The authoritarian Left is rampant

They are on the attack all over America

The Secular Coalition for Arizona has been triggered.

The offense is so great that the group has launched a national media campaign to parrot the Southern Poverty Law Center’s (SPLC) “hate group” smear of Alliance Defending Freedom. They want to censor and blacklist ADF and people like you who share the belief that free speech and religious freedom must be protected.

What set them off? An Arizona state license plate that simply says, “In God We Trust.”

No, this is not a joke. The State of Arizona offers the opportunity for organizations to create license plates that express their viewpoints and then offer those specialty license plates for purchase through the DMV. A portion of those private funds are donated to the organization that designed the plate, and the rest goes to the state.

Through this program, Alliance Defending Freedom created a license plate that affirms the First Amendment and reads “In God We Trust.” This license plate is listed among more than 60 other plate designs offered for purchase.
 
No one is required to purchase a specialty license plate, and no tax dollars go to the organizations that have created the specialty plates.

Arizona has every right to offer this opportunity, just as the Secular Coalition for Arizona has every right to create its own license plate featuring its own viewpoint if it wants to.

But that is not what the Secular Coalition for Arizona chose to do.

Activists have ramped up attacks on freedom of speech. They’re willing to use the power of the government to silence views they disagree with—to silence you. This must stop.

Should special interest groups like the SPLC get to decide if your views are acceptable?

The Secular Coalition for Arizona thinks so. They’ve worked with some state legislators to propose a bill that demands the immediate repeal of the “In God We Trust” license plate to stop ADF from receiving money from the purchases of that plate.

But a bill like that could have disastrous consequences for freedom of speech.

After all, have you ever seen a license plate that supports veterans or wounded warriors? What if a pacifist took offense? Should we be forced to silence every viewpoint that anyone in the world might be offended by?

Where would it end?

This is what happens when activists try to use the government to shut down and silence speech it disagrees with. And it’s happening across America.

New York City is censoring private conversations that therapists have with adult patients who come to them for help to address unwanted same-sex attractions or confusion over gender identity.

The American Humanist Association is trying to destroy a WWI veterans memorial in Maryland known as the Bladensburg Peace Cross simply because it is in the shape of a cross.

Non-profit adoption providers are being threatened and forced to stop helping place kids with a loving family for operating consistently with their faith-based missions.

Conservative commentators are being barred from speaking on public university campuses—and attacked and threatened when they do.

These are just a few examples of attempts to handcuff freedom of speech and silence people of faith. But we don’t have to stand idly by while our freedoms are stripped away.

We can defend our right to speak freely and consistently with our faith without fear of government punishment.

If the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Secular Coalition for Arizona disagree with us, that’s fine. They have the freedom to do so.

But trying to shut down our speech—or ban someone from being able to purchase a license plate—isn’t the answer. That’s not how free speech works in this country.

The First Amendment protects freedom of speech for everyone. It’s not up to the government or activist groups to determine whose speech is acceptable.

But this is what the SPLC is known for. Time and again it targets and seeks to destroy any groups or individuals it disagrees with by labeling them “haters.”

And yet, the SPLC has been widely and resoundingly discredited by investigative journalists, charity networking organizations, and commentators because they are activist, partisan, and unreliable. It’s been sued many times for spreading falsehoods about various groups – most often religious and conservative groups. The SPLC even recently paid $3.375 million and issued a public apology to settle a threatened defamation lawsuit by Muslim reformer Maajid Nawaz, whom the SPLC falsely labeled an anti-Muslim extremist!

On the other hand, ADF is one of the nation’s most successful and respected advocates at the U.S. Supreme Court. With God’s blessing and your prayers and support, we’ve won nine cases at the high court since 2011.

Via email from ADF info@adflegal.org

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Kamala Harris Caught In Another Lie: Claims She Got High / Listened to Snoop and Tupac in College… 10 Yrs. Before They Launched Their Careers

She has a good chance of becoming the next Democrat Presidential candidate.  That brown skin is a real aphrodisiac to the Left.  So this matters

Democrat Kamala Harris told “The Breakfast Club” she used to get high and smoke joints.

But as Jerry Dunleavy noted, Kamala Harris was in college 10 years before Tupac and Snoop hit the scene. So… She’s lying.

Kamala graduated from college in the 80’s. Snoop & Tupac didn’t release their first albums til the 90’s. This is basic rap history.

SOURCE 

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Democrat foot-shooting

According to the Rasmussen Reports daily tracking poll, President Donald Trump’s approval rating reached 52% this week. No doubt part of this high-water mark was engendered by his inspirational State of the Union Address. Yet just as likely, it’s because he represents a stark contrast to a Democrat Party engaged in an unprecedented race to the bottom of the socialist/Marxist barrel.

We begin with anti-Semitism. As far back as their 2012 national convention, Democrats heartily booed making Jerusalem the capital of Israel. Since then, their contemptible connections with rabid anti-Semite Louis Farrakhan remain ongoing, including the latest revelation that Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) wrote a column for the Final Call, an official publication of Farrakhan’s Nation of Islam. Tlaib’s colleague, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), was forced by party leaders to issue an apology for the age-old anti-Semitic smear about Jewish influence and money affecting foreign policy. And in a first for Democrats, both women are supporters of the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement.

Congratulations!

Abortion on demand is another topic where Democrats have finally clarified their position — in contemptible terms. In New York, legislators cheered a bill that eliminated most restrictions on abortions after 24 weeks, allows midwives and nurse practitioners to perform the procedure, and ends criminal charges for harming children in the womb. “I am directing that New York’s landmarks be lit in pink to celebrate this achievement and shine a bright light forward for the rest of the nation to follow,” gushed Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

Cuomo’s “bright light” shone brighter in Virginia, where State Delegate Kathy Tran (D) testified in favor of her own legislation permitting abortions “through the third trimester,” which “goes up to 40 weeks,” she declared. Unbelievably, Democrat Gov. Ralph Northam upped the ante. “If a mother is in labor, I can tell you exactly what would happen. The infant would be delivered,” he stated. “The infant would be kept comfortable. The infant would be resuscitated if that’s what the mother and the family desired, and then a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mother.”

A discussion about post-birth abortion? In the real world, that’s called murder. Among Democrats? A “woman’s right to choose.”

Even some Democrats knew Northam went too far. Thus, with a lot of help from other party loyalists, more familiarly known as the mainstream media, Northam became the face — make that the blackface — of a coordinated campaign designed to change the conversation from infanticide to racism.

Unfortunately for Democrats, their entire identity-politics agenda became the center of attention. It turned out Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring admitted he also donned blackface at a party in 1980, despite issuing a statement calling for Northam to step down, while Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax was accused by two women of sexual assault and rape, respectively. Fairfax’s reaction to the assault allegation? “F—k that b—ch.”

These stalwarts are joined by Elizabeth Warren who, despite repeated denials that she used faux Native American bona fides to advance her career, wrote “American Indian” on her 1986 registration card for the Texas legal bar. Warren also implied there may be other equally “clarifying” documents in existence.

Racism? #MeToo demands to unquestionably believe the victim of sexual-assault allegations, irrespective of proof? Going as far back in the past as necessary to impugn someone’s reputation? Cultural appropriation? As of now, every one of these Democrats have made it clear they intend to reject their party’s “ethos of enlightenment” and persevere. The very same ethos their party and the media inflicted on Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

“Democrats need an identity-politics intervention,” the Wall Street Journal editorial board insists. “Having unleashed race, gender, sexual orientation and class as the defining issues of American politics, these furies are now consuming their authors. Where’s Barack Obama when Democrats need him?”

Barack Obama? The Cambridge police “acted stupidly” Obama? The “if I had a son he would look like Trayvon” Obama? The “slavery and Jim Crow all too often was justified in the name of Christ” Obama? The same Obama who attended Rev. Jeremiah “God damn America” Wright’s church for 20 years? How about the Obama who championed Harvard Law professor Derrick Bell, credited with pioneering “critical race theory,” which maintains America’s legal system is inherently biased against blacks and other minorities?

Barack Obama did as much as any president in the history of the nation to advance the odious idea that America is inherently flawed and requires “fundamental transformation.” And Democrats have not only embraced that agenda, they have doubled down on it.

And they’re still doing it. As part of the deal to avert a government shutdown, Democrats demanded and apparently received a total of 40,520 ICE detention beds, representing a 17% reduction from current levels, and far short of Trump’s request for 52,000. That ICE has released tens of thousands of convicted criminal aliens awaiting the outcome of their deportation proceedings — including murderers, those convicted of sexual and aggravated assault, kidnapping and drunk driving? According to former ICE Director Tom Homan, the agency is currently detaining 47,000 criminal aliens.

Are Americans ready for 6,480 more of them to hit the streets so Democrats and their spineless GOP collaborators can cut a deal to keep the government open? Will they tire of a Democrat Party that prioritizes the needs of illegal aliens over those of American citizens?

On Monday, 37-year-old Joseph Alcoff was bought to court to face charges that include aggravated assault and ethnic intimidation. He was allegedly part of an antifa mob that attacked two Hispanic Marines last November. He was also an organizer for Smash Racism DC, a group that took to heart the “push back” and “get up in the face” intimidation tactics championed by Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) and Sen. Cory “Spartacus” Booker (D-NJ), respectively, when they massed outside Tucker Carlson’s home in an effort to intimidate the Fox News host.

Why bring up the trials and tribulations of an alleged thug? Because according to Fox News, Alcoff was “a well-connected, aspiring political player in Washington who may have even had a hand in key policy proposals” advanced by Democrats. All while he remained “an Antifa leader in Washington.”

Finally, we must address the terminally addled Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and her Green New Deal. Aside from the economy-wrecking efforts and the jackboot level of government control it represents, two things stand out: Only a nation with a thoroughly compromised education system could produce legions of people ignorant enough to believe this could actually work; and nearly every Democrat 2020 presidential contender supports it — all its pernicious nonsense notwithstanding.

“Trump in 2020 might have controversially slurred his future Democratic rival as a socialist, radical late-term abortion advocate, open borders chauvinist, a Medicare destroyer who wished to make it free for everyone, or wacko environmentalist intent on banning gas and diesel engines,” writes Victor Davis Hanson. “Now he won’t have to smear anyone: the Democrats have largely done that to themselves.”

It couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch.

SOURCE 

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Amazon Pulls NYC HQ2 — Cuomo Blames Ocasio-Cortez

A state already reeling from tax revenue loss misses out on at least 25,000 new jobs.

The speculation turned out to be authentic. On Thursday, Amazon officially reneged on its New York City headquarters. The rumor that it would do so first appeared last Friday in The Washington Post, which disclosed that “Amazon.com is reconsidering its plan to bring 25,000 jobs to a new campus in New York City.” The Post elaborated, “The project … faces withering criticism from some elected officials and advocacy groups appalled at the prospect of giving giant subsidies to the world’s most valuable company, led by its richest man.” A man who, by the way, owns The Washington Post.

“After much thought and deliberation, we’ve decided not to move forward with our plans to build a headquarters for Amazon in Long Island City, Queens,” Amazon announced yesterday. Why? “A number of state and local politicians have made it clear that they oppose our presence and will not work with us to build the type of relationships that are required to go forward with the project we and many others envisioned in Long Island City.”

One of those politicians is actually Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who crowed about having “defeated Amazon’s corporate greed, its worker exploitation, and the power of the richest man in the world.”

Democrat Gov. Andrew Cuomo, already battling a revenue shortfall in the state, isn’t happy. He complained, “A small group politicians put their own narrow political interests above their community — which poll after poll showed overwhelmingly supported bringing Amazon to Long Island City — the state’s economic future and the best interests of the people of this state.” He didn’t name Ocasio-Cortez, but the Millennial heartthrob was clearly one of his prime targets.

The second headquarters was to be split between Queens, New York, and the DC suburb of Crystal City, Virginia — a determination that our Thomas Gallatin previously reported was cronyistic from the get-go. “In the end, the reasoning behind this decision is obvious: direct access to the levers of financial and political power in two high-profile leftist enclaves,” wrote Gallatin. “Instead of locating the new headquarters in the most business-friendly states and environments, Amazon chose leftist power centers knowing that the company will be able to seamlessly pass on any higher costs to consumers. And the tax benefits to Amazon work out to almost $50,000 per job created. Cronyism at its finest.”

In this regard, Amazon’s backtracking is good. It’s one thing if a neighborhood decides it doesn’t want a huge corporate HQ in its backyard, but Amazon had no other choice given the prevailing political headwinds.

According to New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, “We gave Amazon the opportunity to be a good neighbor and do business in the greatest city in the world. Instead of working with the community, Amazon threw away that opportunity.” The truth is New York City should not have been a finalist, especially when superior suitors were fiercely vying to be selected. Amazon says, “We do not intend to reopen the HQ2 search at this time.” Regardless, it has an opportunity to make a better business decision than it did back in November.

As the Washington Examiner saliently puts it, “In the end, the termination of this deal is a win for everyone. The socialists get to crow about keeping their neighborhoods poor. New York’s taxpayers don’t have to pay Jeff Bezos exorbitant sums to do business in their state. And Amazon, having learned its lesson about dealing with socialists, might benefit as well if, instead of seeking special handouts, it seeks in the future to create jobs in low-tax states with right-to-work protections and a friendly-but-fair business climate for everyone.”

SOURCE 

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For more blog postings from me, see  TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH,  POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated),  a Coral reef compendium and an IQ compendium. (Both updated as news items come in).  GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten. I also put up occasional updates on my Personal blog and each day I gather together my most substantial current writings on THE PSYCHOLOGIST.

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