The 2024 Election, Part XVII. Standing on their feet or crawling on their knees.

April 24, 2024

And, yes, we already have yet another edition.

First, this:

Russo Ukrainian War

The aid bill passed the Senate 79 to 18.  Wyoming's two Senators, who normally would have voted yes, voted no, so they can bow down to the Populist Party.

Mike Johnson, after receiving intelligence briefings on the Russia war in Ukraine and praying about it, reversed his prior position heroically.  Wyoming's two Senators, who undoubtedly are not in favor of Russian winning the war in Ukraine, and who must at least suspect that voting against aid to Ukraine might mean the butchered bodies of American soldiers in Europe next year or the year thereafter, voted against it anyway.

Politicians are rarely held responsible for willfully wrong votes. Cheney was penalized by the voters for doing the right thing, but had the courage to do it anyhow.  Lummis and Barrasso are doing the wrong thing so as to avoid suffering her fate.  When the day comes, and if Russia prevails there's a good chance of it happening, and Russia crosses the Curzon Line, or the Balkan frontier, and the US finds itself obligated by its NATO treaty to defend Europe, assuming that Donald Trump, who hasn't upheld his oath to the Constitution, or his marital vow(s) would honor our treaty obligations, will those Wyoming politicians, who are too old to serve themselves, at least recognize that they have blood on their hands?

Probably not.

Let's look just a little bit on some of the current local races.

Senate

Lummis isn't running for reelection, but Barrasso is.

Barrasso is in political trouble as his opponent, Reid Rasner, who is from the Populist Party, is giving him a real run for the money, or so it seems.  Barrasso, therefore, is running to the right of himself.

No Democrat has announced as of yet.

Wyoming House District 35

NCSD employee Christopher Dresang is running against Rep. Tony Locke, R-Casper, a Freedom Caucus member.  Dresang is a Casper native who is a graduate of the Catholic school system's St. Anthony’s, and then Natrona County High School, Casper College, the University of Wyoming, and Montana State University-Bozeman.  Locke, unlike many Freedom Caucus members, is actually from Wyoming and has a MS in engineering, making him all the more unusual as he's highly educated and yet apparently a populist.

Wyoming House District 56

Jerry Obermeuller, who was a really good legislator, announced last weekend he was not running for reelection and expressed the hope that a Republican (non Populist) did.  

Elissa Campbell announced her run for that seat yesterday.  She's a Wyoming native, unlike the numerous imports that make up the Invader wing of the Freedom Caucus, and she owns a consulting agency in Casper.  She has two BA's, one in Philosophy, one in Environmental Ethics from the University of Wyoming.   The press interview lacked very much useful content, and all we really know is that she's a mammal.  Those who know her, however, feel that she'll be much like Obermeuller in outlook.

Wyoming House District 57

Another Wyoming native, and a former teacher, Julie Jarvis, is running against Jeanette Ward, an Illinois Populist who the Wyoming Education Association has been taking on, and a prominent member of the Invader wing.  Ward is amongst the most extreme in every fashion of the Populist, and was an extreme school board member in her native state of Illinois.  Ward has managed to keep her patrim fairly quiet, so nobody has every really looked at it much, even though her presentation alone has a fish out of war element to it.  Jarvis is Wyoming Basque from Buffalo, and came out swinging against her.

This promises to be an interesting race as every Basque I've ever known was really smart and extremely feisty.  Jarvis grew up, it might be noted, in a farming family. What kind of family Ward grew up in is a mystery.

April 30, 2024

Wyoming House District 34

Freedom Caucus member Rep. Pepper Ottman will face rancher, businessman and conservationist Reg Phillips in the primary election.

Presidential Campaign.

In a semi amusing story, I've been watching some Democrats like Robert Reich be absolutely hysterical about the Robert F. Kennedy race all season long, as they insisted that Kennedy was a Trump funded effort to draw Democratic votes away from Biden. The same logic, I'd note, applied to the No Labels effort which failed.  In both instances, it always seemed to me that these efforts would draw votes away from Trump, not Biden.

Well, turns out, I'm right.  In recent polls, the RFK campaign is drawing Trump voters.  Well, of course it would.  It features at lease one of the goofball populist elements, anti vaccines, without the boatload of moral sludge that comes out of a box of Trump Toasties.  There's really nothing in the RFK effort that would draw Biden voters.  There's quite a lot that might draw Trump voters who otherwise don't quite like the smell of Trump.  Now, reportedly, he's targeting Trump voters.

He stands no chance of winning.  But in the general election, while he'll draw some voters from Biden as well, it's really those who would otherwise feel compelled to vote for Trump that are attracted to him.  And there are no doubt still a surprising number of voters who aren't Democrats, but don't like Trump, but otherwise would feel compelled to vote for Trump.

May 7, 2024

Former Georgia Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan has endorsed Joe Biden, stating that Trump has no moral compass.

Meanwhile, Trump, in trial in New York, seems to be cruising to be jailed for contempt of court if his current conduct keeps up.

Wyoming House District 42

Rob Geringer, s running for the state House against incumbent Freedom Caucus member Ben Hornok, stating that Wyoming's Republicans are losing their supermajoirty advantages by focusing on small differences.

Geringer is the son of the former Governor by that name.

May 9, 2024

Wyoming County Clerk's acting pursuant to requirements of the law purged 83,000 voters from the rolls, eliminating those who did not vote in the 2022 general election.

Wyoming, acting out of an imaginary fear of voter fraud where it doesn't exist, has eliminated same day registration, which means that a lot of those 83,000 that will show up to cast their votes this fall or this summer will be told to pound sand.

The Deadline to Register To Vote in the Primary is May 15.

Lots of people will ignore that.  A lot of them will then bizarrely blame the Democrats.

Former Speaker of the House Paul Ryan has indicated he won't vote for Donald Trump, and is going to write in a Republican.

May 10, 2024

Donald Trump reportedly asked for 1B for his campaign.  His campaign is noting that no quid pro quo was asked for.

May 11, 2024

Barron Trump, age 18, has declined to be a RNC delegate.

May 12, 2024

Christie Neom has been banned from two more South Dakota tribes meaning she's been banned from 20% of the landmass of her state.

RFK Jr, who previously was in favor of no restrictions on abortions, has changed his position to oppose abortion of viable infants, which is still a bloody position.

May 15, 2024

The largest Hispanic organization in the US, UnidosUS, has endorsed Joe Biden.

May 20, 2024

Tyler Cessor, executive director of the Wyoming Outdoor Council, has announced that he's running as an independent for House District 57, meaning that whoever prevails in that district, now occupied by Jeanette Ward, will face a candidate in the fall.

Cessor immediately was accused by Ward of aligning with the "radical Democrats" but it's clear that Ward is in trouble.  With a 100% failure of her bills in the legislature and a record of being amongst the most populist of the "Freedom Caucus", she appears to be facing a real fight to retain her seat.

My guess, and it's just that, is that Ward will go down in the primary, and Cessor do poorly in the general.

Trump received the NRA's endorsement over the weekend. The extent to which the firearms' users organization has been extreme, so that's not surprising.  What was interesting is that in a speech to the organization, Trump completely froze up when his teleprompter failed for 35 seconds.  Use of a teleprompter is sadly common amongst modern politicians, and sometimes explains the poor quality of their oration, but Trump supporters have been harsh on Biden for using one.

May 27, 2024

Trump went to a NASCAR Race yesterday.

Hillary Clinton spoke, for reasons that are unfortunate and indeterminable, and stated that the Democrats didn't do enough to protect infanticide prior to the repeal of Roe.

For some unfathomable reason, the Democrats always choose to embrace things that make it impossible for some, who would vote for them, to do so.

The Secretary of State's office has published a list of who is running for office.  We'll look first at the race for Washington seats:

This is really surprising in that there are a fair number of Reid Rasner signs around, and I thought he had official registered to run. Apparently he has not.

And there's no earthly reason for John Holtz to try this again, as he will fail.

And a Democrat is now in the race against Hageman.  She will lose, but at least somebody is trying.

State races are remarkably devoid of Democrats, all of which shows that the primary is the election that counts, and the state needs to move rapidly away from party affiliated elections.

May 29, 2024

Donald Trump endorsed John Barasso.

The current candidate roster.

Recent related threads:

Not a profile in courage.

Last prior edition:

The 2024 Election, Part XVI. The Compromised Morals Edition

It's worth remembering that not all that long ago, speaking like this would have disqualified a person from national office.

 

Going to the hardware store. A note on taxes.

Socialism is when the government does stuff. And it's more socialism the more stuff it does. And if it does a real lot of stuff, it's communism.

Richard D. Wolff.¹

I saw them there when I went into the hardware store, but they were talking to somebody and I didn't have to engage them.  I was not so lucky on the way out.  I glanced over as there oddly enough were cookies at the table and I thought for a moment it might be an effort to raise money for something like the Girl Scouts, but there were no girls there.  Only two women, whom I'd guess were in their 70s.

Them: Excuse me sir, are you a registered voter?

I'll be frank, I really hate the initiative and referendum process.  I figure most people sign the petitions to get something on the ballot, as they are polite and don't really want to offend the signature takers.  Eons ago, I was like that myself.

I've long since being that way.  Most of the time I refuse to sign the petitions, but I don't engage the petitioners in debate.

And I didn't this time.  I wish I had.

The rest of the brief conversation:

    Me: Yes (said in an irritated tone).

    Them: Would you like to sign our petition?  If passed, it would drop property taxes 50%.

    Me: No (said in an even more irritated tone).

By the time I got home, I was irritated with myself.  I wish I had engaged them in conversation.  If I had, what I would have said is this?

Oh?  Property taxes in Wyoming, which has no income tax, pay for police, fire departments, basic city sevices and education.  Why do you hate policemen, firemen and teachers?

That's brutal, but that's the truth.  If we don't tax property for these things, we have to tax something else, or go without.

This city has had two reported teenage murders in the last month, and a lot of killings here just go unreported. We have a developing violent gang problem.  I'm not even going to bother with the drug problem that comes with living in a city that's on an Interstate Highway.  We have a homeless problem due to other municipalities busing their homeless to our city.  All of these ties right into what I just noted.  

Badly educated people are a major social problem that ends up being a burden on emergency services.  

The "I don't want to be taxed" movement really came about, no matter how it is thinly intellectually justified, as property taxes have risen significantly in the state in recent years.  The reasons are several fold, one simply being that county assessors falsely suppressed raising them, as property values raised, as they're elected officers and they were chicken about it. The State, which has the duty to distribute the taxes, finally got after them to do t heir jobs, and they've been having to do them. That's raised taxes.

Another is that a certain attitude in the state has encouraged people to move in, although a large number move right back out. Those who move in are largely older, having made their lives elsewhere, and having educated their children elsewhere. They sold their houses high in those places, where they should have stayed, and don't want to pay for anything here. Additionally, a lot of these people have real populist views, and would be just fine with not educating anyone in their declining years as they'll be dead as a door nail when current children become ignorant voters themselves.

For that matter, some of the recent imports have washed up from regions where education in particular is lacking.  This is particularly the case for people who have come up from the South.  Steeped in a sort of ignorance themselves, they aren't thinking things through, and regard education as some sort of left wing conspiracy. This has unfortunately seeped into American conservatism itself, and is now sort of a rallying cry.

Property taxes are rising just because of people like this.  They sell out their homes for a pile, and then come here and buy new ones at inflated prices.

I'd really like to know what these people would propose to cut, if we didn't have the property taxes.  They likely have no idea. The same people who would cut property taxes would go to a city council meeting and complain about a pothole, which is filled, basically, with money from property taxes.

Property taxes are, moreover, more fair than people suppose. If you have property, you have means. It's telling that these complaints come from old people, not young couples. Renters aren't paying property taxes.  And if the property taxes are too high, it may mean you exceeded your means, or you have multiple properties.  In the latter case, sell one, that will reduce property values and help distribute the scarce resource. 

Footnotes.

1.  A relative of mine uses this quote frequently, which is where I heard the first part of it.

I looked Wolff up, and he is an academic Marxist, which I'm not in any sense.  Marxism is proven murderous crap. But the quote is not without merit.  Every democratic society has governments which do a lot of stuff, and by and large the public really likes the stuff it does if it benefits from it, and doesn't if somebody else does.  Some of the most subsidized industries in the US completely fail to realize that and their members loudly complain about the government.  Trucking is, for example, a prime example.

Courthouses of the West: The Norm.

Courthouses of the West: The Norm.:

The Norm.

From one of the numerous Trump tweets, or whatever they are called.

Why? 

Well because the prosecution, just like the plaintiff in a civil trial, has the burden of proof and hence the more difficult job.

Generally, the order of a trial is:

Plaintiff/Prosecution Opens.

Defense Opens.

Plaintiff/Prosecution presents evidence.

Defense presents evidence.

Plaintiff/Prosecution closes.

Defense closes.

Plaintiff/Prosecution rebuts, if there's something to rebut.

That's the norm.

Sunday, May 28, 1944. A Memorial Day Weekend.

It was a Sunday on a Memorial Day weekend in the US. What did that look like in Wyoming, I wonder?  

It wasn't a day off for SHAEF, as Sarah Sundin reports; Today in World War II History—May 28, 1944

The 1st Canadian Corps took Ceprano.

German 220 mm howitzer knocked out near Anzio.

The 8th Air Force attacked Leuna and Magdeburg

The 41st Infantry Division advanced against heavy Japanese opposition on Biak. At the same time, Gen. MacArthur declared the New Guinea campaign strategically won, while acknowledging that hard fighting remained.

Rudy Giuliani was born in Brooklyn.  His rise and fall demonstrates, in a way, how politicians born in the 1940s have been eclipsed by age, and should really no longer be seriously considered for office.

Gladys Knight was born in Atlanta.  

The late Sandra Locke was born in Tennessee.

Last prior edition:

Saturday, May 27, 1944. Landing at Biak.

Labels: 1940s, 1944, Army, Battle of Biak, Battle of the Atlantic, boats and ships, Indonesia, Infantry, New Guinea, Royal Air Force, World War Two

Wednesday, May 28, 1924. Border Patrol and Foreign Service.

We earlier posted this: 

Lex Anteinternet: Saturday, May 24, 1924. Foreign services.: 

Saturday, May 24, 1924. Foreign services.

President Coolidge signed the Foreign Service Act of 1924, creating the Foreign Serve and the Immigration Act of 1924, the National Origins Act.

The act reflected immigration by national origins, banned all immigration from Asia and set a total immigration quota of 165,000 for countries outside the Western Hemisphere.  It also authorized the creation of The Border Patrol.

And on this day, those agencies came into being.

Japan issued a formal protest over the Immigration Act of 1924.

President Coolidge issued a proclamation:

Max Wallraf was elected as the President of the Reichstag,

New York National Guardsman, Pvt. George Herman Ruth was photographed saluting Gen. Pershing.

Coolidge was photographed with cadet officers.

Last prior edition:

Monday, May 26, 1924. The beginning of the end for Hejaz.

Labels: 1920s, 1924, German Weimar Republic, Immigration, Jordan, Kingdom of Hejaz, law, Saudi Arabia

A British bill to reintroduce conscription.

 It'll go nowhere, but it's making a lot of press in the UK.

First as tragedy, second as farce

National service in the UK, good thing or bad thing? Rationing starts Sunday 2nd of June.

It's worth remembering that not all that long ago, speaking like this would have disqualified a person from national office.

 

Human scum?

Language like that was once only used by truly radical political parties that were murderous in nature.  The Soviet Communist Party or the Nazi Party.

Horrific.

Memorial Day. A Warning.

Today we know that World War II began not in 1939 or 1941 but in the 1920's and 1930's when those who should have known better persuaded themselves that they were not their brother's keeper.

Hubert H. Humphrey

Memorial Day, a repeat.

 

A 2022 Memorial Day Reflection.

Today is Memorial Day.

I've done a Memorial Day reflection post a couple of times, and I did a short history of Memorial Day once on our companion blog here:

Memorial Day

Observers here may have noted that I failed to put up a post for Memorial Day when this post was first made, in 2012.

This is in part due to Memorial Day being one of those days that moves around as, in recent years, Congress has attempted to make national holidays into three day weekends. That's nice for people, but in some ways it also takes away from the holiday a bit.  At the same time, it sort of tells you that if a holiday hasn't been moved to the nearest Friday or Monday, next to its original location on the calendar, it means that the holiday is either hugely important, a religious holiday, or extremely minor.  The 4th of July and Flag Day, one major and one minor, do not get moved, for example.

Anyhow, Memorial Day commenced at some point either immediately after or even during the Civil War, depending upon how you reckon it, and if you are date dependent for the origin of the holiday.  In American terms, the day originally served to remember the dead of the then recent Civil War.  The holiday, in the form of "Decoration Day" was spreading by the late 1860s.  The name Memorial Day was introduced in the 1880s, but the Decoration Day name persisted until after World War Two.  The holiday became officially named Memorial Day by way of a Federal statute passed in 1967.  In 1971 the holiday was subject to the Uniform Monday Holiday Act which caused it to fall on the last Monday of May, as it does now.

The day, therefore, would have always been observed in Wyoming, which had Grand Army of the Republic lodges since prior to statehood. But, like many holidays of this type, observation of the holiday had changed over the years.  In the 1960s and 1970s, by my recollection, the day was generally observed by people visiting the grave sites of any deceased family member, and therefore it was more of a day to remember the dead, rather than a day to recall the war dead.  This, however, has changed in recent years to a very noticeable extent.  Presently, it tends to serve as a second Veterans Day, during which veterans in general are recalled.  This year, for example, Middle School children in Natrona County decorated the graves of servicemen in the county with poppies, strongly recalling the poppy campaigns of the VFW that existed for many years.

Wyoming has a strong military culture, even though the state has lost all but two of its military installations over the years. The state had the highest rate of volunteers for the service during World War Two, and it remained strongly in support of the Vietnam War even when it turned unpopular nationwide.  The state's National Guard has uniquely played a role in every US war since statehood, including Vietnam, so perhaps the state's subtle association with Memorial Day may be stronger than might be supposed.

On remembrance, we'd be remiss if we didn't point out our Some Gave All site.

It's worth remembering here that Memorial Day has its origin in a great act of national hatred, the Civil War.  That is, the day commenced here and there as an effort to remember the Civil War dead, which, at the end of the day, divide sharply into two groups; 1) those who gave their lives to keep their fellow human beings in cruel enslaved bondage, and those who fought to end it.

Now, no doubt, it can be pointed out that those who died for slavery by serving the South, and that is what they died for if they were killed fighting for the South, didn't always see their service that way.  It doesn't matter. That was the cause they were serving. And just as pointedly, many in the North who went as they had no choice were serving to "make men free", as the Battle Hymn of the Republic holds it, irrespective of how they thought of their own service.

And it's really that latter sort of sacrifice this day commemorates.

The first principal of democracy is democracy itself.

And because of that, it is inevitably the case that people will win elections whom you do not wish to.  Perhaps you may even detest what they stand for.

Democracy is a messy business and people, no matter what they claim to espouse, will often operate against democratic results if they don't like them.  In the 1950s through at least the 1990s, the American left abandoned democracy to a significant degree in favor of rule by the courts, taking up the concept that average people couldn't really be trusted to adopt a benighted view of the liberalism that they hoped for which would be free of anything, ultimately, liberally. An enforced libertine liberalism.

The results of that have come home to roost in our own era as a counter reaction, building since the 1980s, has now found expression in large parts of the GOP which have gone to populism and Illiberal Democracy.  

We have a draft thread on Illiberal Democracy, which is a term that most people aren't familiar with, but it's best expressed currently by the Hungarian government of Viktor Orban, to the horror of Buckeyite conservatives like George F. Will. 

Defining illiberal democracy isn't easy, in part because it's most commonly defined by its opponents.  Setting aside their definitions, which it probably would be best defined as is a system in which a set of beliefs and values are societally defined and adopted which are external to the government and constitution of a county, and a democracy can only exist within it.  The best historical example, if a good one can actually be found, might be Vichy France, which contrary to some assumptions was not a puppet of Nazi Germany so much as a species of near ally, but which had a right wing government, with elections, that operated only within the confines of the beliefs of the far right government.

Much of what we see going on now in the far right of the country, which is now the province of the GOP, is described in this fashion, although not without its ironies.  Viewed in that fashion, the January 6, insurrection actually makes sense, as the election was "stolen" because it produced the wrong results, culturally.  I.e., if you assume that the basic concepts of the Democratic Party fall outside of the cultural features which the far right populist wing of the GOP holds as legitimate, such an election would be illegitimate by definition.

The United States, however, has never viewed democracy that way.  Not even the Confederate South, which may be the American example that treads on being the closest to that concept, did.  The Southerners felt comfortable with human bondage, but they did not feel comfortable instituting an unwritten set of values into an unwritten constitution.  Slavery, the core value of the South, was presumed justified, but it was written into the law.

Much of the nation now does.

Indeed, in the Trump wing of the GOP, or the wing which came over to trump, and brought populist Democrats into the party, that is a strong central tenant.  When the far right in the current GOP speaks about being a "Constitutional Conservative", they don't mean being Constitutional Originalists.  Rather, they are speaking about interpreting the Constitution according to a second, unwritten, and vaguely defined "constitution".

The ironies this piles on are thick, as the unwritten social constitution this piles on looks back to an American of decades ago, much of which has indeed unfortunately changed, but much of which the current backers of this movement are not close to comporting with themselves.  The imagined perfect America that is looked back towards, the one that we wish to "Make Great Again", was culturally an Anglo-Saxon Protestant country, or at least a European Christian one, with very strong traditional values in that area.  Those who now look at that past as an ideal age in part because social movements involving such things as homosexuality and the like need to appreciate that the original of the same set of beliefs and concerns would make heterosexual couples living outside of marriage and no fault divorce just as looked down upon.  Put another way, the personal traits of Donald F. Trump, in this world, would be just as abhorrent as those of Barney Frank.

This is not to discuss the pluses or minuses of social conservatism or of social liberalism in any form.  That's a different topic.  But American democracy, no matter how imperfect, has always rested on the absolute that its first principal of democracy is democracy.  Taken one step further, a central concept of democracy is that bad ideas die in the sunlight.  

That has always proven true in the past, and there's any number of movements that rose and fell in the United States not because they were suppressed, but because they simply proved themselves to be poor ideas.  In contrast, nations which tried to enforce a certain cultural norm upon their people by force, such as Vichy France or Francoist Spain, ended up doing damage to it, even where some of the core values they sought to enforce were not bad (which is not to excuse the many which were).

All of that may seem a long ways from Memorial Day, but it's not.  No matter how a person defines it, as the end of the day the lost lives being commemorated today were lost for that concept of democracy and no other.  Those who would honor them, from the left or the right, can only honor them in that context.

That means that those who would support insurrections as their side didn't win, aren't honoring the spirit of the day. And those who would impose rule by courts, as people can't be trusted to vote the right way, aren't either.

Related threads:

Tuesday, May 30, 1922. Lincoln Memorial Dedicated.Labels: Civil War, Commentary, Conservatism, Democracy, Illiberal Democracy, Liberal Democracy, Liberalism, Memorial Day, Populism, Slavery, The 2021 Insurrection, United States, Vichy France

Theodore Roosevelt at Arlington.

On this day…we call to mind the deaths of those who died that the nation might live, who wagered all that life holds dear for the great prize of death in battle.

President Roosevelt at Arlington National Cemetery, Memorial Day, 1902.

I have to say, I wouldn't have referred to death as a "prize" in this context.

Monday, May 27, 1974. Memorial Day and Los Seis de Boulder.

It was Memorial Day for 1974.  Two days earlier President Nixon had issued this proclamation:

By the President of the United States Of America

A Proclamation

The defense of freedom and the search for peace cannot be separated. Together, they are an essential part of the American ideal. During the past two hundred years, our Nation has endured sacrifice in battle for the sake of this ideal. Americans died valiantly at Saratoga, King's Mountain, and Yorktown because they would not buy peace at the price of liberty. Americans died at Shiloh, Antietam, Gettysburg, and Vicksburg because a peace that cost the division of the Nation and the enslavement of a people could not be accepted.

We have occasion to show special gratitude this Memorial Day to those who fell in the cause of freedom in the longest and perhaps the most difficult war in our history. Because of their efforts, and the efforts of all our fighting forces, we can celebrate a year in which no American serviceman has fallen in the defense of his country.

During the past year, we have made progress toward the creation of a stable world order based on respect for the dignity and the larger interests of all nations. We have made this progress in part because America has pursued its tasks from a base of strength—not only military and economic strength, but strength of conviction and strength of purpose. We have been steadied in our resolve by the example of patience, self-sacrifice, and courage of our servicemen and women during the difficult years now past.

To our valiant dead we can pay no greater tribute than to emulate their dedication to a world free from the threat of force and the rule of fear. To them we dedicate our prayers for a new generation of peace and a new spirit of community among all the peoples of the world.

Now, Therefore, I, Richard M. Nixon, President of the United States of America, do hereby designate Memorial Day, Monday, May 27, 1974, as a day of prayer for permanent peace, and I designate the hour beginning in each locality at eleven o'clock in the morning of that day as a time to unite in prayer.

I urge the press, radio, television, and all other information media to cooperate in this observance.

I direct that the flag of the United States be flown at half-staff all day on Memorial Day on all buildings, grounds, and naval vessels of the Federal Government throughout the United States and all areas under its jurisdiction and control.

I also call upon the Governors of the fifty States, the Governor of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, and appropriate officials of all local units of government to direct that the flag be flown at half-staff on all public buildings during that entire day, and I request the people of the United States to display the flag at half-staff from their homes for the same period.

In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand this twenty-fifth day of May, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred seventy-four, and of the Independence of the United States of America the one hundred ninety-eighth.

RICHARD NIXON

A bomb went off in the car of lawyer Reyes Martinez at Chautauqua Park killing Martinez, his girlfriend Uma Jaakola and her friend Neva Romero were all killed in the blast.

Two days later, another car bomb went off in the parking lot of a Burger King which was closed for the evening, killing Florencio Granado, Heriberto Teran and Francisco Dougherty. Antonio Alcantar Jr., who was standing outside lost his leg.

No suspects have ever been arrested. The victims are known as the "Los Seis de Boulder", or "The Boulder Six".  All involved, save for Reyes Martinez, were Hispanic activists protesting the conditions at the University of Colorado, Boulder.  The FBI concluded that the bombs were made by the victims themselves and accidentally triggered, a thesis their supporters reject.  

Monuments have been placed to them at the University of Colorado in Boulder.

Valéry Giscard d'Estaing was inaugurated as President of France.

I had just turned eleven.  I have no personal recollection of any of these events.

Last prior edition:

Monday, May 13, 1974. 55

Labels: 1970s, 1974, 93d Congress, American Indian Movement, Government, law, Mohawk People, Native Americans, New York, Transportation

Saturday, May 27, 1944. Landing at Biak.

 The Battle of Biak in Indonesia (then part of New Guinea, which it is just off of) began with the landing of the U.S. Army's 41st Infantry Division.

If you are like me, and I'm well-informed on World War Two, you've never heard of this battle, which occured just before the Allied capture of Rome and the Allied landings in Normandy.

Today it is a tropical tourist destination.

The U-292 was sunk by a British B-24.

Last prior edition:

Friday, May 26, 1944. Striking out for the airbases.

Labels: 1940s, 1944, Advertising, Aircraft, boats and ships, Daily Living, Food, Italy, Operation Ichi-Go, Personalities, The family, The Holocaust, World War Two

Friday, May 27, 1774. Heading towards revolution.

The Royal Governor of Virginia, Lord Dunmore, dismissed Virginia's House of Burgesses due to a resolution, prepared by Thomas Jefferson, calling for a Day of Fasting and Prayer being passed.  The cause for Virginia's concern over British reaction to the Boston Tea Party, and it came on the same day that the British Navy planned to blockade Boston's harbor in punishment for the same.

The heavy-handed British reaction was propelling things in the very direction that the British did not want it to go.

The members of the House did not go right home, but instead convened as an Association, at the Raleigh Tavern, where they called for a Continental Congress.

Juan Bautista de Anza completed his overland expedition from Tubac, Mexico to San Gabriel Mission, in modern Los Angeles, California.

The Reverend Robert Newburgh was accused by a private British soldier of the 18th Regiment of Foot, stationed in the Colonies, of beggary.  He would be acquitted in a trial in June. The story was bizarre as he had invited the charge in the first instance, and coached the private on how to make it, seemingly in an effort to overall clear his name as he became increasingly unpopular.  He'd seen three soldiers tried for gossiping.

The plan would fail, and he'd ultimately be arrested after his acquittal for being disruptive, although his being accused of an "unnatural crime", the one he'd been just acquitted of, was mentioned at the time.

To the extent that this story is illustrative of anything, it's partially illustrative of the harsh discipline in the British Army of the period, as well as the somewhat junior high atmosphere that existed in 18th and 19th Century armies.  Additionally, however, it's interesting as neither the terms "heterosexual" or "homosexual" existed at the time, those being modern constructs, the latter of which did not originally apply to those who might commit beggary.

Last prior edition:

Saturday, April 5, 1774. A growing rift.

Labels: 1770s, 1774, American Revolution, Benjamin Franklin, Colonial North America, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Thomas Gage

Blog Mirror: Wartime Jobs for Women: 1944

 

Wartime Jobs for Women: 1944

Related threads:

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

Labels: technology, The roles of men and women, tools and appliances, trends, Women, Yeoman's First Law of History, Yeoman's Fourth Law of History

Roads to the Great War: Remembering Our Veterans: A Memorial Day Tale of T...

Roads to the Great War: Remembering Our Veterans: A Memorial Day Tale of T...: William Redican and Stanley Rakowski, Company L., 3rd Battalion, 102nd Infantry, 26th Division One of our readers, Dennis Redican, has share...

Why it took 57 years to replace jungle boots

I used various pairs of these for fishing for years.

Oh, great.

 As if the state's politics weren't goofy enough right now.

Sheriff Says Honor Wyoming’s Out-Of-State Organizer Has Ties To Bundy Standoff

Just what we need. 

First of all, the Bundy's aren't admirable. They broke the law and still are.  It's reprehensible.  

Secondly, this is one more example of how, over the past decade, Wyoming's politics has been succumbing to out of state entities and efforts.

Blog Mirror: World War I trenches - dining & baking

 World War I trenches - dining & baking