Free Republic

On December 22, President Trump issued 15 pardons. Among those pardoned were Nicholas Slatten, Paul Slough, Evan Liberty, and Dustin Heard. If the names are unfamiliar, you might recognize them collectively as the Blackwater private contractors. In September 2007, these former veterans ended up in a shootout in Nisour Square, Baghdad, that left 17 Iraqis dead and 20 wounded. Slatten got life in prison; the other men each got 30 years. The left would like to see them continue to rot in jail, but President Trump made the right decision to let them go. I have to admit that, for...

WASHINGTON DC, September 10 (C-Fam) A second source has come forward to confirm earlier Friday Fax reporting that the Obama administration intends to force Catholic and other Christian groups to accept LGBT applicants in hiring. The source, who insists upon anonymity, described a meeting held for department and agency heads at the Old Executive Office Building next to the White House where they were informed of the change in policy. An official from the Obama administration told the group that they would be required to add “sexual orientation and gender identity” to hiring guidelines for grant recipients, just the same...

But funding may suffer as Americans focus on Hizbullah, Iraq The US Agency for International Development (USAID) has no plans to reduce aid to Lebanon, but funding levels may be impacted by the political considerations of a US administration increasingly critical of Hizbullah, keen to move ahead with the peace process and focused on Iraq. USAID mission director Raouf Yussef told reporters during a briefing at the US Embassy in Awkar on Tuesday that Washington would not be using aid as a tool to pressure Lebanon and Syria to comply with its demands regarding Hizbullah and other regional issues. The...