Random Politics & Religion #20

You know, depending where you live there may not be more than 1 bakery or florist, it would be hell if you had only 1 or 2 grocery stores within 100 miles or more and they refuse to sell to gays.

Their religion is against selling flower to homosexuals? What religion prohibits selling flowers?

I'm missing the point, but gay marriage is legal everywhere in America.

For four months, media wanted us to think that Obama was investigating Trump; now they don’t.

Now that the media-Democrat complex has been caught in its own web, there is some serious skullduggery underway. It’s revisionist history, Soviet style. You know, the kind where the bad stuff gets “disappeared.” The New York Times is disappearing its claim that Obama investigated Trump.

For four months, the mainstream press was very content to have Americans believe — indeed, they encouraged Americans to believe — that a vigorous national-security investigation of the Trump presidential campaign was ongoing. “A counterintelligence investigation,” the New York Times called it.

As I contended in a column this weekend, it was essential for the media and Democrats to promote the perception of an investigation because the scandalous narrative they were peddling — namely, that Trump-campaign operatives conspired with the Putin regime to “hack the election” — required it.

Russia obviously did not hack the election. Russian intelligence services may have hacked e-mail accounts of prominent Democrats, although even that has not been proved. And there is even less evidence of collusion by the Trump campaign in that effort — as one would expect, in light of the intelligence agencies’ conclusion that the Russians sought to hack accounts of both major parties.

So, for this fatally flawed storyline to pass the laugh test, the Left needed the FBI. Even if the election-hacking conspiracy story sounded far-fetched, the public might be induced to believe there must be something to it if the Bureau was investigating it.

But when the election-hacking narrative went on too long without proof, the risk the Democrats were running became clear. If the FBI had been investigating whether the Trump campaign colluded in purported “Russian hacking of the election,” that meant the incumbent Obama administration must have been investigating the campaign of the opposition party’s presidential candidate.

Moreover, if such an investigation had involved national-security wiretaps under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), that would suggest that the Obama Justice Department had alleged, in court, that Trump associates had acted as “agents of a foreign power” — in this case, Russia.

Get it? If there is no hacking conspiracy — and there manifestly is not — the big scandal here is not possible Trump-campaign collusion with Russia. It is that the Obama Justice Department may have used its legal authorities to investigate the Democrats’ top political adversary. And not to be overlooked: This would have been done at the very same time the same Obama Justice Department was bending over backwards to whitewash the extremely serious criminal case against the Democrats’ nominee, Hillary Clinton. It would have meant Obama had his thumb on the election scale.

I began pointing this out in early January, but matters did not come to a head until last Saturday morning. In a tweet-burst, President Trump made the controversial allegation that President Obama had ordered that Trump be subjected to wiretapping at Trump Tower, where his campaign had been headquartered.

To say the least, it is unfortunate that this was the angle Trump chose to pursue. There is plenty of support for the overarching proposition that the Obama administration used its law-enforcement and intelligence powers to investigate Trump associates during the campaign. There is, to my knowledge, no evidence that Trump personally was wiretapped. So instead of highlighting the alarming things that may be true, President Trump’s tweets obsessed over something that probably is not true.

Nevertheless, even if Trump’s allegation was false, the tweets demanded attention to the real scandal: Was the Obama administration investigating the Trump campaign? That was the uh-oh moment for the media-Democrat complex.

That was when it dawned on them not only that the election-hacking conspiracy narrative wasn’t working, but that the investigation of the Trump campaign could be a much bigger scandal.

So, after insisting for four months that the Trump campaign was under investigation for conspiring with Putin to steal the election from Hillary Clinton, the media decided that it better adopt a different strategy: “Investigation? What investigation?”

Thus the claim, suddenly, is that Obama was never investigating Trump. How could we possibly believe such a thing . . . even if it’s the thing the media have wanted us to believe for four months.

That brings us back to the New York Times.

On January 20, when the paper was trying to promote the “government investigating Trump–Russia conspiracy to steal the election” narrative, here’s the headline that appeared on the big story: “Wiretapped Data Used in Inquiry of Trump Aides.”

See? They wanted you to assume the “inquiry” was focused on Trump aides who had connections to the Trump campaign. The report elaborated that investigators were poring over “intercepted communications” of three associates of Donald Trump. Among them was Paul Manafort, who had been Trump’s campaign chairman until August. The intimation was clear: The FBI was conducting a FISA investigation targeting Trump associates to determine whether the campaign had colluded with the Putin regime to steal the election from Hillary Clinton. Only in the fine print did the Times acknowledge that whatever the government might be investigating may have nothing to do with Trump, the Trump campaign, or Russian hacking.

But now that the media have been called on this, now that the Obama administration has been called on investigating the Trump campaign, what happens?

Have you checked the Times’s January 20 story lately?

Turns out the story has suddenly, quietly been given a new headline. No longer is it “Wiretapped Data Used in Inquiry of Trump Aides.” Instead, readers are now told, “Intercepted Russian Communications Part of Inquiry into Trump Associates.”

Why would the Times change its headline in this manner, weeks after the fact?

Because, during the four months when the media-Democrat complex wanted you to believe there was a Trump–Putin conspiracy to hack the election, they needed you to believe that the Justice Department was targeting Trump associates for surveillance because they were Russian agents.

Now that they don’t want you to believe there was an investigation — because that would be an Obama abuse of power — they want to convince you that Trump associates were never targeted for surveillance. “If the conversations of these Trump guys were intercepted,” they want you to conclude, “it’s not because we were targeting them. No, no, no: It’s because we were monitoring Russian agents whom they just happened to call.”

Nothing to see here . . . move along.

We shouldn’t move along. Let’s see the FISA applications and warrants. If there was no targeting of the Trump campaign, as the media and Democrats now say, let’s hear an explanation of why they’ve pretended otherwise for four months. If the Trump campaign was targeted for an investigation, let’s hear why.

Isn't it common practice to update news article? It's standard here.

Yeah I mean, still waiting on Trump to show us the FISA applications and warrants. Whats taking so long?

A Miami defense lawyer’s pants burst into flames Wednesday afternoon as he began his closing arguments in front of a jury — in an arson case.

Stephen Gutierrez, who was arguing that his client’s car spontaneously combusted and was not intentionally set on fire, had been fiddling in his pocket as he was about to address jurors when smoke began billowing out his right pocket, witnesses told the Miami Herald.

He rushed out of the Miami courtroom, leaving spectators stunned. After jurors were ushered out, Gutierrez returned unharmed, with a singed pocket, and insisted it wasn’t a staged defense demonstration gone wrong, observers said.

Instead, Gutierrez blamed a faulty battery in an e-cigarette, witnesses told the Miami Herald.

“It was surreal,” one observer told the Miami Herald.

Repeated calls to Gutierrez’s cellphone went unanswered. Miami-Dade police and prosecutors are now investigating the episode. Officers seized several frayed e-cigarette batteries as evidence.

“A lot of people could have been hurt,” another observer in court told the Miami Herald.

Gutierrez was representing Claudy Charles, 48, who is accused of intentionally setting his car on fire in South Miami-Dade. He had just started his closing arguments when the fire broke out. Jurors convicted Charles anyway of second-degree arson.

Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Michael Hanzman, in the coming days, could decide to hold Gutierrez in contempt of court.

The 28-year-old lawyer graduated from Florida International University’s law school in 2015.

With millions of users across the country, e-cigarettes deliver vaporized nicotine through a heated liquid solution. But questions about the health and fire risks of the products have mounted, with the U.S. Department of Transportation recently banning e-cigarettes from checked bags on airplanes.

Last year, a Naples man filed suit in Miami-Dade after an e-cigarette exploded in his mouth, leaving him in a coma.

You guys might as well start calling the sky green.

I'm sure you understand the difference between sole proprietorship and/or "Mom 'n Pop Shops", vs. banks and public service companies

40 And the king will say to them in reply, ‘Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.’
41* Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you accursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.
42 For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink,
43 stranger and you gave me no welcome, naked and you gave me no clothing, ill and in prison, and you did not care for me.’
44 Then they will answer and say, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or ill or in prison, and not minister to your needs?’
45 He will answer them, ‘Amen, I say to you, what you did not do for one of these least ones, you did not do for me.’
46 And these will go off to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”

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That's hardly extreme, I've lived in a rural town with only 1 grocery store.

If anyone's belief is based on discrimination it's no longer part of their, "religious freedom." Just like we do not allow human sacrifices in religious freedoms anymore; human rights always come first.

An individual's right to be part of a religion's group's administration is not part of their human rights.

So many prominent groups jumping off this health care bill, how long do Trump/Ryan stay on the sinking ship? Blow it up and start over. You don't have to adamantly fight to the last man.

It doesn't matter to you anyway.

If it passes Congress, you are going to attack the Republicans for doing exactly the same thing the liberals/democrats did (and you would be right).

If it doesn't pass Congress, you are going to attack the Republicans for not having a plan passed the first time. Which is the whole point in having a Congress in the first place.

Either way, you are going to attack the Republicans.

They need to actually repeal Obamacare. And then, create a plan that improves health care, not health insurance.

Insurance ≠ care.

On 9 December 2016, Park was impeached by the National Assembly on charges related to influence peddling by a top aide. Her presidential powers and duties have been suspended since the ratification of the impeachment proposal, and Prime Minister Hwang Kyo-ahn has assumed those powers and duties as Acting President. The impeachment was upheld by the Constitutional Court on 10 March 2017, ending Park's presidency and forcing her out of office.

People can see green skies, but can they see why kids love Cinnamon Toast Crunch?

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I'm going to assume that the other half are birthed by the lizard people.

Savel, really the way to deal with those alleged Christians is to shame them there on the spot.

Just stare witheringly at them and is a voice colder than ice say "Matthew 25:40."

But then again the majority of American Christians are heretics.

Still working my way through this book on the subject: