Wednesday, May 06, 2020



'Discriminatory Targeting of Religious Worship Must End!' Trump DOJ Lays Down the Law on Ralph Northam

On Sunday, the Department of Justice under President Donald Trump stepped up to support a lawsuit against Gov. Ralph Northam (D-Va.), claiming that Northam’s coronavirus restrictions violate the First Amendment by singling out churches and other religious groups for more stringent rules than secular establishments.

“For many people of faith, exercising religion is essential, especially during a crisis,” Assistant Attorney General Eric Dreiband said in a statement. “The Commonwealth of Virginia has offered no good reason for refusing to trust congregants who promise to use care in worship in the same way it trusts accountants, lawyers, and other workers to do the same. The U.S. Department of Justice will continue to monitor any infringement of the Constitution and other civil liberties, and we will take additional appropriate action if and when necessary.”

Northam issued coronavirus executive orders to ban in-person religious services of more than 10 people while permitting similar gatherings of workers in non-retail businesses and many retail businesses, including liquor stores, dry cleaners, and department stores.

On April 5, 2020 — Palm Sunday — Lighthouse Fellowship Church in Chincoteague Island, Va., held a sixteen-person worship service in its 225-seat sanctuary while maintaining social-distancing and personal hygiene protocols. Police monitored the service and issued a pastor a criminal citation and summons. The pastor faced penalties up to a year in jail and a $2,500 fine.

Lighthouse filed suit but on Friday, a district court denied the church’s request for preliminary relief. The district court claimed that “although businesses may not be essential, the exception crafted on their behalf is essential to prevent joblessness.”

Yet Lighthouse Fellowship Church also performs functions that are essential during a crisis. As Liberty Counsel, the law firm representing the church, explains, Lighthouse “helps keep people free of drug addiction, brokenness, mental illness, poverty, and prostitution. Many of the members do not have driver’s licenses and are dependent on the church family for rides to get food, supplies, and go to medical appointments and personal care services like haircuts.” The church has also helped members with electric or gas bills, rent, groceries, physical labor for moving and renovating houses, cooking meals, and more.

The DOJ filed a Statement of Interest in the case, disagreeing with the district court ruling and claiming that Northam has not provided an answer to the charge that he singled out churches for special restrictions.

“The Commonwealth [of Virginia] has not yet responded to Plaintiff’s allegations that it permits non-retail businesses, such as law or accounting offices, to gather in numbers greater than ten so long as they use social distancing. Likewise, the Commonwealth has not yet responded to Plaintiff’s allegations that various comparable secular gatherings are permitted,” the DOJ statement reads.

“Based on the materials before the Court, [Lighthouse Fellowship Church] has demonstrated a likelihood of success on the merits of its claim under the Free Exercise Clause of the U.S. Constitution that the Commonwealth’s executive orders have prohibited religious gatherings at places of worship, even with social distancing and personal hygiene protocols, while allowing comparable secular gatherings to proceed with social distancing,” the brief states.

The DOJ also notes that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit granted an injunction in a case raising similar issues on Saturday. The Sixth Circuit prevented Gov. Andy Beshear (D-Ky.) from acting against Maryville Baptist Church after Beshear had issued mandatory household quarantine orders to parishioners who attended a drive-in church service. The Sixth Circuit concluded that the “Governor has offered no good reason so far for refusing to trust the congregants who promise to use care in worship in just the same way it trusts accountants, lawyers, and laundromat workers to do the same.”

“Similarly, here, the Commonwealth has not explained why it differentiates and ‘refus[es] to trust’ this small congregation’s worship activities that, as alleged, follow social distancing and personal hygiene protocols, while allowing and trusting non-retail businesses to gather more than ten people in such a fashion,” the DOJ brief explains.

Mat Staver, founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel, celebrated the Trump DOJ’s support for the church’s religious freedom.

“The discriminatory targeting of religious worship by limiting congregants to 10 people even with social distancing while allowing similar secular gatherings violates the First Amendment. Gov. Ralph Northam’s targeting of religious worship is a blatant violation of the Bill of Rights,” Staver said in a statement. “I am pleased that the U.S. Department of Justice filed in support of our request for an injunction pending appeal. This discrimination must end.”

Governors like Northam do enjoy broader authority during a crisis, but they cannot single out religious worship for extra restrictions just because it is religious. The Lighthouse case is also instructive because the church — like so many others — provides essential services to its needy parishioners. Who is Northam to say that lawyers and laundromats can work with more than 10 people while churches cannot be trusted to follow social distancing?

Of course, Northam is the governor who signed a raft of lefty bills over Easter weekend in the middle of a crisis, apparently trying to hide just how radical these pieces of legislation are. He used the cover of Easter during a pandemic to tighten gun control, loosen abortion restrictions, remove protections for Confederate monuments, issue sweeping voting “reforms,” institute climate regulations based on the Green New Deal, raise the minimum wage, and prohibit “discrimination” on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. This is the same Ralph Northam who condemned his Republican opponent as a horrific racist only to have a photo on old yearbook page surface — showing one man in blackface and another in a KKK hood.

Voters should remember Northam and his fellow Democrats across the country who trampled over religious freedom in the name of fighting the coronavirus. A crisis is no excuse for attacks on religious freedom.

SOURCE 





'Arbeit Macht Frei' and the Revival of Godwin's Law

“As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one.”

Mike Godwin first defined “Godwin’s rule of Hitler analogies” - more commonly known as Godwin’s law - in 1994. It describes the downward spiral of online debates where the eventual comparison of someone or something to Adolf Hitler or the Nazis becomes inevitable. After such a comparison was made, it was widely accepted that the debate had effectively reached its conclusion, and the discussion board or thread died an immediate Internet death.

Unfortunately, it seems that Godwin’s law has been abandoned as the logic of the Internet has seeped into the general consciousness of our increasingly divisive political discourse. While comparisons to Adolf Hitler used to be forcibly limited to the kooky corners of the World Wide Web, the acceptance of such an analogy has become shockingly mainstream.

Today, conservatives are routinely compared to the Nazis of 1930s Germany. Singer Linda Ronstadt compared President Donald Trump to Hitler, stating “It's going to be like Hitler, and the Mexicans are the new Jews.” South Carolina Democratic Congressman Jim Clyburn compared the entire Republican Party to the Nazi Party with “I used to wonder: How did the people of Germany allow Hitler to exist? But with each passing day, I’m beginning to understand how. And that’s why I’m trying to sound the alarm.”

Never to be outdone in the hyperbole department, failed Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke argued “Outside of the Third Reich, give me another example of a Western leader who has called people of one faith inherently defective or dangerous or disqualified from being successful in that country.”

While many conservatives decry such arguments, such dialectics are not unique to the American Left. In the past week, the same flawed and obscene logic was on display as demonstrators protested California Governor Gavin Newsom’s lockdown policies. Above the Capitol in Sacramento, a banner was seen flying over the demonstration which depicted the governor as Adolf Hitler. Then, across the country at the “Re-open Illinois” demonstration, one protester brandished a sign displaying the words “Arbeit Macht Frei.” This infamous German phrase means “work sets you free,” and adorned the gates of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, where one million Jews were murdered by the Nazis.

There are three key reasons why - for the very survival of our society and culture - such comparisons must stop.

Firstly, and most obviously, comparing Donald Trump, Gavin Newsom, or their respective administrations to one of the most savagely cruel regimes in human history is as demonstrably insane as claiming that someone is like Adolf Hitler because they like dogs. The acceptance of these thinly veiled “reductio ad Hitlerum” arguments wholeheartedly reject the need for specific and contextual criticism. If political policies are sub-optimal, then they must be measured and judged along a somewhat objective scale. If we allow all policies to be judged using the immeasurable and almost entirely subjective binary system of “Nazi or not Nazi,” then the clear differences between questionable policy positions and the systematic eradication of an entire religious group are intentionally removed. To embrace such a state of affairs is to celebrate the death of political debate.

Secondly, such comparisons show abject disrespect for the millions of human beings who are now ash in Europe due to real Nazism. To use the memory of their murders - whether by execution in the street, starvation or disease in the ghettos, or the terrifying dark abyss of the gas chambers - in an attempt to score cheap political points is as unimaginably callous as using their gravestones as a podium.

Finally, and arguably most crucially, such preposterous comparisons enable and empower the real Nazis who lurk amongst us. If we become numb to such accusations, and see the word “Nazi” as simply another throwaway adjective in our political dictionary, then we will forget the word’s dark and brutal history. Nazism, communism, and other radical doctrines are ideological viruses. They are held at bay by our ideological immune systems, requiring critical thinking, intellectual honesty, and historical understanding. If we intentionally override our ideological immune systems, our society stands defenseless against a dormant and monstrous political demon waiting for its next opportunity to ascend.

Regardless of where we lie along the mainstream political spectrum, we must agree to revive Godwin’s Law and banish the absurd comparisons of our political opponents to Hitler or the Nazis to the far corners of the Internet. We must agree that Donald Trump is not a Nazi, and Gavin Newsom is not Hitler. If we allow them to become so, then Hitler and his sins fade into insignificance, and we will have forever betrayed the real victims of real Nazism, both in the past and, unfortunately, the future.

SOURCE 






Potential for Fraud Is Why Mail-In Elections Should Be Dead Letter

Twice the usual number of suspects, including CNN’s combative Jim Acosta, have been criticizing President Donald Trump for the concerns he has raised about elections conducted entirely by mail.

As the president said in a tweet, we do need absentee ballots for “many senior citizens, military, and others who can’t get to the polls on Election Day.” But the president is right to be worried about elections conducted entirely by mail.

Absentee ballots are the tools of choice of election fraudsters because they are voted outside the supervision of election officials, making it easier to steal, forge, or alter them, as well as to intimidate voters.

Going entirely to by-mail elections would unwisely endanger the security and integrity of the election process, particularly if officials automatically mail absentee ballots to all registered voters without a signed, authenticated request from each voter.

Voter registration rolls are notoriously inaccurate and out of date, containing the names of voters who are deceased, have moved, or otherwise have become ineligible.

Having thousands of ballots arriving in the mail for individuals who no longer reside at a registered address risks those ballots being stolen and voted.

Yet many liberals are pushing that very process.

The coronavirus bill that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., tried to pass would have forced states to mail absentee ballots to all registered voters, rather than allowing states to require a signed, absentee ballot request form that can be authenticated by election officials before a ballot is sent to the voter.

Opportunity for Fraud

The problem (and opportunity for fraud) this could cause is illustrated by something the president talked about at one of his news conferences; namely, the settlement that Judicial Watch obtained from Los Angeles and the state of California over their failure to maintain the accuracy of their voter registration rolls.

The state and LA agreed to remove from the rolls 1.5 million individuals who remained registered even though they no longer were eligible to vote. Imagine what would have happened if 1.5 million ballots were simply mailed out to all of those individuals to addresses where they no longer live.

Ballots are a valuable commodity. How many would have been voted anyway by fraudsters or vote harvesters collecting absentee ballots in neighborhoods throughout Los Angeles?

Just look at what happened in North Carolina in 2018 in the 9th Congressional District race, in which the result was overturned by the state election board because of illegal vote harvesting that included altering and forging absentee ballots.

All-mail jurisdictions such as Oregon like to brag about the supposed “security” of their systems, which consists of almost nothing other than a rapid, superficial signature comparison.

As Melody Rose, an assistant professor of political science at Portland State University, told the Los Angeles Times: “I don’t have much faith in that process. I can forge my husband’s signature perfectly.”

Rose conducted a survey of one county, Washington County, outside Portland. Five percent of registered voters admitted that other people marked their ballots, and 2.4% said someone else signed their ballots.

Rose suspected the actual number was higher, given that most people would not want to admit to being “party to a crime.” That would mean that tens of thousands of mail-in ballots are being cast in Oregon by individuals other than the registered voter.

Voter ID as Security

Trump was also right when he said we need voter ID laws as a basic security measure in voting. As for those who say there is no election fraud in the U.S. that we need be concerned about, they are wrong and the president is right.

As the U.S. Supreme Court said in 2008 when it upheld Indiana’s voter ID law:

flagrant examples of such fraud … have been documented throughout this Nation’s history by respected historians and journalists [including] Indiana’s own experience with fraudulent voting in the 2003 Democratic primary for East Chicago Mayor … demonstrate that not only is the risk of voter fraud real, but that it could affect the outcome of a close election.

The Heritage Foundation’s Election Fraud Database documents almost 1,300 proven instances of fraud, including numerous cases of absentee ballot fraud. That fraud often targets the most vulnerable voters, including the elderly and the poor.

The most recent batch of cases added to the database emphasize that the president’s concern over election integrity is not misplaced.

For example, Richard Davis was convicted of a felony in California after registering his four dogs to vote as Democrats over a four-year period. Davis said his goal was to draw attention to the flawed voter registration system in his state, and he did notify the local district attorney’s office of what he was doing.

Disregarding several warnings to stop those false registrations, and after registering his deceased father, too, Davis was charged and pleaded guilty to voter registration fraud.

He never submitted a fraudulent vote, but he could have done so easily using absentee ballots if he hadn’t told officials what he was doing, since his “signature” for his dogs would have been a match on all of the forms.

Or take Gustavo Araujo Lerma, an illegal alien from Mexico. He voted multiple times in elections in Sacramento, California, under a false identity.

Protecting the Marginalized

Another case out of California demonstrates how voter fraud often hurts the most marginalized individuals in communities.

Norman Hall was involved in a scheme with eight other individuals involving the homeless on Skid Row. According to the Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office, they “solicited hundreds of false and/or forged signatures on state ballot petitions and voter registration forms by offering homeless people $1 and/or cigarettes for their participation.”

The ballot petitions for which Hall and others gathered fraudulent signatures included calling for reducing jail time, changing the authority of the sheriff’s office, and increasing taxes on millionaires and other business owners.

Two other cases out of California include two individuals, Jentry and Bradley Jasperson, who forged the signatures of voters for a referendum initiative. They were each paid $5 per signature.

Another case from our newest batch features Frank Rabia, a City Council candidate in Hoboken, New Jersey, who bribed voters with $50 payments for mail-in ballots to support his candidacy.

Heritage’s Election Fraud Database has more than 60 instances of vote buying. Attempting to buy votes or signatures is entirely repugnant to the republic that America is so lucky to maintain. But purchasing votes is much easier with absentee or mail-in ballots.

The purchaser—such as Rabia—can see the voter’s absentee ballot in the voter’s home and ensure he is getting what he paid for. A purchaser can’t do that when a voter goes into the privacy of a voting booth.

Another new case we added to our database arises out of Espanola, New Mexico, where Laura Seeds and Dyon Herrera falsified absentee ballots in favor of Seeds’ husband, a Democratic candidate for City Council.

This is the same state where a lawsuit has been filed to require election officials to automatically mail absentee ballots to all registered voters in the upcoming election.

The Public Interest Legal Foundation pointed out in an amicus brief that it found more than 3,000 individuals registered multiple times in New Mexico; almost 1,700 registrants who are dead; 1,500 voters aged 100 or above (64 of whom are over 120 years old); and almost 200 individuals registered at commercial rather than residential addresses. All of these supposed voters would receive ballots automatically if the lawsuit were  successful.

These cases demonstrate that election fraud does occur and can compromise the integrity of the election process.  

Not even the coronavirus can stop the upcoming presidential election, with the 2020 primaries already well underway. Soon enough, the general election will be upon us.

States should be doing everything they can to help everyone who is eligible to vote. But that doesn’t mean casting aside the safeguards in place to prevent elections from being stolen or compromised by administrative errors and fraud.

SOURCE 





Trump's Approval Among Black Americans Has Doubled Since 2016

One of the more closely watched poll numbers by both parties is the support of black Americans for Democrats. They are a critical vote in several swing states and without their vote -- and in massive numbers -- a national Democratic candidate doesn't stand a chance.

Barack Obama was able to gain 95 percent support among blacks with historic levels of turnout. But six million Obama voters failed to cast a ballot for Hillary Clinton in 2016 and that cost her the election.

Donald Trump sees opportunity where most Republican candidates have seen obstacles. His campaign has spent millions of dollars in outreach to black voters since 2017 and the effort appears to be paying off.

Washington Examiner:

President Trump earned a 19% job approval rating from black voters in the latest  Fox News  poll as the Trump reelection campaign works to double the 8% support he received from this cohort four years ago.

The Democratic candidate has generally received between 92 and 95 percent of the black vote since the 1970s. Anything less than that and the Democratic candidate could be in trouble. Needless to say, if Trump can win 15-20 percent of the black vote, he wins in a landslide.

Trump's team is spending tens of millions of dollars to woo black voters in the November election, deploying a massive field and data program to target a voting bloc that for decades has overwhelmingly supported the Democratic Party. Until all campaigns were forced online by the coronavirus pandemic, that  investment included opening special campaign field offices in urban neighborhoods in key battleground states designed to cater to black voters.

In the Fox News survey, which was conducted April 4-7, 13% of registered black voters said they "somewhat approve" of Trump's job performance, with 6% saying they "strongly approve."

It isn't just the percentage of the black vote that concerns Democrats. As the 2016 election showed, a lack of enthusiasm for the Democratic candidate could bring down the curtain on his campaign.

There is no groundswell of enthusiasm for Joe Biden among any Democratic constituency, including black Americans, despite Biden leaning on the black vote to win the nomination. And if many states use a mail-in ballot in November, that will almost certainly drive the turnout numbers down. Getting people to ask for an absentee ballot, having them fill it out, and then mail it in is a laborious process not conducive to a massive turnout.

The kind of turnout Joe Biden desperately needs in the black community to prevail.

SOURCE 

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the  incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of  other countries.  The only real difference, however, is how much power they have.  In America, their power is limited by democracy.  To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already  very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges.  They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did:  None.  So look to the colleges to see  what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way.  It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH,   EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here.  Email me (John Ray) here

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