How the Civil War Created Thanksgiving - NYTimes.com:
"...That fall, Lincoln had precious little to be thankful for.
The Union victory at Gettysburg the previous July had come at a dreadful cost – a combined 51,000 estimated casualties, with nearly 8,000 dead.
Enraged by draft laws and emancipation, rioters in Northern cities like New York went on bloody rampages.
And the president and his wife, Mary, were still mourning the loss of their 11-year-old son, Willie, who had died the year before.
So it might seem odd that Lincoln chose this moment to announce a national day of thanksgiving, to be marked on the last Thursday in November.
His Oct. 3, 1863, proclamation read: “In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity … peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere, except in the theater of military conflict.”
But it took another year for the day to really catch hold.
In 1864 Lincoln issued a second proclamation, which read, “I do further recommend to my fellow-citizens aforesaid that on that occasion they do reverently humble themselves in the dust.”
Around the same time, the heads of Union League clubs – Theodore Roosevelt’s father among them – led an effort to provide a proper Thanksgiving meal, including turkey and mince pies, for Union troops.
As the Civil War raged on, four steamers sailed out of New York laden with 400,000 pounds of ham, canned peaches, apples and cakes – and turkeys with all the trimmings.
They arrived at Ulysses S. Grant’s headquarters in City Point, Va., then one of the busiest ports in the world, to deliver dinner to the Union’s “gallant soldiers and sailors.”
This Thanksgiving delivery was an unprecedented effort – a huge fund-raising and food-collection drive.
One soldier said, “It isn’t the turkey, but the idea we care for.”"
"The message to the millions of illegal immigrants who jumped the line and came here in violation of our laws should now be crystal clear: breaking the law comes with some serious benefits and only chumps actually follow the rules and wait years to become Americans.
"It is a fact that ISIS is a murderous, intolerant and callous terrorist organization. The Muslim terrorist group known as the “JV Team” to the Obama Regime, follows a barbaric code of conduct, and beheadings seem to be the way communicate their reign of terror throughout the globe. When Obama and Holder continue to racially divide this Republic, they are leaving the door wide open for this terror group to walk right in and start recruiting on American soil."
"So, why would anyone need an AR-15? Aside from the fact that the Second Amendment protects the right of individual firearm ownership for such weapons, a real-world application of so-called “assault weapons” is to repel the mobs of looters threatening your business.
"Some protesters in opposition to the Ferguson grand jury’s decision not to indict police officer Darren Wilson following the August shooting death of 18-year-old Michael Brown are now threatening to boycott businesses nationwide on Black Friday “unless they are black-owned.”
Kandeh tells the senate that because she’s “a trained journalist” and “a woman of color,” she couldn’t let the incorrect caption “slide.”
"Congress has the power to defund President Barack Obama’s executive amnesty order, the Congressional Research Service announced Wednesday. This, after a week of bipartisan declarations that Congress was powerless to stop the order."
"Modern day promotion of these evils are communicated and shielded using code phrases such as “The Common Good”, Equality, Fairness, Justice, Community (as in the nonexistent “World Community”), and “spreading the wealth around”. All promises of achieving these unachievable ideals come at the cost of personal freedom and individual rights.
