IRS Denies Tax Exemption to Texas Religious Group Because Prayer, Bible Reading Boost the Republican Party

 An IRS official denied tax-exempt status to a Texas group that encourages church members to pray for state and national leaders, regardless of their party affiliation, because it benefits “the private interests of the [Republican] Party.”

“You do not qualify as an organization described in IRS Section 501(c)(3). You engage in prohibited political campaign intervention,” wrote Stephen A. Martin, director of the IRS Office of Exempt Organizations Rulings and Agreements, in a May 18 letter (pdf) to Christians Engaged, the Garland, Texas-based prayer group recognized by Texas officials as tax-exempt.

According to the IRS, promoting Christian values is now Republican propaganda. 

I'm old enough to remember Sam Donaldson; Stacy McCain's comments

Stacy McCain:

On Sunday’s broadcast of CNN’s “Reliable Sources,” former ABC “World News’ anchor Sam Donaldson accused President Donald Trump’s supporters of having a “fixation” on returning America to a “white Christian country.”
Donaldson said, “The Trump rallies are Trump’s strong supporters. I mean, ‘lock her up,’ all the things he says, all the vicious, mean things he says, they love it. There are these people in this country. They’re good Americans otherwise. They’ll probably give you the shirt off their back, they’ll help you if you need it, but they have this fixation. They want to return this country to the white Christian country that they believe it should be again. They don’t want the diversity, and they follow him for this, but they’re not the country. We are a diverse people, we are good and strong because of that, and we’re going to come back to that. I assure you.”

Let me say this: I like Sam Donaldson. He was not born to the moneyed blueblood Eastern elite. He is the son of a West Texas farmer and got his education at a second-tier state college (now UTEP) before joining the Army where he served as an artillery captain. So he is not like some of these young punks with their Ivy League degrees and arrogant sense of entitlement. What then explains Donaldson’s attitude? I blame two things: Partisanship and generational blindness.

Sam is a Texas Democrat, plain and simple. He was born and raised in an era when there was no such thing as a Republican in Texas, and in that sense resembles Dan Rather — a native of Wharton, Texas, three years older than Donaldson — and also his late ABC colleague, Cokie Roberts, the daughter of Louisiana Democrat Hale Boggs. To such people, the offspring of New Deal Democrats, and themselves old enough to recall the JFK “Camelot” era, the Democrats are and always will be the natural rulers of America. They instinctively act as cheerleaders for the Democrats the way I cheer for the Alabama Crimson Tide, expressing a sense of inherited loyalty, as it were. No fact or argument can dissuade them from this partisanship, because it is inherently irrational.

The other factor is that a rich old white guy like Donaldson cannot be made to understand what “diversity” means in practical terms for the young white person from less privileged circumstances. While his own four children are probably doing all right for themselves, it is the offspring of the white working and middle classes who are watching their communities and life prospects destroyed in the name of “diversity.”

America Is Drowning in the Left's Lies About Trump

Dennis Prager is too defensive about what the Left is doing.  The Right has been denying the charge of racism for decades and losing the culture war as a result.  The Left knows exactly what it's doing: tearing the country apart because it hates the country, it's founders, it's history and it's success. 


The Left hates Christianity, freedom and conventional morality.  Denying their accusations doesn't work because they don't care that they're lying.  They know they are.  It's like mass marketing: repetition works.  It can make you think that cigarettes are not only cool but good for you. 

Normal people have to stop denying the accusations.  There must be a counter-attack.  This is an existential war against principalities and powers.

Democrats are the home of hate

San Antonio Violates the First Amendment to Punish Chick-fil-A

San Antonio is in Texas.  Think hard about that.

We Are Dancing on a Powder Keg

Democrats are delusional if they think Stormy Daniels is an issue for us. A GREAT essay by Sarah Hoyt.

Social media has been full of the Democrats talking about the Stormy Daniels affair with the joy and sniggers of three-year-olds who just discovered there’s a word for what you do on the potty.

This is predictable and not at all upsetting, because if these people had any political sophistication and understanding of history, they wouldn’t support a party that is more fully behind the full-on communism that has killed a hundred million human beings in the 20th century and bids fair to at least an attempt to continue its work in the twenty-first. Also, most of them have the understanding of history of Occasional Cortex and think that politics is a sort of game. All they’re really doing is signaling their membership in the “tribe.”

All well and good, but there is an aspect of this that worries me: they actually expect l’affaire Stormy to change our minds about Trump. And from their polls – snork, giggle, remember 2016? – they’re absolutely convinced they’re winning.

This worries me because it tells me just how far from reality their mental processes have gone, particularly their image of us.

Karen Pence, Are You Now, or Have You Ever Been, Part of a Christian Ministry?

David French is a Never Trumper and writes for National Review which became the 24/7 organ of Never Trumpers.

He's now trying to ride to the rescue of Karen Pence who's under assualt for practicing her Christian faith by teaching in a Christian school.

Immanuel is a church ministry applying the church’s theology. No one is forced to attend the church. No one is forced to attend the school. It’s a voluntary association that is protected by the First Amendment and rooted in the faith that guides the lives of tens of millions of Americans....

Not only is this not scandalous, but it’s also the exercise of a fundamental First Amendment right. If Lois Romano or Kate Bennett or any other Karen Pence critic wants to argue against Christian theology, then have at it. Most Christians I know welcome the dialogue. But if they want to condemn a woman for the free exercise of her Christian faith? If they want to argue that there’s something inherently wrong with orthodox Christians’ associating, worshipping together, and teaching their children? Well, then they’re exhibiting a deep intolerance that’s at odds with pluralism itself.

This is a great example of why French, National Review and the Never Trumpers lost the culture war. He's whining to be left alone to people who hate Christians. He's accusing Liberals of hypocrisy when that has never, ever, ever been shown to be effective. The Left revels in its hypocrisy because - thanks to people like French, they own the media. They ARE the media. The media creates the worldview that we live in. The only people that French is writing for are people who already agree with him; he's preaching to the choir. And he's in full-time hate mode against the only president in my lifetime who's actually pushing back against the anti-Christan animus of the Left.

Here's his gratuitous swipe at Trump:

How is a statement of faith rooted in ancient religious orthodoxy at all relevant to Trump? If the school followed Trump’s beliefs, it would reject Christian sexual morality and embrace adultery.

Yet Trump is the President who supports the right of organizations that have moral objections to abortion to exclude those procedures from their medical coverage.  He's never called Christians "bitter clingers" or referred to normal people as "deplorables."  Trump has allied himself with Christian faith leaders and actually rescinded regulations that inhibited the public expression of Christian faith.

French is that kind of public intellectual who would rather go to hell if going to heaven meant being led there by a sinner.

After Ignoring Angel Moms, Senate Dems Hold Rally for Government Workers Affected by Shutdown

Democrats hate you and want you dead.

Christian Just Voting For Whichever Political Party Less Likely To Make His Faith Illegal One Day

It's the Babylon Bee so it's not entirely satire.  But it's the truth.

Democrats are now openly attacking Christians for their faith.

If you believe in God and are a practicing Christian the Democrats in Congress and the media say you are not fit for public office.