Friday, March 25, 2016

Battle of Fort Stedman, Virginia


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On this day in 1865, Confederate General Robert E. Lee makes Fort Stedman his last attack of the war in a desperate attempt to break out of Petersburg, Virginia. The attack failed, and within a week Lee was evacuating his positions around Petersburg.

For nine months, Petersburg was under siege by the Army of the Potomac and the overall Union commander, General Ulysses S. Grant. The two great armies had fought a bloody campaign in the spring of 1864, and then settled into trenches that eventually stretched for50 miles around Petersburg and the Confederate capital of Richmond. Lee could not win this war of attrition, but his men held out through the winter of 1864 to 1865. Now, Lee realized the growing Yankee army could overwhelm his diminishing force when the spring brought better weather for an assault. He ordered General John B. Gordon to find a weak point in the Federal defenses and attack.

Gordon selected Fort Stedman, an earthen redoubt with a moat and 9-foot walls. Although imposing, Gordon believed it offered the greatest chance for success since it was located just 150 yards from the Confederate lines–the narrowest gap along the entire front. Early in the morning of March 25, some 11,000 Rebels hurled themselves at the Union lines. They overwhelmed the surprised Yankeesat Fort Stedman and captured 1,000 yards of trenches. After daylight, however, the Confederate momentum waned. Gordon’s men took up defensive positions, and Union reinforcements arrived to turn the tide.

The Rebels were unable to hold the captured ground, andwere driven back to their original position.
The Union lost around 1,000 men killed, wounded, and captured, whileLee lost probably three times that number, including some 1,500 captured during the retreat. Already outnumbered, these loses were more than Lee’s army could bear. Lee wrote to Confederate President Jefferson Davis that it would be impossible to maintain the Petersburg line much longer. On March 29, Grant began his offensive, and Petersburg fell on April 3. Two weeks after the Battle of Fort Stedman, Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox Court House,Virginia.

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53rd North Carolina, Fort Mahone/ "Fort Damnation" Petersburg, Virginia

My great grandfather and great uncle knew all the men in the "Civil War Requiem" video as they were part of the 53rd NC which was the sole unit defending Fort Mahone. (Fort Mahone was named "Fort Damnation" by the Yankees) *Handpicked men of the 53rd (My great grandfather was one of these) made the final, night assault at Petersburg in an attempt to break Grant's line. This was against Fort Stedman which was a few miles to the slight northeast. They initially succeeded, but reinforcements drove them back. This video is made from photographs which were taken the day after the 53rd evacuated the lines the night before to begin the retreat to Appomattox. I have many more pictures taken by the same photographer, one of these shows a 14 year old boy and the other is the famous picture of the blond, handsome soldier with his musket.

 *General Gordon promised the men a gold medal and 30 days leave if they accomplished their task and many years after the War my great grandfather wrote General Gordon, who was then governor of Georgia about this incident. They exchanged several letters which I have framed. 

 *The Attack On Fort Stedman 

"We need to start kicking ass and taking names."

 Via Ryan


A good analogy for the Trump campaign is the Battle of the Crater. The sappers (Trump haters on Left and Right) have burrowed below the mine to lay charges, and blow out a monster crater, only to send their own troops plunging into the firey crater that blew up and created for themselves, and get mowed down by the Confederates. Looking beyond that macro-picture of the Civil War, that day, the victory belonged to the Confederates who defeated the Unionists who sacrificed 3798 casualties to wound 1491 rebels.

If one is supposedly a "constitutionalist" and thinks Trump is less than to be desired for from a constitutional standpoint, look at it this way. . . the two-headed hydra in Washington, D.C. of Demorepublicucks don't check one another in any meaningful sense. They collaborate to pilfer resources from the people. They don't devolve authority and power back to its rightful fountainhead in the states and the people. If Trump gathers momentum from the grassroots, circumstance and history aligns him with "states rights" and the "Tea Party grassroots" regardless of how neocucks raise the specter of fascism and dictatorship in their sophomoric criticisms of him.

When founders like Madison writing as Publius spoke of constitutionalism he reminded us that parchment barriers don't suffice, and in Machiavellian terms, power must counter power. Right now we have no viable opposition. I can wax eloquent about piety to the Constitution and strict construction, but we have nothing but sentimentalism left for the dead hand of the past in the conservative movement. With the neocon / prog fox-guarding-the-henhouse theory of constitutionalism, tipping the scales on a 5-4 majority on the SCOTUS, now Scalia's death means the fate of liberty hands on a single Supreme Court nominee. Senator Mitch McCuck of Kentucky already started giving voice to entertaining Obama's nominee when the rest of the party was going to scuttle it. Trump represents the will to give life to Federalist No. 78 and kick the judiciary to the curb proving it's the weakest branch once more, and tip the scales back to the states, the people and a populist constitutionalism.

Samuel Francis is right in the trajectory of his "Nationalism, Old and New" article regardless of the moot specific. Small-r republicanism was the way to go once upon a time, but modernity dealt a blow to that movement and political philosophy, and now a Middle American nationalism is the insurgent strategy needed to topple the progs, and the chameleon neocons who were professing the need to get Hillary in over Donald Trump. If we rebuild American manufacturing, we rebuild the middle class political base, and make our last gasp for air, as we come back and stem the tide against the south of the border invasion.

We should admire the energetic primitiveness of the movement, and get our people in the Trump administration. The other thing is we don't need precision in intellectualism to win the day. We need power and momentum. . . it doesn't matter about debates like free trade and protectionism. . . one could make a case for economies of scale, division of labor, and all of that BS, but the reality is we're stuck with DEATH AND TAXES. Justice John Marshall famously said "the power to tax is the power to destroy." If we have to pay freaking taxes whether we like it or not, why not end this consummate stupidity like Trump says, where our corporate income tax is the second highest in the western world, and our personal income taxes hit the middle class hardest in proportionate terms of their income, and shift some of it away to duties on imports? It gives the domestic economy breathing room and puts Americans back to work. Thomas Friedman can write all the eloquent treatises he wants about the The Lexus and the Olive Tree, but the reality is if we try what Trump proposes it has to better than the failed political economy of Bush and Obama. And the will to power is more courageous than my earlier "America is doomed" don't bother to "rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic" "defeatism".

We need to start kicking ass and taking names.

Former Intelligence Chief - Obama Doesn’t Think Terrorism is a Big Deal!

Via Billy

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Wow.

In one of the most honest and revealing discussions on the Obama administration's anti-terrorism policies, former NSA and CIA director Michael Hayden said some very surprising things on Wednesday.

Hayden was a guest on MSNBC’s Morning Joe discussing the President’s trip to Cuba, the terror attack in Brussels, Belgium, and the way the two issues had become interwoven. When Hayden was asked if the President’s terse statement on the Brussels attack was a sign of weakness or simply a messaging mistake, Hayden seemingly surprised everyone with his direct commentary on what he believes was actually at play.

I'm going to say something that is going to sound pretty harsh, but I think it’s true. That wasn't a mistake, that wasn't weakness, that was policy. 

His going to the ballpark and spending less than a minute commenting on the attack. I actually believe, in his heart of hearts, the president's policy is: That is not that big a deal.

There are other things that are more important, and that is what he messaging.

Obama DHS Secretary: Illegal Aliens Are “In Effect” US Citizens

Via sauced07

illegalaliens

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson told an audience today that illegal aliens are “not going away” and are “in effect” US citizens.

And the DC elites wonder why Donald Trump is winning the Republican primary?
The Washington Examiner reported:

The nation’s top immigration officer said that the “11 million” undocumented aliens in the United States are “not going away,” are “in effect” citizens, and added that deporting the few the administration wants out is unpleasant.

Brussels Police Shoot Man Carrying Suitcase Holding Explosives

Via Billy

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On Friday, days after the deadly terrorist attacks in Brussels, Belgian police shot and wounded a man carrying an explosives-laden suitcase. The incident occurred in the Brussels neighborhood of Schaerbeek hours after seven suspects were rounded up in connection with the terror attacks.

“I can confirm a police operation targeting a person who was intercepted by police and suffered a slight leg injury,” said Schaerbeek Mayor Bernard Clerfayt, according to the New York Post.
Lyna Hadaad was watching from her window as police tried to apprehend the man.

Trump Campaign Spox Spills the Beans on Heidi Cruz (VIDEO)

Via Billy
 

The Appalachian Messenger: March 25, 2016


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This week’s edition of the Appalachian Messenger has articles by:

Robert Gore
Much More Than Trump

Paul Rosenberg
Fifty Years Of Failure

David DeGerolamo
With a Firm Reliance on the Protection of Divine Providence

Click here for the March 25, 2016 edition.

AZ TRUMP PROTESTER: I Was Paid $3500 to Protest Trump by Hillary Campaign

Via Billy

highway still shut down

For weeks, rumors have circulated the web that individuals were being paid to protest at rallies held by Presidential hopeful, Donald Trump. Today a man from Trump’s rally on Saturday in Fountain Hills, Arizona has come forward to say that he was paid to protest the event.

“I was given $3,500 to protest Donald Trump’s rally in Fountain Hills,” said 37-year-old Paul Horner. “I answered a Craigslist ad a little over a week ago about a group needing actors for a political event.

I interviewed with them and got the part.”

Trump supporters have been claiming for weeks that the protesters are being paid for by Bernie Sanders’ campaign, but Horner disagrees.

More @ ABC

"Anonymous" Claims They HAVE PROOF of Cruz Affairs – Rumors Did Not Start with Donald Trump

Via Billy


AMERICAN FASCISTS

Via David

Seven-year-old girl is gang-raped at an asylum centre in Germany as ‘five Arabic men’ are investigated

Via David 

 Migrants seeking asylum in Germany arrive by bus at a former office park near Hamburg (stock image)

German police are investigating another horrific gang rape apparently involving a seven-year-old girl who had been living at an asylum centre.

The incident allegedly happened in Hamburg where the girl had been accepted at a first registration home in the city's quarter of Bahrenfeld.

Police were called in the early evening after a report that a seven-year-old girl was the victim of a gang rape at the centre on the Albert-Einstein-Ring road. 

More @ Daily Mail

Close call: VA worker reinstated with back pay after missing time due to being in prison for armed robbery

Via David

Image result for CPT Carpenter calls in for vietnamClose call: VA worker reinstated with back pay after missing time due to being in prison for armed robbery

The VA is a place where people tend to somehow magically fail upward. By that I simply mean that workers at all levels can be caught up in any sort of malfeasance or incompetence and not only retain their jobs, but apparently profit from their actions. We’ve told you the story of the executive who ran her department into the ground and was punished with a plush gig in the Philippines. Then there was the Albany, New York administrator who was found to have drugs addicts on staff who were stealing the medication of the veterans and was fired, but somehow got her job back at full pay. And, of course, who could forget the Arizona VA chiefs who cooked up the scheme to keep veterans on phony waiting lists where some of them literally died without seeing a doctor, but will keep their positions with full pay and benefits for as much as two more years. But today we may finally have the story which tilts the pinball machine once and for all.

More @ Hot Air

Old barns get new purpose in King William County

Via Sister Anne


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Prestley barn, built in 1925, is located at the corner of Route 360 and North Carolina Road in Manquin. It was restored in 2014. Courtesy of Emily Townsend. 

The Tomlin family owned the property until 1925, she said, when it was purchased by her husband's grandfather James L. Townsend, who was a pioneer in the local dairy industry. (My grandfather supplied most of Richmond's milk during WWI) William Guy Townsend's father built the dairy barn that year, which Emily Townsend said was roughly the same time as the road now known as Route 360 bisected the property.

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A few hundred feet off of Route 360 on the way to Manquin in King William County, a shock of fresh red paint marks the restoration of a landmark that holds nearly a century of history and a smaller barn that's more than twice as old.

Dilapidated and in need of repair, both Prestley Barn and the Old Virginia Barn were falling into ruin until a December 2013 transaction offered the historic structures a second chance to shine. Emily Townsend, whose husband William Guy Townsend's family owned the property for about 65 years, answered the call from local preservationist Carroll Lee Walker.

"He called up that day in December and said, 'Ms. Emily, I've got an option to buy Prestley Park,'" she said. "He made my day."

Danger close: Spotted by ISIS, Russian special forces officer called for fire on himself

Via comment by cheerdiver via sauced07 "Why Islam Lops Off Heads, Christianity Doesn’t, an...":

Image result for Danger close: Spotted by ISIS, Russian special forces officer called for fire on himself

A Russian Special Operations Forces officer reportedly called a strike onto himself when he was compromised and surrounded by ISIS militants near Palmyra, where a fierce battle between the Syrian army and terrorists is in full swing. 

“A Russian special operations forces [SOF] officer was killed near a town of Palmyra while guiding Russian warplanes to IS [previously ISIS/ISIL] targets,” a military source at Russia’s airbase Khmeimim told Interfax news agency on Thursday.

The source added that the special forces operator was on a mission near Palmyra for at least a week, detecting the terrorists’ most important targets and providing coordinates for Russian warplanes to strike.

“The officer died as a hero, calling a strike onto himself after he was compromised and surrounded by terrorists,” the source added.

More @ RT

Everything You Need To Know About The Ted Cruz Sex Scandal

Via Billy

 The National Enquirer Was Right About John Edwards, Tiger Woods and Jesse Jackson

The National Enquirer just dropped a bombshell on the Cruz campaign and the internet exploded overnight. Reports claim investigators found Ted Cruz allegedly had an affair with five different women.

According to the Enquirer:

“Private detectives are digging into at least five affairs Ted Cruz supposedly had,” claimed a Washington insider. “The leaked details are an attempt to destroy what’s left of his White House campaign!” The ENQUIRER reports that Cruz’s claimed mistresses include a foxy political consultant and a high-placed D.C. attorney!

The publication did not name names and only printed pixelated photos. Internet users on Twitter, Reddit and 4chan quickly went to work to determine the identity of all five women while using the hashtag #CruzSexScandal.

Confederate statue removal in New Orleans turns nasty & Court Grants Injunction to stop Removal

Via Billy

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Backlash against a plan to remove prominent Confederate monuments in New Orleans has been tinged by death threats, intimidation and even what may have been the intentional torching of a contractor's Lamborghini.

For now, at least, things have gotten so nasty the city hasn't found a contractor willing to bear the risk of tearing down the monuments. The city doesn't have its own equipment to move them and is now in talks to find a company, even discussing doing the work at night to avoid further tumult.

Initially, it appeared the monuments would be removed quickly after the majority black City Council on Dec. 17 voted 6-1 to approve the mayor's plan to take them down. The monuments, including towering figures of Gens. Robert E. Lee and P.G.T. Beauregard, have long been viewed by many here as symbols of racism and white supremacy.

The backlash is not surprising to Bill Quigley, a Loyola University law professor and longtime civil rights activist in New Orleans who's worked on behalf of a group demanding the monuments come down.

More @ NOLA

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  Virginia Flaggers
 
"HUGE MONUMENTS NEWS UPDATE: We are thrilled to report that the United States Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has granted a preliminary injunction to stop the City of New Orleans from moving forward with the removal of the monuments. This injunction will remain in place while the case is on appeal!!" - Jonathan Maki

NSSF Slams Bloomberg Rag for Calling Rise in Female Gun Ownership a ‘Myth’


 The Trace would have us believe that the rise in female gun ownership is a myth.

Ordinarily, we do not respond to quasi-journalistic electronic emanations from The Trace, which, as we have previously noted, is the wholly owned propaganda megaphone of the Michael Bloomberg-funded anti-gun politburo of organizations. Be assured, we do not plan to make this a regular practice.

However, after we finally stopped laughing at the headline and the prose that followed, we decided that a response was warranted to “The Myth of the Rise in Female Gun Ownership.” Here’s why. It is a staple of gun control politics to work to diminish both the size and the ever increasing diversity of the firearm-owning American citizenry.  The Trace provides just the latest example.

Their tactic is transparent and their preferred go-to source is the same General Social Survey that, as we pointed out last, year chronically, undercounts guns owners due to its own methodological limitations in contradiction to other research sources from Gallup polls to FBI background checks to NSSF-commissioned studies.  All provide evidence that law-abiding Americans are embracing gun ownership at a much higher rate than the suspect GSS indicates.

But that wouldn’t serve the collective political agenda of the Bloomberg groups, would it?  So for good measure the Trace also assails NSSF’s “Women Gun Owners: Purchasing Perceptions and Participation,” for citing a report asking firearms retailers to whom they are selling. Surprise, there are more women coming in as customers.

More @ Gun America

Why Islam Lops Off Heads, Christianity Doesn’t, and Trump Is Right

Via WRSA


As an introduction to this article, I would like for you to ask yourself the following question; — “What is life like in a western nation where Muslims are at least 10% of the population?”. To get an honest appraisal of that question, please click here regarding how “multi-culturalism” is working out in Sweden. At least scan the article.

Horrific, is it not? But, it shouldn’t be surprising. Not when one considers the statistical fact that since September 11, 2001, followers of the Religion of Peace have committed more than 27,000 deadly terrorist attacks in the name of Islam. Neither is it surprising that Danish linguist Tina Magaard, after leading a team of researchers who for three years studied the texts of the holy books of the world’s ten biggest religions and interviewed 45,000 subjects concluded that; 

—- “The texts of Islam are clearly distinct from the other religions texts as they, to a higher degree, call for violence and aggression against followers of other faiths. There are also direct incitements to terror. … Moreover, in the Qur’an there are hundreds of invitations to fight against people of other faiths.”

HENRY COOK ON RECONSTRUCTION AND THE KU KLUX KLAN – PART - 1,2,3,4,6,7,8,9

 Via Billy



Though a Northerner by parentage and education, I have been long convinced that the operations of the Klux Klan have not been interpreted properly by historians of my section. A lack of unprejudiced source materials, a failure to comprehend the inherent virtues of the men and women of the South, and a misunderstanding of the social and economic problems of post-bellum days have been the chief causes, rather than sectional prejudices. Within my limited range of influence, the opinions ventured in the following lecture have been accepted by Northerners with enthusiasm. A sincere sympathy and true brotherly feeling have taken the place of the misunderstandings of the past. To widen the possible influence of my words, and to tell the South of the true friendship of the North, I have ventured the publication of the following conclusions. Yet it must be remembered that I am only one of many Northern historical students attempting to read history with the heart and eyes both.

With April, 1865, came the collapse of the Confederacy. Northern soldiers were taken to their homes with every comfort and convenience, permitted by the times and conditions. Everywhere they were received with the most heart-felt rejoicing. They returned to a North more prosperous than when the struggle had begun, and fortunately were soon absorbed in the new economic life of their section.

The number of manufactories had increased during the war. Railroads had opened up the western country. Thousands of recent immigrants were supplying labor for both factory and farm. The North had passed through one of the most destructive wars in the history of the world, and yet had increased its wealth, its population, and its power.

The southern soldiers, defeated, sorrowful, ill-clad, ill-fed, sick in mind and in body, labored slowly and painfully to their homes mostly on foot. They found the South desolated—prostrate. During the war northern armies had destroyed the economic system of the South. Along the lines of invasion slaves had been constantly emancipated, and thousands left the farms, in spite of crops to be cultivated, stock to be cared for, or food to be provided, to test their new freedom, following the Union army, though wasting away in idleness, vice, want and disease. The lives of even the well-to-do classes had been reduced to a pitifully primitive—even barbarous—level. Parched rye and dried blackberry leaves had, in many sections, taken the place of coffee and tea. Women drew out the spinning wheels and hand looms and made clothing. The old men and the more skilful slaves learned to make shoes. Public property was destroyed or confiscated. Bridges were down, factories in ashes, railroads in ruins, and steam boats were no longer seen on the rivers. Bank stock and deposits, bonds of all sorts were worthless, and confederate currency had not even the value of a souvenir on a glutted market. The South was in a pitiable condition.