Free Republic

Attention on the poop deck. It seems our “first gay president” intends to “milk,” with pride, his fetish for all things “LGBT” in the closing months (mercifully) of his catastrophic presidency. USNI News (U.S. Naval Institute) reports that the Obama Navy presumes to ram, without consent, the most reprehensible aspects of the extremist homosexual political agenda down the throats of a divided American public. “The Navy is set to name a ship after the gay rights icon and San Francisco politician Harvey Milk, according to a congressional notification obtained by USNI News. “The July 14, 2016 notification, signed by Secretary...

The Navy is set to name a ship after the gay rights icon and San Francisco politician Harvey Milk, according to a Congressional notification obtained by USNI News. The July 14, 2016 notification, signed by Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus, indicated he intended to name a planned Military Sealift Command fleet oiler USNS Harvey Milk (T-AO-206). The ship would be the second of the John Lewis-class oilers being built by General Dynamics NASSCO in San Diego, Calif.

The Navy is set to name a ship after the gay rights icon and San Francisco politician Harvey Milk, according to a Congressional notification obtained by USNI News.

http://thehill.com/policy/defense/289290-jeff-bezos-neil-degrasse-tyson-join-pentagon-innovation-board July 26, 2016 - 02:15 PM EDT Neil deGrasse Tyson, Jeff Bezos join DOD innovation board By Rebecca Kheel Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and renowned astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson were among the big names Defense Secretary Ash Carter announced Tuesday as joining the Pentagon’s recently formed Defense Innovation Advisory Board. “I've given them the very specific task of identifying innovative private sector best practices that could be of use to DOD [the Department of Defense] — not unlike our recent Hack the Pentagon pilot program, which invited hackers to help find vulnerabilities in our networks," Carter said during an...

The former commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, retired US Army General John F. Campbell, was the mastermind behind the failed military coup in Turkey, the Yeni Safak daily has reported, citing sources close to investigation.

A former U.S. commander of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), a NATO-led security mission in Afghanistan, was the organizer of the July 15 military coup attempt in Turkey, sources said. General John F. Campbell was one of the top figures who organized and managed the soldiers behind the failed coup attempt in Turkey, sources close to ongoing legal process of pro-coup detainees said. Campbell also managed more than $2 billion money transactions via UBA Bank in Nigeria by using CIA links to distribute among the pro-coup military personnel in Turkey. The ongoing investigation unveiled that Campbell had paid at...

SIERRA VISTA — A representative from the Army Corps of Engineers revealed the findings Wednesday of a four-year munitions study of more than 1,500 acres in the San Pedro Riparian Conservation Area (SPRNCA), southeast of the San Pedro House. The study was looking for live munitions or other environmental factors from World War II Army use that would impact the acreage. Two live explosives and fragments of explosives in the dense, thorny acreage were discovered. A third live explosive was carried out by a hiker and turned over to tlocal authorities. “It is not a hospitable site,” said 1st Lt....

The most expensive warship ever built has been delayed from hitting the front line because it is reportedly not ready for battle. The $12.9 billion USS Gerald R. Ford Navy supercarrier - the first of three in its class with a total cost of $43 billion - could potentially struggle with planes landing and taking off, moving military weapons and being able to successfully defend itself, a memo obtained by Bloomberg News reads. The memo allegedly states 'poor or unknown reliability issues' were identified in a letter dated June 28. 'These four systems affect major areas of flight operations,' Defense...

Welcome to 2016 when male soldiers train in pregnancy simulators, tactical lactation stations dot the battlefield, women are fraudulently passed through Ranger School and US Navy sailors willingly surrender their boats and equipment to Iranian thugs without so much as firing a flare. It’s the era of breast milk in the field and Liberace joins Delta Force… A perfect storm, a Category Five hurricane of doom and destruction is sweeping over the US military with the deadly accuracy of the Angel of Death on Passover. We have a President who is intent on destroying the military through insane social engineering....

The United States will have to comply with New Zealand law when it sends a naval ship here in November, Prime Minister John Key says. ... A surface vessel, which would not be nuclear-powered or carry nuclear weapons, would be the most likely US ship to come, Mr Ayson said. "That doesn't mean that New Zealand has got some sort of victory here over American policy. It just means the two sides are finding another way to work around this." Greenpeace, however, hailed the announcement as a victory for New Zealand, echoing the sentiments of investigative journalist Nicky Hager who...

Erdogan locks US airmen, nuclear arms in Incirlik DEBKAfile Special Report July 20, 2016, 11:29 AM (IDT) Tags: Erdogan, Barack Obama, Incirlik air base, Turkey, US Air Force, Turkish army, US, Some 1,500 US airmen and their families have been locked in the southern Turkish air base of Incirlik together with a stock if tactical nuclear bombs since President Reccep Erdogan crushed an attempted coup on Saturday, July 16. In the four days up until Wednesday, July 20, therefore, no air strikes against ISIS in Syria and Iraq have been staged that Turkish base.

The US military is doing "prudent planning" in case it needs to move its anti-ISIS operations out of Incirlik Air Base in southern Turkey following the country's failed coup, several US defense officials told CNN Tuesday. The Turkish government cut off the power to the base after the coup attempt took place Friday, leaving it without a commercial power supply for four days and counting. The Pentagon has been able to fully operate the base through generator power but said it would be difficult to continue indefinitely. The Turks still have not given a clear explanation about why they cut...

The U.S. Defense Department drew up orders for the evacuation of military dependents from the Incirlik Air Base in Turkey as the attempted military coup got underway Friday night but abandoned them as the insurrection quickly collapsed, Pentagon Press Secretary Peter Cook said Monday. While not confirming the presence of nuclear weapons at Incirlik, Cook also said steps had been taken to boost security for "special weapons" at the base shared with the Turkish Air Force to "keep everything safe, and we're going to continue to do that. As a matter of policy, we don't discuss strategic assets." Arms control...

At a time when threats against America are growing, the U.S. military is facing a combat readiness crisis that jeopardizes its ability to protect the country. House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mac Thornberry, R-Texas, discussed this problem recently at The Heritage Foundation. Thornberry explained that this readiness shortfall has occurred as a result of “budget cuts coupled with deployments, at a pace and a number that have not really declined very much.” Thornberry outlined five alarming facts caused by the readiness crisis:

Marine Corps implements force integration plan, graduates first female artillery officers Second Lt. Virginia Brodie points out an enemy position to 2nd Lt. Katherine Boy at the Field Artillery Basic Officers Leadership Course at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, May 12, 2016. Brodie and Boy are the first two female Marine artillery officers to complete the course. Photo By: Lance Cpl. Julien Rodarte The Marine Corps’ first female artillery officers graduated from the Field Artillery Basic Officers Leaders Course at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, recently. In the joint Army and Marine course, the Corps’ newest artillery officers met operationally relevant, gender-neutral military...

In an effort to maintain the new status quo of cutting standards everywhere in the name of equality and "progress", the Marine Corps announced major changes over the Fourth of July holiday weekend regarding how much it will allow service members to weigh, and the biggest shift comes for women: going forward "larger" ladies will be allowed to defend the country while also standards used within the physical fitness test will also be relaxed. In a document released by USMC Fitness division, the new height and weight standard took effect on July 1, 2016 and is relaxing regulations to increase...

The Pentagon announced Thursday that transgender people will be allowed to serve openly in the U.S. military, ending one of the last bans on service in the armed forces. Saying it’s the right thing to do, Defense Secretary Ash Carter laid out a yearlong implementation plan declaring that “Americans who want to serve and can meet our standards should be afforded the opportunity to compete to do so.” .... Under the new policy, by Oct. 1, transgender troops should be able to receive medical care and begin formally changing their gender identifications in the Pentagon’s personnel system. And a year...

What makes the new Chinese capability different is the combination of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) capability with long-range precision weapons. “The combination ubiquitous ISR, long-range precision strike weapons take that to the next level,” [Adm. John Richardson, the U.S. Navy’s chief of naval operations], said. “It demands a response.”But the threat is not just contained in the South China Sea, Richardson said. The anti-ship ballistic missile threat is increasingly found around the world and will continue to proliferate. Indeed, the hermit kingdom of North Korea has apparently acquired anti-ship ballistic missile technology. As such, the Navy will have to get...

The U.S. Navy has fallen into a troubling pattern of designing and acquiring new classes of ships that would arguably best be left as single ship or at most in limited numbers. It’s also building several types of new aircraft that fail to meet specifications. The Navy is developing a new class of supercarriers that cannot function properly, and has designed them to launch F-35 fighters that are not ready to fly their missions. This is all happening during an era of out-of-control budgets, which bodes poorly for American sea power and leadership ahead. That the Navy is concentrating larger...

Since the end of World War II, only 10 U.S tank crew members have been killed in warfare. This is an amazing testament to fighting vehicle technology and the money spent to develop and sustain that tactical edge over our enemies. In that same period, the United States has lost some 60,000 soldiers in small arms engagements, an approximate one for one exchange. Few foes on the planet could hope to dominate America in a tank, air or naval battle. Yet every bad actor with an AK-47 takes on U.S. and NATO ground forces in a small arms fight. We...