Transgender military personnel from 18 countries where open service is allowed gather to discuss whether US military could lift ban

Via Ryan

 

It's.

Gee once they approve this I guess those who have both sex organs will be next on the agenda...

Transgender military personnel from 18 countries across the world gathered today to talk about their experiences and discuss whether the US military could join them.

The conference attendees, who are all from militaries that allow transgender service, gathered in Washington, DC.

The gathering, Perspectives on Transgender Military Service from Around the Globe, is the first-ever and largest international conference of transgender military service members on US soil.  

More @ Daily Mail

5 judges decide: Does Marine have religious freedom?

Via Billy

 

Five military judges heard oral arguments Wednesday in the appeal of a U.S. Marine punished through a court-martial for refusing to remove Bible verses from her workstation, and a retired general says the case could determine whether there really is religious freedom in the U.S. military.
 
Lance Cpl. Monifa Sterling lost her original court case, as the court ruled the Religious Freedom Restoration Act did not apply to the the type of religious expression she was displaying and did not protect her from punishment for refusing to remove the verses.

A decision is expected this summer.

Retired U.S. Army Lt. Gen. William “Jerry” Boykin was in the United State Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces for Wednesday’s oral arguments before the five-judge panel. Boykin told WND and Radio America it’s likely to be a 3-2 decision.

“Two of them were supporting the actions of the Marine Corps,” Boykin said. “Two of them were supporting the defendant, Monifa Sterling. The chief judge held his cards very close to his chest. We came out thinking the decisive vote will be the chief judge.”

However the court rules, Boykin said the decision will reverberate throughout the military.

More @ WND

My Favorite Beer in Vietnam

Via catherine_catty

  

Aperitif in DebBenfu. October 1953. Paratroopers (second from left - Major Bizhar right -

Sergeant Flament (6 battalion of colonial parachutists), General Gilles treat.

Looks like Bier Larue  in a different design bottle, though it appears it could be 33,  but 

I've never seen it  in a large bottle. October, here I come! :)

Nearing the End by William Gilbert Gaul

 

By June 1862 Lincoln found enlistments near nonexistent, and it was time to find new sources of recruits as Northern men resisted war service.  Bounty money was offered to help solve this, and the Homestead Act had the dark purpose of attracting foreign-born troops promised bounties and public land to subjugate Americans seeking political self-determination.
Bernhard Thuersam, www.Circa1865.com   The Great American Political Divide

Lincoln’s Desperate Search for Troops

“The summer of 1862 brought more gloom to the Union cause. Stonewall Jackson’s heroics in the Shenandoah Valley were followed by McClellan’s withdrawal from his lines before Richmond . . . and the North’s setbacks in the field weighed heavily on the secretary of state. [Seward] had [earlier] watched the Army of the Potomac embark at Alexandria; he had considered it united and unbeatable.

In June of 1862 following the collapse of McClellan’s Peninsular Campaign, Lincoln had sent Seward to New York to stimulate recruiting. The secretary carried with him a confidential letter, explaining the danger and noting that the capital itself was once again in danger under the threat from the rebels. Seward, in New York City, contemplated issuing a new call form the president for volunteers.

On reflection, however, he concluded that for Lincoln to initiate the call would have overtones of panic. Instead he prevailed on most of the Northern governors to request that Lincoln issue a new call for volunteers. The upshot was that Lincoln, seemingly in response to appeals from the Northern governors, was able to issue a proclamation calling for an additional three hundred thousand men.

Seward continued his proselytizing on his return to Washington. He persuaded Secretary of War Stanton to offer new recruits an immediate bounty of twenty-five dollars when their regiments were mustered into service.

Congress had just enacted the Homestead Act, providing that any citizen or alien could acquire title to 160 acres of public land by residing on and cultivating the land for a period of five years. This was just the sort of stimulus to immigration that Seward would have favored under any conditions, but now it included a vital military dimension as well.

He sent copies of the legislation to US envoys with the covering memorandum calling the Homestead Act “one of the most important steps ever taken by any government toward a practical recognition of the universal brotherhood of nations.”

The resulting publicity assured a continuing flow of military manpower to the North from Ireland and northern Europe. John Bigelow, the US consul in Paris, would write that Seward’s circular was important for “the light I throws on the mysterious repletion of our army during the four years of war, while it was . . . being so fearfully depleted by firearms, disease and desertion.”

In addition to his military problems, Lincoln had to deal with the touchy question of war aims. Publicly he continued to argue against general emancipation, telling Horace Greeley in his famous letter of August 1862 that if he could save the Union without freeing a single slave he would do it.

Indeed, Lincoln had no authority to confiscate “property” in the North, and no ability to enforce any Federal edict in territory controlled by the Confederacy. [But as] commander in chief, Lincoln argued that he could surely seize slaves belonging to the enemy just as he could capture their railroads.

[Seward thought issuing the] proclamation following a string of defeats on the battlefield . . . would hint of desperation – “the Government stretching forth its hands to Ethiopia, instead of Ethiopia stretching forth her hands to the Government.” He feared a slave uprising would turn the war for the Union into a class war . . . and that emancipation would destroy the South’s economy, raising the specter of intervention boy Britain or France to protect its supply of raw cotton.”

(William Henry Seward, Lincoln’s Right Hand, John M. Taylor, Harper Collins, 1991, pp. 200-202)

OK, Republicans – Trump or Clinton?

 

It’s moment of truth time for the #Never Trump crowd: Do you want four years of Hillary Clinton in the White House or a Republican president you strongly disagree with?

The Bernie Sanders revolution is over. More than 90% of Democrats already see Clinton as their likely nominee, and her big wins in yesterday’s primaries are sure to push that number to near absolute certainty.

Despite Donald Trump’s encouragement to Sanders in the last couple days to run as a third-party candidate, the Vermont senator ultimately will throw his support behind Clinton in exchange for some conciliatory words on her part. The Democrats have party discipline and aren’t going to risk a schism on the left like the one in 2000 when Ralph Nader cost Al Gore the election. It’s a lesson anti-Trump Republicans should heed – unless, of course, they aren’t interested in winning.

More @ Rasmussen

Anti-Trump Protester Pepper Sprays Little Girls in the Face

Via comment by Quartermanin via Info Wars on "Grant Gets the Votes"

NC: $NAACP$ to appeal judge's ruling on Voter ID

 

 2012

The NAACP chapter and the Justice Department had previously filed suit against the state’s law, which removed protections for minority voters, but their case was dismissed on Monday.

“We know that people, African Americans, Latinos, women and students have been disenfranchised by this voter suppression law and we are appealing immediately,” said Hippopotamus William J Barber, president of the North Carolina NAACP, in a call with reporters.

More @ GOPUSA

Trump calls for US foreign policy shake-up, no more 'nation-building'

Via Billy

 

Donald Trump, in a highly anticipated speech on the heels of his primary-contest sweep across the Northeast, called Wednesday for a drastic shake-up in America’s foreign policy – including “getting out of the nation-building business” and demanding NATO allies pay their “fair share” or be left to “defend themselves.”

“It’s time to shake the rust off America’s foreign policy,” the Republican presidential front-runner said.

More @ Fox

A brilliant, powerful statement about refuges that I saw on some blog

 

 Kant's Transcendence

Dear Father Remi:

I've come close to walking out of mass before, when Deacon Mike was plugging for gun control. I didn't, then, but I resolved that I would walk out if the church again attempted to interfere, even if only by suggestion, with matters of internal politics of the United States or undermining of the Constitution of the United States or undermining of the security of the United States.

This morning, at the early mass, I did walk out after we were intoned to not be afraid of letting in "refugees." I'm not sure what universe the reader lives in. I am not sure what universe the writer of the request for prayers lives in. In the universe I live in, the real universe, those refugees are mostly - no, _overwhelmingly_ - military age males, from a hostile religion, heavily infiltrated by ISIS/DAESH, a slave trading, raping, fanatical, genocidal, and expanding group of that religion. No, the State Department and DHS cannot filter out the maniacs.

Yes, as a matter of fact I do have quite a bit of experience over there.

I will not welcome them. I will not encourage others to welcome them. And I will not support a church that says we should. They are the enemy. They are the enemy of both civilization and Christianity. They are not an enemy to be turned by turning the other cheek. (Indeed, given the sexual proclivities of the region, it is wise to keep all one's cheeks far, far from them.) And those who would let them in are working hand in hand with the enemies of civilization and the Church.

Whether I shall come back to Saint Mary's, find another Catholic Church less politically and suicidally liberal, or join a less effectively anti-Christian Protestant church I cannot say at this time. I am pretty sure that whichever way I decide, God will understand my preferring not to support the ruin of my country, my civilization, or my religion.

Sincerely,

Thomas P. Kratman

“…The Muslims are right. The West is run by whores and homosexuals…“

Via WRSA

  

Looking back, we had, in the person of Teddy Roosevelt, the finest President in the history of this country. He had the spirit and determination that matched the times and the land. Then the women got the vote, and everything went to hell. While our boys was overseas fighting the Kaiser, the women got Prohibition put in. Drinking and gambling and whoring were declared unlawful. All those things which come natural to men became crimes.

–The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean

One of the more obvious aspects of the modern lynch mob is it is almost always composed of women. Sure, there will be men tagging along, maybe throwing in some shots of their own, but the organizers are always women. Maybe a homosexual male will start it with a point and shriek, but 99 times out of 100, the person organizing the lynch mob is going to be a woman. She will sound the alarm and the rest of the coven will arrive, ready to set fire to the wicker man.

The social justice warrior phenomenon is mostly a product of Facebook and Twitter, as these services made it easier for stupid people to get on-line and blast their idiocy worldwide.

More @ The Z Man

The Confederacy’s Rule of Law

 

As Southern States seceded from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America, the matter of transitioning the US Judiciary into the CSA Judiciary required both skill and determination. Issues of jurisdiction, personnel, legal codes, records, writs and ongoing processes had to be considered. Rather than starting de novo, the CSA Provisional Constitution mostly[i] adopted the structure of the US Judiciary and stipulated that “The Congress shall have power to make laws for the transfer of any causes which were pending in the courts of the United States, to the courts of the Confederacy, and for the execution of the orders, decrees, and judgments heretofore rendered by the said courts of the United States; and also all laws which may be requisite to protect the parties to all such suits, orders, judgments, or decrees, their heirs, personal representatives, or assignees.”[ii]

The Permanent Constitution kept intact the judiciary established under the Provisional Government,[iii] which for all intents and purposes mirrored its US counterpart in organizational structure.

More @ The Abbeville Institute

Lincoln’s Cry of Military Necessity

 

The population and vast resources of the Northern States in 1861 made the claim of “military necessity” by Lincoln fall on many deaf ears. By late 1862 the military situation was critical and Lincoln withheld Northern casualty numbers at Fredericksburg from the public. Lincoln’s emancipation proclamation — patterned after that of Lord Dunmore in 1775 and Vice Admiral Sir Alexander Cochrane in 1814 – was to encourage insurrection and race war behind Southern lines, and put black men in blue uniforms as white Northern soldiers resisted enlistment.
Bernhard Thuersam, www.Circa1865.com   The Great American Political Divide

Lincoln’s Cry of Military Necessity

“On January 1, 1863, another proclamation was issued by the President of the United States declaring the emancipation [of slaves] to be absolute within the Confederate States, with the exception of a few districts. The closing words of the proclamation were these:

“And upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice, warranted by the Constitution upon military necessity, I invoke the considerate judgment of mankind and the gracious favor of Almighty God.”

Let us test the existence of the military necessity here spoken of by a few facts.

The white male population of the Northern States was then 13,690,364. The white male population of the Confederate States was 5,449,463. The number of troops which the United States had called to the field exceeded one million men. The number of troops which the Confederate government had then in the field was less than four hundred thousand men.

The United States government had a navy which was only third in rank in the world. The Confederate government had a navy which at the time consisted of a single small ship on the ocean. The people of the United States had a commerce afloat all over the world. The people of the Confederate States had not a single port open to commerce.

The people of the United States were the rivals of the greatest nations of the world in all kinds of manufactures. The people of the Confederate States had few manufactures, and those were of articles of inferior importance.

The government of the United States possessed the treasury of a union of eighty years with its vast resources. The Confederate States had to create a treasury by the development of financial resources. The ambassadors and representatives of the former were welcomed at every court in the world. The representatives of the latter were not recognized anywhere.

Thus the consummation of the original antislavery purposes was verbally reached; even that achievement was attended with disunion, bloodshed, and war.

It is thus seen what the United States government did, and our view of this subject would not be complete if we should omit to present their solemn declarations of that which they intended to do. In his proclamation of April 15, 1861, calling for seventy-five thousand men, the President of the United States government said:

“In any event, the utmost care will be observed, consistently with the objects aforesaid, to avoid any devastation, and destruction or interference with property, or any disturbance of peaceful citizens in any part of the country.”

On July 22, 1861, Congress passed a resolution relative to the war, from which the following is an extract:

“That this war is not waged on our part in any spirit of oppression, or for any purpose of conquest or subjugation, or purpose of overthrowing or interfering with the rights or established institutions of those [Confederate] States; but to defend and maintain the supremacy of the Constitution, and to preserve the Union with all the dignity, equality, and rights of the several States unimpaired; and that, as soon as these objects are accomplished, the war ought to cease.”

(The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, Jefferson Davis, Volume II, D. Appleton & Company, 1881, pp. 187-189)