The Resolution on Impeaching Donald Trump.

It's undoubtedly an historic moment, although a sad one to be sure. For the fourth time in the nation's history the House of Representatives is taking action to impeach a President.  Notably in this, this is the third time in less than fifty years that this is taking place, showing how the country managed to go nearly two hundred years before repeating an impeachment, after having gone about sixty years of its initial existence before undertaking one.

We're doing this, in other words, more often than we used to.

This will of course result in the third impeachment trial in the country's history, as Nixon chose to depart prior to being impeached.  President Nixon remains the only President who surely would have been removed from office had the trial go forward. This effort is highly unlikely to remove President Trump and it may prove to be a political miscalculation by the Democrats, to be used by Trump's supporters, in the fall election.

The resolution goes further than some anticipated by including an obstruction of Congress charge, which is much like an obstruction of justice charge.  This puts the Executive squarely at odds with Congress on the murky topic of Executive Privilege, something that is likely to end up in the courts at some point and have long lasting consequences that everyone may regret.

116TH CONGRESS

1ST SESSION House of Representatives. 

RESOLUTION 

Impeaching Donald John Trump, President of the United States, for high crimes and misdemeanors. 

Resolved, That Donald J. Trump, President of the United States, is impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors and that the following articles of impeachment be exhibited to the United States Senate:  

Articles of impeachment exhibited by the House of Representatives of the United States of America in the name of itself and of the people of the United States of America, against Donald J. Trump, President of the United States of America, in maintenance and support of its impeachment against him for high crimes and misdemeanors.

ARTICLE I: ABUSE OF POWER 

The Constitution provides that the House of Representatives "shall have the sole Power of Impeachment" and that the President "shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors". In his conduct of the office of President of the United States and in violation of his constitutional oath faithfully to execute the office of President of the United States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in violation of his constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed--Donald J. Trump has abused the powers of the Presidency, in that: Using the powers of his high office, President Trump Solicited the interference of a foreign government, Ukraine, in the 2020 United States Presidential election. He did so through a scheme or course of conduct that included soliciting the Government of Ukraine to publicly announce investigations that would benefit his reelection, harm the election prospects of a political opponent, and influence the 2020 United States Presidential election to his advantage. President Trump also sought to pressure the Government of Ukraine to take these steps by conditioning official United States Government acts of significant value to Ukraine on its public announcement of the investigations. President Trump engaged in this scheme or course of conduct for corrupt purposes in pursuit of personal political benefit. In so doing, President Trump used the powers of the Presidency in a manner that com promised the national security of the United States and undermined the integrity of the United States democratic process. He thus ignored and injured the interests of the Nation. 

President Trump engaged in this scheme or course of conduct through the following means:

1) President Trump?acting both directly and through his agents Within and Outside the United States Government?corruptly solicited the Government of Ukraine to publicly announce investigations into:(A) a political opponent, former Vice President Joseph R. Biden, and(B) a discredited theory promoted by Russia alleging that Ukraine rather than Russia interfered in the 2016 United States Presidential election.

(2) With the same corrupt motives, President Trump acting both directly and through his agents Within and outside the United States Government conditioned two official acts on the public announcements that he had requested:(A) the release of $391 million of Unites States taxpayer funds that Congress had appropriated on a bipartisan basis for the purpose of providing vital military and security assistance to Ukraine to oppose Russian aggression and which President Trump had ordered suspended;and(B) a head of state meeting at the White House, which the President of Ukraine sought to demonstrate continued United States support for the Government of Ukraine in the face of Russian aggression.

(3) Faced with the public revelation of his actions, President Trump ultimately released the military and security assistance to the Government of Ukraine, but has persisted in openly and corruptly urging and soliciting Ukraine to undertake investigations for his personal political benefit.

These actions were consistent with President Trump's previous invitations of foreign interference in United States elections. 

In all of this, President Trump abused the powers of the Presidency by ignoring and injuring national security and other vital national interests to obtain an improper personal political benefit. He has also betrayed the Nation by abusing his high office to enlist a foreign power in corrupting democratic elections. 

Wherefore President Trump, by such conduct, has demonstrated that he will remain a threat to national security and the Constitution if allowed to remain in office, and has acted in a manner grossly incompatible with self-governance and the rule of law. President Trump thus warrants impeachment and trial, removal from office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, trust, or profit under the United States. 

ARTICLE II: OBSTRUCTION OF CONGRESS 

The Constitution provides that the House of Representatives shall have the sole Power of Impeachment and that the President shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors. In his conduct of the office of President of the United States?and in violation of his constitutional oath faithfully to execute the office of President of the United States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in violation of his constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed--Donald J. Trump has directed the unprecedented, categorical, and indiscriminate defiance of subpoenas issued by the House of Representatives pursuant to its sole Power of Impeachment. President Trump has abused the powers of the Presidency in a manner offensive to, and subversive of, the Constitution, in that:

The House of Representatives has engaged in an impeachment inquiry focused on President Trump?s corrupt solicitation of the Government of Ukraine to interfere in the 2020 United States Presidential election. As part of this impeachment inquiry, the Committees undertaking the investigation served subpoenas seeking documents and testimony deemed vital to the inquiry from various Executive Branch agencies and offices, and current and former officials. 

In response, without lawful cause or excuse, President Trump directed Executive Branch agencies, offices, and officials not to comply with those subpoenas. President Trump thus interposed the powers of the Presidency against the lawful subpoenas of the House of Representatives, and assumed to himself functions and judgments necessary to the exercise of the sole Power of Impeachment vested by the Constitution in the House of Representatives. 

President Trump abused the powers of his high office through the following means:

(1) Directing the White House to defy a lawful subpoena by withholding the production of documents sought therein by the Committees.

(2) Directing other Executive Branch agencies and offices to defy lawful subpoenas and withhold the production of documents and records from the Committees in response to which the Department of State, Office of Management and Budget, Department of Energy, and Department of Defense refused to produce a single document or record.

(3) Directing current and former Executive Branch officials not to cooperate with the Committees?in response to which nine Administration officials defied subpoenas for testimony, namely John Michael, Mick Mulvaney, Robert B. Blair, John A. Eisenberg, Michael Ellis, Preston Wells Griffith, Russell T. Vought, Michael Duffey, Brian McCormack, and T. Ulrich Brechbuhl.

These actions were consistent with President Trump's previous efforts to undermine United States Government investigations into foreign interference in Unites States elections.

Through these actions, President Trump sought to arrogate to himself the right to determine the propriety, scope, and nature of an impeachment inquiry into his own conduct, as well as the unilateral prerogative to deny any and all information to the House of Representatives in the exercise of its ?sole Power of Impeachment?. In the history of the Republic, no President has ever ordered the complete defiance of an impeachment inquiry or sought to obstruct and impede so comprehensively the ability of the House of Representatives to investigate high Crimes and Misdemeanors. This abuse of office served to cover up the President's own misconduct and to seize and control the power of impeachment and thus to nullify a vital constitutional safeguard vested solely in the House of Representatives. 

In all of this, President Trump has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President and subversive of constitutional government, to the great prejudice of the cause of law and justice, and to the manifest injury of the people of the United States. 

Wherefore, President Trump, by such conduct, has demonstrated that he will remain a threat to the Constitution if allowed to remain in office, and has acted in a manner grossly incompatible with self?governance and the rule of law. President Trump thus warrants impeachment and trial, removal from office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any office of honor, trust, or profit under the United States. 

December 10, 2019 (7:16 am.)

And then there's December 10, 2019. . .

which I predict to be a particularly silly, self affirming, self righteous, day on Twitter and Facebook, as well as certain quarters of Reddit.

And I'm not even pointing fingers, I'd note, at any one side when I say that.

Some random looks at other looks on Wyoming and women's right to vote.

On This Day in 1869: Wyoming is the first territory to give women the right to vote

Home  December 10, 1869

December 10, 1869

 150 Years of Women’s Suffrage in Wyoming

Today In Wyoming's History: December 10, 1869

Today In Wyoming's History: December 10:

December 10

Today is Wyoming Day

1869  Territorial Governor John Campbell signed a bill giving full suffrage and public rights to women in Wyoming.  This was the first law passed in the US explicitly granting to women the franchise.  The bill provided that:  ""Every woman of the age of eighteen years residing in this territory, may, at every election cast her vote; and her right to the elective franchise and to hold office under the election laws of the territory shall be the same of electors."  Gov. Campbell's comment, in signing the bill into law, was:  "I have the honor to inform the Council that I have approved 'An act to grant to the Women of Wyoming Territory the right of Suffrage and to hold office.'" 

Critics, or perhaps rather cynics, have sometimes claimed that this served no other purpose other than to raise the number of citizens eligible to vote, and thereby increase the likelihood of early admission as a state, but that view doesn't reflect the early reality of this move.  In fact, Wyoming's politicians were notably egalitarian for the time and too women as members of the body politic seriously.  During the Territorial period women even served on juries, something that was very unusual in the United States at the time, although they lost this right for a time after statehood.

1869  Territorial school laws goes into effect requiring public schools to be funded by taxation.

Today In Wyoming's History: In recognition of 150 years since . . .

Today In Wyoming's History: In recognition of 150 years since . . .:

In recognition of 150 years since . . .

the following, which occurred on this day in 1869;

1869  Territorial Governor John Campbell signed a bill giving full suffrage and public rights to women in Wyoming.  This was the first law passed in the US explicitly granting to women the franchise.  The bill provided that:  ""Every woman of the age of eighteen years residing in this territory, may, at every election cast her vote; and her right to the elective franchise and to hold office under the election laws of the territory shall be the same of electors."  Gov. Campbell's comment, in signing the bill into law, was:  "I have the honor to inform the Council that I have approved 'An act to grant to the Women of Wyoming Territory the right of Suffrage and to hold office.'" 

the Casper Star Tribune has been running features in a separate edition on notable Wyoming Wyoming.

Additionally, the University of Wyoming has been giving a series of seminars of women's suffrage this semester as well.

December 10, 1919. Air First and a Coal Day

The prize posted by the Australian government of 10,000 Australian pounds (then the unit of currency in Australia) for the first aircraft piloted by Australians to fly from England to the Australia was claimed by the crew of a Vickers Vimy bomber, entered into the contest by Vickers.

The plane was crewed by pilots Cpt. Ross Macpherson Smith and his brother Lt. Keith Macpherson Smith, with mechanics Sgt. W. H. Shiers and J.M. Bennett.  The plane made the trip from Hounslow Heath to Australian starting on November 12, 1919.

Cpt. Smith was killed test piloting a Vickers Viking seaplane in 1922.  Lt. Smith became a Vickers executive and an airline industry figure, dying of natural causes in 1955 at age 64.

Elsewhere, questions began to come up about the nature of diplomatic officer Jenkin's kidnapping even as Republicans continued to press for action of some sort against Mexico.  And as the mine strike ended, kids in Casper were let out of school due to lack of coal for heat.

Blog Mirror. A Hundred Years Ago. Old-fashioned English Pudding with Hard Sauce

One of the very first posts on this blog, which to my amazement was over a decade ago, was one entitled the following:

The Speed of Cooking

I've actually touched on that several times since, including in an area that will appear again tomorrow, that being how domestic implements, and not wartime labor requirements, are what really caused the change in women's employment roles in the 20th Century.  That links in with what I think is one of the better posts on the website, that being:

Women in the Workplace: It was Maytag that took Rosie the Riveter out of the domestic arena, not World War Two

In that post, I noted:

Cooking the food was a long process also. Nothing existed that was already prepared.  People didn't have frozen food to prepare. Canned food, of course, did already exist.  But by and large people had to prepare everything that day, whatever meal was being considered.  And part of that was due to the fact that modern stoves were only coming in during this period.

Today we have gas and electric stoves everywhere. But up to at least 1920, most people had wood or coal burning stoves for cooking.  They didn't heat the same way.  Cooking with a wood stove is slow.  It takes hours to cook anything with a wood stove, and those who typically cooked with them didn't cook with the same variety, or methods, we do now.  Boiling, the fastest method of food preparation, was popular.  People boiled everything.  Where we'd now roast a roast in the oven, a cook of that era would just as frequently boil it.  People boiled vegetables into oblivion.  My mother, who had learned to cook from her mother, who had learned how to cook in this era, used the boiling into oblivion method of cooking. She hated potatoes for this reason (I love them) but she'd invariable boil them into unrecognizable starch lumps.

Wood burning stove in Denver.  Typical pre 1920 stove.  Heck, typical pre 1930 stove.  Heck, typical pre 1940 stove.

Turn of century advertisement for stove polish.  Cleaning a wood burning stove would be no treat.

Even something as mundane as toast required more effort than it does not.  Toasters are an electric appliance that most homes have now, but they actually replaced a simple device.

 World War Two era propaganda photograph, trying to depict an inattentive woman letting toast burn, and therefore wasting resources.  Note how complicated this electric toaster is.

You'll still occasionally see old fashioned toasters in sheep and cattle camps, and probably elsewhere. They just hold the bread so that the toast can be toasted over a burner.  Pretty simple, and not much of a labor saving device, right? Well, consider the totality of it.  To toast you had to watch the toast, rather than just slip the bread down into the toaster.

For that matter, everything was relatively labor intensive save for boiling and roasting, which is probably why things tended to be boiled or roasted.

 Man cooking in a cow camp for cowboys.  He's using two cast iron dutch ovens (I still use one routinely) to cook over a fire.  This photo first appeared on this blog in 2009 in a very early entry on cooking changes.

Indeed, if you think of all the electric devices in your kitchen today, it's stunning.  Electric or gas stoves, electric blenders and mixers, microwaves, refrigerators.  Go back just a century and none of this would be in the average home.  And with the exception of canned goods, which dated back well into the 19th Century, nothing came in the form of prepared food either.  For that matter, even packaging was different at that time.  If you wanted steak for five, you went to the butcher, probably that day, and got steak for five.  If you wanted ground beef, you went to the butcher and got the quantity you wanted, and so on.

An interesting example of how this change impacts things appeared recently on the excellent A Hundred Years Ago blog

Old-fashioned English Pudding with Hard Sauce

Steamed puddings are a traditional holiday food which once were slow-cooked on a wood or coal stove that was used for both heating and cooking. They are less popular now that our stoves aren’t constantly operating; 

I've mentioned how wood burning stoves such as noted on A Hundred Years Ago impacted how food was cooked, but I've never really thought of it in terms of recipes such as this.  Mostly what I've considered is how it impacted main meals,  not in terms of how recipes were designed for the cooking conditions.

That's really a pretty notable omission on my part, probably impacted in part by the fact, as noted elsewhere, that my mother had learned to cook from her mother, who cooked with such stoves, and my mother was an awful cook.  So I've sort of naively assumed that all food cooked that way must be bad.

That's probably a wildly erroneous assumption.

It makes me wonder how many other recipes and foods that were planned out for cooking in this style aren't really made much anymore, indeed if at all.

Iphone voice recorder to computer transcription?

Is there an app for that?

I.e., is there anything for which I can record on my Iphone, jack it into my computer, download the audio file, and have the computer transcribe it?

Cry Havoc. How the marijuana story ends.

Cry Havoc and let slip the dogs of war.

Last week I ran this item:

Lex Anteinternet: The Eastern Shoshone consider cannabis: In one of the many posts that I start and never finish, I had in my draft posts a item that was from the Irish Times on Irish physicians lam...

In it, I noted the following.

I know that this isn't convincing to weed's fans.  Indeed, the post above is one of the rare ones here that not only drew a fair amount of attention at the time I put it up, it drew some really negative attention from Colorado marijuana fans.  But that's the way such things work.  I still recall hearing from smokers as late as the 1990s how smoking wasn't really bad for a person.  And there are plenty of heavy drinkers who deny that they're being hurt in any fashion.

That's going to be the history of marijuana.  We'll find out that it was hugely destructive, and at some point in the future we'll look back at this and be horrified and amused by how dense we were in this era on this topic, and a host of others that seem to be floating about in the confused era we've really slipped into.  But for the time being, we're charging ahead into marijuana like there's no tomorrow.

Which brings me to how this story will develop.

Marijuana is already known to have strongly negative health implications.  When the Federal government ends its prohibition and most of the states follow suit, use will dramatically expand and the full extent of those negative implications will be known.

Within a decade, you'll be seeing advertisements by lawyers on television seeking to have marijuana consumers contact them for lawsuits against the marijuana industry, which by that time will be much more concentrated than it is now.  They'll pitch that the users were duped by those who knew that there will be health risks.  Millions will be made.

Marijuana will still be around, but some of the big outfits that are yet to emerge will be wiped out and bankrupt.

And quite a few people will be suffering from all sorts of conditions both predictable and unknown.

Only lawyers will really benefit.

Southern Rockies Nature Blog: Should I Throw Away this Water Bottle?

Southern Rockies Nature Blog: Should I Throw Away this Water Bottle?: If you buy something from Backcountry.com, you get a mountain goat sticker with your order.  You may have seen these on gear like  ...

"Repeal Day". Bad History

Twitter proclaimed December 5, Repeal Day, in honor of the 1932 repeal of the Constituatonal Amendment and accompanying Federal legislation that brought national prohibition of alcohol into effect.  Such luminaries as Julian Castro have noted:

Julián Castro

@JulianCastro

·

2h

It’s #repealday, the day the United States ended the prohibition of alcohol. 86 years later, it’s time we end the federal prohibition of Cannabis once and for all. Legalize it. Regulate it. Expunge the records of the victims of the war on drugs.

Strong argument, correct?

Well, not really as its historically incorrect.

First of all, contrary to the way its often assumed, the repeal of prohibition didn't actually open the consumption of alcohol across the country.  Rarely appreciated in the story of prohibition, a huge wave of state prohibition statutes had been passed prior to the Federal government entering the picture with a Constitutional amendment. 

The real lesson, in regard to both the prohibition of alcohol and marijuana may be there, as its a story of misplaced Federal overreach.

Left along, the majority of American states were rocketing toward alcohol prohibition in the 1910s and many had already arrived there.  Wyoming got there months ahead of the Federal government in 1919. Colorado also had, with "bone dry" prohibition already coming into effect. 

Had prohibitionist not sought to impose prohibition over the entire country, the entire country may have gotten there on its own.  It was getting there.  But the Federal entry forced it on areas that weren't ready to accept it.  And that got the opposition to it really rolling.

Indeed, you have to wonder to what extent the country would remain dry if the Volstead Act and the Constitutional amendment had never been done. My guess is that a lot more of it would be today.  Contrary to what is imagined today, it was an extremely popular movement prior to national prohibition becoming the law.  And its overall success, in terms of national health, would speak for themselves if they were allowed to speak at all.

Indeed, one of the often missed aspects of the repeal of prohibition is that a lot of states, Wyoming included, used the repeal to fall back on their state prohibition laws, which had not been repealed, and work on new alcohol laws that controlled the trade much more strictly than had been the prior case.  States like Wyoming did follow the national lead, but they didn't go back to the open free for all that had been in place before.

The story of marijuana may be similar.  States made it illegal long before the Federal government entered the picture in the 1970s  Now that states are rushing away from their own state laws the Federal government isn't enforcing the Federal law, which is bad.  It would have been better, probably, if the Federal government had never entered the picture.  If it hand't, by now we'd have a longer history on what making it legal may mean, and I suspect the looming health disaster its likely to be, would be causing a lot of pause now.

Federal Over Reach

Everyone loves pets.

So much so, that it causes people to act stupidly on a continual basis.

At this point in our history we've reached the point where, in the western world, human reproduction is at an all time low but our ability to create truly messed up human being is perhaps at an all time high. Evidence of that is everywhere.  None the less, in the absence of tiny humans to fawn over, many people have turned to pets, and in the process forgotten that they are animals.  Even the terms used, including the disgusting anthropomorphism "fur baby", gives evidence of that.

And now a certain type of strange animal abuse has been made a Federal crime.

Last Monday Donald Trump signed the Preventing Animal Cruelty and Torture act, a completely moronic legal provision.

Animal cruelty is illegal in all fifty states. There was no need to make this a Federal crime other than it gives some deluded Federal legislature the warm fuzzies for thinking that he's doing something, when in fact he ought to be doing something else.  Here's the text:

AT THE FIRST SESSION

Begun and held at the City of Washington on Thursday,

the third day of January, two thousand and nineteen 

“48. Animal crushing.”.
To revise section 48 of title 18, United States Code, and for other purposes.Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.This Act may be cited as the “Preventing Animal Cruelty and Torture Act” or the “PACT Act”.SEC. 2. REVISION OF SECTION 48.(a) In General.—Section 48 of title 18, United States Code, is amended to read as follows:“§ 48. Animal crushing“(a) Offenses.—“(1) CRUSHING.—It shall be unlawful for any person to purposely engage in animal crushing in or affecting interstate or foreign commerce or within the special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the United States.“(2) CREATION OF ANIMAL CRUSH VIDEOS.—It shall be unlawful for any person to knowingly create an animal crush video, if—“(A) the person intends or has reason to know that the animal crush video will be distributed in, or using a means or facility of, interstate or foreign commerce; or“(B) the animal crush video is distributed in, or using a means or facility of, interstate or foreign commerce.“(3) DISTRIBUTION OF ANIMAL CRUSH VIDEOS.—It shall be unlawful for any person to knowingly sell, market, advertise, exchange, or distribute an animal crush video in, or using a means or facility of, interstate or foreign commerce.“(b) Extraterritorial Application.—This section applies to the knowing sale, marketing, advertising, exchange, distribution, or creation of an animal crush video outside of the United States, if—“(1) the person engaging in such conduct intends or has reason to know that the animal crush video will be transported into the United States or its territories or possessions; or“(2) the animal crush video is transported into the United States or its territories or possessions.“(c) Penalties.—Whoever violates this section shall be fined under this title, imprisoned for not more than 7 years, or both.“(d) Exceptions.—“(1) IN GENERAL.—This section does not apply with regard to any conduct, or a visual depiction of that conduct, that is—“(A) a customary and normal veterinary, agricultural husbandry, or other animal management practice;“(B) the slaughter of animals for food;“(C) hunting, trapping, fishing, a sporting activity not otherwise prohibited by Federal law, predator control, or pest control;“(D) medical or scientific research;“(E) necessary to protect the life or property of a person; or“(F) performed as part of euthanizing an animal.“(2) GOOD-FAITH DISTRIBUTION.—This section does not apply to the good-faith distribution of an animal crush video to—“(A) a law enforcement agency; or“(B) a third party for the sole purpose of analysis to determine if referral to a law enforcement agency is appropriate.“(3) UNINTENTIONAL CONDUCT.—This section does not apply to unintentional conduct that injures or kills an animal.“(4) CONSISTENCY WITH RFRA.—This section shall be enforced in a manner that is consistent with section 3 of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 (42 U.S.C. 2000bb–1).“(e) No Preemption.—Nothing in this section shall be construed to preempt the law of any State or local subdivision thereof to protect animals.“(f) Definitions.—In this section—“(1) the term ‘animal crushing’ means actual conduct in which one or more living non-human mammals, birds, reptiles, or amphibians is purposely crushed, burned, drowned, suffocated, impaled, or otherwise subjected to serious bodily injury (as defined in section 1365 and including conduct that, if committed against a person and in the special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the United States, would violate section 2241 or 2242);“(2) the term ‘animal crush video’ means any photograph, motion-picture film, video or digital recording, or electronic image that—“(A) depicts animal crushing; and“(B) is obscene; and“(3) the term ‘euthanizing an animal’ means the humane destruction of an animal accomplished by a method that—“(A) produces rapid unconsciousness and subsequent death without evidence of pain or distress; or“(B) uses anesthesia produced by an agent that causes painless loss of consciousness and subsequent death.”.(b) Technical And Conforming Amendment.—The table of sections for chapter 3 of title 18, United States Code, is amended by striking the item relating to section 48 and inserting the following:
SEC. 3. DETERMINATION OF BUDGETARY EFFECTS.The budgetary effects of this Act, and the amendments made by this Act, for the purpose of complying with the Statutory Pay-As-You-Go Act of 2010, shall be determined by reference to the latest statement titled “Budgetary Effects of PAYGO Legislation” for this Act, submitted for printing in the Congressional Record by the Chairman of the House Budget Committee, provided that such statement has been submitted prior to the vote on passage.

So, you may ask, how could anyone object to the illegalization of such abhorrent conduct as that made illegal in this law.

Because it was already illegal.

It's difficult to believe that the state of the Federal law has reached a point where there's nothing else for the Federal government to actually do but to get into something that state and local law enforcement already has handled.

And additionally, irrespective of its original noble intent, the law will be misused, sooner or later, as its a Federal law and they always are.  At some point, somebody, in a packing house, or transporting animals in agriculture, or something, will get prosecuted by an overzealous Federal prosecutor and have to endure a nightmare that they shouldn't have.

Indeed, in this election season we have heard more than once from Democratic candidates for office who have made it plain that they'd flat out ignore the Constitution in regard to the Second Amendment.  Kamala Harris, who was a state prosecutor, has shown absolute contempt for the law in this area, which makes a person wonder what her feelings were when she was a prosecutor in regard to the law. And as a post here recently noted, the Federal law that came to apply to marijuana and hemp has caused ongoing legal oddities as the country has moved towards state legalization. Marijuana is still illegal nationwide under the Federal law, which is one of the reasons that the FDA doesn't study or regulate it.

Congress has plenty to do. . . or at least it ought to.  Making the already illegal, illegal, is a waste of time and a misdirection of purpose.

The Time Warp

Folks who know me would never accuse me of being one of the folks who turn out in suit and tie everyday, or even tie everyday, in spite of my occupation.  But I have been amazed by the nearly complete evaporation of standards of appearance that's occurred even during my work life.  It's been amazing.

Indeed, I have to say that I was sort of shocked for the opposite reason yesterday afternoon when my Long Suffering Spouse and I went out to do some errands.  On the first one we ran into some folks she knows at a sporting goods store. They were there with their 18 year old son who was incredibly clean cut.

Well, just back from basic training.  No wonder.

And then, this being Christmas Party season, we stopped by the liquor store to find it full of men in suits. Really rare around here, especially on a Saturday.  And then an Artillery Lieutenant in Dress Blues stopped in, which is something we never see here.

Like walking into a time warp.

The Frozen Puppy

Lex Anteinternet: The Eastern Shoshone consider cannabis: In one of the many posts that I start and never finish, I had in my draft posts a item that was from the Irish Times on Irish physicians lam...

The overall problem, however, is that distinguishing between hemp and marijuana isn't really completely possible overall, as the difference between the two is somewhat like the difference between wolves and wolfy dogs.  Is that a dog, or a wolf?  It's hard to tell

Which leads me to a science item, having nothing to do with hemp or marijuana, but oddly illustrating the point in a way.

Scientists, last year, but only revealed within the last week or so, discovered an 18,000 year old puppy in a lump of frozen mud in Siberia.  It's very well preserved.  It's a male.

They've sequenced its genes and can't tell if its a wolf, or a dog.

That's not really that surprising, and this conundrum has happened before with really old canine remains. Early dogs were nearly wolves.  The first canines that hung out in human camps were wolves.  Shoot, for all we know the very first canine to be incorporated into a human society as a pet may have been a wolf puppy.

Now, that doesn't argue, as some folks will do, that humans should keep wolves as pets.  Wolves are a wild animal and even if acclimated to humans it doesn't make them a pet.  They're still wolves.  But the distance between the first dog and wolves isn't a very far distance.  At some point, that distance must have been nearly non existent.

December 8, 1919. Wars averted and freezing in the dark.

The protocol the Germans were asked to accept due to their failure to fully comply with the provisions of the Versailles Treaty was modified, including taking out a use of force provision.

Resumed war, or quasi war, or at least military occupation of/with German, was thereby averted.

Meanwhile, President Wilson told Senator Fall to pound sand over a resolution that would have required the United States to sever diplomatic relations with Mexico over the recent Jenkins affair.

It's really debatable if such a resolution was constitutional.  Congress doesn't set diplomatic policy, the President does, and Congress' ability to do a thing like that would have been questionable at best.

And the coal shortage was so bad that it looked like Laramie was going to freeze in the dark on New Year's Eve.

And it'd be a dry New Years at that.

It was in fact already happening, with the restrictions that had been put in place.  And Laramie's notoriously cold weather was already present.

So then what? Lex Anteinternet: December 1, 1969. The United States resumes a lottery system for conscription.

Last week we published this item:

Lex Anteinternet: December 1, 1969. The United States resumes a lott...:

In that, we noted the following:

The resumption of a lottery system for the draft, in which each registrant was assigned a number and the number then drawn at random, was designed to attempt to reduce the unpopularity of conscription at that point in the Vietnam War.  Numerous changes were made to the system during the war including ending a marriage exemption and ultimately curtaining an exemption for graduate students. With the adoption of the lottery system also came a change in age focus so that rather than top of those in the age range being drafted it then focused on those who were 19 years old. The reason for this was that if a person's number wasn't chosen in the lottery as a 19 year old, they were not going to be drafted and could accordingly plan around that.

So, as noted, the concept was that the lottery would reduce resistance to the draft.

So, did it?

In fact, it did remarkably, and not only that, protests of the Vietnam War dropped off on college campuses remarkably in 1970.

Now, not completely.  Indeed, one of the absolute worst events associated with the era of college war protests, the shooting at Kent State, would come in 1970.  But there was a marked reduction.

Indeed, university faculty, which had evolved from a sort of genteel conservatism early in the 20th Century into an increasingly liberal faculty over the years, was both surprised and disappointed as they'd come to believe that the core of the opposition was social concern, rather than personal concern.  It turned out that at least the evidence was the opposite.

So, what generally occurred with the lottery is that a large number of men knew after a lottery call that they were never going to be drafted and they accordingly planned conventionally.  Another group knew for sure it had been drafted and planned for that. A number in the middle felt their chances of being drafted were likely, reviewed the deferments they might be qualified for, with quite a few heading for Reserve component recruiters or the ROTC building.

The opposition to the war certainly didn't end.  But the heat had been taken out of the issue to a surprising degree.

Sunday Morning Scene. Churches of the West: Unknown church near Ft. Fred Steele, Carbon County, Wyoming.

Churches of the West: Unknown church near Ft. Fred Steele, Carbon County...:

Unknown church near Ft. Fred Steele, Carbon County, Wyoming.

This abandoned church sits in a ranch yard just outside of Ft. Fred Steele in Carbon County, Wyoming.  I have no other information on it, other than it appears quite old.

Best posts of the week of December 1, 2019

The best posts of the week of December 1, 2019.

The Dodge 3500 Project

Electric

The Eastern Shoshone consider cannabis

Poster Saturday. December 1919

Poster Saturday. December 1919

The December 1919 Coca Cola calendar, which featured actress Marion Davies.

Davies was an early, and talented, silent movie actress who would make the cross over to talking pictures. She was already the mistress of the married William Randolph Hearst at the time of her appearing on this calendar and indeed Hearst founded Cosmopolitan Productions specifically to back her career. Unusually for such relationships, Davies remained Hearst's mistress until his death and married for the first and only time shortly after that.

Davies isn't well remembered as actress today due to her unfavorable depiction in Citizen Kane, a fictionalized treatment of Hearst's life.  The film remains a great film to this day but it is fiction,  not a biography, and Davies isn't treated fairly in it.  Even efforts by the movies major star and producer Orson Welles failed to suffice to retrieve her image, something no doubt made more difficult by her long running illicit relationship with Hearst.

Hearst and Davies are widely believed to have been the parents of Patricia Lake, who was maintained to be Davies' niece during Davies' lifetime and was passed off as the daughter of a less successful acting sister.  Lake was also an actress and her true parentage, if that is her true parentage, was only revealed on her deathbed.  Lake bore a striking resemblance to Davies.

Marion Davies

Davies was the daughter of a New York lawyer whose original last name was Douras.  She was educated in a Catholic convent school and returned to her Faith prior to her death.

December 6, 1919. Rumors of War.

Germany had failed to comply with all of the provisions of the Versailles Treaty by this date, and as a result, a protocol was issued addressing it, and the German government asked to sign it.  To this date, they had not.

Here's what the protocol stated:

At the moment of proceeding to the first deposit of ratifications of the Treaty of Peace, it is placed on record that the following obligations, which Germany had undertaken to execute by the Armistice Conventions and supplementary Agreements, have not been executed or have not been completely fulfilled:  

(1) Armistice Convention of November 11,1918/5 Clause VII; obligation to deliver 5,000 locomotives and 150,000 wagons. 42 locomotives and 4,460 wagons are still to be delivered;
(2) Armistice Convention of November 11, 1918, Clause XII; obligation to withdraw the German troops in Russian territory within the frontiers of Germany, as soon as the' Allies shall think the moment suitable. The withdrawal of these troops has not been effected, despite the reiterated instructions of August 27, September 27 and October 10, 1919;
(3) Armistice Convention of November 11,1918, Clause XIV; obligation to cease at once all requisitions, seizures or coercive measures in Russian territory. The German troops have continued to have recourse to such measures;
(4) Armistice Convention of November 11, 1918, Clause XIX; obligation to return immediately all documents, specie, stocks, shares, paper money, together with plant for the issue thereof, affecting public or private interests in the invaded countries. The complete lists of specie and securities carried off, collected or confiscated by the Germans in the invaded countries have not been supplied;
(5) Armistice Convention of November 11, 1918, Clause XXII; obligation to surrender all German submarines. Destruction of the German submarine U.C. 48 off Ferrol by order of her German commander, and destruction in the North Sea of certain submarines proceeding to England for surrender;
(6) Armistice Convention of November 11, 1918, Clause XXIII; obligation to maintain in Allied ports the German ~arships designated by the Allied and Associated Powers, these ships being intended to be ultimately handedover. Clause XXXI; obligation not to destroy any ship before delivery. Destruction of the said ships at Scapa Flow on June 21, 1919;
(7) Protocol of December 17, 1918, Annex to the Armistice Convention of December 13, 1918; obligation to restore the works of art and artistic documents carried off in France and Belgium. All the works of art removed into the unoccupied parts of Germany have not been restored;
(8) Armistice Convention of January 16, 1919/6 Clause III and Protocol 392/1 Additional Clause III of July 25, 1919; obligation to hand over agricultural machinery in the place of the supplementary railway material provided for in Tables 1 and 2 annexed to the Protocol of Spa of December 17, 1918. The following machines had not been delivered on the stipulated date of October 1, 1919. 40 "Heucke" steam plough outfits; all the cultivators for the outfits; all the spades; 1,500 shovels; 1,130 T.F. 23/26 ploughs; 1,765 T.F. 18/21 ploughs; 1,512 T.F. 23/26 ploughs; 629 T.F. 0 m. 20 Brabant ploughs; 1,205 T.F.o m. 26 Brabant ploughs; 4,282 harrows of 2 k. 500; 2,157 steel cultivators; 966 2 m. 50 manure distributors; 1,608 3 m. 50 manure distributors;
(9) Armistice Convention of January 16, 1919, Clause VI; obligation to restore the industrial material carried off from French and Belgian territory. All this material has not been restored;
(10) Convention of January 16,1919, Clause VIII; obligation to place the German merchant fleet under the control of the Allied and Associated Powers. A certain number of ships whose delivery had been demanded under this clause have not yet been handed over;
(11) Protocols of the Conferences of Brussels of March 13 and 14, 1919; obligation not to export war material of all kinds. Exportation of aeronautical material to Sweden, Holland and Denmark.  

A certain number of the above provisions which have not been executed or have not been executed in full have been renewed by the Treaty of June 28, 1919, whose coming into force will ipso facto render the sanctions there provided applicable. This applies particularly to the various measures to be taken on account of reparation.
Further, the question of the evacuation of the Baltic provinces has been the subject of an exchange of notes and of decisions which are being carried out. The Allied and Associated Powers expressly confirming the contents of their notes, Germany by the present Protocol undertakes to continue to execute them faithfully and strictly.
Finally, as the Allied and Associated Powers could not allow to p'ass without penalty the other failures to execute the Armistice Conventions and violations so serious as the destruction of the German fleet at Scapa Flow, the destruction of U.C. 48 off Ferrol and the destruction in the North Sea of certain submarines on their way to England for surrender, Germany undertakes:
(1) A. To hand over as reparation for the destruction of the German fleet at Scapa Flow: .
(a) Within 60 days from the date of the signature of the present Protocol and in the conditions laid down in the second paragraph of Article 185 of the Treaty of Peace the five following light cruisers:  

Konigsberg,
Pillau,
Graudenz,
Regensburg,
Strassburg.  

(b) Within 90 days from the date of the signature of the present Protocol, and in good condition and ready for service in every respect, such a number of floating docks, floating cranes, tugs and dredgers, equivalent to a total displacement of 400,000 tons, as the Principal Allied and Associated Powers may require. As regards the docks, the lifting power will be considered as the displacement. In the number of docks referred to above there will be about 75 per cent. of docks over 10,000 tons. The whole of this material will be handed over on the spot;  

B. To deliver within 10 days from the signature of the present Protocol a complete list of all floating docks, floating cranes, tugs and dredgers which are German property. This list, which will be delivered to the Naval Inter Allied Commission of Control referred to in Article 209 of the Treaty of Peace, will specify the material which on November 11, 1918, belonged to the German Government or in which the German Government had at that date an important interest; 

C. The officers and men who formed the crews of the warships sunk at Scapa Flow and who are at present detained by the Principal Allied and Associated Powers will, with the exception of those whose surrender is provided for by Article 228 of the Treaty of Peace, be repatriated at latest when Germany has carried out the provisions of Paragraphs A. and B. above;  

D. The destroyer B. 98 will be considered as one of the 42 destroyers whose delivery is provided for by Article 185 of the Treaty of Peace;  

(2) To hand over within 10 days from the signature of the present Protocol the engines and motors of the submarines U. 137 and U. 138 as compensation for the destruction of U.C. 48;  

(3) To pay to the Allied and Associated Governments before January 31, 1920, the value of the aeronautical material exported, in accordance with the decision which will be given and the valuation which will be made and notified by the Aeronautical Inter-Allied Commission of Control referred to in Article 210 of the Treaty of Peace. In the event of Germany not fulfilling these obligations within the periods laid down above, the Allied and Associated Powers reserve the right to take all military or other measures of coercion which they may consider appropriate.

There Versailles Treaty was complicated to start with, and things clearly hadn't been going smoothly in Germany.  The question now was what to do about it, and the threatened solution was military.

This of course followed the ongoing difficulties with Mexico.  The U.S., for its part, hadn't signed the Versailles Treaty, but it still had troops on occupation duty in the country.

Rumors of war were definitely not going away.  It would be enough to make a person want to curl up with a good book and forget the news of the day.