Feds OK First Burial Of A Veteran’s Same-Sex Spouse In A National Cemetery

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Photo Credit: The U.S. Army The government has cleared the first burial of a same-sex spouse of a veteran in a national cemetery, but it’s far from certain how easy it will be for other gay military couples to win the same benefit.

Who gets buried where is one of the practical decisions that the federal government is grappling with following repeal of the military’s don’t ask, don’t tell policy.

At first glance, Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki’s decision to grant burial to a same-sex spouse in Oregon represents a big departure from past federal policy. In 2004, the VA warned the state of Massachusetts that burying the same-sex spouse of a veteran in a state veterans’ cemetery could lead to the federal government taking back nearly $12 million in grant money.

Then in 2008, the National Cemetery Association published a directive stating that individuals in same-sex civil unions or marriage are not eligible for burial in a national cemetery or state veterans cemetery that received federal money. Those directives were based on the language of the Defense of Marriage Act, which defines a spouse as a person of the opposite sex who is a husband or a wife. The law is being challenged before the Supreme Court.

Then along came retired Lt. Col. Linda Campbell and her spouse, Nancy Lynchild. Campbell, with help from Oregon officials, pressed the VA to allow Lynchild to be buried at the VA’s Willamette National Cemetery.

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Graham: Obama Knew of Benghazi Threat, Acted ‘After Everybody Was Dead’

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President Barack Obama was aware of two IED attacks on the Benghazi consulate in Libya in the months leading up the the Sept. 11 attack that killed U. S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three others, U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham claims.

The South Carolina Republican said James Clapper, the Director of National Intelligence, told him the president was informed of attacks in April and June, Fox News reports.

The June attack blew a hole in the perimeter wall of the Benghazi compound, and the two strikes were reportedly part of dozens of incidents in the region that are considered warning signs of the deadly attacks in September.

Graham criticized Obama for a White House statement saying the president did not talk to Libya’s leader until the evening of Sept. 12, a day after the embassy was attacked.

“(He talked) after everybody was dead,” said Graham, suggesting Obama could have made a difference if he’d been involved earlier, but “you got a commander in chief who is absolutely disengaged. You got the secretary of State never talking to the secretary of Defense.” Graham’s disclosure came after several Capitol Hill hearings in which several top administration officials, including former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton claimed they were not aware of the security problems at the Libyan compound.

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Pennsylvania Pioneer Program Achieves Drop In Abortion

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Photo Credit; APA Pennsylvania program that empowers women to choose life over abortion has achieved a seven percent drop in the number of resident abortions in the state over the last 17 years.

Real Alternatives, a charitable nonprofit organization that is funded by the Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare, is the nation’s first alternative program of its kind. The organization states that its mission is to “provide life-affirming alternatives to abortion services throughout the nation.”

The program offers support services to women throughout pregnancy, including maternity residences, adoption education, and parenting skills training. Real Alternatives has served more than 200,000 women throughout Pennsylvania since the program began in 1996. The organization offers free and confidential support, counseling, and guidance to pregnant women, in an effort to provide an alternative to abortion.

“It has been so gratifying over these years that so many women who were alone and facing a crisis pregnancy had another person to assist them and empower them to overcome obstacles and pressures so they could choose life for their preborn baby,” said Kevin Bagatta, president and CEO of Real Alternatives, in a Wednesday statement.

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Critics Slam Taxpayer-Funded Political Attack: National Cancer Institute Funds Study Calling Tea Party Tobacco-funded AstroTurf

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Photo Credit: Free BeaconCritics of a new study on the Tea Party movement that was funded by a federal agency are lashing out at what they see as improper taxpayer funding for academic work with an overtly political message.

The study in question purports to show that the Tea Party movement was created by and works to advance the interests of the tobacco industry.

Its critics have rejected the study’s findings and expressed particular concern that taxpayer funds were used to support “politically motivated attacks,” in the words of one Tea Party-aligned congressman.

The study, conducted by three academics at the University of California San Francisco’s Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education, claims that the Tea Party was actually created in the 1990s by conservative groups fighting anti-tobacco policies with money they had received from tobacco companies.

“Rather than being purely a grassroots movement, the Tea Party has been influenced by decades of astroturfing by tobacco and other corporate interests to develop a grassroots network to support their corporate agendas, even though their members may not support those agendas,” the study states.

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Eric Holder: Homeschool Ban Doesn’t Violate Fundamental Rights

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I read an article written by Michael Farris, the founder and chair of HSLDA – the Home School Legal Defense Association. In it he discussed the case made by government lawyers representing Attorney General Eric Holder during the court hearing for the Romeike family. You may remember the Romeike’s sought political asylum in the United States due to Germany’s persecution of homeschooling families. A federal district court judge granted the Romikes asylum here against the wishes of the Federal government. The government appealed that decision to the Board of Immigration appeals and won. HSLDA appealed to the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals where the case (Romeike v. Holder) will be heard.

Farris outlined three arguments made by the U.S. Department of Justice lawyers which should be of concern to American homeschooling families:

He said the first argument in essence is that a government isn’t violating anyone’s rights if homeschooling is banned altogether.

“First, they argued that there was no violation of anyone’s protected rights in a law that entirely bans homeschooling. There would only be a problem if Germany banned homeschooling for some but permitted it for others.

Now in reality, Germany does permit some people to homeschool, but it is rare and in general Germany does ban homeschooling broadly—although not completely. (Germany allows exemptions from compulsory attendance for Gypsies and those whose jobs require constant travel. Those who want to stay at home and teach their own children are always denied.)…”

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Video: Frank Luntz’ Focus Group Lauds Ben Carson’s Speech – ‘It’s Not American To Bite Your Tongue’ (+video)

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Photo Credit: Getty Images Dr. Benjamin Carson, the pediatric neurosurgeon who attacked political correctness and staked out positions opposite the White House on debt, taxes and health care in a speech in front of President Barack Obama, was a hit with pollster Frank Luntz’s focus group Friday night.

During “Hannity” on Fox News, participants said Carson’s provocative speech at the National Prayer Breakfast last week spoke to them because he seemed “just like me — he was just a regular ordinary person.”

“It’s not American to bite your tongue,” another participant said.

Carson, who told TheBlaze that Obama thanked him for his words, has been asked repeatedly whether his headline-grabbing address might mean a run for political office.

See video:

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Legislation Repealing ObamaCare Tax Paid By Small Business Reintroduced

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Photo Credit: Daily Caller A bipartisan coalition of congressmen introduced legislation Friday calling for the repeal of the Health Insurance Tax (HIT) on fully-insured premium markets imposed by ObamaCare.htm” rel=”tag” target=”_blank”>Obamacare.

The tax is expected to primarily fall on small businesses and the self-employed, who are the main purchasers of fully-insured premiums. According to an earlier study, not repealing the tax could cost also cost between 125,000 and 249,000 jobs by 2021 and raise the cost of employer-sponsored insurance by 2-3 percent, a cumulative cost of nearly $5,000 per family.

“The [p]resident’s Health Care law is full of hidden tax increases. Beginning in 2014, millions of American small businesses will be subjected to a new health insurance tax (HIT) coming at a cost over $100 billion. This tax will close many small businesses and kill jobs once implemented,” Louisiana Republican Rep. Charles W. Boustany, a co-sponsor of the measure, said in a statement.

The bill, titled “The Jobs and Premium Protection Act,” is also sponsored by Democratic Utah Rep. Jim Matheson.

“We commend Representatives Boustany and Matheson for rising above the political gridlock and showing bipartisan support for small businesses and the Americans they employ,” said Jim Anderson, vice president of government affairs of the National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors. “We look forward to working together with all members of Congress to ensure this important bipartisan legislation is passed.”

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Facebook Paid No Taxes Despite Record Profits

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Photo Credit: sherifer22Despite earning more than $1 billion in profits last year, social media juggernaut Facebook paid zilch when it came to federal and state taxes in 2012. In fact, the website will actually be getting a refund totaling $429 million thanks to a tax reduction for executive stock options.

In the coming years, Facebook will continue to get monster tax breaks, totaling about $3 billion.

“The employees cash in stock options, and at that point there is tax deduction for the company,” Robert McIntyre, of watchdog group Citizens for Tax Justice, said in an interview with Fox News Channel. “Because even though it doesn’t cost Facebook a nickel, the government treats it as wages and they get a deduction for it. And usually it doesn’t wipe out companies whole tax bill, although many companies get big breaks from it.”

The news comes after President Obama’s State of the Union speech in which he called for such tax breaks to end.

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Panel Calls Reparative Therapy For Homosexuals A Human Rights Violation

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Photo Credit: Life Site NewsTherapy to help people change unwanted same sex attraction should be banned and labeled a human rights violation, according to a panel of advocates at the Church Center, a gathering place of left-wing groups near the United Nations.

Although the event was advertised as “the first ever UN discussion on the legalities, ethics, and science behind the movement promoting [efforts to change sexual orientation],” it was held off UN property, sponsored by non-governmental organizations, and did not feature representatives of any UN member states.

Researcher Rebecca Jordan-Young of Barnard College said she was “deeply in agreement with the premise of this meeting, that sexual orientation change efforts are in fact a human rights violation and a problem,” while cautioning the audience against relying too heavily on science to back that position.

“We don’t really know how sexual orientation develops,” Jordan-Young continued, adding “there’s a pretty strong trend among people who support human rights and civil rights for gay and lesbian people, to think of sexual orientation as something that’s fundamentally biologically driven…I want to suggest that we don’t want to peg our human rights efforts on that.”

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Carbon Tax Hallucinations

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Average planetary temperatures haven’t budged in 16 years. Hurricanes and strong tornadoes are at or near their lowest ebb in decades. Global sea ice is back to normal, while the Antarctic icepack continues to grow. The rate of sea level rise remains what it was in 1900.

And yet, President Obama and many politicians, newscasters and alarmist scientists continue to insist that carbon dioxide emissions are changing Earth’s climate, and we need to take immediate action to prevent storms like Hurricane Sandy and avert catastrophes predicted by IPCC computer models and “scientific consensus.” Not surprisingly, polls show public support for controlling CO2 output and taxing hydrocarbon use – to “ensure climate security” and “save vital federal programs” from budgetary axes.

As the liberal lobby Think Progress put it, people “overwhelmingly” prefer a carbon tax on “big polluters” versus cuts in favorite programs “like education, Social Security, Medicare and environmental protection.”

Five-alarm climate claims, skewed polling questions and phony taxes-versus-grandma budget alternatives will almost always ensure support for carbon taxes – especially among Bigger Government and Ban Fossil Fuels constituencies. More rational analysis reveals that dreams of hundred-billion-dollar windfalls from slapping regressive new taxes on job creation and economic growth are nothing more than dangerous tax revenue hallucinations. They would bring intense pain for no climate or economic gain.

Employing Energy Information Administration data, a recent Heritage Foundation study by economists David Kreutzer and Nicolas Loris found that a tax starting at $25-per-ton of CO2 emitted and increasing by 5% per year would cut a family of four’s income by $1,400 annually, raise their utility bills by $500 a year, and increase gasoline fill-ups by up to 50 cents per gallon. That’s $2,000 a year chopped from their budget for food, vacations, home and car payments and repairs, college and retirement savings, dental and medical care, and overall quality of life.

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