Palin Forecasts Civil War in the USA

Responding to the arrest of former president Donald John Trump in Atlanta, former Alaska governor and twice-defeated candidate for Congress, Sarah Palin, broached the subject of war in a recent interview with a right-wing commentator.

Palin, in her comments following the arrest warned, “those who are conducting this travesty and creating this two-tier system of justice.”

‘I want to ask them: What the heck?”

The former candidate for Vice-President of the United States went further: “Do you want us to be in civil war? Because that’s what’s going to happen. We’re not going to keep putting up with this.”

“We do need to rise up and take our country back.”

For some reason it appears Palin believes the country once belonged to the mentally unstable.

Koch Industries Moves to Protect [Russian] Workers

Dave Robertson, COO of Koch Industries

Dave Robertson, president and COO of Koch Industries released the following following Russian attacks on the peaceful people of Ukraine:

The horrific and abhorrent aggression against Ukraine is an affront to humanity. It violates our company’s values and principles, which are grounded in the fundamental truth that the system most conducive to human wellbeing, progress, civility and peace is one based on respect for the dignity of the individual, the consistent rule of law and the right to freely exchange goods and services. Principles always matter, and they matter most when they are under pressure.

While Guardian’s business in Russia is a very small part of Koch, we will not walk away from our employees there or hand over these manufacturing facilities to the Russian government…

Dave Robertson statement, March 16, 2022

So, there you have it. Koch Industries, who with the assistance of the Republican Party in the United States has made every attempt to destroy safeguards for American workers will not discontinue business in Russia in the name of supporting Russian workers.

The song by Pete Seeger, “Which Side Are You On” comes to mind, and it’s clear how Koch Industries have responded to the question.

All You Need to Know for March 19, 2022

From Brian Stelter and Oliver Darcy’s ‘Reliable Sources’ on Friday, March 18:

–During an English-language interview on RT  (formerly Russia Today or Rossiya Segodnya) on Friday, “Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov praised Fox News as alone among ‘Western media’ in trying to represent some alternative points of view…”

The More Things Change…

Representative Elijah Adams Morse, of Massachusetts, quoted in the Alexandria Gazette, May 31, 1890.

‘Let my right hand forget its cunning and my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth when I make patriots and traitors equal, or when I fail to discern between the loyal soldiers who periled and laid down their lives in the defense of their country and the traitors who fought to destroy it.”


Born in South Bend, St. Joseph County, Indiana, Morse moved to Massachusetts with his parents, who settled in Boston in 1852. He attended the public schools, the Boylston School in Boston, and Onondaga Academy, New York. Enlisted in the Union Army in the Fourth Regiment, Massachusetts Volunteers, during the Civil War. He served three months under General Butler in Virginia and one year under General Banks in Louisiana. He was promoted to corporal. Manufacturer of stove polish in Canton, Massachusetts. He served as member of the State house of representatives in 1876. He was an unsuccessful Prohibition Party candidate for lieutenant governor in 1877. He served in the state senate in 1886 and 1887. He served as member of the Governor’s council in 1888.

Morse was elected as a Republican to the Fifty-first and to the three succeeding Congresses (March 4, 1889 – March 3, 1897). He served as chairman of the Committee on Alcohol Liquor Traffic (Fifty-fourth Congress). He was not a candidate for renomination in 1896. He resumed manufacturing activities. He died in Canton, Massachusetts, June 5, 1898. He was interred in Canton Cemetery.

Wikipedia entry for Elijah Adams Morse.

Andrew Johnson Argues Against Reconstruction Laws Passed by Congress in A December 3, 1867 Message (continued)

Johnson

It is manifestly and avowedly the object of these laws to confer upon Negroes the privilege of voting and to disfranchise such a number of white citizens as will give the former a clear majority at all elections in the Southern States. This, to the minds of some persons, is so important that a violation of the Constitution is justified as a means of bringing it about. The morality is always false which excuses a wrong because it proposes to accomplish a desirable end. We are not permitted to do evil that good may come. But in this case the end itself is evil, as well as the means. The subjugation of the States to Negro domination would be worse than the military despotism under which they are now suffering. It was believed beforehand that the people would endure any amount of military oppression for any length of time rather than degrade themselves by subjection to the Negro race. Therefore they have been left without a choice. Negro suffrage was established by act of Congress, and the military officers were commanded to superintend the process of clothing the Negro race with the political privileges torn from white men.

Racists in the White House: Andrew Johnson’s December 3, 1867 Message to Congress

The blacks in the South are entitled to be well and humanely governed, and to have the protection of just laws for all their rights of person and property. If it were practicable at this time to give them a Government exclusively their own, under which they might manage their own affairs in their own way, it would become a grave question whether we ought to do so, or whether common humanity would not require us to save them from themselves. But under the circumstances this is only a speculative point. It is not proposed merely that they shall govern themselves, but that they shall rule the white race, make and administer State laws, elect Presidents and members of Congress, and shape to a greater or less extent the future destiny of the whole country. Would such a trust and power be safe in such hands?

I’m currently reading and enjoying “The Impeachers”, a brilliant and well-researched volume by Brenda Wineapple. The similarities between Johnson’s impeachment and the current calls for the impeachment of Donald J. Trump are eerily similar. After reading Wineapple’s book, I might hesitate the next time I think Trump is the worst president in the history of the United States.

Over the next few posts, I’ll share some of the other outrageous and misguided sections of Johnson’s diatribe.

Disunion Movement – Alexandria Gazette, Nov. 1, 1860

John C. Breckinridge

In the last issue of the Atlantic, Ga., American, we find some account of a Democratic meeting held in Appling county, in Georgia. It is reported to have been one of the largest and most enthusiastic political gatherings ever witnessed in that portion of the State, and hence the resolutions adopted on the occasion may be supposed to reflect the views and opinions of the Breckinridge leaders in Georgia.  The following are the resolutions which were unanimously adapted:

“Whereas. The oft-repeated and continued aggressions of the anti-slavery party of the North leave us no hope that the “irrepressible conflict” is to have an end, or that we can ever again “dwell in unity;” be it, therefore,

Resolved, That for the future we spurn all offers of compromise. and unhesitatingly and unequivocally  declare it to be the duty of every slave State, in the event of Lincoln’s election to the Presidency of these United States, without a moment’s delay — peaceably if we can,  forcibly if we must — to sever the bonds which bind them to the Union and hoist the flag of a Southern confederacy.

That with John C. Breckinridge as our leader, and Toombs, Davis, Rhett, Boyce and Yancey as his aid-de-camps. we have nothing to fear. Though we may be compelled to follow them from the arena of politics to the more exciting and, to us, more agreeable one of the soldier — they promise us equality in the Union or independence out of it.

That we recommend to our brethren in each county in every slave State to call meetings without delay, to organize companies of cavalry and infantry, to arm and equip themselves, if necessary. at their own expense, and hold themselves in readiness to march at the call of their leaders.

That in thus publicly proclaiming to our enemies the course we intend to pursue, we warn them we have been so long goaded by their aggressions, their repeated violations of the most solemn compromises, that forbearance on our part has ceased to be a virtue, and can only be considered so by the craven wretch who would refuse to smite the hand that would destroy him. and that we are in sober, solemn earnest.”

Here we have clearly and bolding set forth the recklcss and revolutionary designs of a portion of the supporters of Breckinridge. We invite attention most particularly to the following points in the above resolutions, viz: That it is the duty of the Slaves States, in the event of the bare election of Lincoln, “without a moment’s delay” to sever the cords which bind them to the Union, and hoist the flag of the Southern Confederacy; that the second resolution couples the names of Mr. Breckinridge and Senator Toombs and Davis, and Messrs. Rhett, Boyce and Yancey, with such a movement, by asserting that with them as leaders and “aides decamp,” they have nothing to fear, though they “may be compelled to follow them from the arena of politics to the more exciting, and, to us, more agreeable one of the soldier:” and that they recommend their “brethren in each county of every Slave State, without delay, to organize, arm and equip themselves,  and hold themselves in readiness to march at the call of their leader, whom they declare to be John J. Breckinridge and Toombs, Davis, Rhett, Boyce and Yancey.

Now, how many patriotic, honest, old line Democrats of the Jefferson, Madison, Jackson school endorse such traitorous doctrines, as those above enunciated, or will participate in measures so well calculated to produce civil war, by “precipitating the Cotton States into a revolution?” No, the true Democracy of the land are no more ready for such arming and equipping with a view to seceding in the event of Lincoln’s election, in accordance with the recognized forms of our Constitution, than are the Constitutional Union men: and if the masses in the South of those who will vote for Mr. Breckinridge believed that his views and his purposes were reflected or set forth by these resolutions, they would leave him by hundreds of thousands, and he would be left without a corporal’s guard in every Southern State where the people are permitted to vote.  We call upon those who intend supporting Mr. Breckinridge as the candidate best calculated to preserve a Democratic government, to read and ponder the above resolutions.

Note: This article, originally from the Richmond Whig, was reprinted in the Alexandria Gazette, November 1, 1860 — five days before the election of Abraham Lincoln.