[Defense One] The four-star Southie boy from Boston brings to DHS the grief of losing friends to America’s drug epidemic and a son to the war on terrorism.
In retired Marine Corps Gen. John Kelly, President-elect Donald Trump has nominated for the Department of Homeland Security an outspoken, media-friendly combat veteran who lost a son to the war on terrorism and dozens of childhood friends to the war on drugs.
If you think Gen. Jim Mattis is a gruff talker, wait ’til you get a load of Kelly. The Southie boy from Boston was basically muzzled by President Obama’s Pentagon in his final months as the leader of U.S. Southern Command. But he rose to the top exactly because of that frank talk and advice, previously serving as the three-star senior military aide alongside Defense Secretary Robert Gates and commanding troops through the crucible of Iraq’s Anbar province.
As the commander of all U.S. troops south of Mexico, Kelly called border security an "existential" threat ‐ not for the people crossing but because of the economic instability rife across Central and South America driving trafficking and instability. He begged Congress for more attention to transnational organized crime, trafficking, and the root causes for America’s ills from the south. He was as close with liberal human rights groups as he was with grizzled Marine fighters. And he was motivated at his core by the fallacies of men.
[Free Beacon] Cadets, parents, and alumni of the Virginia Military Institute are speaking out after the Washington Free Beacon's exclusive report that the prestigious military academy is offering students coloring books to deal with stress.
Many were outraged at the Free Beacon's report, while others were equally bothered that the school would have coloring books for cadets in the first place.
A new photo obtained by the Free Beacon reveals a flyer posted at VMI advertising "Stress Busters" with a cartoon picture of a puppy. The event for cadets, which occurs twice a year before finals, will include Therapets of Roanoke, the new-age meditation technique known as "mindfulness," yoga, games, grab-and-go snacks, a coloring station, and a raffle.
One cadet currently enrolled told the Free Beacon the idea of offering coloring books for stress was an "embarrassment."
"We pride ourselves on being one of the hardest schools in the nation," he said. "Current pressure from the state and outside population has tied our hands and forced us to make many changes in recent years."
"These changes, including the ‘Stress Busters' program are resented and opposed by the majority of the cadet body," he added.
All students and alumni interviewed for this story spoke on condition that they not be named.
A 2010 VMI graduate echoed the sentiment, saying coloring book stations were "embarrassing and shameful."
[BBC] Life expectancy in the United States has declined for the first time in more than two decades.
Data from the National Center for Health Statistics showed a drop for men from 76.5 years in 2014 to 76.3 in 2015, and from 81.3 to 81.2 for women. The preliminary figures show rises in several causes of death, especially heart disease, dementia and accidental infant deaths.
Life expectancy last fell during the peak of the HIV/Aids crisis in 1993. It has improved slightly in most of the years since World War Two, rising from a little more than 68 years in 1950.
Limit to human life may be 115 (ish)US suicide rate highest in 30 years. What's killing white American women? Cell phones ?
It also fell in 1980, after a severe outbreak of flu.
Overall life expectancy for men and women is now 78.8 years, a decrease of 0.1 year from 2014.
"This is unusual," lead author Jiaquan Xu, an epidemiologist at the NCHS, told AFP news agency. "2015 is kind of different from every year. It looks like much more death than we have seen in the last few years."
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[Free Beacon] Cadets, parents, and alumni of the Virginia Military Institute are speaking out after the Washington Free Beacon's exclusive report that the prestigious military academy is offering students coloring books to deal with stress.
