History for April 17

History for April 17 - On-This-Day.com

Birth anniversary of John Pierpont Morgan, American financier and corporation director (1837-1913).

Happy Birthday! Sean Bean, Jennifer Garner, Rooney Mara

1492 - Christopher Columbus signed a contract with Spain to find a passage to Asia and the Indies. 


1521 - Martin Luther was excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church. 


1524 - New York Harbor was discovered by Giovanni Verrazano. 


1895 - China and Japan signed the Treaty of Shimonoseki. It was the end of the first Sino-Japanese War. In the treaty China ceded Taiwan to Japan. 

1961 - About 1,400 U.S.-supported Cuban exiles invaded Cuba at the Bay of Pigs in an attempt to overthrow Fidel Castro. It was an unsuccessful attack. 


1964 - The Ford Motor Company unveiled its new Mustang model. 


1970 - Apollo 13 returned to Earth safely after an on-board accident with an oxygen tank. 


1983 - In New York, a transit strike that began on March 7 ended.
 




1985 - The U.S. Postal Service unveiled its new 22-cent, "LOVE" stamp. 


1996 - Erik and Lyle Menendez were sentenced to life in prison without parole for killing their parents. 

Obama Not Taking Enough Executive Actions? These Legal Scholars Think He Should Take 15 More | TheBlaze.com

Obama Not Taking Enough Executive Actions? These Legal Scholars Think He Should Take 15 More | TheBlaze.com:
“Most of his executive actions have dealt with the environment and the economy,” Brennan Center President Michael Waldman said. “We believe there is another set of goals that can be advanced with a pen and a phone.”
The Brennan Center called for the administration to take 15 more executive actions, even as Republicans, and liberal constitutional scholars such as George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley, have accused Obama of executive overreach."

Census Survey Revisions Mask Health Law Effects - NYTimes.com

Census Survey Revisions Mask Health Law Effects - NYTimes.com:

"An internal Census Bureau document said that the new questionnaire included a “total revision to health insurance questions” and, in a test last year, produced lower estimates of the uninsured. Thus, officials said, it will be difficult to say how much of any change is attributable to the Affordable Care Act and how much to the use of a new survey instrument."

Ukraine crisis could be start of World War III, says Edward Lucas

Ukraine crisis could be start of World War III, says Edward Lucas | Mail Online:

EDWARD LUCAS: I hope I'm wrong but historians may look back and say this was the start of World War III

• 'Vladimir Putin is striking at the heart of the West'
• 'We can chose to surrender any responsibility we have to protect Ukraine and the Baltic states'
• 'Or we can mount a last-ditch attempt to deter Russia from furthering its imperial ambitions'
• 'If we choose to resist Putin, we will risk a terrifying miltary escalation'
• 'I do not think it an exaggeration to say this could bring us to the brink of nuclear war'

The head of the American Cancer Society rakes in how much money??

The head of the American Cancer Society rakes in how much money?? | The Kidney Cancer Chronicles:
"I read a report in the National Journal today detailing the salaries of executives at top trade associations and non-profit organizations.
I suppose if the NFL owners want to pay Roger Goodell $11.5 million a year, it’s their money.
Well, your money really — spent on bottomless cups of beer, tubs of peanuts and plenty of swag — but you get what I mean.
It’s a free market.
When it comes to charity organizations, though, I’m a little less Adam Smithy.
Who knew how rewarding charity work could be — and I don’t mean spiritually or emotionally.
Did you know that John Seffrin, the head of the American Cancer Society, makes $2,270,450 a year? (If you include bonuses and deferred compensation, it’s closer to $2.5 million."

Read 'em all and weep for our country.......Full List of Obamacare Tax Hikes

Full List of Obamacare Tax Hikes | Americans for Tax Reform:
"Taxpayers are reminded that the President’s healthcare law is one of the largest tax increases in American history.
Obamacare contains 20 new or higher taxes on American families and small businesses.
Arranged by their respective effective dates, below is the total list of all $500 billion-plus in tax hikes (over the next ten years) in Obamacare, where to find them in the bill, and how much your taxes are scheduled to go up as of today:"

Taxes that take effect in 2014:

17. Individual Mandate Excise Tax (Jan 2014): Starting in 2014, anyone not buying “qualifying” health insurance must pay an income surtax according to the higher of the following

	1 Adult	2 Adults	3+ Adults
2014	1% AGI/$95	1% AGI/$190	1% AGI/$285
2015	2% AGI/$325	2% AGI/$650	2% AGI/$975
2016 +	2.5% AGI/$695	2.5% AGI/$1390	2.5% AGI/$2085

 

Exemptions for religious objectors, undocumented immigrants, prisoners, those earning less than the poverty line, members of Indian tribes, and hardship cases (determined by HHS). Bill: PPACA; Page: 317-337

18. Employer Mandate Tax (Jan 2014):  If an employer does not offer health coverage, and at least one employee qualifies for a health tax credit, the employer must pay an additional non-deductible tax of $2000 for all full-time employees.  Applies to all employers with 50 or more employees. If any employee actually receives coverage through the exchange, the penalty on the employer for that employee rises to $3000. If the employer requires a waiting period to enroll in coverage of 30-60 days, there is a $400 tax per employee ($600 if the period is 60 days or longer). Bill: PPACA; Page: 345-346

Combined score of individual and employer mandate tax penalty: $65 billion/10 years

19. Tax on Health Insurers ($60.1 bil/Jan 2014): Annual tax on the industry imposed relative to health insurance premiums collected that year.  Phases in gradually until 2018.  Fully-imposed on firms with $50 million in profits. Bill: PPACA; Page: 1,986-1,993

Feds Begin Fingerprinting 'High Risk' Medicare Providers and Suppliers

Feds Begin Fingerprinting 'High Risk' Medicare Providers and Suppliers | The Weekly Standard:
Four years after Obamacare became law, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is notifying Medicare providers and suppliers of new fingerprint-based background checks.  
Eventually, all individuals who hold a five percent or greater stake in a Medicare supplier or provider that is categorized as "high risk" will be subject to the requirement.  
The provision is part of the Medicare, Medicaid, and CHIP Program Integrity Provisions (Title E) of the Affordable Care Act, and gives the HHS secretary broad discretion in applying the background check requirements depending on the potential for abuse, fraud, and/or waste.
Although initially the new regulations will only be applied to providers and suppliers of "Durable Medicare Equipment, Prosthetics, Orthotics, and Supplies (DMEPOS) suppliers or Home Health Agencies (HHA)," the "high risk" category is defined at the discretion of the HHS secretary and may be expanded in the future.

The Legal Challenge to Obamacare You Probably Haven’t Heard of (And Why It Matters) | TheBlaze.com

The Legal Challenge to Obamacare You Probably Haven’t Heard of (And Why It Matters) | TheBlaze.com: "The IRS believes that it has the power to “dispense billions of dollars in federal spending that Congress never authorized,” Michael A. Carvin, a lawyer who is representing challengers of the Obamacare provision, said in court briefs.
An official with the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, said the architects of Obamacare likely didn’t expect so many states would decline to establish their own exchanges.
“Congress gave states the power to veto exchange subsidies,” Cato’s Michael Cannon said. “That’s the last thing President Obama wants, so the president decided to issue the subsidies in federal exchanges, even though he only had the authority to issue them for state exchanges.”
If the challenge wins, it could mean that the federal government would have to cease dispensing tax subsidies, meaning coverage would be anything but affordable in 34 states."

Your tax dollars at work-----US Government Promoting Islam in Czech Republic

US Government Promoting Islam in Czech Republic:
"The project—Muslims in the Eyes of Czech Schoolchildren—is being spearheaded by a Muslim advocacy group and is being financed by American taxpayers through a grant from the US Embassy in Prague. (The US State Department is also promoting Islam in other European countries.)

The group says the Czech Ministry of Education has authorized it to organize lectures and seminars aimed at "teaching Czech schoolchildren about Islamic beliefs and practices" and at "fighting stereotypes and prejudices about Muslims."

But critics—there are many—say the project's underlying objective is to convert non-Muslim children to Islam by bringing proselytizing messages into public schools under the guise of promoting multiculturalism and fighting "Islamophobia.""

Security holes in power grid have federal officials scrambling

Security holes in power grid have federal officials scrambling - latimes.com:
WASHINGTON — Adam Crain assumed that tapping into the computer networks used by power companies to keep electricity zipping through transmission lines would be nearly impossible in these days of heightened vigilance over cybersecurity.
When he discovered how wrong he was, his work sent Homeland Security Department officials into a scramble.
Crain, the owner of a small tech firm in Raleigh, N.C., along with a research partner, found penetrating transmission systems used by dozens of utilities to be startlingly easy. 

After they shared their discovery with beleaguered utility security officials, the Homeland Security Department began sending alerts to power grid operators, advising them to upgrade their software.
The alerts haven't stopped because Crain keeps finding new security holes he can exploit.
"There are a lot of people going through various stages of denial" about how easily terrorists could disrupt the power grid, he said. 

"If I could write a tool that does this, you can be sure a nation state or someone with more resources could."

Detroit unions bailed out...again! ----Fat, union pensions to get bailed out by more borrowing------Obama, Michigan in talks to free up $100M to aid Detroit pension deal

Obama, Michigan in talks to free up $100M to aid Detroit pension deal | Detroit Free Press | freep.com
The Obama administration and state officials are in discussions on a deal that would free up an additional $100 million to soften the blow to Detroit pensioners, two people familiar with the talks told the Free Press late Tuesday.

The two sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to disclose the information, confirmed that there have been talks about the federal government supporting a move by the state to give Detroit $100 million in federal money for blight remediation.


......The federal funds would come from the Hardest Hit Fund, a $7.6-billion Obama administration effort established in 2010 to help the 18 states most hurt by the housing downturn.including those offering mortgage subsidies, home loan rescues, mortgage modifications and principal debt reductions.

...Michigan received $498.6 million to operate homeowner assistance programs, including those offering mortgage subsidies, home loan rescues, mortgage modifications and principal debt reductions.

University calls the amount of white people on campus a ‘failure,’ asks for ideas on how to have fewer

University calls the amount of white people on campus a ‘failure,’ asks for ideas on how to have fewer

A school-wide questionnaire at Western Washington University (WWU) asked the community “How do we make sure that in future years ‘we are not as white as we are today?’”

The question, released through the communications and marketing department's daily newsletterWestern Today, comes on the heels of admonishments given in multiple convocation addresses by WWU President Bruce Shepard for the university’s “failure” to be less white.

“In the decades ahead, should we be as white as we are today, we will be relentlessly driven toward mediocrity; or, become a sad shadow of our current self."   Tweet This

“Every year, from this stage and at this time, you have heard me say that, if in decades ahead, we are as white as we are today, we will have failed as university,” Shepard said in the 2012 speech.

And in a recent blog post on WWU’s website, Shepard echoes these sentiments, saying those who do not agree “have not thought through the implications of what is ahead for us or, more perniciously, assume we can continue unchanged.”

“In the decades ahead, should we be as white as we are today, we will be relentlessly driven toward mediocrity; or, become a sad shadow of our current self,” he wrote.

TurboTax Maker Linked to ‘Grassroots’ Campaign Against Free, Simple Tax Filing

TurboTax Maker Linked to ‘Grassroots’ Campaign Against Free, Simple Tax Filing - ProPublica

Over the last year, a rabbi, a state NAACP official, a small town mayor and other community leaders wrote op-eds and letters to Congress with remarkably similar language on a remarkably obscure topic.

Each railed against a long-standing proposal that would give taxpayers the option to use pre-filled tax returns. They warned that the program would be a conflict of interest for the IRS and would especially hurt low-income people, who wouldn't have the resources to fight inaccurate returns. Rabbi Elliot Dorff wrote in a Jewish Journal op-ed that he "shudder[s] at the impact this program will have on the most vulnerable people in American society."

"It's alarming and offensive" that the IRS would target the "the most vulnerable Americans," two other letters said. The concept, known as return-free filing, is a government "experiment" that would mean higher taxes for the poor, two op-eds argued.

The letters and op-eds don't mention that, as ProPublica laid out last year, return-free filing might allow tens of millions of Americans to file their taxes for free and in minutes. Or that, under proposals authored by several federal lawmakers, it would be voluntary, using information the government already receives from banks and employers and that taxpayers could adjust. Or that the concept has been endorsed by Presidents Obama and Reagan and is already a reality in some parts of Europe.

So, where did the letters and op-eds come from? Here's one clue:

Rabbi Dorff says he was approached by a former student, Emily Pflaster, who sent him details and asked him to write an op-ed alerting the Jewish community to the threat.

What Pflaster did not tell him is that she works for a PR and lobbying firm with connections to Intuit, the maker of best-selling tax software TurboTax.

"I wish she would have told me that," Dorff told ProPublica.

Dude...... what........?--------Casual marijuana use linked with brain abnormalities, study finds

Casual marijuana use linked with brain abnormalities, study finds | Fox News:
"Casual marijuana use may come with some not-so-casual side effects.
For the first time, researchers at Northwestern University have analyzed the relationship between casual use of marijuana and brain changes – and found that young adults who used cannabis just once or twice a week showed significant abnormalities in two important brain structures.
The study’s findings, to be published Wednesday in the Journal of Neuroscience, are similar to those of past research linking chronic, long-term marijuana use with mental illness and changes in brain development.  "

Utilizing magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), the researchers analyzed the participants’ brains, focusing on the nucleus accumbens (NAC) and the amygdala – two key brain regions responsible for processing emotions, making decisions and motivation.  They looked at these brain structures in three different ways, measuring their density, volume and shape.

According to Breiter, all three were abnormal in the casual marijuana users.

“For the NAC, all three measures were abnormal, and they were abnormal in a dose-dependent way, meaning the changes were greater with the amount of marijuana used,” Breiter said.  “The amygdala had abnormalities for shape and density, and only volume correlated with use.  But if you looked at all three types of measures, it showed the relationships between them were quite abnormal in the marijuana users, compared to the normal controls.”

Because these brain regions are central for motivation, the findings from Northwestern help support the well-known theory that marijuana use leads to a condition called amotivation. Also called amotivational syndrome, this psychological condition causes people to become less oriented towards their goals and purposes in life, as well as seem less focused in general.

Given these eye-opening results,  Breiter said that more research is needed to look into marijuana’s effects on the brain – even in those who use the drug only once or twice a month.

“We need to see what happens longitudinally,” Breiter said. “What happens as you follow people over time?  What happens if they stop using – do these bad effects continue? What happens if you can intervene early?...My worry is we haven’t studied this compound and here we are looking to change legislation on it.”

Although Breiter’s team members did not examine the patients’ cognitive symptoms, they do believe that the brain abnormalities seen in their study could lead to substantial effects on brain development and behavior, especially given the young ages of the participants.

Worst Living Person Take Two: Eric Holder

Worst Living Person Take Two: Eric Holder | TheBlaze.com:
"Just to show how open-minded and inclusive I am, I’m now willing to entertain the possibility that U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder is at least, in contention with Reid, for that very special honor.
When have Americans ever witnessed anyone more egomaniacal or openly hostile to political opponents in any administration during this nations’ history? Actually, we have seen it, but not in my lifetime.

Eric Holder doesn’t believe that there is anyone who should dare to challenge him on anything. We’ve always known that this president is head over heels in love with himself, but Eric Holder makes Barack Obama seem positively shy and retiring, even downright humble in comparison."

History for April 16

History for April 16 - On-This-Day.com:

125th birth anniversary of Charlie Chaplin (1889-1975).

Birth anniversaries of Henry Mancini (1924-94), Peter Ustinov (1921-2004), Wilbur Wright (1867-1912).

Happy Birthday! Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, Bobby Vinton

1705 - Queen Anne of England knighted Isaac Newton. 


1912 - Harriet Quimby became the first woman to fly across the English Channel. 


1917 - Vladimir Ilyich Lenin returned to Russia to start Bolshevik Revolution after years of exile. 






1922 - Annie Oakley shot 100 clay targets in a row, to set a women's record. 


1922 - The Soviet Union and Germany signed the Treaty of Rapallo under which Germany recognized the Soviet Union and diplomatic and trade relations were restored. 





1943 - In Basel, Switzerland, chemist Albert Hoffman accidently discovered the the hallucinogenic effects of LSD-25 while working on the medicinal value of lysergic acid. 





1951 - 75 people were killed when the British submarine Affray sank in the English Channel. 


1972 - Apollo 16 blasted off on a voyage to the moon. It was the fifth manned moon landing. 


1972 - Two giants pandas arrived in the U.S. from China. 


1975 - The Khmer Rouge Rebels won control of Cambodia after a five years of civil war. They renamed the country Kampuchea and began a reign of terror. 

1987 - The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) sternly warned U.S. radio stations to watch the use of indecent language on the airwaves.


1992 - The House ethics committee listed 303 current and former mostly democrat lawmakers who had overdrawn their House bank accounts. 


1996 - Britain's Prince Andrew and his wife, Sarah, the Duchess of York, announced that they were in the process of getting a divorce. 

$100K-Plus Earners Pay 72% of Federal Income Taxes | CNS News

$100K-Plus Earners Pay 72% of Federal Income Taxes | CNS News:

"Taxpayers earning $100,000 or more a year pay 71.6% of the nation’s share in individual federal income taxes, according to the latest data from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) from 2011."