Congress likely has the votes to override President Donald Trump's threatened veto of the entire defense policy bill over a provision that would change the names of Army bases honoring Confederate generals, according to a top member of the House Armed Services Committee. "I think the president is going to be hard-pressed to veto over that issue," said Rep. Anthony Brown, D-Maryland, a retired Army... Read more »
A push to remove a controversial statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee at Antietam National Battlefield is continuing to get consideration in Congress, and could be wrapped with similar initiatives, according to a spokesman for U.S. Rep. Anthony Brown. Brown, D-Md., who represents Maryland's 4th District, initially introduced a resolution calling for the removal of the statue in 2017 following... Read more »
More than two dozen House Democrats are demanding the reinstatement of LGBTQ Pride and Sovereign Native Nations flags on military installations — and an explicit ban on the Confederate Flag. In a letter sent Friday to Department of Defense Secretary Mark Esper, 34 lawmakers argued that a new policy he issued last month — which was intended to target the Confederate battle flag, but ultimately also... Read more »
Dozens of House lawmakers on Thursday sent a letter to Defense Secretary Mark Esper calling for him to reverse a recent policy change banning display of LGBTQ pride flags in public areas at bases, saying it runs counter to the military’s stated goals of inclusion and respect. The move came after a legislative effort earlier this week to force a change of Esper’s July 16 memo that effectively banne... Read more »
More than two dozen Democrats are demanding Defense Secretary Mark Esper allow service members to fly LGBT Pride and Native Nation flags, which were banned when Esper issued a broad flag policy that was intended to target the Confederate battle flag. "We ask that you immediately revise the new policy on flag display, explicitly ban the Confederate battle flag, and ensure that service members can e... Read more »
More than two dozen House Democrats are demanding the reinstatement of LGBTQ Pride and Sovereign Native Nations flags on military installations — and an explicit ban on the Confederate Flag. In a letter sent Friday to Department of Defense Secretary Mark Esper, 34 lawmakers argued that a new policy he issued last month — which was intended to target the Confederate battle flag, but ultimately also... Read more »
On Thursday, the U.S. House of Representatives passed an amendment that would overturn Donald Trump’s ban on transgender people in the military, which has been in effect since April 2019. As it stands, trans people can serve in the military but only in the sex they were assigned at birth. In order to serve in their true gender identity, they would need to get a waiver. The new measure, introduced ... Read more »
Dozens of U.S. Representatives have hatched a plan to stop the Department of Defense from banning the display of rainbow LGBTQ pride flags at military installations. A July 16 memo from Secretary of Defense Mark Esper was aimed at banning the Confederate flag from being flown at U.S. military bases but also resulted the prohibition of many other flags that had been previously allowed, including th... Read more »
Three bills to identify and remove Confederate monuments on federal land, including a privately funded statue of Robert E. Lee in Maryland, will get a hearing from a House Natural Resources subcommittee on Tuesday. Rep. Anthony G. Brown, D-Md., is scheduled to speak on his bill to remove the Lee statue, which sits on the Antietam National Battlefield and has been vandalized with graffiti in suppor... Read more »
Leaders in Montgomery County, Maryland, want the state to put the brakes on the review process for a controversial road-widening project. The draft environmental impact statement with attachments is more than 18,000 pages long. It is part of the process of creating a public-private partnership, or P3, for Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan’s plan to widen parts of Interstate 270 and the Capital Beltway. It... Read more »
