Social Issues

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"We don't want barriers unrelated to a person's qualification to serve preventing us from recruiting or retaining the soldier, sailor, airman or Marine who can best accomplish the mission," Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said. "We have to have access to 100 percent of America's population for our all-volunteer force to be able to recruit from among them the most highly qualified and to retain them." (Associated Press)

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Syrian refugees arrive aboard a dinghy after crossing from Turkey to the island of Lesbos, Greece, on Sept. 10, 2015. (Associated Press)

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FILE-In this Oct. 26, 2015, file photo, right to die advocates rally outside the New Mexico Supreme Court in Santa Fe, N.M., after a lawyer asked justices to allow terminally-ill patients to end their lives. In a 5-0 opinion issued Thursday, June 30, 2016, the high court overturned a previous district court decision that doctors could not be prosecuted under the state's assisted suicide law, which classifies helping with suicide as a fourth-degree felony. (AP Photo/Russell Contreras, File)

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FILE - In this Dec. 20, 2015, file photo, Cleveland Browns quarterback Johnny Manziel speaks with media members following the team's 30-13 loss to the Seattle Seahawks in an NFL football game, in Seattle. Manziel has been suspended for the first four games of next season for violating the NFL's substance-abuse policy.The suspension announced Thursday, June 30, 2016, is not related to the NFL's domestic violence policy, but the free agent quarterback would be subject to it if he signs with another team. (AP Photo/Scott Eklund, File)

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Chris Brown - Brown and his then-girlfriend, recording artist Rihanna, had an argument which escalated into physical violence, leaving Rihanna with visible facial injuries which required hospitalization. Brown turned himself in to the Los Angeles Police Department's Wilshire station and was booked under suspicion of making criminal threats. On March 5, 2009, Brown was charged with felony assault and making criminal threats. He was arraigned on April 6, 2009, and pleaded not guilty to one count of assault and one count of making criminal threats.On June 22, 2009, Brown pleaded guilty to a felony and accepted a plea deal of community labor, five years' formal probation, and domestic violence counseling. (AP Photo/ Bob Chamberlin, Pool)

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Tom Sizemore battled drug addiction since he was 15, was convicted in 2003 of assault and battery against his girlfriend, the former "Hollywood Madam" Heidi Fleiss. Sizemore was then sentenced to 7 months in jail and four months in drug treatment for repeatedly failing drug tests while on probation on March 25, 2005. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)

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Defense Secretary Ashton Carter testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington in this July 7, 2015, file photo. The expected launch of new rules allowing transgender individuals to serve openly in the U.S. military is drawing concerns from senior military leaders who believe the Pentagon is moving too fast and has yet to resolve many details and questions. The Pentagon plans to unveil the new regulations in the next day or two. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File)

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In this photo taken june 22, 2016, water collects inside a tire which is one of several tires left as trash in a neighborhood near downtown Houston. Trash piles like this are textbook habitat for the mosquitoes that carry Zika, and one example of the challenge facing public health officials. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)

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Democratic candidate for Senate Misty Snow poses for a photograph Tuesday, June 28, 2016, in Salt Lake City. Snow won Utah's Democratic U.S. Senate primary. The transgender woman making her first foray into politics will face off against incumbent Republican Sen. Mike Lee in November after winning the Democratic nomination. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)

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Illustration on the need to identify radical Islamic's impact on homosexuality by Alexander Hunter/The Washington Times

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The pro-free trade stances of Sen. Rob Portman, Ohio Republican, may make his re-election this year all the more difficult. (Associated Press Photographs)

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Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada and Sen. Patty Murray (left), Washington Democrat, face reporters on Capitol Hill in Washington on June 28, 2016, as the Senate split along party lines and left a $1.1 billion proposal to fight the Zika virus in limbo. (Associated Press) **FILE**

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Catholic League President Bill Donohue (CNN)

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FILE - In this Jan. 27, 2016, file photo, an Aedes aegypti mosquito is photographed through a microscope at the Fiocruz institute in Recife, Pernambuco state, Brazil. President Barack Obama’s $1.9 billion emergency request to combat a potential public health crisis from the Zika virus is more than 4 months old, but congressional dysfunction appears likely to scuttle a scaled-back version of the president's request, raising the prospect that Congress may leave on a seven-week vacation next month without addressing Zika. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana, File)

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Republican Donald Trump started to back off his call for mass deportations of illegal immigrants. The mogul is attempting to pivot from some of his inflammatory rhetoric and begin courting minority voters he'll need to win a general election showdown. (Associated Press)

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Republican Donald Trump started to back off his call for mass deportations of illegal immigrants. The mogul is attempting to pivot from some of his inflammatory rhetoric and begin courting minority voters he'll need to win a general election showdown. (Associated Press)