(from http://www.history.com/topics/womens-history/famous-firsts-in-womens-history)
Julia Morgan - first woman admitted to the Ecole de Beaux-Arts in Paris, 1898
Margaret Sanger - opens first birth-control clinic in the United States, 1916
Edith Wharton - the first woman to win a Pulitzer Prize, 1921 for her 1920 novel The Age of Innocence
Alice Paul - proposes the Equal Rights Amendment for the first time, 1923
Amelia Earhart - the first woman to cross the Atlantic in an airplane, 1928
Frances Perkins - the first female member of a Presidential cabinet, 1933 as Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Secretary of Labor
(from https://www.rt.com/usa/418426-trump-democrat-memo-political-redact/)
". . . Trump told Democrats they would have to “re-do” their rebuttal to a Republican memo alleging FBI bias against him because it is “very political and long.”. . . "
Trump gets black unemployment rate right, but claims undue credit . . . unemployment overall is at a 45-year low and black unemployment did reach a new low this year — but (he took) credit for an awful lot of gains that occurred before his administration. . . Under Trump’s administration thus far, the black unemployment rate has fallen just one point, from 7.8 percent to 6.8 percent. . .
Has the U.S. released terrorists only to meet them later on the battlefield? . . . Trump is correct, though the trend fell dramatically under former President Barack Obama. However, his claim that the U.S. released the man who would become the leader of ISIS is somewhat misleading. The man known as Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was released into Iraqi custody in 2004 — not set free by the U.S. . .
Trump's right, ISIS did lose almost all its territory in Iraq and Syria . . . This is true. By early December, the Pentagon said 97 percent of ISIS-held territory in Iraq and Syria had been liberated. Now, analysts tell NBC News, the threat the U.S. must fight is dangerous lone wolf attacks and resurgences of the extremist group if forces do not continue to stamp it out. . .
Trump's description of the visa lottery program, which came as the president was describing his framework for immigration reform, is false. The diversity visa program grants 50,000 visas a year to individuals who have graduated high school or "two years of work experience within the past five years in an occupation that requires at least two years of training or experience to perform," according to the State Department. . . . Visa applicants are selected through a random, computer-generated lottery. If an applicant is selected, they face all of the same background checks and screening processes as any other immigrant visa applicant to be granted admission, including document presentation, background checks, in person interviews and medical exams.
Did a terrorist enter on the diversity visa? . . . This is half true. Trump is correct that two suspects of recent terror attacks entered thanks to a family connection and the diversity visa lottery program, but both appear to have been radicalized well after they entered the United States, making them homegrown threats.
Can immigrants bring in 'unlimited' and 'distant' relatives? . . . This is false. Legal immigrants can sponsor their spouses, children, parents, and siblings — but distant relatives, like cousins, cannot be sponsored for residency. The family reunification visa process takes years or even more than a decade, preventing "chains" from forming the way Trump suggests, as Politico reported in detail.
. . What's more, there are only so many family visas that can be granted. The numbers are capped by the U.S. government.
Trump claims credit for 2.4 million new jobs, rising wages . . . This is half true. The job numbers are technically correct, but Trump is overstating wage growth and taking credit for jobs added under his predecessor. . . Trump’s first year in office was marked by 2.1 million jobs being added to the economy — the slowest year of job growth in six years — while the other job gains came under President Barack Obama. Wages are indeed rising, but they were not exactly stagnate. They’ve been rising steadily for years, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Have 3 million workers received bonuses? . . . This appears to be true. Americans for Tax Reform, an advocacy group that fights all tax hikes, posted a list on Tuesday of 286 companies giving bonuses or pay raises because of the tax reform bill. . . "At least 3 million Americans are receiving special tax reform bonuses," the group writes — likely where Trump is getting his figure. . . While NBC News has not independently verified the group's count, the figure tracks with USA Today’s reporting that more than 2.5 million workers have received bonuses thus far.
Trump overstates tax relief for middle class . . . This claim is misleading — or, at least, depends on your definition of "tremendous." The middle class does get a tax cut under the new law, but unlike the relief for corporations, those cuts are not permanent. Ultimately, taxes for middle income families will rise. . . "The tax cuts that Trump is bragging about? Those are the provisions that are slated to go away," said Kyle Pomerleau, the director of federal projects at The Tax Foundation, an independent tax policy think tank. Most of the tax cuts affecting individuals expire in 2026. By 2027, 47.5 percent of all households will pay more in taxes than under the previous law, including 62.2 percent of taxpayers in the middle 20 percent of earners. . . . "The current law is an across the board tax cut," Pomerleau said, but, "the expiration of that is going to be an across the board tax increase."
Trump touts GOP tax cuts as "biggest" in U.S. history . . . This claim is false. The GOP tax bill, passed in December, does not amount to the "biggest" in U.S. history, according to the non-partisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. According to their estimates, Trump's tax cut is the eighth biggest in history. . . . As for the reform aspect: "It’s hard to mathematically measure how reform-y your tax plan is," said Kyle Pomerleau, the director of federal projects at The Tax Foundation, an independent tax policy think tank. Still, Ronald Reagan's 1986 reform simplified the tax code in a big way and was probably more "reformish," Pomerleau told NBC News. . ."
She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that’s best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes;
Thus mellowed to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.
-from She Walks in Beauty
byGeorge Gordon, Lord Byron
Elk Run Vineyards'
February 2018 Schedule of Events:
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9th Wine Down Friday’s Presents: Matt Eden
". . . parades. . . are a lot of work to rehearse, don’t do anything for morale, and are expensive in terms both of time and preparation. . . . (an) expensive parade reminds me less of our French allies and more of the old Soviet Union “Who has the biggest missile?” extravaganzas, or the truly creepy North Korean jitterbug marching style galas, with the even creepier “young leader,” Kim Jung Un, urging his nation of sycophants on in wildly over-the-top applause, which has a clap-hard-or-die feel to it. . . The last time we did a big parade like this was several decades ago and it cost over $10 million. Some estimates have the cost of a big one today topping $20 million, which would include moving all the tanks, missiles, jets, helicopters and military bands to Washington. . . Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis has correctly stopped handing out little “challenge coins” from his office — symbolic tokens that officers in our armed forces give to troops. As he told me, they don’t contribute to readiness or combat capability. . . I’d recommend we apply the same logic to this kind of parade. . .
For the men and women who have to put in the time planning, rehearsing, creating a security plan (a parade would be an extraordinarily juicy target for the Islamic State or Al Qaeda, by the way), setting up the stands, cleaning up, taking down the stands, and getting all their gear back home would, frankly, not be having a lot of fun. This would no doubt fall on a holiday weekend (Memorial Day, Fourth of July or Veteran’s Day, of course) so there goes their hoped-for and much deserved weekend break. . . We know that we have the best-funded, most war-experienced, highest morale military in the world. . . it is a fact. We don’t need a puffy parade to show the world we can fight. . . I’d prefer to see our Department of Defense. . . focus on planning for war, pushing the VA to improve, funding military families with good medical and childcare benefits, and honoring our fallen with ceremonies as they are laid to rest. Those are the best ways we can honor them. . ."
". . . House Republicans are sharply divided over how to handle a classified memo that President Donald Trump’s allies say contains explosive details of misconduct by senior FBI and Justice Department officials. . .The memo, compiled by House Intelligence Committee chairman Devin Nunes and fellow Republicans on the panel, claims that senior federal officials abused a secret surveillance program, commonly known as FISA, to target the Trump campaign. . ."
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devin_Nunes)
". . . In early 2017, he (Devin Gerald Nunes) was criticized for bias in a congressional investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections. On April 6, 2017, he temporarily stepped aside from leading that investigation while the Office of Congressional Ethics investigates charges that he improperly disclosed classified information to the public, but he remains committee chairman for other purposes. . ."
