History for December 12

History for December 12 - On-This-Day.com:
Gustave Flaubert 1821, Edvard Munch 1863 - Norwegian artist, Edward G. Robinson 1893 


Frank Sinatra 1915, Bob Barker 1923, Ed Koch 1924 


Connie Francis 1938, Dionne Warwick 1940, Cathy Rigby 1952 


1792 - In Vienna, 22-year-old Ludwig van Beethoven received one of his first lessons in music composition from Franz Joseph Haydn. 


1800 - Washington, DC, was established as the capital of the United States. 


1870 - Republican, Joseph H. Rainey of South Carolina became the first black lawmaker to be sworn into the U.S. House of Representatives. 


1901 - The first radio signal to cross the Atlantic was picked up near St. John's Newfoundland, by inventor Guglielmo Marconi. 


1917 - Father Edward Flanagan opened Boys Town in Nebraska. The farm village was for wayward boys. In 1979 it was opened to girls. 


1925 - The "Motel Inn," the first motel in the world, opened in San Luis Obispo, CA. 


1975 - Sara Jane Moore pled guilty to a charge of trying to kill U.S. President Ford in San Francisco the previous September. 


1982 - 20,000 women encircled Greenham Common air base in Britain in protest against proposed cite of U.S. Cruise missiles there. 


1989 - Leona Helmsley was fined $7 million and sentenced to four years in prison for tax evasion. 


1998 - The House Judiciary Committee rejected censure, and approved the final article of impeachment against U.S. President Clinton. The case was submitted to the full House for a verdict. 


2000 - The U.S. Supreme Court found that the recount ordered by the Florida Supreme Court in the 2000 U.S. Presidential election was unconstitutional. U.S. Vice President Al Gore conceded the election to Texas Gov. George W. Bush the next day. 


2001 - In Beverly Hills, CA, actress Winona Ryder was arrested at Saks Fifth Avenue for shoplifting and possessing pharmaceutical drugs without a prescription. The numerous items of clothing and hair accessories were valued at $4,760. 


2002 - North Korea announced that it would reactivate a nuclear power plant that U.S. officials believed was being used to develop weapons.

Berlin Becomes the First Place in the World to Offer This Holiday to Atheist Students | TheBlaze.com

Berlin Becomes the First Place in the World to Offer This Holiday to Atheist Students | TheBlaze.com:

"Atheist students in Berlin have just been awarded their very own holiday, complete with a day off from school just like their Jewish, Christian and Muslim counterparts who are permitted to exit the classroom to commemorate religious celebrations."

10 Failed TV Shows That No One Should Have Approved

10 Failed TV Shows That No One Should Have Approved - Listverse:

"Heil, Honey I’m Home! isn’t like the others on this list in any way, shape, or form.
It’s not a reality show, it’s not a news show, and it lacks any semblance of historical accuracy.
The bizarre sitcom follows the misadventures of the Hitlers. 
Adolf and Eva Braun have moved to the suburbs of Berlin and are quite happy there.
That is, until they meet their new neighbors, the Jewish Goldensteins. 
Hilarity theoretically ensues."

Obama Keeps Citing the Bible to Tout Immigration Reform — but Do You Remember What He Said About Doing Just That in 2006? | TheBlaze.com

Obama Keeps Citing the Bible to Tout Immigration Reform — but Do You Remember What He Said About Doing Just That in 2006? | TheBlaze.com:

"President Barack Obama has once again invoked the Bible to defend his executive action on immigration. While TheBlaze already highlighted some of the potential problems with his latest claim that the holy book “says don’t throw stones in glass houses,” there’s something else worth noting.

Obama’s recent use of the story about Mary and Joseph being turned away from the inn and believers being commanded not to mistreat foreigners — a concept in Deuteronomy 10:19 — to tout immigration reform appear to depart from thoughts he outlined in a faith-themed speech delivered eight years ago."

Obamacare Offers a $3,000 Incentive to Hire Amnestied Illegals Over Native-Born Americans

Report: Obamacare Offers a $3,000 Incentive to Hire Amnestied Illegals Over Native-Born Americans:
Nearly five million illegal immigrants will be eligible for legal status and work permits under President Obama’s amnesty. They are not, however, currently eligible for Obamacare. 

According to the Washington Times, because the amnestied illegals are exempt from Obamacare, employers who decide to hire them will not have to pay the $3,000 annual penalty for each employee who goes on the Obamacare exchange and receives a subsidy. 

“Under Obamacare, businesses with 50 or more employees are supposed to provide insurance coverage to their full-time workers,” The Washington Times’ Stephen Dinan reports. 

“If they refuse, they are assessed a penalty for every employee who receives subsidies to sign up for coverage on the health exchanges. 

But because the newly legalized illegal immigrants covered by Mr. Obama’s order can’t sign up for the exchanges or receive subsidies, employers aren’t penalized for hiring them.”

Dead Simple Hack Allows for “Rebel” Keurig K-Cups

Dead Simple Hack Allows for “Rebel” Keurig K-Cups | Hackaday:
"If you haven’t actually used a Keurig coffee machine, then you’ve probably at least seen one.
They are supposed to make brewing coffee simple.

....Unfortunately newer versions of these machines have a sort of DRM, or lockout chip.
In order to prevent unofficial k-cups from being manufactured and sold, the Keurig machines have a way to detect which cups are legitimate and which are counterfeit. 
It appears as though the machine identifies the lid specifically as being genuine.
It turns out this “lockout” technology is very simple to defeat. "

ISIS Wants to Sell James Foley’s Body for $1 Million

ISIS Wants to Sell James Foley’s Body for $1 Million | Mediaite:
"Per BuzzFeed’s Mike Giglio, ISIS is now trying to sell the body of James Foley, the American freelance journalist they beheaded last summer, for $1 million.

Giglio talked to a former Syrian rebel, who told him:
This former rebel said he was approached by an ISIS leader who asked him to find a channel to either the U.S. government or Foley’s family. 
Like the other sources, he noted a price of $1 million and the promise of DNA. 
“They ask for $1 million, and they will send DNA to Turkey, but they want the money first,” he said. “They will not give the DNA without the money.”
He claimed his motivation was to help the grieving family find closure, calling his work “a humanity case.”
ISIS executed several western journalists last summer, part of a terror campaign to raise the Sunni militant group’s global specter.
Foley’s execution, and the following murder of Steven Sotloff, compelled a military response from the United States and some Middle Eastern countries, arguably what ISIS was after."

GOP suppoerts $50 MILLION tax increase????-------State House revives Internet sales tax plan

State House revives Internet sales tax plan | Crain's Detroit Business:
"LANSING — Michigan lawmakers are breathing new life into bills that would force retailers such as Amazon.com to collect the state's sales tax on Internet purchases.
The House on Tuesday is expected to prepare the legislation for a possible vote later this week. Similar bills are pending in the Senate after a committee approved them last week.
Retailers with stores in Michigan must collect the 6 percent sales tax when selling items online. But Internet-only stores like Amazon don't have to assess the sales tax unless they have a physical presence in the state.
Traditional brick-and-mortar stores say Amazon has an unfair competitive advantage in selling tax-free goods.
Shoppers are supposed to voluntarily pay a 6 percent "use" tax for their online purchases when they file Michigan tax returns.
But few do.
The Senate Fiscal Agency estimates that if the legislation is enacted, it could generate $50 million more a year in tax revenue for state and local governments. 
Legislators' potential movement of the bills comes as they are looking to increase taxes or redirect tax revenue to improve deteriorating roads and other transportation infrastructure."

The Hillary Clinton Documents the State Department Has Failed to Release to the Associated Press | TheBlaze.com

The Hillary Clinton Documents the State Department Has Failed to Release to the Associated Press | TheBlaze.com:

"The State Department denied the AP’s requests, and rejected the AP’s subsequent appeals, to release the records sought quickly under a provision in the law reserved for journalists requesting federal records about especially newsworthy topics.

In its requests, the AP cited the likely prospect of Clinton entering the 2016 race. The former first lady is widely considered the leading Democratic contender hoping to succeed President Barack Obama. She has made scores of recent high-profile speeches and public appearances."

Treasury Department Seeking Survival Kits For Bank Employees

Remember, this is NOT about giving any protection to employees. 
It's about giving a BIG ORDER to a company that provides the "survival kits". 
A company that is a "loyal" supporter of the politician who sponsored the bill. 
Almost all "crazy" spending can be explained by following the money. 
Legalized pay-to-play.
Treasury Department Seeking Survival Kits For Bank Employees | Washington Free Beacon:
"The Department of Treasury is seeking to order survival kits for all of its employees who oversee the federal banking system, according to a new solicitation.
The emergency supplies would be for every employee at the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), which conducts on-site reviews of banks throughout the country.
The survival kit includes everything from water purification tablets to solar blankets.
The government is willing to spend up to $200,000 on the kits, according to the solicitation released on Dec. 4.
...Survival kits will be delivered to every major bank in the United States including Bank of America, American Express Bank, BMO Financial Corp., Capitol One Financial Corporation, Citigroup, Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Company, and Wells Fargo."

5 Potential Outcomes of Political Apathy

5 Potential Outcomes of Political Apathy - Liberty Conservatives:

1. Dictatorial Oligarchy

2. Anarchy

3. Continued Political Corruption

4. Police State

5. Hostile Take Over

Long, but well worth your time to read......Duck And Cover——-The Lull Is Breaking, The Storm Is Nigh

Duck And Cover——-The Lull Is Breaking, The Storm Is Nigh | David Stockman's Contra Corner: "As subsequent history has now proven, AIG’s $800 billion globe spanning balance sheet at the time was perfectly solvent at the subsidiary level.
Not a single life insurance contract, P&C cover or retirement annuity anywhere in the world was in jeopardy on the morning of September 16th.
The only thing gone awry was that the London-based CDS (credit default swap) operation of AIG’s holding company was monumentally illiquid.
Joseph Cassano and the other latter-day geniuses who were running it had spent two decades picking up nickels (CDS premium) in front of a steamroller, while booking nearly the entirety of these winnings as profits—all to the greater good of their fabulous bonuses.
But now, as the underlying securitized mortgage market imploded, they needed to meet huge margin calls on insurance contracts they had written against mortgage CDOs.
In truth, however, the whole mountain of CDS was bogus insurance because AIG’s holding company did not have a legal call on the hundreds of billions of cash and liquid assets ensconced in dozens of its major subsidiaries.
.....But it also did something else; it destroyed the remaining vestiges of financial market stability and honest price discovery. 
After 6-years of the central bank tsunami, two-way markets were gone; the shorts were dead; skeptics were out of business; greybeard investors had retired; speculators regularly bought downside “protection” (i.e. puts on the S&P 500) for chump change; and the law of “buy the dips” became unassailable.

Even more crucially, capital markets were transformed into rank casinos that were virtually devoid of all economic information……except, except the word clouds, leaks and sound bites of central bank speakers and their tools in the press and monitors in the banks, brokerage houses and hedge funds.

At length, this meant that the only reason to buy was that virtually every risk asset class was rising; and it also meant that the only risk worth worrying about in a day-trading market was from the verbal emissions of central bankers and their Wall Street accomplices and stooges.

So as long as the central bank con job lasted, there was no reason not to buy, buy, buy. 
The financial world’s greatest clown, Jim Cramer of CNBC, became a prophet in his own time. Indeed, the man’s stupendous insouciance became embedded in the casino itself."

A College President Had to Apologize for Saying 'All Lives Matter'

A College President Had to Apologize for Saying 'All Lives Matter' - Hit & Run : Reason.com:
Smith College President Kathleen McCartney thought she was showing solidarity with students protesting racism and police brutality when she sent a campus-wide email with the subject line, "All Lives Matter." But the anti-racism slogan popular with students is actually the more selective "black lives matter."

Uh oh. Burn the heretic!

Students were furious and offended, according to Fox News:

The Daily Hampshire Gazette, which first covered the story, quoted one Smith sophomore, Cecelia Lim, as saying, “it felt like she was invalidating the experience of black lives.”

In response to student backlash, McCartney apologized in another campus-wide email Friday, saying she had made a mistake “despite my best intentions.” 

She wrote that the problem with the phrase lay in how others had used it.

“I regret that I was unaware the phrase/hashtag “all lives matter” has been used by some to draw attention away from the focus on institutional violence against Black people,” she wrote.

Centralized control devastated Europe, now it threatens U.S. | WashingtonExaminer.com

Centralized control devastated Europe, now it threatens U.S. | WashingtonExaminer.com:

"Incredibly, the eurozone is trembling on the brink of its third recession in six years. Its industrial production has slumped, its exports have fallen and its debt is rising. Business confidence has declined over the past 12 months from 35 to 5 percent, and you can see why. France last ran a balanced budget in 1974. Italy has, to a single approximation, not grown since it abandoned the lira. Even Germany, which has until now borne the weight of the euro, Atlas-like, is starting to sweat and sway.

What has gone wrong? And are there any lessons here for Americans?"

Omnibus Bill Spends over $19 Million Protecting Rhinoceroses

Omnibus Bill Spends over $19 Million Protecting Rhinoceroses:
"...There are actually two full sections in the bill designed to protect the giant exotic creatures.
On pages 674-675,
Boehner aims to appropriate $9,061,000 to protect Rhinos and other endangered species.
“For expenses necessary to carry out the African Elephant Conservation Act (16 U.S.C. 4201 et seq.), the Asian Elephant Conservation Act of 1997 (16 U.S.C. 4261 et seq.), the Rhinoceros and Tiger Conservation Act of 1994 (16 U.S.C. 5301 et seq.), the Great Ape Conservation Act of 2000 (16 U.S.C. 6301 et seq.), and the Marine Turtle Conservation Act of 2004 (16 U.S.C. 6601 et seq.), $9,061,000, to remain available until expended,” the bill text reads.
On page 1,340, there is $10 million appropriated to combat “rhinoceros poaching.”
“Not less than $55,000,000 of the funds appropriated under titles III and IV of this Act shall be made available to combat the transnational threat of wildlife poaching and trafficking, including not less than $10,000,000 for programs to combat rhinoceros poaching,” the bill text reads."

OVERNIGHT TECH: FCC eyes fee hike for school Internet program

OVERNIGHT TECH: FCC eyes fee hike for school Internet program | TheHill:
"THE LEDE: The Federal Communications Commission on Thursday is slated to consider a plan to increase fees on phone users to boost funding for a program that provides Internet connections for schools and libraries.
The commission will take up changes to the E-rate program to increase the funding cap by $1.5 billion, as well as two other proposals, at the final open meeting of the year.
...Nonetheless, activists in favor of stronger rules are planning to protest outside the FCC building to remind Wheeler the issue has not fallen off the radar.
The E-rate proposal to be considered Thursday would increase fees by about $2 a year per phone line for customers in order to increase high-speed broadband and Wi-Fi for schools and libraries.

LIBERTY REVIEW-Take Care

LIBERTY REVIEW:Take Care
http://www.libertyreview76.blogspot.com/2014/12/take-care-by-tammy-derouin-i-recently.html

The president doesn’t have the authority to make laws, that’s the job of the legislature. 
It’s the job of the president, using the words of the Constitution, “…he shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed…” 
The president’s job is to make sure the laws are followed after being passed by Congress and checked by the courts, should there be a question of its Constitutionality. 
There’s no such thing as a Whining Clause, a Tantrum Clause, or even a Threat Clause, giving the executive the power to make his own law when he doesn’t get his way.   

There is a reason it takes time for a bill to become a law. 
There needs to be discussion and debate. 
Of course, that would require reading and investigating a bill prior to voting it into law. 
The actions of one branch must be checked by the other branches to insure a balance of power.
If the executive dismisses this process, the executive becomes dictatorial. 
If Congress doesn’t use their authority to check our resident Pres-a-king, a more formal coronation will be forthcoming.

History for December 11

History for December 11 - On-This-Day.com
Fiorello La Guardia 1882, Perez Prado 1918, Alexander Solzhenitsyn 1918 


Rita Moreno 1931, J. Frank Wilson 1941, Teri Garr 1949 


1769 - Edward Beran of London patented venetian blinds. 


1792 - France's King Louis XVI went before the Convention, which had replaced the National Assembly, to face charges of treason. He was convicted and condemned and was sent to the guillotine the following January. 


1816 - Indiana was admitted to the Union as the 19th American state. 


1872 - Pinckney Benton Stewart Pinchback became America's first black governor when he took office as acting governor of Louisiana. 


1930 - The Bank of the United States in New York failed. 


1936 - Britain's King Edward VIII abdicated in order to marry American Wallis Warfield Simpson. He became the Duke of Windsor. 


1941 - Germany and Italy declared war on the United States. The U.S in turn declared war on the two countries. 


1961 - The first direct American military support for South Vietnam occurred when a U.S. aircraft carrier carrying Army helicopters arrived in Saigon. 


1994 - Thousands of Russian troops, armored columns and jets entered Chechnya. The move by Moscow was an effort to restore control the breakaway republic. 



1997 - More than 150 countries agreed at a global warming conference in Kyoto, Japan, to control the Earth's "greenhouse gases." 


1998 - The Mars Climate Orbiter blasted off on a nine-month journey to the Red Planet. However, the probe disappeared in September of 1999, apparently destroyed because scientists had failed to convert English measures to metric values. 


2001 - Ted Turner purchased 12,000 acres in Nebraska for Bison ranches. 

Should you be able to sue the parents of an unvaccinated child if your child gets sick or dies?-------Vaccination waivers put hundreds of Michigan communities at risk of disease outbreaks

Vaccination waivers put hundreds of Michigan communities at risk of disease outbreaks | MLive.com:
"Michigan has one of the highest vaccine-waiver rates for kindergartners in the country, three times the national median, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
And the number of kindergartners getting vaccine waivers is growing.
In five years, it's increased 23 percent, the CDC says."

Obama: Christmas Season Should Help Us Understand Executive Amnesty

Obama: Christmas Season Should Help Us Understand Executive Amnesty:

"President Barack Obama thinks that Christians should use the Christmas season and “the good book” to understand the importance of immigration reform."