Lawsuit Challenges Part of Congressional Debt Relief Plan for Puerto Rico

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A court case challenging the congressional plan to deal with the Puerto Rico debt crisis has been launched to ensure the territory pays its bills.

Creditors filed suit against the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico in San Juan’s United States District Court on Wednesday. This type of lawsuit is exactly what Congress had hoped to prevent by adding a stay on litigation to PROMESA, its act addressing Puerto Rico’s debt crisis.

The creditors are challenging the legality of the stay itself, echoing concerns that The Heritage Foundation raised during the bill’s consideration. At the time, we wrote that:

Enacting such a “stay” of litigation without supervision by the Oversight Board created in PROMESA would give Puerto Rico’s unpopular government an opportunity to shuffle money around, potentially without consequences, for months … As drafted, the bill creates an incentive for Obama to drag his feet and allow his allies to govern the island free of legal challenges and oversight.

In the lawsuit, which bond researcher Cate Long shared online, the creditors hope to win relief under a provision of PROMESA that was added in response to our and others’ concerns about the stay:

Recognizing that there would be some period of time after the stay took effect but before appointment of the Oversight Board and its chair, PROMESA severely restricts Puerto Rico’s ability to take certain action that would impair its creditors … This section addresses Congress’s concern that Puerto Rico might seek to exploit bondholders’ inability to sue for payment before the Oversight Board is operational to siphon money away from (among others) bondholders protected by the Puerto Rico Constitution.

The creditors make their case that they deserve payment under both PROMESA’s own provisions and the Puerto Rican constitution. Other groups of creditors are likely hoping that this group loses its case—they are all chasing the same shrinking purse.

For Congress, this will be a test of how its unwise rearrangement of legal claims works in practice. Regardless of how Judge Francisco Besosa rules, the lawsuit shows that PROMESA did not prevent the “rush to the courthouse” that its proponents claimed it would avert. Instead, competing claimants are right where they belong—in front of an appropriate court—but playing under slightly different rules than they originally agreed to. (For more from the author of “Lawsuit Challenges Part of Congressional Debt Relief Plan for Puerto Rico” please click HERE)

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Ted Cruz Withholds Endorsement, Booed, Upstaged by Trump

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Ted Cruz sensationally withheld an endorsement of Donald Trump at the Republican National Convention on Wednesday, earning a chorus of boos from the floor before he was upstaged by a power play by the GOP nominee himself.

In a dramatic development, as Cruz wrapped up his speech, Trump suddenly appeared in the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, walking to join his family in a VIP area, in a gesture that transmitted clear anger at the Texas senator’s behavior. . .

But as it was clear Cruz was wrapping up his speech without endorsing Trump, delegates began to boo and some chanted “We want Trump!”

. . .As delegates began to protest, Sen. Cruz’s wife, Heidi Cruz, was heckled by Trump supporters shouting “Goldman Sachs!” and escorted out by security. Heidi Cruz, who is an employee of Goldman Sachs, declined to answer questions from reporters, saying “I don’t talk to the media, thanks.”

Jonathan Barnett, a Republican national committeeman from Arkansas, walked off the floor after Cruz’s speech. “He’s self-centered. It’s all about Ted Cruz. All he did is ruin his political career,” Barnett said. “I think he’s finished.” (Read more from story, “Ted Cruz Withholds Endorsement,” HERE)

Newt Gingrich Has a Strategy to Destroy ISIS

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Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich told a group of Iowa Republicans on Wednesday afternoon that if ISIS terrorists want to live in the eighth century, he has a plan to send them there.

In a preview of his prime-time address to the Republican National Convention on Wednesday night, Gingrich said that “great societies have the capacity to destroy evil people if they have the courage to destroy evil people.” He delivered the remarks aboard the Goodtime III, Cleveland’s largest excursion ship.

Gingrich said that he “would put assets overhead” to ensure that all modern technology in “any area geographically occupied by ISIS” is targeted by airstrikes.

“I would say that the minute you turn on a car—we’re killing you,” Gingrich said. “The minute you have an electric generator—we’re killing you.”

“You’re going to have no electricity so you can’t be on the internet and you’re going to have no cars,” Gingrich said. “By the time we’re done eliminating your vehicles and by the time we’re done eliminating your electricity, if the neighboring folks want to come in and mop you up, that’s fine with us.” (Read more from “Newt Gingrich Has a Strategy to Destroy ISIS” HERE)

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Federal Court Issues Voter ID Ruling That Could Impact Election

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A federal court ruled Wednesday that Texas’ voter identification law violates the U.S. Voting Rights Act prohibition on racial discrimination in elections.

In its 9-6 ruling, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found that the 2011 voter ID law makes it harder for blacks and Hispanics to vote, and asked a district court to make changes to the law before the general election in November. “The district court must ensure that any remedy enacted ameliorates [the law’s] discriminatory effect, while respecting the legislature’s stated objective to safeguard the integrity of elections by requiring more secure forms of voter identification,” the court said.

The law, Senate Bill 14, requires voters to present proof of identification, including a state driver’s license or ID card, a U.S. passport, an election ID certificate, a military ID card, a concealed handgun license or a U.S citizenship certificate with a photo.

Proponents said it prevents voter fraud, and noted that Texas makes it easy for voters to acquire ID cards free of charge.

In the ruling, however, Judge Catharina Haynes wrote, “The record shows that drafters and proponents of SB 14 were aware of the likely disproportionate effect of the law on minorities, and that they nonetheless passed the bill without adopting a number of proposed ameliorative measures that might have lessened this impact.”

Judges who disagreed with the ruling said, “Requiring a voter to verify her identity with a photo ID at the polling place is a reasonable requirement widely supported by Texans of all races and members of the public belonging to both political parties. The majority ruling ‘fans the flames’ of perniciously irresponsible racial name-calling.”

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said the court had “wrongly concluded” that the law had a discriminatory effect. “Voter fraud is real, and it undermines the integrity of the election process,” he said in a statement.

The Texas Democratic Party, on the other hand, celebrated the ruling. “The most restrictive and discriminatory Republican voter ID law in country has been struck down,” it said. (For more from the author of “Federal Court Issues Voter ID Ruling That Could Impact Election” please click HERE)

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THE 15-SECOND MP3 THAT CAN DESTROY HILLARY’S CAMPAIGN: I Suggest Using It as a Ringtone

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Talk about sounding like a dictator. In all seriousness, if enough people distribute this little gem, you can count on a Trump presidency from the voice factor alone.

CLICK HERE TO PLAY (OR RIGHT-CLICK TO DOWNLOAD).

(For more from the author of “THE 15-SECOND MP3 THAT CAN DESTROY HILLARY’S CAMPAIGN: I Suggest Using It as a Ringtone” please click HERE)

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The GOP Wants to Repeat This YUGE Mistake of the Great Depression

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In a section of the recently released 2016 Republican Platform titled “Regulation: The Quiet Tyranny,” the Party of Lincoln endorses re-imposing a regulation that would impact trillions of dollars’ worth of assets.

“We support reinstating the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 which prohibits commercial banks from engaging in high-risk investment” state the document’s supposedly capitalist drafters, who ironically castigate President Obama for “regulating to death a free market economy that he does not like and does not understand.”

You can’t make this stuff up.

The part of Glass-Steagall to which the authors are referring concerns the ability for banks to provide both commercial and investment banking operations under the same roof. Prior to the passage of the then-President Bill Clinton-supported Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA) of 1999, such combinations were largely verboten.

In the wake of the financial crisis and recession of 2007-2009, in a classic case of beginning with a narrative and looking for any points, no matter how tenuous, to back it up, Democrats contended that deregulation namely in the form of GLBA caused banks to take risks that crashed the financial system.

What commercial banks combining with investment banks had to do with a massive, government-fueled bubble in the housing sector, Glass-Steagall proponents have trouble explaining.

Republicans apparently have bought into the Democrat’s narrative and insist that it is their right to determine what risks are appropriate for banks to take, and restructure industries wholesale by government fiat.

When judging a piece of legislation like Glass-Steagall, it pays to look at what motivated the bill’s drafters to implement it in the first place.

The Heritage Foundation’s resident financial regulations guru Norbert J. Michel outlines this history in a piece that the Republican Platform authors appear to have ignored:

Glass–Steagall has attained near mythical status for securing a vital separation between commercial and investment banking in the U.S. Supposedly, this separation put an end to the risky financial activities that contributed to the Great Depression. Yet, the record shows that separating commercial and investment banking was little more than a long-time pet project of Senator Carter Glass, one of the original authors of the Federal Reserve Act of 1913. Glass viewed securities investments as a purely speculative activity and in virtually no way a legitimate commercial endeavor. Consequently, he believed that the only way to ensure bank safety was to restrict bank lending to short-term financing of commercial activity.

One reason this idea is flawed is that there was no general prohibition—before or after Glass–Steagall—against commercial banks providing operating loans to investment banks. That is, the firms engaged in the very speculative activity Glass abhorred regularly borrowed from commercial banks.[33] Regardless, the record shows that Glass had no empirical evidence to support his opinion. The definitive historical study of Glass-Steagall shows that “the evidence from the pre-Glass-Steagall period is totally inconsistent with the belief that banks’ securities activities or investments caused them to fail or caused the financial system to collapse.” In fact, the evidence suggests that pre-Glass–Steagall banks engaged in securities activities were safer than those exclusively engaged in commercial banking.

In light of the facts and evidence, and given the other nominally pro-free market designs in the Republican platform in paying lip service to sound money, abolishing Dodd-Frank and ending Too Big to Fail, the insertion of a line about reinstating Glass-Steagall is somewhat baffling. If Republicans even vaguely understand that the best constraint on banks like all other businesses is a market that punishes them for destroying value and rewards them for creating it – rather than socializing losses and privatizing profits – than why might they have included such an incongruent clause?

The cynic might point to some good old-fashioned extortion. Could it be that Republicans are in effect threatening existing business models in the financial services industry in order to entice bankers, traders and executives to pay for the privilege of not having to break up their businesses – that is, contributing to Republican candidates in order to sway them to swear off the reinstatement of Glass-Steagall?

While follow-the-money analysis is often fruitful, in this case such a rationale would seem inapt at first glance, given that members of the finance, insurance and real estate industries have contributed disproportionately to the GOP during the 2012 through 2016 election cycles.

Take a closer look at the numbers however, and you will note that Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump is not even in the top 20 recipients during the 2016 cycle from the “killers” on Wall Street, among others in the industry. In fact, according to Open Secrets, he is being outraised by Hillary Clinton at a rate of 49:1, with Clinton hauling $15.6 million thus far to Trump’s paltry ~$318,000.

There are any number of reasons why Wall Street might loathe Donald Trump, including a belief that Hillary Clinton can and will be bought off to protect its interests, while Trump is likely to spurn those with whom he has had contentious business dealings over the years.

Seen in this light, if Trump will never gain the financial service industry’s support, reinstatement of Glass-Steagall makes sense politically in keeping with his populist pose as a means of perhaps garnering the votes of Independents.

Whatever the rationale, Republicans should focus less on breaking up banks, and more on creating a free marketplace whereby financial institutions rise and fall of their own volition, and market participants determine appropriate levels of risk and price it accordingly. (For more from the author of “The GOP Wants to Repeat This YUGE Mistake of the Great Depression” please click HERE)

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Church Fights State Over What It Preaches, Practices on Sexuality and Gender Identity

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A small Iowa church has entered a legal battle with the state government over what the congregation considers censorship of biblical teaching on human sexuality.

The dispute began with a brochure published by the Iowa Civil Rights Commission about state law’s protections for sexual orientation and gender identity. The document explained how the law applies to places of public accommodation—and included churches among places such as restaurants and hotels.

In the brochure, the state agency interpreted the Iowa Civil Rights Act “to apply to churches anytime that they hold worship services that are open to the public, as all worship services are,” Christiana Holcomb, a lawyer with Alliance Defending Freedom, told The Daily Signal.

The Christian legal aid group represents Fort Des Moines Church of Christ. It filed a federal lawsuit July 4 on behalf of the church, located in the state capital of Des Moines.

As defendants, the suit names officials at the Iowa Civil Rights Commission, the attorney general of Iowa, and the city of Des Moines.

“No American, no citizen, has to wait for the government to enforce an unconstitutional law against them,” Holcomb said.

The commission’s interpretation of the civil rights law “does basically two things,” Holcomb told The Daily Signal:

One, it tells the church that you’re not allowed to teach or do anything, including what a pastor preaches from the pulpit, if it would make anyone feel uncomfortable based on their gender identity. A logical extension of that would mean that a pastor couldn’t preach about God’s design for human sexuality and biological sex.

The second component … is that a church that holds a worship service open to the public would no longer be allowed to have sex-designated sensitive areas like restrooms and locker rooms and shower and changing facilities.

‘Able to Choose What We Believe’

Alliance Defending Freedom’s motion for a preliminary injunction, filed July 14, asks a federal court to stop the state commission from using the law against the church while the lawsuit progresses.

Fort Des Moines Church of Christ, pastored by Michael Demastus, believes and teaches that God created each person either male or female, the lawsuit says.

“We can agree or disagree with what Fort Des Moines Church of Christ believes about the issues of gender identity and sexual orientation, and that’s fine,” Holcomb said. “In a diverse marketplace of ideas, we should each be able to choose what we believe.”

“But the real problem in Iowa is … you have a government trying to come in and dictate to a church what it believes and how it uses its house of worship.”

Peter Kirsanow, a member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, wrote a letter July 13 to Angela Jackson, chairman of the Iowa commission, arguing that her agency’s approach “plainly violates both the free exercise clause and the establishment clause of the First Amendment of the United States Constitution.”

Fort Des Moines Church of Christ, Holcomb said, “discovered that an unelected commission in the state of Iowa had published this brochure” explaining the civil rights law.

The Iowa Civil Rights Commission revised its brochure July 8, four days after the church sued, clarifying that churches are generally exempt from the state law “unless the place of worship engages in nonreligious activities which are open to the public.”

Another church, Cornerstone World Outreach in Sioux City, Iowa, and its senior pastor, Cary Gordon, took legal action against the state commission for similar reasons, as The Daily Signal previously reported.

Holcomb said the state agency not only has the authority to interpret the Iowa’s civil rights law, but to enforce it, so it could use the statute to “infringe on a church’s religious freedom.”

‘Complementary Halves of Humanity’

According to its website, Fort Des Moines Church of Christ is a nondenominational congregation that is “simply trying to be faithful to God’s Word and call on our lives.”

“The church believes that God intentionally and purposefully created males male and females female, and that these two complementary halves of humanity reflect God’s image,” the lawsuit says.

Church policy for sex-specific private spaces states that restrooms and showers may be used only by members of the designated biological sex, according to the lawsuit.

While the commission has not taken action against Fort Des Moines Church of Christ, Holcomb said, the church was “deeply concerned” the agency could start enforcement proceedings.

Saying it wanted to get clarity for Iowa churches, Alliance Defending Freedom filed the lawsuit as a pre-enforcement challenge to the law.

Kristin H. Johnson, the state commission’s executive director, declined to comment to The Daily Signal.

In a prepared statement July 8, Johnson said the commission “has not done anything to suggest it would be enforcing these laws against ministers in the pulpit, and there has been no new publication or statement … raising the issue.”

The Des Moines church’s lawyers argue that the law bans expressing any views on sexuality that would “directly or indirectly” make individuals “unwelcome” based on their gender identity. In its description of the case, Alliance Defending Freedom writes:

The speech ban could be used to gag churches from making any public comments—including from the pulpit—that could be viewed as unwelcome to persons who do not identify with their biological sex because the commission has stated that the law applies to churches during any activity that the commission deems to not have a ‘bona fide religious purpose.”

‘It Could Flip-Flop Again’

The civil rights law was amended in 2007 to include gender identity and sexual orientation as classes protected from discrimination at places of public accommodation, Johnson said in the prepared statement.

“The commission regrets the confusion caused by the previous publication,” Johnson said, and “has never considered a complaint against a church or other place of worship on this issue.”

Alliance Defending Freedom’s Holcomb said “cosmetic changes” to the commission’s brochure aren’t enough and highlight “the underlying vagueness of the state law at issue.”

“The commission could change its mind tomorrow about the brochure and reissue the old one,” Holcomb said, “or a month or a year down the line, it could flip-flop again on this issue.” She added:

It just highlights that the commission has too much power, too much authority to try to apply the law to churches, which are not places of public accommodation. They are places of worship and should enjoy full and robust freedom under the First Amendment.

Who gets to decide what is or is not a religious purpose? Is that something that’s being left in the hands of unelected bureaucrats, or is that something that the church gets to determine?

(For more from the author of “Church Fights State Over What It Preaches, Practices on Sexuality and Gender Identity” please click HERE)

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Senior Navy Official Charged With Pulling Gun on Youth Outside of Home

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By Crimesider Staff. A Virginia magistrate Tuesday morning issued three summonses for Karnig Ohannessian, Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Environment, for brandishing a firearm.

Ohannessian can be seen in the video, which was recorded June 11, pointing a gun at young men he says are drunk and making noise outside his house in the Washington, D.C. suburbs.

Ohannessian tells the boys to get in their car, to which one of them responds: “You’re pointing a gun at my friend. This is a criminal offense, so please stop it.”

(Editor’s note: Contrary to the commentator’s final statement, Ohannessian has been charged)

The men taunt him while one of them records the incident. (Read more about the case involving Senior Navy Official Karnig Ohannessian HERE)

__________________________________

Magistrate Originally Declined to Allow Charges Against Senior Navy Official

By Justin Jouvenal and Dan Lamothe. Fairfax County police said previously that officers were called to the 6600 block of Bestwicke Court in Burke, Va., on June 11 for a report of a man pointing a gun. An argument occurred on the street between a 49-year-old man and other men who had been at a house nearby, police said they were told. The 49-year-old man was said to have pointed his gun at several people.

Police began investigating but determined the victims had left the scene. A 24-year-old man later went to the West Springfield District station to file a report about the alleged brandishing, police said.

Officers then went to Ohannessian’s home and placed him under arrest, but a magistrate later determined that there was not probable cause to charge him with a crime and he was released.

Claude J. Beheler, the chief magistrate in Fairfax County, did not immediately return a call for comment, so it was unclear what had changed to warrant the decision to now go forward with charges against Ohannessian. (Read more about Senior Navy Official being charged HERE)

Refugees Secretly Flooding Into These States

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Despite more reports in recent weeks about Muslim “refugees” raping and attacking people in the U.S. and Europe, President Obama has ramped up his Syrian refugee program – delivering 625 to U.S. cities in one week and crossing the 6,000 mark for total Syrians who have entered the country since October.

With a little over two months before the Sept. 30 deadline to fulfill his promise to the United Nations to resettle 10,000 Syrians, Obama has delivered 6,227 Syrian migrants to 38 states and dozens of cities.

That means more than 1,000 have arrived just since July 1.

Of the 6,227 total who arrived since Oct. 1, 2015, only 23 have been Christian and 10 Yazidi. All the of the remaining 6,194 Syrians, more than 98 percent, have been Sunni Muslim. That’s the same sect that makes up the ranks of ISIS, al-Nusra Front and other groups that are viciously persecuting Christians in Syria.

Michigan, California, Arizona, Texas and Illinois are the top five states for numbers of Syrian refugees received so far in fiscal 2016. These refugees are hand-selected by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to be permanently resettled in the U.S. (Read more from “Refugees Secretly Flooding Into These States” HERE)

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Sean Hannity Puts Claims of Plagiarism Against Melania Trump Into Perspective

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During her Monday appearance at the Republican National Convention, Melania Trump was hailed for delivering an excellent speech in both content and tone.

Shortly after, however, critics began piecing together evidence which they claim is proof Trump plagiarized a speech delivered by Michelle Obama during the 2008 Democratic National Convention.

In particular, critics pointed to two lines in the speech where both Obama and Trump call for hard work, honesty, and treating people with respect.

While some similarities certainly do exist, many have rebuffed these concerns, pointing out the generic words and subject matter used by Trump are insufficient to allege plagiarism.

Ironically, it has also been pointed out that plagiarism is not exactly uncommon in politics, with Democrats engaging in the activity from time to time as well.

Taking to Facebook, Fox News host Sean Hannity posted an informational meme which describes numerous instance of plagiarism from several high ranking Democratic figures, including Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Michelle Obama, and Vice President Joe Biden.

Even more ironic is the allegation that Michelle Obama plagiarized in the very speech Melania Trump has been accused of taking from, yet the media reaction has mostly been inconsistent.

In the case of Trump, the debacle has been talked about frequently by media pundits — spanning from late Monday evening all the way through Tuesday — and is unlikely to die down any time soon.

On the other hand, there was little to no outrage against Obama for her own supposed use of plagiarism.

While it is not yet clear whether these allegations will negatively impact the Trump campaign, Republicans have already begun calling on the media to focus on issues of substance. (For more from the author of “Sean Hannity Puts Claims of Plagiarism Against Melania Trump Into Perspective” please click HERE)

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