Obama Lectures Christians Again: Church Should Focus More on Poverty and Less on Abortion and Homosexual Marriage [+video]

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140721-barack-obama-white-house-1044a_767b48082482e96b3dd425ac8b9446eePresident Obama suggested that people of faith should focus more on helping the poor, instead of focusing on divisive issues such as gay marriage and abortion.

During a panel discussion on poverty at Georgetown University, Obama specifically referred to his own [self-described] Christian faith, pointing out that he recognized the importance speaking out about the issue as president.

“I think it would be powerful for our faith-based organizations to speak out on this in a more forceful fashion,” he said, admitting that his wish might sound “self-interested” because he had disagreements with Christian and Catholic organizations about gay marriage and abortion.

“There is great caring and great concern, but when it comes to what are you really going to the mat for, what’s the defining issue – this is often times viewed as a ‘nice to have’ relative to an issue like abortion,” Obama said.

He argued that churches should spend more time pursuing “powerful” ideas such as helping those in poverty in order to attract more followers. (Read more from “Obama Lectures Christians: Church Should Focus More on Poverty and Less on Abortion and Homosexual Marriage” HERE)

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Students Caught Screening Fifty Shades of Grey During Class

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Fifty-Gray-posterPortions of “Fifty Shades of Grey,” a controversial movie depicting graphic acts of sexual violence, was screened in a West Virginia classroom this week.

The filmography request was made by a group of Hampshire County students who asked their teacher, who was ignorant of the film’s content, if they could watch it as a reward for good work.

“Fortunately, an assistant principal walked by and saw what they were doing,” said school principal Jeff Woofter. “They got there 10 minutes after it started and shut it down” . . .

Citing school policy, Woofter went on to say he couldn’t discuss whether or not disciplinary action would be taken against the teacher or students. He declined to give any more information.

The movie, which earned nearly $600 million in worldwide ticket sales, is based on a book of the same title. The first in a trilogy of what originally started out as erotic fan fiction, the book catalogs the exploits of plain-Jane Anastasia Steele, a recent college graduate, and the devilishly good-looking Christian Grey, a young business magnate. (Read more from “Students Caught Screening Fifty Shades of Grey During Class” HERE)

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Feds to Use Social Media to Combat Complaints About Michelle Obama Lunches

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Photo Credit: Twitter

Photo Credit: Twitter

The U.S. Department of Agriculture is pushing back against a campaign criticizing First Lady Michelle Obama’s school lunch rules by showing one picture of a somewhat appetizing child’s lunch.

“They say a picture is worth a thousand words, and in the digital age we have ample opportunity to document and broadcast every moment, meeting and meal,” wrote Deborah Kane, the national director of the USDA Farm to School Program, in a blog post Thursday.

“We have all seen those unappetizing photos of food served at school that quickly go viral,” she said. “A lonesome whole wheat bun atop a sad fish fillet; a mysterious-looking meat mixture served next to an apple. It’s natural to ask, ‘Is this what they serve for lunch!?’”

Photo Credit: Twitter

Photo Credit: Twitter

“No, it’s really not,” Kane said . . .

“Beautiful meals like this are what’s for lunch today and every day in schools across the country,” the caption reads below a picture of a meal of broccoli, corn, some sort of rice, an apple, bun, low-fat chocolate milk, and a fish patty the size of the young child’s head. (Read more from “Feds to Use Social Media to Combat Complaints About Michelle Obama Lunches” HERE)

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What If Michelle Obama Challenged Hillary Clinton for the Democratic Nomination?

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HILLARY-AND-MICHELLEMichelle Obama for president? What if she ran against the seemingly impregnable Hillary Clinton?

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that just 14% of Likely U.S. Voters think the first lady should run for president. Seventy-one percent (71%) disagree, but another 15% are not sure. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

Among black voters, however, 40% think Obama should run, and only 41% disagree. One-in-five (18%) is undecided. Seventy-eight percent (78%) of whites and 59% of other minority voters oppose a presidential bid by the first lady.

In a hypothetical matchup with Hillary Clinton, the putative Democratic presidential nominee in 2016, Obama earns 44% support from black voters to Clinton’s 36%.

Among Likely Democratic Voters, it’s Clinton 56%, Obama 22%. That appears to be a better showing against Clinton than Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, the only other announced Democratic presidential candidate, makes at this point. (Read more from “What If Michelle Obama Challenged Hillary Clinton for the Democratic Nomination?” HERE)

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Mom Sues School District Over Son’s Arrest for This NRA T-Shirt

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220px-National_Rifle_Association.svgThe mother of a teenager who wore a National Rifle Association shirt to school is suing the Logan County Board of Education alleging her son’s constitutional rights were violated.

Tanya Lardieri filed the lawsuit in federal court last month on behalf of her son, Jared Marcum. Marcum was charged in 2013 by police with disrupting an educational process and obstructing an officer after he was asked to turn the shirt inside out or face suspension by Logan Middle School staff. A judge later dismissed the charges.

The lawsuit seeks $200,000 in compensatory damages and $250,000 in punitive damages. Shana Thompson, attorney for the school board, couldn’t be reached Monday. Lardieri and Marcum are represented by Chapmanville attorney Ben White.

NRA-protect-your-right

On April 18, 2013, the lawsuit states, Marcum, a member of the National Rifle Association, who was 14 at the time, wore a pro-Second Amendment T-shirt to the middle school.

“The shirt was an un-alarming olive green tee shirt bearing the NRA logo, which is the letters ‘NRA’ in black, the words ‘PROTECT YOUR RIGHT,’ an image of a hunting rifle and the Official NRA Logo which has an Eagle and two crossed firearms,” the complaint states. (Read more from “Mom Sues School District Over Son’s Arrest for NRA T-Shirt” HERE)

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College Students Told to Report Hurtful Statements to Campus Authorities

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CU_sealIf someone says anything mean-spirited at the University of Colorado Boulder – campus administrators want to know about it. Not only that – they want to know the offender’s name, age, email address and more.

University of Colorado-Boulder has launched a new campaign encouraging students to report any “bias” they come across to campus authorities, who collect details including offenders’ names, birthdays, genders – even social security numbers – along with a description of the “incident.”

The “Bias Incident Reporting” effort aims to “address the impact of demeaning and hurtful statements as well as acts of intolerance directed towards protected classes,” CU Boulder’s website states.

Examples of bias, according to a corresponding poster campaign highlighting the reporting system, include calling people names or making fun of their culture.

“This in no way is meant to curtail free speech,” campus spokesman Ryan Huff told The College Fix in an email. “We support the First Amendment and want our students to challenge one another in academic ways. We don’t support, however, the use of racial slurs and other demeaning bias-motivated acts.” (Read more from “College Students Told to Report Hurtful Statements to Campus Authorities” HERE)

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Obama Regime Pushes Public Boarding Schools: Government Wants to Own “Certain Kids, 24/7” [+video]

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CORRECTION-US-POLITICS-WHCA-OBAMAA short drive from the Georgetown University campus where President Obama excoriated wealthy parents who send their children to private schools on Tuesday, his education secretary proposed creating similar schools for children – paid for by the taxpayer of course.

“One idea that I threw out, is the idea of public boarding schools,” Arne Duncan said at the National Summit on Youth Violence Prevention in Crystal City, Virginia.

“That’s a little bit of a different idea — a controversial idea — but the question is, do we have some children where there’s not a mom, there’s not a dad, there’s not a grandma, there’s just nobody at home?

“There’s just certain kids we should have 24/7 to really create a safe environment and give them a chance to be successful,” he said.

Never mind that cynics will already point out that every state in America as a department of child services intended specifically to take care of children without parents. (Not to mention the already too-large juvenile justice systems.) (Read more from “Obama Regime Pushes Public Boarding Schools: ‘Certain Kids We Should Have 24/7′” HERE)

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Hearing ‘Under God’ in Pledge of Allegiance Does Not Violate Rights of Atheist Students, Judge Rules

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Photo Credit: mrsdkrebs

Photo Credit: mrsdkrebs

Hearing the Pledge of Allegiance at school every day – including the words “under God” – does not violate the constitutional rights of atheist students, a state judge has ruled.

A student filed a lawsuit last year against the Matawan-Aberdeen school district in Monmouth County, arguing that the phrase “under God” fostered a climate of discrimination in the classroom because it exalted religion and made non-believers feel like “second-class citizens.”

The student and his parents – who are not identified in court papers – filed suit along with the American Humanist Association, a national group of atheists that teaches social responsibility. Attorneys argued that the student felt marginalized hearing the pledge every day “just as America’s Jews, Hindus, and Muslims would feel excluded, marginalized and stigmatized if they were told by their government on a daily basis that the United States is one nation ‘under Jesus.’”

State Superior Court Judge David F. Bauman dismissed the case in February, noting that the student was free to skip the pledge. The judge upheld a New Jersey law that says pupils must recite the Pledge of Allegiance unless they have “conscientious scruples” that do not allow it.

Quoting George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Dwight D. Eisenhower and the New Jersey Constitution, Bauman said the United States for centuries has woven small aspects of religion and references to God into its customs and traditions – not as an endorsement of any faith, but as an acknowledgement of the role religion played in the country’s founding. (Read more from “Hearing ‘Under God’ in Pledge of Allegiance Does Not Violate Rights of Atheist Students, Judge Rules” HERE)

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Feds Order Insurance Companies to Provide Mammogram Coverage for Men Who Have Undergone Sex Change Ops

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Denee-Mallon-638x425[Editor’s note: the following fair-use excerpt is from ultra-liberal Thinkprogress.org] Transgender people face two prominent hurdles to equitable health care: coverage of procedures related to their actual gender transition (hormones, surgery, etc.) and coverage of sex-specific procedures that are as important for transgender people as for others, like mammograms, prostate exams, and cervical Pap tests. New guidance issued this week from the Departments of Health and Human Services, Labor, and the Treasury affirms that insurance companies must provide the services in this second category without discriminating on the basis of gender identity.

When a doctor or other health care provider determines that an exam is medically appropriate for a patient, the guidance instructs, “the plan or issuer must provide coverage for the recommended preventive service, without cost sharing, regardless of sex assigned at birth, gender identity, or gender of the individual otherwise recorded by the plan or issuer.” A talking point memo accompanying the guidance offers, “This means, for example, that a transgender man with an intact cervix can get coverage without cost sharing for a pap smear, if recommended by his provider. . .”

In the 2011 National Transgender Discrimination Survey, a full 50 percent of respondents reported that they had postponed pursuing preventive care services because they could not afford it. This included a transgender man who was told by Blue Cross of California, “Unfortunately we are unable to process claims for one member under both genders,” and thus he could not be covered for procedures related to his anatomy. One 55-year-old transgender man was denied coverage for a bone density scan because according to the insurer’s policies, only women could qualify as “at-risk” for osteoporosis. Another transgender man sought treatment for an infection from an LGBT-friendly health provider; when he asked for additional preventive services, he was told that because his documents identify him as male, it wasn’t possible to submit a claim for a Pap test without compromising coverage for the other tests and treatments he received related to the infection. (Read more from “Feds Order Insurance Companies to Provide Mammogram Coverage for Men Who Have Undergone Sex Change Operations” HERE)

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Catholic University Investigated for Offending Muslims by Having Too Many Crosses

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Pope-Francis-Reuters-640x480“Complaint says crosses at Catholic school offensive, prevent Muslim prayers,” reads the headline at BeliefNet.

It’s one of those headlines that sounds like a bad joke, but it isn’t. It’s not exactly a serious complaint, either, and it isn’t coming from actual Muslim students in any event. “Baffled Catholic University officials say they have never received a complaint from any of the schools Muslim students,” writes BeliefNet.

In fact, the university expressed its bafflement in a full-length statement: “Catholic University’s faithfulness to our Catholic tradition has also made us a welcome home to students of other religions. No students have registered complaints about the exercise of their religions on our campus. We understand that a professor unaffiliated with Catholic University has made public allegations claiming that we are discriminating against our students on religious grounds, but we have not seen any legal filing – and will respond to them if we do.”

The sixty-page complaint was filed with the Washington, D.C. Office of Human Rights by a one-man nuisance-lawsuit factory, George Washington University Law School Professor John Banzhaf. Muslim students are but pawns in Banzhaf’s game against Catholics. Taken to its logical conclusion, his lawfare would wipe out mosques and Islamic learning centers as well. The rules of engagement in the Establishment’s War on Religion have a funny way of changing to accommodate Islam, however, so perhaps those hypothetical logical conclusions will never be reached.

Banzhaf’s complaint alleges that the large amount of Catholic imagery draping the halls of Catholic University creates an “offensive” environment in which Muslims are intimidated out of proper reverence for their own religion. (Read more from “Catholic University Investigated for Offending Muslims by Having Too Many Crosses” HERE)

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