Friday, June 26, 2015

The battlefields of the Civil War then and now: Pictures reveal how settings of the bloodiest conflicts in U.S. history look 150 years on


Daily Mail  "Just over 150 years ago, they hosted some of the deadliest battles and most gruesome episodes of conflict in U.S. history.
"Thousands of Confederate and Union soldiers perished in these places, and more the century after the bloodshed, the memories of the Civil War still remain. 
"Pictures released by the national archive show corpses lying in front of churches, soldiers being hung and troops preparing for battle across the country.
"They have been compared with images taken at the same spot today, and many locations have stayed the same."   Read more:



Guess What Else The Scotus Approved No One's Talking About?


"In another 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court ruled today on Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs v. Inclusive Communities Project that you can be held liable for housing discrimination whether or not you or anyone in your organization actually intended to discriminate.

"Mere thought crimes - or as Justice Kennedy put it, “unconscious prejudice” or “stereotyping” is enough to get you used in hiring, renting property or numerous other activities if your decision can be found to have 'disparate impact' on the favored protected groups.

"This nonsense has long been a part of employment law, especially in fascist progressive states like California. Even asking someone about their criminal record, work history or credit can be seen as 'discriminatory' in the once Golden State, even if this might have a direct bearing on their suitability for a prospective position. Even references are a thing of the past as most employers will only confirm the person once worked there and will not disclose anything else, even if they were discharged for cause.

"This is one reason many employer no longer hire employees per se, but independent contractors as needed.

 "This decision was deliberately left quite broad, and it's a wet dream for race pimps or 'community organizers,' not to mention predatory lawyers and the Obama Justice Department.




http://vaislying.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/VAIS-SHARKS-11shark-lawyers.gif

"Now this nonsense is going to be extended to the renting of property, extending credit and even local decisions on where to build housing. It can also be used to force property owners to rent to Section 8 tenants whether they want to or not. And again, things like credit, prior rental history or a prior criminal record don't matter provided the prospective tenant is part of one of those 'protected groups.' Somebody who's a registered sex offender wants to rent in your building, even though you have families with young children living there? Provided this person belongs to certain groups, you can be sued for  your decision to rent to them or not for any reason based on 'disparate impact.'

"In the actual case the SCOTUS ruled on, there's another wonderfully Kafka-esque twist. It involves a decision by the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs on the location of low-income housing, and as the dissenting opinion points out, no matter where they decide to locate it, they can be sued on the grounds of 'disparate impact' by one group or another.

"This also plays in nicely with the new Obama diktat on forced neighborhood diversity.

"And you thought we lived in a free country?


The Gruber-Roberts/POTUS court decides

Beheading America   . . . "Rather than seek to uphold the Constitution and ensure that our unalienable Rights are protected, Justice John Roberts is more concerned with upholding the Government and ensure this Adminstration’s power over We the People."

The Supreme Court and the Self Expanding Powers of the Unelected  "The importance of Congress seems to be constantly diminished by the self expanding powers of other segments of our government. Interesting that these parts of our government that are garnering more power are loaded with the unelected. Appointed czars create regulations that behave as law, the Federal Reserve now is the micro manager of the stock market, and the Supreme Court which has spread its wings to now rewrite clear legislative language that existed during deliberation and voting. It seems that their approval of the legislation’s intent determines the effort to save the legislation. Lost are the limits of their power and the charge of their position." . . .Read more

 Triumph of the leftist will  "The Supreme Court issued its decision in King v Burwell yesterday. The Supreme Court has posted its opinions in the case here.
"At issue in King was the legality of the IRS’s provision of tax credits in Obamacare exchanges established by the federal government." . . .

This is indeed the Obama court: SCOTUS declares 14th Amendment requires same sex marriage in 5-4 decision . . . " If history is any guide, the winners of the case will not be gracious in victory, but will push for sweeping changes. Religious institutions that adhere to the traditional definition can expect to have their tax exempt status challenged, for starters. Government contracts, student loans,everything will be challenged." . . .
. . ."This is a sad day for any Americans who still looked to the Supreme Court as a possible counterbalance to the wild excesses of the Executive branch of government. That ship has clearly sailed and, with the mournful strains of "Nearer My God To Thee" echoing in the darkness, sunk from sight."

Those evil symbols

 . . . "Yes, Roof does pose with the Confederate flag, among other symbols of racism, on his Web site . But does anyone imagine that if the South Carolina flag had been relegated to a museum, the massacre would not have occurred?" . . .
 Charles Krauthammer:   On lowering the flag
 
 . . . "The Confederate flags would ultimately have come down. That is a good thing. They are now coming down in a rush. The haste may turn out to be problematic.


"We will probably overshoot, as we are wont to do, in the stampede to eliminate every relic of the Confederacy. Not every statue has to be smashed, not every memory banished. Perhaps we can learn a lesson from Arlington National Cemetery, founded by the victorious Union to bury its dead. There you will find Section 16. It contains the remains of hundreds of Confederate soldiers grouped around a modest, moving monument to their devotion to “duty as they understood it” — a gesture by the Union of soldierly respect, without any concession regarding the taintedness of their cause.


"Or shall we uproot them as well?"

When Erasing Symbols of Slavery, Don't Forget the Democrat-- Party . . . " Filled with the ire of slavery and ever more anti-authoritarian, perhaps they will one day forever leave the Democratic Party and join with other conservatives to reestablish the promise of a free America, for everyone.

Mark Steyn: The Confederate flag is a Democratic problem  . . .  “ 'The Democrat-- party has never come to terms with the evil of its past,” said Steyn." . . .

The Courage to be on the Wrong Side of History


 

Lea Singh  "Any time now, the Supreme Court of the United States will likely announce a constitutional right to same-sex marriage. This, even though majorities of Americans, everywhere across the nation, voted against it.

"The liberal advocates will seem to have won at last, just as they always planned - through the courts, bypassing the will of the people.

"There is no question that this ruling will be a serious low point for conservatives in America. There could hardly be a bigger morale-buster.

"This ruling will also mark the start of a new era in America. It is no secret what will come next. We have other countries for that - such as Canada, as I have written about before." . . .
. . .
"As Ryan Shinkel writes in Public Discourse:

The phrase “the wrong side of history” ...amounts, in effect, to the threat that “people won’t like you.” If you think same-sex marriage is an oxymoron and no-fault divorce should be reformed, then no New York cocktail parties for you.
Yet there is a deeper threat as well: not only will people not like you, but you will be socially excluded from prestigious jobs, awards, societies, or—like Brendan Eich—perhaps even the very company you helped create. This “arc of history” narrative is used to legitimize the vigilante justice wielded against the bigoted foes of progress. Because the future will inevitably turn toward “equality,” we are told, millennials who stand in the way have no future. They will be history. The majority of the Republican Party can be excused—they are from an older generation. But when you grow up in a time of progress, the revolution will not be merciful. 
This is a real fear among my likeminded friends, and it is demoralizing.
"The intuition of Shinkel's generation is correct: the price of nonconformity is real." . . .

Cultural Tyrants..Have you heard of La Raza?

Not only won’t it stop with the Confederate flag, it isn’t even slowing down. . . ."At some point, the rest of us are going to have to exact that price. The stars and bars can go, and if Bedford Forrest, who may have been a singular cavalry officer but did, after all, serve as first Grand Wizard of the Democratic Party’s 19th-century terrorist arm, goes with it that’s not an unbearable loss to anyone’s heritage. But while we’re scrubbing the bad baggage from our culture, can we have a merciful end to the painfully stupid leftist obsession with cop-killing racists such as Mumia Abu Jamal, communist terrorists like Bill Ayers, and psychopathic Marxist white supremacists like Che Guevara? How about, as Victor Davis Hanson suggested, an end to racist Leftist institutions like the Congressional Black Caucus and La Raza? If we’re to crack down on the cultural cachet of the Old South, can we conduct a similar purge of the New Black Panthers?" . . .  Read more 

Victor Davis Hanson:   The Confederate battle flag is far from the only worrisome symbol in America today. 
 President Obama speaks at a La Raza conference in 2011. (Jim Watson/AFP/Getty)
http://www.examiner.com/images/blog/wysiwyg/image/La_Raza_Cartoon_082809(1).jpg
. . . "But perhaps we should not stop there, given increasing ethnic tensions and widening racial fault lines. There are plenty of other overt racialist symbols that separate Americans. One is the prominent use of La Raza, “The Race” — seen most prominently in the National Council of La Raza, an ethnic lobbying organization that has been and is currently a recipient of federal funds. The National Council of La Raza should be free to use any title it wishes, but it should not expect the federal government to subsidize its separatist nomenclature. The pedigree of the term La Raza is just as incendiary as that of the Confederate battle flag. The Spanish noun raza (cf. Latin radix: “root” or “race”) is akin to the now-discarded German use of Volk, which in the early 20th century came to denote a common German racial identity that transcended linguistic and cultural affinities: To be a real member of the Volk one had to “appear” German, in addition to speaking German and

"La Raza is just such a racialist term. It goes beyond a common language and country of origin, and thus transcends the more neutral puebla (“people”: Latin populus) or gente (“people”: Latin gens). Raza was deliberately reintroduced in the 1960s to promote a racially superior identity of indigenous peoples and mestizos born in the Spanish-speaking countries of the New World. That is why the National Council of La Raza once had a close affinity with MEChA (Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán), the infamous racialist U.S. student group (its ironic motto is “Unity creates strength”), some of whose various past slogans (cf. the Castroite derivative “Por La Raza todo, Fuera de La Raza nada”) finally became sources of national embarrassment."


Race and the Destruction of the American Republic . . . "American politics are now decidedly imbalanced in favor of the Left.  The Right is disunited, dispirited, and -- in the main -- under-financed.  The Left, on the other hand, appears much more unified, seems highly motivated, and is very well funded.

"Combine these factors with a long-lived campaign to parlay white guilt into ultimate victory, and one understands the reasons why the racial grievance industry may succeed." . . .

Offensive flags

"So while the politically correct crowd and the history revisionist liberals all have their panties in a wad over the rebel flag, here are some flags that upset me. Just thought I would comment since the firestorm over Charleston, S.C."   Theodore Alton McElroy at  Guardian Eagles

Help us map the last remaining monuments of the Confederacy

Gallant men fighting for a wretched cause. How sad. TD

 
Fusion   . . . "The Civil War ended 150 years ago, but physical signs of its presence are seen all over the South: monuments, courthouses, schools, cities, counties. They can even be found in places you wouldn’t expect, as far afield as Ridgefield, Washington, or Helena, Montana.

"We pulled together all the mentions we could find of monuments to the Confederacy and its leaders off Wikipedia and created the map below. The highlighted regions are the former Confederate States of America."
This Google Earth screen shot is from the article:
. . . "The map is by no means scientific or comprehensive, and only uses sites named on Wikipedia, and does not include cemeteries or battlefield memorial sites." . . .


 'If you know of any public locations marking the Confederate legacy that are not listed on this map, please fill out this form or leave a comment with the information. We’ll update this document with verified additions as we receive them."   More here.
Picketts charge at Gettysburg:
http://allday2.com/index.php?newsid=620018

Thursday, June 25, 2015

We Have Officially Reached Peak Leftism

 The horrific crime that shocked the nation notwithstanding, black life in Charleston remains very different, in attractive ways, from black life in such Left-dominated horror shows as Cleveland and Detroit, and the state’s governor is, in the parlance of identity politics, a woman of color — but she is a Republican, too, and therefore there must be shrieking, rending of garments, and gnashing of teeth.

NRO . . . We have seen an extraordinary outburst of genuine extremism — and genuine authoritarianism — in the past several months, and it will no doubt grow more intense as we approach the constitutional dethroning of the mock messiah to whom our progressive friends literally sang hymns of praise and swore oaths of allegiance. (“I pledge to be a servant to our president” — recall all that sieg heil creepiness.) There is an unmistakable stink of desperation about this, as though the Left intuits what the Right dares not hope: that the coming few months may in fact see progressivism’s cultural high-water mark for this generation." . . .  Read more   Kevin D. Williamson

How can people who hate this nation have so much influence today?

Political Cartoons by Glenn McCoy

Rush Limbaugh . . .  "Everybody's going along with it, and I say, "Wait, wait, wait, wait. The next thing that's gonna happen is somebody's gonna say the American flag has flown over far more bigotry and racism and homophobia than the Confederate flag," and somebody's gonna make a move to replace it. They said, "He doesn't know what he's talking about. He's marginalized! Rush Limbaugh, he's an extremist. He's been marginalizing all of this stuff." Well, here comes Calypso Louie, in less than 24 hours, making my point." :

 

Rush Is Right   . . . "It’s a cultural revolution slower than Mao’s pace, but with the same destination — a left wing utopia that never really exists, but once you get there if you say otherwise your next meal might wind up being a lead sandwich. And the President’s top and longest serving advisor has the right family background to push in that direction.

"Rush is right. Don’t doubt him on this." . . .

Banning Flags
http://legalinsurrection.com/2015/06/branco-cartoon-next-up/

 Of Gone with the Wind and 'peak leftism' "A CNN anchor actually asked whether or not the Jefferson Memorial should come down.  While we're at it, might as well take down the Lincoln Memorial because Mary Todd's family owned slaves.  Of course, we should dynamite the Washington Monument pronto.

"Where will it end ? NRO's Kevin Williamson argues we've now enter "peak leftism' ":. . .

Read more: Rick Moran

Awesome Picture From South Carolina That Will Make Race Baiters Choke…

Weasel Zippers
Right Scoop   "Nearly everyone on Twitter is sharing this great picture showing a black man and a guy holding a confederate flag, but they’re not arguing or yelling at each other. Much to the dismay of the professional race-baiters that headed down to South Carolina, these two guys show we can disagree and still get along:" . . .
Comments:
One of many:
Most of the flack for the Confederate flag comes from northerner liberals and the media. We in the south just see it as a flag of history. Very few even pay attention to it and because we are mostly Conservative Christians, you have seen America that we do love our brothers and sisters, NO matter skin color! God made you and skin is the one thing you cannot change. Be blessed and love all because ALL lives matter in America!
 Another:
It is not the Confederate flag nor the American flag which is causing so many problems for black American families. It is the evil that is being perpetrated on them by the Marxist policies of the democrat party and the emperor Nero Obama in collusion with the Big Whigs of the Republican Party.
It is not the Confederate flag causing so many black Americans to kill other black Americans nor is it the American flag.
It is not the Confederate flag causing so much unemployment in the black American community nor is it the American flag.
It is not the Confederate flag causing so many black American women to abort their babies as the hero of the democrat party, Margaret Sanger, had envisioned in her diabolical "Negro Project" nor is it the American flag.
The Crucifix was a symbol of an unspeakably horrible death but the early Christians took that symbol of death and transformed it into s symbol of God's love for mankind and a symbol of new life. If the same would be done with the Confederate flag as these two courageous gentlemen are doing it would transform America in a very positive way.
There were forebearers of mine from both sides of my family who fought on both sides of that terrible conflict, the War Between The States, and I refuse to dishonor either side by not acknowledging the flag which either served under. It accomplishes absolutely nothing to do so and in truth only fosters continued divisions in America.
Again, I think these two gentlemen are courageous for what they did.

Awesome! Justice Scalia Goes Nuclear In Obamacare Dissent, “We Should Start Calling This Law SCOTUScare”…


1. “Words no longer have meaning if an Exchange that is not established by a State is ‘established by the State.’”

2. “Under all the usual rules of interpretation, in short, the Government should lose this case. But normal rules of interpretation seem always to yield to the overriding principle of the present Court: The Affordable Care Act must be saved.”

3. “Today’s interpretation is not merely unnatural; it is unheard of.”

4. “And the cases will publish forever the discouraging truth that the Supreme Court of the United States favors some laws over others, and is prepared to do whatever it takes to uphold and assist its favorites.”

5. “We should start calling this law SCOTUScare.”