Amazing: Civil War Hero to Finally Receive Medal of Honor

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Photo Credit: TownHall

Photo Credit: TownHall

The Battle of Gettysburg has been inscribed in the hearts of all Americans. From curious schoolchildren to the most distinguished scholars, it is as well-known as any battle in American history.

It was, after all, the turning point of the war, and its bloody aftermath a belated – and hopeful – sign that the insurrectionists could be defeated. After years of military setbacks and incompetence in the field, General Robert E. Lee had finally been thwarted. Momentum, it seemed, had shifted.

But victory did not come easily. Several months after the battle ended, for example, President Abraham Lincoln was invited and attended the dedication ceremony at Gettysburg to honor all those who–as he put it–“gave their lives” in defense of the Union. On those hallowed grounds, he spoke movingly about their heroism and sacrifice.

“The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here,” he declared. “But it can never forget what they did here.”

And of course, it never did. Nor did the U.S. government.

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WATCH: Country Music Zings Democrats For Being Losers

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Photo Credit: TownHall

Photo Credit: TownHall

Last night at the Country Music Awards, hosts Carrie Underwood and Brad Paisley zinged Democrats for losing the U.S. Senate earlier this week and the crowd went wild.

“I’m pretty sure that’s why the democrats lost the Senate.”

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You Know Brittany Maynard, But Have You Heard of Terminal Brain Cancer Patient Lauren Hill?

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Photo Credit: LifeNews

Photo Credit: LifeNews

I happened to be trolling the television Sunday when I caught the last part of an incredible story about Lauren Hill. I immediately knew I had to write about this remarkable teenager but, alas, promptly forgot. Fortunately Kathy Ostrowski, of Kansans for Life, reminded me of this true-life story yesterday.

Kathy heard about the 19-year-old freshman who played her first collegiate basketball game Sunday night for Mount Saint Joseph University, a tiny Division III college located in Cincinnati, from NPR.

From the story by NPR’s Sam Sanders we learn:

So many people wanted to see Lauren Hill play that her school, Mount St. Joseph University, had to move the game from its 2,000-seat venue to another one in town that seats 10,000. The game still sold out. The crowd went wild just after Lauren Hill’s first basket right as the game began.

Why were these people so excited (and close to tears)? Because as a high school senior, Lauren was diagnosed with a very deadly form of brain cancer– Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Glioma (DIPG)–which is inoperable. She underwent nearly a year of chemotherapy and radiation. In September doctors told her she had months to live.

Read more from this story HERE.

90-Year-Old Among First Charged Under Florida's Strict Rules Against Feeding Homeless

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Photo Credit: Fox News Fort Lauderdale police say Arnold Abbott violated a new city law, but the 90-year-old homeless advocate says his only crime was to “love thy neighbor.”

Abbott was charged Sunday along with two local pastors with violating the city’s new ordinance that effectively bans giving out food in public. He faces 60 days in jail and a $500 fine, and he intends to get cited again Wednesday night, when he sets out to feed some of the Florida city’s estimated 10,000 homeless on a public beach.

“I know that I will be arrested again, and I am prepared for that,” Abbott said by phone from his office at Love Thy Neighbor, Inc., a nonprofit he established in honor of his wife, Maureen, after her death in a car accident 23 years ago. “I am my brother’s keeper, and what they are doing is just heartless.”

Fort Lauderdale passed an ordinance late last month that included a slate of new regulations on where and how groups can provide food to homeless people. The vote made the city the 13th in the nation since 2012 to pass restrictions on where people can feed the homeless, according to a report by the National Coalition for the Homeless.

The regulations enacted in Fort Lauderdale state that no two indoor feeding sites can be within 500 feet of one another or on the same block; outdoor feeding programs require a permit or permission of the property owner and must provide portable toilets; and outdoor stations cannot be within 500 feet of residential properties.

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Tennessee Voters Approve Amendment 1, Will Allow Pro-Life Laws to Stop Abortions

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Photo Credit: LifeNewsTennessee voters have given the Volunteer State a chance to enact the kind of pro-life laws that have dropped abortions to historic lows in state after state across the nation.

They approved Amendment 1 to help ensure nothing int he state constitution could be used to secure an unlimited right to abortion. With 86%of the vote counter, Amendment 1 won with a 54-46 percent margin.

The amendment is necessary because the Tennessee Supreme Court ruled 4-1 in 2000 that the state constitution allows unlimited abortions. It is necessary, pro-life advocates say, to be able to pass laws to limit and reduce abortions. The ruling claimed the Tennessee Constitution contains a fundamental abortion right even broader than Roe v. Wade or the federal constitution and it resulted in the striking down of numerous pro-life Tennessee laws that were helping women and limiting abortions.

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‘Scandal’ Sex Scene Airs Right After ‘It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown,’ Making Parents Angry

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Photo Credit: Kevin Dooley / FlickrFor those who say network scheduling isn’t a big deal anymore thanks to DVRs, we turn your attention to what happened Thursday night on ABC. In a very jarring transition, the adorable end of the annual special “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown” segued into “Scandal,” which happened to kick off with a very steamy sex scene.

On Monday, the watchdog group Parents Television Council unleashed an angry statement at ABC condemning the abrupt shift in kid-centric programming to a very much not age-appropriate scene. After all, families are known to gather around the cartoon every year and may not have anticipated that they needed to quickly change the channel.

“Shame on ABC for putting a peep show next to a playground,” PTC President Tim Winter said. “In less than 26 seconds we were taken from the Peanuts pumpkin patch to a steamy ‘Scandal’ sex scene.”

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Brittany Maynard, The 29-Year-Old With Brain Cancer, Has Committed Suicide

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Photo Credit: LifeNewsBy Steven Ertelt.

Brittany Maynard, the cancer patient who received national attention over her plan to kill herself under Oregon’s assisted suicide law on November 1 has taken her own life. That’s despite the fact that cancer patients and pro-life groups have tried to talk her out of the decision.

The Portland Oregonian newspaper first reported that Brittany died Sunday afternoon after taking her own life with legally-prescribed lethal drugs. People magazine confirmed her death an hour later in a news report.

“Goodbye to all my dear friends and family that I love. Today is the day I have chosen to pass away with dignity in the face of my terminal illness, this terrible brain cancer that has taken so much from me … but would have taken so much more,” Brittany wrote on Facebook. “The world is a beautiful place, travel has been my greatest teacher, my close friends and folks are the greatest givers. I even have a ring of support around my best as I type …. Goodbye world. Spread good energy. Pay it forward!”

Her death comes despite her decision last week to postpone her suicide — with Maynard telling CBS that it “doesn’t seem like the right time now” to end her life.

“I still feel good enough and I still have enough joy and I still laugh and smile with my family and friends enough that it doesn’t seem like the right time right now,” Maynard said late last week in that interview. “But it will come, because I feel myself getting sicker. It’s happening each week.”

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Photo Credit: Compassion and ChoicesFamily, friends of Brittany Maynard say goodbye on social media

By KGW.com Staff.

Many posts on social media said that Brittany Maynard, a terminally ill woman who moved to Oregon to take advantage of the state’s doctor-assisted suicide law, has died.

Sean Crowley, spokesman for the nonprofit advocacy group Compassion & Choices, told KGW he could not confirm Maynard’s death out of respect for the family’s privacy. Maynard reportedly joined Compassion & Choices, which is advocating for death-with-dignity laws in several states.

Maynard was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor. She moved with her family to Oregon so she could legally kill herself with lethal medication prescribed under theOregon Death With Dignity Act.

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Pro-Common Core Math Instructor: Kids Are 'Clean Slate,' Parents Must Be 'Retrained' (+video)

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Photo Credit: APThe frustration and confusion over the Common Core math curricula aligned with the nationalized standards has opened up the role of parent “instructional coach,” educators who are teaching not only students, but also parents, in the strange and non-instinctive ways of the nationalized math standards.

Lyndsey Layton at the Washington Post reports that elementary school parents, especially, are upset because the Common Core way of math leaves them unable to assist their children with homework. Throughout the country, school districts are holding special classes for parents and offering “homework hotlines” to help them understand Common Core math.

“The kids who come to us are a clean slate,” states Jennifer Patanella, an instructional coach with the Rochester, New York public schools who teaches parents in the strange ways of Common Core math. “It’s the adults who have to be retrained.”

“Almost every parent comes in and says, ‘This is not how I learned math,’” states Melissa Palermo, a fourth grade teacher who also now coaches other teachers in math in the Nathaniel Hawthorne public schools in Rochester.

Palermo is a proponent of the Common Core and says her students are reaping the benefits of being able to show a more sophisticated understanding of math and an ability to perform operations they would otherwise not have learned until they were older.

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Now Pro-Life Groups Told to Pay for Abortions

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Photo Credit: WNDGovernment advocacy for unlimited access to abortion has surged under Barack Obama’s administration, and at one point the National Right to Life Committee uncovered documents revealing the president was even more dedicated to abortion at any time for any reason than even the National Abortion Rights Action League.

Now, the District of Columbia is proposing a Reproductive Health Non-Discrimination Amendment that would prohibit employers from “discriminating” for any reason over the issue of “reproductive health,” including abortion.

It “is intended to force employers to provide health insurance for elective abortions regardless of the employers’ beliefs or convictions,” according to the Alliance Defending Freedom.

ADF has joined with the March for Life, Susan B. Anthony List, Charlotte Lozier Institute, Concerned Women for America, National Right to Life Committee and Family Research Council to write a letter to D.C. officials strongly urging them to drop the plan.

Earlier this month, a formal protest developed in California on behalf of several churches whose leaders charge the state simply changed its health insurance practices to force them to pay for abortions. Casey Mattox, an attorney working on the California case, said forcing a church” to be party to elective abortion is one of the utmost-imaginable assaults on our most fundamental American freedoms.”

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Ouch: Obama Claims America Doesn't Want Stay-At-Home Moms (+video)

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Photo Credit: TownHallAt best, this was a slip of the tongue. During a speech in Rhode Island Friday, President Obama claimed that Americans do not want to become stay-at-home moms.

“Moms and dads deserve a great place to drop their kids off every day that doesn’t cost them an arm and a leg,” Obama said, stressing the need for public pre-schools. This sentiment is in line with Obama’s “Preschool for all Initiative.”

“In many states, sending your child to daycare costs more than sending them to a public university. True?

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