Sunday, August 10, 2025

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

July 19, 2025.
 

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

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

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

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

St. Paul to the Corinthians..


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

I'm not going to post the drawing.

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

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


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

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

It doesn't look like they will.

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

Um, okay. . . 

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

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

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

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

Trump has 5 kids with 3 women.

Elon Musk has 14 kids with 4 women.

Pete Hegseth has 7 kids with 3 women.

Linda McMahon is being sued for enabling child sexual abuse. 

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

TRUMP: What do you think of Lindsay Lohan?

STERN: She's hot.

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

STERN: Imagine having sex with this troubled teen?

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

From the same interview:

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

STERN: Right.

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

STERN: I can tell.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Eh?

Well, here's why.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

July 20, 2025

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

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

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

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

At what point will people take this seriously?

July 21, 2025

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

* * * 

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

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

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

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

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


Is Tuberville actually that stupid?

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

cont:

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

Oh, that's not weird. . . 

July 23, 2025

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

Like that's not odd . . . 

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

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

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

Lummis Calls For Cancellation Of August Recess

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

Trump's talking up his latest nutty conspiracy:

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

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

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

Donald Trump.

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

On Jerome Powell:

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

Donald Trump. 

July 24, 2025

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Robert Reich's look at the story:

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

From Watergate to Epsteingate

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

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

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

July 25, 2025

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

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

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

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

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

August 4, 2025

What the crud?


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

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

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

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

August 6, 2025

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

This statement is simply amazingly stupid.

And speaking of stupid:

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

This will result in deaths.   

August 10, 2025

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

I'm not the only one who thinks this:

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

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

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

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


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

The radical Texas gerrymandering effort is also really drawing attention.

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

Explicit

Related threads:

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

Last editions:

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


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


A modest proposal to the 47th (or 48th, if you think Trump is a legitimate President) President of the United States.

Donald J. Trump, vandal, proposes to vandalize the White House by the construction of this gilt monstrosity:

The White House Announces White House Ballroom Construction to Begin

Washington, D.C. — For 150 years, Presidents, Administrations, and White House Staff have longed for a large event space on the White House complex that can hold substantially more guests than currently allowed. President Donald J. Trump has expressed his commitment to solving this problem on behalf of future Administrations and the American people.
 
The White House is one of the most beautiful and historic buildings in the world, yet the White House is currently unable to host major functions honoring world leaders and other countries without having to install a large and unsightly tent approximately 100 yards away from the main building entrance. The White House State Ballroom will be a much-needed and exquisite addition of approximately 90,000 total square feet of ornately designed and carefully crafted space, with a seated capacity of 650 people — a significant increase from the 200-person seated capacity in the East Room of the White House.
 
In recent weeks, President Trump has held several meetings with members of the White House Staff, the National Park Service, the White House Military Office, and the United States Secret Service to discuss design features and planning. 
 
President Trump has chosen McCrery Architects as lead architect, which is well-known for their classical architectural design and based in our nation’s capital. CEO Jim McCrery said: “Presidents in the modern era have faced challenges hosting major events at the White House because it has been untouched since President Harry Truman. I am honored that President Trump has entrusted me to help bring this beautiful and necessary renovation to The People’s House, while preserving the elegance of its classical design and historical importance.”
 
The construction team will be headed by Clark Construction, and the engineering team will be led by AECOM. 
 
The project will begin in September 2025, and it is expected to be completed long before the end of President Trump’s term. 
 
President Trump, and other patriot donors, have generously committed to donating the funds necessary to build this approximately $200 million dollar structure. The United States Secret Service will provide the necessary security enhancements and modifications. 
 
The White House Ballroom will be substantially separated from the main building of the White House, but at the same time, it’s theme and architectural heritage will be almost identical. The site of the new ballroom will be where the small, heavily changed, and reconstructed East Wing currently sits. The East Wing was constructed in 1902 and has been renovated and changed many times, with a second story added in 1942. 
 
The White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles said the following: “President Trump is a builder at heart and has an extraordinary eye for detail. The President and the Trump White House are fully committed to working with the appropriate organizations to preserving the special history of the White House while building a beautiful ballroom that can be enjoyed by future Administrations and generations of Americans to come.” 
 
The White House will continue to provide the American public with updates on this project at whitehouse.gov/visit.


The United States Supreme Court has established that a President's actions will be presumed to be legal if there's some basis to do so.

So, next President, as your first action, you should order the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to erase this ballroom from the face of the Earth on the next inauguration day, and dump its hideous refuse into the Atlantic.  By this I mean, on inauguration day.  

Scrape the sucker and restore the White House back to what it was.

Saturday, August 9, 2025

The Best Posts of the Week of August 2, 2025. The blue jeans, boycotts, and atomic bombs edition.

The best posts of the week of August 2, 2025.

It was a momentous week in history. . . the week that the US used the atomic bomb, twice, on Japan, thereby becoming the only nation to ever use the ultimate unconventional weapons.

Court Watch


This past week saw a current major flap carry on regarding Sydney Sweeney and her blue jeans ad.


We took a look, again, on the foundations of our current politicos opinions.


We catalogued the events leading up to Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Saturday, August 4, 1945. Tibbets briefs his crew.


Trump, who has no concept of decency, attacked the veracity of the US government's information.












A lessor noted, but major, technological development occured.



The news I was expecting broke on the SIG P320.

Last edition:

Best Posts of the Week of July 27, 2025.

The SIG M17/M18 Controversy.

A Soldier fires an M17 handgun at targets during the Victory Week Pistol Competition, or Regional Combat Pistol Championship, June 4. The top 10% of firers at the event earned a bronze Excellence in Competition marksmanship badge. (Photo Credit: Nathan Clinebelle)

The M17 and M18 pistols, manufactured by SIG, which are versions of their P320 handgun, are really taking the heat.

They have been for awhile, but this local incident really ramped things up:

Air Force Division Grounds M18 Handguns After Airman Dies On Wyoming Base

Let's first say, anyway you look at this, this is a terrible tragedy (but see below).

But is anything really wrong with the pistol.  SIG says there isn't.

Sig Sauer pushes back on criticisms over safety of M17 and M18 pistols

Let's start with something first.  

SIG, or expanded Schweizerische Industrie Gesellschaft, is one of the premier firearms manufacturers in the world.  In this context its party of a trade union with the German firm of J. P. Sauer und Sohn GmbH in order to work around Swiss laws that would largely prohibit the export of military weapons.  SIG did export some prior to the industrial union, with the excellent Stg 57 in export variants, being a prime example, but in recent years SIG has seriously moved into the export arms market in a way that it had not before, following the well blazed trail of Mauser and Fabrique Nationale, both of which at one time occupied the stage of supplier of small arms to the world at different points.

The US was never part of that market until Robert Strange McNamara vandalized Springfield Armory and foisted the AR15 upon the military against its will.  That had the impact of making the US a commercial small arms purchaser in a way that it had not been since the American Revolution, and we've paid for it every since.  It's completely true that the US had purchased commercial arms prior to that, with it notably going to commercial sidearms after Colt's perfection of cap and ball revolvers, and it interestingly relied upon commercial firms for machineguns, but when Springfield Armory was around, it always had an excellent in house backup.  After that, the US became entirely reliant upon civilian suppliers.

A lesson there, interestingly enough, is that to some degree being a commercial supplier of small arms to the US military has been historically a really bad deal for commercial firms.  Being the manufacturer of the M1917 rifle during World War One nearly killed Remington right after the war, and relying on sales of AR15 models to the service has actually been sort of a bad economic bet for Colt.  The lesson probably is that really relying on military sales to the US is risky.

The old model that Colt used, which was basically "here's what we have, it's really good, buy if you want it" is probably the best one.

Advertisement for Colt double action revolver.

And that's particularly the case as there hasn't been a single US handgun the US military has purchased since the M1873 was replaced by the M1892 which hasn't drawn criticism.

The M1892 is a nice double action revolver, but its .38 cartridge, ideal for police use, was anemic for combat, something that the Philippine Insurrection rapidly demonstrated.  M1873s were brought back into service (more on that in a minute) and .45 Colt New Army's were purchased as M1982s were pulled.  That was a stopgap measure until the Army could adopt an "automatic" pistol, which it did after leisurely testing in the form of the M1911.



The M1911 is a contender for greatest military handgun of all time, so its surprising that at first there were plenty of Army officers who hated it.  They regarded it outright dangers as it was too easy to fire and it was found that excited cavalrymen would accidentally shoot their horses in the head during charges.  Criticism of its short trigger pull lead to a new version of the pistol, the M1911A1, coming out during hit 1920s, simply to make it a bit harder to shoot, but as late as World War Two old cavalrymen were clinging to double action revolvers, which had no safeties at all, but which featured a long heavy trigger pull.

By that time the M1911 was beloved and for good reason.

The M1911 took the services all the way into the late 80s.  In 1985, the Baretta M9 was chosen to replace it, when it really didn't need to be replaced.  Indeed, the Army had to be forced to make a decision, which it was resisting, by Congress threatening to turn the project over to the Air Force, which had been responsible for the adoption of the AR 15.  That caught Colt flat footed as even t hough they'd been the supplier of most military handguns to the military for over a century, they weren't really expecting the Army to move forward with the entire project.

There were three reasons in reality to find a new handgun.  One was that no new M1911s had been purchased since the Second World War, so they were all getting internally rebuilt.  New pistols needed to be ordered. The second one was tha ti was felt that the .45 ACP round was too stout for women, who now were in roles where they needed handguns. That was moronic, as women can shoot any handgun a man can.  The third was that the US was foisting the 5.56 on our NATO allies and by adopting a 9mm pistol, we were throwing htem a bone, as every other NATO member save for NOrway used a 9mm pistol.

Which is something we shoudl have paused to think about right there.

The US, until after World War Two, had never been a supplier of small arms to other nations in any signficiant degree. Even after World War Two we were't a supplier of new arms, but our suprlus arms.  IT wasn't until after teh Vietnam War that this changed.  The big suppliers of military arms to the Western World were Germany and Belgium.  The Browning designed Belgian handgun, the High Power, was to some degree the handgun of the free world.  It had a proven track record.

The Baretta was a reengineerd P-38.  The P-38, like the High Power, and the M1911, is a contender for greatest military handgun of all time.  Given that, the M9 is a very good handgun.

US troops at first hated it.

Marines with M9s.

They hated it because they didn't want it, and soon attention was focused on breakages in the slides of the early Italian manufactured pistols.  Baretta stated there was nothing wrong with the gun, and in fact, there wasn't.

It never really fully replaced the M1911, as if you really need a pistol, the M1911 wins hands down every time.  But as 9mms go, it was a really good one.

Well, then came the Glock.

Glocks are frankly nothing special and a lot of real pistol aficionados do not like them.  But they used a striker instead of an external hammer.  There are some advantages to that, but for the most part, the advantages are more theoretical than real.  Frankly, anyone carrying a striker pistol would be just as well off with a hammer fired one and never notice the difference if they actually had to use it.

Anyhow, the service determined that it needed a striker fired pistol because everyone else was getting one.  Not too surprisingly, some in the service dithered on the project as it wasn't really needed, but them some senior officers who didn't know what the crap they were talking about threatened to directly procure Glocks, which would have been a horrible idea.

Tests were held and the P320 chosen.

Disclaimer here, I have one.

I have one, oddly enough, due to a Ducks Unlimited event.  I didn't go out and look for one.  

Having said that, it shoots extremely nicely.  I can see why people like/liked them.  In a heads up contest between the M9 and the M17/18, I think the SIG wins every time.

And now we have this issue.

Is it one?

I don't really know.  I hope that its figured out.  SIG, which also won the Army contest for new rifle (M7) and machine gun (M250), is taking piles of ill informed heat right now.

Let's take a look at the problem, some potential causes, and some fixes.

First, let's start with this.

Is there really a problem?

Sounds fantastical to even ask that, but the chatter about the SIG fits into a long US service tradition of claiming that the prior firearm was perfect and the new one plagued with flaws.  Sometimes its even true, or perhaps a little true. Sometimes, it's bunk.

The history of Army handguns certain fits that, however.  The Army was really long in replacing the M1873 and soldiers came to immediately hate its replacement. Was the M1892 bad?  Well, not as a design, it was far more advanced than the M1873, but the cartridge really was a bad choice.  The criticism was warranted.

What about the criticism of the M1911, which actually lead to it being redesigned a bit?  Not hardly.  The M1911 was a great pistol from day one and its defects, so to speak, were ones of perception on the part of those who were used to old heavy trigger double actions.

And the M9. Well, I'll admit that I was one of its critics.  But the M9 is a really good handgun.  The frame cracking was a freakish event and not something that proved to be an overall problem.  The eral problem is that its a 9mm, but that doesn't have anything to do with the design itself.

And, if we expand out and look at the history of US rifles we'll find the same thing.  When the M1 Garand was adopted there were some legitimate problems wtih its gas system, which lead to that being rapidly resdesigned.  Still, that didn't keep pleny of critics of faulting the rifle as inferior to the M1903 and soldiers actually were very conscerned that stoppages they experienced in stateside training, which apparently were due to the ammunition being used for a time, meant the rifle was defective.  Combat would rapidly prove that to be false, but it received that criticm at first.

The M14 received criticism for having some supposed problem with its bolt and action, which critics of the rifle will reference even today.  One civilian produced variant supposedly featured reengingeering to address the prblem, whatever it is.  It's difficult to find out hwat hte supposed problem was, and in actual use, ti seems to have been completely unnoticed.  Some M14s, for that matter, featured M1 Garand lock bar rear sights which drives some competitive rifleman absolutely nuts. Anyhow, the rifle didn't have faults, but it received criticism for having them.

The M16 of course, did have real faults, and still does, all of which are attributable to its direct impingment gas system.  However, the Army made the faults worse by suggesting the rifle never needed to be cleaned, wich was absurd, and by using fouling powder in early cartridge production.  AR15 fans and the military seem to have gotten largely over this, but at first the rifle was really hated, and I'll admit that I didn't like it.

The point is that there might not be anything wrong with the M17 at all.  What we could be seeing is an element of operator error.

Or, in some cases, worse:

Airman arrested for death that prompted Air Force-wide safety review of Sig M18

I have a thread on the M18 story, but I've been waiting for this:

Airman arrested for death that prompted Air Force-wide safety review of Sig M18

Something about the entire "it discharged all on its owned from its holster" story sounded like a fable.

I started this post before the news above broke, but I kept expecting something like this.  Frankly, murder or manslaughter wasn't what I was expecting, but some sort of operator error, or I'll confess suicide.  

But here's the deal, once something gets a bit of a bad wrap in American society, particularly litigious American society, it's hard to unring the bell on the story.  

And the story here, dare we say it, involves a lot of service users. . . . 

Now ,why would that be significant?

Well, frankly, because service users are amongst those who are the least likely to be paying attention to what they're doing and screw up.  Being in the Armed Forces or a police department doesn't make you a gun fan.  It doesn't even really make you all that knowledgeable on weapons, quite frankly.

SIG might be right. There might be no problem here at all.

And if there is one, it might be an introduced one.  That is, users messing with their sidearm accidentally or intentionally.  Some police forces actually issue sidearms just to keep their policemen from doing that with firearms they own.

But let's assume there is a problem. What would it be?


The M17 features a really complicated striker design and the pistol was designed not to have a safety. Those two things alone may mean that the design has been somewhat compromised by complication and the addition of a safety it wasn't designed to have.  That might, somehow, be defeated the need for a trigger "command".  It's important to note that if the pistols are firing on their own, they're defeating the safety, but then the safety only prevents the trigger from being pulled.


That is, I'd note, a much less effective safety design than that on the M1911, but we'll get back to that.

Anyhow, the safety isn't going to stop block the striker.  It doesn't work, say, like the safety on a M1903 or G98, which does.  It just keeps the trigger from being accidentally pulled.

Another possibility is that something about the holsters is playing a weird role  It seems unlikely, but its not completely impossible.

If I were a SIG engineer, and I'm not an engineer at all, I'd look at trying to develop a safety that hold the striker, if possible, and it might not be.

Okay, let's assume that it's all just hopeless, there's something wrong with the SIG and it can't be fixed.  I'm not saying that's the case, but what if there is.  Clearly a different handgun is in order.

Some have suggested just going back to the M9, and that's not a bad idea. The problem might be that after decades of use most of the M9s are in rough shape.  I doubt that, but it's possible.  

Well, so what.  Just sort through the ones in the inventory and weed out those in bad shape.  Issue the ones that aren't, and adopt the newest variant of the M9, which is nearly universally regarded as a very fine weapon.

The only reason not to do that is it has a hammer.

M'eh.

The other possibility. . . oh my. . .dare we say it. . . is to bring back the M1911.

Marine Corps MEU-SOC, the M1911 that proceeded the M45.

There's no reason not to, and in fact the Marine Corps did for awhile.  There's nothing the M17/18 and M9 can do that the M1911 doesn't do better.


Airman arrested for death that prompted Air Force-wide safety review of Sig M18

I have a thread on the M18 story, but I've been waiting for this:

Airman arrested for death that prompted Air Force-wide safety review of Sig M18

Something about the entire "it discharged all on its owned from its holster" story sounded like a fable.


Thursday, August 9, 1945. Bombing Nagasaki.

Japanese Prime Minister Suzuki reported to the Japanese government that the entry of the Soviet Union into the war "makes the continuance of the war impossible." 

Emperor Hirohito called the Supreme Council together and tried to make the military leaders accept the proposed surrender. At about 0300 hours, the meeting breaks up with nothing decided other than a cautious sounding of the possibilities of peace through Sweden and Switzerland.

The next atomic mission took off 47 minutes later, with none of this known, of course, to the Allies.

0347: The B-29 Superfortress Bockscar took off from Tinian with the plutonium bomb Fat Man aboard, for the target city of of Kokura. 

The plane's crew for the mission was the one normally assigned to The Great Artiste, which was being flown by the crew normally assigned to Bockscar.  Major Charles W. Sweeney piloted the plane, being the only pilot to fly in both atomic missions.  The planes themselves had multiple crews.

The plane was named for Fred Bock, the pilot, on this mission, of The Great Artiste.

Sweeney later wrote a controversial account of both missions, which was contested by other participants.

0351 and 0353:  Great Artiste and Big Stink lift off from Tinian. The Enola Gay, as a weather spotting plane, and Laggin’ Dragon were already airborne.  The Enola Gay was not crewed by the crew that had flown on the Hiroshima mission.


0400: Fred Ashworth armed the Fat Man atomic bomb.

1044 Bockscar arrived at Kokura, but haze obscured the target and made it too difficult to locate the drop point.

1132:  Sweeney made the decision to turn for the secondary target, Nagasaki, 95 miles south of Kokura.

1158: Upon arrival over Nagasaki, cloud cover allowed for only one drop point, several miles from the intended target. Bombardier Kermit Beahan releases the Fat Man atomic bomb on that point.  The dropping expended the last of the US's nuclear arsenal at the time.

1202 (11:02am in Nagasaki) Fat Man explodes 1,650 feet above the city, killing between 40,000 and 75,000 people.  The geography of Nagasaki prevented the blast from being as deadly as it had been at Hiroshima.

2230: All aircraft returned to Tinian.

The Soviet Union invaded Manchuria.

Mongolia declared war on Japan.

Chinese paratroopers are dropped on the Canton-Hankow rail line.

Last edition:

Wednesday, August 8, 1945. Japan conditionally accepts the Potsdam Declaration. The USSR declares war on Japan.

Wyoming newspaper owners, staffers race to rescue community news

Wyoming newspaper owners, staffers race to rescue community news