A Letter From Afghanistan

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Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
Caveats: FOUO

Thanks my friend,..I don't know where to begin really so I may ramble
endlessly,... I don't really want to go into all the firefights, and
this is not my first combat experience, however, this place is not
Kosovo,..."Maddys war" and it is not Iraq,..it is worse. I don't really
find myself challenging my faith in God and my belief in Jesus Christ
because what I have witnessed, to the contrary, my faith has been
reinforced...Example: Two nights ago my best friend Richard Randall
Rush,..or Triple "R" ...AKA the "DICK RANDY" was in a big TIC( Troops in
Contact)or a fire fight with his men. One of his Soldiers was shot
square in the head,..in the ACH helmet..This was no 5.56 Round but a
7.62 AK round,..the Round entered this kids Hemet, traversed the inside
arch of his ACH, tearing up the pads and out the other side,...There is
no way this kid should be alive right? There is no explanation for this
JFK magic bullet but I saw the kid and the ACH....when you see this shit
it confirms that some people are meant to live and some were meant to
die. A couple of weeks back I was in shootout where three of our guys
got shot close to me. One week later we lose two Soldiers in one of the
worse fights the 101st Division had experienced while saving a downed
pilot. Every day I leave the wire one of us takes contact,...I used to
look forward to killing "The Haj",..but I find myself getting more and
more angry every day,..I see it in other Soldiers, other
leaders,...maybe it's just the end of the deployment and people are at
each other,...maybe it's the witnessing of the corruption here,..the
biting of the very hand that feeds these people....Maybe it's
frustration of our own risk adverse leadership, who refuse to take the
fight to the enemy. Some days I hate even leaving the wire thinking
"What's the point?" 

Being older and wiser than a lot of my peer group, I feel I can handle
the stress better than many of the others, but I find myself waking up
at 0200AM right on schedule,..I find my mind racing with negative
thoughts at night and I can't fall to sleep. I'm finding that I rarely
call home,..I have left Facebook,...and I'm confrontational with my
higher ups,...Saying things like " Sir, You can go have a nice hot cup
of,.. Go Fuck Yourself!".....As a RECON Commander I used to preach to my
Junior Officers and NCO's to watch for signs of PTSD.  When I step back
and self assess myself, as most good leaders should do,..I find some of
the very warnings in my own actions. I do not know if I have anything
crazy wrong with me or not, but I'm troubled my something and not sure
what it is,...I don't feel traumatized by what I'm seen,...Soldiers get
hurt and killed, dead people are dead people,..kids run over by MRAPS
are sad but the world is a cruel place.

I have probably put out more here than I would normally have ever said
to your face. I guess I'm not looking for you to solve the puzzle here
and get involved. 

Related articles

• Kent soldier killed in attack (dispatch.com)
• Port Orchard man among 6 soldiers killed in Afghanistan (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• Atoll Journey: Project Update (UNCLASSIFIED) (yeshuabenyhvh.wordpress.com)
• Military reports 6 soldiers killed in Afghanistan (seattletimes.nwsource.com)

Converting Mamet | The Weekly Standard

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

Converting Mamet | The Weekly Standard

Even so, for anyone who admires Mamet and his work—and who agrees with most of his newly discovered political views—there’s something thrilling about seeing a man so accomplished in an unforgiving art subject his ideas to pitiless examination and, as he put it, “take it all the way down to the paint.” When Mamet recognized himself as a conservative, Shelby Steele told me, “it made him happy.” 

He doesn’t freely talk about what it cost him psychologically, however, and he says he hasn’t thought about what it might cost him professionally. 

When I pushed him on the subject, he started talking about Jon Voight, another show business Republican.

One day Voight handed him Witness, the Cold War memoir by the Communist-turned-anti-Communist Whittaker Chambers. 

“This book will change your life,” Voight told Mamet.

“And he was right,” Mamet said. “It had a huge effect on me. Forcing yourself into a new way of thinking about things is a wrenching experience. But first you have to look back and atone. You think, ‘Oh my god, what have I done? What was I thinking?’ You realize you’ve been a co-dependent with the herd. And then, when you decide to say what you’ve discovered, out loud, you take the risk that everyone you know will look on you as a fool.”

Sitting on an overstuffed sofa in his office, he threw up his hands.

“But what the hell,” he said. “I’m the troublemaker. That’s my role in life. I’m the class clown.”

Starting next month we’ll find out who’s laughing.

Related articles

• The turning of David Mamet (powerlineblog.com)
• A Conversion Story (ourdinnertable.wordpress.com)
• Mamet Attacks (newsweek.com)
• David Mamet, Genius, Conservative Convert (minx.cc)
• Hats Off: (brothersjuddblog.com)
• David Mamet's Coming Out Party (online.wsj.com)
• David Mamet: F-ing Republican (thecynicalchristian.blogspot.com)

Thank Speaker Boehner for Blocking Obama Recess Appointments | RedState

Thank Speaker Boehner for Blocking Obama Recess Appointments | RedState

Thank Speaker Boehner for Blocking Obama Recess Appointments

Posted by Erick Erickson (Profile)

Tuesday, May 31st at 5:00AM EDT

3 Comments

You need to call Speaker Boehner’s office right now at 202-225-0600 and thank him for the extraordinary step he took this week to slow down President Obama’s radical agenda.

With the Obama legislative agenda stalled, the left has turned its attention toward using the Executive power to accomplish their socialist goals. The key to this strategy is to the pack agencies, boards, and commissions such as the National Labor Relations Board and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, with leftists like Craig Becker and Elizabeth Warrenwho will advance the collectivist agenda, regardless of whether there is any legal authority to do so.

The Senate has blocked several of the more radical nominees, but under the Constitution, President Obama has the power to appoint them during a Congressional recess.

Republican Senators warned Obama not to use his recess powers to appoint Becker to the NLRB. He did it anyhow. Becker didn’t disappoint, leading the NLRB to accuse Boeing of violating workers rights by opening a plant in South Carlolina.

Observers expect him to appoint leftists to the Obamacare Independent Payment Advisory Board, they expect him to appoint liberal Peter Diamond to the Federal Reserve Board, along with Warren, Becker, and a host of other leftwing radicals. He can even recess appoint Federal judges to rubber stamp his agenda until the end of the Congress.

Obama needs two things in order to do this – (1) a pen (or, I suppose, an autopen), and a (2) a Senate recess. The Constitution is unclear how long a recess is required. Most constitutional scholars say ten days is the minimum. However, there is almost universal agreement among scholars that a recess of less than three days does not trigger the recess appointment power. In 2007, Reid held “pro-forma” Senate sessions every three days, which successfully prevented Bush from making recess appointments.

Which brings us to another provision in the Constitution. Article 1, Section 5 says “Neither House, during the session of Congress, shall, without the consent of the other, adjourn for more than three days[.]”. This means that without the consent of the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, the Senate cannot adjourn for more than three days, and thus President Obama cannot make any recess appointments.

On Wednesday, 20 Senators led by David Vitter and Jim DeMint wrote a letter to Speaker Boehner asking him to use his authority under Article 1, Section 5 to block the recess appointments.

On Friday, the Examiner reported that Speaker Boehner did not pass a resolution giving the Senate permission to adjourn. Therefore, as he did in 2007, Harry Reid will convene pro-forma sessions today, on Tuesday May 31, and on Friday June 3rd, in order to block his own President from doing recess appointments.

Reid was forced to do this because of the leadership of Speaker Boehner. We must thank our Speaker.

Call Speaker Boehner at 202-225-0600 and thank him for his leadership.

Tell him to continue to refuse to allow the Senate to adjourn for the remainder of the Obama Presidency.

Obama's job approval among the military is even worse than among civilians - latimes.com

Obama's job approval among the military is even worse than among civilians - latimes.com

HAH! Thanks Gallup and the L.A. Times for saying what they can't say out loud...

Gen. Martin Dempsey: Obama names Gen. Martin Dempsey to chair Joint Chiefs of Staff - latimes.com

Gen. Martin Dempsey: Obama names Gen. Martin Dempsey to chair Joint Chiefs of Staff - latimes.com