Sunday, February 19, 2017

Rand Paul: We’re very lucky John McCain’s not in charge

Via Billy

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Sen. Rand Paul (Ky.) ripped fellow Republican Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) on Sunday after McCain criticized President Trump’s escalating war of words with the media.

He argued that the nation is “very lucky” that Trump is president and not McCain, who won the 2008 GOP nomination but lost to Barack Obama in the general election.

Paul said that McCain’s recent criticisms of Trump are driven by his “personal dispute” with the president over foreign policy.

He added that McCain and Trump are at odds because McCain supports the wide deployment of U.S. troops to protect and promote American interests abroad while he characterized Trump’s views as closer to a realpolitik approach to foreign policy.

“Everything that he says about the president is colored by his own personal dispute he’s got running with President Trump, and it should be taken with a grain of salt, because John McCain’s the guy who’s advocated for war everywhere,” Paul said on ABC’s “This Week.”

“He would bankrupt the nation. We’re very lucky John McCain’s not in charge, because I think we’d be in perpetual war,” Paul added.

More @ The Hill

Southern Manners and Personal Integrity

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Antebellum Southern concepts of manners and personal honor set a very high standard in education with the logical expectation that this would result in a more enlightened society and government.  Even code duello was seen to have a “decorous influence” on manners, as it made men careful in their conduct toward each other through personal honor and accountability.
Bernhard Thuersam, www.Circa1865.com   The Great American Political Divide

Southern Manners and Personal Integrity

“[The official historian of the University of Virginia noted that the bulk of pre-Civil War graduates] . . . were of “the planting class.” Analysis of their post-college careers and modes of life led him to say that they were men who “kept alive in their country homes that loyal devotion to family, that chivalrous respect for womanhood, that considered tenderness for weakness, that high recognition of the claims of hospitality, that reverence for religion, and that quick sensitiveness upon all questions of personal integrity and honor, which they had inherited from their fathers.”

The cult of manners in the Old Dominion was so intertwined with the concepts of personal honor and integrity that all appeared part of a single theme. The diary notes of a young Virginian, attending VMI, contained the following passage, inserted as a kind of conclusion to the entries for the year 1842. It was set off in quotation marks:

“Among the many branches of education, that which tends to make deep impressions of virtue ought to be a fundamental object in a well-regulated government. For depravity of manners will render ineffectual the most salutary laws; and in the midst of opulence, what other means to prevent such depravity, but only a virtuous discipline?”

In this climate of opinion, with its emphasis on manners and personal integrity, the famous “Honor System” of American academic life first appeared. The founders were two professors at the University of Virginia; George Tucker, romantic litterateur before his appointment to the chair of moral philosophy; and his relative, Henry St. George Tucker, distinguished jurist before settling at Charlottesville as a teacher of law.

Judge Tucker submitted the epochal resolution to the faculty in 1842 that, at all future written examinations, the students should certify on their honor the receiving of no improper assistance. Later, this pledge was extended to include the imparting as well as the accepting of aid.

While visiting Richmond in 1853, Frederick Law Olmsted observed the importance of the cult of manners there. He added this observation to his travel diary, “In manners, I notice that between man and man, more ceremony and form is sustained in familiar conversations than well-bred people commonly use at the North.”

(Romanticism in the Old South, Rollin G. Osterweiss, LSU Press, 1971, excerpt, pp. 87-88)

John Laurens, South Carolina Emancipator

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Though John Laurens intention to emancipate and arm African slaves was intended to blunt the actions of Lord Dunmore’s Virginia emancipation proclamation of 1775 which fomented race war, which Lincoln later copied, South Carolina had earlier considered arming slaves for community defense. This shows too that using slaves as armed combatants with freedom as a reward predates the War Between the States, and an inevitable strategy, both offensive and defensive, given the great numbers of Africans brought to North America by British and New England slave ships.
Bernhard Thuersam www.Circa1865.com   The Great American Political Divide

John Laurens, South Carolina Emancipator

[Laurens] fought in the Battle of Brandywine, was wounded at Germantown, and spent the winter of 1777-1778 at Valley Forge on Washington’s staff. At Monmouth the following summer he escaped unscathed when his horse was shot from under him . . . during the late summer of 1778 he had served as liaison officer between the French and American commands during the joint attack on Rhode Island. His linguistic ability made him popular with the French officers and useful to Washington who spoke no French at all.

Nevertheless, Laurens was able to prevail upon his commander to send him back to South Carolina where he hoped to raise and lead a regiment of blacks against the British in the South. Early in 1778 John Laurens broached the matter to his father, who was then president of the Continental Congress. “I would solicit you to cede me a number of your able-bodied men slaves, instead of leaving me a fortune,” he wrote.

Formed into a unit and trained, they might render important service during the next campaign, he argued. What is amazing about his plan, though, is not merely that he was willing to surrender a large part of his inheritance in order to augment the Continental Army — practically everything he did during the Revolution testifies to his willingness to sacrifice his own private interest in favor of the general welfare. Nor is it even that he was willing to arm the slaves — South Carolinians had considered that step during earlier emergencies.

Rather, the astonishing aspects of his proposal are its candor, its boldness and its lager purpose. Service in the revolutionary army would be a stepping-stone to freedom — “a proper gradation between abject slavery and perfect liberty,” which would not only prepare a slave to take his place in free society but also establish his claim to it. In short, his was a clever and far-reaching plan for the gradual abolition of slavery.

A year later, after the fall of Savannah, however, the obvious need for additional manpower led Congress to urge the Southern States to enlist three thousand blacks, who would be freed at the end of the war.”

(The Last of American Freemen, Robert M. Weir, Mercer University Press, 1986, excerpts, pp. 90-94)

Jubal Early and the Goddess of Liberty

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West Point cadet Jubal A. Early was nineteen years old when he wrote the following letter to his father in 1835, begging for permission to join the Texans in their fight for independence from Mexico. He would hold the same opinion of combatting tyranny in what he viewed to be Northern tyranny in the War Between the States — and continuing unabated after the War.
Bernhard Thuersam, www.Circa1865.com   The Great American Political Divide

Jubal Early and the Goddess of Liberty

“The Texans are bound by every principle of self-preservation and are justified by the natural law of rights, as well as by precedent, to declare their independence and to resist the attempt which is being made to annihilate them. And we of the United States are called upon by every principle of humanity, by our love of liberty and our detestation of oppression, to go to the succor of our countrymen and aid in overwhelming the tyrant.

Shall we shed tears over the fate of Greece and Poland, yet see our countrymen slaughtered with indifference? The respect we entertain for our forefathers of the Revolution forbids it.

The gratitude we owe another country for espousing our cause imperiously commands us to espouse that of the oppressed. The cause of the Texans is more justifiable than was ours. We resisted the usurpation of our lawful government. They are resisting the tyranny and cruelty of [a] usurped government.

Liberty has been driven from the old world and its only asylum is in the new. It is the imperious duty of every one, who in this fair land has received it and its principles unsullied from his ancestors, to extend its dominion and to perpetuate its glorious light to posterity.

How can this be done if tyranny more despotic than that which exists in Europe is allowed to exist in our own confines? In succoring the Texans we should consider that we extend the sway of the goddess we worship, that we secure to their progeny the benefits of which we are so tenacious, and secure to the oppressed freemen of other countries an asylum which our own country will, ere long, not be able to afford them . . .

The great end of all education is to expand the mind and gain a knowledge of human nature. What is more calculated to expand the mind than the espousing of and working in the cause if liberty? What better book in which to study human nature than such a variety of characters as I would be constantly thrown with?

All things cry out to me to go [to Texas]. Oh, my dear father, will you not give me permission? Do not think that my resolution has been taken unadvisedly, and do not smile at my aspirations. I do not believe that I shall become a Bonaparte or [Simon] Bolivar, but he who never aspires, never rises. I have confined this letter to one subject because my whole soul is taken up with that subject.”

(Lt. Gen. Jubal Anderson Early, CSA, Narrative of the War Between the States; Da Capo Press, 1989 (original 1912), excerpt, pp. 471-472)

The Russian Conspiracy Theory Boils Over

Via David


The so-called scandal involving former National Security Advisor Mike Flynn is 9/11, Pearl Harbor, Iran-Contra, Watergate, proof of presidential fascism, a cynical money-making scheme, and a pro-Russian spy thriller all rolled into one, according to the increasingly deranged rants of howling left-wingers and their truth-adverse confederates in the mainstream media.

Despite this relentless barrage of fake news and smears, President Donald Trump pushed back against the orchestrated campaign against him yesterday at what is sure to go down in history as The Best Presidential Press Conference of All Time as he gave the mainstream media the beat-down it deserves. (See transcript.)

“To give you an idea how Trump's press conference went, afterwards, the press corps demanded a safe space,” Ann Coulter tweeted of the 77-minute long White House event, Trump’s first solo presser as president. “I wish this press conference could go on all day.”

More @ Front Page

How Trump’s stock market ranks in his first 30 days in office

Via John


Much has been made of the stock market’s record-setting performance since President Donald Trump won the race for the White House back in November.


But Dow Jones’s data team offers more insight into how Trump stacks up compared with other presidents in their first 30 days in office, a milepost Trump hits on Feb. 19. The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, +0.02% has returned 4.02% as of Friday’s close, which would make the Dow’s performance in the Trump era’s first month the sixth best in percentage terms behind Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1945, after his fourth victorious campaign for the presidency, when blue chips climbed by 4.1%.

More @ Market Watch

Trump: An hour of negotiations saved more than $1 billion on Air Force One

Via Billy

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President Trump said Saturday that he has reduced the price of two new Air Force One planes by more than $1 billion after spending about an hour on negotiations.

Trump previously slammed the cost of the $4.2 billion Boeing program on Twitter as being too high and secured a personal promise from Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg to complete the program for under $4 billion.

"I refuse to fly in a $4.2 billion plane," Trump said at his Melbourne, Fla., rally. "We've got that price down by over $1 billion and I probably haven't spoken for more than an hour on the project. I got the generals in who are fantastic … but I told Boeing that isn't good enough, the price is still too high."

Wilders at Dutch campaign launch vows to crack down on 'Moroccan scum'

Via Billy



Dutch anti-Muslim, anti-EU party leader Geert Wilders promised to crack down on "Moroccan scum" who he said were making the streets unsafe and urged the Dutch to "regain" their country as he launched his election campaign on Saturday.

Wilders was surrounded by police and security guards during a walkabout in Spijkenisse, part of the ethnically diverse industrial area surrounding the vast port of Rotterdam and a stronghold of his Freedom Party.

"Not all are scum, but there is a lot of Moroccan scum in Holland who makes the streets unsafe," he told reporters, speaking in English. "If you want to regain your country, if you want to make the Netherlands for the people of the Netherlands, your own home, again, then you can only vote for one party."

                                                                     More @ Reuters

GOP Outraged After Discovering VA Employees Spent 1.1 Million Hours on Taxpayer-Funded Union Activities

Via Billy

Veterans Psychiatric Care

House Republicans berated the Department of Veterans Affairs on Thursday for allowing hundreds of employees to devote all their taxpayer-funded work hours to union activities instead of helping veterans.

VA records reveal that 290,000 employees spent around 1.1 million hours on union affairs in fiscal year 2015, with 346 of those employees devoting all of their hours to official time, the Daily Caller reported Friday.

Official time is, according to the Office of Personnel Management, "paid time off from assigned government duties to represent a union or its bargaining unit employees," for which taxpayers foot the bill.

ICE: Yes, 75 Percent Of Illegal Immigrants We Arrested Have Criminal Records

Via Billy

ICE: Yes, 75 Percent Of Illegal Immigrants We Arrested Have Criminal Records

Over the past couple of days, immigration enforcement agents have round up almost 700 illegal aliens—75 percent of which had criminal records. Rep. Nancy Pelosi disputed the claim, but Immigration and Customs Enforcement also confirmed the figure released by the Department of Homeland Security. IJ Review’s Joe Perticone had more:

The claim that an overwhelming majority of immigrants targeted in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids last week were convicted criminals is correct and backed by hard numbers, despite skepticism from House Democrats.

More @ Townhall

Trump Declares Dishonest Media Is The Enemy Of The American People (VIDEO)

Via Billy

 

On Friday President Trump doubled down on his stance on the dishonest mainstream media when he sent out a tweet saying: “The FAKE NEWS media (failing @nytimes, @NBCNews, @ABC, @CBS, @CNN) is not my enemy, it is the enemy of the American People!”
 

The FAKE NEWS media (failing @nytimes, @NBCNews, @ABC, @CBS, @CNN) is not my enemy, it is the enemy of the American People!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 17, 2017

More with video @ The Gateway Pundit

TGP White House Correspondent Exposes DNC, MSM on The Allman Report (VIDEO)

Via Billy

 

New White House correspondent for the Gateway Pundit Lucian Wintrich recently killed it with Jamie Allman of the Allman report this past Friday. Allman asked Wintrich about the poor reception he has been getting from the more veteran members of the White House press.

“On my second day, a fellow came up to me. I went to put out my hand to shake hands and said hi I’m Lucian Wintrich, he said I KNOW EXACTLY WHO YOU ARE!! Before storming off”
Allman then went on asking about the sinister collaboration between the leftist media and the DNC.

“A lot of the leftist media is acting as an extension of the democratic party. We see the leftist media even colluding with Intelligence agencies in America, as if they are not only a separate government but an extension of the democratic party. There is a lot of disturbing things going on right now, that I believe the introduction of conservative media onto the white house will correct.”

Allman then asked about Trumps epic news conference Thursday which absolutely destroyed “fake news” outlets such as CNN.

“O MY GOSH! Wish I was there for the news conference yesterday. Everyone was saying this is the man we elected. This is what we needed. I was there for the Netanyahu speech which was an incredible news conference, but me and Jim needed to be back in New York”.

More with video @ The Gateway Pundit

Ivanka Trump brand tops Amazon Best Sellers list

Via Billy

Ivanka Trump, daughter of President-elect Donald Trump, arrives at Trump Tower, Friday, Nov. 11, 2016, in New York. (AP Photo/ Evan Vucci)

First Daughter Ivanka Trump could be getting the last laugh at brick and mortar stores that have dropped her brand of clothing, shoes, perfumes and more.

On Friday morning, Ivanka Trump Eau de Parfum Spray For Women, 3.4 Fluid Ounce and the roller ball version of the perfume were number one and two top selling perfumes on Amazon's Best Sellers list.

Trump's perfume spray and roller ball were selling better on the e-commerce site than perfumes by Estee Lauder and Jennifer Lopez.

More @ Fox

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson Cleans House at State Department

Via Billy


On Friday, after a week of tumult in the Trump White House, newly minted Secretary of State Rex Tillerson decided it was time to clean house. Just last week he told State Department employees that he would not be making changes “simply for the sake of change,” but that he’d be evaluating the department to see what changes he felt were “needed.” Apparently, the whirlwind surrounding former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn has given Tillerson the impetus to make sweeping changes at the State Department.

The New York Post described it as a “bloodbath.”

‘You and your family are fired . . . Love you’: Workers get canned for ‘Day Without Immigrants’ no shows

Via Billy


In the highly competitive restaurant industry, there are consequences to actions that detract from quality customer service, as 12 Oklahoma workers who failed to show up for work in support of the “Day Without Immigrants” protest found out the hard way.

Not that the owner didn’t show a little compassion along the way.
The restaurant workers, all Hispanic, were employed at the “I Don’t Care Bar and Grill” in Catoosa and were fired after participating in Thursday’s show of support for illegal immigrants, according to ABC affiliate KTUL in Tulsa.

More @ Biz Pac

Memos signed by DHS secretary describe sweeping new guidelines for deporting illegal immigrants

Via Billy


Homeland Security Secretary John F. Kelly has signed sweeping new guidelines that empower federal authorities to more aggressively detain and deport illegal immigrants inside the United States and at the border.

In a pair of memos, Kelly offered more detail on plans for the agency to hire thousands of additional enforcement agents, expand the pool of immigrants who are prioritized for removal, speed up deportation hearings and enlist local law enforcement to help make arrests.

The new directives would supersede nearly all of those issued under previous administrations, Kelly said, including measures from President Barack Obama aimed at focusing deportations exclusively on hardened criminals and those with terrorist ties.