Friday, September 28, 2012

Still Proud, as we all use to be...........

 

Enlarged 

 August 1936. "Example of self-resettlement in California. Oklahoma farm family on highway between Blythe and Indio. Forced by the drought of 1936 to abandon their farm, they set out with their children to drive to California. Picking cotton in Arizona for a day or two at a time gave them enough for food and gas to continue. On this day they were within a day's travel of their destination, Bakersfield. Their car had broken down en route and was abandoned."

10 Southern Pictures 1862 - 1964

 

 July 1936. "Hoe culture in the South. Poor white, North Carolina."
"Poor white?"  I didn't have as many patches, but otherwise, not much difference.  People just had a lot of "Scotch Blood" in them back then, regardless of their wealth.
More @ NamSouth

France’s Hollande Slaps Rich With 75% Tax Rate

Brilliant.  What makes you think they will stay?

Socialism invariably turns into Communism.
--Bastiat

French President Francois Hollande’s first annual budget raised taxes on the rich and big companies and included a minimum of spending cuts to reduce the deficit. 

The 2013 blueprint relies on 20 billion euros ($26 billion) in tax increases, including a levy of 75 percent on incomes over 1 million euros, and eliminating limits on the wealth tax. Hollande aims to reduce spending by 10 billion euros, bringing the deficit to 3 percent of output from 4.5 percent in 2012. The budget predicts growth of 0.8 percent.

“It’s true we’re asking for an effort of the richest, the top 10 percent and the top 1 percent in particular,” Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said. “Big companies of the CAC 40 pay less than the small companies and sometimes don’t pay at all. So we’re asking them for an effort too.”

France has a financing requirement of 171.1 billion euros in 2013, down from 182.8 billion euros in 2012, Agence France Tresor said in a simultaneous release. The debt agency said bond issuance alone would total 170 billion euros next year, down from 178 billion euros this year.

The announcement triggered a gain in French 10-year bonds, with the yield falling three basis points to 2.18 percent. French borrowing costs have tumbled since Hollande took office in May. Still, with growth stalled and unemployment at a 13-year high, bond-market quiescence is partly hiding the scale of the challenge facing Europe’s second-largest economy, investors and economists say.
‘Big Test’

More @ Newsmax

Re-post from 2007 with additional Vietnam pictures: RIP My Friend, NAGO And Drew Dix, CMOH Winner

My Friend, NAGO And Drew Dix, CMOH Winner


NAGO on the far left. 
Enlarged

 Drew Dix won the CMOH not for a single event, but for his actions over a period of 56 hours during TET '68 in Chau Doc, South Vietnam right on the Cambodian border. In his book, "The Rescue of River City" http://tinyurl.com/97glgh3 he mentions my friend NAGO's name only 55 times, which brought me to ask NAGO, what were you doing? Fooling around that extra hour?!

The below letter was sent to me in response to a birthday party that NAGO was sharing with my daughter, Dixie.

Brock:

Patricia will send the photos of "NAGO." He is the one firing the mortar in one of the photos she is sending. (You couldn't see his face. BT) Please pass on my best to "NAGO" and tell him I will send a copy of a book with his picture along with Maggie (the nurse), Jim Monroe (Moore) and me. The first edition of the book had some errors in the written portion that had to be changed. The publisher took some liberties. It's not a book I wrote, but one on the Medal of Honor.

Also, if you can add a few words for me at his party I would greatly appreciate it.

"A soldier's life is based on honor, integrity, loyalty and bravery and would not be totally complete if all of these qualities were not experienced. Mine is truly complete, because of my service and experiences with my friend and fellow warrior, NAGO." Thank you for your service and thank you for watching my back!

I wish I could be there to celebrate your birthday with your friends and family.

Thanks for doing this for NAGO. He is a special friend

Drew

Drew Dix
*Awarded The Congressional Medal OF Honor
On January 16, 1969 For Conspicuous Gallantry
And Intrepidity In Action At The Risk Of His Life
Above And Beyond The Call Of Duty In Which
"NAGO" Was A Big Part

Another words, Drew Dix is not just a hero, but one who unselfishly gives credit to those who were with him at the time. An individual mentioned to me that after reading the book, that it was hard for him to believe that it actually happened. I stated that no, that wasn't my problem, but that I thought it difficult to believe that he wasn't hit once the entire time!

NAGO is the one on the far left in the picture above. The book is excellent, but ends with a sad note. One of his warrior's, Bao, went into the hills to continue fighting the Communists after the end. Years later, the Communists told Bao's sister that if he and his men turned themselves in, then they would grant them amnesty. Unfortunately, he believed them, and when he came to Chau Doc to surrender, they immediately took him to the marketplace and promptly executed him. Drew Dix ends his book with the follow words.

"It was a humiliating way for a warrior to go and I often think of him!"
Third image is at the birthday party and shows NAGO with a picture album I made for him consisting of images that Drew took of him in Vietnam. Drew said that NAGO's favorite weapon was the mortar, but NAGO told me that looking back on it, he thinks he liked the .50 Caliber best, as it would take large chunks out of the VC's heads! 



                 NAGO missing his head.:)
           




Maybe we'll win this time now that we have a Red Ryder......

 

My gift from NAGO.

========
2010 Wedding Party

Enlarged pictures above @ NamSouth



======== 

*For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty. S/Sgt. Dix distinguished himself by exceptional heroism while serving as a unit adviser. Two heavily armed Viet Cong battalions attacked the Province capital city of Chau Phu resulting in the complete breakdown and fragmentation of the defenses of the city. S/Sgt. Dix, with a patrol of Vietnamese soldiers, was recalled to assist in the defense of Chau Phu. Learning that a nurse was trapped in a house near the center of the city, S/Sgt. Dix organized a relief force, successfully rescued the nurse, and returned her to the safety of the Tactical Operations Center. Being informed of other trapped civilians within the city, S/Sgt. Dix voluntarily led another force to rescue 8 civilian employees located in a building which was under heavy mortar and small-arms fire. S/Sgt. Dix then returned to the center of the city. Upon approaching a building, he was subjected to intense automatic rifle and machinegun fire from an unknown number of Viet Cong. He personally assaulted the building, killing 6 Viet Cong, and rescuing 2 Filipinos. The following day S/Sgt. Dix, still on his own volition, assembled a 20-man force and though under intense enemy fire cleared the Viet Cong out of the hotel, theater, and other adjacent buildings within the city. During this portion of the attack, Army Republic of Vietnam soldiers inspired by the heroism and success of S/Sgt. Dix, rallied and commenced firing upon the Viet Cong. S/Sgt. Dix captured 20 prisoners, including a high ranking Viet Cong official. He then attacked enemy troops who had entered the residence of the Deputy Province Chief and was successful in rescuing the official's wife and children. S/Sgt. Dix's personal heroic actions resulted in 14 confirmed Viet Cong killed in action and possibly 25 more, the capture of 20 prisoners, 15 weapons, and the rescue of the 14 United States and free world civilians. The heroism of S/Sgt. Dix was in the highest tradition and reflects great credit
upon the U.S. Army  


Enlarged pictures below @ Pinterest
Drew Dix.Left to right: unknown SEAL, Drew Dix, Harry Humphries (SEAL).
          Drew Dix                                    Left to right: unknown SEAL, 
                                                              Drew Dix, Harry Humphries (SEAL).


 The jeep armed with a .50-cal.Maggie Frankot, the nurse rescued by Drew and the SEALs.
 NAGO told me that looking                Maggie Frankot, the nurse rescued by Drew.
back on it, he thinks he liked
 the .50 Caliber best, as 
it would take large chunks
 out of the VC's heads!

Black Pastor Brings Down Righteous Indignation On Democrat Party

EW_Jackson_Head_shot21

Bishop Earl Walker Jackson, Sr. is an American pastor and graduate of Harvard Law School and he has come out with a video that you must see, in which he calls upon all Christians in the black community to pull their endorsements and voting from the Democrat Party for their ungodliness. He does not advance the Republican Party, nor does he endorse Mitt Romney, but he calls upon the people to return to God.
Jackson begins with fighting word,
“It is time to end the slavish devotion to the Democrat Party!”
“They have insulted us, used us, and manipulated us,” Jackson exclaimed. “They have saturated the black community with ridiculous lies. ‘Unless we support the Democrat Party, we will be returned to slaver. We will be robbed of voting rights. The Martin Luther Holiday will be repealed.’”
“They think we are stupid,” he continues, “and that these lies will hold us captive, while they violate everything we believe as Christians. The Democrat Party has created an unholy alliance between, so-called, ‘civil rights leaders’ and Planned Parenthood, which has killed unborn black babies by the tens of millions. Planned Parenthood has been far more lethal to black lives than the KKK ever was. The Democrat Party and their allies are partners in this genocide.”

The Forced Suicide Of Field Marshall Rommel, 1944

Re-post NamSouth 2007

 View Image

 
A memorial at the site of Field Marshal Erwin Rommel's (forced) suicide outside of the town of Herrlingen, Baden
VERBATIM

 For a time, Erwin Rommel was Hitler's favorite general. Gaining prominence in 1940 as a commander of a panzer division that smashed the French defenses (see "Blitzkrieg, 1940"), Rommel went on to command the Afrika Korps where his tactical genius, ability to inspire his troops and make the best of limited resources, prompted Hitler to elevate him to the rank of Field Marshall. In 1943, Hitler placed Rommel in command of fortifying the
Rommel in the African desert, 19
"Atlantic Wall" along the coast of France - defenses intended to repel the inevitable invasion of Europe by the Allies.

By the beginning of 1943, Rommel's faith in Germany's ability to win the war was crumbling, as was his estimation of Hitler. Touring Germany, Rommel was appalled at the devastation of the Allied bombing raids and the erosion of the peoples' morale. He also learned for the first time of the death camps, slave labor, the extermination of the Jews and the other atrocities of the Nazi regime. Rommel became convinced that victory for Germany was a lost cause and that prolonging the war would lead only to his homeland's devastation. He came in contact with members of a growing conspiracy dedicated to ousting Hitler and establishing a separate peace with the western allies.

On July 17, 1944, British aircraft strafed Rommel's staff car, severely wounding the Field Marshall. He was taken to a hospital and then to his home in Germany to convalesce. Three days later, an assassin's bomb nearly killed Hitler during a strategy meeting at his headquarters in East Prussia. In the gory reprisals that followed, some suspects implicated Rommel in the plot. Although he may not have been aware of the attempt on Hitler's life, his "defeatist" attitude was enough to warrant Hitler's wrath. The problem for Hitler was how to eliminate Germany's most popular general without revealing to the German people that he had ordered his death. The solution was to force Rommel to commit suicide and announce that his death was due to his battle wounds.

Death of a German Hero
 
Rommel's son, Manfred, was 15 years old and served as part of an antiaircraft crew near his home. On October 14th, 1944 Manfred was given leave to return to his home where his father continued to convalesce. The family was aware that Rommel was under suspicion and that his chief of staff and his commanding officer had both been executed. Manfred's account begins as he enters his home and finds his father at breakfast:
 
"...I arrived at Herrlingen at 7:00 a.m. My father was at breakfast. A cup was quickly brought for me and we breakfasted together, afterwards taking a stroll in the garden. 

'At twelve o'clock to-day two Generals are coming to discuss my future employment,' my father started the conversation. 'So today will decide what is planned for me; whether a People's Court or a new command in the East.'

'Would you accept such a command,' I asked.

He took me by the arm, and replied: 'My dear boy, our enemy in the East is so terrible that every other consideration has to give way before it. If he succeeds in overrunning Europe, even only temporarily, it will be the end of everything which has made life appear worth living. Of course I would go.'

Shortly before twelve o'clock, my father went to his room on the first floor and changed from the brown civilian jacket which he usually wore over riding-breeches, to his Africa tunic, which was his favorite uniform on account of its open collar.

At about twelve o'clock a dark-green car with a Berlin number stopped in front of our garden gate. The only men in the house apart from my father, were Captain Aldinger (Rommel's aide), a badly wounded war-veteran corporal and myself. Two generals - Burgdorf, a powerful florid man, and Maisel, small and slender - alighted from the car and entered the house. They were respectful and courteous and asked my father's permission to speak to him alone. Aldinger and I left the room. 'So they are not going to arrest him,' I thought with relief, as I went upstairs to find myself a book. 


"I shall be dead
in a quarter
of an hour"

A few minutes later I heard my father come upstairs and go into my mother's room. Anxious to know what was afoot, I got up and followed him. He was standing in the middle of the room, his face pale. 'Come outside with me,' he said in a tight voice. We went into my room. 'I have just had to tell your mother,' he began slowly, 'that I shall be dead in a quarter of an hour.' He was calm as he continued: 'To die by the hand of one's own people is hard. But the house is surrounded and Hitler is charging me with high treason. ' "In view of my services in Africa," ' he quoted sarcastically, 'I am to have the chance of dying by poison. The two generals have brought it with them. It's fatal in three seconds. If I accept, none of the usual steps will be taken against my family, that is against you. They will also leave my staff alone.'

'Do you believe it?' I interrupted. 'Yes,' he replied. 'I believe it. It is very much in their interest to see that the affair does not come out into the open. By the way, I have been charged to put you under a promise of the strictest silence. If a single word of this comes out, they will no longer feel themselves bound by the agreement.'

I tried again. 'Can't we defend ourselves?' He cut me off short. 'There's no point,' he said. 'It's better for one to die than for all of us to be killed in a shooting affray. Anyway, we've practically no ammunition.' We briefly took leave of each other. 'Call Aldinger, please,' he said.

Aldinger had meanwhile been engaged in conversation by the General's escort to keep him away from my father. At my call, he came running upstairs. He, too, was struck cold when he heard what 
German prisoners are
marched through the
streets of Aachen - the
first German city to
fall. October 1944
was happening. My father now spoke more quickly. He again said how useless it was to attempt to defend ourselves. 'It's all been prepared to the last detail. I'm to be given a state funeral. I have asked that it should take place in Ulm. ( a town near Rommel's home) In a quarter of an hour, you, Aldinger, will receive a telephone call from the Wagnerschule reserve hospital in Ulm to say that I've had a brain seizure on the way to a conference.' He looked at his watch. 'I must go, they've only given me ten minutes.' He quickly took leave of us again. Then we went downstairs together. 

We helped my father into his leather coat. Suddenly he pulled out his wallet. 'There's still 150 marks in there,' he said. 'Shall I take the money with me?'

'That doesn't matter now, Herr Field Marshal,' said Aldinger.

My father put his wallet carefully back in his pocket. As he went into the hall, his little dachshund which he had been given as a puppy a few months before in France, jumped up at him with a whine of joy. 'Shut the dog in the study, Manfred,' he said, and waited in the hall with Aldinger while I removed the excited dog and pushed it through the study door. Then we walked out of the house together. The two generals were standing at the garden gate. We walked slowly down the path, the crunch of the gravel sounding unusually loud.

As we approached the generals they raised their right hands in salute. 'Herr Field Marshal,' Burgdorf said shortly and stood aside for my father to pass through the gate. A knot of villagers stood outside the drive.

Hitler's wreath is carried in Rommel's
funeral procession Oct. 18, 1944
The two generals climbed quickly into their seats and the doors were slammed. My father did not turn again as the car drove quickly off up the hill and disappeared round a bend in the road. When it had gone Aldinger and I turned and walked silently back into the house.

Twenty minutes later the telephone rang. Aldinger lifted the receiver and my father's death was duly reported.

It was not then entirely clear, what had happened to him after he left us. Later we learned that the car had halted a few hundred yards up the hill from our house in an open space at the edge of the wood. Gestapo men, who had appeared in force from Berlin that morning, were watching the area with instructions to shoot my father down and storm the house if he offered resistance. Maisel and the driver got out of the car, leaving my father and Burgdorf inside. When the driver was permitted to return ten minutes or so later, he saw my father sunk forward with his cap off and the marshal's baton fallen from his hand."

References: Hart, B. H. Liddell, The Rommel Papers (1953); Manvell, Roger, Heinrich Fraenkel, The Men Who Tried to Kill Hitler (1964).


Fallen Brothers Found And Lost

Re-post NamSouth 2009 


VEBATIM

As with so much in life and in death, there was news this week that was joyous and sad and bittersweet all at once for the small community of the Vietnam WarÂ’s band of brothers of the Ia Drang Valley.

Early in the morning of December 28, 1965, a U.S. Army Huey helicopter, tail number 63-08808, lifted off from the huge grassy airfield at the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) base at An Khe in the Central Highlands of South Vietnam.

Two experienced pilots, CWO Jesse Phelps of Boise, Idaho, and CWO Kenneth Stancil of Chattanooga, Tenn., were at the controls. Behind them in the doors were crew chief Donald Grella of Laurel, Neb., and door gunner Thomas Rice Jr. of Spartanburg, S.C. All four were already veterans of the fiercest air assault battle of the war, fought the previous month in the Ia Drang.

Huey 808 was one of 10 birds in a platoon of A Company, 229th Assault Helicopter Battalion, led by Capt. Ed (Too Tall to Fly) Freeman. It was bound on a short, routine flight down Route 19 to an infantry field position just over the high pass between An Khe and the port city of Qui Nhon.
It was what Army aviators called an "ash and trash mission," hauling cases of C-rations, ammunition and other essential supplies to a company of grunts preparing for an air assault mission.

Normally, all missions were flown by at least two helicopters, but this one was so brief and so routine and along a route so well known and marked by the center white line of a familiar highway that Capt. Freeman and his boss, Maj. Bruce (Ol' Snake) Crandall, already at the Landing Zone with the rest of A Company's 20 helicopters, agreed to waive that requirement and let 808 fly alone.

With that, 808 flew off the face of the earth. It disappeared without a word on the radio of distress or trouble. The helicopter was gone, and a massive search effort began almost immediately and continued for months, both as an organized and methodical search and by individual Huey pilots who flew anywhere near that route.

For weeks, they combed the rugged jungle hills on both sides of the road and on both sides of the mountain pass. Choppers hovered over every break in the tree cover peering down if they could see or sending crewmen rappelling down ropes to look around clearings that were not easily checked from the air.

They found nothing. The Huey and its four crewmen had vanished.

The families of the crewmen joined the ranks of those who wait for news, for hope, for some closure of an open wound. More than 1,600 American servicemen are still listed as missing in action in Vietnam.

This week, the Department of Defense liaison officers who work with MIA families called OlÂ’ Snake Crandall and surviving family members of the four missing crewmen to confirm that after 43 years, search teams following one of thousands of leads had found and positively identified the wreckage of Huey 808.

In what amounts to almost an archaeological dig the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC-MIA) team assigned to this lead also recovered dog tags, other personal artifacts and some human remains. After so long a time in the acid soil of Vietnam, that usually means bone fragments and maybe a tooth or two. Often that adds up to no more than will fill a small handkerchief.
The remains will now be flown to the Central Identification Library in Hawaii and every effort will be made through DNA testing to identify them and attach a name to them.

"They told us it could take several months to complete that process," said Shirley Haase of Omaha, Neb., the sister of crew chief Don Grella. "I only wish my mother was here for this news. She waited for so long."

The men of Huey 808 will be coming home at last. Grieving mothers and fathers have died waiting for news that never came. Siblings have grown old. Their buddies have never forgotten and never rested in pressing for a resolution to this case.

Too Tall Ed Freeman and Ol' Snake Crandall, his wingman and boss, never missed an opportunity to ask questions or get a little pushy with a government official, even a president of the United States or a North Vietnamese Army general, in seeking an answer to the mystery.

Too Tall Ed died last summer in a Boise, Idaho, hospital. In their final farewell visit, he and Crandall, both Medal of Honor recipients, talked about Huey 808, and Bruce promised Ed that heÂ’d keep pushing the search as long as he lived.

A week ago, the Ia Drang fraternity buried Doc Randy Lose at the National Cemetery in Biloxi, Miss. Doc was the medic of the Lost Platoon of Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 7th U.S. Cavalry at Landing Zone X-Ray in November 1965.

Doc's old company commander, Col. (ret.) John Herren, was there. So was Sgt. Earnie Savage, who inherited command of the Lost Platoon after Lt. Henry Herrick and three more-senior sergeants were killed in the first 10 minutes of battle after the 30-man platoon was cut off and surrounded by hundreds of North Vietnamese soldiers.

In all, nine men were killed and 13 were wounded in the opening minutes of a struggle for survival that lasted 27 hours for the cut-off Americans. Doc Lose used up all the bandages and kept plugging wounds with small rolls of C-Ration toilet paper. He crawled from man to man under intense enemy fire, was wounded twice himself and kept every one of the 13 wounded alive during the longest day and night of their lives.

Doc earned a Distinguished Service Cross for his actions, and his battalion commander, Lt. Gen. (ret) Hal Moore, and I did everything we could to get that upgraded to the Medal of Honor we think he deserved.

Doc Lose died last month, killed by the Vietnam War just as certainly as if he'd been shot in the head by a sniper during those 27 hours with the Lost Platoon. You see, my friend Doc Lose came home from Vietnam a different man. He carried wounds no one but other combat veterans could see. Doc carried the battlefield memories of suffering and death and killing, and they never let him rest.
All that's over now. Doc has crossed the river to be with some other great soldiers. The rest of us will be along soon enough, Doc, so pop smoke when you hear us inbound. The goofy grape (purple smoke) will work just fine.

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2009/04/10/65894/commentary-fallen-brothers-found.html#storylink=cpy
 

The Lincoln Curse (Obama Edition)

Via Cousin John

 

In an essay entitled "Lincoln, the Declaration, and Secular Puritanism: A Rhetoric for Continuing Revolution," the late literary scholar Mel Bradford explained the ideological genesis of American military and foreign policy that has prevailed since 1863. Lincoln’s "erroneous understanding of the Declaration of Independence" as espoused in The Gettysburg Address, wrote Bradford, established "a rhetoric for continuing revolution" and "set us forever to ‘trampling out the grapes of wrath.’"

What Bradford meant by this is the way in which Lincoln quoted the "all men are created equal" line from the Declaration and reinterpreted it to mean that it was somehow the duty of Americans to stamp out all sin in the world, wherever it may be found, so that ALL MEN everywhere could share in equal freedom. Hence the "rhetoric of continuing revolution." The "Battle Hymn of the Republic," which referred to the death of some 850,000 Americans (the latest estimate of the "Civil War" death toll) as "the glory of the coming of the lord," went a long way toward implanting this vision in the minds of Americans. The decades-long deification of Lincoln after his death (by the Republican Party with the help of the New England clergy) served (and serves) the same purpose.
 
Prior to 1863 American foreign policy was based mostly on the Washington/Jeffersonian ideology of commercial relations with all nations, entangling alliances with none. It was considered a virtue to remain neutral in disputes between two other countries. As Murray Rothbard wrote in an essay entitled "Just War," in those days "neutrality was considered not only justifiable but a positive virtue." In the old days, "he kept us out of war" was a great tribute to any political leader, wrote Rothbard, and "standing idly by" while other nations warred with each other was "a mark of high statesmanship." Lincoln and his political descendants in both major political parties, but especially the Republican Party, changed all that with their enormously successful implantation of Lincoln’s imperialist fantasies about perfecting the entire planet as the bedrock of American foreign policy ideas. 

More @ LRC

Airborne

Via WRSA



And in terms of electoral campaign, go you and do likewise metaphorically speaking.  The individualists always fail to organize, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be effective.  Look at the teaparty.

Good call me a terrorist.

hefferman1

 

 When the time comes, I will be your worse nightmare. I am not some uneducated unwashed can't shot worth a crap Afghan.

I am a college educated, United States Marine Corps trained, Marksman, who knows and understands how you fight.

I know your equipment, I know it's strengths, and it's weakness. I know how you think, and I will use all of this against you, if you go after my freedom, my family, my Constitution, my Country, or my Corps.

I will either be your worse nightmare, or your best friend depending on where you stand. I will stand with the Constitution, and American Liberty.

I hope to stand shoulder to shoulder with you defending our Liberty, but wither you stand or not. I will fight and I will find a way to secure freedom and liberty for my Country and my people. 


So help me GOD!

Holder’s DOJ Accused of Making Backdoor Deal to Prevent Case From Going to Supreme Court

Via Don


Attorney General Eric Holder’s Department of Justice (DOJ) is being accused of political indiscretion — and it has nothing to do with the failed federal gun-walking operation known as “Fast and Furious.”

Four GOP congressmen argue the DOJ struck a backdoor deal with city officials in St. Paul, Minn., to “withdraw a housing discrimination case before the Supreme Court in exchange for Justice declining to intervene in an unrelated False Claims Act case against the city,” the Washington Post reports.
In a letter to Holder, Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) and Reps Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), Lamar Smith (R-Texas) and Patrick T. McHenry (R-N.C.) accuse the Department of Justice of making the deal with St. Paul city officials in February. The lawmakers said they learned about the purported deal during a private briefing with DOJ officials.

“We were shocked to learn during this briefing and in subsequent document examination that Assistant Attorney General Tom Perez, over the objections of career Justice Department attorneys, enticed the city to drop its lawsuit that Mr. Perez did not want decided by the Supreme Court,” the letter reads.

More @ The Blaze

20ga shotgun patterning

Via Oleg Volk

 20ga rifled slug fired into gelatin
20ga rifled slug fired into gelatin

 Conventional wisdom of defensive shotgunning says that larger projectiles penetrate more. So loading bird shot guarantees absence of over penetration, while slugs will sail through the foe and possibly hit bystanders. But shotguns are sometimes unpredictable, and this theory only holds "all other things being equal" which they seldom do.

 This particular 20ga shotgun was loaded with the assumption that minimum penetration would be ideal for home defense. Should bird shot prove inadequate, # 3 buck (the largest commonly available in 20ga) would come up, and then slugs. The gun was test fired earlier at 25 yards and penetration was found as expected: minimal for bird shot, moderate for buck and considerable for slug. This time, test firing was done at 7 yards picked as the more likely in-house distance and the results were quite surprising.

 Slug sailed right through the tabletop used as the test material: veneer-covered particle board doesn't stop much. The worry that slugs would also overpentrate on humans was laid to rest by firing them into gelatin: only about 7 inches of penetration were achieved, with massive fragmentation of the projectile. That shouldn't have come as a surprise, as the rifled slug is thimble-shaped and made of soft lead. For deeper penetration, either Brenneke hard cast lead, sabot copper or DDupleks steel slugs would be required. But slugs with deeper penetration are probably not the default home defense munition.

90 year old Carteret County woman murdered



GOLDIE HALL

 Rhonda Hagan

We go by the house on the way to school each day and day before yesterday they had a roadblock there with about 10 police cars (very unusual here as not much crime) handing out posters.  It stated that she was known for being mentally sharp

NEWPORT - Authorities in Carteret County said they found a 90-year-old woman who disappeared a week ago. Now a family member is charged with the woman's murder. 

Detectives and SBI agents arrested 30-year-old Rhonda Williams Hagan of Nine Foot Road in Newport, and charged her in the death of Goldie Hall. Carteret County Captain Jason Wank said Hall is Hagan's great aunt.

Hall's body was found in a wooded area in Carteret County behind a flea mall in Newport.
Officers arrived around 2 p.m. Thursday at the scene along a dirt road leading into a wooded area on Carl Garner Road.

A coroner’s van arrived around 3 p.m., and law enforcement confirmed shortly after 4 p.m. that her body had been found.

Investigators believe Hagan committed the murder on Sept. 20, the same day Hall's home caught on fire. Officials have not yet said if the fire is connected to the murder.

Newport resident Larry Parmley lives next to the crime scene, and said he witnessed the suspect leaving the woods around 8 a.m. Friday, a day after Hall's house was torched.

"I just happened to look at the road in front of my house, and there was a van here," Parmley said in an interview Thursday. "And I'm curious about anybody who pulls up here because its not normal."
Neighbors said Hagan is familiar with the area where the body was found. Her father is an employee at the Garner Farm, across the street from the crime scene.

"She said, 'I'm helping my dad fix the fence because the cows keep getting out.' But I didn't see anyone except her."

Although Hagan said she was fixing a fence Friday morning, Parmley later realized she did not appear to be dressed for hard work.

"I didn't think anything of it, but, she was in a house coat, first thing in the morning," Pamley said. "She was wearing a pair of short pants and either flip flops or bedroom shoes."

Hagan is now held in the Carteret County Jail without bond. Her first appearance was held Thursday morning, where she was charged with murder.

More @ WCTI

Calif. man behind anti-Muslim film ordered jailed








 
The mystery surrounding the man behind the crudely produced anti-Islamic video that sparked violence in the Middle East deepened when he appeared in court and identified himself by yet another name.

Arrested on Thursday after authorities said he violated his probation from a 2010 check fraud conviction, Nakoula Basseley Nakoula told a judge his real name was Mark Basseley Youseff. He said he'd been using that name since 2002, even though he went by Nakoula in his fraud case.

The full story about Nakoula and the video "Innocence of Muslims" still isn't known more than two weeks after violence erupted in Egypt and Libya, where Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three others were killed in Benghazi. Violence related to the film has since spread, killing dozens more.

Citing a lengthy pattern of deception and the potential to flee, U.S. Central District Chief Magistrate Judge Suzanne Segal ordered Nakoula to remain in prison without bond until another judge can hold a hearing to determine if he broke the terms of his probation.

"The court has a lack of trust in this defendant at this time," Segal said.

Prosecutors noted Nakoula had eight probation violations, including lying to his probation officers and using aliases. He could face new charges that carry a maximum two-year prison term.

After his 2010 conviction, Nakoula was sentenced to 21 months in prison and was barred from using computers or the Internet for five years without approval from his probation officer, though prosecutors said none of the violations involved the Internet. He also wasn't supposed to use any name other than his true legal name without the prior written approval of his probation officer.

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“Regional Equity”—Obama’s Coming War On Whitopias

Via Matthew

 


Paul Kersey   recently reported on VDARE.com an emerging trend: for white suburbs to secede from larger urban jurisdictions and so form, in effect, whitopian enclaves.

But he did not mention that there are powerful forces on the other side pushing back hard—using a concept called “Regional Equity.”

Americans can be forgiven for not being familiar with Regional Equity. I had not heard the term myself until just a few weeks ago, when I caught Stanley Kurtz on the radio talking about his new book: Spreading the Wealth: How Obama is Robbing the Suburbs to Pay for the Cities.

Put Regional Equity into a search engine and the language of the collectivists surfaces: transportation equity, environmental equity, healthcare equity, social justice, smart growth, and especially, sustainable communities.

The essence of Regional Equity is the use of centralized political power make things equal over regions—disregarding jurisdictions.

President Obama is very much on board with the Regional Equity movement. The White House website  says:

More @ VDARE