0876 Charles becomes king of Italy

1627 Spanish government goes bankrupt

1863 1st black Civil War regiment, SC Volunteers, mustered into US army

1865 Robert E Lee was appointed commander-in-chief of Confederate forces

1865 The House of Representatives approves Thirteenth Amendment

1874 Jesse James gang robs train at Gads Hill MO

1940 The first social security check was issued to Ida Fuller for $22.54

1961 David Ben-Gurion resigns as premier of Israel

1978 Israel turns 3 military outposts in West Bank into civilian settlements

Birthdays

Zane Grey, Norman Mailer, Minnie Driver, Justin Timberlake

1077 Pope Gregory VII pardons German emperor Henry IV

1487 Bell chimes invented

1647 Scots agree to sell King Charles I to English Parliament for £400,

1649 Charles I King of Great Britain (1625-49), beheaded for treason

1774 Captain Cook reaches 71º 10' S, 1820 km from S pole (record)

1820 Edward Bransfield aboard Williams discovers Antarctica (UK claim)

1933 Hitler named Chancellor of Germany

1934 Hitler proclamation on German unified states

1939 Hitler calls for the extermination of Jews

1943 German assault on French in Tunisia

1944 US invades Majuro, Marshall Islands

1956 Martin Luther King Jr's home bombed

1948 Gandhi assassinated.

1968 North Vietnamese forces launched attacks against South Vietnam beginning Tet Offensive.

1972 British Troops open fire on civil rights marchers in Northern Ireland. “Bloody Sunday

1979 The Iranian civilian government announces that Ayatollah Khomeini will be allowed to return.

Birthdays

Franklin Roosevelt, Gene Hackman, Vanessa Redgrave, Richard Cheney, Christian Bale

Hugh Hewitt has been on fire on this absurd Senate resolution condemning the troop surge in Iraq. Indeed I don’t think I have ever seen Hugh so incensed. I like what I hear from him though. It is clear that there should be a line drawn somewhere. Hugh tends to draw it further left than I do, but clearly he has come to a point where he realizes that just having the “r” next to the name is not sufficient.

I personally go one step further. I consider such actions treasonous.

I know Hugh doesn’t like to go there. And I perhaps treasonous is bit harsh…but I am mindful of John Harington quote “Treason doth never prosper: what’s the reason? For if it prosper, none dare call it treason.”

It is long past time that we as a nation drew a line in the sand and began condemning actions that undermine the war. Tolerance of such activities as are currently going on in the Senate merely encourages more such actions. If treason is too harsh it isn’t by much when their action are INTENDED to undermine our ability to prosecute the war to success. The entire PURPOSE of such actions is to undermine the effort. I don’t know what else you can call it when someone is actively pursuing a strategy to cause our nation to lose a war. Prior to Vietnam such actions would have been labeled what they were and the perpetrators would have been arrested…since then we have gone beyond tolerating them to the media actually celebrating them. So long as this persists I do not see how we can succeed in our efforts.

Regardless of whether you agree its treason or not I encourage you to go and take Hugh’s pledge to not support these senators financially. Send a message to the NRSC. Send a message to the republican senators. If was can’t call them traitors we can at least let them know we intend to fire them.

http://www.thenrscpledge.com/

1613 Galileo observes Neptune but fails to recognize what he sees

1845 Edgar Allan Poe’s The Raven was published.

1861 Kansas becomes 34th state

1863 Battle at Bear River WA US Army vs Indians

1944 285 German bombers attack London

1949 Britain, Belgium, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand & Switzerland recognize Israel

2002 In the State of the Union address, President Bush labels Iraq, Iran and North Korea an “axis of evil.”

Birthdays

Thomas Paine, W.C. Fields, Tom Selleck, Oprah Winfrey, Greg Louganis

1327 King Edward III accedes to British throne

1554 Sir Thomas Wyatt gathers an army in Kent, rebels against Queen Mary

1775 Americans drag cannon up hill to fight British

1802 Napoleon elected President of the Italian (Cisalpine) Republic

1856 Battle of Seattle; skirmish between settlers & Indians

1915 Alexander Graham Bell inaugurated transcontinental telephone service

1918 Russia declared a republic of Soviets

1924 First Winter Olympics opens in Chamonix, France

1940 Nazi decrees the establishment of Jewish ghetto in Lodz Poland

1951 UN begins counter offensive in Korea

1955 Russia ends state of war with Germany

Birthdays

Virginia Woolf, Somerset Maugham, Leo IV (Byzantine Emperor)

A number of RINO Senators have decided that the appropriate way to proceed since the November elections is to turn against the war. For some of these RINO’s its just business as usual. A change in the majority means that by crossing over they can get appropriation by going along with the new majority. Worse though is the mistaken belief that only by turning against the war can they ensure their reelection.

For someone like Norm Coleman such a reading is not only grossly inaccurate…but it will prove to be his undoing.

A recent poll showed that something like 60%+ of Americans were apposed to the “surge”. This is the sort of poll that has Norm Coleman in spineless, gutless, morally repugnant fashion turning on a dime and preparing to vote against the war effort.

Norm is missing the boat. Inside that poll only 20% of the republicans polled were oppose to the surge. That means that 80% of republican supported the decision to send more troops. As a republican (even if it is only in name) the senator ought to get wise to this fact. 80% of his base supports sending more troops. Coleman’s political calculation that somehow promoting a policy position that 80% of his base is opposed is the path to victory in 08 is as obtuse and nonsensical as it gets. Catering to the opposition because a quarter of those on your side of the isle side with them on this issue is lunacy because such a position is not forgivable. This isn’t some position you can triangulate. Its not McCain Feingold, or the Medicaid reform bill this is national security with a party that has clearly had enough of spineless leaders more interested in their own skins than in doing what right such a position will be their undoing.

To a senator like Coleman representing a blue state such a position is untenable and will ruin his chances at reelection. I say this as a Minnesotan that has no intention of voting for him under any circumstances. I assure you I am not alone.

0041 Caligula [G C Germanicus], Roman emperor (37-41), assassinated at 28

1639 Connecticut colony organizes under Fundamental Orders

1848 James Marshall finds gold in Sutter's Mill in Coloma CA

1861 Arsenal at Augusta GA seized by Confederacy

1908 General Baden-Powell starts Boy-Scouts

1943 Hitler orders nazi troops at Stalingrad to fight to death

1965 Winston Churchill died in London at age 90

1972 Japanese Soldier Shoichi Yokoi found in Guam after hiding for 28 years thinking WWII was still ongoing.

1984 Apple Computer Inc unveils its Macintosh personal computer

Birthdays

Frederick the Great, Ernest Borgnine, Neil Diamond, John Belushi, Mary Lou Retton

Iraq's prime minister has dropped his protection of an anti-American cleric's Shiite militia after U.S. intelligence convinced him the group was infiltrated by death squads, two officials said Sunday.

…..

Meanwhile, in a desperate bid to fend off an all-out American offensive, the radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr last Friday ordered the 30 lawmakers and six Cabinet ministers under his control to end their nearly two-month boycott of the government. They were back at their jobs Sunday.

Al-Sadr had already ordered his militia fighters not to display their weapons. They have not, however, ceded control of the formerly mixed neighborhoods they have captured, killing Sunnis or forcing them to abandon their homes and businesses.

Full Story

I’ll say this. It’s a start. However, it isn’t enough. Sadr clearly operates as a force in and of himself outside of the authority of the state. He controls a significant portion of actual seats in the government and has an armed force that operates outside of the authority of the state. So long as this remains the case there will be no peace in Iraq. Pushing Maliki to cease his protection of Sadr and his militia is not the same as taking out the militia and Sadr. Its certainly a start...but now we need follow through.

I don’t suggest that killing Sadr will end the violence in Iraq. But it is clear that eliminating the militia’s and killing firebrands like Sadr will go a long way towards settling things down. So while I am happy to see some progress…until I see action against Sadr I will continue to be pessimistic of any potential outcome.

0871 Battle at Basing Danish invasion army beats Ethelred of Wessex

1371 King Robert II Stuart of Scotland crowned

1517 Turks conquer Cairo

1771 Spain cedes the Falkland Islands to Britain

1813 Americans capture Frenchtown, Canada

1941 1st mass killing of Jews in Romania

1973 Roe vs Wade US Supreme Court legalizes some abortions

Birthdays

Francis Bacon, John Winthrop, Diane Lane