Volume 268 | No. 25

2010—Alabama prison officials ban the reading of a Pulitzer-winning history of Black forced labor. 2002—George W.[MD] Bush Chief of Staff Andy Card says, “From a marketing point of view, you don’t introduce new products [i.e., wars based on false premises] in August.” 1978—The U.S.House opens hearings on the assassinations of JFK & MLK. On Dec. 30th they conclude that conspiracies were likely. 1964—Thousands of white kids riot in Hampton Beach, N.H., causing extensive property damage. Bill Loeb’s Union Leader blames it on the pinkos. 1949—World War II vet and devout churchgoer Howard Unruh kills 13 of his N.J. neighbors in 12 minutes. 1939—FDR OKs FBI …

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2005—Barbara Bush says Hurricane Katrina was “working very well” for thousands of homeless refugees. 2002—Portsmouth loses Jay Smith, creator of the Press Room, Patron Saint of The Music Hall, &c. RIP. 1991—The D.C. home of Sen. Jesse Helms [R-N.C.] is covered by a giant condom, courtesy of ACT UP. 1990—Los Angeles Police Chief Darryl Gates tell the Senate Judiciary Committee that “casual drug users should be taken out and shot.” 1939—Arriving in Australia from Ulm, Germany, after a kayak trip that took seven years, Oskar Speck is detained for seven more years as a spy. 1934—N.C. Gov. John Ehringhaus [Dem.] calls out the National Guard …

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2019—To prove that his Hurricane Dorian prediction was perfect, Donald J. Trump displays a fake map. 1992—Ex-South Vietnamese fighter pilot Ly Tong hijacks an Air Vietnam Airbus out of Bangkok. As it flies low and slow over Ho Chi Minh City, he drops revolutionary propaganda, then safely parachutes—but into captivity. 1976—George W.[MD] Bush is arrested for DUI in Kennebunk, Maine. 1973—R. Nixon’s flunkies John Ehrlichman and G. Gordon Liddy are indicted for felonious burgling. 1967—“I just had the greatest brainwashing … [in] Vietnam,” says Gov. George Romney (R-Mich.). 1957—Ford’s Edsel debuts. 1957—Gov. Orval Faubus [Dem.] orders the Arkansas National Guard to keep nine Black children …

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2003—Because life is sacred, Florida poisons Paul Hill, who shotgunned Dr. John Britton and his bodyguard because life is sacred. Rinse & repeat. 1991—Locked doors, dead phones, and a lack of fire alarms kill 25 workers in a North Carolina chicken plant. 1971—As Richard Nixon speaks at a Milk Producers’ convention in Chicago, an aide pockets his fee: a $5,000 bribe, which will pay the Plumbers who are, this day, breaking into the office of Daniel Ellsberg’s psychiatrist—at Nixon’s behest. 1955—Mamie Till Mobley holds an open-casket funeral for her murdered and mutilated son Emmett. 1950—American advisors arrive in Saigon to support NATO: France wants Vietnam, …

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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—V-J Day—Japan surrenders to General “Dugout Doug” MacArthur aboard a battleship named after Pres. 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 …

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