Court Rules Kentucky Print Shop Has Right to Avoid Making Gay Pride T-shirts

Good.

Screw the homosexual Nazis.

At WSJ (via Memeorandum and Vox Populi):

Court Rules Kentucky Print Shop Has Right to Avoid Making Gay Pride Shirts... https://t.co/xEoLZoiPgp

— DRUDGE REPORT (@DRUDGE_REPORT) May 13, 2017

A Kentucky appellate court on Friday ruled that the Christian owner of a printing shop in Lexington had the right to refuse to make T-shirts promoting a local gay pride festival.

The dispute represents the latest court fight testing the limits of antidiscrimination protections for gays and lesbians following the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2015 landmark ruling legalizing gay marriage nationwide.

The cases have led to a number of state court rulings against Christian-owned businesses that refused to bake cakes, design floral arrangements or take portrait photographs for same-sex weddings.

The ruling by the Kentucky Court of Appeals favored the business owner. A crucial difference in this case was the expressive nature of the service denied: literally words on a shirt.

In a split vote, a three-judge panel concluded that the store, Hands on Originals, couldn’t be forced to print a message with which the owner disagreed.

The dispute started in 2012 when Gay and Lesbian Services Organization in Kentucky asked Hands on Originals to make T-shirts with the name and logo of a pride festival...

Flashback to the Weekly Standard, "You Will Be Assimilated":

You Will Be Assimilatedhttp://t.co/1gu8Ivan7U pic.twitter.com/dguZejRK72

— The Weekly Standard (@weeklystandard) June 26, 2015

Democrats Still Haven't Faced Their God Problem

From Salena Zito, at the New York Post:

Democrats still haven't faced their God problem https://t.co/Aivj3h2S3Q via @nypost

— SalenaZito (@SalenaZito) March 20, 2017

PHILADELPHIA — The Democratic Party has a God problem.

And over the last couple of decades, as its base became more educated, less religious and more urban, this problem has only grown.

Some of this has to do with lower church attendance in cities versus rural areas, and the Democratic Party’s increasing reliance on urban voters. Some of it is the divisiveness of social or cultural issues like abortion and gay marriage. And the divide has seemingly sapped Democrats’ ability to communicate to religious Americans.

Especially if those people of faith are white, according to Brad Chism, a longtime and respected Democratic strategist based in Mississippi.

“And that problem extends to the national media, who by and large are mostly Democrats, meaning you have these powerful forces who do not understand more than half of the people in this country,” he said.

Chism makes a crucial point about what this means for American politics: Some of the greatest moral advancements in our country’s history have been accomplished largely through the influence of the church and churchgoing people, especially through the 20th century.

“You look at women’s suffrage, civil rights, the abolition of slavery and all of these massive other changes — religion and religious people have played a role in moving society toward a higher plane,” said Chism.

“We’ve seen that recently as well, but a lot of progressives and liberal Democrats don’t see the role of religion in society, and that is a big mistake,” he said.

And it’s a mistake people like Kevin Washo are trying to rectify, though they feel like they’re swimming against the tide. A day before the Democratic National Convention opened here last July, Washo, a Catholic and prominent national Democrat, organized a private Mass led by a Jesuit priest in the conference room of a prestigious law firm in a shimmering Market Street skyscraper.

That imagery is a far cry from the 2012 Democratic convention, when the hall exploded in turmoil as Democrats voted to amend their party’s platform to include the word “God.” The platform initially had dropped previous platform language that referenced God. After an outcry, convention chairman Antonio Villaraigosa returned to the stage to take a floor vote on a motion to reinsert the language.

The floor vote quite clearly failed as Villaraigosa repeated the roll call. Eventually he declared that “the ayes have it,” and loud boos exploded across the arena.

The headlines that came out of that debacle — “Democrats boo God” was a common one — ended up making matters worse for those, like Washo and Chism, who would like to see their party counter the perception of its estrangement from people of faith...

Washo and Chism need to get real: The Democrats are a Marxist party. They've doctrinally abandoned God as a matter of ideology and politics. Any outward expression of faith on the part of Democrat office-seekers is artifice. I mean, c'mon. Abortion politics, to mention just one policy item, is predicated on the rejection of moral values and Biblical teaching: Jeremiah 1:5: Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations..."

A leopard doesn't change its spots. The Democrats won't change theirs.

Will X. Walters, Plaintiff in San Diego Gay Pride Nudity Case, Dead of an Apparent Suicide (VIDEO)

What a waste.

At the San Diego Union-Tribune, "Man who lost gay pride nudity case against SDPD dies of apparent suicide":

A man who unsuccessfully sued San Diego police over his public nudity arrest at a gay pride festival was found dead Wednesday night at his Hillcrest apartment in an apparent suicide, authorities said.

The death of Will X. Walters comes about two weeks after a federal jury delivered the verdict in favor of police.

Walters’ attorney, Chris Morris, said Walters was shocked by the Dec. 13 verdict and immediately left the downtown San Diego federal courthouse after it was announced.

Morris said he hadn’t heard from Walters since and had tried to reach him in the days that followed. Friends also tried checking on him, the lawyer said.

San Diego police were called to the apartment by a neighbor late Wednesday.

His time of death was not known. The county Medical Examiner’s Office said the death remained under investigation.

“Will Walters was a valiant warrior for his cause, and he will be missed by those who knew him and the community he fought for,” Morris said Thursday...

Maybe he should have just paid the fines, or whatever, and let it go.

This case isn't worth taking your life. But apparently, his identity as a homosexual man was everything and he wanted that fully validated, or else. I'll bet the guy was a pushy in-your-face advocate for same-sex marriage and all that. Homosexual activists are like that.

More (via Memeorandum).

Outpouring of Anger Has Little Recent Parallel (VIDEO)

It's the shock of it all. Leftist thought they had it in the bag, that, combines with the utter repudiation of the depraved far-left ideology, and it's really set them off.

At LAT, "Tempers on both sides flare in California after Trump's unexpected election victory":

A Bay Area teacher was put on leave for comparing President-elect Donald Trump to Adolf Hitler. A woman speaking Assyrian on a Bay Area Rapid Transit train was accosted by another passenger who told her, “Trump might deport you.”

Some Latino students in Northern California were given mock “deportation letters” by a classmate. And a high school student in San Mateo County was given a bloody nose after voicing support for Trump on Instagram.

In the days since Trump was elected president of the United States, one thing has been certain in this divided country: Tensions are high.

The outpouring of anger has little recent historic parallel, said John J. Pitney, a professor of American politics at Claremont McKenna College and a former Republican policy aide. Pitney said the closest comparison was with the election of 1800 in which Thomas Jefferson defeated John Adams in a bitterly waged campaign that included the candidates trading insults.

For many people, this year’s election was less a choice between two candidates than about whether voters felt they would have a place in America, he said.

“A lot of people didn’t just see this election as a matter of political choice but a matter of identity,” Pitney said. “On the one hand, many of the people who voted for Trump see themselves as forgotten and disrespected, and many of the people who are against Trump see themselves as groups under threat. Feelings are going to run very hot.”

Demonstrators across the country have blocked streets in protest of the president-elect. On Saturday, some 8,000 people marched from MacArthur Park to downtown Los Angeles, shouting “Not my president!” as they formed one of the nation’s largest demonstrations so far. Hundreds more peacefully rallied in Hollywood on Sunday.

In other instances, demonstrating has turned ugly. Los Angeles police arrested hundreds of protesters who marched in downtown L.A. in recent days, saying they vandalized property, blocked roads, hurled bottles and refused to disperse. Taggers scrawled anti-Trump messages and profanity on downtown buildings, tunnels, sidewalks — even on a television news van and a police cruiser.

Anxiety has been so high that calls to anti-suicide and crisis hotlines have spiked since the votes were counted.

Steve Mendelsohn, deputy executive director of The Trevor Project, a West Hollywood-based organization that provides crisis intervention and suicide prevention services to LGBTQ people, said his organization has seen a dramatic increase in calls and messages this week.

“Over 95% of those who called mentioned Donald Trump,” Mendelsohn said. “The general theme was anxiety and fear.”

They worried about potential bullying, their healthcare and whether gay marriage would be reversed, he said. On Wednesday and Thursday, the organization received 688 calls and messages. On the same days last year, they got 307 such contacts, he said.

Fernando Guerra, a political scientist and director of the Center for the Study of Los Angeles at Loyola Marymount University, said the surprise outcome of the election, which many polls had predicted would be won by Democrat Hillary Clinton, is a major factor in the intense reactions.

“So many groups were told this wasn’t going to happen, both Trump and Clinton supporters,” Guerra said. “Both are shocked.”

Guerra said that while he thinks the protests are “a great outlet for a lot of people feeling threatened and emotionally displaced,” the large demonstrations will  last only a few weeks (and possibly re-emerge around Trump’s January inauguration) because it is difficult to organize and sustain ongoing protests.

He also believes the uptick in racially charged incidents is temporary because American public opinion is overwhelmingly opposed to racism — especially if Trump and his supporters condemn racist acts.

“This is where leadership counts,” Guerra said...

More.

An Emerging Alliance Between Neocons and Hillary?

From Paul Gottfried, at FrontPage Magazine, "THE HYSTERICAL LEFT AND THE REST OF US":

Last week in Commentary, neocon publicist Noah Rothman brazenly or stupidly denied the obvious. Having learned that Hillary Clinton, in a speech before the American Foreign Legion, trotted out such phrases as “America the indispensable nation” and “American the exceptional nation,” Rothman attributes the belief that the Democratic candidate is a “closet neo-conservative” to the “hysterical left.” Rothman assails a nutcase Left for what may be self-evident to the rest of us: “It is in Clinton’s implicit admission that the next president must begin the work of repairing the damage done to geopolitical stability and American preeminence by Barack Obama that has them in a tizzy. But that’s not neoconservatism; it’s not even ideological. It is simply reality.” Further: “The left isn’t just furious at Clinton for failing to denounce her neo-conservative endorsers; they’re aggravated by the fact that she’s undermining Barack Obama’s legacy.”

The Left may have discerned a very real connection between Hillary and her “neo-conservative endorsers.” These endorsers come in two kinds: the outright toadies like Max Boot and Robert Kagan who have jumped aboard the Hillary express; and those “conservative” publicists like Erick Erickson, Kevin Williamson, Bill Kristol, George Will and Jonah Goldberg who are doing everything humanly possible to blacken the reputation and political viability of Hillary’s opponent, without explicitly declaring for Shrillery. It is also totally disingenuous to ascribe the obvious conclusion entirely to critics on the Left. The Right that is supporting Trump has assumed the same thing as “the hysterical left” about the neocons’ extremely cozy relation to Hillary.

Rothman engages in more mystification when he tells us that Hillary is embracing “reality” when she sounds like a neocon, without really being one.  But Rothman’s “simply reality” is profoundly “ideological,” his denials not to the contrary, and he asserts, even more misleadingly, that what he represents is a “conservative foreign policy.” Rothman’s “conservative foreign policy” means of course a neoconservative one, of the kind we encounter in explicitly neoconservative publications. But most Americans who view themselves as being on the Right might have second thoughts about Rothman’s “conservative” policy.

They might believe like Trump that we should destroy ISIS and stand by proven allies but unlike Commentary, Weekly Standard and the National Endowment for Democracy, these Americans whom Rothman pretends don’t exist are not interested in nation-building or exporting the present version of American liberal democracy to the far flung corners of the globe. Trump wins the support of such people because he seems to be reviving a realistic foreign policy (although I wish he would articulate it more consistently). There is nothing even vaguely “conservative” about what the neoconservatives intend to do internationally. Nor can I find anything that distinguishes them from Hillary on social policy. Whether the subject is immigration, gay marriage, or the rest of the LGBT agenda, neoconservative publicists stand with the Democrats or are at least delighted to accommodate them. Even more importantly, they don’t give a damn what kind of wackos President Clinton would appoint to federal courts.

Lest I be accused of painting with overly broad strokes, I should point out that some public figures long associated with the neocons have disengaged and are now enthusiastically backing Trump. Presumably these erstwhile friends of the neoconservatives, including Bill Bennett, John Bolton, Rudolph Giuliani, Newt Gingrich and David Horowitz, have ceased to be “conservatives” in the way in which the neocons would apply that term. That designation is now reserved for the Never-Trumpers and Hillary’s neocon advisers.  This may be a dishonest move but it’s also a daring one. Given their vast media resources and relatively cordial relations with the liberal Left, especially since they’ve begun to work directly or indirectly for Hillary, neoconservatives who are fighting Trump or have declared for the Democratic candidate may still be able to shape the “conservative” public conversation. In the 1980s the founding generation of neoconservatives managed to occupy the establishment Right and to neutralize opposition on the Right. In the end, they used their extensive media and philanthropic contacts to become the most powerful force in the conservative movement.

But this success may be hard to match in the present circumstances. For one thing, as the commentator David Goldman (Spengler) has observed, the parents of John Podhoretz and Bill Kristol were much more talented, resourceful leaders than those who are now running the family business. Bill Kristol “makes the mistake of thinking that he still matters.” He heads a movement that engages “in cultish self-adoration” and which has been consistently foolish in its statements about foreign policy, especially when young Kristol compared the disastrous Arab spring to the American founding. Spengler also expresses disapproval for the infantile fashion in which the neoconservatives have “crushed dissent ruthlessly and declared anathema upon anyone who questioned them,” or at least on anyone on the Right who questions their doctrinal authority.

The neocon second generation are also hemorrhaging what is left of their older advocates, much of whom have defected to Trump and the populist Right. These older allies have been among the more prominent and more articulate representatives of their side; and what is left of the neocon camp is now being led by self-absorbed mediocrities, who, as Spengler notes, inherited the status they never worked for and for which they lack serious qualifications. Others in their camp may find it hard to pretend to be “conservatives,” except for being associated with a neoconservative foreign policy that is in no way conservative. Despite all their media and philanthropic assets, the minicons are not working from the same strength as those who set up their movement and brought it to power.

In fact these clumsy operators are setting the stage for a new alliance on Right that may eventually sideline them. This front is slowly taking shape around Trump’s campaign; and whether or not he wins, a Right that stands in opposition to the second generation of neoconservatives is already emerging. In all likelihood this movement will be far more successful in gaining influence and media accessibility than was the Old Right of the 1990s, of which I was a frustrated part. Although purges have been a constant aspect of the conservative establishment, particularly since the neocons took it over in the late 1980s, this ostracizing process may not work anymore against the critics of Jonah, Noah, Rich and Erick. The personalities on the other side may be too prominent to be simply purged or denied the use of the “conservative” label. Some things do change; and unfortunately for Commentary, this may be one of them.

Actually, Commentary remains my favorite magazine on the conservative right. It's just that I'm waiting for this electoral season to blow over, and hopefully for things to get more back to normal. Of course, if Trump wins things may never be normal again on the right, but I won't worry too much about it: the Democrat-left will be out of power by then.

And by the way, I think I align with the older neocons, especially Norman Podhoretz, who is awesome. Frankly, I don't care much for John Podhoretz or Bill Kristol, the latter whom especially seems to have lost his marbles.

Hat Tip: Blazing Cat Fur.

Free Speech Farce: How One College Lets Students Censor Debate

From Jillian Kay Melchior, at Heat Street, "Muzzled Professors: An Inside Look at How One College Lets Students Censor Classroom Debate":

"Bias Response Team" tells professor to avoid "transgender issues" after students complain: https://t.co/lSj7uME8IH pic.twitter.com/pnJanIlsUO

— Heat Street (@heatstreet) June 20, 2016

For many students and professors, one of the great appeals of college life is being exposed to new and different ways of thinking. But that age-old process is now under threat at schools around the country. Take the University of Northern Colorado.

After two of the school’s professors asked their students to discuss controversial topics and consider opposing viewpoints, they received visits from the school’s Bias Response Team to discuss their teaching style. The professors’ students had reported them, claiming the curriculum constituted bias.

These incidents, both in the 2015-2016 academic year, reflect a growing trend in higher education. College students increasingly demand to be shielded from “offensive,” “triggering” or “harmful” language and topics, relying on Bias Response Teams to intervene on their behalf. Such teams are popping up at a growing number of universities.

Heat Street filed a Freedom of Information Act request to get a look at some of the complaints to UNC’s Bias Response Team, and a sense of how the team is handling those petitions. In one report reviewed by Heat Street, a professor, whose name was redacted, had asked students to read an Atlantic article entitled “The Coddling of the American Mind,” about college students’ increasing sensitivity and its impact on their mental health.

The professor then asked his students to come up with difficult topics, including transgender issues, gay marriage, abortion and global warning. He outlined competing positions on these topics, though he did not express his personal opinion.

In a report to the Bias Response Team, a student complained that the professor referenced the opinion that “transgender is not a real thing, and no one can truly feel like they are born in the wrong body.”

“I would just like the professor to be educated about what trans is and how what he said is not okay because as someone who truly identifies as a transwomen I was very offended and hurt by this,” the student wrote.

A member of the Bias Response Team met with the professor, the report says, and “advised him not to revisit transgender issues in his classroom if possible to avoid the students expressed concerns.” The Bias Response Team also “told him to avoid stating opinions (his or theirs) on the topic as he had previously when working from the Atlantic article.”

In a separate incident, a professor, whose name was also redacted, asked his students to choose from a list of debate topics, some of them regarding homosexuality and religion.

The Bias Response Team’s notes summarized: “Specifically there were two topics of debate that triggered them and personally felt like an attack on their identity (GodHatesFags.com: is this harmful? Is this acceptable? Is this Christianity? And Gay Marriage: should it be legal? Is homosexuality immoral as Christians suggest?)”

The student, whose name is redacted and who is referred to as “they” in the report, complained that “other students are required to watch the in-class debate and hear both arguments presented.”

“I do not believe that students should be required to listen to their own rights and personhood debated,” the student wrote. “[This professor] should remove these topics from the list of debate topics. Debating the personhood of an entire minority demographic should not be a classroom exercise, as the classroom should not be an actively hostile space for people with underprivileged identities.”

The Bias Response Team wrote that while this incident “did not reach a level of discrimination,” members still contacted the professor to “have a conversation… [and] listen to his perspective, share the impact created for the student and dialogue about options to strengthen his teaching.”

The Bias Response Team wrote that once the conversation was completed, they wanted a full report of “the outcome of your time together. . . so I can document and share with the student that outreach was completed.”

The University of Northern Colorado did not respond to Heat Street’s request for comment about whether the Bias Response Team is a threat to free speech and academic freedom. We also asked to be put in touch with the professors who had received complaints, but we did not hear back before publication...

I don't create "safe spaces" in my classrooms, and I don't let students censor debate, although I don't think my campus has a "bias response team." (And I'm not going to give administrators any ideas.)

I discuss controversial issues in class all the time, presenting both sides of debate, but usually contrasting "Main Street" opinion from the collectivist wisdom found at major media outlets like the New York Times. I always put the New York Times homepage up on the overhead screen, starting from the minute I call the roll sheet. I'll usually begin class lectures with a discussion of the hot news items. It's great. We discussed leftist political correctness after the Belgium jihad attacks (I posted this ABC News piece on administration threats to prosecute anti-Muslim "hate speech" in class), and transgender issues pretty much the whole semester. We had especially good discussions on the trans problem, and one of my students was transitioning from female to male, and told the class that Donald Trump was the only candidate so far that he could relate to! Now that was a teachable moment, heh.

In any case, more at the link.

Terror Attack in Orlando Re-Exposes Great American Divide

From Salena Zito, at RCP:

SMITHTON, PA - Gunshots echoed across the mountains hugging the valley cut by the Youghiogheny River as anglers, boaters, bikers and day-hikers enjoyed the Great Allegheny Passage recreational area between Pittsburgh and Washington, D.C.

A group of men in their mid-30s, dressed in biking shorts and jerseys, stood around a gazebo built for travelers on the 300-mile trail, discussing where to end their day. The gunfire horrified them — but not in a duck-we're-under-attack way. Their reactions ranged from ridicule to misunderstanding to disgust and concluded with an assumption that they were unsafe around “these people” and it was time to move along.

In truth, the shots came from a local sportsmen's club. Most people around here consider the club members to be among the region's premier conservators; they stock the river every spring, lead clean-up crews along the trail, keep the deer population contained with their hunting and donate venison to needy families who can live off the meat of one buck for more than a year.

Theirs is a tradition passed from father to son. They don't own AR-15s but will defend your right to do so — not because they think people should have semi-automatic weapons but because they see gun ownership as one of our freedoms that Main Street America is ceding to cosmopolitan elites.

On Monday, as the motives and the blame for the Orlando massacre were dissected by “experts” on CNN, a successful Pittsburgh businessman called, distressed by the media coverage.

“Why do they make me feel as though I am somehow to blame for this?” he asked.

He is white, middle-aged, a gun owner, a devout Catholic and, despite his success and widespread respect for his generosity, he felt he heard a “Shame on you!” message from President Obama on down.

Everyone, he said, appeared to blame the tragedy in Orlando on guns, bigots, racism and people whose religious beliefs do not support gay marriage (but likely could care less if someone is gay): “It was like a series of code-words aimed at Middle America.”

Obama, many Democrats and much of the political class always come across as not being on Main Street's side. It is a feeling that makes Americans feel frustrated, ostracized, unsafe. And it adds to that disconnect that pundits always bemoan yet perversely contribute to by piling on against the “otherness” of traditional American culture.

Obama inserted politics into his passionless initial reaction to the Orlando slaughter; a day later, passion emerged only when he attacked Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee. In both instances, he blamed Republicans for not passing a semi-automatic weapons ban and a ban on weapons sales to suspected terrorists on the nation's no-fly list.

The last time I checked, Democrats controlled Congress and the presidency in 2009 and 2010 and they never allowed either of those measures to go to the House or Senate floor for a vote...

Keep reading.

Mr. President: We Need You to Act

From Brendan Bunting O'Connor, at the Orlando Sentinel, "Dear Mr. President: We need you to act. It's your last chance":

Guest viewpoint: Dear Mr. President: Honor Orlando with action https://t.co/GLwNCgMGtW

— OS Editorial Board (@OrlandoOpinion) June 16, 2016

President Obama, welcome to Orlando. We're honored to have you here during this awful time.

Your words of support have fallen on receptive ears this week, as we struggle to find meaning in our day-to-day lives after losing so many valued members of our tight-knit community. Your recent scorn for "politicians who tweet" really struck home. Thank you for being such a solid rock for us to cling to.

But we need more from you:

Orlando residents have had a few days to replace most of our initial shock and sadness with a constant, seething anger. An anger that frightens many of us, myself included. This man who stormed into our lives has shaken us to our core. Yes, our community should be commended for how quickly we have rallied together in the face of this violence — the response has been breathtaking. We're doing everything we can to clean up this mess, but we need you to do the same.

History has shown us that whenever an oppressed group becomes less so, there is always a backlash, and the queer community — the LGBTQ alphabet soup — is uniquely vulnerable to hate attacks. Even with recent strides in gay marriage (thanks, Obama!) and increasing acceptance of LGBT issues in popular culture, we are still being treated as "other," as objects of hate and ridicule. This hate crime could have happened anywhere, but it happened here, as John Oliver said, "At a Latin night at a gay club in the theme park capital of the world."

One man simply had to walk into a store and purchase a semi-automatic weapon, over the counter, like one would if he were ordering a pack of cigarettes at 7-Eleven. A type of gun so accessible that it has been used in multiple shootings across the country: Newtown, Aurora, San Bernadino, and now Orlando.

If children on a schoolyard are hitting each other with sticks, you take the sticks away. Yet, we are living in a society that is encouraging violence, and there is nothing keeping the next Omar Mateen from sauntering down to his corner gun shop to buy his own AR-15. Nothing, except maybe you President Obama — if you act with the agency granted to you by the American people and step in.

In my heart, I want to react to this shooting, labeled as an act of hate, with more hate. My gut is clenched, along with my fists, demanding some sort of answer. Some sort of retribution. Yet even as we all come to grips with the tragedy of losing so many beautiful friends, sisters, brothers and neighbors, we are hearing word that this man, Omar Mateen, may have been gay himself. And I really just feel sick. This young man reportedly joined us, in our safe spaces, possibly seeking answers, to reconcile who he was with what he had been told he was by his parents and his religion. And instead he returned with weapons to kill and to hurt.

I don't know the whole picture, but what I do know is this volatile man was investigated twice by the FBI for possible links to terrorism. That he had a history of violence. And that he was still allowed to legally purchase a weapon that allowed him to open fire on a building full of people. Just the night before, another man was able to walk into a concert venue and shoot a young pop star, Christina Grimmie. In the past few days, almost 100 people have died and more than 200 people have been injured due to gun violence in America, and that doesn't include Orlando...

That's very heartfelt, but the guy focuses way too much on the gun issue and not enough on the jihad issue. And Mateen didn't use an "AR-15." This is so far is one of the biggest lies in the whole sordid leftist debate following the massacre. See, Bearing Arms, "NARRATIVE FAIL: Orlando Islamic Terrorist Did NOT Use An AR-15."

Indeed, Senator John McCain is out with a brutal take down of the president. At AP, "McCain: Obama 'directly responsible' for Orlando shooting."

Jihad Denial Kills…Again

From John Schindler, at the Observer, "America just suffered our worst terrorist attack since 9/11. We need to start talking honestly about the enemy that keeps butchering Americans":

How many more Americans have to die before we can have a "national conversation" about radical Islam & jihadism?https://t.co/JDZP9Ja0nB

— John Schindler (@20committee) June 12, 2016

Tonight we burn illusions. A terrorist attack on a popular gay club in Orlando, Florida in the middle of the night ended before the dawn with the violent deaths of at least 50 innocents and the maiming of 53 more. This was the bloodiest terrorist attack on America since 9/11. The Pulse nightclub, something of an icon in Florida LGBT circles, was transformed into a charnel house.

The United States had been lucky, having avoided truly mass casualty terrorist incidents since that awful day 15 years ago, through a combination of luck, inept enemies, and excellent intelligence work. But the Orlando horror demonstrates that attacks on soft targets in public places can cause huge numbers of casualties, here as well as in Europe, like last November’s assaults on Paris that killed 130 people, 89 of them at the Bataclan theater, where a hostage situation resulted in a bloodbath. Something similar has just happened in Florida.

While the Paris attacks were the work of nine terrorists, plus several others providing logistical support, so far only one killer has been identified in the Orlando atrocity. While there are reports of other shooters, these remain unconfirmed, and the sole terrorist definitely involved was Omar Mateen, born in this country in 1986 to immigrant parents from Afghanistan. He was killed by police at the end of the nightmare he inflicted on Orlando.

So far, his story is shaping up as the now-customary list of jihadist clichés. The 29-year-old went from a relatively normal American life towards extremism, winding up on the radar of the FBI more than once for his aggressive beliefs. A brief marriage failed, in part because he frequently beat his wife, she claims, asserting that Mateen “was not a stable person.” A trauma like divorce leading to an embrace of jihadism is as common as can be in extremist circles.

The killer’s family has claimed that their son’s terrible act had “nothing to do with religion” – again, following the script we have come to expect whenever a young person, usually male, brutally murders strangers in the name of Islam. While Omar Mateen’s father claims to be utterly mystified by his son’s actions, that assertion should be examined closely, since Seddique Mateen has publicly praised the Taliban in his home country – the very people the American military has been fighting since late 2001. In a truly bizarre twist, Mateen Senior claims to be the real president of Afghanistan. His statement that his son was triggered by seeing two men kissing in public seems unlikely to endear the family to the American public....

Within hours of the massacre, progressives and jihad apologists were insisting that the Orlando attack was “really” about guns – and certainly not about Islamism or jihadism. The Pulse massacre was about guns the way that the 9/11 attacks were “really” about box cutters and the 2013 Boston bombing was “really” about pressure cookers. There are millions of guns in Florida (the state has issued 1.3 million concealed carry permits alone) plus plenty of people who are not overly fond of gays. Why, then, was Omar Mateen the one who assaulted a gay club and shot dozens of innocent people?

Based on his statement on the atrocity, President Obama won’t be asking that question anytime soon. Although Mr. Obama demurred from some of his customary evasions, actually calling the attack an “act of terrorism,” he quickly defaulted to his usual talking points whenever radical Muslims butcher Americans: “hate” and “guns” were cited frequently by the president, while words such as “Islamism” and “jihad” were notable by their absence. Mr. Obama’s denial of the obvious, perfected during his two terms in the White House, appears unshakeable.

These evasions are met with derision by counterterrorism professionals, who deduced Mr. Obama’s agenda back in 2009 when he dismissed the Fort Hood massacre as “workplace violence.” Spies and cops have gotten used to this president’s persistent inability to call the enemy what he actually is, even though that enemy constantly calls himself such things. “What was he gonna call Orlando,” asked an old FBI friend just hours after the Pulse attack: “gayplace violence?”

It’s not difficult to determine what’s really going on here. Just two months before this attack, an Orlando mosque hosted an Islamic theologian known for pronouncing homosexuals as deserving of death. “Death is the sentence” they merit as an act of “compassion,” the imam stated. While his invitation got some coverage in Orlando media, one wonders what the mainstream media would have to say if a white preacher in Charleston had pronounced blacks as deserving the death sentence only two months before Dylann Roof murdered nine African Americans in a church...

Still more.

Race, Sex, and Ethnicity of Judges Makes a Difference in Judging

Here's the front-page story from the Los Angeles Times a couple of days ago, "Donald Trump's attack on judge and other racial comments stir trouble for the Republican Party."

Apparently, Trump's so-called "racist" attack on U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel is the final disqualifying indignity of the 2016 campaign. It's as if Trump hadn't uttered a controversial statement since launching his campaign a year ago. All of a sudden, this is the end of the line. Both left and right, Democrats and Republicans, have now joined hands in a bipartisan denunciation of the GOP nominee. Some folks are even talking about a revived "Never Trump" movement, which includes yet another push to deny the nomination to the New York businessman at the convention.

Normally, a Republican presidential candidate has to run against not just the opposition party's candidate, but the leftist Democrat Media Complex as well. As Glenn Reynolds pointed out today, every four years the GOP nominee's smeared as the second coming of Adolf Hitler. This year's no different in that regard. What's different now is that the GOP nominee's also running against the Republican Party establishment itself. Sure, Reince Priebus backs Trump and has pledged to put the party's full resources toward the general election. The fact is, though, with this Curiel business former establishment Trump supporters are now pulling the rug out.

In any case, it's a tempest in a teapot, frankly. Trump's not doing anything the left doesn't do all the time. Indeed, Trump's just taking a page of the leftist playbook.

See, AoSHQ, "On Race and Judges, Trump Isn't a Racist nor a Conservative — He's a Standard Issue Liberal":

There's no part of a minority that's expected to rule in solidarity with his race?

No particular racial mode of thinking a minority brings to the table?

That would be a shock to these liberals:

"It's impossible not to be disgusted at someone who could benefit so much from affirmative action and then pull up the ladder after himself. "

-- Liberal Maureen Dowd making the standard liberal criticism of Clarence Thomas -- that he's a race traitor insufficiently biased towards members of his own race.
Did Jake Tapper call Maureen Dowd a "textbook racist" for that bit of demagoguery?

Of course not.

Did Paul fucking Ryan?

I doubt it.

He sure didn't remember objecting to it when called upon to comment upon Trump's similar race essentialism. Guess it didn't make much of an impression on him then.

Incidentally, Clarence Thomas is a figure of hate for the left because of his relative uniqueness.

Therefore, in the minds of liberals, most black judges are sufficiently solicitous of the political interests of their own races.

Again-- any upset from the liberals over this liberal idea that judges of color are supposed to "look out for their own"?

None.

This "Thomas pulls the ladders up from other blacks (which most black judges don't do)" critique is of course not original to Dowd -- nothing is original to this tired, sad hag. It's standard issue liberal cant.

None of which is ever objected to by our liberal media masters.

Indeed, Clarence Thomas is attacked for his race quite frequently, on bizarrely unrelated grounds.

The left is renewing its venomous, racist attacks on Thomas in the aftermath of his dissent in the Supreme Court’s 6-3 ruling in favor of gay marriage.

Actor George Takei smeared Thomas as a “clown in blackface.” The Huffington Post called his dissent “beyond ridiculous” and tarred him as a hypocrite for opposing a court-created “right” to gay marriage:

“Clarence Thomas is married to a white woman — something that would be illegal today, if it weren’t for the Supreme Court’s historic Loving v. Virginia ruling.” As if his personal life is fair game.

Last Friday, in another low blow, New York Times reporter Adam Liptak portrayed Thomas as a lightweight whose opinions are cut-and-paste jobs from briefs submitted to the court.

Do Hispanics have a different style of judging than whites -- a different set of inputs leading to a different array of outputs?

Yes indeed they do, says liberal Justice Sandra Sotomayor.

In 2001, Sonia Sotomayor, an appeals court judge, gave a speech declaring that the ethnicity and sex of a judge "may and will make a difference in our judging."
In her speech, Judge Sotomayor questioned the famous notion -- often invoked by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and her retired Supreme Court colleague, Sandra Day O’Connor -- that a wise old man and a wise old woman would reach the same conclusion when deciding cases.

"I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life," said Judge Sotomayor, who is now considered to be near the top of President Obama’s list of potential Supreme Court nominees.

Her remarks, at the annual Judge Mario G. Olmos Law and Cultural Diversity Lecture at the University of California, Berkeley, were not the only instance in which she has publicly described her view of judging in terms that could provoke sharp questioning in a confirmation hearing.

This month, for example, a video surfaced of Judge Sotomayor asserting in 2005 that a “court of appeals is where policy is made.” She then immediately adds: “And I know — I know this is on tape, and I should never say that because we don’t make law. I know. O.K. I know. I’m not promoting it. I’m not advocating it. I’m — you know.”

Indeed, President Obama himself has suggested that minority judges like Sotomayor may bring something to the bench that whites can't bring -- "empathy."

Still more.

Hillary Clinton Shifts to Far-Left as She Claims Party's Nomination

This is interesting.

Back in the 1990s, the Clintons claimed to be centrist "New Democrats" opportunistically, so they could win. Inside there's always been an Alinskyite Marxist collectivist waiting to break out.

At the Wall Street Journal, "How Hillary Clinton Shifted Leftward":

When she stood before New York Democrats and launched her first campaign for office 16 years ago, Hillary Clinton was unabashed about her centrist credentials.

“I’m a New Democrat,” the first lady said in announcing her Senate bid. Her husband worked for a decade to move the party away from its liberal roots and win over independent voters. Now Mrs. Clinton touted that third-way philosophy, too.

“I don’t believe government is the source of all our problems, or the solution to them,” she said.

Today, a transformed Mrs. Clinton campaigns again, this time for president. On a swath of domestic issues, dragged along by a rapidly changing party and a surprisingly tough primary opponent in Sen. Bernie Sanders, Mrs. Clinton has moved to the left, sometimes reversing her positions and in other cases changing her tone in significant ways.

Mrs. Clinton has undone her longtime opposition to gay marriage. She apologized for her 2002 vote authorizing an invasion of Iraq. She backed off support for charter schools. She called for an end to the “era of mass incarceration,” a rebuke of her husband’s 1994 crime bill.

Under intense pressure from Mr. Sanders, she came out against the Keystone XL pipeline, a project that as secretary of state she said she was inclined to approve. She opposed the Trans-Pacific Partnership, an Asian free-trade agreement she had predicted would be the “gold standard,” but that was opposed by labor unions, most Democrats and Mr. Sanders.

And on Social Security, Mrs. Clinton all but abandoned her longtime interest in a bipartisan compromise aimed at extending the program’s solvency and adopted liberal promises not to cut benefits.

On Tuesday, eight years after Mrs. Clinton conceded the 2008 contest, she celebrated victory in her quest for her party’s presidential nomination, a historic achievement making her the first woman to run on a major party ticket. Primary voters cast ballots on Tuesday in California and five other states. Mrs. Clinton went over the top a day earlier with commitments from party leaders who are convention delegates, according to an Associated Press tally.

Now Mrs. Clinton is set to face Republican Donald Trump this fall, and being seen as more liberal may not help in wooing crucial independents and working-class voters. Further, her changing views may feed a perception among some voters that she is untrustworthy, as it did among many Sanders supporters.

“I don’t feel she’s genuine, to be honest,” said Bill Losch, 63 years old, of Las Vegas, a Sanders delegate. “She’ll do whatever she needs to do to be elected.”

Democrats in and out of Mrs. Clinton’s campaign say her shifting positions reflect new facts and show her willingness to adapt while sticking to core principles...

More.

How Gender Dysphoric Bathroom Access Became the Next Frontier in America's Culture Wars

Heh.

This issue shouldn't even be a thing. But leave it to leftists. For them, it's permanent revolution. There's never enough "progress."

At NYT, "Transgender Americans See Their Personal Battle Become a National Showdown":

.@nytimes Leftists rammed their postmodern gender dysphoria crap down our throats? #LGBTyranny

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) May 21, 2016

How a clash over bathrooms, an issue that appeared atop no national polls, became the next frontier in America’s fast-moving culture wars — and ultimately landed on the desk of the president — involves an array of players, some with law degrees, others still in high school.

The sweeping directive to public schools seemed to come out of nowhere. In fact, it was the product of years of study inside the government and a highly orchestrated campaign by advocates for gay and transgender people. Mindful of the role “Whites Only’’ bathrooms played in the civil rights battles of more than half a century ago, they have been maneuvering behind the scenes to press federal agencies, and ultimately Mr. Obama, to address a question that has roiled many school districts: Should those with differing anatomies share the same bathrooms?

The lobbying came to a head, according to people who were involved, in a hastily called April 1 meeting between top White House officials — led by Valerie Jarrett, Mr. Obama’s senior adviser and one of his closest confidantes — and national leaders of the gay and transgender rights movement. North Carolina had just become the first state to explicitly bar transgender people from using the bathrooms of their choice.

“Transgender students are under attack in this country,” said Chad Griffin, the president of the Human Rights Campaign, a Washington-based advocacy group that is active on the issue, summing up the message he sought to convey to Ms. Jarrett that day. “They need their federal government to stand up for them.”

Ms. Jarrett and her team, he said, listened politely, but “did not reveal much,” including the fact that a legal directive on transgender rights that had been in the works for months was about to be released.

When — or precisely how — Mr. Obama personally weighed in is not clear; the White House would not provide specifics. But two days before that meeting, scores of advocacy groups sent Mr. Obama a private letter, appealing to his sense of history as he nears the end of his presidency, in which he has already advanced gay and transgender rights on multiple fronts.

“Too many students — including every single transgender, intersex, and gender-nonconforming student in North Carolina — will go to sleep tonight dreading the next school day,” the groups wrote, telling him that “your legacy will be defined by the tone you have set and the personal leadership you have shown on these issues.”

The dispute in Palatine came amid increasing confusion for school districts over how to handle questions about bathroom access for transgender students. Officials at the Department of Education said it had received hundreds of requests for guidance — so many that advocates for gay and transgender rights, frustrated by the Obama administration’s failure to issue specific policy guidelines, decided to act on their own.

In August, several groups seeking protection for transgender people — including the Human Rights Campaign, the National Education Association and the National Center for Lesbian Rights — issued a 68-page guide for schools, hoping to provide a blueprint for the White House.

At the Department of Education, Catherine E. Lhamon, 44, a former civil rights litigator who runs the agency’s Office of Civil Rights — and has made aggressive use of a federal nondiscrimination law known as Title IX — was taking the lead. The department’s ruling in favor of Student A in November was the first time it had found any school district in violation of civil rights over transgender issues.

For Student A, the federal intervention has been life changing. Her mother, who requested anonymity to protect the privacy of her daughter, said she was close to finishing her junior year and had just gone to the prom with a group of friends. (She wore a “nice, expensive dress” with a lot of sparkles, her mother said.) Student A is starting to think about which college she might attend.

“She’s in her own teenaged world right now,” her mother said.

The ruling in Palatine reverberated across the Midwest. In the South Dakota Legislature, Republicans were so alarmed by the situation in Palatine that, in February, they passed a measure restricting bathroom access for transgender students — similar to the one that later became law in North Carolina. Opponents sent transgender South Dakotans to meet with Gov. Dennis Daugaard, a Republican, and they believe that influenced his veto of the bill.

Among the visitors was Kendra Heathscott, who was 10 when she first met Mr. Daugaard, then the executive director of a social services organization that treats children with behavioral problems. In his office to lobby against the bathroom measure, she reintroduced herself. “He remembered me as a little boy,” she said.

In Wisconsin last year, another Republican-sponsored bathroom bill began to work its way through the Legislature, but was beaten back by transgender rights activists, many of them teenagers.

In rural north-central Florida, a retired veterinarian and cattle rancher named Harrell Phillips was alarmed one evening in March, when his 17-year-old son reported over dinner that he had encountered a transgender boy in the high school bathroom.

“I marched myself down to the principal,” said Dr. Phillips, who believes that “you are born into a sex that God chose you to be.”

The principal, and later the school superintendent, citing advice from lawyers, said there was nothing they could do. So Dr. Phillips turned to his best friend, a lawyer in Jacksonville, who introduced him to Roger Gannam of Liberty Counsel, an Orlando-based Christian organization. Mr. Gannam represented Kim Davis, the Kentucky clerk jailed for refusing to issue same-sex marriage licenses last year.

Mr. Gannam had just helped block a proposed anti-discrimination ordinance in Jacksonville, with an argument religious conservatives have been lately using to powerful effect: It would endanger women and young girls by allowing men — and even sexual predators — to pose as transgender and enter women’s bathrooms.

Ocala, where Dr. Phillips’s son attends school, is now embroiled in a fight much like the one that engulfed Palatine. The school board, at Mr. Gannam’s prodding, voted in April to require transgender students to use bathrooms that correspond with their biological sex.

One transgender young man there has been suspended for using the boys’ bathroom. The A.C.L.U. of Florida sued the day before the White House issued its directive, and last Sunday night, transgender activists and their allies held a strategy session in a church — with a sheriff’s deputy standing guard outside because attendees feared for their safety.

“It’s separate but equal, so they might as well put black and white up on the bathrooms, too,” said Beth Miller, the mother of 17-year-old Mathew Myers, formerly Madison, an R.O.T.C. student in Ocala who came out as transgender this fall by asking his sergeant to permit him to switch from a women’s uniform to one for men. The sergeant accommodated Mathew on the uniform, but the school required him to use the gender-neutral bathroom in the nurse’s office.

“I go to the guy’s bathroom all the time out in public, and no one cares,” Mathew said.

It's not "separate but equal," and it's a national disgrace, and rape of history, for leftists to appropriate the legacy of Jim Crow and slavery to push the homosexual and gender dysphoric licentiousness.

Still more.

Obama's Title IX Power Grab Inflames the Culture Wars

It's actually sickening.

The country's barreling toward civil war.

At Politico, "Obama transgender edict incites the right":

Obama's transgender student directive inflames culture wars https://t.co/xm388aMhoo | Getty pic.twitter.com/yZZTexyFD4

— POLITICO (@politico) May 16, 2016

While the Obama administration’s directive on bathroom access for transgender students was praised by supporters as a historic moment for civil rights, the sweeping new rules have re-energized the right — and a top lawmaker in Texas even argues that Donald Trump can use the issue as a springboard to the White House.

The right has been consistently losing culture-war fights in the courts during the Obama era, most significantly in the Supreme Court case last year that legalized gay marriage. Now, conservative governors, state officials, education advocates and parent groups have extra motivation to unify in their revolt against a federal intervention directed by a president they loathe that will affect every public school in the nation.

“I believe it is the biggest issue facing families and schools in America since prayer was taken out of public schools,” Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick declared Friday, mere hours after the Obama administration’s letter was released.

The departments of Education and Justice wrote to public school districts across America on Friday, spelling out in specific terms President Barack Obama’s interpretation that transgender students are afforded sweeping civil rights protections under Title IX, the federal law prohibiting sex-based discrimination in educational programs and activities. That includes allowing transgender students access to bathrooms, locker rooms and other school facilities that align with their gender identity — a position that social conservatives find deeply offensive.

“With this guidance, the Education and Justice departments are making it crystal clear what schools’ obligations to transgender students are under federal law,” said James Esseks, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender & HIV Project. “It’s about time schools understand that transgender students are fully protected.”

As it has done in its legal standoff with North Carolina over that state’s law blocking protections for gay and transgender individuals, the administration threatened Friday to withhold federal education dollars from schools, districts or states that fail to heed the order. But since the administration’s directive amounts to guidance and not a legal requirement, the debate is far from settled. In fact, the real fight has only just begun, and both sides are digging in for what promises to be a long, nasty and emotional struggle of politics, policy and law — one that appears poised to ultimately land before the Supreme Court...

Keep reading.

West Hollywood Councilman John Duran Was Seen at Public Council Meetings 'trolling for men on Grindr...'

Well, there's those Democrat Party values for you.

When I was blogging homosexual marriage all the time back in the day, one of the biggest findings (that went against the left's "marriage equality" mantra), is that homosexual men are plagued with virtually unquenchable rampant sexual urges. They just can't get enough, and they're in no way likely to want to "settle down" monogamously with a "spouse." It's utter hypocrisy to claim that same-sex marriages are equal to, well, regular marriage (which somehow started to be called "opposite sex" marriage, smh). Andrew Sullivan was the personification of the hypocrisy, when his "milky loads" scandal broke wide open, lol.

More of this utter depravity, at LAT, "Sex scandal at West Hollywood City Hall spark calls for less Grindr, more respect":

West Hollywood is not shy about sex.

When city officials held a public forum about anal cancer, they called it "Booty Call to Action." The City Hall lobby offers free condoms. A water conservation campaign encouraged residents to "have a morning quickie" by taking short showers.

But in February, West Hollywood agreed to pay $500,000 to settle a sexual harassment lawsuit against the city and Councilman John Duran. The suit was brought on behalf of Ian Owens, whom Duran hired as his deputy after meeting him on Grindr, the smartphone dating app for gay and bisexual men, and then having sex with him.

Now, some residents and politicians in this mecca of gay culture and the home of the Sunset Strip counterculture are wondering if City Hall's famously cheeky attitude about sex needs to be checked a little.

Councilman John D'Amico, who like Duran is gay, said he often looked over during public meetings and saw Duran "trolling for men on Grindr."

"This is not gay-life excuse time, or 'This is how we do it because we're gay,'" D'Amico said at a council meeting. "This is we-live-in-the-21st-century time, and treating people with respect and care and following not just the letter of the law but the spirit of the law is ... part of who we are as a city."

As part of the settlement, Duran and West Hollywood admitted no wrongdoing, but a private investigator's report commissioned by the city dinged Duran for openly talking about his sex life and making "inappropriate" comments that "were sexual in nature" in the workplace.

Duran publicly apologized last month for hiring "a friend," but he has repeatedly denied sexual harassment. He conceded in an interview that had the lawsuit against him and the city gone to trial, West Hollywood's "unique culture" might not have translated well with many members of a jury outside of the city.

"I'm not a stuffed-shirt politician," Duran said. "Yes, my humor is bawdy and funny and outrageous, but, you know what, so is everything else in this town. I could not get elected in Downey."

Indeed, West Hollywood council members occasionally engage in the kind of risque talk that in more strait-laced towns could possibly cost politicians voters or get them recalled. Here, residents sometimes playfully join in the banter during council meetings, whether it's a play-by-play about a visit to the gynecologist or riffs on porn collections.

But in an email, Owens said Duran crossed the line...

More.

Las Vegas Democrat Joe Cervantes, Two-Time Obama Voter, Backs Donald Trump in 2016

Heh.

I'm getting a kick out of this.

At LAT, "'We need an outsider like Trump,' says this two-time Obama voter":

On the vacant, sun-blasted streets southwest of the Strip, Joe Cervantes sees an America on the decline.

Sporting a fedora and a Jimi Hendrix T-shirt as he walks his chow chow, the 67-year-old retired car salesman grumbles when he passes a neighbor’s house with weeds in the rocks. Three cars with no license plates are parked outside.

Asians bought the place in foreclosure and didn’t care who they rented to, he says. Next door to him, he adds, low-income black renters tore up the place so badly the tile floors needed to be replaced. At a house around the corner, he says he’s noticed a Middle Eastern man always outside talking on his cellphone in a foreign language: Cervantes wonders whether he should call the police.

For Cervantes, life in these sand-blown suburbs has come to look like much that has gone wrong with the rest of the country. The homes are cheap and falling apart, he says, because “illegals” did the work and contractors were able to bribe the building inspectors. Foreclosures swept through the neighborhood and he almost lost his own home in the Great Recession because politicians stopped protecting the interests of regular Americans. He blames the same politicians for letting his factory job back in Wisconsin go to Mexico in 1982.

The way Cervantes sees it, the government is a high-stakes card game at which he and most Americans never get a seat. He voted for President Obama but has twice been disappointed. This election, the name he is betting on is emblazoned in gold on the Vegas skyline: Trump.

“The middle class is done in this country. I think we need an outsider like [Donald] Trump to come in and upset the establishment and make them help the middle class,” Cervantes says.

In some ways, Cervantes is like many Americans, of different stripes and widely varying locales, who have found themselves unexpectedly drawn to the real estate tycoon. The retiree lost his factory job to the pitfalls of free trade; he gets angry about illegal immigration; he resents having worked his whole life when others got a free ride.

Conversely, though, Trump's talk about closing the border and keeping out Muslim immigrants doesn't ring true with Cervantes, who is Latino and counts blacks and Arabs among his close friends. He looks forward to one friend’s annual Ramadan feast. And he is disturbed by Trump’s belligerent talk about pummeling protesters. Cervantes won’t swat a spider he finds in his house — he takes them outside — much less a person.

Nevada has always been a state of people who resist easy categorization — people who moved here, in some cases, to escape the categories they were born with elsewhere. As a lot, Nevada Republicans are less religious, less educated and less bound by tradition. They don’t care deeply about issues like abortion or gay marriage. Many own small businesses, often in construction or catering to the gaming industry. They have strong libertarian and anti-establishment streaks, with little tolerance for Washington politics.

Many other Western states have tended to support U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, a strong social conservative from Texas. But Republicans here are planting a solid flag that says Trump country...

Heh.

Notice how Cervantes isn't too pleased with Trump's comments on Latinos and Muslism, but is still going to vote for him nevertheless.

Give you an idea just how bad things are in this country, and about the paucity of attractive alternatives in either party. Says a lot.

Keep reading.

Pope Francis Calls on Catholics to Be More Understanding, Except on Homosexual Marriage (VIDEO)

Well, the Church isn't budging on homosexual nuptials, which they still won't recognize.

At USA Today, "Pope has good news for divorced, but not for gays":

There had been hope among some Catholics that the pontiff might overhaul its position on gay marriage, but the large document that ends with the hand-written signature of “Franciscus” — the pope’s Latin name — made it clear that would not happen. It said there are “absolutely no grounds for considering homosexual unions to be in any way similar … to God’s plan for marriage and family.”

The document also made repeated references to Christian marriage as a “union between a man and a woman.”

'Bathroom Battles' Erupt Over Transgender Issue

At WSJ:

RALEIGH, N. C.—A broad new law here requires transgender people to use the public bathroom corresponding to the gender on their birth certificate, a rebuke of a move by the state’s largest city and the latest skirmish in the “bathroom battles” popping up in statehouses and city halls.

North Carolina on Wednesday became the first state to enact legislation restricting access to sex-segregated facilities on the basis of sex assigned at birth, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. At least 13 other states are considering similar bills, according to the nonpartisan group.

Several big cities have moved in the opposite direction. Earlier this month, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio signed an executive order requiring city agencies to allow people to use the city’s 2,200 public restrooms based on their self-declared gender identity. Philadelphia recently required private businesses to use gender-neutral signs on single-occupancy bathrooms.

But Houston voters overwhelmingly rejected a ballot measure last year to extend nondiscrimination protections to gay and transgender people.

Ten states are considering “religious-freedom” laws, according to NCSL, which could allow businesses to refuse to work with gay couples on religious grounds. North Carolina approved a law last year allowing magistrates to opt out of performing same-sex marriages.

The flurry of proposals on LGBT issues could be a backlash to changes playing out in federal court, particularly the recent legalization of gay marriage, said Maxine Eichner, a professor at the University of North Carolina School of Law. But, she added, “The story with LGBT rights has been surprising—not in that there’s backlash given how quickly views on this issue have changed, but that there hasn’t been more backlash.”

The Republican National Committee, the Washington, D.C.-based group that sets the national Republican platform, is encouraging state legislatures to push back against what it describes as the Obama administration’s federal overreach on “gender identity politics,” particularly in schools.

The RNC adopted a resolution in February encouraging legislatures “to enact laws that protect student privacy and limit the use of restrooms, locker rooms and similar facilities to members of the sex to whom the facility is designated.”

The Republican-led North Carolina General Assembly passed the bathroom bill in an emergency session Wednesday night. The move came in response to an ordinance passed last month by the predominantly Democratic Charlotte City Council. State lawmakers debated, approved and had the signature of Republican Gov. Pat McCrory within 12 hours.

Civil-rights advocates say the fast track left no room for public debate and resulted in a mishmash that repeals local protections against discrimination based on race, national origin, sex and sexual orientation. These advocates say that means it puts at risk billions of dollars in federal Title IX funding, which goes to an array of public programs, including education, and prohibits discrimination...

More.

Plus, watch at ABC News, "Transgender Law Signed by NC Governor."

We're Headed for an Economic Civil War

From Joel Kotkin, at the Daily Beast, "Are We Heading for An Economic Civil War?":

Forget that red state-blue state stuff. The real chasm dividing the US is economic, with one economy for industry and one for tech, and the friction between them is getting fierce.
When we speak about the ever-expanding chasm that defines modern American politics, we usually focus on cultural issues such as gay marriage, race, or religion. But as often has been the case throughout our history, the biggest source of division may be largely economic.

Today we see a growing conflict between the economy that produces consumable, tangible goods and another economy, now ascendant, that deals largely in the intangible world of media, software, and entertainment. Like the old divide between the agrarian South and the industrial North before the Civil War, this threatens to become what President Lincoln’s Secretary of State, William Seward, defined as an “irrepressible conflict.”

Other major economic divides—between capital and labor, Wall Street versus Main Street—defined politics for much of the 20th century. But today’s tangible-intangible divide is particularly tragic because it undermines America’s peculiar advantage in being a powerhouse in both the material and non-material worlds. No other large country can say that, certainly not China, Japan, or Germany, industrial powerhouses short on resources, while our closest cousins, such as Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, remain, for the most part, dependent on commodity trade.

The China syndrome and the shape of the next slowdown

Over the past decade, the United States has enjoyed two parallel booms that combined to propel the economy out of recession. One was centered in places like Houston, Dallas-Ft. Worth, Oklahoma City, and across much of the Great Plains. These areas were all located in the first states to emerge from the recession, and benefited massively from a gusher in energy jobs due largely to fracking.

At the same time, another part of the economy, centered in Silicon Valley as well as Seattle, Austin, and Raleigh/Durham, has also been booming. Though far more restricted than their counterparts in the “tangible” economy in terms of both geography and jobs, the tech/digital economy did not lag when it came to minting fortunes. By 2014, the media-tech sector accounted for six of the nation’s wealthiest people. Perhaps more important, 12 of the nation’s 17 billionaires under 40 also hail from the tech sector.

Until China’s economy hit a wall this fall, these two sectors were humming along, maybe not enough to restore the economy to its ’90s trim robustly enough to improve conditions in many parts of the country. But as China begins to cut back on commodity purchases, many key raw material prices—copper and iron to oil and gas as well as food stuffs—have fallen precipitously, devastating many developing economies in South America, Africa, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia.

Plunging prices are also beginning to hurt many local economies in the U.S., particularly in the “oil patch” that spreads from west Texas to North Dakota. This is one reason why overall economic growth has fallen, and is unlikely to revive strongly in the months ahead. Overall, according to the most recent numbers, job growth remains slow and long-term unemployment stubbornly high while labor participation is stuck at historically low levels. Much of this loss is felt by the kind of middle and working class people who tend to work in tangible industries...

Keep reading.

American Society Becoming Increasingly Secular, Particularly Among the Young

Pew Research was out recently with a new poll on religion in America, "U.S. Public Becoming Less Religious."

The findings aren't all that striking, actually. The key thing is religious observance, as measured by regular church attendance. Barely one-in-four "young Millennials" attend church on a weekly basis, about half that of the "silent generation" of Americans born between 1928 and 1945. Nevertheless, it's clear that youth culture is fundamentally different than mainstream traditionalism, particularly on homosexuality and same-sex marriage.

Noteworthy are the findings for those who identify no religious affiliation, the "nones." The largest group of any category among Democrats is the "nones." That's to say that Democrats are increasing a secular movement, even outwardly hostile to religious practice and public policies informed by faith.

Truth Revolt wrote about this, "Pew Poll: Young Adults Losing Their Religion, Politics Coincides":

Young adults, beholden to causes like climate change, abortion, and gay-marriage, view Republicans as "anti-science" and bigoted. Young adults in turn relate Republicans’ political views with their faith, and thus, run from both.

While a growing number of Americans, particularly within the younger demographic, shun religion, they have embraced another one in its place – that of secular-progressivism. What is perhaps most ironic, is that this political philosophy, so imbued with moral relativism, is as much if not more "anti-science" than the Judeo-Christian faiths its adherents mock.

Of course true believers do not see it that way. Rather, they view their political ideology as the more enlightened way forward and evangelize it with the vim and vigor. What results, however, is a populace that is less tolerant and increasingly devoid of a moral compass with which to guide it through life...

Matt Bevin’s Kentucky Win Is the End of an Era — And That Should Scare Democrats Everywhere

A great piece, from Josh Kraushaar, at National Journal:

Former House Speak­er Tip O’Neill fam­ously said, “all polit­ics is loc­al.” After Re­pub­lic­an Matt Bev­in’s sur­pris­ingly con­vin­cing vic­tory to be­come Ken­tucky’s next gov­ernor, the max­im should be re­versed. All loc­al polit­ics are now na­tion­al. Bev­in, with help from the Re­pub­lic­an Gov­ernors As­so­ci­ation, ef­fect­ively util­ized na­tion­al is­sues—gay mar­riage, Planned Par­ent­hood, fed­er­al en­ergy policy, Pres­id­ent Obama’s health care law—to bludgeon Demo­crat Jack Con­way, who tried to dis­tance him­self from his party’s na­tion­al brand to no avail.

And the biggest drag of all for Con­way was Obama. The RGA un­leashed a last-week $1 mil­lion ad blitz con­nect­ing the Demo­crat­ic state at­tor­ney gen­er­al to Obama—a po­tent line of at­tack in a state where the pres­id­ent’s dis­ap­prov­al rat­ing is near 70 per­cent.

Just as the Ken­tucky gubernat­ori­al cam­paign car­ried na­tion­al over­tones, the res­ults from Tues­day night’s elec­tion carry na­tion­al les­sons. Here are four of the most sig­ni­fic­ant takeaways...

Keep reading.

And ICYMI, the best piece since last Tuesday, from Molly Ball, "Leftists Are Losing the Culture Wars?"