Day One of the Next Administration.

The November election won't stop Trump from issuing dictatorial executive orders, and he's not going to sign any bills the upcoming Democratic House and Senate pass, no matter what they are, so we're going to have to put up with an increasingly erratic and weird Executive Branch over the next two years.

It may, frankly, get much, much more worse.  There's literally nothing I'd put past Trump whatsoever.

Assuming we all make it to January 20, 2029, it's going to be a priority for the incoming administration to act quickly.  Republicans, having taken a drubbing in 2026 and 2028, will be back on the conservative bandwagon and howling about anything a Democratic administration does.

So, looking forward, what should it do on day 1?

The very first thing it should do is an omnibus executive order wiping out every standing executive order and declaring any issued by Trump a nullity. This should be done partially on the legal premise that Trump was not a legitimate President and all actions he took, including executive actions and appointments to Federal office are null, void, and of no effect.

Any executive orders that were worth doing can be preserved in a following order, or the same order.

Yes this means that over 5,000 Federal employees that were Trump appointees would lose their offices immediately, including sitting judges.

And it means that every single military officer commissioned during Trump's interregnum would lose their commissions.  They can be recommissioned in a following order, but it would have to be a conditional order so that if they were deemed disloyal or associated with the criminal war in Iran, they would be removed.

On day one, the incoming President should order that any officer complicit in the illegal war against Iran be court-martialed appropriately, including every current member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

All the Joint Chiefs should be removed.  The senior positions should be filled with Reserve and National Guard officers.

Every member of the Space Force should be transferred into the Air Force.  Eliminating the Space Force would take an act of Congress, but that doesn't mean it's absurd presence really has to be tolerated.  Former Space Force personnel would report to their stations with Air Force insignia within six hours of the order, as they otherwise came on duty.

Taking a page out of the conservative agenda (I am conservative), women should be removed from combat MOS's.  Basic training should be strictly segregated by gender.  All Air Force basic training should be transferred to the Army.

On Day 1 Lt. Gen. William H. "Butch" Graham Jr., head of the Army Corps of Engineers, should be summoned to appear as soon as the inauguration is over.  He should be given an order to cause the demolition and removal of the Ball Room with in 24 hours of receiving the order.  The same shall apply to the Triumphal Arch.  Within an additional 48 hours, the subterranean bunker complex shall be filled with cement.

The helipad should be broken up and restored to grass.  A dedicated Marine Corps helicopter and dedicated Air Force aircraft for Presidential use shall be halted and those aircraft, all of them, returned to conventional service use within their respective branches.  Likewise the Rose Garden paver shall be removed.  All the gilded crap shall be tossed out within four hours of the inauguration and the interior of the impacted areas restored within twelve hours.  The gilded equestrian statutes shall have the gold removed within 48 hours.  The rhino lining in the reflecting pool shall be removed with in 48 hours.

All Federal lands subject to mineral exploration including petroleum exploration shall be withdrawn from the same, something well within the President's authority.  Biden's order on electric vehicles shall be restored and expanded.

Federal lands removed from withdrawal by Trump shall immediately restored to their prior status.

Deputy Postmaster General Doug Tulino should be summoned (the current Postmaster General's appointment is illegitimate) and ordered to restore the 671 sorting machines that were dismantled in the first Trump administration back into service within one week.  If they are not available, and they likely are not, he will be ordered to cause their replacement within one month.

Federal offices which have been relocated, such as the Interior's, shall be ordered back to their original quarters within one week of the inauguration. As the order to move them was invalid, all costs associated with the moves to and from other locations shall be ordered to be recovered by the U.S. Attorney's Civil Division by those causing the moves to occur, including Donald Trump.

All use of government property during the interregnum of an improper and personal nature, such as Trump's use of government aircraft, shall likewise be subject to a suit for recovery.

The complete Epstein files shall be released along with an order that anyone implicated in them shall be sought for prosecution, no matter who it is.

All existing "emergencies" which have been declared in place by prior Presidents shall be declared over and any authority extended under them eliminated.  Any order allowing the imposition of tariffs by the President shall be declared over.

All combat operations in place by the United States anywhere would be ordered over within an hour of the inauguration.  Restoring the status quo ante in the Persian Gulf is now almost impossible, so how to proceed on this would be tricky in the extreme.  The best course may be to immediately ask for an international convention on the topic.

Military aid, and frankly any aid, to Israel would be terminated.  The country has been there since 1947 and can make it on its own.  Israel has a right to exist, but it's situation does not involve a vital interest of the United States.

Likewise, pulling out militarily in the Middle East should be ordered to be commenced.  It would take some time, but it should be done.

All military missions to Venezuela would be withdrawn within twelve hours of the inauguration and the legitimate elected head of state recognized as the proper one.

All extrajudicial killings by the U.S. military in the Pacific and Caribbean would be ordered halted and anyone participating in them, right down to the E1 level, ordered to be prosecuted.

All "pardons" issued by Trump would be declared null, void, and of no effect, with anyone released from jail ordered to be returned. An illegitimate President cannot issue a pardon.

The production of penneys would be ordered resumed.

Currency bearing Donald Trump's signature would be ordered to be recovered through the banking system for destruction.

Trump's name would be stricken from anything it attached to during his "second term".

There's be a lot more to do, but that's what ought to happen on the very first day.

The Aerodrome: New White House helipad.

The Aerodrome: New White House helipad.:   At least to some degree, of all the vandalization that Trump has done to the White House, perhaps this is not completely offensive. Report...

New White House helipad.

 

At least to some degree, of all the vandalization that Trump has done to the White House, perhaps this is not completely offensive.

Reportedly this was put in because the new Sikorsky VH-92A used as Marine Corps 1 was scorching the lawn, which raises the question of why the President requires such a heavy duty helicopter, or a helicopter at all.  The Canadian and British prime ministers do not have dedicated helicopters.

Also worth noting, a mile of sod on the National Mall is now ripped up, thanks to the 250th Hootenanny that Trump caused to occur.

Wednesday, September 15, 1926. The Vineyard.

 Rudyard Kipling released Debits and Credits.  It contained the following poem.

The Vineyard

 1  

At the eleventh hour he came,

But his wages were the same

As ours who all day long had trod 

The wine-press of the Wrath of God.

2 

When he shouldered through the lines 

Of our cropped and mangled vines,

His unjaded eye could scan 

How each hour had marked its man.

3 

(Children of the morning-tide 

With the hosts of noon had died,

And our noon contingents lay 

Dead with twilight's spent array.)

4 

Since his back had felt no load, 

Virtue still in him abode

So he swiftly made his own 

Those last spoils we had not won.

5 

We went home delivered thence,

Grudging him no recompense 

Till he portioned praise of blame 

To our works before he came.

6 

Till he showed us for our good–

Deaf to mirth, and blind to scorn–

How we might have best withstood

Burdens that he had not borne! 

It was interpreted as a criticism of the US's late entry into World War One, which it seems to have been.  The bigger question may really have been, however, why the US would have had any reason to enter World War One but for German naval actions on the Atlantic.

Jelly Roll Morton released Black Bottom Stomp.

World War One German ace George Meyer was killed in a motorcycle accident.

Last edition:

Monday, September 13, 1926. Bigots march in Washington.

Labels: 1920s, 1926, Ignorance, Ku Klux Klan, Racism, Washington DC

Friday, September 15, 1911. Taft starts a trip.

"Fallen Monarch", September 15, 1911.  Mariposa Big Tree Grove

President Taft concluded his vacation at Beverly, Massachusetts and embarked on a 15,000 mile tour of 30 states.

Last edition:

Thursday, September 14, 1911. Stolypin shot.

Labels: 1910s, 1911, Ethnicities, La Matanza, Pyotr Stolypin, Russia, Texas, Texas (Laredo)

Friday, September 15, 1876. Kill Eagle surrenders.

Kill Eagle (Waŋblí Kte), who had departed the Reservation with  his followers due to firearms prohibitions, which precluded his band's ability to hunt,  surrendered to the U.S. Army at the Standing Rock Agency.  His band had apparently been in the larger Sioux band during Rosebud and Little Bighorn, but which had declined to fight in them, surrendered with him.

He would die at age 58 in 1885.

Last Edition:

Wednesday, September 13, 1876. End of the Horsemeat March.

Labels: 1870s, 1876, George Crook, Great Sioux War, Horsemeat March, Indian Wars

Subsidiarity Economics 2026. The Times more or less locally, Part 10, The Autarky Edition.

Autarky is the economic concept of producing everything a nation consumes within its own borders.  It's been tried numerous times, and inevitably leads at best to high prices and deprivation. At worst, it results in warfare.

Autarky was the official economic model of the Nazi Party after German economist Hjalmar Schacht joined the party in 1926 and after Gregor Strasser was ousted from party influence.* Nazi Germany provides a perfect example of how it doesn't work.  Germany was a major industrial power leading up to, during and after World War Two (it still is), but it could never produce enough of anything for its own economy, even in peacetime.  Moreover, it didn't have the raw materials to supply all it did produce.  It imported 20% of its food supply in the early 1930s, and by the late 1930s the Nazis had only managed to boost that to 83%.

The solution was simple.

What the Germans did have, they could just seize from neighboring countries through war, and then either kill off the native population or subjugate it.  That's exactly what it attempted to do.  It pursued that murderously in Poland and the Soviet Union, and through vassal states in the form of France, Romania and Spain.  Where that proved to be impossible. . . for the time being, it used bullying and threats, such as in regard to Sweden.

Even at that, it was never able to do it.

That seems to be to some extent what Donald Trump is advocating right now.

If we were playing hardball, all we'd do is say we're going to do no trading with Canada. If we did no trading with Canada would save $90 billion.

We could do tremendous good for ourselves by just not trading with countries..  We lose with Mexico $195 billion a year. They have nothing that we have to have, I mean. Hot tamales, tomatoes, a couple of things

Trump seems to believe that by closing the economic border with Canada and Mexico, and everyone else, unless they essentially become vassal states, the US can simply go it alone and not be harmed.  Where it's obvious that won't work, we'll force acquisition, as we have now done in Venezuela and keep threatening to do with Greenland.  

This is immoral, and stupid.

You'd think that a guy who went to Wharton would have a basic grasp of economics.  Open economic borders, truly open economic borders, make countries rich, not poor.  That doesn't mean that there's never a place for tariffs, including for protectionism, but it's generally a bad idea.  

What makes for more sense is for the United States, Mexico, and Canada, to have a seamless economy with no tariffs at all.  The US and Canada had a nearly duty free relationship prior to Trump, save for the infamous very high ones on dairy, poultry, and egg products.  Those latter tariffs were absurd, but the US also has absurd tariffs in the agricultural sector.  The US relationship with Mexico is, right now, duty free.

An absolute lack of tariffs is how it should be between the three major North American economies.  Only an an economic ignoramus would disrupt that.

And only an immoral person would advocate taking the oil of another nation that is providing it under the gun.  The US has been an oil addict for a century, but was showing signs of getting off the stuff.  Trump, with his "it's always the 1950s" mindset can't seem to get out of that.

Trump should really know better.  Wharton has a reputation as one of the best, maybe the best, business school in the country.  He owes us an explanation, which he seems to be incapable of articulating, for his idiotic economic views. Wharton, and I'm serious about this, does as well.  I know one Wharton graduate personally, and he is brilliant. But the example of Donald Trump is to weird to explain. For that matter, the example of Wyoming's Chuck Gray, who is an absolute Trump sycophant, is as well.

We need a combination of supreme moral sensitivity and economic knowledge. Economically ignorant moralism is as objectionable as morally callous economism. Ethics and economics are two equally difficult subjects, and while the former needs discerning and expert reason, the latter cannot do without humane values.

Wilhelm Röpke, A Humane Economy: The Social Framework of the Free Market

September 8, 2026

Retaliatory Canadian tariffs took place today with duties ranging from 15% to 50% across hundreds of U.S. products worth a total CA$27.6 billion, including dairy, agricultural equipment, paper, household appliances and electronics.

This will hurt Canadian consumer through increased cost to them, and American producers due to decreased demand.

Cont:

September 8, 2026

And as this wasn't enough, 5he United States is banning the import of some dairy products motorcycles and  most alcoholic beverages from Canada.

This is rank stupidity.  Peter Navarro ought to be sent to kindergarten and Wharton declared a clown college.

So, if you can, go out and buy a Can Am motorcycle and some Crown Royal.

Well, probably not.  I'm too old to start riding a motorcycle (I'd much prefer a mule) and I can't stand Crown Royal.  But if I liked Canadian whiskey, I'd go buy some for spite.

I may just for spite.

September 10, 2026

Customers Shocked As ‘Cybersecurity Incident’ Shuts Down Hilltop Bank Across Wyoming

Cont:

U.S. wholesale inflation hits 5.4% annually in August 2026.

More good news from the Trump administration.

September 11, 2026

Lame duck defeated state senator Bob Ide used the Hilltop disaster to say something monumentally stupid.

Hilltop Bank Shutdown Just Confirms Why Wyoming Needs Gold, Lawmaker Says

Bob, that's stupid.

September 15, 2026

Oil everywhere is up over $100/bbl and set to rise.

Prices at the pump are at record highs.

This appears to be set to get extremely bad.

Footnotes

*Strasser was permanently ousted from influence in the Night of the Long Knives.

Schacht is interesting in that he was never a Nazi himself and was involved in prewar anti Nazi plots.  He served in the German government nonetheless.

Last edition:

Subsidiarity Economics 2026. The Times more or less locally, Part 9, 25th Amendment Watch, 23d Edition. The Canadian Harvard and Oxford doctor in economics vs. the Wharton playboy. The Trade War with Canada edition.

Labels: 2026 Election, Agriculture, Cowards, Cynthia Lummis, Food, Harriet Hageman, Health, James Byrd, John Barrasso, Reid Rasner, restaurants and bars, The Second Trump Administration, Wyoming, Wyoming (Casper), Wyoming (Evanston) Canada, Education, Great Lakes, Industry, International trade, Lake Ontario, Mining, Populism, The Second Trump Administration, United States and Israel v. Iran,2020s, 2026, 25th Amendment Watch List, Canada, Distributism, Donald Trump, Economics, Mark Carney, Solidarity, Subsidiarity, The Madness of King Donald, Trump Trade Wars, United States, Wyoming, Wyoming's boom and bust economy

Court Watch Part VIII. The only restraint edition.

Jefferson County Courthouse, Port Arthur, Texas.

July 14, 2026

In a blistering opinion, a Federal Court judge ruled that President Donald Trump improperly used a $10 billion lawsuit he filed against the IRS to extract personal benefits from the government and prevented the terms of a settlement agreement from taking legal effect.

And more locally:

Laramie County sheriff ordered to appear in court, explain why law firm can’t inspect records

July 23, 2026

Headline in the CST:

Wyoming attorneys oppose Trump’s AG pick

71 Wyoming attorneys signed onto the letter.  Lummis and Barrasso will ignore it.

August 1, 2026

Charges against an Olympic kayaker for vandalizing the reflecting pool have been dropped. 

That was predictable, but what the Justice Department admitted was not.  It admitted the damage was the result of "flawed installation by the contractor" as well as "the rush to complete the project prior to events associated with the America 250 celebration in the weeks surrounding Independence Day 2026."

Every lawyer associated with this should be dismissed and disbarred.  Trump should be impeached.  The victim of these false charges should sue for malicious prosecution.

Closer to home:

Wyoming archaeologists take BLM to court over Native sites, human remains

August 5, 2026

The U.S. Attorney’s Office dismissed all charges against David Hearn, Justin Carreno, Sophie Dennison-Gibby and Cameron Thiers for the pool vandalization that never occured.  Donald Trump had previously described these people as “SICK, DERANGED PEOPLE".  He's the sick deranged people, but people who aren't victims of Trump Derangement Syndrome and think he's something other than a rampaging deranged narcissist know that. 

Now, even after the Toddler's tantrums, no charges are pending at all. They never should be.

Lawsuits should, and I predict will, be filed against the government over this.

August 8, 2026

The DC Circuit ordered Trump to halt his illegal ballroom construction but, in a wussy move, stayed its decision for fourteen days in order to allow Trump to appeal, which he, or rather his administration, will.

The Court, in its decision, noted:

Whether or not a massive ballroom should be constructed is for Congress to decide and is not a matter for Executive self-help.

August 11, 2026

It's not that there aren't some really issues here.

Judge dismisses closed primary lawsuit for the second time

But it does provide a good example of why it hurts things for everyone when a gadfly like Skovgaard decides to play lawyer.

August 12, 2026

Court steps in to counter coup attempt.

August 18, 2026

Good news:

Retired Cheyenne attorney renews legal challenge to Secretary Gray’s handoff of voter data feds

Gray violated the law on this and needs to be held fully accountable. Courts looking at this issue have uniformly supported the states that refused to provide the information.

Gray should be made to recover the information he supplied.  This was illegal.  

August 25, 2026

This doesn't decide the ultimate issue:

Supreme Court allows Trump administration to move forward with order imposing restrictions on mail-in voting

But coming when it does, it may very well be the law in a practical sense this election cycle, and impact the election.  It's specifically designed to frustrate Democratic voting.  However, as Amy Howe reports:

A separate ruling by the same judge, in a case filed by a different set of plaintiffs, temporarily prohibits the U.S. Postal Service from implementing one provision of the executive order anywhere in the United States. That ruling remains in effect, at least for now.

The decision is flat out wrong and the Supreme Court will regret it.  The Democrats are increasingly like to win both houses of Congress this Fall and they will begin to work on major Supreme Court reform. Trump can prevent that while he's in office, but he's becoming the political kiss of death for GOP candidates and when a new Democratic President comes in, this order will come off and the Supreme Court will be radically reformed.  Perhaps first up will be age limitations, likely 70 years of old, which will wipe out the conservative majority on the court.

A decision like this one will help bring about that downfall.  So does stuff like this:

Supreme Court allows White House ballroom construction to continue for now

The mail in voting one at least has some think judicial reasoning Staying ballroom construction was the obvious choice here and the Court didn't do it. That probably signals that they'll let this insane project go forward.

August 27, 2026

After Election Loss, Reid Rasner Sues A Sixth Person For Defamation

One of Rasner's previous suits is in the CST today on the pending summary judgment motion.

August 31, 2026

The Supreme Court sealed its fate today in holding that the Plaintiffs in a case challenging the legality of Trump's illegal construction of a giant garden shed on White House Grounds lacked standing.

Bullshit.

Justice Roberts, who dissented in the 5 to 4 decision, noted that the construction was likely illegal.  It is. This was a standing decision.

So construction will commence and may well get completed. The legality will be ruled upon in the future, and then the heaping pile of shit hopefully blown to the ground by a future administration that will rely on this decision. The Supreme Court will go to 13 members, and an age limitation will be put on the justices guaranteeing a liberal majority on the court for a century.

September 10. 2026

Twenty states filed two separate lawsuits against the government alleging the Trump administration illegally weakened the Endangered Species Act.

September 11, 2026

The 1st Circuit Court of Appeals refused to lift an injunction on the USPS prohibiting the implementation of crybaby's attempt for a fall coup by banning mail in voting.

September 15, 2026

The US Supreme Court decided in a 7 to 2 vote to block the Trump USPS rule prohibiting mail in voting.  Alito and Thomas were the two dissenting votes.

Last edition:

Court Watch Part VII. When the last law was down.

Labels: 2020s, 2026, Abortion, Chuck Gray, Court Watch, law, Politics, South Korea, St. Sir Thomas More, The 2021 Insurrection, The Second Trump Administration, Wyoming, Wyoming (Powell), You heard it here first

Tuesday, September 14, 1976. Last foreigners out of Vietnam.

The International Red Cross completed its evacuation of foreigners from Vietnam.  The numbers were about 3,000, people left after the fall with no easy way out.

President Ford signed into law the National Emergencies Act  allowing the automatic termination of existing states of emergency in the U.S. effective September 14, 1978, and providing a two year limit on the duration of emergencies unless renewed by the U.S. President..

The first Laetoli footprints, fossilized footprints laid down by, must like, Australopithecus pedestrians, were found in Tanzania.  

They are about 3.6 M years old.

Last edition:

Friday, September 10, 1976. A bad day for aviation.

Labels: 1970s, 1976, Aircraft, Communists, Croatia, India, McCarthy Era, Movies, Personalities, Terrorism, The written word, United States, Yugoslavia

Thursday, September 14, 1911. Stolypin shot.

Russian Prime Minister Pyotr Stolypin was shot in the stomach by Dmitry Bogrov, a young Ukranian Jewish lawyer, at a play.  He would die four days later.

Bogrov had been an anarchist turned informant.  He had recently started practicing law in St. Petersburg where he was horrified by Russian pogroms. 

Ironically, Stolypin was a reformer.

El Primer Congreso Mexicanista convened at Laredo, Texas under the leadership of Nicasio Idar to advocate for civil rights for Hispanic citizens. The convention approved the formation of La Gran Liga de Beneficincia y Proteccion.

Last edition:

Wednesday, September 13, 1911. That high lonesome sound.

Labels: 1910s, 1911, Bluegrass, China, Chinese 1911 Revolution, Music, Personalities, Qing Dynasty

Saturday, September 14, 1901. The death of William McKinley.

William McKinley, 58 years of age, died at 2:15 in the morning.  His entire cabinet, save for Theodore Roosevelt, were present.

Two additional telegrams arrived at the remote New York campsite of Theodore Roosevelt yes there were, and even are remote New York campsites, for the Vice President, who had departed McKinley's side when it seemed safe to do so.  Less obvious to us now, in the age of Cable News Commentators, there was a feeling at the time that if Roosevelt remained, it indicated that McKinley would die. And also, frankly, in an age when people accepted death as a reality, which we no longer do, even though it still arrives, keeping on, keeping on, often seemed to be the thing to do.

With the telegrams, Roosevelt departed camp at 12:30 in the morning in a buckboard in the middle of a dark, stormy and uncertain night.  He switched wagons at the Tarawas Club clubhouse at 2:10 in the morning.  He arrived at at North Creek at 5:00 a.m. where he was informed of McKinley's death.  

He was darned lucky not to be killed in the journey.

He was sworn in as President at 3:25 in Buffalo.

Roosevelt was 42 years old, the youngest man to ever become President of the United States. That fact is often noted, but worth noting is that McKinley was only 58 years old at the time of his death, young by contemporary standards, ironically enough.  Eight U.S. Presidents have been in their 40s when they assumed office.  Only two have been in their 70s, with Trump twice being in his 70s.  Only ten have been in their 60s, with many being in their 50s.  The extreme old age we are currently experiencing is an anomaly, nd not a good one, and one the framers, who would have regarded life beyond 50 years of age as tenuous, did not contemplate.  Personally, I'd favor a Constitutional amendment precluding anyone from starting a first term who had obtained the age of 60, save for Vice Presidents who had started their term prior to age 60s.  If that was the law now, Ronald Reagan, William Henry Harrison, James Buchanan, George H. W. Bush, Zachary Taylor, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Andrew Jackson, and John Adams could not have served as President.  If you made that age Ronald Reagan,William Henry Harrison  and James Buchanan could not have served, and I'd be fine with that.

McKinley was a pius Methodist who, as noted, forgave his attacker, much to his credit.  He regarded the assailant as tragically deluded, which he was..  He had served in the Union Army during the Civil War, which caused him to have a horror of warfare.  He was not keen on the developments that swept the country into the Spanish American War, which he did not regard as a moral war, and in fact it was not.  He was a lawyer who entered state politics, seeing his rise to governorship of Ohio and later the Presidency.  His family was small for the time, as he had only two children, neither of whom survived to adulthood..  His wife was heartbroken by his murder and she died in 1907 at age 59.  Massee McKinley, a descendant of President Grover Cleveland, is William McKinley's closest living relative, and resembles him in appearance.

McKinley was a fairly good President, but for a disastrous tariff policy that Donald Trump has oddly cited for proof that tariffs work.  In fact, McKinley's tariffs proved disastrous fairly quickly, which he appreciated and sought to redress.  The tariffs also angered Canada enormously, which we are repeating.  Canadians at the time regarded them as an attempt to subvert their sovereignty and force them into a union with the US, which they did not react well to.  As noted, unlike King Donald, he'd experienced war and desperately wanted to avoid war with Spain. And he could recognize a tariff mistake when he saw it.

May the Perpetual Light Shine upon  him.

Events, of course, would prove fateful and things took on a life of their own.  Roosevelt's ride through the night was dangerous in the extreme, but he was a man who did not eschew danger and he never was.  He'd usher in the age of the Imperial Presidency, which he did masterfully and for the public good, but he can and has been criticized for that.  His cousin and fellow New Yorker would take that further, and of course New Yorker Donald Trump has taken it to dictatorial and disastrous extremes, perhaps, maybe, bringing it to an end.

Let us hope so.

The law of unintended consequences works enormously here.  McKinley was a man of average means who struggled early in his life and rose to great heights based on his character and intelligence, while enduring personal tragedy of an extreme most of us can hardly imagine.  He's more like average Americans today than most people, and was more like an average American in his own age.  His death brought in a man who was nearly a force of nature, one of the most exceptional Americans to ever live, who was from a well to do family but who represented the best of the common man.  His cousin Franklin has been called "a traitor to his class". Now we have a man of wealth who every single one of them would have been horrified by.  The MAGA movement is nearly what Theodore Roosevelt worried about and warned about when he was concerned with Socialism, with the radical left and radical right never being very far apart.

As a total aside, there was a time in the country's history in which notable Americans last names were used as first names in certain demographics.  Most recently, I've seen that in the use of the the name "Reagan" as a first name.  If that was my first name, I'd start going by "Bob", or perhaps Diognetus, but I've seen it, and I once represented a Reagan from an extremely Republican family in a lawsuit.  Of note that same family had once been Democrats, prior to the Great Wyoming Political Shift. The use of the name "Roosevelt" had a following in African American families, recognizing what Theodore Roosevelt and Franklin Roosevelt had done for their cause.  McKinley had enough of a following that one of the greatest bluesmen of all time had McKinley as a first name, that being McKinley Morgenfeld, born in 1913.  He's better known as Muddy Waters. 

The Qing Dynasty converted provincial academies into colleges with each to offer a Western world education in addition to Confucian studies.

Last edition:

Friday, September 13, 1901. McKinley approaches the end.

Labels: 1900s, 1901, Theodore Roosevelt, William McKinley