Sens. Cruz, Lee Accuse Justice Department of Favoring Abortion Clinics Over Churches

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Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Mike Lee of Utah are accusing the Justice Department of pursuing “frivolous prosecutions” against the pro-life movement and having, according to the senators’ offices, “what appears to be an exceptionally heavy bias” in favor of abortion clinics over houses of worship in a letter sent to U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch Tuesday.

The letter concerns the Justice Department’s enforcement of the 1994 Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act, a law that prohibits any use or threat of force and physical obstruction outside abortion clinics and places of religious worship. The law, however, does not criminalize peaceful protests or other First Amendment-protected activities outside abortion facilities or places of worship.

In the letter, obtained by The Daily Signal, the Republican senators write:

The [Justice Department’s] brazen pursuit (and subsequent online promotion) of—at best—frivolous prosecutions in the abortion context, combined with its failure to list any prosecutions or enforcement activities in the religious worship context, gives the distinct impression of a warped and biased enforcement of FACE by the [Justice Department].

Cruz and Lee reference the Civil Rights Division’s web page, which cites “more than 15 FACE actions in more than a dozen states” that the Justice Department has filed. The website also notes “ongoing investigations in other states,” along with “several FACE cases and settlement agreements concerning abortion clinic workers or abortion facilities.”

“Interestingly, it does not list a single case concerning the freedom of religious exercise at houses of worship,” Cruz and Lee write.

To further investigate the alleged double standard, Cruz and Lee are demanding that Lynch hand over a broad range of documents pertaining to the FACE Act dating back to January 2009.

For example, the senators requested that the Justice Department “identify the number of matters the [Justice Department] has investigated, looked into, or reviewed concerning potential FACE enforcement” with regard to access to both abortion facilities and houses of worship.

They are also seeking information about whether or not the Justice Department coordinated or closely communicated with abortion facilities or houses of worship in any of its investigations. Another request, for example, states:

Identify by date, location, and name of organization, every discussion, conference, or meeting (whether by e-mail, text message, phone, video or in person) between the DOJ and any abortion clinic or facility, abortion provider, parent organization or affiliate, concerning FACE enforcement with regard to access to abortion facilities.

According to the FBI, the U.S. experienced a “dramatic escalation in the number of acts of violence and harassment directed towards reproductive health care providers and clinics” in the mid-1980s. Since the passage of the 1994 FACE Act, “the number of violent crimes committed against reproductive health care providers and facilities has dramatically decreased.”

Most recently, Robert Lewis Dear Jr. was charged for attacking the Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood clinic on Nov. 27, 2015. The attacks left a police officer and two civilians dead.

Hans von Spakovsky, a legal expert at The Heritage Foundation who co-authored a book that discussed cases involving the 1994 FACE Act, said he has “not seen any evidence that there are more problems with violence at abortion clinics than at churches.”

“Look at the church burnings that have occurred in the past two decades,” he said. “The idea that one’s not more important than the other, I think, is not correct. And second, a number of the cases [the Justice Department] has filed have been clearly frivolous and meritless cases.”

Last year, The Daily Signal reported on several black churches in the South that have been affected by serious fires.

In their letter, Cruz and Lee specifically ask Lynch to state whether or not the Justice Department investigated, or will investigate, “the blocking of the entrance to, and interference with the religious exercise of members of the Los Angeles, Calif. house of worship shown in this video, particularly beginning at the 5:08 mark.”

According to the Catholic News Agency, the video depicts “violent assaults from opponents protesting the passage of the ballot proposal [Proposition 8] which rescinded a California Supreme Court decision that imposed same-sex marriage on the state.” The protests reportedly occurred at Mormon temples and Catholic churches.

The senators requested that the Justice Department provide the expected information no later than April 11. (For more from the author of “Sens. Cruz, Lee Accuse Justice Department of Favoring Abortion Clinics Over Churches” please click HERE)

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Ted Cruz Just Dodged a Huge Question About His Marriage… People Aren’t Going to Like This

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Ted Cruz declined to answer a question on Monday about whether he has ever been unfaithful to his wife Heidi.

‘Senator Cruz,’ DailyMail.com asked him, ‘can you please swat down more definitively this National Enquirer piece by telling us on the record that you’ve never been unfaithful to your wife?’

The National Enquirer published a story last Wednesday that speculated about five women with whom the Republican presidential candidate was rumored to have had extramarital affairs . . .

But instead of making a blanket declaration that he has been faithful during the entirety of his 14-year marriage – a move that would effectively end the vicious news cycle – Cruz stood silently as campaign surrogate Carly Fiorina leapt in to intercept the question and change the subject . . .

‘In a week when we have had a terrorist attack in Brussels, a shooting on Capitol Hill, the president of the United States in the baseball stands with Raul Castro, and insisting that he be photographed in front of a portrait of Che Guevara with the two Castro brothers, we are talking about a scurrilous, ridiculous piece in the National Enquirer?’ (Read more from “Ted Cruz Just Dodged a Huge Question About His Marriage… People Aren’t Going to Like This” HERE)

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How Liberal ‘Christian’ Immigration Policies Dehumanize EVERYONE

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People have long made fun of me for treating my beagles like humans — feeding them wild salmon, taking them to top-line doctors, getting them ultrasounds and liver meds, buffalo treats and gator meat and letting them sleep in bed. To which I’ve always answered, “It’s my money. Go get a job and earn your own.”

But of course I don’t treat my dogs exactly as if they were human. When Franz Josef got sick with bladder cancer, and the medicine stopped working, I agonized for days, said my goodbyes, then slowly fed him a whole rack of barbecued ribs. I took him to the vet, where I stroked his velvet head as the medicine smoothed his path to dreamless sleep.

That is not how I treated my parents when each of them died of cancer. Instead, I sat with them as they agonized, prayed with them, and brought the priest to help them repent for all their sins. Some would say that Franzi got off easy, that people should be treated as “mercifully” as animals, and “granted” quick, painless deaths. Since cancer strikes everyone in my family, it will surely claim me some day, so I am tempted to agree.

But I can’t, as a Christian, admit that human beings should be treated the same as pets, intentionally killed to spare them needless, useless suffering. Because we know that human suffering isn’t necessarily useless. Jesus’ pains on the cross were not a meaningless tragedy, and if we unite ours with his, they aren’t either. We should diminish them all we can, and accept what is left as the price of human dignity, the tax we pay for sin — our own, or other people’s. It’s a mind-tangling mystery, but it’s better than the alternative.

Here’s the alternative, as described by author Richard Weikart in his powerful new book The Death of Humanity:

The University of Chicago evolutionary biologist Jerry Coyne has stated, “Although it’s seen by nearly everyone as humane — and even moral — to end the life of our terminally ill pets, it’s regarded as murder to make the same decision for ourselves.”

He scoffs at the idea that humans are qualitatively different from, or have greater value than, animals. However, if you read more of Coyne, you find that he embraces many moral stances typical of many American progressives. He would be horrified if I suggested that we round up all the homeless people in a city, sterilize them, imprison them until someone comes to take them home with them, and if no one comes for them, euthanize them. Yet this is how we treat stray dogs.

And it’s how too many Christians, including some of our leaders, are treating Muslim immigrants. We linger over pictures of cute little Arab kids, or carefully posed shots of exotic women in beautiful headscarves — and avert our eyes from angry, self-righteous mobs of military-age men thronging radical mosques in London, Brussels, Paris, Frankfurt. We suppress the obvious questions: “What on earth are those people doing there?” “What reckless fools let them in?” And (most important): “How can we make them go back where they belong?”

Instead, we focus on the brown, puppy eyes of the children, the sad faces of the women, the anecdotes of good, decent Muslims — like the store owner in Glasgow, who said “Happy Easter” to his Christian customers on Facebook. We don’t read the sequel, which reports that this gesture got him stabbed to death by a man from the local mosque.

We want to feel good about ourselves. We want to be congratulated as “tolerant,” “open” and “cosmopolitan.” We don’t want to be labeled, judged, maybe even harassed by our “tolerant” governments. We want to bask in the fuzzy, cozy, pseudo-Christian sentiment that all religions are at root the same, once you bat down the “extremists.”

Now, all dogs are at root basically the same. The behavioral differences between a Basset Hound and a German Short-Haired Pointer are finally superficial. Virtually all dogs, if they’re raised well, if they’re not abused, will respond with warmth and gratitude. It’s the humanitarian heresy that pretends that humans are just like dogs.

Regardless of what they say they believe, of the habits their cultures encourage, of the actual, literal words of the sacred texts of their religion…. We Westerners know better. A radicalized Muslim — that is, one who reads the Koran and takes it at face value — may say that he thinks that Jews are descended from monkeys and pigs. He may even believe that he believes it’s right to stone homosexuals to death, or marry girls at the age of nine, or “kill the unbeliever wherever you find him.”

But surely he doesn’t really think that, the progressive thinking goes. Not really. A few years of Western welfare checks, some shiny community centers paid for by local taxpayers, and a police force that firmly punishes native citizens if they complain about immigration, and just you wait and see! Those “angry” Muslims will be smiling, wagging their little tails and eating right out of your hand.

How fitting that elites in Belgium treat religious people this way, since their country is one of the euthanasia capitals of the world. They see every person as a pet.

I have distilled here the whole theory, in all its sophistication, that underlies Western multiculturalism and “Christian” support for mass immigration into a welfare state. That’s it, folks.

Are there useful things Christians and the West can do for Muslims back in their own troubled countries? Yes indeed. But only if we take them seriously as fellow human beings — which means that when they threaten or denounce us, we stand up and guard against them. (For more from the author of “How Liberal ‘Christian’ Immigration Policies Dehumanize EVERYONE” please click HERE)

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Trump Made It PRETTY CLEAR Who’s to Blame for Lack of Mideast Peace

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Arab regimes, Western liberal politicians, the mainstream media – they all like to blame Israel for the lack of peace and stability in the Middle East.

But Donald Trump seems to see things a little more clearly, or at least he’s willing to tell the truth without regard for “political correctness.”

In an interview with The New York Times published over the weekend, Trump insisted that it was the Palestinian leadership, NOT Israel, that is to blame for the failure to reach a two-state solution.

“Basically, I support a two-state solution on Israel. But the Palestinian Authority has to recognize Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state. …[and they] have to stop the terror, stop the attacks, stop the teaching of hatred,” he said. (Read more from “Trump Made It PRETTY CLEAR Who’s to Blame for Lack of Mideast Peace” HERE)

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Watch: Famous Actress and Activist Says She Was ‘Severely Shaken’ After Realizing Her Left-Wing ‘Comrades Were Naked Bigots’

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Actress and comedian Roseanne Barr, who once ran for president as a Green Party candidate, described her ideological shift after discovering that those she used to consider left-wing colleagues were “naked bigots.”

Speaking at a conference in Jerusalem Monday on how to combat efforts to boycott Israel, Barr said, “Everything I’d ever believed about the left was severely shaken, and the scales began to fall from my eyes in many ways.”

“I had to admit that many of those I considered comrades were naked bigots who had absolutely no interest in peace between Israel and Palestinians Arabs at all as I did,” said Barr, who has become an outspoken advocate of Israel on social media.

“It was shocking to realize that what I considered criticism of Israel many, many times gave way to the garden variety anti-Semitism that I’d heard all of my life, which is basically the code-word ‘Rothschild’” Barr said, referring to the well-known banking family of Jewish origin often used in anti-Semitic memes . . .

She described American universities as “BDS factories” that are “anti-truth,” and blasted the common occurrence on U.S. campuses where pro-Palestinian activists try to shout down and silence speakers whose opinions they don’t like. (Read more from “Famous Actress and Activist Says She Was ‘Severely Shaken’ After Realizing Her Left-Wing ‘Comrades Were Naked Bigots'” HERE)

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The Raging Fire Against Religious Liberty

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There are times in history when American patriots need to call a time out and bring all hands on deck to deal with a raging fire. We are now living through one of those times.

Imagine if a prophet were to approach Sam Adams before the revolution and warn that in less than 250 years state governors would ban official travel to states that don’t allow men into women’s bathrooms?

Imagine if someone told James Madison, the man who referred to religious conscience as the “most sacred of property,” that individuals would be forced to use their own property and livelihood to service something that violates their consciousness and is condemned by every major religion?

Our founders could never have imagined a person’s private property becoming the national property of a pagan inquisition, and federal and state governments, which were intended to encourage religious virtue (although not coerce it), serve as a conduit for compulsory servitude to the idols of hedonism. Yet, that is exactly what is happening. And frankly, there has not been enough discussion about this existential threat among conservatives even in the presidential race.

Here are just three examples of the raging fire from the past week:

1. Last week, during oral arguments in Zubik v. Burwell, in which the Little Sisters of the Poor are suing the federal government for coercing them into covering abortifacients in employee health insurance plans, Justice Sonia Sotomayor demonstrated the following illiteracy of fundamental rights:

Because every believer that’s ever come before us, including the people in the military, are saying that my soul will be damned in some way. I’m not naysaying that that is a very substantial perceived personal burden by them. But if that’s always going to be substantial, how will we ever have a government that functions? How will we ever have anything that the government can demand people do in objecting…that won’t be a problem?

Gee, how will our government ever function if they can’t coerce private businesses to cover abortions or sex change operations with their own private health insurance compensation plan? The real question is how can the government and society function if they can coerce such activity? As John Witherspoon warned, “There is not a single instance in history in which civil liberty was lost, and religious liberty preserved entire. If therefore we yield up our temporal property, we at the same time deliver the conscience into bondage.”

Perhaps Sotomayor should go back and study the impetus for our founding and read the Pennsylvania Charter of Liberty:

That all persons living in this province, who confess and acknowledge the one Almighty and eternal God, to be the Creator, Upholder and Ruler of the world; and that hold themselves obliged in conscience to live peaceably and justly in civil society, shall, in no ways, be molested or prejudiced for their religious persuasion, or practice, in manners of faith and worship, nor shall they be compelled, at any time, to frequent or maintain any religious worship, place or ministry whatever.

Or perhaps she would do herself a favor by studying Madison:

The Religion then of every man must be left to the conviction and conscience of every man; and it is the right of every man to exercise it as these may dictate. This right is in its nature an unalienable right… It is the duty of every man to render to the Creator such homage and such only as he believes to be acceptable to him. This duty is precedent, both in order of time and in degree of obligation, to the claims of Civil Society.

Or maybe she should read the speech of Sam Adams in Philadelphia just weeks before the start of the revolution when he framed the fight for independence as a “contest” over whether “there shall be left to mankind an asylum on earth for civil and religious liberty.”

After studying our founding, hopefully this wayward justice will not treat the issues of religious liberty so callously.

2. In one of the few acts of sanity by a Republican controlled state government, the GOP legislature in North Carolina passed a law preventing cities like Charlotte from enacting ordinances allowing men who say they are women to use female bathrooms. But now the entire homo-fascist mafia is coming after the state. The governor of New York has banned state officials from travelling to North Carolina on official business. The ACLU is suing the state in federal court, believing it is the role of the courts to overturn the democratically elected legislature and redefine the definition of gender from the bench. Meanwhile, the state Attorney General is refusing to defend the law in court.

3. Yesterday, Georgia governor Nathan Deal announced his intent to veto a religious liberty bill, which, among other things, would have prevented the state from forcing religious leaders to officiate gay weddings or coerce religious institutions to engage in activity or hire individuals that violate their religious beliefs. It’s now clear that even most Republicans are unwilling to defend the most foundational of unalienable rights.

What is clear from all of these events is that the status quo is not working. We cannot rely upon the states to defend religious liberty. We certainly cannot come crying to the courts who have largely been responsible for creating this nightmare by flipping the concept of fundamental rights on its head. It’s time for federal legislation, in the mold of civil rights legislation, preventing the state or federal governments from coercing an individual to use his private property or business in a way that violates his religious conscience.

While states have wide latitude to regulate activities within their jurisdictions, a state has no right to violate the preamble of the Declaration, rooted in religious liberty and property rights, the same way they had no right to usurp the liberties of African-American citizens. Congress must also strip the courts of the power to adjudicate any case overturning religious liberty protections. At its core, this is why our founder created a federal union – to better secure the blessings of liberty from states that would infringe upon them. As George Washington told a group of Quakers in 1789, “[T]he liberty enjoyed by the people of these states of worshiping Almighty God agreeably to their conscience, is not only among the choicest of their blessings, but also of their rights.”

However, whereas our founders feared individual theocratic states coercing individuals to service a particular religion with their private property, they never fathomed a day when the government itself would be run by secularists and force individuals to worship the pagan inquisition. They always envisioned religion as part and parcel of our national fabric. Alexis de Tocqueville observed that, “The Americans combine the notions of religion and liberty so intimately in their minds, that it is impossible to make them conceive of one without the other.” And that “[F]rom the earliest settlement of the emigrants, politics and religion contracted an alliance which has never been dissolved.” He warned that “[D]espotism can do without faith but liberty cannot.”

Nobody is even asking for government to downright promote the spirit of religion in a voluntary way; we want government to at least refrain from coercing individuals into secularism with their own private businesses. As early as 1988, Reagan explained what we were up against:

To those who cite the first amendment as reason for excluding God from more and more of our institutions and everyday life, may I just say: The first amendment of the Constitution was not written to protect the people of this country from religious values; it was written to protect religious values from government tyranny.

Long before transgendered bathrooms, the redefining of marriage and gender, Kim Davis being thrown in jail for being a Christian, and involuntary servitude for homosexual weddings, Reagan warned that “the most essential element of our defense of freedom is our insistence on speaking out for the cause of religious liberty.” The time has come for our leaders to treat this issue with the seriousness it deserves. (For more from the author of “The Raging Fire Against Religious Liberty” please click HERE)

Watch a recent interview with the author below:

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North Korea Tells Citizens to Prepare Themselves for Famine [+video]

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North Korea instructed the country Monday to brace itself for possible famine and severe economic hardship — but not to despair, because “the road to revolution is long and arduous,” according to an editorial in the state-run newspaper.

The article, published in Rodong Sinmun — the print mouthpiece of the North Korean government — comes less than a month after the U.N. Security Council voted in favor of slapping the Hermit Kingdom with tougher sanctions, after the country teased its potential nuclear and military capabilities earlier this year. The editorial stated that hardships to come might evoke another “arduous march” — the term assigned to the famine that struck the country in the mid-1990s, killing as many as 3 million people, reports the Telegraph, a British newspaper.

“We may have to go on an arduous march, during which we will have to chew the roots of plants once again,” the editorial piece read. (Read more from “North Korea Tells Citizens to Prepare Themselves for Famine” HERE)

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Watch: Ex-Miss Wisconsin Tears up Thanking Trump at Rally

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A Donald Trump supporter who claimed to be Miss Wisconsin 2005 thanked the GOP front-runner in an emotional moment at a Tuesday rally for his help as she struggles with an incurable disease.

She thanked Trump for sending her a handwritten note and said it lifted her spirits after she decided to sign a “Do Not Resuscitate” order as her condition worsened.

She also thanked Trump for the fame that came with her pageant experience, which she said helped her son secure a scholarship.

“I’m here right now to thank you in person because that is my biggest dream,” she said.

“Being able to stand on the stage with you in 2005, the outpouring of love that came from that ultimately provided my son when he graduates high school with a full ride to college.” (Read more from “Ex-Miss Wisconsin Tears up Thanking Trump at Rally” HERE)

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Ted Cruz Was Just Hit With ANOTHER Huge Accusation

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By Jack Davis. What the Ted Cruz campaign says in public and what it says in private are two very different things, according to a series of tweets from a top strategist for Ohio Gov. John Kasich.

The Friday tweets from strategist John Weaver follows tensions between the Ohio governor and the Texas senator over whether Cruz is telling New York Republicans Kasich won’t be on the ballot when the Empire State’s crucial April 19 Republican presidential primary rolls around.

Cruz has publicly said Kasich should withdraw from the race because he cannot win the nomination outright. “A vote for John Kasich is a vote for Donald Trump,” Cruz said Saturday.

But in a series of five tweets Friday, Weaver said the private conversations are all about finding ways the two campaigns can deny Trump the delegates needed to win the nomination on the first ballot . . .

“They know what we know: only path to nomination for Cruz or us is through open convention. Only action to date has been unilateral by us re: AZ (which they knew in advance). Even Mitt has urged Cruz to work with us! To no avail,” he wrote.

“As usual, they want it both ways, appearance of attempt to work together/victim, but no action. To question ‪@JohnKasich motivation is underhanded, and opposite of what they say in private. Facts are JK best positioned in most states moving forward & in general election,” Weaver wrote. (Read more from “Ted Cruz Was Just Hit With ANOTHER Huge Accusation” HERE)

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Ted Cruz Still Won’t Say If He’ll Back Donald Trump

By Theodore Schleifer. Ted Cruz Still Won’t Say If He’ll Back Donald Trump. Ted Cruz for a third time would not say that he would support Donald Trump as the GOP presidential nominee, the latest sign that his pledge to do so may be softening.

Cruz late last week began signaling that his unconditional support for the Republican front-runner was not as ironclad as previously. But asked by CNN’s Sunlen Serfaty on Monday if he would definitively say that he would not support Trump, the Texas senator left his answer ambiguous.

“I’m not in the habit of supporting people who attack my wife and attack my family,” Cruz said. “Donald Trump is not gonna be the nominee. We are gonna beat him for this nomination.” (Read more from “Ted Cruz Still Won’t Say If He’ll Back Donald Trump” HERE)

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Watch: Former Clinton Mistress Speaks out With DARK Secret From Bill’s Past

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The former president who once told America he “didn’t inhale,” was a cocaine user back in 1983, according to a woman who spoke openly about her affair with Clinton while he was governor of Arkansas.

“We laughed a lot and we had fun,” Sally Miller said recently. “Of course, he didn’t need it, but I think it may have become a habit that he smoked marijuana and that he did coke.”

While being interviewed by Kyle Olsen of The American Mirror, Miller — who was the Miss Arkansas of 1958 and for years has openly discussed her fling with Clinton — rapped on a coffee table near where she was sitting.

“I just realized this is the table. It’s funny just sitting here — all my furniture I’ve collected through the years, but this is the couch he sat on, and that’s the table,” said Miller, who once referred to Clinton as “a real pro” for the equipment he brought to her house when he wanted to use drugs.

“When he did coke, he brought a little — like a woman’s cosmetic case, that’s the only thing I can describe. And he put it down here, pushed everything aside. And he rolled it out and there was this little mat and he sprinkled this white powder,” she said.

“He took a few big snorts and he felt better, I guess, because he had a big smile on his face,” she said. (Read more from “Watch: Former Clinton Mistress Speaks out With DARK Secret From Bill’s Past” HERE)

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