Month: December 2019

Is it a clear case of religious discrimination in government-subsidized housing or a “disgruntled” resident “giving out very misguided information?”

The key could be the difference between a local public interest story and a national outrage.

According to a news release Wednesday from the Liberty Counsel — a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt group that provides legal representation in matters pertaining to evangelical Christian values — seniors at an apartment complex in Independence, Missouri, that’s subsidized by the Department of Housing and Urban Development have been disallowed from putting up outdoor Christmas decorations, including lights and lawn decorations.

Wreaths are allowed as long as they’re called “holiday” wreaths, Liberty Counsel said.

According to reporter Todd Starnes, residents could face eviction if they don’t comply with the regulation.

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The Liberty Counsel said it had “sent a demand letter to the MACO Management Company on behalf of residents at Grandview Estates, a HUD-subsidized residential complex. MACO Management has prohibited residents from decorating their duplexes with outside Christmas decorations, including lights and yard decorations. Nothing in the lease agreement or regulations supports such a ban and residents have previously displayed Christmas lights and yard decorations for many years.”

Liberty Counsel said MACO had sent the residents a letter in which it cited “[g]overnment’s Fair Housing rules. Everyone in the complex is funded in part by Government funds, so we are required to follow their rules.”

“However, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has no such rule,” the Liberty Counsel’s release said.

Liberty Counsel Memo by The Western Journal on Scribd

In an email to The Western Journal, Tammy Delcour, the regional manager for MACO Management Co., disputed the claims and said they were based on a single “disgruntled” resident.

“We have never banned any decorations, we love our residents and holidays,” she said.

“We have a disgruntled person on our hands giving out very misguided information,” Delcour said.

However, if that wasn’t misleading, the Liberty Counsel’s letter seemed to imply that MACO hadn’t disputed its characterization of the rules in the letter.

“In its December 17, 2019 response to Liberty Counsel’s letter, the management company failed to cite any HUD or ‘Government Fair Housing Rule’ supporting the Christmas light and decoration ban,” the group said.

RELATED: Couple’s Mobile Nativity Scene Defies Towns’ Anti-Nativity Pronouncement

“MACO Management instead claimed that its own lease agreements and ‘Rules and Regulations’ prohibit Christmas lights and decorations, but the actual language does not support the claimed ban, or MACO’s original claim,” it said.

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A response to the property management company also seems to confirm that there is some kind of ban in place; it talks about how MACO previously referred to “the ‘lease agreement’ and or ‘MACO Management Rules and Regulations’ for support that residents are aware of the Christmas light ban.” These seem to be very specific allegations gleaned from a previous letter that don’t support MACO’s insistence this is just a disgruntled individual.

If the ban is in place and MACO refuses to remove it, there could be legal consequences.

“This ban violates the Fair Housing Act,” the letter continued.

“MACO is forbidden by the Act from discriminating against residents at this facility on the basis of religion,” it said. “Religious free exercise includes the display of holiday decorations. Christmas is a nationally recognized holiday and to ban religious decorations or celebrations in a federally subsidized or managed residential facility violates the Fair Housing Act and other federal laws. Any federal law or funding requirement that would restrict or prohibit residents’ religious holiday decorations would violate the First Amendment rights of the residents.”

Given the wide gulf in stories, we kind of have to wonder what is what here.

Disgruntled residents willing to make a much bigger deal out of things that wouldn’t ordinarily be an issue are nothing new, of course. That’s why we do have to be careful here.

That being said, the evidence from the letter seems problematic enough. If the First Amendment rights of these seniors are being violated, there need to be serious consequences for this.

Religious discrimination isn’t just problematic, it’s unconstitutional — particularly when these units are subsidized by the government.

Those who violate those freedoms should expect to be punished.

We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards.

via The Western Journal

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It can seem at times like the establishment media has an underlying bias against the ideals of American exceptionalism and independent dominance on the world stage, and now a potential reason for that may have been discovered.

An investigative review has revealed that several major media outlets have been, for quite some time, running paid advertisements disguised as regular news articles that are nothing more than propaganda put forward by the Chinese Communist Party, The Washington Free Beacon reported.

That pro-China propaganda is paid for and promulgated by a communist state-run media outlet known as China Daily and its paid-for ads, both online and in print, appear in American establishment media outlets like The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal, among others.

It is legal for foreign entities and governments to pay for advertising in the United States, provided it is fully disclosed as such. The problem here is that it doesn’t appear that necessary disclosure was occurring.

Based upon an expert review of the ads and federal filings, it appears that China Daily may have run afoul of the Foreign Agents Registration Act on a routine basis by failing to adequately and fully disclose the paid advertising it had purchased in the American newspapers.

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China Daily formally filed as a foreign agent in 1983, according to the Free Beacon, but declined to disclose to the Justice Department any advertising relationship with U.S. media outlets until 2012. Even then it continued to fail to fully comply with FARA by not providing a full breakdown of its spending activities and by withholding copies of paid advertisements, among other potential violations.

As per a review conducted by the Free Beacon and FARA experts of China Daily’s ads — both physical copies submitted to the DOJ as well as online copies that weren’t submitted — the Chinese propaganda pusher is believed to have purchased and run more than 700 online ads and more than 500 print ads in the major U.S. media outlets since 2012.

All of those propaganda pieces, which are cleverly disguised to appear as normal news or commentary articles, tend to frame China and the communist government in the most positive light possible while downplaying the things that China is often criticized over — such as its oppression of Tibet, the imprisoning of Muslim minorities in concentration camps in Xinjiang and the brutal crackdown on pro-freedom protesters in Hong Kong, among other things.

According to graph charts prepared by the Free Beacon, it appears the vast majority of the online ads by China Daily appeared on The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times’ websites, while a solid majority of the print ads appeared in the pages of The Washington Post and, to a lesser extent, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and British outlet Financial Times.

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The fact that the U.S. media outlets have been running these propaganda ads on behalf of China’s communist government hasn’t sat well with Indiana Rep. Jim Banks, a Republican member of the House Armed Service Committee and longtime critic of China Daily. He essentially accused the American outlets of selling out their credibility for ad revenue.

“These outlets claim to support democracy, but they’ve participated in a cover-up for an ongoing communist-run genocide,” Banks told the Free Beacon. “It’s disgusting.”

China Daily declined to provide comment for the Free Beacon’s report. Spokespeople for the three major U.S. media outlets did provide various comments in defense of the practice, but all three declined to specify how much revenue had been gained by the ads sold for propaganda articles.

However, one advertising firm that has published ads in all three outlets, and requested anonymity so as not to disrupt current deals with the three, told the Free Beacon that full-page ads typically cost between $65,000 to $120,000 apiece, suggesting there are millions of dollars in revenue that are at play.

That would coincide with what financial details could be gleaned from China Daily’s FARA disclosures, which while not specific, did show that the media outlet had been infused with $11.8 million from the Chinese government over just the past year alone.

RELATED: While Dems Obsess Over Impeachment, Trump Quietly Has Amazingly Productive Week

Odds are, these U.S. media outlets running Chinese government propaganda are not unwitting dupes and while the outlets may claim that selling the ad space for propaganda has no impact on how they report when it comes to stories about China, that is just as difficult to believe.

The Western Journal has reached out to all four named outlets — The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal and Financial Times — for comment but has not yet received a response. We will update this article if and when we do.

We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards.

via The Western Journal

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President Trump issued an executive order regarding Christmas that gives federal employees something they haven’t been given since 1935: the day before Christmas as a paid day off when Christmas falls on a Wednesday.

Trump wrote, “’All executive departments and agencies of the Federal Government shall be closed and their employees excused from duty on Tuesday, December 24, 2019, the day before Christmas Day. The heads of executive departments and agencies may determine that certain offices and installations of their organizations, or parts thereof, must remain open and that certain employees must report for duty on Dec. 24, 2019, for reasons of national security, defense, or other public need,” as The Daily Mail noted.

The last time a president gave the day off the day before a Wednesday Christmas was when Franklin D. Roosevelt gave the day off, according to Margaret Weichert, deputy director for management at the Office of Management and Budget Margaret Weichert, reported the Federal News Network, which also noted, “According to the Chief Human Capital Officers Council, the Office of Personnel Management will consider the day off paid and federal employees won’t be charged leave for the day. Employees who had previously scheduled leave for the 24th won’t be charged. Those who can’t reschedule use-or-lose leave before the end of the year will forfeit the time. Employees who work on the 24th will receive holiday premium pay.”

This is the second year in a row President Trump gave federal employees the day off the day before Christmas. Government Executive noted:

In 2013, the last time Christmas Eve fell on a Tuesday, President Obama did not opt to give federal employees extra time off. This was “consistent with historical precedent when Christmas has fallen on a Wednesday,” an OPM official told Government Executive, at the time. “The government has remained open on Christmas Eve for six of the last nine times since 1946 that Christmas Day has fallen on a Wednesday.” One exception was in 2002 when President George W. Bush gave employees a half-day.

Trump has taken great pride in defending the value of Christmas; as a presidential candidate in December 2015, he told Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, “You know, you go from one thing to the next to the point where it’s not politically correct to say ‘Merry Christmas’ to anybody, or you go to stores and you don’t ever see the word ‘Christmas’ anymore.”

At the Values Voter Summit in September 2015, Trump said, “The word Christmas. I love Christmas. I love Christmas. You go to stores, you don’t see the word Christmas. It says ‘Happy Holidays’ all over. I say, ‘Where’s Christmas?’ I tell my wife, ‘Don’t go to those stores. I want to see Christmas. I want to see Christmas. Other people can have their holidays but Christmas is Christmas. I want to see ‘Merry Christmas.’”

via The Daily Wire

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As Americans, we should view getting impeached by this band of crazed lunatics and morally corrupt miscreants as a badge of honor for President Trump.

If the man was ineffective at thwarting the destroyers of this nation, they wouldn’t go to these lengths. Even more vexing for the Democrats is that the group of people they have claimed to fight for most in the past has joined with Trump.

Impeachment basically just means that the president has been charged with misconduct. But he has been charged with misconduct by death merchants and destroyers of liberty, and that sits just fine with me.

The Democratic Party used to stand for the so-called little guy, the working poor who tries but fails to get ahead. That’s all changed now. President Trump has taken that constituency away from the Democrats and opened the eyes of a great many people who will never go back.

The great unwashed, the deplorables, the regular working man and woman in this nation who mostly live outside the cities, keeping our republic clicking along, paying taxes and raising families, are a curse to the perverse Democrats. Fine.

The Democrats are for the leech and the cheat now. They are for paying the lazy to not work. Their presidential candidates think everyone should get free money from the working man. Yet they charged our president with misconduct? Why should we be concerned?

The Democrats deny life, biology, God, defense, peace, and America itself. They are upside-down, backwards, and inside-out. They are not equipped to deal with a public who is informed and committed. They are consumed with fear, and they should be.

The Democrats have taken a tool given by the Founders and treated it with mockery. They will stop at nothing to dislodge Trump. Of course a man picked by the “hoi polloi” would be charged with misconduct; we all would. He is hated because he’s not one of them, which ought to make us all beam with pride over our support for him and his support for us.

The Democrats are systematically dismantling the greatest nation ever built. And it was built upon the idea that man has rights given to him by God, and no man can take them away. They cannot have their Utopia unless they destroy all of our rights. They cannot have an informed public, well taught about how they operate. They cannot allow regular Americans to make decisions on their own. They strive to detach us from our God, our love for our nation, and our independence. What they are doing to our president is small next to what they’d like to do to us.

Every American must make it his mission to stop these destroyers from getting power. They’ve declared war on the American patriot. We must organize and politically destroy them.

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Ah a Democratic Presidential debate. The only contest in which the usage of the phrase “pillow fight” generates excitement. No, really. GLAAD, the speech Stasi for all things LGBT, blasted Politico for using the phrase in reference to a less-than-brutal debate exchange between South Bend, Indiana Mayor Buttigieg (who is gay) and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (who isn’t an Indian), claiming it “offended people.”

via NewsBusters – Exposing Liberal Media Bias

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By Wayne Allyn Root

Why do Democrats hate Trump so much? And why do Republicans love him so much?

I believe it all starts with another question, “Is Trump presidential?”

I just returned from a White House visit. I attended the White House Hanukkah Party with President Trump.

Liberals argue Trump isn’t “presidential.” They claim “he’s lowed the bar for presidential behavior.” Well actually, I witnessed the exact opposite on my trip to the White House.

I was a witness to history. President Trump stood steps from me in the East Room to announce an Executive Order declaring Judaism no longer just a religion, but rather a race and nationality too. That allows the Trump administration to cut off federal funding to colleges that allow hate speech towards Jews and Israel, just as they now do for hate speech involving black Americans, or any other race. Why shouldn’t the Jewish race be protected under U.S. law like any other race? Bravo.

I was the first person in America to call this president “The First Jewish President” in a commentary at Fox News just days after the 2016 election. Just a few months ago on my national TV show, I famously called Trump “the King of the Jews.” It started a global discussion. I stand by my words. I’m proud of my words. I was right “on the money.”

Trump killed the Iran treaty- the biggest threat to Israel’s existence ever. Trump recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and boldly moved the U.S. Embassy there. Trump recognized the Golan Heights as belonging to Israel. Trump shuttered the Palestinian Mission in Washington DC until they negotiate fairly for peace. Now Trump will end hate speech and the vicious, hateful BDS movement (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) on college campuses across America.

Trump has done more for the Jewish people than any president ever. It’s not even close.

So, if Obama, or Bush, or Clinton had better manners, or were less offensive, or more traditional, I really don’t care.

Who did more for middle class Americans? For the economy? For jobs and higher wages? For Israel? Who has dramatically reduced illegal immigration at the border? Who won the first phase of the trade war, thereby forcing China for the first time ever to treat American manufacturers and workers fairly? The answers are Trump, Trump and more Trump.

So, you can keep your manners and shove them where the sun don’t shine. Manners don’t matter, achievements do.

To me, the definition of “presidential” is the guy that fights hardest for Americans. It’s the guy who stands up for Americans. It’s the guy who puts more food on my table. And for me specifically, as a Jewish American, it’s the president who fights for Israel and the Jewish people. Trump wins on all counts.

For 63 million Americans who voted for Trump in 2016, and millions more who have grown to love Trump because of his remarkable achievements in his first term, Trump is absolutely “presidential.” As a matter of fact, he puts past presidents to shame. He puts Congress to shame. Maybe that’s precisely why they hate him so much. And it’s why we love him.

President Donald J. Trump is actually the most presidential president ever.

Wayne Allyn Root is the host of “The Wayne Allyn Root Show” on Newsmax TV, nightly at 8 PM ET, found on DirecTV Ch #349, or Dish TV Ch #216, at https://ift.tt/2zOf79k He is also a nationally syndicated radio host of “Wayne Allyn Root: Raw & Unfiltered” found at https://ift.tt/2g4uzmV

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Thank you, impeachment!

ZIP | December 20, 2019 2:35 pm

via Weasel Zippers

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Just a couple of days after the House of Representatives’ votes to impeach President Donald Trump, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., invited him to give his 2020 State of the Union address in early February.

In the very brief Friday letter inviting the president to give the annual update to Congress on how the country is doing, Pelosi framed her invitation as one made out of duty to the Constitution and the federal system it lays out.

“In their great wisdom, our Founders crafted a Constitution based on a system of separation of powers: three co-equal branches acting as checks on each other,” Pelosi wrote.

“To ensure that balance of powers, the Constitution calls for the President to ‘from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union,’” the speaker continues. “In the spirit of respecting our Constitution, I invite you to deliver your State of the Union address before a Joint Session of Congress on Tuesday, February 4, 2020 in the Chamber of the U.S. House of Representatives.”

White House principal deputy press secretary Hogan Gidley said Friday afternoon that the president had accepted the invitation.

The date, a Tuesday, puts the annual address just a day after the Iowa caucuses, which are slated for February 3 and will be the first official statewide contest of the 2020 presidential primaries.

The early February date also makes it possible that the president could give his address while in the middle of a Senate trial over his impeachment, which is what former President Bill Clinton did in 1999. Pelosi has not yet committed to a timetable for sending the articles of impeachment over to the Senate, citing concerns about whether or not the terms of a trial would be “fair,” which has resulted in uncertainty about what the upper chamber’s trial timeline will look like.

Last year, Trump’s State of the Union Address was delayed by the 35-day partial government shutdown, when he agreed with Pelosi’s request to wait to speak until temporarily closed portions of the federal government had been reopened.

The post Two days after impeachment vote, Pelosi invites Trump to give 2020 State of the Union address appeared first on Conservative Review.

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Prosecutors have told a judge that missing security footage from outside deceased pedophile Jeffrey Epstein’s New York City prison cell has been located, CNBC reported Friday.

Prosecutors said the video had been “preserved” by Metropolitan Correctional Center (MCC) at a prior request from attorneys for Epstein’s previous cellmate, according to the news outlet. The cellmate, accused killer and former police officer Nicholas Tartaglione, claims he helped save Epstein’s life after the disgraced financier attempted suicide on July 23.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York said in a Thursday court filing that prosecutors “confirmed with MCC [jail] staff that the Video was preserved by MCC staff upon defense counsel’s request in July 2019.”

“The Government is in the process of obtaining a copy of the Video from the MCC. Once the Government obtains a copy of the Video, the Government intends to make it available for defense counsel’s review at the United States Attorney’s Office,” the prosecutors added.

Earlier this week, Assistant U.S. Attorney Jason Swergold told a White Plains District Court that the footage had gone missing.

“It is on the surface troubling,” said Bruce Barket, an attorney for Tartaglione, at the time.

The development was first reported by the New York Daily News.

Epstein hung himself in a second cell on August 10 while awaiting trial for child sex trafficking charges. In November, two Bureau of Prisons guards were charged with conspiracy and filing false records over their actions the evening the once high-flying investor died.

“The [guards] had a duty to ensure the safety and security of federal inmates in their care,” Manhattan U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman said. “Instead, they repeatedly failed to conduct mandated checks on inmates, and lied on official forms to hide their dereliction.”

Epstein’s cell was just 15 feet from the guards’ desks, the indictment said. Prosecutors said they filed the false paperwork the afternoon of August 9, a few hours before security cameras showed Epstein escorted to his cell. Tova Noel and Michael Thomas filed another false count a short time later, the charges say, and Epstein was found dead early the next morning.

According to the 20-page indictment, Noel walked past Epstein’s cell a final time at 10:30 p.m., before the guards filed three more false headcounts. Guards are supposed to perform headcounts every 30 minutes.

The UPI contributed to this report. 

via Breitbart News

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T. D. Adler at Breitbart News today reported the Wikipedia blacklists now include The Epoch Times and The Gateway Pundit for our truthful reporting on Russiagate.

China critics the Epoch Times and conservative outlet the Gateway Pundit have been banned from use as reliable sources on Wikipedia in the latest cases of news outlets that support President Trump being banned from the online encyclopedia. The Epoch Times ban proposal cited NBC’s hit piece on the site over its coverage of improprieties in the Russia investigation, commonly called Spygate, which prompted smear efforts against the outlet on Wikipedia. Gateway Pundit was proposed for a ban shortly after Epoch Times.

The Epoch Times Wikipedia ban proposal was apparently prompted by one of its articles being cited on the Wikipedia page for Joseph Mifsud, a key controversial figure in the origins of the discredited Russia investigation. Gateway Pundit’s ban was in response to the outlet being cited for past media silence over Ukrainian interference in the 2016 election.

Over the past year, Wikipedia editors have been on a banning spree targeting conservative news sources. Having previously banned the Daily Mail as a source, the following year marked the beginning of an acceleration of the process. Since then, editors have imposed similar bans on fifteen other sites aside from Epoch Times and Gateway Pundit. While some data-focused sites and state-owned outlets in Venezuela and Iran have also been banned, the bulk of the sites banned have been conservative-leaning news outlets. Breitbart News was blacklisted as a “reliable source” on Wikipedia in 2018…

…Gateway Pundit’s ban came from a proposal soon after the proposed ban for Epoch Times. The ban proposal came in response to editor “BullRangifer” removing a 2017 piece criticizing media silence on Ukraine colluding with Democrats to influence the 2016 election. The article was originally added to frame Gateway Pundit as “fueling conspiracy theories” related to the impeachment inquiry over Trump’s call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. In fact, the piece correctly noted Politico’s coverage of DNC contractor Alexandra Chalupa soliciting Ukrainian interference and then-Democratic minority leader of the House Intelligence Committee Adam Schiff expressing concerns about the reported interference.

Criticism of Gateway Pundit was harsher during the ban discussion, though still predominantly from left-wing editors. Some regarded the outlet as unreliable, but argued against a full sourcing ban as they believed some legitimate uses may exist. In addition to Simonm223, who also voted for the ban, editors advocating a ban included “Snooganssnoogans” and “Volunteer Marek” who each have a history of smearing the outlet on Wikipedia.

Editor “Snoogansnoogans” previously added a description to Gateway Pundit’s Wikipedia article stating the site “is known for publishing falsehoods and spreading hoaxes.” Marek a year later labeled the outlet a “fake news website” and each description persists to this day in some way despite initially not being based on any sources considered “reliable” on Wikipedia. However, those labels and descriptions subsequently made their way to major media outlets. Those outlets were later cited to back up the material on Wikipedia, in an apparent “citogenesis” case, referring to a form of circular sourcing.

Wikipedia, a very far left outlet has been censoring, targeting and smearing The Gateway Pundit for years.

We are looking for a good lawyer to represent us in their continued attacks on our website.

The Gateway Pundit is one of the leading conservative publishers in America and the world.  Our website last month averaged nearly a million readers a day.  The left hates TGP because we break stories, shape narrative and are more trustworthy than any of the major liberal outlets.

Guest contributor T. Adler in November explained how Wikipedia works using “citogenesis” or “circular reporting” to smear  and damage conservative outlets like The Gateway Pundit.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

In June as US President Donald Trump touched down in London on his first official state visit to Britain Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales tweeted several derogatory remarks against President Trump and his supporters.

Jimmy Wales called Trump supporters “cultists”

Via Jack Posobiec:

Wikipedia still categorizes “spygate” as a “conspiracy theory” after EVERY major news publisher has reported that Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos was spied on during the 2016 election.

It is widely known that Wikipedia smears and lies about many conservatives (including The Gateway Pundit) and promotes leftist dogma.
So it makes sense that their founder is a raging anti-Trump nutcase.

Only legal action will prevent these far left hacks from censoring truthful news to the public.

We are looking at all of our options.

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