Just the facts.

California is poised to become the center of cannabis culture

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Robin Abcarian of the Los Angeles Times has the story:

The other day, in a seaside cafe here, veteran cannabis journalist David Bienenstock gamely fielded my attempts to catch up on a subject I have failed to appreciate for far too long: the coming end of marijuana prohibition.

Earlier this month, the backers of a California initiative to legalize the recreational use of marijuana (including Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom and tech kabillionaire Sean Parker) said they had gathered enough signatures to make the November ballot. In the same week, the federal government dropped its long-standing case against Oakland’s Harborside Health Center, the largest medical pot dispensary in the country.

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U.S. Senate Unanimously Confirms Nation’s First Openly Homosexual Army Secretary

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Christian News Network reports:

The U.S. Senate has confirmed the nomination of Eric Fanning to serve as Army secretary—a move that homosexual groups note make him the nation’s first openly homosexual secretary of the Army.

“I’m honored by today’s Senate confirmation and thrilled to return to lead the total Army team,” he said in a statement on Tuesday.

Fanning had previously served as special assistant to Deputy Secretary of Defense Robert Work. He also served as the undersecretary of the Air Force from 2013 to 2015, and for a time was the acting secretary of the Air Force.

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Obama Appoints Man Who Identifies as Woman to Faith-Based Neighborhood Partnerships Council

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Christian News Network reports:

Barack Obama has appointed a man who identifies as a woman to serve on his Advisory Council on Faith-Based Neighborhood Partnerships.

The man, who goes by the name Barbara Satin, is a veteran of the United States Air Force and formerly served on the United Church of Christ’s executive council. He was behind the denomination’s decision to affirm transgendered persons in the ministry.

Satin was raised by his mother after his father died just over a year after Satin was born. He went on to marry a woman and the two had three children together.

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Abortion mandate cases returned to lower courts

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Baptist Press reports:

Supreme Court buildingThe U.S. Supreme Court unanimously voided multiple appeals court decisions against religious institutions that object to the Obama administration’s abortion/contraception mandate in an opinion released today (May 16).

The justices returned to the lower courts for reconsideration a disagreement between religious objectors and the federal government over the mandate, which requires employers to make contraceptives available to their workers, including ones with mechanisms that can potentially induce abortions. The high court remanded the cases to the appeals courts of the Third, Fifth, 10th and District of Columbia districts in light of their brief opinion and blocked the administration from fining the objecting institutions.

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Disagreements slow Pentagon’s plan to allow transgender service members

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The liberal Washington Post has the story:

Months before Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter said the Pentagon would take steps toward allowing transgender people to serve openly in the military, Army Staff Sgt. Patricia King last year became what she believes is the first openly transgender member of the infantry. While official Pentagon policy still forbids openly transgender personnel, her commanders have been supportive, she said. King even purchased a female dress Army service uniform, anticipating that she would be able to wear it soon.

“I made a decision that owning that uniform was important to me, and I believe that our leadership is going to do the right thing,” she said.

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Tim Keller Staff Member Says Homosexuality Isn’t Sin, Part of “Church Plant” Behind Transgender Restroom Plan

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According to Christian News Network:

A staff member at New York’s Redeemer Presbyterian Church, led by popular megachurch pastor and author Tim Keller, and who handles sermon orders for Keller, identifies as a progressive who doesn’t believe homosexuality is sinful and is part of a so-called church plant whose leader recently made recommendations to do away with male/female-separated restrooms nationwide.

In addition to his leadership of Redeemer Presbyterian, which sees up to 5,000 in attendance each week, Keller is known for his best-selling books “The Reason for God” and “The Prodigal God” as well as “The Meaning of Marriage” and “Counterfeit Gods.”

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The Target boycott has reached a boiling point — and sales may suffer as a result

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Business Insider reports:

Target is facing a nationwide backlash for its support of transgender rights.

More than 1.2 million people have signed a pledge to boycott the retailer after it announced last month that it would welcome transgender customers to use any bathroom or fitting room that matches their gender identity.

Critics have been holding protests and demonstrations at stores across the country, and they are showing no signs of dying down.

Many are demanding access to bathrooms of the opposite sex to support claims that “perverts” can now prey on children and women as a result of the policy.

The boycotters’ goal is to force Target to reverse its policy, or at least make the retailer suffer for it by spending their money elsewhere.

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Breitbart News, #15 Facebook Publisher, to Zuckerberg: Forget the Meeting — We Want Transparency and the Truth

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Breitbart reports:

Facebook billionaire Mark Zuckerberg announced he is planning a “pat conservatives on the head” session with “leading conservatives” to discuss Facebook’s conservative media suppression scandal.

Representatives at Facebook have already reached out to Breitbart News.

We have zero interest in a Facebook photo-op.

Moreover, if, as Facebook claims, there has been no effort to suppress conservative media, why the need for a meeting?

Despite Facebook’s rampant suppression of conservative media in its Trending News section, Breitbart News has out-hustled Facebook’s bias, clawing its way to #15 in the world on Facebook for total engagement, #12 in the world on Facebook for Shares, and #10 in the world on Facebook for comments.

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United Methodists may never agree on LGBT issues. Can they stay together anyway?

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Michelle Boorstein of the liberal Washington Post reports:

The global United Methodist Church begins its once-every-four-years legislative meeting Tuesday, and the focus has been on whether to change or keep the denomination’s rejection of homosexuality. But a broader question is up for a vote: What do the 13 million Methodists from Africa to Asia to America have in common?

In a globalized, polarized time, it’s a question that could be asked of many faith groups, from Catholics and Jews to Muslims and Mormons. For the next 10 days, it will be put to the United Methodists, with hundreds of delegates from around the world hashing out more than 1,000 proposals on topics from abortion and whether to digitize hymnals to potentially divesting from businesses connected with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

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White House Suggests “Just Putting Up Curtains” Will Protect Privacy in Transgender Locker Rooms

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According to CNSNews:

White House Spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters Friday that the Department of Education issued specific suggestions today along with its directive that federally funded schools nationwide must allow students to use bathrooms and locker rooms according to their “gender identity” and that one of those suggestions was “just putting up curtains” in school locker rooms.

“There are some school districts across the country that have sought to enhance the privacy of their students by making relatively minor changes to shared use facilities,” Earnest said. “In some cases that means just putting up curtains, so that people are, have more privacy when they are changing their clothes or taking showers in what had previously been shared use facilities.”

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Judge Faces Removal, $40K Fine Because of Her Beliefs About Marriage

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The Daily Signal reports:

A state agency wants to remove a small-town judge in Wyoming from two posts because she told a reporter that her religious beliefs would prevent her from solemnizing same-sex marriages.

In her full-time responsibilities, Municipal Judge Ruth Neely isn’t authorized to preside over marriages. In part-time duties on the local Circuit Court, though, she could be asked to do so.

Now supporters across Wyoming and the nation are siding with Neely as she asks the Wyoming Supreme Court to prevent the state Commission on Judicial Conduct and Ethics from ending her 21-year career as a municipal judge in Pinedale, a town with a population of 2,030 just south of Yellowstone National Park.

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Obama Admin Demands Schools Nationwide Allow Boys in Girls’ Restrooms or Lose Funding

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According to Christian News Network:

Transgender bathroom signThe U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Department of Education released on Friday guidelines for schools nationwide that outline that the Obama administration requires schools to allow students to use the restroom and locker room corresponding with their “gender identity” under threat of losing their federal funding.

“There is no room in our schools for discrimination of any kind, including discrimination against transgender students on the basis of their sex,” said Attorney General Loretta Lynch in a statement announcing the release of the guidelines. “This guidance gives administrators, teachers, and parents the tools they need to protect transgender students from peer harassment and to identify and address unjust school policies.”

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Trump Tax Returns “Ticking Time Bomb”

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Greg Richter of NewsMax has the story:

Donald Trump’s refusal to release his tax returns before November’s general election is a “ticking time bomb” that threatens to destroy not only Trump’s chances of being elected president, but could bring down other Republicans on the ticket, John Fund writes at National Review.

For months, Trump has said he would be willing to release his returns“at the appropriate time” but that he could not do so until an IRS audit was completed.

Tax experts, and the IRS itself, have said that being under audit does not prevent a person from releasing personal tax returns.

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Imagine Discovering That Your Teaching Assistant Really Is a Robot

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According to Melissa Korn of the Wall Street Journal, students at GIT believed that “Jill Watson” was a human teaching assistant and interacted with her throughout the entire semester.  Korn writes:

One day in January, Eric Wilson dashed off a message to the teaching assistants for an online course at the Georgia Institute of Technology.

“I really feel like I missed the mark in giving the correct amount of feedback,” he wrote, pleading to revise an assignment.

Thirteen minutes later, the TA responded. “Unfortunately, there is not a way to edit submitted feedback,” wrote Jill Watson, one of nine assistants for the 300-plus students.

Last week, Mr. Wilson found out he had been seeking guidance from a computer.

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College Applications Just Got Way More Gender-Inclusive

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Far-left blog, Huffington Post, reports:

Two applications used by hundreds of colleges and universities will soon allow students more options for identifying their gender.

The Common Application, used by more than 600 schools, and the Universal College Application, used by more than 40, said this week that the next version of their applications will allow transgender and gender non-conforming applicants better choices to self-identify.

Starting in the 2016-2017 academic year, the Common Application will offer an optional free response text field to give students a place to further describe their gender identity, and will update the “sex” field to read “sex assigned at birth,” its leadership said.

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Northern Ireland Attorney General Backs Bakers Fined for Declining “Support Gay Marriage” Cake

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Christian News Network reports:

The attorney general of Northern Ireland testified in court on Tuesday in favor of a Christian identified bakery that was fined last year for alleged discrimination for declining to print the phrase “support gay marriage” on a cake.

“I say very clearly, if it was a case where Mr. Lee had been refused some of Ashers excellent chocolate eclairs because he was gay or perceived to be gay I would be standing on the other side of the court,” John Larkin, QC told the Court of Appeals in Belfast on the second day of appeal proceedings over the matter.

“But it’s not about that,” he said. “It’s about expression and whether it’s lawful under Northern Ireland constitutional law for Ashers to be forced … to articulate or express or say a political message which is at variance with their political views, and in particular, their religious views.”

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UNC Students Fight Back Against Obama Administration Bathroom Lawsuit

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According to The Daily Signal:

A group of students at the University of North Carolina are fighting back against the Obama administration’s civil rights lawsuit against the state this week by filing a lawsuit of their own, alleging that the federal government is forcing them to choose between their educational pursuits and personal privacy.

“Our clients, the students, are between the proverbial rock and a hard place,” Jeremy Tedesco, an attorney for Alliance Defending Freedom, which is representing the students in their case, told The Daily Signal. “They could lose their funding, they could have neutral restrooms and locker rooms—there’s really only two ways this could go and both of them violate their rights.”

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DOJ’s Lawsuit Against North Carolina Is Abuse of Power

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According to The Daily Signal:

North Carolina has sustained unrelenting and coordinated attacks from big business, the entertainment industry, the American Civil Liberties Union, and now the federal government over its commonsense bathroom policies.

Gov. Pat McCrory and the North Carolina Legislature have had enough of this bullying and filed separate lawsuits against the Department of Justice Monday in the reasonable expectation that a federal judge will order the ideologues at the Department of Justice to back off.

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London’s Iconic Red Buses To Declare “Glory To Allah”

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Breitbart has the report:

Britain’s largest Islamic charity says it wants to “break down barriers” and portray Islam positively by launching a new advertising campaign which will slap the phrase “glory to Allah” on the side of London buses.

The new campaign by Islamic Relief is, ostensibly, targeted at raising donations for their Ramadan aid to Syria, but is attracting attention for the “hundreds” of buses which will be decorated with the phrase “Subhan’ Allah”, or ‘Glory to Allah’.

Muslims reading the advert are told that to “gather the rewards of Ramadan”, they must donate to Islamic Relief, an organisation which had its accounts with banking giant HSBC closed after “concerns that cash for aid could end up with terrorist groups abroad”.

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“Big Brother” Shouldn’t Force Americans to Participate in Abortions

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According to The Daily Signal:

Baby in womb - ultrasound

Recently-introduced federal legislation would protect doctors, nurses, hospitals, and health care providers from being forced to provide abortion as part of their practice or insurance plans.

The Conscience Protection Act, House Resolution 4828, introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives at the end of March by Rep. John Fleming, R-La., currently has 49 co-sponsors.

“As a family practice physician for over 30 years, I know for a fact that doctors and nurses are dedicated medical professionals uniquely qualified to assess the health and wellness needs of their patients,” Fleming said in a formal statement. “There is no room in the clinic for government discrimination, for Big Brother to force a health care provider to participate, in any way, in an abortion.”

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Justice Dept. to N.C. universities: Break transgender bathroom law or lose millions in funding

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According to Washington Times:

The U.S. Department of Justice is now directly pitting the University of North Carolina system against its state government.

The University of North Carolina System said it has been given until Monday to comply with a Justice order to break a state law concerning bathroom access, or risk losing more than $1 billion in federal education funding.

In a letter sent to the higher education system’s president and board of directors, which mirrored one sent to North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory, the Justice Department said compliance with the state law HB2 discriminates against transgender people and violates federal civil rights law.

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Inscriptions Found in Ancient Fortress Support Biblical Timeline, Challenge Skeptics

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Christian News Network reports:

A team of Israeli researchers has found evidence that literacy was widespread among ancient Israelites, thus challenging critics of the Bible who claim most people in Old Testament times were illiterate.

Critics of the Bible have long alleged that Israelites prior to the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem in 586 B.C. were largely illiterate. Therefore, they argue, many of the Old Testament books were written after the destruction of Jerusalem, which is much later than the Bible suggests.

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Kerry slams Trump’s wall, tells grads to prepare for “borderless world”

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Washington Examiner reports:

Secretary of State John Kerry took a shot at Donald Trump during his Friday commencement speech at Northeastern University, by saying no wall is big enough to keep dangerous terrorists out of the United States.

“Many of you were in elementary school when you learned the toughest lesson of all on 9/11,” he said. “There are no walls big enough to stop people from anywhere, tens of thousands of miles away, who are determined to take their own lives while they target others.”

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Planned Parenthood helping transgender patients with sex changes

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Planned Parenthood’s mission statement is based on helping individuals “manage his or her fertility.” But now the organization wants to add sex-changes to that goal. So it appears that, if Planned Parenthood has its way, the American tax-payer’s hard-earned money will be spent on the mutilation of transgender people’s bodies.  Fox News has the report:

Planned Parenthood has found a new niche that could prove nearly as controversial as providing abortions: helping transgendered people through the sex-change process.

In the wake of last summer’s undercover videos that appeared to show Planned Parenthood officials selling baby body parts for money – which is illegal – legislators in several states have looked for ways to deny funding to the women’s health giant.

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Out of the Shadows: Wicca Grows in Austin and Beyond

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According to Reporting Texas:

Witch - caulderonMary Caldwell has spiky pink hair, tattooed arms and works in customer service for a software company. She’s also the leader of a Wicca meet-up that gathers every other Monday at Monkey Nest Coffee on Burnet Road.

On a recent Monday evening, she led the group in a discussion of numerology – the belief that numbers have mystical meanings – as well as rituals and personal experiences with spirits. Recently, some members of the group had visited a local cemetery to commune with spirits.

“Some of the people in the group just see them, some just hear them and some of them just smell them,” said Caldwell, 44.  “It was great fun.”

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