Watch: Ted Cruz Confronts Trump Supporters in Indiana

22514370780_f63e91881a_bTed Cruz decided to confront face-to-face some supporters of rival Donald Trump in Indiana on Monday. Cruz calmly talked to a sign-holding protester while the protester and others around them shouted, mostly against Cruz.

While trying to talk to the protester, Cruz asked the man why he supported Trump.

“Let me ask you something, sir—what do you like about Donald Trump?” Cruz asked.

“Everything,” the man said.

“Give me one,” Cruz said. (Read more from “Ted Cruz Confronts Trump Supporters in Indiana” HERE)

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This State Just Passed a Bill to Permanently Defund Planned Parenthood

maxresdefaultThe state of Kansas is likely to permanently prevent Planned Parenthood from receiving federal family planning funds administered within the state.

A bill to prevent the abortion provider from accessing that revenue stream passed both houses of the state legislature: 87-34 in the House and 32-8 in the state Senate.

Although such funds have been cut off by annual budgets dating back to 2011, the new measure would make the prohibition an ongoing state policy not requiring annual reauthorization.

A second bill also approved on Sunday night would make it illegal for midwives “to perform, induce or prescribe drugs for an abortion.” It passed the Senate unanimously, 40-0, and cleared the House by a vote of 115-7.

Some had said the prohibition was unnecessary, since midwives do not usually perform abortions. However, Kansans for Life noted legal language that could be interpreted as giving midwives such ability. Current state law defines a midwife as someone who provides services “associated with a normal, uncomplicated pregnancy.” (Read more from “This State Just Passed a Bill to Permanently Defund Planned Parenthood” HERE)

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7 Sure Signs America Has Declared War on Our Faith

cross-1367851869dD1Is there an increasing hostility to Christian values and religious freedoms in our country today? Here are seven representative examples, all from the last few weeks. Judge for yourself.

1. The NCAA announced that it will not hold any men’s and women’s Final Four basketball events in a city that “discriminates” against anyone based on sexual orientation or gender identity.

In its official statement, the NCAA declared, “The board’s decision follows the recent actions of legislatures in several states, which have passed laws allowing residents to refuse to provide services to some people based on their sexual orientation or gender identity. While proponents of the laws focus on how they protect religious beliefs, critics have voiced concerns that they create an environment of sanctioned discrimination.”

Not only, then, has the NCAA grossly mischaracterized these recent laws, but it is now guilty of discriminating against biblically based beliefs and declaring that no Final Four game will be held in any city that does not allow men to use women’s bathrooms or that protects a Christian photographer from being forced to shoot a same-sex “wedding.”

2. The Colorado Supreme Court has chosen not to hear the case of Christian baker Jack Phillips who was previously ordered by the Colorado Civil Rights Commission “to create cakes for same-sex celebrations, re-educate his staff, and file quarterly ‘compliance’ reports for two years.”

According to Jeremy Tedesco, Senior Counsel with the Alliance Defending Freedom, “We asked the Colorado Supreme Court to take this case to ensure that government understands that its duty is to protect the people’s freedom to follow their beliefs personally and professionally, not force them to violate those beliefs as the price of earning a living. Jack, who has happily served people of all backgrounds for years, simply exercised the long-cherished American freedom to decline to use his artistic talents to promote a message and event with which he disagrees, and that freedom shouldn’t be placed in jeopardy for anyone.”

The Court declined to hear the case, meaning that the state’s Civil Rights Commission not only has the power to require a bakery to make same-sex “wedding” cakes but also to require that baker to “reeducate” his staff and file regular reports proving that he is baking those cakes.

Chairman Mao would be proud of state-mandated “reeducation” like this.

3. Dr. Eric Walsh, the highly qualified, newly hired District Health Director with the Georgia Department of Public Health was fired because of the content of his sermons as a Seventh Day Adventist.

As expressed by Jeremy Dys, an attorney with First Liberty, which has taken on Walsh’s case, “No one in this country should be fired from their job for something that was said in a church or from a pulpit during a sermon.” And as noted by attorney David French, “Working for former president Bush and President Obama to combat AIDS, serving as a board member of the Latino Health Collaborative, and starting California’s first city-run dental clinic for low-income families dealing with HIV/AIDS wasn’t sufficient to overcome the horror at Walsh’s Christian views.”

How dare he preach what the Bible says and try to serve his country at the same time.

4. Several senators have introduced a bill that would deem “all efforts to change someone’s sexual orientation or gender identity an ‘unfair or deceptive act or practice’ under the Federal Trade Commission Act.”

That’s right. It would be illegal — a form of “medical malpractice” — to counsel someone struggling with same-sex attraction or gender identify confusion, but it would be perfectly legal to encourage someone to embrace those attractions or act on that confusion.

Already in 2009, conservative journalist Matthew Cullinan Hoffman wryly observed:

A man goes to a psychologist with a problem. “Doctor,” he says, “I’m suffering terribly. I feel like a woman trapped inside the body of a man. I want to become a woman.”

The psychologist responds: “No problem. We can discuss this idea for a couple of years, and if you’re still sure you want to be a woman, we can have a surgeon remove your penis, give you hormones for breast enlargement and make other changes to your body. Problem solved.”

Gratified, the first patient leaves, followed by a second. “Doctor,” he says, “I feel terrible. I’m a man but I feel attracted to other men. I want to change my sexual preference. I want to become heterosexual.”

The psychologist responds: “Oh no, absolutely not! That would be unethical. Sexual orientation is an immutable characteristic!”

Family therapist Adam Jessel offered a similar observation: “In today’s climate, if Bill tells me that he is attracted to his neighbor Fred’s young child and he wants to reduce these attractions, I, as a therapist, can try to help him. If Bill has an unwanted attraction to Fred’s wife, this too is something I am permitted to help him with. But if Bill has an unwanted attraction to Fred himself, then it’s regarded as unethical for me to help.”

If this new bill becomes law, it would not only be considered unethical to help Bill deal with his same-sex attractions, it would be illegal.

It would also be illegal to help a person get to the root of his or her gender confusion, but it would be perfectly legal for a counselor to recommend hormone blockers for a 10-year-old to stop the onset of puberty and then to prepare that child for sex-change surgery as soon as they were old enough.

Here are a few more examples, in shorter form, all from recent weeks.

5. The NBA announced that it will not hold next year’s All-Star game in Charlotte, North Carolina unless the state changes HB2, the Bathroom Privacy Act.

So, unless North Carolina agrees to let grown men use women’s locker rooms and changing facilities, and unless it removes protections for religious liberties, it will be punished.

6. The Department of Education has decided, “Religious schools that receive federal money yet obtain federal exemptions to [allegedly!] discriminate against LGBT students and employees will have their waivers posted online for public view.”

This means that any Christian institution receiving federal money and at the same time holding to biblical morality and sexuality could suffer adverse consequences.

“Led by Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, the lawmakers said in December, ‘We are concerned these waivers allow for discrimination under the guise of religious freedom.’”

Oh, those terrible religious freedoms!

7. As reported on Breitbart News, “A federal court sided with a transgender student who insisted that the Obama administration’s reading of federal Title IX rules would allow her to choose her own bathroom at her Virginia high school.”

According to the exultant Virginia ACLU, “With this decision, we hope that schools and legislators will finally get the message that excluding transgender kids from the restrooms is unlawful sex discrimination.”

In other words, no matter of what kind of hardship or inconvenience this puts on the rest of the students, and without any type of scientific proof that a child is actually “transgender,” the perceived needs of the one or two struggling children will be imposed on the other 1,000, and the Obama administration will come after your school if you fail to comply.

What’s scary is that I could have listed quite a few more examples, all from the month of April.

Believers in America, if somehow you are still sleeping, it is high time you woke up. (For more from the author of “7 Sure Signs America Has Declared War on Our Faith” please click HERE)

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Glenn Beck: Fast 1 Day for God to Help U.S.

6239428186_d54780740c_bBy Cheryl Chumley. Glenn Beck, former Fox News host and the founder of Blaze media products, called on America to join him for a fast in the lead-up to the presidential primary.

He’s spreading the word with the Twitter hastag #Tuesdayfast.

In a Facebook post, Beck wrote: “I have asked for this in the past and was mocked. It is okay. I would like to ask that you, your family and friends join me for a day of prayers, fasting and humility. To beg the Lord to not remove His hand from us. To turn to Him and ask that He will heal our land. Beginning Monday night and running for 24 hours ending on Tuesday will you pray and if possible fast like you have never done before?”

Beck began his post by telling the story of George Washington who, in 1789, “raised his right hand and placed his left on the Bible which had been opened randomly to Genesis 49 … then walked a few blocks to attend a service … and spent four hours in prayer and made a covenant with God.”

He then wrote that America is now “shunning God,” and would soon face His judgment. (Read more from “Glenn Beck: Fast 1 Day for God to Help U.S.” HERE)

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Rafael Cruz: “I Implore Every Member of the Body of Christ to Vote According to the Word of God”

By Jim Hoft. Pastor Rafael Cruz, father of Ted Cruz, asked members of the Body of Christ to vote Cruz:

“I implore every member of the Body of Christ to vote according to the word of God. And vote for the candidate that stands for the word of God and the Constitution of the United States of America… The alternative could be the destruction of America.”

(Read more from “Rafael Cruz: “I Implore Every Member of the Body of Christ to Vote According to the Word of God” HERE)

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In 6 Months Since Budget Deal: Debt up More Than $1 Trillion

debtIn the six months that have passed since then-retiring House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell cut a budget deal with President Barack Obama that suspended the legal limit on the federal debt until March 15, 2017, the federal debt has increased by more than $1 trillion.

The Senate passed “The Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015” with a vote held in the early morning hours of Friday, Oct. 30. Obama signed it on Monday, Nov. 2.

At the close business on Oct. 30, 2015, the total federal debt was $18,152,981,685,747.52. By the close of business on April 28, 2016—the latest date for which the Treasury has published the number–the total federal debt was $19,186,207,744,589.55 . . .

On Monday, Nov. 2–the day Obama signed the Bipartisan Budget Act and thus suspended the debt limit–the debt took a big leap. It closed that day at $18,492,091,120,833.99—up $339,109,435,086.47 from its $18,152,981,685,747.52 closing on Friday, Oct. 30.

Prior to that, the part of the federal debt subject to the then-legal limit of $18,113,000,080,959.35 had been frozen just below that limit for more than seven months (from March 13, 2015 through Oct. 30, 2015), during a “debt issuance suspension period” that Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew had declared on March 13, 2015, to push back the date at which the debt limit would be exceeded. (Read more from “In 6 Months Since Budget Deal: Debt up More Than $1 Trillion” HERE)

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U.S. Commission: Religious Freedom Under ‘Serious and Sustained Assault’

summit-cross-225578_960_720 (2)The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) released their annual religious freedom report Monday and found that religious freedom worldwide “has been under serious and sustained assault” since their 2015 report.

“By any measure, religious freedom abroad has been under serious and sustained assault since the release of our commission’s last Annual Report in 2015,” the report said. “From the plight of new and longstanding prisoners of conscience, to the dramatic rise in the numbers of refugees and internally displaced persons, to the continued acts of bigotry against Jews and Muslims in Europe, and to the other abuses detailed in this report, there was no shortage of attendant suffering worldwide.”

“Regrettably the situation is that things have not improved and in some places things have gotten worse.” USCIRF Chairman Robert George told reporters in a conference call about the report on Monday. “At best in most of the countries we cover, religious freedom conditions have failed to improve in any serious or demonstrable way. At worst, they’ve spiraled downward.”

The report once again pushes for the U.S. State Department to designate Pakistan as a “country of particular concern,” or CPC, under the International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA), a recommendation it has made since 2002.

Pakistan’s “Religiously-discriminatory constitutional provisions and legislation, such as the country’s blasphemy law and anti-Ahmadiyya laws,” the report said, “intrinsically violate international standards of freedom of religion or belief and result in prosecutions and imprisonments.” (Read more from “U.S. Commission: Religious Freedom Under ‘Serious and Sustained Assault'” HERE)

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StemExpress Refuses to Turn Over All Documents on Purchase of Aborted Baby Parts

3166520949_b31875c53b_bThe biotech firm StemExpress is refusing to turn over all documents to Congress related to its purchasing and reselling of body parts from aborted babies sold to it from Planned Parenthood and other abortion businesses.

Chairman Marsha Blackburn has sent a letter to Cate Dyer, CEO of StemExpress, requesting full cooperation with the Select Investigative Panel’s efforts to obtain all business and accounting documents from the fetal tissue procurement organization.

“Over the last several months, we have made numerous attempts to acquire business and accounting documents from StemExpress that are necessary to complete our work at the Select Investigative Panel,” Blackburn wrote in the letter.

It continues: “All of these requests have been met with verbal and written objections from your attorneys. In light of recent public comments you have made and the consensus reached by witnesses at our April 20 hearing on The Pricing of Fetal Tissue that a complete review of StemExpress business and accounting documents was necessary, I am writing to personally request you turn this information over to our investigators.”

The letter says StemExpres is failing to turn over all of the documents the investigating committee has requested. (Read more from “StemExpress Refuses to Turn Over All Documents on Purchase of Aborted Baby Parts” HERE)

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3 New Earth-Sized Planets May Have Signs of Life

A Belgian-led team reported Monday that it’s discovered three Earth-sized planets orbiting an ultra-cool dwarf star less than 40 light-years away. It’s the first time planets have been found around this type of star — and it opens up new, rich territory in the search for extraterrestrial life.

Because this star is so close and so faint, astronomers can study the atmospheres of these three temperate exoplanets and, eventually, hunt for signs of possible life. They’re already making atmospheric observations, in fact, using NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope. The Hubble Space Telescope will join in next week.

Altogether, it’s a “winning combination” for seeking chemical traces of life outside our solar system, said Massachusetts Institute of Technology researcher Julien de Wit, a co-author of the study, released by the journal Nature. (Read more from “3 New Earth-Sized Planets May Have Signs of Life” HERE)

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Establishment Mouthpiece Tells GOP, ‘Reject Trump Even If He’s Nominee’

maxresdefaultBy George Will. Donald Trump’s damage to the Republican Party, although already extensive, has barely begun. Republican quislings will multiply, slinking into support of the most anti-conservative presidential aspirant in their party’s history. These collaborationists will render themselves ineligible to participate in the party’s reconstruction.

Ted Cruz’s announcement of his preferred running mate has enhanced the nomination process by giving voters pertinent information. They already know the only important thing about Trump’s choice: His running mate will be unqualified for high office because he or she will think Trump is qualified.

Hillary Clinton’s optimal running mate might be Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio, a pro-labor populist whose selection would be balm for the bruised feelings of Bernie Sanders’ legions. Running mates rarely matter as electoral factors: In 2000, Al Gore got 43.2 percent of the North Carolina vote. In 2004, John Kerry, trying to improve upon Gore’s total there, ran with North Carolina Sen. John Edwards but received 43.6 percent. If, however, Brown were to help deliver Ohio for Clinton, the Republican path to 270 electoral votes would be narrower than a needle’s eye.

Republican voters, particularly in Indiana and California, can, by supporting Cruz, make the Republican convention a deliberative body rather than one that merely ratifies decisions made elsewhere, some of them six months earlier. A convention’s sovereign duty is to choose a plausible nominee who has a reasonable chance to win, not to passively affirm the will of a mere plurality of voters recorded episodically in a protracted process. (Read more from “Establishment Mouthpiece Tells GOP, ‘Reject Trump Even If He’s Nominee'” HERE)

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Eyeing an Indiana Victory, Trump Says, ‘It’s Over’

By Steve Holland and Valerie Volcovici. Front-runner Donald Trump said on Sunday that he will have essentially sealed the Republican U.S. presidential nomination if he wins Tuesday’s contest in Indiana, where he holds a big lead over chief rival Ted Cruz.

A new NBC/Wall Street Journal/Marist opinion poll showed Trump with a wide lead in Indiana, 49 percent to 34 percent for Cruz and 13 percent for a third candidate, Ohio Governor John Kasich.

Trump, a 69-year-old billionaire real estate developer, sounded confident in an interview on “Fox News Sunday” when asked whether Indiana would basically end the long-running Republican race in his favor.

“Yes, it’s over,” Trump said. “It’s already over.”

The poll showed the depth of the challenge facing Cruz, a conservative U.S. senator from Texas who is trying to prevent Trump from winning the 1,237 delegates needed to seal the nomination. (Read more from “Eyeing an Indiana Victory, Trump Says, ‘It’s Over'” HERE)

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Amid ‘Cry of Change,’ Sanders Supporters May Back Another Outsider

Bernie_Sanders_2015_(1)_(cropped)If Donald Trump emerges as the Republican presidential nominee to face Hillary Clinton, he will receive support from backers of Clinton’s Democratic rival — at least that’s the prediction of Bill Maher.

“Some Bernie voters are going to vote for Trump,” Maher said Friday during his HBO show, Real Time with Bill Maher.

“Absolutely,” said Kellyanne Conway, who runs a super PAC that supports Sen. Ted Cruz. “Based on trade. Based on outsider, absolutely. No money in politics, same view.”

“I think Bernie Sanders is too poor to be bought, and I think Donald Trump is too rich to be bought by special interests,” said Royce Gourley, a real estate investor, who gave $2,500 to Sanders and $2,700 to Trump, Federal Election Commission filings show.

Trump has indicated he will seek the support of Sanders enthusiasm backers if the general election pits him against Clinton.

“You have two candidates in Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders which have reignited a group of people who have been disenfranchised and disappointed with the way Washington, D.C. and career politicians have run the country,” said Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski. “Bernie Sanders has large crowds — not as large as Mr. Trump’s, but large crowds — and so there is a level of excitement there for people about his messaging and we will bring those people in.” (Read more from “Amid ‘Cry of Change,’ Sanders Supporters May Back Another Outsider” HERE)

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