John McCain slams Chuck Hagel

UPDATE
I totally forgot about this part. McCain wanted Hagel when McCain wanted to be President and Hagel backed him up. What did McCain want Hagel for? Secretary of Defense! That's right and here it is out of McCain's own mouth.

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Too many people think Senator John McCain as a hero. While that was true a long time ago when he was captured and held as a POW in Vietnam, while serving in the Senate, his record has been one of voting against the best interests of the troops and our veterans.

Looking up his voting record has left many in shock. He has voted against Bills that passed and then accepted credit for them. The biggest one was the GI Bill. McCain and President Bush were against this Bill. McCain said it was "too generous" and "too expensive" but after President signed it, he gave credit to McCain among others.

That is why Senators Jim Webb and Chuck Hagel proposed the new GI Bill, which would bring back WWII-style standards of providing vets with full tuition, room and board. And that is why 51 senators have signed on, including 9 Republicans like John Warner, giving this GI Bill tremendous bi-partisan support.

In 2010 he called the "Suicide Prevention Bill overreach" and blocked the Bill. He said this even though there was a report that in Portland Oregon Suicide Prevention hotline had rescued 5 veterans in a two hour period.

Now he is slamming Chuck Hagel even though, as history has proven, Hagel was right about Iraq. Hagel was part of McCain's campaign for the Presidency in 2008 but now he is not good enough for McCain. Chuck Hagel was not just a Senator, he is also another Vietnam veteran.

Hegal volunteered to join the Army and ended up serving a yearlong tour in 1968 during the Tet Offensive, considered the most violent period in that war. Because of a clerical error, he served side by side with his younger brother.

He earned two Purple Hearts, one of which was for saving his brother's life. The second Purple Heart was for shrapnel he took in the chest while on patrol with his brother; his brother saved his life by patching up the wound.

Veterans committing suicide at 22 a day, percentage higher for older veterans

Veterans suicides now at 22 a day was posted on Wounded Times Blog on January 9, 2013. I posted it after watching two interviews on the Washington Post, The Fold.

VA study finds more veterans committing suicide
Washington Post
By Greg Jaffe
Friday, February 1, 12:01 AM

Numbers according to the VA
29 and younger, non-veteran 24.4%, veteran 5.8%
30-39 non-veteran 20.0, veteran 8.9%
40-49 non-veteran 23.5, veteran 15.0%
50-59 non-veteran 16.9, veteran 20.0%
60-69 non-veteran 7.4, veteran 16.8%
70-79 non-veteran 4.2, veteran 19.0%
80 and older non-veteran 3.6, veteran 14.5%

Every day about 22 veterans in the United States kill themselves, a rate that is about 20 percent higher than the Department of Veterans Affairs’ 2007 estimate, according to two-year study by a VA researcher.

The VA study indicates that more than two-thirds of the veterans who commit suicide are 50 or older, suggesting that the increase in veterans’ suicides is not primarily driven by those returning from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“There is a perception that we have a veterans’ suicide epidemic on our hands. I don’t think that is true,” said Robert Bossarte, an epidemiologist with the VA who did the study. “The rate is going up in the country, and veterans are a part of it.” The number of suicides overall in the United States increased by nearly 11 percent between 2007 and 2010, the study says.

Bossarte said much work remains to be done to understand the data, especially concerning the suicide risk among Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans. They constitute a minority of an overall veteran population that skews older, but recent studies have suggested that those who served in recent conflicts are 30 percent to 200 percent more likely to commit suicide than their ­non-veteran peers.
read more here

Prosecutor gunned down outside Texas courthouse

Prosecutor gunned down outside Texas courthouse
By Michael Martinez and Rich Phillips
CNN
updated 3:59 PM EST, Thu January 31, 2013

STORY HIGHLIGHTS
NEW: "We have officers going over all of this case," a sheriff's spokeswoman says
NEW: The FBI has joined the manhunt, the bureau says
Mark Hasse was an assistant district attorney in Kaufman County, east of Dallas
He was shot and killed while getting out of his car, spokeswoman says

(CNN) -- A manhunt is under way in Texas for whoever gunned down a prosecutor outside a county courthouse east of Dallas on Thursday morning, authorities said.

Mark Hasse, an assistant district attorney in Kaufman County, was fatally shot several times as he got out of his car in the courthouse parking lot, sheriff's spokeswoman Pat Laney told CNN.

Investigators are looking for an older-model, four-door sedan, either brown or silver, but it wasn't clear whether there were one or two suspects Thursday afternoon, Laney said.
read more here

Price Middle School Shooting

It will be interesting to read about what type of weapon he used. If it was not a high capacity assault weapon, then it will prove the point that people do stand a chance to stop a gunman with equal weapon.

UPDATE February 1, 2013
Price Middle School Shooting: Wounded Student Recovering After Fellow Teen Opened Fire
By KATE BRUMBACK
01/31/13

ATLANTA — A student opened fire at his middle school Thursday afternoon, wounding a 14-year-old in the neck before an armed officer working at the school was able to get the gun away, police said.

Multiple shots were fired in the courtyard of Price Middle School just south of downtown about 1:50 p.m. and the one boy was hit, Atlanta Police Chief George Turner said. In the aftermath, a teacher received minor cuts, he said.

The wounded boy was taken "alert, conscious and breathing" to Grady Memorial Hospital, said police spokesman Carlos Campos. Grady Heath System Spokeswoman Denise Simpson said the teen had been discharged from the hospital Thursday night. Campos said charges against the shooter were pending.

Police swarmed the school of about 400 students after reports of the shooting while a crowd of anxious parents gathered in the streets, awaiting word on their children. Students were kept at the locked-down school for more than two hours before being dismissed.

"The obvious question is how did this get past a metal detector?" Davis asked about the gun. "That's something we do not know yet."

The armed resource officer who took the gun away was off-duty and at the school, but police didn't release details on him or whether he is regularly at Price. Since 20 children and six adults were shot to death at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut in December, calls for armed officers in every school have resonated across the country.
click links for the rest

Original report

Price Middle School Shooting: Multiple Injuries In Attack At Southeast Atlanta School
Huffington Post
Posted: 01/31/2013

Police responded to a shooting at Price Middle School in Atlanta early Thursday afternoon, WSBTV reports.

Authorities say that multiple people, including a 14-year-old boy, were wounded, according to Fox News.

Police said the teen was shot in the back of the neck and immediately transported to Grady Memorial Hospital for treatment, 11Alive reports. The boy was reportedly awake and responsive while being transported to the hospital, and the injuries are non-life threatening.
read more here

Tony Perkins Blames Gays For High Military Suicide Rates

Wonder what he thought was the problem when Vietnam veterans came home and then committed suicide, but then again, what he "thinks" and what is real do not seem to matter to him. He doesn't seem to even try to acknowledge that suicides were high before the repeal.

If you want to read more of this you'll have to use the link since I cannot stomach posting any more of what he Perkins had to say.

Tony Perkins Blames Gays For High Military Suicide Rates
by DAVID BADASH
JANUARY 31, 2013

Tony Perkins says the military’s high suicide rate is a result of the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” which is “adding additional stress” by “driving Christianity out [and] putting homosexuality in.” Perkins is the head of the certified anti-gay Family Research Council.
read more here