Friday, April 19, 2024
Wars and Rumors of War, 2024. Part 5. A Wider War.
You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom.
Matthew, Chapter 24.
War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse.
John Stuart Mill
April 14, 2024.
The Middle Eastern War.
This was mentioned yesterday, but in North America we're waking up to the news that Iran, the supplier of drones to Russia, used a huge number of drones in an airborne assault on Israel yesterday which was combined with missiles.
Because that's going to serve somebody's interest?
This was retaliatory in nature, of course, but it was also monumentally stupid on the part of Iran.
Almost all the Iranian munitions were shot down. The few that got through caused minor damage. The US participated in the airborne defense.
Russo Ukrainian War
Ukraine's defense chief warned that its battlefield situation has significantly worsened in recent days.
Mike Johnson, pick up your copy of John Stuart Mill.
April 17, 2024
Russo Ukrainian War
Ukrainian forces destroy Russian air defense systems in Crimea
The Middle Eastern War
Israel has carried out a retaliatory air strke on Iran. The details are sketchy at this time, but drones appear to be involved.
A big difference appears to be that Israel hit its targets, as opposed to Iran, which demonostrated an inability to get theirs through, although the US, UK and France helped Israel in its defense.
China v. US
A hacking campaign by China called Volt Typhoon has gained access to telecommunications, energy, water and 23 pipeline operators targeted, amongst other infrastrucure.
It should be obvious that China is preparing for war against the US, which will come over Taiwan.
April 19, 2024
Russo Ukrainian War/Middle Eastern War/China v. Taiwan.
Massively belatedly, the House of Representatives voted 316-94 to advance military aid to Ukraine, Taiwan and Israel. A final vote will come on Saturday, as this was procedural.
Isolationist are having a fit and will now take a run at removing Speaker Johnson, the latter having found his courage this week, at long last.
Related threads:
Iron Domes and Chutzpah
Last prior edition:
Wars and Rumors of War, 2024. Part 4. "Maybe I shall find them among the dead."
RUDE.
It has been noted by a press pool reporter that when the defense is introduced to the potential jurors seated in the audience, Defendant Trump does not rise to face them like his lawyers do.
What an idiot. Setting himself up to lose through rude conduct. Everyone rises when the jurors come in, and the defendant should always directly face them. They've surely instructed him to do so.
Wednesday, April 19, 1944. Operation Ichi-Go.
Operation Ichi-Go commenced in China.
Japanese plans for the offensive, which would be a largely successful Japanese effort.
Control of the ground at the end of the war.
The massive and highly successful offensive was designed, in no small measure, to help force a conclusion to the war in China, something perhaps best demonstrated by its alternative Japanese name, Tairiku Datsū Sakusen (大陸打通作戦), "Continent Cross-Through Operation"). It would gain a huge amount of ground, and demonstrate the importance of the war on the mainland to the Asian conflict. It's specific goas were to link railways in Beijing and Hankou in northern China to the southern Chinese coast at Canton and spare shipping and avoid American submarines; to take the airfields in Sichuan and Guangxi to preclude U.S. bombing of Taiwan and the Japanese mainland; and to destroy elite Nationalist units to cause the Nationalist government to collapse.
It was ambitious and would be, late war though it was, the largest military campaign of the Japanese war against China. Japan committed 80% of their forces in China, some 500,000 men, as well as 100,000 horses, 1,500 artillery pieces, and 800 tanks.
700,000 Nationalist Chinese troops were eliminated from combat in the operation, which would continue into October.
The Allies launched Operation Cockpit, an operation that featured all of the principal Allied forces in the East, the same being an air assault on Sabang Indonesia.
The RAF mined the Danube.
Sarah Sundin notes, on her blog:
Today in World War II History—April 19, 1944 In the US, shortening, salad & cooking oils are removed from rationing, but butter & margarine are still rationed. Read more: “Make It Do—Rationing of Butter, Fats & Oils in World War II.”
Congress extended the Lend Lease Act. Apparently the 78th Congress was a little more active than the 119th.
The 1944 NFL Draft was held, and the first draft pick was Angelo Bertelli, who was drafted by the Boston Yanks. It wouldn't matter, Bertelli was already slated to enter the Marine Corps.
Canadian Gérard Côté won the Boston Marathon.
Côté winning the 1940 Boston Marathon.
He was serving in the Canadian Army at the time, and took leave to run in the race, sponsored by a Montreal restaurateur. While the Canadian Army, which initially used him as a physical education instructor, and then stationed him in a munitions plant, had been proud of his status as Canada's premier runner, it had taken heat for perceived preferential treatment that he received, and reacted negatively to his taking leave and running in the race. Côté was shipped to the UK and served the rest of the war in Europe, winning three English marathons during that time period.
Last prior edition:
Tuesday, April 18, 1944. 4,000 tons v. 53.
Holy Saturday, April 19, 1924.
The Saturday Evening Post went to press observing Easter with a Leyendecker illustration.
National Barn Dance, a direct precursor to the Grand Old Opry, premiered on Chicago's WLS, running a whopping four hours every Saturday night. It would run until 1968.
The Washington Post depicted Coolidge holding fast in a political cartoon.
In Casper, there was a big meeting to oust a city councilman who had been convicted on a liquor charge.
And Arizona tourists could get into California before Easter.
It's interesting to realize that motor tourism had become a thing by 1924.
Last prior edition:
Thursday, April 17, 1924. Japanese reaction.
Subsidiarity Economics 2024. The times more or less locally, Part 2. The Mineral Leasing Act of 1920 Edition.
Oil field, Grass Creek, Wyo, April 9, 1916
April 16, 2024
The BLM's new oil and gas leasing rules has effectuated new oil and gas leasing rules for the first time since 1988.
The new rules adjust bond amounts for the first time since 1966, increase royalty rates for the first time in over a century (leasing has only been in place for a century). Bond rates will go from $10,000 to $150,000 and state-wide bonding requirement for operators with more than from $25,000 to $500,000.
Governor Gordon criticizes oil and gas rule that raises costs to producers
CHEYENNE, Wyo. –Governor Mark Gordon is criticizing an announcement from the Department of Interior last week that will increase the costs to oil and gas companies seeking to drill on federal lands. The Governor used the following statement:
“If there was any doubt, it could not be more clear now that the Department of Interior has lost its way. Within a day of announcing its renewable energy rule designed to promote the equivalent of a modern-day gold rush of development for renewables by reducing fees and rents on federal lands by 80%, Interior issued an oil and gas rule increasing costs to Wyoming’s industry by 1400%.
America surely needs more energy, including from renewable sources. What our country does not need are policies that greatly reduce the return to our nation’s taxpayers while simultaneously increasing the impacts and burdens on states and communities. We don’t need policies that increase the costs to consumers while also reducing reliability, or rules that sharpen the threat of industrializing our open spaces and crucial wildlife habitat without recognizing the importance of balance in our energy portfolio. These policies should seem misguided to most Americans of every stripe who love our country. Instead of experience and practicality, DOI has doubled down on bias, dogma, and politics. America is suffering as a result.
It is time we get back to common-sense energy policy. I will continue to fight against federal policies that are short-sighted and antagonistic to Wyoming’s industries, our workers, and our way of life. We need to build a realistic, all-of-the-above energy strategy that correctly plans a future of reliable and dispatchable power and properly accounts for – and balances – the costs and impacts of all energy sources.”
April 19, 2024
Tensions in the Middle East have jumped the price of oil back up.
Last prior edition:
Subsidiarity Economics 2024. The times more or less locally, Part I. And then the day arrived (part two).2020s, 2023, 2024, Agriculture, Alcohol, Coal, Economics, Electrical Power, Petroleum, Sheep, Solar Energy, Subsidiarity, technology, trends, Wind Power, Wyoming's boom and bust economy
The 2024 Legislative Sessions of other states.
Utah's house has passed a bill to ban public transgender bathrooms.
January 25, 2024
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Ohio
Ohio's legislature over road a veto and banned gender mutilation of minors and restricted those who have undergone gender mutilation from participating in athletic teams of the opposite gender.
January 31, 2024
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New York expanded the definition of rape, which apparently was narrowly defined by the previous law. The new law states:
Section 1. Sections 130.40, 130.45 and 130.50 of the penal law are
REPEALED.
§ 2. Subdivisions 1 and 2 of section 130.00 of the penal law, subdivision 2 as amended by chapter 264 of the laws of 2003, are amended read as follows:
1. "[Sexual intercourse] VAGINAL SEXUAL CONTACT" [has its ordinary meaning and occurs upon any penetration, however slight] MEANS CONDUCT BETWEEN PERSONS CONSISTING OF CONTACT BETWEEN THE PENIS AND THE VAGINA OR VULVA.
2. (a) "Oral sexual [conduct] CONTACT" means conduct between persons consisting of contact between the mouth and the penis, the mouth and the anus, or the mouth and the vulva or vagina.
(b) "Anal sexual [conduct] CONTACT" means conduct between persons consisting of contact between the penis and anus.
§ 3. Section 130.25 of the penal law, as amended by chapter 1 of the laws of 2000, is amended to read as follows:
§ 130.25 Rape in the third degree.
A person is guilty of rape in the third degree when:
1. He or she engages in [sexual intercourse] VAGINAL SEXUAL CONTACT with another person who is incapable of consent by reason of some factor other than being less than seventeen years old;
March 5, 2024
March 6, 2024
Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs vetoed a bill that would have made it a crime for noncitizens to enter the state through Mexico at any location other than a port of entry
New Hampshire
The state has banned men mutilated to appear as women from appearing in women's sports.
Arizona
Arizona had declared Pluto as the official state planet.
March 31, 2024.
Oregon
Oregon recriminalized the possession of small amounts of drugs after botching a decriminalization effort.
April 2, 2024.
Colorado
A bill in Colorado that aims to protect the data found in a person's brainwaves was signed into law.
Colorado's Democratic House passed a bill that bans a wide variety of "assault" firearms.
Inaccurately reported on as banning semi-automatic firearms, which it does not, it does take on a lot of popular longarms with military type features.
It's doubtful that it will pass Colorado's Senate, and if it does, it's likely unconstitutional.
April 18, 2024.
Two genitals mutilated men have filed suit in Montana over a new Montana law that keeps them from having their actual gender changed on government issued identification.
April 19, 2024.
The 2024 Election, Part XVI. The Compromised Morals Edition
Richard Rich, 1st Baron Rich
April 10, 2024
Donald Trump released a four-minute video attempting to thread the needle on abortion, and largely failed.
Abortion is proving to be an odd issue in this election. Following 1973's Roe v. Wade decision, the Democratic Party became increasingly pro death, with left the GOP as the pro-life default party. It was generally pro-life, as a conservative party, but it was more vague about it for many years than a person might suppose. This paid off for pro-life forces when the decision, which even informed left wing legal thinkers felt impossible to really defend, fell due to a Mitch McConnell influenced Supreme Court, appointed by Donald Trump. That was a long wished for conservative result, which Trump claimed credit for, not without some justification, but largely due to Trump giving McConnell free rein on Supreme Court appointments.
This has ended up being a hot election issue ever since, but it's still very poorly understood as to its impact. Various conservative states have enacted laws restricting or banning abortion (some old laws have just come back into operation) and it's ended up a ballot issue elsewhere. Democrats believe that the issue works in their favor, although how that squares with elected legislatures restricting it isn't very clear. Added to that, right wing Republicans began to push for a Federal nationwise restriction on abortion, which is something they haven't really fleshed out, thinking wise. A Federal law, while universal, seems to suggest a compromise on the topic, which is a topic that can't really be compromised on, at least on the pro-life side. That is, unless its just a nationwide ban, which seems to have little chance of passing. The various proposals make just about 0 intellectual sense whatsoever. A person either believes that all life has value, in which case it does from the first instance, or they believe it really doesn't, and should only be protected at an arbitrary point at which its too icky to admit to killing.
Enter the candidates on the issue. . .
Joe Biden, who is a Catholic and morally obligated to believe that all life is sacred, instead has opted for an apparent state of personal mortal sin and is for allowing the killing, with his campaign featuring that position, and he is still being allowed to receive Communion for some reason that's hard to grasp. Donald Trump, who has a predatory relationship with women to at least some degree, and who has been pretty keen on bedding women of a certain type, kept his views secret until earlier this week when, in a four-minute video, he came out for no Federal law at all.
No Federal law is the position of some conservative, but politically savvy, Republicans who aren't Trumpers. It is, for example, Chris Christie's position's was that the states should decide the issue for their states. But the concept of a nationwise ban has received increasing support in conservative camps due to some states enacting broad permissive abortion laws. It should be noted, others have enacted restrictive ones, like Wyoming (whose law is gummed up in court due to an incredibly dim witted paranoid law that enshrines personal medical choices as its supporters were rampaging paranoid about imaginary Obamacare "death panels".
This raises a lot of interesting questions, one being what does Trump actually think? Frankly, Trump doesn't appear to be a deep thinker on anything, but on this issue it's known that he's run the gambit in views, originally being in the pro death camp. His coming out the way he did appears to be in hopes of avoiding the issue, stating that it's a state rights issue. After giving his four-minute flat affect speech, he came out again today on the Arizona Supreme Court finding a territorial era statute banning abortion was constitutional and revised, which makes perfect sense legally. Noting that it was his appointees that brought the reversal of Roe finally around, he stated that the Arizona action, which again makes perfect legal sense, "went too far", which makes no legal sense but which reflects the view that most people have on courts which is that they're a policy legislature, which they aren't.
Life or death being a state's rights issue is lame in more ways than one. A person could argue it on a practical basis, that being that leaving it up to states is the only way for any peace on the issue at all, which is more or less Christie's position. Trump's view came out like a rambling mish mash of a confused intellect, which is a bit surprising as somebody must have written his statement for him.
Indeed, the fact that he read it brings up the issue of his mental status. Statements that he reads tend to come out with a very flat affect, which has yet to be explained. People continue to ignore the question of what's going on, organically, in his head.
All this has left some interesting fallout. Serious pro lifers are left wondering about who to support, with some having supported Trump in the past solely because of this issue. "He's better than Biden" seems to be the common reaction. But some are really upset. By the same token, Biden's designation of Easter as Transgender Visibility Day disgusted some who are fellow travelers on this issue. Pro lifers have been major supporters of the GOP since 1973, and now they have reason to question the party's loyalty to them.
And it all shows how compromised the values of politicians are in general.
April 12, 2024
The Trump campaign, which avoided debates in the primaries, wants more debates in the general election and wants them to start soon.
Trump is likely worried that a lot of his speaking coming up will be in the form of testimony, and wants to distract from that. Also, Trump no doubt feels he's a better speaker than Biden.
In actuality, neither of them are good speakers. Biden has had a lifelong stuttering problem which makes his speech a bit odd, and Trump's speech suggests that he's in the early to early-mid stage of the onset of dementia. Absent a spectacular performance, or spectacular failure, by either candidate, debates probably aren't going to matter much, but contrary to common belief, Trump, who really goes off the rail if he departs from the teleprompter, is more likely to say something extraordinarily off the mark, weird, or incoherent.*
Cont:
Governor Gordon rightly rejected Secretary of State Gray's new voting rules.
Gray, who is clearly running for Governor and keeping populist heat turned up as a result, will undoubtedly reply with something shortly.
Elsewhere:
Eastern Shoshone educator Ivan Posey shares why he’s running for state House
April 13, 2024
Secretary of State Gray has an op ed in today's Trib entitled "Only Wyomingites Must Vote In Wyoming's Election".
It's a crime not to be a resident and vote in Wyoming's election, so this is a bit silly, but it's part of the Gray effort to whip up a frenzy in the populist right in part of his aim to run for Governor in 2026. It's also more than a little ironic, as Gray is not a Wyomingite, and most of the Wyoming Freedom Caucus isn't either. Jeanette Ward barely qualified to run for office when she ran for the seat Gray abandoned, as he tried first for the House and then for the SoS office.
Of course, "only Wyomingites" isn't what Gray means.
As always, Gray cited "radical left wing" activists as being his opponents.
Wyoming Democrats will caucus for the President today, not that it's going to matter. They'll choose Biden, and Biden will lose in Wyoming.
A Park County representative still wants all ballot counting in the county to be done by hand, but is being ignored as its a phenomenally bad idea.
Republican Dale Zwonitzer, a major House member from Cheyenne, is facing a run from Steve Johnson, Populist. Zwonitzer has faced open hostility from the Populist right the last several years.
Colorado will have an abortion ballot initiative in the fall.
April 15, 2024
While hardly newsworthy, Joe Biden won the Wyoming Caucus Saturday.
April 16, 2024
Donald Trump's criminal trial regarded to the paying of hush money to three people, two of them pornographic personages, began yesterday in New York.
The favorite of the Evangelical right is accused of paying Stormy Daniels, a pornographic actress, and another person, a former Playboy playmate, hush money prior to the 2016 election so they'd keep their mouths shut abut his fucking them. The third person is a doorman. The crime is asserted to be election interference, I guess, which is frankly a little hard to grasp in this context.
A jury has not yet been selected.
April 18, 2024
Senator Barrasso announced yesterday that he's running for reelection to the Senate.
I frankly thought he'd already announced, as he was obviously running for reelection. He has an opponent in the primary, Reid Rasner, who is running from the populist right.
I've mentioned the primary contest before, but I dismissed Rasner's campaign. Frankly, I was in error to do so as at this point I think Rasner has a serious chance of beating Barrasso, and Barrasso obviously fears that as well. Barrasso has been putting out hardcore populist, Trumpite, messages now for weeks. I strongly suspect that he doesn't believe in what he's tweeting, but he's taking this position, like almost every Republican political figure, in order to hang on to their jobs, even though it's killed the GOP.
Therefore, at the primary election, Wyoming will be presented with a contesnt between a genuine populist and a fake one. Actual conservatives will vote for Barrasso, not for what he's saying, but what they suspect he actually believes. Some populists will as well.
April 19, 2020
The GOP state convention defeated a bylaw proposal that would have provided a mechanism, probably ineffectively and illegally given the way party affiliation actually works, to kick actual Republicans out of the party.
One populists commented:
There was a group of citizens in Weston County very, very concerned about Liz Cheney and the way she tried to infiltrate and change our party,
Eh?
It's the populists who infilatrated the GOP, not the other way around. Cheney is a real Republican. Her opponents are largley Dixiecrats, but don't know it.
Natrona County voters will have a ballot item on the fall to create a Senior Service District consisting of the entire county. This will add 2 mills to people's taxes to fund senior services.
It's hugely unpopular to say so, but in an era in which Wyomingites are unhappy about all the growth they encouraged causing property values to rise (d'uh!) this will pass anyhow, and shouldn't. The current generation of seniors has had the best breaks of any generation in history, continues to basically control the country, and is fairly wealthy overall, even if individual members of the generation are not. A 2 mill tax effectively takes cash out of everyone's pockets to fulfill a need that people should have filled on their own, or that their families should.
Footnotes:
*Something you'll sometimes hear from Trump supporters is that "he talks like us". I fear that might be true, which is we're beginning to sound mildly demented and addled as a society.
Last prior edition:
The 2024 Election, Part XV. The Disappointing Choices edition.
Thursday, April 18, 2024
The Impeachment of Alejandro Mayorkas. Panem et circenses
April 17, 2024.
9.4 million illegal aliens have entered this country under President Biden, 1 million more than the population of New York City and more than 16x the population of Wyoming.
The unprecedented invasion is a direct result of the open borders agenda of
@POTUS
and Alejandro Mayorkas.
From a Twitter post of Wyoming Senator Cynthia Lummis.
Alejandro Mayorkas is not going to be removed from office.
Moreover, everyone with any political savvy knows this. Sen. Lummis knows this, as do the other members of Wyoming's Washington representation, one of whom will be a prosecutor in the impeachment trial, if an impeachment trial actually occurs, which I very much doubt.
Rather, the Senate Republicans will screw around with this until the Democrats dismiss it.
The validity of the impeachment process will be tarnished even more than it has been since the ill-advised GOP effort to impeach Bill Clinton brought us into the modern political impeachment era, and the border won't get address, in no small part because Donald Trump, who is in the first of what will be several trials, would rather have it as issue than address it.
Congress, of course, could have addressed this, but for following the Trump directive to the GOP. There's utterly no excuse for the GOP failure to act. If the bill wasn't prefect, it was much better than any others for years, and if they take a two house and Oval Office majority in November, which I doubt they will, they could have improved it. Indeed, their failure to act not only makes this look incredibly hypocritical, but puts them in jeopardy of losing the House.
We will see a Twitter storm of GOP tweets. Most will be ignored. The worshiping spectrum of the GOP, the ignorant populists masses, will swoon over every word while the now purifying corpse of the GOP elephant starts to stink even more, actual Republicans and conservatives not knowing how to remove it.
Indeed, on the Twitter Storm, populist far right Nebraska Senator Deb Fischer took to twitter to demand that Mayorkas receive a full trial in the Senate as, she suggested, the Constitution demands, while at least one of her critics noted she didn't feel that way when Trump was up for impeachment.
All this while very little gets done and Americans lose faith in their government, save for a tiny sliver who somehow feel the dissolution of a 200+ year old institution is serving democracy, when in fact it's destroying it.
April 18, 2024
And the Senate dismissed the articles of impeachment, making my prediction of no trial accurate. I thought there would be a motion to dismiss, and there was.
The motion came up immediately, and Chuck Schumer offered debate time, but Republicans, who apparently have no sense of procedure, rejected that, demanding a full trial, and thereby demonstrating the sort of hubris, ignorance and stupidity that criminal defendants sometimes do. Schumer replied and went right to the vote.
The vote was down the party line, Republicans who know better not having the guts to vote in favor of the motion.
By this point, the dysfunctional circus that Congress has become now attracts so little attention for even extraordinary events, which this fits into as it's an extraordinary dereliction of duty and common sense by those who voted for it in the House, that it doesn't even make the primary headlines.
No doubt Wyoming's Senators went home and breathed a sigh of relief, being spared acting on this absurdity, and also being spared the pangs of acting in contravention to their conscience. And the issue is preserved for red meat tweets, texts and speeches, so attacking the Democrats on an issue that Republicans refused to act on, when they had the chance, can still be done.
And hence this circus closed.
Tuesday, April 18, 1944. 4,000 tons v. 53.
The combined Allied Air Forces achieved a new daily record, and dropped over 4,000 tons of bombs on Germany and occupied France.
On the same day, the Luftwaffe sent 125 aircraft on a raid over London, the last of the "Little Blitz" air raids. Fourteen German aircraft were brought down. Fifty-three tons of bombs were dropped on the city, and a hospital was amongst the buildings hit.
The Red Army took Balaclava.
German and Hungarian forces counterattacked at Buchach.
The British government banned coded radio and telegraph transmissions from the UK. Diplomats are forbidden to leave, and diplomatic bags are censored, with excepts for the US, USSR and the Polish government in exile. Incitement to strike is made a punishable offense.
The British 5th Brigade linked up with the Kohima garrison, braking the encirclement of the city.
The USS Gudgeon was sunk off of Iwo Jima by a Mitsubishi G3M.
The Vatican established the Pontificia Commissione di Assistenza to provide rapid, non-bureaucratic and direct aid to needy populations, refugees, and prisoners in Europe.
Last prior edition:
Monday, April 17, 1944. The Uman–Botoșani Offensive Concludes, First Shots of the Greek Civil War, The Martyrdom of Fr. Max Josef Metzger, A Mystery Flight, Up Front in U.S. newspapers.
Satuday, April 18, 1914. Being petty.
It was Saturday.
The news of the day was, in part, about the Wilson Administration's refusal to back down to Huerta, and continue to demand a salute at Vera Cruz. Huerta was perfectly willing to apologize, so this was getting down, frankly, to the US insulting Mexico and being petty.
Panama-Pacific International Exposition. San Francisco. April 18, 1914.
Last prior edition:
Sunday, April 18, 1909. St. Joan d'Arc beatified.
St. Joan d'Arc was beatified by Pope Pius X before a crowed of 30,000 in St. Peter's Square.
Drawing of St. Joan d'Arc made during her lifetime.
A patron saint of France who lived from 1412 to 1431 before being executed, her canonization would follow in May, 1920.
Remarkably, an example of her signature exists.
The 1909 St. Louis Cardinals were photographed.
Last prior edition:
Saturday, April 17, 1909. Soccer riots.
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