Last edition:
Monday, October 27, 2025
Wednesday, October 27, 1875. A Thanksgiving Proclamation
U. S. Grant made a Thanksgiving Day proclaimation:
Proclamation 226—Thanksgiving Day, 1875
October 27, 1875
By the President of the United States of America
A Proclamation
In accordance with a practice at once wise and beautiful, we have been accustomed, as the year is drawing to a close, to devote an occasion to the humble expression of our thanks to Almighty God for the ceaseless and distinguished benefits bestowed upon us as a nation and for His mercies and protection during the closing year.
Amid the rich and free enjoyment of all our advantages, we should not forget the source from whence they are derived and the extent of our obligation to the Father of All Mercies.
We have full reason to renew our thanks to Almighty God for favors bestowed upon us during the past year.
By His continuing mercy civil and religious liberty have been maintained, peace has reigned within our borders, labor and enterprise have produced their merited rewards; and to His watchful providence we are indebted for security from pestilence and other national calamity.
Apart from national blessings, each individual among us has occasion to thoughtfully recall and devoutly recognize the favors and protection which he has enjoyed.
Now, therefore, I, Ulysses S. Grant, President of the United States, do recommend that on Thursday, the 25th day of November, the people of the United States, abstaining from all secular pursuits and from their accustomed avocations, do assemble in their respective places of worship, and, in such form as may seem most appropriate in their own hearts, offer to Almighty God their acknowledgments and thanks for all His mercies and their humble prayers for a continuance of His divine favor.
In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.
Done at the city of Washington, this 27th day of October, A.D. 1875, and of the Independence of the United States the one hundredth.
U.S. GRANT.
By the President:
HAMILTON FISH, Secretary of State.
Last edition:
Tuesday, October 26, 1875. The Virginia City Fire.
Governor talks election bill flood, eroding civility and tyranny at Lander town hall
Governor talks election bill flood, eroding civility and tyranny at Lander town hall: League of Women Voters hosted Mark Gordon, who fielded questions about everything from new property tax law impacts to the well-publicized beef between him and Secretary of State Chuck Gray.
Sunday, October 26, 2025
Ezra Klein looks at the state of the Democrats. . twice.
The Ezra Klein show recently ran two really interesting vlog episodes on why the Democratic Party is in the dumpster, even as the Republican Party makes the entire country a raging dumpster fire. They're instructive, but in the case of the first one, not for the reason the guest likely hoped for.
It wasn't all that long ago, we should note, that political scientists had declared that the GOP doomed to demographic extinction. It was, and is, a small tent party. The party needed to reach out, it was told, and bring in all the people in the Democratic camp. Long time readers here, of which there are likely very few, will recall that I predicated that some of the demographic analysis was flat out wrong, and that Hispanics in particular would start moving into the Republican Party.
I was right.
Now we live in the opposite world. People hate the Republican Party but they hate the Democratic Party more. Really a new party is needed, one that doesn't see global warming as a fib but which opposed abortion, for example, would have a lot of appeal. But that's a post for some other time.
Let's look at what the experts have to say. First, as it was first in time, is the interview with Suzanne Mettler, a political scientist at Cornell and co-author of the new book “Rural Versus Urban: The Growing Divide That Threatens Democracy"
The interview is here.
I could tell in listening to it that Klein thinks the book is wrong, and while I haven't read it, I know it is, if it espouses the same views that Mettler did in her interview. She looks at everything economically and that's about it. Social issues don't mean anything.
Well, I lived through this and saw a Wyoming that had a large, but minority, Democratic Party almost completely die. Most of the major active Democrats in the party started to move to the Republican Party during the Clinton Administration and that trickle became a flood. All sorts of respected "traditional" elder Republicans in Wyoming were once Democrats. They left as it increasingly became impossible to be a centrist or conservative Democrat. There's no room for a pro life Democrat, for instance, in the party anymore. Once homosexual marriages, transgenderism, and showing up at rallies with blue hair became the norm, the normal largely dropped out and won't come back.
That's what killed the Democrats in the West.
This interview with Jared Abbott, the director of the Center for Working-Class Politics, is much better as Abbot is realistic and not hopelessly clueless, as Mettler seems to be:
Abbot actually admits that he isn't sure if the Democrats can come back from political exile in rural areas, but the examples he gives of people running from the outside are excellent. Nebraska equivalent of Wyoming's John Barrasso, Deb Fischer, provides an interesting example as she nearly went down in defeat to independent Dan Osborn.
Osborn's race is really instructive as he wasn't a Democrat, but called bullshit on a lot of Fischer's politics. Osborn himself is a working man, and he's pretty conservative.
And there's the real lesson.
Democrats right now can't get any traction in rural areas as frankly nobody can stand to vote for anyone they are putting up, most of the time, and then when they do put up a good candidate, the party's platform kills them. The Democratic Party became, quite frankly, the Transgendered Vegan Party, and that's going nowhere. It not only became that, it can't get away from it. Look at any protest of Trump's policies that's a public one, and you'll see the usual suspects. If there isn't a hugely overweight middle aged woman with blue hair, you just aren't looking hard enough.
Indeed, this has become so much the case that that left wing protests that are popular now are sometimes all Republican. In Natrona County the recent Radiant Energy No Nuke protests were lead by Republicans including a Wyoming Freedom Caucus member of the legislature. Chuck Gray came up and lead his support, sounding like he was Chuck Gray from Greenpeace. If Democrats can't own that issue . . . .
There seems to be a little waking up, but only a little. Public lands is what did it.
Back in the 1980s, when I switched from the Republican Party into the Democratic Party (I left the Dems with the great flood of us who couldn't hack the weirdness), public lands and attention to environmental issues is what did it. People worship Ronald Reagan now, but James Watt, his Secretary of the Interior, was an Evangelical Christian zealot in favor of ravaging the land now, as he was certain that the Second Coming was going to be very soon. That land ravaging instinct remains very strong in the GOP and recently came out in spades.
Wyoming Democrat Karlee Provenza picked right up on that and came out in front. The Democrats need to do more of that. Land issues are near and ear to Wyomingites and the Republicans are very vulnerable on them. That issue alone might, if really exploited, bring the Democrats back if their campaigns were really strategic.
Some of that strategy has to be getting really personal. Sure, Hageman is for turning public lands over for sale. . she's from a "fourth generation" ranching family, and the ranchers always believe they'll get the land, even though they won't. Same for Lummis Sure, Dr. John is for it, he's a Pennsylvanian not a Wyomingite. Did you every see him at your favorite fishing hole?
But one issue alone is a risky proposition. What they also need to do is dump the weirdness. Being lashed to transgenderism is a completely losing proposition. A Democratic candidate is going to be asked about it . . and could really make hay on it.
But only if they're willing to fight dirty, which the GOP definitely is. But they're not prepared for the same.
For instance, if a public lands Democrat was running for the House, and asked about this issue, we would expect the usually milk toast fall in line answer they normally give. But if they said, "oh gosh no, that's a mental illness and it needs to be treated that way, and women's sports and role in society needs to be protected. . . " it'd leave the Republicans flat footed.
They'd be on their heels, however, if it went further. If you added "and by the way, I constantly hear our GOP talk about being pro family. I don't know how pro family you can be if you are jacking up their cost of living and particularly their insurance rantes, but what about that family stuff? Hageman's been married for years and she ain't got any children. . nephews and nieces aren't the same thing, and Chuck Gray is 36 years old and unmarried. . .what's up with that? Why I think a decent man ought to marry a decent woman young and have some kids. . . and when that doesn't happen that's because they aren't focused on families, darn it".
Yeah, that's nasty, but how do they reply? It is the case that Hageman and her husband have never had children. Maybe there's a medical reason, but maybe it was a focus on careers and using pharmaceuticals to avoid it. If so, that ain't very populist Republican. And Chuck Gray is 36 years old and unmarried. I know that he's a Mass attending Catholic, and I'm not accusing him of any intimate immorality, but I will note that by age 36 men are usually married, or in our current society, living with some female "partner". Gray doesn't appear to fit either of these which is odd, as it demonstrates something about his character, perhaps simply an unlikeable character, that's keeping it from occurring, unless he just doesn't want to get married, which is unlikely.
FWIW, as I'm a bit connected, I know that Gray dated women while living in Casper. Obviously those relationships didn't work out. I'm not claiming he's light in his loafers.
I will say, however, that once you get out there, there are die hard right wing Republicans in this state who are subject to some unwelcome attention on their personal lives. Is that fair? Well, if you are calling for suppressing certain groups, and you are part of them, you owe people an explanation.
Which gets back to the inevitable question that comes up now, "what about gay marriage". Again, it's easy for a Republican to say "I believe marriage is between a man and a woman". A Democratic coming back with "so do I, and I believe that union arises once. . . what do you think about that Dr. John. . . and is that why you abandoned your original faith?".
Nasty. But Dr. John wouldn't have a very good answer for it.
Abortion is always going to come up. Abortion is the issue that ultimately drove a lot of us out of the Democratic Party, including me. The Democrats should simply abandon a position on it and let candidates stake out their own ground. There remain a few pro life Democrats out there, and to be one shouldn't be an anathema.
And, indeed, if that was allowed, it allows uncomfortable questions to be asked. Republicans claim to be pro life, but now their massively in favor of IVF, which kills most of the embrioes that it creates. Current Democrats can't really ask about that without hypocrisy. A pro life Democrat could.
Can the Democrats do all that?
Probably not.
Friday, October 26, 1945. Cowards.
Nazis awaiting trial were demonstrating themselves to be cowards.
Albert Einstein advocated for a world government to prevent nuclear war in an interview in The Atlantic.
Communists battled their opponents in the streets of Sofia, Bulgara.
Last edition:
Monday, October 26, 1925. Doolittle wins the Schneider Trophy.
The Schneider Cup seaplane race was held in the US for the first time Lt. Jimmy Doolittle won, flying a Curtiss R3C.
This uniformed gentleman posted for a photograph.
Last edition:
Saturday, October 24, 1925.
Tuesday, October 26, 1875. The Virginia City Fire.
Virginia City, Nevada suffered a devastating fire when a kerosene lamp fell over and ignited a structure while high winds were blowing in the city.
Last edition:
Sunday, October 9, 1875. Mormon Tabernacle Dedicated.
Best Posts of the Week of October 19, 2025.
It was a week of horrors as Donald Trump destroyed part of the most symbolic structure in the United States in favor of constructing a Czar's ballroom and edged up on killing Venezuelans at an added rate.
Something the Catholics in the Trump and Charlie Kirk crowd ought to consider:
How Super Bowl LX should be informing American Catholics why the populist far right will betray them as soon as it gets a chance.
Carranza was gaining recognition in 1915, and benefiting from it.
Tuesday, October 20, 1925. Coolidge orders Billy Mitchell Court Martialed.
CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist, 104th Edition. Mike Johnson, toady, and other matters.
Some good news for a change:
The Supreme Court Refuses to Hear Corner Crossing Case.
Today, the Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal from Iron Bar Holdings on the ruling by the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals that no laws were broken in 2021 by four Missouri hunters who moved between two public land parcels at a shared corner. The Court’s decision leaves the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals’ ruling intact.
There are limits to the 10th Circuit ruling, and TRCP encourages hunters and anglers to conduct their own research and be familiar with trespass laws.
TRCP remains dedicated to defending public access while respecting private property rights. Legal clarity is important for both sportspeople and landowners.
We appreciate your continued support as TRCP works to keep public lands accessible while respecting private property. Together, we can protect these rights for future generations.
Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Alliance.
Trump, who most ranchers favored, orders them to bend over.
Liberated states in post World War Two Europe started to rush towards Communism.
Trump acted like the land developer he is.
Last edition
Best Post of the week of October 12, 2025.
Saturday, October 25, 2025
An East Wing Post Mortem.
Comparative air photos posted by CBS News. Put up under commentary and fair use exception.
I've never seen the East Wing of the White House, and of course, now, I never will. I have very little, as in no, interest in touring Washington D.C. and have even less interest than that now that the illegitimate Trump gang of insurrectionist is occupying the nation's capital.
This has been a very revealing series of events however, and we can take some things away from it.
The first thing we have learned is how utterly desperate Donald Trump is to amount to something. He started too late in life and his character is too fixed in order to achieve that, absent late in life inspiration of an existential type which would require him to make a profound change in his behavior. Born into wealth and a playboy by character, he's desperately trying to buy and build himself into seriousness and relevance. In the back of his mind, or frankly maybe in the forefront, he knows that he's a fart in a windstorm. After he's out of office, and no amount of far right fantasizing is going to keep him there, his successor, right or left, will begin the process of trying to repair the damage Trump has done. If its a right wing leader, like wannabe NatCon J. D. Vance, it'll be National Conservative far right, but less insane than Trump. It probably won't be Vance however, but somebody from the political center, particularly if the Democrats get their act together and dump their own wackadoodle far left, which there are signs they will, or from the actual libertarian populist right.
My prediction, early though it is, is that the next President will be Tammy Duckworth, maybe on a Duckworth Klobuchar ticket. I can see, however, Thomas Massie and Rand Paul taking a run at Vance's dreams and keeping them from happening.
Vance would keep the Trump monument to himself up and pretend to like it, as he only is where he is now due to Trump, but as soon as somebody who wasn't a Trump sycophant is in the Oval Office, it's coming down. That will be symbolic of the entire Trump legacy, destruction that will ultimately come down, and have to be rebuilt.
Trump want to see himself as a great man, a sort of Napoleon being crowned, but knows that he's more like Napoleon on Elba. He's not going to get there. He's really extremely pathetic.
Also sad is the degree to which it has been demonstrated that a life of extreme wealth is corrosive. Trump's entire life of largess already showed this, but he really does believe that the White House needs a huge overblown rushed ballroom as he's seen those of failed monarchies in Europe. The republics, or in one case dictatorship, that inherited that stuff still uses it as it's a human instinct not to rip things down. That's why the Brandenburg Gate, which should have been blown to rubble in 1945, is still standing. Yes, it's a monument to German militarism, but it's big and already there so we keep it around. That's the reason the Eiffel Tower is there, even though its a giant ugly radio tower, or why the "egg beater" thing in Casper Wyoming is still there. We just can't bring ourselves to rip things down, no matter hideos they are, or how symbolically problematic.
This will come down.
It'll come down in part as it just won't work with an 18th Century large house built on a budget. It wasn't constructed to be a palace, but just a big house.
Which brings me to my next point.
Perhaps the West Wing, after actually going through the proper process, ought to be taken out as well.
No attachments to the structure are really consistent with its original concept. It isn't supposed to have a lot of offices and the entire concept of the First Lady needing room for anything is absurd. The First Lady is simply the President's wife, or Trump's case in regard to the monarchical role to which he aspires, the current concubine, or in the American Civil Religion context, his current wife.
Maybe it ought to be just scaled back to its original footprint.
Some would object that that would mean that it wouldn't have enough room for its purpose Well, No. 10 Downing Street has less room than the White House. And if more space is really needed, they can find it somewhere else in Washington D.C. Nixon actually did that with the nearby Eisenhower Building.
The White House in 1846, when it was first photographed.
Restoring the White House back to scale would also be symbolic. The entire office of the Presidency needs to be restored to scale. Right now, Trump is in fact ruling as a dictator, with the complicitly of the Dixiecrat Party that has taken over the GOP. That needs to end, and end to an enormous degree.
The drift towards an imperial presidency started with Theodore Roosevelt, who is a person I admire, but whom I admire more than I once did. TR, like Trump, tended to act unilaterally, the difference being that Roosevelt was a profoundly intelligent and moral man, where as the opposite is true of Trump. The East Wing started off in his administration as the fairly modest East Terrace, which looked nice and wasn't an overblown Sun King structure like the proposed ballroom will be, but it nonetheless got the modification trend rolling.
It would be TR's cousin Franklin that really got the modern Presidency established, however, and that due to the emergency of the Great Depression and World War Two. Franklin Roosevelt did not rule as a dictator, although people liked to accuse him of that at the time. Ironically, a President that the Republicans hate to this very day is the one, in some ways, that Trump has tried to emulate, even to the extent of wishing for a third term, which he cannot legally occupy. Franklin, of course, redid the East Wing, which was done in part due to the bomb shelter that was constructed underneath it.
The West Wing also dates back to TR's time in the White House with the construction of what was supposed to be a temporary structure. That structure was expanded in 1909 and ultimately came to be the White House office space. I don't doubt that they need office space, but as noted, maybe it can just be somewhere else.
And in fact, for the most part, it should be.
Taft family milk cow Pauline Wayne, one of two milk cows the Tafts kept and allowed to freely roam the White House grounds. What is now known as the Eisenhower building is in the background. This is as things should be.
FN DELIVERS WEAPON SYSTEM TEST SAMPLES TO DOD’S IRREGULAR WARFARE TECHNICAL SUPPORT DIRECTORATE
End, while on the topic of weapons, what on Earth?
FN DELIVERS WEAPON SYSTEM TEST SAMPLES TO DOD’S IRREGULAR WARFARE TECHNICAL SUPPORT DIRECTORATE
The Army just finished adopting the M7 and the M250 in 6.8x51 and now its buying stocks of the same design in 6.5x43
Apparently these are being considered for Special Forces, which may be special, but are conceived of as needing a lighter weapon.
This is somewhat silly. The service really doesn't need two cartridges The 6.8 was chosen, the SF can live with it.
Blog Mirror: Airman found dead at F.E. Warren was under investigation for M18 incident Airman 1st Class Marcus White Allen was previously arrested following the death of Airman Brayden Lovan
Airman found dead at F.E. Warren was under investigation for M18 incident
Another twist in this story, but no doubt the M18's detractors have already made up their minds.
Friday, October 24, 2025
Wednesday, October 24, 1945. The United Nations comes into being.
The United Nations came into existence with the ratification of the UN Charter by the Soviet Union.
Czechoslovakia nationalized banks, insurance companies, and 27 industries.
Vidkun Quisling was executed.
Last edition:
Tuesday, October 23, 1945. Signing Robinson.
Labels: 1880s, 1884, 1940s, 1945, 1946, 1947, 1970s, 1973, Army, Army Reserve, baseball, Conscription, Ethnicities, Harry S. Truman, It was because of World War Two, Military, Racism, Sports, U.S. Navy
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Wyoming’s future depends on courage, optimism and action
Wyoming’s future depends on courage, optimism and action: Wyoming's biggest challenge isn't a lack of opportunity. It's a fear of change. But doing nothing won't save the state we love, writes Josh Dorrell.
Local Lookout: Repealing public lands rule | Reconsidering hate crimes law | Retooling state land lease
Local Lookout: Repealing public lands rule | Reconsidering hate crimes law | Retooling state land lease: Local governments are looking at repealing rules ranging from prioritizing conservation on BLM land to outlawing hate crimes. Leases also are front and center with Park County denying a clinic’s lease due to liability and Albany County expanding a state land lease to oversee recreation and wildlife habitat.
Thursday, October 23, 2025
CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist, 105th Edition. What's up with the rush on the White House?
It occurs to me that something is really odd about Trump rushing to start his vandalization project on the White House, and then expanding it to destroy the entire East Wing. . . . it's almost like he fears not being around to enjoy it.
Maybe he knows he's not going to be.
Maybe he fears that if he's not around the ugly garden shed won't be built.
Maybe he fears that's going to be so soon, he had to actually take steps that try to force its completion.
Why would that be?
Maybe Trump knows that he's on death's door, or maybe its something else. Let's look at the possibilities.
Trump knows he's not long for the world.
There's been some speculation on this for other reasons.
One could say he's acting weird, but he acted weird in his first term too. He's been acting extra weird. He's been talking a fair amount and expressing fears that he's going to Hell. And well he should fear it. For one thing:
Now someone approached him and said, “Teacher, what good must I do to gain eternal life?”
He answered him, “Why do you ask me about the good? There is only One who is good.* If you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments.
He asked him, “Which ones?” And Jesus replied, “ ‘You shall not kill; you shall not commit adultery; you shall not steal; you shall not bear false witness; honor your father and your mother’; and ‘you shall love your neighbor as yourself.’”
The young man said to him, “All of these I have observed. What do I still lack?
Jesus said to him, “If you wish to be perfect, go, sell what you have and give to [the] poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.
When the young man heard this statement, he went away sad, for he had many possessions.
Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Amen, I say to you, it will be hard for one who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven.
Again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for one who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”
When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished and said, “Who then can be saved?”
Jesus looked at them and said, “For human beings this is impossible, but for God all things are possible.”
Based on the difficulty that implies, and it is not intended to be metaphorical, Trump should fear Hell. He's been far from perfect. He's a serial polygamist for one thing, and genuinely a bad person. It appears to some extent he's trying to buy his way into Heaven with the thought that if he can secure peace in some war somewhere God will credit that and allow him to otherwise get a pass on his sins. He keep seeking reassurance from those around him that will work.
That obsession suggests that he knows he's running out of time.
Trump wants to be remembered for amount to something. He knows that much of his Presidency will be regarded as a fart in a windstorm. So he's building his own monumental mausoleum, maybe.
And in doing so, time is short. Either he'll be out of office in three years, and this is a project that for American construction would take longer than that, or he'll die before its built He well knows that if a Democrat comes into office after him, under the original plan, no ballroom would be built. He's taking steps, by destroying the entire wing, to make sure it has to be.
But even that won't. It'll just assure that something has to be done.
Trump knows that there's next to no chance of getting this monstrosity done in time.
I touched on that above, but there's every chance in the world that Trump leaves office, either at the expiration of his term, or being lead out while babbling in full dementia, and this project stops. As he departs his last glimpse of the ballroom will be of a construction project with workmen likely picking up debris.
There's a good chance that the week thereafter the construction company has cleared out and the trackhoe is back with the same operator demolishing this worthless monument.
It's a natural instinct in most people to complete a project.
And it's a natural instinct to keep and use something, once it's built. . . except for Americans.
Trump's spent a lot of time in the orbit of the high and the mighty his whole life. Since his first legitimate term in office, and now in his second illegitimate one, he's had the opportunity to see monumental public buildings that are really old, quite frankly frequently gaudy. He's not that smart of guy and he probably doesn't realize that the regimes that built such structures aren't always admired in later years, but he probably does appreciate that things Louis XIV built, or the Czars, are still being used.
The American track record isn't quite so good. We take down buildings all the time, including our athletic civil temples that were constructed at great expense. We usually get around to morning them long after they're gone.
Trump probably feels that if he can get this built, particular if the East Wing gets destroyed with it, it'll have to be built, and it'll have to stay when its built. Like Justice Kennedy, he probably naively assumes that after he's out of office, and after he's dead and gone, people will forget that he was a putz, and love him.
People aren't going to love him. He'll be remembered as the worst human being to ever occupy the Oval Office, and the building will come down. A future Democratic President will take it down to make a point, if not out of spite.
Trump is banking on nobody tearing it down (which I suspect is a pretty bad bet).
See above.
Another view of the hideous monstrosity.
An interesting aspect of this is the NatCon one that was circulating before this piece of shit project started to advance.
As we've noted before, Trump's real backers are members of the Dominionist New Apostolic Reformation, but within the NatCons are Catholic and Orthodox intellectuals who have become Illiberal Democrats. Not too surprisingly, this same group has pretty strong architectural views.
They like architect James McCrery.
Some of these folks hang out at website called Rorate Caeli, which is actually a type of Mass, but which means "drop down, ye Heavens." They really like James McCrery, and for good reason. Here's their post on his getting the job of being garden shed architect:
McCrery, Architects of Catholic Beauty, chosen to renovate the White House
McCrery Architects, New Carmel, Wyoming Those familiar with the architectural work of James McCrery know he is among the greats of the 20th and 21st centuries.
McCrery Architects, St. Mary Help of Christians, North Carolina Based on the Senate side of Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, he has designed, restored and enhanced numerous churches, schools, homes and other buildings — all in a classical style where the average man, woman and child responds “beautiful” upon seeing his work.
Now, Jim McCrery has designed what will be his legacy for generations of Americans: a new White House ballroom. President Donald Trump announced on Thursday $200 million in private funding (including Trump’s own money) will fund a ballroom next to the east wing of the White House that can accommodate 650 guests. This is needed, as the East Room of the White House (the largest for gatherings) seats around 200 people, so the custom has been to put up tents outside when a large dinner or event is hosted.
See the designs for yourself to appreciate them.
McCrery, who is celebrating his 60th birthday, completed a restoration and enhancement of Saint Mary Mother of God church near his DC studio, where the TLM existed from the mid-1980s until its suppression three years ago. From the cathedrals in Knoxville, Tennessee, and Raleigh, North Carolina, to Corpus Christi in the Diocese of Arlington, to the Newman Center in Lincoln, Nebraska, to the Carmelite monastery in Wyoming, the churches he designed are spectacular — no easy task in an age of modern codes, budget limitations and senior officials often advocating bland over beauty. McCrery’s name is synonymous with beauty.
Rorate congratulates Jim McCrery on this achievement and looks forward to the next three years of his project’s construction. And we commend President Trump for choosing traditional architecture, and developing a great relationship with such a fine architect. Who knows what others would have chosen to dump on the White House lawn! It is a time to be thankful for the partnership of McCrery and Trump on this project that will stand tall long after all of us depart this earth.
Rorate Caeli.
This is, quite frankly, part of what upsets me. This thing is ugly and stupid.
It'd be ugly and stupid anywhere, but it'd make more sense in some places. In Georgian England, for example, or in 18th Century France. If you went back, an were honest with yourself, you'd think "well. . . this is ugly and stupid, but looks like belongs here" and then you'd go on to tell everyone, "wow, that's impressive.
The top two buildings are in fact impressive. Why did they take this assignment?
Well, . . . on this, I'll be frank that I"m not so sure about the top building.
Wyoming isn't Medieval France or pre King Henry VIII the Vandal England, and I'm not really too sure that this fits the state too well. There's been a fair amount of murmuring about it, which is slightly embarrassing for Wyoming Catholics. We know we don't live in Medieval France.
I guess, however, that this is religious architecture and they are free to build what they wish.
Monumental public architecture belongs to the public, however. The public doesn't want a gigantic gilded garden shed.
Worthless Democrats
One thing this has served to do is to illustrate how completely worthless the Democratic Party is.
If this was the party of 1975, or 1985, it would have rushed out on day one and filed an action for an injunction, which would have included a request for a TRO. They would have gotten it.
More particularly, what they would have asked for is an injunction returning the White House to the status quo ante until the architectural commission in charge of these things had a chance to consider the matter. That would have meant that Donny would have had to stop the construction and the structure repaired, on his dime, until the body could meet and make a ruling.
Yes, that body is going to say "go ahead", but that would have burned through about $10M of the vandalization money in advance, and delayed the project by at least a year. Mobilization costs would have gone up, and Democrats would likely be back in power. The thing would never have been built.
Instead they sat around and did nothing.
This all points to an existential crisis within the Democratic Party. Most Democrats are actually center left, politically, but over the last fifteen or so years the party has been captured by its hardcore left wingers that will not compromise on anything, and so the party has glaciated. The left wingers in the Democratic Party are every bit as nutty, if not more so, than the hard right of the Republican Party.
We need new parties.
McCrery
I noted earlier that I had placed some home in the design in that James McCrery was responsible for it.
I've lost that hope.
The more I look at it, it's just flat out gaudy and ugly. It's interesting to note that McCrery, who was one of the people that Donny did the roof top tour with recently, has been taking some flak.
Apparently McCrery wasn't always a classicist. And people interviewed about him recently haven't been all that kind. For example, Robert Livesey, who was chair of the Ohio State architecture department from 1983 to 1991 when McCrery was a student wrote recently in an email that “to be honest, I do not have a real memory of Jim. My sense was that he was a good design student which is why Eisenman hired him, Unfortunately, his work does not have the presence of real classical architecture, or even of people who were also after the classical, like Palladio, or later Hawksmoor.”
Eisenman refers to Peter Eisenman, who was a professor at Ohio State and who took McCrery under his wing and later employed him. Eisenman is not a classicist and has called his former underlings design "bonkers", adding "putting a portico at the end of a long facade and not in the center is what one might say is untutored.”
Pretty harsh. In fairness, Eisenman and McCrery seem to have had a falling out some time ago, and McCrery seems to have become very identified with his Faith in regard to his architectural projects, which leads a person to wonder why he'd want to take on a giant civil structure like this. Frankly, Eisenman's criticism seems pretty valid to me.
Rats
One potentially good thing about this is that it might make a lot of rats homeless. Apparently the White House is full of them, in the walls.
No big surprise.
Rats being rats, however, they're probably just moving into the house itself.
What should reconstruction look like?
One thing that this brings up is what should reconstruction look like. The White House grounds are already pretty crowded without this monstrosity. Frankly, a pretty good argument can be made that the East and West Wings detract from the original appearance of the structure. Maybe this presents an opportunity just to take them out, although apparently that would create an office space problem.
The donors
Here's who is paying for this abomination:
Altria Group, Inc.
Amazon
Apple
Booz Allen Hamilton
Caterpillar, Inc.
Coinbase
Comcast Corporation
J. Pepe and Emilia Fanjul
Hard Rock International
HP Inc.
Lockheed Martin
Meta Platforms
Micron Technology
Microsoft
NextEra Energy, Inc.
Palantir Technologies Inc.
Ripple
Reynolds American
T-Mobile
Tether America
Union Pacific Railroad
Adelson Family Foundation
Stefan E. Brodie
Betty Wold Johnson Foundation
Charles and Marissa Cascarilla
Edward and Shari Glazer
Harold Hamm
Benjamin Leon Jr.
The Lutnick Family
The Laura & Isaac Perlmutter Foundation
Stephen A. Schwarzman
Konstantin Sokolov
Kelly Loeffler and Jeff Sprecher
Paolo Tiramani
Cameron Winklevoss
Tyler Winklevoss
Some of these you know, and some of their products you use everyday. Microsoft, for example, is pretty hard to avoid.
Some can be easily avoided. I'll never eat in another Hard Rock Cafe again, ever, which of course will be an easy thing for me to do.
Last edition:
CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist, 104th Edition. Mike Johnson, toady, and other matters.
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