#1867 (2/21) - "Washington State Punishes Barronelle Stutzman - Gay Weddings over Religious Freedom"

"WASHINGTON STATE PUNISHES BATTONELLE - GAY WEDDINGS OVER RELIGIOUS FREEDOM" - by: John Stonestreet, Breakpoint.org, February 17, 2017; http://www.breakpoint.org/2017/02/breakpoint-washington-state-punishes-barronelle-stutzman/

The Washington State Supreme Court has punished a florist for running her business according to her faith.

Yesterday [2/16], the Supreme Court of Washington State issued its much-anticipated opinion in State of Washington v. Arlene’s Flowers and Ingersoll v. Arlene’s Flowers. The only way to see this decision is as a major setback for religious freedom.

The case involved an anti-discrimination complaint brought against Barronelle Stutzman, the 71-year-old owner of Arlene’s Flowers, and I might add, one of the nicest people on the planet. Three years ago, a long-time customer whom Stutzman considered to be a friend, asked her to create a floral arrangement for his same-sex wedding. Stutzman declined because her Christian belief that marriage is the union of one man and one woman prevented “her from using her artistic talents to promote contrary ideas about marriage.” Instead, she referred him “to three other floral design artists who she knew would do a good job.”

The customer then filed suit against Stutzman and was joined by the State of Washington. In 2015, the trial court found that Stutzman had violated Washington’s anti-discrimination law and ordered her to pay a $1,000 fine—and the ACLU’s legal fees, which could approach a million dollars.  Also, Stutzman could no longer operate her business according to her beliefs without risking further legal sanction.

The appeal to the state Supreme Court drew so much interest that arguments were held in an auditorium at a local college instead of at the Court’s facilities. Judging by the justices’ questions and response, they didn’t appear to be sympathetic to Stutzman’s plight.

So sadly, it was no surprise that the Court ruled unanimously against Stutzman. It rejected her claim that any “discrimination,” if it existed, was on the basis of marital status and not sexual orientation. In a case of déjà vu all over again, it cited Obergefell’s language and then took it even a step further, claiming that to not service a same-sex wedding serves to “disrespected and subordinate” gays and lesbians. For this and other reasons, the Court concluded that Washington’s anti-discrimination law applied to Stutzman.

The court then turned to the question of her rights under the U.S. and Washington State constitutions. And to put it straightforwardly, the Court was unsparing in its rejection of her claims. It ruled that her floral arrangements weren’t “speech” but instead “conduct,” and that this conduct “does not inherently express a message about [a same-sex] wedding,” any more than providing flowers for an Islamic wedding amounts to endorsing Islam. Citing Employment Division v Smith and analogous cases under Washington’s constitution, it rejected her free exercise claim that the Washington law could only be upheld if it served a compelling governmental interest in the least restrictive means possible.

Justice McCord wrote that even “assuming that [the Washington law] substantially burdens Stutzman’s religious free exercise, [it] does not violate her right to religious free exercise under either the First Amendment or (the Washington Constitution) because it is neutral, generally applicable law that serves the state government’s compelling interest in eradicating discrimination in public accommodations.”

As our friends at Alliance Defending Freedom, who represented Stutzman, put it bluntly: “[T]he Washington Supreme Court has punished Barronelle Stutzman for peacefully operating her business consistently with her faith.”  Now ADF will appeal to the Supreme Court. In the meantime, they ask us to pray for Barronelle and to urge President Trump to keep his campaign promise and make religious liberty “a first priority” by signing an executive order to protect religious freedom.

Look folks, for more than 40 years we’ve been fighting the courts to save the unborn. Now we find ourselves at the beginning of a long march to restore religious freedom—our first freedom under the constitution. We cannot grow weary.

And I ask LGBT advocates, is this really what you’re fighting for, to destroy people like Barronell Stutzman, your neighbors who have served you and the community kindly for so many years?

Come to BreakPoint.org for more on yesterday’s tragic ruling and to find out what you can do to support Barronelle Stutzman and religious freedom.

[bold, italics, and colored emphasis mine]

Resources
"Washington Supreme Court Punishes Barronelle Stutzman. What Now?" - Jim Campbell Alliance Defending Freedom February 16, 2017; http://www.adflegal.org/detailspages/blog-details/allianceedge/2017/02/16/washington-supreme-court-punishes-barronelle-stutzman.-what-now
"The Liberty Threat: The Attack on Religious Freedom in America Today" - James Tonkowich Saint Benedict Press July 2014; http://www.colsoncenterstore.org/product.asp?sku=9781618909855
"Truth Overruled: The Future of Marriage and Religious Freedom" - Ryan T. Anderson Regnery Publishing August 2015; http://www.colsoncenterstore.org/product.asp?sku=9781621574514
"Barronelle Stutzman's Story"  - ADF support website - http://www.adflegal.org/barronelle-stutzmans-story
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"Florist Who Declined Gay Wedding Request Loses Her Case, Promises Appeal to the Supreme Court" - Kelsey Harkness / February 16, 2017; http://dailysignal.com/2017/02/16/florist-who-denied-gay-wedding-request-loses-her-case-promises-appeal-to-the-supreme-court
"Washington’s Supreme Court Imposes Its Progressive Faith on a Christian Florist Barronelle Stutzman" -  by David French,  2/16/2017, 
 http://www.nationalreview.com/article/444989/washington-supreme-court-christian-florist-religious-freedom-gay-discrimination-case

#1866 (2/20) "Why We Should Celebrate Washington’s Birthday, Not Presidents Day"

"WHY WE SHOULD  CELEBRATE WASHINGTON'S BIRTHDAY, NOT PRESIDENT'S DAY" - Arthur Milikh / February 17, 2017 / http://dailysignal.com/2017/02/17/why-we-should-celebrate-washingtons-birthday-not-presidents-day/

George Washington exhibited a character and virtue that deserved to be honored in every age. (Photo: Pictures From History/Newscom )

America’s greatest statesmen did not think that national holidays were merely about family dinners, watching fireworks, or getting a three-day weekend. These occasions, to the contrary, were needed to encourage all citizens to together raise their gaze above the enthrallment of their private lives, so as to see or imagine something greater than themselves and worthy of their admiration.

Thanksgiving and the Fourth of July, first conceived by our Founders, are illustrative. Thanksgiving, as George Washington writes in his Thanksgiving Day proclamation, should instill in citizens gratitude to our nation and our creator, thereby asking citizens for a moment to acknowledge our frailty, our dependence on higher powers, and the imperfection of our understanding. Thanksgiving, therefore, is a holiday that restrains democratic self-satisfaction and pride.

The Fourth of July, by contrast, celebrates courage and manliness, the kind required to defeat a great empire and to found a community devoted to political liberty. It reminds citizens of public spiritedness on behalf of our ideals, and that our ideals require of us sacrifice and courage.

Thus, these two holidays celebrate starkly contrasting spirits—that of subordination and that of assertion, both healthy aspects of the republican character.

What we today call “Presidents Day” is in fact Washington’s birthday. Just like a republican people must on occasion be reminded of the need for manly assertiveness and modest gratitude, so too must they be reminded of examples of human greatness.

First instituted as a federal holiday in 1879, this day ought to celebrate Washington, not an abstraction called “presidents.” There is no meaning in celebrating “presidents” generally, and for this reason, the holiday today has no real content, being viewed as merely another day off work. To confuse James Buchanan for Washington is to conflate copper and gold.

During Washington’s life, he deservedly became one of the most famous men in the world. His remarkable courage and prudence had, despite great odds and at great peril, carried to victory our 13 colonies against the most powerful empire on earth. The weight of this task fell upon his shoulders.

In times of peace, moreover, Washington’s self-possession and equanimity—by contrast to the brilliant but somewhat impulsive advisers surrounding him—meant that the country’s fate could be responsibly entrusted to him. The example of his control over his passions, his judgement, and devotion to the common good made him the new model of republican greatness, which until recently filled the American imagination for generations. Indeed, so clear were his virtues that both Federalists and Anti-Federalists reached unanimous agreement about Washington’s worthiness to be president, despite their immense disagreements on almost everything else.

Today, examples of human greatness are needed perhaps more than ever. In the hurly-burly of the crass and silly images in popular culture, film, and music, such examples are absent. In our books and textbooks, individual greatness is often tacitly denied by teaching that vast cosmic forces—like economic forces, or technological advancement—rather than individuals, cause events. And when individuals are the cause, they are often characterized merely as oppressors.
Our experiences of these things combine to instruct us in vulgar aspirations, enervating fatalism, or hatred of greatness.

Revering Washington and living with his example is not just a matter of arbitrary, antiquarian taste. In fact, reverence for human greatness, as Tocqueville observes, is among the things most needed in democracy.One of the many reasons for this is to counterbalance the overwhelming power of a democratic majority. Tocqueville writes:
     "In aristocracies, men often have a greatness and a force that are their own … There is nothing like this among democratic peoples. [In democracies], public favor seems as necessary as the air that one breathes, and to be in disagreement with the mass is, so to speak, not to live. [The majority] does not need to use the laws to bend those who do not think like it. It is enough for it to disapprove of them. Their sense of isolation and their impotence immediately overwhelms them and drives them to despair." [“Democracy in America,” Mansfield Trans., p. 569]
     In this context, human greatness means maintaining moral and intellectual independence despite the tyranny of the majority over the individual. Such independence is the source of statesmanship and the kind of steadiness of character required for it.

It is inconceivable that a man like Washington would go along with arbitrary new tastes or ideas. But without such examples as his remembered on a specially assigned day for all Americans to consider, we have few occasions to learn from his example.

[bold, italics, and colored emphasis mine]

Arthur Milikh is assistant director of the B. Kenneth Simon Center for Principles and Politics at The Heritage Foundation.

#1865 (2/19) SUNDAY SPECIAL: "Beyoncé’s Three Hearts - OUR FEELINGS DON'T TRUMP REALITY"

"Beyoncé’s Three Hearts - OUR FEELINGS DON'T TRUMP REALITY" - by:John Stonestreet, Breakpoint.org, February 16, 2017; http://www.breakpoint.org/2017/02/breakpoint-beyonces-three-hearts/

Objective realities aren’t subject to feelings, but increasingly, that’s the verdict of our celebrity-driven culture. Just ask Beyoncé’s twins.

With few exceptions, the entertainment industry is committedly pro-choice. Whether it’s Scarlett Johansson and others in a recent “Stand with Planned Parenthood” ad campaign, stories from celebrities like Whoopi Goldberg about how they don’t regret their abortions, or financial support for Planned Parenthood from names like Lena Dunham, John Legend, and Pink, actors and musicians are overwhelmingly on one side of this cultural debate.

But every so often, someone wanders off-script and talks about the unborn not as mere “rapidly dividing cell masses,” but as babies, with heartbeats, and with value.

The most recent celebrity to break form was singer Beyoncé. Despite participating in the aggressively pro-choice Women’s March in D.C., the expectant mother-of-twins has encouraged her millions of fans to talk about and celebrate her unborn children as if they were, well, children.

At the Grammy Awards on [a recent] Sunday, she appeared on stage pregnant and dressed as a goddess in a performance dedicated to “birth and motherhood.” Now I’m not endorsing the performance itself, which was pretty bizarre and maybe a little sacrilegious. But what struck many was how Beyoncé and her fans on Twitter and Facebook freely referred to the twins in her womb as “children,” not fetuses or any other dehumanizing euphemism popular with abortion supporters.

Her performance was a follow-up to her recently released pregnancy photo shoot, which took the Internet by storm shortly before the Grammys. In the most-liked upload in Instagram history, Beyoncé posed, hands on her baby bump, with the caption, “I have three hearts.”

Hearts! As in “beating hearts!” As in the kind pro-choice activists go to incredible lengths to convince us are just “contracting cardiac cells.”  And notice Beyoncé also equates her babies’ heartbeats with her own. They are, in her eyes, fully human.

Let me emphasize this: Don’t Google Beyoncé’s pregnancy photos. Some of them are pretty inappropriate. But Beyonce’s Instagram post and Grammy performance highlight the unspoken, false assumption that unborn babies have personhood and humanity only if they’re wanted. If they’re inconvenient or untimely, they’re disposable. In other words, our feelings about them determine what they are.

It was this assumption Yahoo News anchor Katie Couric took into her recent interview on the Ellen DeGeneres show, where she discussed her forthcoming National Geographic documentary on gender identity. Now Couric has made no secret of her support for Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers. For her, the unborn aren’t persons. They’re choices. And yet at the same time she insists that babies in the womb can “feel” gender confusion—something clearly beyond the capabilities of a mere cell mass.

So what’s behind this glaring contradiction? Simply this: the conquest of feelings over reality. According to pro-abortion reasoning, unborn babies, especially early in pregnancy, aren’t human beings with a right to life. Rather, they’re choices to be made.

But pro-choice celebrities have no trouble speaking of their unborn children as being human beings when they choose to keep them. In other words, what makes them human is how their parents, society, or a news anchor feel about them—not some inherent quality they share with all unborn babies.

The Christian worldview cuts in diametric opposition to this anthropology, and to any feelings-centric approach to truth. That unborn babies are inherently valuable image bearers is true regardless of how we feel about them. Christians embrace objective reality, one not subject to the whims of choice, and not influenced in the least by how famous your mother is.

Now I’m happy for Beyoncé. And praise God for these two new heartbeats. But the thousands of heartbeats quieted each year by abortion are no less human and no less valuable, no matter how we feel about them.

[bold, italics, and colored emphasis mine]

Further Reading and Information - As this “celebrity” example illustrates, a beating heart signals to all the world what’s true: the unborn child is a human being–no question. Why not use the enthusiasm generated by Beyoncé’s announcement to present the case for life? Check out the resources below to help in that effort.
Why Pro-Life?: Caring for the Unborn and Their Mothers - Randy Alcorn. Hendrickson Publishers, November 2012; http://www.colsoncenterstore.org/product.asp?sku=9781619700284
ProLife Answers to ProChoice Arguments - Randy Alcorn, Multnomah Publishers, November 2000; http://www.colsoncenterstore.org/product.asp?sku=1576737519
The Case for Life: Equipping Christians to Engage the Culture - Scott Klusendorf, Crossway Books, March 2009; http://www.colsoncenterstore.org/product.asp?sku=1433503204

#1864 (2/18) PRO-LIFE SAT: "Planned Parenthood and Prenatal Care - We Don’t Do That Here"

"Planned Parenthood and Prenatal Care - We Don’t Do That Here" - by: Eric Metaxas, Breakpoint.org,  February 13, 2017, http://www.breakpoint.org/2017/02/planned-parenthood-and-prenatal-care/

It turns out that Planned Parenthood is not interested in seeing you if you’re planning to become a parent. So why do they keep insisting otherwise? Money.

In 2015, the pro-life Center for Medical Progress released a series of videos that showed Planned Parenthood executives haggling with undercover investigators about prices for fetal organs and tissue, which is illegal. Of course, Planned Parenthood denied everything, claiming that the money being discussed was for shipping and handling and that the videos were deceptively edited. But this “caught red-handed” moment was far from a first for America’s largest abortion provider—or a last.

Following these incriminating videos, Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards claimed that just 3% of her organization’s services are abortions. The vast majority are allegedly less controversial services like STD tests, birth control, pap smears, mammograms, and prenatal care.

Totally untrue. First, as Students for Life explained in a helpful video in 2014, the 3% claim is little more than book-cooking, which is a fancy term for lying. Planned Parenthood obtained this stat by counting each individual service separately—right down to handing women STD tests and condoms. That’d be like Burger King counting fries and ketchup packets and insisting hamburgers are only 3% of their business!

The real question is: “How many pregnant women who visit Planned Parenthood receive abortions? Well, according to their own annual reports, 93% of pregnant women who walk into a Planned Parenthood facility will walk out without their babies.

But Planned Parenthood had another whopper in store. According to Cecile Richards, the abortion giant offers essential non-abortion services including mammograms and “prenatal services.” Well that first claim has been thoroughly debunked—in the Washington Post, no less. Planned Parenthood does not provide mammograms, and Richards admitted as much in a congressional hearing. Instead, Planned Parenthood refers women to healthcare providers who do offer mammograms. So much for that claim.

But what about “prenatal services,” which Richards and other supporters have repeatedly insisted Planned Parenthood provides? Well, my friend and pro-life activist Lila Rose and her organization “Live Action” recently decided to check that claim out. They contacted 97 Planned Parenthood facilities representing all 41 affiliates where undercover recording is still permitted by state law.

In a new video, they play phone calls and in-person conversations with Planned Parenthood branches. “Do you provide prenatal services?” asks the investigator, posing as a pregnant woman. The answers were consistent:
     “Planned Parenthood offers abortions,” said an Arizona affiliate.
     “No Planned Parenthood does prenatal care, hon,” said a New York affiliate.
     “We see pregnant women, um, you know, if they are considering other options,” said a New Mexico affiliate, sheepishly.

Of the 97 centers contacted, all but five said to look elsewhere for prenatal care. So it’s clear: Planned Parenthood is not interested in seeing women who want to keep their babies. Just in seeing those who want them killed. Clinic managers know what they do. So why doesn’t Cecile Richards?

It’s a vital question to ask as Congress considers plans to strip the organization of federal support. With a ban on abortion funding making its way to the president’s desk, we need to be asking: Why should Planned Parenthood still be receiving taxpayer dollars? Until now, the nation’s largest abortion provider has pointed to its other services as the reason it deserves our money. But in the wake of this new investigation, we should be asking: What services exactly are they talking about?

[bold, italics, and colored emphasis mine]

Further Reading and Information- Prenatal care is important, for moms and babies, so it’s a logical idea to re-direct money to healthcare facilities that actually provide it. For more information on what Planned Parenthood does and doesn’t provide, check out the links below.

"As defund debate hits, Live Action exposes Planned Parenthood’s prenatal care deception" - 
LiveAction.org January 23, 2017 - http://liveaction.org/defund-debate-hits-live-action-exposes-planned-parenthoods-prenatal-care-deception/
"Cecile Richards Once Said Planned Parenthood Does Mammograms. Today She Admitted She Lied" - Steven Ertelt lifenews.com September 29, 2015 - http://www.lifenews.com/2015/09/29/cecile-richards-once-said-planned-parenthood-does-mammograms-today-she-admitted-she-lied/
"The Prenatal Care Deception" - Live Action video January 23, 2017 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekgiScr364Y&feature=youtu.be
"The repeated, misleading claim that Planned Parenthood ‘provides’ mammograms" - Michelle Ye Hee Lee Washington Post October 2, 2015 - https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2015/10/02/the-repeated-misleading-claim-that-planned-parenthood-provides-mammograms/?utm_term=.9de2f3775b52
"Planned Parenthood's 3% Abortion Myth, video" - Students for Life October 27, 2014 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKIOBOFaVYs
Unplanned: The Dramatic True Story of a Former Planned Parenthood Leader's Eye-Opening Journey Across the Life Line - Abby Johnson, Cindy Lambert Tyndale Momentum December 2014 - http://www.colsoncenterstore.org/product.asp?sku=9781414396545

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"U.S. House votes to overturn Obama’s mandate forcing states to fund Planned Parenthood" - 

By Susan Michelle-Hanson | February 16, 2017; http://liveactionnews.org/congresswoman-fights-stop-federal-government-forcing-states-fund-planned-parenthood/

#1863 (2/17) "The Left's All-Out War on Trump"

"THE LEFT'S ALL-OUT WAR ON TRUMP" - David Limbaugh |Feb 17, 2017; https://townhall.com/columnists/davidlimbaugh/2017/02/17/the-lefts-allout-war-on-trump-n2286927  [AS I SEE IT: When you see note those protests about President Trump's executive order on  immigration "just happended" to spring up at airports not just across the country but around the world, you can't but help but have a sense that it was organized in some way. We will probably never know the full extent of how this was all coordinated, but was all just too "spontaneous." Also, don't miss the article referenced afterwards as well as the quotation from an email I just received today from the American Center for Law and Justice. Of course, we shouldn't be surprised that the mainstream press will not make not of this. Let's consider all of this context when we see events unfold. - Stan]  

Please don't tell us conservatives that we need to find common ground with the left during this era of Trump. That would only advance liberals' cause, because they have no intention of working with President Trump. They are conducting an all-out war against him and his administration, and appeasement efforts wouldn't change that.

What the naive among us need to understand is that the left plays hardball. Liberals subscribe to an end-justifies-the-means philosophy. They are not fair. They don't intend to be fair. They believe they are entitled to advance their America-transforming agenda whether in or out of power, and no amount of wishful thinking can alter that reality. They will say and do practically anything to further their vision for America, and it doesn't matter if they did the opposite yesterday. A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little conservative minds.

The leftist machine purports to be opposed to Trump for his allegedly dastardly actions, but he has barely had time to get started (though he deserves great credit for what he has done so far). Truth be told, liberals' opposition springs not from what he's done -- other than the travel ban -- but from who he is and the threat he represents to their agenda.

They told us he would be a tyrannical autocrat, and just four weeks into his term, they claim to have him dead to rights on the charge. Yet Trump has not engaged in any illegal conduct or committed any lawless overreaches. President Obama, on the other hand, was habitually lawless, and the left, far from being concerned, reveled in it. Ends and means.

Understand this: The left has no evidence that Trump colluded with Russia to affect our election. It is absurd that we are even forced to talk about this. Smear with innuendo and slander -- that's liberals' MO.

In case you haven't noticed, these professional malcontents have organized throughout the nation, with more than a little help from the community organizer in ex-chief, Barack Obama. They have placed themselves throughout the nation to make mischief -- not the kind you smile at but the kind designed to bring down a duly elected president.

With remarkable foresight and patience, progressives have conspired for decades to plant themselves in America's important institutions, from the universities to the halls of government in secure civil service jobs. Many of these people are working overtime inside and outside government to undermine, scandalize, sabotage and ultimately bring down the Trump administration in its incipiency. That tactic is a lot easier than trying to block his desperately needed reform agenda on the merits.

I strongly suspect that leftists within our intelligence agencies criminally leaked classified information to corroborate their claim that Trump colluded with Russia to interfere with the presidential election. They thought they'd hit pay dirt with reports that before Trump took office, his national security adviser, Michael Flynn, had conversations with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak allegedly about reviewing the recent sanctions Obama had imposed on Russia.

Can you imagine the salivating? Here's the smoking gun. Flynn talked to Russia. Trump likes Russian President Vladimir Putin. Russia hacked the United States. Trump won the election. Therefore, Trump colluded with Putin to engineer his election victory over Hillary Clinton. That is one convoluted syllogism, isn't it?

The left doesn't care about the truth of the matter. Once liberals obtained what they considered a colorable morsel of damning evidence, they insisted their fears about Trump were already vindicated. He was guilty as charged. Except that he wasn't.

Flynn has stated that his conversation didn't touch on sanctions. The New York Times, in its story reporting that Trump campaign aides had repeated contacts with Russian intelligence agents, admitted it had seen no evidence of cooperation or collusion between the Trump team and the Russians regarding the election. That little tidbit has not found its way into any headline in the mainstream media.

Liberals hate Trump, and they hate that they lost the election, and they are not going to tolerate it. I hope the rest of America understands that.

They are not only disgracefully pretending they have hard evidence of misconduct leading directly to Trump but also ignoring the egregious misconduct of the leakers and the real threat that poses to national security.

Trump got off to an incredibly impressive start, but liberals have now delivered a blow to his momentum, and they are poised to finish the job. They are strategically placed in our cultural institutions and throughout our vast bureaucracy and are coordinating in every state to stage planned protests that look spontaneous. Richly funded by George Soros and other like-minded America haters, they are inspired by the shadow leadership of former President Obama and his activist organization formed for this very purpose.

I will not defend misconduct on the part of elected officials and their appointees -- if it actually occurs -- just because they are Republicans. But I am not going to sit by silently as the left continues to smear and sabotage this newly inaugurated president based on shards of facts that don't prove their allegations.

I realize that nothing we do will stop the left or dampen its single-minded determination to destroy Trump and preserve Obama's radical agenda, but we can prevent the left from succeeding if we fight back with equal energy and commitment. But that will be impossible unless we fully recognize what's going on -- the tactics of the left and liberals' ruthlessness. We are, in effect, in a war that we didn't start. So please keep your eyes open and prepare to fight back.

In the meantime, let's pray that President Trump will not be unduly distracted by these efforts and can focus on advancing an agenda that will restore economic growth and shore up America's national security. His news conference on Thursday gives me great confidence that President Trump fully understands what the left is doing. He is undeterred and undistracted -- and pressing forward with his agenda. The left, in turn, probably now understands that it has unleashed a tiger.

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"Obama’s Shadow Government Is Organizing To Undermine Trump  By John Daniel Davidson" - February 16, 2017; http://thefederalist.com/2017/02/16/obamas-shadow-government-organizing-undermine-trump/
2/17  NOTE; I received the following from the American Center for Law and Justice TODAY: "It's an unprecedented bureaucratic coup undermining our security. The Obama Administration took action to empower the entrenched bureaucracy to subvert our national security right before leaving office. It has led to dangerous leaks, criminal violations of the espionage act, and the creation of a shadow government to sabotage the new Administration.We just discovered that about two weeks before the Obama Administration left office it rewrote the national security rulebook to share intercepted communications with more unelected bureaucrats.This dramatically endangers our national security and has led to dangerous classified leaks. Even the ACLU called this an 'erosion of rules intended to protect the privacy of Americans.'" When even the liberal ACLU is alarmed, you have to know we need to be concerned.

#1862 (2/16) "Trump's Progress So Far On 2016 Promises"

"TRUMP'S PROGRESS SO FAR ON 2016 PROMISES" - Fred Lucas / February 14, 2017 / http://dailysignal.com/2017/02/14/trumps-progress-so-far-on-2016-promises/ [AS I SEE IT: In the past, the media liked to refer to Congress as the "do -nothing-Congress." Well, whatever else they may want to call him, they can never call President Trump a "do-nothing-President." Just look at the list below of  all that he has done in less than a month in office! And all of them are in line with the promises he made during the campaign. And so, while the mainstream press chooses to focus on this or that which they say shows an "administration in crisis," the President meanwhile just focuses on getting things done. It must so anger them that he doesn't pay more attention to their rants regarding what they say is important. It seems that the President is mainly concerned with just focusing on keeping his promises and  doing good for our country. - Stan]

President Donald Trump made numerous promises to the American people while campaigning. (Photo: Sipa USA/Newscom)

President Donald Trump hasn’t yet repealed and replaced Obamacare, or achieved 4 percent economic growth just shy of one month in office. But the new president has begun to deliver on several other campaign promises.

Trump issued executive orders to begin constructing the border wall and curb burdensome Obamacare regulations until the law is replaced. He also issued executive orders and took other actions to try to boost the economy by reducing regulation and promoting manufacturing.Here’s a look at progress and achievements in three broad categories for action that Trump routinely talked about during the campaign, including a total of 13 promises:

Make America Work Again
     Promise 1: More American Jobs
     Trump, on Jan. 27, announced the Manufacturing Jobs Initiative to gather “some of the world’s most successful and creative business leaders to share their experience and gain their insights.” Trump hosted Intel CEO Brian Krzanich on Feb. 8 at the White House. Krzanich announced the company will build a factory in Chandler, Arizona, that will create 3,000 jobs and another 10,000 “indirect” jobs for area residents.

     Promise 2: Energy Independence
     Just four days after taking office, Trump issued presidential memorandums on two major oil pipelines. He signed one to expedite building the Dakota Access pipeline, which the Obama administration had stalled, and another to encourage construction of the TransCanada Keystone XL pipeline, which the Obama administration had halted.

Promise 3: Economic Growth
     This promise centers on tax reform, regulatory reform, and what the administration calls sensible infrastructure. Trump signed a bill into law Feb. 14, voiding a Securities and Exchange Commission rule requiring fossil fuel companies and mining companies to disclose production-related payments to foreign governments. The bill was sponsored by Rep. Bill Huizenga, R-Mich.
Trump issued a presidential memorandum for a regulatory freeze until the agency head appointed by the president has reviewed the regulation.
     Trump made building or repairing infrastructure and boosting manufacturing central to his campaign. On the same day as the two pipeline memorandums, Trump also issued an executive order “expediting environmental reviews and approvals for high priority infrastructure projects.”
     In another presidential memorandum, Trump directed departments and agencies to support expanded manufacturing through streamlining permitting reviews and reducing regulations.
     On Jan. 30, just 10 days into his presidency, Trump issued an executive order requiring that for every new regulation the government imposes, it must rescind two.
     A few days later, Feb. 3, Trump issued an executive order creating “core principles for regulating the United States financial system.”

Promise 4: Help the Inner Cities
     This category includes law enforcement, jobs, and school choice. On Feb. 9, Trump issued an executive order directing the attorney general to establish a task force on reducing crime and increasing public safety.
     The same day, he issued an executive order to “strengthen enforcement of federal law to thwart transnational criminal organizations” such as gangs, cartels, and racketeers.

Make America Safe Again
     Promise 5: Border Security, ‘Extreme Vetting’
     Trump has indicated he will ask Congress for an initial payment to build a wall at the border with Mexico—a project already authorized under the 2006 Secure Fence Act. After that, he said, he will seek reimbursement from the Mexican government.
     On Jan. 25, Trump signed a series of executive orders regarding immigration, his signature issue during the campaign. One order called for “immediate construction of a physical wall on the southern border, monitored and supported by adequate personnel so as to prevent illegal immigration, drug and human trafficking, and acts of terrorism.”
     Trump also issued an order scaling back funding for “sanctuary cities,” the term for municipalities that refuse to cooperate with federal officials in enforcing immigration law.
     Two days later, Trump signed an executive order restricting immigration from seven terrorism-prone Middle Eastern countries, probably the most controversial action of his presidency thus far. The administration calls this approach “extreme vetting,” but critics charge it is a “Muslim ban.” The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco last week upheld a temporary restraining order blocking enforcement of the measure.

Promise 6: Strengthen America’s Role in the World
     Trump signed a memorandum Jan. 27 calling for “rebuilding of the U.S. armed forces.” On Jan. 28, Trump signed a memorandum requiring a comprehensive plan to defeat the Islamic State, the terrorist army also known as ISIS, by the end of February. He directed that it include new defense strategies and any needed changes in public diplomacy efforts.
     Since his inauguration Jan. 20, Trump has hosted British Prime Minister Theresa May, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at the White House. On Wednesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was scheduled to visit.

Promise 7: End the Iran Nuclear Deal
     Though it wasn’t related directly to the Iran nuclear deal negotiated by the Obama administration, the Trump White House signaled a strong shift in attitude toward Iran. The Trump administration, through the Treasury Department, on Feb. 4 imposed 25 sanctions on individuals and companies with ties to Iran in retaliation for the Islamic regime’s ballistic missile tests.

Make America Great Again
     Promise 8: Repeal Obamacare
     Hours after being sworn in, Trump issued an executive order directing agencies to act to minimize the burdens of the Affordable Care Act as much as possible by law, until Congress votes to repeal and replace the health care law.

     Promise 9: ‘Drain the Swamp’
     On Jan. 28, Trump issued an executive order requiring federal agencies to demand “ethics commitments” from employees hired on or after Jan. 20. This means these employees are committed contractually not to become lobbyists within five years of leaving government, and
     In a rarity this early in his presidency, Trump on Feb. 4 signed a bill passed by Congress to allow the Government Accountability Office to gather more records from federal agencies during investigations.

    Promise 10: Reverse Executive Overreach, Reduce Size of Government
    Three days after his inauguration, Trump signed a memorandum to freeze federal hiring except for reasons of national security and public safety.

Promise 11: Put America First
     This includes promoting American exceptionalism and founding principles. Three days after taking office, Trump signed a memorandum ordering withdrawal of the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade deal with 11 other countries. The Obama administration entered into the pact but the Senate had not ratified it. Many Republicans supported the trade deal and many Democrats opposed it, but lawmakers’ positions did not fall along party lines.
    When Trump issued executive orders on the Keystone and Dakota oil pipelines, he issued another order requiring new pipelines to be constructed with steel and other raw materials made in the United States.

     Promise 12: Nominate a Supreme Court Justice in the Scalia Mold
     Trump vowed to name a like-minded successor to Justice Antonin Scalia, who died a year ago Monday. On Jan. 31, Trump announced his nomination of 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court to fill the vacancy left by Scalia’s unexpected death. Trump pledged during the campaign to nominate someone with a judicial philosophy similar to Scalia’s originalism.

     Promise 13: End Common Core, Restore Local Control of Education
     Trump has yet to take action on this front, but the Senate confirmed his nominee for education secretary, Betsy DeVos, and she started work Feb. 7. DeVos was the head of the Foundation for Excellence in Education, founded by former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, a strong proponent of Common Core. DeVos has primarily advocated school choice programs to compete with failing public schools.

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#1861 (2//15) "Legislation Would Curb Restrictions on Political Speech in Churches"

"LEGISLATION WOULD CURB RESTRICITIONS ON POLITICAL SPEECH IN CHURCHES" - Fred Lucas / February 14, 2017 / http://dailysignal.com/2017/02/14/legislation-would-curb-restrictions-on-political-speech-in-churches/

President Donald Trump speaks at the National Prayer Breakfast on Feb. 2 in the District of Columbia. During his remarks, Trump pledged to get rid of the Johnson Amendment. (Photo: Win Mcnamee/ZUMA Press /Newscom)

Congress is taking aim at a 1950s-era law that restricts the free speech of churches and other nonprofits after President Donald Trump recently condemned it. Trump pledged at the National Prayer Breakfast earlier this month, “I will get rid of, and totally destroy, the Johnson Amendment and allow our representatives of faith to speak freely and without fear of retribution."

Rep. Jody Hice, R-Ga., was a pastor for 25 years before serving in Congress, which is one reason he favors doing away with the Johnson Amendment. The law threatens the tax-exempt status of nonprofits, including churches, for engaging in certain political speech. “For too long, the IRS has used the Johnson Amendment to silence and threaten religious institutions and charitable entities,” Hice said in a public statement. “As a minister who has experienced intimidation from the IRS firsthand, I know just how important it is to ensure that our churches and nonprofit organizations are allowed the same fundamental rights as every citizen of this great nation.” Hice and House Majority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La., announced their bill to repeal the law the same day President Donald Trump pledged to at the National Prayer Breakfast.

Repealing the Johnson Amendment was included in the GOP platform adopted at the 2016 Republican National Convention that nominated Trump. The bill would amend the U.S. tax code to allow 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations to speak out on political matters so long as the commentary is made in the ordinary course of the carrying out a group’s tax-exempt purpose, and as long as no expenditures are made to promote the message that might relate to a candidate.

The Johnson Amendment was named after then-Sen. Lyndon B. Johnson. Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., the co-chairman of the Congressional Prayer Caucus, has a companion Senate bill, which he said is crafted to ensure more political speech rights, but also won’t allow churches and nonprofits to become political action committees. “The Free Speech Fairness Act is needed to prevent government intrusion and suppression of free speech by removing a restriction on speech that has existed since 1954,” Lankford said of his bill in a public statement. “The First Amendment right of free speech and right to practice any faith, or no faith, are foundational American values that must extend to everyone, whether they are a pastor, social worker, or any charity employee or volunteer.”

However, Rob Boston, spokesman for Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, insisted repealing the Johnson Amendment could unleash money in politics and corrupt the purpose of churches. “This is an issue closely identified with the religious right, but it would affect every organization with 501(c)(3) status, not just houses of worship,” Boston told The Daily Signal in phone interview. “You might see sham nonprofits start up to funnel money to campaigns. Tax exempt status is a benefit, but it does come with conditions.” Boston said this is a question of bad policy rather than a constitutional matter. “I don’t think [getting rid of the Johnson Amendment] would be an Establishment Clause violation unless the repeal was limited to houses of worship,” Boston said.

A leaked draft executive order from the White House showed the Trump administration was considering an inclusive order to recognize the right to religious expression, not just the right to worship. Once this was reported, several liberal groups stepped up to oppose the action. 

A concern to some conservatives is that Trump will attempt to address the Johnson Amendment matter through an executive order, while ignoring other significant religious freedom concerns.
Melanie Israel, a research associate with the DeVos Center for Religious and Civil Society at The Heritage Foundation, told The Daily Signal in a statement: "Should Trump issue an executive order that only addresses the Johnson Amendment, it would be a tremendous disappointment because the Johnson Amendment cannot be fully addressed by executive order and must ultimately be repealed by Congress. In the meantime, there are high-priority items that can be fixed by the text of the draft executive order earlier this month. Trump should move quickly to make good on the commitment that his administration will do ‘everything in its power’ to protect religious liberty. The draft copy of the leaked executive order is a good, lawful public policy that would ensure that the public square remains open to all religious voices, including those whose voices differ from the government’s view."

The Johnson Amendment was named after then-Sen. Lyndon B. Johnson, a Texas Democrat, in 1954. Johnson was the Senate minority leader at the time, and he and other lawmakers were concerned 501(c)(3) nonprofit groups would get involved in the elections on behalf of their opponents. Just before the Senate’s summer recess, Johnson, who would go on to become vice president and later president, pushed through an amendment to rescind a charitable nonprofit’s tax-exempt status if such an organization—including churches—campaigned for or against a political candidate.

The text of the House and Senate bills protect liberal and conservative groups, and churches of any leaning, said Travis Weber, director for the Center for Religious Liberty at the Family Research Council. “This loosens up simple speech on churches or environmentalist nonprofits or other groups,” Weber told The Daily Signal. “Some might seize on this and say this repeal would be good for just Republicans or for Christian conservatives, but they aren’t looking at the law to see who it protects.”

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Fred Lucas is the White House correspondent for The Daily Signal.

"A Pastor Fights Against Government Restrictions on Political Sermons" - Fred Lucas  / July 22, 2016; http://dailysignal.com/2016/07/22/a-pastor-fights-against-government-restrictions-on-political-sermons/