Free Republic

Received news from NRA HQ today that Charlton Heston will step down at the NRA's Annual Meeting in Orlando, Florida on April 25,2003.VIP tickets are available on a limited basis. General Admission tickets will be available on February 1, 2003.To order tickets, call 1-800-325-SEAT.

NRA President, Charlton Heston will appear at a Vote Freedom First Rally in Joplin,Missouri on October 22,2002 at noon. The Holiday Inn-Joplin will host the rally at the John Q. Hammons Convention Center, 3615 Range Line Road, Rt.71-N, Joplin,Missouri.Parking is free. Rally is free. Light refrshments served. Please attend. If unable to attend, please get out and vote for Jim Talent and other NRA-backed candidates on November 5.

An 82-year-old grandmother from Howell County will be sentenced later this year on methamphetamine charges.Josephine Mary Greer of Caulfield entered an "alford plea" on a felony charge of distributing methamphetamine. Alford means she admits no guilt, but concedes that prosecutors have enough evidence to get a conviction if she went to trial.Greer was arrested last year at a motel she operated north of West Plains. She was charged with selling a gram of methamphetamine to an undercover officer.

As VA plans a major overhaul of its health care facilities, VFW will help, up to a point."VFW stands ready to work with VA, but we insist such things as veterans inpatient and acute care needs, as well as special services for traumatic injuries, not suffer as a result," said VFW Commander James Goldsmith.The overhaul, known as the Capital Asset Realignment for Enhanced Services (CARES), is designed to emphasize outpatient treatment over traditional hospital care. It should be completed within two years, including 18 months of collecting data on facilities and briefings, which VA promises will include veterans.Once completed, a...

John McClaughry of the Ethan Allen Institute passed this along to us. The story originally appeared in the bulletin of the Nat'l Federation of Republican Assemblies. It seems that in 1960, 15 years after the end of World War II, Robert Menard, then a commander aboard the USS Constellation, took part in a meeting between U.S. Navy personnel and members of the Japanese Defense Forces. Most of the attendees at the meeting were World War II veterans. One American took the opportunity to inquire why, after Pearl Harbor-with the U.S. Pacific fleet crippled and the mainland defenses in what appears...

For the first time since 1891, Congress has taken a step toward paying military retirees their full retirement pay plus disability compensation. The concept, known as concurrent receipt, was approved as part of the 2002 Defense Authorization Act, but unfortunately for veterans, it was largely a symbolic gesture.The reason is the price tag:some $3 billion a year, whcih Congress has mandated must come from existing programs. So while lawmakers are now on record as authorizing concurrent receipt for some 437,000 disabled military retirees, they're in no hurry to appropriate the funds to make it a reality.In effect, Congress has shifted ...

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld proposed at a NATO meeting in December that the alliance should reduce its troop levels in Bosnia by up to a third. If accepted, the reduction would shrink the NATO force from about 18,000 to 12,000 and the U.S. commitment from 3,100 to 2,100.Saying that NATO's mission in Bosnia "should have long since ended," Rumsfeld told alliance members that cutting troop levels would help the U.S. war on terrorism."Civil security is not an effective use of NATO's valuable military assets," he said at the Brussels, Belgium, meeting. "(The Bosnia mission is) increasing strain on both our ...

Russia announced in October it will close a major eavesdropping center on Cuba. The Lourdes facility, built by the Soviet Union in 1964, was a major electronic intelligence-gathering station for the Soviets and Cuba. More recently, Russia said it needed to keep the facility to make sure the U.S. was complying with international arms-control regulations.Better relations with the U.S. in the wake of the Sept.11 attacks was only part of the reason for the decision. Apparently, according to the Russian newspaper Novye Izvestia, the pullout was planned after Fidel Castro refused to pay debts to Moscow."We owed money to the ...

A retired school superintendent now faces weapons charges in Spokane. As we first told you last week, authorities cleaning out the office of Floyd Jarvis found a semi-automatic handgun, an AK-47 and a black metal club with a knife in the handle.Jarvis has been charged with misdemeanor three counts of unlawful use of a weapon. The retired administrator, says he brought the weapons to school for safekeeping after a rash of burglaries near his home. Jarvis calls his decision to bring the weapons to guns to school a "stupid mistake." He says the storeroom where the weapons were kept was ...

A Kansas City man has second-degree burns on his face, neck, chest and hands after his wife doused him with gasoline and set him on fire, police said.Jackson County prosecutors have charged Dorothy Robinson, 41, with first-degree domestic asssault and armed criminal action for the incident.Her husband, Herbert L. Robinson Jr, who is in his early 30s, was taken to the hospital, but his injuries are not life-threatening. Dorothy Robinson suffered burns on her hands and was in a hospital under guard.The couple had been married for about four months and lived with his family, police said.Family members told police ...

Since 1903, the name Hoppe's has been a staple in the lexicon of American shooters. For generations, Hoppe's No.9 has been a favorite gun cleaning solvent and its distinctive smell is almost as much a part of a day at the range as pulling the trigger. On April 13, Brunswick Corp. sold Hoppe's to Michaels of Oregon, which includes Uncle Mike's, GunMate, Butler Creek and the Sidekick professional brands. "We're excited to welcome Hoppe's into Michaels' growing family of shooting products and accessories,"said Michael's of Oregon's President and CEO Dennis Pixton. "The focus of our two companies is very complementary. ...

Once again, the news media is beating the military intervention drums. This time it is Macedonia, another Balkin country. If the U.S. does not intervene, goes the line, then the Europeans will not like America anymore (as if the elites there ever did). According to the N/Y TIMES, they see "the United States as an unreliable, bellicose, immoral ally" and "have found seemingly perfect justification." This is the same U.S. that bailed Europe out of three wars (WWI, WWII and the Cold War) and two previous debacles in the Balkins (Bosnia and Kosovo).With 1.6 million men under arms, Europe still ...

BENTON COUNTY-A human foot found floating in Beaver Lake on Sunday afternoon may solve the 12-year-old mystery of a man who disappeared in 1989.Two boaters contacted law enforcement after seeing what they believed to be a human foot floating about 90 feet from shore in the Indian Creek arm of Beaver Lake.When Benton County Sheriff's Deputy Riley Johnston arrived at the scene, at about 1:30 p.m., the foot had floated to shore.On the foot was a size 11 tennis shoe containing the remains of a human foot and sock with a human tibia and fibia still attached, according to Tom ...

As a soldier I consider it part of my duty to read the various editorials and opinion columns relating to my profession. I hear this retired General say that and I read a retired NCO say this, and every column seems to speak of the downward spiral of the modern Army, co-ed Basic Training, the lack of combat readiness, our Chief of Staff's decision to change official headgear. But the favorite topic by far, is the quality of the "new" soldiers, and the weakness, ill training and overall worthlessness of the people filling in the Army's ranks. I am not ...

For the second time in the last decade, a scientific panel has concluded that children of Vietnam veterans could be at higher risk for a disease. The National Academy of Science's Institute of medicine (IOM) announced April 19 that exposure to Agent Orange could cause acute myelogenous leukemia (AML) in the children of those exposed.The next day, VA Secretary Anthony Principi said he had obtained White House approval to ask Congress for legislation to create special benefits, which VA was still determining at press time. VFW praised Principi's swiftness."The actions by the secretary reflect this concern and compassion," said VFW ...

Bob Kerry, the former Democrat senator from Nebraska and medal of Honor recipient, is the latest target of the left wing. Because of the 1969 incident in which Vietnamese civilians were accidentally killed, the ex-SEAL team leader was crucified by self-righteous elements of the New York media in April.An April 30 Wall Street Journal editorial summed up the whole sordid episode best:"...We think the real news here isn't Mr. Kerrey and his conscience. The story is why so many liberals want to turn the tale into a cause celebre to justify their own opposition to the Vietnam War.'Mr. Kerrey is ...

The National Rifle Association came to Missouri for its annual convention last week. There was the usual rhetoric about protecting Second Amendment rights and fighting for liberty."We were given rights when this country was formed, and politicians don't have the right to take it away," NRA member lois Taft of Mountain View, Ark. told the Associated Press.Sadly, Mrs. Taft's statement clearly expresses the NRA's contradictory approach. From Charlton Heston on down, no one in the NRA really believes that the right to bear arms is a fully protected constitutional right.The NRA defends Second Amendment rights only for "law-abiding citizens." But ...

A bill introduced in January would move Veterans Day to coincide with Election Day during presidential election years. The move is aimed at getting more voters to the polls."We very much encourage and support military people-active and retired-voting by every means possible," said Bob Manhan, VFW's assistant director of National Legislative Service. "But we absolutely oppose the idea of moving Veterans Day to encourage greater public voting."The bill, H.R. 62, was introduced by Rep. Shiela Jackson Lee (D-Texas). At press time, it had been referred to the House Committee on Government Reform.

A Dallas-based research team announced in November that it may have found additional evidence that ailments suffered by Persian Gulf War veterans could be linked to loss of brain cells. The researchers say it's possible the brain cell loss may be caused by exposure to combinations of nerve gas , pesticides and insect repellents. They also noted, however, that no conclusive link exists.The evidence, in the form of brain scans of 12 severely ill Gulf vets, was gathered by a team led by Robert Haley of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. It showed that the vets ...

GIs who served in Korea's DMZ in 1968 and 1969 when Agent Orange was sprayed by the South Korean army can receive free VA medical examinations to test for exposure.Once a veteran is listed on the Agent Orange Registry, his health condition is tracked in research, and he receives a VA newsletter with updates. The Sept. 5 directive does not entitle Korea vets to compensation for ailments associated with the chemical defoliant. The directive is posted on VA's Web site:www.va.gov.VFW magazine published a feature artilce-"Agent Orange Defoliated Kores's DMZ"-on this subject in February 2000.