History for December 18

History for December 18 - On-This-Day.com
Ty Cobb 1886 - Baseball player, Keith Richards 1943 - Musician (Rolling Stones), Steven Spielberg 1947 Movie producer-director 


Brad Pitt 1963 Actor, Katie Holmes 1978 - Actress ("Dawson's Creek"), Christina María Aguilera 1980 - Singer 


1865 - U.S. Secretary of State William Seward issued a statement verifying the ratification of the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The amendment abolished slavery with the declaration: "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction." 



1903 - The Panama Canal Zone was acquired 'in perpetuity' by the U.S. for an annual rent. 


1912 - The discovery of the Piltdown Man in East Sussex was announced. It was proved to be a hoax in 1953.
 

1916 - During World War I, after 10 months of fighting the French defeated the Germans in the Battle of Verdun. 


1917 - The Eighteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was passed by the U.S. Senate and then officially proposed the states. 


1940 - Adolf Hitler signed a secret directive ordering preparations for a Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union. Operation "Barbarossa" was launched in June 1941. 


1950 - NATO foreign ministers approved plans to defend Western Europe, including the use of nuclear weapons, if necessary. 


1957 - The Shippingport Atomic Power Station in Pennsylvania went online. It was the first nuclear facility to generate electricity in the United States. It was taken out of service in 1982. 


1998 - The U.S. House of Representatives began the debate on the four articles of impeachment concerning U.S. President Bill Clinton. It was only the second time in U.S. history that process had begun. 

2011 DHS Memo on Vetting of Visa Applicants Leaked — Watch MSNBC Host’s Reaction as Reporter Reads It On-Air | Video | TheBlaze.com

2011 DHS Memo on Vetting of Visa Applicants Leaked — Watch MSNBC Host’s Reaction as Reporter Reads It On-Air | Video | TheBlaze.com:

"The memo reportedly asserted that analyzing visa applicants’ social media accounts could help uncover potential evidence of “fraud, crime” and “national security” threats.

Citing a former senior DHS official, MSNBC’s Ari Melber reported that in addition to the proposal being rejected, officials were unable to even access social media sites due to a “firewall” intended to block employees from accessing them online.

“This very memo…went through layers of review, went up the line, a year of reviews, it would authorize this type of access, it would try to create this program, and it was ultimately not adopted,” Melber said on “Morning Joe” Thursday."


Do you see a trend?
American citizens are scrutinized at every turn but potential enemies entering our country get a free pass.

People Saw This Plane Circling Over Calif. Shooting, Now We Know Alarming Thing It Was Doing

People Saw This Plane Circling Over Calif. Shooting, Now We Know Alarming Thing It Was Doing:

"It’s disconcerting to see that, while the Obama administration is totally unwilling to take reasonable steps to deal with the terrorist threat posed by the Islamic State group — like, say, increased vetting on Syrian refugees — they have no problems using one of the most constitutionally troublesome forms of electronic surveillance there is.

Maybe if the Obama administration had been more vigilant in the first place, we wouldn’t have to be violating people’s rights now."

NEA Grants

NEA Grants:
"A play about food stamps, a performance by a San Francisco drag queen, and the production of Cocked, the tale of two anti-gun lesbians, each made the list of projects backed by the taxpayer-funded National Endowment of the Arts.
The agency announced its first round of grants for fiscal year 2016 last week.
Projects include “sustainable” housing for struggling artists and a mural by an artist who painted portraits for Barack Obama’s presidential campaigns.
Taxpayers were billed $10,000 to support the “world premiere” of Cocked, a play by Sarah Gubbins.
“The play follows the relationship between a Caucasian woman from rural Iowa and her African-American girlfriend, who are staunchly opposed to gun ownership,” the description for the project reads.
“When a family member arrives unexpectedly to stay in their Chicago condominium, their position corrodes as new discoveries surface and the lines between safety and protection are blurred.”
Gubbins’s previous works include I Am Bradley Manning and The Kid Thing, which examined the “effect on two lesbian couples of one couple’s pregnancy” and premiered at the fifth annual “Summer Pride Festival of LGBT performances” in Randolph, Vt.
Part of a $30,000 grant is going to the ODC Theater in San Francisco for a mini-series entitled “Gender in Transition” by the drag queen Monique Jenkinson.
Jenkinson’s alter ego is “Fauxnique,” who was “born out of the scene at Trannyshack.”..."

REVEALED: Obama's Secret Plan to SHUT DOWN Your Cellphone Service... Help Spread the Word

REVEALED: Obama's Secret Plan to SHUT DOWN Your Cellphone Service... Help Spread the Word:

"If and when the proverbial stuff ever hits the fan, Americans will undoubtedly be frantically using their phones to contact loved ones or emergency services.

However, doing so may be impossible, thanks in large part to a secret plan by the Obama administration to cut off all cellphone service in some or all areas, for any or no reason at all, according to WND.

The existence of the plan recently came to light due to the hard work of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, which had filed documents with the Supreme Court asking the court to force the administration to reveal all of the details of the plan."

Klavan and Crowder Argue Trump

Klavan and Crowder Argue Trump » Louder With Crowder:

Crowd-pleasing favorite and general all around genius Andrew Kalvan stopped by for an informative as-always (and entertaining) chat on this week’s Louder with Crowder. 

One of our first ever guests (and kind of a diva) we’re super happy to have this guy back on the show. Check it out, yo.

There are obviously some muppet impressions. How can we NOT have muppet impressions?

Some highlights:

• Trump’s origin story? We talk about it. Spoiler alert: Trump is a result of the Obama Administration.
• We explain Trump’s appeal.
• We talk why Trump is doing what he’s doing.
• We talk the feasibility of banning all Muslims. You’re welcome.
• The taxing nature of podcasting. Yes, Klavan admitted I work for a living.
• How Andrew Breitbart himself warned against the dangers of a Trump candidacy
• Some Trumpish conspiracy theories? Hmmm. We discuss.

Get this week’s podcast!

‘Masterful News Dump’: Paul Ryan Makes Major Announcement During Republican Debate | TheBlaze.com

‘Masterful News Dump’: Paul Ryan Makes Major Announcement During Republican Debate | TheBlaze.com:

"WASHINGTON (TheBlaze/AP) — Congressional leaders and the White House have reached agreement on a massive year-end tax and spending package, House Speaker Paul Ryan told GOP lawmakers late Tuesday, urging support for the legislation that delivers GOP wins but also includes many Democratic priorities.

The announcement, made during the Las Vegas Republican debate, was immediately deemed by many online to be a “news dump.”

BREAKING: House Committee Busts Bergdhal Case Wide Open... Exposes SICK Obama Deception

BREAKING: House Committee Busts Bergdhal Case Wide Open... Exposes SICK Obama Deception:

"Following a year-long investigation, the House Armed Services Committee confirmed what the Government Accountability Office had already determined and most of the American people already knew — the swap of five Taliban leaders in exchange for the return of captured Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl was against the law.

According to The Hill, the House report makes clear that the Obama administration willfully violated a law that required at least 30 days notification to Congress before any detainees were transferred out of the Guantanamo Bay detention facility.

The administration gave Congress only a few hours heads up before conducting the swap."

And you wonder why Trump is popular?

Some minimum wage updates

Some minimum wage updates - AEI | Carpe Diem Blog » AEIdeas:
"Here are four new items on the minimum wage law government mandated price floor that guarantee reduced employment opportunities for low skilled and limited-experience workers, especially minorities.
1. Last year Larry Reed wrote an article titled
“How the Minimum Wage Folks Think [Badly], And What Economists Think of That,” here’s an excerpt:
 If you’re a lay person and are wondering how a good economist sees the way the minimum wage advocate thinks, the following will explain the matter.
The good economists can’t help but conclude that minimum wage believers are guilty of one or more of the following errors:
1. They believe in political law (edicts, orders, and mandates) but not economic law (supply and demand and the market-clearing function of prices and wages);
2. They think that every job and every person is automatically worth at least as much as Congress decrees to be the minimum;
3.  They believe that even if a person or a job is really worth less than the minimum, employers will still hire them and happily eat the loss;
4. They often have no clue that they’re unwitting accomplices of organized labor, which favors a minimum wage hike as a way to disadvantage its lower-cost or less-skilled or non-union competition;
5. They usually oppose raising the minimum to $100/hour but can’t figure out why the reasoning that leads them to that conclusion applies to any other increase too;
6. They never tell you that European OECD countries that don’t have a minimum wage have an average unemployment rate about half the average jobless rate of European OECD countries that do (see table above for OECD data in 2014)."

Mizzou admits HALF its tenured faculty got permission to shirk their teaching duties

Mizzou admits HALF its tenured faculty got permission to shirk their teaching duties - The College Fix
Not only are University of Missouri students spending their time protesting rather than going to class – their pricey professors at the flagship Columbia campus aren’t showing up either.
Mizzou admitted to the state’s lead budget writer, Republican state senator Kurt Schaefer, that half its tenured and tenure-track faculty subject to its minimum-teaching requirement got waivers in the past two academic years. (Perhaps because they have a slave-labor replacement ready to go at a moment’s notice?)
When including “specialty disciplines such as music and medicine” whose faculty are exempt from the workload policy, that number is still more than a third, the Columbia Daily Tribune reports.
Professors are supposed to teach “the equivalent of 15 students in two, three-credit-hour courses per semester” unless their dean or provost grants them waivers, which are mostly given to make time for “research, administrative duties and supervision of doctoral students...”

Attacking the Truth: Part II

Attacking the Truth: Part II - Thomas Sowell - Page full:
"The case currently before the U.S. Supreme Court, involving racial double standards in admissions to the University of Texas at Austin, has an Alice-in-Wonderland quality that has been all too common in other Supreme Court cases involving affirmative action in academia, going all the way back to 1978.
Plain hard facts dissolve into rhetorical mysticism in these cases, where evasions of reality have been the norm.
One inconvenient reality is that racial double standards by government institutions are contrary to the "equal protection of the laws" prescribed by the 14th Amendment to the constitution.
Therefore racial double standards must be called something else -- whether "holistic" admissions criteria or a quest for the many magical benefits of "diversity" that are endlessly asserted but never demonstrated.
Such mental gymnastics are not peculiar to the Supreme Court of the United States.
I encountered the same evasive language in other countries with group preference programs, during the years when I was doing research for my book "Affirmative Action Around the World."
This was one of the sadder examples of the brotherhood of man.
When the courts in India tried to rein in some of the more extreme group quota policies in academia, that only inspired more ingenuity by university officials, who came up with more subjective admissions criteria.
At one medical school in India's state of Tamil Nadu, those criteria included extracurricular activities, "aptitude" and "general abilities" -- as determined by interviews that lasted approximately three minutes per applicant.
The ratings on these vague, wholly subjective criteria could then be used to offset some students' academic deficiencies, and thus preserve group quotas de facto.
Another common feature of group preference policies in various countries in different parts of the world is the illusion that these preferences can be confined to some transitional time period, after which the preferences will fade away..."

DEVELOPING: Obama Set to Sign Deal Allowing Foreign Takeover of America's Land and Resources

DEVELOPING: Obama Set to Sign Deal Allowing Foreign Takeover of America's Land and Resources:

"Once shrouded in secrecy, President Barack Obama’s Trans-Pacific Partnership is now becoming public, and what we’re discovering is absolutely frightening.

Apparently the deal reverses policies in place to protect national security.

Chapter 11 of the deal allows foreign investors the rights to acquire American land, businesses, ports, natural resources, infrastructure and other property."


... And there are more chapters!  

Students practice calligraphy by writing ‘There is no god but Allah’

Students practice calligraphy by writing ‘There is no god but Allah’ | EAGnews.org
GREENVILLE, Va. – "As a part of a world geography class, Virginia high schoolers practiced writing out the shahada, or Muslim statement of faith–and it was done under the guise of learning the complexity of the script.
Courtesy: The Shilling Show
The Shilling Show reports:
Parents of students at Greenville, Virginia’s Riverheads High School were shocked by a recent assignment given in World Geography class.
Classroom teacher, Cheri Laporte, asked students to practice “calligraphy” by copying the Muslim statement of faith, also known as the shahada, which translates as:
“There is no god but Allah, and Muhammad is the messenger of Allah.”
Recitation of the shahada is a fundamental step in conversion to Islam.
According to parents, students were not informed of the translation or of the specific meaning of the Arabic text the students were being asked to copy.
In addition, parents confirm that female students were invited to don Muslim apparel and subsequently were photographed in costume by the teacher.
According to Rob Shilling, an administrator has subsequently deleted the photos..."

History for December 17

History for December 17 - On-This-Day.com
John Greenleaf Whittier 1807, Arthur Fiedler 1896, William Safire 1929 


Ernie Hudson 1945 - Actor, Eugene Levy 1946, Giovanni Ribisi 1974 - Actor


1791 - A traffic regulation in New York City established the first street to go "One Way." 


1895 - George L. Brownell received a patent for his paper-twine machine. 


1903 - The first successful gasoline-powered airplane flight took place near Kitty Hawk, NC. Orville and Wilbur Wright made the flight. 


1939 - The German pocket battleship Graf Spee was scuttled by its crew, bringing the World War II Battle of the Rio de la Plata off Uruguay to an end. 


1959 - The film "On the Beach" premiered in New York City and in 17 other cities. It was the first motion picture to debut simultaneously in major cities around the world. 


1969 - Television history was made when Tiny Tim and Miss Vicki Budinger were married on "The Tonight Show" with Johnny Carson. 


1975 - Lynette Fromme was sentenced to life in prison for her attempt on the life of U.S. President Ford. 


2004 - U.S. President George W. Bush signed into law the largest overhaul of U.S. intelligence gathering in 50 years. The bill aimed to tighten borders and aviation security. It also created a federal counterterrorism center and a new intelligence director.

LIBERTY REVIEW

LIBERTY REVIEW:

http://www.libertyreview76.blogspot.com/2015/12/enter-enemy-by-tammy-derouin-despite.html

Enter The Enemy

By Tammy Derouin

Despite the endless attempts to destroy the American spirit and the homeland for that matter, I believe there is still something very special about being an American.  Most people still have an understanding of the value of our exceptionalism.  But, as a nation, we have lost our way.  Our compass has been badly damaged and we struggle to find the right path.

We were once an exceptional people who lived in an exceptional land.  We defended our way of life because we knew our history.  Sadly, we began to take our exceptionalism for granted.  Enter the enemy.

There was a time when we cherished our history and heritage so much that we educated our posterity on the meaning of being an American. We even celebrated our exceptionalism by proudly displaying the symbols and colors of our United States.  We defended our rights and freedoms and fought those who tried to harm us.

How did we allow ourselves to be convinced, by our enemies, that our symbols of freedom are offensive?  Why do we care what they think....

Lettuce 'three times worse' for environment than bacon, new study says

Lettuce 'three times worse' for environment than bacon, new study says - SFGate:
"Meat-lovers, prepare to shove this in the face of all your vegetarian friends.
According to a new study from Carnegie Mellon, a vegetarian diet could be worse for the environment than a carnivorous one. 
Only pork chops can save the ozone now!
Fruits, vegetables, dairy and seafood have a more negative impact on the climate than meat, claims the study.
The meat-less diet increases energy use by 38 percent, water use by 10 percent and greenhouse gas emissions by six percent. 
"Eating lettuce is over three times worse in greenhouse gas emissions than eating bacon," Paul Fischbeck, professor of social and decisions sciences and engineering and public policy, told Carnegie Mellon.
"Lots of common vegetables require more resources per calorie than you would think.
Eggplant, celery and cucumbers look particularly bad when compared to pork or chicken."
The study set out to discover if the obesity epidemic in America is adversely affecting the environment.
While it's true that losing weight and eating fewer calories reduces energy use, the USDA's recommendations for healthy eating (lighter on the meat, heavier on fruit and veg) isn't necessarily the best thing for climate change."

Few remain in City of Muskegon-----See Muskegon County's top 15 property taxpayers for 2015

See Muskegon County's top 15 property taxpayers for 2015 | MLive.com

‘Is Islam Compatible With American Values?’: Watch CNN Anchor’s Reaction, Response to Famous Pastor’s Answer | Video | TheBlaze.com

‘Is Islam Compatible With American Values?’: Watch CNN Anchor’s Reaction, Response to Famous Pastor’s Answer | Video | TheBlaze.com:

"Rev. Franklin Graham calmly and bluntly stated his opinion that Islam is not “compatible” with American values during a CNN interview on Tuesday. In response, CNN anchor Carol Costello took a swipe at her own religion of Catholicism."