Martha McSally is a US Representative from Arizona and a former US Air Force A-10 pilot. She recently announced her intention to run for Arizona’s soon-to-be vacant Senate seat. Within that conversation, she defended the coarse language recently used by President Trump:
“I speak a little salty behind closed doors at times as well, so I’m Read more
Massachusetts Rep. Joseph Kennedy invited US Army SSgt King — once known as Peter and now called Patricia — to be his guest at President Trump’s State of the Union address:
[Kennedy] told the paper that he invited King to remind the president of transgender service members’ dedication to the U.S.
“I want her to be there as a real person, and the face of an inhumane policy,” Kennedy said.
Lots of people are “dedicat[ed]” to the US, and it is asinine to say it is “inhumane” to not be allowed to serve in the US military. To do so denigrates many Americans who would like to serve their country in the US military but, like King, are told they cannot do so.
Worse is the fact SSgt King is explicitly Read more
UPDATE: Fort Jackson says “there are no plans to rescind the invitation,” as reported by MRFF-friendly Nina Burleigh at Newsweek. Fort Jackson said [emphasis added]:
The Prayer Breakfast is open to all community members, is entirely voluntary, and is cost free to the Army and attendees. Mr. Copeland’s participation in the prayer breakfast is not an endorsement by Fort Jackson of him or of any comments that he may present. Fort Jackson respects and protects all individual’s rights under the First Amendment to the Constitution, including ensuring access to religious services and events for those who wish to participate and protecting the rights of those who do not.
Michael “Mikey” Weinstein has sent an email to Fort Jackson, SC, demanding the Army post disinvite Kenneth Copeland from their upcoming National Prayer Breakfast. 
Addressing MajGen John Johnson, Fort Jackson’s Commanding General, Weinstein wrote that Fort Jackson’s upcoming speaker:
is the universally despicable, discredited, fundamentalist Christian extremist/supremacist Kenneth Copeland. Do you know ANYthing of moment about this feckless, religious bully/provocateur, General Johnson?
Weinstein went on to call Copeland “disgusting,” “a miserable, fundamentalist Christian wretch,” a “divisive and corrosive individual/religious predator and bully” and “hideously reprehensible fundamentalist Christian charlatan cum exclusivist bigot.”
Clearly, Mikey Weinstein has a thing for Kenneth Copeland.
But other than his dripping vitriol and thesaurus-like list of adjectives of disdain for the prosperity gospel minister, Weinstein never Read more
Michael “Mikey” Weinstein’s “charity,” the MRFF, recently published a bit of fan-mail from a person excoriating President Trump’s Tuesday proclamation of Religious Freedom Day.
And even Weinstein’s own research assistant, Chris Rodda, probably grimaced.
The letter, written by a “30-year Active Duty Air Force Officer”, lambasts Trump’s proclamation, claiming it is a “dog whistle of Fundamentalist Christian Dominionism.” As proof [formatting original]:
To understand his real declaratory intent, we need only look at his last paragraph in which he says, “I have hereunto set my hand this sixteenth day of January, in the year of our Lord two thousand eighteen…”
…[Trump] ENLARGES the views of those that see 2018 as ‘The Year of Our Lord,’ i.e., Christians only.
Longevity in the military is clearly no guarantor of intellectual acuity.
As anyone with an elementary education and an internet connection could tell you, the Read more
Each year since 1993 the President has declared January 16th to be “Religious Freedom Day,” in order to remember the passage of Thomas Jefferson’s 1786 Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom. President Trump has not yet released his proclamation.
Update: From President Trump’s proclamation [emphasis added]:
Our Constitution and laws guarantee Americans the right not just to believe as they see fit, but to freely exercise their religion. Unfortunately, not all have recognized the importance of religious freedom, whether by threatening tax consequences for particular forms of religious speech, or forcing people to comply with laws that violate their core religious beliefs without sufficient justification. These incursions, little by little, can destroy the fundamental freedom underlying our democracy…No American — whether a nun, nurse, baker, or business owner — should be forced to choose between the tenets of faith or adherence to the law.
Jefferson’s statute continues to be a strong expression for the value of religious liberty even today. Though the statute has been discussed in many places and in great depth, there are two important points to take from the statute. First, Read more
Kori Schake is a fellow at Stanford University and co-edited a book with now-Secretary of Defense James Mattis. (She also called then-candidate Donald Trump a “unique risk to US national security“.) In an article about the politicization of the deaths of US troops, she notes the US military is increasingly seen as a means to a sociopolitical end:
Research…points to a growing belief the military is fair game to mine for partisan talking points because of its place as America’s most trusted institution.
That’s something the homosexual movement discovered a few years ago, as they claimed an American service member who was willing to serve and potentially sacrifice his life for his country should, in return, have his preferred sexual lifestyle permitted, validated, and even honored. The homosexual Read more
Sailors onboard the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz did take the time to celebrate Christmas along with their families while in port.
A facility in Qatar was decked out in a “winter wonderland” complete with Christmas tree.
Business Insider did a photographic piece on Christmas in the military, which Read more
The 2017 official White House Christmas card actually says “Merry Christmas” — for the first time in 8 years.
Via the Associated Read more