A Catholic adoption agency will not have to abandon its beliefs on marriage and the family in order to continue working with the state of Michigan for the time being, a federal judge ruled Thursday.
“This case is not about whether same-sex couples can be great parents,” District Judge Robert Jonker wrote in his ruling granting an injunction against new state rules. “What this case is about is whether St. Vincent [Catholic Charities] may continue to do this work and still profess and promote the traditional Catholic belief that marriage as ordained by God is for one man and one woman.”
The ruling bars Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel from acting on the terms of a legal settlement with the ACLU reached back in March that would have forced faith-based organizations that work with the state to place children in same-sex households, regardless of any deeply held religious beliefs. Michigan, like many other states, contracts with private adoption agencies to place foster children in new homes, and the ACLU sued in 2017 saying that prospective LGBT parents had been turned away by christian organizations.
In April, religious liberty legal nonprofit Becket responded to the settlement with a lawsuit on behalf of St. Vincent Catholic Charities, adoptive parents Chad and Melissa Buck, and a former foster child.
Jonker, a George W. Bush appointee, also wrote, “Under the Attorney General’s current interpretation of Michigan law and the parties’ contracts, St. Vincent must choose between its traditional religious belief, and the privilege of continuing to place children with foster and adoptive parents of all types.” The ruling also stated that the state’s position “strongly suggests the State’s real goal is not to promote non-discriminatory child placements, but to stamp out St. Vincent’s religious belief and replace it with the State’s own.” (Read more from “Federal Judge Sides With Christians in LGBT Adoption Case” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/Rainbow_flag_flapping_in_the_wind.jpg19442592Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2019-09-27 22:03:022019-09-27 22:00:59Federal Judge Sides With Christians in LGBT Adoption Case
A federal judge reversed his ruling about a Missouri pro-life law Friday by blocking a provision that prohibits discriminatory abortions on unborn babies with Down syndrome.
Planned Parenthood and the American Civil Liberties Union challenged the state law, which includes multiple pro-life provisions including a ban on abortions after 8 weeks when an unborn baby’s heartbeat is detectable.
In August, U.S. District Judge Howard Sachs blocked the state from enforcing most parts of the law, but he allowed the non-discrimination measures to be enforced.
On Friday, however, Sachs issued a revised ruling blocking enforcement of the Down syndrome abortion ban as well.
“Sad news,” Samuel H. Lee of Campaign Life Missouri told LifeNews. “At the moment, Missouri will not be able to prevent the discriminatory abortions of unborn children with Down syndrome. In a society which in recent decades has advanced the rights of the most vulnerable, disabled individuals who are already born, this ruling perpetuates the cruel myth that some children are better off never being born.” (Read more from “Judge Blocks State Law That Bans Abortions on Babies With Down Syndrome” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/5080010428_1f3f462767_b-2-1.jpg699742Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2019-09-27 21:57:292019-09-27 21:55:50Judge Blocks State Law That Bans Abortions on Babies With Down Syndrome
The pro-abortion group NARAL celebrated its 50th anniversary Thursday by giving failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton its Lifetime Achievement Award.
In between criticisms of President Donald Trump, leaders of the radical pro-abortion group called Clinton “our president” and touted her pro-abortion record. NARAL held its 50th anniversary celebration Thursday in Washington, D.C.
“Women’s rights are human rights, and for 50 years NARAL has taken on the toughest fights to protect our most fundamental freedoms. Happy anniversary. Let’s keep going,” Clinton wrote on Twitter after accepting the award.
During her acceptance speech, Clinton spent a lot of time criticizing Trump, who has taken strong steps to protect human rights for both the born and unborn. Among his many actions, the president cut taxpayer funding to abortion providers, urged countries to stand together against the United Nation’s abortion agenda, and defended the conscience protection rights of pro-life medical workers. . .
NARAL is a radical pro-abortion group that boasts 2.5 million supporters. It lobbies against moderate, common-sense abortion regulations, including bans on discriminatory sex-selection abortions, parental consent laws for minors and protections for newborns who survive abortions. (Read more from “Clinton Wins Abortion ‘Achievement’, Calls Killing Babies a Human Right” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/Hillary_Clinton_-_Caricature_35182104576.jpg10801920Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2019-09-27 21:55:092019-09-27 21:52:34Clinton Wins Abortion ‘Achievement’, Calls Killing Babies a Human Right
Last summer, in the days after the Supreme Court decided Masterpiece Cakeshop on the narrow grounds that Colorado had violated Jack Phillips’s religious-liberty rights by specifically disparaging his religious beliefs, a bit of a skirmish broke out among conservative lawyers. How important was the ruling? Did it have any lasting precedential effect?
For those who don’t recall, the Supreme Court ruled for Phillips in large part because a commissioner of the Colorado Civil Rights Commission called Phillips’s claim that he enjoyed a religious-freedom right not to be forced to design a custom cake for a gay wedding a “despicable piece of rhetoric.” The commissioner also denigrated religious-liberty arguments as being used to justify slavery and the Holocaust.
While all agreed that it would have been preferable had the court simply ruled that creative professionals could not be required to produce art that conflicted with their sincerely held beliefs, the question was whether Justice Anthony Kennedy’s strong condemnation of anti-religious bigotry would resonate beyond the specific facts of the case. For example, what would happen if, in a different case, state officials called faithful Christians who seek to protect the religious freedom of Catholic adoption agencies “hate-mongers”?
In the United States District Court for the Western District of Michigan, it turns out that such rhetoric has cost the state a crucial court ruling, granted a Catholic adoption agency a vital victory, and demonstrated — once again — that anti-religious bigotry can (and should) carry substantial legal costs.
The case is called Buck v. Gordon. My friends at Becket represent St. Vincent Catholic Charities, a former foster child, and the adoptive parents of five special-needs kids. The facts are relatively complicated, but here’s the short version: St. Vincent upholds Catholic teaching by referring same-sex and unmarried families who seek foster and adoption recommendations and endorsements to agencies that have no objection to providing those services. There is no evidence that St. Vincent has prevented any legally qualified family from adopting or fostering a child. In fact, same-sex couples “certified through different agencies” have been able to adopt children in St. Vincent’s care. (Read more from “Once Again, Progressive Anti-Christian Bigotry Carries a Steep Legal Cost” HERE)
The U.S. military killed 36 ISIS militants in a series of three airstrikes in Libya over the past eight days, U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) announced Friday.
“This ongoing campaign against ISIS-Libya demonstrates that U.S. Africa Command persistently targets terrorist networks that seek to harm innocent Libyans,” read a statement from AFRICOM’s director of intelligence, Navy Rear Admiral Heidi Berg. “We will continue to pursue ISIS-Libya and other terrorists in the region, denying them safe haven to coordinate and plan operations in Libya.”
Seventeen ISIS members were killed in an airstrike on Thursday in southwest Libya. That strike followed a strike Tuesday near Murzuq that killed eleven jihadis, and a previous strike in the same area late last week that killed eight alleged fighters, AFRICOM said. (Read more from “Three-Dozen ISIS Fighters Killed in Series of U.S. Strikes” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/Anti_ISIS.png529529Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2019-09-27 21:42:002019-09-27 21:39:53Three-Dozen ISIS Fighters Killed in Series of U.S. Strikes
I know we’ve repeated this line, but let’s recap again. House Democrats decided to get the impeachment circus going based on an anonymous whistleblower complaint that alleged President Trump shook down the Ukrainian political leadership by withholding military aid unless they opened a corruption probe into Hunter Biden, son of former Vice President Joe Biden. The quid pro quo allegations spread like Ebola and the Democrats are now moving forward with their three-year-long project: impeaching President Trump for…winning the 2016 election. Did the person, who is reportedly a CIA agent, listen in on the July call where this mob-like shakedown occurred? No. He heard it from second and third-hand sources, hence why it’s loaded with errors. The media reporting drummed it up as Watergate 5.0. It was another nothing burger. There was no quid pro quo. There was nothing illegal.
At a minimum, the complaint contains numerous factual errors, which is unsurprising since it was not first-hand information. https://t.co/FZ4zPMF2bU
Well, you’d think that actual witnesses to activities that deem unethical would be the benchmark for reports like this, especially ones that will be used to impeach a president, right? A first-hand account is one thing, but this complaint is certainly not that. And it seems like the intelligence community secretly removed the direct, first-hand knowledge of wrongdoing requirement. Sean Davis of The Federalist has more:
Between May 2018 and August 2019, the intelligence community secretly eliminated a requirement that whistleblowers provide direct, first-hand knowledge of alleged wrongdoings. This raises questions about the intelligence community’s behavior regarding the August submission of a whistleblower complaint against President Donald Trump. The new complaint document no longer requires potential whistleblowers who wish to have their concerns expedited to Congress to have direct, first-hand knowledge of the alleged wrongdoing that they are reporting.
The brand new version of the whistleblower complaint form, which was not made public until after the transcript of Trump’s July 25 phone call with the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky and the complaint addressed to Congress were made public, eliminates the first-hand knowledge requirement and allows employees to file whistleblower complaints even if they have zero direct knowledge of underlying evidence and only “heard about [wrongdoing] from others.”
If this isn't a giveaway about the operation that was being run, I don't know what is. https://t.co/cRTaMEwr5h
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/32295251244_f540913634_b-2.jpg6831024Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2019-09-27 21:38:412019-09-27 21:35:30The Intelligence Community Secretly Removed the First-Hand Knowledge of Wrongdoing Requirement for Whistleblower Reports
Former Democratic Congressman Robert Francis O’Rourke is making history, I guess. He wants to take private property from millions of law-abiding Americans. Bob is anti-gun. And he proudly said “hell yes” to confiscating so-called assault weapons. He’s the liberal who thinks the AR-15 is a scary gun. Americans own millions of these rifles. There is no way compliance for confiscation will be honored. It’s illegal. It’s unconstitutional. And if Democrats want to follow the playbooks of never winning another presidential race for the foreseeable future, follow this guy’s lead. Liberals have short memories. Gun control already cost them the 2000 election, with Gore losing West Virginia, Tennessee, and Arkansas over his stance on gun control. Those states, even with Bush winning Florida, would have been enough to push Gore past 270 and succeed Bill Clinton in January of 2001.
So, whom does Bob (aka Beto) think should be trusted to own firearms in America? You guessed it; only the police, military, and other agents of the state should be allowed to own guns. And did I mention that he made this pitch at Kent State University, where the National Guard shot and killed four students in 1970 during a Vietnam War protest (via Reason):
Of all the places to argue that only the government should be trusted with guns, Beto O’Rourke picked…Kent State University.
[…]
Invoking armed agents of the state gunning down unarmed civilians is an interesting way to argue that Americans would be better off if the government forcefully disarmed private citizens. But hey, I guess that’s why we keep being told Beto’s an “unconventional” candidate.
[…]
As J.D. Tuccille pointed out last month, there’s scant evidence to suggest that such a policy could be implemented effectively, and it’s pretty unclear how O’Rourke would get gun owners to comply with the law.
(Read more from “Uh, Beto, That’s Not the Best Venue to Declare Who Should Only Be Trusted With Guns in America” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/46825655055_581c51dccd_b.jpg6831024Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2019-09-27 21:32:542019-09-27 21:29:17Uh, Beto, That’s Not the Best Venue to Declare Who Should Only Be Trusted With Guns in America
On Wednesday, the Israeli Ministry of Strategic Affairs released a report titled “Behind the Mask: The Antisemitic Nature of BDS Exposed” at the European Parliament, comprehensively detailing the anti-Semitic nature and actions of the BDS movement. The report includes frightening, chilling images that BDS members have used to demonize the state of Israel, and called upon governments around the world to “follow the lead of the German parliament, and to expose the connection between the BDS movement and anti-Semitism.”
The introduction to the report, authored by the renowned Prisoner of Zion and now Chair of The Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy Natan Sharansky, who spent nine years in Soviet jails, delineates how leadership of the BDS campaign receives legitimacy by claiming they stand for liberal values and human rights while they obfuscate their ties to terrorists and propagate anti-Semitism.
Although many who support the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement may do so out of a naive belief that it is working to achieve a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the truth is that BDS has but one goal: the destruction of the State of Israel. That goal however is masked cleverly behind the veneer of fighting for human rights and legitimate criticism of Israel.
(Read more from “Chilling Report on the Anti-Semitism of the Anti-Israel BDS Movement” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/israel-2186417_1280-2.jpg7971280Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2019-09-27 21:25:122019-09-27 21:23:45Chilling Report on the Anti-Semitism of the Anti-Israel BDS Movement
According to a new study, 7.5 million Californians may be using water contaminated with PFAs, chemicals that never break down and have been associated with cancer. Although the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) advises a cap of 70 parts per trillion (ppt) PFAS in drinking water, the survey found that over 40% of the 74 water systems that were studied had at least one sample with a level of total PFAS over 70 ppt. . .
The Environmental Protection Agency explained where PFAS can be found:
Food packaged in PFAS-containing materials, processed with equipment that used PFAS, or grown in PFAS-contaminated soil or water. Commercial household products, including stain- and water-repellent fabrics, nonstick products (e.g., Teflon), polishes, waxes, paints, cleaning products, and fire-fighting foams (a major source of groundwater contamination at airports and military bases where firefighting training occurs). Workplace, including production facilities or industries (e.g., chrome plating, electronics manufacturing or oil recovery) that use PFAS. Drinking water, typically localized and associated with a specific facility (e.g., manufacturer, landfill, wastewater treatment plant, firefighter training facility). Living organisms, including fish, animals and humans, where PFAS have the ability to build up and persist over time.
On the effects of these chemicals, the EPA stated, “Studies indicate that PFOA and PFOS can cause reproductive and developmental, liver and kidney, and immunological effects in laboratory animals. Both chemicals have caused tumors in animals.” They added, “The most consistent findings are increased cholesterol levels among exposed populations, with more limited findings related to: low infant birth weights, effects on the immune system, cancer (for PFOA), and thyroid hormone disruption (for PFOS).”
The EWG study noted, “PFAS contamination has been found in more than 800 communities, military bases, airports and industrial sites nationwide. EWG’s analysis of unreleased EPA-mandated test data estimates that more than 100 million Americans may have PFAS in their drinking water. Because PFAS are ‘forever chemicals’ that never break down once released into the environment, they build up in our blood and organs.” The study the cited the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: “virtually all Americans have PFAS in their blood.” (Read more from “This State May Be Using Water With Chemicals Linked to Cancer” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/2881872151_78e18968e5_b.jpg6851023Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2019-09-27 21:19:002019-09-28 23:15:31This State May Be Using Water With Chemicals Linked to Cancer
By LA Times. President Trump expressed disgust Thursday morning with the explosive whistleblower complaint, slamming the intelligence officer and the White House aides who helped him as “almost a spy” and suggested it was treason.
Speaking at a private event with U.S. diplomatic officials in New York, Trump described reporters as “scum” and raged at the Democrats’ new impeachment proceedings, which were spurred by the whistleblower’s complaint alleging that Trump tried to strong-arm Ukraine’s leader to interfere in the 2020 election.
The still-unidentified intelligence officer acknowledged that he did not listen to Trump’s July 25 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, but cited accounts from more than half a dozen White House and other officials over the last four months as part of “official interagency business.”
“Basically, that person never saw the report, never saw the call, he never saw the call — heard something and decided that he or she, or whoever the hell they saw — they’re almost a spy,” Trump said.
“I want to know who’s the person, who’s the person who gave the whistleblower the information? Because that’s close to a spy,” he continued. “You know what we used to do in the old days when we were smart? Right? The spies and treason, we used to handle it a little differently than we do now.” (Read more from “Trump: CIA Whistleblower Committed Treason” HERE)
DEEP STATE: Reports Point to the Trump-Ukraine Whistleblower Being a CIA Agent
By Townhall. So, who is this Trump-Ukraine whistleblower? Yes, the identities of whistleblowers are protected, but we all know pieces about who these folks are trickles down to the press. This is the Trump White House. The liberal media hates the president. They will do anything to destroy him, even outing the identity of the CIA agent. The New York Times reported that three anonymous sources told them the whistleblower is a member of The Company, though of course, Langley didn’t comment and the legal team for this person said such reporting was “dangerous.” This agent was assigned to the White House (via NYT) [emphasis mine]:
The whistle-blower who revealed that President Trump sought foreign help for his re-election and that the White House sought to cover it up is a C.I.A. officer who was detailed to work at the White House at one point, according to three people familiar with his identity.
The man has since returned to the C.I.A., the people said. Little else is known about him. His complaint made public Thursday suggested he was an analyst by training and made clear he was steeped in details of American foreign policy toward Europe, demonstrating a sophisticated understanding of Ukrainian politics and at least some knowledge of the law.
The whistle-blower’s expertise will likely add to lawmakers’ confidence about the merits of his complaint, and tamp down allegations that he might have misunderstood what he learned about Mr. Trump. He did not listen directly to a July call between Mr. Trump and President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine that is at the center of the political firestorm over the president’s mixing of diplomacy with personal political gain.
(Read more from “Deep State: Reports Point to the Trump-Ukraine Whistleblower Being a CIA Agent” HERE)
By Fox News. White House counselor Kellyanne Conway has taken aim at the unnamed “leaker” who raised concerns about President Trump’s phone call with Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky.
Conway said whoever it was who proceeded to share information with the intelligence community whistleblower whose complaint led to the current firestorm was hopefully tuned in to “The Story” when she appeared on Thursday evening.
“The whistleblower is someone who does not have firsthand knowledge of what happened,” she said, calling the individual “more blowhard than whistleblower.”
“I don’t consider them to be spies, but anybody who leaks conversations that are classified or are of national security sensitivity ought not to be working in the government — whoever you are — and I hope you’re watching, whoever you are.”
Conway continued to slam the anonymous person who was the purported conduit connecting the details of the phone call with the whistleblower. (Read more from “Kellyanne Conway Blasts Ukraine Call ‘Leaker’: ‘I Hope You’re Watching'” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/48795661648_1030e2315f_b.jpg6831024Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2019-09-26 20:33:162019-09-28 23:08:59Trump: CIA Whistleblower Committed Treason (AUDIO); DEEP STATE: Reports Point to the Trump-Ukraine Whistleblower Being a CIA Agent
