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~ Featuring ~
SCOTUS Punts on Florist's Religious Liberty 
by Lewis Morris
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Judicial Watch: Mueller Investigation 
'Irredeemable Tainted and Compromised'
{ rickwells.us } ~ Commenting on the ongoing probe into alleged collusion between Russia and the 2016 Trump presidential campaign... Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation is “irredeemably tainted and compromised,” and stressed that Attorney General Jeff Sessions needs to get back in the game and “take back control of this Justice Department from the Mueller-Rosenstein team.” Rod Rosenstein is the deputy attorney general of the United States. He wrote the memorandum in 2017 recommending that FBI Director James Comey be fired, which triggered the special counsel investigation. Rosenstein appointed Robert Mueller as special counsel. On June 22 on Lou Dobbs Tonight, Tom Fitton said, “The facts are there to call into question the Mueller investigation. It’s up to Congress, the Justice Department and the FBI to get on the ball and understand the Mueller’s investigation is irredeemably tainted and compromised, and in the least needs to be paused till we figure out just how much corruption is endemic there.” “We shouldn’t wait two more years for another IG report to tell us what’s rather obvious, that  his investigation is biased and compromised,” he said...   https://rickwells.us/judicial-mueller-irredeemably-compromised/
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Federal judge orders end of family separations at US border 
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{ foxnews.com } ~ A federal judge in California on Tuesday ordered the U.S. Border Patrol to stop separating families at the U.S.-Mexico border... and to reunite families already separated within 30 days. Any children younger than 5 must be reunited within 14 days of Tuesday's ruling, U.S. District Judge Dana Sabraw in San Diego ruled. Sabraw, an appointee of President George W. Bush, also required the government to provide phone contact between parents and their children within 10 days. “The facts set forth before the court portray reactive governance responses to address a chaotic circumstance of the government’s own making,” Sabraw wrote. “They belie measured and ordered governance, which is central to the concept of due process enshrined in our Constitution.”...There was nothing mention of  Trumps EO.
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Mattis to Meet Senior Chinese Military, Political Leaders 
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{ freebeacon.com } ~ Defense Secretary Jim Mattis arrived in China on Tuesday for talks with China's most senior political and military leaders... "Hopefully we can make some progress," Mattis said aboard an Air Force E-4 jumbo jet that arrived in Beijing's main airport after an 11-hour flight from Alaska. The defense secretary will hold talks with two senior Chinese generals in charge of the People's Liberation Army after a welcoming ceremony Wednesday at the Chinese Defense Ministry...
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Syrian Refugees Begin Massing on Israel's Border 
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{ israeltoday.co.il } ~ Syrian civilians fleeing a fresh military offensive by their own government and its Russian allies... have begun massing on the border of Israel's Golan Heights. They say that being as close as possible to Israeli forces is the safest place to be, presumably because Syrian dictator Bashar Assad and Russia are wary of drawing Israel further into the country's bloody civil war. The Assad regime is feeling confident of late after managing to regain control over most of Damascus and its suburbs, with the help of the Russians. Now, Assad wants to end the official rebellion which is largely unrelated to fight against ISIS and other jihadist groups by retaking the last major rebel stronghold, the Daraa region of southwestern Syria...
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Mueller can continue to prosecute 
Manafort for matters unrelated to the campaign 
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{ legalinsurrection.com } ~ This morning in court on Manafort’s motion challenging Mueller’s authority to prosecute the bank fraud case... the Judge lashed out at Mueller and made some comments that echo the points I’ve been making all along. We don’t have a transcript, but we do have multiple news reports. From The Washington Post(emphasis added): A federal judge in Virginia on Friday grilled lawyers from the office of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III about the motivations for bringing a bank and tax fraud case against former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort. “You don’t really care about Mr. Manafort’s bank fraud,” Judge T.S. Ellis III said during a morning hearing. “You really care about getting information Mr. Manafort can give you that would reflect on Mr. Trump and lead to his prosecution  or impeachment.” While this public lashing was correct, I cautioned about reading too much into it based on the news reports of the hearing...
https://legalinsurrection.com/2018/06/virginia-federal-judge-mueller-can-continue-to-prosecute-manafort-for-matters-unrelated-to-the-campaign/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+LegalInsurrection+%28Le%C2%B7gal+In%C2%B7sur%C2%B7rec%C2%B7tion%29 
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SCOTUS Punts on Florist's Religious Liberty 

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by Lewis Morris:  On Monday the U.S. Supreme Court vacated a unanimous Washington State Supreme Court ruling that a florist violated the state’s anti-discrimination laws by refusing on religious grounds to provide a floral arrangement for a same-sex wedding. The High Court ordered Washington’s court to rehear the case in light of its recent decision in favor of a Colorado baker who refused to create a customized wedding cake for a same-sex wedding.

             In Arlene’s Flowers v. Washington, shop owner Barronelle Stutzman was sued by the state of Washington and two homosexual men who solicited her services. One of the men was a longtime customer of Stutzman. When he asked her to create a floral arrangement for his wedding to his male partner, she respectfully refused. Stuztman said that creating the floral arrangement for a same-sex wedding violated her freedom of expression and ran counter to her religious beliefs. She offered to sell the customer a pre-arranged setting or loose flowers. She even gave him the names of other florists who could provide the services he sought. But that wasn’t good enough.
               Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson sought to make an example of Stutzman, dragging her through an expensive legal battle that could shut down her business. Ferguson was true to form of the typical leftist crusader. He was not content to live and let live; he wanted to force Stutzman to comply, accept and even celebrate something that ran counter to her beliefs.
               This is very similar to what happened to Colorado baker Jack Phillips, who was persecuted for his religious views in refusing to create a special cake for a same-sex wedding. As with Stutzman, providing something off the shelf was not good enough for Phillips’s customers or the Colorado state authorities. They wanted him to play ball or face the threat of having his business destroyed.
               The Supreme Court ruled 7-2 in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission that the state of Colorado had been particularly hostile to Phillips’s religious views. The justices declined, however, to go deeper and establish a broad definition of what constitutes infringement on religious liberties or freedom of speech and whether that infringement justifies the refusal to provide specially created goods or services. Instead, the majority pointedly noted that the decision applied to Phillips alone.
               That being said, it seems hard to imagine that the Washington state court will rule any differently in rehearing Stutzman’s case. So, it is a distinct possibility that the Supreme Court has not heard the last of her.
               In Stutzman’s favor, though, is the fact that the Supreme Court in Masterpiece and Arlene’s Flowers has made clear that states must neutrally apply antidiscrimination laws. Religious objections to what someone views as compelled speech cannot be viewed differently than other types of compelled speech.
               That is a major distinction that the media deliberately leaves out in reporting these cases. The public is left with the perception that Phillips and Stutzman are deliberately discriminating against homosexuals by refusing them service altogether. That is not the case.
               “I think the worst part is when they say I won’t serve gay people,” Stutzman has said. “That’s just not true. I’ve never discriminated against anyone in my life.”
               These business owners are trying to protect their artistic expression under the First Amendment. For now, the Supreme Court is letting the lower courts search for a solution that will protect these people from running afoul of antidiscrimination laws. That will only work so long as certain states don’t try to use those laws to wedge the public into accepting viewpoints that violate their religious or moral values. It’s one thing to allow same-sex marriage; it’s another entirely to force people who object to provide specific artistic services in celebration of it. 
  
~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/56778?mailing_id=3571&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.3571&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body

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