Repeal the Johnson Amendment: Make Free Speech for Churches Great Again

Obama's former pastor of twenty years seems to have had all the freedom he wanted.

And these people seem to have plenty of freedom:

All that aside, here is the article posted:

John Steinreich  "While the media-begotten pseudo-scandals inundate the electorate with pro-Hillary messaging in an attempt to derail the Trump candidacy, it will do us well to consider some of the substance upon which concerned voters may wish to rely as they are sorting out the 2016 election.  Donald Trump’s nomination acceptance speech contained a brief sojourn into a important but little discussed topic he has reiterated on the stump.  Somewhat buried under the details that Mr. Trump laid out regarding the utter calamity that would be a Hillary Clinton presidency was his commentary on a 1954 piece of legislation known as the Johnson Amendment.  The germane section of the speech was this:"

At this moment, I would like to thank the evangelical community who have been so good to me and so supportive. You have so much to contribute to our politics, yet our laws prevent you from speaking your minds from your own pulpits.  An amendment, pushed by Lyndon Johnson, many years ago, threatens religious institutions with a loss of their tax-exempt status if they openly advocate their political views.  I am going to work very hard to repeal that language and protect free speech for all Americans.

. . . "Jesus told His disciples to render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s; by protecting their money through tax-exempt status, America’s preachers have surrendered both their right to free speech and the moral authority that comes with taking difficult positions on matters of political interest to Caesar.  Our nation’s clergy has effectively been bought off by the lure of filthy tax-exempt lucre." . . .

Egypt: The high moral standard that there used to be for democracy in the United States ... is not what it used to be.

The German publication Bild calls this the craziest election of all time.

Al-Ahram (Egypt) 10 July 2016.  . . . "It is not easy to predict at this early stage of the tense U.S. election environment, which is clearly changing rapidly. There are many reasons for these changes, including: (1) economics, fundamentally; (2) the legacy of Obama's administration, which did not have a correct reading on global variables, and failed, as the two rival political parties see it, to achieve the interests of the United States in intense contested international battles; and (3) the complicated global situations, proxy wars, and especially the issue of international terrorism which haunts the American elite and threatens its interests.
. . . 

"The arrival of Trump at the White House remains a possibility because of the American public’s severe mood and its anxiety to the extent of being phobic. Perhaps there is no better example of such phobia than that which caused the suffering of a United Arab Emirates’ citizen last week as he was arrested and humiliated for nothing more than wearing "Arab clothing"! This case exposes the phobias that have taken root within the general public. Similar incidents have occurred to innocent people simply due to their appearance or to Arab or Muslim names, incidents which have never even been reported by the media. The “deep state” is no longer capable of easily hiding its slide into paranoia of the other. This is a tune which Trump audiences love and which he plays for his voter base ad nauseam. Not far from this are the intense attacks against the Arab states, which still similarly carry messages of negativity and distortions and which further inflate ideas of the "evil" and the piousness of the Arab-Muslim world in the minds of American citizens!" . . .

Clinton White House thievery: true or false?

"An Internet meme claiming that Hillary Clinton was forced to return $200,000 worth of furniture, china and art she "stole" from the White House is based on a grain of truth."

Snopes says: mostly false

WHAT'S TRUE: The Clintons voluntarily returned or paid for some gifts due to dispute over whether they had been given to the Clintons personally or to the U.S.
WHAT'S FALSE: The Clintons were not "forced" to return any gifts, they were not found to have "stolen" any items, and the aggregate value of the objects in question was much less than $200,000.

"ORIGIN:In January 2001, former president Bill Clinton and former first lady Hillary Clinton disclosed that they had received $190,027 worth of gifts during 2000, the final year of their eight-year tenure in 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. According to the Washington Post, the Clintons took the booty with them when they moved out of the White House: 

Many of the gifts the Clintons are taking with them are from Hollywood figures, Democratic donors and a wide array of friends and associates, including his Georgetown University classmates.

Most of the gifts are artworks, flatware, furniture, china and rugs for a couple who for nearly two decades have not had a home of their own but now suddenly have two large houses, one in Northwest Washington, the other in Chappaqua, N.Y.

. . . "A statement from Clinton spokesman James E. Kennedy attempting to explain the flap proved less than enlightening:

A statement issued tonight by James E. Kennedy for Mr. Clinton's office said that all the chairs, tables, rugs and other furnishings taken for their homes in Washington and Chappaqua, N.Y., had been registered as personal gifts by the White House gift office.

''Every item accepted by the Clintons was identified by the White House gift office as a gift to them,'' the statement said, adding that the administrative staff at the White House had ''reviewed each of the items against the official list of White House property to ensure every gift was properly handled; none of these items was on that list.''

The park service handles permanent donations, officials said. Personal gifts to the president and his family are recorded separately through the White House gift office.

The statement offered no explanation for the apparent appearance of the gifts — which include sofas, a rug and a kitchen table with chairs — on both lists. Betty Monkman, the White House curator, did not respond to an interview request.

. . . "A House government reform subcommittee conducted a year-long investigation concluding in 2002 which found that many of the gifts received by the Clintons had been undervalued, some were never reported and some were listed as lost or missing. No allegations of illegality were made, but the subcommittee's report recommended that the existing, overly complex system for overseeing the receipt, valuation and disposition of presidential gifts be overhauled."

The Wrath of Khan

Then it turned out Trump's Muslim ban was a huge hit with actual voters. Hillary, who promises to quadruple the number of Syrian "refugees" we bring in, is quite far from winning "in a walk." 

Ann Coulter  "In order to shut down a debate they're losing, Democrats find victims to make their arguments for them, pre-empting counter-argument by droning on about the suffering of their victim-spokesperson. Alternative opinions must be preceded by proof that the speaker has "sacrificed" more than someone who lost a child, a husband, or whatever. 

"Khan's argument, delivered angrily and in a thick Pakistani accent at the DNC, is that "our" Constitution requires us to continue the nonstop importation of Muslims. 

"If the U.S. Constitution required us to admit more than 100,000 Muslims a year -- as we do -- we'd already be living in Pakistan, and Khan wouldn't have had to move to get that nice feeling of home. So the "argument" part of Khan's point is gibberish. " . . .

Newspaper rejects ad over the word "Christian"

“Considering how liberal this paper is...I take the apology with a grain of salt,” one reader wrote on Facebook.

Todd Starnes

"The owners of a Christian bookstore in Knoxville, Tennessee were dumbfounded after the News Sentinel rejected their ad because it included an offensive word – “Christian.”

"Lois McGinnis and her family own Cedar Springs Christian Store. They recently decided to close a second location of the store so they decided to place an ad in the classified section of the newspaper, which is owned by Gannett." . . .

One of Starnes' books.

"Mrs. McGinnis placed the ad on July 26. It was supposed to run on July 28. But when she opened up the newspaper – the ad was nowhere to be found.

"So Mrs. McGinnis phoned the newspaper and spoke with a classified ad employee.

“ 'She said our ad did not run because it contained an offensive word,” she told me. “I asked what that offensive word was and she said the offensive word was ‘Christian.’”

"She said the News Sentinel did not notify her in advance the ad had been rejected nor did they call to say they were refunding her money.

“ 'We had no way of knowing they considered the word ‘Christian’ offensive until we tried to place this ad,” she told me." . . .

Mike Adams: Give Peace a Chance

Mike Adams

"Yesterday, I received a letter from a reader urging me to show more grace and compassion towards Black Lives Matter (BLM) – a group I have sharply criticized in recent weeks. The reader claimed that the group is simply misguided and has merely “drifted off course” in its short three ­year existence. She specifically asked me to stop using my Twitter account to characterize them as “racist.” She finally ended her missive by asking “Where are all of the protestors of the 60s who could show them the error of their ways?” Such naïve historical ignorance is deserving of a column length response." . . .

. . . " By the end of the decade, the communists would kill two million people in Southeast Asia. And not a word of protest came from the “anti war” movement. So let me be as clear as I possibly can about three conclusions that inevitably flow from all of these events:" . . .

. . . "So where are the old “anti war” demonstrators now? And what is their relationship to the Black Lives Matter movement? I think you already know the answer but I’ll say it anyway: The 60s protestors joined the university faculties in masse and became lifetime radical anti-American activists with tenure."

 

Irony Illustrated

The Conservative

Hold your nose and vote for Trump...PLEASE!

Never was a candidate so repulsive and beatable as Hillary, yet who do we have to oppose her but this candidate who won't talk issues instead of attacking ordinary people? One rule in politics is to never "punch down", which Mr. Trump cannot ever keep from doing.
Yes, I will vote for him because the Clintons must be kept out of the White House and I can neutralize one Democrat vote. 
Think Supreme Court. TD

terrellaftermath: Kinda etch-a-sketchy, don't you think?

Brand Loyalty and Hillary  . . . "All elections, withal, are largely about brand loyalty. Obama, Clinton, and Left loyalists capture just about all the victims and dependents; anyone who works for government, sells something to government, or relies on government for a paycheck or a handout. "Unfortunately, the “taker” class is growing faster than the “maker” class."

Hillary's going to need a little help to pull this one out  ". . . [Obama's] fundamental transformation is that he doubled the deficit to $20 trillion.  He appointed two solid left-wing justices, Kagan and the Wise Latina, to the Supreme Court.  He needs Hillary to appoint Justice Antonin Scalia's replacement plus probably two more who would give the lefties a 20- to 30-year majority on the Court.  You can be sure that the Obama-Hillary court would uphold every regulation of firearms that would render the Second Amendment meaningless.  A Trump presidency would end the lefties' dream to control the Court."

Hillary's Four Pinnochio interview  " . . .FBI Director James Comey "said my answers were truthful, and what I’ve said is consistent with what I have told the American people."

"This was a lie so baldfaced and brazen that it earned a rare "4 Pinocchios" from the Washington Post, meaning a lie so big that itactually risks ripping the time-space continuum apart."

Liberal Media; Including Black Trump Supporter Smacking Down CNN for Race Baiting

Rebel Pundit

Speaking of CNN: On CNN, Pat Smith Blasts 'Dirt' Treatment From Media Over RNC Speech  . . . "The anchor spent four more questions trying to get Smith to rebuke the billionaire presidential nominee over the Khan controversy:" Video  . . . Fishing for an anti-Trump sound bite from an anti-Hillary mother would be a trophy catch for this Brooke Baldwin  

3 top officials resign from the Democratic National Committee 

". . . But the media narrative remains (and always will remain until November 8) that the other party, the Republican Party, is falling apart – over Donald Trump, of course.

"The Wikileaks DNC email hack is at the root of the departures, as all three senior officials were incriminated by emails they sent.  David Sherfinski and Dave Boyer of the Washington Times report:" . . .

MRC's Brent Bozell Slams ‘Incredible’ Disparity in Coverage of Grieving Moms  . . . "Speaking of Hillary Clinton’s answers to Mrs. Smith, Bozell reasoned, “You could say, ‘Brent, you're just 100 percent a right-wing nut.’ Fine. Shouldn't the press have an interest in this other than Fox?' ” 

earloftaint

France Cancels Summer Events Because "We Are In A Situation of War"

‘We are at war’: France gets it, even if US liberals do not.

Infidel Bloggers

"Much-loved summer events in France are having to be cancelled as local authorities fear that adequate security cannot be provided. Events in Brittany and Marseille are the latest to be scrapped.

One of the lamentable impacts of the spate of terror attacks in France has been that local authorities are being forced to cancel certain summer events.

After the Bastille Day truck attack in Nice the interior minister Bernard Cazeneuve told mayors across the country not to think twice about cancelling an event if they thought security could not be guaranteed.

. . . "The list of cancelled events has started to grow."

LIBERALS: They HATE A Hero’s Mother And Yet, LOVE A Thug’s Mom

Doug Giles  Read Mr. Giles' remark about "liberal values".

Related to the above is this story:  

Khizr Khan Advocates That Sharia Supercedes the American Constitution - That Is Sedition
"Notwithstanding his war-hero son’s genuinely patriotic example, Khizr M. Khan has published papers supporting the supremacy of Islamic law over “man-made” Western law — including the very Constitution he championed in his Democratic National Convention speech attacking GOP presidential nod Donald Trump. " . . .

Khan provides his own advocacy for Sharia law in a separate academic paper titled “Juristic Classification of Islamic Law,” which he also wrote in 1983, while studying in Saudi Arabia. 

“The invariable and basic rules of Islamic law are only those prescribed in the Shari’ah,” Khan writes. 

“All other juridical works… must always be subordinated to the Shari’ah.” He explains that Sharia is derived from the Quran and Sunnah, and that the Quran “is the absolute authority from which springs the very conception of legality and every legal obligation.” 

Khizr Khan ‘Lying for the Faith’ by Pretending ‘There Is No Such Thing as Sharia Law’  . . . “ 'Anderson Cooper, last night, he’s on his program, and he says, quote, ‘I do not stand for any sharia law because there is no such thing,’” Gaffney said incredulously of an interview Khan gave CNN. “You gotta say, Steve, A, that’s taqiyya – that is, lying for the faith – and B, it is demonstrably fraudulent.' ” . . .(Emphasis mine, TD)

Why Does the Left Ignore Nuclear Power?

"They focus on wind and solar, but those sources are miles behind."

Lewis Morris

"Predictably absent from the Democrats' party platform for 2016, as it was in 2012 and in 2008, is a coherent energy strategy that matches their rhetoric on climate change. Once again, they have had the opportunity to face the facts on the benefits of nuclear power, and once again, they have chosen to demonize the one non-fossil fuel energy source that can come close to meeting their lofty goals of reducing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

"It’s not that the Dems are ignoring nuclear power. As Robert Bryce, senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, points out, they bring up “nuclear” plenty of times. It’s just that each mention links the word to other catchy terms like “annihilation” and “weapon.” Nuclear as a source of clean energy that the Left craves is never brought up. It just doesn’t fit the narrative.

"Throughout the Obama administration, the Left, which has always run the EPA, spoke the gospel of clean energy. They overhyped the global threat of climate change, declared it primarily attributable to human behavior, calculated that only lower greenhouse gas emissions could save us, then set about reducing those gases by any means available." ...