#The 1954 Attack On The Capitol And The Woman Who Led It

[ausetkmt]

In the middle of the 20th century, one woman became the face of the movement for Puerto Rican self-determination. Her name was Lolita Lebrón, and in an effort to draw the world's attention to Puerto Rico's colonial subjugation by the United States, she and a handful of men opened fire in the U.S. House of Representatives.

After the United States Capitol was stormed by insurrectionists on January 6th, 2021, Amarilis Rodriguez questioned how long the domestic terrorists would serve in prison, considering that Lebrón and her fellow pro-independence activists served 25 years (after being sentenced to even more.) Will the United States legal system punish insurrection as harshly as it punishes anti-colonialism?

Although Puerto Rico remains a US territory today, the independence movement that Lebrón was a part of has never disappeared. Lolita Lebrón and her collaborators expected to die in the attack, and although five congressmen were wounded, they claimed that they had never intended to kill anyone. This is the story of the 1954 attack on the Capitol and the woman who led it.

Who was Lolita Lebrón?

Lightfoot/Getty Images

Born on November 19th, 1919, Dolores "Lolita" Lebrón Sotomayor was the fifth and final child of a financially insecure family living in Lares, Puerto Rico. Her father tragically died at the age of 42, when Lebrón was a teenager, due to an inability to access sufficient medical care, and their financial situation only worsened afterwards.

Although she may have had some nationalist ideas, during her youth she didn't keep up with politics or activism. But according to Latinas in the United States, although Lebrón didn't take "much notice of Puerto Rico's political situation" while she was growing up, after moving to New York City, she joined the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party chapter in the early 1940s.

However, one event that is said to have resonated with Lebrón was the Ponce Massacre of 1937, where, according to the Zinn Education Project, 19 Nationalists were massacred by the police and over 200 others were wounded. The Guardian claims that the event "radicalized" Lebrón, but she never explicitly said that herself. Lebrón even claimed that she only ended up knowing about the massacre "because someone came to our house who had lost a relative in it. I had heard about a man named Pedro Albizu Campos but I never knew him personally."

The United States and Puerto Rico

Hulton Archive/Getty Images

Before the Spanish colonized Puerto Rico, the island was inhabited by the Taíno, who were a subset of the Arawak people. But after the Spanish invaded in the 15th century, they ended up subjugating the island for almost 300 years. Then in the 1800s, according to National Geographic, the people of Puerto Rico started advocating for self-determination and self-governance.

Although the Spanish ended up allowing the island relatively more autonomy, the United States invaded Puerto Rico on July 25, 1898 during the Spanish-American War. And in the subsequent peace treaty, signed December 1898, the Spanish gave the colony to the United States. According to Boricua Power, almost as soon as the United States took control of Puerto Rico, they started encouraging people from the island to emigrate to the United States, Hawaii, Cuba, and Santo Domingo. The United States government pushed the perception that Puerto Ricans were "a good source of labor," though often the jobs that Puerto Ricans traveled to pursue "didn't live up to expectations and promises." 

Puerto Rican people who'd emigrated frequently protested their unjust working conditions and the devaluation of their labor. However, even cigar makers in New York City, which was an industry that was "the highest-paid, best organized, [and] most independent," found its work rendered "obsolete, unemployed, and poor" by the tobacco employers. During this entire time, Puerto Ricans continued to demand the right to self-governance.

The Gag Law and the Smith Act

Fox Photos/Getty Images

Meanwhile, on the island itself, the United States sought to suppress any and all nationalistic and pro-independence activity. On June 11, 1948, Jesús T. Piñero, a Puerto Rican man appointed governor by the United States, signed a bill into law that would become known as the Ley de la Mordaza, or the Gag Law.

According to War Against All Puerto Ricans, Law 53, as it was known in the legislation, was entirely intended to disrupt the Puerto Rican independence movement. It made it illegal to speak in favor of independence, write in favor of independence, sing a patriotic tune, or even display the Puerto Rican flag, per Mother Jones. The penalty for breaking this law was a fine of $10,000 and/or 10 years' imprisonment. And when the Puerto Rico colonial government adopted the pro-independence flag in 1952, they changed the blue color on the flag to make it more similar to the United States flag, nullifying the flag's symbolism, "whether intended or not."

Some also referred to the Gag Law as "the Little Smith Act" since it resembled the Smith Act from the mainland United States, which had been intended to suppress communist movements. A big component of both of these Acts made it a felony to "advocate for the violent overthrow of the government" or to be associated with such an organization.

The 1950 uprisings in Puerto Rico

Rosskam/Getty Images

Over the course of four days in 1950, there were several uprisings in Puerto Rico that were led and organized by Pedro Albizu Campos, the president of the Nationalist Party. Along with staging uprisings in eight different towns (Arecibo, Jayuya, Mayagüez, Naranjito, Peñuelas, Ponce, San Juan, and Utado), there were attempts to assassinate both Governor Luis Muñoz Marín of Puerto Rico and President Harry S. Truman of the United States.

According to Introduction to Latino Politics in the U.S., the nationalist groups carried the Puerto Rican flag around and in turn were "attacked by U.S. bomber planes from the air and by U.S. artillery on the ground." Oscar Collazo and Griselio Torresola, who were living in the United States, made an unsuccessful attempt to assassinate President Truman at Blair House on November 1st, 1950. In response to the uprisings, President Truman allowed Puerto Rico to hold a referendum over the creation of a new constitution. After it passed, the new constitution was implemented by July 1952.

According to the Encyclopedia of Activism and Social Justice, Albizu Campos was caught and sentenced to 80 years imprisonment the following year. Although he was pardoned two years later by the governor he tried to assassinate, the pardon was revoked after Lolita Lebrón's attack on the U.S. House of Representatives in 1954.

Lolita Lebrón moves to New York City

Orlando/Getty Images

In the 1940s, Lolita Lebrón moved to New York City and found it difficult to find work. Although she was able to be hired as a seamstress several times, whenever she confronted the discrimination against Puerto Ricans, she was fired. According to Lebrón herself, "After three days of looking for work, getting lost in the trains, walking in the snow, without money for lunch or shelter, I had to deny that I was Puerto Rican in order to have a job."

In response to the prejudice and racism she experienced, Lebrón joined the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party in 1946 and started promoting both feminist and socialist values within the organization. According to Latina, she soon became incredibly influential in the organization and was promoted to top positions like executive delegate and vice president.

Albizu Campos was the party's president and Lebrón had learned everything she could about its founder. According to The Guardian, the two began to correspond as Lebrón took on more and more responsibility within the organization. And in 1954, Lebrón was asked by Albizu Campos to come up with "strategic targets" for an attack. Lebrón chose the United States Congress as their target.

Deciding to attack Washington, D.C.

Shutterstock

In the new constitution of Puerto Rico, the official name of the island was made Estado Libre Asociado, or Commonwealth of the United States. According to Women on the Edge: Ethnicity and Gender in Short Stories by American Women, although this allowed people in Puerto Rico to elect local political officials, the description of "commonwealth" was "an ambiguous political designation" that kept the island "situated within American politics."

According to CENTRO Journal, as with the Guyana Uprising, the attack on the United States government wasn't "so much an attempt to seize power as it was 'a supreme act of protest to attract the attention of the world to the cause of Puerto Rico's independence.'" The ultimate goal was always to throw off the colonialist yoke, but even the note found in Lolita Lebrón's purse after the attack stated that the attack was "aimed at making the Puerto Rican plea heard throughout the world, as no one seemed to pay attention to the sufferings of her people." She reiterated this statement years later from prison, stating, "Attacking the U.S. in its own heart, its own entrails, was Puerto Rico's last recourse... because the island could not arm itself... and confront the U.S. in a traditional war. We made our war the only way we're able to."

Lolita Lebrón recruited Irving Flores, Rafael Cancel Miranda, and Andres Figueroa Cordero for the mission and on March 1st, 1954, they set out for Washington, D.C.

'¡Que Viva Puerto Rico Libre!'

Peter Keegan/Getty Images

On the day that Lebrón, Flores, Cancel Miranda, and Figueroa Cordero traveled from New York City to Washington, D.C. and entered the United States House of Representatives, there were two imperialist topics on the agenda. According to The Young Lords, Puerto Rico was one of the topics, and the other was the Chamizal district between Mexico and Texas, which the United States government didn't want to give back to the Mexican government.

The group waited in the visitor's gallery, and around noon, Lebrón shouted, "¡Que Viva Puerto Rico Libre!" and opened up the Puerto Rican nationalist flag. They all opened fire, firing both into the ceiling and the House floor. Five congressmen were wounded, although no one died in the attack. According to Latina, they had "no intentions of murdering anyone during their attack. Rather, they had prepared to die in their struggle for liberation."

When they were captured, Lolita Lebrón insisted that the men weren't responsible for the attack and that she was the sole instigator, but they were all given lengthy sentences.

And although The Guardian notes "Extraordinary as it seems today, the four Puerto Rican radicals had no difficulty in entering the visitors' gallery of the House of Representatives armed with their Lugers," it was revealed in the attempted coup of 2021 that maybe it's not actually that extraordinary.

Lolita Lebrón's capture and trial

Shutterstock

Lolita Lebrón and her fellow nationalists were captured almost immediately, although one was able to escape briefly before being apprehended. The trial started three months later, lasted 12 days, and on June 16th, 1954, they were all found guilty. According to The New York Times, while Cancel Miranda, Figueroa Cordero, and Flores were sentenced to 25 to 75 years in prison, Lebrón was sentenced to only 16 to 50 years. Since Lebrón had fired at the ceiling rather than the House floor, she was cleared of "assault with intent to kill," which is why she had a lesser sentence.

Although the defense counsel attempted to bring up the question of the nationalist's sanity, even claiming that the "appellants' adherence to an organized minority group in Puerto Rico is said to indicate irrationality," the defendants actively refused an insanity defense. Per the Washington Post, during her trial, Lebrón insisted that she was "being crucified for the freedom of my country." In another trial, an additional six years were added to all the shooters' sentences for "seditious conspiracy."

Lebrón also lost her 12-year-old son during the trial, although no one knew until she was testifying on the stand, and she recounted "what her life had been like with her child and the meaning of his loss."

Continuing to protest in prison

Shutterstock

Lolita Lebrón was imprisoned at the Federal Correctional Institution for Women in Alderson, West Virginia. According to Latinas in the United States, most of her time in prison was spent writing poetry, praying, sewing uniforms, and advocating for the rights of those imprisoned alongside her.

Helping organize a number of hunger strikes in the prison, Lebrón was furious that "women were intimidated and placed in isolation just to keep them in line." She also "refused to accept the validity of her conviction" and refused to apply for parole unless her fellow nationalists were also going to be freed. Insisting that she wouldn't leave prison for anything less than a presidential pardon, she devoted herself to her religion.

In 1978, Assata Shakur was transferred to Alderson and the two political prisoners crossed paths. They knew of the other's activism and admired one another, and at the moment they met there was an outburst of joy in a traditionally austere place. As their eyes recognized one another in the middle of prison, they called out the other's name in happiness and "hugged and kissed each other." It was an auspicious meeting, since the following year both Shakur and Lebrón left prison, one by escape and the other by pardon, respectively.

President Carter commutes Lolita Lebrón's sentence

Fox Photos/Getty Images

In 1978, President Jimmy Carter started reviewing the cases of the nationalists and pardoned Figueroa Cordero first since he had been diagnosed with cancer. The following year, President Carter also commuted the sentences of Lebrón, Flores, and Cancel Miranda after they had been imprisoned for 25 years.

Although some claim that this pardon came out of the pressure from political circles, academics, and the Catholic Church in Puerto Rico, the Washington Post claims that the pardon was "widely suspected to have been part of a prisoner swap to release CIA agents jailed in Cuba." However, according to Women of Color, in Solidarity, the governor of Puerto Rico at the time, Carlos Romero Barceló, was against the pardon because he claimed that it would "encourage terrorism and undermine public safety."

Although Lolita Lebrón was initially treated as a heroine when she was released from imprisonment, some of her followers abandoned her when they became aware of "her pacifist views and her devotion to the Catholic faith." In her autobiography, Shakur also notes how "anticommunist and antisocialist" Lebrón was at the time of their meeting.

Lolita Lebrón's continued activism

Gerald Lopez-cepero/Getty Images

Out of prison, Lolita Lebrón continued her activism for Puerto Rico's self-determination. According to The Guardian, although she recognized the economic benefits of living under American colonial rule, Lebrón "regarded freedom from foreign interference as more important than material well being."

In 2001, Lebrón was arrested twice during the struggle to remove the U.S. Navy from the island of Vieques, which it was using as a bombing range. She was 81-years-old at the time, and although she served 60 days at one point, their protests were ultimately successful.

According to Radical Women, on March 8th, 2008, she led a protest demanding for Puerto Rico's right to self-determination, saying, "We want everyone to know that in Puerto Rico, we women are fighting for our rights as workers, we are fighting for a healthy environment, for poor and marginalized communities, for the freedom of the political prisoners, the well-being of children, for peace, for the defense of our culture and all the rights they intend to take from us."

The end of Lolita Lebrón's life and her legacy

Kevin Hagen/Getty Images

On August 1st, 2010, Lolita Lebrón died as a result of a respiratory disease. But according to Latina, her legacy continues to be celebrated amongst Puerto Ricans. Her portrait is illustrated in murals across Puerto Rico as well as in neighborhoods in Chicago and New York. According to Maria de Lourdes Santiago, a member of the Puerto Rican Independence Party, Lebrón was "the mother of the independence movement."

Lebrón claimed that she had renounced violence due to her religious convictions, and she maintained the new pledge of nonviolence for the rest of her life. However, Lebrón stated that although she herself would not take up arms, "I acknowledge that the people have a right to use any means available to free themselves."

Although votes for independence in Puerto Rico typically garner up to 5 percent of the vote and statehood accounts for up to 50 percent of the vote, Puerto Rico remains a colony of the United States empire. And Lolita Lebrón never repented for her actions. When released, she said "We didn't do anything that we should regret. Everyone has the right to defend their right to freedom that God gave them."

[houseofpurplestars]

[Image id: a portrait of Lolita Lebrón, with text that reads: my heros have always killed colonizers. /end id]

[historyisthehype]

Dolores “Lolita” Lebrón-Sotomayor: An Early [Rad]ical Feminist Puertorriqueña

“Here you have the leader of the group being a very petite, well-dressed Puerto Rican woman who was out there, and to me, that was amazing. It's left such an impression.”

    -          ANGELO FALCON (President of the National Institute for Latino Policy)

While this week has been a bit busier in terms of research assignments, I wanted to close out Women’s History Month taking from last week’s post and expanding on one of the icons whose imagery was used to open the video and convey a powerful message from the punch: Lolita Lebrón.

Though many Boricuas know about her and her legacy, many US Americans don’t even know about the attack on Capitol Hill for which she is most remembered for.

The story has been retold many times, and often sounds the same:

In 1954, Four Puerto Rican nationalists [which at the time Universal International News called a “gang” rather than a “party”], led by Lolita Lebrón, opened fire (some “15 to 30 shots) from the gallery of the US House of Representatives, upon 244 congressmen with only handguns.

The 1954 Universal International News Breaking News broadcast by Fred Maness announced it as “blind”, even “wanton”, violence to “arouse anti-United States feeling in Latin America” (citing the coinciding start of the Inter-American Conference in Venezuela). However, this is a severe trivialization of their true motives, for who could believe that nationalist Puerto Rican rage toward the United States is “unprovoked”.

While I don’t condone violence as means to most ends, the desperation for independence was still more palpable than it is today, as Boricuas watched in 1952 (only two years earlier) as the United States redefined its colonial grip on the island to something more subtle and modern: a commonwealth.

This did not sit well with much of Puerto Rico, the last of the ex-Spanish colonies without its independence. This is what the four independistas stood for on that balcony: the immediate independence of Puerto Rico.

Some reported hearing Lebrón’s voice above the clamor and chaos, ‘…and it was a shrill, chilling sound. "Viva Puerto Rico Libre!" Long live free Puerto Rico, she yelled as she and her compatriots unfurled a Puerto Rican flag and blasted away with Lugers and an automatic pistol.’.

Although five congressmen were injured - “Ben F. Jensen of Iowa, Clifford Davis of Tennessee, Kenneth Roberts of Alabama, George H. Fallon of Maryland, and Albert Bentley of Michigan.”, the latter leaving severely injured – Lebrón was also witnessed crying out: “¡No vine a matar a nadie, vine a morir por Puerto Rico!” (“I did not come to kill anyone, I came to die for Puerto Rico.”)

After the attack, the four were each sentenced to 50 to 70 years in prison. However, given clemency by President Jimmy Carter in 1979, Lebrón and her compatriots were released. Following her release, she continued her fervent fight for Puerto Rico’s independence, leading her to other arrests including one in her 80s ‘for crossing unauthorized into the navy-occupied land in Vieques’ along with Al Sharpton and Robert Kennedy Jr.

Lolita Lebrón’s lifelong conviction and subsequent commitment to the autonomy of her land and her people, and stance against any government looking to hold Boricuas shackled, make her an appropriate symbol for the current global move toward intellectual decolonization.

In Residente’s video, This is Not America, Lebrón’s image transcends Puerto Rico’s fight within the video’s wider Pan American context, representing rage against hypocrisy and erasure of the whole truth of who, what, and where makeup America and its history.

(Depicted above: [1] Actress in Residente’s music video, This is Not America (see my last post for context), as famous Puerto Rican nationalist leader and activist, Lolita Lebrón [2] Famously circulated picture of 3 out 4 of the 1954 Capitol Hill attack protestors Lolita Lebrón, Rafael C. Miranda, and Andres F. Cordero who were apprehended at the scene. Irving Flores was arrested some hours later. [3] Mugshots of the fours nationalists from a newspaper clipping [4] A newspaper article covering their release.)

The first 2 pictures above were taken from a Twitter thread by @biencatalino where they point out and explain several other symbols and images throughout the video that point to the many (involuntary) sacrifices Latin American countries and their people have suffered due to a US-centric view of the West and “America”. To view the thought-provoking thread, follow the link below this paragraph:

https://twitter.com/biencatalino/status/1504614114466930692

For more on Lolita Lebrón and/or the events of March 1st, 1954 at Capitol Hill, check out some of these sources below:

“1954 Shooting in the House Chamber” – brief description of events + a collection of oral histories, reports, recollections, and accounts of the event by witnesses and news sources including the news broadcast clip by Universal International News (this oral history collection process was begun in 2019, 9 years after Lolita’s passing, and unfortunately relies on a one-sided perspective on the events):

https://history.house.gov/Oral-History/Events/1954-Shooting/

Timeline of Events

https://history.house.gov/Exhibitions-and-Publications/1954-Shooting/Essays/Timeline/

“What happened to Lolita Lebrón in 1954 and not insurrectionists on Jan. 6” – an article by Brittany Valentine for Al Día News examining the contrasting unfolding of events, motives, and consequences between the attack on capitol Hill involving Lebrón and the Jan. 6 insurrection of 2021. I used this for more on how things transpired:

https://www.aldianews.com/thought-leaders/thought-leaders/white-privilege-then-now

An interesting online collection of archives that I also used for context and content but that features a voice clip of Lolita Lebrón speaking of Puertorriqueños’ vulnerable position within the wider US system.

https://www.freedomarchives.org/audio_samples/Lolita_Lebron.html

Brief Bio on Lebrón:

https://www.afcanatura.org/lolita-lebron

NPR covers Lebrón’s passing by interviewing Angelo Falcon, President of the National Institute for Latino Policy, on her legacy as a controversial, revolutionary figure in Puerto Rican history. In it, he describes her change of views on protesting from taking drastic measures to advocating civil disobedience.

https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128959759

The last 2 pictures were taken from the Library of Congress website:

https://blogs.loc.gov/headlinesandheroes/2020/05/1954-shooting-at-the-u-s-capitol/

[patriotsnet]

Who Led Congressional Republicans In Creating The Contract With America

New Post has been published on https://www.patriotsnet.com/who-led-congressional-republicans-in-creating-the-contract-with-america/

Who Led Congressional Republicans In Creating The Contract With America

The Maine Senator Was Never An Independent Force In Washington But Reporters Concocted That Myth To Justify Their Phony Narratives

In 1997, only seven months into the job as a senator, Susan Collins of Maine got what many of her colleagues wait years for: a glowing profile in the SundayNew York Times Magazine. It described “a prim, earnest woman with a schoolmarm’s reserve” who had embraced moderation as her guiding philosophy. Collins, from the moment she arrived in Washington, was seen as a swing vote: A lobbyist wanted her to protect Nike’s factories in Asia, a Roman Catholic bishop called to lobby her on abortion, and the architects of new campaign finance legislation asked her to co-sponsor their bill. This “middle-of-the-roader from little Caribou, Maine,” was having a moment, theTimeswrote. “It is the moderate Republicans who hold the balance of power in Washington now.”

Of course, moderates did not hold the real power in Washington in 1997. Newt Gingrich was two years into a speakership that would transform American politics. Between 1994 and 1999, he unveiled his “Contract With America,” shut down the government for 21 days, and led the impeachment of President Bill Clinton in a frantic, destabilizing period that would galvanize the right and forever change how business was done on Capitol Hill. By the end of his tenure, Gingrich had sidelined the establishment that once ruled politics, and yet mainstream reporters continued to view the system as they always had: as an institution controlled by its most moderate members.

Meredith Shiner covered Congress between 2009 and 2016.

How Did The Contract With America Reflect The Ideals Of Republican Congressional Candidates In 1994

Who are the experts?Our certified Educators are real professors, teachers, and scholars who use their academic expertise to tackle your toughest questions. Educators go through a rigorous application process, and every answer they submit is reviewed by our in-house editorial team.

Much of the well touted “Contract for America” sought to create a less interventionist role of government.  This ideal was represented by much of the Republican leadership and filtered into the candidates selected to run in 1994.  It sought to redefine government and change “the old ways.”  An example of…

Trump Is Starting To Put Together His Own Contract With America And Hes Teaming Up With Newt

The 45th president has sat down with the former speaker, as well as Mark Meadows and Lindsey Graham in recent weeks to begin crafting a policy document.

Newt Gingrich, seen here in 2020, was the driving force between the Republican election triumph in 1994. | AP Photo/Domenico Stinellis

05/26/2021 08:52 AM EDT

Link Copied

Acid wash jeans, scrunchies, and… Newt Gingrich. Fashion from the ’90s is having a comeback, and so too is the ’90s Republican playbook for how to win back congressional majorities.

With an eye toward winning back the House and Senate in the 2022 midterm elections, former President Donald Trump has begun crafting a policy agenda outlining a MAGA doctrine for the party. His template is the 1994 “Contract with America,” a legislative agenda released ahead of the midterm elections in the middle of President Bill Clinton’s first term. And, as a cherry on top, he’s teaming up with its main architect — Gingrich — to do it.

In recent weeks, Trump sat down with the former House speaker as well as his former chief of staff Mark Meadows and Sen. Lindsey Graham at his private Mar-a-Lago club to begin crafting the document, according to a source familiar with the meeting.

The group is still just beginning to hammer out the details of what a Trumpified Contract might look like. But it is likely to take an “America-First” policy approach on everything from trade to immigration. The source described it as “a policy priority for 2022 and beyond.”

Filed Under:

The Tree Of Liberty Must Be Refreshed From Time To Time With The Blood Of Patriots & Tyrants

Writing to William Smith , John Adams’ secretary and future son-in-law, Thomas Jefferson seemed to welcome Shays’ Rebellion in Massachusetts: “god forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion . . . the tree of Liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants. it is it’s natural manure.” Jefferson was confident that rather than repression, the “remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon & pacify them.”

Bookmark this item: //www.loc.gov/exhibits/jefferson/jefffed.html#105

The Democrats’ Change Of Heart About The Need For A Balanced Budget And Celebrating The 2

Mr. SMITH of Michigan. Mr. Speaker, as we draw this 104th Congress to a close, I think it is appropriate to remember where we were 2 years ago, before Republicans became a majority in this House. The Democrats were not talking about a balanced budget. In fact, the President’s balanced budget at that time, 2 years ago, had a $200 billion deficit every year into the foreseeable future.

In 1995, the new Republican majority came in and insisted that Government do what Americans have to do in their personal family budgets–that being–balance the Federal budget. The Democrats, the President, did their focus groups, they took the polls. They decided, Americans do want a balanced budget. They think it is reasonable. Two years ago, nobody on the liberal side of the aisle was talking about a balanced budget, and now everybody is talking about it. That is progress.

The liberals and big Government advocates try to belittle this Republican Congress, and criticize the

Contract With America. We are going to celebrate our 2-year anniversary of the Contract With America today. Let us just remember that most of the brag items of accomplishments that President Clinton mentioned in his acceptance speech were passed by the Republican-controlled 104th Congress.

Mr. Speaker, I include for the Record the Contract With America items signed into law in the last 2 years.

The material referred to is as follows:

The Providential Detection Depicts Jefferson Attempting To Destroy The Constitution

In this cartoon, Thomas Jefferson kneels before the altar of Gallic despotism as God and an American eagle attempt to prevent him from destroying the United States Constitution. He is depicted as about to fling a document labeled “Constitution & Independence U.S.A.” into the fire fed by the flames of radical writings. Jefferson’s alleged attack on George Washington and John Adams in the form of a letter to Philip Mazzei falls from Jefferson’s pocket. Jefferson is supported by Satan, the writings of Thomas Paine, and the French philosophers.

Artist unknown. The Providential Detection, 1797–1800. Copyprint of lithograph. Courtesy of the American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, Massachusetts

Bookmark this item: //www.loc.gov/exhibits/jefferson/jefffed.html#136

Document Led To Many Successes But Miscalculation In 1998 Midterms Proved Costly

OPINION — In 1994, Republicans did something really big.

At the height of the midterm elections that year, on Sept. 27, House Minority Whip Newt Gingrich and a Republican Conference driven by conservative change agents, offered the American electorate a policy document called the “Contract With America.”

Friday marks the 25th anniversary of the signing of that contract on the steps of the U.S. Capitol. A few weeks later, Republicans won the House, ending a losing streak that dated back to 1954. That victory remains one of the most important events in American political history, an unexpected election outcome that dramatically changed the direction of the country.

Gingrich was one of those rare political leaders whose vision and strength of personality could change not only the course of a nation but the lives of its people in direct and positive ways. His victory, however, didn’t come easy.

It was a long journey for a man who had spent years in the political wilderness as a backbencher, driving what he saw as an “opportunity agenda,” anchored in policy, that could serve as a means to effect political change. For him, it was all about content and communicating the value of that content.

Here’s what I wrote in a piece for The Ripon Forum on the contract’s 20th anniversary:

  The Medicare Prescription Drug Improvement And Modernization Act Of 2003

At several points, participants close to the conference committee negotiations believed that another opportunity for reform would be missed. On November 15, however, the conferees reached agreement on a new version of H.R. 1, the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003. The 678-page conference report included many of the features that had come to be widely accepted in earlier proposals, such as the discount card, additional assistance for low-income beneficiaries, a substantial gap in benefits for individuals with high drug costs , and the use of private pharmacy benefit managers in lieu of direct governmental regulation. Yet the bill reflected “concession” more than “compromise,” with the final provisions on some of the most controversial issues watered down so as to become almost meaningless to their proponents. This deepened rather than resolved cleavages that pitted Democrats against Republicans and, at times, Republicans against Republicans .

The final product included the following major provisions :

Here’s another bit of insanity: The bill pays private insurance companies to take elderly patients. You know how one of the tenets of conservative philosophy is that private companies can always deliver a product better and cheaper? So why does the Medicare bill offer billions in subsidies to private insurers to induce them into the market? That’s not competition; that’s corporate welfare.

For Republicans Crisis Is The Message As The Outrage Machine Ramps Up

With next year’s midterm elections seen as a referendum on Democratic rule, Republicans are seeking to create a sense of instability and overreach, diverting focus from their own divisions.

WASHINGTON — House Republican leaders would like everyone to know that the nation is in crisis.

There is an economic crisis, they say, with rising prices and overly generous unemployment benefits; a national security crisis; a border security crisis, with its attendant homeland security crisis, humanitarian crisis, and public health crisis; and a separate energy crisis.

Pressed this week on whether the nation was really so beleaguered, the No. 2 Republican in the House, Representative Steve Scalise of Louisiana, thought of still more crises: anti-Semitism in the Democratic ranks, “yet another crisis,” he asserted, and a labor shortage crisis.

“Unfortunately they’re all real,” he said, capping a 25-minute news conference in which the word “crisis” was used once a minute, “and they’re all being caused by President Biden’s actions.”

But for divided House Republicans, outrage may be the tie that binds — at least their leaders hope so.

“Look, our main crisis is we’re not the majority — that’s our top crisis,” said Representative Tom Cole, Republican of Oklahoma.

House Republicans, still overwhelmingly in the thrall of Donald J. Trump, have learned over the last four years that grievance, loudly expressed, carries political weight, especially with their core voters.

Jefferson Experiences The Political Limits Of Freedom Of The Press

President Jefferson’s support for freedom of the press was sorely tested in 1802 when James Callender publicly charged that Jefferson “keeps and for many years has kept, as his concubine, one of his slaves. Her name is Sally.” The Richmond Recorder, first printed Callender’s account of Jefferson’s intimate relationship with his wife’s half sister, Sally Hemings, but controversy has surrounded the accusation and the relationship to the present day. Callender, whose vitriolic attacks on Federalist opponents of Jefferson in the 1790s had been secretly funded by Jefferson and Republican allies, turned against Jefferson when the president failed to give him a patronage position.

The Richmond Recorder, September 1, 1802. Courtesy of the Virginia State Library, Richmond

Bookmark this item: //www.loc.gov/exhibits/jefferson/jefffed.html#117a

A Win For Biden Us Senate Passes $1 Trillion Infrastructure Bill

After years of partisan gridlock, Republicans join Democrats in support of future investment in highways, transit.

whatsapp

The United States Senate approved a major infrastructure spending bill designed to invest $1 trillion in roads, bridges, public transport and improved internet access across the next five years.

After years of partisan gridlock in Washington, DC, Republicans joined Democrats in supporting the legislation, delivering a legislative victory for President Joe Biden who has urged members of the two major parties in Congress to work together.

Hours later, the Senate passed a $3.5 trillion budget resolution – voting 50-49 along party lines – meant to serve as bedrock of the Biden administration’s resphaing federal priorities. The budget framework aims bolster family services, health, and environment programmes.

“The American people will now see the most robust injection of funds into infrastructure in decades,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said after the passage of the infrastructure bill.

“You’ll find better roads, bridges, airports, broadband in the United Arab Emirates than in the United States of America,” Schumer, the top Democrat in the Senate, said.

“The bill will make large and significant differences in both productivity and job creation in America for decades to come,” Schumer said.

It would provide tuition-free community college and foster investments in programmes to significantly reduce carbon emissions blamed for climate change.

President Clinton And Hillary Clinton Were Campaign Targets

Teske adds that Republicans had some easy “targets to attack,” from the unpopular, early years of President Bill Clinton, to the Hillary Clinton-led health care proposal to individual corruption cases in Congress.

The overarching goal of the contract involved cutting taxes, reducing the size of government and reducing government regulations, taking aim at Congress, itself, to be more transparent, less corrupt and more open with the public.

“Essentially, it claimed that it would ‘drain the swamp’—though they didn’t use that term, in terms of what Donald Trump would later articulate,” Teske says. “If successful, the contract specified 10 bills they would bring up for votes in the first 100 days, including a balanced budget amendment, term limits, social security reform and others.”

The Contract With America: Implementing New Ideas In The Us

Select a Section 1/0

Decades from now, historians quite likely will reflect back uponthe Contract With America as one of the most significantdevelopments in the political history of the United States. As NewtGingrich, the first Republican Speaker of the House ofRepresentatives in 40 years, has written: “there is no comparablecongressional document in our two-hundred-year history.”

Never before had so detailed a document become such an integralpart of a congressional election campaign; never had so manyinnovative ideas been drafted into legislation so quickly; andnever in the previous six decades had so much legislation beenpassed by the House of Representatives in less than 100 days afterthe newly elected Members of Congress took office. As the chiefpolitical columnist for The New York Times, R. W. Apple,wrote in a front page news analysis: “Perhaps not since the startof the New Deal , to which many of the programs now underattack can trace their origins, has Congress moved with such speedon so many fronts.”

The Contract and the Conservatives

The changes being debated in America now can provide usefullessons and insights to democratic societies throughout the worlddealing with social and economic problems similar to thoseconfronting the United States.

Perhaps the best way to address various aspects of the ContractWith America, the ideas in and behind the Contract and its relationto the size and scope of government activities, is to answer threebasic questions:

The Impasse Before And After The 2000 Presidential Election

In the wake of the bipartisan commission’s deliberations, Senator Breaux and Representative Thomas joined Senator Bill Frist on a series of proposals to include a prescription drug benefit as essentially an inducement for beneficiaries to shift from the traditional fee-for-service program to a private health plan. More liberal and moderate members of Congress introduced proposals for an independent outpatient prescription drug benefit in the Medicare program.

In addition, in his 1999 State of the Union address, President Clinton proposed his own plan for a voluntary outpatient prescription drug benefit available to all Medicare beneficiaries. A new Part D drug benefit premium would be established, providing subsidies for low-income beneficiaries with incomes below 150 percent of poverty. This plan introduced the idea of combining modest benefits for most if not all beneficiaries with “stop-loss” protection for the relatively few enrollees with catastrophic costs. Medicare would cover 50 percent of an enrollee’s first $5,000 in annual drug spending and 100 percent of any additional expenses .

Another reason for the deadlock was that the amount proposed in the president’s budget was only one-tenth of what the Congressional Budget Office projected that the Medicare population would spend on prescription drugs during that period. Heading into the 2002 election, Democrats reasoned that no benefit was better than an inadequate benefit.

Thomas Jefferson’s Annotated Copy Of The Federalist Papers

Thomas Jefferson called the collected essays written by Alexander Hamilton , James Madison, and John Jay , the “best commentary on the principles of government which ever was written.” Jefferson, like many other contemporary Americans, tried to determine which essays had been written by each of the three authors. On this inside cover sheet Jefferson credited Madison with authorship of more than a dozen essays. The question of who wrote each of the essays has never been definitively answered.

The Federalist: A Collection of Essays, Written in Favour of the New Constitution. Vol. 1. New York: J. and A. McLean, 1788. Rare Book and Special Collections Division

Bookmark this item: //www.loc.gov/exhibits/jefferson/jefffed.html#127

National Bipartisan Commission On The Future Of Medicare

Following the failure of President Clinton’s health care reform proposal in 1994, Republicans captured majorities in both houses of Congress. In 1995 the main policy issue regarding Medicare was not how to improve benefits but how to restructure the program and limit the federal government’s financial liability for existing coverage. The Medicare Preservation Act, which Congress passed as part of the Balanced Budget Act of 1995 but President Clinton vetoed, included major reforms and reductions in spending in Medicare and other government programs as well as substantial tax cuts. Republican strategists miscalculated both the president’s willingness to accept the legislation and the public’s reaction . Nonetheless, reducing the budget deficit remained a high political priority, and two years later, the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 cut projected Medicare spending by $115 billion over five years and by $385 billion over ten years .

The Balanced Budget Act created a new Medicare+Choice program, which encouraged beneficiaries to choose among the traditional fee-for-service Medicare, HMOs, and preferred-provider organizations. It also created Medicare medical savings accounts, changed payment policies and formulas for providers and health plans, strengthened efforts to prevent and prosecute fraud and abuse by Medicare providers, and created the National Bipartisan Commission on the Future of Medicare.

Political Attack Ads In The Era Of The Founding Fathers

In this critical cartoon, Thomas Jefferson as the cock or rooster, courts a hen, portrayed as Sally Hemings. Contemporary political opponents of Jefferson sought to destroy his presidency and his new political party with charges of Jefferson’s promiscuous behavior and his ownership of slaves. The cock was also a symbol of revolutionary France, which Jefferson was known to admire and which, his critics believed, Jefferson unduly favored.

James Akin. “A Philosophic Cock,” Newburyport, Massachusetts, c. 1804. Hand-colored aquatint. Courtesy of the American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, Massachusetts

Bookmark this item: //www.loc.gov/exhibits/jefferson/jefffed.html#140

Prescription Drug Policies In The Nixon Administration

Following submission of the task force’s report, Secretary Finch appointed a review committee headed by John Dunlop of Harvard University, the former chair of President Nixon’s health transition team who had been appointed secretary of labor. The committee convened in April and submitted its report on July 23, 1969. With only one dissenting voice from a representative of the pharmaceutical manufacturers, the committee endorsed a number of the task force’s recommendations. In particular, “the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare should recommend an Administration decision for an out-of-hospital drug insurance program under Medicare” .

The proposed regulations were very similar to those recommended by the task force in 1969. Such a policy stemming from a Republican administration came as a surprise, however, and illustrated how concerned policymakers were about rising medical costs. Weinberger’s announcement touched the pharmaceutical industry’s most sensitive nerves, endorsing generic substitutes for brand-name products and limits on reimbursement. Despite vigorous industry opposition, state laws were already changing to allow pharmacists to substitute cheaper, generic drugs for brand-name products. Now the federal government was adopting similar methods.

Transgender Athlete Rene Richards Barred From Us Open

What was not included? Details on how these bills would be executed and what they would cost.

“It probably did not matter that it was vague on costs, and that was even an advantage,” Teske says. “The goals were big picture, and ones that many voters could understand, without getting into—and bogged down by—the details of budget costs, specific programs that might go away, etc.”

Jefferson Urges Supporters To Write Newspaper Attacks

Thomas Jefferson seldom wrote articles or essays for the press, but he did urge his supporters such as James Madison, James Monroe , John Beckley , and David Rittenhouse to publicly counter the Federalists. In this July 7, 1793, letter, Jefferson urges Madison to attack the ideas of Alexander Hamilton: “for god’s sake, my dear Sir, take up your pen, select the most striking heresies, and cut him to peices in the face of the public.” Both Republicans and Federalists engaged in critical attacks on their opponents.

Thomas Jefferson to James Madison July 7, 1793. Manuscript letter. Manuscript Division

Bookmark this item: //www.loc.gov/exhibits/jefferson/jefffed.html#116

Prescription Drug Coverage In The Health Security Act

The next opportunity to add an outpatient prescription drug benefit in the Medicare program came in 1993 as part of the health security act proposed by President Bill Clinton . Adding a Medicare drug benefit was good policy and good politics: It would be extraordinarily difficult to guarantee comprehensive health benefits, including drugs, to all Americans under age 65 and not to do the same for senior citizens and the disabled, whose needs were generally higher. A new drug benefit might also rally the support of Medicare beneficiaries for the Clinton plan, or at least neutralize potential opposition, given that the plan called for savings in other parts of Medicare as a way to help pay for coverage of uninsured persons under age 65.

The proposed expansion of the Medicare program would include an outpatient prescription drug and biologics benefit as well as a guaranteed national benefits package for those under the age of 65. The Medicare drug benefit would become part of Part B, adding $11 per month to the premium. Beneficiaries would pay a $250 annual deductible and 20 percent of the cost of each prescription up to an annual maximum of $1,000. Low-income beneficiaries would receive assistance with cost sharing.

In the report describing the health security act, the Clinton administration made clear its strategy to contain the cost of the prescription drug benefit:

Federal Prohibition Of Foreign Importation Of Slaves

In his “Sixth Annual Message to Congress” on December 2, 1806, President Jefferson, at the earliest moment allowed by the Constitution, called on Congress to abolish the importation of slaves from outside the United States. The United States Constitution had forbidden Congress to abolish “the Migration or Importation of such Persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit” prior to 1808. Congress readily complied with the president’s request and the importation of slaves was prohibited as of January 1, 1808.

Thomas Jefferson. “Sixth Annual Message to Congress,” December 2, 1806. Manuscript. Manuscript Division

Bookmark this item: //www.loc.gov/exhibits/jefferson/jefffed.html#112

Clinton’s Actions Led Republicans To Devise Contract

Oct 28, 1994

Save

At the outset of the 1992 presidential campaign, Bill Clinton stressed the importance of a middle class tax cut. After waffling for months on whether he would deliver on this “central’ promise, Clinton signaled retreat at a Jan. 14, 1992, press conference: “I never did meet any voter who thought that it was important.’

And now, with his approval rating at record lows, a failed legislative agenda and facing the end of his Democrat-controlled Congress, Clinton is reverting back to campaign mode and promising the middle-class a tax cut. Clearly, he hopes the American middle class has a short memory:Maybe they’ll forget the last time Clinton promised a middle-class tax cut, Clinton and his Congress raised their taxes on gas, on middle-income seniors’ Social Security benefits and on more than a million small businesses.

Maybe they’ll forget Clinton and his Congress failed to “end welfare’ as we know it.

Maybe they’ll forget the Clinton and his Congress’ attempt to ram a government-run health care scheme down our throats.

Maybe they’ll forget nearly $7 billion in pork barrel and social welfare spending as a “surtax’ for a watered-down crime bill that saw its toughest provisions stripped by Democrats.

Maybe they’ll forget they were promised “change’ and received instead more taxes, more spending and more government.

American Federalism 1776 To 1997:significant Events

Analyst in American National GovernmentGovernment DivisionUpdated January 6, 1997

SUMMARY

Since ratification of the Constitution, which established a union ofstates under a federal system of governance, two questions have generatedconsiderable debate: What is the nature of the union? What powers, privileges,duties, and responsibilities does the Constitution grant to the nationalgovernment and reserve to the states and the people? During the 208-yearhistory of the Constitution, these issues have been debated time and againand have shaped and been shaped by the nation’s political, social, andeconomic history.

During the pre-federalism period, the country waged a war for independenceand established a confederation form of government that created a leagueof sovereign states. Deficiencies in the Articles of Confederation promptedits repeal and the ratification of a new Constitution creating a federalsystem of government comprised of a national government and states. Almostimmediately upon its adoption, issues concerning state sovereignty andthe supremacy of federal authority were hotly debated and ultimately ledto the Civil War.

CONTENTS

ADDITIONAL READING

INTRODUCTION

Third, neither level of government canabolish the other. The Civil War was fought not only on the question ofslavery but also central to the conflict were questions of states’ sovereigntyincluding the power to nullify federal laws or dissolve the Union.

PRE-FEDERALISM PERIOD: 1775 TO 1789 ADDITIONAL READING

Jefferson’s Plans To Improve The Urban Environment

Nicholas King’s sketch of Thomas Jefferson’s plans for Lombardy poplars to line Pennsylvania Avenue from the Capitol to the President’s House in Washington, D.C., was sent in 1803 to Jefferson by Thomas Munrow , superintendent of the city of Washington. Jefferson’s landscaping ideas were influenced by the elegant avenues and gardens in Paris and contemporary concepts that trees and plants would purify the air in cities.

Nicholas King. March 12, 1803. Manuscript sketch. Manuscript Division

Bookmark this item: //www.loc.gov/exhibits/jefferson/jefffed.html#141

Contrasting Procedures Of The Senate And The House

The order of business in the Senate is simpler than that of the House. While the procedure of both bodies is basically founded on Jefferson’s Manual of Parliamentary Practice, the practices of the two bodies are at considerable variance. The order and privileged status of motions and the amending procedure of the two are at less variance than their method of calling up business. The business of the Senate is not divided into classes as a basis for their consideration, nor are there calendar days set aside each month in the Senate for the consideration of particular bills and resolutions. The nature of bills has no effect on the order or time of their initial consideration.

The Senate, like the House, gives certain motions a privileged status over others and certain business, such as conference reports, command first or immediate consideration, under the theory that a bill which has reached the conference stage has been moved a long way toward enactment and should be privileged when compared with bills that have only been reported.

The continuity of sessions of the same Congress is provided for by the Senate rules:

At the second or any subsequent session of a Congress, the legislative business of the Senate which remained undetermined at the close of the next preceding session of that Congress shall be resumed and proceeded with in the same manner as if no adjournment of the Senate had taken place.

The Midterms Introduced Extreme Divisive Politics

As for the contract’s lasting impact? Most of its ideas and proposals did not pass Congress, or were vetoed by Clinton, and, according to Teske, the ones that did pass were not radical departures and instead relatively minor in scope. But it did put Republicans back in power in Congress, which they’ve largely held onto in the years since.

“The Gingrich approach of extreme right ideas, combined with a scorched-earth personal level of politics in attacking opponents—later seen in Clinton’s investigations and impeachment—has also had a major impact on American politics” he says. “It helped bring a much more ‘win at all costs’ mentality, and a divisiveness that persists today.”

Our Liberty Depends Upon The Freedom Of The Press

Eighteenth-century political philosophers concerned themselves with the balance between the restrictions needed to make a government function and the individual liberties guaranteed by that government. Jefferson’s efforts to protect individual rights including freedom of the press were persistent, pivotal, and not always successful. Jefferson was a staunch advocate of freedom of the press, asserting in a January 28, 1786, letter to James Currie , a Virginia physician and frequent correspondent during Jefferson’s residence in France: “our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost.”

Thomas Jefferson to James Currie, January 28, 1786. Manuscript letter. Manuscript Division

Bookmark this item: //www.loc.gov/exhibits/jefferson/jefffed.html#115

Jefferson Advocates Limited Power Of Constitution

Thomas Jefferson’s February 15, 1791, opinion on the constitutionality of a national bank is considered one of the stellar statements on the limited powers and strict construction of the Federal Constitution. Alexander Hamilton, a proponent of the broadest interpretation of the constitution based on the implied powers of the Federal Constitution, was the leading advocate for the national bank. Jefferson and Hamilton quickly became outspoken leaders of two opposing interpretations of national government.

Thomas Jefferson. Opinion on a National Bank 1791. Manuscript. Manuscript Division

Bookmark this item: //www.loc.gov/exhibits/jefferson/jefffed.html#129

[rauthschild]

American People Are Winning A War They Don't Even Know They're Fighting

My Dearest Friends:

A “defining moment” in time is an event which typifies or determines all subsequent related occurrences, one of the most important being the 6 January protests at the US Capitol building—the origins of which were examined yesterday during a US Senate hearing, that saw now resigned Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund testifying under oath that he did not get an FBI report warning of violence on 6 January, and his admitting that he had intelligence that the radical leftist organization Antifa was part of the 6 January attack—an attack on the US Capitol led by Antifa leader John Sullivan, who was arrested then quickly released, and while Trump protesters are rotting in jail, he’s writing a book and was paid tens-of-thousands of dollars by leftist cable news outlets for the videos he shot during the attack he led—and as to why the FBI didn’t warn about this attack it’s inexplicable, because the plans to storm the US Capitol were circulating on social media sites, including Facebook, Twitter, and Parler, for days before it happened.

Facts about this “defining moment” the New York Times conveniently omitted from their article about this US Senate hearing, entitled “Ex-Security Officials Spread Blame for Failures of Capitol Riot”, though within they did state a provable lie by calling this event: “The most violent assault on the Capitol since the War of 1812”—and in stating this provable lie as fact, sees them having to ignore the centuries long history of violence at the US Capitol that includes the 1835 attempt to assassinate President Andrew Jackson—the 1915 Fourth of July anarchist bombing of the US Senate Reception Room—the 1954 attack when four Puerto Rican nationalists entered the US House gallery, took out guns, and began firing indiscriminately—the 1971 attack when the violent antiwar Weather Underground terrorist group exploded a bomb in a bathroom on the Senate side of the US Capitol—the 1983 attack when a bomb hidden under a bench outside the US Senate Chamber exploded—the 1998 attack when a gunman killed a police officer in the US Capitol and was then shot and killed—and the 2013 attack when a woman breeched a US Capitol checkpoint and was shot and killed.

When comparing these past attacks on the US Capitol against what occurred on 6 January, this event saw no guns or bombs being brought into the building by protesters—saw the only shot being fired coming from the gun of the US Capitol police officer who killed an unarmed female Trump supporter—saw three other Trump supporters dying, who died, respectively, from a stroke, a heart attack and from being accidentally crushed by the crowd—and the day following saw a US Capitol police officer dying of natural causes.

So, and if one looks dispassionately at just the facts about this “defining moment” to determine its true main casualty, it’s nowhere better described than in the article “Capitol Riots Were A Dark Day For American Journalism”, that points out the most simple of truths: “News coverage of the incursion has come to resemble war propaganda...All facts, true or false, are pointed in the same direction with the aim of demonizing the enemy and anybody who minimises its demonic nature...The Capitol invasion showed that when it comes to spreading “fake facts”, the traditional media can be even more effective than the social media that is usually blamed”—and in understanding this truth, leads to what I consider to be the most important video taken of this “defining moment” in time—a video taken on the floor of the US House, where an exchange between protesters sees one of them reminding everyone to be peaceful because they are engaged in an “information war”.

https://www.brighteon.com/14fdc689-cf1b-4151-9db0-b7d38540c86c

As in all such information wars like the one you’re living through right now, who started it, why it was started and when it was started are all known—the perpetrators of which were identified in the 2014 study conducted by Princeton University Professor Martin Gilens and Northwestern University Professor Benjamin Page, that revealed the United States is an oligarchy, not a democracy, and wrote: “Multivariate analysis indicates that economic elites and organised groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on US government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence”.  

What caused this study and its findings was the Global Financial Crisis of 2007-2008—an economic debacle of historic proportions caused by elite American banking oligarchs, none of whom suffered any losses after being bailed out with taxpayer money, while the tens-of-millions Americans who paid them lost everything.

By 2011, the rage of these Americans against their oligarchs exploded into the Occupy Wall Street protests—and was when these oligarchs started this current information war—and as conclusively proved with the evidence showing that the entire American oligarch controlled mainstream media establishment began this information war by their wholesale promoting of racial division and woke ideology.

Due to their fears of growing Occupy Wall Street protests, the entire American mainstream media establishment started a racial division and woke ideology information war (chart above) in 2011.

As in all information wars, this one also sees the “Chicken Or The Egg Causality Dilemma” playing out—a causality dilemma not affecting Christians, who know that God created animals first, so the chicken had to have come before the egg—but for centuries has been a metaphoric adjective describing situations where it is not clear which of two events should be considered the cause and which should be considered the effect—in this specific instance, as it applies to the current information war, sees these oligarchs still trying to figure out if President Donald Trump created his supporters, or did his supporters create him—the consequence of which has led to these oligarchs disastrously lumping both President Trump and his supporters together as targets needing to be destroyed at all costs.  

One of the few leftists having the courage to speak out about these truths is former President Clinton advisor Naomi Wolf, who yesterday warned that America is devolving into a police state under the Biden administration—a warning strike against those perpetrating this information war that was then joined by the international human rights organization Amnesty International saying they are no longer able to consider supposed Russian dissident Alexey Navalny as a “prisoner of conscience” in light of new information that has emerged recently regarding his statements “they qualify as hate speech”.

What you should notice most about these two things involving Naomi Wolf and Amnesty International is that they were done with them knowing the severe backlash they’ll now be facing—but in reality, sees both of them knowing who is winning this information war, and it’s most certainly not these oligarchs or the leftist mainstream media.

Among the multitude of examples I can cite proving this fact, the most noticeable is the current approval rating of Biden, who today has a 49% approval rating and a 49% disapproval rating, in spite of the non-stop glowing leftist press coverage being showered on him—and compares against President Trump’s approval rating of 45% at the same point in his presidency, in spite of his being hourly pummeled by leftist media lies—though for the real truth about Biden’s approval rating, it’s found in the article “Record-Setting Polarization Underlies Biden’s Otherwise Normal Job Approval Rating”, that points out that “he has an almost impossible 98 percent job approval rating from self-identified Democrats, and an implausible 11 percent among Republicans…This 87 percent partisan split is a new record, by a significant margin”.

To help you better place into context what Biden’s poll numbers mean, my Dear Sisters in yesterday’s report cited the article “NBC Poll Shows Bad News for Dems, Good News for GOP and the Power of Trump”, the main takeaway from which shows that Biden’s support among Democrats is falling like a rock, and who are virtually the only ones supporting him.

Now in putting together everything I’ve told you about, here’s what you need to understand right now—YOU ARE WINNING THIS INFORMATION WAR!—and you’re winning it because you’re supporting those of us telling you the truth—a support of truth that’s enraging these leftist oligarchs, and is why they are striking back as viciously and violently as they can—with their latest target for destruction being the Christian free speech social media site Gab, whose CEO Andrew Torba has just reported they’ve been canceled by three banks this week because of leftist mainstream media hit pieces, with one bank telling him he was cancelled, not for anything they’ve done, but because of “all the bad things the press has written about Gab”.

Unfortunately for those of us fighting behind and on the front lines of this information war to keep the truth flowing to YOU, having the entire leftist mainstream media arrayed against us as judge, jury and executioner is in our job description—and to defend ourselves against, is why we daily pray to our Dear Lord asking that He touch your hearts to aid us in our most desperate hours of need—and in all honesty is every hour of every day!

Our Dear Lord knew long in advance of troubling times like these, and is why He promised to those who aid his loyal servants like us, “Give, and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap. For with the measure you use it will be measured back to you”—and today I’d like to ask each and every one of you to put this promise to a test by giving what you can to aid our mission of truth.

For those of you fearing this test of promise, though, I’ll leave you with one of the Biblical commands I live by daily, “You shall not fear them, for it is the LORD your God who fights for you.”—and I hope with all my heart you live by daily, too.

With God, Sister Ciara Dublin, Ireland 24 February 2021

[sciencespies]

The History of Violent Attacks on the U.S. Capitol

https://sciencespies.com/history/the-history-of-violent-attacks-on-the-u-s-capitol/

The History of Violent Attacks on the U.S. Capitol

On Wednesday, far-right insurrectionists stormed and occupied the U.S. Capitol as Congress met to certify the results of the 2020 presidential election. The mob forced lawmakers to flee for safety, smashed windows, vandalized offices and posed for photos in the House chambers. One woman died after being shot by law enforcement, an officer with the U.S. Capitol Police died from injuries sustained during the fighting, and three other people died from medical emergencies during the riot, reports CNN.

Images from the scene show attackers waving the Confederate battle flag in the halls of the Senate. As Judith Giesberg, a Civil War historian at Villanova University tells Business Insider’s Aria Bendix that the flag was appropriated in the 20th century, and continues to this day, to perpetuate the system of white supremacy in America. Wednesday was a grim first: During the entire Civil War from 1861 to 1865, the flag never entered the U.S. Capitol. (In fact, Confederate troops never took Washington at all. When Confederate General Jubal A. Early launched an attack on Fort Stevens, Union reinforcements arrived in the nick of time to save D.C. from Confederate invasion.)

A man holds the Confederate battle flag in the halls of the U.S. Capitol building on Wednesday. To his right, a portrait of Charles Sumner, an abolitionist senator from Massachusetts; to his left, a portrait of John C. Calhoun, the seventh U.S. vice president and a staunch defender of slavery.

(Saul Loeb / AFP / Getty Images)

Although Wednesday’s attempted coup failed, historians also pointed out that the U.S. has witnessed one successful coup d’état before: in Wilmington, North Carolina. As Gregory Ablavsky, associate professor of law at Stanford University, notes in a statement, during the Wilmington Massacre or Coup of 1898, white supremacists overthrew the government of the then-majority-black city and killed as many as 60 black people.

And while the attack on the Capitol shocked many, it was also predictable: Plans to invade the Capitol building have been circulating on various social media platforms for weeks, as Sheera Frenkel and Dan Barry report for the New York Times.

Since President George Washington laid the cornerstone of the U.S. Capitol in 1793, assailants with a range of motives have launched attacks on the building with varying levels of success. Most notably, when terrorists attacked the World Trade Center and Pentagon on September 11, 2001, a fourth plane, United Airlines Flight 93, was likely intended for the Capitol Building, per the National Park Service. A group of passengers overtook the hijackers and crashed the aircraft into an open field in Somerset County, Pennsylvania, killing all 44 people onboard.

A number of “lone wolf” attackers have also thwarted Capitol security: in 1835, Richard Lawrence attempted to assassinate President Andrew Jackson as he exited the building’s east portico. In 1915, a former Harvard professor successfully exploded three sticks of dynamite in the Senate Reception room, and an armed assailant in 1998 shot and killed two Capitol police officers.

But Wednesday’s mob joined the ranks of just a handful of groups with political motivations that successfully carried through with their plans. Here, Smithsonian takes a closer look at three instances of coordinated political violence against the U.S. Capitol.

1814: British forces burn the Capitol

British Burn the Capitol, 1814, painted by Allyn Cox in 1974 on the corridor fo the Capitol building House wing, first floor

(Architect of the Capitol)

Flames leapt from unfinished wreckage of the U.S. Capitol on August 24, 1814. British forces set fire to this building, the White House and much of Washington in retaliation for Americans’ burning of the Canadian capital at York the year prior. Britain and its young former colony were embroiled in the War of 1812, a conflict that ignited over the Royal Navy’s practice of “impressing” American soldiers into British service by wrongly accusing them of being British subjects, among other causes, reports Joel Achenbach for the Washington Post.

At the time, the Capitol building housed the House, Senate, Supreme Court and Library of Congress, per the Architect of the Capitol. British forces burned the 3,000 or so books in the collection in the Library of Congress and piled furniture together in the Supreme Court Chamber to create a huge bonfire. The Capitol building was still under construction and did not yet have its famous dome, reports Gillian Brockwell for the Post.

Nature happened to save the day. A huge storm, possibly a tornado brought on by the previous day’s 100-degree heat, struck Washington and put out the fires, sending British forces packing earlier than planned. Some interior structures and much of the Capitol’s exterior survived the blaze, and after some debate, officials decided to rebuild the federal government’s building where it stood. As Cassandra Good reported for Smithsonian magazine in 2016, just one casualty was reported from the fires: John Lewis, the grandnephew of George Washington himself.

1954: Puerto Rican nationalists open fire

“Guard Congress After Gunfire,” Boston Daily Globe, March 2, 1954, p. 1

(Library of Congress)

On the morning of March 1, 1954, Lolita Lebrón, Rafael Cancel Miranda, Andres Figueroa Cordero and Irving Flores Rodriguez boarded a train from New York City to Washington, D.C. With little to no security measures in place at the Capitol, the group walked into the building with concealed handguns and entered the gallery overlooking the House floor, where Congress was in session.

Around 2:30 p.m., Lebrón shouted her support for Puerto Rican independence, and the group shot indiscriminately at lawmakers from the gallery. They managed to wound five Congressmen before being overtaken by visitors and police officers, per a House of Representatives oral history of the event.

The group designed their violent attack to draw attention to the cause of Puerto Rican independence. Their grievance dated back to the Spanish-American War, when in 1898, the United States invaded Puerto Rico and established it as an “organized territory.” At the time, this meant that Puerto Ricans were subject to American imperial rule but were not considered full citizens. Even after Puerto Ricans achieved citizenship in 1917, the territory still has no voting representation in Congress and little political autonomy. More than a century of U.S. imperialism and its adverse effect have led some Puerto Ricans, such as these nationalists, to argue that their territory should be completely independent of American rule.

“Bullets whistled through the chamber in the wildest scene in the entire history of Congress,” Speaker Joseph W. Martin, who was presiding that day, would later recall. According to the Office of the Historian of the House of Representatives, the police had sealed off the Capitol within minutes of the shooting and conducted a thorough search of the grounds until they captured Rodriguez, who had narrowly managed to slip away in the mayhem. The four attackers were tried and sentenced to federal prison with sentences ranging from 16 to 75 years. They remained imprisoned until President Jimmy Carter, responding to international pressure, granted the shooters clemency in 1979.

1983: Far-left extremists bomb the Senate Chamber

The resulting damage from the November 7, 1983, bombing outside of the Chamber of the United States Senate

(Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons)

Leftist groups had attacked the Capitol directly before: In March 1971, for instance, members of the extremist group Weather Underground set off a bomb in a bathroom on the Senate side of the Capitol, harming no one, reports Brockwell for the Post.

But the most serious terrorist attack took place a decade later, when a group of women split from the group to form the May 19th (M19) Communist Organization. Just before 11 p.m. on November 7, 1983, a member called the Capitol switchboard to announce that a bomb was about to explode.

Minutes later, M19 detonated a bomb in the Capitol’s north wing, blowing a hole through a wall and knocking the Senate majority leader’s office door off its hinges. Luckily, the area was already deserted and nobody was harmed, but the attack resulted in $250,000 worth of damage and shredded a portrait of Daniel Webster, per the U.S. Senate.

Members of M19—named for civil rights icon Malcolm X and Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh—coordinated the attack to protest U.S. military involvement in Grenada and Lebanon. Broadly, the group argued that violence was a necessary ingredient in the fight for “revolutionary anti-imperialism,” and its members would go on to bomb other high-profile buildings such as an FBI office. Some of the women involved were later arrested and charged with lengthy sentences, Brockwell writes for the Post.

National historian security expert and historian William Rosenau, who wrote a book on the bombings, told Smithsonian’s Lila Thulin last year that the group is the only documented terrorist group run entirely by women. They were “a group of essentially middle-class, well educated, white people who made a journey essentially from anti-war and civil rights protest to terrorism,” he says.

Rosenau added that in his view, people should tread cautiously when comparing militant leftist organizations of the 1970s to extremism of all political stripes today.

“Historical context is absolutely paramount,” he says. “We kind of lump terrorism together, like groups as disparate as Students for a Democratic Society, Al Qaeda, Red Army Faction, Aum Shinrikyo, but these are all products of particular times and particular places.

Rosenau continues, “The important thing is just to realize that there are some similarities, but these are very different periods in time and each period of time is unique.”

#History

[brookstonalmanac]

Events 11.7

335 – Athanasius is banished to Trier, on charge that he prevented a grain fleet from sailing to Constantinople. 680 – The Sixth Ecumenical Council commences in Constantinople. 921 – Treaty of Bonn: The Frankish kings Charles the Simple and Henry the Fowler sign a peace treaty or 'pact of friendship' (amicitia), to recognize their borders along the Rhine. 1426 – Lam Sơn uprising: Lam Sơn rebels emerge victorious against the Ming army in the Battle of Tốt Động – Chúc Động taking place in Đông Quan, in now Hanoi. 1492 – The Ensisheim meteorite, the oldest meteorite with a known date of impact, strikes the Earth around noon in a wheat field outside the village of Ensisheim, Alsace, France. 1619 – Elizabeth Stuart is crowned Queen of Bohemia. 1665 – The London Gazette, the oldest surviving journal, is first published. 1775 – John Murray, the Royal Governor of the Colony of Virginia, starts the first mass emancipation of slaves in North America by issuing Lord Dunmore's Offer of Emancipation, which offers freedom to slaves who abandoned their colonial masters to fight with Murray and the British. 1786 – The oldest musical organization in the United States is founded as the Stoughton Musical Society. 1811 – Tecumseh's War: The Battle of Tippecanoe is fought near present-day Battle Ground, Indiana, United States. 1837 – In Alton, Illinois, abolitionist printer Elijah P. Lovejoy is shot dead by a mob while attempting to protect his printing shop from being destroyed a third time. 1861 – American Civil War: Battle of Belmont: In Belmont, Missouri, Union forces led by General Ulysses S. Grant overrun a Confederate camp but are forced to retreat when Confederate reinforcements arrive. 1861 – The first Melbourne Cup horse race is held in Melbourne, Australia. 1874 – A cartoon by Thomas Nast in Harper's Weekly, is considered the first important use of an elephant as a symbol for the United States Republican Party. 1881 – Mapuche rebels attack the Chilean settlement of Nueva Imperial, as defenders fled to the hills and the settlement was effectively destroyed. 1885 – The completion of Canada's first transcontinental railway is symbolized by the Last Spike ceremony at Craigellachie, British Columbia. 1893 – Women's suffrage: Women in the U.S. state of Colorado are granted the right to vote, the second state to do so. 1900 – Second Boer War: Battle of Leliefontein, a battle during which the Royal Canadian Dragoons win three Victoria Crosses. 1900 – The People's Party is founded in Cuba. 1907 – Jesús García saves the entire town of Nacozari de García by driving a burning train full of dynamite six kilometers (3.7 miles) away before it can explode. 1910 – The first air freight shipment (from Dayton, Ohio, to Columbus, Ohio) is undertaken by the Wright brothers and department store owner Max Moorehouse. 1912 – The Deutsche Opernhaus (now Deutsche Oper Berlin) opens in the Berlin neighborhood of Charlottenburg, with a production of Beethoven's Fidelio. 1913 – The first day of the Great Lakes Storm of 1913, a massive blizzard that ultimately killed 250 and caused over $5 million (about $118,098,000 in 2013 dollars) damage. Winds reach hurricane force on this date. 1914 – The German colony of Kiaochow Bay and its centre at Tsingtao are captured by Japanese forces. 1916 – Jeannette Rankin is the first woman elected to the United States Congress. 1916 – Woodrow Wilson is reelected as President of the United States. 1916 – Boston Elevated Railway Company's streetcar No. 393 smashes through the warning gates of the open Summer Street drawbridge in Boston, Massachusetts, plunging into the frigid waters of Fort Point Channel, killing 46 people. 1917 – The Gregorian calendar date of the October Revolution, which gets its name from the Julian calendar date of 25 October. On this date in 1917, the Bolsheviks storm the Winter Palace. 1917 – World War I: Third Battle of Gaza ends: British forces capture Gaza from the Ottoman Empire. 1918 – The 1918 influenza epidemic spreads to Western Samoa, killing 7,542 (about 20% of the population) by the end of the year. 1918 – Kurt Eisner overthrows the Wittelsbach dynasty in the Kingdom of Bavaria. 1919 – The first Palmer Raid is conducted on the second anniversary of the Russian Revolution. Over 10,000 suspected communists and anarchists are arrested in 23 U.S. cities. 1920 – Patriarch Tikhon of Moscow issues a decree that leads to the formation of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia. 1929 – In New York City, the Museum of Modern Art opens to the public. 1931 – The Chinese Soviet Republic is proclaimed on the anniversary of the October Revolution. 1933 – Fiorello H. La Guardia is elected the 99th mayor of New York City. 1936 – Spanish Civil War: The Madrid Defense Council is formed to coordinate the Defense of Madrid against nationalist forces. 1940 – In Tacoma, Washington, the original Tacoma Narrows Bridge collapses in a windstorm, a mere four months after the bridge's completion. 1941 – World War II: Soviet hospital ship Armenia is sunk by German planes while evacuating refugees and wounded military and staff of several Crimean hospitals. It is estimated that over 5,000 people died in the sinking. 1944 – Soviet spy Richard Sorge, a half-Russian, half-German World War I veteran, is hanged by his Japanese captors along with 34 of his ring. 1944 – Franklin D. Roosevelt elected for a record fourth term as President of the United States. 1949 – The first oil was taken in Oil Rocks (Neft Daşları), oldest offshore oil platform. 1954 – In the US, Armistice Day becomes Veterans Day. 1956 – Suez Crisis: The United Nations General Assembly adopts a resolution calling for the United Kingdom, France and Israel to immediately withdraw their troops from Egypt. 1956 – Hungarian Revolution: János Kádár returns to Budapest in a Soviet armored convoy, officially taking office as the next Hungarian leader. By this point, most armed resistance has been defeated. 1957 – Cold War: The Gaither Report calls for more American missiles and fallout shelters. 1967 – Carl B. Stokes is elected as Mayor of Cleveland, Ohio, becoming the first African American mayor of a major American city. 1967 – US President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967, establishing the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. 1972 – 1972 United States presidential election: U.S. President Richard Nixon is re-elected in the largest landslide victory at the time. 1973 – The United States Congress overrides President Richard M. Nixon's veto of the War Powers Resolution, which limits presidential power to wage war without congressional approval. 1975 – In Bangladesh, a joint force of people and soldiers takes part in an uprising led by Colonel Abu Taher that ousts and kills Brigadier Khaled Mosharraf, freeing the then house-arrested army chief and future president Maj-Gen. Ziaur Rahman. 1983 – United States Senate bombing: A bomb explodes inside the United States Capitol. No one is injured, but an estimated $250,000 in damage is caused. 1987 – In Tunisia, president Habib Bourguiba is overthrown and replaced by Prime Minister Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. 1989 – Douglas Wilder wins the governor's seat in Virginia, becoming the first elected African American governor in the United States. 1989 – David Dinkins becomes the first African American to be elected Mayor of New York City. 1989 – East German Prime Minister Willi Stoph, along with his entire cabinet, is forced to resign after huge anti-government protests. 1990 – Mary Robinson becomes the first woman to be elected President of the Republic of Ireland. 1991 – Magic Johnson announces that he is HIV-positive and retires from the NBA. 1994 – WXYC, the student radio station of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, provides the world's first internet radio broadcast. 1996 – NASA launches the Mars Global Surveyor. 2000 – Controversial US presidential election that is later resolved in the Bush v. Gore Supreme Court Case, electing George W. Bush the 43rd President of the United States. 2000 – The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration discovers one of the country's largest LSD labs inside a converted military missile silo in Wamego, Kansas. 2004 – Iraq War: The interim government of Iraq calls for a 60-day "state of emergency" as U.S. forces storm the insurgent stronghold of Fallujah. 2007 – Jokela school shooting in Tuusula, Finland, resulting in the death of nine people. 2012 – An earthquake off the Pacific coast of Guatemala kills at least 52 people. 2017 – Shamshad TV is attacked by armed gunmen and suicide bombers. A security guard was killed and 20 people were wounded. ISIS claims responsibility for the attack.

[brookstonalmanac]

Events 11.7

335 – Athanasius is banished to Trier, on charge that he prevented a grain fleet from sailing to Constantinople. 680 – The Sixth Ecumenical Council commences in Constantinople. 921 – Treaty of Bonn: The Frankish kings Charles the Simple and Henry the Fowler sign a peace treaty or 'pact of friendship' (amicitia), to recognize their borders along the Rhine. 1426 – Lam Sơn uprising: Lam Sơn rebels emerge victorious against the Ming army in the Battle of Tốt Động – Chúc Động taking place in Đông Quan, in now Hanoi. 1492 – The Ensisheim meteorite, the oldest meteorite with a known date of impact, strikes the Earth around noon in a wheat field outside the village of Ensisheim, Alsace, France. 1619 – Elizabeth Stuart is crowned Queen of Bohemia. 1665 – The London Gazette, the oldest surviving journal, is first published. 1775 – John Murray, the Royal Governor of the Colony of Virginia, starts the first mass emancipation of slaves in North America by issuing Lord Dunmore's Offer of Emancipation, which offers freedom to slaves who abandoned their colonial masters to fight with Murray and the British. 1786 – The oldest musical organization in the United States is founded as the Stoughton Musical Society. 1811 – Tecumseh's War: The Battle of Tippecanoe is fought near present-day Battle Ground, Indiana, United States. 1837 – In Alton, Illinois, abolitionist printer Elijah P. Lovejoy is shot dead by a mob while attempting to protect his printing shop from being destroyed a third time. 1861 – American Civil War: Battle of Belmont: In Belmont, Missouri, Union forces led by General Ulysses S. Grant overrun a Confederate camp but are forced to retreat when Confederate reinforcements arrive. 1861 – The first Melbourne Cup horse race is held in Melbourne, Australia. 1874 – A cartoon by Thomas Nast in Harper's Weekly, is considered the first important use of an elephant as a symbol for the United States Republican Party. 1885 – The completion of Canada's first transcontinental railway is symbolized by the Last Spike ceremony at Craigellachie, British Columbia. 1893 – Women's suffrage: Women in the U.S. state of Colorado are granted the right to vote, the second state to do so. 1900 – Second Boer War: Battle of Leliefontein, a battle during which the Royal Canadian Dragoons win three Victoria Crosses. 1900 – The People's Party is founded in Cuba. 1907 – Jesús García saves the entire town of Nacozari de García by driving a burning train full of dynamite six kilometers (3.7 miles) away before it can explode. 1908 – Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid are reportedly killed in San Vicente Canton, Bolivia. 1910 – The first air freight shipment (from Dayton, Ohio, to Columbus, Ohio) is undertaken by the Wright brothers and department store owner Max Moorehouse. 1912 – The Deutsche Opernhaus (now Deutsche Oper Berlin) opens in the Berlin neighborhood of Charlottenburg, with a production of Beethoven's Fidelio. 1913 – The first day of the Great Lakes Storm of 1913, a massive blizzard that ultimately killed 250 and caused over $5 million (about $118,098,000 in 2013 dollars) damage. Winds reach hurricane force on this date. 1914 – The first issue of The New Republic is published. 1914 – The German colony of Kiaochow Bay and its centre at Tsingtao are captured by Japanese forces. 1916 – Jeannette Rankin is the first woman elected to the United States Congress. 1916 – Boston Elevated Railway Company's streetcar No. 393 smashes through the warning gates of the open Summer Street drawbridge in Boston, Massachusetts, plunging into the frigid waters of Fort Point Channel, killing 46 people.[1] 1917 – The Gregorian calendar date of the October Revolution, which gets its name from the Julian calendar date of 25 October. On this date in 1917, the Bolsheviks storm the Winter Palace. 1917 – World War I: Third Battle of Gaza ends: British forces capture Gaza from the Ottoman Empire. 1918 – The 1918 influenza epidemic spreads to Western Samoa, killing 7,542 (about 20% of the population) by the end of the year. 1918 – Kurt Eisner overthrows the Wittelsbach dynasty in the Kingdom of Bavaria. 1919 – The first Palmer Raid is conducted on the second anniversary of the Russian Revolution. Over 10,000 suspected communists and anarchists are arrested in 23 U.S. cities. 1920 – Patriarch Tikhon of Moscow issues a decree that leads to the formation of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia. 1929 – In New York City, the Museum of Modern Art opens to the public. 1931 – The Chinese Soviet Republic is proclaimed on the anniversary of the October Revolution. 1933 – Fiorello H. La Guardia is elected the 99th mayor of New York City. 1940 – In Tacoma, Washington, the original Tacoma Narrows Bridge collapses in a windstorm, a mere four months after the bridge's completion. 1941 – World War II: Soviet hospital ship Armenia is sunk by German planes while evacuating refugees and wounded military and staff of several Crimean hospitals. It is estimated that over 5,000 people died in the sinking. 1944 – Soviet spy Richard Sorge, a half-Russian, half-German World War I veteran, is hanged by his Japanese captors along with 34 of his ring. 1944 – Franklin D. Roosevelt elected for a record fourth term as President of the United States of America. 1949 – The first oil was taken in Oil Rocks (Neft Daşları), oldest offshore oil platform. 1954 – In the US, Armistice Day becomes Veterans Day. 1956 – Suez Crisis: The United Nations General Assembly adopts a resolution calling for the United Kingdom, France and Israel to immediately withdraw their troops from Egypt. 1956 – Hungarian Revolution: János Kádár returns to Budapest in a Soviet armored convoy, officially taking office as the next Hungarian leader. By this point, most armed resistance has been defeated. 1957 – Cold War: The Gaither Report calls for more American missiles and fallout shelters. 1967 – Carl B. Stokes is elected as Mayor of Cleveland, Ohio, becoming the first African American mayor of a major American city. 1967 – US President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967, establishing the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. 1972 – US President Richard Nixon is re-elected President. 1973 – The United States Congress overrides President Richard M. Nixon's veto of the War Powers Resolution, which limits presidential power to wage war without congressional approval. 1975 – In Bangladesh, a joint force of people and soldiers takes part in an uprising led by Colonel Abu Taher that ousts and kills Brigadier Khaled Mosharraf, freeing the then house-arrested army chief and future president Maj-Gen. Ziaur Rahman. 1983 – United States Senate bombing: A bomb explodes inside the United States Capitol. No one is injured, but an estimated $250,000 in damage is caused. 1987 – In Tunisia, president Habib Bourguiba is overthrown and replaced by Prime Minister Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. 1989 – Douglas Wilder wins the governor's seat in Virginia, becoming the first elected African American governor in the United States. 1989 – David Dinkins becomes the first African American to be elected Mayor of New York City. 1989 – East German Prime Minister Willi Stoph, along with his entire cabinet, is forced to resign after huge anti-government protests. 1990 – Mary Robinson becomes the first woman to be elected President of the Republic of Ireland. 1991 – Magic Johnson announces that he is HIV-positive and retires from the NBA. 1994 – WXYC, the student radio station of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, provides the world's first internet radio broadcast. 1996 – NASA launches the Mars Global Surveyor. 2000 – Controversial US presidential election that is later resolved in the Bush v. Gore Supreme Court Case, electing George W. Bush the 43rd President of the United States. 2000 – The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration discovers one of the country's largest LSD labs inside a converted military missile silo in Wamego, Kansas. 2004 – Iraq War: The interim government of Iraq calls for a 60-day "state of emergency" as U.S. forces storm the insurgent stronghold of Fallujah. 2007 – Jokela school shooting in Tuusula, Finland, resulting in the death of nine people. 2012 – An earthquake off the Pacific coast of Guatemala kills at least 52 people. 2017 – Shamshad TV is attacked by armed gunmen and suicide bombers. A security guard was killed and 20 people were wounded. ISIS claims responsibility for the attack.