Paul Bedard reports at the Washington Examiner:

Even before the FBI identified new cyber attacks on two separate state election boards, the Department of Homeland Security began considering declaring the election a "critical infrastructure," giving it the same control over security it has over Wall Street and and the electric power grid. . . .

Johnson also said that the big issue at hand is that there isn't a central election system since the states run elections. "There's no one federal election system. There are some 9,000 jurisdictions involved in the election process," Johnson said.

Apart from opening the door to more easily and endlessly rigged elections, putting the White House in charge of U.S. elections seems a swell idea.

But for me, it smacks of putting foxes in charge of hen house security.

History, logic, and everything you see in the daily news tells us that human freedom and dignity prefer and require a diversity of centers of power.

You can read about this wisdom in the Declaration of Independence, and it's why the Constitution divides political and governmental power in so many ways. Checks and balances, etc.

Washington solves problems by making them worse. And in return, the federal government enfeebles and infantilizes the American people.

Listen up, Washington: True diversity really is one of our strengths. Just do your job as set forth in the U.S. Constitution, consistent with Declaration norms.

That's what's needed, and that's all we ask. 

That's why the states created you, by the way. We created you. You didn't create us. It'll be better for everyone if you can keep that straight.

Washington must decrease if America is to increase.

"The American ghetto has replaced the cotton fields, where Democrats have gathered blacks in these horrible, miserable conditions, all for political power," says Milwaukee County Sheriff David A. Clarke, according to Michael Chapman reporting at CNSNews.

Go here to read "Sheriff Clarke: 455 Murders in Chicago This Year Greater Than Coalition Deaths in Afghanistan Since 2013."

Read about it in "Alinsky's Daughter: Here's the Truth About Hillary the Media Won't Tell You."

More than 4.2 million views thus far. Watch "Crooked" here.

According to the results of a Gallup poll published this week, 80% of Americans favor "requiring all voters to provide photo identification at their voting place in order to vote."

What's more, according to Gallup, this very strong support is reflected across the diversity of races in the U.S., with 81% of whites favoring a photo ID requirement and 77% of nonwhites favoring photo ID.

This strong support and broad unity stand in contrast to the divisive, out-of-touch, fraud-friendly approach of Barack Obama.

On the 50th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act, Obama specifically targeted "laws with restrictive photo ID requirements" as a contemporary example of "many people trying to erect new barriers to the vote." 

In fact, what Americans of all colors strongly favor are barriers to voter fraud -- restrictions on the possibility of stealing elections. And photo ID makes it more difficult to commit voter fraud.

"In sum," Gallup concludes, Americans want "stronger checks against fraud." That's a good thing. Right, Mr. Obama?

Nick Squires reports from Rome for the UK Telegraph:

Campaigners in Tuscany are fighting against a plan to build a mosque a few hundred yards from the Leaning Tower of Pisa. 

They are concerned that it is too close to the stone tower, one of Italy's best known tourist attractions, and fear that it could become a centre for radicalisation of local Muslims, of whom there are around 600. 

The building of the mosque in Via del Brennero has been provisionally approved by Pisa's centre-left council but campaigners are gathering signatures for a petition calling for a local referendum on the issue.

"According to a recent poll, 57 per cent of Pisans are against the mosque," says campaign leader Gianluca Gambini, the Telegraph reports. 

“It's not just that it would be built in the wrong location, just 400 metres from the Leaning Tower, but also because people know that mosques are places where there is a risk of radicalisation," Gambini says, according to the Telegraph.

Related
France to Shut Down Up to 160 Mosques Used as Terror Centers
Mosques on the Front Lines in the War Against America

Ken Klukowski reports at Breitbart:

A federal judge has ruled in favor of 13 states against President Barack Obama's directive that public schools must allow students and adults to enter whatever bathrooms or showers they choose, a policy imposing transgenderism on the nation's schools.

Among the reasons the judge ruled that Obama's unilateral action is illegal is "because it violates the meaning of 'sex' in Title VII and Title IX, making the directive contrary to law," Klukowski writes.

The meaning of "sex" in Title VII and Title IX has nothing to do with how a 3rd-grader feels on Tuesday at 10 a.m. -- whether that feeling is "girlish" or "boyish." The meaning has rather to do with the biological facts of life, such that young males are biologically boys and young females are biologically girls. It's a wonderful diversity that respects the facts of life.

Why does Obama seek to crush this diversity?

Sometimes, it seems, politicians lose their way. Especially when they lust after power. And especially when they view government power as the means to impose their very private, fact-challenged personal belief system.

What's more, if they can cloak that lust in focus-group tested propaganda ("discrimination!" "equality!"), so much the better -- for the lustful politician, that is, not so much for the people over whom the Mussolinis seek to lord it over.

But, someone has said, "Facts are stubborn things." And thank the God of facts, evidence, evaluation, and critical thinking for that.

I'll tell you a secret: There's a really wonderful kind of discrimination called noticing the differences between male and female, boys and girls, men and women.

No doubt, Obama himself practiced discrimination when he chose his wife, Michelle, discriminating not only against all men but also discriminating against all other women.

I am sure that this would be an ongoing discrimination that wife Michelle might mightily agree with and respect.

And because of that "discrimination," just one woman (Michelle) now enjoys a very unequal amount of access to a man who not only is her husband but also is the president of the United States.

Clearly: This is good discrimination performed on behalf of a wonderful diversity. And a rather large tip of the hat to the joys of inequality, too.

But Obama's extremist transgenderism is anything but good and wonderful. For it rejects the facts of life and it seeks to impose upon all America a relativistic ideology that in principle alienates a person's "gender" from that person's biological sex. 

That's not governance, it's fanatcism. And the guilty party is Obama.

That's not respect, it's alienation. And the divisive one is Obama.

Let's celebrate this victory of common sense rooted in facts over against extremist politics rooted in fanaticism.

Intelligence "tests everything" and revolts when necessary. We shall overcome.

Raymond Ibrahim at Frontpagemag.com offers the following quote from the recently published article "Why We Hate You and Why We Fight You":

We hate you, first and foremost, because you are disbelievers; you reject the oneness of Allah -- whether you realize it or not -- by making partners for Him in worship, you blaspheme against Him, claiming that He has a son [Christ], you fabricate lies against His prophets and messengers, and you indulge in all manner of devilish practices.

It is for this reason that we were commanded to openly declare our hatred for you and our enmity towards you. "There has already been for you an excellent example in Abraham and those with him, when they said to their people, 'Indeed, we are disassociated from you and from whatever you worship other than Allah. We have rejected you, and there has arisen, between us and you, enmity and hatred forever until you believe in Allah alone'" (Al-Mumtahanah 4 [i.e., Koran 60:4]).

Furthermore, just as your disbelief is the primary reason we hate you, your disbelief is the primary reason we fight you, as we have been commanded to fight the disbelievers until they submit to the authority of Islam, either by becoming Muslims, or by paying jizyah – for those afforded this option ["People of the Book"] -- and living in humiliation under the rule of the Muslims [per Koran 9:29].

Read more.

Here's the news story from ABC15 about a petite young mother at a gas station in Glendale, Arizona, who defended herself in the midst of an armed robbery.

According to the news report, the robber asked Carolann Miracle "for a cigarette and a lighter before he threatened to take her life."

Her response was to channel in "what her father, a Marine, taught her about protecting herself," reports Navideh Forghani of ABC15.

"He stuck a gun to my neck and told me, 'It's loaded, don't move'," Carolann told the reporter. "I think he thought, 'She's a little girl. Maybe she doesn't know how to use her weapon'."

When asked, Carolann said she weighs 85 pounds and is 4 feet, 11 inches tall.

"I dropped my soda, released my gun from my holster, cocked it, and shot him and then we ran in the opposite way."

Carolann said, "I feel sorry for him" and that "I didn't mean to kill him" but that "I had to defend my sister and me."

How might you or a family member of yours have acted in this kind of situation? Dean Weingarten at Gunwatch offers several observations that some may find helpful.

Weingarten says Carolann Miracle "did many things right" and that her Marine father "taught her well."

Hat tip: Stacy on the Right

Betsy Mccaughey writes at American Spectator:

On Tuesday, Aetna announced it's canceling its Obamacare plans in nearly all states. Count on other major insurers to back out soon.When open enrollment starts November 1, the public will see they're going to have few plans to choose from.

Worse, they're going to be paying lots more for health insurance in 2017 and getting less. Across the country, state insurance departments are announcing double-digit premium hikes, in some places.

The more you know about the demonically named "Affordable Care Act," the less you like. "People who earn too much to qualify for a subsidy will be forced to pay as much as a fifth of their income for health insurance," Mccaughey continues.

In return for this joy, "they’ll get less choice of doctors and hospitals and less prescription drug coverage." Ah, yes. Obama's transformation.

But there is hope beyond this darkness. "Annual enrollment begins eight days before voters go to the polls," Mccaughey writes.

"Donald Trump is vowing to repeal Obamacare. Hillary Clinton is doubling down on keeping and expanding it. Democrats are worried Obamacare sticker shock will have an 11th hour impact on the election."

There is therefore "a way out," according to Mccaughey. "If you don't want Obamacare rammed down your throat, vote Republican in November."

Bradford Richardson reports at the WTimes:

The CEO of Whole Foods Market says socialism is a fundamentally flawed economic theory that never has worked and never will.

John Mackey, who debated Marxist economist John Roemer at FreedomFest in Las Vegas last week, said state-controlled economies simply don't comport with human nature.

"I want to make the world a better place. But you have to do that in a sort of pragmatic fashion, not a utopian transformation," Mr. Mackey told Opportunity Lives after the debate.

Or you can put it like this: Your economic theory about reality has got to fit the facts on the ground if it is ever to get off the ground and help "make the world a better place."

Otherwise, empirical facts falsify your theory, and no amount of "good intentions," government funding, or magical thinking is going to turn a falsified economic theory that does not work in the real world into a verified economic theory that does work in the real world.

"There's not going to be a new human being that's going to pop up [so] that human nature ceases to exist, and that's been the myth of the socialistic man, that they can change human nature," Mackey is quoted as saying.

Also, according to the WTimes, the Whole Foods CEO disagrees with the professor's belief that socialism could work but the problem is that it "just hasn’t been done right."

In fact, "socialism has failed miserably every place it has been tried," Mackey countered.

Oh, well maybe "it just hasn’t been done right," Mackey suggested, describing an oft-used socialist-favoring reply.

Why hasn't it been done right as of yet? "Because the right people aren’t running it yet. If John Roemer and his gang were running, it would be good," Mackey said, according to the Times.

It is important, however, to understand that not even the "right people" (who are never around, it seems) can transmogrify that which is false into that which is true. If socialism is false, no amount of "right people" and no amount of government taxing and spending can change falsified socialism into something true to reality.

Magical thinking about the economic facts of life remains magical thinking about the economic facts of life no matter who does the thinking. And then imposing that fantasy, that illusion, that comforting but false ideology, upon the lives of real people does great harm and results in great evil, much pain and suffering and bloodshed. All in the pursuit of an empty opiate called socialism.

Socialism "sounds good in theory . . .  but in reality never works," Richardson quotes Mackey as saying.

Whole Foods is fortunate to have a CEO who rejects the way of a cult, who instead embraces a liberating economic theory that produces real fruit in the real world.

It is true: "Man shall not live on bread alone," and life is more than bread. The problem for socialism is that it can't even get you the bread.

Related
Socialism Always Kills: Forced Labor in Venezuela
Socialists Cause Famine in "Breadbasket" of Africa

. . . captures the joy of sport, photographed during last night's 100-meter semi-finals at the Rio Olympics. He took gold in the final at 9.81 seconds.

When Obama talks about fundamentally transforming America, what he means is fundamentally attacking America, an example of which can be seen in a news story published yesterday in the Washington Times. Bradford Richardson reports:

The highest U.S. military court has upheld the bad conduct discharge of a Marine who refused to remove Bible verses from her workstation.

That's right. Bible verses. A country whose birth certificate publicly proclaims its rootedness in the Creator now has incompetent judges who decree that information from the Creator cannot be displayed at work by people in the U.S. military.

Ahem, there would be no U.S. military apart from the founding commitment to create a nation rooted in the Creator. I think the Declaration of Independence pretty much settles that one.

The word transformation has such a nice, positive ring to it. But nothing positive is going on here. What Obama represents, and what this ruling represents, is an attack on America.

And not an attack on something peripheral, but on something foundational -- such that, if the attack succeeds, that which rests upon the foundation isn't merely "transformed." Rather, it is utterly destroyed.

Yep. Birds will still be singing. But they'll be singing amid the ruins.

Obama is about attacking America and destroying America. And that, by definition, is a move away from human freedom and dignity into human unfreedom and indignity. "A" cannot equal "non-A."

Richardson continues his report:

In a 4-1 decision handed down Wednesday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces said the Religious Freedom Restoration Act does not apply to the case of former Cpl. Monifa Sterling, who was court-martialed and convicted of six offenses stemming from her noncompliance.

Political secularlists -- such as Obama -- as a matter of their worldview commitment, must find a way to remove the Creator, Christianity, the Bible, and Americans who affirm these matters from any kind of legitimate role in public life.

Oh, so there's this thing called the "Religious Freedom Restoration Act." Ah, who cares? A president and a secular machine that has already disrespected the U.S. Constitution isn't going to be bothered by a law. They'll find a way around it. They'll find judges more than happy to impose their personal anti-Creator, anti-1st Amendment feelings upon whatever case happens to be before them. Rubber stamp that secularism.

The 1st Amendment of course tells Congress to "make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."

The Christian consensus that gave birth to the United States was rightly worried about a power-hungry centralized federal government.

The founders were equally rightly worried not about the influence of Christianity on public life (that's what they wanted). Rather, they wanted to outlaw the possibility of a national, federal state Christian denominational church.

This was an application of Christianity, not a rejection of Christianity. Because Christianity teaches what everybody knows: People are noble and yet they are broken, fallen. And as fallen people, humans -- even the best of us -- will tend to abuse power to the degree that it is consolidated, monopolized, and not held accountable. 

Just look at Washington, D.C., today.

Thus, the rationale for the famous "separation of church and state." Not as an attack on Christianity, but as an attack on attempts to unify state power and ecclesiastical power into a massive political-ecclesiastical power monopoly.

There was to be -- as a matter of the application of Christian wisdom to the body politic -- no national Anglican, Baptist, Methodist, Lutheran or some of kind of Christian denominational federal, national state church.

So when Kelly Shackelford, who is president of the First Liberty Institute, which represented Monifa Sterling, characterized the ruling as "absolutely outrageous," he is absolutely correct.

Of course Monifa Sterling can place Bible verses in her public workplace. In fact, a U.S. president could fill the Oval Office with Bible verses, if that were his desire, and he'd be totally consistent with the mainstream founding American vision that has attracted millions of people from around the world to her shores.

Christianity is a verifiable way of life meant to be lived out across the whole of life. It is decisively not a private "faith" experience by people holding hands inside irrelevant prayer closets, singing hymns until they die.

Obama would like to reduce Christianity to that kind of non-Christian nonsense (unless it's a secularized, compromised church pushing green homosexual Muslims who know for a fact the AC has got to go to save Planet Earth).

But Christ and Christianity will have nothing to do with Obama's attack on Christianity. Open the Bible and you will find a reality orientation encouraging people to challenge wisely the inhumane status quo and to do so on the basis of verifiable, knowable information concerning God, humanity, and the cosmos. Christianity is a resistance movement par excellence.

"If they can court-martial a Marine over a Bible verse, what's to stop them from punishing service members for reading the Bible, talking about their faith, or praying?"

Of course the attack on her is an attack on all of us. It is an attack on any free-thinking human being who chooses to live in liberating community with God and man.

Monifa Sterling "was court-martialed in 2014 after she refused to take down three handmade placards inscribed with various Bible verses, including Isaiah 54:17, which reads, 'No weapon formed against you shall prosper'," Richardson reports. 

How odd! A Christian woman in the U.S. military surrounds her space with reminders from the Creator about the ultimate failure of those who stand against God. Yes, there will be setbacks. Yes, there is a battle. Yes, secularists will persecute Christians for affirming what is true. The battle rages, but in the end, those who oppose the Creator will not prosper.

And if you examine the kingdoms and principalities set up by those who despise the Creator and his liberating norms for human freedom and dignity, what you see is a historical record of lies, slavery, pain, hatred, deceit. And failure. And that's just the president's cabinet.

Monifa Sterling is to be commended for standing her ground. Her stand is consistent with the 1st Amendment, with the Declaration of Independence, and with who she is as a human being of intrinsic freedom and dignity, having been created in the image of God.

Obama and his true believers are attacking America and Americans. It is not a nice "transformation." Rather it is a blatant, angry, hateful assault on America.

America qua America prospers. America rooted in love and truth in community with God and man -- that America prospers.

Obama's counterfeit? No so much. 

We have a lot of work to do. Let's repel this anti-God, anti-humanity, and anti-American attack on who we are as a people and who we are as a nation.

And Monifa Sterling, thank you for your service to our nation. You will always be one of the few. We need more like you.

Moshe Averick writes at Algemeiner.com:

Although the general public is disconcertingly unaware of it, it is a fact that scientists do not have even the slightest clue as to how life could have begun through an unguided naturalistic process absent the intervention of a conscious creative force.

Read more here (don't neglect the comments).

Moshe Averick is author of new book Nonsense of a High Order: The Confused World of Modern Atheism.

Thomas Lifson writes at American Thinker:

The great thing about being an avowed socialist is that you get to posture as a self-righteous man of the people without foregoing the benefits of wealth.

Take the case of Bernie Sanders, whose self-reported net worth was $528,014, yet who just spent a reported $600,000 on a summer "vacation home" with 500 feet of lake frontage on gorgeous Lake Champlain.

Read more.

Saagar Enjeti reports at The Daily Caller:

Experts are lining up to imply that Russia likely hacked Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton’s private email server.

Such a hack, they imply, may give Russian President Vladimir Putin key leverage, essentially to hold her as a digital hostage at any time if she becomes president.

Read more.

Dave Urbanski reports at The Blaze:

The outspoken Wisconsin businessman looking to unseat House Speaker Paul Ryan in the state's congressional primary says Muslims in the United States who adhere to Shariah law should be deported since the ideology is in "direct conflict with the U.S. Constitution."

Paul Nehlen gave an intense radio interview with "Chicago's Morning Answer" on Monday saying he believes Muslims in the United States should be subjected a religious test to determine if they're Shariah-compliant -- then acknowledged there's no way to "vet" that process.

Islam is a religion that encourages its followers to lie to infidels and to impose its will upon individuals and societies by force, by the sword, by acts of terror.

From the point of view of Islam, the United States is a nation of infidels founded upon the documents of infidels -- such as the U.S. Constitution, for example.

As a matter of principle, as a matter of fidelity to Shariah law, therefore, no Sharia-compliant Muslim can be trusted when taking the oath to "protect and defend" that infidel document known as the U.S. Constitution.

In such a setting, to lie under oath is linguistic and legal terror. It is the vocal parallel to Islamic physical terror.

It is a spiritual terror directed at and antithetical to the U.S. Constitution and the humanity-affirming and Creator-affirming worldview upon which this document stands, an ultimate orientation expressed so clearly in the Declaration of Independence.

The two forms of terror -- the deceit and the murder -- are united in purpose when jihadists scream "Allahu Akbar" before slaughtering men, women, and children who are unaware they are in the immediate presence of wolves. 

"Islam is not just a religion. It's a political system," Nehlen warns (watch the video). "It's got a different set of rules . . . . This isn't the Amish coming to the country."

In a video on this page, Matt Kibbe explores how "socialism always kills."

Here is a transcript of Kibbe's remarks:

People in Venezuela who have never spent a day of their life on a farm may soon be forced by the government to work the farmlands.

President Nicolás Madura has decreed that anybody could be drafted for up to 60 days to help increase aggregate food output.

Amnesty International says that this is just forced labor by some other words, but aren't we really talking about slavery here?

This is a classic socialist strategy.

As things start to unwind, governments start to enforce, by dictate, at the point of a gun, forced labor.

History repeats itself.

The same strategy was used by Fidel Castro to force his people to work the sugar fields.

It happened under the Khmer Rouge as Pol Pot insisted that production quotas were not met because farmers were being disloyal to the socialist dream.

Of course it happened in China, where Mao succeeded in starving some 45 million people by trying to manage, by trying to force, by trying to enslave his people.

Kibbe concludes: "Socialism always kills."

Don Snyder reports at Fox News:

Five violent terror-related attacks in a two-week span are prompting Germans to turn on longtime Chancellor Angela Merkel, who has continued to embrace a liberal refugee policy some say has compromised safety.

Although Germany has so far been spared the kind of atrocities that shook Brussels, Paris and Nice in the last year, there have been 15 deaths and dozens injured in attacks in Germany since July 18.

Two of the attacks have been linked to ISIS, and many suspect the others bore hallmarks of terrorism.

"Politicians from both the left and the right have assailed the once-enormously popular chancellor’s plan to integrate more than a million refugees from war zones in the Middle East and Afghanistan," Snyder reports.

Melody Wood writes at CNSNews.com:

How far does the NBA want transgender "rights" to go?

The NBA stepped into the culture war with its recent decision to move the 2017 All-Star Game out of Charlotte, North Carolina, citing "the climate created by HB2," the bill that requires government single-sex bathrooms be available only to people on basis of the sex on their birth certificate.

And in so stepping, the NBA may have landed upon a minefield of massive proportion. This is because, as Wood writes, "Bathrooms and locker rooms aren't the only area where transgender activists could demand changes. In fact, sports itself -- not just the bathrooms used by its fans -- could be affected."

Has the politically correct NBA actually thought through where its position leads when applied to other areas of life? Consider: "Would the NBA's sister organization, the WNBA, be willing to let any current NBA player who decides to identify as a female compete on a woman's team?," Wood asks.

Human beings in fact are physically diverse, with enjoyable differences -- attractive inequalities, one might say -- due to any number of factors, including the sexual biological given of whether one is male or female.

And if you want lack of joy, and structural unfairness, try pretending these differences are somehow unreal or simply don't matter or can be overridden by personal feelings or political dictates.

Wood notes how such a pretense would impact negatively upon the WNBA:

Of course, allowing biological men into the WNBA could be unfair to current WNBA players and the many women and girls who aspire to a career in basketball. After all, the average male in his 20s outjumps 95 percent of all women of the same age, and only a handful of WNBA players can dunk.

But if the NBA believes preferred gender identity, not biological sex, is what matters, it naturally follows that men who now identify as women, perhaps without even having any medical treatment, should play in the WNBA, not NBA.

The terminus point of transgender theorizing is clear: Denying the biological facts of life is itself a pathway to unfairness and new forms of discrimination. Surely, there's a better way to cast out old demons than by inviting in new demons.

It is crucial to understand the real-world results of this political ideology that requires an alienation from one's physicality. "If all women's sports are opened to those who identify as women, regardless of genetics, biology, muscle mass, physiology, hormones, and bone structure -- in other words, regardless of sex -- we'll begin seeing many more girls and women who won't be able to compete because of physical differences between men and women," Wood writes.

"This just isn't fair to women athletes and would reverse the long fought battles to end discrimination against women and girls in sports," she argues.

"The NBA's decision to move the All-Star Game from Charlotte is an unnecessary use of cultural cronyism to promote a political ideology currently in vogue," Wood concludes. "And the ideology it is promoting may eventually lead to the demise of women's sports as a unique venue where women can compete and win fairly."

Life precedes sport, and itself affirms a fact-based set of rules. Follow them and there's beauty -- both in life and in sport. Ignore them, and it's game over.

Matthew Watkins writes at the Texas Tribune:

After months of meetings, protests and political debates, the time has come: It's legal to carry handguns into university buildings in Texas. The state's new campus carry law, passed in 2015, went into effect Monday.

What does that mean "at schools across the state," according to Watkins?

Here are a few bullet points:

• "Not everyone gets to carry guns; in fact, most students can't"
• "You still can't carry at community colleges or private schools"
• "There are still places [on campus] you can't take your gun"
• "This law is not unprecedented"
• "Campus carry is not open carry"

And finally, the "fight isn't over," Watkins states. "Gun rights advocates are upset about campuses trying to ban guns in dorms. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has argued that such bans violate the law. On the other side, three UT-Austin professors have sued their school and the state saying that the law violates academic freedom. A hearing on that case is scheduled for later this week."

Read the article in the Texas Tribune.