Democratic Party Serves up Tricks no Treats for Halloween

It Halloween and the Democratic Party is serving up a horror show.  Fully aware that they tethered to Obama they have given up offering treats and have gone straight to mind-numbing tricks.

1. CBS, NBC, and ABC are ignoring one of the most important elections in American History because any news just makes it worse for the party of their choice.      The nation’s Big Three TV networks that breathlessly reported the 2006 anti-Bush election which gave Democrats control of Capitol Hill have practically ignored this year’s anti-Obama midterms that are expected to return full control of the Hill to the GOP.

A new and exhaustive Media Research Center analysis compared the last seven weeks of CBS, NBC and ABC news coverage with the same period in 2006 and found a 6-1 disparity between the Democratic election wave and the current election. The story count: 159-25.

The worst offender is ABC’s newly-renamed “World News Tonight.” The show hasn’t aired a single story. By comparison in 2006, ABC’s “World News” aired 36 stories on the midterms, including a weekly feature that then-anchor Charlie Gibson promised would look at the “critical races.”

2. Voting machines are voting for Democrats when the voter chooses a Republican.     This election cycle we have heard of numerous instances where Republican candidates and staff enter the polls only to find their votes switched to the Democrat opponent. Now there’s proof of a massive conspiracy so large that the founding fathers are rolling over in their graves.

From Watchdog.org:

Cook County Board of Elections Deputy Communications Director Jim Scalzitti, told the Illinois Watchdog that, “It was a calibration error of the touch-screen on the machine.”

Now, Watchdog.org is reporting similar evidence of electronic voter fraud in the State of Maryland, where Diebold voting machines are switching Republican votes to Democrat votes:

“When I first selected my candidate on the electronic machine, it would not put the ‘x’ on the candidate I chose — a Republican — but it would put the ‘x’ on the Democrat candidate above it,” Donna Hamilton said.  “This happened multiple times with multiple selections. Every time my choice flipped from Republican to Democrat. Sometimes it required four or five tries to get the ‘x’ to stay on my real selection,” the Frederick, Md., resident said last week.

Queen Anne County Sheriff Gary Hofmann said he encountered the problem, too, personally.

“This is happening here as well. It occurred on two candidates on my machine. I am glad I checked. Many voters have reported this here as well,” Hofmann, a Republican, wrote in an email Sunday evening.Even though election officials in both highly Democrat Party controlled states have claimed the “calibration error” excuse, a software developer and expert on touch screens used by U.S. intelligence agencies told reporters that the explanation was bogus. “It’s a software issue, and it’s incredibly suspicious that a bug like that could slip through accidentally. It defies belief,” said Tony Heller.   “This is being used by the public for voting. Public trust is essential,” he said. “It’s completely unacceptable that an official waved it off as a calibration issue. It’s something that can be easily verified and should be.”

3. Mary Landrieu tells us that we are sexist and racist for opposing democrats.

Embattled Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu has picked out her excuse if she loses her seat to her Republican challenger: “Conservative” voters in her state don’t much care for women and African-Americans.

When asked by NBC’s Chuck Todd why President Obama struggles in her state, Ms. Landrieu first said his energy policies run counter to Louisiana’s “pro-production” mindset, citing an angry response to Mr. Obama’s moratorium on drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.

After that, the self-described “centrist” suggested racism was at play.

“I’ll be very honest with you. The South has not always been the friendliest place for African-Americans. It’s been a difficult time for the president to present himself in a very positive light as a leader.” After that attack on her constituents, the incumbent also suggested that sexism might be at play in her faltering poll numbers, despite the fact that she’s won three consecutive terms in the Senate.    “It’s not always been a good place for women to present ourselves. It’s more of a conservative place,” Ms. Landrieu said.

The comments earned quick condemnation from her top Republican challenger, Rep. Bill Cassidy, who told Fox News’ Megyn Kelly, “We’re going through the political process to have a change — how our Constitution prescribes how you do it — and we’re called racist.”

4.  New York Democratic Party sends a threat by mail to to Democrats:  “Vote or we will expose you.”     The New York Post Reports:  

Democrats are telling voters that they had better head to the polls — or else.  The New York State Democratic Committee is bullying people into voting next week with intimidating letters warning that it can easily find out which slackers fail to cast a ballot next Tuesday.

“Who you vote for is your secret. But whether or not you vote is public record,” the letter says.

“We will be reviewing voting records . . . to determine whether you joined your neighbors who voted in 2014.”

It ends with a line better suited to a mob movie than a major political party: “If you do not vote this year, we will be interested to hear why not.”

5.  Charley Rangel “Republicans believe slavery isn’t over” and “the Democratic Party is doing God’s work.”  

Veteran Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y.) had some harsh words for the Republican Party during a Thursday campaign rally for New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D).

As he has done repeatedly before, Rangel compared some members of the GOP to confederates from the Civil War era. But at the Thursday evening event, he added that they “believe that slavery isn’t over.”

“We have to win. We have to be able to send a national message with Andrew Cuomo. And the thing is: Everything we believe in — everything we believe in — they hate. They don’t disagree — they hate! They think if you didn’t come from Europe 30 years ago, you didn’t even make it. Some of them believe that slavery isn’t over and they and think they won the Civil War!” Rangel shouted.

In contrast, Rangel said the Democratic Party is doing “God’s work” on issues important to the American people.

The Democratic Party is clearly an empty soul with no concern for our nation and will stop at nothing to stay in power.   Vote them out.

White House in Denial: President Obama Is Costing Democrats Control of the Senate

National Journal

White House in Denial: President Obama Is Costing Democrats Control of the Senate

The administration insists that vulnerable Democrats should have supported him more. That couldn’t be further from the truth.

BY JOSH KRAUSHAAR

• 

October 29, 2014 White House officials are preemptively spinning a midterm defeat, and they’re using their own fantasies to do it. They’re starting to blame candidates for not supporting President Obama enough. As a top White House official told The Washington Post‘s Karen Tumulty, “He doesn’t think they have any reason to run away from him. He thinks there is a strong message there.”

This is pure delusion: Obama is the main reason Republicans are well-positioned to win control of the upper chamber next Tuesday. And Democrats’ biggest strategic mistake in this election is that most candidates didn’t run away far and fast enough. Given the president’s rock-bottom approval numbers in the many Republican-friendly Senate states that Democrats needed to win—as well as the reality of a worsening political environment for the party as early as last winter—that distance was a downright necessity. But a host of Senate candidates failed to create it, and the party is likely to pay the price in Senate seats.

Some candidates bought the White House’s view that the president’s problems were temporary, or only a problem in the most conservative of states. Others naively thought they could pivot away from the president’s problems in hope of individualizing the races and focusing on their challengers’ vulnerabilities. Several understood that moving to the center could risk alienating a base that they needed to turn out, given the party’s much-vaunted Bannock Street ground game. But as the candidates win only weak support from outside the most committed Democrats, those assumptions deserve to be reevaluated. Now, more than ever, it’s clear that individual Democrats could use some clear brand separation from President Obama.

In the traditional swing states such as Colorado and New Hampshire, Sens. Mark Udall and Jeanne Shaheen didn’t think they’d have to break with Obama all that much. After all, they presumed, the Republican Party’s brand was in even worse shape than the president’s.

And in the conservative states held by Democrats, senators tried to have it both ways without telegraphing their differences starkly enough. Simply calling for unspecified fixes to a deeply unpopular health care law, for example, wasn’t sufficient to keep enough disaffected white voters on their side. And while most red-state Democrats tweaked the president for delaying construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, those in the Senate were telegraphing their impotence by not being able to persuade the president otherwise.

An outright rebuke of President Obama wouldn’t have been viable in several Republican states, such as Georgia, Louisiana, and North Carolina, where high turnout among African-American voters is a necessity for Democrats to hang onto the seats. But in ruby-red states where white voters make up a sizable share of the population, Democrats should have been doing their best Joe Manchin impersonations early on.

In Kentucky, Alison Lundergan Grimes was a fresh face who wasn’t burdened by controversial votes in Congress. She benefited by running against Mitch McConnell, whose personal ratings were weak and who faced problems on his right flank, spending all spring fighting off a tea-party primary challenger. But Grimes prioritized appealing to the Democrats’ deep-pocketed donor class above winning over disaffected up-for-grabs voters in her home state. It would have been a defensible strategy, if the political environment in 2014 was more favorable for Democrats. After all, she was one of the Democrats’ most successful fundraisers, and she became a national party star overnight. But her attempts to appease both the party base and more-conservative voters in her state has become painfully awkward. On coal, an issue that’s a political no-brainer in Kentucky, Grimes spent far too much time trying to forge a middle ground between the base and her constituents. McConnell actually lost eastern Kentucky’s coal country to a wealthy Democratic businessman in 2008; that same region could comprise his margin of victory in 2014.

In Arkansas, Pryor seemed content to rely on his strong family name and sharp attacks against Rep. Tom Cotton’s very conservative voting record as a substitute for actively challenging the president. Obama’s approval ratings are as poor in Arkansas as anywhere in the country. And Pryor began the race ahead, hoping to translate his personal likability into votes. But he’s been caught in his own pretzels when asked about the president’s performance on key issues, most recently fumbling a basic question on how he’d grade Obama’s handling of the Ebola crisis.

Even in bellwether Colorado, Udall’s playbook of attacking Gardner almost exclusively on abortion rights and contraception has demonstrated its limits. He boasted a bipartisan brand that he forged in his first Senate race in 2008, but he’s squandered it with a deeply negative campaign. He entered the race with the ability to make a persuasive case over his independence: He’s run to the president’s left on criticizing NSA surveillance and immigration reform. If he was more assertive on energy issues—unequivocally backing the Keystone pipeline and being more outspoken in support of fracking—he could’ve played more to the center-right voters, as well.

But Udall’s reluctance to distance himself from Obama hasn’t helped in a state where the president’s approval numbers have cratered since his last election. By focusing on wedge issues, the freshman senator has cocooned himself as the candidate of the liberal base, and given himself little credibility to distance himself from the president. When Udall said that the last person the White House “want[s] to see coming is me” at a September debate, he was received with laughter. But if he had played his cards differently, it didn’t have to be that way.

To be sure, in a nationalized election, even those who break from an unpopular president often fall victim to his political problems. The biggest victims in the 2010 wave election were House Democrats in conservative districts, most of whom voted against the president’s health care law. Their opposition did little to help them. But in Senate races, where candidates’ personal brands play a bigger role, there’s more opportunity to create space. Manchin, after all, comfortably prevailed in West Virginia in 2010 after (literally) shooting the president’s cap-and-trade legislation. Rep. John Barrow of Georgia may survive yet another tough election, thanks to a savvy ad campaign branding himself as a uniquely conservative Democrat. But few of the red-state Democrats on the ballot this year have even attempted the Manchin/Barrow approach. (Sen. Mark Begich of Alaska comes closest, and he looks to be in the best shape of the bunch.)

This year’s midterms are shaping up to be a referendum on President Obama’s management, giving anxious voters an opportunity to express their frustration about everything from the president’s handling of health care, growing terrorism threats, an Ebola scare, and a broken immigration system, among others. It’s far from an election about nothing. Democrats should have recognized that the president was falling out of favor with the public and inoculated themselves a long time ago. Instead, many bought the White House’s spin, and are at risk of going down with a sinking ship.

Young Hispanics are turning sharply against President Obama. Millennials do not trust either party

National Journal

Millennials Bolt Obama for GOP in Midterms

Long term, the future American electorate isn’t sold on either party.

BY RON FOURNIER

(Harvard Model Congress)

October 29, 2014 In a stunning turnaround, likely voters in the so-called millennial generation prefer a Republican-led Congress after next week’s elections, and young Hispanics are turning sharply against President Obama.

A new national poll of 18-to-29-year-olds by Harvard’s Institute of Politics shows that young Americans are leaving the new Democratic coalition that twice elected Obama. The news is little better for the GOP: These voters, who more than any other voting bloc represent the future of the American electorate, generally hold Republicans in the lowest regard.

The long-view IOP findings suggest that neither party is poised to win the largest generation in U.S. history—a pragmatic, demanding, relatively nonideological electorate raised in an age of terrorism, war, and government dysfunction.

“Millennials could be a critical swing vote,” said IOP Director Maggie Williams, projecting the latest results on future elections. “Candidates for office: Ignore millennial voters at your peril.” Williams is a Democrat and a former adviser to Hillary Clinton.

In the short term, the news is worse for Democrats than Republicans.

• Millennials who told the IOP they will “definitely be voting” Tuesday favored Republicans over Democrats, 51 percent to 47 percent. That is a reversal of September 2010 results, when the IOP found Democrats favored over Republicans among young likely voters, 55 percent to 43 percent.

• Obama’s job-approval rating among millennials decreased from 47 percent in April to 43 percent, his second-lowest rating in the IOP surveys. Among young Americans most likely to vote, his job-approval rating is just 42 percent.

• Obama’s job approval is below 40 percent on several issues, including the economy, health care, the federal budget deficit, and foreign policy. Nearly six of 10 young Americans disapprove of Obamacare.

• Among the one in four millennial voters who say they definitely will vote Tuesday, Republican-leaning constituencies are significantly more enthusiastic about the election than Democrats.

• Just 49 percent of young Hispanics approve of Obama’s job performance, the lowest since IOP began tracking in 2009. That’s a big drop from six months ago, when his rating among young Hispanics was 60 percent, and five years ago, when 81 percent of Hispanic millennials approved of Obama’s performance. Only 17 percent of Hispanic youth plan to vote Tuesday, far smaller than the non-Hispanic percentages and likely a reflection of frustration over stalled immigration reform.

Disclosure: I’m a member of the IOP’s senior advisory committee, a position that gives me an appreciation for the 26 millennial surveys produced since 2000. The latest KnowledgePanel survey, conducted with the Government and Academic research team of GfK, involved 2,029 18-to-29-year-old U.S. citizens between Sept. 26 and Oct. 9.

John Della Volpe, director of the IOP surveys, said the sweep of the work convinces him that Democrats and Republicans are losing the next generation. “Both parties should reintroduce themselves to young voters, empower them, and seek their participation in the upcoming 2016 campaign and beyond,” he said.

For instance, millennials hate government gridlock. Asked on “whom do you place the most blame regarding the political gridlock in Washington,” a whopping 56 percent said, “All of them.”

Congressional Republicans were blamed by 22 percent, compared with 13 percent who blamed Obama and just 5 percent who blamed Democrats in Congress.

While the GOP holds the upper hand Tuesday among likely young voters, millennials overall are more inclined to approve of Democrats in Congress than Republicans, 35 percent to 23 percent.

Less than 10 percent of millennials identify themselves as tea-party supporters. Millennials narrowly favor Democrats over Republicans to handle the economy, immigration, foreign policy, race relations, and even health care.

Young voters traditionally split between the two major parties, as they did in 2000 and 2002. Two wars and Hurricane Katrina under an unpopular President George W. Bush drove millennials to Obama’s promise of change and can-do bipartisanship. He didn’t live up to his hype, and by2013, many young voters were walking away from Obama and Democrats amid revelations about the administration’s domestic spying programs and the botched launch of Obamacare.

Over 214,000 Doctors Opt Out of Obamacare Exchanges

Over 214,000 Doctors Opt Out of Obamacare Exchanges

October 28, 2014 – 11:28 AM

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By Barbara Boland

Over 214,000 doctors won’t participate in the new plans under the Affordable Care Act (ACA,) analysis of a new survey by Medical Group Management Association shows. That number of 214,524, estimated by American Action Forum, is through May 2014, but appears to be growing due to plans that force doctors to take on burdensome costs. It’s also about a quarter of the total number of 893,851 active professional physicians reported by the Kaiser Family Foundation.

In January, an estimated 70% of California’s physicians were not participating in Covered California plans.

Here are some of the reasons why:

1.      Reimbursements under Obamacare are at bottom-dollar – they are even lower than Medicare reimbursements, which are already significantly below market rates. “It is estimated that where private plans pay $1.00 for a service, Medicare pays $0.80, and ACA exchange plans are now paying about $0.60,” a study by the think-tank American Action Forum finds. “For example, Covered California plans are setting their plan fee schedules in line with that of Medi-Cal-California’s Medicaid Program-which means exchange plans are cutting provider reimbursement by up to 40 percent.”

2.      Doctors are expected to take on more patients to make up for the lost revenue, but that’s not happening, because primary care doctors already have more patients than they can handle. “Furthermore, physicians are worried that exchange plan patients will be sicker than the average patient because they may have been without insurance for extended periods of time, and therefore will require more of the PCPs time at lower pay,” says the study.

The study also points to two reasons that doctors might not get paid at all:

3.      An MGMA study indicates that 75% of ACA patients that had seen doctors had chosen plans with high deductibles. Given that most of the patients are low-income, doctors are concerned that the patients cannot meet the deductibles and they will get stuck with the bill.

4.      HHS requires that insurers cover customers for an additional 90 days after they have stopped paying their premiums: the insurer covers the first 30 – but, it’s up to the doctor to recoup payment for the last 60 days. This is the number one reason providers are opting to not participate in the exchange plans. Currently, about a million people have failed to pay their premiums and had their plans canceled.

So, Obamacare is asking doctors to take on sicker patients for less money, with the risk of not getting paid at all? No wonder doctors are running from these plans!

Out of the Ashes a miracle for America

 

Out of the Ashes a miracle for America

By Mario Murillo

Today is my birthday and today this blog reached 900,000 views.  A happy coincidence!  This blog became my exclusive weapon to oppose the Obama agenda.   I knew from the jump that Obama’s rise was a demonic masterpiece that would deceive millions.

Here is what he said in Lebanon, New Hampshire on January 7, 2008:

“… A LIGHT WILL SHINE THROUGH THAT WINDOW, A BEAM OF LIGHT WILL COME DOWN UPON YOU, YOU WILL EXPERIENCE AN EPIPHANY … AND YOU WILL SUDDENLY REALIZE THAT YOU MUST GO TO THE POLLS AND VOTE FOR OBAMA”

We should have known from the breathtaking arrogance of this statement that he was getting outside help.   Indeed, an angel of light did shine and gave millions a counterfeit realization.  Other than an “epiphany”, what rational reason was there to vote for him?

Then he made this astounding declaration about his super powers: “this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal …”

At the time that I began to speak out, many, including close friends thought I was committing ministerial suicide.  A string of pastors told me I could no longer preach in their church and that the IRS was going to get me.   Still others abused a concept of a “culture of honor” to spiritualize their silence in the face of evil.

No one but God knows the price I have paid to obey Him in exposing this agenda to destroy America.  I have faithfully passed on to you everything I felt you need to know in order to fight off this disease on our nation’s soul.

Today, it is clear to all  that our president is an unqualified disaster.  In normal times, he would have been run out of office.  Now many of my fellow ministers are speaking out.  All he is now is a lengthening legacy of lawlessness.

Some assume that I believe America is doomed.  They see the blog as an ending stream of bad news.  Believe me; if I thought we were beyond hope my message would look entirely different!  I would not be sounding an alarm; I would be comforting the remnant.  My continual warnings are rooted in my conviction that a miracle is waiting in the wings.

I believe that our prayers have lifted scales off of America’s eyes about Obama.  I believe that the midterm election is a chance for the church to take back our nation form the polices that Obama put in place.  However, I see a miracle in the wings that is greater than any election.

Everything inside me tells me that our ministry is poised for a strategic moment.  None of the minions or their ideologies in Washington D.C. is strangers to Mario Murillo Ministries.

We met this Spirit on the Campus at Berkeley.  We collided with astounding hostility against the Gospel of Jesus for a decade.  It was hardcore, intellectual, and well organized.  God called me there to win souls, and see revival, but from every angle it was an utterly impossible task.

How God took our group on campus from a handful to two thousand strong is like a page out of the book of Acts.  But the most important result of my time on campus is only now coming to light.  This is because the intellectual deception that presently drives the White House was invented in Berkeley.   And what this ministry can do now was also invented in Berkeley.  It prevailed then and it will prevail again.

I even chuckled to see the usual suspects from the “revolution” being recruited by Obama.

Here is my great hope for America: God would have spared Sodom and Gomorrah for just twelve righteous people.  America is home to millions upon millions of godly Christians who are working hard, raising children and faithfully paying their taxes and their mortgages.  They did not live above their means.  They did not take any bailout money.  They have not bowed their knee to the gods of abortion or gay marriage.  They are the ones who are locked in prevailing prayer for America!

Everywhere I go I meet true intercessors and I can see their prayers being answered.  Millions of youth are under God’s influence.  Because it is a great threat to their agenda, the media is not reporting the growing spiritual hunger of our youth.  Vast numbers of them are migrating back to youth groups and churches, and the surprising thing is that they are drawn to on fire churches and not to the hi-tech designer churches.

God is in a miracle working mood.  Never in 47 years of preaching have I heard or seen such dramatic healings in such abundance. A vast blanket of signs and wonders is covering us now and reports are pouring in from everywhere of healing.

It may seem right to buy a cabin in the woods and load it with survival food, but before you do consider what I say.  You will be distracted from the great harvest of souls that is coming.  You would forfeit the greatest intimacy with God you have ever known. You will miss the Grace of God that would have made you strong in impossible situations.  You will miss the great anointing that God will grant to every one of His soldiers in the hour of testing!  You would be sidelined in the church’s finest hour.

 Now I have one last great prayer:  that you gentle reader will not be a traitor to your faith by not voting or by voting for a Democrat who will carry on Obama’s agenda.   Yes, a miracle waits in the wings but also a disaster looms in the shadows.   November 4, 2014 is the day for all Christians to shake off compromise and do the right thing.

3 reasons why you must vote against every democratic candidate that supported Obama

 

3 reasons why you must vote against every democratic candidate that supported Obama

Reason 1:  Obama and his policies is the Ebola virus to American liberty:  For America to survive, Obama’s policies must be utterly repudiated.   Like a killer frost, Obama has damaged everything he has touched.   He meant to hurt us.  His policies are designed to do keep doing damage long after he is gone.

With malice and forethought he shamed us abroad, divided us at home and, as no one before him, cast a shroud over the nation’s future.  The proof that his platform is wholly destructive is this fact: any city or state that has fully implemented his agenda has watched poverty, crime, and addiction skyrocket.

America will simply not survive the train wreck tomfoolery of this administration.  It all has to go.

Reason 2:   When they say they are not like Obama, they are being just like Obama.   When they say they are different than Obama it is another reason to oust them.   When they are lying, denying, deflecting and insulting our intelligence by asking for another chance they are being the quintessential Obama.

No one in the Democratic Party has apologized for their crimes against freedom, morality, and prosperity.  No one rose up and opposed the madness.  This means that they still don’t get it.  You simply cannot vote for anyone who had a hand in this devastation or is a threat to continue the devastation. 

 

Reason 3:  This is probably your last chance to demonstrate your Christianity in an election:  Liberty is on the ropes.  Government has seized control of almost everything.  Operatives within the Democratic Party want to keep power no matter what they have to do to keep it.   Stop the tyranny now or they will think that they can do anything they want.

It is disgusting that Pastors voted and campaigned for Obama in two elections!  This is your chance to repent and do the right thing for the nation and your congregation.  It is likely your last chance.

For minority Christians that voted for Obama for cell phones, government assistance or to legalize relatives I have a simple question… what will you do when the money is gone, the law is useless and America is worse than the nation they escaped?

For the lukewarm Christian who would rather remain silent I have a question:   If you don’t have the courage to speak out now… how will you find the courage to live under persecution?

Never have the stakes been higher.  Never has the choice been clearer.  Silence is not an option.   Get mad, get informed and get going.  Vote them out.

Christian rapper Jackie Hill-Perry comes out as ex-gay firebrand

Jackie Hill-Perry

By David Daniels – The Washington Times – Monday, October 27, 2014

Jackie Hill-Perry considers herself not merely an agent of change, but its embodiment as well.

A Christian spoken-word poet from Chicago, Ms. Hill-Perry professes to be a former lesbian — a change she ascribes to God.

God, she says, “not only changes your affections and your heart, but He gives you new affections that you didn’t have.” Now married to a Christian man, the 25-year-old poet is pregnant with the newlyweds’ first child, which is due Dec. 13.

Her debut spoken-word album “The Art of Joy” will be released for free on Nov. 4 by Humble Beast record label.

Ms. Hill-Perry’s experience runs counter to pronouncements by gay rights groups that exclaim sexuality as an inherent, immutable characteristic. What’s more, her assertions come amid wide-ranging reports about the psychological dangers of so-called “reparative therapy,” which aims to change the orientation of homosexuals.

But she remains steadfast in her belief that anything is possible with God as she meets criticism — and outright contempt — for speaking out about her experience. And thanks to her nearly 65,000 followers on social media, as well as encouragement from famed Baptist theologian John Piper, Ms. Hill-Perry’s story has been far-reaching.

“The word of God itself, apart from Jackie Hill, testifies that people can change,” she said in a July 2013 report on Wade-O Radio, a syndicated Christian hip-hop broadcast based in New Jersey.

She was criticizing a lyric in rapper Macklemore’s Grammy Award-winning song “Same Love” that says “And I can’t change even if I tried, even if I wanted to.”

“I think we’ve made God very little if we believe that He cannot change people,” Ms. Hill-Perry said on Wade-O Radio. “If He can make a moon, stars and a galaxy that we have yet to fully comprehend, how can He not simply change my desires?”

Thousands of people on social media shared her comments — with approving or condemning remarks of their own. She estimates that about 40 percent of the messages she has received have been negative.

“On Twitter, this girl wrote me like 15 different tweets, pretty much saying that I was delusional, in denial and brainwashed,” Ms. Hill-Perry told The Washington Times.

After she married Preston Perry, another Christian spoken-word poet, in March, another Twitter critic accused them both of being gay and marrying to “play God to a bunch of ignorant people.”

Ms. Hill-Perry says she was sexually abused by a family friend when she 5. Around the same time, she experienced gender confusion that had coalesced into an attraction to women when she turned 17. She became sexually active with her first girlfriend, and then another. She became a regular at gay clubs and at gay pride parades in St. Louis.

While lying in bed in October 2008, she reflected on her lifestyle and had an epiphany that she addressed in her spoken-word piece “My Life as a Stud”: “Then, one day, the Lord spoke to me. He said, ‘She will be the death of you.’ In that moment, the scripture for the wages of sin equal death finally clicked.”

“What I had been taught in church until the age of 10 coincided with the truth in my conscious that a holy God and just God would be justified in sending me, an unrepentant sinner to hell,” she said, “but also that this same God sent His son to die on my behalf and forgive me if only I believe.”

She left her girlfriend and returned to church. The next year, she met her future husband at the first spoken-word event where she performed “My Life as a Stud.” Over time, she lost her attraction to women and gained an attraction to Mr. Perry, who she began dating three years later.

Now pregnant with a girl, Ms. Hill-Perry is concerned her daughter will face persecution for sharing her beliefs by the time she reaches 25 years old.

“I think we’re moving toward a time in our society when, in the next 20 to 25 years, Christians are going to see a massive amount of persecution when it comes to the topic of homosexuality, and there will be no such thing as tolerance for Christianity,” she says. “[People will believe that] if you’re a Christian, you are a horrible human being, period.”

“The true church of Jesus Christ will still stick to the Scriptures,” Ms. Hill-Perry says. “Now, those buildings that have people in them where the authority of God doesn’t trump their own feelings and emotions, I see a whole bunch of turning away from the faith — turning away from truth.”

 

Giants executive says most important task is to honor Christ

Home / News / Giants executive says most important task is to honor Christ

“It’s really about integrity,” Giants assistant GM Bobby Evans said of his approach to baseball.

SAN FRANCISCO — When San Francisco Giants outfielder Melky Cabrera was suspended in 2012 for using a banned substance, he led Major League Baseball in hits and had a .346 batting average. So most observers expected the Giants to put him on the postseason roster when his suspension expired just before the World Series.

But they didn’t, showing that character mattered as much to the team as offensive production. And they won the World Series anyway.

One Giants executive who helped make the decision to bench Cabrera was Bobby Evans, who said that his most important task as assistant general manager is to honor Christ.

“You want your life to point people to Christ,” Evans said. “It starts for me with my own relationship with Christ. That’s going to direct and dictate what influence I have for Christ in my family, in my marriage and in the workplace.”

Evans was saved as a 7-year-old child living in Massachusetts. After attending college at the University of North Carolina, he went to work for MLB commissioner Fay Vincent in New York in 1991. Two and a half years later, he joined the Giants in a minor league administration role.

Since 2006 Evans, 45, has served in his current role, though his title has changed multiple times. Among his duties are negotiating all major league player contracts, helping acquire free agents and signing minor league talent.

Despite pressure to be dishonest in contract negotiations, Evans said he wants to be known for truthfulness.

“One of the common things in contract negotiations is to have a fudge factor in the sense of what you might tell an agent or express to a player not being entirely accurate,” he said. But “the last thing I ever wanted was to have anyone ever be able to say that we didn’t fulfill what we promised.”

Evans added, “It’s really about integrity and about being able to be trusted by a given agent or for players to feel like you’re going to be honest with them.”

Despite a 162-game schedule each season, Evans said he makes time with his family and church a priority — even though he attends Giants home games, about a fourth of the road games and travels to see minor league teams in California, Georgia, Virginia, Oregon and Arizona. Evans has a wife and three children ages 10, 6 and 8 months.

“Even with home games, you’re at the ballpark til 11 o’clock at night after a night game,” he said. “And so whenever possible, I try to have my family at the ballpark. I make sure that if we have a night game, I’m up to take them to school the next day. I coach little league teams and just make sure there’s no priority that gets ahead of them.”

Some keys to a healthy marriage amid the rigors of baseball are “surrounding ourselves with other couples that are pursuing Christ” and not “compartmentalizing” life between Christian and secular activities, he said.

Evans has served on his church leadership board for 18 of his 21 years as a member, and he makes worship attendance a priority. During the season he arranges his travel schedule so that he only has to miss six to eight Sundays. During the six weeks of spring training, he travels back to San Francisco for church two or three times.

In 2012, Evans received the Bowie Kuhn Award, which is presented annually to an individual, team or organization which demonstrates support of the chapel program in professional baseball.

In baseball, as in other businesses, following Jesus and being a faithful church member is “hard,” Evans said. But “it’s going to all start with where I am in my relationship with Christ.”

— by David Roach | BP

Franklin Graham: Both Obama And Bush ‘Have Done A Great Disservice,’ Calling Islam Peaceful

Franklin Graham: Both Obama And Bush ‘Have Done A Great Disservice,’ Calling Islam Peaceful

“Mr. President—followers of a peaceful religion do not cut off the heads of innocent people.”

10.27.2014

News

Trey Sanchez

  

In a commentary for Decision magazine, evangelist Franklin Graham calls out both President Obama and President Bush for defending Islam as a religion of peace.

Graham is reacting specifically to Obama’s speech before the U.N. in September in which the president said, “Islam teaches peace,” and also to George W. Bush, who, days after 9/11, said, “Islam is peace.”

Graham writes:

Both men have done a great disservice to the American public by not understanding Islam and its teaching in the Quran.

The day after Obama addressed the U.N. in September, Graham recalls that he stood across from the White House in Lafayette Square with the hope that the president would hear his message in praying for the release of imprisoned Iranian-American Christian Saeed Abedini:

Mr. President—followers of a peaceful religion do not cut off the heads of innocent people in the barbaric fashion the world has watched recently.

Mr. President—believers in a peaceful religion do not kidnap 300 young schoolgirls as Boko Haram did in northeastern Nigeria in April and reportedly [sell] them to men to be sex slaves.

Mr. President—men who practice a peaceful religion do not detonate bombs on an American street during a marathon race to kill and maim innocent people.

Mr. President—no one who belongs to a peaceful religion would even consider hijacking jet airliners and flying them into buildings occupied by thousands of innocent people beginning their workday, as happened in this country and in this city on 9/11.

Mr. President—no peaceful religion would tolerate, let alone practice, female circumcision, require a woman to have her husband’s permission to leave her home and take up employment, and restrict her ability to receive justice in the case of sex crimes.

Mr. President—a peaceful religion would not condone and allow a father to drown a daughter in a swimming pool in front of the family in the name of family honor because she might have stayed out late in the evening with her boyfriend.

Mr. President—why haven’t the 3.5 million Muslims in North America rejected this gross, barbaric and despicable behavior by their fellow Muslims on American soil?

And that is Graham’s question left unanswered. He adds: “Why haven’t many, if not most, of the 1.6 billion Muslims around the world condemned these violent crimes against innocent humanity as they have occurred? Why would 23 percent of the world’s population stand by and allow their fellow Muslims to define them by violent behavior if this is truly a religion of peace?”

Christians, Graham affirms, “quickly and unanimously rise together to condemn” violent acts in the name of Christianity. “I cannot recall a single instance of violent behavior supposedly done in the name of Christianity that was not immediately repudiated by the Christian community,” he writes.

Graham calls Islam a “false religion…guided and characterized by treacherous deceit.” Furthermore, he concludes that a false religion can never be a true religion of peace. Only true religion that reconciles “a holy God and sinful man” can “bring lasting peace.”

He is not implying every false religion engages in “barbaric behavior,” but none of them, he says, “can deliver from the damning power of sin:”

Christ alone, the Son of God, saves from sin, Satan and death. He died on the cross for our sins, was buried and rose again from the dead.

My earnest prayer is that the Lord will use the chaotic and frightening events we see happening on the world stage to drive people, including followers of Islam, to the only solution—personal, transforming faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace.

Atheist Group Plans to Distribute X-Rated Bible in Florida High Schools

An atheist group is planning to distribute a pamphlet in several Florida public high schools that depicts an illustration of a cartoon Bible sexually assaulting a young woman.

According to a report by Brittany Hughes at CNSNews.com, the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) plans to hand out a pamphlet entitled “An X-Rated Book: Sex and Obscenity in the Bible,” with a front cover that is illustrated with an animated Bible with arms, legs, salacious facial expression, and salivating mouth, with its hand aggressively extended up the dress of a screaming woman, who is attempting to run away from it.

On its website, FFRF states that its free speech lawsuit filed last year against the Orange County School District was dismissed by Judge Kendall Sharp of the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida, since the school district had agreed to allow FFRF to distribute all the literature it had initially prohibited. FFRF says it filed a free speech suit after the school district allowed an evangelical Christian group to distribute Bibles.

“This is a victory. The court has acknowledged that the school district is allowing all the materials that were initially prohibited,” said Dan Barker, FFRF co-president. “We disagree with how the court and the school district chose to handle this clear-cut discrimination, so we’re planning to appeal on some issues, but overall, it’s a win.”

In its motion to dismiss the case, the U.S. District Court did agree, however, with a previous Florida court ruling relating to materials outside groups may distribute in public schools.

“Indeed, Defendant may lawfully prohibit outside groups from distributing materials that are not appropriate for distribution in a school setting with the aim of controlling student conduct in the schools,” said the court. “This includes dissemination of content that is sexually explicit, indecent, lewd, or offensive in [sic] such would ‘undermine the school’s basic educational mission.’”

Breitbart News contacted the Media Relations department of the Orange County Public Schools to determine whether the pamphlet FFRF plans to distribute is, in fact, in keeping with the school’s basic mission.

Information that Shari Bobinski, a media specialist with the school district, emailed to Breitbart News included a copy of a memo that John C. Palmerini, associate general counsel, sent to Orange County High School principals, the school board, the superintendent, and other officials.

The memo, dated April 22, 2013, and referencing “passive distribution of atheist materials,” provided the following list of “approved materials” that FFRF and Central Florida Freethought Community (CFFC), FFRF’s local chapter, may “passively distribute” on May 2, 2013, in schools:

1. The Age of Reason

2. What They Said About Religion

3. Ten Common Myths About Atheists

4. What is Wrong with the Ten Commandments?

5. What is an Atheist?

6. Nontheistic Students in Your School

7. Humanist of the Year Award

The memo also stated, “NO OTHER MATERIALS MAY BE DISTRIBUTED.”

High school principals are instructed in the memo, “You must have a member of your staff ensure that only the materials identified above are on the tables to be passively distributed.”

“This action is being permitted because the District is attempting to avoid a lawsuit from the Freedom From Religion Foundation and the central Florida Freethought Community,” the memo continued. “Those groups have sought to passively distribute materials because World Changers of Florida, Inc. passively distributed Bibles to your students on January 16, 2013.”

“Passive distribution means the approved materials may be placed on one unmanned table for distribution in a location where students normally congregate during non-instructional time,” the memo explained. “The representatives must not speak to students or encourage them to pick up the approved materials. … The representatives should not enter classrooms or other instructional areas.”

According to the information Bobinski provided regarding FFRF, “At this point, there is no indication or word of a request to participate this school year.”

In addition, the information provided to Breitbart News states that the pamphlet depicting the cartoon Bible sexually assaulting the woman “was not distributed as part of the materials” last year.

Bobinski declined to elaborate, stating, “We can’t speak any further on the issue because we are still in litigation regarding an appeal.”

CNSNews.com reported that district Superintendent Barbara Jenkins said that “An X-Rated Book,” the pamphlet, “may not be distributed.”

“This brochure will cause substantial disruption and is age inappropriate,” she wrote. “There is a picture on the cover of a Bible book given human features sticking its hand up the dress of a woman.”

Jenkins further said the pamphlet also included information about how to join FFRF, and that the school district could “prohibit the distribution of materials which contain solicitations.”

On its website, FFRF states that its folded brochures, or “nontracts,” which refer to alleged statements in the Bible about abortion, will now be permitted to be distributed, even though the school district described them as presenting God as “hateful, arrogant, sexist, and cruel.”

The atheist organization says it will also distribute Robert Price’s Jesus Is Dead.

According to FFRF staff attorney Andrew Seidel, “Satanists can distribute their literature, Muslims can distribute the Quran, and atheists can distribute books that criticize religion,” as a result of the case’s dismissal.

Seidel also told CNSNews.com that the pamphlet featuring the sexual assault of a woman by a cartoon Bible is “pretty tame compared to the Bible itself.”

“I think if you look at the content of that brochure and what is actually in the Bible, and some of the things that are in the Bible in terms of sex and compare that to the cover [of the pamphlet], the cover is pretty tame compared to anything that is in the Bible,” he asserted. Seidel added, “I think the bottom line is, you can’t consider any of our materials obscene when compared to the Bible.”

The pamphlet’s text reportedly includes Bible verses that the atheist group considers “obscene,” such as Biblical passages that mention sex, nudity, and circumcision.

Seidel said any offense Christians have at the image on the pamphlet’s cover is a fair trade-off for how atheists feel when Bibles are distributed in school.

“I think we recognize that it might upset some people, but the Bible upsets many, many non-believers, especially when it’s being pushed in the public schools,” he continued. “So really, all it’s doing is placing believers and people who are in the majority in the position that we in the minority have been in for a very long time, and are in every time the government espouses one religion over another.”

David Williamson, leader of the CFFC, said, “We intend to give out a lot more literature to educate students about atheism and the importance of keeping religion out of public schools.”

“We are even designing new materials specifically for students and families in Orange County,” Williamson added.

As reported by Breitbart News, Barker and Annie Laurie Gaylor, FFRF co-president, have engaged in many anti-religion campaigns, including one to remove the Star of David symbol from the Ohio statehouse Holocaust memorial in 2013, and an anti-Catholic ad in 2012, published by The New York Times, that accused the Catholic Church of promoting “acute misery, poverty, needless suffering, unwanted pregnancies, overpopulation, social evils and deaths.”

Gaylor is the daughter of Anne Nicol Gaylor, author of Abortion Is a Blessing.

Seidel states that the Orange County Public Schools is the first district FFRF has targeted to distribute its materials, but it will not be the last. “We’re focusing on Orange County for the moment, but we will probably be expanding to other school districts that allow this,” he said.