WARNING, GRAPHIC
Biden thinks it’s “cruel” that Florida is not allowing sex change for kids
Crazy Dems
Ron DeSantis EXPOSES Book Ban Hoax
THE CLAY TRAVIS & BUCK SEXTON SHOW
On Wednesday, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis held a news conference to criticize media coverage of Florida’s school library book policies and the Stop WOKE Act, characterizing them as a “hoax.” Speaking at the Hillsborough State Attorney’s Office, DeSantis accused those spreading false narratives of attempting to “pollute and sexualize our children.”
TIMCAST
Ron DeSantis EXPOSES Book Ban Hoax, Books SO GRAPHIC Twitter CENSORS His Livestream
This morning Governor DeSantis held a press conference exposing the false political narrative that Florida is banning legitimate books from schools. He calls it “Exposing the book ban hoax.”
The press conference starts with a film on some of the books that were banned and it is so graphic that news networks covering the press conference had to cut the feed. DeSantis acknowledged this when he began the press conference.
The film also debunks the lies that Florida is banning the teaching of slavery in schools…..
VIDEOS
FULL PRESSER
Medical Malpractice: Another “Detransition” Story
- Olson had 68 surgically diminished girls fill out her “novel” scale (which she acknowledged could be bogus) between one and five years after their surgery. Thirty-three of these girls were under 18 at the time of surgery. Two were only 13 years old, and five were only 14. Assuming these mastectomies weren’t all performed by the same very busy surgeon, that means there are multiple doctors out there willing to mutilate underage girls. (FEDERALIST)
- Although there was a lack of information in the study regarding irreversible sex change procedures on minors, the study found some surgeries, like chest reconstruction, were increasing. Between 2016 and 2019, an estimated 1,130 chest reconstruction surgeries were performed on children under the age of 18, according to the study. (DAILY CALLER)
This is just one example (hat-tip to John Davidson) of the many regarding “pop-medicine” driven by culture (much like lobotomies). It is a fad that harms and destroys lives permanently. (Click graphic to enlarge)
This story is one that compliments my “TRANSGENDER PAGE” — here is a PJ-MEDIA post on the issue (Mar, 2021):
People who formerly identified as transgender and took cross-sex hormones or underwent transgender surgery have later come to regret their transitions and the serious damage they did to their own bodies, urged on by the medical establishment. On March 12, the Detrans day of awareness, these detransitioners have come forward to tell their stories.
“I experienced transition regret. I had injected testosterone for four and a half years, I underwent a double mastectomy, only to very gradually realize over time that I had made a massive mistake and wanted to detransition,” Sinead Watson, one of the organizers of the Twitter campaign #DetransAwarenessDay, said in a YouTube video.
“The people who experience transition regret are subject to an utterly undeserved stigma. We’re very often bullied, and insulted, and silenced whenever we try to share our experiences online, and it’s because people who discuss transition regret are often accused of having our stories and our experiences weaponized to harm our trans brothers and sisters. That’s not what I want,” Watson added.
Watson clarified, “We don’t want to take health care away from trans people. We want the improvement of care for people with gender dysphoria.” She acknowledged that transition has helped many people, but she insisted that “there are also a growing number of people who went through medical transition who deeply regret it, who were harmed by it, physically and mentally, and we deserve the right to talk about our experiences, just as much as someone who doesn’t regret it has a right to talk about their experiences.”
- Real-Life Victims of the Transgender ‘Cult’ (PJ-MEDIA, Aug 2016)
She insisted that people who suffer from transition regret are terrified to speak out because “they will be insulted, they will be laughed at, they will be mocked… they will be told they’re hateful.”
She argued that the medical community pushes medical transition as a one-size-fits-all approach to gender dysphoria (the persistent and painful condition of identifying with the gender opposite one’s biological sex), but not everyone who suffers from gender dysphoria needs medical transition. She suggested there should be a broad array of different treatment options.
Watson partnered with Keira Bell, a 23-year-old woman who was put on experimental so-called “puberty blockers” after having been referred to a British transgender clinic at age 16. Late last year, Britain’s High Court ruled in Bell’s case that young teenagers could not consent to life-altering transgender treatments. The two detransitioners teamed up with Detrans Voices, Detrans Canada, and Post Trans, to support #DeTransAwarenessDay.
“Detrans day of awareness (12th March) was created to raise awareness and break down the stigma around detransition,” Watson, Bell, and the organizations said in a statement. “We want to let other people who have detransitioned know that they are not alone. There is a flourishing community of detransitioned people who are finding peace, healing and fulfillment as they are.”
- 6 Child Abuse Victims Who Grew to Reject the Transgender ‘Bullsh*t’ (PJ-MEDIA, Sep 2018)
A woman who identifies herself as “Helena,” a 22-year-old “detrans gender apostate,” posted photos of herself before and after her detransition.
“I identified as trans for 5 years, and took testosterone for 17 months. I began detransitioning [in] February 2018. [Transitioning] was a way to cope with my trauma and body hatred. 3 years later i’m thankful to TRULY live authentically, no longer running from myself,” she wrote.
- Medical Expert: Doctors Are Actually Giving Trans Kids a Disease, and It’s Child Abuse (PJ-MEDIA, Aug 2019)
“I transitioned FtM with testosterone injections and a double-mastectomy,” a detransitioner named Grace shared on Twitter, showing pictures from before and after her detransition. “It was a bandaid for deeper pain, and I regret it. Detransition was humbling and healing for me. I’m so glad to have found hard-won peace and acceptance for myself as a woman.”
Deadly Altruism Marks the Left | Illiberal Egalitarianism
(Originally Posted May 5, 2015)
UPDATED MEDIA The original file can be found at Bearing Arms’ Cam & Co (HERE). I am uploading it here because there is no insurance that Bearing’s channel will stay up on YouTube. It is for my post, “Deadly Altruism Marks the Left ~ Illiberal Egalitarianism and the NYFD”
SOME COMMENTS FROM THE ABOVE VIDEO:
- The same thing happened to my Forest Service initial attack crew back in 2001. We had a 5’0″ 100lbs female who wanted on our crew. We had physical standards tests we had to pass. One was a simple three mile “hike” around a high school track with a mere 45lbs and our line gear. She was simply too small and not strong enough to make the time. Our overhead wanted more female representation so they passed her anyway. All summer long she was given the cushy assignments, all while being paid the same as the rest of us. It put us a person down all summer. It also created divisions within our crew. A rookie who got to do all the easy stuff while my squad of ass-kickers had to work even harder because we were a person short (no pun intended).
- I was a fireman for over 35 years I worked with several woman, most of them did not have the upper body strength to do the job. Also these were younger women. At 35 years old and cannot pass the physical exam she will be pretty much useless on the scene. She will be a burden to her fellow firefighters she will most likely transfer to a job outside of operations where she won’t have to physically fight fires. She will put other people’s life in danger because she cannot do the job, she sounds like a very selfish and self-centered person.
This comes by way of HOTAIR and makes clear that whatever the left touches, it destroys:
This promises to turn into a sticky wicket for the New York City Fire Department. One of their upcoming graduates is going to be accepted into the ranks and go to work as a firefighter despite having failed a grueling physical test multiple times. This comes as a result of recent changes to the city’s criteria for how graduates are scored.
Rebecca Wax, 33, is set to graduate Tuesday from the Fire Academy without passing the Functional Skills Training test, a grueling obstacle course of job-related tasks performed in full gear with a limited air supply, an insider has revealed.
“They’re going to allow the first person to graduate without passing because this administration has lowered the standard,” said the insider, who is familiar with the training.
Upon graduation, Wax would be assigned to a firehouse and tasked with the full duties of a firefighter. Some FDNY members are angry.
“We’re being asked to go into a fire with someone who isn’t 100 percent qualified,” the source said. “Our job is a team effort. If there’s a weak link in the chain, either civilians or our members can die.”
…..[she] failed to complete… climbing in full gear while carrying heavy equipment, rescuing victims in zero visibility, breaking down doors, and doing it all while breathing oxygen from a tank on a limited timer….
This brings to memory two quotes that bring the point home, a point that a reader on my FaceBook blog pointed out:
- “Hopefully the first person she has to LIFT out of a burning building will be a feminist…because obviously it will not matter, that she is unqualified.”
If there is indeed a social revolution under way, it shouldn’t stop with women’s choice to honor their [own] nature. It must also include a newfound respect for men. It was New York City’s firemen who dared to charge up the stairs of the burning Twin Towers on September 11, 2001. The death tally of New York City’s firefighters was: men 343, women 0. Can anyone honestly say you would have wanted a woman coming to your rescue on that fateful day?
Suzanne Venker & Phyllis Schlafly, The Flipside of Feminism: What Conservative Women Know — and Men Can’t Say (Washington, D.C.: WND Books, 2011), 181-182.
Here is the “CS LEWIS” of politics:
There is a Liberal sentiment that it should also punish those who take more than their “fair share.” But what is their fair share? (Shakespeare suggests that each should be treated not according to his deserts, but according to God’s mercy, or none of us would escape whipping.)
The concept of Fairness, for all its attractiveness to sentiment, is a dangerous one (cf. quota hiring and enrollment, and talk of “reparations”). Deviations from the Law, which is to say the Constitution, to accommodate specifically alleged identity-group injustices will all inevitably be expanded, universalized, and exploited until there remains no law, but only constant petition of Government.
We cannot live in peace without Law. And though law cannot be perfect, it may be just if it is written in ignorance of the identity of the claimants and applied equally to all. Then it is a possession not only of the claimants but of the society, which may now base its actions upon a reasonable assumption of the law’s treatment.
But “fairness” is not only a nonlegal but an antilegal process, for it deals not with universally applicable principles and strictures, but with specific cases, responding to the perceived or proclaimed needs of individual claimants, and their desire for extralegal preference. And it could be said to substitute fairness (a determination which must always be subjective) for justice (the application of the legislated will of the electorate), is to enshrine greed—the greed, in this case, not for wealth, but for preference. The socialistic spirit of the Left indicts ambition and the pursuit of wealth as Greed, and appeals, supposedly on behalf of “the people,” to the State for “fairness.”….
….But such fairness can only be the non-Constitutional intervention of the State in the legal, Constitutional process—awarding, as it sees fit, money (reparations), preferment (affirmative action), or entertainment (confiscation)….
….“Don’t you care?” is the admonition implicit in the very visage of the Liberals of my acquaintance on their understanding that I have embraced Conservatism. But the Talmud understood of old that good intentions can lead to evil—vide Busing, Urban Renewal, Affirmative Action, Welfare, et cetera, to name the more immediately apparent, and not to mention the, literally, tens of thousands of Federal and State statutes limiting freedom of trade, which is to say, of the right of the individual to make a living, and, so earn that wealth which would, in its necessary expenditure, allow him to provide a living to others….
…. I recognized that though, as a lifelong Liberal, I endorsed and paid lip service to “social justice,” which is to say, to equality of result, I actually based the important decisions of my life—those in which I was personally going to be affected by the outcome—upon the principle of equality of opportunity; and, further, that so did everyone I knew. Many, I saw, were prepared to pay more taxes, as a form of Charity, which is to say, to hand off to the Government the choice of programs and recipients of their hard-earned money, but no one was prepared to be on the short end of the failed Government pro-grams, however well-intentioned. (For example—one might endorse a program giving to minorities preference in award of government contracts; but, as a business owner, one would fight to get the best possible job under the best possible terms regardless of such a program, and would, in fact, work by all legal and, perhaps by semi- or illegal means to subvert any program that enforced upon the proprietor a bad business decision.)*
Further, one, in paying the government to relieve him of a feeling of social responsibility, might not be bothered to question what in fact constituted a minority, and whether, in fact, such minority contracts were actually benefiting the minority so enshrined, or were being subverted to shell corporations and straw men.†
* No one would say of a firefighter, hired under rules reducing the height requirement, and thus unable to carry one’s child to safety, “Nonetheless, I am glad I voted for that ‘more fair’ law.”
† As, indeed, they are, or, in the best case, to those among the applicants claiming eligibility most capable of framing, supporting, or bribing their claims to the front of the line. All claims cannot be met. The politicians and bureaucrats discriminating between claims will necessarily favor those redounding to their individual or party benefit—so the eternal problem of “Fairness,” supposedly solved by Government distribution of funds, becomes, yet again and inevitably, a question of graft.
David Mamet, The Secret Knowledge: On the Dismantling of American Culture (New York, NY: Sentinel Publishing, 2011), 116-117, 12
And here is some good commentary by JULIE BOROWSKI:
…The young woman couldn’t complete the job-related obstacle course in that allotted amount of time. She only completed the course once after multiple attempts and it took her 22 minutes.
She failed and she shouldn’t be graduating.
This shouldn’t be about sparing feelings.
Look, nothing against her personally. Being a firefighter clearly isn’t for everyone. It’s physically demanding work. A firefighter who doesn’t meet the stringent physical standards could put other firefighters and civilians in harm’s way.
This comes at a time when the fire department is under pressure by Mayor de Blasio to hire more women. They have even gone so far as making the FST test easier to avoid sex discrimination lawsuits.
Unbelievable….
….It doesn’t help them that the FDNY is hiring women who, frankly, aren’t capable of performing the job because they didn’t pass the test. I’m sure the 44 female firefighters in New York City aren’t too pleased about their work being devalued.
Physical fitness tests are not sexist. It is sexist to hire someone based on their gender, though.
…read it all… (Dead Site)
New York Sues Trump (Beck/Shapiro/Dershowitz)
New York Sues Trump … Over This? After years of investigations, including by intelligence agencies across the world, New York Attorney General Letitia James is suing former President Trump … for allegedly misleading banks. If that’s all they could accuse “the most investigated person in the world” of, Glenn says, then that’s not half bad. Glenn reviews this latest attempt to take down Trump and wonders if this insanity will ever end…
New York Attorney General Letitia James goes after Donald Trump. This is an overreach.
ALAN DERSHOWITZ FLASHBACK
Alan Dershowitz: Letitia James ‘Undignified,’ ‘Disgrace’ to Law
Water-Boarding Key For Actionable Intelligence (i.e., Liberal Fail)
(Originally posted Dec 9, 2014 — Media refreshed and a few links updated)
Video cross-posted HERE at NewsBusters. On Sunday, NBC’s Meet the Press hosted former Vice President Dick Cheney to speak on the recent Democratic Senate Intelligence Committee report on the CIA’s use of enhanced interrogation tactics on suspected terrorists. While Cheney spoke out in defense of the program, moderator Chuck Todd asked his guest “when you say waterboarding is not torture, then why did we prosecute Japanese soldiers in World War II for waterboarding?” (MRCTV Dec 14, 2014)
CHUCK TODD: When you say waterboarding is not torture, then why did we prosecute Japanese soldiers in World War II for waterboarding?
(OVERTALK)
DICK CHENEY: For a lot of stuff. Not for waterboarding. They did an awful lot of other stuff. To draw some kind of moral equivalent between waterboarding, judged by our Justice Department not to be torture, and what the Japanese did with the Bataan Death March and the slaughter of thousands of Americans, with the rape of Nanking and all of the other crimes they committed, that’s an outrage. It’s a really cheap shot, Chuck, to even try to draw a parallel between the Japanese who were prosecuted for war crimes after World War II and what we did with waterboarding three individuals–
TODD: I understand.
CHENEY: –all of whom were guilty and participated in the 9/11 attacks.
TODD: Is there a reason these interrogations didn’t happen on U.S. soil? Was there concern that maybe these folks would get legal protections–
CHENEY: Well–
TODD: –from the United States and that’s why it was done at black sites?
CHENEY: We didn’t read them their Miranda Rights either. These are not American citizens. They are unlawful combatants. They are terrorists. They are people who have committed unlawful acts of war against the American people. And we put them in places where we could proceed with the interrogation program and find out what they knew so we could protect the country against further attacks. And it worked.
To be clear, many think we did the same as the Japanese did regarding “water ‘torture'”, we did not. The Javanese method often killed their victims, as intended. (Via MDOLLA & READING SHOUTS):
This is the only non-medieval, European torture on our list. The water torture was a favorite among Japanese POW guards during WWII. The victim was first bound with barbed wire and his mouth stuffed with rags. Next, the guards would snake a tube down the victim’s nasal passage and bloat his belly with water. Once that was finished, the guards would kick and beat the poor sap’s midsection until his stomach lining burst and and death ensued.
(The following was originally posted in May of 2011 — edited slightly since)
In a Facebook conversation someone said the following:
Rumsfeld said point blank that they did not get this info from enhanced interrogation but through regular interrogation. I had a Newsmax link which I knew you’d like better but it did not want to post for some reason. I’ll try again.
The whole debate between the efficacious nature of enhanced interrogation is back in the news, thanks to the wonderful killing of Osama bin Laden. As the ATLANTIC JOURNAL notes well the politically charged topic this brings to the debate between Left and Right:
The shot-up corpse of Osama bin Laden was barely wet at the bottom of the sea when conservative heavyweights began praising Bush-era “enhanced interrogation” tactics as a big reason why U.S. soldiers were able to know in which multistory house in which million-dollar compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, the al Qaeda leader was holed up. With a spectacularly successful “end” to the bin Laden story, the we-told-you-so crowd evidently now wants to go back and re-litigate the legitimacy of the “means” by which they claim it all came about.
And, in the absence of any other juicy political conflict surrounding the news of bin Laden’s death, serious journalists were only too happy to oblige the counterfact festival choreographed (typically without attribution, of course) mainly by the nation’s various spies and spooks. One earnest reporter after another, from the right and the left and in between, dutifully stoked the suddenly “reignited” fires of debate over the effectiveness of torture as a means of gathering material information from terror detainees.
On Monday into Tuesday, as a running sidebar to the main story about how the bin Laden assault took place, there were a slew of news articles arguing the back-and-forth of the torture meme as if the two sides to the argument came to this august moment in American history on equal footing in fact or law. For example, NBC’s mighty Michael Isikoff tried to finesse the matter by describing the torture of terror law prisoners as “aggressive interrogations” or “sometimes controversial interrogations.” And then he wrote:
The behind-the-scenes story of how bin Laden was finally located is yet to be fully told, but emerging details seem likely to reignite the debate over whether “enhanced interrogation” techniques and other aggressive methods that have been widely criticized by human rights groups provided useful – or timely — intelligence about al-Qaida. While some current and former U.S. officials credited those interrogations Monday with producing the big break in the case, others countered that they failed to produce what turned out to be the most crucial piece of intelligence of all: the identity and whereabouts of the most important figure in bin Laden courier’s network.
One of the “behind-the-scenes” nuggets apparently involves Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the mastermind of the terror attacks of September 11, 2001, who was said by some unidentified analysts to have given up the nicknames of some of bin Laden’s couriers only after being subjected to waterboarding. One of those couriers, we now know, was brilliantly tracked by American operatives to the Abbottabad hideout and thus to bin Laden himself. But here’s what the Associated Press had to say about that:
Mohammed did not reveal the names while being subjected to the simulated drowning technique known as waterboarding, former officials said. He identified them many months later under standard interrogation, they said, leaving it once again up for debate as to whether the harsh technique was a valuable tool or an unnecessarily violent tactic.
Just exactly why the merits of waterboarding as an honorable tool of U.S. policy are “once again up for debate” based upon the Mohammed example was left unwritten by the AP.
Just to keep this quick… if one wants to stop reading here — Rumsfeld is a very specific dude… so when you ask his a specific question, he answers in a specific way. So if you ask him about “enhanced interrogations AT GITMO, he is going to respond to THAT question. And he did. But here is my overly long but in-depth post that Conservative Warriors can use in bits and pieces.
Marc Thiessen
- FLASHBACK: Mark Thiessen Waterboarding (C-SPAN 2010)
- FLASHBACK: Marc Thiessen Confronts CNN’s Waterboarding Propaganda (Jan 2010)
Firstly, a shout out to the many years from multiple administrations and the intelligence community and our boys in uniform.
Now down to business. I have gotten a couple of people pointing out some discrepancies in my previous post, Without Bush Implementing Water-Boarding and Guantanamo Interrogations, Osama Would Still Be Alive. What is actually happening – I believe – is a misconception of times and places on the part of the liberals entering into this discussion. It is important to know as well that “first reports” are always a bit confused.
As you read the following you will see that the Daily Kos, Huffington Post, and other liberal sites ran with responses to questions that don’t fit the outcome to the conclusions made. What the questions were that were originally posed to Rumsfeld seem to be a bit out of context, as we will see.
To wit I have been given multiple articles to read, some from liberal sources, others from conservative source… sources rejected except in this singular instance – speaking here of the NEWSMAX article. In it NewsMax starts out with this:
Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld tells Newsmax the information that led to the killing of Osama bin Laden was obtained through “normal interrogation approaches” and says the notion that terrorist suspects were waterboarded at Guantanamo Bay is a “myth.”
Lets bullet point this for clarity sake:
1) information that led to the killing of Osama bin Laden was obtained through “normal interrogation approaches
2) the notion that terrorist suspects were waterboarded at Guantanamo Bay is a “myth.”
Nothing I wrote or conservatives posted disagree with this notion, and it is beyond me why DailyKos, the Huffington post, and other sites take Rummies words and misconstrue them. A great post dealing with this issue is found over at SayAnythingBlog.com:
Liberals have been touting these comments from Donald Rumsfeld in which the former Bush administration Secretary of Defense says that the intelligence used to find Osama bin Laden wasn’t obtained through waterboarding because waterboarding didn’t happen at Guantanamo Bay:
Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld tells Newsmax the information that led to the killing of Osama bin Laden was obtained through “normal interrogation approaches” and says the notion that terrorist suspects were waterboarded at Guantanamo Bay is a “myth.”
Rumsfeld also claims that elements of Pakistani intelligence could have been complicit in hiding the terrorist mastermind, asserts that his killing exonerates George W. Bush’s approach to fighting terrorism, and warns that terrorists will likely try to avenge bin Laden’s death with new attacks against America or its allies.
“Another wingnut myth bites the dust,” writes Bob Cesca, but I’m not sure this really disproves anything.
First, we know that Khalid Sheik Mohammed was interrogated not at Guantanamo Bay but at CIA detention centers in eastern Europe. We also know that KSM was subjected to so-called “enhanced interrogation techniques” which is pretty much political speak for waterboarding.
Also, as Stephen Hayes notes on Twitter, the question isn’t whether or not KSM gave up the intelligence during a waterboarding session but whether or not the waterboarding we all know KSM went through made him compliant with his interrogators, something that lead to him giving up the intelligence at a later date.
Say Anything Blog goes on to point out that Congressman King still stands by the position that this beginning info came from those waterboarding moments. (See my combined RUMBLE video below)
(1st Video) Earlier today word surfaced from a senior intelligence official that critical information that ultimately led to the attack on Osama bin Laden’s compound came from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Others, including former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, hinted that some interrogation techniques at Gitmo may have contributed to the successful capture of bin Laden. During tonight’s O’Reilly Factor, guest Rep. Peter King (R-NY) claimed to host Bill O’Reilly that the information that led to bin Laden’s death came as a result of waterboarding. (May 2nd, 2011)
(2nd Video) House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Peter King (R-NY) spoke with Bill Hemmer this morning, saying that contrary to Donald Rumsfeld’s statement on Monday, waterboarding was indeed involved in obtaining the intel leading operatives to Osama bin Laden’s courier. (May 3rd, 2011)
However, even if we accept the liberal spin, Say Anything goes on to point out the following:
But really, this is all a moot point. Even it we stipulate that waterboarding, or “enhanced interrogation techniques,” had nothing at all do to with KSM giving up key details which lead to bin Laden’s capture the intelligence was still gathered at facilities (Guantanamo Bay and the CIA prisons in Europe) Obama wanted shut down.
No matter how this is spun, the reality of how the intelligence which brought down bin Laden was gathered is a black eye for President Obama and the liberals who spent years campaigning against the very policies which made that intelligence gathering possible.
Excellent points! Also, many sources in the prevailing articles coming out hourly is another indicator of the factual points of the varying sides of this argument. For instance, over at the Denver Post (was at the Charlotte Observer):
Shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, detainees in the CIA’s secret prison network told interrogators about an important courier with the nom de guerre Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti who was close to bin Laden. After the CIA captured al-Qaida’s No. 3 leader, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, he confirmed knowing al-Kuwaiti but denied he had anything to do with al-Qaida.
Then in 2004, top al-Qaida operative Hassan Ghul was captured in Iraq. Ghul told the CIA that al-Kuwaiti was a courier, someone crucial to the terrorist organization. In particular, Ghul said, the courier was close to Faraj al-Libi, who replaced Mohammed as al-Qaida’s operational commander. It was a key break in the hunt for in bin Laden’s personal courier.
“Hassan Ghul was the linchpin,” a U.S. official said.
Finally, in May 2005, al-Libi was captured. Under CIA interrogation, al-Libi admitted that when he was promoted to succeed Mohammed, he received the word through a courier. But he made up a name for the courier and denied knowing al-Kuwaiti, a denial that was so adamant and unbelievable that the CIA took it as confirmation that he and Mohammed were protecting the courier. It only reinforced the idea that al-Kuwaiti was very important to al-Qaida.
If they could find the man known as al-Kuwaiti, they’d find bin Laden.
The revelation that intelligence gleaned from the CIA’s so-called black sites helped kill bin Laden was seen as vindication for many intelligence officials who have been repeatedly investigated and criticized for their involvement in a program that involved the harshest interrogation methods in U.S. history.
“We got beat up for it, but those efforts led to this great day,” said Marty Martin, a retired CIA officer who for years led the hunt for bin Laden.
Mohammed did not discuss al-Kuwaiti while being subjected to the simulated drowning technique known as waterboarding, former officials said. He acknowledged knowing him many months later under standard interrogation, they said, leaving it once again up for debate as to whether the harsh technique was a valuable tool or an unnecessarily violent tactic.
Take note that the source that mentions that we did get the info via enhanced interrogations was sourced by name. Again:
The revelation that intelligence gleaned from the CIA’s so-called black sites helped kill bin Laden was seen as vindication for many intelligence officials who have been repeatedly investigated and criticized for their involvement in a program that involved the harshest interrogation methods in U.S. history.
“We got beat up for it, but those efforts led to this great day,” said Marty Martin, a retired CIA officer who for years led the hunt for bin Laden.
The sources apparently saying different are simply referred to as former officials, But note that the article says this, “Mohammed did not discuss al-Kuwaiti while being subjected to the simulated drowning technique known as waterboarding, former officials said. He acknowledged knowing him many months later under standard interrogation.” In two separate posts on my FaceBook I pointed out the misunderstanding some seem to have:
The name of the courier did not come from KSM under enhanced interrogation. KSM cracked and agreed to share what he knew BECAUSE of enhanced interrogation. I don’t know how I can be clearer? …. (I read the Newsmax article.) KSM, after many short intervals of water-boarding combined with sleep deprivation, caved in. And over many months/years of “tea and crumpets” he divulged names, places, tactics, and the like. This info led to many plots being foiled [like the planned attack on the Library Tower in L.A.]. The codename for the courier was one of the items given up during these talks AFTER they water-boarded him, which could have been months after or years after this initial event. Clear?
For those who have the time, I highly recommend Larry Elders dealing with this topic yesterday. I combine highlighted moments from his radio broadcast where he makes many similar point:
GATEWAY PUNDIT likewise deals with his topic in a way that refutes the many positions stated by my liberal friends:
Obama’s CIA chief admitted today that intelligence gleaned from enhanced interrogating techniques helped lead to the killing of Osama Bin Laden. (MY RUMBLE):
Intelligence garnered from waterboarded detainees was used to track down al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden and kill him, CIA Chief Leon Panetta told NBC News on Tuesday.
“Enhanced interrogation techniques” were used to extract information that led to the mission’s success, Panetta said during an interview with anchor Brian Williams. Those techniques included waterboarding, he acknowledged.
Panetta, who in a 2009 CIA confirmation hearing declared “waterboarding is torture and it’s wrong,” said Tuesday that debate about its use will continue.
“Whether we would have gotten the same information through other approaches I think is always gonna be an open question,” Panetta said.
Additionally, GATEWAY PUNDIT has video of Rumsfeld saying the same:
Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld:
“CIA Director Panetta indicated that one of the individuals who provided important information had in fact been waterboarded… There was some confusion today on some programs, even one on FOX I think, suggesting that I indicated that no one who was waterboarded at Guantanamo provided any information on this. It’s not true. No one was waterboarded at Guantanamo by the US military. In fact no one was waterboarded at Guantanamo period. Three people were waterboarded by the CIA away from Guantanamo and then later were brought to Guantanamo. And, in fact, as you pointed out the information from these individuals was critically important.”
Once again… Ace of Spades put together the timeline that started back in 2003 during the Bush years that led to Osama’s death on Sunday.
The Obama Administration is lying. They don’t want to give Bush credit for leading them to Osama’s compound. And, they don’t want to admit they were wrong about waterboarding.
Once Again, my Democrats and Liberal friends are wrong as well as major liberal sites such as the Daily Kos and the Huffington Post are wrong. Too bad, sooo sad. I wish to point out that many of the truther leftist out there seem to running into a wall of competing emotions and logical conclusions within their models. (Here I suggest my C-O-N-Debunker page for the truther.) For instance, one friend on FaceBook posted this in regards to Rossie O’Donnel:
The killing of Bin Laden must pose a dilemma for leftist truthers like Rosie O’Donnell, who think 9/11 was an inside job by the Bush administration. As a loyal liberal, she wants to praise Obama, but for what — killing the wrong guy?
Another person chimed in:
It’s worse than that Mike, if you include the rare bird known as the truther-birther. That guy not only believes the wrong guy was killed, but that the wrong guy ordered the killing. And now add the newly-minted, “deather,” who doesn’t believe OBL was really killed. Thus, you can in theory have someone who believes that the wrong guy issued an order to kill a guy that didn’t die for a crime he did not commit.
Oh what a tangled web we weave when we first try to deceive, which are what the conspiratorialists — of which I use to be one many years ago — are doing to themselves. But it sure is fun to watch.
(Another post dated May 2014)
I posted this on my FaceBook:
This capture and killing of Osama would not have been possible without Bush being in office. We water-boarded a handful of people, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed being one. He is the guy who gave up the codename for the courier that led to this “justice being served.” …. Confirmation came through other interrogations at Guantanamo Bay — something Dems wanted to close as well.
Firstly, we know that Democrats/liberals are against water-boarding, except if it were done to Bush’s daughters. You think I am kidding? Stepephen King, novelist and outspoken Democrat, said this:
Someone in the Bush family should actually be waterboarded so they could report on it to George. I said, I didn’t think he would do it, but I suggested Jenna be waterboarded and then she could talk about whether or not she thought it was torture.
I agree with Stephen King, if Jenna Bush had detailed information about a plot that was already under-way to destroy the Library Tower in L.A., by all means, waterboard her. But don’t ask if it is torture after… one should, rather, ask her if she is allergic to peas. Because that’s one staple she will be getting with her meals a few times a week in her lifelong prison cell.
You see, Democrats have what Thomas Sowell calls first tier thinking, they never make it to the second tier. They simply act upon how something makes them feel: “this makes me feel uneasy, therefore, I will act against what engenders my feeling.” They do not make it to the second tier, which asks “how does this affect society and other people besides me.” Many do not understand even how they make decisions. Dr. Sowell isn’t worried as much about Johnny not being able to read, rather, he is worried about how Johnny makes decisions: “The problem isn’t that Johnny can’t read. The problem isn’t even that Johnny can’t think. The problem is that Johnny doesn’t know what thinking is; he confuses it with feeling.” This applies to Democratic decision making. It is this thinking that muddled the proper historical application of torture and the Geneva Convention (see: WWII, Nazi’s, Torture, & Rights (4 Imported Articles — Very Important Read To Formulate Proper Views of History and Responses to Revisionist History). One of my favorite lines from the linked post is comparing key information gotten from Nazi’s captured during WWII is this:
If anyone believes that SIS persuaded each of these 19 hard-bitten Nazi spies to fall in with Operation Fortitude by merely offering them tea, biscuits, and lectures in democracy, they’re being profoundly naïve.
One of the problems with Democratic thinking is in regards to “moral equivalency.” I point this out in a post about water-boarding and how the Democratic leadership views our military:
A Little Historical Angst
The Obama administration is backtracking on its statement that some may be open to legal prosecution for their involvement in the “torturing” three members of Al Qaeda. The problem of the Democrats is moral equivalency. While they say Republican see thing in black-and-white, and they see things in shades of grey (with thanks to Dennis Prager), they in fact see all torture techniques — putting a guy in a small cell with bugs — as morally wrong. They do not see gradations of “torture” like they do not see gradations between cultures and social-issues (moral equivalency of marriage, for instance).
See for instance Democrats calling our military Nazi’s and Terrorists:
♦John Kerry calls American troops terrorists
♦Durbin Compares U.S. Troops to Nazi’s, Soviets, & Pol Pot
♦Murtha calls Marines Murderers (of course these Marines were all acquitted because they were under fire from these places they fired on. I have to include a response by a Marine to Murtha, and a story on Murtha being sued for slander.)
I can here recommend a book by Michelle Malkin entitled, “Unhinged: Exposing Liberals Gone Wild“; and another book by an ex-dem entitled, “Leaving the Left: Moments in the News That Made Me Ashamed to Be a Liberal.”
“His sufferings must be that of a man who is drowning, but cannot drown.” ~ Lt. Grover Flint
Later in this same post Peter Hoekstra points out that, “Perhaps we need an investigation not of the enhanced interrogation program, but of what the Obama administration may be doing to endanger the security our nation has enjoyed because of interrogations and other antiterrorism measures implemented since Sept. 12, 2001. “Thankfully we had a President that knew at what cost information comes and was willing to implement the program that stopped sooo many deaths! This can be exemplified in Marc Thiessen debating Democrats on the issue…
[seen near the top]
Waterboarding Success Stories: Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and Library Tower: (This excerpt is from a site that has lost this page, but the gist is found at NATIONAL REVIEW and FREE REPUBLIC)
The waterboarding of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed is often cited as one of the major waterboarding “success stories”. ABC News reporter Brian Ross credited waterboarding for the crucial information used to avert the destruction of Library Tower.
ROSS: That has happened in some cases where the material that’s been given has not been accurate, has been essentially to stop the torture. In the case of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the information was very valuable, particularly names and addresses of people who were involved with al Qaeda in this country and in Europe. And in one particular plot, which would involve an airline attack on the tallest building in Los Angeles, known as the Library Tower.
The US Bank Tower plot was revealed to the public by President Bush on February 9, 2006 in a speech to the National Guard Association:
In the weeks after September the 11th, while Americans were still recovering from an unprecedented strike on our homeland, al Qaeda was already busy planning its next attack. We now know that in October 2001, Khalid Shaykh Muhammad — the mastermind of the September the 11th attacks — had already set in motion a plan to have terrorist operatives hijack an airplane using shoe bombs to breach the cockpit door, and fly the plane into the tallest building on the West Coast. We believe the intended target was Liberty [sic] Tower in Los Angeles, California.
Rather than use Arab hijackers as he had on September the 11th, Khalid Shaykh Muhammad sought out young men from Southeast Asia — whom he believed would not arouse as much suspicion. To help carry out this plan, he tapped a terrorist named Hambali [Riduan Isamuddin], one of the leaders of an al Qaeda affiliated group in Southeast Asia called “J-I” [Jemaah Islamiyah]. JI terrorists were responsible for a series of deadly attacks in Southeast Asia, and members of the group had trained with al Qaeda. Hambali recruited several key operatives who had been training in Afghanistan. Once the operatives were recruited, they met with Osama bin Laden, and then began preparations for the West Coast attack.
Their plot was derailed in early 2002 when a Southeast Asian nation arrested a key al Qaeda operative. Subsequent debriefings and other intelligence operations made clear the intended target, and how al Qaeda hoped to execute it. This critical intelligence helped other allies capture the ringleaders and other known operatives who had been recruited for this plot. The West Coast plot had been thwarted.
Which aspects of this plot could Khalid Shaikh Mohammed’s waterboarding have revealed?
- We learned about Al Qaeda’s interest in flying planes into buildings on September 11, 2001.
- We knew about Al Qaeda’s use of shoe bombs from Richard Reid, captured in December 22, 2001.
- We knew about Jemaah Islamiyah at least since the Bali Bomb attack on October 12, 2002.
- The “key al Qaeda operative” and pilot for the plot, Zaini Zakari, was arrested by Malaysian authorities in December 2002.
“His sufferings must be that of a
man who is drowning, but cannot drown.”
— Lt. Grover Flint —
Khalid Shaikh Mohammed was captured in Rawalpindi, Pakistan on March 1, 2003 — after the plot was discovered, after the plot was “derailed”, after the pilot of the plane was captured. Khaled Sheikh Mohammed could not have “provided valuable information and saved lives” when all aspects of the plot were well-known and the attack had been foiled prior to his capture. Coercive interrogation is extremely effective at obtaining confessions. Evidence obtained from coercive interrogation is highly dubious and must be corroborated with reliable sources. The claims of interrogators who coerce their prisoners should be treated with as much skepticism as the claims of the prisoners themselves.
You can add the death of a terror mastermind (Osama) to the above list of positives!
Rep. Thomas Massie (KY 4th) Spanks Some Democrats On Facts
Democrats want to ban an arm brace for disabled veterans, thinking it’s a bump stock.
Buttigieg gets SCHOOLED by off-the-grid Congressman on electric vehicles
Trump Offered 10,000+ Troops Prior To J6 (UPDATED)
UPDATED VIDEO:
Kash Patel and Christopher Miller former acting secretary of defense on the sham 1/6 hearings! Kash wants all the transcripts released
(THE BELOW IS FROM FEBRUARY 2021)
Mark Levin discusses Mark Meadows revelation from February 7th (TRUMP WAR ROOM). I do not listen to Mark all that much, but this is the maddest I have heard him (at the end: 6:03 to 6:15 mark).
…Meadows told Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures” host Maria Bartiromo that even though Trump was vocal about offering Capitol Police and National Guard presence at the Capitol on multiple occasions prior to January 6, his offers were rejected “every time.”
“We also know that in January, but also throughout the summer, that the president was very vocal in making sure that we had plenty of National Guard, plenty of additional support because he supports our rule of law and supports our law enforcement and offered additional help,” Meadows told Bartiromo.
“Even in January, that was a given, as many as 10,000 National Guard troops were told to be on the ready by the Secretary of Defense,” Meadows said. “That was a direct order from President Trump and yet here is what we see … all kinds of blame going around but yet not a whole lot of accountability.”…
What is not known by the typical cable news watcher, probably, is that both the Capital Police and the mayor of D.C. turned down offers to help secure the government areas before and as the mob of crazed Lefties and Righties descended on the Capital:
-
- …Three days before the riot, the Pentagon offered National Guard manpower. And as the mob descended on the building Wednesday, Justice Department leaders reached out to offer up FBI agents. Capitol Police turned them down both times, according to senior defense officials and two people familiar with the matter. Despite plenty of warnings of a possible insurrection and ample resources and time to prepare, police planned only for a free speech demonstration. (WASHINGTON TIMES)
- Washington, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser told federal law enforcement to stand down just one day before a mob of Trump supporters breached the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, smashing windows, entering the chambers, and forcing lawmakers and congressional staff inside into lockdown. “To be clear, the District of Columbia is not requesting other federal law enforcement personnel and discourages any additional deployment without immediate notification to, and consultation with, MPD if such plans are underway,” Bowser wrote in a letter to acting U.S. Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen, acting Secretary of Defense Chris Miller, and Secretary of the Army Ryan D. McCarthy. According to Bowser, D.C.’s Metropolitan Police Department in coordination with the U.S. Park Police, Capitol Police, and Secret Sevice were well-equipped to handle whatever problems could come up during the Trump rallies planned for Wednesday. (THE FEDERALIST)
More Media #FakeNews (“Genius” and “Savvy”)
Clay Travis and Buck Sexton wade through the left’s lies about our interview with Donald Trump. These journos have nothing else left but to gaslight and demonize Trump.
REAL CLEAR POLITICS notes the out of context nature of the MSM narrative:
BUCK: Mr. President, in the last 24 hours we know Russia has said that they are recognizing two breakaway regions of Ukraine, and now this White House is stating that this is an “invasion.” That’s a strong word. What went wrong here? What has the current occupant of the Oval Office done that he could have done differently?
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Well, what went wrong was a rigged election and what went wrong is a candidate that shouldn’t be there and a man that has no concept of what he’s doing. I went in yesterday and there was a television screen, and I said, “This is genius.” Putin declares a big portion of the Ukraine — of Ukraine. Putin declares it as independent. Oh, that’s wonderful.
So Putin is now saying, “It’s independent,” a large section of Ukraine. I said, “How smart is that?” And he’s gonna go in and be a peacekeeper. That’s strongest peace force… We could use that on our southern border. That’s the strongest peace force I’ve ever seen. There were more army tanks than I’ve ever seen. They’re gonna keep peace all right. No, but think of it. Here’s a guy who’s very savvy… I know him very well. Very, very well.
By the way, this never would have happened with us. Had I been in office, not even thinkable. This would never have happened. But here’s a guy that says, you know, “I’m gonna declare a big portion of Ukraine independent,” he used the word “independent,” “and we’re gonna go out and we’re gonna go in and we’re gonna help keep peace.” You gotta say that’s pretty savvy. And you know what the response was from Biden? There was no response. They didn’t have one for that. No, it’s very sad. Very sad.
Marco Rubio says of the interview:
Former President Donald Trump was being “sarcastic” when he referred to Russian President Vladimir Putin as a “genius,” Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., said Tuesday.
“I heard that interview,” Rubio said during an interview on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.” “I’m not going off the press reports. I heard the interview. I didn’t hear him say that. I heard what I heard. A guy who was being sarcastic. He was saying, Oh, look at this guy, he’s a genius, this, that and the other.”
Trump came under fire last week after his comments on the Clay Travis and Buck Sexton radio show, on which he referred to Putin as being “savvy” and a “genius.”
[….]
“If it wasn’t for what the Trump administration did and laid the groundwork for, there’s no way Ukraine would still be able to hold out today,” Rubio said.
(NEWSMAX)
RED STATE rightly notes what Clay and Buck did when speaking about what the Left and Press has run with counters basic English context when “referring to someone as a ‘genius’ can carry with it, alternative meanings.”
…Certainly, Trump’s talk on Putin has been at times sycophantic, something this author will not discount. However, referring to someone as a “genius” can carry with it, alternative meanings.
For instance, when it comes to people like David Axelrod or Rahm Emanuel, I can admire their genius within politics and hold them in utter contempt because of how they choose to use their gifts. Adolf Hitler was a genius as an orator, but a genocidal sociopath. I do not presume to understand Trump’s motivations in his less-than-polished statements about the Russian leader; however, I simply state that Trump can believe Putin is a genius and a sociopath. While I can think Trump is a genius in manipulating the media (and trust me… he is), I can disagree with him on things like increasing deficit spending and his lowest-common-denominator rhetoric.
When it came to Putin though, the left and the media (but I repeat myself) did their damnedest to tie Trump to Putin and Russia, despite the total lack of evidence of such a connection. Whether it was Russia-gate, in which Trump and his officials were never charged, or lofty stories of Trump and his behavior with Russian prostitutes, or even flat out fabrications, like was spun regarding Russian bounties on American servicemen in Syria, the media went to all lengths to make Trump appear weak against Putin and the Russians.
Yet one stark reality cannot be ignored: Putin took no action against any of his neighbors during the Trump Administration.
Regardless of Trump’s statements (which I often took issue with), the result of his foreign policy led to the lack of the entry of the US in any additional foreign conflicts for the first time in decades. That includes saber-rattling with any foreign powers.
Meanwhile, when you look at Trump’s predecessor, the same cannot be said.
Beginning immediately in 2009, Obama faced Russian games in Crimea in Ukraine. Russia, which had been exerting influence in the region towards the end of 2008 (after Obama’s election but before he took office) thrust the new leader (Obama) into a place many felt he was unprepared to be. Obama sat idly by and watched as Putin and the Russians pushed the area to the brink of war.
In the months leading up to the conflict, the Russians had been issuing Russian passports to residents of other countries, an act which granted those people the rights of other Russian citizens, including the protection of the Russian military, should they need it. Protests, largely organized and funded by Russia, began popping up in Crimea, sending the region into chaos. Of course, this was the goal of the Russians, so they could use this conflict as a reason to enter Ukraine to reestablish peace on behalf of the (new) Russian citizens living in that region.
Obama did nothing….
(RIGHT SCOOP also responds to Meghan McCain)
Hillary Clinton jumps into the fray and gets walloped! PJ-MEDIA has a great post in which I will steal two tweets from:
Clay Travis and Buck Sexton break down Hillary Clinton’s lies about our interview with Donald Trump. How much wrong can the Democrats fit into just one year?
How the Left Was Lost | Bill Maher
(FYI, RPT disagrees with Bill’s position about the election being stolen, but he gets most everything else correct.) Bill slams this ridiculous new era of mind-numbing partisanship, where simply speaking truth to your own party can make you an instant hero to the other side.
Is The National Anthem Racist? (Prager U Update)
(Updated 7-3-2021)
I figured this recent “Anthem Protest” would be a good update for the post. This comes to me via RIGHT SCOOP:
Gwen Berry explained today why she reacted with such contempt for the National Anthem over the weekend and it’s absolutely ridiculous (video at Twitter… click pic):
Berry claims that “If you know your history, you know the full song of the National Anthem. The third paragraph speaks to slaves in America, our blood being slang and piltered all over the floor. It’s disrespectful and it does not speak for black Americans. It’s obvious. There’s no question.”
I found this explanation unbelievable. But because I don’t know the verse, I went back and read it anyway:
And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle’s confusion,
A home and a country, should leave us no more?
Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps’ pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave:
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave,
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.
So it turns out she’s an idiot. Yes, it uses the world ‘slave’, but it doesn’t remotely mean what she claims it means. It’s referring to the British, which is clear from the context. Not American slaves.
Erick Erickson provides us more insight here:
[….]
…the third verse of the National Anthem has nothing to do with slave labor. She’s taking language out of context by using a modern day definition and applying it to a 17th century statement. — Kenny Webster
. . . . . .
(Originally Posted Sep 29, 2017)
✩✩✩ OUR NATIONAL ANTHEM ✩✩✩
(Above video description: The original file AND description can be found here in full — HOWEVER, the audio was horrible. I tried to raise the DBs but couldn’t get rid of the hiss… but it is a must watch!)
UPDATED VIDEO ADDED
The Star-Spangled Banner, long a treasured symbol of national unity, has suddenly become “one of the most racist, pro-slavery songs” in American culture. Why is this happening? And more importantly, is it true? USA Today columnist James Robbins explores the history of the song and its author to answer these questions.
A friend asked a question about a challenge via “The Root” about the National Anthem. This is the “verse” said to be “racist”
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave,
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.
It is said our (yes, OUR) anthem glories in black slaves dying. Here is how it is encapsulated in the NEW YORK TIMES:
The journalist Jon Schwarz, writing in The Intercept, argued yes, denouncing the lyrics, written by Francis Scott Key during the War of 1812, as “a celebration of slavery.” How could black players, Mr. Schwarz asked, be expected to stand for a song whose rarely sung third stanza — which includes the lines “No refuge could save the hireling and slave/From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave” — “literally celebrates the murder of African-Americans”?
Here is another sport figure’s comments on the flag:
- “And stop trying to sweep it under the rug. But, see, as long as you paint that narrative, oh, it’s the Anthem, I can’t — no — anybody that does something to the Anthem — well, we know what the anthem was originally written for and who it was written by, okay? The flag, okay? We understand what the flag? What does it represent? — SHANNON SHARPE
Here, the SMITHSONIAN helps set the scene for us and how the Anthem came to be:
…A week earlier, Francis Scott Key, a 35-year-old American lawyer, had boarded the flagship of the British fleet on the Chesapeake Bay in hopes of persuading the British to release a friend who had recently been arrested. Key’s tactics were successful, but because he and his companions had gained knowledge of the impending attack on Baltimore, the British did not let them go. They allowed the Americans to return to their own vessel but continued guarding them. Under their scrutiny, Key watched on September 13 as the barrage of Fort McHenry began eight miles away.
“It seemed as though mother earth had opened and was vomiting shot and shell in a sheet of fire and brimstone,” Key wrote later. But when darkness arrived, Key saw only red erupting in the night sky. Given the scale of the attack, he was certain the British would win. The hours passed slowly, but in the clearing smoke of “the dawn’s early light” on September 14, he saw the American flag—not the British Union Jack—flying over the fort, announcing an American victory.
Key put his thoughts on paper while still on board the ship, setting his words to the tune of a popular English song. His brother-in-law, commander of a militia at Fort McHenry, read Key’s work and had it distributed under the name “Defence of Fort M’Henry.” The Baltimore Patriot newspaper soon printed it, and within weeks, Key’s poem, now called “The Star-Spangled Banner,” appeared in print across the country, immortalizing his words—and forever naming the flag it celebrated….
THE DAILY CALLER notes (and so does SNOPES) that this verse was in reference to slaves and mercenaries that fought on the British side:
Francis Scott Key wrote the song the morning after the British bombarded Fort McHenry toward the end of the War of 1812, when he saw the American flag still waving. In these lines of the third verse he’s celebrating the death of slaves and mercenaries who opted to fight for the British in exchange for their freedom following the war.
INDEPENDENT JOURNAL REVIEW puts the idea to bullet points:
- The Star Spangled Banner lyrics “the hireling ” refers to the British use of Mercenaries (German Hessians) in the American War of Independence
- The Star Spangled Banner lyrics “…and slave” is a direct reference to the British practice of Impressment (kidnapping American seamen and forcing them into service on British man-of war ships). This was a Important cause of the War of 1812
- Francis Scott Key then describes the Star Spangled Banner as a symbol of triumph over all adversity
The U.S. CAPITAL HISTORICAL SOCIETY also comments on the added “fifth verse” by Oliver Wendell Holmes at the start of the Civil War:
Fifty years later, in 1861, poet Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. would write a fifth verse to the National Anthem, reflecting the nation’s strife and looking toward a more peaceable future:
When our land is illum’d with Liberty’s smile,
If a foe from within strike a blow at her glory,
Down, down, with the traitor that dares to defile
The flag of her stars and the page of her story!
By the millions unchain’d who our birthright have gained
We will keep her bright blazon forever unstained!
And the Star-Spangled Banner in triumph shall wave
While the land of the free is the home of the brave.
Here, Wendell, unlike Key, foresaw not only the inevitable emancipation of the nation’s slaves, but also the freed African Americans gaining full citizen rights and ensuring the country’s preservation. Today, this verse is not considered an official part of the National Anthem, but during the Civil War, it was printed in song books throughout the northern United States as an extension of Key’s lyrics. In this way, Francis Scott Key and the War of 1812 bequeathed to the nation not just a song, but a step toward the perpetuating of liberty—just as the Revolutionary War and Civil War did.
Again, the Left views complex history through the lens of a historical Marxist view. Something that Howard Zinn tried to do as well, but did so by rewriting history… as the Modern Left still does.
Francis Scott Key, like many during that time, had a varied history on slavery. He fought for slaves to be free in court – pro bono. But, he also fought to return runaway slaves to owners at some point in his life – probably for money. So he was an opportunistic lawyer to pay bills… nothing has changed. WIKI continues with this:
Key publicly criticized slavery’s cruelties, so much that after his death a newspaper editorial stated “So actively hostile was he to the peculiar institution that he was called ‘The Nigger Lawyer’ …. because he often volunteered to defend the downtrodden sons and daughters of Africa. Mr. Key convinced me that slavery was wrong—radically wrong.” In June 1842, Key attended the funeral of William Costin, a free, mixed race resident who had challenged Washington’s surety bond laws.
The SMITHSONIAN again notes that Key was a founding member and active leader of the American Colonization, of which the primary goal was to send free African-Americans back to Africa. Keys, even though he abhorred slavery, and fought to free slaves at times, was removed from the board in 1833 as its policies shifted toward abolitionist. The mood of the nation as a whole was shifting. While Keys couldn’t envision a multi-ethnic nation, others could. But Keys position wasn’t necessarily “racist,” as some ex-slaves wanted the same. To recall a portion of the above quote from the Capital Historical Society, “…Wendell, unlike Key, foresaw not only the inevitable emancipation of the nation’s slaves, but also the freed African Americans gaining full citizen rights and ensuring the country’s preservation.”
YOU SEE, people change… as do nations (because they, like corporations, are made up of people). I make this point in my post on AUGUSTINE, who is often used to support old-earth positions… but little know that later in his life he rejected the old-earth view and wrote quite a bit on the young earth (creationist) viewpoint.
A man needs to be judged by his life’s journey. As do nations.
Likewise, conservatives believe that Robert Byrd may have sincerely changed his formerly racist beliefs. But when Democrats accuse Republicans of racism because they went to Strom Thurmond’s (one of the only major Dixiecrats to change to Republican – watch here and here) funeral and gave him praise, even though he changed his views on race/racism. All we point out is that if praising an ex Dixiecrat at a funeral makes one racist… then what does lauding a KKK Grand Kleagle at his funeral make Democrats?
A man needs to be judged by his life’s journey.
So does a nation.
Here is the rest of the SMITHSONIAN piece I wish to excerpt:
A religious man, Key believed slavery sinful; he campaigned for suppression of the slave trade. “Where else, except in slavery,” he asked, “was ever such a bed of torture prepared?” Yet the same man, who coined the expression “the land of the free,” was himself an owner of slaves who defended in court slaveholders’ rights to own human property.
Key believed that the best solution was for African-Americans to “return” to Africa—although by then most had been born in the United States. He was a founding member of the American Colonization Society, the organization dedicated to that objective; its efforts led to the creation of an independent Liberia on the west coast of Africa in 1847. Although the society’s efforts were directed at the small percentage of free blacks, Key believed that the great majority of slaves would eventually join the exodus. That assumption, of course, proved to be a delusion. “Ultimately,” says historian Egerton, “the proponents of colonization represent a failure of imagination. They simply cannot envision a multiracial society. The concept of moving people around as a solution was widespread and being applied to Indians as well.”
You see, Americans’ belief then was “not merely in themselves [shocker to millennials] but also in their future…. lying just beyond the western horizon” (ibid). And that is key. As Paul Johnson rightly notes in his history book on America:
“…can a nation rise above the injustices of its origins and, by its moral purpose and performance, atone for them? All nations are born in war, conquest, and crime, usually concealed by the obscurity of a distant past. The United States, from its earliest colonial times, won its title-deeds in the full blaze of recorded history, and the stains on them are there for all to see and censure: the dispossession of a indigenous people, and the securing of self-sufficiency through the sweat and pain of an enslaved race. In the judgmental scales of history, such grievous wrongs must be balanced by the erection of a society dedicated to justice and fairness.”
Paul Johnson, A History of the American People (New York, NY: Harper Perenial, 1997), 3.
Democrat’s Crackpot Theories (Montage – Illegitimate President)
(UPDATED TODAY) The Democrats take to the streets based upon no evidence. Now we have broad evidence of voter fraud and they’re mad that Republicans have the audacity to verify the election results?
LARRY ELDER .COM
Right-Wing Conspiracy ‘Insane’ — Left-Wing Conspiracy Theories, Not So Much
….Seventy-eight percent of Democrats, according to an August 2018 Gallup poll, believed not only that the Russians interfered in the 2016 election but also that this interference put Trump in office. Our intelligence community reached no such conclusion.
Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., falsely blames President Ronald Reagan’s CIA for playing a major role in the urban crack-cocaine epidemic. Waters even wrote a foreword for a book called “Dark Alliance,” that made this sensational claim. The New York Times, Los Angeles Times and The Washington Post, despite their contempt for Reagan, all disputed Waters’ assertion. The San Jose Mercury News, the newspaper that published the CIA-crack cocaine allegation, issued a retraction of the most serious claims. The reporter resigned, and later, at age 49, committed suicide.
Prominent Black entertainers accused the American government scientists of inventing HIV/AIDS. Comedian/activist Dick Gregory said the virus “was not passed from chimpanzees to mankind, but was probably knowingly developed by doctors and scientists working for the U.S. government.” Bill Cosby said AIDS “was started by human beings to get after certain people they don’t like.” Will Smith claimed, “AIDS was created as a result of biological-warfare testing.” Director Spike Lee said, “I’m convinced AIDS is a government-engineered disease.”
Lee also speculated that the U.S. government, under President George W. Bush, blew up levees during Hurricane Katrina to force Blacks out of New Orleans. “It’s not far-fetched,” Lee said, “and also I would like to say it’s not necessarily blow it up. But, the residents of that ward, they believe it, there was a Hurricane Betsy in ’65, the same that happened where a choice had to be made, one neighborhood got to save another neighborhood and flood another ‘hood, flood another neighborhood.”
So, spare us the concern about irresponsible “conspiracy theories” given the left’s embrace of several, including the damnable lie that the police engage in “systemic” racism against Blacks. For four years, Democrats like former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Rep. John Lewis called Trump “illegitimate.” Democrats and the media do not want a Biden presidency similarly handicapped.
- Hillary Clinton Labels Trump an ‘Illegitimate President’ (National Review)
- Democrats Have Been Denying Trump The Presidency Ever Since His First Victory (The Federalist)
LARRY ELDER via RPT’S YOUTUBE