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Posted on July 3rd, 2009
by Sheldon Richman |
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What a difference a year can make. On July 6, 1775, the Second Continental Congress, meeting in Philadelphia, issued the Declaration of the Causes and Necessities of Taking Up Arms. Significantly, the document declared, “We have not raised armies with ambitious designs of separating from Great Britain establishing independent states.”
The rest of myTGIF column is here.
Posted on July 3rd, 2009
by Daniel McCarthy |
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From Todd Purdum’s Vanity Fair profile of Palin, a week or two back:
Surveying the landscape of political and policy troubles in Alaska, Gregg Erickson, an independent economic consultant in Juneau, concludes, “Everything she’s doing seems to be saying that there’ll be a problem in the future owing to her inattention, but she won’t be here to deal with it.”
Today, Palin announces that not only is she not going to run for re-election next year, she’s resigning as governor of Alaska later this month:
“Once I decided not to run for re-election, I also felt that to embrace the conventional Lame Duck status in this particular climate would just be another dose of politics as usual, something I campaigned against and will always oppose,” Palin said in a statement released by her office.
“It is my duty to always protect our great state. With that in mind, my family and I determined that it is best to make a difference this summer, and I am willing to change things, so that this administration, with its positive agenda, its accomplishments, and its successful road to an incredible future, can continue without interruption and with great administrative and legislative success,” she said.
Not running for re-election is a sensible move if she wants to run for president in 2012. Leaving office before she completes even one term, on the other hand, is not going to strengthen anyone’s confidence in her. Sounds like Gregg Erickson is on to something. (Or maybe Andrew Sullivan got to her.)
Update: Politico takes at face value the Palin camp’s claims that this is a way to save taxpayer dollars by curtailing ethics investigations of the Barracuda. Selfless pol steps aside for the greater good…
Posted on July 3rd, 2009
by Jeffrey Hart |
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President Richard Nixon and his National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger were realists in their approach to foreign relations, realism meaning analysis of the power relations among major nations in the world and addressing them, and trying to deal with them according to the American national interest. The following episodes belong in the history of the Nixon administration.
I saw President Nixon on several occasions during 1971-1972, and also after he resigned because of the Watergate coverup. I had been a speechwriter for Nixon during the 1968 campaign, writing his law-and-order speech (officially titled “Order and Justice Under Law”), which he delivered in Philadelphia. In 1972 Nixon himself was not campaigning and I would write speeches for his surrogates — as it would turn out, Texas Gov. John Connally and Ann Armstrong, also of Texas.
At one point during 1972 I visited Nixon in San Clemente. His office and other offices were in temporary structures at some distance from La Casa Pacifica. Nixon said, “Brezhnev was here last week. The night before we met he got pretty drunk at the Casa and was badly hung over at 9:30 in the morning. After he had a cup of coffee I said to him, “Mr. Chairman, before we go further I want to tell you this. If there is a Russian tank attack across the West German plain it will go nuclear within 15 minutes.” (Note: Nixon was referring to battlefield nuclear weapons, actually howitzer shells kept in underground concrete bunkers.) Nixon went on, “Brezhnev replied, ‘I’m glad you told me that, Mr. President. I will tell them that back in Moscow.’” Read more…
Posted on July 3rd, 2009
by Septimus Waugh |
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Today I received a round robin in my inbox. It seems to sum up the atmosphere in U.K. at the moment
This is unbelievable, but true! Can you imagine working for a company that has a little more than 600 employees and has the following employee statistics.
29 have been accused of spouse abuse
7 have been arrested for fraud
9 have been accused of writing bad cheque’s
17 have directly or indirectly bankrupted at least 2 businesses
3 have done time for assault
71 cannot get a credit card due to bad credit
14 have been arrested on drug-related charges
8 have been arrested for shoplifting21 are currently defendants in lawsuits
84 have been arrested for drink driving in the last year
Which organisation is this ?
It’s the 635 members of the House of Commons, the same group that cranks out hundreds of new laws each year designed to keep the rest of us inline.
What a bunch of bastards we have running our country - it says it all. And just to top all that they probably have the best ‘corporate’ pension scheme in the country!!
If you agree that this is an appalling state of affairs, please pass it on to everyone you know.It’s time to stand up to this lot !
Posted on July 2nd, 2009
by Patrick J. Buchanan |
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Last Saturday, Honduran soldiers marched into the presidential palace, bundled up President Manuel Zelaya and put him on a plane for Costa Rica.
The ouster had been ordered by the Supreme Court and approved by the Congress, as Zelaya was attempting an illegal referendum to change the Honduran constitution so he could run for another term.
Will someone please explain why this bloodless transfer of power to the civilian legislator first in line for the presidency, in a sovereign nation, is any business of the United Nations, the Organization of American States, Hugo Chavez, the Castro brothers, or Barack Obama? For all have denounced the “coup” and demanded Zelaya’s immediate return.
The hypocrisy here is astounding. Read more…
Posted on July 2nd, 2009
by Lewis McCrary |
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The New York Times is still the most powerful force in journalism — or so the paper tries to reassure its readership today. In the wake of The Daily Show’s hilarious but revealing tour lampooning the NYT’s newsroom culture (also highlighted by Daniel McCarthy on Tory Anarchist), the editors today respond:
The comic got the laugh but missed the larger point (not to mention the Web site). Journalism’s most important question is not today or yesterday - or even print or digital - but considerably deeper: With the blogosphere expanding like the freeways of Atlanta, are readers going to want a little guidance with their news? Or will they simply navigate the Internet alone.
To show us where they produce their guide to the big, scary web of knowledge, the NYT editors ran an enormous photo of their rather uninspiring conference room. It may not have nice art on the walls, but it is where they decide what’s fit to print. A typical afternoon:
In Baghdad, vast parades for the withdrawal of American troops. In Minnesota, Al Franken wins a disputed senatorial election. In Honduras, crowds denounce the recently ousted president. And in Albany, the business of the government continues to be a joke.
Meanwhile, at the offices of The New York Times, a meeting was taking place. Eighteen editors had gathered at a table to discuss tomorrow’s news. The table was formidable: oval and elegant, with curves of gleaming wood. The editors no less so: 11 men and 7 women with the power to decide what was important in the world.
[...] Every afternoon at 4 o’clock, the top dogs at the nation’s paper of record descend upon a third-floor conference room to decide what news is truly fit to print.
The print version of the article invites the reader to go online for a 360-degree view of where this all happens. It’s rather bland for the anchor tenant of a $1 billion-plus Manhattan skyscraper. But most fascinating about this room is the nice seating for the lackeys not invited to sit at the main table. At Washington’s activist meetings, these backbencher seats are far less cushy and well-appointed. At the NYT editorial meetings, however, the seating gives the room the air of a parliamentary debating chamber (albeit with all the minimalist charm of postwar modernism à la the UN general assembly and EU Parliament). For people with no less than ”the power to decide what [is] important in the world,” they ought to get a better interior decorator. Maybe start with a White House Situation Room-like map of the world?
Posted on July 2nd, 2009
by Sean Scallon |
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Minnesota’s U.S. Senate race has finally, mercifully come to an end. The Minnesota Supreme Court voted unanimously to reject Norm Coleman’s court challenge which means Al Franken is the winner by a little over 330 votes.
Lincoln-Douglas this U.S Senate campaign definitely was not and serves well as an example to why the 17th Amendament needs to be repealed. It was an unedifying brawl of back and forth accusations and counter charges that polluted the public airwaves for a year. Neither candidate was well liked outside of young Wellstonian leftists for Franken and neocon YRs for Coleman. Franken barely won despite Obama’s big win in Minnesota and Coleman let a 15-point lead over his rival slip away during the last month of the campaign. Instead of being big winners both candidates wound up losers, an election that was essentially a tie.
Watching Neocon Norm get his comeuppance is pleasing to the eye but he’s not done with politics just yet. The fact that Governor Tim Pawlenty is moving on to run for President gives Coleman a path back to public office he would not have had had Pawlenty decided to run for a third term. It made it that much easier to concede the race to Franken after the Minnesota Supreme Court’s decision instead of fighting to bitter end all the way to the U.S Supreme Court. Indeed one could say that Coleman now has the chance to run for the office he always wanted in the first place, the one he planned on running for before Dick Cheney shanghaied him to run against Wellstone back in 2002. Indeed, being governor will be a lot more fun than a minority senator. Whether he wins the GOP nomination, and the field will be a crowded one, depends on how Republicans react to him. Are they bitter at what happened and will rally to his side, or will they support somone else, a fresh face? After all, Coleman is now 1-2 in statewide races and would have been 0-3 if Wellstone hadn’t died in a plane crash on the Iron Range. There’s no strong evidence he can someday carry a majority of Minnesotans. Plus he has to deal with lingering accusations of corruption against him
As for Franken, what kind of Senator will he be? Well he better not try to be another Wellstone even though he holds his old seat. Wellstone’s passion was genuine because he was a passionate man and and the passionate flowed from him so easily because causes influenced so much of his life. A passionate Franken comes across as an obnoxious partisan from the Twin Cities suburbs like the talk show host he was. Instead he had better recapture the wit and humor that he made his bones with for so long as a writer and actor which was suppressed in his campaign to its detriment. That’s what he’s good at, not polemics.
Posted on July 1st, 2009
by Lewis McCrary |
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President Obama ventured out to the outer edges of the beltway (Annandale, Va.) this afternoon to talk with real folks about the health care “crisis.” In another illustration of how we expect our presidents to serve as national talk show hosts, he made sure to show the audience that he is there for each and every one of us in our personal struggles, giving out hugs at the first opportunity.
Debby Smith, 53, of Appalachia, Va., a volunteer for Obama’s political operation, fought tears as she told the president of her kidney cancer and her inability to obtain health insurance or hold a job. Obama embraced her and called her “exhibit A” in what he said was an unsustainable system that is too expensive and complex for millions of Americans.
In the video of this tender moment, Obama says that “someone was pointing” at Ms. Smith, an Obama political volunteer, before he calls on her. Did “Exhibit A” have to sign any kind of release before hugging the president?
Posted on July 1st, 2009
by Daniel McCarthy |
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The Ron Paul-inspired youth organization Young Americans for Liberty gets a new website. The neocons have colonized the campuses almost as effectively as the Left. YAL provides a constitutionalist alternative to both. Check ‘em out.
Posted on July 1st, 2009
by Freddy Gray |
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Is America slowly becoming a cricket-playing country? This interesting NYT video shows how immigrants from South East Asia have developed cricket leagues in New York. After the surprise success of Netherland, Joseph O’Neill’s award-winning novel about a cricketing subculture in New York, is a pattern emerging? The USA Cricket Association says that cricket is “the fastest growing sport in America.”
Some American conservatives might buckle at reports of this quintessentially limey sport being played on their soil by immigrants from the developing world. I mean, how UnAmerican can you get?
In fact, however, cricket has a long-running and well-established heritage in the land of the free — George Washington is understood to have played some variant of the game. In shedding their British colonial yoke, Americans did not immediately also divest themselves of their interest in cricket. The game was popular in early days of the Republic, and has enjoyed several revivals at various stages American history.
Baseball, obviously, won out in the long run. But the possible (admittedly, still highly unlikely) return of cricket should need not be a cause of right-wing frowning. Cricket is at heart a conservative pastime: it is, in its traditional format, a very slow game, demanding patience and a dispassionate temperament. There is an old theory that cricket is one reason Britain never experienced revolution: the idea being that the village cricket match bound the rural classes together, the butcher could play against the country squire as an equal and so on.
That’s almost certainly rubbish. Perhaps, however, cricket, with its equanimous, soothing charm - its association with a gently declining empire — is just what America now needs. Or is it simply too alien to suit the modern American character?
