Right Wing Nut House

Join us for another rousing episode of the RINO Hour of Power with your host Rick Moran and special co-host Jeff Kropf.

A terror alert that experts say is the most serious in years or are the terrorists playing us for chumps? That topic, plus the RNC standing up to CNN and NBC by threatening to pull out of debates on those networks unless they drop plans to make Hillary Clinton movies.

We’ll discuss these and other topics with PJ Media’s Washington editor Bridget Johnson.

The show streams live from 8:00 - 9:00 PM Eastern time. A podcast will be available shortly after the end of the show.

On the surface, the Christie-King-Establishment vs. Paul-Cruz-Libertarian donnybrook that has broken out over the last few days is about national security — specifically, the NSA snooping programs. In truth, national security is but the trigger to a much broader discussion that needs to happen. The fault lines that have developed over the last decade in the GOP have divided the party on spending, taxes, the size and role of government, immigration, gay rights, and America’s place in a changing world.

In short, the Republican party is in the process of reinventing itself. And the debate now underway between the two dominant strains of conservative thought will not only determine the future of the Republican party, but also have a great impact on who will be the GOP standard bearer in 2016.

Perhaps the biggest story in Republican politics in 2013 has been the rise of the Libertarian right in the Senate and the man who has shown genuine leadership ability in facilitating that rise. Rand Paul has stepped into a leadership void created by the ineffectiveness of Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and altered the tone and tenor of Senate debates. The power axis of Paul, Mike Lee of Utah, and Ted Cruz of Texas have given Senate Republicans something they haven’t had in years; voices that speak with a passion and coherence about principles while pushing a recognizable, consistent agenda.

It should come as no surprise that traditional, establishment Conservatives would find a way to fight back. But Chris Christie as the messenger? The Northeast Republican has the credentials, but would hardly be the first choice of most establishmentarians. Despite still being mentioned as a possible candidate in 2016, many rank and file Republicans have virtually abandoned Christie, given his embrace of President Obama just days before the 2012 election and his apostate views on gun control and immigration reform.

But Christie may not feel he’s dead yet. Speaking at the Aspen Institute on a panel with other GOP governors, the New Jersey governor came down hard on Senator Paul and other Libertarians for their opposition to the NSA surveillance programs.

As a former prosecutor who was appointed by President George W. Bush on Sept. 10, 2001, I just want us to be really cautious, because this strain of libertarianism that’s going through both parties right now and making big headlines, I think, is a very dangerous thought.

Did he mean Rand Paul specifically?

You can name any number of people and he’s one of them. These esoteric, intellectual debates — I want them to come to New Jersey and sit across from the widows and the orphans and have that conversation. And they won’t, because that’s a much tougher conversation to have.

Accusing the Libertarians of being soft on terrorism exposes Paul’s main vulnerability Indeed, the whole non-interventionist strain that runs through the Libertarian right goes far beyond defending civil liberties and envisions a world with a greatly reduced role for America, a reduced military — indeed a revolutionary change in the national security state.

Christie’s attack was followed by a similar assault from Representative Peter King, Chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, and a politician desperately looking for an issue to ride to the Republican nomination in 2016.

The New Yorker didn’t pull any punches:

“To me the overriding concern here has to be national defense, national security, and not be apologizing for America,” King said. “When you have Rand Paul actually comparing [Edward] Snowden to Martin Luther King, Jr., or Henry David Thoreau, this is madness. This is the anti-war left wing Democrats of the 1960s that nominated George McGovern and destroyed their party for almost twenty years. I don’t want that happening to our party.”

To accuse Paul of virtually “blaming America first” and mentioning George McGovern in the same breath is to throw down the gauntlet to the Libertarians on issues that have defined the Republican party for more than 40 years — unflinching support for national defense and a strong, aggressive, “American First” foreign policy.

For the knockout blow, King used the “I” word to describe Paul and the Libertarian tribe:

“I thought it was absolutely disgraceful that so many Republicans voted to defund the NSA program, which has done so much to protect our country,” King said. “This is an isolationist streak that is in our party. It goes totally against the party of Eisenhower, Reagan, Bush. We are party of national defense, we’re a party who did so much to protect the country over the last few years.”

What the NSA program has to do with isolationism, King doesn’t say. But if there is anything that is going to keep the Libertarians from rising to dominance in the Republican party, it is the sense that they wish to take the GOP back to the days of Robert Taft and his brand of non-interventionist foreign policy. Taft opposed aid to the allies prior to our entrance into World War II. After the war, he opposed the US joining alliances such as NATO, opposed US participation in the UN, and generally felt that Fortress America, protected by the two great oceans, could afford us the security we needed.

It may be unfair to tar Libertarians with the isolationist moniker. Libertarians believe that our interventions have led to a growth in the national security state that threatens our liberties. They don’t like the UN or NATO any more than Taft did, but stop well short of advocating an American withdrawal from world affairs.

Indeed, in his riposte to Christie and King, Paul made it clear that while he recognizes who the enemy is (“I don’t mind spying on terrorists,” he said. “I just don’t like spying on all Americans.”), the overriding issue is Big Government:

“They’re precisely the same people who are unwilling to cut the spending, and their ‘Gimme, gimme, gimme — give me all my Sandy money now.’” Paul said, referring to federal funding after the hurricane last year. “Those are the people who are bankrupting the government and not letting enough money be left over for national defense.”

That, too, is an unfair criticism. While there was a lot of pork in that Sandy aid bill, the extent of the disaster was so profound that the feds had to step in and do it quickly.

Paul also believes the emphasis on curtailing the surveillance state resonates with the young:

“If you talk about some privacy issues like that, I think you will find youth coming to you,” said Paul, who said his own decision on whether to run for president won’t come until next year.

Ross Douthat also sees the rise of the Libertarian right as a generational issue:

Among younger activists and rising politicians, the American right has a plausible theory of what its role in our politics ought to be, and how it might advance the common good. What it lacks, for now, is the self-awareness to see how it falls short of its own ideal, and the creativity necessary to transform its self-conception into victory, governance, results.

The theory goes something like this: American politics is no longer best understood in the left-right terms that defined 20th-century debates. Rather, our landscape looks more like a much earlier phase in democracy’s development, when the division that mattered was between outsiders and insiders, the “country party” and the “court party.”

The vote last week to defund the NSA’s snooping programs is a good example. Rep. Amash, a Ron Paul disciple, cobbled together a coalition of Libertarian Republicans and Civil Liberty Democrats and almost shocked Washington. Such a coalition would collapse when the question of taxes or spending would be addressed, but for purposes of protecting basic American liberties, party lines disappeared — for one vote anyway.

Nevertheless, while the fractures between Libertarians and the Establishment may be most pronounced when it comes to national security, the real fight is over a philosophy of governance. Both sides may agree that government is too big but what happens when one side gives lip service to that idea and the other genuinely wants to do something about it? More traditional conservatives may argue that social spending and government agencies like the EPA need to be reigned in, but basic government functions cannot be eliminated. Libertarians want a rollback a large slice of the welfare state and actually reduce the size of government and the scope if its responsibilities. Whether that could actually be accomplished is unknown given the constituencies that have grown up around entitlements and departments like energy and education — both of which would be targeted for elimination in a Libertarian administration.

For purposes of this debate, details aren’t important. What matters is that the Libertarian right has found its voice and is making its presence felt in every corner of the Republican party. In so doing, it has made the “court party” very uncomfortable. However, it should be pointed out that the last two Establishment GOP presidential candidates have had fairly easy runs to the nomination, despite efforts by the Tea Party and its allies to stop them. Whether the Libertarians can convince the broad swath of self-identified Republicans to give them a chance remains to be seen.

Join us for another exciting episode of the RINO Hour of Power with your host Rick Moran and special co-host Rich Baehr of the American Thinker.

A fight has broken out on the right between establishment conservatie Chris Christie, governor of New Jersey and Libertarian Senator Rand Paul. The two have been trading charges for several days and contained within those charges is the essence of the war for the soul of the Republican party.

We’ll discuss the debate with author, historian, and columnist Ron Radosh.

We stream live from 8:00 - 9:00 PM Eastern time. A podcast will be available shortly after the end of the show.

You can join us live by clicking the icon below or by clicking here.

Join us for another adjective-challenged episode of the RINO Hour of Power with your host Rick Moran and special co-host Fausta Wertz of Fausta’s blog.

Washington is snoozing as the news slows to a trickle. But there’s still lots to talk about. And joining Rick and Fausta will be the incomparable JR Dunn of American Thinker. The panel will look at several stories making news today.

We stream live from 8:00 PM - 9:00 PM Eastern time. A podcast will be available shortly after the end of the show.

You can join us live by clicking the icon below or by clicking here.

Join us for another race-neutral episode of the RINO Hour of Power with your host Rick Moran and special co-host Jeff Kropf.

The trial is over, Zimmerman has been found not guilty, and all the usual suspects on both sides of the racial divide are seeking to advance whatever agenda - personal or political - they wish to. What was all this really about? And will we learn any lessons that will help us the next time an incident occurs?

To discuss these issues, Bridget Johnson, Washington editor of PJ Media will join the panel.

We stream live from 8:00 - 9:00 PM Eastern time. A podcast will be available shortly after the end of the show.

You can join us live by clicking the icon below or by clicking here.

Join us for another gone to the dogs episode of the RINO Hour of Power with your host Rick Moran and, back for an encore as guest host, Jazz Shaw.

It’s the dog days of summer in Washington and Congressional tempers are rising with the heat. PJ Media editor Bryan Preston will join the hosts for a discussion of what’s happening with immigration reform as well as other issues facing Congress.

We stream live from 8:00 - 900 PM Eastern time. A podcast will be available shortly after the end of the show.

You can join us live by clicking the icon below or by clicking here.

This is the seventh and final installment of week-long blog posts called Countdown to Gettysburg“. They are written from the perspective of someone who lived at that time and as if the internet existed in 1863.

The introduction to the series is here.

Previous Posts:

June 27, 1863

June 28, 1863

June 29, 1863

June 30, 1863

July 1, 1863

July 2, 1863
****************************************************

(Check for updates all day)

Washington is once again quiet this early morning but I don’t think it’s the result of people being sound asleep in their beds. First, there’s this God awful heat. For those of you who aren’t familiar with our climate here in Washington, imagine the worst mosquito infested swamp and then add oppressive, life draining heat. The mercury never fell below 85 degrees last night which made sleep impossible.

Of course, I don’t think too many of us would be sleeping anyway with what’s going on in Pennsylvania. The titanic struggle taking place in the farmers fields and gentle, rolling hills outside of Gettysburg has become one, long, unbroken nightmare as casualty figures come into the telegraph office of the War Department. My source there tells me that some officers are in shock at the numbers of dead and wounded that after two days of desperate fighting add up to some 20,000 Federals. (No word on reb casualties but since they’ve been the attackers, their losses should be equal to or even exceed ours). Lincoln himself has been a frequent visitor to that office, as our President does his customary pacing back and forth, not saying much but looking drawn and haggard from lack of sleep.

No one evidently got much sleep on the battlefield either. The Federals were busy all night shifting troops right and left as Meade and his generals tried to anticipate Bobby Lee’s next move. And even if the weary soldiers got a chance to lie down, it was impossible to ignore the screams and moans of tens of thousands of wounded men lying on a battlefield where both sides are in such close proximity to each other.

As for the battle itself, there’s already been action on the extreme right this morning at Culps Hill. You may recall that General Wadsworth’s boys were temporarily dislodged from those heights yesterday in the early evening only to undertake a vicious counterattack that caused the rebs to abandon some of their positions. So while we held possession of the hill, Johnny Reb was grimly holding on to positions that could easily result in a reversal.

During the night (this according to my friend who writes and sketches for Harpers), Meade ordered several batteries over to the right to support an infantry assault that took place this morning at first light. The goal of this attack was to kick Ewell’s boys off that hill and secure it once and for all.

Once again, it was a very bloody affair with hand to hand fighting taking place all along the line. Looks like General Slocum’s XII Corps bore the brunt of that battle and, as of 8:00 AM have completely routed the rebs and sent Ewell’s boys flying.

Here are the lines of battle as of this moment:

Gettysburg 8:00 AM July 3

General Meade has VI Corps held in reserve. They’ve been placed in what appears to be the safest part of the battlefield, right smack dab in the center of the Federal line.

Following the action on Culps Hill, the entire battlefront has quieted down. Major Rathbone is speculating that Lee won’t do any fighting today but rather re-group and try and figure out what to do next. Rathbone says its too hot for a major attack and I tend to agree although no one has ever been able to guess what Bobby Lee is going to do.

I got a huge surprise this morning when I got a wire from an old pre-war friend who writes for the Richmond Times. He’s with the reb army and has promised me a report from the reb lines later today.

His help will be appreciated. That makes the next engagement unique in that I”l have eyewitness accounts from both sides.

I wonder if I’ll even have anything to write about later?

UPDATE

Something big is going on. This from Mr. Waud, my friend who’s covering the war for Harpers:

Approximately two hours ago, the loudest sound ever made on the North American continent was heard as more than 150 Rebel guns opened up at exactly the same moment. The crash and rumble of this cannonade is unlike any I’ve experienced. The Rebels are concentrating their fire at the exact center of the Union line. Fortunately for our boys, they are firing at the top of the hill while our boys are hugging the ground a few dozen yards below the crest. That fact is not helping our artillery as this bombardment is wreaking havoc with the three dozen or so batteries that Colonel Hunt has lined up on the Cemetery Hill. Direct hits are being scored on our caissons and wagons and huge explosions are heard as the ammunition in those wagons goes off.

It won’t be long now.

My friend Mr. Byrd from the Richmond Times should be reporting shortly. When he does, I’ll post again.

UPDATE II

Dear God. This from Mr. Byrd:

I was until recently on the hill next to the Lutheran Seminary with General Lee watching as our infantry formed up for the coming attack. By the looks of things, it appears that our men will be assaulting the center of the Yankee lines right where the Cemetery is. The distance to their objective appears to be almost a mile. Almost immediately our boys will come under fire from Yankee guns firing long range shells. We’ve already had a taste of it and I can tell you its not very pleasant.

The men are ready to step off now. I plan on watching from the cupola of the Cemetery so that I can get a birds eye view of what transpires. I will wire you with the details after the battle.

UPDATE III

It is over.

Bobby Lee’s last gamble to win the battle and destroy our army has failed.

The attack of General Pickett has been repulsed with huge losses inflicted on the rebs. Thanks to Mr. Waud and Mr. Byrd, I’ve been able to draw this map of how the battle unfolded:

Picketts Charge July 3, 1863

Here’s an excerpt from Mr. Byrd’s account:

After the step off from Seminary Ridge, our boys came under immediate and intense fire from Yankee gunners. It was deadly accurate. Great holes were torn in the lines as both solid shot and shell burst among the closely packed formations of men. I saw one shell burst that must have taken down 20 of our boys.

Eventually, our boys made it over the fence and tried to reform for the attack but the fire was just too murderous. That’s when I saw General Armistead place his hat on top of his sword and beckon the men to follow him. The effect on the boys was like electricity. Immediately most of the remaining men began to move up the hill toward what appeared to be a stone wall where the Yanks had refused their line - bent it backward at a right angle. I finally lost sight of our boys because the smoke just became too dense to see through.

Mr. Waud picks up the narrative as I excerpt part of his dispatch:

The noise and shock of battle were tremendous. Our gunners were really giving the Rebels a hard time. But still they came. There must have been 5,000 of our boys on that part of the field all pouring a deadly musket fire into the fast dwindling number of Rebels. But still they came. I saw one Rebel officer with his hat stuck on his sword urging his men forward. The hat had fallen toward the hilt but still they came. Then one final lunge and the Rebels were amongst our boys. There was shooting and hacking and clubbing and stabbing along a front of just a few dozen yards. The Rebel officer with the hat on his sword was leaning against one of our guns obviously wounded but still urging his boys forward. Finally, a counterattack by two regiments of New Yorkers sealed the fate of the remaining Rebels and they began to surrender in droves.

As for the Rebels who could walk, they were making their way slowly back to the Seminary Ridge. That’s when our boys started to chant “Fredricksburg…Fredericksburg” taunting the retreating soldiers with that horrible Federal defeat last December where our boys broke themselves into pieces against the stone wall on Marye’s Heights. I suppose it was tremendously satisfying but strangely out of place. Those Rebels made a most spirited charge. I daresay it will be remembered for a long while.

My source at the War Department tells me that Lee is through and will probably try and retreat. I hope Meade proves himself the bulldog and goes after him, catches him, and destroys his army. But perhaps, that’s too much to hope for.

Casualty reports won’t be final for a while but I think it’s safe to say that this has been the bloodiest battle in American history. The War Department is estimating our losses at 25% which would be more than 20,000. Reb losses must be higher, probably 1/3 which would make their butchers bill almost 30,000.

Oh, dear God! Let this war be over soon. I don’t think I can take too many more “victories” like this one.

One final note: There’s word that General Pemberton has asked for terms of surrender from General Grant at Vicksburg. If true, that would make tomorrow the most memorable 4th of July since our founding fathers signed the Declaration of Independence. Lee’s army beaten and Grant taking Vicksburg’s surrender. Perhaps this is the beginning of the end.

I pray this is so. So much blood shed. So much waste. So many tears.

I remember long ago some idiot Congressman saying that you’d be able to wipe up all the blood spilled in this war with a handkerchief. I wonder what happened to him? Someone should take him to Gettysburg so that he can make good on his boast.

“The Battle of Gettysburg”, painted in 1884 by French artist Paul Dominic Philippoteaux. This spectacular scene from the Gettysburg Cyclorama, is the artist’s impression of Armistead’s attack into the Angle, the Confederacy’s “High water mark.”

The great English writer Robert Graves wrote in his masterpiece Goodbye To All That about the battles of World War I at the Somme and Passchendaele being “Love Battles.” Graves reasoned that only men with an unquestioning and sublime love of country could have participated in those attacks where so many were uselessly slaughtered.

In 1863, mankind had yet to perfect the instruments of war that resulted in the kind of mass butchery which occurred on the Western Front during World War I. But it wasn’t for lack of trying. The Civil War saw so many “innovations” in the art of war - first widespread use of rifled muskets, first widespread use of trench warfare, first use of balloons for artillery spotting, to name a few - that it can fairly be said that what happened on the battlefields in America during that conflict was a preamble to the hell endured by soldiers during the Great War just a few generations later.

The 50,000 men who were killed and wounded at Gettysburg had the kind of “love” written about by Graves. Perhaps no generation in American history ever believed in things like “country” and “patriotism” so deeply. The Federals proved it at the battle of Fredericksburg, Virginia in December of 1862 when 20,000 fell in one day as regiment after regiment marched toward a stone wall on Marye’s Heights only to be butchered by Southern riflemen. All day long the slaughter went on. Each new formation sent against those heights knew full well what was in store for them. And yet, they made those futile charges one after another until even many of their enemies began to feel sorry for them.

Of course, Pickett’s Charge contained many of the same elements. Every one of those 12,000 Southerners knew what it meant to walk across 8/10 of a mile of open ground under the Federal’s guns for the entire advance and the massed rifles of infantrymen during the final few hundred yards. These were hardened veterans who were used to sizing up advances like this and coldly calculating the odds of success. The fact that many of them sowed pieces of paper on their uniforms with their names and hometowns on it in case no one could identify their mangled bodies after the battle says volumes about what the soldiers thought about their participation in that famed attack.

“High Water Mark” by Mort Kunstler.

Then why did they do it?

A large part of the reason was their love and respect for the soldier next to them in line. They didn’t want to appear cowardly nor did they want to let their comrades down in the heat of battle. But certainly there was also a dead serious belief that what they were doing was right. And, in this particular battle, there was the very real prospect of ending the war in victory. General Armistead was heard shouting as he got to The Angle at Cemetery Hill “Home boys…Home is over this hill.” That too, must have been a powerful incentive.

But at bottom, Gettysburg revealed all the South’s hopes for victory to be illusory. Most military historians have criticized Lee for even attempting the attack on the Union center that fateful July 3rd. They point out that even if he had succeeded in piercing the Union lines, there would have been precious few Southerners left standing to exploit the breach and split Meade’s army in two which was Lee’s goal in ordering the attack. All the attack succeeded in doing was adding to the massive butcher’s bill for the three days where the two great armies met to decide the fate of the country.

William Faulkner touches on this theme of southern illusions in his book Intruder in the Dust when he wrote that every southern boy who grew up after Gettysburg was allowed the dream of southern triumph by imagining themselves on Cemetery Hill with Armistead at the confederacy’s high water mark. In their dreams, they would break through the line of Federals and carry the South to victory. Faulkner used this allegory to describe much of the hopelessness he saw in southern whites of the 20’s and 30’s who were beaten down by poverty and tradition while tainted with the legacy of slavery and racism.

Meade’s failure to follow up on his victory by either immediately attacking or pursuing and trapping the Southern army against a swollen Potomac river before it could escape is to my mind the greatest “What If” of the battle. Although it’s unlikely that Jefferson Davis would have surrendered even if he lost the Army of Northern Virginia, the heart would have gone out of the rebellion and, coupled with Grant’s victory at Vicksburg, would have placed the South in a similar strategic position it eventually found itself in April of 1865. Only the trans-Mississippi states of Texas and Arkansas would have been able to resist Federal troops.

That said, the one big southern counter factual must be Ewell’s failure to take Cemetery Ridge on the first day of the battle. He was ordered by Lee to take those hills “if practicable.” The fact that he didn’t has been the subject of endless argument and speculation since the battle ended. One wonders if Stonewall Jackson had still be in command of that Corps, would he have hesitated. If the South had taken the heights outside of town, it would have been northern boys making that long march under the hot sun toward Cemetery Hill and destiny.

“HIGH WATER MARK” MONUMENT AT GETTYSBURG

So ends this experiment in blogging. I realize I took massive liberties with the concept as much of what I wrote wasn’t discovered until many days and weeks after the battle was over. But I’ve rarely had so much fun. The idea of transporting oneself back in time to be an eyewitness to a great event was fascinating.

And thanks all for your wonderful comments and emails. I hope you learned as much as I did. I’ll leave you with a verse from one of the great anti-war poems of all time; Wilfred Owen’s “Anthem for a Doomed Youth.”

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles’ rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells,
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,–
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling for them from sad shires.

Join us for another star-spangled episode of the RINO Hour of Power with your host Rick Moran and the original (not extra crispy) co-host Jazz Shaw.

If you listen to many on the right, America is doomed! Doomed, I say! Leave that for the historians to sort out. But this moment in history, we should consider ourselves the luckiest human beings in the history of civilization. Despite all, no country is now, nor has ever been richer, freer, more beautiful, nor filled with the most fantastic people anywhere.

We’ll have a round table discussion of the American mood this 4th of July holiday with Matt Lewis, columnist for the Daily Caller.

We stream live from 8:00 - 9:00 PM Eastern time. A podcast will be available shortly after the end of the show.

You can join us live by clicking the icon below or by clicking here.

I thought it would be appropriate to republish my “Liveblogging Gettysburg” series that not only was the most fun I ever had writing, but is also some of the most viewed posts on this site via search engines.

The genesis of the idea occurred to me while reading about Walter Cronkite’s  fabulous series “You Are There,” broadcast by CBS in the 1950’s and rebroadcast on Saturday mornings in the early 1970’s. Every week, CBS reporters would visit an historical event and cover it as if it were a modern news story. It was very entertaining to see CBS news reporters dressed in modern clothing interviewing George Washington or General Lee.

The series also featured various key events in American and World history, portrayed in dramatic recreations. Additionally, CBS News reporters, in modern-day suits, would report on the action and interview the protagonists of each of the historical episodes. Each episode would begin with the characters setting the scene. Cronkite, from his anchor desk in New York, would give a few words on what was about to happen. An announcer would then give the date and the event, followed by a loud and boldly spoken “You Are There!”

Cronkite would then return to describe the event and its characters more in detail, before shifting the attention to the event itself, saying, “All things are as they were then, except… You Are There.”

At the end of the program, after Cronkite summarizes what happened in the preceding event, he reminded viewers, “What sort of day was it? A day like all days, filled with those events that alter and illuminate our times… and you were there.”

I thought to myself, why not update the concept to include the internet? From there, it was fairly easy to invent sources, and utilize the telegraph to report on the battle.

Today, I am republishing posts that cover the battle on July 1 and 2. Tomorrow, I’ll republish July 3 and the Epilogue I wrote in 2005.

I hope you enjoy it.