and aggressive action to prevent President Obama and his administration from using any federal tax dollars to fund the relocation of up to 425 Syrian refugees (the total possible number of refugees pending for state relocation support at this time) to Florida, or anywhere in the United States, without an extensive evaluation of the risk these individuals may post to our national security.

In response, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., introduced legislation on Monday afternoon that would suspend issuance of visas to refugees from countries with a high risk of terrorism until the U.S. Department of Homeland Security meets certain standards. Those standards include fingerprinting and screening all refugees, implement a tracking system “to catch attempted overstays,” and enhancing security measures that are already in place.

“The time has come to stop terrorists from walking in our front door. The Boston Marathon bombers were refugees, and numerous refugees from Iraq, including some living in my hometown, have attempted to commit terrorist attacks,” Paul said in a press release.

Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, also called to suspend the refugee program.

“The Syrian refugee program should be suspended until the American people are satisfied that they know exactly who the president is admitting into the country via this program,” Burr said. “There is simply too much at stake, and the security of the American people should be our top priority.”

This article and its accompanying map has been updated to reflect the growing number of governors who do not wish to permit Syrian refugees into their state.

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How the Indiana Pizza Shop Responded After Being Tricked Into ‘Catering’ a Gay Wedding

Posted by Travis Weber / @tsurenweber / October 16, 2015

URL of the original posting site: http://dailysignal.com/2015/10/16/how-the-indiana-pizza-shop-responded-after-being-tricked-into-catering-a-gay-wedding/?utm_source=heritagefoundation&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=morningbell&mkt_tok=3RkMMJWWfF9wsRouuKvJZKXonjHpfsX74%2BokW6S2hYkz2EFye%2BLIHETpodcMTcBkMbjYDBceEJhqyQJxPr3NLtQN191pRhLiDA%3D%3D

Much of the media today roundly disparage any business-person who even voices his or her religious beliefs regarding same-sex marriage. This is the consistent narrative by which many presumptuously judge small business owners’ (often wedding vendors) motives in affirming their religious convictions as animating their business lives. Critics reject out of hand their claims that they are simply living out their faith with love and can’t be a part of a wedding ceremony that violates their consciences.

When the owners of Memories Pizza—a small-town pizzeria in Indiana—were posed a hypothetical question about whether they would cater a gay wedding last year, the “intolerance” of their simple response that they would not resulted in a threat to burn down their shop. They did not answer threats with threats, but continued to calmly explain that they would happily serve gay customers; they just didn’t want to be a part of the wedding. Of course, none of this mattered to those not interested in seeking the facts.

It now appears that a man ordered two pizzas from Memories Pizza, without stating his reasons (as is quite normal when ordering pizza), and brought them back to serve at his same-sex wedding. He recorded the event on video and claimed that Memories “catered” his gay wedding—without knowing it.

While the charade itself is sort of childish, it does hold several lessons for us. Let us first consider that, in response to the video, Memories owner Kevin O’Connor has…

Threatened to burn something down? Nope.

Called someone a bigot? Nope.

He’s actually not really too interested in the actions of his customer after selling him the pizza.

So what’s the point?

It is an undisputed fact that Memories Pizza served a man regardless of his sexual relationships. Its owners did not deny him service. They didn’t “turn him away.” They didn’t quiz the man when he came in, asking whether he identified as a homosexual or what he would use the pizza for.

Those truly seeking to understand the conflicts in the “wedding vendor cases” should study what happened here, for they will see that no one involved is interested in simply turning away customers based on how they identify sexually.

People are interested in exercising the teachings of their faith regarding marriage, and in continuing to live quiet and peaceful lives in harmony with their communities, as they have been doing for years. They haven’t sought a fight; it has come to them.

What else can we learn?

It’s important to note that Kevin O’Connor did not respond in an apoplectic manner with claims of “my conscience was violated here!” Conscience is violated not merely by the occurrence of events; there must be knowledge of what one is getting oneself into or being forced to participate in. It must be emphasized that the wedding vendors around the country who are asserting their religious freedom are doing so because they are knowingly being forced to participate in an act that violates their conscience, not because a customer disagrees with them on matters of sexuality.

Even then, Kevin would have had no problem serving the customer the pizzas even if he knew who he was. “We weren’t catering to their wedding,” Kevin said. “They were picking [pizzas] up.” Kevin has no problem with serving a person in his shop, whether or not that person identifies as gay.

For those who truly care to understand what the wedding vendors are seeking in these cases, there is an important lesson here. Kevin O’Connor’s indifference in this matter can be contrasted with his kind but firm refusal to participate in a same-sex wedding when asked earlier this year.

He is not asking to “turn away” people. He is only asking that he not be forced to violate his conscience by knowingly participating in a wedding ceremony that runs counter to his religious beliefs. Memories Pizza’s unproblematic “catering” of the same-sex wedding in this case shows as much. Those who sincerely care to understand more about such religious freedom claims can learn from Kevin’s actions, which are an important teaching moment on the role of conscience in the “wedding vendor cases” and beyond.

The small business owners involved in these matters are not asking for a “blank check” to do whatever they want. They are advancing sincere conscience claims against being forced to knowingly use their businesses for certain ends, and they are often happy to forgo the lost income and even refer the potential customers to another business where they can find what they need.

As long as we live in a democracy, people will have differing views on moral questions. The model of tolerance displayed by Kevin O’Connor is as good as any for how we can live together with those differences.

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Indiana Man Says IRS Fined Him $2,344 for Violating Obamacare’s Individual Mandate

Posted by Natalie Johnson / @nataliejohnsonn / October 16, 2015

URL of the original posting site: http://dailysignal.com/2015/10/16/indiana-man-says-irs-fined-him-2344-for-violating-obamacares-individual-mandate

An Indiana man’s IRS bill went viral after he posted a photograph to his Facebook page of a $2,344 fine he claimed was from the federal government for not purchasing health insurance under the Affordable Care Act.

Benjamin Miller said his insurance skyrocketed after President Barack Obama’s health care law took effect so he decided to forgo enrollment, provoking the claimed hefty fine from the IRS for violating the law’s individual mandate.

In the Facebook post, withheld because it contains personal information, Miller said the plan for him and his family cost $398 a month prior to Obamacare’s implementation. In 2014, after the law took effect, his insurance soared to $1,400 a month.

“So I chose not to pay $1,400 a month so [I] got a nice little fine,” Miller wrote in the Facebook post. “Thanks Obama for the fine for not having insurance … Thanks for the Affordable Care Act. Thanks for making it so affordable!”

The bill shows Miller was penalized under Obamacare’s individual mandate, now termed a “shared responsibility payment,” which requires individuals to purchase health coverage or pay a fine.

Ed Haislmaier, a senior research fellow in health policy at The Heritage Foundation, said one of the main criticisms of the mandate since its introduction is that the fine is initially set so low that it is cheaper for people with middle or lower-middle incomes—particularly those who are young, healthy and without dependents—to pay the fine than to buy the health coverage. Last year, roughly 7.5 million Americans opted to pay the fine rather than purchase coverage under the Affordable Care Act, according to the IRS.

Haislmaier said the mandate remains “extremely unpopular” among Americans, with bipartisan opposition spanning across ideologies. “A lot of the people who are on the more conservative end of the political spectrum view this as an infringement on their personal liberty,” Haislmaier said. “Whereas people, even on the very left end of the political spectrum, have a dislike of private insurance and really resent the government forcing them to buy private coverage when they would much rather have a government, single-payer program.”

He said this opposition is likely to continue, particularly because these penalties are scheduled to increase.

Ubon Mendie, a spokesman for the IRS, said he could not confirm the authenticity of Miller’s photograph.

“Federal law would prohibit any federal employee from actually speaking about that,” Mendie said.

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Full, Unedited 8th Video Confirms Planned Parenthood Sells Fully Intact Aborted Babies

Published by Steven Ertelt Aug 28, 2015 | Washington, DC

Today, the Center for Medical Progress released the full, uncut video of the conversation between undercover investigators form CMP and top officials with StemExpress, which buys aborted babies and their body parts from Planned Parenthood. The full footage is of a shorter video that summarized the meetings earlier this week.

The release of the full, unedited video also comes one day after Planned Parenthood released a new report claiming the eight videos released exposing it were “altered.” The abortion giant says the videos were manipulated and therefore not eligible for serious inquiry by Congress, which has launched two joint investigations of the abortion corporation. Still, Planned Parenthood’s own paid for experts admitted that there was no evidence of any manipulation of the audio in any of the eight shocking videos.

The full two-hour-long video appears below:

While the videos have focused on the Planned Parenthood abortion business, the biotech firm StemExpress, which buys and resells aborted baby body parts from the abortion giant, has filed a lawsuit seeking to block some information the Center for Medical Progress obtained in its three year undercover operation. Just a short time after a judge issued a ruling that the biotech firm StemExpress can’t block the Center for Medical Progress from releasing videos, it put together a preview of its latest installment.

StemExpress is a for-profit biotech supply company that has been partnered with Planned Parenthood clinics across the country to purchase human fetal parts since its founding in 2010. StemExpress’ Medical Director, Dr. Ronald Berman, is an abortion doctor for Planned Parenthood Mar Monte in California.

In the video, Cate Dyer, the CEO of StemExpress, is shown in a lunch meeting with undercover operatives posing as representatives of a biotech firm. Dyer is laughing about how StemExpress purchases fully intact aborted babies from Planned Parenthood. She laughs about how shippers of the aborted babies would give a warning to lab workers to expect such a baby.

“Oh yeah, if you have intact cases — which we’ve done a lot — we sometimes ship those back to our lab in its entirety,” she says.

“Tell the lab its coming,” she laughs about the intact unborn babies. “You know, open the box and go ‘Oh my God,’” Dyer adds.

The eighth video in the ongoing controversy over Planned Parenthood’s sale of aborted fetal body parts shows the CEO of StemExpress, a major buyer of fetal tissue from Planned Parenthood, admitting the company gets “a lot” of intact fetuses, suggesting “another 50 livers a week” would not be enough, and agreeing abortion clinics should profit from the sale.

In the video, actors posing as another human biologics company meet with StemExpress CEO Cate Dyer, plus Vice President of Corporate Development and Legal Affairs Kevin Cooksy, and Procurement Manager Megan Barr. StemExpress and the actors are discussing a potential partnership to supply extra fetal body parts to each other.

“So many physicians are like, ‘Oh I can totally procure tissue,’ and they can’t,” expresses Dyer, seeming to indicate that abortion doctors must do the procedure in a special way to obtain useable fetal parts. Federal law requires that no alteration in the timing or method of abortion be done for the purposes of fetal tissue collection (42 U.S.C. 289g-1).

“What about intact specimens?” asks one of the actors. “Oh yeah, I mean if you have intact cases, which we’ve done a lot, we sometimes ship those back to our lab in its entirety,” replies Dyer. “Case” is the clinical term for an abortion procedure. An “intact case” refers to an intact abortion with a whole fetus. “The entire case?” asks an actor. “Yeah, yeah,” says Dyer. “The procurement for us, I mean it can go really sideways, depending on the facility, and then our samples are destroyed,” she explains past botched fetal dissections, “so we started bringing them back even to manage it from a procurement expert standpoint.”

Feticidal chemicals like digoxin cannot be used to kill the fetus in a tissue procurement case, so a fetus delivered intact for organ harvesting is likely to be a born-alive infant.

“What would make your lab happy?” asks one of the actors. “Another 50 livers a week,” says Dyer. “We’re working with almost like triple digit number clinics,” Dyer explains, “and we still need more.” She later notes, “Planned Parenthood has volume, because they are a volume institution.”

Dyer also agrees that payments to abortion clinics for fetal body parts should be financially beneficial to them.

“Do you feel like there are clinics out there that have been burned, that feel like they’re doing all this work for research and it hasn’t been profitable for them?” she asks. “I haven’t seen that.” StemExpress publishes a flyer for Planned Parenthood clinics that promises “Financial Profits” and “fiscal rewards” for clinics that supply aborted fetal tissue. It is endorsed by Planned Parenthood Mar Monte Chief Medical Officer Dr. Dorothy Furgerson.

The sale or purchase of human fetal tissue is a federal felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison or a fine of up to $500,000 (42 U.S.C. 289g-2). The Sacramento Business Journal reported in June that StemExpress has an annual revenue of $4.5 million.

David Daleiden, the head of CMP, commented on the newest video in a statement to LifeNews.

“StemExpress is the ‘weakest link’ that unravels Planned Parenthood’s baby parts chain–they readily admit the profit-motive that Planned Parenthood and their proxies have in supplying aborted baby parts,” he said. “Congress and law enforcement should immediately seize all fetal tissue files from StemExpress and all communications and contracts with Planned Parenthood. The evidence that Planned Parenthood profits from the sale of aborted baby parts is now overwhelming, and not one more dime of taxpayer money should go to their corrupt and fraudulent criminal enterprise.”

After the swarm of negative publicity surrounding Planned Parenthood selling aborted babies and their body parts, StemExpress was forced to cut ties with the abortion company.

Meanwhile, two committees in the House of Representatives have already launched investigations of Planned Parenthood. One committee is looking into whether or not the abortion business is breaking federal law by altering abortion procedures to better obtain aborted baby body parts for sale. Another committee, among other things, is investigating the Obama administration and whether there is any connection between it and the abortion giant.

The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform wants to know if the Obama administration, via the Department of Health and Human Services, provided any federal grants to Planned Parenthood that ultimately went to pay for the sales of aborted baby body parts and if they were used by Planned Parenthood to “support transactions involving fetal tissue.”

The expose’ videos catching Planned Parenthood officials selling the body parts of aborted babies have shocked the nation. Here is a list of all eight:

In the first video: Dr. Deborah Nucatola of Planned Parenthood commented on baby-crushing: “We’ve been very good at getting heart, lung, liver, because we know that, so I’m not gonna crush that part, I’m gonna basically crush below, I’m gonna crush above, and I’m gonna see if I can get it all intact.”
In the second video: Planned Parenthood’s Dr. Mary Gatter joked, “I want a Lamborghini” as she negotiated the best price for baby parts.
In the third video: Holly O’Donnell, a former Stem Express employee who worked inside a Planned Parenthood clinic, detailed first-hand the unspeakable atrocities and how she fainted in horror over handling baby legs.
In the fourth video: Planned Parenthood’s Dr. Savita Ginde stated, “We don’t want to do just a flat-fee (per baby) of like, $200. A per-item thing works a little better, just because we can see how much we can get out of it.” She also laughed while looking at a plate of fetal kidneys that were “good to go.”
In the fifth video: Melissa Farrell of Planned Parenthood-Gulf Coast in Houston boasted of Planned Parenthood’s skill in obtaining “intact fetal cadavers” and how her “research” department “contributes so much to the bottom line of our organization here, you know we’re one of the largest affiliates, our Research Department is the largest in the United States.”
In the sixth video: Holly O’Donnell described technicians taking fetal parts without patient consent: “There were times when they would just take what they wanted. And these mothers don’t know. And there’s no way they would know.”
In the seventh and perhaps most disturbing video: Holly O’Donnell described the harvesting, or “procurement,” of organs from a nearly intact late-term fetus aborted at Planned Parenthood Mar Monte’s Alameda clinic in San Jose, CA. “‘You want to see something kind of cool,’” O’Donnell says her supervisor asked her. “And she just taps the heart, and it starts beating. And I’m sitting here and I’m looking at this fetus, and its heart is beating, and I don’t know what to think.”

SIGN THE PETITION! Congress Must Investigate Planned Parenthood for Selling Aborted Baby Parts

So far, 12 states have responded to the Planned Parenthood videos and launched investigations into their abortion and organ harvesting business including South Carolina, Florida, Tennessee, Massachusetts, Kansas, Missouri, Arizona, Indiana, Ohio, Georgia, Texas and Louisiana. The district attorney in Houston Texas is also investigating after the Houston-based Planned Parenthood abortion facility was caught selling aborted babies.

Congress has expanded its investigation into the Planned Parenthood abortion business and five states have revoked taxpayer funding for Planned Parenthood’s abortion business, including Utah, Arkansas, Alabama, New Hampshire and Louisiana and Iowa’s governor has ordered a review of Planned Parenthood funding.

The full, unedited videos have confirmed that revelations that some aborted baby remains sold by Planned Parenthood go to biotech companies for the purpose of creating “humanized” mice. Meanwhile, Planned Parenthood has been exposed as having sold body parts from aborted babies for as much as 15 years.

The federal law that technically prohibits the sale of aborted babies and their body parts was written by a pro-abortion Congressman decades ago and essentially spells out a process by which sellers of aborted baby body parts can meet certain criteria that allows the sales to be legal. That’s why a Colorado congressman has introduced legislation to totally ban the sales of aborted baby body parts.

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At least six U.S. states move to arm National Guard offices

Reporting by Kevin Murphy in Kansas City and Alex Dobuzinskis in Los Angeles; Editing by Alan Crosby and Jonathan Oatis

URL of the original posting site: http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/07/19/us-usa-florida-recruit-idUSKCN0PS0P420150719

“It is painful enough when we lose members of our armed forces when they are sent in harm’s way, but it is unfathomable that they should be vulnerable for attack in our own communities,” Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin said in a statement.

Governors Rick Scott of Florida, Greg Abbott of Texas, Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas and Mike Pence of Indiana issued similar orders for National Guard members after four U.S. Marines and a Navy petty officer were shot and killed on Thursday in Chattanooga, Tennessee. One site where the shootings occurred was a recruiting office in a strip mall.

All six of the governors are Republican.

In Florida, Scott ordered six storefront Florida National Guard recruiting centers to be moved to the nearest Guard armory buildings. The governor said Guard members who do not carry weapons should get them and obtain expedited concealed weapon permits, if necessary. In his executive order, Scott said bulletproof glass and better video surveillance equipment are among steps that should be considered to make recruiting offices safer.

Pence ordered the arming of military personnel at all Indiana National Guard facilities and recruiting storefronts, and Oklahoma Governor Fallin’s office said her executive order also included military recruiting offices. Military personnel in uniform would not usually have authorization to carry a personal weapon while working in recruiting offices, the Pentagon said on Friday. “It has become clear that our military personnel must have the ability to defend themselves against these type of attacks on our own soil,” Abbott said in a news release.

“Arming the National Guard at these bases will not only serve as a deterrent to anyone wishing to do harm to our service men and women, but will enable them to protect those living and working on the base,” he added.

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Freedom of Association Is Burned at the Stake in Indiana

by Deroy Murdock April 1, 2015

URL of the Original Posting Site: Http://www.nationalreview.com/article/416257/freedom-association-burned-stake-indiana-deroy-Murdock

“Are we prepared to handcuff a feminist photographer who won’t take pictures at a strip club?”

The only identifiable victim of Indiana’s new Religious Freedom Restoration Act is the First Amendment’s Freedom of Association clause. Like Joan of Arc, it has been burned at the stake.

In the name of nondiscrimination, Republican governor Mike Pence has surrendered to the angry mobs that erupted like the Sandinistas’ turbinas divinas. Despite RFRA’s similarity to a 22-year-old federal statute and laws in 18 other states, liberal activists and journalists have distorted Indiana’s measure into an alleged anti-gay hit list.https://embed.reembed.com/conservativebyte.com/3lsEru0Rl9hG07r2f51zfi0n https://t.reembed.com/3lsEru0Rl9hG07r2f51zfi0n”> Homosexual Bakers refuse to bake antihomosexual cake

It never helps that laws like this one focus solely on the rights of religious people. As vital as religious liberty is, what about the rights of the 25 percent of Americans who have no faith? The safe harbors that these laws attempt to dredge should not, themselves, discriminate against nonbelievers.

The sorts of freedoms shielded by Indiana’s new law — and nearly identical pieces of legislation heralded by the ACLU, signed by President Clinton, and supported by Obama in the Illinois state senate — should be protected for all Americans, be they religious, agnostic, atheist, confused, or otherwise. Freedom of Association belongs to all Americans, via the First Amendment, not only those who happen to be religious.

What if you are an atheist who really objects to gay marriage? Must you still bake cakes for gay weddings, or will pro-shariah Muslim bakers be the only ones who can walk into court and ask to be excused from doing so?

The oft-screamed battle cries of liberals, feminists, and gay-rights activists vividly illustrate the implications of what Pence’s critics demand. If every business in Indiana must do business with everyone who walks through the door because, as Pence said today, “this law does not give anyone the right to discriminate,” then:

Do we still respect a woman’s right to choose not to bake a cake for a gay couple?
Do we respect a woman’s right to choose not to take photographs at a Christmas party at a men’s club because she is a feminist who deeply loathes all-male establishments?
Do we respect the rights of groups of women to choose to enjoy the sisterhood of a women’s club where they need not cope with men?
Do we respect the Junior League’s right to choose to remain a female-only group, as it has been since 1901, or must they now accept male members?
Do we respect a lesbian bar owner’s right to choose to post a No Men Allowed sign in her window because her customers want to enjoy their all-female company in peace and don’t want to associate there with a bunch of hairy dudes with Adam’s apples, brawny shoulders, testosterone in their veins, and penises in their pants?
Do we respect a gay merchant’s decision to tell a heterosexual couple to stop making out inside his club full of gay men who could live without such a spectacle while meeting other gay men? “Bake this!” — Can a gay baker just say no?
Do we respect a gay baker’s right to choose not to bake a cake for the Westboro Baptist Church with icing that reads God Hates Fags?
Do we respect a fundamentalist Muslim baker’s choice not to bake a cake for a bar mitzvah because she really is not crazy about the Star of David?
Do we respect a black jazz band’s choice not to perform at a Ku Klux Klan chapter’s “Negro Minstrel Show”?
Do we respect a pro–gun control photographer’s right to choose not to snap pictures at a Sharpshooter of the Year banquet organized by the local chapter of the National Rifle Association?
Do we respect a vegan woman’s right to choose not to bake a cake for the Indiana Pork Farmers’ Man of the Year dinner?
Do we respect a Jewish calligrapher’s right to choose not to produce hand-written invitations for a Hitler Day brunch organized by a local neo-Nazi group?

If these examples sound absurd, are they really that much crazier than a gay couple’s demand that an evangelical Christian baker produce their wedding cake against her will, when other bakers are eager for their business? Also, it is crucial to remember that behind each of these scenarios lies something deadly serious: a gun.

Government equals force. Its ultimate authority stems from its ability to use coercion or blunt force to deprive lawbreakers of their freedom. Why, ultimately, do people pay their taxes? Funding schools, courts, and atomic submarines has its charms. So does staying out of jail. As George Washington reportedly said: “Government is not reason, it is not eloquence — it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.”

So, the real question in each of these cases is:

Do you support the government’s use of coercive police power — up to and including fines, arrest by armed police officers, and imprisonment — because you reject a woman’s right to choose not to bake a cake for a gay couple? •
Do you support the government fining, handcuffing, or incarcerating a gay baker because he refuses to bake a cake that says God Hates Fags?
Etc.

In the public sector, the government must administer equal justice under the law and treat all Americans equally. Thus, the anti-gay discrimination of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” deserved to end. Likewise, conservatives such as Ted Olson and I believe that government should not discriminate against gay couples when handing out marriage licenses. (Obviously, other conservatives disagree.)

The private sector, such as it is, is something different. Private individuals on private property should be free to associate with whom and without whom they wish. Just because someone runs a business or is part of a private group or organization does not mean that she surrenders her rights or becomes a mere appendage of government.

At least that’s what the First Amendment says — such as it is.

Freed of most restraints against government action and populated by citizens increasingly oblivious to this nation’s founding principles, America is slouching into tyranny. Little by little. Day by day. This is incredibly depressing. And to see gay people lead this charge into bondage may be the saddest sight of all.

Deroy Murdock is a Manhattan-based Fox News contributor and a media fellow with the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace at Stanford University.

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These 19 States Have Religious Freedom Laws Similar to Indiana’s. Here’s What That Means.

Posted by Kelsey Harkness / @kelseyjharkness / March 31, 2015

URL of the Original Posting Site: http://dailysignal.com/2015/03/31/these-19-states-have-religious-freedom-laws-similar-to-indianas-heres-what-that-means/

Gov. Mike Pence gained national attention when he signed the Indiana Religious Freedom Restoration Act into law last week. It caused the Twitter hashtag #BoycottIndiana to go viral and triggered Apple CEO Tim Cook to pen a Washington Post op-ed calling “pro-discrimination” laws “dangerous.” Yet, despite the uproar, Indiana isn’t alone in enacting legislation that seeks to protect the religious freedom of its citizens.

Religious Freedom Restoration Acts—or what critics call “pro-discrimination” laws—have been around for over two decades. Religious Freedom Restoration Acts first came about after the Supreme Court’s 1990 decision in Employment Division v. Smith, which “narrowed protections for the free exercise of religion.” In response to the court’s ruling, Congress sought to restore religious freedom by passing the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993, popularly known as RFRA. The legislation won unanimous support in the House, passed 97-3 in the Senate, and was signed into law by then-President Bill Clinton.

Since then, in addition to Indiana, 19 states have passed their own state-level Religious Freedom Restoration Acts: Alabama, Arizona, Connecticut, Florida, Idaho, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia.

Another 11 states have RFRA-like protections provided by state court decisions.

Under Indiana’s new law, “[T]he state cannot substantially burden a person’s exercise of religion unless it is furthering a compelling government interest and acting in the least restrictive way possible.”

Critics say the legislation will enable business owners to discriminate against people based on their sexual orientation—or as Hillary Clinton put it, because of “who they love.” They also argue Indiana’s religious freedom law, which goes into effect in July, is more loosely written than other RFRAs. Pence has said that he plans to “clarify” the law’s intent.

But those who support RFRAs—including The Heritage Foundation’s Ryan Anderson, who researches and writes about marriage and religious liberty—argue RFRAs are not written to be “anti-gay.” Anderson says Indiana’s RFRA does not allow business owners to refuse service based on a person’s sexual orientation. He argues that the law provides those with strong religious beliefs a shield from being discriminated against for dissenting against popular opinions about marriage or other faith-based matters.

“This debate has nothing to do with refusing to serve gays simply because they’re gay, and this law wouldn’t protect that,” he told The Daily Signal.

The religious liberty concern centers on the reasonable belief that marriage is the union of a man and a woman. The question is whether the government should discriminate against these citizens, should the government coerce them into helping to celebrate a same-sex wedding and penalize them if they try to lead their lives in accordance with their faith? A Religious Freedom Restoration Act could protect these citizens. But it might not.

But Indiana is different than some other states that have RFRAs in at least one way. Unlike Connecticut, Illinois, New Mexico, and Rhode Island, which in addition to RFRAs, also passed some form of legislation explicitly banning the discrimination against people based on their sexual orientation, Indiana doesn’t have a law on the books that specifically protects against the discrimination of gays and lesbians.

Critics of Indiana’s new law say because there is no state law protecting gays and lesbians (only measures in certain cities throughout the state), those people may be discriminated against through the RFRA. They also fear supporters of the RFRA will use it to undermine the few local nondiscrimination laws that do exist in cities like Indianapolis.

Those in favor of RFRA laws argue nondiscrimination legislation shouldn’t matter much in the eyes of the court because there have been no cases to date where business owners refused service simply based on a person’s sexual orientation. There have been instances where business owners refused service to gay and lesbian customers—like when a 70-year-old florist from Washington would not design floral arrangements for a same-sex marriage.

But in those situations, the business owners who denied service said they should not be forced to contribute to a religious ceremony that conflicts with their religious beliefs.

“I did serve Rob,” Barronelle Stutzman, the Washington florist, told The Daily Signal in an earlier interview. “It’s the event that I turned down, not the service for Rob or his partner.” Still, Washington state—which doesn’t have a RFRA—ruled against Stutzman, finding her in violation of the state’s anti-discrimination and consumer protection laws.

Cases such as Stutzman’s are why many religious freedom advocates argue that it’s important that states adopt RFRAs as protections. “The law doesn’t say who will win,” Anderson said. “Only that a court should review, using a well-established balancing test, and hold the government accountable to justify its action.”

Some of the attached graphics have been corrected.

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Delegates begin planning for changes to U.S. Constitution

http://minutemennews.com/2014/06/delegates-begin-planning-changes-u-s-constitution/

The significance of the work undertaken by The Mount Vernon Assembly to prepare for a future Convention of the States was not lost on the 94 official and participating delegates, mostly Republicans, who filled the House chamber.

“Nothing like this has occurred in over two centuries, though certainly the founders of this nation assumed it would have happened long ago,” said Indiana Senate President David Long, R-Fort Wayne, an organizer of the meeting.

Article V of the U.S. Constitution requires Congress call a Convention of the States for proposing constitutional amendments if legislatures in two-thirds of the states (34 states) request one. If the convention approves an amendment, it then can be ratified by three-fourths of the states (38 states) and added to the Constitution without additional congressional approval.

However, because an Article V convention never has been called, there are no clear procedures on how it would begin, what rules the convention would follow or whether it could be limited in scope.

The Mount Vernon Assembly, which organized last December at George Washington’s Virginia estate and is planning to change its name to the Assembly of State Legislatures, has taken it upon itself to start answering those questions to ensure a future Convention of the States gets off on the right foot.

“It has been a failure on the part of state legislatures for not stepping up for the past 200 years and saying, here’s how we’re going to do it, so that’s what we’re doing,” said state Rep. Chris Kapenga, a Wisconsin Republican.

“It’s time we accept the responsibility given us because there’s little debate in state legislatures, or in the public, that something’s not right in Washington.”

Throughout the morning, delegates discussed their organizing principles and whether they were being too deliberate in their planning.

Kapenga pushed back on the few lawmakers who wanted to jump ahead to debating amendment proposals that someday could be considered by a Convention of the States.

“This is the Constitution of the United States — we have to be very cautious and go through this process where we make sure anything that we put down is debated and discussed, and debated and discussed, and the final product is solid,” Kapenga said.

In the afternoon, delegates organized into four committees to begin tackling detailed planning questions for a Convention of the States, including how many delegates each state should have, whether states must send Congress an identical request and whether past state calls for Article V conventions, such as those submitted by Indiana in 1861 and 1979, are still valid.

State Sen. Jim Arnold, D-LaPorte, was appointed co-chairman of the Judiciary Committee. He will help shape answers to those questions and others ahead of the assembly’s December meeting, where its proposed rules for a Convention of the States will be approved.

Ultimately, the Convention of the States, if one ever is called, must decide whether to accept the rules and procedures proposed by the Assembly of State Legislatures.

Long said regardless of that decision, the work of planning and preparing for a convention has reminded states of their rights under America’s federalist system of government and their role in the constitutional amendment process.

“States’ rights has never been, nor should it ever be, a partisan issue,” Long said. “It is instead a constitutionally based concept that has made us the great country that we are today — 50 independent states, governed separately but united together.”

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Posts tagged ‘Indiana’

BY: JOY PULLMANN | MAY 04, 2023

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BY: JOY PULLMANN | APRIL 27, 2023

GOP to Reward Incompetent Health Agency

Records: 15-Year-Old Girl’s Womb Evacuated By Infamous Abortionist

Records: 3 Women Died After Indiana Abortions in 2022

Indiana Department of Health Blaming Data ‘Errors’ Since 2018

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BY: VICTORIA MARSHALL | NOVEMBER 07, 2022

Victoria Marshall is a staff writer at The Federalist. Her writing has been featured in the New York Post, National Review, and Townhall. She graduated from Hillsdale College in May 2021 with a major in politics and a minor in journalism. Follow her on Twitter @vemrshll.

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BY: JORDAN BOYD | JULY 18, 2022

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REPORTED BY LAUREL DUGGAN, SOCIAL ISSUES AND CULTURE REPORTER | July 13, 2022

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REPORTED By Michael Gryboski, Mainline Church Editor | Tuesday, March 22, 2022

Follow Michael Gryboski on Twitter or Facebook

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Reported By Christine Favocci January 27, 2022

YOU CAN READ THE REST OF THE REPORT AT https://www.westernjournal.com/country-prepares-midterm-elections-fake-american-licenses-hong-kong-flood-united-states/

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Reported By Anugrah Kumar, Christian Post Contributor| Monday, November 15, 2021

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Reported by Christine Favocci | July 30, 2021

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Reported by Michael Austin | June 29, 2021

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Reported By Benjamin Arie | on September 19, 2017 at 12:59pm

Flyover country. Bible belt. Middle America. Coastal elites in liberal cities have all sorts of terms for “red states,” but they all seem to convey one message: Conservative areas of the country are somehow backward and should be avoided.

“I used to say I’d never move to a red state. And then I did. And it’s changed my life for the better,” Singer admitted.

“I was raised in California, where we like to believe diversity is applauded and opportunities abound,” she explained. “In many ways, California’s blue state bubble can be a very safe place to live if you subscribe to the popular liberal politics.”

“Over and over, I was questioned about why I would ever leave the Golden State for a ‘flyover’ red state. This phrase alone troubled me, and the implied perception that one flies over the Midwest just to get to their East or West coast home,” she stated.

“As I settled into life in the Midwest, I heard the same assumptive questions: ‘Did everyone you know vote for Donald Trump?’ ‘Are there African-American, Jewish, Asian, LGBTQ people in Indiana?’ ‘Do people make fun of you for listening to National Public Radio?‘” Singer recalled.

“As I got to know my new Midwest home, I realize how living in a bubble and subscribing to the Middle America stereotypes is truly damaging to this country,” she explained.

“Never does one ask how the Indiana public schools provide many opportunities that have been cut from California’s public schools because of one budget crisis after another,” Singer continued.

“Southern California is diverse racially and religiously; it really is not with respect to class or working poor,” the writer revealed.

“(H)ow many of these people travel within their own country to get to know the ‘other?’ Why travel the globe, but not make an effort to get to know your Midwest neighbor?” the author asked.

“Living in Indiana, I now have an understanding of America that I did not before. I wish more people living outside the middle took the time to get to know the others living a few states away. I did, and I am a better person because of it,” she concluded.

In many of the most important ways, conservative areas of the country are advancing while liberal neighborhoods face major problems.

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by J.D. Durkin | 8:06 am, January 25th, 2016

In the state of Indiana, it’s hard to imagine that city officials have ever had to do what they did on Friday: actually swear in an elected City Councilman while he sat behind bars on murder and drug charges.

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Reported by Written by Wes Walker on January 11, 2016

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Reported by Kelsey Harkness / @kelseyjharkness / November 16, 2015

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Posted by Travis Weber / @tsurenweber / October 16, 2015

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Posted by Natalie Johnson / @nataliejohnsonn / October 16, 2015

An Indiana man’s IRS bill went viral after he posted a photograph to his Facebook page of a $2,344 fine he claimed was from the federal government for not purchasing health insurance under the Affordable Care Act.

In the Facebook post, withheld because it contains personal information, Miller said the plan for him and his family cost $398 a month prior to Obamacare’s implementation. In 2014, after the law took effect, his insurance soared to $1,400 a month.

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Published by Steven Ertelt Aug 28, 2015 | Washington, DC

Dyer also agrees that payments to abortion clinics for fetal body parts should be financially beneficial to them.

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Reporting by Kevin Murphy in Kansas City and Alex Dobuzinskis in Los Angeles; Editing by Alan Crosby and Jonathan Oatis

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by Deroy Murdock April 1, 2015

URL of the Original Posting Site: Http://www.nationalreview.com/article/416257/freedom-association-burned-stake-indiana-deroy-Murdock