King Donny was bragging about acing cognitive tests again.
It's the Montreal Cognitive Assessment that he's taken, and it isn't given for entertainment.
He's being given these tests for a reason. The fact that it's three times now is really remarkable. He pretty clearly doesn't know the reason he takes them, but he complies with the requests.
The reason is that somebody is tracking his mental decline.
The real question is who? His mental decline is patently obvious. Somebody has enough influence on him to be able to require him to take it without him knowing why. But who are the suspects and why are they tracking it?
An obvious answer is so that somebody knows when to flip the switch on the 25th Amendment and has his decline documented. Another reason, however, might be that at some point a guardianship and conservatorship can be established and somebody, perhaps Melania, can control his assets.
Anyway you look at it, we have a demented man with sycophants surrounding him in the White House, launching wars, experimenting with 19th Century tax structures, and ending the status of the US as a great country. This is being allowed to occur because it benefits somebody.
cont:
Kimberlay. Kimberly Guilfoyle. I love calling her Kimberlay. That's my little pet name but you are the greatest. I hope you come back here in 12 years or whenever the term ends
Trump about Guilfoyle.
It's fairly well documented that those with disordered desires lose their ability to restrain themselves in regard to them.
March 28, 2026
He didn’t think he would be kissing my ass, he really didn’t…and now he has to be nice to me….he better be nice to me, he’s gotta be..
Donald Trump on Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud, the ruler of Saudi Arabia.
What an irony. Bibi Netanyahu talked the demented Don into a war and the Prince has been urging Don to keep at it. US forces and finances are fighting a war in the Middle East for Israel and Saudi Arabia. Don's the ass kisser, but he's too dumb to realize it.
March 31, 2026
We're entering the most dangerous time of the Trump interregnum, from now until the November election.
He's already bouncing off the walls. He's losing a war, he's threatening our Allies. Nobody in the world has any respect for Trump, and he knows it. Allies ignore him. Enemies ignore hm. And he can't win a war that he thought would last a few days.
The economy is tanking due to the war, and there's no end to that disaster in sight.
He's trying to ban mail in voting. That will fail.
He's been enjoined from further work on his pet ballroom, and the Court indicated that it was almost certain that it would rule against him. That will take months to happen, and work on the ballroom will never start up again. It's over.
He's going to start lashing out like crazy.
He is crazy.
The clock on the 25th Amendment is really winding down.
U.S. Marines land at Da Nang, March 8, 1965. It was just a few. . and then some airmen. . . and then the perimeter had to be protected. . . and soon, 50,000 U.S. troops were dead.
March 31, 2026
King Donny can't figure out how to get out of his war. The Iranians can't and won't surrender. The Iranians won't leave the Straits of Hormuz alone. The NATO countries, several of which have been threatened by King Donny with the use of military force, have replied to his request for naval assistance with variants of "fuck you and the horse you rode in on" and are perfectly happy to watch the US, which they don't like under Trump, and Israel, which they generally don't like, stew in the fat of Donald's juices.
Faced with this, the more rah rah, let's engage in a Protestant Crusade against Islam crowed, and the more sober military minds who have read history, are causing Marines to be deployed. Chances are, they aren't equally enthusiastic about deploying them, as the results of that will be a full scale and even more illegal war than the one we're currently in.
The economy, meanwhile, is turning to a steaming pile of shit, like everything else Donald touches. The stock market is supposedly the only thing the legacy seeking King Donny pays attention to, which probably means that his oligarchic connections are being hurt and calling him up on his cell phone telling him to get out before the wreckage matches that of the East Wing. King Donny, meanwhile, probably doesn't want to be remembered as the idiot who got 20,000 ground troops or more killed. So, as of yesterday, he's thinking of surrendering by simply pulling out.
Overnight, the Iranians targeted Diego Garcia with missiles but not reached their targets for one reason or another, including their being intercepted. Diego Garcia was not previously thought to be within range of Iranian missiles, and it still might not be, given that they didn't hit. Or it may be, or it may be that Iran has improved the capabilities of their missiles over the last couple of weeks.
Iran is busy destroying Middle Eastern oil infrastructure. The economic impacts will last for years.
March 21, 2026, cont:
Iran and the US/Israel exchanged attack nuclear facilities today.
March 22, 2026
Trump announced that if Iran does not open the Straits of Hormuz within 48 hours the US will commit a war crime and start to destroy power plants.
This would be flat out an illegal at, it serves no military purpose whatsoever.
March 23, 2026
King Donny claimed this morning that the US and Iran were in productive talks, so he was suspending offensive operations for several day.
Iran called BS on the claim.
Nobody really knows what's going on, but my guess, and it would guess, is that King Donny is going to claim there was a secret deal to end the war and call it over. My additional guess is that somebody got to him. Maybe the military, maybe the top (lap) dogs in the GOP, or maybe another oligarch, but somebody.
Listening to the weekend shows makes it plaint how much trouble Trump is really in. None of the people you'd expect to be present on all three were present on the two I listened to. Scott Bessant was on Meet the Press sounding like a complete fool. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy drew the short stick for This Week and sounded like he regretted it.
Bessant was downright insulting to the host, even if he sounded like a buffoon doing it.
What's increasingly clear is that sometime yesterday somebody or something got to Trump. The war isn't going the way he believed it would, and now he want out. He's just looking for a cover story to get out. The problem he faces is that none of the cover stories for getting into it will square with that, so he's in a bind. The strategy being tested is the claim that he made a deal, even if the Iranians are denying that they're close to making a deal.
Believing that lie won't be too much to ask diehard Trump fans to do. They'll believe anything. But it is too much for independents and some not wholly convinced Republicans to do. The next part of the problem will be that petroleum prices will take months or even years to go down. That showed up on Meet the Press in which a Trump voter called Trump "a worthless piece of shit".
cont:
Pete, I think you were the first one to speak up. You said, 'Let's do it.'
Trump.
Pete is now the designated fall guy. He better start looking for a new job.
March 24, 2026
In spite of King Donny's declaration that the United States was in talks with Iran, which Iran denies, as Donny is an outrageous liar, the war continued on yesterday, unabated.
Cont:
According to the NYT, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia is pushing Trump to continue the war.
We seem to just be regional suckers to the Middle East.
March 25, 2026
In addition to the Marines already deployed to the Middle East, 1,000 troops of the 82nd Airborne are being deployed to the region, all for a war that King Donny claims was won several days ago.
Pakistan, which it self as been at war recently with Afghanistan, volunteered to host talks between the U.S. and Iran. The U.S. has agreed to attend, Iran, has not.
Trump claimed yesterday that Iran gave the United States a very big oil related present, but he wasn't going to say what it is.
Um. . . .
March 27, 2026
King Donny extended his deadline in which for the US to commit an additional war crime by destroying electrical power sites. He claims negotiations are going well.
Some negotiations probably really are occurring, but it's not clear at all what they are. As they won't result in an end to an Iranian nuclear program, effectively what the US is doing is looking for a way out a la Paris Peace Accords.
On the other hand, Tehran increased its grip on the Straits of Hormuz yesterday, so the entire story of Iran negotiating may just be another Trump lie.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy, a real president, visited the Middle East yesterday as his country is helping several Middle Eastern countries counter Iranian drones.
March 28, 2026
The Houthis entered the war by firing ballistic missiles at Israel.
Donald Trump is now babbling on this topic nearly every day, and not making a lick of sense any time he does so. As if that's not enough, his cabinet lavishes praise on him in a way that will quite frankly be used against their reputations, and that of the country that they purport to serve, forever.
March 30, 2026
The illegitimate administration sent Iran the same list of 15 demands in the form of demands to be accepted to end the war. Iran told the U.S. to stuff it, and presented its own demands, also pointing out that it doesn't trust the US enough to enter negotiations.
Listening to the weekend shows and other soundings out there, it's increasingly clear that Republicans feel uneasy about the situation developing with King Donny. A common theme now is, "well, we should have done this years ago, um, and are now, um, and well, we have to see it through".
None of those things are anywhere near true and they know it.
We are getting increasingly close to the commitment of ground troops. Even some of the stalwarts that apologize for Trump's dementia on a nearly daily basis re now saying that requires Congressional approval. Well, Trump isn't going to ask for approval. He's just going to do it, if he does, and he probably is going to.
This is an election season, and those in Congress in the GOP should be made to answer for this illegal delegation of force to a demented octogenarian.
cont:
Reports hold that Russia shared satellite images of Prince Sultan US base in Saudi Arabia with Iran right before their attack that injured our troops. Ukrainian intelligence has confirmed it.
And Trump. . . well he's letting a ship of Russian oil offload in Cuba, which is otherwise being embargoed (blockaded?) by the U.S.
Odd, eh?
March 31, 2026
Iran hit a fully laden Kuwait oil tanker in port in Dubai.
Trump yesterday indicated that he might just abandon the Persian Gulf with the Straits of Hormuz closed.
Republicans desperate to excuse a war that's not going to end soon, and which right now looks as if it'll either require a decades long American ground presence in an illegal war, or an inglorious American retreat, either of which feature a major recession, if not depression, in the near term, are parading a series of bs excuses for what demented Don did.
The reality of it is quite simple. Bibi wanted to take Iran out while the US could be duped into going along with it. Only Bibi and Vlad seem to have any pull over King Donny, although for different unknown reasons. Anyhow, this is a war for Israel, that's what it's for.
The current line is that we've been fighting Iran for 47 years. No, we haven't been. Iran has been a bad actor for 47 years, but we haven't been fighting them for nearly five decades. Moreover, most of Iran's anger with us, as illegitimate and wrong as it is, is vicarious anger over US support for Israel.
I'm not saying that US support for Israel is wholly wrong, but it has frankly been often beyond what it likely should have been, and that's been the case since Israel became a country. It has a right to exist, but it doesn't have a right to unqualified US support, and support that has not involved American Allies that are in the region, to the the extent which it has. Anyhow, Iran's hatred of the US is largely due to US support of Israel, which is 100% what this war is about. Netanyahu saw a chance to take out, he thought, a decades long enemy, and took it. Unfortunately for him, he forgot about what an unreliable ally the US really is and that Trump's thoughts tend to be farts in windstorms.
The other major claim is that Iran was going to turn into a nuclear power and we needed to stop it. If that's the case, that was clearly going to involve a ground invasion. You can't bomb nuclear material into non existence. Trump may stupidly have thought he could cause the Iranian regime to fall in this fashion, which if so was flat out dumb, but he's not a very advanced thinker and his experience is in real estate, not realpolitik. He didn't cause an Iranian uprising and he didn't even get the Kurds to move on the government.
So here we are.
Concluding this war successfully will require a Vietnam War level of military participation and two decades to complete. At some point Congress will have to get involved. As Americans have no stomach for such an enterprise, what's much more likely to happen is a largescale conventional invasion of the country after a series of aerial war crimes, followed by substantial US troop deaths, followed by an inglorious withdrawal and retreat.
In other words, we're likely to lose the war.
Not before it expands into the US however.
We have every reason to believe that Iran has sleeper cells in the US. What hasn't happened that much yet, however, are proxy attacks here. That's coming, and it'll come in more than one form. We aren't ready for it, and we're not going to get ready for it. Further, both China and Russia will assist Iran on this where they can get away with it.
Along with that, we're going to see inflation and a recession within the next few months at a level we have no experienced since the 1970s. We'll be lucky, quite frankly, if we don't experience a depression.
So, welcome to King Donald's Forever War.
cont:
The maximum level of outright stupidity that is constantly demonstrated by this illegitimate administration is really on display today with Pete Hegseth. For example:
The president was clear this morning in his Truth that there are countries around the world who ought to be prepared to step up on this critical waterway as well. Last time I checked there was supposed to be a big bad Royal Navy that could be prepared to do things like that.
This is an illegal war on the part of the US, dumbass, and you don't get to declare war for other countries.
As far as President Trump and boots on the ground, I don't understand why the base wouldn't have faith in his ability to execute on this. Look at his track record.
Seriously? Where to begin. Cutting spending. . . nope, didn't happen. Avoid wars. . . nope, didn't happen. Make America Great Again. . . more like sending it into the dumpster.
What he's shown himself to be really good at is not getting the Epstein files released, although even there, there are enough cracks to raise the question if he was one of the rich men raping teenagers. It's not proven, but there's enough there to wonder.
cont:
I have a suggestion for you: Number 1, buy from the US, we have plenty, and Number 2, build up some delayed courage, go to the Strait, and just TAKE IT,'
'You'll have to start learning how to fight for yourself, the USA won't be there to help you anymore, just like you weren't there for us.'
And so, the TACO signals he's retreating.
Iran, apparently, will be the victor. People died for nothing whatsoever. Those serving in the military were made suckers.
As we all were. Everything is more expensive, people are dead.
To put it bluntly, we are really up shit creek without a paddle. At no point since the end of the Cold War have we been in this dire of situation, and it's all due to one demented billionaire.
As Jesus walks the Way of the Cross, we place ourselves behind him, following in his footsteps. As we walk with him, we contemplate his passion for the sake of humanity, his broken heart, and his life as a gift of love.
We turn our gaze to Jesus, who reveals himself as King of Peace, even as war looms around him. He remains steadfast in meekness, while others are stirring up violence. He offers himself to embrace humanity, even as others raise swords and clubs. He is the light of the world, though darkness is about to engulf the earth. He came to bring life, even as plans unfold to condemn him to death.
King of Peace. Jesus’ desire is to bring the world into the Father’s arms, tearing down every barrier that separates us from God and from our neighbor, for “He is our peace” (Eph 2:14).
King of Peace. Jesus enters into Jerusalem not upon a horse, but upon a donkey, fulfilling the ancient prophecy that calls for rejoicing at the arrival of the Messiah: “Lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. He will cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the war-horse from Jerusalem; and the battle bow shall be cut off, and he shall command peace to the nations” (Zech 9:9–10).
King of Peace. When one of his disciples drew his sword to defend him and struck the high priest’s servant, Jesus immediately stopped him, saying: “Put your sword back into its place, for all who take the sword will perish by the sword” (Mt 26:52).
King of Peace. While he was burdened with our sufferings and pierced for our sins, Jesus “did not open his mouth, like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent” (Is 53:7). He did not arm himself, or defend himself, or fight any war. He revealed the gentle face of God, who always rejects violence. Rather than saving himself, he allowed himself to be nailed to the cross, embracing every cross borne in every time and place throughout human history.
Brothers and sisters, this is our God: Jesus, King of Peace, who rejects war, whom no one can use to justify war. He does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war, but rejects them, saying: “Even though you make many prayers, I will not listen: your hands are full of blood” (Is 1:15).
our gaze upon him who was crucified for us, we can see a crucified humanity. In his wounds, we see the hurts of so many women and men today. In his last cry to the Father, we hear the weeping of those who are crushed, who have no hope, who are sick and who are alone. Above all, we hear the painful groans of all those who are oppressed by violence and are victims of war.
Christ, King of Peace, cries out again from his cross: God is love! Have mercy! Lay down your weapons! Remember that you are brothers and sisters!
In the words of the Servant of God, Bishop Tonino Bello, I would like to entrust this cry to Mary Most Holy, who stands beneath the cross of her Son and weeps also at the feet of those who are crucified today:
“Holy Mary, woman of the third day, grant us the certainty that, in spite of all, death will no longer hold sway over us; that the injustices of peoples are numbered; that the flashes of war are fading into the twilight; that the sufferings of the poor are breathing their last. And grant, finally, that the tears of all the victims of violence and pain will soon be dried up like frost beneath the spring sun” (Maria, donna dei nostri giorni).
Pope Leo XIV, Palm Sunday homily.
Christians need to hear this. More than that, those who claim to be Christian, like Pete Hegseth, but belong to some diluted form of Christianity, need to hear it. Hegseth has tattooed himself with the symbols of a Faith that would have found him to be abhorrent at the time of their origin, which which recoil from them now.
Wars change everything.
Maybe one thing it will change in the human heart in people who listen to the likes of Franklin Graham and Paula White, when they should be listening to the full deposit of the Faith
The New Jersey Supreme Court ruled that Karen Ann Quinlan, suffering from irreversible brain damage, could be disconnected from the ventilator that had been keeping her alive since April 15, 1975. She had been found unresponsive after she consumed Valium along with alcohol while on a crash diet and lapsed into a coma. A Catholic, her parents had appealed to Catholic moral theology arguing that extraordinary means not be required to preserve her life.
She'd live for an additional nine years.
She had been trying to lose weight to fit into a bikini.
This is one of those events I can personally recall. It was a major news story at the time.
The UN Security Council found South Africa liable for an act of aggression against Angola, a fairly dubious Security Council conviction given that what South Africa really did is intervene in a civil war that other powers were likewise involved in.
The slam dunk was restored as a legal college basketball feature.
7,000 Allied soldiers served warrants on Nazi officials. Ausgezeichnet!
The first Greek elections since 1936 took place, with the Communist Party of Greece refusing to participate.
Russia, as a political subdivision of the USSR, paid its U.N. dues of $1,725,000, under the thesis that the USSR had multiple representation in the UN.
Trump would probably support an effort of Russia not to pay, which was feared at the time, sending the leader of the nation a Я люблю тебя, Дональд note, like he does in an implied way to the current leader of Russia constantly.
What's up with that?
Field Marshal John Standish Surtees Prendergast Vereker, 6th Viscount Gort became yet another World War Two senior officer to die following the war, albeit his death was due to liver cancer.
He was a recipient of the Victoria Cross in World War One.
Emiliano Zapata led a group of armed men in commandeering a police station in Villa de Ayala. They then enlisted 100 townsmen in their revolutionary army.
The Mayor of Jerusalem, Raghib al-Nashashibi, and 150 prominent Arabs in Palestine sent a cable to the Turkish parliament, urging the Ottoman nation to stop further sales of land in Palestine to Jewish immigrants.
A prominent Palestinian figure, he would figure in successive regimes, and his second wife would be Jewish, and from France.
Perhaps love conquered all.
He died at age 71 in 1951.
A common sight in cities at one time:
Cleveland Mounted Police. Note the cut of the great coats.
A man who has conquered others, should conquer himself
Pope Leo the Great to Atilla the Hun. He never did. He died following drinking too much on his wedding night.
Some evangelical Christians excuse Trump's lack of Christian adherence by casting him as Cyrus the Vance, the Persian Emperor who was not Jewish, but who regarded himself as appointed by God and whom advanced the cause of the the Jews. In their minds, the non believer Trump is advancing the cause of (Protestant) Christianity.
More of his Christian loyalists, however, come from a certain Christian worldview that's very strong in the US, but only in the US, the comforting, but completely false, "once saved, always saved" view of Christianity.
It's expressed here in the misunderstood posting of one Franklin Graham.
Graham is the son of the late Billy Graham, the famous Evangelical pastor beloved by many American Protestants. I never grasped his popularity, and perhaps things like this are why. What Graham posts here, and what has been widely misunderstood by those shocked by the comments, is in fact absurd. Graham espouses the minority Protestant view that you can never lose your salvation. Believe in Christ as your savior once, and you are good to go thereafter no matter what.
This sort of view explains why so many people who attend mega churches live in such flagrant disregard for the basic tenants of Christianity, particularly the sexual tenants. And the belief, taken from and misinterpreted from one single line in the New Testament, is completely condemned by the whole of the Gospel. St. Paul, who specifically spoke of people losing their salvation after their conversions, would be appalled.
But for somebody as lazy intellectually as Trump, it's no doubt comforting, assuming he worried about the afterlife at all. He's lived a life of moral dissipation but, hey, he's okay.
The belief on Trump's part is no doubt not only comforting to him, but it probably emboldens him as well. Compared to Cyrus, backed up by the intellectually think "once saved" theology and pastors who repeatedly assure him he's on a Devine mission, and with people like Pete Hegseth in his cabinet, what could go wrong?
Well, everything, in fact. And indeed, everything is going wrong.
And therefore, we might legitimately raise this question. What if Trump's place in Salvation History is not that of Cyrus the Great, but rather Atilla the Hun?
It sounds absurd, but frankly its not less absurd that he being a Cyrus the Great, and certainly no less absurd than the claims he's a "Godly man" that some of his supporters make.
Attila the Hung, during his lifetime, was called the Flagellum Dei, the Scourge of God. The thought was that Rome having became so sinful was being served by being whipped by Atilla by license of God.
The modern US is certainly no less sinful that Rome was from 434 to 453, the reign of Atilla. The country still practices infanticide, something that only became legal anywhere in the US in 1970 (Hawaii). The country has the reputation of being deeply religious but the Playboy Culture that came in starting in 1953 has lead to rampant sexual immorality and indeed sexual confusion. The materialistic culture that started to come in during the 1950s has converted a class dominated culturally and economically by the middle class to one controlled by and for the extremely rich elite, the pinnacle of which was on display on Epstein Island. Closeted homosexuals in office pretend they hold family virtues. Office holders who maintain their deep love of family espouse divorce and contracept to avoid having one. Money is everything. We are willing to fight and die for oil rather than address the damage that it causes. We go so far as to excuse our lifestyles and occupations, no matter what they are, surely endorsed by God, effectively mocking him.
All along, we pretend we are a devout people.
Vice President Vance, who is a National Conservative, lectures the Europeans about their losing their culture while the American Civil Religion is such a washed out version of Christianity that it must shock the listeners. He has a point, to be sure, the West in general had engaged in massive moral decline with a life made easy after the recovery from World War Two. But it's hard the case that the United States can look ti itself as a champion of Western values.
Which leads back to this.
The Protestant Reformation brought in the modern world. It's dying before our eyes. The United States is a Protestant country, and the United States as a great power is over. It started to take blows when fallen away Methodist Hugh Hefner started to prostitute the image of young women in a particularly harmful way. As the culture became steeped in immorality, the mainline Protestant churches adopted it rather than offend. And off in the corners some Evangelical Churches took a more radical view, with those views now expressed in the MAGA movement.
Closely related, although not appreciated to be, a culture that fell into lust naturally fell into greed. No decent society, let alone a Christian one, would allow the wealthy the leeway they have in our society, nor would it seek to allow their unabated accumulation of wealth. Greed and lust are, in fact, the two primary attributes of American culture. The fact that we don't seem to realize that is because a third deadly sin has become manifestly American as well,. pride. To state that Trump is a prideful man, and that MAGA is prideful movement, is to state the blatantly obvious.
And while we are at it, we might note that envy has now uniquely entered the picture We evny what Denmark has in Greenland, and what Venezuela has it itself.
And look at Trump, and consider sloth. , ,
And finally, listen to Trump, on anything, and consider wrath.
These would be bad enough in one man, but when that man is elevated to the leader of a nation, that nation has endorsed it. We, as a nation, have adopted all seven of the deadly sins as our primary national virtues.
So why wouldn't we invite a scourging, if only by our own conduct.
Nobody knows whether Donald Trump is going to Hell after his death. That is not for us to know. Franklin Graham doesn't know. What we do know is that the Presbyterian raised Trump has lead a strongly immoral life in multiple ways even without examining the worst accusations against him, which in fact now deserve to be examined. But the same is true of many supposedly "devout" Christians. Indeed, the number of Christians attempting to be Christian, of all branches of the faith, is likely a tiny percentage of Christians in the U.S. overall.
What Trump is serving to do is to bring forward the hypocrisy of the American civil religion, the easy Christianity where the rules are made up and the points don't matter.
Sincere devout Protestant Christians have been deeply distressed by Trump. They should be. But there's another emotion in some quarters as well, a sort of principled schadenfreude. I.e., knowing that everything is collapsing and taking a sort of delight in it.
That may sound deeply odd, but perhaps it isn't as much as it might seem. The moral draft that's been going on has been going on for decades, and its been an obvious problem. The sort of worship of money that divests the middle class and which exalts economic activity above everything, including the happiness of average people and the environment, has been going on for decades as well. The profligate use of American armed force is not new. The hypocrisy of our ruling class, now at an all time high, has been developing for quite some time. Some times it takes a crisis for people to wake up. If they don't, they just perish and somebody less dense takes over.
Will Americans wake up?
I think they might, but when they wake up it's not going to be morning in America. That country has died. It was already ill, and had been very ill since the 2010s, but Trump came in like the batshit crazy anti vaxers that are part of his overall movement and administered a lethal does of ignorance and stupidity. The country they wake up to may, in fact, be more like an old one, hopefully. One less powerful on the international stage, and less willing to throw its weight around without the cooperation of others.
In other ways, it's going to be something entirely new. Far right Evangelical Protestantism will not survive Donald Trump. People like Franklin Graham and Paula White are going to be regarded as ignorant fools. The big box mega churches will be exposed for what they are, worship service centers think on the hard lessons of Christianity.
Faith won't die, and it hasn't anywhere. The Ancient Faith has started to revive in France, the Eldest Daughter of the Church. The Apostolic Faiths in North America are growing as the young turn their back on the American Civil Religion and Americanism in general, seeking the real. The Protestant Reformation was already dying, but now that death will accelerate, even if the Protestant faiths, particular those of the early Reformation, will live on, particularly in their most conservative, and frankly Catholic, forms.
Holy Week started yesterday. We live in interesting times.
The Colt M1911 is a John Browning designed semi-automatic pistol that can legitimately be regarded s the greatest handgun ever made, although there are, or perhaps more accurately were, a few other contenders. Other than the mostly John Browning Designed Hi Power, none of the other contenders remain in service somewhere however and the M1911 has by far the longest period of service.
Adopted by the U.S. on March 29, 1911, in 1923 the handgun received some minor modifications, the most significant of which is a curved spring housing which changed the profile of the grip. The trigger was also shortened. In 1924 the modified design started to ship, this month, from Colt. The M1911A1 designation came in 1926.
When we posted this, we actually thought we might have noted the adoption of the M1911 when the centennial of the pistols adoption came up, in 2011, but we didn't. We covered a fair amount of ground regarding it in the thread above, but not really it's whole history.
Of course, that would require a book.
Given the ostensible purpose of this blog, however, we really ought to cover this.
The Consolidated Royalty Building, where I work, back when it was new.
What the heck is this blog about?
The intent of this blog is to try to explore and learn a few things about the practice of law prior to the current era. That is, prior to the internet, prior to easy roads, and the like. How did it work, how regional was it, how did lawyers perceive their roles, and how were they perceived?
Part of the reason for this, quite frankly, has something to do with minor research for a very slow moving book I've been pondering. And part of it is just because I'm curious. Hopefully it'll generate enough minor interest so that anyone who stops by might find something of interest, once it begins to develop a bit.
The 1911 is part of the history we're covering, and moreover, it was a brand new pistol in that period.
Vast amounts have been written about the M1911 over its century plus history. Most of that starts right around 1900, when the very first tests of semi automatic pistols took place. But in order to really grasp the M1911 you need to start earlier. . . in 1873.
1873 was the year that the Army officially adopted its first cartridge using revolver, the legendary Colt Single Action Army Revolver. The M1873 replaced a series of cap and ball revolvers that had been the standard sidearms dating back to 1846. We won't get into those, but Colt managed to pioneer really effective revolvers with this series which were widely used by civilians as well, and very well liked. When cartridges started to come in, particularly during the Civil War, it was obvious that soon revolvers would be adapted to take them, and very soon after the war Colt introduced what would become and remain the premier single action revolver, chambered in .44-40. The cartridge closely approximated the black powder load taken by the earlier cap and ball revolvers. The M1873 did have competitors, even in military service, with the primary one being the Smith & Wesson No. 3, which had the advantage of being a break open design allowing for more rapid reloading, but nothing really challenged the Cold Peacemaker for dominance in the U.S. Army, or for that matter, the civilian market.
What was a challenge, however, was that it became pretty clear in the last quarter of the 19th Century that double actions had arrived. Indeed, double action cap and ball revolvers had been produced and used during the Civil War, albeit not in large numbers. The fact that the Army didn't go straight to a double action revealed its real conservatism after the Civil War, which also showed itself in the long arms that it adopted.
By the 1890s black powder was being replaced by smokeless powder, which also yielded higher pressures and therefore higher velocities. As this occurred, a movement towards smaller projectiles occurred, with the thought that the same or better lethality could be achieved with a lighter cartridge. In rifles, this proved to be quite true. Pistols, however, are another matter.
This led to the military adopting the Colt M1892 "New Army" in that year, which was a very well designed double action revolver. The basic design would be used by Colt for decades. Slight improvements to the design would occur over time, leading to the Models 1892, 1894, 1896, 1901, and 1903 for the Army, the Model 1895 for the Navy and the Model 1905 for the Marine Corps, although they were all very similar. Manufacture of the basic design for civilian shooters as well as policemen, in various cartridges, would continue until at least the 1950s, although the original New Army pattern went out of production in 1908..
What the problem would prove to be was the cartridge.
The M1892 took the .38 Long Colt cartridge.
The new handgun was first used in the Spanish American War where there were no complaints regarding it. Soon thereafter, however, it was sent with U.S. troops to the Philippines where it proved to be pretty much completely inadequate. In the hardscrabble guerilla wars that followed U.S. troops landing there, the pistol simply lacked stopping power.
This lead to a series of emergency responses by the Army, part of which was to reissue M1873s, often with barrels refitted to the 5.5" length. The M1873s immediately proved successful, and as a result the Army adopted the Colt New Service civilian double action revolver, a massive .45 Long Colt, as the M1909. Like the New Army, the New Service was a very well designed modern double action revolver, and it was produced for military and civilian use over its long life, with production ceasing in 1946.
As good as the New Service revolver was, it was a stop gap when adopted. The Army was already looking for a semi automatic pistol. Trials had started in 1900 with John Browning's Model 1900, Mauser's C96, and Mannlicher's weird M1894 having been purchased for evaluation. The Browning design was by far the best, and in 1906 it came back in a new version, the Model 1905, to compete against submissions by Bergmann, Deutsche Waffen und Munitionsfabriken (DWM), Savage Arms, Knoble, Webley, and White-Merrill. Some of the new pistols, such as DWM's Luger and Savage's John Pederson designed automatic were very good indeed. The Colt 1905, hwoever, wa the best. Browning improved the M1905 and came out with the M1910, and the M1910 and the Savage went on to the final test.
The M1911, the final Colt design, was adopted on this day in 1911. The Navy, and hence the Marine Corps, would not adopt the pistol until 1913.
A fire broke out at the library of the New York State Capitol in Albany at 2:00 am, hours after legislators had adjourned for the night destroying more than 600,000 books, and manuscripts, many of them irreplaceable. A night watchman was killed in the fire.
