Flag Day: “Remembering Old Glory”

Kimberly Bloom Jackson had some historical and current context for Old Glory at American Thinker:

. . . But how did Flag Day come to be?  Interestingly, in 1885, some 108 years after the Flag Resolution was passed, a 19-year-old Wisconsin schoolteacher named Bernard John Cigrand inspired his students at Stony Hill School to celebrate June 14 as “Flag Birthday.”  According to the Congressional Record, what we call “Flag Day” is believed to have originated with Mr. Cigrand, a teacher who cared enough to instill in his students a great appreciation for the American flag as a symbol of our God-given freedom.

Thanks to Cigrand, children across America have enjoyed Flag Day celebrations ever since.  In fact, in 1894 over 300,000 students turned out to celebrate June 14 with their small flags and patriotic songs throughout many of Chicago’s city parks.  This became a tradition of Chicago public schools.

Times sure have changed, haven’t they?  Today, there never seems to be a shortage of news stories about a school or university mired in an anti-American flag controversy.  In fact, it’s all the rage to call for a ban of the flag in the name of “inclusiveness.”  At the University of California, Irvine, least 60 professors reportedly signed a petition in support of their cultural Marxist protégés who wanted to ban Old Glory because they felt it “contributes to racism and xenophobia.”

Instead of imparting knowledge about America’s extraordinary founding principles that have given rise to the freest and most prosperous nation on earth, these tenured radicals actually think that socially engineered “inclusiveness” and “diversity” are greater virtues than liberty itself.  Well, as Forrest Gump said, “Stupid is as stupid does.”

Luckily for us liberty lovers, we know better.  So as we fly our flags this year in celebration of Flag Day, let us not forget to remember the greatness of America’s founding, those who came before us that gave the ultimate sacrifice to defend it, and the historical significance of June 14.

Happy American Flag Day!

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Update: amnesty legislation

From NumbersUSA:

Last night, House GOP Leaders announced that they will hold two immigration votes next week -- one on Rep. Bob Goodlatte's H.R. 4760, the Securing America's Future Act. and the other on a compromise bill still being negotiated.

The details are light. It's possible that the version of the Goodlatte bill that reaches the floor is quite different from the one that NumbersUSA endorsed earlier this year. And we don't know the full details of the compromise bill, but we can say with near certainty that it won't reduce overall immigration numbers or mandate E-Verify.

Please be on the lookout for action alerts early next week as the details become more clear.

It seems that the GOPe Uniparty and RINO Paul Ryan are determined to ram some sort of amnesty bill down our throats. But President Trump has a pen.

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Media lies

Art credit: William DeBurgh at thedailycoin.org.

Some of the contributors to the American Thinker closely monitor the mainstream media, so you don’t have to. Here’s an extract from Timothy Philen’s “Trump vs. the Media”:

The jobs report numbers for May were stunning: unemployment dropped to an 18-year low of 3.8 percent, an unexpected 223,000 non-farm jobs were added, and year-on-year wage gains rose to 2.7 percent.  Black unemployment dropped to a record 5.9 percent, a month after Hispanic unemployment hit a record low of 4.9 percent.

The only thing more stunning was the mainstream media's announcement of this economic milestone, typified by NBC News's blaring headline: "Trump Breaks Protocol with Jobs Report Tweet."

It seems obvious now that we've reached a tipping point where the mainstream news media are so thoroughly intoxicated with animus toward this president that their journalistic sobriety is in a state of permanent collapse.  Evenhanded reporting is evidently seen as capitulation to the enemy.  Defending Trump in any way would, no doubt, be considered treasonous.

This isn't media bias anymore.  This is war.

. . .

[George] Will's highbrow jeremiads against President Trump delivered on cue to a smirking Lawrence O'Donnell or solemnly nodding Chuck Todd are hard to witness.  One almost expects him to hold up a copy of the day's newspaper to prove he's still an alive and happy hostage. 

It doesn't stop there.

The rest of this column is here.

Update on Dreamers amnesty

It’s on, it’s off, and even if the House passed a DACA bill, President Trump would surely veto it. At any rate, here’s the latest by Mike Lillis And Juliegrace Brufke at The Hill:

GOP staves off immigration revolt — for now

Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) on Thursday tamped down a Republican insurrection on immigration — at least temporarily — with vows to “put pen to paper” on a compromise bill to protect immigrants known as "Dreamers."

During a two-hour, closed-door meeting in the basement of the Capitol, Ryan and other GOP leaders urged their troops not to endorse a procedural move to force votes on solutions for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program — known as a discharge petition — and instead give leaders more time to forge a compromise that can win 218 Republicans.

“The next step is to start putting pen to paper and get legislation to the floor," the Wisconsin Republican told reporters afterward.

The promise seems to have bought them some time in their search for an elusive DACA deal that can win the support of centrist immigration reformers and conservative hard-liners.

The new unofficial deadline appears to be June 12, leaving leadership just five days to craft legislation they believe can garner 218 GOP votes. Supporters of the petition are three signatures away from the number of members needed to bypass leadership and bring the “Queen of the Hill” rule to the floor.

Not good news, and it’s not much of a breather. The rest of The Hill report is here.

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Another reason to change the channel

 image credit: getty images.com

Reported by Pradhan Muthanna at International Business Times:

LeBron James and Stephen Curry may be bitter rivals when on court but the duo are in agreement when it comes to neither of their teams — the Cleveland Cavaliers or the Golden State Warriors — visiting the White House when one of them wins the NBA Championship in 2018.

The Cavaliers’ shooting guard was speaking on the day the Philadelphia Eagles were supposed to commemorate their Super Bowl win by visiting the White House. The visit was cancelled by President Donald Trump while he had the White House also accuse the players that were planning to skip the event of abandoning their fans.

James made it clear they have no intention of visiting the White House should his team win the NBA Finals and is certain the Warriors — their finals opponent for the fourth straight year — will also not be interested in making the trip to Washington.

"I mean, I know no matter who wins this series, no one wants the invite, anyways, so," James said, as quoted by Business Insider. “It won't be Golden State or Cleveland going."

This is particularly sad since we learned the other day from Money that, among other positive metrics, “black unemployment rate fell to 5.9% in May — the lowest since the government started keeping track in 1972.” That's good news. 

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Remembering D-Day

June 6, 2018 marks the 74th anniversary of the Normandy invasion.

These four photos were taken on a Brownie Box camera by the skipper of LCT 2454 - my late father. Photos 3 and 4 were taken on June 6, 1944. 

LCT(A) 2454 "successfully beached on Tare Green Sector and each disgorged their three tanks while under fire. The vessels escaped unscathed" (source here) but this LCT was seriously damaged, had to be towed, and was subsequently scuttled. Tare Green Sector was a designated landing area on Utah Beach.

 Skipper and crew.

 D-Day H-Hour - when the aerial attacks began.

LCT 2454 preparing to land.

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John Boehner speaks (for the Uniparty)

photo credit: mashable.com

John Boehner speaks (reported by Rick Moran at PJ Media):

The worst House speaker in perhaps the last 100 years says, "There is no Republican Party." Coming from the man who did more than most to destroy it, it seems ironic that he should complain.

"The Republican Party is kind of taking a nap somewhere," Boehner added. He should know all about that since, under his leadership, the GOP was snoozing while Obama enacted a radical, liberal agenda.

. . .

But is he right?

Depends what you mean when you say "Republican Party." If you mean the party of Ronald Reagan, Boehner is right. But Trump wasn't responsible for the death of Reagan Republicanism. That honor goes to George W. Bush, whose "big government conservatism" led to political and economic disaster.

John Boehner was/is a member in good standing of the Uniparty. As Sundance pointed out earlier this year with respect to Speaker Paul Ryan:

Republicans did not want to win the majority position and face having to reveal their true UniParty agenda.

BTW, I got another fund-raising call the other day from the Republican National Committee. I decided to take the call instead of just hanging up. When the chap started in on his scripted message, I interrupted him to let him know that I was an angry conservative voter. For over seven years, the GOP has raised millions of dollars, and gained the House and Senate and White House, on their promises to repeal Obamacare. With majorities in both chambers of Congress, they have refused to repeal it. I repeated that bit, and that was the end of that phone call.

Read the rest of the report at PJ Media here.

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