The Gray Lady Spells Benghazi

Official Offers Account From Libya of Benghazi Attack - NYTimes.com:

I include this because one can never be sure how quickly the MSM will find a way to suppress this story again.

I think back to the inverse stories;

1. Watergate, a 3rd rate burglary that killed nobody and the the ONLY issue with the president was the cover-up. The MSM was RAVENOUS and we still regularly hear about it today. 
2. Iran-Contra, a president arming freedom fighters in Nicaragua that proved to be eventually successful in gaining free elections, and much to the chagrin of Bianca Jagger, Jimmy Carter and the rest of the American left, removing their poster child for revolution, Daniel Ortega. 
3. Plamegate -- The special prosecutor investigation into "the leak" of the identity of a "covert" CIA agent who drove in from her suburban DC home to Langley every day, and whose husband wrote a column in the New Yorker, and had her name listed in "Who's Who".

These 3 were all highly serious, and as a regular NPR listener, I often got to hear Daniel Schorr intone of the horrific threat to the republic that all involved. 

Over the same set of years, we had Jimmy Carter negotiating with the Iranians holding hostages, promising them ANYTHING if they could come through on an "October Surprise" that would get him elected. (They released the hostages inauguration day, much to Carter and the MSMs distaste). 

Slick Willie with Whitewater -- much ado about "nothing", 4 personal friends of the Clinton's and a former Governor of AK in prison, **BUT** the Clintons were "completely innocent" in much the same way as Slick "never had sex with that woman" ... but no matter, our entire MSM was anxious to "Move On" from these "distractions". 

So we come to this point. An actual, now clearly proven case where a US President fabricated a cover story to prevent embarrassment close to an election. Four Americans lost their lives ... quite likely because moving assets to deal with the known threat could have jeopardized the narrative that "BO has Al Qaeda on the run because he killed Osama". The guy that produced the film that was used for the fictional cover for this is STILL IN JAIL! (how is that for "1st amendment") 

As we saw during the Clinton years, these witnesses need to be very careful. Accidents, suicidal tendencies, and just good old fashioned massive character assassination are all things that somehow "crop up" when  the "Clintonistas" are on the prowl. 

There is going to be round two in the US MSM and Democrat party to BURY THIS SUCKER ASAP, as they did last fall. "Politicize"? This is the party that politicizes the daily weather report and how many gallons you use to flush your toilet. They have already answered the "have they no shame" question so many times it is laughable to ask it. 

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Leaving America

U.S. citizens ditch passports in record numbers - The Term Sheet: Fortune's deals blogTerm Sheet:

While our leadership wrestles with a large new Democrat voter increase program  (amnesty) -- converting undocumented Democrats to the documented kind, apparently a number of people on the "payment" side of the ledger are leaving.

Buried in this are some numbers:

More than 39,000 Americans have come forward in recent years to declare their secret accounts to the I.R.S. in exchange for reduced fines and penalties, but officials suspect that is a fraction of the total number of people either deliberately hiding or unwittingly not reporting their foreign accounts. I.R.S. data for 2012 shows just over two million tax returns filed in 2012 by overseas Americans, compared with an estimated six million Americans living or working abroad. Only a fraction of Americans with foreign bank accounts are also filing required disclosures known as Fbars, according to federal data.

"Fbars", love the name!

So 1% of 300M is 3M ... the raw numbers being reported here are in the range to give some idea of just how big a deal the attempts to "soak the rich" can be relative to destroying the tax revenue stream, and how rapidly it happens. It's amazing how many options -- legal, nearly legal, very nearly impossible to trace, etc someone who is worth merely $10M or so has. Health, money, intelligence, talent -- all those things provide options. The tendency of the financially successful is to use those options effectively. How surprising.

This is one where I think BO can claim a lot more credit than in killing Osama:

Expatriations first picked up pace in 2010, when more than 1,530 Americans dumped their passports. Sparking that uptick, tax lawyers say, was a deal by UBS

 the Swiss bank giant, the year before to disclose more than 4,000 American client names to the I.R.S. and pay a record $780 million for selling offshore services that violated U.S. tax laws. Liberty is a concept that "liberals" have a hard time understanding. As in many left countries, no doubt the first reaction from the left here is primarily one of the "how can we prevent them from doing this, or at least make sure their assets are held here, make it more painful for them to move assets offshore,  renounce their citizenship, etc". It is by no accident that the way of the left quickly becomes the way of walls around the country and the gulag to prevent the productive from escaping. First hold their assets, then hold them!

Left vs right is control vs chaos -- and the founders recognized that the primary danger was control, so they did their best to found a center-right nation where government was strongly limited so hold the control impulse in check. We largely destroyed that over the 20th century, but like all reactions, it is a "catalyst" that kicks off the final phase.

Even the first election of BO was a gigantic sign that the control impulse was running wild and thwarting, or  showing the door to the brightest and best that we needed to get back on track, while at the same timporting the least capable to insure the political power of the of the takers. At this point it is obvious, and to a great degree irreversible, at least in the next few decades.

Tax what you want less of, subsidize what you want more of. It always works, and usually in the very short run.

I had heard that BO had considered applying for Amnesty assuming they can get it through, once he left office, but in consultation with Al Gore, he has decided that the tax rates here are too high!


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Elite Jedi Mind Tricks

Opinion: If Clarence Thomas isn't 'elite,' who is? - CNN.com:

When I read a column like this I'm always tempted to break the "never assert malice when stupidity will do".

So LZ doesn't understand that what Thomas was saying was "the LIBERAL elite and the LIBERAL MSM"???

He was talking about BO being POTUS, **NOT** about BO trying to become a member of the SCOTUS!!!!

Supreme Court Justicies are APPOINTED and CONFIRMED by the US Senate. The SCOTUS and the Senate for that matter were created by our founders to explicitly be non-democratic and "elitist" ... in those days, that was called "the aristocracy". The aristocracy are the people that have a lot to lose if the country goes down ... land, money, family name, status, reputation, etc.

The "common folk" don't have a lot to lose in comparison -- so they might vote for policies that are destructive to the nation but they BELIEVE would move their state from "bad" to "a tiny bit less bad". or maybe would just hurt some "rich folk" that they don't like anyway, even if it made everyone worse off. It would negatively effect the rich folk more. A win! At least with the OWS movement kind of logic.

So I'm giving LZ the benefit of the doubt here and saying that he simply doesn't understand that Thomas was talking about THE LIBERAL elite, which DOESN'T include Clarence, and DOESN'T include FOX news ... or a host of others. There are plenty of "elite" only in bank account, business athletic or other success, education, accomplishment, etc that the LIBERAL elite are NOT going to approve as being part of the RECOGNIZED LIBERAL ELITE brand, which is truly the only "elite" that actually counts for POLITICAL power in this country.

Fail to be in that group as Thomas, Rush, Palin, W and a host of others are, and you are effectively "nothing" as you are portrayed to the masses via the MSM news and entertainment. You are always "stupid" ... like Thomas, Palin and W, and usually "hypocritical, out of touch, uncaring" and a host of other negative adjectives.

 John McCain is one that works to be "in with the in elite", but has suffered the pain that comes when the time comes for the elite to actually choose -- as in McCain / BO. Sure, the elite loved high-fiveing John when he was kicking  the uncool W, but as soon as he was actually running for president, they abandoned him like the "in-girls" to the dowdy neighbor girl that a couple may have actually played with and been nice to over the summer. Everyone has known of this behavior in humans since at least Jr High -- so I'm giving LZ the benefit of thinking he missed Jr High, forgot ... or something.

Jedi Mind Tricks indeed.




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Warming to Wealth

Gore Is Romney-Rich With $200 Million After Bush Defeat - Bloomberg:

Good article covering Gore's rise to being worth something like $200M.

The left elite's firm view of vast wealth seems to be "if you say the right stuff, support the right causes, you are off the hook". Fail to do this -- as in "CEOs", "The Koch Bros", or even much smaller income people of the "wrong political, or even religious persuasion", and you must be demonized, maligned, and ideally either figuratively or actually if possible, roasted on the spit of public attack.

It all seems oh so French Revolution -- once the passions of the "99%" are ignited, will they spare the elite who lit the fuse? Maybe that is why DHS has 1.5B rounds of recently purchased hollow point and a bunch of military attack vehicles stationed around the country. 330M people, 5 rounds each. Sounds about right -- after the single digit millions that shoot back have been dispatched, they can pretty much just execute the rest.

I suppose that once you decide you are prune the tree of liberty from the roots, you just naturally develop some "Plan B, C, etc".

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America’s Five Make or Break Tests

The Big Five: America’s Make or Break Challenges | Via Meadia:

I respect Walter Russel Meade a great deal, it is a good article. I think it is much simpler than her presents it though. Here are his big 5:

1. Jobs
2. Services Crunch
3. Demographic Transition 
4. Coherence Crisis 
5. Virtue 

 I'd order them like this:

1. Return to God - Religion - Constitution, eg Transcendence. MEANING! What he calls #4, "coherency". He argues that "we can't go back", I argue we have been "going back" to pre-Reformation, even pre-Enlightenment thinking with "progressivism" which I call "regressivism". Read the seminal works of these people -- Rosseau, etc. They want to return to "the noble savage", "the perfect state of nature". We are regressing -- to a PC totalitarianism. To a forced paganism because the cultural connection with the sacred is prohibited. Our suicide rates are skyrocketing, our birth rates are declining. Man cannot create his own meaning and dies individually and as a culture without a meaningful life.  
   
2. Jobs, his #1  -- Which I would state as "Vocation". Somewhere around the '60s America lost the idea of craftsmanship and pride in work. Welfare and ADC were rolled out and the dignity of work was destroyed for the poor -- the hard working far from perfect husband that stuck at a low paying job and was honored for his contribution was replaced by the state, and both the family and the dignity of work suffered mightily. Unions and corporatism replaced craftsmanship, excellence and innovation with profits and salaries. With hedonism highly linked to consumerism declared to be the new "god", lucre became the both the totem and the sacrement of the tribe, and "work" became an evil. We don't need "high paying jobs", we need vocations which are respected independent of salary. We need a life vocation, because there is no such thing as a "living wage".
   
3. Virtue, his #4 -- I'd argue that if 1 and 2 happen, 3 will certainly show up at the same time, but what he says about it is valid. I may have complicated my #1 too much.
   
4. The Service Crunch, his #2 -- I'd claim that this is very much "vocation". We need to return "services" especially "government services" to being quality, efficient, respected SERVICE. Not very highly paid, benefitted, unionized and political contributing "positions". He missed education, I'd put it here -- it is one of the most critical of services, traditionally a "calling".
   
5. Demographic Transition -- I believe if we dealt with 1-4, this would be no issue. Were America still America -- "Under God, Indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for all", where "justice" means level opportunity, not result, then young, old, hispanics, etc would all operate just fine. Without at least 1-3, #5 is likely the catalyst that implodes the remaining husk of what America once was.
   

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Moscow on the Potomac

When Will America Burst D.C.'s Bubble? | RealClearPolitics:

All I could think about as I read this is the similarity of the current BO Beltway to Moscow during the heyday of the USSR. SIX of the TEN WEALTHIEST counties are DC suburbs!! How is that for "public service"!!!!

This article seems to think that America will "burst the DC bubble". Really? How? When that much power gets connected with that much wealth, I can't imagine any way to return to republican rule of law outside of armed conflict!

In fact, six of the 10 wealthiest American counties are Washington suburbs.
Washington once was the manifest of power. Now you can add “center of wealth” to its portfolio, crystallizing the elite institutional disconnect between it and the rest of the country.

Read more: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2013/05/05/thriving_dcs_bubble_will_burst_118261.html#ixzz2SZ0rt8Ny Follow us: @RCP_Articles on Twitter

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Q-Blood Let 3 (QB3)

RealClearMarkets - Why Friday's Jobs Report Was Ominous:

If you read this blog regularly, you know a lot of this, but it is a good summary. For the REALLY quick summary:

1. Taking blood out of people makes them sicker 
2. Deficit spending just makes an economy sicker. 

The following conclusion of the article is entertaining, the article itself is somewhere between sobering, ominous and sepulchral. Three bloodlettings for the father of the country, 3 "easings" for the country?

It took about 2500 years and countless deaths (including that of George Washington) before doctors figured out that bleeding patients was actually harmful. One has to wonder how much real-world data it will take to convince the likes of Paul Krugman and Jared Bernstein that Keynesian (spending) stimulus just makes the economy worse. 

Oh, and by the way. The recent five-month decline in the FTE jobs ratio coincides exactly with Ben Bernanke's QE3. And yet, the "market monetarists" keep calling on the Fed to "do more". 

It is a historical fact that George Washington's doctors performed three rounds of bleeding on him before he died. We can only wonder if they referred to the last one as "QB3".

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The Christian Minority

When Christians become a 'hated minority' – CNN Belief Blog - CNN.com Blogs:

Very well done article by MSM standards, it covers the basics from both sides, it is overly long and it "leans", but it doesn't absolutely hammer just the current left thinking.

The following quote sums up a core element of the decline of CIVILization. Part of being civilized means leaving tribalism behind. Civilized people at one time would never allow something called "hate speech" to even be mentioned  -- they would call it out as "tribalism", "uncivilized", "plebeian, "anti-social" or some other term that indicated that those unable to discuss issues reasonably were "less than advanced".

 "There was a time when a person could publicly say homosexuality was wrong and people could consider the statement without anger, he says. Today, people have reverted to an intellectual tribalism where they are only willing to consider the perspective of their own tribe."

The other aspect completely missed was the Bible being about issues FAR more important than any past or present concerns of humanity. Eternity is far longer than human life, history, etc.

From man's view, "justice" in this world is critical ... slavery, poverty, being crippled, deformed, mentally ill,  having your own or a loved ones life cut short by accident / disease / war / crime / etc, abuse,  great bodily pain, ... the list is endless. There is no "worst". To the person to whom the "badness" happens, it is guaranteed to be an injustice of gigantic proportions. "A recession is when your neighbor loses his job, a depression is when you lose yours". Perspective is everything.

So the human perspective is to argue endlessly about what man sees as "progress". Each "right" that is supposedly gained is a HUGE step "forward". We have continued so far "forward" that just recently it was reported the suicides in the US now exceed auto accidents. A life without meaning seems to not be worth living! It is also not worth having children  in such a life, so the west has already dropped below replacement birth rate and is dying.

Does that mean that slavery is good? or that stoning homosexuals is good? or that living with constant debilitating pain is good? Not at all, it just means that in many of the counties where those things are legal, less possible to control or more common, people report higher levels of happiness, less suicides and more meaningful lives than people in the "advanced" countries. How can that possibly be??

I'd argue it is because the temporal human condition is much improved by focusing on the eternal vs the temporal. The Bible is written for eternity, with the objective of us understanding at least the MOST key elements of God. He is sovereign, his ways are not our ways, and our relationship with him is the most critical aspect of our existence here. As they say, everything else is "just details".

If you are paralyzed, or have lost of a loved one in tragic circumstances, or are gay, or slave to alcohol, sexual promiscuity, or an actual slave in Africa or Indonesia, or a host of other conditions, you MAY feel that those conditions are the most critical "problem / injustice / burden" that anyone has ever had to bear.

Or, your perspective might be different, like this young man born with no limbs. From man's view, many lives involve great injustice. Some find a higher way and even the worst of temporal circumstance is suddenly changed into something completely different. Others will rail against god, nature, injustice, unfairness, and the host of earthly ills until the day that they pass to ???

I'm a strong believer that God created heaven with the desire not only that we spend eternity there, but that we begin to glimpse that eternity from this life. Hell was created for Satan, not for us, but if we choose to spend a lifetime rejecting God, we can work our way there ... and be well on our way to glimpsing it from our circumstance in this life.

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As Clueless as Kluwe

Chris Kluwe: When They Come for You:

I wrote a long response to this one on FB, so thought I'd "dignify" this rather foolish column with some elements of that response.

First of all, the following paragraph is completely backward:

TREAT OTHERS THE WAY YOU WANT TO BE TREATED. If we do not make this the cornerstone of our society, if we do not understand that infringing on the freedom of consenting adults to live their lives (in whatever fashion that happens to be) is infringing on the freedom of us all, then we will eventually join other society, culture, and civilization that has ever existed, on the trash heap of history marked "Failure" -- brought there by conflicts those civilizations bred into being, conflicts between those lacking empathy and those desirous of freedom.

The Western civilization that makes the levels of freedom that made it possible for people to debate such issues as "gay marriage" has already committed suicide on the altar of contraception and abortion. Besides being broke, we don't have a replacement population. One can argue the future, but it will absolutely belong to those that show up. That is Muslims, Hispanic Catholics, and potentially African Christians. (one might give Mormons a charitable chance). Their positions on "gay marriage" are important for the next century, ours are really not. We already opted out of that century.

The "cornerstones of society/culture/civilization" are things that have proven true over thousands of years. Marriage, Family and the Christian Religion were key "cornerstones", along with Judaism plus Greek and Roman thought. The ONLY incidence of "gay marriage" was Nero and a few other Roman rulers proudly flaunting their immorality "because they could" and it was not coincidentally very near to the end of the Roman Empire. Nero would have laughed at the idea that it was "moral". He was powerful, and he enjoyed it, nuff said.

In the culture that WAS our civilization, mans life had meaning because it was part of an eternal meaningful existence that included transcendent values that engendered virtues. Faith, hope, love that went beyond physical and involved commitment, honor, civility and many others. Life was not only worth living, it was worth having children and believing that their future was going to be better than yours. People would never have considered it remotely "moral" to saddle future generations with massive debt. It was a world where a sneering profane diatribe by some plebeian sport figure would have never been published in any forum remotely public.

His quote of the Niemoller poem with people that disagree over re-naming the oldest of human cultural institutions to a new purpose makes brings to mind the sagacity of a couple of folks arguing Global Warming while freezing to death in a May snowstorm.

"They", already came in the form of reality. Those that believed 100% in the non-teleological survival of the fecund decided that not having kids was a highly "adaptive" course of action, thus passing the most natural of judgement on our civilization while remaining as clueless as Kluwe.

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Benghazi, Truth Leak??

http://thelead.blogs.cnn.com/2013/05/05/benghazi-whistle-blower-hicks-internal-review-let-people-off-the-hook/?hpt=hp_t1

Wow, it made a side headline on CNN, FINALLY!!

The MSM lack of curiosity about Benghazi took "in the tank" to new levels in the opposite direction that their incessant coverage of the Valerie Plame affair during the W administration showed their stripes in the other direction. We get to see both the "yin and yang" of media bias with way too much regularity.

In the following, someone that knows points out a few of the facts relative to Benghazi ... but not the obvious "why". This MAJOR screw up that caused the loss of life of four brave Americans and has 700 our our finest retired Special Ops folks demanding answers was a political coverup of MUCH more import than Watergate!

Hicks said that despite being the senior diplomat in Libya after Stevens was killed, he wasn't consulted at all before Rice went on Sunday talk shows to discuss the attacks.
Rice contradicted Libyan President Mohammed Magariaf, who said the same day that "this was an attack by Islamic extremists, possibly with terrorist links," Hicks said. "He describes what happens. He tells the truth of what happened. And so, you know, Ambassador Rice says what she says, contradicting what the president of Libya says from Benghazi."

This violated "a cardinal rule of diplomacy that we learn in our orientation class, and that rule is, never inadvertently insult your interlocutor. The net impact of what has transpired is, the spokesperson of the most powerful country in the world has basically said that the president of Libya is either a liar or doesn't know what he's talking about. The impact of that is immeasurable. Magariaf has just lost face in front of not only his own people but the world. And, you know, my jaw hit the floor as I watched this. I've never been ‑‑ I have been a professional diplomat for 22 years. I have never been as embarrassed in my life, in my career, as on that day." 

That "affected cooperation with the Libyans," Hicks said. "I firmly believe that the reason it took us so long to get the FBI to Benghazi is because of those Sunday talk shows."

The day after Rice's appearance on the Sunday shows, Hicks says, he asked Acting Assistant Secretary for Near Eastern Affairs Beth Jones, " 'Why did Ambassador Rice say that?' And Beth Jones said, 'I don't know.'"

A Little Surprise for An Attacker

Another Thing to Thank the NRA For | Power Line:

The excellent little video alluded to in the title is at the end ... at least if you are a guy, it won't be very painful to page down to it!

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The Horror of Attempted Heterosexuality

Ed Driscoll » Dispatches from the Department of That Which Cannot Be Said At Any Tme:

Oddly, although Howard Kurtz could not speak of the horror of Jason Collins having had a girlfriend,  "The View" happened to be playing on a set right in front of me while I was doing 30 min on a Precor. While I was not paying close attention, it APPEARED that it was "Gay Day" and they had some ex-singer from an apparent boy band on, and they were talking about throwing their bras at him and flashing him in earlier years ... but, he is gay now,  somewhat disappointing to the girls on The View, however, as good liberals, they are totally great with it outside the fact that it would have cut into what they were thinking when watching him in their past.

Seems like a lot of girls kinda like gay guys in somewhat the same way as vampires -- they are sometimes cute, and I guess they assume that the gayness works kind of the same as the no blood would work for a male vampire. A bit like "synthahol" on Star Trek.

Anyway, they seemed to be discussing some connection with Collins, which sounded like he had this "girlfriend" for like "8 years" ... or something, "a long time for a woman of that age, thinking that she was going to marry him ..." was a View girl talk concern I think.

So apparently, this is something like being black. If you are black you can talk about whatever race-wise  and it is A-ok, but not if you are white ... unless you are TOTALLY certified as having 100% in-liberal club handshake hope to die creds. Which I think Howard used to have, but he must have missed some memo or something. Similarly, if you are gay, then it is OK to talk about things like the horror of attempted heterosexuality, but not if you are into sex with the other sex.

This is quite difficult for me,  because I thought that Bi, confused, trans, and probably a few other things were A-OK too if you had the liberal brain. Just to show what a backwoods hick I am, I have hard time understanding how one would for example distinguish between a "bi-marriage" of say two guys and 4 or 5 women and polygamy, which is definitely double liberal sinful. I'm thinking Polygamy is really bad because Mormons do it, and apparently with only with one wife at a time, so that is BAAAD!!

They don't seem to talk much about the Bi-marriage, but when they go for "marriage freedom", it is ALWAYS  GLBT, and I would swear that the B was for Bi and the T was for Trans ... which is a whole other deal. Lots of times in engineering it is the "boundary conditions" that are the most difficult, and may even make one have 2nd thoughts about the feasibility of something. The idea of "Bi and Trans" in marriages seems "boundary" to me ... you have a great "gay marriage" and then somebody decides to change sexes. etc.

But thinking like "guys being guys" (I guess like only conservative guys, cuz liberals would never think this way), they could just "liberal sinfully" leave out the gay part and have a couple small legal polygamous marriages. I guess liberals would never do that -- leave out the holy gay thing and all, because it would be like sacrilegious for them, sort of a Taboo, like cannibalism or something.

Anyway, enough confusion for today.

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The Unspeakable Right

Opinion: The euphemism imperative - Rich Lowry - POLITICO.com:

The following sums it up well, but it is worth the short and easy read.

President Barack Obama was proud to become the first sitting president to address Planned Parenthood last Friday. But not proud enough to utter the word “abortion.” 

The right to abortion is the sneakiest, most shame-faced of all American rights. Its most devoted supporters don’t dare speak its name. They hide behind evasion and euphemism and cant.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/05/the-euphemism-imperative-90840.html#ixzz2SFjIAXgd

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"Coming Out" Courage

Jason Collins exposes media double standard on 'coming out' | The Detroit News | detroitnews.com:

Extremely well written column on the Collins story double standard.

 "Jason Collins was the man credited with courageous behavior this week, but truth be known, it's people like Broussard and fellow Christians in the military whose valor is every bit the equal. They're facing the actual bigotry that the politically correct crowd only imagines them to be practicing."

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Marriage and Family Not So Bad

Brenda Heist, Pennsylvania Woman Missing Since 2002, Found Alive In Florida Keys (VIDEO):

Yes, marriage and family can be rough, but before you take off, a look at this before and after!

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