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Obama's Wrong about Unilateral Military Action—Just Ask Abraham Lincoln

by David Gray Adler

The one hundred fiftieth anniversary of the firing on Fort Sumter has triggered renewed interest in the constitutional issues that emerged during the Civil War.  The examination has been anything but antiquarian; indeed, from coast to coast, participants in discussions and debates have wondered at the lessons and implications of the Civil War for constitutional government, American institutions, the management of national security crises and the war on terror and, particularly, executive power.  The Civil War continues to resonate in our collective consciousness in a manner that surpasses our interest in the other great wars that have engulfed and defined our nation.On March 21, President Barack Obama informed Congress that, two days earlier, U.S. forces, “at my direction,” had launched military operations against Libya to “assist an international effort authorized by the United Nations Security Council.”  President Obama later announced at a news conference that Libyan leader, Moammar “Qaddafi needs to go.”  Over the next several weeks, U.S. forces engaged in a series of strikes against Libyan air defense systems and military airfields for the purpose of establishing a no-fly zone.

Obama Should Copy JFK's First Days in Office and Fight Hunger

by William Lambers

Hunger is on the offensive, even in the United States.  The Department of Agriculture reports that 49 million Americans struggle to get food.  Worldwide, nearly one billion people suffer from hunger, and child malnutrition is rampant in East Africa, Afghanistan, Yemen and many other areas.President Obama and the Congress, as they grapple with the federal budget, also need to protect the hungry.  They can take a page from President John F. Kennedy's playbook for his first days in office, back in 1961.Kennedy's first act as president was to order food aid to hungry people in the U.S., particularly in West Virginia.  Unemployment was high, and it was critical that food support be given during a time of great strain on the people there.  Kennedy's plan involved distribution of food stamps to the needy.  And it worked.

Is the Ghost of Barry Goldwater Haunting Rick Perry?

by Mark Nevin

Texas Gov. Rick Perry's promising presidential campaign may be haunted by a ghost, the ghost of Barry Goldwater. In 1964, early in his presidential campaign, Goldwater criticized Social Security but later backed away from his comments after his Republican opponents and the press jumped all over him.  Perry now finds himself in a similar position.  His characterization of Social Security as a "Ponzi scheme" captured the media's attention, hurt his standing in the polls, and provided an opening for his Republican challengers.  Like Goldwater, Perry retreated from his initial attack on Social Security.  He is now stressing the need to shore up the program, and he is reassuring seniors that their benefits are a "slam dunk" guarantee. But if the history of the Goldwater campaign is any guide—Goldwater managed to win the Republican nomination but lost in a landslide to Democratic President Lyndon Johnson—Perry may not be able to overcome his past attacks on Social Security no matter how hard he tries.   

The Palestinians Have Nothing, So Why Shouldn't They Seek UN Recognition?

by Juan Cole

Palestine Authority President Mahmoud Abbas gave a major speech Friday making it clear to the Palestinians that the PA will seek membership in the United Nations at this year’s General Assembly meeting.The Palestinians (or more precisely the Fateh faction that controls the ever-shrinking Palestinian parts of the West Bank) are not going to the UN, as is often charged, to make an end run around negotiations with Israel.  Abbas knows very well, and acknowledged in his speech, that only through negotiations with Israel can there ultimately be a change in the status of the Palestinians as largely stateless persons, a significant proportion of them descended from refugees created by Israel ethnic cleansing campaigns in 1947-48.The reason for seeking recognition as a member nation of the UN is simply to gain moxie in those negotiations.

Citizens United is a Red Herring ... You Can't Separate the Political from the Economic

by Elisabeth Chaves

At the start of 2010, the Supreme Court ruled in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission that the provision of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (BCRA) banning corporations and unions from engaging in “electioneering communications” during the thirty- and sixty-day windows before primary and general elections, respectively, was an unconstitutional infringement on free speech.  There was an immediate outcry.  

The United States and Terror on the Tenth Anniversary of 9/20

by C. Douglas Lummis

September 11, 2011 marks ten years since the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington D.C.  However, I would also like to call attention tomorrow’s date, September 20, which marks ten years since the United States entered its present state of perpetual war.  It was on September 20, 2001 that then U.S. President George W. Bush declared the opening of the “war on terror.”It was this announcement, not the 9/11 attacks, that radically changed U.S. foreign policy and the nature of U.S. wars.  Before 9/11 (non-state) terrorism had been treated as a crime, to be dealt with by police and the courts.  By declaring a “war on terror,” Bush was announcing that thenceforth it would be dealt with by the military.To grasp the significance of this, it is useful to recall the differences between what police officers do and what soldiers do.  Police officers are trained to examine evidence and search for suspects.  When they have sufficient evidence, they are authorized to make arrests.  But they are not authorized to make a final judgment as to a person’s guilt:  that is for the courts to decide.  No matter how convinced they may be of a suspect’s guilt (and contrary to what you see in American movies and TV dramas) they may not execute suspects.

The New Deal Didn't Cause a Democratic Realignment—World War II Did

by Helmut Norpoth, Andrew H. Sidman, and Clara Suong

The story is familiar.  American politics in the 1930s underwent a historic electoral realignment, traces of which can still be felt today.  The Great Depression toppled the Republicans as the dominant party, a status it had enjoyed in national politics since the Civil War, and very comfortably so since the 1890s.  The New Deal then helped install the Democrats as the newly dominant party for years to come.  But the story is wrong.Contrary to scholarly consensus, the “New Deal realignment” was not forged during the New Deal or the Great Depression.  Those events, to be sure, led to electoral landslides in 1932 and 1936, as well as some shift in party identification.  But what gave the Democratic Party its overwhelming hold on the American electorate for much of the second half of the twentieth century was the wartime experience and the postwar prosperity. 

Finally, Bill Keller, the New York Times's Liberal Hawk, Repents

by Ruth Rosen

Bill Keller was just beginning his "new life" in the opinion section of the New York Times when the catastrophic events of 9/11 altered his life.  Once, he had been skeptical about the use of American military force.  Now, for reasons he still doesn't seem to fully understand, he joined, "an imaginary association of pundits of the I-Can't Believe-I'm a Hawk Club, made up of liberals for whom 9/11 had stirred a fresh willingness to employ American might."  He supported the war in Iraq.

Jane Fonda and Her Friendly North Vietnamese Intelligence Officer

by Merle L. Pribbenow

Back in July, actress Jane Fonda published an article on her website titled “My Trip to Hanoi.” In the article Ms. Fonda tried to explain her two-week visit to Hanoi during the summer of 1972—and by doing so, dispel all the “slanderous” internet rumors and accusations of “treason” that have been made against her because of her actions during that trip.Why address this old controversy now?  Because a few days before that, the television shopping network QVC, after receiving many protests, had abruptly canceled a scheduled appearance by Ms. Fonda to promote her new self-help memoir.  So the article was intended to set the record straight.  The Oscar-winning actress did offer an apology of sorts (really more of an excuse than an apology) for the famous photograph of her manning a North Vietnamese anti-aircraft gun.  But the bulk of the article was a defense of the trip and her motivations.

Florida's Bloody Election History Casts a Long Shadow over Voter Suppression Efforts

by Karl Shepard

There’s voter suppression afoot in central Florida—and no one seems to care. Republican Governor Rick Scott has proposed various changes to Florida election laws that make it more difficult for poor people, minorities, and students to vote.

Don't Thank LBJ and FDR for the Welfare State—Thank Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, and Abraham Lincoln

by William Nichols

Over the past decades, the notion that the federal government is the guarantor of the welfare state has come under increasing criticism.   For most, the idea that the federal government should take a proactive role in providing not only for the security, but also for the well-being, of its citizens, comes from the New Deal of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the Great Society of Lyndon Johnson.  But is this really the case?  If we look at the arguments of the Whig Party during the 1830s and 1840s, there are astonishing similarities between the rhetoric employed by the Whigs and the policies later adopted by Roosevelt and Johnson. Daniel Webster was one of the two most prominent members of the Whig Party, alongside Henry Clay, during its brief life.  At a public dinner given in his honor in New York City, Webster explained the role he was in favor of for the federal government.

Uncle Sam Does(n’t) Want You: America's Reserve Army of the Unemployed

by Steve Fraser and Joshua B. Freeman

Not long ago, the city council of Ventura, California, passed an ordinance making it legal for the unemployed and homeless to sleep in their cars.  At the height of the Great Recession of 2008, one third of the capital equipment of the American economy lay idle.  Of the women and men idled along with that equipment, only 37% got a government unemployment check and that check, on average, represented only 35% of their weekly wages. 

The War on Higher Education

by John T. McNay

In the wake of last year’s sweeping Republican victories in statehouses across the country, recent months have brought waves of legislation hostile to both academic unions and universities across many states.  The most prominent cases are in Ohio and Wisconsin, but nationwide, according to the National Conference of State Legislators, 820 bills have been introduced that would limit or eliminate collective bargaining rights of public workers, including university faculty.

Another Way in Which Jackson and Trump Are Linked (And It’s Disturbing)

by Donald J. Fraser

The followers of both men believe that you have to be white to be a true American.

Ten Years After 9/11, Jihadis are Winning the War

by Walid Phares

A decade after the jihadi strikes against America’s military and financial centers at the hands of al-Qaida, the question remains:  Have we won the war?  In the ongoing, debate, we see three camps. One states that we were defeating the enemy until Washington changed direction three years ago, and another boasting that America was losing the war until three years ago when a change of direction brought victory in sight.The third maintains that we never changed direction, and that victory has resulted from staying the course.Some really believed that the years following the attacks have brought the free world and democracy to an inch from victory.  Others among us believe that thanks to today’s policies, we are finally better than ever before.

"What If It Had Rained on September 11?" and Three Other Questions about 9/11

by Jesse Lemisch

Amidst the blizzard of accounts of 9/11, we nonetheless lack information on some of the most central questions.  These unanswered questions are central because they get to the heart of the operation itself and how it was carried off.  The government has answers to some or all of these questions, but it isn’t sharing the answers with us.  Some of this holding back relates to embarrassment about further exposure of stupid policies and inept actions and non-actions.  But there are in addition what seem obvious and partly justifiable reasons: the less that’s known about how to carry out such an operation, the less likely it is that others will  be able to emulate it.  But in order for us to understand and prevent the recurrence of  so cataclysmic and central an event—as well as its awful sequelae—we have a right and a need to know as well as we can, just what happened on 9/11.  Democracy presupposes an informed populace.

Volcanoes Can Seriously Ruin Our Day ... So Let's Look to History for Clues on How to Deal with Catastrophic Eruptions

by Clive Oppenheimer

I’m not an historian—my trade is volcanoes.  But volcanoes have been an integral part of human history, from a near human extinction 75,000 years ago due to a volcanic eruption to the grounding of aircraft in Europe last year due to a volcanic eruption in Iceland. But that eruption was only modestly sized.  To appreciate the full range of risks we might face in future, we must turn to the past.For an example of what can happen when even more volcanic sulfur is released into the atmosphere, we can look back to 1816, “the year without a summer.”  This followed the massive 6.9 eruption of Mount Tambora in Indonesia a year earlier.  Many contemporary diaries attest to the extraordinary weather of 1816, among them the memoirs of horologist Chauncey Jerome, then living in Plymouth, Connecticut.  In his History of the American Clock Business, he recalled:

Anna Hazare Isn't Gandhi, But His Movement is What India Needs

by Vidyadhar Date

Anna Hazare is a simple man, barely able to speak English, from a rural area with little formal education. He used to drive trucks in the Indian Army.  But this simple man has shaken India to the core with his uncompromising anti-corruption crusade.  His strength lies in his zest for public welfare, his deep personal honesty, and his Gandhian values of non-violence and simplicity.  He just brought the Indian government, headed by Cambridge-educated economist Manmohan Singh, to its knees.  And rallying behind him are tens of thousands of young people, not to mention the middle class of India.Unlike other prominent Gandhians, Hazare does not have an upper-class background.  Lest we forget Mahatma Gandhi himself studied law in London and was a practicing attorney in South Africa, where he began his non-violent struggle.  Hazare, however, has very humble origins, and he maintains this by living a Spartan bachelor’s life in a room in his village temple.  His recent thirteen-day-long fast in New Delhi kept news channels busy twenty-four hours a day, and the Indian Parliament was forced to agree to pass a law curbing the rampant corruption in India’s public life.

New York Banned Handguns 100 Years Ago ... Will We Ever See that Kind of Gun Control Again?

by Daniel Platt

This month New York’s Sullivan Law enters its hundredth year, and while no birthday parties have been scheduled for the legislation that ten decades ago turned handgun ownership in the Empire State from a right to a privilege, its centennial provides a timely occasion to reflect on the past and future of gun control in America. The Sullivan Law was born out of a set of circumstances eerily similar to our own recent history.  On August 9, 1910, William Gaynor, the popular Democratic mayor of New York City, was shot in the neck as he waited to board a steamship in Hoboken, New Jersey.  His assailant, a disgruntled New York dockworker named John J. Gallagher, was immediately wrestled to the ground by bystanders and quickly taken into police custody.  Gaynor, who insisted he was well enough to embark on his vacation, was rushed to a nearby hospital and patched up by a team of surgeons who proclaimed his condition stable.

Muammar Qaddafi: A Retrospective

by Daniel Pipes

The world's longest ruling head of state, Mu'ammar al-Qadhdhafi (the correct transliteration of his name), would have been ruler of Libya for exactly 42 years on Sept. 1. As he leaves the scene, his wretched reign deserves an appraisal. On taking power, Qaddafi was one of the most handsome of public figures.Qaddafi took power at the age of 27 in the waning days of Gamal Abdel Nasser, the immensely influential pan-Arab leader of Egypt, and saw himself as Nasser's acolyte but with a greater ambitions: whereas Nasser dreamed of a single Arab nation stretching from the Atlantic to the Persian Gulf as an end in itself, Qaddafi saw Arab unity as the first step to Muslim unity. Although Qaddafi failed to achieve any sort of unity, and his "Third International Theory" detailed in the 1975 Green Book proved a total bust, he did have an early and marked impact on two major developments.