Froma Harrop: How Low Can Deviancy Go?

 

How Low Can Deviancy Go?

The Madness of King Donald. The 25th Amendment Watch List, Third Edition and Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist, 98th edition. The Perverts and Fellow Travelers Issue.

July 19, 2025.

 

I wrote you in my letter not to associate with immoral people, not at all referring to the immoral of this world or the greedy and robbers or idolaters; for you would then have to leave the world.

But I now write to you not to associate with anyone named a brother, if he is immoral, greedy, an idolater, a slanderer, a drunkard, or a robber, not even to eat with such a person.

For why should I be judging outsiders? Is it not your business to judge those within?

God will judge those outside. “Purge the evil person from your midst.

St. Paul to the Corinthians..

The Wall Street Journal reports that Trump 2003 birthday wishes to Jeffrey Epstein, part of a book compiled for Epstein's birthday by his paramour and fellow procurer Ghislaine Maxwell included a Trump made drawing of a naked woman, with "Donald" written over the figure's genitals and apparently somewhat mimicking pubic hairs.

I'm not going to post the drawing.

Of course, Trump, in Trump fashion, has declared it to be a fake.  And now he's suing the Wall Street Journal.

This all followed an increasingly desperate effort on Trump's part to divert attention from this story. Rather than try to set out the reasons that the story won't go away, I'll just link in this analysis with Ezra Klein, with which I agree.

Trying to get ahead of this, and I think that he'll find by suing the Journal he set himself behind, he's also ordered the release of the Epstein grand jury testimony.

Not the supposed "Epstein files", but the grand jury testimony.   That's frankly not what people have been asking for, but its offered out as red meat for the dogs in hopes that they'll satiate themselves and go away.

It doesn't look like they will.

His most loyal supporters, of course, have simply built this into their conspiracy theory, although in a way in which the logic train derails pretty quickly.  Trump isn't hiding anything. . . it was the Democrats. . . .

Um, okay. . . 

I have a feeling the 25th Amendment schedule has been moved up.

The simple fact of the matter is that Donald Trump has a forty year history of hanging out with kiddy diddling creeps.  That didn't start with Epstein.  Maybe you could hang around in a pornographic atmosphere for 40 years and not inhale anything, but it wouldn't be easy.  And once the rot sets in, and the poison is available, it tends to corrupt.

Hugh Hefner was always a creep.  But he was married when he started off on his path of dissipation.  He wasn't rapey at first.

And its been clear for a long time, for those who have cared to look even a little, that Trump is a deeply immoral man, and he's surrounded himself, in many instances, by those who are likewise deeply immoral.

Trump has 5 kids with 3 women.

Elon Musk has 14 kids with 4 women.

Pete Hegseth has 7 kids with 3 women.

Linda McMahon is being sued for enabling child sexual abuse. 

Trump's affinity for young women has been denied by his defenders, but his own words convict him. Trump, with Howard Stern on the topic of a teenage Lindsay Lohan, stated:

TRUMP: What do you think of Lindsay Lohan?

STERN: She's hot.

TRUMP: I've seen a close-up of her chest. Are you into freckles?

STERN: Imagine having sex with this troubled teen?

TRUMP: She's probably deeply troubled—and great in bed.

From the same interview:

TRUMP: How come the deeply troubled women, deeply deeply troubled.

STERN: Right.

TRUMP: They're always the best in bed. For some reason what I said is true. I mean they're just unbelievable.

STERN: I can tell.

TRUMP: You don't want to be with them for the long term—but for the short term, there is nothing like it.

How is it that this administration, lead by a serial polygamists, who hasn't given any indication he's reconsidered the morality of his conduct, and who is now floundering like a fish on the deck on the Epstein scandal, can be seriously regarded as some sort of Christian leader? 

Well, that was always baloney in the first place.  Nobody can identify a Christian denomination that Trump is actually a member of.  He was a Presbyterian growing up, but he's disavowed that religion.  He's sort of generic American Evangelical at best, which makes sense as by and large American Evangelicalism has dumped a lot of Christianity, particularly in the sexual area. . . as long as its conventional.

Populist right wing America has long accommodated itself to deep sexual immorality, but only of a conventional kind.  Far less than a century ago it was difficult for Americans to obtain a divorce, and divorce was looked down upon.  Now people who have repeat marriages, or who are living together outside of marriage, have no problem identifying themselves as right wing American Evangelicals.  St. Paul may have cautioned people about all sexual immorality, but in the American Civil Religion, that doesn't apply to sex between a man and a woman, apparently.

Unless, it turns out, that woman is under 18 years old.  That, it turns out, is a bridge too far.

Of course, there's no reason to believe that Trump ever saw any lines as blurred, or any lines at all.  Maybe he didn't bed teenage girls, but he hung around with those who did.  That alone is wrong.

But we don't know, of course, what we don't know.  If we were detectives, and assigned this as a set of facts to investigate, we'd sure suspect that quite a bit of kiddy diddling was going on in this circle of very wealthy "pals".  Indeed, their money alone would make it easy for them to get away with things for a long time, or perhaps indefinitely.

It'd make a great film noir, albeit a creepy one.

If it all feels like something deeply fake has been and is going on here, it's also now admitted that Trump's constant claims to perfect health are fake.  He has chronic venous insufficiency.  It won't kill him or anything, but it doesn't suddenly appear either.  He is an old man, with an old man's disease.  He's had it for awhile.

Old, and under stress, Trump's rambling "weave" has become so normal that people don't even pay attention to it anymore.  On Tuesday, Trump interrupted an energy and innovation event in Pennsylvania to “brag” about his uncle, John Trump, claiming that the at MIT professor had been particularly impressed with student Ted Kaczynski.

Dr. Trump died in 1985, before Kaczynski was identified as the Unabomber.  And Kaczynski didn't go to MIT.

Trump went after  Fed chair Jerome Powell and was upset that Biden appointed him. . . except he didn't appoint him. Trump did.

Trump's routinely claiming that petroleum prices have gone way down at the pump.  They haven't.

Okay, what's this have to do with the 25th Amendment?  Well, it's that bridge too far thing.  I've long predicted that Trump would be removed from office under the 25th Amendment before the November, 2026 election.  I think this speeds that up.  Trump's utility to the NatCons is almost done with.  The Big Ugly Bill was passed, and spending on things the NatCons disapprove of has been cut.  ICE  and the Border Patrol are getting a massive funding boost, and that's going to see mass deportations really ramp up.

Of all of Trump's supposed agenda items, the ones that NatCons really care about have been pretty well advanced.  None of them have achieved what might be regarded as full success, but they've gone a lot further than they had a right to hope for.  Trump's ongoing association with them, however, isn't going to advance them any further.  Indeed, as people begin to feel the impact of funding cuts, they'll start to get angry.  If it turns out that Trump was fishing in the shallow end of the female pool, it's completely done with.

In fact, the best thing that could possibly happen for the NatCons would be if Trump turns out to be a Dirk Diddler with an eye for girls who should be looking for prom dates.

Eh?

Well, here's why.

I've always maintained that Trump has no real allegiance to anything other than Trump.  NatCons certainly do, however.  NatCons have always known that their vision, which is relatively new in American politics, had very little chance of rapidly advancing as they had no chance of finding a Francisco Franco who could get elected.  They're smart, and they also realized that they could coopt populist discontent, something that ironically the Democrats had a chance of doing with Bernie Sanders.  And right wing populism legitimately shares some common goals with National Conservatism, which is nationalistic, ethno-nationalistic, and isolationist.

Where the two depart, however, is that populism is always a very shallow stream.  Most populists would be happy if "Mexicans" were sent home, and everyone had to be a "Christian", in a fashion that didn't include the Apostolic Faiths, and which didn't really make you "go to Church" on Sundays, or which held that the spouse you married three spouses ago is your real spouse.  NatCons, however, have  much more intellectual view on everything, and they espouse "traditional values" in the fashion that Franco, or if you prefer, Belloc, would have recognized, and they'd legislate towards that end.

That man isn't Donald Trump, it's J.D. Vance.  

The rest of the NatCon agenda is dead in the water if the Republicans don't hold the House and the Senate in 2026.  It can't be cemented if Vance isn't elected in 2028.  The GOP won't hold the House, at a bare minimum, if the "Trump agenda" becomes any more unpopular than it already is, and it will.  It's becoming increasingly likely that the Republicans will lose the Senate.  There's no way on earth that Vance can win the 2028 election as a stand alone Presidential candidate.

But if Trump were to go after the impact of the current legislation starts to sink in, the taint might stick to him.  That would give the GOP a chance, albeit only that, to ride things out until 2028.  And Vance might have a chance if he became President due to a Trump removal.  And, the way things work, that might given NatCons a fellow traveler in the Oval Office for a solid ten years, as Vance could complete the last two years of Trump's term and eight years of two terms on his own.

In terms of "removal", I mean that.  That's what will have to happen. Trump isn't going anywhere voluntarily.  And hence, the 25th Amendment comes in.

Gosh, we'll hear, the stress of things just caught up with the old fellow.  

Or gosh, we didn't know he was a diddler.

July 20, 2025

Not too surprisingly, women with a connection to this story have resurfaced, including Stacey Williams, who was a Sports Illustrated swimsuit model featured in the pornography, um, swimsuit, issue at some joint in the 90s.  She was also Epstein's girlfriend in the early 90s, showing some bad judgment on her part.

Anyhow, she states that Epstein took her up the Trump tower where Trump groped her while he and Epstein talked, liking it to “some sort of sick bet or game” between the two “close friends".  Several of her friend corroborated the story and she offered to take a polygraph tests, although such tests are frankly worthless.

Trump predictably denied this, but it's worth remembering that he has been convicted for the sexual abuse of E. Jean Carroll.

It's also worth remembering that starting in the last decade it became common to support the women making these difficult accusations.  And there are others against Trump.  Williams doesn't seem to fit into the category of somebody we'd instantly doubt.

At what point will people take this seriously?

July 21, 2025

The president is trying to present himself as if he’s doing something here and it really is nothing,

* * * 

It’s not going to be much, because the Southern District of New York’s practice is to put as little information as possible into the grand jury. 

Sarah Krissoff, former Epstein prosecutor, regarding the release of the Epstein Grand Jury material. 

This material, which may be as little as 60 pages in length, is not the same as internal FBI or prosecutorial files, and therefore is unlikely to satisfy the demand for what the government has on Epstein.  Indeed, it's more likely an effort to simply end the controversy by doing very little.

Trump's current mental state, in my view, is heavily impacted by advancing dementia, although he's never been a good guy. What Tommy Tuberville's excuse is, however, I don't know.

Tuberville stated this past week that Trump's chronic venous insufficiency might be due to "battling radicals".

Is Tuberville actually that stupid?

At least in terms of what he says that hits the press, Tuberville says some really remarkably idiotic things.  Maybe he's just one of those guys that says dumb stuff without thinking about it, making him seem dumber than he really is.  Be that as it may, with Marjorie Taylor Green and Tuberville both in Congress right now, the GOP has a couple of figures that are just stunningly unqualified for their jobs intellectually, if what they say is what they actually think.  Tuberville, for his party, gives unintended evidence for the worst stereotypes of football coaches, particularly for somebody like me who doesn't like football.

cont:

Apparently Donald Trump is posting a random video of a girl in a bikini catching a snake on social media.

Oh, that's not weird. . . 

July 23, 2025

Mike Johnson sent the House home for an extra long vacation rather than make them face a vote on the Epstein files.

Like that's not odd . . . 

Well that must mean that nothing is embarrassing in them, right. . . right?

Oh, some of these folks will have "town halls" on their month plus long break. . . it'd be a shame if they were asked about the Epstein files.. . 

Apparently Sen. Lummis doesn't agree with the recess.

Lummis Calls For Cancellation Of August Recess

She wants them to stay in session so they can make appointments that haven't been made.  While I'm not at all happy with the illegitimate Trump Administration, she certainly has a point. Six months in and there's still hundreds of unfilled offices.  This will be a huge problem by next year, if it keeps up, for Maga's as the next Congress is going to be Democratic.

Trump's talking up his latest nutty conspiracy:

Barack Hussein Obama is the ringleader. Hillary Clinton was right there with him and so was Sleepy Joe Biden, Comey, Clapper. They tried to rig an election and they got caught. And then they did rig the election in 2020. And then because I knew I won that election by a lot, I did it a third time and I won in a landslide.

There must be some sort of statute of limitations on blaming Obama for everything.  And by this point, isn't this thin gruel for Republicans?  Literally everything is Obama's fault, according to Trump and the satellites in his orbit.

This is somebody nobody else can do. I can get the drug prices down… 1000% 600% 500% 1500%. Numbers that are not even thought to be achievable.

Donald Trump.

Those numbers aren't thought to be achievable as that would mathematically mean pharmaceutical companies would have to pay you to take drugs.

On Jerome Powell:

He has these think tanks. The build buildings for people who think. It’s really not thinking. It’s a little bit of a combination of thinking. It’s something you sort have or don’t have… He ought to raise interest rates.

Donald Trump. 

July 24, 2025

It appears that the Wall Street Journal learned a lesson from the tactic deployed by The Atlantic, and held stuff back from its first report on Trump and Epstein.  At least one insider is indicating that there's a lot more to come, which if true, would explain why Trump is currently bouncing off the walls.

Yesterday the WSJ revealed that Bondi had briefed Trump on what's in the Epstein files back in May and that his name does occur frequently.  The files also reportedly contain child pornography which is why, reportedly, Bondi determined not to release the information as she did not wish to reveal the names of the victims.

This doesn't mean that Trump is associated with child pornography, and we'd note again that so far what Epstein seems to have dabbled in was ephebophilia, not pedophilia, which doesn't mean that he wasn't, as Trump has indicated, a "creep".  But things just keep looking worse and worse for Trump.

Indeed, Jon Stewart hilariously noted this on his show, comparing the situation to the most recent Top Gun movie, which I have not seen, with fighter countermeasures being deployed.

I haven't looked, but if there aren't new variants of the bunker scene in Downfall circulating, I'd be amazed.  Those in fact would be apt as Trump is desperately pulling out everything to deflect attention from the Epstein story, even suddenly going after the Washington Commanders, demanding that they go back to being called the Redskins.  His most dangerous action, however, is now a serious attempt to go after former President Obama on some wild conspiracy theory.

That latter move is not only desperate, it's dumb.  Trump is now setting a precedent that prosecuting a former President is perfectly legitimate. . . with it being obvious that if he lives through his term, which is unlikely due to his advanced old age, he could be prosecuted as well.  That increases the incentive, we'd note, for him to try to advance an excuse that he can run for a third term in order that he can attempt to guaranty that he'll die in office.

A move to prosecute Obama, it should be noted, is a full blown step from democracy into fascism and its impossible to pretend otherwise.  I've resisted the claims that we're now in a fascist state, as we're not, but at that point, we are.  Trump appears perfectly willing to take us there.

This also ramps up the 25th Amendment pressure.  Trump is in a full on panic.  His loyal lieutenant, Wilhelm Keitel, oops, Mike Johnson, seems willing to stay in Berlin, oops, loyal to his Leader, and do whatever is necessary to hide what's in the files even up to the extent of sending the House home so it couldn't vote in releasing the files, but this drama isn't going away.

The files should be released.  Yes, that will reveal the names of young women who were defiled by the rich, but the fact of the matter is that keeping their names secret is protecting their abusers at this point. And that reemphasizes that Trump's female accusers have, for the most part, been silenced as well.

Robert Reich's look at the story:

What did he know, and when did he know it?

From Watergate to Epsteingate

So, as a final matter, what is in these files and who is being protected?  The conclusion that nobody is, is impossible.  Trump is clearly panicked, and we now know his name shows up multiple times, but in what context.

Whatever it is, it's impossible to not conclude that Trump himself is being protected due to proof of a grossly immoral act or character, or that some very wealthy and powerful people are being so protected.

Frankly, it's also impossible not to conclude that these files are going to be scrubbed.  Congress may be in recess, but the Administration isn't.  That would be a crime, but the current administration doesn't have much of a problem committing crimes.  If whatever is in these is bad enough to attempt to prosecute a former President, it's bad enough to take the lighter fluid and Zippo to.

July 25, 2025

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche met with Ghislaine Maxwell yesterday on the renewed Epstein scandal.

Maxwell was the "girlfriend" and then assistant procurer of Jeffrey Epstein.  The relationship started off when she was in a period of financial distress, but never developed to what she seemingly likely hoped, a marriage, as Epstein was frank that he liked teenage girls for sex partners, and that wasn't going to change.

Which does, frankly, bring up the creepy "enigma's never age" line of the Trump birthday wish poem.

At this point, if Maxwell comes out and says that Trump had no interest in the high school and junior high set, it won't matter, as people will believe that the politicized Department of Justice is doing Trump's bidding.  And she's not going to say otherwise, would be my prediction.

Jerome Powel somewhat gently took Trump to school in a public meeting at which they were both present, with Trump floundering like a fish on the deck when Powell corrected him on a building under construction, and mostly complete, whose budget was approved, apparently back in 2015.

August 4, 2025

What the crud?

Okay, I know what the Sweeney jeans ad is, as I looked it up due to all the news about it.  But I was clueless on the Jaguar ad. I'm now aware of it, as I looked it up.

And then there's this weird obsession with Taylor Swift.

Trump is almost 80 years old.  I'm nearly 20 years younger than he is and I don't know what's going on in advertising most of the time.  That Trump seems to, and that he cares, is weird.

And while Sweeney is hot, Trump pointing it out is just creepy. As for her party affiliation, I'm also a registered Republican and obviously completely disrespect Trump.   I don't have any idea what Sweeney's political views are, and neither does Trump, who spent most of his life in the Democratic Party.

August 6, 2025

I've been fighting with them for a long time about allowing the water to come down from the pacific northwest. We actually opened up that water pretty strongly, we got a lot of opposition from the governor. We opened it up anyway and the water is coming down ... they've gotta allow full water.

This statement is simply amazingly stupid.

And speaking of stupid:

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) today announced the beginning of a coordinated wind-down of its mRNA vaccine development activities....

This will result in deaths.   

August 10, 2025

There's beginning to be some signs that people have had enough of King Donald.  Just bits and pieces, here and there.

I'm not the only one who thinks this:

The discussion on ICE recruiting is interesting here.  ICE is undertaking a full scale recruiting effort to hire 10,000 employees.  They're not going to get it done.

Ice recruiting poster. Oddly, these dudes aren't wearing masks like real ICE agents.

No age cap? Every Federal law enforcement agency has an age cap, normally.

Joining ICE right now is probably beginning to have the same appeal that joining the Gestapo would have in 1945.  I had that thought before I noticed this counter poster:

Interestingly, it was the Epstein affair that started to get it rolling, and then the moronic ballroom, the latter of which caused this very well done, and inflammatory, AI video:

The radical Texas gerrymandering effort is also really drawing attention.

And that is, I think, quite enough for this edition.

Explicit

Related threads:

Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist, 99th edition. A second Perverts and Fellow Travelers Issue.

Labels: Crime, Ephebophilia, Epstein Scandal, Hebephilia, Hypocrisy, Ross Douthat, Sex, The Press, The rich and the poor, The wealthy, Zeitgeist

Last editions:

Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist, 97th edition. The Epstein Connections.

Labels: Donald Trump, Epstein Scandal, flap de jour, Sex, Teenagers, Women, Zeitgeist

The Madness of King Donald. The 25th Amendment Watch List, Second Edition.

Labels: 2020s, 2025, Donald Trump, Health, Joseph Biden, Mental Health, Stupidity, The Madness of King Donald, Weird

Additional Labels: American Civil Religion, Christianity, Health, homosexuality, Hugh Hefner, Immigration, Marriage, Mental Health, Predictions, Racism, religion, Sex, The relationship between men and women

Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist, 96th edition. The Epstein Files.

“In brief, my lord, we both descried

(For then I stood by Henry’s side)

The Palmer mount, and outwards ride,

Upon the earl’s own favourite steed:

All sheathed he was in armour bright,

And much resembled that same knight,

Subdued by you in Cotswold fight:

Lord Angus wished him speed.”

The instant that Fitz-Eustace spoke,

A sudden light on Marmion broke:

“Ah! dastard fool, to reason lost!”

He muttered; “’Twas nor fay nor ghost

I met upon the moonlight wold,

But living man of earthly mould.

O dotage blind and gross!

Had I but fought as wont, one thrust

Had laid De Wilton in the dust,

My path no more to cross.

How stand we now?—he told his tale

To Douglas; and with some avail;

’Twas therefore gloomed his ruggéd brow.

Will Surrey dare to entertain,

’Gainst Marmion, charge disproved and vain?

Small risk of that, I trow.

Yet Clare’s sharp questions must I shun;

Must separate Constance from the nun—

Oh, what a tangled web we weave,

When first we practise to deceive!

A Palmer too!—no wonder why

I felt rebuked beneath his eye:

I might have known there was but one

Whose look could quell Lord Marmion.”

Marmion, Sir Walter Scott.

The reason that late procurer Jeffrey Epstein remains in the news is that the Republicans made the "Epstein files" a big deal.

That's the only reason.

I don't believe that Trump had Epstein murdered.  I don't believe the really bizarre conspiracy theory that the Clintons did either.  Even at the time that was asserted, however, I thought that it made a lot more sense that Trump would have offed Epstein than the Clintons, but I don't believe that either happened.  

Epstein and Trump knew each other, and that association (I don't know if Trump has any actual friends at all, I somewhat doubt it) was more than casual.  Epstein claimed to know that Trump liked to screw the wives of Trump's "friends" and that he first had carnal knowledge of Melania aboard the Lolita Express.  At least based on what is out there, Epstein never claimed that Trump dabbled with the underaged.  Trump did claim that Epstein like women "on the younger side", which can mean a variety of things.  Author Michael Wolff  claimed that Epstein claimed he had photos of Trump with topless "young women" sitting on his lap, which again doesn't mean they were underaged.

There have been, however, some accusations, and that's what they are, accusations, that went beyond that.  "Katie Johnson" claimed that she was raped by Trump in association with Epstein.  Was she?  How would we know, the suits were never advanced, and the allegations are so extreme that there's plenty of reason to question them.

And other women claimed they were abused by Trump, while teenagers, on Epstein's island.

But still, all of this may just prove what we already know.  Trump can be proven to be a creep, but that doesn't mean he's a pedophile, if the women's claims are disregarded (which generally, we tend not to do with accusatrices).

Having said that, there's the smoke and fire matter.  People related rumors about the Hefner mansion for years before the full truth of its horrors were told after his death.  Hefner was a rapist, under the current definition, based on what one of his female house guests related to have witnesses in terms of compelled sex.  James Brown was violent towards women there.  Bill Cosby, who turned out to be a rapist, frequented it.

Can you really have an island dedicated to sexual trafficking and not descend into rape?  Can you really circluate underaged girls and not have them compelled into sex? 

During Biden's administration, the populist far right, which got ahead of Trump in its conspiracy theories, whipped itself into a frenzy with the belief that Democrats were a secret cabal of pedophiles, and that the Epstein Files would reveal a vast number of important Democrats who were involved .  As soon as the files were released, we were told, the lid was going to be off this horrific discovery.  Trumpite figures adopted releasing the Epstein files as one of the things they were going to do.

After the election, Pam Bondi did in fact release part of the FBI files on Epstein, which is seemingly now forgotten even by Bondi.  She claimed she had an Epstein client list on her desk that she was reviewing, with the information set to be released.

Now the list is lost, or maybe never existed.

Hmmm. . . 

Well, if a list existed, it's being hidden, and given the way the Trumpites approached this, there's real reason to wonder why.  They cried for the information, it didn't get released if there was a list, and it should be.  Is it lost?

If it is, how did that happen?

We're also told a list never existed, and it might not have.  That would have been smart for Epstein, and Epstein was no dummy.  How much of a list would he have needed?

Well, maybe some sort of list.  Knowing the high rollers being supplied with teenage girls would, I suppose, perhaps be easy enough, but you'd think you'd write this stuff down for self protection if nothing else.

All of which fuels more conspiracy theories.

Chances are there was no client list.  Epstein probably packed a list of perverts around in his head.  Probably most of the girls he supplied were young, but not underaged, probably. 

But now, we'll never really know.

What we do know is that somebody was lying.  Bondi, for example, either had a list and "lost" it, or she never had one.  Others who suggested there was all sorts of smoking gun material that would come to light, if they didn't lie, were in the neighborhood of lies.

But then, Trump has lied so often that people have become numb to it.

Gary Hart had to drop out of the 1988 Presidential election when an affair he engaged in, involving a boat called Monkey Business, came to light.

My, how our standards have fallen.

Last edition.

Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist, 95th edition. Making us a more barbaric society.

Labels: Barbarians, Crime, Immigration, mehr Mensch sein, Modernity Is Barbarism, Sudan, The Second Trump Administration, Zeitgeist

President Elect Donald Trump on Matt Gaetz, yesterday.

"A friend of mine…he’s got a big career set up”

Friday, October 3, 1924. Insulting Kennesaw Mountain.

A conference between the United Kingdom and Egypt on Egyptian independence ended without success.

The New York Giants scandal resulted in American League president Ben Johnson, upset over an inadequate investigation in his view, calling Kenesaw Mountain Landis a "wild-eyed, crazy nut".

Last edition:

Thursday, October 2, 1924. The death of Governor William B. Ross.

Labels: 1920s, 1924, 1928, Death, Diplomacy, Fort Caspar, Frontier Wyoming, Ft Caspar Wyoming, Health, Nellie Tayloe Ross, Personalities, The Frontier West, William B. Ross, Wyoming

Wednesday, October 1, 1924. Jimmy Carter born, William B. Ross starts to pass.

Jimmy Carter, 39th President of the United States, and the only President to live to age 100, was born in Plains Georgia.

Widely admired personally, he was not a terribly successful President and served one term.

Governor Ross was dying.

Ireland's Defence Forces (Óglaigh na hÉireann) were formed by the unification of the Irish Army, the Irish Naval Service, the Irish Air Corps and the Reserve Defence Forces,'

Baseball Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis banned New York Giants player Jimmy O'Connell and coach Cozy Dolan due to a bribery scandal.

From Michaelnoir on Reddit's 100 Years Ago today:

Last edition:

Tuesday, September 30, 1924. Big Train boards the Train, and the condition of Governor Ross.

Labels: 1920s, 1924, baseball, Health, Personalities, William B. Ross, Wyoming

Saturday, March 1, 1924. The Nixon Nitration Works Disaster.

The Nixon Nitration Works disaster occured in which an explosion of ammonium nitrate killed at least 18 people, destroyed several miles of New Jersey factories, and demolished Nixon, New Jersey.

While a very famous industrial disaster, the Nixon Nitration Works and Nixon New Jersey are remembered now principally for being mentioned in Band of Brothers as Cpt. Lewis Nixon III, a major character Ambrose's depiction of the 506 Parachute Infantry Regiment, mentions it.  Lewis Nixon was in fact a member of the family that owned the plant, and it was the case that Richard Winters, his close friend and for most of his service in Europe his superior, worked there for a time after the war.

The Nixon's were troubled in general, and Lewis Nixon III was no exception.  His marriage contracted just after the start of the war failed during it, as did a subsequent one.  A third marriage to Grace Umezawa, formerly a Japanese internee, was successful.  She helped him overcome the alcoholism depicted during the series.

The KDP, the Communist Part of Germany, was reinstated.  The KDP, together with the NADSP, the Nazi Party, would figure enormously in the destruction of German democracy as the extremes grew increasingly powerful in the remaining years of the Weimar Republic.

Alice's Day at Sea, the first of 57 Alice comedies produced by Walt Disney, appeared.  They were short films meant to be shown before the feature, something at one time common.

White rats paraded in San Pedro, California.

Hacks, i.e., cabs, were allowed back in Hyde Park for the first time since 1636.

Not a hack, but on this day, an Irish Traveler feeding his pony on this day in 1924.

Locally, a story didn't add up.

A 20-year-old marrying a 15-year-old?  

And she was in 6th Grade?

Thursday, January 24, 1924. Different reactions to the use of power.

Oilman Edward L. Doheny testified that he had loaned Senator Albert B. Fall $100,000, when Fall was Secretary of the Interior under Harding, breaking open the Teapot Dome Scandal.

New Mexico Senator Albert B. Fall.

Fall's political career would soon come to an end, and he'd serve a year in prison.

Doheny would be indicted, but acquitted.

Khiva fell to the Red Army.

Sister Marie of the Poor, the former Grand Duchess Marie-Adélaïde of Luxembourg, died of ill health and influenza at age 29.  She had been the last royal of that country to wield real power, which caused her to abdicate after World War One due to her decision to try to steer the country clear of active resistance to the Germans.  Following that, having never married, she had become a nun.

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". 

Thursday, February 15, 1923. Forbes quits from long distance, Veterans gather, Greece compounds the injustice.

Gathering at USS Maine memorial on the 25th anniversary of its sinking.

Charles R. Forbes, the Director of the U.S. Veteran's Bureau, resigned the position from his self-appointed refuge of Europe, following suspicions that he had been selling surplus supplies at huge discounts to contractors for kickbacks.  His confrontation with Harding on the matter had resulted in a physical altercation, with Forbes reportedly begging Harding to be allowed to depart for Europe prior to resigning.

The Scottish born Forbes had lived a colorful life, having been a Marine Corps musician at age 16, an engineer, a soldier in the Army charged with desertion and ultimately discharged as a Sergeant First Class after only eight years of service, employed in the construction field, and a Lieutenant Colonel in World War One.

He'd be prosecuted for conspiracy to defraud the Federal Government and end up serving 20 months in prison.  He'd live until 1949, dying at age 74.

Greece expropriate additional dwellings from the Albanian Cham Muslims in order to free up dwelling space for expelled Greeks from Turkey, thereby compounding the injustice.

Albanians had nothing to do with Greece's situation and the event signals out how Greece, in some ways, set the table for the disaster it was experiencing.  Turkey was being barbarous to the Anatolian Greeks, but the Greeks had not been kind to the Anatolian Muslims.

And this also demonstrates how something that began in World War One with good intention, independent nation states comprised of free peoples, was morphing into expelling minorities from lands they'd occupied for eons.

Margaret Lindsey Williams, working on her portrait of President Harding.