Just How Many Times Did Tim Kaine Play the Race Card?

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Where to begin with Senator Tim Kaine’s abysmal performance in the vice-presidential debate?

Let’s start here, with this opener:

It is so great to be back at Longwood University in Farmville, Virginia.

This is a very special place. Sixty-five years ago, a young, courageous woman, Barbara Johns, led a walkout of her high school, Moton High School. She made history by protesting school segregation. She believed our nation was stronger together. And that walkout led to the Brown v. Board of Education decision that moved us down the path toward equality.

Stop right here.

How was it exactly that Barbara Johns was forced into a situation that resulted in a segregated school in the first place? Answer: Because Tim Kaine’s political party, the Democrats, had spent the previous 89 years using segregation — racism — as the building block of their party. As Kaine would go on to demonstrate as the debate moved on, playing the race card is still at the core of his party — and the campaign of its latest nominees, Kaine and Hillary Clinton.

Next, incredibly, Kaine said this:

I’ll just say this: We trust Hillary Clinton, my wife and I, and we trust her with the most important thing in our life. We have a son deployed overseas in the Marine Corps right now. We trust Hillary Clinton as president and commander-in-chief, but the thought of Donald Trump as commander-in-chief scares us to death.

Suffice to say, Pat Smith, the mother of State Department Information Officer Sean Smith has a very, very different opinion. Sean Smith was one of the four Americans killed in the terrorist attack in Benghazi. Clinton failed abysmally in taking care of the most important thing in Pat Smith’s life: her son. Smith, in fact, holds Hillary Clinton “personally” responsible for her son’s death. Kaine never mentioned Pat Smith, much less addressed her concerns in the debate.

Kaine never answered the moderator’s question as to why so many millions of Americans think Hillary Clinton is untrustworthy. He responded by praising her passion and career, then, but of course, played the race card by saying this of Trump:

And as a candidate, he started his campaign with a speech where he called Mexicans rapists and criminals, and he has pursued the discredited and really outrageous lie that President Obama wasn’t born in the United States.

It is so painful to suggest that we go back to think about these days where an African-American could not be a citizen of the United States.

This was, of course, a deliberate lie. Trump’s remarks were in the context of illegal immigration, decidedly not a condemnation of “Mexicans.” And all anyone — certainly a sitting US Senator Kaine — has to do to research the subject is check here with ICE, the US Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agency. Here’s but one headline from ICE in 2014:

ICE Texas field offices remove more than 800 sex offenders so far this year

More than 2,000 removed every year in past 3 years

The ICE report begins as follows:

DALLAS — The four Texas field offices within U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) have deported more than 860 sex offenders so far this fiscal year.

Of the 862 alien sex offenders deported by the Texas-based offices, about 27 percent were convicted of sex offenses against children.

What about this does Kaine not understand? Answer? Kaine does understand and chose to, but of course, play the race card and suggest Trump is a racist for stating what the US government itself states is hard fact. So too have Democrats made the so-called “birther” issue into a race card. The hard fact of history is that this issue has recurred five different times with a sitting president and actual or potential presidential candidates (President Chester Alan Arthur and potential or actual candidates Barry Goldwater (born in the then-territory but not-yet-the-state of Arizona), George Romney (born in Mexico to Mormon missionary parents), Lowell Weicker (considering a run in 1976 for the GOP nod, Connecticut Senator Weicker was born in Paris to parents in the foreign service) and of course Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. (R, 32%), born in the Panama Canal Zone while his Navy-serving father was stationed there. All were white and all Republicans. While I always believed Obama was born in Hawaii, there was and is nothing in the least inherently racist about birtherism — unless, of course, you are a race-card playing Democrat like Tim Kaine.

This is the exact same obsession with using racism as a political ploy that fueled the Democrats’ political power as supporters of slavery, segregation, the Ku Klux Klan and lynching. Now they use race in the illegal immigration issue or inject race into the ancient previously all-white birtherism ploy. Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine are now playing the same race cards once played by Kaine’s fellow Virginian and race-card player extraordinaire Woodrow Wilson.

Then there was this Kaine whopper, the reference here to the Bush 43 tax cuts:

The second component of the plan is massive tax breaks for the very top, trillions of dollars of tax breaks for people just like Donald Trump. The problem with this, Elaine, is that’s exactly what we did 10 years ago and it put the economy into the deepest recession — the deepest recession since the 1930s.

This is a flat-out lie. The reason the economy was put into “the deepest recession — the deepest recession since the 1930s” — was precisely because of the Democratic Party’s repeated devotion to forcing banks to give loans to Americans who could not afford them. Those Americans eventually and inevitably defaulted on their loans, triggering the “Great Recession.” This mind-blowing reality was documented in detail in New York Times business reporter Gretchen Morgenson’s book with housing and mortgage investment consultant Joshua Rosner, Reckless Endangerment: How Outsized Ambition, Greed, and Corruption Led to Economic Armageddon.

The title says it all … and one of those fingered in this cesspool story involving a prominent Democratic Party lobbyist is, yes, President Bill Clinton and his 1994 National Partners in Homeownership policy. But there is Kaine making up out of whole cloth — looking the American people right straight in the television eye — and lying about what caused the Great Recession.

There’s more — much more, of course. The number of outright lies combined with clever sleight-of-hand deceptions by Kaine is stunning. All of this added to Kaine’s widely-panned style that combined arrogance, rudeness, and agitation in varying measure.

A CNN poll after the debate gave the contest to Pence. Most interesting stat from that poll was this:

Still, 29% of debate watchers said what they saw Tuesday made them more apt to vote for Trump, compared with 18% who said it made them more likely to back Clinton.

Thanks to Tim Kaine, and the contrast with the calm, measured, conservative and decidedly truthful approach of Mike Pence, is this any wonder? (For more from the author of “Just How Many Times Did Tim Kaine Play the Race Card?” please click HERE)

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The Media’s Embarrassing Failure to Bring up Obamacare in the Debates

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Maybe Bill Clinton should moderate Sunday’s presidential debate. Referring to Obamacare this week as “the craziest thing in the world,” he seems to understand that the consequences of the health care law might be of interest to voters.

Indeed, according to a recent Pew Research Center poll, 71 percent of Donald Trump supporters and 77 percent of Hillary Clinton supporters say the issue of health care is “very important” to their vote in 2016.

Which is why it seems odd that not one single question dealing with Obamacare was asked at either the first presidential debate or the only vice presidential debate of the 2016 election. Not one.

Well, perhaps it’s only odd if you don’t know the major broadcast networks have all but ignored the disastrous news stories about Obamacare.

According to the media watchdogs over at the Media Research Center, from Jan. 1 through Aug. 31, ABC’s “World News Tonight” and “NBC Nightly News” have not covered the issue at all. “CBS Evening News” dedicated a whopping 2 minutes and 18 seconds to the subject.

As the Media Research Center notes, “To put that in perspective, these same three evening news shows managed to find 46 minutes and 49 seconds to dedicate to Olympic swimmer Ryan Lochte running afoul of Brazilian police.”

Maybe we’ll get a question about Lochte in the next debate.

There are so many questions that could be posited about Obamacare’s failures that perhaps the moderators just haven’t been able to choose which one to ask. For example:

Sir/Madame: The Government Accountability Office just announced last week that its investigation has determined that Health and Human Services has been illegally bailing out insurance companies with taxpayer dollars. What’s your reaction?

Or …

Sir/Madame: What do you say to the hundreds of thousands of Americans who have lost the insurance they bought through Obamacare’s public co-ops? So far, 12 of the 23 co-ops have failed and been shut down, costing taxpayers $1.2 billion and forcing 740,000 people in 14 states to scramble to find new health insurance.

Or …

Sir/Madame: Contrary to what President Barack Obama originally promised, many Americans’ premiums did not go down, they’ve gone up. And the evidence suggests they will continue to rise. By 2025, the Congressional Budget Office predicts that employment-based coverage will cost about 60 percent more than it does today because of Obamacare. How will you address that?

Or … (my personal favorite)

Sir/Madame: Former President Bill Clinton referred to Obamacare as “the craziest thing in the world.” Do you agree with his remarks?

So many options but not one single question in either debate on the topic.

And yet, abortion, which fewer than half of voters say is very important to their vote, was a major topic in the vice presidential debate.

And I’m not saying it isn’t important. But why did CBS moderator Elaine Quijano think it was more important to voters than the issue of health care?

If she’d done a little more homework, she might have been able to combine the two issues by asking what the candidates thought about a report from the Government Accountability Office showing that Obamacare forces taxpayers to subsidize bills for abortion services.

One might think that, in the post-debate analysis, some in the media might start asking about what major issues have not been addressed.

The folks over at NBC News apparently did ask that question but got the wrong answer.

An article following the vice presidential debate said the debate “left lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender advocates stunned, after 90 minutes of questioning failed to address a single LGBTQ issue.”

It doesn’t mention that voters rank that issue over 30 percentage points behind health care as important to their vote.

To say the media doesn’t get it lets them off the hook way too easy. They get it all right. Obamacare is a disaster but they’re hoping voters won’t notice. (For more from the author of “The Media’s Embarrassing Failure to Bring up Obamacare in the Debates” please click HERE)

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Reminder: Our National Debt Grew $540 Billion Last Year

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With all of the attention given to the presidential elections, it’s easy to forget that the U.S. just ended the 2016 fiscal year. This means it’s time for the annual examination of how much more debt we have!

According to the newest Treasury Department figures (H/T to The Washington Examiner and CNS News), total U.S. debt held by the federal government was $19.573 trillion on October 1. That’s an astronomical amount of debt, quite a bit larger than our current Gross National Product.

As the Examiner and CNS pointed out, and the Treasury numbers confirmed, U.S. debt technically jumped more than $1.4 trillion in the last 12 months. That’s thanks to the Treasury Department temporarily not taking on more debt via use of “extraordinary measures.” Those measures staved off a debt increase from March 2015 through early November — and then the debt jumped hundreds of billions of dollars within a month.

Looking at the Fiscal Year 2016 debt in context to our larger debt picture, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projected in August that the annual deficit would be about $540 billion. That’s larger than immediate prior years, but lower than what we’ll see over the next decade. (The deficit and an increase in the national debt are two different things, thanks to how the federal government does its accounting.)

Contrary to liberal tripe about the feds needing more taxes, CBO projects that government revenues via taxes, fees, etc. will rise over the next decade as a percentage of GDP and continue to be above the 50-year average. The real culprit for our growing debt, spending, will go up even more — well beyond the 50-year norm — putting the U.S. at an even worse fiscal position than we’re at now. CBO projects we will add nearly $8.6 trillion to our debt by 2026.

But even this scary scenario, which would likely impact our economy’s growth, doesn’t tally up the worst of it all. The big-picture analysis most often cited by media outlets is the “baseline” projection by CBO — the optimistic one. In the August projections, CBO gave a list of alternative fiscal scenarios that could play out, depending on the decisions politicians make. A quick tally of those scenarios shows that the debt could be as much as $2.755 trillion higher than the positive projections, or $792 billion lower.

Short version: We don’t need more taxation. We need more economic growth and less spending. However, neither party wants to effectively reform the entitlements (Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, food stamps, and other parts of the budget that don’t get annually approved by Congress) that are the major cause of our budget increases in recent years, and are projected to, for the most part, rise in cost. And effective tax reform is nowhere to be seen. (For more from the author of “Reminder: Our National Debt Grew $540 Billion Last Year” please click HERE)

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Illegal Alien With a Violent History Charged With Killing 5. Now a GOP Senator Is Asking Questions.

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The Republican leader of the Senate Judiciary Committee is seeking further answers from the Obama administration about why an illegal immigrant charged with murdering five homeless people in a Los Angeles arson fire this summer was not previously deported.

Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa on Wednesday wrote a letter to Sarah Saldana, the director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, asking follow-up questions related to the government’s response to a previous inquiry by the senator into how Johnny Josue Sanchez of Honduras, the suspect, was able to stay in the country despite having a violent history.

“Specifically, [Grassley] is asking whether Sanchez was not considered a priority under the Obama administration’s Priority Enforcement Program and whether federal authorities were blocked by local sanctuary policies that prevent cooperation with federal immigration officials,” the letter states.

Sanchez was arrested by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Office on June 13 for five counts of murder and two counts of attempted murder after he allegedly set fire to a vacant building where five homeless people were squatting, including four individuals from Iowa.

Shortly after the incident, on June 27, Grassley and Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, wrote a letter to Jeh Johnson, the Department of Homeland Security secretary, to learn more about Sanchez, who, according to media reports, had been arrested three times in the months before the fire.

The Los Angeles Times reported that Sanchez was arrested by border patrol agents in 2012 for illegally entering the country at the southeastern California border. Sanchez was promptly released from custody, the newspaper reported, because he had no previous immigration violations or criminal history.

Sanchez was then placed under supervision and ordered to report regularly to immigration authorities, but he stopped reporting in August 2014.

But in January of this year, the Los Angeles Police Department arrested Sanchez on suspicion of domestic violence. He was arrested again in May and June on suspicion of drug possession. His most recent arrest was less than a week before he allegedly set fire to the Los Angeles building. He was released the next day.

According to the Times, the Los Angeles Police Department does not honor immigration requests from the federal government to be notified of a person’s release from jail unless a warrant is issued or a judge has vetted the request.

In response to Grassley and Goodlatte’s original inquiry, the senator says, the Obama administration acknowledged more details about Sanchez’s history.

Grassley says he learned that Sanchez lied about his birth date to the border patrol upon entering the country illegally, which allowed him to be processed as a juvenile and sent to a youth shelter in California.

Sanchez stayed at a juvenile facility in Fullerton, California, for seven days, Grassley says, until the Honduran Consulate in Houston, Texas, verified Sanchez’s true birth date and provided a birth certificate showing he was not a juvenile.

After receiving this information, Immigration and Customs Enforcement regained custody of Sanchez and then released him after he signed a document promising to report to future court appearances related to his immigration status.

He never made it to court.

“Considering that Sanchez had intentionally misled federal authorities, it would seem inevitable that Sanchez would fail to appear before ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] as directed,” Grassley wrote in Wednesday’s letter. “Sanchez should have been detained until his removal was completed.”

But more concerning to Grassley, he says, was that Immigration and Customs Enforcement, after Sanchez’s subsequent arrests this year, never requested that the Los Angeles Police Department issue a detainer on him to hold him in custody, or notify federal immigration authorities of his pending release from jail.

Grassley wants to know why those requests were never made to the local police department, and whether this decision was related to the Obama administration’s decision in 2014 to narrow the types of people it seeks to deport.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers are told to first target illegal immigrants considered to be threats to national security and public safety, who have likely been convicted of a felony. Other priorities for deportation include individuals who have been convicted of multiple misdemeanors, and recent arrivals who came here illegally after Jan. 1, 2014.

Grassley also asks in the letter whether Immigration and Customs Enforcement even knew about Sanchez’s previous arrests this year, or if its knowledge was limited because of Los Angeles’ policy to limit cooperation with federal immigration requests.

“Was Sanchez not considered a priority under the administration’s Priority Enforcement Program (PEP)? Was ICE never informed of the previous arrests because of Los Angeles’ sanctuary policies?” Grassley asked. (For more from the author of “Illegal Alien With a Violent History Charged With Killing 5. Now a GOP Senator Is Asking Questions.” please click HERE)

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Privatize Airport Screeners to Get Bomb-Sniffing Dogs Back on the Scent of Terrorists

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In the wake of the New York and New Jersey bombings, and coming on the heels of the 15th anniversary of Sept. 11 last month, security measures like bomb-sniffing dogs are getting a lot of attention.

Bomb-sniffing dogs are an essential component of security, keeping Americans safe at home and especially as they travel. Yet bomb-sniffing dogs in airports across the United States are failing to pass certification tests, causing serious concern.

A recent investigation by NBC News concluded that in 10 major U.S. airports, K-9 teams failed to pass their annual certification testing more than 50 times between January 1, 2013, and June 15, 2013. At Dulles International Airport, the K-9 teams failed an alarmingly high 10 times. These K-9 teams are funded by the Transportation Security Administration.

While some failures are to be expected, bomb-sniffing dogs are an important piece of airport security, making these findings very worrisome. Once a K-9 team fails, it is banned from working until the dogs retest and meet the proper certification standards. Still, as reliance on bomb-sniffing dogs increases, so does the expectation that they will exceed the qualifications put in place by the TSA.

Security experts and government oversight organizations have pointed to K-9 unit training as critical to their success. The Government Accountability Office found that from 2011 to 2012, several K-9 teams did not comply with the TSA’s monthly training requirements on multiple occasions. Without consistent training, bomb-sniffing dogs are not capable of protecting airports properly or passing their annual certifications.

These incidents highlight a need for privatizing airport security. The Screening Partnership Program, created in 2001, replaces the TSA with private screeners in airports. With the program’s screeners in place, the TSA’s role shifts to oversight, ensuring that security regulations, such as K-9 training requirements, are being fulfilled.

In addition to providing potential security benefits, the program may also reduce airport screening costs, increase screening efficiency, and improve customer service.

More airports should recognize and join the Screening Partnership Program. It would allow the TSA to focus on assessing the state of security at airports and ensure that risks are being properly handled. If airports are not satisfied by a private security contractor, they should have the ability to fire and replace them if necessary.

Congress should also make it easier for airports to join the program. There are unnecessary regulations currently in place that severely delay and hamper the process. For instance, the TSA needs to stop hand-picking the private security contractor who replaces them. Instead, the airport should be allowed to choose from a pre-approved list of vendors, allowing airports to choose the best contractor for their needs.

Expanding participation in the Screening Partnership Program would go a long way to improving the underperforming TSA, and would create a safer airport environment. Airport security has come a long way since Sept. 11, 2001, but the failures of bomb-sniffing dogs show there are still improvements to be made. (For more from the author of “Privatize Airport Screeners to Get Bomb-Sniffing Dogs Back on the Scent of Terrorists” please click HERE)

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If the Two VP Candidates Ignore the $19 Trillion National Debt, Will It Cease to Exist?

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During Tuesday’s debate, Elaine Quijano asked vice presidential nominees Tim Kaine and Mike Pence:

“According to the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, neither of your economic plans will reduce the growing $19 trillion gross national debt. In fact, your plans would add even more to it. Both of you were governors who balanced state budgets. Are you concerned that adding more to the debt could be disastrous for the country?”

Pence had to evade. He couldn’t address the question, because it is true: According to CRFB projections, Donald Trump’s economic plan would increase the category of publicly held debt from $14 trillion to $35.2 trillion by 2026 — well over doubling it.

So Pence merely said the fact that Hillary Clinton was part of an administration which doubled the national debt was “atrocious,” and said he was “very proud” that he is from a “state that works,” praising his efforts in Indiana for cutting taxes, leaving a surplus, and devoting resources to education and infrastructure.

Basically, he didn’t answer the question. Because the Republican vice presidential candidate can’t.

Kaine’s answer was equally inane. Like his running mate, he tried to make a canned line work: “Do you want a ‘you’re hired’ president in Hillary Clinton, or do you want a ‘you’re fired’ president in Donald Trump?” He then proceeded to argue that by making college tuition free and raising the minimum wage, Hillary Clinton is the right choice for the economy.

Much like their cohorts, Pence and Kaine avoided talking about entitlement spending, which should have been part of a candid answer to Quijano’s debt question. Our entitlement programs are the primary debt-driver and our unfunded liabilities are in the trillions.

Let’s put this into perspective: As The Daily Signal reported, mandatory spending on Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and other federal health care programs, in addition to interest on already-existing federal debt, will “consume all federal tax revenues by 2033.”

So unless mandatory spending is cut and serious reforms are made to our entitlement crisis, all of our federal tax payments will be swallowed up by Big Government programs in 17 years. There will be nothing left for defense. Nothing left for national security. Nothing left for anything other than New Deal and Great Society welfare programs. Oh, and Obamacare, which will have morphed into a full-fledged single-payer system by then.

Instead of trading insults, it would be great to see our presidential tickets acknowledge the debt crisis and debate how to tackle it. Republicans should easily win on this issue; Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and Obamacare are all Democrat dealings. Traditional Republican plans aim to privatize Social Security and rein in Medicaid and Medicare. But instead of making a credible case on how all of this federal spending should be addressed, Donald Trump and Mike Pence avoid talking about entitlements and have nothing but vague platitudes about the debt.

The fact of the matter is, whether our presidential tickets want to acknowledge our out-of-control entitlement spending or not, eventually the programs will be insolvent. Then what? (For more from the author of “If the Two VP Candidates Ignore the $19 Trillion National Debt, Will It Cease to Exist?” please click HERE)

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Useless Idiots: NFL Bows at the Altar of Black Lives Matter

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The racial division ignited by President Obama is far ranging, with support for Black Lives Matter spreading like a wild fire through the country including the National Football League and AT&T.

After years of stoking racial tension between the police and the black community, Obama sparked a social environment in which police officers are bad and the Black Lives Matter agenda is good.

With emotions running high, any incident of blacks being killed by police — justified or not — are being swept into the same conclusion of widespread institutional racism and a call for racial justice.

Inexplicably, business leaders are jeopardizing their brands and contributing to racial tension by echoing the racial bias claims of Black Lives Matter, giving legitimacy to the radical organization.

The support from the business world is adding fuel to the racial fire widening the division among Americans.

The Black Lives Matter got a nationwide boost in September when San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick decided to sit during the National Anthem. Kaepernick’s action sparked football players throughout the National Football League and college football to follow suit.

Instead of enforcing a ban on protests during the National Anthem, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell expressed support for individual protests on the football field saying, “I don’t necessarily agree with what he’s doing. I support our players when they want to see change in society, and we don’t live in a perfect world.”

At the same time, Goodell refused a request from the Dallas Cowboys to place a decal on the back of their helmets to recognize the police officers that were assassinated during a Black Lives Matter protest in Dallas.

Normally very protective of the NFL brand, Goodell put the league’s reputation in question by siding with Black Lives Matter. By doing so, he made it acceptable for individual expression on the football field.

Because of Goodell’s lack of leadership, discussion of National Anthem protests are part of the NFL news coverage, pitting players against players and analysts against analysts as well as alienating fans.

Fans disgusted by actions disrespecting the American flag are pushing back hard against the NFL. A Twitter hashtag #BoycottNFL was created and backed by actor James Woods.

Fan backlash, led by the Twitter boycott campaign, appears to be affecting the NFL with TV ratings down significantly this year.

Goodell is not the only Black Lives Matter sympathizer in the business world.

AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson promoted Black Lives Matter in a speech about racial tension at a recent employee conference in Dallas.

During his speech, Stephenson lumped recent shootings in the U.S. including Ferguson, MO, Baton Rouge, LA, the Dallas police assassinations, and the mass shooting in Orlando, FL, under one umbrella, concluding that, “We have a problem.”

He added, “communities being destroyed by racial tension but we are too polite to talk about it.”

Stephenson explained he was recently enlightened about race issues from the experiences of his black friend, a medical doctor that suffered racism during his upbringing in Louisiana.

Afflicted by a serious case of white guilt, Stephenson expressed his new understanding of “black lives matter” and realizes the inappropriateness of the “all lives matter” response used by critics.

Stephenson urged his employees to discuss race as a way to understand each other and close the racial divide.

Promoting Black Lives Matter as penance for not understanding the racial bias a friend experienced is a dangerous proposition for AT&T shareholders.

Clearly, Stephenson is ignorant or ignoring the fact that Black Lives Matter rhetoric resulted in the deaths of police officers and the destruction of millions of dollars’ worth of property in cities.

Backlash from customers, including law enforcement members and families that understand the radical nature of Black Lives Matter, could harm AT&T’s business in a competitive marketplace.

As a leader of a major corporation, Stephenson could improve the lives of blacks by tackling the economic underpinnings that’s resulted in bleak job prospects in urban areas.

Turning on AT&T’s lobbying power to push for lower taxes, regulations, and school choice would yield economic benefits, but that might alienate the progressive Democrat machine that regulates its business.

For executives like Stephenson, it’s so much easier to fall for bumper sticker statements such as Black Lives Matter without regard to the deleterious consequences of the movement than to solve the underlying economic conditions that result in poverty and crime.

Goodell and Stephenson are useful idiots in Obama’s plan to fundamentally transform America by dividing Americans along racial lines. (For more from the author of “Useless Idiots: NFL Bows at the Altar of Black Lives Matter” please click HERE)

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CLINTON STAFF PANICS: Hospital Gurney Spotted Backstage at Campaign Event as Hillary Health Concerns Multiply

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Reporter Millie Weaver was observing one of the exits at a Hillary Clinton rally when she spotted a group of EMS workers hauling a gurney to the door.

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Moments later, a panicked Clinton staffer (wearing the All Access pass) and began taking pictures of Weaver.

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Moments later, one EMS technician came out of the exit looking quite stressed.

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At the event, Hillary was once again able to navigate the stairs with all the agility of Peter Pan.

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Only one word comes to mind: comforting. (For more from the author of “CLINTON STAFF PANICS: Hospital Gurney Spotted Backstage at Campaign Event as Hillary Health Concerns Multiply” please click HERE)

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Christian Leaders Warn of Soros-Funded “Hijack” of Christian Left

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A coalition of 630 influential Christian leaders, mostly evangelicals, spearheaded by Kelly Monroe Kullberg and Dr. Alveda King, has called on “progressive” Christians to “repent.” It asks them to atone for “work that often advances a destructive liberal political agenda.” That agenda, the appeal’s writers suggest, is allied with and partly funded by billionaire secular leftist George Soros, who uses the profits of his past currency speculation to promote radical causes around the world.

The authors note:

As recent leaked documents confirm, and as Rev. Jim Wallis of Sojourners eventually admitted, wealthy, anti-Christian foundations, following the lead of billionaire George Soros’s Open Society Foundation, fund and “rent” Christian ministers as “mascots” serving as surprising validators for their causes. The consequent realities include injury to countless people, the Church, the family, nation and the global Church including many martyrs.

When it comes to progressive Christians who were willing to take Soros’ money, the authors are willing to name names:

At a time when many Christian ministries are struggling, a few of the Soros network “faith” and “interfaith” grantees are Jim Wallis of Sojourners, Richard Cizik’s New Evangelical Partnership, Telos, J Street to malign Israel, Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good, Faithful America and Gamaliel. Faith in Public Life has worked to “counter” Christians and the Tea Party in the media and, with PICO, advocate for amnesty, mass Islamic migration, even seeking to influence the visit and priorities of Pope Francis himself. Billions of additional dollars to “Christian VOLAGs” for large scale “refugee” and migrant resettlement comes from the Obama administration.

Joining “faith” fronts, Soros also funds thousands of other collaborators and projects that suggest his goal is to demoralize America (and Europe). The list includes: film studios and hundreds of media outlets; attempts to control the internet; racial and gender agitation; euthanasia; drug legalization and “injection zones;” abortion and the “sex worker” industry; Al Gore’s Climate campaign; pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel projects; the rights of jihadists and Sharia advocates.

In the ironic rhetoric of compassion, Soros and friends also fund mass immigration followed by voting “rights” and redistricting schemes, while financing the campaigns of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. (Soros is a major donor to the Democratic Party and co-chairman of Ready for Hillary PAC.)

The authors of the statement cited Martin Luther King, Jr. as an alternative model for Christian social engagement:

As Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. taught, “In contrast to ethical relativism, Christianity sets forth a system of absolute moral values.” He wrote, “We need to recapture the gospel glow of the early Christians who were non-conformists. … Their powerful gospel put an end to such barbaric evils as infanticide. … Finally, they captured the Roman Empire for Jesus Christ.”

The authors lay out a stark catalog of the consequences for America and the church of eight years of progressive-dominated government under Barack Obama:

1. A growth industry trafficking in human baby organs and body parts — funded and defended by the Democratic Party.

2. The abandonment of a biblical view of marriage that protected and liberated children and adults from centuries of pagan slavery, poverty, polygamy and non-life-giving sexuality.

3. The transgender agenda imposed by Obama-government edict, including gender re-education to be forced on our citizens, businesses, schools, military and churches.

4. Doubling of our national debt, economic stagnation and increased welfare dependency.

5. Increased minority unemployment, poverty and violent inner city lawlessness, with an accompanying loss of opportunity, self-determination and family stability.

6. Heightened racial division and tension, and the growing phenomenon of paid demonstrators being recruited and dispatched to instigate protests that often become riots.

7. Open borders and ‘sanctuary’ cities increasing drugs, disease, crime, gangs and terrorism.

8. Forced refugee resettlement in hundreds of American cities without citizen consent, mandated by the federal government in collusion with the United Nations. “Refugees” are primarily non-assimilating Muslims, while authorities reject persecuted Christians.

9. Hostility towards Judeo-Christian religious liberty in our courts, media and universities including the suppression of conservative speakers, free thought and moral education.

10. The widespread, political use of the IRS to intimidate conservative, patriotic and Christian groups that disagree with the current political establishment.

11. The statement also cites Hillary Clinton’s now-infamous 2015 speech at the Women in the World Summit, where she averred that religious beliefs “have to be changed” to accept abortion on demand. With that statement, the signers say, Clinton “was openly declaring war on Christian believers and the Church.”

The evangelical appeal urged fellow Christians “to question the true intentions of persons or organizations that receive money from Soros and other billionaire globalists,” noting that the “hostility of the Progressive political agenda to biblical faith is foreign to the Spirit of Jesus.”

Instead, the statement suggests:

Let us return to the whole counsel of Scripture, not the political abuse of Scripture. Together, we can commit to healing, wisdom and renewal of our faith and culture. Let’s stimulate humility and gratitude, not pride and entitlement. Let’s see the image of God in people and enable the virtuous cycle of creativity, opportunity, work, productivity, wealth and thus greater voluntary generosity.

Signers of the appeal include Eric Metaxas, Lt. Gen. Wm. “Jerry” Boykin, Bishop Harry R Jackson, Jr., Mat Staver, Fr. Frank Pavone (of Priests for Life), Tim Wildmon, Dr. Ted Baehr, radio host Sam Sorbo, Jason and David Benham, Archbishop Wm. Paul Mikler, Rick Scarborough, and The Stream’s Jay Richards and John Zmirak.

To read the statement in its entirety and view its list of signatories go here.

Why Such an Appeal? Why Now?

The Stream asked the lead author of the appeal, Kelly Monroe Kullberg (author of Finding God At Harvard), for the background on this letter. She said, “After a few years of failed attempts to engage Progressive ministers, we wrote the letter because we’re deeply concerned for the Church and nation. Millions are heartbroken to see what has happened to the Church and nation in the past decade or two.”

Pointing to the long list of bad spiritual and temporal results of leftist policies, Kullberg asked, “Why would religious leaders keep pushing such damaging ideas and policies on the nation? We think there are answers and we’d like them to join us all in national repentance and renewal.”

This isn’t an attempt to impose a right-wing agenda, Kullberg said. “Christians and conservatives don’t think of accruing power. We’re just trying to do our best work and be good to our families and neighbors.” She continued:

The danger is that the Christian faith, evangelical and Catholic, is being used, manipulated, weakened and redefined. It would be good to de-politicize the Church and get back to the gospel, the good news of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection that charges life with meaning, and all things with hope. The gospel is actual social renewal.

I hope citizens will dive deeper into, and speak louder of, the life-giving nature of the Bible, the U.S. Declaration, Constitution and Bill of Rights. Because other forces are endangering the American experiment and human beings.

To the Religious Left or anyone else attempting to redefine the gospel, I’d say that Biblical and Constitutional wisdom yield the highest love for human beings. Not globalist, secular social engineering forced upon people whom God loves.

For a deeper understanding of the correct relationship between Christian faith and politics, Kullberg recommended “Francis Schaeffer’s classic, A Christian Manifesto, a timely reminder of the beauty of servant-leadership, God’s wisdom, and the dangers of authoritarianism.” (For more from the author of “Christian Leaders Warn of Soros-Funded “Hijack” of Christian Left” please click HERE)

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Yahoo Secretly Scanned Customer Emails for U.S. Intelligence – Sources

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Yahoo Inc last year secretly built a custom software program to search all of its customers’ incoming emails for specific information provided by U.S. intelligence officials, according to people familiar with the matter.

The company complied with a classified U.S. government demand, scanning hundreds of millions of Yahoo Mail accounts at the behest of the National Security Agency or FBI, said three former employees and a fourth person apprised of the events.

Some surveillance experts said this represents the first case to surface of a U.S. Internet company agreeing to an intelligence agency’s request by searching all arriving messages, as opposed to examining stored messages or scanning a small number of accounts in real time.

It is not known what information intelligence officials were looking for, only that they wanted Yahoo to search for a set of characters. That could mean a phrase in an email or an attachment, said the sources, who did not want to be identified.

Reuters was unable to determine what data Yahoo may have handed over, if any, and if intelligence officials had approached other email providers besides Yahoo with this kind of request. (Read more from “Yahoo Secretly Scanned Customer Emails for U.S. Intelligence – Sources” HERE)

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