Iwo Jima: A Story Of Death, Glory And Propaganda In Wonderful Photos

Flashbak  "ON this day in photos:  February 23, 1945: US raises flag raised over Iwo Jima.

"Joe Rosenthal took the wonderful picture as the  U.S. Marines of the 28th Regiment, 5th Division, raised  the American flag atop Mt. Suribachi.
"This picture won the Pulitzer Prize in 1945."

Ira Hayes is seated at the far left

The Ballad of Ira Hayes  "The Ballad of Ira Hayes" is a song written by folk singer Peter La Farge. Its words tell the story of Ira Hayes, one of the six Marines who became famous for having raised the flag on Mount Suribachi during the Battle of Iwo Jima of World War II. The ballad Members of the Western Writers of America chose it as one of the Top 100 Western songs of all time.^[1]

California lurches even further to the left

Chesa Boudin wins San Francisco D.A. election

Chesa Boudin District Attorney 2019

"Chesa Boudin will serve as San Francisco's next district attorney, the SF Chronicle reported Saturday.
"Boudin, the most progressive candidate on the ballot, won a tight race against interim district attorney Suzy Loftus. Boudin held 85,950 votes as of Saturday afternoon, with about 1,200 ballots left to count, the Chronicle said. Loftus had 83,511 votes.
"The 39-year-old won the seat following four days of ballot counting in the city's first open election for district attorney in over a century following sitting District Attorney George Gascon's departure to run for district attorney in Los Angeles." . . .

Happy, America?  "This is what is shown for his parents when you do an internet search on this guy: 

Parents: David Gilbert (Father) · Kathy Boudin (Mother) · Bill Ayers (Father) · Bernardine Dohrn (Mother)

"Yes. Really.
"NOW, go look up each of the four named "parents."
"Wait, I'll help you out a bit:
" 'Boudin was born in New York City.[1] His parents, Kathy Boudin and David Gilbert, were Weather Underground members.[2] When Boudin was 14 months old, his parents were arrested for their role as getaway car drivers in the Brink's robbery of 1981 in Rockland County, New York.[1][3] His mother was sentenced to 20 years to life[4] and his father to 75 years to life for the felony murders of two police officers and a security guard.[5]
After his parents were incarcerated, Boudin was raised in Chicago by adoptive parents Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, who, like his parents, were members of the Weather Underground.[6]
"Kathy Boudin was released under parole supervision in 2003.[3][7] Boudin descends from a long left-wing lineage. His great-great-uncle, Louis B. Boudin,[8] was a Marxist theoretician and author of a two-volume history of the Supreme Court's influence on American government, and his grandfather Leonard Boudin was an attorney who represented controversial clients such as Fidel Castro and Paul Robeson.[9]
Boudin is also related to Michael Boudin,[8] a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, and I.F. Stone, an independent journalist.[8][10]
"Boudin went to St Antony's College, Oxford on a 2003 Rhodes Scholarship.[2] At Oxford, he earned two master's degrees, one in Forced Migration and the other in Public Policy in Latin America. He received his J.D. degree from Yale Law School in 2011,[11] and began work for the San Francisco Public Defender's Office as a post-doctoral fellow in 2012.[3]" - From Wikipedia" . . .

Nanny Bloomberg rides again with Hillary easing toward the inside

Bloomberg leads Trump by 6 points in 2020 election matchup

One must keep in mind that polls as early as this are meant not to reflect public opinion but to shape into a desired outcome. TD

Hillary Clinton taking calls, getting closer and closer to running

"Democratic voters couldn't be happier with their candidates.
"That's the news from a poll from Gallup last month, reporting that satisfaction with the current field is the highest it's been in decades. So why is Hillary Clinton reportedly taking calls from her buddies from the Democratic National Committee about you-know-what?
"The short answer is simple: The Democratic higher-ups, the elites Hillary hangs with, know that the current crop of cookie-cutter far-left candidates threatening to nationalize the country are not going to cut it in the general. The hoi polloi of their own party are a problem.

"House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who has clashed with the crazed-left "squad" reportedly told Democratic candidates to "Remember November" before they propose yet another $900 trillion tax-and-spend government takeover of something else."Guys like Michael Bloomberg are already jumping in, something that's rattling the current field of Democrats that the Democratic voters are so happy with. "With a divide like this, who does Hillary Clinton listen to? The Democratic elites, who are in this case the bigger realists? Or the looney-bin left who populate the Democratic base? "It explains the dynamic of why Hillary might just be getting ever closer to running." . . .

What Did She Mean by This? Hillary Clinton Gives Bizarre Answer When Asked if She Will Run For President in 2020

"Crooked Hillary Clinton a few day ago was asked if she was going to run for president…again during an interview with Andrew Ross Sorkin at the New York Times’ “DealBook” conference.

"Rather than giving a straight answer, Hillary played coy and gave a bizarre answer — she thinks she is funny, but she isn’t. 

“What would it take you to run?” Andrew Ross Sorkin asked Hillary.
“I’m sorry? To run? You know, I’ve always been a very, very slow runner and um I’m embarrassingly slow — I’ve tried to run races and I’m so far behind that I start to walk, acting like that’s what the plan was all the time so I don’t know that I’m going to take up competitive running right now…but I think you’re asking about something else,” Hillary said.

“Well there’s been some teasing and some hinting that maybe you’re sitting in the wings here waiting for some moment,” Sorkin said.

"Hillary Clinton went on to whine about the 2016 election and claimed she would have made a great president." . . .

Funny Business

. . . "At least, that's what Progressives find hilarious based on an interview in which The Daily Show host, Trevor Noah, asked Hillary Clinton how she killed Jeffrey Epstein - and was greeted with shrill, psychotic, Joker-style laughter by the First Lady of Arkancide. As opposed to, oh, a denial.
. . . No, wait - the book is called "Gutsy Women" and it's filled with examples of women who, like Hillary, were strong and unapologetic historical trailblazers." . . ."And all of whom knew that Jeffrey Epstein did not kill himself."

Thank you, veterans who saw buddies die.

Terrell AfterMath

Five Battle of the Bulge Museums You Must See

Marine Corps Birthday

Nov 10th, Marines will eat like kings and the next day the menu will feature cold cuts.

The battle of Betio Island on Tarawa Atoll in November, 1943

This account has a special significance to the Tunnel Dweller because 17 years later I was privileged to serve with the Second Marine Division for two years in Alpha 1/2. Always we wondered if we would have been as courageous as those Marines on Tarawa in 1943, often fearing we might not be.  TD

The media protected Jeffrey Epstein and crucified Brett Kavanaugh

https://www.americanthinker.com/cartoons/

Washington Examiner  "Is it any wonder the American public distrusts the media?
"This week, Project Veritas released a video featuring ABC News anchor Amy Robach on set, speaking in August with a running camera and a hot mic. In her conversation with others off-camera, apparently during a setup or commercial break, Robach noted with some frustration that she had the story about the allegations against Jeffrey Epstein all to herself three years ago and with about as much detail as anyone could expect. But her network, she added, inexplicably refused to air it.
" 'I've had the story for three years. I've had this interview with Virginia Roberts [Giuffre]. We would not put it on the air,” Robach said. "First of all, I was told, 'Who is Jeffrey Epstein? No one knows who that is. This is a stupid story.' Then [Buckingham] Palace found out that we had her whole allegations about Prince Andrew and threatened us a million different ways. We were so afraid we wouldn't be able to interview Kate and Will that we, that also quashed the story."
" 'It was unbelievable what we had. Clinton, we had everything," she continued. "I tried for three years to get it on to no avail. And now it's all coming out, and it's like these new revelations, and I freaking had all of it."
"After Project Veritas released the video, Robach walked her comments back and said the undercover journalist “caught” her in a “private moment of frustration.” She added that since the Epstein allegations broke, ABC News has “continued to aggressively pursue this important story.”

"Additionally, ABC News has claimed it refused to run Robach’s reporting because it did not meet their editorial standards. Apparently, there wasn't enough corroborating evidence, despite the fact that Robach says in the video that she had multiple witnesses who confirmed her story. Still, ABC News decided that the allegations, despite the corroboration, were just allegations unworthy of airing. And they killed the story that would eventually land Epstein behind bars, triggering his death." . . .

What the University of Alabama's Football Stadium Tells Us about CO2

John Eidson

To get a visual of what an astonishingly tiny portion of the atmosphere is made up of the increased amount of CO2 that's appeared over the last century, take a look at the University of Alabama's Bryant-Denny Stadium, which has a seating capacity of slightly more than 100,000.  Consider that just ten of those 100,000 people in the stands represent the visual equivalent of the increased level of CO2 in our atmosphere.  Just ten.  Ten of the football fans in the jam-packed stadium represent the increased amount of CO2.  The other 99,990 fans represent the rest of what's in the atmosphere — i.e., everything except the increased amount of CO2.

. . . "I'm not a climate scientist, or a scientist of any kind.  But I do have an engineering degree, which I mention only to point out that I'm at least as qualified as most non-scientists to form rational opinions regarding claims about the climate.  Maybe I'm off base, but it doesn't seem plausible to my layman's mind that a microscopic increase in one of the least plentiful atmospheric gases (CO2) is causing the environment to fall apart at the seams." . . .

. . . "There's another possible reason why the planet has warmed over the last 100 years, and it has nothing to do with carbon dioxide.  Earth's climate has always been in a state of flux.  For billions of years, our planet has experienced warming trends followed by a cooling trend, followed by another warming trend, and so on.  That one-followed-by-the-other pattern is unbroken, dating to the time the atmosphere first formed, so maybe the warming trend over the last century was just another event in that timeless pattern.  In other words, maybe the warming was merely coincidental to the slight increase in CO2.

"The peddlers of climate fear have misled us before" . . .

While we're on the subject:

A huge, angry, Greta Thunberg, looming big over San Francisco...

"Seems it wasn't enough for the left to compare young Greta Thunberg, a 16 year old Swedish global warming activist to Joan of Arc or even "Christ's successor."

"The looney left of San Francisco is now putting up a gargantuan mural of her face, uglier, angrier, doughier and shadowier than it really is, as if to scold San Franciscans from above as she did in her theatrically overwrought United Nations tantrum for the cameras." . . .

Breitbart: "Stalin, Mao, Kim Il-Sung, Saddam Hussein, Greta Thunberg…just a few of the cult leaders to have been immortalised by gigantic images designed to cow subject peoples into the correct mood of submission and terrified awe.": 

The Alleged Whistleblower Eric Ciaramella

The Radicalizing of Eric Ciaramella  "While the lawyers representing Eric Ciaramella, the alleged “whistleblower” in the Trump impeachment fiasco, describe him as having spent his entire career in “apolitical civil servant positions,” the truth is that Eric Ciaramella has been involved in radical political behavior throughout his life — including his years at Yale.

In fact, long before he was digging up dirt with the DNC’s Alexandra Chalupa about President Trump’s mythical collusion with Russia, Ciaramella was involved in leading a protest over what he believed was the poor treatment of Bassam Frangieh, a radical professor of Arabic Studies at Yale. On April 15, 2005, then first-year Yale student Ciaramella dressed in all white to lead a contingent of ten similarly dressed first-year Yale Arabic students to the offices of the Provost and the President of the university to demand that the university provide an incentive to encourage Frangieh to stay at Yale. . . .

"It is likely that Bassam Frangieh wanted to use literature to be able to shape Yale’s undergraduates’ views on what he called the “heroic Arabic poet-martyrs” battling against the unjust occupation in Palestine. In 2000, Frangieh published a chapter romanticizing terrorism in a book entitled Tradition, Modernity, and Postmodernity in Arabic Literature. Ciaramella’s favorite Yale Arabic professor praised the heroism of Abd al Rahim Mahmud, the “first Arab poet-martyr.” Mahmud, who is often used to inspire terrorism and suicide bombings among Arab youth, was described by Frangieh as “carrying his soul in the palm of his hand,” as he “threw himself into the cavern of death.” Romanticizing his terrorism, Frangieh recalls Mahmud’s “premature death at age 35, fighting a battle in an attempt to keep Palestine free from foreign occupation, [which]brought dignity to the hearts of his people. Through his death he eliminated the gap between words and action… he shall remain a symbol of heroism and pride for his people.” (p. 222) . . .

Judicial Watch: White House Visitor Logs Detail Meetings of Eric Ciaramella

Logs Also Show DNC Contractor Who Allegedly Worked with Ukraine to Investigate Trump/Manafort Visited Obama White House 27 times.

Scrub-a-dub-dub: Did the whistleblower scrub his social media footprint before filing his complaint?  '. . . He did a pre-scrub of his social media footprint, quite possibly anticipating that he might just get famous.

"Sperry points out that it roughly parallels what was seen in the social media presence of anti–Judge Brett Kavanaugh accuser, Christine Blasey Ford.  Chesa Boudin, as I noted here, seems to have done the same thing.

"Lefty ideas stink.  Hence the planning. The coordinating.  The getting ready for the big bomb to go off and protecting oneself from fallout." . . .

The ‘Whistleblower’ and the President’s Right to Present a Defense  . . . "Presenting an affirmative case would not be without risk for the president. If the Democrats’ case for impeachment is weak and has no chance of success, he would probably be better advised to leave well enough alone. Nevertheless, if the president wants to argue that the bureaucracy has had it in for him from the start, and has coordinated with Democrats to undermine him, he has an unusual embarrassment of riches to exploit. " . . .

Saturday Funny: He Who Must Not Be Named

If Ciaramella Is The Whistleblower, Democrats Have Made A Major Blunder And Their Credibility Will Evaporate     . . . " When the American people fully understand that Ciaramella submitted his complaint for the sole purpose of triggering an impeachment inquiry, and learn about his activities and close associations in D.C., the limited credibility the Democratic Party still retains will evaporate. Especially if the Durham investigation turns up criminal or merely unethical behavior on the part of Obama Administration officials.

(Note: This morning, I posted a summary of investigative journalist Paul Sperry’s stunning portrayal of this young man. Sperry’s full report can be viewed here and my summary, here.)

"We have all known people like Eric Ciaramella. They’re young, ambitious, eager to please and the boss loves them.

"For Ciaramella in 2016, that boss was then-CIA Director, John Brennan." . . .     

Facebook threatens to BAN pages mentioning Eric Ciaramella  "We reported last night that LaCorte News and several other Facebook pages owned by Bivona Digital – totaling 3.1 million followers – were locked, not allowing our journalists to post stories or breaking news. Facebook also threatened to completely eliminate the pages unless the unnamed violations were stopped.
"At the time we weren't sure whether the crackdown was due to our reporting the name of alleged whistleblower Eric Ciaramella or not. It was.
"Outlets including Breitbart News, The Gateway Pundit, and others – pages affecting more than 8 million followers in total – all report they got the same warnings they were violating community standards in reporting Ciaramella's name." . . .

GLAAD: We Want ‘20% Of Series Regular Characters’ To Be ‘LGBTQ By 2025’

Daily Wire  "On Thursday, GLAAD published its annual “Where We Are on TV” report, which examines the number of LGBTQ characters on television.
"In the opening paragraphs of the report, GLAAD President Sarah Kate Ellis states that television plays a crucial role in our culture when it comes to “changing hearts and minds.” She adds that according to a study, “less than one-quarter of Americans have a close friend or family member who is transgender,” which means many Americans “learn about trans people from what they see in television, movies, and news.”
"Due to this statistic, Ellis says, the casting of trans actor Brian Michael Smith in Fox’s “9-1-1: Lone Star” is important.
"The report then cites an online survey of 2,037 adults conducted by Harris Poll suggesting that 20% of Americans ages 18-34 identify as LGBTQ, and that approximately 12% of overall respondents identify as LGBTQ." . . .

Nunes Demands Schiff Testify After Lying; Also Wants Whistleblower And Hunter Biden To Appear

Zero Hedge  "Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) made a formal request that House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA) testify in a closed-door session as part of the impeachment inquiry against President Trump.

" 'Prior to the start of your public show trial next week, at least one additional closed-door deposition must take place," reads a Friday letter from Nunes to Schiff.

" 'As the American public is now aware, in August 2019 you and/or your staff met with or talked to the whistleblower who raised an issue with President Trump's phone call with Ukrainian President Zelensky. Although you publicly claim nothing inappropriate was discussed, the three committees deserve to hear directly from you the substance and circumstances surrounding any discussions conducted with the whistleblower, and any instructions you issued regarding those discussions."

" 'Given that you have reneged on your public commitment to let the committees interview the whistleblower directly, you are the only individual who can provide clarity as to these conversations," the letter reads.

"Schiff lied about his office's contacts with the whistleblower - initially claiming "We have not spoken directly with the whistleblower," when in fact the whistleblower, now known as CIA officer Eric Ciaramella, reached out to a committee aide who directed him to Democratic attorney Mark Zaid (who proudly obtained government security clearances for pedophiles and enjoys walking around children's theme parks alone).

"That said, Schiff maintains he hasn't personally spoken with Ciaramella, and that his committee was only given vague information as to the nature of the complaint." . . .

Emphases in the original
Schiff initially wanted the whistleblower to testify to Congress about his complaint, but has backed off of that proposal in the wake of revelations about his office’s contact with the CIA analyst.

Is the "Faithless Elector" Coming to the Supreme Court?

"A recently-filed cert petition gives the Court a good opportunity to rule on the constitutional role of presidential electors"

The Volokh Conspiracy  "A cert petition (available here) has been filed with the Supreme Court in the latest case involving "faithless electors," Chiafalo et al. v. State of Washington. [Historian Michael Rosin and I have submitted an amicus brief, available here, in support of the petition.] I'm betting that the Court will grant the petition and finally give us its views on a fascinating, and very thorny, question of constitutional law: to what extent may States control the behavior of presidential electors in the performance of their electoral duties?
"The Chiafelo case involves three of Washington State's presidential electors in the 2016 election.  Each had been included in a "slate" of potential electors submitted by the WA Democratic Party to the WA Secretary of State. When Hillary Clinton won the Washington popular vote, the WA Secretary of State, in accordance with WA law, appointed the members of the Democratic slate to be the State's presidential electors.
"WA law requires the electors to vote in accordance with their direction from the Party which nominated them, and backs that up with punishment if they act otherwise:

"Any elector who votes for a person or persons not nominated by the party of which he or she is an elector is subject to a civil penalty of up to one thousand dollars."  RCW 29A-56-340.

"But when the State's electors convened in Olympia in December, 2016, the three petitioners in this case, instead of voting for Hillary Clinton, cast their ballots for Colin Powell. They were subsequently fined $1000 each for having [done] so." . . .

Warren Plays To Nearly Empty Hall As Enthusiasm Wanes For Democratic Candidates

Joseph Curl

"To say there’s a lack of enthusiasm for the 2020 Democratic presidential candidates would be a grand understatement.
"And in South Carolina, apparently, Sen. Elizabeth Warren is not so popular.
"The Massachusetts Democrat hawking the $52 trillion Medicare-for-all program spoke Friday evening at an “Environmental Justice” forum in the state. 
"From photos of the event, it looks like dozens came, maybe 100 tops. Shots from the back of the auditorium show a sea of empty seats."
. . . 
"Questions emerged immediately on how to pay for the program. Said Warren: “The $11 trillion in household insurance and out-of-pocket expenses projected under our current system goes right back into the pockets of America’s working people,” Warren writes. “And we make up the difference with targeted spending cuts, new taxes on giant corporations and the richest 1% of Americans, and by cracking down on tax evasion and fraud. Not one penny in middle-class tax increases.' ” . . .

Who actually pays these taxes Warren wants to charge?

That leaves two remaining groups that may bear the burden of the corporate tax: workers and shareholders.