Out of the Shadows: Wicca Grows in Austin and Beyond

…Mary Caldwell has spiky pink hair, tattooed arms and works in customer service for a software company. She’s also the leader of a Wicca meet-up that gathers every other Monday at Monkey Nest Coffee on Burnet Road.

…as well as rituals and personal experiences with spirits. Recently, some members of the group had visited a local cemetery to commune with spirits.

“Some of the people in the group just see them, some just hear them and some of them just smell them,” said Caldwell, 44. “It was great fun.”

Wicca is a modern version of ancient pagan religions, created in England and brought to the United States in the 1960s. Its followers worship a goddess and a god, honor the Earth and practice ritual magic…

“We believe that everything is part of the One,” said Ed Fitch, 80, a Wiccan senior high priest and a member of Caldwell’s meet-up group, one of several Wiccan or witches’ groups in Austin. “Everything in the universe is linked to everything else in the universe.”

…The American Religious Identification Survey, which periodically surveys 50,000 Americans, said the number of self-identified Wiccans increased to 342,000 in 2008, up from 134,000 in 2001. The 2008 figures are the most recent available.

Wicca’s growth tracks the changing religious landscape in the U.S., as a growing number of people leave established religions and become either unaffiliated or switch to alternative religions. About 5.9 percent of Americans followed a non-Christian faith in 2014, up from 4.7 percent in 2007, according to the Pew Research Center,

“The number of people who have institutional affiliation are declining in general, so [Wicca] is part of a larger trend,” said Jennifer Graber, an associate professor of religious studies at the University of Texas at Austin. “People are not aligning themselves in traditional religious ways.”

…“We don’t just have god, who in Christian values is a white male. We’ve got a goddess. They are equal to each other.”

…Caldwell dabbled in Wicca when she was a teenager, but said her interest faded as she grew up and had children. It was not until eight years ago that she became fully devoted the religion.

…“It’s funny, because I’ve got people who are devoted Catholics coming to me and saying, ‘I’ve got a problem, and can you do a spell for me?’ ” she said.

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British Muslim Sadiq Khan sworn in as London mayor touted as win for Qur’an

Acknowledge Muhammad as “the” prophet or face sharia law as an infidel:
“All Muslims are obliged to kill the infidel. An infidel (or kafir) is a non-Muslim. Many Muslims think that killing an infidel guarantees going straight to paradise.”

Labour party candidate comfortably outruns Conservative rival Zac Goldsmith, becoming the city’s first Muslim mayor.

The British Labour party’s Sadiq Khan has been sworn in as London’s new mayor after comfortably beating his nearest rival, Conservative MP Zac Goldsmith.

Speaking at the ceremony at Southwark Cathedral on Saturday, Khan called the city the “greatest in the world”, adding he was “proud” and “deeply humbled” by his win.

“I want every single Londoner to get the opportunities that the city gave to me and my family…the opportunities not just to survive, but to thrive,” Khan pledged.

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Fallon: Clinton’s Lawyer Is In Constant Contact with Justice Department


Clinton campaign spokesman Brian Fallon said Friday that Hillary Clinton’s attorney has been in contact with the Justice Department throughout the investigation into her use of a private email server as secretary of state.

“David Kendall is her top counsel and he has been in touch with the Justice Department throughout this review. We’ve always been very upfront about that,” Fallon said in an interview on CNN.

The FBI has already interviewed Clinton’s closest aide, Huma Abedin, as well as some other Clinton confidantes, CNN reported Thursday. However, in an interview with MSNBC Tuesday, Clinton said that the FBI had still not contacted her “representatives.”

Fallon did not address Clinton’s apparent mistruth. Instead, the spokesman confirmed Clinton’s claim that the FBI still had not contacted her.

“She said no, because the honest answer is it hasn’t happened yet,” Fallon said. “But whenever they do, we’ll be happy to accommodate that and make it happen.”

In the same Tuesday interview, Clinton denied that foreign hackers breached her server. Fallon and the State Department have stood by her assertion, despite the Romanian hacker Guccifer’s claim Wednesday that he easily hacked into Clinton’s email.

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Pelosi, Vicente Fox plot to defeat Trump, Mexican calls Trump voters lazy drunks


Latin America’s toughest critic of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump spent 30 minutes with House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi in Mexico this week plotting to help the Democrats defeat the businessman and give the presidency to Hillary Clinton.

…former Mexican President Vicente Fox also said that he is “becoming a fan of” Clinton, compared her to British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, and disparaged Trump supporters as lazy, uneducated, TV watching drunks.

…”We need to wake up that citizen. We need them to take them away from the TV and drinking beer, to working hard, to getting the skills, to getting knowledge, and they will come along, like everybody else.”

On a media tour to promote an anti-Trump, “compassionate, intelligent leadership” agenda, he said that he met with Pelosi at the airport in Mexico City Sunday and discussed ways he can help convince Latin American immigrants in the United States to reject Trump.

“What I’ve been saying here, I told her. Count with us, with all Mexicans, to support the Democratic Party…”

“We will never convince any Mexican either in the (United) States or in Mexico or any Latin American in the States or Latin America to support this false prophet,” he said.

He repeatedly called Trump “stupid,” and a “false prophet,” and called on Americans to “wake up” and reject the Republican.

WATCH FULL

A Christian letter to nominee Trump

Dear Mr. Trump:

One of the things I appreciate about you is that you’re exceptionally direct. So am I.

And so I’ll be direct.

I am a Ted Cruz supporter and part of what they’re calling the “#NeverTrump” crowd. As it now stands, and, speaking of directness, absent some direct revelation from the Holy Spirit Himself, I cannot, and will not, vote for you in November. (I hope you’ll continue reading. I do not intend this as an attack in anyway.)

Still, and before I jump into my profound reservations about your presidential candidacy, let me share a few more things that I appreciate about you. First, though many people, yourself included, have said that you “are the establishment,” I nonetheless appreciate that you took on the mealy-mouthed GOP establishment this primary season. The conservative base of the Republican Party is sick of their empty campaign promises, gutless lack of resolve and failure to use all means necessary to rein-in Obama.

Next, I, and others, love your often witty, always delightful smackdowns of the mainstream media – a media so marinated in leftist ideology and political correctness that they wouldn’t recognize objective journalism if it bit ’em in the … well, you get the idea.

Finally, you have quickly come to both signify and personify Middle America’s utter disdain for all things politically correct. “I don’t frankly have time for total political correctness,” you told Megyn Kelly in the GOP’s first presidential debate. “And to be honest with you, this country doesn’t have time either.”

Amen.

Now for the negatives. While there are many, for the sake of brevity I’ll address but a few. These negatives alone, to me, are absolute deal breakers.

Mr. Trump, I don’t oppose you because I’m Republican and you’re not. I don’t even oppose you because I’m conservative and you’re not. I oppose you, sir, because I’m a Christ follower.

Now, let me be clear. I know that I don’t speak for all faithful, Bible-believing Christians. In fact, there are many I both know and respect who plan to vote for you, some who even publicly endorsed you from the onset. I do not intend to indict them, judge them or even persuade them to do otherwise.

Still, there are many more who, like me, cannot, with a clear conscience, vote for you.

Let’s start from 30,000 feet and bring it in for a landing. Some of my Christian brothers and sisters have noted, accurately, that God has a wonderful way of using unlikely, broken and even wicked people for good (we are none righteous, not even one [see Romans 3:10]).

He may be doing that with you, and I pray He is.

Still others have even compared you to King David, a “man after God’s own heart,” who was both a murderer and adulterer. I love David’s story because it reminds me of my own. I’ve done some pretty horrible things in my life that, but for Christ’s amazing grace, forgiveness and sacrifice on the cross, I’d be getting exactly what I deserve – eternal separation from God.

King David was a sinner. I’m a sinner. You’re a sinner. But, as best I can tell, it is gross error to compare you to King David in any way. David, you see, was contrite. He was more than contrite. He was humble because he was humbled. He basked in humility because he willingly received God’s well-deserved humiliation and discipline. David was utterly broken and gloriously repentant for his many sins. He begged God with some of the most sincere and beautiful words ever written, for forgiveness most undeserved.

And God forgave Him.

Humility does not mean weakness. David was meek, he was not weak. Meekness is restrained strength.

Here’s where I must be direct. You and I, Mr. Trump, are no King Davids. Not only is there no evidence that you are broken, contrite, humble and repentant for your own very public sins; you, even today, continue, unrepentantly, to commit those sins and boast of them on the campaign trail. Hell, some of them, like crowing about your book, wherein you brag about all the hot chicks you scored and the times you cheated on your wives, are even part of your stump speech.

For his adultery David begged God, “Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions. Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin” (Psalm 51:1-2).

By contrast, when recently asked about God’s forgiveness for your own storied past, you said, “I don’t like to have to ask for forgiveness. Why do I have to repent or ask for forgiveness, if I am not making mistakes?

”Well, because God demands it, for starters.

And so you remain an unrepentant serial adulterer who personally attacks his political opponents as “stupid liars,” sleazily suggests that their wives are ugly, absurdly intimates that their fathers conspired to assassinate JFK (you admitted the next day you were lying), brags about the size of his manhood from the debate stage, even now says that Planned Parenthood, an organization that gets filthy rich tearing live babies limb-from-limb and selling their body parts, “does wonderful things and we should not defund it,” essentially stated, just weeks ago, that men in miniskirts have a right to shower alongside our wives and daughters, and, neither last nor least, habitually and unapologetically verbally abuses women – somebody’s wives, mothers and daughters – by calling them “pigs,” “ugly,” “fat” or “great pieces of a–.”

Moreover, Mr. Trump, if elected you will be the very first U.S. president to have owned (and/or presently maintain stock in) strip clubs. Your Trump Taj Mahal strip club “Scores” in Atlantic City, for example, among the most mundane. You, sir, have profited, and continue to profit, from the sexual exploitation of precious young women created in the image and likeness of Almighty God – women who, not long ago, were not unlike my 11 and 12-year-old daughters.

You’re a worldly man, Mr. Trump. You know that many of these women are drug-addicted and were sexually abused as children. You also know that strip clubs (particularly Vegas/Atlantic City strip clubs) are hotbeds for sex trafficking (sex slavery) and prostitution.

This misogynistic exploitation of women and girls, on your part, is both reprehensible and inexcusable. Not only is it unbecoming of any man who wishes to hold the highest office in the entire land; it is decidedly unwise of any man who doesn’t wish to have some father or brother jerk him out of his limo for roadside dental work.

By all indication, you have neither asked these girls’ forgiveness, God’s forgiveness, nor ceased this shameless exploitation.

You have not repented.

And so I will not vote for you.

But I will pray for you.

Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2016/05/a-christian-letter-to-nominee-trump/#swC40fBRkXSZV7KX.99

Cannes: Terror Attack Ahead of Film Festival

“You have to be prepared for what we consider a multi-terror event,” said city security consultant Nitzan Nuriel.

With 200 extras on hand and fake car bombs going off, it could have been a film shoot. Instead, the city of Cannes Thursday morning conducted a simulation of coordinated terror attacks designed to test emergency responders ahead of the annual film festival next month.

The fake explosion rocked the city’s Palais and was followed by four armed terrorists forcing their way up the Palais’ grand entrance, where the red carpet will be rolled out in just three weeks. Local schools also participated, with security drills that would come into play in case of a terror attack.

The extras were lying “injured” in red vests along the Croisette and splayed across the steps of the Palais.

The simulations were the first of their kind, put in place to test out the city’s new security protocols following the Charlie Hebdo attacks last January and the Le Bataclan attacks in November in Paris.

ORIGIONAL

“I only found out we might be in danger when I saw that video,” says one industry veteran after Cannes staged a fake terror attack to test its security readiness ahead of next month’s festival.

With the world’s biggest film festival only a few weeks away, Cannes made a very public show of force. Last Thursday, the city on the Cote d’Azur staged a dramatic, some would say chilling, test run of what might happen if terrorists target the stars, film industry execs and thousands of fans who descend on the Croisette every year.

A video of the exercise, which featured masked gunmen with machine guns storming the famed red-carpeted steps of the Cannes Palais as shots rang out, played on repeat on French television and circulated widely on the internet.

The purpose, according to Palais president Claire-Anne Reix, was to show fest attendees “that we are training, that we are preparing, that we are ready. It’s not frightening. What should be frightening is all the videos you see on the internet, not the coverage of an exercise.”

But for many heading to Cannes, the images of gunfights between police and men in balaclavas and the sound of (fake) car bombs exploding was anything but reassuring.

“I only found out we might be in danger when I saw that video — I wasn’t thinking about it until then,” said Yuhka Matoi, an international sales exec for Japan’s Tokyo Broadcasting System. “Maybe I’ll stay away from the red carpet [this year].”

Cannes Faces Backlash Over Chilling Terrorist Simulation Video

The Other Side of Cannes: Muslim Community Fights Prejudice as Jihadi Cell Linked to City

Six hundred meters from the Croisette lies a community of French Muslims who remained largely invisible until their mosque briefly became the unwitting base for one of the most dangerous terrorist cells in French history: Festivalgoers “have no idea of what’s really going on here.”

…the Mosquee Al Madina, the main mosque in Cannes, which sits above the Croisette, just 600 meters from the Palais des Festivals…

…the tension has escalated as the Cannes Film Festival gets underway amid heightened security in the wake of terrorist bombings in Paris and Brussels. Recent reports from Senegal via Italian intelligence warned of possible terrorist attacks on beaches in the South of France and Italy, raising the specter of small bombs, planted under deck chairs and hidden inside cans of energy drinks, just waiting to detonate…

…reporting the details of terror cells like the so-called Cannes-Torcy gang, a 22-member jihadi cell with ties to ISIS in Syria that attacked a Jewish grocery in the Paris suburb of Sarcelles…

…He first was detected crossing the Greek border but was let go — even though he had $1,700 in cash and a USB drive containing a document titled “How to Make Bombs in the Name of Allah” — because there was no warrant for his arrest in Europe. Shortly thereafter, he was arrested at his father’s high-rise apartment outside Cannes, where he was found with three Red Bull cans containing TATP explosives and wigs and disguises thought to be part of his plan to stage the carnival attack…

…The kosher grocery in Sarcelles that was attacked by members of the Cannes-Torcy terrorist cell…

Hollywood Reporter

Hacker Claims He Breached Hillary Clinton’s Email Server — ‘It Was Easy’

Romanian hacker Marcel Lehel Lazar, better known as “Guccifer,” was extradited from his native Romania to a detention center in Alexandria, Virginia, last month.

The curiously-timed move was widely assumed to have some connection to the Hillary Clinton email scandal, as Lazar’s exploits are the major reason the American people know about Hillary Clinton’s secret mail system.

Clinton was able to keep her official correspondence hidden from Congress and the Freedom of Information Act, until Guccifer hacked the America Online account of Clinton confidant Sidney Blumenthal. The former Secretary of State’s “Clintonemail.com” address appeared on some of the stolen Blumenthal emails.

Fox News scored a jailhouse interview with Lazar on Wednesday, and he made the bombshell claim that he did hack into Clinton’s server, which — as the world now knows — contained thousands of classified documents, some at the highest Top Secret level.

“For me, it was easy,” said Lazar. Then he made it less of a boast and more of a slam on Clinton’s weak system security: “Easy for me, for everybody.”…

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Bernstein: There Will Be ‘Very Damaging’ Leaks From Hillary Email Investigation, Her Actions Reckless and Entitled

On Wednesday’s “CNN Tonight,” Journalist and author Carl Bernstein stated that there would be “very damaging” leaks from the investigation into Democratic presidential candidate former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s email, and described her conduct as “what she did was an act of recklessness, and entitlement, that there’s no excuse for.”

Bernstein began by stating that in the general election “all bets are off,” including the usual GOP-Dem breakdown as an important factor, celebrity might be more important than ideology, and “TMZ, Drudge, new media, [are] going to have a huge role in this, much more than the usual, fact-based media…

Bernstein then said, “[T]he folks around Hillary, who are not the usual Clinton Kool Aid drinkers…they’re worried, they know that their candidate has performed awfully, and that [Democratic presidential candidate Senator] Bernie Sanders (I-VT) has drubbed her.” …

Full

GOP chairman kisses Trump’s ass | New York Post

GOP chairman Reince Priebus doubled down on his newfound love for Donald Trump on Wednesday, saying the tycoon’s unconventional campaign was actually a good thing for the party.Priebus, facing the task of unifying a fractured GOP, said Trump’s stunning takeover of the Republican Party as a step forward.“You know what, I think something different and something new is probably good for our party,” Priebus told CNN’s “New Day.”After Trump’s big win in the Indiana primary and the departure of rival Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) from the race, Priebus called The Donald their party’s “presumptive nominee.”Priebus admitted the real estate titan’s rise to the top has taken him by surprise.“Look, I don’t think anyone predicted what happened,” the party big said on Wednesday. “So, look, we’re here. We’re going to get behind the presumptive nominee.”Just a few weeks ago, Priebus was snapping at Trump over the candidate’s complaints about delegate allocation rules that he believed were unfairly benefiting Cruz.“It’s the responsibility of the campaigns to understand” convention rules, Priebus tweeted about Trump’s beefs. “Complaints now? Give us all a break.”

Source: GOP chairman kisses Trump’s ass | New York Post

Kasich drops out of presidential race | New York Post

John Kasich will suspend his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination Wednesday evening, according to multiple media accounts.The Ohio governor was a no-show this morning at a press conference in Washington, DC, and his campaign said he will make an announcement at 5 p.m. in Columbus.Kasich was the only rival to front-runner Donald Trump remaining on Wednesday, after Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas quit the race Tuesday night following the New York tycoon’s decisive primary win in Indiana.

Source: Kasich drops out of presidential race | New York Post

Fox News Takes A HUGE HIT In The Ratings – No Longer First, Here’s WHY!

FACTS ON:
TRUTH ON:
Megan Kelly relentlessly attacked and tried to destroy Donald Trump
Roger Ailes (head of Fox) pushed everyone to destroy Donald Trump

Longtime viewers simply walked away.

Trump has an uncanny ability to “Change the Conversation” and expose hidden agendas.

Prophet in the zone at FOX and CNN warning FOX: “You’re ratings will drop for attacking Trump”. FOX mocked, FOX ratings Plummeted.
FACTS OFF:
TRUTH OFF”

NEWS ON:
In a surprising development from one of the weirdest election cycle we’ve ever had, it looks like CNN has knocked Fox News from it’s enormous pedestal in the ratings game!

CNN announced their victory with gleeful joy:

CNN ranked #1 in cable news in prime time in April. CNN beat Fox News for the fifth time in the last eight months in M-Su prime time (four of the past eight in M-F prime) among adults 25-54. The last time CNN had this many prime time wins in an eight-month period versus Fox News was over 14 years ago (Nov. 2001).
NEWS OFF:

The following is the spin which is exactly opposite of why Fox ratings dropped.

SPIN ON:
CONFUSION ON:
Many people are pointing to Fox News’ unrelenting pro-Trumpism for the falling numbers. Sean Hannity, Eric Bolling, Greta Van Susteren, and Bill O’Reilly have all been accused of coddling The Donald while going after his competitors. And that just doesn’t make for interesting television.

Heck he’s even gotten Megyn Kelly to befriend him, after months of very public feuding after the first Fox News debate – and Donald Trump’s supporters have been giving her death threats!!
SPIN OFF:
CONFUSION OFF:

FACTS ON:
TRUTH ON:
NOTE: Fox has only begun to be nice in the last few weeks, after months and months of rating drops during the time Megan and the rest (via Roger Ailes direction) were attacking Trump due to Roger being in bed with the RNC agenda. Long time faithful viewers of Fox got fed up months and months ago as relentless attacks and traps were set against Trump and stopped watching. Due to ratings drop Fox News now has no choice but to befriend Donald. Guess what, the long time viewers are just not coming back…

They found another news network:
http://oann.com
Anyone watching their ratings climbing?
FACTS OFF:
TRUTH OFF:

Original Spin On

Random Events, Free Will, Pre-destiny or Something Darker ?