‘LET’S TALK ABOUT THE PRESIDENT DOING BLOW’: REP. WEST PUSHES BACK ON TOWN HALL QUESTION

When a few attendees at a Florida town hall meeting tried to rattle Rep. Allen West (R-FL) with questions about his service in the U.S. Army, the congressman brushed it off and suggested they also go back and talk about the time President Obama snorted benzoylmethylecgonine (i.e. “cocaine” or “blow”).

“If you guys want to go back and talk about what happened nine years ago to me, let’s talk about the president doing blow,” Rep. West said.

The attendees questioned Rep. West about an Article 15 hearing he was involved in as a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army.

For those of you unfamiliar with the term “Article 15,” it’s defined as follows:

Nonjudicial punishment (NJP) refers to certain limited punishments which can be awarded for minor disciplinary offenses by a commanding officer or officer in charge to members of his/her command.

[…]

Article 15, of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, (UCMJ), and Part V of the Manual for Courts-Martial, constitute the basic law concerning nonjudicial punishment procedures. The legal protection afforded an individual subject to NJP proceedings is more complete than is the case for nonpunitive measures, but, by design, is less extensive than for courts-martial.

But why would they ask Rep. West about an Article 15 hearing? They asked because they were bringing up a controversial incident the congressman was involved in when he served in Iraq, Townhall’s Katie Pavlich explains. Here’s the story as reported by Deborah Sontag of the New York Times:

Intent on foiling a reported plot to ambush him and his men, Colonel West, a battalion commander, made a calculated decision to intimidate the Iraqi officer with a show of force. An interrogation under way was going nowhere, Colonel West said in an interview, and he chose to take the matter into his own hands.

”This could get ugly,” he told his soldiers. But, he said, he imposed limits: ”This man will not be injured and he will not have to be repaired. There will be no blood and no breakage of bones.”

Still, Colonel West wanted the Iraqi policeman, Yehiya Kadoori Hamoodi, to think ”this was going to be the end” if he did not divulge what he knew. So Colonel West presided over what he considered a time-sensitive interrogation that grew steadily more abusive until he himself fired a pistol beside Mr. Hamoodi’s head.

Rep. West was fined for the incident but retired with full benefits and honors. And he’s never been apologetic about it, saying he would do it all over again.

“If you guys have a problem with the fact that people were out there planning to kill my soldiers and I found a guy and I put a pistol, you know, and shot over his head,” Rep. West said, “… if you guys have a problem with that, then you need to go talk to someone else because if I’m in that exact same situation, I’m making the same decision.”

(H/T: WZ)
The Blaze

Holder to brief black pastors on campaign 2012

Holder to brief black pastors on campaign 2012

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Attorney General Eric Holder, the IRS, and the liberal lawyers at the ACLU will brief several hundred pastors in the African American community on how to participate in the presidential election -- which the Congressional Black Caucus chair expects will help President Obama's campaign.

"We will have representatives from nine denominations who actually pastor somewhere in the neighborhood of about 10 million people, and we're going to first of all equip them with the information they need to know about what they can say and what they cannot say in the church that would violate their 501c3 status with the IRS," Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, D-Mo., told MSNBC today.

"In fact, we're going to have the IRS administrator there, we're going to have the Attorney General Eric Holder there, we're going to have the lawyers' organization from around the country, the ACLU -- all giving ministers guidance about what they can and cannot do," he noted.

Cleaver said they would not tell pastors which candidate to support. They will let them know who to regard as the bad guys, though (hint: not Democrats). "We're going to talk about some of the draconian laws that have cropped up around the country as a result of the 17 percent increase in African American votes," Cleaver said, describing voter ID laws as a form of Jim Crow-style "poll tax" on seniors and black voters.

The CBC chairman is confident that "President Obama is going to get 95 percent of the [African American] vote," and wants to keep that turnout high. "We want to let them know that there is a theological responsibility to participate in the political process, at least in the Judeo-Christian tradition," he said.

Washington Examiner

Hey MSNBC This is what a HERO looks like!

FALLEN MARINE’S HEARTFELT LETTER: ‘THERE WILL BE A CHILD WHO WILL LIVE’ BECAUSE OF THIS SACRIFICE

The Blaze

KABUL, Afghanistan (The Blaze/AP) — U.S. Marine Sgt. William Stacey was killed earlier this year by a homemade bomb in southern Afghanistan, a tragedy for which he prepared by writing a letter to his family explaining why he was fighting that was to be read in the event of his death.

The Blaze previously reported on Stacey’s passing, and of his poignant letter, but today that letter was read aloud by the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan as a Memorial Day tribute in Afghanistan.

Marine Gen. John Allen read the 23-year-old’s letter during a Memorial Day service Monday in Kabul in memory of all the troops who have died in the country since the war started in 2001.

“Today we remember his life and his words, for they speak resoundingly and timelessly for our fallen brothers and sisters in arms,” said Allen, who also leads the NATO coalition in Afghanistan.

Stacey was on his fourth deployment to Afghanistan when he was killed on January 31 in Helmand province. The young Marine from Redding, California, told his family that he was motivated to fight in Afghanistan to protect the country’s children and provide them the opportunity to go to school and live out their dreams.

“There will be a child who will live because men left the security they enjoyed in their home to come to his,” Stacey wrote in his letter. “He will have the gift of freedom which I have enjoyed for so long myself, and if my life brings the safety of a child who will one day change the world, then I know that it was all worth it.”

ABC provides a report:

Stacey deployed to Afghanistan with the 2nd Battalion, 4th Marines, 1st Marine Division out of Camp Pendleton, California.

At least 1,851 members of the U.S. military have died in Afghanistan as a result of the U.S.-led invasion in 2001, according to the latest Associated Press count.

Allen said that since he took over command in Afghanistan in July 2011, at least 251 American troops, 76 other NATO coalition members and 1,296 members of the Afghan security forces have been killed in the country.

Three more members of the NATO coalition were killed Monday, two in a helicopter crash in the east and one in an insurgent attack in the south, the force said.

During Monday’s ceremony at NATO coalition headquarters, Allen helped lay a large wreath at the base of a pedestal holding a battlefield cross – the traditional memorial to a fallen soldier, constructed using the troop’s boots, rifle, helmet and dog tags. Allen stepped back and crisply saluted as Taps played over a speaker.

Support for the Afghan war has waned in the U.S. and other countries in the coalition as casualties have mounted and progress has seemed elusive. The U.S. plans to transfer security responsibilities to Afghan forces by the middle of 2013 and withdraw most of its combat troops by the end of the following year.

Despite the human cost of the war, Allen said the soldiers who have fallen did not die in vain.

“While our brothers and sisters fell in a place far from home, far from their families, the values for which they stood and for which they lived and for which they died occupy an enduring place in our hearts,” said Allen. “Those values: freedom, duty, selflessness and sacrifice.”

Arabic mandatory at city public school

An upper Manhattan public elementary school will be the first in the city to require that students study Arabic, officials said yesterday.

Beginning next semester, all 200 second- through fifth-graders at PS 368 in Hamilton Heights will be taught the language twice a week for 45 minutes — putting it on equal footing with science and music courses.

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New Commissars, Same As The Old Commissars

May 19, 2012: Many Russian military leaders are still stuck with a Cold War mentality. There is still the paranoid attitude towards the West, the efforts to dominate neighboring countries and a military alliance with China against the West. Many Russians find these retro attitudes comforting. Russian politicians find it easier to control public opinion if they can create a credible foreign enemy
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