History for July 25

History for July 25 - On-This-Day.com:
Morris Raphel Cohen 1880, Walter Brennan 1894, Eric Hoffer 1902


Barbara Harris 1935, Walter Payton (NFL) 1954, Matt LeBlanc 1967 - Actor ("Friends")


1861 - The Crittenden Resolution, which called for the American Civil War to be fought to preserve the Union and not for slavery, was passed by the U.S. Congress.


1866 - Ulysses S. Grant was named General of the Army. He was the first American officer to hold the rank.


1909 - French aviator Louis Bleriot flew across the English Channel in a monoplane. He traveled from Calais to Dover in 37 minutes. He was the first man to fly across the channel.


1924 - Greece announced the deportation of 50,000 Armenians.


1943 - Italian Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini was overthrown in a coup.


1946 - The U.S. detonated an atomic bomb at Bikini Atoll in the Pacific. It was the first underwater test of the device.


1946 - Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis staged their first show as a team at Club 500 in Atlantic City, NJ.


1984 - Soviet cosmonaut Svetlana Savitskaya became the first woman to walk in space. She was aboard the orbiting space station Salyut 7.

Kerry Brutalized by Critics Over Bold Claim About Climate Change and Terrorism | Video | TheBlaze.com

Kerry Brutalized by Critics Over Bold Claim About Climate Change and Terrorism | Video | TheBlaze.com:

"WASHINGTON (TheBlaze/AP) — U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Friday that climate change is as dangerous as, if not more, than the threats posed by the Islamic State and other extremist groups."

Black Lives Matter to Cops: 'I Eat Pigs, I Don't Eat With Them'

Black Lives Matter to Cops: 'I Eat Pigs, I Don't Eat With Them':
"The Oakland Police Department (OPD) extended an invitation to followers of the Black Lives Matter movement to participate in a barbecue to start a constructive dialogue between the two groups. However, the police were met with flat-out rejection by a spokesperson who referred to law enforcement as “pigs.”
“A BBQ is definitely not going to stop this blockade,” Karissa Lewis, a self-described “radical black farmer from East Oakland,” told local Fox affiliate KTVU.
“And as a radical-black farmer from East Oakland, I eat pigs, I don’t eat with them,” she said.
...Meanwhile, Oakland Police have reportedly said that despite the protesters’ response, their offer remains open and that they are still willing to hold the BBQ at one of several locations."

Liberal Hypocrisy, an International Phenomenon

Liberal Hypocrisy, an International Phenomenon | Power Line:
"American liberals trumpet a “wage gap” between men and women, notwithstanding reams of social science data demonstrating that men’s higher average earnings reflect life choices, not discrimination. White House salaries are published, so analysts have shown that Barack Obama’s own staff manifests the same “pay gap” that Obama and Hillary Clinton decry in private industry.
Democrats have no response; as usual, they count on voter ignorance.
It is entertaining to see the same drama play out in the United Kingdom: “Jeremy Corbyn accused of hypocrisy for refusing to publish gender pay gap of Labour staff.”
Jeremy Corbyn has been accused of hypocrisy after he demanded small businesses publish details of their gender pay gap but refused to do so for his own team.
...It came as a senior Labour source claimed to have seen documents showing a significant pay gap in the leader’s office of 25 to 30 per cent between men and women in equivalent jobs.
If that’s true, it would be much larger than a typical “gap” in private industry, if the jobs are anywhere near equivalent.
Corbyn isn’t exactly refusing to release the data on his own staff, he just doesn’t plan on doing it any time soon.
Like in our lifetimes:
Politicians love to impose burdens, sometimes impossible burdens, on others, especially business people, but they are much more understanding when it comes to their own conduct.
In 1994, Newt Gingrich and his colleagues drafted a Contract With America, a key provision of which was that Congress should live by the same laws it imposes on the rest of us. That proposal was wildly popular, given that Congress had made a regular practice of inserting an exception for itself in legislation.
The basic issue hasn’t changed: liberals love to tell the rest of us what to do, but politicians implicitly admit the unreasonableness of their own demands by exempting themselves from them. 
(If you haven’t read Peter Schweizer’s Do As I Say (Not As I Do), you should.)
This whole phenomenon is an important reason for the rise of Donald Trump."

Judge Shuts Down the State Dept Move to Escape GOP Lawsuit | Conservative Byte

Judge Shuts Down the State Dept Move to Escape GOP Lawsuit | Conservative Byte:

"A federal judge has rebuffed the State Department’s drive to shut down a Republican National Committee Freedom of Information Act lawsuit over the emails of top aides to Hillary Clinton."

Couple Could Be Fined $500 if They Water Lawn, $500 if They Don't

Couple Could Be Fined $500 if They Water Lawn, $500 if They Don't:
"In this week’s “Damned if You Do, Damned if You Don’t” file:
A Southern California couple received a letter from Glendora city officials threatening to fine them $500 if they don’t get their sun-scorched brown lawn green again, reports AP.
Which Laura Whitney and Michael Korte would gladly do, except for one thing:
They could also be fined $500 if they water their lawn too much; they're currently only watering twice a week.
With more than 80% of California in an extreme drought, according to the Los Angeles Times, the state water board voted this week to implement emergency conservation plans and gave the OK to fine water wasters up to $500 a day.
As the board’s chairwoman noted, "A brown lawn should be a badge of honor because it shows you care about your community."
Someone tell that to the city of Glendora:
“Despite the water conservation efforts, we wish to remind you that limited watering is still required to keep landscaping looking healthy and green,” reads the letter it sent to Whitney and Korte, who were also told they have 60 days to remedy the eyesore.
Gov. Jerry Brown pushed an executive order through in April that says homeowners associations can’t penalize people for not watering lawns during conservation periods, but, as AP notes, it doesn’t keep local governments from doing so.
In the meantime, residents are stuck trying to interpret the right thing to do.
“It's almost crazy because one agency is telling you one thing and another is forcing you to do the opposite,” says an Anaheim resident who also got violation notices for not keeping her yard green."

Melissa Harris-Perry Has Hilarious Meltdown At The RNC: ‘I Was Viscerally Afraid’

Melissa Harris-Perry Has Hilarious Meltdown At The RNC: ‘I Was Viscerally Afraid’ | Daily Wire: "She’s back!
Recently let-go MSNBC host and Wake Forest Professor Melissa Harris-Perry returned to the spotlight on Thursday, and she did not disappoint.
The hyper-sensitive always-a-victim leftist had a serious meltdown while attending the Republican National Convention. Harris-Perry, sometimes known as tampon earrings, claims that the event was so bad that she, a political genius, had to leave early because of those nasty Republicans:
“I was viscerally afraid,” she said. “Time. To. Go.”
“Can I get real for a minute?” opens the former TV host’s piece, published in leftist, feminist magazine  Elle.
“I just did something I have never done,” she writes, “I left the final night of political nominating convention early.”
...“I am a political nerd of the highest order.
I haven't even turned off the TV on the final night of a political convention before the balloon drop since 1984. This is not an exaggeration.
This is the absolute truth.
I have seen the every available moment of the speeches of the nominees of both Parties since I was 10,” says Harris-Perry, clearly humble bragging.
“Tonight I left early because I was afraid,” she says.
“Tonight was different,” Harris-Perry continues. “Mr Trump's speech brought delegates and their energy to a late night crescendo.
Chants we heard all week increased in fervor, volume, intensity, and frequency—‘Build that wall!’ ‘Lock her Up!’ ‘U-S-A!’”
...These Republicans are increasingly scary, according to Harris-Perry, because they "had just undergone a week of hotel induced sleeplessness, long meetings, late nights, and cocktail parties."
And then the climax: "Suddenly I was viscerally afraid," she writes.
"Time. To. Go.""

Lunch video-----Minimum Interval Departures on Runway 27 (Thursday) - EAA AirVenture Osh...

Noon-toon

Journalist Who Broke Watergate Calls Hillary's Actions 'Indefensible'

Journalist Who Broke Watergate Calls Hillary's Actions 'Indefensible':

"He continued. “And that is why, especially after Comey, she is now baked in this perception among too many people in this country for her comfort as a liar, as distrusted, and so we now have – and we now have an election between these two people who are disdained by most Americans.”

Comey stated in announcing his recommendation not to indict Clinton, “Although we did not find clear evidence that Secretary Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws governing the handling of classified information, there is evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information.”"

Aedes Aegypti Mosquito Is World's Most Dangerous Animal

Aedes Aegypti Mosquito Is World's Most Dangerous Animal - SPIEGEL ONLINE
"This mosquito," says Fornitan, "is the most dangerous animal in the world." Indeed, Aedes aegypti presents a threat to some 4 billion people across the globe.
The world long approached the Aedes agypti plague as though it were a storm that would soon blow over, but it has now become a fixture in large cities in the tropics.
If nothing is done, experts say, more and more people will die as a result. 
And it has also become clear that some of the tropical diseases carried by this insect are coming to Europe.
Partly, that is the result of rising temperatures on the European continent.
In the southwestern German city of Freiburg, for example, scientists have determined that a population of Aedes mosquitoes survived the German winter for the first time.
It used to be that only those who traveled to the tropics were at risk of becoming infected with tropical illnesses. 
But now, many in Europe must face the prospect of the tropics coming to them.
It was images from Brazil that sent a jolt of fear around the world at the beginning of this year. Across the country, babies were suddenly being born with heads that were misshapen and too small. When indications mounted that this curious increase in cases of so-called microcephaly was connected to the Zika epidemic that had stormed across Brazil in the previous months, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared an international emergency...

Michigan-2nd worst (after Ill.) in Midwest-----Ranking the States by Fiscal Condition 2016 Edition

Ranking the States by Fiscal Condition 2016 Edition | Mercatus
BOTTOM FIVE STATES

Kentucky, Illinois, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and Connecticut rank in the bottom five states, largely owing to the low amounts of cash they have on hand and their large debt obligations.

• Each state has massive debt obligations. Each of the bottom five states exhibits serious signs of fiscal distress. Though their economies may be stronger than Puerto Rico’s, allowing them to better navigate fis­cal crises, their large liabilities still raise serious concerns.
• Unfunded liabilities continue to be a problem. High deficits and debt obligations in the forms of unfunded pensions and healthcare benefits continue to drive each state into fiscal peril. Each holds tens, if not hundreds, of billions of dollars in unfunded liabilities—constituting a significant risk to taxpayers in both the short and the long term.
• The bottom five states have changed since last year. Kentucky’s position has declined, plac­ing it in the bottom five this year. New York is no longer in the bottom five. New Jersey and Illinois improved slightly, but remain in the bottom five. Connecticut and Massachusetts also remain in the bottom five, in slightly worse positions than last year.

US Immigration Court Backlog Exceeds 500,000 Cases For First Time

US Immigration Court Backlog Exceeds 500,000 Cases For First Time - BuzzFeed News:
"The backlog of immigration court cases has ballooned to an all-time high of more than 500,000, a number fueled by unaccompanied minors and families from Central America, officials said Wednesday.
The Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) said there are 500,051 pending immigration cases in the U.S. system.
To deal with the backlog, EOIR plans to boost the number of immigration judges from 277 to 399.
“This is our highest pending caseload,” Kathryn Mattingly, a spokeswoman for EOIR, told BuzzFeed News.
“We currently have approximately 100 more immigration judges at various stages of the hiring process.”
The backlog has been fueled by a growing number of unaccompanied minors and families, mostly from Central America, who have been crossing the border in recent years.
Many of them are fleeing violence back home and are seeking better economic prospects in the US..."

Leaked Emails Uncover an ‘Agreement’ Veteran Reporter Made With DNC on Clinton Story | TheBlaze.com

Leaked Emails Uncover an ‘Agreement’ Veteran Reporter Made With DNC on Clinton Story | TheBlaze.com:

"According to an email purportedly sent by Mark Paustenbach, the national press secretary and deputy communications director at the DNC, he made an “agreement” with Ken Vogel, chief investigative reporter at Politico, to read a copy of one of Vogel’s stories “ahead of time.”

“Let me know if you see anything that’s missing and I’ll push back,” Paustenbach wrote in an email to a fellow DNC staffer."

PURE EVIL: New Details on How ISIS Gutted, Sexually Tortured Victims at Bataclan Concert Hall in Paris

PURE EVIL: New Details on How ISIS Gutted, Sexually Tortured Victims at Bataclan Concert Hall in Paris:
"Two British women who survived the Paris concert hall massacre, Christine Tudhope and Mariesha Payne hid in the cellar while the terrorists went on their bloody rampage on the floor above them.
As previously reported back on November 18, 2015, the women said they heard screams of victims being tortured by the Muslim extremists.
The two women hid in the cellar of the Bataclan as the Islamists shouting “Allahu Akbar” slaughtered 100 innocents on the floor above them.
The evil Islamist killers tortured their victims at the Bataclan.
They slit their stomachs and watched them die.
ISIS gunmen used knives to torture their mortally wounded victims by slitting their stomachs as they lay on the floor, it has been claimed.
An eyewitness who hid in a cellar for three hours as the armed murderers rampaged through the packed Bataclan Theatre in Paris said she knew people were being tortured because she could hear their screams.
Mariesha Payne, from Perthshire, told the Daily Mail: “We knew people were being tortured in the theatre because we heard people screaming, but they were not being shot and these were singular screams.
“When we escaped a man trapped on the level where it happened said to us the terrorists were stabbing people in the stomach. We were told they were throwing explosives at people. It was a horrendous ordeal...”
Much more. Read on!

AM Fruitcake

History for July 24

History for July 24 - On-This-Day.com:
Simon Bolivar 1783, Alexander Dumas 1802, Amelia Earhart 1898


Chief Dan George 1899, Pat Oliphant 1935, Lynda Carter 1951


1847 - Mormon leader Brigham Young and his followers arrived in the valley of the Great Salt Lake in present-day Utah.


1847 - Richard M. Hoe patented the rotary-type printing press.


1923 - The Treaty of Lausanne, which settled the boundaries of modern Turkey, was concluded in Switzerland.


1929 - U.S. President Hoover proclaimed the Kellogg-Briand Pact, which renounced war as an instrument of foreign policy.


1948 - Soviet occupation forces in Germany blockaded West Berlin. The U.S.-British airlift began the following day.


1956 - Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis ended their team. They ended the partnership a decade after it began on July 25, 1946.


1969 - The Apollo 11 astronauts splashed down safely in the Pacific Ocean.


1974 - The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled that President Nixon had to turn over subpoenaed White House tape recordings to the Watergate special prosecutor.

Glenn Beck: The Most Terrifying Thing About Trump’s Speech Didn’t Come From Trump | TheBlaze.com

Glenn Beck: The Most Terrifying Thing About Trump’s Speech Didn’t Come From Trump | TheBlaze.com:

"During his radio broadcast Friday morning, Beck said “something extraordinarily terrifying happened last night,” referring to the fact that, as Trump delivered his remarks, thunderous shouts of “Yes, you will!” broke out in the packed Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland on the final night of the convention just moments before the balloons dropped and the celebration began."

Obama: Police Can 'Make the Job of Being a Cop a Lot Safer' by Admitting Their Failures

Obama: Police Can 'Make the Job of Being a Cop a Lot Safer' by Admitting Their Failures | MRCTV
"America's police will be safer when they admit they have a problem, Pres. Obama declared on Sunday at a bilateral event with the prime minister of Spain in Madrid.
Fielding a question on Sunday, July 10, about the violence against police in Dallas, Texas last week, which left five officers dead, Obama said police officers will be safer once they acknowledge their failures:
"There are legitimate issues that have been raised, and there’s data and evidence to back up the concerns that are being expressed by these protesters.
"And if police organizations and departments acknowledge that there’s a problem and there’s an issue, then that, too, is going to contribute to real solutions.
And, as I said yesterday, that is what’s going to ultimately help make the job of being a cop a lot safer.
It is in the interest of police officers that their communities trust them and that the kind of rancor and suspicion that exists right now is alleviated."

White House Cuts Economic Growth Forecasts

White House Cuts Economic Growth Forecasts - WSJ:
"WASHINGTON—The White House cut its forecasts for economic growth and interest rates, resulting in slight reductions in projected deficits over the coming decade.
The new estimates were published Friday in the White House budget office’s “Mid-Session Review,” which updates the economic and fiscal projections made in the president’s February budget presentation to Congress.
The White House now forecasts that gross domestic product will rise 1.9% this year and 2.5% in 2017, down from estimates of 2.6% for both years in its February forecast.
It reduced long-run growth forecasts, for years after 2018, to 2.2% from 2.3%.
Gross domestic product grew at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.1% in the first quarter, the weakest pace in a year, due largely to a slowdown in business investment..."

Houston Mayor Releases Graphic Video of Police Shooting Black Suspect to Debunk False Narrative | Video | TheBlaze.com

Houston Mayor Releases Graphic Video of Police Shooting Black Suspect to Debunk False Narrative | Video | TheBlaze.com:

"Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner released police video of the fatal shooting of Alva Braziel Thursday in an effort to combat a false narrative about his death.

“This was not a case of an unarmed person that was shot down by the police,” Turner said."

George Orwell, call your office

George Orwell, call your office | Washington Examiner:
"George Orwell, call your office.
Prolific blogger Steve Sailer has spotted an Orwellian passage in a New York Times convention week story on the decision of Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel to support and speak at the convention in behalf of Donald Trump.
The central thrust of Silicon Valley-based reporter Farhad Manjoo's story is that Thiel's Trump endorsement is widely unpopular in Silicon Valley.
"People here pride themselves on a kind of militant open-mindedness," Manjoo writes. 
"It is the kind of place that will severely punish any deviations from accepted schools of thought."
Got that?
Open-mindedness means you severely punish any deviations from accepted schools of thought.
Memo to the literary estate of George Orwell: you may have a cause of action for violation of copyright."

Kerry: Refrigerator chemicals are just as bad as ISIS

Kerry: Refrigerator chemicals are just as bad as ISIS | Washington Examiner
Air conditioners and refrigerators pose as big a threat to "life on the planet" as the threat of terrorism, Secretary of State John Kerry said Friday.
Kerry was in Vienna negotiating a global climate deal to phase out chemicals used as refrigerants in basic household and commercial appliances such as air conditioning and refrigerators, called hydrofluorocarbons, or HFCs.
The chemicals are a potent source of greenhouse gas emissions that many scientists blame for contributing to global warming.
Kerry made the remarks as part of a pep talk for negotiators working through the weekend to amend a 1987 treaty called the Montreal Protocol to deal with the chemicals.
"Yesterday, I met in Washington with 45 nations — defense ministers and foreign ministers — as we were working together on the challenge of [the Islamic State], and terrorism," he said.
"It's hard for some people to grasp it, but what we — you — are doing here right now is of equal importance because it has the ability to literally save life on the planet itself."

Lunch video-----Runway 27 Warbird Departures (Thursday) - EAA AirVenture Oshkosh 2015

Noon-toon

Cruz: I Won’t Be a ‘Servile Puppy Dog’ for Trump | Glenn Beck

Cruz: I Won’t Be a ‘Servile Puppy Dog’ for Trump | Glenn Beck:

"Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said Thursday morning that he is refusing to be a “servile puppy dog” by endorsing Donald Trump after Trump attacked his family during the primaries."

The Pension Vise Tightens in California

The Pension Vise Tightens in California - The American Interest:
"Earlier this week, CalPERS—California’s pension fund for most public employees—reported abysmal annual earnings of 0.61 percent, a tiny fraction of the seven-and-a-half percent annual returns needed to keep it solvent over the long run.
And its sister fund for teachers, CalSTRS, isn’t doing much better.
The Wall Street Journal reports:
The nation’s second-largest public pension posted its slimmest returns since the 2008-2009 financial crisis because of heavy losses in stocks.
The California State Teachers’ Retirement System, or Calstrs, earned 1.4% for the fiscal year ended June 30, according to a Tuesday news release.
The result is the lowest since a 25% loss in fiscal 2009 and well below Calstrs’ long-term investment target of 7.5%.
Calstrs oversees retirement benefits for 896,000 teachers.
As Steven Malanga has noted, both of these union-managed funds are notorious for pulling political stunts even as they face gaping shortfalls, going on a misguided “green” investing binge that flushed taxpayer money down the drain, and pulling out of tobacco companies on moral grounds just before those stocks began to rise.
But the underlying flaw with the funds is not their politicization.
If anything, these kinds of moves are a distraction from more pressing crisis of public employee retirement systems:
That state legislatures have epically over-promised the level of retirement benefits they can reasonably provide, and obscured this reality by presuming levels of investment returns that are impossible to sustain, especially in this era of historically low interest rates.
This long-running failure of governance may be irreversible..."

Refugees to be trained as German pool lifeguards to reduce sex attacks

Refugees to be trained as German pool lifeguards to reduce sex attacks | Daily Mail Online:

• Authorities trying to combat spate of sexual assaults by migrants in pools
• 
  
• Federal Association of German Swimming Professionals backs provision
• 
  
• The group claim the 'inclusive measure' would benefit everyone concerned
• 
  
• Leaked police memo cited 'grave concern' over escalating sex crimes

A professional swimming association in Germany wants to reduce escalating sex attacks by refugees at public baths by training migrants to become pool lifeguards.
The Federal Association of German Swimming Professionals (BDS) says this would be 'an inclusive measure that would benefit everyone.'
Last month a secret police document was leaked in Duesseldorf voicing the 'grave concern' of police chiefs about escalating sex crimes carried out by refugees at public swimming baths.

Does Philosophy Have a Woman Problem?

Does Philosophy Have a Woman Problem? | HeterodoxAcademy.org:
"In 2014, women earned 28% of the PhDs in philosophy. By contrast, they earned close to 60% in English, anthropology, and sociology—and 75% in psychology.
When it comes to gender, philosophy looks more like math and physics.
What explains the numbers?"

Cruz adviser: Trump was told of non-endorsement in advance | Washington Examiner

Cruz adviser: Trump was told of non-endorsement in advance | Washington Examiner:

"Sen. Cruz told him directly that there was not be an endorsement," Johnson told the Washington Examiner after the speech. "It would have been Trump's right at that time to say not to show up, and that decision would have been accepted."

Watch This Chilling Animation Show How Flight MH17 Over Ukraine Was Ripped Apart By Buk Surface-To-Air Missile

Watch This Chilling Animation Show How Flight MH17 Over Ukraine Was Ripped Apart By Buk Surface-To-Air Missile:

Speculation abounded when Malaysian flight MH17 was shot down over the Ukraine in 2014.

Initial media reports indicated that separatist forces loyal to Putin were responsible. 
But that was quickly disputed by Russia, who claimed that it was the Ukrainian military who fired the fatal blow. Satellite photos provided by the Obama administration were immediately disputed. 
It has been suggested that the entire incident was a false flag designed to lay blame on the Russian President at the height of the Ukraine conflict.

Of interest is the fact that Vladimir Putin himself was reportedly flying over the area in an airplane whose colors resembled that of the Malaysian flight, suggesting that Ukrainians may have been taking a shot at the highest-level target possible at the time.

The following animation and report from Dutch officials in The Hague doesn’t shed new light on the origins of the missile, but it does provide details of how the flight was brought down and shows a Russian-made Buk Surface-to-Air missile approaching its target and then detonating its deadly payload, killing the pilots instantly. The airplane then broke up between business class and economy class and fell to earth, killing all of the passengers on board.

AM Fruitcake