By: Jeff Emanuel (Diary)  |  March 11th at 10:32 PM  | 

Early Sunday morning, a U.S. Army soldier reportedly left an coalition outpost in the Panjwai district of Afghanistan’s Kandahar province, walked a mile, broke into three houses, shot sixteen civilians to death, and burned several of the corpses. The soldier, a staff sergeant from Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state, was deployed in support of Special Forces who were engaged in “village stability operations” on | Read More »

By: Jeff Emanuel (Diary)  |  March 8th at 12:01 AM  | 

THE ‘CYPRO–MINOAN’ SCRIPT of Bronze Age Cyprus has baffled scholars since its discovery at the turn of the twentieth century.  Though it has been found in several locations on Cyprus and at the Late Bronze Age trading emporium of Ugarit on the Syrian coast, several missing pieces have prevented this script from being deciphered, despite decades of concerted attempts to unlock its meaning and read its | Read More »

By: Jeff Emanuel (Diary)  |  March 3rd at 12:01 AM  | 

THE UNPRECEDENTED INTERCONNECTIVITY in the Late Bronze Age (LBA) Eastern Mediterranean has been the subject of a great deal of study in recent years.  Colloquia, conferences, articles, and monographs have dealt in depth with the diplomacy, balance of power, and widespread trade that marked this period and the migrations and collapses that marked the transition to the Early Iron Age.  However, if one archaeologist’s interpretation | Read More »

By: Jeff Emanuel (Diary)  |  March 1st at 10:11 AM  | 

It’s always tough to lose a friend. It’s exponentially tougher when that friend leaves behind a wife and four children, who will no longer have their husband and father in their lives, and who should remain in all our prayers. Add to that just how huge a figure Andrew Breitbart had become in the conservative movement, and you will begin to understand just how big | Read More »

By: Jeff Emanuel (Diary)  |  February 24th at 04:45 PM  | 

In an epic self-awareness fail, the Obama campaign sent an email this afternoon from campaign manager Jim Messina which bore the subject line “They’re Obsessed,” and which mentioned the left’s current bogeymen, the Koch Brothers, in the first line and in five of the email’s eight total sentences. Here’s the full email: Jeff – In just about 24 hours, Mitt Romney is headed to a | Read More »

By: Jeff Emanuel (Diary)  |  February 24th at 01:30 PM  | 

Act of Valor 4 stars (out of 5) Directed by Mike McCoy and Scott Waugh 111 minutes THERE IS NO question that Act of Valor is a unique film, for many reasons.  The most prominent among these is inarguably the combination of active duty Navy SEALs in starring roles, and the extent to which the film’s advertising and promotion have focused on that role – factors | Read More »

By: Jeff Emanuel (Diary)  |  February 22nd at 12:01 AM  | 

SINCE THE RODNEY King riots of 1992, “Can’t we all just get along?” has been a common (and commonly misquoted) refrain in America, both among serious persons and those seeking to inject levity into tense situations.  In a forthcoming book, though, retired Navy SEAL J. Robert DuBois responds to that question with a plan of action that he hopes people at home and around the | Read More »

By: Jeff Emanuel (Diary)  |  February 19th at 02:00 PM  | 

On Friday, Feb. 17, a long-term FBI sting operation culminated in the arrest of a would-be terrorist while he was en route to the U.S. Capitol to carry out a suicide bombing.  Amine el Khalifi, a 29-year-old Muslim from Morocco who entered the U.S. with his parents on a trip to Disney World 1999 and illegally overstayed his tourist visa by over a decade, had | Read More »

By: Jeff Emanuel (Diary)  |  February 18th at 06:23 PM  | 

JUST WEEKS AFTER the attacks of September 11, 2001, a small number of elite special operators were inserted into northern Afghanistan.  The Degüello, by Special Forces veteran Scott Zastrow, tells the story of the first unit to deploy: ODA 555, or ‘Triple Nickel,’ an A-Team from Ft. Campbell, Kentucky’s 5th Special Forces Group (Airborne).  Accompanied by an Air Force combat controller, the ten-man team infiltrated | Read More »

By: Jeff Emanuel (Diary)  |  February 17th at 01:20 PM  | 

All information is preliminary, but media are reporting that a would-be suicide bomber was arrested on his way to the U.S. Capitol today. According to Politico: A Moroccan man suspected of plotting a suicide attack at the Capitol was arrested Friday near the building, according to the U.S. Capitol Police and media reports. “This arrest was the culmination of a lengthy and extensive operation during | Read More »

By: Jeff Emanuel (Diary)  |  February 10th at 10:26 PM  | 

U.S. officials have reportedly confirmed that deadly bombings in the Syrian cities of Damascus (in December and January) and Aleppo (Friday) were the work of al Qaeda in Iraq, whose members were acting with authorization from al Qaeda central head and Osama bin Laden successor Ayman al-Zawahiri. According to McClatchy: The Iraqi branch of al Qaida, seeking to exploit the bloody turmoil in Syria to | Read More »

By: Jeff Emanuel (Diary)  |  February 10th at 09:00 AM  | 

In yet another installment of the “New Tone Rules Only Apply to Republicans” series, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) took to the floor of the Senate on Wednesday to accuse “Republicans” of using the payroll tax cut bill to extort the Democrat majority for the right to personally poison the American people. Yes, you heard that right: the Senate Majority Leader took a page | Read More »

By: Jeff Emanuel (Diary)  |  February 10th at 06:00 AM  | 

My RedState colleague and good friend Victoria Coates recently wrote a post calling for a humanitarian intervention in Syria on behalf of the opposition and civilians who are being killed daily by Bashar al-Assad’s regime.  She writes: “In dealing with Libya and Syria, consistency need not be the hobgoblin of little minds but can rather be the hallmark of a consistent and coordinated foreign policy.  | Read More »

By: Jeff Emanuel (Diary)  |  February 8th at 09:23 PM  | 

A Tuesday New York Times article called “U.S. Planning to Slash Iraq Embassy Staff by as Much as Half” purported to describe the plight of U.S. State Department employees in Iraq, whose diplomatic efforts are being rebuffed by a host nation and government that has little use for them. According to the Times, the 16,000 employees (including 2,000 diplomats) at “the $750 million embassy building, the | Read More »

By: Jeff Emanuel (Diary)  |  February 7th at 11:10 AM  | 

Former Georgia Secretary of State and friend of RedState Karen Handel has resigned from the Komen foundation in the wake of the left-wing outcry over the future of the organization’s funding of Planned Parenthood. According to LifeNews, “Komen initially decided in December to revise its grant-making process to funds grants to agencies that provide direct health services for women — which would eliminate Planned Parenthood since | Read More »

By: Jeff Emanuel (Diary)  |  February 6th at 07:20 PM  | 

I’ve been engaged in a twitter discussion with some good friends and acquaintances (and, being that it’s twitter, with some folks I don’t know from Adam) about the upcoming film Act of Valor. The film, for those who were comatose during the Super Bowl ad blitz, is a Navy recruiting video on major steroids that features several active duty SEALs and Special Warfare Combatant Crewmen | Read More »

By: Jeff Emanuel (Diary)  |  February 2nd at 01:55 PM  | 

…here are a couple gems from two of the campaign’s most fervent, credibility-contorting cheerleaders, the “detestable harpy“** and Jennifer Rubin. As noted earlier today, the harpy decided to go Full Romney in her column yesterday.  Called “THREE CHEERS FOR ROMNEYCARE!,” the harpy declared Romney’s signature – and most problematic – legislative achievement to have been a victory for the constitution and for conservatism.  As if | Read More »

By: Jeff Emanuel (Diary)  |  February 2nd at 11:00 AM  | 

Jennifer Rubin, the Washington Post‘s resident Romney campaign mouthpiece, has been joined by another conservative pundit in the “I left my dignity at the altar of Mitt Romney” club. This time, as you may have heard, the offender is Ann Coulter, whose support for the former Massachusetts governor (and lack of publicity to date leading up to her CPAC appearance next week) has led her to | Read More »

By: Jeff Emanuel (Diary)  |  February 1st at 11:30 AM  | 

Fresh off a dominant win in the Florida presidential primary, Mitt Romney managed to unload a clip of .45 ammunition in both feet on national television this morning. In an interview with Soledad O’Brien, Romney said the following (emphasis added): Mitt Romney: “I’m not concerned about the very poor; we have a safety net there. If it needs repair, I’ll fix it. I’m not concerned | Read More »

By: Jeff Emanuel (Diary)  |  January 25th at 03:00 PM  | 

Last night, a joint force from America’s Tier One special operations command conducted a raid on a pirate camp in Somalia, freeing two hostages – an American and a Dane – and killing their captors before exfiltrating north to Djibouti via helicopter. USA Today‘s lead paragraph captures the mission well, while also serving as the best recruiting pitch for the Navy’s Sea, Air, and Land | Read More »