Free Republic

For the first time since combat operations were declared over at the end of 2014, a battalion of 500 U.S. Army infantrymen is being sent to southern Afghanistan's volatile Helmand Province where the Taliban have made a comeback, Fox News has learned. The decision, confirmed by defense officials, is a sign of military escalation in the country even as the Obama administration tries to draw down. The battalion is meant to relieve a company of 150 soldiers, giving the U.S. Army nearly 350 more soldiers to prevent the Taliban from taking over volatile Helmand province. The Army's 2-87 infantry battalion,...

Bernie Sanders asked to drop American Legion emblem from campaign The American Legion has asked the campaign of Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders to "cease and desist" from using the organization's emblem in campaign fliers. The American Legion wrote to Sanders' Senate office that it did not have permission to use the emblem in his campaign fliers. Sanders' campaign didn't immediately return a request seeking comment. The American Legion has twice complained to Sanders officials since Jan. 22 about the use of the emblem in campaign materials. A Feb. 1 letter from the American Legion obtained by The Associated Press...

Legislation that would cut by half the Post-9/11 GI Bill housing allowance payments transferrable to children of troops is set for a vote Tuesday in the U.S. House of Representatives. The language, part of the Veterans Employment, Education and Healthcare Act, only cuts the payment for children of service members using the transferred funding.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.), now a Democratic presidential candidate, was slow to take seriously reports in 2014 of the use of fake wait lists by Department of Veterans Affairs employees. As the New York Times reported, Sanders, then chairman of the Senate Committee on Veterans Affairs, initially indicated that the controversy was being fueled by a partisan effort to undermine the government agency.Sanders defended the VA amid reports, which first came to light in April 2014, that staffers at the Phoenix VA hospital used secret wait lists to conceal the long periods of time that veterans were delayed before...

Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina feels ill-treated after being left off the debate stage this weekend in New Hampshire - and some in the media agree with her. "Our debate process is broken," Fiorina said Wednesday in a letter to the Republican National Committee (RNC), which is partnering with ABC News to host the debate. "Networks are making up these debate rules as they go along -- not to be able to fit candidates on the stage -- but arbitrarily to decide which candidates make for the best TV in their opinion.” Her campaign released an email Thursday morning asking...

A high-ranking Department of Veterans Affairs official on Tuesday defended the VA's failure to discipline two employees accused of misconduct, and blamed the outrage over their lenient treatment on "considerable external pressure" by the media and Congress to punish personnel who may not have done anything wrong. Sloan Gibson, deputy VA secretary, praised a judge's recent decision in personnel cases that stopped the demotions of Diana Rubens and Kimberly Graves, two VA officials accused of together stealing more than $400,000 in benefits from the government. ... According to the inspector general, Graves had pressured a colleague to leave his job...

A powerful firefighters union went after Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) Wednesday for claiming to be their defender and champion in his Iowa caucuses victory speech. "What Ted Cruz did the other night in his Iowa victory speech is disgusting," said Harold Schaitberger, president of the International Association of Fire Fighters. "He said he embraces fire fighters and the dangerous work they do, says he's our friend and calls himself a great patriot. But when it came time to actually have the backs of fire fighters across the U.S., he was AWOL. Cruz is the worst kind of politician who will...

......."Frankly, FOX is great. We're back. We're friends. All of that stuff," Trump said about his relationship with the news network. "But I said, I'm not going into that debate. We held something in lieu. of the debate. I said, let's hold a rally for our veterans."

Twenty-two veterans organizations are about to receive a hefty infusion of cash, thanks to Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and his long-simmering fight with Fox News. The GOP front-runner, who hosted his own event in Des Moines, Iowa after boycotting the Republican debate just three miles down the road, announced Thursday that he had raised $6 million to donate to veterans groups. Trump donated $1 million of his own money to the cause.

Donald Trump announced Friday he raised $6 million for veterans at his fundraiser in Iowa the night before. Iowa was amazing last night. The event could not have worked out better. We raised $6,000,000 for our great vets. — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) > But this would appear a significant increase from what he's given to the cause before, according to some reports which questioned whether the billionaire businessman has been a consistent donor to vet groups. Showbiz 411 reports that the Donald J. Trump Foundation gave a total of $2.6 million in charitable donations in the last three years,...

Police estimated 500,000 people attended the largest military parade ever held in New York. Organizers, who placed the turnout at closer to a million, said the parade would not have been a success if it hadn't been for real estate developer Donald Trump, who contributed $200,000 and raised another $300,000. 'Donald Trump saved the parade,' said parade director Tom Fox, himself a Vietnam veteran. 'We had asked for donations from 200 corporations, and none of them came through,' he said. 'This donation is the single most important thing I've ever done,' said a beaming Trump. 'This is more important than...

Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump on Saturday presented a check for $100,000 to an organization that trains dogs for veterans with PTSD and mobility issues. Trump gave the check to the Puppy Jake Foundation during a campaign rally in Davenport, Iowa, with Liberty University President Jerry Falwell, Jr. Three dogs and Puppy Jake representatives came onstage to receive the donation...

"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then the fight you, then the you WIN" the inspirational meme featuring Donald Trump raising his arm to display victory fingers read. Trump's biggest endorser Sarah Palin posted the image to her Facebook page Thursday night as the Republican presidential frontrunner dared to diss cable news giant Fox News and rejected his centerstage position at the last debate before the Iowa caucus. Palin applauded the move, thanking the Donald for turning his back on Fox and "for bringing victory to our Vets." "It IS morning in America!" Palin rejoiced. "Tonight's Trump success...

A meme was started by Trump antagonists in certain conservative circles that Donald Trump does next to nothing money to help veterans. It turns out Trump has been generous with veterans over the past decades-all it takes is a little more research than those with an ax to grind seem willing to do. UPI reported in 1995 how Trump was credited with 'saving' the New York Veterans Day Parade. The parade that year was marking the fiftieth anniversary of the end of World War II. From the New York Times in 1995, another report that mentions how Trump came to...

An Inspector General report last year found Grave abused her position of power by orchestrating a move from the East Coast to Minnesota and wrongly racked up $130,000 in taxpayer-paid moving expenses. The VA attempted in November to discipline Graves by cutting her pay and demoting her to an Arizona veterans’ facility. Graves appealed the decision with the Merit Systems Protection Board, a panel that protects federal merit systems and employees against abuses by agency management. This week, a judge found in a 41-page decision that the VA was inconsistent in doling out discipline to Graves and reversed her demotion....

No one ever really doubted that Donald Trump could pull off a major counter-programing feat -- even when competing with a GOP debate that was expected to draw millions of viewers. He did it Thursday night, dazzling a crowd of hundreds of enthusiastic supporters by announcing that he had raised more than $6 million for veterans in one day -- $1 million of it from his own checkbook. "We love our vets," he said. "You know, my whole theme is make America great again and that's what we're going to do --- and we wouldn't have even been here if...

The clear winner of the final Republican debate, just four days before the first votes are cast in Iowa, was the Macavity candidate. Just like the mystery cat, Donald Trump was nowhere near the scene of the crime at the Fox News debate. You could find him on rival news channels, but the damage was already done to poor Ted Cruz: the only candidate who could come close to beating him in Iowa. Cruz, standing exposed in the middle of the stage, was subject to a barrage of fire from the moderators and his rival candidates. And Trump didn't have...

The Donald Trump who appeared onstage at Drake University Thursday night -- just two miles from the Republican presidential debate he was boycotting -- was a different Donald Trump from the man who stars in rowdy rallies on the campaign trail. The Trump at Drake's Sheslow Auditorium said not a word about the polls that are his ongoing obsession. (Actually, that's not entirely true -- he mentioned the polls, but without the sheer numerical intensity he usually displays.) Trump also shared the stage with others -- not just with Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum, who came to the event after...

Full replay of Donald Trump's Special Event for Wounded Warriors & Veterans at Drake University in Des Moines, IA. To donate, go to https://www.donaldtrumpforvets.com/

Trump announced he was donating $1 million on top of $5 million in similar and somewhat smaller sized donations from friends and supporters of Trump, including online donations that brought the total to over $6 million. A website set up by Trump Thursday morning, DonaldTrumpforVets.com to accept online donations stated $570,000 had been raised via the website as of Thursday night. The donations were being collected by the Donald J. Trump Foundation for disbursement to the veterans groups. Four of the groups are based in Iowa: The Mulberry Street Veterans Shelter, Projects for Patriots, Puppy Jake and Support Siouxland Soldiers....