The “Liberal Party of Canada” isn’t the catchiest name for a Quebec biker gang. On the other hand, it’s no more clunkily uncool than, say, the Rock Machine or any of the province’s other biker gangs. The Liberal party is certainly a machine and it’s proving harder to crack than most rocks, and it’s essentially engaged in the same activities as the other biker gangs: the Grits launder money; they enforce a ruthless code of omertà when fainthearted minions threaten to squeal; they threaten to whack their enemies; they keep enough cash on hand in small bills of non-sequential serial numbers to be able to deliver suitcases with a couple hundred grand hither and yon; and they sluice just enough of the folding stuff around law enforcement agencies to be assured of co-operation. The Mounties’ Musical Ride received $3 million from the Adscam funds, but, alas, the RCMP paperwork relating to this generous subsidy has been, in keeping with time-honoured Liberal book-keeping practices, “inadvertently lost.”
Mark Steyn, “Exit strategy”, Western Standard, 2005-06-15
March 5, 2022
QotD: Bike gangs
January 13, 2022
QotD: A libertarian view of government
Jonathan David Morris, “The Non-Aggression Principle”, The Libertarian Enterprise, 2005-06-05.
January 6, 2022
Chinese Spymasters – The New Warlords? – WW2 – Spies & Ties 12
World War Two
Published 5 Jan 2022During World War Two, China was ripped up by many different warring parties, all of which were also playing spy games with crosses, double-crosses and triple-crosses.
(more…)
September 23, 2021
Nazi Fanatics and Gangland Executions | B2W: ZEITGEIST! I E.26 Winter 1925
TimeGhost History
Publisheed 22 Sep 2021The winter of 1925 is a season of gun battles and assassinations. Al Capone is fighting both the Chicago police and rival gangs to gain control of the bootlegging racket, and a Nazi party fanatic murders a Viennese author for his writings on anti-Semitism and eroticism. It’s not all violence, though. This season, a landmark documentary film is released.
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April 22, 2021
Al Capone, Prohibition, and the American Dream | B2W: ZEITGEIST! I E.16 – Summer 1922
TimeGhost History
Published 21 Apr 2021The Prohibition era is still just getting started, but criminal enterprises have already sprung up everywhere to supply thirsty Americans with their drink. In the “summer of sin” of 1922, one man in particular is making waves in the Chicago underworld.
Join us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/TimeGhostHistory
Hosted by: Indy Neidell
Written by: Francis van Berkel
Director: Astrid Deinhard
Producers: Astrid Deinhard and Spartacus Olsson
Executive Producers: Astrid Deinhard, Indy Neidell, Spartacus Olsson, Bodo Rittenauer
Creative Producer: Maria Kyhle
Post-Production Director: Wieke Kapteijns
Research by: Francis van Berkel and Lewis Braithwaite
Image Research by: Daniel Weiss
Edited by: Daniel Weiss
Sound design: Marek KamińskiColorizations:
Daniel Weiss – https://www.facebook.com/TheYankeeCol…Sources:
Library of CongressSoundtracks from Epidemic Sound
– “One More for the Road” – Golden Age Radio
– “London” – Howard Harper-Barnes
– “Infinity Pool & Pool Tables” – Mythical Score Society
– “Rush of Blood” – Reynard Seidel
– “It’s Not a Game” – Philip Ayers
– “Please Hear Me Out STEMS INSTRUMENTS” – Philip Ayers
– “Not Safe Yet” – Gunnar Johnsen
– “On the Edge of Change” – Brightarm Orchestra
– “British Royalty” – Trailer Worx
– “Break Free” – Fabien Tell
– “Steps in Time” – Golden Age Radio
– “Magnificent March 3” – Johannes BornlöfArchive by Screenocean/Reuters https://www.screenocean.com.
A TimeGhost chronological documentary produced by OnLion Entertainment GmbH.
From the comments:
TimeGhost History
3 days ago
As you hopefully realized from the title, thumbnail, description, and first words coming out of Indy’s mouth, a big focus of this episode is the beginning of the gangland Prohibition era and the rise of Al Capone.It’s a fascinating topic, but something else to draw attention to in this episode is the Catholic Church’s campaign against modernity. Last episode we saw how religion was forced into retreat by the Bolshevik regime in Russia, well this episode we’re seeing one of the oldest religious institutions in the world make its fightback. It shows that the story of modernity isn’t just “old things” fading away and being replaced by “new things”. Instead, it is a story of continual tension, negotiation, and adaption, between the old and the new.
Anyway, philosophical musings on religion aside, this really is an exciting episode and there will be much more on Al Capone and the Beer War in years to come.
January 11, 2021
QotD: Conspiracy theories
In modern times, the conspiracy theory has been formalized. The assassination of John Kennedy is probably when this formalization process began. For example, a conspiracy theory needs a series of hard to accept coincidences. In the case of Kennedy, we have the amazing marksmanship of the shooter and then his unlikely assassination at the hands of a Jewish gangster, while he was in police custody. The Jack Ruby part is what made the whole thing perfect for the conspiracy theorists.
The first step in a conspiracy theory is that the obvious answer or the official answer must be eliminated as a lie or implausible. In the case of the Kennedy assassination, the start of the conspiracy dynamic was the dismissal of Oswald as the lone actor. It is a variation on the old Sherlock Holmes line. Once you eliminate the parsimonious explanation, then the more complex and convoluted explanations become more plausible. That opens the door to endless speculation.
We see this with the QAnon cult on-line. All of it starts with the assumption that the obvious answer is wrong. For example, it is plainly obvious that Bill Barr is covering up the FBI spying scandal. He’s had years to do what should have taken a few months. Instead of accepting that rather obvious and plausible explanation, the QAnon people reject it and instead weave wildly complex theories about how half of Washington is about to be charged with crimes.
Another aspect of the formal conspiracy theory is the liberal use of the associative property to connect unrelated events. Person A knows Person B and Person B once had lunch at the same place as Person C. If any of these three people can be tied to the event in question, then it is assumed the other two are connected. The weakest associations are enough to assume a conspiracy. The associative property is an essential element of the modern conspiracy theory.
In the case of Kennedy, for example, organized crime is a popular player, because Jack Ruby was a minor criminal. His tenuous association with organized crime opens the door for linking any number of underworld characters with the assassination. It also opens the door for all sorts of theories about the Kennedy administration’s connections to organized crime. The associative property then ties communism, organized crime and the Cuba situation to the assassination.
The Z Man, “Conspiratorial Rule”, The Z Blog, 2020-10-01.
December 2, 2020
The Nazis: Most Notorious Art Thieves in History – WW2 Special
World War Two
Published 1 Dec 2020During their occupation of large parts of Europe, the Nazis systematically looted foreign countries for art, gold and other items holding financial or cultural value. Often not for any larger purpose, but for their own, egocentric, criminal gain.
Join us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/TimeGhostHistory
Or join The TimeGhost Army directly at: https://timeghost.tvFollow WW2 day by day on Instagram @ww2_day_by_day – https://www.instagram.com/ww2_day_by_day
Between 2 Wars: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list…
Source list: http://bit.ly/WW2sourcesHosted by: Indy Neidell
Written by: Joram Appel
Director: Astrid Deinhard
Producers: Astrid Deinhard and Spartacus Olsson
Executive Producers: Astrid Deinhard, Indy Neidell, Spartacus Olsson, Bodo Rittenauer
Creative Producer: Maria Kyhle
Post-Production Director: Wieke Kapteijns
Research by: Joram Appel
Edited by: Karolina Dołęga
Sound design: Marek Kamiński
Map animations: Eastory (https://www.youtube.com/c/eastory)Colorizations by:
– Klimbim
– Daniel Weiss
– Norman Stewart – https://oldtimesincolor.blogspot.com/
– Dememorabilia – https://www.instagram.com/dememorabilia/
– Spartacus OlssonSources:
– Bundesarchiv
– Yad Vashem: 73_1_34, 72GO8, 03_198, 73_1_23, 99co5, 186_271, 99co6, 16_28,
– United States Holocaust Memorial Museum ID EA 65940
– RijksmuseumSoundtracks from Epidemic Sound:
– “The Inspector 4” – Johannes Bornlöf
– “London” – Howard Harper-Barnes
– “Moving to Disturbia” – Experia
– “Break Free” – Fabien Tell
– “Remembrance” – Fabien Tell
– “Disciples of Sun Tzu” – Christian AndersenArchive by Screenocean/Reuters https://www.screenocean.com.
A TimeGhost chronological documentary produced by OnLion Entertainment GmbH.
From the comments:
World War Two
1 hour ago
Throughout history, people have obsessed with hidden treasure of past thieves. There were plenty of hidden art and gold collections left behind by the Nazis, often in caves or vaults. Many were found after the war by the several Allied units tasked with locating valuables. While finding some Nazi gold stash still sounds exciting, we should not forget the story behind this loot. Writing this episode, the exciting nature of it quickly faded once I fully realised how thousands of normal people were robbed of everything they owned – including their lives. The thievery of valuables can not be seen outside of the context of Nazi racial policies and ultimately the murder of millions in the Holocaust. The top Nazis truly reconfirm their true criminal nature in this episode, not caring a bit about anything other than themselves.Cheers,
Joram
November 26, 2020
“… the Liberals’ oft-stated commitment to listen to the experts and the frontline workers fizzles when said experts and workers disagree with a preferred policy”
In The Line, Matt Gurney explains why the Liberals are so in love with a set of proposed rule changes that will do almost nothing to reduce gun crime in Canada and might even end up creating criminals of previously law-abiding Canadians … but it polls well in Liberal ridings:
Restricted and prohibited weapons seized by Toronto police in a 2012 operation. None of the people from whom these weapons were taken was legally allowed to possess them.
Screen capture from a CTV News report.
Talking about gun policy in Canada is tricky, because the debate is highly technical. The regulation of firearms in this country, at least in theory, depends on the specifications of the firearm in question. Mode-of-operation, magazine capacity, ammunition calibre or barrel-bore width, barrel length, muzzle energy — these are all the criteria upon which a firearm is classified into one of three categories under Canadian law: prohibited, restricted or non-restricted. Any Canadian who wishes to own or borrow a firearm, or purchase ammunition, must be licenced, a process which includes mandatory safety training and daily automatic background checks.
Prohibited firearms are essentially banned in Canada; a relatively small number are held by private citizens who already possessed them when the current regulatory regime was brought in in the 1990s. The government of the day didn’t want to get into the thorny issue of confiscation, so it let existing owners keep them under strict conditions. The vast majority of guns in Canada, and all new guns sold for decades, therefore fall into the other two categories. Restricted guns are generally pistols and revolvers, but also some rifles and shotguns. Non-restricted guns are run-of-the-mill hunting rifles and shotguns, though some sports-shooting rifles (used for target practice) are also included.
The above is all somewhat theoretical, as the regulations are twisted and pulled in a variety of ways to suit political ends, leaving a system that’s tortured and confusing even for those of us who study it. But it gives you at least an idea of how the system is designed. If you know guns, of course, you knew all this already. If you don’t, I wouldn’t blame you if your eyes glazed over a bit while reading the above. Without a basic working familiarity with all the terminology and technical specs and regulations, it’s damn hard to follow the debates over gun control. This is why I have to ask you non-aficionados to take my word for it: the Liberal proposal is really bad.
Well, actually, you don’t have to take just my word for it. You can read the NPF’s position paper, which makes at least some of the case. It notes, correctly, that “military style assault weapons” aren’t actually a thing that’s defined under Canadian law; it can therefore mean whatever the government of the day wants it to mean. True military style battle weapons — fully automatic weapons with high-capacity magazines and full-sized ammunition — are already effectively banned in Canada and have been for decades. Further, the NPF notes, firearms are used in a minority of homicides in Canada, a majority of those homicides are committed with handguns, and a majority of those killings are directly linked to organized crime or gang activity.
You’re probably starting to see the problem: Going after the guns that aren’t being used in the crimes, and taking them from the people who aren’t committing them, isn’t a public-safety policy. It’s a political gift to the Liberals’ urban base, where the proposal is popular and gun literacy low (those two latter points are not unrelated).
While the ban is almost entirely a political sop, it’s probably a good political sop, alas. I’m sure the proposal will be very well received in ridings the Liberals would like to hold or flip. But it’s still a stupid policy, even if it’s popular. The Liberals are proposing to spend tons of money on this. They estimate hundreds of millions, but recall that the long-gun registry came in about 1,500 times overbudget. And all to “ban” some of the rifles used by a segment of the population — licenced and screened gun owners — that’s been found to be the several times less likely to commit murder than those without licences.
October 15, 2020
DicKtionary – L is for Lawman – Tom Horn
TimeGhost History
Published 14 Oct 2020Morally ambiguous guns for hire are a fantasy of old Western films, right? Well not in the case of Tom Horn! A lawman, a cowboy, a soldier, and ultimately: a dick.
Join us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/TimeGhostHistory
Written and Hosted by Indy Neidell
Director: Astrid Deinhard
Producers: Astrid Deinhard and Spartacus Olsson
Executive Producers: Astrid Deinhard, Indy Neidell, Spartacus Olsson, Bodo Rittenauer
Creative Producer: Joram Appel
Post-Production Director: Wieke Kapteijns
Research by: Indy Neidell
Image Research by: Karolina Dołęga
Edited by: Karolina Dołęga
Sound design: Marek KamińskiSources:
– Pictures of Tom Horn courtesy of Wyoming State Archives Photo Collection
– Library of Congress
– National Archives NARA
– Picture of Valley RoadArizona courtesy ofThe Old Pueblo from Wikimedia
– Icons from The Noun Project: Child by Gan Khoon Lay, Cow by Alena Artemova, Cowboys by Simon Child, cowboy avatar by Silviu Ojog, Cowboy by Gan Khoon Lay, cowboy man Adrien Coquet, cowboy by Luis Prado, Cowboy Shoot by Gan Khoon Lay, Cowboy Shooting by Gan Khoon Lay, duel by Gan Khoon Lay, Dead Soldier by Gan Khoon Lay & Joab Penalva, Shootout by Gan Khoon Lay, Sheep by Pariphat Sinma.Music:
– “Ghosts of the Rail” – Gabriel Lewis
– “Miss Dynamite” – Walt Adams
– “Gone Surfing (Sting)” – Stefan Netsman
– “Run Dry River” – River Run DryArchive by Screenocean/Reuters https://www.screenocean.com.
A TimeGhost chronological documentary produced by OnLion Entertainment GmbH.
September 2, 2020
QotD: Prohibition
Vin Suprynowicz, “On Reporters Who Ask No (Unapproved) Questions”, Libertarian Enterprise, 2018-06-03.
August 28, 2020
QotD: Communism and socialism
If you have something — some money, a car, a house, a plot of land, a factory, a body of literary accomplishments, even things like television sets and devices to play music — you can bet that somebody, somewhere is trying to figure out how to appropriate, expropriate, steal, or simply take it away from you. And most of those schemers will be college professors and politicians.
Under a set of natural laws that can be seen as ethical addenda to the laws of thermodynamics, it is always less effort to destroy than to build, which is what makes war an attractive threat for barbarians and looters to wield, and it is always less effort to steal things than to create or earn them, which is why we have always had thieves of various stripes among us, including college professors and politicians.
Within a democracy, socialism is a cynical con-game that, like all con-games everywhere, can’t operate without larceny in the heart of the “victim” or mark. Convince young voters that they can have a free higher education (regardless of how it’s going to get paid for or who’s going to pay for it), and, having been taught nothing useful by the socialist primary and secondary education systems they were compelled by force to attend, they will ignorantly vote you into office. Convince them that you deserve the power to order private businesses to pay them fifteen dollars an hour (whether their labor is actually worth it and it damages the business or not), and they will stupidly make you king.
That, in a nut-shell, and spread out over the entire culture, is what happened to Venezuela and why they’ve had to eat their pets. It’s what’s happened for three generations in North Korea, and why, it’s rumored, that cannibalism is being practiced there. The history of a hundred other countries that have tried socialism and suffered hideously for it informs us that these kinds of developments are inevitable.
L. Neil Smith, “Bernie Sanders Wants You Dead”, Libertarian Enterprise, 2018-05-12.
June 23, 2020
The “Battle of Dijon”
I post a lot of accounts of ancient and modern wars and battles, but the “Battle of Dijon” actually took place earlier this month and has been widely mischaracterized in the media, as John Lichfield recounts:
Dijon viewed from Saint-Bénigne Cathedral with the Palace of the States of Burgundy, the Notre-Dame and Saint-Michel churches, the Saint-Nicolas tower, the former Saint-Bénigne abbey palace (ENSA), The Lafayette galleries, the old department stores at Le Pauvre Diable and la Ménagère.
Photo by Twibo2 via Wikimedia Commons (caption translated by Google Translate).
Dijon, the capital of Burgundy, rarely attracts the world’s attention. There is Dijon mustard of course. There is Dijon blackcurrant liqueur (Cassis de Dijon). There are many beautiful, old Burgundian streets and buildings. But of all the medium to large cities in France, Dijon (population: 159,000) is surely the least talked about.
Then, abruptly, last weekend Dijon had the great misfortune to become newsworthy. War broke out, we were told, between “Chechen gangs” and “Arab gangs”. The dispute was, some French media reported, about the right to traffic drugs. The Daily Mail announced that the French army had been sent in to restore order. Marine Le Pen compared Dijon to Beirut. Similar “wars between migrant communities” now threatened, she said, all over France.
All these reports were, I believe, wrong or deeply misleading. What did happen in Dijon over four days the other weekend was surreal and disturbing. But the incidents defy simple explanation or political point-scoring. They say, perhaps, more about Chechnya, and the values — good and bad — of exiled Chechens, than they do about the wider racial issues of France. The severity of the violence probably owed something to the frustrations of France’s recent nine weeks of Covid lockdown. The political and media reaction was skewed by the fact that the events occurred while France was in the midst of a debate about race and policing – in the wake of the George Floyd killing in the United States.
On Sunday evening, on the third night of violence in Dijon, President Emmanuel Macron happened to be addressing the nation on TV. He said, among many other things, that he would resist all pressure to splinter France into ethnic communities.
So what had happened over four days in Dijon? There are several conflicting accounts. Here, briefly, are the facts that I have been able to establish.
On 9th June a 15-year-old (some say 16-year-old) boy of Chechen origin was badly beaten up outside a chicha (hookah) bar in central Dijon. His attackers were local men in their 30s of African and North African origin. According to the Chechen version of events, the men were drug-dealers. The injured boy apparently had no connection with drugs. The dealers attacked him because local Chechens were known to be hostile to drug-trafficking. They put a gun in the boy’s mouth and said: “We hate Chechens. We’re going to let you live so you can tell the other Chechens what’s going to happen to them.”
Three days later a convoy of cars arrived in Dijon packed with Chechen men from several other parts of France, as well as Belgium and Germany. Local media and police say that there were 100 of them; the Chechens say that there were only 15. They smashed up the chicha bar, assaulted its owner and then rampaged through the multi-racial Les Grésilles area of council estates just north-east of central Dijon.
June 21, 2020
Paul Wells – “Everyone agrees!” [on the need to fully investigate the Nova Scotia massacre] … “But so far there is no inquiry”
Paul Wells in Maclean’s:
We are faced, perhaps only temporarily, with a familiar Canadian paradox: everyone says they want something to happen, but it isn’t happening.
The “something” is a rigorous public inquiry into a horrible shooting spree that spanned two days and killed 22 people in Nova Scotia in mid-April. It was the worst mass murder in Canadian history. It was lurid in its weirdness. The gunman, Gabriel Wortman, spent two days driving around in a convincing replica RCMP vehicle, shooting at whim, while the force he was imitating and dodging failed to send out a more comprehensive emergency alert than their Twitter warnings, one that might have saved more lives. In the midst of the carnage, two actual RCMP officers apparently fired their weapons into the walls of a firehall in Onslow for reasons that remain unknown.
New reporting for Maclean’s by Shannon Gormley, Stephen Maher and Paul Palango raises troubling new questions about Wortman’s possible ties to organized crime and, especially, to the RCMP itself. This reporting is attracting a lot of attention and, here and there, vigorous online debate. This Twitter thread, for instance, asks hard questions about our latest story.
The questions raised by our investigative team including Paul Palango, author of three best-selling books (here, here and here) about the troubling history of the RCMP, are backed by a solid and growing network of well-informed sources. But past a certain point, even superb reporting can’t provide authoritative answers. That work is properly left to duly mandated public authorities, usually wearing judges’ robes. Some people, reading the most recent Maclean’s reporting, have said the RCMP has a lot of questions to answer. Unfortunately there is no reason to take any answer from the RCMP on faith. It’s time for a full judicial inquiry.
Everyone agrees! From Nova Scotia premier Stephen McNeil to the latest embattled RCMP commissioner to three Trudeau-appointed Nova Scotia senators to anguished families of the murdered to, I mean sort of, the Prime Minister. But so far there is no inquiry.
June 8, 2020
The Marines’ First SMG: 1921/28 Thompson Gun
Forgotten Weapons
Published 9 Oct 2018https://www.forgottenweapons.com/the-…
http://www.patreon.com/ForgottenWeapons
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The USMC had acquired a few hundred early 1921 model Thompson submachine guns in 1926, and prompted the US Navy to formally test the guns. The Navy requested a reduction in the rate of fire, in order to improve controllability and reduce ammunition consumption (20 round magazines go quickly at 900rpm!). Auto-Ordnance happily complied, and Oscar Payne returned to the company on his spare time to modify the gun. He did this by adding a substantial amount of mass to the actuator, and was able to reduce the rate of fire substantially. The Navy subsequently ordered 500 guns, designated the Model of 1928.
Since most of the original 15,000 guns made by Colt were still in inventory, Auto-Ordnance simply overstamped the “1” at the end of “1921” with an “8” and put the new heavier bolt assemblies in the guns, leading to the collector term “21/28 overstamp” for these Thompsons. The lower rate of fire would become the new standard for the Thompson.
By late 1928, only about 6,000 Thompsons had been sold, and by the end of 1938 10,300 had been sold. Of these, about 1500 total had gone to the US government, about 4100 exported, and the remainder to American police and security agencies. Times were not good for the Thompson — it was an expensive military weapon without a war that needed it. Despite the gun’s huge notoriety, it was actually not used in particularly large numbers by the motor bandits of the 20s and 30s, nor in great numbers by the police. While the FBI did purchase Thompsons, they only bought 115 in total, and not until 1935.
This is the second part in a 5-part series on the development of the Thompson…
Contact:
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Tucson, AZ 85754If you enjoy Forgotten Weapons, check out its sister channel, InRangeTV! http://www.youtube.com/InRangeTVShow
April 28, 2020
Robber Barons and the Battle of the Tunnel
The History Guy: History Deserves to Be Remembered
Published 1 Feb 2019During the gilded age ruthless businessmen fought for control of railway lines. The Albany and Susquehanna railroad was another battlefield in the “Railroad wars.” In this episode, The History Guy remembers “the Battle of the Tunnel”.
This is original content based on research by The History Guy. Images in the Public Domain are carefully selected and provide illustration. As images of actual events are sometimes not available, images of similar objects and events are used for illustration.
All events are portrayed in historical context and for educational purposes. No images or content are primarily intended to shock and disgust. Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Non censuram.
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The History Guy: History Deserves to Be Remembered is the place to find short snippets of forgotten history from five to fifteen minutes long. If you like history too, this is the channel for you.
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