"If Republicans run another candidate in the mold of a Bob Dole or a John McCain or a Mitt Romney, we will end up with the same result, which is millions of people will stay home on Election Day," Cruz said on CNBC today, according to Newsmax. "And if we run another candidate like that, Hillary Clinton will be president."

"The Texas Republican, a favorite of Tea Party supporters," also said "that the party needs to find a conservative candidate who can galvanize voters -- someone like former President Ronald Reagan," Newsmax reports.

Penny Starr reports at CNSNews.com: 

The Reverend Bill Owens, founder and president of the Coalition of African American Pastors, said the attack on Christian pastors by the openly gay mayor of Houston, who subpoenaed their sermons and other communications after they opposed a city ordinance that allows transgender people to use any public restroom, signals the need for "the next civil rights movement."

Owens, speaking from Houston, told CNSNews.com that he and other pastors in his coalition held a press conference on Tuesday to support the Houston pastors and express their concern about this threat to religious liberty.

"Attacking ministers about what they preach is way over the line,” Owens is quoted as saying.

According to CNSNews, Pastor Owens "thinks the action taken by Mayor Annise Parker, a lesbian, and the city attorney is a violation of the Constitution’s First Amendment guarantee of freedom of religion, and church leaders need to fight back."

In addition, "Owens said the gay rights movement is trying to make expressing one’s Christian views on homosexuality 'hate speech'," CNSNews reports.

"It’s not hate," Owens is quoted as saying. "We don’t hate anyone. It’s expressing our religious beliefs."

Owens also "thinks this new civil rights struggle will require the same investment by churches and church leaders that was made by Martin Luther King Jr. and others who fought to gain equal rights for all Americans regardless of their race," according to CNS.

“Churches need to rise up,” CNS quotes Owens as stating, "adding that all faiths should be concerned about efforts to silent religious speech."

"I may not agree with all religions but I will defend their right to speak," Owens said, according to CNSNews.

For more information on the Coalition of African American Pastors, see this website.

John Nolte writes at Breitbart:

On his HBO show Real Time with Bill Maher and elsewhere, Bill Maher has spent more than a decade thrashing Christianity. But now that he's speaking some politically incorrect truths about the religion of Islam, some students at Berkeley have had enough. Students are petitioning the school to drop Maher as a 2014 commencement speaker. According to a just-aired MSNBC report, the petition has 10,000 signatures.

"If you reveled in Maher's sweeping attacks against Christians but are horrified at his uncovering of some of the ugly truths about Islam, the only bigot is you," Nolte states.

"Nearly everyone on the field and in the bleachers belongs to the Navajo Nation," Ian Shapira writes at the Washington Post.

At Breitbart: 

Fox News Channel anchor Trace Gallagher read Facebook posts that a man suspected of attacking NYPD officers on Thursday had Facebook posts that referenced "guerilla warfare," "war," and attacking the United States' "weak flanks" on Thursday.

Also, the New York Police Department "is reportedly investigating whether Islamic extremism played a role in Thursday's hatchet attack on city cops," according to Fox News.

Michael Chapman reports at CNSNews.com:

Reverend Franklin Graham, head of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association,  has sometimes criticized Islam, and in a recent Facebook post questioned whether Islam is "really a religion of peace" noting that the Islamic State, in the latest issue of its magazine, Dabiq, defends slavery and the use of women as sex slaves "as a firmly established aspect of the Shariah."

"Chris Matthews reacts to Democratic Senate candidates Michelle Nunn (D-GA) and Mark Begich (D-AK), an incumbent, dodging the question if they voted for Obama," Ian Schwartz posts at Real Clear Politics.

"That's the way people walk past guys who are trying to get a buck or a quarter from somebody," Schwartz quotes Matthews as saying last Monday on Hardball.

"It's like Obama has Ebola . . . I wasn't near him! I didn't touch him!," Matthews said.

David Limbaugh writes:

Where are all the atheist freedom lovers we always hear about? It's time for them to start standing up for religious liberty.

The left and militant gay movement are getting bolder and bolder, and too many Christians are stewing in their apathy.

It seems that with each passing month, this senseless tyranny advances. The latest is that two Christian ministers in Idaho, Donald and Evelyn Knapp, have allegedly been ordered to perform same-sex wedding ceremonies at their chapel or face fines or jail sentences.

AFP reports:

France's government is drawing up a new set of rules for theatres after the Paris Opera ejected a woman for wearing a veil during a performance, the institution's deputy director said Sunday.

The incident took place when a veiled woman was spotted on the front row of a performance of La Traviata at the Opera Bastille, Jean-Philippe Thiellay told AFP, confirming a media report.

"France brought in a law in 2011 banning anyone from wearing clothing that conceals the face in a public space, or face a 150 euro ($190) fine," AFP reports.

"The spectator and her companion -- tourists from the Gulf, according to MetroNews -- were asked to leave by an inspector during the interval," the AFP report continues.

"He told her that in France there is a ban of this nature, asked her to either uncover her face or leave the room. The man asked the woman to get up, they left," Thiellay is quoted as saying.

"There are at least three outrageous things about the Houston city government's recent actions pushing an ordinance to allow men and women to use each other's public restrooms," David Limbaugh, author of the new book Jesus on Trial: A Lawyer Affirms the Truth of the Gospel, writes in his latest column.

First Outrage: "The first is the substance of the ordinance itself, which allows men and women, irrespective of their biology, to use bathrooms designated for the opposite sex. The major driver of this law was Houston's lesbian mayor, Annise Parker."

Second Outrage: "The second outrage is that the city has greatly overreached in subpoenaing the pastors of the city for copies of their sermons and their communications to their congregations to determine whether they have violated this Godforsaken ordinance. Lest you think this was a mistake, the mayor tweeted, 'If the 5 pastors used pulpits for politics, their sermons are fair game.'

"There is no constitutional prohibition against pastors discussing politics."

Third Outrage: "The third outrage is the city's lawless disqualification and rejection of valid petitions filed by voters to challenge the law."

Limbaugh Concludes: "The extreme left, whose natural political habitat is the Democratic Party, is growing ever more intolerant, excessive, coercive, intimidating, lawless and frightening. People of ordinary sensibilities and traditional values and others are awakening to the fascism of extreme leftists in this country, which is one of the many reasons we're going to see a tsunami of voters voicing their outrage against such un-American behavior in November."

Read the entire column here. 

Sarah Rumpf reports at Breitbart:

Houston Mayor Annise Parker has backed down from the subpoenas the City of Houston issued to several area pastors, Breitbart Texas has learned.

Breitbart Texas reported earlier about the controversy, stemming from litigation challenging the city's anti-discrimination ordinance and subpoenas asking the pastors for the content of their sermons, speeches, and communications with church members. 

Texas Senator Ted Cruz weighed in, firmly supporting the pastors in their efforts to fight the subpoenas, while Mayor Parker initially remained adamant that the city had the right to request those records. Despite posting comments on Twitter just hours before that seemed to indicate she would continue to fight this issue, she told a Houston radio station that she had changed her mind. 

Bob Fredericks writes at the NYPost:

Outlaw Dutch bikers have joined forces with Kurdish fighters battling ISIS fanatics in Iraq -- and authorities in the Netherlands say that’s just fine with them. . . .

A photo on a Dutch-Kurdish Twitter account showed one of the men -- heavily tattooed Dutchman named Ron -- clad in military garb, holding a Kalashnikov assault rifle and flashing the "victory" sign as he sits with a Kurdish comrade in a fortified bunker.

"'Dutch bikers strapping it with the Kurds has made my day,' posted one Twitter user called modn world from West London," Fredericks writes.

Officials with the city of Houston, Texas, who are fighting for a controversial ordinance that would allow men to use women’s restrooms there now have demanded to see the sermons preached by several area pastors.

 

The recent move came in a subpoena from the city to pastors for copies of their sermons -- and copies of other communications from the pastors to their congregations -- in the city's fight over a "non-discrimination" plan that allows "gender-confused" people to use whatever public restrooms with which they identify.

 

A legal action challenging the city’s move has developed because the city allegedly violated its own charter in the process of adopting the Equal Rights Ordinance, which in May designated homosexuals and transgender persons as a protected class.

Michael Chapman reports at CNSNews.com:

Duck Dynasty patriarch Phil Robertson said the news media will not even mention the name "Jesus Christ" in a straightforward or even reverential way because they are so politically correct it precludes them from referencing God, and as a result America is "swimming in a cesspool of politically correct crap."

Wynton Hall reports at Breitbart:

Thousands of Iowans are now facing double-digit health insurance premium hikes due to Obamacare.

On Wednesday, the Des Moines Register reported that the state's insurance commissioner has approved Des Moines-based Wellmark to hike its rates between 11.9% and 14.5%.

"President Barack Obama promised at least 19 times that Obamacare would lower health insurance premiums by $2,500 per family," Breitbart reports.

Katherine Timpf reports at National Review:

A Nebraska school district has instructed its teachers to stop referring to students by "gendered expressions" such as "boys and girls," and use "gender inclusive" ones such as "purple penguins" instead.

"Don’t use phrases such as 'boys and girls,' 'you guys,' 'ladies and gentlemen,' and similarly gendered expressions to get kids' attention," instructs a training document given to middle-school teachers at the Lincoln Public Schools.

"The instructions were part of a list called '12 steps on the way to gender inclusiveness' developed by Gender Spectrum," National Review reports. Gender Spectrum is "an organization that 'provides education, training and support to help create a gender sensitive and inclusive environment for children of all ages'."

"We don’t get involved with gender preferences. We’re educating all kids," says Lincoln Superintendent Steve Joel. "We can’t be judgmental."

Todd Starnes writes at Fox News:

The Human Rights Commission in Lexington, Kentucky has a chilling message for Christian business owners who refuse service to LGBT organizations: leave your religion at home.

"It would be safe to do so, yes," Executive Director Raymond Sexton told me. "Or in this case you can find yourself two years down the road and you’re still involved in a legal battle because you did not do so."

Human beings must, of course, reject this fascism all dolled up as non-discrimination and anti-bigotry. 

What is actually occurring is that the Human Rights Commission in Lexington is pushing a homosexualist worldview -- it's a powerplay seeking to impose the feelings of an extremist minority that stands in direct opposition to the rules of freedom and of humanness -- rules so well articulated, for example, in the Declaration of Independence and U.S. Constitution.

The verifiable Creator set forth in the Declaration is both the originator of the human family and of human sexuality. And as Martin Luther King, Jr., recognized, this same Creator is the proper ethical basis for standing against racism.

But on this basis there also is responsibility. To avoid abuse and manipulation, it must be recognized that every call to nondiscrimination is not valid simply by the yelling, simply by the presence of media voices, or even of protest. Rather, such calls must be ethically sound as measured against He who is the ultimate ethical environment in the universe.

In fact, the human being is called to resist evil and overcome it with good. Thus, in a moral universe, an enlightened humanity knows the difference between a proper discriminating against racism (because all people are created in the image of God) and the cowardly acceptance of homosexualism (because this unfortunate dysfunction violates the "laws of nature and of nature's God").

And, by the way, attempts to use relativist "law" to run people out of business, or otherwse shut people up, is just more evidence of fascism animating homosexualism.

Real human rights, real unalienable rights, are sourced in the Creator; they are not to be found in hatred and discrimination against that Creator. This is very bad news for homosexualists and their networks of enablers.

No matter what emotional banner a politically activist group might wave ("We're Victims!" "Equality!" "Non-Discrimination!" "Human Rights!", etc., etc.), any society that rejects the rules of freedom simply cannot remain free.

The Creator is the verifiable ground of human liberty and dignity, and His liberating truth touches every aspect of life and thought, producing wonderful results in science, medicine, the arts, politics, and so on. It is a liberation inside the home, but also a liberation beyond the home. It is a liberation that rejects the trendy fascisms that now again rear their ugly heads.

The wholistic person rejects invitations to hypocrisy. For it is an invitation to hypocrisy to demand of people seeking to live in community with God and man to "leave your religion at home."

As if truth could be confined within the small mind of secularism, which preaches fragmentation, not wholeness. As if truth could be reduced to dumbed-down secularist redefinitions of "religion."

And what a misguided attack! You might as well tell people to leave love at home, leave goodness at home, leave the pursuit of excellence at home. What a blindlingly innane and inhumane philosophy these secularists are seeking to impose upon Americans. In fact, nowhere in creation is submission to inhumanity acceptable.

Or we can make the point more broadly: All of creation is "home" for the human being.

What followers of Jesus of Nazareth are seeking to practice is therefore not somebody's private little religion. Rather, what is affirmed is a comprehensive way of life rooted in verifiable information concerning God, man, and the cosmos.This is an information-rich approach to living.

Maybe it's the secularists and the humanity-denying agenda of the so-called "Human Rights Commission" in Lexington, Kentucky, that should leave their narrow-minded agenda at home. It's too small for the human being.

Craig Bannister reports at CNSNews.com:

Vice president Joe Biden declared China a North American country in a speech at Boston's John F. Kennedy Forum at the Harvard Kennedy School on Thursday.

Biden claimed that North America -- "meaning Mexico, China and Canada" -- will contribute two-thirds of the world's energy growth over the next two decades.

"That silence matters," Joel B. Pollak writes at Breitbart, "because the doctors most directly involved in fighting the Ebola outbreak seem unable to explain -- or stop -- the disease. . . . Increasingly, the U.S. is beginning to resemble a third world country in its approach to the disease."

This is "bad news for the Islamopologists," Daniel Greenfield writes at Frontpagemag.com.

"The system can’t afford to let" accused Islamic beheader Alton Nolen "succeed because it puts the lie to the Religion of Peace," Greenfield notes.

For "once Nolen is out there claiming that he's fighting the good Jihad in the land of the sword, the Islampologists are going to have a much tougher time explaining it away."

Greenfield predicts: No Muslim lawyer for Nolen.

Well, as Investor's Busines Daily points out, "incompetence" is "running wild" at the once-proud but increasingly inept Secret Service, "which just let a knife-wielding intruder all the way into the East Room of the White House."

But the incompetence endeth not there. Almost anywhere you look, the federal government is flatly dysfunctional -- think of the IRS, Veterans Affairs, Benghazi, the Border Patrol, DOJ guns to Mexican drug cartels, an Obama "who seems routinely ill-informed."

"In his first inaugural address, Obama promised that 'those of us who manage the public's dollars will be held to account.' Maybe he'll get around to that after his 200th round of golf," IBD concludes.