How Conservatives Move Forward After Obergefell v. Hodges

From JPod, at Commentary, "Three Ways Conservatives Can Move Forward After Last Week."

Personally, I think Republicans should downplay homosexual marriage, as I've indicated. Clearly, with today's ruling on the death penalty, all is not lost in the culture wars, not the death penalty and certainly not abortion, which death-loving Democrats avoid talking about at all costs.

Supreme Court Upholds Lethal Injection Drugs for Death Penalty

This case broke down along the Court's classic 5-4, right-left split, with Samuel Alito writing the majority opinion.

At LAT, "Supreme Court OKs use of controversial sedative in executions":

The Supreme Court has cleared the way for Oklahoma and other death-penalty states to execute convicted murderers with a lethal injection that relies on a substitute sedative.

The 5-4 decision rejected claims from death-penalty foes who said the drug in question, midazolam, is not reliably effective and could subject an inmate to a cruelly painful death.

Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. said the prisoners who challenged the use of this drug "failed to establish that Oklahoma's use of a massive dose of midazolam in its execution protocol entails a substantial risk of severe pain."

Moreover, they failed to suggest a reasonable alternative drug, since the most effective barbiturates are no longer available, he said.

In one of two dissents, Justice Stephen Breyer questioned the constitutionality of the death penalty itself.

"I believe it is highly likely that the death penalty violates the 8th Amendment" and its ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

He said the court should hear arguments on that question in the future...

As the Obergefell case showed, the Court slavishly hews to public opinion. And so as long as a majority in public opinion supports the death penalty --- and public support is still at 60 percent now --- then the Court will continue to uphold it.

One wildcard is Anthony Kennedy, of course. He's basically a leftist. Frankly I'm a bit surprised he didn't rule against Oklahoma's drug cocktail in this case.

More at Memerandum.

'The Marxists will literally use any distraction, even a minor one such as Bristol’s pregnancy, to divert from all the horrific crap raining down on America and across the globe...'

They will.

The Middle East continues to burn, but hey, Bristol Palin is pregnant.

From Terresa Monroe-Hamilton, at Right Wing News, "Bristol Palin Releases Ultrasound Photo! And the Father of her Baby is…"

How Does Homosexual Ruling Affect 2016 GOP Presidential Field?

More on the political fallout of the left's culture war victory.

From David Lauter and Mark Barabak, at the Los Angeles Times, "A GOP conundrum: How does a 2016 candidate play the same-sex marriage ruling?":

Within minutes of the Supreme Court's decision declaring a constitutional right for same-sex couples to marry, President Obama joined the celebration, calling one of the gay plaintiffs to congratulate him on live television, then going to the Rose Garden to hail Friday's ruling as a moment when "slow, steady effort is rewarded with justice that arrives like a thunderbolt."

Almost simultaneously, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, one of the leading Republicans in the race to succeed Obama, denounced the decision as a "grave mistake" and called for a constitutional amendment to reverse it. Another GOP hopeful, Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, said the high court had "crossed from the realm of activism into the arena of oligarchy," and called for a constitutional amendment to allow voters to remove Supreme Court justices from office.

By contrast, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, also seeking the Republican nomination, stepped softly, saying only that he thought "the Supreme Court should have allowed the states to make this decision." GOP candidate Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida said: "While I disagree with this decision, we live in a republic and must abide by the law."

The widely different approaches highlighted how gay rights — same-sex marriage, in particular — continue to divide and shape American politics.

Republicans running for president face a choice in responding to the court's ruling. They could try to use the strong emotions same-sex marriages evoke as a way to mobilize conservative voters in primaries, but potentially at the cost of undermining their campaigns in next year's general election. Or they could seize on the finality of a Supreme Court ruling as a way of avoiding an issue on which their party is out of step with the majority of voters, but at the risk of alienating conservatives who see the court decision as a violation of deeply held religious principles.

How they choose to navigate the issue will help determine whether the vast majority of the country quickly accepts the court's ruling, as happened with the decision to wipe out laws against interracial marriage nearly half a century ago, or whether it will remain divisive for years to come...

More.

And see my earlier comments on this, from just a few minutes ago, "As Left Wins Culture Battles, Republicans Have Chance to Pivot for 2016."

New Footage of Tunisia Terror Attack

Via Sky News, "Tunisia Terror Attack: New Footage of Rampage."

Plus, "Tunisia Attack: Footage of Gunman on Beach."

As Left Wins Culture Battles, Republicans Have Chance to Pivot for 2016

Meh. I'm skeptical of this argument.

And I'm skeptical because the left makes everything about culture. Economics is about culture. About "flyover country" and the "47 percent."

2016 will be about race and especially gender, if Hillary's the nominee, which it'll be surprising if she not.

From Jonathan Martin, at the New York Times, "As Left Wins Culture Battles, G.O.P. Gains Opportunity to Pivot for 2016":

WASHINGTON — A cascade of events suggests that 2015 could be remembered as a Liberal Spring: the moment when deeply divisive and consuming questions of race, sexuality and broadened access to health care were settled in quick succession, and social tolerance was cemented as a cornerstone of American public life.

Yet what appears, in headlines and celebrations across the country, to represent an unalloyed victory for Democrats, in which lawmakers and judges alike seemed to give in to the leftward shift of public opinion, may contain an opening for the Republican Party to move beyond losing battles and seemingly lost causes.

Conservatives have, in short order, endured a series of setbacks on ideas that, for some on the right, are definitional: that marriage is between a man and a woman, that Southern heritage and its symbols are to be unambivalently revered and that the federal government should play a limited role in the lives of Americans.

Remarkably, some of these verities have been challenged not by liberals but by figures from the right.

The past week and the month that preceded it have been nothing short of a rout in the culture wars. Bruce Jenner, the famed Olympian, became Caitlyn Jenner in the most prominent moment yet for transgender people. The killings of nine black churchgoers in Charleston, S.C., at once rendered the Confederate battle flag unsuitable for government-sanctioned display. And Friday’s legalization of same-sex marriage nationwide elevated a community that had been consigned to the shadows for centuries of American life.

But even as conservatives appear under siege, some Republicans predict that this moment will be remembered as an effective wiping of the slate before the nation begins focusing in earnest on the presidential race.

As important as some of these issues may be to the most conservative elements of the party’s base and in the primaries ahead, few Republican leaders want to contest the 2016 elections on social or cultural grounds, where polls suggest that they are sharply out of step with the American public.

“Every once in a while, we bring down the curtain on the politics of a prior era,” said David Frum, the conservative writer. “The stage is now cleared for the next generation of issues. And Republicans can say, ‘Whether you’re gay, black or a recent migrant to our country, we are going to welcome you as a fully cherished member of our coalition.’ ”

The critical question is whether the Republican Party will embrace such a message in order to seize what many party officials see as an opening to turn the election toward economic and national security issues.

It will not happen easily: Every major Republican presidential candidate criticized the Supreme Court’s ruling on Friday affirming same-sex marriage as the law of the land.

Of course, many of the Republicans running for president are keen to move on from the culture wars, but others, like Mike Huckabee and Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, are already seizing on matters like same-sex marriage and what they call judicial overreach to distinguish themselves in a crowded primary field. And the conservative activists and interest groups that play an important role in the primary will not let any of the candidates simply move on.

“Our candidates running in a primary are put in a little bit of a box by the events of this week, but at the same time, it does change the landscape for the general election, which is a blessing,” said Carl Forti, a Republican strategist who has worked on presidential races. “I’m glad I’m not on a campaign and don’t have to advise my candidate on how to navigate those three issues this week, because the answers for the primary and the general are radically different.”

Privately, some of the strategists advising Republican hopefuls believe the last week has been nothing short of a gift from above — a great unburdening on issues of race and sexuality, and on health care a disaster averted. Rhetorical opposition to the Affordable Care Act will still be de rigueur in the primaries, but litigating the issue in theory is wholly different from doing so with more than six million people deprived of their health insurance.

Collectively, this optimistic thinking would have it, June will go down as the month that dulled some of the wedge issues Democrats were hoping to wield next year...

That's the other thing: Republicans need to realize they've been beaten on homosexual marriage and back off for awhile. There'll be time to revisit when the harshly negative social effects start to bleed through. Meanwhile, taxes, economic growth, immigration, and foreign policy remain well within the GOP's wheelhouse, and they should press full steam ahead. The Dems can be beat in 2016, easily. But Republicans need to get real about all the recent changes and focus on their strengths, which are plenty.

Keep reading, in any case.

'Hurrah for gay marriage. But why do supporters save their vitriol for its foes instead of the barbarians at our gates?...'

Well, it's not really Islam, after all?

Real Islam is a "religion of peace," dontcha know?

From Bari Weiss, at the Wall Street Journal, via Elizabeth Price Foley at Instapundit, "Love Among the Ruins":

On Friday my phone was blowing up with messages, asking if I’d seen the news. Some expressed disbelief at the headlines. Many said they were crying.

None of them were talking about the dozens of people gunned down in Sousse, Tunisia, by a man who, dressed as a tourist, had hidden his Kalashnikov inside a beach umbrella. Not one was crying over the beheading in a terrorist attack at a chemical factory near Lyon, France. The victim’s head was found on a pike near the factory, his body covered with Arabic inscriptions. And no Facebook friends mentioned the first suicide bombing in Kuwait in more than two decades, in which 27 people were murdered in one of the oldest Shiite mosques in the country.

They were talking about the only news that mattered: gay marriage.

Unlike President Obama, I have always been a staunch supporter of gay marriage, and I cheered the Supreme Court’s ruling making gay marriage legal in all 50 states. But as happy as I was, I was equally upset on Friday—and not just with the Islamists who carried out those savage attacks.

Moral relativism has become its own, perverse form of nativism among those who stake their identity on being universalist and progressive...

Keep reading.

Plus, from Rick Moran, via Ed Driscoll at Instapundit, "U.S. AUTHORITIES WORRY OF TERROR ATTACK OVER 4TH OF JULY...":

Even before the terrorist attacks in France, Tunisia, and Kuwait on Friday, U.S. counterterrorism officials were warning that increased activity by Islamic State sympathizers in the U.S. may foreshadow an attack over the 4th of July weekend.

While it is common for Homeland Security to issue terror advisories in advance of a holiday, two foiled terrorist plots this month as well as the carnage on Friday have given special significance to the efforts of law enforcement to be vigilant over Independence Day weekend...

I'm actually surprised at DHS, considering how untold number of leftists this week were spewing about the "real threat" to American security from "right-wing terrorism."

Confederate Flag Supporters Rally at South Carolina Statehouse

This is after the far-left ghoul climbed up the flagpole.

Seen just now on Twitter:

Hours after woman arrested removing #ConfederateFlag, flag supporters rally at S.C. Statehouse http://t.co/Xogda18MTh pic.twitter.com/9f7kYPwAW1

— Tx_Laney (@Babbsgirl2) June 27, 2015

CNN's Suzanne Malveaux Says Mock ISIS Butt-Plug Flag at London Pride Parade is the Real Thing

Oh boy, at least we live in interesting times, heh.

At Memeorandum, "CNN Mistakes Dildo-Covered Flag at Pride Parade for ISIS Flag."

And at Fusion, "We’ve translated the alleged ‘ISIS flag’ spotted at London Pride."

Crack journalism. Or, journalism on crack. Or up the crack. Oh forget it.



BONUS: From leftist Rosa Brooks, at Foreign Policy, "Can Gay Marriage Defeat the Islamic State?" (at Memeorandum).

Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederacy, Honored with Hundreds of Miles of Roads in Former Secessionist States

At the New York Times, "Honors for Confederates, for Thousands of Miles":

Past Meets Present: Honors for Confederates, for Thousands of Miles - http://t.co/0l4FNifaNT pic.twitter.com/JyW8vGzqdI

— Media Vybz (@OneMediaVybz) June 26, 2015

How many miles of roads in the South are named for Confederates? http://t.co/J300yu77yr pic.twitter.com/NZvXApGwHj

— The Upshot (@UpshotNYT) June 27, 2015

A plaque on the exterior of the Hotel Monaco in Alexandria, Va., honors “the first martyr to the cause of Southern independence.”

It commemorates James W. Jackson, ardent secessionist and proprietor of the hotel that was at that site during the Civil War. But he was not the first man killed in the Civil War. Among those who died earlier was a Union officer, Col. Elmer E. Ellsworth, who removed the Confederate flag flying from the hotel. He was confronted and shot to death by Mr. Jackson, who was quickly killed by Colonel Ellsworth’s men.

There is no memorial for Colonel Ellsworth in Alexandria. But there are many memorials for Confederates. Elsewhere in Alexandria, a city right across the Potomac River from the nation’s capital, are streets named Lee, Beauregard, Pickett, Bragg and Longstreet, all Confederate generals. A highway is named for Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederacy.

In the wake of the mass murder at a black church in Charleston, S.C., Jon Stewart noted in his “Daily Show” monologue, “In South Carolina, the roads that black people drive on are named for Confederate generals who fought to keep black people from being able to drive freely on that road.”

It isn’t just in South Carolina or Virginia. Cities throughout the South have streets, schools and parks named for other Confederate generals like J. E. B. Stuart, Jubal Early and Stonewall Jackson.

At least 10 United States military bases are named for Confederate leaders. A suburb of Houston, Missouri City, has a subdivision with the street names of Pickett, Bedford Forrest (Court and Drive), Beauregard, Breckinridge and Confederate. And on the other side of its Vicksburg Boulevard is, strangely, Yankee Court.

We set out to see just how often Confederate leaders are honored in the 11 former Confederate states by sifting data on street names collected by the Census Bureau.

Davis had the longest length of roadways bearing his full name, 468 miles, followed by Stuart with 106 miles. Robert E. Lee, considered the greatest Confederate general, was third with nearly 60 miles.

It is quite possible that more streets were named for Lee, as we searched for the full name only. Similarly with Stonewall Jackson, who has 40 miles named after him. Using only a last name would also have pulled in any streets, roads and highways named for Andrew Jackson, the seventh president, Maynard Jackson, the former Atlanta mayor — or Bob Jackson, a real estate developer.

Across the entire United States, the most common names honored are Presidents Washington, Lincoln and Jackson. In the 11 former Confederate states, Jackson, with 3,430 miles, and Washington, with 1,701 miles, have the most roadway. Third is the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., with 1,183 miles, then Lincoln, with 683 miles.

These calculations are based on a Census Bureau data set of all roads in the country...

Keep reading.

Meanwhile, Stogie keeps the discussion going at Saberpoint, "More Butt-Hurt for Donald Douglas: The Top Six Racist Quotes of Abraham Lincoln." A key point Stogie notes there, "By today's standards, Abraham Lincoln was a virulent white supremacist and racist."

Ah, by "today's standards."

The problem for Stogie, and those like Professor Livingston who make arguments about how "racist" the Northerners were, is that in the 1850s most everyone except the most radical abolitionists adopted "racist" views on the relations between whites and blacks. And I've asked Stogie repeatedly, "Who claims Northerners weren't racist? Who denies the North was racist?" None of the scholars I've blogged or cited denies that racism was rife in the North. Stogie's argument is a classic straw man, arguing against a point that no one makes.

Further, the key to this debate, on why the South seceded, is the relative positions on slavery of the antagonists, of North and South. Lincoln opposed slavery. He opposed it consistently. And he particularly opposed the extension of slavery to the territories, and by implication --- considering the South's ideological aggression in its belief in property rights in slaves --- to the North as well. Furthermore, after the North's defeat of the South in the Civil War, the old ideology of the Southern nation, and especially Southern beliefs in the subordination of the "darkies," continued for at least a century, into the decade of the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s. The Republican Party was the party of emancipation and civil rights. The Democrats, who carried forth the legacy of the "lost cause" and Jim Crow in the mid-20th century, were the party of segregation and white supremacy.

These are just facts. Stogie never addresses these facts other than to further prevaricate with more accusations of Northern racism, or to react with shocked blabbering, "Are you calling me a racist?!!"

No, I am not nor have I ever called Stogie a racist. I just disagree with him on the origins of the Civil War, and he's having a devil of a time winning this debate, especially with his reliance on fringe personalities like Professor Livingston and this economic illiterate Gene Kizer.

In any case, since this post is on how the South names roads to honor the memory of Jefferson Davis, lots of miles of roads, here's Professor Ilya Somin, at the Volokh Conspiracy, with a long entry on why Southern secession was indeed about the preservation of slavery. See, "Slavery as the Motive for Southern Secession in 1861":

Some commenters on my posts on secession (here and here) doubt my claim that the southern states seceded in 1861 for the purpose of preserving slavery. After all, they point out, Abraham Lincoln and the Republicans had promised not to abolish slavery in the states where it existed. This is a common point advanced by those want to claim that slavery was not the main cause of the Civil War. Indeed, it was first advanced by apologists for the Confederate cause in the immediate aftermath of the War in order to paint the Confederacy in a more positive light by demonstrating that it was fighting for "states' rights" rather than slavery. But the claim doesn't withstand scrutiny.

Confederate leaders repeatedly stated in 1861 that the threat Lincoln's election posed to slavery was the main reason for secession. In January 1861, soon-to-be Confederate President Jefferson Davis said that his state had seceded because "She has heard proclaimed the theory that all men are created free and equal, and this made the basis of an attack upon her social institutions; and the sacred Declaration of Independence has been invoked to maintain the position of the equality of the races." Davis was referring to well-known speeches by Lincoln and other Republicans citing the Declaration in criticism of slavery. Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens similarly said that "slavery . . . was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution" and that protecting it was the "cornerstone" of the new Confederate government. Many other Confederate leaders made similar statements.

Why did Lincoln's election cause them to fear for the future of slavery? It is true that the Republicans did not plan to abolish slavery in the near future. But white southerners still saw Lincoln's election on an antislavery platform as a serious threat to the "peculiar institution." Whatever their position on slavery where it already existed, the Republicans were firm in their commitment to preventing its spread to the vast new territories acquired by the US in the Mexican War. That, in fact, was the main point of the Republican platform. Slaveowners believed that an end to the expansion of slavery threatened their economic interests. In addition, the creation of numerous new free states without the admission of any new countervailing slave states would erode slaveowners' influence in congressional and presidential elections and potentially pave the way for abolition in the future.

Perhaps even more important, most white southerners didn't trust Lincoln's assurances that he wouldn't move against slavery in the South. After all, this was the same man who had famously said that "this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free," and that "the opponents of slavery" should "arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction." He meant that blocking the expansion of slavery would eventually put pressure on southern states to abolish it "voluntarily." But slaveowners suspected that he and other Republicans would attack the Peculiar Institution directly if they got the chance. Within the Republican Party, Lincoln was a relative moderate. More radical Republicans wanted stronger, more immediate action against slavery. And their influence within the party might grow over time.

Finally, slaveowners feared that Lincoln's election would undermine slavery in border states such as Maryland, Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee and even Virginia, which already had many fewer slaves than the Deep South. By using patronage to promote the growth of Republican parties in these states and relaxing enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Act, a Republican-controlled federal government could eventually force these states to abolish slavery. Without strong federal enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Act, slaves from border states adjacent to slave states could more easily escape to the North and border state slaveowners would have incentives to sell their slaves to the deep south, where slaves couldn't run away as easily; this, of course, would undermine the institution of slavery in the border states. If the Republicans could turn the border states into free states and do the same with all the new states to be established in the West, they could create a large enough majority of free states to enact a constitutional amendment banning slavery throughout the country.

It was to head off these various threats to slavery that the southern states chose to secede in 1861. For documentation of all these points, including quotes from Confederate leaders, see historian William Freehling's excellent book, The South vs. the South.

Ultimately, slavery would probably have lasted longer if the South hadn't seceded in 1861. The Confederates clearly underestimated the North's will to fight (just as northerners underestimated that of the Confederates). Nonetheless, they did have reason to see Lincoln's election as a serious longterm threat to slavery. And that fear underlay the decision to secede.

Okay, thank's for reading.

And check back for the next iteration of the Donald-Stogie debates!

Oh My! Radical Leftist Freddie deBoer Calls for Legalizing Polygamous Marriage!

Well, so much for the widely derided right-wing "slippery slope" on legalized polygamy.

Yesterday Salon's Sophia Tesfaye was mocking conservatives who raised the possibility of legalized polygamy: "“Polygamy, here we come!” Right wing melts down over gay marriage victory."

But a quick search shows that Salon's backed polygamy for years, "Legalize Polygamy!"

And then of course radical leftist Fredrik "Freddie" deBoer was off the blocks with the case for legalized polygamy as well, almost as soon the Supreme Court issued its ruling. See, at Politico, "It’s Time to Legalize Polygamy":

Well, that didn't take long. http://t.co/UDmysj6fwR pic.twitter.com/wyCozIugpw

— T. Becket Adams (@BecketAdams) June 26, 2015

Just can't convince some people that I wrote that piece because I genuinely believe in a natural moral right to group marriage.

— Freddie (@freddiedeboer) June 27, 2015

Welcome to the exciting new world of the slippery slope. With the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling this Friday legalizing same sex marriage in all 50 states, social liberalism has achieved one of its central goals. A right seemingly unthinkable two decades ago has now been broadly applied to a whole new class of citizens. Following on the rejection of interracial marriage bans in the 20th Century, the Supreme Court decision clearly shows that marriage should be a broadly applicable right—one that forces the government to recognize, as Friday’s decision said, a private couple’s “love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice and family.

The question presents itself: Where does the next advance come? The answer is going to make nearly everyone uncomfortable: Now that we’ve defined that love and devotion and family isn’t driven by gender alone, why should it be limited to just two individuals? The most natural advance next for marriage lies in legalized polygamy—yet many of the same people who pressed for marriage equality for gay couples oppose it.

This is not an abstract issue. In Chief Justice John Roberts’ dissenting opinion, he remarks, “It is striking how much of the majority’s reasoning would apply with equal force to the claim of a fundamental right to plural marriage.” As is often the case with critics of polygamy, he neglects to mention why this is a fate to be feared. Polygamy today stands as a taboo just as strong as same-sex marriage was several decades ago—it’s effectively only discussed as outdated jokes about Utah and Mormons, who banned the practice over 120 years ago.

Yet the moral reasoning behind society’s rejection of polygamy remains just as uncomfortable and legally weak as same-sex marriage opposition was until recently.

That’s one reason why progressives who reject the case for legal polygamy often don’t really appear to have their hearts in it. They seem uncomfortable voicing their objections, clearly unused to being in the position of rejecting the appeals of those who would codify non-traditional relationships in law. They are, without exception, accepting of the right of consenting adults to engage in whatever sexual and romantic relationships they choose, but oppose the formal, legal recognition of those relationships. They’re trapped, I suspect, in prior opposition that they voiced from a standpoint of political pragmatism in order to advance the cause of gay marriage.

In doing so, they do real harm to real people. Marriage is not just a formal codification of informal relationships. It’s also a defensive system designed to protect the interests of people whose material, economic and emotional security depends on the marriage in question. If my liberal friends recognize the legitimacy of free people who choose to form romantic partnerships with multiple partners, how can they deny them the right to the legal protections marriage affords?

Keep reading.

And remember, if you're not down with legalized polygamy, you're a hater!

See, "The Same-Sex Marriage Bait-and-Switch - You Will Be Assimilated!"

ADDED: DeBoer responds to his critics:

But why publish it on the day gay marriage becomes law?

Because I do think, despite what so many progressives have halfheartedly said, that marriage equality meaningfully influences the legal and moral case for polygamy, and that this is a good thing. I waited until that day because, with marriage equality now the law of the land, with broad popular support, the political risk of association with polygamy has died, and so the time has come to make the case for polygamy, a natural outgrowth of social liberalism and one of several moral imperatives for us going forward. I wrote the piece because I believe in a natural moral right to group marriage, and for the reasons I said in the piece. You can agree, or disagree, but you cannot dictate my reasons or my views.

Wow! Islamic State Using TOW Anti-Tank Guided Missiles!

Mind-boggling.

At Long War Journal, "Islamic State uses US-made anti-tank missiles in Hasakah offensive."

The Islamic State has released photographs from its offensive in the eastern Syrian city of Hasakah. Two of the photos detail the use of the US-made BGM-71 TOW anti-tank missile.

The current offensive in Hasakah is happening concurrently with an offensive in Kobane in northern Syria, and a renewed push at the Deir al Zour airbase. The assaults come after Kurdish forces made significant gains in the northern Syrian province of Raqqah, considered the “capital” of the Islamic State. Over 100 people, many of them civilians, have been killed in the assaults. (For more information, see LWJ report, Islamic State attacks Kobane, Hasakah, and Deir al Zour.)

Photos released from the battle showcase the spoils gained in the fighting. Several crates of ammunition are seen to have been captured from the regime, as well as several vehicles. Other photos show dead regime soldiers, but the images are too graphic to be published by The Long War Journal. Other images highlight actual fighting, including the two showing the use of the TOW missiles.

This is not the first time the jihadist group has used the US system. Earlier this month, the Islamic State publicized the use of the missiles during the capture of the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra. Last December, the jihadist group also published photos showing its forces using TOW missiles against Free Syrian Army (FSA) forces in the Damascus countryside. The United States has supplied several FSA groups with TOW missiles, which have sometimes fallen into the hands of jihadist groups or have been used to assist jihadist groups. The TOWs used in Palmyra and Hasakah were likely captured from battles with the FSA in other parts of Syria...

More.

Via Bad Blue.

Don't Get Trolled on Confederate Flag

From Robert Tracinski, at the Federalist, "Let’s Not Get Trolled on the Confederate Flag":

I’ve been getting the feeling over the past few days that the Left is trying to troll us into defending the Confederate flag, simply by way of the trivial, obnoxious, and gratuitously partisan way they’re campaigning against it.

Yeah, well, that's the left for you, despicable cretins.

I'm not defending the Confederate flag. It's Democrats battle flag. That's just a fact.

Linked there is Ta-Nehisi Coates, who despite his disgusting racialization of everything, is right about this: "What This Cruel War Was Over - The meaning of the Confederate flag is best discerned in the words of those who bore it."

Stonewall Homosexuals 'Noisily' Celebrate Supreme Court's Depraved Same-Sex Marriage Ruling

I wonder if by "noisily" it turns out the homosexuals weren't using lubricants for their public sex.

At the Independent UK:

Patrons of NYC’s Stonewall Inn noisily celebrate same-sex court ruling #Lovewon http://t.co/xS2V92l7BN pic.twitter.com/TCxAYsNmtp

— Independent US (@IndyUSA) June 27, 2015

PREVIOUSLY: "Stonewall Homosexuals Celebrate Supreme Court Same-Sex Marriage Ruling."

BONUS: At the ISR, "Stonewall: The birth of gay power - An excerpt from Sherry Wolf's book, Sexuality and Socialism."

Bree Newsome, #BlackLivesMatter Extremist, Tears Down Confederate at South Carolina Statehouse (VIDEO)

Wow.

This is just extreme. No, it's beyond extreme. It's frankly insane.

The woman, Bree Newsome, is on Twitter here. She's a radical leftist and #BlackLivesMatter activist.

At Memeorandum, "Woman removes Confederate flag in front of SC statehouse."

“We removed the flag today because we can’t wait any longer. It’s time for a new chapter where we are sincere about dismantling white supremacy and building toward true racial justice and equality.”

And at the Charleston Post & Courier, "Woman removes Confederate flag in front of South Carolina statehouse (has video)."

...the flag is intolerable only because it primarily offends black people (who racists already feel are "taking over their country").

— Bree Newsome (@BreeNewsome) June 20, 2015

The refusal to firmly acknowledge and condemn the racism only fans the flames further because it makes it seem like...

— Bree Newsome (@BreeNewsome) June 20, 2015

They're trying to displace the decision from themselves; the flag has gotta come down because "some people" don't like it...

— Bree Newsome (@BreeNewsome) June 20, 2015

White politicians calling for removal of the confederate flag because "to SOME people it's a symbol of racism and hate" is problematic...

— Bree Newsome (@BreeNewsome) June 20, 2015

The flag will come down, neo-confederates will rise up and USA will face a day of reckoning for original sin it still refuses to acknowledge

— Bree Newsome (@BreeNewsome) June 21, 2015

They allow monuments to the confederacy all throughout the southern U.S. but suppress the history of the slave rebellions. Why is that?

— Bree Newsome (@BreeNewsome) June 21, 2015

Saberpoint on Gene Kizer's, Slavery Was Not the Cause of the War Between the States — the Irrefutable Argument

Man, this book must be really bad.

See Stogie at Saberpoint, "Slavery Was Not the Cause of the War Between the States -- the Irrefutable Argument."

Kizer's book is here.

And here's my response to Stogie:

"The North's economy was based mostly on manufacturing for the South and shipping Southern cotton around the world."

Yes, and cotton was an extremely low-value added commodity, of which the U.S. economy would increasingly marginalize had not the South attempted to export its ideology of property in slaves into the territories, in essence attempting to nationalize the ideology of slaveholder's rights to own blacks.

The fact is, the South had a pre-industrial economy that failed to attract capital, and was already headed for a falling rate of productivity and further economic backwardness. Ironically, what investment that was sent to the South was overwhelming invested in planting, since that's all Southerners really knew how to do -- own black slaves, beat them into vicious submission, to eek out increasingly marginalized returns.

Moreover, insular agrarianism isolated the South, cutting it off from the influx of new people and ideas (people obviously hostile to chattel slavery and much more morally enlightened). Today, the Confederacy, if it had continued to exist, would be a poor primary exporter like the peripheral Latin American economies. Cutting edge industries, back then rail, steel, manufacturing, shipbuilding, and now high-technology information systems, robotics, and nano-technology, would be found nearly exclusively in the North. Folks might as well move to Mexico for all the Southern economy would be cracked up to be.

But again, Stogie, all this stuff you're spouting about the North being the aggressor against the South is more of the mythic national ideology of the South, the same ideology that claimed to favor liberty and states' rights, but in fact pursued tyrannical policies, nationalized economics, used murderous Gestapo-style police force to keep the system in place, and advanced racial ideologies to keep alive a social hierarchy of American apartheid.

Kizer's book is economically illiterate. Yes, the South dominated cotton exports, but economic history shows that "King Cotton" is no longer king. The South was bound to backwardness one way or the other. But by bringing on the Civil War, Southerners guaranteed their experiment from 1961-1865 would wind up on the scrapheap of history, not unlike the Soviet Union (or the Nazis, if you prefer), with which the South's methods of tyranny had so much in common.

As always, check back for future iterations on the discussion of the Confederacy.

Here's Donald Trump's Letter to Univision

He's getting pretty aggressive on this whole thing.

Letter to @Univision - Re: @TrumpDoral https://t.co/6mauCmg6uO

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 26, 2015

PREVIOUSLY: "Donald Trump Under Fire for 'Mexican Rapist' Comment, Doubles Down (VIDEO)."

San Francisco Homosexuals Celebrate Supreme Court Same-Sex Marriage Ruling

At CBS News San Francisco:

President Obama Calls Jim Obergefell, Plaintiff in Depraved Homosexual Marriage Ruling (VIDEO)

At CNN:

Homosexual Marriage Ruling Starts New Religious Freedom War

At IBD, "Same-Sex Marriage Ruling Starts New Religious Freedom War":

#SupremeCourt Gay Marriage Ruling Will Harm #ReligiousFreedom, Marginalize Biblical Worldview: http://t.co/c6aRo5CIT7 pic.twitter.com/0L7mzKKwBP

— The Christian Post (@ChristianPost) June 26, 2015

Observant Christians — and adherents of other faiths — are reeling from the Supreme Court's declaration of a constitutional right to same-sex marriage and preparing for an unprecedented struggle for their right to express their beliefs and live their lives accordingly, as new battles will now be waged unless and until a future Supreme Court reverses course.

The Constitution says nothing about marriage or abortion. Yet in 1973 the Supreme Court declared a constitutional right to abortion, resulting in decades of relentless political and legal conflicts.

Now the Court has held that the Constitution likewise forbids the 50 states from defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman. But many people of faith disagree, and the First Amendment promises that they have the right to do so. Devout Christians are already enmeshed in legal battles over this issue.

Navy chaplain Wes Modder, sportscaster Craig James and others have lost jobs or are losing their jobs because they hold Christian beliefs on sex and marriage.

Business owners face more than losing their businesses, as Washington florist Barronelle Stutzman could lose her home and life's savings, and Colorado baker Jack Phillips risks jail time if he continues refusing to bake cakes celebrating gay marriage. There are others, and the list grows monthly.

Keep reading.