Category Archives: SITD
The Social Event of the Season/Your Morning Piñata
It’s the Woodstock of perfidy! Hail, hail, the gang’s all here*:
*Kinda disappointed that ol’ Klaus Schwab couldn’t make it, but there’s hope George Soros will appear in animatronic form.
Tuesday’s Gone
Fleshing out my first thoughts on the most recent election:
In Minnesota, the age-old wisdom prevails: money talks, bullshit walks. Tim Walz is sputtering fool, but he will be governor for the next four years. Unless his A1C level approaches triple digits, it’s highly likely he’ll complete his term and step aside for another sideshow act once he passes his sell-by date, some time around 2027. The DFL has the money and the infrastructure to control this state for the foreseeable future and the GOP has nothing. The DFL proved they could elect any droolbucket with a brand name when they pushed Mark Dayton across the line in 2010 and 2014. A guy with Walz’s skillset and mien wouldn’t get beyond middle management for any respectable company in the state, but he’s won twice. We can see all see it for what it is, but it doesn’t matter in the slightest — for the fourth election running, the DFL showed Team Rocks and Cows their ass. I don’t doubt they’ll find another standard bearer who is (a) absurd and (b) likely to win in 2026.
Keith Ellison is corrupt as the day is long, a 30-year grifter. He let a $250 million fraud run without interruption for the better part of two years. He’s now won statewide office twice. We’re pretty far gone if he can’t be defeated. I don’t doubt Jim Schultz is a competent lawyer, but his affect was of a guy who doesn’t get out of the conference room nearly enough and he was too nice a guy to run against a bully. To take the AG’s office back, the Republicans need a crusading litigator type who can prosecute the prosecutor and expose the rot within. There has to be one of those out there.
On the national level, it has to be said: Donald Trump didn’t help. He was and continues to be horribly wronged by what he’s gone through at the hands of his persecutors. And since civic education in this country is essentially dead in the water, most citizens can’t recognize that Trump is living example of why the Founders were against bills of attainder. Having said that, Trump will never get a sympathetic audience. He’s an obnoxious boor and he can’t get past his own solipsism; if he had even a scintilla of self-awareness, he might understand where he is, but we’ve been watching him for well over 40 years and that’s not in his skill set. Trump fancies himself the indispensable man, the conquering hero, but if he sincerely loves his nation, he’d recognize that martyrdom is a better career move. Not a chance in hell he’ll accept his fate, though.
Aside from the utter domination of Ron DeSantis in Florida, election results did not go well as one might have expected. Even so, the Republicans could still flip the House and the Senate. Based on reports from Arizona and Nevada, the Republicans could get over the line despite the Fetterman debacle in Pennsylvania. It appears likely that Adam Laxalt will win his seat in Nevada and there’s reason to believe Blake Masters may squeak by with Kari Lake becoming the governor in Arizona. Meanwhile, Herschel Walker will be going to a runoff in Georgia and has a good chance of prevailing this time. Even if the Senate ends up 50/50 again, I can imagine Joe Manchin may try to cross the aisle to save his ass in 2024. What will be interesting is whether Mitch McConnell would want him. I am not convinced McConnell enjoys being majority leader; he has more opportunities for self-enrichment in his current position.
Meanwhile, the Donks own the next two years. And they are going to hate that. There is still an urgent need for them to ease out Biden before too long, but they aren’t going to have an easy path to removing him, unless they decide to use Hunter Biden’s depredations as the pretext. Still, they will need a plausible successor. Kamala Harris impresses no one. Gavin Newsom is an empty suit. Pete Buttigieg? I don’t think so. Maybe it will be time for President Fetterman.
Place Yer Bets
It’s finally Election Day and we can all breathe easier now that we won’t have to see Angie Craig’s alternating rictus grin/contorted face of rage multiple times a day on television, social media and other media. But will we see Craig going forward? While I sincerely hope not, it’s difficult to know. So let’s hazard a few guesses on how it will play out today and in the coming days.
Governor: Tim Walz deserves to be tossed out on his well-padded posterior, but I suspect he and Peggy Flanagan will survive. Scott Jensen ran a decent campaign but it’s difficult to overcome all paid advertising from Alida Messinger and the free advertising from the Esme Murphys of the local media.
Secretary of State: Steve Simon is a smooth operator and Kim Crockett is not. Should those traits matter? No, but they do. Simon wins.
Attorney General: We have had the DFL Lucys pull this football away before. Recent polling suggests Keith Ellison is in trouble and that Jim Schultz is leading. Do you believe it? I don’t, but I sincerely hope I’m wrong.
Auditor: If the Republicans are allowed to win a statewide office, it will likely be this one. Republican Ryan Wilson has run a fine campaign and you can’t spell blah without DFLer Julie Blaha. The auditor has limited power but a committed auditor can at least turn over a few rocks the DFL would prefer to keep stationary. Wilson wins.
CD-2: While there are 8 congressional districts in Minnesota, apparently only the 2nd is being contested this year. We’ve seen dozens, maybe hundreds of ads featuring the odious incumbent, Angie Craig, and her rival Tyler Kistner. It’s been a nasty race and Craig has serious money behind her. She’s vulnerable because of redistricting, but it’s not clear to me that Kistner has made the sale. A left wing veteran’s group has also run some stolen valor ads in the final weekend that may affect the outcome; I have not been able to determine if their claims are accurate, but if Kistner loses, that last-minute attack might make the difference. As an aside, I really wish we’d seen Republicans make more of an effort in CD-3, where it’s been entirely too easy for Dean Phillips.
Elsewhere: Control of the House and Senate are at stake and the deep unpopularity of the Democrats will almost certainly mean Congress will be in Republican hands in 2023. A few guesses on races in other states:
Wisconsin: while the population and demographics of Wisconsin are similar to Minnesota, Wisconsin is not a blue state. Milwaukee and Madison are lefty enclaves, but their overall population is less than 40% of the total population, while the Twin Cities are about 60% of the total population here. As a result, it is easier for Republicans to win. Ron Johnson, the incumbent Republican senator, is a bit on the crusty side, but he’s a smart, effective campaigner and looks to be a good bet to win against his opponent, Lt. Governor Mandela Barnes, a gladhander in the Hakeem Jeffries/Barack Obama style, but less effective. In the governor’s race, Republican challenger Tim Michels is also a bit crusty, but the fluke incumbent governor, Democrat Tony Evers, is an ineffective milquetoast. Look for the Republicans to win both. Continue reading
That’s Saar Folks
The pastoral calm of the Warndt Forest in the Rhine Valley had been broken on September 7th, 1939; the soothing sounds of nature quickly replaced with the creak of tank tracks, the roar of trucks, and the stomping of men on the march. Only three days earlier, Germany’s western frontier had become a potential battlefield as Britain and France had declared war over Berlin’s invasion of Poland. For the second time in a generation, the Franco-German border would be a scene of intense conflict.
But the soldiers on the move were not members of the Wehrmacht. Most of Germany’s border towns had been cleared of both soldiers and civilians with the coming of a Second World War. These men were members of the French Second Army Group, part of 11 divisions and the opening wave of a planned 44 division invasion of Germany that would pull enemy forces away from a beleaguered Poland and dive deep into Germany’s industrial core. In all, the Allies had an estimated 110 divisions they could turn against Germany while the Nazis had, at most, 22 undermanned divisions to repel any such attack.
A week into the Second War World, France was in German territory. The outcome of the conflict rested on Paris and London’s willingness to stay on the offensive.
In some respects, September 7th, 1939 was a date that France had planned on for 20 years.
Since the end of the Great War, military and political leaders in both France and Britain had sought to emulate an “Entente-lite” coalition to box in Germany in the event of a future conflict. While an alliance of new, smaller nations like Czechoslovakia and Poland could hardly match the industrial output and manpower of a Tsarist-era Russia, any tangible military threat in the east would ensure that if another conflict began, Germany would again find itself gored on the horns of a two-front war. To cement such a position, Czechoslovakia, Romania and Yugoslavia would form the “Little Entente” with French oversight, while Paris signed a direct defensive alliance with Poland in 1921. The French-Polish Treaty assumed that France would take offensive action against Germany within three days of starting mobilization while launching a full-scale assault within 15 days, presumably while Poland would fight any rearguard action to buy time. Continue reading
Buyin’ Time
You knew it was coming. And here it is — student loan “forgiveness,” baby:
President Joe Biden announced Wednesday that he will forgive $10,00 in federal student debt for most borrowers, fulfilling a campaign pledge and delivering financial relief to millions of Americans.
Biden will cancel up to $20,000 for recipients of Pell Grants.
“Both of these targeted actions are for families who need it the most,” the president said in remarks from the White House on Wednesday afternoon.
I love the smell of moral hazard in the morning. But if there’s a cohort of our society that really loves this sort of thing, it’s the folks who assumed their “Studies” degree was their ticket to the carriage class. The donks long ago realized they have neither reason nor incentive to bestow other people’s resources on the working class or the small business dudes, because they aren’t picking up the check at Le Diplomate. The “S” in an S corporation now stands for suck it.
At this point, the game is evident even to those who’d rather not think about politics — helping the commonweal is right out. Higher education is the best thing the donks have going and subsidizing their efforts is the highest and best use of other people’s money. And if you look at the price tag, you’re probably a denier. And if you paid your own way to go to trade school, you’re a chump. The rewards go to Derrida, not derring-do.
The timing is crucial here — there’s no question this move will piss off millions of potential voters, but there’s also no question that we’ll all be getting a steady supply of ether from the Alliance for a Better Minnesota and the constellation of like-minded political action groups flattering the Studies majors from Olaf and Kenyon and Swarthmore (and Eau Claire and Bemidji, too) that despite everything, they are actually part of the in-crowd. The checks will clear in plenty of time for the clientele, but the unwilling benefactors will be too busy trying to make payroll to get out and door knock.
But hey, have a nice day!
Faith Heeling
Many common social-justice phrases have echoes of a catechism: announcing your pronouns or performing a land acknowledgment shows allegiance to a common belief, reassuring a group that everyone present shares the same values. But treating politics like a religion also makes it more emotionally volatile, more tribal (because differences of opinion become matters of good and evil) and more prone to outbreaks of moralizing and piety. “I was thinking about that Marx quote that religion is the opium of the people,” Elizabeth Oldfield, the former director of the Christian think tank Theos, told me. “I think what we’ve got now is [that] politics is the amphetamines of the people.”
Writing for the Atlantic (via MSN), Helen Lewis also noticed something else:
I asked Alex Clare-Young, a nonbinary minister in the United Reformed Church, whether their faith or their gender was more surprising to Generation Z acquaintances. “I think probably being religious,” Clare-Young responded. “I know a lot of LGBTQ+ young people who say it’s harder to come out as Christian in an LGBT space than LGBT in a Christian space.”
Of course it is. In our world, the wrath of the mob is more fearsome than the wrath of God. And you’re more likely to get instant karma if you don’t bow to conventional wisdom. If you see a sign in someone’s yard, proclaiming “In This House We Believe [select platitudes here]”, it’s almost certainly a leftist. I suppose it’s good when they self-identify. But as the old saw goes, the devil is in the details.
Our Betters Know It
We are living in a meritocracy that is utterly lacking in merit. And our betters know it. If the current leadership in Washington were confident in their abilities and in their support, you would not see FBI raids on political opponents and political show trials on national television.
You are under no obligation to like the Bad Orange Man. Likely a plurality of the regular writers of this feature are, if not actively anti-Trump, certainly Trump-skeptical. We all know him and, in a better world, he’d be back on television pretending to fire C-list celebrities.
We don’t live in that world. We have a hopelessly corrupt federal government and, at least in Minnesota, a kleptocratic political machine built for the amusement of the parlor pinks who support them. These are the same people who especially enjoy voting for Ilhan Omar, because doing so is brave and transgressive. Ask the local gentry and they will say it’s elementary.
If you’ve read The Great Gatsby, you’ll recognize the type — there are plenty of Tom and Daisy Buchanans in the world. They like what they like and they don’t like arrivistes from the outer boroughs. And they don’t care about the damage they leave in their wake, because they are, in the main, immune from the consequences. We send people like Betty McCollum and Vin Weber to Washington to dance for the Buchanans and, if their performances pass muster, they get to stick around long enough to make bank. And when the spirit moves, the politicos send us back a percentage the money they extract from all of us. And for the most part, those of us who follow politics pretend the labels our dancers wear really matter.
This construct has lasted a long time, at least 90 years and arguably all the way back to Grover Cleveland. All of it is getting shaky now, though. And in Joe Biden, we have the decrepit embodiment of the rot that has been building since the one-time Garanimals customers started learning their Gramsci alongside the trust-fund swells.
It can’t continue. And our betters know it. They are showing force, but they are not confident. They may be able to gaslight their way past November, but the reckoning draws near.
You’ll Get Nothing And Like It
Former Trump hand Michael Anton, writing for Compact, offers a bracing view of the various pathologies of Trump haters, whose numbers are legion, at least among the chattering classes. I am going to pull a few quotes; this article is a festival of pull quotes, truly a “read the whole thing” special. But a few of Anton’s observations deserve particular consideration, to wit:
Complaints about the nature of Trump are just proxies for objections to the nature of his base. It doesn’t help stabilize our already twitchy situation that those who bleat the loudest about democracy are also audibly and visibly determined to deny a real choice to half the country. “No matter how you vote, you will not get X”—whether X is a candidate or a policy—is guaranteed to increase discontent with the present regime.
All along the Potomac, you can sense it: oh boy, here comes the hoi polloi. The whole point of the current January 6 show trial is to demonstrate, beyond question, that your concerns do not matter. Stay outta the 202, y’all. The enmity Anton describes began before Trump — before the MAGA hat became the visible headgear from hell, the tricorner hats of the Tea Party were not a source of great amusement to our betters, but rather an unwelcome interruption to the exciting new world on offer. The concerns of those citizens mattered not at all then and little has changed.
The Tea Party did not last; it was leaderless by design and easily coopted and dispersed by the professional Republicans who serve as junior partners in the Beltway ecosystem. So nothing changed. What did change? This time the hoi polloi had a herald, who happened to be a publicity hound from Queens.
Why did Trump get the gig? Why wasn’t the herald someone more housebroken, like Marco Rubio or “Jeb!” or John “Daddy Was a Postman” Kasich? Amazingly, it was because a carnival barker like Trump was more credible than the other worthies in the field were. Back to Anton:
The regime can’t allow Trump to be president not because of who he is (although that grates), but because of who his followers are. That class—Angelo Codevilla’s “country class”—must not be allowed representation by candidates who might implement their preferences, which also, and above all, must not be allowed. The rubes have no legitimate standing to affect the outcome of any political process, because of who they are, but mostly because of what they want.
What Tea Party/MAGA types want isn’t hegemony over their betters. Rather, they want to be left alone, without the ministrations of those who have plans for how they ought to live their lives. Can’t have that, of course. And if you are old enough to have had friendships of over 30 years, you understand and have likely experienced the following:
People I have known for 30 years, many of whom still claim the label “conservative,” will no longer speak to me—because I supported Trump, yes, but also because I disagree on trade, war, and the border. They call not just my positions, but me personally, unadulterated evil. I am not an isolated case. There are, as they say, “many such cases.”
Kevin Williamson and the NR gang, pick up the white courtesy phone. Then Anton gets to the nub:
How are we supposed to have “democracy” when the policies and candidates my side wants and votes for are anathema and can’t be allowed? How are we supposed to live together with the constant demonization from one side against the other blaring 24/7 from the ruling class’s every propaganda organ? Why would we want to?
I am not sure we can. There’s more, a whole lot more, at the link. Consider it carefully, as we are in a dangerous moment.
A League of Their Own
Thousands of curious spectators had gathered along the Rue du Rhône in Geneva at 11am, watching in earnest as the Swiss Federal Council and the State Council of the Canton of Geneva marched in slow procession, escorted by a small military contingent. At their forefront, Swiss President Giuseppe Motta basked in the adoration of the crowd as the parade of Swiss dignitaries entered the giant Salle de la Réformation event center.
Inside, a collection of 241 delegates from 41 member nations (minus Honduras, whose delegation was still traveling), waited for Motta to take his seat as a honorary chairman at the dais. The Acting President of the Assembly, Belgian politician Paul Hymans, rang a bell at 11:16am and declared the meeting open – the first official meeting of the League of Nations had begun on November 15th, 1920.
It had been a long and circuitous path to get to this day and the League’s first moments in formal existence (technically, the body had been organized in January of 1920 and had met in it’s proto form), exposed the flaws in it’s creation. As League drafted a message of thanks to American President Woodrow Wilson, stating that they had gathered on this day at the American’s request, the United States was absent from the proceedings, as well as the Soviet Union, Germany and roughly another 44 sovereign nations that had either been excluded or had chosen to bypass the organization. And the debates of the first day proved how fragile the newfound League could be, as France threatened to withdraw within hours when the subject of Germany’s admission was discussed.
In the air of the combative and disorganized proceedings, the ultimately prophetic words of Woodrow Wilson to the assembly could be heard: “I can predict with absolute certainty that within another generation there will be another world war if the nations of the world do not concert the method by which to prevent it.”
Depending upon one’s historical perspective, the events of November 15th, 1920 in Geneva either represented the end of a nearly 150 year path of diplomatic and small ‘r’ republican political progress or a revolutionary jump from nation states, to competing alliances, to finally a burgeoning sense of global, collective action. The difference in historical narrative would eventually define those who chose to participate versus those who didn’t, and color the very notion of the purpose and powers of the League of Nations. Continue reading
Breaking News (Breaking Wind) From Seven Years Ago
Deep thoughts from Chris Cillizza, circa 2015:
Joe Biden’s unique trait as a politician is — and always has been — his honesty. Sometimes that honesty gets him into varying degrees of trouble. Sometimes it makes it seem as though he’s the closest thing to a real person you could possibly hope for in politics.
This didn’t age too well, now did it? I can’t prove Cillizza’s childhood nickname wasn’t Corn Pop, or that he wasn’t at some point a classmate of Biden’s at the Naval Academy, but it’s a useful reminder that our betters have been carrying water for Ol’ Joe for a very long time now. There was more:
The Joe Biden on display with Colbert is the person who has inspired remarkable loyalty — over decades — from a tightknit group of staffers who would form the core of his presidential brain trust if he decided to run in 2016. It’s the guy who, for a time in 1987, was one of the front-runners for the Democratic presidential nomination. It’s who Barack Obama saw when he decided to pick Biden as his vice president in 2008.
1987. Do you remember why Biden fell from grace all those years ago? I suppose you could ask Neil Kinnock, whose speech Biden plagiarized. You could ask Barack Obama:
One Democrat who spoke to Obama recalled the former president warning, “Don’t underestimate Joe’s ability to fuck things up.”
After the last 18 months, no one seriously doubts The Leader of the Free World’s ability in that realm.
Dobbs
Dobbs finally arrived:
“The Constitution does not confer a right to abortion; Roe and Casey are overruled; and the authority to regulate abortion is returned to the people and their elected representatives,” wrote Justice Samuel Alito for the majority. “It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives.”
He was joined in the majority opinion by Justices Thomas, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett. Justice Roberts filed a separate opinion concurring with the majority.
“With sorrow—for this Court, but more, for the many millions of American women who have today lost a fundamental constitutional protection—we dissent,” wrote Justices Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan in a joint dissent.
The issue of abortion will now be returned to the individual states to regulate as each sees fit. Dark blue states are expected to impose the most radical pro-abortion policies while dark red states may ban all abortion. Many states may choose to allow abortion only under certain circumstances.
A few thoughts:
- I am Catholic. We walk by faith and reason. Both faith and reason point to why Catholics have always opposed abortion. In that sense, today is a great day.
- Now the battle really begins, and I do not mean the inevitable attacks and violence that will unfold over the coming days. The real battle is to win hearts and minds where possible. As long as Roe existed, all potential discussions about the morality and efficacy of abortion laws were always more theoretical than real, because 7 dudes said so. Now, for good and bad, the people and their elected representatives get to decide the matter.
- The Court’s decision is, at bottom, an admission of humility. Roe was always an exercise in raw judicial power, as Byron White said in his dissent nearly 50 years ago. And as is often the case, the best use of power is sometimes to refrain from wielding such power.
- Between this decision and the court’s earlier decision this week in the Bruen case, the court has at least started a necessary process of returning to first principles. And if the Court were to continue this process, I’d certainly like them to look at earlier abusive rulings. I’d start with Wickard v. Filburn.
Rationalization Du Jour
So the economy’s in the crapper and you’re a worried Democrat? CNN has found the silver lining:
All of this could pose problems for Biden and Democrats in the upcoming midterm elections.
But if there is any consolation for Biden, the market implosion during the early stages of his presidency is not as bad as those experienced by some of his predecessors, according to data from CFRA Research chief investment strategist Sam Stovall.
The market plunged 16.5% in the first 510 days of Ronald Reagan’s presidency, which was also a period of historically high inflation. Stocks were down 25% in the early part of George W. Bush’s presidency, as the market was in the midst of the dot-com meltdown and struggled to recover in the aftermath of 9/11. But both Reagan and George W. Bush wound up being re-elected.
Meanwhile, stocks soared more than 20% early in both George H.W. Bush’s and Donald Trump’s tenures in the Oval Office. Neither was elected to a second term.
Reagan had principles, a plan, and crucially Paul Volcker working with him. W, for what it’s worth, had a war and craven opposition. Biden has nothing except long knives sharpening in the background.
White Out
For the better part of six months, the fighting in the Donbas and Don regions of southern Russia and southeastern Ukraine had been a slowly turning meatgrinder of White Russians, Red Bolsheviks, Cossacks and Ukrainians of all political stripes. Despite being the main front of the Armed Forces of South Russia (AFSR) with the Volunteer Army that had risen from the first days of Bolshevik rule, the Whites had been consistently outgunned and outmanned. The Volunteer Army had at best 26,000-35,000 men, but were led by experienced Tsarist-era officers, including their commanding officer, General Anton Denikin. The Bolshevik forces in the area numbered perhaps two-to-one to their White counterparts, but were generally less knowledgeable in military tactics and distracted by their role in invading and occupying the crumbling Ukrainian People’s Republic. Both sides were increasingly mistrusted by an weary populace that had gone through five years of epic bloodshed and deprivation.
In mid-May of 1919, the tide however looked to turn. Soldiers of the Volunteer Army and the “Don Army”, essentially Cossack shock troops, had won a number of victories but the Bolsheviks had always seemingly managed to regroup and counterattack. Yet the Ukrainian front for the Reds had stalled, with the Ukrainians even able to regain some key territory, meaning fresh Bolshevik troops were being deployed elsewhere. When the White Cossack cavalry attacked this time, the four Russian armies in the region collapsed, with the 9th Army in particular being cut in two and destroyed. The path to central Ukraine and Russia now lay open.
On July 3rd, 1919, The White Russian movement was at it’s zenith and the Bolsheviks appeared to be at their military nadir. Victorious across most of his front, General Denikin issued Directive No. 08878 to his armies – an attack on Moscow itself. The goal was nothing less than the end of the Russian Civil War.
The political consolidation of the White Russian movement in the winter of 1918/1919 had done nothing to immediately impact the war on the ground. The Siberian All-Russian Provisional Government of Admiral Alexander Kolchak remained massively removed from the southern Russian/Caucasus forces of the AFSR, but was nevertheless a small light of hope for any anti-Bolshevik forces at an otherwise dark stage in the Russian Civil War. The Soviets had invaded almost all of their neighboring countries and were victorious on all fronts, including expanding out from their holdings in central Russia and clawing back gains from the small, disorganized White forces. By the start of 1919, the Soviets looked as though they might reunify the Tsarist-era lands of the Russian Empire relatively quickly and expand their influence throughout Europe as Germany and then Hungary both experienced communist revolutions. Continue reading
Versailles
The flurry of telegram traffic between the various capitals of Europe in late June of 1919 was almost similar to the volume seen in the weeks before the Great War. With the fifth anniversary of that cataclysm rapidly approaching, and no formal peace treaty having yet been signed and accepted, there was burgeoning nervousness that war might return to ravage Europe. Despite months of Allied negotiations to craft terms of a final treaty with Germany, the German response had waivered between hostile rejection and begrudging acceptance. Still, no German signature had touched the treaty, in part as no German politician wished to affix their name. Chancellor Philipp Scheidemann (Friedrich Ebert had risen to the post of President of Germany with the newly announced Weimer Republic), spoke for all his colleagues when he said: “What hand should not wither that puts this fetter on itself and on us?”
The task fell upon Gustav Bauer, the next in line of authority as Schneidemann chose resignation as opposed to destroying his political legacy. Even Ebert declared the treaty’s demands “unrealizable and unbearable,” decrying not only the punitive terms but the process in which the treaty had been crafted without any input from Germany or the former Central Powers. This wasn’t a peace treaty but a division of war spoils and an unconditional surrender, or so Germany complained. Bauer cabled the Allies, stating that he would sign the treaty if a handful of articles containing language about German culpability for the war and war crimes trials for the exiled former Kaiser be removed. The Allied response was clear – sign the whole treaty within 24 hours or French troops would cross the Rhine and occupy Germany. In desperation, the new Weimer government asked Paul von HIndenburg if the German army could potentially resist a renewed Allied offensive. They likely knew the answer before even asking the question.
On June 28th, 1919, in the Hall of Mirrors in the Palace of Versailles, 27 delegates representing 32 nations gathered to sign the final instrument of peace to end the First World War. It had been exactly five years to the date of Franz Ferdinand’s assassination. Germany had sent their Foreign Minister to oversee the signing. Gazing over the Foreign Minister as he signed was the gigantic self-portrait that Louis XIV had commissioned. The portrait’s title spoke of the Allies dominance on this day – “The King Governs By Himself.”
That any final terms of a peace treaty between Germany and the victorious Allies would be harsh could hardly have been a surprise. The process of even arriving at an Armistice had seen Germany agree to give up most of their military and infrastructure, not to mention an occupation of the Ruhr by the French that increasingly looked tantamount to annexation. Similar treaties/armistices with what remained of the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires had been debilitating as well, as both empires were stripped of their territories, their infrastructure plundered and their armies legislated into irrelevance. Only post treaty/armistice violence would lessen some of the strongest terms, as the Hungarian revolution and the following Turkish War of Independence forced the Allies’ hand to renegotiate. And in the winter and spring of 1919, Germany had no appetite or ability to militarily resist. Continue reading
Horrible If True
If the story presented in this Wall Street Journal article is true, what happened at the elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, could have been prevented or greatly mitigated:
Local residents voiced anger Thursday about the time it took to end the mass shooting at an elementary school here, as police laid out a fresh timeline that showed the gunman entered the building unobstructed after lingering outside for 12 minutes firing shots.
12 minutes can be a lifetime. But it gets worse.
Victor Escalon, a regional director for the Texas Department of Public Safety, gave a new timeline of how the now-deceased gunman, 18-year-old Salvador Ramos, walked into Robb Elementary School, barricaded himself in a classroom and killed 19 children and two teachers.
Mr. Escalon said he couldn’t say why no one stopped Ramos from entering the school during that time Tuesday. Most of the shots Ramos fired came during the first several minutes after he entered the school, Mr. Escalon said.
And worse still:
Ramos shot his grandmother Tuesday morning and drove her truck to Robb Elementary School, crashing the vehicle into a nearby ditch at 11:28 a.m., according to the timeline laid out by Mr. Escalon. He then began shooting at people at a funeral home across the street, prompting a 911 call reporting a gunman at the school at 11:30. Ramos climbed a chain-link fence about 8 feet high onto school grounds and began firing before walking inside, unimpeded, at 11:40. The first police arrived on the scene at 11:44 and exchanged gunfire with Ramos, who locked himself in a fourth-grade classroom. There, he killed the students and teachers.
A Border Patrol tactical team went into the school an hour later, around 12:40 p.m., and was able to get into the classroom and kill Ramos, Mr. Escalon said.
Consider the implication of this timeline — Ramos essentially announced himself and his intentions from the moment he arrived, but no one stopped him for over an hour. And it gets worse:
Ms. Gomez, a farm supervisor, was also waiting outside for her children. She said she was one of numerous parents who began encouraging—first politely, and then with more urgency—police and other law enforcement to enter the school sooner. After a few minutes, she said, U.S. Marshals put her in handcuffs, telling her she was being arrested for intervening in an active investigation.
The Marshals deny this happened, but there’s more.
Videos circulated on social media Wednesday and Thursday of frantic family members trying to get access to Robb Elementary as the attack was unfolding, some of them yelling at police who blocked them from entering.
“Shoot him or something!” a woman’s voice can be heard yelling on a video, before a man is heard saying about the officers, “They’re all just [expletive] parked outside, dude. They need to go in there.”
We worry, quite rightly, about the fog of war in these instances. Much of the initial reporting is wrong. I am hoping the story told here is wrong; if it is accurate, there will be hell to pay. And quite rightly so.
Ravenous
The first President of Hungary, Mihály Károlyi, had been forced to swallow many bitter pills in his short time in office. The last appointed Hungarian Prime Minister by Austro-Hungarian Emperor Charles I, Károlyi had ushered the relative bloodless Astar Revolution (with a couple of notable exceptions) and Hungary’s full independence. In short order, Károlyi watched the Allied powers disintegrated the lands of the ancient Habsburg regime by decree and by force. The latest blow had arrived the day before with the arrival of the “Vix Note” – a communique from the French that Hungarian troops were expected to retreat even further than originally agreed upon in order for those lands to be seized by Hungary’s neighbors.
The note had caused Károlyi’s prime minister to resign on March 21st, 1919 as the Hungarians didn’t wish to agree to France’s demands but were in little military position to resist. With his authority evaporating as quickly as Hungary’s borders, Károlyi proclaimed that the National Council, the legislative body through which he ruled, would attempt to form another government. But as Károlyi was a determined anti-communist, only the center-left Social Democrats would be allowed as the organizing party. The Social Democrats agreed on the same day and made a surprising announcement – Károlyi was resigning as President.
Mihály Károlyi had most certainly not told the Social Democrats he intended to resign. And the Social Democrats had most certainly not told Károlyi that they had secretly entered into an alliance with the Hungarian Communist Party and had released their imprisoned leadership the night before. Béla Kun, the Moscow-dispatched leader of the Hungarian Communists, immediately declared a Hungarian Soviet Republic, deposing and arresting Károlyi by fiat. Kun then radioed Vladimir Lenin in Russia, telling him that a “dictatorship of the proletariat” had seized control in Budapest.
The fear of most nations around the world since the Russian Revolution of 1917 had arrived – a Communist dictatorship had taken hold in the heart of Europe.
“I was certainly no adherent of the ancient regime, but it seems doubtful to me whether it is a sign of political shrewdness to beat to death the smartest of the many counts [Count István Tisza] and to make the stupidest one [Count Mihály Károlyi] president.” – Sigmund Freud
Hungary’s fate was far from sealed as the Great War ended on November 11th, 1918. It took a series of terrible moves from leadership to ensure the rise of a Soviet Republic. Continue reading
Carry On Wayward Renegade, All Along The Watchtower
It’s not something I think about that much, but I do from time to time — why do Classic Rock stations sound the same, year after year? I wrote about this on my moribund blog a number of years ago and, based on recent listening to market-dominant KQRS, this list of faves hasn’t changed a bit:
In thinking about this list, a few things are worth noting:
- The majority of the songs on this list are written in a minor key. If rock and roll is supposed to be uplifting, this group of songs isn’t it.
- Of the bands listed here, the happiest band appears to be ZZ Top, who made their name initially as a bare-bones Texas blues trio, until they made their fortune hawking classic cars and leggy models. Make of that what you will.
- Think back to any of the years listed here. Would you have had any interest in listening to songs that were recorded as long ago from that moment as these songs are from today? I didn’t hear much of Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys or the Andrews Sisters in 1983, for example, nor do I recall seeking such things out. In fact, I’m more likely to seek out Bob Wills today than most of the songs listed here, right or wrong.
- In my youth I was reliably informed that rock and roll was supposed to be about rebellious youth and revolution. While their politics were dodgy at best, the Clash was right about this much — you grow up and you calm down; you start wearing blue and brown. And so has the music of our youth.
Gil Scott-Heron, who doesn’t get much airplay these days, argued back then that the revolution will not be televised. But rest assured it will be monetized.
To The Last Man
For the handful of Australian troops on watch at the Finschhafen District military headquarters in Morobe, New Guinea, January 5th, 1919 seemed to be as nondescript as the multitude of days, weeks, months and even years before it. The region, formerly part of the provinces of German New Guinea, hadn’t seen meaningful combat in more than four years since Australian troops invaded and occupied the colony, driving out the Germans in some of the earliest combat of the Great War. The brief campaign had been Australia’s first independent military action and had kept region out of the hands out of British or Japanese interests.
The sight greeting the Australians seemed more appropriate for 1914 than 1919 – a column of fully armed New Guinean native German troops, with a resplendently dressed Major in his pressed and cleaned field dress uniform – marching down the streets of Morobe, directly towards the headquarters. Upon arriving at the front door, the German Major drew his sword and presented it to the Australian commanding officer. Major Hermann Detzner and the last of his men would surrender – bringing to an end the longest, strangest quasi-guerilla campaign of the First World War.
Had Otto von Bismarck had his way, no German soldier would have set foot in New Guinea – or anywhere outside of Europe, for that matter. The man nicknamed “the Iron Chancellor” for his mastery of 19th Century realpolitik had little time for the expensive vanity projects that were often the result of colonial expansion. Overseas colonies required vast expenditures of resources without any guarantee of profit and could only further entangle Berlin in the foreign policies of France or Britain, all plainly without the naval might to secure such holdings. In short – Bismarck sought to avoid precisely most of the military and foreign policy missteps that Germany ended up making in the 1880/90s. But the allure of powerful financial interests, coupled with domestic political considerations (colonial policies sold well at the ballot box), pushed the Chancellor to embrace the establishment of private colonial ventures. It would only be a matter of time before private German interests became part of the national interest and forced Germany to send engineers, laborers and finally soldiers overseas. Continue reading
“Bloody Christmas”
There was no Christmas cheer among the soldiers marching to the Reichskanzlei (Chancellery) in Berlin on December 23rd, 1918. The men were from the Volksmarinedivision, the revolutionary paramilitary unit created, in theory, to defend the newly established Council of the People’s Deputies and the burgeoning German leftist revolution. In reality, the Volksmarinedivision was closer to the Independent Social Democrats and the so-called “Spartacists”; the more militant wings of the new government that preached a political gospel similar to that of Russia’s Bolsheviks. The Volksmarinedivision had ransacked the Kaiser’s old Berlin residence, the Stadtschloss, and encamped themselves there after looting or destroying much of the historic artwork of the building. The Council of the People’s Deputies had protested the division’s actions, seeing them increasingly more as hooligans than soldiers. In response, the Council ordered the Volksmarinedivision out of Berlin and to dismiss all but 600 of their men. When the paramilitary group refused, the Council stopped their paychecks.
Lieutenant Heinrich Dorrenbach, the group’s commander and close ally to Karl Liebknecht of the Spartacus League, marched on the Reichskanzlei ostensibly to follow orders – he had the keys to the Stadtschloss in hand and was prepared to reduce his forces and leave the city, provided the government issue their backpay. But no German politician would claim that they were authorized to pay Dorrenbach and his men, deferring the decision to Berlin’s Chancellor and the Chairman of the Council, Friedrich Ebert. Ebert had no patience for the Volksmarinedivision, whom he considered thuggish radicals led by a “rootless adventurer.” The issue of the Volksmarinedivision had been one of many that was quickly dividing the new government, and Ebert was vainly trying to mollify both the political left and right in his ad hoc administration. Whether Ebert intended to pay the Volksmarinedivision eventually or not, he wasn’t going to be threatened into a decision.
Dorrenbach had his answer. His men swarmed the Reichskanzlei, blocking the doors and access roads. Another contingent marched to the Kommandantenhaus, the military headquarters for the city, looking to capture the city’s military commander, the politician Otto Wels. The building’s guard, regular army troops, resisted and shots were fired. It didn’t matter. The superior numbers of the Volksmarinedivision had overwhelmed the government, taking Wels and other key political figures hostage. The moment that Ebert and many members of the Council of the People’s Deputies had tried to avoid had arrived – the German revolution was about to turn bloody.
From the very beginning of the chaotic German end to the war, there was a fear in Berlin (and indeed, across Europe) that Germany was quickly staging their own rendition of the Russian revolution. Continue reading
Happy Days Are Here Again
So how to stop Dobbs? Declare a sex strike:
Some on the left have come up with creative ways they think will encourage people to save Roe v. Wade.
Earlier this week on The View, co-host Joy Behar floated the idea of a sex strike.
“Women in the world have conducted sex strikes in history,” Behar explained. “In 2003, a sex strike helped to end Liberia’s brutal civil war and the woman who started it was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. In 2009, Kenyan women enforced a sex ban until police political infighting ceased. Within one week, there was a stable government.”
“We have more power than we think we do and some of it could be in the bedroom,” Behar insisted.
As a general rule, restricting the supply of something that generates little to no demand doesn’t change much. And for Behar and her colleagues, their greatest output is not sex appeal, but rather self-regard. So go ahead, get on the picket line! And rest assured, we won’t cross picket lines on this one.
Black & White & Reds All Over
In the late hours of November 17th, 1918, the southern Siberian city of Omsk was suddenly abuzz with activity. A key junction along the Trans-Siberian Railway and the meeting point between the railway’s northern and southern branches, Omsk had seen it’s fair amount of political activity for months as the Provisional All-Russian Government, informally known as The Directory, had established the city as it’s seat of governance. Uniting many Socialist Revolutionary members (SRs) who had held power in the original Soviets and the elected Constituent Assembly, along with former Tsarist officers, the Directory appeared as the potential precursor for a unified White Russian political movement.
The Directory even appeared on the verge of gaining international recognition as Vice-Admiral Alexander Kolchak, recently returned to Russia from various overseas diplomatic tours, had decided to join The Directory’s Council of Ministers as the Ministers of both War and the Navy. Kolchak had originally returned to Russia via Japan with the intention of traveling to the other side of the empire to join the former Tsarist officer-led Volunteer Army. Instead, the Vice-Admiral had cast his lot with militarily inferior, but politically more diverse Directory. Kolchak was held in high esteem by the Allies, and the British in particular, with British Military Attaché General Alfred Knox saying of Kolchak that he had “more grit, pluck and honest patriotism than any Russian in Siberia.”
Omsk’s commotion this evening however wasn’t more would-be politicians but Cossack soldiers. Moving throughout the city, one by one, many of the 14 ministers of the Directory were swooped up by the Cossacks and placed under arrest. By the following morning, the few Directory members who were left understood what had occurred in the wee hours – Kolchak and his supporters had staged a coup, arresting most of the SR-aligned ministers and executives. By a private vote, the remaining Ministers gave their consent to elect Kolchak the “Verkhovnyi Pravitel” or “Supreme Ruler” of Russia, consolidating all political and military authority under his office.
From the Caspian to the Pacific, the newly formed “Russian Republic” held one of the largest territorial empires on the globe. And for better and for worse, the White Russian movement now had a singular leader.
The end of the war in Europe meant nothing towards ending the growing Civil War in Russia. Despite invoking fear across the former Russian Empire and in many capitals around the world, the ruling Bolsheviks controlled precious little territory. In the west, Ukraine, Finland and the Baltic States had split away. In the northern port cities, the Allies held sway, occupying large swathes of land that would be directly or in-directly governed by White Russian collaborators. The Caucasus were losing some ground back to the Bolsheviks, but chunks of the region were still led by a loose confederation of ethnic governments, leftist Menshevik politicians and thuggish Cossack warlords. And in the East, thanks to the Czechoslovak Legion and Allied intervention, the entire country from Azerbaijan to Vladivostok had been in the hands of the newly formed Provisional All-Russian Government. The regions that lay in the hands of the Bolsheviks’ opponents were large – well more than half of the original Russian Empire – but the industrial base of the country and large population centers were mostly under Red control. Continue reading
Roe No Mo
So we have a leak and it appears the Supremos are sending Roe v. Wade and Casey v. Planned Parenthood to the dustbin of history. A few very brief thoughts:
- Justice Alito is right: Roe was always built on a foundation of nothing. Justice White was also correct when Roe was decided. Roe was an exercise of raw judicial power. And raw power is always used eventually.
- And if we’re in housekeeping season, now do Wickard v. Filburn.
- The Dobbs ruling, assuming it goes through, changes nothing in Minnesota. Abortion is legal by statute here.
- The leak itself is awful for the Court, but it was also inevitable. There was always an incentive to break this particular taboo and the leaker will be celebrated, not punished. MSNBC will have a corner office prepared by EOB today.
- I don’t know what Chief Justice John Roberts will do, but it’s going to be another opportunity for him to go peak weasel.
- One unanswered question — does Dobbs apply to pregnant men?
The usual caveats about interesting times are in full effect.
Signal To Noise
I’ve spent the majority of my career in the employ of Fortune 500 corporations, including my current employer. In the early years, those companies would sometimes make a show of their social goodness but they weren’t particularly wedded to a lefty agenda. That’s changed in the last 10-15 years, but recent events have some C-suite grandees thinking twice:
The fallout from the recent political spat between Disney and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has alarmed leaders across the corporate sphere, according to executives and their advisers, and heightened the challenges for chief executive officers navigating charged topics.
At many companies, vocal employees have in recent years pushed bosses to take public stands on social and political issues. Florida’s pushback against Disney has raised the stakes.
Yeah, it certainly has. You have to wonder why a company would choose to make their appeal, ahem, more selective, but the instinct is strong:
“The No. 1 concern CEOs have is, ‘When should I speak out on public issues?’ ” said Bill George, former chairman and CEO of Medtronic PLC and now a senior fellow at Harvard Business School. “As one CEO said to me, ‘I want to speak out on social issues, but I don’t want to get involved in politics.’ Which I said under my breath, ‘That’s not possible.’ ”
It’s not possible. Put more simply, it’s dumb. A CEO who spends more than a passing moment thinking about social issues isn’t paying attention to what really matters. Younger employees, who have gone from participation trophies to believing their opinions are probative without much active contradiction, are difficult to manage, so the urge to mollify them is strong.
My current company has a full range of employee groups that cater to the constellation of grievances of the modern Left. These groups regularly get a moment to hold forth in the latest Zoom Town Hall or on the company intranet page. There’s not a lot of evidence these groups actually improve the conditions they decry, but never mind that. It’s a chance to wave the freak flag, and as an overall strategy it makes sense:
Some executives say they have learned to monitor issues that could consume public attention and increase pressure for some response. Some use employee affinity groups to help flag potentially troublesome issues. “You make it a safe forum where people feel comfortable talking about concerns or whatever, and out of that, there’s really a kind of responsibility on our part to pick up on things that really do demand some attention,” said Nancy Langer, CEO of Transact Campus Inc., a financial- technology company based near Phoenix. “I look at that as a feedback loop for us.”
The challenge, as always, is to ensure the loop doesn’t become a noose.
11th Hour
A heavy fog had enveloped Ville-devant-Chaumont, just north of Verdun, obscuring the view even just meters away for the American troops of the 313th Infantry Regiment of the 79th “Liberty” Division. The regiment, called “Baltimore’s Own” due to the high number of locals from that city, was utterly exhausted having been on the front lines of the Meuse-Argonne Offensive for nearly two months. They could hear the crackling fire of German machine guns ahead of them, but were more interested in the running footsteps to their rear. It was a communique from their commanding officer to hold their position and to neither advance nor retreat until following orders were given.
The 313th was relieved, with one exception – 23 year-old Private Henry Gunther. Gunther had left a fiancé and a successful early career as a banker in Baltimore when he was drafted. The son of German immigrants, Gunther arrived in France eager to prove his patriotism yet quickly became discouraged amid the slaughter of the trenches. Gunther wrote to a friend complaining of his life in France and encouraging his friend not to volunteer. Army censors read the letter and demoted Gunther. In response, the former banker began to volunteer for dangerous assignments to prove his loyalty, even being hit with shrapnel as a runner that could have sent him home. Gunther refused; he still hadn’t regained his honor.
Injury and risky service didn’t return his rank or apparently his unit’s respect and it cost him at home. Gunther’s fiancé wrote that she was ending the relationship, further sending Gunther into a spiral of reckless heroism. His fellow soldiers noted that as the war seemed to be coming to an end Gunther became more and more withdrawn, perhaps knowing that his opportunities to find redemption or meaning amid the bloodshed were dwindling. Gunther wasn’t going to obey any orders to hold his position on this day – he was going to attack.
On the other side of the line, the German machine gun nest saw a figure emerge from the fog, charging at them with a fixed bayonet. They fired, careful to avoid hitting him, hoping that he’d stop or retreat. Gunther jumped to the ground but quickly rose again, resuming his charge. In broken english, the Germans yelled at Gunther, frantically waiving their arms to tell him to stop; “Baltimore’s Own” wouldn’t be discouraged. At last, fearing for their own lives, the German machine gunners fired off a five-round burst, striking Gunther in the head, killing him instantly.
It was 10:59am on November 11th, 1918. The last combat casualty of the Great War had fallen.
Four days earlier a far different sight could be seen by French soldiers in their trenches near the town of La Capelle. Three large cars, each with the black eagle of Imperial Germany on their sides, approached the front lines with their headlights on. Two German soldiers were perched on the running boards of the lead car, one waving a white flag, the other, with a long silver bugle, blowing the call for ceasefire – a single high tone repeated in rapid succession four times, then four times again, with the last note lingering. The German delegation to discuss an armistice had arrived. Continue reading