Wednesday, February 15, 2012

One Man's Terrorist: Episode 1

Via Green Mountains Homesteading



The first Episode of Iraq war veteran David Kirk West's anti-war film inspired by his experiences in Iraq.

One Man's Terrorist is a speculative anti-war drama set against the back-drop of an America that has fallen into chaos. Elections have been postponed, martial law has been instituted, and a massive federal land grab on the California/Oregon border has inspired a secessionist movement in the "State of Jefferson" region.

The film tells the tale of both the soldiers sent in to pacify the region under the auspices of the United Nations and the homegrown insurgents who take up arms to defend their land from foreign invaders.

Episode 2 premieres online February 22, 2012.
Episode 3 premieres online February 29, 2012.

Can't Happen Here ?

Via Looking in the Mirror

Link

What would you do with $40? Obama asks for pictures

$40 would buy a couple more magazines or several boxes of ammo for this little hoplophobia inducer...
$40 would buy a couple more magazines or several boxes of ammo for this little hoplophobia inducer...
Credits:
© 2012 by David Codrea, All Rights Reserved

“Do you remember the ‘40 dollars’ stories back in December?” a February 14 White House email from David Plouffe, Senior Advisor to the President begins.

Why yes I do.

“Then you shared your stories,” Plouffe continues. “Thousands of Americans from different circumstances all spoke out with the same voice, and it was undeniably powerful.”

Thanks,Mr. Plouffe. I thought so too.

Now the White House wants to hear from us again. But first, they ask us to watch a video explaining “Why Your Voice Matters”.

I never got an invitation to participate, so I guess my voice wasn’t one of those “same” ones they were looking for.

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Where's America Getting Their Opinions?

Via Old Virginia Blog

CABLE NEWS RACE
NITE OF FEB 13, 2012

FOXNEWS O'REILLY 3,292,000
FOXNEWS HANNITY 2,117,000
FOXNEWS BRET BAIER 1,908,000
CMDY DAILY SHOW 1,811,000
FOXNEWS SHEP SMITH 1,788,000
FOXNEWS THE FIVE 1,744,000
FOXNEWS GRETA 1,632,000
CMDY COLBERT 1,509,000
MSNBC SCHULTZ 944,000
CNN PIERS MORGAN 901,000
MSNBC MADDOW 901,000
MSNBC HARDBALL 861,000
CNN COOPER 825,000
Stats from the Drudge Report. That can't make the ruling elites very happy. Colbert comedian beats out Matthews and Maddow. Poetic justice. All 3 have the same news value. Colbert's just more entertaining.

III Gear: Flags

UPDATE: We have 4 orders pre-paid, folks.

I posted this as a comment, but I think it deserves to be up here, too.

Obama and Ben Commercial: Part 1 & II






Rasmussen: Santorum Opens 12-Point Lead Over Romney

Political analyst and Democratic pollster Doug Schoen tells Newsmax that Romney’s presidential bid is in “deep trouble” and his campaign badly needs a win in the Great Lakes State before heading into the do-or-die Super Tuesday contests on March 6, where voters in 10 states will pick their candidate to become the GOP presidential nominee.

“Romney is in deep trouble. He’s out of arguments. People don’t buy the central premise of his candidacy that he’s a businessman who can get things moving again,” Schoen said in an exclusive interview on Wednesday. “He’s entirely negative — whether it’s about President Obama, Newt Gingrich and now Rick Santorum. And Rick Santorum’s ad basically sums up the case against Mitt Romney: He’s a serial attacker who offers nothing other than negative ads, super PACs, bundlers and special interest money. It’s a recipe for failure.”

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey of likely Republican primary voters released on Wednesday shows Santorum leading with 39 percent support, compared with 27 percent for Romney nationwide.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich follows with 15 percent, while Texas Rep. Ron Paul trails with 10 percent. Another 3 percent of likely Republican voters prefer some other candidate, while 6 percent are undecided, according to the poll.

Obama's ATF Director, Anti-Gun Zealot Andrew Traver Transferred Out of Chicago

Via SSI

President Obama's pick for ATF director, anti-gun Andrew Traver, has been transferred from his position as special agent in charge of the ATF Chicago Field Division, to head up the Denver division. According to sources, the move came after Traver felt frustrated his confirmation for ATF director had been stalled in the Senate for nearly a year. The estimated cost to transfer Traver is nearly a million taxpayer dollars, all because his feelings are hurt. Traver chose to specifically to work in Chicago, (where his buddies Obama and Rahm hang out) and instead of forcing taxpayers to foot the bill for his transfer, he should stay and finish the job.

Andrew L. Traver, currently the SAC of the Chicago Field Division, will assume leadership of the Denver Field Division. Mr. Traver has also served as ASAC of the New Orleans and San Francisco Field Divisions. Mr. Traver remains President Obama’s nominee to be ATF’s Director.

Not to mention, the chances of Traver getting a confirmation are nearly zero, even if he gets a confirmation hearing. Why? Michelle Malkin told us back in April:

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San Diego Cops Find Nothing In 2-Hour Standoff With Empty Car (VIDEO)

Embarrassed much.........

Via SSI












A tense, two-hour standoff between armed San Diego Police and an empty car on the freeway ended with no injuries -- just questions.

The red-faced cops can be seen on Fox 5's helicopter footage pointing guns at a dark-colored sedan on Interstate 8 -- apparently for more than two hours before they moved in to take down their target.

But there was nobody in the vehicle.

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U.S. lawmaker seeks answers after State Department error releases Mexican fugitive from Texas jail

Error or.......?

Via ruusso

A former Mexican government official wanted for embezzling millions was arrested in Texas this month, then promptly ordered released by the State Department in a case that has one lawmaker demanding answers.

A day after pulling rank on Smith County, Texas, law enforcement officials, the State Department rescinded the order. But Hector Hernandez Javier Villarreal was gone by then. Now Rep. Louie Gohmert is calling for congressional hearings to find out what happened.

"That's the question: What are the federal officials thinking? The State Department is screwing up by ordering locals to release these fugitives," Gohmert, R-Texas, told FoxNews.com. "I don't know if it's corruption or incompetence, but it's one or the other and in my experience with federal government, I'm guessing it's incompetence."

Villarreal, the former secretary executive of the Tax Administration Service of Coahulia, Mexico, was arrested there in November on charges relating to an alleged scheme involving embezzling millions of dollars from the Mexican government. He posted $1 million cash bond, got himself a U.S. visa and then skipped town.

Villarreal surfaced in Tyler, Texas, on Feb. 1, when he, his wife Maria Teresita Botello and another man were pulled over for a routine stop. The couple's two children were also in the car and were turned over to child protective services.

"All we did was make a traffic stop; they didn't have a front license plate," Smith County Sheriff J.B. Smith told FoxNews.com.

Police were given permission to search the vehicle and found $67,000 in cash and a shotgun, Smith said.

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The Ultimate Conundrum

Thoughts Aloud
Verbatim Post

In response to my article “Equality: Myth vs Reason”, BrockTownsend responded that homeschooling is a viable response to the sorry mess we call a public education system.

Naturally, Brock is absolutely right while being mostly wrong. Homeschooling is an option only for those families who possess the three critical attributes that determine virtually all success in raising children: means, ability and willingness. Families with these attributes will almost always raise their young to be good citizens whether they homeschool or not.

On a recent episode of Stossel, John Stossel opined that “Charter Schools” are another response to failing public schools. Again, absolutely right and mostly wrong. Charter Schools are not growing in number due to the resistance of both the progressive establishment and the education unions. And, getting a child into the ones that do exist requires at least ability and willingness on the part of the family because of the fierce competition to get into these schools.

A sad fact of modern American life is that far too many children are being born into “families” who lack most or all of the three critical attributes. As a result, the complete problem with our public education system is a combination of a dysfunctional system and dysfunctional students. This is proven by the fact that, however bad the system may be, a certain number of children emerge well educated despite it.

So, how do we improve the overall quality of the children being produced in this nation? That is the Ultimate Conundrum.

If it is true that too many children are being born into dysfunctional families, one quick answer would be to forbid them from having children. Another would be for the state to take the children away from their families and raise them in (shudder) state-controlled institutions. Aside from the obvious fact that the state can’t find its posterior with both hands, these answers are wrong because they require the denial of individual liberty – the very essence of being American. We must reject any so-called solution that involves further encroachment on our personal liberty lest we become just another tyranny. It is bad enough that we have the disgrace called The Patriot Act which is partly based on the irrational notion that sometimes you must forfeit liberty in order to preserve it.

Does this mean then that there is no solution? Not at all. One overriding problem in modern America is that we have a confused system. We try to privatize success while socializing failure. This holds true all the way from the upper echelons of major corporations all the way down to individual deadbeats.

When major corporations make good decisions, they fully expect to reap all the gain – as they should (privatized success). However, increasingly, when they make poor decisions, they expect the government (that would be you and me) to stand good for their losses (socialized failure).

Likewise, the deadbeat fully expects the government (again, you and me) to provide food, clothing and shelter (socialized failure) but, should they get lucky with the lottery or at the track, they fully expect to keep all of the winnings rather than reimburse the government for past handouts (privatized success).

It should not require much analysis to realize that such a confused system is totally irrational. So, what to do? The progressives among us respond “total socialization”. Yet all experience has shown us that even partial socialization always fails because it destroys the incentives to produce, to improve and to excel.

Likewise, the conservatives and libertarians among us respond “total privatization”. And, all experience has shown that to fail because the powerful will inevitably prey on the weak.

Clearly, a mostly privatized system with a only a few rules intended to ensure contracts and to discourage fraud is the best answer. And, it is the answer that propelled a new Republic into world leadership in a historically short time. But, this solution itself has what some people, progressives in particular, consider a fatal flaw. That flaw is that a free marketplace responds to failure in a way that is harsh and sometimes even cruel.

I contend that it is the attempt to remove this harshness, this seeming cruelty, that has led us to our current confused state. Yet, it is the very solution that Nature itself uses. If you choose well, you flourish. If you choose poorly, you suffer and eventually leave the stage.

This solution is also consistent with personal liberty because it allows each of us to decide for ourselves, and to contend with the consequences of those decisions.

Think about it.

Troy L Robinson

Adopt a Terrorist

Old, but first time I've seen it.

Photos

Robbery EPIC FAIL in Rotterdam!

Via The Donovan


The European Parliament flies the Union Jack upside down

Conservative Home

Earlier today Roger Helmer MEP tweeted that the Union Flag was flying upside down outside of the European Parliament.

Mr Helmer has written to the President of the Parliament asking for the insult to be corrected:

"Arriving at the parliament this morning around 7:00 a.m., I noticed that in the line of national flags, the flag of my country, the Union jack, was flying upside down (as it was when I first arrived at the Strasbourg parliament in 1999). May I ask if this is merely an oversight, or a deliberate snub? [Heh.:)] May I also ask what action you propose to take to ensure that this does not happen again?"

Armored SUV could not protect U.S. agents in Mexico

Because the door locks open automatically when it is put in park. Brilliant. makes you wonder sometimes.

Via Don

When U.S. special agent Jaime Zapata was shot dead one year ago on a notorious stretch of highway in central Mexico, he was driving a $160,000 armored Chevy Suburban, built to exacting government standards, designed to defeat high-velocity gunfire, fragmentation grenades and land mines.

But the vehicle had a basic, fatal flaw.

Forced off the road in a well-coordinated ambush, surrounded by drug cartel gunmen brandishing AK-47s, Zapata and his partner, Victor Avila, rolled to a stop. Zapata put the vehicle in park.

The door locks popped open.

That terrifying sound — a quiet click — set into motion events that remain under investigation. When Zapata needed it most, the Suburban’s elaborate armoring was rendered worthless by a consumer-friendly automatic setting useful for family vacations and hurried commuters but not for U.S. agents driving through a red zone in Mexico.

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Diversity

Via Rebellion

“I am the last white man on my block and yet I get lectured about multiculturalism and diversity by people who live in all-white neighborhoods.”
-- Sam Francis

Sam Davis Youth Camp 2012

Fauquier Heritage Institute presents "The Jefferson-Hemings Controversy: Report of the Scholars Commission"


Via SHNV

By Gar Schulin

WARRENTON, VA - The 2012 edition of the annual Fauquier Heritage Institute Lectures in American History features distinguished local historians and nationally acclaimed scholars to address a variety of topics of regional and national significance.

On Saturday, 31 March 2012, with special cooperation by the Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society, the Institute will host Dr. Robert F. Turner, Chairman of the Jefferson-Hemings Scholars Commission, which strongly challenges the modern-era view that President Thomas Jefferson fathered one or more children by an enslaved African-American woman named Sally Hemings. The lecture will be held at 3:00 PM in the John Barton Payne Building, located at 2 Courthouse Square, on Main Street, in Old Town Warrenton, Virginia. Admission is free to the public. A question-and-answer session and book signing for The Jefferson-Hemings Controversy: Report of the Scholars Commission will be held following the lecture.

The report of the Scholars Commission on the Jefferson-Hemings controversy documents the results of a year-long, independent panel inquiry by thirteen distinguished academics from across the nation. Working without compensation at the request of the Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society, the scholars were unanimous in their conclusion that "the allegation is by no means proven," and with but a single mild dissent their views "ranged from serious skepticism about the charge to a conviction that it is almost certainly untrue." Each argument in the debate is examined in careful detail in the comprehensive 412-page volume, with more than 1,400 footnotes documenting their analysis.

Many of the commonly accepted premises behind the story were found to be false, according to the panel of scholars. Dr. Turner relates on September 1, 1802, one of the most disreputable scandalmongers in American history, James Thomson Callender (who once called George Washington a “traitor” and a “thief”), published an article in the Richmond, Virginia Recorder alleging that while in Paris, Thomas Jefferson had begun a sexual relationship with his servant Sally Hemings- and a son named “Tom” was born of that relationship shortly after they returned to Virginia at the end of 1789 and his “features are said to bear a striking resemblance to those of the President himself.” The report documents Callender was a self-confessed “liar,” who claimed the lies he wrote about President John Adams had made Jefferson President. Subsequently Turner describes Callender as having demanded “payment” in the form of an appointment as Postmaster of Richmond, threatening to turn his pen on Jefferson if the appointment was not forthcoming. When Jefferson refused, Callender vowed a “ten thousand fold vengeance” upon Jefferson. Dr. Turner notes the “Black Sal” allegation was rejected even by Jefferson’s political enemies Alexander Hamilton and John Adams (Adams previously and subsequently was a great Jefferson friend, but at the time his enemy because Adams blamed Jefferson for Callender’s lies during the incredibly nasty political campaign of 1800). The American people also apparently found no credibility in the allegations, re-electing President Jefferson by an overwhelming margin in 1804.

Furthermore, it is highly unlikely that such a relationship could have begun in Paris, as claimed, as Sally Hemings was the fourteen-year-old servant to Jefferson's daughters Martha and Mary, who lived in a boarding school across town from their famous father and the school had quarters for servants. Years after returning to Monticello, Martha received letters from classmates asking to be remembered to Sally. Dr. Turner recounts Jefferson, after learning his two year old daughter had died of whooping cough, had requested that Mary be sent to him immediately in the care of a trusted older slave named Isabel Hern. Unbeknownst to Jefferson, Isabel was suffering complications from recent childbirth, so his in-laws sent fourteen-year-old Sally Hemings to accompany Mary on the trans-Atlantic voyage. The Scholars Commission Report reveals the only credible surviving descriptions of Sally Hemings’ talents or abilities are found in two 1787 letters from the remarkable Abigail Adams, wife of U.S. Minister to Great Britain John Adams, who kept the fourteen-year-old Sally and Jefferson’s eight-year-old daughter for two weeks when they arrived from Virginia on the way to joining Jefferson in Paris. She described Sally as being “quite a child,” and said that she “wants more care than the child [Jefferson’s eight-year-old daughter], and is wholly incapable of looking properly after her, without some superiour to direct her.”

According to Dr. Turner, very little else is known about Sally Hemings in the historic record, as Jefferson made passing references to her in only four of his more than 20,000 letters; and only eleven brief entries in his memorandum books, most of them lists of servants and only a single listing after she returned from Paris. Furthermore, years later, while President Jefferson brought a number of servants from Monticello to work at the White House, Sally Hemings was not among them and remained at Monticello. In an undated note to one of his Monticello overseers prior to departing for Washington, D.C., Jefferson instructed that his daughter Martha and her husband were to receive “everything the plantation will furnish,” and added, “They are to have also the use of the house-servants, to wit, Ursula, Critta, Sally, Bet, Wormeley and Joe. So also of Betty Hemings, should her services be necessary.” According to Dr. Turner, if Sally Hemings had filled the role of his de facto wife or mistress, surely her name would have been listed with that of her mother, Betty Hemings, for special treatment; and surely he would have taken her with him among the dozen slaves he regularly took to Washington- but he never did. Compiling verbatim all listings and descriptions of Sally Hemings contained in the historic documents, Dr. Turner notes everything known about Sally Hemings fit onto one side of a standard index card. Quite clearly the report observes, with the almost total absence of information pertaining to Sally Hemings, she appears to have been a very minor figure in Thomas Jefferson’s life.

Today, many mistakenly believe Jefferson's paternity was established by 1998 DNA testing reported in the journal Nature, but those tests did not even involve DNA from Thomas Jefferson, and merely established that Sally's youngest child, Eston, was likely fathered by one of more than two-dozen Jefferson men living in Virginia at the time- of whom at least seven are thought to have been at Monticello when he was conceived. At the time of Eston’s conception, the elderly President Thomas Jefferson, age 64, was documented as suffering a host of medical and physical maladies including debilitating rheumatism clearly documented in the firsthand accounts; and intense migraine headaches which often lasted for weeks at a time.

By far the strongest family traditions (stories passed down from one generation to the next) suggesting President Jefferson's paternity of a Hemings child was told by descendents of Thomas Woodson, long thought to have been the slave "Tom" upon whom the original 1802 story was founded. However, six different tests of descendents of three of Woodson's sons proved beyond any doubt he could not have been fathered by Thomas Jefferson. And for many generations, descendents of Eston Hemings passed down the story that he was not President Jefferson's son, but rather the son of an "uncle." The report explains who that uncle might have been.

Furthermore, the scholars conclude that neither Sally Hemings nor her children received "extraordinary privileges" at Monticello, and her children were not all given their freedom at the age of 21 as is often claimed. It is true that Sally's sons Madison and Eston were freed in Jefferson's will, but so were all but two of the sons and grandsons of Sally's mother Betty Hemings who still belonged to Thomas Jefferson at the time of his death. Sally's sons received by far the least favorable treatment of those freed in Thomas Jefferson's will.

Other evidence contained in the historic record invites the question, “Would Thomas Jefferson have entrusted his reputation to the discretion of Sally Hemings?” Dr. Turner observes that shortly before Thomas Jefferson left for Paris, he wrote his only book, Notes on the State of Virginia, which included one of the most eloquent denunciations of human bondage in history, “I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep for ever… The Almighty has no attribute which can take side with us in such a contest.” Dr. Turner specifically notes Jefferson went on to denounce the sexual exploitation of slave women by their ‘masters:’ “The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submission on the other. Our children see this, and learn to imitate it; for man is an imitative animal… If a parent could find no motive in his philanthropy or his self-love, for restraining the intemperance of passion towards his slave, it should always be a sufficient one that his child is present.”

The Scholars Commission Report notes the only accounts we have of Sally Hemings as she traveled to Paris as being exceptionally immature and lacking the judgment of an eight-year-old child, and “As the servant to Jefferson’s daughters, she was presumably in their presence for hours at a time, day after day. Again, the issue is not whether Thomas Jefferson would have believed that such a child might be able to preserve his confidences, but whether he would be certain that he could entrust his cherished reputation to her discretion.” Significantly, period French Intelligence reports reveal no scandalous activities observed and recorded during his time in Paris, which would have served the French Government for the purpose of compromising Thomas Jefferson. Dr. Turner adds, we are asked to believe that Jefferson “took as his ‘concubine’ the young and immature Sally Hemings, the ladies’ maid to his beloved daughters, and apparently entrusted his reputation and their love and respect for him to her discretion. Such behavior would be totally inconsistent with everything we know about Thomas Jefferson.”

A fable has been defined as “a fictitious narrative or statement,” usually of known origin. Proponents of the Thomas Jefferson-Sally Hemings Fable are asking modern Americans to believe that Thomas Jefferson became obsessed with an immature, uneducated 14-year-old slave girl while in Paris; and that he proceeded to conduct an illicit, 38-year love affair with her for the remainder of his life fathering one, or more, or all of her children. Based on everything we know in the voluminous historic record pertaining to Thomas Jefferson, such a fable is not only unthinkable, it is preposterous.

While the facts cited here are just a few examples of the significant evidence in the historic record to date which overwhelmingly vindicate Thomas Jefferson as a man of great character and moral rectitude; and as someone innocent of the charges of fathering slave children, Dr. Donald Livingston, Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at Emory University, National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow and President of the Abbeville Institute for the Study of Southern Culture notes there is a great deal of ideologically driven "advocacy scholarship" throughout academia and the pop culture media today, which is more interested in changing behavior than in truth. Solid scholarship and truth will eventually out those omissions of fact; intentional or unintentional errors in the transcriptions of historic documents; and other blatant falsehoods which contradict everything known about Thomas Jefferson contained in the historic record.

With the hope of promoting an informed public dialogue on this issue, the Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society has issued a public challenge for the most prominent scholars on the other side of the issue to engage in public debates. Dr. Turner’s recently televised appearance at a Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society news conference at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., which summarized the report findings, received high praise from scholars and historians alike; and was covered by national and international journalists.

There is a growing awakening across our land, a yearning by American citizens to recall and seek increased knowledge and understanding of the essential truths and guiding principles that represent our cultural, political and spiritual inheritance, much of it authored and championed by Thomas Jefferson. Ultimately, with the passage of time, works by revisionist historiographers fail to withstand critical thought and scrutiny, and their efforts disintegrate before the underlying presence of the truth- their works become scorned and discredited. The Jefferson-Hemings Controversy: Report of the Scholars Commission, remains faithful to the study of our American history as a never-ending search for the truth, as it masterfully examines, weighs and documents the facts contained in the historic record to date along with newer research.

Dr. Turner concludes, “It is my hope that our report will at minimum help to correct some of the mythology that has grown up around this issue in recent years. The ninety-two percent margin by which the members of the Scholars Commission concluded that the allegation is probably false should at least give those otherwise inclined to accept the charge reason to pause, as should the fact that the leading scholars who embraced the argument that Thomas Jefferson fathered children by Sally Hemings prior to the release of our report have been unwilling to defend that position in public debate.”

Why does it matter today for Americans to study the immense character and ideals of Thomas Jefferson factually and truthfully?

Thomas Jefferson once reminded us a nation cannot remain ignorant and free. A 2009 survey of Oklahoma high school students indicated only 25% could identify George Washington as our nation's first President; only 14% could identify Thomas Jefferson as the Author of the Declaration of Independence; and only about 3% would have passed the basic Citizenship Test given to recent immigrant candidates for U.S. citizenship. Such ignorance does not bode well for the future of our republic- the federative polity bequeathed to us by our American Founders.

It matters greatly that current and future generations of Americans learn about the immense character, legacy, ideals and essential truths of Thomas Jefferson, not only as a great American Founder and Patriot worthy of our remembrance for his many noble qualities and contributions, but for his deep inspiration and enduring influence which comprise the very foundation of America. His is a legacy that current and future generations of Americans- and citizens around the world- would be well-served to learn, to honor and remember, and to keep dear in our hearts.

Robert F. Turner is a cofounder of the Center for National Security Law (1981) at the University of Virginia School of Law. Professor Turner holds both professional and academic doctorates from the University of Virginia School of Law, and is a former Charles H. Stockton Professor of International Law at the U.S. Naval War College and a Distinguished Lecturer at West Point. He has taught both in Virginia's Department of Government and Foreign Affairs and the Law School, and is the author or editor of more than a dozen books. A former president of the congressionally-established U.S. Institute of Peace, he has had a strong professional interest in Jefferson for more than four decades.

The Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society (http://www.tjheritage.org/) is a Charlottesville, Virginia-based nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization which has a five-fold purpose: To further the honor and integrity of Thomas Jefferson, and to promote his vision and ideas, and their application in our times and in the future; to pursue truth in all matters that touch upon the legacy of Thomas Jefferson; to promote the principles of freedom, patriotism and truth, which were hallmarks of Thomas Jefferson's life; to sponsor and perform research in matters pertaining to the private and public life of Thomas Jefferson; and to stand always in opposition to those who would seek to undermine the integrity of Thomas Jefferson. Additional detailed facts documenting the work of the Scholars Commission can be referenced at the Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society web site.

The Fauquier Heritage Institute was created to promote the study and love of Virginia and American history. To that end, the Institute hosts a yearly series of public lectures that seek to promote knowledge, understanding and appreciation of our local, regional and national history. The Fauquier Heritage Institute welcomes and encourages all volunteers to aid our special events programs and lecture series in a variety of capacities; and may be contacted at: gonearethedays@hughes.net

Farage: Globalist Troika Driving Greece Towards Violent Revolution:)

Via NC Renegade


Peace and Quiet

Via Nail Your Colours To The Mast


IQ's

Via The Bonnie Blue Blog

Funny' Guy goes into a bar in Louisiana where there's a robot bartender

The robot says, "What will you have?" The guy says, "Whiskey." The robot brings back his drink and says to the man, "What's your IQ?" The guy says, "168." The robot then proceeds to talk about physics, space, exploration and medical technology. The guy leaves, . . . but he is curious . . So he goes back into the bar.

The robot bartender says, "What will you have?" The guy says, "Whiskey." Again, the robot brings the man his drink and says, "What's your IQ?" The guy says, "100." The robot then starts to talk about NASCAR, Budweiser, the Saints and LSU Tigers. The guy leaves, but finds this very interesting, so he thinks he will try it one more time. He goes back into the bar.

The robot says, "What will you have?" The guy says, "Whiskey," and the robot brings him his whiskey. The robot then says, "What's your IQ?" The guy says, "Uh, about 50." The robot leans in real close and says, "So, . . . you people still happy with Barack Obama?"

Student Loan STD's

The literal proposal of destruction of the nation's political and economic system -- on purpose.


Bah.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner told skeptical Republican senators Tuesday that it is simply not possible to correct the nation’s fiscal problems without raising taxes.

Geithner defended President Obama’s 2013 budget proposal before the Senate Finance Committee and said the plan is the only option he sees for helping the economy and addressing the deficit without hurting the middle class.

"I do not see how you get there if you are unable ... to contemplate and to embrace modest increases in revenue through tax reform," Geithner said. "I just don’t think it’s possible."

There's no solution without massive spending reductions and acceptance of the reduction of GDP that will come from it.

Entitlements are ~64% of our budget, and are growing. Under Obama's proposal these entitlements will go to 78% of the budget within 10 years.

This won't happen because it can't (mathematically)

Guess we aren't quite there yet...........

Neil W. McCabe Sessions to Zients: If you are wrong, will you resign?



Capitol Hill Republicans were shocked at the Feb. 14 testimony by the White House budget chief, part of the White House misinformation campaign in favor of the president’s fiscal year 2013 budget released Monday.

Speaking before the Senate Budget Committee, Jeffrey D. Zients, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, refused to answer a direct yes-or-no question from the committee’s ranking member Sen. Jefferson B. Sessions III (R-Ala.): Does the president’s budget increase spending more than the 2011 Budget Control Act?

In a sputtering response, Zients tried to answer the question he wanted to be asked instead of the one he was asked.

What Sessions did not appreciate was that although the president’s budget eliminates the structure of the Budget Control Act, which reduced spending increases by $1.2 trillion over 10 years, Obama’s inclusion of higher taxes on the wealthy and strategic increases in spending was a more balanced approach, the budget director said.

The balanced approach meant that for every $2.50 in spending cuts, there would be $1 in new taxes, he said.

Sessions asked again: Yes or No? “We have a much more honest baseline... Our budget is a more honest budget... It’s a more accurate reflection of what we’re gonna spend... It’s actually going to spend less money” Zients said.

When the budget director finally seemed to say, in the context of his hedges, that spending would decrease, rather than increase in the president’s budget compared to current law, Sessions asked him, “If you are incorrect in saying that you do not increase spending compared to current law, would you consider resigning your office?”

Zients laughed, then replied, “Let me go back to the balanced approach.”

Frustrated, Sessions, who clearly had heard enough, went in for the kill.

Rick Santelli in 60 Seconds Describes Difference Between Tea Party and Occupy Movement












Railroaded? Female Cop Speaks Out After Nearly 10 Years in Prison for Unleashing Dog on Suspect

A female police officer sent to jail for ten years for police brutality has spoken out about what she claims is her unjust conviction, and what it means to have missed her son’s childhood.

Former police officer Stephanie Mohr was convicted of deprivation of civil rights in 2001, according to the Daily Mail, after an incident in which she set her police dog on a homeless man in Washington D.C. who was a suspect in a burglary. The end result of that encounter was a torn muscle in the man’s leg.

He has has since been deported, as he was in the U.S. illegally.

MORE



The Cost of Obama

Via Northern Blogger

President Obama’s fourth budget has now been released, which allows for a relatively full accounting of deficit spending during his four years in office. The picture isn’t pretty, but it is revealing.

According to the White House’s own figures (see table S-1 here for 2011 to 2013, and table S-1 here for 2010), the actual or projected deficit tallies for the four years in which Obama has submitted budgets are as follows: $1.293 trillion in 2010, $1.300 trillion in 2011, $1.327 trillion in 2012, and $901 billion in 2013. In addition, Obama is responsible for the estimated $200 billion (the Congressional Budget Office’s figure) that his economic “stimulus” added to the deficit in 2009. Moreover, he shouldn’t get credit for the $149 billion in TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program) repayments made in 2010 and 2011 to cover most of the $154 billion in bank loans that remained unpaid at the end of the 2009 fiscal year — loans that count against President Bush’s 2009 deficit tally.

Adding all of this up, deficit spending during Obama’s four years in the White House (based on his own figures) will be an estimated $5.170 trillion — or $5,170,000,000,000.00.

To help put that colossal sum of money into perspective, if you take our deficit spending under Obama and divide it evenly among the roughly 300 million American citizens, that works out to just over $17,000 per person — or about $70,000 for a family of four.

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Preserve Marriage in NC

Stopped by police, he'll take aim with lawsuit

Via Don

MARK FIORINO was legally carrying his .40-caliber Glock on his hip as he walked along Frankford Avenue on Feb. 13, 2011, when he was stopped by Philadelphia police, who pointed a gun at him, harassed him and handcuffed him.

Today, he plans to file a civil suit against the department for the incident.

Fiorino, who recorded his 45-minute confrontation with police and posted it on YouTube, is suing for "violation of his constitutional rights to be free from unlawful searches, excessive force and malicious prosecution," according to the complaint filed on his behalf by the American Civil Liberties Union. LANGUAGE

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LANGUAGE

Is Obama Using The IRS To Silence Opposition Voices?

Via Don, L&P

Many of us joke about being audited by the IRS because our views are not in sync with the White House. President Obama himself has even joked about it back in 2009, when a visit to Arizona State University caused many to speak up against the President receiving an honorary degree.

That was back in 2009. And it was a joke, right?

Or was it?

In just the past week, we have received emails from various Tea Party groups around the country alerting us to the oppressive demands being sent to them from the IRS.

And so we ask the question: Is the Obama administration using the IRS to wage a war against opposition voices like the Tea Party?

One of the groups currently dealing with the government’s overreach is the Ohio Liberty Council Corp.

The OLC’s President, Tom Zawistokowski, posted a letter on the group’s website detailing the timeline of the their efforts to gain non-profit status and the recent demand for documents made by the IRS. In the letter Tom states:

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George Dereef, Slaveholding Family of Color Descendant and NAACP Member

George Dereef, a Wisconsin attorney, was the descendant of a slave-holding free family of color from Charleston, South Carolina whose members had belonged to the Brown Fellowship Society. Originally from South Carolina, Dereef settled in Milwaukee in 1913 and figured prominently in the local branches of the NAACP and the National Negro Business League.

In the 1820’s George’s grandfather Joseph Dereef had purchased a troublesome Negro girl named Betsey for $270 and started on the road to slave ownership. His father Richard E. Dereef inherited Joseph’s slaves and added to this number, becoming a wealthy free black Charleston wood factor. His sons were listed in the 1862 Free Negro Tax Book as factors as well, one of which had the title “Doctor.” Son John Dereef was listed in his father’s household in the 1860 federal census, and paid municipal taxes on real estate worth $3,700. *Like white slaveholders, the Dereef’s were forced to sell their slaves after the war. *Needless to say, this statement is incorrect.

Other free black slaveholders like the Dereef’s were Robert Howard, one of the wealthiest free men of color in antebellum Charleston, and William Ellison, the wealthiest free Negro in South Carolina. Howard was a wood dealer like the Dereef’s, paying city taxes on five slaves and real estate worth $33,900. Ellison was born into slavery in 1790, but by the time of the War Between the States owned more slaves than any other free Negro in the entire South except Louisiana. Ellison bought his freedom in 1816, set up a cotton ginning business, and made enough income to buy 63 slaves and ex-Governor Stephen D. Miller’s former home and plantation.

Free black slaveholding was not unusual in the antebellum North and South as they utilized the labor of slaves for profit, hiring them out as simple labor or trained artisans. Though much is made of the benevolence of black slaveholders toward their kin, author Larry Koger (No Chariot Let Down) dismisses this as improbable as most black slaveholders were mulattoes (83.1%) while nearly all their slaves were dark-skinned (90%). He asked, “where was the kinship?”

Koger underscores that there were black masters in every State where slavery existed (including the North), many black Americans of the antebellum period believed that slavery was a viable economic system. In Louisiana, Maryland, South Carolina and Virginia, free blacks owned more than 10,000 slaves, according to the Federal census of 1850.

Sources:

Aristocrats of Color, The Black Elite, Willard C. Gatewood, University Press of Indiana, 1993

No Chariot Let Down, Charleston’s Free People of Color, UNC Press, 1984

Vice Admiral Mark Fox: “Absolutely Convinced” We Should Handle Iran With Diplomacy

Godfather Politics
Verbatim Post

How many suicide bomb boats does the United States Navy have? None. How many suicide bomb boats does Russia have? None. The European Union? China? None.

Why don’t they? These nations have powerful navies, and they have nuclear weapons. There is no need for desperate measures like purposefully sacrificing your own people and craft to achieve goals. The last time a European power made a wide use of suicide boats was in 1588 when England had to defend against the Great Armada. The last time a great world power was forced to use suicide tactics was Japan in the last months of World War II. Suicide tactics is the weapon of the weak. A nation that has powerful forces and nuclear weapons doesn’t use suicide tactics.

That’s why the reports of the US Navy intelligence about Iran building a fleet of suicide boats to respond to a possible American attack are an important indicator about the true strength of the Iranian regime and its military. If Iran had nuclear weapons, or if they expected to develop them within the next several months (as we’ve been hearing for the last decade from our warmongers here in the US), this investment in the “weapon of the weak” is indeed strange. For all the strength of the US Navy, ships are very vulnerable to a nuclear attack. Nothing can defend even an aircraft from it. Why are the Iranians resorting to desperate measures if they already had the power to incinerate our naval forces in the Persian Gulf?

Vice Admiral Mark Fox, commander of the US naval forces in the Gulf, said that they are watching closely Iran’s preparations to defend themselves. No matter what Iran does, though, the US forces are incomparably more powerful than anything Iran can muster. Given the proper vigilance, the small suicide boats can not inflict too much damage. Fox said, “We are ready today. . . . Could they make like extremely difficult for us? Yes they could. If we did nothing and they were able to operate without being inhibited, yeah they could close it, but I can’t see that we would ever be in that position.”

Vice Admiral Fox also gave his opinion that war is not a solution to the problems in the region: “So when you hear discussion about all this overheated rhetoric from Iran we really believe that the best way to handle this is with diplomacy… I am absolutely convinced that is the way to go.”

Yet another military expert to say – in a very diplomatic way – that the banging of the war drums by the politicians in Washington DC is dangerous and useless. Another military expert who says that he is “absolutely convinced” that diplomacy is the way to go. Iran, obviously is a weak country. Their “overheated rhetoric” is the barking of a toothless dog. The moral way to go about it is peace and diplomacy.

If we only listen to the experts before it is too late.