Free Republic

It's his "Free Bird." The American Legion boys erupted in ecstatic cheers when President Donald Trump couldn't resist taking a dig at the "fake news" press while taking a photograph with them. Trump addressed the American Legion Boys Nation and Auxiliary Girls Nation on Wednesday at the White House, taking a more hopeful and inspirational tone than in his politically loaded speech to the Boy Scouts this week. Before his speech, he posted for pictures with the both groups. After the picture with the boys, Trump said he'd be returning shortly to make his televised remarks. "We'll say a few...

DEERFIELD, MI - Members of American Legion Post 392 will host their 16th annual Testicle Festival on Saturday, March 18, offering savory options to patrons, such as cattle testicles and chicken gizzards. The event, which will run from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m., typically draws a good crowd, according to Legion member Al Rau. "We usually get anywhere from 1,500 up to 2,000 people throughout the day," Rau said. "They come and go." Rau said the origins of the Testicle Festival trace back to a farmer who used to bring the delicacies to town with him twice a year and...

William Peter Blatty, an author whose novel “The Exorcist” and his later screenplay for the 1973 film about a demonic possession became a phenomenon and stirred fierce public debate about the occult, died Jan. 12 at a hospital near his home in Bethesda, Md. He was 89. The cause was a form of multiple myeloma, said his wife, Julie Witbrodt Blatty. Mr. Blatty was a junior at Georgetown University when, in 1949, he became mesmerized by a Washington Post story detailing the alleged exorcism by a Jesuit priest of a 14-year-old boy from Mount Rainier, Md. who was believed to...

Decked out in his US army-issued fatigues and a lip stud shining from his mouth, the young American fighter cuts an unusual figure in the northern Iraqi town of Al-Qosh. He served in the US army in Baghdad in 2006-2007 and has now returned to fight the Islamic State (ISIS) jihadist group with Dwekh Nawsha, a Christian militia whose name is an Assyrian-language phrase conveying self-sacrifice, reports AFP. The 28-year-old, who goes by the pseudonym Brett, has become the figurehead of an emerging movement of foreigners coming to Iraq to support Christian groups. Bearing a tattoo of a machinegun on...

The Catholic Church's top exorcist, who claims to have sent 160,000 demons back to hell, says he wants Pope Francis to allow all priests to start performing the ritual to deal with a rising demand for exorcisms from the faithful. Father Gabriele Amorth, 88, who also heads the International Association of Exorcists, told The Sunday Times that he will ask Pope Francis to allow all priests the right to do exorcisms without the church's approval. According to the report, priests currently need special approval from their bishop to perform the rite and it is rarely granted. "I will ask the...

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D.-Calif.) told a recent gathering of the Women’s Political Committee that the spirits of suffragists Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Alice Paul spoke to her at the White House. Pelosi said she heard them say: “At last we have a seat at the table”. A video recently posted on Youtube shows Pelosi speaking in May describing her first meeting with President Bush in the White House after becoming part of the Democratic House leadership.

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Dozens of women who attended a high school run by the disgraced Legion of Christ religious order have urged the Vatican to close the program, saying the psychological abuse they endured trying to live like teenage nuns led to multiple cases of anorexia, stress-induced migraines, depression and even suicidal thoughts. The women sent a letter this weekend to the pope's envoy running the Legion to denounce the manipulation, deception and disrespect they say they suffered at the hands of counselors barely older than themselves at the Rhode Island school. For some, the trauma required years of...

Gov. Rick Perry’s inner circle has evolved significantly since he was first elected to the Texas House in 1984. He changed parties, for one thing, becoming a Republican and shucking one political infrastructure for another. And he changed offices, moving from the House to the Texas Department of Agriculture, from there to the lieutenant governorship and from there, with the election of George W. Bush to the presidency in 2000, into the office he holds today. His closest advisers are a mix of family, longtime friends and close aides. They know his politics, his history, his strengths and weaknesses, what...

The American Legion Department of Maine has announced the 64th annual Dirigo Boys State to be held at Thomas College in Waterville from June 19 to the 23rd, 2011. The purpose of Boys State is to provide Maine High School Juniors an opportunity to learn the basic system of politics and governance of a democratic society. Instructors are brought in from a diverse background of legal, educational, and political backgrounds to guide participants in setting up a simulated or "moot" government reflecting that of the State of Maine. Cost of the Summer program is $275 which may be subsidized by...

How far has our nation fallen? Read this for some insight… God is the bad guy in a movie coming out this January! The title of the movie is Legion and here is their official synopsis: “When God loses faith in mankind, he sends his legion of angels to bring on the apocalypse. Humanity’s only hope lies in a group of strangers trapped in a desert diner and the archangel Michael.” The archangel Michael voluntarily falls to Earth to save the savior of mankind who hasn’t been born yet. (The savior’s mom is a diner waitress.) Did you get the...

For those of you who have been following the acquisition of Southern Catholic College by the Legionaries of Christ, I’m sure that you will be glad to hear that resolution has finally come and Southern Catholic's future finally seems to be secure. Just yesterday (Friday, July 10) SCC's vice-president of academic affairs made the announcement that the school had indeed been acquired by the Legion of Christ, and that the last of the paper work had finally gone though. The full story is available at: Veritatis Praeco

Concerned that the Legion of Christ stifles the free will of its members and lacks transparency, Archbishop Edwin F. O’Brien told the religious order’s director general that he cannot in good conscience recommend that anyone join the Legion or Regnum Christi, its affiliated lay movement. In the Archdiocese of Baltimore, the Legion of Christ is affiliated with Woodmont Academy in Cooksville. Regnum Christi is also active in several parishes. The archbishop’s action came in the wake of revelations that Father Marcial Maciel Degollado, founder of the Legion of Christ, fathered a daughter while serving as leader of the international religious...

A Bad Year for the Neocons Who is more Catholic than the Pope? Brian Mershon REMNANT COLUMNIST, North Carolina By all accounts, 2009 has been a challenging year for Neocon Catholics. Lamenting the spread of the Traditional Latin Mass to their own diocesan parishes since the Pope issued Summorum Pontificum July 7, 2007, the recent revelations concerning the founder of the Legion of Christ, Father Marcial Maciel, the death of Father Richard John Neuhaus, and now the dissolving of the excommunications of the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX), the Neocon Catholic worldview is clearly being undermined George Weigel’s recent...

Health and safety killjoys tell war veterans they are too old to hoist the Union Flag over town hall Last updated at 02:38am on 26.07.08      Up in arms: Veterans John Ireland (right) and Keith Hutchins in front of the town hall In their younger days, they risked death and injury to fight for their country against the Nazis and other enemies.  But, now, war veterans who want to fly the Union Flag proudly above their town hall are being defeated by a barrage of health and safety rules.  Royal British Legion members had scented victory after fighting...

For Immediate Release Office of the Press Secretary March 6, 2007 President Bush Discusses Care for America's Returning Wounded Warriors, War on Terror at American Legion Renaissance Hotel Washington, D.C.     Presidential Remarks   Audio       Fact Sheet: Pursuing a Strategy for Success in Iraq      Fact Sheet: Taking Care of America's Returning Wounded Warriors      In Focus: Veterans 10:05 A.M. EST THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much, Paul, for that warm welcome. I appreciate the fact that you've given me a chance to come and address you. I welcome you to our nation's capital. I offer a special greeting to members...

WASHINGTON, Sept. 7, 2006 – The American Legion is focused, as always, on fighting for veterans’ rights, but also on supporting the troops serving today in the war on terrorism, the Legion’s two new leaders said here yesterday. “We strongly believe that a nation who forgets its veterans is a lost nation, so we won’t let that happen on our watch,” Paul A. Morin, the newly-elected national commander of the American Legion, said in a Pentagon Channel interview. “We’ll continue to do battle for the children of our nation and the American way of life. That’s what we do as...

The American Legion opened its national convention in Salt Lake City this week with high hopes the gathering would help "unite America" behind the war in Iraq. Instead, the veterans have found themselves in a fight with the city's anti-war mayor. Mayor Rocky Anderson, a Democrat in a city that is considered liberal by heavily Republican Utah's standards, has accused the Bush administration of lying about the rationale for war. He has called President Bush a "complete disaster." And he organized a protest rally Wednesday a few blocks from the Salt Palace Convention Center, just hours before Bush's arrival here...

SAN DIEGO – Three local congressmen have introduced a bill that would transfer the Mount Soledad cross from city control to the federal government, a step they hope will preserve the La Jolla landmark. Reps. Duncan Hunter, R-Alpine, Brian Bilbray, R-Carlsbad and Darrell Issa, R-Vista, sponsored the bill, which Hunter introduced late Monday. The city has been ordered by the court to remove the 29-foot cross from city property by Aug. 1 or pay a fine of $5,000 a day. A judge has ruled it is an unconstitutional preference of religion for the cross to be displayed on public property....

Streets renamed after fallen soldiersBy CAROLYN THOMPSON, Associated Press Writer Wed Jun 14, 3:15 AM ET Taps is played during an unveiling ceremony for R. V. Derenda Lane in honor of Army Sgt. 1st Class Robert V. Derenda, in Cheektowaga, N.Y., Saturday May 20, 2006. Derenda was killed in Iraq last August. The names of the fallen soldiers of Iraq are becoming permanent fixtures on the landscapes the soldiers themselves will never return to. (AP Photo/David Duprey) BUFFALO, N.Y. - Loretta Derenda's home sits only a few steps from what used to be called Candlelight Lane, where her son Robert...

IT'S A TRADITION that dates back to the First Battle of Bull Run. It's a tradition that allowed veterans from Company B of the Minnesota Volunteers to honor those who gave their all at Manassas, and in the days, months and years since, the tradition has expanded to American Legion Posts around the nation. It's called the Last Man's Club. The premise is simple, yet heartrending. Members of the Last Man's Club gather to break bread each year on a chosen date. In the case of Civil War veterans, that date was July 21, the anniversary of the First Battle...