As you celebrate July Fourth, remember our often forgotten heroes. They paid a terrible price for our freedoms

God Bless America

 By Damon Friedman | Fox News

As you celebrate the Fourth of July, please remember our often forgotten heroes. They paid a terrible price for our freedoms.

Many of them have served in America’s longest war – the War on Terror that began on Sept. 11, 2001 when Islamic terrorists seized four airliners and killed almost 3,000 Americans at the World Trade Center in New York City; at the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia; and in a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

There is no end in sight to this war. Already, more Americans have served in it than the Vietnam War. Sadly, the war often continues inside, after the warrior returns home.
As an Air Force lieutenant colonel who spent four combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, I know many of these warriors. We’d call them patriots, but they would say that they were just doing their job. They were fulfilling their oath to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
We’d say that’s a noble thing. They’d say they just wanted to serve because they love their country and wanted to protect their families.
Many of them came back to us as broken, shattered people incapable of enjoying the life they once knew. Their stories are full of pain and heartache. They suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), finding themselves unable to adjust to civilian life, haunted by the things they did and the things they saw.
These veterans may experience enormous grief over the loss of fellow comrades and guilt over decisions they made or actions they took. So many of them also experience a deep sense of hopelessness and loss of purpose. They feel isolated and alone, unable to reconnect to family and friends. Many of their marriages end in divorce.
Besides such clinical issues as hyper-vigilance, sleeplessness or intrusive thoughts, most of these heroes suffer from uncontrolled anger and irritability. Anger is easily triggered by a sight, a smell or a thought.
Some try to drown their pain in alcohol or take it out on others in various forms of abuse, such as domestic violence or road rage. Some, finding themselves at wits’ end, attempt to end their pain by suicide. According to the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), some 20 veterans commit suicide every day – 10 times the number who die in combat.
The VA has implemented numerous programs to address the issues of returning service members. It has made a concerted effort to help our veterans. But much more needs to be done. The solution lies in taking a holistic approach that addresses their physical, emotional and spiritual problems. Failing to address the spiritual component is leaving a gaping hole in the treatment of our warriors.
Fortunately, a number of ministries have stepped forward to do battle for the hearts and minds of our troubled heroes. At SOF Missions, our approach is based on complete surrender to God. When a warrior comes to the place of surrender, he or she realizes the battle can’t be won alone.
The enemy, in whatever form it takes – PTSD, alcoholism or abuse – is just too strong. Some wounds, only God can heal.
Through Him, warriors experience healing and find lasting peace. He is the only one who can take the guilt, anger and bitterness away, and bring a person into a place of hope, peace and lasting rest.

Supreme Court's Janus ruling will end cash cow for liberal activists: experts

The battle over unions collecting money from non-members moved from the Supreme Court to the court of public employee’s opinion.
On the same day the court announced its ruling in the Janus case barring public sector unions from automatically collecting fees from government workers who choose not to join the union, libertarian groups were outside government buildings passing out literature.
“We’re planning an all-of-the above comprehensive educational campaign to reach those public employees and let them know about their Constitutional rights,” said Maxford Nelsen from the Freedom Foundation, a Libertarian think-tank based in Washington State.
Nelsen has been down this road before. The Freedom Foundation won a smaller but similar ruling in state court four years ago. Since then, his group has been trying to spread the word, but the unions have blocked access to personal contact information. Some of the affected state workers still have not been notified.
Greg Devereux, executive director of the Washington Federation of State Employees (WFSE), said his members want their personal information blocked.
SUPREME COURT'S JANUS DECISION COULD HURT UNIONS' POLITICAL MIGHT IN MIDTERMS
“Freedom Foundation cares about one thing, and that’s the power of collective voice of people,” said Devereux, “They don’t like that. That’s why they’re trying to destroy us.”
According to unionstats.com, most of the fallout from the SCOTUS ruling will be in the Northeast and along the West Coast where there are no right-to-work laws. While nationally just one-third of government workers belong to unions, the penetration is much higher in blue coastal states. In New York, 71 percent of public sector employees pay union dues, followed closely by Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Maine, California and Washington state.
Organized labor held rallies last week blasting the court ruling and vowing to only get stronger.
“This was one of the dumbest things they could possibly do. It will energize unions in this country and you will see a resurgence,” said Devereux.
Unions are also waging an information campaign selling members on the value of staying in the union and paying those dues and fees. Stephen Baker, who is a state health worker and belongs to WFSE, needs no convincing.
SUPREME COURT RULING IN JANUS UNION CASE SPARKS REACTIONS FROM TRUMP, OTHER LAWMAKERS
“Those people who say they have no voice, the union is the bulwark,” Baker said, “it is the foundation of democracy in this country.”
But Paul Vilja disagrees. He’s a registered nurse working at Western State Hospital and a 29-year member of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). He’s also a lifelong Republican who says the union’s political contributions do not reflect his values.
“I have a voice, and they have to win me back, and they’re welcome to win me back if they’re going to be bipartisan,” Vilja said.
Union leaders contend their political activism is all geared toward getting union workers better pay and job protections. But one party gets the lions share. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, in the 2016 election cycle, public sector unions spent $64.6 million on campaigns. Ninety percent went to Democrats.
The Freedom Foundation said that cash cow for liberal activists is now over.
“Allowing unions that ability to compel people to pay them gives them an undue influence, an inflated voice, if you will,” Nelsen said, “because you’re taking these people along for the ride that don’t support the union’s agenda.”

Judge tosses suit alleging Trump campaign conspired with Russians in hack: report

U.S. District Court Judge Ellen Huvelle

A federal judge on Tuesday tossed a lawsuit claiming that the Trump campaign and former adviser Roger Stone colluded with WikiLeaks and the Russian government to publish hacked Democratic National Committee emails during the presidential election.
U.S. District Court Judge Ellen Huvelle said in a ruling that the allegations of conspiracy were insubstantial to proceed in a court, Politico reported.
"The Trump Campaign’s efforts to elect President Trump in D.C. are not suit-related contacts for those efforts did not involve acts taken in furtherance of the conspiracies to disseminate emails that harmed plaintiffs," wrote the Clinton-appointed judge. "Campaign meetings, canvassing voters, and other regular business activities of a political campaign do not constitute activities related to the conspiracies alleged in the complaint.”
She noted that her ruling is based on the technicalities of the lawsuit and doesn’t take a position on whether the Trump campaign and its officials actually conspired with the Russians during the election.
"It bears emphasizing that this Court’s ruling is not based on a finding that there was no collusion between defendants and Russia during the 2016 presidential election," Huvelle wrote. "This is the wrong forum for plaintiffs’ lawsuit. The Court takes no position on the merits of plaintiffs’ claims."
The lawsuit was brought by two DNC donors, Roy Cockrum and Eric Schoenberg, and former DNC staffer Scott Comer, who alleged that the publication of the emails violated their privacy and that the Trump campaign and Stone engaged in an illicit activity, according to Politico.
The DNC itself wasn’t part of the suit, though it had brought a separate lawsuit back in April, accusing top Trump campaign officials, including Trump's son Donald Jr. and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner of colluding with the Russians.
Stone’s role in WikiLeaks activities raised concerns after the revelations that he reportedly exchanged messages with both WikiLeaks and Guccifer 2.0 – a social media account that U.S. intelligence agencies believe was part of the “Russian military intelligence” effort to spread the hacked emails, The Daily Beast reported.
Despite the setback, the group that filed the lawsuit, Protect Democracy, said it will refile the case elsewhere.
"While we are disappointed in and respectfully disagree with today’s decision from the District Court to dismiss this case on the grounds that it does not belong in Washington, D.C., this case is far from over," Protect Democracy's Ian Bassin said in a statement to Politico. "It is clear that the Court recognizes that there is sufficient evidence to suggest a conspiracy between the Trump Campaign and the Kremlin, but believes this case belongs in a different court. What today’s decision indicates is that the merits of this case will proceed somewhere,” he added.

Dershowitz unloads on NY socialist Dem, Martha's Vineyard liberals

Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz said Tuesday he won’t let radicals like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders steal the spirit of the Democratic Party and doubled-down on his attack on fellow liberals who “shunned” him at Martha's Vineyard.
“I won’t let the Democrats steal my party from me. I want to regain the center,” Dershowitz told WABC Radio’s “Curtis and Cosby” show, noting that he will remain a Democrat as “as long as there’s some chance the Democratic Party can return to normalcy.”
“I want to make sure that the radical Left, the woman who got elected in the Bronx and Queens to Congress on the Democratic ticket, that they and Sanders and others don’t represent the Democratic Party,” he continued, referring to socialist Ocasio-Cortez who pulled off a shock victory last week against incumbent Democratic Rep. Joseph Crowley.
“I want a fight within the Democratic Party to restore it to the days when it was a great centrist party, when it united people rather than divided people,” he added.

"I want a fight within the Democratic Party to restore it to the days when it was a great centrist party, when it united people rather than divided people."
- Alan Dershowitz

ALAN DERSHOWITZ SLAMS MARTHA’S VINEYARD LIBERALS FOR ‘SHUNNING’ HIM OVER TRUMP DEFENSE
Dershowitz, a frequent guest on Fox News, also weighed in on the controversy surrounding his recent claims that he was ostracized at Martha’s Vineyard by his fellow liberals over his defense of constitutional rights of President Donald Trump.
“The idea that some of these people aren’t talking to me is not a punishment, it’s a great reward. I am so pleased,” he said during the interview. “It’s a red badge of courage for me that there are some people who prefer to shut down debate and not talk to me.”
“These are people who have asked me for help over the years, who have asked me for support when their kid gets busted on a marijuana charge, or on possession of alcohol, I’m the first one they call,” he added. “But as soon as I defend the rights of Donald Trump or anybody else they disagree with, I’m am a pariah.”

“These are people who have asked me for help over the years, who have asked me for support when their kid gets busted on a marijuana charge, or on possession of alcohol, I’m the first one they call."
- Alan Dershowitz on Martha's Vineyard liberals

Dershowitz wrote in The Hill that he is a liberal Democrat who voted for Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election and contributing “handsomely” to her campaign. But he said his principled defense of civil liberties that could benefit Trump was too much to swallow for his social circle.
“So they are shunning me and trying to ban me from their social life on Martha’s Vineyard,” he wrote.

Rachel Dolezal Cartoons

Rachel Dolezal, also known as Nkechi Diallo, booked and released on welfare fraud, other charges

Rachel Dolezal is pictured in March 2017, six months after she changed her name to Nkechi Diallo.  (AP Photo/Nicholas K. Geranios, File)

Former Spokane NAACP President Nkechi Diallo -- who became infamous as Rachel Dolezal, a white woman identifying as black -- was booked and fingerprinted at a Washington state jail Monday as she awaits trial on multiple charges, including welfare fraud.
Diallo pleaded not guilty to state charges of first-degree theft by welfare fraud, making false verification and second-degree perjury last month. A judge ordered her freed on her own recognizance and gave her a deadline of Monday evening to report to the Spokane County jail for booking and fingerprinting.
Diallo, who changed her name from Rachel Dolezal in October 2016, is accused of receiving more than $8,800 in food and childcare assistance illegally between August 2015 and November 2017.
RACHEL DOLEZAL HIT WITH FELONY THEFT CHARGE IN WELFARE FRAUD CASE
The welfare fraud case started in March 2017 after a state investigator received information that Diallo had written a book --her autobiography, "In Full Color." The investigator reviewed Diallo's records and found that she had been reporting her income as usually less than $500 per month, court documents said.
However, a subpoena of her bank statements and other records showed Diallo had deposited nearly $84,000 into her account from 2015-17, without reporting most of it to the state Department of Social and Health Services.
The money came from book sales, speaking engagements, soap making, doll making and the sale of her art, according to the case file.
Diallo did report a change of circumstance to the state agency, saying she did a one-time job in October 2017 worth $20,000, court documents show.
Rachel Dolezal, as she was known then, achieved international infamy in June 2015 after her parents, with whom she has long feuded, told reporters their daughter was white but was presenting herself as a black activist.
She has said that she grew up near Troy, Mont., and started to change her perspective as a teenager, after her religious parents adopted four black children. She decided some years later that she would identify publicly as black.
In addition to resigning as Spokane NAACP president, she was kicked off a police oversight commission, lost a position as a freelance columnist for a weekly newspaper in Spokane and was fired from her job teaching African studies at nearby Eastern Washington University.

Alan Dershowitz slams Martha's Vineyard liberals for 'shunning' him over Trump defense

Apparently Martha’s Vineyard is a safe space.
Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz said last week that his defense of President Donald Trump’s constitutional rights led to him being “shunned” by his own friends at a high-end seasonal destination.
The famed lawyer lamented the efforts to eject him from his social life at Martha’s Vineyard amid his outspoken criticism of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into the alleged collusion with Russia.

"So they are shunning me and trying to ban me from their social life on Martha’s Vineyard.”
- Alan Dershowitz

In an op-ed for The Hill, Dershowitz, a frequent guest on Fox News, said that though he’s politically a liberal Democrat who voted for Hillary Clinton in addition to contributing “handsomely” to her campaign, his defense of civil liberties that could benefit Trump is too much to swallow for his social circle.
“But that is not good enough for some of my old friends on Martha’s Vineyard. For them, it is enough that what I have said about the Constitution might help Trump. So they are shunning me and trying to ban me from their social life on Martha’s Vineyard."
“One of them, an academic at a distinguished university, has told people that he would not attend any dinner or party to which I was invited. He and others have demanded ‘trigger warnings’ so that they can be assured of having “safe spaces” in which they will not encounter me or my ideas. Others have said they will discontinue contributions to organizations that sponsor my talks,” he added.
Dershowitz went on to compare his situation with McCarthyism in the 1950s, when many innocent people were perceived as being sympathetic to communist ideas and were subjected to job firings and blacklists.
 “I never thought I would see McCarthyism come to Martha’s Vineyard, but I have. I wonder if the professor who refuses to listen to anything I have to say also treats his students similarly,” he continued. “Would he listen to a student who actively supported Trump? What about one who simply supported his civil liberties?”

“I never thought I would see McCarthyism come to Martha’s Vineyard, but I have. I wonder if the professor who refuses to listen to anything I have to say also treats his students similarly."
- Alan Dershowitz

Yet, Dershowitz remains defiant amid the efforts to ostracize him from public life. “I will not change my views as a result of these attempts to ostracize me, but there are some who may remain silent for fear of being shunned,” he wrote.
“Silence is not my style. Cowardice is not my philosophy. I intend to speak up when I disagree with Republicans, and I intend to speak up when I disagree with Democrats. Right now I am speaking up in disagreement with Maxine Waters. She — like those who shun me on Martha’s Vineyard — is part of the problem rather than the solution,” he added.

Democrats risk a backlash with hardball tactics on immigration and high court

The Democratic Party is suddenly lurching left in ways that may be self-destructive.
And it's driven in large part by 2020 politics.
Two or three weeks ago, the Democrats were riding a wave of moral outrage and favorable media coverage. Most of the country agreed that President Trump's policy of separating families at the border was wrong and rather heartless. The White House was awash in contradictory messages and some leading conservative voices were demanding that the president stop a policy that he insisted he had no power to halt. When Trump reversed himself, it was a rare win for the Democrats, who control nothing in Washington, and for journalists and commentators who were emotionally invested in the border issue.
But then the Democrats overreached. Several senators who are all but campaigning for president started calling for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency to be abolished, or replaced with something else.
We heard this from Elizabeth Warren and Kirsten Gillibrand and Kamala Harris. Their calculation, undoubtedly, is that the Democrats who will turn out to vote in the 2020 primaries detest not only the president but his immigration policies. This view may have been reinforced by 28-year-old Latino newcomer Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a self-proclaimed socialist who knocked off House Democratic leader Joe Crowley.
But the problem is that "abolish ICE" is exactly the kind of stance that drives away moderates and independents who want some border enforcement. It is easily caricatured as a call for open borders, and Trump hasn’t hesitated to make that argument. "You get rid of ICE, you're going to have a country that you're going to be afraid to walk out of your house," the president told Fox’s Maria Bartiromo.
The rhetoric by these Democrats reminds me of when Ron Paul, in his crusade against oppressive taxes, would call for the elimination of the IRS.
And it takes time for politicians to explain that, well, we really just mean reform the agency into a more humane bureaucracy.
So rather than making a case against young children being separated from their parents, the Democrats have moved the debate to the existence of a border patrol agency, basically because that animates their most liberal voters.
Two other developments have put the Dems on the defensive.
Many liberal voices have defended the hounding of Trump administration officials, from Sarah Huckabee Sanders to Kirstjen Nielsen to Stephen Miller. When Maxine Waters called for continued "harassment" of Trump Cabinet officials, Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi had to distance themselves from her rhetoric. While the Democrats can fairly retort that Trump uses rough language and tactics, do they really want to position their party as favoring personal harassment of government officials?
And the retirement of Anthony Kennedy has sparked a media debate in which liberal commentators are demanding that Democrats block any vote on any Trump nominee this year. Obviously, the Democrats say this is payback for what Mitch McConnell did in stiffing Merrick Garland in 2016. But just as obviously, by taking this stance even before Trump’s pick next week, they leave themselves open to charges of obstruction.
The Washington Post recognized these problems in a front-page story yesterday:
"Growing liberal agitation over a pivotal Supreme Court retirement and a simmering crisis about immigrant child separation have left Democratic leaders scrambling to keep the political outrage they'd counted on to fuel midterm election wins from becoming a liability for the party."
The paper also noted that Bernie Sanders-style rhetoric, including "costly guarantees of government jobs, free health care and free college could backfire in parts of the country where Trump won in 2016, and where Democrats will have to win in November to reclaim control of Congress."
And that's the problem. What plays in the Bronx may be politically toxic in West Virginia and North Dakota, which are among the states where moderate Senate Democrats are trying to hang onto their seats.
A handful of presidential aspirants don't speak for the whole party. But they get outsized media attention when they embrace positions like getting rid of ICE, especially in a party that for now is shut out of power and has no natural leader.
Howard Kurtz is a Fox News analyst and the host of "MediaBuzz" (Sundays 11 a.m.). He is the author "Media Madness: Donald Trump, The Press and the War Over the Truth." Follow him at @HowardKurtz. Click here for more information on Howard Kurtz.