There’s nothing wrong with stickers or decals featuring the phrase “In God We Trust” on police vehicles, the Lonestar state’s top cop assured lawmakers.
Attorney General Ken Paxton weighed in on the matter on Nov. 4 with a letter to two Republican state senators who asked if police departments were inviting legal trouble by including the phrase on patrol cars. Pointing to precedent in a series of court cases, Paxton noted challenges to “In God We Trust” on money, police vehicles and goverment property haven’t been successful.
“Displaying ‘In God We Trust’ on police vehicles is a passive use of a motto steeped in our nation’s history that does not coerce Citizen approval or participation,” Paxton wrote to the state senators. “A law enforcement department’s decision to display the national motto on its vehicles is consistent with that history. Thus, a court is likely to conclude that a law enforcement department’s display of ‘In God We Trust’ on its patrol vehicles is permissible under the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution.”
Slapping the phrase on police vehicles has become a contentious issue in recent months, with more than 60 police departments — most of them in the south and midwest — approving decals or stickers on patrol cars, according to the National Constitution Center, a Philadelphia-based non-profit dedicated to civic education.
In each case, the Freedom From Religion Foundation has challenged the use of the phrase on government-owned vehicles. The Wisconsin-based group advocates for separation of church and state in all matters, and has said the phrase amounts to “phony pandering” to the nation’s religious demographic, especially in socially conservative states. “In God We Trust” became the national motto in 1956 when President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed it into law, a move that also made the phrase mandatory on American currency. (Read more from “Texas AG: ‘In God We Trust’ Decals on Cop Cars Constitutional” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-11-29 01:21:382016-04-11 10:55:40Texas AG: ‘In God We Trust’ Decals on Cop Cars Constitutional
Major new restrictions on the National Security Agency will go into effect on Sunday, amid a rekindled debate about the spy agency’s powers.
When the clock strikes 12:01 a.m. on Sunday, the NSA will halt its sweeping collection of Americans’ phone records, in a major victory for civil libertarians who have pushed for the reforms since the program was first revealed by Edward Snowden more than two years ago . . .
National security hawks insist that ending the program will make America less safe by depriving intelligence agents of the ability of connect the dots between suspected terrorists precisely when fears about the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) are peaking.
The divide is coming into clear focus on the campaign trail, and promises to be a point of contention so long as public fears about terrorism remain high.
“I believe in the Constitution. I’ve spent my whole life fighting to defend the Bill of Rights and the Constitution, and the federal government has no right to be seizing, collecting and holding the phone metadata of hundreds of millions of law-abiding citizens,” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said at a tele-forum hosted by the Washington Examiner this month. (Read more from “Amid New Battle, NSA to Shut Down Phone Records Program” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-11-29 01:09:232016-04-11 10:55:41Amid New Battle, NSA to Shut Down Phone Records Program
By Niall Stanage. The demise of Trump’s candidacy has been predicted by centrist Republicans and the media alike virtually since the day it began. But there is no empirical evidence at all to suggest it is happening.
Last month, the liberal ThinkProgress collated more than 30 predictions of the business mogul’s imminent demise. One typical example was The Washington Post’s Jonathan Capehart, who discerned “the beginning of the end of Trump” in mid-July, soon after the mogul criticized the Vietnam War record of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.)
Despite all that, Trump has led the RealClearPolitics (RCP) polling average in a virtually unbroken spell for four months. The only person to briefly wrest the lead away from him, Dr. Ben Carson, appears to be fading. And numerous polls show Trump drawing double the support of his closest establishment-friendly rival, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.)
Add to all this the fact that Trump’s lead over the rest of the GOP field has expanded since the terrorist attacks in Paris, and it becomes clear why anxiety among his many Republican critics is reaching new heights.
“He has a real shot at this. He is the clear front-runner,” said Ron Bonjean, a consultant and former aide to GOP leaders on Capitol Hill. (Read more from “GOP Establishment Terrified that Trump Could Win; Now Group of Black Pastors Preparing to Endorse” HERE)
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Group of Black Pastors to Meet With Donald Trump Monday, May Endorse
A New York Times article this week suggested that 100 black pastors were meeting with Donald Trump this Monday and would endorse him. However, a number of participants have vocally disagreed with that prediction.
A pastor slated to attend from Los Angeles, for example, posted on Facebook that, “I am not officially endorsing ANY candidate and when I do you will NOT need to hear it from pulpitting courtjesters who suffer from intellectual and spiritual myopia.”
The organizer of the conference, Pastor Darrell Scott, confirmed that not all of the invited pastors had agreed to endorse Trump but that he and many others would.
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-11-28 03:55:222016-04-11 10:55:41GOPe Nearing “Full-Blown Panic” Over Trump; Now Major Group of Black Pastors Expected to Endorse
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has a problem. The political organization he sits at the head of, designed to protect incumbent Republican senators, is losing power. And so, in this year’s omnibus spending bill, which is considered “must pass” in order to keep the government running, he plans to give the National Republican Senatorial Committee and other party-aligned groups even more extraordinary privileges in the political process.
McConnell is preparing to attach a rider that would eliminate all coordination limits for the National Republican Senatorial Committee and other national party committees run by Washington insiders, such as the Republican National Committee and National Republican Congressional Committee. McConnell’s ploy would give party groups an incredible leg up over outside organizations that are barred from coordinating with candidates.
Should there be any coordination or giving limits? Of course not. It’s all unconstitutional. But what McConnell proposes is no principled reform. McConnell is abusing the legislative process to protect his diminishing political power. He wants more big donor money, with more power to spend it how he wants, and is granting himself a giant loophole to do it.
Nevermind that McConnell could be using the must-pass spending bill to defund Obamacare, defund Planned Parenthood, stop President Obama’s executive amnesty, or pause the Syrian refugee program; he has his own priorities. McConnell is using the precious opportunity to give himself more political power and protect his position as Majority Leader.
This isn’t a debate over leveling the playing field between the parties and Super PACs. McConnell wants the NRSC to be more powerful than multi-candidate PACS, such as the Senate Conservatives Fund, and individual candidate campaigns, say like, “Ted Cruz for Senate.”
According to current law, a single donor may give $33,400 to a party organization, such as the NRSC.
And the NRSC already has much more latitude to use those funds than any other groups. Although the amount varies from state to state based on the voting age population, the NRSC can spend anywhere from $96,000, in the sparsely-populated state of North Dakota, to more than $1 million for the state of Texas on coordinating activities.
McConnell’s coordination rider would remove all coordination limits for the NRSC and other party groups. Every single penny of a donor’s $33,400 contribution would be able, through the NRSC, to be used in direct coordination with the candidates. The NRSC may also, on top of coordinating funds, contribute up to another $46,800 to candidates.
Meanwhile, the limits placed on donations to other organizations are much, much more stringent.
A donor may only give $2,700 directly to a candidate.
A single donor may only give $5,000 to a multi-candidate PAC and that PAC may only donate $5,000 per candidate, with no coordination.
Donors may give freely to Super PACS, but the Super PACs are prohibited from coordinating.
See how attractive it would become to give to the NRSC? Bigger checks, more coordination, which allows for more seamless, smarter campaigns. Although multi-candidate PACS closely resemble national party committees in the way they seek to support and elect candidates, they are being explicitly disenfranchised.
The NRSC, and other Washington party groups, want to control the elections and McConnell is changing the rules to make the DC establishment more powerful than PACs and individual campaigns.
Remember, McConnell has made no secret of his hatred for conservative groups who dare challenge his stature in Washington. He once said organizations such as the Senate Conservatives Fund, which proudly backed candidates the NRSC spurned, such as Marco Rubio, Mike Lee, Rand Paul, and Ted Cruz, “need a punch in the nose.”
Just as the NRSC has done in the past, these new powers will be used to unfairly protect establishment senators who should have lost their previous primary elections, such as Thad Cochran, Lisa Murkowski, and others.
Inside Washington, McConnell uses these funds to control members as well. Members who vote the way Speaker McConnell wants them to vote are rewarded with monetary support from the NRSC. Members who don’t are left to fundraise on their own.
Without question, there should be campaign finance reform. But it should pass a simple test: Either the reform applies to everyone or it applies to no one. Fair is fair.
If McConnell wants to eliminate coordination limits for the NRSC he should, at the very least, be willing to do it for multi-candidate PACS that have even smaller contribution limits.
National party committees and multi-candidate PACs should be playing by the same rules. For all donations from individual donors, for all contributions to candidates, and for all coordination activities.
McConnell’s coordination rider is not reform. It’s cronyism at its worst.
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-11-28 03:52:562016-04-11 10:55:41GOP Establishment Trying To Increase Power of NRSC So Lisa Murkowski, Other RINOs Can Be Reelected
Photo Credit: APA school in Wisconsin has abruptly dropped what critics suggested was a stealth plan for a promotion about transgenderism after parents objected – and called in a team of lawyers to help them fight off a plan that was being sprung on them with only a day’s notice.
The decision was made by the Mount Horeb Elementary School in Mount Horeb, Wisconsin, to withdraw plans to promote the pro-transgenderism book “I Am Jazz” to grade-school students after school officials were warned by officials with Liberty Counsel that the district’s claim it had a student with a “girl brain and a boy body” was “completely at odds with the rationale for equality between the sexes: there is no difference between male and female brains or mental abilities, and this this idea fosters gender stereotypes.”
Further, the team of lawyers at Liberty Counsel told the district its plan to support a student with gender confusion by requiring students to call a boy “her” and “she” … “infringes upon the other students’ rights to tell the truth, in accordance with their religious convictions, and reality.”
“No one has a moral right to compel others to participate in a fiction (including compelling teachers and others to use pronouns that do not correspond to objective biological sex),” the letter from Liberty Counsel to the district said.
Officials with Liberty Counsel said an alert parent of a student at the Wisconsin elementary school told the organization about a notice from the school that officials planned to promote “I Am Jazz” by LGBT activist Jessica Herthel to young students. (Read more about how parents convinced this school to reverse its transgenderism indoctrination of students HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-11-28 03:51:262016-04-11 10:55:41How to Fight Back: School Reverses Plan to Indoctrinate Students About Transgenderism
NOAA appears to pick and choose only data that confirms their bias. NOAA then disseminates this incomplete data to the media who manufacture alarming headlines but ignore the uncertainty of the conclusions.
Earlier this year, NASA issued a news release stating that 2014 was the warmest year on record. Few media acknowledged the footnote: Scientists were only 38 percent sure this was actually correct. That is less than 50-50.
NOAA fully understands margins of error and works with them on a daily basis. But where are these details in their news releases? While NOAA’s monthly projections usually warn of increased warming, they ignore satellite data that refutes their alarmist statements.
The ability to remain independent of political consideration seems like a minimum requirement for an agency that should provide unbiased scientific information. But NOAA’s habit of picking and choosing data raises serious questions about the agency’s independence. In fact, it shreds NOAA’s credibility.
As a self-proclaimed “environmental intelligence agency,” NOAA’s reports should be based only on the best available science that takes into account all sources of data. Unfortunately, NOAA continues to rely upon biased science in pursuit of a predetermined outcome. That’s not good science, it’s science fiction.
(Read more from “NOAA’s Climate Change Science Fiction HERE)
High-strength cannabis may damage nerve fibres that handle the flow of messages across the two halves of the brain, scientists claim. Brain scans of people who regularly smoked strong skunk-like cannabis revealed subtle differences in the white matter that connects the left and right hemispheres and carries signals from one side of the brain to the other.
The changes were not seen in those who never used cannabis or smoked only the less potent forms of the drug, the researchers found.
The study is thought to be the first to look at the effects of cannabis potency on brain structure, and suggests that greater use of skunk may cause more damage to the corpus callosum, making communications across the brain’s hemispheres less efficient.
Paola Dazzan, a neurobiologist at the Institute of Psychiatry at King’s College London, said the effects appeared to be linked to the level of active ingredient, tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), in cannabis. While traditional forms of cannabis contain 2 to 4 % THC, the more potent varieties (of which there are about 100), can contain 10 to 14% THC, according to the DrugScope charity. (Read more from this story concluding that marijuana damages brain HERE)
By Cory Bennett. Policymakers are searching for ways to defend the nation’s power grid from a major cyberattack, amid concerns the industry’s digital defenses are dangerously lagging and underfunded.
Security experts warn that energy companies, while attuned to the threat, are scrambling to play catch-up, leaving the all-important power grid exposed to hackers.
On Capitol Hill, the threat of a major power grid hack has mostly gone with little notice, sidelined by the bold cyberattack on Sony Pictures Entertainment, a series of hacks across the health insurance industry and the devastating intrusions at the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), thought to be the largest ever digital theft of government data. . .
National Security Agency (NSA) Director Adm. Michael Rogers acknowledged in a congressional hearing that China and likely “one or two” other countries are currently sitting on the grid, with the ability to literally turn out the lights if they wanted to.
Rogers said these states, which likely include Russia and possibly Iran, “are deterred only by the fear of U.S. retaliation.” (Read more from this story about how Congress has failed to respond to other countries being able to shutdown US grid HERE)
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State Department: 80% of Attacks from China, Hacking Will Continue
By Bill Gertz. American companies doing business in China will face a continuing threat to their intellectual property under Chinese President Xi Jinping’s security policies, according to a State Department security report.
China’s large-scale information hacking is not limited to recent incidents like the theft of Office of Personnel Management records on 2.1 million federal workers, according to the report by department’s diplomatic security office produced for the Overseas Security Advisory Council.
Hacking is part of a much broader trend with an estimated 80 percent of all cyberattacks against Americans coming from China, the report says, noting that, despite the recent agreement by Mr. Xi to curb intellectual property theft, “threats to [intellectual property] are unlikely to disappear soon.”
The report adds, “Visitors to China should have no expectations of privacy. Taxis, hotel rooms, and meeting spaces are all subject to on-site and remote technical monitoring. Furthermore, the Chinese government’s access to infrastructure means that all forms of communication, including phone calls, faxes, emails and text messages, as well as Internet browsing history, are likely monitored.” (Read more from this story HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-11-28 02:29:532016-04-11 10:55:42NSA: China, Other Countries ALREADY Can Shutdown US Grid; Congress Unable to Deal With Threat
Democratic presidential hopeful Bernard Sanders’ economic plan triggered Gmail’s “phishing scam” antenna, with the mail system saying the senator’s liberal campaign promises — including lower prescription drug prices and free college for all — sound like frauds.
“Be careful with this message. It contains content that’s typically used to steal personal information,” Gmail said in a bright red warning box that appeared at the top of a message sent by Mr. Sanders’ campaign Friday, laying out his “Agenda for Working Families.”
“This message could be a scam,” Gmail says in its page explaining why it flagged the message as a “phishing scam.” Phishing is a specific type of spam email that scammers use to try to entice users to disclose bank accounts or other sensitive information.
The Sanders campaign declined to comment for this article, but a representative for Google, the Internet giant that runs Gmail, said the company thinks it has figured out the problem.
“A regression in the spam filter’s machine learning framework was determined to be the root cause. The issue affected only a very small percentage of the overall email received by Gmail and it has now been resolved,” the representative said. (Read more from “Google Deems Bernie Sanders’ Economic Plan a ‘Phishing Scam'” HERE)
A sign a Georgia county sheriff erected earlier this week is generating a strong response, nationwide.
Harris County Sheriff Mike Jolley placed a sign in front of the sheriff’s office on Tuesday morning, which reads:
WARNING: Harris County is politically incorrect. We say: Merry Christmas, God Bless America, and In God We Trust. We salute our troops and our flag. If this offends you…LEAVE!
The sheriff got the idea from the picture of a similar sign he saw posted in another part of the country. “I’m humbled by the attention the sign has received,” Jolley told WTVM. “Over the years, I’ve witnessed the silent majority grow and as a true patriot and a Christian, I felt it was time for the silent majority to speak up. I truly believe what’s on the sign.”
Since putting up the sign up, the sheriff has received hundreds of emails and Facebook comments in support of its message, according to WRBL.
Not everyone is pleased with the sheriff’s sign. The atheist group, the American Humanist Association sent him a lengthy letter on Wednesday, saying that a “concerned citizen” had contacted their office. The letter demands the sign be removed immediately, charging it violates the First Amendment and the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause. (Read more from “Sheriff Posts This Controversial Warning Sign to Everyone Entering His Town” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-11-27 02:32:022016-04-11 10:55:43Sheriff Posts This Controversial Warning Sign To Everyone Entering His Town
