The Tower Commission was commissioned on December 1, 1986 by United States president Ronald Reagan in response to the Iran–Contra affair, in which senior administration officials secretly facilitated the sale of arms to Iran, which was the subject of an arms embargo. The commission, composed of former Senator John Tower of Texas, former Secretary of State Edmund Muskie, and former National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft, was tasked with reviewing the proper role of the National Security Council staff in national security operations generally, and in the arms transfers to Iran specifically. The Commission's report, published on February 27, 1987, concluded that CIA Director William Casey, who supported the Iran-Contra arrangement, should have taken over the operation and made the president aware of the risks and notified Congress as legally required. The Commission's work was continued by two congressional investigative committees (both formed in January 1987). Shortly after forming the Tower Commission, President Reagan also named Lawrence Walsh as the independent counsel in charge of the Iran-Contra criminal investigation.

Bonapartism is the political ideology supervening from Napoleon Bonaparte and his followers and successors. The term was later used to refer to people who hoped to restore the House of Bonaparte and its style of government. In this sense, a Bonapartiste was a person who either actively participated in or advocated for conservative, monarchist and imperial political factions in 19th-century France. After Napoleon, the term was applied to the French politicians who seized power in the Coup of 18 Brumaire, ruling in the French Consulate and subsequently in the First and Second French Empires. The Bonapartistes desired an empire under the House of Bonaparte, the Corsican family of Napoleon Bonaparte (Napoleon I of France) and his nephew Louis (Napoleon III of France).

James Edwin Hyslop (7 November 1861 in Inverness, Scotland – 15 August 1931 in El Paso, Texas) was a Scottish businessman and landowner, who settled in the Mexican state of Chihuahua and owner of several mines.

Platform screen doors (PSDs), also known as platform edge doors (PEDs), are used at some train or subway stations to separate the platform from train tracks, as well as on some bus rapid transit systems. They are primarily used for passenger safety. They are a relatively new addition to many metro systems around the world, some having been retrofitted to established systems. They are widely used in newer Asian and European metro systems.

Aaron Horkey is an illustrator from Windom, Minnesota. He has created concert posters for bands such as Boris, Converge, Isis, and The Melvins. First Showing described him as "one of Mondo's most popular and respected artists".

Bonapartism is the political ideology supervening from Napoleon Bonaparte and his followers and successors. The term was later used to refer to people who hoped to restore the House of Bonaparte and its style of government. In this sense, a Bonapartiste was a person who either actively participated in or advocated for conservative, monarchist and imperial political factions in 19th-century France. After Napoleon, the term was applied to the French politicians who seized power in the Coup of 18 Brumaire, ruling in the French Consulate and subsequently in the First and Second French Empires. The Bonapartistes desired an empire under the House of Bonaparte, the Corsican family of Napoleon Bonaparte (Napoleon I of France) and his nephew Louis (Napoleon III of France). The term has been used more generally for a political movement that advocated a dictatorship or an authoritarian centralized state, with a strongman charismatic leader based on anti-elitist rhetoric, army support, and conservatism. Marxism and Leninism developed a vocabulary of political terms that included Bonapartism, derived from their analysis of the career of Napoleon Bonaparte. Karl Marx was a student of Jacobinism and the French Revolution, and was a contemporary critic of the Second Republic and the Second Empire. He used "Bonapartism" to refer to a situation in which counter-revolutionary military officers seize power from revolutionaries, and use selective reforms to co-opt the radicalism of the popular classes. Marx argued that in the process, Bonapartists preserve and mask the power of a narrower ruling class. More generally, "Bonapartism" may be used to describe the replacement of civilian leadership by military leadership within revolutionary movements or governments. Many modern-day Trotskyists and other leftists use the phrase "left Bonapartist" to describe those, such as Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong, who controlled 20th-century bureaucratic socialist regimes. Noted political scientists and historians greatly differ on the definition and interpretation of Bonapartism. Sudhir Hazareesingh's book The Legend of Napoleon explores numerous interpretations of the term. He says that it refers to a "popular national leader confirmed by popular election, above party politics, promoting equality, progress, and social change, with a belief in religion as an adjunct to the State, a belief that the central authority can transform society and a belief in the 'nation' and its glory and a fundamental belief in national unity." Hazareesingh believes that although recent research shows Napoleon used forced conscription of French troops, some men must have fought believing in Napoleon's ideals. He says that to argue Bonapartism co-opted the masses is an example of the Marxist perspective of false consciousness: the idea that the masses can be manipulated by a few determined leaders in the pursuit of ends.

The Tower Commission was commissioned on December 1, 1986 by United States president Ronald Reagan in response to the Iran–Contra affair, in which senior administration officials secretly facilitated the sale of arms to Iran, which was the subject of an arms embargo. The commission, composed of former Senator John Tower of Texas, former Secretary of State Edmund Muskie, and former National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft, was tasked with reviewing the proper role of the National Security Council staff in national security operations generally, and in the arms transfers to Iran specifically.