The Postal Service’s War on Religion Continues

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458169256-e1441993099600U.S. Postal officials said Friday it was strictly “a business decision” when they opted to offer customers no new religiously themed holiday stamps in 2015, and not part of an effort to reduce religion’s influence in the U.S. Postal Service’s commemorative collection.

Mark Saunders, a spokesman for the U.S. Postal Service issued the comment in a letter to yesterday’s Daily Caller News Foundation report disclosing that the postal service will not be printing new religiously-oriented holiday stamps in 2015. Such stamps have been issued almost every year for more than half a century.

Saunders said in the letter that postal officials decided to end the practice of printing new religious stamps every year for Christmas, Chanukah, the Muslim Ramadan holiday of EID and Kwanzaa. The special stamps will now only be offered every other year.

Saunders did not say when the decision was made of who made it, but decisions about proposed commemorative stamps have been made since 1950s the Postal Service’s Citizens Advisory Stamp Committee.

No evidence was found of any public notice of denoting a change in postal policy, or any attempts to solicit public comment before implementing the new printing schedule. (Read more from “The Postal Service’s War on Religion Continues” HERE)

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UTTER INSANITY: San Francisco Jails to House Transgender Inmates Based on Gender Preference

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Screen-Shot-2015-03-31-at-5.12.29-PMBy the end of the year, San Francisco’s county jails will be among the first in the nation to house transgender inmates by their gender preference, Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi said Thursday.

Currently, San Francisco County puts transgender inmates in an isolated wing of its downtown jail facility. But under the policy announced Thursday, Mirkarimi said, he hopes to have transgender inmates living with their preferred population before 2016.

But transgender inmates who choose to remain in segregated housing or to continue living with other inmates who share the gender they were assigned at birth can do so, according to Kenya Briggs, a spokeswoman for the sheriff’s office . . .

Inmates who seek to have their housing status changed will be subject to a review process, but Mirkarimi said housing decisions will not be solely based on an inmate having gender reassignment surgery or a diagnosis of gender dysphoria.

“It’s not going to be based on genitalia alone. We will have an advisory committee, experts that help represent the transgender population,” he said. “There will be complicated incidences where we’ll have to decide if this is the proper fit or not.” (Read more from “San Francisco Jails to House Transgender Inmates Based on Gender Preference” HERE)

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Schools Scramble to Deny Responsibility for Paltry Michelle Obama Breakfast

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Frenship-breakfastThere’s a controversy brewing around Lubbock regarding an unappetizing school breakfast photo depicting what appears to be a tortilla shell with three tater tots and a few bacon bits.

KCBD reports the meal photo was shared by local parents on Facebook as an example of the puny offerings served up in schools under Michelle Obama’s “healthy” school food regulations, and the news site attempted to track down where the image originated.

Officials in several area school districts, however, are denying responsibility for the failure as area parents continue to flood KCBD’s Facebook page with other examples.

Lubbock resident Maria Mendoza appears to have first posted the image to Facebook on Sept. 8 with a caption that read:

“My daughter sent me a picture what her school is serving them this morning(.) This isn’t enough food for high school kids. And during lunch they get 35 mins and there is (sic) so many kids that come don’t get through the line and than (sic) they’re late for class. Not enough seating either some have to sit on the floor to eat their lunch”

(Read more from “Schools Scramble to Deny Responsibility for Paltry Michelle Obama Breakfast” HERE)

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14-Year-Old Bravely Rejected Abortion After Rape, Then Bullies Spray-Painted This Horrific Word on Her House

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kaliIt was a cool night in September. One of the last of summer, but you could feel that fall was coming. I snuck out of my parents’ house in my small town to meet a boy I had been talking to on the internet. He was a really nice boy who said he was my age. I knew my parents would never approve. So after they fell asleep, I snuck out.

I never met that boy. Instead, a 66 year old man was waiting for me. He raped me that night. Violently . . .

The very first thing I heard [when I visited the doctor] —“there are always opportunities to have other children.” Another doctor told my parents that I was a “wild child” incapable of making any decision about my own baby. It never occurred to any of those doctors that I would do anything other than have an abortion. The police caught the monster who viciously raped me and today he is in jail. But still that man stole my body. And now the doctors were trying to steal my baby! . . .

The kids at school mocked me mercilessly. When they found out I was having a boy, they told me “he will grow up to be a rapist too.” One even told me that my son was going to rape me. Another time a boy cornered me and told me he would show me “what rape really was.” My parents took me out of school. Still the kids would not leave me alone.

We woke up one morning to see “WHORE” and “PROSTITUTE” spray painted on our house. For a while it seemed like everything in life was spiraling completely out of control. And then I found CHOICES4LIFE. It’s an organization run by someone who was conceived in rape. Juda Myers’ mom was raped by 8 men and she said her mom had felt the same way I did. She put me in touch with other women who had been raped and kept their baby. (Read more from “14-Year-Old Bravely Rejected Abortion After Rape, Then Bullies Spray-Painted This Horrific Word on Her House” HERE)

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California Assembly Approves Right-To-Die Legislation

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brittany-maynard-terminally-ill-cancer-patient-twitterAfter nearly a quarter-century of efforts in California to afford terminally ill patients the right to end their lives with a doctor’s help, state lawmakers and the governor may be on the verge of granting the dying that authority.

The state Assembly on Wednesday passed a bill that would allow physicians to prescribe life-ending drugs to the terminally sick. The End of Life Option Act, which the Catholic Church and others oppose, awaits final approval by the Senate — three months after that chamber passed a similar bill by a thin margin.

The fate of the legislation is likely to rest with Gov. Jerry Brown, a former Jesuit seminary student who has yet to articulate his position on the measure. Brown has expressed concern about it, based more on legislative procedure than his own beliefs.

Modeled after an Oregon law enacted in 1997, California’s aid-in-dying proposal generated passionate, often deeply personal, debate among lawmakers that cut across party lines. Their discussions touched on questions of morality and mortality; trust in doctors and God’s grace; and the right of the dying to determine their own fate versus protection for the elderly and vulnerable . . .

Assemblywoman Cheryl Brown (D-Rialto) opposed the measure, arguing that doctors may be too hasty in declaring patients terminal. She told lawmakers about her son, who was near death with an infection. Physicians urged her to let him go, and she refused. Nineteen days later, he came off life support and is now a husband and father. (Read more from “California Assembly Approves Right-To-Die Legislation” HERE)

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Firefighter Killed in Hit and Run While Collecting for Charity

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B9318782370Z.1_20150909190305_000_G4QBSG1VT.1-0Dennis Rodeman survived a tour of duty in Iraq with the U.S. Marines.

He was killed on Wednesday while collecting donations for a charity in Lansing, the victim of what police are calling a deliberate hit-and-run crash on the city’s south side.

Rodeman, 35, was a seven-year veteran of the Lansing Fire Department. He was married two months ago and expecting his first child. When the incident happened at about 3:40 p.m ET, he was collecting money for muscular dystrophy research near the intersection of Cedar Street and Jolly Road, police and city officials said.

The suspect — a 22-year-old Lansing man — drove away from the scene and was caught near the intersection of Holmes and Waverly roads after a car and foot chase, police said. Lansing police originally said the man was 32 . . .

“The suspect came by, was upset for whatever reason (and) circled back around” before running into the firefighter, Kraus said. “The preliminary investigation is that he deliberately hit the firefighter who was standing in the road, collecting for the charity.” (Read more from “Firefighter Killed in Hit and Run While Collecting for Charity” HERE)

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Planned Parenthood Faces Unexpected Challenge From Obamacare

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AAe4tliAngered by videos in which Planned Parenthood officials discussed compensation for providing fetal tissue from abortions, Republicans in Congress are again demanding an end to government funding for the nearly 100-year-old provider of women’s health services.

Away from the headlines, however, the group is facing other major challenges, including one from a far different source: the Affordable Care Act, which it avidly supports.

Many formerly uninsured women who once depended on Planned Parenthood for low-cost access to birth control, abortions and other reproductive healthcare have gotten coverage under President Barack Obama’s healthcare law, making them less reliant on the organization’s 700 clinics.

In many states, Planned Parenthood is losing clients as newly insured patients turn to medical providers included in their health plan’s networks, according to data provided to Reuters and interviews with more than two dozen of its affiliates.

“Some people relied on us because they were uninsured prior to the Affordable Care Act. Now they can go anywhere for care, and some of them have been,” said Lori Carpentier, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Mid and South Michigan, which expects to treat 58,000 patients in 2015, down about 15 percent from the 68,000 it treated in fiscal 2012, before major parts of the law went into effect. (Read more from “Planned Parenthood Faces Unexpected Challenge From Obamacare” HERE)

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Marine Corps’ Women-In-Combat Experiment: #FAIL

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the-marine-corps-is-doing-everything-right-when-it-comes-to-women-in-combatOver the past nine months, the Marine Corps tested a gender-integrated task force in both Twentynine Palms, Calif. and Camp Lejeune, N.C. in an attempt to gauge what the Marine Corps might look like with women in combat roles.

According to a recent report in the Marine Corps Times, only a small number of women were left by the experiment’s conclusion — two of the roughly two dozen that started — mostly in part because of the physical and mental stress that comes with combat roles. Both the men and women in the task force also reported a breakdown in unit cohesion with some voicing a perceived unequal treatment from their peers.

The experiment comes as all branches of the military face a Jan. 1, 2016 deadline to open all combat positions to women — from basic infantry battalions to elite special operations units such as U.S. Navy SEALs. While branches like the Air Force and Navy have relatively small communities where women are currently barred from serving — namely special operations detachment s— the U.S. Army and Marine Corps have a host of units and jobs closed to woman. These jobs, known as combat arms, include infantry, artillery and armored divisions.

The gender-integrated Ground Combat Element Task Force served as a snapshot of sorts of what the Marine Corps might look like if women were a staple in combat positions. Each closed position was represented: infantry, artillery and mechanized units, such as tank platoons and light armored reconnaissance detachments, all operated in tandem with one another. The women were spread among them in ratios that would be expected in an integrated Marine Corps, with roughly 90 percent of the branch made up of men.

The nine-month exercise was broken down into two parts. Initially there was a four-month training period, or “work-up,” at Camp Lejeune, followed by a five month “deployment” to the Mojave Desert in Twentynine Palms. Certain elements of the task force also participated in training at Camp Pendleton, and mountain warfare in Bridgeport, Calif. This two semester cycle was common over the past 15 years. During the height of the Iraq War, it was common that Marine units would train for six to eight months and then deploy for a similar amount of time. (Read more from “Marine Corps’ Women-In-Combat Experiment Gets Mixed Results” HERE)

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Hillary Clinton Makes Voters Sign This Pledge Before Entering Event

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6a00d834515c5469e201b7c77c51c5970bAttendees at a Hillary Clinton campaign event in Cleveland, Ohio, were asked to sign a pledge promising to vote for the candidate before they were allowed into the venue . . .

Zito’s coverage of the Sunday event (which the Clinton camp has geared towards millennials) highlighted the Democratic candidate’s difficulty in winning over a demographic that has largely flocked to her primary opponent Bernie Sanders. Zito describes the event as nothing short of a disaster, where the small number of university students who showed up were more interesting in voting for Sanders and seeing her husband Bill Clinton. (Read more from “Hillary Clinton Makes Voters Sign Loyalty Pledge Before Entering Event” HERE)

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Photos of Two Babies, Miscarried at 7 and 8 Weeks, Share the Truth About Abortion

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wombWhen Mindy Danison shared photos of her 7-week-old baby, whom she miscarried, on Facebook, she had a purpose: to share with the world the preciousness of life.

Danison is mother to five children, ranging from age one to age nine. She and her husband, Gabe, were thrilled to be expecting another baby last fall, but unfortunately, that baby’s heart stopped beating around 7-and-a-half weeks gestation . . .

“I sit down in the tub and right away felt calmed,” she explained. “[…] I lean back, giving gentle pushes and finally I find a large thing that was encased. I analyze it to see if baby is inside. I begin to look closer and see a small piece of the baby. In that moment I was not sad, but not happy. It was a feeling that you can’t explain. If I had to, I would say, comforting, love, amazement . . .

Riley

Riley

“The incredible view of life in the early stages,” she said. “Those stages the doctors told me my baby was just clots and tissue. They told me I wouldn’t see him, I wouldn’t tell it’s a boy. […] How can they tell me this child, my baby, was not a baby?” . . .

Annabelle

Annabelle

But Danison and her husband would soon suffer two more miscarriages, including their daughter, Annabelle, whom they were also able to take photographs of after her birth in February. Anabelle was only eight weeks old when she passed away. (Read more from “Photos of Two Babies, Miscarried at 7 and 8 Weeks, Share the Truth About Abortion” HERE)

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