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What We Should Learn After Religious Liberty Fight in Missouri

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By now you’ve likely read or heard of the knock-down, drag-out fight that we had at the Missouri legislature on Senate Joint Resolution (SJR) 39. If passed by simple legislative majorities, SJR 39 would have placed a ballot question on either the August or November ballot pertaining to religious liberty.

Missouri voters would then decide if government should be prevented from punishing (through adverse tax treatment, revocation of licensing, court fines and other means) clergy and small business owners connected to the wedding industry (wedding planners, bakers, etc.) who refused to take part in gay weddings as a result of their “sincerely held religious beliefs.”

After a 40-hour filibuster by Democrats in the Missouri Senate, the measure moved to the relevant House committee, where it continued to be a source of tremendous attention and controversy.

I was among the most frequent and vociferous supporters of SJR39 on social networks and learned several lessons that might prove useful to fellow conservatives who take up such a fight in the future.

1) Yes, the culture wars have moved this far, this fast. Get over it.

I’m old enough to have worked on George W. Bush’s campaign in Missouri in 2004 when we also had on the ballot a pro-traditional marriage initiative. It passed 71-29. I was as incredulous as most people in Missouri when I realized our House might balk at SJR 39. This fight is coming to a state legislature near you, if it hasn’t already. Get your incredulity out of the way now.

2) Both sides are 100 percent committed to the idea of their own righteousness.

I’ve never worked on a public policy issue where both sides were so entrenched about the righteousness of their position. I’ve always found that liberals take politics far more personally than conservative—they take this issue especially personally. If you engage on this issue and have liberal friends, be prepared to lose some of them.

3) Your friends in business aren’t committed.

Remember those generous business people who fund the Republican campaigns you’ve spent so much time around? Well, they think you’re a troglodyte on this issue and they’d prefer you just go back to the phone bank room now, thank you.

4) The other side’s public officials want this fight more than ours.

Missouri’s elected Democrats were in absolute lockstep in opposing SJR39. A lot of that has to do with the fact that we’ve beat them so badly over the years in House and Senate races that there’s only a handful of them left and they’re confined to the city centers.

Their people not only were in total agreement on the matter but desperately wanted to take this fight on. We had some committed Republicans on our side, particularly in the Senate. But among House Republicans some were for it, some were against it. But the most common refrain among House Republicans was that they’d vote for if they had to but they really didn’t want to have to go against the donor and business communities.

5) We can’t allow our surrogates and supporters to become the story.

I remember well the exact moment that I realized we were going to lose the battle over SJR39. I had been texting with a House Republican who matter-of-factly referred to the head of a statewide conservative organization by a nasty nickname. It was immediately apparent to me that, after attacking him incessantly on social networks for days, our opposition had succeeded in making this leader the issue. They had turned him into the face of our effort, and a caricature at that. Remember that every post you do to social networks could become fodder for the other side; choose your words carefully.

6) Social networks matter. A lot. And the other side is using them much better than we are.

Many of our House and Senate Republicans were glued to #SJR39 on Twitter during the debate and it was a critical platform to changing hearts and minds. I can’t tell you how many people mentioned tweets of mine to me after the fact. So engaging in this way is critical. But generally speaking, pro-SJR39 voices were swamped by the opposition on social networks. Particularly when hearings were being conducted. The population as a whole agrees, but they’re not making it known where and when it matters most.

7) Don’t wait for the cavalry, it isn’t coming.

On the day that SJR was to be decided I spent most of the day driving to and from appointments, listening to Rush Limbaugh on KMOX in St. Louis. If he mentioned a word about this critical cultural vote going on in his home state that very day, I managed to miss it. That was my experience with national conservative and religious leadership as a whole—they just didn’t show up. So when this battle comes to your state, don’t incorporate outside support into your plans – plan for them to be absent.

8) You have to try to find a way to be winsome if you’re going to win hearts and minds.

In the days following this battle I found myself exhausted by it all and not a little bit glad the fight was over for the time being, even if we did lose. As a committed, emotionally involved activist, you must constantly try to keep your cool in this battle when all others around you are losing theirs.

You can’t win hearts and minds with vinegar—only with honey. In the month-long battle I failed myself on this a couple of times and it’s among my greatest regrets about the whole episode. (For more from the author of “What We Should Learn After Religious Liberty Fight in Missouri” please click HERE)

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Missouri Soldier’s Conviction for Obama Comments Is Upheld

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The nation’s highest military appeals court has upheld the court-martial conviction of a Missouri man whose racist-sounding diatribe against President Barack Obama raised tough free-speech questions.

The former soldier, who at one point claimed to have connections to Missouri’s Ku Klux Klan, forced a closely divided U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces to clarify the law governing speech by members of the military. Soldiers, in sum, face more restrictions than civilians do.

“The right of free speech in the armed services is not unlimited and must be brought into balance with the paramount consideration of providing an effective fighting force for the defense of our country,” Judge Kevin A. Ohlson noted.

In its 3-2 decision released Friday, the military appeals court rejected defense arguments that the First Amendment protected Eric L. Rapert, of Sikeston, in southeastern Missouri, when he railed against Obama on the night of the 2012 election.

In ruling against Rapert, the court also distinguished the Uniform Code of Military Justice from federal law, whose ambiguities prompted the Supreme Court in 2015 to dismiss the conviction of a Pennsylvania man who’d posted threatening-sounding statements on his Facebook page. The military court found that the military justice code already required a determination of Rapert’s state of mind, something the U.S. Supreme Court said was lacking in the Pennsylvania case, where the defendant argued his postings were fictitious. (Read more from “Missouri Soldier’s Conviction for Obama Comments Is Upheld” HERE)

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Cause of Recurring Booms Remains a Mystery

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By Nathan Ellgren. Unexplained loud booms have been affecting residents around Grundy County [in Missouri] for weeks, and the cause has yet to be determined.

“It’s weird because it’s unlike most booming noises you hear,” said Glen Briggs, the emergency management director of Grundy County. “If you hear a car crash or something like that, you can pretty well tell which direction it came from. When I heard it, I couldn’t identity which direction it came from. It resembled thunder, but there were no thunderstorms in the area.”

Trenton residents began reporting their experiences of these booms after they heard it for the first time Feb. 14.

“I instantly made a post on our emergency management Facebook page and asked if anyone else heard it,” Briggs said. “We had close to 100 people comment saying they heard it. Several people said they felt it. They described a loud thud, rattling, some saw flashes of light and smoke.”

Trenton police arrived in a matter of minutes to the area where residents were affected, but didn’t find anything out of the ordinary. (Read more from “Cause of Recurring Booms Remains a Mystery” HERE)

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Strange Radio Bursts From Space Come in Clusters

By Marlowe Hood. Mysterious and powerful radio waves from deep space are coming in clusters, scientists revealed on Wednesday, having only discovered their existence a decade ago.

The repeated pulses emanate from well beyond the edge of the Milky Way Galaxy, according to a study published in the journal Nature.

It was previously thought that these so-called fast radio bursts (FRBs) — which can emit as much energy in a millisecond as the Sun emits in 10,000 years — were one-off phenomena.

Less than 20 have been detected since 2007, though more than 10,000 are suspected to occur every day.

Their origins remain unknown. Up to now, astronomers speculated that they were produced by cataclysmic events such as stars exploding into a supernovas, or neutron stars collapsing into black holes. (Read more from “Strange Radio Bursts From Space Come in Clusters” HERE)

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Missouri Ravaged by Historic Flooding as Disaster After Disaster Continues to Hit America

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Why does this keep happening to America? Since the month of September, the United States has been absolutely pummeled by a devastating series of disasters, and this most recent one may be the worst of all. Right now, communities all along the Mississippi, Missouri and Arkansas rivers are dealing with “historic” flooding. In Missouri, it is being said that nobody “that is living has ever seen anything like this“, and it is being projected that rivers could reach levels not seen since “the Great Flood” of 1993. Portions of Interstate 44 have been totally shut down, and thousands of people have either already been evacuated from their homes or are preparing to evacuate. It would be difficult to overstate the utter devastation that we are witnessing. Personally, I have some very good friends in southern Missouri, and I will definitely be keeping them in my prayers.

The governor of Missouri, Jay Nixon, is warning people to be very careful. Thirteen people have already been killed by the flooding, and Nixon says that the waters are going “places they’ve never been before”…

Thirteen people in Missouri have died in floods caused by severe storms over the weekend, and although the rain has moved on, swollen rivers are still rising and won’t crest for days, Gov. Jay Nixon said.

“It’s very clear that Missouri is in the midst of a very historic and dangerous flooding event,” Nixon told reporters Tuesday. “The amount of rain we’ve received, in some places in excess of a foot, has caused river levels to not only rise rapidly, but to go to places they’ve never been before.”

A state of emergency was declared in Missouri on Monday, and yesterday Governor Nixon activated the National Guard. But the river is still rising, and the worst is yet to come.

At this point, some communities have already been totally wiped out. This includes the little town of Rockaway Beach, which is not too far away from Branson. The following comes from USA Today…

In Missouri, some areas have already been hit hard by the first wave of rising water. Rockaway Beach, located near Branson in southwest Missouri, was swamped by waters from the swollen White River.

The tourist town of 800 “has just been demolished,” Mayor Don Smith told KYTV. “It’s devastating, and we are all so exhausted.”

It is being reported that the Mississippi River is now a mile wide is some places, and there are debris piles that are up to two stories tall. Authorities are projecting that the flooding along some areas of the river will match or break all-time records that were set back in 1993…

In some parts of the Missouri, rivers are expected to crest as high as they did during devastating flooding in 1993, which is known as the “great flood,” Nixon said.

The National Weather Service predicted that the Mississippi River at Chester, Illinois, would crest at 49.7 feet Friday, matching the 1993 record, the governor’s office said. The Mississippi at Thebes was expected to crest Saturday at a record-breaking 47.5 feet.

The Mississippi River is expected to reach nearly 15 feet above flood stage on Thursday at St. Louis, which would be the second-worst flood on record, behind only the devastating 1993 flood.

What is happening in the center of the country right now is just the continuation of a trend that has been building for months. Just check out this list of flooding events that we have seen in the U.S. since the end of the summer…

-Moisture from Hurricane Joaquin caused the worst flooding in the history of the state of South Carolina.

-Flash flooding caused “rivers of mud” to cover highways in southern California.

-The remnants of Hurricane Patricia caused tremendous flooding in many parts of Texas.

-One of the strongest El Ninos ever recorded has sent an endless stream of storms barreling into coastal areas of Oregon and Washington. This has caused horrible flooding in some areas.

Meanwhile, we continue to witness a rise in earthquake activity as well.

Oklahoma, which had already shattered an all-time state record for earthquakes in 2015, was hit by a 4.3 magnitude earthquake yesterday.

And just within the last 24 hours, a 4.4 magnitude earthquake hit near San Bernardino, California, and a 4.8 magnitude earthquake shook northwestern Washington and Vancouver Island.

Also, let’s not forget all of the wildfires that have been happening. On Christmas Day, a massive 1,200 acre blaze erupted near Ventura, California, and that topped off a year during which wildfires burned more acres in America than ever before.

Of course I could also mention the extremely rare EF-4 tornado that ripped through Garland, Texas just a few days ago and the ongoing multi-year drought that is still plaguing most of the state of California.

On top of everything else, a huge solar storm is going to hit our planet on New Year’s Eve. Fortunately, authorities do not expect that it will do that much damage.

Nobody can deny that our weather is getting really, really crazy.

So precisely why is this happening?

There is certainly a lot of debate about this. It is almost as if someone flipped a switch in September and turned on a disaster machine, because since that time there has been an endless parade of major events.

Do you have a theory that can explain what we are witnessing? (For more from the author of “Missouri Ravaged by Historic Flooding as Disaster After Disaster Continues to Hit America” please click HERE)

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Watch: Trump Says What Others Won’t Say About Missouri University Racism ‘Scandal’; Limbaugh Gives His Input on What Might Be the Real Reason for the Chaos

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By Kevin Whitson. Accepting the title of President of the United States is not only an honor, but is also a great responsibility. In the past, only one U.S. president chose to give up that responsibility and resign from office. The question of whether Donald Trump would resign for any reason, if elected as president, may be answered by taking a close look at how he responded to what is happening on the campus of the University of Missouri right now.

Western Journalism’s ongoing reporting of the situation at the University of Missouri has already uncovered disturbing findings. WJ reported that two faculty members were seen quelling free speech and freedom of the press on campus and strong-arming reporters and video journalists away from covering the protests. . . the main leader of the Concerned Student 1950 group, while condemning “white privilege,” grew up with a silver spoon in his own mouth–his own family was worth several millions of dollars.

Trump weighed in Thursday on the protests in an interview with FOX Business. “I think it’s disgusting. I think it’s disgusting. I think the two people who resigned are weak, ineffective people. I think that when they resigned, they set something in motion that’s going to be a disaster for the next long period of time. They were weak, ineffective people. How we hire people like that…Trump should’ve been the chancellor of that university. Believe me. There would’ve been no resignations.” (Read more from “Trump Says What Others Won’t Say About Missouri University Racism ‘Scandal'” HERE)

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Limbaugh Just Blew WIDE OPEN What Could Be the Real Reason for the Mizzou Chaos

By Randy DeSoto. On his nationally syndicated radio program on Thursday, Rush Limbaugh offered a possible theory for the sudden campus protests springing up around the country.

Limbaugh conjectured that the Democrat Party may be helping stoke these fires a means to drum up the African American vote in 2016.

[A]ll of this was a trumped-up, manufactured protest,” he said. “In fact, if you wanted to get really cynical you could almost say the Democrat Party is behind this, and the ultimate objective is to secure African-American turnout in 2016 to the same levels that Obama got it in 2008 and 2012“ . . .

The talk show host elaborated on his point:

I don’t think it would be a mistake to say Democrat Party operatives are behind all this stuff, from Ferguson to Baltimore to now Mizzou and over to Ithaca and all of it – trying to say the country is still racist as ever, for all intents and purposes we still have slavery – that no progress has been made and in their hearts, these evil Republicans still want black people in jail and all that. That’s a theme and were worse.

(Read more from “Limbaugh Just Blew WIDE OPEN What Could Be the Real Reason for the Mizzou Chaos” HERE)

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Missouri Toddler Is Dead for 12 Minutes, Then This Incredible Thing Happened

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2C8C932100000578-3242081-image-a-42_1442759811899A three-year-old girl came back to life after drowning in a pool leaving her family and doctors astounded.

The Nipper family, from Cape Girardeau, Missouri, had been enjoying a pool party with friends on July 29 when the tragic accident occurred.

Alise Nipper had showed no signs of life when she was pulled from the water, but her determined mother Jamie continued with CPR for 12 desperate minutes until there was a heartbeat.

Despite suffering from traumatic injuries, within weeks, Alise defied all expectations to make a full recovery and has even returned to the pool less than two months later.

On the day in question, Jamie Nipper and her daughter Alise had swum for a couple of hours, but when the weather suddenly turned, everyone decided to head inside. (Read more from “Toddler Is Dead for 12 Minutes, Then This Incredible Thing Happened” HERE)

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Missouri House Speaker John Diehl Resigning Over Inappropriate Texts With Teenage Intern [+video]

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Photo Credit: The Kansas City Star

Photo Credit: The Kansas City Star

House Speaker John Diehl, arguably the most powerful lawmaker in Missouri, announced Thursday he will resign from office. His announcement came just a day after The Star revealed he’d exchanged sexually suggestive texts with a 19-year-old legislative intern.

Diehl, who will also step down from his legislative seat from St. Louis County, is expected to make the decision official [today].

“I have acknowledged making a serious error in judgment by sending the text messages. It was wrong and I am truly sorry,” Diehl said in a written statement Thursday afternoon. “Too often, we hear leaders say they’re sorry but are unwilling to accept the consequences. I am willing to face the consequences.”

Hours after Diehl announced he would resign, Republicans gathered to pick Todd Richardson of Poplar Bluff as the next House speaker. Richardson is the majority floor leader. His rise to speaker still requires a House vote, likely Friday.

Diehl had issued a statement Wednesday afternoon admitting the relationship and asking for forgiveness. He told news media gathered outside his office later that night that he had no intention of resigning. (Read more from “Missouri House Speaker John Diehl Resigning Over Texts With Intern” HERE)

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This State Wants to BAN Soda and Chips … but There’s a Catch

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chipshelf1_newsThe state of Missouri has been slacking as far as welfare reform is concerned, which is somewhat odd given the fact that it’s a heavily red state in any given election year — but that’s all about to change in a big way.

One Missouri lawmaker decided enough is enough and is attempting to push legislation that would limit the types of foods that welfare leeches can purchase using their Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program EBT cards, including “cookies, chips, energy drinks, soft drinks, seafood or steak.”

But liberals argue that seafood and steak are healthy and that the language could include low-grade cuts of beef and canned tuna. It’s difficult to officially know what welfare leeches are buying, as the Department of Agriculture, responsible for overseeing the welfare program, refuses to release bar code data that shows what’s being bought.

However, Brattin went on record to say he’s personally witnessed welfare abusers purchasing high-end seafood and beef with their SNAP cards.

“I have seen people purchasing filet mignons and crab legs with their EBT cards. When I can’t afford it on my pay, I don’t want people on the taxpayer’s dime to afford those kinds of foods either,” Brattin said. (Read more from “BREAKING: This State Wants to BAN Soda and Chips… but There’s a Catch” HERE)

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Spokesman for Missouri State Auditor Found Dead 1 Month After Boss Killed Himself

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Photo Credit: Fox News

Photo Credit: Fox News

The spokesman for the Missouri auditor was found dead Sunday from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound, just a month after the suicide of his former boss, GOP gubernatorial frontrunner Tom Schweich.

Jefferson City police said Monday that Robert “Spence” Jackson was found dead Sunday evening at his home in the capital city. A police statement said Jackson’s death is being investigated as a suicide.

Jackson had been the spokesman for Missouri Auditor Tom Schweich, who shot himself to death on Feb. 26 at his home in the St. Louis suburb of Clayton. Jackson had remained as the office spokesman after Schweich’s death.

The 44-year-old Jackson also had previously served as the spokesman for former Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt.

Jackson was a strong critic of Schweich’s political adversaries, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Schweich killed himself Feb. 26 at his home in Clayton minutes after telling a reporter that Republican state Chairman John Hancock had started an anti-Semitic “whispering campaign” against him. (Read more from “Spokesman for Missouri State Auditor Found Dead 1 Month After Boss Killed Himself” HERE)

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Missouri State Senator Makes Racist Threat Over “White Privilege”; Black Protesters Storm Restaurants, Target Whites

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Photo Credit: ExaminerBy Joe Newby. On Saturday, Maria Chappelle-Nadal, a Democrat serving in the Missouri state Senate whose district includes Ferguson, issued what many took to be a racist threat against white people on her Twitter feed. Her message, while apparently escaping the notice of local media outlets, angered a number of people.

“LET ME BE CLEAR,” she screamed on Twitter. “When you exercise your #WhitePrivilege, don’t think I’m not going to remember. I will use it for the future. Uncomfortable?”

“The system has literally failed the people I represent,” she said hours later. “There is no hope that anything will change. We go through the motions (because) we have to.” She also said the country has failed. Ironically, the conservative blog Weasel Zippers observed, she made the comment while using an image of Communist dictator Fidel Castro as her background.

“If you r not a legislator representing #Ferguson & you have not communicated w me, yet u have a ‘resolution’, expect fire,” she said in another angry tweet. Several responded angrily to that message as well, calling her a racist and a bigot. One responded by telling her to quit having supporters direct violence at police officers.

“So, you are a racist & are saying as an elected official, you only represent select people,” one person said in response. Another person asked Chappelle-Nadal if she intends to round white people up and place them in internment camps. (Read more from the story, “Senator Makes Racist Threat” HERE)

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Black Protesters Storm Cafes, Scream at White People Eating Brunch

By Greg Campbell. In a purely unbelievable display of bigotry and anti-white zealotry, black protesters stormed multiple restaurants and cafes on Sunday and targeted white people for hatred and harassment, screaming at them and accusing them of being complicit in the “genocide” of black Americans.

Many tweeted about their activisities and offered thin defenses of their actions, claiming that white people deserve the harassment and that it, in fact, was not racism, since black people allegedly lack the power to be racist.

One tweet even claimed that white people “have no right to be here.” (Read more from this story and see the tweets HERE)

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