It's interesting, at least to some degree, that the US regards its massive drug problem as everyone else's fault. It's not as if, for example, there must be something really wrong here that causes people to use drugs.
We don't really treat our other big social problems this way.
What the crap?
How the DEA views it:
But then who pays attention to the facts anymore?
March 15, 2024
March 19, 2024
Trump, who represents that his assets are vast, is not able to post a bond covering the full amount of a $454 million civil fraud judgment against him during appeal and has related the same in a filing in court. He's seeking not to have to post bond.
If the Court does not grant him relief, execution on the judgment could start immediately.
Cont:
Donald Trump is suing ABC News and George Stephanopoulos over comments made in the last This Week episode in the Nancy Mace interview.
April 25, 2024
As Trump sits in a New York courtroom on charges of election interference for paying porn figures not to reveal his dalliances with them, while a married man, a host of figures were indicted in Arizona for an attempt to seat false electors.
May 1, 2024
Trump was fined for violating a court "gag" order in a contempt of court ruling in his hush money trial. He was further warned that he may be jailed in a future contempt ruling, should this conduct repeat.
The same court is allowing him to appear at his son Barron's high school graduation, which apparently would be the first time that he would attend one of his children's high school graduations.
Elise Stefanik filed an ethics complaint against Trump prosecutor Jack Smith, in a move that itself lacks moral ethics. Stefanik should be ashamed, but the concept of shame is sadly lacking currently.
May 30, 2024
Trump was convicted on all 34 Counts in the New York election interference case.
The claims that it was a political prosecution and featured a rigged jury will start any second now.
June 6, 2024
The Georgia election interference case, which is one of the more significant ones, has been stayed while an appeal goes forward on whether prosecutor Willis may remain on the case, and so human foibles will end up causing this case not to be heard prior to the election, probably.
Willis should step aside to let t his matter go forward.
July 15, 2024
To the general amazement of the legal community, the classified documents case has been dismissed on the basis of the Special Prosecutor having been appointed in violation of the appointments act. The Special Prosecutor is going to appeal, but there's no way an appeal will be heard prior to the election.
This is frankly bizarre.
August 3, 2024
The criminal case against Donald Trump for trying to overturn the 2020 election shall resume. It's been stayed for 8 months pending the outcome of the Supreme Court opinion on immunity, which the Judge will now have to figure out how to apply.
August 28, 2024
A new amended indictment has been filed.
September 7, 2024
Not related to the insurrection, but to Trump's legal problems, his sentencing in the hush money case has been delayed until after the election.
Frankly, this makes no sense.
November 25, 2024
Special Counsel Jack Smith has requested that all charges against President-elect Trump be dropped in the Federal case.
The progress of official justice in this mater was horrifically slow, which in part is why we now have somebody as President Elect who should have stood trial well over a year ago.
And hence, as Justice shall not come, and the guilty shall go free, we conclude this trailing thread.
Last prior edition:
Today In Wyoming's History: November 19: 1909 George Sabin sentenced for Second Degree Murder for his part in the Spring Creek Raid. He escaped on December 25,1913, while on a work gang in Basin, and was never recaptured.
The sentencing is remarkable and significance as it effectively meant an end to private warfare over sheep in Wyoming, and it also meant that conventional justice had come to the Big Horn Basin, where previously juries would not convict in these circumstances. This reflected in part the horror of the Spring Creek assault, but also the fact that the Basin was now closer to the rest of the state, having been connected some time prior by rail.
Members of the leadership of the Church of England, including the Archbishop of Canterbury, and fifty members of parliament assembled at Albert Hall to protest Belgium abuses in the Congo.
Last edition:
The Tientsin Conference opened in China between warlords Zhang Zuolin, Feng Yuxiang, and Lu Yongxiang. Former president Sun Yat-sen, the ongoing head of the Kuomintang and the government sitting in Canton, organized the meeting to discuss the ongoing civil war.
Ranch property belonging to Mexican president elect Plutarco Elías Calles was expropriated by the state in accordance with Mexican agrarian laws.
Chicago mobster Dean O'Banion, leader of Chicago's North Side Gang, was gunned down in his florist shop, making the cover of The Casper Herald. His murder was nearly inevitable as he'd grown crosswise with one of the Italian mob families in Chicago.
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On a dreary Friday morning, more than a dozen people gathered outside Courtroom 1A of the Townsend Justice Center to witness the end of the prosecution of the killer of 17-year-old Lene’a Brown, who was shot dead near Buckboard Park on May 14.
Most of those hearing attendees wore red in one form or another to support Brown — fl annel shirts, hoodies and T-shirts lined the left rows of the courtroom ahead of the trial.
I stepped out of the courtroom after a hearing to see this crowd. It was a sea of red.
It was Saturday.
Sultan bin Saqr Al Qasimi II invaded the Emirate of Sharjah resulting in the overthrow of Khalid bin Ahmad Al Qasimi, who had been the Emir since 1914.
Sharjah was one of the Trucial States under British protectorate status. It is now one of the United Arab Emirates.
He'd find his rule ineffective as he was ignored by Beudoins and Khalid retained support. He remained the titular rule, however, until his death in 1951.
The Royal Air Force introduced its Meteorological Flight Service.
Éamon de Valera was sentenced to a month in prison for entering Ulster illegally.
Frontier lawman Bill Tilghman, age 70, was shot and killed by drunken prohibition agement Wiley Lynn, who obviously wasn't that dedicated to the cause of his employment. Tilghman would lie in State in the Oklahoma state house. Lynn would escape conviction, pleading self defense, but was killed in a gunfight in 1932.
The days headline did, and did not, read like today's.
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
George Santayana, The Life of Reason, 1905
Well, first of all, I also said there were a lot of benefits to that wave of immigration, but has anybody ever seen the movie ‘Gangs of New York’? That’s what I’m talking about. We know that when you have these massive ethnic enclaves forming in our country, it can sometimes lead to higher crime rates.
* * *
What happens when you have massive amounts of illegal immigration? It actually starts to create ethnic conflict. It creates higher crime rates.
J. D. Vance
Is Vance right?
Keep in mind, I'm just basically fact checking here, not trying to make a political point.
Secondly, Gangs of New York is a horrible motion picture and historically inaccurate.1
So let's start with the two basic assertions. When you have:
Premiered on this day in 1924. It had been filmed on location. Anna Mae Wong, the famous Chinese American actress, was cast as an Inuit.
It was a bad day for police officers:
Deputy Constable J. Edward Brown:
Police Officer Francis X. "Buck" Roy
Patrol Inspector James F. Mankin
Walter "Big Train" Johnson was chosen Major League Baseball's Most Valuable Player
The U.S. Army's around the world flight, that is the surviving aircraft of it, landed at Mitchel Field on Long Island.
The Prince of Wales was there to greet them.
The Casper papers reported on the big aviation event.
The Casper Daily Tribune also reported on the Princess Petrolia Ball.
The Casper Herald, a morning paper, noted that the flight would be coming, but headlined with other news.
Some years we have Rockies' ticket package. We did last year, but we didn't go to a single game for a variety of reasons. Work was the big one, but then, about this time just a year ago, I was under the knife for the second time as well.
We went to the Orioles game on September 1.
The choice of the date was not my own, September 1 is the opening day of blue grouse and dove season, but I didn't complain about it. A young member of the family loves the Orioles and that's why it was chosen. When you get old, as I am, you yield in favor of younger family members, so I did, without complaining. You also learn, hopefully, not to complain where in former days you might have.
It was a great game.
I've been to Denver several times since my surgery, but they were all hit and run type of deals for work. In and out, with no time to spare. This is the first time I've lingered in the Mile High City for awhile, and the first time over a weekend for a long while. Therefore some observations, I guess.
It was hot. "Unseasonably hot" is what I'm hearing. I'm not a fan of hot. As Wyoming has already been chilly in the morning, and I couldn't find my Rockies jersey, I wore a light flannel shirt. I don't really feel comfortable in just wearing a t-shit in that setting anymore, so I when I got hot, right away, before the game, I went and bought a jersey. Now I have two.
I can't wear my old New York Yankees pull on jersey anymore. I'm too big and its too small. My Sox jersey is messing a button.
It's really weird to think that at least into the 1940s people dressed pretty formally at baseball games. Men were in jacket and tie, something you'd never see now.
We were there on Sunday.
Holy Ghost is, in my view, the most beautiful church in the region and the most beautiful one I've ever been in. We went to Mass early Sunday morning. It's stunning and it never fails to impress me with its beauty.
A beautiful church really adds something to worship, and a sense of the Divine.
Not a new impression, but the street people problem is out of control.
I don't know what can be done to help these people. Some, you can tell, are now so organically messed up that they'll never really recover.
In various places, when approached for money by somebody on a street, I'll give them some. But not in Denver. The people on the streets are so messed up I know where that money is going. Something needs to be done to help them, but I have no idea what it would be.
The day before I went down I read that the Venezuelan criminal gang Tren de Aragua (TdA) had taken over two apartments in Aurora. Looking it up, it's apparently true, and they're using them for sex trafficking.
The greater Denver area, fwiw, has never been all that nice, in spite of what people might say. I recall going down in the 1980s, when I was an undergrad at UW, and parts of were really rough then. 16th Street was just starting to develop. The area around LoDo was really really rough. I can recall walking from an off street towards 16th past a really rough looking bar mid morning when a prostitute came spilling out of it, probably just getting off work. The Episcopal Cathedral, St. John in the Wilderness, had lots of broken windows, broken by rocks thrown into them from the street. Colorado Blvd in the region of what is now Martin Luther King Blvd was as complete red light district full of XXX movie theaters. Lo Do was a no/go zone.
Coors Field really cleaned up a lot of that, and much of downtown Denver has really gentrified. 16th Street, however, is a drug flop house as is much of downtown Denver. The legalization of marijuana, COVID, and a highly tolerant city council has created an enormous problem.
Anyhow, I don't go into Aurora much, but I don't really recall it being really nice. I recall my father, who had experience with Denver going back to the 1930s, mentioning it had never been nice.
We had a big breakfast at Sam's No. 3. It's a great cafe. A real urban one, which probably makes it surprising that I'll go there, but it is great.
At the game, I had a hot dog. I usually have "brots", rather than dogs, if I have your classic small sausage on a bun. I'd forgotten, accordingly, what real dogs taste like. I like them, but I don't like them as much as brots.
Converse Chuck Taylors are comfortable for sitting at a game, but not for hiking around a city. Like my baseball jerseys, I like Chuck Taylors but given my line of work and my off time avocations, which I unfortunately seem to be able to engage in less and less, I have little call to actually wear them.
Regarding clothing, while I hesitated to post it, a lot of young women in urban settings don't dress decently when dressing casually. I don't mean "dress up" either. Perhaps because it was hot, a lot of them had on "summer clothes" which showed way more skin, and other things, than is decent, in my view. For that matter, coming out of a hotel a barista was coming in wearing a t-shirt who had chosen to omit undergarments and was showing, well, through. I almost turned to my daughter who was with me and thanked her for not dressing like so much of what I was seeing, but I didn't.
On that, some of the younger women were clearly with a parent. Why would you let a child, even if not a child any longer, go out dressed like that?
I'm not really proud of noticing and I didn't glare or stare, but frankly with so much on display its impossible not to notice anything. I'm old, but not dead, and there's way too much on display, certainly way more than is the case up here in the rude hinterlands. A Christian should have custody of their eyes but I'd rather other folks make it easy to exercise.
Also on display were vast numbers of tattoos, some artful and some really bad. Having a bad tattoo has to be a bummer.
I was reminded of how much I don't like country music. My wife and daughter do, so we listed to one of the XM Radio satellite radio channels on the way down. I never listen to contemporary country music, although over the years I've gotten to where I like some of the older stuff.
Anyhow, I was surprised by how much country music is just devoted to getting drunk. It's weird.
A fair amount is devoted to bad decisions, particularly with alcohol and women. Some has gotten inappropriate towards women in general. One of the songs on the way down I heard was Country Girl, which involves alcohol, and also the lyrics "shake it for me, girl". I've been around country people, including country girls, my entire life and I've never seen a country girl shaking whatever for anyone. Indeed, I've always been impressed by how almost everyone who lives in the sticks knows how to swing dance and tends to wear, usually, a fair amount of clothing, even in the summer.
Ronald Reagan was the first President that I was able to vote for, or against (I voted for) in my lifetime.
The GOP of that era was far from perfect, but I knew what it stood for.
It was pro life, pro defense, tough on crime, pro fiscal responsibility, and overall conservative.
People have claimed that for the Trumpist GOP, but what of it?
1. Pro life?
The GOP went into this election cycle claiming responsibility, which it had every right to do, for the repeal of Roe v. Wade, which returned the abortion issue to the states. Not surprisingly, however, a controversial issue remains controversial. Now the GOP is running from the issue as quickly as it can. It took its pro life plank out of its platform, where it's been for decades. And now we have Trump, who has flip flopped on the issue for decades, stating this, in regard to a proposed six week provision in Florida:
I think the six week is too short, there has to be more time
This is really a simple issue. Either you believe that life starts at conception, or aren't sure when a human is a human and therefore you err on the side of life, or you think killing only matters at some arbitrary point in time in which you can't stomach it.
At best, the Republicans here can claim to support State's Rights, but pro life? Donald isn't.
Added to that is this, which gets also into the next topic.
I am announcing today that under the Trump administration, your government will pay for or your insurance company will be mandated to pay for all costs associated with IVF treatment.
We want more babies!
IVF means the creation of large numbers of embryos that are later killed, and in Catholic theology, IVF is regarded as a moral evil.
It's notable that Vance, who is a Catholic convert, has made some statements now generally supporting IVF as he runs towards Trump and away from his Faith.
2. Fiscal Responsibility?
Trump added 8T to the federal debt in his term in office.
And he proposed, prior to Harris, cutting income taxes on tips, which has no logical defense. Income is income.
Trump has stood for tax cuts, which have amounted to tax cuts for the wealthy. People, including the wealthy like Elon Musk, have noted the country is going bankrupt. Well, this is a big part of the reason why.
Back to the above, the GOP whined endlessly about Obamacare, and now proposes to expand government support for an insurance payment. What the crud?
3. Pro defense?
The Republican willingness in many quarters to abandon Ukraine says all you need to know about this. Added to it, Trump has a weird relationship with Russia that has never been explained.
Much of the current GOP wants to return to isolationism, which worked oh so well during the 1930s.
4. Tough on crime?
Running Trump says all you really need to know on that.
This party, in spite of what its supporters believe, stands only for reelecting Donald Trump, and nothing else.
Mind you, there were signs of this happening for some time. The entire spectacle of Evangelical Christians lashing themselves to the decks of the Trump serial polygamy ship was never easy to fathom. National Conservatives came on board in a calculated fashion, thinking that when Trump shuffled off his mortal coil they'd be in charge, only to see the less popular portions of their beliefs mocked and categorized as "weird". The Hawk Tuah girl was embraced by the Lynyrd Skynyrd branch of the populist whose Christianity is rather thin and not hardly of the Mike Johnson New Apostolic Reformation variety.
So what does that do to the populist movement in the GOP and the GOP in general? Well, quite a few real Republicans are abandoning ship, particularly those cultural conservatives who were never really Trumpites, but believed there was a moral obligation to support the GOP due to its cultural conservative positions. The American Solidarity Party is suddenly getting a lot of attention because its actually prolife. But a lot of the Trumpites now stand for nothing but Trump and will go down with him like stormtroopers in Berlin on May 2, 1945. Locally those politicians who have arisen in the Populist Freedom Caucus will keep on saying the same things they've been saying, even as their leader is saying the opposite.
Populism always gets co-opted in the end. Here, it already has been. Conservatism, for its part, was simply killed in the party.
A mob of white men broke into the Gibson County, Tennessee Jail, in Treton and lynched sixteen black prisoners.
They had been accused of shooting two white men.
The following day the Mayor of Trenton ordered the firearms of all of Trenton's black residents confiscated, under pain of death, a clearly unconstitutional action.
Things like this, and the event of the day prior, help demonstrate the value of the Second Amendment.
The National Rifle Association, fwiw, was formed just three years prior, but at that time principally engaged in promoting marksmanship.
Last edition:
Good evening.
This is the 37th time I have spoken to you from this office, where so many decisions have been made that shaped the history of this Nation. Each time I have done so to discuss with you some matter that I believe affected the national interest.
In all the decisions I have made in my public life, I have always tried to do what was best for the Nation. Throughout the long and difficult period of Watergate, I have felt it was my duty to persevere, to make every possible effort to complete the term of office to which you elected me.
In the past few days, however, it has become evident to me that I no longer have a strong enough political base in the Congress to justify continuing that effort. As long as there was such a base, I felt strongly that it was necessary to see the constitutional process through to its conclusion, that to do otherwise would be unfaithful to the spirit of that deliberately difficult process and a dangerously destabilizing precedent for the future.
But with the disappearance of that base, I now believe that the constitutional purpose has been served, and there is no longer a need for the process to be prolonged.
I would have preferred to carry through to the finish whatever the personal agony it would have involved, and my family unanimously urged me to do so. But the interest of the Nation must always come before any personal considerations.
From the discussions I have had with Congressional and other leaders, I have concluded that because of the Watergate matter I might not have the support of the Congress that I would consider necessary to back the very difficult decisions and carry out the duties of this office in the way the interests of the Nation would require.
I have never been a quitter. To leave office before my term is completed is abhorrent to every instinct in my body. But as President, I must put the interest of America first. America needs a full-time President and a full-time Congress, particularly at this time with problems we face at home and abroad.
To continue to fight through the months ahead for my personal vindication would almost totally absorb the time and attention of both the President and the Congress in a period when our entire focus should be on the great issues of peace abroad and prosperity without inflation at home.
Therefore, I shall resign the Presidency effective at noon tomorrow. Vice President Ford will be sworn in as President at that hour in this office.
As I recall the high hopes for America with which we began this second term, I feel a great sadness that I will not be here in this office working on your behalf to achieve those hopes in the next 21/2 years. But in turning over direction of the Government to Vice President Ford, I know, as I told the Nation when I nominated him for that office 10 months ago, that the leadership of America will be in good hands.
In passing this office to the Vice President, I also do so with the profound sense of the weight of responsibility that will fall on his shoulders tomorrow and, therefore, of the understanding, the patience, the cooperation he will need from all Americans.
As he assumes that responsibility, he will deserve the help and the support of all of us. As we look to the future, the first essential is to begin healing the wounds of this Nation, to put the bitterness and divisions of the recent past behind us, and to rediscover those shared ideals that lie at the heart of our strength and unity as a great and as a free people.
By taking this action, I hope that I will have hastened the start of that process of healing which is so desperately needed in America.
I regret deeply any injuries that may have been done in the course of the events that led to this decision. I would say only that if some of my Judgments were wrong, and some were wrong, they were made in what I believed at the time to be the best interest of the Nation.
To those who have stood with me during these past difficult months, to my family, my friends, to many others who joined in supporting my cause because they believed it was right, I will be eternally grateful for your support.
And to those who have not felt able to give me your support, let me say I leave with no bitterness toward those who have opposed me, because all of us, in the final analysis, have been concerned with the good of the country, however our judgments might differ.
So, let us all now join together in affirming that common commitment and in helping our new President succeed for the benefit of all Americans.
I shall leave this office with regret at not completing my term, but with gratitude for the privilege of serving as your President for the past 51/2 years. These years have been a momentous time in the history of our Nation and the world. They have been a time of achievement in which we can all be proud, achievements that represent the shared efforts of the Administration, the Congress, and the people.
But the challenges ahead are equally great, and they, too, will require the support and the efforts of the Congress and the people working in cooperation with the new Administration.
We have ended America's longest war, but in the work of securing a lasting peace in the world, the goals ahead are even more far-reaching and more difficult. We must complete a structure of peace so that it will be said of this generation, our generation of Americans, by the people of all nations, not only that we ended one war but that we prevented future wars.
We have unlocked the doors that for a quarter of a century stood between the United States and the People's Republic of China.
We must now ensure that the one quarter of the world's people who live in the People's Republic of China will be and remain not our enemies but our friends.
In the Middle East, 100 million people in the Arab countries, many of whom have considered us their enemy for nearly 20 years, now look on us as their friends. We must continue to build on that friendship so that peace can settle at last over the Middle East and so that the cradle of civilization will not become its grave.
Together with the Soviet Union we have made the crucial breakthroughs that have begun the process of limiting nuclear arms. But we must set as our goal not just limiting but reducing and finally destroying these terrible weapons so that they cannot destroy civilization and so that the threat of nuclear war will no longer hang over the world and the people.
We have opened the new relation with the Soviet Union. We must continue to develop and expand that new relationship so that the two strongest nations of the world will live together in cooperation rather than confrontation.
Around the world, in Asia, in Africa, in Latin America, in the Middle East, there are millions of people who live in terrible poverty, even starvation. We must keep as our goal turning away from production for war and expanding production for peace so that people everywhere on this earth can at last look forward in their children's time, if not in our own time, to having the necessities for a decent life.
Here in America, we are fortunate that most of our people have not only the blessings of liberty but also the means to live full and good and, by the world's standards, even abundant lives. We must press on, however, toward a goal of not only more and better jobs but of full opportunity for every American and of what we are striving so hard right now to achieve, prosperity without inflation.
For more than a quarter of a century in public life I have shared in the turbulent history of this era. I have fought for what I believed in. I have tried to the best of my ability to discharge those duties and meet those responsibilities that were entrusted to me.
Sometimes I have succeeded and sometimes I have failed, but always I have taken heart from what Theodore Roosevelt once said about the man in the arena, "whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes short again and again because there is not effort without error and shortcoming, but who does actually strive to do the deed, who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumphs of high achievements and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly."
I pledge to you tonight that as long as I have a breath of life in my body, I shall continue in that spirit. I shall continue to work for the great causes to which I have been dedicated throughout my years as a Congressman, a Senator, a Vice President, and President, the cause of peace not just for America but among all nations, prosperity, justice, and opportunity for all of our people.
There is one cause above all to which I have been devoted and to which I shall always be devoted for as long as I live.
When I first took the oath of office as President 51/2 years ago, I made this sacred commitment, to "consecrate my office, my energies, and all the wisdom I can summon to the cause of peace among nations."
I have done my very best in all the days since to be true to that pledge. As a result of these efforts, I am confident that the world is a safer place today, not only for the people of America but for the people of all nations, and that all of our children have a better chance than before of living in peace rather than dying in war.
This, more than anything, is what I hoped to achieve when I sought the Presidency. This, more than anything, is what I hope will be my legacy to you, to our country, as I leave the Presidency.
To have served in this office is to have felt a very personal sense of kinship with each and every American. In leaving it, I do so with this prayer: May God's grace be with you in all the days ahead.
It's interesting that this comes just as President Biden has announced that he's not confident that there shall be a peaceful transfer of power this year, due to the presence of Donald Trump, who will not do what Nixon did for the good of the country.
A Japanese/American climbing team found seven out of eight of the deceased members of an all female Soviet mountain climbing team that had perished on Lenin Peak.
The peak is now on the Kyrgyzstan–Tajikistan border and is the highest peak in both countries. There have been proposals to rename it rather than have its name attach to the vile, as it currently does.
Last edition:
The White House released transcripts of subpoenaed tape recordings. The tapes demonstrated that President Nixon and his chief of staff H.R. Haldeman had discussed a plan in June 1972 to use the CIA to thwart the FBI’s Watergate investigation. They also showed that Nixon had ordered the FBI to halt investigation of the Watergate matter.
Nixon then issued a statement acknowledging guilt, and that matters would go to the Senate for an impeachment trial. Congressional supporters of Nixon began to rapidly change their view.
The first Tank McNamara comic strip was printed.
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I wonder what the current court would do?
The Greek military junta resigned in favor of former Premier Konstantinos Karamanlis who immediately granted amnesty to political prisoners.
The Huntsville Prison siege began in Huntsville, Texas.
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