History for July 18

History for July 18 - On-This-Day.com
William Makepeace Thackeray 1811, Vidkum Quisling 1887, Richard "Red" Skelton 1913


Nelson Mandela 1918 - President of South Africa, John Glenn 1921 - Astronaut, Hunter S. Thompson 1937


1789 - Robespierre, a deputy from Arras, France, decided to back the French Revolution.



1914 - Six planes of the U.S. Army helped to form an aviation division called the Signal Corps.


1936 - The first Oscar Meyer Wienermobile rolled out of General Body Company’s factory in Chicago, IL.


1936 - The Spanish Civil War began as Gen. Francisco Franco led an uprising of army troops based in Spanish North Africa.


1942 - The German Me-262, the first jet-propelled aircraft to fly in combat, made its first flight.


1947 - U.S. President Truman signed the Presidential Succession Act, which placed the Speaker of the House and the Senate President Pro Tempore next in the line of succession after the vice president.


2001 - A train derailed, involving 60 cars, in a Baltimore train tunnel. The fire that resulted lasted for six days and virtually closed down downtown Baltimore for several days. (Maryland)

Box Office Poison: 'Shock and Awe' Is Director Rob Reiner's 6th Mega-Flop in a Row

Box Office Poison: 'Shock and Awe' Is Director Rob Reiner's 6th Mega-Flop in a Row:

This weekend, Reiner’s Shock and Awe crashed and burned at the box office. For some reason, even though it is 2018, Reiner is still wasting millions of dollars to attack former President George W. Bush. This, even after every single movie attacking Bush bombed.
What’s more, as if to prove just how insulated he is from real America, Shock and Awe tries to make heroes of journalists, a group currently enjoying approval ratings little better than child molesters.

The way we were-----My World Is Empty Without You - The Supremes - fuTuRo re-fResh

Boob-tube-----May 1, 1983 commercials

Prof claims Trump ‘making microaggressions worse’ on campus

Prof claims Trump ‘making microaggressions worse’ on campus

• An associate dean at a Texas university claims that the election of Donald Trump is responsible for an uptick in microaggressions on college campuses.
• According to Nicole Walters, Trump's election has emboldened her white colleagues to inquire if she’s an affirmative action hire, suggest she’s in collusion with other black faculty members, and question her authority.

A professor at the University of St. Thomas in Texas recently blamed the Trump administration for the rise in microaggressions she and her colleagues have allegedly  faced from each other since the 2016 election. 

Nicole Walters published “Trump’s America is Making Microaggressions an Even Greater Reality for Women Faculty of Color” in the recent issue of the peer-reviewed academic journal Women, Gender, and Families of Color.
Walters—who is also a Dean at the Texas institution—cites the alleged rise in microaggressions on her campus as a “marked difference from President Barack Obama’s ethos of inclusivity and his message of hope and unity.”
[RELATED: Prof details ‘barrage of microaggressions’ from white colleagues]
Since the election, Walters claims that many of her white colleagues suddenly feel emboldened to inquire if she’s an affirmative action hire, suggest she’s in collusion with other black faculty members, and question her authority.
“It has been a life-changing experience, to say the least..."
Read all.

BLAME THE MESSENGER: A large, longitudinal, randomized, controlled study recently found that Tenness…

Instapundit � Blog Archive � BLAME THE MESSENGER: A large, longitudinal, randomized, controlled study recently found that Tenness…
"BLAME THE MESSENGER:

A large, longitudinal, randomized, controlled study recently found that Tennessee’s pre-kindergarten program for low-income children had modestly NEGATIVE effects on academic achievement once the children were in the third grade. 
The program participants also had more disciplinary problems than non-participants, most of whom had stayed at home that year rather than participating in some other program. 
This is, of course, disappointing, especially since the study had found positive effects when measured at the end of the pre-kindergarten year. 
But those effects faded over time and turned negative..."
Read all.

States Need Congress to Break Obamacare’s Medicaid Gridlock | The Heritage Foundation

States Need Congress to Break Obamacare’s Medicaid Gridlock | The Heritage Foundation:

Thankfully, there is a better path forward. Conservatives have offered a consensus plan—the Health Care Choice Plan—to provide states and people real choices.
Under this plan, the current funding streams—for subsidies to insurers and for the Medicaid expansion—would be converted to block grants to the states. States would be able to use these funds to develop their own programs to help low-income people without the complicated federal constraints of the Medicaid program.
It would end the funding imbalance between expansion and nonexpansion states and would stop the gaming and manipulation of Obamacare funding that inappropriately shifts costs to federal taxpayers.

Chicago could soon test universal basic income program | Fox News

Chicago could soon test universal basic income program | Fox News
"Chicago may soon become the largest municipality in the U.S. to test a universal basic income program.
Chicago alderman Ameya Pawar recently proposed legislation that would provide 1,000 families with a $500 monthly stipend -- no questions asked. 
The bill already has the backing of the majority of city lawmakers, and Pawar hopes to soon work with Mayor Rahm Emanuel to implement the pilot program, The Intercept reported..."
Read on.

Lunch video-----The American Form Of Government

Noon-toon

Former Clinton WH Staffer: It's 'Tempting' to Beat up Rand Paul | Breitbart

Former Clinton WH Staffer: It's 'Tempting' to Beat up Rand Paul | Breitbart:

A former Clinton White House staffer and veteran presidential campaign staffer tweeted Sunday that “it would be tempting” to beat up Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) if he lived in the senator’s hometown of Bowling Green, Kentucky.
I never advocate violence but if I lived in Bowling Green it would be tempting to beat the crap out of Rand Paul.

Why Baltimore Police Have 'Stopped Noticing Crime' | Trending

Why Baltimore Police Have 'Stopped Noticing Crime' | Trending
"An interesting news story ran in Thursday’s USA Today. “Baltimore police stopped noticing crime after Freddie Gray's death,” read the headline. 
“A wave of killings followed.”
What I found most interesting about it, though, was not the facts that were reported but rather that anyone should have found them surprising. 
“Just before a wave of violence turned Baltimore into the nation’s deadliest big city,” the story begins, “a curious thing happened to its police force: officers suddenly seemed to stop noticing crime.”
The story goes on to describe how Baltimore’s police officers reported seeing fewer drug dealers out and about, fewer traffic violators, fewer people with arrest warrants, fewer of any type of person who previously would have attracted their attention. 
Note that the story does not say there were fewer of these lawbreakers, only that the police did not report seeing as many.
Surely if the officers were being candid, they would say they saw just as many as ever, but that they made the decision not to do anything about them.
And who can blame them?...
Read on.

Immune from consequences?-----US government loses nuclear stocks of plutonium, uranium | Idaho Statesman

US government loses nuclear stocks of plutonium, uranium | Idaho Statesman:
"Two security experts from the Department of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratory drove to San Antonio, Texas, in March 2017 with a sensitive mission: to retrieve dangerous nuclear materials from a nonprofit research lab there.

Their task was to ensure that the radioactive materials did not fall into the wrong hands on the way back to Idaho, where the government maintains a stockpile of nuclear explosive materials for the military and others.
To ensure they got the right items, the specialists from Idaho brought radiation detectors and small samples of dangerous materials to calibrate them: specifically, a plastic-covered disk of plutonium, a material that can be used to fuel nuclear weapons, and another of cesium, a highly radioactive isotope that could potentially be used in a so-called “dirty” radioactive bomb.
But when they stopped at a Marriott hotel just off Highway 410, in a high-crime neighborhood filled with temp agencies and ranch homes, they left those sensors on the back seat of their rented Ford Expedition. 
When they awoke the next morning, the window had been smashed and the special valises holding these sensors and nuclear materials had vanished."

#1 This day 1969-----Zager and Evans - In The Year 2525

America has a nobility problem that lets leaders escape consequences

America has a nobility problem that lets leaders escape consequences:
"Politicians and bureaucrats are America's ruling class and they should start paying a price for failure. Accountability isn't just for little guys.
...After all, nobody’s squiring about the United States, sporting titles like Duke of Pennsylvania or Earl of Internal Revenue.
But now I’m wondering if we don’t have a problem. 
...in practice, America absolutely does have a ruling class, and a permanent political class, and they seem to be increasingly one and the same. 
(As Angelo Codevilla writes:  “Never has there been so little diversity within America’s upper crust.”) 
And like any ruling class, they claim, and possess, privileges and immunities not available to ordinary citizens.
...this privilege extends not only to the titled, but to their retainers, in this case police and other government bureaucrats.
In America, if you misunderstand the law, or simply are ignorant of it, you will nonetheless be liable to go to jail or be sued — if you are an ordinary citizen. 
If you are a government official, you can generally avoid liability in a lawsuit by pleading “qualified immunity,” meaning, in essence, that you misunderstood the law or were ignorant of it, but acted in good faith, a defense that is not available to ordinary citizens...
...And government officials almost never face criminal prosecution for their official acts, and on the rare occasions that they do, they are almost never convicted.

• When the EPA poisoned the Animas River in Colorado, it rejected claims for damages, and nobody from the EPA went to jail.  

A private company under similar circumstances would have faced ruinous losses, and the executives would have risked criminal prosecution. 
Then-EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy skated.
Accountability is for the little people

• When the IRS’s Lois Lerner deliberately targeted conservative groups — something the IRS admitted and apologized for — she retired with her pension and faced no charges. 
• When Chinese hackers stole a vast database of secret military and intelligence personnel information, a blow some experts called a “cyber-Pearl Harbor,” nobody lost their job or went to jail. Accountability, it seems, is for the rest of us, the little people.

As a character in the movie "The Verdict" said, “You guys... you guys are all the same! The doctors at the hospital, you... it's always what I'm going to do for you. And then you screw up, and it's, ‘Ah, we did the best that we could, I'm dreadfully sorry.’ And people like us live with your mistakes the rest of our lives.”
Freedom from consequences:  
It’s the defining consequence of our modern titles of nobility..."
Read all.

You ought to know!

Illegal Immigrant BEHEADS 13-Year-Old Special Needs Girl, Murders Grandmother, Officials Say | Daily Wire

Illegal Immigrant BEHEADS 13-Year-Old Special Needs Girl, Murders Grandmother, Officials Say | Daily Wire:

Alabama law enforcement officials say that an illegal immigrant and an immigrant in the United States on a green card are responsible for the brutal murders of a grandmother and her 13-year-old special needs granddaughter in what investigators say is violence related to Mexican drug cartels.

Basically, they all want more free stuff-----Why the Kids are Socialists | Intellectual Takeout

Why the Kids are Socialists | Intellectual Takeout:
"By now you've most likely seen the polls reporting that roughly half of Millennials have a favorable view of Socialism and you're probably wondering how in the world that is possible.
Didn't America win the Cold War?
Well, yes, we did win the Cold War, but we're losing the culture war.
As I was discussing the rising Socialist leanings of city councils with a reader of Intellectual Takeout, I made the point that what is happening now is the result of what was done over many decades.
Americans didn't just become Socialists all of a sudden; no, the way was prepared for its rising popularity.
Now, not a few conservatives or libertarians will comfort themselves with the knowledge that many Millennials who view Socialism favorably can't actually define it.
Politically, though, that doesn't matter.
What matters is how the typical Millennial perceives Socialism, as that will dictate how he votes at election time.
If I have a favorable view of Socialism, then I'm quite likely to vote for the Socialist -- no matter that I can't define the ideology.
And how is Socialism perceived? 
As a system of governance that is fair, makes sure everyone is materially secure, gives purpose to life, and increases happiness.
Here are five reasons that such a system appeals so well to younger Americans:..."
Read it!

AM Fruitcake

History for July 17

History for July 17 - On-This-Day.com
James Cagney 1899, Art Linkletter 1912, Phyllis Diller 1917 - Comedian


Lucie Arnaz 1951 - Actress, David Hasselhoff 1952 Actor ("Knight Rider," "Baywatch"), singer, Angela Merkel 1954 - German Chancellor


1212 - The Moslems were crushed in the Spanish crusade.


1453 - France defeated England at Castillon, France, which ended the 100 Years' War.


1917 - The British royal family adopted the Windsor name.


1945 - U.S. President Truman, Soviet leader Josef Stalin and British Prime Minister Winston S. Churchill began meeting at Potsdam in the final Allied summit of World War II. During the meeting Stalin made the comment that "Hitler had escaped."


1950 - The television show "The Colgate Comedy Hour" debuted featuring Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis.


1955 - Disneyland opened in Anaheim, CA.


1975 - An Apollo spaceship docked with a Soyuz spacecraft in orbit. It was the first link up between the U.S. and Soviet Union.


1997 - After 117 years, the Woolworth Corp. closed its last 400 stores.