Nonprofit Lines for Life Launches New Help Line for Veterans Struggling With Mental Health

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An Oregon-based nonprofit is opening a new call center Friday to help veterans struggling with mental health issues.

Lines for Life, a 24/7, 365-days-a-year suicide prevention hotline, has expanded its mission to help veterans in need, KATU reports.

“We’ll be cutting the ribbon on a new call center that’s designed to make sure we’re standing up and supporting the veterans who stood up and defended us over the years,” said CEO Dwight Holton.

The new call center will offer free and anonymous help calls and texts for veterans, their family, and their friends struggling with mental health.

The Veterans Association estimates that since 2008, roughly 6,ooo veterans kill themselves each year. This new call center, in partnership with the Veterans Crisis Line, is expected to field about 1,200 additional calls each month.

“Services like this where we’ve got partnerships with national VA and organizations like Lines for Life are essential to helping meeting those mental health crisis needs and helping folks find a way forward and help build strong families among our veterans,” Holton said.

There is a strong need to help care for the mental health of America’s veterans. According to the RAND Center for Military Health Policy Research, 20 percent of those who served in either Iraq or Afghanistan suffer from either major depression or post-traumatic stress disorder.

If you are a veteran in need, contact the free military help line at (888) 457-4838. You can also text MIL1 to 839863. Someone is available to talk to you at all hours of the day. (For more from the author of “Nonprofit Lines for Life Launches New Help Line for Veterans Struggling With Mental Health” please click HERE)

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Hero Sgt. Ron Helus Called ‘A True Cop’s Cop,’ Died Bravely Confronting Thousand Oaks Shooter

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Several hundred people were inside the Borderline Bar and Grill in Thousand Oaks, California, Wednesday night when a gunman attacked the venue, killing 12 people including a police officer.

The officer’s name was Sgt. Ron Helus, a 29-year veteran of the Ventura County Sheriff’s Office. Helus had intended to retire next year. Instead, he died heroically.

Ventura County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Capt. Garo Karedjian said Helus was a first responder to the shooting, which began around 11:15 p.m. Wednesday night. The sheriff’s office received multiple calls of shots fired at the bar after the hooded gunman began his massacre.

At least 13 people were killed, including the gunman. Somewhere between 10 and 15 more were injured.

Helus and a California Highway Patrol officer responded in minutes. Helus reportedly called his wife before entering the building to confront the shooter. The shooter fired upon the police officers when they entered the bar. Helus was hit several times. He died in an area hospital Thursday morning.

At a press conference, Ventura County Sheriff Geoff Dean said that Helus died as “a hero.”

“He gave his all … he went in to save lives, to save other people,” Dean said. He added that Helus was a “hard-working, dedicated Sheriff’s Sergeant.”

“A true cop’s cop,” Ventura County Sheriff’s Sgt. Eric Buschow told CNN Thursday morning. “I don’t think there’s anything more heroic than what he did.”

“He went in there to save lives. He took decisive action, and it’s just a tragic loss for us,” Buschow said.
“This was in his blood. He had just a natural instinct for going after crooks, and he did it with enthusiasm, with a great deal of intelligence.”

Profile pictures from Helus’ Facebook page, now memorialized, show he had a love for the outdoors and fishing.

“He loved spending time with his son,” Buschow added. “They would go fishing up in the Sierras together. My heart goes out to his family — I can’t imagine what they’re going through right now.”

Helus was an accomplished firearms instructor and competitive shooter. He earned his master’s degree from the University of Oklahoma. (For more from the author of “Hero Sgt. Ron Helus Called ‘a True Cop’s Cop,’ Died Bravely Confronting Thousand Oaks Shooter” please click HERE)

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Hollywood Actor Tweets in Support of Gun Control – Accidentally Admits to Breaking Cali Law

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Hollywood actor Ashton Kutcher sent a tweet from his official account attempting to advocate for gun control in the wake of the horrible Thousand Oaks attack in California, but accidentally admitted to breaking the law himself. . .

The claim that his friend gave him a gun as a gift made many wonder if he was admitting to receiving a gun illegally in California without following proper registration procedures.

“I think Ashton Kutcher just admitted to violating California law,” responded NRA-TV host Cam Edwards.

“Firearms transfers have to go through a federally licensed firearms dealer who performs a background check and holds the firearm for the mandatory 10-day waiting period,” he explained.

The actor began his social media advocacy by revealing that he had celebrated one of his birthdays at the site of the Thousand Oaks massacre, and that he could have died if the killer has chosen a different night for his attack.

(Read more from “Hollywood Actor Tweets in Support of Gun Control – Accidentally Admits to Breaking Cali Law” HERE)

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Terrifying: Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice Holds ‘Blessing Service’ for New Abortion Clinic

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On Friday evening, a group called the Ohio Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice (RCRC) is holding a “blessing service” at a newly-opened abortion facility called Your Choice Healthcare of Columbus. . .

The Ohio Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice is an advocacy organization that “strongly opposes restrictions to abortion access and contraception,” and offers various training programs to help “people of faith, conscience, and goodwill connect their pro-choice values with activism.”

Additionally, the “our philosophy” section of the Ohio RCRC official website states: “We support women as moral agents and their right to make reproductive decisions following one’s own conscience and religious beliefs.” . . .

The Ohio RCRC is just one chapter of the larger, decades-old Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice organization that promotes abortion using religious leaders, and lobbies against pro-life legislation.

The Daily Wire spoke with a press representative for the national RCRC, who said that the organization has conducted three previous “blessing services” in Ohio, Maryland, and Washington D.C. (Read more from “Terrifying: Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice Holds ‘Blessing Service’ for New Abortion Clinic” HERE)

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The Frauds of Progressivism Aren’t Trying to Protect Children

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This town needs a spanking.

Election or no election, our collective sense of unruly pride needs to be taken down a couple of notches. Rarely has a people been so haughty with so little to back it up.

We are ignorant and we are selfish. We are licentious and we are boorishly iconoclastic. It’s quite a gift we have to be so slothful and destructive at the very same time.

Yes, a good spanking would do us a world of good if we are to have any hope of correcting the ship of state before it is too late. As I have long said, politics swims downstream from culture. And a culture that is incapable of understanding its base, corruptible nature and disciplining itself accordingly will end up living in a fetid swamp.

But I guess we can’t have nice things, because the American Academy of Pediatrics has spoken, and it says spanking is bad. There are mountains of research, they say. According to analysis posted at CNN, and we know how lucid that network has been lately, spanking teaches children that it is acceptable to use physical force to get what you want and thus makes aggressive or delinquent behaviors more likely.

Also published under the laughable headline “The era of spanking is finally over” is this: “Millions of parents have raised well-adjusted children without spanking. Kids thrive on attention from adults.”

Time for some questions. What does “well-adjusted” mean? How about “thriving”? And what kind of “attention” are we talking about?

Just last year, it seems the American Academy of Pediatrics defined those terms this way when the federal Departments of Justice and Education took the crazy step of reminding the so-called “well-adjusted” that boys and girls should continue to have separate bathrooms free from the tyranny of progressive politics:

“The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) opposes guidance issued … that eliminates protections for transgender youth in public schools, no longer allowing them to use restrooms corresponding with their gender identity. Transgender children are already at increased risk for violence, bullying, harassment and suicide. They may be more prone to depression and engaging in self-harm. These children need acceptance and affirmation, not stigmatization. As a result of last night’s action by the Departments of Justice and Education, the simple act of using the restroom may subject transgender students to further harm. Policies excluding transgender youth from facilities consistent with their gender identity have detrimental effects on their physical and mental health, safety and well-being. No child deserves to feel this way.”

Call me crazy, but I don’t think “well-adjusted” means what they think it means. Seems like this New Age version amounts to affirming the worst of psychosis in children and then demanding everyone else around them kneel in adoring acceptance.

That’s not “thriving.” That’s suicide. (For more from the author of “The Frauds of Progressivism Aren’t Trying to Protect Children” please click HERE)

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Transgender File Complaints Against 16 Women for Refusing to Wax His Male Genitalia

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Sixteen Canadian women have had human rights complaints filed against them by a male-to-female transgender individual for alleged “gender identity” discrimination after they refused to wax his male genitalia.

John Carpay, a lawyer and the president of the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms, is representing two of the women who are being targeted by the complainant, who is referred to only as “JY.” In accordance with an order from the BC Human Rights Tribunal, the transgender individual must be kept anonymous.

“In recent months, JY approached 16 Vancouver-area female estheticians who only serve women, requesting a ‘Brazilian’ bikini wax on his groin area,” revealed Carpay on Tuesday. “In spite of the fact that JY is able to obtain a Manzilian in Vancouver, JY has filed 16 complaints against these women at the BC Human Rights Tribunal, claiming discrimination on the basis of ‘gender identity.'”

The female estheticians in question only serve women and do not offer so-called “Manzilians” — the male equivalent to a Brazilian wax. “The procedure for providing a man with a ‘Manzilian’ is quite different, using a different kind of wax and a different technique,” noted the lawyer. . .

According to the lawyer, JY said he was willing to withdraw his complaint against Poyer for $2,500. “If JY is demanding similar sums from the other 14 women, he stands to receive as much as $35,000 for dropping his human rights complaints,” noted Carpay. (Read more from “Transgender File Complaints Against 16 Women for Refusing to Wax His Male Genitalia” HERE)

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California Shooting Leaves 12 Dead at Bar

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A Marine Corps veteran who had served in Afghanistan fatally shot at least 12 people Wednesday night when he stormed a crowded country and western dance hall in Thousand Oaks, Calif., the authorities said.

The Ventura County sheriff, Geoff Dean, said that the gunman, Ian David Long of nearby Newbury Park, Calif., apparently took his own life after being confronted by officers responding to the Wednesday night attack. One officer, Sgt. Ron Helus, was killed when he entered the building to help. The gunman used a .45-caliber handgun that he purchased legally. It had been outfitted with an extended magazine.

The shooting came just over a year after 58 people were killed at a country music festival in Las Vegas when a gunman opened fire from a high-rise hotel room. There was an eerie parallel between the two shootings as some of the same people who emerged from the bar, the Borderline Bar & Grill, described having survived the shooting on the Las Vegas Strip. (Read more from “California Shooting Leaves 12 Dead at Bar” HERE)

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Gamer Banned From Youtube for Showing You Can Kill Someone in Game About Killing

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The YouTuber who posted a video of a character punching a suffragette in Rockstar Games’ “Red Dead Redemption 2” (RDR2) was briefly banned from the platform. . .

At one point during his playthrough, he went to the tailor’s shop in the game city of Saint Denis, which is based on New Orleans. Outside the shop is a non-playable character (NPC) who constantly shouts “Let me vote!” and insults men. Every game has at least one annoying NPC, and this is just one of many in the game.

While in the tailor shop, the suffragette’s dialogue can still be heard clearly. It clashes with the dialogue of the shopkeeper (if you have subtitles on, as I do, the two dialogues stack on top of each other in a distracting way), and forces you to listen to “Let me vote” over and over and over again while you shop for clothes.

Shirrako had enough. When he left the shop, he directed RDR2’s anti-hero, Arthur Morgan, to punch the suffragette in the face, knocking her unconscious. Viewers of his livestream enjoyed this moment, so Shirrako posted a clip of it separately on his YouTube channel. Shirrako went on later to post two more videos of his character attacking this particular NPC, including one where he kidnaps her and takes her to the swamp to be fed to an alligator.

These videos angered a Motherboard writer, who complained that the videos promoted violence against women. As I reported on Tuesday, Shirrako has many other clips from the game where he attacks innocent NPCs, including children and the mayor of a town, but because he attacked a feminist, he must be punished. (Read more from “Gamer Banned From Youtube for Showing You Can Kill Someone in Game About Killing” HERE)

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When I Was Born in the United States to Non-Citizens, America Did Not Owe Me Citizenship

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Scholars infinitely more qualified than I have arguments on both sides of both issues, and I won’t delve into that thicket. But, as a profound beneficiary of “birthright” citizenship, I do have a view on the aspect of jus soli citizenship that we have come to deem a “birthright”: it doesn’t exist.

I was born in California to Indian parents on student visas. My dad was enrolled in a PhD program, while my mom was working to support our family. My birth on American soil about halfway through my dad’s program automatically meant I was eligible for U.S. citizenship.

My parents’ Indian citizenship meant they had a choice: I could be an Indian or an American, but I couldn’t be both, since India didn’t recognize dual citizenship. For them, it was a no-brainer — I would be the first American in my family. But I never had a “birthright” to be one. . .

My American citizenship, however, was an altogether different story. I had no natural right nor owed claim to citizenship of a country just because I was born within its geographical boundaries. Nor did my parents have the right to bestow upon me a citizenship they did not possess.

In fact, they had been allowed entry into the United States after satisfactorily convincing its government that they would only be visitors in a foreign land. In the eyes of everyone, including their own, they were temporary visitors in a country not their own. My birth to my parents, therefore, only gave me access to the rights that they had to pass on to me — rights of Indian citizenship. (Read more from “When I Was Born in the United States to Non-Citizens, America Did Not Owe Me Citizenship” HERE)

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The Award for Best Election Day Ad Goes to… Delta Air Lines?

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The best Election Day ad, far and away, came from an entirely unexpected and non-political entity. Delta Air Lines released a new commercial Tuesday, on Election Day, saying that there is more that unites Americans than divides us.

“When you rise above the noise, the tweets, the talking heads, what you hear and what you see are two different things,” a narrator says.

“You hear about how ‘we’re a nation divided,’ yet from where we sit, we see no such thing.”

It’s a needed message of unity. Thank you, Delta. (For more from the author of “The Award for Best Election Day Ad Goes to… Delta Air Lines?” please click HERE)

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