“A good plan violently executed right now is far better than a perfect plan executed next week.”
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Battle of the Bulge ends
On Jan. 25, 1945, the Battle of the Bulge, a major German offensive launched toward the end of World War II through the densely forested Ardennes mountain region of Wallonia in Belgium, and France and Luxembourg on the Western Front, came to an end. Allied reinforcements, including General Patton’s Third Army, along with better weather, which permitted air attacks on German forces and supply lines, sealed the failure of the offensive. The Battle of the Bulge was the largest and bloodiest engagement that Americans fought in World War II, with 840,000 men committed to the battle, and 89,000 casualties, including 19,000 killed.
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Winston Churchill
“Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fall, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth lasts for a thousand years, men will still say, ‘This was their finest hour!’”
Tim Thomas is the All-Star goaltender for the Boston Bruins, winners of the National Hockey League’s 2011 Stanley Cup — which “was won by defense as much as by offense,” President Barack Obama said yesterday at a White House event honoring the team:
Tim Thomas posted two shutouts in the Stanley Cup finals and set an all-time record for saves in the postseason, and he also earned the honor of being only the second American ever to be recognized as the Stanley Cup playoffs MVP.
But Thomas wasn’t there to hear the president’s praise. He chose not to attend, explaining cogently in a statement:
I believe the Federal government has grown out of control, threatening the Rights, Liberties, and Property of the People. . . . This is in direct opposition to the Constitution and the Founding Fathers vision for the Federal government.
Because I believe this, today I exercised my right as a Free Citizen, and did not visit the White House. This was not about politics or party, as in my opinion both parties are responsible for the situation we are in as a country.
Boston Bruins President Cam Neely explained that Thomas’s “views certainly do not reflect those of . . . the Bruins organization.”
Sportswriter Joe McDonald charged that “when the president of the United States invites you . . . you go and represent the team,” and that “Thomas instead chose to represent himself.”
Yes, as Thomas admitted: “This was about a choice I had to make as an INDIVIDUAL.”
His quiet, conscientious choice to stay home — no news conference or interviews — was heard loud and clear by me.
It’s Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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Apple Macintosh debuts, Chruchill dies
On Jan. 24, 1984, the first Apple Macintosh computer went on sale. Earlier this month, Apple, Inc.’s value on the stock exchange rose to $400 billion – more than the value of the entire national economy of Greece.
On Jan. 24, 1965, Winston Churchill died in London at the age of 90. As Prime Minister, Churchill led Great Britain through the Second World War. He later won a Nobel Prize for Literature for his six-part history of the war. In 1946, Churchill warned about the danger of Soviet communism, saying in a speech at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, that “an iron curtain has descended across the Continent.“
“What is the state of Hancock’s finances?”
On Jan. 23, 1737, John Hancock, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, president of the Second Continental Congress, the first and third Governor of Massachusetts and, most importantly, a major financier of the revolutionary cause, was born in Braintree, Massachusetts.
On Jan. 23, 1943, Montgomery’s 8th Army captured Tripoli, Libya, from the German-Italian Panzer Army. On the same day, Australian and American forces defeated the Japanese army in Papua. This turning point in the Pacific War marked the beginning of the end of Japanese aggression.
On Jan. 23, 1964, the 24th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, prohibiting the use of poll taxes in federal elections, was ratified. At the time of passage, five states still imposed a poll tax: Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi, Texas, and Virginia. The amendment made the poll tax unconstitutional at the federal level, however, not until the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections in 1966, were poll taxes for state elections officially declared unconstitutional.
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The FUBAR State
Newt Gingrich came from behind for a smashing victory in South Carolina’s primary last Saturday. And yet a more interesting story may be emerging in Iowa: Rick Santorum, not Romney, is apparently the Republican caucus winner. Though that’s not counting the eight precincts whose official results forms went missing.
This could be just another typical screw-up. Democracy means “rule by the people,” and “the people” aren’t perfect.
Foul-ups happen.
On the other hand, the whole thing smacks of back-room manipulation. The fact that the official tabulations were moved away from the traditional site, GOP state party headquarters, to an undisclosed location — allegedly to “protect” the vote-counting from Occupy protest influence — makes the uncertain results all the more suspect.
And Republicans can’t blame this on Occupiers.
The winner may have been the biggest loser. Santorum got the proverbial bump from the initial Iowa results — losing by a mere handful, it was reported — but Romney received a bump from it too, simply by being declared a winner in the closest caucus race in American history. By “losing control” of the actual count, the Republican Party of Iowa skewed the national election.
Leading into the caucuses, Ron Paul’s supporters sniffed something conspiratorial in the vote count location switch, complaining that such a move could help “disenfranchise” Paul’s supporters, knowing that GOP caucus officials were not at all friendly toward his candidacy.
You’re probably familiar with Stalin’s most famous quote about democracy: “It’s not who votes that counts, but who counts the votes.”
In Iowa, Stalin’s shade sports a mischievous grin.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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Andrei Sakharov
“Both now and for always, I intend to hold fast to my belief in the hidden strength of the human spirit.”
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Anzio, Sakharov arrested
On Jan. 22, 1944, Operation Shingle, an Allied amphibious landing against Axis forces in the area of Anzio and Nettuno, Italy, began. The resultant combat during this part of World War II’s Italian Campaign became known as the Battle of Anzio.
On Jan. 22, 1980, Andrei Sakharov, the Soviet physicist who helped build the Soviet Union’s hydrogen bomb, was arrested in Moscow after criticizing the Soviet military intervention in Afghanistan. He was subsequently stripped of his scientific honors and banished to the remote city of Gorky. Sakharov’s exile to Gorky ended in 1986, when Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev allowed his return to Moscow. In 1969, an essay Sakharov wrote attacking the arms race and Soviet political repression had been smuggled out of the USSR and published in The New York Times. In 1975, he became the first Soviet to win the Nobel Peace Prize.