History for May 16

History for May 16 - On-This-Day.com
William Seward (William Henry Seward, Sr.) 1801 - Governor of New York, U.S. Secretary of State under Abraham Lincoln, Henry Fonda 1905 - Actor, father of Jane Fonda and Peter Fonda, Studs Terkel (Louis "Studs" Terkel) 1912 - Author, historian, actor, broadcaster


Liberace (Wladziu Valentino Liberace) 1919 - Musician, Billy Martin (Alfred Manuel "Billy" Martin, Jr.) 1928 - Baseball player and manager, Debra Winger 1955 - Actress


1960 - Theodore Maiman, at Hughes Research Laboratory in California, demonstrated the first working laser.


1987 - The Bobro 400 set sail from New York Harbor with 3,200 tons of garbage. The barge travelled 6,000 miles in search of a place to dump its load. It returned to New York Harbor after 8 weeks with the same load.

State Department Under Pressure Over Christopher Steele Contacts | The Daily Caller

State Department Under Pressure Over Christopher Steele Contacts | The Daily Caller:

The State Department has largely avoided scrutiny from GOP-led investigations of the Steele dossier, but that changed this week with the release of notes that a State Department official took during an October 2016 meeting with dossier author Christopher Steele.
In letters this week to Sec. of State Mike Pompeo, GOP Sens. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina pressed Pompeo for details about the Oct. 11, 2016 meeting, which was held at Foggy Bottom between Steele and Kathleen Kavalec, the deputy assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs.
Steele, a former British spy, was investigating President Donald Trump and his campaign on behalf of the Clinton campaign and DNC.

Boob-tube-----The Last Newhart: final scene

America Is Partially Responsible for Venezuelan Crisis, But Not In The Way Representative Omar Thinks - American Experiment

America Is Partially Responsible for Venezuelan Crisis, But Not In The Way Representative Omar Thinks - American Experiment
"Representative Omar is in the news regarding her statements that U.S. actions are making the situation in Venezuela worse. On Democracy Now, Representative Omar stated:

““This particular bullying and the use of sanctions to eventually intervene and make regime change really does not help the people of countries like Venezuela, and it certainly does not help and is not in the interest of the United States,” she added.”

Venezuela has the largest oil reserves in the world, and oil production was consistently high, but this began to change in 2016...

...In 2014, it was estimated that Venezuela needed oil prices to be $121 per barrel in order to balance its budget.
...When oil prices dropped, American oil companies got innovative, cut costs, and looked for ways to optimize their business models.
Because they are private companies, they have the most to lose if they can’t solve the problems they face.
Government-run oil companies in Venezuela, on the other hand, can explain away failure because they are creatures of the state with no competition..."

A Constitutional Recap of the Mueller Report - National Constitution Center

A Constitutional Recap of the Mueller Report - National Constitution Center
"This episode sheds constitutional light on the Mueller report, focusing on the question of obstruction. 
We explore what Special Counsel Robert Mueller did and did not conclude about obstruction, explain the “corrupt intent” requirement for an obstruction charge, and grapple with the constitutional question as to whether the president can commit obstruction. 
Our guests also address the question: in the aftermath of the Mueller report, what should Congress do, and what are the lessons for future Attorneys General in similar situations? Mary McCord, senior litigator at the Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection at Georgetown University Law Center, and Josh Blackman, associate professor of law at the South Texas College of Law in Houston, join host Jeffrey Rosen.

FULL PODCAST

...Our Interactive Constitution is the leading digital resource about the debates and text behind the greatest vision of human freedom in history, the U.S. Constitution. 

Sign up to receive Constitution Weekly, our email roundup of constitutional news and debate, at bit.ly/constitutionweekly.

...Please subscribe to We the People and our companion podcast, Live at America’s Town Hall,on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or your favorite podcast app.

TRANSCRIPT: 

This transcript may not be in its final form, accuracy may vary, and it may be updated or revised in the future.

Read all.

SCHWEPPE: House Democrats Are Trying To Pass A Men’s Rights Bill | The Daily Caller

SCHWEPPE: House Democrats Are Trying To Pass A Men’s Rights Bill | The Daily Caller:

Think I’m exaggerating? Consider this: the Equality Act would fundamentally redefine “sex” within all aspects of civil rights law to mean “sexual orientation” and “gender identity,” scrapping the traditional legal standard of male and female as a product of biology and replacing it with an incomprehensible mess. The many legal protections women now enjoy would be effectively eliminated, resulting in a version of “equality” that many of the Equality Act’s supporters might not be anticipating.
Take, for example, Title IX, which was passed to prohibit sex discrimination in education programs. One of the biggest impacts of the 1972 law was to increase scholarship and athletic opportunities for women, opportunities which are now often taken for granted thanks to the wide availability of women’s sports at the high school and collegiate levels.
These opportunities are now under attack — in 2016, the Obama administration sent a wake-up call to female athletes across the nation when it announced it was interpreting “sex” under Title IX to include “gender identity,” allowing any student who claimed to identify as female the right to participate in women’s sports.

EDITORIAL: The bag police

EDITORIAL: The bag police
"If left unchecked, politicians would allow America’s Nanny State to grow to immeasurable proportions.
Government bureaucrats and elected officials believe they know better than we mere mortals when it comes to making personal choices about health care, child rearing, diet, smoking and countless other subjects.
The environment is another favorite vehicle for proponents of the Nanny State.
Straws, styrofoam and coffee pods have all been recently targeted by green groups.
Some jurisdictions have banned plastic shopping bags.
And if New Jersey legislators have their way, paper grocery bags would be outlawed, as well..."
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Facebook Punishes Groups For Questioning Human Impact on Climate Change - Big League Politics

Facebook Punishes Groups For Questioning Human Impact on Climate Change - Big League Politic

"Facebook is now punishing groups on its platform that question the impact of human activity on climate change.

The Facebook group “God Emperor Trump: (Official)” received notification on Monday that members of their group had posted content that is rated false by the platform’s chosen fact checkers, something that Big League Politics revealed the platform will use to demolish the group’s frequency on the news feed, prevent potential new members from being shown the group, and otherwise reduce its engagement and growth.

The content Facebook claimed was inaccurate was a video featuring the famous businessman and public speaker Dan Pena, who says that the extent of man’s impact on climate change is overblown because the business world does not even acknowledge it as a fact.

According to Pena, if the world was set to be submerged due to impacts of human caused global warming in as soon as 12 years, there would be no investment in coastal areas like Florida, which would certainly sink, and that climate change is highly cyclical and it is naive to assume humans have such a large impact on the planet.

The article Facebook used to fact check the claim hardly demolishes Pena’s point, but rather says he may be inaccurate.

From Climate Feedback:

Factually Inaccurate: The speaker likely means to refer to a climate period known as the Eemian, but this was about 125,000 years ago, not 55,000 years ago. The slow-changing cycles of Earth’s orbit were in a different configuration then, leading to warmer temperatures.
Flawed Reasoning : The existence of past climate changes does not indicate humans cannot change climate today any more than the existence of natural fires in the past would indicate arson is impossible today.

...This campaign against so-called “false news” in groups has been happening for some time, and could be easily weaponized..."

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Lunch video-----Tucker: Big tech has launched an attack on your rights

Noon-toon

Ocasio-Cortez Suggests Top Democratic Presidential Candidates Are As Dumb As Sea Sponges | The Daily Caller

Ocasio-Cortez Suggests Top Democratic Presidential Candidates Are As Dumb As Sea Sponges | The Daily Caller:

New York Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said “you’d have to have the social intelligence of a sea sponge” to take her literally when she invoked a 12-year deadline to stop “world ending” global warming.
However, at least five Democrats running for president in 2020 invoked the “12 years left” talking point as a sign of how seriously they took climate change to build support among the environmental left.

Will political correctness kill classic movies? | TheHill

Will political correctness kill classic movies? | TheHill
"The rise of political correctness can be seen across movie screens this weekend.
“The Hustle,” a gender-swap remake of 1988's “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels,” rails against the patriarchy between sight gags.
“Avengers: Endgame” shoehorns a minor gaycharacter  into the story as a super-virtue-signal.
“Long Shot” shows Seth Rogen apologizing for the United States bombing Japan to help end World War II.
Even older films, and the stars who made them great, are now seen through the PC prism.
Just ask the estate of John Wayne..."
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‘Needles on the Beach and Poo All over the Sand': Sex Pistol Johnny Rotten Describes LA Crisis - Citizens for Self-Governance

‘Needles on the Beach and Poo All over the Sand': Sex Pistol Johnny Rotten Describes LA Crisis - Citizens for Self-Governance
"California has a problem that can no longer be ignored.  
Sex Pistols rocker Johnny Rotten recently began lamenting the homeless crisis in his “1%” area of Venice Beach.  
He said that his multi-million dollar home has been vandalized because of all the young vagrants that suddenly showed up there.

‘They moved in en masse. 

They’re all young, they’re all like 24,’ Rotten told Newsweek reporter Paula Froelich.  

‘They’re aggressive, and because there’s an awful lot of them together they’re gang-y.’ 

 He even admitted that he had to call the police when some of them set up camp in front of his house..."

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#1 This day 1981-----Kim Carnes - Bette Davis Eyes

The United States of Gluttony | The American Spectator

The United States of Gluttony | The American Spectator:
"It does us no good to have become so fat.
There is a real crisis in America.
The severity of the crisis transcends religious and political boundaries.
It has nothing to do with the shrinking of the ice caps; it has everything to do with the expansion of the waistbands.
Put down the burger.
It’s time to hear some harsh truth.
In a stinging piece for The Spectator USA, Will Lloyd noted, “just as the dapper, diffident, pink-cheeked gentleman was once the symbol of Britain’s international prestige, American power has its own archetypal figure: a greedy slob who cannot stop eating.”
Is this an exaggeration?
Absolutely not..."
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Pretty much.

Analysis: The Steele Dossier And The ‘Raw Intelligence’ Canard | The Daily Caller

Analysis: The Steele Dossier And The ‘Raw Intelligence’ Canard | The Daily Caller:

But the charitable defense faces new challenges, especially in the wake of special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia report.
The problem with the “raw intelligence” canard is that it ignores questions about how Steele obtained his information and what the former spy did with it once he received it. The FBI also treated Steele’s allegations as more than mere raw intelligence. The bureau relied heavily on Steele’s work, even though it was unverified, to obtain spy warrants against Carter Page.
Steele and his client, Fusion GPS, processed, packaged and disseminated information from the dossier to the FBI, Justice Department, State Department, Capitol Hill, the Clinton campaign and the media.

Liberals Are Outraged That the BBC and Andrew Neil ‘Gave a Platform’ to Ben Shapiro, Editor In Chief of the Daily Wire and Bestselling Author With Millions of Social Media Followers

Liberals Are Outraged That the BBC and Andrew Neil ‘Gave a Platform’ to Ben Shapiro, Editor In Chief of the Daily Wire and Bestselling Author With Millions of Social Media Followers
"On Friday, Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief Ben Shapiro cut short an interview with British conservative Andrew Neil on the BBC show Politics Live. Neil was extremely hostile to Shapiro, but that is the style of his show. 
Shapiro apologized for going on the show unprepared, and people got a good laugh at the man who's famous for saying, "Facts don't care about your feelings." 
Yet some liberals voiced a very strange complaint about the episode: They attacked the BBC for "giving" Ben Shapiro "a platform."...

Will Black

✔@WillBlackWriter

BBC made fringe electoral failure Nigel Farage into a household name by giving him a seat in every debate programme (while elected decent people
like @CarolineLucas got sidelined).

Now a day after claiming virtue when sacking Danny Baker it gives a platform to Ben Shapiro

Twitter Ads info and privacy

Calling Shapiro "to the right of Hitler," Black added, "Giving platforms to extremists like Ben Shapiro isn't justified just because they make a fool of themselves. 

Far-right fans often don't even notice that and if they do it just ramps up the victim status. 

All the whole thing does is spread the virus and make it seem normal."...

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AM Fruitcake

History for May 15

History for May 15 - On-This-Day.com
Lyman Frank Baum 1856 - Author of children's books ("The Wonderful Wizard of Oz"), Pierre Curie 1859 - Physicist, Joseph Cotten (Joseph Cheshire Cotten) 1905 - Actor


James Mason (James Neville Mason) 1909 - Actor, Wavy Gravy (Hugh Nanton Romney) 1936 - Entertainer, peace activist, Trini Lopez (Trinidad López III) 1937 - Singer, guitarist


1948 - Israel was attacked by Transjordan, Egypt, Syria, Iraq and Lebanon only hours after declaring its independence.


1972 - Alabama Gov. George C. Wallace was shot by Arthur Bremer in Laurel, MD while campaigning for the U.S. presidency. Wallace was paralyzed by the shot.