Tuesday, July 04, 2017



Alt-Left Insanity: OMG! Conservatives Have Religious Freedom!

Liberals don’t like the founding documents – especially the Constitution. (It’s sooooo old!!!!) It’s not that they don’t like to read. Toss them a page-turner about intersectionality and they are all over it. Stuff the Founding Fathers did, not so much.

They don’t like free press, though they claim they do. Remember this every time you see liberal idiots whining about Citizens United. That Supreme Court ruling was about a conservative group trying to make a movie criticizing then-candidate Hillary Clinton (Loss No. 1). The left is wildly opposed to conservative press rights, just not their own.

And, of course, they hate the Second Amendment. The idea of guns in the hands of the citizenry serves as a check and balance against scum foreign and domestic. They don’t like that one bit.
(CBSN Screenshot)

But they especially hate freedom of religion. As I write this, a man has been arrested for destroying the Ten Commandments monument, “less than 24 hours after it was installed on Arkansas Capitol grounds,” reported The Hill. Sure, it’s possible he’s right wing, but given the early reporting and the ACLU’s opposition to the monument, I’d bet not.

That’s not what has the alt-left in a state of high dudgeon. They are wigging because they just lost a Supreme Court ruling on religious freedom – 7-2. That’s right. This wasn’t a close ruling by the High Court. That means the swing vote – Justice Kennedy – and two liberals supported the ruling.

But lefty publications are crying like it’s the end of the world. Cosmo (because I always get my political guidance from a sex mag) screamed: “It was at the center of a Supreme Court case that could open the door for religious rights to trump all other civil rights in this country.” Note the sarcastic use of the word “trump.”

This is the part in our program where I remind folks what the First Amendment says about religion: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” That’s a statement in two parts but part two gets left out a lot. Congress can’t prohibit our free exercise of religion.

Even The Washington Post understands that, saying the court ruled: “that efforts at separating church and state go too far when they deny religious institutions access to government grants meant for a secular purpose.”

But the media response has been full freak-out. Vice, the news outlet for millennial idiots, attacked the lawyers in the case. “The Christian Lawyers Quietly Working to Erase LGBTQ Rights,” it wrote, bashing the fantastic Alliance Defending Freedom.

Vice treated ADF as some major villain because it wants religious children treated the same as those who aren’t. Actual quote: “Over the last few years, ADF has been stealthily seizing power in the nation's public school systems, with queer youth squarely in their crosshairs.” Seizing power used to be called winning court cases. In other words, where often liberal judges admit even Christians have rights?

That didn’t stop the author of this piece, gay activist Matt Baume, who blasted ADF, saying it “was founded as the Alliance Defense Fund in 1994 by a rogue's gallery of anti-gay activists.” You know what he means – conservatives.

SOURCE





Poor Western diets may not be to blame for high blood pressure! Members of a remote Indian tribe also suffer with the deadly condition - despite being vegetarian and extremely active

Poor Western diets and skipping the gym may not cause high blood pressure, if new research is to be believed.

An extremely active tribe in a remote region of India with no access to junk food also have the deadly condition.

The bizarre findings question the cause of the lifestyle disease, with many believing it to just affect the Western world due to their sugar and salt obsessions.

Members of the Katkari tribe, from Maharashtra, who consume a low-fat vegetarian diet, were followed over a period of two years.

Their avoidance of meat, strongly linked to the condition in recent years, and their active lifestyle should have protected them. 

What did they find?

But Professor Vijayaprasad Gopichandran, lead researcher, found that 16.8 per cent of them suffered from hypertension.

Despite the findings, the 410-strong tribe were still deemed to be at low risk of developing the condition that plagues millions, Daily Express reports.

Professor Gopichandran, based at a government-run research institute, also found 7.3 per cent had a form of diabetes.

Dr Klaus Witte, a consultant cardiologist at Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, told MailOnline that the findings were 'unsurprising'.

He said: 'What this study confirms is that diabetes and hypertension result as an interaction between genes and lifestyle.

SOURCE







A small commentary on accent in Britian

By Journalist Elizabeth Day

Elizabeth Day was born middle class, but her cut-glass accent has helped her gain access to the aristocracy. Now she’s written a book about upward mobility



I’ve always spoken with a voice that’s posher than my background. I’m not at the upper end of aristo-speak, where the vowels become elongated to the point of absurdity and everyone sounds as if they’re playing a bit part in Brief Encounter. But I’m distinctly well spoken. When I talk, you’ll hear received pronunciation with a light smattering of Downton Abbey.

That means people make assumptions about me, but those assumptions can sometimes work in my favour. It’s given me access to stately homes, polo matches, opera houses and parties where the great and the good of British society gather. I’ve met peers of the realm, royalty, Old Etonians and the filthy rich and I’ve spent a lifetime observing the British “ruling class”.

SOURCE






GOP bill would let churches endorse political candidates

A House Appropriations subcommittee introduced an amendment Thursday to a funding bill that would deny money to the IRS to enforce a law that prohibits political endorsement by nonprofit groups like churches.

Churches should have the right to endorse political candidates and still keep their tax-free status, according to House Republicans trying to block a law that prohibits such outright politicking from the pulpit.

Republicans have failed to scrap the law preventing churches and other nonprofits from backing candidates, so they’re trying to starve it.

With little fanfare, a House Appropriations subcommittee added a provision that would deny money to the IRS to enforce the 63-year-old law to a bill to fund the Treasury Department, Securities and Exchange Commission, and other agencies.

The subcommittee passed the bill Thursday.

Republicans say the law is enforced unevenly, leaving religious leaders uncertain of what they’re allowed to say and do.

‘‘I believe that churches have a right of free speech and an opportunity to talk about positions and issues that are relevant to their faith,’’ said Representative Jim Renacci, Republican of Ohio.

Some Democrats say the measure comes too close to mixing church and state. They say religious leaders already have First Amendment rights, just like anyone else. But if they want to get political, they don’t have a right not to pay taxes.

Some also worry that the measure could upend the system of campaign financing by allowing churches to use their tax-free status to funnel money to political candidates.

Representative Richard Neal, Democrat of Massachusetts who represents Springfield and the western part of the state, recalled a speech that President Kennedy gave to religious leaders when he was running for president.

‘‘He said the pope wouldn’t tell him what to do, and the people in that audience shouldn’t be telling people on Sunday morning who to vote for,’’ Neal said. ‘‘I don’t think churches should be endorsing.’’

Some nonprofit groups want to avoid politics. In April, 4,500 nonprofit groups signed onto a letter to congressional leaders asking them to keep the law.

The law prohibits tax-exempt charitable organizations such as churches from participating directly or indirectly in any political campaign to support or oppose a candidate. If the IRS determines that a group violated the law, it can revoke its tax-exempt status.

The law doesn’t stop religious groups from weighing in on public policy or organizing in ways that may benefit one side in a campaign.

The bill specifically forbids the IRS from spending money to enforce the law against ‘‘a church, or a convention or association of churches,’’ unless the IRS commissioner signs off on it and notifies Congress.

The bill doesn’t mention other types of nonprofit groups, or even synagogues or mosques, said Nick Little of the Center for Inquiry, which promotes secularism.

‘‘All they care about is the Christian groups, and in particular, it will end up as the extreme religious right Christian groups,’’ Little said. ‘‘If this goes through, this would add just another way in which unregulated dark money could be used.’’

Religious leaders have been weighing in on political issues for generations, whether it’s the debate over abortion or advocating for the poor. But the IRS has stepped in when religious leaders explicitly endorse or oppose candidates.

SOURCE

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the  incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of  other countries.  The only real difference, however, is how much power they have.  In America, their power is limited by democracy.  To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already  very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges.  They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did:  None.  So look to the colleges to see  what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way.  It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH,   EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here

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