Free Republic

NEW YORK The Pentagon would be required to grant journalists access to ceremonies honoring fallen military personnel, under a bill recently introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives. The legislation is significant because it would, for the first time since Vietnam, let photojournalists capture the powerful images of flag-draped caskets arriving on American soil during wartime. This week the bill won the endorsement of the National Press Photographers Association. The Fallen Hero Commemoration Act, or H.R. 6662, was introduced July 30 by Rep. Walter B. Jones (R-N.C.), a member of the House Committee on Armed Services. The bill states: "The...

CENTREVILLE, Md. (AP) — Even as Maryland primary voters cited "moderation" in their picks for president, two congressional districts turned out incumbents for the first time in more than 30 years, one Democrat and one Republican, both accused of being too moderate. The losses Tuesday of Republican Rep. Wayne T. Gilchrest, an antiwar critic of President Bush, and Democratic Rep. Albert R. Wynn, whose 2003 vote authorizing the war chafed loyalists in his party, signaled anti-incumbent sentiment that surprised many state politicians. But maybe not voters. "Psychologically, people want to see change," said John Davis, 45, a Republican from Chestertown,...

Republicans still plot a comeback and still look for fresh ideas

One of the ironies of the sea-change 2006 elections is that House Democrats made significant gains at the expense of the segment of the Republican Party most likely to compromise with them: the GOP’s already dwindling faction of moderate lawmakers. Among the 30 seats taken over by Democrats last fall were those that had been held by Republican centrists such as Connecticut’s Nancy L. Johnson and Rob Simmons, New Hampshire’s Charles Bass and New York’s Sue W. Kelly. But a CQPolitics.com “party unity” study for the first half-year of the Democratic-majority 110th Congress shows that there still are a number...

In a striking display of dissension, a group of Republican lawmakers broke ranks with the White House on Wednesday and embraced a resolution opposing more U.S. troops in Iraq — airing their criticism even as President Bush publicly defended his plan.

2006 Congressional Election Cycle Has Begun  50 Republican Incumbents Undeserving of Support by Pro-life Voters   The Republican National Coalition for Life PAC is currently receiving phone calls from Republican candidates for Congress in the 2006 Republican primaries. Our usual practice is to mail our Candidate Questionnaire to Republican candidates in each district as soon as the filing deadlines are reached. When we receive the results of the questionnaire, they are recorded on our website at www.RNCLife.org so that voters can see for themselves it those seeking to represent them in Washington are truly pro-life. We hope that this service...

"There is just no enthusiasm for this war," said Representative John J. Duncan Jr., a Tennessee Republican who opposes the war. "Nobody is happy about it. It certainly is not going to help Republican candidates, I can tell you that much." Representative Wayne T. Gilchrest, a Maryland Republican who originally supported the war but has since turned against it, said he had encountered "a lot of Republicans grousing about the situation as a whole and how they have to respond to a lot of questions back home." "I have been to a lot of funerals," Mr. Gilchrest said. SNIP Republicans...

AP) - NEW YORK-Critics of the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy are gaining new allies, including a few conservative congressmen and a West Point professor, as they press on multiple fronts to overturn the ban on out-of-the-closet gays and lesbians in the armed forces. As part of their strategy, opponents of the policy are now highlighting the ongoing struggles of Army and Marine recruiters. The Servicemembers Legal Defense Network say in a new report that many highly trained specialists - including combat engineers and linguists - are being discharged involuntarily while the Pentagon "is facing extreme challenges in recruiting...