Free Republic

All four life rafts from the two choppers that collided off Oahu's North Shore have been recovered on Monday but with no sign of any survivors, according to an official with the U.S. Marines. In spite of this, rescuers on Tuesday will continue searching for the 12 Marines who were on board the two helicopters when they crashed late Thursday. This would be the fifth day of search-and-rescue operations.

Remains of Illinois soldier, missing since 1969, coming home By Len Wells Evansville Courier & Press, Ind. (Tribune News Service) Published: January 9, 2016 ALBION, Ill. The remains of an airman listed as "missing in action" during the Vietnam War have been recovered. Officials with the U.S. Department of Defense confirmed the remains of Pfc. Kenneth Leroy Cunningham of Ellery, Illinois. He had been missing since Oct. 3, 1969. He was 21 at the time. Cunningham's remains will be flown back to the United States later this month, arriving at the airport in Louisville, Kentucky on Jan 19. His remains...

Allies of Hillary Clinton are confident she will win the Democratic presidential nomination, but they are worried about one big thing: her likability problem in the general election. Clinton has rebounded from a rough spring and summer with a strong fall. And while her eyes remain on the primary, she is already testing general election themes against her possible GOP opponents as they do battle in what could be a drawn-out Republican primary. Presidential elections are often decided on personality instead of specific policies. Along those lines, people in Clinton's orbit are worried she doesn't pass the would-you-like-to-have-a-beer-with-her test. It's...

If any one remembers our beloved freeper Hummingbird. Please advise.Hummingbird, please come in.

The Story of the Other Racist Flag As the Nixon administration prosecuted the Vietnam War, American citizens enacted a bizarre psychic reversal By Rick Perlstein Posted on August 10, 2015 in Politics You know that racist flag? The one that supposedly honors history but actually spreads a pernicious myth? And is useful only to venal right-wing politicians who wish to exploit hatred by calling it heritage? It’s past time to pull it down. Oh, wait. You thought I was referring to the Confederate flag. Actually, I’m talking about this.

You know that racist flag? The one that supposedly honors history but actually spreads a pernicious myth? And is useful only to venal right-wing politicians who wish to exploit hatred by calling it heritage? It’s past time to pull it down.Oh, wait. You thought I was referring to the Confederate flag. Actually, I’m talking about the POW/MIA flag.I told the story in the first chapter of my 2014 book The Invisible Bridge: The Fall of Nixon and the Rise of Reagan: how Richard Nixon invented the cult of the “POW/MIA” in order to justify the carnage in Vietnam in a...

John McCain, who has risen to political prominence on his image as a Vietnam POW war hero, has, inexplicably, worked very hard to hide from the public stunning information about American prisoners in Vietnam who, unlike him, didn’t return home. Throughout his Senate career, McCain has quietly sponsored and pushed into federal law a set of prohibitions that keep the most revealing information about these men buried as classified documents. Thus the war hero who people would logically imagine as a determined crusader for the interests of POWs and their families became instead the strange champion of hiding the evidence...

...His jet was hit by ground fire, and David was forced to eject, parachuting into a valley near a village. As his parachute deployed, his wingman watched him descend, and saw him captured as he landed. David’s capture in Laos was published in a North Vietnamese newspaper, Quan Nahn Dan... One of the committees I testified before was the 1992 Senate Select Committee Hearings on POW/MIA. John Kerry and John McCain did everything to keep the truth from coming out and ignored all the evidence. Three former Secretaries of Defense testified that men had been left behind, but Kerry and...

Fifteen years ago, Indiana couple Denise Jones and her husband purchased two missing in action bracelets to help veterans. Over the years the name Bunyan Price Jr. became part of their lives. Often wearing the bracelet, Jones couldn't help but wonder about him. She even sought out his name. "We had seen his name on the traveling wall." Jones said. News of the emotional homecoming last week traveled all over the world through the internet. Jones and her husband watched the news report on WCNC.com. "The name was just ringing a bell with me. And I told my husband go...

Hillary Clinton is pushing for Congress to reauthorize the federal government's child healthcare program, lending her support to congressional Democrats looking to keep the program around. "[D]espite strong bipartisan support, we are concerned that gridlock in Washington and unrelated disputes over the Affordable Care Act could prevent an extension of the program," Clinton and former GOP Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (Tenn.) wrote in an op-ed in The New York Times on Thursday. "As parents, grandparents and former legislators, we believe that partisan politics should never stand between our kids and quality health care," the pair added. Clinton, the presumed...

On Thursday January 29, 2015, famed mass murderer Henry Kissinger was once again scheduled to address the US Senate Armed Services Committee. Because the tradition of allowing some of the most bloodthirsty killers, traitors, and psychopaths to address members of Congress or provide them with marching orders is par for the course in Washington, Kissinger’s appearance should have come as no surprise to anyone. Nor should it have come as a surprise that this committee boasted a terrorist sympathizer and notorious color revolution artist like John McCain as a member. What was surprising, however, was that this particular address saw...

Nearly 70 years ago, Gordon Russ died fighting for his country and was buried in a foreign field. The St. Paul man left behind a wife, two little daughters, his parents and sisters. But in the seven decades since Russ fell during a critical and bloody battle in World War II, none of them has been to his grave. "I would have liked to have my dad's body back here, to go visit him," said Russ' daughter, Judith Doyle, now 75. "I wish I could get out and see his grave. If I could just walk up and touch the...

jimmy fallon @jimmyfallon Utah made history by electing Mia Love to Congress. She is a black female Republican Mormon. Even Unicorns said "Not buying it." #FallonMono

For at least half a century, the party of Lincoln has battled charges that it is racist, sexist and anti-immigrant. Today, voters from a conservative state made those arguments a little bit harder to make. In Utah, Mia Love became the first black Republican woman — and first Haitian American — elected to Congress. For the GOP — a house divided that faces significant demographic hurdles to winning the White House in 2016 even as it celebrates President Obama’s shellacking — this was huge. A party threatened with extinction among African Americans and immigrants now has someone to brag about...

President Barack Obama will remain at the White House on both Monday and Tuesday as voters head to the polls to determine whether to oust his political party from power in the Senate. A copy of his public schedule reveals that the president will return to Washington, D.C. tonight after campaign events in Connecticut and Pennsylvania and stay there through Election Day. Tomorrow Obama will sit down with Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen. The following day he'll take other meetings at the White House instead of barnstorming the country, campaigning for endangered Democrats. While the president will be out of...

Yo, Dr Coburn. Whatcha doing today?Anything important going on that your constituents might want to hear about? What do you think?

South Korea will pay even closer attention to rogue neighbour North Korea's parliamentary session on 25 September, after reports that its supreme leader Kim Jong-un has not been seen in public for three weeks. South Korean reports claim that the dictator has not been seen since attending a concert on 3 September with his wife Ri Sol Ju. Eyebrows were raised over the thought to be 31-year-old's health after he was seen hobbling from a suspected leg injury during a ceremony marking the 20th anniversary of the death of his grandfather Kim Il Sung in July. He was also seen...

WASHINGTON (AP) — A Marine who was declared a deserter nearly 10 years ago after disappearing in Iraq and then returning to the U.S. claiming he had been kidnapped, only to disappear again, is back in U.S. custody, officials said Sunday. Cpl. Wassef Ali Hassoun, 34, turned himself in and was being flown Sunday from an undisclosed location in the Middle East to Norfolk, Va. He is to be moved Monday to Camp Lejeune in North Carolina, according to a spokesman, Capt. Eric Flanagan. Maj. Gen. Raymond Fox, commander of the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Force at Lejeune, will determine whether...

The official topic of the conference, emblazoned on materials handed out to guests gathered here at a luxury Norwegian-inspired resort, was “The Future of American Leadership.” But the unofficial theme was made clear not long into breakfast on Friday, when a guest asked Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky the question on everyone’s mind: Is Hillary beatable?(SNIP) “This is the place where, I believe, the future of the party is really going to come out of,” said Anthony Scaramucci, a New York hedge fund manager and former Romney fund-raising bundler. “This is the Republican Party’s Bell Labs. This is our R...

No Honor Allowed for POW/MIA Display e Missing Man Table is a semi-official place of honor in some dining facilities of the U.S. armed forces in memory of fallen, missing, or imprisoned military service-members. The table serves as the focal point of ceremonial remembrance, originally growing out of US concern for the Vietnam War POW/MIA issue. The display consists of small table with a white table cloth, an inverted glass, a plate with a lemon and salt, a single rose and yellow ribbon. To a few the most offensive part of the display is the Bible. Patrick Air Force Base...