GIVE TIL IT HURTS!

Pickett’s Charge

Borepatch reposts an oldie but goodie on the swift and sudden ebbing of the Confederate High Tide.

Robert E. Lee is without doubt one of the greatest generals these shores have ever seen – arguably the greatest of all. And so I’ve always been mystified why he ordered General George Pickett to lead 12,500 of the South’s finest troops across nearly a mile of open ground against fortified Union lines, that July 3 afternoon so long ago.

The lesson of Fredricksburg from the previous year should have told him what to expect. General Longstreet had learned that lesson, and tried unsuccessfully to persuade his commander to call off the assault. Overcome with emotion – a premonition of slaughter, really – he couldn’t even speak the final order to advance, but merely nodded assent to Pickett’s request to charge. When the stragglers returned to their lines, General Lee (worried that the Yankees might charge to follow up their success) asked Pickett to rally his Division. Pickett replied, General Lee, I have no Division.

The War Between The States (“Civil War” to Yankees) was a brutal affair, where the weaponry had advanced faster than the tactics. It remains to this day the bloodiest conflict in the nation’s history, with more casualties than any other war we’ve fought. When you consider how much the population has grown since the mid-nineteenth century, it was even worse.

The psychological scars of that war were to linger for a generation or more. The sense of loss – needless loss – is perhaps summed up by Pickett’s Charge. William Faulkner captured this sense in Intruder In The Dust:

For every Southern boy fourteen years old, not once but whenever he wants it, there is the instant when it’s still not yet two o’clock on that July afternoon in 1863, the brigades are in position behind the rail fence, the guns are laid and ready in the woods and the furled flags are already loosened to break out and Pickett himself with his long oiled ringlets and his hat in one hand probably and his sword in the other looking up the hill waiting for Longstreet to give the word and it’s all in the balance, it hasn’t happened yet, it hasn’t even begun yet, it not only hasn’t begun yet but there is still time for it not to begin against that position and those circumstances…

Pickett never forgave Lee. Asked many years later why the charge failed, he replied that he thought that the Yankees had something to do with the outcome. He might have said that Lee had, too.

A few notable quotes from some of the men who were there:

I think that this is the strongest position on which to fight a battle that I ever saw.
Winfield Scott Hancock, surveying his position on Cemetery Ridge

It is my opinion that no 15,000 men ever arrayed for battle can take that position.
James Longstreet to Robert E. Lee, surveying Hancock’s position

This is a desperate thing to attempt.
—Richard Garnett to Lewis Armistead, prior to Pickett’s Charge

The fault is entirely my own.
Robert E. Lee to George Pickett, after the Charge.

Almost to a man, all of Lee’s most reliable and trusted subordinates, foremost among them the eminently competent and formidable GEN Longstreet, were shocked and horrified at Lee’s uncharacteristic folly in ordering Pickett’s division to attack Hancock’s essentially unassailable position in the Union center atop Cemetery Ridge.

Having spent most of my “adult” (HA!) life intently studying Civil War history, reading everything I could get my hot little hands on from the time I was about fifteen or so, there’s another contributing factor that I consider probably the overriding one: CSA cavalry commander JEB Stuart’s ill-advised ride all the way around Meade’s army, a blunder driven by Stuart’s personal vanity which left Lee blind as to the enemy’s numbers, dispositions, and intentions and thus figured tremendously in the bitter, costly outcome.

At this point (ie, June 28th—M), Stuart had crossed the Potomac and uncovered the enemy’s movements (although unbeknownst to him, his courier had not reached Lee). He had captured a variety of goods, destroyed enemy property, and generally made a nuisance of himself. Yet all of this came at a cost. He was now approximately eighty miles southeast of the Confederate army, and the Federal army stood between him and Lee. He had yet to link up with Richard Ewell’s corps as his orders dictated. Worse, his ability to communicate with Lee was circuitous and precarious at best. Robert E. Lee, in turn, was “surprised and disturbed” to learn on June 27th that Stuart and his troopers were still in Virginia. Lee ordered scouts to try and locate his lost general. There was a growing, uneasy disconnect between Lee and his cavalry commander.

Jeb Stuart having crossed the Potomac, he found himself at a crossroads. Instead of turning northwest to attempt to unite with Lee and Ewell, he decided to continue his raid and turn east. Moving to Rockville, a Washington D.C. suburb, Stuart captured 125 Union supply wagons, loaded with food, hay, bread, bacon crackers and more. Thinking in bigger terms, Stuart contemplated then dismissed the possibility of striking Washington itself. Having by now captured nearly 400 Union prisoners up to this point, Stuart took some time to parole them, then plodded northward with his newly captured wagon train throughout the rest of the 28th and 29th. The splashier his raid, the further away Brandy Station seemed.

On the 29th, while his men cut telegraph wires and tore up the tracks of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, Stuart discovered that the enemy was in Frederick, Maryland. The move seems to have jolted Stuart, who realized the sudden importance of uniting with Lee “to acquaint the commanding general with the nature of the enemy’s movements…” Finally, Stuart recognized just how serious the Union movements were, and just how imperative his presence with the Army of Northern Virginia had become.

By now, Stuart was actively searching to unite with Ewell, but didn’t know where to find him. Believing Ewell to be in Carlisle, Stuart set off for that town, only to discover that it was occupied not by Ewell but instead 2,400 Union militiamen. Threatening to shell the town if the Yankees didn’t surrender, “shell away and be damned!” came the reply. So shell away Stuart did, opening fire on the town. The Confederates were so exhausted that many of the troops slept through the bombardment.

Meanwhile, Robert E. Lee, only thirty miles away, remained unsure of Stuart’s whereabouts. Inquiries to subordinates brought only disappointment. An aide overheard Lee grumble that “Gen’l Stuart has not complied with his instructions.” Finally, one of Stuart’s riders located Ewell’s corps in Gettysburg, and returned to Stuart with orders to march for the town. This was the first communication that Stuart or Lee’s army had with one another since June 25. In that time, the Army of Northern Virginia had blindly moved north and found itself unwittingly trapped in an engagement at Gettysburg.

In the morning hours of July 2nd, Jeb Stuart made his way to General Lee. “Well, General Stuart,” Lee said simply, “you are here at last.” However muted, the rebuke no doubt stung. Stuart and Lee’s conversation was, according to an aide, “painful beyond description.”

Muted, perhaps, but coming from the quiet, calm, gentle-spoken Lee amounted to an extremely sharp condemnation indeed—a fact with which Stuart was all too well acquainted.

That said, Lee’s crushing defeat on the third day of battle at Gettysburg, capped off by the pointless disaster of Pickett’s Charge, was in fact brought about by numerous conditions and precipitating events and is not fairly attributable to any single cause, man, or decision: among those, the loss of Stonewall Jackson at Chancellorsville in May looms especially large.

In the end, though, it all went the way it went. Who can say, really, even with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight? Much as I hate to do it, I just gotta include Mike Walsh’s paean to GEN US Grant here, dang his beady little eyes. But with a YUUUGE caveat, which will be revealed anon.

These first few days of July are of importance to every real American. Not simply because the Declaration of Independence was unanimously adopted by the Second Continental Congress, meeting in Philadelphia, the document in which the new United States of America proclaimed its irrevocable break with Great Britain. We rightly celebrate that momentous event in world history tomorrow, the Fourth of July, with fireworks and hot dogs and perhaps even a renewed sense of patriotism in these troubled times when the foundations of our country are under relentless attack from the cultural sappers of the universities all the way to the top of our political system, headed by a senile old man who can only remember the grudges he bears toward the country he now ostensibly leads, and for which he has no love.

Of equal importance in our history, however, are the two epic battles fought during the same period in 1863, during the Civil War. Today is the third day of Gettysburg, the day when Pickett’s Charge spelled the end of southern dash in the face of the north’s overwhelming pluck and endurance, a mad suicidal race across a open field raked by Springfield rifles and twelve-pounder “Napoleons” cannon fire. It was the southern commander Robert E. Lee’s greatest blunder of the war, ending his brief invasion of the north and helping to seal the South’s ultimate defeat.

“Overwhelming pluck and endurance”? Well, okay, sure. But of far greater importance was the North’s overwhelming superiority in materiel, manufacturing, and able-bodied males of fighting age—advantages that would prove to be insuperable, and decisive.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the country, Ulysses S. Grant was about to cement his place in military history by concluding his nearly two-month long siege of the formidable Confederate fortress of Vicksburg. The town sat high above the Mississippi River on the eastern bluffs, its artillery commanding the mighty river in both directions. Behind it, to the east, were the forces of the breakaway Confederate state of Mississippi itself. The task looked impossible. But Grant was already an experienced hand at river warfare, having proved his mettle early with the victories at Fort Henry and Fort Donelson, working in tandem with the gunboats of flag officer Andrew Foote.

With his victories at Shiloh in 1862, which put the Tennessee River in Union hands, and at Vicksburg, Grant had twice bisected the Confederacy. It was the “Anaconda” strategy of the retired General of the Army, Winfield Scott, made flesh. Then, in November, Grant marched east and broke the stalemate at Chattanooga, leaving Georgia wide open for invasion and, ultimately, Sherman’s march to the sea. Despite General George Meade’s repulse of Lee at Gettysburg, Abraham Lincoln’s choice for a new commander of all the Union forces was clear: in March of 1864, Lincoln summoned Grant to Washington and named him general-in-chief of the Union forces. The moment had met its man.

That Grant was the greatest American of all time is indisputable.

Yeah, NO. Grant’s claim to greatness was never really based upon his competence as a general, his tactical acumen, or his inborn adroitness as a leader of men, but on bulldog stubbornness and pugnacity; unswerving determination; and a willingness to pour out the lifeblood of the soldiers under his command like water over desert sands in the pursuit of ultimate victory. His military success wasn’t so much a matter of the happy marriage of talent to experience, then, but more of personality and deeply-ingrained habits of mind.

Grant, the “greatest American of all time”? Oh puh-LEEZE, Mike. Over men like Jefferson, Washington, Adams, then? Over Patton, Nathanael Greene, Audie Murphy? Claire Chennault, Chuck Yeager? Over the indomitable Samuel Whittemore, even? I got no real gripe with the man, I really don’t, even as what for many years I’ve proudly referred to as an Unreconstructed Southron I don’t. But really, now: with a list of names like those as fellow contenders for the title, Grant wasn’t even “indisputably” the greatest American soldier of all time.

Update! Finally finished reading Walsh’s piece, after walking away in frustration and pique at the preposterous remark I just dispensed with above, and I must say I have no quibble at all with the closer:

Grant was there for his country in its hour of need. Now that a new, even deadlier threat has emerged thanks to the neo-Marxist Left that considers our entire country illegitimate, who will take his place? Only one thing is certain: he has to crush them as mercilessly as Grant crushed the South, except this time there can be no magnanimity, only unconditional surrender.

Amen to that, buddy, with big ol’ bells and a pretty bow on top.

Reading list update! Having mentioned being a life-long Civil War history buff, I feel compelled to commend to your gracious attention the works of the foremost writer and scholar on the topic: the truly remarkable Shelby Foote, in particular his spellbinding, magnificent magnum opus The Civil War: A Narrative.

I’ve read ‘em all; from Bruce Catton to Samuel Mitcham to you name it, I probably have it in the rickety ol’ bookshelf. Foote stands head and shoulders above them all, no question; for something that most would probably consider a dull, dry, overchewed subject at this point, Foote’s masterful writing chops; his insight; his encompassing grasp of the issues, the people, the times, and the battles themselves are simply beyond compare.

He truly brings the historical record to flesh and blood life for the contemporary reader; even if you have little interest in the subject, you’ll find this masterpiece impossible to put down. And even if you consider yourself quite knowledgable already about this pivotal event in American history, I guarantee you’ll learn something you never knew about before from the Foote books. Yes, they really are that good. This 10-minute vidya discourse on Pickett’s Charge, G-burg in general, and the present-day political wrangling over the Confederate Battle Flag ought to tell you all you’ll ever need to know about the man’s ready, marrow-deep knowledge of all things Civil War.

I decided long ago that if somehow I was required to get rid of all my books except one, I’d keep Foote’s The Civil War: A Narrative. Yes, it’s a three-volume set, but if I wasn’t allowed some sort of consideration for that I’d say to hell with it, just go ahead and kill me now then.

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A bridge too far

Thanks to our friends and fellow Americans in Hamtramck, looks like that long-expected schism between the Left and its ersatz Mooselimb allies of convenience is finally underway.

‘A sense of betrayal’: liberal dismay as Muslim-led US city bans Pride flags
Many liberals celebrated when Hamtramck, Michigan, elected a Muslim-majority council in 2015 but a vote to exclude LGBTQ+ flags from city property has soured relations

In 2015, many liberal residents in Hamtramck, Michigan, celebrated as their city attracted international attention for becoming the first in the United States to elect a Muslim-majority city council.

They viewed the power shift and diversity as a symbolic but meaningful rebuke of the Islamophobic rhetoric that was a central theme of then Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s campaign.

This week many of those same residents watched in dismay as a now fully Muslim and socially conservative city council passed legislation banning Pride flags from being flown on city property that had – like many others being flown around the country – been intended to celebrate the LGBTQ+ community.

Muslim residents packing city hall erupted in cheers after the council’s unanimous vote, and on Hamtramck’s social media pages, the taunting has been relentless: “Fagless City”, read one post, emphasized with emojis of a bicep flexing.

Follows, a toilet-load of the usual whiny shitlib claptrap (this IS the Grauniad I’m excerpting here, after all) about “rightwing agitators” “shoving” genderqueerintersexnonbinaryminorattractedotherkins “back into the closet,” thereby effectively “erasing” them if not just genociding them outright. Back over to Hizzoner da Mayor for the kernel of actual, by-God truth here.

Their talking points mirror those made elsewhere: some Hamtramck Muslims say they simply want to protect children, and gay people should “keep it in their home”.

.Mayor Amer Ghalib, 43, who was elected in 2021 with 67% of the vote to become the nation’s first Yemeni American mayor, told the Guardian on Thursday he tries to govern fairly for everyone, but said LGBTQ+ supporters had stoked tension by “forcing their agendas on others”.

“There is an overreaction to the situation, and some people are not willing to accept the fact that they lost,” he said, referring to Majewski and recent elections that resulted in full control of the council by Muslim politicians.

Bold mine, because every word of it is perfectly, inarguably true and accurate. Some of us have been insisting for years, over and over and over again, that Leftards needed to slow their roll a bit, before Normal Americans got pissed off enough to start slapping back at them. In fact, just the other day I said this:

Might the Hamtramck Muslims actually have put themselves, however inadvertently, at the pointy end of a Real American Renaissance here? After this, I don’t know as I’d be willing to bet against it.

Taking the longer view, this Hamtramck brouhaha could easily turn out to be the most genuinely important news story of the year, far more so than whatever Sewer State pig-in-a-poke “wins” the 24 “election.”

And so suddenly, against all odds and expectations, here we all are. Is it too late now for Leftwits to prevent what’s coming at them next? After all the sick, intolerable depravity they’ve tried to force down Normal gullets the past couple of years, one can only hope that it is, frankly. After all, it’s not as if they weren’t warned, by plenty and to spare of us. Now let them choke on it instead of us, for a refreshing change of pace.

(Via Insty)

Update! Looking back over this post for purposes of proofreading, this bit from the first excerpt sorta jumped out at me (bold mine again):

They viewed the power shift and diversity as a symbolic but meaningful rebuke of the Islamophobic rhetoric that was a central theme of then Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s campaign.

Of course, there was no rebuke at all; how could there have been, when there had been no “Islamophobic rhetoric” whatsoever, from Trump nor from anybody else? How deliciously ironic, then, that they now find themselves being rebuked, and quite deservedly at that. Not symbolically either, but directly, unequivocally, and—dare I say it—meaningfully, too.

Sit back and suck on it, shitlibs. You asked for it, and now you’re a-gonna get it—good and hard. This is only the start of it, I’d bet.

Enough already update! Divemedic says he’s over it, and with good reason. I’m over it myself, and I suspect many, many others are as well.

Better sit down for this one

Never thought I’d I’d see the day I would say this, but: you GO, Muslims!

Watch: Michigan City Bans LGBTQ Pride Flag, Other Political Flags from City Property
The all-Muslim city council of Hamtramck, Michigan, voted unanimously on Tuesday to approve a resolution that would ban the LGBTQ+ Pride flag from being flown on the city’s public property.

The resolution, proposed by Mayor Pro-Tem Muhammad Hassan, also bars any religious, ethnic, racial, political, or sexual orientation group flags from being flown on city property and only allows the American flag to be flown, along with state and city flags, other national flags, and the Prisoner of War flag, according to Click on Detroit.

“Hassan and other members of the council said the LGBTQ+ community and others are welcome in Hamtramck but that they need to respect religious freedom,” according to the report. “Some proponents of the resolution said the Pride flag clashes with their faith. Several speakers from Dearborn who were leaders in protests last year against LGBTQ books spoke at the Hamtramck meeting, saying American soldiers sacrificed for the U.S. flag, not the Pride flag.”

City Councilman Nayeem Choudhury said LGBTQ+ people will not be discriminated against in the city but should also respect the religious liberty of the city’s Muslim community.

“We want to respect the religious rights of our citizens,” Choudhury said. “You guys are welcome…(but) why do you have to have the flag shown on government property to be represented? You’re already represented. We already know who you are…By making this (about) bigotry…it’s making it like you want to hate us.”

City council members also commented that the code was not about targeting a specific group, stating: “If you let one flag in, you’ll have to let all of the flags in.”

Good stuff, all of it, but this next bit I especially like.

An immigrant from Yemen spoke in favor of the resolution, stating that while the city “respect[s] all nations, cultures, and their flags…we only salute the American flag.”

The man spoke of coming to the United States from Yemen as a child and believing until he was older that America was an evil, racist country because that is what he was taught in schools. It was not until he went back to Yemen as an adult and saw what he described as “poverty and chaos…at another level” that he realized how thankful he was to live in America, where he can “worship [his] creator in peace and tranquility.”

“Unfortunately, many people in our country don’t seem to understand this. They don’t know, or they don’t want to know, what it is like to live in extreme poverty, what it is like to live under severe repression, where there’s no freedom of speech, no freedom of religion,” the man said.

“I owe my success and my livelihood first and foremost to the Creator Himself, Almighty God, then to this great country. Our soldiers fought, bled, and died in the jungles of Iwo Jima and the beaches of Omaha so that you and I can live with peace, prosperity, and freedom,” he said. “Those soldiers fought under the American flag and no other.

“It’s shameful and embarrassing to have any other flag on public buildings. You have the freedom to display whatever you wish in your home or your private businesses. We respect all nations, cultures, and their flags, but we only salute the American flag,” he concluded, telling the city council members, “Do not waver and do not flinch, you are doing the right thing. God bless you, and God Bless the United States of America.”

My God, that guy sounds more American than all too many AINOs these days do. He really, really gets it, much more than these next two stupid-ass bints ever will.

At one point during the public comment portion of the city council session, a woman wearing a clown nose sarcastically stated that the city should change its slogan to say it “welcomes you if you’re straight” before kissing the woman next to her.

Yeh, yeh, fuck you too, freak. Tolerance, we’re all just fine with. Being forced to stand up and cheer for you, to “celebrate” you, based entirely on your sexual preference and nothing whatsoever else, though? Meh, not so much. Straight people don’t wave their private sex lives around in your face; best, then, not to be waving yours around in theirs, lest you set off an enormous powderkeg of backlash dynamite I promise you you won’t enjoy.

I DO find the clown nose wholly appropriate, even commendable for its unflinching (albeit unintentional) honesty. Other than that, though, I’m with JJ on this deal.

First, while I usually describe the Michigan town of Hamtramck as alternately “Hamas-tramck” or “Haram-tramck” I’m cheering the residents of that town, albeit with a rather wary eye. Still, regardless of the source of the attack, the rhetorical weaponry used against a common and deadly enemy is right on target and welcome.

Looks like a 50-car pileup at the Intersectionality Intersection. More, please! Just to reiterate, my wariness of the Muslim community in this country is quite justified for obvious reasons. But at least in this instance, the Islamic doctrine of the enemy of my enemy being my friend, if only temporarily, is in full operation. And this is as crucial a battlefield as ever their was one. It’s America’s children on the line and whatever hope for salvation we have as a nation, if not their own protection which is cause enough.

Bang on, if you ask me. I have to say, it’s almost shocking to see how thoroughly the Muslims in Hamtramck have assimilated, to the point of being willing to stand up in defiance of the continuing Leftist assault against core American values and beliefs with such pride and unswerving devotion. The CF chapeau is duly doffed to them for that.

Update! So’s I could put in boldface the parts I found most perceptive, most compelling, most just by-God all-American. I swear, I still just can’t get over it. Might the Hamtramck Muslims actually have put themselves, however inadvertently, at the pointy end of a Real American Renaissance here? After this, I don’t know as I’d be willing to bet against it. Again: sincere, humble, and utterly stunned kudos to them.

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Head on a swivel, JD

Hopefully the good Senator Vance knows enough by now to keep carefully checking six, scrupulously and ceaselessly. If he follows through on this gutsy but ultimately doomed maneuver, he’s damned sure gonna need to.

Vance Vows to Use Senate Rules to Stop Merrick Garland’s Partisan Lawfare, Demand Cloture Vote for Most DOJ Nominees
There is a reason the Left went all in to stop the election of Sen. JD Vance in Ohio. Like that other Republican son of the Buckeye State, Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, this man knows how to fight. His plan is to vote against unanimous consent resolutions on virtually all DOJ nominees. A filibuster will follow, which will force a cloture vote.

Vance plans to be the sand in the gears that slows Attorney General Merrick Garland and President Joe Biden’s Justice Department to a snail’s pace in the Senate nominating process. He is vowing to be a one-man version of a factory labor slowdown. In this case, the factory is the U.S. Senate, and its product is left-leaning judges and prosecutors who will aid and abet Merrick Garland’s persecution of Christian pro-lifers and political enemies of the Democratic Party like Donald Trump.

“Donald Trump is merely the latest victim of a Department of Justice that cares more about politics than law enforcement. Merrick Garland’s department harasses Christians for pro-life advocacy but allows hardened criminals to walk our streets unpunished. This must stop, and I will do everything in my ability to ensure it does. Starting today, I will hold all Department of Justice nominations. If Merrick Garland wants to use these officials to harass Joe Biden’s political opponents, we will grind his department to a halt.”

Vance said he would make an exception for U.S. Marshals Service appointments. But he will vote no on all unanimous consent resolutions. These resolutions are the normal way the Senate moves groups of nominations forward. Now for every single nominee, there must be an individual floor vote in the Senate. It means every vote would require a quorum with members of the Senate present and voting. All procedural resolutions and speaking opportunities would have to be respected and gone through before a nomination could be put to a vote. In short, every nominee could face the type of Sente maneuvering usually reserved for Supreme Court nominees. S-L-O-W, deliberative, and ever so annoying.

Sen. Vance plans a well-thought-out and stubborn defense of religious and political freedom. Filibuster and cloture are the tools he has chosen to fight DOJ overreach. Democrats will not be happy. The next question is how Republican leadership will respond to this scorched earth counterattack. Will they support Sen. Vance or Attorney General Merrick Garland and his reckless policy decisions?

OHHH yeah, a real headscratcher, that one. Which way might the Swampy slimewads of the Vichy GOPe jump? We wonders, Precious, yes we wonders.

Update! Meanwhile, over on the House side.

One of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s primary goals, having regained leadership of the House, must be to reinstate the institutional integrity that was honored only in the breach over and over again by Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Long-standing fundamental House rules and protocols repeatedly were violated under Pelosi, for the single purpose of pursuing a partisan political agenda at the expense of historically honored principles. The formation of the House Select Committee to Investigate the Jan. 6 Attack on the Capitol and its indisputable perversion of important House rules highlight the issue. The rules that were violated allowed the committee to abuse the subpoena process and deny subpoenaed witnesses basic protections the rules were intended to provide. This must be corrected immediately.

There is one mechanism readily available to the speaker to restore order and respect for the rules. It is called the Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group (“BLAG”).

The BLAG was created in 1993 by a Democrat-controlled House, over the objection of a majority of Republicans in the House. It is a body comprised of five members of the House leadership, three majority party members and two minority party members, that speaks for the House in directing litigation in which the BLAG perceives the House to have a direct interest.

Republicans who opposed the formation of BLAG argued that the entire House should vote before a legal position that purports to speak for the House is adopted. The Democrats prevailed, and now by House rule, once BLAG members vote to direct the House general counsel to participate in litigation and take a position, even if the vote is 3-2, its position speaks for the entire House.

McCarthy characterized the degree to which the Jan. 6 Committee flagrantly violated long-entrenched House protocol and rules to support its partisan political agenda as “unprecedented” and “an egregious abuse of power.” However, when the rules violations have been challenged, courts have concluded that they were bound by the House’s own interpretation and application of its rules and had to yield to the BLAG as the official advocacy voice of the House. Since BLAG endorsed the Jan. 6 Committee’s actions by a 3-2 vote, their rules violations were permitted with impunity, notwithstanding the express language of the House rules.

McCarthy must now convene the BLAG, as he has the full authority to do, to reverse its partisan political perversion by Pelosi and company, and to return the House to a body that at least honors its own rules, without regard to a politically expedient agenda of the day.

Yeah, I shan’t be holding my breath awaiting it. Neither should you, nor anybody else, lest they turn blue and fall over deader’n a ProPol’s integrity. Whatever else McCarthy may or may not be, he’s already proven himself to be no JD Vance, not by a long yard he ain’t. As the very next two ‘graphs after the above excerpt confirm well enough, he already rolled over, wagged his tail, and showed Pelosi his yellow belly once. So forgive me for thinking that it’s gonna be a mighty long wait for any such thing. The addled-pated old soak rightly doesn’t expect any such show of defiance and rectitude from him, and neither should anybody else.

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Tucker on Twitter

Episode 3 has dropped, and it’s a gem, using as its springboard the latest Trump indictment over the phonus-balonus “mishandling of classified documents” hoodoo. And so, without further ado, it’s my distinct privilege to present…


The ep’s title, “America’s principles are at stake,” is dead-on, and incontestable. 7.4 million views in three (3) hours as of the time I posted it here, and counting. Tucker is killing it on Twitter, and I very much hope Elon realizes what a prize he’s got on his hands here.

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Boat: MISSED

Arizona sure did that with Kari Lake.


Well said, ma’am, and good on ya once again.

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The revolution is not being televised

It’s playing out on Twitter. At least, the mass-communications, Jurassic Media Vs New Media front of it is.

‘Curiosity Is The Gravest Crime’: Tucker Carlson Returns And Tears Media To Shreds For Ukraine Coverage
Former Fox News host and Daily Caller co-founder Tucker Carlson brought his show to Twitter for the first time Tuesday by posting a monologue about the Ukraine war and how the media is covering it.

“This morning, it looks like somebody blew up the Kakhovka Dam in southern Ukraine. The rushing wall of water wiped out entire villages, destroyed a critical hydropower plant, and as of tonight, puts the largest nuclear reactor in Europe in danger of melting down. So, if this was intentional, it was not a military tactic — it was an act of terrorism,” Carlson began.

The Ukrainian and Russian governments accused each other of intentionally destroying the dam as an act of sabotage, according to The Washington Post.

“Blowing up the dam may be bad for Ukraine, but it hurts Russia more. And for precisely that reason, the Ukrainian government has considered destroying it. In December, The Washington Post quoted a Ukrainian general saying his men had fired American-made rockets at the dam’s floodgate, as a test strike,” Carlson stated.

Carlson transitioned to discussing The Washington Post’s story showing the U.S. knew about Ukrainian plans to attack the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline months before it was destroyed. The Post’s story was based on an intelligence leak on social media platform Discord.

Carlson pointed to the intelligence officer who blew the whistle Monday on alleged UFOs possessed by the U.S. government as a recent example of the pressing stories the media ignores.

“So if you’re wondering why our country seems so dysfunctional, this is a big part of the reason. Nobody knows what’s happening. A small group of people control accesses to all relevant information. And the rest of us don’t know. We’re allowed to yap all we want about racism, but go ahead and talk about something that really matters and see what happens. If you keep it up, they’ll make you be quiet. Trust us. That’s how they maintain control,” he continued.

Carlson concluded his monologue with a teaser about future Twitter broadcasts if the platform maintains its commitment to free speech under owner Elon Musk.

“That’s how most of us now live here in the United States — manipulated by lies, silenced by taboos. It is unhealthy and is dehumanizing, and we’re tired of it. As of today, we’ve come to Twitter, which we hope will be the shortwave radio under the blankets. We’re told there are no gatekeepers here. If that turns out to be false, we’ll leave. But in the meantime, we are grateful to be here. We’ll be back with much more very soon.”

I know the White Supremacist, ((((JOOOOJOOOOJOOOOOOO!!!!)))-obsessed loons out there despise Tucker as what they stupidly mislabel a “Cuck,” since he’s never frittered away a minute of his on-air time to rant about the “dire need” to unite with our natural allies in Iran, Yemen, and Ethiopa to finally destroy Israel once and for all, or the “inevitable” establishment of an exclusively White Pagan nation on the continental US, but nobody cares what those idiots “think” about anything anyway.

Tucker’s inaugural Twitter ep got over a million views in twenty minutes, and last time I looked a little while ago was closing fast on 90,000,000 (90 MILLION!) of ‘em. Hearty congrats to Tucker and Elon both; they’re at the forefront of a bona-fide revolution in communications media, and I for one am happy to see it. Oh yeah, the vid itself? Rat cheer, folks.


Chutzpahcrisy update! They wouldn’t dare, would they? Oh yes, they most certainly would.

REPORT: Tucker Carlson Accused Of Contract Breach By Fox News Lawyers
Daily Caller co-founder Tucker Carlson was accused by Fox News lawyers on Wednesday of violating his contract with the network by launching his new show on Twitter, Axios reports.

Fox News general counsel Bernard Gugar sent Carlson’s attorneys a letter shortly after his Twitter broadcast stating that Carlson “is in breach” of his contract, according to Axios. “In connection with such breach and pursuant to the Agreement, Fox expressly reserves all rights and remedies which are available to it at law or equity,” the letter reads, per the outlet.

His video racked up nearly 90 million Twitter views in 24 hours and immediately made Carlson a trending topic on the platform. At the end of the monologue, Carlson promised future Twitter broadcasts as long as the platform maintained its commitment to free speech.

Prior to his departure, Carlson was Fox News’ highest rated host and consistently achieved the highest ratings on cable news.

Carlson is also alleging breach of contract, with his lawyer accusing a Fox News board member of “engaging in an attempted smear campaign by illegally leaking information about Tucker Carlson.”

Whatever pitiful, tattered shreds of credibility Faux “News” had left with 90 million+ Real Americans, they just flushed down the shitter for good. Brilliant move, shitlib Sooperdoopergenii.

Speaking to them in the only language they’ll ever understand

Ie, swift and blinding violence.


No word on whether the idiot Climate Change (formerly Global Warming, formerly Global Cooling, formerly The Weather)™ “protesters” were permanently maimed or not, but one can always hope. Via Ace.

The soldier’s faith

Excerpts from a Memorial Day, 1895 speech given to that year’s Harvard graduating class by Massachusetts SC justice Oliver Wendell Holmes.

The society for which many philanthropists, labor reformers, and men of fashion unite in longing is one in which they may be comfortable and may shine without much trouble or any danger. The unfortunately growing hatred of the poor for the rich seems to me to rest on the belief that money is the main thing (a belief in which the poor have been encouraged by the rich), more than on any other grievance. Most of my hearers would rather that their daughters or their sisters should marry a son of one of the great rich families than a regular army officer, were he as beautiful, brave, and gifted as Sir William Napier. I have heard the question asked whether our war was worth fighting, after all. There are many, poor and rich, who think that love of country is an old wife’s tale, to be replaced by interest in a labor union, or, under the name of cosmopolitanism, by a rootless self-seeking search for a place where the most enjoyment may be had at the least cost.

Meantime we have learned the doctrine that evil means pain, and the revolt aginst pain in all its forms has grown more and more marked. From societies for the prevention of cruelty to animals up to socialism, we express in numberless ways the notion that suffering is a wrong which can be and ought to be prevented, and a whole literature of sympathy has sprung into being which points out in story and in verse how hard it is to be wounded in the battle of life, how terrible, how unjust it is that any one should fail.

Even science has had its part in the tendencies which we observe. It has shaken established religion in the minds of very many. It has pursued analysis until at last this thrilling world of colors and passions and sounds has seemed fatally to resolve itself into one vast network of vibrations endlessly weaving an aimless web, and the rainbow flush of cathedral windows, which once to enraptured eyes appeared the very smile of God, fades slowly out into the pale irony of the void.

And yet from vast orchestras still comes the music of mighty symphonies. Our painters even now are spreading along the walls of our Library glowing symbols of mysteries still real, and the hardly silenced cannon of the East proclaim once more that combat and pain still are the portion of man. For my own part, I believe that the struggle for life is the order of the world, at which it is vain to repine. I can imagine the burden changed in the way it is to be borne, but I cannot imagine that it ever will be lifted from men’s backs. I can imagine a future in which science shall have passed from the combative to the dogmatic stage, and shall have gained such catholic acceptance that it shall take control of life, and condemn at once with instant execution what now is left for nature to destroy. But we are far from such a future, and we cannot stop to amuse or to terrify ourselves with dreams. Now, at least, and perhaps as long as man dwells upon the globe, his destiny is battle, and he has to take the chances of war. If it is our business to fight, the book for the army is a war-song, not a hospital-sketch. It is not well for soldiers to think much about wounds. Sooner or later we shall fall; but meantime it is for us to fix our eyes upon the point to be stormed, and to get there if we can.

Behind every scheme to make the world over, lies the question, What kind of world do you want? The ideals of the past for men have been drawn from war, as those for women have been drawn from motherhood. For all our prophecies, I doubt if we are ready to give up our inheritance. Who is there who would not like to be thought a gentleman? Yet what has that name been built on but the soldier’s choice of honor rather than life? To be a soldier or descended from soldiers, in time of peace to be ready to give one’s life rather than suffer disgrace, that is what the word has meant; and if we try to claim it at less cost than a splendid carelessness for life, we are trying to steal the good will without the responsibilities of the place. We will not dispute about tastes. The man of the future may want something different. But who of us could endure a world, although cut up into five-acre lots, and having no man upon it who was not well fed and well housed, without the divine folly of honor, without the senseless passion for knowledge outreaching the flaming bounds of the possible, without ideals the essence of which is that they can never be achieved? I do not know what is true. I do not know the meaning of the universe. But in the midst of doubt, in the collapse of creeds, there is one thing I do not doubt, that no man who lives in the same world with most of us can doubt, and that is that the faith is true and adorable which leads a soldier to throw away his life in obedience to a blindly accepted duty, in a cause which he little understands, in a plan of campaign of which he has little notion, under tactics of which he does not see the use.

Most men who know battle know the cynic force with which the thoughts of common sense will assail them in times of stress; but they know that in their greatest moments faith has trampled those thoughts under foot. If you wait in line, suppose on Tremont Street Mall, ordered simply to wait and do nothing, and have watched the enemy bring their guns to bear upon you down a gentle slope like that of Beacon Street, have seen the puff of the firing, have felt the burst of the spherical case-shot as it came toward you, have heard and seen the shrieking fragments go tearing through your company, and have known that the next or the next shot carries your fate; if you have advanced in line and have seen ahead of you the spot you must pass where the rifle bullets are striking; if you have ridden at night at a walk toward the blue line of fire at the dead angle of Spotsylvania, where for twenty-four hours the soldiers were fighting on the two sides of an earthwork, and in the morning the dead and dying lay piled in a row six deep, and as you rode you heard the bullets splashing in the mud and earth about you; if you have been in the picket-line at night in a black and unknown wood, have heard the splat of the bullets upon the trees, and as you moved have felt your foot slip upon a dead man’s body; if you have had a blind fierce gallop against the enemy, with your blood up and a pace that left no time for fear –if, in short, as some, I hope many, who hear me, have known, you have known the vicissitudes of terror and triumph in war; you know that there is such a thing as the faith I spoke of. You know your own weakness and are modest; but you know that man has in him that unspeakable somewhat which makes him capable of miracle, able to lift himself by the might of his own soul, unaided, able to face anniliation for a blind belief.

War, when you are at it, is horrible and dull. It is only when time has passed that you see that its message was divine. I hope it may be long before we are called again to sit at that master’s feet. But some teacher of the kind we all need. In this snug, over-safe corner of the world we need it, that we may realize that our comfortable routine is no eternal necessity of things, but merely a little space of calm in the midst of the tempestuous untamed streaming of the world, and in order that we may be ready for danger. We need it in this time of individualist negations, with its literature of French and American humor, revolting at discipline, loving flesh-pots, and denying that anything is worthy of reverence–in order that we may remember all that buffoons forget. We need it everywhere and at all times. For high and dangerous action teaches us to believe as right beyond dispute things for which our doubting minds are slow to find words of proof. Out of heroism grows faith in the worth of heroism. The proof comes later, and even may never come. Therefore I rejoice at every dangerous sport which I see pursued. The students at Heidelberg, with their sword-slashed faces, inspire me with sincere respect. I gaze with delight upon our polo players. If once in a while in our rough riding a neck is broken, I regard it, not as a waste, but as a price well paid for the breeding of a race fit for headship and command.

We do not save our traditions, in our country. The regiments whose battle-flags were not large enough to hold the names of the battles they had fought vanished with the surrender of Lee, although their memories inherited would have made heroes for a century. It is the more necessary to learn the lesson afresh from perils newly sought, and perhaps it is not vain for us to tell the new generation what we learned in our day, and what we still believe. That the joy of life is living, is to put out all one’s powers as far as they will go; that the measure of power is obstacles overcome; to ride boldly at what is in front of you, be it fence or enemy; to pray, not for comfort, but for combat; to keep the soldier’s faith against the doubts of civil life, more besetting and harder to overcome than all the misgivings of the battlefield, and to remember that duty is not to be proved in the evil day, but then to be obeyed unquestioning; to love glory more than the temptations of wallowing ease, but to know that one’s final judge and only rival is oneself: with all our failures in act and thought, these things we learned from noble enemies in Virginia or Georgia or on the Mississippi, thirty years ago; these things we believe to be true.

As for us, our days of combat are over. Our swords are rust. Our guns will thunder no more. The vultures that once wheeled over our heads must be buried with their prey. Whatever of glory must be won in the council or the closet, never again in the field. I do not repine. We have shared the incommunicable experience of war; we have felt, we still feel, the passion of life to its top.

Three years ago died the old colonel of my regiment, the Twentieth Massachusetts. [Web note: Col. William Raymond Lee] He gave the regiment its soul. No man could falter who heard his “Forward, Twentieth!” I went to his funeral. From a side door of the church a body of little choir-boys came in alike a flight of careless doves. At the same time the doors opened at the front, and up the main aisle advanced his coffin, followed by the few grey heads who stood for the men of the Twentieth, the rank and file whom he had loved, and whom he led for the last time. The church was empty. No one remembered the old man whom we were burying, no one save those next to him, and us. And I said to myself, The Twentieth has shrunk to a skeleton, a ghost, a memory, a forgotten name which we other old men alone keep in our hearts. And then I thought: It is right. It is as the colonel would have it. This also is part of the soldier’s faith: Having known great things, to be content with silence. Just then there fell into my hands a little song sung by a warlike people on the Danube, which seemed to me fit for a soldier’s last word, another song of the sword, but a song of the sword in its scabbard, a song of oblivion and peace.

A soldier has been buried on the battlefield.
And when the wind in the tree-tops roared,
The soldier asked from the deep dark grave:
“Did the banner flutter then?”
“Not so, my hero,” the wind replied.
“The fight is done, but the banner won,
Thy comrades of old have borne it hence,
Have borne it in triumph hence.”
Then the soldier spake from the deep dark grave:
“I am content.”

Then he heareth the lovers laughing pass,
and the soldier asks once more:
“Are these not the voices of them that love,
That love—and remember me?”
“Not so, my hero,” the lovers say,
“We are those that remember not;
For the spring has come and the earth has smiled,
And the dead must be forgot.”
Then the soldier spake from the deep dark grave:
“I am content.”

Stirring, powerful stuff, no? So powerful, in fact, that after Teddy Roosevelt read it seven years later, he was moved enough to decide to appoint Holmes to the US Supreme Court. The wisdom expressed in these words is profound, the fundamental truth timeless, eternal. We fail to pay heed to them at our direst peril.

3
1

Coolest line in history?

I’d say it is, yeah.

What is the coolest line in history?
Battle of the Bulge. Winter. 1944. An entire American armored division flees from a massive German onslaught. Trundling down the road, a tank pulls up to a lone Private First Class in a snow covered foxhole. The commander yells, down to the PFC in the foxhole.

“The entire German Army is headed this way! We’re retreating!”

“Are you looking for a safe place?”, replied PFC Martin.

“Yes!”

“Well, pull your tank behind this foxhole. Because I’m the 82nd Airborne and this is as far as the bastards are going.”

Yep, it’s the coolest for sure, easily putting Tony McAuliffe’s “NUTS!” response during the Battle of the Ardennes in the shade—which, y’know, is really saying something. There’s also a pic, which I had no little trouble trying to figure out how to download for attachment to this h’yar post. But in the end, my Web-Fu proved the stronger. Thus:

82ndAirborneLine

Heh. And now you know why they called ‘em “dogfaces” back in the Big One, WW2. The look on that GI’s mug is about as surly, pissed off, and just all-round fed-up and determined as I hope (n)ever to see. Uncle Adolf would’ve pissed himself if he’d awakened late one night to find a face like that coming in through the bedroom window after his sick, sorry ass.

Update! A bit more interesting schtuff from the above-linked McAuliffe story, which you may or may not have known about already.

IT WAS MID-morning on Dec. 22, 1944 when U.S. troops manning the defences of the besieged Belgian town of Bastogne watched as four German soldiers – a major, a captain and two enlisted men – approached under a large white flag.

The four-man enemy delegation called on all U.S. forces in Bastogne to surrender within two hours or face “total annihilation” by German artillery.

Technical Sgt. Oswald Butler and Staff Sgt. Carl Dickinson of F Company, 327th Glider Infantry, and medic Pfc Ernest Premetz stepped out to meet them.

The men blindfolded the Germans and escorted them to an abandoned house serving as F Company’s command post.

When presented with the surrender demand, the 101st commander, Brigadier General Anthony C. McAuliffe, laughed at very notion of surrender. In his opinion his men were giving the Germans “one hell of a beating” and felt the enemy demand was out of line with the existing situation.

“Aw, nuts,” he blurted out.

Nevertheless, McAuliffe realized that some kind of reply had to be made and he sat down to think it over.

After several minutes he admitted to his officers that he didn’t know how to respond.

One officer, a lieutenant-colonel named Harry Kinnard, offered a suggestion.

“You said ‘Nuts!’” he observed, suggesting that be the reply.

The idea drew applause from everyone present. And so McAuliffe decided to send that very message back to the Germans: “Nuts!”

A colonel named Harper eagerly volunteered to deliver it to the German officers in person.

“It will be a lot of fun,” he said.

“I have the commander’s reply,” he said giving the enemy delegates the note.

“If you don’t understand what ‘nuts’ means, in plain English it’s the same as ‘go to hell,’” Harper explained wryly. “And I will tell you something else – if you continue to attack we will kill every goddam German that tries to break into this city.’

At that, the German major and captain saluted very stiffly and turned to leave.

“We will kill many Americans,” the junior of the two officers said as they left. “This is war.”

Historians believed that it was the German high command sent their officers to Bastogne with the surrender demand. Yet in unearthed interviews with Allied interrogators, General Hasso von Manteufel, commander of the 5th Panzer Army, admitted that was not the case. In fact, he was surprised to learn that the ultimatum was even offered.

“Panzer Lehr Division sent a parlementaire to Bastogne without my authorization,” von Manteufel would later say. “The demand to surrender was refused, as was to be expected. I did not authorize the surrender demand which was made of the Bastogne garrison, and I am still not sure exactly who did authorize [it].”

More even from there, all of it damned good. There truly were giants walking among us in those days.

Updated update! I could very well be remembering this wrong, and probably am, but as I recollect it was the 101st AID which was involved in the Battle of the Bulge, not the 82nd. Who knows, though, maybe it was both. NOTE: Upon further digging, it appears that there may indeed have been units from both AID’s at Bastogne. Never mind.

3

Over the target

Taking flak.

Disney CEO Bob Iger rips Ron DeSantis over Florida battle: ‘It’s a matter of retaliation’

Why yes, it most certainly is at that. So? Sit back and suck on it then, you twisted, pedophilia-pimping fucksickle.

He’s the Mouse that roared.

Disney boss Bob Iger slammed Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Wednesday in the escalating tit-for-tat over the special tax district that oversees the company’s Orlando theme parks.

“This is about one thing and one thing only: them retaliating against us,” Iger said during a call with investors after the Mouse House reporting second-quarter earnings in line with Wall Street estimates.

“Does the state want us to invest more, employ more people, pay more taxes or not?”

Not exactly, no, or not entirely anyway. It wants you to stay in your lane as a business and keep your stunted, withered little wang out of the political arena, thanks. Quite rightly too, I might add. You decided to test the limits of the Disney Corp’s sweetheart deal which placed the Corp outside the purview of the duly-established State and local governments, and you fucking lost. Next time, consider waiting until you can fuck around with a less-politically astute, less-feisty governor, that’s my advice. Failing that, find out.

For my money, the truly salient point here is DeSantis’s refusing to daintily tiptoe around a giant multinational corporation based on some sort of misbegotten Repugnican “principle.” We’re well past the point where slavishly hewing to “principle” is ever going to get us a goddamned thing. So to hell with principle, I say.

In any fight with a thuggish bully who’s flush with victory after victory against the Marquess of Queensberry, unilaterally sticking to the Queensberry rules yourself is a mug’s game. Yes, yes, principles are fine things to have…right up until you find yourself in a bloody street brawl against an opponent who recognizes no rules whatsoever.

“Losing honorably,” after all, is still losing. When winning is a matter of life and death, literally existential, then it’s time to recognize that the one, the only meaningful imperative becomes survival. Far better to “win dishonorably,” if you must. And that’s precisely where we are now; if “principle” still means more to you than the permanent defeat and extinguishing of those selfsame principles, then in my view your thinking is badly, badly skewed, and you probably deserve to lose.

3

Never too old to rock and roll

Divemedic recounts the incredible story of a bona fide American hero—a valiant and doughty warrior I’ve written about here myself. DM includes some aspects of the story, most notably a memorable quote, that I hadn’t heard before.

There are so many times that I have heard people, including myself, say that we are getting too old for the conflicts that are to come. It’s easy to think that the trials that we all see as inevitable are for young men, and let’s face it, many of us cannot consider ourselves to be young any longer. So let’s take comfort in the story of Samuel Whittemore.

Comfort? I hardly see it as comforting. Confers a YUGE burden of responsibility, and imposes a very real debt of awestruck gratitude, more like. At the very least, Whittemore’s story is enormously humbling for any present-day Real American with half a lick of sense and a knowledge of US history.

Anyways. Onwards.

Samuel was not a young man when he enlisted in the Third Massachusetts Regiment and fought the French in Canada. He was 49 years old when he killed a French officer and took his sword as a war trophy.

Mr. Whittemore wasn’t done. He fought again against Chief Pontiac in the Great Lakes region at 67 years old as he led troops against the French and Indians. During that conflict, he took a pair of dueling pistols as war trophies.

For the next decade or so, he became a respected leader in the civic arena. He lobbied against the government, speaking out and being a general pain in the ass. He protested the government’s actions, complaining about this and that, went to meetings of government, and represented his town as a member of the Committee of Correspondence. That was how it came to be that, in 1772, Whittemore was one of the three contributors to Cambridge, Massachusetts’ statement in objection to the Tea Act:

If we cease to assert Our rights we shall dwindle into supineness and the chains of slavery shall be fast rivetted upon us 

Then came the day when Samuel Whittemore’s family found him in his farm’s field, lying in a pool of blood, and even the town’s doctor didn’t believe that he would survive. British soldiers had left Samuel Whittemore in a pool of blood alongside a stone wall in Menotomy, Mass. after shooting the old farmer in the face, then bayoneted him at least six times and clubbed him, apparently, to death as they retreated from the skirmish at Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775. Samuel was 78 years old.

Located near him were the bodies of three British soldiers: one shot by a musket, another by a dueling pistol, and a third run through with an ornate French sword.

Samuel survived that day, against all odds, and lived to the ripe old age of 96. He is currently buried in Arlington, Massachusetts.

This is the reason why we stand for the National Anthem, to honor men such as this.

Indubitably so. It’s to our everlasting disgrace that, were you to ask any random “American” schoolkid nowadays, he/she/its/zhir/zhimz would have no idea who Samuel Whittemore even was. Hell, he/she/its/zhir/zhimz parents wouldn’t know either. I very much doubt whether their teachers would.

As Founding Father Patrick Henry so unforgettably implored the flock at St John’s Church in Richmond:

Let us not, I beseech you, sir, deceive ourselves. Sir, we have done everything that could be done, to avert the storm which is now coming on. We have petitioned; we have remonstrated; we have supplicated; we have prostrated ourselves before the throne, and have implored its interposition to arrest the tyrannical hands of the ministry and Parliament. Our petitions have been slighted; our remonstrances have produced additional violence and insult; our supplications have been disregarded; and we have been spurned, with contempt, from the foot of the throne. In vain, after these things, may we indulge the fond hope of peace and reconciliation. There is no longer any room for hope. If we wish to be free, if we mean to preserve inviolate those inestimable privileges for which we have been so long contending, if we mean not basely to abandon the noble struggle in which we have been so long engaged, and which we have pledged ourselves never to abandon until the glorious object of our contest shall be obtained, we must fight! I repeat it, sir, we must fight! An appeal to arms and to the God of Hosts is all that is left us!

They tell us, sir, that we are weak; unable to cope with so formidable an adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be the next week, or the next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and when a British guard shall be stationed in every house? Shall we gather strength by irresolution and inaction? Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance, by lying supinely on our backs, and hugging the delusive phantom of hope, until our enemies shall have bound us hand and foot? Sir, we are not weak if we make a proper use of those means which the God of nature hath placed in our power.

It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!

Amen. May we all draw strength from history, from the deeds of our glorious forebears; may we resolve to live up to their illustrious example. May the memory of that history, that example, never fade from our hearts and minds. In awakening Real Americans from their long, torporous slumber, Leftards know not what they have done. Let them reap the whirlwind, then, in fullest possible measure.

6

Tucker’s bridge too far

Was Carlson’s Heritage speech a cpl weeks ago, in particular his references to Christianity and “evil,” the straw that broke Murdoch’s back, so to speak?

The veteran television host and journalist, whose Fox News show attracts millions of viewers every evening, remarked at an event for the Heritage Foundation that fellow conservatives must swiftly adjust their approaches to the national conversation since some political forces desire to tear down the nation rather than engage in legitimate political dialogue.

“We write our papers and they write their papers, and may the best papers win. I don’t think that’s what we’re watching now at all. I don’t think we’re watching a debate on how to get to the best outcome. I think that’s completely wrong,” Carlson said. “There is no way to assess, say, the transgenderist movement with that mindset. Policy papers don’t account for it at all. If you have people who are saying, ‘I have an idea, let’s castrate the next generation, let’s sexually mutilate children,’ I’m sorry, that’s not a political debate. That has nothing to do with politics.”

Carlson likewise described such a sentiment as a “theological phenomenon” that fundamentally cannot be considered a rational policy position. “And that’s kind of the point I’m making: none of this makes sense in conventional political terms,” he added. “What you’re watching is not a political movement. It’s evil.”

Carlson told the Heritage Foundation audience that older conservatives must shift their mindset in order to effectively engage in the current political arena. “I’m just noting what’s super obvious. Those of us who are in our mid-50s are caught in the past on how we think about this,” he remarked. “One side’s like, ‘I’ve got this idea, and we have this idea, and let’s have a debate about our ideas.’ They don’t want a debate. Those ideas won’t produce outcomes that any rational person would want under any circumstances. Those are manifestations of some larger force acting upon us.”

Despite multiple self-deprecating remarks about his affiliation with the Episcopal Church, a communion widely regarded for socially and theologically liberal standpoints, Carlson noted that Americans should turn to heaven for hope as the nation’s foundations collapse. “Maybe we should all just take 10 minutes per day to say a prayer about it,” he concluded. “And I’m saying that to you not as some kind of evangelist. I’m literally saying that to you as an Episcopalian.”

Tucker’s right as rain, whether it harelips every cannibal liberal on the Congo Potomac or not, and there’s just no way around it. Praying to the Almighty for deliverance from Their Satanic Majesties is well and good, of course, and can never be a bad thing. But soon or late, every decent Normal American will be forced to ponder the practical application of Algernon Sidney’s well-known aphorism: God helps those who help themselves.

9

The plane that wouldn’t die

Tell me, oh Magic Eight Ball: Is the indomitable, perenially-awesome, so-ugly-it’s-beautiful Fairchild-Republic A10 Thunderbolt II the best damned combat aircraft the US has ever fielded? Signs point to YES.

A-10s Return to Middle East with a New Mission, and a New Weapon
Tensions with Iran, Russia have CENTCOM calling upon the venerable Warthog once again.

A squadron of A-10 Thunderbolt II attack jets, specially modified to nearly triple their bomb loads, has been dispatched to the Middle East to boost U.S. airpower in the region amid increased tensions with Iran-backed forces in Syria.

With each plane carrying four SDB (Small Diameter Bombs—M) bomb racks, a flight of four A-10s could bomb up to 64 ground targets, a nearly three-fold increase. Each plane can also carry laser-guided rockets along with its famed 30mm tankbusting gun.

“That’s a lot of targets that you can hit from an air-to-ground perspective,” Grynkewich said.

The rugged attack jet also gives commanders more flexibility because it can fly from short or dirt runways.

“We would be able to maneuver [the A-10] very rapidly to different locations and show an ability to do strike operations that really would be very difficult to to counter in any meaningful way should things escalate,” he said.

The A-10 could also be used to patrol the Strait of Hormuz, where Iranian go-fast boats have harassed warships and tankers.

“There certainly are maritime threats that are out there that are promulgated by the Iranians,” Grynkewich said. “The A-10 brings you a capability that can counter that, as well—kinetically if necessary with those rockets and the gun.”

Designed in the 1970s as a specialized ground-assault weapon, the A-10 has won the love of generations of infantry. Protected by a “bathtub” of cockpit armor, Warthog pilots fly slow and low, eyeballing their targets before ripping into them with copious armament. But Air Force leaders have spent decades trying to win Congressional permission to retire the twinjet. They call it a sitting duck for modern air defenses, and they say stealthier, higher-flying, more lightly armed fighter jets can do the job. Earlier this year, Chief of Staff Gen. CQ Brown said the last A-10s would be gone by decade’s end.

Grynkewich’s command is also responding to a call from CENTCOM’s Kurilla to be more innovative. Air Forces Central aims to experiment with the A-10’s ability to shoot down enemy drones. Since the A-10 lacks a radar, officials plan to use a network of U.S. and allied radars to guide the attack jets to their uncrewed targets. The Warthog could then use its infrared targeting pod to engage a drone with heat-seeking missiles or laser-guided rockets, Grynkewich said.

Is there ANYTHING the ‘Hog can’t do? Apparently not. Stout, amazingly versatile, a-bristle with ferocious lethality—she’s a credit to her noble lineage and her namesake, no doubt about it.

Update! So in the comments, I said this to Steve:

Pretty sure I’ve told this story before here, but back when the band was regularly traveling from NC to NYC for shows, we always took the back way up the spine of the Shenandoah on 81, through Harrisburg, and then on into a stretch paralleling a mountainous area with a USANG base close by (Fort Indiantown Gap, I believe it was). The base had A10s attached, and quite often we’d see a flight of ‘Hogs practicing attack weaves, crisscrossing low and slow from one side of the mountains up over the crest to the other and back again.

We’d all watch this airshow completely spellbound, which is when it occurred to me how truly awful it must be to be a ground-pounding camel-humper being hunted by one of those truly magnificent bastards. Bet there’s been whole damned laundry-trucks’ worth of djellabahs ended up smeared in fresh-squeezed shit by guys in that unenviable position. If not, then they were just too stupid to live anyhow.

Just for shits and giggles, I poked around some when what to my wondering eyes did appear but this choice vid:

And dammit, that’s IT, the spontaneous, unannounced “airshow” we looked forward to seeing on every trip up to the Rotten Apple. Hell yeah! How fuckin’ cool is THAT?

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