Fri, Sept 2

1983—Mississippi’s execution of Jimmy Lee Gray goes poorly; executioner T. Berry Bruce is drunk. Officials clear the witness room after eight minutes, as Gray gasps, moans, and bangs his head on a steel pole. 1945—VJ Day—Japan surrenders to General “Dugout Doug” MacArthur aboard a battleship named after Harry S Truman’s home state. 1945—Cribbing freely from the U.S. Declaration of Independence, Ho Chi Minh declares Vietnam to be sovereign and independent. 1939—G-Man J. Edgar Hoover creates a “Custodial Detention Index,” a list of left wingers to detain without trial in case of “national emergency.” 1935—Recently rousted from Washington, D.C. by General Douglas MacArthur, 259 veterans working …

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Thurs, Sept 1

2019—Meteorologist-in-Chief Donald J. Trump tweets that Hurricane Dorian will hit Alabama hard. 2005—New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin calls for George W.[MD] Bush and FEMA to “get off your asses and do something” about his flooded city. 1989—Narcs trying to score crack near the White House for a George H.[H.]W. Bush presidential photo-op get the drug on their third try but not the film—their camera operator gets mugged by a homeless person. 1989—Bible-thumping huckster Jim Bakker’s fraud trial is briefly interrupted when, professing that he’s hallucinating, he’s taken to a mental institution in handcuffs and leg shackles. 1983—The USSR shoots down KAL Flight 007. Among the …

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Tax Dodger Donates $1.6 Billion to
the Guy Who Owns the Supreme Court

by Jake Johnson A right-wing dark money group controlled by Leonard Leo—a legal activist who has played an outsized role in packing the U.S. Supreme Court with conservative ideologues—was the beneficiary of a massive, possibly unprecedented donation of $1.6 billion from a shadowy electronics mogul with ties to the Koch network. The enormous infusion of cash, first reported Monday by the New York Times, could bolster and embolden right-wing efforts to drag the U.S. judicial and political systems even further to the right for decades to come, imperiling the climate, what’s left of abortion rights, the franchise, and other freedoms that have come under growing …

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Wed, Aug 31

2019—Portsmouth’s Daniel Street Post Office closes for good. Thanks a lot, Councilor, Congressman, Governor, and Senator Judd Gregg. 1973—The Gainesville Eight, antiwar veterans charged with conspiracy to riot at the 1972 Republican National Convention, are acquitted. 1965—President Johnson signs a bill making draft card burning illegal. 1963—Robert Bork publishes an article in The New Republic opposing the Civil Rights Act. 1954—Hurricane Carol slams New England; 65 die. 1948—An LAPD setup bears fruit: Robert Mitchum is busted for pot. 1939—German operatives conduct Operation Himmler, 21 false flag attacks along the Polish border, to justify the next day’s invasion. 1925—After an 11-year occupation, U.S. Marines depart from …

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Tues, Aug 30

2011—The Federal Election Commission awakens and OKs an investigation of Rep. Frank Guinta [R-N.H.]. 2007—Unbeknownst to the pilots, a B-52 takes off from N.D. with six live nukes onboard. In La., it sits unguarded from noon to 10:00 p.m. 2004—To milk 9/11 for all it’s worth, the RNC convenes in New York City. Attendees mock John Kerry and wounded vets in general by wearing “Purple Heart” band-aids. 1979—Deftly wieldinga canoe paddle, President Carter fends off a deranged swamp rabbit. 1979—For the first time, astronomers observe a comet hitting the sun. 1967—Thurgood Marshall becomes the first Black Associate Justice. 1964—At the Democratic Convention, an all-white delegation …

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Sun, Aug 28

2005—Hurricane Katrina hits New Orleans and the levees break. 1969—Judith Love Cohen completes the Abort Guidance System—later used to bring Apollo 13 back to Earth—while in labor in the maternity ward, then gives birth to Jack Black. 1968—Police preserve disorder at the Democratic Convention in Chicago. 1963—At the Lincoln Memorial, Martin Luther King, Jr. calls for freedom to ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire … . 1955—During a visit to family in Money, Miss., fourteen year-old Chicagoan Emmett Till is murdered by whites for speaking to a white woman. 1951—Killed in Korea, John R. Rice is denied burial at a Sioux City cemetery …

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