Free Republic

It blended in well with grandma's couch, but had its drawbacks in the combat zone. After an extended wear-out period, the Army's pixelated Universal Camouflage Pattern uniform, or UCP, is officially a thing of the past. As of Oct. 1, all soldiers are required to possess and wear the green-and-brown Operational Camouflage Pattern uniform, or OCP.

A controversial state-owned Moroccan mining firm that has poured money into Hillary Clinton’s foundation has received more than $92 million in U.S. taxpayer support, public records show. The firm, OCP, has been accused of violating U.S. and international law. According to a Friday report in Politico, it has also donated $6 million to the Bill, Hillary, and Chelsea Clinton Foundation. In September, the U.S. Export-Import Bank guaranteed a $92 million Citibank loan to OCP to purchase equipment from two American manufacturers. That federal support came despite controversial practices by the state-owned company, detailed by Politico in a story on the...

Fraud Alert: Judicial Watch Files Taxpayer Lawsuit to Stop Congress from Participating in D.C.’s Small Business Exchange Both houses of Congress were not exactly honest on the applications they filed with the District of Columbia’s Health Benefit Exchange Authority. In fact, the signatories who put their names to the applications seemed to make little pretense of providing truthful information. Under D.C. law, only those small businesses that have 50 or fewer employees can participate in the Small Business Exchange. Guess how many people are employed by Congress? And, guess how many employees Congress claims to have? Congress employs upwards of...

Sorry for the vanity, but I would very much like some advice. My daughter, her fiance, and I went down and talked to the cathedral's music director about the music for her wedding. We chose what we all think are some very nice pieces, and I made sure to confirm that no...less preferred music...would be snuck in. We received an e-mail from him today listing the music we had chosen, but calling for the Mystery of Faith -- “We Proclaim” -- and the Amen to come from the Heritage Mass, which is, the best I was able to confirm, put...

The Pill Turns 50: Medicine That Makes You SickROBERT F. CONKLING, M.D.Recently three major health stories appeared in the Washington press in less than two weeks that were an occasion to pause and reflect. Recently three major health stories appeared in the Washington press in less than two weeks that were an occasion to pause and reflect.First, the Potomac Conservancy made headlines about the contamination of rivers and drinking water in major metropolitan areas, including Washington DC. Contaminants include not only bacteria, industrial chemicals and agricultural pesticides but also potentially endocrine-active pharmaceuticals, such anti-depressants, contraceptive sex hormones, antibiotics and...

Bad news for women who have been using birth control pills, although you won't learn about it from the mainstream media. An International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) Monographs Working Group has concluded that combined estrogen-progestogen oral contraceptives and combined estrogen-progestogen menopausal therapy are carcinogenic to humans, after a thorough review of the published scientific evidence.[i] IARC is an arm of the World Health Organization with, as they say, "global reach." Involved in everything from basic research to publication of classification systems for various cancer types, the IARC classifications are the standard of care in the US and elsewhere....