Archive for the ‘First Amendment’ category

Crap like this is why I didn’t give a fig about the Royal Wedding

May 29, 2018

By Dianny May 27, 2018 Patriot Retort

Source Link:
Crap like this is why I didn’t give a fig about the Royal Wedding

{Interesting piece that’s colorfully written. Just in case you were wondering, I truly believe there are a lot of great Brits across the pond. That being said, I certainly hope they find a way soon to end the runaway political correctness that is destroying their freedom. – LS}

Apparently the ginger prince got married to an American actress last week.

Or the week before. I don’t remember.

And while every American news outlet went wall-to-wall with gushing stories about the Royal Wedding, I myself didn’t care.

Sure, part of it is we fought a Revolution to not give a crap about the monarchy. So why should I care about the Royal Wedding?

But it’s more than that.

It’s a baby forced to die in a hospital while his parents begged the government to let them take him to Italy for treatment.

It’s Brits being arrested for defending themselves in their own home.

And it’s a journalist getting arrested and sentenced on the same day for reporting on the trial of a Muslim rape gang.

Crap like Tommy Robinson’s arrest is just one more reason I don’t give a fig about the Royal Wedding.

England is rotting from the inside.

So who gives a crap about their monarchy?

And, yeah, we fought a Revolution to liberate ourselves from this kind of oppressive tyranny.

If the Royal Family wants to carry on as if everything is tickety-boo, let them have their fantasy.

But I won’t play along.

Because England is rotting.

And no amount of pomp and ceremony, glittering gowns and ugly hats can change that fact.

The Royal Wedding was a like a whitewashed sepulcher hiding the rotting corpse within.

But the stench is too great to keep that rot hidden any longer.

When citizens are barred from freely speaking or reporting the truth, when they are prohibited from caring for and defending their families, a nation is lost.

Meanwhile there’s Chelsea Clinton — the American who fancies herself a member of a Royal Family.

She’s in Britain hawking her stupid book. And while there told the people of the UK to protest President Trump’s upcoming State Visit.

Trump, she said, degrades “what it means to be an American.” [Hat tip Fox News]

With what I’m sure was a wistful longing in her voice, America’s pretend princess said:

“If I lived in Britain, I would show up to protest, because I don’t agree with what he’s doing to degrade what it means to be an American.”

And I’m sure she believes it. You see, Chelsea wants America to be more like the UK. She wants the powerful treated like royalty. And she’d be delighted if we hoi polloi would mind our place, bend over and take whatever they shove at us.

And just to hammer home her desire to undo the Revolution and return the United States to the same kind of cesspool that is destroying the UK, Chelsea said:

“I think the wreckage that we’re seeing at this moment is one that will, I hope, be repaired on the policy standpoint when we elect Democrats,” Clinton said. “But I think we will still then have work to do on repairing the tone in our country, the exposure of the real racist and sexist, homophobic, Islamophobic and anti-Semitic feeling which is on the rise in our country – a rot that has been exposed.”

It’s as if she lives in a fantasy world.

You know, just like the Royal Family who plods along with their finery and festivities as if it’s just fine as paint that the nation their rule has turned into a kingdom of mindless, obedient sheep.

 

92-Year-Old World War I Monument Declared Unconstitutional ‘Breach’ of Church and State Separation

October 21, 2017

92-Year-Old World War I Monument Declared Unconstitutional ‘Breach’ of Church and State Separation, PJ MediaTyler O’Neil, October 20, 2017

Photo Credit: First Liberty Institute

Klukowski argued that the Fourth Circuit’s decision “jeopardizes many longstanding memorials and monuments across the nation, including even Arlington National Cemetery.”

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On Wednesday, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals declared a World War I monument in the shape of a celtic cross unconstitutional, saying it “breached” the separation of church and state. The Bladensburg World War I Veterans Memorial has stood since 1925, honoring the 49 Bladensburg-area men who gave their lives during World War I. The American Humanist Association sued to have it removed in 2014.

“The decision ignored the fact that the monument was modeled off of World War I grave markers, thousands of which are in the shape of a cross like this one,” Ken Klukowski, senior counsel at First Liberty Institute, told PJ Media. First Liberty, along with Jones Day, represents the American Legion, which first erected the monument.

Despite the historical meaning and resonance of the cross-shaped marker, which harkens back to World War I gravestones, the American Humanist Association argued that the cross violated the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause, which bars Congress from making any law “respecting an establishment of religion.”

Klukowski argued that this is a misinterpretation of the Establishment Clause. “Current Supreme Court precedent holds that the Establishment Clause is violated only by government actions that officially adopt a religion as that concept was understood by the Constitution’s framers, or when the government coerces someone to engage in a religious activity,” he said.

“A passive display like this was historically accepted, and coerces no one,” the lawyer explained. “Moreover, in the Supreme Court case most similar to this case, the Court allowed a longstanding Ten Commandments display on public land to remain in place.”

In Van Orden v. Perry (2005), the Supreme Court ruled that a Ten Commandments display at the Texas State Capitol in Austin did not violate the Establishment Clause.

Klukowski argued that the Fourth Circuit’s decision “jeopardizes many longstanding memorials and monuments across the nation, including even Arlington National Cemetery.”

Perhaps because it is so important, eight Republican and Democratic members of Congress filed a joint amicus brief in support of the memorial. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) joined Representatives Doug Collins (R-Ga.), Vicki Hartzler (R-Mo.), Jody Hice (R-Ga.), Evan Jenkins (R-W.Va.), Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), and Alex Mooney (R-W.Va.).

Even so, Judge Stephanie D. Thacker, who wrote the majority opinion for the panel, asked what a “reasonable objective observer” would think about the memorial. In a vacuum, she argued the observer would perceive the cross as an enormous endorsement of the Christian faith.

Both Thacker and Judge James A. Wynn Jr., who joined her in ruling against the monument, were appointed by President Barack Obama.

“It’s a cross much more clearly and obviously than a memorial, David Niose, a lawyer for the humanist association, told The Wall Street Journal.

Judge Roger L. Gregory, the chief judge of the circuit appointed by President Bill Clinton, dissented, arguing that a reasonable observer would view the cross as less a promotion of Christianity than a historical monument.

“The American Legion’s commitment to preserving the Bladensburg Memorial has been unwavering,” Kelly Shackelford, president and CEO of First Liberty, said in a statement. “Their determination is appropriately illustrated by President Woodrow Wilson’s words engraved at the memorial’s base: ‘The right is more precious than the peace; we shall fight for the things we have always carried nearest to our hearts; to such a task we dedicate ourselves.'”

Reinterpreting this memorial as an endorsement of Christianity, rather than a tribute to the men who gave their last full measure of devotion in World War I, is an insult to their sacrifice and a gross twisting of history.

“This memorial has stood in honor of local veterans for almost 100 years and is lawful under the First Amendment,” said Michael Carvin, lead counsel for The American Legion and partner at Jones Day. “To remove it would be a tremendous dishonor to the local men who gave their lives during The Great War.”

Perhaps if the American Humanist Association took a moment to reflect humbly on the meaning of the monument and its historical context, they would not be so quick to disrespect the soldiers who fought for their freedom.

CAIR Conducted Sensitivity Training for Philadelphia Teachers

October 11, 2017

CAIR Conducted Sensitivity Training for Philadelphia Teachers, Investigative Project on Terrorism, John Rossomando, October 11, 2017

(Please see also, CAIR Loses San Diego Schools Partnership. — DM)

Nihad Awad, CAIR’s executive director, testified before the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) last spring that CAIR was a religious organization whose primary purpose is to spread Islam.

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Philadelphia’s public school system allowed the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) to conduct sensitivity training for its teachers last year, CAIR press releases and school district documents obtained by the Investigative Project on Terrorism show.

CAIR attorneys conducted a presentation for educators on Election Day, focusing on Islamophobia and the civil rights of Muslim students, a November press release said. The seminar was described as the first in a series of planned workshops on those issues.

“In the current political environment, Muslim American students are facing increased rates of bullying, emotional abuse, physical threats, and verbal epithets due to their faith, race, or ethnicity,” CAIR Philadelphia said in the release.

CAIR Philadelphia provides zero evidence to support this assertion.

Still, the director of the school system’s Multilingual Family Support Center argued that, “We need CAIR helping our schools.”

Asheq Fazlullah, a member of CAIR Philadelphia’s executive committee, and then-CAIR attorney Ryan Houldin conducted the Nov. 8 training, a school district email shows.

For a subsequent session, Fazlullah and Houldin would discuss “issues of diversity, equity, and fairness” at a January 3 professional development day, Colette Langston, principal at Philadelphia’s Swenson Arts and Technology High School, wrote in an email to teachers. The morning seminar was called, “Cultural Sensitivity and Diversity Workshop #1 Topic: Islamophobia.”

The school district did not provide course materials in response to the IPT’s public records request. School district officials did not respond to queries as to whether they conduct sensitivity training for other religious groups including Christians, Jews, Sikhs, or Hindus.

The school district’s reliance on CAIR could raise constitutional issues because the group’s executive director has described CAIR as a religious ministry.

Nihad Awad, CAIR’s executive director, testified before the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) last spring that CAIR was a religious organization whose primary purpose is to spread Islam.

“[Awad] testified at length about the Employer’s role in conducting educational services in the fields of religion, culture, education, society, and history concerning Islamic issues. These services are provided to both Muslims and non-Muslims alike. [Awad] described the Employer’s role in explaining the Islamic faith itself,” Charles L. Posner, regional director of the National Labor Relations Board, wrote in an April 7 ruling.

Awad’s acknowledgement prompted the San Diego Unified School District (SDUSD) to publicly back away from a CAIR-sponsored anti-bullying program. The Freedom of Conscience Defense Fund (FCDF) was suing to bar CAIR from influencing public school programming.

San Diego’s anti-bullying plan violated California law, along with students’ 1st and 14thamendment rights because CAIR is a religious organization and because the program gave Muslim students special treatment, the lawsuit said.

Those arguments could apply equally to Philadelphia’s public schools. “The San Diego case is far from over, so there is no doubt it could have precedential value in a legal challenge to Philadelphia schools’ partnership with CAIR,” FCDF Executive Director Daniel Piedra told the IPT.

School districts may not aid one religion, one religion over another, or religion over non-religion, an American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) legal bulletin said. It cites the seminal 1972 U.S. Supreme Court case, Lemon v. Kurtzman.

“Under the so-called ‘Lemon test,’ a court must inquire (1) whether the government’s action has a secular or a religious purpose; (2) whether the primary effect of the government’s action is to advance or endorse religion; and (3) whether the government’s policy or practice fosters an excessive entanglement between government and religion,” the ACLU bulletin said.

In the San Diego case, FCDF argued that CAIR’s definition of Islamophobia is too vague and that what it considers bullying could ensnare legitimate criticisms of Islamic practice. FCDF also asserted that the SDUSD’s “anti-bullying” program unconstitutionally established Muslims “as a privileged group within the school community.”

FCDF cited a 1993 statement by CAIR’s national spokesman Ibrahim Hooper to The Minneapolis Star-Tribune as part of its complaint against SDUSD. Hooper told the paper he “wouldn’t like to create the impression that I wouldn’t like the government of the United States to be Islamic sometime in the future. … I’m going to do it through education.”

“We know that CAIR is committed to advancing its anti-Islamophobia initiative nationwide, so we are equally committed to making sure it dies in San Diego. Ideally, that would be done by a precedential court decision,” Piedra said.

None of the school district records indicated that the program is being repeated this school year. The Philadelphia School District declined to comment whether the San Diego case would impact future decisions about working with CAIR.

The New Civil War

August 19, 2017

The New Civil War, American ThinkerTom Trinko, August 19, 2017

(Please see also, Anti-Israel Academics Launch Campus Antifa Group for Faculty. — DM)

The first “shots” in our new civil war were fired after Charlottesville when many Democratic leaders claimed that they had the right to use physical force against anyone they didn’t like.

While cowardly leftist leaders are trying to portray themselves as fighting Hitler they are really fighting anyone they don’t agree with. Remember that some Democrats said that Rep. Steve Scalise had it coming since he opposed gun control and that Democrats have been silent when left-wing violence was used to prevent Republicans marching in a parade in Portland.

Facing a continued loss of power because their radical agenda is toxic to most Americans, the Democrat leadership — which includes the MSM — have decided that they have the right to physically attack anyone who stands in their way.

Like their Nazi and Communist forefathers, today’s Democrat leaders are comfortable sending swarms of Brownshirts out to beat into submission anyone who stands between them and power.

Under Obama, Democrats renounced the rule of law by declaring that they could choose to not enforce laws they didn’t like and make up laws that Congress never passed. Now they’re saying that they have the right to attack anyone who dares speak out in disagreement.  Rep. Scalise wasn’t a Nazi or white nationalist, nor were the Republicans in Portland, or the speakers that Democrats forcibly prevented from speaking in Berkeley. Yet the Democratic leadership’s condemnation of all of those events has been muted at best.

While the first American Civil War was fought to protect that particularly Democrat institution slavery, the new civil war Democrat elites are starting to wage is about transferring power from the people to the rich white oligarchs, judges, and government bureaucrats.

As then, Republicans stand for freedom and Democrats stand for slavery.

The Democratic elite has issued a call to war by supporting and endorsing violence against people who don’t agree with them.

The left has gone from endorsing Nazis marching in a neighborhood full of Holocaust survivors to endorsing attacks on Nazis wherever they might appear. We all hate Nazis, but as Americans, Republicans believe in freedom of even odious speech, which is why we’re not tearing down the statues of that mass murderer Lenin that exist in America or the statues of Democrat Robert Byrd, who was a senior official in the KKK.

Republicans have uniformly, including President Trump, condemned Nazis and white nationalists. Yet Democrats are attacking us for not being sufficiently “woke.”

The time for pretending that Democrat leadership is patriotic is over.  It’s time to shout from the rooftops that the Democratic leadership is a fascist cabal intent on overthrowing democracy.

It’s unclear how many of those who voted for Hillary support the clear fascist policies of the Democratic party.  We know that those people tend to be low-information voters who get their “news” from the MSM. Hence, they live in a bubble of lies which make Democrat policies look semi-reasonable.

Even intelligent people fall victim to the Democrat Big Lies. A liberal physicist, for example, was shocked to learn that Osama greenlighted 9/11 because Clinton’s fleeing from Somalia taught Osama that Americans were cowards. He’d never heard that.

Similarly, today many Americans believe that Trump was defending Nazis because the MSM is lying about what he really said.

That’s why we need to be careful and not condemn all Democrats; many of them are honestly unaware of the facts just as the citizens of Nazi Germany didn’t have a clue about how WWII was actually progressing or how the citizens of North Korea thought for decades that though they were starving, they had it better than those poor capitalist South Koreans.

It’s clear that not all of those who voted for Hillary were actually voting for her agenda of taking power from the people and giving it to the elites.

Unlike the average Hillary voter who never heard most of the negative news about her, the Democratic leadership has sinister motives. For decades, they’ve been waging war against America. It started with FDR, a big fan of fascist dictator Mussolini, who began moving this country down the path to socialism with his failed big government policies. Few people remember that those policies didn’t work; it took WWII for the U.S. to recover economically from the Depression.

The next big step was disempowering Americans by giving near absolute power to the unelected Supreme Court. That court overthrew the laws of all 50 states by legalizing abortion for any reason at any time in pregnancy based on a “right to privacy” which is nowhere in the Constitution.

The Supreme Court also created numerous rights for criminals and redefined marriage over the votes of 55,000,000 Americans.

In parallel, the Democrats increased the power of unelected government bureaucrats to the point that they felt empowered to demand that Catholic nuns pay for abortions. To Democrats the 1st Amendment only applies to causes they, the Democrats, support.

Trump’s election was a visceral scream from America saying that we want our power back. That we don’t want to be ruled by pretentious, stupid, elitist fascists like Pelosi and the Clintons, or by RINOs whose first loyalty is to the state, not the people.

The Democratic leadership is now following Mao, who said that political power grows from the barrel of a gun, while Americans are being forced to defend the core American belief that power flows from the people.

Just as the original Democrats repudiated Lincoln for opposing slavery, modern Democratic leaders are repudiating his belief that the government is of the people, for the people, by the people.

The elite bicoastal ruling class is nearly all white and racist to the core, but they use lies about Republicans, spread by the fawning liberal media, to justify violence.

Today Democrats have crossed the Rubicon.  By saying that it’s okay for Antifa to shut down speakers they don’t like and physically assault anyone they don’t happen to agree with Democrats have renounced the rule of law and summoned the whirlwind of civil war.

Why have Democrats once again started a civil war to achieve their ends?

They thought they had everything sewed up. When Hillary won she’d pack the Supreme Court with fascists who believed that they could make up whatever laws they liked. Hillary would, like Obama, ignore the Constitution and further strengthen the administrative state while waging a war against non-Democratic whites and Asians and ensuring that Blacks stayed uneducated so they couldn’t see how Democrats were exploiting them.

But contrary to their expectations, the American people said no. We don’t want to be ruled, we want to be represented — which is why the Republican failure to get rid of ObamaCare is so offensive.

Even with the lying media spreading Democratic talking points 24/7 the majority of Americans want to be free, not enslaved — not told how much soda they can drink or what type of entertainment they can like — Democrats support violent misogynistic rap music while condemning Americans for liking NASCAR. The Democratic message calling on Americans to accept slavery because, according to Democrats, Americans can’t manage their own lives — the same line Democrats used to justify slavery– can’t win elections because American’s aren’t that stupid. As a result, the Democrat leadership has decided that their only way to power is violence.

If they can’t win in the battlefield of ideas, they’ve decided that they need to silence, by the use of force, any voices they don’t like.

The Democrat leaders have turned to the communists they so admire — remember Obama wishing he could rule like the dictator of China does? — and decided that what they can’t win by the ballot they can win with the baseball bat.

Unless we all take a stand now, this spiral of violence initiated by Democrats will lead to a truly horrible future, just as the Democrat’s violent defense of slavery was the cause of the greatest tragedy in American history. If Democrats had voluntarily abandoned slavery, we could have avoided America’s most costly war. Instead we had to fight to end the scourge of slavery.

Contact the Republican leadership and make it clear that instead of condemning Trump for his stand against all violence, they need to attack the Democrat’s support of violence.

There is still time to avoid a massive escalation of violence but if we fail to take a stand against the Democrat’s use of force we will see our streets running with blood.  We know Democrats don’t care about that, because they don’t care about the thousands of Blacks shot in Chicago each year, but we do because we care about all Americans.

Take action and pray that we are not forced to relive the Civil War in order to prevent Democrats from destroying our democracy.

CAIR Loses San Diego Schools Partnership

July 26, 2017

CAIR Loses San Diego Schools Partnership, Investigative Project on Terrorism, John Rossomando, July 26, 2017

CAIR’s program aimed to increase education about Islam in the classroom. Parents and religious liberty advocates balked at singling out Muslim students for safe places without providing similar accommodations to other faiths. Muslim holidays would have been added to the school calendar, and campus events falling on those holidays would be rescheduled.

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SAN DIEGO – The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) tried to have it both ways – claiming to be a civil rights organization when it suits its purposes, but admitting at other times that its mission is religious.

That duplicity has cost CAIR a partnership with San Diego public schools and threatens to sabotage a plan to take an educational program national.

San Diego school board members agreed Tuesday night not to work with CAIR on a campaign to specifically fight anti-Muslim bullying generated by an exaggerated CAIR report. Instead, the Anti-Defamation League is poised to work on a program that aims “to comprehensively address the issue of bullying of all students.”

The agenda item specifically mentioned that school board “staff is redirected from forming a formal partnership with CAIR to forming an intercultural committee which shall include representatives of from all faiths and cultures and which shall provide input to District staff on issues of cultural sensitivities and the individual needs of various subgroups within our diverse community.”

Still, speaker after speaker criticized the proposal for excluding CAIR and for not specifically emphasizing anti-Muslim bigotry and “Islamophobia.” CAIR-San Diego Executive Director Hanif Mohebi managed to make that argument while still denying CAIR was singularly focused.

“We have never come out saying that it should only be one group. But I think also we should realize that it might be a mistake not to focus on groups that are targeted much more than the rest,” Mohebi said. “So that being said, we expect the district to publicly acknowledge and recognize the work that we have done for over a decade with the school district.”

While the Anti-Defamation League also has a focus on protecting a specific group – Jews – Regional Director Tammy Gillies said its mission also is to “secure justice and fair treatment for all. That ‘and’ is the most important part of our mission statement. When one community is unsafe we are all unsafe.”

The ADL program, she noted, has been evaluated by Columbia University, the University of Pennsylvania, Yale and other respected institutions.

The board agreed to work with CAIR in April. CAIR’s program aimed to increase education about Islam in the classroom. Parents and religious liberty advocates balked at singling out Muslim students for safe places without providing similar accommodations to other faiths. Muslim holidays would have been added to the school calendar, and campus events falling on those holidays would be rescheduled.

It was obvious, though, that board members reluctantly decided to implement a broader policy addressing bullying across cultures and religious backgrounds. Vice President Kevin Beiser reaffirmed his support for CAIR and thanked it for over a decade of partnership, but said supported the revised proposal “because I believe it codifies the board’s commitment and my commitment to making sure that all students are safe. We do have certain groups of students who are bullied at much higher rates than other students.

“We need to work together to solve that problem,” Beiser said, “and we want to thank CAIR and all of you in the Muslim community for your partnership.”

The anti-bullying program was never about “promoting a religion” as some critics claimed, said Board President Richard Barerra.

But lawyers with the Freedom of Conscience Defense Fund (FCDF) sued the school district in May, claiming the program did place Muslim students above others, violating the First Amendment’s establishment clause, the Fourteenth Amendment and California law barring assistance to religion. They also claimed the anti-bullying program was a solution to an exaggerated problem.

None of the speakers advocating for CAIR’s continued involvement addressed that Constitutional concern.

A report by CAIR’s California chapters, “Growing in Faith: California Muslim Youth Experiences with Bullying, Harassment & Religious Accommodation in Schools” inspired the program, FCDF’s lawsuit claims.

The school district’s decision to back away from partnering with CAIR is an important victory, FCDF Executive Director Daniel Piedra told the Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT). But he remains concerned that CAIR still may partner with the school district on other programs.

Mohebi and his allies seemed upset that they will not be able to use the school district to further their agenda, Piedra said after the meeting.

“They talk about equality, but it’s really Orwellian because in their philosophy and the school board’s philosophy, they are really saying that all students are equal but that some students are more equal than others,” Piedra said.

The FCDF lawsuit remains alive despite Tuesday’s decision to switch from CAIR’s program to the ADL’s. The group wants to learn more about CAIR’s role in drafting the anti-bullying program. If it turns out that CAIR was intimately involved, the lawsuit may move forward because students’ rights would have been violated, Piedra said, and to ensure that CAIR loses future opportunities to shape policy.

FCDF could seek monetary damages, he said, but it may ask a judge to impose a consent decree compelling the school district to not partner with CAIR again.

“We are willing to work with them; however, violating the Constitution is a serious allegation, and we are going to hold that to the school district every step of the way,” Piedra said.

Under the now-abandoned program, students accused of bullying Muslim students were supposed to face “restorative justice,” requiring them to reconcile with the other student. The school district would provide monthly reports on the bullying of Muslim students and post them online.

The district’s reversal follows the FCDF’s amended complaint filed last month, which challenged CAIR’s local effort to hide behind the label of being a “civil rights organization.” It pointed to testimony by CAIR co-founder and Executive Director Nihad Awad, who told the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) that it lacked jurisdiction over a fight over unionizing CAIR employees because CAIR is a religious organization.

CAIR letterhead includes the invocation, “In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful,” which opens every chapter in the Quran, Charles L. Posner, regional director of the National Labor Relations Board, wrote in an April 7 ruling.

This religious acknowledgement goes to the heart of the Establishment Clause‘s separation of church and state.

The loss of the San Diego program is a set-back for CAIR’s desire to take an “anti-Muslim bullying” program national. It represents the biggest government rebuke to CAIR since the FBI instituted a policy in 2008 to break-off outreach programs due to CAIR’s documented history in a Muslim-Brotherhood created Hamas-support network in the United States.

And it should send a message to districts throughout the country, Piedra said, warning CAIR that his organization will sue any public school district that partners with it in a similar anti-bullying program.

“We want to be sure for the benefit of our schoolchildren that CAIR is kept out of America’s schools,” Piedra said.

ABC News: Christians Who Believe In The First Amendment Are A ‘Hate Group’

July 14, 2017

ABC News: Christians Who Believe In The First Amendment Are A ‘Hate Group’, The Federalist, July 13, 2017

ABC News’ Pete Madden and Erin Galloway smeared Christians who believe the Bill of Rights secures religious liberty as a “hate group,” in an article this week headlined, “Jeff Sessions addresses ‘anti-LGBT hate group,’ but DOJ won’t release his remarks.” The lede of the story made it clear this was not just the work of a rogue headline writer but the failure of the reporters themselves:

Attorney General Jeff Sessions delivered a speech to an alleged hate group at an event closed to reporters on Tuesday night, but the Department of Justice is refusing to reveal what he said.

First, a note that you can — and should — read the prepared remarks of the Attorney General here at The Federalist.

Who is this “hate group”? Alliance Defending Freedom is not a hate group at all, but a civil liberties organization that battles for religious liberty. And they’re not a fringe group either. They just weeks ago won their most recent Supreme Court victory — Trinity Lutheran v. Comer — 7-2. It was their fifth Supreme Court victory in seven years, during which time they’ve had no losses at the high court.

And the group is ranked among the top law firms in the country for its successes at the Supreme Court.

Most recently the non-profit law firm found out that the Supreme Court agreed to hear another one of their cases dealing with artistic freedom and religious liberty.

To characterize such an accomplished civil rights group as a ‘hate group’ is unacceptable and inexcusable. It boggles the mind why ABC News, in the midst of cratering credibility, would disparage Christian efforts in favor of religious liberty in such a mendacious way.

How in the world did this happen?

Well, for some reason ABC News chose to wholly adopt the Southern Poverty Law Center’s framing for the significance of the attorney general’s speech to the group. Check it out:

Here’s why reporters such as Pete Madden and Erin Galloway should be wary before slightly rewriting SPLC press releases and passing off the work as their own. SPLC previously had a reservoir of credibility based on a history of good work exposing legitimately nefarious individuals and groups. In recent years, however, that reservoir has all but dried up as SPLC has gone after reasonable groups it merely disagrees with politically but labels as hate groups. It engages in this campaign while ignoring serious problems on the left.

SPLC has the gall to list the Family Research Council as a “hate group,” for instance, even after an SPLC follower used an SPLC “hate map” to locate the Family Research Council offices in Washington, D.C., and commit an act of terrorism and attempted mass murder against the group. Thankfully, the SPLC-inspired terrorist was stopped by the security guard he shot when he arrived. Read all about that incident here.

The most recent attempted assassination by a left-wing terrorist was also a follower of SPLC. As Jeryl Bier wrote in the Wall Street Journal, “The Insidious Influence of the SPLC: Its branding of ‘hate groups’ and individuals is biased, sometimes false—and feeds polarization.”

Last week the SPLC found itself in the awkward position of disavowing the man who opened fire on Republican members of Congress during baseball practice. “We’re aware that the SPLC was among hundreds of groups that the man identified as the shooter ‘liked’ on Facebook,” SPLC president Richard Cohen said in a statement. “I want to be as clear as I can possibly be: The SPLC condemns all forms of violence.”

It’s not just Christians who SPLC targets. SPLC also faces legal action for placing British Muslim author and counter-extremism activist Maajid Nawaz on an anti-Muslim “hate list.”

The Southern Poverty Law Center has put my name on a list that calls me an ‘anti-Muslim extremist’. I am the only Muslim on the list. This list has smeared my name and possibly put me in physical danger. This is a message to those who think they can throw around damning labels like ‘Islamophobe’ ‘racist’ and ‘Nazi’ without any evidence and simply get away with it.

You can read more about Nawaz’s plight here at The Atlantic.

ABC News can certainly quote the Southern Poverty Law Center’s extreme views, but it shouldn’t build a story around the wholesale acceptance of their flawed premises. That turns journalism into anti-religious propaganda on behalf of a partisan group. Media outlets do not want to be perceived as enemies of average Americans. They should avoid giving people reason to view them as just that.

Texas high school opens Muslim prayer room

March 19, 2017

Texas high school opens Muslim prayer room, Jihad Watch

(The matter is discussed  the following Fox News video:

The Devil also made me post a link to this article from Judicial Watch: IRS Gives “After School Satan Club” Tax-Exempt Status in 10 Days: “While the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) makes conservative groups wait years for tax-exempt status an “After School Satan Club” launched to hinder Christian-based counterparts got its nonprofit ranking in just ten days, records obtained by Judicial Watch show.”– DM)

For decades the ACLU and allied groups fought to get Christian prayer out of American public schools. They were successful. But now prayer is coming back into the schools, and as long as it’s Islamic prayer, it seems to be fine with everyone. This does, however, reinforce the principle of Sharia that Muslims have rights and privileges to which non-Muslims are not entitled.

“Prayer Room At Public High School Raises Legal Concerns,” by Mary Lou Lang-Byrd, Daily Caller, March 17, 2017 (thanks to The Religion of Peace):

A prayer room at a Texas high school is raising legal concerns and the state’s attorney general’s office in a letter on Friday to school district’s superintendent indicated the school’s policy should be neutral toward religion.

Liberty High School’s prayer room, which is reportedly dedicated to students who practice Islam, allows the students to pray at the school on Fridays instead of leaving to say their required prayers. The letter cites the school’s own news site, which focused on the prayer room.

In a letter Friday to the the Frisco Independent School District, the Texas attorney general’s office outlined the legal concerns over the prayer room, indicating it may violate the First Amendment’s protection of religious liberty.

“Liberty High School’s policy should be neutral toward religion,” the letter from Deputy Attorney General Andrew Leonie to Superintendent Jeremy Lyons said. “However, it appears that students are being treated different based on their religious beliefs. Such a practice, of course, is irreconcilable with our nation’s enduring commitment to religious liberty.”…

“Reports from Liberty’s news site indicate that the prayer room is not available to students of all faiths. Instead, it appears that the prayer room is ‘dedicated to the religious needs of some students,’ namely those who practice Islam,” the letter reads….

“This is my seventh year at Liberty, my first year it kind of started when a core group of students were leaving campus every Friday for Friday prayer,” said Principal Scott Warstler.

“Their parents would come pick them up, so they may miss an hour and a half to two hours to two and a half hours of school every Friday, so I met with those students and a couple of their parents and suggested if they would be okay if the students were able to lead the prayer at school as a group, and we gave them a space to do that so they didn’t have to be in a car traveling thirty minutes each way on a Friday missing an hour, hour and a half, of class,” said Warstler….

On Defining Religion

February 12, 2017

On Defining Religion, Gatestone InstituteNonie Darwish, February 12, 2017

(Please see also, Georgetown Professor Condones Rape And Slavery Under Sharia. Does the First Amendment “free exercise” clause prohibit Federal or state intervention against enforcement of the dictates of Sharia law? If members of a religious cult from Latin America moved to the United States and required families to turn over their young virgin daughters for sacrifice to their Volcano God, would the “free exercise” clause prohibit Federal or state intervention?  — DM)

What the West does not understand is that Islam admits that government control is central to Islam and that Muslims must, sooner or later, demand to live under an Islamic government.

The majority of the world does not understand that much of the American media is in a propaganda war against the Trump administration simply because he names Islamic jihad and would prefer to see a strong and prosperous America as a world leader rather than to see a dictatorship — secular or theocratic — as a world leader.

Islam claims to be an Abrahamic religion, but in fact Islam came to the world 600 years after Christ, not to affirm the Bible but to discredit it; not to co-exist with “the people of the book” — Jews and Christians — but to replace them, after accusing them of intentionally falsifying the Bible.

Islam was created as a rebellion against the Bible and its values, and it relies on government enforcement to do so.

Political and legal (sharia) Islam is much more than a religion. Is the First Amendment a suicide pact?

Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) said that President Donald Trump’s 90-day ban on immigration from seven predominantly Muslim countries is “a religiously based ban,” and “if they can ban Muslims, why can’t they ban Mormons.” This has become the position of the Democratic Party and the mainstream media, which has influenced not only the American public but has convinced the majority of the world that America is “bad.” How can we blame the world, and even a good segment of American citizens, for hating America when such disingenuous and misleading claims are aired to the world from US officials and broadcast by American television channels?

The majority of the world does not understand that much of the American media is in a propaganda war against the Trump Administration simply because he names Islamic jihad and would prefer to see a strong and prosperous America as a world leader, rather than to see a dictatorship — secular or theocratic — as a world leader. He ran as a Republican; meanwhile, Democrats and the mainstream media refuse to engage in respectful and legitimate debate on the most vital threat to Western civilization in the twenty-first century: Islam. Truth has become irrelevant; people seem to prefer a political game of tug-of-war to sway public opinion against the Trump Administration, and, presumably, to elect Democrats forever. That is how the system is set up.

Political discussions on television have become extremely frustrating; they have turned into shouting matches and name-calling at the least informative levels. Television hosts often become instigators and participants in the shouting matches. The thinking is apparently that the louder they get, the more attractive the program will be. Meanwhile everyone is talking at once; the viewer cannot hear anyone, so the program could not be more boring.

Under the US Constitution, freedom of religion is protected. and Islam has been welcomed inside the West on that basis as one of the three Abrahamic religions. According to Western values and the Western understanding of the word, “religion” is supposed to be a personal relationship with God, where free will is of utmost importance; the believer has authority only over himself or herself when it comes to religious laws or punishing sins (such as leaving the religion or committing adultery) — quite different from criminal laws intended to protect society. Western values also allow followers of a religion the freedom to proselytize, but never by resorting to government enforcement.

Bottom line, the Western definition of religion is in harmony with the Biblical values of the human rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and that all human beings are created equal under the law. It is considered a basic Western value to view God, family and country as a top priority.

Now let us compare these values to Islamic values:

  1. Muslim citizens have the right to punish other citizens with humiliating, severe, cruel and unusual punishments such as death, flogging and amputation, for sinning against Allah, the Quran or Islam. Those “crimes” include leaving Islam, being a homosexual, or committing adultery. And if the Islamic government does not enforce such punishments, any Muslim on the street has the right to apply the punishment against another Muslim and not be prosecuted. That is why apostates, such as myself, cannot visit any Muslim county; the fear is not only from Islamic governments but from anyone on the street.
  2. Being a Muslim is not a personal relationship with God, as it is under the Bible, but is enforced by the state at birth. When a child is born in Egypt to a Muslim father, the birth certificate is stamped “Muslim” and all government-issued documents as well. A child must learn Islamic studies in school and practice Islam throughout his life. In Egypt, the twin sons of a Christian divorced mother were forced to take Islamic studies and become Muslim just because their originally-Christian father converted to Islam. Today, in Egypt, I am still considered Muslim and such a status could never change if I ever lived there again.
  3. Islamic law and leaders rely on government enforcement — under penalty of death — to keep Muslims within Islam and to convert the minority Christian population into Islam. Islamic sharia law, obliges Islamic states to enforce religious law, and if the Muslim head of state refuses to follow religious law, sharia permits the public to use force to remove the head of state from office.
  4. Islam claims to be an Abrahamic religion, but in fact Islam came to the world 600 years after Christ, not to affirm the Bible but to discredit it; not to co-exist with “the people of the book,” Jews and Christians, but to replace them — after accusing them of intentionally falsifying the Bible. Islam was created as a rebellion against the Bible and its values, and relies on government enforcement to do so.

The tenets above are just a few of the differences in values between Islam, the Bible and the Western concept of religion. What the West does not understand is that Islam admits that government control is central to Islam, and Muslims must demand to live under an Islamic government sooner or later. That might explain the reason for the eternal violence in nearly all Muslim countries, between government being in the hands of a religious theocracy or of the military. Islam, as it is practiced today, has violated all Western definitions of religion and values.

Political and legal (sharia) Islam is much more than a religion. Is the First Amendment a suicide pact?

2294(Image source: Brent Payne/Flickr)

Obama Crony: ‘Religious Liberty’ Code for Discrimination, Intolerance

September 10, 2016

Obama Crony: ‘Religious Liberty’ Code for Discrimination, Intolerance, Truth RevoltTrey Sanchez, September 9, 2016

civilwrongs

Martin R. Castro, a Chicago Democrat and Obama appointee as chairman of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, believes “religious freedom” and “religious liberty” are nothing more than “code words” for discrimination and intolerance.

In a 307-page report titled “Peaceful Coexistence: Reconciling Nondiscrimination Principles with Civil Liberties,” Castro writes, “The phrases ‘religious liberty’ and ‘religious freedom’ will stand for nothing except hypocrisy so long as they remain code words for discrimination, intolerance, racism, sexism, homophobia, Islamophobia, Christian supremacy or any form of intolerance.”

“Religious liberty was never intended to give one religion dominion over other religions, or a veto power over the civil rights and civil liberties of others,” Castro adds. In other words, “peaceful coexistence” is only possible when “supremacist” Christians abandon their First Amendment right to the free exercise of religion.

However, not everyone on the commission sees eye-to-eye with Castro. Some are quite concerned with the progressive mentality that anti-discrimination laws supersede constitutional rights.

Committee member and George Mason Law School Associate Dean Gail Heriot told The Washington Times, “I’m troubled by the growing attitude that somehow anti-discrimination laws trump everything. We live in a more complex world than that.”

Another, lawyer Mat Staver, criticized the report as being anti-American, saying, “This commission is not only out of touch with reality, but also out of touch with our Constitution.”

Castro’s report directly targets the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993, and it makes clear the argument that a person’s civil rights are of “preeminent importance” above another’s religious liberty which has many lawyers scratching their heads. Some are accusing the Obama appointee of recruiting a majority of the commission to side with him in the name of identity politics rather than making compelling arguments.

The Washington Times concludes with a quote from University of Illinois law school professor Robin Fretwell Wilson, which should be taken as a warning for the future of freedom as viewed from the perspective of progressive America:

“There is no fair way to say that the concerns of the LGBT community are ‘preeminent’ over those of religious believers. Religious liberty will become code for discrimination and intolerance if opponents of nondiscrimination laws continue to claim the right, in the name of religious freedom, to block LGBT persons from enjoying protections that the rest of us take for granted. … We need thoughtful legislators to craft new thoughtful approaches to keeping the religious bakers in the business without saying gays can be turned away.”

Freedom of Speech is not Free; it is Beyond Price

June 26, 2016

Freedom of Speech is not Free; it is Beyond Price, Dan Miller’s Blog, June 25, 2016

(The views expressed in this article are mine and do not necessarily reflect those of Warsclerotic or its other editors. — DM)

Accurate speech, considered “Islamophobic” or otherwise offensive to some, is now deemed “hateful” and punishable under distorted visions of law or university rules. So, apparently is the mention of God. Sometimes, those who dare to speak are silenced before they even begin.

The First Amendment provides,

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Congress is not permitted to ignore the First Amendment, but the U.S. Airforce and other government entities appear to have done so. Recently, Senior Master Sergeant Oscar Rodriguez, Jr. (ret.) was forcibly removed from a private retirement ceremony at an Air Force base because he was about to deliver his flag folding speech. The retiree had heard the speech previously and had asked Rodriguez to deliver it.

When Roberson’s unit commander discovered that Rodriguez would be delivering the flag-folding speech, which mentions “God,” during the ceremony, he attempted to prevent Rodriguez from attending. After learning that he lacked authority to prevent Rodriguez from attending, the commander then told Roberson that Rodriguez could not give the speech. Rodriguez asked Roberson what he should do, and Roberson responded that it was his personal desire that Rodriguez give the flag-folding speech as planned. . . .

Roberson and Rodriguez tried to clear the speech through higher authorities at Travis Air Force Base, even offering to place notices on the door informing guests that the word “God” would be mentioned. They never received a response from the authorities. As an Air Force veteran himself, Rodriguez stood firm on his commitment to Roberson. [Emphasis added.]

Here is the speech, as Rodriguez had given it previously:

What an offensive word! True, it’s in the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag, but that’s gotta go. Thought experiment: what if Rodriguez had said “Allah” rather than “God?” Might that have been viewed as sufficiently inclusive to be acceptable? Why not? In its “unredacted” version of the Islamist Orlando shooter’s phone calls, the Department of Justice translated “Allah” into “God.” The DOJ probably didn’t want to hurt Islamists’ feelings by suggesting that the Obama administration thinks that Allah and hence Islamists have anything to do with terrorism.

Are we just beginning to enter a new age of fascism? No, we are already well into it.

Here’s a Bill Whittle segment about Obama, Guns, Islam and Orlando

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas-linked “civil rights” organization, recently published an “Islamophobia” report. In Obama’s America, CAIR and its Islamist affiliates are the Government’s principal “go to” organizations for limiting access to the Muslim community in “countering violent extremism” efforts and during investigations of terror incidents.

According to CAIR, “Islamophobic” utterances are “hate speech;” it has provided a list of “Islamophobes” and their organizations. Below are comments about the list by Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, a reformist Muslim. He, as well as The Clarion Project (also an advocate for Islamic reform), are on CAIR’s list of “Islamophobes.”

Europe and its Western culture, and now to a somewhat lesser extent our own American culture (such as it is) are being surrendered to Islam. Allied with government authorities, our leftist “friends” are in the forefront of the war on free speech.

[I]n recent years, we’ve witnessed an unrelenting assault on free speech with a concerted effort by the regressive Left to curtail thought and restrict the free exchange of ideas. Last week, I wrote about campus terrorism and how conservatives and others who maintain views that are inconsistent with the leftist narrative have been subjected to campaigns of harassment and abuse by campus hooligans.

Often university officials are apathetic, turning a blind eye to these transgressions, while in other universities the administration is complicit by instructing campus police to stand down, allowing the agitators free reign to shut down speaking engagements through use of bullying tactics. In at least two instances, university presidents were forced to issue rather craven apologies to an alliance of leftists and Islamists for having the temerity to defend the right to free speech.

This disturbing trend of muzzling free speech has now substantially broadened to include criminalizing speech that issues challenges to the so-called science of climate change. Some seventeen left-leaning state attorneys general have launched investigative and intrusive probes against Exxon Mobil and conservative groups because of their involvement in debunking alarmist claims of imminent doom issued by hysterical climate change proponents.

The ringleaders of this anti-free speech witch hunt include Eric Schneiderman (D-New York) and Claude Walker (I-Virgin Islands). At a recent speech at the Bloomberg’s Big Law Business Summit, Schneiderman was dismissive of his critics, accusing them of “First Amendment opportunism.” The more he spoke the more he sounded like Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Turkey’s thuggish dictator who utilized the vast resources of the state to silence anyone who disagreed with him. [Emphasis added.]

I wish I could laugh at the next video. It’s funny in a way, but also deadly serious.

As the “best and brightest” from our top universities come of age and control “our” government, will the First Amendment be their principal target for destruction? Or will they also pursue with unabated vigor their war on the Second Amendment? Here is the text of the Second Amendment: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

Our British cousins just voted to leave the European Union to restore democracy at home.

For my final broadcast to the nation on the eve of Britain’s Independence Day, the BBC asked me to imagine myself as one of the courtiers to whom Her Majesty had recently asked the question, “In one minute, give three reasons for your opinion on whether my United Kingdom should remain in or leave the European Union.”

My three reasons for departure, in strict order of precedence, were Democracy, Democracy, and Democracy. For the so-called “European Parliament” is no Parliament. It is a mere duma. It lacks even the power to bring forward a bill, and the 28 faceless, unelected, omnipotent Kommissars – the official German name for the shadowy Commissioners who exercise the supreme lawmaking power that was once vested in our elected Parliament – have the power, under the Treaty of Maastricht, to meet behind closed doors to override in secret any decision of that “Parliament” at will, and even to issue “Commission Regulations” that bypass it altogether. [Emphasis added.]

Rather like our own distended Federal and State bureaucracies.

I concluded my one-minute broadcast with these words: “Your Majesty, with my humble duty, I was born in a democracy; I do not live in one; but I am determined to die in one.”  [Emphasis added.]

And now I shall die in one. In the words of William Pitt the Younger after the defeat of Napoleon, “England has saved herself by her exertions, and will, as I trust, save Europe by her example.”

. . . .

The people have spoken. And the democratic spirit that inspired just over half the people of Britain to vote for national independence has its roots in the passionate devotion of the Founding Fathers of the United States to democracy. Our former colony showed us the way. Today, then, an even more heartfelt than usual “God bless America!” [Emphasis added.]

I am less than sanguine that we remain as deserving of the high praise the author offers. In any event, we have another version of Brexit coming up in November. Will we be as brave and as far-sighted as our founding fathers were long ago and as the Brits were a couple of days ago?

Quo vadis?