(  )  Christian leaders are praising the IRS for announcing that clergy can endorse political candidates without risking their church’s tax exempt status.  Robert Jeffress, pastor of First Baptist Church in Dallas, says the decision was right adding that “The IRS has no business dictating what can be said from the pulpit.  They need to stay out of our churches.”  Jeffress says his church’s tax-exempt status was threatened recently because of an IRS investigation into their political endorsements, costing the megachurch hundreds of thousands in legal fees.  Some voices on the left are also praising the IRS decision.

(  )  Under a report to the Australian government on curbing anti-Semitism, universities would lose government funding unless they address attacks on Jewish students.  Australian universities have been the center of several pro-Palestinian protests. Anti-Semitic incidents including assaults, vandalism, threats and intimidation have surged more than threefold in Australia in the year after Hamas attacked Israel in 2023.  Synagogues and cars have been torched, businesses and homes have been graffitied and Jews have been attacked in Sydney and Melbourne.  About 85 percent of the nation’s Jewish population live in those two cities.

(  )  Democrats’ unpopular support for transgenderism is becoming an issue in various state campaigns.  Bill Berrien, a Milwaukee businessman who has just entered Wisconsin’s race for governor as a Republican is highlighting the issue.  Berrien faults Democratic Governor Tony Evers for vetoing a bill that would have barred males from playing on girls and women sports teams in Wisconsin.  He is also taking the governor to task for seeking to remove the words “woman” and “mother” in state law related to the legal rights of children of same-sex couples who are born through in vitro fertilization.  The election takes place next year.