Apparently there’s some sentiment floating around the Internet from the right-wing that we should just grieve for the victims of the murders in Aurora and not address the politics of gun control, out of “respect” or some such crap. It is crap. I suspect the dead would encourage us to address the issue of controlling …
Do I number any vets among my readers? Answer in the comments, please. The reason I ask is that I just read a thought-provoking article in Time which discusses the widening gap between the military and civilian worlds in American society. The makeup of today’s force misses the heart of American might: the common bond …
Writing about the assassination of al-Awlaki, Kevin Drum makes the point that no American government would kill an American citizen if he resided within the borders of the country without due process. As part of his post he slaps down the always appallingly authoritarian Max Boot, one of the last of the public neo-cons. Boot …
From a lot of places, but by one estimate $3.3 Trillion of it came directly from our reaction to 9/11. That’s a helluva graphic.
Yes, that’s big news. It’s a sorry state of affairs when it has to be regarded as such, but that’s life in the US Congress circa 2010. What adult behavior did they exhibit? Why, they voted with Democrats to ratify New START, an arms control treaty with Russia which shouldn’t have been controversial at all. …
And where’s Osama bin Laden? We’ve been in Afghanistan for eight years at the cost of 821 American lives. We’ve been in Iraq (which not even Bush/Cheney claimed as a hidey-hole for bin Laden) for six at the cost of 4343 American lives (Source). We’ve spent ~$900B on military actions in those two countries. We’ve …
Something I’ve been puzzling about quietly for a while has now been given voice by Publius at Obsidian Wings and by Paul Campos at Lawyers Guns and Money. They ask, are Americans really terrified of and terrorized by terrorists? From the behavior of the Senate last week one would think so. But is the public …
The 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were successful. The intent of the terrorists who attacked those buildings was, by definition, to terrorize. In that they succeeded, probably beyond Osama bin Laden’s wildest dreams. The United States government has, over time, created a $44B agency devoted to saving the population from …
Last night (5:36pm HST) the USS Lake Erie supposedly shot down that oh-so-threatening hydrazine-laden satellite (I’ve seen no physical evidence that it really did, which is why I use the word “supposedly”). I still wonder about the actual motives behind this action. In an online chat yesterday at the Washington Post, Ivan Oelrich, the Vice …
FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT’S ARMISTICE DAY ADDRESS Arlington Cemetery, November 11, 1941 [White House news release.] Among the great days of national remembrance, none is more deeply moving to Americans of our generation than the Eleventh of November, the Anniversary of the Armistice of 1918, the day sacred to the memory of those who gave their …