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Yahoo News: Democratic pastors run to reclaim Jesus from Trump’s Republicans.

Malcolm FOSTER
Sat, July 11, 2026 at 6:30 PM PDT

A band of white Democratic pastors have a striking message ahead of November’s US midterm elections: Republicans have hijacked Jesus for political gain, and we’re not going to stand for it.

For decades, it’s been a truism that Republicans have cornered the Christian market — at least when it comes to white voters.

But these ministers are so fed up with President Donald Trump, and particularly his policies against immigrants, that they’re running as Democrats in November to rein him in.

“The Christians we’re hearing in Washington don’t reflect the Jesus of the Gospels,” one of the insurgents, Adam Hamilton, told AFP.

As the head of a 24,000-member Methodist megachurch in a deeply conservative, rural area of Kansas, Hamilton would typically fit the profile of a right-wing Republican Christian.

However, along with support for fiscal responsibility and a strong military, the 62-year-old Hamilton backs legal access to abortion and protecting LGBTQ rights in his campaign for the US Senate.

Citing the “crassness and mean-spiritedness” of Trump’s presidency, he said what’s happening in Washington is “inconsistent with the values that I’ve preached for 36 years.”

“I want to stand up and be heard saying: ‘This is not OK.'”

– What insults Jesus? –

Democrats have a long tradition of clergy in politics, but predominately among African Americans.

In Congress now, there’s Senator Raphael Warnock, who leads Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church, where Martin Luther King Jr was pastor.

But the last white, Democratic pastor in Congress was Bob Edgar, a Methodist minister representing Pennsylvania from 1975 to 1987.

Now, in these midterms, no fewer than seven white clergy or ministers-in-training representing the Democratic Party are vying for congressional seats.

From Iowa, Texas, Alaska, Arkansas, Kansas and Tennessee, they’re mostly political newcomers. Three of them are women.

But they’re united in aiming to reclaim the Bible from Republicans and using Christian teaching to support more liberal policies on immigrants and the poor.

Perhaps the most prominent is James Talarico, a 37-year-old Presbyterian seminarian running for a Senate seat in Texas.

In a staunchly conservative, Republican-led state, his Scripture-laden speeches have helped him make deep inroads.

“You want to know what insults Jesus? Kicking the sick off health care while cutting the taxes of billionaires,” Talarico said in one speech.

– Religious Democrat? It’s OK –

One reason Republicans have dominated the white Christian electorate is that Democrats have gradually shifted from being identified as the party of the working class to a secular elite where religion can be unfashionable.

Indira Duggirala, co-chair of the Democratic National Committee’s Interfaith Council, acknowledged that there has been a “vacuum in that religious space in Democratic politics.”

The emergence of these faith-oriented candidates — which she said happened organically — “is not an unwelcome change.”

“It’s OK to be a Democrat and be religious,” she told AFP, while emphasizing that government must be secular.

For many Democrats, as well as many Christians, Trump’s MAGA movement and the rise of Christian nationalism have been alarming.

There’s been particular revulsion at the way Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth holds Pentagon prayer meetings and uses stridently religious language to justify the US war against Iran.

“Christian nationalism is one of the biggest threats to democracy in the United States,” said Robb Ryerse, an evangelical pastor who is vying for a congressional seat in Arkansas, another predominantly red state.

But Ryerse, 51, and others in the Democratic Christian pushback say they are ready to right wrongs.

“We need people of faith to stand up and say the United States has a separation of church and state,” Ryerse said, describing one aspect of his mission as helping to “clean up the mess” made by fellow white Christians on the right.

If he wins, Hamilton would be the first Kansas Democrat elected to the US Senate since 1932 — and he says he’s ready to make that history.

“It’s time,” he said. “I think we’re going to do it. There are a lot of people out there who are saying we need change.”

The Gateway Pundit: Far-Left Country Singer Kacey Musgraves Slams Texas Bible Lessons in Schools as ‘Indoctrination’.

by Cassandra MacDonald
Jul. 12, 2026 6:20 pm

Country music star Kacey Musgraves has once again weighed in with her far-left political views, this time by lashing out at Texas for approving new education guidelines that include Bible-based lessons in elementary schools.

Musgraves shared a Dallas Morning News article on her Instagram account and added the caption, “The bible being forced by people who don’t even follow it themselves. smfh. This is simply indoctrination and it’s not okay.”

The singer has long positioned herself as one of country music’s most vocal liberals, using her platform to champion left-wing causes and attack Republican figures.

Her latest attack on Texas comes after the state approved curriculum materials that include brief references to biblical concepts in early elementary lessons. The content is limited and educational in nature.

In kindergarten materials, teachers discuss the Golden Rule as a way of helping one’s neighbor and explain that the Bible is “a collection of ancient texts” whose parts form “the core books of the Jewish and Christian religions.”

A third-grade lesson on the first Thanksgiving mentions how the governor of Plymouth referenced “several passages from the Christian Bible in the book of Psalms” and notes that the Psalms are songs, poems, and hymns “that are used in both Jewish and Christian worship.”

These are contextual references to history and shared cultural heritage, not theological indoctrination or mandatory religious instruction.

In 2019, following mass shootings in El Paso and Dayton, she took direct aim at then-President Donald Trump during a Lollapalooza performance and on social media. She tweeted, “Don’t you hear us, @realDonaldTrump? Don’t you hear our pain? You have the power to become a hero. Why don’t you take it?” and followed up by saying it was “indescribably mind-numbing” to see Trump “blatantly and murderously ignore doing ONE THING that would not only make people happy but would SAVE PEOPLE’S LIVES,” while pushing for gun control measures.

She later doubled down, framing any support for Trump as harmful.

In the lead-up to the 2020 election, Musgraves went further, declaring that voting for Trump was “an act of violence against” LGBTQ individuals, writing on X, “If you love an LGBTQ+ person and you’re planning on voting for Donald Trump in November, that’s an act of violence against them.”

Musgraves also called Trump a “f-cking tool” in comments about his handling of the coronavirus pandemic that same year.

More recently, in April, Musgraves mocked Trump by sharing an AI-generated image that replaced him in a viral “Jesus-like” photo with Dolly Parton.

Her hit song “Follow Your Arrow” featured woke lyrics like “kiss lots of boys, or kiss lots of girls if that’s what you’re into.”

She has carefully crafted a public persona as a self-described liberal misfit in the traditionally conservative country music world.

Musgraves has upcoming concert dates scheduled in Texas later this year.

The Post Millennial: MAMDANI’S NYC: Homeless encampment with drug trafficking, prostitution reaches 12 blocks.

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“People stopped parking here.

People are scared to park here.”

A homeless encampment on Manhattan’s West Side has grown to span roughly 12 city blocks, prompting complaints from residents, workers, and tourist officials over alleged crime, including drug activity and prostitution.

According to a report by the New York Post, dozens of tents and makeshift shelters now stretch from 34th Street to 46th Street along 11th Avenue. The sight has caused issues for local workers and residents, as well as tourists visiting the Intrepid museum.

“We can’t get rid of them,” an unidentified city parks enforcement officer told the outlet. “These ones here are stealing everything… They take what they can. And there are escorts in there too. Prostitutes. I see them, they’re right there.”

“Definitely getting worse,” she added. “People stopped parking here. People are scared to park here.”

Nearby workers have said that open drug dealing and prostitution have become commonplace, with one tent reportedly serving as a gathering place for sex work, drug transactions, or both.

“This is crazy,” said one supervisor at the Jacob Javits Center nearby. “The cops and the sanitation guys and the outreach guys, they clean up one spot and after that day, the next day they’re over here. Then they’re over there. They’re kind of just spreading around.”

The supervisor explained that the worst parts are on 36th and 37th, where it is filled with heroin addicts.

Meanwhile, one vagrant there called socialist Mayor Zohran Mamdani “awesome” for allowing the encampment to continue and halting police raids. This comes as city records show that 311 calls complaining about the vagrants increased to 48 this year from 40 in 2025.

Cristyne Nicholas, chair of the New York State Tourism Advisory Council, appointed by Governor Kathy Hochul, said the encampment “doesn’t put New York tourism in a positive light” either.

“The Intrepid Museum is one of New York’s greatest tourist attractions, drawing millions of visitors each year,” she said. “Tourists are forced to walk around squalor and stench. I hope the mayor focuses on this, as he’s promoted tourism during the World Cup. He understands tourism.”

Two girls, 13, are injured in knife ‘rampage’ at German school

Two 13-year-old girls have been seriously wounded and a 16-year-old suspect arrested after an attack at a secondary school in the southern German state of Bavaria on Wednesday, according to police and local media.

‘The arrested individual is a 16-year-old juvenile,’ police confirmed in a post on X, later adding that there ‘are no indications of additional individuals involved in the offence’. They later added that this was a ’16-year-old boy’.

While the full extent of casualties is still being clarified, the two girls were confirmed as ‘seriously’ wounded, after police initially said ‘several’ people were injured.

The perpetrator appeared to have deliberately targeted the Welfen grammar school in the town of Schongau in a suspected ‘rampage’, a police spokeswoman told AFP.

She was unable to confirm press reports according to which the assailant used a knife in the attack.

More than 15 patrol cars were dispatched to the Welfen-Gymnasium in Schongau, southwest of Munich.

A police spokesperson previously told Bavarian broadcaster BR there were indications of a possible shooting spree, as officers urged the public to avoid the area.

The alarm was raised around 12.50pm local time, during school hours.

Investigators are currently determining whether the suspect is a current or former student of the school. Police said they are ‘currently assuming that the perpetrator acted alone’.

A police spokesperson told German outlet BILD: ‘We cannot rule out the possibility of a school shooting.’

The incident is believed to have taken place partly outside and partly in the immediate vicinity of the high school.

The alleged perpetrator apparently attempted to flee the scene but was apprehended a short time later.

A police helicopter was deployed during the search for the suspect.

Schongau is a small town on the banks of the Lech River in western Upper Bavaria, just north of the Alps, with a population of more than 12,000 people.

Police advised the public to continue to stay away from the scene.

‘A major police operation is underway,’ they had warned in an earlier post. ‘We are on site with numerous forces.’

A support centre for relatives and parents of students has been set up at the fire station on Bahnhofstrasse.

Security sources initially reported four injuries, but the total amount of victims has not yet been confirmed.

Police said ‘several people’ were injured without giving an exact figure.

Welfen-Gymnasium is part of a school complex. A secondary school and a middle school are also located nearby but were not affected.

Last month, a 45-year-old man in an apparent child custody dispute was the suspected shooter at a shelter for mothers and children in northern Germany.

The shooting on June 29 left six people dead.

The man ​had an appointment at the shelter in Stade, close to the port ​city of Hamburg, in the morning before opening fire midday.

All ⁠the victims – four women and two men – were employees of the facility. The ​man’s three-month-old daughter and the mother are safe.

Mass shootings are rare in Germany, ​especially when compared to the United States.

In 2023, a gunman in Hamburg shot ​dead six people before killing himself at a Jehovah’s Witness worship hall.

In 2016, an 18-year-old ‌German-Iranian ⁠man who was obsessed with mass killings killed at least nine people in Munich.

While serious violence at schools is unusual in Germany, it is not unknown.

Last year, a 17-year-old seriously wounded a 45-year-old teacher at a vocational college in the western city of Essen and was shot by police before his arrest.

In 2002, a 19-year-old gunman killed 16 people, including 12 teachers and two pupils, at a school in the eastern city of Erfurt.

How God Reignites The Light Within You

Even the darkest seasons cannot extinguish the light God places in our hearts to guide others, as this reflection from Karin Hadadan illustrates. Complementing this vision, Rebecca Simon’s Finding God Every Day invites a lifestyle of awareness that helps us reclaim and share the light God has placed within us. You are the light of […]

How God Reignites The Light Within You

Ignoring Doesn’t Cancel

Ignoring something does not make it go away… you are only delaying the inevitable. Bishop Shammah Womack-El teaches us to take our heads out of the sand and face our challenges with the strength God has given us. from Bishop Shammah Womack-El https://www.youtube.com/shorts/CkhyIpB7Jqw

Ignoring Doesn’t Cancel

Fetterman: Dems Who Endorsed Swalwell, Platner Should Stop Allying with ‘Dirtbags’

On Monday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “Ingraham Angle,” Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) stated that there are Democrats who have endorsed both Eric Swalwell and Graham Platner in their Senate races and remarked, “maybe stop getting [in] bed with absolute dirtbags, someone like Platner.”

Fetterman said, [relevant remarks begin around 2:30] “He was already a dead man walking politically, so, regardless. Now, when the entire Democratic Party in Maine has called him to leave, and now, also, as far as I know, whether it’s Schumer, Gillibrand and other leadership in the D.S. and other people have all called [for him to] go, he’s a dead man walking. I don’t know why he’s trying to pretend that he’s not done, too. Even those Pod Save America people that pushed that dirtbag, and they dismissed those things in The New York Times article, maybe they ought to apologize to the women that clearly they didn’t believe or they dismissed that.”

He added, “I know Democrats that have back-to-back endorsed and got all in on Swalwell and were on the Platner train as well, too. So, maybe stop getting [in] bed with absolute dirtbags, someone like Platner.”

In light of the debate surrounding truth and biological reality, Trump in January 2025 signed an executive order titled,

“Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism And Restoring Biological Truth To The Federal Government,” Breitbart News reported:

“Across the country, ideologues who deny the biological reality of sex have increasingly used legal and other socially coercive means to permit men to self-identify as women and gain access to intimate single-sex spaces and activities designed for women, from women’s domestic abuse shelters to women’s workplace showers,” the order reads, explaining that this is “wrong” and adding that such moves — namely, attempts to remove the reality of biological sex — “fundamentally attack women by depriving them of their dignity, safety, and well-being.”

“The erasure of sex in language and policy has a corrosive impact not just on women but on the validity of the entire American system. Basing Federal policy on truth is critical to scientific inquiry, public safety, morale, and trust in government itself,” Trump’s order reads, blasting the left for replacing the “immutable biological reality of sex with an internal, fluid, and subjective sense of self unmoored from biological facts.”

A poll in May 2025 found Americans were increasingly rejecting transgender ideology and showed support for how Trump was handling the issue, according to Breitbart News.

Seattle has long been a center for controversy when it comes to transgender issues.

In 2019, a city official was placed on leave after it was reported she hired a transgender stripper to dance topless at a homelessness conference. A Seattle museum in 2022 planned to host a summer camp led by a cross-sex “drag artist” to train children on how to “create your own personas.” And Seattle’s public schools published a lesson plan telling fourth graders to write a letter with advice to a child who knew he was a girl “from the time she was two years old,” Breitbart News reported.
–

Dem with White House ambitions ripped after backing two scandal-plagued candidates: ‘Troubling’

By Alec Schemmel Fox News
Published July 7, 2026 7:51pm EDT

Sen Ruben Gallego drops Platner months after he also rescinded an endorsement of Eric Swalwell over sexual misconduct allegations

Sen. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., who has left the door open to a 2028 presidential run, is facing new questions about his judgment after rescinding support for a second Democratic candidate accused of misconduct involving women.

Gallego rescinded his endorsement of Maine Senate nominee Graham Platner on Monday after a rape allegation surfaced. The move comes just months after Gallego pulled his support from Eric Swalwell’s disastrous California gubernatorial bid amid separate allegations of sexual assault and misconduct.

Both Platner and Swalwell have denied the allegations against them. In a social media post on X announcing he would be withdrawing his support for Platner, Gallego called the accusations against Platner “troubling and deeply serious.”

Meanwhile, Lyndsey Fifield, Platner’s former girlfriend who has publicly accused Platner of abusive behavior, called out Gallego after the Arizona senator withdrew his Platner endorsement Monday, suggesting Gallego had ample warning signs before finally abandoning the embattled Maine Democrat.

“Mine weren’t sufficiently troubling or serious for you, right?”

Fifield wondered in response to a social media post on X from Gallego, referring to the accounts of her relationship with Platner provided to The New York Times and published several weeks ago.

Fifield’s allegations were included in a June 4 New York Times report examining Platner’s past relationships in which she alleged that he repeatedly grabbed her hard enough to leave marks, pulled her from a cab by the wrist and, in one incident, twisted her arm behind her back and held her in a room while they were dating several years ago. Fifield told the Times Platner never hit or punched her but said the alleged incidents left her shaken and afraid. Platner denied being violent and called the allegations false.

Still, Platner drew support from influential Democratic figures before and after the Times report. “Pod Save America” co-host Jon Lovett acknowledged after the June 4 story that the Times had reported allegations that Platner was “intimidating and even physically aggressive with past romantic partners” but argued Democrats had to weigh whether they preferred “a Democratic majority with Graham Platner in the Senate” or a Republican majority with incumbent Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine.

Fellow co-host Jon Favreau had previously praised Platner as Democrats’ “best and only chance” to beat Collins and as a “good, decent man who’s struggled and grown and is always trying to do better.”

“Senator Gallego did the right thing and broke with those individuals when he learned they had betrayed values he proudly fights for,” a Gallego spokesperson told Fox News Digital.

But Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., said people like Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., needed to apologize for backing Platner, telling Fox News’ Laura Ingraham that he “refused” early on to look past the claims.

“What he did is he effectively broke in her home – he went in her home without her consent, then he came upstairs and assaulted her. She also described that created a dangerous situation for a possible pregnancy because of those circumstances, what he’s done,” Fetterman said of the latest allegations.

“He was already a dead man walking politically,” Fetterman continued. “Even those ‘Pod Save America’ people who pushed that dirtbag — and they dismissed those things in The New York Times article — maybe they ought to apologize to the women that clearly they didn’t believe or they dismissed.

“I know Democrats that have back-to-back endorsed and gone all in on Swalwell and were on the Platner train as well too. So, maybe stop getting in bed with absolute dirtbags, someone like Platner.”

A Fox News Digital review of public endorsement announcements and press reports found Gallego was the only sitting member of Congress clearly identified as having endorsed both Swalwell and Platner. Separate state and local affiliates within the SEIU and AFL-CIO labor union networks were involved in each race, but they were not the same endorsing entities.

“The allegations against Platner are awful but are also unsurprising to anyone who actually read the NYT catch-and-kill story. The victim strongly implied the allegations there,” former chief counsel to Senate Leader Mitch McConnell, Mike Fragoso, said this week after the latest round of allegations against Platner.

The latest allegation came from Jenny Racicot, a Maine Democrat who said she dated Platner on and off from 2019 to 2021 and had previously spoken to the Times for its June story. Racicot alleged in a Monday Politico report that Platner entered her home uninvited in late 2021 after she told him not to come over, was intoxicated, ignored her repeated objections and forced her to have sex.

Politico reported that it reviewed text messages and emails with Racicot’s therapist and spoke with people she said she confided in after the alleged assault. Platner has once again denied the allegation as false.

Gallego joined several other prominent Democrats after the Politico report in rescinding support for Platner or calling on him to exit the race, while Democratic operatives face a tight window under Maine election law to replace him if he withdraws.

“Gallego’s judgment is troubling,” Republican Arizona state Sen. Warren Peterson said. “Another Gallego endorsement going down in flames.”

“There is a bizarre pattern of Gallego, who claimed complete ignorance of his friend Eric Swalwell’s alleged abusive treatment of women and is now doing the same with Graham Platner,” said Jonathan Turley, a Fox News Media contributor and George Washington University law professor.

“For Schumer’s PAC, Senatorial, Gallego, the Pod Bros, et al. the only real difference now is polling,” Fragoso said of the changing sentiment toward Platner.

Meanwhile, conservative commentator Ryan Girdusky took aim at Gallego’s personal history, writing on X, “Ruben Gallego is dropping Graham Platner like he’s a pregnant wife.”

The jab comes as Gallego has also faced separate scrutiny in reference to his 2016 divorce from wife Kate Gallego, who was pregnant at the time.

Unsealed divorce records reportedly showed that Gallego filed for divorce on Dec. 15, 2016, and that his own motion to seal the case noted Kate Gallego had “not yet been served” but was “likely to give birth any day.”

In addition to scrutiny over his divorce, Gallego has faced complaints over his campaign spending on family travel, childcare and other personal expenses. A week ago, Politico reported that Gallego used campaign money on family trips to Miami, Saint Barthélemy, Disneyland, Disney World and Chicago. He also used funds to attend the 2023 Super Bowl in Arizona, but the senator insisted that the tickets were a legitimate campaign fundraising expense.