BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com
While waiting for some actual news about that missing airliner, my attention moved back to Ukraine generally, and to the whole sanction thing in particular.
In the modern era when one country – say the United States – decides to use sanctions to bring to bear a change in behavior of another country – say Iran – the sanctions often include freezing any accounts with any connection to the sanctioned nation. Continue reading
BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com
It’s now official. America is the France of the 21st century.
France was a big power in the 18th and 19th centuries. The French were pretty much in a constant state of war what with everything from the Seven Years’ War, to the French and Indian Wars, to the American Revolution, to the Napoleonic Wars.
Then came the 20th Century when World War I was mostly fought on French soil leading to their preemptive surrender in World War II. Since then the French still pretend to be a full-fledged member of the Planetary Cool Kids Table, but they have to sit on the end and fetch extra pints of milk for the real members. Continue reading
BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com
Heads of state – presidents, prime ministers, dictators, whatever – cannot know all the details of what is going on in their country much less in the other person’s country. That’s why before a modern “summit” between or among heads of state, battalions of high- mid- and low-level staffers go through every conceivable subject and produce forests of briefing papers to prepare the principal.
According to the late William Safire writing in the New York Times, the word “summit” to describe a meeting of heads of state was coined by (no surprise) Winston Churchill in 1950 when he called for a “parley on the summit” of a few heads of state to chart the post-war world rather than, as Churchill put it, “‘hordes of experts and officials drawn up in a vast cumbrous array.'” Continue reading
BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com
Every Member of Congress and commissioned officer (civilian and military) in federal service as well as every enlisted service member takes an oath that requires they promise to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.”
This oath is required by statute. The Presidential oath, the only oath in the Constitution, does not contain that language: “I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” Continue reading
BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com
When I was a teenager, Space Invaders was one of most popular video games. The premise, for those who have recently arrived from space, was pretty simple: Shoot down incoming missiles that descended from the sky before they landed on your missile silos.
We seem to live increasingly in a space invader world.
Things keep coming down from the sky and it is getting harder and harder to shoot them down. Continue reading
BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com
We all know the term “The Bill of Rights” which are the first 10 amendments to the U.S. Constitution although few of us (including me) could name them.
Hint: None of them start “Thou shalt not …” Rather they tend to start “The Government (or Congress) shalt not …” Keep that in mind.
The First Amendment is a catch-all of rights upon which the Congress may not trample: It protects an individual’s freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and freedom of the press, as well as the right to assemble and to petition the government. The American press corps is very, very focused on the First Amendment and will go to great lengths to make sure that right is not diminished. Continue reading
BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com
From Dnipropetrovsk, Ukraine
I’ve been here for two days preparing for, and actually observing, the Ukrainian parliamentary elections. I was part of the International Observer Mission in that effort.
SIDEBAR
The day before I hopped on an airplane from Kiev to come down here, we were briefed by various government and political leaders. One person in our group asked whether international observers could remain in a precinct to watch the counting process. Continue reading
BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com
As part of the continuing success story that is the foreign policy of Barack Obama, the U.S. Ambassador to China, Gary Locke, found his car surrounded by protesters, blocked, and pelted with plastic water bottles.
This, directly in front of the American embassy. He claimed he felt he was never in any danger and the Chinese have “expressed regret” and the U.S. State Department has expressed the same exact level of outrage as it has exhibited in the attacks on other Embassies around the world.
Which is to say, none. Continue reading
BY RICH CALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com
The G-20 summit in Los Cabos, Mexico is, thankfully, over.
During the proceedings we watched as President Barack Obama maneuvered himself into a position of being – if not totally inconsequential – certain a minor member of the chorus.
From Woodrow Wilson to George W. Bush American Presidents have held the title “the most powerful man in the world.” Sometimes it was altered to “the most powerful man in the western world” but, you know what I mean.
Barack Obama has not just allowed that label to lapse. He appears to have been happy to toss it aside.
This isn’t about American exceptionalism. It’s about Obama ordinariness.
Obama is not First Among Equals at international meetings. At best he’s fourth among equals between Russia, China, and Germany. If you include Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, Obama is no better than fifth. Continue reading
BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com
Fifty years ago, Marine Col. John Glenn lifted off (NASA never used the phrase “blast off”) from a Cape Canaveral launching pad and America was in the space business.
Glenn’s was the fourth American flight into space. Alan Shepard and Gus Grissom road Redstone rockets just under 120,000 miles above the Earth’s surface in what were called “sub-orbital” flights.
Enos, a chimpanzee, flew in the first American spacecraft with a living mammal into orbit when he went around the Earth twice on November 29, 1961. Enos survived the flight, but died less than a year later of dysentery which did nothing to ease the minds of engineers, physicians and astronauts about the hazards of space flight.
I am old enough to remember the early days of spaceflight. I can remember, and I still get chills every time I hear, the voice of fellow Mercury astronaut Scott Carpenter saying, as the count reached zero, “Godspeed, John Glenn.” Continue reading
BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from FeeheryTheory.com
The Occupy Wall Street movement has moved to Russia. How is that for some irony?
The protest movement that started in Cairo, swept through almost every Middle East Country, made its way through, Paris, London and New York has finally showed up at the Kremlin.
If I were Vladimir Putin, I would be a bit nervous.
Putin tried to steal the election for the Duma, and the Russian people called foul. Good for them. Bad on Putin.
Putin is a thug. The single worst thing George W. Bush said during his 8 years in office (and he said a lot of stupid things), had to do with seeing something he stared into Putin’s eyes. What W. should have seen was a KGB thug. Who knows what he actually did see? Continue reading
BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from mullings.com
There is growing discussion over the nature of country borders in the roiling region of Northern Africa and the Middle East .
SIDEBAR
We should just call the region “NAME” to save typing.