What's Next? Who Knows?

On Wednesday the Wall Street Journal carried a piece by one of my favorites, Holman Jenkins Jr (and isn't that a perfect name for a WSJ op-ed writer).  The title was "Trump's Trumpy Ukraine Gambit".  While rightfully excoriating the Biden Administration's incoherent and ineffectual approach to the Ukraine war, his focus is on the current president.  Referencing Trump's calling Zelensky a "dictator" he writes:

 Mr Trump's all-purpose strategy when frustrated is tit-for-tat.  It fills his need to dominate the news constantly while he fumbles around for a laurel to award himself in place of the one that got away. . . . A Trump blather blaming Ukraine for not negotiating segued into something he clearly didn't mean, yet now his team must mumblingly agree Ukraine started the war.

And concludes:

So here we are.  In most instances, Mr Trump flops around noisily (and offensively) and then lands on the path of least resistance.  He wants a win and doesn't care how.  The U.S. clearly has a lot of turmoil to go through before it surfaces a leadership cadre to handle the moment we're actually living in.  But we still have to live in the moment and the best of realistic possible outcomes, perhaps surprisingly, remains on the cards in the next year or so: Turn a hot war into a cold one.  Build up Ukraine's military to outwait the Putin regime on its path to atrophy and decay.

Since the Jenkins column we've now had further developments.  On Thursday, while meeting with British Prime Minister Starmer, a reported asked Trump about the "dictator" remark.  Trump's response; "Did I say that? I can't believe I said that. Next question."

And then we had today's debacle.  Whether it was Zelensky's lack of self-control or bad advice (1), he made a fatal mistake in confronting the president.  It is not a matter of who is right and who is wrong.  You just do not try, particularly if you are in Zelensky's position, to argue with Donald Trump in public.  I am not sure Zelensky's position is recoverable short of a groveling humiliating apology and even that may not work as, in the end, I believe Trump prefers a deal with Russia.

The proposed, and now dead, minerals deal with Ukraine did not contain an American security guarantee.  I was okay with that from my perspective, but I think Trump's idea was to leave things open so if he got a better deal with Putin he would just walk away from any Ukraine deal.  After all, it's just a piece of paper to him.  We just saw the same thing in play regarding the 25% tariffs being imposed on Mexico and Canada.  Trump loudly complained about those who entered into the stupid trade deals we now have.  Well the last person to enter into one of those "stupid" deals was Donald Trump in 2019.  He demanded that NAFTA be revised with terms more favorable to the U.S. and Canada and Mexico ultimately agreed.  Now he denounces his own agreement.  His word cannot be relied upon and other foreign leaders will take note.

Given Trump's reckless and contradictory statements it is often difficult to figure out what he really believes and what his ultimate goals are.  Are tariffs "wonderful" and a mechanism to balance the budget and eliminate the personal income tax or are they bargaining chips to get better trade deals?  I have no idea and it may be that Trump doesn't either.  

Trump talks about annexing Canada, or part of it, and imposing tariffs while at the same time demanding it restart its part of the Keystone Pipeline, even as he denounces Canada for stealing in its trade relations, and claiming that country sells nothing we need.  At the same time, he has undercut the conservative candidate for prime minister in this summer's election.  Prior to Trump's bombastic statements, the conservative was handily leading Trudeau's party.  Polling currently now shows a dead heat.  What's the goal here?  Or is Trump just improvising like he usually does? (2)

With regards to Russia, Trump seems to be making the same mistake with Putin that FDR made with Stalin and the old USSR. a total miscalculation as to Putin's goals.(3)  Much of the Trump crowd blames NATO and Ukraine for the war.  But while Russian propaganda plays on this theme, Putin himself has stated the war is about something else, as his lengthy interview with Tucker Carlson made clear.  Despite Tucker's frantic efforts to get Putin to talk about NATO expansion as the cause, Putin delivered a lengthy lecture on Russian and Ukraine history, starting in the 9th century.  In Putin's view Ukraine has no right to exist as an independent state as it is inherently Russian.  Putin, both in the interview, and as shown in Russian actions in the occupied Ukrainian territories, is determined to wipe out the country, and crush Ukrainian culture and language.  

I oppose NATO expansion but the idea that the decrepit armed forces of our NATO allies were actually capable of threatening Russia is laughable and everything since the start of the war in 2022 only underlines the lack of collective NATO capabilities (in that respect Trump and Vance are correct). On the other hand, Putin's attack on Ukraine precipitated two long time neutral countries, Sweden and Finland, to join NATO and they actually have decent military establishments.

The idea by the Trump administration that it can persuade Putin to loosen his ties to China is not going to work.  Putin is not a communist but he believes the failure of the USSR was a disaster for Russia as it lost its empire, an empire that he wants to reconstitute.  Reuniting the empire is his version of Make Russia Great Again.  The Europeans and Americans are the biggest obstacles to that goal, while China is his biggest ally in fulfilling his aspirations since it also accomplishes Xi's goals.

Even with all this, it is hard to have any sympathy for the Democrats in light of the Obama and Biden administrations inept policies regarding Russia and the mythology about Trump and Russia created by the Democrats and their media allies during President Trump's first administration (for more read Ukraine Blues).  Let's not forget that in the run up to the Russian invasion in February 2022, the Biden administration was sending clear signals that if Putin agreed to just "wetting his beak" by taking the rest of the Donbas, the U.S. would be okay with that.  And during the first 48 hours of the invasion Biden and European leaders were telling Zelensky he needed, for his own safety, to leave Ukraine.  I've always admired Zelensky's courage in staying at Ukraine's darkest hour.  It was a shame to watch him today fumble the deal inches from the goal line.

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(1) Were these the same people who advised him to essentially endorse Harris in the election?  At best, Harris would have been a weak reed to rely upon.  A little sucking up to Trump would not have hurt - he loves that stuff.

(2) Let's contrast Trump and the Democrats.  The Democrats consistently lie about their policies.  One need go no further than to look at the Harris campaign.  Trump has two different modes.  The first is when he is absolutely clear about his policies (for instance, immigration) but lies and exaggerates about the facts supporting his case.  The second is when you can't make sense of his policies - as with Ukraine, tariffs, and Canada - possibly because he doesn't know, but he lies and exaggerates about whatever he is saying about those issues at that particular moment. 

(3) And just as Obama did with Iran.

The Cooper Union Address

On this date in 1860, Abraham Lincoln spoke in New York City at Cooper Union Hall.  Lincoln had come to national attention through his series of debates with Stephen Douglas in 1858, though he ultimately lost the race to become United States Senator from Illinois, but it was his speech at Cooper Union that made him a viable candidate for the Republican nomination for President in 1860.

The speech was sponsored by the Young Men's Central Republican Union and was the third in a series, the first two given by Francis Blair, a founder of the Republican party and later advisor to President Lincoln, and Cassius M Clay, an abolitionist Republican from Kentucky.

Cooper Union, private college in Manhattan, was founded the previous year by Peter Cooper.  Lincoln spoke on a snowy night, in the Great Hall, located in the basement of the Union building, to an audience of 1,500.

His address was one of the longest speeches he ever gave.  It lacks the soaring eloquence and memorable  quotable sections of many of his other remarks but it was rhetorically effective for its purposes, designed as a political speech to help his campaign for the nomination, though this is never mentioned in the address.

The speech consists of three parts.  The first, reviewing the historical evidence regarding whether the federal government had the power to ban slavery in the territories, the second addressed to those in the South, with the final section a message to Republicans.

Lincoln starts by defining the question he seeks to answer:

Does the proper division of local from federal authority, or anything in the Constitution, forbid our federal government to control as to slavery in our federal territories?

Lincoln has a threefold purpose in answering the question.  First, to convincingly make the case that nothing forbids the federal government from controlling slavery in the territories; second to convey his personal belief in the wrongness of slavery, and third, concluding that the Constitution does not allow the federal government to interfere with slavery within the states where it already exists.  It is not an abolitionist speech.

The speech was also made in the context of the Supreme Court's Dred Scott decision, three years earlier, in which Chief Justice Taney declared that blacks, whether free or slave, were not citizens of the United States, and raised the possibility that the Court could eventually declare state constitutions banning slavery to be unconstitutional.(1)

In the first section, Lincoln reviews in detail the actions by the Continental Congress in banning slavery in the Northwest Territories, of the actions and inactions of the Constitutional Convention regarding slavery, and of the early Congressional sessions with regard to the treatment of the territories, with a particular emphasis on the role of those who had previously served in the Continental Congress and Constitutional Convention, in the course of which Lincoln rebuts Taney's fanciful history lesson in Dred Scott.(2) 

Here's an example of Lincoln's methodology:

In 1789, by the first Congress which sat under the Constitution, an act was passed to enforce the ordinance of ’87, including the prohibition of slavery in the Northwestern Territory. The bill for this act was reported by one of the “thirty-nine,” Thomas Fitzsimmons, then a member of the House of Representatives from Pennsylvania. It went through all its stages without a word of opposition, and finally passed both branches without yeas and nays, which is equivalent to a unanimous passage. In this Congress there were sixteen of the thirty-nine fathers who framed the original Constitution. They were John Langdon, Nicholas Gilman, Wm. S. Johnson, Roger Sherman, Robert Morris, Thos. Fitzsimmons, William Few, Abraham Baldwin, Rufus King, William Paterson, George Clymer, Richard Bassett, George Read, Pierce Butler, Daniel Carroll, James Madison.

This shows that, in their understanding, no line dividing local from federal authority, nor anything in the Constitution, properly forbade Congress to prohibit slavery in the federal territory; else both their fidelity to correct principle, and their oath to support the Constitution, would have constrained them to oppose the prohibition.

Again, George Washington, another of the “thirty-nine,” was then president of the United States, and as such approved and signed the bill; thus completing its validity as a law, and thus showing that, in his understanding, no line dividing local from federal authority, nor anything in the Constitution, forbade the federal government to control as to slavery in federal territory.

He begins his second section in this manner:

And now, if they would listen—as I suppose they will not—I would address a few words to the southern people.

In speeches before this, and during the war, Lincoln uses language much more conciliatory towards the south.(3)  But here, speaking to a Republican audience as he seeks to become the party's presidential nominee, he's being a little more snarky. 

He goes on to chastise the south for its references to "Black Republicans", and refutes their accusation that Republicans are a sectional party.  Lincoln then moves on to turn the southern argument that they are the conservatives and Republicans the revolutionaries on its head, asserting that it is the south that is revolutionary while Republicans take the same position as the Founders.

But you say you are conservative—eminently conservative—while we are revolutionary, destructive, or something of the sort. What is conservatism? Is it not adherence to the old and tried, against the new and untried? We stick to, contend for, the identical old policy on the point in controversy which was adopted by “our fathers who framed the government under which we live”; while you with one accord reject, and scout, and spit upon that old policy, and insist upon substituting something new.

Lincoln closes this section:

But you will break up the Union rather than submit to a denial of your constitutional rights.

That has a somewhat reckless sound; but it would be palliated, if not fully justified, were we proposing, by the mere force of numbers, to deprive you of some right, plainly written down in the Constitution. But we are proposing no such thing.

When you make these declarations, you have a specific and well-understood allusion to an assumed constitutional right of yours to take slaves into the federal territories, and to hold them there as property. But no such right is specifically written in the Constitution. That instrument is literally silent about any such right. We, on the contrary, deny that such a right has any existence in the Constitution, even by implication.

Your purpose, then, plainly stated, is that you will destroy the government unless you be allowed to construe and enforce the Constitution as you please, on all points in dispute between you and us. You will rule or ruin in all events.

Lincoln starts the final section; 

A few words now to Republicans. It is exceedingly desirable that all parts of this great confederacy shall be at peace, and in harmony, one with another. Let us Republicans do our part to have it so. Even though much provoked, let us do nothing through passion and ill temper. Even though the southern people will not so much as listen to us, let us calmly consider their demands, and yield to them if, in our deliberate view of our duty, we possibly can. Judging by all they say and do, and by the subject and nature of their controversy with us, let us determine, if we can, what will satisfy them. 

The question recurs, what will satisfy them? Simply this: We must not only let them alone, but we must somehow, convince them that we do let them alone. 

But while the federal government cannot interfere with slavery in the existing states, Lincoln emphasizes that the price of convincing the south that Republicans will act consistently with the Constitution is too high because it would require ceasing "to call slavery wrong, and join them in calling it right."  He then elaborates:

And this must be done thoroughly—done in acts as well as in words. Silence will not be tolerated—we must place ourselves avowedly with them. Senator Douglas’ new sedition law must be enacted and enforced, suppressing all declarations that slavery is wrong, whether made in politics, in presses, in pulpits, or in private. We must arrest and return their fugitive slaves with greedy pleasure. We must pull down our free state constitutions. The whole atmosphere must be disinfected from all taint of opposition to slavery before they will cease to believe that all their troubles proceed from us.

Lincoln ends with these words:

Let us be diverted by none of those sophistical contrivances wherewith we are so industriously plied and belabored—contrivances such as groping for some middle ground between the right and the wrong, vain as the search for a man who should be neither a living man nor a dead man—such as a policy of “don't care” on a question about which all true men do care—such as Union appeals beseeching true Union men to yield to disunionists, reversing the divine rule, and calling not the sinners but the righteous to repentance—such as invocations to Washington, imploring men to unsay what Washington said, and undo what Washington did.

Neither let us be slandered from our duty by false accusations against us, nor frightened from it by menaces of destruction to the government nor of dungeons to ourselves. LET US HAVE FAITH THAT RIGHT MAKES MIGHT, AND IN THAT FAITH, LET US, TO THE END, DARE TO DO OUR DUTY AS WE UNDERSTAND IT.

You can find the entire speech here. 

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(1)  In the wake of the Scott decision, the Department of State ceased issuing passports to free blacks, a practice quickly reversed by Lincoln after he became president. 

(2)  Taney's opinion is perhaps the first great example of the application of the legal philosophy of a living constitution along with a rejection of what we would call today originalism.

(3) You can bookend Lincoln's political career with these more understanding sentiments.  First, from his 1854 Peoria Speech, marking his return to politics prompted by the Kansas-Nebraska Act, and second, from his Second Inaugural Address, March 4, 1865.

When southern people tell us they are no more responsible for the origin of slavery, than we; I acknowledge the fact. When it is said that the institution exists; and that it is very difficult to get rid of it, in any satisfactory way, I can understand and appreciate the saying. I surely will not blame them for not doing what I should not know how to do myself. If all earthly power were given me, I should not know what to do, as to the existing institution. 

If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through his appointed time, he now wills to remove, and that he gives to both North and South this terrible war, as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to him?

 

Nobody To Blame

I know right where I went wrong
I know just what got her gone
Turned my life into this country song
And I got nobody to blame but me
I got nobody to blame but me

 

Ain't it the truth.  From Chris Stapleton.  Like to see him in concert.

 

 

Fairfield Shipyard

 

I came across this photo at Shorpy and was struck by both the visual impact and its reminder of the industrial might that America was able to mobilize during the Second World War.  This is the Bethlehem-Fairfield Shipyard on Baltimore Harbor.  It began operation in February1941 and closed at the end of the war in 1945.

Employing at its peak 47,000 workers and operating 24/7 for more than four years, the shipyard covered 136 acres with 75 cranes and 200 railcars.  The first Liberty ship (the standard WW2 merchant ship) in the US, the Patrick Henry, was launched at this yard in September 1941 and Fairfield went on to build more Liberty ships, 394, than any other shipyard during the war.  In addition, 94 Victory ships, a faster and larger version of the Liberty, were built along with 45 LST's (Landing Ship-Tank).  That's one ship every three days.  Today our merchant and military ship construction programs are pathetic.

For more on America's WW2 merchant shipbuilding program read The Mothball Fleet.

Black And Blue

It was in 1929 that Louis Armstrong became a pop star, breaking through to white audiences.  Over the prior five years he'd been recognized by jazz aficionados and fellow musicians as a unique talent with such pioneering recordings as West End Blues, but his records were released and marketed in the "race music" category.  It was with the release of Ain't Misbehavin', marketed as popular music, that he begin to reach a larger audience.

That same year, the Broadway musical Hot Chocolates premiered.  The musical included Black and Blue, with music by Fats Waller and Harry Brooks and lyrics by Andy Razaf, a song about race and discrimination.  Allegedly it was at the insistence of the play's financier, mobster Dutch Schultz, that the song was composed.

Armstrong recorded Black and Blue later that year and it was a standard part of his concerts for many years thereafter.  With an Armstrong solo in the intro and his affecting vocal.

I'm in the middle of reading Ricky Riccardi's recent three volume biography of Armstrong.  Coming from a truly terrible upbringing in a very rough New Orleans neighborhood it is not only his musical genius that is remarkable but the positive and open attitude he had towards life and humanity.

How will it end? Ain't got a friend 

My only sin is in my skin

What did I do to be so black and blue?

Raising The Flag

Today is the 80th anniversary of the most famous American photograph of WW2; the flag raising on Mount Suribachi at Iwo Jima, the second flag raising to take place on the summit that day.  The American assault on the island began on February 19, 1945 and would go on for another 31 days after the flag raising.  Twenty six thousand American military personnel would be killed or wounded, while all but 200 of the 22,000 Japanese defenders would die.  Three of the six American flag raisers would be killed in the fighting.  The desperate nature of the fighting led General Graves Erksine, speaking at the dedication of the 3rd Marine Division cemetery on Iwo, to declare;

Victory was never in doubt . . . What was in doubt, in all our minds, was whether there would be any of us left to dedicate our cemetery at the end, or whether the last Marine would die knocking out the last Japanese gun and gunner. 

It was not until 2019 that all of the Marines in the photo were properly identified.  Of the six, three died on Iwo Jima and one was wounded.  

Sergeant Michael Strank - 25 years old, born in Czechoslovakia, killed March 1, 1945

Corporal Harlan Block - 20, Texas, killed March 1, 1945

PFC Franklin Sousy - 19, Kentucky, killed March 21, 1945

PFC Ira Hayes - 22, Arizona, out of 45 platoon members at start of the battle, Hayes was one of 5 who were still active at the end, suffered from PTSD, died 1955 

PFC Harold Schultz - 20, Michigan, wounded on Iwo, died 1995

PFC Harold Keller - 23, Iowa, died 1979

For more on Iwo Jima read this.

At the same time as Iwo, American troops in the Philippines were fighting the gruesome Battle of Manila.  Almost 7,000 Americans became casualties during the month long struggle, while Japanese troops slaughtered tens of thousands of Filipino civilians.  For more, read The Battle of Rizal Ballpark.

Meanwhile, on this date in Europe, American forces were advancing into the Rhineland of Germany.

Differing Worldviews

At some point, this will become more apparent.  What happens then?

President Trump's vision for America's future:

Thousands of contented employees carrying their lunch pails as they walk to work at the neighborhood steel mill.  They invest their savings in a Trump-branded crypto currency.

 Elon Musk's vision for America's future:

Musk and a small group of "creatives" run society, with robots operating our factories, and AI, using Musk-designed algorithms, running everything else.  Enough wealth is created to fund a Universal Basic Income for the rest of Americans, who live in a ketamine and cannabis induced haze.

Something the two share in common is that neither has a check engine light.

Galvez

On February 20, 1777, Bernardo de Galvez, was secretly instructed by the ministers of the King of Spain to sell American revolutionaries desperately needed supplies.

When we think of the American fight for independence against Britain, our memories are focused on the initial clashes in Massachusetts, dramatic incidents like the crossing of the Delaware, Cornwallis' surrender at Yorktown, and George Washington's leadership, but significant events occurred along the Mississippi River and the Gulf coast.  I refer, of course, to the Gulf of Mexico.  And Bernardo Vincente de Galvez y Madrid, governor of Spanish Louisiana during those times, was a critical player in ensuring American independence.

Born in Spain in 1746, by the age of 16 Galvez was a soldier, serving in the invasion of Portugal before coming to Mexico, part of New Spain, in 1769, where he led campaigns against the Apaches.  Returning to Spain, he was badly wounded in an attack on Algiers.  On January 1, 1777, Galvez became governor of Spanish Louisiana.  Spain had acquired the territory from France in 1762, and its largest town, New Orleans was dominated by French families.  Reportedly an outstanding administrator and charming man, Galvez quickly endeared himself to the top families in New Orleans by marrying the Creole daughter of a prominent citizen later that same year.

In April 1777, George Morgan, commander of the American garrison at Fort Pitt (modern Pittsburgh) sent a letter via the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers to Galvez offering American trade in exchange for aid to the revolutionaries.  Having already received instructions from Spain, which wanted to undermine Great Britain, Galvez responded in August 1777 by sending ammunition, arms, and provisions along with a letter informing Morgan that, "I will extend . . . whatever assistance I can but it must appear that I am ignorant of it all". 

For the next two years, Galvez ensured a flow of supplies.  Given the British blockade of much of the Atlantic Coast this became an important supply route for the Americans.  The Governor also worked with Oliver Pollock, the Continental Congress agent in New Orleans to supply George Roger Clark in his successful expedition to capture British forts in the Illinois country and support American raiders in West Florida.

In 1779, Spain joined France in its war against Britain and Galvez could now act openly.  Later that year he put together a force of several hundred men, an conglomeration of Spanish soldiers, German and French settlers, free Blacks, slaves, and Choctaw Indians to capture the British forts at Natchez and Baton Rouge, ensuring the Mississippi would stay open.  Galvez followed that up by seizing the British fort at Mobile in March 1780, after which he was promoted to Major General, and capturing Pensacola in May 1781, a triumph which eliminated the British presence in Florida.  With the Spanish fleet now in complete control of the Gulf, the French fleet was free to operate in the Atlantic, a campaign which culminated in its victory against the British navy at the Battle of the Chesapeake which, in turn, made the ultimate victory at Yorktown possible.

With the end of the war in 1783, the King made Galvez a Count, Governor of Cuba, and captain general of Louisiana and West Florida.  In 1785 he became the Viceroy of New Spain, the most powerful official in Spanish America.  Unfortunately, he became ill and died the next year, only forty years old.

Galveston, Texas is named after Bernardo de Galvez.  In 1976, the United States erected an equestrian statue of Galvez in Washington, and in 2014 Galvez became one of only eight persons to approved by Congress as an honorary American citizen.(1) 

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(1)  The remaining seven include two other figures from the Revolution, the Marquis de Lafayette and Casimir Pulaski.  The other five honorees are William and Hannah Penn, the founders of the Pennsylvania colony, Raoul Wallenberg, Mother Teresa and, the first recipient, Winston Churchill. 

San Francisco Bay Blues

Think I'll just glide along and listen to Richie Havens for a while.  Brings me back to the teenage years when I listened to this on WNEW-FM late in the evening.  Composed by Jesse Fuller.

Nothing Doing

The United State Supreme Court assembled for the first time on February 2, 1790 at the Royal Exchange Building in New York City.  The initial session of Congress, beginning in March 1789, had enacted enabling statutes and approved the appointments of Chief Justice John Jay and associate justices John Blair, James Wilson, and William Cushing.  

On that august occasion in February 1790, the four justices, wearing wigs and their robes of office, gathered in front of an expectant audience.  And did nothing.  There were no cases.  After a week of doing nothing, the Court adjourned, after deciding to next meet in September.