Free Republic

Obama’s game is simple, to make the shutdown as painful as possible to average Americans and blame the GOP for it. Every day he is lecturing us about how the GOP can open up the government by passing the budget that he demands. The house GOP/conservatives have countered by sending the Obama Senate separate spending bills that would stop Obama antics to hurt ordinary Americans. Naturally Obama rejects those. The GOP is also countering by calling Obama out on these specific actions, like his kicking WWII vets out of the WWII National Memorial and American citizens out of the DC...

Veterans first fought America’s wars, then they fought the National Park Service over White House-ordered closures of war memorials because of the partial shutdown of the federal government. Now they’re developing a response to President Obama’s “war” against them: A rally. The Million Vet March on the Memorials will be held Sunday, Oct. 13, at 9 a.m. Eastern at the World War II memorial on the National Mall, the location where rangers under orders from the White House tried, unsuccessfully, to prevent vets from visiting in recent days. The announcement said the group Special Operations Speaks is organizing the rally...

The government has been shut down since October 1st and President Obama has decided to close Washington by making life as inconvenient as possible. He did this before with the Sequestration when he would not permit any White House tours. Instead of understanding that he should work for the best interests of Americans, helping them wherever possible, he has done just the opposite. It appears he sees this as a game where he wants to win at all costs with the clear loser the American people. In response there is the possibility of a new rally, "Million Vet March On...

“I am now occupying the building at this time.” And with that one decision – restaurant owner Glenn Helseth joined the ranks of Americans who’ve decided to defy the strong-arm tactics of the National Park Service. For the past 11 years Helseth and his wife have operated the Carrot Tree Kitchens Restaurant inside the historic Cole Digges House in Yorktown, Va. At least 20 of Helseth's longtime employees are facing unemployment. They can’t make rent and some are faced with choosing between buying food or buying medicine. The National Park Service owns and operates the building. So when the government...

Remember when the media rushed to talk about transparency in the Barack Obama “Hope and Change” era? Good times, good times. Leonard Downie, who once worked as the executive editor of the Washington Post and wrote a novel about Washington corruption and the Iraq War, finds a bigger and non-fictional problem in the successor to George W. Bush. Downie gives the Post a preview of his report from the Committee to Protect Journalists which outlines the Obama war on reporters and their sources: “A memo went out from the chief of staff a year ago to White House employees and...

The National Park Service opened the World War II Memorial Wednesday to veterans visiting from around the country. Carol Johnson, a National Parks Service spokeswoman, said the veterans' groups had been granted access Wednesday because it was deemed a first amendment demonstration. The memorial was still closed to the public, however, and Johnson said other war memorials on the National Mall would also be closed. But veterans could be seen visiting the Vietnam War Memorial about a half-mile away. The memorials were closed and barricaded because of the government shutdown that began Tuesday. Veterans arriving at the World War II...

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) released a statement Wednesday faulting the Obama administration for the closure of the World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C. Cruz's full statement: President Obama is so fixated on forcing Obamacare on the American people that he's even willing to deny World War II veterans the right to access the memorial they have earned through their heroic service. This scenario encapsulates the bigger problem in Washington. President Obama is so set on imposing his destructive, far-left ideology that his government is literally barricading World War II veterans out of their memorial and blocking funding to the...

Buried for more than 40 years inside the plane they were flying when they were shot down over Laos in 1969, Major James Sizemore and his navigator Major Howard Andre made their final journey home Monday to Arlington National Cemetery, where they were laid to rest just the way they flew: side by side. A single bugler played TAPS as the families of the airmen gathered and two horse drawn caissons made their way through the cemetery. Overhead, eight civilian pilots performed a tribute flyover at their own expense after the Air Force said it couldn’t perform a traditional flyover...

~snip~ Nearly half of the 79 living recipients of Medal of Honor are attending the gathering in Gettysburg, where some of its first recipients fought 150 years ago. The Medal of Honor Society annual convention gives the public an opportunity to collect the signatures of the men who have been honored by Congress for risking their lives beyond the call of duty in combat, and dozens of people waited Thursday for them to return from a luncheon at a nearby farm once owned by President Dwight Eisenhower...

Hawaii Governor Neil Abercrombie, who once participated in a 1960s anti-Vietnam War rally where a U.S. soldier was hung in effigy, has dropped the ball on getting Veterans Administration mortgages in Hawaii. This is happening because water coming from catchment water systems was deemed non-potable by a state bureaucrat in 2011, and veterans whose homes have such a system or who want to buy a home with such a system cannot get VA loans. Abercrombie has had the power to change this since 2011 but has refused to do so.

John McCain Exposed By Vietnam Vets And Pow’s .

Veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress and traumatic brain injury are training puppies to become service dogs for fellow wounded warriors. The work can actually alleviate their own symptoms The Fold’s Zoeann Murphy spent some time with the pups.

An unknown number of U.S. military veterans are dead within 30 days of contracting Legionnaires' disease in a Veterans Affairs hospital in Pittsburgh. Aside from their family members, few people seem to be outraged. If that doesn't grab your attention, perhaps this will: VA officials in charge when those men were dying from a preventable illness received more than $100,000 in performance bonuses. The same bureaucrats who were paid handsomely for negligence and incompetence also refuse to answer reporters' questions about whether they've removed the deadly Legionella bacteria from hospitals that were built to heal, protect and serve those who...

Veteran Giants lefty Barry Zito has long been active in supporting our military veterans, so consider this the latest example of his dedication to the cause. Given this season's historically lofty strikeout rates, Zito is likely to wind up donating more than $100,000 this time around. Sure, make with the predictably cynical comments about how much Zito makes and how this isn't much of an imposition for him, but I'm guessing that Welcome Back Veterans and those they help aren't too worried about all of that. So good on you, Mr. Zito.

Why does the Obama administration treat our military veterans like human garbage? Every year on Memorial Day and Veterans Day, Barack Obama and our other politicians make very nice speeches, but the truth about how they feel about our veterans can be seen in how they are treated every single day. In the United States today, there are well over half a million veterans that have been waiting for at least 125 days to have their benefit claims processed. Many of them will ultimately have their claims sent back or denied just so a government employee somewhere can get a...

President Barack Obama and members of his administration are holding a day-long mental health conference Monday at the White House--and they have asked Hollywood to help lend some star power. Actors Bradley Cooper and Glenn Close are among those invited to participate in the meeting, which features a panel on negative attitudes toward mental illness moderated by Health and Human Services Secretary Sebelius, a panel on mental health outreach moderated by Education Secretary Arne Duncan, and opening remarks from the president and closing remarks from Vice President Joe Biden, Cooper and Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki. Close in 2009 co-founded...

SIERRA VISTA — Nearly 20 former members of America’s armed forces will be laid to rest Wednesday at the Southern Arizona Veterans’ Memorial Cemetery as part of the Missing in America Project. The project is designed to honor homeless and indigent veterans to ensure they receive a military funeral, which in this case will be the placement of their cremains in the state-operated veterans’ cemetery columbaria, as has been done in the past. The service for the solders, sailors, airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsman will be held at 1 p.m. However before that time, the cremains will travel from the...

I’m now convinced. Colorado is the Colorado of the Rocky Mountains. A once great state has been completely hijacked by vile leftists and turned the state into a leftist cesspool. Forget Joe Salazar ‘use a call box’ for rape protection for a second. How about Democrat state senator Mary Hodge claiming that veterans shouldn't be allowed to have access to high capacity magazines because ‘some have mental health problems.’

The ten percent sequestration cuts across the Department of Defense budget will increase wait times at Arlington National Cemetery, a cemetery spokesperson told USNI News on Thursday. Due to the cuts funerals will drop from 31 interments a day to 24, or about 160 less funerals a month, according to preliminary estimates from the cemetery

How would you feel if you received a letter from the U.S. Government informing you that because of a physical or mental condition that the government says you have it is proposing to rule that you are incompetent to handle your own financial affairs? What if that letter also stated: “A determination of incompetency will prohibit you from purchasing, possessing, receiving, or transporting a firearm or ammunition. If you knowingly violate any of these prohibitions, you may be fined, imprisoned, or both pursuant to the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, Pub.L.No. 103-159, as implemented at 18, United States Code 924(a)(2).”?...