This is not 100 percent confirmed but it looks like Westbro is threatening to disrupt the memorial service of Lance Cpl. Joshua Witsman. If anyone is near the Covington Illinois that want to be ready to provide interference to help protect the dignity and sanctity for the Witsman’s family would be appreciated.
COVINGTON, Ind. — A 23-year-old Marine from western Indiana has been killed during military action in Afghanistan, family friends said.
Flags are flying at half-staff outside the Fountain County Courthouse in honor of Lance Cpl. Joshua Witsman in his hometown of Covington.
Fountain County Clerk Patty Gritten told WLFI-TV that she knew Witsman his entire life and that he had always wanted to serve his country.
Coming to us yesterday from the the Chicago Sun-Times is a story about our brave intrepid hippie warriors who decided they’d blow off a little steam between throwing “I was there” medals, plotting to blow up shit, and generally being worthless malodorous dickheads to attack some unarmed, innocent diners:
Police call the melee at the restaurant a targeted assault by a mob that Winston said wielded metal batons and hammers. Ten diners were hurt in the attack, and three of those were hospitalized.
Tinley Park police had five suspected assailants in custody, and Winston said 18 young men, all wearing hooded jackets and obscuring their faces with scarves and other coverings, stormed into the restaurant.
“They came running in the door single file,” said Winston, who owns Ashford House, 7959 W. 159th St., and the adjacent Winston’s Market.
Winston, and police, said the men knew who their targets were, and that the attack wasn’t a random act of violence. Winston said the mob “targeted” a group of 20 diners, all of whom were from out of state.
Now I’m just gonna go out on a limb here and make a little observation. As of a few months ago when WI went from no-issue to shall-issue, this leaves Illinois as the only state in the nation which does not allow concealed carry.
Anyone here want to guess as to whether or not they’d pull this shit in a place where CCW was 1–allowed, 2–likely?
Those little hooded shitbags might have come into the restaurant single-file, but even with their hoodies, masks, hammers, and police batons, as soon as they found themselves facing some pissed off patrons willing to dump a couple of hundred grains of P+ .45 hollowpoint into their sorry meatsack carcasses, they sure as hell would be piling over each other in a mad rush to GTFO before they were carted out in rubber bags.
OK, let me try this again. Sorry it took so long, but uploading 200 pictures and a 28-minute video takes a while, I guess.
It was indeed a beautiful Spring day in Richmond yesterday as you can see in this video (by the way, my videographer, Shakey McShakes of Shaketown is now looking for work if you’re interested in hiring someone who can simulate a Zumba Fitness Party during an earthquake). The video is 28 minutes long and covers every bit of the parade.
Before the parade began, I walked the 1.5 mile route to see if I could root out any protesters, and the only ones I saw were were some Pro-Life zealots who were holding a prayer meeting on one corner. Yeah, I’m pro-life, too, but I don’t know what it has to do with a Welcome Home parade. Context, guys.
But here are some of the signs that greeted the troops when they marched;
The high point, for me, was the Grand Marshall of the parade, retired Marine Colonel Wesley Fox, a 43-year veteran, resident of Virginia and recipient of the Medal of Honor. Col. Fox held every enlisted rank except Sergeant Major (which is probably why he was so awesome) before becoming a commissioned officer.
Of course, he was accompanied by Marines;
While the Army rode;
There were several hundred bikers in the parade;
The VFW Ladies’ Auxiliary honored the local folks who had fallen;
They had some “vintage” vehicles in the parade, too. This one gave me flashbacks of all of the times I had MP jeeps with lights flashing and sirens blaring and coming right at me.
I could go on and on about the parade, but you’d probably rather see the 200 photos I took at My Flickr Photostream.
Afterwards, under the shadow of the World War I Memorial, local organizations set up a Veterans’ Resource Center and displayed what they offered veterans. In fact, if there’s anyone out there looking for work in Virginia, I can almost guarantee you a job, especially if you’re a school-trained instructor. One lady in particular was begging me to find her some veterans to work at Fort Lee. So, if you email me, I’ll send you her contact info.
Thanks to Concrete Bob for making me go to the parade. We had a great time. And I finally got to see Coby Dillard, a good friend who I haven’t seen since before the last election. It was a great day.
ADDED: I forgot to mention that I also met Cargo Squid. So I’m putting more faces to more names these days.
It’s beautiful Spring day here and Richmond turned out for it’s troops. I took almost two hundred pictures and trying to get them through this mobile hot spot is like shoving a watermelon through a water hose, so I’ll give you a preview;
Yeah, it took a half hour to get that photo up, so you’ll have to wait till I get home for the rest. Headed over to see Concrete Bob and Coby Dillard at “Cooking With The Troops”.
If you didn’t read it at Blackfive, those of you in the DC/Richmond area might want to attend the Welcome Home parade they’ve scheduled for Saturday, May 19th (that’s this weekend, yeah, I know it snuck up on me, too). Our buddy, Concrete Bob is masterminding it – the same guy who has organized the counterprotests at Walter Reed, the GOE counterprotests and he was even involved in organizing that huge-ass Tea Party event on September 12th, 2009.
Next Saturday, 19 May in Richmond VA there is going to be a parade to welcome home the Iraq and Afghan vets and salute them for their service and sacrifice. I realize we still have troops downrange, and they are likely to stay awhile yet, but its time to do this thing. We tried a few years back, couldn’t get anything going. Hard to get funding sometimes. But this time, with the help of the Welcome Home Foundation, the Richmond Times Dispatch, and hundreds of volunteers, the parade is going to happen and we are going to pawwwwtay.
So, I’ll be there to take pictures, and I’ll let you buy me some beer if you come, too.
The richly quotable William F. Buckley Jr once said, “History is the polemics of the victors.” Like much of what dear old WFB said it’s delightful but not really true. At least not anymore.
To rail against the inherent bias in our modern academia serves little purpose; the cat is out of the bag. The people who care already know and the guilty are overtly satisfied with the status quo. We all know how in the early and mid 1960’s university campuses were “taken over by the protesting youth of the New Left” to quote dissident Harvard Professor Harvey Mansfeld, who was there to see it. We understand that the halls of higher education were beset by radical political groups which then festooned lifetime, tenured positions of power on the campuses, creating entirely new academic disciplines engineered from the beginning to beget new left-wing academics, long after the political movements which spawned them died out. We understand that many our liberal arts programs are simply factories for contemporary American cultural liberalism, nearly devoid of academic rigor or practical education.
Now the new wave of delusional reconstruction of history is beginning, at your literal expense. According to the Associated Press a bevy of institutions, many funded by your tax dollars, are falling over each other to snap up Occupy memorabilia for new exhibits. To quote from one of our publically employed arbiters of cultural heritage:
“Occupy is sexy,” said Ben Alexander, who is head of special collections and archives at Queens College in New York, which has been collecting Occupy materials. “It sounds hip. A lot of people want to be associated with it.”
Indeed. I’m sure the members of the Sociology Department at CUNY are scrambling to be the most legit Occupier in the faculty lounge. Or at least of those on the email list as being on sabbatical.
Or how about this fine archivist, so intent on approaching our living history with a critical eye:
“We want to make sure we collect it from our perspective so that it can be represented as best as possible,” said Amy Roberts, a library and information studies graduate student at Queens College who helped create the archives working group.
If you’re not sure what’s wrong with that perspective I have a fabulous piece of property in the Sun Belt to show you.
Another publically underwritten pop culture activist from George Mason University had this to say about the screaming discrepancy in her department’s interest in enshrining Occupy:
“This kind of social movement is probably more interesting to me, to be honest about it. And also so much of it is happening digitally. On webpages. On Twitter,” said Sheila Brennan, the associate director of public projects. “I guess I didn’t see as much of that with the tea party.”
That’s right. The Tea Party constituted the most powerful and change affecting electoral force since the Republican Revolution 20 years earlier but, hey, they’re totally not on Twitter. Like, am I right or what? Besides, middle class people showing up to town halls and participating in the democratic process? Bor-ing!.
Yea this pissed me off when someone on my Facebook was crying about the people that got removed in LA and Philadelphia, posted this.
Yea that smiley face makes me warm all over. Totally makes up for the face that your comparing me to the people involved with the Oklahoma bombing in 1995. The one that gets brought out for the crazy Veteran meme comes out. Totally digging it. To make it worse it is coming from someone who has served as well. Way to keep it classy.
