Volume 269 | No. 3

1972—Richard Nixon pocket vetoes a bill which would have raised 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—Father 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. …

Read more

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 …

Read more

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 …

Read more

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. 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 ex-Army Maj. Gen. Edwin Walker. 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, …

Read more

2015—James Comey says criticism of the police is causing the rise of violent crime in cities. He offers no evidence for this assertion. 2015—Senator Ted Cruz [R-Texas] warns “one more liberal justice and they begin sandblasting and bulldozing veterans memorials.” 2013—Chancellor Angela Merkel calls the White House to complain about the NSA tapping her phone. 2001—Rep. James Sensenbrenner [R-Wisc.] introduces the senseless PATRIOT Act, & Justice official James Yoo writes a memo saying the President need not obey the law. 1998—Life being sacred, anti-abortion fanatic James C. Kopp murders Dr. Barnett Slepian in Amherst, N.Y. 1987—Robert Bork gets Borked. 1983—Suicide bombers kill 241 U.S. Marines …

Read more

1987—At Yoken’s, Queens con man Donald Trump puts the flim-flam on a credulous Portsmouth Rotary Club. 1979—With an OK from Jimmy Carter, the Shah of Iran enters the U.S. for medical treatment, triggering chaos. 1968—To improve the odds of his election, Richard Nixon tells H.R. Haldeman to “monkey wrench” negotiations to end the Vietnam War. 1967—KGB agent Manfred Ramminger steals a Sidewinder missile from Neuburg AFB, takes it off-base in a wheelbarrow, drives away with it sticking out the back of his Mercedes, and mails it, dismantled, to Moscow. 1963—Fed up with accurate reporting, JFK asks “Punch” Sulzberger to remove the Times’ David Halberstam from …

Read more