Laocoön of Troy Steprock
3 hours ago
We've done this before...
From March 16, 1916, to February 14, 1917, an expeditionary force of more than fourteen thousand regular army troops under the command of Brig. Gen. John J. "Black Jack" Pershing operated in northern Mexico "in pursuit of Villa with the single objective of capturing him and putting a stop to his forays. Another 140,000 regular army and National Guard troops patrolled the vast border between Mexico and the United States to discourage further raids. //
anon-pkys Laocoön of Troy
36 minutes ago
Back in the 1840s the U.S. declared war on Mexico. We had two small armies that attacked, one from the north across the border, and one by sea from Vera Cruz. Our troops, although greatly out numbered kicked A$$ and took names in several battles with the Mexican Army. We conquered and held Mexico City in a battle in which we were outnumbered. Texas Rangers served as Scouts for the Army and as shock troops. They were hated and feared by the Mexicans. To this day the Mexican people have no love for the Texas Rangers. During the 1870s-80s the Texas Rangers guarded much of the border with Mexico. They were not afraid to go into Mexico after Mexican rustlers.
On January 17, 1961, in this farewell address, President Dwight Eisenhower warned against the establishment of a "military-industrial complex."
In a speech of less than 10 minutes, on January 17, 1961, President Dwight Eisenhower delivered his political farewell to the American people on national television from the Oval Office of the White House. Those who expected the military leader and hero of World War II to depart his Presidency with a nostalgic, "old soldier" speech like Gen. Douglas MacArthur's, were surprised at his strong warnings about the dangers of the "military-industrial complex."
As President of the United States for two terms, Eisenhower had slowed the push for increased defense spending despite pressure to build more military equipment during the Cold War’s arms race. Nonetheless, the American military services and the defense industry had expanded a great deal in the 1950s. Eisenhower thought this growth was needed to counter the Soviet Union, but it confounded him. Though he did not say so explicitly, his standing as a military leader helped give him the credibility to stand up to the pressures of this new, powerful interest group. He eventually described it as a necessary evil.
A vital element in keeping the peace is our military establishment. Our arms must be mighty, ready for instant action, so that no potential aggressor may be tempted to risk his own destruction. . . . American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. . . . This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. . . .Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. . . . In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
"Those who wished to stop our cause have tried to take my freedom and, indeed, to take my life," said Trump. "Just a few months ago, in a beautiful Pennsylvania field, an assassin's bullet ripped through my ear."
"I felt then and believe even more so now that my life was saved for a reason: I was saved by God to make America great again," Trump said. //
There was talk in the RedState live blog about whether that moment deepened Trump's faith. It appears that it did. Trump's words in his speech indicate a man who, if he didn't believe before, truly does now.
Moreover, this should be a wake-up moment for a lot of Americans. There is something far bigger than us guiding events. Trump was sworn in today, but God is the one who is truly in charge. We might have elected Trump, but God appointed him. That was made clear when the "millimeter miracle" as Pastor Lorenzo Sewell so eloquently put it during his prayer, happened in Butler. //
redstateuser
21 hours ago
As an American, and even as a Christian, I've always held back from the stated notion or suggestion that God preferred The United States of America, as that seemed in my mind to diminish the humanity of all other people in all other countries who, as my faith informs me, are just as sacred in God's eyes as is any American.
However, I must blend in to my belief the comments I've read over many years from those in other countries who indeed look up to the United States of America and who do so I must believe with no disrespect to themselves, to their fellow citizens, or to their country. I don't think I truly grasp the depth of this. It's not easily evident to me but a slow realization of how the might and intent of a well-functioning United States of America is admired, wanted, and even needed by other peoples around the world, as a force for good and a model for imitation.
So, to the extent that such admiration is actually true, I can allow the idea that God could prefer the size and might of The United States of America to succeed and be deserved of such admiration, and that He would prefer this over other less benevolent political alternatives existing in the world. As long as I don't allow ego to adulterate what I am trying to say, perhaps I can allow this blending to occur in my Christian beliefs.
I've tried to state this well. I hope I have done well enough.
Thank you.
Sarcastic Frog redstateuser
19 hours ago
I can appreciate your struggle with this.
God has a chosen people: Israel.
Having said that, at various times God has "chosen" a person or a nation to do certain things. That doesn't make them "better" than another person or nation; to the contrary, it puts a much greater burden of accountability on that person or nation. Anybody bragging about "preference" doesn't know what they're talking about.
Public Citizen redstateuser
17 hours ago
This nation was founded by Godly and God Fearing Men.
The remarks of Sarcastic Frog are pertinent.
I would add that even Israel has been subject to God's Chastisement from time to time.
The USA, because of its founding and foundational principals has served as God's Chosen Implement from time to time.
It's my belief that even Joe Biden has been one of those implements, serving as a tool to teach a nation straying from its founding principals the consequences of such waywardness.
We now have before us a time to set our collective house in order and return to those principals, including those GODLY PRINCIPALS that made this nation the Great Nation that it has been in the past.
For this final installment in the inauguration series, we talk about the inaugural balls.
On the eve of President Joe Biden’s inauguration, Mark Levin warned, “We’re standing at the precipice and we’re looking into the abyss.”. //
Weeks after Biden took office, Sky News host Cory Bernardi told viewers the only thing worse than Biden’s mental condition is the extent to which the mainstream media covers it up. He said, “Never before has the leader of the Free World been so cognitively compromised. … It’s clear to me at the least that U.S. President Joe Biden is struggling with dementia and is clearly not up to the task he’s been sworn in to do.”. //
America’s return to normalcy arguably began the moment Trump secured victory. From a global perspective, adversaries quickly recognized that a strong, unpredictable, and bold leader—occasionally ruthless—would soon replace the feeble and ineffectual figure currently occupying the White House.
Things will be very different the second time around. Trump’s unfamiliarity with Washington’s inner workings left him unprepared for the injustices he faced during his first campaign and presidency. It’s fair to say he was naive, taking advice from those who sought his failure and placing trust in the wrong people.
Yet, despite relentless attempts by Democrats to destroy him—through impeachments, indictments, and slander—Trump remains standing, stronger and wiser. //
Trump emphasized, “The bottom line is to get the right people. If you put the right individuals and teams at the heads of these massive agencies, you’ll achieve tremendous success. And now, I know these people better than anyone.”. //
We have already begun our climb out of the abyss.
DonnaM
9 hours ago
I'm thinking that a "deal deal" with Greenland and Denmark could be structured like an economic development corporation (EDC). These are nonprofits that work with geographic areas in cities cooperating with businesses to supply plans and services to develop that area. I'm a humble marketer and no expert, but I'd bet that the Trumps have worked with plenty of them. That way we get security and access to resources, kick out the Chinese (mandatory), help Denmark on their issues with Greenland, Greenlanders are part of the EDC representation, run their affairs, improve their economy, yet the Danes keep it as a territory or state. We don't take it on as a US colony or territory, but it's supervised, planned against specified goals. A win all around. //
anon-201n
9 hours ago
This idea of acquiring Greenland at first sounds crazy, but as noted Harry Truman wanted to buy it from Denmark in 1946, at a time when the USSR was beginning to flex its post-war muscles. Greenland has lots of natural resources but also. has a coastline that would open into a northwest passage. Both China (declaring itself an Arctic country!!!) and Russia are eying the Arctic Ocean for its trade routes and natural resources. Greenland has had an uneasy relationship with Denmark over the recent years and is subsidised by Denmark (but also restricted). Trump eyes Greenland as an ally and a trade source and is playing the art of the deal.
Damocles Gordon of Cartoon
9 hours ago
This from Wikipedia:
In 2016, the BBC published a report which stated that the administration of United States President Jimmy Carter (1977–1981) had extensive contact with Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and his entourage in the prelude to the Iranian Revolution of 1979.[1][2] The report was based on "newly declassified US diplomatic cables".[1][2] According to the report, as mentioned by The Guardian, Khomeini "went to great lengths to ensure the Americans would not jeopardise his plans to return to Iran - and even personally wrote to US officials" and assured them not to worry about their interests in Iran, particularly oil.[1][2] According to the report, in turn, Carter and his administration helped Khomeini and made sure that the Imperial Iranian army would not launch a military coup
There are a lot of people here in the USA that do not know that Carter Gave the Ayatollah Khomeini a crap ton of money (read: Millions) and allowed them to take over Iran. The thanks for using our tax money was a bunch of hostages held for over a year.
Look it up people! //
epaddon
9 hours ago
The context of giving away the Panama Canal stemmed from all the 1970s self-flagellation America went through in the wake of Vietnam. The idea of America a force of evil in the world, which gained ascendancy with opposition to the Vietnam War, combined with the rise of "revisionist" scholarship on the Cold War which blamed America, not Stalin for why the Cold War started, and all the trashing of America over getting rid of Marxist regimes in Guatemala and Chile is why Jimmy Carter felt that giving away the Canal would be a way of showing America making amends for all those things they never had to apologize for in the first place.
It didn't help that he not only got the backing RINO Senator Howard Baker, but also the backing of William F. Buckley. Indeed, there was a big "Firing Line" debate between Buckley and Reagan on the Canal and its telling that on Buckley's side was George Will, while Reagan's side had Pat Buchanan. George Will of course now stands exposed as Never-Trumper fake. //
Almost Sane
7 hours ago
Jimmy Carter was a virulent anti-Semite. He hated Israel and did his best to always side with their enemies, even after he was out of office. He was responsible for the ayatollah taking over Iran and responsible for our embassy being overrun and our diplomats taken hostage for over 440 days. Everybody praised him for his Habitat for Humanity project, but failed to read his antisemitic writings long after he was no longer president. //
anon-pabn
9 hours ago
This all may be Trump leveraging the canal to bring to light what China is trying to do with Taiwan. "Go after Taiwan and say goodbye to controlling the Panama Canal." Of course he would refuse to take military action off the board. He is playing 3 dimensional chess while the MSM is playing Candy Crush.
The last few years revealed stark differences in philosophy regarding the role of government in our society. When the level of fear was high, people were more inclined to submit to onerous mandates. They believed restricting freedom was necessary for the common good and saw the government as a benevolent savior. It was terrifying to watch.
Some people want the government to control as much as possible.
This led me to an existential question: What is the point of government? //
“Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our happiness positively by uniting our affections, the latter negatively by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first a patron, the last a punisher.”
Paine described the purpose of government as providing for freedom and security.
“Here then is the origin and rise of government; namely, a mode rendered necessary by the inability of moral virtue to govern the world; here too is the design and end of government, viz. freedom and security.”
Steve Guest @SteveGuest
·
.@ScottJenningsKY: “In the run up to the Persian Gulf War, [Jimmy Carter] wrote letters, to all of our allies, and to Arab States, asking them to abandon their cooperation and coalition with the USA.. if it’s not treasonous, it’s borderline treasonous.” 🔥
11:18 PM · Dec 30, 2024
JENNINGS: In the run-up to the Persian Gulf War, he wrote letters to all of our allies and to Arab states, asking them to abandon their cooperation and coalition with the United States of America. If it's not treasonous, it's borderline treasonous, and so I hear what you're saying about the humanitarianism, but when you're an ex-president, and you have served in that office, I think you have a duty to the United States and only to the United States, and when he did that and other instances, to me, it showed that he cared more about his own legacy than he did about the country, and I think that is wrong. //
Scott Jennings @ScottJenningsKY
·
My thoughts on Jimmy Carter’s legacy last night on @cnn: terrible president, soundly rejected by the American people. Even worse ex-president, whose meddling in US foreign policy & virulent anti-Israel/anti-Semitic views must not be forgotten. Undermined US interests repeatedly.
6:58 AM · Dec 31, 2024
https://x.com/ScottJenningsKY/status/1874062472384307315
Ricardo Dale
4 hours ago
Carter handed us the current terror state that is Iran. Then he called Israel an "apartheid state." He is only partially redeemed by the fact that Joe Biden was worse by a large margin...
it's an opportune time to refresh ourselves on some of the traditions and rituals that occur on the death of the person who wore the illustrious mantle of the leader of the free world.
President Jimmy Carter and Panamanian Chief of Government Omar Torrijos signed the Panama Canal Treaty and Neutrality Treaty on September 7, 1977. This agreement relinquishes American control over the canal by the year 2000 and guarantees its neutrality. On May 4, 1904, Panama granted the United States the right to build and operate the canal and control the five miles of land on either side of the water passage in exchange for annual payments. For the history of the Panama Canal, visit the Library of Congress American Memory section.
Appendix B: Texts of the Panama Canal Treaties with United States Senate Modifications -- Panama
Recently, a few of my virtual pals have inquired about what it’s like to live in South Dakota, with at least a passing interest in considering a major life change. Most are clueless and have never even passed through the state and thus have no idea what it’s like to live here. To many, all they’ve heard about is Mount Rushmore, empty prairieland, the Badlands, and bitter cold winters. Little do they know!
I have compiled my thoughts below from the prospective of informing someone who may wish to move/retire here to give you just a taste of the Sunshine State.
Florida is known as the “Sunshine State” but South Dakota may have claimed it before Florida.
The first South Dakota flag was made in 1909. One side of the state flag was to include a sun and the words “The Sunshine State” according to the South Dakota Secretary of State website. //
The state also has more sun than its neighbors to the east. Multiple weather data websites said the state averages about 213 sunny days. There are about 200 days in Iowa and about 198 sunny days in Minneapolis, Minnesota. North Dakota has about 201 sunny days. //
Thrifty South Dakotans may have led to the loss of the “Sunshine State” nickname.
The two-side flag with the words “The Sunshine State” existed until 1962. Legislators decided that a flag with two distinct sides was too costly to make. It cost residents too much to buy it, so few state flags were flown, according to the S.D. SOS website said.
The flag design was changed in 1963 but “Sunshine State” hung around, apparently.
“In 1992, a measure sponsored by State Rep. Gordon Pederson of Pennington County, South Dakota, changed the wording on the flag to read “The Mount Rushmore State,” the S.D. SOS website said.
Out with the sun, in with the faces of the famous four.
But perhaps known to South Dakotans by 1992, the Florida Legislature had already taken action 22 years prior to officially adopt the nickname “The Sunshine State.”
Statesymbolsusa.org said the Florida lawmakers passed the measure in 1970. That state is also known as the “Peninsula State” for its shape. Florida has on average 273 sunny days.
We should never forget that the Plymouth colony was headed straight for oblivion under a communal, socialist plan but saved itself when it embraced something very different.
In the diary of the colony’s first governor, William Bradford, we can read about the settlers’ initial arrangement: Land was held in common. Crops were brought to a common storehouse and distributed equally. For two years, every person had to work for everybody else (the community), not for themselves as individuals or families. Did they live happily ever after in this socialist utopia?
Hardly. The “common property” approach killed off about half the settlers. Governor Bradford recorded in his diary that everybody was happy to claim their equal share of production, but production only shrank. Slackers showed up late for work in the fields, and the hard workers resented it. It’s called “human nature.”
The disincentives of the socialist scheme bred impoverishment and conflict until, facing starvation and extinction, Bradford altered the system. He divided common property into private plots, and the new owners could produce what they wanted and then keep or trade it freely.
Communal socialist failure was transformed into private property/capitalist success, something that’s happened so often historically it’s almost monotonous. The “people over profits” mentality produced fewer people until profit—earned as a result of one’s care for his own property and his desire for improvement—saved the people.
We have all heard of the Mayflower Compact, the set of laws that all agreed to live by, But it included something else. Before the Pilgrims left Holland, they needed to fund the trip. They found sponsors who would do just that. But their merchant sponsors in London and Holland required that the Pilgrims agree that everything they produced went into a common store, a common bank, and every family would be entitled to one share of the common store.
So, the Pilgrims got down to the business of living life in the New World. They cleared land, and they grew crops. The other part of the story we have heard was of the Pilgrims' first winter. Nearly half of them died of starvation, sickness, and exposure. The group's leader, William Bradford, who later became the governor of the colony, realized early on that the whole "common store" idea was a huge failure. He decided to scrap that portion of the Mayflower Compact and came up with another idea.
American Thinker @AmericanThinker
·
The Pilgrims' Abolition of Socialism (Photo Credit: Jenny A. Brownscombe) William Bradford delivered the Pilgrims from the ills of socialism to a healthy culture of economic freedom based upon individual property rights.
americanthinker.com
The Pilgrims' Abolition of Socialism
5:44 AM · Nov 28, 2024 //
Even though they didn't call it socialism or capitalism back then, the Pilgrims soon figured out that a common bank and collectivism were not going to work. It was only when they implemented the incentive to work and invest themselves in the land that they became prosperous, and it benefitted themselves and the Indians.
Makes you wonder, if we have only heard the "official" story of Thanksgiving for this long, what else have we only heard the "official" story of? //
Jill Savage @Jill_Savage
·
I looked forward to Rush Limbaugh telling us the true story of Thanksgiving every year. Let’s keep it going.
2:33 / 8:22
12:10 PM · Nov 27, 2024
“It was not because it was proposed to establish a new nation, but because it was proposed to establish a nation on new principles, that July 4, 1776, has come to be regarded as one of the greatest days in history,” Coolidge said in his 1926 speech on the 150th Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.
In an op-ed posted to Fox News on Saturday, former Mumford & Sons guitarist Winston Marshall put Trump's historic win into perspective -- including with a bit of humor.
The White House, the Senate, the House, the popular vote, a state legislative and mayoral majority, all on top of the Supreme Court majority... George Clooney retiring from politics and late-night TV hosts like Jimmy Kimmel literally crying on television. It's all too good to be true. //
And already, America has a spring back in her step. Ebullience fills the air. Hope rushes its veins. The land of freedom has embraced those qualities that made it great -- aspiration, entrepreneurship, responsibility. The nation’s eyes are fixed upwards once again. Up to Mars. Up to God. What a pleasure it was to witness history being made, and to see our transatlantic cousins back on their feet. //
Alas, this morning I have walked into a parallel universe. Beneath the heavy clouds of Heathrow, I touched down back in Blighty. You see, my country, Britain, today is what America would be if Kamala had won.
Violent criminals released from prison and replaced by Tweeters and Facebook meme creators. Rioters, let alone if they are a protected minority but given the heavy hand if they are indigenous working classes. Crippling taxes against campaign promises.
Full steam into Net Zero [climate] oblivion while protesting farmers roar tractors down Whitehall. And the hapless relinquishing of the Chagos Islands suggests Starmer’s heart is set on making British self-flagellation as public as possible.
All these decisions make sense if one understands the self-hating anti-human globalist ideology behind them.
Young Americans’ historical and civic illiteracy is a danger to the Republic, and it cannot be allowed to continue. //
Trump created the commission the day before Election Day in 2020 with the purpose of “[establishing] a clear historical record of an exceptional Nation dedicated to the ideas and ideals of its founding.” Its goal was to provide a much-needed corrective to anti-American propaganda masquerading as history such as the “1619 Project,” whose “radicalized view of American history lacks perspective, obscures virtues, twists motives, ignores or distorts facts, and magnifies flaws, resulting in the truth being concealed and history disfigured.” The commission’s report, published two days before Trump left office, sketched out a basic curriculum that balanced American exceptionalism as reflected in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution with the darker aspects of our history, such as slavery and Jim Crow.
[Abraham Lincoln] helped fell trees to build a large river raft to carry farm goods down a local river and then the treacherous Mississippi to New Orleans. There, they took the raft apart and sold the logs to build houses in the first bustling big city the future president had ever seen.
Lincoln then walked the nearly 800 miles back to central Illinois. //
The 1860 presidential election has always seemed like a political presidential watershed to me. //
That was the first national confrontation between the two major parties that have shaped American politics ever since and endure today. That's because their ideologies and platforms have been – shall we say – malleable, adapting adeptly to society's changing times, interests, and priorities and starving third parties of lasting issues.
The Republican Party was created in Wisconsin in 1854 around the dominant issue of the day, slavery. In its first presidential contest, the anti-slavery GOP carried the day with Abraham Lincoln as nominee. //
When slavery split Democrats into northern and southern wings in 1860, that election became a four-way race. The northern Democrat was old friend Illinois Sen. Stephen Douglas, who fared the worst.
There were 33 states then. Douglas won one of them, Arkansas. Lincoln needed 152 electoral votes. He got 180 from 18 states with only 39.7 percent of the splintered popular vote.
Welcome to the White House, Mr. President. Until 1933, Inauguration Days back then were in March. By March of 1861, seven states had seceded. Five weeks later, Confederates started the Civil War in South Carolina.
In 1863, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing all enslaved people in the South.
As an attempt to begin national healing, for his 1864 reelection, Lincoln chose as his vice-presidential running mate a southern Democrat, Sen. Andrew Johnson of Tennessee.
That’s the only time a U.S. political party has nominated a bipartisan national ticket. It worked for the election. But not so well after, when GOP Congress met Democrat president. Post-presidency, Johnson became the only president to later serve in the Senate.
Lincoln’s second inauguration came outside the Capitol with John Wilkes Booth reportedly watching from nearby. Like much of what the self-educated Lincoln wrote, the speech was full of humanity, grace, and humility, and far shorter than today's wordy promise agendas salted with calculated applause lines:
With malice toward none with charity for all with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right let us strive on to finish the work we are in to bind up the nation's wounds…
The ensuing celebration lacked Lincoln’s favorite food, chicken fricassee. But the 250-foot-long buffet table was laden with veal, venison, quail, oyster stew, and six flavors of ice cream, including Lincoln’s favorite, vanilla.
Twenty-five days later, the Civil War ended as the deadliest conflict still in U.S. history.
Thirty days after that inauguration, the Lincolns went to a play at Ford’s Theater. It was Good Friday.
Allegedly to see the performance better, the president’s bodyguard, John Parker, left his post outside the Lincolns' box. But he wound up in a nearby saloon.
Confederate sympathizer Booth had no trouble sneaking in behind the president with his .44 Derringer. The bullet entered the left side of Lincoln’s head, passed through the brain, lodging just behind the right eye.
The 56-year-old president, who had maintained the Union but would lose three of his four sons to illness, never regained consciousness and died the next morning.
(In a bizarre twist, Lincoln's eternal rest was interrupted 12 years later by a band of grave robbers who successfully absconded with the presidential corpse for some weeks, seeking ransom for the kidnapped body. Which explains why Abraham Lincoln now rests in a Springfield memorial in a coffin sealed within two tons of cement and steel.)
On a desolate slab of island tundra in western Alaska, a resident of Adak will again become the last American to cast an in-person ballot for president, continuing a 12-year tradition for the nation’s westernmost community.
The honor of having the last voter in the nation fell to Adak when they did away with absentee-only voting for the 2012 election and added in-person voting.
“People have a little bit of fun on that day because, I mean, realistically everybody knows the election’s decided way before we’re closed,” said city manager Layton Lockett. “But, you know, it’s still fun.”
When polls close in Adak, it’s 1 a.m. on the East Coast.
The United States is a big place. Roughly 3,000 miles separate the lower 48's east and west coasts - and roughly 3,000 miles separate the easternmost part of Alaska's panhandle, where Sitka and Juneau are found as well as Hyder, the easternmost settlement in Alaska, and the Aleutian island of Adak.
Note that there are U.S. possessions farther west than Adak, but while the people who live there are American citizens, they, like Puerto Ricans, don't vote for president: