Our Favourite Margaret

...and our favorite Margret

(From the Archives)

"People like Mrs Thatcher – state-educated, lower-middle-class, provincial, female – were not supposed to question the 1945 state-socialist settlement. To its architects, such people were of no account. They were neither poor enough to attract romantic sympathy, nor grand enough to be entitled to power. They were expected to know their place."--Charles Moore

Sounds awfully familiar, doesn't it?

They're not mad at the Islamo-murder and mayhem depicted on the videos--they're mad someone mentioned it. President Trump's dust-up with Teresa May over Islamist videos reminds us that Great Britain once had a woman at the helm with vision, courage and a patriot's devotion to do her duty.


"I am in politics because of the conflict between good and evil,
and I believe that in the end good will triumph."

Some of our favorite Thatcher aphorisms and observations:

"I seem to smell the stench of appeasement in the air."
"There were several incidents of the BBC reporting particularly sensitive military matters in ways which put our forces at risk. I was also very unhappy at the attempted "even-handedness" of some of the comment, and the chilling use of the third-person - talk of "the British" and "the Argentinians" on our news programmes. It was also on Friday 2nd April that I received advice from the Foreign Office which summed up the flexibility of principle characteristic of that Department. I was presented with the dangers of a backlash against the British expatriates in Argentina, problems about getting support in the UN Security Council, the lack of reliance we could place on the European Community or the United States, the risk of the Soviets becoming involved, the disadvantage of being looked at as a colonial power. All the considerations were fair enough. But when you are at war you cannot allow the difficulties to dominate your thinking: you have to set out with an iron will to overcome them. And anyway what was the alternative? That a common or garden dictator should rule over the Queen's subjects and prevail by fraud and violence? Not while I was Prime Minister."

"Socialists cry “Power to the people, and raise the clenched fist as they say it. We all know what they really mean—power over people, power to the State.”

"...I always feel ten years younger – despite the jet-lag – when I set foot on American soil: there is something so positive, generous, and open about the people – and everything actually works. I also feel, though, that I have in a sense a share of America."

"Europe was created by history. America was created by philosophy."

“Socialism’s results have ranged between the merely shabby and the truly catastrophic – poverty, strife, oppression and, on the killing fields of communism, the deaths this century of perhaps 100 million people. Against that doctrine was set a contrary, conservative belief in a law-governed liberty. It was this view which triumphed with the crumbling of the Berlin Wall. Since then, the Left has sought rehabilitation by distancing itself from its past.”

"Let me give you my vision: A man’s right to work as he will, to spend what he earns, to own property, to have the state as servant and not as master.”

"I never hugged him, I bombed him." -- on Muammar Gaddafi

"...Conservatives have excellent credentials to speak about human rights. By our efforts, and with precious little help from self-styled liberals, we were largely responsible for securing liberty for a substantial share of the world’s population and defending it for most of the rest."

“Socialists have always spent much of their time seeking new titles for their beliefs, because the old versions so quickly become outdated and discredited.”

"To me, consensus seems to be the process of abandoning all beliefs, principles, values and policies. So it is something in which no one believes and to which no one objects."

“Do you know that one of the great problems of our age is that we are governed by people who care more about feelings than they do about thoughts and ideas.”

“Don't follow the crowd, let the crowd follow you.”

“Let us never forget this fundamental truth:  The State has no source of money other than the money people themselves earn.”

"In the end, more than freedom, they wanted security. They wanted a comfortable life, and they lost it all – security, comfort, and freedom. When the Athenians finally wanted not to give to society but for society to give to them, when the freedom they wished for most was freedom from responsibility, then Athens ceased to be free and was never free again.”

   "...I have had time and cause to reflect on what made him a great president. Ronald Reagan knew his own mind. He had firm principles - and, I believe, right ones. He expounded them clearly, he acted upon them decisively. When the world threw problems at the White House, he was not baffled, or disorientated, or overwhelmed. He knew almost instinctively what to do. When his aides were preparing option papers for his decision, they were able to cut out entire rafts of proposals that they knew 'the Old Man' would never wear. When his allies came under Soviet or domestic pressure, they could look confidently to Washington for firm leadership. And when his enemies tested American resolve, they soon discovered that his resolve was firm and unyielding. Yet his ideas, though clear, were never simplistic. He saw the many sides of truth. Yes, he warned that the Soviet Union had an insatiable drive for military power and territorial expansion; but he also sensed it was being eaten away by systemic failures impossible to reform. Yes, he did not shrink from denouncing Moscow's 'evil empire'. But he realized that a man of goodwill might nonetheless emerge from within its dark corridors. So the President resisted Soviet expansion and pressed down on Soviet weakness at every point until the day came when communism began to collapse beneath the combined weight of these pressures and its own failures. And when a man of goodwill did emerge from the ruins, President Reagan stepped forward to shake his hand and to offer sincere cooperation. Nothing was more typical of Ronald Reagan than that large-hearted magnanimity - and nothing was more American."

"Europe is not the creation of the Treaty of Rome. Nor is the European idea the property of any group or institution. We British are as much heirs to the legacy of European culture as any other nation. Our links to the rest of Europe, the continent of Europe, have been the dominant factor in our history. For three hundred years, we were part of the Roman Empire and our maps still trace the straight lines of the roads the Romans built. Our ancestors—Celts, Saxons, Danes—came from the Continent. Our nation was—in that favourite Community word—"restructured" under the Norman and Angevin rule in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. This year, we celebrate the three hundredth anniversary of the glorious revolution in which the British crown passed to Prince William of Orange and Queen Mary . Visit the great churches and cathedrals of Britain, read our literature and listen to our language: all bear witness to the cultural riches which we have drawn from Europe and other Europeans from us. We in Britain are rightly proud of the way in which, since Magna Carta in the year 1215, we have pioneered and developed representative institutions to stand as bastions of freedom. And proud too of the way in which for centuries Britain was a home for people from the rest of Europe who sought sanctuary from tyranny. But we know that without the European legacy of political ideas we could not have achieved as much as we did. From classical and mediaeval thought we have borrowed that concept of the rule of law which marks out a civilised society from barbarism. And on that idea of Christendom, to which the Rector referred—Christendom for long synonymous with Europe—with its recognition of the unique and spiritual nature of the individual, on that idea, we still base our belief in personal liberty and other human rights. Too often, the history of Europe is described as a series of interminable wars and quarrels. Yet from our perspective today surely what strikes us most is our common experience. For instance, the story of how Europeans explored and colonised—and yes, without apology—civilised much of the world is an extraordinary tale of talent, skill and courage. But we British have in a very special way contributed to Europe. Over the centuries we have fought to prevent Europe from falling under the dominance of a single power. We have fought and we have died for her freedom."

"All corporatism – even when practised in societies where hard work, enterprise and cooperation are as highly valued as in Korea – encourages inflexibility, discourages individual accountability, and risks magnifying errors by concealing them.”

“It used to be about trying to do something. Now it's about trying to be someone.”

“No-one would remember the Good Samaritan if he'd only had good intentions; he had money as well.”  

“Watch your thoughts, for they will become actions. Watch your actions, for they'll become... habits. Watch your habits for they will forge your character. Watch your character, for it will make your destiny.”  

“The facts of life are conservative.”

(Upon England's loss to Germany in the 1990 FIFA World Cup Semi-final)
Kenneth Clarke: "Isn't it terrible about losing to the Germans at our national sport?"
Margaret Thatcher: "They might have beaten us at our national sport, but we managed to beat them at their national sport twice in the 20th century."

“Left-wing zealots have often been prepared to ride roughshod over due process and basic considerations of fairness when they think they can get away with it. For them the ends always seems to justify the means. That is precisely how their predecessors came to create the gulag.”

“There can be no liberty unless there is economic liberty.”

“They’re casting their problem on society. And, you know, there is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first. It’s our duty to look after ourselves and then, also to look after our neighbour.”

"Communist regimes were not some unfortunate aberration, some historical deviation from a socialist ideal. They were the ultimate expression, unconstrained by democratic and electoral pressures, of what socialism is all about. … In short, the state [is] everything and the individual nothing.”

“Of course it’s the same old story. Truth usually is the same old story.”

“I owe nothing to Women’s Lib.”

"I was, however, wrong on one important matter. Of course, I understood that some of my Cabinet colleagues … were more to the left, some more to the right. But I believed that they had generally become as convinced of the rightness of the basic principles as I had. Orthodox finance, low levels of regulation and taxation, a minimal bureaucracy, strong defence, a willingness to stand up for British interests wherever and whenever threatened — I did not believe that I had to open windows into men's souls on these matters. The arguments for them seemed to me to have been won. I now know that such arguments are never finally won."

"People think that at the top there isn't much room. They tend to think of it as an Everest. My message is that there is tons of room at the top."

“Pennies don’t fall from heaven, they have to be earned here on earth."

“Good Conservatives always pay their bills. And on time. Not like the Socialists who run up other people’s bills.”

“It is not the creation of wealth that is wrong, but the love of money for its own sake.”

“Many of our troubles are due to the fact that our people turn to politicians for everything.”

"If you lead a country like Britain, a strong country, a country which has taken a lead in world affairs in good times and in bad, a country that is always reliable, then you have to have a touch of iron about you."

"Standing in the middle of the road is very dangerous; you get knocked down by the traffic from both sides."

“There is no such thing as an entitlement unless someone has first met an obligation.”

“When all the objectives of government include the achievement of equality – other than equality before the law – that government poses a threat to liberty.”

 

“Marxists get up early to further their cause. We must get up even earlier to defend our freedom.”

"Being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren't."

“Constitutions have to be written on hearts, not just paper.”

 

"With all due respect to the drafters of the American Declaration of Independence, all men (and women) are not created equal, at least in regard to their characters, abilities and aptitudes. And if they were, their family and cultural backgrounds - not to mention the effect of mere chance - would soon change that. On one thing, nature and nurture agree: we are all different. If this is unjust, then life is unjust. But, though one hears this expression - usually in the form of the complaint that 'life is unfair' - it really means nothing. In the same vein, someone once said to Voltaire, 'Life is hard.' To which is replied: 'Compared with what?'" When all the objectives of government include the achievement of equality - other than equality before the law - that government poses a threat to liberty."

"When Abraham Lincoln spoke in his famous Gettysburg speech of 1863 of "government of the people, by the people, and for the people", he gave the world a neat definition of democracy which has since been widely and enthusiastically adopted. But what he enunciated as a form of government was not in itself especially Christian, for nowhere in the Bible is the word democracy mentioned. Ideally, when Christians meet, as Christians, to take counsel together their purpose is not (or should not be) to ascertain what is the mind of the majority but what is the mind of the Holy Spirit—something which may be quite different. Nevertheless I am an enthusiast for democracy. And I take that position, not because I believe majority opinion is inevitably right or true—indeed no majority can take away God-given human rights—but because I believe it most effectively safeguards the value of the individual, and, more than any other system, restrains the abuse of power by the few. And that is a Christian concept."....... 

 

"My job is to stop Britain from going Red.”

She did her job in her time and we're the better for it. Which is why no one from the previous petty leftist administration was at the Lady's funeral. They were too busy mourning at Hugo Chavez' funeral. Just as well--they're small and unworthy anyway.

 

Sec. Schulz and Sec. Baker ably conveyed the love and admiration of our nation for the lady.

Churchill's job was to stop Nazism.

Lady Thatcher's job was to stop Communism. 

 

The job of British leaders today must be to stop Islamism, another radical foreign collectivist and supremacist ideology.

 

And they are failing at their job.

Neville Chamberlain: "How horrible, fantastic, incredible it is that we should be digging trenches and trying on gas-masks here because of a quarrel in a far away country between people of whom we know nothing."
Teresa May visits the far away country of Tipton, West Midlands, England

 

Liawatha's Gangster Government

They're All  Bureaucrat Protection Agencies



“The Marines made us yell ‘Geronimo’ when we jumped out of planes and that didn’t offend me either.”
--Code Talker Thomas Begay

Fake Indian Elizabeth Warren hid behind real Indians to get an Affirmative Action slot she didn't deserve, and by pretending President Trump was insulting Indians and not her, she's hiding behind real Indians again. She just can't stop herself.

Her pet agency, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, is out of control, too.

If the Perma-Blob Bureaucrats are correct, the Bureau Directors could just keep retiring and naming their own replacements forever, free of any political accountability to the voters whatsoever.

Via Don Surber: "A U.S. District Court judge in Washington on Tuesday handed a big victory to President Donald Trump, ruling in favor of the administration in its bid to install White House budget director Mick Mulvaney as acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau."....... 

$mells Like a $oros $tunt: ...Lawyers for Leandra English Refuse to Disclose Where Lawsuit Money Coming From

Iain Murray: "Yet whoever ends up as Acting Director, the embarrassing and disruptive fiasco illustrates how Dodd-Frank’s attempt to create an all-powerful independent executive agency flouts constitutional norms. The Constitution vests the power to execute the laws and appoint high-level officials in the President, not in bureaucrats. The Constitution vests the power to allocate taxpayer money in the Congress, not the Federal Reserve.
The Constitution was specifically designed to do all this for very good reasons. A government official who lacks the checks and balances of accountability is likely to abuse power. So it proved with the CFPB.

Director Cordray, for instance, abused the due process rights of a New Jersey-based mortgage processing firm, PHH Corporation. His CFPB abruptly changed the long-standing interpretation of a rule to do with reinsuring mortgage products, applied that retrospectively to PHH (and others), and then fined the company millions of dollars for infringing a rule it did not know would be changed. The CFPB appealed the decision of its own Administrative Law Judge that PHH should be fined to none other than … Director Cordray himself! Cordray then upped the fine by many more millions.".......

IBD, 2015: "Extortion: The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is diverting potentially millions of dollars in settlement payments for alleged victims of lending bias to a slush fund for poverty groups tied to the Democratic Party. We've seen this before at the Justice Department, which Congress earlier this year scolded for "shortchanging" alleged victims of Bank of America and Citibank the same way. Justice funneled at least $150 million into a slush fund for Democratic interests, unconstitutionally avoiding Congress. Now, a little-noticed item on the CFPB's website reveals the powerful new agency is launching its own scheme to provide backdoor funding for nonprofit urban groups politically aligned with Democrats. The CFPB plans to create a so-called Civil Penalty Fund from its own shakedown operations targeting financial institutions. Through ramped-up (and trumped-up) anti-discrimination lawsuits and investigations, the agency will bankroll some 60 liberal nonprofits, many of whom are radical Acorn-style pressure groups. It says these organizations will provide "financial coaching" for low-income homebuyers, as well as "housing and social services." But their activities are more political than charitable.".......

This Crime Syndicate Bureau the brainchild of Sen. Fauxcahantas Warren, and she was a Special Advisor there.

The Bureau should investigate her for defrauding the academic consumers at Harvard, telling them she was a Cherokee just to get a high-paying job:

Forked Tongue/ High Cheekbones Productions presents...

                   99andMe--Senate Genetic Testing Service

Experience your own Dances-With-Wolf Blitzer-ancestry in a whole 'nutha' way!


"I believe my Native American ancestry added important diversity to Harvard Law.
And Harvard Law added $350 thousand to the diversity
of my bank account...just for teaching one class!"

"Find out which Affirmative Action payout your Senator qualifies for at 99andMe!"

"What you mean 'we', White Privilege?"

....................................

Authentic American Indian Heroes

Corporal Henry Bahe, Jr., left, and Pvt. First Class George H. Kirk
Navajo code talkers Marine Signal Unit, Pacific Theater

Real 

Rest in Peace, Sarge

Flags lowered across state for Fort Carson Green Beret killed in Afghanistan

Fox 31:

"COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — Flags were lowered around Colorado to honor a Green Beret from Fort Carson killed in Afghanistan earlier this month.
A funeral service is being held for 33-year-old Sgt. 1st Class Stephen B. Cribben on Tuesday morning in Colorado Springs followed by a procession to Fort Logan National Cemetery in Denver.
Cribben was assigned to the 2nd Battalion of the 10th Special Forces Group. The Pentagon said he died Nov. 4 after being wounded in combat in the eastern Logar province.
Cribben received numerous awards during his career, including two Bronze Star Medals and the Purple Heart.
Cribben lived with his wife Shelly and two sons in Colorado Springs. He is also survived by his parents.".......

He joined right after Sept. 11. Of course he did:

"The Royal High School graduate joined the military soon after graduating. He was in Afghanistan to teach locals how to better defend themselves.

"He's what we would call a sheep dog. He's there to protect. He's there to watch over the flock and to help. He loved teaching," Joe Cribben said.

Their son was married with two sons of his own, ages 5 and 3.

"He has both the compassionate side and the loving side and he's got the warrior side. I was amazed that he could meld those two," his father said.

The Cribbens said their son's plan was to serve 20 years in the U.S. Army, then retire and pursue an ROTC career at a university to get his college education. The family received calls from the Army about arrangements to bring their son home.

They, along with their son's widow, leave tomorrow for the East Coast to receive his body for burial.

"I keep saying this and I truly believe it. His heart was bigger than the nation he served and loved and protected," Leslie Cribben said.".......


Honor

Of Wild Dogs and Owls: On Wartime Footing

"He Fights"

by Evan Sayet:

"My Leftist friends (as well as many ardent #NeverTrumpers) constantly ask me if I’m not bothered by Donald Trump’s lack of decorum.  They ask if I don’t think his tweets are “beneath the dignity of the office.”  Here’s my answer:

We Right-thinking people have tried dignity. There could not have been a man of more quiet dignity than George W. Bush as he suffered the outrageous lies and politically motivated hatreds that undermined his presidency [ I believe the phrase was "Chimpy McHitlerBurton"-ed.]. We tried statesmanship. Could there be another human being on this earth who so desperately prized “collegiality” as John McCain?  We tried propriety – has there been a nicer human being ever than Mitt Romney?  And the results were always the same.

This is because, while we were playing by the rules of dignity, collegiality and propriety, the Left has been, for the past 60 years, engaged in a knife fight where the only rules are those of Saul Alinsky and the Chicago mob.

I don’t find anything “dignified,” “collegial” or “proper” about Barack Obama’s lying about what went down on the streets of Ferguson in order to ramp up racial hatreds because racial hatreds serve the Democratic Party. I don’t see anything “dignified” in lying about the deaths of four Americans in Benghazi and imprisoning an innocent filmmaker to cover your tracks. I don’t see anything “statesman-like” in weaponizing the IRS to be used to destroy your political opponents and any dissent. Yes, Obama was “articulate” and “polished” but in no way was he in the least bit “dignified,” “collegial” or "proper".

The Left has been engaged in a war against America since the rise of the Children of the ‘60s.   To them, it has been an all-out war where nothing is held sacred and nothing is seen as beyond the pale. It has been a war they’ve fought with violence, the threat of violence, demagoguery and lies from day one – the violent take-over of the universities – till today.

The problem is that, through these years, the Left has been the only side fighting this war.  While the Left has been taking a knife to anyone who stands in their way, the Right has continued to act with dignity, collegiality and propriety.

With Donald Trump, this all has come to an end.  Donald Trump is America’s first wartime president in the Culture War.

During wartime, things like “dignity” and “collegiality” simply aren’t the most essential qualities one looks for in their warriors. Ulysses Grant was a drunk whose behavior in peacetime might well have seen him drummed out of the Army for conduct unbecoming. Had Abraham Lincoln applied the peacetime rules of propriety and booted Grant, the Democrats might well still be holding their slaves today. Lincoln rightly recognized that, “I cannot spare this man. He fights.”

General George Patton was a vulgar-talking, son-of-a-bitch. In peacetime, this might have seen him stripped of rank. But, had Franklin Roosevelt applied the normal rules of decorum, then Hitler and the Socialists would barely be five decades into their thousand-year Reich. 

Trump is fighting. And what’s particularly delicious is that, like Patton standing over the battlefield as his tanks obliterated Rommel’s, he’s shouting, “You magnificent bastards, I read your book!” That is just the icing on the cake, but it’s wonderful to see that not only is Trump fighting, he’s defeating the Left using their own tactics.

That book is Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals – a book so essential to the Liberals’ war against America that it is and was the playbook for the entire Obama administration and the subject of Hillary Clinton’s senior thesis [He was her close, personal mentor long before Harry Byrd--ed.]. It is a book of such pure evil, that, just as the rest of us would dedicate our book to those we most love or those to whom we are most indebted, Alinsky dedicated his book to Lucifer.

Trump’s tweets may seem rash and unconsidered but, in reality, he is doing exactly what Alinsky suggested his followers do. 

First, instead of going after “the fake media” – and they are so fake that they have literally gotten every single significant story of the past 60 years not just wrong, but diametrically opposed to the truth, from the Tet Offensive to Benghazi, to what really happened on the streets of Ferguson, Missouri – Trump isolated CNN.  He made it personal.  Then, just as Alinsky suggests, he employs ridicule which Alinsky described as “the most powerful weapon of all.”

Everyone gets that it’s not just CNN – in fact, in a world where Al Sharpton and Rachel Maddow, Paul Krugman and Nicholas Kristof are people of influence and whose “reporting” is in no way significantly different than CNN’s – CNN is just a piker.

Most importantly, Trump’s tweets have put CNN in an untenable and unwinnable position.  With Trump’s ability to go around them, they cannot simply stand pat.  They need to respond.  This leaves them with only two choices.

They can either “go high” (as Hillary would disingenuously declare of herself and the fake news would disingenuously report as the truth) and begin to honestly and accurately report the news or they can double-down on their usual tactics and hope to defeat Trump with twice their usual hysteria and demagoguery.

The problem for CNN (et al.) with the former is that, if they were to start honestly reporting the news, that would be the end of the Democratic Party they serve. It is nothing but the incessant use of fake news (read: propaganda) that keeps the Left alive.

Imagine, for example, if CNN had honestly and accurately reported then-candidate Barack Obama’s close ties to foreign terrorists (Rashid Khalidi), domestic terrorists (William Ayers), the mafia (Tony Rezko) or the true evils of his spiritual mentor, Jeremiah Wright’s, church.

Imagine if they had honestly and accurately conveyed the evils of the Obama administration’s weaponizing of the IRS to be used against their political opponents or his running of guns to the Mexican cartels or the truth about the murder of Ambassador Christopher Stevens and the Obama administration’s cover-up.

This makes “going high” a non-starter for CNN.  This leaves them no other option but to ratchet up the fake news, conjuring up the next “nothing burger” and devoting 24 hours a day to hysterical rants about how it’s “worse than Nixon.”

This, obviously, is what CNN has chosen to do.  The problem is that, as they become more and more hysterical, they become more and more obvious.  Each new effort at even faker news than before and faker “outrage” only makes that much more clear to any objective observer that Trump is and always has been right about the fake news media.

And, by causing their hysteria, Trump has forced them into numerous, highly embarrassing and discrediting mistakes.   Thus, in their desperation, they have lowered their standards even further and run with articles so clearly fake that, even with the liberal (lower case “l”) libel laws protecting the media, they’ve had to wholly retract and erase their stories repeatedly.

Their flailing at Trump has even seen them cross the line into criminality, with CNN using their vast corporate fortune to hunt down a private citizen for having made fun of them in an Internet meme. This threat to “dox” – release of personal information to encourage co-ideologists to visit violence upon him and his family -- a political satirist was chilling in that it clearly wasn’t meant just for him. If it were, there would have been no reason for CNN to have made their “deal” with him public.
Instead, CNN – playing by “Chicago Rules” – was sending a message to any and all: dissent will not be tolerated.

This heavy-handed and hysterical response to a joke on the Internet has backfired on CNN, giving rise to only more righteous ridicule.

So, to my friends on the Left – and the #NeverTrumpers as well -- do I wish we lived in a time when our president could be “collegial” and “dignified” and “proper”?  Of course I do.   These aren’t those times.  This is war.  And it’s a war that the Left has been fighting  without opposition for the past 50 years.

So, say anything you want about this president – I get it, he can be vulgar, he can be crude, he can be undignified at times.

I don’t care. I can’t spare this man.

He fights.".......

Votes For Me and My Friends!

More Equal Justice Under Law!

Via Ace:

Bill Kristol ‏Verified account @BillKristol Nov 22

 

It's obviously time for a 28th Amendment to the Constitution: "Until we can figure out what the hell is going on, only Americans of the female sex shall be eligible to serve in the Congress of the United States."

First, it's unfair because the womanly Kristol could still run for Congress.

But it's remarkable how as soon a fella becomes a Democrat, he starts thinking about ways to rig elections. Poll taxes, literacy tests and grandfather clauses. It's genetic.

Even the Democrats' much-vaunted "inclusion" of voting rights for foreign nationals, ineligible felons, illegal aliens, housepets, houseplants, the dearly departed, fictional characters and imaginary friends is really a kind of voter suppression disguised as inclusion.

It is meant to cancel out the legitimate votes of citizens by replacing them with phony voters, "people who will vote the way we want". Just like Kristol wants.

Lester Maddox Verified account @ LesterMaddox 1963

"Until we can figure out what the hell is going on, only Americans of the right persuasion shall be eligible to serve in the Congress of the United States."

Lester couldn't have said it any better, Billie.

What If Mueller Investigated Flynn Like Comey Investigated Hillary?

* It would be called a "matter", not an investigation.
* Other word games would be played with the statutes to find Flynn non-culpable.
* Mueller's deputy would have received $1,600,000.00 from Flynn associates like McCabe received from Clinton associates.
*Flynn's subordinates would all be given immunity--not to make them talk, but to ensure they didn't.
*Flynn would not be placed under oath.
* Mueller would have already written Flynn's exoneration letter last month without even interviewing him.

Equal Justice Under Law

When No One Is Looking: Roy Moore--Integrity Then, Integrity Now

Capt. Moore in 'Nam


CPT Roy Moore take command of the 188th MP Company, 504th MP Battalion, 16th MP Group, 18th MP Brigade, from CPT Robert L. McClendon in Vietnam, 1971. Left to right, unidentified, CPT Roy Moore, 1SG Paul Howard (with guidon), CPT McClendon.

"I served with Roy Moore in Vietnam in 1971-72, where I knew him to be an altogether honorable, decent, respectable, and patriotic commander and soldier. I have had no contact with him since.He and I were captains and company commanders in the 504th Military Police Battalion, stationed at the base camp called Camp Land, just west of Danang.
I knew him well in my first four months in-country before I was re-assigned within the battalion to another location. During that time, I grew to admire him.
I am Bill Staehle, residing in Asbury Park, New Jersey. I am an attorney, practicing law continuously for 42-years. I began my career as an assistant United States attorney, and for the past 32 years, I have been the managing trial lawyer for the staff counsel office of a major insurance company.
Allow me to relate to you one experience involving Roy that impressed me.
While in Vietnam, there came a time when another officer invited Roy and me to go with him into town after duty hours for a couple of beers. That officer had just returned from an assignment in Quang Tri Province north of Danang, and we were interested to learn of his experiences.

I had not met him before, and I don’t believe Roy had either. On other occasions with other officers, we would go to the officers’ club at the air force base, but on this occasion, he told us he knew of another place in town.
When we arrived at the place and went inside, it was clear to Roy and me that he had taken us to a brothel. That officer appeared to know people there, as he was greeted by one or two young women in provocative attire.
The place was plush. There were other American servicemen there. Alcohol was being served. There were plenty of very attractive young women clearly eager for an intimate time.
In less time than it took any of the women to approach us, Roy turned to me and said words to this effect, “We shouldn’t be here. I am leaving.”
We told the officer who had brought us that we wanted to leave. He told us to take his jeep and that he could get a ride back later, which he did. Roy and I drove back to camp together.
That evening, if I didn’t know it before, I knew then that with Roy Moore I was in the company of a man of great self-control, discipline, honor, and integrity. While there were other actions by Roy that reinforced my belief in him, that was the most telling.
I reject what are obvious, politically motivated allegations against Roy of inappropriate dating behavior. What I saw, felt and knew about him in Vietnam stands in stark contrast to those allegations.
I sincerely doubt that Roy’s character had changed fundamentally and dramatically in a few short years later. He deserves, in my view, to be heard on the issues that are important to the people of Alabama and our country.
Roy was a soldier for whom I was willing to put my life on the line in Vietnam if the occasion ever arose. Fortunately, it did not.
I was prepared to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with him then, and I am proud to stand by Roy now."--William E. Staehle, Asbury Park, New Jersey

All Signals Say: They're just blowing smoke.

The reason to support Judge Moore is not because of political considerations. It is because he is a man of character who stands up for our founding principles.

Happy Thanksgiving!

 

 

“I am Squanto. I am known to all those who gather here: English, Pokanoket, Nemasket, even a few of my own surviving Patuxets. I speak to you as a pniese, a man of honor. I will never leave this land. I give thanks for all of our people to the Creator of All Things. I think of how our two people have become entwined. I feel hope for our children in the seasons to come. With our help, the English have learned enough of hunting and fishing to provide the food for a great feast such as this one--this feast for all our people. Now as we eat together, I give thanks. I have seen more in my life than most men, whether Indian or English. I have seen both death and life come to this land that gives itself to English and Indian alike. I pray that there will be many more such days to give thanks together in the years that follow.”--Joseph Bruchac, Squanto's Journey: The Story of the First Thanksgiving



"Mankind is never truly thankful for the benefits of life until they have experienced the want of them."--an Army surgeon near Valley Forge, first official Thanksgiving day, 1789


Canadian troops attend a Thanksgiving service
in the bombed-out Cambrai Cathedral
France, October 1918

Ira Stoll:

"When was the first Thanksgiving? Most of us think of the Pilgrims at Plymouth in 1621. But if the question is about the first national Thanksgiving holiday, the answer is that the tradition began at a lesser-known moment in 1777 in York, Pa.

In July 1776, the American colonists declared independence from Britain. The months that followed were so bleak that there was not much to give thanks for. The Journals of the Continental Congress record no Thanksgiving in that year, only two days of "solemn fasting" and prayer.

For much of 1777, the situation was not much better. British troops controlled New York City. The Americans lost the strategic stronghold of Fort Ticonderoga, in upstate New York, to the British in July. In Delaware, on Sept. 11, troops led by Gen. George Washington lost the Battle of Brandywine, in which 200 Americans were killed, 500 wounded and 400 captured. In Pennsylvania, early in the morning of Sept. 21, another 300 American soldiers were killed or wounded and 100 captured in a British surprise attack that became known as the Paoli Massacre.

Philadelphia, America's largest city, fell on Sept. 26. Congress, which had been meeting there, fled briefly to Lancaster, Pa., and then to York, a hundred miles west of Philadelphia. One delegate to Congress, John Adams of Massachusetts, wrote in his diary, "The prospect is chilling, on every Side: Gloomy, dark, melancholy, and dispiriting."

His cousin, Samuel Adams, gave the other delegates -- their number had dwindled to a mere 20 from the 56 who had signed the Declaration of Independence -- a talk of encouragement. He predicted, "Good tidings will soon arrive. We shall never be abandoned by Heaven while we act worthy of its aid and protection.

He turned out to have been correct, at least about the good tidings. On Oct. 31, a messenger arrived with news of the American victory at the Battle of Saratoga. The American general, Horatio Gates, had accepted the surrender of 5,800 British soldiers, and with them 27 pieces of artillery and thousands of pieces of small arms and ammunition.

Saratoga turned the tide of the war -- news of the victory was decisive in bringing France into a full alliance with America. Congress responded to the event by appointing a committee of three that included Samuel Adams, Richard Henry Lee of Virginia and Daniel Roberdeau of Pennsylvania, to draft a report and resolution. The report, adopted Nov. 1, declared Thursday, Dec. 18, as "a day of Thanksgiving" to God, so that "with one heart and one voice the good people may express the grateful feelings of their hearts, and consecrate themselves to the service of their divine benefactor."

It was the first of many Thanksgivings ordered up by Samuel Adams. Though the holidays were almost always in November or December, the exact dates varied. (Congress didn't fix Thanksgiving on the fourth Thursday in November until 1941.)

In 1778, a Thanksgiving resolution drafted by Adams was approved by Congress on Nov. 3, setting aside Wednesday, Dec. 30, as a day of public thanksgiving and praise, "It having pleased Almighty God through the Course of the present year, to bestow great and manifold Mercies on the People of these United States."

After the Revolution, Adams, who was eventually elected governor of Massachusetts, maintained the practice of declaring these holidays. In October of 1795, the 73-year-old governor proclaimed Thursday, Nov. 19, as "a day of Public Thanksgiving to God," recommending that prayer be offered that God "would graciously be pleased to put an end to all Tyranny and Usurpation, that the People who are under the Yoke of Oppression, may be made free; and that the Nations who are contending for freedom may still be secured by His Almighty Aid."

A year later, Gov. Adams offered a similar Thanksgiving proclamation, declaring Thursday, Dec. 15, 1796, as "a Day of Public Thanksgiving and Praise to Our Divine Benefactor." He recommended "earnest Supplication to God" that "every Nation and Society of Men may be inspired with the knowledge and feeling of their natural and just rights" and "That Tyranny and Usurpation may everywhere come to an end."

These statements were greeted with cynicism and derision by some of Adams's younger political opponents, who saw them as archaic. One of them, Christopher Gore, wrote a friend that it would be an occasion for a real day of thanksgiving when Adams finally retired.

It turned out, though, that the ideas of thanking God for America's blessings -- and of praying for the spread of freedom everywhere -- would long outlast Adams's career. The concepts still meet with skepticism from time to time. But they are reason enough to pause during tomorrow's football game or family feast and raise a glass to the Founding Father who began our Thanksgiving tradition.".......

Rush:

"On August 1, 1620, the Mayflower set sail. It carried a total of 102 passengers, including forty Pilgrims led by William Bradford. On the journey, Bradford set up an agreement, a contract, that established just and equal laws for all members of the new community, irrespective of their religious beliefs. Where did the revolutionary ideas expressed in the Mayflower Compact come from? From the Bible," and this is what's not taught. This is what's left out. "The Pilgrims were a people completely steeped in the lessons of the Old and New Testaments. They looked to the ancient Israelites for their example. And, because of the biblical precedents set forth in Scripture, they never doubted that their experiment would work. But this was no pleasure cruise, friends. The journey to the New World was a long and arduous one. And when the Pilgrims landed in New England in November, they found, according to Bradford's detailed journal, a cold, barren, desolate wilderness. There were no friends to greet them, he wrote. There were no houses to shelter them. There were no inns where they could refresh themselves. And the sacrifice they had made for freedom was just beginning. During the first winter, half the Pilgrims -- including Bradford's own wife -- died of either starvation, sickness, or exposure.

"When spring finally came, Indians taught the settlers how to plant corn, fish for cod and skin beavers for coats. Life improved for the Pilgrims, but they did not yet prosper! This is important to understand because this is where modern American history lessons often end. Thanksgiving is actually explained in some textbooks as a holiday for which the Pilgrims gave thanks to the Indians for saving their lives, rather than as a devout expression of gratitude grounded in the tradition of both the Old and New Testaments. Here is the part that has been omitted: The original contract the Pilgrims had entered into with their merchant-sponsors in London called for everything they produced to go into a common store, and each member of the community was entitled to one common share. All of the land they cleared and the houses they built belong to the community as well." They were collectivists! Now, "Bradford, who had become the new governor of the colony, recognized that this form of collectivism was as costly and destructive to the Pilgrims as that first harsh winter, which had taken so many lives.

"He decided to take bold action. Bradford assigned a plot of land to each family to work and manage, thus turning loose the power of the marketplace. ... Long before Karl Marx was even born, the Pilgrims had discovered and experimented with what could only be described as socialism. And what happened? It didn't work! Surprise, surprise, huh? What Bradford and his community found was that the most creative and industrious people had no incentive to work any harder than anyone else, unless they could utilize the power of personal motivation! But while most of the rest of the world has been experimenting with socialism for well over a hundred years -- trying to refine it, perfect it, and re-invent it -- the Pilgrims decided early on to scrap it permanently. What Bradford wrote about this social experiment should be in every schoolchild's history lesson," every kid gets. "If it were, we might prevent much needless suffering in the future." Here's what he wrote: "'The experience that we had in this common course and condition, tried sundry years...that by taking away property, and bringing community into a common wealth, would make them happy and flourishing -- as if they were wiser than God,' Bradford wrote.

"'For this community [so far as it was] was found to breed much confusion and discontent, and retard much employment that would have been to their benefit and comfort. For young men that were most able and fit for labor and service did repine that they should spend their time and strength to work for other men's wives and children without any recompense...that was thought injustice.'" That was thought injustice. "Do you hear what he was saying, ladies and gentlemen? The Pilgrims found that people could not be expected to do their best work without incentive. So what did Bradford's community try next? They unharnessed the power of good old free enterprise by invoking the undergirding capitalistic principle of private property. Every family was assigned its own plot of land to work and permitted to market its own crops and products. And what was the result?" 'This had very good success,' wrote Bradford, "for it made all hands industrious, so as much more corn was planted than otherwise would have been." Bradford doesn't sound like much of a Clintonite, does he? Is it possible that supply-side economics could have existed before the 1980s? ... In no time, the Pilgrims found they had more food than they could eat themselves. ... So they set up trading posts and exchanged goods with the Indians.

"The profits allowed them to pay off their debts to the merchants in London. And the success and prosperity of the Plymouth settlement attracted more Europeans and began what came to be known as the 'Great Puritan Migration.'" Now, aside from this program, have you heard this before? Is this "being taught to children -- and if not, why not? I mean, is there a more important lesson one could derive from the Pilgrim experience than this?" What if Bill and Hillary Clinton had been exposed to these lessons in school? Do you realize what we face in next year's election is the equivalent of people who want to set up these original collectivists communes that didn't work, with nobody having incentive to do anything except get on the government dole somehow because the people running the government want that kind of power. So the Pilgrims decided to thank God for all of their good fortune. And that's Thanksgiving. And read George Washington's first Thanksgiving address and count the number of times God is mentioned and how many times he's thanked. None of this is taught today. It should be. Have a happy Thanksgiving, folks. You deserve it. Do what you can to be happy, and especially do what you can to be thankful, because in this country you have more reasons than you've ever stopped to consider.".......

via Keys History, Jerry Wilkinson:

"French Huguenot Admiral Gaspard de Coligny sent Admiral Jean Ribault to North America. He landed at the mouth of a river they named "Mai" (the St. Johns River of Jacksonville) because they landed in the month of May. Ribault's arrival also provided the first Protestant prayer offered up on North America. The Indians were friendly to Ribault. He then sailed north and established a small settlement near present-day Port Royal, South Carolina and returned to France. At this time, all of the southeastern United States was called Florida.


In 1564 one of Ribault's officers, Rene Laudonniere, was sent back from France with 300 men and four women. They built Fort Caroline six miles up the St. Johns River. Again, the Indians welcomed the returning Frenchmen who survived with the help of Timucuan Indian's grain, fruit and wild game. With this apparent success, Laudonniere called for music and a feast to celebrate their good fortune on June 30, 1564. Of this celebration he wrote: "We sang a psalm of Thanksgiving unto God, beseeching Him that it would please His Grace to continue His accustomed goodness toward us." This was 57 years before the better known Thanksgiving celebration at Plymouth, Massachusetts. Laudonniere retrieved two Spanish sailors thought to have been ship wrecked with Fontaneda from the Indians in 1564.".......

Mark Steyn sets the table:

"No, it's very strange that Europeans don't quite understand what the Thanksgiving holiday is all about. You know, holidays in countries tend to be ancient religious holidays, obviously Christmas and Easter, or ones named for battles, or dead kings or queens, or whatever. And what I like about Thanksgiving is it's very small scale, very modest, very intimate, very American, and absolutely gets to the key of things, which is thanking God for the blessings of this great land. And it's my favorite holiday, and I love it more each year I'm here. ...
I am thankful that Mohamed Atef, a key al-Qa'eda lieutenant blown up in a devastating US raid, has gone off to Paradise to claim his 72 virgins. Paradise must be running quite low on virgins these days. I hope Mr Atef pulled rank on all the other martyrs... I am also thankful I don't live in a cave. That the son of a successful Saudi building contractor, made spectacularly rich by western investment, should have wound up digging himself his own personal hole is in its way a poignant emblem of the Middle East's perverse misunderstanding of modernity. ...
The turkey came from Mexico, but was generally assumed to be a "bird of India" (in French, dinde) everywhere except Britain, where it was named after Turkey because it was similar to a pre-existing bird introduced from Turkey but actually from Guinea, and subsequently re-named the guinea fowl, which was thought to be less confusing than re-naming the new turkey the mexico, though in America there is a sub-species of turkey called the mexicana.
We still have wild turkey over here, in every state except Alaska. Every morning, round about six, a great long line of them waddle out from behind my daughter's playhouse across the lawn and into the woods. The wild gobbler has a lighter build, with a longer neck and a smaller head, and his flesh tastes a lot juicier, which is one reason why the turkey recipe in my local Baptist church's brand new fundraising cookbook begins: "First purchase hunting licence."
Whatever his Mexicali-Turkic-Indian-Guinean appellation, in the Appalachians the turkey was considered such a robust exponent of the American temperament that Benjamin Franklin wanted to make him the young Republic's national emblem. "For my own part I wish the Bald Eagle had not been chosen the Representative of our Country. He is a Bird of bad moral Character," wrote Franklin in 1784. "Besides he is a rank Coward: the little King Bird not bigger than a Sparrow attacks him boldly and drives him out of the District. He is therefore by no means a proper Emblem for the brave and honest Cincinnati of America who have driven all the King birds from our Country."
By contrast, the turkey is "a Bird of Courage, and would not hesitate to attack a Grenadier of the British Guards who should presume to invade his Farm Yard with a Red Coat on".

Mark Steyn : 

"But on this Thanksgiving the rest of the world ought to give thanks to American national sovereignty, too. When something terrible and destructive happens – a tsunami hits Indonesia, an earthquake devastates Pakistan – the United States can project itself anywhere on the planet within hours and start saving lives, setting up hospitals and restoring the water supply.

Aside from Britain and France, the Europeans cannot project power in any meaningful way anywhere. When they sign on to an enterprise they claim to believe in – shoring up Afghanistan's fledgling post-Taliban democracy – most of them send token forces under constrained rules of engagement that prevent them doing anything more than manning the photocopier back at the base.

If America were to follow the Europeans and maintain only shriveled attenuated residual military capacity, the world would very quickly be nastier and bloodier, and far more unstable. It's not just Americans and Iraqis and Afghans who owe a debt of thanks to the U.S. soldier but all the Europeans grown plump and prosperous in a globalized economy guaranteed by the most benign hegemon in history. [...]

Americans should, as always, be thankful this Thanksgiving, but they should also understand just how rare in human history their blessings are.".......

Moravian Blessing
Come, Lord Jesus, our guest to be
And bless these gifts
Bestowed by Thee.
And bless our loved ones everywhere,
And keep them in Your loving care.

 

"This Thanksgiving, in addition to rejoicing in precious time spent with loved ones, let us find ways to serve and encourage each other in both word and deed.  We also offer a special word of thanks for the brave men and women of our Armed Forces, many of whom must celebrate this holiday separated from the ones for whom they are most thankful.  As one people, we seek God's protection, guidance, and wisdom, as we stand humbled by the abundance of our great Nation and the blessings of freedom, family, and faith."

 

Just for the historical record, here are some other contenders for the "First Thanksgiving":

* May, 1541: Spanish explorer Francisco Vasquez de Coronado and 1,500 men celebrated at the Palo Dur Canyon -- located in the modern-day Texas Panhandle -- after their expedition from Mexico City in search of gold. In 1959 the Texas Society Daughters of the American Colonists commemorated the event as the "first Thanksgiving."

* June 30, 1564: French Huguenot colonists celebrated in a settlement near Jacksonville, Florida. This "first Thanksgiving," was later commemorated at the Fort Carolina Memorial on the St. Johns River in eastern Jacksonville. 

* Sept. 8, 1565: St Augustine, Fla.; "This is where Spanish Adm. Pedro Menendez de Aviles came ashore... This is where he, 500 soldiers, 200 sailors, 100 civilian families and artisans, and the Timucuan Indians who occupied the village of Seloy gathered at a makeshift altar and said the first Christian Mass. And afterward, this is where they held the first Thanksgiving feast. The Timucuans brought oysters and giant clams. The Spaniards carried from their ships garbanzo beans, olive oil, bread, pork and wine.

* Winter, 1610: famine caused the deaths of 430 of the 490 settlers. In the spring of 1610, colonists in Jamestown, Virginia, enjoyed a Thanksgiving service after English supply ships arrived with food. This colonial celebration has also been considered the "first Thanksgiving."

Oysters on a Florida beach sounds pretty good right about now. But wherever you are, have a great Thanksgiving with the people you love and/or tolerate.

And pass me a giant clam, please.

Psalm 100:4-5 The Message Bible   

Enter with the password: “Thank you!” Make yourselves at home, talking praise. Thank him. Worship him. For God is sheer beauty, all-generous in love, loyal always and ever.

 

Amen and amen!

Nearly Five Centuries Later--UPDATE:

It just occurred to me that Mark Steyn said: "No, it's very strange that Europeans don't quite understand what the Thanksgiving holiday is all about."

But they once did, at least when they were exploring the Americas. Coronado's men in the Texas Panhandle. French Huguenots on the St. John's River. The English at Jamestown and later Plymouth. Even the Portuguese explorer Cabral held Mass with Indians present in Brazil.

Have the Europeans forgotten something? Have we?

All The President's Mad Bomber Baby-Sitting Neighbors

Mansions of Mansons

Mark Steyn: Degrees of Separation

"The left's glamorization of violence is a cliché because it's real - because all over the western world dweeby, spindly, trustie-fundie varsity youth who couldn't shoot up a liquor store or cut it in M-16 instead get turned on by political violence. As upper-middle-class suburban cheerleader Bernadine Dohrn crowed to a crowd of 400 "activists" about three months after the Manson murders:

Dig it! First they killed those pigs, then they ate dinner in the same room with them, then they even shoved a fork into the pig Tate's stomach! Wild!

The crowd then adopted a fork-style hand gesture as a symbol of solidarity.

Oh, but surely Miss Dohrn was only a misguided child ...pushing thirty. Or a decade older than the young men who liberated Europe two years after she was born.

Miss Dohrn retired a couple of years ago as a professor at Northwestern University School of Law. Her husband is Bill Ayers, mentor to and patron of the 44th President of the United States.

~Speaking of degrees of separation, "the pig Tate" (in Professor Dohrn's words) was the wife of Roman Polanski. The stomach her killers "shoved a fork into" was the belly of a woman two weeks away from giving birth. If one seeks mitigating factors for the full-throated support Hollywood gave Polanski in his subsequent incarnation as child rapist, the loss he suffered that night in 1969 was profound and grievous. One cannot plead the same for the now daily churn from Hollywood's soiled and sagging "casting couch". Polanski was a supposed "father figure" to one of today's biggest directors, Brett Ratner:

Keri Claussen Khalighi was a 17-year-old fashion model from a farm town in Nebraska when she met Brett Ratner and Russell Simmons at a casting call.
Ratner was an up-and-coming music video director and a protege of Simmons, the Def Jam Recordings mogul. They took Khalighi to dinner one night in 1991 at Mr. Chow in New York, and then back to Simmons' apartment to show her a music video they'd been working on.
Quickly, Simmons began making aggressive sexual advances, yanking off her clothes, Khalighi said.
"I looked over at Brett and said 'help me' and I'll never forget the look on his face," she recalled. "In that moment, the realization fell on me that they were in it together."
Khalighi said that Simmons, who was then about twice her age, tried to force her to have intercourse. "I fought it wildly," she said. He eventually relented and coerced her to perform oral sex, she alleged. "I guess I just acquiesced."
Ratner, meanwhile, "just sat there and watched," she said.
Feeling "disgusting," Khalighi said she went to take a shower. Minutes later, she alleged, Simmons walked up behind her in the shower and briefly penetrated her without her consent. She said she jerked away, then he left. "It hurt so much."

She was just seventeen. But at least Roy Moore never called up her mother to ask if he could meet her at the shopping mall for a chocolate malt.".......