Category Archives: Neglected History

FLASHBACK: NEW YORK TIMES OP-ED ON THE POMPOSITY OF THE AMERICAN LEFT’S TRUMP-HATERS

FROM MAY 18th of 2018:

Obama pen and phoneHere’s another blog post where I take a break from personally pointing out how the American Left’s unbearable pomposity and snobbery have driven away so many of us who used to consider ourselves part of it. This time my points are being made in a New York Times Op-Ed by Gerard Alexander, a professor of political science at the University of Virginia. 

He uses the out of date term Liberals to describe them. If anything they are Illiberals and Left-Wing Archie Bunkers. The link is below, but first some excerpts:

“(Left-Wing Archie Bunkers) are not as smart, or as persuasive, as they think.”

“Liberals dominate the entertainment industry, many of the most influential news sources and America’s universities. … But this makes liberals feel more powerful than they are.”

“In fact, liberals may be more effective at causing resentment than in getting people to come their way.”

“Liberals are trapped in a self-reinforcing cycle. When they use their positions in American culture to lecture, judge and disdain, they push more people into an opposing coalition that liberals are increasingly prone to think of as deplorable. That only validates their own worst prejudices about the other America.” Continue reading

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A MONTH BY MONTH LOOK AT NINETEEN TWENTY-SIX

HAPPY NEW YEAR! Last New Year’s Day’s look at 1925 in America month by month was so popular I’m doing a month by month look at 1926 this time around.

JANUARY

1st – The ROSE BOWL GAME was broadcast on radio for the first time. This game pitted the undefeated UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA CRIMSON TIDE, then from the Southern Conference, against the undefeated UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON HUSKIES, then from the Pacific Coast Conference. The Huskies led 12-0 at Halftime, but the Crimson Tide came from behind to win the game 20-19 in what has been called “the football game that changed the South.”

6th – Mickey Hargitay, bodybuilder, movie star, husband of Jayne Mansfield and father of their daughter Mariska Hargitay, was born.

11th – The Whittemore Gang, led by Richard Reese Whittemore and his wife Margaret, robbed a Manhattan jewelry store of $175,000 worth of gems, equal to $3,205,000 here in 2026.

12th – The radio comedy program Sam ‘n’ Henry debuted on WGN in Chicago. Two years later the title would be changed to Amos ‘n’ Andy but it’s inane under any name.

13th – 91 coal miners were killed in a mine explosion in Wilburton, OK. Continue reading

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TWENTY BOOKS ABOUT BARACK OBAMA CORRUPTION AND SCANDALS

We need Third Parties as I often point out, and here are some books emphasizing how American career politicians are nothing but white-collar criminals. In this case the spotlight is on the scandal-plagued Barack Obama.  

Gangster GovernmentGANGSTER GOVERNMENT – Written by Columbia School of Journalism graduate David Freddoso.

The title Gangster Government could have applied to George W. Bush’s administration as well, but this is a list of books about Barack Obama, remember?

CULTURE OF CORRUPTION: OBAMA AND HIS TEAM OF TAX CHEATS, CROOKS AND CRONIES – It’s been said that the Obama Administration may have been the most corrupt since the days of the Ohio Gang under Republican President Warren G Harding. This book details why.

Worst President in HistoryTHE WORST PRESIDENT IN HISTORY: THE LEGACY OF BARACK OBAMA – Written by Matt Margolis and Mark Noonan, this thoroughly documented and highly detailed work of investigative journalism has been called “the definitive takedown of the Obama Presidency.”

THE SCANDALOUS PRESIDENCY OF BARACK OBAMA – Another of Matt Margolis’ blistering exposes of one of the most damaging and crooked presidencies in history.

THE OBAMA SCANDALS: THE TWENTY-TWO WORST OUTRAGES OF THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION – This riveting book was authored by Keith Koffler and is a must-read.

Commander In FailureCOMMANDER-IN-FAILURE: AN AFRICAN AMERICAN REFLECTS ON AMERICA’S FIRST BLACK PRESIDENT AND HOW HE FAILED US ALL – Martin Luther King Person of Courage Kiara Ashanti penned this masterful deconstruction of the weak, inept and crooked little man named Barack Obama.  

THE PEOPLE VS BARACK OBAMA – A very apt book title when it comes to the president who damaged the working class and the poor more than any other president of my lifetime.  Continue reading

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FLASHBACK: REPORTERS WITHOUT BORDERS STATES THAT UNDER OBAMA THE U.S. FALLS TO 46th IN THE WORLD FOR PRESS FREEDOM

FROM FEBRUARY 13th, 2014 –

"Sit down and shut up! My administration will tell you peons everything you need to know!"

“Sit down and shut up! My administration will tell you peons everything you need to know!”

Welcome back to Balladeer’s Blog, the only site on the web that truly criticizes Liberals and Conservatives equally. Reporters Without Borders has been publishing a yearly World Press Freedom Index since 2002. The press here in the United States has been leaned on so heavily by the Obama administration (an administration that Little Barry claimed would be noted for its “transparency”) that in just ONE YEAR the nation’s ranking on that index fell THIRTEEN PLACES.

After getting safely reelected (like George W. Bush and Richard Nixon did, too) Obama’s administration apparently felt so secure they stepped up their war on press freedom; a war that even Huffington Post described as ” a dictator’s dream”. Continue reading

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ON THIS DATE THE SULAWESI CAVE ART WAS DISCOVERED

DECEMBER 11th, 2019 – On the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, cave art was discovered that has been recognized as the world’s oldest example of pictorial storytelling, dating to approximately 43,900 years ago. 

The precise location of the discovery was in the limestone cave Leang Bulu’ Sipong 4. The art depicts therianthropes, abstract figures with qualities of human beings and animals combined, hunting wild pigs and dwarf buffaloes. Continue reading

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THE PETTICOAT REVOLUTION OF DECEMBER FIFTH

THE PETTICOAT REVOLUTION – On December 5th, 1916 the “Petticoat Revolution” occurred in Oregon. Women had been allowed to vote in the state since 1912 and in the town of Umatilla several women ran stealth candidacies for municipal offices.   

Quirks in the Umatilla laws at the time enabled the ladies to keep their bids for office a secret even from their spouses. Driven by a desire to reverse the town’s decline and slack law enforcement at the time, Robert and Lola Merrick plotted this odd operation with six other women during a card game at their home.

The residents of Umatilla found out on the afternoon of election day that the ladies were running for mayor and other elected positions. Voting participation was so low in the town at that time that the current mayor’s wife Laura Stockton Starcher (above left) was elected as the new mayor by a vote of just TWENTY-SIX to EIGHT!    Continue reading

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FLASHBACK: AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL NAMES BARACK OBAMA A WAR CRIMINAL AND HUFFINGTON POST CALLS HIS WAR ON PRESS FREEDOM “A DICTATOR’S DREAM.”

FROM NOVEMBER 9th, 2013. Republican George W. Bush and Democrat Barack Obama are the two presidents I despise the most, but nobody is surprised at what garbage Bush was. Obama loons like to ignore the criticism he received in office. Even when language like “war criminal” and “dictator’s dream” were used to describe Obama, it never approached the hysteria seen in the Trump years. 

A piece of political sewage who bubbled and gurgled up from the cesspool of Chicago politics.

A piece of political sewage who bubbled and gurgled up from the cesspool of Chicago politics.

It’s no secret that the Obama administration may well be the most corrupt and abusive in history. And I’m the furthest thing from a Conservative you can find. I could fill this site every day with stories about the ongoing developments in the countless investigations into this weak, inept and crooked little man but we’d all get bored with the repetitious coverage of this criminal’s venality, pomposity and general douchebaggery. (To borrow a phrase from Ted White)

“Not only did one of Little Barry’s usual lapdogs, the Huffington Post, declare his war on free speech to be “a dictator’s dream” but Amnesty International quite rightly declared him a war criminal, largely for his incessant use of drones to kill and kill and kill. Continue reading

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THANKSGIVING STORY FROM THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR

truro-massTwo thousand fishermen from Cape Cod had gone off to enlist in the Continental Army, and in their absence the British had repeatedly landed raiding parties to harass the citizens.

Every man, woman and child on the Cape hated the soldiers and sailors of King George and would do anything to work them harm. When the Somerset was wrecked off Truro in 1778 the crew were helped ashore, but they were immediately marched to prison.

It was now November 1779 – the night before Thanksgiving Day in fact – and ugly weather caused a British three-decker warship to yaw wildly and drift toward land with a broken tiller. No warning signal was raised on the bluffs; not a hand was stirred to rescue. The New Englanders who saw the accident watched with sullen satisfaction.

Ezekiel and Josiah Breeze – father and son – stood at the door of their cottage and watched the warship’s peril until three lights twinkling faintly through the gray of driving snow were all that showed where the enemy lay, straining at her cables and tossing on a wrathful sea.

They stood long in silence, but at last the boy Josiah said “I’m going to help the ship.”

“If you stir from here to help King George’s men, you’re no son of mine,” said Ezekiel. Continue reading

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THE ORIGINAL SEVEN PILOTS OF THE LAFAYETTE ESCADRILLE

It’s Veterans Day, formerly called Armistice Day, which marked the end of World War One on “the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month” of 1918. For Balladeer’s Blog’s final World War One post this year here’s a look at the first seven American pilots of the Lafayette Escadrille.

Lafayette Escadrille

QUICK FACTS: The French Foreign Legion connection to this storied squadron of American pilots came about because the United States did not enter the First World War until April of 1917 even though it began in 1914. Many American flyers volunteered to fight for the Allied Powers against the Central Powers.

*** Originally called the Escadrille Americaine, the unit had to drop that name when Germany, the Ottoman Turks and other Central Powers nations complained to the U.S. stating such a name indicated a violation of its official neutrality at that point in the war. The new name was the Lafayette Escadrille in honor of the Marquis de Lafayette, the French aristocrat who served in America’s Revolutionary War.

*** This unit was active from March 1916 to February 1918, at which time it was disestablished and its pilots were absorbed into the official United States armed forces because America had by then been one of the belligerent nations for nearly a year.

*** Officers of the escadrille were French, which was standard for the French Foreign Legion. 

*** 224 Americans served in the Lafayette Escadrille, with 51 slain in battle and 11 more dying from other causes. 15 pilots became Prisoners of War and 11 became Aces.

*** Two lion cubs became the escadrille’s mascots. The pilots named them Whiskey and Soda.

THE FIRST SEVEN PILOTS OF THE LAFAYETTE ESCADRILLE:  

NORMAN PRINCE – This founding member of the unit was a graduate of Harvard University and Harvard Law School. He was an early enthusiast of the new field of flying and earned his pilot’s license in 1911.

Norman shot down five enemy aircraft and had four more probables before being killed in a crash-landing in mid-October of 1916. The French awarded him the Legion of Honor, a military award established by Napoleon himself. Prince also earned the Croix de Guerre and the Medaille Militaire.    Continue reading

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DEMOCRAT HARRY TRUMAN’S WORLD WAR ONE MILITARY SERVICE

Harry Truman World War One

Harry Truman in World War One

Veterans Day is two days from now so Balladeer’s Blog is presenting another look at World War One since November 11th marks the date that war ended.

HARRY S TRUMAN, CAPTAIN OF BATTERY D – This future Senator, future Vice President and future President is credited with one of my favorite quotes: “There’s nothing new in the world except the history you don’t know.”

That Show-Me State Seneca was in charge of Artillery Battery D, a hard-fighting unit that was often deployed well forward, in the heart of the action. During the Meuse-Argonne Offensive in 1918 Truman’s Battery D provided fire in support of the young George Patton’s tank brigade. “Captain Harry’s” boys engaged German field guns, eliminating and forcing the abandonment of enemy batteries at a noteworthy rate. Continue reading

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