Volume 268 | No. 3

2004—Osama bin Laden explains: 9/11 was retaliation for the U.S. backing Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon. 1984—New York City policemen kill African American Eleanor Bumpurs, 66, with two rounds from a 12 gauge. She was behind in her rent. 1981—A British Parliamentarian asks Maggie Thatcher whether European governments were “free to veto [a] push on the final button by that incoherent cretin President Reagan?” 1979—On Wall Street, 1,000 people are arrested for disrupting business on the 50th Anniversary of the Crash. 1970—Gov. R. Reagan’s education advisor Roger A. Freeman warns “We are in danger of producing an educated proletariat. … That’s dynamite!” 1969—Chicago 8 defendant …

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2022—Elon Musk buys Twitter; an online loon attacks the House Speaker’s husband with a hammer; there’s no connection between these events. 2016—Disregarding advice from Justice Dept. lawyers, Director James Comey announces that the FBI has re-opened its investigation of the Democratic Presidential candidate 10 days before the election. 2003—Iraq is “a little tougher that I thought it was going to be,” says Sen. Trent Lott [R-Miss.], but “if we have to, we just mow the whole place down [and] see what happens.” 1989—Congress passes a new, improved Flag Protection Act; 227 days later it’s struck down by the Court. 1980—With help from a stolen briefing …

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1972—Richard Nixon pocket vetoes a bill to raise the veterans’ health care budget by $85 million. 1969—Richard Nixon sends 18 armed B-52s flying around the North Pole for three days to convince the Soviets he’s dangerously unstable. Duh. 1967—Rev. Philip Berrigan and three friends pour duck blood on draft records in Baltimore, Md. 1965—In a letter to the N.Y. Times, Richard Nixon writes, “We must never forget that if the war in Vietnam is lost…the right of free speech will be extinguished throughout the world.” 1962—ICBMs go on alert in Montana as Cubans shoot down one U-2 and another strays over the USSR. Meanwhile, aboard …

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2016—Bloomberg reports that Frederick Trump, Donald’s grandpa, once ran a brothel in British Columbia. 2010—Arizona kills Jeffrey Landrigan, using drugs imported illegally. 2003—Iraqi resistance fighters nearly get Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz with a rocket in Baghdad. 1972—Four years after helping to scuttle peace talks and get Richard Nixon elected, Henry Kissinger announces that “Peace is at hand.” 1971—Governor Reagan, calling the White House, refers to “those monkeys from those African countries…damn them, they’re still uncomfortable wearing shoes,” which President Nixon finds hilarious. 1966—Aboard the carrier USS Oriskany off Vietnam, a sailor throws an accidentally-ignited flare into a locker full of warheads. Explosions ensue, 44 …

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2001—Only Sen. Russ Feingold votes “nay” on the “PATRIOT” Act. 1983—U.S. troops protect us (and distract from the deaths of 241 Marines in Beirut) by invading Grenada. 1978—In response to GOP malfeasance, FISA is enacted—thereby enabling future GOP malfeasance. 1973—Henry Kissinger, Alexander Haig, and other unelected officials raise America’s military readiness level to DEF CON 3 as Nixon sleeps. 1962—Nuclear-armed jets scramble from Duluth AFB because a guard, thinking it was an infiltrator, shot a bear climbing a perimeter fence. 1960—Martin Luther King, Jr. gets four months at hard labor in Decatur, Georgia on old traffic charges. 1944—A Japanese armada surprises “Taffy 3”—a far smaller …

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2012—George W.[MD] Bush is paid a $100K fee for speaking to troops wounded while following his orders. 2001—The U.S. House passes the PATRIOT Act without reading it. 1983—U.S. military aircraft, using old maps, bomb Richmond Hill Insane Asylum in Grenada, killing 16. 1962—Soviet ships reach the U.S. quarantine line off Cuba. They don’t cross it, so we don’t nuke the USSR. A Soviet satellite explodes the same day. NORAD suspects an ICBM attack; but, again, nobody pushes The Button. 1963—In Dallas on UN Day, U.S. Ambassador to the UN Adlai Stevenson is shoved, booed, spat upon, and hit with signs by John Birchers led by …

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