Outrage: Fort Hood Shooting Victim Denied Benefits, Despite Purple Heart Decision

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Purple_Heart_caseBy Catherine Herridge. The Obama administration has finally acknowledged that those hurt and killed in the 2009 Fort Hood shootings were victims of terrorism — and not “workplace violence,” as it was previously described. But while formal recognition of that is set for Friday, when victims will receive the Purple Heart, it may only be symbolic.

Fox News has learned as part of its ongoing investigation of the 2009 terrorist attack that the military, at least in one case, is still denying benefits for injuries sustained in the attack.

“I think it’s almost unheard of for someone to receive the Purple Heart but not have their injuries deemed combat-related,” Shawn Manning, who was seriously injured in the 2009 attack, told Fox News. “I know that was not what Congress intended to have happen, but it is what currently the Army has determined is going to happen.”

On Nov. 5, 2009, then-Staff Sgt. Manning was shot six times by Maj. Nidal Hasan. Two bullets are still in his body — one in his leg, the other in his back — and he suffers from PTSD.

The 2015 defense budget — known as the National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA — included language that meant Fort Hood victims were eligible for the Purple Heart honor because the attack was inspired by a foreign terrorist group, and not workplace violence, as the Defense Department initially labeled it. (Read more from “Fort Hood Shooting Victim Denied Benefits, Despite Purple Heart Decision” HERE)

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‘Outrageous, Indefensible’ That Ft. Hood Victims Get Purple Heart, but No Benefits

By Michael Dorstewitz. Although the 47 victims and family members of the Fort Hood tragedy are finally being awarded their Purple Hearts after more than a five-year wait, they’re also being denied the benefits that attach to the award. And U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz is disgusted.

The Texan Republican and presidential candidate said the situation is “outrageous and it’s indefensible” during his Friday appearance on “Fox & Friends.”

Cruz noted that he helped approve bi-partisan legislation that overturned the classification of the November 2009 massacre from one of “workplace violence” to an act of terror, which led to the Purple Heart awards.

Contributing to the delay is that “this president and this administration is unwilling to acknowledge radical Islamic terrorism for what it is,” according to Cruz.

However, because the injuries themselves have been classified as non-combat-related, the recipients are still denied the financial benefits associated with the Purple Heart. (Read more from “Outrageous, Indefensible’ That Ft. Hood Victims Get Purple Heart, but No Benefits” HERE)

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Obama Mocks the Resurrection of Jesus, Watch British Prime Minister Set Him Straight [+video]

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BBritish Prime Minister, David Cameron did something our President Barack Obama is too cowardly to do: stood up for Christians.

In a bold and amazing move, Cameron sent a message to all Britons as an Easter greeting. In it, he shockingly declared England “a Christian nation” even though they would welcome those of other faiths or no faith.

“Across Britain, Christians don’t just talk about ‘loving thy neighbor’, they live it out in faith schools, in prisons, in community groups… And it’s for all these reasons that we should feel proud to say, ‘This is a Christian country.’ Yes, we’re a nation that embraces, welcomes and accepts all faiths and none, but we are still a Christian country.”

(Read more from “Obama Mocks the Resurrection of Jesus, Watch British Prime Minister Set Him Straight [+video]” HERE)

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Puerto Ricans Qualify as Disabled for Social Security Because They Can’t Speak English

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puerto ricoHundreds of Puerto Rico’s residents qualified for federal disability benefits in recent years because they lacked fluency in English, according to government auditors.

The Social Security Administration’s inspector general questioned the policy this month in light of the fact that Spanish is the predominant language in the U.S. territory.

Under Social Security regulations, individuals are considered less employable in the United States if they can’t speak English, regardless of their work experience or level of education.

In a report this month, the independent watchdog suggested that a more appropriate standard might be to consider local conditions when making benefits decisions.

According to the latest U.S. Census Bureau data, 95 percent of Puerto Rico residents above age 5 speak Spanish at home, and about 84 percent say they do not speak English “very well.” (Read more from “Puerto Ricans Who Can’t Speak English Qualify as Disabled for Social Security” HERE)

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Obama Moves Forward Plan to Remove Castro Terror Regime from U.S. Terror List

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flagsDespite the fact that the brutal Castro regime enslaving Cuba continues to support terrorism and harbor American fugitives from justice — not to mention its ruthless oppression of the Cuban people — the Obama administration is reportedly plotting to remove the Communist Party dictatorship from the official U.S. government list of state sponsors of terrorism. According to media reports, the John Kerry-led State Department completed a “review” of Havana’s record and recommended that the regime be taken off the list. However, numerous analysts have pointed out that doing so would be a disaster — not least because the Castro regime has never stopped supporting terrorism.

Obama, who is currently at the socialist-dominated “Summit of the Americas” in Panama schmoozing with various Latin American autocrats, claimed he was waiting for a “recommendation” from his advisors before deciding to remove Castro from the terror list. “That review has been completed at the State Department,” Obama was quoted as saying. “It is now forwarded to the White House. Our inter-agency team will go through the entire thing and then present it to me with a recommendation. That hasn’t happened yet.” More than a few analysts expect Obama to make his big announcement by the end of the summit, which runs into the weekend, about removing Castro from the list. Multiple media outlets reported that Obama called the tyrant over the phone prior to the confab in Panama.

Speaking in Jamaica the day before the Panama summit, Obama dropped several hints suggesting that he would cave in to Castro’s demands. “Our emphasis has been on the facts,” Obama claimed, sounding oblivious to the irony. “We want to make sure that given that this is a powerful tool to isolate those countries that genuinely do support terrorism, that when we make those designations we’ve got strong evidence that, in fact, that’s the case.” The Castro regime genuinely supports terrorism, and Obama knows that. In fact, Castro’s thugs are currently in Panama terrorizing dissidents and critics of his regime. However, as The New American has documented extensively, top establishment players — ranging from the global government-promoting Council on Foreign Relations and Big Business to the dictator-dominated United Nations — have been trying to legitimize the autocracy for years.

Critics, though, say it would be a tragedy to remove the terrorist regime from the terror list. “Removing Cuba from the U.S. terror list is a terrible mistake,” said Frank De Varona, a Cuban-born American patriot who fought to free Cuba in the Bay of Pigs invasion and was imprisoned in one of Castro’s dungeons. “Cuba continues to support terrorism around the world.” Among other strategies, De Varona told The New American that the Cuban regime, through its close ally Venezuela, was providing intelligence to Hamas and Hezbollah. The regimes ruling Cuba, Venezuela, and Iran all have a very close relationship and continue to support terrorism across the Middle East, too, he said. The Castro regime also inked a deal with Russia’s Putin to establish military, intelligence, and naval bases in Cuba that “will threaten the national security of the United States,” said De Varona, also a former university professor, author, and expert on Cuba. (Read more from “Obama Set to Remove Castro Terror Regime from U.S. Terror List” HERE)

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Competing with the NSA: China’s Powerful New Weapon to Censor Internet May Also Spy on Users

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10hack-web1-master675Late last month, China began flooding American websites with a barrage of Internet traffic in an apparent effort to take out services that allow China’s Internet users to view websites otherwise blocked in the country.

Initial security reports suggested that China had crippled the services by exploiting its own Internet filter — known as the Great Firewall — to redirect overwhelming amounts of traffic to its targets. Now, researchers at the University of California, Berkeley and the University of Toronto say China did not use the Great Firewall after all, but rather a powerful new weapon that they are calling the Great Cannon.

The Great Cannon, the researchers said in a report published on Friday, allows China to intercept foreign web traffic as it flows to Chinese websites, inject malicious code and repurpose the traffic as Beijing sees fit.

The system was used, they said, to intercept web and advertising traffic intended for Baidu — China’s biggest search engine company — and fire it at GitHub, a popular site for programmers, and GreatFire.org, a nonprofit that runs mirror images of sites that are blocked inside China. The attacks against the services continued on Thursday, the researchers said, even though both sites appeared to be operating normally.

But the researchers suggested that the system could have more powerful capabilities. With a few tweaks, the Great Cannon could be used to spy on anyone who happens to fetch content hosted on a Chinese computer, even by visiting a non-Chinese website that contains Chinese advertising content. (Read more from “China Is Said to Use Powerful New Weapon to Censor Internet” HERE)

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DHS Ordered to Explain Secret Plan to Shut Down Phone Service

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phone serviceThe U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit is questioning the Department of Homeland Security’s decision to keep secret its plan to shut down mobile phone service during “critical emergencies.” The court originally sided with the federal government that the plan should not be disclosed under a Freedom of Information Act request, but has since revisited the ruling and has ordered the DHS to explain the secrecy.

According to Ars Technica, the Department of Homeland Security plan, known as Standing Operating Procedure 303, was created after mobile phones were used to detonate explosives in London.

Court documents explain that SOP 303 is a “unified voluntary process for the orderly shut-down and restoration of wireless devices during critical emergencies such as the threat of radio-activated improvised explosive devices” . . .

As noted by The Blaze, outside groups have been requesting information about SOP 303 for years. The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) became particularly interested in SOP 303 in 2011, when officials attempted to stop a protest by shutting down cellular phone service near a San Francisco subway station. Likewise, Bay Area Rapid Transit shut down a portion of its train service during the same period. Following that incident, the Electronic Privacy Information Center filed a Freedom of Information Act request asking the federal government to disclose the federal document that granted the DHS the authority to enact SOP 303. The government agreed to the request, but redacted much of the document. (Read more from “DHS Ordered to Explain Secret Plan to Shut Down Phone Service” HERE)

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Russian Fighter Jet Nearly Collides With U.S. Spy Jet Over Europe

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jetA Russia Su-27 jet fighter flew dangerously close and nearly collided with a U.S. reconnaissance aircraft this week in the latest aerial provocation by Moscow, defense officials revealed to the Washington Free Beacon.

The Su-27 conducted the close-in intercept of an RC-135 reconnaissance aircraft in international airspace over the Baltic Sea on Tuesday, said officials. The incident prompted a diplomatic protest.

“On the morning of April 7th, a U.S. RC-135U flying a routine route in international airspace was intercepted by a Russian Su-27 Flanker in an unsafe and unprofessional manner,” said Pentagon spokeswoman Eileen M. Lainez.

“The United States is raising this incident with Russia in the appropriate diplomatic and official channels,” she said in a statement.

A defense official said the Russian fighter jet flew within 20 feet of the unarmed reconnaissance jet in what the official called a “reckless” encounter that endangered the lives of the RC-135 crew. (Read more from “Russian Fighter Jet Nearly Collides With U.S. Spy Jet Over Europe” HERE)

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NY Times Blatantly Lies About the Carry of Guns at NRA Annual Meeting

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Photo Credit: Bearing Arms

Photo Credit: Bearing Arms

If the New York Times editorial board didn’t already exist, I’d have to invent them for my amusement.

Here’s the opening for their latest op-ed.

No Firing Pins, Please, as the N.R.A. Gathers

Seventy-thousand people are expected to attend the National Rifle Association’s convention opening on Friday in Tennessee, and not one of them will be allowed to come armed with guns that can actually shoot. After all the N.R.A. propaganda about how “good guys with guns” are needed to be on guard across American life, from elementary schools to workplaces, the weekend’s gathering of disarmed conventioneers seems the ultimate in hypocrisy.

This lede paragraph in a New York Times editorial today is completely, utterly, factually false.

As NPR discovered after reading one of our articles earlier this week, convention attendees at the NRA Annual meetings can indeed carry firearms at the NRA Annual Meeting. (Read more from “NY Times Blatantly Lies About the Carry of Guns at NRA Annual Meeting” HERE)

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Dog Cancer Detection ‘98% Reliable’

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germanThe Italian study backs up tests carried out by the charity Medical Detection Dogs, which is based in Buckinghamshire.

Its co-founder Dr Claire Guest said its own research had found a 93% reliability rate when detecting bladder and prostate cancer, describing the new findings as “spectacular”.

The latest research, by the Department of Urology at the Humanitas Clinical and Research Centre in Milan, involved two German shepherds sniffing the urine of 900 men – 360 with prostate cancer and 540 without.

Scientists found that dog one got it right in 98.7% of cases, while for dog two this was 97.6%.

They said the dogs are able to detect prostate cancer specific volatile organic compounds in the urine but said an important question remains of how a dog would find it in daily practice. (Read more from “Dog Cancer Detection ‘98% Reliable'” HERE)

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Children Scream as Bees Swarm Obama During Book Reading

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Barack Obama,A beautiful day: warm, sunny. A garden in bloom filled with the laughter of children. Frolic beneath the whitewashed façade of a stately and classic old house. A friendly man in dress shirt and trousers reads aloud. Then: screams.

The young ones listening to the man are terrified. Bees have been spotted. The kids are afraid. The man, a father of two, projects calm. He pauses from his book—Where the Wild Things Are—and says, “It’s okay guys. Bees are good. They won’t land on you. They won’t sting you. They’ll be okay.”

Doesn’t work. The bees are buzzing, menacing. A few of the kids cry out. The man changes his strategy. He admonishes the children. “Hold on, hold on, you guys are wild things,” he says. “You’re not supposed to be afraid of bees.” Laughter from parents, normalcy restored. The man resumes his tale.

An amusing interruption of an otherwise placid White House Easter Egg Roll? Undoubtedly. But some in the press said more was going on, that this encounter between the innocents, President Obama, and the swarm held a more profound significance.

“‘Bees are good,’ Obama says as children scream,” read the Politico headline. “Perhaps no president in history has made a stronger case for protecting pollinators than Barack Obama,” wrote the Washington Post. “Obama trying to reassure children about bees is a perfect metaphor for his foreign policy,” pronounced a writer for Vox.com, who most recently confused New Hampshire with Vermont. (Read more from “Children Scream as Bees Swarm Obama During Book Reading” HERE)

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