AMY S GLENN
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Welcome!

 

 

Although this site has been created primarily for my students, everyone is welcome. In these pages you'll find many sources of information.

The Online Resources section below has numerous links that are of current interest. For more links to material on just about any topic you're looking for, use the E-Links button above. Linked off of that page are pages containing hundreds of links to sites covering a number of topics.

 Visit often ... I update frequently!  Hope you enjoy the site!

 

QUOTES

 

Quote of the Month

When they talk about the government shutdown, they’re going to be talking about the president of the United States, who the president was at that time. They’re not going to be talking about who was the head of the House, the head the Senate, who’s running things in Washington. So I really think the pressure is on the president.

~Donald Trump, during the 2013 17-day shutdown in Barak Obama’s presidency

 

NUMBERS

 

Numbers of the Month

Since the modern congressional budgeting process took effect in 1976, there have been a total of 17 separate government shutdowns. The longest government shutdown in US history (35 days) began on December 22, 2018. When the fiscal year began on October 1, 2018, Congress had passed just 5 (Defense, Labor-Health and Human Services-Education, Military Construction-Veterans' Affairs, Energy and Water and the Legislative Branch) out of 12 appropriations bills setting discretionary spending levels. Lawmakers had until midnight on December 21st to enact legislation to fund the programs covered by the remaining 7 appropriations bills, but they allowed that funding to lapse. The federal government then partially shut down. Conveniently, the 5 fully-funded appropriations bills - unaffected by any shutdown - constituted roughly three-quarters of total discretionary spending. Still, that left one-quarter of appropriations that had to shut down. In short, the effect of the partial shutdown varied across the government.

While estimates vary widely, evidence suggests that shutdowns tend to cost, not save, money. Federal agencies are required to develop contingency plans but putting those in place has a real cost. In addition, many user fees and other charges are not collected during a shutdown. Contractors sometimes include premiums in their bids to account for uncertainty in being paid. And although many federal employees are forced to be idle during a shutdown, they have historically received back pay, negating much of those potential savings. About 380,000 federal employees were furloughed, and an additional 420,000 employees in the affected agencies were expected to work with their pay delayed until the end of the shutdown, totaling 800,000 workers affected out of 2.1 million civilian non-postal federal employees. However, on January 4, The Washington Post reported that because the shutdown was triggered by the failure to enact spending bills that continued a federal government pay freeze, hundreds of senior Trump administration political appointees would receive a roughly $10,000 pay raise the following day. The White House press secretary said the pending pay raise was an "unnecessary byproduct of the shutdown."

An analysis from Standard & Poor's (S&P) released on January 11 reported that the shutdown had cost the US economy $3.6 billion as of that date. Similarly, the White House's Council of Economic Advisers estimated on January 15 that the shutdown reduced economic growth by 0.13% each week, for a total hit to economic growth of 0.5%. Fitch Ratings warned that an extended shutdown might lead to a downgrade in the US Triple-A credit rating. That, in turn, would make borrowing more costly for companies and American households, because it is the benchmark for many other lines of credit. The shutdown directly affected nearly 3% of the US labor force … in a typical recession, unemployment increases 2–4%. The reduction in spending by those households combined with the reduction of government services could have macroeconomic results similar to a typical recession. By mid-January 2019, the White House Council of Economic Advisors estimated that each week of the shutdown reduced GDP growth by 0.1%, the equivalent of 1.2% per quarter. The Congressional Budget Office estimated the shutdown cost the American economy at least $11 billion, not counting indirect costs that were difficult to quantify.

Trump's approval sharply plummeted during the shutdown, with an overwhelming majority of voters opposed to exploitation of the shutdown as a negotiating strategy. A January 2019 poll found that 70% of Americans did not want a government shutdown over the issue of building a border wall and 66% believed that Trump should agree to a budget without wall funding. Many Republicans in Congress were also strongly criticized for standing by Trump's demand for the border wall. A poll by The Washington Post and ABC News found that 53% of Americans blamed Trump and Republicans for the shutdown, with 34% blaming Democrats and 10% blaming both parties.

Trump has insinuated that if Congress fails to reach a deal by February 15, he will shut down the government again or declare a national emergency and use military funding to build the wall.

 

calendar

 

 

Then and Now

February is Black History Month.

February is American Heart Month.

then and now button   02/01/1861 - Texas voted to secede from the Union.

then and now button   02/01/1920 - The Royal Canadian Mounted Police began operations.

then and now button   02/01/2003 - NASA's Columbia exploded over east Texas on reentry.

then and now button   02/01/2019 - National Freedom Day

then and now button   02/02/1536 - Pedro de Mendoza of Spain founded Buenos Aires.

then and now button   02/02/1653 - New Amsterdam - now New York - was incorporated.

then and now button   02/02/1848 - The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, ending the Mexican War, was signed.

then and now button   02/02/1971 - Idi Amin assumed power in Uganda.

then and now button   02/02/2019 - Groundhog Day

then and now button   02/02/2019 - Imbolc (or Oimelc) – Wicca, Celtic

then and now button   02/02/2019 - Candlemas – Christian

then and now button   02/03/1690 - The colony of Massachusetts issued the first paper money in America to pay soldiers fighting in the war against Quebec. (It probably wasn't worth much more than it is now ... which is probably why they paid soldiers with it.)

then and now button   02/03/1913 - The US ratified the 16th Amendment to the Constitution, providing for a federal income tax.

then and now button   02/03/1959 - A plane crash near Clear Lake, Iowa, claimed the lives of rock-and-roll stars Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and JP "The Big Bopper" Richardson.

then and now button   02/03/2019 - Setsubun (Bean Scattering) – Shinto

then and now button   02/04/1783 - Britain declared a formal cessation of hostilities with its former colony, the United States of America.

then and now button   02/04/1789 - Electors unanimously chose George Washington to be the first US President.

then and now button   02/04/1801 - John Marshall became chief justice of the US Supreme Court.

then and now button   02/04/1861 - Delegates from six southern states met in Montgomery AL to form the Confederate States of America.

then and now button   02/04/1962 - The Soviet Union's news agency Pravda claimed the Russians invented baseball.

then and now button   02/04/1974 - Members of the Symbionese Liberation Army kidnapped newspaper heiress Patricia Hearst was from her apartment in Berkeley CA.

then and now button   02/05/1631 - Roger Williams, founder of Rhode Island, and his wife arrived in Boston from England.

then and now button   02/05/1917 - Congress passed, over President Wilson's veto, an immigration act severely curtailing the influx of Asians.

then and now button   02/05/1917 - Mexico adopted its constitution.

then and now button   02/05/1937 - President Franklin Roosevelt proposed increasing the number of justices on the Supreme Court. Critics accused Roosevelt of attempting to "pack" the high court.

then and now button   02/05/2019 - Chinese New Year

then and now button   02/06/1952 - Britain's King George VI died. His daughter, Elizabeth II, succeeded him.

then and now button   02/06/1959 - The US successfully test-fired for the first time a Titan intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) from Cape Canaveral FL.

then and now button   02/06/2001 - Israel elected Ariel Sharon as prime minister in a landslide victory over Ehud Barak.

then and now button   02/07/1936 - FDR authorized a flag for the office of the vice president.

then and now button   02/07/1940 - Walt Disney's Pinocchio had its world premiere.

then and now button   02/07/1964 - The Beatles began their first American tour, arriving in NY.

then and now button   02/07/1986 - Haitian President-for-Life Jean Claude Duvalier fled his country ending 28 years of Duvalier rule.

then and now button   02/08/1910 - The Boy Scouts of America was incorporated.

then and now button   02/08/1922 - President Harding had a radio installed in the White House.

then and now button   02/08/1924 - The first execution by gas in the US took place at the Nevada State Prison in Carson City.

then and now button   02/08/1978 - Radio broadcast the deliberations of the Senate for the first time as members opened debate on the Panama Canal treaties.

then and now button   02/08/2019 - Boy Scout Day

then and now button   02/09/1825 - The House of Representatives elected John Quincy Adams president after no candidate received a majority of the electoral votes.

then and now button   02/09/1861 - The Provisional Congress of the Confederate States of America elected Jefferson David president and Alexander Stephens vice president.

then and now button   02/09/1870 - The US Weather Bureau was established.

then and now button   02/09/1943 - The WWII battle of Guadalcanal in the southwest Pacific ended with an American victory over Japanese forces.

then and now button   02/09/1950 - Senator Joseph McCarthy charged that the State Department was riddled with Communists.

then and now button   02/09/1964 - The Beatles made their first live American TV appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show on CBS.

then and now button   02/09/1971 - The Apollo 14 returned to earth after man's third landing on the moon.

then and now button   02/09/2019 - Vasant Panchami – Hinduism

then and now button   02/10/1846 - Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, the Mormons, began an exodus to the west from Illinois.

then and now button   02/10/1949 - Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman opened on Broadway.

then and now button   02/10/1967 - The 25th Amendment to the Constitution, dealing with presidential disability and succession, went into effect.

then and now button   02/11/1812 - Massachusetts Governor Elbridge Gerry signed a redistricting law favoring his party ... giving rise to the term "gerrymandering."

then and now button   02/11/1945 - FDR, Winston Churchill and Josef Stalin signed the Yalta agreement.

then and now button   02/11/1979 - Followers of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini seized power in Iran.

then and now button   02/11/1983 - Janet Reno became the first female attorney general.

then and now button   02/11/1990 - South Africa freed black activist Nelson Mandela after 27 years in captivity.

then and now button   02/12/1733 - English colonists led by James Oglethorpe founded Savannah GA.

then and now button   02/12/1909 - The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People was founded.Academic Freedom Day

then and now button   02/12/1915 - The US House of Representatives rejected a proposal to give women the right to vote.

then and now button   02/12/1932 - Mrs. Hattie Caraway became the first woman elected to the US Senate.

then and now button   02/12/1966 - Adam West premiered as Batman in the US.

then and now button   02/12/2019 - Academic Freedom Day (Charles Darwin’s birthday)

then and now button   02/13/1635 - America's oldest public school, the Boston Public Latin School, was founded.

then and now button   02/13/1795 - The University of North Carolina became the first US state university to admit students. The first was Hinton James, who was the only student on campus for two weeks.

then and now button   02/13/1920 - The League of Nations recognized the perpetual neutrality of Switzerland.

then and now button   02/13/1960 - France exploded its first atomic bomb.

then and now button   02/14/1778 - The American ship Ranger carried the recently adopted Stars and Stripes to a foreign port for the first time as it arrived in France.

then and now button   02/14/1918 - Tarzan of the Apes was released for the first time. There were a number of protests since people reasoned that Tarzan was living in sin with Jane without the benefit of matrimony.

then and now button   02/14/1920 - The League of Women Voters was founded in Chicago.

then and now button   02/14/1931 - The movie Dracula was released, with Bela Lugosi as the Count.

then and now button   02/14/1945 - Peru, Paraguay, Chile and Ecuador joined the UN.

then and now button   02/14/1989 - Iran's Ayatollah put out a $1 million bounty for Salman Rushdie, the author of The Satanic Verses, considered blasphemous by members of the Islamic community.

then and now button   02/14/2019 - Valentine's Day

then and now button   02/15/1564 - Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei was born in Pisa.

then and now button   02/15/1764 - The city of St. Louis was established.

then and now button   02/15/1879 - President Hayes signed a bill allowing female attorneys to argue cases before the Supreme Court.

then and now button   02/15/1898 - The US battleship Maine mysteriously blew up in Havana Harbor, killing more than 260 crew members and bringing the US closer to war with Spain.

then and now button   02/15/1950 - Disney released the movie Cinderella.

then and now button   02/15/1989 - The Soviet Union announced that the last of its troops had left Afghanistan, after more than nine years of military intervention.

then and now button   02/15/2019 - Susan B. Anthony Day

then and now button   02/15/2019 - Parinirvana – Buddhism

then and now button   02/16/1959 - Fidel Castro became premier of Cuba after the overthrow of Fulgencio Batista.

then and now button   02/16/1968 - Haleyville AL began the first 911 emergency telephone system in the nation.

then and now button   02/17/1801 - The House of Representatives broke an electoral tie between Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr, electing Jefferson president and Burr vice president.

then and now button   02/17/1817 - A street in Baltimore became the first lit with gas from America's first gas company.

then and now button   02/17/1897 - The forerunner of the National PTA, the National Congress of Mothers, was founded in Washington.

then and now button   02/17/1947 - The Voice of American began broadcasting to the Soviet Union.

then and now button   02/17/1964 - The Supreme Court ruled that congressional districts within each state had to be roughly equal in population.

then and now button   02/18/1861 - The Confederate States of America swore in Jefferson Davis as president.

then and now button   02/18/1885 - Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was published for the first time.

then and now button   02/18/1930 - The ninth planet of our solar system, Pluto, was discovered.

then and now button   02/18/1985 - Jonathan Isaac Horsky Glenn was born in Mansfield OH.

then and now button   02/18/2019 - Presidents Day

then and now button   02/19/1846 - The Texas state government was formally installed in Austin.

then and now button   02/19/1942 - President Roosevelt signed an executive order giving the military the authority to relocate and intern Japanese-Americans as well as Japanese nationals living in the US.

then and now button   02/19/1945 - The Marines landed on Iwo Jima.

then and now button   02/19/2019 - Magha Puja Day – Buddhism

then and now button   02/20/1792 - President Washington signed an act creating the US Post Office.

then and now button   02/20/1809 - The Supreme Court ruled the power of the federal government is greater than that of any individual state. (It's been downhill ever since.)

then and now button   02/20/1839 - Congress prohibited dueling in the District of Columbia.

then and now button   02/20/1962 - Astronaut John Glenn became the first American to orbit the earth, flying aboard Friendship Seven.

then and now button   02/21/1878 - The first telephone directory was issued.

then and now button   02/21/1965 - Former Black Muslim leader Malcolm X was shot to death in New York.

then and now button   02/21/1972 - President Nixon began his historic visit to China.

then and now button   02/22/1819 - Spain ceded Florida to the US.

then and now button   02/22/1879 - Frank Woolworth opened a 5-cent store in Utica NY.

then and now button   02/22/1924 - Calvin Coolidge delivered the first presidential radio broadcast from the White House.

then and now button   02/22/1935 - It became illegal for airplanes to fly over the White House.

then and now button   02/22/1980 - The US Olympic hockey team upset the Soviets 4-3 and went on to win the gold medal.

then and now button   02/23/1836 - The siege of the Alamo began in San Antonio.

then and now button   02/23/1945 - US Marines on Iwo Jima captured Mount Suribachi where they raised the American flag.

then and now button   02/23/1997 - Scientists in Scotland announced they had succeeded in cloning an adult sheep producing a lamb named Dolly.

then and now button   02/24/1868 - The House of Representatives impeached President Andrew Johnson following his attempted dismissal of Secretary of War Edwin Stanton. The Senate acquitted him.

then and now button   02/24/1903 - The US signed an agreement acquiring a naval station at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.

then and now button   02/24/1920 - A fledgling German political party - the Nazi Party - held its first meeting in Munich. Its chief spokesman was Adolf Hitler.

then and now button   02/24/1942 - The Voice of America went on the air for the first time.

then and now button   02/24/1980 - The US hockey team defeated Finland, 4-2, to clinch the gold medal at the Winter Olympic Games.

then and now button   02/25/1570 - Pope Pius V excommunicated England's Queen Elizabeth I.

then and now button   02/25/1793 - The department heads of the US government met with President Washington in the first Cabinet meeting.

then and now button   02/25/1836 - Inventor Samuel Colt patented his revolver.

then and now button   02/25/1913 - Secretary of State Philander C. Knox declared the 16th amendment ratified, allowing Congress to levy and collect income taxes.

then and now button   02/25/2019 - Norriture Rituelle des sources tęt d' l'eau – Voudon

then and now button   02/26/1919 - Congress established Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona.

then and now button   02/26/1940 - The US Air Defense Command was created.

then and now button   02/26/1951 - The US ratified 22nd Amendment to the Constitution, limiting a president to two terms of office.

then and now button   02/26/1952 - Prime Minister Winston Churchill announced that Britain had developed its own atomic bomb.

then and now button   02/26/1993 - A bomb built by a group of Islamic extremists exploded in the parking garage of NY's World Trade Center, killing 6 people and injuring more than 1,000 others.

then and now button   02/27/1801 - The District of Columbia was placed under the jurisdiction of Congress.

then and now button   02/27/1922 - The Supreme Court unanimously upheld the 19th Amendment to the Constitution that guaranteed the right of women to vote.

then and now button   02/28/1827 - The first US railroad chartered to carry passengers and freight, the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company, was incorporated.

then and now button   02/28/1854 - Around 50 people opposed to slavery met at a schoolhouse in Ripon WI, to call for a new political organization. The group would later take the name of the Republican Party.

then and now button   02/28/1863 - President Lincoln signed the first military draft law in the US. Rich people could opt out if they paid $300.

then and now button   02/28/1953 - Scientists James Watson and Francis Crick discovered the double-helix structure of DNA.

then and now button   02/28/1979 - Mr. Ed, TV's talking horse, died.

then and now button   02/29/1504 - Christopher Columbus, stranded in Jamaica during his fourth voyage to the West, used a correctly predicted lunar eclipse to frighten hostile natives into providing food for his crew.

RETURN TO TOP

 

 

LINKS

 

Online Resource Links

then and now button   What ISIS Really Wants: The Islamic State is no mere collection of psychopaths. It is a religious group with carefully considered beliefs, among them that it is a key agent of the coming apocalypse. Here’s what that means for its strategy and for how to stop it  |  ISIS Claims Responsibility, Calling Paris Attacks First of the Storm  |  Syria Iraq: The Islamic State Militant Group  |  Isis: The Inside Story  |  Frontline: The Rise of ISIS  |  Council on Foreign Relations: A Primer on ISIS Iraq  |  Cracks in ISIS Are Becoming More Clear  |  How ISIS’ Attacks Harm the Middle East

then and now button   What it’s like to live on $2 a day in the United States (PDF)

then and now button   Check out Today's Front Pages. Each day, you can see the front pages of more than 800 newspapers from around the world in their original, unedited form.

then and now button   Whether or not you noticed, the earth's population passed 7 billion a while back. You might enjoy NPR's wonderful video, Visualizing How a Population Grows to 7 Billion.

then and now button   Check out the St. Louis Fed's presentation The Financial Crisis: What Happened?. The original video is no longer available but you can view the power point presentation.

then and now button   Want to take a survey but not sure how many responses to collect? This Survey Calculator gives you the number for any given population size and desired confidence level. A reverse calculator lets you enter characteristics of an existing survey and gives the confidence interval (±X%) to apply to the results. The Survey System site, sponsored by a survey software company, also gives clear explanations of statistical significance, survey design and related concepts. Also check out 20 Questions a Journalist (and You, too!) Should Ask About Poll Results.

then and now button   PBS's 30 Second Candidate allows you to view more political ads than you ever knew existed. Choose the Historical Timeline link to see how political ads have changed over the years. Start with the infamous Daisy Ad that Lyndon Johnson used against Barry Goldwater. Click on Watch Johnson ads. Then click on either the QuickTime link or the Real Video link next to Daisy.

then and now button   Check out Political Compass. The site does a good job of explaining political ideologies (although with definitions different from those I use) and gives you a chance to discover your own political philosophy.

then and now button   Law Library of Congress: North Korea: Collection of links to websites on North Korean government, politics and law. Includes legal guides, country studies and links to constitutions and branches of government (where available). Council on Foreign Relations: North Korea: Background, articles and opinion pieces about North Korea government and politics. Many of the articles focus on North Korea's nuclear program. From the Council on Foreign Relations, "an independent membership organization and a nonpartisan think tank and publisher."

then and now button   State of the Union (SOTU): The site uses an interactive timeline to provide a visual representation of prominent words in presidential State of the Union addresses by displaying significant words as "determined by comparing how frequently the word occurs in the document to how frequently it appears throughout the entire body of SOTU addresses." The Appendices section describes the statistical methods used. Also includes the full text of addresses.

then and now button   Small Town Papers: This site provides access to scanned images of recent issues of dozens of small town newspapers from throughout the United States. Newspapers are updated periodically, 2-3 weeks after publication. The site also includes a searchable archive (of articles, photos and advertisements), which covers different periods for each paper, some as far back as the 1890s. Access to the archives requires free registration.

then and now button   This website serves as a centralized location to learn about the Congressional Research Service and search for CRS reports that have been released to the public by members of Congress. (CRS Reports do not become public until a member of Congress releases the report.) Features a searchable database with more than 8,000 reports, a list of recently released reports, other collections of CRS reports and a FAQ about CRS.

then and now button   Stem Cell Research: See the official NIH resource for Stem Cell Research. In 2005, NOVA aired an overview of The Stem Cell Issue.

then and now button   Instances of the Use of United States Armed Forces Abroad, 1798 - 2004: This report lists hundreds of instances in which the United States has used its armed forces abroad in situations of military conflict or potential conflict or for other than normal peacetime purposes. It was compiled in part from various older lists and is intended primarily to provide a rough survey of past US military ventures abroad, without reference to the magnitude of the given instance noted.

then and now button   Government Product Recalls

then and now button   Homeland Security Knowledge Base

then and now button   If you're worried about retirement, try some of the following sites.
        IRS Tax Information for Retirement Plans
        Social Security Retirement Planner
        Retirement Planning Resources from Smart Money

then and now button   Keeping the Shi'ites Straight Based on the opinion that no story has been more confusing for the Western news media to cover in postwar Iraq than the politics of the country's Shi'ite majority, this article provides a basic outline of Shi'ite religious history. Discusses the Sadr family (Muhammad Baqir as-Sadr, Ayatollah Muhammad Sadiq al-Sadr, and Muqtada as-Sadr), Muhammad Baqir al-Hakim and other figures.

then and now button   This commercial site presents brief information about dozens of Black Inventors from the United States. Some entries include portraits and images. Also includes a searchable timeline covering 1721-1988. Does not include bibliographic information.

then and now button   Annenberg Political Fact Check: This site describes itself as a nonpartisan, nonprofit, consumer advocate for voters that aims to reduce the level of deception and confusion in US politics. The site provides original articles, with summaries and sources, analyzing factual accuracy in TV ads, debates, speeches, interviews and news releases. Searchable. From the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania.

then and now button   White House Tapes: The President Calling: Three of America's most compelling presidents -- Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon -- bugged their White House offices and tapped their telephones. In this documentary project, American Radio Works eavesdrops on presidential telephone calls to hear how each man used one-on-one politics to shape history. Includes audio, a transcript of the documentary and background information on each president and the tapes.

then and now button   The State of State and Local Finances: New studies afford a state-by-state or city-by-city analysis of fiscal well being. The Year of Living Dangerously: While leaders in a growing number of states appear to believe they're serving the public good by squeezing government dry, there's little question that minimizing management carries a host of dangers that directly affect the lives of citizens.

then and now button   Government Debt by Country Map: Shows countries' general government gross debt as a percentage of GDP in 2012.

then and now button   First Amendment Library: Provides info on Supreme Court First Amendment jurisprudence,  including rulings, arguments, briefs, historical material, commentary and press coverage.

One Paycheck into the Government Shutdown

 

RETURN TO TOP

SPOTLIGHTS

Community Service

If you need a presentation or workshop for your group,

use this Community link or the link at the top of the page.
The link will take you to a list of the topics I currently have available.
To schedule a date or for more information, feel free to contact me at dramyglenn@gmail.com

 

 

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Copyright © 1996 Amy S Glenn
Last updated:   02/01/2019   0030

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