Thursday, April 30, 2015

A Site for Soros Lies

http://www.frc.org/washingtonupdate/20150430/site-soros-lies

April 30, 2015 - Thursday

If you think the media uses credible and honest sources to report the news, think again. You'd be surprised at how many "mainstream" outlets rely on a left-wing advocacy organization funded in part by liberal billionaire George Soros. The organization is called RightWingWatch and tracks the statements of conservative politicians and leaders for the sole purpose of feeding distorted -- and sometimes even fabricated -- versions to their allies in the media.

Now, it's no surprise that press who are outright hostile to conservative views like Huffington Post rely on RightWingWatch's propaganda, but it is shocking that that this kind of truth-optional reporting is utilized (and therefore legitimized) by mainstream networks like CBS, Politico, and others.

The most obvious example came last Sunday, when I joined "Face the Nation" to talk about the oral arguments before the Supreme Court on the redefinition of marriage. Before the show, RightWingWatch invented another headline -- this time about a recent radio interview with Jan Mickelson. In it, they claim I called for the impeachment of any justices who rule for same-sex "marriage."

As usual, the site intentionally took the statement out of context and twisted the meaning to further its agenda. And while conservatives like me are used to these tactics, nothing prepared me for hearing those same distortions repeated back to me by CBS's Bob Schieffer. "Did you really say that justices who come down on the side of gays on this should be impeached?" he asked. "No, I didn't," I replied. "Because there are reports to that effect," Bob explained. What he didn't explain on air was that the "reports" were from the Soros-funded RightWingWatch.

Obviously, the mainstream media has long been the megaphone of the Left, but they have still managed, for the most part, to stay away from blatant equivocation. If you actually listen to my clip on Mickelson's show, it's obvious that what the extremists at RightWingWatch are claiming is patently false. Jan starts out by comparing the marriage case with Roe v. Wade, which conservative politicians insist they'll overturn through court appointments. In 40 years, that hasn't happened. Suggesting the way for Congress to put action to their words, Jan moves into "court-stripping" saying, "Congress could say, that was a ridiculous decision we're nullifying it and if you try it again we are impeaching your sorry kiesters."

I responded to his assertion that politicians have done little to address abortion by saying, "I don't disagree with you. I think you are absolutely right, I think the life issue has been used as a political gambit..." My agreement with him (you can listen to the audio here) is not even about the court -- but rather on how the GOP has used the life issue for electoral gain. That's significantly different from RightWingWatch's claim that I'm calling for the impeachment of justices who support redefining marriage. The site clearly and intentionally misrepresented what I said -- as they've done countless times to me and other conservatives -- to further their own narrative.

And this isn't the first time Soros's crew has outright lied about the impeachment issue. Recently, they led with this headline: "Ben Carson: Congress should oust judges who rule for marriage equality," when in reality Carson stated that Congress had the right to "reprimand and remove" judges -- not that they should do so. This is a significant shift in journalism -- one that has the potential not only to severely discredit the media industry, but also further marginalize and silence conservatives. It's time to stand up and say, "enough!"

District Distract: House Cracks Down on D.C. Extremism

The House and Senate don't just live in D.C., they oversee it. For members of the local city council, that's been difficult to swallow, especially when the District is intent on passing outrageous anti-freedom laws. Rarely does Congress flex the muscle that the Constitution gives them over D.C., but in the case of the city's Reproductive Health Non-Discrimination Act, the GOP majority didn't have a choice.

As we've explained before, the RHNDA is the brainchild of far-Left extremists, who believe that pro-life groups like FRC should have to hire abortion activists in the name of "fairness." Under this bill, FRC and our allies in D.C. would be punished for refusing to employ individuals with opposing viewpoints. Our good friends Congressmen Diane Black (R-Tenn.), Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), and Bill Flores (R-Texas) saw this for the attack on religious liberty that it is and introduced a resolution of disapproval, H.J. Res. 43. As our own Travis Weber explained, "We can't exist if our purpose is to advocate for a pro-life position, and we're living under a regime which is telling us you can't structure yourself as an organization and hire people to advocate for those issues. It's very controlling and it brings to mind an oppressive government monitoring of groups' purposes."

After pressure from the Republican Study Committee and the House Freedom Caucus, the bill passed out of the Rules Committee yesterday and is headed for a floor vote tonight or tomorrow. Rep. Flores understands the stakes. "This is not about one city, but rather about preserving the First Amendment right to religious liberty for all Americans." Thanks to his leadership, Freedom Caucus chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), and others, the city of D.C. will finally hear from the House that this overreach won't be tolerated.

Tony Perkins' Washington Update is written with the aid of FRC senior writers.

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Levin Destroys Republicans Opposing Commonsense Iran Amendments: ‘Lying, No Good for Nothing, Preposterous and Pathetic!’

http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2015/04/30/levin-destroys-republicans-opposing-common-sense-iran-amendments-lying-no-good-for-nothing-preposterous-and-pathetic/

Levin Destroys Republicans Opposing Commonsense Iran Amendments: ‘Lying, No Good for Nothing, Preposterous and Pathetic!’

On his radio show yesterday, Mark “The Great One” Levin did something he usually doesn’t — or at least not to this degree. He truly blasted, if not utterly destroyed, Republican leaders in the U.S. Senate for opposing amendments to the now notorious Iran bill, which grants President Obama the power to do whatever he wants to do in order to get a deal with Iran.

The first amendment literally says this:

To require a certification that Iran has not directly supported or carried out an act of terrorism against the United States or a United States person anywhere in the world.

You’d think that’s a rather low threshold to hold a country to, but for Republican leaders – not just for Democrats – it was “a bridge too far.” Eight of them voted against it.

It’s shocking to the extreme, which is why Levin went off on an epic rant. He called out every single one of the eight Republican senators voting against it:

“We have eight Republicans who voted ‘no’ on this amendment. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee. Just got reelected. Had gone back to Tennessee promising Tea Party groups he’s a real conservative… He’s a lying, no good for nothing. Dan Coats of Indiana who has announced he’s not running for reelection. So this man feels he’s as free to be as irresponsible as he chooses. The preposterous, pathetic egomaniac Corker, of Tennessee… The absolutely absurd Jeff Flake of Arizona. Lindsey Graham, who has the nerve to attack Rand Paul – he has the nerve to attack Rand Paul on foreign policy, when Lindsey Graham is helping to lead the way against this amendment! Orrin Hatch, an absolute unmitigated fraud. John McCain, who is up for reelection Arizona! – but you have an open primary system and he’s relying on non-conservatives and non-Republicans to get him the nomination the way Lindsey Graham did in South Carolina. And Senator Perdue from Georgia; I don’t get it, hopefully he’ll put out a statement and explain himself.”

Being “the good little communists they are,” Democrats will vote for whatever bill President Obama wants them to support, but what about these eight Republican sellouts? They’re supposed to be conservative, to stand up for the Constitution and America’s national security. What excuse do they have? None. They have nothing.

The above is awful enough, but it becomes even worse. Levin pointed out that Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has agreed to block another proposed amendment from even coming to a vote. This “controversial” amendment put forward by Senator Marco Rubio would force Iran to recognize and accept Israel as a Jewish state. In other words, to accept reality. What happened next is that “leftwing kook” Democratic Senator Ben Cardin from Maryland went over to McConnell and insisted he wouldn’t allow a vote on the Rubio amendment. It’s almost unbelievable, but McConnell caved in.

Democrats have political reasons to oppose such an amendment (they don’t want to be put in the middle between Israel and President Obama), but how about McConnell? He’s in the Senate to represent conservatives, which means he’s supposed to defend Israel against its many radical enemies. His failure to do so means he’s made himself obsolete, if not a downright danger to the conservative movement.

That’s why Levin rightfully concludes that “your Republican Senate is a disaster. And unless we get a new Republican Party, it’ll continue to be.” At this moment, the sad fact is that it doesn’t matter which party is in power; leaders of both parties are more than prepared to sell out America and its allies if they think it’ll get them some extra votes from low-information voters who only care about their “Obama phones.” It’s time to get rid of them and replace them with commonsense conservatives like Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and Mike Lee.

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ConnectEd: Obama pushes reading through eBook, library initiatives

http://townhall.com/news/politics-elections/2015/04/30/obama-pushes-reading-through-ebook-library-initiatives-n1992528

ConnectEd: Obama pushes reading through eBook, library initiatives

WASHINGTON (AP) — Linking reading to technology, the White House marshaled major book publishers to provide more than $250 million in free e-books to low-income students and is seeking commitments from local governments and schools across the country to ensure that every student has a library card.

President Barack Obama was to announce the two initiatives Thursday at a Washington library as part of his two-year-old ConnectED program that aims to improve education through digital connectivity.

The offer of e-books comes as low-income households still lag far behind others in computer ownership, but White House officials said libraries and schools in poor communities are increasing access to the Internet. Among the publishers participating in the program are such familiar names as Macmillan, Simon & Schuster and Penguin Random House.

At the same time, Obama will appeal to library directors, local governments and school officials to work together to provide universal access to library cards. The White House already has commitments from 30 cities and counties, ranging from Baltimore to San Francisco and points in between.

Obama's ConnectEd program aims to make broadband Internet access available to 99 percent of American students by 2018. Already, companies such as Apple have pledged to provide $100 million worth of devices to lower-income schools, said Jeff Zients, the director of the White House National Economic Council.

The announcement comes just two days after Obama called on Americans to do "some soul searching" in the wake of recurrent black deaths at the hands of police and riots that have shaken minority communities, most recently in Baltimore.

"If we're serious about living up to what our country is about, then we have to consider what we can do to provide opportunities in every community, not just when they're on the front page, but every day," Zients said.

A U.S. Census Bureau study of computer and Internet use issued in November found that in 2013 nearly 84 percent of households reported owning a computer. Among households with incomes under $25,000, however, only 62 percent said they owned a computer.

"They may not be on the grid at home," said Cecilia Munoz, director of Obama's Domestic Policy Council. But they certainly have Internet access at school, she said.

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Tell People They're Victims -- They'll Act Like Victims

http://m.townhall.com/columnists/larryelder/2015/04/30/tell-people-theyre-victims--theyll-act-like-victims-n1992182?utm_source=thdaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl&newsletterad=

Tell People They're Victims -- They'll Act Like Victims

In watching Baltimore burn, "progressives" run out of scapegoats. Over a week ago, a black man named Freddie Gray died after being arrested by police. Videotape shows Gray being dragged into a police van. Within a less than half an hour, his spine was somehow severed and he died seven days later.

Did an officer or the officers intentionally or inadvertently cause the injury? Did the vehicle suddenly stop, causing a possibly untethered or poorly tethered suspect/passenger to break his neck? Why was Gray stopped in the first place? Given that he ran from the police, did this provide a basis for pursuit, search and arrest? Does this not underscore the importance of police body cams and car-dash cams?

These are, of course, legitimate questions. And, in addition to the Baltimore police investigation, the Department of Justice announced that it, too, would examine the circumstances surrounding Gray's death.

So, why riot? Unlike Ferguson, where riots also took place, black Baltimore residents do not lack political power and representation. The mayor is black. The police commissioner and deputy commissioner are black. The police department is approximately 40 percent black, in a city with a black population of 63 percent. The new head of the Department of Justice, Loretta Lynch, is a black female, the second consecutive black person to run the Department of Justice. And, of course, the president of United States is black.

There's every reason, therefore, to believe that the investigations will be full, complete and thorough. This does not mean that the results will please everyone, but that the examination will be fair and open. After all, if a wildly popular mayor who received 84 percent of the vote cannot be trusted, who can?

This isn't Mississippi in 1955, where Emmett Till, a 14-year-old boy, was brutally murdered, only to have the obviously guilty killers acquitted by an all-white jury. This is not the 60s of white-run cities, with nearly all-white police departments policing all-black communities. In New York City, for example, most officers are people of color. Los Angeles had back-to-back black police chiefs, and as with New York City, the majority of L.A.'s street cops are people of color or women.

And it is not true, as some protestors claim, that "it doesn't happen the other way around." In Mobile, Alabama, in 2012, a black police officer shot and killed a white teenager. The white teen, high on drugs, was completely nude, and still the officer -- fearing for his life -- shot and killed the suspect. An investigation cleared the cop and -- despite public pressure -- a grand jury refused to indict him. No cameras. No CNN.

Just two days after Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson shot and killed Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, a "not white" cop in Salt Lake City, Utah, shot and killed an unarmed 20-year-old man whose race has been described as Hispanic. The family of the dead man believes that the cop is a murderer. No cameras. No CNN.

So, why riot in Baltimore? The answer is that for some people facts and reason don't matter. It's about anger, excitement, disruption. Some call it a "subculture." Others say these are "at-risk youth." Still others call it the "underclass." But the 800-pound elephant in the room is the absence of fathers -- responsible, involved fathers. Obama has said that a child growing up without a father is 20 times more likely to end up in jail. Today over 70 percent of black children are born to unwed mothers compared to 25 percent in the 1965.

To earn their near-monolithic 95-percent black vote, the Democratic Party repeatedly tells blacks of their continued oppression. During the 2012 election, Democratic National Committee chair, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, accused Republicans of seeking to "literally drag us all the way back to Jim Crow laws."

So, when a questionable white cop/black suspect takes place, some people, conditioned to react with anger and distrust, lash out. -- it's "us against them" and "they are trying to oppress us."

Come election time, Democrats fan and exploit this anger. Rep. Charlie Rangel, D-N.Y., for example, made this accusation in his last race: "Everything we believe in, everything we believe in (Republicans) hate. They don't disagree -- they hate. ... Some of them believe that slavery isn't over and that they won the Civil War." This is how Democrats get 95 percent of blacks to vote one way -? by telling them the other side is evil, that "the system" is corrupt and racist. So when a Freddy Gray, in police custody, turns up dead under suspicious circumstances, some will take to the streets to vent that "slavery isn't over."

Yes, Martin Luther King Jr. said, "A riot is the language of the unheard." When he said that, none of America's major cities had a black mayor. The country did not have back-to-back black attorneys general. The country did not have a black president elected -- and reelected.? Baltimore's riot is the tragic language of modern welfare state.

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Gay Marriage: A nation at war against its own foundation.

http://mobile.wnd.com/2015/04/jonathan-cahn-follow-baal-and-go-to-hell/

JONATHAN CAHN: 'FOLLOW BAAL AND GO TO HELL'

PrayerCahn

Rabbi Jonathan Cahn, author of the New York Times bestseller, “The Harbinger” and the inspiration behind the “Isaiah 9:10 Judgment” movie, on Wednesday smacked down the Supreme Court’s assumption that it has the authority to redefine marriage.

Cahn’s comments followed by only about 24 hours the hearing in the august courtroom where the justices heard arguments on whether the U.S. government would mandate recognition of homosexual “marriage” across the country.

Or not.

“The justices of the Supreme Court took up their seats [in a hearing] on whether they should strike down the biblical and historic definition of marriage,” he said. “That the event should even take place is a sign this is America of [George] Washington’s warning … a nation at war against its own foundation.”

Washington’s warning was the smiles of heaven can never be expected on a nation “that disregards the eternal rules of order and right which heaven itself hath ordained.”

He noted the Supreme Court opens sessions with the words, “God save the United States and this honorable court.”

“If this court should overrule the word of God and strike down the eternal rules of order and right that heaven itself ordained, how then will God save it?” he asked. “Justices, can you judge the ways of God? There is another court and there another judge, where all men and all judges will give account.

“If a nation’s high court should pass judgment on the Almighty, should you then be surprised God will pass judgment on the court and that nation? We are doing that which Israel did on the altars of Baal,” he said.

“We are exchanging our light for darkness.”

The comments came at the 2015 “Washington: A Man of Prayer” service at the U.S. Capitol, an event that was livestreamed online and can be watched by signing up with WND.

The service is an effort by Rev. Dan Cummins to return prayer to the Capitol building, where generations of Washingtonians worshiped God under an open-doors policy.

“Washington: A Man of Prayer” commemorates the events of April 30, 1789, when, after being sworn in at Federal Hall, President Washington, accompanied by Congress, proceeded to St. Paul’s Chapel where they “offered dedicatory prayers to God in divine services on America’s behalf.”

Honorary hosts for this year’s event were Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla, and Rep. Randy Forbes, R-Va.

Click here to sign up to see the archived “Washington – A Man of Prayer 2015″ from Statuary Hall in the nation’s Capitol.

Many members of Congress participated, but when Cahn took the speaker’s podium the warnings were loud and clear.

He said America’s biblical foundation was affirmed throughout history and the nation came into existence “solely for the glory and purposes of God.”

“No historian can rewrite that. No president can expunge that,” he warned. “If a thousand angels swore on a thousand Bibles that this was not the case, it would in no way alter the fact. … America was brought into existence for the will and purposes of God.”

He explained ancient Israel turned away from God.

“They drove God out of the government. They worshiped idols and served other gods. They celebrated immorality and they persecuted righteousness. The blessings of God were removed and replaced with judgments,” he said.

Now, he said, “America has made the same mistakes.”

He cited the deaths of 55 million through abortion.

“What we were warned never to do we now have done,” he thundered.

Moving to directly confront President Obama, whose pro-abortion and pro-homosexual agenda has been unparalleled in American history, he questioned what happens when a leader places his left hand on the Bible to assume to highest office in the land but with his right hand “enacts laws that violate the laws of God.”

“Mr. President, when you address the House, look up above the senators and the representatives, above the Supreme Court justices, you’ll see a face, the only full visage in that wall. It is the face of Moses. … It would say this, ‘No man can overrule the laws of God. No judgment of man can stand against the judgment of God’.”

WashingtonPrayer

America, he warned, is faced with a critical decision, “Choose you this day whom you will serve … if the Lord be God, then follow Him. If Baal, then follow him and go to hell.”

Believers, he said, will “not bow down our knees to Baal,” the politically correct or anything other than God.

“Jesus the Messiah,” he said, “is the only answer, the only chance that America has that it might once again shine with the presence of the living God … and not go to hell.”

Cummins, a longtime pastor, first obtained permission from House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, to use the hall in May 2012, the first time a private citizen had been allowed to hold a prayer service there in more than 120 years.

Click here to obtain access to the streaming of “Washington — A Man of Prayer 2015″ from Statuary Hall in the nation’s Capitol.

See a video that promoted the event:

Historically, as many as 2,000 people were in attendance for worship services in the Capitol after President Thomas Jefferson approved the events.

Services were held in the chamber where the House of Representatives met from 1807 to 1857, now called Statuary Hall.

Cummins, recalling Washington’s first inauguration, said “the world saw more than just the inauguration of the president of a new nation; it witnessed a watershed moment in history when the ideals penned in ink on parchment at Philadelphia’s Continental Congress would preserve what sword and patriots’ blood had inscribed on the field of battle.”

Cummins is founding pastor of Bridlewood Church in Bullard, Texas, and the director of church relations for Renewing American Leadership in Washington, D.C.

Pastor Sergio De La More, founder of Cornerstone Church of San Diego, who spoke at the prayer event in 2013, said it’s important to understand America’s foundation.

“I am certain the framework of our country, built not on economic status, race, or political standing, but rather on the foundation of faith and prayer, still stands as a monument of strength for all people everywhere. We, as a multi-ethnic nation have a rare and historical opportunity to unify ourselves as one church and rally to represent one culture-kingdom culture.”

Kenda Bartlett, executive director of Concerned Women for America in Washington, said, “Over 32 years ago Mrs. Beverly LaHaye, wife of Dr. Tim LaHaye, and a small group of Christian women gathered around a kitchen table to answer God’s calling to start a women’s public policy organization dedicated to putting faith and prayer back into the public square.

“Today that organization is Concerned Women for America (CWA), the nation’s largest public policy women’s organization with over 500,000 members. So we know first-hand the huge impact a small gathering of believers can make when God is at the center of their work. Likewise, CWA was honored be among the small group of Christian leaders and organizations to gather in Statuary Hall for the first annual ‘Washington: A Man of Prayer’ event observing George Washington’s inauguration address, which boldly called ‘We the People’ to a time of prayer.”

Sign up now for access to the archived streaming.

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A Third Question

http://www.redstate.com/2015/04/30/a-third-question/

A Third Question

As we end this month, we must go back to the beginning of the month. Three hundred Republicans filed a brief with the United States Supreme Court begging the court to impose homosexual marriage on the country so that their party need not have to deal with the issue in Campaign 2016. Some of them really want homosexual marriage, but I have no doubt a significant portion of the signers really just don't want to have to deal with the issue on the campaign trail and are, therefore, perfectly happy for the Supreme Court to impose their black-robed morality on us and redefine a multi-thousand year old institution for political convenience and expedience.

On April 2nd, I proposed two question that I think each signer of the amicus brief should answer if they want to be taken seriously by conservatives. Frankly, given how many of them are now working for Presidential candidates, I think we should get those candidates on record too. But now I must submit that a third question must be asked and it is of utmost importance.

The first two questions were:

Do you support the Religious Freedom Restoration Act as signed into law by President Clinton?
Do you believe a Christian business should be compelled by the state to provide goods or services to a gay wedding?

And now we must ask a third question, given how oral arguments went before the Supreme Court. That question is this:

Do you believe non-profit institutions, including but not limited to religious private schools and charities, should have their tax-exempt status revoked for failure to recognize homosexual marriage?

After the oral arguments, this is no longer an abstract question. Republican voters have a right to know how candidates who employ any of these 300 would answer and, frankly, given the prominence of many of those who signed the brief I think we should have an answer from all of them too. Quickly.

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A Third Question

http://www.redstate.com/2015/04/30/a-third-question/

A Third Question

The first two questions were:

Do you support the Religious Freedom Restoration Act as signed into law by President Clinton?
Do you believe a Christian business should be compelled by the state to provide goods or services to a gay wedding?

And now we must ask a third question, given how oral arguments went before the Supreme Court. That question is this:

Do you believe non-profit institutions, including but not limited to religious private schools and charities, should have their tax-exempt status revoked for failure to recognize homosexual marriage?

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Wednesday, April 29, 2015

Supreme Court Appears Ready To Rule In Favor Of Marriage Equality

http://www.buzzfeed.com/chrisgeidner/court-appears-poised-for-marriage-equality-ruling

Supreme Court Appears Ready To Rule In Favor Of Marriage Equality - BuzzFeed News

WASHINGTON — At Tuesday's Supreme Court arguments over same-sex couples' marriage rights, the majority of the court appeared to be comfortable with Justice Anthony Kennedy's understanding of human dignity as including gay people's equal treatment under the law.

While Kennedy, who is considered the key vote in the case, did not make any unambiguous statement about the end result of the case, he harshly questioned the state of Michigan's argument that it should be allowed to exclude same-sex couples from marriage.

At one point, Kennedy commented to Michigan's lawyer that its law banning same-sex couples from marrying "assumes" that those couples can't have the same "more noble purpose" as opposite-sex couples have for entering marriage.

Kennedy — joined often by Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan — peppered the lawyer defending marriage bans, John Bursch, about what other limits states could constitutionally place on marriages and whether the states' claimed interests amounted to anything more than, as Sotomayor put it at one point, a "feeling" that "doesn't make any logical sense."

Although questions were asked, including by Kennedy, about the length of time — "millennia," he said — that the understanding of marriage was only an institution between one man and one woman, Kennedy noted in the same question that "about the same time" passed between the Supreme Court's decision ending "separate but equal" with regards to racial discrimination and its landmark decision ending interracial marriage bans as has passed between the Supreme Court's decision ending sodomy laws and today's arguments.

Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg also appeared in questioning to be sympathetic to same-sex couples' marriage arguments.

Chief Justice John Roberts asked probing question of both sides, never betraying a strong affinity towards either sides' arguments, while Justice Samuel Alito strongly questioned the plaintiffs' claims — raising questions about polygamy and why siblings shouldn't be able to receive the same protections as same-sex couples.

While Kennedy did question the lawyers supporting marriage equality, Mary Bonauto and Solicitor General Donald Verrilli Jr., at times he appeared focused on explaining the path forward from the trio of "gay rights" cases — 1996's Romer v. Evans, 2003's Lawrence v. Texas, and 2013's United States v. Windsor — to a marriage equality decision in Tuesday's cases.

Echoing his earlier comment to Bonauto, Kennedy later posed the question, again, to Verrilli — making his point even more directly. "Haven't we learned a tremendous amount since ... Lawrence, just in the last 10 years?" he asked the Obama administration's lawyer.

Breyer, in questioning Michigan's lawyer, laid out as concise a summary of the opposition to bans on same-sex couples' marriages as any of the lawyers arguing for marriage equality made.

"[M]arriage, as the states administer it, is open to vast numbers of people who both have children, adopt children, don't have children, all over the place," he said. "But there is one group of people whom they won't open marriage to. So they have no possibility to participate in that fundamental liberty. That is people of the same sex who wish to marry. And so we ask, why?"

There were two questions before the court Tuesday, though. The first, which got 90 minutes of argument time, was whether the 14th Amendment requires states to permit same-sex marriage. The second was whether states that don't allow same-sex marriage must recognize those marriages performed in other states — a question that several justices said only would come into play if the plaintiffs lost on the first question.

Kennedy's sole question in that final hour of arguments was first to reiterate that the second question only would become relevant if the states' arguments won the day on the first question and then to ask whether the recognition answer could be different than the marriage ruling.

His near-complete silence on the second question — as opposed to his constant questioning on the first question — was another signal from the justice about where his vote was headed on the first question.

Notably, though, Chief Justice Roberts did appear open to arguments on the recognition question. "[O]utside of the present controversy," he asked the Tennessee Attorney General's Office attorney defending the recognition bans, Joseph Whalen, "when was the last time Tennessee declined to recognize a marriage from out of state?"

"1970 is the last one that I could point to," Whalen responded. "That involved a stepfather and stepdaughter."

Tuesday's arguments followed a winding path for the cases, the first of which (an adoption case out of Michigan) was filed in 2012. The remaining cases were all filed in the aftermath of the June 2013 Supreme Court decision in United States v. Windsor striking down the Defense of Marriage Act.

The decision in the cases came over several months, and by the summer of 2014, the cases for marriage or marriage recognition had won in all four states of the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals (Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, and Tennessee).

That August, the appellate court took up the four states' appeals. When the 6th Circuit became the first appellate court to uphold marriage bans since Windsor, Supreme Court review looked almost certain, and the justices accepted the cases for review in January, setting up Tuesday's arguments.

A decision in the cases is expected by the end of the court's term in June.

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Bill Gates Says Life Would Be Much Easier With A World Government

http://theantimedia.org/bill-gates-says-life-would-be-much-easier-with-a-world-government/

Bill Gates Says Life Would Be Much Easier With A World Government

John Vibes
February 24, 2014

(ANTIMEDIA) In a recent interview with the German publication “Süddeutsche Zeitung“, Bill Gates made some disturbing comments in favor of world government.

Not only did Gates advocate global government, but he also spoke favorably of the UN and NATO, completely overlooking that they are a major force of oppression in the world. NATO can’t even hold a meeting without thousands of people gathering in the streets to protest their actions. Someone as heavily involved in world affairs as Bill Gates should know all about this.

During the interview last month, Gates said, “Take the UN, it has been created especially for the security in the world. We are ready for war, because we have taken every precaution. We have NATO, we have divisions, jeeps, trained people. But what is with epidemics? How many doctors do we have as much planes, tents, what scientists? If there were such a thing as a world government, we would be better prepared. “

Not long ago this subject was considered a total conspiracy theory, but now one of the richest people in the world is openly suggesting that this is a good idea. Governments are generally a pretty bad idea, even when they are small they can still do a tremendous amount of damage. So when a government rules the entire planet, there is no telling what type of atrocities it will be capable of.

This article (Bill Gates Says Life Would Be Much Easier With A World Government) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to the author and TheAntiMedia.org. Tune-in to the Anti-Media Radio Show Monday-Friday @ 11pm EST; 8pm PST.

John Vibes is an author, researcher and investigative journalist who takes a special interest in the counter culture and the drug war. In addition to his writing and activist work he is also the owner of a successful music promotion company. In 2013, he became one of the organizers of the Free Your Mind Conference, which features top caliber speakers and whistle-blowers from all over the world. You can contact him and stay connected to his work at his Facebook page. You can find his 65 chapter Book entitled “Alchemy of the Timeless Renaissance” at bookpatch.com.

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Will Christians be Fitted with Yellow Crosses?

http://savingourfuture.com/2015/04/will-christians-be-fitted-with-yellow-crosses/

Will Christians be Fitted with Yellow Crosses?

Matt Barber, former heavy weight pro boxer, pulls no punches…in or out of the ring. Matt addresses the persecution against Christians in America. It seems the culture war escalates daily, with ever increasing hostility to Christians and Christianity. Cases, such as the lawsuit against Aaron and Melissa Klein here in Oregon, are on the rise. The Kleins were forced to close their business after declining to bake a wedding cake for a lesbian wedding. Those two lesbians have just been awarded $135K for mental suffering. If that stands (it will be appealed), the money would come from the Kleins personal account, which is NOT that large. The judge deemed the lesbian belief system and worldview had precedence over the Klein’s Christian belief system and worldview. And so it goes. Read on. TJ

By J. Matt Barber

Amid the cross-country race to election 2016, the secular left’s utter disdain for both our Creator Christ and His faithful followers is fast approaching critical mass.

Self-styled “progressives” – that is, America’s cultural Marxist agents of ruin – typically disguise their designs on despotism in the flowery and euphemistic language of “reproductive health,” “anti-discrimination” and “multiculturalism.”

We see this Orwellian newspeak at play right now in Washington, D.C., where congressional Republicans endeavor to prevent, if only timorously, two unconstitutional pieces of legislation from taking effect.

The first, the District of Columbia’s so-called “Reproductive Health Non-Discrimination Act,” would force pro-life groups, including churches and para-church organizations, to hire pro-abortion zealots and other godless rabble-rousers with worldviews and socio-political agendas overtly hostile to the express mission of those churches and organizations.

The second, the farcically mislabeled “Human Rights Amendment Act,” would jettison the longstanding “Armstrong Amendment,” which, as notes the Daily Signal, “was enacted by Congress in 1989 to exempt religious schools in D.C. from being forced into violating their beliefs about human sexuality by ‘promoting, encouraging, or condoning any homosexual act, lifestyle, orientation, or belief.’”

In other words, under this new legislation churches and religious schools will be forced, under penalty of law, to deny the Christian sexual ethic and, instead, promote, encourage and condone homosexual behavior and other pagan sexual immorality.

So much for “human rights.”

Still, while most on the left are careful to mask their totalitarian goals and anti-Christian animus by coating these poison pills in sugar sweet jargon, on occasion one of these God-denying goose-steppers will let down his guard, drop the euphemistic BS, and vomit forth that acidic bile, unfiltered “progressivism.”

The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Tayler is one such goose-stepper. In an April 19 Salon.com screed headlined, “Marco Rubio’s deranged religion, Ted Cruz’s bizarre faith: Our would-be presidents are God-fearing clowns,” “freethinking” Jeffrey, a paragon of paganism, ably puts the “bigot” in anti-Christian bigotry.

In reference to the 2016 presidential candidates who call themselves Christian, Tayler bemoans that these “God-fearing clowns and faith-mongering nitwits [are] groveling before Evangelicals.” He further protests Christians’ “nattering on about their belief in the Almighty and their certainty that if we just looked, we could find answers to many of our ills in the Good Book.”

Right, it’s called the Gospel, Jeffrey. It’s the only hope that either you or any of us has.

“There will almost certainly be no (declared) atheist or even agnostic among the candidates,” he laments. “This is scandalous, given the electorate’s gradual, relentless ditching of religion.”

Gradual? That’s a gaping understatement when one considers that even today over 80 percent of Americans identify as Christian with the vast majority of those who don’t nevertheless acknowledging the transcendent reality of a Creator God. Every man, woman and child understands through both general revelation and human reason that this unfathomably intricate, staggeringly fine-tuned universe didn’t create and fine-tune itself. It’s a tiny minority of angry, self-deluded materialists like Jeffrey Tayler who deny this self-evident truth. Scandalous? Hardly.

Continues Tayler: “With the dapper Florida Sen. Marco Rubio we move into the more disturbing category of Republicans we might charitably diagnose as ‘faith-deranged’ – in other words, as likely to do fine among the unwashed ‘crazies’ in the red-state primaries, but whose religious beliefs would (or should) render them unfit for civilized company anywhere else.”

Sound familiar? Such hubristic elitism is so 1939. It was similarly “faith-deranged,” “unwashed crazies” in Germany who, at that time, were numerically branded “unfit for civilized company.” Shall we Christians be fitted with yellow crosses, Herr Tayler?

Our Darwinian disbeliever then distills the timeless Christian faith to “far-fetched fiction and foolish figments” before launching into a tirade against the left’s favorite candidate to hate, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, while, likewise, knifing twixt the shoulder blades, the richly diverse, 100 thousand-plus student body at Liberty University.

“Cruz pandered fulsomely to the faith-deranged by choosing to announce at Liberty University, that bastion of darkness located in Lynchburg, Virginia. Once administered by the late Jerry Falwell, Liberty promises a ‘World Class Christian education’ and boasts that it has been ‘training champions for Christ since 1971′ – grounds enough, in my view, to revoke the institution’s charter and subject it to immediate quarantine until sanity breaks out.”

Are you getting this? Tayler’s not joking about revoking Liberty’s accreditation and otherwise consigning all faithful Christians to a constructive encampment beyond the margins of functional society. That’s their end-game. That’s the way their boxcars roll.

Neither do our papist friends escape unscathed. Tayler smears the Catholic Church as a “fanatical homophobic cult,” while blaspheming his own Creator. He inquires in litmus of some obscure atheist candidate, “[I]f you are indeed an atheist, will you come out of the closet about it? Will you utter that vilest of stock phrases ‘God bless America!’ to close speeches, thereby lending undue credence to the nonsense notion that an invisible tyrant rules us from on high?”

“Atheists can dream,” he pines. “They can dream of a candidate (and future president) who will, one day, say ‘I do not believe in God. I do not believe in a hereafter.’”

And why not? Russia had its Stalin and China its Mao. Who needs an “invisible tyrant” when we can elect one at the ballot box?

Or didn’t we already do that.

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Matt Barber is founder and editor-in chief of BarbWire.com. He is an author, columnist, cultural analyst and an attorney concentrating in constitutional law. Having retired as an undefeated heavyweight professional boxer, Matt has taken his fight from the ring to the culture war. Follow Matt on Twitter at @jmattbarber

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Congress files same-sex marriage briefs with Supreme Court

http://m.washingtonexaminer.com/congress-files-same-sex-marriage-briefs-with-supreme-court/article/2563698?utm_content=bufferbdc2e&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer?utm_content=bufferbdc2e&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer

Congress files same-sex marriage briefs with Supreme Court

The Supreme Court is set to heard oral arguments on same-sex marriage Tuesday. (AP Photo)

The Supreme Court is set to heard oral arguments on same-sex marriage — and Congress has something to say first.

More than 250 members of Congress have made their views on the same-sex marriages cases public leading up to Tuesday's oral arguments.

Fifty-seven Republican lawmakers, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, and five other senators, filed a friend-of-the-court brief arguing that marriage in states should be as the union of one man and one woman — thus defined throughout the nation as traditional.

"This court favors incremental change over sweeping and dramatic change in addressing novel constitutional claims. The relative novelty of same-sex marriage weighs against the mandatory redefinition of marriage," the brief said.

Meanwhile, 167 House members and 44 senators, including Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., filed a brief in favor of the court ruling to allow same-sex marriages throughout the country.

State marriage bans "impose countless burdens and indignities on an identifiable and disfavored class — gay and lesbian couples and their children," inflicting "immeasurable psychological harm" and serving "no legitimate governmental objective," the brief said.

Another brief argued that marriage rights for same-sex couples advances "conservative values" and was signed by a number of Republicans including Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, Sen. Mark Kirk of Illinois and Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida.

Marriage bans are inconsistent with the "properly limited role of government," the brief said.

The Supreme Court is set to hear appeals challenging bans of same-sex marriage from Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and Tennessee. A historical single decision covering all four states — and thus extending over the entire nation — will likely be reached in late June.

(h/t NY Times)

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