History for May 20

History for May 20 - On-This-Day.com
Dolley Payne Madison 1768 - U.S. First Lady, wife of 4th President James Madison, John Stuart Mill 1806 - Editor, philosopher, Jimmy Stewart 1908 - Actor (Philadelphia Story [1940]; The Glenn Miller Story, It’s a Wonderful Life, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington) 


Joe Cocker 1944 - Singer, songwriter, Cher (Cherilyn Sarkisian LaPierre) 1946 - Singer (Sonny & Cher), actress (Moonstruck [1987]; The Witches of Eastwick, Silkwood, Mask), Bronson Pinchot 1959 - Actor (Courage Under Fire, Beverly Hills Cop series, Risky Business) 


1506 - In Spain, Christopher Columbus died in poverty. 


1774 - Britain's Parliament passed the Coercive Acts to punish the American colonists for their increasingly anti-British behavior 


1830 - The fountain pen was patented by H.D. Hyde. 


1874 - Levi Strauss began marketing blue jeans with copper rivets. 


1899 - Jacob German of New York City became the first driver to be arrested for speeding. The posted speed limit was 12 miles per hour. 


1902 - Cuba gained its independence from Spain.

1916 - Norman Rockwell’s first cover on "The Saturday Evening Post" appeared. 



1927 - Charles Lindbergh took off from New York to cross the Atlantic for Paris aboard his airplane the "Spirit of St. Louis." The trip took 33 1/2 hours. 


1932 - Amelia Earhart took off to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean. She became the first woman to achieve the feat. 


1939 - The first regular air-passenger service across the Atlantic Ocean began with the take-off of the "Yankee Clipper" from Port Washington, New York. 


1969 - U.S. and South Vietnamese forces captured Apbia Mountain, which was referred to as Hamburger Hill. 

Smoking Gun! Obama Administration was Secretly Running Guns to Syria through Benghazi! - Eagle Rising

Smoking Gun! Obama Administration was Secretly Running Guns to Syria through Benghazi! - Eagle Rising:

"Well the truth about Benghazi is finally starting to see the light. As we have theorized in several articles, the Obama administration was involved in an international Fast and Furious by trafficking arms through Benghazi into Syria. Today that theory has been confirmed.

Newly released documents show that US intelligence agencies were fully aware that weapons were moving from the Islamic terror stronghold in Libya to Syria before the attack on the Benghazi compound on September 11, 2012."

I Checked My “White Privilege” and Found It Wasn’t There - Eagle Rising

I Checked My “White Privilege” and Found It Wasn’t There - Eagle Rising:

"I was having a discussion recently with a colleague, wherein I expressed the opinion that Dr. King’s dream was for all Americans.  His dream was not to turn the world upside-down, so that white people would be discriminated against instead of minorities.  My fellow teacher was stunned at my statement, insisting that the only racism that existed was against minorities.  White people, he said, have it easy.  I was then asked to “check my privilege.”

It was at this point in the conversation that I decided to explain something to my friend."

Cuz trucks are cool------Truck Cheats Death

Dude, where's my height??-----Boys who smoke cannabis ‘are four inches shorter’

Boys who smoke cannabis ‘are four inches shorter’ - Telegraph
Boys who smoke cannabis before puberty could be stunting their growth by more than four inches, a new study suggests.

Researchers found that youngsters who were addicted to the drug were far shorter than their non-smoking peers.

And they also discovered that rather than being a relaxing pass time, smoking dope actually makes the body more stressed in the long term.

"Marijuana use may provoke a stress response that stimulates onset of puberty but suppresses growth rate,” said study leader Dr Syed Shakeel Raza Rizvi, of the Agriculture University Rawalpindi in Pakistan.

Scientists at the Pir Mehr Ali Shah Agriculture University Rawalpindi in Pakistan studied the levels of certain hormones involved in growth and puberty in the blood of 220 non-smoking and 217 cannabis-addicted boys.

Levels of puberty-related hormones such as testosterone and luteinising hormone (LH) were increased in the cannabis smokers. In contrast, growth hormone levels in the group were decreased.

• Super strong cannabis responsible for quarter of psychosis cases
• Cannabis use shrinks and rewires the brain
• Even casual use of cannabis alters the brain
• Cannabis can be highly addictive, major study finds

It was also found that non-smoking boys were on average four kilos heavier and 4.6 inches taller by the age of 20 than the dope smokers.

The researchers also looked at the effect of smoking cannabis on levels of the stress hormone, cortisol, in 10 cannabis addicts.

They found that dope smokers have significantly higher levels of cortisol than non-smokers...

Benghazi chairman: Panel’s findings could be inconclusive | TheHill

Benghazi chairman: Panel’s findings could be inconclusive | TheHill:

"The chairman of House Select Committee on Benghazi says the panel’s final report might not offer a definitive account of what transpired during the deadly attacks in 2012.

“If you do a good enough job laying out the facts, the conclusions will either speak for themselves, or you’ll have competing factual narratives, and you can draw your own conclusions,” Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) told the Greenville News."

Our cities are SOOO safe we need to divert cops to stopping, penalizing, harassing non-criminals?!!!-----Click It Or Ticket Force Zones Ramp Up

Click It Or Ticket Force Zones Ramp Up | Right Michigan:
Never happy enough with mere taxation and over burdening regulatory efforts, state officials want to remind you who is boss.

Michigan State Police are stepping up efforts to imprint their thumbs on Michigan motorists this coming holiday weekend.

Ever since the seat belt legislation was foisted upon a gullible electorate, millions of dollars have been used to cajole, threaten, and punish drivers who have threatened no one’s safety but their own. Since the inception of the law that was NEVER meant to be a primary offense, TENS OF THOUSANDS of citizens of our great lake state have been harassed by authoritative desires of some in law enforcement, and have had their 4th amendment rights violated under the guise of suspicion that they were not properly buckled in.

From the state department of propaganda today (with commentary inserted):

May 18, 2015

For the first time, federally funded seat belt enforcement efforts will take place in all 83 Michigan counties to help jump start an increase in seat belt use and reduce traffic deaths and injuries. Starting today through May 31, police departments, sheriff’s offices and the Michigan State Police will conduct stepped up seat belt enforcement as part of the annual Click It Or Ticket campaign.

The enhanced effort coincides with the 15th year since Michigan adopted a law allowing law enforcement officers to stop motorists for not being buckled up. According to the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute, 2,659 lives have been saved since the law began in 2000 as a result of substantially higher belt use. States with primary enforcement laws have higher rates of seat belt use.

15 years of jackboot tyranny, now enhanced courtesy of an overreaching federal bureaucracy.

The estimated ‘2659 lives saved’ justifies the means right? Want to bet that a do-good Michigan legislature could save even more lives with similarly focused measures? Michigan’s secretary of State rides a motorcycle, but merely outlawing those would make for an incredible result in ‘transportation death’ count reductions, right? And even helmets were once mandated, but now are not, sooo …

“The life-saving properties of a seat belt are well established yet some motorists continue to risk more than a $65 ticket by not buckling up,” said Michael L. Prince, Michigan Office of Highway Safety Planning (OHSP) director. “To help promote seat belt use, law enforcement officers will conduct dedicated seat belt enforcement in every corner of the state.”

See “helmets” again, and don’t ignore the subtle threat of the “$65 ticket” mention above.

Research shows when seat belts are used properly, the risk of being killed in a crash is reduced by nearly 45 percent. However the state’s seat belt use rate has fallen in recent years from a high of 98 percent in 2009 to 93 percent last year. Every 1 percent increase in belt use results in approximately 10 fewer traffic deaths and 130 fewer injuries.

So which is it?  Primary enforcement increases use, or not?...

Bush Didn't Lie About Iraq Having WMDs

Bush Didn't Lie About Iraq Having WMDs | The Daily Caller

Liberals, please stop it with the Iraq war lies.

There is plenty of criticism that can be leveled against George W. Bush’s decision to invade Iraq in 2003, but he didn’t deliberately mislead the country about Iraq possessing weapons of mass destruction (WMD).

With the new cool question for 2016 Republican contenders being “knowing what we know now, would you have invaded Iraq,” the debate about pre-Iraq war intelligence has once again come to the forefront. 
Predictably, some liberals have used the occasion to again trot out the wholly dishonest spin that the Bush administration concocted evidence and pressured the intelligence community into saying that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction....

My colleague Matt Lewis addressed part of this earlier, pointing out that Democrats dating back to the Clinton administration believed Iraq had stockpiles of WMDs based on the intelligence they saw.

But the evidence against this lie is so much greater than that. 
Debunking this recurring myth in 2013, I wrote:

1.) Read the 2002 National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq’s W.M.D programs. “Baghdad has chemical and biological weapons as well as missiles with ranges in excess of UN restrictions; if left unchecked, it probably will have a nuclear weapon during this decade,” the report reads. The report goes on to say it has “high confidence” that “Iraq possesses proscribed chemical and biological weapons and missiles” and “Iraq could make a nuclear weapon in months to a year once it acquires sufficient weapons-grad fissile material.”

2.) Read Bob Woodard’s account of then-CIA director’s George Tenet’s briefing of the George W. Bush on the eve of the Iraq war. According to the Washington Post journalist, Tenet told Bush that it was a “slam dunk case” that Iraq had W.M.D.s. Tenet later said he was taken out of context, but that doesn’t seem to be the case and, in any event, Tenet doesn’t deny he was fundamentally confident that Iraq possessed W.M.D.s.

3.) General Tommy Franks, who led the invasion of Iraq in 2003, writes in his book that he was not only told by Egyptian and Jordanian leaders that Iraq possessed W.M.D.s, he was also told that Saddam would use them against invading American troops.

4.) Former CIA agent Kenneth Pollock has noted that the world’s most vaunted intelligence agencies, including some of those who opposed the war in Iraq, all believed Saddam Hussein possessed W.M.D.s. These include the intelligence agencies of Germany, Israel, Russia, Britain, China and France.

5.) As President Obama contemplated whether to authorize the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, he was told by CIA Deputy Director Mike Morell that the evidence indicating that Iraq had W.M.D.s before the Iraq war was “much stronger” than the evidence that bin Laden was living in the Abbottabad compound. “And I’m telling you, the case for W.M.D. wasn’t just stronger—it was much stronger,” he told the president.

In fact, Morell recently published a book where he reiterates the aforementioned point and emphatically states that the Bush administration did not pressure the CIA whatsoever to conclude there were WMDs in Iraq.
“The view that hardliners in the Bush administration forced the intelligence community into its position on WMD is just flat wrong,” he writes. 
“No one pushed. The analysts were already there and they had been there for years, long before Bush came to office.”

This is similar to the conclusion of 2005’s bipartisan Robb-Silberman Commission...."

Prepare for the Battle of Baghdad: ISIS hold victory parade after taking key city of Ramadi just 60 miles from capital in an orgy of violence and beheadings

Prepare for the Battle of Baghdad: ISIS hold victory parade after taking key city of Ramadi just 60 miles from capital in an orgy of violence and beheadings | Daily Mail Online
Iraq braced for the Battle of Baghdad: Chilling images show ISIS victory parade after fanatics seize key city of Ramadi - just 60 miles from the capital - in an orgy of violence and beheadings

• WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT 
• ISIS has 'surrounded' Iraqi capital and wants 'all-out war' with militia there
• Battle between terror group and Shia fighters there would be 'utter carnage'
• Islamic State seized strategic city of Ramadi just 60 miles west of Baghdad
• Released sick images showing militants and children celebrating victory
• 3,000 Shi'ite paramilitaries are now preparing to launch counter-offensive 

Court Sides With YouTube on Anti-Muslim Film That Sparked Violence in the Middle East | TheBlaze.com

Court Sides With YouTube on Anti-Muslim Film That Sparked Violence in the Middle East | TheBlaze.com:

"In a victory for free speech advocates, a federal appeals court said this week YouTube should not have been forced to take down an anti-Muslim film that sparked violence in the Middle East and death threats to actors.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued its ruling in favor of Google Monday. The decision comes after free speech advocates urged the court to overturn a 9th Circuit panel’s ruling that ordered YouTube to take down the “Innocence of Muslims,” which originally was posted in 2012."

John Kerry hopes Iran deal can be a 'positive influence' on North Korea

John Kerry hopes Iran deal can be a 'positive influence' on North Korea | US news | The Guardian:
"Secretary of state John Kerry said Saturday he is hopeful that the successful conclusion of a nuclear deal with Iran will send a positive message to North Korea to restart negotiations on its own atomic program.
Speaking at a joint news conference with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Beijing, Kerry said he believed an Iran agreement could have “a positive influence” on North Korea, because it would show that giving up nuclear weapons improves domestic economies and ends isolation. 
He stressed, though, that there was no way to tell if North Korea’s reclusive leadership would be able to “internalize” such a message.
“I am sure Foreign Minister Wang would join me in expressing the hope that if we can get an agreement with Iran ... that agreement would indeed have some impact or have a positive influence” on North Korea, Kerry said.
Although Wang did not appear to respond, Kerry explained an Iran deal could help in showing North Korea how “your economy can do better, your country can do better, and you can enter into good standing with the rest of the global community by recognizing that there is a verifiable, irreversible, denuclearization for weaponization, even as you can have a peaceful nuclear power program”.
“Hopefully that can be a message, but whether or not DPRK is capable of internalizing that kind of message or not, that’s still to be proved,” he said, referring to North Korea by the acronym of its official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
International negotiators are rushing to finalize a nuclear deal with Iran by the end of June under which Iran’s program would be curbed to prevent it from developing atomic weapons in exchange for the lifting of international sanctions that have crippled its economy."

Sounds much like "Global warming/change/whatever"-----Bee Facts Changed – Green Agendas Did Not

Bee Facts Changed – Green Agendas Did Not | Somewhat Reasonable
Activists and White House appear ready to present new justifications for unjustified policies

The White House finally appears ready to announce conclusions and policy recommendations from the Pollinator Task Force it appointed a year ago...

Long before the White House weighed in, anti-insecticide activists promoted claims that honeybees were headed for extinction because of pesticides, specifically neonics – unless the government banned them. 

Time magazine picked up their refrain, devoting a long cover story to the scary prospect of “a world without bees.” 

Other news stories uncritically repeated the end-of-bees assertions. 

One-third of the food we eat could disappear without bees to pollinate crops, they proclaimed. 

But there was a problem.
The narrative turned out to be false, extensive evidence now demonstrates – and inconvenient truths had gotten in the way of another slam-dunk Executive Branch edict.

...U.S. Department of Agriculture annual beekeeper surveys reveal that the number of honey-producing hives in the United States has held steady at about 2.5 million since 1995. 
Indeed, the numbers increased four of the last five years and are actually higher now than when neonics first came on the market in the mid 1990s. 

Most beehive problems now involve less experienced hobby beekeepers.

sounds much like  

Recent large-scale die-offs of domesticated bees appear to be caused primarily by Varroa mites (which feed on bees and can transmit bee viruses and diseases), parasitic phorid flies, Nosema intestinal fungi, and tobacco ringspot viruses. 

Beekeepers have accidentally killed entire hives trying to combat these problems.

...They, the White House and EPA need to check their facts this time. 
U.S. Geological Survey wild bee specialist Sam Droege says scientists still don’t know which species are declining or flourishing, but he believes most are doing fine.  
(There are some 4,000 native species of wild bees in North America.) 
Similarly, a 2013 study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences analyzed U.S. native bee populations over a 140-year period and echoed that assessment. 
Of 187 native species analyzed, only three showed steep declines, and they were likely due to pathogens....

The White House would do well to leave science to experts, rather than activists with an ax to grind. If bee numbers are increasing, it is much harder to justify restricting a pesticide that is needed by farmers – and that would be much better for honeybees, wild bees and other beneficial insects.

As Randy Oliver emphasizes, it is important to let science do its job, figure out and address what is really happening to bees, use all insecticides carefully and responsibly, and not stigmatize neonic seed treatments on ideological or junk science grounds.

Otherwise, bee problems are likely to get worse, while neonic bans cause crop losses and a return to spraying pesticides that really can cause significant environmental problems.

Can't Cut Your Way to Prosperity? Michigan Spending Up $3.9 Billion Since 2011

Can't Cut Your Way to Prosperity? Michigan Spending Up $3.9 Billion Since 2011 [Michigan Capitol Confidential]:
The MLive editorial board has come out against a Republican House proposal that would fix Michigan’s roads without raising taxes. MLive (which also endorsed the May 5 tax increase to which 80 percent of voters gave thumbs down) prefers a solution that includes a tax hike.“Michigan cannot cut its way to prosperity,” declared MLive in their editorial against the House GOP proposal.

ForTheRecord says: From 2010-11 to 2014-15, annual spending by the state of Michigan has increased by $3.9 billion overall. 

State spending during that span has increased by $3.5 billion when federal dollars are excluded. 

Gov. Rick Snyder has increased state spending in each of the budgets he has recommended and signed.

..Overall, including all sources of revenue, the state’s budget has increased from $48.01 billion in 2010-11 to $51.94 billion in 2014-15, an increase of $3.93 billion.

This October The World Will Change: "China Is Preparing For Something Big"

This October The World Will Change: "China Is Preparing For Something Big":
This October may see the beginning of the end for the U.S. dollar as the world’s reserve currency. 
Twice every decade the International Monetary Fund meets to discuss their Special Drawing Rights (SDR) currency basket. 
Currently comprised of the dollar, Japanese Yen, British Pound and Euro, if China has their way a few months from now, we may well see the Chinese Yuan take its place among the world’s most trusted currencies.

...Focus instead on the actions being undertaken by China and you’ll understand why Chinese President Hu Jintao says that the dollar is a product of the past.

Excerpted From Future Money Trends:

Already we are seeing China and Russia hoard gold with Chinese demand skyrocketing in the past give year… China is both, the world’s largest gold producer and biggest importer… so not only are they accumulating gold by the truck load, but not one ounce produced is leaving their shore.

China… across the board… is preparing for something big in currency markets.…

The world has an unease about the dollar system… President Hu of China said ‘the dollar is a product of the past.’

...this is only part of the story.

In addition to their physical gold holdings, the Chinese have been using a secret gold accumulation strategy that no one is talking about :

Supreme Court Makes Major Gun Ruling | TheBlaze.com

Supreme Court Makes Major Gun Ruling | TheBlaze.com:

"A unanimous Supreme Court ruled Monday that the government can’t prevent a convicted felon who is barred from possessing firearms from trying to sell his guns after they are confiscated by authorities."

History for May 19

History for May 19 - On-This-Day.com
Johns Hopkins 1795 - entrepreneur, philanthropist, mosted noted for the creation of Johns Hopkins Hospital, Ho Chi Minh (Nguyen Sinh Cung) 1890 - North Vietnamese Communist revolutionary, prime minister and president, Malcolm X (Malcolm Little) 1925 - African-American Muslim minister, public speaker, and human rights activist 


Francis Scobee (Francis Richard "Dick" Scobee) 1939 - Astronaut, killed commanding the Space Shuttle Challenger, Pete Townsend 1945 - Musician (The Who), David Helfgott 1947 - Concert pianist 


1536 - Anne Boleyn, the second wife of England's King Henry VIII, was beheaded after she was convicted of adultery. 


1847 - The first English-style railroad coach was placed in service on the Fall River Line in Massachusetts. 


1911 - The first American criminal conviction that was based on fingerprint evidence occurred in New York City. 


1926 - Benito Mussolini announced that democracy was deceased. Rome became a fascist state. 


1935 - T.E. Lawrence "Lawrence of Arabia" died from injuries in a motorcycle crash in England. 


1962 - Marilyn Monroe performed a sultry rendition of "Happy Birthday" for U.S. President John F. Kennedy. The event was a fund-raiser at New York's Madison Square Garden. 


1974 - Erno Rubik invented the puzzle what would later become known as the Rubik's Cube. 


1992 - U.S. Vice President Dan Quayle criticized the CBS sitcom "Murphy Brown" for having its title character decide to bear a child out of wedlock. 


1992 - In Massapequa, NY, Mary Jo Buttafuoco was shot and seriously wounded by Amy Fisher. Fisher was her husband Joey's teen-age lover. 


1992 - The 27th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution went into effect. The amendment prohibits Congress from giving itself midterm pay raises. 

‘A Delusional Whack-Job’: Blaze Readers React to Planned Parenthood Boss’ Criticism of 20-Week Abortion Ban | TheBlaze.com

‘A Delusional Whack-Job’: Blaze Readers React to Planned Parenthood Boss’ Criticism of 20-Week Abortion Ban | TheBlaze.com:

"TheBlaze posted a story earlier this week about Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, criticizing lawmakers for passing a 20-week abortion ban.

On the two-year anniversary of the conviction of infamous abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, the U.S. House on Wednesday passed the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, which would ban abortions after nearly five months.

Richards went on a Twitter rant saying the ban lacks “compassion” and “respect” and is “unconstitutional” and will “hurt women.”