Why Traditional Marriage Supporters Think 2015 Will Be a Turning Point in Debate

Photo Credit: UPI / Kevin Dietsch / NewscomDespite rulings on the Defense of Marriage Act and California’s Proposition 8 from the U.S. Supreme Court last year, traditional marriage supporters are looking ahead to 2015 as a crucial moment in the marriage debate.

Supreme Court justices met for the first time today to consider if they will hear any same-sex marriage cases during the 2014-15 term. The court is faced with seven such lawsuits and has until January to decide whether to hear any of them.

The cases would ultimately decide whether same-sex marriage is legalized nationwide.

The topic was a big draw at the Values Voter Summit in Washington, D.C., on Saturday. Speakers outlined what the future of marriage looks like as the Supreme Court weighs whether or not to wade into the debate once again.

“This attack on marriage is an attack on the family, and it’s designed to remove an impediment to government control of our lives,” said John Eastman, chairman of the National Organization for Marriage. “We have got to stand and fight.”

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The Insiders: Why the “Latte Salute” is a Big Deal

Photo Credit: InstagramBy now, everyone has seen the pictures of President Obama’s “latte salute,” where he walked off Air Force One and couldn’t even be bothered to switch his cup to his other hand while lazily saluting the Marines at the bottom of the airplane stairs. The Obama apologists are dismissing the criticism, calling it “ridiculousness.”

Perhaps the president meant it as an insult; perhaps not. But we know the president is vain – after all, he has already written two books about himself – and he’s also very stage-aware. He knew what he was doing. President Obama was striking a pose.

While the usual suspects want to make apologies for him – and of course, immediately blame President Bush – this has hit a nerve…

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The Utter Failure of Obama

Photo Credit: Charles DharapakBarack Obama is destined to be the greatest flop in American presidential history. He is, in every sense of the word, an utter failure.

Consider first his signature achievement, Obamacare. Not only has Obama had to delay implementation, creating a perfect precedent for his Republican successor to do the same, but the law is more unpopular today than it has ever been according to all polling data.

Pew Research reports that 55% of Americans disapprove of Obamacare. A clear plurality of Americans believe that they will be worse off because of Obamacare. CBS News lists the “strongly approve” of Obamacare at 16%, while “strongly disapprove” is a whopping 47%. Every polling organization, no matter how the question is worded, shows the same public disdain for this law.

The fear conservatives had that a new entitlement will create a permanent constituency may not happen this time, because Obamacare, unlike Social Security or Medicare, helps almost no one and hurts a lot of people. Moreover, by foolishly rejecting a bipartisan reform, Obama and his party cannot claim broad support for his law.

This political hack, who had the power to do anything during his first two years, could think of nothing more imaginative than (1) spending federal dollars like water based upon the ancient and failed “stimulus” idea and (2) implementing an even greater failure – ask any Briton or Canadian – of nationalized health insurance simply, one suspects, because Barry had no keener mind or greater imagination than to pick up tired ideas of British Socialism eighty years old.

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Eric Metaxas: Christians Who Remain Silent About Persecution in the Mideast Enable Evil, Like in Nazi Germany

Photo Credit: THE CHRISTIAN POST / SONNY HONGEric Metaxas compared the silence of Christians about persecution in the Middle East and religious freedom restrictions domestically to the silence of Christians in Nazi Germany.

“Silence in the face of evil is itself evil,” Dietrich Bonhoeffer once said, Metaxas reminded the audience at the In Defense of Christians Inaugural Summit on Sept. 11.

Metaxas is the author of a biography of Bonhoeffer, a German theologian who spoke up about the persecution of the Jews and was put to death by the Third Reich.

The evil acts of Nazi Germany were partly enabled by the conflation of national identity with the Church, Metaxas said. He compared it to his own experience of growing up in a Greek family where he was led to believe that being Greek meant that you belong to the Greek Orthodox Church, which meant that you are a Christian. Similarly, Germans believed that being German meant being Lutheran, which meant that you are a Christian.

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The Making Of An Anti-American President

Photo Credit: im41.comBarack Obama, in his own mind, is incapable of formulating scenarios in which the United States, as a capitalist-based western democracy, succeeds.

If narcissism explains Obama’s personal behavior, his relationships with others, and his self-centered decision-making process, then the nexus of Marxism-Leninism, Black Nationalism, and Islam defines him politically–philosophies antithetical to the survival of the Constitution and the American republic.

Frank Marshall Davis was introduced to Barack Obama by his maternal grandfather, Stanley Dunham, who was a close friend of Davis and saw him as a potential role model and father-figure for his grandson. Davis was also a US Communist Party member (number 47544) and became Obama’s mentor in Hawaii during the 1970s, right up until Obama left for college at Occidental, which he attended on a scholarship, one likely reserved for foreign students. That would explain why he roomed and associated with foreign students and, incidentally, may not have registered with Selective Service.

In a PBS “Frontline” documentary called “The Choice 2012,” former Obama roommate Sohale Siddiqi stated, “I didn’t consider him American. He seemed like an international individual.”

Dr. John Drew was a contemporary of Obama at Occidental College and himself a Marxist. Drew was already a well-known campus communist when Obama was introduced to him as “one of us.” Drew claims that Obama “was a Marxist-Leninist in his sophomore year of college from 1980 to 1981.”

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Outlawed in America: The American Flag

Photo Credit: WNDI’m old enough to remember when the big controversy surrounding American flags was whether or not we should make it illegal for dim-bulb protesters to burn them in public. There was quite a bit of energy behind flag-burning bans for a while there. Instead, it has become illegal to display an American flag, at least in certain places and times.

For example, you’d better not fly the Stars and Stripes at Woodruff High School in South Carolina, especially on September 11. WSPA News reports:

Several people SHOWED up with American flags to protest Woodruff High School’s decision to make students remove flags from their vehicles.

On September 11, four students SHOWED up at the school with U.S. flags flying from their vehicles. The flags were confiscated after officials said it was against school district policy to “draw attention” to one’s vehicle. The flags were returned at the end of the day and the students were not punished.

Parents who were upset with the decision went to social media to voice their opinion. They also planned the protest, which took place Monday morning.

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Why do Americans Hate America?

Photo Credit: TownHallAfter some hand-wringing over British citizens who have chosen to fight with ISIS, Prime Minister David Cameron said he thinks one reason for the defection is that too many of the defectors have forgotten what it means to be British. As a means of fighting the radicalization of young people, he wants all of Britain’s schools to again teach “British values.”

It is a diagnosis Americans would do well to consider because an unknown number of Americans (FBI DIRECTOR James Comey says he doesn’t have a precise number because they are “hard to track”) have abandoned their country to fight with jihadists.

In order to teach values, whether British or American, we must first agree on what they are. Since the turbulent ’60s, some Americans have chosen to ignore, even oppose, values taught to their forebears. These tenets begin with personal responsibility and ACCOUNTABILITY, hard work, capitalism, self-reliance, faith in God and patriotism.

As I see it, too many students pay little heed to the Pledge of Allegiance. Few will serve in the military, or feel compelled to “give back” to their country as did those who fought and died for their freedom.

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The Spread of Rocky Mountain Jihad

Photo Credit: TownHall Something’s fouling Colorado’s crisp air — and I’m not talking about the pot smoke.

In my adopted home state, the toxic fumes of Islamic jihad have penetrated the most unlikely hamlets and hinterlands. Obama administration officials are vehemently denying plots by ISIS operatives to cross our borders. But the lesson here is clear: Thanks to LAPTOP recruitment, reckless visa policies and homegrown treachery, the U.S.-based jihad export-import business is and has been thriving.

Last week, 19-year-old Shannon Conley of Arvada (a Denver suburb once known as the “Celery Capital of the World”) pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization. Conley, a militant Muslim convert, plotted to aid al-Qaida and its affiliates. According to the federal criminal complaint filed in April, she planned to use her military training with the U.S. Army Explorers “to go overseas to wage jihad” and “to train Islamic jihadi fighters in U.S. military tactics.” A certified NURSE’S AIDE, she also told investigators she would use her medical training to aid jihadi fighters.

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An Idiotic Government with Idiotic Goals

Photo Credit: TownHallFor folks who are trying to ignite inflation, this sure isn’t working out very well. It’s been hoped by the country’s central bankers that the massive quantitative easing PROGRAM along with near-zero interest rates will touch off a wave of inflation that if not exactly the same thing as boom times, will at least give the appearance of a strengthening economy. However, month after month inflation in the goods that the Fed cares about seems muted. Now this month we had the horrid news that official inflation numbers are falling not rising.

“The consumer-price index declined 0.2 percent,” reports Bloomberg, “the first decrease since April 2013, a Labor Department report showed today in Washington. The median forecast of 83 economists SURVEYED by Bloomberg called for unchanged. Excluding volatile food and fuel, the so-called core measure was unchanged, the first time it failed to increase in almost four years.”

Oh, the horror of falling gas prices!

It should be noted that falling fuel costs, not coincidentally, also contributed to the robust retail SALES figures that boosted the economy in August

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NYT: Obama 'Reshaping' Appellate Bench

Photo Credit: DOUG MILLS / THE NEW YORK TIMES
Democrats have reversed the partisan imbalance on the federal appeals courts that long favored conservatives, a little-noticed shift with far-reaching consequences for the law and President Obama’s legacy.

For the first time in more than a decade, judges appointed by Democratic presidents considerably outnumber judges appointed by Republican presidents. The Democrats’ advantage has only grown since late last year when they stripped Republicans of their ability to filibuster the president’s nominees.

Democratic appointees who hear cases full time now hold a majority of seats on nine of the 13 United States Courts of Appeals. When Mr. Obama took office, only one of those courts had more full-time judges nominated by a Democrat.

The shift, one of the most significant but unheralded accomplishments of the Obama era, is likely to have ramifications for how the courts decide the legality of some of the president’s most controversial actions on health care, immigration and clean air. Since today’s Congress has been a graveyard for legislative accomplishment, these judicial confirmations are likely to be among its most enduring acts.

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