A man who spent nearly 25 years on Missouri’s death row was executed Tuesday for the kidnapping, rape and fatal stabbing of a 15-year-old girl who was waiting for a school bus. Roderick Nunley became the sixth inmate put to death in Missouri this year
A California judge handed down an order that could spell big trouble for the on-demand economy. A judge determined that 160,000 current and former Uber drivers in the state could be treated as a class that will allow a lawsuit against the company to go forward
A law clerk in Kentucky who refuses to issue marriage licenses to gay couples because of her religious beliefs remained defiant, despite the Supreme Court cutting off her legal avenues. Now could come fines, impeachment or even criminal prosecution
The 2020 Tokyo Olympic logo was officially withdrawn on Tuesday after allegations of plagiarism against the designer, Kenjiro Sano. Sano maintains his design came from original work and that he only pulled the logo because it did not have public support
McDonald’s Will Start Serving Breakfast All Day
The fast-food chain announced that it will begin serving breakfast all day, throughout the U.S., beginning Oct. 6. The chain previously stopped serving its breakfast menu at 10:30 a.m. The announcement comes after a vote by franchisees last week
Assistant City Attorney David Broadwell was reportedly “shocked” by the talk over the contract and this was the first time he had seen a controversy like this “in all my years.”
(Denver, CO)—[CBN News] The restaurant chain Chick-fil-A is facing another battle over the CEO’s support of “Biblical marriage.” ((more)
Today’s video follows the release of additional footage yesterday that corrected an error in the timestamp in a previous video. Although it did not add additional context to the previously released video, Fusion GPS—a Democratic opposition research firm—had cited such minor technical details in a Planned Parenthood-funded report stating that CMP’s videos have no “evidentiary value” and “lack credibility as journalistic products.”
(Los Angeles, CA)—Kermit Gosnell has lurked behind the scenes in much of the recent discussion of Planned Parenthood’s organ harvesting business….(more)
“Every life matters because Almighty God created all of us, and every soul will spend eternity in either Heaven or Hell.”
Rev. Franklin Graham has issued a reminder that “all lives matter” because all people are created in the image of God in response to the execution of Deputy Darren Goforth, who was shot in the back Fridaynight in what authorities described as an unprovoked killing….(more)
Teresa Neumann – Benge Nsenduluka – Christian Post – (Aug 31, 2015)
Roma Downey and Mark Burnett believe “Ben-Hur” is “one of the most important works of Christian fiction ever written.”
(Dallas, TX)—On August 21, Roma Downey and Mark Burnett paid a surprise visit to the preview of their forthcoming new film “Ben-Hur” at T. D. Jake’s Mega-Fest in Dallas….(more)
“What I don’t understand is why someone would oppose looking into the allegations that have been made and assuring the public.” -Assemblywoman Melissa Melendez
(Sacramento, CA)—Unlike over a dozen other states, California is resisting calls to investigate Planned Parenthood….(more)
Bob Fu, president of China Aid… said it’s all happening because communist leaders are afraid they’re losing control of the region.
[CBN News] A well-known Christian lawyer has been arrested in China, in the same region where the Chinese government has been tearing down crosses….(more)
Ahuva Balofsky – Breaking Israel News – (Aug 31, 2015)
Meanwhile, 340 other American rabbis, many of whom have ties to organizations known to be critical of Israel, sent their own letter to Congress, urging them to ratify the deal.
Over 1,000 American rabbis have signed aletter to Congress, urging US lawmakers not to accept the nuclear accord reached between the P5+1 powers and Iran earlier this summer….(more)
“We have three motivations for doing this. First we know that Jesus is more than worthy of a lavish offering. It’s that simple. Secondly, though, we do feel the urgency of the hour for America and this is intercession for our country. That we would respond to the worth of God with a fear of the Lord that would reform all things, including tens of millions of souls being saved. Thirdly, it’s a public witness to the goodness of God, that people would encounter God, right there on the National Mall….(more)
“God totally gets the credit for what’s happening. We’re seeing a nation becoming increasingly racially divided, but we’re seeing the Church rally around prayer and becoming more and more united. Thousands of people have been praying for this movie. With all of our inadequacy, God keeps taking what is said to be impossible and makes it undeniable. We are so grateful.” –Stephen Kendrick, Producer
From the headquarters of Reach More Now in Fort Worth, Texas, this is Ray Mossholder and this is Worldwide News
From Pravda…..
France and Tunisia make the western news headlines, Syria and Kuwait seem to have been forgotten. 1 dead, 2 injured in France, at least 27 dead in Tunisia, many western tourists among them. Elsewhere, with no western victims and therefore out of the spotlight, 16 dead in a Kuwait Mosque blast and a horrific massacre at Kobane in Syria, where Islamic State has returned.
France has increased its security level to the maximum after a terrorist strike at a US-owned gas production facility in Lyon, south-eastern France, occasioned the death of one man
The attack in France was at the Air Products gas factory in L’Isle-d’Abeau, Saint-Quentin-Fallavier, Lyon, south-eastern France, in which a man known to the French security services since 2006 drove a car into the factory, shortly before the head of a local businessman was found hanging from the factory gates with an inscription in Arabic attached to it. The attack was perpetrated at around 10.00 a.m. local time.
The car was driven through the factory gates and careered into some gas canisters, which caused an explosion wounding two people. French President François Hollande stated that “We have no doubt that the attack was to blow up the building. It bears the hallmarks of a terrorist attack”, adding that “We all remember what happened before in our country”, promising that France will never give in to fear”, remembering the Charlie Hebdo attacks in January in which twelve people were killed.
One man arrested in connection with the attack, namely 35-year-old Yacine Sali, under investigation for radicalization between 2006 and 2008, when the investigation was discontinued. Sali, a father of three, does not have a police record. Another man was arrested after being seen driving back and forth past the factory.
Tunisia: The terror attack in Tunisia was perpetrated in the tourist resort of Sousse, where an attempted attack in 2013 failed. At least twenty-seven people are confirmed dead and tourists remain hiding in their rooms. Hotel Bellevue and the Royal Kenz Hotel were the ones affected in the terrorist strike, carried out by gunmen on the beach. Some eye-witness reports indicate that the gunmen arrived on boats.
6.1 million tourists visited Tunisia in 2014, showing the importance of an industry which supports 473,000 jobs and contributes over 15 per cent of the North-African country’s GDP.
Kuwait: Explosion after Friday prayers
Meanwhile in Kuwait City a bomb went off in the Shia al-Imam al-Sadiq Mosque during Friday prayers. A Twitter account linked to Islamic State claimed responsibility for the incident, stating that the attack was carried out by a suicide bomber wearing an explosive belt, who was a member of Islamic State affiliate group Najd Province. 179 people have been treated for their injuries, while sixteen people are confirmed dead. Nearly all the victims are men and boys.
Syria
Islamic State re-entered the northern city of Kobane 24 hours ago and have already massacred 120 civilians. The terrorist forces fired at men, woman and children as they entered the town from which they were expelled earlier in the year. It is thought this latest attack is more of a revenge raid than an invasion.
– See more at: http://english.pravda.ru/world/europe/26-06-2015/131139-terror_strikes-0/#sthash.II0mgWBA.dpuf
From CBN……
Stock markets worldwide took a major hit Monday after Greece moved one step closer to financial chaos, raising concern it could default on its international debt.
Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras announced over the weekend that banks will be closed for six business days, beginning Monday.
Cash withdrawals will also be restricted, with citizens limited to withdrawing just $66 a day.
The moves follow a breakdown in last-ditch talks between Greece and its lenders last week, when the Greek prime minister called for a surprise referendum on the country’s bailout.
Tsipras wants the Greek people to vote on whether to accept bailout plans offered to the country or reject them.
The proposal elicited mixed reactions.
“I have no idea what we are voting for, yes or no, we don’t know what to say,” Athens resident Triandalfila Bourbourda said. “I think we shouldn’t have gone so far to get into this mess.”
George Georgis, another resident of the capital, thinks Greeks will “fight back.”
“Now it’s our time to say no because they [the creditors] want the whole [of] our land,” Georgis said. “They want our freedom; they want our rights; they want our properties; they want our homeland. I think the Greek people will fight back.”
There’s concern that Greece may default on its debt and try to solve its financial crisis by abandoning the euro.
International leaders are now desperately looking for a solution that will allow it to keep the euro in place as its currency.
Meanwhile, Greece won’t be getting any help from the European Central Bank, which decided Sunday not to increase the amount of emergency credit for Greek banks.
Without that line of credit, the country’s four major banks could soon run out of cash.
Some analysts predict that the Greek government and its creditors will need to negotiate an entirely new bailout to keep from defaulting on its debt.
This bulletin just in…..
ATHENS — Greece today asked for its third European bailout in five years, just hours before its financial lifeline was set to expire and it defaulted on its debts.
Menwhile from the New York Post
The governor of Puerto Rico said in a televised address Monday that the island cannot pay back more than $70 billion in debt, setting up an unprecedented financial crisis that could rock the municipal bond market and lead to higher borrowing costs for governments across the United States.
“This is not about politics,” said Puerto Rico’s governor, Alejandro Garcia Padilla. “It’s about math.”
Garcia Padilla said the country needed to postpone for several years its debt payments.
“The first step is to revive economic growth…We will never get out of this vicious cycle,” said Garcia Padilla. “But we need to do more—much more—to return to riches and to become more competitive and have an expansion in the private market.”
Garcia Padilla proposed creating a committee that would work together to create reforms to the country, but he said “sacrifices should be shared,” adding that he welcomed “creditors who want to cooperate.”
White House press secretary Josh Earnest told members of the media Monday that federal officials would work with Puerto Rican leaders to address financial challenges after the island’s governor said it could not pay back its debt.
Puerto Rico’s move could roil financial markets already dealing with the turmoil of the renewed debt crisis in Greece. It also raises questions about the once-staid municipal bond market, which states and cities count on to pay upfront costs for public improvements such as roads, parks and hospitals.
For many years, those bonds were considered safe investments — but those assumptions have been shifting in recent years as a small but steady string of U.S. municipalities, including Detroit, as well as Stockton and Vallejo in California, have tumbled into bankruptcy.
Those defaults at least offered investors the protection provided by Chapter 9 of the U.S. bankruptcy code, which sets out an orderly process by which investors can recoup at least some of their money. But like states, Puerto Rico is not permitted to file for bankruptcy. A failure to iron out an agreement with creditors could ignite an unwieldy, uncharted and long-lasting process to sort out the island’s financial obligations.
In addition, with as much as $73 billion in debt, the island’s debt obligation is four times that of Detroit, which became the largest U.S. city to file for bankruptcy in 2012.
The implications are serious for Americans outside Puerto Rico largely because many hold island bonds in mutual funds. At one point in 2013, an estimated three out of four municipal bond mutual funds held Puerto Rican bonds, which were attractive because of their high yields and exemption from federal, state and local taxes.
Garcia Padilla will seek concessions from creditors, which range from mutual funds in the United States to large hedge funds that have been buying Puerto Rican debt at high interest rates, in an effort to stretch out loan payments and drive down borrowing costs that are hamstringing Puerto Rico’s struggling economy.
On Monday, the governor and Puerto Rico’s government development bank released a report analyzing the island’s finances written by former World Bank chief economist and former deputy director of the International Monetary Fund Anne Krueger and economists Ranjit Teja and Andrew Wolfe.
“The report…for the first time acknowledges the true extent of the problem,” said Garcia Padilla in a statement Monday. “We must make difficult decisions to meet the challenges we now know are ahead, and I intend to do everything in my power to lead us through this time.”
The government’s conclusion that it is unable to pay its debts was first reported by the New York Times. “It’s accurate,” said Gabriela Melendez, a Washington-based spokeswoman for the Puerto Rican government.
“My administration is doing everything not to default,” Garcia Padilla said in an interview with the New York Times. “But we have to make the economy grow. If not, we will be in a death spiral.”
A U.S. commonwealth with a population of 3.6 million, Puerto Rico carries more debt per capita than any state in the country. The island has been staggering under the increasing weight of those obligations for years as its economy has tanked, triggering an exodus of island residents to the mainland not seen since the 1950’s.
Meanwhile, the government has raised taxes, cut government employment and slashed pensions in a futile effort to get its debt burden under control. Those actions have only slowed the acceleration of debt creation, while harming efforts to reignite the economy.
The financial crisis in Puerto Rico has been playing out for years, although until now the government has been able to keep things moving by cutting spending and borrowing more and more money on Wall Street. But with rating agencies downgrading Puerto Rican debt to near-junk levels, the island has had to pay high rates to borrow money.
“What will happen is that our economy will get into a worse situation and we’ll have less money to pay them,” the governor said in the New York Times interview. “They will be shooting themselves in the foot.”
The island’s web of debt includes general-obligation bonds, which Puerto Rico’s constitution says must be repaid even before government workers receive their pay.
But billions of dollars more in bonds were floated by public corporations that provide critical services on the island, including providing electric power, building roads and running water and sewer authorities. Beyond the bond debt, the island owes some $37 billion in pension obligations to workers and former workers.
Puerto Rico has been pushing for Congress to grant bankruptcy protection for its public corporations, but that legislation has gone nowhere.
Jonnelle Marte contributed to this report.
Michael A. Fletcher is a national economics correspondent, writing about unemployment, state and municipal debt, the evolving job market and the auto industry.
And while all this is going on…..
President Obama unveiled a long-awaited plan to drastically expand the number of people eligible for overtime pay, in a move that he said would ensure “hard work is rewarded” — but that critics warn could hurt job growth at a fragile time.
Under the proposal unveiled late Monday, salaried workers who earn nearly $1,000 per week would become eligible for overtime pay.
The rule from the Labor Department would more than double the threshold at which employers can avoid paying overtime, from the current $455 a week to $970 a week by next year. That would mean salaried employees earning less than $50,440 a year would be assured overtime if they work more than 40 hours per week, up from the current $23,660 a year.
“We’ve got to keep making sure hard work is rewarded,” Obama wrote in an op-ed in The Huffington Post. “That’s how America should do business. In this country, a hard day’s work deserves a fair day’s pay.”
Although the Labor Department’s estimates suggest the proposal would raise wages for 5 million people, other estimates are far higher. The Economic Policy Institute, a liberal think tank, recently estimated that a threshold of $984 a week would cover 15 million people.
“This is by definition middle-class people. This reverses decades of neglect,” said EPI President Larry Mishel.
Under the current threshold, only about 8 percent of salaried workers are eligible for 11/2 times their regular pay when they work overtime. The EPI estimates that doubling the salary level would make up to 40 percent of salaried workers eligible.
Yet many Republicans have opposed Obama’s plans to increase the threshold, arguing that doing so would discourage companies from creating jobs and dampen economic growth. Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, who chairs the Senate’s labor panel, has derided the idea as designed “to make it as unappealing as possible” for companies to create jobs.
To keep up with future inflation and wage growth, the proposal will peg the salary threshold at the 40th percentile of income, individuals familiar with the plan said.
The president was to promote the proposal during a visit Thursday to La Crosse, Wisconsin.
Obama’s proposal aims to narrow a loophole that the president has long said some employers exploit to avoid paying overtime.
Employees who make above the salary threshold can be denied overtime if they are deemed managers. Some work grueling schedules at fast food chains and retail stores, but with no overtime eligibility, their pay may be lower per hour than many workers they supervise.
The existing salary cap, established in 2004 under President George W. Bush, has been eroded by inflation. Obama has long charged that the level is too low and undercuts the intent of the overtime law.
The proposed changes will be open for public comment and could take months to finalize. They can be enacted through regulation, without approval by the Republican-led Congress.
Obama, in his op-ed, argued the exemption was intended for highly paid, white-collar employees but now punished lower-income workers because the government has failed to update the regulations.
The beneficiaries would be people like Brittany Swa, 30, a former manager of a Chipotle restaurant in Denver. As a management trainee, she started as an entry-level crew member in March 2010. After several months she began working as an “apprentice,” which required a minimum 50-hour work week.
Yet her duties changed little. She had a key to the shop and could make bank deposits, but otherwise spent nearly all her time preparing orders and working the cash register. She frequently worked 60 hours a week but didn’t get overtime because she earned $36,000.
The grueling hours continued after she was promoted to store manager in October 2010. She left two years later and has joined a class-action lawsuit against Chipotle, charging that apprentices shouldn’t be classified as managers exempt from overtime. A spokesman for Chipotle declined to comment on the case.
By Benjamin Mueller NEW YORK TIMES JUNE 30, 2015
After tunneling out of maximum-security cells, Richard W. Matt and David Sweat waited for the Jeep, driven by a cooperating prison employee, that would take them to Mexico.
It never arrived. Eighteen days of cabin stays and bushwhacking later, the partnership that spawned one of the most improbable prison escapes in New York history crumbled, as Sweat left his older accomplice behind for fear that he was slowing them down.
Until this weekend, investigators were a step slow, too, bogged down by dense vegetation, slow responses and miscommunication.
But on Monday, a day after Sweat was shot and taken into custody by a state trooper in a freshly cut hayfield and three days after Matt was killed by a federal agent, new details surfaced about the three-week manhunt for the two convicted murderers that gripped remote stretches of northern New York.
It was a history of hesitation and interagency conflict, and also of lucky breaks for law enforcement officers who scoured the woods as the inmates’ labyrinthine escape plot devolved into haphazard flight.
In the end, neither convict made it more than 40 miles from the Clinton Correctional Facility, and in their last days the men – separated for the first time in years – showed signs of growing desperation as they left a trail of chocolate wrappers and opened bottles of grape gin and rum. Investigators capitalized, ending the inmates’ flight without any known injuries to the public or law enforcement officials.
A week distinguished by DNA discoveries and well-organized sweeps was the final stage of a 23-day slog that was hampered, at times, by missed signals.
Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo ordered a large cadre of nonstate law enforcement personnel out of the command center as the manhunt got underway.
And, in the swamps and forests where the inmates hid, investigators sometimes spurned the assistance of local officials and hunters.
In the dawn hours of June 6, after Matt and Sweat’s cell beds were found to be holding dummies fashioned out of sweatshirts, investigators initially believed the inmates were stuck in the prison’s system of tunnels.
Only after they discovered an open manhole about 400 feet outside the prison did the police understand the killers had emerged from it, David Favro, the sheriff of Clinton County, said. Favro was informed of the open manhole at 8:30 a.m., three hours after the men were found missing, he said.
By then, a sighting by a resident who lives near the manhole had gone stale. The resident, Leslie Lewis, 29, said he saw two men run through his backyard and hurry down the street shortly after midnight. It was not until 9 a.m. that a state trooper knocked on his door for an interview.
Lewis’ mother, Dawn Mattoon, said it was around 3 p.m., after Cuomo had come to look at the manhole, that she saw state troopers arriving with dogs to sniff for a scent in the backyard.
Without clear orders, Favro acted on his own hunches. He drove to Lyon Mountain, about 10 miles from the prison, after he learned of the escape, thinking it might offer the kind of rural, out-of-the-way route the men might take.
He said he imagined himself bringing them in. “Local hero comes in with two guys in the back of his truck would have been nice,” he said. “Never saw anything.”
Favro’s frustration was compounded when Cuomo arrived at the command center and told him and all the other nonstate employees to leave, said a close friend of the sheriff’s, David Andrews, the director of the local radio station WIRY. Andrews said Favro was angered at being notified of the escape so late and was astonished that Cuomo had asked him to leave.
“At first they were asked to leave, and he said, ‘But I’m the sheriff,"” Andrews recalled. “Then they were told they had to leave. He was furious and went home.”
Favro declined to discuss the governor’s arrival in detail, but he said after that, he and his team of deputies got little guidance from the State Police officials who were directing the investigation. The deputies “just kind of roved around hoping to get lucky,” he said.
In a statement, a spokesman for Cuomo, John P.L. Kelly, did not dispute that Cuomo had asked non-state officials to leave.
“It is customary for state officials to do confidential briefings to relay sensitive information to other state officials during the initial stages of any investigation,” the statement read. “However, the State Police and other state agencies have coordinated extensively with local and federal law enforcement authorities.”
The search soon began pinballing across quiet pockets on the eastern edge of the state and to towns along its southern border. Several local officials and county sheriffs said they learned of the developments only by chance.
In Willsboro, New York, 35 miles southeast of the prison, Shaun Gillilland, the town supervisor, said he drove to the local command center after a friend told him, “My yard is full of cops.” There had been a sighting of two men on foot near a rural road. He found several state and federal officials gathered around the back of a pickup truck, scrutinizing a map whose scale he said was too small to show the uneven geography.
“The command and control did not seem in my opinion to be real firm,” Gillilland said. “They were always referring to some command post in Dannemora for direction.”
Residents kept in the dark about search plans were sometimes startled by officers climbing into their garages or homes.
Beth Schiller, of Willsboro, came home to her 100-acre property, where she rarely locked the doors, to find her .22-caliber rifle missing from the corner of her sunroom. There was no note saying officers had entered the home, and a group of troopers who went inside with her said they had no idea why it was missing. They told her to call her husband, a physician, to see if he had it with him at work.
“The anxiety,” Schiller said. “Imagine going into your own home and seeing a gun is missing when there are two people supposedly out in your area.”
Only later was she able to determine that officers had found it during a search and taken it for safety. That night, after several rounds of paperwork, the State Police gave it back to her and her husband.
The State Police kept a tight lid on information about the search during its first two weeks, but that appeared to change on June 19 when, at nearly midnight, they sent a release saying there had been a sighting in the Elmira area. News conferences and daily news releases soon delivered substantial information on the locations of search efforts, and what credible witnesses had reported.
Around five days before he was caught, Sweat split from Matt, he told investigators on Monday, concerned that Matt was holding him back. Matt, 14 years older than his partner, also may have been struggling with blisters on his foot, officials have said, citing bloody socks left at a hunting cabin they discovered on June 20.
The search effort seemed to gain momentum when, on June 24, officials discovered evidence of a break-in by Matt at a hunting cabin in Malone, New York.
It was a vast area of rolling hills and soggy swamps made more difficult to navigate by heavy rains, suddenly flooded by up to 1,500 officers, the Franklin County sheriff, Kevin Mulverhill, said. “Nobody questioned assignments,” he said. “Everyone who was there was all about how can I help.”
Few state or local officials had experience with such an elaborate search over such difficult terrain, Mulverhill said. “I don’t think anybody really prepares for a manhunt that’s going to use 1,200 people,” he said. “I don’t think that’s something you train for.”
State troopers and sheriff’s deputies stood guard along roadways, listening for rustles in these woods. Tactical teams from specialized units of the Department of Corrections or federal Customs and Border Protection swept the woods, hoping to push the escapees toward a road.
Trail cameras posted on trees took photos of any movement they detected.
On June 26, the owner of a hunting camp, Bobby Willett, found bottles of grape gin and rum out of place in a cabin, a neighbor and cousin said. The neighbor, Jonathan Chodat, said investigators also removed evidence from a nearby abandoned trailer where they believed Matt had been staying that was 50 feet into the woods from Route 30 in Malone.
When Matt fired a shot at a moving camper trailer, in what some officials described as an effort to steal it, investigators blanketed the woods and heard him cough. He was shot three times and killed by a federal agent.
That same day, investigators found a chocolate wrapper in an area off Webster Street in Malone, north of where Matt was killed, that they later determined had traces of Sweat’s DNA, Mulverhill said. Over the weekend, officers left a 22-square-mile search area that had been set up farther south, and moved north to an area around Constable.
Late Sunday afternoon, Sgt. Jay Cook of the New York State Police noticed Sweat jogging north along a roadway, only a few miles from Canada.
The son of dairy farmers, Cook is a dedicated outdoorsman who hunts and fishes and runs a small maple sugaring operation on his property.
After joining the Air Force and working as a corrections officer, Cook fulfilled his dream of joining the State Police, said his mother, Judith Cook.
“He is an excellent shot; his career revolved around that,” said Billy Jones, the chairman of the Franklin County Legislature and a friend.
He got his chance to end the manhunt when he chased Sweat across a hayfield. A tree line drew closer and closer.
He shot Sweat twice in the torso, and the search was over.
In a series of scathing dissents, each of the High Court’s four conservative justices took apart Justice Anthony Kennedy’s Obergefell v. Hodges decision piece-by-piece.
Chief Justice Roberts, joined by Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, wrote that “the majority fails to provide even a single sentence explaining” how the 14th Amendment applies to redefining marriage.
“The right it announces has no basis in the Constitution or this Court’s precedent,” he wrote. “There is, after all, no ‘Companionship and Understanding’ or ‘Nobility and Dignity’ Clause in the Constitution.”
Instead, the court ignored its own precedent in the 1972 Baker v. Nelson case, which ruled there is no constitutional right to homosexual “marriage.”
In a separate dissent, Justice Scalia called the decision a “judicial Putsch” that is “lacking even a thin veneer of law.” He described the majority’s often flowery language as “the mystical aphorisms of the fortune cookie.”
Roberts said the opinion took an “unprincipled approach” that he likened to theDred Scott decision, which ratified slavery on the eve of the Civil War.
While all of the dissenting justices warned that the decision usurped the role of the people in a democratic government, each made his own distinctive critiques, as well.
Justice Roberts warned that today’s ruling was not comparable to striking down laws against interracial marriage, because at no time was the ethnicity of the spouses considered a defining factor of marriage itself.
He also warned that by changing the fundamental definition of marriage, the justices had opened the door to redefining other vital components of matrimony. “It is striking how much of the majority’s reasoning would apply with equal force to the claim of a fundamental right to plural marriage,” he wrote.
Justice Thomas wrote that the opinion holds “potentially ruinous consequences for religious liberty.” Recognizing the threat that the government may revoke the tax-exempt status of religious institutions, Thomas added that “the scope of that liberty is directly correlated to the civil restraints placed upon religious property.”
The traditional American view of limited government was another casualty, he wrote. “Our Constitution — like the Declaration of Independence before it — was predicated on a simple truth: One’s liberty, not to mention one’s dignity, was something to be shielded from — not provided by — the state.”
Justice Samuel Alito alone said that marriage existed for the sake of procreation and child-rearing. The majority opinion is based on ideas of romantic love, he wrote. “This understanding of marriage, which focuses almost entirely on the happiness of persons who choose to marry, is shared by many people today, but it is not the traditional one. For millennia, marriage was inextricably linked to the one thing that only an opposite-sex couple can do: procreate.”
All of the justices had a similar concern, though: The decision substitutes the views of five unelected justices for the democratic process, much as Roe v. Wade did for abortion in 1973.
“If a bare majority of justices can invent a new right and impose that right on the rest of the country, the only real limit on what future majorities will be able to do is their own sense of what those with political power and cultural influence are willing to tolerate,” Justice Alito wrote in his dissent.
He concluded, “All Americans, whatever their thinking on that issue, should worry about what the majority’s claim of power portends.”
Also from CBN……
WASHINGTON — Now that the Supreme Court has changed the definition of marriage, many Christians are trying to figure out what that means for them.
Business is back to normal outside the Supreme Court building, but there’s no denying that the votes of five justices dramatically changed the nation.
“And that has profound impacts. It changes what kids are taught in the school, changes the way religious organizations are treated,” Brian Brown, with the National Organization for Marriage, said.
Over the weekend gay pride parades and celebrations from California to Chicago, and even Alaska, made news.
The court’s decision doesn’t take effect for several weeks, but even in states that didn’t allow gay marriage, like Georgia, same-sex couples were allowed to wed.
“I think everyone has the right to be happy and we were raised with the mentality that you should do what makes you happy,” Christi Justis, a college student at Virginia Commonwealth University, said.
However, many Americans fear that sentiment shared by many millennials won’t apply to people who have religious objections to the government’s new definition of marriage.
There’s no question that the next fight is religious liberty, as some fear the court’s ruling on marriage will embolden those who seek to punish Christians who wish to live, work and raise their families in accordance with their faith.
“Religious liberty is not just the freedom to worship in your chapel; it’s the freedom to live our your faith in everyday life Monday through Sunday, in the workplace, in the public square, in the marketplace, at your home, at your school, at your charity,” Ryan Anderson, with the Heritage Foundation, explained.
Many fear the court’s ruling opens the door for a number of unconventional marriages to eventually win favor by the government.
“If California were to redefine marriage to include polygamy or polyamory, could a Texan go to California, have a group marriage, and then move back to Texas and say ‘the constitution requires you to recognize this,"” Anderson asked.
The what-if’s and the reality of gay marriage in all 50 states will be hot on the campaign trail this summer, and the divisions are miles apart.
While all of the Democratic candidates celebrated the court’s ruling, all of the Republican candidates expressed some level of disappointment.
“I think the left is now going to go after our First Amendment rights,” Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal warned Sunday on “Meet the Press.”
“I think it is wrong for the federal government to force Christian individuals, businesses, pastors, churches to participate in wedding ceremonies that violate our sincerely held religious beliefs,” Jindal continued.
“We have to stand up and fight for religious liberty,” he said.
One the same program, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said, “If you have a church, a mosque or a synagogue and you’re following your faith and you refuse to perform a same-sex marriage because it’s outside the tenets of your faith, in my presidency, you will not lose your tax exempt status.”
“Are we gonna trade one level of what’s called discrimination for a new level of discrimination against people of faith,” former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee asked on “This Week.”
“The problem here is, that the government is going to put people of faith in an untenable situation where they’re forced to choose between obeying God and obeying the government,” Mark Trammell, with the Liberty Center for Law and Policy, warned.
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In his recent podcast interview with comedian Marc Maron, President Obama reflected on the passing of time. His daughters are growing older and have less time to hang with their dad. “I’ve got to start thinking, well, what’s going to replace that fun,” he said.
Good question, and it goes for the rest of Obama’s life as well. In eighteen months he will be an ex-president, term-limited and out of a job. Just fifty-five, the former leader of the free world will still be in the prime of life.
Obama hasn’t said what he has in mind for his next act. His options are virtually endless. What he decides is going to matter—especially to Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party.
Assuming she is nominated, Hillary can’t be elected president in 2016 without a huge black turnout. Obama will, of course, endorse her, but his blessing can’t be lukewarm. He will have to go all out. In politics, that kind of an effort does not come without a quid pro quo.
What could President Clinton do for her predecessor? The most obvious answer is: Appoint him to the Supreme Court.
There is a precedent. William Howard Taft went from the White House to the Court. As a former constitutional lawyer and teacher, Obama is more than qualified professionally.
The president has been a persistent critic of the conservative-leaning Roberts Court. He would automatically become the leader of the Court’s liberal faction and perhaps—with additional Clinton appointments—its eventual majority. That, in turn, would give him a chance to defend his own presidential legacy and press his agenda.
Not incidentally, appointing Obama to the Supreme Court would serve the interests of President Hillary Clinton. Out of office, Obama would likely remain the de facto leader of the Democratic African-American base and a powerful voice on issues like immigration, gun control, voting rights and free trade. This is the sort of influence no president wants to cede to a predecessor. She’s stuck with Bill, but she’s not married to Barack. Put him on the Supreme Court and he won’t be able to (overtly) meddle in party politics or constrain her presidential power.
There is something else that a President Hillary Clinton could do for Obama: Give his wife a job. Michelle Obama, like her husband, is on her way to becoming an unemployed empty-nester.
Michelle Obama is as qualified for public office as Hillary Clinton was in 2000, when she first won a Senate seat from New York. For that matter, she is not less qualified than her husband when he won his Senate seat from Illinois 2006. A Clinton administration could clear the decks for a Senate run by Michelle, or offer her a senior cabinet post.
If Hillary loses in 2016, Obama will still have plenty of options. He could emulate Bill Clinton and start a multi-billion dollar charitable foundation, while supplementing his income with seven-figure speeches and a little help from his friends. He could follow Jimmy Carter’s example and turn his Presidential Library into a center for international policy (and meddling) on issues like climate change, free trade and rapprochement with the Muslim world.
It is a given (literally) that Obama will make a fortune with a memoir. That is a post-presidential prerogative. But unlike his predecessors, he is capable of more than a standard retrospective.
Obama is a man of letters. His first book, “Dreams from My Father,” attests to that. He may be a second-rate chief executive, but he is a first-rate writer.
Writing isn’t retirement. Writing is work. But for the right person, it is rewarding work. Nobody invades an author’s privacy (especially if it is guarded by the Secret Service). Writers have time for family and friends, room for reading and reflection and creativity. Those who can command an audience can exert lasting influence. Certainly Barack Obama would command that kind of attention.
I’m sure that President Obama is considering numerous scenarios and options. Once he leaves office, Barack Obama will still remain a formidable presence in American public life a man with the potential to exert a powerful influence on his party, his country and the world.
Rioters in Ferguson, Missouri — rioting over the death of Michael Brown — unwittingly burned down the Brown family’s church.
Rioters in Ferguson, Missouri — rioting over the death of Michael Brown — unwittingly burned down the Brown family’s church.
At Nelson Mandela’s funeral
Darren Wilson
During President Obama’s speech on immigration he used “I”, “Me,” and “My,” 91 times.
Twenty percent strongly support Obama’s executive action on amnesty for five million illegals.
A grand jury cleared Police officer Darren Wilson in the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. However, Obama said officer Wilson wasn’t really innocent and that America could never be absolved of its past racial sins and that the only solution would be to give him (Obama) more power.
One in three Americans put off seeking medical treatment in 2014 due to high costs, according to a Gallup Poll reported by the Daily Caller. The Caller reminds us that President Obama said that because of Obamacare, medical costs would be more affordable for everyone.
Obamacare offers business firms $3,000 incentive to hire illegals over native-born American workers.
It’s Your Money: Criminals in federal and state prisons and their accomplices filed $1 billion in fraudulent tax returns in 2012, according to a report by the IRS auditor. And they received the money.
A Marquette University professor told a student: If you don’t support gay marriage, drop my class.
Question: Isn’t Marquette a Catholic Jesuit university?
Political Drama: Some say “No” and Some Say “Yes”
TEA PARTY — REPUBLICANS — CONSERVATIVES Are accused of being the PARTIES OF NO! Are so accused by liberals/progressives, and the major news media. That is true:
They say no to BIG GOVERNMENT!
No to HIGHER TAXES!
No to ABORTION!
No to SAME-SEX MARRIAGE!
No to BLANKET AMNESTY!
No to REDUCING THE MILITARY!
No to NUCLEAR TREATY WITH IRAN!
No to CONDEMNATION OF ISRAEL!
Yes, Republicans, many Independents, Tea Party patriots and we Conservatives can proudly say NO to those things we believe step-by-step take away our individual freedoms and endanger this land.
But never forget we say YES to less government, lower taxes, the sanctity of life, traditional marriage, limited and controlled immigration, a strong military, and support of Israel.
Turmoil in Toyland?
Can it be true? Are Obamanistas now questioning their blind support of the President? It appears so.
Both Vice President Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton — two of Obama’s strongest supporters — now are backing away from the failed policies of his administration.
“Whether out of frustration or political necessity, some…are distancing themselves from Mr. Obama as 2016 approaches,” the Washington Times reported.
The Vice President made it clear last week that he was “ticked off” about the way the President forced Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel out of the Pentagon. He and Hagel were former colleagues in the U. S. Senate.
Observers believe the rift between Obama and Hagel was due to Obama’ micromanagement of national security policy, according to the Times.
Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton strongly criticized Obama’s foreign policy and said a principle of foreign policy is, “Don’t do stupid stuff.”
Earlier, a Clinton aide criticized Obama’s handling of ISIS and other Middle Eastern crises saying the President was too passive and that Hillary Clinton “would have taken a more aggressive approach,” the Times reported.
The Ferguson Riot: Why Were Troops Not Deployed?
Ferguson Rioters destroyed 20 businesses, burned police cars, looted stores, stopped traffic as the residents of that city were scratching their heads asking: With 1,000 National Guard troops, local police officers, sheriff’s deputies, state police and 100 FBI agents — why couldn’t they protect the people of Ferguson and their property?
The National Guardsmen were there but were ordered to stand down and not confront the rioters.
But who gave the order?
We do know that Attorney General Eric Holder told the police to exercise restraint but sent no such message to the rampaging rioters and pillagers.
Now Missouri Lieutenant Governor Peter Kinder asks: “Did the White House stop the National Guard from intervening?”
The Lieutenant Governor said he believes the order for the Guard to stand down may have come from the Obama administration.
“If you are going to have the National Guard deployed and a state of emergency declared and then hold them back, I say the governor owes the people of Missouri a lot of explanations,” he told Fox News.
“We see the National Guard rolling this morning…where were they last night?” National and Global News reported. “Why were they not in there at the first sign of an overturned police car or a smashed police car window with a show of force that would have stopped this?”
Comment: This certainly is a mystery. One thousand National Guard troops were in Ferguson but they stood by and watched as the riot rampage destroyed buildings, as the rioters pillaged stores and burned police cars.
This raises a question: Can the public — in Ferguson or anywhere — count on the police and the National Guard to protect them? If we look at the Ferguson experience, the answer is no.
affordable care act be
As the Jonathan Gruber saga continues, it appears that he may be the only one in Washington telling the truth.
Gruber, the MIT economist under fire for suggesting the Obama administration tried to deceive the public about the Affordable Care Act, on several occasions warned that the costs would increase.
“While President Obama campaigned on a promise that his universal health care plan would lower premiums, his controversial adviser and plan architect (Gruber) was privately warning…that Obamacare was poised to massively increase insurance costs for average residents, internal documents show,” the Times reported.
Obama Makes GQ List of The 25 Least Influential People Mexico,
For the second year in a row, President Obama has made the GQ Magazine list of the least influential people, according to Newsmax.
Addressing the President directly, the magazine asked: “Why are you still on Martha’s Vineyard? Missouri is BURNING. Putin is conquering Europe…Are you even President anymore?”
“When Obama got blasted for golfing shortly after ISIS beheaded journalist James Foley, he said, ‘I should’ve anticipated the optics."”
The magazine noted people have observed “the majority of this man’s presidency watching bad things, then hearing a thoughtful speech about how we gotta make sure the bad things never happen again, and then watching as nothing gets done.”
Comment: GQ is correct. That is Obama’s modus operandi as sure as sin follows temptation. He acknowledges the problem, says something should be done, then does nothing. And the American people forget. Take for instance, the 68,000 children from Central America who came into the U.S. Nothing was done to stop the flow of children. Take for instance, the border, now that he has granted amnesty to five million, hundreds of thousands more are on their way here. Yet nothing is being done to secure the border.
Letter to President: Man Wants to Move Family to Mexico*Reported by Fox News
Dear Mr. President:
I’M planning to move my family and extended family into Mexico for my health, and would like to ask you to assist me.
We’re planning to simply walk across the border from the U.S. into Mexico, and we’ll need your help to make a few arrangements.
We plan to skip all the legal stuff like visas, passports, immigration quotas and laws.
I’m sure they handle those things the same way you do here. So, would you mind telling your buddy, the President of Mexico, that I’m on my way over?
Please let him know that I will be expecting the following:
1. Free medical care for my entire family.
2. English-speaking Government bureaucrats for all services I might need…
3. Please print all Mexican Government forms in English.
4. I want my grandkids to be taught Spanish by English-speaking (bilingual) teachers.
5. Tell their schools they need to include classes on American culture and history.
6. Please plan to feed my grandkids at school for both breakfast and lunch.
7. I will need a local Mexican driver’s license so I can get easy access to government services.
8. I plan to fly the U. S. flag from my housetop, put U.S. flag decals on my car and have a gigantic celebration on July 4th. I don’t want any complaints or negative comments from the locals.
9. I would like to have a nice job without paying any taxes… so tell the president of Mexico that I wanted to pay three thousand dollars to the business that will hire me at a good wage.
10. Please have the president tell all the Mexican people to be extremely nice and never say critical things about me or my family or about the strain we might place on their economy.
11. I want to receive free food stamps.
12. Please enroll me into the Mexican Social Security program so that I’ll get a monthly income in retirement.
I know this is an easy request because you already do all these things for all the people who walk over to the U.S. from Mexico. I’m sure the president of Mexico won’t mind returning the favor if you ask him nicely.
The church burned down? Holy smoke! The Bill Keith Report
My first article is a cry for help and a cry for prayer. That’s what got Miriam Ibrahim released from a Sudanese prison a few months ago in a situation that seemed absolutely hopeless.This time the country is Pakistan, a country that receives millions of dollars each year from America.
Hello America. Hello world.
From the headquarters of reachmorenow.com in Fort Worth, Texas, this is Ray Mossholder and this is the news:
Asia Bibi
My first article is a cry for help and a cry for prayer. That’s what got Miriam Ibrahim released from a Sudanese prison a few months ago in a situation that seemed absolutely hopeless. This time the country is Pakistan, a country that receives millions of dollars each year from America. If President Obama would tell the government of Pakistan that it would lose this money from now on if any harm comes to their prisoner, Asia Bibi, a Christian, her scheduled hanging would almost certainly be forgotten about and she would be released.
What is Asia Bibi’s crime that has caused a death sentence? In 2010, Asia was imprisoned for speaking a derogatory word against the Islamic prophet Mohammed during a heated discussion with some Islamic women over a pot of water.
In 2011, the Governor of Punjab, Salmon Taseer, and minorities minister Shahbaz Bhatti, were both murdered because they dared to protest Pakistan’s blasphemy laws and Asia’s trial proceeded without them.
The American Center for Law and Justice says the BBC did a great job in bringing about the release of Meriam Ibrahim. Now they are hoping to do the same for Asia Bibi. The BBC gave these following details of what happened before Asia was arrested:
Asia Bibi’s troubles began in June 2009 in her village of Ittan Wali, a patchwork of lush fields and dusty streets. Hers was the only Christian family living there.
She was picking berries along with a group of Muslim women when an argument developed over sharing the water.
Several days later, this same group of Muslim women declared that Asia had insulted the Prophet Mohammed. At that point, a mob of Islamists went to Asia’s home, she ran out the door and they chased her. When they caught her, they put a noose around her neck so that they could kill her. Instead she rescued but thrown in prison and is the first woman sentenced to hang in Pakistan under its Shariah blasphemy laws. Her case has now come before Pakistan’s Supreme Court, who will render the final decision.
Asia Bibi is the mother of five children. She absolutely denies ever having spoken any insult at all against Mohammed. But for the past two years, she has sat alone in a prison cell while her husband and children have been harassed by the entire town. Several times Muslims have threatened them.
Jay Sekulow, head of the American Center for Law and Justice, said “We’ve been fighting through our international affiliate, the European Centre for Law and Justice and its partner in Pakistan. Jay said “These blasphemy laws in Pakistan are despicable and Shariah law has been a part of this country for many years. We have had a number of these outrageous charges thrown out of court. The violent attack on this Christian wife and mother cannot stand. Like the case of Meriam, who is now free, for whom the world stood together as one voice, they need to do it again to condemn Pakistan’s barbaric violation of Asia Bibi’s human rights. She has done nothing wrong and the trumped up charges are merely because she is a Christian. She must not be executed for her faith in Christ.
The ACLJ will have a petition on the Internet to be signed by you and asking for Asia Bibi to be released. Please do sign it. It will matter. Use the social media to rally the troops into action to save Asia Bibi’s life and to sign the petition too.
No, Mr. President, Islam and Christianity are not at all the same in hardly any way. It’s time for you to pick up your telephone and call Pakistan and stand up for for Asia Bibi. And while you’re at it, phone Mexico’s president too and demand the release of Marine Sergeant hero Andrew Tahmooressie. Do you have the moral fortitude to make those two phone calls as the president of the United States?
It’s been 6 months since Boko Haram kidnapped 300 Nigerian high school girls, most of them Christian, and no one knows in the outside world what has happened individually to each one of them or corporately as a group. They are considered fair game by the radical Muslims. Suddenly hope has risen, but it is a cautious hope. Friday the Nigerian government and Boko Haram made a cease-fire agreement. At the same time, the release of all the missing girls was also negotiated. Everyone in Chibok Province is holding their breath and the Christian parents are praying.
The country of Chad has been negotiating the cease-fire between Nigeria and Boko Haram and the girls are headed for there. The question now is whether Boko Haram can be trusted to keep their word on this. If so, they have promised to return the girls on Tuesday.
And the second question would be what convinced them they should cease their killing? Boko Haram has massacred the people in many Nigerian villages. If they walk free after the peace agreement, does it mean they will then stop their savage brutality? Will any justice be served for what they’ve done? I will keep you up-to-date as this story develops.
The way the Ebola virus has been treated in America would be laughable if it wasn’t a matter of life and death. Behind the scenes, President Obama is reportedly highly frustrated with the response of the Center of Disease and Control, and it’s leader, Tom Frieden. However, before the cameras, our president has continued to say that he is confident of Frieden and the CDC.
There is no doubt that the news media is hyping an Ebola epidemic as if it were all but certain. This is one of the terrible things about the news industry as a whole. They know one truth – bad news sells. Television news stations use the word Ebola over and over again, 24 hours a day, and nothing could please their million-dollar sponsors more.
It is true that the Ebola virus could spread nationwide. It is also true that it is more than likely going to be contained with a very few victims, hopefully only one. Every death from this terrible disease is tragic. But as the Ebola virus threatens to kill more than a million people in West Africa, it does not appear to be doing the same in America. And except for one tragic death of a Liberian man in Dallas, Thomas Eric Duncan, other Ebola cases that are in quarantine now in America are reportedly recovering.
President Obama did add to the tragi-comedy by appointing a political “Ebola Czar” rather than one with any medical knowledge or who could very deeply understand the situation and how to coordinate any more discoveries of the disease. Once again, the president seems to be throwing things at the wall and hoping something will stick.
It is also true that President Obama promised America that it would stay Ebola free. But that’s obviously not the case. The man who died had flown from Liberia to Dallas. And such flights obviously bring the danger of still more Ebola cases. Yet President Obama has so far refused to stop airplanes to and from West Africa. Perhaps he is thinking about the fact that since our borders are wide open, Ebola carriers can enter America whether or not they do it by plane.
Were several major mistakes made at the Dallas hospital and made also by the CDC? Absolutely. Have nurses been exposed to the virus unnecessarily? Absolutely. Have people flown when they shouldn’t because they were showing signs of Ebola? Absolutely. But though this story is not over, there is more positive news than negative about those suffering in America from the disease right now.
Why would West Africa be so besieged by the epidemic and America not be? First, the sanitation problems in West Africa from intimate burial rites to hiding diseased people rather than getting them to the hospital, is rampant. Now, the World Health Organization is owning up to its own botched attempt at stopping the disease. Though the UN’s WHO refuses to explicitly explain the details they have written in a draft document because that would more than embarrass them, they do admit they botched things time and time again because of an incompetent staff, bureaucracy, and a lack of reliable information.
WHO said nearly everyone is to be blamed for the plague that has now killed 4,546 people including more than three hundred doctors, nurses, and health workers, out of 9,191 cases.
In April, Doctors Without Borders were in disagreement with WHO on social media. WHO argued that the Ebola epidemic was contained. WHO now agrees their arguments were only to cover themselves from blame. They do promise that once the Ebola virus epidemic ends they will share all of the hidden information in a report.
Meanwhile, the government of Canada will begin shipping 800 vials of an experimental Ebola vaccine to WHO on Monday.
In Dallas, tonight (Sunday) at midnight, the 21 day quarantine of the four family members of the deceased Tom Duncan will be over. None of them show any symptoms of Ebola. Neither do the other 44 people who were being held in quarantine until now.
As a side note, I’m sure you’ll be glad to know that President Obama returned to his golf game today. He had missed playing for the past three days which was like a starvation diet for him. To make up for it, he stayed on the course for five hours.
America’s stock market has been like a limbo dancer this past week, dropping lower and lower by more than a thousand points. Meanwhile, Europe is financially shaking like Jell-O and their stock markets are dropping heavily too. It’s been a long time since Wall Street used what they call it’s “fear index” but that index is clanging its loud alarm now. According to the fear index, we ain’t seen nothing yet. How far the stock market will drop is anyone’s guess. But many people are losing their life’s savings and several millionaires both here and abroad aren’t millionaires anymore.
JJ Kinahan, the chief strategist for TD Ameritrade, said “We’ve gone from the S&P 500 hitting all-time highs to losing all its gains in just a month and a half. There has been a sea change in how people are viewing the market.”
The financial roller coaster ride that people take when they invest in the stock market still means the market can take off again and most people would then recover their losses. But right now in both America and Europe, the gloomy prediction is that the stock markets will be down for the count when the final closing bell sounds.
Wedding vows have been spoken in a mass ceremony in Palestine between men in their mid-20’s or above to girls 10 years old or younger.
Muslims know they have Allah’s blessing on these kinds of weddings because Mohammed married a 6-year-old. But being a patient prophet, he waited until she was 9 to consummate their marriage. In an evolution through the centuries, Muslim males believe they have no need to wait so terribly long. But ten-year-old girls are more than ready for the consummation.
Many Muslim officials were at the mass wedding to celebrate with the happy couples. Among them was Hamas leader Mahmud Zahar. At the carefully staged event, Mahmud, speaking to the grooms, said “We are saying to the world and to America that you cannot deny us joy and happiness.”
Local Hamas strongman Ibrahim Salaf said in a toast, “We are presenting this wedding as a gift to our people who stood firm in the face of the siege and the war,” The grooms were dressed in identical black suits and are from the Jabalia refugee camp. Hamas gave each groom a gift of $500.
The little girls were dressed in white gowns and wore garish makeup. They each received a bridal bouquet. It is doubtful they knew what would come after the ceremony.
In other news………
The Denver Police Department is warning parents nationwide to avoid taking their children trick-or-treating at houses where they don’t know who lives inside. That’s because today drugs are so easily hidden in candy or other sweets. They point out that supposed “treats” this Halloween will undoubtedly include homes giving out marijuana-laced goodies and far worse. The newest innovation is mass-produced candy that is sprayed with hashish. There isn’t any way to identify it from normal candy without eating it.
A couple in Couer d’Alene, Idaho who have been married for 47 years – Donald and Evelyn Knapp – own a wedding chapel called The Hitching Post. They’ve been performing marriages there since 1989. But now they are being threatened with fines and jail time because they refuse to marry a gay couple who asked the Knapps to marry them there.
Couer d’Alene has a nondiscrimination law that includes sexual orientation and gender rights. The city plans to use these statutes to force the Knapps to marry a gay couple or impose stiff fines and two cells at the city jail.
Ryan Anderson of The Heritage Foundation wrote about this on their website The Daily Signal: “Protecting religious liberty and the rights of conscience does not infringe on anyone’s sexual freedoms. No one has a right to have the government force a particular minister to marry them. Some citizens may conclude that they cannot in good conscience participate in same-sex ceremonies, from priests and pastors to bakers and florists. They should not be forced to choose between strongly held religious beliefs and their livelihood. It is unclear how the city could claim that forcing the Knapps to perform a same-sex wedding is a compelling government interest being pursued in the least restrictive way. There are numerous other venues where a same-sex couple could get married. Indeed, there is a county clerks office directly across the street from the chapel.”
Anderson also wrote that states must protect these rights so people aren’t coerced to act against their beliefs.
The Alliance Defending Freedom filed a motion on behalf of the Knapps arguing their First and 14th Amendment rights are being violated – pointing out that not only were the Knapps freedom of religion and free speech rights violated, but also the right to due process and equal protection.
President Obama experienced today (Sunday) what every public speaker most fears: the Democrats at a campaign rally in Upper Marlboro Maryland, walked out as he spoke. Reuters, in fact, said they “streamed out.” They also say the president “repeated over and over again “You’ve GOT TO vote.” The Telegraph “half the crowd walked out.”
The rally was on behalf of Lieutenant Governor Anthony Brown who is running for governor of Maryland. The crowd’s reaction probably won’t matter much. Brown has an eleven point lead in the polls over his Republican opponent.
The president has mainly steered clear of campaigns mostly because the Democrat candidates don’t want to be seen with him. He has gathered many millions of dollars for the campaigners at dozens of fundraisers in spite of their desire not to stand next to him while they are running.
Tonight (Sunday) President Obama spoke at a second campaign rally – this one for Governor Pat Quinn of Illinois, who is running for reelection. There has been no response yet from the reporters on how the crowd reacted to Mr. Obama this evening.
Today’s Gallup poll results show our president at an all-time low with 40% approving of his actions and 55% disapproving. With that, he is fully aware that the midterm election is 16 days from now.
Finally, Mayor Annise Parker of Houston has backed completely down from her demand for the city’s pastor’s sermons and conversations on the gay rights movement. The mayor and City Attorney David Feldman said in a joint statement that the requests were made by an outside group. However, they did not say what group. They claimed they were unaware that the pastors had been subpoenaed. Feldman said “It’s unfortunate that the subpoena effort has been construed as some effort to infringe upon religious beliefs.”
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THOUGHT FOR THE DAY
Speak when you are angry and you will make the best speech you will ever regret.
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Remember that I want to read your comments. How do you feel about anything I’ve shared? Let me know at the end of this newscast.
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And so until next time, this is Ray Mossholder. Have a miraculous day!
(Denver, CO)—[
Today’s video follows the release of additional footage yesterday that corrected an error in the timestamp in a previous video. Although it did not add additional context to the previously released video, Fusion GPS—a Democratic opposition research firm—had cited such minor technical details in a Planned Parenthood-funded report stating that CMP’s videos have no “evidentiary value” and “lack credibility as journalistic products.”
Rev. Franklin Graham has issued a reminder that “all lives matter” because all people are created in the image of God in response to the execution of Deputy Darren Goforth, who was shot in the back Fridaynight in what authorities described as an unprovoked killing….
(Dallas, TX)—On August 21, Roma Downey and Mark Burnett paid a surprise visit to the preview of their forthcoming new film “Ben-Hur” at T. D. Jake’s Mega-Fest in Dallas….
(Sacramento, CA)—Unlike over a dozen other states, California is resisting calls to investigate Planned Parenthood….
[
Over 1,000 American rabbis have signed a
“We have three motivations for doing this. First we know that Jesus is more than worthy of a lavish offering. It’s that simple. Secondly, though, we do feel the urgency of the hour for America and this is intercession for our country. That we would respond to the worth of God with a fear of the Lord that would reform all things, including tens of millions of souls being saved. Thirdly, it’s a public witness to the goodness of God, that people would encounter God, right there on the National Mall….
