Free Republic

This is a great collection of articles on what's going on in Lebanon. I pay particular attention to Michael Totten when it comes to that country's issues.

CHESTER, Va. (May 2) - Like many boys in the South, Sam White got hooked on the Civil War early, digging up rusting bullets and military buttons in the battle-scarred earth of his hometown As an adult, he crisscrossed the Virginia countryside in search of wartime relics -- weapons, battle flags, even artillery shells buried in the red clay. He sometimes put on diving gear to feel for treasures hidden in the black muck of river bottoms. But in February, White's hobby cost him his life: A cannonball he was restoring exploded, killing him in his driveway. More than 140...

Virginia Man Killed In Civil War Cannonball Blast May 02, 2008 CHESTER, Va. — Like many boys in the South, Sam White got hooked on the Civil War early, digging up rusting bullets and military buttons in the battle-scarred earth of his hometown. As an adult, he crisscrossed the Virginia countryside in search of wartime relics — weapons, battle flags, even artillery shells buried in the red clay. He sometimes put on diving gear to feel for treasures hidden in the black muck of river bottoms. But in February, White's hobby cost him his life: A cannonball he was restoring...

The bloodiest and most significant battle of the American Civil War took place in Pennsylvania. At the outset of that conflict, the forces of the North - greater in number and better armed - were regarded as the overwhelming favourites to win the struggle. Yet they were outsmarted by the charismatic General Robert E. Lee, who proved to be more imaginative in the field, inspiring passionate loyalty in his Confederate soldiers. A bemused Abraham Lincoln was reduced to hiring and firing his generals and constantly reshaping his strategy. By July 1863, it seemed as if the Confederates might storm Washington...

LANCASTER [California] - The sharp scent of gunpowder hung in the air with the smoke from a booming cannon shot as a lone trumpeter played the solemn notes of "Taps." This ceremony of remembrance played out twice Saturday afternoon at Lancaster Cemetery... The Civil War mourning ceremony, organized by Friends of the Lancaster Cemetery, honored all five veterans of that war - four Union soldiers and one Confederate - who are buried in the cemetery, but specifically two for whom new grave markers were dedicated. James Madison West was born in Ohio in 1843, and died in Lancaster on Oct....

In an interview with me this morning, senior Hillary adviser Harold Ickes confirmed that Reverend Jeremiah Wright is a key topic in discussions with uncommitted super-delegates over whether Obama is electable in a general election. The comments from Ickes, who is Hillary's chief delegate hunter, are to my knowledge the first on-the-record confirmation from a Hillary adviser that the Wright controversy is a subject in conversations between the Hillary campaign and the super-delegates her advisers are trying to win over to Hillary's side. In the wide-ranging interview, Ickes also: * Said that it was possible that Hillary forces on the...

Obama: Clinton 'can run as long as she wants' TRIBUNE-REVIEW By Salena Zito & David Brown While chatting with reporters in Johnstown today Barack Obama said that Hillary Clinton “can run as long as she wants.” Obama went on to say that Clinton should be able to compete, and her supporters should be able to support her as long as they are willing or able. Obama also said the notion that the party is divided is “somewhat overstated.”

In my nightmares, the helicopters still come out of a dark sky, two black spots barely visible against the backdrop of night. Their swirling blades grow louder until they finally touch down on earth and fall silent. They look like giant steel bugs from another planet, bulbous robots with eyes of glass coming to take away their prey. Yes... Hillary Clinton is visiting another small-town in Indiana that most people have ever heard of. We've all heard about the bloody costs of this Democrat Civil War. We see the Victimhood of blacks, women and gays, the Not-Racist Race-Baiting, and the...

In further evidence that the Democratic primary is straining the party, liberal activist organization MoveOn.org is circulating a petition that attacks a group of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s (D-N.Y.) donors, who had “threatened” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) for her stance on superdelegates. “This is pretty outrageous: a group of Clinton-supporting big Democratic donors are threatening to stop supporting Democrats in Congress because Nancy Pelosi said that the people, not the superdelegates, should decide the presidential nomination,” said MoveOn, which is backing Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), in an e-mail to supporters. A group of deep-pocketed donors had, in a letter...

Yesterday the Florida legislature unanimously passed a resolution that apologized to African-Americans for slavery. While I do not object to that, I must confess that I feel absolutely no more guilt for the practice of slavery by people 150 years ago than I do for their burning of witches in Colonial times. Since I am the product of Italian and British immigrants who settled in New England, it is also very unlikely that any of my actual ancestors ever practiced this abominable custom, anyway. What I am, though, is proud that my ancestors in the United States and in Great...

The Selected Civil War Photographs Collection contains 1,118 photographs. Most of the images were made under the supervision of Mathew B. Brady, and include scenes of military personnel, preparations for battle, and battle after-effects. The collection also includes portraits of both Confederate and Union officers, and a selection of enlisted men. An additional two hundred autographed portraits of army and navy officers, politicians, and cultural figures can be seen in the Civil War photograph album, ca. 1861-65. (James Wadsworth Family Papers). The full album pages are displayed as well as the front and verso of each carte de visite, revealing...

1. She can’t win the nomination without overturning the will of the elected delegates, which will alienate many Democrats. 2. She can’t win the nomination without a bloody convention battle — after which, even if she won, history and many Democrats would cast her as a villain. 3. Catching up in the popular vote is not out of the question — but without re-votes in Florida and Michigan it will be almost as impossible as catching up in elected delegates. 4. Nancy Pelosi and other leading members of Congress don’t think she can win and want her to give up....

(AP) A new controversy flared up in the Democratic presidential race Saturday over remarks by former President Bill Clinton whom Barack Obama's campaign accused of using divisive tactics and unfairly trying to question the Illinois senator's patriotism. Retired Gen. Merrill "Tony" McPeak, a co-chair of Obama's campaign, said he was astonished and disappointed by recent comments the former president made while speculating about a general election between Obama's Democratic rival, Hillary Rodham Clinton, and Republican John McCain. Standing next to Obama on stage at a campaign rally in southern Oregon, the retired Air Force chief of staff repeated Bill Clinton's...

The South Rises Again by: Malcolm A. Kline, March 20, 2008 Academics’ attitudes towards the South color their teaching about the region, particularly lessons on the Civil War, and their histories, thus, often project myth rather than reality. “Many historians, myself excepted, go in with an argument before they have done their research and seek to impose their present policy positions on the past,” University of Pennsylvania historian Walter McDougall said on March 11 in an appearance at the Cato Institute here. “I prefer to go in plug ignorant.” McDougall is the author of the recently released Throes of Democracy:...

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) reiterated her position Sunday that superdelegates should reflect the will of voters in the Democratic nominating process — a nod to Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), whose campaign is making the same case. “If the votes of the superdelegates overturn what happened in the elections, it would be harmful to the Democratic Party,” Pelosi said in a pretaped interview with ABC’s “This Week.” A pair of Obama surrogates made the same case. On CBS’s “Face the Nation,” Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick said, “I think the superdelegates, in the end, will ratify the will of the people...

In 1863, Pittsburgh fortified against Confederate army By Salena Zito TRIBUNE-REVIEW From mid-June through early July of 1863, the citizens of Pittsburgh prepared for an invasion by the Confederate Army under Gen. Robert E. Lee. It marked the only time that Pittsburgh would become militarily involved in the Civil War. The "Emergency of 1863" began when Major Gen. William Brooks, who commanded the U.S Army's Department of the Monongahela in Pittsburgh, received a dispatch June 11 that outlined a probable invasion of the city. Since the start of the Civil War, there was always uneasiness that Pittsburgh, known as the...

REBELS IN ALCANIZ, 45 MILES FROM SEA; AMERICANS IN TRAP Foreign Division Reported Captured in Insurgent Drive to Split Loyalist Spain VICTORY FOR EQUIPMENT Tanks and Planes Blast Way With Little Actual Contact Between Two Armies By HERBERT L. MATTHEWS Wireless to THE NEW YORK TIMES. BARCELONA, Spain, March 14. – The Spanish Government Army is fighting with its back to the wall. Alcaniz, one of two keys to Aragon – the other being Caspe – fell into Insurgent hands today. Government forces are trying to re-form their lines along the heights behind the city. The finest units of...

Halt the political hara-kiri By James Carville Published: March 13 2008 19:03 | Last updated: March 13 2008 19:03 In this, the most fascinating and longest-running Democratic primary process of our time, we were presented with a silly moment that unfortunately is all too reflective of modern American culture. Consider the case of one Samantha Power. Ms Power, a Pulitzer prize-winning author, professor of public policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and senior foreign policy adviser to Barack Obama, was forced to resign after she referred to Hillary Clinton (whom I admire and am supporting) as a “monster”. She...

It’s alive! We thought it might be over but some of us never dared fully believe it. Last week was like one of those moments in a horror movie when the worst terror recedes, the screen goes blank and then reopens on green fields or a lover’s tender embrace. Drained but still naive audiences breathe a collective sigh of relief. The plot twists have all been resolved; the threat is gone; the quiet spreads. And then . . . Put your own movie analogy in here. Glenn Close in the bathtub in Fatal Attraction – whoosh! she’s back at your...

Read all about it at the link, details to follow....

At the outbreak of the War Between the States, a group of young men who were students at Washington College formed a military company that eventually would become part of the legendary "Stonewall Brigade."

Every rebel newspaper in the South, every Tory newspaper in England, every Imperial newspaper in France, expresses a hope for the election of McCLELLAN. No Copperhead newspaper can deny this fact. Every new mail brings a new exhibition of it.

A man in his 50s died this afternoon in an explosion at a house in Chester caused by what appeared to be a Civil War ordnance, police said. No other information about the victim was immediately available.

ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama may be competing in the South Carolina Democratic Primary Saturday, but they're also vying for the top prize in another contest: The Oppression Sweepstakes. That's how Michael Jelani Cobb, an African-American historian, describes the surge of venom that recently erupted between the Clinton and Obama camps. The sweepstakes kicks in when two excluded groups find themselves competing for the same prize. He says that took place in the 19th century when the abolitionist, Frederick Douglass and his ally, women's rights' activist, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, argued over what group should first be...

Uncle Tomisms Bethany Stotts, January 15, 2008 Uncle Tom was commonly used as a pejorative insult during the civil rights movement, denoting an African American who had betrayed his own kind in favor of stability, argued Professor Kim Wallace-Sanders at the 2007 Modern Language Association (MLA) Convention. She said, “During the civil rights movement, to be called an Uncle Tom was perhaps the most severe insult [one] could receive from a fellow African American, with the connotative derogatory shorthand for everyone who had” betrayed the civil rights movement, caving in to white pressure. And so, she argues, the term came...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT (Music: When Johnny Comes Marching Home) RUSH: We'll start today with the Democrats, ladies and gentlemen. There's an uncivil war brewing on the left. On one side, African-Americans. On the other side, Clinton-Americans. And caught in the middle of this, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The Clintons, ladies and gentlemen, plain for all to see, will do or say anything to win. But now the question: Will African-Americans take anything? Amazing to watch this, is it not? Clintonistas are saying about Obama -- and Obama saying about the Clintons -- what they have been saying for...

The Democrat Civil War between the Clinton Shadow Party organization, and the "New Left" continues into it's 8th Day. Here are the Updates: -Hillary Clinton is suddenly unhappy with the "Diversity" rules the DNC originally rigged for her, that give the casinos and the Culinary Workers Union extraordinary value in the Nevada Caucus. ESPECIALLY since that Union has now Endorsed OBAMA. So she's having the Nevada State Education Association (The Teacher's UNION) sue them for her: Nevada teachers sue state Democratic Party LAS VEGAS – Nevada teachers have filed a legal challenge that could curb the influence of the state's...

Cruising the Battle Zones of the Leftist Websites, so YOU won't have to.... While we have our own issues with Candidates, the Democrats are literally tearing the Party apart. The Clinton's have "radicalized the Campaign, and it will split the Party apart" (Daily KOS) From KOS to MyDD, everybody is taking sides, and it wasn't supposed to be this way. Hillary was supposed to cruise to an easy victory, while REPUBLICANS tore each others throats out. OOPS..... A few flashes from today: The "Hope-Mongering" Obama meets the Clinton Shadow Party Machine. Charges of Race-baiting as Racism, Inc. comes out for...

In the Republican Presidential Primary of 1860, there were a number of candidates at the Republican convention, and none of them had a majority of the delegates. The outcome of the convention was that an unlikely candidate was selected, not because he was everybody's "first choice," but because he turned out to be the most popular "second choice" candidate. Other candidates with more delegates could not get selected as the "second choice" by enough to put them over the top with a majority, and Abraham Lincoln was selected and of course went on to win the Presidential election that Fall....

Rep. Ron Paul told Tim Russert on "Meet the Press" Sunday that the war was a mistake – the American Civil War. "Six hundred thousand Americans died in a senseless civil war…. [President Abraham Lincoln] did this just to enhance and get rid of the original intent of the republic," Paul said.

Ron Paul appeared on "Meet the Press" over the weekend, and gave voice to a sentiment scarcely heard in American politics. He claimed that the Civil War was unnecessary, and that Lincoln "never should have gone to war" to stop slavery. A better approach would have been for the federal government to simply purchase freedom for all of the slaves in the country. Watch Ron Paul on Meet the Press [YouTube]: Of course, such a program sounds more than a little strange coming from a man who is so mistrustful of government that he wants to abolish the Department of...

Civil War Watch Stopped Suddenly; Sub End Still Unknown Bruce Smith in Charleston, South Carolina Associated Press December 17, 2007 When scientists opened the watch belonging to the H.L. Hunley commander three years ago, they thought they had the key clue to why the Confederate submarine sank off Charleston, South Carolina. But the 18-karat gold watch now seems to raise even more questions, despite the finding announced last week that the watch did not slowly wind down but stopped quickly—perhaps the result of a concussion or rushing water. "All of us were thinking the watch pointed to the crucial moment,"...

An early morning car bomb attack killed one of Lebanon's top military generals and at least three others as they drove through a Christian suburb of Beirut, putting even more pressure on the country's delicate political situation, the military and state media said. The military said Brig. Gen. François Hajj, head of military operations in the army command, was killed in the explosion along with several other soldiers. His name had been mentioned as a candidate to succeed army commander Michel Suleiman, if he is elected president. The blast is the first attack of its kind against the Lebanese army...

Had the Civil War not occurred when it did allowing Nathan Bedford Forrest to serve as a cavalry officer, we very likely would not be studying or even reading about him today. Of course the same could be said about Ulysses S. Grant and many other notable Civil War commanders. What separates Forrest from other successful general officers are his accomplishments despite his almost total lack of education or military background and his impoverished upbringing. His rise from private to lieutenant general was clearly earned, not gained through political influence or social standing. His military success are due to virtually...

Cannot be posted due to copyright issues: http://www.clarionledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2007712090318

A man seeking Confederate gold and his own family's hidden history uncovers a cryptic trail that may stretch back to a secret society and Jesse James. HATFIELD, ARK. -- Deep in the woods near Brushy Creek stands an old beech tree, its smooth bark etched with dozens of carvings, including biblical references, a heart and a legless horse. Bob Brewer was 10 when his great-uncle, W.D. "Grandpa" Ashcraft, pointed it out on a logging trip 57 years ago. "He said, 'Boy, you see that tree? That's a treasure tree,' " Brewer recalled on a recent visit to the site. "...

A quote from the French judge, Jean de Maillard (Vice-president of the Superior Court of Orléans, and a professor at the Institute of Political Science in Paris), 28 November 2007 [here is an English translation] When two schools, a library, a police station, a garage and several other buildings on a list already forgotten are set on fire, not to mention dozens of vehicles each day, we are used to it. It has become almost a routine. However, the second night of Villiers-le-Bel marks an escalation that the media and the government would probably prefer to hush up, but which...

TRIPOLI - One person was killed and at least four were wounded on Tuesday in a gunfight between pro- and anti-government Lebanese factions in the northern port city of Tripoli, security sources said. The clash was between the Sunni fundamentalist Islamic Tawheed movement, which is close to the Syria-backed opposition, and the pro-government Tripoli Battalions group, they said. One security source said the son of the leader of Islamic Tawheed had been killed in the battle near the group's headquarters in the Abu Samra suburb. Security sources said the incident escalated from a dispute between two men. A military source...

Civil War history enthusiasts can enjoy a variety of programs this weekend and next commemorating the 144th anniversary of the Battles for Chattanooga. The events hosted by the Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park kick off today. Park Superintendent Shawn Benge said highlights will include several living history programs, the firing of cannons and walking tours. "It's really an opportunity to come out and learn ... some Civil War history about the campaign for Chattanooga and to immerse yourself more than (through) the traditional level of programs that we offer," he said. The Battles for Chattanooga marked the end of...

Happy Veteran's Day! World War I ends At the 11th hour on the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918, the Great War ends. At 5 a.m. that morning, Germany, bereft of manpower and supplies and faced with imminent invasion, signed an armistice agreement with the Allies in a railroad car outside Compiégne, France. The First World War left nine million soldiers dead and 21 million wounded, with Germany, Russia, Austria-Hungary, France, and Great Britain each losing nearly a million or more lives. In addition, at least five million civilians died from disease, starvation, or exposure. On June 28,...

SAVANNAH, Ga.— Captured by Confederate sailors in a bloody midnight sneak attack in 1864, the gunboat Water Witch became one of the few Civil War ships to sail under the flags of both the Confederate and Union navies. Archaeologists say they found strong evidence Thursday they've located the Water Witch's wreckage buried under more than 10 feet of mud in the Vernon River south of Savannah. Divers pushed a 20-foot metal rod through the river mud Thursday and tapped solid wood and metal underneath. It was the same location where an 1865 survey map showed Confederate sailors burned the ship...

In 1861, free institutions seemed poised to carry all before them. In Russia, Tsar Alexander II emancipated 22 million serfs. In Germany, lawmakers dedicated to free constitutional principles prepared to assert civilian control over Prussia’s feudal military caste. In America, Abraham Lincoln entered the White House pledged to a revolutionary policy of excluding human bondage from the nation’s territories. The new machinery of freedom, though Anglo-American in design, was universal in scope. At its core was the idea, as yet imperfectly realized, that all human beings possess a fundamental dignity. This was a truth that, Abraham Lincoln believed, was “applicable...

[Islamic Pakistan civilwar] Hospitals Full of Victims and Solidarity With Bhutto http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/21/world/asia/21pakistan.html?ref=world Imran Ali was among the 540 surviving victims of the attack on Benazir Bhutto who remained in Karachi hospitals on Saturday. By CARLOTTA GALL KARACHI, Pakistan...

Four killed in deadliest Gaza infighting under Hamas 17 hours ago GAZA CITY (AFP) — Four Palestinians were killed overnight in the deadlist bout of infighting between Fatah and Hamas loyalists since the Islamist movement captured the Gaza Strip in mid-June, medics said Thursday. Paramilitaries in Hamas's self-styled police Executive Force armed with anti-tank missiles exchanged fire with members of a powerful Gaza clan, the majority of which supports political rivals Fatah, witnesses said. Trouble broke out in Gaza City when the Executive Force stopped a Palestinian Authority vehicle carrying former police officer Adel Hellis. Three Hellis relatives and an...

With members of the ultra-left Middlebury Institute sitting down with members of the League of the South, who are devoted to more limited government, and the two discussing plans for leaving the United States, the topic of secession has once again become just slightly more popular dinner conversation than how much lint Aunt Carla found in her belly button last night. Both groups, despite their divergence on almost everything else political, want to be able to leave the United States peacefully.The liberals, of course want to leave because they are tired of living in a nation that actually defends...

"Resolved, That we, the delegated representatives of the Republican electors of the United States, in convention assembled, in discharge of the duty we owe to our constituent and our country, unite in the following declarations: 1. That the history of the nation during the last four years has fully established the propriety and necessity of the organization and perpetuation of the republican party, and that the causes which called it into existence are permanent in their nature, and now more than ever before demand its peaceful and constitutional triumph. 2. That the maintenance of the principles promulgated in the Declaration...

KISSIMMEE -- Nelson Winbush rotates a miniature flag holder he keeps on his mantel, imagining how the banners would appear in a Civil War battle. The Stars and Bars, he explains, looked too much like the Union flag to prevent friendly fire. The Confederacy responded by fashioning the distinctive Southern Cross -- better known as the rebel flag. Winbush, 78, is a retired assistant principal with a master's degree, a thoughtful man whose world view developed from listening to his grandfather's stories about serving the South in the "War Between the States." His grandfather's casket was draped with a Confederate...

AMERICANA, Brazil Now well past 90, Judith MacKnight Jones is suffering from Alzheimer's disease, the illness that robbed her of all of her memory, her most precious asset. She has been lying here for the past 11 years, covered by a patchwork blanket, made from pieces her great-grandmother brought from the United States between 1865 and 1885, after the Confederacy lost the Civil War. Unable to speak or remember now, her book "Soldado Descanso" ("Rest Soldier") is written in Portuguese, but soon will be translated into English, as the publisher thinks Americans should know about the proud history of Confederate...

Power, Legitimacy, and the 14th Amendment by Joseph E. Fallon The justification for the vast, intrusive, and coercive powers employed by the government of the United States against its citizens from affirmative action to hate-crimes legislation, from multilingualism to multiculturalism, from Waco to Ruby Ridge is the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution adopted in 1868, or, more specifically, the authority conferred upon Washington, explicitly or implicitly, by the privileges and immunities and equal protection clauses of that amendment. The government of the United States, as established by the U.S. Constitution in 1789, was effectively abolished by the 14th Amendment....

Sally Field wins an Emmy and suddenly everyone wants to 'really, really like her' again. Fresh off her controversial appearance on the Emmys, when she won for Brothers & Sisters, Sally Field has been cast as Mary Todd Lincoln, the wife of Abraham Lincoln, in Steven Spielberg's long-awaited biopic of one of the most important leaders of all time. Liam Neeson has already been cast as Abraham Lincoln in Lincoln bases on Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin. Steven Spielberg's Lincoln will center on the life of the leader in the time leading...