Wednesday, July 10, 2019

Eight year old girl knew who Bessie Coleman was. Do you?

8-year-old applauded for asking to report on aviation pioneer Bessie Coleman instead of Amelia Earhart


ABC News
By MARQUIS HUGHES
Jul 10, 2019
For all of Noa’s hard work and willingness to report on Coleman, the National Aviation Hall of Fame Museum decided to fly Noa and her family to the museum in Dayton, Ohio. There she got the privilege to meet a relative of her hero.

Bessie Coleman’s great-niece, Gigi Coleman, greeted her when she arrived and awarded Noa a medallion for her outstanding project.

When 8-year-old Noa Lewis was assigned a school project on Amelia Earhart, she flipped the script and asked instead to report on Bessie Coleman, who was the first female African American and Native American pilot.
Noa Lewis giving her best of Bessie Coleman.

Noa and her second-grade class were given the assignment to create and be a part of a “wax museum,” with each student embodying their assigned historical figure. Noa had originally been assigned Amelia Earhart, the first female aviator to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean.

“Noa knew about Amelia Earhart but she told her teacher she wanted another figure but couldn’t remember the name,” Moniqua Lewis, Noa’s mother, told “Good Morning America.”

Lewis was picking up her daughter from school when Noa told her mom about the project and about how she wanted to report on a person who was once featured in her favorite Disney show, “Doc McStuffins.” Lewis was naming names, trying to help her daughter remember who it was.

It turns out it was Bessie Coleman, or “Queen Bessie,” as Noa refers to her. Coleman was the first female African American and Native American to hold a pilot’s license.

Lewis saw how passionate Noa was about Bessie Coleman, so as Noa’s teacher was exiting the school, she asked her if her daughter could instead report on Coleman.
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Tuesday, July 9, 2019

Ace Combat 7 battle between Dad and Son

Air Force 1st Lieutenant Beats 4-Star Dad in Livestreamed Dogfight Game


Military.com
By Oriana Pawlyk
8 Jul 2019
At one point during the game, the two swapped aircraft and flew each others' fighters.
U.S. Air Force Gen. Mike Holmes, the commander of Air Combat Command, and 1st Lt. Wade Holmes, his son, battle each other in a combat flight action video game June 29, 2019, at Joint Base Langley-Eustis, Virginia. (U.S. Air Force/Emerald Ralston)
Score a win for the Viper pilot in the battle over which Air Force fourth-generation aircraft brings the heat.

1st Lt. Wade Holmes, an F-16 Fighting Falcon pilot, recently beat his dad, Air Combat Commander Gen. Mike Holmes, an F-15 Eagle pilot, in the game Ace Combat 7, according to a service release.

The two pilots flew their respective aircraft during the hour-long game June 29. The event was live-streamed on Twitch so viewers could watch and call in, asking the pilots questions about flight training.

Ace Combat 7 takes place in a fictional world in which pilots attempt to secure the skies during an air campaign between two sparring rivals. Holmes and Holmes played on an Xbox One system.
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Officer Kevin Valencia gets help from PitBull

Free Pitbull concert raises $1M for officer shot in line of duty


Click Orlando
By Adrienne Cutway - Web Editor
July 08, 2019

ORLANDO, Fla. - A free Pitbull concert held last month raised more than $1 million for the family of officer Kevin Valencia, who has been receiving treatment since he was shot in the head a year ago while responding to a hostage situation.

The office of attorney Dan Newlin, which organized the community event, said Monday that the money raised has been presented to the Fraternal Order of Police so that it can be distributed to the Valencia family.

Newlin wrote in a letter to the organization that he and Meghan Valencia came up with the idea because she wanted to bring her husband home but she didn't have the financial resources to make the necessary renovations to her house.

They also hoped the event would highlight Kevin Valencia's ongoing struggle because they both feared that members of the community had forgotten that he's still receiving treatment.
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Put Vets First shut down after putting veterans last on the to do list

Veterans' Charities, PAC Shut Doors Amid Fundraising Scrutiny


Military.com
By Patricia Kime
July 8, 2019
The PAC, for example, raised $4.8 million, with the telemarketers netting $4.4 million and Hampton receiving $183,500 in salary, according to the report.
Homeless veteran. Getty Images
A Virginia-based political action committee purportedly established to support veterans' issues was disbanded Saturday amid questions over its fundraising and expense practices.

The Put Vets First! PAC filed termination paperwork Saturday with the Federal Election Commission, according to a report Monday by the Center for Public Integrity. The PAC appears to have followed the same fundraising and expense patterns as two affiliated nonprofits, all established by a retired Army Reserve major. The organizations raised millions but donated little to veterans causes or candidates.

Founded by Brian Arthur Hampton, the organizations began pulling in cash around 2013, when Hampton hired telemarketing firms to conduct fundraising. Yet according to Internal Revenue Service tax filings, the groups gave little of those earnings to veterans' causes, instead paying most of the money back to the telemarketing firms and covering administrative costs, including salaries.
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What are veterans really worth to the candidates?

Next President needs to prove what veterans are worth

Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
July 9, 2019

Veterans, if your Mom told you that you were special...Mom knows best. You actually are! Surprised? You shouldn't be. The budget of the federal government prove it.

The two of the biggest departments this nation has are the Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans Affairs. 

The DOD budget was $1.3 Trillion.  The VA budget request for 2020 is $220.2 billion. Yet when it comes to size of both departments, you get the idea that you are even more special. Current military members are less than 1% of the population. Less than 10% of our citizens are veterans, and less than half of you use the VA.

Right now there are 2 Republicans and 24 Democrats who want to become the next President. It seems that everyone is talking about what is either strong or wrong, but no one is talking about what matters to your lives. We are just hearing the same old crap on what they will do for you, but no apologies on what they already did to you.

Let's get honest and shove politics out of the way because as we already know, it is both parties messing up. Congress has had since 1946 to get it right for your sake...and they all failed.
For the 26 some odd...and changing, they want to become the next Commander-in-Chief but all of them should be "chef" considering the strange brew they have been cooking up for veterans while calling it good medicine.

Members of Congress have been telling the American people how bad our healthcare system is...and it is bad. These same folks are telling veterans sending them into this mess is "good for them" and they should be grateful. As to "what" they should be grateful for...no one has an answer.

This is easy, or it should be. Disabled veterans became disabled serving this county. They were promised that their wounds would be treated and they would not have to worry about surviving after they pre-paid for their healthcare with their service.

Now, you'd think that would come with a square deal and it would be delivered. You'd also have to imagine that the folks leading this country are grateful enough to make sure our veterans and current military members were actually honored. Then again, if you do, then you haven't been paying attention to the facts.

The percentage of veterans living in this country is lower than in 1999 when the VA said that 20 veterans a day were committing suicide. They released the the first report in 2012. Back then, the general public had no idea but veterans knew all about it. (In 2000, my husband's nephew was one of them.)

Seven years after the first report, everyone is talking about veterans killing themselves but no one is talking about how it has gotten worse for them to stay alive.

Sure we have the usual problems that have been going on for as long as I've been alive (a very long time) but it got worse with the wrong people advising Trump. 

Fact, he wanted to cut the "unemployable" percentage from senior veterans disability checks because they were too old to work anyway. While the largest percentage of veterans in this country are over the age of 50...they are also the majority of the known veterans committing suicide. Did anyone think about what hearing this did to them?

I can tell you there was a major freak out when veterans thought the one thing they could depend on was that "permanent and total" actually meant that.

Then we have what is going on with the military. Their suicides have gone up too. According to the DOD, suicides hit the largest number in ten years! The other fact is that it has averaged about 500 a year since 2012.

Military families are subjected to not only living on contaminated bases, 126 at last count by the DOD. Military housing has also been harming them because someone thought it was a good thing for them to be handed over to for profit businesses.

Yes, even more horror for those who had been prepared to face the enemy...but did not think they would have to face all this.

When you hear all the people running for the office make them actually answer questions without running away from what they've already done to you! Stop letting them get away with treating you as if you are just like everyone else they can just make a speech to and then get your vote.

MAKE THEM EARN IT!