US Foreign Officer Robert Whitney Imbrie was murdered in Tehran following injuries sustained when a crowd at a well where a miracle had been claimed to have taken place mistook him for being Bahai, apparently. Feelings had been running high in Persia against the Bahai, which is the country it which the universalist religion had arisen in the 19th Century.
The incident was used by Reza Khan, prime minister and minister of war, to declare martial law and consolidate power, and has been regarded by some as suspicious.
Statement by Secretary
of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III on the Exoneration of American Sailors
Unjustly Accused After the Port Chicago Tragedy of 1944
July 17, 2024
Today,
the Department of Defense has moved to rectify an old injustice—and face up
to a painful episode in our own history.
I
applaud the Secretary of the Navy’s decision to exonerate 258 Black Sailors
who were unjustly court-martialed in the wake of the devastating explosion at
the Port Chicago Naval Magazine in California, which killed 320 Sailors on
July 17, 1944. After the blast, these 258 Sailors refused to keep loading
munitions in the same unsafe and inhumane conditions that contributed to the
catastrophe. Eighty years later, we recognize that those 258 Sailors were
right, and the segregated Navy that unnecessarily risked their lives was
wrong.
The
NAACP, Thurgood Marshall, Eleanor Roosevelt, and others recognized the case
as a travesty at the time. The Department of Defense must continue to learn
from our past, and today’s decision reflects our commitment to reckoning with
our history—even when it is painful.
I
am deeply grateful for all the people of conscience in the U.S. Navy who have
worked diligently to make this day possible, and to the advocates and family
members who have pushed hard for so many decades to remedy this injustice.
We
honor the memory of the 320 dedicated Americans who lost their lives in the
Port Chicago explosion, and we honor the service of the 258 brave Americans
who refused afterward to bend to racist and cruel treatment. The Department
of Defense must always ensure that our Service members, our military
families, and our civilian employees are treated with fairness and dignity,
especially within our military justice systems.
The British prevailed in the Second Battle of Odon.
An RAF Spitfire of the RCAF piloted by Charley Fox strafed a random German command car that turned out to be carrying Erwin Rommel. Rommel was wounded and taken out of commission for a while. His driver was killed. Kluge takes temporary command.
Fox was a humble man and upon being identified as the pilot in later years expressed regret for the killing, as he accepted the stories that Rommel was planning to participate in the July 20 plot. He worked in a shoe factory after the war and died in an automobile accident, ironically, in 2008.
The U.S. Army penetrates the perimeter of Saint-Lô
Napalm was used for the first time in an Army Air Force raid conducted by P-38s on on a fuel depot at Coutances, near Saint-Lô.
The Royal Navy attempted a raid on the Tipitz in Norway but it was unsuccessful.
The Finns prevailed in the Battles of Vuosalmi and Nietjärvi.
57,600 German prisoners of war captured by the Red Army were marched through Moscow.
Japanese Admiral Nomura replaced Shmada as Minister of the Navy.
The U-347 and U-361 were sunk by the RAF. The I-166 was sunk in the Strati of Malacca by the Royal Navy.
The British government announced a plan for the mass construction of housing following the war.
Franklin Roosevelt announced he would leave the choice of his running mate to the Democratic Convention.
The USS Barracuda, the first of the Navy's V-boats, was launched. She was decommissioned in 1937, recommissioned in 1940, served throughout World War Two and never fired a shot in anger.
Fr. Joseph Krupp provides a really interesting discussion on courting (dating?), engagement and marriage.
It starts at about 24:30. The material before that is on a completely different topic.
The comments by Fr. Krupp before that are interesting, albeit, as noted, on a completely different topic. Those aren't the reason that I linked this in here, but I am fairly amazed that he hasn't gotten himself in trouble for saying such things as he says in the first half of this video podcast.
US 155 crew loads gun, July 16, 1944, near Saint-Lô, where US progress was slow.
The Polish Government in Exile claimed German territory in East Prussia, Danzia and the Polish Corridor.
The Red Army took Grodno.
British forces took Arezzo, Italy and cross the Arno.
U.S. anti tank gun crew clearing area of snipers, July 16, 1944, Italy.
Sarah Sundin reports that the Allied Sixth Army Group was created and Jacob Devers placed in command, in anticipation of the invasion of Southern France, Operation Dragoon.
Democrats don't lose elections, they throw them away.
Yeoman.
July 10, 2024
House Democrats met privately yesterday with a majority of those who spoke expressing the opinion that Joe Biden needs to drop out of the race. Sen. Michael Bennet became the first Senator to do the same, noting; “Donald Trump is on track, I think, to win this election, and maybe win it by a landslide, and take with him the Senate and the House"
That he get out is obvious.
Biden has defiantly been refusing to do so.
It's nearly a symbol of his generation, one which simply won't yield when prior generations did. This pattern repeats itself everywhere in current American society.
In other news, it was revealed that Biden cancelled an early evening meeting with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz during the G7 conference as he had to go to bed. The same source reports that he had trouble working outside of the 10 to 4 time frame.
More locally, out of state lobbying group Make Liberty Win has been sending around mailers on candidates it endorses noting them as "100% pro gun", a pretty absurd claim in a state in which every candidate can claim the same thing. For the most part, the endorsed candidates are from the far right, with one single exception.
I looked up one candidate on their flyer that I received. The candidate indicated that he though Reagan and Trump were the two greatest Presidents the country had ever had. What a jarring comment. While I feel that Ronald Reagan, who was a much more cynical campaigner than people want to believe, can be blamed for the rise of the populists were now experiencing, he was a true conservative, a relatively decent President, and a necessary economic correction for the time. He was also not afraid to use American power overseas. Trump's a liar whose embraced populism and isolationism. I don't really see the two of them getting along well, if they were in a private room discussing politics, or in a debate.
Congressman Hageman has indicated that she's spoken to Donald Trump about drug problems on the Wind River Reservation. This is a topic that needs to be addressed, but it is a symptom of our current politics that an incumbent Congressman would discuss a current problem with a prospective chief executive, rather than the current one.
July 11, 2020
George Clooney wrote an op ed in The New York Times urging President Biden to drop out of the race.
I really debated posting this item here as, by and large, I really don't care what celebrities have to say about anything whatsoever. But ultimately, I decided to note this as Clooney, who had recently held a fund raiser for Biden that Biden was at, wrote an article that was observational. Praising Biden, whom he considers a friend, he noted:
But the one battle he cannot win is the fight against time. None of us can. It’s devastating to say it, but the Joe Biden I was with three weeks ago at the fund-raiser was not the Joe “big F-ing deal” Biden of 2010. He wasn’t even the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate.
Was he tired? Yes. A cold? Maybe. But our party leaders need to stop telling us that 51 million people didn’t see what we just saw. We’re all so terrified by the prospect of a second Trump term that we’ve opted to ignore every warning sign. The George Stephanopoulos interview only reinforced what we saw the week before. As Democrats, we collectively hold our breath or turn down the volume whenever we see the president, whom we respect, walk off Air Force One or walk back to a mic to answer an unscripted question.
Clooney knows Biden, and he's right.
Mostly right anyway. George F. Will's scathing article urging Biden to do the same thing, which was blunt and not kind, argued the following point:
The compassion owed to someone apparently in the cruel grip of an inexorably advancing disease that destroys selfhood should not obscure this fact: Biden’s malady is not robbing the nation of either an impressive political talent or a singularly public-spirited official. Biden was a mediocrity in his 1980s prime, when his first lunge for the presidency quickly collapsed, as his second would in 2008, and as his third almost did after he finished fifth in New Hampshire’s primary in 2020. In the office he eventually attained, he has chosen his defining legacy: the self-absorption of his refusal to leave the public stage gracefully.
Biden was only elected in 2020 as he seemed to be a safe, one term, President when it was assumed that Donald Trump would go away. Not gracefully, but still away. That's proven false. Biden is four years older and no longer the hope that he once was. Democrats have had four years to find a replacement for the aging Biden, but Biden is standing in the way, just as Trump refuses to go away and allow his party to form into something stable.
Also blistering was the article from the slightly left of center Atlantic, which noted, in an article using a Biden line as its title C'mon Man!:
Never underestimate the destructive power of a stubborn old narcissist with something to prove.
Ideally no one gets hurt along the way: Maybe grandpop refuses to give up his license, drives into an oak tree, and only the car gets totaled. But sometimes there are casualties: Maybe a pedestrian gets hit.
President Joe Biden, 81, is acting like one of history’s most negligent and pigheaded leaders at a crucial moment, and right now, we are all pedestrians.
In contrast to this you have those Democrats boldy saying "nothing to see here". An interesting example of that is the most recent post of Robert Reich which insists its only Democratic donors who want Biden out.
Not hardly, Bob.
cont:
The editorial board of The New York Times has declared Donald Trump "unfit to lead".
Protecting the unborn, save for banning late term abortions, long a Republican policy, is notably out of the platform this year. A promised mass deportation figures prominently.
July 14, 2024
In one single horrific terroristic action, 20 year old Thomas Matthew Crooks almost certain guaranteed the election of Donald Trump.
Crooks attempted to murder Donald Trump yesterday. The details are not in, no doubt conspiracy theories are already circulating like mad, and we don't really know what caused this to occur. Crooks was killed by security.
Trump was in the midst of a speech in which he had apparently been decrying the dangers of illegal immigration.
Whatever the motivation for the assault may be, and we may never know them, the campaign language on the far right, and to a degree the far left, has been heated now for at least three election cycles, with this one taking the top. Trump supporters have grown increasingly aggressive in their speech. It is, therefore, not a really a surprise to anyone who has been paying attention that a violent action occurred.
Indeed, while I haven't posted anything on it here, I've been expecting something like this to occur, although I thought it most likely to occur if Trump was reelected. Repeated resort to violent and extreme language, in and of itself, provokes violence, and the far right has not only used that language, but on January 6, they acted upon it. Trump's citation to authoritarianism, which is extreme, nearly made such an action inevitable.
The fact that this occurred will make Trump sort of a hero martyr and carry him back into the Oval Office. A certain section of Trump's supporters from the Evangelical right will see this as proof that his mission is ordained and protected by God. The dramatic photograph of Trump rising his fist in defiance will now be seen on campaign posters from here on out. Like so many violent actions, whatever Crooks was attempting to achieve, it likely achieved the opposite.
One thing that will be interesting to see is how the Republicans now treat the topic of gun control. Numerous mass shootings have done nothing to cause them to move, but the party now so slavishly follows Trump, and Trump is now a shooting victim, that I expect the hardline position that has been taken by the GOP to be abandoned, much like their long standing positions on abortion have seemed to, and their position on national defense did before that.
July 15, 2024
President Biden addressed the nation last night.
THE PRESIDENT: Good afternoon. Last night, I spoke with Donald Trump. I’m sincerely grateful that he’s doing well and recovering. And we had a short but good conversation.
Jill and I are keeping him and his family in our prayers.
We also extend our deepest condolences to the family of the victim who was killed. He was a father. He was protecting his family from the bullets that were being fired, and he lost his life. God love him.
We’re also praying for the full recovery of those who were injured. And we’re grateful to the Secret Service agents and other law enforcement agencies who — and individuals who risked their lives, literally, for our nation.
As I said last night, there is no place in America for this kind of violence or for any violence for that matter.
An assassination attempt is contrary to everything we stand for as a na- — as a nation. Everything. It’s not who we are as a nation. It’s not America, and we cannot allow this to happen.
Unity is the most elusive goal of all, but nothing is important than that right now — unity.
We’ll debate, and we’ll disagree. That’s not — that’s not going to change. But it’s going to — we’re going to not lose sight of the fact of who we are as Americans.
Look, Vice President Harris and I were just briefed in the Situation Room by my homeland security team, including the director of the FBI, the secretary of Homeland Security, the attorney general, the director of the Secret Service, my homeland security advisor, the national security advisor. And we’re going to continue to be briefed.
The FBI is leading this investigation, which is still in its early stages. We don’t yet have any information about the motive of the shooter. We know who he is. I urge everyone — everyone, please, don’t make assumptions about his motives or his affiliations.
Let the FBI do their job, and their partner agencies do their job. I’ve instructed that this investigation be thorough and swift. And the investigators will have every resource they need to get this done.
Look, as this investigation continues, here’s what we’re going to do.
First, Mr. Trump, as a former president and nominee of the Republican Party already receives a heightened level of security, and I have been consistent in my direction to the Secret Service to provide him with every resource, capability, and protective measure necessary to ensure his continued safety.
Second, I’ve directed the head of the Secret Service to review all security measures for the — all security measures for the Republican National Convention, which is scheduled to start tomorrow.
And third, I’ve directed an independent review of the national security at yesterday’s rally to assess exactly what happened. And we’ll share the results of that independent review with the American people as well.
And, finally, I’ll be speaking more about this tonight at greater length from the Oval Office: We must unite as one nation. We must unite as one nation to demonstrate who we are.
And so, may God bless you all. And may God protect our troops.
Thank you very much.
cont:
Trump has chosen J. D. Vance to be his running mate. Since switching his earlier views and deciding to favor Trump, Vance has been nothing if not fanatically pro Trump.
Claus von Stauffenberg attempted an assassination attempt on Hitler for the second time, this time at the Wolf's Lair, but Hitler left the meeting that was targeted early and von Stauffenberg hurriedly recovered the bomb.
After this attempt, the only criteria on going forward with the plan was that Hitler be present.
The Second Battle of Odon began with a British offensive in their sector of Normandy.
The French took Poggibonsi in Italy.
The Battle of Nietjärvi began with a Red Army attack on Finnish positions.
The SAS raid on Symi ended in an Allied victory, achieving more than it had set out to do, including the wasteful deployment of German resources.
Japanese troops commenced atrocities on Guam, killing 16 out of 30 people of the village of Merizo. They herded them into a cave and threw in hand grenades.
Task Force 74 bombarded Japanese positions near Aitape, New Guinea.
The U-319 was sunk by a B-24 of the RAF in the North Sea.
Joseph Sadi-Lecointe, 53, famous French aviator, died from the after effects of Gestapo torture while he was held by the Germans.
Chinese soldiers march to front crossing treacherous Salween River by means of temporary suspension bridge, July 15, 1944.
Actor Jan Michael Vincent was born in Denver, the son of a serviceman.
The Irish Free State freed prisoners associated with the Irish Civil War, including Éamon de Valera.
The British and Italian governments signed an agreement ceding certain Somilian territory to Italy as a reward for the country's participation in World War One.
The U.S. Army, having exceeded the number of troops allowed under the law at the time, 120,000, suspended recruiting.
