Obama on Supreme Court Nominations (two years ago)

Obama talks about his plans for Supreme Court nominations at a town hall meeting in Westerville, OH, on March 2, 2008.

Pole Dancing

Sherman's March of Revenge and Destruction

The Story of the Roswell Mill Workers Deportation

by Webb Garrison

On July 5, 1864, Federal General Kenner Garrard's cavalry reached Roswell and finding it undefended, occupied the city. General Garrard reported to General William T. Sherman on July 6, 1864 that..."there were fine factories here, I had the building burnt, all were burnt. The cotton factory was working up to the time of its destruction, some 400 women being employed."

Former Associate Dean of Emory University, Webb Garrison writes of the destruction of the Roswell Mills. He says..."incidents of this sort occurred repeatedly throughout the Civil War. Had the usual attitudes prevailed, the destruction of the industrial complex would have ended the matter. That it did not was due to the temperament and inclination of the man (Sherman)."

What General Sherman did next would shock good people in the North and create a mystery that has endured to this day. On July 7, 1864 Sherman reported to his superiors in Washington..." I have ordered General Garrard to arrest for treason all owners and employees, foreign and native (of the Roswell Mills), and send them under guard to Marietta, whence I will send them North."

On July 7, 1864, Sherman wrote to General Garrard:..." I repeat my orders that you arrest all people, male and female, connected with these factories, no matter the clamor, and let them foot it, under guard, to Marietta, Then I will send them by cars to the North."

A northern newspaper correspondent reported on the deportation...." only think of it! Four hundred weeping and terrified Ellens, Susans and Maggies transported in springless and seatless army wagons, away from their loves and brothers of the sunny South, and all for the offense of weaving tent-cloth.

On July 10, 1864, General Thomas reported the arrival of four to five hundred mill hands, mostly women, in Marietta. Other documents indicate that an undetermined number of children accompanied their mothers. Webb Garrison writes of the women's arrival in Marietta:...." for the military record, that closed the case in which women and children were illegally deported after having been charged with treason." He further writes..."had the Roswell incident not been followed immediately by major military developments, it might have made a lasting impact upon opinion. In this century, few analysts have given it the emphasis it deserves."

In conclusion, Dr. Garrison writes...."The mystery of the Roswell women, whose ultimate fate remains unknown, is one of major importance in its own right. Even more significant is its foreshadowing of things to come."

The mystery of the Roswell women is made up of four to five hundred individual tragedies. Most of these stories are lost to history; however, two of the men involved in the proposed monument are either related to or descended from mill workers. Wayne Bagley of the Roswell Mills Camp of the Sons of Confederate Veterans is related to Adeline Bagley Buice. Adeline was a pregnant seamstress working at the Roswell Mills while her husband was off to war. Deported north with the other women, she went all the way to Chicago. Left to fend for herself as best she could, it would be five years before Adeline and her daughter would return to Roswell on foot. Adeline's soldier husband returned to Roswell. In time, thinking her dead, he remarried. Adeline's grave, in Forsyth County, is maintained with a special marker by the Sons of Confederate Veterans.

Wayne Shelly is a member of the General Nathan B. Forrest Camp 469 of the Sons of Confederate Veterans in Rome, Georgia. His grandmother was a teenage mill worker and her mother and grandmother also worked at the Roswell Mills. All three were charged with treason and deported. The mother died on a train between Chattanooga and Nashville, Tennessee. The grandmother died on a steamship on the Ohio River, after being carried aboard in a rocking chair. Wayne's grandmother married a Confederate veteran in Louisville, Kentucky. The two tried to make a new life in Indiana; however, the deportation had ruined the health of the young mill worker and a doctor advised that she would not live through another Indiana winter. The couple then moved south to Cartersville, Georgia.

The War Between the States was, without question, Roswell's moment on the stage of world history. If Roswell has a history, it is surely in part the mill worker' story.

NOTE: Webb Garrison's quotations are from his book Atlanta and the War. He has written articles for "The Atlanta Journal" on the Roswell women and is a leading expert on the incident.

Obama Signs Nuclear Deal with Russia. Russia has Far Larger Problems.

Evaluating the U.S.-Russia Nuclear Deal

By KEITH B. PAYNE WSJ

Today President Obama will sign a new strategic arms reduction treaty with Russia. Official Washington is already celebrating the so-called New START Treaty in the belief that it reduces forces below the 2002 Moscow Treaty levels and "resets" U.S.-Russian relations in the direction of greater cooperation. But the new treaty—whose actual text and accompanying legal documents were not released before the signing ceremony in Prague—may not accomplish these goals.

The administration's "fact sheet," for example, claims that the treaty will reduce the number of strategic weapons to 1,550, 30% lower than the 2002 treaty. But New START has special counting rules.

For example, there are reportedly 76 Russian strategic bombers, and each one apparently can carry from six to 16 nuclear weapons (bombs and cruise missiles). Nevertheless, and unlike under the Moscow Treaty, these many hundreds of nuclear weapons would count as only 76 toward the 1,550 ceiling. Consequently, the New START Treaty includes the potential for a large increase in the number of deployed strategic nuclear weapons, not a reduction.

The administration claims, as Under Secretary of State Ellen Tauscher stated emphatically on March 29, that "There is no limit or constraint on what the United States can do with its missile defense systems . . . definitely, positively, and no way, no how . . ." Yet our Russian negotiating partners describe New START's constraints on missile defenses quite differently.

On March 30, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in a press conference after the G-8 foreign ministers meeting in Canada that there are obligations regarding missile defense in the treaty text and the accompanying interpretive texts that constitute "a legally binding package." He also stated at a press conference in Moscow on March 26 that "The treaty is signed against the backdrop of particular levels of strategic defensive systems. A change of these levels will give each side the right to consider its further participation in the reduction of strategic offensive armaments." Kremlin National Security Council Secretary Sergei Prikhodko told journalists in Moscow on April 2 that "The United States pledged not to remodel launchers of intercontinental ballistic missiles and submarine-based ballistic missiles for firing interceptor missiles and vice versa."

The New START restrictions on missile defense as described by Russian officials could harm U.S. security in the future. For example, if the U.S. must increase its strategic missile defenses rapidly in response to now-unforeseen threat developments, one of the few options available could be to use Minuteman silo launchers for interceptors, either at California's Vandenberg Air Force Base or empty operational silos elsewhere. Yet, if the Russian description of New START is correct, doing so would be prohibited and the launchers themselves probably will be eliminated to meet the treaty's limitation on launchers. U.S. officials' assurances and Russian descriptions cannot both be true.

Another claim for New START is that possible concerns about the limitations on U.S. forces must be balanced against the useful limits on Russian forces. Yes, this argument goes, the U.S. will have to reduce the number of its strategic delivery vehicles—silos, submarine tubes and bombers—but in the bargain it will get the benefit of like Russian reductions.

This sounds reasonable. According to virtually all Russian sources, however, New START's agreed ceiling on strategic nuclear delivery vehicles will not require Russia to give up anything not already bound for its scrap heap.

The aging of its old Cold War arsenal and the pace of its strategic nuclear force modernization program means that Russia will remain under the New START ceiling of 700 deployed launchers with or without a new treaty. Whatever the benefit to the U.S. agreement to reduce its operational strategic force launchers, it is not to gain reciprocal Russian reductions. No such reciprocity is involved.

Some hope that New START's amicable "reset" in U.S.-Russian relations will inspire Russian help with other issues, such as the Iranian and North Korean nuclear programs, where they have been less than forthcoming. This is a vain hope, as is demonstrated by the past 40 years of strategic-arms control: Innovative strategic force agreements and reductions follow improvements in general political relations. They do not lead to them.

Finally, for many the great locus of concern about Russian nuclear weapons lies in its large arsenal of tactical (i.e., short-range) nuclear weapons. According to U.S. officials, Russia has a 10-to-one numeric advantage. In 2002, then Sens. Joe Biden and John Kerry, and the current White House Science Adviser, John Holdren, expressed great concern that the Bush administration's Moscow Treaty did not limit Russian tactical forces. One might expect, therefore, that New START would do so; but the Russians apparently were adamant about excluding tactical nuclear weapons from New START.

This omission is significant. The Russians are now more explicit and threatening about tactical nuclear war-fighting including in regional conflicts. Yet we still have no limitations on Russia's tactical nuclear arsenal. The problem may now be more severe than in 2002, but concern seems curiously to have eased.

This brief review is based on the many open descriptions of the treaty by U.S. and Russian officials. Given the apparent inconsistencies on such basic matters as whether the treaty requires weapon reductions or allows increases, or whether missile defenses are limited or untouched, the Senate will have to exercise exceptional care in reviewing the actual language of the treaty documents before drawing conclusions about their content.

Mr. Payne is head of the department of defense and strategic studies at Missouri State University, and a member of congressional Strategic Posture Commission.


Kyrgyzstan, former Soviet Republic falls

BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan — An opposition coalition in Kyrgyzstan proclaimed an interim government Thursday in the wake of clashes that left dozens dead nationwide, and said it would rule for six months before calling new elections.
Opposition leader Roza Otunbayeva said she would head the interim government, and that the parliament was dissolved. She said the new government controlled four of Kyrgyzstan's seven provinces in the Central Asian nation, which is home to a key U.S. military base that the opposition has said it wants to close.

Otunbayeva urged President Kurmanbek Bakiyev to resign after he fled the capital amid violent clashes that started on Tuesday. Thousands of protesters have clashed with security forces throughout the country, driving out local governments and on Thursday seizing government headquarters in the capital.

"His business in Kyrgyzstan is finished," she said, adding that Bakiyev has fled for the central Jalal-Abad region, where he is trying to consolidate his supporters.

Bombers Kill Policemen in Russia
By MICHAEL SCHWIRTZ
Published: April 5, 2010

MOSCOW — A suicide bomber killed at least two police officers in the restive North Caucasus region of Russia on Monday, officials said, the latest in a spate of such attacks, including a double bombing on the Moscow subway, that have killed more than 50 people in the last week.

In Monday’s attack, in Ingushetia, a mostly Muslim region bordering Chechnya, a bomber blew himself up next to a police car in the town of Karabulak, a statement on the Web site of the Prosecutor General’s Investigative Committee said.

History is History

Too damn bad that the revisionists and thought control police are all in a tither about Robert F. McDonnell declaring that April will be "Confederate History Month" in Virginia.

Confederate history exists. Good people differed, fought and died over the differences. It happened and needs to be recognized and not air brushed from history.

The war between Unionists and the Confederacy was not all about slavery, a flawed human tradition, more practiced in Africa than anywhere else, but exploited in the United States. History is always more complex than most people care to understand.



McDonell is to be congratulated, but won't be by the mindless who chant the mantra that our strength is in diversity but practice the conforming and stultifying group think of the diktat.

A war that ended with 625,000 American dead deserves to be looked at with objectivity and an attempt at understanding all sides of the dispute.

If you love diversity, you will love it in thought and practice. Hooray for the Bonnie Blue Flag of independent thought.

General Robert E. Lee fought for diversity. He lost.

Czech Her Out. Czech Exercise Chick.

Obama's Nuclear Policy is More of the Same

Words and huffing and puffing from the right aside, Obama is announcing that which was practiced by Geroge Bush.

Attack two American cities, kill 3000 Americans, hit the Pentagon, take down the WTC, cripple the financial district of America and that does not cross the threshold of nuclear retaliation. I guess American targets are not provocative enough, so what is the nonsense about North Korea and Iran?

What exactly is the special case about Iran and North Korea? No mention of Pakistan. It took them a year to come up with this?

Cooking the Numbers on Social Security

The Obama Administration needs three extra months to release data on how Social Security and Medicare is affected by Health Care reform?

They don't know how they changed and affected Social Security and Medicare?

Think about that. They don't know or they ain't saying. Pelosis was right. They don't know what they did, or more likely are horrified to admit what they did.
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AP Source: Report on Social Security delayed
By MARTIN CRUTSINGER (AP)

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is delaying release of the annual report on the financial health of Social Security and Medicare so that the new report can reflect the impact of the recently passed health care overhaul.

An administration official told The Associated Press that this year's trustees report will be delayed until June 30, three months later than it usually comes out.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity before the formal announcement, said Monday that the delay will allow the government to determine the impact of the massive overhaul of health care that President Barack Obama just signed into law.

In January, Richard Foster, the chief actuary for Medicare, estimated that the Senate bill which passed on Christmas eve would extend the life of the Medicare hospital trust fund by 10 years. The legislation that finally passed Congress was the Senate bill but with revisions approved to win House support.

The administration official said that passage last month of the health care overhaul legislation had made the trustees report, which usually comes out around April 1, obsolete. This official said the decision was made to incorporate all of the changes made by the legislation to better reflect reality now that Congress has passed health care overhaul.

The new health care law seeks to guarantee health insurance coverage for nearly all Americans while cracking down on insurance industry abuses. It also promises to reduce federal deficits by an estimated $143 billion over a decade.

The proposal was passed without any Republican votes. The GOP has vowed to work to repeal the measure and replace it with a less sweeping proposal that they contend would have the support of a greater number of Americans who are worried that the Democratic-sponsored plan will represent massive government intrusion into health care.

Last year's report of the trustees for Social Security and Medicare, the government's two biggest benefit programs, said that the Social Security trust fund would be depleted by 2041 and the Medicare trust fund would be depleted by 2019.

The trustees warned that the financial pressures would begin much sooner when the programs begin paying out more in benefits each year than they collect in taxes. Officials with the Congressional Budget Office say that Social Security will start paying more in benefits than it collects in payroll taxes this year for the first time since the 1980s.

Supporters of the new health care overhaul believe it will have a favorable impact on both Medicare and Social Security, extending the life of both trust funds.

The benefits would occur in large part through lowering health costs by expanding the pool of people buying insurance coverage.

For Medicare, that would result in a direct benefit in lower medical bills while the boost to Social Security would occur in an indirect way. If employers see their costs for health insurance fall, they would have more money to spend on employee salaries. Higher salaries would mean a larger amount of wages that would be subject to the Social Security payroll tax.

This year's trustees report would represent the most authoritative estimate on the impact those changes will have on both Medicare and Social Security.

The report will also estimate the impact the health care overhaul will have on the premiums that Medicare recipients must pay. Supporters of the overhaul believe those premium costs will fall.

The estimate that Social Security will pay out more in benefits this year than it collects in taxes is based on budget data produced by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. The CBO projects that because of a recession that cut the number of people working and paying payroll taxes, Social Security will be paying out more in benefits this year and for the next three years.

CBO analysts see Social Security returning to small surpluses in 2014 and 2015 before returning to indefinite deficits starting in 2016 under the impact of a rising number of the 78 million baby boomers retiring.