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BY: Jeffrey Cimmino Follow
@jeffcimmino

January 14, 2019 3:45 pm

A county judge in Wisconsin ruled last month that the city of De Pere’s nondiscrimination ordinance infringed on the right of religious freedom, granting a victory to five churches and a religious broadcaster which brought a legal challenge against the statute.

In late 2017, De Pere adopted a nondiscrimination ordinance that, among other issues, addressed “gender identity and sexual orientation in housing, employment, advertising, and public accommodation,” according to World magazine. The new policies were to apply to all “places of public accommodation.”

Five churches and a local religious broadcaster challenged the ordinance. The plaintiffs’ complaint argued that the city’s ordinance differed from similar statutes in other states as “the De Pere ordinance does not clearly exempt religious organizations.” They contended that “the ordinance is likely to be imposed on churches and other religious organizations in a manner that would mandate government orthodoxy in core religious functions, communication, and conduct.”

More specifically, the churches asked the judge to determine whether they fell under the statute’s definition of discrimination, given that the plaintiffs “hold views relative to family and marital status, religion, sex, gender identity and sexual orientation for which they make employment and facilities-use decisions. Additionally, each of the religious institutions notices, promotes, publishes and otherwise disseminates their views relating to these topics on certain communication-platforms including their websites and for some, blogs, and the radio.”

If the judge determined the plaintiffs would be subject to the definition of discrimination, the churches asked the court to declare “that these provisions are unconstitutional absent an exemption for religious institutions.”

A crucial question for determining whether the plaintiffs would be subject to the ordinance’s regulations was whether the statute considered churches to be “places of public accommodation,” which the ordinance defined as “all establishments within the City of De Pere which offers goods, services, accommodations and entertainment to the public. A place of public accommodation does not include any institution or club which by its nature is distinctly private.”

Kevin Snider, chief counsel for the Pacific Justice Institute, which represented the plaintiffs, told the Washington Free Beacon he was surprised that the city claimed churches fell into that category.

According to Snider, the city argued that churches should be subject to public accommodation laws because they “at times allow the general public to enter their facilities, and sometimes the church activities or programs are not such that they require people to be of like faith to engage in the activities or programs.”

“I know of no other place—no other courts, I should say—that’s ever looked at a church and said that’s a place of public accommodation,” Snider said.

Snider said the plaintiffs feared the broadness of the statute would prevent them, for example, from saying no to hosting or officiating weddings, given that these churches have certain views on same-sex marriage and other nuptial arrangements.

“The ordinance is written so broad, if a church is a place of public accommodation, it can’t essentially say no based on things such as religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender,” said Snider.

The chief counsel also pointed to issues such as controlling the use of the church building by outside organizations, managing membership in the church, and hiring employees.

Under Wisconsin’s freedom of conscience clause, which Snider said offers broader religious freedom protections than the First Amendment, the judge determined churches would not have to be deemed places of public accommodation if it violates their religious beliefs.

The city attorney for De Pere did not offer comment on the case, telling the Free Beacon they are awaiting a written order before issuing a comment.

Mark Goldfeder, who is the director the Restoring Religious Freedom Project at Emory University and was not involved in the case, explained to the Free Beacon some of the questions concerning religious freedom attached to cases like the one in Wisconsin. He gave the example of a church that does something “that is not necessarily completely tied to the religion,” such as hosting a community potluck.

“I think it is a reasonable approach to say that would fall under the broad gambit of services that the church offers to its members and to a larger community,” said Goldfeder. “But sometimes the church just rents its hall out and is a business and is renting its hall out for things that are completely unrelated to the church and they’re just using the facility in a way to gain assets. To me, during that period of time, I think it’s easy to say that they’ve become public accommodations during that period of use, so that the nondiscrimination laws would fall under that period of use, but when it reverts back to being a church, it would not.”

“So I think that some of the stuff that we’re seeing here is everyone agrees at the extremes, and there’s some debate…of what exactly are the contours for that middle ground, when is a church acting in a religious way, and the truth is that these debates happen all the time in law and religion,” Goldfeder added.

Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein is overseeing a revision of the Justice Department’s guidelines regarding how investigators can obtain records from members of the media, with a particular focus on leaks, according to The Hill’s John Solomon.

The proposed revision, in which Rosenstein assumed a larger role after Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ November departure, included a watered-down threshold for DOJ prosecutors to meet before subpoenaing a journalist’s records. The new guidelines, if approved, would allow the department to issue a subpoena without first notifying the reporter’s news organization of its intent to obtain documents, the report states.

Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker has reportedly voiced concerns about the plan in the last few weeks, worrying the rule changes could attract negative headlines as President Donald Trump is locked in negotiations to end the longest government shutdown in U.S. history. “After a lengthy period of turmoil and regular criticism from President Trump, DOJ has enjoyed a period of calm normalcy that has put employees’ focus back on their work and not the next tweet. Matt doesn’t want to disrupt that unless a strong legal case can be made,” one source told Solomon.

In August, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced his agency was “reviewing” media subpoena policies for reporters who cite anonymous sources in leaking classified information. Sessions, flanked by Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, said at the news conference that federal law enforcement agencies would ramp up efforts to stem the tide of information leaks emanating from within the Trump administration, revealing the DOJ had tripled the number of leak investigations since the president took office.

The government’s war on leaks has seen its share of high-profile causalities, including top FBI and Congressional officials.

Acting on the recommendation of the FBI’s Office of Professional Responsibility, Sessions fired the bureau’s deputy director Andrew McCabe, citing “unauthorized” disclosures to the reporters and lacking candor about it under oath. Federal prosecutors have impaneled a grand jury as part of an investigation into whether McCabe intentionally misled investigators about improperly leaking information to a reporter.

In October, James Wolfe, a former employee of the Senate Intelligence Committee, pleaded guilty to one count of making a false statement to the FBI “during the course of an investigation into the unlawful disclosure of classified national security information.”

In the past, the department has been reluctant to demand reporters reveal an anonymous source of disclosed classified information. However, when subpoenaed to testify, reporters face the possibility of being jailed for contempt of court if they refuse to identify a requested source.

New York Times reporter Judith Miller was jailed for 85 days in 2005 after refusing to divulge the source of a classified leak that revealed the identity of undercover CIA agent Valerie Plame, whose husband had drawn the ire of officials in former President George W. Bush’s administration.

Miller was released from federal prison only after her source, later confirmed as I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, chief of staff to former Vice President Dick Cheney, identified himself. Libby was subsequently sentenced to federal prison for violating federal law by revealing classified information.

 

The United Press International contributed to this report.

President Donald Trump threatened on Sunday to “devastate Turkey economically” if Turkish forces attack the Kurds in Syria after the United States withdraws.

The office of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan responded on Monday by telling Trump it would be a “fatal mistake” to treat a Turkish attack on the Kurdish YPG militia, which Turkey considers a terrorist organization, as an assault on the Kurdish people.

Trump delivered his warning to Turkey in a pair of tweets discussing his Syria policy on Sunday. Trump encouraged both Turkey and the Syrian Kurdish militia to back away from a confrontation:

Starting the long overdue pullout from Syria while hitting the little remaining ISIS territorial caliphate hard, and from many directions. Will attack again from existing nearby base if it reforms. Will devastate Turkey economically if they hit Kurds. Create 20 mile safe zone….

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 13, 2019

….Likewise, do not want the Kurds to provoke Turkey. Russia, Iran and Syria have been the biggest beneficiaries of the long term U.S. policy of destroying ISIS in Syria – natural enemies. We also benefit but it is now time to bring our troops back home. Stop the ENDLESS WARS!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 13, 2019

A spokesman for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan responded on Monday by warning Trump, “It is a fatal mistake to equate Syrian Kurds with the PKK, which is on the U.S. terrorist list, and its Syria branch PYD/YPG.”

“Turkey fights against terrorists, not Kurds. We will protect Kurds and other Syrians against all terrorist threats,” spokesman Ibrahim Kalin promised.

“Terrorists can’t be your partners and allies,” Kalin told Trump. “Turkey expects the U.S. to honor our strategic partnership and doesn’t want it to be shadowed by terrorist propaganda.”

Erdogan’s communications director Fahrettin Altun added that Turkey will “continue its anti-terror fight decisively.”

“Terror is terror and it must be eradicated at its source. This is exactly what Turkey is doing in Syria,” Altun said.

The PKK, or Kurdistan Workers Party, is a violent Kurdish separatist organization in Turkey that the U.S. State Department indeed lists as a foreign terrorist organization. The PYD (Democratic Union Party) is the largest Syrian Kurdish political party, while the YPG (People’s Protection Units) is effectively its armed wing. The YPG militia was one of the most effective battlefield allies of the United States in the war against the Islamic State.

Turkey insists the PYD and YPG are actively allied with the PKK and are essentially branches of the same Kurdish separatist organization. Turkey’s looming strategic nightmare involves Kurds in Iraq, Syria, and Turkey joining together to declare an independent state that would absorb territory from all three nations. Turkey complains that weapons given by Western allies to the YPG to fight ISIS are finding their way across the border into PKK hands.

The United States disputes this characterization and wants Turkey to halt its military incursion into Syria against Kurdish forces, an assault Turkey named “Operation Olive Branch” because it believes peace can only be established by pushing Syrian Kurdish forces away from the Turkish border. President Trump strives to assuage fears that U.S. military withdrawal from Syria will give Turkey a green light to massacre the Kurds.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu complained on Monday that President Trump should not issue public demands while the U.S. is negotiating with Turkey to reach an understanding about Syria.

“Strategic partners do not talk via Twitter and social media,” Cavusoglu said.

The foreign minister said Turkey has proposed a “buffer zone” along the Turkey-Syria border that seems compatible with Trump’s demand for a safe zone around the Kurds, presuming the Kurds agree to fall back outside the buffer zone. He criticized the administration of Trump’s predecessor, former President Barack Obama, for refusing to consider this proposal due to “various excuses” and said the Trump administration is only entertaining it now due to “Turkey’s determination.”

The New York Times noted Trump’s tweet was the first time he has publicly threatened Turkey, a fellow member of NATO. The Times worried Trump’s aggressive comments could “upend Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s attempt to reach a deal with Turkey to protect them.”

Pompeo did not appear perturbed by Trump’s tweets when he spoke with reporters in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on Monday.

“You’ll have to ask the president,” he said when asked what Trump meant by economic devastation for Turkey. “We have applied economic sanctions in many places, I assume he is speaking about those kinds of things. You’ll have to ask him.”

Pompeo endorsed Trump’s demand for a safe zone around the Syrian Kurds. “If we can get the space and the security arrangements right it would be a good thing for everyone in the region,” he said.

Just as Turkish and U.S. policies are at odds concerning the connection between Syrian Kurds and the Turkish PKK separatists, so the current proposals clash over the difference between Turkey’s desire to establish a “buffer zone” around its border and the U.S. plan for a “safe zone” around the Kurds.

Despite Turkey’s talk of peace and olive branches, it has repeatedly made clear it intends to attack the Kurds if they do not withdraw from the envisioned “buffer zone,” which is considerably larger than what U.S. planners and the Kurds are comfortable with. Turkey’s determination to push east of the Euphrates River is especially worrisome.

Washington and other concerned foreign powers do not place a great deal of faith in Turkey’s assurances that it can fight Kurdish “terrorist” militias without harming civilians or engaging in battle with Kurdish units directly supported by the West during the fight against ISIS.

Cavusoglu stated on Sunday that Turkey is offended by Trump administration officials, such as National Security Adviser John Bolton, and foreign governments, such as Israel, telling the Turks they cannot push as far into Syria as they deem necessary for their own security interests.

“We do not seek permission from anyone. We would take necessary steps against terrorists near our borders, and we will decide the timing on our own,” Cavusoglu said.

President Trump called out Amazon CEO and Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos on Twitter, Sunday, referring to the billionaire as “Jeff Bozo” in a post to Twitter.

“So sorry to hear the news about Jeff Bozo being taken down by a competitor whose reporting, I understand, is far more accurate than the reporting in his lobbyist newspaper, the Amazon Washington Post,” President Trump declared. “Hopefully the paper will soon be placed in better & more responsible hands!” Trump was referring to reports in the National Enquirer about Bezos’ alleged affair.

So sorry to hear the news about Jeff Bozo being taken down by a competitor whose reporting, I understand, is far more accurate than the reporting in his lobbyist newspaper, the Amazon Washington Post. Hopefully the paper will soon be placed in better & more responsible hands!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 14, 2019

President Trump and Bezos have previously engaged in public spats, going all the way back to Trump’s 2016 election campaign, and in June, Trump encouraged Washington Post employees to go on strike against Bezos.

Washington Post employees want to go on strike because Bezos isn’t paying them enough. I think a really long strike would be a great idea. Employees would get more money and we would get rid of Fake News for an extended period of time! Is @WaPo a registered lobbyist?

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 17, 2018

On Saturday, President Trump accused the Washington Post of being a “lobbyist” newspaper for Amazon.

“Washington Post, that’s basically the lobbyist for Amazon. You know, he uses that — Bezos has got bigger problems than anybody right now. But Bezos uses that as his lobbyist, OK, as far as I’m concerned,” Trump claimed. “And The Washington Post is almost as bad or probably as bad as The New York Times.”

In March, shares in Amazon dropped after it was revealed that President Trump “hates” the company, and the president has repeatedly referred to the Washington Post as the “Amazon Washington Post,” and “fake news.”

The Amazon Washington Post fabricated the facts on my ending massive, dangerous, and wasteful payments to Syrian rebels fighting Assad…..

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 25, 2017

Is Fake News Washington Post being used as a lobbyist weapon against Congress to keep Politicians from looking into Amazon no-tax monopoly?

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 25, 2017

It’s hard to read the Failing New York Times or the Amazon Washington Post because every story/opinion, even if should be positive, is bad!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 23, 2017

“Amazon is doing great damage to tax paying retailers. Towns, cities and states throughout the U.S. are being hurt – many jobs being lost!” posted President Trump in August 2017, adding in December, “Why is the United States Post Office, which is losing many billions of dollars a year, while charging Amazon and others so little to deliver their packages, making Amazon richer and the Post Office dumber and poorer? Should be charging MUCH MORE!”

Amazon is doing great damage to tax paying retailers. Towns, cities and states throughout the U.S. are being hurt – many jobs being lost!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 16, 2017

Why is the United States Post Office, which is losing many billions of dollars a year, while charging Amazon and others so little to deliver their packages, making Amazon richer and the Post Office dumber and poorer? Should be charging MUCH MORE!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 29, 2017

In March 2018, he went after Amazon again, posting, “I have stated my concerns with Amazon long before the Election. Unlike others, they pay little or no taxes to state & local governments, use our Postal System as their Delivery Boy (causing tremendous loss to the U.S.), and are putting many thousands of retailers out of business!”

I have stated my concerns with Amazon long before the Election. Unlike others, they pay little or no taxes to state & local governments, use our Postal System as their Delivery Boy (causing tremendous loss to the U.S.), and are putting many thousands of retailers out of business!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 29, 2018

I am right about Amazon costing the United States Post Office massive amounts of money for being their Delivery Boy. Amazon should pay these costs (plus) and not have them bourne by the American Taxpayer. Many billions of dollars. P.O. leaders don’t have a clue (or do they?)!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 3, 2018

Bezos criticized President Trump’s comments about the Washington Post in September, proclaiming, “it’s really dangerous to demonize the media.”

 

The latest tracking poll from IBD/TIPP finds that “public disdain for Russia probe intensifies [as] Trump approval climbs.”

This nationwide survey of 903 adults finds that despite a government shutdown for which the anti-Trump media is blaming President Trump, the president’s job approval rating jumped two points above last month, from 40 percent to 42 percent, with 54 percent saying they disapprove.

Though 54 percent of the public disapproves of how Trump is doing his job, 51 percent agree that “the president’s opponents are using the ongoing special counsel investigation into alleged Trump-Russia collusion as a way to delegitimize the 2016 election.”

And, according to the pollster, those “opponents” include the media.

“That includes most independents (52%), as well as the vast majority of Republicans (70%). The poll found that almost a third of Democrats (31%) agree with that statement.”

Overall, only 44 percent disagreed.

Raghavan Mayur, president of TechnoMetrica, who directed the poll, said in a statement that a majority of Americans understand that the real goal of the “opposition and the media is to delegitimize the outcome of the 2016 election and remove Trump from office one way or the other.”

On the impeachment front, two-thirds–65 percent–“say any talk of impeaching Trump at this point is premature. Just 33% say it’s not too early.”

“Satiated” by the media’s “extreme … non-stop vitriolic coverage filled mostly with speculations and insinuations … Americans are worn out,” Mayur adds.

The IBD/TIPP poll is in line with other polls showing Trump’s approval rating in the low-forties. The outlier is CNN, which shows Trump with a 37 percent job approval rating, but CNN is a fake news outlet famous for its terrible polling.

The IBD/TIPP poll also lines up with exit polls taken during the 2018 midterm election that showed nearly the same result, with 54 percent saying the Russian Collusion Hoax is politically motivated and only 41 percent disagreeing.

As the public grows more and more tired of the Russian hoax, far-leftists in the establishment media, like ABC’s Jon Karl, are beginning to prepare the groundwork for a Robert Mueller report that will likely prove that all of this Russian collusion talk was nothing more than a rabidly partisan hoax perpetrated on the American people by a biased and entitled media unable to deal with Trump’s resounding defeat of them in 2016.

Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC. Follow his Facebook Page here.

The pro-life group Live Action was censored on YouTube a week before the March for Life.

The streaming service took down a video exposing Planned Parenthood’s medical malpractices, citing it as “hate speech.” The video included someone posing as a pimp, asking a Planned Parenthood official if they reported minors who came in for abortions. The video is from 2011, and features Project Veritas’ James O’Keefe as the pimp.

“Fourteen and under, we do have to report,” the official told O’Keefe. She then told him that those that came in who said they were 15 and older went unreported, “as long as they said [the father] was 15 or 16.” She also told the pimp that they were under no obligation to report minors.

The official gave the pimp a sheet, telling him where to take girls that were 14 and under to get an abortion. “Just play along that they are students,” she said. “We want to make it look as legitimate as possible.”

When the actor, playing as a pimp, asked the official how soon could the girls be sexually active after an abortion, she responded, “Two weeks.” The pimp asked, “Do you have any idea of what they could do in the meantime? I mean, they still have to make money.” The official replied, “Waist up.”

YouTube took down the video, according to a tweet from Lila Rose, the founder of Live Action. The platform told her that the video violated “Community Guidelines.

Live Action has been subject to extensive censorship from the big tech companies, including when Twitter asked the group to remove content from the Live Action website if it wanted to advertise on Twitter.

YouTube has removed pro-life videos before, including one from the American Family Association that criticized Planned Parenthood’s condom ads. YouTube and its sister company, Google, worked with the Irish government to control pro-life ads on both sites before the vote to legalize abortion in Ireland.

The March for Life will take place in Washington D.C. on January 18, 2019.

It doesn’t take much effort to find a leftist or a Democrat raging about President Donald Trump and his supporters all being racists. It doesn’t matter how much of a stretch it has to be. If Trump and his supporters can be painted as racist, it shall be done.

It’s a common accusation among the anti-Trump crowd, especially in light of the border wall fight that has ground some parts of the government to a stop. Apparently, it’s racist to want secure borders and improved national security.

Here’s the problem: There’s overwhelming data that suggests otherwise.

The latest bit of data that disproves that Trump supporters are racist comes from Grinell College.

A fascinating November poll conducted by the liberal arts college in Iowa showed that people who want improved immigration measures and security are hardly the racist stereotype being peddled by the left.

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As Alan Tonelson, an American Research Fellow at the U.S. Business and Industry Council Educational Foundation, astutely points out, a Grinell poll should hardly be accepted as the final verdict. But Tonelson also notes that allegations of racism against “immigration realists looks weaker than ever.”

To be fair, an immigration realist may not necessarily support Trump, as there are the rarest of Democrats who actually believe in border security. But Trump’s stunning 2016 election win was carried in no small part by massive promises of immigration reform and border security. Not every immigration realist may be a Trump supporter, but an overwhelming majority of Trump supporters are immigration realists.

Given that, the Grinnell College poll may not obliterate the narrative that Trump supporters are racist, but it certainly takes a mighty big hatchet to it.

Starting at page 80 of the poll, the raw data paints a telling picture.

Take, for example, the responses of Trump voters and Hillary Clinton voters when asked if they would like to see increased, decreased or the same amount of immigration from Mexico.

Eleven percent of Trump voters wanted an increase compared to 36 percent for Clinton voters. Comparatively, 40 percent of Trump voters and 8 percent of Clinton voters wanted a decrease. Forty-six percent of Trump voters compared to 54 percent of Clinton voters wanted Mexican immigration to remain the same.

Compare those numbers to how Trump and Clinton voters felt about immigrants from a predominantly white Europe. Thirteen percent of Trump voters want more European immigrants, 18 percent of them wanted fewer European immigrants and 64 percent wanted the same. Meanwhile, 23 percent of Clinton voters wanted an increase, 5 percent wanted a decrease and 66 percent wanted the same.

A glance at the numbers in regards to Africa paints a familiar picture. Ten percent of Trump supporters want an increase of African immigrants, 24 percent want a decrease and 60 percent want the same. Thirty-five percent of Clinton voters want an increase, 3 percent want a decrease and 58 percent want the same.

Those numbers generally carry across all regions and countries that are part of the poll. Overall, most Trump voters seem fine with the same amount of immigration, fewer of them want immigration decreases, and even fewer of them want immigration increases.

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Color of skin and the region people hail from has nothing to do with it.

If Trump voters were motivated by racism, they would be in favor of higher immigration from white areas of the world and demanding cuts in immigration from other regions. The poll shows that’s not happening. What is happening is that Trump voters simply want less rampant immigration, or at the very least, want immigration to stay where it is.

Most of all — and Americans don’t need any polls to tell them this by now — Trump voters want immigration that’s operated in accordance with the rule of law.

That’s something Democrats spent the eight years of the Obama administration flouting, and the two years of the Trump administration actively fighting.

Leftists will likely find some way to twist that into allegations of racism, but the truth of the matter is that using immigrant acceptance as a proxy for racism is inherently absurd.

It’s possible to believe that all people, regardless of skin color or religion, are created equal and deserve to be treated as such, while still wanting improved border security and immigration reform.

Unfortunately, we’re dealing with facts and not feelings, so that will probably be lost on leftists.

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