https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1097839397758795778

Donald J. Trump
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@realDonaldTrump

As I predicted, 16 cities, led mostly by Open Border Democrats and the Radical Left, have filed a lawsuit in, of course, the 9th Circuit! California, the state that has wasted billions of dollars on their out of control Fast Train, with no hope of completion, seems in charge!

Wikipedia link

David Charles Horowitz (June 30, 1937 – February 13, 2019) was an American consumer reporter and journalist for KNBC-TV in Los Angeles, whose Emmy-winning TV program Fight Back! would warn viewers about defective products, test advertised claims to see if they were true, and confront corporations about customer complaints. He has been on the boards of directors of the National Broadcast Editorial Conference, City of Hope, and the American Cancer Society. He has been on the FCC advisory board and advisory board for the Los Angeles District Attorney.

Horowitz has been described as a consumer advocate; he personally shunned the description, noting that he always tried to maintain an objective point of view toward both the consumer and the businesses he profiled.

Early life
David Horowitz attended Bradley University, where he became a member of Alpha Epsilon Pi,[5] and graduated with high honors in 1959. Horowitz earned a master's degree in journalism from Northwestern University, then worked at newspapers and TV stations in the Midwest, including KRNT-TV in Des Moines, Iowa. He was a writer for the Huntley Brinkley Report. He opened the first news bureau for NBC News during the Vietnam War. Horowitz was then offered a chance to develop a consumer-awareness segment for NBC's Los Angeles newscast, but nearly turned it down because they had offered it to six other people before him.

Appearances
Horowitz made a guest appearance on the Super Mario Bros. Super Show! in 1989. He also appeared as himself on an episode of Silver Spoons, ALF, the Golden Girls, The Munsters Today, and Saved by the Bell. Horowitz was also a regular guest on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson (which also occasionally parodied him as "David Howitzer&quot .

Hostage situation
On August 19, 1987, during KNBC's 4 p.m. newscast, a gun-wielding mental patient identifying himself as "Gary" got into the NBC Studios in Burbank, California, as a guest of an employee on the set and took Horowitz hostage live on the air. With the gun pressed on his side, Horowitz calmly read the gunman's statements on camera; unbeknownst to the gunman, the news feed had been taken off the air. The unidentified man revealed at the end of his statement that the gun was an empty BB gun, and set the gun down on the newsdesk, at which point anchorman John Beard quickly confiscated it. It led Horowitz to start a successful campaign to help ban "look-alike" toy guns in several states, including California and New York.

Controversies
In 1998, Horowitz joined a political campaign to urge voters to defeat a California ballot initiative calling for a 20% cut in electricity rates for private utility customers and ending surcharges on ratepayers to pay for nuclear power plants. Horowitz later admitted he was paid $106,000 by the campaign. Horowitz approached the organizers of the campaign and asked to be a part of it.

Quote
"Stay aware and informed, Fight Back, and don't let anyone rip you off!"

https://www.npr.org/2019/02/19/676923000/bernie-sanders-enters-2020-presidential-campaign-no-longer-an-underdog

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders is giving it another go, launching a second campaign for the White House four years after surprising Democrats with a strong bid for the party's 2016 nomination.

"We began the political revolution in the 2016 campaign, and now it's time to move that revolution forward," the independent senator told Vermont Public Radio in an interview airing Tuesday morning.

But this 2020 bid will undoubtedly be a very different presidential campaign than his quest for the Democratic nomination as an underdog in 2016. Sanders enters the race as a top contender who, along with former Vice President Joe Biden, tops most early polls, far outpacing other Democratic candidates in support and name identification.

It's a sharp contrast from when Sanders seemingly came out of nowhere to surprise the political class — and at times himself — by winning several key primaries against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Buoyed by a big early win in New Hampshire, Sanders fought Clinton for the Democratic nomination through the final June contests, drawing tens of thousands of supporters to rallies in the process.

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https://www.npr.org/2019/02/19/676923000/bernie-sanders-enters-2020-presidential-campaign-no-longer-an-underdog

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders is giving it another go, launching a second campaign for the White House four years after surprising Democrats with a strong bid for the party's 2016 nomination.

"We began the political revolution in the 2016 campaign, and now it's time to move that revolution forward," the independent senator told Vermont Public Radio in an interview airing Tuesday morning.

But this 2020 bid will undoubtedly be a very different presidential campaign than his quest for the Democratic nomination as an underdog in 2016. Sanders enters the race as a top contender who, along with former Vice President Joe Biden, tops most early polls, far outpacing other Democratic candidates in support and name identification.

It's a sharp contrast from when Sanders seemingly came out of nowhere to surprise the political class — and at times himself — by winning several key primaries against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Buoyed by a big early win in New Hampshire, Sanders fought Clinton for the Democratic nomination through the final June contests, drawing tens of thousands of supporters to rallies in the process.

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https://gcaptain.com/spanish-warship-ordered-ships-to-leave-british-waters-near-gibraltar/

LONDON, Feb 18 (Reuters) – A Spanish warship tried to order commercial shipping to leave anchorages in British waters near Gibraltar but was challenged by the British navy and sailed away, Gibraltar said, the latest example of tension over the strategic port as Brexit approaches.

The Spanish ship tried to order ships to leave their anchorages on the eastern side of the Rock, but the ships stayed in position, Gibraltar’s authorities said. After being challenged by the British navy, the Spanish warship then sailed slowly along the coast with its weapons uncovered and manned.

Spanish authorities did not immediately comment on the issue.
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https://www.shorpy.com/node/24351


October 1941. "Woodville, Greene County, Georgia. Section of a house built in the 1830s by the grandfather of Mr. Wade Durham. The house is now occupied by a Negro family." Medium format negative by Jack Delano.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Seven

The Chicago Seven (originally Chicago Eight, also Conspiracy Eight/Conspiracy Seven) were seven defendants—Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, David Dellinger, Tom Hayden, Rennie Davis, John Froines, and Lee Weiner—charged by the federal government with conspiracy, inciting to riot, and other charges related to anti-Vietnam War and countercultural protests that took place in Chicago, Illinois, on the occasion of the 1968 Democratic National Convention. Bobby Seale, the eighth man charged, had his trial severed during the proceedings, lowering the number of defendants from eight to seven.

Seale was eventually sentenced to four years in prison for contempt of court, although this ruling was later reversed.

After a federal trial resulting in both acquittals and convictions, followed by appeals, and reversals, some of the seven defendants were finally convicted, although all of the convictions were ultimately overturned.

Background
The 1968 Democratic National Convention was held in Chicago in late August to select the party's candidates for the November 1968 presidential election. Prior to and during the convention—which took place at the International Amphitheatre—rallies, demonstrations, marches, and attempted marches took place on the streets and in the lakefront parks, about five miles away from the convention site. These activities were primarily in protest of President Lyndon B. Johnson's policies for the Vietnam War, policies which were vigorously contested during the presidential primary campaign and inside the convention.

Anti-war groups had petitioned the city of Chicago for permits to march five miles from the central business district (the Chicago Loop) to within sight of the convention site, to hold a number of rallies in the lakefront parks and also near the convention, and to camp in Lincoln Park. The city denied all permits, except for one afternoon rally at the old bandshell at the south end of Grant Park. The city also enforced an 11:00 pm curfew in Lincoln Park. Confrontations with protesters ensued as the police enforced the curfew, stopped attempts to march to the International Amphitheatre, and cleared crowds from the streets.

The Grant Park rally on Wednesday, August 28, 1968, was attended by about 15,000 protesters; other nearby activities involved hundreds or thousands of protesters. After the large rally outside of the venue, several thousand protesters attempted to march to the International Amphitheatre, but were stopped in front of the Conrad Hilton Hotel, where the presidential candidates and their campaigns were headquartered. Police worked to push the protesters out of the street, using tear gas, verbal and physical confrontation, and police batons to beat people; protesters retaliated by throwing rocks and bottles, and damaging private commercial property. The police made scores of arrests. The television networks broadcast footage of these violent clashes, cutting away from the nominating speeches for the presidential candidates.

Over the course of five days and nights, the police made numerous arrests, in addition to using tear gas, mace, and batons on the marchers. Hundreds of police officers and protesters were injured. Dozens of journalists covering the actions were also clubbed by police or had cameras smashed and film confiscated. In the aftermath of what was later characterized as a "police riot" by the U.S. National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence, a federal grand jury indicted eight demonstrators and eight police officers.

Grand jury and indictment
Following the convention on September 9, 1968, a federal grand jury was convened to consider criminal charges. The grand jury focused on the possible grounds for charges in four areas:

A conspiracy by protesters to cross state lines to incite a riot;
Violations by police of the civil rights of demonstrators by use of excessive force;
TV network violations of the Federal Communications Act; and
TV network violations of federal wiretap laws.

Over the course of more than six months, the grand jury met 30 times and heard some 200 witnesses. President Lyndon Johnson's Attorney General, Ramsey Clark, discouraged an indictment, believing that the violence during the convention was primarily caused by mishandling of the protests by the Chicago police. The grand jury returned indictments only after President Richard Nixon took office and John Mitchell assumed the office of Attorney General. On March 20, 1969, eight protesters were charged with various federal crimes and eight police officers were charged with civil rights violations.

Charges
The eight defendants were charged under the anti-riot provisions of the Civil Rights Act of 1968[4] which made it a federal crime to cross state lines with the intent to incite a riot. The Chicago Eight indictments alleged crimes of three kinds:

That all eight defendants conspired (together with another 16 other co-conspirators who were not indicted) to cross state lines to incite a riot, to teach the making of an incendiary device, and to commit acts to impede law enforcement officers in their lawful duties.
That David Dellinger, Rennie Davis, Tom Hayden, Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, and Bobby Seale individually crossed state lines to incite a riot.
That John Froines and Lee Weiner instructed other persons in the construction and use of an incendiary device.

The 16 alleged co-conspirators who avoided prosecution were: Wolfe B. Lowenthal, Stewart E. Albert, Sidney M. Peck, Kathy Boudin, Corina F. Fales, Benjamin Radford, Thomas W. Neumann, Craig Shimabukuro, Bo Taylor, David A. Baker, Richard Bosciano, Terry Gross, Donna Gripe, Benjamin Ortiz, Joseph Toornabene, and Richard Palmer.

Trial

Bobby Seale as depicted by Franklin McMahon at the trial.

The original eight defendants indicted by the grand jury on March 20, 1969, were Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, David Dellinger, Tom Hayden, Rennie Davis, John Froines, Lee Weiner, and Bobby Seale. The trial began on September 24, 1969. The defense attorneys were William Kunstler and Leonard Weinglass of the Center for Constitutional Rights, the judge was Julius Hoffman, and the prosecutors were Richard Schultz and Tom Foran. On October 9, the governor of Illinois requested the United States National Guard for crowd control as demonstrations increased outside the courtroom.

When the names of the defendants were mentioned in court, at the early part of the trial, Judge Hoffman made a comment about defendant Abbie Hoffman (no relation); "He is not my son." In an immediate reply, Abbie called out, "Dad, dad, have you forsaken me?!"

According to The Chicago Tribune, "beginning as the Chicago Eight Trial, it quickly became the Chicago Seven when Seale, after loudly disrupting the trial when he could not have the lawyer of his choice, was at first bound and gagged in the courtroom and then severed from the case for a later trial, which never occurred." Seale requested that the trial be postponed so that his attorney Charles Garry could represent him (as Garry was about to undergo gallbladder surgery). The Judge denied the postponement, and refused to allow Seale to represent himself. Seale vehemently protested the judge's illegal and unconstitutional actions, and arguing that they were not only illegal, but also racist. The judge in turn accused Seale of disrupting the court, and on October 29, Judge Hoffman ordered Bobby Seale to be bound, gagged, and chained to a chair, citing a precedent from the U.S. Supreme Court case Illinois v. Allen. For several days, Seale appeared in court bound and gagged before the jury, struggling to get free and managing to make muffled sounds. Defense attorney Kunstler declared, "This is no longer a court of order, Your Honor, this is a medieval torture chamber." (This was alluded to in Graham Nash's song, "Chicago", which opened with: "So your brother's bound and gagged, and they've chained him to a chair" ). Ultimately, Judge Hoffman severed Seale from the case, sentencing him to four years in prison for contempt of court, one of the longest sentences ever handed down for that offense in the U.S. up to that time. Due to the judge's unconstitutional actions, the contempt charges against Seale were soon overturned by the U.S. Court of Appeals.

The Chicago Eight were then reduced to the Chicago Seven. The defendants, particularly members of the Youth International Party ("yippies" ), Hoffman and Rubin, mocked courtroom decorum and the widely publicized trial became a focal point for a growing legion of protesters. One day, defendants Hoffman and Rubin appeared in court dressed in judicial robes. When the judge ordered them to remove the robes, they complied, to reveal that they were wearing Chicago police uniforms underneath. Hoffman blew kisses at the jury. Judge Hoffman was a frequent target of the defendants, who insulted him to his face. Abbie Hoffman told Judge Hoffman "you are a shande fur de Goyim [disgrace in front of the gentiles]. You would have served Hitler better." He later added that "your idea of justice is the only obscenity in the room." Both Davis and Rubin told the judge "this court is bullshit."

I pointed out that it was in the best interests of the City to have us in Lincoln Park ten miles away from the Convention hall. I said we had no intention of marching on the Convention hall, that I didn't particularly think that politics in America could be changed by marches and rallies, that what we were presenting was an alternative life style, and we hoped that people of Chicago would come up, and mingle in Lincoln Park and see what we were about.

—?Abbie Hoffman, from the Chicago Seven trial.

The trial extended for months, with many celebrated figures from the American left and counterculture called to testify, including singers Phil Ochs, Judy Collins, Arlo Guthrie, and Country Joe McDonald; writers Norman Mailer and Allen Ginsberg; and activists Timothy Leary and Rev. Jesse Jackson. Ochs, who was involved in planning for the demonstrations, told the court that he had acquired a pig to nominate as a presidential candidate. Rubin had tried to deliver the acceptance speech for the pig, named Pigasus, but before he could finish, police arrested him and Ochs under a livestock ordinance; this charge was later changed to disorderly conduct.

"While defending the Chicago Seven, [Kunstler] put the war in Vietnam on trial—asking Judy Collins to sing "Where Have All The Flowers Gone" from the witness stand, placing a Viet Cong flag on the defence table, and wearing a black armband to commemorate the war dead. ”
— Ron Kuby, in his 1995 eulogy of Kunstler"

Contempt citations
While the jury deliberated on the verdict, Judge Hoffman cited all the defendants—plus their lawyers Kunstler and Weinglass—for numerous contempts of court, imposing sentences ranging from 2½ months to four years.

Verdict
On February 18, 1970, each of the seven defendants was acquitted of conspiracy. Two (Froines and Weiner) were acquitted completely, while the remaining five were convicted of crossing state lines with the intent to incite a riot. The crime was instituted by the anti-riot provisions of the Civil Rights Act of 1968, a provision that was introduced in the House by Representative William C. Cramer of Florida. On February 20, they were sentenced to five years in prison and fined $5,000 each.

Appeal
On November 21, 1972, all of the convictions were reversed by the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit on the basis that the judge was biased in his refusal to permit defense attorneys to screen prospective jurors for cultural and racial bias, and the FBI surveillance of the defense lawyers' offices. The Justice Department decided against retrying the case. During the trial, all of the defendants and both defense attorneys had been cited for contempt and sentenced to jail, but those convictions were also overturned on appeal.

The contempt charges were retried before a different judge, who found Dellinger, Rubin, Hoffman, and Kunstler guilty of some of the charges, but did not sentence any of them to jail or fines.

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https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/17435999.last-survivor-of-the-great-escape-dick-churchill-dies-aged-99/



The last survivor of the Great Escape has died - aged 99.

Bomber pilot Richard 'Dick' Churchill, a prisoner of war at Stalag Luft III, believed he escaped execution because he shared the Prime Minister’s surname.

He died on Wednesday, February 13.

Dick was among the 76 who crawled through tunnels in March 1944 in a bid for freedom.

Only three escaped while 50 were rounded up and shot on Hitler’s direct orders.

Dick, who adopted the identity of a Romanian and spent two nights on the run from 50,000 German policemen, thousands of members of the Hitler Youth and elite squads of the SS.

He and comrade Bob Nelson, who pretended to be Swedish, were found by farmers cowering in a barn.

They were the 50th and 51st of the 76 Allied airmen to escape from the high-security camp in the German province of Lower Silesia, 100 miles south-east of Berlin.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanguard_2



Vanguard 2 or Vanguard II is an Earth-orbiting satellite launched February 17, 1959, aboard a Vanguard SLV 4 rocket as part of the United States Navy's Project Vanguard. The success of this launch was an important part of the space race between the United States and the Soviet Union. Vanguard 2 was the first weather satellite. The satellite was designed to measure cloud-cover distribution over the daylight portion of its orbit, for a period of 19 days, and to provide information on the density of the atmosphere for the lifetime of its orbit (about 300 years).

As of May 2016, Vanguard 2 was still in orbit.

</snip>

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1974_White_House_helicopter_incident



Incident
At 2 AM on February 17, 1974, Robert K. Preston, a United States Army private first class, stole a United States Army Bell UH-1 Iroquois ("Huey" ) helicopter from Fort Meade, Maryland, flew it to Washington, D.C. and hovered for six minutes over the White House before descending on the south lawn, about 100 yards from the West Wing.

There was no initial attempt from the Secret Service to shoot the helicopter down, and he later took off and was chased by two Maryland State Police helicopters. Preston forced one of the police helicopters down through his maneuvering of the helicopter, and then returned to the White House. This time, as he hovered above the south grounds, the Secret Service fired at him with shotguns and submachine guns. Preston was injured slightly, and landed his helicopter.

In a plea bargain, he pleaded guilty to "wrongful appropriation and breach of the peace," and was sentenced to one year in prison and fined $2,400. This amounted to a six-month sentence, since he had already been in prison for six months at the time. He eventually served two months of hard labor at Fort Riley, Kansas, before being granted a general discharge from the Army for unsuitability.

At the time of the incident, President Richard Nixon was travelling in Florida, and First Lady Pat Nixon was in Indianapolis, Indiana, visiting their sick daughter, Julie.

Motivation of perpetrator
Preston was a 20-year-old private first class in the U.S. Army, originally from Panama City, Florida. Preston had enrolled in the Junior ROTC program at Rutherford High School in Panama City and had longtime aspirations to a military career. He enlisted in the U.S. Army, and was training to become a helicopter pilot; he was washed out of training due to "deficiency in the instrument phase". After being taken into custody, Preston indicated he was upset over not being allowed to continue training to be a helicopter pilot, and staged the incident to show his skill as a pilot.

Influence
It has been suggested that news reports of Preston's actions inspired Samuel Byck to attempt to crash a passenger airplane into the White House on February 22, 1974. This implication has also been used as a plot device in the film dramatization of Byck's attempt, The Assassination of Richard Nixon.

Engagement policy
In 2005 there were several incidents when unidentified planes flew into the Washington, D.C. airspace. In comments on these incidents, Timothy Noah of National Public Radio reminded his audience of the 1974 Preston incident, when he suggested that Washington, D.C. security officials had an unacknowledged policy to not fire on unidentified aircraft when doing so might lead to injuring bystanders on the ground. He pointed out that security officials had held their fire until Preston's helicopter was hovering low over the deserted South Lawn, where a crash would not have injured bystanders. "But here's the nub: Neither the Maryland police nor the Secret Service fired on the helicopter at any time when its downing threatened the lives of any bystanders."