Free Republic

WASHINGTON—The White House is expected to send guidance to the Pentagon in coming days on how to implement a new administration ban on transgender people in the military, issuing a policy that will allow Defense Secretary Jim Mattis to consider a service member’s ability to deploy in deciding whether to kick them out of the military. The White House memo also directs the Pentagon to deny admittance to transgender individuals and to stop spending on medical treatment regimens for those currently serving, according to U.S. officials familiar with the document. The 2½-page memo gives Mr. Mattis six months to prepare...

~ The FReeper Canteen Presents ~ ~ Remembering Our Troops!! ~ HITTING THE BEACH Marines exit an amphibious vehicle during Rim of the Pacific 2016, a maritime exercise in Hawaii, July 30, 2016. The Marines, assigned to Echo Company, Battalion Landing Team 2nd Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment, launched from the USS San Diego. Marine Corps photo by Lance Cpl. Matthew Casbarro Canteen Mission Statement Showing support and boosting the morale ofour military and our allies' militaryand family members of the above.Honoring those who have served before. TAKE-DOWN TRAINING Sailors practice take-down maneuvers in the security training classroom of the...

Former Alabama state Chief Justice Roy Moore tells Conservative Review that should he successfully win his Senate race, he would vote against Senator Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., remaining Senate majority leader. With a little over four weeks until Alabama’s GOP primary runoff, Moore holds a commanding lead over incumbent Senator Luther Strange, according to the latest poll. The McConnell-affiliated Senate Leadership Fund super PAC has dumped millions into keeping the unelected Strange in office. In the initial GOP primary, Moore ended in first place, with nearly 39 percent of the vote. Strange was second, with around 33 percent of the votes...

Connecticut, home to hedge fund billionaires alongside cities mired in poverty, is racing against the clock to pass a budget or face further spending cuts to education and municipal aid across the state. Nearly two months without a budget, Connecticut is getting crushed by a burdensome debt load that has squeezed spending and amplified legislative discord. State lawmakers must agree on a biennial budget soon or else Governor Dannel Malloy’s executive order to slash state aid to municipalities and eliminate school funding for some districts will go into effect in October. The state faces a $3.5 billion deficit over the...

A Hollywood film yet again finds itself responding to a social-media outcry over the casting of a white actor in a role that was originally Asian-American. British actor Ed Skrein earlier this week joined the cast of the “Hellboy” reboot “Rise of the Blood Queen,” which is to be the third film in the comic adaptation franchise previously helmed by Guillermo del Toro. The character, Ben Daimio, is Japanese-American in Mike Mignola’s “Hellboy” comics and his heritage is central to his backstory. Daimio’s grandmother was a Japanese Imperial assassin in World War II. Many objected to the role not going...

My daughter and I drove up to Andersen, SC for the eclipse, leaving Sunday early in the morning and hanging out there Sunday afternoon and evening.Let me first put an accolade out to the Hilton Garden Inn -- great people, and very accommodating.  We wound up having to run-n-gun at the last minute as one nasty cloud threatened to obliterate our shots of the totality, but that gamble paid big; we were able to get into the clear with time remaining, and were set up and "on-point" about 3-4 minutes before totality was achieved.The totality itself was surreal.  Photographs, no matter how...

A near-finished renovation of the White House's West Wing brought in new art and furniture, including "a lot more eagles," an interior designer told a group of reporters during a tour Wednesday. A dozen 19th century engraved chairs with claw feet are scattered throughout rooms and halls in the reoccupied office wing, and perched in the large Roosevelt Room are two eagle carvings that are more than three feet tall. "In terms of eagles as a motif, you're going to start seeing a lot more eagles throughout the West Wing— it's a very patriotic symbol," said designer John Botello, a...

A NEW BILL INTRODUCED by seven Pennsylvania Republican state lawmakers could force protesters arrested at demonstrations to pay for police overtime and other fees related to the action. The bill, SB 754, has been introduced by Rep. Scott Martin of Lancaster County; his district has been the site of anti-pipeline protests aimed at the Atlantic Sunrise natural gas pipeline. Under the terms of the bill, “a person is responsible for public safety response costs incurred by a State agency or political subdivision as a result of the State agency’s or political subdivision’s response to a demonstration if, in connection with...

Andrea Parker at :13) ....Eric (Parker) and Scott (Drexler) both had their detention hearings separately....... ...two defendants Ricky (Lovelien) and Steve (Stewart) were completely acquitted.....but two defendants Scott (Drexler) and Eric (Parker) have pending charges meaning there was no verdict, hung jury on just a few of the charges, four for Eric and two for Scott..... .....it has been verified by prosecutor Myhre today that he intends and is prepared to go forward immediately for the third trial just related to the remaining charges for each individual defendant. (John Lamb at 1:09) ...He (prosecutor Steve Myhre) still considers them dangerous,...

The Boston rally was a watershed event. But not in the way the mainstream media has been portraying it, as a bold stand against white supremacy in the wake of Charlottesville. Rather, it demonstrates the power of propaganda to foment mass hysteria and mob rule. Reality no longer matters. For the media refuses to report this seminal truth: There were no white supremacists or neo-Nazis. None. Not even one. Instead, they engaged in a massive disinformation campaign that spurred over 40,000 “antifascists” to descend upon Boston Common. The alt-left’s goal: to counter-demonstrate against an alleged “white nationalist” rally. Yet, what...

Can you help my dad remember?

International news agency Reuters was mocked on social media Wednesday after it referred to anti-Trump protesters as "peace activists" in its reporting of President Trump's rally in Phoenix on Tuesday night. Four people were arrested for throwing rocks and bottles at police officers after Trump concluded his speech Tuesday night at the Phoenix Convention Center, according to Phoenix's ABC affiliate. Officers responded with pepper balls, pepper spray and gas. "Pro-Trump supporters face off with peace activists during protests outside a Trump rally in Phoenix," read a tweet, that was later corrected, by Reuters to its 18.5 million followers. Conservative Twitter...

The U.S. Air Force is finalizing technology requirements for a new fighter jet to enter service sometime in the 2030s. Known as "Penetrating Counter Air," the new fighter will replace the F-22 Raptor and maintain American air superiority in future conflicts. The sixth-generation fighter will incorporate a number of new technologies that for now exist only on the drawing board.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) joined in on the attack of Confederate statues and monuments last week when she released a statement on Thursday asking for House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) to remove all Confederate monuments from the U.S. Capitol. On Wednesday morning, Ron Meyer, editor of Red Alert Politics, dropped a truth bombshell during his interview on “Fox and Friends.” Meyer stated: The truth is, the Democrats have a pretty poor history on Civil Rights, including Nancy Pelosi’s own father who was the Mayor of Baltimore — and was one of the people who dedicated statues to Robert...

Leftists like British Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn have long had warm words for Venezuela's chavistas. But as famine has racked the country and President Nicholás Maduro has turned dictatorial, those words are coming back to bite them. PAMPLONA, SPAIN—An inspiration, a hero: these are the words leftists in Europe lavished on the late Hugo Chavez for his “Bolivarian revolution” in Venezuela. For British Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and left-wing parties like Syriza and Podemos in southern Europe, Chavez’s ascendance was long the clearest challenge to inequality in Latin America, neoliberalism in Washington, and austerity at home. Today, it's a decidedly...

A 30-year-old man from Göttingen died on Sunday after bringing a barbecue inside his tent at the Nürburgring Olé music festival. The accident occurred after the man had brought the grill into his tent because he was cold, reported Bild newspaper. But because the grill had not been completely put out, carbon monoxide poisoning cost the man his life. Last seen alive shortly after midnight on Sunday morning, the festivalgoer was found at around 9:45am, at which time it was too late for rescue workers to save him.

The unusual spate of collisions, two of them fatal, has called into question the US Navy’s level of preparedness, analysts say, and point to potential problems with training, maintenance, or sailors’ workload. WASHINGTON—A recent spate of collisions involving US Navy ships from the Seventh Fleet, two of them fatal, has led the Navy to relieve that fleet’s commander, Vice Adm. Joseph Aucoin, reportedly after his superiors lost confidence in his leadership. The latest collision, Monday off the coast of Singapore, was between the guided-missile destroyer USS John S. McCain and a Liberian-flagged tanker. Ten sailors were reported missing, and the...

What is it we are doing in Afghanistan? What do we think we are doing in Afghanistan? All we can say with any confidence is that the former and the latter bear only a theoretical relationship. The United States invaded Afghanistan in 2001 in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11. Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and many of his associates were thought to be holed up there under the protection and the patronage of the Taliban, the jihadist militia cum narcotics syndicate that controlled Afghanistan at the time. U.S. forces marched in, toppled the Taliban, and installed...

Former Obama advisor David Axelrod on Wednesday cautioned against talk that President Trump is unfit for office, saying it opens the door to a potentially “dangerous road.” “The inference was that somehow there should be some effort to remove him, or at least that’s how some people would have heard it,” Axelrod told CNN’s “The Situation Room.” “And I think we have to be very, very careful when we have these discussions because we have a system, a Constitutional system.” Axelrod specifically referenced comments made by former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, who said he questions Trump’s fitness for...

To some Germans Chancellor Angela Merkel is known affectionately as Mutti (mum), but others deride her as the “ice queen.” Will a revelation about how she cooks potato soup sway doubters into the Mutti camp? Merkel is often credited with paying close attention to the political mood of the German public before taking a stance on anything. During the refugee crisis of 2015 for example she is said to have been swayed by polling into opening Germany’s borders. But it doesn’t take a political genius to figure out that one thing that’ll always go down well with Germans is potatoes....