All posts by Wintery Knight

https://winteryknight.com/

Obama administration forces transgender bathroom access in all public schools

Obama speaks to the Human Rights Campaign
Obama speaks to the Human Rights Campaign

This is from The Stream:

Public schools must permit transgender students to use bathrooms and locker rooms consistent with their chosen gender identity, according to an Obama administration directive issued amid a court fight between the federal government and North Carolina.

The guidance from leaders at the departments of Education and Justice says public schools are obligated to treat transgender students in a way that matches their gender identity, even if their education records or identity documents indicate a different sex.

“There is no room in our schools for discrimination of any kind, including discrimination against transgender students on the basis of their sex,” Attorney General Loretta Lynch said in a statement accompanying the directive, which is being sent to school districts Friday.

In issuing the guidance, the Obama administration is wading anew into a socially divisive debate it has bluntly cast in terms of civil rights. The Justice Department on Monday sued North Carolina over a bathroom access law that it said violates the rights of transgender people, a measure that Lynch likened to policies of racial segregation and efforts to deny gay couples the right to marry.

“We must ensure that our young people know that whoever they are or wherever they come from, they have the opportunity to get a great education in an environment free from discrimination, harassment and violence,” [Education Secretary John B.] King said.

Ah yes – the students get their educations in the bathrooms, changerooms and showers. So that’s where they have to be free to pretend to be a sex they are not, or they won’t learn anything in there. It’s part of their education, what goes on in bathrooms, changerooms and showers.

In any case, things are going so well academically in our schools, that of course we can focus on these human rights issues instead. Our public schools are the best in the world, and our students are the most educated, right?

OK, so who is behind this power play? The largest gay activist group in the United States, of course:

The move was cheered by Human Rights Campaign, a gay, lesbian and transgender civil rights organization, which called the guidelines “groundbreaking.”

“This is a truly significant moment not only for transgender young people but for all young people, sending a message that every student deserves to be treated fairly and supported by their teachers and schools,” HRC President Chad Griffin said in a statement.

All of this Obama administration activity is being down with taxpayer dollars. Even if you disagree with it, you’re paying for it. The solution is to shrink the size of government by voting for people who want the federal government to only focus on the responsibilities outlined for it in the Constitution, and push the other responsibilities down to the state level. I can guarantee you that if you live in a red state, you would never have your state government forcing gay activist legislation down your throat. But even then, at least you could move to a more conservative state. When the federal government does it, you’re stuck.

Think of the things that the federal government should be working on like fighting wars, building up our armed forces, detecting and neutralizing terrorists, securing the border, and lowering taxes and regulations on business. But they do none of those things, and instead just do whatever the Human Rights Campaign wants them to do. And this is what people who vote for the Democrat party want.

Ted Cruz campaigned on abolishing the federal department of education, precisely because education is something that should be left to the states. But, unfortunately the Republican primary voters were not looking for someone with good policies. So this isn’t going to get fixed, no matter who wins the election in 2016. It might get fixed in 2020, if we elect a Constitutional conservative.

Greg Koukl and Michael Krueger discuss Bart Ehrman’s skepticism of the gospels

Here is a recent episode that I’m sure you’ll enjoy.

Details:

Michael Kruger on Bart Ehrman’s claim we can’t trust the Holy Week Gospel accounts (April 1, 2016)

The MP3 file is here.

Topics:

  • Who is Bart Ehrman? What are his books about?
  • Conservatives tend to agree with Ehrman on the facts, not on his interpretation of the facts
  • Ehrman has an article claiming that the Holy Week gospel accounts are untrustworthy
  • do the variants in the NT texts undermine the reliability of the texts?
  • the difference between reasonable scholar-Bart and hyper-skeptical popularizer-Bart
  • where does Ehrman’s view of gospel reliability fit in the broad spectrum of NT scholars?
  • there are 200,000 to 400,000 variants in the copies of the gospels: what is a “variant”?
  • can a person be an authentic Christian if the gospels are not actual historical events?
  • Ehrman’s view: Christians can have feelings about events that never happened = not Biblical
  • was Jesus just an itinerant preacher who spoke pithy slogans? what about his Jewish background?
  • is there scholarly agreement regarding the minimal facts underlying the resurrection of Jesus?
  • is there a disconnect between uneducated eyewitnesses and educated Greek gospel authors?
  • is the early church an “oral culture” or a “textual culture”? Is oral transmission reliable?
  • was text of the New Testament was inspired by God or dictated by God?
  • do we have any reasons to think that the gospel authors were in contact with eyewitnesses?
  • should be be hyper-skeptical of the gospels when we have an early creed in 1 Cor 15:3-8?

Stand to Reason does a nice job with their podcast. Not only can you download the MP3, but they have a transcript, and links to resources mentioned in each episode. First class!

Hillary and Bill Clinton collected $100 million in donations from Middle East leaders

Hillary Clinton look bored about the deaths of 4 Americans who asked for her help
Hillary Clinton look bored about the deaths of 4 Americans who asked for her help

This is from Investors Business Daily.

It says:

A new investigation reveals that Bill and Hillary Clinton took in at least $100 million from Middle East leaders. Can such a financially and ethically compromised candidate truly function as our nation’s leader?

The investigation by the Daily Caller News Foundation has uncovered a disturbing pattern of the Clintons’ raising money for the Clinton Foundation from regimes that have checkered records on human rights and that aren’t always operating in the best interests of the U.S. By the way, the $100 million we mentioned above doesn’t appear to include another $30 million given to the Clintons by two Mideast-based foundations and four billionaire Saudis.

All told, it’s a lot of money.

“These regimes are buying access,” Patrick Poole, a national security analyst who regularly writes for PJ Media, told the DCNF. “You’ve got the Saudis. You’ve got the Kuwaitis, Oman, Qatar and the UAE (United Arab Emirates). There are massive conflicts of interest. It’s beyond comprehension.”

[…]Meanwhile, former U.S. Attorney Joseph E. diGenova told the Caller that he believes the FBI has launched a second, possibly more serious investigation into possible political corruption involving the Clinton Foundation. This is potentially explosive, given that the Clintons seem to have run their charity in a way that lines their own pockets.

The question is an open one: Did the oil-rich Mideast nations give lavishly to the Clinton Foundation in an effort to influence future U.S. policy? And what about Bill Clinton’s business partnership with Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Dubai’s authoritarian ruler, from 2003 to 2008? Clinton took away some $15 million in “guaranteed payments” from the deal, his tax records show.

[…]In just the past three years, after her stint as the nation’s top diplomat, Hillary Clinton spoke to dozens of deep-pocket firms on Wall Street, typically charging $250,000 a pop to hear her wit and wisdom — despite her bitter condemnations of Wall Street during her campaign.

All told, she took in an estimated $22 million from these speeches — an extraordinary amount, given the growing consensus among foreign-policy thinkers that Clinton was one of the worst secretaries of state ever.

Now, I thought that Hillary Clinton was supposed to be all concerned about women’s rights and blah blah blah. Why then is she taking in all this money from the leaders of all these Middle East (Muslim) countries, some of whom do not treat women very well at all? And why isn’t the mainstream media covering this story?