Mon, Nov 9

1998—Brokers who rigged the game at NASDAQ  are compelled to pay their bilked customers $1 billion. 1989—The Berlin Wall suddenly becomes unexpectedly porous. 1979—A computer error leads the U.S. Air Defense Command to believe for six minutes that the USSR is attacking the U.S. 1969—Two small groups of Indians make successive landings on Alcatraz Island. The first is removed by the Coast Guard, the second manages to stay overnight. 1965—A failed power plant in Ontario puts the Northeast in the dark. 1953—Dylan Thomas dies in New York at 39, mostly from bad doctoring. 1938—German Nazis demonstrate their racial superiority during Kristallnacht by killing 91 Jews. …

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Sun, Nov 8

2016—Donald J. Trump wins the Presidency. Everybody else is a loser. 2013—The Navy suspends the security clearance of Vice Admiral Ted “Twig” Branch, Director of Naval Intelligence. Though he’s now unable to do the job, the Navy leaves him in it. 2010—George W.[MD] Bush reveals on TV that his mother once showed him a jar containing the fetus of a miscarried sibling and asked him to drive her to the hospital. 2000—At 2:16 a.m., Fox News “reporter” John Ellis calls Fla. in favor of his cousin, George W.[MD] Bush. 1994—The GOP, led by serial philanderer Newt Gingrich, take Congress. 1983—Moscow puts its nukes on high …

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Fri, Nov 20

2008—Sarah Palin is interviewed on live TV while, in the background, turkeys are being slaughtered. 1980—In Louisiana, an oil rig drilling in the wrong spot hits a salt mine under Lake Peigneur. The rig, 11 barges, and a tugboat disappear. 1979—Fundamentalists seize Mecca’s Grand Mosque, full of hostages. The CIA blames guiltless Iran. 1975—Spanish dictator Francisco Franco dies. Reportedly he’s still dead. 1969—News reports say American GIs massacred hundreds of civilians at “Pinkville” on March 16, 1968. 1969—Eighty-nine American Indians again attempt to occupy Alcatraz; 14 evade a Coast Guard blockade and achieve their objective. 1962—The Cuban Missile Crisis blows over, rather than up. With …

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A wealth of riches, a poverty of morals

Let’s say you’re a millionaire. That’s a lot of money, right? Now let’s say you’re a billionaire. That’s a lot more money! But how much more? Think of all those dollars as seconds on a clock. A million seconds would total 11 days—but a billion seconds equals nearly 32 years! Rich is nice, but billionaire-rich is over the moon—and the wealth of billionaires is now zooming out of this world. There are only 2,200 of these über rich dudes in the world, but the wealth stashed away by these elites hit a new record this summer, averaging more than $4 billion each. They’ve even pocketed …

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The Criminalization of Politics

by William Cooper American politics have become criminalized. A steady drum beat of words and deeds—from “lock her up” chants, to prosecutions of President Trump’s associates, to Trump pushing for Joe Biden’s indictment—has eroded the bright line between politics and the criminal law. This is deeply troubling for several reasons. First, criminalizing politics conflicts with the bedrock principle that the rule of law applies equally to all people. Entangling the passions of politics with the criminal law leads to treating people differently based on their political affiliation—instead of on their guilt or innocence. This is antithetical to even-handed justice. The examples of this criminalization are …

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Preparing for a Contested Election

by Andrew Moss Though former Vice-President Joe Biden maintains a relatively stable polling lead over President Donald Trump, there’s still good reason to prepare for a contested election. For months, President Trump has generated a steady stream of disinformation about mail-in voting, falsely associating it with high levels of voter fraud, and there’s no reason to think that the disinformation campaign will end when election results start coming in on November 3rd. Fourteen states, including the battleground states of Michigan and Pennsylvania, won’t begin to authenticate, much less count, mail-in ballots until that day, and definitive election results may not be available for some time. …

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