Last Senator to Lie in Repose Prior To Sen. Byrd Was a Wild Fighter July 18, 2010

Moodie's Celebration as Governor Didn't Last Long Thanks to the Efforts of Wild Bill Langer

Fightin' Bill

On This Date in History:  In 2009, North Dakota was ranked 48th in population among the 50 US states with 646,844 residents.  Only Wyoming and Vermont had fewer citizens.  With such a sparse population, one might assume that all is quiet in the state known offically as the “Peace Garden State” but also is referred to as the ”Flickertail State.”  But, there’s actually a lot of activity going on in North Dakota as evidenced by the May unemployment rate at just 3.6%.  That’s tops in the nation with neighboring South Dakota coming in second with 4.6%.  Both of those numbers represent the top of the rank of states’ unemployment rates and are less than half the national average and way below the unemployment rates of Michigan and Nevada, which check in with 13.6% and 14% respectively.  See, there’s millions of barrels of oil sitting under North Dakota and the economy is doing quite well.  While the positive activity may make for a tranquil scene today, that was not always the case.  See, another moniker for North Dakota is the “Roughrider State.”  And the governor of the state in the first half of the 20th century helped the state live up to that reputation.

Hard to Tell From This Photo that Langer Could be Fightin' or Wild

William Langer was a lawyer in North Dakota who became politcally active in the early 20th century.  He was elected as North Dakota Attorney General in 1916 as a member of the Non-Partisan League (NPL) which was rising to power in the early 20th century.  Ignoring the traditional Republican and Democrat parties may have been an indication of Langer’s independence and the NPL soon found out just how independent.  In 1919, he left the party after accusing it of selling out farmer.  He ran for governor in 1920 on the Progressive Republican ticket but lost in a close election to the NPL candidate.  He settled his differences with the NPL and in 1932, he and the rest of the NPL candidates were swept into office as the grip of the Great Depression were setting in even though the power of the NPL was quickly fading.   Perhaps he got his nickname of “Fightin’ Bill” from the way he went to bat for the farmers.  When wheat prices fell, he imposed an embargo on the sale of North Dakota wheat until prices rose.  He also imposed a moratorium on farm foreclosures, even calling out the national guard to enforce his orders.  I’m not too sure that either of these actions were legal, but his constituents seemed to like it.

Langer (2nd from left) was part of the North Dakota Council For Defense in 1918

 Now, old Bill was not just a hard charging depression-era governor.  He also  liked to tell good stories with funny anecdotes.  It is also not surprising that he was also man who enjoyed power and was not afraid to use it whenever it suited him.   He had a way of not just inspiring loyalty, but also demanding it of the state employees. They were required to turn over a percentage of their pay checks to his political machine in the form of subscriptions to his newspaper.  For some, the fee came to about 5% of the employee’s paycheck.  Aside from coercion, there was a snag in the plan and that was that part of the state employees salaries came from the Federal Government.   By 1934, the Executive Branch of the Federal Government was run by Democrat President Franklin D. Roosevelt who was partisan enough to change the name of the Hoover Dam to the Boulder Dam out of spite for Herbert Hoover. So, Fightin’ Bill was charged with conspiracy to defraud the United States and was convicted on June 16, 1934.

Olson Was Sworn in as Governor to the excitement of bystanders

 The Roughrider state seems to suits this story because  the Supreme Court of North Dakota determined that Governor Bill Langer was to vacate the office of governor on This Date in 1934.   The governor of the state, William Langer was to be removed from office and be replaced by Lt. Governor Ole H. Olson.  But, the supreme court wasn’t too smart.  See, they announced on the previous day that they had issued their ruling effective the next day.    Technically, he was still governor on the 17th so,  before the court’s order took effect, Wild Bill  instead chose to barricade himself in his office along with 10 loyalists.   He tossed a spittoon through a window,  unilaterally declared that North Dakota was independent from the United States and declared martial law!

The Dour Looking Moodie's Tenure Was Short and Perhaps it was a Good Thing As He Probably Would Not Have Nearly As Exciting as Wild Bill

He said that he would remain in the Governor’s mansion until he could meet with the supreme court.  I’m not sure if he got his meeting or not but, he finally gave in when the state supreme court convinced him that  he had no standing as governor,   Lt. Governor Olson took over.   Langer had been sentenced to 18 months in prison and fined $10,000.  After 3 more trials, he was eventually acquitted of all charges.  But, while he was managing his legal problems, he was still active in the political ring.    He got his wife nominated for Governor against Democrat Tom Moodie.   She lost but five days after Moodie took over, Langer had another card up his sleeve. He made it known that Moodie had voted in another state less than five years prior, therefore making him ineligible for office! Moodie resigned and the Lt. Governor took over. North Dakota had four governors in 7 months.

The People of North Dakota Protested Fightin' Bill's Removal From Office

As a free man, Fightin’ Bill ran for governor again and was elected as a Republican, serving as the chief executive of the Roughrider State from 1937 to 1941.  After that, the good people of North Dakota thought it was a good idea to send him to Washington as one of their senators.  But, his political enemies were not about to listen to the will of the people of North Dakota and a petition was passed around that called for the Senate President to deny him his seat.  An expulsion case was brought against Langer and an investigation committee of the Senate listened to some pretty damning testimony regarding Langer’s conduct.  During the testimony, Langer was forced to admit that he had paid the son of the judge who had presided over his second and third trials!  The committee voted 13-3 against allowing Bill to be seated.  But, as it turns out, the 13 who voted against him on the committee was nearly half of those who were against him because the full vote of the Senate ended in a 52-30 vote in favor of Langer becoming a member of the United States Senate.  He would never relinquish that seat.

When Langer Wasn't Making Trouble for his Fellow Senators, He found time to crown the Posture Queen in 1955

Unsurpsingly, he was against many of the popular items of the day.  He was a strict isolationist and voted against the Lend-Lease Act and against the extension of Selective Service (the draft) prior to World War II.  But, he did vote in favor of war following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.  But, he still didn’t stand down.  He was a huge critic of Winston Churchill and on an occasion when Churchill was to visit the United States, he sent a telegram to the pastor of Boston’s Old North Church that asked him to place two lanterns in the church belfry to warn people that the British were coming.  In 1958, he was elected to a third term without making a single campaign appearance in his state.  He died shortly thereafter in late 1959.  The junior senator from West Virginia at the time was Robert C. Byrd who recently passed away as the longest serving senator in United States history.  Byrd was honored by having his body lay in repose in the Senate; the first to do so since November 1959 when freshman Senator Robert Byrd witnessed the same honor for North Dakota Senator William Langer.   Just two years before Langer, Sen. Joe McCarthy received the same honor, which makes me wonder why the Senate only seems to accord such honors in death for men who had such controversial pasts.

Heavy Rain Saturday Evening in Clark County and in Shelby County Predawn Saturday Morning.

Weather Bottom Line:   Twas a very interesting Saturday evening.  Snow White and I were at the Bats’ game that began at 6:05 pm.  Very hot and humid.  There had been a severe storm that had moved across Oldham county but it was gone and there were towering cumulus clouds to our East.  As the evening wore on, more towering cu were close enough to bring a good downdraft that knocked about 15 degrees off the temperature and decreased the humidity to the point that it was quite pleasant.  When we left about 8:30 after the Bats lost, dark clouds were fairly close on the other side of the river.  But, they really weren’t that close.  The general storm track was slow and from Clark County across the Southern Oldham, Northern Jefferson County line.  Tremendous lightning display for about 2 hours but no wind and by about 11pm we got a few light showers.  The track stayed just to our east and northeast and the storms faded as they got to the river.  Western Clark County got a couple of inches of rain and we got hardly a thing.  That has been the trend for the last several weeks.  Southern Indiana has gotten beneficial rains but from Louisville and points south and east are hard up for rain.  I say points south and East…if you look at the rain map it pretty much tells the tale because Shelby County got hammered by a very strong storm that produced damaging microburst winds between 2:30am and 3 am Saturday.  Snow White and I took our friend Bobby to the Bats game and he had said that at his house around 3AM he had huge winds that moved something in his backyard that he can’t move himself.  I told him that we had nothing but heard one rumble of thunder.  It’s almost as if Louisville is in a dome.  Areas north and west have gotten rain and then areas immediately east and maybe even immediately southwest…everywhere else south and east have been dry.  Louisville has kinda been in a semi-donut hole.

Look for your Sunday to be similar to Saturday.  After a hot and humid day, both the NAM and GFS feature a short wave that is on the downside of life coming through from the northwest by the evening.  The NAM has it late and the GFS has it before sunset.  The truth will probably be somewhere in between.   The GFS has it stronger but its more compact. The NAM makes it more expansive but less intense.  Hopefully, some of us will get some rain because by midweek, the ridge in the Southeast will expand somewhat and most likely limit our rain chances though by the end of the week it seems to contract enough to perhaps allow for more scattered activity by late in the week.  No real break in the heat.  Hey, it’s summer.

Filibuster As Part of American Expansion, Not Legislative Tactics July 12, 2010

Americans Filibustered Numerous Times in the 19th Century at Central America's Expense

On this Date In History: American William Walker was a doctor, lawyer, newspaperman and hypnotist in the middle of the 19th Century. But he became better known as a filibuster.   That does not mean that he was a member of Congress.  Today, we think of a filibuster as an interesting idiosyncrasy of the United States Senate that can hold up the entire process of debating and passing legislation.  However, in mid 19th century America, the word “filibuster” had an entirely different meaning for most Americans than the political procedure known to most people today.   

Instead, the word ”filibuster”  is derived from the Dutch word Vrijbuiter that means freebooter or soldier of fortune.   He was a little guy as he weighed all of about 120 pounds but he had big ambitions.  Initially, the object of his quest was Baja California and Sonora in Mexico.  He wanted to create an independent nation there with the ultimate objective being annexation of that region to the United States that would be a slave state. When that failed, he turned his sites elsewhere.   On This Date in 1856, at the age of 31 he became the only American born citizen to become President of another country….supposedly. At least that is what my source claims. I would suggest that Sam Houston as President of the Republic of Texas was first. Anyway, this guy convinced the head of the Democrat party in Nicaragua to invite him and some “settlers” to come to Nicaragua. In reality, they were a bunch of mercenaries hired to help that party win a civil war that was going on. The ruse of being settlers was set up to avoid entanglement in US neutrality laws. So, he and his band of merry men helped defeat the opposition and he set up a phony election that made him president. He only served two years because he irked the wrong guy.

Walker leading the way at Lake Nicaragua

One of the things he was doing was trying to conquer neighboring countries by hiring more mercenaries and also get support from the slave holding South in the United States by rescinding Nicaragua’s long standing Emancipation order. Well, none of that sat well with Americans in the North and particularly Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt who had a company that ferried freight and passengers across that part of Central America before the canal was built. He even had designs of building a canal across Nicaragua and Walker was in the way. So, he got together a bunch of guys in neighboring Costa Rica and even got help from the British and American Navies. That was the end of Walker who lost a key battle on April 11, 1857 and surrendered on May 1st of that year. He was sent back to the United States where he wrote a book about his adventures. He tried to return and when he did, he was captured again in Honduras by the British Navy who turned him over to local Hondurans who promptly had Walker executed by firing squad at the age of 36 on September 12, 1860.

Walker's Effort Created A Costa Rican National Hero

While we don’t think about William Walker much, his defeat and failure marked a turn around in Central America as it was seen as a pseudo war of independence. His name is one hated as it is held up as a symbol of “Yankee imperialism.” In Costa Rica, there is a national holiday commemorating Walker’s defeat on April 11.   However, Walker’s defeat is not the focus but instead the holiday is set aside to commemorate the exploits of Juan Santamaria, who is said to have done heroic things while barefoot in the battle against Walker.  So, for all his trouble…he got a day in Costa Rica for his failure and they named it for a 19 year-old barefooted soldier: Juan Santamaria Day.   Costa Rica also sports the Juan Santamaria International Airport.  Seems that Walker’s biggest contribution for the Central American country was to place Juan Santamaria in the annals of Costa Rican history.  Take a lesson from this. Don’t try to take over a country. Leave that to the professionals.

Weather Bottom Line:  Rain chances will be elevated for Monday and Tuesday as a shortwave comes out of the Southern Plains.  But, you will note that the chance of rain listed in most forecasts are less than originally posted.  Last night I saw a local broadcast claim a 70% chance of rain today.  I then looked at the data and found that it indicated that the shortwave was not following the track that would give rise to such chances, which means someone didn’t do their homework.  It’s not that there is no chance, but just not as aggressive as had been advertised.  It’s all because of a cold front that is approaching slowly.  So, scattered activity will be in the area for Monday and Tuesday.  The front doesn’t get very far south of us before it slides back north as a warm front and our temperatures and humidity jump for a day or so before another cold front comes down at the end of the week and rain chances go up again.

The Exploits of Vice President Aaron Burr Seem A Work of Fiction July 11, 2010

There May Be a Good Reason Alexander Hamilton Got in So Many Duels

On This Date In History: In recent years, we have heard the “I” word tossed about rather liberally. That word is impeach.

President Andrew Johnson was impeached but was not convicted by one vote. President Clinton was impeached but also avoided removal from office as the Senate did not vote for conviction. Today, we haven’t heard of anyone calling for the impeachment of the current president or vice-president. Yet. Someone probably will before President Obama’s 4 years are up. There were certainly those who wanted to impeach President Bush and even Vice-President Cheney. These calls came from allegations of malfeasance. But on this date in 1804, there is no doubt about it…Aaron Burr,  Vice-President of the United States gunned down Revolutionary War hero Alexander Hamilton.  And guess what, he wasn’t impeached nor did he go to jail.

Alexander Hamilton

Alexander Hamilton had been an aide-de-camp of Washington during the war and later led a crucial attack at the Battle of Yorktown. He became the first Secretary of the Treasury and served in that capacity for 6 years before retiring. He then formed the Federalist Party, the first political party in America. He detested Thomas Jefferson and the two developed what became known as Hamiltonian ideals and Jeffersonian ideals. Basically, Hamilton wanted a strong central government and Jefferson was for a weak central government with most of the power belonging to the states. Today, Jefferson must be spinning in his grave.

Burr's 1807 Treason Trial

Anyway, in 1804, Burr was the sitting Vice-President under Jefferson and Hamilton had made some unsavory remarks about Burr, who demanded satisfaction and responded with a challenge to a duel! Hamilton had been famous for dueling but had ironically pushed to outlaw the practice in New York. So, Hamilton and Burr went across the river to New Jersey. On this date in 1804, two shots rang out in Weehawken, New Jersey. Hamilton lay mortally wounded. There is great speculation regarding the incident as many suggest that Hamilton missed on purpose as he was a veteran duelist and a good shot. But there were procedures if one was to desire to not shoot one’s opponent. Hamilton did not follow the procedures. Witnesses could not determine who fired first. But what did happen, is that Burr was forced to stay out of New York for the remainder of his term as murder charges were filed.  For most people, Aaron Burr is now left to nothing more as a footnote to history.   Alexander Hamilton, on the other hand, has lived in immortality as the face of the ten dollar bill.  While the duel is probably Burr’s most infamous act, his lesser known final act for history literally made him an enemy of the United States.

Jefferson and Burr At Odds Till the End

If you recall, Burr and Jefferson both had the same number of electoral votes for the 1800 presidential election. The tie went to the House of Representatives who voted for Jefferson only after Tom’s old nemesis, Alexander Hamilton, reluctantly went to bat for the famous statesman.   Hamilton must have really hated Burr for him to vote for Jefferson.  Help from his political rival made Jefferson the President and Burr the Vice-President.  The original Constitution had the second place electoral vote-getter become Vice-President. But that meant that political rivals had to be the team. That obviously created problems and the Constitution was changed. The problem became all too apparent when Burr, as the sitting Vice-President, took out his anger at Hamilton for his support of Jefferson, as well as other items of disagreement, by taking Hamilton to the dueling field.   Even though the murder charge was eventually dropped, the public turned on Burr for his duel and his political career was over in the United States.

Peter Charles Hoffer Wrote About Burr Treason Trials That Had Nothing To Do With the Duel With Hamilton

So, Burr secretly conspired with Britain and Spain to try and set up a new country in the Southwest of what is now the United States and part of Mexico. Of course, Burr would rule the new empire. But, the plot was foiled and Burr went to trial for Treason.  As part of his defense, he had Jefferson, still the sitting President, called to the trial to produce documents that would exonerate him.   On June 13, 1807, President Thomas Jefferson received a subpoena to testify at the treason trial of his former Vice-President, Aaron Burr.   In response to the subpoena, Jefferson cited his right to protect wing up at the trial and he only offered a few of the documents requested.  If Jefferson was trying to send Burr to the gallows it didn’t work because Chief Justice John Marshall declared that the charges were to be dropped due to lack of evidence. 

Tom Jefferson Depicted As Constitutional Destroyer

I’m not a legal historical scholar but I bet that Jefferson’s claim was the precedent for the presidential claim of Executive Priviledge.  Jefferson had also used his position as Commander in Chief to commit US armed forces halfway around the world for the undeclared Barbary Pirate War.  While those two roles of the president seem to pass constitutional muster,  Jefferson’s purchase of the Louisiana Territory and the funding of the Lewis and Clark expedition are seen by some as examples of how Jefferson the President acted perhaps differently than Jefferson the author of the Declaration of Independence.   So often today, when we hear charges that the President is shredding the Constitution, we hear the name of Jefferson invoked.  Yet, some of Jefferson’s opponents viewed him as the enemy of the Constitution as evidenced by the cartoon showing Jefferson offering the document to the alter of Satan while the eagle tries to grab it from his hand.   

Ukraine legislators sometimes operate like Americans did many years ago

The political battles that go on today may seem rough.  But, they pale in comparison to the political wars that went on almost from the beginning of the nation.  After all, it’s been a long time since we had a Senator pull a gun on another in the Senate chamber.  I don’t recall a Congressman almost beating a Senator to death while the Senator sat behind his Senate chamber desk nor a House member attacking another on the House Floor with a pair of fire tongs.  As President of the Senate, Vice President Martin Van Buren carried a side arm to keep the peace.  It’s been awhile since a sitting Vice-President gunned down the former Secretary of the Treasury and a long time since we had a former VP try to set up his own country.  But we have an a couple of impeachment trials of two presidents…oh…and then there was Vice-President Cheney who while Vice-President did in fact shoot his friend with a shotgun blast.

Weather  Bottom Line:  I”m not exactly sure of the mechanism that brought t’storms to the Southeast of Louisville on Saturday.  Snow White and I were out riding bikes and I told her that I was guessing that it was on the 850 boundary of the cold front that came through Friday.  I explained that they were probably elevated storms without much rain but with gusty winds and hail.  Well, I heard on the news that there was hail and gusty winds with the storms.  However, I saw the cold front analyzed way to the South.  So, its doubtful that it was the 850 front.  But, I also don’t buy the explanation of one guy who said it was an outflow boundary.   As I said, I was out riding bikes so I didn’t do an analysis.  It was something but I’m not sure what it was some sort of subtle feature.  Sunday should be warm and dry.  A cold front approaches on Monday and our rain chances will be elevated for at least the first half of next week.

1st Female Pres. Candidate Victoria Woodhull Advocated “Free Love” May 10, 2010

Victoria Woodhull's Legacy?

On This Date In History: This obviously wasn’t Mother’s Day because it wasn’t officially established until 1914. But, this woman was seen by many as the antithesis of motherhood. On this date in 1872 Victoria Woodhull began her campaign for President. Her running mate was abolitionist, former slave and intellectual Frederick Douglass.    At that time, women weren’t even allowed to vote yet, she was running for president. Her platform was as a “free-thinking reformer” and supported free love, abortion, divorce, legalized prostitution and, of course, the women’s right to vote. One of the photos above is a portrait while the other is a cartoon showing her as the Devil. As part of her campaign, she sent out an article congratulating preacher Henry Ward Beecher for having an affair with a married woman in his congregation. But, she chastised him for not advocating the free love that she said he obviously practiced. On election day, she was in jail. The charge was for sending obscene material through the mail in violation of the Comstock Act. The offensive material was the Beecher article. Reports of her personal practices of free love did not help her at the polls. An opponent of hers didn’t learn from her mistake.

Woodhull Covorting With Satan!

Also on the ballot was George Francis Train who ran for President as the self proclaimed “Champion Crank of America.”   He was a millionaire with nothing else to do except to try and break speed records and advocate what he saw as struggles for freedom. Jules Verne is said to have based his novel Around the World In 80 Days on a trip that Train once took. But, Train didn’t count the days he spent in prison in France against his 80 days. He got involved in an attempted revolution and barely escaped a firing squad before he continued his global journey. He later beat his own record by going around the world in 67 1/2 days. No word on if he cheated on that one too.   Neither he nor Woodhull were elected President. In fact, I bet you won’t find them on any 1872 election tally boards.

George Francis Train

But, Train had a penchant for making money because his campaign proved to be a money making venture for him. He charged money for people to hear his speeches and he spoke over 1000 times to more than 2,000,000 people. He may have been the only presidential candidate to make a profit in the venture.  When Woodhull got in trouble, he tried to help her cause by publishing a collection of biblical quotations that he said were much more obscene than anything Woodhull had written.  They slapped the old bracelets on him too and he was whisked off to jail.

Victoria Woodhull and Tennessee Claflin drive the bulls and bears on Wall Street, Evening Telegram, February 18, 1870

Here’s a funny thing about this story. The Equal Rights party platform  was generally that of Ms. Woodhull.  If you care to search you can find numerous links that unravel the whole thing, but rest assured,   it was quite scandalous in 1872.  While it did not specify abortion and divorce, I suppose that Ms. Woodhull extracted that from the calls for protection of women from abuses of men and other forms of what they called equality.  This document supports the contention and inference of the concept of “free love,” divorce and abortion rights.  (note how it says “Children come into this world undesired and unprovided for…”)  It is interesting that they were vehemently against the death penalty but favored abortion.  Anyway, the specifics outlined regarding the platform talk about taxing the rich, a graduated tax, term limits for the President, Vice-President and Senators and the issuing of paper currency.  They also were against any land grants to railroads and thought that disagreements among nations should be settled by a “congress of nations” instead of armed conflict.   

Woodhull for President!

Today, we have a currency backed by the “full faith and credit of the United States,”  the United Nations and a graduated tax scale.  There are increasing calls to tax the rich and movements to try and limit governmental aid to corporations.  Divorce is certainly a part of society and prostitution is legal in parts of Nevada.  The US Supreme Court issued its famous (or infamous) Roe V Wade decision in 1973.  The platform actually went further as it wished to have government regulation of labor and also referred to children and the poor to be seen as “wards of the state” with the government taking responsibility for their care and eduction.  I bet that if you told someone in 1872 that many of the calls of Victoria Woodhull would be legal and/or accepted in 2010, they’d probably fall over. Then again, they’d probably also collapse if you told them that man had walked on the moon, cured any number of diseases and that baseball players were making millions of dollars a year.  I’ve heard a saying that illustrates an aspect of human nature: The people of Venice did nothing about the flooding problem until sewage was coming in their homes.  Perhaps the roots of the Tea Party movement were set long ago.

By the way….US Grant won re-election in the 1872 presidential race.

(Edit: You will find a somewhat militant sounding response below from someone who claims absolutely that it is false that Ms. Woodhull was in favor of abortion.  My source said otherwise without explanation.  The commenter left several quotes from Ms. Woodhull that seems to support the view.  I have examined the quotations and it does appear that Ms. Woodhull believed that abortion was murder.  However, the commenter has left out some key quotes.  For instance from Woodhull’s and Claffin’s Weekly (September 23, 1871: “ Abortion is only a symptom of a more deep-seated disorder of the social state. It cannot be put down by law.”  Also, from the same edition:  “Who proposes to disturb Madame Restel [underground abortion practitioner]? Who really wants that there should be no opportunity to secure an abortion under peculiarly trying circumstances?”  The stance seems a bit at odds with her “abortion is murder” contention.  But, from my analysis, Ms. Woodhull makes the argument that she wished to eradicate the situation caused women to want to have an abortion.  She blaimed the male dominated societal atmosphere.  In the same Sept. 23, 1871 article she concluded that, “Nearly every child born is an unwelcome guest. Abortion is the choice of evils for such women.”  She seemed to be saying the pregnancy was more often than not forced on women and therefore it was unpleasant and left them with a very difficult ordeal.  So, while the commenter is correct that she thought abortion was murder, it does not appear that she wished to make it illegal.  I attempted to contact the commenter by email but the person declined to reply.  She made some comment that the statement of her support for abortion was “utterly false” and then added a link to “someone who has actually done their homework.”  It is feministforlife.org.  When researching history, it is important to note exactly who is doing the research as they may have an agenda.  Often, when one has a point of view that they wish to push on any given subject, they may play up some positions and low key others to such an extent that they omit anything that may detract from the thesis.  I went to the primary source and I believe that my secondary source was justified in the position that Woodhull was in favor of abortion in the sense that she did not want to criminalize it.  There is no getting around the fact though, that on a number of occasions, she did equate it to murder.  BTW…the commentor also failed to point out that Ms. Woodhull’s publication was the first in the US to publish Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto in 1872.  My guess is that little fact may sway a reader’s sympathies, eh?   Nor  was it pointed out that Woodhull later married a rich UK Banker, John B. Martin, after which she apparently disavowed her previous position on free love, though I’m not sure if that included an alteration of her abortion view.    See…the truth is not always the whole truth. If you want more details, you need to secure a complete historiography; not just this blog, websites or single sources. 

SPC Severe Risk Tuesday AM to Wednesday AM

SPC Severe Probability Tuesday AM to Wed. AM

Weather Bottom Line:  This week will prove quite a challenge.  First off there will a warm front coming back through our area.  The NAM wants to bring some showers around here by midnight and then cuts it off by day break but then reintroduces showers late morning.  The RUC has rain from midnight to 5AM but the data ends there.  The GFS brings rain by about 3 AM and then carries it through the morning.  None of of the models advertises a rain total of much significance.  Now, I don’t see that the NAM severe parameters really going bananas while it calls for rain late Tuesday into Wednesday but the energy fields do rise markedly, which makes sense because the warm front comes through.  Early Wednesday morning, the dynamic fields start getting into the interesting territory.  Now, the GFS is similiar except that it has rain along with the rising dyanmic parameters late Tuesday into early Wednesday.  After that, the models both bring rain at varying times.

Tuesday Evening

The issue down the line will be periodic bits of energy being tossed out through the flow throughout the week.  That is what is prompting week-long forecasts having a chance of rain every day.  The truth is, no one can really time the impulses nor the exact route; so put in a chance of rain to CYA.  It is probable for rain as the warm front comes through on Tuesday.  The SPC has varying reasons for concern regarding strong storms on Tuesday so they put in a slight risk for our area but it doesn’t really have anything to hang your hat on conclusively except that a cold front is approachin.  The SPC does not mention late night Tuesday night but the GFS data supports that possibility as the cold front approaches, perhaps a shade behind the NAM. Either way, the slight risk area goes from Tuesday morning to Wednesday morning so the GFS solution is still covered.  If the cold front does come through, it won’t be for long as it will retreat rapidly back to the north in advance of another system coming through the flow.

Bottom line is that we get warmer and more humid by Tuesday afternoon through Friday at least with rain chances popping up now and then.  We’ll have to see how the severe potential actually shakes out.