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CO Governor Angers Ranchers by Pushing Meatless Burgers

Farmers and ranchers are not happy with Colorado governor Jared Polis’s push to explore plant-based meat alternatives.

The first-term Democrat has privately urged the state Department of Agriculture to explore how Colorado can produce meatless options, according to the Gazette. In a behind-the-scenes meeting, he even offered to buy agency researchers Burger King’s new Impossible Whopper, which is made of soy and other meatless products, to demonstrate the potential of the plant-based meat trend.

Beef is the state’s largest export and linchpin of its $40 billion agriculture industry. The initiative by Polis, a tech entrepreneur worth hundreds of millions of dollars, provoked condemnation from local farmers and ranchers.

"For the Governor to suggest that Colorado agriculture begin focusing on growing vegetables for plant-based proteins is confusing to the farmers and ranchers who have worked the land in rural Colorado for decades," the Colorado Livestock Association said in a press release. "Next time the Department of Agriculture staff is [sic.] looking for a free lunch we’d be more than glad to set up a grill in Broomfield and barbecue some cheeseburgers for the crew–the beef kind."

Polis, who eats meat but is married to a vegan man, said he does not intend to replace Colorado’s cattle industry with plant-based alternatives, emphasizing that he wants the agriculture industry to consider new trends to avoid stagnation. Some experts dispute the feasibility of the initiative, telling the Denver Post that Colorado’s geographic and weather conditions make it unsuitable for producing vegan alternatives to beef.

Don Brown, a longtime Colorado beef producer, farmer and agriculture commissioner in the Hickenlooper administration, agrees that farmers and ranchers are always looking for new opportunities to increase their profits.

But when it comes to growing the ingredients that make up the Impossible Burger, such as soybeans and coconut oil, Colorado would start at a deficit, Brown said.

Soybeans don’t grow well in Colorado, particularly in areas that don’t have irrigation and must rely on rainfall. About 75% of Colorado’s farmland is considered dry and is not irrigated. And, he added: "I damn sure know we’re short on coconut trees."

Two other ingredients, potatoes and sunflower oil, are likely Colorado’s best hopes. However, it’s unclear whether the state has the sort of infrastructure needed to process and transport the products.

Colorado was home to more than 2.8 million cows in January.

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California court won’t even convict illegal alien who killed Kate Steinle on gun charges

House Democrats plan to mark up legislation next week to confiscate “high-capacity” magazines from law-abiding Americans. Yet their liberal allies in the California courts won’t even convict Kate Steinle’s killer, who had seven felony convictions and five deportations, of a gun felony charge, much less second-degree murder. While the House Judiciary Committee goes after constitutional rights, why won’t the Senate Judiciary Committee hold hearings on how people like Steinle’s killer get back into the country, how to deter sanctuaries that ignore ICE detainers and cause violent deaths, and how to ensure violent gun felons are held accountable?

In 2017, a San Francisco jury acquitted Jose Garcia Zarate — an illegal alien from Mexico — of all murder charges, including involuntary manslaughter, for the death of Kate Steinle on July 1, 2015. The 32-year-old woman was killed when Zarate decided to pick up a 40-caliber SIG Sauer P239 he claims to have found on a pier bench and randomly fired it before discarding it into the bay.

However, the jury still convicted him of the no-brainer charge of felony possession of a firearm. Zarate was deported five times and was released from San Francisco jail two and a half months before without notification to ICE. He remained in the country despite seven felony convictions. It was illegal for him to possess a gun. Don’t we all want bad guys to be deterred from possessing firearms? Well, evidently, not illegal aliens.

On Friday, California’s First District Court of Appeal tossed out the felony possession conviction as well. “It is undisputed that defendant was holding the gun when it fired. But that fact alone does not establish he possessed the gun for more than a moment. To possess the gun, defendant had to know he was holding it,” wrote judge Sandra Margulies for the three-judge panel ruling that the trial judge erred in his instructions to the jury.

So, Zarate admitted to firing the gun, but somehow it doesn’t count as possession because the jury could not have known that the defendant knew he was holding it? Wrap your brain around that display of judicial gymnastics for a moment.

This case should be the poster child for Senate Republicans to push my seven-point criminal control agenda. This case contains all of the key elements.

  • A repeat offender constantly being released from jail only to re-offend;
  • A weak justice system that fails to land convictions of violent gun offenders;
  • A sanctuary city that not only serves as a magnet for foreign national criminals, but won’t turn over these criminals to ICE even after they are arrested for other crimes.

Where is the Republican agenda to use as much focus, passion, and determination in addressing the loopholes that allow criminals with long criminal records to remain on the streets and avoid justice? Where is the effort to keep other countries’ criminals out of this country and remove the ones who remain in this country thanks to sanctuary cities?

Moreover, as illegal aliens sue American taxpayers for endless phantom rights after breaking into this country, where is the effort to give Kate Steinle’s family a private right of action to sue San Francisco? In March, the Ninth Circuit, the same court that grants endless standing for illegal aliens to sue law enforcement, ruled that Steinle’s family had no cause of action to sue San Francisco law enforcement for releasing Zarate in defiance of an ICE detainer.

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CBS Skips Mattis EXCORIATING Obama and Biden, Demands He Hammer Trump

The journalists at CBS This Morning on Monday ignored the harsh words former Defense Secretary James Mattis has for Barack Obama and for Joe Biden in his new book. Instead, the hosts used their Labor Day “first live interview” to try and get Mattis to criticize Donald Trump. Despite knowing that Mattis won’t talk about a sitting president, Mason quizzed, “What do you think the President got wrong about Syria?”

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Gov. Greg Abbott: Midland Shooter Previously Failed Background Check

Gov. Greg Abbott (R) said the gunman who opened fire Saturday in the Midland-Odessa region of Texas had “previously failed a gun purchase background check.”

Abbott also said the gunman did not pass a check to acquire the gun used in Saturday’s attack:

Nearly every mass shooter of the last decade acquired his guns via a background check, attackers who did not go through background checks are outliers who usually steal the guns the they use. One such outlier, the December 14, 2012, Sandy Hook Elementary School attacker, stole the guns he used to kill 26 people at the school.

The Hill reports “it is unclear” how the Midland attacker acquired the gun he used to shoot innocents.

AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. Sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange.

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Why This Christian T-Shirt Printer Has Unlikely LGBT Allies

Rarely are supposedly controversial cases involving freedom of speech, religious liberty, and LGBT interests so clear-cut that they unite people with opposing ideological perspectives. But the Kentucky Supreme Court recently heard a case that does.

Lesbian print-shop owners and LGBT advocates have joined with free speech and religious liberty groups in agreement that the government cannot force a promotional printer to print messages that conflict with his deeply held beliefs.

The case is Lexington-Fayette Urban County Human Rights Commission v. Hands On Originals. It all began in 2012 when Blaine Adamson—managing owner of Hands On Originals, a promotional print shop in Lexington, Kentucky—declined a request to print T-shirts promoting the local gay pride festival.

I’ve had the privilege of representing Adamson and his shop for the past seven years, and on Aug. 23, I argued his case before the Kentucky Supreme Court.

Adamson serves everyone. What he can’t do is print messages that violate his religious beliefs. So, while Adamson serves gay and lesbian customers, including a lesbian musician who performed at Lexington’s 2012 Pride Festival, he cannot print messages that express views about sexuality in conflict with his faith.

That freedom to decline to print or express messages is critical. It’s important to Adamson, because if he must print messages that violate his beliefs, he’ll be forced to choose between following his faith or continuing the promotional work that he loves. It’s work that for decades has provided for his family and the families of the more than 30 people he employs.

But the stakes of his case are even bigger than that.

The freedom that Adamson is defending belongs to everyone who creates speech for a living. Yet if Adamson doesn’t have the right to decline messages, neither does a lesbian printer who receives a request from a religious group for a shirt promoting a rally opposing same-sex marriage.

Nor does a Democratic graphic designer if asked to create fliers for a Republican rally, or a pro-abortion advertising agency asked to develop a campaign for a pro-life group.

That explains why Adamson has received public support from lesbian print-shop owners Kathy Trautvetter and Diane DiGeloromo. They don’t want to be forced to print materials contrary to their views.

You don’t have to take my word or even their word for it. 

John Corvino—a philosophy professor, LGBT advocate, and co-author of “Debating Religious Liberty and Discrimination”—has written that if Adamson loses, no legal protection would exist for “the baker who declines to write ‘Homosexuality is a detestable sin’; the print-shop owner who declines to make ‘White Pride’ T-shirts; [and] the billboard designer who declines to erect an ‘Abortion is murder’ display.”

To protect against all this, Corvino agrees that the Kentucky Supreme Court should rule that Adamson was not “guilty of sexual orientation discrimination” when he declined to print the requested pride festival shirts.

A lot of legal history supports that outcome.

Consider a 2018 unanimous
decision from the United Kingdom Supreme Court in Lee v. Ashers Baking Co.,
which involved a lawsuit against a cake shop.

The shop sued in that case
was asked to create a custom cake with the phrase “Support Gay Marriage.” Its
owners declined because that message conflicted with their religious beliefs
about marriage, but they would have been glad to design other custom cakes for
the gay customer.

The court concluded that the shop didn’t engage in illegal discrimination because “[t]he objection was to the message, not the messenger.”

And on Aug. 23—the same day I argued Adamson’s case—a federal court of appeals announced in Telescope Media Group v. Lucero that the state of Minnesota cannot use a nondiscrimination law to force a film studio to create films celebrating same-sex marriages just because they create films celebrating opposite-sex marriages.

If the state has that power, the court explained, it can also compel “a Muslim tattoo artist” to draw, “an atheist musician” to sing, a “Democratic speechwriter” to write, and a “professional entertainer” to speak messages they disagree with.

That matters—as the U.S. Supreme Court said just last year—because anytime the government forces people to support or express messages they find objectionable, that’s “always demeaning” to them.

Why? Because speech and expression are tools for persuading the mind, and even the soul, of another. And it’s wrong to force people to be instruments for influencing others in that way.

That’s why no one should be compelled to print or express messages they disagree with.

In these tumultuous times, we owe our fellow citizens—no matter their religion or their sexual orientation—that basic freedom.

The post Why This Christian T-Shirt Printer Has Unlikely LGBT Allies appeared first on The Daily Signal.

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Ex-Trump Aide Expresses Alarm at 90-Percent Negative Trump Coverage, McCurry Mocks Him

On Friday, the American Political Science Association had a panel discussion on President Trump and the media, which later aired on C-SPAN. Former deputy press secretary Raj Shah expressed alarm at NewsBusters studies by Rich Noyes (and other studies) showing 90-percent negative coverage of the president. Former Clinton press secretary Mike McCurry wise-cracked that’s because 90 percent of Trump’s actions are crazy.

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So much for the lunatic charge that Trump is ‘in Putin’s pocket’

Die-hard Trump haters continue to maintain that the President of the United States is in thrall to, or maybe being blackmailed by Russia’s President Putin. As a corollary, they still push the notion that Russia will corrupt the 2020 presidential election, so that if and when Trump wins, they will deny him legitimacy.

The crashing and burning of the Mueller effort to prove this thesis means nothing to the deluded dead-enders. But the stupidity of this charge is refuted by the power play President Trump’s Secretary of Energy Rick Perry carried out over the holiday weekend. Via Reuters:

“We’re helping Poland to reduce its dependence on Russian gas,” U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry told a news conference in Warsaw after meeting officials from Poland and Ukraine.

The Polish government official responsible for energy infrastructure, Piotr Naimski, said Poland, which has increased purchases of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the United States in recent years, would be able to send six billion cubic meters of gas to Ukraine starting from 2021 compared to the current capability of 1.5 bcm.

“We will take every effort to diversify gas supplies to Ukraine, which is now completely dependent on Russian deliveries,” Naimski told the same conference.

Perry, Naimski and Ukraine’s Secretary of National Security Oleksandr Danylyuk signed a memorandum of understanding to enhance security of gas supplies in the region via LNG supplies from the U.S. through Poland’s and Ukraine’s infrastructure which still has to be expanded.

Russia’s domination of natural gas supply to Europe, with multiple pipelines running through Ukraine, has long been a strategic weapon.

Natural gas pipelines from Russia to Europe

Image credit: Samuel Bailey

The threat to let Europeans freeze to death during winter months has been exercised before, and remains active, as this article entitled “Ukraine Faces a Bleak Winter as Russia Prepares to Cut Off Gas” demonstrates.

The ability of the United States to check Putin’s energy weapon is the result of the fracking boom that President Trump has unleashed. Instead of President Obama’s claim that it is impossible “to drill our way out” of energy dependence, President Trump has embraced – and strategically exploited – the mushrooming energy production that the United States is experiencing.

So, pause for a minute and ask yourself which president was behaving as if he were in Putin’s pocket? The one who protected Putin’s energy weapon against Europe (and also enriched the faltering Russian economy that mainly depends on oil and gas exports)? Or the one that checkmated Putin’s energy weapon and impoverished his economy?

Die-hard Trump haters continue to maintain that the President of the United States is in thrall to, or maybe being blackmailed by Russia’s President Putin. As a corollary, they still push the notion that Russia will corrupt the 2020 presidential election, so that if and when Trump wins, they will deny him legitimacy.

The crashing and burning of the Mueller effort to prove this thesis means nothing to the deluded dead-enders. But the stupidity of this charge is refuted by the power play President Trump’s Secretary of Energy Rick Perry carried out over the holiday weekend. Via Reuters:

“We’re helping Poland to reduce its dependence on Russian gas,” U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry told a news conference in Warsaw after meeting officials from Poland and Ukraine.

The Polish government official responsible for energy infrastructure, Piotr Naimski, said Poland, which has increased purchases of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the United States in recent years, would be able to send six billion cubic meters of gas to Ukraine starting from 2021 compared to the current capability of 1.5 bcm.

“We will take every effort to diversify gas supplies to Ukraine, which is now completely dependent on Russian deliveries,” Naimski told the same conference.

Perry, Naimski and Ukraine’s Secretary of National Security Oleksandr Danylyuk signed a memorandum of understanding to enhance security of gas supplies in the region via LNG supplies from the U.S. through Poland’s and Ukraine’s infrastructure which still has to be expanded.

Russia’s domination of natural gas supply to Europe, with multiple pipelines running through Ukraine, has long been a strategic weapon.

Natural gas pipelines from Russia to Europe

Image credit: Samuel Bailey

The threat to let Europeans freeze to death during winter months has been exercised before, and remains active, as this article entitled “Ukraine Faces a Bleak Winter as Russia Prepares to Cut Off Gas” demonstrates.

The ability of the United States to check Putin’s energy weapon is the result of the fracking boom that President Trump has unleashed. Instead of President Obama’s claim that it is impossible “to drill our way out” of energy dependence, President Trump has embraced – and strategically exploited – the mushrooming energy production that the United States is experiencing.

So, pause for a minute and ask yourself which president was behaving as if he were in Putin’s pocket? The one who protected Putin’s energy weapon against Europe (and also enriched the faltering Russian economy that mainly depends on oil and gas exports)? Or the one that checkmated Putin’s energy weapon and impoverished his economy?

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‘Devastated’ Vegan Takes Neighbor to Court over BBQ Smoke and Odor

A “devastated” Australian vegan has taken her neighbors to court alleging they deliberately waft barbecue smoke rich in meat and fish smells across their shared boundary fence and into her property.

She also cited the smell of cigarettes and the sound of children playing with basketballs as adding to her profound discomfort.

The woman from Perth, Western Australia, said the amenity of her backyard has been destroyed because her meat eating neighbors on either side deliberately allow their cookout smells to waft into her yard.

“They’ve put it there so I smell fish, all I can smell is fish … I can’t go out there,” complainant Carden Carden told local outlet Nine News.

The massage therapist has been embroiled in her battle since late 2018.

After her claims were rejected by a tribunal on lack of evidence, she applied to the Supreme Court of Western Australia for right of appeal. It was also turned down in July.

Lawyer John Hammond said going to a higher court was an “extreme option” — but it hadn’t stopped Carden from seeking further legal relief and redress.

She told Nine News she believed her neighbors were “absolutely deliberate” in allowing their smells to cross into her yard. She highlighted the smell of cigarettes and the sound of children playing with basketballs as adding to her distress.

“It’s been devastating, it’s been turmoil, it’s been unrest, I haven’t been able to sleep,” Carden said.

This is not the first time a vegan has claimed to be victimised by a neighbor’s barbecue smoke.

As Breitbart News reported, in 2015 a Pinellas County, Florida, environmental specialist was recorded in a video telling a resident that it was illegal for the smoke from his home barbecue to leave his property. He offered no evidence to back the legal side of his argument.

A video released at the time shows Pinellas County environmental specialist Joe Graham issuing a warning to resident Scotty Jordan, saying he can be cited for allowing the smoke and odor of his cookouts to leave his property. The video has been viewed on Jordan’s Facebook page over 4 million times.

Pinellas County authorities insist Jordan could have violated air quality rules, although on the video, one of Jordan’s friends can be heard offering a simpler explanation, “We can’t control the wind, God does that.”

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Ted Cruz Accepts Alyssa Milano’s Challenge to Debate Gun Violence

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) accepted a challenge from actress Alyssa Milano to debate gun rights and the Constitution following the left-wing activist’s request to expose his “bullshit” to the American people.

“I’d be happy to sit down & visit next week about uniting to stop gun violence & about the Constitution. If we can have a civil & positive conversation—in the spirit of 1 Peter 4:8 as you suggest—despite our political differences, that might help resolve the discord in our Nation,” Cruz said Monday evening responding to Alyssa Milano.

Cruz’s acceptance follows a tense exchange between the Texas senator and the left-wing actress, who prompted the conversation after snarkily asking Christians to “cite which passage of the Bible God states it is a god-given right to own a gun.”

Cruz chose to address Milano’s question from every angle, using scripture, the founding documents, and real-life examples in defense of the liberty that upholds the Second Amendment.

“An excellent Q, worth considering carefully w/o the snark of Twitter. It is of course not the right to a modern-day firearm that is God-give but rather the right to Life & the right to Liberty. Essential to that right to life is the right to DEFEND your life & your family,” Cruz began.

He continued:

Stephen Willeford exercised that fundamental right when he risked his own life to stop the Sutherland Springs murderer, saving countless others as a result. St. George Tucker, one of the most important scholars in early America, explained the reasons behind the Second Amendment as follows: “This may be considered as the true palladium of liberty. The right of self defence is the first law of nature….”…in most govts it has been the study of rulers to confine this right w/in the narrowest limits possible. Wherever…the right…to keep & bear arms is, under any…pretext whatsoever, prohibited, liberty, if not already annihilated, is on the brink of destruction. That’s also why, post Civil War, disarming Black Americans was a critical objective of the KKK, and was memorialized in countless Jim Crow laws—to strip African-Americans of their God-given right to self-defense from violence.

Cruz ended his thread, discouraging Alyssa Milano and her ideological allies from “playing politics” and using these crimes to “as an excuse to violate the constl [constitutional] rights of law-abiding citizens”:

Milano did not immediately respond to the individual points Cruz made in the thread, dismissing his response and instead requesting a live-streamed meeting so she can expose his “bullshit” to the American people. She also cited 1 Peter 4:8 – “And above all things have fervent love for one another, for ‘love will cover a multitude of sins’” – and posted a graphic, showing Cruz’s support from pro-gun groups:

Alyssa Milano has yet to respond to Cruz’s latest tweet.

Cruz has also been under fire from the mayor of Chicago after tweeting a Breitbart News article, detailing the violence that unfolded in the Democrat-controlled Windy City over Labor Day weekend.

“Gun control doesn’t work. Look at Chicago. Disarming law-abiding citizens isn’t the answer,” Cruz tweeted. “Stopping violent criminals—prosecuting & getting them off the street—BEFORE they commit more violent crimes is the most effective way to reduce murder rates. Let’s protect our citizens”:

Mayor Lori Lightfoot took issue with Cruz’s tweet and attempted to blame the mass violence in her city on nearby Republican states.

“60% of illegal firearms recovered in Chicago come from outside IL—mostly from states dominated by coward Republicans like you who refuse to enact commonsense gun legislation,” she wrote. “Keep our name out of your mouth”:

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Soros Spends Nearly $9 Million Lobbying, Now Targets Guns

Liberal billionaire George Soros’s advocacy organizations are lobbying lawmakers on Capitol Hill to repeal an act protecting firearms manufacturers from liability for gun crimes including murder, disclosure forms show.

The Open Society Policy Center is Soros’s D.C.-based 501(c)4 nonprofit that works on domestic and international advocacy and is affiliated with the much larger Open Society Foundations. The center has poured nearly $9 million into lobbying a range of issues so far this year.

Soros’s group reported spending $2.6 million on lobbying throughout the first quarter, covering international, military, and appropriations issues. In addition, the center moved into gun control advocacy and reported lobbying on "issues related to a bill to repeal the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act."

The Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA) was passed as a bulwark against frivolous lawsuits attempting to hold gun companies responsible for criminal acts committed by third parties—sometimes decades after the first legal sale of the firearm.

The National Shooting Sports Foundation, the gun industry’s trade group, pushed to pass the bill in 2005. The group said the legal protections are necessary to keep gun control activists from bankrupting the industry through suits they believe have no legal standing.

"The National Shooting Sports Foundation worked with Congress to get the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act passed with broad bipartisan support and signed into law by President George W. Bush," Mark Oliva, a spokesman for the group, told the Washington Free Beacon. "This law correctly protects the firearms industry against frivolous lawsuits that seek claims against manufacturers for the criminal misuse of a firearm. Those who commit crimes with a firearm are the ones who bear the responsibility for the horrific effects of their actions. The PLCAA ensures this is the case."

The PLCAA does not shield the firearms industry from traditional liability. Firearms companies can be sued for making or selling defective products. Remington recently settled a class-action suit related to defective triggers in their 700 bolt-action rifle.

Instead, the PLCAA protects gun companies from being held liable "for the harm solely caused by the criminal or unlawful misuse of firearm products or ammunition products by others when the product functioned as designed and intended."

Oliva compared holding gun companies liable for crimes committed with guns to holding car companies liable for drunk drivers.

"Seeking redress against a firearms manufacturer instead of the criminal is no different than a drunk-driving victim holding Ford responsible for that crime," he told the Free Beacon.

Soros’s center reported $5.92 million in expenditures throughout the second quarter, which included lobbying the House of Representatives and Senate for the Equal Access to Justice for Victims of Gun Violence Act.

The Equal Access to Justice for Victims of Gun Violence Act was introduced in the House by Rep. Adam Schiff (D., Calif.) and seeks to "repeal the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, and provide for the discoverability and admissibility of gun trace information in civil proceedings."

Schiff previously appeared at a secretive gathering of Democracy Alliance, the left’s largest donor club cofounded by Soros, in D.C. last November. He gave the group a closed-door briefing, the Free Beacon reported. The president of Democracy Alliance, Gara LaMarche, was previously the director of Soros’s lobbying outfit and now sits on its board of directors.

The Senate version of Schiff’s bill was introduced by Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D., Conn.), also to "repeal the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act."

Soros has drastically ramped up his lobbying efforts since Donald Trump took office. The financier broke his yearly lobbying record within the first three quarters of 2018 and pushed a total of $31,520,000 into advocacy efforts that year. Gun control has become a higher priority for Soros-funded groups in recent months.

"The Open Society Foundations supported several groups working to reform gun laws in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, but this issue has not been a major area of emphasis for the foundations in the past because other organizations have been and are focused on this effort," said Jonathan Kaplan, the communications officer for the Open Society Policy Center. "In the past few months, we have held discussions with Congressional staff about the Equal Access to Justice for Victims of Gun Violence Act."

The policy center, which this year has utilized two lobbyists, does not have any direct employees. Instead individuals from the Open Society Institute, the legal name for the Open Society Foundations, perform services for the center, according to its most recent tax forms.

Update: This post has been updated to reflect that Soros’s nonprofit has spent $9 million lobbying on a range of issues this year.

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