April 5, 1976: The Soiling of Old Glory
Last edition:
Labels: 1970s, 1976, Angola, basketball, Death, Growing up in the 1970s, Health, South Africa, Sports, United Nations
Showing posts with label Uncle Mike. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Uncle Mike. Show all posts
Sunday, April 5, 2026
Friday, March 13, 2026
A theory very close to the one I've advanced here.
Will Don be saying, et tu, J.D.?
From the always excellent Uncle Mike's blog:
Vance the Bully's Flunky
I still think my theory is more likely, but its interesting that I'm not the only one who is traveling this line of thought.
Uncle Mike, as he makes clear, believes that the plan is to wait until next year at which time the illegitimate occupant of the Oval Office, billionaire insurrectionist Donald Trump, will be impeached and removed from office, there by installing Vance as President. It's an interesting theory.
The problem with it, I think, is that it requires the cooperation of a fair number of Republican Senators to go along with it. I don't think they have the guts. Senators like Wyoming's John Barrasso have proven so spineless that he's being examined by the Washington D.C. zoo for a place in the invertebrate display. To be fair, they fear their voters, and in some areas, like Wyoming, the MAGA delusion is so deep that a lot of its adherents will carry it to the gave where they'll have to ask questions about why they supported an illegal war launched by an immoral serial polygamist while the environment went to pot. Barrasso will be right there with them, saying "they made me do it so I could keep my job".
Anyhow, I don't think enough Republican Senators will go along, unless the Senate GOP starts to hemorrhage pretty severely this November, in which case their save their job instincts will start to kick in.
My theory, which I've held here for a long time, is a bit more sinister.
I've thought since before the election that the plan was to let Trump slip into increasingly worse dementia and then remove him just before the November election via the 25th Amendment. That's nearly win/win for Vance. It might cause a huge sigh of relief amongst independents who are refugee Republicans and the two or three Republicans who aren't MAGA, saving some of the election. It also might give cover to candidates like Chuck Gray whose platform is that they love Trump so much, they want to be his adoring handmaiden. If he's gone, they can go to the cabinet, pull out the bottle of Old Crow, put on the Boomtown Rats single I Never Loved Eva Braun, and start acting like sentient mammals.
If it doesn't save the election, Vance can still be President for two years and start pulling the "I'm not responsible for this particular stupid Don idea" while also blaming the Democrats for everything else. Shoot, as the war against Iran will still be going on by then, he can declare victory and declare himself a hero, even if we haven't won by then, and we won't have.
Anyway you look at it, getting into office before Trump's term ends is Vance's only hope. People don't like him. The stench of Trump will attach too much for him to win on his own merits, and those merits, if you want to call them that, are not MAGA, they're NatCon.
The problem at this point is that while allowing Trump to get wackier and wackier serves their interests, we get deeper into bat shit crazy weird territory every day. As it is, we're at war now, it would seem, as Bibi thought this was his chance and Bibi, Putin, and rich people, some of whom are in the Epstein files, are the only people Trump listens to. We are in an area in which there are, now, hardly any limits, thanks to the Supreme Court. If Bibi tells Donny nuking Tehran is okay, there's no guarantee an addled Trump wouldn't do it, although we can still hope that there's backchannel conversations in the DoD about how far they let this go before they just start saying no.
Presumably, if Donny comes in and says, "hey guys, I'm going to put the ball room here and it will be fun to have a march through a triumphal arch after I nuke Tehran, let's do that today so we can fight North Korean next week and put on a cabaret in Havanna!" the cabinet will still say no, but again, the problem is that the people in this administration, with a hand of exceptions, might actually be too far gone themselves. Markwayne Mullin? For goodness sake, he needs to be sent back to 6th grade and be reminded you don't wear your hat indoors, not given a job with the administration. Steve Miller? Yikes.
Well, smoke and mirrors and backrooms. Marco probably is angling for the Presidency himself and doesn't want to be too tarred with Trump feces. There are probably others still.
By June or July we'll know if I was right.
A good clue I might be is that since the war with Iran started, Vance is hard to find.
Monday, March 9, 2026
Friday, March 10, 1876, "Mr. Watson, come here—I want to see you".
Alexander Graham Bell successfully transmitted the first intelligible human speech over a telephone system, saying, "Mr. Watson, come here—I want to see you".
Also:
March 10, 1876: Alexander Graham Bell Invents the Telephone
Last issue:
Wednesday, March 8, 1876. Establishing the Crow Reservation.
Monday, February 9, 2026
Blog Mirror: February 9, 1976: "Taxi Driver" Premieres
February 9, 1976: "Taxi Driver" Premieres
I was not aware that this was a 1976 movie, but then, I've never thought of the topic either.
I've actually never seen Taxi Driver all the way through.* It's just too icky for me. But the point raised here, tracking the depictions of New York City from the early 1960s into the 1970s, from "magical" to decline, is a really interesting observation.
Somewhere I have a series photographs of my mother in New York that must date from the late 1940s. She and some friends went down from Montreal to visit. She told me once how "clean" New York was, that being her observation from that trip.
I've been to New York state, but it's been years and years. My exposure to New York City, however, is limited to the airport, a memory which is equally old.
Footnotes:
*Indeed, of the movies mentioned in this thread, the only one I've seen all the way through is Breakfast at Tiffany's.
Last edition:
Friday, February 6, 1976. Peltier arrested. Prince Bernhard implicated. Smith warns. Black Jack dies.
Monday, January 19, 2026
Wednesday, January 7, 2026
Tuesday, December 23, 2025
Tuesday, December 23, 1975. Going metric.
In baseball:
December 23, 1975: The Reserve Clause Is Killed
President Gerald R. Ford signed into law the Metric Conversion Act. The country should have carried through with it, but abandoned it in 1982 when Ronald Reagan was President, the point at which, in the long history of the evolution of things, the country began its slide into idiocy, although it was hardly evident at the time.
CIA Station Chief in Athens Richard Welch, his identify recently exposed, was gunned down by terrorists in Athens.
Last edition:
Monday, December 22, 1975. Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
Labels: 1970s, 1975, Christmas, Comedians, Gerald Ford, Growing up in the 1970s, J. Edgar Hoover, OPEC, Personalities, Petroleum, Terrorism
Tuesday, December 16, 2025
Saturday, December 16, 1775. Jane Austen Is Born
A blog link from Uncle Mike.
One of my favorite authors.
December 16, 1775: Jane Austen Is Born
Last edition:
Friday, October 10, 2025
Wednesday, October 10, 1945. Uncle Mike: "The World's Worst Series".
October 10, 1945: "The World's Worst Series"
The Detroit Tigers won the World Series, beating the Chicago Cubs 9 to 3 in game four.
The Chongqing Negotiations (Chinese: 重慶談判) came to an end.
The negotiations were between the Nationalist and the Communists and marked a resumption, after a twenty year gap, of efforts between the two contesting sides to resolve their differences. Both sides signed the Double Tenth Agreement at the end.
This day would be the last meeting between Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Zedong.
The Double Tenth Agreement provided:
- The CCP recognized the KMT as the legitimate ruling party of China
- All political parties within China were legalized.
- The KMT and CCP would end the war between them.
- The formation of a political consultative conference to discuss plans for state building with guaranteed representation of all political parties.
- The abolition of CCP and KMT secret services.
- Holding a general election to determine the next ruling party of China.
- Putting an end to political tutelage within China.
Neither side really fully intended to honor the treaty and it is clear that the Communists did not.
The British completed the reoccupation of the Andaman Islands.
The Allied Control Council abolished the Nazi Party.
The Communist Party of Korea was founded, unfortunately.
Joseph Darnand, a French hero of the Great War, far right politician between the wars to the point of belonging to the La Cagoule terrorist organization, decorated French soldier again upon the German invasion of 1940 only to form the collaborationist militia, Service d'ordre légionnaire (SOL) and become a member of the SS, was executed. He was 48.
CBS successfully conducted an experiment in color television.
Last edition:
Friday, October 5, 1945. Hollywood Black Friday.
Monday, April 28, 2025
Saturday, April 28, 1945. The fate of the fascists.
From Uncle Mike:
April 28-30, 1945: The Ends of the Dictators
Mike is covering two fateful days ine one post, April 28, when Mussolini was executed by Italian Partisans, and April 30, when Hitler killed himself. In both instances they took a "significant other" with them, in Mussolini's case, that being his current mistress, Clara Petacci, age 33.
Mussolini and Petacci had been caught trying to cross into Switzerland by partisans, who executed them the following day. They were shot, and then their bodies hung upside down.
Mussolini had been the first of the fascist dictators to hold power. There had always been opposition to the one time socialist turned fascist, but armed Italian opposition only came about after the Allies had landed on Italian territory. As with France, whose resistance swelled as it became obvious that the Allies would land, Italian opposition was heavily dominated by the far left, but there were other elements in it as well. Mussolini, as already noted, had once been a member of the far left as well, and it's probable, frankly, that amongst those who watched and cheered his death were those who had once cheered him.
Often missed, Nicola Bombacci, Alessandro Pavolini and Achille Starace were also executed at the same time. Nicola Bombacci was an Italian Marxist revolutionary and later a fascist politician. The others were prominent fascists.
Like Eva Braun, there's little to note about Petacci, other than that she was loyal, like Braun, to her dictator until death. In Mussolini's case, that was not true of his spouse, whom he left when he left.
The U.S. Fifth Army took Alessandria and Vicenza.
German and Soviet troops fought on in Berlin, where the Red Army was within a mile of the Fuhrerbunker.
The eccentric Rupprecht Gerngroß lead a military uprising against the Nazis in Munich, which failed.
Teh U-56 was sunk in an RAF raid on Kiel.
Hitler's brother in law, notorious SS figure Hermann Fegelein, was executed. He was planning on taking off with what he could.
The 8th Army took Digos in the Philippines.
Monday, July 29, 2024
Monday, July 29, 1974. Philadelphia Eleven and Alpha Group.
Episcopal Bishops Robert L. DeWitt, Bishop of Pennsylvania; Daniel Corrigan, Suffragan Bishop of Colorado; and Edward R. Welles II, the retired Bishop of West Missouri., ordained elevent female Episcopal deacons as priests, sparking a crisis in the Episcopal Church. The acts were declared valid but irregular by the Episcopal Church.
The act was pioneering as the direction became that of the Episcopal Church and much, but not all, of the Anglican Communion thereafter. It also had the result of causing it to be increasingly impossible for the overall Anglican Communion to reunite with the Catholic Church, which does not recognize the ordainment of women and of course which generally holds that Anglican holy orders are invalid, although there are exceptions we won't deal with here for individual priests and circumstances. The validity of Anglican holy orders has been a major topic in the Anglican Communion.
It's worth noting that Christian churches in general were becoming increasingly liberal in the wake of the 1960s, although that wasn't universally true. It was relatively noticeable in the Episcopal Church which had always been one of the most influential in the United States and one of the largest of the "mainline" Protestant churches. The Episcopal Church had been particularly associated with wealth and establishment in the US and remained so for much of the 20th Century, but starting at some point after this it began a dramatic decline and no longer holds the status it once did. The Anglican Communion itself has globally been in a condition of strife as conservative elements, with a heavy African representation, have been opposed by developments such as this within it.
The mysterious Alpha Group within the KGB Special Forces was created by Yuri Andropov.
From Uncle Mike's:
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Last edition:
Saturday, July 27, 1974. Articles of Impeachment.
Labels: 1970s, 1974, 93d Congress, Angola, law, Mozambique, Portugal, Portuguese Empire, Rhodesia, Rhodesian Bush War, Richard Nixon, Watergate
Saturday, June 15, 2024
Friday, June 16, 1944. Executions.
Heavy fighting continued on Saipan.
Knocked out Japanese tanks, June 16, 1944.
Beachheads on Saipan were linked, with combat featuring heavy artillery duels by both sides.
US battleships hit Guam, but the invasion of the island was postponed due to the approach of a Japanese fleet, which later turned to link up with a second one.
Carrier task forces raided Iwo Jima, Chichi Jima and Haha Jima.
The Treaty of Vis was signed in Yugoslavia in an attempt by the Western Allies to merge the Yugoslavian government in exile and the Communist partisans in the field. The treaty provided for an interim post-war government.
The British 21st Army Group in Normandy advanced everywhere along its front. The U.S. 1st Army crossed the Douvre and captured St. Saveur.
King George VI visited British troops in France.
The U.S. 9th Infantry Division liberated Orglandes.
US troops in Normandy reading their mail.
244 V-1 rockets hit London.
The British 8th Army took Foligno and Spoleto, Italy. The US 5th Army took Grosseto.
French historian Marc Bloch, age 57, was shot by the Gestapo due to his work for the French Resistance.
George Stinney, a 14-year-old African American convicted of murder of two white girls, was executed in the electric chair, the youngest American to suffer that fate.
His conviction has since been vacated, not that it does him any good, on the basis that he did not receive a fair trial.
Another item on this from Uncle Mike:
June 16, 1944: A Southern State Executes a Black 14-Year-Old
Last prior edition:
Thursday, June 15, 1944. Saipan.
Wednesday, June 5, 2024
Tuesday, June 6, 1944. Operation Overlord
Today In Wyoming's History: June 6: 1944
June 6
1944 Allied forces land in Normandy, in an event remembered as "D-Day", although that term actually refers to the day on which any major operation commences. This is not, of course, a Wyoming event, but at least in my youth I knew more than one Wyoming native who had participated in it. Later, I had a junior high teacher whose first husband had died in it. A law school colleague of mine had a father who was a paratrooper in it. And at least one well known Wyoming political figure, Teno Roncolio, participated in it. From the prospective of the Western Allies, it might be the single most significant single day of the campaign in Europe.
All the photos above are courtesy of the United States Army.
Airborne troops landed on French soil just minutes after midnight, with famously widely scattered results in the American sectors. The British landed troops of the SAS deep in France in Operation Houndstooth, something that's often overlooked.
Stanley Hollis would win the Victoria Cross for his actions on this day:
In Normandy on 6th June, 1944, during the assault on the beaches and the Mont Fleury Battery, C.S.M. Hollis's Company Commander noticed that two of the pill-boxes had been by-passed, and went with C.S.M. Hollis to see that they were clear. When they were 20 yards from the pillbox, a machine-gun opened fire from the slit and C.S.M. Hollis instantly rushed straight at the pillbox, firing his Sten gun. He jumped on top of the pillbox, re-charged his magazine, threw a grenade in through the door and fired his Sten gun into it, killing two Germans and making the remainder prisoner. He then cleared several Germans from a neighbouring trench. By his action, he undoubtedly saved his Company from being fired on heavily from the rear and enabled them to open the main beach exit.Later the same day, in the village of Crepon, the Company encountered a field gun and crew armed with Spandaus at 100 yards range. C.S.M. Hollis was put in command of a party to cover an attack on the gun, but the movement was held up. Seeing this, C.S.M. Hollis pushed right forward to engage the gun with a P.I.A.T. from a house at 50 yards range. He was observed by a sniper who fired and grazed his right cheek, and at the same moment the gun swung round and fired at point-blank range into the house. To avoid the fallen masonry C.S.M. Hollis moved his party to an alternative position. Two of the enemy gun crew had by this time been killed, and the gun was destroyed shortly afterwards. He later found that two of his men had stayed behind in the house and immediately volunteered to get them out. In full view of the enemy who were continually firing at him, he went forward alone using a Bren gun to distract their attention from the other men. Under cover of his diversion, the two men were able to get back.Wherever fighting was heaviest, C.S.M. Hollis appeared and in the course of a magnificent day's work, he displayed the utmost gallantry and on two separate occasions his courage and initiative prevented the enemy from holding up the advance at critical stages. It was largely through his heroism and resource that the Company's objectives were gained and casualties were not heavier, and by his own bravery he saved the lives of many of his men.
Jimmie W. Monteith won a posthumous Medal of Honor.
For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity above and beyond the call of duty on 6 June 1944, while serving with 16th Infantry Regiment, 1st Infantry Division, in action near Colleville-sur-Mer, France. First Lieutenant Monteith landed with the initial assault waves on the coast of France under heavy enemy fire. Without regard to his own personal safety he continually moved up and down the beach reorganizing men for further assault. He then led the assault over a narrow protective ledge and across the flat, exposed terrain to the comparative safety of a cliff. Retracing his steps across the field to the beach, he moved over to where two tanks were buttoned up and blind under violent enemy artillery and machinegun fire. Completely exposed to the intense fire, First Lieutenant Monteith led the tanks on foot through a minefield and into firing positions. Under his direction several enemy positions were destroyed. He then rejoined his company and under his leadership his men captured an advantageous position on the hill. Supervising the defense of his newly won position against repeated vicious counterattacks, he continued to ignore his own personal safety, repeatedly crossing the 200 or 300 yards of open terrain under heavy fire to strengthen links in his defensive chain. When the enemy succeeded in completely surrounding First Lieutenant Monteith and his unit and while leading the fight out of the situation, First Lieutenant Monteith was killed by enemy fire. The courage, gallantry, and intrepid leadership displayed by First Lieutenant Monteith is worthy of emulation.
Adolf Hitler was awoken at the Berghof around noon. Noon?
He showed no signs of distress.
Churchill announced the invasion to the House of Commons, stating:
Reports are coming in in rapid succession. So far the Commanders who are engaged report that everything is proceeding according to plan. And what a plan! This vast operation is undoubtedly the most complicated and difficult that has ever occurred ... Nothing that equipment, science or forethought could do has been neglected, and the whole process of opening this great new front will be pursued with the utmost resolution both by the commanders and by the United States and British Governments whom they serve.
Roosevelt announced the invasion by radio that evening, in the form of a prayer.
Almighty God: Our sons, pride of our Nation, this day have set upon a mighty endeavor, a struggle to preserve our Republic, our religion, and our civilization, and to set free a suffering humanity. Lead them straight and true; give strength to their arms, stoutness to their hearts, steadfastness in their faith.
The British and Canadians, making use of specialized armor nicknamed "funnies", advanced considerably further inland than the Americans by the end of the day, but the Germans did not succeed in pushing anyone back into the sea.
D-Day recalled on some other blogs that feature on this site:
Flyover Country: D-Day begins on the Platte ("The man who won the war")
Uncle Mike's: June 6, 1944: D-Day
World War II Today:
World War II Today:
PT Boat Red: The PTs on D-Day, June 6, 1944
City Father: D Day + 80
Operation Overlord was legitimately such a major event in World War Two that it has long overshadowed, at least in the Western World, other events in the war that happened on the same day, but things did happen. Recall that Rome had been taken just the day prior.
In Italy, the French Expeditionary Corps took Tivoli.
The Soviet First Jassy–Kishinev offensive, with the objective of taking Romania, came to an unsuccessful end.
Operation Rösselsprung concluded, having temporary disrupted Yugoslav partisan activity.
This would have been a regular Tuesday work day in the States. The news must have been extremely distracting.
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