December 17
546 – The Siege of Rome by the Ostrogoths under King Totila ends by bribing the Byzantine garrison and sacking the city.
1538 – After separating from the Church of Rome and appointing himself Supreme Head of the Church of England, King Henry VIII of England is excommunicated by Pope Paul III.
1777 – France formally recognizes the United States as an independent nation.
1790 – The Aztec Sun Stone calendar is discovered at El Zócalo, Mexico City during repairs to the city cathedral.
1819 – Simón Bolívar, who later dies on this date in 1830, declares the independence of Gran Colombia during the Congress of Angostura.
1835 – The second Great Fire of New York destroys 13 acres of New York City’s Financial District.
1862 – General Ulysses S. Grant issues General Order No. 11, expelling Jews from parts of Tennessee, Mississippi, and Kentucky due to his belief they were engaged in unlicensed trade.
1892 – First issue of Vogue magazine is published.
1903 – Orville Wright, piloting the Wright Flyer, makes the first controlled powered flight of a heavier than air craft flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.
1933 – The first NFL Championship Game is played at Wrigley Field between the New York Giants and Chicago Bears.
1935 – The Douglas DC-3 make its first flight
1938 – While working as the head of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Chemistry in Berlin, Otto Hahn discovers the nuclear fission of uranium releasing large amounts of energy.
1944 – During the Battle of the Bulge, in areas around Malmedy, Belgium, a total of 373 known U.S. soldiers, held as Prisoners of War, are shot by Waffen-SS Kampfgruppe troops under the command of Obersturmbannführer Joachim Peiper.
1947 – The Boeing B-47 Stratojet makes its first flight
1950 – The 94th Fighter Interceptor Squadron of the U.S. Air Force 1st Fighter Wing flies its first combat sortie in Korea in F-86 Sabres.
1957 – The U.S. successfully launches the first Atlas intercontinental ballistic missile at Cape Canaveral, Florida.
1960 – Troops loyal to Emperor Haile Selassie in Ethiopia crush the coup that began December 13, returning power to their leader upon his return from Brazil.
1969 – The U.S. Air Force officially closes its Project Blue Book study of UFOs.
1973 – Thirty travelers are killed in an attack by Palestinian terrorists at Rome’s Leonardo da Vinci–Fiumicino Airport.
1981 – American Brigadier General James L. Dozier is abducted by the Red Brigades in Verona, Italy.
1989 – Fernando Collor de Mello defeats Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in the second round of the Brazilian presidential election, becoming the first democratically elected President in almost 30 years.
2003 –Mojave Aerospace Ventures’ SpaceShipOne, piloted by Brian Binnie, makes its first powered flight reaching supersonic speed.
2014 – The United States and Cuba re-establish diplomatic relations
Hamas Calls for Violence Against Americans, and So Does This Michigan Imam
Could the war in Israel spread to the United States? Sure. Some people want it to.
Hamas has never made a secret of the fact that its goal of destroying Israel is just part of a larger jihad to conquer the entire world for Islam. And so it was inevitable, both in light of that aspiration and the Biden regime’s shaky but still subsisting support for Israel’s defensive effort, that Hamas jihadis would call for violence against Americans. What is more surprising, at least for those who have bought into the comforting establishment fictions that have been circulating since 9/11, is that one such call came from right here at home.
Hamas operative Sami Abu Zuhri recently proclaimed that Biden regime Secretary of State Antony Blinken, despite pressuring Israel to go easy on the warriors of jihad, was just as bad as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: “When Blinken is justifying the killing of women and children, the sons of our nation should say to him: You are the enemy, just like Netanyahu, and you must pay the price, just like Netanyahu. We should keep this in mind.” Yes, we should indeed.
If you’re wondering when exactly Blinken justified the killing of women and children, the answer, of course, is never. Blinken has actually parroted Hamas propaganda in warning Israel that it must do more to reduce civilian deaths, when in reality the number of civilians killed in Gaza compares favorably to the death toll of civilians in other recent conflicts, notably the battle of Mosul against ISIS in Iraq.
Nevertheless, Abu Zuhri wants to see American blood: “Now it is our nation’s turn to pressure the Americans to stop this war. We need violent acts against American and British interests everywhere, as well as the interests of all the countries that support the occupation.”
It’s hard to see how those who call for violence against people who have nothing to do with the conflict have the moral high ground, and those who are doing all they can to limit civilian casualties deserve the opprobrium of the entire world; we’d need an American university student to explain that.
Meanwhile, an echo of this call for jihad terror attacks against Americans came from a Muslim cleric, Ahmad Musa Jibril. Jibril, “whose hate-filled sermons,” according to a Friday report in the New York Post, “were said to have inspired the London Bridge terrorist attack,” is not in Britain, or in Baghdad or Balochistan. Jibril was born in Dearborn, Michigan, and while his current whereabouts are murky, the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) identifies him as a “Michigan Islamic scholar,” and the Twitter/X account that posted his call for jihad in America states that it is operating out of Chicago and is “managed by students.” Jibril, who did hard time in the Terre Haute Federal Correctional Complex for fraud, money laundering, unlawful possession of firearms and more, clearly has considerable influence among Muslims in the United States.
Contradicting the false narrative Americans have been fed for two decades now, Jibril declared: “Yes, there is holy war in Islam, it is jihad. This may be a surprise to many who grew up in the West, especially those who were born or grew up post 9/11, because of the growing number of hypocrites, who are spreading the American-Zionist Islam, and it has nothing to do with Islam, that version of Islam is and Islam that suits the enemies.” He added that “the one who has been spreading that there is no holy war in Islam, has been defecating heresy out of his mouth for the past 20 years, downplaying the legislation of Allah and the Islamic punishments.”
That would include virtually all of the prominent Islamic spokesmen in the U.S. As far as Jibril is concerned, the only people who had it right about jihad and Islam were the ones who were (and still are) vilified, marginalized, and silenced as “Islamophobes.” And now he wants Muslims in the U.S. to start taking this holy war seriously: “The Muslims in the West, especially the youth in the West, especially the youth in America, need to wake up. The current events are a wake-up call for Muslims to start normalizing mentioning jihad’s proper meaning, and putting it back into their vocabulary. Jihad must be a common, normal term on your tongues, on your social media, and in the mosques and elsewhere.
This should, he said, be a matter of lifelong indoctrination: “It’s time the mothers nurse their infants with the love of jihad and the ambition to become a mujahid and a martyr.” A martyr in the Islamic sense is one who acts upon Allah’s promise of paradise in the Qur’an to those who “kill and are killed.” America said Jibril, is “a vicious enemy of Muslims.” And so the import of his words was clear: Muslims need to wage jihad against America. While the Biden regime’s FBI hunts for “white supremacist terrorists” and Jan. 6 “insurrectionists,” some young men in America right now are heeding the words of Ahmed Musa Jibril.
The Self-Described “Subversive” Dance Group the Bidens Invited to the White House.
Yesterday I posted a short note about the dance company that the Bidens invited to the White House to perform as part of their Christmas celebration. I simply linked to Jill Biden’s video of the performance with a short note that observed that this was how the Bidens, who profess to be Catholics, celebrate the birth of Christ. I had intended to let the video speak for itself and to let the viewers draw their own conclusions. I still want that. But I was prompted by a comment from one of my subscribers to do a little research into Dorrance Dance, the dance company featured in the White House performance. What I found was a surprise, although perhaps it should not have been.
I learned that the Dorrance Dance is not just another entertainment group that happens to specialize in tap dancing. Rather, it is an ultra-radical political organization that designs and intends its performances to be “subversive.” The company’s statements and recommendations on its website provide the context that explains what it means when it says that its dancing is meant to be “subversive.” I summarize this below.
Mrs. Biden’s post says that the video is a “playful interpretation of The Nutcracker Suite.” Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite was first performed as a ballet in 1892. It was centered around a young girl’s Christmas eve and her adventures with her nutcracker doll, who came alive as a charming prince. With its performances including Christmas trees, toys, candy, snowflakes and, the joy in seeing a young child’s wonderment at the ideal of a symbol of love come to life, it naturally has become famous as a celebration of Christmas.
The abbreviated jazzed-up tap dance version of Tchaikovsky’s masterpiece performed by the Dorrance Dance company, and on display at the Biden White House, is not intended as a celebration of Christmas. Rather, it is intended to subvert traditional values, such as Christmas.
Don’t take my word for it – Dorrance Dance says on its own website that “At its core, tap dance is a subversive form.” “Subversion” has been defined by the Cambridge Dictionary as “trying to destroy or damage an established system or government.”
The White House almost certainly knew that Dorrance Dance was a subversive company and intentionally so. Public performers at the White House are vetted for security reasons. One of those reasons, presumably, is to identify potentially subversive actors who should be scrutinized closely. Certainly, at a minimum, the White House staff and Secret Service would scrutinize the web site of a company such as Dorrance Dance. They would want to know the identity and backgrounds of the performers who would be coming to the White House.
When the Secret Service and the White House staff checked out Dorrance Dance, this is what they would have found (among other things) that provides the context for its pledge to be “subversive”:
· “It is our job to tell the history of tap dance as a celebration of Black culture and also the never-ending struggle against systemic racism and white supremacy in this country – the origin story of appropriation in American culture.” [All bolded emphasis is added.]
· “The answer to police violence is not ‘reform.’ It’s defunding.”
· White people should “Join fights to defund the police.”
And statements by the founder of the company, Michelle Dorrance:
· “I am a white tap dancer with Black cultural ancestors in a society that privileges white people and whiteness.”
· “It is from this place of white privilege that I invite you to join me in lifelong antiracism work. Understanding how deeply embedded white supremacy, racism, and colonialism is in our culture is paramount to understanding our role (as white people) in perpetuating it and embracing our job to dismantle it.”
In short, even a casual look at Dorrance Dance’s website would have revealed its constant references to “whiteness,” “white privilege,” “white supremacy,” “systematic racism,” and the like. Any reviewer also would see that Dorrance Dance has sounded the call to do away with prisons and policing, and that it has endorsed the likes of Ibram A. Kendi “(who has argued that “The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination.”), as well as racist ideas such as the 1619 Project (which has been discredited for, among other things, its false argument that one of the principal reasons for the American Revolutionary War was to preserve slavery). All this makes clear that its agenda is one of radical and political activism and the “subversion” of traditional – and necessary – values and institutions (such as the police!).
We must presume that the Secret Service brought these red flags to the attention of the President, the First Lady, and/or their senior staffs. There is no other possible conclusion other than, perhaps, sheer incompetence. Yet, they went forward with the Dorrance Dance performance anyway. Why? Because it is what they wanted.
The Bidens and their staffs plainly agreed to a White House Christmas celebration that was intended to be “subversive” of traditional American values. That should not be a surprise because it was a decision aligned with numerous other well-documented Biden policies and initiatives that are trying to subvert — “to destroy or damage”— the traditional American “system,” — a system that has brought unprecedented wealth and security to millions of people of all races and origins.
An uncle who died from melanoma may have contributed to this by volunteering to be a Guinea Pig for experimental treatments
Melanoma vaccine may improve survival, study shows.
A new melanoma vaccine has shown its mettle in battling the deadly skin cancer in a new trial.
People with advanced melanomas who received the vaccine plus Merck’s cancer drug Keytruda were 49% less likely to die or have their cancer return after three years than those who were given only Keytruda, vaccine maker Moderna Inc. announced Friday.
“Importantly for this technology, the… study was the first demonstration of efficacy for an investigational mRNA cancer treatment in a randomized clinical trial and the first combination therapy to show a significant benefit over Keytruda alone in adjuvant melanoma,” Moderna Senior Vice President Dr. Kyle Holen said in a company news release. “We look forward to sharing these data with people impacted by this disease and the broader scientific community.”
The findings are based on an ongoing randomized trial involving 157 patients with high-risk stage 3/4 melanoma who first had surgery to completely remove cancerous growths.
New AI software highly accurate for spotting melanomas, study shows
‘Forever’ chemicals linked to cancers, other health issues in women
Experimental therapy shows promise for treating advanced melanoma
Patients got 1 milligram (mg) of the mRNA vaccine every three weeks for a total of nine doses, along with 200 mg of Keytruda every three weeks for about a year. Their outcomes were compared to those using Keytruda alone for approximately a year.
The companies have already begun Phase 3 trials of the vaccine-drug combo, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has designated the treatment as a breakthrough therapy, to speed its development and review.
Skin cancer is the most common form of cancer, with melanoma accounting for about 1% of skin cancer cases in the United States. That said, it is responsible for most skin cancer deaths, according to the American Cancer Society (ACS). About 97,610 new melanomas will be diagnosed in the United States this year, with nearly 8,000 deaths, the ACS stated.
Just in time for Christmas: terrorism is comin’ to town!
Just in time for Christmas, the FBI and Homeland Security are announcing a greatly elevated risk of “lone wolf” terrorism. Happy Holidays!
They’re a little late in contributing to the holiday spirit. Hapless FBI Director Christopher Wray has twice in the last month or so sheepishly told Congress with thousands, or tens of thousands of single, military-aged men from countries that want to kill every American, countries like China, Iran, Syria, Afghanistan and more, streaming across the totally secure border, we might have a kinda, sorta, terrorist problem, maybe. They’re even kinda, sorta admitting some of these guys might be members of the Chinese Army.
That’s tens of thousands they know about because they’ve chatted briefly with them before letting them go wherever they please by taxpayer-funded bus or jet, or they’ve seen them trotting across the border and kindly waved “bye-bye.” No one knows how many “got-aways” got away, likely as many more.
Our security establishment has gone so far as to say they’re watching some 300 undocumented persons on the Terrorist Watch List. What they’re not saying is why they allowed 300+ undocumented, TWL nabobs into the country in the first place so they would have to “watch” them. Job security? One doesn’t need to watch them so much if they’re not in the country, but that makes sense, so our security establishment doesn’t do that.
Our guardians, brilliant analysts all, are also suggesting because many of these potential terrorists are Islamists—one has to read between the lines to get that–and not fond of Christianity in all its trappings, might want to “disrupt”—helpful translation: shoot up, blow up, generally slaughter—Christmas gatherings, like church services, parades, stores, malls, that sort of thing.
Incredibly for government work, they’re on to something. We probably don’t have to fear another 9-11 style attack or attacks, though such grand gestures can’t be ruled out. With thousands of terrorists already in country, a great many more, smaller, attacks are most likely. Terror states have cooperative arrangements with Mexican drug cartels, which not only help them cross the border, but provide them with all the weapons and support they need.
Most likely are numerous attacks all across the country at churches, schools, shopping malls, theaters, sports events, anywhere Americans gather. Those attacks require only a few terrorists with small arms. Grenades and other explosives are icing on the terrorist cake. Imagine at least one such terrorist attack in every state occurring on the same day at the same time. That’s the very definition of terrorism: making people fear, making them realize the government can’t, won’t, protect them. Imagine that kind of terrorism occurring over and over again. Even a single terrorist armed with an AK—an actual automatic weapon, not a fictional “assault weapon”—can do enormous damage in little time.
The worst part is terrorists don’t need high body counts, though they certainly prefer them. They need only do many attacks, coordinated or random, to secure the goals of terrorism. Americans afraid to leave their homes contribute to the economic collapse the Biden Meat Puppet Administration has so ardently pursued.
One of life’s ironies is terrorists will be most likely to strike in blue cities and states, places doing their best to keep their citizens disarmed, places—and here’s deadly irony for you—most supportive of the Palestinian terrorist cause. Terrorists, domestic and foreign, prefer gun free zones, knowing they’ll have the best chance to do the most damage before the police can arrive. That doesn’t mean red states are safe, just that there’s a greater chance of armed Americans who can end an attack long before the police can respond. Foreign terrorists are certainly learning the patterns and practices of the police in their assigned target areas.
Sophisticated actors, like visiting members of the Chinese military, are more likely to be stealthy. They’ll engage in sabotage, probing to see just how and where we’re most vulnerable, though they surely have good intelligence on those vulnerabilities already. Wouldn’t widespread blackouts on Christmas Eve add to the festivities? Wouldn’t biological agents in water supplies spice up the Christmas punch bowl? Wouldn’t a universal Internet crash be a Christmas morning surprise?
That the FBI has been very busy pursuing domestic terrorists like soccer moms, any Normal American who happened to be anywhere near DC on January 6, or the worst of the worst—Catholics—is only evidence of their staunch defense of “our democracy.” Unfortunately for us, we’re not a democracy; we’re a representative republic. They’re protecting the people and bureaucracies that want the republic dead, just like those folks on the TWL the FBI is “watching.”
When out and about this Christmas season, bundle up, and put on your most festive Glock. You might need it.
How the Boston Tea Party’s ‘destruction of the tea’ changed American history
On the evening of Dec. 16, 1773, a crowd of armed men, some allegedly wearing costumes meant to disguise them as Native American warriors, boarded three ships docked at Griffin’s Wharf in Boston. In the vessels’ holds were 340 chests containing 92,000 pounds of tea, the most popular drink in America. With support from the patriot group known as the Sons of Liberty, the intruders methodically searched the ships and dumped their tea into Boston Harbor.
According to the British East India Company, whose proprietors owned the destroyed cargo, losses totaled more than a million dollars in today’s currency.
The “destruction of the tea” – as the Boston Tea Party was originally called – was the pivotal event in the coming of the American Revolution. Before Dec. 16, a peaceful resolution to American objections to Parliament’s repeated attempts to tax the Colonies without their consent seemed possible. Afterward, both British and American Colonial positions hardened. Within a year, Britain and America were at war.
An attack on private property
Because it was an attack on private property, the Tea Party offended many patriots in America. When George Washington learned what had happened, he made clear he disapproved of “destroying the tea.”
Benjamin Franklin so disliked the action that he offered to pay for the East India Company’s losses himself. Samuel Adams, assumed by both his peers and modern historians to be one of the Tea Party’s organizers, never admitted to being involved.
The original multinational conglomerate
Given the importance that Americans attached to property rights, why were Boston patriots willing to take such a calculated risk? The answer was the corrupt bargain that Lord North, the British prime minister, struck with the East India Company during the spring of 1773.
The East India Company was Britain’s wealthiest, most powerful corporation. The company had its own army, which was more than twice the size of the king’s regular forces. Political economist Adam Smith described the administration of its territorial empire in South Asia as “military and despotical.” Yet the company was on the verge of bankruptcy – a victim of a devastating famine in Bengal and its own corrupt administration.
North’s solution was the Tea Act. Hoping to fix Britain’s problems in both India and America, Parliament gave the East India Company a monopoly to sell 17 million pounds of tea in America at a reduced price – while keeping in place the Colonial tax on tea that Parliament had levied in the Townshend Acts of 1767. Even with the added cost of the tax, the company’s tea promised to be cheaper than tea sold by anyone else, including untaxed Dutch tea smuggled by merchants like John Hancock.
Parliament’s attempts to tax the Colonies since the Stamp Act of 1765 had largely failed. American patriots feared that the Tea Act would be a victory for British politicians who believed Parliament had the right to raise a revenue in the Colonies without the consent of Colonial representatives.
A national response
Although the most violent resistance to the new measure occurred in Massachusetts, Boston was not alone. As opposition to the Tea Act spread, New York and Philadelphia patriots refused to allow ships with company tea to unload, forcing them to return to Britain.
Elsewhere, tea was unloaded and left on the docks to rot. After merchants in Charleston, South Carolina, paid for a shipment of tea, they were forced by local patriots to empty it into the harbor.
In Edenton, North Carolina, the resistance came from women, 51 of whom signed a petition pledging not to drink tea until the laws “to enslave this our Native Country” were repealed. Women in the port of Wilmington burned tea on the town green.
Parliamentary anger
When news of the destroyed tea reached London, even Britons who sympathized with the American cause were appalled, in part for the same reason many Colonists objected: It was an attack on private property.
Parliament responded with three punitive laws, limiting Massachusetts’ self-government, interfering with the Colony’s courts and stopping all trade through the port of Boston until its people compensated the East India Company for the losses. Historians today remember the statutes as the Coercive Acts. Colonists called them the “Intolerable Acts.” Both descriptions were accurate.
If Parliament had responded less harshly, Americans would have had to weigh their objections to paying Parliament’s tax on tea against the discomfort that many of them felt over the destruction of private property in Boston. Eventually, the men who boarded the ships on Griffin’s Wharf might have been brought to justice.
As it happened, though, Lord North claimed Parliament had no choice. “Whatever may be the consequence,” he told the House of Commons on April 22, 1774, “we must risk something: if we do not, all is over.”
Almost exactly a year later, the government’s coercive measures, which North hoped would settle the dispute on Britain’s terms, tipped 13 of George III’s Colonies into open rebellion. Whatever Americans thought of the events on Dec. 16, the punishment imposed on Massachusetts terrified them even more, raising fears that a similar fate awaited Colonists elsewhere.
If coercion was Britain’s only choice, then the Colonists began to see that perhaps they, too, had just one choice: armed resistance, followed on July 4, 1776, by a declaration of independence.
That wasn’t a ‘mistake’, it was HAMAS intent to have that happen
Three Israeli hostages were killed after the Israel Defense Forces mistook them for a “threat” during crossfire in Gaza Friday, leaving the military expressing “deep sorrow” for the deaths.
Yotam Haim, Samer Talalka and Alon Shamriz were killed when they were accidentally “targeted” in Shejaiya and shot dead by the IDF.
It believes the three hostages “fled or were abandoned by the terrorists who held them captive.”
Haim and Shamriz were abducted by Hamas on Oct. 7 in Kfar Aza, while Talalka was taken from Nir Am, according to the Times of Israel.
Haim, 28, was a heavy metal drummer in the band Persephore. He was taken from his home at the start of the war and his house was set on fire by Hamas fighters.
Talalka, who was in his early 20s, was taken from a hatchery, where he and his father worked. The young man often worked early weekend shifts in the henhouse, according to the outlet.
Shamriz was a 26-year-old computer engineering student whose parents are from Iran, the Times of Israel reported.
Weak concealed carry laws are unpopular & increase gun violence.
Less than a quarter of Americans support allowing a person who can legally own a gun to carry a loaded, concealed handgun in public without having to obtain a concealed carry license: https://t.co/kKOmBClz39 pic.twitter.com/m6hPFlv4LB
— Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions (@JHU_CGVS) December 15, 2023
This whole thing is manipulated data based on a skewed survey using a small sample of people.
“The 2023 survey included 3,096 respondents including 1,002 gun owners and 2,094 non-gun owners.”
More than 2x “non-gun owners” as “gun owners”…
— Ric Vail (@richardjvail) December 15, 2023
December 16
1497 – During his voyage to discover a ocean route to India, Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama passes the Great Fish River at the southern tip of Africa, where Bartolomeu Dias had previously turned back to Portugal.
1620 – While exploring around Cape Cod, Myles Standish and a group of 18 settlers of the Plymouth colony, are confronted by 30 Nauset Indians – which became known as the “First Encounter: – resulting in a brief exchange of hostilities with no casualties on either side.
1689 – The co-reigning English King and Queen William and Mary give the royal ascent to the English Bill of Rights.
1773 – Members of the Sons of Liberty disguised as Mohawk Indians dump hundreds of crates of tea into Boston harbor as a protest against the Tea Act.
1777 – Virginia becomes the first state to ratify the Articles of Confederation.
1811 – The first 2 in a series of 4 severe earthquakes occur in the vicinity of New Madrid, Missouri.
1863 – Joseph E. Johnston replaces Braxton Bragg as commander of the Confederate Army of Tennessee.
1880 – The Boers of South Africa declare their independence and war breaks out between their South African Republic and the British Empire.
1907 – The U.S. Navy’s Great White Fleet begins its cruise of circumnavigation.
1912 – During the First Balkan War, the Royal Hellenic Navy defeats the Ottoman Navy near the mouth of the Dardanelles causing the Turks to retreat within the Straits and leaving the Aegean Sea open to the Greeks.
1930 – Bank robber Herman Lamm commits suicide and all but 2 members of his gang are killed when surrounded by a 200 member strong posse, in Sidell, Illinois, following a car chase after a botched robbery of the Citizens State Bank in Clinton, Indiana.
1944 – The German Army initiates the Ardennes Offensive – The Battle of the Bulge – beginning with the surprise attack of 3 German armies through the Ardennes forest.
1947 – At Bell Telephone Laboratories, William Shockley, John Bardeen and Walter Brattain build the first practical point-contact transistor.
1960 – United Airlines Flight 826, a Douglas DC-8 and TWA Flight 266, a Lockheed Super Constellation, collide over Staten Island, New York and crash, killing all 128 passengers and crews aboard both aircraft and 6 more on the ground.
1978 – Cleveland, Ohio becomes the first major American city to default on its financial obligations since the Great Depression.
1989 – U.S. Appeals Court Judge Robert Smith Vance is assassinated by a mail bomb sent by Walter Leroy Moody, Jr.
1991 – The Major League Baseball expansion club Florida Marlins sign their 1st player, 16 year old pitcher Clemente Nunez
2016 – The State Department increases the reward for information on Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi to $25 million
2020 – A major winter storm hits the U.S. Northeast, resulting in at least 7 deaths and Binghamton, New York, receiving a record 41 inches of snowfall.
No. These domestic enemies need prosecution
THEY SKIPPED CIVICS
SENATOR CORY BOOKER NEEDS A REFRESHER COURSE ON RIGHTS
It’s as if the gun control crowd doesn’t want me to retire, because the Capitol Hill clown show seems to be taking every federal court rejection of extremist gun control as a challenge rather than a lesson in civics and the Constitution.
Last month, U.S. Senator Cory “I am Spartacus” Booker of New Jersey and a handful of his Beltway buddies — the “usual suspects,” of course — introduced a stinker known as the “Federal Firearms Licensing Act.” Otherwise dubbed S. 3212, it reads like the handiwork of someone who either slept through American Government in high school or skipped it altogether. The bill was read twice and referred to the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Here are the highlights:
“Except as provided in subsection (d), it shall be unlawful for any individual to purchase or receive a firearm unless the individual has a valid Federal firearm license.
“The Attorney General shall establish a Federal system for issuing a Federal firearm license to eligible individuals for firearms transferred to such individual.
“(2) REQUIREMENTS.—The system established under paragraph (1) shall require that—
“(A) an individual shall be eligible to receive such a license if the individual—
“(i) has completed training in firearms safety, including—
“(I) a written test, to demonstrate knowledge of applicable firearms laws; and
“(II) hands-on testing, including firing testing, to demonstrate safe use and sufficient accuracy of a firearm; and
“(ii) as part of the process for applying for such a license—
“(I) has submitted to a background investigation and criminal history check of the individual;
“(II) has submitted proof of identity;
“(III) has submitted the fingerprints of the individual; and
“(IV) has submitted identifying information on the firearm that the person intends to obtain, including the make, model, and serial number, and the identity of the firearm seller or transferor.”
If you liked the above, you’ll love what follows:
WOMEN TESTIFY OF SECOND AMENDMENT EMPOWERMENT TO CONGRESS
Congress heard directly from women on the need to empower women by protecting Second Amendment rights in a hearing at the U.S. House of Representatives. The hearing gave voice to women, including domestic violence survivors, of how gun control measures often make it more burdensome for women to protect themselves, even as gun control proponents continue to tell these same women that the government and police will protect them.
The House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Federal Government Surveillance hosted the hearing titled, “Second Amendment Rights Empower Women’s Rights” to inform lawmakers of how gun control puts barriers in the way, or in some cases, robs women of the inherent right to self-defense. Witnesses told lawmakers of their survival stories from horrific spousal abuse. These women also explained that learning to become a responsible firearm owner not only provides them the means to protect themselves and their children while empowering them to determine their futures without fear.
“Female firearm ownership continues to grow in the United States,” said committee Chairman Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.). “Women are turning to themselves to be their own first responders.” He added that gun ownership among Black women is especially on the rise – by 87 percent according to NSSF 2021 data. “I commend these strong women, and all strong women, for stepping up to protect themselves and their families.”
Chairman Biggs noted that this increase is occurring while crime rates are still elevated and soft-on-crime policies, combined with prosecutors unwilling to apply the full strength of the law against criminals, is compelling many women to consider exercising their right to lawful firearm ownership.
“They fail to realize how more gun control only harms and impacts the vulnerable populations they claim they want to protect,” Chairman Biggs added.
The witnesses explained how life circumstances drove them to take ownership of their rights to keep and bear firearms to protect themselves and their loved ones. Some of their paths to firearm ownership began through awful abuse and threats to their lives. They shared that they were determined to never allow that experience to control them and now teach others, especially fellow women, how to lawfully and responsibly own firearms.
Bill to Ban Gun CAD Files Nears Vote In The Senate
A bill to ban computer-aided design (CAD) gun file sharing could be voted on in the United States Senate any day.
The bill reads: “It shall be unlawful for any person to intentionally distribute, over the internet or by means of the World Wide Web, digital instructions in the form of Computer Aided Design files or other code that can automatically program a 3-dimensional printer or similar device to produce a firearm or complete a firearm from an unfinished frame or receiver.”
Senate Bill 1819 is known as the 3D Printed Gun Safety Act and was introduced by Senator Edward Markey (D-MA) and co-sponsored by 28 other Democrats, including Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Cory Booker (D-NJ), Chris Murphy (D-CT), and the late Dianne Feinstein (D-CA). It also has support from most of the other Democrats in the Senate.
“Let me be clear: We aren’t just talking about water pistols here,” said Co-sponsor Senate Kristin Gillibrand (D-NY). “We’re talking about real, fully operational semi-automatic firearms like AR-15 rifles and Beretta M9 handguns. Because many of the 3D printed guns are made of plastic, they can bypass metal detectors commonly used at…secure public areas. People are going into these public spaces and using these ghost guns to commit crimes, and law enforcement is finding it more and more difficult to stop them.”
The bill will prevent the sharing of gun CAD, which is hosted on sites such as Defense Distributed’s Def CAD website. The CAD files let anyone with a 3D printer print a firearm receiver. The affordability of 3D Printers that can be purchased for as little as a few hundred dollars has led to an explosion of DIY gun builders that design and print firearms. The 3D print revolution has made gun laws obsolete.
The bill cites the lack of serial numbers on 3D-printed firearms as one reason the Democrats believe that this proposed law is necessary. Federal law does not require homemade guns to have serial numbers. Anti-gun politicians in Congress have not been able to muster the support to change the law to require serial numbers for privately manufactured firearms (PFM).
Due to the lack of action in Congress, President Joe Biden ordered the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) to issue a rule banning 80% kits and changed the classification of unfinished frames to be considered firearms. The ATF rule change did not address the 3D printing of guns.
Some states have proposed radical laws to try to cut down on the printing of firearms. New York has proposed a law that would require background checks to buy a 3D printer. Anyone the government prohibits from owning firearms would also be prevented from acquiring a 3D printer.
The proposed federal law raises constitutional questions beyond just the Second Amendment. Many believe that computer code is protected speech, and this law would run afoul of the First Amendment. Many books and resources exist that teach people how to make drugs and bombs, like the Anarchist Cookbook. Some in the gun community reason if that is protected by freedom of speech, then computer code that allows someone to make a gun must also be covered by the First Amendment.
A companion bill in the House of Representatives is currently in the House Judiciary. The House bill is expected to fail due to a lack of support from Republicans. It is doubtful that the Senate bill will have enough votes for a supermajority, but the Democrats have been able to pressure the Republicans into passing anti-gun bills such as the Bi-Partisan Safer Communities Act (BSCA).
Pentagon Falls 41,000 Short of Reduced Military Recruitment Goals
The Pentagon came up short on its recruitment goals.
The Defense Department’s senior officials testified Wednesday about shortfalls in Army, Navy and Air Force recruiting in the fiscal year that ended in September at a hearing of the House Armed Services Military Personnel Subcommittee. The Marine Corps and Space Force made their recruiting goals.
Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness Ashish Vazirani said that during fiscal year 2023, the military services together missed goals by about 41,000 recruits.
“That number understates the challenge before us as the services lowered [their] end-strength goals in recent years, in part because of the difficult recruiting environment,” he said. “The all-volunteer force faces one of its greatest challenges since inception.”
The all-volunteer force was created after the draft ended in 1973.
Vazirani cited multiple reasons for the recruitment shortfall, which he called “complex and multifaceted.”
Among the reasons: A strong economy that means more options for young people, a smaller eligible population, Generation Z’s generally low trust in institutions and fewer young people with family members who have served in the military.
In 1995, 40% of young people had a parent who served in the military, Vazirani said. By 2022, 12% had a parent who had served.
“This has led to a disconnect between the military and a large share of society,” he said.
Vazirani said that “while the picture of the current recruiting environment is acutely difficult, the Defense Department and the military services are working together to resolve issues, improve processes, and expand awareness of the many opportunities military service offers.”
In September, the U.S. Government Accountability Office issued a report on military housing. It detailed sewage backups and inoperable fire systems are among the safety hazards that U.S. service members living in barracks face. The report found such conditions undermine quality of life and military readiness.
The U.S. Government Accountability Office report found that the Pentagon’s assessments of conditions at barracks “are unreliable” and “observed barracks that pose potentially serious health and safety risks – such as broken windows and inoperable fire systems – and that do not meet minimum [U.S. Department of Defense] standards for privacy and configuration.”
Conditions were so bad in some places that service members sometimes took “drastic action, such as getting married, just to leave the barracks,” according to the report. Hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops live in barracks, which are for the most junior-ranking unmarried service members without children or other dependents.
Blue State Democrats Demand Jail Time for People Caught Using Gas-Powered Gardening Tools
Democrats in the state of Washington are pushing for members of the public to be jailed for up to one year if they are caught using gas-powered gardening tools.
According to State Reps. Amy Walen and Liz Berry, jailing law-abiding citizens over their lawn mower’s power source will help to fight “climate change.”
Last week, the Democrat lawmakers introduced House Bill 1868.
The legislation seeks to “reduc[e] emissions from outdoor power equipment.”
According to the bill, gas- and diesel-powered landscaping tools “emit a host of air pollutants.”
These “pollutants” are allegedly “contributing to climate change and negatively impacting public health.”
The bill cites findings from Democrat President Joe Biden’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
The EPA claims gas-powered lawnmowers contribute 5% of the country’s air pollution.
According to the EPA, over 17 million gallons of fuel are spilled yearly while refueling outdoor power equipment.
“Nationally, the Department of Transportation data shows that one hour of running a gas lawnmower can contribute as much smog-forming pollution as driving a passenger car 300 miles,” the bill claims.
“One hour of running a gas leaf blower can contribute as much smog-forming pollution as driving a passenger car 1,100 miles.”
Gas-powered lawn tools also cause asthma, hearing loss, and “other health issues,” the legislation claims.
Additionally, the Democrats argue that the noise from outdoor power equipment can be a nuisance.