MuskegonPundit

Sunday, January 08, 2017

History for January 8

History for January 8 - On-This-Day.com:
James Longstreet 1821 - U.S. Civil War general, Soupy Sales (Milton Hines) 1926 - Comedian (Host: The Soupy Sales Show), Elvis Presley 1935 - Musician, known as "the King of rock 'n' roll"

Yvette Mimieux 1941 - Actress ("The Time Machine", "The Most Deadly Game"), Stephen Hawking 1942 - Theoretical physicist, writer ("A Brief History of Time"), David Bowie (David Robert Jones) 1947 Singer, movies ("The Man Who Fell to Earth", "Labyrinth", "Basquiat"), Broadway ("The Elephant Man")

1642 - Astronomer Galileo Galilei died in Arcetri, Italy.

1815 - The Battle of New Orleans began. The War of 1812 had officially ended on December 24, 1814, with the signing of the Treaty of Ghent. The news of the signing had not reached British troops in time to prevent their attack on New Orleans.

1889 - The tabulating machine was patented by Dr. Herman Hollerith. His firm, Tabulating Machine Company, later became International Business Machines Corporation (IBM).

1918 - U.S. President Woodrow Wilson announced his Fourteen Points as the basis for peace upon the end of World War I.

1958 - Bobby Fisher, at the age of 14, won the United States Chess Championship for the first time.

1964 - U.S. President Lyndon Johnson declared a "War on Poverty."

1994 - Tonya Harding won the ladies' U.S. Figure Skating Championship in Detroit, MI, a day after Nancy Kerrigan dropped out because of a clubbing attack that injured her right knee. The U.S. Figure Skating Association later took the title from Harding because of her involvement in the attack.

1998 - Ramzi Yousef was sentenced to life in prison for his role of mastermind behind the World Trade Center bombing in New York.

Saturday, January 07, 2017

Obama responds to Chicago torture video by saying race relations are not worsening – TheBlaze

Obama responds to Chicago torture video by saying race relations are not worsening – TheBlaze:

"Many may disagree with Obama, as groups such as Black Lives Matter have gained traction throughout the country, which has a bad reputation for elevating people such as Malik Shabazz, who is known to advocate for race wars in America. It’s been reported that members also teach their students that white people are inherently evil, "

Anti-Trumpers Hyperventilate Over Nothingburger Story About U.S. Ambassadors Leaving After Inauguration Day

Anti-Trumpers Hyperventilate Over Nothingburger Story About U.S. Ambassadors Leaving After Inauguration Day - Hit & Run : Reason.com:

"...The New York Times needs to breathe into a paper bag.
Last night, The Paper of Record dropped this bit of alarmism into the anti-Trump slipstream.
Here's how Times columnist Charles M. Blow shared the news on Twitter:

When you pick through the article's alarmist adjectives to get down to the underlying facts, you're left with this nut:
Politically appointed American ambassadors (i.e., those selected by the president from outside the Foreign Service, usually from a pool that coincidentally overlaps with his biggest donors and bundlers), by tradition, end their terms on Inauguration Day.
Usually the president grants waivers to extend the terms of those who need a little extra time for stuff like not disrupting kids' school years.
This time around, the incoming Trump administration has told the political ambassadors that there will be no waivers.
Among the phrases and quotes used to characterize this move: "quite extraordinary," "exacerbates jitters among allies," "spite and payback," "guillotine," and so on.
Among the relevant notions the article leaves out: How many ambassadors are "political" (usually about one-third), and how many of them will be impacted by this change. For the latter, let's go to Associated Press diplomatic correspondent Matt Lee:

I suppose "Trump inconveniences 10 families" isn't a particularly sexy story, so we're left with heavy breathing like this:

"The directive has…upended the personal lives of many ambassadors, who are scrambling to secure living arrangements and acquire visas allowing them to remain in their countries so their children can remain in school."
In other words, a handful of very rich people find themselves having to navigate the same disruptions that multiple military families face every damned day.
(Also, re: "scrambling to…acquire visas," each of the four postings referenced in the article—Costa Rica, the Czech Republic, Belgium, and Switzerland—allow U.S. citizens to visit without a visa for up to 90 days, which means that those dreaded disrupted school years can likely be stitched together via a single trip outside the country on, say, Easter.)
Part of the attempt at controversy here involves an unrealistic notion of what a U.S. ambassador actually does."

How the collapse of the USSR felt from the inside

How the collapse of the USSR felt from the inside:
USA-USSR self-destruction

A reflection by a witness 25 years later

By Oleg Atbashian | First published in FrontPage Mag 12/30/2016

25 years ago George Bush Sr. was still in office, and so was Saddam Hussein. The European Union didn't exist and neither did China's economic powerhouse. The Berlin wall had just come down and Germany had finally reunited. Hillary Clinton was a little-known mouthy First Lady of Arkansas and the media gleefully predicted that Donald Trump would never climb back to the top after his Atlantic City fiasco.

On the other side of the Iron Curtain, the Eastern bloc was in shambles, but the USSR was still standing with Mikhail Gorbachev at the helm. Vladimir Putin dabbled in minor corruption working for the Mayor of Saint Petersburg, which had just been renamed from Leningrad. The KGB meddled in other countries' affairs as usual, spreading "fake news" and helping leftist politicians to win elections with no objections from the Western mainstream media.

Then, all of a sudden, the USSR disappeared from the map. How did that happen? Political scientists have and will continue to write, with varying degree of accuracy, about the details of it. What I'm attempting to do here is describe how it looked and felt from the inside - as seen by me, who at the time happened to be a voiceless, powerless Soviet citizen trying to make sense of the universe..."

Read on!

The Washington Post Needs To Come Clean About Its Russian Hacking Story Fiasco

The Washington Post Needs To Come Clean About Its Russian Hacking Story Fiasco | Stock News & Stock Market Analysis - IBD:
"When a company fails at its basic mission in a way that harms the public, and then tries to mislead the public about it, newspaper reporters can be counted on to immediately swoop in and demand that the company be held to account.
So what happens when the company in question is a major, highly influential newspaper?
Let's see.
On Friday, the Washington Post published an earth-shattering report that Russian hackers had infiltrated the U.S. electricity grid through a Vermont utility.
...This was huge news, and for good reason.

If Russian hackers, or any hackers for that matter, had found their way into the U.S. electricity grid, there would be almost no end to the harm they could cause.
Not surprisingly, the Post story spread like wildfire.
But it turns out that none of it was true.
Zip.
Zero.
Nada.
There was no code, the grid was never at risk, and the "threat," such as it was, had nothing to do with Russia.
In fact, hours after the story posted, it was updated to note that the utility in question said there was only one computer involved — not "computers" — which wasn't in any way connected to the power grid.
Strike one.
Three days later, the story fell apart completely.
What actually happened: "An employee at Burlington Electric Department was checking his Yahoo email account Friday and triggered an alert indicating that his computer had connected to a suspicious IP address," the Post reported on Monday..."
Read on!

Schumer: Democrats Only Will Work With Trump If "He Moves Completely In Our Direction And Abandons Republicans" | Video | RealClearPolitics

Schumer: Democrats Only Will Work With Trump If "He Moves Completely In Our Direction And Abandons Republicans" | Video | RealClearPolitics:

"In an interview with CNN's Dana Bash, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Democrats will only work with Trump if he abandons his Republican colleagues.

"The only way we're going to work with him is if he moves completely in our direction and abandons his Republican colleagues," he said. "Ninety, 95 percent of the time, we'll be holding his feet to the fire and holding him accountable."

"But we're Democrats, we're not going to just oppose things to oppose them," Schumer added.

Transcript, via CNN:"

Matt Walsh: This was not merely a hate crime — it was much worse

Matt Walsh: This was not merely a hate crime — it was much worse – TheBlaze
"This kind of thing isn’t even unique.
The white man kidnapped and savagely tortured by a group of racist thugs wasn’t the first to fall victim to a hate crime of this sort in Chicago recently.
It was only a few weeks ago that a white Trump supporter was dragged from his truck by a group of black teens and ruthlessly beaten in the middle of the street while a crowd of onlookers egged them on.
A pattern is emerging. And it’s getting worse.

Edited version from Fox32 in Chicago below. Some may consider this graphic.

The latest incident stands out because of its brazen cruelty.
The victim — a white, mentally disabled teenager — was bound, gagged, and brutalized, all for the amusement of his captors.
They hurled abuse at him, screaming “f*ck white people” and “f*ck Donald Trump.”
They forced him to drink water out of a toilet.
They dragged him around by his neck.
They cut off pieces of his scalp.
And this is just what we saw in the 30 minute video, which one of the assailants broadcast live on Facebook.
Police think the victim, who was found wandering the streets dazed and in shock on Tuesday evening, was held captive for at least 24 hours.
One can only imagine what other indignities he suffered at the hands of these psychopaths.

A lot can and will be said about this incident (by conservatives, mainly), but I’d like to offer a couple of thoughts on the “hate crime” angle of this story.

The Chicago police chief has already said that hate crime charges are not guaranteed..."

University librarians wear 'preferred gender pronoun' pins to make students feel safe

University librarians wear 'preferred gender pronoun' pins to make students feel safe - The College Fix:

‘Misgendering’ someone can ‘invalidate’ their identity
The University of Kansas Libraries are all about social justice.
Their home page prominently displays an icon for “Social Justice Resources,” a page created in cooperation with the Office of Multicultural Affairs.

Students can learn about “privilege,” intersectionality and “The Unequal Opportunity Race” from the page.
They hosted a “Standing Rock Teach-In” on the Dakota Access Pipeline protests against the construction of an oil pipeline near the Standing Rock Indian Reservation.
Now the libraries’ own employees can show their commitment to diversity on the job by wearing “preferred gender pronoun” pins.
Created as part of the libraries’ “You Belong Here” marketing campaign, the pins are also being made available to students who request them.
They come in three types: “She/Her/Hers,” “He/Him/His” and “They/Them/Theirs,” for students who are transgender or non-binary, Lawrence Journal-World reported last week.
The pin campaign reminds library patrons that “gender is, itself, fluid and up to the individual,” according to a posted sign at the libraries.
It is threatening to assume that a person who looks male or female wants to be greeted as such, according to the sign.
“Each person has the right to identify their own pronouns, and we encourage you to ask before assuming someone’s gender.

Pronouns matter!

Misgendering someone can have lasting consequences, and using the incorrect pronoun can be hurtful, disrespectful, and invalidate someone’s identity.”

Lunch video-----Liberal Sweden clashing with religious refugees

Noon-toon

House Passes Legislation to Undo Last Minute Obama Regulations - Leah Barkoukis

House Passes Legislation to Undo Last Minute Obama Regulations - Leah Barkoukis:

"The Obama administration rammed through $44 billion worth of regulations since Donald Trump was elected in November—but this legislation would put an end to ‘midnight rules,’ or those rolled out in the last 60 legislative days of an outgoing administration.

"Because outgoing administrations are no longer accountable to the voters, they are much more prone to issue midnight regulations that fly in the face of the electoral mandate the voters just gave the new, incoming administration," said House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte ahead of the vote. ""

CNN Panelist Blames Trump For Racist Torture of Mentally Disabled Man

CNN Panelist Blames Trump For Racist Torture of Mentally Disabled Man » Alex Jones' Infowars: There's a war on for your mind!:
"According to CNN panelist Symone Sanders, the vicious attack on a mentally disabled man in Chicago during which his attackers yelled “fuck Donald Trump” and “fuck white people,” can be blamed on one man; Donald Trump.
...However, according to CNN contributor Symone Sanders, the main culprit behind the attacks is Donald Trump.
“I just want to remind folks that we cannot sit here and ignore that, at least for the last year, on very public display, the worst parts of America have been brought from the fringe into the mainstream,” Sanders told CNN’s Don Lemon.
“So, that affects people on both sides.”
“We’ve talked about white nationalists and white supremacists and the KKK, but there also, when this inflammatory rhetoric is out there, when someone is repeatedly telling you that your community is the worst of the worst, it brings out the worst of the worst in people,” she added.
When Lemon said that the attackers probably “never watch the news,” Sanders responded, “Ya’ll have to give young people more credit than that [sic] is,” she said. “Everybody knows who Donald Trump is.”
Sanders also asserted that the attack wasn’t a hate crime, commenting, “Was this for hate for Donald Trump, because of the things he said? Or, was this for pure hate of white people, because that matters.”
“That is not a hate crime,” she added . “Hate crimes are because of a person’s racial ethnicity, their religion, their gender, a disability, it isn’t your political leanings, because someone doesn’t like you’re political leanings and they do something bad to you, that is not a hate crime.”
“I’m sure if a group of white Trump supporters live streamed themselves tying up and torturing a black man while demanding he say “Fuck black people” and “Fuck Obama” she’d be just as understanding,” comments Chris Menahan.
Sanders previously responded to the black mob beating of a white man in Chicago because the mob thought he had voted for Trump with the refrain, “Oh my goodness, poor white people!”
She also previously caused controversy by saying, “we don’t need white people leading the Democratic party.”
Meanwhile, Chicago police have refused to label the incident a hate crime, with Chicago Police Department Commander Kevin Duffin telling reporters, “Kids make stupid decisions — I shouldn’t call them kids, they’re legally adults. But they’re young adults and they make stupid decisions...”

Why Rural America Voted for Trump

Why Rural America Voted for Trump - The New York Times:
"Knoxville, Iowa — One recent morning, I sat near two young men at a coffee shop here whom I’ve known since they were little boys.
Now about 18, they pushed away from the table, and one said: “Let’s go to work. Let the liberals sleep in.”
The other nodded.
They’re hard workers.
As a kid, one washed dishes, took orders and swept the floor at a restaurant.

Every summer, the other picked sweet corn by hand at dawn for a farm stand and for grocery stores, and then went to work all day on his parents’ farm.
Now one is a welder, and the other is in his first year at a state university on an academic scholarship. They are conservative, believe in hard work, family, the military and cops, and they know that abortion and socialism are evil, that Jesus Christ is our savior, and that Donald J. Trump will be good for America.
They are part of a growing movement in rural America that immerses many young people in a culture — not just conservative news outlets but also home and church environments — that emphasizes contemporary conservative values.
It views liberals as loathsome, misinformed and weak, even dangerous.
Who are these rural, red-county people who brought Mr. Trump into power...?"
Read on!

American hero!-----Arapahoe Basin skier hanging unconscious from chairlift rescued Wednesday morning

Arapahoe Basin skier hanging unconscious from chairlift rescued Wednesday morning | SummitDaily.com:
"A skier was hurried to a Lakewood hospital Wednesday following a daring rescue from a chairlift at Arapahoe Basin Ski Area earlier that morning.

The skier’s backpack got caught and he was left hanging and unconscious by his neck.
A-Basin confirmed Thursday that the man was attempting to unload from the three-person Lenawee Mountain Lift at approximately 11 a.m. on Jan. 4 when a strap he was wearing became entangled in the chair.
Realizing what had happened, the operator shut down the lift, but by then the skier had already swung around and was suspended by what eyewitnesses estimated as 10-to-15 feet off the ground.
That’s when Mickey Wilson, another ski area guest who had been one chair behind, sprung into action.
The part-time, but off-duty, A-Basin ski instructor told The Denver Post that after a failed attempt by himself and other bystanders to reach the dangling man via a human pyramid, he decided to scramble up the nearby tower to try to reach him.
...“I kind of stopped thinking and just started acting,” the 28-year-old Golden resident told the Post. “The only way I was able to get to him so fast was to climb the tower and shimmy down the line.”
In jarring photos and a video posted online, Wilson — a champion competitive slackliner — can be seen sliding about 30 feet down the lift cable to reach the chair where the skier dangled lifeless.
Once there, he first attempted to kick the strap clear of the chair before one of six ski patrollers who arrived on scene lobbed Wilson a knife to successfully free the man.
Patrollers immediately surrounded the man, and, according to an A-Basin statement, a paramedic gave emergency care at the scene.
The skier was then taken by toboggan to the base area, loaded into an ambulance just before noon, and rushed him to St. Anthony Summit Medical Center in Frisco.
He was then transferred to St. Anthony Hospital in Lakewood. A St. Anthony spokeswoman confirmed the man was treated overnight and discharged Thursday afternoon..."

Oversight Chairman Reissues Fast and Furious Subpoena to Loretta Lynch - Katie Pavlich

Oversight Chairman Reissues Fast and Furious Subpoena to Loretta Lynch - Katie Pavlich:

"Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz has reissued a subpoena to Attorney General Loretta Lynch regarding the Obama Justice Department's deadly Fast and Furious scandal. "

CALIFORNIA FUNDS 1ST US INMATE SEX REASSIGNMENT

News from The Associated Press:
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) -- A 57-year-old convicted killer serving a life sentence in California became the first U.S. inmate to receive state-funded sex-reassignment surgery, the prisoner's attorneys confirmed Friday to The Associated Press.
California prison officials agreed in August 2015 to pay for the surgery for Shiloh Heavenly Quine, who was convicted of first-degree murder, kidnapping and robbery for ransom and has no possibility of parole.

Quine's case led the state to become the first to set standards that will allow other transgender inmates to apply to receive state-funded sex-reassignment surgery
.
It also prompted a federal magistrate to require California to provide transgender female inmates housed in men's facilities with more female-oriented items such as nightgowns, scarves and necklaces.
"For too long, institutions have ignored doctors and casually dismissed medically necessary and life-saving care for transgender people just because of who we are," said Kris Hayashi, executive director of the Transgender Law Center, which represents Quine and other transgender inmates..."

AM Fruitcake

History for January 7

History for January 7 - On-This-Day.com:
Millard S. Fillmore 1800 - 13th President of the United States, William Blatty 1928, Paul Revere (Paul Revere and The Raiders) 1938, Kenny Loggins 1948 - Singer

Rand Paul 1963 - Politician, Nicholas Cage 1964 - Actor ("National Treasure" movies, "The Rock"), Rhianna (Robin Hannah Louise Kenny) 1983 - Singer

1610 - Galileo Galilei sighted four of Jupiter's moons. He named them Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto.

1904 - The distress signal "CQD" was established. Two years later "SOS" became the radio distress signal because it was quicker to send by wireless radio.

1942 - The World War II siege of Bataan began.

1953 - U.S. President Harry Truman announced the development of the hydrogen bomb.

1975 - OPEC agreed to raise crude oil prices by 10%, which began a time of world economic inflation.

1996 - One of the biggest blizzards in U.S. history hit the eastern states. More than 100 deaths were later blamed on the severe weather.

1998 - Former White House intern Monica Lewinsky signed an affidavit denying that she had an affair with U.S. President Clinton.

Friday, January 06, 2017

“It is over.” Biden stops cold House Democrat attempts to keep Trump from office – TheBlaze

“It is over.” Biden stops cold House Democrat attempts to keep Trump from office – TheBlaze:

"We’ve now seen the end of the struggle to keep President-elect Donald Trump from attaining office, and it ended to the sound of laughter.

House Democrats Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas), and Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.) stood multiple times in an attempt to challenge the certification of the Electoral College vote, only to have Vice President Joe Biden put an end to it.

The moment will live in infamy"

CNN's Don Lemon on Chicago Torture Video: 'I Don't Think It Was Evil' - Breitbart

CNN's Don Lemon on Chicago Torture Video: 'I Don't Think It Was Evil' - Breitbart:

"“I don’t think it’s evil,” Lemon replied. “I don’t think it’s evil. I think these are young people and I think they have bad home training. I say, who is raising these young people? I have no idea who’s raising these young people. Because no one I know on Earth who is 17 years old or 70 years old would ever think of treating another person like that. "