The ruins of Normandy: Unpublished color photos taken in northern France in 1944 show the devastating impact of the Allied Force's battle to defeat the Nazis in World War 2

UK Daily Mail  "A series of never-before-published color images of the devastation in northern France after the D-Day landings have been released by LIFE.com" "The battle-scared landscapes of Normandy in northwest France are sharply brought into focus in a series of never-before-published color images taken in the aftermath of the D-Day landings on June 6 1944.

"The five images were finally published earlier this month by LIFE.com to mark the 69th anniversary of the landings, a significant moment in World War 2 which resulted in the Allied liberation of Western Europe from Nazi Germany’s control.
"The pictures show allied soldiers shifting through the rubble of buildings reduced to dust and entire towns destroyed by intense warfare with the Nazis."

Chris Matthews: Berlin Sun ‘Ruined’ Obama’s Speech

National Review Online 

"MSNBC host and Obama sycophant Chris Matthews blamed the sun for spoiling the president’s speech in Berlin today.
" “I think a lot of the problem he had today was the late afternoon sun in Berlin ruined his use of the teleprompter and so his usual dramatic windup was ruined,” Matthews said immediately after the speech. “I think he was really struggling with the text there.” "

Obama spoke in front only about 5,000-6,000 spectators, all of them invited guests.
"Fast forward to 2013, and many are now saying that Obama's reputation is "tarnished," by his recent snooping scandals, his extensions of the war on terror, and the hard luck realities of failing to deliver on all your promises."

 

Berlin Speech: 200,000 for Obama in 2008; Only 6,000 Today Well, 4500-6000, other estimates say.

UK Mail; What a difference 5 years make: Obama braves blistering Berlin heat to make speech before invite-only crowd of 4,500

Freedom needs to be backed by strength. Otherwise it loses.  "Otherwise we see what Leo Strauss called "the sorry spectacle of justice without a sword or of justice unable to use the sword.” Contra Obama, the lesson of 1953—and of the Weimar Republic, to which Strauss was referring—is that merely wishing for justice, and seeking freedom, is not enough."

Elbert Guillory: "Why I Am a Republican"

Youtube   "Louisiana Senator Elbert Guillory (R-Opelousas) explains why he recently switched from the Democrat Party to the Republican Party. He discusses the history of the Republican Party, founded as an Abolitionist Movement in 1854. Guillory talks about how the welfare state is only a mechanism for politicians to control the black community."
 

BREAKING: ABC SAYS WHITE HOUSE AUTHORIZED IRS-GATE POLITICAL ENEMY SCANDAL

Liberty News  "The Benghazi lies/scandal should alone be enough to initiate significant pressure on Congress to deal with Obama via their constitutional process of impeachment. The IRS scandal, however, should seal the deal. Especially if the following is true.

Trey Hardin: “I will tell you this on the IRS front. I’ve worked in this town for over 20 years in the White House and on Capitol Hill and I can say with a very strong sense of certainty that there are people very close to this president that not only knew what the IRS were doing but authorized it. It simply just does not happen at an agency level like that without political advisers likely in the West Wing certainly connected to the president’s ongoing campaign organization.”

 Hat tip to Michael Benghazi Malinconico Conservatives Network

 Occasionally Jon Stewart lives in reality.This is one of those times.

Scowling Face of the State

 

'Audit the IRS' Tea Party rally set for today on Capitol Hill   "Two potential GOP candidates for president - Ted Cruz and Rand Paul - are going to be there. It should be interesting to hear what they have to say. Expect both of them to connect IRS targeting with NSA snooping - two potent issues for conservatives in 2014."

 

A Comprehensive Distrust of Government 

"In keeping silent about evil, in burying it so deep within us that no sign of it appears on the surface, we are implanting it, and it will rise up a thousand fold in the future. When we neither punish nor reproach evildoers, we are not simply protecting their trivial old age, we are thereby ripping the foundations of justice from beneath new generations." --author and Soviet dissident Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918-2008)

George Will; Scowling Face of the State  "[Lois] Lerner, it is prudent to assume, is one among thousands like her who infest the regulatory state. She is not just a bureaucratic bully and a slithering partisan. Now she also is a national security problem because she is contributing to a comprehensive distrust of government."

secretsofthefed.com

Signs and Wonders: Navy bans porn but misses the point

World Magazine  "The Pentagon horrified many but surprised few people when it reported last month that since lifting its ban on homosexuality, the number of sexual assaults in the armed services increased to an astonishing 26,000, and that many of the assaults were male-on-male. After all, when you announce “anything goes,” you shouldn’t be surprised when “anything” actually shows up."
....
"[Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council]"  believes “no one has done more to sexualize the military than President Obama.” He said, “.... look at the White House’s radical social policies and start acknowledging their role in fostering this dangerous, sexually-charged environment.”  

Organizing for Action gathers a whopping three people for gun-control rally in California

Hot Air  "This is a pretty decent illustration of the lack of enthusiasm on the pro gun-control side, especially in light of a nearby and tragic shooting spree fairly recently. I’d wonder if a protest of three Second Amendment would even warrant a news story, unless it was to mock the absence of actual protesters. So, here I am providing some newsworthy context to this reporter’s exceedingly fair treatment of three gun-control supporters. There were three."

Israelis size up John Kerry

Pundits hope for better things from Secretary of State Kerry, but say most nations know that he will not matter; that he is bound Obama's foreign policy. And that, the world is familiar with.

 

israelnationalnews.com

 

Charles Krauthammer asks of Hillary: Can somebody name one achievement she had in the four years that she has been Kerry's predecessor?

Brunswick, Maine in the Civil War

Tunnel Wall  We noticed people searching for this article were directed to a blank page and I do not know why. Perhaps it will help you if it is re-posted here. TD

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

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.

More posts at the link

Jay Leno Eviscerates 'Snoop Obama' in Monologue

Breitbart   "NBC's "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno" Friday night monologue. Jay hits the feds from all sides: the NSA surveillance scandal; the IRS targeting scandal and the agency's extravagant, million-dollar conferences; and the exploding national debt. Notice the difference in audience reaction for a Mitt Romney tax joke.

Mike Ramirez: Birds of a feather

'Never heard of him’: Notable Columbia prof says he isn’t sure Obama attended Columbia University

CampusReform.org'   " “I taught every significant politician that ever studied at Columbia,” said Columbia Emeritus Professor of History Henry Graff, in an interview last week with Wayne Root, a contributor at The Blaze. “Between American History and Diplomatic History, one way or another, they all had to come through my classes.”
"“Not Obama,” he continued. “I never had a student with that name in any of my classes. I never met him, never saw him, never heard of him.” "

Henry Franklin Graff, Professor Emeritus of History

From Columbia News back in 2000; Historian Henry Graff Says American Presidency Is Losing Prestige
...."I don't think this is the way the Presidency should be conducted," said Graff. "I don't think the President should appear on talk shows." Graff's concern with presidential perception is rooted in fear for a leader who does not inspire trust. The question that needs to be asked, Graff said, is, "Do we have sufficient gravitas when the moment comes that the President says 'follow me'."....Little did he know back in 2000.