"Sister Wives" cite gay marriage ruling in polygamy case

Fleeing Religious Persecution

William Derby Johnson, Jr. (1850-1923) with his wives and children.

William Derby Johnson, Jr. first moved to Utah when he was 13 years old. As an adult, he moved his family to Mexico, where they helped establish one of the first Mormon colonies there.  (mormonhai)

Why the Hell Not?

• This should drive the Religious Right into an insane frenzy and give Bill O'Reilly fodder for countless TV shows.
• As a Christian I personally could care less about polygamy or Gay marriage.  Hell if people want to get married I won't stand in their way.  I am much more concerned with countless out of wedlock births and "fathers" that vanish into the wind never to be seen again.

(CBS News)  -  A polygamous family says the landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling legalizing same-sex marriage shows that laws restricting consensual adult relationships are outdated, even if certain unions are unpopular.

Kody Brown and his four wives argue in court documents that their reality TV show "Sister Wives" shows polygamous marriages can be as healthy as monogamous ones.

"The Browns were investigated and no crimes or harm was found in their plural family," attorney Jonathan Turley wrote in court documents filed Wednesday in front of the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals. He has said the family is prepared to take the legal fight to the U.S. Supreme Court if necessary.

Kody Brown, center, poses with his wives, from left,  Robyn, Christine, Meri and Janelle in a promotional photo for the reality series, "Sister Wives." 

The Browns are defending a legal victory they won in 2013, when a federal judge struck down key parts of Utah's law banning polygamy. Advocacy groups for polygamy and individual liberties called the ruling a significant decision that removed the threat of arrest for the state's plural families.

Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes appealed, saying courts have long upheld laws banning polygamy because they prevent abuse of women and children.

Unlike same-sex marriage advocates, the Browns are not seeking full legal recognition of polygamous marriages. That portion of Utah's bigamy law prohibiting multiple marriages license was left in place by U.S. District Judge Clark Waddoups when he decided that a provision of the state law forbidding cohabitation violated the family's freedom of religion.

In most polygamous families, the man is legally married to one woman but only "spiritually married" to the others.

The teaching that polygamy brings exaltation in heaven is a legacy of the early Mormon church, but the mainstream Salt Lake City-based Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints abandoned the practice in 1890 and strictly prohibits it today.

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We here at The Federalist are not in the habit of quoting Jefferson.  Frankly, I
consider him something of an a-hole.  But in this case Tom does hit the
religious freedom nail right on the head.

Freedom of Religion
Above is the Gay friendly Metropolitan Community Church of Los Angeles.  They married thousands of Gays before the Supreme Court ruled on the subject.
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Unless we are planning on returning to religious wars over who has the "True Faith" then maybe we should all just mind our own business and let people believe what they want to believe.  A much higher power than ourselves will make the final ruling on this subject.

Australia: Anti-Islam protesters clash over the construction of a mosque

Remember: You are a Racist

• Always remember that if you say out loud that Western nations should not be importing intolerant Muslims who hate out religion and culture then you are a racist and a fascist.
• Loon Leftists ignore that fact that you are not allowed to build new churches or synagogues in Muslims nations.

(International Business Times)  -  Violent clashes have erupted between rival protesters at a demonstration against the construction of a mosque in the city of Bendigo, Victoria State, in Australia. The event ended with an Australian flag being burnt, the Australian Associated Press (AAP) reported.

A large number of far-right United Patriots Front (UPF) supporters broke through police lines and started fighting with anti-racism protesters on the on the steps of the Bendigo Town Hall on Saturday afternoon. Riot police intervened and were able to restore order after spraying the fighting factions with pepper spray.

According to according to the AAP, UPF spokesman Blair Cottrell, who was suffering from the effects of the spray, said residents do not want the mosque. Meanwhile, anti-racism leader Ezekiel Ox denounced the presence of the police, labelling them "genocidal maniacs".

Greater Bendigo mayor Peter Cox expressed his disappointment that people from "outside" Bendigo had decided to come to the city to cause trouble. "It certainly doesn't put Bendigo in the best situation," he told AAP. "We are a welcoming, giving and thoughtful city."

The mayor also praised the police for doing a good job of keeping the rival factions apart. The police had called on additional reserves in what was dubbed the largest police operation for the Victoria state police outside Melbourne because of the threat of violence.

Central Victoria police chief Superintendent Mick West praised the 350-strong police staff who quickly quelled the violence. "We are pretty pleased with the result," he said. "There has been a lot of preparation and planning that has gone into this [and] it is safe to say it's one of the biggest operations outside Melbourne's city centre."

The rally began at around 1.30pm (local time) on 29 August in the centre of Bendigo, where UPF demonstrators gathered to protest against the AUS$3m (£1.4m) mosque, which was approved by the local council last year. Most shops in the city centre were closed because of advice from police in the days leading up to the rally.

The violent incident was reported to have begun after an anti-fascist protester burned an Australian flag, incensing the around 300 supporters of the UPF, a splinter group of Reclaim Australia. A number or the UPF supporters charged towards the 250 members of the opposing group No Room for Racism. No arrests were made and no injuries were reported by the police.

Read More . . . .

The Australian Protectionist Party
aI love the middle sign:
"Deport Intolerance"

Cocaine Production Plummets After DEA Kicked Out of Bolivia

Reader Warning

• A "crazy" Blogger like me might think the government wants to keep the drug war going on forever.  Making drugs legal (but controlled) sucks billions in government funding out of the police / lawyer industry / prison industry system.

(Information Liberation)  -  After the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) was kicked out of Bolivia, the country was able to drastically reduce the amount of coca (cocaine) produced within its borders. According to data released by the United Nations, cocaine production in the country declined by 11% in the past year, marking the fourth year in a row of steady decrease.

It was just seven years ago that the DEA left Bolivia -- and only three years after that, progress was finally made. The strategy employed by the Bolivian government may be a surprise to many prohibitionists because it did not involve any strong-arm police state tactics. Instead, they worked to find alternative crops for farmers to grow that would actually make them more money.

"Bolivia has adopted a policy based on dialogue, where coca cultivation is allowed in traditional areas alongside alternative development [in others]," Antonino de Leo, United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime's representative in Bolivia, told VICE News.

"It's not only about making money off a crop. In the old fashioned alternative development approach, we substitute one illicit crop for a licit crop. It's about a more comprehensive approach that includes access to essential services like schools, hospitals, and roads in areas that traditionally have been hard to reach," Leo added.

There are unfortunately still harsh laws against drug trafficking in Bolivia, but these have been active since the height of the drug war and have had no effect on the recent decline in production. Bolivian president, Evo Morales -- a former coca farmer himself -- has been less heavy handed since the DEA left the country, a move that allowed the government to develop alternatives for the struggling farmers instead.

The drug war is one of the most misunderstood subjects in mainstream political discourse, even among people who are sympathetic to the plight of responsible drug users. It is rare for someone to come out and say that all drugs should be legal, but in all honesty, this is the only logically consistent stance on the issue. To say that some drugs should be legal while others should not is still giving credence to the punishment paradigm and overlooking the external consequences of drug prohibition -- or prohibition of any object, for that matter.

As I explained in an earlier article, there are many external factors that are affected by the drug war that many people don't take into account. That is because when you carry out acts of violence, even in the form of punishment, you then create a ripple effect that extends far beyond the bounds of the original circumstance to affect many innocent people down the line. The list in my previous article delves into those external factors to illustrate how drug users and non-users alike would be a lot better off if prohibition ended immediately.

Read More . . . .  and  Even More . . . .

Read More:
ISIS Burns CIA Opium Fields in Afghanistan

Bernie Sanders Brags About D-Minus NRA Grade

They are coming for your guns

(Huffington Post)  -  Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) on Sunday pushed back against Democrats who said his gun control record was out of step with the party, arguing he's the candidate who can get beyond the noise and pass real legislation. 

During an interview on CNN's "State of the Union," Sanders touted his lifetime voting record of D-minus with the NRA. 

"I do not accept the fact that I have been weak on this issue," Sanders said. "In fact, I have been strong on this issue. In fact, coming from a rural state which has almost no gun control, I think I can get beyond the noise and all of these arguments and people shouting at each other and come up with real, constructive gun control legislation which, most significantly, gets guns out of the hands of people who should not have them."

Asked about Malloy's comments, Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist running for the Democratic nomination, argued that he has taken a strong stance on stricter gun laws.

"I voted in a state, by the way, Jake, which has almost no gun control, not an easy vote -- I voted against the NRA, and I voted to ban certain types of semiautomatic weapons," he said. "I voted to eliminate this gun show loophole which allows people to purchase guns without a background check."

Sanders added that the U.S. needs to do a better job when it comes to mental health and ensure people are able to get the care and counseling they need.

Read More . . . .

Sunday Comics

(Hope n change cartoons)

Onion Explains: The Terrifying Growth Of ISIS

Obama's Pentagon is NOT targeting ISIS training camps

The Answer is Simple

• Why would you bomb the very troops that you just armed?
• As I have blogged over and over, if Russia and Iran were backing Syria, then WHO was arming ISIS and the other Islamists?  Spell it out:  C-I-A.

(Washington Free Beacon)  -  The Pentagon has not conducted airstrikes against an estimated 60 Islamic State (IS) training camps that are supplying thousands of fighters each month to the terror group, according to defense and intelligence officials.

The camps are spread throughout Islamic State-controlled areas of Iraq and Syria and are off limits in the U.S.-led international bombing campaign because of concerns about collateral damage, said officials familiar with planning and execution of the yearlong bombing campaign.

Additionally, the IS (also known as ISIS or ISIL) camps have been so successful that Islamic State leaders are considering expanding the camps to Libya and Yemen. Both states have become largely ungoverned areas in recent years.

The failure to target the training camps with U.S. and allied airstrikes is raising questions among some defense and intelligence officials about the commitment of President Obama and his senior aides to the current anti-IS strategy of degrading and ultimately destroying the terror group.

“If we know the location of these camps, and the president wants to destroy ISIS, why are the camps still functioning?” one official critical of the policy asked.

The camps are regarded by U.S. intelligence analysts as a key element in the terror group’s successes in holding and taking new territory. The main benefit of the training camps is that they are providing a continuous supply of new fighters.

An additional worry of intelligence analysts is that some of the foreign fighters being trained in the camps will eventually return to their home countries in Europe and North America to carry out terror attacks.

• A White House spokesman declined to comment on the failure to bomb the terror camps and referred questions to the Pentagon.
• Pentagon spokesman Maj. Roger M. Cabiness declined to say why no training camps have been bombed. “I am not going to be able to go into detail about our targeting process,” he said.

Read More . . . .

Iraqi Federal Police And Rapid Reaction
Brigade Operations In Ramadi

ISIS Training Camps

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A "crazy" person might think there is just
one party running the government.

Maryland Man Fined $50 for Picking Berries in a Park

Retard Alert

Murderers and rapists roam the streets.  

But Big Brother is worried you might eat a berry.

(Reason)  -  To me, nothing screams summer like picking and eating fresh berries. I know I'm not alone. Greg Visscher, head of the Montgomery County (Maryland) Young Republicans Club, has been picking berries with his family for years.

So it was with some degree of surprise that Visscher found himself confronted last month by a trio of county park police officers and handed a $50 ticket for "destroying/interfering with plants to wit: berries. Without a permit on park property."

The idea that the mere act of picking berries from a plant can be equated with "destroying" or "interfering with" a plant is bizarre. Picking berries (or tomatoes or apples, beans, peppers, or any other fruit or vegetable) does no harm to the flora upon which the food grows. The county's claimed need for a permit was news to Visscher—and to me. I live in Montgomery County, and just the day before Visscher was ticketed, I had picked raspberries in the county park nearest my home.

I've spoken at length with Visscher by email, both for this column and for a book I'm writing that focuses in part on food laws that prohibit sustainable food practices like picking wild berries. Visscher tells me was picking raspberries in Wheaton Regional Park, a public space near where I live in Bethesda, when an officer approached him and issued him the aforementioned $50 citation. Two more officers soon appeared. Visscher also tells me the police made reference to a need to obtain a nebulous "permit" for harvesting berries—both verbally and on the ticket itself—a permit neither Visscher nor I have been able to identify.

I spoke this week with Lt. Rick Pelicano of the park police, who had no information on Visscher's ticket or on the need for a foraging permit. Lt. Pelicano pointed me to the relevant rules, which pertain to a county prohibition on  "destroy[ing] or interfer[ing] in any way with any... plants" on public property.

Tickets like the one Visscher received are rare.

"Charges under this section are infrequent," Pelicano told me by email. "Researching the last year we found three incidents that were cited related to this. Two resulted in a citation [while] one was a written warning."

How could Visscher—or I—know that the county views picking some berries without a permit as verboten?

"There is no sign anywhere saying that berries cannot be harvested," Visscher tells me. "To my knowledge, there is nothing in the park that even highlights this." I could not locate any such signage on a visit to the park on Thursday. A park staffer I spoke with could not point me to any.

Read More . . . .

Saturday Sultress - Charisma Carpenter

First There Was Buffy

But Then Came Cordy

Charisma Carpenter is best known for her role as Cordelia Chase in the popular TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997–1999) and its spin-off series Angel (1999–2004). 

She has also starred as Kyra the Seer on Charmed (2004), as Kendall Casablancas on Veronica Mars (2005–2006), as Ann Rebecca Sewell on The Lying Game (2011–2013) and as Lacy in The Expendables film series (2010–2012).

In the June 2004 issue of Playboy magazine, Carpenter appeared on the cover and in a ten-page nude layout.

Kurdish forces free seven villages in Iraq from ISIS

Kurd fighter - Vice News screenshot

Screwed by Dear Leader Obama

• Kurd Peshmerga fighters from Turkey are battling ISIS inside Iraq.
• Meanwhile our bastard Leader is starving the Kurds of modern weapons and NATO member Turkey is bombing the Kurds inside Iraq and Syria.
• SPECIAL NOTE  -  Who do you think armed ISIS so they could invade Iraq?  Yep, Turkey, the CIA and Saudi Arabia.  Turkey is using ISIS as their weapon against the Kurds.

(Agence France-Presse) - Western-backed Kurdish fighters freed seven villages from the clasps of the Islamic State group in northern Iraq in recent days, the US-led coalition battling the jihadists.

But the extremists still control broad swathes of land in the war-torn country, where the IS group has waged a terrifying offensive of forced religious conversions and beheadings.

Bolstered by coalition airstrikes, the Peshmerga fighters wrestled back more than 200 square kilometers (80 square miles) near the town of Tuz since August 26, the Combined Joint Task Force said.

Planes and drones conducted a total of 25 strikes, helping the Kurdish forces in "liberating seven villages," a statement said.

Elsewhere in Iraq, the situation remains more static, a spokesman for the US military's Central Command (Centcom) said.

Read More . . . . 

Must See Video

Defending New Kurdish Borders with the PKK

The Battle for Rojava

Female Kurds Fight ISIS

Pro-American Kurdish Peshmerga have fought hard against ISIS.

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Kurdish Peshmerga - Starved by Obama

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Everyone Fears a Free Kurdistan
Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran all oppose a free Kurdistan that would unite the Kurdish peoples into one nation.
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The United States plays the usual games with the Kurds,  American claim to support the Kurds in Iraq against ISIS but somehow modern weapons just don't manage to make it to the Peshmerga troops.  Meanwhile the U.S. declares the Kurds across the border in Turkey to be terrorists for wanting a free Kurdistan.  

Creeping Sharia - Feds Subsidize Halal Food in Public Schools

Your Tax Dollars Funding Islam

(PJ Media)  -  In recent years, three American public school districts have provided taxpayer-supported lunches meeting Muslim students’ dietary standards. They have not similarly provided lunches satisfying any other students’ religious standards. The halal foods purchased with public funds are costlier than comparable non-halal foods.

This is problematic under the U.S. Constitution’s Establishment and Equal Protection Clauses. Even if a school district endeavors to provide all students with food satisfying each one’s religious requirements, it would arguably entangle the government in religious observance and so violate the separation of “church” and state. 

If a school district goes out of its way to provide food satisfying the religious requirements of only some students, but not others, it risks illegally giving them unequal advantages and elevating their religion over others. This is especially so given that the school food is paid for at least partly with public funds, although the schools have been reluctant to reveal how much tax money is involved.

Public schools in Dearborn, Michigan, first began offering halal lunches in 2001. That winter, the school district invited “proposals from halal food distributors to provide food at several of its 28 public schools,” and began a pilot program. Presently, according to David Mustonen, director of community and public relations for Dearborn Public Schools: “All schools have a halal option five days a week.”

Dearborn Heights’ Crestwood School District started a halal food pilot program in 2013-14. Last year, Crawford High School in San Diego operated a pilot program offering a halal lunch option twice a week.

Legislators in both New York City and New York state have proposed mandating public schools to serve halal food.  In February 2014, New York City Councilman Rafael Espinal introduced a resolution requiring New York City schools “to provide a halal lunch menu option.” Three separate bills have been introduced in the New York State Assembly during the current (2015-16) term that would require public schools in big cities to offer halal lunch options. One of them requires that the food be provided to Muslim students “at no cost.”

Media stories about lobbying efforts to serve halal food in New York City and San Diego public schools largely framed the issue as one of poor Muslim children going hungry because government-funded public schools failed to provide food satisfying their religious requirements (e.g., for San Diego: here, here, and here; for New York City: here and here).

The articles presumed parents could not or would not provide lunches, or argued that unheated packaged lunches were insufficient to enable children to learn effectively.

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