But, because conservative principles were more important to him than party loyalty, he opposed every Democratic presidential nominee from Harry Truman in 1948 to Hubert Humphrey in 1968. The Judge was further frustrated by finding the Republican party too liberal for his taste, although he reluctantly supported Eisenhower for president in 1952 and 1956 and somewhat more enthusiastically backed Barry Goldwater in 1964. His political dogma was simple, unchanging and almost entirely negative: he opposed racial equality, federal ownership of tidelands oil resources, national welfare and public works programs, socialism in any form, and the mere existence of labor unions. Because the United States government, under both Democratic and Republican administrations, to some extent endorsed all of these, Leander became an indomitable foe of federal power in any form. Although he concentrated authority entirely in his own hands in Plaquemines, he denounced every vestige of centralized power in the national government. His antipathy toward Washington became so notorious that Earl Long once asked, "Whatcha gonna do now, Leander? The feds have got the atom bomb."
"Men are blind and crazy, they think all the people of Ohio are trying to steal their slaves and incite them to rise up and kill their masters; I know this is a delusion—but when people believe a delusion they believe it harder than a real fact and these people in the South are going, for this delusion, to break up the government under which we live."-- William Tecumseh Sherman, 1860
In December 1860, the founding superintendent of the fledgling Louisiana State Seminary of Learning and Military Academy, known today as Louisiana State University, sat down to pen a note to his little daughter Minnie back home in Lancaster. It begins with a papa telling his little one about their new house in Louisiana. It ends as a very grown-up lecture on the cold, hard facts of life.There is an evident purpose, a dark design, not to allow time for thought and reflection. These southern leaders understand the character of their people and want action before the spirit subsides. Robert Anderson commands at Charleston, and there I look for the first actual collision. Old Fort Moultrie, every brick of which is as plain now in my memory as the sidewalk in Lancaster, will become historical. It is weak and I can scale any of its bastions. If secession, dissolution and Civil War do come South Carolina will drop far astern and the battle will be fought on the Mississippi. The Western States never should consent to a hostile people holding the mouth of the Mississippi.But, oh, what he earlier wrote to Minnie!
Alexandria, La.,
Dec. 15, 1860
Dearest Minnie,
I have been intending to write you a good long letter, and now I wish I could send you all something for Christmas, but I thought all along that Mama and you and Lizzie, Willie, Tommy, and all would be here in our new house by New Year's day. The house is all done, only some little painting to be done. The stable is finished, but poor Clay has been sick. . . In the front yard are growing some small oak trees, to give shade in the hot summer days; now however it is raw and cold, the leaves are off and it looks like winter, though thus far we have had no snow. Maybe we will have some snow at Christmas. In the back yard I have prepared for a small garden, but the soil is poor and will not produce much, except early peas, lettuce and sweet potatoes. The house itself looks beautiful. Two front porches and one back, all the windows open to the floor, like doors, so that you can walk out on the porch either upstairs or downstairs. I know you would all like the house so much - but dear little Minnie, man proposes and God disposes - what I have been planning so long and patiently, and thought that we were all on the point of realizing, the dream and hope of my life, that we could all be together once more in a home of our own, with peace and quiet and plenty around us. All, I fear, is about to vanish, and again I fear I must be a wanderer, leaving you all to grow up at Lancaster without your Papa.
Men are blind and crazy, they think all the people of Ohio are trying to steal their slaves, and incite them to rise up and kill their masters. I know this is a delusion - but when people believe a delusion, they believe it harder than a real fact, and these people in the South are going, for this delusion, to break up the government under which we live. You cannot understand this but Mama will explain it to you. Our governor here has gone so far that he cannot change, and in a month maybe you will be living under one government and I another.
This cannot last long, and as I know it is best for you all to stay in Lancaster, I will not bring you down here at all, unless some very great change takes place. If this were only a plain college I could stay with propriety, but it is an arsenal with guns and powder and balls, and were I to stay here I might have to fight for Louisiana and against Ohio. That would hardly do; you would not like that I know, and yet I have been asked to do it. But I hope still this will yet pass away, and that our house and garden will yet see us all united here in Louisiana.
Your loving papa,W. T. SHERMAN.
You, you the people of the South, believe there can be such a thing as peaceable secession. You don't know what you are doing. I know there can be no such thing. . . . If you will have it, the North must fight you for its own preservation. Yes, South Carolina has by this act [its secession --R21] precipitated war. . . . This country will be drenched in blood. God only knows how it will end. Perhaps the liberties of the entire country, of every section and every man will be destroyed, and yet you know that within the Union no man's liberty or property in all the South is endangered. . . .
Oh, it is all folly, madness, a crime against civilization. . . .
You people speak so lightly of war. You don't know what you are talking about. War is a terrible thing. I know you are a brave, fighting people, but for every day of actual fighting, there are months of marching, exposure and suffering. More men die in war of sickness than are killed in battle.At best war is a frightful loss of life and property, and worse still is the demoralization of the people. . . .
You mistake, too, the people of the North. They are a peaceable people, but an earnest people and will fight, too, and they are not going to let this country be destroyed without a mighty effort to save it. . . .
The North can make a steam-engine, locomotive or railway car; hardly a yard of cloth or a pair of shoes can you make. You are rushing into war with one of the most powerful, ingeniously mechanical and determined people on earth -- right at your doors. You are bound to fail. Only in your spirit and determination are you prepared for war. In all else you are totally unprepared, with a bad cause to start with.
"WITH A bad cause to start with." You could almost forget we're talking about an anguished warning on Dec. 24, 1860, and think the future general was trying to talk some sense into today's laptop revolutionaries, heat-toting gun nuts, and the seceders, nullifiers, Obama-impeachers and insurrection-seekers who love them.
I DON'T KNOW what you can say to people who believe this . . . or who will post this sort of offensive nuttery on sites like Facebook, which used to be a nice place to hang out online with your pals. And this is offensive. If I were Jewish, I would be beyond apoplectic.Freshman Republican Rep. Steve Stockman (Texas) on Monday said he would "seek to thwart" executive action by President Obama in regard to gun laws by any means necessary, even if it means "filing articles of impeachment."LORD, have mercy. Not that we have even a scintilla coming.
"The White House’s recent announcement they will use executive orders and executive actions to infringe on our constitutionally-protected right to keep and bear arms is an unconstitutional and unconscionable attack on the very founding principles of this republic," Stockman said in a statement. "I will seek to thwart this action by any means necessary, including but not limited to eliminating funding for implementation, defunding the White House, and even filing articles of impeachment."
At a press conference in the East Room on Monday, Obama said he would consider executive actions on gun control, but said such actions would be limited in scope.
PRAY TELL, what exactly is the message right-wing gun nuts want to send here? "Screw with us, Obama, and we'll kill you"?Saying they're following the example of last year's Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day, a coalition of "gun rights" activists announced today that they're calling on like-minded Americans to visit gun stores, gun ranges and gun shows on Jan. 19 in a show of unity they're calling "Gun Appreciation Day."
It's no coincidence that the 19th is Saturday of the weekend when President Obama will be sworn into office for a second time. Organizers say the date was chosen "to send a message to Washington two days before Obama's second inauguration." They're worried about what they see as the "Obama administration's post-Sandy Hook assault on gun rights."
On Dec. 14, a gunman killed 20 first-graders and six educators at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., before taking his own life.
Among the groups that are on board with Gun Appreciation Day: the Second Amendment Foundation and the Conservative Action Fund, a so-called SuperPAC.
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| Oh . . . and there's thi |
Thanksgiving has just passed and Sarah Henderson has already taken the holiday lights off her roof.TAKE THIS incident and transpose the psychology to the realm of governance, politics and what passes for civil society in Louisiana, and you might gain a little understanding of the place. Then you'll do a face palm.
A visit from the police prompted by complaints from her neighbors might have hurried the process.
The lights were in the shape of a hand flipping the middle finger, neighbors said. Henderson said that’s what she intended.
“I got to looking, and I said is that what I think it is?” said Gemma Rachal, who lives at the far end of the street. “I put on my glasses just to be double sure.”
“I’m furious,” Rachal said “My 6-year-old tried to make the symbol with his hand.”
She said she was afraid her son might mimic the gesture again at kindergarten.
Neighbor Hunter Lee said the lights bothered him because of his children, ages 3 and 9.
He said he didn’t like “having to explain to the kids what it means.”
Amy Bryant, who lives a block away, said that when she first saw the lights this weekend she thought, “I can’t believe she did it.”
Police Chief Scott Jones said an officer went to Henderson’s house on Starlite Drive on Monday and talked Henderson into taking the lights down.
The finger was intended for neighbors with whom she’s had a yearlong disagreement over personal matters, she said.I THINK I had a flashback just now. Yes, I definitely had a flashback just now. That's because I can picture my mother doing the exact same thing.
“This is how I expressed myself,” Henderson said. “It’s the only means I have to express myself to these people.”
She said she has thought about replacing the extended finger with a swastika.
Oh but ain't that America for you and me
Ain't that America somethin' to see baby
Ain't that America home of the free. . . .
And I know that a lot of them get even stupider -- not to mention meaner -- after they've been drinking Bud Light all day and night. So any noise they make about removing this great man as the Tigers' coach should be regarded as the drunken ravings of a bunch of dumbasses.
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| Don Mason, via Flickr |
That didn't work out so well in the end for Gen. Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard, for the sovereign state of South Carolina, for secessionist Louisiana or for anybody else in the Confederate States of America. "In the end" came almost exactly four years later, after the United States Army had smashed the South into rubble, destroyed its slave-based economy, plunged its people into privation and ripped out a region's false pride with the business end of a sabre.
Residents of 23 states had petitioned the White House for permission to peacefully secede from the union as of 4 p.m. Monday.
A petition from a Slidell, La., resident posted to the White House’s We the People website the day after President Obama’s reelection seems to have started the trend.Nextgov first reported on that petition on Friday. The other 20 petition were posted over the weekend.
The Louisianan’s petition was mostly an extended quote from the Declaration of Independence suggesting the time had come for his state to “dissolve the political bands which have connected” it with the rest of the nation.
The majority of the secession petitions are carbon copies of the Louisiana petition with just the state’s name changed. A few petitions, such as this one from Texas, offered their own arguments for secession.
The Texas petition crossed We the People's 25,000 signature threshold for an official White House response around 3:30 p.m. Monday. All the other petitions were several thousand signatures shy at that point.
“Every petition that crosses the threshold will receive a response but we don't comment on what the substance of that response will be before it's issued,” a White House official said.
The majority of the secession petitions were from states that cast their electoral votes for Republican challenger Mitt Romney in the presidential contest rather than for the president. Six of the 21 petitions, however, were from states that broke for the president, including petitions from New York and New Jersey.
As of noon Monday, secession petitions had been filed by citizens of Arkansas, South Carolina, Georgia, Missouri, Tennessee, Michigan, New York, Colorado, Oregon, New Jersey, North Dakota, Montana, Indiana, Mississippi, Georgia, Kentucky, Florida, North Carolina, Alabama, Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Arizona.
Chalk up this latest news of Louisiana Whack, as reported by The Associated Press, as a definite "not, no, nuh uh":Former Gov. Mike Foster is featured in an NRA radio ad supporting a constitutional amendment on the Nov. 6 ballot that would set a tougher standard for restricting weapons use and remove a provision that spells out legislative authority to limit concealed handguns.
Supporters of Amendment No. 2 say the change would guard against possible future Supreme Court rulings that might affect the Second Amendment.
In the ad, paid for by the lobbying arm of the National Rifle Association, Foster says he's voting for the amendment to "guarantee our rights to own a gun in Louisiana no matter what happens in Washington."
BEHOLD, the breakdown of civil society in Louisiana -- what there ever was of it -- continues apace. This kind of bat-sh*t crazy constitutional amendment is not the sign of a healthy society or culture.
Is it just me, or do we now put people on TV and in the movies -- and in pro sports and on the radio -- who in earlier days more likely would have been put in jail or in insane asylums for the public (and their own) good?New York Daily News
YA THINK? As I said before, I don't know whether the woman is guilty of anything or not. Neither do I know how she hasn't come down with melanoma. But I'll tell you what I do know.A Nutley woman pleaded not guilty in Superior Court in Newark this morning to child endangerment charges after authorities said she allowed her then-5-year-old daughter to burn in a tanning salon last month.
Patricia Krentcil, 44, who was charged April 24 after the girl showed up at her elementary school with burns, said her child instead tanned from a long day in the sun a few days before.
(snip)
Following the brief court hearing, Krentcil’s lawyer, John Caruso, called his client a caring mother who would not risk endangering her child, who is now 6.
“Patricia is 150 percent innocent,” Caruso said. “That child was never in that tanning booth. She loves that child and she would never, ever allow her child to go inside a tanning booth.”
Krentcil, who is free after posting a $2,500 cash bond, is next scheduled to appear in court on June 4.
Although the state’s Division of Youth and Family Services is looking into the charges, the child is still living with her mother and father, Caruso said.
“She’s still a mom," Caruso said. "The child is still living a normal life with her mother."
Although he did not answer questions from the media, Krentcil, who is heavily tanned, did. One such question from a reporter asked if she tanned excessively, elicited a simple answer.
“Yes,” she said.
Click on photo for higher resolution
And finally, tell people there is such a thing as a free lunch, that they can get something for nothing . . . and that nothing is really Something, because when you're paying for something, that's not as good as getting nothing, which is Something, for nothing. Make this point to voters twice every Gloopday.Heineman, in an interview Friday, said that his top priority remains passage of his proposed tax-cut package and that the university needs to reprioritize its spending or use private dollars from its foundation to finance the $91 million in new construction spending it is requesting from the state.THAT'S BECAUSE there's nothing more offensive than cancer research. Unless, of course, it's the resulting economic development that would plague Omaha as a result of any major enhancement of the med center.
The university is seeking funds to expand nursing classroom space in Lincoln and Kearney, do design work on a new veterinary laboratory in Lincoln, and build a $370 million cancer research tower at the Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha.
"Here's what the average Nebraskan tells me: 'The university has over a billion dollars in their foundation, and they can't afford $400 million to $500 million to afford that (cancer tower) project?' " Heineman said. "They're offended, and they have a right to be offended," he told The World-Herald.
Ron Withem, an NU spokesman, said the university has worked well with the governor in the past and hopes to do so again this year. Withem said, however, that 30 "average Nebraskans" were among those testifying Thursday in support of NU's spending priorities before the budget-writing Appropriations Committee.IT'S A TERRIBLE thing when the chamber of commerce has been infiltrated, I'll tell you what.
"There were nurses, students, medical professionals and cattle producers telling legislators that they should invest in economic development and health initiatives at the university," he said. "We think the average Nebraskans did speak yesterday."
Withem added that the state's largest business groups, including the Greater Omaha Chamber of Commerce, also support the NU requests.
Several members of the Appropriations Committee have voiced support for the university project, although they doubted NU would get the entire $91 million. Much, they said, would depend on the health of the state economy and competing demands for state dollars, including the governor's tax-cut proposal.
But the potential economic impact of their project is no secret among state leaders: a projected $1.2 billion data center that could grow even larger.
It could bring a major high-tech business, one that would become the single-largest consumer of electricity in Nebraska.
The state is in hot pursuit of Project Edge, which is looking at breaking ground in May with an initial investment of $500 million.
State lawmakers are acting quickly to land the economic big fish, swiftly advancing two bills from committees last week in hopes of sweetening Nebraska's tax and electric-rate incentives to better compete with the reported main competitor for the project, neighboring Iowa.
"It's quite an extraordinary investment," said Gov. Dave Heineman, who has been involved in the recruitment effort. "We're one of the finalists, and I think we have an outstanding opportunity to have this occur." [Emphasis mine.]
State Sen. Abbie Cornett of Bellevue, who is championing one of the data center bills, used the words "huge" and "unprecedented" to describe the business opportunity.
The first phase of the proposed Project Edge data center would be nearly three times larger than the $140 million, 175-job Yahoo data center lured to La Vista in 2009.
Project Edge is projected to become twice as large as the $600 million center that Google located in Council Bluffs in 2007. Nebraska officials say the proposed new center comes with the potential to expand even more than the $1.2 billion projection used by state officials.
