Well, at least an orange haired tycoon associated with dubiousity wasn't involved.
Seven coal miners at the Nunnery Colliery in the United Kingdom were killed when a rope hauling a mine transport severed.
Interestingly, at least to me, an elevator cable severed in an elevator I was riding in last week. It was retroactively horrifying, but not like this.
Released on this date in 1923. It was the first film to feature Peggy-Jean Montgomery, aka "Baby Peggy".
She died at age 101 in 2020, being the last person with a substantial career in the silent film industry. She struggled in later years to disassociate herself from her childhood role, which brought her derision from other in the industry. She became a successful author, and was a convert to Catholicism.
Unit patch of the 2nd Marine Division. Only during World War Two did the Marine Corps ultimately adopt divisional patches.
The Battle of Tarawa concluded at 1:00 p.m., local time, after 77 hours of combat. The Battle of Makin also concluded.
U.S. Army 27th Infantry Division unit patch.
FWIW, there are 138 miles between the two islands.
Tarawa would add to the status of the Marines that Guadalcanal had already conveyed. The fighting was horrific. The public, however, was stunned by the level of US losses.
The Deutsche Opernhause in Berlin was destroyed in a British air raid, as was the Berlin Zoo, which resulted in the loss of most of its 4,000 animals. Over the week Berlin would further lose the German National Theatre, the National Gallery, the Invalidenstrasse Museum, the Hotel Bristol, the Charite Hospital, the City Hospital, the Schulstrasse Maternity Hospital, the Lichterfelde-East Rail Station, and the embassies of France, Sweden, Turkey, Iran and Slovakia.
Hitler witnessed a demonstration of the ME262. Perhaps because of events like that described above, he ordered that the jet fighter be redesigned to carry bombs, thereby delaying production of the aircraft.
The extent to which people like to satirical claim that "Hitler was the best general the Allies had" has been overdone. Frankly, quite a few of his strategic and even tactical decisions during the war were correct over the opposition of his general. By this point, however, he was starting to make really significant blunders, of which this was one. Germany's task at this point, from the position of its airspace, was to defend it, which the ME262 would prove quite able at. The resulting delay was accordingly significant.
German forces landed on Samos in the Aegean.
Roosevelt, at the Cairo Conference, sent a message to Congress regarding the post-war return of servicemen.
Message to Congress on the Return of Service Personnel
to Civilian Life
November 23 , 1943
To the Congress:
All of us are concentrating now on the one primary objective of winning this war. But even as we devote our energy and resources to that purpose, we cannot neglect to plan for things to come after victory is won.
The problem of reconverting wartime America to a peacetime basis is one for which we are now laying plans to be submitted to the Congress for action. As I said last July:
"The returning soldier and sailor and marine are a part of the problem of demobilizing the rest of the millions of Americans who have been working and living in a war economy since 1941. . . . But the members of the armed forces have been compelled to make greater economic sacrifice and every other kind of sacrifice than the rest of us, and they are entitled to definite action to help take care of their special problems."
At that time I outlined what seemed to me to be a minimum of action to which the members of our armed forces are entitled over and above that taken for other citizens.
What our service men and women want, more than anything else, is the assurance of satisfactory employment upon their return to civil life. The first task after the war is to provide employment for them and for our demobilized war workers.
There were skeptics who said that our wartime production goals would never be attained. There will also be skeptics who will question our ability to make the necessary plans to meet the problems of unemployment and want after the war. But, I am confident that if industry and labor and Government tackle the problems of economic readjustment after the war with the same unity of purpose and with the same ingenuity, resourcefulness, and boldness that they have employed to such advantage in wartime production, they can solve them.
We must not lower our sights to prewar levels. The goal after the war should be the maximum utilization of our human and material resources. This is the way to rout the forces of insecurity and unemployment at home, as completely as we shall have defeated the forces of tyranny and oppression on the fields of battle.
There are, however, certain measures which merit the immediate attention of the Congress to round out the program already commenced for the special protection of the members of the armed forces.
The Congress has already enacted a generous program of benefits for service men and for the widows and dependents of those killed in action.
For example:
(1) Under the National Service Life Insurance Act, life insurance at low premium rates is now available to members of the armed forces in amounts not less than $1,000 and not more than $10,000 per person. A total of nearly $90,000,000,000 of insurance has already been applied for.
(2) In addition, provision has been made, under the Soldiers' and Sailors' Relief Act, for the guarantee by the Government of the payment of premiums on commercial policies held by members of the armed forces while in service. Premiums on insurance totaling $135,582,000 have been guaranteed, as a result of 56,276 applications by service men for such relief.
(3) The Congress has also enacted legislation making provision for the hospitalization and medical care of all veterans of the present war, and for the vocational rehabilitation and training of those suffering from disability incurred in, or aggravated by, military service, when such disability results in a vocational handicap preventing reemployment. Similar provision has been made for the rehabilitation of disabled persons in civil life, who, with proper training, can be equipped to play a useful part in the war effort at home. Men who are rejected for military service because of physical or mental defects, or who are discharged from the armed forces because of a disability existing at the time of induction, are thus eligible for such rehabilitation services and training as may be necessary and feasible in order to fit them for useful and gainful employment.
(4) By recent legislation, our present service men and women have been assured the same pension benefits for death or disability incurred in the line of duty while in active military service as are provided for the veterans of prior wars. The pension rates for the family of those killed in this war were recently increased by the Congress.
The Veterans Administration will, from time to time, request the consideration by the Congress of various amendments of existing laws which will facilitate administration, and which will correct any defects in our present statutory scheme which experience may disclose. I am confident that the Congress, in line with the historic policy of this Government toward its ill, injured, and disabled service men and women, will provide generous appropriations to the Veterans Administration with which to carry out these laws.
(5) Numerous other measures have been adopted for the protection of our service men such as the Soldiers' and Sailors' Civil Relief Act suspending the enforcement of certain obligations against members of the armed forces, the creation of reemployment rights under the Selective Service Act, and the provision for emergency maternity care to the wives and infants of enlisted men.
However, I believe that we must go much further.
We must make provision now to help our returning service men and women bridge the gap from war to peace activity. When the war is over, our men and women in the armed forces will be eager to rejoin their families, get a job, or continue their education, and to pick up the threads of their former lives. They will return at a time when industry will be in the throes of reconversion. Our plans for demobilization of soldiers and sailors must be consistent with our plans for the reconversion of industry and for the creation of employment opportunities for both service men and war workers. Already the armed forces have returned many thousands of service men and women to civil life. The following further steps seem desirable now:
(1) To help service men and women tide over the difficult period of readjustment from military to civilian life, mustering out pay will be needed. It will relieve them of anxiety while they seek private employment or make their personal plans for the future. I therefore recommend to the Congress that it enact legislation and provide funds for the payment of a uniform, reasonable mustering-out pay to all members of the armed forces upon their honorable discharge or transfer to inactive duty. This pay should not be in a lump sum but on a monthly installment basis.
(2) We must anticipate, however, that some members of the armed forces may not be able to obtain employment within a reasonable time after their return to civil life. For them, unemployment allowances should be provided until they can reasonably be absorbed by private industry.
Members of the armed services are not now adequately covered by existing unemployment insurance laws of the States. It is estimated that approximately one-half of them will have no unemployment insurance protection at all when they leave military service. Benefits payable to those who are covered by State law 'are unequal, and will vary greatly among the States because of the wide differences in the provisions of the State laws. The protection in many cases will be inadequate. It is plainly a Federal responsibility to provide for the payment of adequate and equitable allowances to those service men and women who are unable to find employment after their demobilization.
For these reasons, I recommend to the Congress that a uniform system of allowances for unemployed service men and women be established.
I believe that there should be a fixed and uniform rate of benefit for a fixed period of time for all members of the armed forces who, after leaving the service, are unable to find suitable work. In order to qualify for an unemployment allowance each person should 'be obliged to register with the United States Employment Service, and, following the usual practice in unemployment insurance, must be willing to accept available and suitable employment, or to engage in a training course to prepare him for such employment. The protection under this system should be continued for an adequate length of time following the period for which mustering-out payment is made.
At present, persons serving in the merchant marine are not insured under State unemployment insurance laws, primarily because the very nature of their employment carries them beyond the confines of any particular State. I believe that the most effective way of protecting maritime workers against postwar unemployment is to enact without delay a Federal maritime unemployment insurance act. There has been in effect since 1938 a railroad unemployment insurance act, and a similar act for maritime workers is long overdue. Marine workers are, however, insured under the existing Federal old-age and survivors' insurance law.
(3) Members of the armed forces are not receiving credit under the Federal old-age and survivors' insurance law for their period of military service. Credit under the law can be obtained only while a person is engaged in certain specific types of employment. Service in the armed forces is not included in these types. Since the size of the insurance benefits depends upon the total number of years in which credits are obtained, the exclusion of military service will operate to decrease the old-age retirement benefits which will eventually be payable to service men and women. Furthermore, a large number of persons whose dependents were protected by the survivors' insurance benefits at the time they entered the armed forces are losing entirely those insurance rights while they are in service.
I therefore recommend that the Congress enact legislation to make it possible for members of the armed forces to obtain credit under the Federal old-age and survivors' insurance law during their period of military service. The burden of this extension of old-age and survivors' insurance to members of the armed forces should be carried by the Federal Government, and the Federal contributions should be uniform for all members of the armed forces irrespective of their rank.
I have already communicated with the Congress requesting the enactment of legislation to provide educational and training opportunities for the members of the armed forces who desire to pursue their studies after their discharge.
The Congress will agree, I am sure, that, this time, we must have plans and legislation ready for our returning veterans instead of waiting until the last moment. It will give notice to our armed forces that the people back home do not propose to let them down.
It's worth noting the extent to which the Allied leaders in the west were taking the view that victory was simply inevitable.
The target rate is nonsensically 2%, which still robs workers of their wages. Given the recent inflation, a more sensical target would be at or about 0%, or better yet a slight deflationary rate of 1%.
That's the core inflationary rate, by the way. Real inflation is at about 4.1%.
The US is banning private equity investment in China and investment in some Chinese technology companies.
August 12, 2023
The EPA estimates that by 2055 most petroleum fueled vehicles will have attrited off the road.
August 16, 2023
From the Oil City News:
CASPER, Wyo. — Rocky Mountain Power, the state’s largest electric utility, is proposing to raise its energy rates by 29.2%.
August 24, 2023
Before more consolidation of everything is just what we needed:
Subway sandwich chain sells itself to Dunkin’ owner Roark Capital
August 27, 2023
France will spend €200 million to destroy excess wine in hopes of shoring up the struggling wine industry. Wine consumption in Europe has been falling, while production increasing.
September 7, 2023
Chinese exports, upon which that nation depends, have decreased every month of 2023. China's economy is dependent upon exports and there is serious discussion on the country going into a recession.
September 11, 2023
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez faced severe criticism from her constituents, after sharing a video on Instagram from the Kiwi left-wing Aotearoa Liberation League that accredited rising prices solely to corporations and described the discussion surrounding inflation as propaganda.
When I read the headline, I actually wondered if she'd reposted something of Robert Reich's. . .
The bloom has really been off AoC's rose in recent months.
Trump has been heard at campaign dinners indicating that if re elected he will cut taxes, which are too low to start with, and use tariffs as a trade weapon.
September 15, 2023
The United Auto Workers are out on strike.
September 20, 2023
Ford Motors in Canada reached a deal with is union to avoid a strike there.
Republican infighting kept two budget bills from advancing there.
Cont:
A drought in Spain has caused a 50% increase in the price of olive oil, which in turn is causing a spike in olive oil theft.
September 27, 2023
The Writers Guild of America has reached an accommodation with the entertainment industry and has ended its strike.
U.S. regulators and seventeen states have sued Amazon on Tuesday over allegations it uses its position in the economy to inflate prices.
The Senate has drafted a stopgap funding bill it will likely pass, but there's no certainty the dysfunctional House of Representatives will.
September 28, 2023
Kevin McCarthy, prisoner of GOP populists, will not take up the Senate bill to fund the government, making a shutdown impossible to avoid.
The House of Representatives is, quite frankly, dysfunctional.
And given this, we will close out this edition of Subsidiarity Economics, even though its barely gone, and start one focused on that theme.
But not before noting that the U.S. economy recently grew 2.1%.
Kevin McCarthy, prisoner of GOP populists, will not take up the Senate bill to fund the government, making a shutdown impossible to avoid.
The House of Representatives is, quite frankly, dysfunctional.
And given this, we will close out this edition of Subsidiarity Economics, even though its barely gone, and start one focused on that theme.
Kevin McCarthy should hang his head in shame.
What all will close, assuming that the House doesn't get its act together today, isn't clear. Some things will, but "vital" things apparently will not. Some Federal employees will be asked to work without pay, which is interesting, as working without pay is involuntary servitude, and was banned by a post Civil War constitutional amendment.
Congress, oddly, will get paid.
The mail will continue to be delivered, as the U.S. Post Office funds itself.
Arizona and Utah have voted to spend state funds to keep their National Parks open. Senator John Barrasso asked the Secretary of the Interior to use park entry fees to do the same.
Fat Bear Week is off due to the dysfunctional House of Representatives having been taken hostage by populists.
Government contracts and modifications to contracts will not be issued.
Medicaid will continue to be paid. Medicare will continue on.
The FHA will have limited staff and loans it processes will be delayed.
The SBA will shut down.
The ATF might not process background checks, which may lead to a complete halt on the sale of firearms by licensed firearm's dealers.
The latter is the thing that Wyomingites are likely to complain about right away. People in industries supported by tourism are likely to notice the closure of the parks rapidly.
All of this, of course, is because this will be a managed shut down, which is really a limited shutdown or a slow-down. If things continue for some time, and this time they might, a real shutdown may creep in, which Wyomingites, in spite of apparently disdaining the Federal Government, would really feel. A closure of the airports, for example, could be expected at some point, And a cessation of petroleum production on Federal lands due to a lack of Federal oversight. Perhaps a cessation of grazing on the Federal domain for the same reason. And a lack of highway funds.
None of that will happen rapidly, of course. Or maybe at all.
Not from Reich, with whom I obviously have a love/hate relationship, but from the MAGA far right out in the hinterlands, who will be outraged, outraged I tell you, and they'll tell you on their way from the television to the refirgerator for a Coors Lite (can't touch that Bud, of course) who would, they'll say, have enjoyed the shutdown. . .right up until they didn't, and then somehow, it would have been the Democrats fault.Congress passed a 45-day stopgap spending bill yesterday. In doing so, Speaker McCarthy noted:
We’re going to be adults in the room. And we’re going to keep government open.
Well now he has 45 days to see if he can do that.
The bill omitted funding for Ukraine. President Biden noted that in his address regarding the stopgap bill.
Tonight, bipartisan majorities in the House and Senate voted to keep the government open, preventing an unnecessary crisis that would have inflicted needless pain on millions of hardworking Americans. This bill ensures that active-duty troops will continue to get paid, travelers will be spared airport delays, millions of women and children will continue to have access to vital nutrition assistance, and so much more. This is good news for the American people.
But I want to be clear: we should never have been in this position in the first place. Just a few months ago, Speaker McCarthy and I reached a budget agreement to avoid precisely this type of manufactured crisis. For weeks, extreme House Republicans tried to walk away from that deal by demanding drastic cuts that would have been devastating for millions of Americans. They failed.
While the Speaker and the overwhelming majority of Congress have been steadfast in their support for Ukraine, there is no new funding in this agreement to continue that support. We cannot under any circumstances allow American support for Ukraine to be interrupted. I fully expect the Speaker will keep his commitment to the people of Ukraine and secure passage of the support needed to help Ukraine at this critical moment.
McCarthy had to rely on Democrats to pass the bill, and will now surely face an effort aimed at his removal by his hard right.
October 4, 2023
Facebook's parent company Meta is laying off 11,000 employees.
October 5, 2023
75,000 Kaiser Permanente employees went on strike Wednesday. Staffing levels are an issue.
Workers for Mack Truck are going out on a UAW strike.
October 11, 2023
The UAW's strike has expanded to include a Ford plant in Kentucky.
October 15, 2023
The price of oil has jumped 6% since April.
October 24, 2023
Icelandic women are on strike for wage equality.
October 27, 2023
The economy grew by 4.9% last quarter.
October 28, 2023
Governor Gordon sounded climate alarm bells in a speech at Harvard this past week, noting that Wyoming needed to decarbonize. This caused the Wyoming Freedom Caucus to freak out.
The Air Force wants Congress to restrict the placement of wind farms near nuclear missle silos.
November 10, 2023
Moody’s Investors Service is revising the outlook on the U.S. government’s ratings to negative from stable but affirming the long-term issuer and senior unsecured rating at AAA.
Lest anyone doubt, this is bad for the economy and reflects a years long inability to get the deficit under control.
November 21, 2023
Ontario Knife Co. was sold to Blue Ridge Knives and all 56 employees at its Frankliville, New York plant lost their jobs as a result. Blue Ridge owns 800 brand names.
The RAF commenced the airborne Battle of Berlin on this day in 1943, hitting Berlin with 440 Lancaster bombers in a nighttime raid. The raid killed 131 Berliners, caused light damage and resulted in the loss of nine aircraft with 53 airmen. Raids would continue through March, 1944.
Cordell Hull addressed a joint session of Congress on the Moscow Conference.
The Germans opened the Ebensee concentration camp, with the first prisoners being non-Jewish.
The 1st Panzer Division pushed the Red Army out of Zhytomyr.
The U.S. Army issued a report on a newly encountered rifle, the FG42
German paratrooper in raid to free Mussolini carrying a FG42. By Bundesarchiv, Bild 101I-567-1503A-01 / Toni Schneiders / CC-BY-SA 3.0, CC BY-SA 3.0 de, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5412659
Never completely finished in terms of design, the FG42 was arguably the world's first battle rifle, although it is often called an assault rifle. The selective fire rifle, firing the standard full sized German 8x57 round and was designed to fill the role of rifle, light machinegun and submachinegun. It was made in fairly limited numbers.
Following World War Two, the concept would be adopted by NATO countries, in part because of the U.S. rejection of intermediate sized rounds. The FAL, G3, Stg 57, BM59 and M14 are all examples of post war battle rifles.
British soldiers exam a disabled SdKfz 222, the most common German four-wheel armored car.
The Germans, like the British, liked armored cars and used four wheel, six wheel and eight wheel varieties, the latter of which proved influential after World War Two and which inspired armored cars currently in use by the U.S., Canada and Germany. Their four wheeled variants were in the Leichter Panzerspähwagen class and used for reconnaissance.
The U-718 accidentally rammed and sank the U-476 in the Baltic.
The Greek sailing vessels Agios Demetrios and Kanelos were shelled and sunk south-east of the Kassandra peninsula and Strati, Greece by the Royal Navy, although I don't know why.
The HMS Chanticleer was torpedoed off Portugal and damaged beyond repair.
The Empire Dunstan was torpedeoed and sunk in the Ionian Sea.
German patrol boats sank the Soviet No. 35 motor boat in the Black Sea.
The Columbian Ruby was sunk by the U-516.
The Liberty Ship Sambridge was sunk by the I27 in the Gulf of Aden, where you don't really think of Japanese submarines operating.
The Sanae, a Japanese destroyers, was sunk by U.S. submarines.
French aircraft carrier off of Roosevelt Roads, Puerto Rico, November 18, 1943.
The descent of Stefanik has been epic. It hardly makes sense, at least in the case of a person who has any integrity at all. Starting off as a centrist, she's turned into a Trump hack.
This effort to sanction the court and the court's clerk is shocking.
Stefanik is really playing with fire here. There's at least a halfway decent chance she'll be sanctioned for filing such a bogus challenge. And if the country survives the next election, long term she's going to have the same sort of reputation that Joe McCarthy now has, save for the fact that she'll fully deserve it and McCarthy only partially did.
Unlike McCarthy, Stefanik is a mother. What a legacy for that child will be left.
The United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration was created
Senate Resolution 203 was introduced, calling for the Federal Government to come up with a plant to save "the surviving Jewish people of Europe from extinction." House Resolutions 350 and 352 were passed calling for the creation of an agency to resettle those survivors to neutral nations.
Marines on Bougainville, November 1943.
The U.S. Marines prevailed in the Battle for Piva Trail. The 3d Marine Division advanced off the beachhead at Cape Tarokina. The U.S. Army's 37th Division began landing on the island.
Gen. Giraud and Gen. Georges resigned from the Free French Committee of National Liberation. Giraud remained its militar commander in chief.
The U-707 was sunk near the Azores by an RAF B-17.
With as many entries as this was getting that were off-topic, it clearly deserved its own trailing thread.
The 118th Congress. A fairly sad state of affairs.
The Circus Maximus today.
September 14, 2023.
Ring Master, Kevin McCarthy, is expected to endorse an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden.
Soon we'll have a government shutdown as well.
Let's be clear, Congress is no longer functioning. I don't mean there are problems, it's dysfunctional.
The country cannot continue this way. Those taking "stands on principal" are wrecking the county.
These actions are merely red meat for the dogs. They cannot pass, which means those proposing them are either lying to the public, or lying to themselves.
Lying is a sin, and in Catholic theology lying about serious matters is a serious sin.
September 29, 2023
California Senator Dianne Feinstein has died at 90 years of age, having served beyond that period of time during which a simple appreciate of nature and statistics should have led her to step down. Her replacement will now have to be chosen by the Governor of California.
While Feinstein will be widely lauded, there are those who have a less charitable view of her, including myself. Whatever a person's overall views are, however, she served in the Senate passed the point at which she should have yielded to a younger person and now choosing her replacement, and now it will come at a highly politically charged point in our recent political history.
Kevin McCarthy, prisoner of GOP populists, will not take up the Senate bill to fund the government, making a shutdown impossible to avoid.
The House of Representatives is, quite frankly, dysfunctional.
And given this, we will close out this edition of Subsidiarity Economics, even though its barely gone, and start one focused on that theme.
Kevin McCarthy should hang his head in shame.
What all will close, assuming that the House doesn't get its act together today, isn't clear. Some things will, but "vital" things apparently will not. Some Federal employees will be asked to work without pay, which is interesting, as working without pay is involuntary servitude, and was banned by a post Civil War constitutional amendment.
Congress, oddly, will get paid.
The mail will continue to be delivered, as the U.S. Post Office funds itself.
Arizona and Utah have voted to spend state funds to keep their National Parks open. Senator John Barrasso asked the Secretary of the Interior to use park entry fees to do the same.
Fat Bear Week is off due to the dysfunctional House of Representatives having been taken hostage by populists.
Government contracts and modifications to contracts will not be issued.
Medicaid will continue to be paid. Medicare will continue on.
The FHA will have limited staff and loans it processes will be delayed.
The SBA will shut down.
The ATF might not process background checks, which may lead to a complete halt on the sale of firearms by licensed firearm's dealers.
The latter is the thing that Wyomingites are likely to complain about right away. People in industries supported by tourism are likely to notice the closure of the parks rapidly.
All of this, of course, is because this will be a managed shut down, which is really a limited shutdown or a slow-down. If things continue for some time, and this time they might, a real shutdown may creep in, which Wyomingites, in spite of apparently disdaining the Federal Government, would really feel. A closure of the airports, for example, could be expected at some point, And a cessation of petroleum production on Federal lands due to a lack of Federal oversight. Perhaps a cessation of grazing on the Federal domain for the same reason. And a lack of highway funds.
None of that will happen rapidly, of course. Or maybe at all.
Not from Reich, with whom I obviously have a love/hate relationship, but from the MAGA far right out in the hinterlands, who will be outraged, outraged I tell you, and they'll tell you on their way from the television to the refirgerator for a Coors Lite (can't touch that Bud, of course) who would, they'll say, have enjoyed the shutdown. . .right up until they didn't, and then somehow, it would have been the Democrats fault.Congress passed a 45-day stopgap spending bill yesterday. In doing so, Speaker McCarthy noted:
We’re going to be adults in the room. And we’re going to keep government open.
Well now he has 45 days to see if he can do that.
The bill omitted funding for Ukraine. President Biden noted that in his address regarding the stopgap bill.
Tonight, bipartisan majorities in the House and Senate voted to keep the government open, preventing an unnecessary crisis that would have inflicted needless pain on millions of hardworking Americans. This bill ensures that active-duty troops will continue to get paid, travelers will be spared airport delays, millions of women and children will continue to have access to vital nutrition assistance, and so much more. This is good news for the American people.
But I want to be clear: we should never have been in this position in the first place. Just a few months ago, Speaker McCarthy and I reached a budget agreement to avoid precisely this type of manufactured crisis. For weeks, extreme House Republicans tried to walk away from that deal by demanding drastic cuts that would have been devastating for millions of Americans. They failed.
While the Speaker and the overwhelming majority of Congress have been steadfast in their support for Ukraine, there is no new funding in this agreement to continue that support. We cannot under any circumstances allow American support for Ukraine to be interrupted. I fully expect the Speaker will keep his commitment to the people of Ukraine and secure passage of the support needed to help Ukraine at this critical moment.
McCarthy had to rely on Democrats to pass the bill, and will now surely face an effort aimed at his removal by his hard right.
October 2, 2023
Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz, who was instrumental in defeating a Republican bill to keep the budget rolling that included many of the things populist are demanding, is going to try to remove McCarthy as Speaker of the House.
cont:
Gaetz filed a motion to vacate, which would replace McCarthy as Speaker of the House.
To survive, McCarthy now needs the cooperation of Democrats, maybe.
Meanwhile, there is a long brewing effort to remove Gaetz from Congress due to ethics concerns.
October 3, 2023
California Gov. Gavin Newsom selected Laphonza Butler, a Democratic strategist and adviser to Kamala Harris’ 2020 presidential campaign, to fill the late Dianne Feinstein's U.S. Senate seat.
I know nothing about Butler, and she may be supremely qualified, but its hard not to assume there's a fair amount of box checking going on in the selection, something that Democratic politicians are particularly likely to do. Butler is black, fulfilling a Newsom promise, and she's gay, making her the first black openly gay U.S. Senator. Should that matter? No, but its statistically improbable while also fulfilling promises to one major Democratic demographic and also satisfying, maybe, the desires of another.
cont:
As the Democrats would not step in, a debate is now going on to remove Kevin McCarthy as Speaker of the House, even though the GOP has nobody lined up to replace him.
cont:
And now the vote is in and McCarthy has been removed, although it's not impossible he may be put back in the position.
Assuming that does not occur, McCarthy deserves his fate by trying to give too much to too many on the Republican right, a task that ultimately proved to be unworkable. He's a figure in Donald Trump's revival, and therefore deserves the disrespect given to him by Democrats in this recent drama. Who replaces him, however, is an open question. Things could go from bad to worse.
In any event, the U.S. House of Representatives now looks about as bad as it ever has.
cont:
Only 8 Republicans voted to remove McCarthy. The rest were Democrats. So, ironically, the hard right populists had to depend on the votes of the Democrats to remove him.
cont:
McCarthy has indicated he won't run for Speaker again.
And so his fate was sealed by Donald Trump, whom he kissed up to post Insurrection. He deserves his fate, and his place in history will not be a comfortable one.
It'll be interesting to see if his district in Bakersfield reelects him.
And it will be interesting to see if the Republicans retain the House next fall.
October 4, 2023, cont:
Jim Jordan is running for Speaker of the House.
As is Steve Scalise.
October 7, 2023
A vague draft Trump movement exists, although it appears that Trump himself has chosen not to support it. He's supporting Jim Jordan. Of course, he had supported McCarthy.
Liz Cheney gave a speech decrying the nomination of Jordan yesterday in Missoula.
October 8, 2023
Forty-five Republicans have signed a letter labeling the removal of McCarthy as "shameful".
October 12, 2023
Steve Scalise received the nomination of the GOP yesterday and has dropped out of contention today, showing just what a mess the GOP is.
October 13, 2023
Now Jim Jordan has been nominated, although as of yet, he does not have the votes to secure the position.
October 18, 2023
Cynthia Lummis' support for the SAFER banking bill is causing some in Wyoming o think she's a closet supporter of legalizing marijuana, which shows just how odd the times really are.
There's no way she's a supporter of legalizing marijuana.
Banking for marijuana entities, in those states where there are no prohibitions, is very difficult as it still remains against Federal law, even if the Federal government doesn't enforce the law. As a result, it's heavily a cash only business in which the Sinaloa Cartel has stepped into to launder the money. Given that, buyers of buds who think they're just supporting some innocent business, its health concern aside, are most likely financing organized crime. Hence the link.
As an aside, Sinaloa has ordered its fentanyl producers to stop making it under penalty of death in order to avoid increasing U.S. law enforcement.
cont:
Jim Jordan lost his second vote for speaker, with one more Congressman opposing him than previously.
October 19, 2023
Republicans in Congress, waking up like a dedicated drunk in a strange hotel room in a strange city, has looked at Jim Jordan and said "eh. . . how did we get here?".
Jordan, jilted by his date, has now pulled out of the Speaker race, and the republic is the better for it.
It looks like Speaker Pro Tempore Patrick McHenry is going to retain that role, until they just give the job to him.
cont:
Well, as the GOP has rejected the interim plan in favor of fully demonstrating its complete and total dysfunction, Jim Jordan sadly remains on the agenda and there will be a third vote on his canidacy to lead a body which he previously sought to undermine by supporting sedition.
If only ol' Jeff Davis had lived to see these days. . . ugh.
October 20, 2023
And Jordan, having lost a third vote, is back out.
The Freedom Caucus is taking a pounding in this drama and may very well lose some of its power as a result.
October 24, 2023
Tom Emmer of Minnesota, who voted to certify the election and who Trump has let it be known opposes, has the Republican nomination for Speaker.
This is interesting. I don't know much about Emmer, but this would appear to be a drift back towards reality.
Trump has already posted against him, setting this up for a test of his power over Congressional Republicans.
cont:
And Trump wins. Emmer must have decided he could not get to 217 votes so he pulled his name out of consideration.
This is now beyond dysfunctional, it's absurd. An out of office former President who is highly likely to end up in prison is able to control enough of the House to keep anyone from being chosen who doesn't bend to his will.
October 25, 2023
Continuing a Trump win, now is Mike Johnson of Louisiana, a lawyer by trade whose understanding of the constitution, his purported speciality, didn't prevent him from supporting sedition.
British Prime Minister Edward Heath called the White House to discuss the Yom Kippur War but, after some discussion, was told to call back in the morning as President Nixon was drunk. The story related to the Prime Minister was that Nixon was unavailable.
Wyoming politician Bob Ide is saying he's going to sponsor a bill to take the Federal domain into state hands, requiring, as if Wyoming can require the Federal Government to do anything, the fulfillment of a promise that the Federal Government never made at the time Wyoming became a state.
In fact, the opposite was true. Wyoming promised not to seek any more Federal land than it was getting.
But a promise was made regarding those lands. . . to the Cheyenne, Arapahoe and Sioux tribes. . . that being that they could keep them for hunting grounds.
And a larger reservation than they currently have was originally given to the Shoshone.
In her campaign to displace Liz Cheney, Harriet Hageman emphasized the hardworking nature of her family and forebearors, and has been a standard-bearer of conservative and populist values in her brief time in Congress. She's from, she related, a fourth generation ranching family.
But most families that have been in agriculture in Wyoming that long, outside the descendants of British remission men, are remote beneficiaries of a gigantic government system which used Federal agents, in the form of the U.S. Army and Federal Indian Agents, to dispossess the occupants of that land, sometimes by force, and remove them to where they did not want to go, so that the land could be transferred free or cheaply to European Americans. Those original European American occupants, we might note, in the case of homesteaders, were not the wealthy and were perfectly willing to take advantage of a government program.
My point?
Well I don't mean to be one of those who are going to engage in hagiography of any one group of American people, Natives nor European Americans, but on this day it might be worth remembering something.
The "pull up by the bootstraps" argument that the middle class, or lower upper class, so frequently states, or imagines about themselves, fails pretty readily upon close examination. Almost every class of American with longstanding roots in the country that have been here for quite some time benefitted from a government program, whether that be homesteading, Indian removal by the Army, the mining law of 1872, the Taylor grazing act (which saved ranching in the West), the GI Bill, and so on.
That is, in fact, the American System. Not the Darwinian laissez-faire economics that libertarians so often proclaim.
I'm not demanding reparations, or that injustices committed to people of the past be retroactively lamented. Indeed, that's pointless. What I’m suggesting instead is that justice be done for those now living, and that as part of that we admit when we are vicariously beneficiaries of some Federal program in the past, as I am.
And as part of that, I'm also suggesting that we don't engage in myths or hagiographies about our own predecessors. Nobody carved a civilization out of an empty wilderness, unless we go back in North America 15,000 years. Nobody promised that Wyoming could have the public domain. None of us are as independent or virtuous as we pretend, if we pretend that we are, and nobody's ancestors were hearty bands of go it alone giants.
Shoot, even Columbus, if you prefer to ponder him on this day, was on a state funded mission.
Lex Anteinternet: D'uh: “This is a whole new concept of individuals that just want to burn the whole place down,” Mr. McCarthy said on Thursday. “It doesn’t work.” ...
In fairness, far left Democrats joined in with far right Republicans to bring the defense measure down, with the "progressives" voting against the Republican bill as it had eliminated social programs within the Defense Department which they favored.
And so the extreme right, and extreme left, joined, to shut down the government.
Henry Kissinger was confirmed as Secretary of State by the Senate. He had been serving as National Security Advisor under Nixon prior to that.
Kissinger is still alive at age 100 and still occasionally gives his views on foreign policy. Born in Weimar Germany, he immigrated with his parents in 1935 and served in the U.S. Army during World War Two.
A practitioner of realpolitik, I'm frankly not a fan, and regard him as complicit with Nixon in a cynical abandonment of the South Vietnamese.
Ford Motors introduced the lighter, disappointing, Mustang II, demonstrating the decline in American automobiles of the early 1970s as the realitites of being a petroleum importing nation started to set in.
Hunter Biden was indicted on gun charges, something that's embarrassing to his parents, and justifiably embarrassing, but which has nothing to do with the fate of the nation or its running.
Keven McCarthy's right wing in the House are threatening to remove him for not being a bigger clown than he is, and he's daring them to do it.
McCarthy is actually standing against a government shutdown, the first time he's found a backbone since becoming Speaker.
All three of my state's Washington sendees are supporting the impeachment inquiry, even though its certainly the case that two of them know there's no there, there.
Ring Master, Kevin McCarthy, is expected to endorse an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden.
Soon we'll have a government shutdown as well.
Let's be clear, Congress is no longer functioning. I don't mean there are problems, it's dysfunctional.
The country cannot continue this way. Those taking "stands on principal" are wrecking the county.
These actions are merely red meat for the dogs. They cannot pass, which means those proposing them are either lying to the public, or lying to themselves.
Lying is a sin, and in Catholic theology lying about serious matters is a serious sin.
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