Austro Hungarian troops retreated at Mojkovac, although the battle would go on for another eleven days with Montenegrins ultimately withdrawing.
British cavalry and artillery engaged the Ottomans at Sheikh Sa'ad.
The University of Oregon's fight song, Mighty Oregon, premiered.
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Boers attacked British positions along the Delagoa Bay Railway.
Colorado cannibal Alfred Packer was released from prison after serving 18 years due to his physical condition and "advanced age" of nearly 59 years.
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I wasn't going to mark this date. This tragic event is only five years in our past, and therefore it is much too early, really, to be able to fully apprise it.
But attempt to apprise it we must do, and the coup that started on January 6, 2021 did not fail, it succeeded, and whether the fascistic/Francoist revolution it seeks to bring about will succeed or fail is not yet know.
The coup did not fail, as our justice system failed. Trump could easily have been in court within six months and sentenced within seven. Unfortunately, our criminal justice system moves as slowly as Baby Boomers at Walmart as its controlled by them, as is much of our society. This insurrectionist is now in charge.
But will he succeed?
Most Americans do not support the would be caudillo Donald Trump and most are not part of a muddled fascist/Franoist/New Apostolic Reformation movement, or even have its world view. But those who do are running the country right now, aided and abetted by people like opportunistic Marco Rubio and a compliant Supreme Court. The worst tests are yet to come. This year, 2026, is going to be absolutely awful, least we are spared by some sort of Divine Intervention (which I note seriously, not in jest).
Usually, however, people get exactly what they deserve in terms of politics. The roots of the populist revolution go back at least as far as 1973 and have been brewing for decades now. We cannot expect that the fruits of political neglect can be harvest and discarded overnight. We are paying for our errors, and stand to likely pay a heavier price yet.
But the country has come through such things before. The Revolution itself was one, the Civil War a second.
May God grant that we get through this quickly, and with as little damage to the world as possible.
Hmmmm. . . .
The U.S. attacked Venezuela over the weekend as its a major drug exporter to the U.S., or maybe because we wanted to liberate the country from Maduro, or maybe because it has oil.
One of those things.
Anyhow,
Somethings we aren't hearing much about now.
Where, where?
Still delayed.
Marjorie Taylor Greene, whose leaves office today, claimed Trump would attack Venezuela as nothing distracts like war. She said that, not me.
I'm not saying that he attacked Venezuela for that reason, although I don't put it past him. But we sure aren't hearing much about them now, are we?
They could have dropped the entire file in a giant Playboy Ephebophilia, Collectors Edition, complete with underaged centefolds, and nobody would have noticed.
Do you know? I don't, and I follow the economy.
Trump was going to instantly end the war, but it turned out to be hard.
Over the last month he was praising Putin, and then sort of praising Ukraine, and now we don't hear anything about the war at all. Utterly nothing.
I'm sure Trump didn't end the war.
Somethings we need explanations on.
What is the real source of Trump's fascination with Greenland? The strategic need line is complete and utter crap. If somebody is actually telling him that, they need to be dope slapped into the 21st Century.
I don't really think it's Trump, as I don't think Trump is smart enough to know anything about Greenland. Having watched him now for years, I'm pretty much convinced that he was a fairly good salesman at one time, but he was never very intelligent. Now he's demented so he's not even a good salesman.
It's something or somebody else, or . . .
We have to seriously consider once again why Donald Trump is a Russian asset.
We know that he is a Russian asset, but we don't know why. He may be simply because he likes them for some reason. Or he may have really bought into some weird vision of the world that's centered in the 18th Century, in which he's King Donald the Demented and Putin is Tsar Vlad the Magnificent. Btu with the threats on Greenland we need to at least consider the possibility that Trump is a full-blown Russian asset as they have something on him, or are giving something to him.
That sounds extreme, but a US that pulls back to the Western Hemisphere and wrecks NATO is a gift to Russia. And it appears to be happening. Putin had been a backer of Maduro but he didn't lift a finger to help him once our illegitimate head of state caused that illegitimate head of state to be seized.
And Putin has been oddly quiet.
It's clear that at least for the time being the relationship between the United States and Europe is wrecked. If you were writing a script for a Russian mole to occupy the White House, even Tom Clancy couldn't do better than this.
What's going on with Lindsey Graham. Unlike Trump, he's not dumb. His complete and utter sycophancy needs some explanation.
Okay, this is going to be delicate, but there's something really weird about Stephen Miller playing Joseph Goebbels and his wife playing, well, Joseph Goebbels.
They're both Jewish.
Miller is the chief proponent of White Anglo Saxon Protestantism in the administration, and he ain't one. I don't know the ethnicity of his wife, but she could pass for a Mizrahi Jew.
This might not quite be as weird as it sounds, although its downright dangerous for them. Goebbels had been a Communist and you can find plenty of Nazis who were drawn from German populations that were repressed in the most violent ways during the Third Reich, but there's the lesson. The policies that Miller advocates for would, in the end, put him and Katie in the hold of a boat and deport them to a place that people who think like him would think he would find more to their liking, or at least theirs.
Before this sounds too one sided, there's a real lesson for Catholics supporting Trump. His people don't think you are very American either.
It's been super warm this winter. No winter at all.
How long do we intend to ignore this?
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Elections were held in Vietnam in areas controlled by the Democratic Republic of Vietnam with the nationalist but communist dominated Viet Minh Party, led by Ho Chi Minh, winning 230 of the 300 seats in the National Assembly. The ballot was not secret and ballot papers were filled out in the presence of aides who were "to help comrades who had difficulty in making out their ballots."
It was not a free and fair election, but its interesting that those who will engage in antidemocratic activities still crave the legitimacy of elections.
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Deutsche Luft Hansa (DLH), the predecessor of Lufthansa, was formed.
It ceased operations in April, 1945, but it's personnel later reformed the company as Lufthansa in 1955.
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6,000 Montenegrans held back an Austrian force at Mojkovac, Montenegro.
A British relief force of 13,000 men seeking to relieve British forces at Kut ran into the Ottoman Sixth Army at Sheikh Sa'ad.
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Television was introduced in South Africa.
Yes, that late.
The first shows were The World at War, which was truly excellent, followed by an episode of The Bob Newhart Show, which also was. South African TV was initially limited to five hours in the evening from 7 p.m. to midnight, with half of the programming in English and half in Afrikaans..
Would that such limitations applied everywhere today.
The scourge of no fault divorce was introduced to Australia.
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Senator Fall drafted a resolution asking of Mexico had a government and demanding full information from President Wilson. Republicans were worried that Wilson intended to recognize Carranza, and with good reason.
Helen Keller, at the time a Socialist, delivered a speech at Carnegie Hall under the auspices of the Women's Peace Party and the Labor Forum
To begin with, I have a word to say to my good friends, the editors, and others who are moved to pity me. Some people are grieved because they imagine I am in the hands of unscrupulous persons who lead me astray and persuade me to espouse unpopular causes and make me the mouthpiece of their propaganda. Now, let it be understood once and for all that I do not want their pity; I would not change places with one of them. I know what I am talking about. My sources of information are as good and reliable as anybody else's. I have papers and magazines from England, France, Germany and Austria that I can read myself. Not all the editors I have met can do that. Quite a number of them have to take their French and German second hand. No, I will not disparage the editors. They are an overworked, misunderstood class. Let them remember, though, that if I cannot see the fire at the end of their cigarettes, neither can they thread a needle in the dark. All I ask, gentlemen, is a fair field and no favor. I have entered the fight against preparedness and against the economic system under which we live. It is to be a fight to the finish, and I ask no quarter.
The future of the world rests in the hands of America. The future of America rests on the backs of 80,000,000 working men and women and their children. We are facing a grave crisis in our national life. The few who profit from the labor of the masses want to organize the workers into an army which will protect the interests of the capitalists. You are urged to add to the heavy burdens you already bear the burden of a larger army and many additional warships. It is in your power to refuse to carry the artillery and the dread-noughts and to shake off some of the burdens, too, such as limousines, steam yachts and country estates. You do not need to make a great noise about it. With the silence and dignity of creators you can end wars and the system of selfishness and exploitation that causes wars. All you need to do to bring about this stupendous revolution is to straighten up and fold your arms.
We are not preparing to defend our country. Even if we were as helpless as Congressman Gardner says we are, we have no enemies foolhardy enough to attempt to invade the United States. The talk about attack from Germany and Japan is absurd. Germany has its hands full and will be busy with its own affairs for some generations after the European war is over.
With full control of the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea, the allies failed to land enough men to defeat the Turks at Gallipoli; and then they failed again to land an army at Salonica in time to check the Bulgarian invasion of Serbia. The conquest of America by water is a nightmare confined exclusively to ignorant persons and members of the Navy League.
Yet, everywhere, we hear fear advanced as argument for armament. It reminds me of a fable I read. A certain man found a horseshoe. His neighbor began to weep and wail because, as he justly pointed out, the man who found the horseshoe might someday find a horse. Having found the shoe, he might shoe him. The neighbor's child might some day go so near the horse's hells as to be kicked, and die. Undoubtedly the two families would quarrel and fight, and several valuable lives would be lost through the finding of the horseshoe. You know the last war we had we quite accidentally picked up some islands in the Pacific Ocean which may some day be the cause of a quarrel between ourselves and Japan. I'd rather drop those islands right now and forget about them than go to war to keep them. Wouldn't you?
Congress is not preparing to defend the people of the United States. It is planning to protect the capital of American speculators and investors in Mexico, South America, China, and the Philippine Islands. Incidentally this preparation will benefit the manufacturers of munitions and war machines.
Until recently there were uses in the United States for the money taken from the workers. But American labor is exploited almost to the limit now, and our national resources have all been appropriated. Still the profits keep piling up new capital. Our flourishing industry in implements of murder is filling the vaults of New York's banks with gold. And a dollar that is not being used to make a slave of some human being is not fulfilling its purpose in the capitalistic scheme. That dollar must be invested in South America, Mexico, China, or the Philippines.
It was no accident that the Navy League came into prominence at the same time that the National City Bank of New York established a branch in Buenos Aires. It is not a mere coincidence that six business associates of J.P. Morgan are officials of defense leagues. And chance did not dictate that Mayor Mitchel should appoint to his Committee of Safety a thousand men that represent a fifth of the wealth of the United States. These men want their foreign investments protected.
Every modern war has had its root in exploitation. The Civil War was fought to decide whether to slaveholders of the South or the capitalists of the North should exploit the West. The Spanish-American War decided that the United States should exploit Cuba and the Philippines. The South African War decided that the British should exploit the diamond mines. The Russo-Japanese War decided that Japan should exploit Korea. The present war is to decide who shall exploit the Balkans, Turkey, Persia, Egypt, India, China, Africa. And we are whetting our sword to scare the victors into sharing the spoils with us. Now, the workers are not interested in the spoils; they will not get any of them anyway.
The preparedness propagandists have still another object, and a very important one. They want to give the people something to think about besides their won unhappy condition. They know the cost of living is high, wages are low, employment is uncertain and will be much more so when the European call for munitions stops. No matter how hard and incessantly the people work, they often cannot afford the comforts of life; many cannot obtain the necessities.
Every few days we are given a new war scare to lend realism to their propaganda. They have had us on the verge of war over the Lusitania, the Gulflight, the Ancona, and now they want the workingmen to become excited over the sinking of the Persia. The workingman has no interest in any of these ships. The Germans might sink every vessel on the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea, and kill Americans with every one--the American workingman would still have no reason to go to war.
All the machinery of the system has been set in motion. Above the complaint and din of the protest from the workers is heard the voice of authority.
"Friends," it says, "fellow workmen, patriots; your country is in danger! There are foes on all sides of us. There is nothing between us and our enemies except the Pacific Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean. Look at what has happened to Belgium. Consider the fate of Serbia. Will you murmur about low wages when your country, your very liberties, are in jeopardy? What are the miseries you endure compared to the humiliation of having a victorious German army sail up the East River? Quit your whining, get busy and prepare to defend your firesides and your flag. Get an army, get a navy; be ready to meet the invaders like the loyal-hearted freemen you are."
Will the workers walk into this trap? Will they be fooled again? I am afraid so. The people have always been amenable to oratory of this sort. The workers know they have no enemies except their masters. They know that their citizenship papers are no warrant for the safety of themselves or their wives and children. They know that honest sweat, persistent toil and years of struggle bring them nothing worth holding on to, worth fighting for. Yet, deep down in their foolish hearts they believe they have a country. Oh blind vanity of slaves!
The clever ones, up in the high places know how childish and silly the workers are. They know that if the government dresses them up in khaki and gives them a rifle and starts them off with a brass band and waving banners, they will go forth to fight valiantly for their own enemies. They are taught that brave men die for their country's honor. What a price to pay for an abstraction--the lives of millions of young men; other millions crippled and blinded for life; existence made hideous for still more millions of human being; the achievement and inheritance of generations swept away in a moment--and nobody better off for all the misery! This terrible sacrifice would be comprehensible if the thing you die for and call country fed, clothed, housed and warmed you, educated and cherished your children. I think the workers are the most unselfish of the children of men; they toil and live and die for other people's country, other people's sentiments, other people's liberties and other people's happiness! The workers have no liberties of their own; they are not free when they are compelled to work twelve or ten or eight hours a day. they are not free when they are ill paid for their exhausting toil. They are not free when their children must labor in mines, mills and factories or starve, and when their women may be driven by poverty to lives of shame. They are not free when they are clubbed and imprisoned because they go on strike for a raise of wages and for the elemental justice that is their right as human beings.
We are not free unless the men who frame and execute the laws represent the interests of the lives of the people and no other interest. The ballot does not make a free man out of a wage slave. There has never existed a truly free and democratic nation in the world. From time immemorial men have followed with blind loyalty the strong men who had the power of money and of armies. Even while battlefields were piled high with their own dead they have tilled the lands of the rulers and have been robbed of the fruits of their labor. They have built palaces and pyramids, temples and cathedrals that held no real shrine of liberty.
As civilization has grown more complex the workers have become more and more enslaved, until today they are little more than parts of the machines they operate. Daily they face the dangers of railroad, bridge, skyscraper, freight train, stokehold, stockyard, lumber raft and min. Panting and training at the docks, on the railroads and underground and on the seas, they move the traffic and pass from land to land the precious commodities that make it possible for us to live. And what is their reward? A scanty wage, often poverty, rents, taxes, tributes and war indemnities.
The kind of preparedness the workers want is reorganization and reconstruction of their whole life, such as has never been attempted by statesmen or governments. The Germans found out years ago that they could not raise good soldiers in the slums so they abolished the slums. They saw to it that all the people had at least a few of the essentials of civilization--decent lodging, clean streets, wholesome if scanty food, proper medical care and proper safeguards for the workers in their occupations. That is only a small part of what should be done, but what wonders that one step toward the right sort of preparedness has wrought for Germany! For eighteen months it has kept itself free from invasion while carrying on an extended war of conquest, and its armies are still pressing on with unabated vigor. It is your business to force these reforms on the Administration. Let there be no more talk about what a government can or cannot do. All these things have been done by all the belligerent nations in the hurly-burly of war. Every fundamental industry has been managed better by the governments than by private corporations.
It is your duty to insist upon still more radical measure. It is your business to see that no child is employed in an industrial establishment or mine or store, and that no worker in needlessly exposed to accident or disease. It is your business to make them give you clean cities, free from smoke, dirt and congestion. It is your business to make them pay you a living wage. It is your business to see that this kind of preparedness is carried into every department on the nation, until everyone has a chance to be well born, well nourished, rightly educated, intelligent and serviceable to the country at all times.
Strike against all ordinances and laws and institutions that continue the slaughter of peace and the butcheries of war. Strike against war, for without you no battles can be fought. Strike against manufacturing shrapnel and gas bombs and all other tools of murder. Strike against preparedness that means death and misery to millions of human being. Be not dumb, obedient slaves in an army of destruction. Be heroes in an army of construction.
The National League announced that it was revising its former minor league, the American Association. This was in response to the creation of the new American League.
American League President Ban Johnson told reporters in Cleveland, "You can poo-hoo that story right from the start. I don't know if the National League contemplates such a move, but if they do, it will never be born."
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Remembering that the world as Stephen Miller imagines it never really existed.
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Lex Anteinternet: So now what, and what did we actually do?: Yesterday, early, the Armed Forces of the United States staged a commando raid and removed Maduro et ux from Venezuela. The raid was loss fr...
So, Marco was hitting the news shows today. I didn't listen to them all yet, and indeed I only heard Marco's part of This Week.
Marco was speaking, at first, with the Trump Admin Patented Arrogance, but he couldn't maintain it. We now know:
Congress passed the Native Races Act prohibiting the sale of alcohol or opium to "aboriginal tribes and uncivilized people"
The law replicated a situation which already existed in many states. For example, Wyoming's law provided;
§ 5814. Selling liquor to Indians. Any person who shall sell, barter or give away any spirituous or intoxicating liquor to any Indian or Indians, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and shall be fined in any sum not more than one thousand dollars, to which may be added imprisonment in the county jail for any period not more than six months. [ L. 1890 , ch . 73 , § 147 ; R. S. 1899 , § 4974. ]
These laws are Unconstitutional.
Alcohol, which didn't exist in large quantities in Native American societies before the arrival of European Americans (it did exist, as did other intoxicants) was and remains a real problem. An anthropology professor I had at Casper College maintained that this was due to Native Americans being exposed to the worst European Americans, who were alcohol abusers themselves. However, it's now widely believed that there's a genetic component to this and to quote a scientific study of the matter:
Substance dependence has a substantial genetic component in Native Americans, similar in magnitude to that reported for other populations. The high rates of substance dependence seen in some tribes is likely a combination of a lack of genetic protective factors (metabolizing enzyme variants) combined with genetically mediated risk factors (externalizing traits, consumption drive, drug sensitivity/tolerance) that combine with key environmental factors (trauma exposure, early age of onset of use, environmental hardship/contingencies) to produce increased risk for the disorder.
Evidence for a Genetic Component for Substance Dependence in Native Americans, Cindy L Ehlersm Ian R Gizer.
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