Monday, February 19, 2018

“True Grit” as a Reconstruction Story

  

Although labeled a Western, True Grit is also a novel about Reconstruction in Arkansas and the Indian Territory that would become eastern Oklahoma. The Reconstruction aspects are more evident in the novel, which turns fifty years old this year, than in the movies.

The story is about fourteen year old Mattie Ross who leaves her mother, sister and little brother at home on a farm of ” 480 acres of good bottomland . . . not far from Dardenelle in Yell County” to “avenge her father’s blood.” He had been murdered by a hired hand named Tom Chaney while on a shopping trip to Fort Smith, which was a frontier town on the edge of the Indian Territory.

Subtleties about Reconstruction that slip into the novel but not the movies include the following:

1.When Mattie says that “Tom Chaney was a tenant but working for hire and not for shares,” she is disclosing that whites were often sharecroppers. Although commonly associated with blacks, most sharecropping was done by whites as late as 1940. Moreover, their impoverished living standards were identical to those of black sharecroppers. Segregation only gave the poor whites a higher social status.

2.“Papa used to say that the only friends we had down here right after the [Civil War] were the Irish Democrats in New York. Thad Stevens and the Republican gang would have starved us all out if they could.” Pennsylvania Congressman Thaddeus Stevens was the chief architect of Radical Republican Reconstruction. Although often hailed as a champion for blacks he tried to impose a federal tax on exported cotton. Since most cotton was then sold on the London market there would have been no way for cotton growers to pass the tax on to buyers because other countries could sell their cotton in London without having to pay an American tax. Thus, Stevens’s tax would have hurt the black cotton farmer as much as the white.

3.Since Mattie’s story is a reminiscence by an old lady during the 1920s it is significant that she remarks, “I am not afraid of Al Smith for a minute. He is a good Democrat and when he is elected I believe he will do the right thing . . . ” She is referring to New York Governor Al Smith who was an Irish-American Catholic that ran for President in 1928. Mattie is saying that she did not hold his religion against him. While historians often castigate 1920s era Southerners for racial prejudice, they seldom note that six of the eight states that voted for the first Roman Catholic presidential candidate were Southern, including Arkansas.

EXPOSED: School Shooting Survivor Turned Activist whose Father is a retired FBI agent, Appears To Have Been Coached On Anti-Trump Lines [VIDEO]

Via comment by Reborn on It's the Culture, Not the Guns

It appears he was heavily coached on lines and is merely reciting a script. Frequently seen in the footage mouthing the lines he should be reciting. Hogg becomes flustered multiple times, is seen apologizing, and asking for re-takes.

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As previously reported:
In less than a week since they survived a mass murdering gunman attack on their school, two student who quickly became media stars of the Parkland, Florida school shootings are now media obsessed to the point they say they are snubbing an invitation to meet with President Donald Trump this Wednesday in favor of appearing on a televised town hall with CNN’s Jake Tapper. […]

One student, in particular, David Hogg has been astonishingly articulate and highly skilled at propagating a new anti-Conservative/anti-Trump narrative behind the recent school shooting. Few have seen this type of rapid media play before, and when they have it has come from well-trained political operatives and MSM commentators.

Immediately, these students-turned-activists threw up some red flags.

Nunes to Sharyl Attkisson: We’ll Put DoJ, FBI On Trial If They Abused FISA Law

Via Billy
 


CNN’s Gagliano: The Founders ‘Could Not Envision’ an 18-Year-Old Buying ‘A Weapon of War’

 Image result for CNN’s Gagliano: The Founders ‘Could Not Envision’ an 18-Year-Old Buying ‘A Weapon of War’
 … It has a collapsible stock. It has a pistol grip. It has detachable magazines. We have to make sure that those kinds of things don’t fall into the hands of somebody like this.”
S--- for brains. 

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On Monday’s broadcast of CNN’s “New Day,” CNN Law Enforcement Analyst and retired FBI Supervisory Special Agent James Gagliano stated that the Founding Fathers “could not envision that an 18-year-old kid could go in a gun store, he can’t buy beer, but he could buy a semiautomatic weapon, and it’s a weapon of war.”

Gagliano began by saying that the tip the FBI received about the Parkland shooter should have been passed on to an agent, and “somewhere along the way” there was a mistake in the handling of the tip.

Later on, after the discussion stated, “I’m a veteran. I’m a former law enforcement officer. I’m a gun owner. I have a concealed carry permit. I am a hunter. I’m the exact person who needs to step up and say, we invented gunpowder in 1700 AD. The first guns were mid-14th century invented. The — 1791, the Second Amendment comes online. And here we are in 2018, and we’re hanging onto this and we’re going, ‘We just can’t talk about this. Because if we do that, we’re somehow going to tick off the Founding Fathers.’ The Founding Fathers could not envision that an 18-year-old kid could go in a gun store, he can’t buy beer, but he could buy a semiautomatic weapon, and it’s a weapon of war.

… It has a collapsable stock. It has a pistol grip. It has detachable magazines. We have to make sure that those kinds of things don’t fall into the hands of somebody like this.”

It's the Culture, Not the Guns

Via Billy

Leftists want to restrict the entire conversation to gun control. But their destruction of culture is the culprit.

Last Wednesday, Andrew Pollack was photographed while searching for his daughter, Meadow, who was a student at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. Tragically, he learned Meadow was one of the 17 murder victims.

A parent’s worst nightmare, eliciting an avalanche of sympathy? No, Pollack was shown wearing a “Trump 2020” T-shirt. Apparently nothing else mattered.

“He’s a pro-Trump guy which means he supports the guy who is responsible for the death of his child!!” tweeted iMO@_sheateher. “I don’t feel sorry for him and f—k trump,” stated Walterlee@eastsidedogg. “Maybe he should have thought twice before voting for #TerroristTrump,” added #TrumpforPrison@SolRyaz.

These twisted souls were hardly an anomaly. Trump is “obviously mentally ill,” according to TV host Jimmy Kimmel, who joined a chorus of other hate-filled leftists promoting pure propaganda.

Rosenstein and Mueller Running for Cover Leaving Brennan Exposed

 Image result for Rosenstein and Mueller Running for Cover Leaving Brennan Exposed

Now the Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein confirms what I told you in my previous post. Mueller found no evidence that Russia had any impact on the outcome of the 2016 election.

So what was Russiagate all about?

It was exactly, precisely what I told you it was about from the very begining. It was a conspiracy orchestrated by the military/security complex, CIA, FBI, Hillary Clinton, and the Democratic National Committed against Donald Trump.

Trump’s emphasis during his presidential campaign on normalizing relations with Russia, which the neocon Obama regime had turned into “America’s most dangerous enemy,” was a threat to the power and budgets of the military/security complex. Without a demonized enemy, what is the justification for a 1,000 billion annual budget and the laws passed in the 21st century that completely destroy the protections provided by the US Constitution?

Blowing off Obamacare — Idaho shows how

Via Billy

Idaho Gov. C.L.

Congressional Republicans failed to repeal or replace Obamacare. But one state has come up with a way to get around it. Idaho is dealing with Obamacare by just blowing it off. If it works, other states seem likely to follow.

Idaho’s Republican governor, Butch Otter, signed an executive order last year paving the way for non-Obamacare-compliant health insurance plans to be sold in his state, and Lt. Gov. Brad Little has since cobbled together what is sure to be the nation’s most controversial healthcare initiative. Their principal intention is to give the people of their state a way of avoiding Obamacare’s monstrous increases in insurance premiums. They want to put affordable insurance plans on the market again.

Mueller’s Tyrannical Indictment = the Very Reason We had a Revolution

 
Judge Wachtler’s review of the Grand Jury became the famous phrase that a grand jury could “indict a ham sandwich,” if that’s what you wanted because the prosecutors are totally unsupervised in bringing indictments.

The Grand Jury was supposed to protect citizens from political prosecutions determining only “probable cause” if the government presents their skewed side to claim a crime might have been made, but it has been completely undermined and serves nothing close to its constitutional purpose.

The Grand Jury is just a political tool for they get to hear ONLY the evidence that the government selects. There is absolutely NO REQUIREMENT that a prosecutor must make a fair presentment of the facts and indeed they are NEVER true and correct for there is no obligation to present the alternative or the defense of the person being indicted.

The Supreme Court wrote quite eloquently what the Grand Jury was supposed to do. “The … grand jury … has the dual function of determining if there is probable cause to believe that a crime has been committed and of protecting citizens against unfounded criminal
prosecutions.” Branzburg v Hayes, 408 US 665, 686-687 (1972).

Bach Incense

Via Thuy


Bach is my past wife's family name.

The Second: Once And For All

Via Iver

And then President Trump, and the basket of Deplorables who voted him in, will be the most left-wing population this country will see for the next century, at least.

According to the prophecy, "as a dog returneth to his vomit", the Leftards just can't get that gun control bone out of their throat.

So, in a certainly futile but calm and simple explanation, we will fisk their Jurassic Park-level pile of brontosaurus mung once and for all, and explain why there will never be anything approximating "gun control", as they feverishly imagine and fap to in their bedchambers nightly.

The argument will take this on in several parts, all unassailable reasons in themselves, and in the whole, tending to straightjacket the futility of the undertaking with, were we Emperor For A Day, some deserved finality.

John Kelly involved in November scuffle with Chinese officials after nuclear football blocked from following Trump

Via Billy
 Image result for John Kelly involved in November scuffle with Chinese officials after nuclear football blocked from following Trump


Chinese security officers attempted to stop the American military aide carrying the nuclear football from following President Trump into the Great Hall of the People in Beijing in November.

Axios reported Sunday the decision set off a chain of events that led chief of staff John Kelly to intervene and get in a physical altercation with a Chinese security officer.According to the report, Chinese officials blocked the military aide carrying the nuclear football from following Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping into the Great Hall. The aide is supposed to be near Trump at all times.

When made aware of the situation, Kelly intervened and told the aide to keep walking and entering the hall. One Chinese official grabbed Kelly and Kelly shoved the man’s hand back. A Secret Service agent then grabbed the Chinese official and tackled him to the ground.
The report indicates Trump’s team properly informed the Chinese about security procedures before the trip. The nuclear football, which contains the codes the president must give to order a nuclear strike, was never in Chinese possession.
The Chinese apologized to the Americans after the incident.

SAIGON 1968 - Tan Son Nhut Air Base

Via Giang Ky
 

The top row of planes facing the camera along with the two similar planes facing the top row are USAF AC-47 'Spooky' Gunships. This is based on the two toned green and tan paint pattern, and the type of aircraft, C-47. The next row contains five silver aircraft facing away from the camera. These are US Navy P2 Neptune aircraft used for coastal patrol. The bottom two rows are largely USAF C-47's. At the right in the third row are two USAF C-46 Commando aircraft. You might know the AC-47 and C-47 aircraft as the DC-3. Photo by Capt Auerback, MC, provided by Dr Andy Auerback.