Friends, the name Gennady Yanayev isn't exactly on everyone's lips these days, but it easily could have been. He was the leader of the coup attempt against the government of Mikhail Gorbachev back in August 1991. The goal was to reassert the power of the Communist Party and restore stability and strength to the Soviet Union. The coup failed, of course, and the big beneficiary was Boris Yeltsin, who eagerly abetted the USSR's total collapse.
And that's just one of many great historical topics that we cover this week on the Newsmaker Show with me and Brian O'Neil. We also talk about the cancellation of Nazi Germany's T.4 program to euthanize the mentally and physically handicapped, the ratification of the 19th Amendment, and the progress of the Battle of Britain in its early stages.
In terms of current events, Brian and I discuss the U.S. withdrawal from and abandonment of Afghanistan, Andrew Cuomo's remarkable ouster, the indifference of the mainstream media towards our porous southern border, and more!
Don't miss a single second, ya hear?
https://wlea.net/newsmaker-august-18-2021-dr-nick-waddy/
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In other news, it looks like those of us who are vaccinated will be getting "booster shots" in the near future. In for a penny, in for a pound, right? The microchip in my brain has been on the fritz anyway. I could use a new one.
https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/virus-outbreak/2021/08/18/id/1032855/
And here's shocking news: if the 2020 election were to be re-waged today, Trump would win easily over Biden! Plus, 10% of Democrats regret voting for Sleepy Joe. Hey, those are the breaks. Being in charge ain't easy. And let's face it: the Biden Administration has made certain choices, and many of those choices are helping produce exactly the problems -- border chaos, inflation, crime, failure in Afghanistan -- that are dragging down the Dems' poll numbers. I think some people call that "karma"?
Dr.Waddy from Jack: Redistricting. First, where will lala land Ithaca be? We have been able to pretty well neutralize their leftist desire to work for the "wokeness" we deplore in Congress. Ithink the only way they could prevail is by being gerrymandered into a district with another lala land with which they could form a "united front". Well, they ain't gonna find that around here short of Rochester or perhaps Syracuse themselves. Ah, they would probably rejoice at being out of our insolent grasp and so would we. They are an island of totalitarian leftist intent and consequent dysfunction, in a real America sea down here in common sense country.
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy from Jack: Cuomo "retiring": I guess he has actually put in his papers, as have so many of "the people" he so disingenuously, celebrates over time, such is life for the unelect. How sweet of him to "relate" to us rather than issue an imperial decree! Yeah, the Dems no doubt saw him as a liability and no doubt greased the skids. They could not legally avoid the ascent of one whose Western NY origins do not commend her to them. What is their plan to assure she does nothing contrary to the wishes of NYC? Do they think her loyalty to Cuomo shows a "fundamental transformation" from one who was once endorsed by NRA( with NRA it isn't just about guns; many of those NRA endorses demonstrate conservative convictions on a very wide range of issues) confirms her capture by the left. What if she is uncaptured. Well then of course the characteristic leftist character onslaught will commence! Beware left; her declaration of intent to run for a full term may signal her independence and remember, she will have veto power. Dr. Waddy, you said it best in a recent post; she will probably represent NY as a whole and that that in itself will be a distinct improvement over disdainful Cuomoism.
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy from Jack : It is very telling and promising that probable NYC Mayor Eric Adams is "antiprisoner". That is a very redeeming outlook to have in a state as polluted by criminal apologists as NY is. Another Guiliani? Let us hope so. During the campaign at least, Guardian Angel hero Curtis Sliwa will help to keep attention focused on the prime issue: the mindless enablement of now demonstrated criminal presumptuousness in completely predictable response to the criminal worship of such as Cuomo and his legion of likeminded dreamers. Sure, of course, a lifer who has done an uncomfortable 15 years and is 55 is incapable of violence, yes Andrew, yes "prisoner's rights" crusaders? Rights of course, responsibilities no,yesss!? Of course the physical plants of all those prisons Andrew closed still stand. 'Course Andrew would have had them levelled in his assumed next term.
ReplyDeleteDr.Waddy from Jack:You observed that Dems' national intentions are plainly exemplified by the prevalent dysfunction of cities dominated by Dem rulers. You mentioned Buffalo , my hometown. Its still a blue collar city, embracing the culture borne of theheavy industry which was, functionally, a way of life in Buffalo. I worked in the very midst of it in the 60s, with coworkers who had been there since the '30s, except for heroic service in WWII. To them, support for the Dems, the party of union supporting FDR in the truly hard days, was unassailable. But then came the late 60s and beyond and Marxists had advanced their pollution of the unions. I know; I saw its seductive power on my father, a loyal WWII combat vet! Unfortunately, still essentially blue collar Buffalo still thinks the Dems stand for them. No, they stand only for those who would TAKE from the productive and GIVE to the unproductive; eg. the so called "Working Families Party". Such is the disingenous power of the left! Buffalo needs a Guiliani! Its only present antirote to an incipient leftist Mayor is the present one, who though he demonstrates mainly a skill at appearing in natty attire at public ceremomies, would yet be some salvation from his extreme leftist,unrepresentative opponent; yet a kind of betterment.
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy from Jack : This sort of dysfunction, though maybe of other originsin other cities, is yet stil the example the Dems presnent us of their hope for national dictatorship!
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy from Jack: Yanayev: Never heard of him before the coup and very little after. Iunderstand he was a pitiful souse who went on a bender as soon as the coup failed. It is interesting to speculate on how it would have been had it succeeded. Gorbachev had said "we cannot go on this (Soviet) way." Mighta had a big civil war . I think had I been in a coma from say,1987 to 1994 and had woken to be told the USSR had dissolved ,I would have exclaimed " oh no, how many millions died in WWIII? ". For one who grew up in the Cold War, the real story is astonishing to this day!
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy from Jack : Most accounts I have read maintain the Germans came very close to wearing the RAF down to the point where it could not defend southern England. In the massive Sept.15 raid , I believe it was, Churchill asked the head of the RAF, "where is the reserve?" and was told, " Prime Minister,there is none". Just imagine. But the RAF caused enough Luftwaffe casualties to give Goering pause on the very cusp of victory. That, combined with the bombing of Berlin (caused by the accidental bombing of London), sent Hitler into a towering rage and a vow to level British cities, put paid to the original strategy of destroying the RAF and its bases in southern England, supposed to clear the way foran invading Nazi armada. BUT, the RAF still existed in the north and there was the Fleet Air Arm ( which did not need carriers; England is an unsinkable carrier) and The Royal Fleet, which would have gone on a death ride to crush the invasion fleet. It had alot of battleships and cruisers and some of them would have gotten through to wreak havoc on the barges and their landing sites. The German surface fleet was no match for the Brits and the Brits had enough destroyers' frigates and subs to keep the Uboats at bay. A fleet action like that was not the place for commerce raider Uboats. So, I think those indomitable Brits would have defeated the invasion even had the RAF been decimated, albeit at very great cost to the fleet.
ReplyDeleteJack, I don't like Ithaca's chances of building a blue bastion in the midst of God's country any more than you do!
ReplyDeleteMy expectations of Eric Adams as NYC Mayor would be modest. Now, if New Yorkers were to insist on replacing their crime-friendly prosecutors with tough-as-nails types, then we would really see some progress in the war on crime...
So is the incumbent mayor in Buffalo running for reelection, then? As a write-in candidate? That, as you say, might be the best and most realistic solution to the city's looming red tide...
It's interesting to speculate on what would have happened in the USSR had the coup plotters shown a bit more nerve. Force could have silenced the pro-democracy faction, for sure, but for how long? And would all the Republics have fallen in line?
I agree that the Germans were kidding themselves if they thought a successful amphibious invasion of England was possible. The only way it might have worked is the same way Dunkirk worked: lots of little ships, impossible to sink en masse. Anyway, my impression of the Battle of Britain is somewhat different from yours. Yeah, the Brits were struggling, but their production of aircraft more or less negated all losses in the air, and most of their downed pilots went right back into service (whereas none of the Germans did). The math I've seen says that in 1940 the Brits were ramping up aircraft production admirably, whereas the Germans were still operating on a peacetime industrial footing. Under those circumstances, the best the Germans could have hoped for was to hammer the RAF hard enough to get it to withdraw from the southeast. I'm not sure that would have been enough of a "victory" to make Sea Lion even slightly viable.
Dr. Waddy from Jack: Continued unrestricted submarine warfare gave Woodrow Wilson the justification he needed for a declaration of war the necessity of which he had apparently previously resolved upon. That and probably the Zimmerman telegram which promised Mexico restoration of lands lost to the US in exchange for alliance with Germany. But supposing Germany had been more careful to avoid antagonizing the US? Yes, the Uboats had reduced Great Britain to near starvation (attested to by First Sea Lord Jellico to American Admirwl Sims in1917 )but perhaps the Boche could have held off for a bit. AND, much anti Brit sentiment persisted in the US. It may be hard for present day Americans, usedto the close warm friendship we have with the Brits, to fathom this. Perhaps the Boche 1918 offensive might have succeeded sans the American AEF. Had they taken France, what then? That, plus the capitulation of a Britain in destitution would have left them masters of Europe. They would have swiftly suppressed the Bolshevik onslaught in Russia. And their victory would prevented any motivation for a Nazi movement. And though the Hohenzollerns were no friends of Jews, there would very probably not have been a holocaust. Einstein and many others might well have remained in a Germany which might have had nuclear weapons by 1940. The ambitions ofKaiser Adelbert, who would have succeeded "The Kaiser" early in the mid forties , might have dictated that! The Depression is of course the wild card in such speculation. How would the US have conducted itself?
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy from Jack: Yes, the preent Mayor of \Buffalo, Byron Brown, is running a write in campaign against the primary winner, enthusistically self affirmed socialist India Walton. Her plan for countering crime in Buffalo is bereft of intent to crack downon criminals. There as been physical improvement of downtown Buffalo but mostly due to private enterprise and investment. Unless Buffalo gets shut of the Dem party, the reign of do nothings like Brown or of dreamily destructive leftist radicals like Walton will persist. Dem rule gurantees it.
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy frpom Jack: I see Cuomo has currently decreed pardons and clemency to persons doing the sorts of sentences which suggest some seriously wrongheaded behavior: eg. 50 to life. Well, we have seen his reasoning demonstrated in his emotional urging of a measure to release prison lifers who are 55 and have "served" 15 years or more. Well, of course for pity's sake yes but to hell with the victims and their families and potentially all of us.Good behavior in prison should never be regarded for those convicted of capital and/or vicious crimes as meriting release into a public which then risks horrible victimization. It can be rewarded in prison with prison privileges. Leftist Logic 101: Criminals do crime only because they are unprivileged. Their victims are rightfully wronged by them because they are privileged. After all they would have to be privileged to be in possession of that which "criminals" seek... Make sense? Seem ridiculous? I can guarantee you from 20 years in NY government that it employs many with nifty salaries and who control millions upon millions of your tax dollars, for whom that it is JUST the way they think (when they think) and emote (now that's what counts)! And Cuomo is their exemplar. You see, he had a sit down with some of the "guys" in a maximum security prison and he came away forever transformed by, well, their affability! Ho hum, everyone who has worked in corrections has experienced or witnessed that shtick! Trouble is, some people never get over it and when they acquire they ACT on it! And as for the original true victims of these martyrs? "Well now, they just have to understand what life in prison is like...." The truth is that any concession to criminals, such as those Cuomo blithely distributes, are interpreted by criminals thus: " Man, these people feel guilty for holding me to it. ME! Well I know how to play that! "
ReplyDeleteI meant , " when they acquire POWER, they act on it".
ReplyDeleteJack, all your ruminations about WWI and its probable aftermath, had the Germans desisted from unrestricted submarine warfare, are VERY plausible, as far as I'm concerned. The Germans blew it in a big way, but you can see where they were coming from -- if the U-Boats had forced Britain to the peace table, American belligerence would have been entirely redundant.
ReplyDeleteJack, glad to hear that Byron Brown is fighting on. If you hear of a poll, let me know the result. I'm rooting for him (strange though it sounds).
I'm sorry to hear that Cuomo is spending his last days in office dispensing clemency to wolves in sheep's clothing. Perhaps the victims of crime, and their nubile female relatives, should have played to Cuomo's lust... THAT guarantees a sympathetic hearing, at least!
Dr. Waddy from Jack: A poll I saw cited on WIVB Tv last week had Brown ahead. Thanx for indulging my frequent presumptuous historical "what ifs ". They are great fun and I am grateful to have them considered by an Historian
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