Comments by John Steed | Eastern NC Now

One famous disinformation campaign in war still impacts us today, the fake narrative of the "Fort Pillow massacre". The northern media falsely accused General Nathan Bedford Forrest's Confederate cavalry of executing captured black soldiers after capturing Fort Pillow in west Tennessee in 1864. That lie continues to be spread today as fake "history". This was a deliberate media distortion at the time.

What really happened? Fort Pillow had been manned for some time by a regiment of white Tennessee Unionists commanded by a failed lawyer from that area, who had been conducting a reign of terror on local citizens. Many of Forrest's cavalrymen had been recruited from that part of Tennessee so they were well aware of it. The Union command was also aware of it and the bad PR it caused, so they added a second regiment to the fort, a black regiment, which as with all black union regiments had white officers. The white colonel of the black regiment had longer service than the failed lawyer commanding the white Tennessee Unionists, and so was senior officer and able to restrain the Tennessee Unionist reign of terror on civilians.

Early in the battle for Fort Pillow, the senior colonel was killed in action and the failed lawyer resumed command of the fort. He decided that giving whiskey to his troops would have them fight better, so he opened the fort's liquor stores. The officers of the black regiment ordered their own troops not to consumer the liquor, but the white Tennessee Unionists passed around the whiskey among themselves.

Forrest's troops got the upper hand, and it appeared the fort was about to fall. A truce was called to discuss a surrender. A Union gunboat on the river violated the truce by trying to move into a more advantageous position, and a Confederate battery on the river fired a warning shot over its bow to warn it to maintain position. The gunboat stopped trying to violate the truce, but drunk white Tennessee Unionist soldiers hearing the cannon shot decided the battle must be back on and started firing at Confederate soldiers, and the battle resumed.

When General Forrest's troops breached the walls of the Forst on one side, some of its garrison from both regiments tried to flee in the opposite direction, where they ran into more of Forrest's troops. Some groups of drunk white Tennessee Unionists surrendered, then changed their minds and started shooting, causing some Confederate casualties. As a result, Confederate troops became more wary and if there was any ambiguity in an apparent surrender, they did not accept it. While it was the drunk white Tennessee Unionists who most often had an apparent surrender rejected, some of the soldiers from the black regiment also were effected. Given the surrender and then change their minds acts of Union troops, the Confederates were certainly justified in the steps they took in response.

The Union newspaper reporters conveniently failed to mention why this situation occurred and also that most of the Union soldiers whose surrenders were not accepted were white Tennessee Unionists rather than black soldiers. They had a narrative they wanted to present.

The war crimes in Ukraine, on the other hand, are extremely well documented.

Commented: Saturday, April 30th, 2022 @ 9:12 am By: John Steed

Judges who abuse their authority like this to usurp legislative functions need to be impeached and removed from office.

Commented: Thursday, April 28th, 2022 @ 9:36 am By: John Steed

Mr. Cratch, you are spouting the same line as Ron Buzzeo, Paul Varco, and Frankie Waters have been spouting - two carpetbaggers and a scalawag. They want to make a conservative elected official who has never had control of either the county commission or the county GOP as their boogeyman. I wonder who sold you that fairy tale, one of them or someone else?

The problem in county government is that far left Democrat kingmaker Jerry Langley has for years been spliting Republicans so he can control who has the title of chairman and who is then dependent on him for their majority. We have let the leftwing Democrat minority (2 out of 7) control our county commission by finding egotistical Republicans willing to be useful idiots for Langley in exchange for a title. Frankie Waters is the current useful idiot, as was Jerry Evans before him. This has been going on for years. It is very clear from Mrs. Slann's statements that she is open to also being a useful idiot for Langley.

Most county policy is decided in the backroom between Langley, Waters, and the county manager. Waters' majority depends on Langley, so Langley has the whiphand.

The only way to dethrone Puppetmaster Langley is to elect Deatherage and Dunn to the county commission this year.

Commented: Wednesday, April 27th, 2022 @ 8:25 pm By: John Steed

There is an old saying in politics that "ya dance with who brung ya." Republican voters expect our nominees to reflect a set of principles and to organize levels of government around those principles. Mrs. Slann clearly rejects that.

"Art of the deal"? President Trump is certainly smart enough to know that when you have a 5 to 2 majority, there is no need whatsoever to have to "deal" with the two in the minority. And when those two are leftwingers, there is even less reason to do so. If you look at the responses of Langley to political questionaries when he ran for NC House, he is WAY off in left field, as bad as AOC.

Of the incumbent candidates, there is a clear choice. Stan Deatherage has been a champion pushing conservative and MAGA issues, while Frankie Waters has joined with the Democrats in opposing them. Any thinking patriot would support Deatherage and oppose Waters. The two non-incumbents break down the same way. Dunn is a budding Deatherage and Mrs. Slann is a budding Frankie, only maybe slightly smarter than Frankie.

We will not have an "all Republican" commission. There will be two Democrats on the board. The question is on leadership. Leftwing Langley has had a long run of dominating the county commission by splitting the Republicans and being the kingmaker. He has for years pulled the puppet strings of "Republican" commission chairman. Frankie WAters is so thrilled with the trappings of power that he is a useful idiot for Langley, and he is not the first one. What really needs to happen this election is to end Langley's dominance of our county commission. With all her talk of not being partisan, there is little doubt that Mrs. Slann is angling to also function within Langley's orbit. On the other hand, Tandy Dunn's tag line on his ads last campaign were "I will not sell you out to Jerry Langley". He clearly gets it while Mrs. Slann does not.

"Qualified?" The main thing a chairman does is run the meeting, and if anyone has ever watched the videos of commission meetings or been there in person, saying Frankie Waters is competent to run a meeting is downright laughable. The main thing that voters need in a commission chairman (and vice chairman) however is dedication to conservative and MAGA principles, something that Waters and Langley are NOT. We also need someone who will not let their puppet strings get pulled by the liberal bureaucrat we have as our county manager. When Waters is not being controlled by Langley, he is being controlled by the county manager, who is way too involved in making policy instead of just carrying it out.

Commented: Wednesday, April 27th, 2022 @ 7:42 am By: John Steed

Red light cameras are un-American. They are a police state mechanism. A driver, not a car owner commits a driving offense. Punishing a car owner when there is no good evidence of who is driving is appalling. Greenville should be ashamed of itself.

Commented: Friday, April 22nd, 2022 @ 7:47 am By: John Steed

Jann, I concur that all of us need to do our own research and more of it, and if we do, the choices in the county commission race get real simple. Among the incumbents, Stan Deatherage has a strong record of supporting the America First agenda and a pro-taxpayer agenda. Frankie Waters is the polar opposite, having a record hostile to both the taxpayers interests and the America First agenda. Those records are there to be researched and are very clear cut.

Researching the two non-incumbents is a bit more difficult. Tandy Dunn has a website with some info. Dawn Slann does not. Both have circulated campaign materials and spoken at events. Tandy consistently has shown himself to be a friend of the taxpayer, and when he had discussed it, supports an America First agenda. Slann's campaign material avoids taking issues on anything except being against "partisanship" (maybe running Unaffiliated would have been more honest of her). Her public appearances are all over the landscape, seemingly wanting to tell whatever group she was in front of what she thought they wanted to hear. She talked a conservative leaning game in front of the Beaufort County Conservative Club but pandered heavily to the Chamber of Commerce at the latest candidate forum at the Turnage Theatre. Where does she really stand? Who knows, but the attack on "partisanship" sounds a whole lot like the Uniparty. Prior to running, she did make some good statements against the government's Covid overreach, but she now seems to have gone silent on even that. She is a real "pig in a poke".

Commented: Monday, April 18th, 2022 @ 4:42 pm By: John Steed

According to people who were there, YES she did. She also openly says on her palm cards that she will not be "partisan" (i.e. vote according to Republican principles). That smacks a lot of Mitt Romney, Liz Cheney, Frankie Waters, etc.

Commented: Thursday, April 14th, 2022 @ 5:59 pm By: John Steed

And if you suggest that the mRNA Covid vaccines these athletes took played a role in this situation, you will get censored off Big Tech social media. That is called a coverup.

Commented: Saturday, April 9th, 2022 @ 7:22 pm By: John Steed

It gets even worse. Disney is now also paying for genital mutilation and puberty blockers for children. redstate.com

Commented: Friday, April 8th, 2022 @ 4:48 pm By: John Steed

This is nothing but a full employment plan for the Mexican human smuggling cartels. Did they make a mass purchase of Hunter Biden's "artwork" I wonder? Is that why the Big Guy is becoming an accessory to human smuggling?

Commented: Tuesday, April 5th, 2022 @ 12:05 pm By: John Steed

If RINOs like Tillis stay in line on the vote in the Judiciary Committee, her nomination can be killed there on a tie vote. The problem is if one or more of them plays the game of voting for her before they vote against her, letting her nomination out to the full Senate where she cannot be stopped. A vote against her there is meaningless if they vote to let her nomination out of committee to go to the floor. That is really the key vote on Comrade Jackson.

Commented: Wednesday, March 30th, 2022 @ 5:33 pm By: John Steed

Look at what lack of transparency got us in NC - Biden and AOC's Green New Deal, an energy policy that is very Russia-friendly and ratepayer / taxpayer UNfriendly. RINOs Phil Berger and Tim Moore, the GOP legislative "leaders" crammed it down our throats by using a hardball legislative tactic to rewrite bills at the last minute called "committee substitutes". The whole sordid story can be read here: www.beaufortcountynow.com

Commented: Sunday, March 20th, 2022 @ 7:24 pm By: John Steed

This is despicable and dishonest McCrory RINO propaganda. It is garbage that does not belong on a conservative site. McCrory has hired consultants who are well known for smearing opponents with false accusations. Those should NOT be repeated on a conservative site.

Commented: Friday, March 18th, 2022 @ 6:48 pm By: John Steed

DuckDuckGONE. Those who run DuckDuckGo are liberals, but until now have been honest and objective with their search engine. Now they are becoming unreliable politicized propagandists, just like Google. I like the privacy features of DuckDuckGo, but if they are politicizing their search results like Google has done for a long time, then an alternative is needed. So far Bing has not done that, although they like Google sell your data. Brave is just starting a search engine, which is supposed to be private and non-political.

Commented: Saturday, March 12th, 2022 @ 11:24 am By: John Steed

Let's not forget Red China, which has manipulated WHO elections and has put its stooge Tedros in WHO's top position. China's control of WHO is so bad that Japan's Deputy Prime Minister publicly stated that WHO should change its name to China Health Organization.

Commented: Wednesday, March 9th, 2022 @ 10:09 am By: John Steed

Almost 6,000 anti-war Russian citizens have sought asylum in the US in the last 2 months. They fly to Cuba and then travel to the US border. These are REAL refugees, as Putin is doing widespread arrests of his opponents, not the fake "refugees" that Biden lets in.
www.dailymail.co.uk

Commented: Thursday, March 3rd, 2022 @ 6:26 pm By: John Steed

The Democrats are clearly showing they want to run against loser Pat McCrory in November, who has managed to lose two of three statewide races he has run and hss alienated much of the GOP base. This is the second major smear of Budd coming from those two rabidly leftwing and partisan Democrat newspapers. I am sad to see conservative sites repeating far left smears of a great conservative candidate endorsed by President Trump.

Commented: Wednesday, March 2nd, 2022 @ 7:22 am By: John Steed