Volume 264 | No. 24

2010—Gareth Williams, money-laundering investigator for MI6, is found dead inside a locked gym bag in a London “safe house.” Metropolitan Police rule he died alone by accident. 2000—The 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals rules that applicants can be denied jobs as cops on the grounds that they’re too smart. 1971—For the Chamber of Commerce, future Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell lays out a plan for Right Wingers to reverse the New Deal with a huge propaganda campaign. 1968—Yippees nominate a pig for President, saying, “if we can’t have him in the White House, we can have him for breakfast.” 1966—Robert Strange McNamara announces new standards. …

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2016—The lift span of the Sarah Long Bridge is raised for the last time. 2008—An Afghan security contractor tricks U.S. forces into eliminating a rival with a AC-130 gunship. In two hours it kills 91 in Azizabad. Most are civilian women and children. Fox’s Ollie North, embedded in the bloody fiasco, calls it a great victory. 2002—The Bush Administration announces trade sanctions on North Korea, with which we do not trade. 1992—An FBI sniper wounds Randy Weaver and kills his wife Vicki at Ruby Ridge in Idaho. 1991—Derick Lynn Peterson’s obstinant heart continues beating for ten minutes after his electrocution, so Virginia officials zap him …

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2017—During an eclipse, as an aide says, “Don’t look,” President Trump removes protective glasses and stares directly at the sun. 2017—The Navy destroyer U.S.S. McCain collides with a freighter in the Gulf of Molucca; ten sailors die. This, 65 days after the destroyer U.S.S. Fitzgerald hits a freight ship off Honshu, killing seven aboard. 1992—Samuel Weaver, 14, and U.S. Marshal W.F. Degan die in a shootout at Ruby Ridge, Idaho. 1976—A two-day occupation of the Seabrook, N.H. nuke site begins. 1963—Ngo Dinh Nhu’s secret police kill hundreds of Buddhist protestors across Vietnam—for democracy. 1927—Justice Louis Brandeis refuses to hear a request for a stay of …

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2018—Greta Thunberg strikes, demanding action on the climate crisis. 1998—Days after admitting he’d lied about sex with an intern, Bill Clinton throws 13 Tomahawk missiles at Sudan’s only pharmaceutical factory. 1965—Keene, N.H. seminary student & civil rights worker Jonathan Daniels is murdered in Nayneville, Ala. White jurors acquit his killer. 1945—Charles de Gaulle is warned by his ex-puppet Emperor Bao Dai that if France tries to rule Vietnam, “it will no longer be obeyed; each village will be a nest of resistance, each former collaborator an enemy, and your officials and colonists will themselves ask to leave this atmosphere which they will be unable to …

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1999—The FBI puts the name of James “Whitey” Bulger, its partner in crime, on the Most-Wanted List. 1997—In Colebrook, N.H., anti-regulation fanatic Carl Drega murders two cops, a selectman, and a judge. In response, Vin Suprynowicz, a future Signed Member of the Free State Project, writes an essay and a book sympathizing with the killer. 1983—Gov. Bruce Scabbitt Babbitt [D-Ariz.] sends the National Guard & state cops to Morenci to bust a strike for mining company Phelps-Dodge. 1977—RIP Groucho: “Die, my dear? Why, that’s the last thing I’ll do.” 1953—A CIA coup overthrows the elected government of Iran—what could possibly go wrong? 1942—An Allied force …

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1996—The U.S. prison population hits 1,600,000, double what it had been just 10 years earlier. 1988—Accepting the GOP nomination, George H.[H.]W. Bush solemnly vows, “Read my lips: no new taxes!” 1960—Kindly old Ike OKs a CIA plot to assassinate Patrice Lumumba, Prime Minister of Congo. 1959—Sailors aboard the U.S.S. Wasp bring a severe fire under control, barely averting the need to flood the ship’s nuclear weapons storage space. 1950—A climbing party at the summit of the Matterhorn (14,692 feet) encounters a ten-month-old black and white kitten from the Hotel Belvedere, situated at 10,820 feet. 1933—Germany introduces the Volksempfänger, or Peoples’ Radio. Built to Joseph Goebbels’ …

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