Is Erik Prince A Small "L" Libertarian?

This is an interesting piece concerning the future use of private security contractors in a free market.  I recommend anyone that's interested in Erik Prince, BlackWater, or their business model read his book, Civilian Warriors.





-ADY"A Regular Guy On The Issues"

Gov. Gary Johnson's statement on U.S. intervention in Syria.

FYI - From The Office of Gov. Gary Johnson.

#LiveFree

#ProgressiveLibertarian

#PushBack

#LeftLibertarian

-ADY "A Regular Guy On The Issues"

Gov. Gary Johnson released the following statement concerning U.S. intervention in Syria:


“No one disagrees that the use of chemical weapons in Syria is despicable, and the results tragic. However, those facts alone do not make going to war either justified or even a good idea. And while the Administration can parse words all day long, launching missiles or dropping bombs constitutes going to war.

“There is no clear U.S. interest in what is, in reality, a civil war on the other side of the globe. Likewise, there is nothing to indicate at this time that intervening in that civil war will benefit anyone -- either here in America or in Syria.

“The consequences of our military actions in Iraq, Libya and Afghanistan should be a lesson to President Obama and others who appear determined to act without any meaningful strategic or national defense justification.”

FYI - From Michael Scheuer/Non-Intervention.com.

#LiveFree

#PushBack

#LeftLibertarian

#ProgressiveLibertarian

-ADY "A Regular Guy On The Issues"

Use the Constitution to prevent war with Syria

By mike | Published: August 22, 2013

Syria is getting to be an old and boring story, but it still is a deadly come-hither trap in which America may yet be bloodily ensnared by its bipartisan interventionists.

By now the story is familiar. A government in Damascus that is officially recognized by all the Great Powers, the UN, and other major international organizations is attacked by domestic dissidents who are supported and militarily powered by al-Qaeda and other mujahedin, and funded by the Saudi, Emirati, and Qatari regimes. The “International Community,” as usual, sides with any set of miscreants that can utter the word “democracy” and thereby ensures the currently ongoing bloodbath in Syria. President Obama, his party, and the Republicans also side with al-Qaeda and the Islamists against Asaad in a piece of thinking that is perfectly logical when you accept that none of that crowd cares about preserving America’s security and financial viability, or about how many American lives they waste.

Now, we have fresh reports that the Asaad regime has used chemical weapons against areas belonging to the Syrian government’s Islamist enemies and that we have — perhaps? maybe ? probably? certainly? — crossed Obama’s much-vaunted red line for sending the U.S. military to teach Asaad a lesson about how to be a good citizen of the world, or at least to be more kind to Syrian citizens than Obama ever intends to be toward U.S. citizens.

Obama is, of course, consulting with his interventionist brains trust — starting with the towering intellects of Biden, Kerry, Brennan, and Susan Rice — and the president will certainly order those senile Republican champions of all war, all the time, McCain and Graham, to demand a U.S. military assault on Asaad’s government.

Amidst the developing momentum for the U.S. to enter another war that will strengthen al-Qaeda and its allies — like the one Obama fought in Libya and the anti-democratic one in Egypt he authorized this month — perhaps it is worth reviewing three salient and crystal clear facts:

–1st : The United States has no genuine national-security interests in Syria. If all Syrians turn up dead tomorrow morning it would have precisely no impact on security of the United States. Syrians share this characteristic with those living in most areas of the world outside North America, which is the main reason that America would fight very few wars if it ever begins to elect adults to the presidency and the Congress.

–2nd: Unless America is attacked first, no U.S. president has the constitutional authority to take America to war without a formal declaration of war by Congress. Asaad surely is not going to stage an amphibious invasion of America, although a month-long visit from Syria’s Republican Guard could do nothing but good for the now-occupied Political/Hollywood summer-vacation cesspools in the Hamptons and Martha’s Vineyard. Therefore, the Senate and House leaders ought to tell Ol’ Red-Line Barack that there will be dollars and American lives for a Syrian war only if (a) he formally asks for a declaration of war and (b) the Congress believes his justification for a war and votes in favor of taking 330 million Americans into an unnecessary war against the Syrian Superpower.

–3rd : Today’s status quo in Syria benefits U.S. national-security interests without Washington having to take any action at all:

–a.) The Syrian army, Lebanese Hizaballah guerrillas, and Iran’s soldiers are killing large numbers of America’s enemies among al-Qaeda, its allies, and their supporters. Iran and Syria also are spending themselves further into bankruptcy.

–b.) At the same time, Al-Qaeda and its allies — America’s enemies — are killing large numbers of the Syrian army, Lebanese Hizballah guerrillas, and Iran’s soldiers, all of whom Washington describes as America’s true-blue enemies.

–c.) And much of this mayhem is being at least partially facilitated by the money and expensive equipment being sent to each side by other of America’s enemies — Russia, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the UAE, for example.

For all of these realistic, common sense, beneficial-to-America, and — dare I say? — America First reasons, as well as for the even more important constitutional reasons cited above, Senate and House leaders ought to lay down the constitutional law — that is, no Congressional declaration, no war — to the supposed constitutional lawyer Obama and thereby make him obey the law for the first time in his presidency.

FYI - From Cristy Lenz/CNN.com.

#LiveFree

#NeverForget

#BringThemHome

-ADY "A Regular Guy On The Issues"

Captured U.S. soldier's letter revives family's hopes

From Cristy Lenz, CNN

updated 7:41 AM EDT, Thu June 6, 2013

In 2012: Honoring POW Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Letter: "He was no doubt alive"
• "They are being very careful with him," Bergdahl's father writes
• Bergdahl was captured after he finished his guard shift
• His father believes a resolution is "getting closer"

(CNN) -- The family of Bowe Bergdahl, a U.S. soldier captured by the Taliban in 2009, received a letter from him recently -- reviving their hopes that the 27-year-old army sergeant is still alive.

Bergdahl's father mentioned receiving the letter in an e-mail exchange with Dwight Murphy, the spokesman for the local POW/MIA group in Boise Valley, Idaho.

 

"We have received a letter from Bowe through the Red Cross!" the father says in the exchange. "He was scripted and redacted but he was no doubt alive and his faculties fully functioning as of two months ago."

 

He did not say when he got the letter, but Murphy copied and pasted the exchange with the father on his Facebook page after receiving his permission to do so.

2012: Challenges of POW negotiations

2012: Remembering prisoners of war

 

The father's letter goes on say, "They are being very careful with him. He is still highly valued at high levels.

 

"Guantanamo, drones and politics in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Washington are still the big issues."

CNN was unable to reach the father late Wednesday night. The network also reached out to the military and the International Committee for the Red Cross for confirmation, but did not hear back.

Last week, the military told CNN it had no reason to believe Bergdahl was dead.

 

In 2012: Parents of captured soldier lead Washington motorcycle rally

 

Whereabouts unclear

Bergdahl was captured after he finished his guard shift at a combat outpost in southeastern Paktika province in Afghanistan.

 

Since his capture, four videos of the Idaho native have been released.

But the last video was sent in February 2011, and it's unclear where Bergdahl is being held now.

He was a private at the time.

 

The army has been giving Bergdahl promotions that would have come to him had his army career gone as planned. If he returns home safely, the army will give him all the back pay that he has earned while in captivity.

 

His father has rarely spoken to the media.

Bowe Bergdahl, an adventurer and gentleman

 

Resolution close?

In his exchange with Murphy, he said he believed "we are getting closer to a resolution."

But, he added, there seems to be a disagreement among the Taliban about the direction forward.

 

"It appears at least several parties want to arbitrate captive SGT Bowe, several others ... want to keep fighting until every single Westerner is out," the father said.

 

Last year, Bergdahl's parents led the Rolling Thunder ride in Washington, and said the family holds out hope for his safe return.

 

"Bowe, your family has not forgotten you, your hometown has not forgotten you. Your state of Idaho has not forgotten you, and thanks to all of you here today, Washington D.C. has not forgotten you," his father told a cheering crowd.

 

"We love you, we are proud of you. Stay strong, never give up. We pray for the day that we welcome you home," he said.

 

Flanked by riders wanting to offer support for the safe return of his son, Bergdahl spoke separately to CNN. He sported a long beard and wore a bandana imprinted with "POW." His son's official status is listed as "missing/captured."

 

"The beard is a chronology," Bergdahl said, "of my son's captivity since June 30, 2009."

Rep. Ron Paul starts new institute with Dennis Kucinich, Walter Jones, Jimmy Duncan, and Judge Napolitano.

FYI - From Rep. Ron Paul/The Ron Paul Institute For Peace & Prosperity (RonPaulInsitute.org).

-ADY "A Regular Guy On The Issues"

Rep. Ron Paul Answers The Iran Nuke Question.

FYI - Rep. Ron Paul on the Danny Bishop Show.

-ADY "A Regular Guy On The Issues"

"Stellar Wind" Shows Why We Need Gov. Gary Johnson Now More Than Ever!

As a veteran and someone who took an oath the protect and defend our Constitution against all enemies, both foreign and domestic, I find this EXTREMELY troubling.  This shows why we need Gary Johnson now more than ever!!!  We have to LIVE FREE!!!

-ADY "A Regular Guy On The Issues"

Fraud, Waste, and Abuse Within The V.A.!

FYI - In this age of out of control government spending, our military, veterans, and their families deserve better!

From FoxNews.com.

-ADY "A Regular Guy On The Issues"

Conference expense list details millions spent by VA in latest federal waste scandal

Published August 24, 2012

FoxNews.com

• 
  Shown here is an image from the 'Patton' parody produced for a Veterans Affairs department conference in 2011.

Nearly $100,000 worth of "coffee break refreshments" was among the itemized expenses revealed Friday from two controversial Veterans Affairs conventions, whose combined price tag topped $5 million.

The House Committee on Veterans Affairs released a list of expenditures from one of the conferences held in Orlando, Fla. The biggest expense of the $2.9 million event was participant travel, which cost $1.2 million. But the VA Department also spent $113,000 on staff travel, $863 on a "karaoke night" and $52,000 on the "Patton-style" video that surfaced earlier this week.

A follow-up conference cost an additional $2.4 million, though the committee didn't release itemized expenses from that event.

“As we learn more about these conferences, I am more and more concerned about the clear lack of leadership, accountability, and transparency at VA," Rep. Jeff Miller, the committee chairman, said in a written statement. "To see that VA employees were treated to tens of thousands of dollars in refreshments, a $300,000 Audio Visual Center and a night of Karaoke does not invoke confidence in employees who are entrusted with the nation’s monies for veterans."

"Some of this material should have never been produced and misuse of taxpayer funds is completely unacceptable. These events took place over a year ago and we have already adopted new rules that reflect our continuing commitment to safeguarding tax dollars," the Department of Veteran Affairs said in another statement with regard to the video content used during training conferences. 

The price tag on those conferences far exceeds the roughly $830,000 spent by the General Services Administration at a 2010 Las Vegas conference, a lavish affair that drew outrage on Capitol Hill.

The House Veterans Affairs Committee and Oversight and Government Reform Committee both are looking into the conferences. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, also fired off a letter to Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki earlier this month posing questions about the "wasteful spending" allegations, which she called "alarming."

The Department of Veterans Affairs claims to be cracking down on its conference policy in light of the allegations.

"Allegations of misconduct received by the VA Office of Inspector General regarding two training conferences in 2011 are unacceptable," the department said in a written statement, adding that it is cooperating with the investigation. It said Shinseki plans to "hold accountable" anyone who "misused taxpayer dollars or violated our standards of conduct."

The IG's office confirmed it began the review in late April.

"Since then, a series of interviews have uncovered questionable activities and we have notified both the secretary and Congress of these issues," the office said in a written statement, adding that "all indications are that the conferences were for legitimate training purposes" but investigators are checking whether laws and ethics rules were followed.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/08/24/conference-expense-list-details-millions-spent-by-va-in-latest-federal-waste/#ixzz24Yn8uNWc

Russian Attack Submarine Sailed Undetected in the Gulf of Mexico For Weeks!

FYI - From the Washington Free Beacon/Bill Gertz and LPTN.org.

This is what happens when we have troops in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Africa needlessly, instead of concentrating on REAL national defense!

-ADY "A Regular Guy On The Issues"

Silent Running

Russian attack submarine sailed in Gulf of Mexico undetected for weeks, U.S. officials say.

 

Russian Akula Submarine / AP

BY: Bill Gertz
August 14, 2012 5:00 am

A Russian nuclear-powered attack submarine armed with long-range cruise missiles operated undetected in the Gulf of Mexico for several weeks and its travel in strategic U.S. waters was only confirmed after it left the region, the Washington Free Beacon has learned.

It is only the second time since 2009 that a Russian attack submarine has patrolled so close to U.S. shores.

The stealth underwater incursion in the Gulf took place at the same time Russian strategic bombers made incursions into restricted U.S. airspace near Alaska and California in June and July, and highlights a growing military assertiveness by Moscow.

The submarine patrol also exposed what U.S. officials said were deficiencies in U.S. anti-submarine warfare capabilities—forces that are facing cuts under the Obama administration’s plan to reduce defense spending by $487 billion over the next 10 years.

The Navy is in charge of detecting submarines, especially those that sail near U.S. nuclear missile submarines, and uses undersea sensors and satellites to locate and track them.

The fact that the Akula was not detected in the Gulf is cause for concern, U.S. officials said.

The officials who are familiar with reports of the submarine patrol in the Gulf of Mexico said the vessel was a nuclear-powered Akula-class attack submarine, one of Russia’s quietest submarines.

A Navy spokeswoman declined to comment.

One official said the Akula operated without being detected for a month.

“The Akula was built for one reason and one reason only: To kill U.S. Navy ballistic missile submarines and their crews,” said a second U.S. official.

“It’s a very stealthy boat so it can sneak around and avoid detection and hope to get past any protective screen a boomer might have in place,” the official said, referring to the Navy nickname for strategic missile submarines.

The U.S. Navy operates a strategic nuclear submarine base at Kings Bay, Georgia. The base is homeport to eight missile-firing submarines, six of them equipped with nuclear-tipped missiles, and two armed with conventional warhead missiles.

“Sending a nuclear-propelled submarine into the Gulf of Mexico-Caribbean region is another manifestation of President Putin demonstrating that Russia is still a player on the world’s political-military stage,” said naval analyst and submarine warfare specialist Norman Polmar.

“Like the recent deployment of a task force led by a nuclear cruiser into the Caribbean, the Russian Navy provides him with a means of ‘showing the flag’ that is not possible with Russian air and ground forces,” Polmar said in an email.

The last time an Akula submarine was known to be close to U.S. shores was 2009, when two Akulas were spotted patrolling off the east coast of the United States.

Those submarine patrols raised concerns at the time about a new Russian military assertiveness toward the United States, according to the New York Times, which first reported the 2009 Akula submarine activity.

The latest submarine incursion in the Gulf further highlights the failure of the Obama administration’s “reset” policy of conciliatory actions designed to develop closer ties with Moscow.

Instead of closer ties, Russia under President Vladimir Putin, an ex-KGB intelligence officer who has said he wants to restore elements of Russia’s Soviet communist past, has adopted growing hardline policies against the United States.

Of the submarine activity, Sen. John Cornyn (R., Texas), member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said, “It’s a confounding situation arising from a lack of leadership in our dealings with Moscow. While the president is touting our supposed ‘reset’ in relations with Russia, Vladimir Putin is actively working against American interests, whether it’s in Syria or here in our own backyard.”

The Navy is facing sharp cuts in forces needed to detect and counter such submarine activity.

The Obama administration’s defense budget proposal in February cut $1.3 billion from Navy shipbuilding projects, which will result in scrapping plans to build 16 new warships through 2017.

The budget also called for cutting plans to buy 10 advanced P-8 anti-submarine warfare jets needed for submarine detection.

In June, Russian strategic nuclear bombers and support aircraft conducted a large-scale nuclear bomber exercise in the arctic. The exercise included simulated strikes on “enemy” strategic sites that defense officials say likely included notional attacks on U.S. missile defenses in Alaska.

Under the terms of the 2010 New START arms accord, such exercises require 14-day advanced notice of strategic bomber drills, and notification after the drills end. No such notification was given.

A second, alarming air incursion took place July 4 on the West Coast when a Bear H strategic bomber flew into U.S. airspace near California and was met by U.S. interceptor jets.

That incursion was said to have been a bomber incursion that has not been seen since before the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.

It could not be learned whether the submarine in the Gulf of Mexico was an Akula 1 type submarine or a more advanced Akula 2.

It is also not known why the submarine conducted the operation. Theories among U.S. analysts include the notion that submarine incursion was designed to further signal Russian displeasure at U.S. and NATO plans to deploy missile defenses in Europe.

Russia’s chief of the general staff, Gen. Nikolai Makarov, said in May that Russian forces would consider preemptive attacks on U.S. and allied missile defenses in Europe, and claimed the defenses are destabilizing in a crisis.

Makarov met with Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in July. Dempsey questioned him about the Russian strategic bomber flights near U.S. territory.

The voyage of the submarine also could be part of Russian efforts to export the Akula.

Russia delivered one of its Akula-2 submarines to India in 2009. The submarine is distinctive for its large tail fin.

Brazil’s O Estado de Sao Paoli reported Aug. 2 that Russia plans to sell Venezuela up to 11 new submarines, including one Akula.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Moscow’s military is working to set up naval replenishment facilities in Vietnam and Cuba, but denied there were plans to base naval forces in those states.

Asked if Russia planned a naval base in Cuba, Lavrov said July 28: “We are not speaking of any bases. The Russian navy ships serve exercise cruises and training in the same regions. To harbor, resupply, and enable the crew to rest are absolutely natural needs. We have spoken of such opportunities with our Cuban friends.” The comment was posted in the Russian Foreign Ministry website.

Russian warships and support vessels were sent to Venezuela in 2008 to take part in naval exercises in a show of Russian support for the leftist regime of Hugo Chavez. The ships also stopped in Cuba.

Russian Deputy Premier Dmitri Rogozin announced in February that Russia was working on a plan to build 10 new attack submarines and 10 new missile submarines through 2030, along with new aircraft carriers.

Submarine warfare specialists say the Akula remains the core of the Russian attack submarine force.

The submarines can fire both cruise missiles and torpedoes, and are equipped with the SSN-21 and SSN-27 submarine-launched cruise missiles, as well as SSN-15 anti-submarine-warfare missiles. The submarines also can lay mines.

The SSN-21 has a range of up to 1,860 miles.

This entry was posted in National Security, Obama Ad

Rep. Dennis Kucinich Announces Legislation to Protect Congress’ Constitutional Authority to Declare War

FYI - From the office of Rep. Kucinich (D-OH)

-ADY "A Regular Guy On The Issues"

PRESS RELEASE

August 9, 2012 For Immediate Release Nathan.White@mail.house.gov (202)225-5871 Kucinich Announces Legislation to Protect Congress’ Constitutional Authority to Declare War  Washington D.C. (August 9, 2012) – Article 1, Section 8 of the United States Constitution grants Congress the sole authority to authorize or declare war. Yet, instead of getting authorization from Congress, Presidents of late have preferred to get “authorization” from the United Nations or other international bodies instead of Congress for the participation of U.S. Armed Forces in hostilities. Most recently, the President authorized U.S. military action in Libya through the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), with the “authorization” from the United Nation’s Security Council. That is not a substitute for a Congressional declaration of war or authorization for the use of military force and it is in clear subversion of the Constitution.  Today, Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) announced legislation, H.R. 6290, that would prohibit the deployment of a unit or individual of the U.S. Armed Forces or an element of the intelligence community in support of a NATO mission absent prior statutory authorization for such deployment from Congress, as enshrined in Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution. “There is no doubt that another war of choice can happen again at any time. After 10 years and trillions of dollars spent waging wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, it is clear that we cannot afford to further commit our already overcommitted military. The war in Libya cost the United States $1 billion. “According to NATO’s website, NATO is currently operating in Afghanistan, Kosovo, the Mediterranean Sea, the Horn of Africa and Somalia. Other recent NATO operations have taken place in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Iraq, Greece, Pakistan, Sudan, the Gulf of Aden, and most recently, Libya.  Even 13 years after a U.S.-NATO led intervention, 5,576 NATO troops (PDF) remain in Kosovo. Seven hundred eighty one of them are U.S. troops. “Congress must reestablish itself as a coequal branch of government and ensure that the U.S. is not committed to another NATO mission absent prior Congressional statutory authorization,” said Kucinich. “The Constitution is clear: Article 1, Section 8 provides only Congress with the ability to declare war or authorize the use of military force. Congress cannot stand by idly as the Constitution is circumvented.”

No one has forgotten your dad, Braydon

FYI - From CNN.com.

NEVER FORGET!!!

-ADY "A Regular Guy On The Issues"

Braydon Nichols with his father, Army Chief Warrant Officer Bryan Nichols.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• On August 6, 2011, a U.S. helicopter crashed in Afghanistan, killing 30
• Among them was 10-year-old Braydon Nichols' father. Nichols wrote an iReport about his dad
• Since then, readers haven't stopped commenting on Braydon's iReport
• The story made one Army veteran and father recall his close brush with death

(CNN) -- Monday marks one year since a Chinook helicopter crashed in Afghanistan and killed 30 American service members, 22 of them Navy SEALs. Many of the SEALs belonged to Team 6, the unit whose members were involved in the raid that killed Osama bin Laden.

A few days after the August 6, 2011, tragedy, a 10-year-old boy in Kansas City, Missouri, composed an iReport on CNN.com. He uploaded a photo of his dad sitting alongside his fellow soldiers.

My father was one of the 30 US Soldiers killed in Afghanistan yesterday with the Seals rescue mission. My father was the pilot of the chinook. I have seen other pictures of victims from this deadly mission and wish you would include a picture of my father. He is the farthest to the left.

Braydon Nichols' heartbreaking letter urging the world never to forget his father, Army Chief Warrant Officer Bryan Nichols, sparked thousands of comments and at least 230 iReports filled with love and support for the boy.

Read the original iReport

Over the past year, readers have continued to post kind notes to Braydon.

"Thought about you and looked at the picture I have and thought to visit this page and letting you know that you were on my mind. Hope you and your family are doing well," Dennis Stahl from Columbus, Ohio, commented July 12.

"Still on my mind buddy. I hope you and mom are doing OK, thoughts and prayers," Bob wrote June 25.

"I found myself remembering your story and tribute to your daddy this morning Braydon. I just wanted to let you know that people are and will always be thinking about him," another reader wrote in June.

Army veteran Shane Farlin told CNN that Braydon's story made him think about how close he came to losing his life and the chance to watch his son grow up.

Shane Farlin during his time in the U.S. Army.

The 28-year-old from Michigan was wounded in Iraq in 2004.

He left this post on Braydon's story:

"I was wounded and holding on weakly, wanting to meet my son. I cry reading this thinking of my Army brothers who didn't get a chance to come home. Peace to the dead and wounded of this country and their families."

Farlin and his unit were returning from Fallujah in May 2004, speeding along a highway back to Baghdad. The machine gunner was looking out of their truck and noticed the gutter running alongside them was black, scorched.

Then a roadside bomb exploded.

"It felt like someone hit me in the face with a baseball bat. My head snapped back. It felt like someone was pouring thick olive oil down my face. I could feel the metal on my face and I fell into my partner's lap screaming," he said this week.

One eye was hanging out its socket; the other socket was shredded.

"It's what they always say happens. I was thinking about my unit but I was also thinking about my high school sweetheart. She got pregnant right before I deployed. And I'm screaming but I'm thinking, 'I never got to see her pregnant, I never got to feel her belly.'"

Farlin knew he was going to have a son.

His face soaked and his buddies screaming, all Farlin could think was: I'm going to have a son. I'm going to be a father.

He started to feel his body go slack. It felt good, this odd sensation of relaxation.

"I was slipping away," he remembered.

While a medivac rushed to the site, Farlin passed out.

He woke up in a hospital bed in Baghdad's fortified Green Zone.

It took him a week to regain his sight in one eye. The other was too damaged and he lost it.

Farlin recovered, slowly and agonizingly, and made it back home for the birth of his son. He was working at a base at the time, and wearing his uniform, when he rushed to the hospital to help deliver Shane Farlin II.

Shane Farlin and his son Shane Farlin II

That was years ago. Farlin's boy is 7.

"When I read about Braydon, I just ... felt it.Those who are out there, fighting, they have their last moments, or what they believe is going to be their last moments, and they're thinking about home and their kids. I am so glad I made it."

Little Shane is Farlin's "clone," just as Braydon Nichols was so much like his father.

"My son is off the wall," Farlin said. "Spiderman one minute, Ironman the next minute. He's helpful, always wanting to know how he can help Daddy. He wants to be like me. He wants to know what the Army was like."

Farlin has suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder and has a traumatic brain injury, he said. Readjusting to life outside the military and his transition to being a college student hasn't always been easy.

He gets sad. He doesn't like that he cannot be in the Army any longer because of his injury -- he has a glass eye. But Farlin is constantly trying to be positive around his son.

"I know to be careful about what I say in front of him," he said. "I don't want my son to see me sad. I am going to keep him from that for as long as I can."

For the Nichols family, sadness is always there. Some days are better than others.

"We all deal with it differently," said Monte Nichols, Brian Nichols' brother. "So many people have reached out and tried to help Braydon over the past year, to let him know that they care and they're thinking about his dad."

Braydon is getting good grades and doing as well as any kid could, Monte Nichols added.

A memorial service for those killed in the Chinook crash was held at Arlington National Cemetery in June.

"Everyone who was lost," Monte Nichols said, "is very much missed. Nobody is forgotten."

Fighting For America Isn't a Democratic Thing or a Republican Thing...It's an American Thing!

FYI - From the guys at RangerUp.

-ADY "A Regular Guy On The Issues"

George Washington did not intend on a second term.

He reluctantly ran because the two leading political parties of the time – The Federalists and the Republicans were so at each other’s throats that he feared an election would rip the country apart.

When he finally did resign after his second term, he cautioned the American people not to align behind parties. He believed that over time they gave power to a handful of wealthy individuals who would not truly represent the people as intended, that the parties would skew issues in order to control the people’s perceptions, that parties would be less likely to compromise and more likely to be petty and seek vengeance for defeats with a “party-centric” approach rather than a country centric one, and that in general terms a party system would make us less democratic, infringe on the Constitution, and send us closer to monarchy or dictatorship with an increasingly strong executive branch.

Good to see he was waaaaay off, right?

The bottom line is this: there are more than two ways to think about things. No one on this planet is truly a 100% “Democrat” or “Republican”. We all develop a certain set of beliefs based on where we grew up, how we were raised and the experiences we have in life. It’s that nuance that we should treasure, because the right to have it isn’t available in most nations.

Whether you agree or disagree, I promise that no person signing the dotted line today to put on a uniform is doing it for Mitt Romney or Barack Obama. They’re doing it for themselves, their family, their friends, and their country.

Service to the nation is true patriotism. Putting yourself in harm’s way for the American way of life is an action of absolute substance. And no matter what the talking heads say, service knows no party.

The act of serving is neither Republican nor Democrat.

It is American.

The President's Secret Kill List.

FYI - From Judge Andrew Napolitano and Reason.com.  As someone who has spent the last 12 years in the military and a veteran of the war in Iraq, I find this very, very troubling!!!

-ADY "A Regular Guy On The Issues"

Obama's Secret Kill List

The essence of our values is the rule of law, not the rule of presidents.

Andrew Napolitano | May 31, 2012

The leader of the government regularly sits down with his senior generals and spies and advisers and reviews a list of the people they want him to authorize their agents to kill. They do this every Tuesday morning when the leader is in town. The leader once condemned any practice even close to this, but now relishes the killing because he has convinced himself that it is a sane and sterile way to keep his country safe and himself in power. The leader, who is running for re-election, even invited his campaign manager to join the group that decides whom to kill.

This is not from a work of fiction, and it is not describing a series of events in the Kremlin or Beijing or Pyongyang. It is a fair summary of a 6,000-word investigative report in The New York Times earlier this week about the White House of Barack Obama. Two Times journalists, Jo Becker and Scott Shane, painstakingly and chillingly reported that the former lecturer in constitutional law and liberal senator who railed against torture and Gitmo now weekly reviews a secret kill list, personally decides who should be killed and then dispatches killers all over the world -- and some of his killers have killed Americans.

We have known for some time that President Obama is waging a private war. By that I mean he is using the CIA on his own -- and not the military after congressional authorization -- to fire drones at thousands of persons in foreign lands, usually while they are riding in a car or a truck. He has done this both with the consent and over the objection of the governments of the countries in which he has killed. He doesn't want to talk about this, but he doesn't deny it. How chilling is it that David Axelrod -- the president's campaign manager -- has periodically seen the secret kill list? Might this be to keep the killings politically correct?

Can the president legally do this? In a word: No.

The president cannot lawfully order the killing of anyone, except according to the Constitution and federal law. Under the Constitution, he can only order killing using the military when the U.S. has been attacked, or when an attack is so imminent and certain that delay would cost innocent American lives, or in pursuit of a congressional declaration of war. Under federal law, he can only order killing using civilians when a person has been sentenced lawfully to death by a federal court and the jury verdict and the death sentence have been upheld on appeal. If he uses the military to kill, federal law requires public reports of its use to Congress and congressional approval after 180 days.

The U.S. has not declared war since World War II. If the president knows that an attack on our shores is imminent, he'd be hard-pressed to argue convincingly that a guy in a truck in a desert 10,000 miles from here -- no matter his intentions -- poses a threat to the U.S. so imminent and certain that he needs to be killed on the spot in order to save the lives of Americans who would surely die during the time it would take to declare war on the country that harbors him, or during the time it would take to arrest him. Under no circumstances may he use civilian agents for non-judicial killing. Surely, CIA agents can use deadly force to protect themselves, but they may not use it offensively. Federal laws against murder apply to the president and to all federal agents and personnel, wherever they go on the planet.

Since 9/11, the United States government has set up national security systems that function not under the Constitution, not under the Geneva Conventions, not under the rule of law, not under the rules of war, not under federal law, but under a new secret system crafted by the Bush administration and personally directed by Obama, the same Obama who condemned these rules as senator and then extended them as president. In the name of fighting demons in pick-up trucks and wars that Congress has never declared, the government shreds our rights, taps our cellphones, reads our emails, kills innocents abroad, strip searches 87-year-old grandmothers in wheelchairs and 3-year-old babies in their mothers' arms, and offers secrecy when the law requires accountability.

Obama has argued that his careful consideration of each person he orders killed and the narrow use of deadly force are an adequate and constitutional substitute for due process. The Constitution provides for no such thing. He has also argued that the use of drones to do his killing is humane since they are "surgical" and only kill their targets. We know that is incorrect. And he has argued that these killings are consistent with our values. What is he talking about? The essence of our values is the rule of law, not the rule of presidents.

Andrew P. Napolitano, a former judge of the Superior Court of New Jersey, is the senior judicial analyst at Fox News Channel. Judge Napolitano has written six books on the U.S. Constitution. The most recent is "It Is Dangerous To Be Right When the Government Is Wrong: The Case for Personal Freedom." 

Reason needs

Memorial Day.

From LtCol. Karen Kwiatkowski, USAF (Ret.) and http://www.karenkforcongress.com/

-ADY "A Regular Guy On The Issues"

Memorial Day Message from Karen

May 25th, 2012

On the first Memorial Day on May 30^th, 1868, General John Logan asked that we “renew our pledges to aid and assist those whom they have left among us a sacred charge upon a nation’s gratitude, the soldier’s and sailor’s widow and orphan.”

On this 144^th Memorial Day, we remember and honor the dead of more recent wars.  We remember the sacrifices in war made by our grandfathers and grandmothers, our aunts and uncles, our brothers and sisters, and our children and grandchildren.

In 1971, Congress transformed Memorial Day into a popular “three day weekend.”  In celebrating outdoor cooking, family, and the promise of summertime, we may forget the nature of war, the sacrifices of our soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines, and the ongoing sacrifices and suffering of those they left behind.   We may forget our responsibility as Americans, as the descendants and beneficiaries of great men and women, to live and to celebrate our precious liberty each day.

This weekend, let us remember the ideals of a free and noble America, and know that these ideals are worth fighting for.  Let us say a silent prayer for our fellow veterans, our brothers and sisters in arms.  Let us make time to aid and assist the widows and widowers, the children who have lost a parent, and the parents who have lost their beloved children because those brave ones heroically answered the call of service to their nation.

God bless them, and God bless America.

Karen Kwiatkowski

http://www.karenkforcongress.com/