Saturday, July 4, 2026

Complete Guide to Petersburg National Battlefield

Debacle at Petersburg: The Battle of the Crater: An Interview with A. Wilson Greene

Park Ranger John  

. . . "The Siege of Petersburg was not a siege in the traditional sense of the word.

"It was a series of battles, raids, and skirmishes centered in and around the defensive entrenchments that surrounded Petersburg. Ironically, a lengthy siege was what General Ulysses S. Grant was trying to avoid.

"The Union first attempted to take Petersburg from the Confederates on the 9th of June, when union forces crossed the James River under cover of night.

"This early attempt at taking Petersburg failed, as did the second. During both of the battles for Petersburg, the confederate line held firm in the trenches.

"For Grant, the only option was to gain ground piece by piece, which meant taking sections of the trenches in each offensive or skirmish. Grant knew he had a superior number of forces to Lee.

"If Grant could succeed in cutting off Lee’s access to resources and dwindle his forces even further, one final push would then be enough to defeat the Confederate army.

"During the nine and a half months that followed, the two sides engaged in trench warfare. At the beginning of June, Lee had 20 000 men against the Union's 67 000, yet the Confederate army held on despite being outnumbered.

"If one defensive line fell, they moved back and reinforced. The Union could gain ground, only to be halted and pinned down by heavy Confederate fire. Grant and his generals had to change their approach because of this characteristic of trench warfare." . . .

Full article here:...

Debacle at Petersburg: The Battle of the Crater: An Interview with A. Wilson Greene – The Gettysburg Compiler



Debunking the American Left’s Favorite Lie

 The American Spectator  

"The American Left does so because charging others with their own crimes leads to moral relativism, which serves to absolve them of their wrongs. By charging everyone with the Left’s own crimes, then all are guilty."

But a fascist tattoo is fine.

   "The American Left’s most favorite lie is that Nazis and Fascists were conservatives. They were not; instead, they were cut from the same socialist cloth that America’s Left idolizes and increasingly personifies. The reason for the Left’s false equation of Nazis and Fascists with conservatism is that America’s Left needs it to advance their ends — and, as in the case of Democrats’ Maine Senate nominee Graham Platner’s Nazi tattoo, they want America to ignore the obvious.
   "It is difficult to single out one lie from the American Left’s myriad. The one proclaiming that this time they can make socialism work — despite it failing in every other attempt and in every time in every other place — is certainly useful. The one promising that giving all power to the state will somehow make people freer comes in handy, too.
   "However, the lie America’s Left tells with the most relish and gusto is that Nazis and Fascists come from the Right of the political spectrum rather than from within the Left’s own ranks. They say this because, in addition to needing it to be true, America’s Left so want it to be true. Of course, as with the rest of the American Left’s myriad of lies, it is not only not true but demonstrably false.
    "It is a historical fact that Nazis and Fascists were socialists. In the case of “Nazi,” simply look at its etymological root. It is short for “Nationalsozialist,” itself short for the Nationalsozialistische deutsche Arbeitpartei (NSDAP), which translates to National Socialist German Workers’ Party.
   "However, the connection is much stronger than the name alone. The Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises writes in his 20th-century monograph, Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis: “Marxism and National-Socialism agree in … rejecting the capitalist social order. Both desire a socialist order of society. The only difference in their programme (sic) lies in slight variations in their respective pictures of the future socialist State.” Continuing: “It is important to realize that Fascism and Nazism were socialist dictatorships.”
   "Specifically addressing the Fascists, von Mises writes: “Fascism… was a variety of Italian socialism … Nobody could surpass Mussolini in Marxian zeal. He was the intransigent champion of the pure creed.”  And on the Nazis: “The philosophy of the Nazis, the German Nationalist Socialist Labour Party, is the purest and most consistent manifestation of the anti-capitalistic and socialist spirit of our age.” . . .More...

What's with all those young female voices shouting praise for Hamas and illegal immigrants?

What has happened to American women that so many support evil causes? Starting with the famous likes of "The View", Joy Reid, everyone at MSNOW on down to Greta Thunberg, and the youthful female voices loudly adoring assassins and screaming in the streets for Hamas. 

 Daniel Greenfield; Frontpage

I wish every day were October 7"



"After 9/11, there was a lot of talk about ‘radical Islam.’ There is no ‘radical Islam’ or ‘moderate Islam’, but lately there is more of a trend of middle class white women becoming radicalized on social media, supporting Islamic terrorists and sometimes converting to Islam. To some degree this is just BLM 2.0 or Transgender 3.0 with bored empty people becoming caught up in social media contagion. But it’s also an entry point for the enemies of our country who are happy enough to recruit these useful idiots.

A middle-class upstate New York mom has been charged with allegedly supporting an Islamic terrorist organization after donating $30,000 in cryptocurrency to the violent, antisemitic group, federal prosecutors announced Wednesday.

atherine Beth Washburn, 37, a self-proclaimed stay-at-home mom, according to her Facebook account, exchanged messages with a terrorist in the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) group in Gaza, once telling him “I wish every day were October 7,” according to prosecutors in the Western District of New York.

Old media photos show her as a mother of two children, smiling with her husband. She lived in a $280,000, three-bedroom house and appears to have spent significant time in the small town of Dansville.

However, her social media accounts are now filled with pics of her wearing a hijab and anti-Israel diatribes — including one post showing the home addresses of so-called “Zionists.”

Washburn also took a selfie of herself and placed the image next to the Hamas flag and two hand grenades, prosecutors claimed.

"My condolences to her husband and kids whose lives she no doubt wrecked along the way while cosplaying in her exciting new role as an Islamic terrorist." . . . More...

New York woman charged with funneling $30K to Palestinian terror group: DOJ   . . . "Communications recovered by the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force revealed messages to a person claiming to be an active PIJ fighter in Gaza, where Washburn allegedly said she hated Jewish people "very much" and wished Israel "would disappear." . . .

A Greta Thunberg wannabe and a Code Pink draft choice.

Which Iran is this?

 Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s funeral exposes the paranoia of Iran’s crumbling regime

"The extraordinary security measures implemented for the funeral of Iran’s assassinated supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, shows that, despite the regime’s claim that it has emerged stronger from its war with the US and Israel, the country is more paranoid and divided than ever.

The nationwide funeral ceremonies began on Saturday in Tehran and will culminate with Khamenei’s burial in Mashhad on July 9. Roadblocks have been set up around the country’s main cities, and airspace over Tehran and Mashhad has been closed as the regime tries to ensure that the arrangements are not marked either by domestic unrest or outside military action.

While it is an important article of faith for Muslims that the deceased must be buried immediately after death, Khamenei’s funeral has been delayed for more than four months after he was killed on February 28 during an air strike on his heavily fortified compound in central Tehran.

With the 60-day ceasefire between Iran, the US and Israel being subjected to frequent violations, Iran’s leaders are desperate to ensure the funeral takes place without incident." . . .

Khamenei funeral marks the rise of a more defiant Iran   "According to a Washington Post report, Khamenei's death at the outset of the U.S.-Israel war initially raised hopes in Washington and Jerusalem that the Islamic Republic was nearing collapse.

"Instead, the funeral marks the emergence of a younger, more hard-line leadership under his son and successor, Mojtaba Khamenei.

"'The bottom line is that we are facing a new, bolder, self-confident Iran," Raz Zimmt, head of Iran research at Israel's Institute for National Security Studies, told the outlet.

"While Iran "might be weaker when it comes to its economic situation, its industries, some of its strategic capabilities," he said, the country's leadership has become more determined rather than less." . . .More...

The Islamic Requirement to Perform Taqiyya and Lie to Non Muslims; Analysis

"Lying to the Kafir is called Taqiyya, which is considered a virtue in Islam and is used to advance Islam’s cause."

Also here:  Taqiyya is a concept and a reality that must be borne in mind when reading or listening to the words of Muslims

Tulsi Gabbard details the dangerous power D.C. bureaucrats hold

"They have no loyalty to anyone but themselves, but thankfully, we have a Constitution, and President Trump is using it to fight back."

Andrea Widburg

. . . "Flopping Aces reprinted a speech that Tulsi Gabbard gave about the real deep state, which isn’t a cabal of high-level operatives but is, instead, a collection of bureaucrats protecting their fiefdoms without regard for our constitutional system. (And of course, it goes without saying—and it’s important to note that Gabbard doesn’t say it—that most of these bureaucrats are Democrats.)

"According to Gabbard, an unseen threat in America is the managerial class:

These are the people who operate quietly below the surface. They are the career officials, the senior administrators, the unelected managers of national security or intelligence, who see elections and the American voters as a nuisance because they think that they’re more important than any election, than any president, and that they are more qualified to run our country than those who [sic] we elect to serve our country as leaders.

"With that introduction, Gabbard tells of the employee (who should be named) who used a typical bureaucratic technique we’ve all seen: slow-walking whatever the bureaucrat doesn’t like. In this case, Gabbard needed a placemat—that is, a big piece of paper with information she needed to share with President Trump for a meeting that morning. One person in the agency she chaired, who’d come from another agency, was responsible for getting this placemat to her.

"But the placemat never came. Why not?

[B]ecause this guy who was responsible for printing refused to print it because he disagreed with what was on the paper. And turns out he actually did print it, but then he locked it in his desk and refused to open his desk.

My chief of staff went down and said, the director needs to present this to the president. We need this. And he said, no, I refuse.

And so my chief brought down my head of a general counsel who said, the director needs this for the president. I refuse. And he would not do this until his boss back at his home agency said it was okay to do it." . . .

. . . "Within minutes of reading that, I came across two tweets from England, one explaining how UK bureaucrats in 2002 concluded that it would be virtuous to destroy Britain’s indigenous people in favor of immigrants, and the other of which sums up how Britain arrived at its current Big Brother-ish status:


The above has been cropped by TD to show the main point. The original is at the main link. This shows you how major changes in a nation's culture and demographics - Minnesota's Somali population and third-world congress members for example - can be changed by nameless, unelected bureaucrats. The Tunnel Dweller    

More... 

"(Postscript: In 1942, van Paassen, looking at FDR’s policies, predicted that, in 2042, America would elect a black socialist president. He was off by only 24 years. Now, there’s a distinct possibility that the next socialist president will be elected in 2028, unless patriots turn out in previously unseen numbers.)"

Former DNI Tulsi Gabbard Outlines the Mechanics of the Deep State   "At around 3:30 of the presentation, Gabbard gives a specific example of the attitude of the employees on assignment to the ODNI.  Obviously, I am not certain, but Tulsi seems to be describing the FBI liaison desk within the DNI as she explains how this federal government employee refuses to participate in the DNI request.  Listen and you gain an appreciation of the challenge that exists for any appointed leadership.  Watch:

Victor Davis Hanson explains why Americans are trading capitalism for socialism

 The left has turned millions of less-than-useless idiots into Joy Reid. TD

Tampa Free Press   

"Hanson concluded by targeting the political institutionalization of identity politics, which he argued became mainstream during the Obama administration. He stated that the political climate has institutionalized a strict social binary, dividing the country into “30 percent non-white and 70 percent white oppressors.'”

"Conservative commentator Victor Davis Hanson argued on Fox News that a combination of educational debt, immigration policies, and diversity initiatives is driving the rising popularity of socialism in the United States. Speaking with host Laura Ingraham, the Hoover Institution Senior Fellow stated that the country is currently facing a “perfect storm” of cultural and institutional changes.

"Hanson traced the roots of this shift back to the American education system, pointing to decades of critical historical narratives taught from kindergarten through college. “We’ve had 50 years in the university where all we hear is a melodrama of how bad we were at our creation, our founding,” Hanson said.

"According to Hanson, the financial realities of modern higher education leave heavily indebted graduates uniquely open to socialist economic ideas.

"He noted that universities have “racked up 1.7 trillion in student loans” while tripling the rate of inflation. “They have these kind of non — they’re not really degrees, sociology-dash studies, and so they, they get all these kids in debt, and then they have these worthless degrees, and they have delusions of grandeur, and so they’re very susceptible to socialism,” Hanson stated.

"The discussion also addressed modern demographic shifts. Hanson observed that the United States has reached unprecedented immigration milestones, noting, “We never had 53 million immigrants, and we never had 16 percent of the population.” He argued that this influx is happening at a time when traditional concepts of the “melting pot, acculturation, assimilation, integration” have been largely abandoned." . . .More...