While MSNBC host Chris Matthews has routinely cited the American Revolution-era Gadsen flag as evidence of the extremism of the tea party movement, at the end of Monday’s Harball, he expressed his love for the banner while remembering West Virginia Senator Robert Byrd. [Audio available here ] In his ‘Let Me Finish’ segment, Matthews shared his thoughts on Byrd and how he particularly admired how the Democrat shared his “deep American objection to the Iraq War.” Matthews placed Byrd in an historic context and spoke of the nation’s founding, including one particular symbol of defiance during the Revolution: “I love the symbol of the Gadsden flag…
Resolved, that the Flag of the thirteen United States shall be thirteen stripes, alternate red and white; that the Union be thirteen stars, white on a blue field, representing a new constellation. – June 14, 1777, Continental Congress Today is Flag Day, the Google logo is quick to not remind you. Each June 14th we remember and honor the official adoption of our flag in 1777 by the Continental Congress. Legend has it the flag was commissioned by George Washington himself, and created by Betsy Ross. The annual …
**Written by guest-blogger Doug Powers Twitter is looking to hire their first DC-based employee to act as a liason between Twitter and the government and political organizations. Since this ad is way over 140 characters in length, it looks as if they’ve already sold out to the government: How would entrepreneurial or trail-blazing experience help you deal with the government? Seems like that would be more of a hinderance. Nancy Pelosi starts using Twitter mere days ago, and now this? I’m getting the feeling that taxpayers are hiring Nancy a Twitter assistant. The broader implications…
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Believe it or not, CNN – the same CNN which has recently dismissed the Fort Hood terrorist as lonely, has featured a member of ‘Jihad U’ as a teacher of the ‘nuts and bolts of Islam’, and which has run three separate stories interviewing the father of radical jihadist, Anwar al-Awlaki – has actually taken interest in a jihadist threat of physical violence upon the creators of South Park. It seems that Trey Parker and Matt …
Charles is right . Bush’s failure to strike back at Iranian operations against American troops was shameful. But it isn’t just Bush; it’s every American president since 1979. Iran has had a pass on killing Americans since then, and our “leaders” have never been willing to come to grips with Iran’s war against us. The hell of it all is that our best response is to support the revolution in Iran. It’s effective, inexpensive, doesn’t risk American lives, and advances both our ideals and our security. But nobody seems willing to do it. Ahem.
I couldn’t help but laugh at the oozing irony of this news about compliance with the Census in the Austin Texas area: Late Thursday afternoon, the maps showed Travis, Williamson and Hays counties and the City of Austin lagging well behind the national response rate of 20 percent. (The Census Bureau says the data is updated between 3 and 5 p.m. Monday through Friday.) The Austin and Travis response rates were at 7 percent, Williamson County was at 10 percent, and Hays County at 11 percent. City of Austin demographer Ryan Robinson cautioned against reading too much into the lackluster response rates. “I don’t want people to panic because Travis is sitting at 7 percent. It’s really early,” said Robinson, adding that he thinks many people wait until April 1 to complete the questionnaires because the forms ask about place of residence on that date. Sorry, but I’m just not feeling the pain here…this is the same area in Texas where voter turnout for non-Federal elections (and this includes Texas Constitutional amendment questions as well) rarely exceeds 20% of registered voters. I don’t need to link to the stats on what percentage of that number is registered “Democrat”…do I? It never ceases to amaze me how much I am governed by how few of my fellow citizens, most of whom are faithful and loyal Americans pursuing their civic duty and GOING to the polls…however much they vote to my left. I’m thinking this revolution we keep hearing about might just start with the census. If we lie, give lower numbers…pretend people have died or moved to another country, maybe…JUST maybe…the Feds will think they need to spend less, allocate less, and assume there are less of us for them to feel the need to exert control over.
In today’s Impromptus , I have occasion to mention Guillermo Fariñas, one of the more prominent Cuban dissidents. Like so many of the dissidents, he is an “Afro Cuban,” which is to say, black. It is one of the lies of the revolution, and of the revolution’s defenders in free countries, that the Castros have been good for Afro Cubans. Have a note from a reader: “I recall the Cuban army in Angola — and the gall of the American Left. Here was an army with an all-white officer corps leading conscripted black men on a Cold War imperialist mission to Africa. And nobody on the left could find anything wrong with that!” Well, of course not. I also have an “impromptu” on one of my bêtes noires: the phrase, and concept of, “social justice.” Do you know there is a Social Justice High School in Chicago? I didn’t either. Many readers have written to say that for them, now, “social justice” means voting Republican. But readers well know that partisanship is beneath me. (That was a joke.) Turn now to food (glorious food): In my column, I quote an expression I learned the other day in Florida: “Apple pie without cheese is like a kiss without a squeeze.” From my point of view, apple pie without vanilla ice cream is like . . . like what? NRO readers have answers. Let me share just a few of them: “Apple pie without vanilla ice cream is like a health-care bill without a deem.” (Points for topicality.) “Apple pie without vanilla is like the Philippines without Manila” — or “the Huns without Attila” or “Meara without Stilla.” Beautiful. Finally, a reader says, “As an Indian, I know two people named the following: Lincoln Patel and Ike Singh. Yes, both sets of parents were great admirers of those two presidents — Republican presidents, I might add.” Well, I give you the Cuban-born congressman Lincoln Diaz-Balart. His grandfather loved our Civil War president, and named his son Rafael Lincoln. The congressman’s grandmother loved Ralph Waldo Emerson — and so another boy was named Waldo. Good taste.
Just in time for spring, the winter 2009 issue of the Claremont Review of Books (subscribe here ) has been published. Taken as a whole, this may be the richest issue of the magazine yet published. RealClearPolitics has already posted editor Charles Kesler’s editorial on the Tea Party movement. Our friends at the CRB have given us the opportunity of selecting three pieces to preview here for our readers. We’ll be following up this post with the issue’s two articles on Winston Churchill on Thursday. Christopher Caldwell’s Reflections on the Revolution in Europe is one of the best books published in the past year. It joins Mark Steyn’s America Alone , Bat Yeor’s Eurabia , Bruce Bawer’s While Europe Slept and Melanie Phillips’s Londonistan on a small bookshelf of books addressing the Islamization of Europe. In “The Incoming Tide,” Professor Gerard Alexander concisely relates Caldwell’s argument that a constant influx of Muslim immigrants is weakening the bonds that hold Europe together. Meanwhile, most Europeans have failed to muster the courage to defend their way of life. Professor Alexander holds out hope that the Islamic fervor gripping Europe’s Muslim population might fade in a decade or two. This hope is tempered by his lack of confidence that Europe, in every sense of the term, can afford to wait it out.
This new Robert Alter book, Pen of Iron: American Prose and the King James Bible , sounds terrific. On the same theme, I very much enjoyed Wide as the Waters: The Story of the English Bible and the Revolution It Inspired .
This new Robert Alter book, Pen of Iron: American Prose and the King James Bible , sounds terrific. On the same theme, I very much enjoyed Wide as the Waters: The Story of the English Bible and the Revolution It Inspired .
