History for February 11

History for February 11 - On-This-Day.com:
Lydia Child 1802, Thomas Alva Edison 1847 - Inventor and businessman. His inventions included the phonograph, the motion picture camera, and a long-lasting, practical electric light bulb, Leslie Nielson 1926 - Actor



Burt Reynolds 1936 - Actor ("Smokey and the Bandit"), Jeb Bush 1953 - Governor of Florida, brother of U.S. President George W. Bush, Sarah Palin 1964 - Governor of Alaska
   

1808 - Judge Jesse Fell experimented by burning anthracite coal to keep his house warm. He successfully showed how clean the coal burned and how cheaply it could be used as a heating fuel.


1812 - The term "gerrymandering" had its beginning when the governor of Massachusetts, Elbridge Gerry, signed a redistricting law that favored his party.


1858 - A French girl, Bernadette Soubirous, claimed to have seen a vision of the Virgin Mary near Lourdes.


1945 - During World War II, the Yalta Agreement was signed by U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet leader Josef Stalin. (Today in World War II History)


1975 - Margaret Thatcher became the first woman to head a major party in Britain when she was elected leader of the Conservative Party.


1979 - Nine days after the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini returned to Iran (after 15 years in exile) power was seized by his followers.

1990 - Nelson Mandela was freed after 27 years in captivity.


2006 - In Texas, U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney accidentally shot and wounded a companion during a quail hunt.

Congress' IT Guys Had History Of Suspicious Dealings | The Daily Caller

Congress' IT Guys Had History Of Suspicious Dealings | The Daily Caller:

"But some Democrats have not terminated their connection with the four, including Wasserman Schultz, who employs Imran and who resigned from her DNC post last year after a computer hack revealed embarassing emails. Derrick Robinson, spokesman for California Rep. Karen Bass, refused to comment on Alvi’s employment status.

Jack Langer, spokesman for the intelligence committee, said the committee office has its own IT staff and security measures and classified information from the panel is not allowed to be sent to members’ personal offices.

The Daily Caller News Foundation Investigative Group was the first media outlet to name the four."

Many foreign nationals who are not deported commit more crimes | Miami Herald

Many foreign nationals who are not deported commit more crimes | Miami Herald:

"“This disturbing fact follows ICE’s admission that, of the 36,007 criminal aliens it released from ICE custody in Fiscal Year 2013, 1,000 have been re-convicted of additional crimes in the short time since their release,” according to the letter, dated June 12, 2015.

The Senate Judiciary Committee letter revealed that 121 immigrant convicts were charged with homicide following their release from ICE custody between 2010 and 2014. It also noted that in 2014, ICE released 2,457 immigrant convicts because of the Supreme Court ruling prohibiting detention of deportable foreign nationals beyond six months."

Berkeley Riot Organizer: It Was 'Stunningly Successful'

Berkeley Riot Organizer: It Was 'Stunningly Successful': "But Felarca wasn't done.

"A few broken windows is nothing compared to the lives that are at stake," she said. "And if that's what it takes to make sure that more people don't get targeted, if that's what it takes to make sure that Milo Yiannopoulos or another white supremacist is not welcome or allowed to come to UC Berkeley and attack our community, then good. Let's make sure that doesn't happen again in the future."
In other words, join us -- or prepare for more violence and destruction to your livelihoods.
She concluded by admitting that the "protests" are not spontaneous. "This is about organizing and fighting by any means necessary," she said."

Media somehow missed this "outrage"-----Obama Plugs Beer Company

Federal Infrastructure Spending Is a Bad Deal

Federal Infrastructure Spending Is a Bad Deal - Reason.com:
"...Ample literature shows, in fact, that it's a particularly bad vehicle for stimulus and does not, in practice, boost short-term jobs or economic growth. 
To work that way, government spending would have to be used quickly to put the unemployed to work on shovel-ready projects.
But as Obama discovered in 2009 when he tried to spend $47 billion from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act on infrastructure, there aren't that many shovel-ready projects lying around. And since job seekers rarely have the skills needed to start building a bridge or highway right away, employers are forced to poach workers from their existing jobs.
Publicly funded infrastructure projects often aren't good investments in the long term, either.
Most spending orchestrated by the federal government suffers from terrible incentives that lead to malinvestment—resources wasted in inefficient ways and on low-priority efforts.
Projects get approved for political reasons and are either totally unnecessary or harmed by cost overruns and corruption.
For example, we know that infrastructure investment produces the highest returns when it supports already-expanding cities and regions.
Yet politicians' tendency is to spend in declining areas, where dollars can't help as many people, such as Detroit and Cleveland.
Government statistics show that our infrastructure isn't actually crumbling..."
Read on!

FBI Investigating Identities of Violent UC Berkeley Rioters - Breitbart

FBI Investigating Identities of Violent UC Berkeley Rioters - Breitbart:

"One group has so far taken responsibility for the riot, the far-left BAMN (By Any Means Necessary,) with the group’s leader Yvette Felarca telling KTVU she has “no regrets” over the riot, adding that “the left has been far too timid for way too long.”

The event, which was meant to be the final event of MILO’s Dangerous Faggot Tour, was cancelled after rioters smashed ATMs and bank windows, looted a Starbucks, beat Trump supporters, pepper sprayed innocent individuals, set fires in the street, and as well as spraying words “Kill Trump” on storefronts."

How one GOP congressman tamed pro-Obamacare protesters

How one GOP congressman tamed pro-Obamacare protesters - POLITICO:
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — It had all the makings of the anti-Trump town hall meetings Republicans have come to fear.
Retired health care industry worker Paul Bonis stood up and implored Republican Rep. Justin Amash to commit to keeping Obamacare — his life, the 61-year-old cancer survivor said, might actually depend on it.
But Amash refused, and the auditorium packed with some 600 mostly liberal constituents erupted in boos and jeers for a good 30 seconds.
“You are not supporting your constituents!” yelled one person.
Instead of getting defensive or ducking for cover, though, the 36-year-old Michigan lawmaker leaned in, coolly explaining his position on the health care law.
He made a point of trying to connect with the overwhelmingly Democratic room, jabbing President Donald Trump for what he called racially insensitive remarks and overreaching policies.
Amash seemed to enjoy the give-and-take so much that he stayed 40 minutes longer than scheduled and promised to book an even bigger venue next time.
It was a jarring juxtaposition from the hunkered-down, protective posture many GOP lawmakers have assumed in recent weeks as Democrats storm their town hall meetings and congressional offices.
At a closed-door, all-conference meeting on Tuesday, House Republicans were advised to limit crowd sizes, hire security and ensure they literally have an exit strategy to ensure they don’t get stampeded by protesters.
...Amash effectively defused tensions, though, with jokes about his poor singing and a quip to the liberal crowd that “with Donald Trump in office, I don’t know why you’re such big fans of the federal government!”.
Twenty –five minutes after he was supposed to finish, at least 50 hands were still in the air seeking to ask questions.
When the event ended, they lined up to talk to Amash.
At a town hall in January, Amash seethed that everyone couldn’t attend because of the fire code restriction on numbers.
He picked a bigger space he was sure would hold everyone who showed up Thursday.
Even then, he learned that coordinators had to turn people away.
“At our next one," he vowed, "we’re going to have to have a bigger place."

Unrestricted immigration at "work"-----And they want to control our elections?-----California Has The Nation’s Highest Poverty Rate

POLITIFACT: California Has The Nation’s Highest Poverty Rate – AgainstCronyCapitalism.org
“They say California is a paradise…Hollywood turns nighttime into day…But up along the San Joaquin those city lights…Might as well be a million miles away… ” – Steve Earle from Leroy’s Dustbowl Blues

(From KPBS)

This week, State Assembly Republican Leader Chad Mayes called poverty California’s No. 1 priority during a forum of legislative leaders in Sacramento.

Mayes, who represents parts of San Bernardino and Riverside counties, claimed the state’s poverty rate is higher than any state in the nation when considering factors such as cost-of-living.

“If you look at the official poverty measure in California, we’re about average with the rest of the country,” Mayes said. “But if you use the supplemental poverty measure, we are in the lead. We have the highest poverty rate in the nation — higher than New Mexico, higher than any of the southern states, Louisiana, Alabama, higher than Idaho.”

Click here for the article.

Lunch video-----Why Good Teachers Want School Choice

Noon-toon

Martin Luther King Jr.'s Niece Accuses Warren Of Playing 'Race Card'

Martin Luther King Jr.'s Niece Accuses Warren Of Playing 'Race Card':

"King criticized the tactic of “using the name of Martin Luther King Jr. and now Mrs. Coretta Scott King to get people’s emotions stirred so they cannot clearly get the message” of peacemaking. She called it “the old bait and switch, with the race card being played. … People will never look at the issues. People will never see the solutions. They’ll be angry and then we can slip our agenda in.”

She added: “But our family — we are peacemakers, we bring people together. … We do not divide people.”"

Out of pocket, Italians fall out of love with the euro

Out of pocket, Italians fall out of love with the euro | Reuters:
"When the Italian central bank's deputy governor joined a radio phone-in show last week, many callers asked why Italy didn't ditch the euro and return to its old lira currency.
A few years ago such a scenario, that Salvatore Rossi said would lead to "catastrophe and disaster", would not have been up for public discussion.
Now, with the possibility of an election by June, politicians of all stripes are tapping into growing hostility towards the euro. 
Many Italians hold the single currency responsible for economic decline since its launch in 1999.
"We lived much better before the euro," says Luca Fioravanti, a 32-year-old real estate surveyor from Rome.
"Prices have gone up but our salaries have stayed the same, we need to get out and go back to our own sovereign currency..."

Sense of Events: Wishing for a coup moves mainstream

Sense of Events: Wishing for a coup moves mainstream
"We are entering truly dangerous territory when this becomes a mainstream hope of the American Left:

When the Leftist, minor comedienne Sarah Silverman tweeted that she hoped the US military would mount a coup against President Trump, almost everyone else on the Left chuckled and said, "That Sarah! What a card!" 
What they didn't do is denounce the idea of a coup to take over the government of the United States.
Maybe they didn't because they knew that the hope for a coup was actually mainstream thinking on the Left and that Sarah merely said it aloud. 
And hoping for a coup can now be said to be definitely mainstream on the Left. 
I give you a business journal of the American foreign affairs establishment, Foreign Policy. 
On Jan. 30 FP published, "3 Ways to Get Rid of President Trump Before 2020,"  by Rosa Brooks, "law professor at Georgetown University [who] served as a counselor to the U.S. defense undersecretary for policy from 2009 to 2011."
Note the phrasing: "Get rid" of Trump, not oppose, foil, minimize.
To the point: Brooks proposes a military coup:

The fourth possibility is one that until recently I would have said was unthinkable in the United States of America: a military coup, or at least a refusal by military leaders to obey certain orders.

What would be the result of a coup? 
Civil War inside the United States, that's what. (Well, heck, we are already in an actual, not metaphorical, civil war now, so what's one more to the Left?) 
It would start inside the US military. 
Brooks seems to think that just because a handful of four-stars decide to make the Oval Office their own that the rest of the military's officer corps would just click their heels and respond, "Jawohl!"
...The cost to America in lives, treasure and political destruction of the Constitution would be deep, enduring, and probably permanent in the latter.
The Trump derangement of the American Left is now complete. 
Dangerously so.
This, by the way, is Rosa Brooks' portrait on her FP page. 
She apparently wants the Republic to fall. 
Minimally, she is comfortable with the idea. 
And she is not the only one.

Her email address is rosa.brooks@law.georgetown.edu.

AS EVEN THE NYT ADMITS, THE CASE FOR DOING SO IS PRETTY STRONG: White House Weighs Terrorist Designation…

Instapundit » Blog Archive » AS EVEN THE NYT ADMITS, THE CASE FOR DOING SO IS PRETTY STRONG: White House Weighs Terrorist Designation…:

AS EVEN THE NYT ADMITS, THE CASE FOR DOING SO IS PRETTY STRONG: White House Weighs Terrorist Designation for Muslim Brotherhood.

President Barack Obama long resisted pressure to declare it a terrorist organization.

But the Brotherhood calls for a society governed by Islamic law, and some of its former members and offshoots — most notably Hamas, the Palestinian group whose stated goal is the destruction of Israel — have been tied to attacks. Some advisers to Mr. Trump have viewed the Brotherhood for years as a radical faction secretly infiltrating the United States to promote Shariah law. They see the order as an opportunity to finally take action against it. . . .

The proposal to declare it a terrorist organization has been paired with a plan to similarly designate Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, according to current and former officials briefed on the deliberations. Leaders of the corps and its Quds Force unit have already been put on a government terrorist list, but Republicans have advocated adding the corps itself to send a message to Iran.

"Well, they’re both terrorist organizations, so calling them such isn’t much of a stretch.

Of course, the usual suspects object: 
“Among those objecting is the Council on American-Islamic Relations, which describes itself as the largest Muslim civil rights organization in the United States.”

It describes itself that way, but how many members does it actually have? 
The story, as usual, doesn’t say. 
But last I heard their membership was minuscule. 
“For a group that only has 1,700 members, it has an inordinate amount of political clout.”

But then, “If CAIR agitated for gun rights, or against abortion, its membership and funding would get a lot more scrutiny.”

Dem Who Lied About Vietnam Service Calls for Extreme Vetting of Gorsuch

Dem Who Lied About Vietnam Service Calls for Extreme Vetting of Gorsuch:

"Blumenthal's own credibility has been called into question since he entered public life. When Blumenthal first ran for the Senate in 2010, the New York Times revealed that he had lied for years about fighting in the Vietnam War. Blumenthal repeatedly touted his supposed combat experience in speeches to veterans groups and civic organizations, saying he had "served in Vietnam."
However, a review of his military records revealed that he procured five deferments from the military before joining the Marine Reserve. During the war he traveled as far west as Washington, where he helped the Toys for Tots program, but never saw actual combat.

"What is striking about Mr. Blumenthal's record is the contrast between the many steps he took that allowed him to avoid Vietnam, "

Whistle Blower At State Department EXPOSES REFUGEE Program As A Complete FRAUD

Whistle Blower At State Department EXPOSES REFUGEE Program As A Complete FRAUD:
"WND is reporting that a recently retired U.S. State Department official has published a whistle blower letter in the Chicago Tribune that outlines the massive amount of corruption that has taken place in the refugee program under the leadership of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

The retired official, Mary Doetsch, said that even though there were problems with the program before Obama arrived in Washington that once he arrived in the White House problems exploded.

Doetsch says that she strongly supports President Trump’s travel ban, “I fully support President Donald Trump’s executive order that temporarily halts admissions from the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program and bans travel from nationals of countries that potentially pose a security risk to the United States; however, I don’t think the action goes far enough. Further, I believe there are many people throughout the country who feel the same way.”

Part of the Doetsch’s Letter:

As a recently retired 25-year veteran of the U.S. Department of State who served almost eight years as a refugee coordinator throughout the Middle East, Africa, Russia and Cuba, I have seen first-hand the abuses and fraud that permeate the refugee program and know about the entrenched interests that fight every effort to implement much-needed reform. Despite claims of enhanced vetting, the reality is that it is virtually impossible to vet an individual who has no type of an official record, particularly in countries compromised by terrorism. U.S. immigration officials simply rely on the person’s often rehearsed and fabricated “testimony.” I have personally seen this on hundreds of occasions.

As a refugee coordinator, I saw the exploitations, inconsistencies and security lapses in the program, and I advocated strongly for change. Nonetheless, during the past decade and specifically under the Obama administration, the Refugee Admissions Program continued to expand blindly, seemingly without concern for security or whether it served the best interests of its own citizens..."

Read on! 

AM Fruitcake