Random News and Notes 19 November

Eight score and 2 years ago, Abraham Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address on the stricken field at Gettysburg. The speech was given some four and a half months after the eponymous battle. It lasted all of 90 seconds and consisted of a mere 10 sentences, yet it is held to be one of the great pieces of American oratory.There are five versions of the Gettysburg Address, all in Lincoln’s handwriting, that have minor differences in the text. Today we present the Bliss copy, the same one that is on the Lincoln Memorial.

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

President Abraham Lincoln would be assassinated at Ford’s Theater by unemployed actor John Wilkes Booth one year and five months later.

While I am of the opinion that most the Epstein files are a big nothing burger – if there was anything truly important or astonishing there it would have come out by now – there are some smaller things that have come out. First up is about the delegate (non-voting member) to the House from the USVI, Stacey Plaskett. Plaskett was about to be censured for taking a call (or series of calls) from Epstein during a hearing about Trump.

That vote failed by 5 votes yesterday because someone in leadership cut a deal to protect R Cory Mills. Mills appears to be a scumbag. He has been credibly accused of being violent towards domestic partners twice, potentially committing campaign finance and financial reporting violations and worst of all, has a couple of Stolen Valor accusations. Those accusations stem from a Bronze Star with V that he claims he got in 2003.

Next up are the revelations about Temu Obama actively soliciting donations from the sex pest back in 2013, well after he had been convicted the first time.

“Brooklyn Barack” could Jeffries be any more inauthentic? Also, Epstein was a convicted chomo at that point. All the money in the world would not make me want to do anything with him that did not involve Mr. Chippy.

I dunno about you, but this seems awfully close to calling for insurrection and mutiny.

That kind of thing is not covered by the Speech or Debate clause. I really hope someone at the DOJ has a conversation with Senator Slotkin about this. Preferably after a perp walk.

A convenience store clerk in Oklahoma has been fired for defending herself. Stephanie Dilyard, a former 7-Eleven clerk, shot Kenneth Thompson after he attacked her in the store. Dilyard refused a counterfeit $100 bill from Thompson who then tried to strangle the clerk. At that point she shot him. 7-eleven fired her for using her gun to defend herself.

. . . to BOYCOTT 7-Eleven.

Dilyard is not facing any criminal charges over the incident.