Tag Archives: Military

UAV Pilots in Nevada to Receive Combat Time

The Air Force has decided that operators of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs, also known as Remotely Piloted Aircraft, RPAs) can log time in combat — even if they never leave the desert of Nevada:

Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Mark A. Welsh III authorized RPA aircrews to log combat time when flying an aircraft within designated hostile airspace, regardless of the aircrew’s physical location.

What is unclear is whether those same operators will now be entitled to Imminent Danger Pay (Combat Pay) and the Combat Zone Tax Exclusion (CZTE).

Allowing those operators to claim “combat” time while physically Read more

Article: Stop Calling Ted Cruz a Dominionist

Robert Gagnon and Edith Humphrey at Christianity Today wrote an interesting article entitled “Stop Calling Ted Cruz a Dominionist.” In essence, it takes critics of Ted Cruz to task for using a label that clearly doesn’t make sense.

They summarize some of those accusing Cruz of being a “dominionist,” including John Fea, professor of American history at Messiah College, and Warren Throckmorton, professor of psychology at Grove City College (think Chris Rodda with credibility).

They then explain where the term and accusations are coming from:

The term has become elastic, encompassing Christians who believe the United States was once a predominantly Christian nation as well as those who hold “right-wing” views. But as many writers have noted, this elastic sense has become a bogeyman.

Jewish journalist Stanley Kurtz called it “conspiratorial nonsense,” while Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson declared: “Thin charges of dominionism are just another attempt to discredit opponents rather than answer them.”

Even the liberal journalist Lisa Miller called the loose accusation of dominionism “the paranoid mot du jour.”

The two authors then give examples from Ted Cruz’s life that seem to Read more

Transgender Fighter Pilot To-Be Awaits Policy Change

The New York Times recently bemoaned that it was “unfair” to US troops who have publicly announced their gender identity issues for the US military to fail to follow through with its unstated promise of letting them serve in whatever gender expression they chose.

To be clear, US military policy states those who “identify” as a gender other than their actual one have issues that disqualify them from serving. In July of last year, Secretary of Defense Ash Carter stood up a “working group” to study the impact of allowing troops with gender issues to serve [emphasis added]:

“At my direction,” Carter said, “the working group will start with the presumption that transgender persons can serve openly without adverse impact on military effectiveness and readiness, unless and except where objective, practical impediments are identified.”

The working group was to study the issue over the succeeding six months.

Eight months later, the New York Times chided Carter for Read more

Bladensburg Peace Cross Defended by 26 State Attorneys General

The Attorneys General from 26 states have signed a bipartisan brief in the ongoing case by the American Humanist Association to tear down the Bladensburg Peace Cross, a cross-shaped World War I memorial. As published by the Attorney General for South Dakota:

“The State Attorneys General are requesting the Federal Courts to recognize important Constitutional rights and respect the dedication, sacrifice, and freedoms earned by our veterans,” said Attorney General Jackley…

South Dakota and 24 other states are requesting the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to affirm a lower court’s ruling, which found the U.S. Constitution allows veterans memorials with religious symbolism…

Jackley highlighted something militant atheists are often hesitant to admit [emphasis added]:  Read more

The Citadel Considers a Hijab in Uniform

citadelFor the first time in its history, The Citadel is considering a request for a uniform exception that would allow a cadet to keep a religious accoutrement. Interestingly, the request came from a female (and females were only allowed in The Citadel at all starting in 1995).

The Citadel is considering a request from an admitted student that she be allowed to wear a hijab in keeping with her Muslim faith, a move that would be an unprecedented exception to the school’s longstanding uniform requirements.

The Citadel is not the US military, nor is it a state actor — but it does receive state money. That Read more

Court: Flying Spaghetti Monster Is Not a Religion

As if it needed to be said, a US District Court has ruled that the Flying Spaghetti Monster and his creed of Pastafarianism is satire, not religion:

In a 16-page decision, the U.S. District Court of Nebraska ruled on April 12 that Pastafarianism is satire, not sacred, and that anyone who thinks it is a religion has made an error “of basic reading comprehension.”

(This comes as the Associated Press trumpeted the “First Pastafarian Wedding.”) This has affected the US military in the past, when atheists and critics Read more

Congressman, Freedom Advocates Object to POW/MIA Bible Removals

Update: More recent coverage of this “controversy” cites the VA saying “the hospital received complaints from…a former prisoner of war who was not a Christian.” Given that such a claim would have been a coup for Weinstein, and it has appeared in no other report, it is likely an error in reporting.

Update: The ACLJ published a statement contradicting Mikey Weinstein’s machinations and a petition calling for a defense of the Bible in “Veterans’ Displays.”  The Army Times covered the removal of a Bible from another display, this one at Tobyhanna Army Depot (which hosts 93 soldiers), where no one apparently knew how the Bible even got there.

powtable1US Congressmen and a variety of religious liberty groups have objected to the forced removal of Bibles from POW/MIA remembrance tables at facilities in Ohio and Texas. The removals came at the request of Michael “Mikey” Weinstein, who called the inclusion of the Bibles an act of “supremacy.”

Congressman Doug Collins (R-Ga), also a Reserve AF Chaplain, had previously said he was “appalled” that the VA “caved” to Weinstein’s “antics.”

This organization has devoted itself to attacking Christians and undermining the religious freedoms guaranteed to our men and women in uniform by the Constitution.

In response, the reliably infantile Mikey Weinstein

called Collins an ignoramus and “worthless sack of Read more

Navy: Ship Commissioning Not Changed over LGBT Bill

portlandThe US Navy has disputed reports that the USS Portland (LPD 27) will be commissioned in Portland, rather than where it is being built in Mississippi, because of Mississippi’s recently passed legislation protecting religious objections to homosexuality.

When the Navy announced the commissioning would happen in the namesake town of Portland, activists and some news outlets seized on the timing, with CBS reporting that “Navy ceremony moved over Mississippi anti-gay law objection.” The Navy disagreed: Read more

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