Secret Service in Hanoi

Via Thuong Pham 

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Scarlett

Via Scott Frederick Lewis

Trial Judge Declares Male-Only Selective Service System Unconstitutional

On Feb. 22, a federal judge in the Southern District of Texas ruled that it is unconstitutional for the government to require only men to register for the draft. Judge Gray Miller found that the male-only Selective Service System (SSS) violates Fifth Amendment Equal Protection principles and granted summary judgment in favor of the National Coalition for Men (NCFM) and two individual plaintiffs who brought suit challenging the constitutionality of registering only men and not women for the military draft system.

 More @ Lawfare

Marathon Prep

My second Daughter Virginia, born in Saigon on the right, ran the Boston one last year in the horrid weather.

A Part of the Southern Family: “Tain’t so much the color that makes the difference between people – it’s the blood!”

The fidelity of black people is attested by many reports during the war, such as when Northern soldiers seized plantation hands to help them locate buried valuables. In front of Hopewell Associated Reformed Presbyterian Church in Chester, South Carolina, is a memorial stone to Robert Hemphill, the slave of Robert Hemphill — both were church members. The stone commemorates the fact that Burwell was hung by Northern soldiers who wanted the location of buried valuables on the plantation. They hung him briefly several times before killing him for refusing to answer, and died rather than be unfaithful to those he loved and served.
Bernhard Thuersam, www.Circa1865.org   The Great American Political Divide

A Part of the Southern Family

“As the tension between the two races who live side by side in our land seems to be increasing, I am glad to remember my colored friends with sincere appreciation of their merits, their keen sense of humor, and their loyalty. Should these words ever reach the rising generation, I hope it will give them a pleasant picture of the friendly relations between those who served and those who expected service.

The present-day movies and comics present our Negroes as “step-and-fetch-it” or a caricature of a would-be heavy sport. Gone is the real affection that made a white child cling with both arms around his nurse’s neck, or that prompted a gentleman to sit in open court beside an ex-slave being tried for his life.

In a friend’s house stands a gun, an old muzzle-loading gun long enough to reach from here to yonder. During the Civil War a raiding party from the Northern Army carried off a young Negro and the long gun. The boy patiently followed his captors, and then escaped one night to come safely back home to tell his master where the gun had been sold for $1.00. It was quickly rescued and is today a priceless antique in [a residence in] Brevard, North Carolina.

There was little black Liza . . . who sang me to sleep in my infancy, and lived to launder my wedding lingerie and to welcome my son when he entered the University of North Carolina. She and her husband, John Evans, were respected and useful citizens of Chapel Hill all their lives.

My children’s “Mammy” was “Aunt” Rilla McDonald. As a nurse of babies and sick people, her patience and fidelity were beyond praise; the touch of her hands brought comfort and peace. Only a few moments did she need to subdue the most rebellious infant; the very sound of her voice was soothing, and her presence in a sick room brought comfort and security.

Sixty years ago Southern people had not forgotten to call elderly Negroes “Aunt” or “Uncle” and to treat them with the courtesy their innate dignity demanded.

I do not know how many years “Aunt” Bina Ledbetter served Mr. Thomas Leak’s family, but I do know she was as much a part of the family as the mistress she served with unswerving fidelity. “Aunt” Bina was a large, black woman with a mien of commanding dignity and always extremely neat in her dress. “Aunt” Bina once got into a controversy with a tan-colored member of her church, being taunted with the words: “Ef I was as black as you I would keep my mouth shet.” She replied: “Tain’t so much the color that makes the difference between people – it’s the blood!”

(A Rare Pattern, Lucy Phillips Russell, UNC Press, 1957, excerpts pp. 165-167)

Surplus Slaves of the Asante

The warring tribes of West Africa had much to do with the development of the transatlantic slave trade of the Europeans. The ambitious Asante tribe’s slave trade with the coast was blocked by the Denkyira tribe, so in 1701 the former invaded the latter to bring ivory and slaves to traders at the coastal European forts. Once tribes had access to the firearms and gunpowder of the Europeans, the slave trade with the latter flourished as stronger tribes wanted to maintain hegemony over weaker ones, which provided more slaves to trade.
Bernhard Thuersam, www.Circa1865.org   The Great American Political Divide

Surplus Slaves of the Asante

“During the first two decades of the eighteenth century, Dutch trade along the Gold Coast had undergone a major transition, shifting from a predominant trade in gold to a predominant trade in slaves. The gold and slave trades had been intertwined from the beginning of European activity along the Gold Coast, but in a very curious way. When the Portuguese first started buying gold from African merchants at Elmina, they paid for it with cloth, metal goods, wine, and also with slaves . . . purchased from wealthy Africans to serve as porters on merchant caravans, workers in the gold fields, and agricultural laborers.

Between 1475 and 1540 more than twelve thousand slaves were imported into the Gold Coast by the Portuguese. After that slave imports declined, but forts such as Elmina and Axim continued to be major slave markets for slave brought into the Gold Coast. During the seventeenth century between forty thousand and eighty thousand slaves entered the region via the coastal ports.

When the Dutch drove out the Portuguese, they tried to maintain the distinction between the Gold Coast, which concentrated on the gold, and the Slave Coast, where they bought slaves. [Small] numbers of slaves – averaging less than two hundred per year – were exported from the Gold Coast on Dutch ships between 1675 and 1720. After 1720, however, there was a dramatic rise in Dutch slave exports from the Gold Coast: a thousand per year between 1721 and 1725, and two thousand per year between 1725 and 1730. The forts became sites where slaves were purchased and held until a company ship arrived to carry them away.

Prior to the 1720s, Asante had been capturing slaves in its wars, but it had used them internally for agriculture and gold mining. By the 1720s, Asante had built up such a large slave population . . . [and] Asante rulers felt free . . . to begin exporting their surplus slaves. In return for their slaves, they wanted mainly guns and gunpowder to support the further expansion of their growing empire.”

(The Diligent: A Voyage Through the Words of the Slave Trade, Robert Harms, Basic Books, 2002, excerpts pp. 134-137)

Unpaid Builder Destroys Travelodge

Diamond and Silk Give Ultimate Praise After Special WH Visit: ‘Trump Is Making History’

They're something else. :)

They’re two of President Donald Trump’s highest-profile supporters on social media. On Saturday, they got to visit the Oval Office — and they came away still impressed with the guy they’ve been supporting for the better part of four years now.

In a tweet after the event, Diamond and Silk — government names Lynnette Hardaway and Rochelle Richardson, respectively — said Trump is “making history.”

More @ WJ

Don't fall for the $PLC's lies

Newsrooms were on fire this week with terrible news: The number of hate groups in the United States has soared to record highs under President Trump.

There are most certainly hate groups in the U.S., and even one is one too many, but I’d encourage everyone to approach the numbers reported this week with calm and caution. There’s nothing partisan operatives would love more than for you to panic and to believe them when they suggest that the problem can be solved by expelling "the other team" from power. That the figures cited by newsrooms come via the decidedly unreliable and hyper-partisan Southern Poverty Law Center also doesn’t help anything.

The New York Times reported, “Over 1,000 Hate Groups Are Now Active in United States, Civil Rights Group Says.”

More @ Washington Examiner

Raising the Barr

Via Billy

CNN (the conduit for most leaks) is reporting that Mr. Mueller is wrapping things up and will deliver his report to new Attorney General William Barr very soon. An intriguing coincidence that this would happen within weeks of William Barr assuming the job.

Mr. Barr has a big job ahead of him. Never before has the reputation of DOJ and FBI been so sullied. The soft coup plotted by people at the highest levels of the Department look like a poisonous brew of treason and sedition. Both offenses carry the potential of long prison sentences. For treason, it can be death.

The new A.G. has been outspoken concerning the way the investigation of Hillary Clinton was handled as well as aspects of the Mueller investigation. He criticized the investigation, raising questions about potential conflicts among members of Mueller’s team who have made political donations to Democratic campaigns.

More @ Townhall