06/14/2015 archive

C’mon, you remember this one.

This is your morning Open Thread. Pour your favorite beverage and review the past and comment on the future.

Find the past “On This Day in History” here.

Click on image to enlarge

June 14 is the 165th day of the year (166th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 200 days remaining until the end of the year.

On this day in 1777, during the American Revolution, the Continental Congress adopts a resolution stating that “the flag of the United States be thirteen alternate stripes red and white” and that “the Union be thirteen stars, white in a blue field, representing a new Constellation.”

The Flag Resolution of 1777

On June 14, 1777, the Marine Committee of the Second Continental Congress passed the Flag Resolution which stated: “Resolved, that the flag of the United States be thirteen stripes, alternate red and white; that the union be thirteen stars, white in a blue field, representing a new Constellation.” Flag Day is now observed on June 14 of each year. A false tradition holds that the new flag was first hoisted in June 1777 by the Continental Army at the Middlebrook encampment.

The 1777 resolution was most probably meant to define a naval ensign, rather than a national flag. It appears between other resolutions from the Marine Committee. On May 10, 1779, Secretary of the Board of War Richard Peters expressed concern “it is not yet settled what is the Standard of the United States.”

The Flag Resolution did not specify any particular arrangement, number of points, nor orientation for the stars. The pictured flag shows 13 outwardly-oriented five-pointed stars arranged in a circle, the so-called Betsy Ross flag. Although the Betsy Ross legend is controversial, the design is among the oldest of any U.S. flags. Popular designs at the time were varied and most were individually crafted rather than mass-produced. Other examples of 13-star arrangements can be found on the Francis Hopkinson flag, the Cowpens flag, and the Brandywine flag. Given the scant archaeological and written evidence, it is unknown which design was the most popular at that time.

Despite the 1777 resolution, a number of flags only loosely based on the prescribed design were used in the early years of American independence. One example may have been the Guilford Court House Flag, traditionally believed to have been carried by the American troops at the Battle of Guilford Court House in 1781.

The origin of the stars and stripes design is inadequately documented. The apocryphal story credits Betsy Ross for sewing the first flag from a pencil sketch handed to her by George Washington. No evidence for this exists; indeed, nearly a century had passed before Ross’ grandson, William Canby, first publicly suggested it. Another woman, Rebecca Young, has also been credited as having made the first flag by later generations of her family. Rebecca Young’s daughter was Mary Pickersgill, who made the Star Spangled Banner Flag.

It is likely that Francis Hopkinson of New Jersey, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, designed the 1777 flag while he was the Chairman of the Continental Navy Board’s Middle Department, sometime between his appointment to that position in November 1776 and the time that the flag resolution was adopted in June 1777. This contradicts the Betsy Ross legend, which suggests that she sewed the first Stars and Stripes flag by request of the government in the Spring of 1776. Hopkinson was the only person to have made such a claim during his own lifetime, when he sent a bill to Congress for his work. He asked for a “Quarter Cask of the Public Wine” as payment initially. The payment was not made, however, because it was determined he had already received a salary as a member of Congress, and he was not the only person to have contributed to the design. No one else contested his claim at the time.

“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”.

Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt

The Sunday Talking Heads:

This Week with George Stephanopolis: The guests for Sunday’s “This Week” are: potential 2016 GOP presidential candidate New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie; and Clinton campaign senior adviser Joel Benenson.

The roundtable guests are: Weekly Standard editor “Bloody” Bill Kristol; Republican strategist Ana Navarro; Center for American Progress president Neera Tanden; and editor and publisher of The Nation Katrina vanden Heuvel.

Face the Nation: Host John Dickerson’s guests are: Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT); Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-SC); and Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager Robby Mook.

His panel guests are: Ruth Marcus, The Washington Post; Peggy Noonan, The Wall Street Journal; Mark Halperin, Bloomberg Politics; and Robert Costa, The Washington Post.

Meet the Press with Chuck Todd: The guests on Sunday’s “MTP” are: John Podesta, Chairman of Hillary Clinton’s Presidential Campaign; former GOP presidential candidate Gov. Mitt Romney;  Amb. Brett McGurk, Deputy Special Presidential Envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter ISIL; and Bill Daley, former Chief of Staff for President Barack Obama.

The roundtable guests are: Stephanie Cutter, former Deputy Campaign Manager for President Barack Obama; Hugh Hewitt, host of “The Hugh Hewitt Show”; Andrea Mitchell, NBC News Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent; and Evan Thomas, Editor-at-Large for Newsweek.

State of the Union with Jake Tapper: Mr. Tapper will have an exclusive interview with former President William Jefferson Clinton.

 Revealed: how the world turned its back on rape victims of Congo

    A year ago a global summit hosted by Angelina Jolie and William Hague vowed to end army sexual violence in Africa. But women are still threatened and funds are drying up

Mark Townsend in Minova

On an imposing hill above the town of Minova, at the end of a trail down which rivulets of rainwater run past tarpaulin-tented homes, a small women’s refuge can be found.

Here, groups of women silently till the land. Others stare warily over Lake Kivu towards the distant mountains, waiting for news of the fighting.

Three years have passed since a column of Congolese soldiers entered Minova after being defeated and ousted by M23 rebels from the nearby city of Goma. Many were drunk, firing their guns in frustration towards the sky, but mostly they were humiliated. Over the next three days they took their defeat out on the women and girls of Minova.

Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungover  we’ve been bailed out we’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:30am (ET) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.

Breakfast Tune: Stars And Stripes Forever by Roger Sprung on 1963-64 Folkways LP.

Today in History

Nazi Germany’s troops enter Paris during World War II; TWA Flight 847 hijacked; Stars and Stripes adopted as official U.S. flag; Leftist guerrilla Che Guevara and real estate mogul Donald Trump born. (June 14)

Breakfast News & Blogs Below