No, the Civil War is NOT Over. In fact, the South is slowly winning.

Sorry to break it to you, Gentle Reader, but somebody had to. For all the orthodox history saying that the Confederacy surrendered at Appomattox, they have in fact continued fighting for segregation, class stratification, and other key Confederate values.

The most obvious example was the large number of Jim Crow laws imposed upon black Americans after the South “surrendered”. Pretty much slavery without the costs of feeding, housing, and clothing the oppressed black workers and their families. Apartheid, American style.

Then came the Civil Rights Movement. We made some progress then, no doubt about it. But starting in the 1980’s, the NeoConfederates have slowly and systematically worked to restore their white-supremacist system, and in fact spread it to other, non-Confederate states.

Undoing affirmative action? Check.
Rolling back voting rights for Persons of Color? Check.
Lower wages paid to black workers than whites? Check.

All of this indicates a non-coincidental trend. It is a deliberate effort to re-fight the Civil War, albeit without obvious military force. And it is succeeding. Here’s one tiny example:

Once upon a time in the Oughts, your humble correspondent had a girlfriend from a foreign country, and she traveled to America to visit, meet the family, see the sights, and so on. She really wanted to see the South, and so we spent some time there. During that sojourn, we stopped at one of Georgia’s state universities to look at dinosaur bones, and wandered into a historical exhibit about the “War of Northern Aggression” (indeed, it was thus labeled) and how bad it was for the formerly-contented slaves. This in an accredited, state-chartered university.

That was a shocker. A government-funded institution teaching and spreading lies about the Civil War. She was shocked, and so was B & C.

Since that incident knocked the scales off the eyeballs, it has become ever more apparent that the Reagan Revolution included a strong racist, neo-Secessionist component. But instead of leaving the Union, the South has decided to take the over the whole damned country.

We are still at war with the forces of racist evil, friends. And we are losing.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

Teapublican Lindsey Graham Promises to Turn the U.S. into a Military Dictatorship

In his own seditious words:

And here’s the first thing I would do if I were president of the United States. I wouldn’t let Congress leave town until we fix this. I would literally use the military to keep them in if I had to. We’re not leaving town until we restore these defense cuts. We are not leaving town until we restore the intel cuts.

And as the source article points out:

Graham would use the military to force members of Congress to not just vote on the bill — but to pass it. Graham didn’t say “until I get an up-or-down vote on restoring defense cuts.” He said “until we restore these defense cuts.”

In other words, Graham is proposing that his first act as president would be to use the military to force the legislative branch to pass his agenda.

You might not have heard about this latest extraconstitutional move by the GOPee, since there have been so many others of late: manifold examples, including Joni Ernst’s flagrant violation of the UCMJ, Tehran Tom’s letter and the bribes that made it happen. But we all need to know about this neo-secessionist scumball and his plans for a military junta.

The sad thing? It’s not really all that surprising. Since the Reaganistas took power, “Republicans” have been grabbing more and more control over our nation, by means both legal and otherwise. All Graham is proposing is pointing actual machine guns at the heads of lawmakers, threatening them with death, imprisonment, or perhaps Gitmo if they don’t do exactly what the Teapublican Treason Team want at any particular moment.

Repubs aren’t even pretending anymore. If an armed overthrow of our nation is what they need to impose their will upon us, that’s what they’ll do. Don’t think for a moment that they won’t  do what they promise to do.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

Masked gunmen installing petty thugs is, like women distributing swords, no basis for a system of government.

Just stop for a second and focus, OK? The man people call Crimea’s leader was NOT legitimately elected to be such. Unless you’re fool enough to believe in the validity of secret elections held with guns pointed at voters’ heads, and that a man who previously barely got into his previous office as leader of a fringe party with only a few paltry seats could somehow magically win power in his nonexistent “nation” when nobody was looking. In reality, Mr. Aksyonov is a criminal who is part of a Russian land grab that is reminiscent of Russia’s previous actions in Georgia, and Germany’s in Poland:

Crimea has been swept into turmoil over the past two weeks, as Moscow, furious over the fall of Yanukovych and the pro-Western outlook of the new government, used hundreds of Russian soldiers to seize political control of the peninsula. The Russian soldiers — who Moscow insists are members of a Crimean self-defense force that Aksyonov created last year — ringed the regional parliament. Then, with armed soldiers inside the chamber, Aksyonov was named prime minister.

His critics say it’s clear that Aksyonov is simply a puppet, someone installed by Moscow to ease what has become, in effect, a Russian takeover of its former territory.

“If six months ago someone would have told me that Aksyonov would become prime minister, I would have laughed,” said Valentina Tsamar, a prominent Simferopol journalist with the TV channel Chernomorskaya.

So, after Russia took over Crimea’s government at gunpoint, and said fake government called for a fake referendum on “joining” Russia, the “Prime Minister” is already taking steps that shouldn’t be taken until after the election results are known. The obvious conclusion, Gentle Reader, is that the results of the next “election” will be rigged, just as the recent parliamentary “election” was. The results are already known, because the referendum is a farce, a ruse, a smokescreen erected to scare the cowards, fool the foolish, and gull the gullible.

This is as illegal as Mexico storming the Texas Capitol, deposing the elected government and installing a posse of Narcos in its place, and then voting to secede from the United States and rejoin Mexico. After all, there are Mexican nationals in Texas who have to be protected from the American government, right? And there are cultural ties that go back centuries, yes? And such ties surely supersede any silly latter-day political boundaries, right?

Wrong. Just as in Ukraine. This is an illegal land grab, like countless others throughout history (including some by the United States, Britain, France, and so on). And like all those other invasions and occupations, it is illegal as Hell and completely illegitimate.

Those loons of the political extremes who shriek and shout at the West for alleged “imperialism” as it insists on Ukraine following a path based on international law; the jackass Conspiracy Theorists who ignore the facts on the ground and and use their own fantasies in lieu of those facts; said shouters are but useful idiots that are helping the real imperialists in this case. Said imperialists being, of course, Putin and his corrupt buddies.

Such bulls***. Wake up and smell it, peeps.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

North Carolina Decides Not To Secede, After All. For Now.

Members of The Cranky Nation will know that certain wingnut North Carolina legislators voted for an unconstitutional state law earlier this week. That law would have made NC law supreme over Federal law, all because their precious wittle feewings got aww hurted the other day.

House Speaker Thom Tillis , who is smarter than the average nutjob, put the bill out of its misery yesterday. He has not said why he killed it, but hey, he killed it.

What he did not do was repudiate the intent behind the bill, admonish his fellow lawmakers, or stand up for the rule of law. So we are left with a load of loons in the North Carolinian State House, and they will no doubt try this crap again someday. Unless they get schooled by their constituents beforehand, which doesn’t look all that likely.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

Bats***-Crazy NC Repubs Take A Step Towards Secession

Yes, it’s technically nullification at this point. But it’s a step in a very dangerous direction. A load of North Carolinian legislators gave signed onto a crazy, loony, unconstitutional bill that says, in essence, “neener, neener ” to the Supremacy and Edtablishment Clauses of the Constitution. And all because they can’t evangelize during opening prayers at public meetings.

Note this well: they are allowed to have a prayer. They are just not allowed to favor one flavor of religion during that prayer. You know, that freedom of religion Thinggummie. But evidently, being required to follow the law is equivalent to tyranny in the minds of these yahoos.

A unilateral declaration that state laws are supreme over federal laws is pretty much the start of secession, never mind the word games. These people are trying to create their own version of national law, just for their little state. Declaring one state’s law to have supremacy over that of the rest of the nation is tantamount to a Declaration of Independence.

Or, put another way, secession.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky