Victor Davis Hanson and Charles Krauthammer on 2012 politics

Charles Krauthammer: Silly Season, 2012  "A quite dispiriting spectacle. And more than a bit confusing. Why, just this week the estimable Jeb Bush averred that the Republican Party had become so rigidly right-wing that today it couldn’t even nominate Ronald Reagan. 

Huh? It’s about to nominate Mitt Romney, who lives a good 14 nautical miles to the left of Ronald Reagan.

Goodness. Four more months of this campaign and we will all be unhinged.

I'd say Romney has a point in this cartoon

Victor Davis Hanson: The Liberal Super Nova  "Two parties, left and right, are central to good consensual government — one the perennial check on the other, both within the general boundaries of constitutional free-market capitalism.
"Yet the hard-Left takeover of the Democratic Party has meant that there is no longer a credible balance in our system, as almost all the tenets of contemporary left-wing ideology are blowing up, imploding super nova style — unsustainable ideas that are contrary to human nature and demand coercion for their implementation, given that they are increasingly anti-democratic and have to be implemented from high by an elite technocracy whether in Brussels, Sacramento, or Washington."

Most Israelis think Romney would be 'friendlier'

Jerusalem Post  "The fact that Israelis have conflicted attitudes toward US President Barack Obama came out loud and clear in a poll released on Thursday."
Conflicted? How can that be?

Commentary on Obama's immigration speech

Video: Obama's Immigration Policy Is "Out-And-Out Lawlessness",  Charles Krauthammer said on "FOX News Special Report" Friday. (Video)

"Beyond the pandering, beyond the politics, beyond the process is simple constitutional decency. This is out-and-out lawlessness. You had a clip of the president himself say months ago 'I cannot do this on my own because there are laws on the books.' Well, I have news for the president: The laws remain on the books, they haven't changed," 

2011: "America is a nation of laws"; 2012: "I didn't ask for an argument"   Excellent post with numerous sources quoted: "But what a difference nine little months and declining reelection prospects have made. Now King Barack, ironically a "constitutional scholar," has decided that he does, after all, "have a choice" and, in effect, we aren't a nation of laws. Can he do that? John Yoo says no, not legally."  Pundit and Pundette

I am your king!

Obama's cheerleader team (MSM journalists) attack reporter who questioned Obama

A sterling example of that “world class temperament” we’ve often been told about 
"It’s amazing, though, how much “world class temperament” resembles the behavior of an irritable, spoiled four year old:"  Billy Hollis at Q and O

Lloyd Marcus: Obama: Going Rogue," ...running as no other Democrat before him, openly declaring war on America. The opposing armies are Obama's entitlement-minded-social-justice-zealots vs. hardworking Americans -- patriots who love their country and respect our Constitution."


This writer sees Obama as worse than that: Obama Lurching Toward Tyranny  "The fact is that government no longer treats the Constitution as law binding it. As a result, government not only violates the Constitution with greater frequency and even more contempt, but government bureaucrats violate the very laws they enforce that are subordinate to the Constitution."

Rep. Steven King Says Will Sue Obama Administration Over New Immigration Policy

"The problem, of course is that such suits take time to percolate through the court system. Hopefuly King ( if he's serious) will start out by asking the courts for an injunction blocking implementation."

Joshuapundit: Obama's New Election Strategy: Amnesty By Executive Order  "The president is also outright lying when he says this will make sense economically. At a time of high unemployment, it will simply price American citizens out of the job market in favor of illegal aliens willing to work for less pay and at worse conditions." 

Under Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution, the president has the duty to “Take Care That The Laws Be Faithfully Executed”

"This provision was included to make sure that the president could not simply choose, as the British King had, to cancel legislation simply because he disagreed with it. President Obama cannot refuse to carry out a congressional statute simply because he thinks it advances the wrong policy. To do so violates the very core of his constitutional duties."

Victor Davis Hanson asks, Are We in Revolutionary Times?

Victor Davis Hanson:  "When you collate this recent act with the class-warfare rhetoric, the “punish our enemies” threats, the president’s and Eric Holder’s serial racialist statements, the huge borrowing, the national-security leaks, the takeover of health care, the push for redistributive taxes, and even the trivial appointments like a Van Jones, Anita Dunn, or Armendariz, you can fairly conclude that Obama most certainly did not like the way the United States operated for the last 30 or so years, and has tried his best, through hook or crook, to change America in ways that simply were not possible through legislative or even judicial action."

Bing

   Obama Amnesty Plan: Catch, Release, Vote

"He thinks that the black vote and the Hispanic vote and the feminist vote and all these other constituency groups are gonna add up to an electoral coalition over the rest of the country -- which I'll call, for the purposes of this discussion, "the producers." That's what he's counting on.  We know that he's written off white working-class families.  They've admitted that they've written that group off.  They've written off the Catholics.  I don't know. How much more brazen does this guy have to be."....  Rush Limbaugh

Eric Holder still being probed by the Judiciary Committee

Obama ignores questions about de facto amnesty decision

Daily Caller  "The president has often used this no-questions strategy when making important or poll-boosting announcements. It allows him to deliver his message to his target audience, uncluttered by awkward questions. He speaks smoothly and finishes very rapidly, leaving assertive reporters few chances to ask a question before he reaches the refuge of the Oval Office door.

"Sometimes, the president does answer shouted questions. At the end of a March 23 Rose garden event, for example, he answered a shouted question about Trayvon Martin, a Florida youth killed in February.

"On Friday [Neil Munro of] The Daily Caller asked a question as his speech appeared to be ending.

"The president rebuked the TheDC, but then he declined to answer any other questions when he finished his carefully crafted statement.

Neil Munro explains his exchange with President Obama in Rose Garden [VIDEO]

" “Timing these things is a little awkward. He speaks very well, very smoothly — very nice delivery. It’s hard to know when he’s about to end. I thought he was going to end today. I asked my question too early. He rebuked me. Fair enough.” "

Obama has spoken -and spoken and spoken; Thursday and Friday

Obama tells celebs, "You're the ultimate arbiter of which direction this country goes."  And they just beam at him (Sarah Jessica  Parker,photo) 
"If you thought yesterday's campaign reboot in the form of a major economic address was the worst speech President Obama gave last night, you would be mistaken."


Our Plagiarizing President  "A Danish TV network compiled a hilarious list of the number of times Barack Obama has recycled phrases when describing foreign leaders and nations. It is an insult to those leaders and the people of those nations that our President does not even bother  to address them as individuals and unique (one might say "exceptional" nations). 
"He is on autopilot - just going through the motions, reading "cut and pasted" lines on the teleprompter."

Oh my - Dana Milbank tells Obama to 'skip the falsehoods' and give us a plan    "...Dana Milbank of the Washington Post is always a good bellweather for how Obama is playing on the left, and his column today is a scorcher aimed at President Obama.  

"Milbank didn't mince any words when writing about the president's speech [Thursday]"

RNC Video: From Reboot to Replay  "...the RNC took elements of Obama's speech yesterday and went back to a previous Obama speech and took identical phrases and sentences and sandwiched them back-to-back to illustrate: It's tired. It's old. It's worn out. It's the same old teleprompter. It's nothing new.  Stale, old, rotten, just typically antiquated.  So I have the audio of this, and when you hear the same things -- when you hear Obama say the same thing twice -- understand that once was in Cleveland yesterday. The other was in a previous speech this year."  Via Rush Limbaugh    Obama built this speech up as something significant and the press bought it, but it was nothing more than reading the same old speech, almost word-for-word.

Small President, Small Man  "President Obama’s penchant for blaming everyone but himself for his administration’s failures (pre-eminently George W. Bush, of course) has made him something of a laughingstock. He has, of course, a serious problem: his record is too poor for him to talk about it, and he has no plans for his second term other than more of the same. So he defaults to the blame game."  Power Line
Neal Boortz on Obama's speech Thursday: Caesar Obammus’ speech yesterday was a light version of his speech in Osawatomie last December.  "Telling a bank that after they spend hundreds of millions of dollars to create networks for debit card sales what they can and cannot charge merchants for transactions, instead of letting marketplace competition handle the issue, isn’t eliminating MOST regulations.  Telling a landowner that he can’t cover a wet spot in his subdivision back yard because it violates wetland regulations is NOT an attempt to eliminate most regulations." 

http://townhall.com/political-cartoons/

Updated: Obama enacts the Dream Act — on his own, evading Congress

Legal Insurrection  "So much for the rule of law.  This guy wants reelection, so to hell with the Congress."

OBAMA GRANTS AMNESTY TO YOUNG ILLEGALS  "The policy change, described to The Associated Press by two senior administration officials, will affect as many as 800,000 immigrants who have lived in fear of deportation. It also bypasses Congress and partially achieves the goals of the so-called DREAM Act, a long-sought but never enacted plan to establish a path toward citizenship for young people who came to the United States illegally but who have attended college or served in the military."


Obama To Protect Nearly One Million Illegal Immigrants


Update from Neal Boortz: Neal Reacts to Obama’s Announcement on Illegal Immigrants   "Caesar Obammus just announced his plans to stop deporting younger illegal immigrants and issue them work permits.  You can read about the particulars here.  Here’s Neal initial reaction to the announcement.  He’ll likely ruffle some conservative feathers with this one.  Neal says that Romney ought to come out today and congratulate Obama on this move."

Obama decrees some illegals are more illegal than others "This kind of pandering to Hispanics could win him the election. In states like Florida, Virginia, Colorado, New Mexico, and Nevada, where Hispanics are a growing part of the electorate, this sort of action could tip the balance in his favor - especially since all of those states are expected to be close."


Giving legal status to people that hate America  "U.S. soccer team booed in their own country as Mexican fans turn LA into an 'away' game."  "Reconquista"

http://www.tomllewis.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/7-05-Ram-Amnesty.jpg

The Irish Rovers - The Orange and the Green

This would have been great for St. Patrick's Day, but since the Irish Rovers are claimed by one commenter - "You yanks do know the Irish Rovers are Northern Irish Protestants right?" - to be Protestant, I guess any time is fine.

So what's the story behind the orange and the green?  And here:  And here.

[O]range Irish are mainly protestants who see themselves as british, they are descended from English and scottish planters who arrived in Ireland in the 17th century. The meaning behind orange is the orange order which celebrates the battle of the boyne in 1690 when king William of orange (protestant) defeated king James (catholic). Green Irish are mostly roman catholic and see themselves as Irish. They are descended from Irish natives who have always lived in Ireland. Green is the general colour of Ireland and this is why they are called the green Irish.

Hence the flag of Ireland:

Notice even in their flag, they have to keep the Orange and the green separated.

And, generally they hate each other to this day. We should be thankful that Americans from the North and the South did not carry this hatred from the Civil War into today or we'd be killing each other even now. It is good that this song can view the entire sorry situation with humor. ("Humour" in the UK.)  TD

Brunswick, Maine in the Civil War (2014 Updates) (Sept 2014 Update added also)

Sept 2014 UPDATE:  History: Brunswick, Maine Civil War Round Table


Visit the Historic Home of Civil War Hero Joshua Chamberlain in Brunswick, Maine
"Lawrence Joshua ( I thought it was Joshua Lawrence .TD) Chamberlain was a quiet college professor when the Civil War began, but before it was over he became one of the Union's most celebrated officers - the hero of Little Round Top at Gettysburg and the man selected to accept Robert E. Lee's formal surrender at Appomattox."  More here at Gettysburg Daily

Maine Memory

"After the war, Chamberlain returned to Brunswick, Maine and his teaching position at Bowdoin College. He was elected to four terms as Governor of the state of Maine and, later, became president of Bowdoin."

• Harriet Beecher Stowe house.
• Bowdoin Graduates Who Served with the Union
• Bowdoin Graduates Who Served with the Confederacy
• Maine’s Civil War Monuments
• (Below) The charge of the 20th Maine on Little Round Top, Gettysburg, 1863 Don Troiani

MAINE INFANTRY REGIMENTS in the Civil War.

Brunswick Trivia:  "Brunswick, Maine has the widest main street in Maine because Indians burned down the town and in order for that not to happen again they made the main street very wide so that the fire could not jump from building to building."  More here.

Harriet Beecher Stowe's book, Uncle Tom's Cabin was largely composed in Brunswick, ME.   "Stowe, a Connecticut-born teacher at the Hartford Female Academy and an active abolitionist, wrote the novel as a response to the 1850 passage of the second Fugitive Slave Act. Much of the book was composed in Brunswick, Maine, where her husband, Calvin Ellis Stowe, taught at his alma mater, Bowdoin College."....

"In recent years, the negative associations with Uncle Tom's Cabin have, to an extent, overshadowed the historical impact of the book as a "vital antislavery tool." "

Cumberland County Medal of Honor Recipients in the Civil War

“Facts and Legends Concerning the Underground Railroad in Topsham and Brunswick, Maine” pdf.

Library of Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain's House.  More here.

I searched over three hours for a roster of troops from Brunswick who served in the Civil War. Perhaps the numerous links included in this post can lead those interested in this subject to research further. If you find something, please leave us a link in the comments section below


the post. TD

More sources here.


2014 UPDATES:  
Civil War general's Medal of Honor discovered inside book at church sale

Joshua Chamberlain's original Medal of Honor (Courtesy Pejepscot Historical Society)

 

The August 2014 issue of Civil War Times features on pages 28-29, this article: "Chamberlain's Beloved Brunswick".  This photo showing a Maltese cross representing the Army of the Potomac's V Corps that once decorated the chimney of the Chamberlain home is in this article.

 

Dramatic video: From Conception to Birth

Also linked to here.

"Dallas"; politically correct, but still a good story. So it is said

Say It Ain’t So, J.R.: New “Dallas” Reboot is Anti-Drilling, Anti-Fracking, Anti-Oil Propaganda   ..."But they got 80-year-old Hagman out of the crypt and pulled 60-year-old Duffy back to the Southfork ranch to help introduce a new, younger generation of anti-Big Oil, anti-drilling, environmentalist Ewings–all of whom look like girliemen compared to the cowboys of the ’80s series." 

JR a threat to the environment.  "The opening scenes tell the story—evil comes in torrents of black, as in oil gushing from the earth, a gush that soils the faces of the cheering drillers who brought it forth."


Revival of hit prime-time soap is vapid, unimaginative  "But in context with this year’s update, the show exists as a record of the progress, power, wealth and success that oil money has brought to the state of Texas."


Related: Actress Lucy Lawless boards ship to protest Arctic oil drilling
Matt Damon's 'The Promised Land' to be 'anti-fracking' movie
Alec Baldwin To Host Anti-fracking Screening Event