With Memorial Day approaching Americans should be preparing to honor our veterans and military heroes currently fighting for us as well as remembering those we have lost. This honor should be especially due from our own government that has sent these brave men and women off to war. Unfortunately, the opposite is true. It is clear that the Federal government has declared war on our veterans and is intent on denying them the very Constitutional rights they fought to protect.

First there is the ever widening scandal involving the systematic denial of veterans Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms and their rights to due process under the provisions of the Fifth Amendment. This is being orchestrated by the VA which sends out letters to veterans telling them that because of physical or mental disabilities the VA is going to declare them incompetent to handle their own financial affairs and appoint a fiduciary to represent them.

Then in the same letter the veterans are told that “A determination of incompetency will prohibit you from purchasing, possessing, receiving, or transporting a firearm or ammunition. If you knowingly violate any of these prohibitions, you may be fined, imprisoned, or both pursuant to the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, Pub.L.No. 103-159, as implemented at 18, United States Code 924(a)(2).”

An estimated 150,000 veterans are now on the NICS background check list and cannot legally purchase firearms. I believe that the vast majority of them do not belong on the list and many of the veterans don’t know why they are there or even that they have been placed on the list. The only legitimate reasons for veterans to lose Second Amendment Rights is if  they have been convicted of a felony, are known drug addicts, or been found to be mentally ill to a point where they are a danger to themselves or others.

The veterans that are being represented by the United States Justice Foundation (USJF) are reporting to us that they are being declared incompetent for having minor depression, PTSD, or simply because they let their spouses pay the family bills.  Some veterans are reporting that if they try to fight the VA determination of incompetence the VA either threatens to withhold their payments or actually has done so. This is extortion since many veterans rely on their VA payments to feed themselves and their families.

The VA has refused to respond to several requests made under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) for information about the criteria being used to declare veterans incompetent and deny them their Second Amendment rights. The USJF has filed a suit to force the VA to turn over this information and will soon be filing a class action suit on behalf of veterans to stop the whole process.

This suit is the last chance these veterans may have since the bill introduced by Senator Richard Burr (R.NC) to protect the gun rights of veterans was recently defeated by the Democrats in the Senate.

There are at least three other attacks taking place on our veterans. The first has been the subject of a series of reports by the Fox News and ABC affiliates in Dallas, Texas which last fall reported that veterans going to the VA hospital were either having to wait for months to get treatment for serious illnesses or in some cases being denied effective treatment entirely. Two veterans were found to have committed suicide, one on the hospital grounds, because they were not being properly treated for their severe problems.

The second problem for our wounded warriors has been exposed in a series of reports by the Colorado Springs Gazette. According to the paper an extraordinary number of veterans who have received traumatic wounds, been treated and latter returned to their units, have ultimately received less than honorable discharges from the military for alleged misconduct. Once that happens, the soldiers can no longer receive treatment from the VA for their wounds or illnesses and they can’t receive any other benefits.

Reporter Dave Philipps stated in his article that: “It doesn’t take serious misconduct to be discharged and lose a lifetime of benefits. The Gazette found troops cut loose for small offenses that the Army acknowledges can be symptoms of TBI and PTSD. Some soldiers missed formation a handful of times or smoked marijuana once. Some were discharged for showing up late or missing appointments. Some tested positive once for drugs, then were deployed to combat zones because the Army needed the troops, only to be discharged for the drug offense when they returned.”

In other words, wounded soldiers who have problems because of their injuries are rewarded for their combat service by getting kicked out of the military so the government will not have to fulfill its obligation to treat them.

Last, but certainly not least is the horrendous treatment the 32 members of the army who were wounded in the terrorist attack at Fort Hood, Texas on November 5, 2009. Since the Pentagon was ordered to be politically correct and label the attack by jihadist Nidal Milak Hasan as workplace violence instead of the obvious terrorist attack it was the soldiers who survived have been denied the Purple Heart medal for the wounds they received and denied the financial benefits that come with it.

According to a report on the NBC affiliate in Dallas some soldiers can barely afford to feed their families, yet Hasan has received his regular military pay since he was arrested and awaiting trial. The total pay so far is $268,000. His family has access to this money so our government is taking good care of the family of an Islamic terrorist and ignoring the families of our wounded soldiers. By the way, I join with the families of the 13 soldiers who died in the attack in asking why this man has not yet been tried for his crimes.

I am outraged by these actions of our government that dishonor our veterans and the debt we owe to them. This is developing into an additional scandal for the Obama administration yet many people are unaware that this is even happening. Please help me spread the word.

To my fellow veterans on this Memorial Day I can only say thank you for your service and I believe the American people will not let you be forgotten.

Michael Connelly

mrobertc@hotmail.com

Michael Connelly blog

www.usjf.net

The news has been full of the attacks on our embassies throughout the Muslim world, and in particular, the deaths of Ambassador Chris Stevens and three others in Benghazi, Libya.

However, there’s a little known story of incredible bravery, heroics, and  courage that should be the top story.

So what actually happened at the U.S. embassy in Libya?  We are learning more about this every day.  Ambassador Stevens and Foreign Service officer Sean Smith, along with administrative staff, were working out of temporary quarters due to the fact that in the spring of 2011 during the so-called Arab Spring, the United States cut ties with then president Moammar Gadhafi.  Our embassy was looted and ransacked, causing it to be unusable.  It is still in a state of disrepair.

Security for embassies and their personnel is to be provided by the host nation.  Since Libya has gone through a civil war of sorts in the past 18 months, the current government is very unstable, and therefore, unreliable

A well-organized attack by radical Muslims was planned specifically targeting the temporary U.S. embassy building.  The Libyan security force that was in place to protect our people  deserted their post, or joined the attacking force.  Either way, our people were in a real fix.  And it should be noted that Ambassador Stevens had mentioned on more than one occasion to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton,  that he was quite concerned for his personal safety and the welfare of his people.  It is thought that Ambassador Stevens was on a “hit list.”

A short distance from the American compound, two Americans were sleeping.  They were in Libya as independent contractors working an assignment totally unrelated to our embassy.  They also happened to be former Navy Seal’s.

When they heard the noise coming from the attack on our embassy, as you would expect from highly trained warriors, they ran to the fight.  Apparently, they had no weapons, but seeing the Libyan guards dropping their guns in their haste in fleeing the scene, Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty snatched up several of these discarded weapons and prepared to defend the American compound.

Not knowing exactly what was taking place,  the two Seal’s set up a defensive perimeter.  Unfortunately Ambassador Stevens was already gravely injured, and Foreign Service officer, Sean Smith, was dead.  However, due to their quick action and suppressive fire, twenty administrative personnel in the embassy were able to escape to safety.  Eventually, these two courageous men were overwhelmed by the sheer numbers brought against them, an enemy force numbering between 100 to 200 attackers which came in two waves.  But the stunning part of the story is that  Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty killed 60 of the attacking force.  Once the compound was overrun, the attackers were incensed to discover that just two men had inflicted so much death and destruction.

As it became apparent to these selfless heroes, they were definitely going to lose their lives unless some reinforcements showed up in a hurry.  As we know now, that was not to be.  I’m fairly certain they knew they were going to die in this gun fight, but not before they took a whole lot of bad guys with them!

Consider these tenets of the Navy SEAL Code: 

1) Loyalty to Country, Team and Teammate, 

2) Serve with Honor and Integrity On and Off the Battlefield, 

3) Ready to Lead, Ready to Follow, Never Quit, 

4) Take responsibility for your actions and the actions of your teammates, 

5) Excel as Warriors through Discipline and Innovation, 

6) Train for War, Fight to Win, Defeat our Nation’s Enemies, and…

7) Earn your Trident every day

(http://www.navyseals.com/seal-code-warrior-creed).

Thank you, Tyrone and Glen.  To the very last breath, you both lived up to the SEAL Code.  You served all of us well.  You were courageous in the face of certain death.

And Tyrone, even though you never got to hold your newborn son, he will grow up knowing the character and quality of his father, a man among men who sacrificed himself defending others. 

Dr. Charles R. Roots

Senior Pastor

Former Staff Sergeant,

USMC Captain,

U. S. Navy Chaplain Corps (Ret.)

Let us never forget the Hillary Clinton Comment

“What Difference Does It Make”

“If there’s inappropriate conduct being done on your watch in the IRS,” Rep. Gowdy said, “then that inappropriate conduct can last as long as the inspector general’s investigation lasts.”

The congressman’s remarks were in response to former IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman saying he didn’t stop the agency’s political targeting of conservative groups because the IG was looking into it.

“Is that what you’re telling me?” Gowdy continued. “You’re not going to step in and stop it? If there’s someone wielding a knife in the parking lot, are you going to call the inspector general? Are you going to wait until his or her investigation is over until stop it?”

There was a long pause after that question.

“Did you do anything to verify that the practice — as insidious as it was — was stopped?” the South Carolina congressman persisted, a response to Shulman saying that when he found out about the targeting he also was under the understanding that it had stopped.

“Um, the inspector general was going to be looking into it and that’s — ” Shulman started to say.

“Is it that you can’t say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ or you’re just choosing not to say ‘yes’ or ‘no’? Can you answer the question: Did you do anything personally to make sure that this insidious, discriminatory practice was stopped? Yes or no?”

Things continued to become heated between the two, Shulman hedging his responses and Gowdy demanding answers:

“Why was the culture such under your watch that an employee felt comfortable targeting conservative groups?” Gowdy continued. “Did you investigate that?”

“From my reading of the report, um, I can’t tell if it was political motivation or if it was tone-deaf, somebody trying to expedite a way –” Shulman started.

“You still don’t know that this was political?”

“Excuse me?”

“You still don’t know that this was political?”

“I defer to the inspector general.”

 ”Well, I’ll tell you this, Mister Shulman, your predecessor said that he wasn’t sure if it was partisan and that requires the listener to be as stupid as the speaker.”

The chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee on Friday said the IRS scandal shows a “culture of cover-ups” and “political intimidation” within the Obama administration.

Rep. Dave Camp, Michigan Republican, while speaking at a hearing his panel held regarding the IRS’s improper targeting of tea party and other conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status, suggested the White House hid the scandal until after the 2012 elections.

“This appears to be just the latest example of a culture of cover-ups and political intimidation in this administration,” said Mr. Camp at the nearly four-hour hearing, the first of several that will take place on Capitol Hill on the matter.

Mr. Camp said the IRS scandal shows the tax-collecting agency has become too large and powerful and called for widespread reforms within he agency.

“This systematic abuse cannot be fixed with just one resignation or two,” he said. “And as much as I expect more people need to go, the reality is this is not a personnel problem.”

Lawmakers from both parties — though especially Republicans — grilled Acting IRS Commissioner Steven Miller, the hearing key witness, who apologized for his agency’s targeting conservative groups.

“The effected organizations and the public deserve better,” Mr. Miller said. “Partisanship or even the perception of partisanship has no place at the IRS.”

“We did horrible customer service.”

President Obama forced Mr. Miller to resign Wednesday. The acting commissioner took over as former Commissioner Douglas Shulman stepped down after the November elections.

At the time of the misconduct, Mr. Miller was not in charge of the agency, though he did hold a high-ranking position. His assignment as “acting commissioner” was scheduled to end in early June anyway.

Mr. Miller denied that political motivation was behind his agency’s singling out groups for special scrutiny that included the conservative buzzwords “tea party,” “patriot” or “9/12” in their names. Rather, he said “mistakes were made” by employees trying to tackle burgeoning workloads while vetting groups applying for tax-exempt status.

“The agency is moving forward. It has learned its lesson,” he told the panel. He said changes have been made to ensure the problem doesn’t happen again.

J. Russell George, Treasury’s inspector general for tax administration, who oversaw a yearlong investigation of the IRS scandal, told the committee his probe found no examples of political intimidation in the IRS targets of conservative groups.

Mr. Miller complained his agency doesn’t have enough employees to handle a burgeoning influx of applications from organizations for tax exempt status. He said a staff of only 140 to 200 handle 70,000 applications for tax-exempt status.

“We try to move them along as fast as we can,” he said. “We do not have enough people right now.”

Republicans said they weren’t satisfied with Mr. Miller’s apology and explanations.

“I’m sad and I’m sick to my atom that Americans could be targeted for their political believes,” said Rep. Lynn Jenkins, Kansas Republican.

Rep. Tom Price, Georgia Republican, said called the IRS’s action “chilling” and “very very serious.”

But Rep. Earl Blumenauer, Oregon Democrat, said lawmakers are partially to blame for the problem because Congress has “slowly been starving” the IRS budget and expanded the tax code while their caseload has ballooned. This, coupled with an expanded tax code, invites for agents to make dangerous shortcuts, he said.

“I really hope that there is an opportunity to support the integrity of the Internal Revenue Service,” he said.

I “hope that we look at the task they’ve been given, the budget they’ve been given and think a little bit about a rate of return that would more than pay for itself if we invested in training, in management and having more than 150 to deal with the avalanche of these applications.”

The inspector general’s audit, released Tuesday, singled out conservative groups for “burdensome” scrutiny because of their politically charged names and delayed approving some applications for so long that the groups simply gave up.

The independent watchdog recommended the IRS make nine major reforms aimed at speeding up but also clarifying the agency’s approval process for tax-exemption — two of which the IRS initially rejected.

But on Friday, Mr. Miller suggested the House committee his agency would implement all of the recommendations.

“There’s no air between us on the recommendations,” he said.

Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/may/17/rep-dave-camp-accuses-white-house-cover-irs-scanda/#ixzz2U4FJbmKs
Follow us: @washtimes on Twitter

Holy crap! If this whistleblower’s testimony turns credible, they will throw Obama/Clinton in prison…

PJmedia – The former diplomat who spoke with PJ Media regarded the whole enterprise as totally amateurish and likened it to the Mike Nichols film Charlie Wilson’s War about a clueless congressman who supplies Stingers to the Afghan guerrillas. “It’s as if Hillary and the others just watched that movie and said ‘Hey, let’s do that!’” the diplomat said.

He added that he and his colleagues think the leaking of General David Petraeus’ affair with his biographer Paula Broadwell was timed to silence the former CIA chief on these matters.

Regarding General Ham, military contacts of the diplomats tell them that AFRICOM had Special Ops “assets in place that could have come to the aid of the Benghazi consulate immediately (not in six hours).”

Ham was told by the White House not to send the aid to the trapped men, but Ham decided to disobey and did so anyway, whereupon the White House “called his deputy and had the deputy threaten to relieve Ham of his command.”

Is Barack Obama an accessory to murder?

That question may seem loaded and over the top.

But I would like to point out some simple facts.

Kermit Gosnell was sentenced last Wednesday to life in prison without parole for the murder of a baby born alive in a botched abortion, who prosecutors said would have survived if the doctor had not “snipped” its neck with scissors. He was also sentenced to a total of 30 to 60 superfluous years on two charges of conspiring to kill two other babies. He got off relatively easy on some other charges that included involuntary manslaughter in the death of a woman who died after being given too much anesthesia in his clinic.

I’m not going to dignify Gosnell, as many news organizations did, by bestowing upon him the honorific title “doctor.” Gosnell is an abortionist. He never cured people. He killed them.

He was only spared the death penalty because of a plea agreement after his convictions.

So what does all this have to do with Obama being an accessory to murder?

You’ll first notice that Obama has refused to comment on the case from the beginning. Here’s a guy, Obama, who can’t keep his mouth shut on any topic. He loves to hear himself talk. But, when it comes to Gosnell, he’s mute. At first he said he couldn’t comment on it because it was an active trial. What’s stopping him now? Cat got your tongue?

Why can’t Obama talk about it?

Because Obama is on record as supporting the kind of thing Gosnell did.

I know Obama is faced with many scandals, and the opportunities to ask questions of him are, shall we say, somewhat limited.

But wouldn’t it be nice if some enterprising reporter with access asked: “Now that the Gosnell trial is over, do you still oppose laws that protect babies that survive abortions?”

As an Illinois state senator, Obama twice voted against bills that would have “defined any aborted fetus that showed signs of life as a ‘born alive infant’ and entitled to legal protection.” He said he viewed the bills as backdoor attempts to deny women the right to abortion.

So, in other words, if Obama had his way, Gosnell would still be practicing – still free to kill more babies.

And can’t we take it a step further by suggesting that Gosnell, and others like him across the nation who haven’t yet been brought to justice, was encouraged to do just what he did?

The sitting president of the United States twice openly took the position in the short time he served as a legislator that babies born alive following abortions had no right to live. This was legislation he was actively opposing even while abortionists were murdering babies born alive in cold blood in his own state. That’s why the legislation was put forward in Illinois, largely because of heroines like Jill Stanek, a nurse who witnessed such acts of barbarism and brought it to the attention of Obama and the Illinois Legislature.

So maybe that’s why Obama is less than loquacious on the subject of Gosnell.

What can he say?

Has he changed his mind about the very laws that put Gosnell away for life?

Or does he still believe that those laws would merely serve as backdoor attempts to deny women their right to take the life of their baby – born or not?

My guess is he would still take that extreme abortion position if he answered honestly.

I think it would be a tougher question for Obama to answer right now than those he’s facing on Benghazi, the IRS and the Associated Press scandals – now that the country has seen the kind of barbarism abortionists practice.

‘Telecom routinely supply hundreds of thousands of records annually’

A veteran reporter is warning that members of the news media aren’t the only Americans who should be concerned about the privacy of their telephone conversations.

Gregory J. Millman of the Wall Street Journal, who says his telephone records were targeted by the IRS many years ago, writes that the communications of citizens could come to the attention of the government in a number of ways, including by getting a call from someone in whom the government has interest.

The issue has arisen because of the admission by the Department of Justice that it obtained records of Associated Press telephone lines in the House Gallery at the U.S. Capitol over a period of months.

WND reported the Obama administration said it pursued AP’s records because a double agent in the war on terror was compromised by a story. However, the news wire’s reporting on the issue didn’t mention the agent.

It was CIA Director John Brennan, who then was President Obama’s terror adviser, who told members of Congress that the U.S. had “inside control” of the situation. Media then reported on the use of a double agent, according to  a profile of the government’s justification for pursuing the reporters’ telephone records published in the Los Angeles Times.

See the list of news media members under Washington’s watch.

Millman writes that his records were targeted in 1991 when he wrote a story citing an Internal Revenue Service memo.

However, he pointed out that when his records were taken by the IRS, he wasn’t the only one

“That’s how they happened to scoop up the phone records of a home builder, a trade association of corporate finance officers, an old friend who happened to live in Washington, D.C., and the Alicia Patterson Foundation, which supports investigative journalism and which I had called to discuss a fellowship.”

Millman says none of those people or organizations “had anything to do with the story at issue, and none learned until long afterward that IRS investigators had been secretly riffling through records of all their phone calls.”

Millman explains he learned only by accident that the records had been given to the government.

“In what may be another good example of government waste and duplication, several months after the IRS had started going through the phone records, the Department of Justice launched its own investigation,:” he writes. “In keeping with the DOJ’s policy, in mid-January of 1992 I got a notice that it wanted my records. … In the course of our fight, my attorney learned from my phone company that it had already turned the records over to the IRS months before.”

Millman reported Michael Altschul, a lawyer for the CTYIA-The Wireless Association, estimated industry-wide, companies respond to up to 2 million requests for phone records per year.

The DOJ net for records also is widening.

The Washington Post noted the latest scandal for the White House is the Justice Department’s use of security badge access records and other information to monitor three Fox News journalists.

They were identified as reporters William La Jeunesse and James Rosen and producer Mike Levine.

The report said court documents reveal how they were was monitored.

“Search warrants like these have a severe chilling effect on the free flow of important information to the public,” First Amendment lawyer Charles Tobin told the Post.

Reports say their emails showed up in an inspector’s general report regarding the Fast and Furious gun-tracing scandal.

Breitbart reported: “What we have here is a case of the Obama administration criminalizing reporting. In June of 2009, James Rosen of Fox News reported that North Korea might respond to an increase in United Nations sanctions with even more nuclear tests. Rosen added that the CIA had learned this information from their sources within North Korea. According to the Washington Post, upon hearing … of Rosen’s report, the White House launched what many believe is an unprecedented leak probe that went so far as to criminalize standard newsgathering.”

Shockingly, the report continues, “FBI agent Regineld Reyes claimed there was evidence Rosen had broken the law, ‘at the very least, either as an aider, abettor and/or co-conspirator.’”

Rosen said the Obama administration never contacted him.

“It is called everyday journalism; and the Obama administration is attempting to criminalize everyday journalism,” the report said.