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Dean Hinnen #wingnut #homophobia npr.org

If you really, really want to be stalked hard, explain to them with facts and figures (A) why Obama is completely incompetent, (B) why Cruz is going to be the next president, and (C) how he's going to repair all the damage that Obama has done.

Stick to the facts. It doesn't matter whether you know it's true. You have to be able to prove it to the most hard-headed, obstinate, Fox News-hating left-wing partisan on the Internet. Otherwise, don't say it. The facts are sufficiently humiliating to get them really, really stirred up. Using terms such as "American Taliban" and "Christian Sharia Law" brings new depth and dimension to words like "hysteria," "hyperbole," and "histrionics."

The real Taliban, according to real Sharia Law, executes homosexuals for being homosexual. With Christians you have a difference of opinion about public policy. No executions or other physical harm or criminal penalty has been suggested by anyone, except by the extreme, hate-filled left-wing fringe.

Max Randall #fundie npr.org

Am I the only one that sees the irony? A message board, full of people failed by America's broken education system, arguing about how to fix the problem. Since the 1960s, and into the 70s, the public school system has not been about educating our children, but indoctrinating them into a more liberal worldview. The Dept of Education must be abolished, and control should be given back to local school boards, or at least the states...Parochial schools should be supported within the problem areas, the Catholics have had more success educating those growing up in poverty, than any other organization...I can hear the various criticisms to my observation, and I will tell you that money spent per student, has practically no correlation to the quality of education...Oh, one more thing, all you folks who got a college degree within the last twenty years, should file suit against those institutions for malpractice. If the NPR message board is an example of informed discourse and debate on the left explains why Mr Trump has so much traction this year. "For every action, there is an equal, and opposite reaction." We are seeing the expected pushback by the "Silent Majority" in this country to the hard turn to the left highlighted by the Obama administration.

jwgsgg #fundie npr.org

Perhaps America:s Trump has finally taken the *be politely correct what ever the cost* away and instilled some common sense to immigration policies with European citizens and their leaders.He is responsible for the well being and safety of his country and it:s people. Leaders with this responsibility cannot afford to live in Disneyland and think that Cinderella will be all smiles and wiggles even though she has explosives strapped to her girdle.

SABRINA LOWE #fundie npr.org

We actually went outside and started commanding the winds because God had given us authority over the winds - the airways. And we just began to command this storm not to hit our area. We - we spoke to the storm and said, go to unpopulated places. It did exactly what we said to do because God gave us the authority to do that.

Gov. Greg Abbot & Texas citizens #conspiracy npr.org

Texas Governor Deploys National Guard To Stave Off Obama Takeover

It's true that the paranoid world-view of right-wing militia types has remarkable stamina. But that's not news.

What is news is that there seem to be enough of them in Texas to influence the governor of the state to react — some might use the word pander — to them.

That started Monday when a public briefing by the Army in Bastrop County, which is just east of Austin, got raucous. The poor U.S. Army colonel probably just thought he was going to give a regular briefing, but instead 200 patriots shouted him down, told him was a liar and grilled him about the imminent federal takeover of Texas and subsequent imposition of martial law.

"We just want to make sure our guys are trained. We want to hone our skills," Lt. Col. Mark Listoria tried to explain in vain.

One wonders what Listoria was thinking to himself as he walked to his car after two hours of his life he'll never get back. God bless Texas? Maybe not.

The next day Gov. Abbott decided he had to take action. He announced that he was going to ask the State Guard to monitor Operation Jade Helm from start to finish.

"It is important that Texans know their safety, constitutional rights, private property rights and civil liberties will not be infringed upon," Abbott said.

various French muslims #conspiracy npr.org

In a corner convenience store, three men in their 30s are hanging out. I ask what they think about the Charlie Hebdo killings.

Al-Qaida In Yemen Takes Responsibility For Paris Attack


"I'm not saying what they did was good," Hakim Dridi says of the killers.

But, he adds, "those cartoonists shouldn't have been doing that. They know Muslims are practicing their religion and they should leave them alone. They provoked it and they knew it was coming because they had a bodyguard."

The men have been watching a video on a large computer screen behind the counter, which is showing the police assault last Friday on the kosher market, where one attacker was killed after he killed four Jews in the store.

The men watching the video believe it was staged.

They also say there's no way one of the Kouachi brothers who attacked Charlie Hebdo would have left his ID in the car.

The conspiracy theories pour out. One of the men says the two attacks were a plot by France, the U.S. and Israel to give Israel more power. They say it's unfair the world's media talk for weeks about Jewish deaths but say nothing when Muslim children die.

Their narrative seems worlds away from the "Je suis Charlie" demonstrations in Paris just a few miles away

various french students #fundie npr.org

At the Pierre de Geyter Middle School in St. Denis, a largely Muslim suburb north of Paris, Iannis Roder has taught history for the past 15 years. He says the day after the killings at the magazine, the school staff knew it would have problems.

"Our pupils — a minority — didn't want to do the minute of silence because they thought that Charlie Hebdo was a newspaper that didn't have the right to make these caricatures," says Roder.

Iannis Roder is a history teacher in the largely Muslim suburb of St. Denis, north of Paris. He said some of his students considered the Charlie Hebdo cartoons to be blasphemy and believed that Islam took precedence over French law.

Roder says the students called it blasphemy and he had to explain that blasphemy is a religious concept that doesn't exist in French law.

"That was very difficult to explain because their point of view, their lives, are very religious. And they are convinced that the religion is above the law of the French Republic," he says.

Roder says nearly all the students thought the killings were wrong, but purely for religious reasons. He says he finds that worrisome.

Gayle Trotter #fundie npr.org

[US Department of Education rules Title IX protects trans students]

Yes, we talked frequently about culture wars, and why can't people accept the fact that our society has changed and our culture has changed? And part of it is because these edicts come down that are not part of the political process, that have not been debated, and people feel like they are left out of the debate.

So for 42 years, the law has meant one thing. It meant that sex distinctions are important, and we can recognize that in these two particular areas that this guidance was released on -sexual violence, sexual assault and female participation in athletics. So in those two areas, for 42 years, gender identification was not part of that. So it's completely contradictory to the entire language of the law, and it also does not allow the American people who have differing views on this to have input in this process.

Marcus Lamb and Daystar TV #fundie npr.org

Daystar's broadcast complex and corporate jet — together valued at $9.5 million — would be subject to property taxes in Texas if the ministry were a for-profit business. But it's exempt because of its status as a church.

According to court records, Daystar's primary revenue comes from selling airtime to other religious programmers. Its secondary income is donations. The documents show that between 2005 and 2011, Daystar took in $208 million in tax-deductible contributions from viewers through on-air pitches.

Daystar has built a public image as a generous giver to charitable causes. Indeed, the network has contributed millions of dollars to a trauma center and a home for Holocaust survivors in Israel, a hospital in Calcutta, and to ministries that support women in Moldova and children in Uganda.

Lamb trumpeted those donations in a 2009 sermon in Australia: "In the last five years, Daystar has written checks of donations to others, to ministries, to churches, to missions, to hurricane relief, to tsunami relief, to hospitals, etc., to the tune of $30 million cash!"

NPR analyzed six years of Daystar balance sheets. They show the network gave away $9.7 million dollars in direct grants to outside recipients. Not $30 million. That works out to charitable giving of about 5 percent of donor revenue.

"My concern is the disconnect between what Daystar asks that the money be used for and how they actually use it," says Daniel Borochoff, president of CharityWatch.org, a nonprofit charity evaluator based in Chicago. Borochoff estimates he's examined more than 100,000 nonprofits in his 25 years doing this kind of work. NPR sent him Daystar documents and asked him to assess the network's charitable giving.

"Daystar needs to tell people that only about 5 percent of their contributions are going toward hospitals, churches, needy individuals," he says.

In its letter, Daystar explains the discrepancy by saying the majority of viewer contributions actually pays for the costs of foreign satellite transmissions, which the network considers its "international mission work."

To see where the actual cash donations go, NPR examined six years of network giving and found that some of the money goes to family interests and ministry expenses.

According to court records, Daystar gave:
*$433,000 of tax-deductible viewer donations to Oral Roberts University, mostly during years when the three Lamb children were enrolled there.
*$53,683 to Lake Country Christian School, the high school the Lamb children attended.
*$296,091 to Gateway Church, the Lambs' family church.
*$32,200 to Family Restoration Network, Christian marriage counselors who Marcus and Joni claim saved their marriage.
*$24,026 to Lamb's alma mater, Lee University in Cleveland, Tenn.
*$21,879 to Lynn Haven Nursing Home in Gray, Ga., where Marcus' father lived before he died.`

Other donations of tax-deductible viewer contributions include $60,000 to Israeli lawyers who helped Daystar get a cable television contract, according to the publisher of Teva Ha'Dvarim Magazine, who acted as an intermediary; $23,674 for a ministry trip to Asia; $60,000 in payments to "Daystar and Daystar Remotes"; and $30,000 to the First Baptist Church of Orlando at a time when the pastor was helping Daystar buy a local educational TV station, according to Daystar documents filed with the 193rd Judicial District Court in Dallas County.

Moreover, evangelists who bought airtime on Daystar or appeared as guests on the network received more than $500,000. Of that sum, $92,000 went to the Rev. T.L. Lowery and his foundation, on whose board of directors Lamb sits.

Daystar spent nondonation ministry income on expenses that included $572,154 in sponsorship and expenses for a Christian NASCAR driver named Blake Koch; a $2.3 million loan to the Rev. Frank Harber, Lamb's former special assistant and golfing buddy, to start a church that defaulted on the loan; and $97,320 spent at retail bookstores to buy up copies of Joni Lamb's autobiography, Surrender All, helping to drive it onto a best-sellers list. Daystar says the books were given away as premiums to donors.

Kenneth Wood #fundie npr.org

Holy Mother Church rejoices!

Funny, isn't it: The Church has remained strong and steadfast for 2,000 years in Jesus' word: defending life at all stages--no abortion, no euthanasia, no stem cell cloning, defending traditional marriage, and strengthening the family.

And yet some poor souls see the Papacy as some sort of springboard for a new utopia for "democracy" or "women priests" or "gay rights," or "social justice," or,...just fill in the blank for the cause-du-jour. This is silly. It's stuff and nonsense. Typical human grasping for power, arrogance, and greed.

The Church, formed by Jesus himself, (hello, there--Jesus was a MAN, not a woman; there goes the idea of women priests right out the window,sorry) will always be here. Jesus told us so (and HE never lies; HE can never deceive nor be deceived.) And the gates of hell and death shall never prevail over it. A lowly and sinful fisherman, Peter, was appointed by our Lord as the first leader of the Apostles. Pope Francis continues this unbroken line.

Get this straight folks: The Church has NEVER changed; only society and its mores and customs have (all for the worse.) Secularism and the tyranny of relativism has infected the human soul. Look around you for the results; need I say more?

The Magisterium, the Holy Bible and Tradition are the pillars of the Church.

We see the Holy Spirit at work here strengthening us in our pilgrimage on earth as we grow in God's love under the leadership of our beloved shepherd, Francis.

VIVA FRANCIS!

C. Peter Wagner #fundie npr.org

WAGNER: Well, we take literally what the Bible says. We believe that Israel composes the people of God, and that they have fallen away at the moment, but that God has grafted the Gentiles into the same roots. So that's why we're very strong supporter of Israel, because we feel that Israel is the root of our faith. And so we support Israel strongly. We know that there's a - there's not really good religious freedom in Israel. We're very sorry about that.

But the Bible says that someday - and don't ask me how this is going to happen, because it seems impossible - that all of Israel will be saved, that they'll all believe in Jesus. So we just take that by faith, and none of our activities are geared toward that or anything else, but we just believe that that's going to happen. So before Jesus returns, Israel, as a social group, will acknowledge Jesus Christ as their messiah.

GROSS: So one of the reasons or the major reason that you support Israel is because you believe one day the Jews in Israel will basically convert to Christianity and accept Jesus as their savior.

...

GROSS: One thing about that, and this is something that confuses me. On the one hand, you say that you respect all religions, and that that's something our Constitution guarantees us. But at the same time, you want as many like-minded Christians as possible in positions in the arts, the media, the government, business, school. And also, you think Christianity is the only true faith. You'd like Jews in Israel to convert to Christianity. It just seems kind of contradictory to, you know, on the one hand, say you respect all religions, but to, on the other hand, say that you really want people to convert to yours.

WAGNER: Well, we - yes, we respect all religions, but we also respect the freedom of exercising our religion. And part of our religion is called evangelization. It's called presenting Jesus Christ to others and persuading them to become followers of Jesus Christ and walk into the kingdom of God. So - so we'd like to maintain our right in a plural - in religious pluralism of exercising our privilege of winning other people to Christianity.

Nancy Campbell #fundie npr.org

That's also the hope of Nancy Campbell, a leader of the Quiverfull movement and author of Be Fruitful and Multiply.

"The womb is such a powerful weapon; it's a weapon against the enemy," Campbell says.

Campbell has 35 grandchildren. She and her husband stopped at six kids, and it is her great regret.

"I think, help! Imagine if we had had more of these children!" Campbell says, adding, "My greatest impact is through my children. The more children I have, the more ability I have to impact the world for God."

"We look across the Islamic world and we see that they are outnumbering us in their family size, and they are in many places and many countries taking over those nations, without a jihad, just by multiplication," Campbell says.

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