Birmingham's saddest day

Via Nancy

I've never seen anything like this.

I've covered hurricanes and tornadoes that took whole families and neighborhoods. I've covered murders and bombings and South American soccer games. But nothing really like this.

I've seen a mayor walk the street in shackles. I've watched mayors and governors hauled to jail. I've covered peaceful protests and riots. I've seen families mourn the deaths of their innocents, and guilty men die in the electric chair.

But I've seen nothing quite like the events in Birmingham City Hall this week. Nothing that reached into my heart to snatch the shreds of hope that hide there. Nothing that took my words, and left me with only sadness.

For my city. For my species.

I barely know what to say. Or how to say it.

More with video @ AL

Burns Chronicles No 15 – So, what is the Law?

 

It is appropriate to start off with some Constitutional wisdom from the Father of the Constitution, before we proceed.

It poisons the blessing of liberty itself.  It will be of little avail to the people, that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood; if they be repealed or revised before they are promulgated, or undergo such incessant changes that no man, who knows what the law is today, can guess what it will be tomorrow.  Law is defined to be a rule of action; but how can that be a rule, which is little known, and less fixed?

               --James Madison, Federalist N^o 62
In the previous article, “Which Came First, the Rooster or the Egg?“, we were focused on the original charge, violation of 18 US Code § 432, which was the charge in the original Indictment, dated February 3, 2016.  Though the government did the intimidation, the defendants are charged with that crime, there is nothing to demonstrate that the defendants intimidated or threatened anybody.

Just over a month later (I guess it took the United States Attorneys that long to try and find something a little more, well, tenable, to charge the defendants with), a Superseding Indictment was filed on March 8, 2016.  It is with Count 2 of the Superseding Indictment that we will be discussing, here, along with both logical and historical perspectives.

Before we proceed, you may want to refresh your memory, from another earlier article, in which it was apparent to Representative Greg Walden, in his Speech on the Floor of the House of Representatives (Published January 8, 2016 – 24 minutes), that if Congress makes a law, pursuant to the Constitution, it doesn’t mean that the Administrative Agencies are going to abide by that law, or, perhaps, interpret it contrary to its intent.

So, let’s look at Count 2, as it appears in the Indictment:

More @ Outpost Of Freedom

MY Tho: American GI's vibrant photographs capture the other side of of the Vietnam War: Soldier recorded how ordinary life went on in the midst of brutal conflict

Via Jonathan

 

Beautiful color pictures taken in the city of My Tho between 1968-69 show bustling markets and busy townsfolk 

They were taken by a 24-year-old private with a love for photography and a lot of time on his hands
'I didn't want to be there, but there was nothing I could do about it. 

So in my free time I would just grab my camera and walk around taking pictures,' said Lance V. Nix, now aged 71, in an interview with Daily Mail Online.

                                                                     More @ Daily Mail

*********************

 THE SUICIDES ON APRIL 30, 1975

5. Brigadier General Tran Van Hai (1925-1975) 

Brigadier general, commander, 7th Infantry Division at Dong Tam, near My Tho.

 
General Hai was born in Phong Dinh province (Can Tho). He graduated from the Dalat Military Academy, Class 7, 1951. Hai was renown of being incorruptible, outspoken and brave. In 1968, he was commanding the Ranger Branch Command, directly supervising the Ranger's raid to clear the enemy force that infiltrated into the business quarter of Cho Lon area.

He was then assigned National Police Chief. In 1970 he was commander, Special Tactical Area 44... before commanding the 7th Division. 

He won the adoration of everyone who once worked with him, as he was renown of being incorruptible. At midnight, 30 April 1975, he committed suicide at the Division Headquarters, Dong Tam Army Base. 

 (This was TET '68. A friend of mine, Bill Lemon, was caught in Cholon when the Communists came. They were going door to door, street by street searching all the houses. After the second day, it was apparent that they would get to where he was staying the next day. Now picture this: George weighed 300 pounds, but his wife made him a white top with black pants like women wear there especially when they are selling wares, put a conical hat on his head, and he was able to walk a few blocks to where a man, who had been contacted by telephone, met him in a jeep, and got him away safely under a hail of fire! BT)

Former Agent on Threats to Trump: “You have counter-assault assets, you have counter-sniper assets, this says to me that this is a grave threat.”

 

The Secret Service and the presidential campaign of Donald Trump are increasing security for the candidate and his rallies after threatening letters were received by Trump family members and violent protests by leftists broke out at a string of several recent Trump rallies.

More with video @ The Gateway Pundit

Behind the anti-Trump Disruptors, the Fine Hands of Alinsky and Obama

Via Billy

Recently, when disrupters showed up at a Trump rally in Chicago, the first thing that came to mind was that America’s most notorious community organizer could be the wizard behind the curtain orchestrating what was being sold as an organic occurrence.

In Saul Alinsky’s 1971 book Rules for Radicals, the late author could have been describing Obama’s last seven years in office when he wrote that an efficacious organizer should be “an abrasive agent to rub raw the resentments of the people of the community; to fan latent hostilities of many of the people to the point of overt expressions.”

The father of community organizing taught that once people are “whipped up to a fighting pitch,” the agitated could be directed to participate in rowdy demonstrations. By employing those techniques on the international level, Alinsky’s star pupil, Barack Obama, has successfully managed to whip up global chaos.

Back in Chicago, in the early 1980’s, Greg Galluzzo taught student Barack Obama to avoid the spotlight because the fundamental goal of a grassroots activist is to lead “indigenous” communities to believe they were taking action independently.

More @ American Thinker

China central bank to Fed: A little help, please?

Via Ed

Confronted with a plunge in its stock markets last year, China's central bank swiftly reached out to the U.S. Federal Reserve, asking it to share its play book for dealing with Wall Street's "Black Monday" crash of 1987.

The request came in a July 27 email from a People's Bank of China official with a subject line: "Your urgent assistance is greatly appreciated!"

In a message to a senior Fed staffer, the PBOC's New York-based chief representative for the Americas, Song Xiangyan, pointed to the day's 8.5 percent drop in Chinese stocks and said "my Governor would like to draw from your good experience."

                                                                          More @ Reuters

Rare photo shows Robert E. Lee's slave, Selina Gray and children

Re-post 2014

 

The National Park Service has found, on eBay, only the second photo known to exist of a famous slave owned by Robert E. Lee and and his wife, reports AP. The image, bought by the service for $700, shows Selina Gray and two younger girls, possibly her children.

Gray served as the Lees' head housekeeper in Arlington, Va. During the Civil War, while Lee was off leading the Confederate army, she famously confronted raiding Union soldiers and told them to keep their hands off "Mrs. Lee's things," reports the Washington Post.

She is credited with preserving scores of heirlooms at Arlington House that once belonged to George Washington and had been handed down to the Lees. (Wife Mary Lee was a relation.)

More @ KSDA

Charlottesville Vice-Mayor calls for removal of the RE Lee equestrian statue, and wants the park renamed

Charlottesville's vice mayor is calling on City Council to take down a statue honoring Confederate general Robert E. Lee and rename the park that surrounds it.

Vice Mayor Wes Bellamy and his supporters will hold a press conference in Lee Park on Tuesday. Bellamy says this is a chance for the community to stand together to show the city that it's time for change.

He says the Robert E. Lee statue has symbolized a lot of different things since it was installed in 1924. Bellamy believes city leaders need to take action when anyone in the community feels disrespected. (What a joke.)

More @ NBC

Charles Carroll of Carrollton: The Southern Irish Catholic Planter

 

Charles Carroll of Carrollton has one of the more interesting stories of the Founding generation. He was one of the wealthiest men in the colonies in the eighteenth century, and like other members of the Southern gentry, he lived the life of a European aristocrat. But Carroll was Catholic, and while well respected by his fellow Marylanders, he could not vote or hold office before the War for Independence. Carroll is the founder of the conservative American Catholic tradition. He was a staunch patriot and signatory to the Declaration of Independence, and he pledged his fortune to the cause of independence. He served in the Maryland legislature and was the first United States Senator from Maryland, but like many of the Virginians among the Founding Fathers, he spent a good portion of his life “retired” at his plantation committed to the further expansion of his lands. He was the last living signer of the Declaration.

The Carroll family had ties to the Irish nobility. The first Charles Carroll arrived in America in 1688 at the insistence of his father, Daniel O’Carroll, and the proprietor of the Maryland colony, Charles Calvert, 3rd Lord Baltimore. The Carrolls, as Catholics, faced persecution in England under the reforms of the Glorious Revolution of 1688. Maryland was founded under the idea of religious toleration and was “owned” by a Catholic, making it a natural destination. Charles Carroll the settler rapidly expanded his land holdings, and his son, Charles Carroll of Annapolis, became a respected and wealthy man, despite the restrictions Protestants in Maryland ultimately placed on their Catholic neighbors.

More @ The Abbeville Institute

Germany Crosses the Demographic RUBICON: 20-35's a MINORITY by 2020