Free Republic

Explanation: It is the largest and most sophisticated object ever built off the Earth. It has taken numerous spaceflights and over a decade to construct. The International Space Station (ISS) is currently the premiere habitat for humans in Earth orbit, and an amalgamation of sophisticated orbiting laboratories that have examined everything from the formation of new materials and medicines created in microgravity -- to the limitations of the human body -- to the composition of the universe. This month, the ISS is celebrating 15 years of continuous human habitation. The ISS has been visited by astronauts from 15 countries, so...

The question is Who is going through the fifty year old daily schedule of the US Army Chief of Staff? Who is going through the files of applicants to West Point of fifty years ago? How does Politico get this information? Both of these are US Government controlled files. Who is providing access to the files of a former Chief of Staff for the purpose of partisan political smear? This stinks of corruption and abuse of power. Maybe even illegal.

The idea is suffused with a simple poetry: A bell would be placed atop Stone Mountain, the massive granite outcropping east of Atlanta invoked by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in his “I Have a Dream” speech — one of the places from which, as Dr. King imagined it, a nation no longer divided by racism might “let freedom ring.” But this “Freedom Bell” proposal, unveiled this month by a state government authority as a tribute to the civil rights leader, has become mired in complications and controversy, the latest skirmish over Southern symbols prompted by the racially...

On a warm day in August, a couple dozen people gathered for an afternoon picnic at Shawnee Mission Park. Under the shade of a shelter surrounded by leafy green trees, two men cooked burgers and brats on a charcoal grill next to a row of tables topped with red plastic tablecloths and a summery spread of sliced watermelon, barbecue-flavored potato chips and sopapilla cheesecake. The weather would have been perfect if not for occasional gusts of wind that whipped through the grove and threatened to topple the three flags fixed to portable poles next to the dessert table: an American...

On the summit of Stone Mountain, yards away from where Ku Klux Klansmen once burned giant crosses, just above and beyond the behemoth carving of three Confederate heroes, state authorities have agreed to erect a monument to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Specifically, an elevated tower — featuring a replica of the Liberty Bell — would celebrate the single line in the civil rights martyr’s 1963 “I Have a Dream” speech that makes reference to the 825-foot-tall hunk of granite: “Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia.” (snip) Gov. Nathan Deal has green-lighted the projects, and a formal...

More than 20 Christiansburg High School students are out of class Thursday morning after wearing Confederate flags on their clothing. According to Montgomery County Public Schools spokesperson Brenda Drake, the students were originally put in in-school suspension. However, the students didn’t comply and were told to leave school for the day. This involves 22 or 23 students, according to Drake. Several students were given in-school-suspension and 17 were given out of school suspension for disrupting the school day. The students protested the school's decision across the street Thursday morning. Some students received three days of out-of-school suspension; others received one...

A Civil War monument in Petersburg was vandalized at some point early Saturday morning. The Monument to Union Soldiers stands on Wakefield Street and is across from Walnut Hill Elementary School. Petersburg police and the National Parks Service are working together to investigate the damage. If you have any information that could help investigators, call Petersburg police at 804-732-4222 or Crime Stoppers at 804-861-1212.

The local Democratic Party has closed its booth at a county fair in northeastern Ohio because officials won’t ban the sale of Confederate flags at the event.

As students entered Hurley High School in Hurley, Va., for the first day of classes this week, they passed through a set of bright red doors on which the Confederate battle flag is boldly painted.

D.C. RALLY UPDATE: The permit for the Lincoln Memorial has been APPROVED!! We're all systems GO for ‪#‎StandByTheFlag‬ ‪#‎WashingtonDC‬ ‪#‎September5‬ PLEASE SHARE THIS EVENT FLIER EVERYWHERE!!!

About 50 different vehicles, including motorcycles, trucks, and tractor trailers, drove from Coastal Grand Strand Mall through Market Common and up to North Myrtle Beach.

A seemingly never-ending line of cars, pickups, SUVs and even a replica Hazzard County sheriff’s cruiser drove out of the parking lot of Central Park in King on Saturday to start the Confederate Pride Ride through Stokes County.

DANVILLE — More than 300 Confederate flag supporters gathered at the Sutherlin Mansion on Sunday to show their support for keeping the Third National flag of the Confederacy atop a war memorial on the mansion’s grounds.

Saturday’s rally follows a July 18 rally in nearby Graham where about 1,500 people demonstrated outside the Alamance County Courthouse to support a statue that displays a Confederate soldier. Alamance County Taking Back Alamance County held that rally after another group announced it would ask county leaders to remove the monument because it represented slavery, The Burlington Times-News reported.

Foote's narrative is such a breath of fresh air when compared to much of the politically motivated and agenda driven Civil War history of recent years. That alone would make it bad enough but, in addition, much of what is being written is not only poor history, it is poor literature. (Foote remains of the few adults in a room of Civil War historians populated by juveniles.)

Some people are calling a religious group vandals and claim they broke the law when they dug up a patch of grass next to a Confederate general’s grave in a Memphis park Wednesday. Thursday, a man drove hundreds of miles to plant new grass. “When I saw this last night, my wife couldn’t understand why I was shaking so badly,” Scott Hudson of Lincoln County, Tennessee, said. He watched WREG’s story on a group who dug up a patch of grass next to Nathan Bedford Forrest’s statue and grave. The group called the move symbolic, and said they’re standing up...

Montgomery County Executive Ike Leggett said Tuesday the process is underway to remove the Confederate statue from the Red Brick Courthouse grounds in Rockville. Leggett said in a phone interview with Bethesda Beat that the county is getting estimates from contractors to remove the statue, which he expects to receive by the end of the week. “We’re in the process of getting it done,” Leggett said. The county executive said the county hasn’t decided where to relocate the statue once it’s removed from the courthouse grounds. “The removal question is resolved,” Leggett said. “The only question now is where it...

A group was fed up with waiting, so they got a shovel and dug up a patch of grass next to Nathan Bedford Forrest’s grave and statue in a public park in the Medical District. The group says they wanted the statue and remains removed for a long time, because he was a Confederate soldier, a KKK leader and a slave trader. “If he’s gone, some of this racism and race-hate might be gone,” said Isaac Richmond with Commission on Religion and Racism. ” We got a fresh shovel full, and we hope that everybody else will follow suit and...

A Gastonia family has removed a Confederate flag from their truck after they said someone fired half a dozen gunshots at them this weekend. The shooting happened Saturday night and bullets narrowly missed a passenger's head. The family showed Eyewitness News reporter Ken Lemon the damage and told him they believe they were targeted. The father of two, who did not want to be identified, took it down and told Lemon it's not worth flying anymore.

After just two minutes of floor debate late Tuesday evening, the House passed a measure to prohibit the display of Confederate flags on graves in federal cemeteries. Despite the lack of fanfare, the vote marked the House's first entry into the debate over removing the Confederate flag from federal property that went beyond codifying already established policies. Rep. Jared Huffman's (D-Calif.) amendment to the 2016 Interior Department spending bill seeks to end a policy that allows a temporary display of the flag in cemeteries under the jurisdiction of the National Park Service. It sailed through on a voice vote after...