Free Republic

Brigadier Gen. Anthony Tata asked why the media is allowing Florida Democratic Rep. Frederica Wilson to “stand on the backs of four dead soldiers” during a Monday segment on CNN’s “New Day.” Host Chris Cuomo asked if White House Chief of Staff John Kelly was given special treatment because he lost his son in battle, and Tata said the issue wasn’t with Kelly but with Wilson. “I think the bigger question is, why are we allowing a congresswoman to stand on the backs of four dead soldiers. Why are we continuing to dig this hole,” Tata said. “I thought there...

All 13 Turkish soldiers, including high-ranking generals, on board a Cougar military helicopter were killed when it crashed after getting caught in a high-voltage power line in the Senoba district of Turkey’s southeastern Sirnak province, the army said on Wednesday.In a statement, the army said the AS 532 Cougar had crashed shortly after taking off around 1855 GMT on Wednesday. It said emergency search and rescue teams were dispatched to the area and evaluations were underway at the crash site.Broadcaster CNN Turk said Defence Minister Fikri Isik would travel to Sirnak, while presidential sources said President Tayyip Erdogan had...

Former Army Maj. Gen. Ronald Lewis will retire from the U.S. Army at the rank of brigadier general after allegations of using official government credit cards at strip clubs in two different countries. An Army spokesman confirmed Thursday that Lewis used government credit cards at strip clubs in Korea and Italy, had “improper interactions” with women, all while traveling on official business. Lewis served as a senior military aide to former Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter at the time of his indiscretion.

I've been wondering what the process is for appointing Inspector Generals so I did a little research. Here is a summary, along with some interesting articles on all of Obama's vacancies. For example, as of Feb. 8th, 2012 the longest vacancy has been at the State Department, which has gone 1,484 days—over four years—without a permanent IG, at a time when the Department has taken on the responsibility and challenge of managing scandal-prone private security contractors in war zones. As of today, there are seven IG positions that have been vacant for more than a year. TITLE 5 App. >...

Donald Trump has made a number of promising picks for his cabinet, but surely none better than his selection of my Hoover Institution colleague General James Mattis as secretary of defense. His record shows clearly that he’s a great man—the loyalty he inspires and the way he treats others shows, even more important, that he’s a good one. I’ll let others more expert in military matters chime in about the specifics of his strategies and tactics, but, while there are certainly many others who know him far better than I, there are some things I can say about General Mattis...

President-elect Donald Trump has recently discussed national security and diplomacy with retired Gen. John Kelly, the longest-serving Marine general in the military today, with nearly half a century of military service under his belt. Although during his last press conference before retiring earlier this year the decorated general described his “greatest fear” as being offered a job in the U.S. government, Reince Priebus, Trump’s choice for White House chief of staff, told Meet the Press host Chuck Todd on Sunday that Kelly is being considered for secretary of state. The Marine combat veteran could provide an unmatched and informed perspective...

Headline and link only because of AP rules.

The Clinton Foundation is a national and international scandal. It’s under investigation by the FBI, but not by the Attorney General of New York, who is instead targeting the Trump Foundation. The media has spent weeks suggesting the existence of an inappropriate political relationship between Trump and Florida AG Pam Bondi. And yet it’s cheering the wildly inappropriate relationship which has resulted in a member of Hillary’s leadership council investigating her political opponent. Some months ago, the spokesman for Attorney General Eric Schneiderman had defended the trip he made to Miami Beach using donor money because he was fundraising for...

What Is Your Biggest Distraction? No Need to Look Very Far! Msgr. Charles Pope • August 31, 2016 • We usually think of distractions as coming from the world around us, but is that really the most common source? Consider the following parable, drawn from the stories of the early Desert Fathers and from monastic experience:Sometimes there would be a rush of noisy visitors and the silence of the monastery would be shattered. This would upset the disciples; not the Master, who seemed just as content with the noise as with the silence. To his protesting disciples he said...

The former commander of the the Army Fires Center of Excellence and Fort Sill, Oklahoma was found dead in his on-post home at Redstone Arsenal on Sunday. Maj. Gen. John Rossi, 55, had just arrived Redstone Arsena to take over as the commander of the Army Space and Missile Defense Command since relinquishing command of Fort Sill on July 21st, according to KSWO. Rossi and his family only moved into their house on-post less than two weeks ago, according to John Cummings, a spokesman for Army Space and Missile Defense Command. Today, he was scheduled to be promoted to...

[Exclusive] N. Korean General Defects Seeking Political Asylum Write : 2016-07-29 08:54:16 Update : 2016-07-29 14:15:08 Anchor: A general who was in charge of managing North Korean leader Kim Jong-un's overseas slush funds is said to be in China after escaping from his country, and is seeking political asylum with two other North Koreans in a country other than South Korea. A source said that the three were separated from a diplomat from Pyongyang, who is seeking his own defection to another country. Here is Kim Bum-soo with KBS' exclusive report. Report: It has been made known that a general...

When it comes to Donald Trump's thinking about his running mate, Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions says he has not advocated for the presumptive Republican nominee to have a military general on the ticket. Retired Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn has been reportedly vetted for vice president, and "Fox News Sunday" fill-in host Shannon Bream alluded to a Washington Post story Saturday that reported the Alabama Republican is "encouraging Trump to perhaps choose a general." "I have not pushed him to have a general," said Sessions, who himself is seen as a top contender for the position, adding, "I have said...

On Thursday, Senator Lindsey Graham asked General Dunford about his ISIS strategy. "[T]he military strategy that we're embarked on is the best way to destroy ISIL. And it's what you recommended. Or is it limited by conditions put on you by the White House?" Dunford responded, "[T]o clarify, so if I say..." Graham interrupted, "[W]ould you do more if you could?" He answered, "I would do more if I could, but the limitation is not just a political limitation. Part of it is our partners on the ground..." Watch here:

It will take a coalition of 50,000 troops on the ground to defeat the Islamic State, according to the former army chief of staff who spent more than four years serving in Iraq and who is credited, along with retired General David Petraeus, with being the architect of the successful 2007 troop surge there. "Probably around 50,000," said Gen. Raymond T. Odierno during a panel discussion moderated by Fox News for the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Odierno, who received the George P. Shultz award for distinguished service, emphasized the 50,000 would not all be U.S. troops, but the coalition...

I hope that many I have had heated exchanges with find this message well. My change of heart and mind concerning the election this year came at a the least suspecting of moments.

With Donald Trump as the nominee, Republicans are highly certain to win the presidential election on November 8, 2016. Trump will defeat Hillary Clinton with 87 percent certainty, and Bernie Sanders with 99 percent. These forecasts come from the PRIMARY MODEL. It is a statistical model that relies on presidential primaries and an election cycle as predictors of the vote in the general election. Early primaries are a leading indicator of electoral victory in November. Trump won the Republican primaries in both New Hampshire and the South Carolina while Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders split the Democratic primaries in those...

Army Lt. Gen. Sean MacFarland, the US commander in charge of the coalition fighting Islamic State (ISIS) in Iraq and Syria, said Monday that carpet bombing the terrorists would be "inconsistent with our values." The remark is seen as being aimed at Republican presidential candidate Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX). In December, Cruz pledged to "utterly destroy ISIS," and vowed: "We will carpet-bomb them into oblivion." He even hinted at the use of nuclear weapons, saying: "I don't know if sand can glow in the dark, but we're going to find out." After being asked to explain why carpet bombing would...

Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders on Sunday dismissed concerns that he can't win a general election. Responding to comments from Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), who said he is unelectable, Sanders said he would beat Republican primary front-runner Donald Trump "badly" in a head-to-head matchup. "Well, what I say to her is that if she would look at the matchups that are taking place between Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump right now, she would find that we were 15 points ahead of him nationally," Sanders said on NBC's "Meet the Press."

Likely more accurate than polling data. Reuters built a computer model to predict which political party will win the presidency in next year’s election, and the results are in: a Republican will most likely be moving into the White House in 2017.

Sometimes you have to think outside the box. Faced with some of the universe’s most stubborn mysteries, such as the identity of dark matter, physicists are turning to a technique that employs the weird laws of quantum mechanics: atom interferometry. Atom interferometers allow the study of various physical phenomena by splitting atom waves using a nanograting, such as this one. Composed of silicon nitride, this grating, imaged with a scanning electron microscope, has a period of 100 nm. Image courtesy of Alex Cronin (University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ). This method, which takes advantage of the fact that quantum particles behave...