Rejecting eight years of “gender identity” politics under President Obama, a Missouri appeals court ruled a biological girl must use a locker room for girls.

The Missouri Court of Appeals, Western District, this week affirmed the dismissal of a complaint by a female identified by the court only as R.M.A.

She had sued the Blue Springs R-IV School District and its board of education because, after adopting a male name and changing the gender reference on her birth certificate, she still was being required by the school district to use facilities designated for females . . .

The girl alleged her exclusion from the boys’ restrooms and locker rooms subjected her “to different requirements for accessing the services of the school” due to gender.

However, the school argued that the Missouri Human Rights Act, under which the claim was filed, “does not extend its protection to claims based on gender identity.” (Read more from “Court Stunner! Girl Must Use Girls Locker Room” HERE) http://joemiller.us/2017/07/court-stunner-girl-must-use-girls-locker-room/

An executive agency of the United Kingdom’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office has issued a report demanding that seminaries include “queer theology” in their courses for students and confirming even Sunday schools must have “teaching of LGBTI beliefs.”

The stunning document was released by Wilton Park, which is part of the Foreign Office structure, and it also demands that the Bible be reinterpreted “to make it compatible with LGBTI ideology.”

Officials at the Barnabas Fund, which is a Christian organization that works in support of persecuted Christians around the globe, were surprised . . .

“The recommendations, if implemented, would massively reverse freedom of religion across the globe,” they wrote.

“Once it is accepted that any ideology can be imposed on those who hold conscientious disagreement with it, a very significant backward step has been taken both in relation to i) Freedom of Religion or Belief and ii) human rights generally.” (Read more from “Government Demands ‘Queer Theology’ in Seminaries” HERE) http://joemiller.us/2017/07/government-demands-queer-theology-seminaries/

It looks like Planned Parenthood won’t be defunded and Obamacare won’t be repealed thanks to three Republican senators.

Republicans failed to rally enough senators to vote for the Better Care Reconciliation Act, which would repeal and replace Obamacare. Then, Majority Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, announced the Senate would instead only vote on repealing the pro-abortion healthcare law.

The bill repealing Obamacare would also defund Planned Parenthood for one year. Three Republican senators, Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, and Susan Collins of Maine, have all said they’d vote against the bill. This means McConnell doesn’t have the 50 votes needed to debate and then pass the bill.

Capito has a mixed record on abortion, having voted for a few moderate pro-life bills but also to expand research on human embryonic stem cell lines and fund contraception. In 2015, she voted to repeal Obamacare, when it was obvious the then-president would veto the legislation. She said she doesn’t support repealing Obamacare without a replacement.

(Read more from “Murkowski 1 of the 3 Republican Senators Blocking Final Effort to Defund Planned Parenthood” HERE) http://joemiller.us/2017/07/murkowski-1-3-republican-senators-blocking-final-effort-defund-planned-par

The House Freedom Caucus has not abandoned the health care fight. In fact, it has declared all-out war on Obamacare.

On Wednesday, the conservative House members filed a motion to force a vote on the 2015 repeal bill the GOP-controlled Congress passed and sent to President Obama.

Congressman Tom Garrett, R-Va., a freshman representative, filed a special rule known as a “discharge petition” to begin the process of forcing a vote.

“Every member of this body elected prior to last year’s election who has an ‘R’ beside their name at some point voted on many of the dozens of occasions on which we passed a repeal,” Garrett told reporters, with many of his caucus colleagues accompanying his side. “Let me be clear on this: It’s not a full repeal and nothing. It’s a full repeal with two years … with a 24-month phase-out to find a replacement.”

“This is a message to House leadership that we support their best efforts and we want to work with them to continue to move the ball forward to do what we all said we wanted to do,” Garrett said.

“This is a message to the Senate that if they act as Leader McConnell has suggested that they act, we have their backs. We will be here. This is a message to the president of the United States that we haven’t abandoned the fight, nor have we relinquished our desire to fight for the promises we made.”

Rep. Garrett went on address the Left’s ad hominem attacks on Republicans.

“We hear about how Republicans ‘don’t care and they want to kill people.’ ‘They don’t care about people. ‘They want to knock people off their plans,” Garrett said.

“In this nation you can choose, in some places, to buy marijuana. You can choose to pay to go bungie jumping. You can choose to go scuba diving. You can buy explosives for the Fourth of July. But, by gosh, you can’t buy a health care plan that doesn’t have maternity or mental health care even if you want to,” Garrett said.

“So we’re about choice, we’re about freedom, and we’re about keeping our word. We’re about helping our leadership do what they say they wanted to do, and we’re about absolutely letting the people at home who are as frustrated as I am, and was, know that there are still some people here who are going to do what they said they would do.”

The repeal legislation Garrett and the other members of the Freedom Caucus want Congress to vote on would repeal most of Obamacare. To force a vote, the discharge petition will require signatures from 218 members of Congress.

Even if there aren’t enough to sign the petition, one benefit is that voters will be able to see which members of Congress support repeal, and which don’t.

“We should put on President Trump’s desk what we put on President Obama’s desk. We should demand no less,” said Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows R-N.C.

This is what it looks like to be a conservative in Congress and fight. (For more from the author of “Freeeeedom! This All-Out WAR on Obamacare Will Make You Fist-Pump” please click HERE) http://joemiller.us/2017/07/freeeeedom-war-obamacare-will-make-fist-pump/

So, when it was impossible to repeal or replace or do anything about Obamacare because President Obama was in the Oval Office with his veto pen?

As the Daily Caller noted here: “Forty-eight current Republican senators supported the 2015 Obamacare repeal bill, including Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia.”

Then? Then the unexpected, as explained here by Republican Pennsylvania Senator Pat Toomey recently. The headline: “Sen. Pat Toomey on health care delay: I didn’t think Trump would win presidency.”

The story says, in part: “‘I didn’t expect Donald Trump to win. I think most of my colleagues didn’t. So we didn’t expect to be in this situation,’ Pat Toomey, R-Pa., said Wednesday […] The Pennsylvanian senator isn’t the only GOP lawmaker working on health care who also wasn’t expecting the Trump presidency. ‘I didn’t think President Trump had a chance at winning,’ Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said in an interview with a local Kentucky TV station in December 2016.”

And now? Now that there is in fact a President Trump sitting at Obama’s old desk, pen in hand and ready to sign a repeal of Obamacare? Again, the Daily Caller: “Two Republicans senators who voted to repeal Obamacare in 2015 now say they will not support a similar bill by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell […] Now Murkowski and Moore Capito oppose the McConnell measure.”

The utter hypocrisy here is breathtaking. This is a flat-out betrayal of one of the biggest GOP promises since the days of opposition to slavery.

There is room for disagreement on how to go about the repeal. This amounts to a discussion of whether the glass is half full or half empty. Is the GOP bill cementing Obamacare in place — as per Senator Rand Paul? Or is it a move, however tepid, toward a free-market system?

When it says of the “Obamacare Republicans”: “The Obamacare Republicans ran on fiscal discipline but they rejected the best chance for entitlement reform in a generation. They campaigned against deficits—and some like Mr. Moran and Nevada’s Dean Heller have endorsed a balanced-budget amendment—yet they dismissed a $1.022 trillion spending cut. They denounced Obamacare’s $701 billion in tax increases but then panicked over repealing ‘tax cuts for the rich.’”

Particularly startling in all this mess was this comment, again per the WSJ, from Utah’s Senator Mike Lee: “Mr. Lee opposed the first draft of the bill in part because it ‘included hundreds of billions of dollars in tax cuts for the affluent.’ He opposed the new version for ‘not repealing all of the Obamacare taxes.’”

One can only be gobsmacked that any Republican United States Senator has picked up the class warfare thinking of the Obama Left by protesting against “hundreds of billions of dollars in tax cuts for the affluent.”

So, what do we have here when all is said and done? (And it must be noted, there are kudos for Texas Senator Ted Cruz and his ceaseless efforts to get something done that has some relation to principle.)

What we have is one very, very confused Republican Party.

The party of the free market is making it abundantly clear that it is really the party terrified of the liberal media and Democrats picturing them as so many Ebenezer Scrooges for wanting to take away a new entitlement … in spite of the fact that said entitlement is crashing and burning around them and is surely at the root of some future national financial calamity, as was witnessed with the infamous Community Reinvestment Act that eventually contributed to the financial collapse of 2008.

Note well that the CRA, passed in 1977 at the instigation of President Jimmy Carter, passed the House by a vote of 384-26, with 18 of those 26 nays coming from Republicans. Other than those 18 — conservatives of the day with names like California’s John Rousselot and Bob Dornan, Ohio’s John Ashbrook, and Illinois’ Phil Crane — the rest of the House Republicans sided with Jimmy Carter, Tip O’Neill, and liberals.

Decades later, of course, the financial house of cards they set in motion crashed. As Mark Levin notes in “Rediscovering Americanism”: “The progressives’ interference with the housing market through the Community Reinvestment Act resulted in the collapse of that market, a calamitous disaster for millions of homeowners who lost the equity in their homes or lost their homes outright.”

Exactly. But now, as in 1977, progressives have interfered with a giant chunk of the American economy, this time the American health care system. And as demonstrated in the GOP-controlled Senate, there are Republicans today, as in 1977, all too willing to side with the progressives as they buy in to the same reasoning for not repealing Obamacare that they bought in passing the CRA.

The idea was succinctly and fatuously expressed this time by West Virginia’s Shelley Moore Capito: “As I have said before, I did not come to Washington to hurt people.”

Except, of course, she is. Obamacare has ruined health insurance for many Americans, and, yes, as noted here, it has even proved fatal for some. (In that cited case of Long Islander Frank Alfisi, who was denied needed dialysis because of Obamacare rules, at his death, Mr. Alfisi’s daughter was told by her father’s doctor, “You can thank Mr. Obama for this.”)

There is a serious problem here — a problem that has nothing to do with health care. The problem? Far too many Republicans have been politically gulled into buying the progressive argument about the role of government, because they fear being painted as an elected version of Scrooge or, worse — because they genuinely buy in to leftist/progressive dogma about the role of government.

This is in complete opposition to the founding principles of the country, not to mention those of the GOP. And it produces disasters like refusing to repeal Obamacare or going along with disasters waiting to happen, like the Community Reinvestment Act. As Rush Limbaugh has asked in the wake of this disaster: “What’s the point of voting Republican?”

In sum, too many Republicans (most prominently, today, Senators Murkowski and Capito) are ignoring the wisdom of Ronald Reagan.

“The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help.’”

(For more from the author of “The REAL Reason for GOP Hypocrisy” please click HERE)  http://joemiller.us/2017/07/real-reason-gop-hypocrisy/

Many thousands of years before the “gay” movement claimed the rainbow as its emblem, God fashioned the brilliantly colored banner of light and painted it across the sky as a beautiful symbol of his enduring covenant with mankind.

Six millennia later, bare-skinned “gay” men would strut their stuff on parade floats wearing nothing but rainbow Speedos, tutu skirts and body paint, celebrating their homosexual “pride” by proudly displaying the spectrum through America’s public streets.

Now, after decades of witnessing the colors splashed across “gay” parades, flags, bumper stickers and even the White House in 2015, one prominent Christian has announced his plan to “take back the rainbow.”

Ken Ham is president of Answers in Genesis, which created the Ark Encounter, a massive reproduction in Kentucky of the biblical Noah’s Ark. Described as the largest timber frame structure in the world, the project re-created Noah’s Ark at 510 feet long, 85 feet wide and 51 feet high . . .

Ham announced on Twitter that the ark will be lit with a massive rainbow every evening. (Read more from “Bad News for LGBTQ: Plan to Take Back Rainbow” HERE) http://joemiller.us/2017/07/bad-news-lgbtq-plan-take-back-rainbow/

A particularly ominous warning was put out by the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center this week alerting people to the potential dangers Internet-connected toys pose to adults and children alike. Not only do these ‘spy toys’ have the potential to record kids’ conversations, track their movements, reveal their location — they even allow perverts to TALK to children directly.

The alert, titled: CONSUMER NOTICE: INTERNET-CONNECTED TOYS COULD PRESENT PRIVACY AND CONTACT CONCERNS FOR CHILDREN, warns users of the security risks and vulnerabilities posed by this new line of smart toys that connect via WiFi or Bluetooth to your home network.

The toys, according to the warning, typically contain sensors, microphones, cameras, data storage components, and other multimedia capabilities – including speech recognition and GPS options.

According to the FBI, “microphones could record and collect conversations within earshot of the device. Information such as the child’s name, school, likes and dislikes, and activities may be disclosed through normal conversation with the toy or in the surrounding environment. The collection of a child’s personal information combined with a toy’s ability to connect to the Internet or other devices raises concerns for privacy and physical safety.”

Given how easily children give out their information — especially considering they think they are engaging with a harmless toy — the implications for abuse from criminal and government actors are damning.

The deliberate or accidental vulnerabilities inside these toys present a unique opportunity for sickos who want to spy on or otherwise engage in conversation with unsuspecting children.

According to the FBI, these “devices could pose a risk for unauthorized access to the toy and allow communications with a child user.”

In other words, pedophiles could access these toys and talk to children, potentially luring them out of the home and into the arms of their attacker. Given the fact that many of these spy toys use GPS, the predators would easily be able to locate their victim.

However, it’s not just children that are unprotected, these toys are vulnerable to exploits which could allow hackers access to the microphone and cameras — essentially allowing for unauthorized surveillance of their unwitting victims. These exploits would then pave the way for identity theft, bank fraud, or even violent crimes against adults and children alike.

The FBI notes that “Security safeguards for these toys can be overlooked in the rush to market them and to make them easy to use.

“Consumers should perform online research of these products for any known issues that have been identified by security researchers or in consumer reports,” the FBI recommended.

Even if you do all your research and pick out the safest spy toys on the market, however, the data collected and security measures are all out of your hands and in the hands of the manufacturer or server operations.

As the tech site Slash Gear points out, unfortunately, server security is on the manufacturer or their third-party partner responsible for storing the data, and it certainly seems that in a lot of cases, security of these servers is put on the back burner until a breach actually occurs.

As with any Internet-connected devices, allowing children unsupervised access from the start is a terrible idea. And, if you must have them, it is your responsibility to supervise your children, secure your internet access, and make sure that these toys aren’t wholeheartedly spying on you and your kids.

Ironically enough, these toys sound like the FBI’s wet dream.

As TFTP reported last year, a formal complaint filed with the FTC by the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), the Campaign for a Commercial Free Childhood, the Center for Digital Democracy, and the Consumers Union notes that the “toys subject young children to ongoing surveillance,” in violation of privacy and consumer protection laws — and, worse, the nature of the company Genesis Toys employs for that purpose.

“Nuance Communications,” the aforementioned groups state in a complaint to the FTC, “represents itself as a leader in voice technology, including speech recognition software and voice biometric solutions that allow a search of the company’s 60 million enrolled voiceprints for a voice match from recorded conversations to be performed within minutes. Nuance markets its technology to private and public entities and delivers its voice biometric technology to military, intelligence, and law enforcement agencies.”

“Both Genesis Toys and Nuance Communications unfairly and deceptively collect, use, and disclose audio files of children’s voices without providing adequate notice or obtaining verified parental consent,” the complaint stated.

While the FBI lists a myriad of different ways consumers can limit their risks of exploitation from these toys, conveniently absent from their list is the simple option of not buying them. (For more from the author of “Creepy New ‘Smart Toys’ Allow Pedophiles to Track and Talk Directly to Kids” please click HERE) http://joemiller.us/2017/07/creepy-new-smart-toys-allow-pedophiles-track-talk-directly-kids/

Former FBI Director James Comey’s actions in leaking to the media his own memos about meetings with President Donald Trump were not in keeping with how the Department of Justice operates, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein said Wednesday.

During a Fox News interview, Rosenstein said he would not directly address Comey’s actions. However, he was forthright when asked by Martha MacCallum on The Story whether he would ever consider it proper for an FBI director to leak notes to the media regarding a meeting with a president.

“As a general proposition, you have to understand the Department of Justice. We take confidentiality seriously, so when we have memoranda about our ongoing matters, we have an obligation to keep that confidential,” Rosenstein said.

Rosenstein also said the principle of confidentiality is basic to the work of the Department of Justice.

“I think it is quite clear,” he said. “It’s what we were taught, all of us prosecutors and agents.”

During the interview, he also defended hiring special counsel Robert Mueller to investigate collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, something Trump has denied for months.

“I’ve got to explain that I made the decision to appoint Director Mueller based upon his reputation. He had an excellent reputation. Really bipartisan support for his integrity. That’s why I made that decision,” Rosenstein said. “But I can assure you that if there were conflicts that arose because of Director Mueller or anybody employed by Director Mueller, we have a process within the department to take care of that.”

Rosenstein said Mueller’s probe should be judged once it completes its work.

“The Department of Justice, we judge by results, and so my view about that is, we’ll see if they do the right thing,” Rosenstein said.

Comey said he believed the memos he wrote were his to do with as he pleased, but the FBI has indicated it has a different view. Four of the seven memos Comey wrote contained classified information, the FBI has told Congress.

FBI policy forbids an agent from sharing classified information without prior written permission, and all records created during official duties are government property.

Columbia University professor Daniel Richman, a Comey friend who leaked part of one memo to The New York Times, has said no rules were broken.

“No memos were given to the press, and no memos were classified at the time I received them,” Richman said, adding that the physical memo was never shared, only its “substance.” (For more from the author of “Comey Went Outside FBI Protocol With Leaks” please click HERE) http://joemiller.us/2017/07/comey-went-outside-fbi-protocol-leaks/

Last week, I tweeted, “The news media in the West pose a far greater danger to Western civilization than Russia does.”

To my surprise, the tweet went viral. And while there were more likes than dislikes, 99 percent of the written reactions were negative.

Typical reactions were:

–“F— you.”

–“Move to Russia.”

–“Your very full diapers pose a very great danger, please change them.” That received 1,880 likes.

–“I’ve wiped s— off my shoes more trustworthy and patriotic than your sorry a–.” That received 606 likes.

You get the idea.

But it wasn’t the ad hominem insults that I found troubling. What was troubling was the low state of logical thinking that so many responses reflected.

This was exemplified by their reminding me how important a free press is to democracy (as if attacking the behavior of the media were the same as denying the need for a free press); their asking how many nukes the media have compared with Russia (as if a threat to lives were the same as a threat to a civilization); and their thinking that my tweet was about President Donald Trump (he was never mentioned, and the words were just as true when Barack Obama was president).

My tweet was about the Western left undoing Western civilization. My one regret is that I did not mention universities along with the media.

The tweet had nothing to do with the existence of a free press. Attacking what the media is doing is not the same as attacking the existence of the media—any more than attacking Trump is attacking the existence of the presidency.

With regard to Russia having more nukes than the media, those who noted this fact so missed the entire point of the tweet that it is almost breathtaking.

When one speaks about dangers to a civilization, one is speaking ideologically, not physically. Of course, if Russia were to unleash its nuclear weapons against the West, it would kill vast numbers of Westerners.

However, that would no more mean the end of Western civilization than the Holocaust meant the end of Jewish civilization. Civilization connotes a body of ideas and a value system.

Furthermore, a Russian nuclear attack threatening the West’s physical existence is an utterly remote possibility. Russian leaders, just as Soviet leaders before them, fear what is known as MAD (mutually assured destruction).

The real nuclear threat comes from North Korea and, above all, Iran, which constantly announces its intent to exterminate Israel. But while The New York Times cannot stop writing about the threat Russian President Vladimir Putin poses, it accuses Trump of “demonizing” Iran.

The real threat to Western civilization is Western civilization ceasing to believe in itself. And, in that regard, Russia poses no danger, while the left-wing-dominated media and universities pose an existential threat.

That’s why the most depressing of the negative reactions were those from people calling themselves conservatives. If conservatism isn’t about conserving Western civilization first and foremost, what is it about?

Students in college have voted the American flag off their campus. Where did these students learn their unprecedented contempt for America and patriotism, if not from their schools and the media?

European countries continue to welcome in millions of Muslims, adding to the tens of millions of Muslims already in Europe—many of whom, if not most, have no interest in adopting Europe’s values.

Do the critics of my tweet conclude nothing about the left’s role—meaning the role of Western media and academia—in promoting multiculturalism, the doctrine that holds that no cultural, religious, or value system is superior to any other?

At the University of Pennsylvania, its left-wing English department has removed its long-standing portrait of Shakespeare because he was white and male. Is that not a direct hit on Western civilization?

The left-wing prime minister of Canada has proudly announced, “There is no core identity, no mainstream in Canada,” and that Canada is “the first postnational state.”

What produced him? Putin?

Is it Putin who is removing American flags from American campuses?

Is Putin destroying the notion of male and female?

Has Putin convinced half of America’s millennials that socialism is preferable to capitalism?

Did Putin convince Pope Francis that Islamic terrorists are no more of a threat to Europe than baptized Catholics who kill their girlfriends?

Is Putin the reason Oxford University students voted that Israel is a greater threat to peace than Hamas?

Putin is indeed a murderous quasi dictator. But all this contempt for Western civilization comes from the Western media and the Western universities.

The smoking gun was provided just two weeks ago in the media’s reactions to Trump’s speech in Warsaw, Poland, in which he called for protecting Western civilization.

Virtually the entire Western media said it was a call to protect white racism—because the media deem Western civilization to be nothing more than a euphemism for white supremacy.

That’s what my tweet was about. (For more from the author of “The Left Is a Greater Threat to America Than Putin” (For more from the author of “The Left Is a Greater Threat to America Than Putin” please click HERE) http://joemiller.us/2017/07/left-greater-threat-america-putin/