Free Republic

President Trump raised eyebrows earlier this year when he announced plans to create a “Space Force,” which would become the sixth branch of the military. Vice President Mike Pence later announced in a speech that the branch was needed in order for the US to maintain military dominance in space. The proposed Space Force is estimated to cost $13 billion in its first five years. And despite some snickers among political observers, renowned astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson doesn’t think the Space Force is that crazy of an idea. But Tyson, one of the authors of “Accessory to War: The Unspoken...

http://thehill.com/policy/defense/289290-jeff-bezos-neil-degrasse-tyson-join-pentagon-innovation-board July 26, 2016 - 02:15 PM EDT Neil deGrasse Tyson, Jeff Bezos join DOD innovation board By Rebecca Kheel Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and renowned astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson were among the big names Defense Secretary Ash Carter announced Tuesday as joining the Pentagon’s recently formed Defense Innovation Advisory Board. “I've given them the very specific task of identifying innovative private sector best practices that could be of use to DOD [the Department of Defense] — not unlike our recent Hack the Pentagon pilot program, which invited hackers to help find vulnerabilities in our networks," Carter said during an...

A passion for exploration is the fuel to an innovative economy, says astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson. In an interview with CNBC's On the Money, the host of the new National Geographic Channel show StarTalk — based on Tyson's podcast and Sirius XM radio show of the same name — described the dynamic implications of scientific discovery. ....

Mounting evidence of voter fraud in North Carolina’s 9th Congressional District could indefinitely delay the certification of a winner, as state election officials investigate whether hundreds of absentee ballots were illegally cast or destroyed. The North Carolina State Board of Elections and Ethics Enforcement has no plans to certify Republican Mark Harris’s 905-vote victory over Democrat Dan McCready, according to an agenda of a board meeting scheduled for Friday morning. The board is collecting sworn statements from voters in rural Bladen and Robeson counties, near the South Carolina border, who described people coming to their doors and urging them to...

Full title: Washington Post admits gaffe after putting story on Kavanaugh coaching basketball in ‘Public Safety’ sectionThe Washington Post admitted it made a blunder on Wednesday by placing a story about Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh coaching youth basketball under the “Public Safety” section online. Kavanaugh, who recently returned to coach his daughter’s basketball team, was famously accused of sexual assault during his Supreme Court confirmation hearing. Kavanaugh denied all allegations and was confirmed after an FBI investigation. Media watchdogs were then shocked when Ann Marimow’s Nov. 27 piece on his youth coaching appeared in the “Public Safety” section. However,...

A Supreme Court case about jurisdiction in an obscure murder has huge implications for tribes. On the morning of June 22, 1839, the Cherokee leader John Ridge was pulled from his bed, dragged into his front yard and stabbed 84 times while his family watched. He was assassinated for signing the Cherokee Nation’s removal treaty, a document that — in exchange for the tribe’s homelands — promised uninterrupted sovereignty over a third of the land in present-day Oklahoma. That promise was not kept. Sixty-seven years later, federal agents questioned John’s grandson, William D. Polson. They needed to add him to...

General Motors was under fire this weekend after a casting call for Cadillac sought members of the controversial alt-right movement. According to an image of the casting call posted by the news agency Reuters and many, many others, the notice said an agency filming the ad was looking for "any and all real alt-right thinkers/believers." "This is a beautifully artistic spot that is capturing all walks of life of America," the casting call says, adding that it would be filmed later this month. "Standing together as a union. This is not meant to be offensive in anyway. Just a representation...

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell on Wednesday suggested the central bank could be close to slowing down the pace of its recent interest rate increases, saying rates are now just slightly below what he considers a “neutral” level. His comments marked a sharp change from his position last month, when he said the Fed still had a “long way” to go before it reached that equilibrium. U.S. stock markets soared on Powell’s comments, as he appeared to signal that the Fed would not move forward aggressively to raise rates much further than it already has. Still, by saying rates were...

A neighborhood advisory panel in Washington that typically focuses on liquor license applications and other local concerns is inserting itself into the international furor prompted by the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi last month at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul. Advisory Neighborhood Commission 2A, as the Foggy Bottom panel is known, is expected to vote Wednesday to rename the street outside the Saudi Embassy for Khashoggi, a Washington Post contributing columnist who resided in Virginia. Under the proposal, the east side of New Hampshire Avenue NW between F Street and Juarez Circle would become “Jamal Khashoggi Way.” The Watergate complex...

Only one week ahead of the midterms, President Trump is working hard to turn a few thousand migrants who are on their way to the United States into an “invasion.” More than 5,000 active U.S. service members have been ordered to the border, as the president is spreading unsubstantiated claims that “unknown Middle Easterners” are in the caravan. There is no evidence for a looming invasion or a terrorism risk. But Trump’s game of making up a migrant invading force isn’t surprising to anyone who has watched populists gain power in Europe in recent years. In the case of Trump,...

Former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens plans to release his book, "The Making of a Justice: My First 94 Years,” in May, not long after his 99th birthday. The New York Times interviewed him for a piece about his memoir, at which point he laid out the three Supreme Court decisions he still believes, to this day, were the wrong decision.District of Columbia v. HellerThe 2008 landmark decision, often referred to as Heller, was a 5-4 decision that upheld an individual's right to possess a firearm for self-defense. There is no need to be part of a militia in order...

Which of this generation's biggest tech luminaries and innovators will ultimately be remembered for having the greatest lasting effect on the world? It's a tough question, especially when you consider the role that people like Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg play in our everyday lives. But, if you ask renowned astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, the answer is simple: Elon Musk. "As important as Steve Jobs was, no doubt about it — [and] you have to add him to Bill Gates, because they birthed the personal computing revolution kind of together — here's the difference: Elon Musk is trying...

This is the story of a congressional staffer who committed a crime, and a larger crime that was committed against him. It’s a story of a fever on Capitol Hill, spiked by right-wing extremists with help from President Trump. Last year, a congressional information-technology staffer who worked for more than a dozen Democratic members of Congress (a permissible and customary practice on Capitol Hill) was suspected of using multiple usernames and passwords to skirt House rules and purchase office items. This isn’t exactly the stuff of gripping television crime drama. But rules were broken and the staffer, along with four...

In the wake of Trump’s announcement this week that his administration would continue to “stand with Saudi Arabia” despite the recent murder of Washington Postcolumnist Jamal Khashoggi, America’s mainstream media elites erupted in their usual paroxysms of despair and condemnation of the president. Although this time the typical “orange man bad” stories tended to omit calls for Trump to be immediately overthrown by the military or his own cabinet, almost every other major trope was preponderant. This was especially true of Khashoggi’s former place of employment at the Post, where journalists almost universally portrayed Trump as having blood on...

Two of the president’s longest-serving advisers allege in a new book that scores of officials inside the White House, Congress, the Justice Department and intelligence agencies are “embedded enemies of President Trump” working to stymie his agenda and delegitimize his presidency. The authors, Corey R. Lewandowski and David N. Bossie, are both Republican operatives who do not work in the administration but are close to Trump and fashion themselves as his outside protectors. They portray the president as victim to disloyalty on his staff and “swamp creatures” intent on extinguishing his political movement. Their book, “Trump’s Enemies: How the Deep...

Last week, we touched upon Congresswoman-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's support for the asinine government overhaul of the American economy known as the"Green New Deal." In what appeared to be spontaneous show of support, Ocasio-Cortez met with a group of environmentalists inside Nancy Pelosi's office and told the mostly young group of people just how proud of she was of them "for putting yourselves, and your bodies, and everything on the line to make sure that we save our planet, our generation, and our future." However, Ocasio-Cortez had actually delivered that same message a day before at a training session for the...

Last week, we touched upon Congresswoman-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's support for the asinine government overhaul of the American economy known as the" Green New Deal. " In what appeared to be spontaneous show of support, Ocasio-Cortez met with a group of environmentalists inside Nancy Pelosi's office and told the mostly young group of people just how proud of she was of them "for putting yourselves, and your bodies, and everything on the line to make sure that we save our planet, our generation, and our future." However, Ocasio-Cortez had actually delivered that same message a day before at a training...

<p>MEXICO CITY — The Trump administration has won the support of Mexico’s incoming government for a plan to remake U.S. border policy by requiring asylum seekers to wait in Mexico while their claims move through U.S. courts, according to Mexican officials and senior members of president-elect Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s transition team.</p>

BERLIN — Denmark became the second European country to halt future arms exports to Saudi Arabia on Thursday, following a similar decision by neighboring Germany earlier this month. The Danish announcement comes the same week President Trump backed Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, despite the CIA assessing that he ordered the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Denmark’s ban includes goods that can be used both for military and civilian purposes but is still less expansive than the German measures, which also included sales that had already been approved. While the Nordic country is a tiny arms equipment exporter in...

Conservative writer and conspiracy theorist Jerome Corsi is in plea negotiations with special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, according to Corsi and another person with knowledge of the talks. The talks with Corsi — an associate of both President Trump and GOP operative Roger Stone — could bring Mueller’s team closer to determining whether Trump or his advisers were linked to WikiLeaks’ release of hacked Democratic emails in 2016, a key part of his long-running inquiry. Corsi provided research on Democratic figures during the campaign to Stone, a longtime Trump adviser. For months, the special counsel has been scrutinizing Stone’s...