Federal Court Allows First-Ever Class-Action Suit Against VA

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A federal court for the first time will allow a class-action lawsuit against the Department of Veterans Affairs to move ahead, a move that legal experts said opens the doors for a host of similar cases against the bureaucracy.

The decision, which could affect thousands of veterans, came late last week in the U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims. Last August, the same court for the first time ruled that class-action lawsuits would be allowed against VA in “appropriate cases,” but no such claims met court standards until now.

This case — Godsey v. Wilkie — sought relief for veterans facing lengthy waits for the department to certify their disability benefits appeals claims. The case was originally filed in 2017 on behalf of four veterans facing lengthy delays, but lawyers argued it should be broadened to include an entire class of individuals waiting for their benefits. . .

“(The court’s) order certifying a class action for the first time in its 30-year history is a landmark moment, and will help ensure that our veterans and their families have more access to the justice they deserve,” said Bart Stichman, executive director of the National Veterans Legal Services Program, which has helped oversee the case. “It has been a long time coming.”

Legal advocates for years have pushed the courts to overturn a long-held ban on class-action lawsuits against the department, arguing it effectively allows VA officials to push off systemic corrections by addressing only complaints from individual veterans. (Read more from “Federal Court Allows First-Ever Class-Action Suit Against VA” HERE)

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Driver Gets Third Murder Charge in Deaths of 2-Year-Old, Pregnant Woman, Unborn Baby

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By Breitbart. William David Phillips will face three charges of first-degree murder in the deaths of Sierra Wilson Cahoon, her son Nolan, and her unborn baby.

According to the arrest warrants, Phillips told authorities that he was compelled by a voice which “told him that he needed to go kill meth addicts, so he began driving very fast.”

At the wheel of his Chevy Impala in downtown Jefferson City, Phillips swerved onto the East Main Street sidewalk, striking 61-year-old Tillman Gunter. Police say Gunter is recovering from non-life threatening injuries.

Expectant mother Sierra Wilson Cahoon was not so fortunate. The voice “told [Phillips] that the baby stroller had meth in it, so he intentionally drove into (the mother and child) … killing them both,” the warrants continued, concluding that “this act was done with premeditation.” (Read more from “Driver Gets Third Murder Charge in Deaths of 2-Year-Old, Pregnant Woman, Unborn Baby” HERE)

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Third Murder Charge Filed Against Driver Accused of Killing Pregnant Woman, son

By Knox News. A Jefferson City, Tennessee, driver accused of intentionally running down and killing a pregnant woman and her 2-year-old son near Carson-Newman University now faces a third murder charge in connection to the death of the unborn child, police said. . .

Phillips finally crashed into a building housing a fish hatchery, where an employee inside suffered minor injuries.

Police said the suspect did not know any of the victims.

Cahoon and Nolan were the wife and son of Matt Cahoon, an assistant athletic trainer at Carson-Newman, a Christian school located on a campus less than a quarter mile from the attacks.

The university has established a fund to benefit the Cahoon family. Donations may be made online to the “Randall and Kay O’Brien Benevolent Fund.” Donations also may be given by calling the university at 865-471-3233. (Read more from “Third Murder Charge Filed Against Driver Accused of Killing Pregnant Woman, son” HERE)

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Super Bowl Champion: ‘Every Bad Thing That’s Happened to My Race over the Years’ Goes ‘Right Back to the Democratic Party’

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“Every bad thing that’s happened to my race over the years, you can go right back to the Democratic Party,” said Burgess Owens, retired NFL safety and Super Bowl champion, in a Wednesday interview on SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Tonight with hosts Rebecca Mansour and Joel Pollak.

Earlier on Wednesday, Owens testified at a hearing on slavery reparations before a House Judiciary subcommittee. He proposed that the Democrat Party pay for “all the misery” brought upon blacks across America’s history.

Owens reflected on examples of black role models he saw while growing up. “I was blessed. I grew up during that era in the Deep South during the 1960s and I had a chance to witness, first-hand, the greatness of my community at a time when we literally led our country in terms of commitment from men to marriage to the entrepreneurial process. We were very Christian-based. We were all about winning, and for us to think about being victims was the biggest insult. It just wouldn’t happen.”

“So I’m blessed that it’s not a hypothetical to me,” continued Owens. “I know how it felt. I looked around and saw the examples of great men and women. To be where we are today is an insult to them. My dad, my granddad, my great-grandfather worked too hard for their history to be forgotten. That’s actually what it takes for this socialist-Marxist shadow, and that’s all reparations is. It’s another socialist way of getting people dependent, angry, and divided. But for that to work, they have to first demean and delete our great history, and we can’t let that happen, because what we’ve done together has made our country the greatest in the history of mankind.” . . .

“If I had time [during my testimony before a House Judiciary subcommittee], I could’ve talked about not just black history, but white history together with black history that allowed us to move forward, because we’ve always had a great heart,” said Owens. “That’s who we are. That’s our DNA, and we’ve let the left delete that type of history, then they get away with making a big hole, as if we went from slavery to 1960s when Democrats allowed us to vote, and we were a hapless [and] hopeless race in between waiting for the oppressive white people to break us free. That’s not the case, and we need to make sure our history is told the way it really was.” (Read more from “Super Bowl Champion: ‘Every Bad Thing That’s Happened to My Race over the Years’ Goes ‘Right Back to the Democratic Party'” HERE)

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The OTHER Malaysian Airlines Flight: Three Russians and Ukranian Charged with Shooting down MH17

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By Townhall. Just days after The Atlantic published their comprehensive investigation on the whereabouts of Malaysian Airlines Flight 370, which disappeared into thin air in March 2014, a European joint task force revealed it has leveled charges against four men — one Ukranian and three Russians — for a second Malaysian airlines tragedy: the July 2014 explosion of MH17.

The BBC reports that the four men, who investigators believe were in direct contact with Russian officials, are accused of transporting missiles into an area of Ukraine for the purpose of shooting down a passenger jet. The four “did not push the button themselves,” investigators say, but provided the local milita with the means used to down the Malaysian airlines flight.

The joint investigative team is Dutch and plans to prosecute the four men — Igor Girkin, Sergei Dubinsky and Oleg Pulatov from Russia, and Ukrainian Leonid Kharchenkoin — in the Netherlands under Dutch law. The trial won’t begin until 2020, however, since Dutch authorities say they still have at least eight more persons of interest to investigate in relation to the case.

Investigators believe that Girkin, a former Russian intelligence official, was in “direct contact with the Russian Federation” and that he and his team were well aware of what they were arming local militias to do, and that they’d reported their progress to Russian officials. . .

Unsurprisingly, Russia has refused to cooperate with the investigation and disputes the Dutch investigators’ findings. Russian officials say they do not believe any of their anti-aircraft missiles ever crossed the Russian border into Ukraine, even though investigators believe that the missile that hit MH17 belonged to the “53rd Anti-Aircraft Missile brigade,” based in Kursk. (Read more from “The OTHER Malaysian Airlines Flight: Three Russians and Ukranian Charged with Shooting down MH17” HERE)

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MH17: Four Charged with Shooting down Plane over Ukraine

By BBC News. For the first time since Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 was shot down in July 2014, prosecutors have announced charges against suspects in the case. . .

The passenger jet left Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport at 10:15 GMT on 17 July 2014 and was due to arrive at Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia the following day.

A few hours after take-off, the plane lost contact with air traffic control about 50km (30 miles) from the Russia-Ukraine border.

At the time, an armed conflict was raging on the ground in eastern Ukraine between Russian-backed separatists and Ukrainian government forces, and several government military aircraft had been downed in the previous weeks, while government air strikes were being carried out on rebel-held areas.

The plane crashed in the Donetsk area, in territory controlled by separatists. Parts of the wreckage were found distributed over an area of about 50 sq km (19 square miles). (Read more from “MH17: Four Charged with Shooting down Plane over Ukraine” HERE)

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Singer Taylor Swift’s Pro-Pride Video Gets Ripped to Shreds by Left and Right

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Taylor Swift dropped a new pro-LGBT video this week for Pride month — and it’s earned her blistering criticism from both the Left and Right.

In a review for The Federalist, Culture Editor Emily Jashinsky provides a scathing run-down of the video’s “breathtakingly elitist” aesthetic:

To illustrate her LGBT pride anthem, Swift assembled the glitterati, casting them as the heroes of a utopian trailer park where her feud with Katy Perry ends, and ugly gay marriage protesters meet their match in a fabulous show of celebrity force. The set, of course, almost certainly cost more than what many people who make such places their home earn in a year. “Love letters only,” reads the side of one lily white mailbox in Swift World. (Where do the bills go?)

Her creativity mysteriously lapsed when it came time to cast the protesters, who look like they should be playing banjos in “Deliverance”: toothless, badly dressed, holding misspelled signs. “Control your urges to scream about all the people you hate,” Swift demands. “Cause shade never made anybody less gay.”

It’s all grotesquely elitist when you consider that she’s mocking people with less money while appropriating a trailer park lifestyle for three minutes of breezy, colorful fun. (Support for same-sex marriage declinesalong with income and education level.) Are there a lot of crazy people who yell at Swift on the Internet? Some, sure. But she went with a very specific type. The message is basically, “We’re beautiful and right; You’re poor and dumb.” If that sounds reductive or based on caricatures that would never be tolerated if used against the left’s pet identity groups, watch the video again.

(Read more from “Singer Taylor Swift’s Pro-Pride Video Gets Ripped to Shreds by Left and Right” HERE)

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Jury Finds Leader of NXIVM Sex Cult Guilty of All Charges

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The jury only needed four hours Wednesday to come to a verdict on accused “sex slave cult” leader Keith Raniere, the man whose followers called him “Vanguard” and who worked closely with former “Smallville” star Allison Mack to recruit new women to his infamous “self-help” group. The verdict: guilty of all charges.

The swiftly delivered verdict means “Vanguard” is facing a potential sentence of life in prison for a string of serious charges, including “sex trafficking of children by force, fraud or coercion,” “attempting to establish peonage, slavery, involuntary servitude, trafficking,” “sexual exploitation of a child,” and “possession of child pornography.”

“There was no shortage whatsoever of lurid testimony over the course of an accused sex cult leader’s trial in the Eastern District of New York, and it didn’t take long for a jury of his peers to reach a verdict,” Law & Crime reported Wednesday. Among the disturbing accusations presented in the trial is that Raniere created a sex slave “pyramid,” keeping women loyal through blackmail and manipulation, and encouraged his followers to abort their children in the interest of his sexual desires. Along with being “lurid,” the hearing was also highly contentious, the outlet reports:

In one instance, Judge Nicholas Garaufis (who apparently has quite a reputation) erupted, yelled “You’re done” multiple times at Raniere’s defense lawyer Marc Agnifilo. It happened while government cooperator, Lauren Salzman, was being cross examined by Agnifilo. This prompted Agnifilo to file a motion for a mistrial. The judge rejected his argument. Salzman, a former NXIVM member, recounted how she and Raniere were taking a nap at a Mexican villa when the feds showed up to arrest him. She said this happened just before a planned group oral sex session was to occur.

Agnifilo’s attempt to defend Raniere by describing his lifestyle as “disgusting,” but not illegal, ultimately failed to convince the jury, who determined that he was guilty of a lengthy list of shameful crimes. (Read more from “Jury Finds Leader of NXIVM Sex Cult Guilty of All Charges” HERE)

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DOJ Arrests Refugee After Allegedly Planning ISIS Attack on Pittsburgh Christian Church

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The Department of Justice announced Wednesday afternoon the arrest of a 21-year-old Syrian refugee who was allegedly assisting the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) with a terrorist attack targeting a Pittsburgh Christian Church.

According to authorities, Mustafa Mousab Alowemer is a current resident of Pittsburgh but arrived in the United States from war-torn Syria in August 2016. A press release sent out today by the DOJ alleges that Alowemer used various social media and technological communications to coordinate an ISIS-style attack after pledging his support to the Islamic extremist organization.

Apparently, the suspect believed he was speaking with a member of ISIS when he “distributed propaganda materials, offered to provide potential targets in the Pittsburgh area, requested a weapon with a silencer, and recorded a video of himself pledging an oath of allegiance to the leader of ISIS, Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi.”

An “FBI Pittsburgh JTTF investigation…revealed that Alowemer plotted to bomb a church located on the North Side of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (the Church), using a weapon of mass destruction” the DOJ said.

“According to Alowemer, his motivation to detonate a device at the Church was to support the cause of ISIS and to inspire other ISIS supporters in the United States to join together and commit similar acts in the name of ISIS. Alowemer also targeted the Church in order to ‘take revenge for our [ISIS] brothers in Nigeria,” the press release continued. (Read more from “DOJ Arrests Refugee After Allegedly Planning ISIS Attack on Pittsburgh Christian Church” HERE)

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What a Moron: Joe Biden Is Getting His Gun Control Agenda from James Bond

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During a fundraiser on Monday evening, former Vice President Joe Biden reference James Bond and the use of “smart guns” as a means of achieving gun control in the United States.

“If I get elected president of the United States of America with your help, if that happens, guns, we have the capacity now in a James Bond-style to make sure no one can pull a trigger unless their DNA and fingerprint is on it,” Biden said, according to the Washington Examiner. “We have that capacity to do it now. You know it.”

“But what happens? The gun manufacturers, when two folks started to sell some of those guns to two dealerships, they said, ‘We’re going to shut you down.’ My god, we don’t have to worry about the 2nd Amendment,” Biden explained. “Imagine all the people who would be alive today if the only person who could buy a gun is qualified because of background checks and they’re the only ones that can pull the trigger? So my point is there are so many things we have the capacity to do.”

It’s hard to take a presidential candidate seriously when they’re talking about implementing gun control policies simply because a fictional character has that kind of technology. While it’s great for fictional characters and movies, smart guns are absolutely not the answer to achieving “common sense” gun laws in America.

Smart guns require a person’s fingerprint to be programed into the firearm in order for the trigger to be pulled and the gun to fire. That sounds great on paper but there are practicality issues. (Read more from “What a Moron: Joe Biden Is Getting His Gun Control Agenda from James Bond” HERE)

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MUST SEE: CNN Cuts Away from Trump Rally After Crowd Breaks out in ‘CNN Sucks’ Chant; 2020 Dems Attack Re-election Campaign

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By Breitbart. CNN cut away from President Trump’s massive reelection rally in Orlando Tuesday evening after the crowd broke out in a “CNN Sucks!” chant. . .

Trump explained that 2016 was not “merely another four-year election.” He said it was a “defining moment in American history” and pointed to the cameras in the back of the arena.

“Ask them right there,” he said of the media.

At that moment, the crowd broke out in a “CNN Sucks!” chant.

After the chant broke out, CNN briefly cut away from the rally.

(Read more from “CNN Cuts Away from Trump Rally After Crowd Breaks out in ‘CNN Sucks’ Chant” HERE)

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Biden, Sanders Blast Trump After He Launches 2020 Campaign at Florida Rally

By The New York Post. Sen. Bernie Sanders livestreamed a surly response to President Trump’s first official campaign rally of the president cycle, while other Democratic 2020 hopefuls tweeted about it.

“It’s going to take me a little while to settle down because I just had the extremely unpleasant experience of watching Donald Trump in action for an hour and a half. Wow, and that was certainly something,” Sanders uttered to the camera in his low-budget rebuttal. “An hour-and-a-half speech of lies, distortions and total absolute nonsense.”

Sanders said he didn’t blame his supporters for being “discombobulated” after watching Trump – who used the Orlando, Florida, rally to revive some of his greatest hits, even asking the crowd what happened to his 2016 rival Hillary Clinton’s 33,000 emails. . .

“Let’s be clear: President Trump inherited a growing economy from the Obama-Biden administration,” a tweet from “Team Joe” read. “And now, he’s in the process of squandering it.” (Read more from “Biden, Sanders Blast Trump After He Launches 2020 Campaign at Florida Rally” HERE)

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INCREDIBLE: Hong Kong Protesters Embrace Unexpected Christian Anthem

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A hymn sung by Christian groups participating in the anti-extradition Hong Kong protests has caught on and become an unlikely anthem for the movement of millions in the streets.

For the past week, “Sing Hallelujah to the Lord” has been heard almost non-stop at the main protest site in front of the city’s Legislative Council, and at marches and tense stand-offs with police, Reuters reported.

Although only 10 percent of the population is Christian, church groups quickly rallied after being alarmed by reports of police brutality to make a safe haven for protesters as the government said it had to crack down on “organized riots.” . . .

“As religious assemblies were exempt, it could protect the protesters. It also shows that it is a peaceful protest,” Edwin Chow, 19, acting president of the Hong Kong Federation of Catholic Students, told Reuters. “This was the one people picked up, as it is easy for people to follow, with a simple message and easy melody.”

The simple hymn heard around Hong Kong was composed by Linda Stassen-Benjamin in the United States in 1974 for Easter.

(Read more from “Hong Kong Protesters Embrace Unexpected Christian Anthem” HERE)

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