Saturday, July 27, 2019
On this day in 1794,
Robespierre Guillotined
Reign of Terror to Enforce Republic of Virtue Ends
Meets same fate as 17,000 opponents he guillotined
to advance the French Revolution
History Channel video
Friday, July 26, 2019
Thursday, July 25, 2019
Liberal Law Prof Jonathan Turley
Mueller Meltdown: Commentators Attempt To Spin Disaster For Democrats
Wednesday, July 24, 2019
Tuesday, July 23, 2019
The man who presaged Trumpism, Pat Buchanan:
Will the Deplorables accept a future where their children are hated and seen as racists, sexists and xenophobes?
On this day in 1967,
The Riot That Destroyed Detroit For Decades
43 Dead, $50 Million Property Damage, 1/2 Million Leave City
On this day in 1967, the Detroit Riot started and became the third worst riot in American history (behind the 1863 New York Draft Riot and the 1992 L.A. Riot). Five days later, 7,000 people had been arrested, 43 people were dead, 342 injured, nearly 1,400 buildings had been burned causing $50 million dollars of property damage, and 5,000 people were homeless. Some 7,000 National Guard and U.S. Army troops, including paratroopers, patrolled the streets in tanks and armored carriers.
The riot started when police raided a “blind pig”, an illegal after-hours club. 85 patrons were inside to celebrate the return of two servicemen from Vietnam. A small crowd gathered as police began to herd the patrons into paddy wagons. Soon there was a crowd of 200 yelling at the police as they tried to maintain order.
Per the Detroit Free Press, the riot started when the owner of the club threw a bottle at the police – and missed:
William Walter Scott II, was the principal owner of the club, an illegal after-hours drinking and gambling joint. His older sister, Wilma, was a cook and waitress. The night was hot and sticky, and the crowd’s initial teasing of the arrestees devolved into raucous goading of police as they became more aggressive, pushing and twisting the arms of the women.
“You don’t have to treat them that way,” Bill Scott yelled. “They can walk. Let them walk, you white sons of bitches.”
By the time the wagons were full, the crowd had swelled, the taunts had grown more hostile and, though police manpower was thin early Sunday, several scout cars responded to the scene. Cops stood at the ready in the middle of 12th Street, billy clubs in hand, forcing the throng back on the sidewalk.
Scott, tall and lean, mounted a car and began to preach to a crowd long accustomed to the harsh tactics of the overwhelmingly white Detroit police in black neighborhoods: “Are we going to let these peckerwood motherf—— come down here any time they want and mess us around?”
“Hell, no!” people yelled back.
Scott walked into an alley and grabbed a bottle, seeking “the pleasure of hitting one in the head, maybe killing him,” he remembers thinking. Making his way into the middle of the crowd for cover, he threw the bottle at a sergeant standing in front of the door.
The missile missed, shattering on the sidewalk. A phalanx of police moved toward the crowd, then backed off. As the paddy wagons drove away, bottles, bricks and sticks flew through the air, smashing the windows of departing police cars. Bill Scott said he felt liberated.
“For the first time in our lives we felt free. Most important, we were right in what we did to the law.”
The rebellion was underway.
Looting and fires started soon thereafter. By the next morning, every Detroit police officer and firefighter was on duty, reinforced soon thereafter by the state police, the National Guard, and U.S. Army troops.
The city, which once had a population of million, would lose nearly 500,000 residents as people fled to the suburbs over the next few decades.
Some people believe the abandoned and destroyed building shown in the recent picture below is the location of the club where the riots started.
On this day in 1885,
Ulysses S. Grant Dies
Dies Of Cancer Nearly Bankrupt Using Cocaine To Finish Mark Twain-Assisted Bio
On this day in 1885, General and President Ulysses S. Grant died.
Grant’s original name was Hiram Ulysses Grant but the congressman who wrote his recommendation to West Point mistakenly referred to him as Ulysses S. Grant. The new name stuck.
After serving successfully on the western front, Grant had about hit bottom in the business world before he resorted to asking his father for a job in Galena, Illinois. When the Civil War began, Grant wrote a letter offering his services to the War Department, but apparently no one bothered to read the letter and it was later found in a miscellaneous file cabinet. Grant then offered his services to General George McClellan but McClellan was too busy to talk to Grant. Finally, the governor of Illinois, somewhat desperate for a commander, gave Grant a regiment of volunteers to lead. As they say, the rest is history.
Grant died of throat cancer likely caused by his wartime habit of chain-smoking cigars, a habit he may have developed to kick his drinking habit. Thanks to a fraudulent investment scheme recommended by his son, Grant was virtually bankrupt the last months of his life. In order to provide income for his wife, Grant began working on an autobiography which his friend, Mark Twain, promised he would publish. Aided by regular use of cocaine, Grant finished working on his life story just a few days before he died.
Monday, July 22, 2019
Sunday, July 21, 2019
On this day in 1861,
REBELS ROUT YANKS AT BULL RUN
On this day in 1861, the Union army was routed at Bull Run (aka Manassas) by Confederate forces in the first battle of the Civil War just 30 miles outside Washington, D.C., disabusing the North of any notion that there would be a quick end to the “Southern insurrection.” At a critical point in the battle, Confederate Gen. Thomas J. Jackson closed a gap in the Rebel lines and withstood a series of Union attacks, earning him the nickname “Stonewall.” The battle was watched by politicians, socialites and others who gathered as if they were attending a picnic. The Union retreat was so disorderly that second-guessers believe the Confederates could have proceeded into D.C. had they chosen to pursue. The Union army suffered what was then considered a massive 3,000 casualties while the Confederates suffered 2,000 casualties.
In a little known coincidence, much of the battle of Bull Run was fought in the front yard of the farm home of Wilmer McLean, who later moved from the area and reestablished himself in Appomattox. His Appomattox home was the “courthouse” where Lee surrendered to Grant. After the surrender, Union soldiers took almost all of McLean’s furniture and other artifacts to save as mementoes.
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