JANUARY 2018

FOR PART ONE (2016) OF THIS RETROSPECTIVE FROM INDEPENDENT VOTER SITE BALLADEER’S BLOG CLICK HERE

trump over media biasDON SURBER ON TRUMP’S FIRST YEAR IN OFFICE

FACEBOOK IS FAKEBOOK. Even in 2018 Facebook’s facade was crumbling.

TRANSGRESS WITH ME: JANUARY 29th. Are you brave enough for this?

g men mock cover“THE PARTY’S” ATROCITY ROUNDUP. Back in 2018 the FBI’s fake Russian Collusion nonsense had already been exposed. Plus vote fraud and more.

BLOCKBUSTER DEVELOPMENTS. A CBS poll showed President Trump’s support among African-American voters more than doubling since he took office. And in the election of 2016 he got more of the African-American vote than any Republican in decades. All that and more.

ONE MAN ALONE AGAINST BOTH CORRUPT POLITICAL PARTIES. Republican trash like Paul Ryan, Jeb Bush, Lindsey Graham, Mitch McConnell, Chris Christie and all the stuffy white males at National Review continue proving President Trump’s status as a de facto Third Party President. Continue reading

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AMERICAN REVOLUTION: JANUARY 8th to 28th, 1776

With the July 4th holiday fast approaching, Balladeer’s Blog offers readers another seasonal post regarding overlooked military actions.

america rebelsJANUARY 8th, 1776 – In Charlestown, Massachusetts, British troops and American Tories were attending a performance of General John Burgoyne’s play The Blockade of Boston. The play was a farce ridiculing the supposed inadequacies of the American rebels. An unknown number of American soldiers carried out a raid on the town, panicking the theater audience, capturing 5 British soldiers and destroying 8 Tory buildings.

JANUARY 12th – At Narragansett Bay in Rhode Island, the HMS Glasgow and HMS Sloop Swan landed 250 British soldiers and Marines. The Brits clashed with approximately 50 American men of Richmond’s Regiment and forced them to retreat. Throughout the night the Redcoats pillaged supplies, stole livestock away to the two ships and burned down homes and barns.

JANUARY 13th – After daybreak, Captain William Barton led 60 men from Richmond’s Regiment in an attack on the British. Gunfire was exchanged for over 3 hours, with several men from other Rhode Island units crossing the bay to reinforce their fellow rebels. Ultimately, the Brits were forced to end their pillaging and burning and to retreat to the two warships, having suffered at least 14 dead and an unknown number of injured. Continue reading

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TOP DOUGLAS FAIRBANKS MOVIES

Last week’s look at some posters from the silent movie era inspired me to go ahead with this list of what I consider to be the top Douglas Fairbanks films prior to sound. (Talkies are just a fad, I’m tellin’ ya!)

mark of zorroTHE MARK OF ZORRO (1920) – Douglas Fairbanks digs into his comedic AND acrobatic skills in this first screen adaptation of Johnston McCully’s masked hero of 1820s California (The Curse of Capistrano had just been published the year before and Fairbanks bought the film rights for United Artists.)

In my opinion no actor has ever done a better job of drawing such a pronounced distinction between the foppish and timid Don Diego de Vega and his dashing alter ego, the swordsman Zorro. This movie showed all subsequent swashbuckler movies how it’s done and proved that its star could do more than just comedy.

fairbanks as zorroExcellent fight choreography, heroic opposition to tyranny and the rousing, marathon chase and fight scene near the film’s finale make The Mark of Zorro an absolute must-see for anyone curious about silent movies. Nearly every frame of the film is a portrait.

Marguerite De La Motte played the love interest Lolita Pulido, Tote Du Crow portrayed Don Diego’s mute manservant Bernardo, Robert McKim was the villainous Captain Ramon and Walt “Not the Poet” Whitman played Fray Felipe to round out the core characters from the many Zorro tales. Continue reading

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JUNE 13th NEWS, POLITICAL CARTOONS AND MEMES

trump was presAs always, Independent Voter site Balladeer’s Blog takes a look at some current events. 

COURAGEOUS TULSI GABBARD SPEAKS OUT ON HOW THE WAR ON TRUMP ENDANGERS DEMOCRACY.

EVEN MORE EXPLOSIVE REVELATIONS ABOUT JOE BIDEN’S BRIBERY SCANDAL AND THE FBI COVERUP. It’s life here in Biden’s corporate fascist kleptocracy.

JOE BIDEN’S SECRETARY OF ENERGY ADMITS LYING UNDER OATH, BUT NO CONSEQUENCES. More HERE. Meanwhile, the Democrats pursue convictions on the slightest pretext.

INFLATION OUTRACES WAGES FOR THE TWENTY-SIXTH MONTH IN A ROW UNDER JOE BIDEN’S DISASTROUS ECONOMIC POLICIES. Biden’s war on the working class and the poor continues.

biden unleashed theTHE BIDEN CRIME FAMILY’S TWENTY SHELL COMPANIES.

JIM JORDAN’S PASSIONATE DEFENSE OF TRUMP

VENTRY: ANOTHER SCAM INDICTMENT AGAINST TRUMP.

IT’S BIDEN’S GOONS, NOT TRUMP, VIOLATING CONSTITUTIONAL NORMS.

DEMOCRAT FASCISM ROLLS ALONG.

ANOTHER ITEM ON THE DEMOCRATS ABANDONING THE WORKING CLASS. Continue reading

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MICROMEGAS (1752) ANCIENT SCIENCE FICTION

micromegasMICROMEGAS (1752) – Written by Voltaire. The famed philosopher’s contribution to the nascent science fiction genre dealt with one of the earliest known instances of beings from other planets depicted visiting the Earth. Amid the fantastic elements of the story Voltaire fits in examinations of the philosophies of Aristotle, Locke, Descartes and others.

The title character comes from the star system Sirius and from a huge planet that dwarfs the Earth. He himself is 20,000 feet tall, has a thousand senses to our five and is 450 years old. Micromegas was banished from his home world for scientific heresy and took to roaming the cosmos in search of knowledge. Continue reading

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THE TIRED REFRAIN OF ANTI-TRUMP FASCISTS

biden bribery scandalHere at Independent Voter site Balladeer’s Blog I’ve written about the rival gangs of white-collar criminals called Democrats and Republicans since long before de facto Third-Party President Donald Trump announced his candidacy in 2015.

Since then, the mere existence of a viable candidate who was NOT a made member of the criminal cabals called the Democrat and Republican parties has fueled hysterical anti-Trump panic from the two major parties and their media outlets.

biden tax returnsWhether you like or hate Donald Trump is irrelevant – it became clear long ago that the cesspool of corruption which masquerades as America’s political system is targeting Trump to make a public example of any non-career politician who dares to oppose the establishment.

So, we once again see the corporate fascist Biden regime hurling another meaningless, unfounded indictment against Donald Trump, this time on the same day that the latest evidence of the Joe Biden bribery scandal was produced. Not exactly subtle.
Continue reading

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JUSTICE SOCIETY: 1946 STORIES

jsa groupFor this weekend’s light-hearted, escapist blog post about superheroes, Balladeer’s Blog goes back to the Justice Society of America, this country’s very first superteam. Years ago, I covered the early years of the JSA, from their first appearance in December 1940 up to their December 1945 issue, which wrapped up their World War Two tales with a look at disabled veterans. On to 1946.

asc 28ALL-STAR COMICS Vol 1 #28 (April 1946)

Title: The Paintings That Walked the Earth

JSA Roster: Wonder Woman, Hawkman, Green Lantern, the Atom, Flash, Dr. Mid-Nite and Johnny Thunder 

Villain: Nels Farrow

Synopsis: Archeologist Nels Farrow discovered six ancient containers of enchanted paint dating back to Atlantis before it sank beneath the waves. Anything, real or imagined, that was drawn using those paints would come to life and run amok through the world.

The embittered Farrow painted six works of art that would unleash destruction and suffering. The Justice Society went into action, defeating all of the evil let loose on the world from those paintings. Continue reading

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DON Q: SON OF ZORRO (1925) SILENT MOVIE POSTERS

don q son of zorroRegular readers of Balladeer’s Blog may remember that I’m a Silent Movie geek. Last time around I took a look at the magnificent film poster for Douglas Fairbanks’ Thief of Bagdad. This time around it’s posters for one of my favorite underrated Fairbanks flicks, Don Q: Son of Zorro.

Decades before Lash Larue and Indiana Jones, Douglas Fairbanks wielded a whip in battle like no one had ever seen. Don Q, the alias adopted by the son of Zorro, took on his own set of evildoers and in the exciting finale Fairbanks used split-screen technology to show up as papa Zorro to fight side by side with his swashbuckling son.

I could drone on and on about my enthusiasm for Douglas Fairbanks and his fellow stars of the silent screen, but for today I’ll stay focused on a few posters for this movie. Doug adapted the Don Q pulp character and retconned him into being Zorro’s son to make this a sequel to his 1920 film The Mark of Zorro. Continue reading

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DECEMBER 2017

FOR PART ONE (2016) OF THIS RETROSPECTIVE FROM INDEPENDENT VOTER SITE BALLADEER’S BLOG CLICK HERE

corinne brown and hillary clintonCORINNE BROWN, DEMOCRAT CONGRESSIONAL REP FROM FLORIDA, SENTENCED TO PRISON FOR RUNNING A FAKE CHARITY AND SPENDING THE MONEY IT RAISED ON HERSELF AND ASSOCIATES. Have I mentioned lately that American political figures are career white-collar criminals?

BRIAN ROSS OF ABC NEWS SUSPENDED FOR FOUR WEEKS WITHOUT PAY OVER HIS FAKE NEWS REPORT ABOUT TRUMP. AND JOY BEHAR FORCED TO WALK BACK HER REMARKS CLAIMING THE NEWS WAS TRUE! Yes, in 2017 the hysterical anti-Trump media outlets still had a shred of integrity left, so some consequences were paid when they lied. Since then, even that shred evaporated.

elizabeth warren paysPRESIDENT TRUMP RESTORES MEALTIME CHOICES TO STUDENTS. And more news …

IN 2017 THE KATE STEINLE CASE GAVE THE COUNTRY A SMALL TASTE OF THE CRIMES THAT DEMOCRAT “SANCTUARY CITIES” WOULD UNLEASH ON US. Continue reading

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STRAIGHT TO HELL (1987) – IT’S QUENTIN TARANTINO MINUS QUENTIN TARANTINO

str to hellSTRAIGHT TO HELL (1987) – For a glib, one sentence review of this movie, how about “Quentin Tarantino minus Quentin Tarantino equals Straight to Hell?” Though this flick came out years before Tarantino’s films it clearly influenced him and to this day it feels like a lost, inferior effort by Quentin. 

After Alex Cox became known as one of THE up-and-coming directors following his films Repo Man and Sid & Nancy he was trying to arrange a punk concert film (or documentary of an entire concert tour, depending on what source you read) in Nicaragua.

Given the violent and unstable situation in the country at that time, few wanted to invest in a concert film being made under such risky conditions. However, investors WERE willing to shell out a million dollars for a movie directed by Cox and starring many of the punk acts who were going to perform in Nicaragua.

straight to hellAlex threw in some of his stable of regulars from his two earlier films, slapped together a script in three days (co-written by Dick Rude) and used a mere few weeks to make this oddball genre-bender in Spain.

The result was a movie that the post-Tarantino world can easily relate to, but which audiences and critics of the time dismissed as a rambling mess. Straight to Hell is certainly too self-indulgent and self-satisfied to qualify as a good film, but it’s far from the one-star or two-star disaster that many IMDb reviewers dismiss it as.

THE STORY – A gang of inept Los Angeles hitmen trying to impress their criminal employer botch their assigned assassination. Fearing reprisals from the powerful crime boss, they rob a bank and flee across the border to Mexico, where they bury their loot and lie low in an incredibly strange town full of sweaty, violent weirdos and a lot of gunplay. Continue reading

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