Religious liberty has scored a major victory in an unexpected place. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 9-to-2 that the San Jose Unified School District in California violated the constitutional rights of religious students when it banned the Fellowship of Christian Athletes (FCA) from school campuses in 2019.

Why did the district ban FCA clubs? The club required officers to sign a statement of faith, which, among other things, discouraged sexual activity outside of marriage.

One teacher complained, and the school claimed that the statement of faith violated its anti-discrimination policy. Not only that, school officials attacked the Fellowship of Christian Athletes in the school newspaper, essentially calling them bigots.

The Fellowship of Christian Athletes sued. Good for them! We must stop caving into the left’s unconstitutional demands!

The Ninth Circuit judges ruled that virtually every school club had policies that in one way or another “discriminated” based on various qualifications, including race and gender. So, the school could not deny access to a religious club based on the teachings of its faith. That was raw religious discrimination.

There was a time when schools encouraged morals and character development. In this case, the school was attacking something it should have been encouraging.

We should all be able to agree that we want to raise children with good character, fulfilling Martin Luther King, Jr.‘s dream where we are judged on the content of our character. Instead, the San Jose school district declared war on Judeo-Christian values and character building.

For far too long, the outcome of cases like this at the Supreme Court was fairly uncertain. But not anymore.

Because Donald Trump, a candidate who didn’t fit the definition of a “good Christian,” went to Christian voters and promised to appoint pro-life justices who would respect religious liberty won in 2016, we’re are now in the strongest position we have ever been on the sanctity of life and religious liberty in the past 50 years.

Christian citizenship matters! (The fact that it was a 9-to-2 decision shows just how much the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has been transformed!)

An Illegal Alien Colony

A highly unusual real estate development in Texas is getting a lot of attention. No, it’s not another Elon Musk “gigafactory.” According to multiple reports, it’s a housing colony for illegal aliens.

The Biden Administration is standing by while America is being conquered by the citizens of other countries who thumb their nose at our laws as they come in!

Colony Ridge, just outside of Houston, Texas, is about the size of Washington, D.C., and as many as 75,000 people reportedly live there. But, as one investigative journalist noted, “Foreign flags outnumber American” flags.

The GOP is the party of free enterprise. If there’s a need, free markets will take care of the need. But I have always said that free markets and capitalism are as bad as anything else if they are not tempered by virtue and love of country.

And here we have a perfect example.

This housing development reportedly caters to illegal aliens. It is advertises in Spanish and sells plots of land to people without Social Security numbers or proof of employment. The wealthy Republican family behind Colony Ridge is getting even richer by exploiting open borders.

Reports indicate that four Mexican cartels are operating in Colony Ridge. Fox News indicated that the cartels actually own some of the property because it’s a good place for safe houses for drugs and human trafficking.

If this is a good place for cartels, drug dealers and human traffickers, why wouldn’t it be a good place for future terrorists to live?

Last I heard, Texas wasn’t a sanctuary state. Why aren’t the Texas legislature and Governor Abbott doing anything about it? They know they are empowering illegality. Well, the people behind Colony Ridge are major political donors in the state of Texas.

If you’re looking for reasons why Red states end up turning into Blue states, here’s one. We’ve acquiesced to a radical transformation of the population, and Republican politicians in some of these states have been corrupt and cowardly.

The state of Texas just spent a lot of time trying unsuccessfully to impeach its attorney general, with all kinds of corruption revealed in that debate. The governor of Texas has scored a lot of points by sending buses of illegal aliens to Democrat sanctuary cities.

Here’s an idea: Organize a fleet of buses and get the people out of Colony Ridge! Bus them back to the border!

Impeachment Watch

The House Oversight Committee, led by Chairman James Comer (R-KY), announced Tuesday that it is holding its first impeachment inquiry hearing on Thursday, September 28th. The committee is expected to issue subpoenas for the banking records of Hunter and James Biden.

That’s a good start, but they will have to dig deeper and be more creative.

On his Fox News show last night, Jesse Watters noted how the Biden family maintained 20 shell companies to launder and hide money. But that wasn’t the only way the Bidens were paid.

Hunter got an $80,000 diamond from a Chinese business partner, whose energy company spent $23 million on diamond purchases. That begs the question: Did Hunter get more than one diamond? Did other Biden family members get Chinese diamonds? That may be impossible to prove.

But it is clear from every move they made – the multiple shell companies, deliberately avoiding registering as foreign agents, using special cell phones and fake names, the extravagant gifts, everything on the laptop – that they were engaged in unethical behavior in order to enrich themselves.

And it may help explain the idiocy that is so evident in Joe Biden’s foreign policy.

2024 Update

The latest Morning Consult poll finds Donald Trump maintaining a huge lead in the Republican primary contest. Trump is at 59%, followed by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis at 13% and Vivek Ramaswamy at 10%. No other candidate received double digit support.

However, as we’ve noted before, the primary isn’t a national contest, but a state-by-state contest. So, here’s how the race stands according to the RealClearPolitics polling averages in the early voting states:

Iowa: Trump 46%, DeSantis 16%

New Hampshire: Trump 44%, DeSantis 13%

South Carolina: Trump 47%, Haley 13%, DeSantis 12%, Scott 11%

Nevada: Trump 52%, DeSantis 22%

In a hypothetical general election matchup, the Morning Consult poll found Trump and Joe Biden are tied at 42%. Biden, however, defeats DeSantis by four – 43% to 39%.

A recent Reuters poll also finds Trump and Biden tied nationally at 39% each. But in the seven swing states most likely to determine the election – Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin – Trump led Biden by six points – 41% to 35%.

New School Year Resolutions

When a new year begins, many people make resolutions to inspire them to make changes for the better. Well, a new school year has begun and it’s clear changes are needed in the government-run education system.

As a former Under Secretary of Education in the Reagan Administration, I know the value of a good education, and that’s not what our children are getting today. Read more in my latest opinion piece at The Stand.