The Second Amendment saved lives in Texas. It saves lives everywhere it’s unleashed

Once again we see it demonstrated in real life that the most effective response to a bad guy with a gun is a good guy — or multiple good guys — ready and willing to fire back. The sooner an armed attack is met with an armed response, the sooner the attack will be over.

Sunday morning in White Settlement, Texas, a Christian worship service was plunged into horror as a man armed with a shotgun walked into a church, walked up to someone serving communion, and fired before being shot by an armed churchgoer named Jack Wilson.

Some may try to explain away the facts of the matter by pointing out that the armed response came from volunteers on the church’s security team, and therefore this doesn’t fit in with the usual narrative of the “good guy with a gun.” Such arguments ignore the fact that, prior security arrangement or not, we’re still talking about church members responding with their own guns. He was a good guy, he had a gun, he used it to save lives.

The reality is that this is another bad story for the gun control crowd. The assailant was carrying a shotgun, rather than a scary-looking semi-automatic rifle, and he was ultimately stopped by someone exercising his right to defend himself and others with deadly force. And while this is national news and a topic of debate, in context, it’s one of the estimated millions of defensive gun uses that take place every year. Plus, this all comes a couple months after a Texas law went into effect relaxing restrictions on concealed carrying in the state’s places of worship, a law that presidential candidate and former Vice President Joe Biden criticized as “totally irrational” at the time of its enactment.

Yet no matter how many examples of this reality we’re given, some people in the gun debate still manage to convince themselves that we need to disarm the law-abiding and continue to advocate for that, no matter how many lives are spared from evil intentions by privately owned firearms in the right hands.

But to get a fuller sense of what happens when law-abiding people are restricted in their ability to defend themselves, we need only look at the struggles of of another religious community in the United States currently living under far more restrictive gun laws than those in the Lone Star State.

The most glaring contrast to what happened on Sunday in Texas was the stabbing attack the night before in the Monsey suburb of New York City. At the end of a week marked by a shameful increase in anti-Semitic violence in the area, an assailant armed with a machete wounded five people in a rabbi’s home. One witness says he lured the attacker away from more potential victims by throwing a coffee table at him and running.

Indeed, if there is any group of people who clearly ought to defend themselves with carried firearms at this moment in time, it’s the Jewish community in the New York metropolitan area. Yet this violence is has been going on in a “may-issue” concealed carry permit state, where American citizens are forced to beg their government to return to them their fundamental right to adequately defend themselves — and can be denied. On top of its concealed carry limitations, the state also has some of America’s strictest gun laws to begin with.

Self-defense is a fundamental human right. Gun control policies and draconian regulatory requirements don’t make that right go away; they merely render law-abiding people’s exercise of it far less effective against violent, lawbreaking aggressors.

We live in a world where previously unthinkable acts of murderous violence against innocents have become recurring subjects of national news headlines. And while we do desperately need to address the root causes of the deep, underlying societal sickness our country faces, law-abiding people need to be able to adequately defend themselves from its immediate symptoms in the meantime, whether they live in Texas, New York, or any other state in the union.

Editor’s note: This article has been updated to include information about Texas’ September law relaxing restrictions on carrying guns in places of worship as well as Joe Biden’s criticism of the law.



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Despicable: Black attacks on Jews are rooted in Democrats’ coddling of anti-Semites

Once-tolerant New York City is becoming a haven for anti-Semitic, Jew-hating attacks, getting to be like Paris, eventually driving Jewish flight based on the surge of unpunished violence in the leftist-run city.

It’s shocking, not only because the number of unprovoked attacks on Jewish people just minding their own business and going about their daily lives are very numerous – nine at last count within about a week – but because within the violence itself is a tissue of lies, explicit and implicit, from silky enablers to conceal and euphemize what’s really happening.  In every case, the victim was Jewish and the attacker was black. That’s a politically incorrect to the press and its leftist allies, but it’s true. It’s similar to how Islamist terror was covered up as ‘workplace violence’ in the past, again in the name of political correctness. But this time, the refusal to name the source of the violence is not related to Middle East politics so much as Democrats’ coddling of black anti-Semitism within its own ranks.

Here’s just one of such incidents:

Suspects arrested in last week’s spree of eight anti-Semitic attacks are being quickly released right back into the neighborhoods they terrorized thanks to “bail reform” legislation — which doesn’t even take effect until Jan. 1.

The most recent case of revolving-door justice came Saturday morning, with the release, with no bail, of a woman charged with punching and cursing at three Orthodox women, ages 22, 26 and 31, in Crown Heights, Brooklyn at dawn the day before.

The accused assailant, Tiffany Harris, was hauled in handcuffs before a Brooklyn judge on 21 menacing, harassment and attempted assault charges.

“F-U, Jews!” Harris, 30, of Flatbush, allegedly shouted during the attack.

“Yes, I was there,” Harris later admitted to cops, according to the criminal complaint against her.

“Yes, I slapped them. I cursed them out. I said ‘F-U, Jews.”

This person got let out? That was an assault, and not just an assault, a hate-crime motivated assault that’s likely to lead to another.

Here’s an even more sickening attack that followed:

A knife-wielding assailant stabbed four people in a rabbi’s basement synagogue in Rockland County during a crowded Hanukkah celebration Saturday night, according to a law enforcement source.

The suspect fled the scene in a 2015 Nissan Sentra, driving over the George Washington Bridge into Manhattan — and was promptly arrested by the NYPD at 144th Street and Seventh Avenue in Harlem at midnight, the source said.

The Jewish people were celebrating their sacred and joyful holiday as a community in a place of worship and this horrible person desecrated that gathering, same as a depraved terrorist would, seeking to inflict maximum pain on Jews by invading their sacred space. Does this violent criminal get let out, too? Under lefty rules, he probably will, something the terrorists never managed to get away with.

Here’s another in nearby Jersey City from two weeks ago:

The Black Hebrew Israelites are known for their inflammatory sidewalk ministers who employ provocation as a form of gospel, preaching a theology that says the chosen ones are black, Native American and Hispanic people.

Now, it has emerged that one of the two suspects in Tuesday’s attack on a kosher market in Jersey City that ended with the death of six people, including a police officer, appears to have been connected to the group, a law enforcement official said.

That suspect, David N. Anderson, 47, was killed inside the JC Kosher Supermarket, along with the second suspect, Francine Graham, 50, officials said. Mr. Anderson, the law enforcement official said, had posted anti-Semitic and anti-police screeds on internet forums in the past.

Why are these insane and brazenly outrageous attacks on Jews by black groups, organized and unorganized, happening all of a sudden? Jewish people have historically been black people’s strongest champions, working hand in hand during the Civil Rights era. Now there’s this sick stuff redolent of the Islamist terror attacks of the rest of the world.

It’s likely related to the left’s denial of any recognition of a pattern of hate-motivated black attacks on Jews in New York. Dov Hikind, a New York state assemblyman, told Fox News (no video available yet) that every perpetrator seen on the videos was black. That’s inconvenient for the left, which holds out all black people as victims, not perpetrators, which some undoubtedly are. Mayor Bill De Blasio, and Gov. Andrew Cuomo seems to be in denial about this, they both visited the attacked synogogue and said the right things about condemning anti-Semitism, but neither brought up that there was a problem somewhere in the black community where the problem originated.

Calling out and identifying the perpetrators, of course, would take courage, because leftists and advocates for anti-Semitism would likely blast the effort as a racist condemnation of all black people, something that would be sure to scare people like De Blasio and Cuomo away. But not identifying the problem where it is is denial, something that will ensure that the problem never stops. We all know how long it took to end the war on terror based on the amazing capacity for officials to refuse to deny that Islamist fundamentalism was at the root of the terrorist problem. It’s likely going to be worse with these perpetrators given that they can hide behind untouchable ‘victim’ status and have all the Democratic establishment right there to their defense.

Why is that? Because Democrats have been coddling black anti-Semites for years. Where’s the Democratic condemnation for race huckster Rev. Al Sharpton, who’s also a notorious anti-Semite with a long record of incitement of violence against Jews? Right there in the berth of the Democratic Party, still supposedly representing the black “middle class.”

Where’s the Democrats’ condemnation for Louis Farrakhan, whose animating breath is all about anti-Semitism? Hobnobbing with Democrats in photos, appearing with Bill Clinton at Aretha Franklin’s funeral, and tweeting “sweetheart” dreck with fellow anti-Semite, Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar. Where, for that matter, is the Democratic condemnation of Rep. Ilhan Omar’s anti-Semitism? They couldn’t pass a simple resolution against her in the House after her string of whoppers. They were too afraid to lay a hand on her, despite her long record of anti-Semitic statements. It’s coddling all right, and you can bet the more aggressive street predator class of black cultists, such as “Black Hebrew Israelites” a known anti-Semitic black group, and Jew-haters in the boroughs noticed the pattern, took note, and launched their reign of terror.

Still no recognition of the problem from Democrats, though. They prefer to call it the bad deeds of individuals and then let them off lightly. That’s a recipe of worse to come. Jewish people will eventually notice that New York is now as hostile as Paris now because nobody’s identifying the problem. When the heck are the Democrats going to seriously sever ties with these groups instead of embrace them? Right now, a critical mass seems to have been reached and these sick attacks are the result.

 

Image credit: GifterPhotos via shareable YouTube screen shot

 

 

Once-tolerant New York City is becoming a haven for anti-Semitic, Jew-hating attacks, getting to be like Paris, eventually driving Jewish flight based on the surge of unpunished violence in the leftist-run city.

It’s shocking, not only because the number of unprovoked attacks on Jewish people just minding their own business and going about their daily lives are very numerous – nine at last count within about a week – but because within the violence itself is a tissue of lies, explicit and implicit, from silky enablers to conceal and euphemize what’s really happening.  In every case, the victim was Jewish and the attacker was black. That’s a politically incorrect to the press and its leftist allies, but it’s true. It’s similar to how Islamist terror was covered up as ‘workplace violence’ in the past, again in the name of political correctness. But this time, the refusal to name the source of the violence is not related to Middle East politics so much as Democrats’ coddling of black anti-Semitism within its own ranks.

Here’s just one of such incidents:

Suspects arrested in last week’s spree of eight anti-Semitic attacks are being quickly released right back into the neighborhoods they terrorized thanks to “bail reform” legislation — which doesn’t even take effect until Jan. 1.

The most recent case of revolving-door justice came Saturday morning, with the release, with no bail, of a woman charged with punching and cursing at three Orthodox women, ages 22, 26 and 31, in Crown Heights, Brooklyn at dawn the day before.

The accused assailant, Tiffany Harris, was hauled in handcuffs before a Brooklyn judge on 21 menacing, harassment and attempted assault charges.

“F-U, Jews!” Harris, 30, of Flatbush, allegedly shouted during the attack.

“Yes, I was there,” Harris later admitted to cops, according to the criminal complaint against her.

“Yes, I slapped them. I cursed them out. I said ‘F-U, Jews.”

This person got let out? That was an assault, and not just an assault, a hate-crime motivated assault that’s likely to lead to another.

Here’s an even more sickening attack that followed:

A knife-wielding assailant stabbed four people in a rabbi’s basement synagogue in Rockland County during a crowded Hanukkah celebration Saturday night, according to a law enforcement source.

The suspect fled the scene in a 2015 Nissan Sentra, driving over the George Washington Bridge into Manhattan — and was promptly arrested by the NYPD at 144th Street and Seventh Avenue in Harlem at midnight, the source said.

The Jewish people were celebrating their sacred and joyful holiday as a community in a place of worship and this horrible person desecrated that gathering, same as a depraved terrorist would, seeking to inflict maximum pain on Jews by invading their sacred space. Does this violent criminal get let out, too? Under lefty rules, he probably will, something the terrorists never managed to get away with.

Here’s another in nearby Jersey City from two weeks ago:

The Black Hebrew Israelites are known for their inflammatory sidewalk ministers who employ provocation as a form of gospel, preaching a theology that says the chosen ones are black, Native American and Hispanic people.

Now, it has emerged that one of the two suspects in Tuesday’s attack on a kosher market in Jersey City that ended with the death of six people, including a police officer, appears to have been connected to the group, a law enforcement official said.

That suspect, David N. Anderson, 47, was killed inside the JC Kosher Supermarket, along with the second suspect, Francine Graham, 50, officials said. Mr. Anderson, the law enforcement official said, had posted anti-Semitic and anti-police screeds on internet forums in the past.

Why are these insane and brazenly outrageous attacks on Jews by black groups, organized and unorganized, happening all of a sudden? Jewish people have historically been black people’s strongest champions, working hand in hand during the Civil Rights era. Now there’s this sick stuff redolent of the Islamist terror attacks of the rest of the world.

It’s likely related to the left’s denial of any recognition of a pattern of hate-motivated black attacks on Jews in New York. Dov Hikind, a New York state assemblyman, told Fox News (no video available yet) that every perpetrator seen on the videos was black. That’s inconvenient for the left, which holds out all black people as victims, not perpetrators, which some undoubtedly are. Mayor Bill De Blasio, and Gov. Andrew Cuomo seems to be in denial about this, they both visited the attacked synogogue and said the right things about condemning anti-Semitism, but neither brought up that there was a problem somewhere in the black community where the problem originated.

Calling out and identifying the perpetrators, of course, would take courage, because leftists and advocates for anti-Semitism would likely blast the effort as a racist condemnation of all black people, something that would be sure to scare people like De Blasio and Cuomo away. But not identifying the problem where it is is denial, something that will ensure that the problem never stops. We all know how long it took to end the war on terror based on the amazing capacity for officials to refuse to deny that Islamist fundamentalism was at the root of the terrorist problem. It’s likely going to be worse with these perpetrators given that they can hide behind untouchable ‘victim’ status and have all the Democratic establishment right there to their defense.

Why is that? Because Democrats have been coddling black anti-Semites for years. Where’s the Democratic condemnation for race huckster Rev. Al Sharpton, who’s also a notorious anti-Semite with a long record of incitement of violence against Jews? Right there in the berth of the Democratic Party, still supposedly representing the black “middle class.”

Where’s the Democrats’ condemnation for Louis Farrakhan, whose animating breath is all about anti-Semitism? Hobnobbing with Democrats in photos, appearing with Bill Clinton at Aretha Franklin’s funeral, and tweeting “sweetheart” dreck with fellow anti-Semite, Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar. Where, for that matter, is the Democratic condemnation of Rep. Ilhan Omar’s anti-Semitism? They couldn’t pass a simple resolution against her in the House after her string of whoppers. They were too afraid to lay a hand on her, despite her long record of anti-Semitic statements. It’s coddling all right, and you can bet the more aggressive street predator class of black cultists, such as “Black Hebrew Israelites” a known anti-Semitic black group, and Jew-haters in the boroughs noticed the pattern, took note, and launched their reign of terror.

Still no recognition of the problem from Democrats, though. They prefer to call it the bad deeds of individuals and then let them off lightly. That’s a recipe of worse to come. Jewish people will eventually notice that New York is now as hostile as Paris now because nobody’s identifying the problem. When the heck are the Democrats going to seriously sever ties with these groups instead of embrace them? Right now, a critical mass seems to have been reached and these sick attacks are the result.

 

Image credit: GifterPhotos via shareable YouTube screen shot

 

 

via American Thinker Blog

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Texas church shooting: Good guys with guns saved a congregation

A man walked into West Freeway Church of Christ in White Settlement, Texas and opened fire as the worship service was live-streamed. Viewers watching online saw the horrific scene play out in real-time. Thanks to the quick response of two armed volunteer security men, the shooter was stopped within six]]>

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Five Food Stamp Reforms of 2019 Everyone Should Know

The year 2019 brought a lot of changes to the way food stamps are distributed at the state and federal levels, all to prevent fraud and overdependency.

Some reforms originated in the statehouse while others were put into place by the U.S. Department of Agriculture under the federal government.

Here is a list of five of those reforms that were introduced as bills in statehouses or as proposals/rules in the USDA. While some reforms failed to see the light of day, a few food stamp reforms passed muster and are going into effect.

  1. Texas State Representative Sponsors Bill Requiring Photos on EBT Cards

A Texas state representative looking to combat food stamp fraud introduced a bill in February, which would require the state’s health and human service commission to add names and photos to state identification cards for food stamp users. The state ID cards give food stamp users access to government welfare programs such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). The bill was referred to the state’s human services committee for review.

2. Arkansas Bill Would Stop SNAP Users from Using Benefits to Buy Junk Food

An Arkansas lawmaker introduced a bill in March that would stop food stamp users from using their benefits to buy junk food. Arkansas state Rep. Mary Bentley (R-Perryville) filed House Bill HB1743 to keep food stamp users who receive SNAP benefits from spending their allotted benefits on soft drinks, energy drinks, candy, and dietary supplements. The bill died on the House calendar in April and was not passed.

3. Alabama Lawmaker Seeks to Legalize Drug-Testing for Food Stamp Users

An Alabama lawmaker introduced a bill in March that would make it legal for some SNAP benefit recipients to undergo drug testing. House Bill 3, introduced by Alabama state Rep. Tommy Hanes (R-Bryant), would require those receiving benefits under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) to undergo drug testing if there is a “reasonable suspicion” they are using drugs. The bill eventually died in the House Committee on the Judiciary.

4. “Public Charge” Rule Released to Deny Green Cards for Immigrants Who Use Food Stamps

The Trump administration released a regulation in August that would make it harder for immigrants who use public assistance such food stamps, Medicaid, or other forms of welfare to receive green cards and become U.S. citizens. The reform was enacted so those receiving welfare such as food stamps would have to prove to immigration officials that they are self-sufficient enough to live in the U.S. without public assistance.

5. USDA Finalizes SNAP Proposal Promoting Nationwide Work Requirements

The USDA finalized a rule in December proposing that those who are able-bodied working adults without dependents between the ages of 18-49 who receive food stamps for more than three months in a 36-month period must work, go to school, receive job training, or volunteer to receive benefits. This proposal is expected to go into effect on April 1, 2020.

States have been proposing similar reforms for years, with Alaska being the latest state to pursue this line of welfare reform.

There are currently 36,322,055 individuals and 18,443,991 households enrolled in the food stamp program. Still, USDA officials said those numbers are “preliminary” due to the 2018 government shutdown, which affected food stamp administration at the beginning of 2019. But the numbers show a declining trend— thanks to reforms like these that are being introduced into society.

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Merry Christmas! Trump’s Economy Is Helping the Working Class Americans the Most

Thanks to Donald Trump working Americans are winning again!
After years and years of stagnant wages Americans are winning and especially working Americans.

Breitbart.com reported:

Americans without colleges degrees and with martial backgrounds are seeing the “biggest gains” within the econcomy under President Donald Trump’s administration, said White House Deputy Director of Communications Adam Kennedy in an interview on SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Sunday with host Matt Boyle.

Boyle invited Kennedy’s remarks on the House of Representatives’ passage of the United States-Mexico-Canada Trade Agreement (USMCA) and the broader economy.

Kennedy replied, “The president, since day one … has been working hard to make sure that American families — the American people — are at the center of this administration, and what we are trying to achieve, and we’ve seen that in the economy. … We’ve seen that in our new trade agreement, the USMCA, with South Korea, and with many others. This is a president who has put the economy and the American people first and foremost in every single one of our policy initiatives.”

Kennedy added, “One of the things this economy has really been spectacular at is making sure that people who used to be left behind in previous economies — people without college degrees, people who come from more martial backgrounds — have seen some of the biggest gains.”

The post Merry Christmas! Trump’s Economy Is Helping the Working Class Americans the Most appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

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Report: Trump’s Limited Government Energy Platform in Stark Contrast to Democrats’ Green New Deal

As the Democrat presidential candidates jockey to position themselves as the most Green New Deal-friendly, President Donald Trump is putting forth his own ideas on providing Americans more freedom, not less, when it comes to abundant energy choices.

The Boston Globe credits the Democrats with plans to combat climate change:

While Democratic presidential candidates have called for sweeping measures to eliminate the US carbon footprint, President Trump is promising voters a world free of the everyday inconveniences associated with combating climate change — rolling back lightbulb regulations, ordering a study on low-flow toilets, and turning bans on plastic straws into a campaign rallying cry.

The contrast is shaping up to be a key theme of the 2020 presidential race as Trump bets that his pitch to a bygone era will sway voters turned off by calls from some Democrats on the left for a transformative Green New Deal.

The Globe went on to criticize Trump for a speech he gave at a recent Turning Point USA event in Florida “that included a diatribe against wind-powered turbines — arguing that building them produces ‘a tremendous amount of fumes’ and that the ‘windmills,’ as he calls them, are noisy, unattractive, and kill too many birds.”

‘‘I’ve seen the most beautiful fields, farms, fields — most gorgeous things you’ve ever seen, and then you have these ugly things going up,’’ Trump said of the wind turbines. ‘‘And you know what they don’t tell you about windmills? After ten years, they look like hell.’’

“Often operating on his own feelings rather than scientific evidence, the president has castigated Democrats’ environmental agenda as unworkable and counterproductive,” the Globe reported.

The Department of Energy announced last week it would keep incandescent and halogen bulbs on the market rather than phasing them out on January 1. 

“The move offered a reprieve for old-fashioned lightbulbs and affects roughly 3 billion — nearly half — of the bulbs in sockets in US homes,” the Globe reported.

‘‘If you like your lightbulbs, you can keep your lightbulbs!’’ the White House tweeted on Saturday. 

‘‘The Obama Admin tried to limit Americans to buying more-expensive LED bulbs for their homes — but thanks to President @realDonaldTrump, go ahead and decorate your house with whatever lights you want.’’

‘‘For his base, especially, it hits on something that’s tangible, that’s tactile, and that voters like,’’ Doug Heye, a Republican strategist, said in the Globe report. ‘‘It also hits on those broad themes of freedom and liberty and government encroachment on people’s daily lives.’’

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Virginia Governor Northam Increases Corrections Budget In Anticipation Of Jailing Gun Owners

Gun owners are fighting back, so this may involve a lot of people.

Via Daily Caller:

As if Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam’s wholesale attack on law-abiding gun owners wasn’t enough, the disgraced public official and his Michael Bloomberg-bought allies in the General Assembly now want the state’s hard-working taxpayers to foot the bill for their unconstitutional schemes. The budget bill (HB30) includes an appropriation of a quarter million dollars to carry out a host of gun control measures that Northam and his anti-gun allies hope to enact.

The $250,000 is appropriated to the Corrections Special Reserve Fund in order to provide for the “increase in the operating cost of adult correctional facilities resulting from the enactment” of Northam’s gun control measures. Among the enumerated laws that this allocation is meant to fund is a ban on commonly-owned semi-automatic firearms, the criminalization of private firearms transfers, and gun confiscation orders issued without due process.

Keep reading…

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Injured Veteran and Family ‘Overwhelmed’ After Being Blessed with Mortgage-Free House for Christmas

Ever since U.S. Army Specialist Andrew Jones returned home from combat, he has suffered from physical injuries and PTSD. However, thanks to an unforgettable gift from a non-profit, Jones is finally being given the chance to heal.

Building Homes For Heroes, a non-profit that builds and remodels homes specifically tailored for veterans, heard about Jones’ heartbreaking journey and knew exactly how they could help — by gifting Jones and his family a mortgage-free home.

During a 2007 tour in Iraq, Jones was in a Humvee that was struck by a rocket-propelled grenade, according to Fox News.

As a result of the blast he suffered traumatic brain injuries, but the PTSD proved to be much more difficult once he came home.

“What kept driving me was I had a son and a wife. I need to get better, take care of myself,” he explained.

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“PTSD, the scariest feeling is knowing that you’re always in danger. Your mind is constantly running 10,000 miles an hour,” he continued. “You’re worried about where your back is facing … is it facing the glass? Is somebody looking at you ready to take a headshot at you?

“You always wonder about your family, making sure they’re protected. It’s a daily struggle.”

Jones received the Purple Heart Medal and was honorably discharged, but is unable to work due to his injuries.

Now he stays at home, taking care of his young son while his wife, Leigh, serves as a medical assistant in the Air Force.

Because Leigh is active duty, the family was moving from base to base, placing even more strain on them.

“We’re super thankful for what we had. Whether it was in the camper or in a house or an apartment,” Jones said, adding, “We were able to adapt.”

Leigh told Fox News that decorating for Christmas with her son helped make wherever they were living feel a little more like a home.

“Me and my son are like little elves on Christmas,” Leigh said. “Growing up, my mom wasn’t really too big on decorating for Christmas so now that I am the mom, I make sure that it’s something that we take the time to do.”

This year, however, the Joneses are getting to celebrate Christmas at home — their remodeled, mortgage-free home.

RELATED: Officer Surprised Family with Christmas Gifts After Noticing Children Not in Car Seats in Backseat

Building Homes For Heroes gave the family a home in New Bern, North Carolina, as a part of its campaign to gift 16 homes to 16 veterans before Christmas, according to WNCT.

Andy Pujol, the founder of the non-profit said he heard about the Jones’ story and knew his organization could help.

The home was remodeled with specialized bathrooms and other features specifically catered to the needs of Jones and his family.

They even decked out the home in Christmas decorations.

“Every time we give a home, it’s Christmas. It’s not always Christmastime, but the homes around Christmas, we always to take that extra care and attention and decorate the homes for Christmas,” Pujol told Fox News.

While the home is a physical gift, Pujol said when you look at Jones you can see a far more precious blessing unfolding.

“If you look into his heart and his soul, you could see him struggle, you could see him suffer, but when he smiles, he lights up the room,” he said, referring to Jones, “and we’re watching him heal.”

The nonprofit invited other local organizations to present the home to the Joneses.

“As I was driving down the street, I was looking out the window and I saw just tons and tons of people standing there, smiling and clapping, and it was just overwhelming,” Jones recalled.

“Andy from Building Homes for Heroes, he’s like Santa Claus for sure,” Jones added. “We cannot believe that this is happening and happening to us. We’re just blown away. This Christmas is by far the best Christmas ever.”

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18 Out of 31 College Kids Fail To Recite Pledge of Allegiance Correctly During Campus Experiment

YouTube street reporter Austen Fletcher interviewed students at the University of Southern California to find out whether they could receive the Pledge of Allegiance and found that only about 42 percent of them could actually recite it without messing up.

Fletcher, known as Fleccas online, usually interviews protesters to see if they actually know facts that back up their views.

“I’m trying to tell the stories the MSM ignores,” the “about” section of his YouTube channel, “Fleccas Talks,” read.

The Dartmouth Review, a newspaper associated with Flecher’s alma mater, interviewed him about the purpose of his YouTube channel.

“The premise of his videos is simple, as Fletcher puts it, ‘I amplify the voices of leftist protestors.’ Through candid interviews with protestors in the midst of demonstrations, Fletcher exposes the radicalism, hypocrisy, and lunacy common in these movements.”

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On Dec. 13, Fletcher posted a video titled “BIG YIKES – USC Students Can’t Recite the Pledge of Allegiance.”

“This week I went back to USC to see if students could recite the pledge of allegiance,” Fletcher wrote in the caption. “Out of everyone we interviewed, 18 out of 31 people didn’t know or botched the pledge. Sad!”

Fletcher walked around the USC campus, stopping students to ask them a question for a social experiment. When he asked students if they knew the Pledge of Allegiance, most of them said “yes” with a lot of confidence.

However, when he asked them to recite it, many of them lost their confidence and messed up.

Do you think this experiment represents the patriotism of college students nationwide?

100% (1 Votes)

0% (0 Votes)

Fletcher walked up to one student who seemed confident he could recite the pledge, but found that he couldn’t get passed the first line. “Yea, no. That’s– wow.”

“Wow, this is embarrassing,” the student said when he tried again later in the video.

One guy got all the way to the last line, “I forgot the last part.”

“Look it up,” Fletcher told him.

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Another guy recited the first line quickly but didn’t get past it, “Now I’m lost.”

When Fletcher asked a girl whether she knew the pledge of allegiance, she said, “I think so.”

She did okay until the end, when she said, “for service, justice, and for all or something like that?”

One guy admitted he didn’t know it right off the bat, “No… I’m not… definitely not.”

When Fletcher made an incredulous exclamation, the guy replied, “I mean when I was a kid, yeah sure.”

Another girl pledged her allegiance to the flag of the “United States Republica.”

A lot of people pledged allegiance directly to America and forgot about the flag entirely or said “individual” instead of “indivisible.”

But a handful of students were able to recite it perfectly, for which they received a fist bump from Fletcher.

We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards.

via The Western Journal

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Thousands Showed Up to Arlington Nat’l Cemetery To Honor Fallen Warriors at Christmastime

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Thousands Showed Up to Arlington Nat’l Cemetery To Honor Fallen Warriors at Christmastime

More than 50,000 anticipated volunteers placed remembrance wreaths on the nearly 245,000 headstones in Arlington National Cemetery on Dec. 17, 2016 in Arlington, Virginia.Leigh Vogel / Getty ImagesMore than 50,000 anticipated volunteers placed remembrance wreaths on the nearly 245,000 headstones in Arlington National Cemetery on Dec. 17, 2016 in Arlington, Virginia. (Leigh Vogel / Getty Images)

On Dec. 14, multitudes of volunteers braved the nasty weather at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia to lay wreaths at the headstones of our fallen heroes.

The crowd of grateful Americans, numbering well into the thousands, quickly filled up the cemetery parking lots and overflowed into the streets.

By the end of the day, over 250,000 wreaths were laid and each name was read aloud in remembrance, according to The Hill.

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The event, known as Wreaths Across America, is actually a 27-year-old nationwide tribute that takes place at nearly 2,000 cemeteries in all 50 states.

Volunteers shared images on social media of adorned headstones from around the country.

Remembering and honoring our fallen soldiers is a duty we have as citizens, and we should undertake that mission every day.

However, this time of year allows for an even more special act of tribute.

There are few times of the year that can bring families and friends together in the way that Christmas can, a fact that is built into Wreaths Across America’s mission.

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Countless Americans have family members who have given their lives in service to our country, and this special time of year will forever be short of loved ones.

While nothing can truly fill the hole that they leave, our fallen warriors deserve to be remembered and cherished, which is the mission of Wreaths Across America.

“In many homes, there is an empty seat for one who is serving or one who made the ultimate sacrifice for our country,” the organization said on its website. “There is no better time to express our appreciation than during the hustle and bustle of the holiday season.”

Undoubtedly, these family members, especially those who are unable to participate themselves, would be grateful to know that there are so many people who would take the time to honor their loved ones.

This nation owes its service members and their families a debt of gratitude that can never be paid; it’s important to make an effort to let them know that we appreciate them.

It’s the least we can do.

We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards.

via The Western Journal

Enjoy this article? Read the full version at the authors website: https://www.westernjournal.com