History for June 22

History for June 22 - On-This-Day.com
George Vancouver 1757, Erich Maria Remarque 1898, John Dillinger 1902 - Gangster


Carl Hubbell 1903, Brit Hume 1943 - Broadcast journalist, Cyndi Lauper 1953 - Singer


1611 - English explorer Henry Hudson, his son and several other people were set adrift in present-day Hudson Bay by mutineers. 


1870 - The U.S. Congress created the Department of Justice.

1874 - Dr. Andrew Taylor Still began the first known practice of osteopathy.


1933 - Germany became a one political party country when Hitler banned parties other than the Nazis.


1942 - In France, Pierre Laval declared "I wish for a German victory".


1970 - U.S. President Richard Nixon signed an extension of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. It required that the voting age in the United States to be 18.


1992 - The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled that hate-crime laws that ban cross-burning and similar expressions of racial bias violated free-speech rights.


2009 - Eastman Kodak Company announced that it would discontinue sales of the Kodachrome Color Film.

Trio With Long Rifles, Handguns Arrested Near Holland Tunnel Entrance Outside New York City | TheBlaze.com

Trio With Long Rifles, Handguns Arrested Near Holland Tunnel Entrance Outside New York City | TheBlaze.com:

"Police say three people, two men in their 50s and one woman in her 20s, were arrested Tuesday on the New Jersey side of New York City’s Holland Tunnel carrying several long rifles and handguns."

State Government Up to Its Eyeballs in Pension Debt

State Government Up to Its Eyeballs in Pension Debt [Michigan Capitol Confidential]:
"Unlike Washington D.C., Michigan’s state government is constitutionally prohibited from spending more than it takes in each year and borrowing to make up the difference.
...There is other debt that gets paid by taxpayer dollars without being general obligation debt.
Some $3.1 billion borrowed to build or improve state offices and college buildings is also of concern because it will take another $247 million from the new budget — more money that won’t be available for other uses.
But other portions of the state’s $26.6 billion official debt are less of a concern to taxpayers.
The Michigan State Housing Development Authority, for instance, borrowed $2.0 billion and then lent it in turn to housing developers.
Taxpayers will not be liable as long as developers make their payments.
That level of debt is worrisome, but it is the semi-off-the-books debt that poses the major threat to taxpayers, not only in Michigan but all around the country — and pensions are exhibit No. 1.
Michigan state and local governments have promised their employees far more in pension benefits than can be supported by the amount set aside for that purpose.
There may be no official mortgage or bond offering for this debt, but every taxpayer is on the hook for it nonetheless.
The state-run school pension system is largest pension system in Michigan. Lawmakers have promised teachers and school employees $67.7 billion in pension benefits, but set aside and invested only enough to cover $41.0 billion.
...And even these numbers are less firm than they appear.
The underfunding came about two ways.
As auditors have noted, state officials and lawmakers made overly optimistic assumptions about future returns from pension fund investments and payroll gains.
The actual debt owed to retirees in this system may actually be higher than $26.7 billion.
...Moreover, the pension figures ignore billions of quasi-liabilities represented by health insurance benefits that have been promised to school and government retirees. 
Unlike its treatment of pensions, Michigan’s constitution does not prohibit trimming those insurance benefits, or even eliminating them altogether..."

At UNC Chapel Hill, 16 departments have zero registered Republican professors, analysis finds

At UNC Chapel Hill, 16 departments have zero registered Republican professors, analysis finds - The College Fix:
"Professors registered as Democrats outnumber those registered as Republicans by a ratio of roughly 12 to one at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill – and in 15 departments zero registered Republican professors can be found – according to educators’ registered party affiliations.
The College Fix researched the political party registrations of 1,355 UNC Chapel Hill professors using the state’s online public voter database, maintained by the State Board of Elections.
Of those, 615 were registered Democrats, while only 50 were registered Republicans, a ratio of about 12 to one.
The remaining party affiliations included 299 professor who are unaffiliated (in North Carolina, voters can register as unaffiliated), 291 professors whose names could not be found the database, and 98 professors’ whose party affiliations could not be determined. Two professors are registered libertarians.
Even with the high number of professor party affiliations that could not be determined, the results found Democrat professors outnumber Republican ones in every single department surveyed, and what’s more, nearly half of the 34 departments probed found no registered Republicans at all.
Those 16 departments are:

• African-American Studies
• American Studies
• Anthropology
• Art
• Asian Studies
• Biology
• Classics
• Communications
• Environmental Science
• Genetics
• Geology
• History
• Linguistics
• Marine Sciences
• Public Policy
• Women’s Studies

Read on!

AAUP conference emphasizes flag burning, white fragility, social justice

AAUP conference emphasizes flag burning, white fragility, social justice:
"Professors at a recent academic conference discussed burning the American flag and other methods of promoting social justice on campus.
Prof. Shaun Harper of the University of Pennsylvania delivered a keynote speech in which he discussed the need to address social and racial justice issues in the classroom.
...Presentations at this year’s American Association of University Professors (AAUP) conference included “Burning the Flag: An Artistic Means for Promoting Social Justice,” a talk on “white fragility,” and a panel concerning campus divestment from fossil fuels.
According to Inside Higher Ed, University of Pennsylvania professor Shaun Harper also gave a keynote address Friday on how faculty members should address race and racism in the classroom.
...The professor compared microaggressions to paper cuts, saying that while one may be inconsequential, a series of them could impact a student’s time at a university.
To address the issue, he recommended the use of trigger warnings, comparing their helpfulness to that of food allergy warnings..."

Burning Down The House

Burning Down The House | Zero Hedge
Recently an article appeared in Forbes magazine that recommended a universal basic income (UBI) for all citizens. The writer, who is from the UK, argues that:

“we can indeed afford a UBI at an entirely reasonable level within the confines of the amount that we already tax. So thus the question moves on to the next point: do we actually want one? At which point I say yes, obviously we do, as I have been saying for some years now. Simply on the basis that a UBI would be vastly better than the cruel, almost wicked, welfare states that we currently have.”

The author picks US$13,000 as the appropriate number that he feels should be granted to all US citizens over the age of twenty one and placed automatically into their individual bank accounts in monthly installments, for the rest of their lives.

Since this concept is unquestionably socialistic in nature and encourages the government’s role as a nanny state to an even greater degree than it already operates, the reader may understandably raise an eyebrow at reading it in a publication such as Forbes. Whilst I would agree, I would add, in all fairness, that, today, the article might also have been acceptable in that old British stalwart, The Economist..."
Read more on this lunacy!

RADICAL JIHADIS Assault Restaurant Patrons in Philly, Screaming: "We Belong to ISIS!"

RADICAL JIHADIS Assault Restaurant Patrons in Philly, Screaming: "We Belong to ISIS!" (VIDEO):
On June 11th at 4 AM five assailants were captured on security camera assaulting restaurant patrons outside Geno’s Steaks.

The jihadis beat the restaurant patrons screaming, “Don’t mess with us, we belong to ISIS!”

The Philadelphia police released this report:

On June 11, 2016 at approximately 4:15 am, five (05) unknown males were captured on surveillance video outside 1219 South 9th Street assaulting the victims. After the assault the suspects fled in two (02) vehicles, a dark colored pickup truck and a SUV and fled in an unknown direction. Both vehicles had New Jersey license plates. Victim #1 was struck in the face & body causing a cut to his face, victim #2 was struck in the face & body causing a cut to his face and a bloody nose, and victim #3 was punched in the face but injuries were reported by this victim.

The attack took place less than 24 hours before the deadly Orlando Islamist attack.
The police released video of the suspects.

The Philadelphia Inquirer reported:

The men, all caught on surveillance video, fled in two cars – a dark colored pickup truck and an SUV – both with New Jersey license plates.

Police are also looking for one woman described as a getaway driver.

Police did not provide information about the assault, but said the video of it was “too graphic” to release.

Patrick Kane, a victim of the attack, provided this account.

He said he and his wife, Brooke Kane, had spent the night at a friend’s wedding and then at an after hours club with another couple, when they all decided to grab a bite to eat at Geno’s.

They were just finishing up their cheese steaks when Brooke Kane’s girlfriend asked another group of patrons if she could bum a cigarette, Patrick Kane said.

“That is when the guys just lost their minds,” said Patrick Kane, 31 and a maintenance supervisor at an apartment building.

In seconds one man stood up, put his hand over the face of the woman and pushed her across the sidewalk, said Patrick Kane.

“‘Don’t mess with us, we belong to ISIS,’” Kane said the man shouted at them..."

Lunch video-----Rebuilding America Now New TV Ad: Hillary Clinton: More of the Same

Noon-toon

3 Economic Facts That Counter Obama's Recovery Narrative

3 Economic Facts That Counter Obama's Recovery Narrative
"President Barack Obama needs a reality check.
Earlier this month in Indiana, he accused his critics of ignoring the “facts” and purporting “myths” about his economic record.
But if Republicans are truly ignoring the facts, Obama should consider it a blessing.
A quick look at the facts will show that Obama’s economic performance has been weak—even by his own standards.
...But is this really surprising?
We know that Obama has done virtually everything wrong when it comes to promoting growth.
Here’s a reminder:

• 1. Obamacare: When Obama pushed this boondoggle of a bill, he said on several occasions that it would lower health costs by $2,500 per family. Instead, insurance premiums have risen— in some cases nearly 30 percent.  On top of this, business owners are hiring fewer people to stay beneath the 50 employee threshold, which mandates business owners employing 50 people or more to provide full health insurance.
• 2. Regulation: It’s hard to grow, when the federal government is literally standing in the way of business.  According to a recent Heritage Foundation study, More than $22 billion per year in new regulatory costs were imposed on Americans, costing Americans nearly $100 billion annually under Obama’s presidency.    
• 3. Taxes: Obama has raised taxes on investment income by nearly 60 percent (raising capital gains tax from 15 percent to 24 percent), and pushed the top marginal tax rate (the tax on small business owners) to 40 percent.  The U.S. has the highest business tax rate in the world; causing companies to flee offshore (with jobs) to find a better deal elsewhere..."

5 Reasons So Many Britons Favor Brexit And Want To Dump the EU

5 Reasons So Many Britons Favor Brexit And Want To Dump the EU | Economics21:
"Just as Americans wouldn’t want U.S. tax, immigration and regulatory policy to be controlled by an imaginary American Union office based in Buenos Aires, many British don’t like their country being controlled by European Union bureaucrats in Brussels. 
That is why the latest polls show more British side with the “Leave” than the “Remain” campaign ahead of the Brexit referendum on June 23.
Americans wouldn’t like an American Union — call it the AU for short — responsible for 60% of laws, which is the share in Britain that come from the EU in Brussels rather than from Parliament in London.
We wouldn’t like an AU telling us we couldn't deport criminals or control our borders, as the EU does to Britain.
We wouldn’t want an AU ruling that we could no longer buy food by the pound, but would have to buy it in kilos because in Latin America food is measured in kilos.
That is what the EU tells Britain.
Everything from tomatoes to butter to flour has to be sold in kilos.
Americans wouldn’t like an American Union telling us how many hours we are allowed to work.
...During the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Korean War, Britain stood with America.
The EU is taking decisions ever further away from Parliament, in contempt of national sovereignty. No wonder the Brits are fed up. 
Just as the U.S. wouldn't want to live under an American Union, and declared freedom from England 240 years ago, now Britain wants to declare freedom from the EU."

Bigger Isn't Better as Mega-Ships Get Too Big and Too Risky

HughPickens.com - Slashdot User:
"HughPickens.com writes:
Alan Minter writes at Bloomberg that between 1955 and 1975, the average volume of a container ship doubled — and then doubled again over each of the next two decades.
The logic behind building such giants was once unimpeachable:
Globalization seemed like an unstoppable force, and those who could exploit economies of scale could reap outsized profits.
But it is looking more and more like the economies of scale for mega-ships are not worth the risk. The quarter-mile-long Benjamin Franklin recently became the largest cargo ship ever to dock at a U.S. port and five more mega-vessels are supposed to follow.
But today's largest container vessels can cost $200 million and carry many thousands of containers — potentially creating $1 billion in concentrated, floating risk that can only dock at a handful of the world's biggest ports.
Mega-ships make prime targets for cyberattacks and terrorism, suffer from a dearth of qualified personnel to operate them, and are subject to huge insurance premiums..."

Senate Blocks Four Gun Control Measures Proposed in Wake of Deadly Orlando Attack | TheBlaze.com

Senate Blocks F
our Gun Control Measures Proposed in Wake of Deadly Orlando Attack | TheBlaze.com:

"A series of gun control measure, the first legislation proposed following the deadly Orlando terrorist attack, failed Monday to garner enough votes in the Senate to move forward.

The first vote was on an amendment by Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley (Iowa) to expand funding for an already-existing gun background check program, which needed 60 votes to move forward. The final vote was 53 to 47."

‘Something is Going On’ – And It’s Worse Than You Thought

‘Something is Going On’ – And It’s Worse Than You Thought - Antiwar.com Original by -- Antiwar.com:
"I used to wonder why in the heck right-wing commentators on Fox News kept repeating the same mantra over and over again: sitting through the Republican debates, my eyes glazed over when I heard each and every candidate denounce the Obama administration for refusing to say the Sacred Words: “radical Islamic terrorism.”
What are these people talking about, I thought to myself: they’re obsessed!
In short, I wrote it off as Fox News boilerplate, until the other day when, in the wake of the Orlando massacre, Donald Trump said the following on Fox: “Something is going on.
He doesn’t get it, or he gets it better than anybody understands.
It’s one or the other.”
Reiterating this trope later on in the same show, he averred that the President “is not tough, not smart – or he’s got something else in mind.”
The Beltway crowd went ballistic. Lindsey Graham had a hissy fit, and other Republican lawmakers started edging away from the presumptive GOP nominee.
The Washington Post ran a story with the headline: “Donald Trump Suggests President Obama Was Involved With Orlando Shooting.”
Realizing that this level of bias was a bit too brazen, the editors changed it an hour or so later to: “Donald Trump Seems to Connect President Obama to Orlando Shooting.”
Not much better, but then again we’re talking about a newspaper that has a team of thirty or so reporters bent on digging up dirt on Trump.
In any case, Trump responded as he usually does: by doubling down.
And he did it, as he usually does, on Twitter, tweeting the following:
“Media fell all over themselves criticizing what Donald Trump ‘may have insinuated about @POTUS.’
But he’s right:”
The tweet included a link to this story that appeared on Breitbart: an account of a 2012  intelligence report from the Defense Intelligence Agency predicting the rise of the Islamic State in Syria – and showing how US policy deliberately ignored and even succored it... 
...So we finally unlock the Great Mystery: why oh why does is this administration and the Clinton campaign so reluctant to utter the words “radical Islamic terrorism”? 
Is it because of political correctness and a fear of inciting “Islamophobia”?
Don’t flatter them: they’re not above that, when it serves their purposes.
But it doesn’t serve their purposes this time.
What they’re afraid of is alienating their allies in the Middle East – not just the jihadists they’ve funded and succored in an effort to overthrow Assad, but primarily the Saudis, the Turks, and the Gulf sheikhs who are all in on the game and are playing it for all it’s worth.
And of course there’s the Clinton Foundation, which has received millions in “donations” from the Saudi royals and their satellites..."
Read it all!!

AM Fruitcake

History for June 21

History for June 21 - On-This-Day.com:
Martha Washington 1731, Jean-Paul Sartre 1905, Jane Russell 1921


O.C. Smith 1932, Berke Brethed 1957, Juliette Lewis 1973


1788 - The U.S. Constitution went into effect when New Hampshire became the ninth state to ratify it.


1834 - Cyrus McCormick patented the first practical mechanical reaper for farming. His invention allowed farmers to more than double their crop size.


1893 - The Ferris Wheel was introduced at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, IL.


1940 - Richard M. Nixon and Thelma Catherine ‘Pat’ Ryan were married.


1954 - The American Cancer Society reported significantly higher death rates among cigarette smokers than among non-smokers.


1985 - Scientists announced that skeletal remains exhumed in Brazil were those of Nazi war criminal Josef Mengele.


1989 - The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that burning the American flag as a form of political protest was protected by the First Amendment.


2004 - SpaceShipOne, designed by Burt Rutan and piloted by Mike Melvill, reached 328,491 feet above Earth in a 90 minute flight. The height is about 400 feet above the distance scientists consider to be the boundary of space.

WATCH: CHEROKEE PEOPLE Express Disgust Over "Lying" Elizabeth Warren Faking "Native American Heritage" To Get Prestigious Law Professor Job » 100percentfedUp.com

WATCH: CHEROKEE PEOPLE Express Disgust Over "Lying" Elizabeth Warren Faking "Native American Heritage" To Get Prestigious Law Professor Job » 100percentfedUp.com:

 "To be fair, most reviews note that Warren has never substantiated her claims of Native American heritage, which is true. The larger and unaddressed issue, however, is whether or not Warren falsely claimed minority status in order to gain an unfair advantage in her academic career. This was a question that was unresolved at the end of the 2012 campaign and it remains unresolved with the publication of Warren’s book."

How They Spin 'Underfunded Schools': Ignore the Federal Money

How They Spin 'Underfunded Schools': Ignore the Federal Money [Michigan Capitol Confidential]: "One of the most inaccurate narratives promoted in the Detroit school bailout debate is that poor urban districts like Detroit are underfunded compared to schools in more affluent suburbs.
What this storyline fails to acknowledge is the role of federal money in hiking funding for poorer urban school districts. 
All school districts get some federal money, but poor districts get a lot more, and the difference is significant.
...For example, Eclectablog, a self-described progressive blog run by Washtenaw Democratic Party Chair Chris Savage, contained several inaccurate claims in a recent article on Detroit Public Schools:
-- “Disinvestment in education in places like Detroit led to starving local schools of adequate funding. …”
-- “Republicans have continuously sought to educate urban kids on the cheap and to avoid making the necessary investments in their schools.”
-- “In addition to birthing the for-profit charter industry in Michigan and ensuring that poor kids’ schools would never be comparable to their counterparts in wealthier districts, ...” the website said.
The sins of omission go beyond just the blogosphere, however.
Read on and see their lies!

Government promises...-----Call center that promised 400 jobs in Ann Arbor closes offices in city | MLive.com

Call center that promised 400 jobs in Ann Arbor closes offices in city | MLive.com: "ANN ARBOR, "MI – Two-and-a-half years after announcing plans to bring 400 jobs to Ann Arbor, Universal Marketing Group appears to have shuttered its call center.
Although a company spokesman could not be reached for comment, Universal Marketing's doors are locked and windows are blacked out at its suite at 100 Phoenix Drive.
The company also no longer is promoting an office in the Ann Arbor area on its website.
In October 2013, the Toledo, Ohio-based company announced plans to bring 400 jobs to Ann Arbor by the end of 2016 as part of an incentive agreement. Six months later, the company told The Ann Arbor News it had already brought 150 jobs to the area and was planning on bringing 200 more in the coming months.
The planned job creation was to be funded in part by a $600,000 grant from the Michigan Economic Development Corp..."

Portion of Orlando Shooter’s Calls With Hostage Negotiators to Be Released — Here’s What Will Be Edited Out | TheBlaze.com

Portion of Orlando Shooter’s Calls With Hostage Negotiators to Be Released — Here’s What Will Be Edited Out | TheBlaze.com:

 "ORLANDO, Fla. (TheBlaze/AP) — Although the killer is known, the investigation continues into what motivated and enabled Omar Mateen, 29, to carry out one of the worst mass shootings in U.S. history.

Attorney General Loretta Lynch said in interviews Sunday on several news shows that the FBI would release a partial printed transcript of the phone conversations Mateen had with Orlando police negotiators while the shooter was still inside Pulse nightclub.

But portions of the call will be edited out."

When the Law Would Leave You Defenseless Against the Likes of Omar Mateen, Carry a Gun Anyway

When the Law Would Leave You Defenseless Against the Likes of Omar Mateen, Carry a Gun Anyway - Reason.com:
"Despite social media jabber, the 49 dead at Orlando's Pulse nightclub weren't killed by their sexual orientation, or by disapproval of the same, or by the collective adherents of Islam, or by the National Rifle Association.
They all died in an act of terrorism committed by one evil man, named Oscar Mateen, and his accomplices, if any.
Yes, in America in 2014 Bare Hands And Feet Were More Often Fatal to Americans than "Assault Weapons"
Nor were Mateen's victims directly killed by gun control, though their ranks were certainly swelled by restrictions that forbade most patrons of the nightclub from carrying the means of self-defense.
Unburdened by any scruples about breaking the law, Mateen was not only unhindered by Florida's ban on carrying firearms in bars and nightclubs, he was enabled by its guarantee of a bonanza of relatively defenseless victims once he'd shot his way past the establishment's sole armed defender.
But rather than focus on the murderous Islamist terrorist who did the deed, too many reactions have looked elsewhere to place blame—specifically, the "AR-15" rifle he used to commit his crime (it was actually an MCX, but "AR-15" is the new "assault weapon"—a term of opprobrium used by all right-thinking people).
This reaction takes the animist position that the tool compelled the bearer to do evil, rather than acknowledging Mateen's role in selecting the tool once he'd settled on the crime he wanted to commit..."

'Why not Texit?': Texas nationalists look to the Brexit vote for inspiration

'Why not Texit?': Texas nationalists look to the Brexit vote for inspiration | US news | The Guardian: "How closely is Daniel Miller tracking the news ahead of the referendum about whether Britain should leave the European Union? 
“Hourly!” he grins.
The Sun’s recent editorial calling for the UK’s departure got him quite excited.
Miller, though, is not from London or Liverpool.
He hails from Longview, Texas, and we are talking in a cafe in the bleakly industrial Gulf coast town of Port Arthur, some 5,000 miles from Westminster.
Culturally, too, we are a long way from Europe.
Heck, we are even a long way from Dallas.
But the referendum matters deeply to Miller and like-minded Texans.
As the president of the Texas Nationalist Movement, which wants Texas to secede from the United States, he is hoping for a Leave vote that he believes will ripple all the way from Austria to Austin.
“There are a lot of people asking, if Brexit why not Texit?” he says..."

Lunch video-----Painting Muhammad with Bob Ross

Noon-toon

MUSLIM INVASION OF AMERICA In Full Swing: Obama On Pace To Issue Over 1 Million Green Cards To Migrants From Muslim Majority Nations » 100percentfedUp.com

MUSLIM INVASION OF AMERICA In Full Swing: Obama On Pace To Issue Over 1 Million Green Cards To Migrants From Muslim Majority Nations » 100percentfedUp.com:

"A chart released by the Senate Subcommittee on Immigration and the National Interest Friday details the surge in immigration to the U.S. from majority-Muslim countries since President Barack Obama took office in 2009.

Specifically, in the first six fiscal years of Obama’s presidency (FY2009 – FY2014), his administration issued 832,014 green cards to migrants majority-Muslim countries, the most of which were issued to migrants from Pakistan (102,000), Iraq (102,000), Bangladesh (90,000), Iran (85,000), Egypt (56,000), and Somalia (37,000)."

The Next Time Someone Calls an AR-15 an Assault Rifle, Show Them This

The Next Time Someone Calls an AR-15 an Assault Rifle, Show Them This
The AR-15 is being dubbed the “weapon of choice” for mass shooters.
And the act of terrorism in Orlando has renewed calls for an “assault weapons” ban.
But by any definition of the term, the AR-15 is not an assault rifle.
What constitutes an assault rifle?
An assault rifle needs to hit the mark on three different characteristics.

• 1. An assault rifle has selective fire.

That means that the user can toggle between at least two settings, semiautomatic and automatic.
The AR-15 is a gas powered semiautomatic rifle, meaning one pull of the trigger corresponds to only one round being fired.
In contrast, the M16 and sometimes the M4, which are the United States military’s small arms rifle of choice, do fire automatically.
The M16 and M4 also allow a three-round burst option, which is also not possible on an AR-15.

• 2. An assault rifle fires an intermediate cartridge.

An intermediate cartridge is less powerful than standard full power battle rifle cartridges, but is still more powerful than the common pistol cartridges.
The 5.56 NATO round, used in the M16, is an intermediate cartridge.
So is the .223, used in the AR-15.

• 3. An assault rifle will have a detachable magazine.

The AR-15, like the M16 and the M4, have detachable magazines.
But virtually every modern firearm uses detachable magazines.

• Cosmetics.

The AR-15 looks very similar to the M16, which is an actual assault rifle.
They are both heavily customizable and have many of the same features.
An AR-15 owner can tack on scopes, muzzle brakes, and spiffy slings.
The user can interchange lowers and swap out magazines as well.
The AR-15 and the M16 look very similar.
Some misconceptions about the AR-15..."
Read on and educate yourself and your family!

How Brussels spends YOUR money as if it grows on trees

How Brussels spends YOUR money as if it grows on trees: In a devastating dispatch, we reveal how Eurocrats live a life of staggering excess | Daily Mail Online:
How Brussels spends YOUR money as if it grows on trees: 

In a devastating dispatch, we reveal how Eurocrats live a life of staggering excess - 10,000 earn more than the PM's £150,000 - while taking decisions that affect all our lives in secret
A strange atmosphere hangs over Brussels. 

On the one hand, there is Donald Tusk, President of the European Council (representing all 28 EU governments), warning of Armageddon if Britain votes to leave the European Union on Thursday.
As he told a German interviewer last week: 'I fear Brexit could be the beginning of the destruction of not only the EU but also Western political civilisation in its entirety.'
But you won't hear a squeak on the subject from most people in the vast glass-and-steel bureaucratic palaces across this city. 

As an EU fromage of great magnitude, Mr Tusk can get away with saying this sort of thing. 

Lesser Eurocrats are under strict orders to say nothing on the subject, for fear of adding any further heat to the issue. 

There has even been a ban on using the word 'Brexit' in official communications.

+6

Refill, sir? Jean-Claude Juncker at a Brussels working lunch before he became European Commission president in 2014

Given the whopping great perks and privileges bestowed on those who work for the European Union, no one is going to step out of line.
...Just take the wage bill of the 47,000 people who work inside the bubble. 

Since 2010, it has been British policy to disclose the number of government officials earning more than our Prime Minister, who gets paid just shy of £150,000. 

In Britain, the latest figure stands at 319.

And the equivalent number for the EU? 

According to documents leaked ahead of the last European elections two years ago, EU tax perks mean that at least 10,000 EU employees are taking home more than David Cameron..."

Hah! Liberal Reporter Tries to Buy AR15 - GETS DENIED FOR VIOLENT PAST

Hah! Liberal Reporter Tries to Buy AR15 - GETS DENIED FOR VIOLENT PAST
Neil Steinberg, writer for the Chicago Sun Times, saw how easy it was for other journalists to waltz into a gun shop and walk out with a child slaughtering, full auto, death machine, exactly like the one that the Navy Marine Rangers use (leftist talk there), so he decided to try it Des Plaines, Illinois. 
Only this didn’t quite go according to plan.

In addition to a mandatory 24 hour waiting period in Illinois, it turns out Mr. Steinberg has a troubled past of alcohol abuse and domestic violence, so he was denied the sale.

But before he got that far, he was first faced with the same hurdles that other potential gun buyers are faced with; contradictory and unclear gun laws. 
As he wrote:

I had trouble even figuring out whether bringing an assault rifle into Chicago is legal. The Internet was contradictory. The Chicago corporation counsel’s office punted me on to that black hole of silence, Bill McCaffrey. I found that Illinois has a 24-hour waiting period between buying and taking possession of a gun. Unearthing that fact alone made the exercise seem worthwhile. I was learning something.

After chatting with one of the salesman at Maxon Shooters Supply about the different AR’s and options, Steinberg is asked to show his FOID card, which is, apparently, some kind of Star Of David for gun buyers in Illinois. He decided on a Smith & Wesson M&P15 Sport, one of the lower end models that lacks a lot of the features and quality of a standard AR.

Steinberg tosses in the normal anti rhetoric with:
Read on!
Dude is a moron.

WATCH: This Response to Orlando by Benjamin Netanyahu Puts Both Trump and Hillary to Shame | Glenn Beck

WATCH: This Response to Orlando by Benjamin Netanyahu Puts Both Trump and Hillary to Shame | Glenn Beck:

"Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu posted a short address regarding the act of terror in Orlando.

What strikes the listener most is that this is the type of speech an American president, or even current presidential candidate, should have given instead.

Bibi doesn’t shy away from singling out what prompted Sunday’s attack. He also lists many other places around the globe which we’ve become familiar with where radical Islam has taken innocent life. This tough, accurate talk is something President Obama has refused to do."

Read of the day!-----EVERYTHING SEEMINGLY IS SPINNING OUT OF CONTROL: Nothing gets past the AP — in their Drudge-linked …

Instapundit » Blog Archive » EVERYTHING SEEMINGLY IS SPINNING OUT OF CONTROL: Nothing gets past the AP — in their Drudge-linked …:
EVERYTHING SEEMINGLY IS SPINNING OUT OF CONTROL: Nothing gets past the AP — in their Drudge-linked column,“DIVIDED AMERICA: Constructing our own intellectual ghettos,” columnist David Bauder suddenly notices that Americans like having choices where to consume their news and opinion:

In a simpler time, Albrecht and Dearth might have gathered at a common television hearth to watch Walter Cronkite deliver the evening news.

But the growth in partisan media over the past two decades has enabled Americans to retreat into tribes of like-minded people who get news filtered through particular world views. Fox News Channel and Talking Points Memo thrive, with audiences that rarely intersect. What’s big news in one world is ignored in another. Conspiracy theories sprout, anger abounds and the truth becomes ever more elusive.

I’m not sure if Cronkite is your go-to guy for a callback to a purer, better age, considering that at various times during his lengthy career as anchor at CBS, he claimed that Barry Goldwater was a crypto-Nazi, America had lost the Tet Offensive in Vietnam, and that a new ice age was on the way. After he stepped down as anchorman, he gave yammered about one-world government and told Larry King on CNN in late October of 2004 that George Bush had Osama bin Laden on ice in order for him to dial-up speeches near the end of the election cycle, perhaps kept in the basement of the Ministry of Defense next to Austin Powers, Evel Knievel, and Vanilla Ice.

The month before Cronkite’s on-air meltdown with Larry King, his successor Dan Rather famously self-immolated over George Bush’s Texas Air National Guard service. But Rather also did his best at the start of his presidency to make it seem illegitimate:

“Florida’s Republican Secretary of State is about to announce the winner — as she sees it and she decrees it — of the state’s potentially decisive 25 electoral votes.”
“The believed certification — as the Republican Secretary of State sees it.”
“She will certify — as she sees it — who gets Florida’s 25 electoral votes.”
“The certification — as the Florida Secretary of State sees it and decrees it — is being signed.”

All the while claiming: media bias — who me?!

Fortunately, technology began increasingly to allow for alternatives. Alvin Toffler was writing about the “demassification” of mass media and how it might impact our culture during the very early days of cable TV in his 1980 book, The Third Wave. In 2006, I wrote an article for the New Individualist titled Atlas Mugged on how the Blogosphere was born due to bipartisan loathing of how newspapers and network TV news report the news.

As I wrote, neither side of the political aisle was happy with an “objective” media, which was a necessary fiction for radio and television to maintain for the first three quarters of the 20th century. This was a time when the first radio, and later TV networks were a massively expensive proposition, hence only three over-the-air national commercial networks. However, as a byproduct of their dramatic cultural influence, most cities were gradually reduced after WWII to only being served by a couple of newspapers. By the 1970s, the amount of news services producing content was remarkably small, despite an era that had no shortage of crises to report.

The arrival of first Rush and then in rapid succession Fox, Drudge, and the Blogosphere were a necessary and long overdue counterbalance to a left-leaning media posing as “objective.” Speaking of which, note that the AP still holds itself out as being objective, despite a howler such as this in Bauder’s column:

By 2002, Fox had raced past CNN to become the top-rated news network.

This was the beginning of a golden age of partisan media, though Rush Limbaugh had started a boom of conservative talk radio in the early 1990s.

There wasn’t anything to compare on the left, at least until summer 2006 when MSNBC host Keith Olbermann read about a speech where Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld equated Iraq War opponents to pre-World War II appeasers. The next night, Olbermann angrily denounced Rumsfeld. Olbermann half-expected his boss to fire him, but management instead saw viewers had responded.

“The next day he came into my office and said, ‘could you do one of those every night, buddy?'” Olbermann recalled.

His show became home for disaffected liberals in the Bush administration’s final years. MSNBC hired Maddow and eventually made the entire network left-leaning. It didn’t really stick: Low ratings forced a turn to straight news in daytime the last two years, but vestiges of partisanship remain.

“There wasn’t anything to compare on the left” – other than NBCABCPBSCBSCNN, the New York Times, the Washington Post,and NPR. Not to mention, by 2006 a host of leftwing magazines, Websites, blogs and Internet forums. Plus Air America, which ran from 2004 to 2010 and served as MSNBC’s farm team.

But wait, there’s more:

Liberals like Jeff Cohen, communications professor at Ithaca College, believe that conservatives will always dominate mass media because of corporate ownership.

“Conservatives…dominate mass media,” despite the fact that journalists have been a reliably monolithic Democrat voter blocksince at least 1964.

And speaking of posing as objective when you’re really a group of Democrat activists with bylines, note the headline on this post, which is also a favorite leitmotif of James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal’s “Best of the Web” column. It was an AP headline in June of 2008, Democrat propaganda pretending to be news. Perhaps if AP had truly been worried about  readers departing to “intellectual ghettos,” they wouldn’t have worked so hard to drive them away in the first place.

AM Fruitcake