Columbus sailed into uncharted waters in three ships that were not at all designed for blue water. They were caravels of about sixteen to seventeen meters in length and it was a fucking miracle that they made it to the Americas. One of them didn't make it back to Spain.

I recall some years ago some group built a pretty faithful replica of a caravel and the US Coast Guard denied them a permit to even put the thing in the water because it was deemed far too dangerous.

Columbus risked his life to do this and in doing so he opened up the Americas to the West.

It's also grossly unfair to Columbus to judge him by today's standards...five centuries removed from his time.

House Republicans are refusing to publicly defend Tea Party firebrand Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) as more details come to light about the congressman’s role in the Ohio State University sexual assault scandal.

Rep. Jordan worked as an assistant wrestling coach at Ohio State from 1987 to 1995, during which time multiple victims have alleged team physician Richard Strauss sexually abused them and fostered a culture of regular sexual harassment.

“I considered Jim Jordan a friend,” former Ohio State wrestler Mike DiSabato told NBC. “But at the end of the day, he is absolutely lying if he says he doesn’t know what was going on.”

“When you look at the definition of sexual abuse and sexual assault — and Jim Jordan went on record saying he knew about the facilities, he took showers with us. He saw Dr. Strauss and others perform these acts in front of us,” DiSabato told CNN.

More former Ohio State wrestlers have come forward to accuse Rep. Jordan of having known about the abuse, with The New York Times reporting a total of five of Jordan’s former student-athletes disputing the congressman’s denials of knowing about the abuse.

Rep. Jordan is known as a far-right leader in the Republican caucus.

Jordan was elected to congress in 2006, following the retirement of long-time Rep. Mike Oxley (R-OH). He had served a decade in the Ohio legislature following his career as an assistant coach at Ohio State.

In 2013, Jordan was widely credited with leading the government shutdown. Following the debacle, the former chairman of the Republic Study Committee was a founder of the even more conservative House Freedom Caucus.

Freedom Caucus chair Mark Meadows (R-NC) told the conservative Washington Examiner on Thursday that members were standing by Jordan.

“We not only stand by him, but believe him to be a man of character and honor, and Congress would be well served to have more Jim Jordans serving on Capitol Hill,” Meadows said.

That was not the experience CNN had the day following Meadows’ claims.

“CNN reached out to the offices of most Freedom Caucus members on Friday and did not receive on-the-record statements of support for Jordan other than the ones provided by Meadows and Rep. Matt Gaetz, a Florida Republican who is sometimes described as a member of the Freedom Caucus but does not identify himself as one,” CNN reported.

Matt Gaetz, a Fiddy-dog favourite

TIM (murphy): Life begins at conception. Pregnancy is a gift from God, which is why I’m cosponsoring this anti-abortion legislation after asking my lover to have an abortion. I’m 65 and she’s 32, but you probably figured that out already.

SCOTT (desjarlais): When you’re a pro-life, pro-family values Republican doctor running for Congress, you understand the value of human life. I had an affair with a patient and then pressured her to have an abortion. I also fired a gun outside my wife’s bedroom. Who better than me to forcibly take the choice away from American women? I had to send my girlfriend out of state to get her abortion. Liberals are hedonistic monsters and it just makes me so angry!

ERIC (greitens): Being pro-life means that every human life is treasured. As a proud husband and father, I had an affair with my hairdresser, tied her up, took photographs of her while she was naked and then threatened to release the images if she didn’t keep silent about our affair. I also sexually assaulted her. Abortion is immoral, which is why I signed this legislation further restricting it in my already oppressive Family Values state. Women like the hairdresser I abused should not be trusted to make this decision.

DENNIS (hastert): I have never paid for an abortion. My pro-life voting record speaks for itself. We want to live in a society where every child has a chance at life. I sexually abused teenagers while I was their coach and paid them $3.5 million to stay silent. Babies are precious!

MARK (foley): That totally reminds me of the time I texted sexual images to an underage page. There’s no way to get a teenage boy pregnant, so no hypocrisy on my anti-abortion stance.

TED (cruz): The most effective way to reduce abortion rates is to increase access to birth control. That’s why me and my twelve male colleagues who love life so gosh darn much want to restrict access to birth control. Women should be allowed to perform in porn videos for our pleasure but they should not be trusted to make their own choices.

STEVE (wynn): Being the finance chairman of the pro-life Republican Party has been the greatest honor of my life as I raped and sexually abused multiple women and threatened them with attack dogs. Women should not be trusted to make their own choices.

ROY (moore): 14-year-old girls are sexy and women should not be trusted to make their own choices.

JIM (jordan): I was named Pro-Life Legislator of the Year and won the Defender of Life award. Everyone deserves an advocate. Except for teenage athletes sexually abused by their coach.

ROB (porter), COREY (lewandowski), STEVE (bannon), ANDREW (puzder): No one values women like this wife-beating administration. Women should not be trusted to make their own choices.

ELLIOT (broidy): The reason I work for the Republican National Committee and raise money for the Republican Party is because the GOP is the pro-life party. What is more sacred than life? What is more urgent than paying my Playboy Playmate mistress $1.6 million in eight quarterly installments to buy her silence about our affair and her abortion? And why did Donald Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen arrange the non-disclosure agreement for me? 1.6 million dollars says you’ll never find out.

DONALD (trump): Did I pay for multiple abortions? It’s such an interesting question. The important thing is that rich Republican men will always be able to abuse and assault women and also pay for their mistresses’ abortions, even as we take the decision away from women who shouldn’t be trusted to decide for themselves. Only then will America be great again, mostly for Republican men.

Honestly?

That's what Progressives find funny, is it?

Apple Inc, YouTube, Facebook Inc and Spotify all took down podcasts and channels from U.S. conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, saying on Monday that the Infowars author had broken community standards.

The sweeping moves are the broadest actions yet by internet companies that have suspended or removed some of the conspiracy-driven content
.
Since founding Infowars in 1999, Jones has built a vast audience. Among the theories he has promoted is that the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington were staged by the government.

Facebook said it removed the pages "for glorifying violence, which violates our graphic violence policy, and using dehumanizing language to describe people who are transgender, Muslims and immigrants, which violates our hate speech policies."