88 GOP Members of House Voted Against Veterans Burn Pit Bill

U.S. House passes bill expanding health care, benefits for veterans exposed to burn pits

IOWA Dispatch

WASHINGTON — The U.S. House overwhelmingly approved a bipartisan bill Wednesday to expand health care and benefits for veterans exposed to burn pits overseas, sending the package back to the U.S. Senate after making a minor change.

Senators, who broadly support the landmark package, are expected to quickly clear the measure for President Joe Biden’s signature. The House vote was 342-88. (updated)

Biden, who has linked his son Beau’s death from a brain tumor in 2015 to exposure to burn pits, has repeatedly called on Congress to address the illnesses and deaths linked to toxic exposure. 

“What I found with my son, what I found with my friends, what I found with the generation of Vietnam: There’s this notion that you shouldn’t ask for anything,” Biden said in March while at a resource center in Fort Worth, Texas.

“You should be asking. You should be letting us know. You should let us know what is bothering you, what is the problem because we owe it to you,” Biden continued.

(read it here)

There were 12 Senators that voted against the Senate version sent to the House.

The American Independent

Despite the Senate's broad bipartisan support for the bill, 12 Republicans voted against advancing it:
Sens. Richard Burr (NC),
Bill Cassidy (LA),
John Kennedy (LA),
James Lankford (OK),
Mike Lee (UT),
Cynthia Lummis (WY)
Rand Paul (KY),
Mitt Romney (UT),
Dan Sullivan (AK),
Thom Tillis (NC),
Pat Toomey (PA),
and Todd Young (IN).

No matter what it is you regret, you're not alone

Yesterday I was watching the January 6th hearing trying to hold people accountable for attacking our Capitol. One of the people in the crowd who stormed it was Stephen Ayres. He spoke about how he went from having a job for twenty years and being a family man, but he also spoke about falling into social media sites. He was convinced the lies about the election being stolen had to be true because he believed the people telling him that.

He had no idea it would cost him his job because he believed the lies he heard. He had no idea he'd end up living with regrets about things he could not change. The thing is, while he couldn't change what he had already done, he had control over what he does. He used the opportunity to speak to the House Committee so they would understand how people like him, ended up being a part of the attempt to overthrow the government.

The other thing was, that he went to some of the Capitol Officers that had been wounded in the attack and apologized to them. Considering that some members of the House and Senate have not even acknowledged their suffering or pain, caused while protecting them, that is something they have not heard nearly enough of.

Rioter shakes hands with officers who defended US Capitol during Jan. 6 riot after hearing (CNN)

Capitol rioter Stephen Ayres shook hands with officers who defended the US Capitol during the Jan. 6 insurrection after Tuesday's hearing.

Ayres could be seen shaking hands with former DC Metropolitan Police Officers Michael Fanone, Daniel Hodges and US Capitol Police Sgt. Aquilino A. Gonell. read more here

Maybe you're wondering what this has to do with PTSD. It comes with a lot of regrets too. Most of the officers have PTSD and 4 officers committed suicide.

Wiki

If you have regrets about what you did because you believed a lie, what do you plan on doing about it? What good does it do to regret what you did if you do nothing about it? Did you hurt members of your own family? We know that happens since everyone was all pumped up thinking they were the only ones knowing what the truth was. Now you know better and you were wrong. So what do you do about it?

Do you stay estranged from your family because you don't have the courage to admit you were wrong, or do you go to them and apologize to them so you can rebuild the relationship the liars destroyed?

Do you feel bad so many officers were hurt and just get on with your own life, or do you do what Stephen Ayres did, and take a chance of at least saying you are sorry for what you did to them?

The thing is, ignoring what you regret doing, no matter what it is, will block any future happiness you may be able to get a chance to have. As with Ayres, the officers said the apology was offered and left it at that. It's up to them if they accept his apology or now but at least he knows he tried.

How about you go to bed tonight knowing that at least you tried to make up for the harm that you did, so you can put it behind you?

No matter what it is you regret, you're not alone and safe bet, someone still loves you!

"This ain’t the America I signed up for."

Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
July 10, 2022

It is no secret that there are good Chaplains in the military and some terrible Chaplains too. We've all heard stories of service members in spiritual turmoil seeing a Chaplain and then being told they were going to hell because they did not belong to the same faith as the Chaplain.

The question is, who are these Chaplains serving? Are they serving the men and women fighting for and defending our freedom around the world, from many different faiths, including no faith at all, or are they serving the churches they received endorsements from?

Spiritual help is vital to helping them heal from what is asked of them, plus they also have personal problems going on back home while they can be thousands of miles away. If they choose to seek a Chaplain's help, they have to settle on whatever Chaplain is with them. If the Chaplain is a good one, then they are helped and do not turn away from the faith they already had. If the Chaplain is putting their own personal choice of faith ahead of those who turn to them for help, it causes a lot more harm than not having one at all.

While I have some problems with Military Religious Freedom Foundation, there are times when I agree with what they do.

It is a wonder what they'll be hearing now that Roe v Wade has been overturned if they do not want to continue the pregnancy. They are already fighting back and looking for help.

Active Duty U.S. Naval Fighter pilot asks what will happen to women like her stationed in states where abortion is illegal: “MRFF Help for military abortion?” 

"This ain’t the America I signed up for. Military women have civil rights too. We just lost one this morning."

This came out in June about Independence Day as a "Christian Nation"

Encouraged by Wednesday’s major MRFF victory in getting the 246th Army Band of the South Carolina National Guard canceled from performing at a South Carolina Baptist church Christian nationalistic “Annual Carolina Celebration of Liberty,” members of a second military band came to MRFF for help in getting their upcoming scheduled performance at a large evangelical church’s Fourth of July event, which band members described as “some sort of ‘Celebration of the Founding of America as a Christian Nation’ which is just unacceptable to most of us in the Band,” canceled as well.

How can we expect men and women to put their lives on the line, go through endless hardships over and over again, and then discover this country they are willing to die for, won't even allow them to worship as they choose, or not worship at all? 

Not allow them to make their own choices over their own bodies? You know, the same bodies they place in danger all the time because they made the choice to do it! They all enlisted, willingly, by choice! What's next? 

How did they force their beliefs on the rest of us and get away with it?

Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
July 8, 2022 

I am tired of hearing nonsense about #PTSD. I am tired of people thinking it only hits veterans. Tired of the media jumping up and down, putting one group over all others. Above all, I am tired of trying to offer hope of spiritual healing when all folks hear is how hateful Christians are. After all, they're the only ones getting the attention. Over the years I tried to explain a lot of things. So why am I trying to explain pro-choice? Because there is a whole lot of other stories out there and today, I have one about religious leaders supporting the facts that there are non-hateful Christians out there and there are plenty of us!

I am also tired of hateful people claiming to represent Jesus as a "Christian" yet have no connection to what He actually taught!

Here are just a few of them so that you won't be so offended when you hear "Christian" because we don't all believe what some do and then pretend they speak for all of us!

BTW There are more than 45,000 denominations globally. because we don't all believe the same!

Followers of Jesus span the globe. But the global body of more than 2 billion Christians is separated into thousands of denominations. Pentecostal, Presbyterian, Lutheran, Baptist, Apostolic, Methodist — the list goes on. Estimations show there are more than 200 Christian denominations in the U.S. and a staggering 45,000 globally, according to the Center for the Study of Global Christianity. So why does Christianity have so many branches?

A cursory look shows that differences in belief, power grabs and corruption all had a part to play.

But on some level, differentiation and variety have been markers of Christianity since the very beginning, according to Diarmaid MacCulloch, professor emeritus of church history at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. "There's never been a united Christianity," he told Live Science. discover more here

But here in America, there are many different faiths and many more with no connection to organized religion of any kind. So how is it that a fraction of people in this country managed to enforce their beliefs on the rest of us, and get away with it? 

Input

Brandan Robertson, a 29-year-old from Washington, D.C., is not the kind of advocate most people picture when they think of the pro-choice movement.

But on Tuesday evening, after the leak of a draft majority opinion from the U.S. Supreme Court that would overturn Roe v. Wade, he donned his blue clergy collar, and stood shoulder-to-shoulder with other protesters outside the Supreme Court building.

Robertson, an author, activist, and lead pastor of “digital progressive faith community” Metanoia Church, hadn’t always been the type to attend such events. Throughout his teens and early twenties, he was heavily involved with the conservative evangelical scene and self-identified as an anti-gay, anti-abortion fundamentalist. find even more non-hateful Christian leaders here

MIC

“What we profess and what we live don't always add up,” Blackmon, now a nurse and an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ (UCC), says. “You don't know where you really stand until it’s personal.” Blackmon doesn’t believe she should have to tell her personal abortion story. But today, with abortion rights in the U.S. hanging by a thread, she’s telling it for the first time.

With many evangelicals celebrating the end of Roe v. Wade — and Catholic bishops even denying Communion to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi over her support of abortion rights — it’s easy to believe Christianity is inherently anti-abortion.

But Blackmon, an abortion rights advocate who serves as the UCC’s Associate General Minister of Justice and Local Church Ministries, says it’s critical to disentangle these ideas. In fact, her own denomination has been involved in abortion rights advocacy for decades; before the 1973 Supreme Court ruling recognized the right to abortion, UCC ministers were part of a clergy network connecting women to doctors willing to provide abortions based on their own understandings of Christianity. “I think the laziness of some Christianity has caused people with louder voices and more political presence to be able to draw a narrative that other Christian voices have to speak out against, so that people can think about this,” she says. read more of what she has to say here

If you don't think all this extra stress put on females and their families won't cause PTSD, then you are not thinking at all! 

What will you do when the gun turns on you?

Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
July 6, 2022

If you are a gun owner and believe that everyone should be able to buy whatever gun they want, or have as many as they want, have you ever asked yourself, "What would you do when the gun turns on you?"

Most people that own guns have a handgun for protection in their homes. Some carry one when they are out. These guns increase the odds of survival if an unarmed person breaks into your home while you are there. If you are not, then the gun you have for your own protection can end up in the hands of the criminal that broke into your home. It is a risk you are willing to take.

If a person breaks into your home and is armed, at least your odds of stopping them are equal. What if they break in with an AR15? Is your handgun going to stop them from obliterating your whole family? That is the chance you take if you are supporting the rights of anyone to get their hands on this type of weapon.

Most of the people I know have guns. They are responsible people. Over the years, I've asked them a lot of questions. I have always been a curious person, so they were used to it. They told me they keep their handguns near the bed when they go to sleep. If they had kids, then the gun was locked away.

You want to make sure your kids can't get their hands on it because you know that it is dangerous for them to get their tiny hands on it. You've read enough reports of what comes after they do get ahold of them.

On June 9, 2022, a one-year-old was shot by her brother. On May 26, 2022, in Florida, a Dad is dead and Mom has been arrested after their two-year-old son got his hands on the gun and shot his Dad. In April, in Philadelphia, a "4-year-old girl is dead after her younger brother apparently shot her by accident inside a car parked at a gas station." You can sadly find more of these reports because parents were irresponsible. You know what can happen, so you are careful.

If your handgun is locked away, where is your key? If someone breaks in, do you have time to find the key, unlock your gun, take it out, find the invader, aim and shoot before they do? Do you have time if they have an AR15 or similar type of weapon? Huge difference in your odds.

If the answer is no, then why would want this type of weapon to be allowed for anyone to purchase? They are being used for mass slaughter on our streets at parades, in schools where your kids go, as a matter of fact, they are used wherever you are but so far, you've been lucky enough to not be there when it happened.

Aside from the fact that none of the attendees at the July 4th celebrations where chaos was caused, especially at the parade in Highland Park, will ever be the same, the slaughter was caused by one of these guns and not a handgun you keep for self-protection.

The debate around the country is the wrong one to have for one simple reason, the AR15 is not considered an "assault weapon nor assault rifle.

Definition of what’s actually an ‘assault weapon’ is a highly contentious issue
CNBC

POINTS
Exactly what constitutes a so-called “assault weapon” is a highly contentious issue and something that riles up some gun advocates.
Some gun control backers pushing for an assault weapons ban include the AR-15-style rifle used in recent mass shootings. But the firearms industry insists the AR-15-style rifles are technically neither assault weapons nor assault rifles.

Following last week’s Florida school killings, there’s movement by gun control advocates in some states to ban so-called assault weapons.

Yet exactly what constitutes an “assault weapon” is a contentious issue and something that riles up some gun advocates. In fact, many of the large gun groups consider “assault weapon” a made up and ambiguous term invented by the anti-gun lobby in the 1980s, maintaining that guns don’t actually “assault” people.

That said, the gun industry’s traditional definition of an “assault rifle” is a weapon the military generally uses and has “select fire capabilities,” or the capability to switch between semi-automatic or a fully automatic mode. However, the civilian AR-15s do not have the select fire capabilities, only semi-automatic settings, so the firearms industry insists they are not an actual assault rifle or assault weapon.

And that dear readers, is the problem. It's time for all of us to think beyond our own narrow view of gun rights. There are people out there that should never get their hands on any kind of weapon. I happen to be one of them. No, I'm not deranged or anything like that. I happen to be a klutz. Ask any of my friends and they'll confirm that one. You also wouldn't want me to hold a gun if you ever saw me throw something, including a frisbee. (I hit a priest in the head with one at a cookout.)

I am not against all guns for all reasons. I just want to see my friends stay alive and have their kids survive getting through school, being able to go to movies, shopping, and worship services, and be able to regain what it is like to want to celebrate the freedom that was hard-won with their service to this country. I want my friends on the police force to be able to confront these criminals with their "legal" weapons of slaughter to have a chance to stop them because these weapons are off our streets, instead of becoming one more death the suspect is charged for committing.

If you are finished reading this, do you know now what you would do if the gun turned on you?