Listening to too much Prince? Parlor Pink Insurrectionist? Trump red with reservations? A surprising look for a January 6 Insurrectionist.

 #FBIWFO released photos of this woman who allegedly participated in the U.S. Capitol riots on January 6, 2021. If you recognize her, call 1-800-225-5324 or visit http://tips.fbi.gov to submit a tip. Refer to photo 537 in your tip.

10:02 AM · Apr 27, 2023

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Friday, April 27, 1973. The removal of the Chagossians. Fall of Patrick Gray.

The United Kingdom concluded the forced expulsion of the Chagossians from the Chagos Archipelago.

The extremely remote mid-ocean Indian Ocean islands were originally uninhabited, but came to have a population when under French administration. The original population was enslaved, and brought by the French from Madagascar and other African locations.  They were emancipated in 1840, the islands having belonged to the United Kingdom since 1814.  They were employed as workers on coconut plantations, that being the primary economy of the islands.

The British depopulation campaign was undertaken for the United States, which sought to use the islands for military purposes.  The best known of the islands is Diego Garcia, which remains a U.S. Naval installation.

L. Patrick Gray resigned as Interim Director of the FBI after it was revealed he destroyed materials removed from E. Howard Hunt's safe.  He spent the next seven years providing testimony regarding Watergate.

Gray was a 1940 Naval Academy graduate who attended law school while still in the Navy.  His naval career was distinguished, and he was discouraged from leaving the service when he did in 1960, meaning that at that time he'd had a twenty-year Naval career.

He was a recent appointee to the FBI when the Watergate scandal broke out.  Initially he was heavily involved in the investigation and pursued it vigorously. When it became clear the administration was involved, he turned the matter over to his deputy, Mark Felt, who later turned out to be the famous leaker to the press, "Deep Throat".

According to Gray, who does seem to have had no involvement with the Watergate conspiracy or its cover up, the papers he removed were told to him to be of national security significant.  Prior to destroying them, he examined them, and later stated that one set of papers were "false" secret cables indicating that the Kennedy Administration was involved with the Diem assassination and the second set papers written by Kennedy about his "peccadilloes". 

Friday, January 15, 1943. Tragedies and the Pentagon dedication.

US B-24s bombed a Japanese convoy off the coast of Burma and sank the Nichimei Maru, which was, unbeknownst to them, carrying 1,000 Dutch and Australian POWs.  Most survived, but over 50 lost their lives.

Eric Knight, author of the Lassie books, died in a C-54 air crash in Dutch Guiana.  He was serving as a Major in the U.S. Army and assigned to Special Services at the time.

Knight had been born in 1897 in the United Kingdom.  His family moved to the US in 1912, but he'd only been an American citizen since 1942.

FBI agents Harold D. Haberfeld and Percy E. Foxworth were killed in an aviation accident in Suriname.  The were flying to North Africa at the request of Gen. Eisenhower in a role seconded to the military at the time.

Topographic map of Pentagon area in 1945.

The Pentagon was dedicated.  Construction had only commenced on September 11, 1941, which says something about. . . well something.

The British launch a new offensive against the Afrika Korps at Beurat, Libya.  Tunisia saw a lot of air action on this day, and Tripoli, Libya was bombed by US and RAF B-24s.

Andrée de Jongh

Belgian resistance worker and member of the nobility, Andrée de Jongh, organizer and leader of the Comet Line that assisted downed Allied aircrewmen to escape the Germans, was arrested in southern France.  She survived the war and went on to work in leper hospitals all over the world thereafter.  She was decorated by the United States and United Kingdom after the war, and made a Belgian Countess.

The XP-54 flew for the first time.

The airplane was a pusher, and performed below expectations and therefore did not enter service.

The Post Insurrection. Falling chips. Part IV.

August 9, 2022

Yesterday, the FBI raided the home of former President Donald Trump.

There's a lot of speculation on what they were looking for, but it's just that, speculation.  That speculation seems to be centered on documents that were improperly taken by the former President, but at least from my prospective that explanation seems excessively limited.  It'd have to be further explained by what was removed and why that required a warrant to enter.

I'm not saying that it was improper.  Personally, in my view, there seems to be ample evidence to charge Trump with seditious conspiracy at this point.

Something is clearly going on, at any rate.

August 11, 2022

Donald J. Trump appeared for his deposition in New York yesterday and invoked the 5th Amendment for all of the questions.  The New York action involves his business affairs, not his presidency.

Trump has repeatedly stated in the past that only the guilty take the 5th Amendment.

Much attention has been paid to the FBI raid on his residence at Mar-a-Lago, with many Republicans wringing their hands over the matter.  It's worth noting that the head of the FBI remains a Trump appointee, and this action required a judge in order to take place.

Two notable Republicans who haven't had that reaction are Mitch McConnell, who hasn't said anything, and Chris Christie, a former U.S. Attorney, who said that opening Trump's safe was "fair game".

August 12, 2022

Responding to Trump and his allies complaints about the FBI search warrant, the Justice Department filed a motion to unseal the warrant with the Attorney General, inviting Trump to not oppose it.  He has until 3:00 this afternoon to decide if he will oppose it or not, but if he does, it'll look pretty bad to say the least.

Whatever it is seeking, apparently the tip that brought it about came from somebody close to Trump.

August 12, cont:

You know darned well that if President Obama had done this, there'd be cries for his conviction for "treason".

FBI agents who searched former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home Monday removed 11 sets of classified documents, including some marked as top secret and meant to be only available in special government facilities, according to documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. 

The Federal Bureau of Investigation agents took around 20 boxes of items, binders of photos, a handwritten note and the executive grant of clemency for Mr. Trump’s ally Roger Stone, a list of items removed from the property shows. Also included in the list was information about the “President of France,” according to the three-page list. The list is contained in a seven-page document that also includes the warrant to search the premises which was granted by a federal magistrate judge in Florida.

Wall Street Journal.

And yet the very same individuals are going to defend Trump on this.  There's no doubt.

Apparently, Trump is under investigation for potential violations of the Espionage Act.  He certainly hasn't been proven guilty of this.  But the fact nonetheless remains that what occurred here is 1) indicative of something, and 2) that something isn't defensible.

August 13, 2022

Donald Trump is now claiming that President Obama kept 33,000,000 pages of documents after he left office, some of which were classified.  More specifically, he stated:

President Barack Hussein Obama kept 33 million pages of documents, much of them classified. How many of them pertained to nuclear? Word is, lots!

This is false.

At least one news report noting that Republicans are rallying to Trump's defense, again, is good news for the Democrats going into the primaries.

It's often stated that "elections have consequences", which is quite true. But do telling lies, have any?

August 29, 2022

Everyone is now aware of the FBI raid on the former President's Mar-a-Lago home.  While the full details of this are very much yet to be revealed, it's clear that he took confidential materials to his Florida golf resort estate and failed to return them when asked.  What the situation is beyond that, we really don't know.

It's caused an interesting reaction. Republicans, who earlier wanted to "lock her (Hilary Clinton) up, are now wanting to "defund" the FBI.  Clearly there's hypocrisy on both sides here in that Clinton's errors, while much less severe, were real, and these are mind-boggling. A security review is now underway.

Inserted into this, as part of the overall tale of risk, it has developed that a woman presenting herself as one Anna de Rothschild, a member of the famous European banking family, made her way into Mar-a-Lago was in fact Inna Yashchyshyn, an American-born Russian-speaking individual of Ukrainian extraction whose job involves bringing Russian women to the United States so to deliver their infants so that the children can obtain U.S. citizenship. Her tale, replete with multiple passports, etc., is more than a little odd.

That's weird enough, but the rest of it is strange to say the least.  Her status was revealed to Mar-a-Lago by music personality Dean Lawrence.

August 30, 2022

Donald Trump demanded that he be installed as President immediately or that a new Presidential election be held.

It's difficult that he actually believes that either demand will be taken seriously, so it has to be assumed that this is merely for attention or red meat for the least politically astute of his followers.

August 31, 2022

Ann Coulter, one of the earliest loud far right voices, and an early fan of Donald Trump who later soured on him, has come out with a blistering article calling him a "grifter" and "done".

September 2, 2022

Ginni Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, emailed Wisconsin legislators to overturn the results of the 2020 election.  It was already known that she made similar efforts with Arizona.

There are very few jobs in the country where, if your spouse holds them, you ought to curb your political activities, but frankly being a member of the judiciary is one.

September 9, 2022

Ty Cobb, former White House lawyer, came out in an interview calling Donald Trump a "deeply wounded narcissists"  and gave a damning series of opinions on Trump's actions.  He feels an indictment is likely.

September 30, 2022

Ginni Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice, Clarence Thomas, appeared in front of the January 6 Committee and reported reiterated her belief that the 2020 election had been stolen, without providing evidence as to why she believes this.

Having recently received two emails on this topic myself, one of which was highly vitriolic, but well written, I think it's safe to assume there's no convincing anyone that the attempted coup was that, at this point, who has set his mind to the opposite.

October 13, 2022

The January 6 Committee has subpoenaed Donald J. Trump.

October 14, 2022

November 12, 2022

Donald Trump has sued over his subpoena to present for a deposition for the January 6 Committee.

This isn't really a surprise.  It's in Trump's interest to keep this up in the air until January, in hopes that the Republicans take the House and end the committee's charge.

And while it is still too early to make that call, it at least appears likely that the GOP will take the House back, although by a fairly tiny margin.

November 19, 2022

A special counsel has been named by the Justice Department to investigate the insurrection and Trump as well as the classified material situation involving Mar-a-Lago.

December 19, 2022

The January 6 committee has referred Donald Trump to the U.S. Attorney General on charges of obstruction of an official proceeding, conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to make a false statement and inciting, assisting or providing aid and comfort to an insurrection.  It has also referred Kevin McCarthy, Jim Jordan, Scott Perry and Andy Biggs to the ethics committee for failure to honor a subpoena to the committee.

The committee has completed its work and issues its report.

The U.S. Attorney General is unlikely to specifically act on the committee's referral, as it is conducting its own investigation.

Last prior edition:

The Post Insurrection. The investigation goes live. The Tragic Part III.

Saturday, September 16, 1972. Premier of the Bob Newhart Show.

Cast of The Bob Newhart Show.

The Bob Newhart Show premiered on CBS.  One of the great sitcoms of the 1970s, it would run only until 1978.

I'm actually fairly surprised, as I well recall the show and would have thought that it premiered a little later than 1972.  Having said that it has always, in my memory, seemed very early and mid 1970s, not late 1970s.  My family watched it regularly.

The show was set in Chicago at a time just after the television Rural Purge which would feature a lot of television comedies set in mid-sized Midwestern cities. WKRP In Cincinnati, for example, was set, obviously, in Cincinnati. The Mary Tyler Moore Show was set in Minneapolis.

Earlier that same week, on September 14, the nostalgic The Waltons commenced airing.  While fondly remembered, I never liked it.  I really dislike Spencer's Mountain, which is based on the same source material.

We didn't watch The Waltons, but even back then I had the feeling I ought to like it.  I never did and never have.  It always, even in the 1970s, had the feel of a show filmed in the 1970s, with the look of the 1970s, trying to be about the 1930s.  It ran until 1981.  Additionally, the set and the fact that it was tapped made it impossible to suspend awareness that you were, in fact, watching it in the 1970s.

The show was unusual in that it had a rural setting at a time in which most television shows did not.  It was also unusual in that it presented a very clean, romanticized, look at the Great Depression, something that was well within living memory of many of the viewers.  In this fashion, it contrasted with the earlier Spencer's Mountain, which was centered on desperation.   Both were based on the work of Earl Hamner Jr. who had grown up in Depression era Virginia.  Hamner died in 2016 at the age of 92.

FBI Associate Director W. Mark Felt reviewed a draft of Bob Woodward's news story on Watergate by telephone and confirmed an anonymous tip that money from Maurice Stans had been used to finance the break in of the Watergate Hotel.  Felt did so undercover, using the odd and somewhat perverted cover name Deep Throat.

March 8, 1971. The Fight Of The Century

Muhammed Ali was defeated on this day by Joe Frazier in what was billed The Fight Of The Century.

Boxing was still a really big deal in 1971 when, on this day, Muhammed Ali was defeated in the ring by Joe Frazier. The heavily promoted match in Madison Square Garden was heavily anticipated and went the full fifteen rounds, giving Frazier the heavyweight title by unanimous decision.

The self styled Citizens Commission to Investigate the FBI broke into the FBI's offices in Media, Pennsylvania and stole over 1,000 documents. The break in was timed to coincide with the boxing match, as the participants knew that it was likely to distract anyone who would otherwise hear them break in.  The stolen documents demonstrated that the FBI was engaged on spying on political entities, with most of them being left wing political entities.  They immediately offered the information to the press but it wasn't until the Washington Post started publishing from the materials that other papers followed suit.

This FBI was unable to determine the identity of the thieves and a five  year statute of limitations ran out, upon which they closed their investigation.  In the 2010s five of the eight members of the Commission agreed to be interviewed and identified for a book. Two chose to remain identified only by pseudonyms.  Only one of the members actually had taken flight following the theft.  It was the only action the Commission took during its existence, although two members were part of the Camden 28, a left wing Catholic youth organization that broke into the draft board in Camden, New Jersey, several months later, a fairly pointless act when its realized that the United States was drawing down from the Vietnam War at the time.  Those two were tried along with the rest of the 28 and found not guilty in 1973 in an act of jury nullification.

The event presents some interesting moral questions. The self styled commission had no authority other than its own, and it engaged in theft.   However, it did expose the FBI to having been engaged in illegal activity.

Tuesday, March 16, 1909. A serious Congress.

Taft wrote Congress regarding tariff reduction.

To The Senate and House of Representatives:

I have convened Congress in this extra session in order to enable it to give immediate consideration to the revision of the Dingley tariff act. Conditions affecting production, manufacture, and business generally have so changed in the last twelve years as to require a readjustment and revision of the import duties imposed by that act. More than this, the present tariff act, with the other sources of government revenue, does not furnish income enough to pay the authorized expenditures. By July 1 next the excess of expenses over receipts for the current fiscal year will equal $100,000,000.

The successful party in the late lection is pledged to a revision of the tariff. The country, and the business community especially, expect it. The prospect of a change in the rates of import duties always causes a suspension or halt in business because of the uncertainty as to the changes to be made and their effect. It is therefore of the highest importance that the new bill should be agreed upon and passed with as much speed as possible consistent with its due and thorough consideration. For these reasons, I have deemed the present to be an extraordinary occasion within the meaning of the Constitution, justifying and requiring the calling of an extra session. In my inaugural address I stated in a summary way the principles upon which, in my judgment, the revision of the tariff should proceed, and indicated at least one new source of revenue that might be properly resorted to in order to avoid a future deficit It is not necessary for me to repeat what I then said.

I venture to suggest that the vital business interests of the country require that the attention of the Congress in this session be chiefly devoted to the consideration of the new tariff bill, and that the less time given to other subjects of legislation in this session, the better for the country.

The Bureau of Investigation, now the Federal Bureau of Investigation, was created.

Lubbock, Texas was incorporated.

Henry Timken, inventor of the Timken roller bearing, died at age 76.

Last prior edition:

Monday, March 15, 1909. Walking.