‘Don’t put your race or your nationality over being a Christian…’
Pastor Guillermo Maldonado said it was OK for illegals in his congregation to attend a Miami Trump rally. / IMAGE: Guillermo Maldonado via Youtube
(Claire Russel, Liberty Headlines) The Miami megachurch hosting a rally for President Donald Trump faced attacks from both sides of the political spectrum prior to Friday night’s event.
Dubbed “Evangelicals for Trump’ Coalition Launch,” the rally will take place at 5 p.m. on Friday at the King Jesus Ministry in West Kendall. More than 70 pastors plan to attend.
Pastor Guillermo Maldonado asked parishioners to attend the rally, too.
The church is predominately Hispanic, and some in the community expressed concern that illegal immigrants who attend the church could be deported.
Maldonado insisted that illegal immigrants would be safe at the event, and that he would not allow that to happen during the service.
“I ask you: Do you think I would do something where I would endanger my people? I’m not that dumb,” he responded, according to Fox News.
“I don’t think the president would do such a thing,” he continued. “Don’t put your race or your nationality over being a Christian. Be mature … If you want to come, do it for your pastor. That’s a way of supporting me.”
While Maldonado’s wading into the immigration debate raised some eyebrows, an atheist group known for targeting religious entities launched a completely different attack, claiming the event violated tax laws.
The Freedom from Religion Foundation sent a letter to the IRS demanding an investigation into the church. It charged that the rally could infringe upon the separation between church and state, calling into question its religious exemptions.
“In urging congregants to come to a political rally, and in hosting the political rally, King Jesus Ministry appears to have inappropriately used its religious organization and 501(c)(3) status by intervening in a political campaign,” the group said in its letter. ‘It violated IRS regulations by seemingly expressing its support for a candidate in the November 2020 presidential election.”
The King Jesus Ministry acknowledged that it typically does not “endorse any political candidates or engage in political campaigns,” but said the rally is an opportunity to minister to its governmental leaders.
“As believers, the Bible calls us to pray for all of our governmental leaders,” the church said.
“For this reason, our ministry opens its doors to those who wish to share in our faith and pray for our governmental leaders and office seekers,” it continued. “While we advocate for issues we care deeply about, such as family and respect for life, we do not take positions in political campaigns.”
‘The history of our nation is riddled with laws and societal norms that equated ‘blackness,’ and the associated physical traits … to a badge of inferiority…’
Recent complaints over schools and workplaces banning traditionally black hairstyles prompted California to pass a law. / IMAGE: ABC News
(Claire Russel, Liberty Headlines) A new California law prohibiting discrimination against natural hair in workplaces and schools went into effect this week.
“[T]he Legislature recognizes that continuing to enforce a Eurocentric image of professionalism through purportedly race-neutral grooming policies that disparately impact Black individuals and exclude them from some workplaces is in direct opposition to equity and opportunity for all,” the law states.
Dubbed the CROWN Act, it officially prevents employers, teachers and others with authority from discriminating against those with “afros, braids, twists, and locks,” as reported by The Hill.
“Acting in accordance with the constitutional values of fairness, equity, and opportunity for all,” the law—quite literally—brushes off policies that might prohibit other types of unconventional hairstyles for—among other things—safety concerns.
It claims that such regulations “are more likely to deter black applicants and burden or punish black employees than any other group.”
The bill, which took effect at the start of the year, was introduced last summer by state Sen. Holly Mitchell, a Los Angeles Democrat who frequently wears micro braids.
Mitchell said it “protects the right of black Californians to choose to wear their hair in it natural form, without pressure to conform.”
Hair is a “symbol of who we are,” Mitchell added, noting that her personal decision to adopt her natural hairstyle was intended to make a “social and political statement to the outside world.”
The law itself claims that “the history of our nation is riddled with laws and societal norms that equated ‘blackness,’ and the associated physical traits, for example, dark skin, kinky and curly hair to a badge of inferiority, sometimes subject to separate and unequal treatment,” it reads.
That internal discrimination has affected how we understand “professionalism,” it continues.
“Professionalism was, and still is, closely linked to European features and mannerisms, which entails that those who do not naturally fall into Eurocentric norms must alter their appearances, sometimes drastically and permanently, in order to be deemed professional,” it states.
‘It’s absolutely worth it. It was hot. It seems like it just came out of the oven…’
(Claire Russel, Liberty Headlines) New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio slammed Domino’s Pizza for reportedly hiking its prices during Times Square’s New Year’s Eve celebration and charging customers $30 per pizza.
Jacking up your prices on people trying to celebrate the holidays? Classy, @dominos.
To the thousands who came to Times Square last night to ring in 2020, I’m sorry this corporate chain exploited you — stick it to them by patronizing one of our fantastic LOCAL pizzerias. pic.twitter.com/rO6I9oYIku
The New York Postreported that Domino’s Midtown location charged nearly double the $14.49 regular cost for a large cheese pizza, and tacking on an additional fee for customers who asked for delivery while they waited for the ball to drop. But it doesn’t seem like the customers cared about the additional costs.
“It’s absolutely worth it. It was hot. It seems like it just came out of the oven,” said Amit Zanwar, 31, who is from New Jersey. “If he comes back, I will buy some more.”
The Domino’s delivery man reportedly sold out of pizzas almost as soon as he arrived in Times Square, the Post reported, in part because those waiting for hours prior to the annual celebration were trapped within the pens as soon as they arrived.
While New York City’s tight security regulations allowed Domino’s to exploit one of the most basic free-market principles of supply and demand, de Blasio’s foray into consumer advocacy may have seemed a bit disingenuous.
After all, the socialism-influenced mayor said he had no problem “taxing the hell” out of wealthy individuals. He vowed during his failed presidential campaign that he would “even the score” and “make this a fairer country” by introducing a wealth tax, an income tax, an inheritance tax, a CEO pay ratio tax, a Wall Street tax and more.
‘Greta must work on her Anger Management problem, then go to a good old fashioned movie with a friend!’
(Claire Russel, Liberty Headlines) Swedish teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg said she didn’t bother to try to talk to President Donald Trump during her visit to the U.S. because doing so would have been a “waste of time.”
During an interview with BBC Radio 4, Thunberg was asked what she would say to Trump had she been given the chance at New York City’s September climate summit.
“Honestly, I don’t think I would have said anything because obviously he’s not listening to scientists and experts, so why would he listen to me? So I probably wouldn’t have said anything. I wouldn’t have wasted my time,” she said.
Thunberg is probably right. Trump is no fan of hers, and he recently said Time magazine’s decision to name her 2019’s “Person of the Year” was absurd.
So ridiculous. Greta must work on her Anger Management problem, then go to a good old fashioned movie with a friend! Chill Greta, Chill! https://t.co/M8ZtS8okzE
He also poked fun at her United Nations speech, saying she “seems like a very happy young girl looking forward to a bright and wonderful future.”
Although Trump’s mockery and criticism may seem cruel, there’s method in it.
Thunberg’s ascension into the public eye this year follows a long pattern of activists within the environmentalist movement seeking to brainwash and exploit children as part of a coordinated strategy to shelter themselves from serious scrutiny.
Past efforts—which include using children as litigants in environmentalist lawsuits and dispatching them as lobbyists and protestors—have met with varying results.
Greta Thunberg / IMAGE: PBS NewsHour via Youtube
Thunberg herself that her climate activist efforts, notably traveling to and fro across the Atlantic Ocean on a catamaran, have yielded few results.
“We have been striking now for over a year, and still basically nothing has happened,” she said last month. “The climate crisis is still being ignored by those in power.”
She then insisted that the world cannot afford to continue doing nothing, and urged her supporters to pressure those in power, like Trump, to act on behalf of the environmentalist movement.
“We can’t go on like this; it is not sustainable that children skip school and we don’t want to continue—we would love some action from the people in power. People are suffering and dying today. We can’t wait any longer,” she said.
Liberty Headlines’ Ben Sellers contributed to this report.
‘I think they started with the wrong attitude here and came in as trying to get people to accept inevitably…’
Abby Finkenauer / Iowa PBS via Youtube
(Claire Russel, Liberty Headlines) Former Vice President Joe Biden picked up his first Iowa endorsement from a member of the state’s congressional delegation, giving his campaign a much-needed boost in a state he’s struggled to gain in.
With only a month to go until Iowa’s first-in-the-nation selection contest on Feb. 3, Rep. Abby Finkenauer, D-Iowa, told the Associated Press that she chose to endorse Biden because his past experience and ‘moderate’ proposals appeal to a variety of voters.
“We need somebody at the top who can lead from the White House, someone who’s willing to unite not just Democrats but the country,” Finkenauer said. “There are days where I swear Democrats and Republicans are speaking different languages, and there’s no translator. … [Biden] is the translator.”
While Biden’s campaign has sought from early on to cast him as a centrist alternative to radicals like Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, not everyone is buying it.
Obama’s former second-in-command has frequently waffled over his policy positions, veering all over the political map in the process. He has promised to make his running mate a woman—even offering a short list of four radical liberals—and a minority, but told an audience in New Hampshire this week that he would consider a Republican.
Biden also changed his story several times over the course of a few days as to whether he would openly defy or fully comply with a subpoena from the GOP-led Senate in President Donald Trump’s pending impeachment trial.
He’s shifted leftward on abortion, healthcare and environmental restrictions while waxing nostalgic about his days as a young legislator working with pro-segregationist Democrats on anti-busing policies.
Biden has been lagging in Iowa polls, though he’s still leading the Democratic pack nationally.
Buttigieg earned 22% of support from Iowa caucus-goers in the November poll from Monmouth University. Biden came in second place with 19% support.
Grant Woodward, a former Democratic political operative who worked on Hillary Clinton’s 2008 Iowa campaign, was among those who said Biden’s decline with heartland voters didn’t bode well for his campaign.
“I wouldn’t count him out, but there’s certainly been some troubling signs,” Woodward told CBS News. “I think they started with the wrong attitude here and came in as trying to get people to accept inevitably. I always think that’s dangerous for people to do.”
Finkenauer—one of 31 much-hyped “moderate” freshman Democrats who replaced GOP incumbents in Trump-supporting districts last election— plans to tour the state with Biden over the next week.
“It goes back to the uniting factor,” Finkenauer said. “You can’t divide rural America and our cities. They do require different attention and different plans, but if rural America is forgotten, then our cities are also hurt, and vice versa. He’s understood that from the beginning.”
Liberty Headlines’ Ben Sellers contributed to this report.
(Claire Russel, Liberty Headlines) Several Orthodox Jews in New York have been spotted openly carrying firearms after a recent string of anti-Semitic attacks in the city.
PHOTOS: Orthodox Jews seen open carrying rifles in Rockland County, NY following a string of anti-semitic attacks in NYC, including last night’s stabbing attack inside a synagogue in Monsey, NY that left 5 stabbed – 1 in critical condition. pic.twitter.com/l3ywnpplrB
Last week, an anti-Semitic fan of the Black Hebrew Israelites—a radical, borderline domestic terrorist group who believes they are God’s true chosen people and the Jews are not—broke into a Rabbi’s home and stabbed five individuals with a machete.
The attack was one of a number of recent anti-Semitic acts, and Orthodox Jews in the city are determined to defend themselves—even if that means defying state law, according to Red State.
Open-carry is not legal in the city, and New Yorkers are only allowed to open carry when hunting or at a shooting range. But that isn’t stopping several Jewish men from carrying, which could be seen as a response to the ineffectual response from both the city and state government.
The city has agreed to patrol Jewish communities more frequently, but several liberals decried the heightened security presences as a possible violation of power.
Regardless, members of the Jewish community are taking matters into their own hands, following the example of the legal gun owners in White Settlement, Texas who took down a mass shooter in the Church of Christ last weekend.
It’s unclear whether the state’s attorney general, Letitia James, a radical leftists who promised to go after President Donald Trump, will go after these Jewish individuals for open carrying.
She hasn’t commented on the situation, and New York’s Jewish community has vowed to take a stand against anti-Semitism in all of its forms.
“Whatever the reasons are, I’ll leave that to the political scientists. But the reality is that whether it’s ourselves or any ethnic group, we are here,” said Rabbi Daniel Wasserman of the Shaare Torah Congregation. “We’re proud. We’re not going anywhere. And this is a perfect example of it.”
‘He has no known history of anti-Semitism and was raised in a home which embraced and respected all religions and races…’
Grafton Thomas / IMAGE: CBS New York via Youtube
(Claire Russel, Liberty Headlines) The man who barged into a Jewish rabbi’s home on Sunday and used a machete to attack multiple people reportedly admired the black Hebrew Israelites, a radical group that believes they are the true chosen people of God and Jews are imposters.
Grafton Thomas now faces federal hate crimes on top of five counts of attempted murder. In a criminal complaint, FBI Special Agent Julie Brown said investigators found “anti-Semitic sentiments” in Thomas’s journal entries, according to the Investigative Project on Terrorism.
One entry said “Hebrew Israelites” took from the “powerful ppl (ebinoid Israelites)” and questioned “why ppl mourned for anti-Semitism when there is Semitic genocide.”
The reference to “ebinoid Israelites” is an apparent reference to the Black Hebrew Israelite movement, a group identified by the FBI as a fringe group with the potential for terrorism.
“He has no history of like violent acts and no convictions for any crime,” his family said late Sunday in a statement issued by attorney Michael Sussman.
“He has no known history of anti-Semitism and was raised in a home which embraced and respected all religions and races,” said the statement. “He is not a member of any hate groups.”
Thomas’s journal also referred to “Adolf Hitler” and “Nazi Culture,” and included drawings of a Star of David next to a Swastika, according to the criminal complaint.
Thomas’s search history from a cell phone included searches such as “Why did Hitler hate the Jews,” “German Jewish Temples near me,” and “Prominent companies founded by Jews in America.”
Sussman, said these documents are nothing more than the “ramblings of a disturbed individual.”
“There is no suggestion any of those ramblings and pages of writing of an anti-Semitic motive, of any anti-Semitism,” he said.
‘We have to make sure we explain it to those people who are displaced that their skills are going to be needed for the new opportunities…’
Joe Biden / IMAGE: Late Show with Stephen Colbert
(Claire Russel, Liberty Headlines) Democratic front-runner Joe Biden suggested on Monday that displaced mining workers should “learn to program,” echoing an earlier conservative suggestion that failing liberal journalists should learn to code.
“Anybody who can go down 3,000 feet in a mine can sure as hell learn to program as well,” Biden said at a New Hampshire event Monday, as Gizmodo reported.
The former vice president then added: “Anybody who can throw coal into a furnace can learn how to program, for God’s sake!”
Biden has already made it clear that he wouldn’t have a problem sacrificing thousands of mining and manufacturing jobs for the sake of environmentally-friendly policies, promising blue-collar workers that if they do end up losing their jobs, they can learn new skills to help them adapt to the new field.
“We have to make sure we explain it to those people who are displaced that their skills are going to be needed for the new opportunities,” Biden said during December’s presidential primary debate.
Biden’s suggestion that workers should “learn to program” will hardly receive as much negative backlash as the “learn to code” meme that went viral after BuzzFeed, Yahoo News, and several other publications began to lay off writers.
Twitter even suspended accounts that circulated the phrase, describing it as a “targeted harassment campaign.”
Just like Biden, then-Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton vowed to “put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business” to make way for clean energy, and it’s one of the reasons she lost so badly in the Rust Belt, according to Washington Post reporter Dave Weigel.
Biden riffing on how Obama put him in charge of judging the “jobs of the future” suggests re-training miners as coders.
“Anybody who can go down 3000 feet in a mine can sure as hell learn to program as well.”
This sort of “just transition” stuff was murder on Clinton in 2016…
‘When they don’t want to deliver, put them in jail. I’m not joking about this…’
(Ben Sellers, Liberty Headlines) The blarney from Democratic front-runner Joe Biden has been in full force with only a month to go till the first of the presidential primaries.
Meanwhile, he outlandishly—and hypocritically—hyped the notion that fossil-fuels should be eliminated and non-compliant industry executives should be jailed, according to the Daily Mail.
“We have to set sort of guide rails down now, so between the years 2021 and 2030, it’s irreversible—the path we set ourselves on,” Biden said during a town hall meeting in New Hampshire on Sunday. “And one of which is doing away with any substance for fossil fuels, No. 1.”
We’re All Gonna Die!
The rhetoric was reminiscent of the net-zero emissions demands set forth by the radical Green New Deal.
“If we don’t stop using fossil fuels…” one audience began in a question to Biden on Sunday.
“… We’re all dead,” the former vice president interrupted, echoing the torqued-up hype of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio–Cortez, D-NY, and others.
Alexandria Ocasio–Cortez / IMAGE: NBC News via Youtube
The Green New Deal proposal, spearheaded by socialist-inspired Ocasio–Cortez, was widely derided for its cost (estimated to be around $93 trillion) and for the unreasonable impact it would have on typical lifestyles.
Among the ways, critics observed, that the plan would insinuate itself into the everyday lives of Americans would be the apparent grounding of all airplanes and the elimination of beef as a food source.
The legislation’s roll-out proved such and embarrassment to Democrats that none—including the bill’s Senate sponsor, Ed Markey, D-Mass.—would vote for it when Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell allowed a floor vote in March.
The bill was defeated 57-0, with a handful of Democratic defectors joining the opposition. The remaining 43 Democrats voted “present.”
By comparison, a policy outline on green initiatives that Biden released in June seemed only slightly less overblown, while still promising to link the entire country via high-speed rail by repealing the Trump tax cuts that have led to unprecedented economic growth and stability.
Lock ‘Em Up!
But with the campaign trail possibly exerting a toll on his mental health, Biden went far above and beyond his extreme spending proposals at Sunday’s town hall.
He also suggested that the law-abiding heads of the nation’s energy companies needed to be locked up.
“No. 2, holding them liable for what they have done, particularly in those cases where your under-served neighborhoods and—you know the deal, OK,” he said, without clarifying.
“And by the way, when they don’t want to deliver, put them in jail,” he added. “I’m not joking about this.”
However, Biden’s 10-minute response—which included promises to reinstate the controversial Paris Climate Accord and impose further financial penalties on those who fail to meet its steep emissions demands—neglected to mention his own ties to the fossil-fuels industry, observed the Daily Mail.
Those ties have been well documented since the Trump administration in March began highlighting the work of conservative investigative journalists to expose the corrupt foreign business dealings of Biden’s son Hunter.
Hunter and Joe Biden / IMAGE: Donald J Trump via Youtube
Chief among those is the five years he spent as a board member at the Ukrainian natural gas company Burisma, for which Hunter Biden’s firm, Rosemont Seneca, was paid millions in “consulting” fees.
Hunter has denied any wrongdoing but admitted he used poor judgment in accepting the position, which involved lobbying the U.S. State Department to pressure the Ukrainian government to call off a series of long-running corruption investigations.
His father—who, as vice president, was overseeing anti-corruption initiatives in Ukraine at the time—stepped in to force the removal of the prosecutor-general who was investigating Burisma, likely helping his son and business associates dodge potential prosecution.
Trump’s request to newly elected Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy that he re-open the investigations provided Democrats in the U.S. House the fodder for their long-sough impeachment of the president, claiming “abuse of power” for actions that, at worst, closely mirrored Biden’s.
But if Biden were to follow through on his recent campaign threats, it might be out of the frying pan and into the fire for Burisma, dodging accountability for its shady practices only to be undone by its legitimate ones.
More likely, U.S.-based companies would bear the brunt of the burden—allowing unscrupulous foreign companies to thrive in countries that disregard the emissions requirements, while returning the U.S. to a costly model dependent on foreign energy to meet its consumption needs.
Under Trump, American energy exports exceeded its intake, allowing the country to enjoy energy independence for the first time in the modern era.
‘There is a lien … on property belonging to this taxpayer for the amount of these taxes…’
Hunter and Joe Biden / IMAGE: Donald J Trump via Youtube
(Ben Sellers, Liberty Headlines) Not only did Hunter Biden, the son of current Democratic front-runner Joe Biden, use his connections to secure millions of dollars in “consulting” fees and questionable business deals during his dad’s term as vice president, he also failed to pay his taxes.
The Daily Caller reported Sunday that the 49-year-old Biden son had $112,805 in unpaid taxes for the year 2015, resulting in a lien from the IRS.
The previously unreported lien was issued in November 2018, the conservative news site said, citing to open-records requests.
The lien lays claim on “all property and rights to property belonging to this taxpayer for the amount of these taxes.”
It came on top of a nearly $50,000 lien that Washington, DC, had placed on Hunter Biden’s delinquent taxes, which was released in 2017.
The Daily Caller noted that no corresponding release notice had been issued for the federal lien as of the article’s publication, meaning Biden had yet to resolve the debt, even as he and his father both have been under considerable scrutiny for their business dealings in Ukraine during that same time period.
Shady Business
The year of Hunter’s tax delinquency happened to be one that his father was still in office and while Hunter, himself, was serving as a paid board member for both a Chinese equity firm and a corrupt Ukrainian natural gas company.
Hunter’s involvement with Chinese BHR Equity Investment Fund Management Company began in 2013, shortly after he traveled there with his father aboard Air Force 2, securing for his own investment firm a 20 percent stake in the partnership.
Although Hunter announced in October 2019 that he would be resigning his seat on the BHR board then, Chinese records as of December still listed him on it, the Daily Caller noted.
Hunter joined the Burisma board in April 2014 and resigned in April 2019, as his father was commencing his current presidential run—and after conservative journalists Peter Schweizer and John Solomon had brought the dubious arrangement into the public eye.
According to records uncovered by the journalists, Hunter’s firm, Rosemont Senca, was believed to have received anywhere from $50,000 to $83,000 per month for its services, which included lobbying State Department officials multiple times on Burisma’s behalf.
In fact, not long after the prosecutor-general overseeing the corruption investigation into Burisma raided the home of its CEO, both Hunter and fellow board member Devon Archer met with high-level officials, including then-Secretary of State John Kerry.
Joe Biden / IMAGE: The Late Show with Stephen Colbert via Youtube
Shortly thereafter, Joe Biden met with top officials from the Petro Poroshenko administration and demanded that prosecutor-general Viktor Shokin be fired or else he would withhold a billion-dollar US loan guarantee.
The vice president later bragged about it in a 2017 panel discussion.
“I looked at them and said, ‘I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money,’” Biden recounted in a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations. “Well, son of a bitch, he got fired. And they put in place someone who was solid at the time.”
Ironically, despite the many reasons to investigate the Bidens and the undue influence their personal interests may have had in foreign policy during the Obama administration, House Democrats used Trump’s calls for investigation as the grounds for what would become the latest in an ongoing impeachment saga.
Explain to me why Biden shouldn’t be investigated if his son got millions from a Russian loving crooked Ukrainian oligarch while He was VP and point man for Ukraine. Ukrainians are investigating and your fellow Dems are interfering. Election is 17 months away.Let’s answer it now https://t.co/FT34kX7Pst
Hunter Biden’s tax troubles overlap not only with his father’s time in the Obama administration and his own time on the two controversial foreign boards, but also with a particularly turbulent period in his life, marked by both tragedy and astoundingly poor personal choices.
The year in question, 2015 ,was just after Hunter was discharged from the Navy in 2014 for testing positive for cocaine use.
A year later, in 2016, Hunter Biden would arguably hit rock bottom when he was held at gunpoint in a Los Angeles homeless encampment while attempting to by crack off one of its ‘residents.’
Hunter also was involved in several run-ins with the law during this period—one in which he crashed his vehicle, although no charges were filed.
Hunter Biden / IMAGE: ABC News via Youtube
His profligate lifestyle and carousing with prostitutes strained his marriage to the point that Hunter and his wife, Kathleen, divorced in 2017.
While recovering from his 2016 crack binge, Hunter also had begun dating the widow of his brother, Beau, who died of brain cancer in 2015.
Less than two weeks later, Arkansas woman Lunden Alexis Roberts sued him for child support over a then-10-month-old love-child, which she said he has privately acknowledged fathering.
Most recently, that case has brought to light several other allegations of questionable business dealings that he may have had his hand in—among them a scheme to bilk Native Americans out of $60 million in bond sales and a Ukrainian counterfeiting operation.
Those claims were made by D&A Investigations, a prominent private-investigative firm, which file court papers on its findings last week.
