Monthly Archives: September 2016

2016 Debate I

BY RICH GALEN
SEP 26 | Reprinted from Mullings.com

The pre-Debate questions more-or-less came down to these:
Will Hillary Clinton come across like someone who regular people can feel comfortable with?
Will Donald Trump come across like a person who could be President?

As the debate opened – with Hillary Clinton getting the first question via coin toss – she began by thanking Hofstra University and welcomed Donald Trump. She talked like someone who had read her briefing books and was comfortable with the material – jobs, and trade. “We are five percent of the world’s population and we have to trade with the other 95 percent. Continue reading

One Day to Celebrate the Constitution…Or Not

BY MICHAEL S. JOHNSON  |  SEP 20

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Preamble to the Constitution, adopted  September 17, 1787

Last Saturday the nation celebrated the signing of the US Constitution at Independence Hall in Philadelphia 229 years ago.

There were parades and fireworks, great speeches and events all across the country.

Actually, there weren’t. The anniversary went by mostly unnoticed, unlike that for the Declaration of Independence, last July 4.

In fairness what is Constitution and Citizenship Day is a relatively new observance, dating back to 2004 and legislation sponsored by the late West Virginia Senator Robert Byrd, although there have been observances of citizenship dating back nearly 100 years. Continue reading

McCain: Primaries, Pundits, and the Press

BY RICH GALEN
SEP 1 | Reprinted from Mullings.com

I was in Phoenix to spend some time watching a non-Presidential campaign. In this case it was Senator John McCain’s campaign for U.S. Senate. I picked this campaign because it’s just about the end of the primary election season and I’ve known – or at least known of – McCain since he was a freshman Member of Congress in 1983 and I was doing my first turn at the National Republican Congressional Committee which is the political arm of Republicans in the House.

I had forgotten what a race for U.S. Senate, even a big-time race like this one, was like.

McCain’s primary was Tuesday night. On Monday, I stopped in to watch the Professional Firefighters Union endorse McCain at Fire Station #30 in Phoenix. Continue reading