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Kudos to Council

Thanks to the Clemmons Council!

I just finished reading the article, “Clemmons Stops De-Annexation Effort” in the June 6 edition of the Courier and I wanted to express my gratitude to our council members, especially Mike Combest and Michelle Barson.

Through their diligence and determination, they stopped House Bill 392 and Senate Bill 205 from being pushed through and passing – twice.

From what I understand from the article is that these bills were just another item on the agenda and those in Raleigh were under the impression that Clemmons wanted this. Part of that was due to inaccurate information being shared among House representatives. Where that bad information came from is anyone’s guess.

And kudos to Mike Combest for driving to Raleigh, not once but twice, to represent Clemmons in person. It seems to me that someone was trying very hard to get this de-annexation passed quietly without Clemmons being aware of it until it was too late.

Something that could have easily happened if it were not for a number of people being proactive. It has been quite sometime that I felt we had a council that truly cares about the overall well-being of Clemmons. I feel the tide shifting and this is a good thing!

— Linda Turley
Clemmons

 

Similarities between Lincoln and Trump

I have just finished reading Bill O’Reilly’s book called “Lincoln’s Last Days” and I am amazed at the parallels in what happened in 1865 and what has been happening today. First, both Abraham Lincoln and Donald Trump were and are great Republican presidents who were scorned by many for delivering on the promises they made to their country. Lincoln of course was hated by most in the South for wanting to free their slaves. Trump is hated by many as he continues to drain the swamp on both sides of the aisle and of course by those on the left because he beat Hillary Clinton (something they still have not come to grips with) and delivers on many of his the other campaign promises.

One coincidence is that both cases started out in totally different directions and each had a long list of key players along the way. The plot devised by John Wilkes Booth was originally to kidnap the president and carry him to North Carolina and into the more sympathetic South. That cause was being financed by a horde of gold President of the Confederacy Jefferson Davis had stashed away in Canada.

The Democrats early in 2015-16 started to plot against then candidate Trump to stop him from winning the election and the plot went all the way up to President Obama who would not then call for investigations into Russian interference into the election. Two reasons for this have been exposed — outright hatred for Trump and the fact they thought that Hillary Clinton was going to win easily!

Several co-conspirators would develop early in each case. For Booth, he started plotting after the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 and found willing recruits for the kidnapping in old friends like Michael O’Laughlen and Samuel Arnold. The list eventually grew to Lewis Powell, David Herold, John Surratt Jr and George Atzerodt. Booth went to Canada in October of 1864 to meet with agents of Davis for the financing and came back with a check. Democrats before the election of 2016 had their long list of co-conspirators also. They included Attorney General Loretta Lynch who met former president Bill Clinton on the tarmac. You had a forged “Steele dossier” that was devised by former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, former Director of the CIA John Brennan and Director of the CIA James Comey. All were plotting to bring down Trump’s presidency.

When the Civil War came to an abrupt end in April 1865 at the Appomattox Courthouse, Booth’s ire turned to rage and his plan then changed to assassination. His plot also grew to bring down the entire New Democracy — he was going to assassinate much of Lincoln’s cabinet starting with VP Andrew Johnson who lived in a hotel with no security and also Secretary of State William Seward who was at home bedridden. When he found out that General Grant was supposed to be in attendance that night with President Lincoln at Ford’s Theater, he was going to assassinate him too. Although Lincoln was tragically killed that fateful night by Booth, Seward’s family fought off his attacker, Johnson’s attacker did not follow through and Grant had gone back home with his wife to New York and was not at the play.

The Democrats’ first scenario also fell through as Trump won the election easily, so they went to their backup plan, which is to bring down the Democracy. Enter many more co-conspirators like lovers from the FBI, Peter Strozk and Lisa Page and their texts of how they were going to undermine the Trump presidency. House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler keeps the impossible impeachment drumbeat going. California Congressman Adam Schiff keeps spinning his fairy tale yarns to the fawning press like MSNBC and CNN. All this will go for naught as President Trump will keep building the wall, securing our borders and making our economy great. This is the same as what the country did after another great Republican Abraham Lincoln did when he ended slavery and brought our country into Reconciliation. Maybe we can learn some of these lessons from Lincoln’s day. He even tried to bring folks together right after the Civil War ended. He saw the Navy Yard brass band below the White House eaves and called out a request from the South. He had them play ‘Dixie,’ one of the best tunes he had ever heard. We need the Democrats and the Republicans to strike up a tune of reconciliation right now before it is too late!

— John Nelms
Bermuda Run