Free Republic

Politico reports today that a leaked draft of the GOP’s Obamacare replacement plan shows the House is not fiddling around the edges but moving toward full repeal and replacement of the law. The legislation would take down the foundation of Obamacare, including the unpopular individual mandate, subsidies based on people’s income, and all of the law’s taxes. It would significantly roll back Medicaid spending and give states money to create high-risk pools for some people with pre-existing conditions. Some elements would be effective right away; others not until 2020. The replacement plan would have no individual mandate. Instead, there...

In 1838, a 28-year-old Abraham Lincoln declared that the greatest threat facing America comes not from a foreign invader: If it ever reach us it must spring up amongst us; it cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen we must live through all time, or die by suicide.

With Congress lined up for a battle over whether women should be required to register for the draft, there’s one group that is solidly against the idea, a new poll suggests: women themselves. Women are much less likely than men to say women should be required to register for Selective Service when they turn 18, according to a poll conducted earlier this month by The Economist/YouGov. Thirty-nine percent of women supported registration for women, compared to 61 percent of men.

Myths about gender equality in the military are starting to crumble under the pressure of actual experience. Witness the recent Associated Press report that 6 of 7 female Marine recruits failed to qualify in training for direct ground combat assignments. The women deserve credit for trying, but it matters that 86 percent of them, compared to 3 percent of the men, could not meet gender-neutral tests of upper body strength, stamina, and running speed. Mostly-civilian “experts” had predicted that 200 women per year would qualify for ground combat assignments. The emperor's new clothes, it seems, are getting a bit gauzy....

The New York Times recently reported that the Senate has voted to require women to register for the draft, with few Senators in opposition. This bill comes as no surprise given the military has been increasingly opening its doors to women. This culminated in last December when “…Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter said in December that the Pentagon would open all combat jobs to women…” which helped military officials advise Congress to make the draft apply for both women and men. This bill has such broad and widespread support because of its intuitive appeal: If all combat jobs are open...

U. S. Marine Capt. Katie Petronio was a dynamo upon graduation from Bowdoin College in 2007. Standing 5 feet 3 inches, she could squat 200 pounds, and she seemed as ready for a combat role as many men were. But just five years later, her body had figuratively started crumbling under the stress of service in Iraq and Afghanistan as a combat engineer officer. Her spine had compressed her nerves to the point of causing neuropathy. Her thigh muscles started to atrophy. She lost 17 pounds and was diagnosed with polycystic ovarian syndrome, which led to infertility. The experience prompted...

In the latest and perhaps decisive battle over the role of women in the military, Congress is embroiled in an increasingly intense debate over whether they should have to register for the draft when they turn 18. On Tuesday, the Senate approved an expansive military policy bill that would for the first time require young women to register for the draft. The shift, while fiercely opposed by some conservative lawmakers and interest groups, had surprisingly broad support among Republican leaders and women in both parties. The United States has not used the draft since 1973 during the Vietnam War. But...

Ted Cruz’s first Senate speech since he dropped his presidential bid led to a testy exchange with an old nemesis, the GOP’s 2008 nominee, Arizona Sen. John McCain. McCain called Cruz a “wacko bird” early in the Texan’s tenure. He recently swatted away as ridiculous the idea that he might welcome Cruz’s support in his own re-election campaign. And on Tuesday, McCain accused Cruz of looking for a pretext to distance himself from a bipartisan defense bill that McCain has worked on for months and of which he was proud, and said he’d be much more open to Cruz’s ideas...

Buckling under conservative pressure, the Republican-led House Rules Committee pulled a legislative sleight of hand and stripped a provision from the annual defense policy bill that would have required women between the ages of 18 and 25 to sign up for a military draft. The committee's chairman, Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Texas, said in a statement Tuesday the action was taken to prevent what he called a "reckless policy" from moving forward without closer study of its impact. "I have the utmost respect and deepest appreciation for the young women who bravely volunteer to serve our country, but I am adamantly...

A US Senate committee has approved legislation that would require American women to register for the military draft, setting the stage for a fight in Congress over the historic shift in policy later this year. The Senate Armed Services Committee approved the requirement late on Thursday, as an amendment to the $602 billion National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA. The House of Representatives Armed Services Committee approved a similar amendment late last month.

Pregnant, female, Navy SEALs was something many of us used to joke about as a way of exaggerating the absurd social engineering in the military. Yet, placing women in special operations and direct combat units has now become a reality under the Obama-led Pentagon. Sadly, not only have Republicans like John McCain refused to use their perches on the Armed Services Committees in the House and Senate to block this social engineering, they are now codifying it with a provision that could lead to a mandatory draft of all women. Earlier this week, I noted that the final House version...

A nation that drafts women and sends them to war is in its death throes. A nation that drafts women and sends them to war has lost its moral compass. What kind of nation subjects mothers, daughters, wives and sisters to a military draft where they could be placed in a direct ground combat unit? It is a nation that is spiritually bankrupt; spent, doomed and with military and civilian leaders who are either uninformed, desperate, cowards or all three. The naysayers will state that the Soviet Union had women in combat in World War II, particularly as snipers. Yes,...

Imagine your seventeen-year-old daughter fighting for her life in hand-to-hand combat with battle-hardened enemy soldiers. How long would she survive? Two minutes? One minute? There is a resurgent movement to push female military personnel into ever more intimate contact with hostile forces. The few arguments mustered in support of doing this focus narrowly on manpower issues or misplaced feminist vanity. In all the literature on this subject that I have collected over several years, not once have I found a proponent of women in combat who would speak honestly about the consequences of thrusting our daughters into man-against-woman festivals of...

Laremy Tunsil's draft night will go down in infamy. Minutes before the draft began, a video was posted to Tunsil's Twitter account. It showed Tunsil in a gas mask smoking something, just before he removed the mask to reveal his face. The tweet was quickly taken down and Tunsil temporarily deleted his account, but attentive eyes quickly posted it to Twitter and YouTube. Tunsil's agent later told Ian Rapaport of NFL Network that his client's account had been hacked, but that it was his client in the clip. Rapoport also reported that the agent was calling teams to reassure them...

The House Armed Services Committee on Wednesday approved by a narrow margin an amendment to a defense bill to require women to register for the draft. Rep. Duncan Hunter, a Republican from California, proposed the amendment to lift the restriction on women registering for the selective service at a committee-wide mark-up session of the proposed fiscal 2017 National Defense Authorization Act. "Here is why I think this is important; it doesn't matter in this debate whether you think women should be in the infantry or be in special operations," Hunter said during the session on Wednesday night. "I personally don't....

Flying Volkswagen coupled with Back to the Future's "Mr. Fusion" What if in a few years a new consumer technology like drones could provide cheap, long-range personal transportation for individuals or small families? Streams of migrants (to use a neutral term progressives would find difficult to boycott) could pack up in Syria and be over our border inside a week. Their first stop, even before signing up for welfare, would be voter registration. Arabic would be the primary college minor for Political Science majors. There would be competing Migrant factions, some allied with the dominant American political philosophy, some...

Key evangelical leaders are staunchly opposing a proposal to register women for the military draft, saying it would weaken America's military readiness and is at odds with traditional male-female relationships. "A nation relying on female combatants is a nation that has been brought to its knees by political correctness," said Andrew Walker of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. Recently in Congress, Army and Marine Corps leaders testified in favor of registering women for the Selective Service. "Not only Evangelicals, but also Catholics and Christian pacifists should speak out," Chelsen Vicari of the Institute on Religion and...

Donald Trump is many things; billionaire businessman, global brand, reality TV star and lately, a polarizing U.S. presidential candidate. But before all that, did you know that the man with a networth in excess of $4.5 billion was also a high school jock back in the day?Oh yes. Turns out, "The Donald" was a three-sport athlete back at the New York Military Academy, playing baseball, football and --?? yup! --?? one season of varsity soccer.Apparently Trump was pretty good, too.In an interview with Business Insider a few months ago, Ted Levine, a former high school classmate, says Trump was so...

Hillary Clinton had endorsed forcing women to register for a draft. Now the issue is taking on new urgency. Despite the left's anti-draft posturing, it has fond memories of its protests during the Vietnam War and it is the biggest supporter of bringing back the draft. Proposals to move to a draft army invariably come from Democrats in Congress and left-wing pundits who believe that a draft will create a higher barrier to any future conflict. Forcing women to register raises the barrier even higher. And anything that makes it harder for the military to function properly is also part...

This is a no-brainer for Cruz, who came out hard against drafting women last week, but it’s interesting coming from Rubio after he declared himself in favor at the last debate. You can read his motives here as charitably or uncharitably as you like. Charitably: He’s striking a blow for legislative power at the executive’s and judiciary’s expense, a welcome corrective in an age of growing presidential power and judicial social engineering. Uncharitably: He realized belatedly that “let’s draft your daughters” isn’t a sentiment that’ll play well in a Republican primary, especially among the social conservatives he’s trying to win,...