Sarah Palin: “America, We are So Screwed”

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By Sarah Palin, Facebook.

We’re in for a helluva’ ride, America. Obama just named Susan Rice as his National Security Adviser and nominated Samantha Power to replace Rice as our U.N. ambassador. Samantha Power is married to Cass Sunstein, the very, very strange Obama pick for an early “czar” position who wowed us with his numerous bizarre claims including the wacko belief that animals should have the right to sue in court, that hunting should be banned as genocide, and that pet ownership is akin to “slavery.” But Mrs. Cass Sunstein’s character judgment in choosing her life partner is the least of America’s worries. Information about Obama’s new picks will be revealed in coming days. Pay attention to who they are; what they stand for; and what their records, associations, and statements reveal about them and their intentions. Especially consider Obama’s chosen ones as evidence of his skewed thinking as he “fundamentally transforms” our great nation.

Read more from this story HERE.

Sarah Palin Blasts Sebelius for Denying Girl’s Lifesaving Lung Transplant

By Steven Ertelt. Former governor and vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin is blasting HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius for becoming a one-woman death panel. Sebelius is denying a young girl a lifesaving lung transplant — forcing the girl’s family to look to the courts for help.

Paling blasted Sebelius on Twitter and Facebook. In her Facebook post, Palin said recalled how much criticism she received for decrying “death panels” in Obamacare:

The government will bend the rules left and right to harass targeted taxpayers, conservative patriots, selected journalists, etc., but it will strictly exercise inconsistent and subjective rules to deny a child a shot at life. And they called us liars when we spoke of “death panels” – faceless bureaucrats coming between you and your doctor to make life and death decisions about a loved one’s survival. It doesn’t sound so far fetched anymore, does it? Read more from this story HERE.

Kathleen Sebelius Advocates for GaybamaCare

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Photo Credit: ewee

This is June, and Barack Obama has transformed a month that used to be about fatherhood and dragging out the barbeque into 30 days of homage to Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender (and Questioning) pride. That’s right, count ’em: 30 whole days to rejoice in LGBTQ-ness.

Along with Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, Barack must feel it’s time that fairness be extended to the gay community. That’s why, for those who tend toward melancholy and depression, if ever there were a time to be gay, this would be it. Why? Because in addition to reassuring college grads that free birth control should give them peace of mind and sharing the roster at Girl Scout conferences with late-term abortionists, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius wants to commemorate LGBTQ month by making it one of her priorities to actively advocate on behalf of the sexually confused, conflicted, and/or questioning.

When not sending out clandestine e-mails on her secret Obama-established e-mail account, Mrs. Sebelius is about the important business of spreading the word that she’ll be doling out privileges to the LGBTQ community based solely on non-traditional sexual preference. And although she doesn’t expound on exactly how they’ve been pushed to the side, Sebelius feels that “for too long … [LGBTQ people] were pushed to the side.”

To prove how committed she is to preferential treatment for homosexuals, Sebelius has refused to override a policy that will deny help to a dying 10-year-old girl with cystic fibrosis in need of a lung transplant. Because of government regulation concerning adults getting first dibs on adult lungs, the woman who has been integral in directly benefiting victims of HIV/AIDS has declined the opportunity to intervene.

Sebelius concurs that in the case of Sara Murnaghan, it is an “incredibly agonizing situation where someone lives and someone dies.” So in other words, if you’re 10 years old and your name is Sara Murnaghan and, through no fault of your own, you have a deadly lung disease, you will be “pushed to the side.” On the other hand, if you’ve participated in promiscuous, risky lifestyle choices and simply refused to join the Rubber Revolution or attend Condom University, or if you’re a 12-year-old girl trapped in a 12-year-old boy’s body and desire sex reassignment surgery, by way of GaybamaCare, Kathleen Sebelius will override any policy obstacle that might stand in the way of realizing your dream to be prom queen.

Read more from this story HERE.

The Broken Heart of Medicine

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Did you ever wonder why it seems like doctors don’t care as much as they used to? The images painted by Norman Rockwell or the iconoclastic TV personality of Marcus Welby MD of yesteryear are a rare find today, and if found are probably on the brink of retirement. Is it because medical schools now only attract cold-hearted business men who just want to make a good living in return for their hard work, or are other factors at play? Let me share with you a few thoughts that have tainted my practice just in the short span of 24 years that I have been in medicine.

More and more the message is clear that we as individuals are not to be trusted in thinking or even feeling for ourselves, but must yield to the infinite wisdom of our society as a whole. I will elaborate: there was a day when one of the primary draws for men and women into the practice of medicine was a calling, a deep seated personal burden to ease the suffering of our neighbors from the weight of sickness and the fear of death. This compassion was daily renewed in both large and small ways, at times from victories hard won at the side of courageous patients and other times from the dark stabbing pain of loss shared with grieving families. The older, purer meaning of ‘charity’ as synonymous with ‘an expression of love,’ was a foundation upon which the practice of medicine was built. I still search for that every day.

But I am not to be trusted, my heart might not be true, and so Big Brother must guide me in my compassion, and tell me who I need to have special concern for and to whom I must show special favor. Enter Medicare (or Medicaid, or any other government payer, VA, SSI, IHS, etc.). For example, if I accept Medicare reimbursement in my practice it works like this: I provide one dollar of medical service. I then receive 65 cents for my dollar of service, and am expected to provide 35 cents of charity to this individual, because the government has determined they deserve this, whether or not I am so moved in my heart.

Next, I encounter one who may not have insurance and doesn’t qualify for Medicare, or may have special circumstances that add to their burden, and my soul is moved to compassion for them in a special and unique way, and I want to help them as best as I can. So, I might desire to reduce their fee or even waive it all together. But … if Big Brother Medicare finds out I charged this patient less than the going rate, I have just committed fraud against the Medicare system! In other words, I can be severely punished for thinking that I could trust my own heart to show charity of compassion to one they haven’t approved and enrolled. How dare me!

Thus, it is that I must show charity to whom Medicare tells me to and I better not have compassion on anyone they don’t. It really warms your heart doesn’t it? How did we get here? All these programs sounded so good at the start but have slowly stripped the truest motivation for the heart of medicine. So pardon me, your doctor, please, the next time you sit across from me at the office and I seem just a little bit bitter and empty of compassion.

California vs. New York as Nation’s Worst State

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Photo Credit: Kyle Platts

Whenever a free-market research or business group releases a “best and worst” list of states, my eye goes straight to the bottom: To see whether California is last or was edged out for the lowest rank by one of the other mismanaged liberal bastions. Illinois seems to exist to boost the self-esteem of Californians.

I can raise a glass of zinfandel to California’s great victory in the Mercatus Center’s recent “Freedom in the 50 States” study. The state didn’t place last. That distinction went to New York, thanks to its highest-in-the-nation tax rates and entrepreneur-crushing economic regulations. I owe an apology to residents of the Land of Lincoln.

For all the study’s detail about tax rates and regulation, this information jumps out as the most telling about New York: “9.0 percent of the state’s 2000 population, on net, left the state for another state between 2000 and 2011, the highest such figure in the nation.” Moving is the surest sign of dissatisfaction, especially when people relocate from a state that has long been an economic and cultural magnet.

Californians talk incessantly about high-tailing it to Texas or Nevada, yet New Yorkers flee at about double our rate. Migration numbers aside, I would still rank the Golden State as the Most Hopeless State. There are other studies that bolster that case, including Chief Executive magazine’s “2013 Best and Worst States for Business” that places California dead last, with New York in 49th place.

The magazine ranks states based on three categories: taxation and regulation, workforce quality, and living environment. Even with its natural advantages in the last category and high ranking in the second one, California still flopped because its officials have adopted a punitive environment in the first category. That takes some doing.

Read more from this story HERE.

US Intervention Not the Answer to the Terrorist War in Syria

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Photo Credit: National Review

By Jonah Goldberg. If there was a moment when the United States could have productively intervened in Syria, it looks like that moment has passed.

Shiite militants, including Hezbollah — partly at the behest of their paymasters in Iran — are racing to the defense of Bashar Assad’s regime. According to a witness account in the New York Times, there were some 11,000 Hezbollah fighters in the besieged town of Qusayr alone.

A Shiite religious student in Najaf, Iraq, told the Times that his colleagues believe the leader of Qatar, a backer of Sunni Syrian rebels, is a long-prophesied demonic figure who, it is foretold, will raise an army in Syria to wipe out Shiites in Iraq. As a result, devout Shiites are racing to defend their faith.

Sunnis around the world, meanwhile, are being called on to join the conflict, with the material support of Saudi Arabia and Qatar. The Sunni Muslim Scholars Association of Lebanon issued a fatwa calling on followers to support the rebels “by words, money, medical aid, and fighting.”

The hugely influential Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi, a Sunni Egyptian cleric based in Qatar, called on Sunnis everywhere to come to Qusayr’s aid and proclaimed Hezbollah “more infidel than Jews and Christians.” Read more from this story HERE.

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Jordan: U.S. to deploy F-16s, anti-missile batteries to protect against Syria

By Cheryl K. Chumley. Jordan security heads said on Wednesday that the United States is going to deploy anti-missile batteries and F-16 fighter jets to the nation as a precautionary measure against a Syrian attack.

The deployment is set for the coming days, said two security officials involved in the mission who requested anonymity, The Associated Press reported. The United States is going to send and maintain either one or two Patriot missile launchers on Jordan’s northern border with Syria, along with several F-16 jets, AP reported. Read more from this story HERE.

Tips for Right-Wingers on the IRS Scandal

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Instead of showing endless loops of IRS employees wasting taxpayer dollars line-dancing — Breaking news: Government employees waste millions of your dollars every single day! — I think it would be more useful for the public to hear a few crucial facts about the exploding scandal at the Internal Revenue Service.

At Tuesday’s congressional hearings on the IRS, witnesses provided shocking details about the agency’s abuse of conservative groups.

The IRS leaked the donor list of The National Organization for Marriage to their political opponents, the pro-gay-marriage Human Rights Campaign. This is not idle speculation: The documents had an internal IRS stamp on them. The list of names was then published on a number of liberal websites and NOW’s donors were harassed.

The IRS demanded that all members of the Coalition for Life of Iowa swear under penalty of perjury that they wouldn’t pray, picket or protest outside of Planned Parenthood. They were also asked to provide details of their prayer meetings.

Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Wash. — who was ordered by the D.C. Circuit Court to pay more than $1 million to John Boehner in 2008 for the sleazy maneuver of publishing an illegally taped private conversation — blamed the conservative groups themselves. “Each of your groups was highly political,” he lectured them, noting that they wouldn’t have been asked any questions if they hadn’t requested tax-exempt status.

Read more from this story HERE.

Fighting the Education Anti-Gun Fanatics

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Photo Credit: Corey Lowenstein

For a while, I’ve been wondering if it’s parental malpractice to put your kids in public schools. More and more, it’s gone beyond wondering. For example, last week the Washington Post reported a nasty case of abusive behavior by school officials in Calvert County, Maryland: A five-year-old who brought a cowboy-style cap pistol on a school bus — orange-tipped, and something that no one could possibly mistake for a real gun — was interrogated for two hours (an interrogation that was so long, or so stressful, that he wet his pants) and then suspended for 10 days. Who treats a five-year-old that way?

The Post reports: “…children in first and second grade have been disciplined for pointing their fingers like guns and for chewing a Pop-Tart-like pastry into the shape of a gun. In Pennsylvania, a 5-year-old was suspended for talking about shooting a Hello Kitty bubble gun that blows soap bubbles.”

Meanwhile, in Massachusetts, another kindergartner was punished for bringing a tiny Lego gun — the illustration in the Boston Herald places it next to a quarter coin — with detention, and forced to write a letter of apology to the school bus driver. For bringing a tiny piece of plastic.

What’s up with this? It’s not based on any concern with safety. Lego guns, cap guns, bubble guns, nibbled Pop Tarts, and fingers are no threat to safety. And the wild overreaction in these cases says there’s more going on here than simple school discipline. As I said, who treats a 5-year-old this way? It smacks of fanaticism.

In fact, it seems like a kind of quasi-religious fanaticism … doing its best to exterminate the very idea of guns. It’s some sort of wacky moral-purity crusade. If a few toddlers have to suffer along the way, that’s tough. You can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs.

Read more from this story HERE.

Americans Feeling the Pain of the Left’s Misguided Energy Policies

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Photo Credit: Irish Central

A few years ago Americans were introduced to “Green Companies” with cutting edge and promising names like: Solyndra, Fisker, Abound Solar and many others. All of them were the recipients of government backed loans and almost all of them have gone bankrupt leaving the American taxpayer holding the bag for billions. See Heritage.

Not only were these “green companies” the recipients of outright taxpayer loans which they never repaid, they were also on the receiving end of tax breaks and subsidies designed to give them an edge.

For instance Tesla can get $45,000 for each car it sells in state and federal subsidies. The Tesla S starts at $69,000, so about 40% of its total cost is subsidies See: WUWT article.
See Tesla loses $10,000 Per Car: Profit Made From Government Subsidies, Loans and Incentives: Stephen Frank’s California.

But to even tilt the playing field farther in their favor, the government under the guise of the EPA and other agencies was busy punishing the competition of the favored “green energy industries.”

Obamas first Energy Secretary Stephen Chu said his stated goal was to get Americas gasoline prices in line with Europe’s. In California last week a gallon of supreme was 4.45.

The Keystone Pipeline has been delayed for years. More red tape and delay is greeting energy producers on federal lands. The war on the technology of fracking has delayed the capture of vast new resources of energy.

The administrations war on coal has been nothing short of a genocidal campaign against one of Americas most abundant and cheap sources of energy. Ignoring the fact huge advances have been achieved in the clean burning of coal and more advances are on the way. The government has decided to crush this industry with unreasonable timelines to impose their regulations.

Of course wind energy and solar subsidy campaigns are costing consumers billions and the unreliable power produced by these sources is far more expensive than conventional fossil fuel sources. Sometimes 3 times as much, when you count the hidden costs.

California has already warned consumers their electric rates will rise dramatically this year now that mandated renewable energy is coming on line. Other states will feel the pinch of higher utility rates, as coal fired power plants are shut down and renewable mandates start to kick in. See can’t afford to use the air conditioner.

America is suffering unnecessarily from high energy prices due to policies designed to punish them and foist on citizens forms of energy that are prohibitively costly and unreliable…..When at the same time America is sitting on an ocean of relatively cheap energy. See high cost of renewable electricity mandates by Hoover Institute.

Many European countries have embraced alternative energy at the behest of their left leaning governments and the citizens are now suffering as a result. Some households in the UK have to make a choice between buying food or paying their electric bill. See story in the UK Guardian.

America is about to have its day of reckoning with the reckless green energy policies foisted on them by the left……Elections do have consequences.

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Ed Farnan is the conservative columnist at IrishCentral, where he has been writing on the need for energy independence, strong self defense, secure borders, 2nd amendment, smaller government and many other issues. His articles appear in many publications throughout the USA and world. He has been a guest on Fox News and a regular guest on radio stations in the US and Europe.

Integrity in a Post-Christian America

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Photo Credit: Art ~ 4ThGlryOfGod

America is now called a post-Christian place; its government is overtly attacking Christian beliefs about birth control, abortion, and gay marriage. The threat to these beliefs is a small though telling symptom of the larger social changes that, though little considered, are proceeding as traditional Judeo-Christian integrity departs. The problem is, abandoning America’s traditional religion discards its related moral behavior, too. And societies without a strong moral order are very unpleasant places to live — try Afghanistan, Somalia, or Mexico.

It’s instructive to compare two dictionary definitions of “integrity” from the same source, Merriam-Webster, in 1943 and in 2013.

1943 definition: Moral soundness, honesty, purity, freedom from corrupting influences or practices. (Webster’s New International Dictionary of the English Language, Second Edition, 1943)

2013 definition: Firm adherence to a code of especially moral or artistic values : incorruptibility. (Free Merriam-Webster.com, 2013)

Both definitions agree on the avoidance of corruption. But the older definition implicitly assumes a shared single standard of morality, while the current definition implicitly assumes the existence of more than one such, and thereby equates them. The first was intended to reflect an objective standard applicable uniformly to all; the second, multiple standards of equal validity.

Read more from this story HERE.

Obama Desecrating the US Military’s Sacred POW Code of Conduct

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Forty years ago, President Nixon finally succeeded in having Secretary of State Henry Kissinger complete the negotiation for the repatriation of the Vietnam POWs from North Vietnam. On the weekend of May 23rd, for the last time, the surviving Vietnam POW’s solemnly celebrated the 40th anniversary of their release, at the Nixon Presidential Library.

If you have ever read any of the many books published, articles printed in newspapers, or read interviews given by Vietnam POW’s, you will understand that the common thread that helped get them through their very difficult period of captivity was their faith in God, their religious worship away from the eyes of their captors, and the support the Prisoner of War Code of Conduct that was inculcated in them.

Here’s how the Prisoner of War Code of Conduct, Article VI, reads:

“I will never forget that I am an American, fighting for freedom, responsible for my actions, and dedicated to the principles which made my country free. I will trust in my God and in the United States of America.”

The US military tries to instill the Code of Conduct in all US military personnel to remind them of their “character and heritage,” and in order to emphasize to them that as American fighting men and women they have inner strengths to rely on, in face of the mental and physical abuses they will have to endure if they are ever captured. “Character” was emphasized in American’s youth at home each day by parents, by teachers in both public and parochial schools, by the leaders and coaches of the various organizations they belonged (such as the Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, YMCA, YWCA, 4H, athletics, etc.), by religious leaders in the churches/synagogues they attended, by service academies where they were instilled with the Honor System/Honor Code and love of country, by boot camp where military indoctrination emphasized the service branch heritage and love of country, and by military leadership training programs for officer and noncoms.

While Character was being instilled in most Americans by these means, Barack Obama’s character was developed, as he relates in his book “Dreams,” every day after school in Hawaii, by his mentor, Frank Marshall Davis, the Secretary of the Communist Party USA. He previously went to school in Indonesia where American values weren’t taught, went on to Columbia under the name of Barry Soetoro, where his character was further developed by his two roommates who took him to Pakistan in the 1980’s to be indoctrinated in a philosophy that was not typically American.

Obama’s unvarnished “Character” is different from that of most of the US military personnel, most of whom were born and bred in America, and the true color of his “Character” has been revealed by his actions over the last four years. Most intelligent and forthright Americans realize that he has never said he loves this country or praised the heritage of the Republic; his actions speak louder than words.

By his actions (look at what he has done, not what he says), Obama has demonstrated that he doesn’t support the US Military Code of Conduct which instills in the American fighting man and women their faith in God and their love of the heritage of the United States of America. The Code of Conduct was developed to give US Prisoners of War (POW) the inner strength to believe in something bigger than themselves, even when they were being tortured or mentally abused by his captors (even after resisting, they may have been broken by such severe torture, but their love of country survived).

Instead of emphasizing the concepts of the US Military Code of Conduct to strengthen the faith of US military personnel, the Obama administration has been emphasizing Obama’s Social Experiment on Diversity, and has been forcing his radical Social Experiment on Diversity into regulations of the captive US military that must follow those regulations and policy directives issued by Obama’s civilian appointees at DoD. Those radical policies are damaging the Combat Effectiveness of the US Armed Forces.

Please review 15 of Obama’s policies or directives, listed below, that are overtly hostile toward Christians in the US Armed Forces. For four years the Obama administration has been trying to eliminate the influence of Christianity in the US Armed Forces, concepts that were first instilled in the US military culture by General George Washington in 1776, and it has given US military personnel the inner strength that sustained them in combat and in captivity.

Just before a combat operation, military personnel flock to the Chaplains for their blessing, or meditate quietly in their own solitude; when they become Prisoners of War, they lean on their faith and the Code of Conduct to give them strength. Obama’s Social Experiment on Diversity, outlined in new regulations, has been forced upon members of the US Armed Forces, military chaplains, and the civil service employees that support the US military programs. They have attempted to diminish the fundamental Judeo/Christian concepts that have been the foundation upon which the US Armed Forces was built to strengthen it for 238 years.
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Aggressive anti-Christian actions by the Obama Administration are real, documented, and are escalating:

1. January 2010 — Department of Defense orders removal of tiny Bible references on military scopes and gun sights.

2. June 2011 — The Department of Veterans Affairs forbids references to God and Jesus during burials at National Cemetery.

3. August 2011 — The Air Force stops teaching the Just War theory because it is based on a philosophy of St. Augustine.

4. September 2011 — Air Force Chief of Staff prohibits commanders from notifying airmen of religious programs.

5. September 2011 — The Army issues guidelines to Walter Reed Medical Center stipulating that no religious items (i.e. Bibles, reading materials) are to be given to the wounded.

6. November 2011 — The Air Force Academy rescinds support for Operation Christmas Child because it is run by Christians.

7. November 2011 — The Air Force Academy pays $80,000 for a Stonehenge-type worship center for pagans, druids, and witches.

8. February 2012 — The U.S. Military Academy disinvites decorated war hero LTG William “Jerry” Boykin, USA (Ret), and FRC Executive VP, because he is an outspoken Christian.

9. February 2012 — Army orders Catholic chaplains not to read archbishop’s letter from pulpit (Pilgrims fled England because they were prevented from free speech from pulpit)

10. May 2012 — Obama administration opposes legislation to protect the rights of conscience for military chaplains who do not wish to perform same-sex “marriages.”

11. June 2012 — Obama administration revokes the long-standing U.S. policy of allowing military service emblems to be placed on military Bibles.

12. August 2012 — Lt. Col. Jack Rich, USA e-mails subordinates saying they should be on the lookout for people who share FRC’s values because they are not “Army Values.”

13. January 2013 — Obama announces his opposition to a provision in the 2013 National Defense Authorization Act protecting the rights of conscience for military chaplains.

14. April 2013 — Officials briefing for U.S. Army Reservists states examples of “religious extremism” includes “Evangelical Christianity”, “Catholicism”, and “Islamic Jihadist Terrorism” in organizations like Al-Qaeda, the Muslim Brotherhood, and Hamas.

15. May 2013 — The Pentagon meets with Mikey Weinstein and the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) who is trying to establish new rules which would restrict the religious freedom of Christian and Jewish military personnel (they shouldn’t have even given such a radical anti-Christian an audience).

On November 5, 2009 at Fort Hood, a devout Muslim, Maj Nidal Malik Hasan, USA (A. K. A. “Abu Wali”), who had been communicating with Al Qaeda terrorist cleric, Anwar Al-Awlaki, in a series of 20 E-mails, shouted at the top of his lungs, “Allah Akbar”, and used two hand guns to kill 12 US military personnel, while wounding 31 US military and law enforcement personnel. It was a radical Islamic terrorist attack against American Christian military personnel executed on a US military base; Al Qaeda spokesman, Adam Gadahn, praised “Abu Wali” as a Mujahid Brother. The Obama administration through its spokesman, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin Dempsey, insisted it was not terrorism at all, but work place violence. The US military personnel who were killed and wounded that day, should have been awarded the Purple Heart Medal for coming under a military assault by a Islamic Terrorist and traitor. An attempt has been made for nearly 4 years to cover up this Islamic Terrorist assault perpetrated on US soil (like the failed Terrorist attacks on US soil including the failed bombing in Times Square, the Terrorist bombing at the Boston marathon, and the Al Qaeda Terrorist attack on US soil/the US Mission in Benghazi that killed 2 Navy SEAL’s). We will not remain compliant for another of the Obama administration’s cover ups; we will endeavor to continue to bring that Terrorist attack to the attention of the American people until those murdered and wounded US military personnel receive the Purple Heart Medals they so rightly deserve.

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Captain Joseph R. John, a combat veteran, is a 1962 graduate of the United States Naval Academy who retired from the US Navy after a long and distinguished career. He currently is the President of the Combat Veterans Training Group and is the founder of the Combat Veterans for Congress PAC.