Did some starry-eyed fool say “free”?

A lamented loss.

Northern Barbarian
@xnoesbueno
Why we post about Britain. Because the British can’t.

That, and because Britain is whence we sprang as a nation, and we still love Britain. And having expended considerable blood and treasure in Britain’s defense, we are not without standing.

We hate to see Britain descending into its Labour nightmare. Mass migration. Two tier justice. Racist police who turn a blind eye to rape, let a young man die because the foreigner who stabbed him cried racism. Police who will show up promptly to arrest you if you post something that might “cause anxiety” or “offend” but more particularly challenge authority.

We do that for Canada, too. And Australia.

Why has such a swath of the Anglosphere become so wretchedly authoritarian? The Anglosphere having spread civilization and notions of liberal governance, free enterprise, individual freedom around the world.

By far the biggest part of the Anglosphere, the United States, thankfully remains free.

Yeah. Thankfully.


A-HENH! In a comments-section response to the above post on conquered Britainistan, NB adds:


*looks at watch* Yeeaaahhh, that “self-correction” oughta be kicking in ANY TIME NOW *checks watch again*

Actually, I don’t entirely disagree with NB’s assertion that Amerika v2.0 is about as good as it gets with respect to what we’re pleased to refer to as freedom. He’s right; I’ve been to several other countries myself and, with the possible exception of the Netherlands (now completely overrun by Mooselimb immivaders, sadly enough), this really IS about as good as it gets out there in the wider world.

However, seems to me that’s damning with faint praise, just another feeble cope—which is absolutely NOT something any liberty-minded Real American ought to be willing to settle for. Once-Great Britain, Ireland, and Scotland aren’t the only nations badly in need of a revolution, seems to me.

Jefferson tree of liberty.

More:

Scandalously, Thomas Jefferson once wrote to James Madison, “I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and is as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical.”

In the same year, 1787, in regard to what is known as Shays’ Rebellion, he wrote another friend, “God forbid that we should ever be 20 years without such a rebellion.” A lack of rebelliousness among the people would demonstrate “a lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. . . And what country can preserve its liberties if its rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance?”

Truer words were never etc.

All of which goes to show that, as Jefferson clearly understood, there are two (2) standards for assessing the freedom of any nation-state, one correct and proper, one gone grievous astray:

  • The Absolute Standard, ie, Jefferson’s Way: either there is liberty, or there is not, as I’ve so often put it here
  • The Relativist Standard: one given country can fairly be said to be freer than some other one—as i said, a feeble cope by which we reassure ourselves that we haven’t entirely betrayed the ideals of our Founding Fathers quite yet

Update! We may have fallen down on the whole “freedom” thing, but at least the food is good.


Sage advice

Words of wisdom from great North Carolinian Mark Robinson.


Just as he always has, the man makes a hell of a lot of sense. Such a shame that CNN was allowed to hound him out of the governor’s race in ’24 with a bunch of made-up crap.

NC GOP Candidate Accuses CNN of ‘High-Tech Lynching’
Mark Robinson, the fiery GOP candidate for governor in North Carolina, denied CNN’s “salacious” accusation against him and labeled it a new “high-tech lynching.”

CNN, the network that calls leftist riots “fiery but mostly peaceful protests,” is claiming to have uncovered disturbing racist and sexual comments from Republican gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson on a porn site. Robinson has denied the allegations, claiming the “tabloid trash” is meant to distract voters from real issues. He even accused his Democrat opponent of being involved in releasing the story.

Robinson, who is currently North Carolina’s lieutenant governor, posted a video addressing the CNN allegations. “Well, guys, the news media is at it again. My opponent is at it again,” he began. “You all have seen the half truths and outright lies of [Democrat] Josh Stein on these ads over and over again, and now a story … leaked by him to CNN, is appearing.”

Watch the above-embedded video, listen carefully to Robinson’s words, and then ask yourself: knowing how reprehensible and patently dishonest CNN has always been, does the man speaking in the vid sound like the kind of guy who would do the things his dirty-Demonrat opponent used the ever-helpful (for D卐M☭CRATs, natch) CNN to accuse him of?

Update! Transcript, for the X-challenged.

Robinson knows exactly what to tell them. “Okay, ma’am, I’ve got you on this one. How about you tell them to behave in school and pay attention? Tell them to get all the knowledge they can and make great grades. Tell them to be respectful to adults. and come tell you and their dad if they think an adult has been disrespectful or unfair towards them, and let you make the call on that.”

He continued to challenge the woman to prioritize good manners and common decency instead of an obsession with skin color. “How about you tell them to keep their pants up on their waist, not down on their backsides,” Robinson suggested. “And tell them if you get her pregnant, get a job. Then get her a ring. Then get a house, and then make it a home. Tell them to respect the law and those who uphold it. And if you are accosted by law enforcement, obey their orders and call you at the first chance they have, if need be. And if it’s just a traffic ticket, take it and say, ‘Thank you, officer’, and drive away in peace. Because fighting the traffic stop is for court, not the side of the road.”

Robinson also emphasized the importance of religion. “Tell them that Jesus Christ is the way and the truth, and if they will follow him, all will be well.” He ended, “Now, I believe if you tell them all these things, there will be no need to tell them not to take a knife to a track meet and stab a fellow high school runner to death. So, yeah, tell them those things. You’ll be amazed at how well things turn out.”

Alas, if the woman Robinson is responding to is anything like the murdering thug’s own close relatives, she won’t be listening.

Anthony’s parents have defended him every step of the way, claiming, in defiance of all evidence to the contrary, that Metcalf attacked their son instead of the other way around. His mother even claimed that every single witness was lying in an insane denial of reality. Anthony’s grandmother screamed, “racist, biased,” as she left the courthouse after his conviction. Karmelo Anthony was not a victim of racial violence. He committed deadly violence because his family raised a monster.

Sick, that’s what. But that’s what we’re all up against now, that’s the kind of warped (non-)thinking that must be overcome.

Elon Musk, the world’s first trillionaire

Hats off to him for that, and to Glenn Reynolds for this brilliant rip (in bold—his, not mine):

“There shouldn’t be trillionaires” is junior-high-level stuff. We should have people producing trillions of dollars in value for society. The argument that Elon should be spending his money on “feeding the hungry” is stupid in a country where the federal government spends multi-trillions a year on just that, with dubious results. It also betrays either a notion, or a lie, based on Musk having a Scrooge McDuck style Money Bin with a trillion dollars in it. In fact, of course, he owns assets that are busy producing useful things, not cash just lying around somewhere going to waste. Most of the people pretending otherwise know better, but hope their listeners don’t. The rest are just imponderably stupid.

SpaceX’s IPO created 4,400 millionaires, according to the New York Times. Critics like Bernie Sanders, AOC, and Elizabeth Warren have created one each — themselves.

Ayup, that’s about the size of it all right. More from the same place:

Oh, and lest we forget, here’s yet another thing Elon was perfectly a thousand percent correct about (here’s what I had to say about it at the time):

The Little Girl With Knife and Axe Just Gave the System a Final Whack
In August of last year, Lola and Ruby Moire were walking home in a suburb of Dundee, Scotland, and being harassed by the ubiquitous ‘migrants’ who form so integral a part of these United Kingdom stories anymore. The abuse from their pursuers was so intense that one of the girls can be heard warning them off, shouting, ‘Don’t f**king touch her, she’s f**king 12!

Weapons the youngster had in her waistband came out, and she brandished them bravely as their tormentors taunted the little girls.

Tormented, recorded, and then reported them to the police, who arrested the 12-year-old sister for ‘brandishing a bladed weapon.’

The racist former First Minister of Scotland and the current one weighed in. You know they couldn’t resist dissing the dangerous spawn of the filthy working class they despise with every fibre of their beings.

And a note: where our sorry Democrats shriek ‘TRUMP!!’ when they have no excuse and nothing better to say, you will see the British/Eurotrash reaction is ‘MUSK!!’

No specific attacks on Musk are cited—which, given how thoroughly the Brits have discredited and disgraced themselves by now, cannot be taken as evidence that there were none.

Update! And while we’re on the topic of suicidal Britwit folly, there’s also this to consider.

The news is…appalling, infuriating, sick-making, inexcusable, and earth-shaking, but one thing it isn’t is surprising. The revelation that one of the chief financiers of the principal forces arrayed against Britain and the West in general is the British government is all too much in keeping with the suicidal leftism we have seen from that government (whether the Tories or Labour are in power) for years now. So of course they’re funding ISIS. What else would they do? And the rot is even deeper than that.

The Daily Mail reported Monday that the British government “gave more than £28 billion in taxpayer cash to its enemies over six years, a leaked government dossier revealed last night.” And not just any enemies, either. If the British government had really given 28 billion pounds to its enemies, it would have forked over the dough to Tommy Robinson. But instead, the learned solons in London gave the money to their friends. You know, like ISIS.

The Mail states that “terrorists such as the Islamic State in Syria group, hostile states including Russia and criminal gangs received the vast sum from foreign aid, Covid relief loans and the benefits system, which an expert said was an ‘ATM for terrorists.’” And as these things always do, it gets worse. The report “revealed that Britain helped companies linked to the Chinese military pursue their own research between 2015 and 2021.” The Islamic State, Russia, China, and criminal gangs: all on the British taxpayer dole.

How could this have happened? Pondering that question called to mind a phrase I have not heard in decades, since the days when I was a young Marxist enjoying the benefits of an expensive university education: “Inglan is a b**ch.” (“Inglan” is, of course, Jamaican patois for “England.”) This pungent phrase is actually the title of a catchy little song, the handiwork of a Jamaican “dub poet” named Linton Kwesi Johnson, who has lived in the land for which he has such contempt since 1963 (he is now 73 years old).

Given what we know about them to date, how could we reasonably expect such a travesty NOT to have happened, Robert?

The essential nature of government

The Founders wouldn’t be surprised by this. Nobody else should be, either.

The city of Cape Canaveral in Brevard County has a population of about 10,000 people and encompasses about 2 square miles. In the year 2000, population in the city was about 8,900 people, and it was about 8,000 people in 1990. That’s a growth rate of 0.5% per year over the past 36 years. <—Important stat, so keep this in mind as we look at the rest of this.

The city hall was built in the 1960s, and was about 3200 square feet. It looked like this…

In 2015, construction was begun on a new, 18,000 square foot city hall at a cost of $5.5 million. That number was close to what the city spent that year in its entire budget.

Now explain to me why they needed to build this giant edifice that costs more to build and to maintain than the building it replaced? Population was only 25% larger than it was in 1980, but the city hall building needed to be five times larger to accommodate all of the extra bureaucratic employees that are now working there.

The city’s budget is now $70 million, despite the fact that the city contains the same number of residents as it did ten years ago when the budget was $5.5 million. They built a larger city hall, then filled that space with more employees. Five times the building at twelve times the cost.

Why are so many more employees needed? The cost of government was $3 million per year in 1980, or about $11 million in 2025 dollars. Why does government need to be 7 times larger than it was in 1980, even though population is only 25% larger?

Because Reasons™, of course and as always. Just who, exactly, gave you permission to ask, anyway?

1
1

The Great Opt-Out

Not to mention that the annual tally of American births slumped to well below replacement rate a while back, and has kept right on dropping ever since, with nary a sign of recovery to be seen.

No Wonder Men Are Opting Out
The warning signs have been there for decades. Back in 1983, American author Barbara Ehrenreich wrote a powerful book — The Hearts of Men: American Dreams and the Flight from Commitment — arguing that a male revolt was underway. Since the 1950s, she suggested, men had begun rebelling against the breadwinner ethic, inspired by Playboy culture, the counterculture and a desire for personal freedom. They were rejecting the cultural ideology that had shamed them into tying the knot and becoming a good provider, lest they be seen as immature, irresponsible and less than a real man.

Ehrenreich understood that marriage was the mechanism by which society harnessed male productivity. Remove the shame and the yoke comes off.

Forty years on, the yoke has disappeared. In April 2026, the American male labour force participation rate hit its lowest level since records began in the 1940s, according to the US Bureau of Labour Statistics. One in three American men — roughly 33% — were not working or actively looking for work. The overall male participation rate for men aged 16 and over stood at just 67%, down from 73.5% two decades ago and from 87% in the postwar years when Ehrenreich’s story begins.

The trend is not confined to America. Similar declines — though less dramatic than in the United States — have occurred in the UK, Australia and Canada.

The marriage collapse runs in lockstep with the workforce data. According to US Census Bureau data, married-couple households made up 71% of all US households in 1970; today it’s just 47%. As University of Virginia sociologist Brad Wilcox documents in his 2024 book Get Married, the marriage rate has fallen 65% in the last half century.

Ehrenreich had made the argument that marriage and productivity were inseparable — that the same mechanism which got men to the altar got them to work. The data suggest she was right.

Follows, a dismal recitative of just how seriously godawful modern, hyper-Feminazi-ized American dames really are, after which gruesome litany the Big Q drops like an H-bomb:

What rational man reads this list and thinks: yes, that’s exactly what’s been missing from my life?

Why, I’m sure that LOTS of men would say that they…that is, there’s gotta PLENTY of men who…oh dammit, hold everything; she said RATIONAL men, didn’t she?

Awwww, sheeeeiiiit. Never mind. */Emily Litella voice*

Y’all realize, don’t you, that one of Communism’s first and foremost imperatives calls for the destruction of the traditional nuclear family, right? That no less a shambolic Red-toothed drunkard than ol’ Karl hisself considered this destruction to be no less essential an ingredient in the establishment of World Communism than the official State injunction against religious belief; faith-related totems, icons, texts, and other sacred paraphernalia; church buildings themselves; and/or worship services?

I dunno, must be a weird coinkydink or sump’in, I guess. Why, it couldn’t possibly be that the above-cited procedural guidelines and/or requisite preconditions amount to a kinda-sorta Prime Directive from whence Beastly Benito’s well-known “Everything within the State, nothing outside the State, nothing against the State” formulation derived. I mean, could it?!?

Sheesh. From all that, our aformentioned Reasonable Man (if you can find one at this point) might well conclude that the Almighty Superstate simply abjures competition altogether, in and of itself; views ANY kind of competition as an enemy, a constant, deadly threat; and will never, EVER tolerate such a noxious weed taking root and growing within it. Indeed, the Superstate wiill stick at naught to rip competition from its national soil completely, at the first hint of its presence therein.

By these fruits shall ye liberty-minded know the tyrannical nature of thine government, howsoever vehemently it may proclaim to the contrary. By these lights shall ye descry whether you remain citizens, or have instead been reduced to hapless subjects under said government—no longer Masters of your so-called Public Servants, but groveling, forelock-tugging Servants to them.

Which, in turn, posits a Big Q of its own—the Biggest of them all, the Question which no liberty-minded person can afford to pretend he doesn’t hear.

And then we come to this amusing/annoying/infuriating passage:

“The online feminist scene often feels like one long group therapy session for women to compare notes on how awful men are,” she writes, suggesting this makes men the universal scapegoat, where ordinary male behaviour is routinely framed as toxic or oppressive, while women’s collective resentment is rewarded and amplified. “Casual, low-level male-bashing has become the background hum of progressive online culture.”

Not only does this toxic climate encourage women to be wary of men, but growing up in a hate-fuelled online sewer takes a toll on their mental health. Psychologist Jonathan Haidt has long been warning that the toxic world of social media would lead to a rise in mental health problems, particularly in girls and young women. “Since the early 2010s, young people across the developed world are becoming more anxious, depressed and lonely. The increases were even greater in young women,” he said.

Recent large-scale surveys (Ipsos 202-–2026 across 31 countries, Gallup 2025) are showing Gen Z women currently report the highest recorded levels of anxiety, persistent sadness, hopelessness and depression of any female generation at the same age.

Awww, my heart bleeds for you, sweetcheeks. I promise, it really, truly does.

By the by, that faint, squeaky-scrawky sound you may be hearing is me playing Hearts And Flowers on the world’s smallest violin, in expression of my sympathy for your (self-created, utterly pointless) plight.

Awright, awright, AWRIIIIGHT. You want it, you got it—the cold, stony-hard truth and nothing but: serves you dumb fucking Feminazi termagants right for all me, and tough noogies. I have precisely Zero Fucks Left To Give y’uns over here. Now go soak in the depressing bathtub of tears, desperation, boxed-wine, loneliness, and dissatisfaction Uncompromising Feminist Principle long ago drew for ya, whydon’tcha.

If you aren’t in the mood for a bath right this minute, you could go grind out another sweaty, exhausting hour or perhaps two working out at Planet Fitness instead. Warm up with twenty minutes on the stationary bikes, then hit the Nautilus machines whilst checking out your taut bod and smiling at your reflection in the wall mirrors (any old-school Iron Pile musclehead will tell you that REAL gyms don’t have mirrors and machines; only fancy-schmancy, pretentious “fitness centers” do).

After the rough stuff, it’s off downstairs to the always-crowded Olympic-size pool for some laps, thus completing the actual work-out portion of the festivities. You hit the showers, towel yourself (somewhat) dry; get back into street duds, stagger on legs of rubber back up the stairs and out the main exit to the unlit parking lot, where you climb stiffly, even painfully, into your anonymous grey Toyota for the short dash home. “Home” being the word you grossly overstretch to cover the silent, dark, shockingly overpriced, dispiriting Studio (one 300 sq ft room, one bath, kitchenette in the main room) on the 18th floor of a new high-rise apartment/condo tower located in a decidedly dodgy neighborhood in which you *cough-cough* “live.”

All, y’know, by yourself.

Oops, sorry, my bad; didn’t mean to dump all that grief over your head out of the clear blue like that. Whichever meaningless tail-chase you decide upon as a distraction from your sad, unfulfilling reality tonight, just know I’ll be having a high old time laughing my baggy, happily-single old ass silly over here, thanks.

Cherchez le Bathhouse Barry

Pay no attention to the “man” behind the curtain., please.

Mike Gallagher, the 8th most recognized talk radio personality, in the U.S.A., is heard by over 2.25 million listeners weekly. He compiled and wrote the following essay entitled, “Obama: It was You.”

  • It was you who spoke these words at an Islamic dinner – “I am one of you.”
  • It was you who on ABC News referenced – “My Muslim faith.”
  • It was you who gave $100 million in U.S. taxpayer funds to rebuild foreign mosques.
  • It was you who wrote that in the event of a conflict- “I will stand with the Muslims.”
  • It was you who assured the Egyptian Foreign Minister that – “I am a Muslim.”
  • It was you who bowed in submission before the Saudi King.
  • It was you who sat for 20 years in a Liberation Theology Church condemning America and professing Marxism.

It was you the whole time who ushered in this mess we are in!

That’s about the size of it, yeah. Although none of us should be willing to let the thankfully deceased Jimmeh Peanuthead elude his Xtry Jumbo-size portion of the blame, either. Lots more yet to this one, each and every word of it guaranteed to make your eyes see red, steam spurt from your ears and nostrils, and your blood boil.

Still can’t quite figure out why nobody bothered to assassinate this malevolent Commie cocksucker back when he was disgracing and defiling the White House. I expected it, but somehow it never did happen.

Misery

Thy name is “shitlib.”


DT piles on:

Imagine the hours of fun. All that tutting and disapproval.

Yeppers…and the weeping, and the wailing, and the gnashing of teeth too. But then, as with their Mooselimb allies of convenience, that’s the only kind of “fun” Leftards truly grok.

Who they are

What they do.

Our intellectual and academic culture is dangerously creating violent pro-assassination rhetoric that is creating this cultish desire to kill President Trump. It is not only dangerous to the United States but also the Democrat Party that offers itself as the primary point of peaceful opposition to President Trump. Revered Democrat strategist James Carville recently commended his own ‘trump derangement syndrome,’: “I hate the motherf—–. And you know what? I don’t want to get rid of it [TDS]. I don’t want to get better. I want to get worse. I want to hate him more.” “I pray to God in heaven, God, reign the righteous reign of Trump Derangement Syndrome on me,” he continued. “Pray for me, Lord. I’m your vessel on this earth. Pray for the people that listen to this. We want more. We want to hate the son of a b—- so much that we can’t see straight.” Carville’s incendiary rhetoric is not unrelated to the manifesto of the most recent shooter: “I am no longer willing to permit a pedophile, rapist, and traitor to coat my hands with his crimes.” Those salacious allegations are common internet talking points for individuals continually challenging one another to ‘do something about Trump.’ The burning of Democrat Josh Shapiro’s home in Pennsylvania is one of a multitude of violent acts instigated by a growing approval of anti-Republican rhetoric that consumes even Democrat idealists. The time is now for American and global society to embrace debate and reason. That requires public outcry about these calls for assassination.

Sorry to have to break the news and all, but that “public outcry” bushwa just ain’t gonna cut it. Gonna need some much stronger medicine to cure what ails Amerika v2.0, I’m afraid.

“I was just foolin’ about” “I wasn’t…”

 Ace asks: Do you want to take this kinetic? Because this is how you take this kinetic. Let me make this perfectly clear: YES. Yes, as a matter of fact I DO want to take this kinetic. As seriously awful as that prospect is, the scenario in which we just continue to sit supinely back and permit the Goosesteppin’ Left to destroy what little is left of America That Was is much, much worse.

Which means that all of the following people I sincerely wish to see shot in the face, guillotined, drawn and quartered, keelhauled, set upon by a pack of rabid hyenas, and hanged by the neck until they are dead, dead, DEAD. Before very much more time has elapsed, we have gone full-on Commie, and it’s too fucking late to put a stop to this arrant nonsense.

I mean it: kill them. Kill them all. No, I am not in any way kidding about this. They are oxygen thieves who are unfit to draw breath; merely by their unwanted presence in it do they befoul our God-graced nation. They should be removed, by any and all means necessary. Period fucking DOT.

Play for blood, remember shitlibs?

The long and the short of it

Former Commie creep-o Peter Hitchens tells it like it is.


The longer version:


Yes, this revelation comes as no big surprise; sensible, sane sorts have known all along what the immivasion kerfuffle was really about. Still, it never hurts to be reminded now and then, so we can annoy the Left by dropping another Truth Bomb on their empty heads.

The meat of the matter

This. This, right here.

Winning in Iran Is Worth Losing the Midterms
There has been much hand-wringing among us conservatives about the upcoming midterms. Will we win them? Lose them? What do the polls say? What will be the deciding factor? The economy? Some 11th hour scandal? Or, more pressingly, Iran? What should we do if Iran proves to be a detriment to our chances?

The hard truth is that the Iran War needs to be fought to completion. If that takes another week, another month, or another year, it needs to be done. The worst possible thing Trump can do is to cut a deal just for the sake of cutting a deal and going home with enough time to recover in the polls before midterms.

Because all that will do is leave the enemy intact to fight another day. Assuredly, they will.

A-yup. With ya so far, dude. BUT…

Do I want to lose the midterms? No. But I think a midterm loss will be a lot less devastating than its currently being made out to be.

Annnnnd that’s where ya lost me. Well, kinda-sorta, anyhoo. Fact is, ANY loss to the SatanCrats from here on out will be more than devastating, not least because the first thing they’re gonna do is undo every good thing Trump managed to accomplish this time around. Y’know, just like Bribem did LAST time around.

What it all comes down to at this late date is this: destroying the D卐M☭CRATs utterly is now every bit as urgent as destroying the Mad Mullah regime in Iran is. The only saving grace I can descry, re the author’s argument, is that, as we already know all too well, destroying the Dims is gonna require a lot more of Real Americans than just winning an election or three. In fact, irony of ironies, it will require many of the same things that destroying the Mullah regime will.

Update! A point worth making, which I opted to omit earlier but on further reflection decided should be noted.

My point is, losing the midterms won’t be an unmitigated disaster because Trump holds the veto pen, Trump makes the military decisions, and Trump can outmaneuver anything they lob at him. A midterm loss would be the price we pay for a resounding 2028 landslide when a Vance/Rubio steamroller crushes whatever flax seed munching, non-binary clown car the Democrats unveil as their next sacrificial lamb.

When the 2028 campaign seasons kicks into high gear, we will have the previous two years working to our advantage. We will be able to show, again, just how insane the left behaves when it is given just a modicum of power. And we will be able to show that the MAGA Republicans were the only ones in the last half-century who decisively dealt with the Iran problem.

Fair enough, I suppose. But can we safely assume that Leftard insanity amounts to a deal-breaker for a majority of us? For enough of us to even matter?

Remembering another Lost Cause

The moment it all started to go badly, badly wrong for the Founders’ America.

The Guns Fell Silent at Appomattox, and the Reconciliation Began
Early morning, Palm Sunday, April 9, 1865: The rebel yell of the ragged, half-starved Army of Northern Virginia rang out for the last time. Sheridan’s Union cavalry had swung around Appomattox Court House to the southwest and captured the trains carrying the food and supplies Lee so desperately needed, but it was, after all, just cavalry, and if the Confederates could break through them, recapture the supplies, and then head south to link up with Johnston’s Army, the cause might still survive.

Over the cavalry, the Rebels prevailed, but as the Union troopers withdrew and they crested the ridge, they could see solid lines of Union infantry arriving in the distance beyond them. The trap was closed.

Two days before, Lee had received the following letter:

General R.E. Lee

Commanding C.S.A.

The results of last week must convince you of the hopelessness of further resistance on the part of the Army of Northern Virginia in this struggle. I feel that it is so, and regard it as my duty to shift from myself the responsibility of any further effusion of blood, by asking of you the surrender of that portion of the Confederate States army known as the Army of Northern Virginia.

U.S. Grant

Lieut. General

Lee responded by asking what the conditions would be, to which Grant replied that “…the men and officers surrendered shall be disqualified for taking up arms again against the Government of United States until properly exchanged.”

Lee replied that he would be willing to meet, not to surrender, but merely to discuss the overall terms of peace with the Confederacy. Grant, suffering from a severe migraine, simply replied that he had no authority for such a discussion, saying to an aide through the pain, “It looks as if Lee still means to fight.”

Now that the trap was closed, Lee faced the inevitable: “There is nothing left for me to do but to go and see General Grant. I would rather die a thousand deaths.”

He asked his old “warhorse,” Gen. James “Petey” Longstreet, if Grant’s terms would be harsh, but “Petey” had been an old friend of Grant back in their West Point days, and told Lee he thought not.

Upon receiving Lee’s request for an interview to ascertain the details of surrender, Grant’s headache instantly vanished. A cease-fire was arranged so the two could meet, and at last the guns fell silent. A stately farmhouse owned by Wilmer McLean was selected. Ironically, he had moved out to Appomattox to get away from the war, since one of the first cannon shots at Bull Run had gone through his living room. Grant and his officers arrived half an hour after Lee. Grant wore a private’s blouse with nothing to distinguish his status but the three star epaulettes. His boots and pants were muddy, since he was fresh from reconnoitering his lines. Lee, on the other hand, was resplendent in his dress uniform, with sash and bejeweled sword.

After handshakes and small talk, it was Lee who politely suggested they get to the matter and asked Grant to write out the terms so that they may be formally accepted. Grant began to write the draft, which read in pertinent part: “The officers to give their individual paroles not to take up arms until properly exchanged, and each company or regimental commander sign a like parole for the men of their commands. The arms, artillery and public property to be parked and stacked, and turned over to the officer appointed by me to receive them…”

Then Grant eyed the bejeweled sword Lee had by his side, evidently brought to perform the humiliating act of handing it over to the victor, and continued to write, “This will not embrace the side-arms of the officers, nor their private horses and baggage. This done, each officer and man will be allowed to return to their homes, not to be disturbed by the United States authority so long as they observe their paroles and the laws in force where they may reside.”

That was it – ALL of it. Stack arms and colors, swear parole, and go home. Full amnesty.

Lee was nothing short of astonished at the unanticipated magnanimity and even personal warmth Grant extended towards himself and his ragged, weary boys that day, as would many others be in the years to come. Rightly so, I think; Grant’s tacit refusal to rub Lee’s and his vanquished army’s noses in the bitter dregs of their grinding, agonizing defeat and treat the Confederates not as a despised enemy but with respect, humility, and restraint was a brilliant first step towards binding up a national wound that could easily have proved fatal in the years following the Appomattox agreement—this, after so assiduously building for himself a reputation as perhaps the hardest of hard-war men.

In fact, Grant went from there to be roundly vilified in certain Northern quarters as either soft-hearted or soft-headed, or maybe a bit of both, for declining to harshly punish the Army of Northern Virginia and its general officer corps for their purported “treason.” “Treason,” the fire-eaters of the North snarled, even though never at any point had the Southern Confederacy evinced any ambition to overthrow the Federal government, wishing only to depart from the Union in peace and be let alone.

Which, of course, is why some of us unreconstructed Southrons still insist on referring to it as the War of Northern Aggression to this very day.

I’ve always considered Wilmer McClean’s unsuccessful attempt to remove himself from the immediate physical exigencies of war by fleeing his ancestral farm in Manassas (called Yorkshire Plantation, being used at that time by Gen Pierre Gustave Toutant-Beauregard as his HQ) and heading further South for what he fervently hoped would be quieter, less turbulent digs near Appomattox Court House to be one of the most bizarre, intriguing, and poignant episodes to emerge from a historical cataclysm that produced a plenitude of such tales. It’s one of the many, many reasons I’ve always found Civil War history such an absorbing subject, and have read basically any and everything on it I could get my hands on since I was, oh, about 13 or so.

And as far as THAT goes, if you’re a proud son of the South and haven’t read anything by the incredible Shelby Foote yet…honeychile, what on Earth are you waiting for, anyhoo?

Common sense on the Court

Sounds about right to me. But then, I’m inclined to be sensible like that, see.

Supreme Court sounds skeptical of late-arriving ballots, a Trump target
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court ‘s conservative majority on Monday sounded skeptical of state laws that allow the counting of late-arriving mail ballots, a persistent target of President Donald Trump.

A ruling, likely to come by late June, that bars counting ballots arriving after Election Day would send officials scrambling in 14 states and the District of Columbia, just a few months before the 2026 midterm congressional elections to change their ballot rules.

An additional 15 states that have more forgiving deadlines for ballots from military and overseas voters also could be affected.

The legal challenge is part of Trump’s broader attack on most mail balloting, which he has said breeds fraud despite strong evidence to the contrary and years of experience in numerous states. Trump has repeatedly claimed that his loss to Joe Biden in 2020 resulted from fraud even though more than 60 court decisions and his own attorney general said that argument had no merit.

The court heard arguments in a case from Mississippi pitting the state against Trump’s Republican administration and the Republican and Libertarian parties. At issue is whether federal law sets a single Election Day that requires ballots to be both cast by voters and received by state officials.

Via Ace, who adds:

It’s obviously just farming fake votes to steal elections in the unconstitutional overtime period.

And the Justices appear to believe that when the Constitution specifies an Election Day, it means AN Election DAY, not an election week or an election month or an unspecified election period allowing the printing of millions of fake ballots.

Trump has repeatedly claimed that his loss to Joe Biden in 2020 resulted from fraud even though more than 60 court decisions and his own attorney general said that argument had no merit.

1, that’s all false, and 2, this has nothing to do with the actual legal question at hand, which is: When the Constitution speaks of an (singular) Election Day, do they mean it or were they just joshing?

It’s amazing how leftwing communists routinely invent words and penumbras that don’t appear in the Constitution, but, when faced with the Constitution’s actual words, claim “Oh that doesn’t matter, that’s like 100 years old, man.”

“Amazing” isn’t quite strong enough to meet the case, but maybe that’s just cynical ol’ me talking.

Stealth Jihad

We’ve all marveled at the unlikely alliance of convenience between Western Leftards and the dark-age forces of Pisslam. Well, it was no accident.

The memorandum gave detailed methods for establishing Islam as a “civilization alternative” in the West and a “grand Jihad” for eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within. It called for the ‘sabotaging’ of the west and its “miserable house” by domestic hands AND the hands of the believers so that the west is eliminated and “God’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.”

The plan explicitly referred to using western society’s own people, institutions, laws, and unwitting allies (progressive groups and NGOs, media, politicians, academics, or civil-rights organizations) to advance the Islamic agenda.

Tactics included infiltration of education, media, government, finance, and alliances with non-Islamic actors “when tactically beneficial” while maintaining ideological separation. This is also called “long-term settlement” (tamkeen); a form of demographic or cultural subversion rather than direct conquest. It is often mentioned in the paper as “the settlement mission”.

A related 1982 Muslim Brotherhood document (called “The Project”) outlines a 100-year global plan with similar elements: building parallel societies, exploiting Western freedoms, and forming pragmatic coalitions.

One problem the Muslims wrestled with was the need for foreign alliances and western “advocates” to make immigration and the integration of Islam into target countries more “official”. Twenty-five years ago, this was considered all but impossible in the US and in Europe. However, since around 2014, the Sharia fundamentalists found a willing and ready ally in the new “woke” left.

Today, the notion of even discussing the agenda of “Stealth Jihad” in a public venue in 2026 is labeled “racist” by progressive activists and left wing politicians (even though Islam is not a race). If you were to go back in time around 15 years ago and explain to people what is happening today in terms of third-world immigration, they would probably laugh in your face and call you a conspiracy theorist.

In 2026 in Europe the plan is nearly complete and in the US the plan is well underway. The change in how our society views Islam as an untouchable subject is largely due to a dark and convenient political alliance between the woke left and the Stealth Jihad.

Only recently has the problem of Muslim immigration risen to the forefront of media coverage, but only because of the work of citizen journalists like Nick Shirley who are exposing widespread fraud among migrants. The majority of this fraud, whether it is in Minnesota or California, is connected to Somali Muslim immigrants and is perpetrated with the help of leftist NGOs and politicians.

Coming from a country with an average IQ of 67, these people are not capable of instituting such a plan on their own. They had help and it is clear that Democrats are deeply involved in these operations, perhaps in exchange for financial kick-backs, but certainly in exchange for votes (Somali migrants in Minnesota voted 80% in favor of Democrats in 2024).

It’s not surprising, but there are a lot of similarities between progressives in the west and third world Islamic migrants from the east.

There are some very basic incompatibilities also—deep-seated differences that can never be reconciled without violence and bloodshed. Can’t wait till the one that requires homosexuals be executed by your choice of either A) throwing them off a cliff, or B) dropping a tall building on them kicks in. Gonna be some mighty chagrinned “liberals” weeping and moaning all over the damned place on that most frabjous of days, me slithey toves.

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