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The Front Page Cover
~ Featuring ~
The Freedom Not to Bake
by DENNIS SAFFRAN
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WaPo 'Fact-Checker' Cushions Gun Liar Pulosi
by Jordan Candler: The Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act made headway last week when the House approved the measure by a 231-198 vote. Minority Leader Nancy Pulosi sniped at Republicans for supporting concealed carry reciprocity, lamenting on Twitter, “Inviting violent criminals to carry concealed weapons doesn’t save lives. Inviting domestic abusers to carry concealed weapons doesn’t save lives. Inviting convicted stalkers to carry concealed weapons doesn’t save lives. Yet the @HouseGOP just voted to do exactly that #StopCCR.”
by Jordan Candler: The Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act made headway last week when the House approved the measure by a 231-198 vote. Minority Leader Nancy Pulosi sniped at Republicans for supporting concealed carry reciprocity, lamenting on Twitter, “Inviting violent criminals to carry concealed weapons doesn’t save lives. Inviting domestic abusers to carry concealed weapons doesn’t save lives. Inviting convicted stalkers to carry concealed weapons doesn’t save lives. Yet the @HouseGOP just voted to do exactly that #StopCCR.” Pulosi’s disingenuous remark is irresponsible simply by virtue of common sense. In most states, there is a process for obtaining a concealed carry permit, and it’s akin to buying a firearm at your local gun dealer. Don’t pass a background check? Then you don’t get a permit. Some states even require training for a permit. But more to the point: Not a single armed criminal consults their state’s concealed carry law before deciding if they should carry a firearm. Democrats pretend the Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act is relevant to criminals when in reality it’s about giving lawful citizens equal protection no matter where they travel.
Nevertheless, Pulosi and her media darlings are portraying Republicans as criminal accomplices. According to Glenn Kessler at The Washington Post, his research revealed that Pulosi was referencing “information provided by Everytown for Gun Safety,” an anti-gun group, which helps explain the ridiculousness of her assertion. But after spending some 1,000 words laying out “The Facts” of the matter at hand, Kessler applies “The Pinocchio Test.” Sadly, his conclusion is likewise devoid of actual facts. “We wavered between Two and Three Pinocchios,” he says, “but ultimately settled on Three because her last line … is so over the top and exaggerated.”
Oh please. Her entire premise is over the top and exaggerated. It’s nothing but a lie. It deserved nothing short of Four Pinocchios — the Post’s maximum — yet Kessler was ultimately debating between giving her a 25% or 50% discount because she is, after all, a Democrat. What’s more absurd — Pulosi’s claim, or Kessler’s defense of it? You can be sure of one thing when it comes to today’s Leftmedia: These supposed fact-checkers are enabling the falsehoods they claim to be fighting against.
~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/52920
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Sen Grassley Moving Judicial Committee
Focus To Widespread DOJ Corruption
by rickwells.us
{rickwells.us} ~ Maria Bartiromo notes the text messages between libtard lustbirds Peter Strzok and Lisa Page... in which they refer to then-candidate Donald Trump as a “loathsome human” and an “idiot.” She asks Senator Charles Grassley, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, “Should these two people be involved in working on what’s supposed to be a fair investigation when we know how they feel personally about Donald Trump?” Grassley replies in his matter-of-fact Iowa manner, “Well, aren’t you asking me about the same two people, a man and a woman, that were removed by Mueller a few months ago, when he became aware of it?”... https://rickwells.us/grassley-judicial-committee-doj/.
Tweetin’ Texan Don Willett confirmed to 5th
Circuit, despite Dems playing War on Women
by William A. Jacobson
{legalinsurrection.com} ~ Texas Supreme Court Justice Don Willett was confirmed to the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals today.. Justice Willett is best known for his Twitter account, where he stays away from politics, and is quite funny. Kemberlee put together a Best of Future SCOTUS? Justice Don Willett’s Twitter Feed. As we previously reported, during confirmation hearings, Dems tried to attack some of his tweets, Aging, humorless Dem Senator rips judicial nominee Don Willett over Bacon Marriage tweet. Dems again showed a lack of good humor today, playing the War on Women card against Willett and other judicial nominees. The Texas Tribune reports... https://legalinsurrection.com/2017/12/tweetin-texan-don-willett-confirmed-to-5th-circuit-despite-dems-playing-war-on-women-card/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+LegalInsurrection+%28Le%C2%B7gal+In%C2%B7sur%C2%B7rec%C2%B7tion%29.
RINO-McCain in Hospital Receiving
Treatment Related to Brain Cancer
by Solange Reyner
{newsmax.com} ~ Sen. RINO-John McCain, R-Ariz., is receiving treatment at Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington, D.C... for "normal side effects of his ongoing cancer therapy," his office announced Wednesday. RINO-McCain, 81, was diagnosed with an aggressive form of brain cancer called gliolastoma this past summer and underwent surgery in mid-July to remove a 2-inch blood clot in his brain. He rebounded quickly, though, and returned to the Senate on July 25 to a standing ovation from colleagues... https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/john-mccain-hospital-cancer-therapy/2017/12/13/id/831630/?ns_mail_uid=29878495&ns_mail_job=1768940_12142017&s=al&dkt_nbr=0101045sjmm8.
German Intelligence:
China's Cyberspying Runs Deep
by Kerry Lear
{punchingbagpost.com} ~ A top German intelligence officer said over the week that China is using social networks to spy on German citizens... Hans-Georg Maassen, the head of Germany's domestic intelligence agency, said on Sunday that his agency, BfV, has identified at least 10,000 German citizens that have been targeted by China’s cyber espionage activities. Many of the victims were politicians and officials at German government agencies. "This is a broad-based attempt to infiltrate in particular parliaments, ministries and government agencies," said Maassen... http://punchingbagpost.com/german-intelligence-china-cyberspying-run-deep/?pb_list=pb_list.
The FCC Repeals Internet
Regulations After Months Of Wild Protests
by ERIC LIEBERMAN
{dailycaller.com} ~ The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) repealed internet regulations Thursday... that the agency imposed in 2015 in a 3-2 vote, signaling a culmination to a long-winded and highly heated debate. Net neutrality — an amorphous concept generally meaning all internet traffic should be treated equally — has been fiercely contested in recent years, increasing in intensity over recent months. Specifically, the best way to enforce net neutrality, or ensure that internet service providers (ISPs) don’t partake in unfair practices, is the crux of the policy dispute... http://dailycaller.com/2017/12/13/the-fcc-is-set-to-undo-obama-era-internet-regs-after-months-of-protests/?utm_medium=emailVIDEO at the site.
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The Freedom Not to Bake
{city-journal.org} ~ Justice Anthony Kennedy’s surprisingly tough questioning of the lawyers for the state of Colorado and the gay wedding-cake customers at Tuesday’s Supreme Court argument in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission bodes well for free speech. Kennedy’s clear skepticism about a central premise of the discrimination case against Masterpiece proprietor Jack Phillips, and his distaste for the apparent religious bias against Phillips shown by at least one of the state commissioners, is cause for at least cautious optimism that the Court will put an end to one of the most disturbing threats to First Amendment rights in years.
Phillips is a devout evangelical Christian who refuses to make cakes for Halloween or for bachelor parties, and would not design them with racist or anti-gay themes. His path to the Supreme Court began five years ago, in July 2012, when a gay couple, Charlie Craig and David Mullins, came to his suburban Denver shop seeking a custom-made cake for their wedding. He declined the business because of his religious beliefs, but offered to sell them any off-the-shelf baked goods, or to design cakes for them for other occasions. The state Civil Rights Commission found that Phillips had discriminated against Craig and Mullins, in violation of the state’s gay rights law, and ordered him to design wedding cakes for gay couples if he continued to do so for straight couples. Rather than violate his conscience, Phillips stopped making any wedding cakes, thus losing 40 percent of his business.
Phillips’s case joins others around the country in which government civil rights authorities and gay couples have brought actions under state or local gay rights laws to compel photographers, florists, and cake designers to provide customized personal services for same-sex weddings—frequently requiring their attendance at the ceremonies, despite their religious objections to same-sex marriage. None of the small-business and crafts people in the dock in these cases has refused to sell commercial goods to gay people. Like Phillips, all have said that they would be happy to provide previously prepared products for same-sex weddings, and several had longstanding business relationships with the gay customers who sued them.
Lower courts have said that this doesn’t matter; refusal to service the same-sex wedding of customers whom one otherwise does business with is still discrimination based on sexual orientation, because, in the words of the Colorado appellate court in Phillips’s case, “the act of same-sex marriage is closely correlated to . . . sexual orientation” in that it is “engaged in exclusively or predominantly by gays, lesbians, and bisexuals.” But by that logic, a black carpenter who refuses to make the cross for a Ku Klux Klan rally, and a black photographer who refuses to photograph the festivities, are guilty of racial discrimination, even if they make cabinets for white people and take family photos of them, since the act of attending a Klan rally is engaged in exclusively or predominantly by whites and is thus “closely correlated” to race.
Leading gay-marriage proponent Andrew Sullivan has called these cases “repellent” and “anathema,” and it is not hyperbole to view them as an almost unprecedented assault on First Amendment rights. Being compelled to use one’s creative talents to “celebrate something that offends your beliefs,” or to bear witness against one’s conscience, has an Orwellian cruelty that makes it even more vile than negative restraints on freedom.
If the state can commandeer wedding photographers to celebrate gay marriage, how big a slide is it to conscripting writers into the cause as well? If that seems far-fetched, consider that the lawyers bringing these cases argue that photographers, bakers, and florists forego their religious and artistic freedoms because they offer their services in the commercial market. But so do most freelance writers, lawyers, and clergymen, who typically charge a small fee to perform weddings.
In the Masterpiece Cakeshop argument, all eyes were on Kennedy, the swing vote who has authored the Court’s four major gay-rights decisions, including the declaration of a right to same-sex marriage in the 2015 Obergefell case, but who has also joined opinions holding that gay civil rights claims did not trump the First Amendment speech and associational rights of the Boy Scouts or of St. Patrick’s Day Parade marchers. Still, many observers believe that Kennedy, 81 and conscious of his gay rights legacy, is likely to side against Phillips. Some of his early questioning of Phillips’s lawyer and of the U.S. Solicitor General, supporting Phillips on behalf of the Trump administration, seemed to bear this out. Kennedy worried about an “affront to the gay community” if Phillips prevailed and similarly inclined bakers responded by putting signs in their windows announcing that “we do not bake cakes for gay weddings.” Even more speculatively, he raised concern about “bakers all over the country” succumbing to “urgent requests” from unnamed sources not to service gay weddings.
But his toughest questioning was reserved for lawyers on the other side. Challenging the claim that Phillips had declined to serve Craig and Mullins because of their identity as gay people, rather than because of his religious opposition to same-sex marriage, Kennedy told their ACLU lawyer, “I think . . . your identity thing is just too facile.” He was perturbed that one of the civil rights commissioners who decided Phillips’s fate had stated that “freedom of religion and religion has been used to justify all kinds of discrimination” and that it was “despicable” for “people . . . to use their religion to hurt others.” Pressing the state’s lawyer to disavow that statement, Kennedy asked if the judgment against Phillips could stand if “we thought there was a significant aspect of hostility to a religion in this case.” Kennedy cut to the heart of the case, and to his own effort to balance his gay rights sympathies with First Amendment rights, when he said:
Counselor, tolerance is essential in a free society. And tolerance is most meaningful when it’s mutual. It seems to me that the state in its position here has been neither tolerant nor respectful of Mr. Phillips’s religious beliefs.
“Accommodation is quite possible” in the case, Kennedy said. Indeed, there are few situations in which tolerance of conscientious objectors to the reigning orthodoxy seems at once so proper and so easy. The rapid acceptance of gay marriage—officially opposed on religious grounds by Barack liar-nObama just six years ago—has been one of the swiftest, most epochal social changes in history. Surely the rights of the minority who still hold to President liar-nObam’s 2011 position, and the even smaller minority who will sacrifice income in service of this belief, can be accommodated without “undermining every civil rights law,” as Justice Breyer fretted, or triggering the mass boycott of gay weddings that concerned Kennedy. In a pluralist democracy that values diversity and freedom, these dissenters should be tolerated and respected (as Kennedy himself said in Obergefell), rather than brought to heel.
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