Pictures From Kiev

Per Syd in the comments, the Daily Mail has a tons of pictures.

I mean, I hate to take y’all away from CNN’s wall-to-wall coverage of Hillary and gay NBA players.

Ah, the Good, Old Days of Tass! Revived for YOUR “Education” and Mind Control

…by your friendly, national Obama administration.

(ths note: I see I got my post w/ the same article, but different emphasis, up after Bingley’s in the one immediately below. We must both be pissed.)

New Obama initiative tramples First Amendment protections

“This has never been put to an FCC vote, it was just announced,” says Ajit Pai, one of the FCC’s five commissioners (and one of its two Republicans).

“I’ve never had any input into the process,” adds Pai, who brought the story to the public’s attention in a Wall Street Journal column last week.

…The study identified eight “critical needs”: information about emergencies and risks; health and welfare; education; transportation; economic opportunities; the environment; civic information; and political information.

It’s not difficult to see those topics quickly becoming vehicles for political intimidation. In fact, it’s difficult to imagine that they wouldn’t. For example, might the FCC standards that journalists must meet on the environment look something like the Obama administration’s environmental agenda? Might standards on economic opportunity resemble the president’s inequality agenda? The same could hold true for the categories of health and welfare and “civic information” — and pretty much everything else.

“An enterprising regulator could run wild with a lot of these topics,” says Pai. “The implicit message to the newsroom is they need to start covering these eight categories in a certain way or otherwise the FCC will go after them.“

Where’s those Pussy Riot girls when you need someone with a pair?

Is It Any Surprise?

That the man who has turned every agency of government into openly politicized arms of his regime would next turn his sights to overtly control those who have been his greatest enablers?

The First Amendment says “Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press…” But under the Obama administration, the Federal Communications Commission is planning to send government contractors into the nation’s newsrooms to determine whether journalists are producing articles, television reports, Internet content, and commentary that meets the public’s “critical information needs.” Those “needs” will be defined by the administration, and news outlets that do not comply with the government’s standards could face an uncertain future. It’s hard to imagine a project more at odds with the First Amendment.

The initiative, known around the agency as “the CIN Study” (pronounced “sin”), is a bit of a mystery even to insiders. “This has never been put to an FCC vote, it was just announced,” says Ajit Pai, one of the FCC’s five commissioners (and one of its two Republicans). “I’ve never had any input into the process,” adds Pai, who brought the story to the public’s attention in a Wall Street Journal column last week.

Advocates promote the project with Obama-esque rhetoric. “This study begins the charting of a course to a more effective delivery of necessary information to all citizens,” said FCC commissioner Mignon Clyburn in 2012. Clyburn, daughter of powerful House Democratic Rep. James Clyburn, was appointed to the FCC by President Obama and served as acting chair for part of last year. The FCC, Clyburn said, “must emphatically insist that we leave no American behind when it comes to meeting the needs of those in varied and vibrant communities of our nation — be they native born, immigrant, disabled, non-English speaking, low-income, or other.”

The FCC, who licenses the airwaves, will now under the orders of Obama send Commissars into newsrooms to monitor what they do and say.

Who’s scoffing at the idea of “Liberal Fascism” now?

GULP

Literally and figuratively.

Sinkhole opens up at National Corvette Museum, swallows cars

A massive sinkhole that opened up under a Kentucky museum Wednesday morning swallowed several vintage and rare Corvettes.

The National Corvette Museum said the Bowling Green Fire Department estimates the sinkhole to be around 25-30 feet deep and 40 feet wide.

“This is going to be an interesting situation,” Museum Executive Director Wendell Strode told the Bowling Green Daily News, noting that a structural engineer is at the Bowling Green facility to evaluate the damage inside its Sky Dome section.

Six of the cars in the sinkhole are owned by the museum; two others are owned by General Motors.

And:

…The museum is closed for the day.

Ya think?

It’s Snowing!

Looks very lovely here on Wall Street.

And I refuse to use schtupid Weather Channel names.

Why It’s Called A Dump Truck

The combination of “adults” plus “diapers” gets messy

VIENNA -Austrian hazmat specialists called in after Geiger counters showed alarmingly high readings for a dump truck arriving at an incinerator have found the problem — radioactive adult diapers.

After unloading the truck, firefighters from the hazardous materials unit of the city of Linz found nearly two dozen diapers from a hospital that had become contaminated with radioactive iodine. The substance is swallowed during some medical and diagnostic procedures.

…Austrian officials, however, are tracing the truck’s route. And the truck will stay in a metal container at the incinerator for eight days — the time it takes for the emissions to reach safe levels.

Judging by the baby diapers I’ve changed there is no “safe level of emissions.”

Merry Christmas Eve!!

Ah, retail at Christmas. In our little independent (Yes, HE built it.), two person shop, I am person Number Two, which explains the dearth of ths posts at this time of year. Six days a weeks and balls-to-the-wall while we’re there.

But before I head out into the fray of last minute, “Holy Shitters!”, I wanted to send much love and many kisses all y’alls’ way from casa de major dad for the LOVELIEST, most blessed of days tomorrow and a damn fine start to it this evening if you’ve any sense about you.

And of course you do ~ you’re here.

Love you guys. See you on the backside of the Star.

This Doesn’t Look Like Pismo Beach Part 2

As it normally requires a lot of runway when loaded this ought to be a rather interesting take-off attempt

A Boeing 747 jumbo jet mistakenly landed a tiny airport in Wichita, Kansas late Wednesday, raising questions about whether or not the plane will be able to take off.

KAKE.com reports that the jet used to haul 787 Dreamliner parts landed at Jabara Airport instead of its intended destination of McConnell Air Force Base.

A Boeing spokesman confirmed to The Wall Street Journal in a statement that the plane had landed on the 6,101-foot long runway and that “we are working to determine next steps.”

It seems that this particular plane is a 747 LCF Dreamlifter, which is a highly modified funny looking duck.

I’d be rather curious to hear the explanation of just how they happened to land at the wrong airport.

Hillary Stays True To Form

Oh hey, look what we found lying around here in a box

The State Department has belatedly released dozens of photos of the aftermath of last year’s terrorist attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi after The Washington Times inquired about the authenticity of photographs it received from a Welsh security contractor assigned to the doomed American outpost in eastern Libya.

Judicial Watch, a conservative watchdog group, had requested all photos and videos of the besieged diplomatic mission under the Freedom of Information Act in December and February, and the State Department released only seven photographs in June.

But this week, after weeks of inquiries by The Times about photos it received, the State Department released a trove of photographs showing buildings and vehicles ablaze during the Sept. 11, 2012, terrorist attack that killed U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans. Other photos show ransacked offices, burned-out cars and Arabic graffiti scrawled on walls.

The State Department said it had forwarded the photographs to the FBI for its investigation into the attack and submitted them to the accountability review board, the independent panel that conducted the State Department’s mandatory probe of the Benghazi incident and events leading up to it. The department also shared the photographs with members of Congress looking into the Obama administration’s response to the attack.

Judicial Watch was incredulous over the sudden release of never-before-published photographs and criticized the State Department for withholding requested videos of the attack and its aftermath.

“The new photos reveal a level of total devastation thoroughly belying Obama’s original cover story that the carnage was perpetrated by a bunch of random malcontents upset over an unpleasant video,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said Wednesday on the group’s website. “The fact that we’ve had to wait nearly a year and file a federal lawsuit for basic documentary material of the attack shows that this administration is still in cover-up mode. And now the Obama administration brings the Benghazi stonewall to a whole new level by withholding video of the attack using frivolous arguments such as ‘privacy.'”

It worked for Hillary at the Rose Law firm, so why shouldn’t she do it at State?

And now she hopes it will conveniently get glossed over in the midst of the Obamacare disaster.

And There Goes NBC…

…backing off. Disappeared COMPLETELY for a while in a…get ready for it…GLITCH!!
Must have been some pretty PISSED OFF PHONE CONVERSATIONS with the White House, ya think?

Changes here: harsh language suddenly…POOF!.

Candy Crowley Is a Miserable Obama Hack

…but I’m pretty impressed with how Ted Cruz maintains an amiable demeanor through the whole excruciating exercise. I’d a’ popped her.

On the otherhand, Chris Wallace ripped Jack Lew a new one, history-lesson-wise, as far as those extortive debt ceiling threats go. Took him to SCHOOL.

So President Barrycade Goes on CNBC This Afternoon

You know ~ just to whip up a little stock market crash fever ~

Obama to Wall Street: This time be worried

Wall Street needs to be genuinely worried about what is going on in Washington, President Barack Obama told CNBC in a White House interview Wednesday.

While gridlock in D.C. is nothing new, “this time I think Wall Street should be concerned,” Obama said.

POTUS telling Wall Street to react: "I think this time is different. I think they should be concerned." // Dow may drop big tomorrow?

— Chuck Todd (@chucktodd) October 2, 2013

…but then he says something genuinely bizarre.

…On Obamacare, the president’s most significant legislative accomplishment, Obama said that despite certain polls showing it was unpopular with specific segments of the population—namely white people—the law would ultimately be accepted by the population at large.

Tenets of the bill are popular among “all races” the president said.

“The majority of the people who will be helped by the ACA will be white,” he said.

Because…WHAT?!

When Your Current, BESTEST Idea on EARTH to Stop Radiation From Leaking From Your Crippled Reactor IS:

…FREEZING THE GROUND UNDER THE PLANT…

Japan to build $470M ice wall to prevent nuclear leaks

The Japanese government announced Tuesday that it will spend $470 million on a subterranean ice wall and other steps in a desperate bid to stop leaks of radioactive water from the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant after repeated failures by the plant’s operator.

The decision is widely seen as an attempt to show that the nuclear accident won’t be a safety concern just days before the International Olympic Committee chooses among Tokyo, Istanbul and Madrid as the host of the 2020 Olympics.

The Fukushima Dai-ichi plant has been leaking hundreds of tons of contaminated underground water into the sea since shortly after a massive 2011 earthquake and tsunami damaged the complex. Several leaks from tanks storing radioactive water in recent weeks have heightened the sense of crisis that the plant’s owner, Tokyo Electric Power Co., isn’t able to contain the problem.

…WHAT kind of MAH-ROONS would give them an Olympic Games?!

TOKYO WINS VOTE TO HOST 2020 OLYMPICS

Well, they should save an assload on lighting costs, with all the glowing going on by then.

On the Weiner Front

…Matt Drudge is having the time of his LIFE, with “Balls to the Wall Coverage” promised and pretty much delivered by the candidate himself.

Over and over again.

Go ahead and DO IT, New York. You DESERVE this guy.

Unemployment Moves Up to 7.6%

This Pethokoukis tweet blows the Democratic talking points of “Imagine how low unemployment’d be without the #GOPSequester !” (And, yes, they think there are still Americans out there with throats not too sore willing to swallow THAT one.) (Wait. The NewsHour DID have Krugman on last night, so I guess they have a hard core Zombie audience…)

US private-sector jobs created since January 2009, 1.9 million. Not a year. Total

— James Pethokoukis (@JimPethokoukis) June 7, 2013

Remember That Frightening Commercial Where the Chinese Control Our Country?

It’s for reals now.

They’re gonna OWN OUR BACON

China’s Shuanghui to Buy Smithfield Foods

Chinese meat producer Shuanghui International Holdings Ltd. agreed to acquire Smithfield Foods Inc. SFD +0.23% for about $4.7 billion, striking what would be the largest takeover of a U.S. company by a Chinese buyer—should it get past what is likely to be heavy regulatory scrutiny.

Shuanghui agreed to pay $34 per share for Smithfield, the world’s largest hog farmer and pork processor, marking a 31% premium to Smithfield’s Tuesday closing price of $25.97. Including debt, the deal values Smithfield at $7.1 billion.

Smithfield owns an array of household names, including Armour, Farmland and Healthy Ones, and is sold in 12 countries, according to its website. The company’s shares soared 33% to $34.50 in pre-market trading after The Wall Street Journal reported the potential deal.

He Had It On “Vibrate”

Musta missed that 3 a.m. call, thinking it it was Michelle’s snores shaking the bed. Didn’t she know he had a big fundraiser in Vegas next day?

The big Benghazi mystery: Where was Obama while 4 Americans perished?

…The Benghazi consulate was totally unsecured and unprepared, despite area terrorist attacks and months-long urgings of security personnel and Stevens himself.
In fact, a month before 9/11 when two security personnel used their weapons to fight off terrorist carjackers, most of the Special Ops security forces were ordered out of the country.

The first and last contact Hicks in Tripoli had with Stevens that night was an interrupted cellphone call in which the ambassador said, “Greg, we’re under attack!” No mention of any protest demonstration.

A special joint team of FBI-CIA-Defense-State crisis experts was ordered not to deploy to Benghazi.

Twelve hours after the U.S. Embassy wall in Cairo was stormed, no contingency military forces were prepared to assist there or anywhere else in the region. The nearest F-16’s in Italy were not even on alert and had no refueling tankers nearby.

As the four remaining Special Ops troops in-country boarded a Libyan C-130 to rush to help in Benghazi, someone ordered their colonel to stand down.

…What we don’t know is where the hell was the commander-in-chief all-night while two former SEALs, a communications specialist and the first U.S. ambassador in three decades were being murdered on-duty six time zones away.

We do know that then Secy. of Defense Leon Panetta claims Obama instructed him in the early evening of 9/11 to do everything necessary to protect Americans and embassies abroad.

We also know now that “everything” wasn’t really anything at all.

Oh

…peachy.

Why the Jobs Outlook Just Got a Whole Lot Worse

Weak corporate top-line growth is likely to spell an equally troubled bottom line for the 11.7 million unemployed.

Quarterly earnings thus far have shown the typical strong level of profit beats, with just more than two of three companies in the Standard & Poor’s 500 exceeding Wall Street expectations.

But when it comes to actual sales growth, the results have been just north of dismal.

And some moron on Twitter last night was telling me the GOP wanted us all to be a Third World country, jobs-wise.

Pffft.

Of course, that was right after he’d Tweeted that Islam was far older than Christianity, so what does a H8R like me know?

Gee, And It Seemed Like Such A Good Idea At The Time

I mean, what could be more family-friendly?

CINCINNATI (AP) — A popular southwest Ohio air show has canceled plans to stage a re-enactment of the devastating World War II atomic bomb attack on Japan after protests, officials said Thursday.

Dayton Air Show spokeswoman Brenda Kerfoot said the June 22-23 event at Dayton International Airport will keep a planned “Great Wall of Fire” pyrotechnic show but not as an event meant to re-enact the Aug. 6, 1945, bombing of Hiroshima. The B-29 plane “Fifi,” similar to the Enola Gay B-29 bomber used to attack Japan, will remain in the show but in a separate role.

Air show officials said the re-enactment was meant to highlight a historic event that helped end the war and save lives that would have been lost if the war had been prolonged.

Never ever trust a B-29 named “Fifi”.

Man, I Can’t STAND This Guy

His cartoony 5% give back, while he keeps his vacays, rockstar parties, weekend golf outings, fashion icon wife’s jet-set destinations and kids’ ski or Bahama Island trips and constantly LYING PIEHOLE running about how fucked up I am, make me want to puke.

You balled THIS up, Skippy.

US Job Creation Plunges, but Rate Drops to 7.6%

…Moreover, the drop in the jobless rate was little more than a statistical anomaly, with the labor-force participation rate tumbling to a 34-year low of 63.3 percent. However, a broader measure of unemployment that counts the discouraged and underemployed also fell, declining to 13.8 percent from February’s 14.3 percent.

The actual level of employment dropped by 206,000 and the number of Americans considered still in the labor force tumbled by 496,000.

“Having such a disappointing figure in March will have a volcanic negative impact on sentiment in critical economic areas, such as housing,” said Todd Schoenberger, managing partner at LandColt Capital. “Wall Street will not be happy, and are certain to punish stocks today.”

Smart Power!

I’m so glad the adults are in charge

The U.S. Embassy in Cairo shut down its Twitter feed Wednesday following a public fight with the Egyptian Presidency and the Muslim Brotherhood over the arrest of an Egyptian television star.

“Sorry, that page doesn’t exist!” reads the banner atop the site where the @USEmbassyCairo Twitter feed sat until this morning. A cached version of the page shows that the last tweet was a link to the Daily Show’s Jon Stewart talking about the Egyptian government’s arrest of Stewart’s Egyptian doppelganger Bassem Youssef, who was detained and fined by the Egyptian police on the charge of insulting Islam and President Mohamed Morsy.

“It’s inappropriate for a diplomatic mission to engage in such negative political propaganda,” the official Twitter feed for the Egyptian presidency said on their own feed Tuesday. The Egyptian presidency tweet was directed at the Cairo Embassy, the Daily Show, and Youssef himself.

How sad is it that I completely agree with the Egyptian President?

And this is nothing new for “our” embassy in Cairo

This is not the first time Embassy Cairo has courted controversy via its Twitter account. On the fateful day of Sept. 11, 2012, Embassy Cairo put out a series of tweets seeking to calm the protests outside their walls. The campaign of Mitt Romney, the Republican challenger, seized upon those tweets to accuse President Barack Obama of apologizing for American values because the tweets referenced an anti-Islam video that contributed to the unrest.

The main Embassy Cairo tweeter at that time, Larry Schwartz, was blamed for the Sept. 11 tweets and subsequently recalled to Washington. But the combative character of the embassy’s Twitter account continued.

That’s a rather creative re-write of what the Embassy tweeted on September 11th.

And a certain film maker is still in jail.

We Are Saved! Cars Sales Are Up!

This is proof, PROOF, that all you H8TRS were wrong wrong wrong and that our Wise Dear Leader Obama is the greatest economic genius EVUH.

Or maybe not

(Reuters) – Thanks largely to the U.S. Federal Reserve, Jeffrey Nelson was able to put up a shotgun as down payment on a car.

Money was tight last year for the school-bus driver and neighborhood constable in Jasper, Alabama, a beaten-down town of 14,000 people. One car had already been repossessed. Medical bills were piling up.

And still, though Nelson’s credit history was an unhappy one, local car dealer Maloy Chrysler Dodge Jeep had no problem arranging a $10,294 loan from Wall Street-backed subprime lender Exeter Finance Corp so Nelson and his wife could buy a charcoal gray 2007 Suzuki Grand Vitara.

All the Nelsons had to do was cover the $1,000 down payment. For most of that amount, Maloy accepted Jeffrey’s 12-gauge Mossberg & Sons shotgun, valued at about $700 online.

In the ensuing months, Nelson and his wife divorced, he moved into a mobile home, and, unable to cover mounting debts, he filed for personal bankruptcy. His ex-wife, who assumed responsibility for the $324-a-month car payment, said she will probably file for bankruptcy in a couple of months.

Subprime loans as the primary force behind our economic recovery.

What could possibly go wrong?

The Exeter loan Nelson and his wife got, for example, carried a 21.95-percent rate. Exeter, which is majority-owned by private-equity giant Blackstone Group, assumes that one in four borrowers will default on their loan, according to an Exeter investor pitch book reviewed by Reuters.

The government is lending them the money at basically 0%.

As in zero.

It’s the Federal Reserve that’s made it all possible.

MONEY, MONEY EVERYWHERE

In its efforts to jumpstart the economy, the U.S. central bank has undertaken since November 2008 three rounds of bond-buying and cut short-term interest rates effectively to zero. The purchases of mostly Treasury and mortgage securities – known as quantitative easing and nicknamed QE1, QE2 and QE3 – have injected trillions of dollars into the financial system.

The Fed isn’t alone. Central banks from Tokyo to Frankfurt to London are running their printing presses overtime. The heavily indebted advanced economies are trying to reflate their way out of the prolonged bout of crisis and recession that crystallized with the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc in 2008. That crisis, of course, followed a nearly decade-long cycle of easy money and exotic financial products that itself began with the collapse of the tech-mania bubble of the late 1990s.

The Fed’s program, while aimed at bolstering the U.S. housing and labor markets, has also steered billions of dollars into riskier, more speculative corners of the economy. That’s because, with low interest rates pinching yields on their traditional investments, insurance companies, hedge funds and other institutional investors hunger for riskier, higher-yielding securities – bonds backed by subprime auto loans, for instance.

This is what this pathetic ‘recovery’ has been built on: cards, smoke, mirrors and fluff.

Oh and massive debt for our children.

A Quick Primer On

Tax increases the fiscal cliff deal allowed:

1. Payroll Tax: increase in the Social Security portion of the payroll tax from 4.2 percent to 6.2 percent for workers. This hits all Americans earning a paycheck—not just the “wealthy.” For example, The Wall Street Journal calculated that the “typical U.S. family earning $50,000 a year” will lose “an annual income boost of $1,000.”

2. Top marginal tax rate: increase from 35 percent to 39.6 percent for taxable incomes over $450,000 ($400,000 for single filers).

3. Phase out of personal exemptions for adjusted gross income (AGI) over $300,000 ($250,000 for single filers).

4. Phase down of itemized deductions for AGI over $300,000 ($250,000 for single filers).

5. Tax rates on investment: increase in the rate on dividends and capital gains from 15 percent to 20 percent for taxable incomes over $450,000 ($400,000 for single filers).

6. Death tax: increase in the rate (on estates larger than $5 million) from 35 percent to 40 percent.

7. Taxes on business investment: expiration of full expensing—the immediate deduction of capital purchases by businesses.

Obamacare tax increases that took effect:

8. Another investment tax increase: 3.8 percent surtax on investment income for taxpayers with taxable income exceeding $250,000 ($200,000 for singles).

9. Another payroll tax hike: 0.9 percent increase in the Hospital Insurance portion of the payroll tax for incomes over $250,000 ($200,000 for single filers).

10. Medical device tax: 2.3 percent excise tax paid by medical device manufacturers and importers on all their sales.

11. Reducing the income tax deduction for individuals’ medical expenses.

12. Elimination of the corporate income tax deduction for expenses related to theMedicare Part D subsidy.

13. Limitation of the corporate income tax deduction for compensation that health insurance companies pay to their executives.

Don’t let ANYONE tell you it was “just the Bush Tax Cuts for the RICH!”

More at the Heritage Blog, via the Morning Jolt from Geraghty at NRO.

When You’re SO Hipster Trendy

…you’re just so stupido.

Gus Exposito couldn’t believe what he saw in the marble walls of South Beach’s W Hotel: a larger-than-life framed photograph of what looked like Cuban communist revolutionary Ernesto “Che” Guevara.

“He was a mass murderer, killed thousands of Cubans execution-style,” Exposito, 51, wrote in an email, comparing the long-dead Fidel Castro pal to Adolf Hitler or the KKK. “I spoke to the manager and he referred to it as art!”

Turns out, it’s probably not Che. It’s another artist’s rendering of the revolutionary. But Exposito says it’s offensive nonetheless, raising the question: Is an image of an offensive image offensive? Is it art? Both?

Community answer: offensive.

Next time, remember to check with the neighbors.

Today in 1781

…Lieutenant Colonel Banastre Tarleton seriously underestimated a colonial army with militia at its center, arrayed against him in an open South (!) Carolina pasture called a “Cowpens”, of all places…

…Dawn at the Cowpens on January 17, 1781, was clear and bitterly cold. Morgan, his scouts bearing news of Tarleton’s approach, moved among his men, shouting, “Boys, get up! Benny’s22 coming! Tarleton, playing catch up, and having marched his army since two in the morning, ordered formation on the Green River Road for the attack. His aggressive style was made even now more urgent, since there were rumors of Overmountain men on the way, reminiscent of events at Kings Mountain. Yet he was confident of victory: he reasoned he had Morgan hemmed in by the Broad, and the undulating park-like terrain was ideal for his dragoons23. He thought Morgan must be desperate, indeed, to have stopped at such a place. Perhaps Morgan saw it differently: in some past battles, Patriot militia had fled in face of fearsome bayonet charges – but now the Broad at Morgan’s back could prevent such a retreat. In reality, though, Morgan had no choice – to cross the flood-swollen Broad risked having his army cut down by the feared and fast-traveling Tarleton.

Tarleton pressed the attack head on, his line extending across the meadow, his artillery in the middle, and fifty Dragoons on each side. It was as if Morgan knew he would make a frontal assault – it was his style of fighting. To face Tarleton, he organized his troops into three lines. First, out front and hiding behind trees were selected sharpshooters. At the onset of battle they picked off numbers of Tarleton’s Dragoons, traditionally listed as fifteen24, shooting especially at officers, and warding off an attempt to gain initial supremacy. With the Dragoons in retreat, and their initial part completed, the sharpshooters retreated 150 yards or more back to join the second line, the militia commanded by Andrew Pickens. Morgan used the militia well, asking them to get off two volleys and promised their retreat to the third line made up of John Eager Howard’s25 Continentals, again close to 150 yards back. Some of the militia indeed got off two volleys as the British neared, but, as they retreated and reached supposed safety behind the Continental line, Tarleton sent his feared Dragoons after them. As the militia dodged behind trees and parried saber slashes with their rifles, William Washington’s26 Patriot cavalry thundered onto the field of battle, seemingly, out of nowhere. The surprised British Dragoons, already scattered and sensing a rout, were overwhelmed, and according to historian Babits, lost eighteen men in the clash. As they fled the field, infantry on both sides fired volley after volley. The British advanced in a trot, with beating drums, the shrill sounds of fifes, and shouts of halloo. Morgan, in response, cheering his men on, said to give them the Indian halloo back. Riding to the front, he rallied the militia, crying out, “form, form, my brave fellows! Old Morgan was never beaten!”

Now Tarleton’s 71st Highlanders27, held in reserve, entered the charge toward the Continental line, the wild wail of bagpipes adding to the noise and confusion. A John Eager Howard order for the right flank to face slightly right to counter a charge from that direction, was, in the noise of battle, misunderstood as a call to retreat. As other companies along the line followed suite, Morgan rode up to ask Howard if he were beaten. As Howard pointed to the unbroken ranks and the orderly retreat and assured him they were not, Morgan spurred his horse on and ordered the retreating units to face about, and then, on order, fire in unison. The firing took a heavy toll on the British, who, by that time had sensed victory and had broken ranks in a wild charge. This event and a fierce Patriot bayonet charge in return broke the British charge and turned the tide of battle. The re-formed militia and cavalry re-entered the battle, leading to double envelopment28 of the British, perfectly timed. British infantry began surrendering en masse.

The Americans lost 12 men and had 60 wounded in a little over an hour, but they left the field with 500 British prisoners. Tarleton had 110 dead and 200 wounded to add to his report of the action to Lord Cornwallis.

Green went hot-footing north out of Dodge, towards Virginia, knowing Cornwallis would try to chase him down, as indeed he did. Thus began a game of attrition and seeming British “victories”, which really did nothing more than force Cornwallis to move faster and lighter each time.

…Soon, Greene’s strategy was evident: Cornwallis and his weary army gave up on the Carolinas and moved on to Virginia. On October 18, 1781, the British army surrendered at Yorktown. Cowpens, in its part in the Revolution, was a surprising victory and a turning point that changed the psychology of the entire war. Now, there was revenge – the Patriot rallying cry Tarleton’s Quarter 37. Morgan’s unorthodox but tactical masterpiece had indeed “spirited up the people”, not just those of the backcountry Carolinas, but those in all the colonies. In the process, he gave Tarleton and the British a “devil of a whipping”.

I thought of Cowpens the other night, first because of my Moore’s Creek bridge post and then, oddly enough, because The Patriot was on that evening. I always choke up at the final battle scene, where our beautiful flags go so proudly into the chaos of that horrific, antiquated, unfathomable mode of armies facing each other. We were talking, that the Smithsonian had been cheek by jowl in the production as historical advisors, the Mel Gibson character is based on Francis Marion “The Swamp Fox”, “Tavington” is Tarleton, etc., but then major dad asked, “I wonder if this (the battle scene) has a real counterpart” and I said, “Pretty sure the Battle of Cowpens.” He hadn’t heard of it, so there we are. There are a few liberties taken ~ Cornwallis wasn’t actually AT the field, etc., but the bulk of the action is true to the field that gallant day.

THIS day.

The clip is here, if you’d like to see it. I get weepy thinking about those flags now…

…I’m such a sap.