Free Republic

Cabinet officials and senior staffers across the Trump administration are reclaiming power from Elon Musk’s U.S. DOGE Service, a trend that began long before the billionaire’s relationship with President Donald Trump exploded in public acrimony days after Musk formally left his White House post.As Musk departed, some of his top lieutenants were streaming out of government. Among those heading for the exits even before Musk and Trump began feuding, according to a White House official speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive information: longtime aide Steve Davis, who was overseeing cost-cutting efforts; lawyer James Burnham, DOGE’s general counsel;...

Legal experts questioned the president’s response to unrest in Los Angeles, saying the military personnel involved will face strict limitations under the law.President Donald Trump’s order to deploy 2,000 California National Guard troops to Los Angeles is unprecedented, relying on an unorthodox use of a law aimed at quelling serious domestic unrest or an attack on the United States by a foreign power, some legal experts said Sunday.Trump invoked a section of the Armed Forces Act that allows the president to bypass a governor’s authority over the National Guard and call those troops into federal service when he considers it...

Trump’s former physician and GOP ally is now a retired captain, not an admiralRonny Jackson, the former White House physician turned GOP congressman, regularly touts his military bona fides. “As a retired U.S. Navy Rear Admiral with nearly three decades of military service I understand the commitment and sacrifices made by servicemen and servicewomen to serve our country,” the two-term representative from Texas says on his congressional website in a message posted to a page listing his work on veterans issues. But Jackson is no longer a retired admiral. The Navy demoted him in July 2022 following a damaging Pentagon...

Ukraine’s challenges in massing troops, ammunition and equipment could cause its military to fall “well short” of Kyiv’s original goals for an anticipated counteroffensive aimed at retaking Russian-occupied areas this spring, according to U.S. intelligence assessments contained in a growing leak of classified documents revealing Washington’s misgivings about the state of the war. -snip- The document forecasting only modest success in Ukraine’s forthcoming counteroffensive indicates that Kyiv’s strategy revolves around reclaiming contested areas in the east while pushing south in a bid to sever Russia’s land bridge to Crimea, the peninsula Moscow illegally annexed in 2014 and now uses as...

The Biden administration is preparing to announce a roughly $2.5 billion military aid package for Ukraine that is expected to include dozens of Bradley and Stryker armored vehicles, according to two people familiar with the decision, as the Pentagon intensifies its support ahead of an expected counteroffensive against entrenched Russian forces. The war has entered a phase, U.S. officials have said, that will require Ukrainian units to attack enemy forces in a concerted way, using tanks, armored vehicles, artillery and aviation in what is known as combined arms warfare. Bradleys and Strykers would significantly bolster their firepower and allow soldiers...

A U.S. soldier’s controversial blog is receiving international attention for its alternative perspective on the war in Iraq. The blog’s creator, Alex Horton, has been both praised and accused of treason for his writing. Horton spoke with KUTV.com to explain why some people are angered at his sincerity.