Do Democrats Want an Impeachment Fight?

 

"If anyone is looking for a good lawyer," said President Donald Trump ruefully, "I would strongly suggest that you don't retain the services of Michael Cohen." Michael Cohen is no Roy Cohn.

Tuesday, Trump's ex-lawyer, staring at five years in prison, pled guilty to a campaign violation that may not even be a crime.

Cohen had fronted the cash, $130,000, to pay porn star Stormy Daniels for keeping quiet about a decade-old tryst with Trump. He had also brokered a deal whereby the National Enquirer bought the rights to a story about a Trump affair with a Playboy model, to kill it.

Cohen claims he and Trump thus conspired to violate federal law. But paying girlfriends to keep past indiscretions private is neither a crime nor a campaign violation. And Trump could legally contribute as much as he wished to his own campaign for president.

Would a Democratic House, assuming we get one, really impeach a president for paying hush money to old girlfriends?

Hence the high-fives among never-Trumpers are premature.

More @ Chronicles

To the wounded VNCH soldiers, it's always spring........

Via Linh Tran

Hollywood Censors and Denatured History

 

The William Dieterle-directed film “Tennessee Johnson” released in January 1943, originally written to depict the epic post-Civil War political battle between Andrew Johnson and Thaddeus Stevens, is not available on video though according to the author “pops up now and then on Turner Classic Movies.” This was the same era when South Carolinian Jimmy Byrnes was told that despite his stellar career in the Democratic Party, a Southerner could not be added to FDR’s ticket as vice president in 1940 – but the Soviet-friendly Henry Wallace was.
Bernhard Thuersam, www.Circa1865.org   The Great American Political Divide

Hollywood Censors and Denatured History

“Tennessee Johnson, an MGM biography of President Andrew Johnson . . . starred Van Heflin as the cussed tailor of Greenville and Lionel Barrymore (one of Hollywood’s great New Deal-haters) as Thaddeus Stevens, Johnson’s radical nemesis. The movie received the sort of respectful notices often given to earnest historical films. It was also one of Hollywood’s most craven moments.

The film was originally titled The Man on America’s Conscience.  The script . . . took the traditional Claude Bowers view of Reconstruction and Johnson’s impeachment: that is, that “Johnson fought the bravest battle for constitutional liberty and for the preservation of our institutions ever waged by an executive” against Pennsylvania congressman Stevens, the brilliant but hateful clubfoot who wished to mistreat the conquered Southerners like a vast peonage.”

Enter Walter White, secretary of the NAACP. When he learned that MGM was producing an anti-Reconstruction film, White complained to Lowell Mellett, director of the Bureau of Motion Pictures of the Office of War Information. The OWI, a propaganda agency created by one of FDR’s executive orders, requested a copy of the screenplay . . . [and] when Mellett and White previewed the unedited film, they hit the roof.

Mellett demanded that key scenes be reshot or removed. Thad Stevens, the screenplay’s villain, was humanized; one new scene had him kissing and petting Andrew Johnson’s grandkids. A scene in which Stevens plied Johnson with drink before his legendary incoherent vice presidential Inaugural Address was left on the cutting room floor. Rewritten dialogue assured us that Stevens was “sincere” if a mite vengeful.

The essential character of Lydia Smith, Steven’s mulatto housekeeper and probable mistress, disappeared. Despite the changes, a gang of Hollywood liberals – Ben Hecht, Zero Mostel, Vincent Price – petitioned the OWI to destroy the picture, in best fascist fashion, in the cause of national unity.

Tennessee Johnson – the OWI demanded a conscience-less title – was released in its denatured form. It’s a fairly standard biopic: Johnson, nicely played by Heflin, is the runaway tailor’s apprentice and self-styled champion of “poor white trash” who is only trying to act on his predecessor’s wise policy of malice toward none and charity toward all. With the exception of Jefferson Davis, secessionists are depicted as huffy churls and hotheads.

One consequence of Walter White’s protest was the omission of Lydia Smith, a meaty role for a black actress. The part was recast as the corpulent “laws a mercy!” black maid of stereotype. The excision of Lydia Smith not only warred upon the truth, it also made Steven’s Negrophilia less comprehensible. Love, after all, is always a higher afflatus than political principle.

Walter White’s autobiography makes no mention of his role in altering Tennessee Johnson. The title is absent from a full shelf of books on censorship and the movies; censorship, it seems, only worked one way in Hollywood.”

(The Hollywood Ten(nessean), Bill Kaufmann; Chronicles, October, 1998, excerpt, pp. 39-40. www.chroniclesmagazine.org)

Democrats Who Support Trump: CNN’s Coverage of Cohen, Manafort Is a ‘Side Show’

Via Billy

 

Registered Democrats who support President Donald Trump told CNN its coverage of the president's administration is a "side show" and that they are glad to see the stock market rise and their retirement savings increase.

CNN aired footage Friday morning of correspondent Jason Carroll speaking with registered Democrats in Pennsylvania praising Trump for improving the economy and looking out for their savings.

Eileen and Richard Sorokas supported former President Barack Obama during both elections, but then switched over and supported Trump because of his promises to improve the economy.

More @ The Washington Free Beacon

America Under Siege: ANTIFA

Via Billy

Far-left groups are hosting a conference on how to tear down statues

Via Anonymous

Violent leftist mobs recently tore down the controversial “Silent Sam” statue at the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill. Now many of the organizations who were involved with planning and executing that protest are hosting a two day conference in the neighboring city of Durham called “How to Topple a Statue, How to Tear Down a Wall”. Defend Durham, a far-left activist organization that supports the violent #AbolishICE movement and also works closely with local antifa groups is organizing this event.

According to the event description, this conference will be centered around workshops, political discussion, and actions regarding opposition to perceived white supremacy:

More @ Far Left

Vietnam: Pictures censored in the north

Via Linh Tran

Smallpox Hand Grenades Feared in Virginia

 

The Twenty-first Regiment of New York Volunteers was initially enlisted for a three-month tour of duty after Fort Sumter. On August 20, 1861, as the unit neared the end of their sworn term, it was reported that “attempted revolt” in the ranks arose as Lincoln requisitioned the short-term volunteers for his lengthy war. Generous enlistment bounties, furloughs, new immigrants impressed and captured Southern black men counted toward State quotas would solve the issue.
Bernhard Thuersam, www.Circa1865.org   The Great American Political Divide

Smallpox Hand Grenades Feared in Virginia

“On June 5th [1861], the Elmira correspondent of the [New York World] writes as follows: “The Cayuga, Buffalo and Hillhouse regiments are the only ones that have received their arms, and indeed, the only ones that are uniformed. The Buffalo men were uniformed by their fellow citizens, and present a fine appearance.”

In Mr. Faxon’s correspondence with the [Buffalo] Courier, we find the following:

“Yesterday and today were given almost entirely to the preventive service. Small-pox having been announced as one of the warlike weapons in use by our rebellious friend in Virginia, to scatter among our troops as a soldier would throw hand grenades, our Surgeon . . . [introduced] into the entire human economy of the regiment a little vaccine matter.

The Rev. Mr. Robie had become at once a general favorite. He has donned the theological uniform . . . and looks as though he was ready, at a moment’s notice, to engage the rebels of the South or the foe of all mankind.

Says a member of the regiment in a letter to the Buffalo Courier: “I consider it the duty of someone to tender our grateful acknowledgments to the ladies . . . Ladies of Buffalo, we will bear you in everlasting remembrance, and try to do our duty as soldiers, — to the killing of Jeff. Davis, if possible.”

[July 8th]: Last Thursday being the eighty-fifth anniversary of American Freedom, was fitly celebrated with us by a review of the troops in Washington and vicinity.

[Near Falls Church, Virginia], We learned this morning [29 September] that a scouting party returning from the front last night were fired upon by a California regiment, and several men killed, the result of carelessness in not having the countersign. Some of the men have been foraging among the deserted rebel mansions in the neighborhood. The house of Major Nutt, which its gallant owner hastily evacuated the day of our advance, stands, or did stand, about a mile north of the hill.

A party of [General Ludwig] Blenker’s [German regiment], probably carrying out the precepts of old world warfare, have completely demolished it, together with that portion of the contents which they did not choose to carry away. The remains of a fine piano and other heavy furniture litter the grounds; the garden and outbuildings are sacked and destroyed, and the [livestock] appropriated by the ravagers.”

(Chronicles of the Twenty-first Regiment, New York Volunteers, J. Harrison Mills, Twenty-first Regiment Veteran Association, 1887, excerpts pp. 50-52; 121)

I am a Southerner. I am Silent Sam.

Via Carl

Let's say that I move to somewhere far away from where I'm from. Maybe I went there for economic reasons. Maybe a government department sent and resettled me there. Maybe I went there to attend university. Maybe I was taken in as a refugee. Or maybe I trespassed and have squatted there ever since. Or maybe one or both of my parents were any of the preceding categories. I don't really have generational roots in this new place--no ancestors buried here. None of my predecessors played any role whatsoever in founding any of the institutions of the environment I'm now in. None of them were first settlers of the old colony. None of them declared independence and aided founding the state. None were ever in a position to have fought, bled and died for the place. None founded a school here, a university here, a road, a park, a court, a church, nothing.

Even though on the long scale of history I effectively arrived only yesterday, through "democracy", the laws artificially weigh my opinions the same as people from families that have been here for two, three or four hundred years--who did settle the colony, who did found the state, who did defend themselves and their state in all of it's early wars, who did endure a ruthless invasion and occupation a century and half ago carried out by people they once voluntarily shared a common central government with. I get as much say here as people who do have an established history in this place.

Now let's say I insert myself into the political life of this place, aggressively. Let's say I team up with other people like me from everywhere and nowhere, or disgruntled people part of other groups of a long presence here, or people from here who have adopted the political views I hold, and together we decide that we're going to define the original governing group's entire political and military history up to and including their mere existence on this continent as "hate".

I begin knocking down statues. I begin desecrating graves. I claim to be the righteous party in doing so because I have defined the original governing group in such a way that I am automatically justified in attacking them in any manner whatsoever because of how I interpret their history. I accuse them of de-personing various "people of color" while simultaneously de-personing them so thoroughly that I have helped make it socially acceptable to destroy anything associated with them or their group heroes.

Let's say that that other group dwindles away to where my allies and I have controlling electoral majorities first in precincts and on campuses, then whole counties, then whole groups of counties in my new state. In fact, my allies and I so thoroughly displace the other group that we can dominate the electoral politics of first the executive branch of the state, then it's federal electoral politics, then it's legislature. We now have lawmaking power over the original governing group who's mere existence in political life we've defined as hate. We can, at will, deny protection to their monuments, their graves, and eventually, their homes, their families and their physical persons because we have totally captured the state and local governments they originally constituted over themselves. We have decreed them to be nothing more than "evil racists", who deserve to be erased. So we erase them, and celebrate ourselves for doing so.

Now, in this scenario, what am I?

I started as a guest or a trespasser. I progressed to a nuisance, then a busybody quite rapidly, interfering in matters that did not pertain to me by asserting strong opinions and actions against the traditions of the people who took me in. I became a subvertor, an enemy from elsewhere domiciled in my new environment.

Then I became an occupier, a revolutionary, and a conqueror.

At no point was any act of mine in this scenario legitimate, and these governments that my cohorts and I captured ceased to be legitimate the moment we drove out of the process the people who established them.

But I had power behind me. I had propaganda. I had lies. I had unlimited funding. And I had squatter democracy and bogus constitutional interpretations to rubber stamp a false simulacrum of legitimacy on every single act along the way.

I "did it like Durham" over and over, calling the other group hateful genocidal colonizers, while actively hating the other, while genociding their culture and colonizing institutions they created.

And I did it mainly for attention, for "likes" and hearts on social media, to get to pretend to be virtuous and heroic while publicly defiling the memory of men who actually displayed real virtue and heroism. I sought worth in destroying another group of people. And because my politics were correct and their's weren't, I got to smugly proclaim myself great and them awful, one vandalized statue sefie at a time.

But, thank God, that isn't me.

I am their "other".

I am who the real analogues of the hypothetical person described in the preceding want gone.

I am a Southerner.

I am Silent Sam.

The Agenda That Dare Not Speak Its Name

Sublimating their real agenda while avoiding intra-party debates may be enough for the Democrats to win in 2018. But that victory, should it happen, has a price. The bill comes due in 2020.

The Democrats' plans for 2019—and beyond

 The Democrats have decided that agendas are overrated. Back in May, the party unveiled its "Better Deal" program, calling for expanded broadband access, an increase in the minimum wage, and paid family and sick leave. Voters didn't bite. So last month the Democrats came up with "For the People," which simplifies the platform to infrastructure spending, lowering health care costs, and draining the swamp. Again, crickets.

What to do? Party leadership has declared that it's every cis-het man for himself. "We trust our candidates to know their districts and the challenges facing their communities better than anyone," House campaign chair Ben Ray Luján tells the New York Times. Translation: If you are Conor Lamb, run as a gun-friendly champion of the working class. If you are Rashida Tlaib, feel free to announce that you would vote against aid for Israel and to call for bi-nationalism that would end the Jewish State. Texas Democrat Colin Allred, following Hillary Clinton, says everyone should be able to buy into Medicare. Maine Democrat Jared Golden, following Bernie Sanders, says, "We need to move towards a universal health care system, like Medicare-for-all." 

More @ The Washington Free Beacon

Lawless London: Worried residents building BARRICADES around their homes

 

Shocking pictures show large wooden barricades have been put up around property in the posh West London neighbourhood.

The famous annual carnival celebrating British African-Caribbean will see hundreds of thousands of people flock to the area to enjoy the colourful parade and street food.

But the event has been marred with violence in the past, with multiple stabbings and violent attacks occurring previously.

More @ Daily Star

Protesters clash at UNC-Chapel Hill, less than a week after Silent Sam was toppled

Via Billy

Those arrested on Monday night in connection with toppling the statue are: Jonathan Fitzgerald Fuller, 27; Lauren Aucoin, 23; and Raul Arce, 27, according to a news release Saturday.

Police had arrested seven people by early Saturday afternoon, as protesters clashed at UNC-Chapel Hill five days after the toppling of the Silent Sam Confederate monument.

In a media conference call later in the day, UNC Chancellor Carol Folt said she won’t be rushed into a decision about what happens next to Silent Sam. She has to keep an “eye on safety, preparing for events and identifying a sustainable solution,” Folt said.

Read more here: https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/counties/orange-county/article217286120.html#storylink=cpy

 More with videos @ The Raleigh News & Observer

Russia Sends Largest Naval Armada Of Syrian War Amidst New Chemical Attack Warnings

 

We observed previously after John Bolton's threat late this week of "greater military force" should chemical weapons allegations emerge against Damascus, that a familiar pattern has long been in play on Syria: just when it appears the jihadists are on the brink of final defeat, and as stability is returning after seven years of grinding war, something happens to bring things right back to the brink of global crisis and escalation. 

Authored and submitted by Leith Aboufadel via Al Masdar News,
Russia has built up its forces around the Mediterranean Sea in response to reports that the U.S., France, and Great Britain could be preparing to attack Syria after US National Security Advisor John Bolton informed Russia that America is prepared to respond with greater military force than it has used against Assad’s regime in the past, according to Bloomberg.

According to Yoruk Isik of the Bosphorus Observer, the Russian Navy has sent another armada of ships towards Syria’s territorial waters in order to increase the strength of their forces around the country.

More @ Zero Hedge